Plague Nation (30 page)

I finished up with a bag of Baked Lays and a chocolate chip cookie, grateful for every last preservative-filled bite. The old adage “hunger makes the best sauce” never seemed truer.

Davis and Jones ate their sandwiches outside the building, keeping an eye out and taking care of any incoming ghouls. I found out that the injured sniper’s name was Hicks, and the female sniper went by Nicks— “as in Stevie,” she told me.

Hicks and Nicks. Okay, maybe they
do
come in matched sets.

Team B’s mechanic—a young white guy with messy brown hair, a scruffy beard on the end of his chin, and slight stoner drawl—was Brad, although mentally I nicknamed him “Shaggy.” The pilot, now delirious, wound reeking of putrefaction... well, they told me her name and I blocked it out. She was going to die, and knowing who she was would make that knowledge even worse.

Nicks kept a close watch on her.

Nathan, Gentry, and Gabriel huddled in a corner, conferring on our next move. If I’d really wanted to, I could have totally eavesdropped, but just then I wanted to shut my eyes and rest. I stretched out on the floor, pulling off my knapsack and using it as a lumpy pillow. Almost immediately I could feel myself falling into an uneasy doze, lulled by the buzzing of voices around me.

I was jerked out of sleep by the crack of a bullet echoing in the confined space. My eyes shot open and I sat up to see Nicks standing over the now dead pilot, the muzzle of her rifle still pointing at the woman’s head.

Damn.

Shaggy sat next to her, sorrow lining his face.

“She didn’t sign on for this,” he said angrily. “It should have been a simple drop.”

Nicks nodded.

“If I ever find out who fucked with the chopper...” She hefted her rifle in a not too subtle threat.

I got to my feet, still groggy from my impromptu catnap. Red handed me a bottle of water. I smiled my thanks, splashed some on my face to wake myself up, and drank the rest.

There was an occasional gunshot outside. Gabriel was nowhere in sight.

“How long was I out?” I asked Red.

“Maybe thirty minutes.”

Outside, the sound of gunfire increased. I stretched, shaking the kinks out of my body, and sidled over to Nathan.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“More zoms are finding their way here,” he said somberly. “We need to leave now, before we have to fight our way out again.”

“Damn, I was hoping we’d be able to take a break— the nap just didn’t cut it,” I said. “Are we going to try and get into the lab tonight?”

“Doubtful,” he replied. “Like you said, we need a break—some of us more than others. We’re not all wild cards.”

“Since dawn is only a couple of hours away, it makes more sense to find a vantage point and assess the situation. We need to make sure there’s a clear path to the back entrance.”

Red came up to stand next to me.

“We can’t just go through the front?” he asked.

Nathan gave a short laugh, but it was totally devoid of humor.

“This is a hospital,” he said. “It’ll be several circles of hell filled with hysterical civilians, hungry zombies, and sick people who are in the process of turning, all stuffed into a confined space. And this is an urban facility—there
will
be firearms. No, the risks are too great—we’d never be able to navigate those conditions without losing more people.”

He took a swig of bottled water.

“So the plan is to go across the park, get as close to the med center as we can, find a place to hole up, and then move out at first light.”

“What about the Conservatory?” Carl asked. “Can’t we take a break here?” He had circles of exhaustion under his eyes, and didn’t look excited at the prospect of going anywhere.

I answered before Nathan had a chance.

“Look at this place—it’s all wood and glass. No way it’d hold for any length of time.”

So we prepared to leave, stuffing some extra food in backpacks wherever it would fit. Nathan crammed it into his apparently bottomless duffle bag.

Mack could walk, but his expression showed that the ankle pained him with every step, no matter how stoically he tried to hide it. Lil slung an arm around his waist so he could lean on her. When he tried to argue that he didn’t need help, she refused to have any of it.

“You’ll heal up faster if you stop trying to be all macho, and let me help you.”

Whatever Gabriel had said to her seemed to have worked. The signs of her manic anger had been replaced by a calm competence as she focused on helping her friend.

We’d become a group of fourteen, two of them walking wounded. I did a little mental tally—four snipers, one pilot, two mechanics, five wild cards, one mad scientist, and Gabriel. The injured men and Dr. Albert clustered in the middle of our party, Lil helping Mack, then Dr. Albert with Nathan as his shadow, Gentry and Tony immediately behind, supporting the wounded sniper between them.

Davis and Nicks stuck close to us now, protecting our flanks while Jones took point. They worked with deadly efficiency, limiting their shots to the zombies that came close enough to be a real threat, and letting the rest fall behind.

It was harder to move quickly and quietly, but we did our best as Gabriel led us south through the park. There were cars abandoned on the streets and in the parking lots, a few scattered groups of people hoofing it to whatever safety they could find. The light of a fire flickered through the trees somewhere in front of us, the smell of smoke drifting in with the fog and mixing with
Eau d’Undead.

I grimaced, flashing back to the fire in the lab.

The inescapable sounds of a city falling apart were audible in the distance, but the park itself was oddly quiet. We passed a clump of zombies feasting on recently killed corpses, several of the hapless victims wearing the ragtag clothing of the homeless. The sight both sickened and saddened me.

Golden Gate Park was, under normal circumstances, one of my favorite places to play tourist. Three miles long and half a mile wide, it held a wide variety of gardens, lakes, museums, hiking and biking paths, a polo field, a buffalo paddock, complete with real bison, an antique carousel that delighted me as a child, and a Japanese tea garden where my parents would take me for tea and cookies—the promise of which was the only thing that got me off the carousel without a tantrum. I had loved wandering the numerous little paths that cut through the wooded areas, always expecting to emerge into some magical land.

Now, however, the park had transformed into a horror maze. The lush foliage and pathways held fleeing refugees, rotting, walking corpses, and their victims. It hurt my heart to see the bloodied, maimed figures of zombies inhabiting a place that once had held such joy. It was kind of like seeing Aslan from
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
start mauling Lucy.

Just plain wrong.

As we moved I wondered what time it was. I’d lost all sense of real time once the sun had set. It felt late. My eyes were scratchy with fatigue, and the short catnap had just made me crave more sleep.

We passed tennis courts, statues, a soccer field, and the carousel of my childhood, passing the back end of Kezar Stadium, ending up behind some sort of recycling center. A chain-link fence hung with dark netting separated it from the street and the chaos. It was a weirdly peaceful place, where the sounds of screams, sirens, and the oh-so-familiar moans of the undead seemed far away.

Dense shrubbery lined the fence on the other side, affording us good cover but allowing us to observe the street beyond. The street itself was oddly empty of people, living or otherwise. Most of the block was taken up by relatively new townhouses—three rows of them—built somewhere around the seventies. They were set on terraced ground, so that the doorways stood above the street, at the top of steep staircases. There were courtyards between the rows of buildings, and a driveway ran uphill and disappeared over the top, serving the entire row of houses. The second story of each townhouse boasted a balcony with wrought-iron railings. The ground floor of each had a cement patio fenced with the same wrought iron, effectively cutting them off from their neighbors.

The builders had obviously tried to echo the neighborhood’s existing architecture, but the townhouses were sterile and looked cheap, with none of the charm or quality found in the older originals.

On either side of them stood two matching structures that looked like art deco had met a medieval church, and made babies. They both were several stories high, and I could see a plaque on the front of the one closest to us. It read “Circus Center.”

I nudged Gentry and Tony, pointing to the sign.

“The possibility of zombie clowns just increased.”

Tony hefted Thor’s Wee Hammer.

“I’m ready.”

There were lights on in some of the units, which may or may not have meant that people were still inside.

“What do you think?” Nathan said quietly, standing side by side with Gabriel as a lone zombie stumbled aimlessly down one of the stairways toward the street. I found it interesting that he deferred to Gabriel’s leadership without any apparent damage to his ego, even though he had a decade or two more experience. At the same time, Gabriel didn’t seem threatened by the older man’s expertise, perhaps seeing it as an asset, instead of a threat. Two mature men instead of a clash of male egos accompanied by the Anvil Chorus.

“Seems like a good choice,” Gabriel replied. “Considering we’re only two blocks from the UCSF medical center, it seems pretty quiet, too.”

Nathan nodded.

“Probably less chance of being noticed if we take one of the middle units.” He glanced at his wristwatch, a fancy hi-tech thing, black and chrome with assorted gears and shit. “It’s almost four. The sun comes up around seven these days, so that gives us a little time to rest.

“We need it,” he added.

“I’ll take the watch,” Nicks said, nodding. “Don’t think Hicks is gonna be up for it, though.” She glanced at her woozy partner. He was practically unconscious, leaning against the fence. Dr. Albert cast a quick look at the injured sniper, and frowned.

“I’ll see what I can do for him when we get inside.” For some reason, that surprised me.

Guess a little of the Hippocratic oath stuck to you after all.

“After all,” he added, “we need everyone moving under their own steam, or we won’t make it.”

Or maybe it didn’t.

He was right, though. No way we were going to be able to drag an unconscious man through Zombie Central. I hoped Dr. Albert could do something for him, though, because I didn’t think Nicks would be open to leaving her partner behind.

Suddenly Gentry held up a hand, and pointed down the street to our left. The sound of uneven footsteps crunching on fallen leaves could be heard as several shadowy figures moved slowly in our direction. The smell left no doubt.

We all fell silent, moving well behind the concealing bushes as two zombies made their shambling way down the sidewalk, past our hiding place. Both had been older teenage boys, wearing baggy shorts and black T-shirts with marijuana leaves boldly stenciled on the front. Even without the giveaway of the shirts, I could smell the skunky odor of old pot lingering on their clothes, combined with the smell of decomposition.

The one in front looked like he’d died of Walker’s, whereas his pal was missing great chunks of flesh from his face, arms, and legs. Odds were good they’d been roommates and the one in front had died, reanimated, and been hit with a bad case of the munchies.

We waited until, moving slowly down the street, Bill and Ted were far enough away on their Excellent Undead Adventure for us to continue our planning.

“We need to find our best point of entry,” Gabriel said in an undertone.

“I can just blow the lock off one of the front doors,” Nicks volunteered.

“Better if we can gain access from either the driveway or window, then unlock the door from the inside,” Gabriel said. “If there are still people inside, we don’t want to compromise their safety by leaving one of the main access points unsecured.”

Nicks’ face reddened.

“Didn’t think of that, sir.”

“No worries, soldier.” Gabriel then turned to me. “Ash, are you up for scouting the driveway with Nathan? It means getting over the gate.” He pointed toward one of the darkened townhouses, and gave me a challenging look. Whatever “hackles” are, I felt mine rise.

I raised one eyebrow.

“Child’s play,” I said.

Competitive? Who, me?

Then I thought about it.

Yeah, okay, it’s a fair cop.

I quickly shed my knapsack and left both rifles. My blades would do well enough for this, and I didn’t need the extra bulk while shimmying over fences.

Watching me, Gabriel actually grinned, then nodded towards the townhouses.

“Tony, you and Gentry take the courtyard between the units, and see if you can find a way in without compromising security. Davis, Jones, you cover them. Nicks, you clear any zoms you see coming from the park. I’ll stay here with Dr. Albert.”

Surprisingly, Lil didn’t argue at being left out of the action.

Thank goodness for Mack.

We moved toward the recycling center entrance, and were met by a latched gate—also chain-link—that was secured with a heavy-duty padlock. Nathan took one look at it and shook his head. Whipping out a Leatherman from one of his pockets, he proceeded to quickly snip away a section of the fence itself, large enough to allow me, Tony, and Gentry to squeeze through, one at a time.

Nathan followed, bending the section back into place.

The four of us looked both ways down the street. It seemed clear. Nathan nodded, and we took off, threading our way between cars and trotting to the other side. Tony and Gentry split off into the courtyard, while Nathan hoisted himself over the driveway gate with effortless ease.

I followed, not quite so effortlessly, but I managed to get my butt over the top, dropping down to the pavement with less than catlike grace.

“You check up top,” Nathan said, pointing to the peak of the driveway, “and I’ll check down here.” Without waiting for an answer, he headed into the shadows.