LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (40 page)

Kate left off the details about what Starr wanted from Kate on a more personal level. Ky was just a kid. There was no reason to key her into the darker parts of humanity. Not today, anyway.

“That’s stupid,” Ky responded, her voice rising and Kate gesturing for her to keep her tone low. “That’s just … I mean, how does she see that going? Is she going to harness you and make you do things for her? Doesn’t she understand that these powers make you uncontrollable?”

Kate shook her head and pulled the borrowed sweatshirt over her head, scowling as Ky chuckled at her choice of bra. Quickly, she pulled her own shirt over her head and shivered again at the still-wet material.

“She wants a piece of it. She wants to know how we got this way, and she wants to emulate us. She’s messed up, kid. All she thinks about is power and control. People like that have one goal: to be the only one. The only leader. The only ruler. The only one with power. Whether it’s through control of food, or ammunition, or gasoline, that’s what’s she’s after. In her eyes, if you have our abilities, you can’t be beaten.”

The younger woman’s eyes were downcast.

She was ready to bug out now, tonight.

“I don’t like these people,” Ky whispered softly, fingers absently stretching toward the comfort of her weapons.

“Yeah, kid. Me neither. But we have to stick with it a little longer. Until we have a chance to leave.”

Ky started to respond, her face drawn as if in pain. It was the pain of knowing that Kate’s way was the best, but still resenting the hell out of it.

But whatever she was going to say was lost in the chaos of the thundering rage of Mount Baker, miles away to the north and west. The glow of its explosion, refracting through the swirling ash in the upper atmosphere, shot through the darkness of the night, throwing the eerie colors of flame across a now-awake campsite.

Far from where Ky and Kate sat, debating the best chances for their own survival, molten rock exploded from the earth at phenomenal speed, forced up and out of the large mountain top, pushing down the rocky crags and broken earth of the ageless behemoth in a fury of flaming destruction. Ash spewed anew from the mouth of the large crater, and the earth began to shake again as the two massive tectonic plates far beneath the surface of the planet continued to grind against one another.

The earth trembled for miles around. Nothing like the geography-altering quakes that had ravaged the land merely hours before, but they were still severe. Kate and Ky flew out the tent door, watching trees tilt dangerously inward, branches bowing as limbs were forced against opposing trunks. Roots spat dirt into the air as they came free of their moorings in the dark loam. Concrete crackled as it buckled above the undulating dirt. They stumbled forward, instinct forcing them to the main drive, where trees were absent and the greatest danger was of tripping forward on the hard surface.

The heavy sounds of trees hitting the earth in sporadic bursts were now accompanied by the screams of several women, likely trapped beneath their weight. Kate watched the buildings on either side of the drive sway in time with the moving earth and she pushed Ky to the ground, where they both sat and watched as others filtered out of the camping areas beneath the trees.
 

Kate sighed as she saw Annie and Stacy emerge from the forest, looking sleepy but otherwise unharmed. Donna ushered them forward, a worried look on her brow as she spared glances back into the thick copse of trees split by the several paved lanes leading into the main camping areas.

Then, Starr was there. Her voice echoing among the trees, urging the remaining women to come out quickly, holding back her soldiers that started toward the sound of the screams coming from within the woods.

“Not yet,” she said over the tumult. “We’re not losing anyone else while the ground’s still shaking. We wait.”

Kate watched, feeling both helpless, and as if she were wasting an opportunity. The camp was in chaos. The grounds in disarray. Starr was preoccupied. This could be their chance.
 

But her initiative died as she realized that both she and Ky had left the tent without their weapons. Even assuming they could make their way north before being run down by the vehicles of the convoy and without any food or water, they absolutely couldn’t leave without weapons. It would be suicide.

Around them, the shaking slowly subsided until the only sound was of soft crying and the creaking wood of trees and buildings. A little girl yelled once, and her mother quietly shushed her. Starr’s voice cut the silence.

“Okay everyone, let’s move the tents in. Find a flat spot on the ground here in the courtyard, and repack. It’ll be a short night after we get our people sorted out, but let’s minimize the dangers of an aftershock. Sergeant,” she called out, turning her head. “Bring the perimeter back by fifty feet and do a damage assessment. Tighten the ranks and let’s see who and what we lost. Report in thirty mikes, copy?”

The young sergeant nodded and jogged toward the woods to relay the message and check in on the search and rescue, even as a group of ten women disappeared into the trees.
 

The rest of the group began wandering back to their tents carefully, many picking large, sharp branches from torn canvas. Kate spared one more glance for the main entrance, even as one of the humvees repositioned in front of the main gates, large fifty cal aimed out. She sighed, then put her arm on Ky’s shoulder and made their way back to the tent, hoping their weapons, at least, had been spared by the falling debris.

***

Nearly half a mile away from where Kate and Ky stood amid the wreckage of their tent, a large, ramshackle wooden building still shook.
 

Its doors and windows creaked with the strain, as its structural support—long since having eroded under the pressure of the elements—dissolved under the latest natural disaster. A thick chain looped around two solid door handles was the only evidence that a living human had visited this building in years, and the rotting wood and broken glass was a testament to its age and strength.

In the nearby woods, the voices of women and children echoed through the trees, reaching the building—formerly a recreation center for a campground that had long since been overgrown and disused. A single large evergreen tree had fallen against the wood-paneled side of the building, piercing the thin walls and collapsing a portion of the roof, sending moss and even a single irritated squirrel into the cavity beyond.

This building was roughly a hundred yards past the initial perimeter that the convoy had set when arriving at the campground. Hidden in a thick copse of trees, it had escaped notice.
 

Had they paid better attention, the humans would have noticed the trail of blood and broken limbs leading to the building.
 

Had the women who had cleared this portion of forest been professional soldiers, they would have noticed the signs of struggle. The spent brass casings. The pools of thick, dried liquid on the ground. The bullet holes in the trees.
 

But they were not soldiers.
 

They were a housewife from Tacoma, and a grocery store clerk from Spokane, armed with large rifles and a nearly crippling fear of what might lurk in the dark recesses of the woods.

So they had established the minimum perimeter, and they had reported back that all was clear.

Now, the residents of the building in the woods were awake. And in the chaos of the quake, with the noises of the human newcomers resounding through the forest, they were agitated. Hands beat upon the thin wood. Arms snaked out of broken windows, slashing flesh that groped heedlessly into the night air. Bodies pressed urgently against the wall that had been broken by the large invading tree.

Until the wall finally cracked.
 

The thin wood bent outward, around the closest support beam, then cracked loudly as it gave way. Rusty nails and shards of splintered wood tore at the bodies and clothes of the first creatures to push their way to freedom. Blood fell into the uncaring soil below. And more bodies followed after, seeking the source of the noises. The genesis of the sounds of humanity that sounded tantalizingly close.

***

Donna sighed and leaned back against the wall of the admin building, tired from moving the tent that Annie and Stacy were sharing back to the main driveway. She rubbed her weary eyes and considered the flask in her pack near the entrance to the tent. Noting the time on her watch, she sighed again and decided against it, realizing that morning would be coming soon.
 

She nodded at one of the soldiers that walked past, talking on a radio, and regretfully pushed herself away from the comfort of the wall. Her legs cried out for rest, and her brain agreed, pulling her feet forward to the slight comfort of the tent. The chill air belied the time of year, and she shivered in the cold.

Across the camp, a large tree swayed dangerously in the breeze and looked dangerously close to toppling forward. But most of the tents had already been relocated into a tight circle on the main lawn of the run down camp site, surrounded by their vehicles and their supplies. The quake had proven that the earth wasn’t done moving—not by a long shot.
 

She glanced at the building that had housed the bathroom facilities regretfully. The quake had also taken that dubious comfort from the camp of women too—a seriously problematic development.
 

While it was amazing that the water pressure, apparently fed by wells on small solar pumps, had survived the apocalypse and the previous quakes, they had all suspected that it was too good to be true. Sure enough, the wonder of the flushing toilet—a miraculous thing by all accounts for a group of forty women and girls—had gone the way of the dodo during the last tremor. The walls had finally succumbed to the rot and decay of the aged wood and the months of disuse.

But that didn’t stop this fifty year old woman from suddenly needing to relieve herself before she stole several hours of restless sleep. In her past life, her husband had ribbed her constantly for her small, insistent bladder. And in the days of the zombie ascendance, it hadn’t been any easier.
 

Granted, his worthless ass wasn’t around any more to make a big fucking deal about it, but she still hated to piss in the open while the convoy stopped. She was too old to squat in front of so many people, even if everyone else was doing it too. That was just too many pale asses swinging in the breeze for her.
 

Glancing at the single menacing tree, she decided to take advantage of this small slice of calm and quiet and find a nice solid tree deeper in the woods. She grabbed her small roll of precious toilet paper from her pack and marched determinedly toward the darkness under the trees, following one of the several pathways that led to the campsites deeper in.
 

She had always enjoyed the outdoors—not enough to be fond of camping or fishing like her husband—but certainly enough to appreciate the protection of the trees from the chill breeze and the smell of wood and pine in the air. It was stronger now, with the trees having cracked and bent and shed their leaves and needles in the last quake. The smell of fresh dirt also invaded her nostrils as she climbed over several fallen trees in search of a good spot.
 

Finally, behind the trunk of a fallen spruce, she saw it. A small hole, already gauged by the roots of a nearby tree, and sheltered from view on two sides. There was even a little branch nearby that she happily hung her toilet paper from. Smiling, she realized that all she needed was a magazine, and she’d be in piss-heaven.
 

As she dropped her pants and allowed her heavy frame to settle down somewhat painfully on her aching knees, a branch fell somewhere to her right and she cursed loudly. Startled, she had jerked violently and pissed a little on her boot.
 

“Damn,” she muttered, lamenting the error. She had just found the perfect boots on a dead woman two days ago. Thick and fairly new. Shoes were life nowadays, and the last thing she wanted to do was ruin these too soon.
 

A dull, drifting moan reached her across the sparse branches to her right, and the icy knife of fear stabbed at her chest immediately. Cold hands scrabbled at the waistline of her pants as she rose quickly, rustling loudly in the fallen branches and leaves, realizing too late that silence was her best defense.
 

An answering moan, then a chorus of hissing whispers reached her ears from very close. They were all around. Behind her, to her sides, and moving in front of her, if she was judging the sounds correctly.

Where had they come from? How had they surprised her? Wiping back a tear, she kicked herself. Because she hadn’t been watching for them. Because she was complacent and felt safe. A definite no-no in today’s world.
 

Too late, she decided to hide again and went to crouch against the solid wood of the tree behind her, hoping that the tide of dead would pass her by. The sentries would alert the camp. They would take care of them. There couldn’t be that many, she thought. Not out here. Not unattached to a larger herd.

As she leaned back against the tree, a pair of hands snaked underneath the small gap between the tree and the ground created by a protruding branch that had kept this tree from settling completely into the soft dirt. Grasping, hungry fingers found the loose fabric of Donna’s jeans and pulled hard. The older woman, petrified and shaking in fear, screamed involuntarily as her feet flew out from under her, sending her large frame to the ground amidst dirt, leaves, and a puddle of her own urine.
 

She scrambled wildly, kicking against the hands and breathing loudly, managing to dislodge the fingers from her pants, but forgetting that there were greater dangers abroad than invading digits.

In the forest in front of her, a small group of zombies—men and women who had, only months ago, taken it upon themselves to get away from it all and spend a week in nature—turned to the sound of the large woman yelling and spitting in the dirt.