ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) (16 page)

Another pair of Harleys rolled to a stop a yard from the
Tahoe’s left side. Immediately a scrawny biker chick crawled from one of the
throbbing steeds and, brandishing a pistol, clambered aboard the trapped SUV.

The biker hailing from Stanley called out to the one from
Boise. “Shoot ‘em so we can go.”

Seeing the biker chick steer the commandeered Tahoe onto
92nd and fall in behind a handful of straggling Harleys, Duncan shook his head
and said, “You don’t want this truck. The A/C don’t work and she’s running on
fumes. Besides,
Hoss
, if you don’t ride off into the sunset after your
murdering leader, I’ll blow a forty-five-caliber hole into your belly before
your fingers touch that
pistola
hanging there. Then I’ll put a couple of
holes in your buddy and for good measure kneecap ya both and leave you here for
the, what’d ya call ‘em …
biters
?”

Boise’s eyes got big and in rapid succession flicked from
the muzzle to Duncan’s eyes, then fixed on the shotgun barrel Charlie was now
waggling in his general direction. The biker’s eyes made the circuit once more
as another Harley pulled abreast and a heavyset biker chick wiggled off the
pill-sized back seat and formed up next to Boise brandishing a shotgun of her
own.

“This one’s no good,” Boise said, waving her off. He pointed
at something behind the Dodge. “Take the yellow H2 at the back of the line. And
tell those fuckers in the little car to quit honking.” Spittle flew from his
mouth. “Shoot them if you have to. And make it quick … looks like the National
Guard has a block set up down the road.”

“Shit,” said the woman, flashing bad teeth. “Let’s go take
‘em out. Steal the real thing.”

“Not yet,” said Boise, staring her down. “We do what we’re
told. And that’s to get some wheels. Not shoot it out with the military … Ganz
says we’re not prepared for that yet.”

Glancing sidelong to his left, Duncan watched the scrawny
male hop off the newly arrived bike and follow his shotgun-wielding passenger
down the left turn lane towards the civilian Hummer.

A half-beat later there was a booming report and the honking
stopped.

“Compact driver just bought it,” Charlie said in a funereal
voice.

“Stay calm,” Duncan replied under his breath.

The Nomad Jester from Stanley revved his motor and began
walking the stretched-out bike toward his Nomad brother.

Boise was looking down the line when another shotgun blast
split the air.

Charlie craned over his shoulder. “The walrus-looking bitch
just executed the Hummer driver and threw him to the road,” he said, his chest
and gut rising and falling noticeably. “And I suspect the soldiers at the
roadblock saw and heard it all going down.”

Seemingly unfazed by the brazen acts of violence, Boise
swept his gaze left and, seeing the rest of the gang disappearing to the north,
made a show of moving his gun hand from his side.

“Shoot the fucker,” Charlie hissed.

“We aren’t the law,” Duncan replied softly as he watched
Boise take his sunglasses from his collar and hide his piercing blue
Boys
from Brazil
eyes behind their mirrored lenses.

“It’s your lucky day, Tex,” Boise called out, patting the
bulge riding low in his left front pants pocket. “I could radio the others.
Have them come back here and skin you alive.”

Duncan couldn’t resist. He said, “You’re right, Clown, I am
feeling pretty
lucky
today. And you can bet none of it’s gonna rub off
on you. ‘Cause the way I’m seeing this play out—cavalry coming or not—you go
for that radio in your pocket and you’ll be dead and hitting the ground before
your fingers get past that shriveled pecker of yours.”

Fingers curling into fists, the Nomad Jester’s jaw took a
firm set.

With its engine revving near redline, the yellow Hummer
swung hard right and rocked violently as it rolled over its former driver’s
prostrate corpse.

Duncan flicked his eyes to the right-wing mirror and saw the
big brick-shaped SUV roaring past the compact car and then begin to slow as it
drew near to his truck.

Charlie made a play of looking down at the shotgun in his
hands then swept his gaze back to Duncan, the look in his eyes screaming,
Let’s
do them all.

Boise threw his leg over the Harley.

Duncan looked left, then back to Charlie and shook his head.
“Not in the cards today.”

Charlie cursed under his breath as the civilian H2 screeched
to a halt on his side and the scrawny Nomad Jester leaped out. Grip tightening
on the pump gun, he engaged the biker chick driver in a seconds-long staring
match, then watched helplessly as the newly disgorged passenger climbed onto
his waiting Harley and sped off after the others.

“They’re really leaving,” Duncan whispered, his eyes never
leaving Boise as the biker waved for the H2 to follow and committed his Harley
to a slow-sweeping left-hand turn across both northbound lanes of 92nd.

Displeasure evident on the biker chick’s face, she flashed
Charlie the bird and roared off in the Hummer after the retreating Nomads from
Idaho.

“That was close,” Duncan said. He flicked his eyes to the
side mirror and saw a body lying fetal in the westbound lane of Flavel. Blood
had already pooled around the nearly headless corpse. A wide swath of gore,
presumably disintegrated bone, scalp, and hair, painted the deserted street by
the corpse’s drawn-up legs. Closer still, on Duncan’s side, he could see the
former driver of the H2. Once a very large man, the weight of his own vehicle
driving over top of him had crushed him flat and spit him out all twisted up,
arms and legs bent at unnatural angles.

Feeling his hands begin to shake, Charlie let go of his
death grip on the shotgun. As he placed it back on the floor by his feet, he
caught a bit of movement in his wing mirror. So he craned around to see and
without missing a beat, said, “The soldiers at 82nd are turning their rig
around.”

Flicking his eyes to the mirror, Duncan saw a lone tan
Humvee performing a jerky three-point-turn. He was about to turn left and put
the pedal to metal to put some distant between them and the soldiers when, in
his right peripheral vision, he detected numerous black shapes coming on at a
high rate of speed.

More black choppers.

Duncan wisely stood on the brakes and they watched as more
Nomad Jesters on Harleys blurred through the intersection, seemingly ahead of
their own raucous engine rumble.

“Between a rock and a hard place,” Charlie said, stating the
obvious.

Duncan said nothing. He let the engine idle for a few
seconds as the Humvee grew larger in the rearview. Then, after a self-imposed
five-second delay during which a couple of more motorcycles and a lone SUV
following the herd passed in front of them, he hung a slow and steady right
turn and
then
put the pedal to the metal.

In hindsight waiting those few extra seconds for the
remaining bikes and SUV to cross before turning right on 92nd had been the
smart thing to do. On one hand, the pause let the soldiers in the advancing
Humvee see the tail end of the gang passing right-to-left—surely more tempting
a target than two fledgling AARP members in a battered old 4x4 Dodge pick-up
pulling away slowly in the opposite direction.

Duncan knew there was no guarantee a BOLO—be on the
lookout—would not be called out on a horde of Harleys
and
a lifted
Dodge. And sure tooling through a residential neighborhood would take away time
that, seeing as how fast conditions in Portland had regressed over the last
twenty-four hours, they really didn’t have the luxury of wasting.

After taking the right onto 92nd, Duncan sped south past a squat
sprawling
U-Store-It
operation and over a two-lane bridge spanning
Johnson Creek, which was dried to little more than a trickle this time of year.
Six weeks plus of near-record temperatures hadn’t helped matters. Summer in
Portland was usually a stretch of weather hovering in the mid-seventies that
stayed around from July 4th on through Labor Day. Like a switch had been
flicked, the sun would arrive on one and park behind clouds near indefinitely
after the other. Bookends to a long stretch of wet gray weather is how Duncan
described the rest of the year that was
not
summer.

The two-lane dipped underneath Interstate 205 which was
strangely quiet—the usual round-the-clock hiss of radials on cement
nonexistent. For a short distance 92nd went curvy and was flanked by small
copses of trees before straightening out and entering a shallow uphill climb.
Some time later, with the Johnson Creek bridge showing up as a
postage-stamp-sized rectangle of white pavement in the rearview mirror, Duncan
hooked left off of 92nd to Johnson Creek Boulevard that, despite being a newer
addition to the well-established route originating in lower southeast Portland,
took off at an incredibly steep angle. As a result, the Dodge’s engine growled
and the transmission clunked as it made the quick downshifts necessary to
tackle the winding two-lane looming before them.

To Duncan’s amazement the old truck handled the task without
the tired V8 overheating or any of the other idiot gauges indicating that the
engine was balking at the sudden load placed on it.

Near the crest of the subdivision-riddled
eleven-hundred-foot volcanic cinder cone, the road bisecting the Street of
Dreams development that had propelled Mount Scott into being one of the area’s
most sought-after neighborhoods ended abruptly at a “T” capped off by a large
circular cul-de-sac.

Duncan swung the Dodge around a full one-eighty and came to
a slow rolling stop just inches from the curb. Bumper pointing downhill, he
left the motor running, set the brake, and for good measure cut the front
wheels toward the sidewalk.

Satisfied the Dodge would be going nowhere, he leaned back
in his seat and walked his gaze over the multi-story McMansions lining streets
devoid of vehicles—static or otherwise. Figuring the cars and SUVs not already
spiriting their owners out of town were likely tucked away behind garage doors
this early on a Sunday, he shifted his gaze to the homes dotting the vast
terraced development stretching away off of his left shoulder.

Mirrored on the dozens of west-facing windows rising above
him was a vast and blurry tableau that not only featured the distant west
hills, jagged tops of city skyscrapers, and rolling landscape beyond, but also,
duplicated many times over and reflecting off the east-facing windows dotting the
terrain below, the rising sun in all its orange and red glory.

The windows on the looming homes not shuttered or obscured
by drawn curtains revealed only gloomy interiors. Duncan saw not one face
peering out—living or infected. Which was what he expected since they hadn’t
encountered a single ambulance or police cruiser since leaving Charlie’s place.

“Hear that?” Duncan asked out of the blue.

“Nope,” Charlie replied. “Don’t hear a thing.”

“Precisely,” was Duncan’s immediate response. “It’s like the
police and EMTs are all at church ... or took the day off entirely.”

Simultaneously Charlie’s brow hiked up, and he cocked his
head at an odd angle, listening for himself. “You’re right,” he finally said.
“There are no sirens blaring today.” He scanned the sky. “Still no contrails.
Nothing moving up there.”

Duncan nodded and looked down the row of houses built on the
nearest terrace. Suddenly he felt a cold chill rock his body and, like a seer’s
premonition, knew without a doubt that if he came back to this very spot the
same time tomorrow, the former Street of Dreams development would be the exact
opposite—something out of his worst nightmares. And if he were asked to place a
wager on this out of-the-blue gut-punch—an opportunity he rarely turned
down—taking into account the government’s Keystone Kops’ approach to handling
the purported outbreak as well as the ever-widening containment ring around the
city proper, his money would be on Mount Scott, inner Portland, and
all
of her suburbs falling into total lawlessness by nightfall. Because in his
experience, nothing was going to bridle human nature. Curfew or not, the evil
lurking amongst the good were going to come out to
play
. How the
sickness or infection or flu … whatever the name they stuck on the thing that
was making people go homicidal and cannibalistic figured into all of this, he
hadn’t a clue. He only knew one thing: he wanted to be as far away as possible
come nightfall.

Gut feeling aside, the sweeping one-eighty-degree vista made
the unplanned detour all the more worthwhile. The sun was rising steadily and
dawn’s soft light was painting Portland in a golden hue that belied all of the
suffering Duncan imagined was taking place down there.

All of Southeast laid out before them was visible with the
naked eye. Several structure fires raged out of control in the nearby Brentwood
neighborhood. Beyond Brentwood, in either Woodstock or Eastmoreland, a couple
of city blocks were being consumed by licking flames. The smoke from the fires
was drifting west by north and obscuring the heavily treed neighborhoods near
the Willamette.

Duncan motioned to the glovebox. “There’s a pair of
binoculars in there. Can you dig them out for me?” He scanned the windows of
the nearby houses again, seeing one pair of blinds behind a pair of multi-paned
French doors snap shut. When he returned his gaze to Charlie, the binoculars
were being offered to him.

“These aren’t your momma’s bird-watching field-glasses,”
Duncan said, taking the rubberized item from Charlie. He removed his Stetson
and placed it on the seat next to him. He looped the nylon restraining strap
over his head then held the binoculars up in front of his aviator glasses and
spent a moment manipulating the applicable wheels to adjust fit and focus.

Charlie shifted on his seat. Facing Duncan, he asked, “What
are you seeing?”

Duncan didn’t answer at first. Ignoring the neighborhoods
directly below Mount Scott as well as the ones closer in, starting at the edge
of the vast gray smudge he walked the binoculars down the river left-to-right.

A pair of what appeared to be Black Hawk helicopters lazily
cut the downtown airspace in a diagonal path following the river north. As the
helos became specks on the horizon, he dragged his gaze southeast of downtown
to where Interstate 5 crossed the Willamette via the bi-level Marquam Bridge.
From a still shot on the local station he knew it was choked with passenger
cars, SUVs, and eighteen-wheelers—a veritable parking lot in both directions.
Beyond the span the usually full-to-capacity Riverplace Marina was only empty
slips and deserted floating docks. And as relayed by the camera on the
station’s helicopter, the river below the Marquam had been filled
shore-to-shore with a multitude of white watercraft at anchor, which the
reporter speculated were likely full of Riverplace Marina residents intent on
riding out whatever was happening at that moment in time in the downtown
quarantine zone.

Wishing he could see through the drifting smoke now, if only
to see the mayhem with his own eyes and reassure himself he had made the
correct decision to skip town, Duncan trained the binoculars on the part of
outer Portland they’d soon be transiting.

The south-to-north-running stretch of 82nd Avenue visible
from Mount Scott was a laser-straight stripe of gray totally devoid of civilian
vehicles. Duncan walked the binoculars off of 82nd and up Flavel past Charlie’s
place, but didn’t see much because of the businesses and mature trees lining
both sides of the road. Moreover, the intersection where Flavel crossed 92nd
was blocked from view by the U-Store-It facility.

Charlie asked, “Do you see the National Guard?”

“I can’t even see the intersection from here.”

Duncan described what he saw as he walked the binoculars
along the entire length of Interstate 205 open to scrutiny. It was mostly free
of vehicles and the few he saw moving southbound were soon caught up in a
roadblock consisting of a dozen static military vehicles that looked to be
grouping up for some kind of further action. In total, six Humvees were evenly
distributed over six lanes. On either side of the grassy median sat a boxy
Bradley fighting vehicle, one with its angled front end and cannon aimed south,
the other covering the northern approach.

“Explains the light traffic noise,” Charlie observed.

“That it does,” Duncan agreed.

Looking toward the base of the hill where Johnson Creek
Boulevard curled off to the right, Charlie said, “And I don’t hear the V-twin
engines.”

“Or Humvees,” Duncan said solemnly. “I didn’t think they
would follow us. And as hard as it is to admit … I figured they’d leave the
dirtbags on the bikes alone, too. Hell, they have bigger fish to fry. Besides,
Humvees are great for eating up desert and woodland and snow and ice. Hot
pursuit over narrow surface streets … not so much.”

Charlie chuckled. “
Dirtbags
. Priceless … I need to
remember that joke.”

Having seen enough, Duncan traded the binoculars for his
Stetson. He was rattling the shifter into Drive when a voice boomed off to
their left. In the morning still he thought perhaps Ronald Lee Ermey of Full
Metal Jacket fame had crept up on them and was standing a foot off his left
ear. In the next beat he was back in boot camp and preparing to drop and give
whoever had just bellowed “Hey you!” twenty crisp pushups.

But neither was going to happen, because the owner of the
larger-than-life voice was an elderly man wrapped in a tartan bathrobe. He was
looking down on them from a glassed-in deck attached to an earth-tone McMansion
across the street.

Raising an antique shotgun from behind one leg, the man said
forcefully, “You don’t belong here. Get moving, or I’m going to call the cops.”