Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (34 page)

“Mike, what’s your position?”

“We’re about a half mile offshore. Callie is trying to
get a better view through the binoculars, but this chop is making it
difficult.”

“Can she see any details?”

“We’re going to have to get closer. All we can tell
from here is that it’s a fair sized boat—maybe thirty feet long. It looks like
it’s beached around the cove from the campground’s pier.”

“Keep us posted, but observe only for now. Stay with
the plan.”

“Roger that. We’ll swing by for a closer look on our
way to the campground, but eyes only for now.”

“10-4.”

“Walter, did you copy that?”

“Yeah. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yup. That could be the mysterious ‘boat on its side’
that Amy thought she heard from on the walkie-talkie. For now though, we need
to focus on our main objective. We’ll keep that one as a target of
opportunity.”

“10-4.”

“How far are we from the campground itself?” Sam asked
as he eyed the road in front of him.

“Just around that little bend up there.”

“Are you sure this is the plan you want to go with?”

“I think it’s our best option,” Eric replied.

Michelle nudged his ankle with the side of her foot.
“Be safe.”

“Be ready.” With that, Eric opened the door and slid
out on to the dew dampened pavement of Ravenwood Campground Road. He closed the
door as silently as possible, and then with a half smile and wink, stepped off
the blacktop and into the forest.

“That’s good camouflage for this time of year,” Sam
noted as Eric’s brown and tan leaf patterned form seem to disappear almost
immediately.

“Walter sells a lot of it to duck hunters.”

“I wish we were hunting ducks right about now.”

“Me too.”

A few minutes of silence passed before Eric’s voice
came over the radio.
“The woods here are not as thick as I’d like, but so
far—so good.”

Sam rotated his head across the limited horizon,
searching every tree, rock, and clump of weeds in view. “You and Eric go back a
ways, right?”

“Since we were kids.”

“You worried?”

“Aren’t you,” she replied almost immediately as she
scanned the road behind them.

“The word on the street is that he’s a pretty handy
fellow to have around in the woods.”

“Yeah, but we’re not talking about sneaking up on some
hunters who’ve exceeded their bag limit on pheasants.”

“The principle is still the same . . . and did you
catch a glimpse of that boy reloading the shotgun this morning. Holy crap, talk
about fast.”

“If he has to reload without us there for backup, well
then, our plan has suffered an epic failure.”

“I hear that.”

A single brown leaf—curled, cracked and weathered, yet
still somehow tenaciously clinging to the drooping oak branch—wavered in the
slight breeze. Thousands, probably millions, of its decomposed brothers and
sisters cushioned Eric’s footfalls as he stalked through the late morning
woodland. To his right, the distant, occasional
tapping
of a lazy
woodpecker echoed through the stillness. Recent signs of passage indicated that
several deer had traveled a similar route that Eric now walked. Another forty
feet, and he’d be in position to get his first real look at the campground. The
flutter of wings in the branches overhead triggered a momentary freeze, and he
closed his eyes and focused his other senses. Inside, his gut was telling him
that something was wrong, and the lack of typical noises from the morning
forest seemed to intensify that feeling. He opened his eyes and ghosted
forward, crouching as he broke free from the stunted tree cover. A drop to his
belly followed, and Eric wormed his way to the side of the large slab of rock
that thrust upwards from the beaten down weeds next to the road. The opposite
side of the semi-natural monolith was carved with fifteen inch tall lettering
that thanked campers for visiting Ravenwood. Each letter, as well as a
cartoonish picture of a perched bird, had been shadow washed in black paint to
help it stand out. Reaching into one of the large cargo pockets of his
camouflage pants, Eric drew out a pair of compact binoculars.

“OK, I’m in the first position by the rock sign. Give
me a minute to look around.”
He took
his time and swept the entire area that he could see—cursory at first, and then
a return sweep much slower and more detailed.

“Do all stations copy?”

Mike and Callie, Sam and Michelle, and Walter all
checked in.

“OK, like I said, I’m by the Ravenwood ‘goodbye’ sign.
From here I can see the upper side of the campground. Everything from the
soccer field and water pump room, down to the little check-in kiosk, and past
that to the campground office. I can also see the first few slots on Golden
Eagle Loop. I have zero, repeat . . . zero movement. I can see several abandoned
vehicles, or at least ones that look like they were parked in a hurry.”

He zoomed the binoculars to maximum magnification.
“Walter,
is Doc awake and handy—Amy too?”

Walters’s voice came through the headset clear and
crisp.
“Everybody’s here and listening.”

“Didn’t they say that when everybody was leaving the
campground, some of the men were shooting at the walkers?”

Doc’s voice came back in reply.
“Yes, that’s
correct . . . why?”

“Do you know if they hit anything?”

“I can’t give you an exact count since we were
preoccupied trying to get into the RVs at the time, but I am sure that several
of the infected went down.”

Mike broke in,
“I know that at least two of the
ghouls went down permanently. I don’t know who was shooting, but I saw two head
shots.”

“Can you give me a general idea of where that
happened?”

“Straight out in front of the office, next to the
pull-off where they empty the wastewater. Why?”

He hesitated before answering as he focused on the
location Mike was describing. When he was sure, he answered.
“We have no
bodies . . . anywhere. At least none that I can see from here.”

Eric studied the scene in front of him for a third
time. There was still no movement that he could detect.
“Sam, I’ve got my
eyes on the campground. Go ahead and move the truck up to the bend.”

His vision through the binoculars remained unchanged
as the Explorer moved closer.
“In position,”
Michelle said.

“Glass the area . . . make sure that I’m not missing
anything.”

A short time later the reply came.
“Mike says that
it looks the same as he can remember, minus the bodies.”

“Keep watching. I’m heading to position two.”

Eric retraced his path back into the forest, and then
shifted to the left, cautiously following the deer trail for another seventy
yards before it split off where the woods ended at the corner of the athletic
field. There was no large stone to hide behind here, so he belly crawled
through the light brush until he reached the point of transition between weeds
and grass. Grabbing the binoculars again, he scrutinized the area from left to
right, and then back again.

“Echo Romeo Indigo Charlie is at position two.”

“Sierra Alpha Mama copies.”
The reply was accompanied by several low chuckles.

“You two characters are a pair of Alpha Sierra
Sierra—holes.”
Walter sounded
serious, but the amusement in the background that carried through didn’t match
his tone.

“Alright,”
Eric began,
“like I said, I’m in position two. I no longer have line of
sight on the Explorer, but I can see the top of Blue Heron Loop from here. It
looks like a couple of tents are down, but I still have zero movement and zero
bodies.”

“Do you want us to come any closer with the truck?”

“Negative. That’s as far as you go until we move to
phase two. Callie, do you and Mike copy?”

“Everything is loud and clear. Are you ready for the
horn?”

“Count to thirty—slowly—and then let it fly for a
solid five seconds.”

“10-4.”

Eric steadied his breathing as he dialed back the
magnification on the binoculars, giving him a wide angle view of the
campground. Above him, the hazy overcast clouds began to separate, and for a
brief sliver of time, sunlight poured through.

“BRRRAAAAAAAHHHH.”

The sound of the ski boat’s PA horn drifted up to his
ears, and he searched the campground for movement. Again, he came up empty.

“Hit it again, only this time give it several blasts.”
In short order, a series of beeps, toots, and bleeps
sounded from the 300 watt, twin bullhorn system that Walter had MacGyver’d on
to the bow of the dark gray vessel.

Nothing happened.

A brief tickle of unease pulled again at Eric’s
stomach as he scanned the campground.
“I’ve still got nothing.”

“Same here,”
Michelle replied.

He dropped the binoculars and studied the area without
magnification. That little irritating scratch in his gut hadn’t gone away, but
it hadn’t intensified, either.
“Mike, what’s your position?”

“We’re holding about 150 yards off the fishing pier.”

“Have you seen any movement?”

“Negative.”

The fishing pier that jutted out from the bottom of
Blue Heron Loop was their planned exit point—by water anyway—for any survivors
they found. It was a recent construction, barely three years old, and had been anchored
with concrete posts. On top of the posts was a latticework of engineered boards
made up of recycled materials. The customary ‘chain and post’ railing kept
accidental swimmers to a minimum. Except at the very end. A length of
galvanized chain that spanned the eight foot width of the pier was attached at
one end with a standard thumb operated bolt snap, similar to what you’d find at
the end of a heavy duty dog chain. The small metal sign that warned campers to
‘keep this safety chain attached at all times’ normally had to be replaced
several times during the summer. Once you unhooked the chain, a ladder
descended the barely three foot drop to the water—a fact that hundreds of
campers, fishermen, and even Eric could attest to. The beginnings of a smirk
settled across his face as he thought back two summers ago. Her name was Jodi.
She was a short blond girl with a loud voice and no modesty. She was also very
drunk, very enthusiastic, and surprisingly agile for someone so intoxicated. He
was ticketing her boyfriend for fishing without a license when she had come
sprinting down the pier—shucking her clothing off while singing some ridiculous
pop song. Her nimbleness had allowed her to vault several tackle boxes and
fishing rods as she flung the last of her garments into the night air, but that
temporary dexterity had ended when she dodged around her boyfriend’s
halfhearted attempt to catch her and crashed into Eric—sending them both into
the cold waters of the lake.