The Last Town (Book 4): Fighting the Dead (10 page)

Reese looked up at the rest of the cops standing around her, and they stared back bleakly. Two of them were lieutenants, his equivalent in rank. He sighed and motioned them over. Only one came.

“Yeah, what do you need?” the man asked. The nameplate on his chest read TOOMEY.

“We need to get down on the street and show ourselves,” Reese said. “The people will want to see cops, not soldiers. Let’s get your element down there and form up with my guys. Help them keep the peace, and keep the crowd under control. We don’t need any more panic right this second.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Toomey turned back and waved to the officers standing around Fontenoy. “Come on, guys. Let’s get back to work. Rojas, you stay with the captain. Everyone check your ROVERs, make sure you have all your gear.” He looked back at Reese. “You coming down?”

“I’ll be down in a bit—I want to sync up with the sheriffs and the Guard.”

“What’s your call sign?”

“Detective Four King. Hook up with Detective Marsh, he’s Detective Six King.”

“Got it.”

Reese watched the Wilshire officers slowly gather themselves together and start walking down Hollywood Bowl Road toward the main gate. Reese turned away from them and looked down at Fontenoy one last time, but she didn’t look up from her close contemplation of the table before her. The lieutenant standing behind her shrugged. Reese returned the gesture and started walking toward the green command post.

“Reese! Reese, is that you?”

Reese turned and saw Renee hurrying toward him from the box office area, still lugging a rifle and wearing full tactical gear. Her glasses were perched at an odd angle on her nose, and her face was grimy. A cluster of cops stood at the closed box office, hovering around the collection of coffee urns that had been set up.

“Renee,” Reese said, disbelieving it was actually her.

She hurried up to him and threw her arms around him. Reese didn’t know what to do, so he just hugged her back gingerly, mindful of the rifle that was now pinned between them.

“I thought you were dead,” she said. “I thought all of you guys were dead.”

“Same here,” Reese said. He pushed back a bit and looked down at her. “Renee ... how did you get here?”

“Hollywood was overrun,” she told him. “Pallata told us to get the hell out, and hook up with the LASD up here. The Guard bought us some time, so we scooped up all the civvies and headed up here in a couple of buses. Only about twelve of us left—everyone else are civilians who were in the stationhouse looking for a safe place.”

“And Pallata?”

Renee slowly shook her head. “She didn’t make it out, Reese.”

Reese sighed and nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say about that. “So who’s senior here?”

“From North Hollywood Station? You are,” Renee said.

Reese sighed again. “Outstanding.”

Gunfire crackled in the near distance, over by the houses behind the Bowl and its high wall. A sudden peal of screaming rose above it. More gunfire, this time from the opposite direction, up on the freeway overpass. Heads turned in both directions. At the coffee station near the box office, the cops there put down their cups and grabbed their weapons. Farther back, deeper in the parking lot, a knot of National Guard troops began advancing down the sloped drive.

“Reese, this is a bad spot,” Renee said.

“The Guard says it’s defensible,” Reese said. He knew it was a lie. He’d thought the hospital was safe too, with only two unobstructed approaches to their position, and they were still pushed out.

“It’s the freeway,” Renee said.

“What do you mean?”

“The zombies. They go after the people on the freeway.” She pointed up at the overpasses, then tried to straighten her glasses. She couldn’t. They were half-broken. “No one can get away, and if you don’t feel pain, breaking car windows to get at what you want isn’t a problem.”

Reese looked up at the overpasses, thinking about what Renee had just said. While the freeway was pretty high up and a couple of hundred feet away, if the dead were using the 101 as a stalking ground, then eventually, they’d come to realize that a few thousand or more tasty treats were waiting for them inside the Hollywood Bowl. Even though the concert hall wasn’t directly visible from the freeway, there was no way to camouflage the presence of so many people.

Oh, fuck.

“Okay. Listen, you stay up here near the sheriff’s CP. Go over there and introduce yourself to a big black National Guard guy. He’s their battalion commander, and we were at the hospital together. His name is Morton. Tell him you work for me, and tell him I’m heading up the LAPD presence here.”

Renee pointed at the table where Fontenoy sat with her pet lieutenant standing watch over her. “What about her?”

“Morton already knows she’s shot, and she’s not a factor. Pass on to him that I’ve got the LAPD under my control, then make sure the sheriff in charge knows that, too. I’ll be on the street. You know a big lug of a patrolman, Bates?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“If you see him, send him down to me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And send the rest of the Hollywood guys down. Unless they’re injured, we need them on the crowd.”

Renee swallowed. “Okay.”

Reese patted the ROVER handset on his shoulder. “I’m Detective Four King, just in case you’ve forgotten, Detective Four-Two King.”

Renee smiled vaguely. “I remember.”

Reese nodded and pointed at the sheriff’s trailer. “Okay. Get going. It’s gonna be a long night.”

SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA

One thing Doddridge could do, and do well, was run.

He bolted through the small town neighborhood as fast as he could, weaving through darkened backyards and pausing only a few minutes at a time to rest. When he passed close by a house, he would pause and examine it. No one was outside, and from what he could see, most were glued to the TV sets. Given what was going on in the world, that seemed like good advice. He’d watched the news for a couple of hours at the old lady’s house, and he still couldn’t believe what he’d seen on the boob tube. Zombies? What the fuck? He still couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it, and he wondered if maybe he should have just stayed in prison.

But that was hours ago. Now, he was back in his element. Or, to be more precise, one aspect of his element: running like hell from the cops.

As he ran, he cut diagonally away from the highway, putting some distance between him and the traffic that had the roadway clogged up like a sink full of old hamburger meat. There were too many people there, too many opportunities for him to be seen. As he stepped around the corner of a small house, a column of lights barreled down the street. He crouched and sidled toward a reel of garden hose mounted to the side of the house—not a lot of cover, but it would have to do—and watched as three Ford Expeditions zipped past, heading in the direction he had come from. The cops back at the house he and his crew had taken over had Expeditions, too. So these were more badges, heading south to figure out who was who. It wouldn’t be long until they started combing the town, looking for him.

He waited a few beats after the SUVs had disappeared into the deepening night, then scuttled across the street, crouching like he was a soldier in an episode of that old TV show
Combat
his older brother had loved, holding the shotgun in both hands. He was glad he still had the jacket he’d clipped from the prison bus. It was starting to get genuinely cold now, and he would eventually have to figure out which of these homes he was going to break into. He figured hitting one up on the eastern side of the town was the plan, preferably one that backed up to the desert. That way, if things really went to shit, he could haul ass out into the scrub. For sure, a town this small wouldn’t have a helicopter, so they’d have to pursue on foot. Or on horses, or camels, or whatever dumbass desert people did when they engaged in an overland police pursuit. He realized it wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had going for him right now. His original plan had been to commandeer some wheels and get to LA, where he had people who could put him up for a bit while he planned his next move. But after seeing what was going down in LA on the television, maybe staying clear would be a better move.

But where will I go?
he asked himself.
Where’s a hood rat like me s’posed to hang, if not in the city? Am I gonna like go all dirt farmer, or somethin’?

One thing was certain—staying in Single Tree was unlikely to be an option, not after he’d killed one of their cops.

He crossed another lonely desert street, approaching the last line of widely-spaced houses that backed up to the desert. He loitered on the curb for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. He saw one of the houses had a shed behind it, just visible from where he stood. That might have to do, for the time being.

As he started off for it, a battered old pickup rounded the corner at the end of the street. Doddridge froze where he was and watched as the truck hauled itself into a driveway with the squeak of brakes and creak of old shock absorbers. A man climbed out of the cab and slowly walked toward the front door. He moved with a slight limp, and he carried one of those little Igloo personal coolers in his left hand. Doddridge heard the tinkle of keys as the man limped toward the front door of the darkened ranch-style house.

Well, one more home invasion won’t hurt,
he thought, as he sprinted toward the house, barreling down on the man from behind, his feet barely whispering across dry grass.

###

Corbett wanted to stay and see the man hunt through, but Lennon wouldn’t stand for it; he’d already indulged him more than enough, and when Corbett had tried to have his way, Lennon finally told him he could either drive himself home, or he’d have some of the boys tie him up and drive him back. He informed his boss that the men would then take possession of every vehicle Corbett owned so he couldn’t get anywhere other than on his two legs. Corbett had laughed at that, despite the fact he knew Lennon was dead serious. He knew if he didn’t comply, then he’d spend the rest of his immediate future under Lennon’s thumb—that was part of the deal. When it came to matters of security, Corbett had agreed to give Lennon full operational control.

So he relented. Collecting Norton and Danielle, he returned to the waiting Super Duty.

“Dani, Norton and I will drop you off, make sure you get home safely,” he said, hoisting himself into the big truck and kicking over its diesel.

“I don’t think you have a lot to worry about right now,” Danielle said as she slid into the quad cab’s rear bench seat. Lying on the floor in the passenger side was a black and white box marked LWRC. She picked it up and pulled it toward her. “Especially since I have this.”

“You still have to scrub all the cosmoline off it,” Corbett said. “It’s not ready for prime time.”

“Oh, it will be,” Danielle said. In the rearview mirror, Corbett watched as she opened the box, and in the illumination of the dome light overhead, he knew she’d see the LWRC Individual Carbine-Enhanced rifle inside. It was covered with a ceramic cerakote finish over flat dark earth enamel. The rifle was a modernized version of the M16A3 she’d slung in the Corps, only instead of using direct gas impingement to drive the bolt assembly, the gas from each expended cartridge was directed forward against a rod which ferried the bolt assembly back and forth. This would keep the guts of the gun cleaner, and result in fewer fouling failures. She’d told Corbett she’d never had a weapon like this one before, and she was eager to break it down, clean it up, and get it operational.

“That’s my girl,” Corbett said as Norton climbed in beside him and slammed the door closed. The dome light faded out, and Danielle closed the box with a sigh.

“Yeah, thanks for the goods, Barry,” Norton said as he buckled his seat belt. “Nice weapon, just like my H&K five-five-six.” Like Danielle, Corbett had gifted Norton with an identical IC-E weapon.

Corbett sniffed as he dropped the truck into gear and pulled away from the Garcia home. A crowd of onlookers stood watching the activity surrounding the house from the sidewalks. They stirred uneasily in the darkness as the lights of Corbett’s Ford passed over them.

“Typical that you’d buy another European piece of shit rifle, Norton,” he muttered.

“What, only American-made ARs and 1911s for you, Barry?”

“You know it. If it’s not made in the US of A, I’m not touching it.”

Norton snorted and picked up his own rifle box and leaned it against the truck’s center console. “Well, I’ve heard good things about LWRC. I’ll let you know how they compare.”

“Please don’t.”

“Ha-ha.”

They drove in silence for the four minutes it took to shoot up Lake View Street at a sedate thirty miles an hour. That’s how long it took to drive less than two miles, the entire distance from the southern border of Single Tree to near its northernmost tip. This is where the “poor folk” lived, in small weathered houses that faced the eastern desert. Corbett and Norton had been mostly middle class, and lived on the west side in homes that faced Mount Whitney, in the section of town that had until recently been in the process of being taken over by people from Los Angeles and Vegas looking for cheap vacation homes or investment properties that could be rented out during the winter skiing season. While homes on the west side had gone though some changes and additions, those on the east side remained mostly the same. The only alterations made to them were by the desert itself, as wood was bleached, siding was blasted and cracked, fences collapsed, and paint peeled.