Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (39 page)

“I thought we needed to keep the noise down.”

Cade said, “If this works, noise won’t matter.”

“If?”

“It will. Don’t worry.” He turned and put his elbow through
the VW’s rear quarter window. As he cleared the webbed glass with the
suppressor, the monster craned around, displaying a mouth full of roiling white
maggots.

Fighting a rising tide of bile, Cade swallowed back a
mouthful of thick saliva and then shot the abomination between the eyes.
Stomach on spin cycle, he reached inside and popped the door open. Thankfully
the seatbelt hanging slack against the B-pillar spared him from having to reach
across the stinking biohazard. Instead, he simply tugged on the sack of rotten
meat, starting it on a three-stage slow-motion roll out the door. First the
putrid cadaver folded over sideways, releasing an eruption of noxious smelling
gasses from its relaxed sphincter. Second, its massive head, acting like a
ship’s anchor, lolled sideways, speeding up the inevitable. Lastly, a tick
before the vicious face plant that would leave the thing face down on the road
with a mouthful of splintered teeth and pulped fly larva, there was a faint
tearing sound as the fabric and dermis and underlying flesh that had become
fused to the seats peeled away cleanly.

For Cade, the unexpected sight of several pounds of marbled
muscle nestled in a pillow of greasy yellowed fat quivering away on the
driver’s seat was the last straw. The puke came out Linda Blair-style. A thin
jet of hot, bitter bile and partially digested MRE pound cake that painted the
already fouled steering wheel, dash, and seat. Hands on knees, Cade emptied his
stomach and then endured a few more dry heaves. Saying nothing, he wiped the
spittle on his sleeve and stepped over the body. Holding his breath, he reached
in and manhandled the standard shifter into neutral and disengaged the E-brake.
Still holding his breath and wanting nothing more to do with the leaking
corpse, he left it where it had come to rest, looped around back of the VW and
stepped over the cable. He formed up next to Wilson, who wore a sour look and was
digging for something in a cargo pocket.

Cade asked, “What?”

Handing over an MRE napkin, Wilson said sheepishly, “Thanks.
I owe you one.”

After dabbing the corners of his mouth, Cade said, “That
makes nineteen or possibly twenty that you owe me ... but who’s counting?” He
turned and waved the napkin at Brook.

Seeing the prearranged cue, Brook released her foot from the
brake and started the F-650 rolling slowly to draw up the cable’s tension. When
the cable snapped straight under the sum of the seven vehicles’ rolling weight,
she pinned the accelerator, bringing the already hard-working power plant to a
howling mechanical crescendo.

Suddenly there was a rapid fire clacking as the cars merged
bumper-to-bumper and then the VW’s rounded rear end started rolling toward the
Ford’s bumper at a jogger’s pace. In her side vision, Brook saw the parked
Raptor slide by from right to left. She glanced over and read Taryn’s lips:
Get
out of the way
.

And she did. Craning over her shoulder and seeing both lanes
clear, she wrenched the wheel hard right. The sharp J-turn took the Ford out of
the way of the unmanned ten tons of rolling metal now tracking towards the far
ditch.

Enunciating every word slowly, Raven said, “We’re in
trouble, aren’t we, Mom?”

“The fat lady isn’t singing yet,” replied Brook. Thinking
quickly, she shifted into Drive and matched the VW’s speed for a couple of car
lengths, until, like a slow motion train wreck, it went ass end into the
chest-high ditch and the U-shaped slack in the cable straightened out
incrementally as each car pounded into the next, their combined weight scooting
the VW along the ditch while at the same time grinding it deeper into the dirt.

From forty feet away the sound of exploding Goodyears and
buckling metal was loud. But from five feet away the sharp reports from
Wilson’s Beretta was deafening.

Cade ignored the gunfire and watched the F-650 jerk around
violently. For a second he thought they would be needing a new vehicle until
the cars it had been towing ground to a halt, leaving the battered Ford sitting
perpendicular to the ditch.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Cade spun around and joined
Wilson in engaging the dead from less than a dozen feet. Glock bucking in his
fist, he suddenly heard Brook call out a warning and when he looked over she
was kneeling next to the assless bloated Z, her stubby M4 belching fire.

Seconds later, after walking into the barrage of withering
fire, the Zs were lying in an untidy tangle and a blue cordite haze hung heavy
overhead.

Changing mags, Brook called over to Cade, “Let’s get the
hell out of here before more of them show up.” Saying nothing, he stalked back
to the truck and returned with a red gas can in hand. Still tight-lipped, he
bypassed Brook and Wilson and the pile of Zs and made his way to the fallen
soldiers. Once there, he stooped over each one of them and took their dog tags.
He removed helmets from three of the corpses, then splashed the contents of the
plastic can, five gallons of precious gasoline, liberally on the entire row.

Brook and Wilson watched Cade for a second and then headed
to the F-650 to untangle the winch cable.

Head down, empty can hanging at his side, Cade passed his
gaze over the dead soldiers, letting it linger momentarily on every pair of
empty eye sockets. With each of their death masks ingrained into his memory, he
trudged back to the Ford, tossed the helmets and empty can in the box bed, and
climbed up and into the passenger seat. He clicked his belt and started to open
his mouth to speak but Brook cut him off. “I know what you have to do,” she
said quietly. “I’ll stop across from the bodies.”

He nodded and stuffed the handful of jangling dog tags into
a cargo pocket.

Brook waited until Wilson was back inside the Raptor before
beginning the slow roll towards the roadblock.

One round from Cade’s Glock was all it took to create the
spark. The gas fumes ignited with a breath robbing
whoosh
and orange
flames leapt up and enveloped the dead.

Feeling the heat from the impromptu funeral pyre warm on his
face, Cade said a simple warrior’s prayer for his brothers and sisters in arms
and then powered up his window.

Sensing her man had made his peace, Brook urged the F-650
forward. They climbed the hill in silence and rolled down the other side,
passing a burnt-out gas station, its yellow plastic sign the only thing left
standing. And with the smoke column fading in the rearview, Brook glanced at
the navigation unit and for Raven’s benefit announced, “Fifteen point three
miles.”

Chapter 57

Daymon had the doe dead to rights. Its ears twitched as the
beautiful animal tugged at the bushes bordering the game trail.
Peaceful
,
thought Daymon, the sound of the nearby creek serenading him. He looked back at
Chief and nodded. But when he turned around and raised the crossbow, finger tensing
against the trigger, the deer went rigid, spooked by something, and then
bounded away with a snort and a crashing of brush.

“Shit,” muttered Daymon. He’d had enough processed food for
one lifetime and could almost taste the savory sizzling venison.

Shaking his head, Chief whispered, “You win some you lose
...”

Interrupting his lament, the sound of a vehicle or possibly
two on the nearby road caught them both flat-footed.

Chief’s carbine was off his shoulder and in his hands in
under a second. In the next breath, Daymon was fumbling for his radio but
stopped abruptly and muttered an obscenity when he realized how far from the
compound they were.

The State Route wound along for a dozen miles, climbing and
dipping and diving while gaining no substantial elevation. Then the verdant
groves of pines harboring small pockets of white aspens thickened to full-blown
forest that encroached upon the road from both sides. At the fifteen-mile mark
the thick canopy suddenly gave way to open sky, which by now was reflecting
fiery orange from the rapidly setting sun.

The first thing that caught Cade’s eye—and apparently
Brook’s too, as she slowed the truck immediately—was the burned-out hulk of
what could only have been a Humvee, the squat blocky body and squared-out window
openings the dead giveaway. Sitting on warped steel rims and listing at an
unnatural angle, it looked sad and alone, discarded like a piece of trash in
the roadside ditch. The smoke resulting from the conflagration had streaked the
tan paint with sooty zebra-stripes. And as they rolled by the wreckage, Cade
picked up on something else. There were dimpled bullet holes in the buckled
side panels that spoke of an ambush involving heavy weapons and some kind of
explosive device. Not the kind of chassis bending, break the vehicle’s back
roadside IED prevalent in the sandbox. He guessed the damage had been inflicted
by something cobbled together hastily, yet deadly all the same.

Breaking the brooding silence, Brook said, “We’re close ...
ya think?”

Cade said nothing for a half-beat. He walked his gaze ahead,
up the two-lane, over the shallow rise and then right to left along its gentle
curve. Finally, he answered with confidence, “I’m dead certain that this
is
the place where Duncan and his brother tangled with the Huntsville bandits.”

Brook couldn’t resist. She said, “I think Duncan’s and
Merriam Webster’s definition of the word are miles apart. Different sides of
the scale. Pretty one sided
tangle
if you ask me.”

“They hit first and hard. Like we did to those pukes from
Green River ... they came looking for trouble and got some.” Fifty feet beyond
the destroyed Humvee was a burned-out SUV nosed into the ditch on the right.

Raven popped up between Brook and Cade. Her arms dangled
over the seat back and her ear buds hung down in front of her. She asked
breathlessly, “What happened here?”

“Stay down, sweetie,” said Cade. He popped the console open
and pulled out the satellite phone. Thumbed it on and resumed scanning the tree
line on both sides of the road.

The two-way came to life and Wilson said, “We’re not rolling
into an ambush ... are we?”

Cade thumbed the talk button. He said, “Negative,” and
dropped the radio on his lap. He craned around, taking it all in. The whole
place had the feel of some kind of hallowed ground. There was no wind rustling
the boughs. The birds, for the most part, had turned in for the night, and
unlike the last couple of miles where the trees crowding in on them amplified
the exhaust notes, only barbed wire lined the road here and both vehicles
combined to create but a whisper in comparison.

The road climbed slightly for a couple of hundred yards and
when the hill’s apex was within spitting distance, startling them all, the
voice in the box boomed:
You have reached your destination.

Brook pulled hard to the shoulder. She looked around and
asked, “Do you see a road?”

“Negative,” said Cade.

Raven added her two cents. “Why don’t you honk, Mom?”

“Not a good idea,” she answered.

“Where is everybody?” pressed Raven, a measure of concern
evident in her voice.

“Give it a minute,” said Cade. He let his eyes walk up the
grass-covered hill to his left where he noticed freshly tilled soil. Then his
eyes were drawn to two deep parallel tracks traversing the hill. He let his
gaze linger on the crushed grass and disturbed low brush just beyond the
rectangular patches of disturbed earth. “Those are graves,” he added. “And just
beyond them ... is where I’d place an over watch position.”

Partially blocking Cade’s view, the Raptor stopped abreast
and the passenger window whirred down. Wilson asked, “Can we get out here and
stretch?”

Brook looked the question to Cade. He nodded. Brook said,
“Get out, but stay frosty.”

That’s my lady.
Smiling, Cade returned his attention
uphill. To the spot set back from the clearing. A warren of low brush and
shadow. He felt a subtle tingle in his gut. Then the hairs on the back of his
arms stood at attention, his sixth sense telling him that someone was indeed
watching them. He tore his eyes from the hillside and regarded the sat-phone’s
display and saw that it had successfully shaken hands with a satellite
somewhere and the signal it was receiving was strong. After cycling through the
menu, he found the entry he wanted and hit the talk button. A second or two
later he heard an obnoxious electronic trilling in his ear. He let it go on for
a five count, then heard a tone and was forced to listen to a generic greeting
delivered by an unconvincing human voice prompting him to leave a message.
Instead he ended the call and met Brook’s inquiring gaze.

“Nothing?”

“Nope,” he admitted. “But at this point if Daymon is still
alive and still has Tice’s phone, he will call me back. No doubt about it.” He
traded the phone for the two-way. Changed the main channel from seventeen to
ten. Then he set the sub channel to one.
Ten-one
, he thought.
Tried
and true. The old standby.
He thumbed the talk button and said, “Anybody
there?”

Nothing.

He tried again. “Old Man, are you there? It’s your amigo
from Portland.”

A burst of static emanated from the speaker and a reedy
sounding male voice replied, “Who are you?”

“Cade Grayson.”

“What was Logan’s nickname?” the man asked.

“Too easy,” said Cade.

“
Nope
. Go fish,” replied the man.

“The
question
... was too easy,” said Cade sharply.
“Logan’s
nickname
was Oops.”

After a second or two, the man came back over the two-way.
“Wait there,” he said. “I’m coming on down.”