Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (11 page)

He ripped the three hook-and-loop straps loose and removed
the hard plastic boot and tossed it unceremoniously in back. As he wiggled his
toes and enjoyed the cool air on his damp sock, the low hiss coming from the
speakers was suddenly replaced by a human voice. He paused midway through
unlacing the Danner and listened for a second. He’d heard this one before. Some
Emergency Broadcast item out of D.C. Still looping, weeks old and unchanged. He
guessed it was running off of solar somewhere and it would continue doing so
until someone turned it off.
Doubtful.
Or, most likely, some random
small part in the system failed, taking it off the air for good. Once again he
hit the Seek button on the head unit, hinged over and resumed unlacing the
Danner. He yanked the old boot off and slipped the new one on and laced it up.
Surprisingly, it fit perfectly, like it had been custom made for him by some
old world cobbler. The other boot, however, was a different story. After the
first unsuccessful try, he loosened the laces entirely and forced the issue.
Sweat beads breaking out on his brow and swollen ankle be damned, he jammed his
foot into the new boot, forcing his toes into the cap first and then, using all
of his weight, got his heel down.
Success.
The fit was beyond tight.
Without the jaws-of-life or a plasma cutter he wasn’t taking the thing off
anytime soon. He saw plenty more Ibuprofen in his future.

As he tucked the laces inside the boot tops, the green
digits on the head unit stopped scrolling and a mournful-sounding Mariachi song
came through the truck’s speakers. The signal was faint so Cade jacked up the
volume and listened intently until the last guitar chords were strummed and the
song had faded. Then, fully expecting the programming to be prerecorded and
looping like the D.C. broadcast, he waited for the next south-of-the-border
ditty to ramp up before yanking the keys from the ignition. Instead, taking him
completely by surprise, a Caucasian-sounding male voice, deep and resonant,
replaced the dead air and in an unusually cheerful manner—as if the dead
weren’t walking around eating people in his neck of the woods— rattled off the
day, month, and year, which Cade confirmed as accurate with a quick glance at
his Suunto. Inexplicably, the man continued on saying the temperature wherever
he was broadcasting from was holding at eighty-nine degrees. There was a moment
of dead air followed by a rustling of papers, after which the man relayed a
forecast for the coming week. And judging by the ungodly high daytime
temperatures coupled with the plunging nighttime lows, Cade guessed the signal
was being beamed from a distant state like New Mexico, or, Arizona, or even
further south than that, somewhere inside of Mexico perhaps.

The Dee Jay finished the weather report, then switched to
fluent Spanish and, presumably, repeated all of the same information to his
non-English speaking listeners.
Pretty optimistic
, thought Cade. Either
the man spinning the records had gone crazy and was continuing his daily
routine oblivious to the world outside, or some kind of sanctuary from the dead
had sprouted up somewhere in the desert southwest. One safe and secure enough
to embolden the Dee Jay with enough hubris to expect to outlive a week’s worth
of weather yet resourceful enough to keep a radio station on air in order to
broadcast the fact.

After listening to the rest of the Spanish update and
understanding only a few of the words, Cade assigned the station to one of the
three dozen available presets and took the keys from the ignition. They went
into a cargo pocket and he fished the sat phone from the bottom of the center
console where it had settled. He thumbed it on and waited for it to power up.
The device ran through the familiar boot-up sequence after which he checked the
display, which showed that he had one new SMS text message and a single missed
call with a new voice mail attached to it. He scrolled down to the call log and
determined that the text message originated from the same number he’d called
the day before when he had spoken with Daymon and Duncan. The missed call,
however , had come from Major Freda Nash, back at Schriever, presumably. First
off he read the text message and, thinking maybe Daymon was pulling his leg,
smiled and said to himself, “Roger that.” Next, after a moment’s hesitation, he
selected the voice mail, thumbed the call button and placed the phone to his
ear. Through the windshield he watched Brook and Wilson conducting a
preliminary recon of the building’s exterior while he listened to Nash’s
unapologetic voice dictate a list of very explicit instructions.

Leaving the Thuraya powered on and plugged into the outlet,
he tossed it in the console and out of sight.
Old habits die hard
, he
thought to himself.
Who the hell is going to steal the thing out here,
Grayson?

Without answering to his inner smartass he closed the
console, looked up and saw Brook staring at him, animatedly tapping her watch.
Getting the hint, he pushed open the door and slipped off the seat, supporting
most of his weight with a firm two-handed grip on the grab bar near his head.
As he pivoted left, his gaze passed over the aluminum crutches stowed behind
his seat.
Too noisy. Too encumbering. But most of all ... too easy,
the
same inner voice lectured.

So he met terra firma without them. Right foot first,
settling the majority of his weight on it. The moment of truth came and instead
of his own voice he heard Desantos’s in his head.
Suck it up,
the
gravelly voice said as he let go and planted his left foot on the ground.
Grimacing, he gritted his teeth as a runner of pain shot up his leg.
Bearable.
He distributed his weight evenly and, like a baby wearing that first pair of
flat-soled shoes, took his own baby steps forward.
Fake it ‘til you make it
,
looped through his head as he walked half-speed towards Brook with a forced yet
somewhat reassuring smile on his face.

Chapter 17

Duncan pulled the battered Land Cruiser up tight next to a
dirt-encrusted 4Runner, also a spoil of war taken after their one-sided
skirmish with the Huntsville gang.

He shut off the motor and looked to the right past Daymon.
Squinting hard and craning his neck further, he said, “What do you make of
that?”

“That red thing between the helicopters?”

“You call that red? Looks kind of brown to me,” drawled Duncan,
instantly regretting the damning admission. Then, trying to recover, added,
“Someone set the thing up in the shadows. I knew it was red.”

“That’s not a shadow, Mister Magoo. That’s Tran and he’s
been at it like that since I came up to the road.”

After a quick mental calculation in which he was forced to
perform a little long division, Duncan said, “Hell ... he’s using a hand pump,
not a garden hose and gravity. Even at half-speed he should have transferred
all four hundred and fifty pounds of fuel into the Black Hawk half an hour
ago.”

“Be grateful, would you, Duncan? He’s been out there
cranking that thing with a couple of cracked ribs ... or bruised ... whatever.
After the way you lit into him because he couldn’t recall
exactly
where
in Idaho Bishop was setting up shop, I’d have expected him to get out of Dodge
... or murder you in your sleep. One or the other. I’d of gone with the latter,
myself.”

Sounding a little like Steve Martin, stretching out his
words, Duncan shook his head side-to-side and said, “Well
forgive
me ...
I was
drunk
.”

“Hell of an excuse,” said Daymon. “I’m regretting letting
you drive us here from the road.”

“I ain’t drunk no more,” drawled Duncan, handing over the
keys. “If it’ll make you feel any better, you can drive us to the quarry.”

“
After
I check in on Heidi.”

Duncan grunted, then, favoring his lower back which was
suffering greatly from digging the two graves, popped open his door and stepped
gingerly onto the flattened grass. Immediately he noticed the heat from the
rising sun. It had to be nearing seventy degrees and a million candle watts
seemed to be focused on one area—the bald spot on the crown of his head,
beneath which his brain was still throbbing from the aftereffects of his last
drunk. Squinting against the sun, he looked inside the rig at Daymon, expecting
another probing question, but instead saw the dreadlocked former firefighter
pointing animatedly at the passenger-side door.

Ignoring the pantomimed plea for help, Duncan said, “Let’s
see what kind of progress Tran is making.”

“A little help with the door,” said Daymon, jiggling the
handle. “Thing doesn’t want to open.”

Duncan chuckled. “You’re the one who ruined it on account of
your fine display of demolition derby driving.”

“I saved our
asses
.” There was a loud bang and then
the drawn-out squeal from the pinched hinges grinding metal on metal. Rubbing
his shoulder, Daymon unfolded his body from the truck, rose and stretched
catlike. He snatched up his bow and machete and began walking towards the pair
of helicopters where Tran was still hard at work in their shadow, his entire
body hinging up and down, invested fully in spinning a pie-sized metal wheel in
slow-motion revolutions.

***

Five minutes after touching bases with Tran, Duncan and
Daymon were in the compound’s cramped security container, drinking coffee and
watching Heidi manipulate the lighted dials and knobs on the Ham radio.

“Hey hon,” said Daymon to deaf ears.

Twisting in the folding chair, Heidi removed one ear pad and
asked, “You get some good rest last night?”

Since he hadn’t gotten good rest for weeks, he hesitated a
moment to weigh the pros and cons of plopping an extra helping of worry on her
plate. Then, rather reluctantly, he decided a little white lie would hurt a lot
less than burdening her with the truth. Looking straight at her, he took a
quick sip of his coffee and added, “Like a baby. Feels like I’m getting the old
circadian rhythm back on track— ”

Unwittingly saving Daymon from digging an even deeper hole
for himself, Duncan interrupted. “Did you contact anyone on Logan’s list?”

“I’ve been able to get ahold of a couple of them. I chatted
with a man who is holed up with his elderly mom somewhere near Pocatello,” she
said. “He even mentioned seeing three or four helicopters heading west a couple
of days ago.”

“Pocatello,” said Duncan, more statement than question. Then
he looked at her over his bifocals and asked, “He say what kind of
helicopters?”

“He didn’t say. And I didn’t think to ask. We talked very
briefly, then rather abruptly he said he had to go. I’ll be sure to
grill
him about it later.”

“Later?”

“Yeah,” answered Heidi, pinning her blonde bangs back under
the headphone strap. “He promised he’d call me back sometime this afternoon.”

“I bet he did,” said Daymon, who was leaning against the
cool metal wall, chin resting on his chest. He looked up and drained his coffee
and then added, “It’s amazing the effect the soothing voice of the fairer sex
has on us cooped-up fellas.”

Giving Daymon an affectionate pat on his thigh, Heidi held
aloft a spiral-bound notebook spilling over with papers. “Then you better leave
me alone, hon,” she said playfully. “’Cause if we’re going to find out where
those creeps took the girls, I’m going to have to learn how to use this radio.
And from the looks of this manual ... I’ve got some serious learning to do.”

“One thing to be said about Oops,” proffered Duncan. “He
always was an anal little bastard when it came to saving paperwork and receipts
and manuals. Hell, the pink slip for his first Big Wheel is probably still
tucked away somewhere in here.”

“Bless him,” said Heidi. A pained look settled on her
features as she snugged the headphones on and buried her head in the radio
manual.

Taking a quick swipe at the forming tears, Duncan said to no
one in particular, “I really miss the little bugger.”

“We all do,” Daymon replied. “Now finish your coffee, Old
Man. We’re going back to the quarry.”

“First I need to fetch a bottle of aspirin from the
storeroom.”

Daymon looked to make sure Heidi couldn’t hear what he was about
to say. He saw her slowly moving the large dial on the radio, no doubt trying
to tune in some far away frequency. Finally he said to Duncan, “There’s no more
of that Jack Daniels squirreled away in the storeroom, is there?”

“There is,” Duncan said. “But I’ve done all of the
forgettin’ I’m going to do for now. I’ll properly mourn the boy later ... maybe
even pour a little out and say a few words over that pile of dirt up there.”

“When is later?”

“After I put the fuckers who killed him under a pile of dirt
of their own.”

His face a mask of resolve, Daymon said, “Meet you topside.”
He kissed Heidi atop her head, gave her shoulder a soft squeeze, then ducked
under the door arch and was lost in the gloom.

Duncan made no reply. Couldn’t think of anything smartass to
say to soften the mood. Not even one barbed quip came to him. So he took a
second to study the still images from the cameras topside and then marched off
in the opposite direction.

Chapter 18

Mesa View 4x4 was an easier nut to crack than Cade had
presumed. Fifteen seconds using a specialized tool called a lock gun was all he
needed to thwart the upper deadbolt. Less than ten additional seconds were
necessary to defeat the lock on the brushed-aluminum doorknob.

After stowing the lock tool, Cade called Max over and led
him to the rubber flap near the base of the first roller door.

Max entered with an eagerness that seemed to set everyone at
ease—Brook especially. But a few seconds later the flap rippled and Max
emerged, hair standing on end, teeth bared. He spun a couple of silent circles,
then looked to Cade for new marching orders.