Omega Days (An Omega Days Novel) (29 page)

Oakland

It wasn’t open water. It was a steel ramp leading down to a rusting maintenance barge with a small deck crane and a tiny wheelhouse. A battered work truck, which might once have been white but was now so pitted and weathered that it looked brown, sat on the flat, narrow deck loaded with welding equipment.

There wasn’t enough room on the barge for both the work truck and the Bearcat. The armored vehicle’s grille slammed into the rear bumper, throwing the old truck forward and pushing it off the far end. It nosed over and sank immediately, and only the brakes kept the Bearcat from following it to the bottom of the harbor, tires sliding on the wet deck. The armored truck’s tires stopped two feet from the edge.

Evan raced down the ramp and skidded to a stop behind the armored truck, jumping off with Maya and running back toward the pier.

“Down here! Down here!” He waved his arms. A half-dozen adults herded a collection of frightened children down the ramp, and Maya knelt on the deck, opening her arms and smiling. The children went straight to the young woman they knew so well, huddling close and hunching against the rain. Among the adults was Faith with her younger children. “Calvin’s up there,” she said. Rifle fire came from the pier.

Evan unslung his shotgun just as a big hand gripped his arm. He turned to look into the lean, carved face of an older man with a gray crew cut, wearing full black body armor and carrying a rifle. His eyes were an unsympathetic shade of blue. “Don’t go up there,” the older man said. More rifle fire. Evan stared at him a moment and then pulled away, running back up the ramp.

TC appeared beside his cellmate. “Company, huh?” He hefted his shotgun. “We gonna let ’em stay, or should I clear the decks?”

“What, kill the kids?” Carney gave him a fierce look, and TC simply shrugged and gave him that smile he had recently come to dislike.

“Just asking. What are we gonna do?”

Carney walked past the knot of children, who were clustering around the kneeling girl while the adults watched the pier, flinching with every crack of a rifle. The older con went up the ramp and stood at the top.

The shooting was constant now, and the wall of corpses had reached the last vehicle in line, flowing around it and pouring down both sides of the pier. The people from the cars and vans were backing away, firing as they retreated. Carney saw one man, the tow truck driver he recognized from earlier when he and TC had been observing the caravan, stop and look down as he fed fresh shells into a rifle. One of the dead got close and galloped at him, tackling the man and bearing him to the ground, biting at his face. The screams caused the others to break. They stopped shooting and ran back toward the head of the column.

•   •   •

N
o!” Evan shouted as they passed him. “Keep firing! Keep them back as long as you can!”

No one listened, but Calvin appeared beside him and grabbed his arm. “You found a boat?” he asked urgently.

“A barge. I don’t know if—”

“Get them on it and get it moving. Don’t wait for me.” Calvin slung his assault rifle, gripped the grenade hanging around his neck and gave it a sharp tug, breaking the leather thong. He pulled the pin and threw it far out into the horde, then started running at the advancing dead before it went off. When it did, the explosion was muffled by tightly packed bodies. A few bits and pieces went flying, and one body cartwheeled through the air, but the mass didn’t slow.

“Calvin, no!”

Thunder rumbled overhead. “Don’t wait for me!” he shouted, not looking back. Evan cursed and ran back to the ramp, passing the man with the crew cut, his boots thudding down the metal planking. Maya’s eyes were wide and frightened, but he passed her by and ran for the little wheelhouse set to one side of the barge at the back end.

•   •   •

T
C watched the man who had been on the Harley go by, then climbed into the Bearcat through the rear doors. He paused to see if anyone was watching, and then closed them behind him. Inside, the rain made a drumming sound on the truck’s metal roof. He crouched beside Skye’s bound form, looking her over. Her eyelids fluttered and she was muttering behind her gag, tossing her head, covered in sweat. The inmate pulled her tank top up over her sports bra and ran a hand down her body. Her skin was slick and hot to the touch, but she was so very firm. He felt a stirring between his legs.

“Maybe you’d infect me like Carney said,” he whispered. “Maybe you won’t.” His hand paused just beneath her left breast, and he licked his lips. He could feel her heart hammering in there. “Maybe,” he said, his other hand moving to his belt buckle, “we’ll just have a little party, and then I’ll cut your throat and throw you overboard, tell them you started to turn, that there was nothing I could do. Who would know?” His eyes gleamed, and he smiled. “Yeah, that works. You’re gonna die anyway, right?” His hand moved across her skin. “Let’s have a party.”

•   •   •

O
utside, Evan yanked open the wheelhouse door and stared at the greasy controls. They looked simple enough. Years ago he had driven a friend’s boat while waterskiing on a Virginia lake. How much different could this be? He searched for keys, didn’t see any. His eyes roamed the small control board, seeing the empty ignition, and what looked like the steering wheel from a 1970s Buick. Keys. Keys, Goddammit!

There they were, attached to an orange flotation key ring, hanging from a small hook screwed into the plywood ceiling. He stabbed the key into the ignition and turned. It cranked slowly, and he wondered if the engine for that same 1970s Buick was what powered this heap. It died. He tried again, and it made a
huh-huh-huh-huh
sound before coughing out again.

A heavy rifle up at the pier let out a string of quick shots.

He spotted a knob that reminded him of something from an old lawn mower engine, a choke. He pulled it out and turned the key once more.

Huh-huh-huh . . .

The small diesel caught, and black smoke belched from a rusting pipe mounted outside the wheelhouse. Evan examined the simple forward-backward control and the throttle stick. He stuck his head out of the wheelhouse. “Untie us from the dock!” he called out.

Faith and a woman called America nodded and ran to the ropes tethering the barge to the pier. Hippies with rifles and pistols ran down the ramp, crowding onto the tight, narrow deck.

•   •   •

U
p on the pier, Carney watched the man run at the dead.
Stupid way to commit suicide,
he thought.
Asshole.
He heard the barge’s engine start and started to sling his rifle, turning away. Just before he did, however, he saw the older hippie stop at a VW bus a mere twenty feet from the head of the oncoming horde, yank open the side doors, and lean in.

A pair of corpses stumbled toward him.

The man emerged a moment later with a red-and-white metal cooler in his arms, a car charger cord dangling from one end. He started back, just as one of the corpses caught him by the shoulder.

•   •   •

C
alvin jerked away, and another clutched at the back of his arm. He pulled, but the first grabbed the back of his leather vest, hauling him close. The crack of a rifle and the hum of a supersonic bullet passing his ear came at almost the same instant, and one of the ghouls fell in a bloody spray. The man in black armor with the crew cut shifted a bit and fired again. Another close hum, and the corpse gripping his vest went down. Calvin ran, the horde close behind, and he reached the ramp in seconds as the man kept firing past him.

“Big risk for beer,” Carney said.

“My kid’s insulin,” Calvin gasped, his heart racing. “But I could sure use a cold one.”

They went down the ramp together as the wall of corpses swallowed up one car after the next, a wave of hungry, mindless flesh swarming like angry ants.

Free of its bonds, the barge slid away from the pier. The old diesel chugging, Evan eased the vessel backward, and the metal ramp fell into the oily water. The swarm arrived moments later, and without hesitating stumbled right off the wharf and into the water by the hundreds, like monstrous lemmings. They kept coming, kept walking off the edge, and soon the water was filled with bobbing heads. They quickly sank.

Evan continued backing the barge away as Maya joined him in the wheelhouse, hugging him from behind and pressing her head against his wet shirt. He watched the dead, thousands more arriving and crowding onto the wharf, many still falling off into the water, arms outstretched even as their prey drew farther and farther away. He looked right, past the end of the pier toward a stretch of land on the far side of the channel. The rain and the deepening afternoon cast everything in charcoal tones, and the sky was darkening, promising a more severe storm. He patted Maya’s hand, and she came around to look at his face.

“Look,” he said, pointing.

She did. Out there in the rain, past the channel, a helicopter with a tiny, winking light on its tail was slowly settling onto that far stretch of land.

Evan shifted the drive forward and turned the wheel. “That’s where we’re going.”

Alameda

It had been a piece of luck, at least for Angie, not for the people who had been here. Cruising alone in the Excursion on the south side of town, she came across a street filled with emergency vehicles. There was a pair of fire trucks (from her firehouse, she wondered?), an ambulance, and two police cars. The burned-out shell of a city bus was buried in a storefront, and the building itself had clearly been on fire. The flames were out, but there was no saving the people on the bus.

They must have quickly spilled out to overwhelm the first responders.

Now a few charred corpses lay in the street, victims of lucky head shots by the police, but everyone else was gone. The passing weeks and the current rain had washed away all other traces of gore. The scene was untouched by scavengers, so Angie left the Excursion in the middle of the street and set immediately to work.

The ambulance and fire trucks provided a supply of oxygen bottles, which the elderly couple would need. All carried mobile medical kits and other emergency supplies, and she took the fire axes from the trucks as well. Although the police officers were gone—along with their sidearms—their squad cars still carried a pair of shotguns, ammunition, flares, and full-sized spare tires and jacks. She even took the car batteries. It all went into the Excursion.

As she worked, Angie remained aware of her surroundings. Getting too involved and focused on a project out here was a good way to get jumped and bitten, so she stopped regularly to look and listen. A San Francisco Giants cap kept the rain out of her eyes, and the Galil hung in a sling across her chest so she could keep her hands free to work, but still reach it quickly if needed. The dead didn’t seem to be around at the moment, though.

On a corner across from the burned bus stood a Walgreens, and it took her a moment of staring before she realized the windows weren’t broken. The Galil came up, her finger curling around the trigger. She checked the street right and left, saw it was still empty, and advanced toward the front of the store.

The dead electric doors pushed aside with a little effort. Gray light from the front windows penetrated a short distance in, leaving the aisles and back half of the store in shadows. She stopped and held her breath, listening.

Nothing.

Angie pulled a small, powerful flashlight from a cargo pocket and held it in her left hand, along with the front grip of the Galil, keeping the muzzle in line with the beam. Everything was still on the shelves; there was no sign of looting. She checked behind the register counters to be certain nothing was lurking back there, then moved sideways across the front end, pointing the light and the rifle down each aisle as she passed. Every one of them had full shelves, and no walking dead. At the far end of her beam, at the back of the store, she could see the pharmacy counter. The security gate was down, but it was intact.

Her mind raced. National chain drugstores like this were at least one-third grocery store these days: nonperishable food and beverages, along with batteries, first-aid supplies, vitamins and remedies, even cigarettes to satisfy Maxie’s foul habit. The stockroom would hold more of everything, and there was a full pharmacy at the back, all of it untouched. This one store could keep the firehouse group going for at least a year.

The flashlight fell upon an end cap loaded with packaged diapers. The image of a mother looking tenderly at a swaddled infant stared back at her, and Angie felt her chest tighten. And suddenly her decision was made. Her uncle’s argument made complete sense, and she carried most if not all of the responsibility for the people she had rescued and gathered together. But Angie had a daughter, a husband, and that was that. She would mark the site on the map for the others, deliver the treasures she had already found today, and that would be her final service to them. She would make one last appeal for Bud to come with her, but whether he agreed or whether she went alone, Angie West was leaving in the morning. Leah was waiting.

An unusual noise came from behind her, out on the street. Angie held her breath again, straining to identify the familiar sound, but then a rumble of thunder blotted it out. Frustrated, she waited until it came through again. Something distant, not right outside. She started slowly toward the doors, and then she had it. A helicopter. Angie bolted for the entrance, just as blocks away, the firehouse siren went off.

•   •   •

B
ud Franks was on the roof when the helicopter passed by, flying low and following the channel, a white light blinking at its tail. He watched the Black Hawk with his mouth slightly open, feeling like a caveman seeing a spaceship. It headed north, then banked and slowed, dropping from view. Landing.

At the old naval air station.

Thoughts tumbled through his head as he raced for the stairs: rescue, a working government, safety for the people hiding in the fire station, maybe even a way to get home. “Helicopter!” he shouted into the top-floor hallway as he went down the stairs two and three at a time. “Helicopter!”

Sophia Tanner and Margaret Chu emerged from a doorway, startled by the yelling, fearing the worst. Bud slid to a stop. “A helicopter just landed out at the old Navy base. I think it’s the Army.”

“We’re getting out of here!” Sophia hugged him, and Bud grinned.

“We can be on the road in five minutes,” Margaret said. “The vehicles are ready.”

“Angie’s still out,” Bud said, his smile evaporating. The mate to the two-way radio she carried was downstairs. “I’ll track her down.”

“And I’ll get them packed and moving,” Margaret said.

Bud was almost to the main room when the siren on the roof of the building went off, a long, piercing howl that would carry across the entire island. And draw the attention of every corpse within miles.

“Son of a
bitch
!” The radio was in the little front office, but Bud ran past it. The button for the siren was in the garage. Who the hell would set that thing off, knowing what it would attract? He already knew the answer.

“Bud, what’s happening?” Jerry and Mark Phillips were in the main room as Bud went by. He didn’t stop to answer and moved quickly down a short hallway, hitting the door to the garage on the run.

Maxie was waiting. He shot Bud in the chest the moment the man filled the doorway. The former deputy staggered to the left, clawing for his shoulder holster. Maxie shot him again, and Bud fell into the side of a metal storage locker with a crash. Holding the .32 revolver, Maxie walked to him and pulled the big automatic out of his holster, shoving it into his waistband. Then he crouched and patted Bud’s pants pockets until he found the keys to Angie’s van.

Jerry and Mark came through the door to the firehouse. “What the—”

Maxie turned and fired three times. Two bullets splintered off the door frame, making the heavyset comic leap back inside. The third caught the insurance adjuster under the chin, and he went down with a gurgle.

It was hard to breathe, and it felt like someone was standing on his chest. Bud wanted to sit up, wanted to grab Maxie by the throat and choke him until his eyes rolled up, but instead he slid further down the side of the locker. He was cold, too tired to do anything but lie there.

“. . . why . . . ?” he managed, looking at Maxie and trying to lift his arms.

The man stood and tossed the van keys into the air, catching them, laughing. “I got to take care of myself.” He shook his head. “It don’t have to make sense to you, and besides, I never liked you much, anyway.” He smiled with that one gold tooth. “Some folks is just bad people, Mr. Bud.” He chirped the door locks and walked to the front of the bay, hitting the switch not only for the garage door in front of the Angie’s Armory van, but also for the door in front of the empty space where the Excursion was usually parked.

“I expect they’ll be in here directly,” he said, gesturing at the dead that were shuffling in from all directions, drawn by the wailing siren. He laughed again, and then he was climbing in, starting the van.

Margaret Chu came out of the firehouse racking the pump of a shotgun with Jerry close behind her.
“Bastard!”
She blew a hole in the side of the van as it started forward, racked the shotgun again, and blew another hole. Maxie gunned the engine, the rear tires squealing on the polished cement before roaring out onto the street. Margaret sent another blast after him and tore a ragged hole in a rear door as he turned left, knocking down half a dozen of the walking dead as he accelerated away.

“Mark is dead,” Jerry said behind her. He went to the fallen deputy. “Bud’s still alive.” Elson and a crowd of frightened faces filled the door to the firehouse.

Margaret racked the shotgun and moved to the roll-up doors. “Elson, drag Mark out onto the driveway. I’ll deal with him when he turns. Jerry, get everyone loaded.”

The men hurried to their jobs, Elson grabbing the dead insurance man by the ankles and pulling him across the floor, leaving him just outside the bay doors. Margaret went to the controls, shut off the siren, and lowered both roll-up doors at the same time, standing ready with the shotgun. By the time the doors connected with the ground, the dead arrived and began piling up, pounding on the metal and glass. Their friend Mark Phillips soon rose to join them.

Jerry got the senior van loaded with as many people as it would hold, then herded the rest to Maxie’s Cadillac. He let out a relieved breath when he found that the man had left his keys in the ignition.

Margaret faced Elson and Jerry. “They’re not going to go away, and they’re going to force their way in. We have to leave. We’re heading to the Navy base, and we’ll hope that helicopter is still there.” She pointed to the men and the vehicles. “Elson, you drive the van; Jerry, take the Cadillac. The base is on the maps.”

As they moved, Margaret went to where Bud was slumped. His chest was rising and falling with irregular hitches, and his face was colorless. Too much blood covered the floor, and Margaret bit her lip, knowing there was nothing she could do. Bud seemed to know it as well.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, kneeling in front of him, tears filling her eyes.

“. . . yours . . . now . . .” He took a shallow breath and closed his eyes. “Do it.”

Margaret nodded, kissed the man on the cheek, and then stood and pressed the muzzle to his forehead. In the vehicles, the adults made the children look away. When it went off, the shotgun sounded like the world exploding.

Sobbing, Margaret went back into the firehouse and retrieved the walkie-talkie that would connect her with Angie. Before she climbed into the senior van, she opened both rear bay doors, and the two vehicles rolled out the back a moment later.

•   •   •

A
ngie reached for the radio on her hip as she ran for the doors, then remembered it was on the dashboard of the Excursion. Outside the siren was much louder, even though it was many blocks away. In normal times she probably wouldn’t have heard it at all over the street noise and the airport traffic flying overhead, but Alameda was quieter now. The world was quieter.

The dead were responding to the siren. They emerged from doorways, appeared at second- and third-floor windows. One even crawled out from under a fire truck, right where she had been standing a short while ago. It couldn’t have been there earlier, she thought. It would have tried to bite her ankle.

Angie raised the Galil and fired. A man in a sport coat went down. A woman in a meter maid’s uniform and another in a bathrobe collapsed with head shots. Turning left, she dropped a high school student, an elderly man, a fireman, and the rotting corpse of a teenager limping toward her in a thigh-length cast covered in signatures and lipstick hearts. More appeared.

She trotted to the big SUV and tossed her rifle onto the passenger seat, climbing in and locking the driver’s door behind her. Bodies thumped against the vehicle as she fired up the engine and reached for the walkie-talkie. “Bud, what’s happening?” she asked.

No reply.

“Bud, come in. Do you copy?”

The siren cut off abruptly, and at that moment she caught a horrible, sour stench coming from the backseat. She glanced at the rearview, already reaching for her shoulder holster, and saw a scarecrow seated behind her wearing a hooded sweatshirt. His eyes jittered, the pupils so big and black that they looked like twin bullet holes. The muzzle of a pistol pressed against her right temple, and her hand froze on the butt of her own automatic.

“Hello, beautiful,” the man said. “I’m Peter.”