Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) (26 page)

Luckily, his group had kept their Humvee
parked out front. George had been of the opinion that it wasn't
worth opening up the immense doors a second time after they'd shut
the Beechcraft’s hangar, and parked the Hummer before them. Jake
had thought it to be a good idea as well. Leaving the armored
vehicle outside meant they had the ability to quickly deal with a
group of the creatures (if some of them managed to gain access to
the airport grounds), without exposing their entire party to
danger. He'd been very glad of that decision when he got behind the
wheel.

While the tarmac in front of the hangars was
level—sort of—the service road fifty yards from the doors was
actually sloped towards the gate by which his party had made entry
into the airport. Pushing the Hummer had taken a lot of effort.
O'Connor had been soaked in sweat after muscling its armored bulk
across that expanse. He'd almost collapsed in sheer relief when the
Humvee had begun rolling slowly down the gravel slope, and he had
barely slogged his way forward into the cab when it began to
accelerate downhill. Upon reaching the gate, he'd made damn sure
none of the creatures were about before unlocking it, pulling the
Hummer through, and quickly securing it again.

Jake followed the route he'd outlined on the
map in the glove-box. Watching for any of the creatures, he lit
another American Spirit and thought about how crappy the trip west
was turning out to be. They hadn't even made it out of
Ohio
yet for pity's sake.

Other than the odd thump of a zombie bouncing
off the steel of the ram-like front bumper, his drive to the
Purifier's compound was relatively peaceful. It was forty-one miles
from the old DHL hub to the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Lake and,
since he was traveling back roads—hence, there were only a few
easily circumvented wrecks—it only took a little over two hours for
him to arrive. He stopped about a mile away and, using the
binoculars he'd brought along, scanned the site's surroundings.
Afterwards, he was extremely thankful he'd been so cautious.

There were a
lot
of ghouls clustered
in front of the plant's entrance.

Even the pod Jake and the others had watched
on the security cameras from safety inside George's safe-house, and
the one he and Kat had narrowly escaped from when they'd fled
Rebecca's grainery with Penny in tow, was dwarfed by the one
outside the power plant. Jake had never seen a larger concentration
of the things in one place before. Even the groups he'd spent hours
avoiding on foot back in Columbus couldn't compare to that crowd.
Their numbers most certainly were in the thousands. To him, it
looked like a sea of moldering ruin outside the gate. A
foul-smelling wave, endlessly breaking against the heavy barrier,
in a maggot-riddled version of a rock concert from hell

“Well. At least I know why Poole wanted the
Mimi,” He muttered to himself wryly, as he watched the awful horde.
“How the hell am I supposed to get through
that??”

He sat in the Hummer smoking, considering the
lake-sized mob between himself and the Purifier's front door. There
was no way even the Humvee could make it past so many zombies. The
things may not be able to breach its armored shell due to all of
Rae's modifications, but he wouldn't be able to power through a
mass that size, at any speed. Their numbers would eventually flip
even his heavy vehicle, leaving him ass-out in an overturned,
zombie-proof, sardine can, where he would surely spend the next
week dying of dehydration. What he needed was a distraction but—as
far as he could tell—there was exactly squat around.

Checking the map he found Pond Run Road to
the south that might have a house or three. It dead-ended into
Route 52, which ran basically north-south next to the facility. If
he could draw the creatures there somehow, it should provide him
the opening he needed to gain entry to the compound.

He circled in from the east and, four-hundred
feet before reaching Route 52 again, turned the Hummer right onto a
private drive leading to a fairly large home. As Jake pulled to a
stop, he noticed not only a modest, two storey, guest home/garage
out back butted up against an in-ground swimming pool, but also a
full-sized tennis court. While he hated to do it, the guest house
should provide everything he'd need to start herding the creatures.
Shutting down the Humvee, he jogged quickly across the drive and
pried the door open.

“Anybody in there?” he called inside and
waited, crowbar at the ready. He repeated the question a few more
times, then stood listening intently for any sign, any sound, any
hint of movement.

A few minutes later, since nothing had come
shambling out to try to bite his face off, Jake moved carefully
into the garage—after jamming a nearby chair under the outer doors
knob—and started searching. It didn't take long to find a pair of
five gallon gas cans. One was full, the other sat at about
two-thirds. He wasted no time emptying the full one throughout the
garage, hallway, front room, and the small kitchen on the ground
floor. He turned on the stove and, as the unruly-haired writer
hoped, the propane tank sitting next to the garage was full. The
gas immediately began hissing from the burners and he sloshed yet
more of the partial can over the stove. He headed for the front
door, checked outside (just in case), then ran a thick line of
gasoline to within ten feet of the Hummer's tailgate. O'Connor
dropped the can in the yard and waited a good ten minutes while he
had another smoke, before bringing the vehicle to life. After
turning it around to face the road again, he took a last puff off
the cigarette, and then tossed it into the line of gasoline. The
trail caught immediately, so he laid some fresh rubber on the
driveway as he sped from the property.

He saw it when the fuel he'd splashed around
the lower level caught, heard it when the gas in the kitchen
exploded—shattering most of the guest-house's windows outward—but
he
felt
it when the large propane tank blew seconds
later.

The tank being there to supply cooking fuel
had been a stroke of luck. He had been certain he'd have been able
to jury-rig
some
kind of noisemaker out of the battery from
the car and an old alarm clock he found in the garage, but the
thundering boom of all that propane igniting made it unnecessary.
Fully a third of the guest house collapsed with the initial blast.
Also, the entire western face was on fire—along with most of the
ground floor—as he stepped from the Hummer and faced the
intersection of Pond Run and Route 52. He pulled the Spas-12,
semi-automatic shotgun from its resting place beside the driver's
seat, set it to single shot, and began firing at the yield sign
four-hundred feet away. Squeezing of one shot every twenty seconds,
he kept shooting until the weapon's eight plus one capacity had
been exhausted, reloaded, and repeated the process twice more. Then
he shut down the vehicle and listened.

The dead were coming.

He could hear the hellish symphony of their
low, gurgling moans getting louder, even over the roar of the
blazing guest-house.

“He-e-e-e-ere zombie, zombie, zombie!” He
called, feeling decidedly reckless. The
last
thing you
wanted to do in the zombie apocalypse was make a shitload of noise
by yelling at the top of your lungs, then hang around to see what
showed up. “Breakfast is served you ugly fucks! Co-o-ome a-a-and
get i-i-i-i-it!”

He continued calling out, firing the
occasional shot into the surrounding area, for fifteen minutes or
so. Then the dead began rounding the corner to the west. They were
(as usual) horrible in the extreme. It was difficult to determine
where clothes ended and flesh began on some, due to all the
deterioration. Frayed shirts and dead skin sloughing off arms and
torsos were frighteningly similar. All the grit and grime and gore
and mud and blood didn't help much, either.

Jake had plenty of time to study the growing
crowd as it began flowing east towards him. The gray-skinned things
were becoming more animated due to the noise of the fire, but also
at seeing him waving at them in the distance. He could've
sworn
the same feral expression was displayed in unison, as
hundreds of filmy eyes locked onto his position.

The creatures didn't show emotions. They had
none to speak of. So what was it he saw in their faces as they
moved towards him? Anger? Hatred? O'Connor realized, as he watched
them stumble on in putrid, single minded purpose, that it was
hunger.
Mindless, all-consuming hunger. He felt the cold
thrill of fear shoot up his spine but pushed it down again until it
lay squirming in his stomach like an icy tapeworm. Tossing the Spas
on the passenger seat, Jake hastened back into the Hummer and
slammed the door shut. It only took a few seconds for its glow plug
to power up and, after bringing the armored vehicle to life, he
quickly drove a few hundred yards farther to the east.

Over the next quarter hour, he continued
luring the creatures in increments away from the Purifiers
location. In all honesty, he'd much rather have blown the gate of
their impromptu fortress from its hinges with an RPG, and then
watched the dead eat the lot of them. He would've too, if they
hadn't been holding Karen. Once he finally reached the one mile
mark, he put the pedal down and raced north-west again, circling
around to the facility's gate.

There were still a few ghouls in the road,
just before the entrance. Maybe thirty or so. Close to the number
he and Kat had fought in the alley behind Foster's Columbus safe
house. They heard the Humvee coming and began shuffling, or
crawling—since there were a few missing their legs and even entire
lower torsos—towards the source of the noise.

He ran the stinking things over, grinning all
the while.

Jake made three passes, turning around each
time a short distance past the group so he could get them all. It
was moments like this that brought a smile to his face. Granted, a
certain redhead could generate one that was larger and far more
lasting, but at this point he'd probably never get to see her
again, so he'd take what he could get. Bodies and limbs went flying
as the Hummer rammed through the pack. Many were killed outright by
the impact of its reinforced, steel bumper, or by their skulls
being pulped as they smashed against the hood and armored quarter
panels.

After backing over the final pair who were
still attempting—unsuccessfully—to rise, due to having their spines
and legs crushed, he turned into the driveway. Upon reaching the
gate, he gave two brief honks on the vehicle's horn.

The sentries were noticeably impressed at the
sight of the gore-covered Humvee from Hell, because they just stood
there staring at it, holding their weapons in unfeeling hands. Jake
took a chance and rolled down the driver's side window carefully.
While the grid-work of steel bars on the outside would prohibit
zombies from getting their hands on him, they had little chance of
stopping bullets.

“Somebody order a large pepperoni with extra
anchovies?” he called up at the guards.

The quartet glanced at each other.

“What are you doing here?” one called down to
him.

“Poole's expecting me,” Jake responded. “Now,
are you assholes going to open up? Or do I get him on the horn and
tell him the deal's off because his doormen have better things to
do?”

That got the sentries moving. Jake rolled up
the window again and waited impatiently as they moved something
from behind the gate, just in case any of the creatures didn't
actually stay occupied with the house fire, or a crafty one was
hiding in the overgrown strip beside the entrance.

“Smart-ghoul,” he breathed, smiling to
himself. He would've really liked to have been able to say goodbye
to Kat, even though he knew it would have caused people to ask
questions. They'd become close, even if they'd never actually been
intimate. Leaving the note for Laurel had been a must. That had
been one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his entire life.
It had hurt a hell of a lot to keep up a normal appearance at
dinner as well. But just taking off, without letting the amazing
blue-haired woman have so much as a word...

He simply couldn't shake the memory of how
she'd felt, body pressed against his own on the roof of the
Agro-supply store, only a few nights prior. He couldn't forget how
his pulse raced when she'd kissed him with those mind-numbing lips.
For a moment, Jake could've
sworn
he could smell her
perfume.

Then the gate was swinging ponderously open.
He dropped the Hummer into gear and slowly pulled through, taking
note of the semi-trailer sitting to one side. It was hooked to a
small bulldozer, allowing the guards to swing it around and
reinforce the entrance quickly if need be. Not a bad secondary
barrier all in all he decided, remembering Rae's gate at the
junkyard.

A group of men, armed with everything from
AK-47s to SIG 516s, waved him towards a large, Quonset-hut style
bay on the right, sixty yards inside the gate. Jake pulled the
vehicle in, killed the engine, and lit another smoke. After taking
a healthy lungful, he passed the strap of his crowbar sling over
one shoulder and stepped out.

“Stay where you are!” One of the Purifiers
called from outside the corrugated steel building.

“Give me a break. Poole knows exactly who I
am and why I came.” He put his arms out to his sides, shoulder
height and did a slow three-sixty. “You can see I'm not armed.”

“What have you got in the Humvee?” the guard
demanded.

Jake took a few more steps towards them and
blew a cloud of smoke from his lungs. “There's a shotgun in the
passenger seat, a pair of binoculars hanging from the rearview and
two cases of MREs in the bed. You're welcome to
those.
I'm
sick of always being stuck with the meatloaf at this point
anyway.”