Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (11 page)

From the viewing angle, which left everything on the screen
rounded on top and pinched at the edges, Nash knew that the satellite which had
captured the days-old footage she was viewing had been locked in a bad orbit at
the edge of its effective range. Still, she took note of the warship’s spacing,
paying close attention to the dozen or so vessels coming in over the horizon.
The largest on the right she’d been told by one of her analysts was the
Liaoning
,
China’s newest aircraft carrier, which had been rushed into commission even
before sea trials were completed. Surrounding her were half a dozen support
ships, big and boxy and riding closely alongside. Spread out farther, both left
and right, were the picket ships, a frigate and a couple of corvettes, plus the
standout near the carrier, a stealthy Guangzhou-class destroyer of the same
name whose sole role was to provide anti-sub as well as anti-air protection for
the carrier.

Already privy to the outcome of the carrier group, she fast-forwarded
and found the satellite footage shot over the Eastern Seaboard and paused it at
a predetermined time stamp and counted the vessels. The destroyer was there,
plowing ahead in calm-looking seas, a jagged white V spreading out from its
bow. Next to it on the right was a single Chinese missile frigate, the
Hunong
,
and on its right was the unmistakable black rounded hull of a very long Russian
Borei-class submarine, the
Yuri Dolgorukiy
. That it was riding the
surface with impunity so close to Norfolk was very troubling. More so was the
company it was keeping.

Nash forwarded the hours-old footage until she recognized
the Chesapeake Bay. The sub was nowhere to be seen as it had submerged shortly
after it was spotted next to the other two surface ships; however, it appeared to
Nash and was already confirmed through new imaging that the frigate and destroyer
were entering the bay apparently intent on making a landing on U.S. soil. She
watched the two vessels moving at a cautious pace until they were just offshore
from Naval Station Norfolk where, presumably, they were trying to draw some
kind of response. Which Nash knew wouldn’t be coming. The ships still at dock
were ghost ships, their crews either dead or among the ranks of the undead.

Nash pinned her hair up and donned a navy blue ball cap
emblazoned with the Air Force insignia and continued watching as the destroyer
launched a gray helicopter from its fantail. Adjusting her hat, she plucked the
phone from the cradle and punched the autodial button to the Tactical
Operations Center. When Jensen answered, Nash asked that the live feed from the
satellite in orbit high over Norfolk be placed on the largest monitor front and
center. She replaced the handset and closed the laptop. Stowed the nearly full
bottle of tequila and glassware and closed the filing cabinet drawer on the way
to the door.

Stepping into the carpeted hall, she thought to herself,
Let’s
see how our interloping commie friends fare against their welcoming party
..

Shortly after leaving the roadblock and the dozen hollow-eyed
immolated corpses behind, Glenda started to acquire rotten traveling partners.
Obviously thinking—
or not
—that she, the gray-haired corpse, was onto
something, tramping ahead with her newly perfected
undead
limp, the
motley crew arrived in dribs and drabs.

The first joined when Glenda was coming to the end of a
long, flat, and forgiving stretch of SR-39 flanked by fencing and fallow fields.
Dragging a greasy mess of entrails, the upper half of a corpse scrabbled from
the ditch and onto the roadway, fixed her with a milky gaze, and started
clawing its way east. Then, just fifty yards further where the grade steepened,
the second Z, an emaciated and pustule-covered forty-something male, had emerged
suddenly from behind an early model Chevy van sitting on four flats. With one
bony hand planted on the van’s wildly painted side, the thing stood stock still,
regarding Glenda hungrily through clouded eyes.

Be the dead.

The mantra worked up until the moment Glenda was within a yard
of the undead male and then, suddenly, as if she’d tripped a photo-electric-eye
in a fun-park haunted house, the putrid horror lunged into her path. The
bathrobe absorbed the impact and before she knew it she and the emaciated
corpse were limping lockstep shoulder to shoulder. Almost touching. Dangerously
close. So close in fact that Van Man, as she decided to call him, cast a shadow
eclipsing Glenda’s and in her left ear she could hear clearly the constant
clicking of teeth and rasps and moans triggered by the wind rippling the tall
grass growing up alongside the road.

Be the dead.

***

Sometime later, on the lee side of the long uphill climb
Glenda had dreaded since leaving Huntsville, the half-man crawler fell from
sight and was replaced by zombies number two through five.

The quartet had been standing statue-like and, from a
distance, they initially struck her as plasticized cadavers posed in mourning
over one of their own. Like escapees from the Body Works exhibit that traveled
the country from museum to museum before the Omega virus brought the very
things of someone’s macabre imagination to life.

The unmoving zombies each occupied a point of the compass
forming a near perfect box around a long dead corpse that had already given up every
last scrap of meat to the undead weeks ago—and the hard-to-get-to morsels, presumably,
to the carrion birds and maggots since. Unlike the dead ogling it, the thing on
the ground was but a hollow shell. Clumps of gray hair littered the pavement
around its eyeless skull. Strips of fabric stiff with dried black fluids clung
to the few remaining scraps of brittle, sunbaked dermis.

Of the group standing about the corpse, three were smaller
and decayed to the point where making a determination to sex was impossible.
The fourth, though stooped, was taller and definitely female judging by the flaccid
breasts still constrained by remnants of a threadbare underwire bra.

As Glenda limped by with Van Man shadowing her closely, she
wondered,
Why the vigil? Were they a family once? Was the taller one their
mother? Mombie?
Stifling a chuckle, she fixed her gaze on a spot on the
ground and plodded ahead.

Drawing up alongside the ghastly scene, Glenda saw the inert
figures in her side vision and was about to thank God she wasn’t on their
radars when, inexplicably, and in unison, the four
first turns
made a
sound like brittle fallen leaves skittering ahead of a sudden gust of wind. A tick
later the one she’d deemed
Mombie
performed a clumsy, three-part
shuffling turn to her right and, with the smaller Zs glued to her hip, fell in
behind Van Man.

Instantly Glenda broke out in a cold sweat and along with it
the nagging fear that as a result her makeup would smear and run.

But it didn’t. Repeating the mantra calmed her down again.
And the very real possibility of the flesh being ripped from her bones did not
come to fruition.

They scaled the uphill grade. A gaggle of unlikely road dogs
staggering in a loose little knot. Nearing the hill’s apex, the sun at their
backs threw shadows long and giant-like before disappearing on the opposite,
downhill side, which Glenda tackled without pause.

Even as her knees and ankles screamed out in pain during the
arduous journey down the steep grade, she retained her poise.

Be the dead.

Halfway down the steep grade, moving only her eyes, Glenda
looked up and saw that the Shell station where Louie liked to trot out his fake
accent and preferred to have the Austin Healey serviced had caught fire and
burned. Having suffered the same fate, a handful of cars, totally
unrecognizable as to make or model, were settled on warped rims nearby. All
that remained of the now windowless store and attached garage were four soot-covered
cinderblock walls and a rollup door, its steel panels black with soot and wavy
and still in the closed position. Clearly compromised by the high heat, the once
laser-straight metal roof braces now sagged considerably in the center. And
though it was still nearly a mile away, untouched yet illuminated by the waning
sun, the red and yellow vacuum-formed sign rising up from one corner of the lot
called to her like a beacon.

The last dozen yards before the road again turned flat and
smooth were especially killer, the deceleration taking a toll on her
fifty-seven-year-old knees. Once she was out of the hill’s shadow and saw her
own ever lengthening, she knew that dusk was imminent and with it an almost
instantaneous drop of ten degrees or more in temperature. Fifty-five degrees
she could handle. But at this elevation the temperature was likely to drop to
the mid to low forties well before midnight.

A bathrobe and some magazines over two layers of clothing
made mostly from cotton wouldn’t be sufficient in the open to keep her warm
against the elements. And once her teeth began chattering, she knew without a
doubt she’d be the next meal for Van Man, Mombie, and her brood. So she began
planning her great escape. And the gas station, though a shell of its former
self, might be just what she needed.

***

Glenda figured the last arduous mile took her at least
thirty minutes to cover. Finally nearing the Shell station which occupied an
acre or two on the north side of 39, something moving a hundred yards beyond the
ditch, on the south side of the State Route, caught her eye.

Amid the tall grass, she saw hunched backs. A tattered red
plaid shirt and a pale white neck and shoulders contrasting sharply underneath.
A dozen paces later her viewing angle changed and she realized what she was
seeing was a trio of zombies feeding on a deer carcass. And what struck her at
that moment was how involved they were whatever they focused on. In this case
there was nothing more important than tearing and rending jagged strips of flesh
and sinew and jamming it all two-handed into their mouths. The amount of blood
sluicing down the chin and wetting the shirt of the creature facing in Glenda’s
direction sent a sharp jolt down her spine. Then suddenly, perhaps smelling the
fresh kill or just excited by the incessant movement, Glenda’s entire entourage
stagger-stepped right and their hair-raising rasps commenced.

In response to the sound, one right after the other, the
feeding Zs rose up. Shorter to tallest. Left to right. Female, male, male.
Their ages indeterminable due to their thoroughly blood-spattered faces.

With the Shell sign in her left side vision, no longer sun-splashed
but still beckoning her, Glenda made a slow pivot in that direction.

In her right side peripheral she saw Mombie pause and cast a
matronly—in Glenda’s mind at least—gaze over her shoulder across the two-lane.

Be the dead.

By the time the first shards of glass crunched under the
soles of Glenda’s hikers,
Mombie
was out of sight, no doubt following in
the footsteps of what most likely, in life, had been her offspring.

Jamie materialized out of nowhere and stopped Cade in his
tracks just outside the compound entrance. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

He looked the young woman up and down from head to toe. Not
in a creepy leering old guy kind of way. But more of a quick tactical
observation. A surreptitious once-over to try and determine her motives before
going any further.

Her short dark hair was slicked back and, telegraphing the
seriousness of the forthcoming question, her neck muscles were corded and the
tanned skin around her ice blue eyes was taut. And as if her proposal had
already been denied, she’d already adopted a defensive, arms crossed posture.

There was a black carbine slung over her shoulder; holstered
on one hip was a .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Tight against her thigh, in
a makeshift scabbard held in place by a leather thong, was a two-foot-long tomahawk
she claimed to have found in a rundown log cabin twenty miles north of the
compound.

That she’d disappeared, rambling the countryside alone for a
week following the events at Bishop’s lake house, came as no surprise to Cade.
Everyone was dealing with the recent losses in their own way. In fact, the
chain of events leading up to her rescue were so hard to talk about for some of
those involved that those who hadn’t been had taken to referring to those three
days in August as simply ‘
the incident.’
A phrase that, mercifully, didn’t
immediately conjure up images of Logan and Gus’s bullet-riddled bodies. Nor did
it dredge up awful sights and smells in the minds of the men who had exhumed Jordan’s
maggot-infested body from the shallow grave at the quarry and reburied it up on
the knoll with the others.

Breaking the uneasy silence, Cade said, “Depends on the
favor.”

Cutting to the chase, Jamie blurted, “I want to go with you
and Duncan. I don’t care where ... I just want to get away from here.”

“Thought you took care of the wanderlust and cleared your
mind on your week-long walkabout,” said Cade. He leaned against the entry.
Crossed his arms and added, “I think you’re romanticizing what I do.”

“I’m bored to death.”

“Careful what you wish for.”

There was a silence. Ten seconds. Fifteen.

“I miss Logan. I think about him all the time.”

Cade felt the handle rattle from inside and pushed off from
the door. A tick later Chief exited, looked the two over and walked on without
a word.

“Is Chief going?”

Cade shook his head. Said, “No.”

“Lev?”

Cade nodded. Said, “Yes.”

“Daymon?”

Again Cade nodded to the affirmative.

“Your wife or Taryn?” asked Jamie. “Are they going?”

For another ten seconds Cade said nothing. A shadow passed
over the clearing and the air chilled suddenly as a bank of thunderheads
blocked out the sun. He moved his head side-to-side. Said, “No. Brook won’t let
Raven leave her side. She’s kind of a
mama bear
in that regard. And
Wilson ... he
needs
Taryn. She wears the pants in that one there. I wouldn’t
do that to the kid.”

“So you’re telling me with a straight face that not one
woman is going along on this outing.”

Cade looked her in the eye. “Only you,” he said. “But you
need to listen close and follow my every move. Can you agree to that?”

Uncrossing her arms, Jamie smiled. In fact it was the first
time he’d seen her pearly whites since she’d nudged Carson out of the
helicopter and into the waiting arms of the dead.

“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t slow you down.”

Cade opened the door. Voices filtered past him. Young.
Happy. So full of hope. He stepped part of the way inside and then turned back.
“I know,” he said. “We leave at first light. Bring the tomahawk.”

Cade stopped in the security room to greet Seth. The
twenty-something was finally looking better now that the horrors of the
incident
were beginning to fade. And though he’d let his hair and beard grow unchecked
since, his gray eyes were full of life and he carried himself with confidence.
“Back in the saddle?” asked Cade.

Nodding, Seth said, “Feels good to be back at the helm.
How’s Heidi?”

Absentmindedly poking a finger at the single bulb dangling
near his head, Cade said, “Since all of the shrinks in the world probably
became Z food on day one, I think some R and R to get her mind off of things
would be a good start. Especially seeing how ever since the
incident
her
obsession with hailing the survivors on Logan’s list has gotten out of hand.”

Seth looked away from the closed circuit monitor, nodded,
and then returned his gaze there for a moment.

Cade went on, “Though I’m no shrink ... short of drug
therapy, I think forcing her into some kind of routine topside would be ideal.
The daylight and fresh air would do wonders for her. I’m sure of that. Might
even reset her internal clock so she can get some regular rack time.” Cade
bobbed his head around the gently oscillating light bulb like a sparring
fighter, grew tired of that and grabbed the coffee pot and filled a Styrofoam
cup.

“Quiet up at the road,” proffered Seth.

There was a short silence as Cade stared at the monitor
while mulling over the looming talk with Brook. Finally, ignoring the small
talk about rotters at the road, he finished his thought and said, “Nothing any
of us can do to help Heidi. Her and Daymon ... they’re going to have to work
through it themselves.” He drank the coffee down an inch. Arched an eyebrow and
hoisted the cup as if offering the younger man a toast. “Good brew.”

Seth shot Cade a thumbs up then leaned back in the rolling
chair and returned his attention to the goings on topside.