Flesh Eaters (20 page)

“Stop where you’re at,” Shaw said.

He pulled his weapon and pointed it at the zombie without any real expectation that it would obey his command. Shaw could tell it wouldn’t just by looking at the man’s eyes. There was nothing behind those eyes. Nothing but hunger.

Shaw trained the flashlight beam on the zombie’s face, and though it was one of the new LED lights, intensely bright, the zombie never blinked.

Shaw shot him then, one round that blew the man’s scalp off and knocked him back into the water. He stared at the dead officer the zombie had been feeding on, half expecting him to get up and move. But the only movement came from the body gently rocking in the settling water.

“Goddamn this place,” Shaw said.

He holstered his weapon and went into his ready room. The water had gotten in here, too, and floated his mattress up against the back wall. All the trash in the entire building had seemed to find its way in here. Papers, plastic cups, a lot of stuff that was so waterlogged he couldn’t identify it—the trash was everywhere. He found his last three unopened packs of cigarettes in the wadded-up remnants of his bedding. A little condensation had formed inside the cellophane, but he figured the cigarettes themselves were probably still dry.

He was pocketing the smokes when he heard splashing out in the hallway.

Shaw let out a tired sigh as he drew his weapon and made his way out into the office. There was a figure over there in the darkness near the door, inspecting Shaw’s handiwork on the zombie.

“What are you doing here, Anthony?”

The figure spun around suddenly, his gun raised. Shaw flicked his flashlight beam up just enough to illuminate his face, then brought it down again.

Anthony Shaw lowered his weapon. “You about scared the piss out of me, Dad.”

“What do you expect? You come traipsing in here making as much noise as you are, you’re bound to get surprised.”

Anthony nodded. “What happened in here, Dad?”

“Don’t know. That’s Foster over there, and I’m pretty sure the one our friend here was munching on was Gene Murphy. I don’t know how they died, though. Drowned, probably. Caught in here during the storm surge.”

Shaw looked around the room once more. It was hard to believe things had really gotten this bad. He caught Anthony looking at him.

“Where’s your brother, Anthony?”

“I don’t know. I came in here hoping you’d seen him.” Anthony paused for a moment, then added, “Dad, you know he’s probably passed out drunk somewhere.”

Shaw looked at him sharply. His first instinct was to yell, to deny it. But he knew Anthony was probably right. Brent had probably crawled off into an unused building someplace with a bottle and drank himself into oblivion. The thought made him furious, but it was impossible for him to hold on to the anger very long. Brent was just too much like his mother. She too had fought her battle with the bottle, and for Mark Shaw, that was the hardest part of watching his oldest son slip deeper and deeper into alcoholism. He didn’t want to experience the pain of watching a loved one go through that again.

“How about you, Dad? You okay?”

Mark Shaw shrugged. “Good as can be expected, considering the circumstances. How about you?”

“I had to shoot one of those things down by the boats.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah. I see you got one, too.”

“I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of them here in the next few hours. The reports I’ve got so far, sounds like the water is pushing them farther and farther inland. Also, we’ve been taking in people from all over. Chances are pretty good the shelter’s gonna have a few of them by now.”

“You talked to the director of Homeland Security?”

“Sure did.”

“And? That doesn’t sound good. What happened? What did he say? They’re sending in help, right?”

Shaw felt distracted. It was hard to focus. This place, the darkness, the smell, it was starting to get to him.

“No, it wasn’t good,” he said. “Dupree said we’re on our own.”

He told Anthony about San Antonio and Dallas/Ft. Worth, and about the necrosis filovirus and the zombies.

“That’s nuts, Dad. What the hell do they expect us to do?”

“I don’t think they have any expectations, Anthony, except for us to fail. My guess is he’ll find some way to put this back on us in order to save his own ass. On me, rather. He’s already said as much.”

Anthony shook his head angrily. “This wasn’t your fault, Dad. You did everything a man could be expected to do.”

“The director of Homeland Security seems to disagree with you.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck him. Dad, we have seven million dollars waiting for us just a couple of miles from here. Let him say whatever he wants. We’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.”

Mark Shaw opened his mouth to respond, then reconsidered and closed it again. He looked at his youngest son and a disturbing idea occurred to him. Since his boys were little, he’d known that Anthony was the pony to bet on. He loved both his children. There was never any question about that. But a lifetime spent as a cop had taught him a thing or two about human nature. Watching the two boys grow up, he’d seen that Anthony was more aggressive, more confident, the smarter child. He had talent. He could talk to people. He could lead people. Brent, on the other hand, was a turtle. Trouble would come, and Anthony would see it as an opportunity. Brent would simply duck his head into his shell and hide.

But now, looking at Anthony, he realized that maybe his pride in the young man’s accomplishments had blinded him to his shortcomings. To Anthony, this was about the money, and nothing else. He didn’t see that the money was just one small part of this thing Mark Shaw was trying to pass on to his children.

“Dad, did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“Well, you agree, right? We get the money and we blow this place. Fuck this city and fuck the director of Homeland Security. We’ll start over. The four of us, we’ll take our money and we’ll make new lives ourselves. That’s what you always said, right? We did our part, now we take what’s ours.”

From somewhere out in the hallway, they heard splashing. And the sound of someone moaning.

“Dad, we don’t have much time. We have to get that money and leave this city. Come with me. We’ll get Brent and Jesse and get the money and get the hell out of Dodge.”

“No,” Mark Shaw said.

“What do you mean, no? Dad, this is what we planned for.”

“Not quite. Listen to me, Anthony. You and Jesse, find your brother. Then the three of you go and get that money, and bring it back here.”

“Here? Dad, why in the hell—”

“Because we have a charge to keep, Anthony. We have a responsibility.”

“To who? Dad, our responsibility is to our family. That’s what you always said. It’s family above all else. In the end, nothing else matters.”

“Honor matters, Anthony. Our family name matters. Outside those doors there are eighty thousand people that are here because they trusted in me to lead them. If I abandon them now they will all die.”

Anthony was shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Dad, that’s insane. You can’t . . . you have less than three hundred boats out there. How do you think you’re gonna transport all those people through a flood? There’s no way in hell you can do that. It’s crazy to try. You said yourself that Dupree doesn’t expect you to succeed.”

“Anthony, you have to understand why this matters. If I don’t try to save those people, the name I’ll pass on to you and your brother will be worthless. It’ll be less than worthless. It will become a synonym for cowardice, and I will not allow my sons to wear that shame.”

“Dad, I can change my fucking name.”

Mark Shaw lunged forward, grabbed Anthony’s shirt by the collar and slammed him down onto a computer console. For a moment, he was nearly blind with a rage he hadn’t felt since he’d overheard Anthony calling his mother a drunk during his sophomore year in high school. The boy had been sixteen at the time, an athlete, and though small of frame compared to his father, every bit as strong. But when he’d heard what the boy had said, Mark Shaw stood up from his chair and slid the belt from around his waist and thrown Anthony facedown over the edge of the couch, at which point he’d begun to whip the boy’s ass until his jeans were shredded.

Now, here they were, two grown men, and Mark Shaw was dangerously close to doing the same thing.

When he finally spoke, his voice was a brutal whisper. “You will not change your name. Do you understand me?”

Still on his back, eyes wide with alarm, Anthony looked up at his father and said, “Yeah. Shit, Dad, I hear you.”

Mark Shaw lifted his son off the computer console and then slammed him back down. “Say the fucking words, Anthony. Say you will not change your name.”

“I won’t. Christ, Dad, I won’t change my name.”

“You have a good name, Anthony. An honorable name.”

“Yeah, an honorable name. Dad, I get it.”

Out in the hallway, the moaning was getting louder. Mark Shaw looked up and listened. He thought he could hear two, maybe three of those zombies out there. Then he looked down at the terror on Anthony’s face and for a moment was shocked and a little frightened with the violence he knew he carried around inside himself.

He let go of his son and backed away. Anthony slid off the console and stood staring at his father, his expression a mixture of resentment and fear that made him seem ten years younger, almost childlike.

“Listen to me, Anthony. I want you to go and get your brother. Go and get that money. When you have it, you come straight back here. You hear me? Live or die, I will do everything in my power to get these people out of danger. And I will make sure the name you and your brother carry out of this city is one you will never, ever think of changing. Is that clear?”

Anthony tugged his shirt down at the waist to straighten it.

“Yeah, that’s clear.”

“Good. Now go and find your brother.”

The moaning was extremely close now. Both men could hear the zombies splashing out in the hallway.

“I’ll take care of those first,” Anthony said.

“No,” Mark Shaw said, drawing his weapon. “We’ll take care of it together.”

CHAPTER 10

Eleanor stopped at her front door and stared at the water flowing through her dining room, her living room, out the broken windows along the back wall, momentarily stunned by it. The sight was completely insane, yet strangely beautiful.

“Eleanor, you okay?” Jim asked.

“Yeah,” she said, mentally shaking herself loose. “I’m coming.”

She followed Jim and Madison out the front door. She tossed her Mossberg into the canoe they’d tied to the front porch, then helped Jim with their backpacks. Next she reached down to help Madison up into the canoe, but when she tried to lift her, the girl shrugged her hands away.

“Madison?” Eleanor said.

Madison wouldn’t look at her.

She turned away from Eleanor and held her hands up to Jim, the same way she’d done when she was three and begging Daddy to carry her off to bed.

Jim glanced from Madison to Eleanor, and she saw surprise there in his expression. Whatever was going on with Madison, it was news to him as well. He bent down and scooped her into the boat without saying a word to Madison, not even scolding her with a look, and Eleanor was thankful for that. Now was not the time.

“Go ahead,” he said to Eleanor. He was nodding toward the boat, holding its sides to steady it for her.

She climbed in, then leaned forward and touched the back of Madison’s shoulder.

“Madison, sweetheart?”

But Madison pulled her shoulder away again. “Don’t,” she said, without turning around, and scooted forward on the bench and hunched her shoulders forward. Eleanor could almost see her crawling into herself.

Eleanor glanced at Jim for some clue, some sort of help, but all he could do was shrug.

They moved away from the house, Jim and Eleanor paddling, Madison still silent and distant in the front of the canoe. The air was unbearably humid. A slight breeze blew from the south, but it wasn’t enough to chase away the mosquitoes, and it wasn’t enough to cool the heat on the backs of their necks. Eleanor was drenched in sweat, hot, and irritable and exhausted beyond measure.

She took it out on the mosquitoes. Just in the last few minutes they’d gotten terrible, practically swarming the canoe. She killed a big one on her arm, her face crinkling in disgust at its smashed body and the smear of blood in which it lay. Then she looked forward and saw Jim and Madison both swatting frantically at the bugs.

“I’ve got some bug repellant,” she said.

“Thank God,” Jim said. “Let me have some. These little bastards are eating me alive up here.”

She pulled in her oar and got the combination bug repellant and sunscreen from her backpack. As far as getting her family prepared for this disaster, the backpacks had really been her crowning achievement. Making them was strangely satisfying, much like preparing Madison’s nursery had been in the months before she was born. Eleanor had stockpiled water and food and supplies just like the guidebooks said to do, but all of that was lost back in their house. The backpacks, on the other hand, went wherever they were needed. Each one was basically a turtle shell, a house carried on the back. She had planned the contents of each, packed them, reconsidered, reorganized, and repacked them. Then she’d weighed each and repacked them a third time. Each containing a complete ninety-six-hour survival kit—everything the wearer would need to get by for at least four days. But Eleanor had gone beyond those basic needs, and that was what really made her proud. She’d had dog tags made for each of them. She’d included family photographs, in case they got separated. Cash for each of them. A three months’ supply of Jim’s Diovan, for his blood pressure. Even a carton of Marlboro cigarettes for each of them.

“You want me to start smoking?” Madison had said, holding up the cigarettes.

“Of course not, you goof,” she’d said, stroking Madison’s hair out of her face, secretly delighted with the look of disgust on her daughter’s face. “They’re for you to use as currency. Just in case, mind you. You never know what people will do if they want to smoke bad enough.”