Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (44 page)

As the RPMs spooled up and the blades overhead became a
seemingly solid moving disc, Duncan craned around and said, “Mike check?” To
which he received a chorus of ‘Copy’s’ and three thumbs up. Satisfied, he
pulled pitch and the Black Hawk juddered slightly and left the earth amidst a
rising cacophony of sound and the pungent smell of kerosene-tinged exhaust.

Then, inadvertently blasting the nine upturned faces with
rotor wash, Duncan dipped the helo’s nose and began a gradual left-hand turn
across the clearing, gaining elevation while positioning the rising morning sun
at his six.

Speaking into his boom mike, Cade said, “Before heading to
the airport will you please take us west?”

“To Huntsville?”

“No, beyond. I want to see what the Ogden Canyon pass looks
like from up here.”

Duncan said, “I’ve only been as far west as the National
Guard roadblock this side of Huntsville. Any guess how much farther the pass
is?”

“According to a sign I saw near the reservoir, Ogden is
fifteen miles west of Huntsville. I figure the pass is somewhere in between.”

Lev entered the conversation. He asked, “What’s at the
pass?”

Cade answered, “I’m not certain. But whatever it is, it’s
holding eighty thousand of Ogden’s finest at bay.”

Duncan said, “Three mikes and you’ll have eyes on the pass,”
then, with gloved hands finessing the stick, he finished the turn, straightened
the Black Hawk out and resumed level flight, following the two-lane until it
disappeared into the verdant forest below. The DHS bird thundered west, and
near the burned-out gas station he’d seen earlier, Cade picked up a group of Zs
at least thirty strong lurching eastbound. A tick later, the Black Hawk
overflew the gawking creatures and then the roadblock and the ditch filled with
listing vehicles slid by on their left. Pressing his helmet to the glass, Cade
regarded the tangle of charred corpses lining the south side of the raised
roadbed and said a second prayer in as many days for the men and women who’d
died in service of their country.

***

Less than a minute after overflying Huntsville and the
glassy waters of the Prineville reservoir, a natural slot appeared in the
mountains where from more than a mile out Cade could see movement on a large
scale. “Put us in a hover,” he said sharply.

Duncan said, “Roger that,” and nosed the Black Hawk up and
quickly dropped some altitude before holding a semi-steady hover. “I’m going
bring the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) camera on line. You’ve got a hat
switch on the stick to move the pod.”

“Copy that,” replied Cade. He grasped the stick and found
the switch with his thumb. A half-beat later the center display facing him lit
up, showing a full color view of the canyon ahead. He gently thumbed the hat
switch until the slot was centered perfectly on the monitor. To the right of
the road rose a steep, nearly vertical cliff face, scrub and gnarled trees
clinging to it tenaciously. Opposite the face, beyond the guardrail, the canyon
dropped off sharply an indeterminate number of feet. And entirely blocking the
dull gray four-lane in between the two was a wall of rust-colored shipping
containers. Four abreast, three deep, and stacked two high in an inverted ‘V,’
the twenty-four steel Conex containers created a formidable-looking barrier,
its point facing a jostling logjam of death that looked to be at least a
thousand strong.
Not enough to move the barrier
, Cade thought to
himself.
But still something worth keeping a close tab on
.

Duncan whistled slowly; a mournful sound befitting the
sight. He said, “Zoom in on the outside guardrail.”

Cade panned the FLIR pod left and zoomed in on an eight-inch
gap between the scraped and dinged white metal rail and the vertically ribbed
wall of the nearest container. One thing that stood out to him instantly,
because of the sun glinting from them, was the carpet of spent brass covering
the road several feet in every direction on the near side of the barrier.

In the span of less than a minute, they witnessed a Z being
pushed through the gap under force from behind. It fell hard to the road face
first and then clumsily picked itself up and marched east, joining the ragged
line of creatures preceding it. Consequently, as a result of the sudden forward
surge, a half dozen Zs went over the guardrail, cartwheeling into space.

Giving voice to Cade’s thoughts, Duncan said, “I figure
those Huntsville bandits had to come out here pretty regular to keep their
numbers down. And these things have been accumulating since Bishop and his boys
dealt those death cards here the other day.”

Lev entered the conversation, “What do you figure, a couple
hundred new ones show up every day?”

“At least,” replied Cade. “Good for us more spill over than
squirt through.”

“Just a matter of time before enough of them show up and
that gap starts getting wider,” added Duncan. “Someone should have dynamited
the hell outta that wall and sealed it off for good.”

Great minds
, thought Cade. Then he said, “Everyone
seen enough?”

Duncan switched off the FLIR feed and nudged the stick. As
the helo took a sharp left turn and started to descend, he said, “Next stop
Morgan County Airport.”

Chapter 66

Nearly thirteen hours of uninterrupted sleep had left Elvis
with a banging headache; a sort of hangover minus the reward of a wild night of
partying.

He dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of Levis and then a
red Huskers tee-shirt he’d found hanging in a destroyed truck stop south of the
Nebraska state line. Laced up his boots and donned his lucky Huskers ball cap.

Feeling naked without the .45 pressing the small of his
back, he took the stairs down two at a time, walked through the house and
joined Bishop outside on the deck overlooking the cobalt blue lake.

“Take a seat,” said Bishop, his voice devoid of the menacing
tone from the night before.

Feeling the rising sun warming his chin and cheeks, Elvis
pulled a chair out and took a load off. There was a pot of coffee and a couple
of mugs as well as a six-pack of canned energy drinks, dew rolling off their
aluminum skin. In the center of the table was a platter containing some kind of
sausages, a rasher of bacon, and a fluffy mound of scrambled eggs. “May I?”
asked Elvis, reaching for an energy drink.

Bishop smiled, obviously pleased with himself for procuring
such a meal. “Help yourself. Mi casa su casa,” he said. “And thanks to our
neighbors to the east, the eggs are always fresh.”

Elvis took a Red Bull and filled a plate. He held aloft a
stiff strip of well-marbled bacon, examining it front and back.

“No cook bacon,” admitted Bishop. “Who knew it would take a
zombie apocalypse for me to stoop so low.”

Elvis chuckled.

“Did you enjoy the girls?”

 “I was so tired I had to make them do all of the work.”
Then, changing the subject. “When am I leaving?”

Bishop flicked his wrist. The key fob arced from his hand,
hit the table, bounced once and then skittered under the lip of Elvis’s plate.
“After you’ve had your fill, you’re free to go. The tank is full and the spare
cans are strapped down in back. Gives you about fifty gallons total ... more
than enough to get there and back. There’s a couple of MREs and some waters up
front and you’ll find your pistol and two spare mags in the glove box. And to
make it easy on you, the coordinates are already programmed into the Tom Tom.
Get within one mile of your final destination and lay up somewhere safe until
just after sunset ... twenty-one-hundred hours ... or nine o’clock, and then
proceed the rest of the way. I want you to activate the device at nine-eleven
sharp.”

Cocking his head with a harried look on his face, Elvis
asked, “Won’t they see me coming ... be using some kind of night vision goggles
or overhead drones or something?”

Bishop shook his head. “Negative. You won’t see their base
because it’ll be blacked out. Besides, the coordinates I inputted are BVR of
the base.”

“What’s a BVR?”

“It means beyond visual range. So unless you do something
stupid and honk the horn or trigger the light bar or set off fireworks, you can
go in all the way and deposit the device and arm it without anyone seeing or
hearing you.”

“Why nine-eleven?”

“Easy enough to remember, don’t you think?”

Nodding, Elvis said, “What if I come up against a patrol?”

“They lock the base down at dusk. No one goes in or out.”
Bishop smiled. “So no patrols.”

“No patrols.” Elvis was the one smiling now. Thinking about
the damage he was going to inflict, he asked, “What’s the code to arm the
device?”

“One, two, three, four. Also easy enough to remember. Input
that and you’ll have one hour to get twenty miles away.”

Grinning ear to ear, Elvis stood up, extended his hand and
said, “Thanks for believing in me, sir.”

“No. Thank you, Elvis,” said Bishop. He rose and shook
Elvis’s hand. “We’re stretched pretty thin here. Carson and the guys have their
hands full with the dead and locals alike. What you are doing for me will be
remembered and rewarded ... handsomely.”

Chapter 67

Bishop was a man of his word, that was for sure. Elvis found
the fuel needle pegged at full. The .45 and the spare mags for it were right
where they were supposed to be. Resting demurely in the passenger side footwell
was an AK-47 with a folding wire stock and two full thirty-round magazines for
it.
Bonus.
Apparently
, Elvis thought,
I’m back in Bishop’s
good graces and thusly there will be no bullet to the brain to account for my
past transgressions
. And when all was said and done, the only thing more
staggering than the body count will be the amount of tail he was going to get
upon returning.

Wearing a big
I belong here grin
and without being
given so much as a second look, Elvis pulled up to the southwest gate and put
the transmission into Park.
I really am one of them now
, he thought, as
Carson smiled big and approached his side of the truck.

Inside the lake house

For the first time in nearly three weeks, Jamie awoke to
something other than the dark insides of a dirty sack or the pitch-black
interior-of-a-casket kind of darkness she’d gotten used to at the subterranean
compound. Now, after being dragged from her sleep by the throaty exhaust of a
diesel engine working laboriously somewhere outside, she found herself squinting
against the onslaught of early morning sun spilling in from the skylight above.

The split second of feel good was instantly supplanted by a
wet blanket of dread as she realized what was most likely in store for her at
the day’s end.

Southwest Gate

Unable to sleep soundly the night before, Foley was now
paying dearly. He felt his lids getting heavy and then, as was par for the
course whenever he was saddled with the mind-numbing task of manning the gate,
his mind began to wander. Suddenly he was on a beach somewhere tropical, his
family by his side, a cold beverage in hand and white sand underfoot. And best
of all, for the time being, the walking dead were out of sight and mind and he
wasn’t beholden to a bunch of
Lord of the Flies
-type thugs—grown men who
operated as if everything was for their taking and every survivor their
subject. Suddenly the crunch of tires on gravel tore him from the blissful
moment and a full-sized American-made tow-truck sat idling on his side of the
gate.

He straightened up and waited for the inevitable order to
open the gate, but oddly enough none came. A tick later, a shiny Escalade
pulled in behind the tow-truck and Carson (who was rarely seen around this
gate) stepped out and hustled forward. Stopping at the driver’s door, he shot
the driver a forced smile, then, further confusing Foley, the two shook hands
and shared a quiet conversation.

Watching the glad handing with mounting disgust, Foley sized
up the new guy in the blood-red Cornhusker hat and wondered to himself what kind
of pillaging mission he was being sent out on. Most likely batteries and
ammunition, which, next to cigarettes, were the new gold these days. But the
more he thought about it the more unlikely that seemed. The vehicle was all
wrong. No bed or crew cab to stow the loot. And then he got a glimpse of the
sturdy looking trunk on the back of the truck. Instantly he recognized the
radiological symbol affixed to it and felt a cold tingle charge up his spine.

Then the order he’d been expecting was delivered. “Foley,”
bellowed one of the Spartan mercenaries who was known to be excessively cruel
to the McCall conscripts. “Open the gate.”

Seething inwardly, Foley checked for dead and, seeing none,
nearby, pulled the three pins and laced his fingers through the blood-and-detritus-streaked
chicken wire. Putting his back into the effort, he dipped his shoulder and
kicked imaginary postholes into the gravel roadbed as he drove the steel and
wood barrier outward. Slightly short of breath, and dreading the forthcoming order
to close the gate, he watched the wrecker cross the threshold, turn left and
speed away, its heavy-duty radials thrumming against the pavement.

Leaving the enclosed perimeter behind and not knowing where
in the hell he was going, Elvis resorted to following the directions doled out
by the sultry female voice. After passing through the deathly quiet resort town
of McCall, where the only things moving were a roving pack of flesh eaters, he
saw in the distance a gauze-like haze hovering over the road. As he got closer
to the edge of town it became evident that the blight on the sky was an
enormous flock of ravens, crows, starlings, and many other carrion-feeding
birds he couldn’t name. And traveling another quarter of a mile Elvis saw what
was drawing them. Nailed to crosses made from railroad ties and stuck upright
into the hard soil, a trio of naked men had been left to die a painfully slow
death. Already gone to the birds were their eyes and ears and lips. The
cavities once containing soft organs vital to sustaining life had been mined of
everything save scraps of sinew and glistening ribs and knobby vertebra. As he
passed by the warnings to anyone contemplating crossing Ian Bishop, he found it
impossible to tear his eyes from what could have easily been his fate if Carson
had had his way.