LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (42 page)

As we approached the center of the dam, I spared a glance for the large lake pent up to our left, the calm waters spitting out a chill wind that pushed at us gently. To our right, the ravine cut into the rocky walls to either side, a consistent torrent of water rushing through to the canyon below. I could tell that the water flow was higher than normal, even in the darkness. Rocks and trees that would normally be above the water line were now half submerged as the dam leaked slowly but surely into the waiting valley.
 

Eli didn’t answer, but just kept walking, his gait sulking and hands buried deep in his pockets.
 

“Listen, if we’re going to work together…” I began. But he interrupted.
 

“I just wanted out, okay? I hate it down there. I hate hiding in the dark. I hate feeling like I can’t do anything to help … people.” His voice trailed off.
 

In in his voice, I heard a desire to avenge his parents. To make a difference.
 

I had a quick flash of missing Kate fiercely. I felt unprepared to help this child navigate his pain. But here I was. And she was far away—separated from me by miles and days. I maintained my hope that we would find each other. In all the craziness of this new world, we had made more impossible things happen. But when you find someone that completes you, operating as one half of a whole can really be a difficult chore.
 

I thought I understood Eli’s motivation, though. In that moment, I felt like he and I were on the same page. In all the pain we had seen, among all the loved ones we had lost, we hoped to simply make a difference.
 

I tried to affect an amazed and incredulous tone now, hoping to disarm him and let him know it was all okay. That we were good.
 

“So you took off into a series of dark tunnels, infested by zombies, to dive into a flooded room, also infested by Satan’s crabs, just to get away from it all? Man, you’re hard core. What do you do for summer vacation?”

Humor.

I could always go there.

I thought I detected a small smile.

Then, suddenly, I was flat on my face, pavement kissing my forehead as I hung on to the ground for dear life.

***

Far beneath the surface of the earth, the enormous tectonic plates continued to grind and wear against one another, fighting an epic battle for position and dominance, out of which would emerge only one winner. As the Juan de Fuca plate slid slowly underneath the North American plate, causing damage and geographic changes unseen for thousands upon thousands of years, the earth itself was in turmoil. Magma, long repressed and held beneath the surface of the planet by incredible forces of nature, found seams and cracks in the mantle, pushing forward and upward, as its space beneath the rock was constricted by the outstanding pressures being exerted. Up it shot, through tunnels and porous rock, through dirt and sediment, until it arrived at the surface, boiling over the tops of volcanoes that had been masquerading as ski resorts and picturesque national parks.
 

The earth shook again, sending torrents of fire into the sky. Sending rocks and earth shattering to the ground. Continuing its mission to render man’s world unto nature. Buildings fell, roads buckled and washed away in streams of loose earth and rock. The sound of exploding gas mains and crumbling civilization was everywhere.
 

Even on the top of the dam.

***

You would think it would be impossible for a million ton work of concrete and steel to shake like you had just put fifty cents into a cheap bed in a sleezy motel.
 

You would think that with such considerable girth and size and impressive craftsmanship, it would stay solid and dependable under the onslaught of nature’s wrath.
 

You would, however, be wrong.

It felt as if the earth had tilted from its axis, had acquired a mind of its own, and was trying to buck off those paltry few who had managed to survive the plague that mankind had so recently wrought. I scrabbled for some purchase on the slick concrete, finding widening cracks and the barest of handholds as I caught Eli’s arm, arresting his slide toward the precipitous drop into the valley below.
 

Around us, the walls on either edge of the roadway were crumbling away, calving from the top of the structure like icebergs from a melting glacier. I ground my teeth to keep from screaming, as cracks formed loudly around us, in some cases sending jets of water into the air as pipes burst from below. The structure creaked and groaned under the stresses beneath us as it undulated in the wretched anger of nature’s fury.
 

And then it ended. Abruptly and quietly. Presided over by a renewed glow in the eastern sky as lava burst into the air, and ash littered the clouds anew, the earth stopped its dance, taking a rest as we wearily raised our heads, shocked to be alive.
 

The dam stood. The roadway, though cracked and badly beaten, remained. Chancing it, I crawled to the edge of the structure that looked out to the south, into the ravine, and ogled the increased flow of water coming from the large cracks below, hoping that the quake had done our work for us.

Cursing, I realized it wasn’t enough. We still had to blow it.

“Mike…” Eli’s voice was shaky and warbled slightly. I cleared my throat before responding, wary of sounding exactly the same.
 

I had long since figured out that being an adult didn’t mean you weren’t afraid—just that you were better about hiding your fear.

“Yeah, kid, what’s up?” I muttered, trying to find my feet.

“What’s that?”
 

His hand rose and pointed across the dam toward the construction site and the fence that blocked the access into the yard.

Except that the fence wasn’t there.

And forty zombies had just passed by where it had stood, pouring onto the dam.

Son of a bitch.

Damn earthquake, can’t do anything right!
 

You shake the shit out of the dam, but don’t bust it open.
 

But you knock the ever-loving fence down, so we have to fight the zeds on the top of the broken dam?
 

Piece of shit nature.
 

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Mind reeling, I looked around, casting about for an idea or a way to narrow their approach. Other than a single abandoned car and the remains of a small viewing station amidst broken concrete, there was nothing.
 

On our left, twisted remnants of the metal railing led off into nothingness, and a forty foot drop to the deceptively calm lake below.

To our right, a similar railing but with a much more impressive drop off—nearly three hundred feet straight down.
 

Taking my rifle in one hand, I set Eli behind the car and took aim at the first creature.
 

I hated to have to fire, knowing that it risked drawing more up from the town below. But I couldn’t see an option. I didn’t have the ability to funnel them in or take them one at a time. Even with my superior strength and speed, there was no way to take forty at a time.

My eyes drifted to a broken length of wire above my head as I thought, then it came to me.
 

I didn’t have to kill them. They would kill themselves. I just need to play the role of bait.
 

I shrugged off my pack quickly, pulling items aside until I found the coil of high tensile rope. Eli watched quietly, his head swiveling between my activities and the creatures approaching quickly.
 

We were in the middle of the dam, and they had already covered more than half the distance toward us. Many still wore bright orange vests and hard hats, the ravages of time having made their clothing ragged and filthy. But their moans were as vibrant as ever.

One end of the rope went around the most secure piece of railing I could find—one that had both support posts still firmly attached to the concrete edge of the dam. I then looped the rope through the carabiners and loops in my harness and body armor, finally reaching for Eli and beginning to tie the rope tightly around his waist.
 

“Leave the bag,” I said, pulling it from his back. His hands clutched for the dingy backpack as if it were made of gold, and he whimpered slightly. I made a face and took him by the shoulders, staring into his wide eyes.

“We’re coming right back here and we don’t need the weight, okay? I promise. We’ll be right back in about…” I looked up and over the car, to where the first of the creatures were only ten feet away. “… Five minutes. Okay?”
 

He glanced at the approaching zombies, then nodded quickly.

The first few could see us clearly now, and had increased the tempo of their moans, eliciting a response from those in the rear.
 

Again, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were communicating in some rudimentary fashion. Before, we had thought it was simply call and response. A simple reflex, rather than a voluntary reaction.

But this seemed like more. Especially when the first moan was a dinner bell, and you were the main course.

“Hold on here,” I said, bringing his hands to my shoulder straps, and pulling on the combat gloves that were stashed in the side pocket of my pack. “Don’t let go. I’m going to be right here the whole time. They’re going to be falling around us, and some of them might hit us. But I’ve got you. Whatever you do, don’t let go. Got it?”
 

He nodded as the first one came around the front of the car, and I backed up to the edge, pulling one foot, then the next over the metal railing. Pulling the slack up on the line, I leaned back, drawing in a long breath as I quelled my nearly paralyzing fear of heights.
 

I was not cut out for this action hero crap. The irony of all ironies, I supposed.

Walking back slowly, my feet found the edge of the road, then the outer wall of the dam. Against my chest, Eli’s weight became an anchor and my grip tightened on the rope.
 

Then, the first one was upon us and the floor dropped away.

For the record, it is not fun to have zombies rain down on your head like meat confetti.
 

Useful under these circumstances? Yes.
 

Necessary? Probably, yes.

Slightly comedic? I guess so.

But fun?
 

Hardly.

They tumbled forward, most of them going over the railing at the hip, and hence falling past us in a cartwheel of moaning and frustrating convulsions as they splattered one after another against the rocks below.
 

But several by-passed the railing and simply walked over the edge, arms and faces pointed down at us, as if they would just continue on in the air like a cartoon character, or walk down the wall like a gecko-zombie.
 

Why was this painful?
 

Because unlike the ones that cartwheeled out and over, who had gained some manner of momentum from their forward tumble, the ones that walked out over us fell directly down, meaning that I had to swat them away while curled up over Eli in an upright fetal position.
 

Not. Fun.

I got several disgusting feet in my face, one rotten knee to the head, and one shoulder right in the nose before the undead rain had subsided.
 

And just so you know, if I ever form a band, it’s going to be called Undead Rain. Because why not?

I chanced a look up, from our perch only six feet below the edge, when I could hear no more hissing moans or hungry exhortations from the top of the dam.
 

Also, the meat parade had stopped. Another clue.

And another kick-ass band name, by the way.

Just saying.

“You okay?” I asked Eli, who nodded slightly and looked up at me.

“As good as I could be, I guess, suspended hundreds of feet above certain death while the living dead throw themselves on top of me. Peachy.”

Great, another smart ass, I thought.
 

Suddenly, I missed Kate and Ky something fierce. For some reason, I was sure they were fine. But with every passing second and passing mile, it was going to make reuniting with them more difficult. And them being safe wasn’t the same as them being by my side. We had been through too much together to let it end this way. It was time to get this show on the road.
 

I pulled us both up, something I never could have done pre-super hero serum, and I wondered vaguely at what point I would have died had I not been given that little gift, apart from the immunity, that is. Probably after the fight with Fred on the rooftop of that isolated laboratory.
 

Ah, memory lane. How would everything have gone down without me? Without us? Would they have pulled the good doctor out of the Seattle facility in time and alive? Would a special forces team been able to do what we did? Probably. Those guys were badasses wrapped in man-paper. But how quickly? How many would have been lost?
 

Eli grunted as we swung over the edge, making a face as he avoided a pool of gore at the base of the railing. One of the creatures had apparently burst open at the waist here, succumbing to the rot that had infested an open belly wound. His torso made it over the edge, but his legs hadn’t.
 

It didn’t trip us up, but I was
definitely
off chili for a while.

We booked it for the opposite side of the dam. The site was empty now, and large cracks in the soil had ruined the preliminary work the crew had done before the plague hit. Dirt and machinery lay in piles around the area, and two large trucks sat awkwardly at angles to one another against the far edge of the lot. A large trailer sat unevenly on cinderblocks near the dam, one edge having dropped from a broken support, the door hanging loosely out from the hinge.