Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (16 page)

JT’s brow furrowed.

“You’ll wanna watch it going around that outcropping. Winter surf makes for sneaker waves, although they’re not as bad here as they are on some of the other beaches.”

Great. Sneaker waves.
The idea of getting washed out to sea bothered me more than going
mano a mano
with the undead. I mean, zombies could be stopped—a bullet to the head did the job. The ocean, on the other hand, wouldn’t pay attention if I said, “Please don’t drown me or smash me against these rocks.” And I couldn’t put a bullet in its brain pan, either.

I thought of those kids we’d found, and gave an involuntary shudder.

The tide was definitely rising. Each set of waves seemed to encroach just a little bit further onto the few feet of sand still visible. One out of every five or so sent foamy water hissing over our feet. It wasn’t too bad, though, until we got to the outcropping. Waves slapped against the rocks, water swirling in and around the crevices and hiding the sand.

The water receded, leaving a foot or two of wet sand. There were rocks sunken in depressions, making little hidden land mines. I noted their locations as best I could before the incoming waves covered them up again.

“Next time the water goes out, we run for it,” Nathan said.

Moans echoed through the fog. I glanced back and sure enough, slumped figures slowly emerged out of the mist, mangled features and misshapen limbs becoming visible as they slowly but steadily made their way toward us. Creepy as hell.

Eat your heart out, John Carpenter.

More sets of waves rushed in, coming in quick succession, each one a little higher than the previous one as we waited impatiently for a chance to go. What looked like the last big set splashed high up against the rocks.

JT raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” he said. Then, as nimble as a spider monkey, he scrambled up and across the rocks and out of sight.

“Come on, tide,” I muttered as the zombies grew closer. It was probably just my imagination, but their pace seemed to pick up when they caught sight of us. Nathan kept a cool eye on them, taking out the front two with calm efficiency. Then again, he pretty much did everything with calm efficiency. It may have been his only setting.

Finally the water receded with a hissing sound, far and fast enough to leave a damp spit of sand.

“Now!” Nathan waved Tony and me ahead, taking one more shot and felling one more zombie before following behind us. We ran for it, darting around and leaping over the now partially submerged rocks as we raced the waves.

We made it to the next recession in the beach, the coastline curving back in to form a little cove. JT was already there, examining the next rocky barrier with a clinical eye. The three of us trotted up next to him.

There was a good thirty-foot stretch where the tide had already reached the edge, leaving no visible ground. The murky water left no way of knowing how deep it was. It could be a few inches, or a few feet. A twisted ankle waiting to happen—a broken one if the misstep was really bad, and a quick trip out to sea if a sneaker wave decided to pay a visit.

Climbing over the rocks, however, didn’t look much better. The ones near the bottom were already wet, covered with nasty slippery green moss, and the ones above it weren’t much better.

“This sucks,” I said.

Tony nodded, looking glumly at the water and the rocks.

“It’s, like, a total Scully-versus-Cherry moment.”

We all looked at him.

Scully versus Cherry
? It sounded like
X-Files
porn to me.

“You know,” Tony explained, “the whirlpool and the monster in the cliffs that that Greek dude had to get by, and like, he had to decide which one was a better choice.”

“Scylla versus Charybdis,” JT said, pronouncing them with ease.

Show off.

Tony nodded.

“Yeah, those. Manny and I used to call them Scully and Cherry. Drove our English teacher crazy.” He grinned to himself at the memory, a flash of genuine happiness before his face clouded back over. His friend Manny had died in Redwood Grove during the initial zombie outbreak.

“Not a bad analogy,” Nathan said. “Question is, which one do we choose?”

Just then a larger than normal wave crashed against the rocks nearest to us, sending spray in our direction as the water roiled up around the cliffs and lapped at our toes.

Sneaker wave.

We looked at each other.

“Cherry?” I said.

“Cherry,” Nathan replied.

We stowed our weapons in their respective slings and sheaths to leave our hands free for climbing. JT led the way, finding footholds and handholds with ease as he made his way about five feet above the slick, moss-covered rocks.

“There isn’t a sole around with enough traction to deal with this shit,” he said. We followed as best we could, Nathan bringing up the rear again.

I found myself falling behind, however, tentative in finding my footholds and handgrips, slipping on what seemed like every damn rock I stepped on. I found myself taking a slightly lower and slower route than the menfolk in part due to a lifelong fear of heights. I was
so
not going to take up mountaineering in the near future.

My foot slipped on one of those damned mossy patches, making my stomach lurch. I reached out with my right hand for stability, grasping at an outcropping only to have my hand slip into a slimy crevice. Something moved in there and I shrieked in surprise, sounding embarrassingly shrill.

“You okay?” Nathan paused about five feet above and ten feet ahead of me.

“I’m fine,” I said, really hating my shaky voice. “I think there was a crab or something.”

“Well then, get your ass up here where it’s dry,” he replied unsympathetically.

“Indy,
euwww
,” Tony whined. “I can’t save you. There are icky bugs!”

“Fuck you, Tony,” I responded.

He laughed, which just pissed me off even more.

A wave crashed onto the rocks, soaking my legs and making me aware just how far down I was in comparison with the rest of my team. I was really feeling the weight of my gear about now. And it smelled bad on the rocks, rot and brine mingling in an unpleasant olfactory experience. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but somehow it never got any better.

A flash of metal caught my eye, a stake sticking in one of the larger crevices. It looked like one of those things fishermen used to anchor their poles in the sand when fishing off the beach, a sand spike or something like that. I wondered what happened to the fisherman who’d put it there, and then decided I really didn’t want to know. It made a good handgrip, though, as I navigated a particularly slippery patch of rocks.

Suddenly the stake punctured something that felt like a balloon, releasing the rich smell of shit as it did so. I gagged just as a hand reached up from the crevice and clutched at my wrist, fingers blue and bloated like rotting sausages. I yelped, causing Tony to snigger again.

“What’s wrong, Willie? Another bug?”

JT popped his head down and took a look.

“Nope, Ashley’s got a new boyfriend.”

I would so kick both of their asses later.

I yanked my arm back, fingers still clinging to my wrist as I pulled up the probable owner of the sand spike, who was still clad in yellow waterproof slicker, the hood pulled over its head, thankfully obscuring the features. Using my other hand to hold onto the rocks, I tried to shake off Zombie Fisherman’s grip, but damned if it wasn’t tenacious.

To quote my dad, the smell was enough to drop a buzzard off a shitwagon.

Bracing my feet as best I could, I reached across with my other hand and pried its fingers off my wrist, wincing at the feel of spongy flesh. Its moan was bubbly, almost like a kid making noise under water. Then I took hold of the stake again and yanked as hard as I could without losing my balance and falling backward into the ocean. It came loose with a squelching sound, upping the gross factor even more.

Readjusting my grip for leverage, I drove it down again, this time into the zombie’s head. Stopped by the tough fabric of the slicker’s hood, the point barely penetrated the skull, but it was enough to push the zombie back into the crevice. I leaned my full weight onto the stake, driving it home with a crunching pop.

Ugh. Gross and—

“Ash! Look out!”

I looked out toward the ocean, just in time to see another set of waves roaring in. Except these were piling into one another to form one big, fat, nasty uber wave.

Well, crap.

I heard Nathan yell my name again right before the wave hit. I held onto the sound of his voice along with the sand spike as cold water hit me with the force of Thor’s Not-So-Wee-Hammer, smashing me against the unyielding surface of the rocks before trying to suck me back into the sea in the backwash.

I clung to the spike for all I was worth, hoping against hope it was anchored firmly in its former owner, and that the zombie was wedged securely enough in the crevice to hold my weight. The water receded, and I risked a glance backward only to see another wall of water heading my way.

Oh, joy.
An entire set of Ashley-killing waves was out there.

The next wave hit and I gasped, cold water going up my nose and into my mouth. I choked and sputtered for what seemed like an endless amount of time, the ocean sapping my strength and my body heat. I clung to the stake, willing my fingers to keep their grip no matter how numb they got, shutting my eyes against the salt water and trying to hold my breath.

Finally, the water receded again, leaving me soaked and shivering, but still clinging to the rocks like a soggy Kevlar limpet. I stayed where I was for a moment, just breathing and glad to be alive before opening my eyes and peering up at Nathan. He looked relieved and furious in equal parts.

“Get your ass up here
now
, before another set like that rolls in,” he growled.

I nodded, still spitting salt water out of my mouth and snorting it out my nose like a walrus. My hand still grasped the sand spike, fingers cramping from the force of my grip. Saying a silent
thank you
to the poor twice-dead fisherman, I used it to hoist myself up, gratefully accepting the hand Nathan held out to me so I could climb up out of reach of the waves.

We reached the end of the rocks, dropping down onto hard-packed sand and what looked like a reassuringly wide expanse of beach. The fog was still pretty thick ahead of us, but what path I could see was clear, and the pack that had been trailing us hadn’t made it past the place where I’d nearly met a watery death.

When I hit the sand, I shook myself like a wet dog, various weapons rattling against one another and my Kevlar. I’d need to do some major cleaning on them as soon as I had a chance. My boots squished with each step. Nothing says fun and chafing like wet socks and underwear.

“How much further?” I asked, hauling myself to my feet.

“Maybe half a mile to the stairs leading up to Fort Funston,” Nathan said.

“What’s at Fort Funston?”

“Nice open space up top for the helicopter to land.”

“You can also hang glide off the cliffs there,” JT added.

“Very helpful,” I said. “Because I’m in such a hurry to throw myself off a cliff.” I turned back to Nathan. “The ’copter should already be waiting, right?”

“Yup. So we’d better hurry before the zombies beat us there.”

* * *

We jogged at a steady pace along the deserted stretch. Fort Funston had been a heavy caliber gun battery, built before WWII so the soldiers housed in the bunkers there could watch the sea and defend against enemy attacks. The remnants of old armaments and gun emplacements littered the beach and the cliffs above, making it look like something out of
Planet of the Apes
. I expected to see the torso of Lady Liberty sticking up out of the sand at any moment, and was fully prepared to drop to my knees and do my best “God… damn you all to
hell
” if it happened.

We passed another sewer runoff, this one decorated with paintings and mosaics of dogs, including a doggie Buddha. JT nodded at it as we jogged by.

“Temple of the Dogs. My ex and I used to bring her pooch here. Yappy little shit of a chihuahua. Not missing either of them.”

A little further down the beach, Nathan moved up away from the water to a sandy trail that cut sharply to the left. I looked up at a seemingly endless pathway, rising in a curving trail up the cliff. A rope rail ran between thick cylindrical wooden posts.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, feeling every soggy pound of my waterlogged clothing and gear.

“Stop whining,” Nathan said unsympathetically.

“I’m not whining. I’m bitching.”

“Whatever. Suck it up and get the hell up those stairs. We have work to do.”

Sucking it up, sir.
But he was right. My discomfort was nothing compared to what was happening around the world… or what Gabriel might be going through. I was still alive enough to be out of breath and cranky—which was more than a lot of people could say.

I jogged steadily up the stairs from hell—uneven wooden logs half buried in the sand—ignoring the burning in my lungs and the aching in my leg muscles. By the time we reached the plateau, I was ready to collapse. Only the sight of a drinking fountain prevented me from giving in to my burning calf muscles and collapsing face first onto the ground. That, and the nearby porta-johns.

I really had to pee.

The two choppers were there, too. Several of our team and a few people I didn’t recognize were gathered beside them. I didn’t see Lil or Griff, but Simone was there, posture tense as she scanned our little group. Her face lit up with relief when she saw Nathan. Just a flash before she resumed her usual expression of detached interest.

Somehow Simone managed to look elegant in BDUs. I had a feeling she’d look good in just about anything—even prison orange. Not that we’d ever have an occasion to put that theory to the test.

“Why are there two ’copters?” JT asked. He looked as fresh as if we’d been out for a casual stroll. I eyed him resentfully.