Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (20 page)

In his side vision he saw the latter tear into the undead
girl’s forehead at an oblique downward angle, sending a good chunk of cranium
with the rat’s nest of blonde hair still attached off in one direction and what
remained of the tiny infected corpse cartwheeling away in the other.

Before the noise of the first two gunshots had diminished
and Wilson realized that he was still alive, another half-dozen wasp-like
projectiles whistled by him and then more booming reports rolled over his head.
Finally, finishing what his flight instinct had started, gravity dumped him to
the ground face first. And with the trauma of the first “
operation arm
removal
” fresh in his mind, he let go of his pistol, wrapped both hands
around the cold arm and wailed, “Somebody get it off of me!”

With no idea the significance that the pasty arm dangling
from Wilson’s well-stretched out shirt represented, Cade began to laugh, and
then after a few uncomfortable seconds spent watching the redhead roll around
the hot asphalt with the arm flopping after, he holstered his Glock and said,
“You
got that
all right, Wilson. Nicely done.”

“Go to hell,” Wilson shot back.

“No,” Cade replied. “Those four Zs beat me to it.”

“You almost killed me,” Wilson said between big gulps of
carrion-sullied air. He tore the shirt over his head and tossed it and the arm
to the roadway.

Cade made no reply.

Wilson dragged his forearm across his cheek and it came away
red with blood. Then, pasty and bare from the waist up and blushing red from
the combination of the near-death experience and the embarrassment of
underperforming when it mattered most, he hung his head and tramped toward the
Raptor. Avoiding all eye contact, he looped around the hood and swiveled the
side mirror outward on its post, dipped at the knees and inspected his neck.

In the F-650, Brook took her hands from her ears and
released the breath she’d been holding for the entire duration of the dramatic
melee, which had lasted a little less than ten seconds from the moment Wilson
set foot on the Interstate until the Glock discharged twice and thundered and
echoed about the cab around her. Pinching her nose to keep out the carrion and
cordite stench, she caught Cade’s eye and said, “Now
that
was close.”
She grabbed her first aid kit from the glove box. Zippered open the red nylon
bag adorned with a white first aid cross and fished out a pair of purple
surgical gloves. Snapping them over her hands, she grabbed her M4, shouldered
her door open, and leaped from the cab. After giving the fallen corpses and
splattered detritus a wide berth, she took up station beside Wilson, who was
just beginning to show the first signs of shock. Placing a hand on his back,
she asked, “Did it bite you anywhere?”

He looked away from his reflection in the mirror and set his
gaze on Brook and began to shake as the spike of adrenaline ebbed. Seeing this,
she gripped his shoulder with her left hand and stood on her toes. She expertly
manipulated his head with her free hand, having him tilt it first left and then
to the right while looking closely for any breaks in the skin. Next she called
out to Sasha in the rear of the Raptor and had her pass forward another shirt
for him.

“Well?” asked Wilson. “Is this the part of the show where I
traipse off into the desert and put a bullet in my own head?”

“Its teeth didn’t break the skin, Wilson. Looks like your
show has been renewed,” Brook whispered into his ear. She unwrapped a small
alcohol swab and worked the towelette into the angry red fissure starting just
behind his right earlobe and none too gently dragged it through to his jawline,
where the projectile had mercifully parted ways with his skin before continuing
on and delivering the first half of the near simultaneous double tap to the Z’s
head. Unaware of just how close he had come to dying—in more ways than one—he
flinched and tried to pull away as Brook made a second pass to clean the edges
of the puckered three-inch-long wound. Keeping a firm grip on his shoulder, she
tore open a fresh swab with her teeth, spat out the foul-tasting foil
packaging, and said, “You need stitches ... but I’m not comfortable doing it
here.”

Cade called down from the F-650. “Is the kid going to be
OK?”

A big grin spread on Brook’s face as she turned towards Cade
and nodded slowly. “No bite,” she called back. Then her smile disappeared and
she added, “But one of your bullets took a chunk out of his cheek.”

Making no reply, Cade poked the shifter into Drive, a move
that caused the truck to rock forward on its suspension while delivering a
clear signal that he was itching to get underway.

Touching the four-inch square of sterile gauze taped to his
face, Wilson thanked Brook, climbed in and took his place riding shotgun next
to Taryn in the Raptor.

After discarding her soiled gloves on the shoulder, Brook
circled around behind the F-650 and hauled herself back into the cab. She
settled into her seat, clicked her seatbelt home, and exhaled loudly. Then, as
all husbands are required to do after the dreaded huff and, in this instance,
mostly to avoid miles of traveling in uncomfortable silence, Cade asked,
“What’s the matter?”

“You shouldn’t have green lit that exercise in stupidity.”

“He’s a grown man.”

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Brook said, “No, Cade
Grayson, he is twenty. Think back to when you were twenty.”

“Different set of rules ... those things were not walking
around eating people back then.”

“Don’t you understand?” said Brook. “Proving
your
point
your
way almost got Wilson killed.”

“No,” Cade replied immediately. “
Wilson
almost got
Wilson
killed.
I
saved his ass from a fate worse than getting killed. And I
hope the memory of this little roadside fiasco is going to keep his ego in
check ... at least until we get to the compound. After that I don’t give a shit
how he wants to show off.”

“He’s looking for your approval, Cade Grayson,” she said
with a tilt to her head. “But you let it go too far ... and then you
shot
him.”

Raven had her elbows hooked over the front seatbacks and had
been following the conversation, head swinging left and right and back again
like windshield wipers on high for the entire duration. But as soon as she
heard her mom utter this new revelation, her brown eyes went wide and she
froze, mouth agape, her gaze locked on her dad.

Ignoring the additional pair of eyes boring into his skull,
Cade said, “Helluva small price to pay to learn a couple of valuable
life
lessons.” He looked down into the other Ford and saw an animated and probably
equally heated conversation taking place between Wilson and Taryn. And to
complete the surreal near-mirror-image of his current environment, Sasha was
wedged between the Raptor’s front seats and striking a pose similar to Raven’s.

Hunching forward, Brook shot an incredulous look his way.
She waited until he took his eyes off the other truck, then asked the obvious
question, “And what would those life lessons be?”

“For one, he’s been shooting at those things from behind the
safety of a fence for so long that he’s out of touch with what it’s really like
out here. Hell, if we’re being honest here, you all have gone and gotten a
little complacent and that’s got me more than a little worried.”

Wanting badly to defend her own track record outside the
wire, Brook decided the time and place was not in front of Raven and wisely
held her tongue. Instead, she said, “And?”

“And ... we all have to be extra careful around the little
Zs,” said Cade, releasing the brakes. “They’re a lot faster than the others.
Deceptively so, as we just witnessed.” He sighed, then went on, “And that’s
what got Mike killed. Clearly, he didn’t expect a toddler to find another gear
and launch on him like a meat-seeking missile. But I was there and saw it with
my own eyes—” He went quiet again. Stared straight down the center of the road
fixed on a point somewhere over the horizon.

“I’m sorry,” mouthed Brook. “I didn’t know that’s how it
happened.”

He cupped her knee. Gave it a squeeze. “Gotta drill it into
them ...” He shot a sidelong glance at Raven. Made a face at her and added,
“This is for you too. Getting close to the dead out here is a whole different
animal that requires a lot more concentration. ‘Cause Mister Murphy
never
RSVPs his intentions.”

Hearing this, and having never heard of nor met this person,
Raven tore her eyes from Cade and mouthed, “Mister Murphy,” at Brook while
raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you all about
him
later, sweetie.”

“RSVP?”

“Later,” Brook added sternly.

Inside the Raptor, Wilson had just settled into what he
thought might become his permanent station in life, forever riding shotgun with
a girl at the wheel and Sasha hanging like a monkey between the front seats. He
closed the door and started his window running up in its track.

Hands kneading the steering wheel, Taryn asked in a low
voice, “What happened?”

“One second I was trying to move the stinking thing around
so that I’d be shooting at it away from the trucks ...”

Interrupting him, Taryn said, “I saw your face go slack for
a second.”

“I froze up.”

“Why?”

“Because I started seeing her as what she used to be ... a
little girl.”

“Understandable.” She made a face and looked beyond Wilson
at the black truck as it rolled by the passenger window. Then she fixed her
gaze on him. Her face softened and a single tear tracked the contour of her
cheek. “I don’t want to lose you, Wilson,” she said, choking on the words.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over to comfort her.

Trying to lighten the mood in the only way her fourteen-year-old
mind worked, the queen of all ballbusters said, “Well, at least it didn’t get a
hold of your hair.” To which Wilson whipped around and shot her a patented
Shut
up or I’m gonna kill you look
.

Getting the hint, Sasha disappeared into the back and, in
turn, Wilson looked ahead just as the larger truck entered the soupy stretch of
I-70.

Taryn wiped away the tears and flicked her eyes to the
rearview. She saw that the road was clear of vehicles but there were a couple
of Zs several hundred yards back, no doubt drawn by the gunfire. Then she
locked onto her own reflection and was startled by what was staring back. The
combination of her red puffy eyes and the near permanent pinched and pained
expression on her face made her look like someone else. More than a week in
Grand Junction Regional paired with the highs and lows—mostly lows—of surviving
the apocalypse had aged her prematurely.
Nineteen going on thirty
, she
thought to herself.

As the F-650 in front of them wheeled around the twice-dead
Zs, Wilson crossed his fingers, motored his seat forward to be closer to the AC
vents, and then said a little prayer to the Gods of melted roadways.

Chapter 29

Duncan couldn’t purge from his mind the idea that he was
retracing Logan’s last steps on Earth. And the closer he got to the
rust-streaked white building where his baby brother had drawn his final breath,
the angrier he became.

The facility was just as he remembered it, only coming at
him from a different perspective. The water-filled quarry to his left glittered
silver from the mid-morning sun hitting off the wind-buffeted ripples—a far cry
from the expanse of murky blackness it presented from the air flashing
underneath the DHS Black Hawk.

The black and white Tahoe was right where whoever had been
driving it had parked it last, only the doors were now closed and it was
surrounded by water-filled puddles. A noisy chorus announcing their arrival,
gravel popped under the Toyota’s tires and pinged off the undercarriage as
Duncan wheeled past the Tahoe’s driver’s side. He looked beyond the police
cruiser at the three outbuildings that yesterday, from a couple of hundred feet
up, had at first seemed like kids’ toys. Up close and under closer scrutiny,
they exuded neglect, the wood they had been built with, gray and swaybacked,
having succumbed long ago to weather and gravity. All three doors were opened
up to the elements. All three locks were missing, just punched out holes where
they should have been and jagged splinters where they met up with the jambs.

The oversized metal garage was quiet and dark. Before
leaving with the bodies, Duncan and Daymon had snugged the roller doors shut
and secured the bullet-riddled office door as best they could.

Duncan finally broke the silence. “Here we are, fellas.”

Lev exhaled as they nosed in close to one of the roller
doors. “This is where it all went down,” he said, craning to see the building.
“Where’d you find their bodies?”

“Inside,” said Duncan, putting the transmission into Park
and setting the brake.

Reliving the day, Duncan said, “I went in first and found
them both on the concrete pad ... already bled out.”

“No sign of the girls?” asked Lev.

Daymon shook his head. “Nope.”

“Blood?”

Daymon answered, “Just what had pooled around Logan and
Gus.”

“Whoever killed them knew how to control their weapons,”
said Duncan. He shut off the motor. “No spray and pray happened here. They hit
fast and hard, I’m guessing. Dropped the two men first with closely grouped
shots. Center mass on both of them.” He went quiet for a tick, then added,
“That’s how I would have done it.”

Lev nodded in agreement. “Logan and Gus weren’t wearing
vests,” he said, more a statement than a question.

“Nope,” Duncan answered. Then, squinting against the sun or
emotion or both, went on, “I told him it would be a good idea ... but he didn’t
listen to his big brother.”