Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (21 page)

“What’s good for the goose,” said Daymon. “None of us are
wearing vests. So who are we to be judging?”

A series of hollow thuds sounded as Lev pounded on his
chest. “I am,” he stated. “Been a habit that’s hard to shake.”

“Good habit,” said Duncan, nodding.

“I plan on wearing one when we go up north,” said Daymon. He
clicked out of his belt and cringed as his door shrieked metal on metal when he
hinged it open.

Duncan sighed and nudged his door open. “Me too,” he said.
“Me too.” He pocketed the keys, turned back towards the others and added, “Pick
one out for yourself. There’s plenty of them hanging up downstairs ... and
brand new BDUs and enough of those tactical elbow and knee doo-dads for all of
us. Everything we need to go hunting man is in there ... except ammo. Fuckers
took it all. But thanks to Oops we don’t have to fret about that.”

Lev smiled. “How about comms?”

Duncan slid from the SUV. Waited for Lev to do the same,
then asked, “You didn’t inventory that box Daymon lugged out of the Black Hawk
yesterday?”

Lev closed his door quietly. Looked Duncan in the eye. Held
the gaze for a second then wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye.
“Didn’t hold very high of a priority with me considering all that had
happened.”

Fighting back his own tears, Duncan said nothing.

“Someone ... probably good ol’ Logan stashed it in the back
of the Tahoe,” said Daymon. “Then it got overlooked by the bad guys. Or if it
didn’t then they had no use for some high quality communications and night
vision gear.”

“Sounds like something the little packrat would do,” said
Duncan.

Solely because he didn’t want to hear the sound again,
Daymon unfolded his lanky frame from the passenger seat, left the door wide
open and stretched and cracked his back and neck. He looked over the SUV’s hood
at Duncan and said, “So what you’re telling me and Lev is that when we go after
Bishop and his boys we’re going to look like that Delta boy, Sarge Grayson?”

“Delta,” said Lev with a slight tilt to his head. “I can
picture how the guy looked last time I saw him. From a distance ... he didn’t
really strike me as Delta.”

“He’s the goods,” stated Daymon. “I’d tell ya some stories
but then I’d have to kill you. He’s
that
good.”

“Lock and load,” said Duncan. He slipped his .45 from its
holster. Approached the office door with it held two-handed and at a low ready,
hoping the situation inside remained the same as he’d left it. “Take what you
want but only what you need. We don’t have to hump everything back to the
compound on this trip.” He climbed the two stairs, hovered in front of the
bullet-pocked door and rapped sharply.

Nothing
.

Sensing Lev and Daymon stacked closely at his back, Duncan
nudged the door open with his toe and crept into the gloom. The office seemed
smaller this time around. He worked his way past pieces of inexpensive office
furniture streaked with dried blood and crushed—like an ice floe of chrome and
wood-grained veneer—up against the ugliest seventies-era couch he had ever set
eyes on. The calendar on the wall drew his attention. However, it wasn’t the
mining equipment being featured in solo glamour shots that attracted it, but
the month and year the calendar was open to. And save for the day the dead
began to walk—that warm day in September circled on the 2001 circa calendar had
changed his life forever. And in passing he felt it his duty to point it out to
the others.

Daymon said, “Never going to forget that day as long as I
live.”

Lev nodded. Signed the cross on his chest. “It’s why I
joined up,” he said solemnly.

“Yesterday trumped it for me,” said Duncan as he rapped on
the interior door. He waited a second, and when nothing went
bump
in the
dark, holding his .45 near his hip, pushed through with his free hand.

Daymon asked quietly, “Whatcha got?

“Gloom and more gloom.”

Daymon flipped the wall switch. “How’s this?” he asked as
the fluorescent tubes thirty-plus feet overhead hissed to life.

Duncan made no reply. He looked up. Regarded Edison’s
invention fired by what was arguably—save for gunpowder—man’s greatest
discovery. That it had been collected from the sun by the panels on the roof
instead of taken from an overhead line made no difference. Electricity was
electricity and its byproduct held his rapt attention for a second.

Lev whistled. “Solar power. We’ve got to unbolt however many
panels are up there and take those suckers and the inverter or whatever that
thing is called back to the compound.”

“First things first,” said Duncan. He looped around the
tailgate of a gleaming white Dodge 4x4—dually and CB-equipped no less, he
quickly noted—and then stood over the spot on the gray specked floor where
Logan had died. Back against the roller door, he found himself staring at a
dried-to-black Rorschach-like blood stain. At its widest, where Logan’s upper
body had lain while he bled out, the pool was oblong with thin rivulets
streaming away where the cement floor had settled and folded in on itself,
leaving thin capillary-like cracks that the blood had followed freely. However,
at the opposite end where his feet had been, there was a dried blood trail
resembling a giant brush stroke created when he and Daymon had moved the
linen-shrouded bodies to the Black Hawk. He continued to fixate on the crime
scene and soon felt a tickle of bile rising in his throat.

Still lost in his thoughts, Duncan flinched when Lev placed
an arm around his shoulder and drew him in. “Shouldn’t have happened like
this,” Lev said. “Fuckers had numbers, no doubt. And had no problem taking
advantage of it.”

Duncan said, “It was no kind of a fair fight, that’s for
sure. They didn’t even know what hit them.” He turned abruptly and padded to
the southeast corner of the garage where he recalled the hidden trap door was
located. He pulled the floor covering aside and flung the door open rather
unceremoniously, letting it bang to the floor. “Come on ... let’s get this
done.”

“Oh man,” said Lev, crinkling his nose and rubbing his eyes.
“You said you already cleared the place.”

“Logan did.”

“Then where’s that stench coming from?”

Daymon interrupted. “There’s a woman and her kids down
there.”

“Rotters?”

“Stationary,” said Duncan. “The mom poisoned the kids. Then
cut her own wrists ... fucking awful scene.”

Lev replied, “Fucking awful smell.” He covered his nose with
his shirt. Flicked on his tactical flashlight and disappeared down the stairs,
its white beam cutting back and forth, drawing and quartering the inky black. A
second later, he pulled the chain to the hanging bulb below and a warm yellow
light chased the shadow from the gloomy stairway.

***

Forty minutes later, with Lev and Daymon performing the
manual labor while Duncan kept watch, the weapons and gear were transferred
from the catacomb of Conex containers into the three vehicles they were driving
back to the compound.

Remembering the old dually that he’d been forced to abandon
alongside Cade’s Sequoia on the road outside of Boise, Duncan said, “Dibs on
the dually Dodge.” Then quickly added while gesturing at the dual whip
antennas, “Figure the CB in that thing might come in handy down the road.”

“You’re racist,” countered Daymon in jest as he passed by
carrying an armload of ballistic vests. “Only reason you don’t like that Land
Cruiser is because it’s Japanese.”

Duncan shot back, not so much in jest. “Blow it out your
ass, Daymon. In my opinion, even after you pranged it against the fence, the
thing drives like a lifted Cadillac DeVille. All pillowy and refined. Not for
me, my man. Has nothing to do with slanty eyes or skin color. If Nam didn’t
cause me to hate ‘em ... their take on what a 4x4 is ain’t gonna.”

“All right my Truck Trend Magazine-reading brothers. You
haggle over the Dodge ... I’m taking the Silverado.” Lev looked to Daymon for
approval. Arched a brow in order to hasten a reply.

“Cool with me,” replied Daymon. He tucked a stray dread
behind his ear. “’Cause I’m easy like Monday morning. Plus, I’m used to the
Tahoe. Drove it all the way here from Wyoming.”

“Settled,” said Duncan. “We siphon the gas and leave the
worthless
DeVille
in the garage.” He bowed his head and looked at the
twin blood stains. Said, “But first, I’m gonna take a walk. Clear my mind and
maybe go see what the buzzards are buzzin' about.”

***

Duncan had been curious to see what dead thing the vultures
were circling. But overpowering that was his desire to get away from the place
where Logan had drawn his last breath. And as far as the buzzing part of his
parting quip was concerned, he wished it had never left his lips. Because the
closer he got to the patch of briars just east of the front gate where a number
of colorfully hued and rust-mottled heavy earthmoving vehicles sat, the louder
the buzzing in his ears became. And as he skirted the chin-high bramble patch
where a couple of half-ton pickups languished, the undulating carpet of flies
responsible for the incessant noise took flight suddenly, revealing to him
something entirely unexpected and altogether sickening.

Chapter 30

The melted stretch of I-70 proved to be more mirage than
anything else. Light playing tricks with their minds had added depth to the
shiny black surface where there was none. Still, upon Cade’s insistence,
sticking to their plan, they transited the Interstate one at a time, slaloming
between the particularly gooey areas at a snail’s pace. Forty minutes later,
both vehicles were sitting idle on solid roadway six hundred feet farther west
on I-70, the only damage a thick coating of black tar from the wheel wells
down.

“Wasn’t so bad,” stated Brook.

“Not a single T-Rex rose from the depths,” added Cade with a
wink delivered to Raven. “What’s next on the map?”

Brook said, “Green River.”

“Beeson said we should avoid Green River at all costs.
Unfortunately we have to go over the river and skirt the city pretty close, and
then just west of there we’ll part ways with the Interstate.”

“Then what?” asked Brook.

Cade said, “Unless conditions have degraded substantially
over the last three weeks, the rural roads will be sketchy but passable.”

“The flip side of that?”

“Let’s not go there until we have to.” Cade shifted into
Drive and moved over and accelerated briskly, the yellow centerline blipping
by, thin membranes of tar peeling away from the sidewalls and going airborne in
lazy arcs before pattering back down.

“Should we trust the GPS navigation?”

Shaking his head, Cade said, “Not entirely. Gotta go with
your common sense on the back roads ... things were known to be wrong before
Z-Day.”

“Then we need to stop at the first gas station or mom and
pop store and try and find a local map.” Brook tapped the laminated topo map
provided by Beeson. “This isn’t going to cut it. As it is, we’ll be driving off
the edge of this thing before our turnoff.”

Cade picked up the two-way from the center column and
pressed the talk button. “Green River will be on our right forty some odd miles
ahead. Ignore it. Keep tight formation and do not stop for anything.”

Wilson answered the call. “Copy that,” he said.

“How are you holding up?” asked Cade.

“My first gunshot wound,” replied Wilson. “I’ll let you know
next time we pull over.”

***

Nineteen miles west of the spot they’d stopped last,
Interstate 70 suddenly headed off on a northern tangent before the gray ribbon
visibly doglegged off to the south. At first Cade thought the deviation was due
to some kind of immovable geological feature. But after nothing became evident,
he began to suspect some kind of an engineering hiccup. Perhaps the surveyor
had called off sick the day the graders went through, forcing them to wing it.
That is, until he saw the sign that read: Exit 187, Thompson Springs, Pop. 39.
Affixed below that sign was a smaller metal rectangle, the words on it
indicating that no services were available for the next twenty-five miles.
Green
River
, thought Cade, as the Ford slid by the only exit from the Interstate
and he saw that Thompson Springs was little more than four square blocks of
clustered farm houses and fields surrounded by high desert with the Box
Cliffs—a geological formation jutting hundreds of feet into the air—crushing in
from behind. And as the sign had indicated, Cade saw no services near the
freeway. Just flat earth and rocks and scrub. And among the clustered dwellings
he saw nothing that might indicate the presence of a post office or even a
telltale flagpole flying Old Glory.

All of the windows in the houses were dark, their curtains
drawn. Nothing moved on the roads or the yards or in the fields. Save for the
heat waves rising up from the expanse of brown desert encircling the lush green
habitable area, he saw nothing moving for miles in any direction.

It didn’t take more than this cursory glance to come to the
conclusion that for all intents and purposes, Thompson Springs, like all of the
other tiny burgs and towns that he’d had the misfortune to set eyes on during
his extensive travels throughout the Western United States, was just another
American ghost town.

In a blink of an eye Thompson Springs was behind them. And
less than a hundred feet beyond the onramp providing all thirty-nine residents
of the sprawling metropolis access to the Interstate and all points west, a
second road sign rose from the scrub a dozen feet off the right-hand shoulder.
Written on the bullet-riddled sign, in white reflective letters, was the same
warning about the impending lack of services. Below that it read:
Green
River 25 miles
. But the sign had also been defaced, and Cade had to take
his foot off the gas and tap the brake and slow down a bit in order to read the
second warning spray-painted in silver on the sign’s bottom margin. It read:
Beware
of bandits
and
River
had been sprayed over with the word
Acres
.