Carlie Simmons (Book 1): Until Morning Comes (12 page)

The silty water rushed over Carlie as
they were swept through the frigid torrent. Only the intermittent light from Shane’s
headlamp illuminated the cement passage ahead as he struggled to keep his head
above the waves.

They both bobbed along in the swift
current, slamming against the narrow sides and along the rough bottom. Carlie
felt like she was reliving her swift-water rescue training in Florida, except
that this water reeked of city streets and the cement underneath kept painfully
smacking her tailbone. She focused on the flickering images of Shane’s headlamp
until she saw the circular disk of white light ahead where the storm drain
ended in the desert. She braced for the impact, futilely attempting to use her
shoes as brakes on the slick surface. Carlie felt Shane’s boots colliding with
her back as the force of the water spewed them out of the tunnel. She shot
forward eight feet into an algae-filled pond of silt and debris, thrusting her
forearms across her face like a boxer and slamming forward into the quagmire.

She went under for a second and then
quickly forced herself up from the putrescent pool. Carlie stood up, immediately
sinking into the silty mess until the sand was at knee level. In the early
morning light, she could make out the rest of the group scattered around,
helping each other out of the quagmire. Carlie could feel the sand impacted in
her ears and shook her head violently, sending debris showering down upon
Shane.

“Woman, you look just like I feel,” he
said, wiping the grime off his face and removing a line of silt from below his
right eye.

Carlie shrugged and then studied the
landscape around them. To her rear was the large aqueduct they had emerged from
below a cement embankment by a two-lane road. To the right and left was an
immense drainage basin whose bottom was lined with pea gravel, with the
occasional cattail rearing its columnar form.

In the distance before her was a row of
jagged mountains of sandstone that rose like an earthen backbone along the
southern horizon. Saguaro cacti peppered the low desert leading up to the
mountain range, standing like green sentinels. The only movement in the region was
from the crusty bunch of students around her. The thunderstorm behind them was
pushing away, miles to the north, over the Santa Catalina Mountains.

“You know where we are, don’t you?” said
Shane, still smacking the sand off his vest.

“Yeah, I used to drive by this place on
the way to our old shooting range.”

“This is also where Rory and I
apprehended that bandido,
El Gato Blanco,
who was running dope through
southern Tucson a few years back. That bastard moved like a fucking cheetah,
and it was only this quicksand that slowed him down long enough for us to catch
him.”

“That’s right, I remember now—’cause I
had just met you then on my way back from the range. You were walking up the
road with that guy still in cuffs. You really smelled bad—that was not a good first
impression.”

“I thought you liked dirty guys,” Shane
said. Carlie knew him enough to know that his humor was an attempt at trying
not to let his anguish over his friend’s death show.

“Shane, I’m sorry about Rory. I know you
two were good friends.”

“Yeah, me too…me too. He was a helluva
guy to have watching your six.”

Carlie’s face softened and she realized
how tense she had been. She felt a tiny thread of calm slip over her as the sunlight
washed over her face. Then she saw Jared stagger over.

“I’m feeling a little like Tom Hanks in
Castaway
,
only there ain’t no beach with coconuts,” he said, flicking a clump of silt off
his soggy leather daypack. “Now what? You gonna lead us through the desert to
the Promised Land?” he said, looking at Shane and then over to Carlie.

Carlie ignored him and pulled out her
pistol to inspect it. She moved forward a few feet, out of the muck. “Everyone
regroup over here by the embankment so we can do a headcount and go over a
plan.”

As she walked, she deftly removed the
slide of the Sig pistol and began blowing the crud out of the interior. She
reached inside her vest and pulled out a piece of gauze from her trauma kit and
tore open the package. Then Carlie began slowly flicking out the grit and field
cleaning the rest of the pistol. Shane was performing the same task as they
walked along.

When Carlie arrived at the cement incline
that comprised the embankment, she lay the pistol down and finished the rest of
the field expedient cleaning. As the others gathered around, she quickly
emptied her remaining magazines of bullets and dried them, then restored
everything assembly-line fashion and with the finesse of a skilled pit-crew worker
tackling a race car.

She looked up into a crowd of scared
faces veneered with grime. “These twenty-four hours probably aren’t what you
all had planned out when you woke up yesterday but you’ve made it this far because
you’ve been resourceful. We need to find a defensible spot where we can hole up
for a while until a helicopter can get in to rescue us.”

“Nice speech, Sarah Connor, but in case
you haven’t noticed we’re stuck out in the open with no weapons except our little
pistolas,” said Jared. “I say we head up to the road, shanghai some vehicles,
and get the hell out of here.”

Bird Beak and Floor Mop chimed in
support of Jared and he arched his shoulders back.

“Look, we appreciate what you did for us
back there but we ain’t in your posse,” Jared said, turning to the others
behind him. “If you want to come with me and snag a truck, we’ll be on our way.
If not then I bid you farewell,” he said, tilting his chin up.

“Hold up, tough guy,” said Shane, who
had just slapped a clean magazine back into his pistol. “You wanna go, then go,
but before the others head off with you, maybe you should tell them what they’re
in for, taking a road trip with a felon.” He glanced down at Jared’s wrist. “Go
on—show ’em that stainless-steel bracelet you got from when you escaped from
the U.S. Marshals—I mean, that’s your story, isn’t it?”

Jared narrowed his eyes at Shane and
then looked around at the others staring at him as he tried to retract his wrist
into his soggy shirt sleeve. Then his face grew taut as the color flushed in
his cheeks. “Time for your interrogation later, Hoss—we got company,” he said,
pointing behind Shane and the others.

“Yeah, I’m not buying the
look-over-the-shoulder-at-the-approaching-zombie routine, Jared.”

“No—he’s right,” shouted Tex-Mex. “Those
things are coming.”

“Aw, shit—didn’t we just leave this
party?” said Shane, turning to see a group of straggling creatures moving
through the open desert in the distance.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” said
President Huntington into the radio receiver.

“Yes, just a few scrapes but I’ll be
fine,” said Eliza, who was sitting under the shade of the staircase at the
DEA’s tactical-ops center in downtown Tucson.

“Two army helicopters will be arriving
at your location shortly and then you’ll be flown to a facility in New Mexico.”

“What about the others? Carlie—the
Secret Service agent who was with me—and her DEA friends? They are still stuck
at the university.”

“Phillip informed me of what happened
and of Agent Simmons’ conduct in leaving you. There’s nothing I can do at this
point. She made her decision.”

“She left after I was safely on board
the helicopter. If it wasn’t for her, I would have died last night. She only
went back for her friends after my safety was assured.”

“I know you feel a sense of gratitude
for what she did but your safe return is my main concern right now. If we had
assets to spare then I would have more options, but she is on her own. Now
please put Agent Matias back on the line so we can discuss your departure.”

Eliza was about to speak when she was interrupted
by Phillip, who grabbed the radio from her. Phillip handed it over to Matias,
who reluctantly accepted it. Matias walked away while speaking with the
president’s advisor about the extraction plan.

“What the hell are you doing, Phillip?”
said Eliza, standing up beside the metal desk. “You’re not in charge here.”

“Actually I am, since Carlie decided to
forego her sworn duties. Plus I hold a higher federal post than Matias.”

“If you had any balls, you would have
stayed behind to help her instead of coming back here. I didn’t see you even
lift a finger when she decided to stay and fight.”

“That’s because I know what my duties
are, Ms. Huntington. As for Agent Simmons, she’s finished in the Secret Service.”

Eliza folded her arms. “Hello—the world
is screwed, in case you hadn’t noticed. Do you think that matters anymore?”

“It will to men like your father, trust
me.”

Matias came back and placed the radio on
the desk. “The army helos will be here in ninety minutes and then you can be on
your way, Ms. Huntington.”

“It’s Eliza—can we skip all these absurd
formalities? I’m just like anyone else. I always have been,” she said, leaning
back against the wall. “And what about you, Matias, aren’t you coming with us?”

“I’ll let you know when the time comes,”
he said, grabbing a pair of binoculars off a shelf. “Right now, I’m going back
up top to see if I can spot any of the others on the streets. I lost radio
contact with Shane, so who knows where they are right now.”

As more saggy-faced creatures began
emerging from the surrounding desert, Carlie motioned to the others to climb
out of the drainage to the two-lane highway.

“Looks like you get your wish after
all,” said Carlie to Jared, who was scrambling up the cement incline next to
her.

“If I had my wish, I’d like to see you
out of that guy suit and in a nice red floral-print dress. You would look
mighty fine.”

“Pff,” Carlie sputtered out, not sure if
she had just been complimented or objectified.

The college students along with Jared,
Carlie, and Shane sprinted up the concrete and over the guardrail. “Everybody
fan out and look for a few vehicles that look functional and have keys inside,”
said Carlie.

Each person peered into the scattered
assemblage of abandoned vehicles that peppered the half-mile of highway. Most
of the cars and trucks were mangled from collisions while others had their
windows smashed out while serpentine streaks of blood colored the nearby
pavement. Carlie kept looking over her shoulder at the incoming group of
creatures beelining for their location. What had started out as a dozen
stragglers was now a group of over forty disheveled individuals struggling
through the soupy mess of sand and water below.

Carlie turned and saw Jared trotting
down the road towards a large pastry truck and watched him cautiously slide his
head inside the open door.

Shane shouted from behind her. “We’ve
got movement now on the other side of the highway,” he said, pointing to the
right, where a mass of fifty or so creatures were bounding towards them.

“We’re out of time,” Carlie whispered to
herself as she glanced inside a red Subaru. She found the keys still intact and
jumped into the driver’s seat. She began cranking on the ignition but it only
sputtered. She kept furiously slamming the key forward while grinding her
teeth. Then she heard the exhilarating roar of an engine and turned to see the
pastry truck a hundred yards away beginning to move. Jared was inside and
pulling forward, away from the others.

“Damn that filthy snake,” she said,
hopping out of the Subaru and running down the blacktop. Creatures were scrambling
up the embankments in greater numbers. As one crested the guardrail to her left,
Carlie slowed momentarily to strike it in the head with the butt of her pistol,
sending it careening backwards into the muck below.

“Let’s go. Everyone run this way,” said
Shane, who had fallen in behind Carlie. The rest of the students began their circuitous
route through the tangle of vehicles as the highway began filling with
creatures pouring in from the south.

They were sprinting towards the pastry
truck, which was smashing vehicles out of its way along the bridge ahead when
they saw it stop and the reverse lights go on. The truck sped backwards,
quickly coming to a halt before an overturned gold Jeep. The rear double doors
flung open as Jared stood with a nervous grin, waving people to him.

“Hurry…hurry,” he said, grabbing arms
and yanking people onto the heaps of smashed donuts and lemon pies littering
the floor.

Carlie stopped by the rear bumper as she
yelled at the last stragglers moving along the blacktop. She and Shane began
selectively taking headshots at the creatures who were gaining ground. “I’ve
only got the rounds in this one magazine and then I’m dry,” she shouted.

“Yeah, me too, and I’d rather not stick
around to practice my Thai kickboxing skills.”

As Floor Mop was running frantically to
catch up he stepped on a piece of jagged metal with his bare foot and tottered
over. He was quickly overtaken from all sides by six creatures, which pulled
his limbs off and began fighting over the appendages.

As Amy leapt onto the rear of the truck,
Carlie tapped Shane on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said as they bolted for
the slowly moving truck which Jared had begun driving forward, stopping for a
moment to flick a piece of apple pie from his Nikes.

They reached up into the waiting hands of
students and climbed on board the slippery mess of pulverized fruit pies, then
slammed the doors. Carlie gulped down several breaths and peered out the rear
window. She grabbed onto the side of a metal shelf as the truck increased its
speed. The bobbing heads of their pursuers on the road behind them faded into
the tawny backdrop of sand dunes.

Carlie holstered her pistol and did a
quick headcount. “Looks like everybody else made it, amazingly enough.”

Shane was busy wiping the sticky
conglomeration of apple and cherry pie off his fingers while the two college
guys began tearing into boxes of doughnuts. Carlie made her way forward,
stepping over the clump of weary students who were covered in a medley of sweat
and pie crust until she made her way to the passenger’s seat.

Jared glanced over at her. “Not too
shabby a rescue, eh? Now, it’s me saving your ass.”

Carlie smirked. “For a second there, I
thought you were gonna leave us back there.”

“Then who would help me eat all these
goodies in back,” he said, weaving past an overturned hay truck with its bales
spread like dominoes along the road.

“So, you have a conscience after all.”

“Look, I don’t give a packrat’s ass what
you or Sheriff Billy Bob think of me. I just want to get out of this godforsaken
state of cactus-eaters and get back home.”

“For right now, just keep driving east.
We’ve got enough fuel to make it to the town of Benson and hopefully that
ranching community hasn’t been hit too hard by all this.”

“Aye, aye, el Capitan.”

“And nice job on locating a vehicle with
the keys still intact,” she said, looking down at the empty ignition switch, where
two red and blue wires were coiled together.

Jared scratched his scruffy chin. “Yeah,
well, we all have our hidden talents.”