Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (6 page)

“I had some forgettin’ to do.”

“Well mission-fuckin-a-complished,” said Daymon, veins
bulging in his neck. “I wanted to go get us some kind of critter for dinner.
Instead I’m damn near ready to host a frickin’ intervention for you. What do
you think of that idea? Am I out of line?”

In response, Duncan picked up the empty and tossed it into
the woods out of sight. Without making eye contact, he said, “Come on. Let’s
hash it out over coffee.” He turned and, with Daymon staring holes into his
back, made his way to the crippled Land Cruiser, reached inside and came out
with the half-empty bottle of Jack. Without making eye contact he unscrewed the
cap and paused mid-decision, the bottle in limbo, mid-air at a
forty-five-degree angle, one bend of the elbow from touching his lips. But
instead of giving in to the craving for the booze and its unique ability to
dull the pain brought on by the unforeseen murders and the thought of what the
girls were enduring at the hands of the killers, he rotated his arm and let the
amber liquid spill out onto the grass at his feet. Then, seemingly channeling
the ghost of Catfish Hunter, he threw the empty overhand. It sailed at least
fifty yards, a graceful arc diagonally over SR-39, bounced once or twice on the
shoulder without breaking and skittered into the ditch.

Seeing this, Daymon snatched up the pair of muddy shovels,
walked to the Cruiser and stowed them in the rear. Still fuming, he asked,
“Who’s going to cover the rest of your shift?”

“Let me see your radio.”

Daymon handed it over.

Thumbing the talk button, Duncan ordered Phillip up to the
road to pull a few extra hours of watch.

Cocking his head, Daymon said, “Why Phillip? I thought you
had your reservations about him.”

“He’s capable. But if he’s up here keeping watch he won’t be
able to tag along with us to the quarry,” explained Duncan. “And that’ll spare
everyone’s ears ... ‘cause that boy can talk.”

Daymon nodded, unamused, then straightened up and looked
west, the low sun at his back throwing his shadow long and exaggerated. He
watched the flesh eaters negotiate the slight dip in the road, and when their
gaunt faces broke the crest of the rise he asked, “You have some binocs?”

“In the rig. Let me get ‘em.” Duncan ducked in and came out
with a pair of oversized black Bushnell’s, unwound the strap and handed them
over. Squinting into the distance he asked, “Whatcha seeing?”

Daymon said nothing at first. Then he stepped onto the SUV’s
running board to gain a better viewing angle.

Watching all of this, Duncan failed to understand why the
taller man was focusing on something in the shadows behind the rotters. So he
asked again, “Whatcha got?”

“There’s one of those things hanging back. Where the road
curves and comes out of the trees.”

“What is it doing?”

“Probably nothing,” replied Daymon. “Let’s move this thing
and restring the wire.”

Grabbing a rusty strand, Duncan asked, “Are you as sick of
these goddamn things as I am?”

Finished wrapping the lower run of wire around the post,
Daymon unsheathed the machete, smiled mischievously and replied, “Let’s wax
some rotters.”

Chapter 9

FOB Bastion

“Up and at em,” bellowed Brook. In fact she was up shortly
after Cade and had already dressed in a pair of weathered tan camo fatigue
pants she’d dutifully tucked into her boot tops. Over her heavy black T-shirt
was a thin cotton long-sleeved blouse, once white, but now a dingy tan and
buttoned mid-way up. Anticipating a long day in the sun, she’d rummaged through
the drawers and found a tan kerchief which was knotted loosely around her neck.
A black ball cap was pulled down low, her high pony tail sticking through the
hole out back. And strapped on her hip was a compact Glock similar to Cade’s
that had been a gift from Colonel Cornelius Shrill, her big intimidating friend
back at Schriever. Unaccustomed to hearing the female master raise her voice,
Max yelped and bolted from under the cot and immediately went into search mode,
ears perked, teeth bared, looking for the threat.

“Everything is OK. Stand down, Max,” said Brook, a
half-smile curling her lip. She glanced at her watch as the liquid crystal
numerals flipped from 9:10 to 9:11. “It’s these other
sleepy heads
who
need to fall out and fall in.” Although all was said tongue-in-cheek—delivered
gruffly using Cade’s army-speak-infused lexicon—all humor was lost on both
Taryn and Sasha as the two came up swinging, lobbing verbal barbs of their own.

“Last time I checked I wasn’t enlisted,” blurted Taryn,
rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Sasha whined, “You’re not my mom ... what time is it
anyway?”

“9:12,” answered Raven after checking her recently acquired
Timex.

Wilson’s head poked from his sleeping bag and he planted one
elbow on his cot. After craning around, he fixed a no nonsense glare on his
sister and said, “Time to do what the lady says ... that’s what time it is.”

“Looks like I’ve got a lieutenant doing my light work,”
quipped Brook. “Now someone pass the ice cubes so I can get the bed hog off my
cot.” The fact that there wasn’t so much as an ice crystal for hundreds of
miles didn’t register in Raven’s analytical brain. The mere mention of ice
cubes used in conjunction with the words
wake
and
up,
had an
instantaneous effect on the twelve-year-old, causing her to sit ramrod
straight, her eyes instantly scanning the room for incoming. “Mom,” she called
out. “Not fair. You had me thinking Dad was up to his old tricks.”

“Just making sure you
stay frosty
, sweetie.”

Raven scrunched her face up. “
Not funny
,” she said,
flopping onto her back while pulling a big handful of blanket over her head.

Just then, sparing Brook from a full scale all-girl mutiny,
the distinctive sound of their new ride reverberated outside and the Ford’s
shadow darkened the front of the single-story double-wide.

“Total eclipse,” said Wilson. “I frickin can’t believe we’re
going to Utah in Pug’s old ride.” He looked towards Sasha just as a shudder of
revulsion wracked her small frame.

“Had to remind me, didn’t you.”

“Sorry, sis,” he answered sheepishly, cheeks going crimson.

The door opened a moment later and Cade’s silhouette was
framed in the doorway. He said, “Gassed up and good to go.” Then he looked
around and saw that everyone was packed, for the most part, then went on,
“Raven, will you bring me my rifle?”

“Sure Dad,” she said, sliding from her bag fully dressed.
“Where is it?”

“Under my cot,” he said, watching his impromptu test play
out.

Raven found the M4 under the cot next to hers. Pulled it out
one-handed by the butt stock and then pivoted and sat on the bed with it
between her knees. What she did next, while keeping the weapon’s muzzle pressed
against the shag carpet, made Cade very proud of her and doubly grateful for
the time Brook had spent teaching her the basics.

First, Raven ejected the magazine and placed it on the
floor. Then she pulled the charging handle a couple of times before leaning the
rifle over to visually check that the chamber was indeed empty. Lastly, the
diminutive twelve-year-old slapped the magazine home and made sure the safety
was engaged before bringing it over to him, muzzle down.

“Great job, sweetie,” he said. Then, already knowing the
answer, he asked her, “Did Mom teach you all of that?”

Brook scooped up her pack and on the way out the door called
out over her shoulder, “Damn straight I did.”

M4 in hand, Cade turned on one crutch and said, “Load up.
We’re
oscar mike
in five.”

Chapter 10

Four fucking hours
, thought Elvis.
Drive all night
and then spend half an hour groveling for my life trying to prove I had no
intention of following through on Robert Christian’s final orders. All while
kissing that bastard’s boots and I’m allowed only four fucking hours of sleep
.
He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and worked the controls. The blade lowered and
bit into the earth. The diesel engine growled and black, dirty exhaust belched
from the stack as the next phalanx of saplings and wrist-sized firs rolled
under the breaking wave of rich topsoil.

In his peripheral vision he watched a pair of soldiers, clad
in all black and toting like-colored carbines of some sort, pick their way to
the clearing’s edge. They took their time stepping over clods of dirt and
uprooted ferns and halted a couple of feet from where a newly arrived zombie
stood gripping the stretched wire.

“Let’s see what you got,” muttered Elvis who, less than a
week ago, had been ripping the faces of the infected off their skulls in order
to get to their salivary glands.
A means to an end
, he’d thought at the
time. Anything to kill the soldiers as they cowered safe and sound inside the
wire at Schriever Air Force Base.

But that one went sideways on him. He’d only managed to set
off a chain reaction outbreak in the civilian quarters. To which the fucking
soldiers showed up with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees and overwhelming
firepower. Cowards. Just like dropping the Oakland Bay Bridge into the drink to
save San Francisco. Using maximum force against their own populace in order to
save their own asses—cowards one and all. And in the end his escape from
Schriever undetected had been made possible because of the soldiers’
unwillingness to clean up their own messes ... to do their own dirty work.
Burial detail. He’d volunteered days before.
A means to an end
. Loading
the infected onto Dead Sleds—massive earth moving dump trucks—and then sending
them back,
ashes to ashes and dirt to dirt,
from whence they came. Nope
... nobody wanted to touch that task with a ten-foot pole. Not even the brave
warriors
.
Going outside of the wire to bury the very folks he’d just infected, as much as
killing his driver—the affable Private Mark Farnsworth—was also a
means to
an end
. And if all went as planned, that end would be very profound and
he’d finally strike a deadly blow to the heartless automatons who’d signed his
family’s death warrant on that Bay Bridge nearly three weeks ago.

Wishing he had an energy drink or steaming cup of black
coffee, or better yet a rail of something much stronger, chemically based and
white, Elvis cast a quick glance at Bishop who was watching him through a pair
of binoculars from the covered wraparound porch of the giant lake house.

So, just as he had done after volunteering as a driver for
the Minot mission weeks ago, he put his head down and did what he was told.
Two
hours
, he guessed. Two more hours and he’d have enough of the forest pushed
back and the soil packed and grated smooth that he could relax. Maybe even
sleep. He smiled at the thought of putting his head down and closing his eyes.
But then remembered what Bishop had said: A plat inside the security perimeter
sufficient in size to accommodate a number of helicopters. The muscular former
Seal had also ordered him to make it a ‘flag lot,’ leaving room enough for a tractor
trailer to back in and still remain under cover of the trees on the ‘pole part’
of the clearing. But Elvis had no idea what in the hell a flag lot was, let
alone the
pole
part of a fucking flag lot. Plus he’d just arrived from
his cross-country drive when the orders had been issued and had been much too
tired to request clarification. So he’d nodded and forced his eyes to remain
open and winged it—just as he was doing now.

He raised the blade by a few degrees and set the tractor to
idling. Pictured a mental image of a flag flapping in the breeze. He looked
left and then right. Which corner would the pole go on? He reached into a
pocket. Came out with a poker chip he’d scooped off the ground outside an
Indian Casino somewhere west of the Rockies.
Left for heads, right for
tails,
he thought as he flipped the clay marker into the air. He caught it
and slapped it on his thigh and removed his hand.
Tails.

Right it is,
he thought.
One thousand worthless
dollars’ worth of right.
He clanked the dozer over to the spot where the
chip decided he would start the next cut. Along the way he passed by the
black-clad soldiers, who abruptly stopped hacking appendages from the oblivious
flesh eater and flashed smiles and bloodied blades, as if to say
Take a look
at our handiwork
.

And he did, stopping the dozer broadside. He feigned a
conspiratorial smile and was caught off guard by the sharp pong wafting off the
corpse. Crinkling his nose, he whispered his new mantra, “Means to an end.”
Though he didn’t want to, he found himself compelled to set eyes on the poor
creature. From the neck up the thing was nearly impossible to look at. Truly a
ghastly sight, minus everything fleshy: nose, ears, lips, eyelids. The zombie
had been rendered aerodynamically streamlined and now resembled a demonic
version of the tortured soul depicted in Edvard Munch’s the Screamer. From the
neck down was a different story. The sadists had hacked off the creature’s
forearms, leaving it looking like some kind of battlefield casualty, straining
against the fence, mouth opening and closing, waving its bloody stumps at its
antagonists.

Elvis threw a half-assed salute at the men, sending them
back to their macabre undertaking.

Then, now knowing precisely why he was cutting the
pole
part of the flag lot into the forest, he lowered the blade and resumed razing
the earth.  

Watching the action through a pair of binoculars from his
post near the north gate, Jimmy Foley, a newly conscripted townie, said a small
prayer that whoever was driving the tractor would
accidentally
run over
the pair he’d taken to calling the Brothers Grimm.