Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed (43 page)

“That’s the Tenth Special Forces Group returning from a
mission upstate … my husband is with them.” She saw a flash of doubt in the
man’s eyes. “Bring me my daughter,
now
.”

“You are bluffing young lady. That’s only one Humvee … maybe
two, and they don’t stand a chance against us.”

“You people already fucked us once,” Brook spat. “The
firefight with your kids kept Chief from getting the treatment he needed.”

The man’s brow arched. “A bite is fatal,
no
?”

Brook went on, “We got trapped by a horde and sought refuge
on a farm off the road.”

Helen and Ray’s
, thought Dregan, nodding subconsciously.
“And you let
them
live?”

Brook visibly started. “
They
let us live,” she said.
She saw two of the men nearby nod in agreement.

“Drop the weapon, and the girls get to go back with the”—he
smiled wickedly, this time—“your husband. And hey! They’ll have the protection
of the entire Tenth Special Forces Group.”

Hearing the engine noise drawing nearer and feeling her blood
beginning to boil, Brook hissed, “Bring me the girls, now.”

He shook his head, carbine barrel still unwavering.

Now or never.
Keeping her eyes locked with the man’s,
Brook opened both hands and let gravity have the carbine. As it fell toward the
ground, she uncurled her cramping fingers and started her right arm on an
upward arc. Then,
bingo!
she saw confusion on the man’s face and his
eyes broke contact with hers to track the black rifle already near her knees.
Bad
move on his part.
Because, you see, a person’s hands usually follow their
eyes. And this man’s hands were no exception. And the carbine muzzle followed
where they went … to the ground in front of her boots.

Moving lightning quick in spite of the weakness in her right
arm, she darted her left hand behind her back and a fraction of a second
later—just as the metal clatter of the M4 hitting the ground reached her
ears—her left was sweeping back up with the black Beretta clutched in it. Even
before her fingers found the knurled polymer grip and wrapped around it, in a
vernacular she hoped would make her case, she bellowed, “Fuck you and the horse
you rode in on! Does that sound familiar?” Pistol held steady and aimed at
center mass, as Cade had taught her to do when tangling with the living, she
let the words hang, then went on. “Those were Mikhail’s last words … brayed
right before I got hit in the face. He shot first … you need to get that
through your thick fucking skull. Then, and only then, with blood already
running down my face, did I return his fire. I gut shot him through the door of
that SUV on the road behind you. It would have been over then and there if your
Lena wasn’t hell bent on playing Mallory to Mikhail’s Mickey. For some reason.
Love. Youthful indiscretion. She decided to go all Natural Born Killer and follow
his lead and poked her rifle barrel out.” Brook felt her face flush, but
continued. “Chief was a prison guard in the other world. He was trained to
check his fire until a target presented itself. And it did in the form of her face
near the SUV’s rear bumper.” Beard notwithstanding, Brook could tell by the
softening of his jaw and the look in his eyes that she was getting through to
him. However, in order to underline her resolve, and against the voice in her
head telling her not to, she tracked the pistol up, her finger drawing up some
of the trigger pull—
just in case
.

He took a half-step back, his carbine still aimed at the
road.

“I mourned them both then,” she went on. “And I’ve mourned
them both many times since. They were just kids who were out of their element.”
Her face softened even as the sound of tires crunching to a halt drifted up
from the direction of the feeder road.

West of the Eden Compound on State Route 39

Just when Cade thought Mister Murphy was giving them all a
much-needed break, and with the bridge preceding the fallen tree roadblock oh
so close, they rounded a bend in the road and found both lanes blocked by a
sizeable gathering of mostly burnt creatures. With no chance of bulling through
the press of the dead, Duncan and Taryn reversed both vehicles to a standoff
distance, where everyone dismounted and began engaging the nearest of the crispy
critters.

“These ones are moving faster than the others,” said Cade,
referring to the Zs left twice-dead on the road along with the disabled plow
truck some miles back. He dumped an entire magazine of 5.56 through his M4 in a
matter of seconds, resulting in a mess of sooty dead things jumbled together on
the double-solid centerlines up ahead.

To the right of Cade, who was steadying himself on the
4Runner’s open rear passenger-side door, his rifle braced on the window, the
Kids were lighting up the charred abominations with fairly accurate fire.

“Good job! Just keep firing and reloading,” Lev said, his
words of encouragement—aimed at Wilson and Taryn mostly—nearly drowned out by
the raspy moans of the dead.

Shell casings pinged the road all around the four of them.
Assembled in a ragged semi-circle a dozen feet off the 4Runner’s right front
fender, they, along with Cade’s precision shooting, had succeeded in making a
sizable dent in the throng moving towards them.

Left of the centerlines, the trio of Oliver, Duncan, and
Daymon were embroiled in a battle with the dead that had rapidly devolved from
a one-sided gunfight to a hasty retreat.

“Mount up,” hollered Duncan, his shotgun booming twice, the
buckshot sending big chunks of charred flesh and splintered bone skyward and
two headless corpses to the roadway. He fired into the advancing assemblage head-high
until the stubby pump gun was empty and smoking, then clambered aboard the Land
Cruiser.

“Get your ass in here, Daymon,” bellowed Oliver as he slid
into the back seat and banged the door shut.

The dreadlocked firefighter—who was back to his old surly
self now that the pot buzz had worn off—ignored the plea long enough to
decapitate a trio of Zs with Kindness.

Duncan dropped the transmission into
Reverse
and
watched Daymon backpedaling and swinging away with the polished machete. Once
the kid’s skinny butt was in the passenger seat, he passed some shells for the
shotgun over and reversed again to create a buffer.

Juggling the shells, Daymon said, “You shoot ‘em, you reload
‘em. Isn’t that the old rule?”

Duncan didn’t indulge the man with an answer.

***

Cade guessed the three minutes burned on the stretch of road
fighting the Zs crawled by normally for the others, but to him, knowing how many
bad actors were on the road outside the compound, the hundred and eighty
seconds had seemed like an eternity. With the horizontal trees in view and the
4Runner weaving through the fallen human shells, he swapped mags in both the M4
and Glock, then tapped the Gerber on his hip to make certain it hadn’t been
knocked loose in the midst of battle. Satisfied he was ready as he’d ever be,
he gripped the door handle, ready to bail the second the rig stopped at the far
end of the distant span.

Staring into the gaping muzzle, Dregan relived the last
couple of minutes in his head. First, kind of like Eastwood playing Harry
Callahan, the woman’s hard-set brown eyes narrowed. The death flinch, he had
thought at the time. Then, as if she’d come to some kind of conclusion, he saw
a change in the windows to her soul. They went impossibly dark and narrowed to
slits. Next he heard the words
‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,’
but
didn’t immediately associate them with the situation at hand. In the seconds
between hearing those words, all crawling by at a glacial pace, and that piece
of the puzzle locking into place, he took his eyes from hers and swept them
down and saw her right hand let go of the carbine’s foregrip. The fingers
uncurled one at a time, kind of like a cat flicking out its claws. Just as he
realized the raised hand looked a little crippled, the stubby black rifle was slipping
from her other hand and on the way to the ground.

Naturally, his attention was drawn there and his rifle
barrel followed suit. In the next half-beat, like some kind of David
Copperfield sleight-of-hand shit, her left hand swept up and suddenly a black
pistol was pointed at his sternum. He remembered flicking his eyes from the gun
on the ground to the pistol, impossibly large in her hand. At that moment the
words
fuck you and the horse you rode in on
replayed in his mind in
Mikhail’s voice, and as they sank in a huge weight slid off his shoulders and
he relaxed his grip on his rifle.

Bring me the girls, or you die
, the woman had hissed,
believably.

He remembered mumbling something about it all being a big
misunderstanding.

He remembered his brother Henry moving forward, rifle
trained on the woman, screaming for her to lower the weapon.

He remembered the woman’s eyes, glittering …
tears?
Then the pistol swung up to his face close enough that he smelled cordite off
the muzzle.

Now, Henry still screaming “Drop the gun,” the other men all
bristling and bringing rifles to bear, he heard over it all the distinct sound
of a round the size of a baby’s arm being chambered into the .50 caliber
machine gun atop the Humvee that had just bulled past the Ford and ground to a
halt behind the gate. Realizing the turret-mounted weapon was trained on the assembled
men, Henry and Peter included, he said, louder this time, “This was all just a big
misunderstanding.”

A man will say almost anything in order to keep from getting
shot, Cade had told Brook once. Anything to stay on the right side of the dirt.
Robert Christian had. Pug had. As had countless others Cade had used as
examples. Funny thing was, thought Brook. Though her man was probably still
miles away, the words in her head came to her in his voice with the usual crisp
delivery and even tone.

“Misunderstanding, my ass. Bring the girls out or you get a
third eye,” she hissed, still holding the pistol rock steady.

He said nothing. Just put his tan rifle down on the steaming
pavement. Real slow, he hinged up and put a raised palm towards the other
bearded man, silencing him. Then he turned towards the convoy and motioned for
his men to stand down.

The radio in Brook’s pocket broke squelch. “I’ve got you
covered,” said Seth.

Brook’s eyes moved along the convoy, and far off down the
road past the trailing vehicle she saw movement and a man’s head and shoulders
sticking out from behind a canted fence post. Protruding from the shin-high
grass next to it was the long barrel of Logan’s Barrett sniper rifle, easily
recognizable by the boxy muzzle brake and Hubble-telescope-sized optics perched
atop the long gun.

“My name is Alexander,” said the man. “I’m going to reach
into my pocket for my phone and radio.”

Brook nodded. Her eyes remained locked on the man as he reached
into the left pocket of the well-worn duster and came out with a two-way radio,
its case scratched up and weathered from constant use. Then, slowly, he plucked
a shiny slim smart phone from the opposite pocket and handed it across the
fence.

“Thumb it on and start the video playing.”

The gun was growing heavy in Brook’s hand. She wanted this
all to be over, but she shook her head. “Release the girls first.”

The man called Alexander brought the radio to his mouth and
ordered a man he addressed as Gregory to bring the girls out.

Out
, thought Brook. She flashed a glance at the
convoy.
Nothing.
The doors remained closed.

Seeing this, Dregan said, “My oldest son has them in the
woods behind me. Play the video … please.”

Brook lifted her gaze to the woods behind the clearing and
saw nothing moving there. Then, to humor the man still staring into the
business end of her Beretta, she took the phone from him, powered it on, and
hit the translucent play arrow hovering there on the small screen.

There was sound first, laughter and the clinking of glasses.
She was watching the bar scene unfold with one eye and Alexander with the
other. She saw the boy she had killed. He was being an asshole to the
bartender.
True colors.
Then he said it:
Fuck you and the horse you
rode in on.
Half-expecting the hail of bullets that followed those words
the first time she heard them, Brook flinched. Her eyes went from the screen to
the bearded man’s face—and on it was an expression of complete resignation. His
posture had changed as well, shoulders and back slumping like a Macy’s Parade
float slowly deflating.

Guilt eating away at her, Brook was about to offer her
condolences when she heard a chorus of piercing screams. They came from the tree
line beyond the row of graves and died out quickly. Then, before she could say
or do anything, she nearly blew the top of Alexander’s head off when, from the
same grove of trees, two closely spaced gunshots crashed the stillness.

***

Grateful that the ongoing shouting match between her mom and
a man she assumed to be Gregory’s father had ceased before ending in gunfire
and screams, Raven was delivered a second miracle when she felt her right hand
slip free from the blood-slickened paracord wound about her wrists. As she fought
the overwhelming urge to look and see what kind of damage was causing the wild
throbbing on primarily her right wrist, she heard the distinct soft warble of
Gregory’s radio emanating from inside his pocket.

Raven mouthed, “I’m free,” to Sasha. Keeping her hands
behind her back, and thus the illusion that she was still captive alive for the
moment, she turned back to eavesdrop on the conversation. She heard broadcast
through the tiny speaker details about a shooting on the Woodruff Highway that
she knew nothing about. Next, just when the conversation seemed to be steering to
the part pertaining to her and Sasha’s freedom, she heard a racket in the
bushes behind Gregory that was
not
falling snow.

Gregory Dregan was standing with his back to the foliage and
stuffing the radio in his pocket when he saw the younger girl named Raven
visibly stiffen then roll backwards off the log. Strangely, his first
impression was that the girl looked like a scuba diver falling from a boat’s
gunwale. And in the next half-beat, as she worked to right herself from the
clearly deliberate maneuver, he witnessed her face twist into a wide-eyed mask
of terror and one of her tiny blood-slicked hands slip free of her bonds.

Simultaneously, the redhead, Sasha, rocketed up from the log,
her jaw hinging open and closed with no words coming out.

The stench of decay entered the small hide right behind the
initial sound Gregory had pegged as more snow falling off the trees. Everything
after that from the girls’ impromptu display of acrobatics to them both belting
out horrific screams lasted two short heartbeats. Immediately following the auditory
assault, Gregory Dregan felt something deathly cold brush his face and he was
hit blindside by roughly two hundred pounds of damp dead weight.

Newton’s Law of motion was in full effect at that point, and
the loaded-down pack on his back precipitated and sped up his crashing to the
ground. His head brushed the log and suddenly he was facedown with a mouthful
of dirt and twigs choking off the startled yelp building in his throat.

***

From her vantage point, kneeling behind the log in a clutch
of ferns, Raven saw the same rotten creature from the nearby road hit Gregory amidships
and drive the larger man into the ground, face first by the log. At that point
she forgot all about the blood painting her forearms from wrist to elbow and
focused solely on surviving the encounter. Flicking her eyes right, she saw
Sasha, arms still trussed behind her back and staring at the hissing creature
like she was under some kind of hypnotic spell.

With nothing to lose but everything, Raven dove over the
crumbling log with one objective: yank the boxy pistol from the holster on
Gregory’s belt. Mid-flight, she twisted to her right and the second she hit the
ground, with her shoulder and hip absorbing the impact, both hands went to
work. With her right, she stripped the pistol from the holster. At the same
time she shot her left hand out, laced her fingers in the monster’s hair, and
pulled back mightily.

Too little, too late. The coppery smell of freshly spilt
blood hit her nose and Gregory started grunting and spitting mud and kicking
her in the side with one of his thick-soled boots.

Time slowed further and three things seemed to happen all at
once. Realizing the pistol was a Glock like her mom’s, she didn’t bother
looking for a safety, because she knew it was built into the trigger. So she
swung the pistol up and pressed it to the snarling zombie’s temple and in one
motion rolled onto her back, let go of its stringy hair and squeezed the
trigger two times. Real quick. Back to back. And they blended together,
sounding as one, like the cannon thing going off earlier.

The first bullet entered the thing’s head and its eyes bulged
out under pressure. One of the jaundiced orbs launched out, splatted on its
cheek, and dangled there from a thin ropy membrane. Raven’s eyes were squeezed
shut by the time the second report hit her ears, and she totally missed seeing
the top of the Z’s skull separate and spin away into the undergrowth. The spritz
of putrid gray matter and flecked bone following nearly the same trajectory was
also lost on her.

When she opened her eyes, Gregory was already wriggling out
from under the twice-dead human, the damage done instantly apparent. There was
a single deep fissure on the side of Gregory’s neck. It was oozing hot sticky
blood. Raven pushed up off the ground and spotted the fist-sized plug of flesh on
the ground near the rotter’s still gaping mouth.

“I’m dead,” stammered Gregory, his face gone slack and ashen.
He stole a glance to the pistol still clutched in Raven’s hand.

“Mom,” Raven hollered over her shoulder. “I’m OK.”

“Shoot me. Please,” Gregory pleaded in a funereal voice.

Raven looked at the pistol and shook her head. “Sasha, help
me roll him over.”

There was the sound of boots thudding the ground and her mom
and the man with the beard burst through the opening, caromed off each other
like bowling pins, and came to an abrupt stop beside Sasha.

Brook pushed past the redhead, looked down, and saw the
bloody wound. “Help me,” she said to the bearded man.

Together they tore off the backpack and rifle then succeeded
in getting Gregory rolled over flat on his back.

“It’s going to be close,” said Brook, her hand outstretched
toward Raven. “Antiserum.”

Raven went into the stricken man’s pockets and came out with
the cylinder.

Dregan’s mouth fell open. With the noise of the others
scrabbling to a halt outside the hide, he crabbed out of the woman’s way and
fixed his gaze on his dying boy.

“Fucking guys and their beards,” said Brook as she parted
the thicket searching for the proper site. “Got it.” In the next instant, like
the trained professional that she was, the auto injector was out of the
cylinder and she was jabbing the short needle into the man’s neck.

Peering over Brook’s shoulder, the elder Dregan asked, “Is
that for real?”

Brook nodded and tossed the spent injector aside.

“Will he live?”

Showing little emotion, Brook replied, “Fifty-fifty … at
best.”

“I owe you,” he said, tears rolling over his cheeks and into
his bushy beard.

From the direction of the compound feeder road came the
sound of a couple of hard-working engines.

“On your way back to wherever you came from, stop in and see
if Helen and Ray are getting along. I haven’t been able to. So I figure sending
you is the least I can do … after all they did for us.”

“I still owe you a life debt,” Dregan said. “And you needn’t
worry, I won’t mention another word about you or your people to anybody.”

Brook nodded to the men assembling at her back. “And them?”

“I’ll make sure they don’t talk.”

Just then, the youngest Dregan, blonde and blue eyed,
crashed through the brush and slid on his knees next to the stricken man. He looked
closely at the wound and, oblivious to the antiserum working its way through
the man’s system, said, “How do you feel, brother?”

“Hot,” replied, Gregory, weakly. “I’m burning up.”

“That’s a good sign,” said Brook. She removed his stocking cap
and pressed it against the wound as a makeshift bandage. “Somebody get this man
some water.”

“Got it,” said a man. Another came forward and offered to
hold the cap in place.

Breathing deeply and looking around at the dozen faces
wearing worried looks, Brook went from her knees to her butt, then suddenly was
flattened by sixty-some-odd pounds of twelve-year-old and found herself
suffocating in Raven’s iron embrace.