Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey (54 page)

Andy turned his truck onto the gravel road that edged the
southwest corner of Ghost Echo Lake. Several flocks of geese were floating just
outside the winter-scarred cattail border of the lake. Michelle knew that the
gravel road meandered generally to the north and west for about five miles. Every
so often either nature, or some diligent fishermen would create an access point
from the gravel to the water. At five miles, the road dead-ended at the remains
of a long abandoned single wide trailer. The faded blue aluminum siding still
showed the remnants of the trailer’s sorted history. Primarily a bait shop, it
had also served as a rental cabin for fishermen and, in its most recent
incarnation about four years ago, a meth lab. Neither Michelle nor Eric had
been involved in that bust. In any event, the dirt road up to Andy’s cabin cut
off the gravel at the three and a half mile mark.

“You’ve been quiet ever since we turned off the pavement. Do
you want to share?” Michelle asked Andy.

“Nah . . . just thinking. Same old stuff. Mostly about how
much we don’t know.”

“Do you think Samantha has been able to find out anything?”

Andy gave a noncommittal shrug. “I hope so, but I just don’t
know. I’m still kicking myself for not grabbing any intel when we were at the
school. And to be honest, what we do know scares the tar out of me.”

Michelle let that comment percolate for while as the truck
crept up the dirt road, occasionally sliding a little on a muddy patch. Two
miles from the gravel put them at the halfway point to the cabin, and Michelle
called Andy’s attention to a cow moose and her calf that were standing in the
lengthening shadows of an aspen grove. Andy stopped the truck and they watched
for a few moments as the calf pranced around its mama in the late afternoon sun.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Andy said.

“I always get a kick out of watching a baby moose. They look
like they’re all legs. It’s too bad that Doc’s granddaughter isn’t here right
now. I think that Doc said she was supposed to photograph moose and cougar.”

Andy put the truck back in gear and said, “Yeah, I’m pretty
sure that’s what Doc told us.”

Another mile passed with only the low rumble of the truck’s
engine as company. They crested a low rise and began to traverse a series of
gently twisting dips in the road, the bottom of each still flowing with
trickles of runoff. Michelle started giggling.

“What’s so funny?” Andy questioned.

Michelle pointed backwards at the bottom of the last dip. “Did
Eric ever tell you about the humungous keg party he had there?”

“No, I guess he forgot to mention that one.” Andy shook his
head as he replied.

“Well, since you spilled the beans on him to me, I guess I
can return the favor.”

“Do tell.”

Michelle laughed again and said, “When we were juniors in
high school, the guys from the cross country ski team, of which Eric was a
member, decided to have a huge Saint Patrick’s Day party. Somehow or other the
idea expanded into an early spring camping trip, fishing trip, and party of the
century all rolled into one. Everybody in school knew about it, but by the time
the rubber hit the road, they only had seven guys. Somehow or other Eric had
managed to buy a sixteen gallon keg of green beer, and they stuffed it, along
with themselves and all of their camping and fishing stuff, into somebody’s four
wheel drive Suburban. Their plan was to cut school and drive up to your cabin
for a weekend of nonstop partying. I don’t know where you were, but Eric said
you wouldn’t be there.”

Andy said, “Hmmm, I can’t rightly say. I was in California
and Texas a lot when Eric was in high school.”

“Well, as the story was told to me, the weather forecast
called for a sunny weekend with highs in the mid-forties, and the guys were
just chomping at the bit to go. Except that three of the guys got caught trying
to skip out on school. A quick call to their parents from the principle, and
they weren’t going anywhere. The remaining four managed to sneak out without
getting busted, only to realize that all of their stuff was still in the truck
of one of the guys who got busted. Someone, I don’t know who exactly—but my
money’s on Eric—managed to get the keys off of the guy in detention and they
moved all of their stuff into Eric’s Cherokee. By then it was almost time for
school to let out anyhow.” Michelle let out a laugh as she continued, “So by
the time the guys actually got to leave Jamestown, it was like 3:00 PM. Of
course, the weatherman was wrong . . . and no sooner do they get on the road
than it starts snowing. And snowing. And snowing. But you know guys, they never
give up . . . and what normally would take them about three and a half hours
ended up taking them until almost 9:00 PM. So they finally made it to the dirt
road, and of course it’s got a foot of snow on it. But do they stop and turn
around?  Nooooooo . . .” Michelle stretched out the word for a long count of
three, and Andy let loose several chuckles.

Michelle continued, “No. They don’t stop. Eric managed to
drive about one and a half miles before he slid off the road and buried his
truck up to the axles. Now you would think that after so much misfortune a
normal person would say ‘that’s it, I’ve had enough’ . . . But do these four
throw in the towel?  Nope. They decide they’ll walk the rest of the way,
carrying all their stuff with them, including—get this—the sixteen gallon keg
of beer.”

Andy laughed out loud and said, “Testosterone poisoning . . .
been there, done that.

“So now,” Michelle giggled, “these guys have been rolling
this heavy keg of green beer for another mile or so, and is was almost midnight
when they got to the top of the last little dip back there. One of the guys loses
his grip and the keg gets away from them, bouncing and rolling down the hill. Somewhere
near the bottom it goes off course and takes a sharp left into the woods with
all the guys chasing it. Apparently, it made it about one hundred yards off the
road before it came to rest at this little rocky overhang.”

“I think I know where you’re talking about,” Andy said.

“Well, the guys finally caught up to it, but they’re so
exhausted they decided to set up camp and have the party right there. A couple
of the guys hefted the keg about three feet off the ground and set it on a big
rock. Somehow, they managed to get a small fire going, and they’re just
thinking that their luck has finally changed when the keg starts sliding off of
this rock. So now remember, this is the same keg that’s survived a mile of being
pushed up and down hills, not to mention a thirty miles per hour, seventy-yard
long tumble down the road followed by another hundred yards of crashing through
the forest,” Michelle put both of her hands on her face and shook as she
laughed with the memory. “Anyhow, this keg slides off of the rock and hits
something that punctures it. Well that keg started spinning around like one of
those Fourth of July jumping jack fireworks, and it soaked all of the guys with
green beer. It even put out their fire.”

Andy stopped the truck as his chest heaved with hilarity, but
Michelle wasn’t finished. Managing to quench her own fit of amusement, she said,
“So now you’ve got to picture this. These four guys, totally worn out and
exhausted. Standing in a foot of green snow and shivering because they’re
soaked as well. But do they give up then?  No. They decide that they’re going
to tilt the keg and pour themselves as many Styrofoam cups of green beer as
they can until the keg is dry, then walk the rest of the way and spend the
night in your cabin. Eric said they managed to chug about a dozen sixteen ounce
cups of beer each over the next forty-five minutes. By then the keg was empty
and they were about froze to death.” Michelle slapped the dashboard and said,
“But they’re all standing there, looking at each other with these dumb ass
expressions on their face, because they’re all still stone cold sober. It
turned out that Eric had bought non-alcoholic beer by accident.”

Andy exploded with laughter, pounding the steering wheel and
trying to suck in enough air to fuel even more laughter, and Michelle was
crunched over, holding her gut and fighting to breathe. After a solid minute of
gut-wrenching, dash-slapping chortling, the two of them settled into a few
rounds of catching their breath and shaking their heads.

“Oh my, that must have been something else,” Andy said.

“Yeah, I wish I would have been there,” Michelle added as Andy
once again moved the truck onward. “I’ll bet Eric and Walter are sitting in
front of a fire right now, sipping a couple of beers and playing cards.”

“I imagine,” said Andy. “Why don’t you try them on the
radio?” he added.

“Good idea.”

Michelle keyed the transmit button and spoke.
“Fish and Wildlife
one to game warden one, do you copy?”
When no reply came she repeated her
hail.

“Fish and Wildlife one to game warden one, do you copy?”

After a brief pause Thompson’s somewhat broken voice came
over the radio.
“Ah, this is Mad Indian transport, we read you.”

“Mad Indian?”
Michelle shot back quickly.

“Affirmative,” Thompson
’s deep laughter filtered through the radio as he went
on.
“About thirty seconds after we split up, your truck blew a tire. Normally
it would be a no brainer, but a certain Indian started to get a little testy
when we had to unload EVERYTHING in the truck just to find the compartment
where the jack was. Plus he’s still wet and cranky from his scouting mission by
the blockade. And then he discovered that your doughnut was flat,” Thompson
cackled again before continuing.
“So we are currently still about a mile
from our destination, limping slowly down the road.”

“10-4, we’re almost at the cabin . . . just thought we’d try
and get a hold of Eric and Walter.”

“Roger that. See you when you get here. Out.”

Andy followed the road straight for another 100 yards before
it turned to the right, breaking out of the forest on its way down slope toward
the couple of cleared acres around his cabin.

"Ah, home again, home again, jiggity-jog. I was
beginning to wonder if I'd ever see . . ." He cut off his words in
midsentence and slowed the truck to a stop, squinting his eyes at the scene
before him. The broad scalloped valley stretched out before them, and the cabin
appeared as they left it. Something else was also as they left it. Eric's truck
was still there. Parked a short distance away from Eric's pickup, however, was
something that was most definitely not as they left it. Slightly angled toward
the front porch, a bright yellow pickup with dark tinted windows and big tires
sat.

“What the hell . . . .” Andy’s voice trailed off as he
stared.

“Isn’t that the truck with the two guys in it that we saw
when we were gassing up the minivan?” Michelle asked, already sure of the
answer herself.

Andy grabbed the binoculars and raised them to his eyes. “It’s
got to be. Same tires, same matching cap.”

“And why is Eric still here?  Do you suppose he hasn’t found
Doc’s granddaughter yet?  Or do you think something’s happened to him?”
Michelle asked with an edge of concern in her voice.

Andy scanned the yellow truck and cabin again before
answering. “I’m not worried about Eric. He’s really good in the woods, but
there’s a lot of area she could be in. I’m much more concerned about those two
guys, and for that matter . . . Samantha and Garrett. I don’t like this,” he
put down the binoculars and turned towards Michelle. “Keep a sharp eye out.”

Michelle pulled her Glock out of its holster on her duty belt,
dropping the magazine into her left hand with a quick press of the release
button. Verifying it was full, she slammed it home and reholstered her pistol. Her
shotgun was on the seat next to her, and she checked that as well. “Let’s go
have a word with the rednecks.” Andy nodded and shifted the truck into drive.

They pulled up slightly behind Eric’s parked truck and got
out. Michelle had the shotgun across her chest in a two handed grip, and Andy
had his 40 caliber Smith and Wesson held low in both hands. Moving up to the
driver’s door of Eric’s truck, Michelle peaked in through the window.

“Nobody . . . it’s clear,” she told Andy softly.

A dull
thump-thump
came from the yellow truck and
Michelle raised the shotgun. Meeting Andy’s eyes, she nodded in that direction
and they both approached with the guns pointed. At the rear of the yellow Ford,
the sound intensified.

Whumppp-thump.

It was definitely coming from the bed of the pickup, and
Michelle readied the shotgun as Andy grabbed the handle. Turning it slowly ninety
degrees, the truck cap’s rear window sprang upward, propelled by small
hydraulic lift cylinders. Andy let go and it
ssssiiiisssssss’d
open. The
height of the tires and closed tailgate still kept them from seeing into the
bed, so Andy reached up and pulled the latch, dropping the tailgate and
exposing the interior. Michelle sprang upward, thrusting the muzzle of the
shotgun ahead of her. The bed was filled with a scattering of assorted items. Rope,
tarps, tools, and whatnot competed for space with gas cans, boxes and a
hodgepodge of a dozen different containers of various shapes and sizes. All of
that was secondary as their eyes focused in on the source of the noise. Trussed
up with layers of rope and flat nylon webbing was a small child, a girl no more
than three or four years old. She was mummified so completely by her bonds that
all she could do in her struggles was something akin to the worm dance. Only
her face was uncovered, and her sickly, blood-red eyes were immediately
apparent. Michelle instantly felt a mixture of horror and pity at the sight,
and got ready to pull the trigger.

“Careful, she bites,” came the voice to their left.

Michelle and Andy both spun around at the same time. Two men
were standing there, each of them held a gun. Both were pointed directly at
them.

The one on the left, a scruffy-faced broad shouldered man
with stringy brown hair that hung to his mid-back said, “William, it seems to
me we found a couple of trespassers.”

The one addressed as William, slightly taller in height but
equally broad, chuckled darkly. “What do you suppose we should do with them,
Kurt?”

Andy spoke up. “I believe that of the four of us, it’s you
two that are the trespassers. Now I suggest that you get your ass back in your
truck and get the hell off of my property. Right now!”

William shook his head and said, “What we got here is a
Mexican standoff. Everybody pointing guns at everybody else. Why don’t we all
just calm down and talk about this.”

Michelle jabbed the shotgun six inches closer as she hissed,
“Why would we want to talk to somebody who keeps infected babies in their
truck.”

Kurt and William looked at each other briefly, then William
said, “Now missy, you just wait a minute. We saved that baby from one of them
zombies back on the road. We were trying to find a hospital to get some help
when it turned.”

“Drop your guns and we can talk this out,” Andy said.

“Uh-huh,” Kurt grinned and said, “No dice. Why don’t you drop
your guns and then maybe we’ll talk.”

“Not a chance,” Andy replied. “You’re the same two guys that
were eyeballing us a few days back, and I’d be willing to bet that you had
something to do with that blockade we came through.

A slowly forming but wide smile crept onto William’s face as
he answered. “Well old man, you’re half right. We did set up that roadblock,
but it ain’t two of us . . .”

The heavy touch of a cold metallic barrel pressed into the
back of Michelle’s neck.

“Move and die bitch,” a nasally, raspy voice breathed into
her ear and sent chills of terror racing through her. She felt a fist reach up
and clench a handful of her hair, pulling her tighter against the gun at her
neck. “Now . . . ever so slowly, lower that scattergun.”

Michelle arced her eyes to the left, catching a brief glimpse
of Andy. She caught a flash of indecision etched upon his face before a kick to
the back of her legs dropped her to her knees. The hand tightened on her hair
as the voice said, “Go ahead, old man. Shoot. And then you can watch as I
fertilize the grass with the redhead’s brain. It’s your call. Hell, the world’s
already ending, so I guess I don’t really give a rat’s asshole what you do.”

Michelle jerked her head left and right and she started to
say, “Don’t . . .“ A heavy thud crashed into the side of her temple, splitting
the skin open and stunning her momentarily. When her vision cleared she saw
Andy with his hands at his side. A smoldering fire burned in his eyes as he
looked at the men. The look changed to one of deep sorrow as he met Michelle’s
eyes. The man called Kurt moved up and jerked the gun out of Andy’s grasp.

Stuffing the gun in his waistband, Kurt said, “Hey Pinto,
what do you say we feed the geezer to the little monster?”

William came up and slid the shotgun from Michelle’s grasp,
leaning it against the yellow truck before coming forward again and removing
the Glock from her holster. The voice behind her answered. “No. I don’t want
any more of them things around here.” Michelle was jerked to her feet and spun
around. A meaty hand tightened around her windpipe and slammed her against the
truck. She felt William pull the handcuffs out of their pouch on her belt, and
then her wrists were roughly grabbed and cuffed in front of her. The man
holding her throat was short and stocky. Greasy black hair protruding from
underneath a rumpled cowboy hat framed a face that looked like it had seen many
bar fights. Or prison. With a quick twist and pull, he once again held Michelle
facing away from him by her hair.

“You there . . . old guy. Today’s your lucky day. I’m going
to let you go. So you just turn around and start walking . . . and don’t come
back. You understand?  Pinto’s voice was even and firm, almost believable. When
Andy didn’t move, Pinto barked a short laugh and said, “I guess you’re hard of
hearing. I said start walking, grandpa. Head toward the lake and don’t stop
until your hat floats. Three . . . two . . .”

Andy turned around and started taking measured steps away
from the trucks toward the lake. Michelle’s gut was screaming inside, fearful
of what she knew was coming. At twenty paces, Kurt looked over at Pinto, who
said, “Do it.”

Michelle saw the man called Kurt draw Andy’s pistol from his
waistband and raise it.

“NO!!!!” she screamed, but not in time. The loud gun blast
shattered the stillness of the fading sunlight, and Andy dropped like a stone.

Michelle struggled, kicking and biting at anything she could
reach before several blows to her midsection knocked the wind out of her. She
dry heaved on the ground for several seconds before she was yanked to her feet
again. Kurt and William each had her by an elbow, and she was lifted up and
turned to face Pinto. Sucking in a lung full of air, she cut loose with a
threatening string of profanity and curses.

The man in the cowboy hat broke out into an evil smile and
said, “Mmm hmm . . . a dirty mouth and a hot body. Boys . . . we gonna have a
good time breaking this filly.”

Michelle struggled as she felt Kurt’s hand close across her
mouth. Vice-like arms gripped her and she was dragged toward the cabin.