Allegiance (43 page)

Cade watched in
disbelief as an overwhelming number of Zs recovered from their thirty-foot
fall, regained their footing, and plowed ahead oblivious of the drifts of glass
crunching underfoot.

Screaming, “
Go, go,
go
,” Cade stood fully upright and targeted the nearest of the snarling
creatures. He fired round after round, sweeping the M4 in a deadly arc from
left to right.

Simultaneously Cross and
Lopez emptied their weapons, bowed their heads under the whirring blades and
leapt to the safety of the waiting craft.

“Three in,” Gaines
called out.

Hearing this, Cade lowered
the M4’s smoking barrel and turned and bolted for the Ghost Hawk, which was now
in a hover with the wheels already retracted into the fuselage.

Although eager to pull
pitch and get clear of the compromised LZ, Ari held the Ghost rock steady three
feet off the deck. He silently rooted for Cade as the Delta operator hurdled
the crossed tree trunks while twisting and contorting his body in order to keep
away from the flesh eaters’ outstretched fingers.

As Cade neared the
hovering helo, everything around him seemed to slow, and he could see a
determined look on Hicks’s face as the crew chief fired the clattering mini-gun
into the dead. And as he lunged to grip Gaines’s offered hand, he could feel
intense heat searing his face and hear wet slaps as the streaking bullets found
flesh behind him.

His boots left the
ground and his body rose with the helicopter. Then, it felt like someone was
sitting on his chest as the G-forces pressed him to the deck. He could tell
that someone had a hold of one leg while Gaines maintained a firm grip on his
gloved hand. The ground spiraled in his vision as the helo banked again and his
organs returned to their normal accommodations. Finally someone helped pull him
completely inside the helo and a gloved hand pulled the door shut in front of
his face, mercifully blotting out the horrors he had just left behind.

Ari’s voice crackled in
his ear. “Close call, amigo.”

Seeing as how his life
had just flashed in front of his eyes, that was definitely the last thing Cade
needed to hear. All the years in combat and the firefights he’d survived had
never prepared him for something like this. As he’d struggled through the
obstacle course of fallen trees, he’d seen Raven’s face in his mind’s eye,
clear as day, and in it she’d been pleading with him to come home. Then,
inexplicably he’d been standing in front of Mike’s grave with Brook at his
side—and he could have sworn the old warhorse had been there in the flesh
trying to offer up advice or a warning, like some kind of Obi Wan Kenobi trick.
Then the vision morphed and he’d found himself staring down at the scene, and
Brook and Raven were all alone graveside; it had seemed so real in that
millisecond flash that he’d thought he had died and they were mourning for him.
Pretty strange how a mainline surge of adrenaline affects the human brain
,
he thought to himself as he closed his eyes, hoping that the hypnotic swishing
noise from the rotors would somehow drive the unsettling visions from his mind.

Outbreak - Day 16

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs,
Colorado

Security
Pod

He was awakened by
someone clutching a substantial handful of his silver mane and jerking his head
from the table with all of the ferocity of a professional wrestler.

Before he could see his
assailant, a thin tablet computer was cast on the table near his manacled
wrists. The person standing in the shadows behind him activated the device,
then swiped an icon that started a video running. After a few seconds a voice
began narrating what he was seeing.

The first clip was taken
in night vision mode which rendered everything in shades of green. It ran for
four minutes and documented a group of men with high tech weaponry as they
flowed silent and effortlessly through a nicely appointed mansion.

By the end of the tape
the efficient killers had eliminated a host of people and were in the process
of defeating what looked to be a thick ornate door.

Soon, a flash of light
marred the feed from the point man’s helmet-mounted camera, and when it
returned to normal the door was hanging open on only one hinge.

Then the image jounced
and a man was removed forcibly from a very large bed, leaving a woman behind,
struggling to cover her naked body.

As Robert Christian
watched the feed wind down, he recognized the man as former President and Guild
member John Cranston. Then the point man pulled in for a close up and asked the
man his name.

“You know who I am. I’m
John Cranston. Former President...”

Suddenly a silenced
pistol entered the frame, and Cranston was shot twice in the head. He fell to
the carpet and the camera followed, then went black.

Soon a second video
played a montage of scenes. The first casualties recorded were the father and
son Presidents from Kennebunkport, Maine. Their vehicle was ambushed near a
bridge, and they were dragged from a late model SUV and questioned briefly
before being executed. Mark Buchannon, dot-com billionaire was next—executed in
his Napa Valley bug out retreat by another team of ruthless killers. The video
ended with Texas oilman and Guild member Hank Ross leaving the earth on the
receiving end of a precision drone strike.

“Seen enough?” the
disembodied voice said.

“Fuck you,” Christian
spat.

The blow to his temple
came from out of nowhere and made him momentarily lose consciousness.

When he came to he saw
stars, and the voice said, “Your Guild is dead, and the President sends her
condolences.”

Christian bit his tongue
because lashing out verbally would only bring him more pain.

“She wanted to make sure
you were aware just how far you have fallen before you fall one final time
tomorrow—through the opening in the gallows.”

The interrogator removed
the iPad and strode from the room, leaving Robert Christian as alone and
helpless as he’d ever been.

Outbreak - Day 16

Winters’s Compound

Eden, Utah

Luckily, the Land
Cruiser had been at the rear of the column when its fuel tank erupted. Three
hours after the ambush, the thing was still smoking and too hot to touch.
Duncan decided to leave it where it was, sitting on melted rims in the middle
of the road at the far west end of the gradual curve—a warning to anyone else
who thought about coming around and causing trouble. He made a mental note to
sit down with the rest of the survivors—the men and the women—and brainstorm on
better ways to protect them against further intrusions.

The engine groaned as he
used the Humvee as a makeshift wrecker and pushed the other bullet-riddled
vehicles onto the shoulder. He slid out of the driver seat, walked over to the
fence and retrieved the length of hose and the empty gas can from where Lev had
left it.

Not looking forward to
the prospect of the foul-tasting diesel touching his lips, he trudged over to
the Hummer with the destroyed engine block.
Good shooting, Oops
, he
thought to himself as he watched the vehicle’s lifeblood dripping onto the
cement. He noted how the black oil and antifreeze-tinged water refused to mix.
It reminded him of how he and his little bro were before the apocalypse threw
them back together. He had always wanted to foster some kind of a bond with his
brother when Logan was a kid, but the drastic age difference had made it all
but impossible. Now they were thick as thieves and he vowed to make up for lost
time.

He put the hose to his
lips and sucked.
Never works on the first try
, he thought to himself. He
tried again this time, sucking harder, and before he could pull away the
familiar foul taste was in his mouth.

After the five-gallon
can was full, he put the hose aside and searched his pockets for the Zippo.
Though he’d quit smoking years ago—for a woman, of course—he still carried the
prized lighter he’d picked up in Da Nang.

While Duncan was dealing
with the destroyed vehicles, Lev and Logan heaped the rotters into the ditch
along with the others from the day before.

Duncan walked from one
end of the moldering pile of corpses to the other, letting the thick diesel
glug from the can. He didn’t discriminate—whether they used to be men, women,
or children—all were anointed with their fair share of accelerant. And when he
was done, he lit the Zippo and touched it to the nearest fuel drenched rotter..

He watched the blue
flame jump from body to body as the unmistakable stench of burning hair wafted
over the funeral pyre. Soon the entire lot was fully engulfed.

He watched the bodies
sizzle and steam as fluids cooked off and vaporized. After a short time, a
smell he remembered all too well assailed his nose. It was the same smell
belched out of any flame-broiling burger joint or at home from the BBQ grill on
a hot summer day. Burnt flesh was burnt flesh. Cow, lamb, or man—it all smelled
the same.

Having seen enough death
for one lifetime, Duncan trudged up the hill to about the halfway point, and
without saying a word took the shovel out of Jamie’s hands. He pushed the blade
through the grass and began to dig into the soft topsoil. Before long the grave
was big enough to accommodate the dead humans. Silently the shooters went about
the grim task of burying the burned bodies from the Toyota, as well as the
other bullet-riddled corpses. For an hour, they scooped dirt over the fallen,
and when the staring eyes and contorted faces were covered, they tamped down
the dirt.

Then, starting with
Chief, one by one the six men and one woman traded their shovels for a weapon.
Before long, the engine noise that Chief had detected coming from the east
became more pronounced and drew nearer.

With the vehicles still
sitting on the shoulder and the zombie bodies cooking in the ditch, there was
no chance in hell that the approaching vehicle was going to pass by the scene
without stopping to investigate.

Duncan started off down
the hill, sprinting for the operable Humvee, his sights set on the fully-loaded
heavy machine gun. He parted the barbed wire and squeezed through, leaving a
good-sized chunk of flesh behind.

He reached the tan rig,
climbed into the turret, and had just brought the machine gun to bear when a
black and white SUV emerged from the east where the road curved to the right
and disappeared into the trees. He kept one hand on the .50 cal’s handle and
fumbled for the binoculars with his free hand. As he pressed the field glasses
to his face, the words
Jackson Hole Police Department
leapt out at him.
He steadied his arms on the bullet-pocked metal plate and focused on the
driver.

“Well, I’ll be damned,”
he said in a low voice. He recognized the dreadlocked driver, but the blonde
woman who was riding shotgun was another story. “Hold your fire!” he bellowed.

***

“Duncan!” hollered
Daymon as he stepped from the Tahoe and stretched his long legs. “Ain’t you a
sight for sore eyes. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, last I remember I
was watching you from a hundred-foot hover back in Driggs... scalping zombies
and jumping fences.” He clapped the taller man on the shoulder. “Good stuff.”

“Some help you were.”

“At least I hovered and
distracted them and made sure you got inside your house... felt like a dad
watching his kid walk off to school alone for the first time.”

Daymon went silent. He
looked at the wound on Duncan’s face, then his gaze shifted to the remnants
from the lopsided battle, the oily smoke drifting from the ditch where the
bodies had been reduced to misshapen human-like forms. He looked at the
bullet-pocked vehicles. Then he regarded the hard faces of those he didn’t know
or failed to recognize. “I thought you said the compound was in
Eden
,
Utah.”

“Not technically. It
butts up against federal lands on one side. Eden and Huntsville are about the
same distance as the crow flies. Methinks my little bro just liked the ring
Eden has to it.” Duncan smiled and pointed at the Tahoe. “Get in your rig. I’ll
show you to the compound where you and me can play a little catch up and the
others can get acquainted.”

“What about this?”
Daymon said, making a sweeping gesture at the burned and bullet-riddled
vehicles.

“We’re finished here for
now.”

I’d hate to see what
the encore looks like
, thought
Daymon as he walked back to the Tahoe. He smiled to set Heidi at ease as he
slid into the driver’s seat. “Thank God for GPS,” he stated. “The compound is
close to here.”

Somewhere
west of the Colorado Rockies

Ian Bishop gazed across
the crystalline waters lapping at the sand near his feet, then considered the
razor-edged upthrust peaks filling his view and the forces that had shaped
them. He took another long pull from his Corona and crunched it back into the
overfilled ice bucket, thinking there wasn’t another place he would rather be.

So far the occupants of
the nearby towns and all of the survivors scattered about tending to their own
little fiefdoms hadn’t seemed bothered by his arrival and the added activity.
That he and his men helped to keep the undead population down by sending out
patrols of their own seemed better than a few promises or treaties filled with
hollow words.

But that will soon
change
, Bishop thought. When the
men returned from their foraging missions, the balance of power in this alpine
nirvana was going to shift noticeably. And when it did, the folks would either
be
with him
or against him—no middle ground.

He brought the bottle to
his lips and listened to the generator hum in the distance. Suddenly the
Iridium sat phone in his pocket rang.

He looked at the
incoming number, then at his watch, noted the time and thought to himself:
Just
like clockwork. Time to sink or swim, Elvis. If he couldn’t figure out a way to
get to the coordinates I provided, then the man doesn’t deserve to be part of
the new venture.

With a no nonsense look
on his face, Bishop silenced the phone and fished another cold beer from the
ice.