Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) (21 page)

Jenner was gruffly shaking hands with
everyone, unable to stop thanking them over and over again. The
short aircraft engineer admitted that before their arrival, he'd
felt the first tickles of madness due to their two months of
isolation. After the firefighter Don had gone missing, depression
had been his constant companion and he'd believed there was no one
else left out there. Warren had honestly thought his little party
would all end up talking to themselves and eventually, eating cans
of expired beans from the Super-center next to the airport to stay
alive.

Jake's parting with Gertrude had hurt him
badly, but he was careful not to let it show. He hadn't wanted to
cause her pain and was sure she was going to worry about the rest
of them nonstop, until they reached the South Texas haven. The aged
woman had fussed at him for helping her into the plane but, after
getting her belted into the plush seat, she'd pulled him down to
her with those withered arms and cried against his shoulder for a
while.

“Jacob, you
promise
me you're going to
come get us,” she demanded, as he hugged her thin form gently.

“I promise. We'll be there before you know
it.”

Gertrude squeezed him tightly and kissed his
finely stubbled cheek. “You're a good boy.”

The writer didn't trust himself to speak, so
he just nodded lamely.

Gertie looked up at him, eyes wet, and put
her hand on his cheek. “One last thing. During your trip, I have no
doubt you're going to encounter....Oh, so much more horror than
we've seen so far. Don't let it take away who you
are
. Rely
on your friends. Let them help you. Let them comfort you, when you
need it. Follow your
heart
, young man. It's as strong as any
I've seen. It won't steer you wrong.”

Jake was determined not to let her see him
cry, so he kissed her wrinkled cheek and moved back through the
plane to say goodbye to his best friend.

The fixers had bolted a cot to the floor
midway back in the cabin, allowing Al to lie down. The slim man's
kidney area was still very sore and he couldn't sit-up for long.
The swelling on his face had gone down a bit and, though still half
a dozen different shades of purple from the beating he'd taken,
Allen’s sense of humor was slowly returning to normal. Kat wanted
to say goodbye to Gertie and he whistled at her as she moved past.
Giving him a smile, she bent and kissed the mechanic's forehead
before moving toward the nose of the plane.

“I don't know what to say.” Jake looked
hollowly out the nearby porthole, watching the others saying their
farewells. His life seemed like a long series of goodbyes. His
mother and brother, his father, Molly.

Allen sat up, wincing as his back twinged.
“Just tell me you love me.”

He gave his friend a leery glance, to which
Al waggled his eyebrows comically in response.

Jake laughed. “Superman two, right?”

His friend smiled and Jake pulled him
carefully into a hug. He tried to keep in mind that Allen was on
his way to safety, but it didn't really help. O'Connor had to
swallow a lump in his throat.

“I love you, man,” Allen said, hugging him
back as best he could. “Listen to your old buddy now. You do
whatever you have to do
to get to Pecos. Don't make me come
looking for you guys. I've always hated road trips.”

“Tell you what,” Jake said, “you find the
watering hole down there and keep an eye out for us.”

“Will do.” Allen lay back down on the cot.
“Who knows? If I'm lucky, I might even find a spicy, little
senorita to keep me occupied during the wait. “

“You're incorrigible.”

The mechanic grinned widely. “Hey,
I'm
not the one traveling across the country with Laurel, Kat, Rae,
Gwen, Donna, Penny, Elle,
and
Beatrix. George was right.
It's like you've started a harem.”

“And Karen. We're going to get her back,”
Jake told him firmly.

Allen nodded. “I know you will. But good
point. You're going to be riding around with eight truly, hot
women. You should rename Foster's pink behemoth,
The Love
Machine
.”

“Yep, you're gonna be just fine,” Jake said,
rising to his feet and fighting a smile.

Warren and his two kids began boarding while
Jake moved to the tail of the plane. He turned at the hatch to wait
for Kat and heard the tag end of her conversation with
Gertrude.

“Don't forget what I told you, dear,” The
aging woman said emphatically as Kat crouched to embrace her.

“I won't,” she said, then stood to let
Warren—who would be playing naviguesser to Maggie's captain—slide
into the cockpit. Kat gave Gertie a warm smile. “We'll see you in a
few weeks.”

Maggie finished saying goodbye to George—who
goosed her shamelessly—and to Laurel—who didn't—as the two of them
hopped out through the hatch. Kat moved to hug the muscular blonde,
then made her pinky-promise that she and Allen would keep working
on the self-defense techniques she'd drilled with them. After
Jake's friend had recovered that is. Then the buxom woman turned to
the writer.

He noticed Maggie's blue eyes were shinier
than usual. It made him extremely regretful that, even with all the
time they'd spent locked away in Foster's cache, he hadn't actually
taken much time to get to know her. Between the horrors raging
outside the walls during the first weeks and then the near endless
training George had put them all through, he and Laurel had barely
had time—which they did
not
waste—alone each night.

“Be careful, Mags,” he said, extending his
hand to her.

She looked at him evenly for a moment, then
brushed it aside to wrap her arms over his shoulders and kissed him
soundly. He was too surprised to do anything but put his hands
safely on her waist, as the kiss stretched on and on and on.

After a dozen heartbeats, she pulled back,
looked him in the eye, and grinned. “Keep that crowbar of yours
handy, Jake. I expect you to return the favor when you all get to
Pecos. Oh, and don't worry. I
did
actually ask your redhead
over there if it was alright to plant one on you, beforehand.”

“Um. Thanks?” he replied.

“Anytime.” She released him and stepped up
into the Beechcraft, then looked back at Laurel with a smile.
“You're right. He
does
kiss like a hero.”

Jake glanced at her and, sure enough, his
shapely, red-haired bombshell was looking highly amused (as was
Kat) at Jake's reaction to the tall blonde's lip-lock.

“Women are all evil
,
” he grumbled,
helping Maggie swing the hatch closed.

“I’ve been telling you that for years!”
O'Connor heard Allen call, just before the edges met and sealed the
cabin off from the world. Jake thumped on the hull and moved
towards the access door, where Bee stood guard with a suppressed
AR-15.

The survivors had mixed feelings about seeing
their companions leave. Fear for all their friends’ survival,
apprehension for their own, jealousy that the others wouldn't have
to spend the next few weeks fighting and sneaking across
fourteen-hundred plus miles of hostile territory, wreckage and the
rotting dead. They were silent as they watched Maggie run through
the Beechcraft’s checklist, then give them all an enthusiastic
thumbs-up through the cockpit's windows.

Earlier that morning, Leo had moved the
Humvee—per Foster's instructions—in front of the plane's hangar. He
sat in the modified mechanism of mayhem with Elle, probably
stealing kisses, or just possibly other things. Hey, it was the
apocalypse, cut the guy some slack. When Jake nodded, Bee opened
the hangar access door and waved to the Hummer. Immediately, the
engine of zombie destruction came to life and began to pull the
sliding barrier open. The powerful vehicle moved the steel wall
effortlessly, allowing Rae to use the Douglas aircraft tug they'd
found inside to roll the plane out, sans starting its props just
yet. Once it was clear, she and Foster quickly unhooked the
pull-bar, then sped the tug back into the space Warren and his
companions had occupied over the weeks prior.

Jake saw the blonde-haired EMT reach above
her head in the cockpit and first one, and then both of the
Beechcraft’s engines came to life. A few minutes later, Maggie
threw them all a wave which most of the girls returned; brought the
aircraft's RPM's up, took her foot off the brakes, and began
rolling for the far end of the airport.

The plane taxied onto the runway in the
distance and they heard the sound of the engines rise in pitch. The
turbines began pushing the Beechcraft ever more quickly over the
surface of the earth, and finally it leapt into the sky. After not
seeing anything fly—except for brain-matter—for over two months,
the survivors watching from the ground felt a sudden rush of
exhilaration as the plane circled slowly west and continued to
climb. It was... Well, it was indescribable. O'Connor could only
imagine what those on board felt as the King Air leaped into the
heavens. When it passed back over where they stood, its wings
rocked twice, letting them know those on board could see them
waving goodbye and would be waiting in Pecos for their arrival.

Jake moved to take Foster's arm as the rest
of their party jumped and cheered and continued to wave as the
plane climbed for the clouds.

“How are you doing?”

Foster grinned mirthlessly. “Swimmingly. We
can head over anytime you’re ready.”

The writer nodded and asked Laurel to take
the others back inside.

“Where are you going?” She was still, waving
at the Beechcraft.

“The control tower,” he replied.

* * *

The air traffic control tower sat only a
couple hundred yards from the hangar which the Mimi currently
occupied.

Even though they hadn't seen a single one of
the creatures inside the airport's grounds, both men still wore
tactical gear and carried their full array of weaponry. You never
knew. By the time Jake and Foster entered the abandoned structure
the writer was already tired. Not from exertion but the guilt
crushing down on him, like a mountain's worth of evil, over what he
was about to do.

The two of them climbed to the observation
deck after locking the tower door, then stared unsympathetically at
the man inside. The surviving raider sat secured to a chair by a
pair of handcuffs. His face was damaged in a dozen different
places, even though his nose was still unbroken and his mouth
remained untouched. Jake had made it quite clear when the aged
fixer had brought him here for interrogation, to keep his head
intact. No taking an eye, no
Chinatown
style nostril
modifications, no turning him into a modern day Van Gough. O'Connor
wanted the bastard able to talk.

“What's his name?”

“Henry,” Foster replied.

The raider watched them listlessly. Blood had
dried on his face, his clothes, the chair he was secured to, and
the floor. Jake could smell it again. The zombies didn't really
bother him that much. Yes, they stank (did they ever), but it was
the smell of fresh blood he hated. If you could smell it, there
where ten to one odds it was splattered around the immediate area.
Usually in large quantities. He pulled one of the tower's office
chairs over and sat opposite the battered man.

“Hey, Henry,” Jake said. “Your week's not
going too well, huh?”

The raider said nothing and turned his eyes
away.

“Now, that makes me think I don't have your
full attention.” Shaking his head, the writer leaned forward in his
chair and popped Henry in the side of the head with a swift, right
cross. The man's face whipped around and a spray of bloody spit
flew from his mouth. Henry shook his head groggily, then his eyes
slowly focused on the writer sitting calmly a few feet away.

“Better?” O'Connor asked. “You're not having
any problems concentrating are you? If so, I'm pretty sure I can
help you out with that. You've spent some time with the Chief here
over the last few days. I
know
he's been providing you with
the right motivation, but I'm telling you right now—”

He grabbed the raider by the jaw and forced
the man to look him in the eyes.

“
I am done fucking around
.”

He pulled the Glock from his thigh holster
and put the tip of its barrel against Henry’s knee.

“Now, Henry. I'm going to ask you about your
friends,” Jake said, in a frighteningly calm voice. “You know. The
rest of the assholes who feel the need go around kidnapping teenage
girls? And, if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to
start blowing holes in your sorry ass.”

“You haven't asked me anything yet!” The
raider exclaimed. “That guy over there never even said a damn word,
till you walked in together!”

Jake's lip curled in disgust as he realized
Henry had pissed himself. “That's because he didn't want to talk to
you. I don't want to talk to you either, so don't get the wrong
impression. We're not having a discussion here. You
will
tell me what I want to know. Your only choice is whether or not you
want to do it without experiencing one hell of a lot of pain.”

“Man, I don't even know you!” Henry said. “I
wasn't in on what they did to that girl! We weren't even allowed to
touch her! Poole said he had plans for her, but then she took off
and—”

The smack of Jake's palm striking Henry
across the mouth echoed through the observation deck.

“So you
shot
her
?”
Jake yelled
into his face. “Did that factor into the plan somehow? Or were you
fuckers just making it up as you went along?”

Henry spat between his shackled feet. “That
was Milo. She wouldn't stop, so he told us to take her out. He was
the one who took the other bitch—”

A smashing hay-maker from Jake rocked the
man's head back, almost causing him to lose consciousness.