Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) (9 page)

“If you make a 'Want some candy, little
girl?' joke, I am going to spank you,” Jake promised.

“Never crossed my mind,” Cho said loftily.
“What's your take on it?”

Jake peered around the mobile home, using its
overturned propane tank to keep hidden. “No cover to speak of along
the road, lots of tight spots between what's left of the trailers,
plenty of room for somebody to hide given half a chance and half a
brain.”

“Yeah. Makes me want to backtrack and brave
running into zombies to find another way around.” Kat nodded and
slid back around the corner. “What say we do just that?”

Jake didn't answer, so she tried again.

“Come on, stud. Time to make tracks.”

That didn't elicit a response either.

“Hey, I have an idea!” Kat switched tactics.
“Let's head back to that Circle K we passed a few blocks ago, crack
open a six-pack of Angry Orchard, lock ourselves in the cooler, get
snookered—”

Mmh.” Jake grunted, still focused on the view
down the street.

“I'll strip down and give you a lap-dance,
wearing nothing but some whip cream in the shape of a bikini,” Kat
went on.

“Uh-huh.”

“-Then we'll have the hottest, most insanely
mind-blowing sex in all of human history-”

“Right.” Jake nodded, considering their
options.

“Just before we fly our rainbow-farting
unicorn into space and blow up the Death Star,” Kat finished with a
straight face.

“Sounds g… Wait, what?” Jake frowned. “Death
Star?”

Kat shook her head. “Out of all that, what
actually registers in your brain is a
Star Wars
reference?
Amai kami, Anata wa kono yona a hodesu!”

“Huh? I don't speak Japanese, Kat.”

“Sweet gods, you are such a
dork!”
she
translated, stifling a giggle.

Jake gave her a level gaze. “Are you
finished?”

“Maybe.” Cho grinned unrepentantly.

“Let's double back to the next street.” By
now, Jake was resigned to the fact that he was the
Rodney-fucking-Dangerfield of the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Moving as quietly as he could, O'Connor
followed Cho as she crept along the bottom of the easement on the
other side of the road. Even though it hadn't rained in days, there
was still a good amount of water running through the roadside
ditch. Enough to bring Jake fond memories of a certain drainage
ditch at a water treatment plant. He sighed mentally and counted
his blessings.

At least there's no sewage in this
one
, Jake thought dryly.

Kat scurried from the ditch and into the
sparse underbrush beneath charred trees at the side of the road and
Jake followed. The pair trekked for ten full minutes through the
blackened woods before turning east to circle the trailer park.
During that time, Jake didn't see a single sign of life. No deer,
no squirrels, not even a single bird. While the zombies didn't pay
much attention to nonhuman forms of life, the survivors had seen
them devour the unlucky cat, dog, even cows if the group of
infected were large and fast enough. While it was possible for them
to deplete the indigenous species of a given area, the dead forest
was different. As terrible as it was, that seemingly endless
devastation caused by a naturally occurring phenomena was almost
comforting in the face of extinction by zombies. It was an event
they could understand, however unfortunate. There hadn't been an
explanation as of yet of as to why the dead rose to consume the
living, even from governmental sources, and it didn't seem likely
one would be forthcoming any time in near future.

Perhaps that explained Jake's desperate need
to get his friends to the safety of the Rockies. Unlike most of his
group, he'd long accepted the world as they'd known it had come to
an end months ago and there was no way to resuscitate the
once-mighty civilization. Whatever followed, if anything did, would
be something new. Maybe this time, they'd figure out a way to
create a system of government without boat-loads of self-serving,
mealy-mouthed politicians.

They'd just passed burned zone's border and
moved through a small ravine onto a dirt path behind the town's
high school, when O'Connor heard the distinctive sound of an
engine. He and Kat shared a look, then ran for a nearby hill
covered with young pine trees to the north. Upon reaching the
evergreens, Jake doffed his pack, tossed it into the sloping
evergreens, then he and Kat hurled themselves into the foliage
after it.

“Up the road in front of the school?” Kat lay
on one hip, carefully attaching her Glock's suppressor, taking care
not to cross-thread the slim can over the weapon's barrel.

Jake readied his Hammer automatic. The
massive handgun was George Foster’s own creation. Hammer stood for:
a high impact, multi-caliber, repeater. ‘Hammer’ for short. The
weapon fired .45 slugs or any 12 gauge ammo, and the upper barrel
was adaptable to take a suppressor. You didn’t want to try to use
any shot with it on though, or you’d get hit by some blow-back. It
was only accurate at up to fifty yards, but Jake didn't want to
attempt shooting farther than that without a rifle anyway. Vents
along the pistol's slides directed the combustion force of the
round up at a forty-five, so the barrel didn’t jump. It was double
action too, so recoil was almost zero. Basically, if what you were
shooting at bled, the Hammer could kill it.

Either that or make it hurt so bad, it’d wish
it was dead.

“I think so,” he replied, racking back the
Hammer's slide to insure the weapon had one round waiting in the
chamber.

As they lay there on the scratchy, brown
carpet of dead needles, the engine noise from the approaching
vehicle continued to grow, and Jake frowned.

“Whoever it is, they don't seem too concerned
with keeping quiet,” he mused, eyes searching the block to the high
school's west side.

Kat nodded. “I know right? What's that about?
You'd think anyone who's survived this long would have enough sense
to keep a low profile, wouldn't you? I mean: make tons of noise,
attract tons of zombies... It's not rocket science, for heaven’s
sake.”

Jake nodded noncommittally.

Finishing up with her suppressor, Kat ran a
hand through her short, blue hair. “I mean, I know this is
small-town Ohio and all, but it takes some true genius to motor
about in something that loud, then wonder why every maggot-head in
the area follows you around.”

O'Connor snorted. “Says the crazy-person who
insists on riding around with yours truly in a Humvee, that's not
exactly stealthy in any sense of the word, with a giant smile
painted on its crash-plate in the middle of the zombie
apocalypse.”

Cho raised an eyebrow. “That's different, and
you know it. We use the Hummer to scout out routes for the Mimi,
not to take joyrides. Whoever that is, is puttering all over and
just attracting attention.”

Jake had to concede her that point. Their
group had been trapped in his landlord's warehouse property for
over a month back in Columbus when the dead had first begun to
rise, and would never even have attempted the trek south if not for
George Foster's monstrous transport.

When the gray-haired, ex-navy chief turned
Fixer first trooped their party down into the motor pool, hidden
under the government safe-house connected to the apartment tenement
he'd owned and operated, all of their jaws had nearly hit the
floor. The Mimi was a vehicle unlike anything the survivors had
seen. First of all, it was segmented, like a trio of subway cars,
and longer than one of those intimidating, double-trailer,
eighteen-wheeler trucks. Second, the nose tapered back from a
narrow, vertical, eight foot tall wedge that protruded from the
front (almost like a snowplow blade), and met seamlessly with the
first segment just before the vehicle's lead wheels. It hadn't been
difficult for them to imagine how easily it would push, or even
just ram right through, mangled cars that were surely littering the
roadways at that time. Its bottom hull sat a good three feet above
the ground, riding heavy independent axles and gigantic run-flat
tires. None of the segments had shown any obvious access hatches
and there was a 1940's circa, pin-up emblazoned on the side of a
dark-haired girl riding a bomb. Below her, hand painted letters
scrolled out “The Screamin' Mimi.”

And the whole vehicle was pink.

Not “kind of” pink, or “slightly pinkish”,
but the most hideous shade of
Holy-Fucking-Shit-That-Is-Fucking-Ugly!
Pepto-Bismol,
day-glow pink, any of them had ever witnessed.

“This,” Foster had said proudly, in his
normal, gravely, cigar smoke-tinged growl, “is a MATTOC, a Mobile,
Armored, Troop Transport and Operation Command vehicle. Originally
designed for use in case of widespread riots during the aftermath
of Y2K. Her hull's covered with SEP skin. That's short for
synthesized electron polymer. Impervious to damn near any impact,
short of a nuke. Can't be cut, won't burn, and it's almost
frictionless. Developed initially for the outside of the space
shuttle, but it couldn't be produced in any other color and NASA
didn't want to be known for sending big, pink peckers into space.
Never mind that without all the wind drag, they coulda launched
missions using only an eighth of the fuel it normally takes to
achieve orbit. Pretty dumb for a bunch of eggheads, if you ask
me.”

The survivors (Jake included) had been a bit
leery about betting their lives on Foster's bubblegum behemoth at
first but, given that other options were a bit thin on the ground
just then, had decided to take the risk. So they'd trained for a
month readying their bodies and, after gathering what supplies they
could, set out for the rumored “safe zone” west of the Rocky
Mountains.

The trip had turned out to be a bit
problematic.

“Alright, I'll agree we're a bit more
cautious than this group, whoever they are, seem to be.” Jake
watched the road. “You do see my point though, right? While the
Mimi has that hydrogen drive system, which is quiet, the Hummer
sounds like a truck-sized tiger with laryngitis. I wish Rae had
added a damn muffler when she'd been modifying it.”

“If wishes were fishes...” Kat shrugged.

Jake glanced away from the road and frowned.
“That's very off-putting, you know. Laurel says the exact same
thing when I ask her to help reload magazines. It's irritating as
hell.”

“Duh.” Kat stretched out, making herself more
comfortable and rested her chin on one palm. “Who do you think she
stole the phrase from?”

“Is that some kind of woman thing?” he
asked.

Cho laughed. “I'm telling Laurel you said
that.”

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't.”

Kat smiled brightly. “What'll ya give
me?”

Before Jake could launch into his trademark
“This is neither the time nor the place” spiel, a truck barreled
around the far corner of the high school.

“What. The exact. Fuck.” Kat was staring at
it in obvious disapproval.

Said truck was atrocious. First of all, the
front fenders were two different colors: one primer gray, one
canary yellow, letting an observer know it'd had some recent body
work done. Then (as if that weren't bad enough), it had no outside
fenders under the tailgate, allowing anyone to see its mud-coated
undercarriage behind the oversized “mud-boggin'” tires. Its rims
were mismatched, obviously taken from at least two different
vehicles, there was a poorly-done rebel flag painted on top of its
hood, and a cooler strapped to the roof of the cab.

And it was equipped with hydraulic
shocks.

As Jake and Kat watched, the front of the
Chevy began bouncing up off the surface of the road, even though
the truck was only moving at a slow walk. To make matters worse,
the driver began honking the truck's horn in time with each
bounce.

“You've got to be shitting me.” Kat's mouth
narrowed into a thin line. “That's the most ridiculous thing I've
ever seen, even before the whole zombie thing started. Who gives
their ride hydraulics
and
off-road tires? I swear, some
people.”

Blinking and quickly shaking his head, in the
hopes the image of the crap-tastic truck wouldn't be stuck in his
brain forever, Jake didn't trust himself to give a suitably
intelligent reply. Anything he would've said just then would have
simply reinforced Kat's opinion.

The truck ceased its jumping and, thankfully,
whoever was inside stopped honking the horn then rolled to a stop
perhaps fifty yards away. The driver's door opened and, to Jake's
surprise, a woman jumped down from the running board.

Jake's mouth hung open.

Though possessing abysmal taste in
automobiles, the woman was a site to behold and could only be
described as a knockout. She stood perhaps 5' 9”, with a mane of
curly, black hair that wafted slightly about her shoulders in the
weak morning breeze. Faded jeans rode low on her hips over a pair
of well-used hiking boots, and the brief tube top was more of an
accessory than an actual shirt. Jake could almost see her nipples
through it from where he lay beneath the pines.

Questionable fashion choices aside, she did
wear a police-issue duty holster on one hip and, reaching back into
the truck, pulled out a Remington 700 bolt action rifle. If George
Foster had been there, he would have nodded in approval. The weapon
had what looked to be a twenty-four inch barrel, a basic no-frills
sling, and sported a Leupold FX 4x33 scope. George and O'Connor had
spoken many times during their Columbus seclusion about weaponry
and had professed affection for the weapon. It could push a
160-grain projectile downrange at approximately 2,900 feet per
second and, had George not had a pair of Long-Arm sniper rifles, he
would've purchased a pair of them long ago. That likely meant the
dark-haired woman knew a thing or two about marksmanship, but
anyone who'd survived this long surrounded by the dead would have
to be a decent shot, anyway.