Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (8 page)

Chapter 12

Seven minutes after Cade pulled the Ford up in front of the
double-wide, the pick-up’s cab was brimming with six people, a Todd Helton
Louisville Slugger, two stubby M4 rifles—one equipped with a suppressor—and
Sasha’s precious designer bags.

Taryn, Sasha, and Wilson were in the backseat while Brook
was up front riding
shotgun
. That left Raven, who was by far the
smallest of the group, stuck riding up front next to her dad who, for reasons
he was keeping to himself, was hell bent on driving the first leg of the trip.

Max, though relegated to riding in the box bed, found
himself a spot amongst Raven’s purple-and-white mountain bike, some boxes of
food and water, and the two hard-sided Pelican cases containing the additional
weapons, ammunition, and gear Colonel Shrill had allowed Cade to select prior
to them leaving Schriever.

Cade started the Ford and, before he’d completed the K-turn
to get them headed back towards the front gate, a lively debate broke out over
why the dead were walking.

“I think the Rapture backfired or something,” opined Sasha
with all the authority of a theology professor.

“Whoa ... hold on to that thought for a second. I need to
know if I heard you right ... or if you’re thinking of an old Blondie song,”
countered Wilson, twisting in his seat to address his sister who was occupying
the center spot between him and Taryn. “So the big event ... the Rapture
happens and instead of us seeing all of the clothing and personal effects of
the chosen scattered all over the place, you are telling me only their souls
were taken and their husks remained behind to rot and walk the earth ... and
eat those that weren’t called home?” He took a deep breath and waited for her
response.

Meanwhile Cade bounced the truck over a curb and
straightened it out and drummed his fingers on the wheel as the gate came into
view.

The silence killing her, Brook twisted around and opened her
mouth to speak but was beaten to the punch by the feisty teenaged redhead.

“What’s your theory then, Wilson?” Sasha said in a petulant
tone. “You’ve got an opinion on everything anyways ... and you’re always
telling me what to do.”

Peering past Sasha, an impish grin on her face, Taryn said
to Wilson, “Let’s hear it, just for
shits
and
giggles
.”

Looking over her left shoulder, Brook shot the tattooed
young woman a look that said,
Watch your language
and then shifted her gaze
to Raven, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

“All right,” answered Wilson. “I bet some a-hole in a bunker
somewhere let the Omega bug out.”

“You mean like in the
Stand
?”

“No Sasha ... I mean like in some
greedy-upper-crust-bastards who wanted all of this for themselves before the
eaters and breeders sucked it all up ... purposefully released the bug on the
population.”

Not far from the truth, kid
, thought Cade as he hung
a right and brought the rig to a halt a number of feet from FOB Bastion’s front
gate. He killed the engine and shrugged his shoulders in response to a look
delivered by one of the soldiers, who was obviously nonplussed at having to
repeat the time-consuming process of extending the mobile bridge again. Then,
as Sergeant Andreasen approached the truck on the driver’s side, Cade opened
the center console, reached in and came out with a black plastic case, about a
foot in length. Once the no-nonsense soldier was at his door and looking up, he
handed the case down and said, “Hopefully this will make do until Beeson’s boys
return from Salt Lake.”

Knowing precisely what was in the box without having to open
it, Sergeant Andreasen cocked her head and tried to pass it back to him. “Are
you sure you won’t need it?”

He put his palm up. The universal semaphore for
I’m not
taking no for an answer
. “It’s OK, Sergeant. I’ve got a couple more where
that one came from. Besides,” he explained, “they’ve got more gear than
personnel at Schriever.”

She nodded. “Understood. I was at Carson ...”
Bingo, thought
Cade
. “... and the Zs sure did a number on us that first weekend.”

“Did a number on everyone,
everywhere
, that first
weekend,” replied Cade. “I’ll make a call to a guy I know at Schriever ... a
first sergeant named Whipper. He’s been pretty good about seeing to my needs
lately. I’ll ask him to make sure some more of those come out on the next
supply bird.”

“Thank you, sir ... er, um ... Cade. Colonel’s already
requested replacements and extra gear for us—” She paused and looked away as
the hydraulic system hissed and the bridge began to fold out across the dirt
chasm. Meeting his gaze, she went on, “Can’t blame Colonel Beeson though ...
you and I both know how slow the wheels of the Big Green Machine turn.”

“Copy that,” said Cade as a hollow thud diverted his
attention to outside the wire just as the five ton aluminum bridge made contact
with the soil, starting a dirt devil spinning. Nodding at the sergeant, he
turned the key and put the transmission into gear.

“You stay frosty out there,” said the sergeant over the
engine noise. “Heard the 70 is thick with them due west of here. Green River’s
not safe either.”

“Colonel Beeson briefed me,” replied Cade. “But thanks. I
figure we’ll be doing most of our driving on the back roads.” He untangled the
coiled power cord and plugged one end into the sat phone and the other into the
accessory outlet. Eased off the brake and, as the Ford rolled through the gate
and over the fully extended bridge, he cast a quick glance towards the
makeshift FOB and noted Old Glory popping in the wind over Beeson’s quarters.
What he failed to see, however, was the salute—totally unwarranted and against
regs—given him by Staff Sergeant Andreasen as he left the relative safety of
the base for the second time in less than an hour.

Inside the cab, a slightly robotic and totally unnerving
female voice emanating through the Ford’s over-the-top sound system said, “In
two hundred feet, turn left.” Then she rattled on the distance to I-70,
instructing whoever was listening to take the on-ramp west.

Two hundred feet ahead Cade did not turn left. He did just
the opposite. And it was an action that sparked an immediate and explosive
outburst from Taryn. Gesticulating wildly with her tattooed arms, she called
out from the back seat, “Where in the hell are you taking us?”

Cade looked into the rearview just as Taryn launched herself
part-way over Brook’s seatback and began shouting at him, “Grand Junction is
this way and I do not want to go anywhere near that place ... seeing it from
the safety of the helicopter was barely tolerable.”

Having never heard her husband dressed down in such a
manner, Brook stared wide-eyed at him, waiting for a response.

Saying nothing, Cade turned off the navigation system, a
move that silenced the piped-in female voice. Half a block later, Taryn crawled
back into her skin when, without warning, Cade turned north, halting further
progress toward her former home.

There was a brooding silence in the cab, as if each of them,
save Cade, had some kind of a preconceived notion of where this deviation was
taking them but were afraid to ask.

Finally, Cade pointed to the Craftsman-style house on the
northeast corner a block distant. “Anything look familiar?”

Brook walked her gaze along his outstretched arm and when
she finally picked out the two-story house with the shiny SUV parked in the
drive, a wide range of emotions welled up inside of her.

“Looks like our old house, Daddy,” blurted Raven. “And
there’s one of
them
on the porch.”

“Keep driving, Cade Grayson,” said Brook icily.

Craning his head, Wilson added, “Looks like it’s got a hold
of the door knob.”

After doing a quick double-take and corroborating Wilson’s
observation, Cade recounted out loud for everyone’s benefit the behaviors he’d
observed the Zs exhibit at the cemetery in South Dakota. However, he had to
work extra hard to convince everyone that the Z at the crash site had in fact
been stalking him. And then when he mentioned that one of the monsters had
tried to open the door to Jasper’s truck, he ran into a five against one
roadblock with Wilson saying that it had to have been some kind of an anomaly.

“It was probably just its body coming into contact with the
outside latch ... accidentally jiggling it or something,” Brook reasoned.

Shaking his head and slowing the truck to a crawl, Cade
answered her challenge, “No way. I’m pretty certain the door handle on that old
truck was the kind that you reach under and pull up on. No way leaning on
something designed like that is going to move the handle on the inside. Take a
look.” He applied more brake and peered across Raven and Brook. “That’s exactly
what I’m talking about.” The Z’s form now filled up the doorway and the wooden
door was swinging slowly inward.

“Your point is?” said Sasha, joining the pile-on-Cade party.

“I was inside that house forty-five minutes ago.”

“And you left the door ajar ... right?” queried Brook.

“No,” he said. He thought hard for a few seconds, wondering
whether he wanted to open the Pandora’s Box of worry by disclosing what he
knew. Finally he decided full disclosure was what he owed everyone. He looked
Brook in the eye and added, “I left it exactly how I found it. Door latched ...
but unlocked.”

There were a couple of gasps from the back seat, then it
went deathly quiet inside the Ford. First, Brook shot Cade a look of
displeasure to which he merely shrugged. Then, she looked away and all eyes
were on the zombie on the porch as it entered the house through the shadowy
doorway. Finally, after Cade had seen enough, he released the brake—an action
that started the familiar-looking house gliding by on the right—and everyone
decided to speak at once.

Brook asked, “What does it mean?”

“Can they learn to drive?” asked Raven.

“Or shoot a gun?” added Sasha breathlessly.

“What with the tattered clothes and hanging flesh on that
one ... it looked like the kind of zombie I’ve heard people calling a
first
turn
,” was Wilson’s only take on the spectacle.

Cade looked over at Brook and said, “I don’t know yet.” He
shifted his gaze to Raven. “Not in a million years ... especially not a stick
shift.” And to Sasha, whose eyes he met in the rearview mirror, his answer, and
the way he delivered it, left them all speechless. “If they learn ... or more
likely remember how to operate a firearm, then all of mankind is doomed. So instead
of worrying about what-ifs, let’s focus on staying alive for one more
second
.
Then try stringing a few more of those precious seconds into minutes and then
those minutes into hours and so on. Before we all know it the sun will be down
and we’ll likely be at the compound safe and sound.”

“What my dad is trying to say—in way too many words—is that
he wants all of us to
stay frosty
.”

Smiling, Cade gave Raven a playful nudge and said to Wilson,
“I think you’re on to something. Maybe more of their old lives and memories
creep to the surface the longer they’re walking around. And if that’s the case
... I hope to God it’s just rudimentary low-motor-skill-type of stuff they
regain.”

After another long moment of palpable silence, Cade
disclosed the new behaviors that Sergeant Andreasen had witnessed at the gate.
Startling new revelations about the walking dead that kept them all thinking
inwardly until Mesa View 4x4 and the mini-herd of zombies seemingly guarding it
came into view.

Chapter 13

The turbine ratcheting up in pitch was Jamie’s first clue
that something was up. Then the falling sensation that came next instantly
transported her back through time and she was twelve with her father at
Disney’s Space Mountain and being flung around like a rag doll in pitch black
aboard the noisy rollercoaster—a feeling of spatial disorientation and utter
helplessness that had not been surmounted until now.

And just like that she snapped back to reality and was in
the helicopter—probably somewhere over Idaho—the craft in the middle of a one
hundred and eighty degree turn and seemingly about to crash. She began to
panic, her head spinning in the claustrophobia-inducing hood, until finally,
after what felt like an eternity, the craft leveled out and she was reduced to
dry heaving and begging to have the hood removed.

“Only long enough for you to empty your stomach”—Carson
growled as he yanked the sack from her head, turned it over and arranged it on
her lap atop her numb hands—“then it goes right back on.”

Squinting against the sun, she looked down and saw rivulets
of blood seeping from the deep cuts where the plastic ties bit into her wrists.
Then, in order to see the full picture, she shifted sideways and
accidentally
spilled the makeshift airsickness bag on the cabin floor near her captor’s
feet.

“Better not puke yet,” hissed Carson as he leaned over and
snatched the hood from the cabin floor.

Swallowing hard, Jamie caught sight of her fingers, puffed
and purple and turning black at the tips. She moaned and pitched forward and,
just as Carson replaced the bag on her lap, let go with a torrent of
jaundice-colored liquid the viscosity of ten-weight motor oil. She heaved and
convulsed and felt the warm bile soaking through the greasy burlap and into her
pants.
No time like the present
, she thought as she hinged forward and
crushed the soiled burlap between her breasts and knees and flexed her arms in
a calculated and covert effort at loosening the zip tie.

The crushing backhand came out of nowhere, sending her head
spinning. Then, adding insult to injury, the helicopter abruptly bottomed out,
and with the engine’s whine diminishing, there was the hail-like noise of small
debris pelting the fuselage. The rotor blades overhead slowed to a steady chop
and kerosene-tinged air and dust swirled inside as the pilot in the left seat
unbuckled and exited the gently shimmying aircraft.