LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (50 page)

I tried to keep my own face stoic and calm, without betraying my surprise that Kate had apparently become a meth user since we last parted ways.
 

People changed, I guess. I’d stay with her until her teeth fell out, at least. Then we’d see.

“And you found a friend,” Starr’s eyes evaluated me as I simply stared at her, not knowing exactly how to insert myself in this intense little shitting contest.
 

“I didn’t know you swung that way, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the deception.”
 

Kate shook her head and glanced up over her shoulder.

“I don’t have time to explain, Starr, but that wasn’t me. There’s more of us here, just trying to survive. Ky and me—we left because we don’t agree with you and your people. On your methods of staying safe. We don’t want to hurt you. But I’m not asking you to understand that right now. We don’t have time.” She slowly raised her arm toward the trees behind the convoy.
 

“Because in about four minutes, we are all going to be on the receiving end of a herd that looks to have emptied out every city and town between here and Vancouver. If they see you here—or us—our cover is blown, and all of us are going to die. You need to keep moving and you need to leave now.”
 

Kate’s voice was sincere and contained equal measures of fear and anger. Behind the leader, several women turned their heads unconsciously, scanning the forest behind them, past the wrecks of cars and the overgrown median.
 

Starr allowed actual mirth to escape her countenance and the loud chuckle sounded to my ears slightly unhinged. Turning slightly at the hips, she tossed back to her group.

“Isn’t that convenient? Our wayward daughter has a convenient excuse on tap for why we shouldn’t pull her ass back in and ice the rest of her friends. What a shock.” Her minions laughed briefly, but I noticed the fear now resting firmly in their eyes as the thought of an implacable herd approaching began to settle in.
 

Still, several of the real soldiers in the front lines kept their eyes forward and heads on swivels, scanning the interior of the property for threats, rifles up and ready.

“I’m not making this shit up, Starr. Get your head out of your ass for once and think of the children back there. You have lives at stake—just like we do in here. We have about very little time now before those things come boiling out of that forest. We can't sit here and piss that time away, or we’re going to die. If you can’t get past your own issues, think of your people for fuck’s sake.”
 

“And what would you have me do, Kate?” Starr asked, her voice lowering now for a more intimate discussion. She leaned forward, putting her hands on the bars of the gate and staring at Kate with frigid eyes.

“Leave you be? Let you walk away from us? Let you take your secrets? Not when they could mean so much to me and my people. Could do so much for our way of life.” She shook her head and looked at the hardened gates, shaking them once approvingly.
 

“No, no. I can’t do that.”

Kate came forward now and I flinched, thinking to pull her back. Several rifles came up immediately, tracking my movement. Her face was near Starr’s now, eyes flashing.

“Don’t you understand? If you don’t leave now, we’re all going to die. Those things will know we’re here. They’ll surround us. And we will never leave. Even if they don’t get in, we’re going to die. And you? You have less of a chance. Try motoring down this road with thousands of them on your trail, in front of you, bogging you down. You’re going to die out there. All for this petty vendetta shit. It’s going to mean exactly jack fucking squat in a minute.”

“And why shouldn’t we kill you now?” The rifles behind her and the fifty cal turret turned slowly as she spoke.
 

This was a good enough time to prove we weren’t alone. My hand rose slightly in a clenched fist, and two rounds hit the ground on either side of Kate and I, deliberately far enough from the convoy so as to know it was a show, not an attack.

Starr blinked once, and grimaced as she scanned the building for the position of the snipers.
 

Kate didn’t flinch. “You know why you were following me. You want to know why I’m special. How I came to be that way. I can show you. But for that to happen, we all need to survive.”
 

Starr opened her mouth to respond. But as she did so, the clock expired.

The game was over. The jig, completely and utterly fucking up.

A scream shot through the air as a rifle began to fire on semi-automatic in the rear of the convoy, closest to the opposite side of the highway. The party had begun.

Hundreds of creatures, packed close together and all shambling forward in hunger, were emerging from the trees. Tattered clothing and gaunt frames bearing rotting skin and malevolent expressions of pure need.

Starr released Kate and drew her arm back through the gate.

“Sir?” It was the woman with the grenade launcher, looking hopefully at the protection offered by the gates.
 

The captain’s snarl was disgusted, but almost seemed amused as she shook her head.

“No. Leave the gates intact. We’ll leave our friends here so we know where to come back for them when this is all done.” She walked backward away from the gates as the machine guns and engine noise began to drown out her words.

“Good luck, bitch. We’ll be watching. And we’ll be back for you. Count on it.” She spat once in the dirt and turned on her heel, sprinting for her truck and drawing her sidearm.

Already, the herd was thick on the road, but was slowed by the thick traffic on the northbound side. The convoy used the shoulder to turn around to the south, thick truck tires managing the grassy shoulder effectively. The lead vehicle began to chatter away with its fifty caliber emplacement, tearing through zombies that wandering into its path. Hundreds had already poured over the southbound lane, and they packed the median.
 

The heavy thwump of several grenades thinning the herd to the south was loud in the chill air. More rifle fire and more explosions tracked the convoy as it sped south. It seemed that they were running out of space to operate, though, as I watched the retreat. The herd was pressing in on all sides, narrowing their route and pushing them closer to the tree line. At one point further along, maybe a quarter mile from our position, the traffic jam was broken by a single wide space, maybe where a car had been stolen or moved for some purpose. This allowed more than fifty to pour into the path of the convoy. The lead truck tore into the crowd of undead, taking heads and limbs from bodies, but unable to thin the bulk of the crowd. The fourth truck in the convoy, a smaller imported version with only two passengers, bogged down on a corpse and its front left wheel caught. Careening wildly to the left, it slammed into a tree trunk and we watched as the airbags deployed and the glass shattered.
 

Instantly, the creatures were on it, reaching through the destroyed windows, finding flesh and smelling blood.

The bodies were ripped from the cab and pulled to the ground. Their clothing shredded, and hands finding soft, delicate spots to rend and tear. The screams were drown out by the chatter of rifle fire as the herd followed the noise and was drawn forward.

But it wasn’t just the convoy they wanted.
 

It was too late for us too.

Drawn to the gate by necessity, we now stood exposed, two healthy, tasty humans alone and visible.
 

They were coming for us, and we had nowhere else to go.
 

“It’s like Black Friday or something.” Ky’s voice was quiet as she stared out the window, her night vision allowing her to see the hordes of undead pressing themselves against the metal fence and the thick gate. It had been hours since the herd arrived, drawn to their presence by the appearance of Starr and her minions. They were so thick outside that the trees in their midst shook constantly from the pressure of bodies behind them.
 

Eli sat next to her, reading silently and quickly in the dim light of a flashlight through several machinery manuals he had found in the mill. In one of the back offices, the children, Margaret, Davey and Tommy, were being taken care of by Susan and Reggie. The two weary adults were trying earnestly to get the small ones to sleep after a light meal of more chips and some MREs pulled from Kate and Ky’s packs.
 

If not for their full supply rations, the whole group would have been seriously hurting for sustenance. They all thanked fate that the packs had remained unmolested by the river.

“Think they can break through?” Rhi asked as Kate came back inside from a quick patrol. She tilted her head noncommittally as she leaned her rifle against a table in the corner and gathered her hair in both hands, resetting her pony tail as Ethan grunted across the room.

“I ain’t never known those stupid shits not to get what they wanted. And they want in here to eat our asses. So my money’s on them.”
 

“Thanks for the sunny report, but I was hoping someone with actual intelligence could answer,” said Rhi, turning back to Kate. “How’s it look?”
 

Kate shook her head, taking a seat next to me at the conference table as I took one more look at the map in front of me, folded it, and put it in my cargo pocket.
 

“No breaches yet, so that’s good. It’s a thick metal fence. I doubt they’ll push it over. And the trees help—particularly on the rear of the property. They help them get critical mass and they even help prevent them from stacking up. But that’s our real threat in front. Not that they’re going to get through the gate, but that they’ll start trampling each other and create a ramp for themselves.”
 

“We saw this in DC,” I said. “Didn’t matter much to us, since the walls were a lot higher, but they did this against the sides of the Pentagon. Were about three or four feet deep, in the end. That was with millions of them out there, but still. A couple feet is all they need here before a few start toppling over. They’re clumsy and stupid, but eventually their persistence will get us.”

“And the front is a liability because it’s got very little tree cover, so it doesn’t help break up the press at all. Plus, that’s where they saw us come in. The entire back wall of this place is still clear. They’re just trying to press in this side because that’s where the know the food is.”

“So we could still escape over the back wall?” Reggie asked as he reentered quietly from the children’s room. His dark features were worn and drawn, the stress of protecting his children clear on his earnest face.

Kate shook her head.

“We could, but it’d be suicide. No vehicles, and a thick forest that will eventually be full of them. Just think about our friends out front like the leading edge of a tide. If you put a sand castle in front of it, the water will eventually push past the sides and fill in against the back—there’s just too much water and too little castle.”
 

“So what? We sit ‘round here watchin’ our man parts get smaller, waiting to die?” Ethan’s voice was annoyed and cranky, and he continued to eagerly scratch at his wounded leg.
 

“You’d be bored something fierce if that were your entertainment,” Rhi answered wryly. “Like watching an ant shrivel. Sooner or later, it gets so small, you can’t see shit with the naked eye.” She turned to the rest of us as Ethan guffawed loudly.

“We’re saying that they’re eventually going to get in,” her voice was a statement, not a question, and it had a note of resigned finality.

“Yes,” I said, not sugar coating it. “If they didn’t know we were here, they would be gone by tomorrow night. Now, though…” I trailed off, glancing over my shoulder. “The whole herd has likely stopped and will be surrounding us soon.”
 

“So maybe we should run,” said Reggie, sitting heavily at the head of the table, and putting his head immediately in his hands, his eyes haunted by the prospect of having to protect his children from the tens of thousands of creatures outside.
 

“Didn’t you hear them, boy? Ain’t gonna be better that way. This place is likely already in the center of the herd. Just ‘cause they’re not at the fence don’t mean they’re not out there.” Ethan’s comment was a rare agreement with me, and I nodded once in his direction.
 

“We need to figure out a way to shore up the defenses here and to distract them. Pull them away from the fences. It’s the only way.” Kate said, putting her arm around Ky as she sat down next to her at the table. I smiled at the love there, happy to have found my family again.
 

“These things are drawn by noise and light. That’s why they were drawn to the volcano. We just have to find something that looks a lot more attractive than a seemingly abandoned old building. They only want in here because they saw us go in. Now they can’t count, and they always follow the latest and greatest treat. So if we can get a vehicle outside the line, hopped up with noise and light, it stands a chance of pulling them off—maybe all of them.” I tried to keep my voice even, not letting the fear intrude.
 

I intended to be the person outside the line, pulling them away. And even though I had previously done some stupid shit—like wading into the herd outside the gates of the fortress in Seattle—this seemed like a much worse idea.
 

“And where do they go from there? Where does the driver of this mystery vehicle take the herd of the undead? And how do they escape?” Rhi squinted at me as if knowing who the driver would be … would
have to
be, to have any chance at surviving the trip.
 

I pulled the map out of my pocket and pointed.

“This road. It leads due east and it’s only a mile to our south. We pull them away, send them in that direction. Once they’re far enough away from here, we park the vehicle, and they’ll keeping moving toward it. Eventually, they’ll forget us and keep moving toward the volcano.”