Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (2 page)

Ears perked and listening hard, he tried to discern any
out-of-place sounds he could attribute to the wire being breached. But,
thankfully, he detected none of the telltale moaning of the dead or the shrill
animalistic screams of the dying, and as soon as the sharp reports were
swallowed by the surrounding tree-covered hillocks, the (Forward Operating
Base) FOB Bastion—or “Last” as he’d heard a soldier call it—regained all of the
calm of a State Park campground at first light.

While Cade pondered whether mankind had collectively
produced the ammunition necessary to put down all of the walking dead, he
peered into the gloom and took stock of his surroundings.

After arriving at the FOB the previous night with his
family, twenty-one-year-old Wilson, his teenaged sister Sasha, and
nineteen-year-old Taryn, he was immediately spirited away from the Chinook
helicopter by his old friend, newly promoted to Full Bird Colonel, Greg Beeson.

Then, utilizing what little daylight that was left, he
boarded a Humvee with Beeson behind the wheel and, with a heavily armored
MRAP—Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected fighting vehicle—bristling with weapons
and communications gear shadowing them, received the “nickel-tour” of the base
and lay of the land outside the wire.

The FOB had sprouted up on the grounds of the Mack Mesa
airport, 4,500 feet above sea level and less than a mile north of Interstate
70. Equidistant to Mack to the west and Loma to the east, the base amounted to
little more than a small control tower, a spartanly appointed terminal, and a
handful of maintenance buildings being crowded upon by two dozen mobile homes,
which, judging by the bright residential-type colors, had presumably been
brought in and placed there after the outbreak. West of the living quarters was
a large parking lot usually reserved for airport customers but was now being
utilized as a motor pool for the U.S. Army. Running away east to west from the
tower and clustered buildings was a single 2,600-foot-long airstrip, numbered
07/25. And parked next to the airstrip was a smattering of aircraft, olive
drab-painted Army Black Hawks and Chinooks, and sitting static near the helos
were a half-dozen colorfully painted private aircraft.

At each corner of the FOB, rising thirty feet from the
desert floor, made of plywood and offering unobstructed views and uninhibited
fields of fire to all points of the compass, stood four newly constructed
watchtowers. Using heavy equipment liberated from an excavation company near
Loma, and building from the hard lessons learned from the fall of Camp Williams
in Utah, Colonel Beeson had made certain that his men supersized all of their
defenses. Outside of the razor-wire-topped fencing encircling the base were
trenches carved wide and deep enough into the ochre dirt to fully conceal an
eighteen-wheel semi-truck. On the far side of the trench, soldiers had strung
concentric rings of concertina wire complete with dangling aluminum can
noisemakers—a poor man’s early warning system. And when all was said and done,
FOB Bastion was serving its purpose as the President’s eyes-and-ears, as well
as a sort of buffer between Colorado Springs, the new United States Capitol to
the southeast, and the millions of dead south by west in Salt Lake City. A
veritable, but very vulnerable, first line of defense responsible for
interdicting and destroying anything—short of a full blown mega horde—that
moved on the nearby Interstate.

Once the impromptu tour was over and they had returned to
Beeson’s quarters—a single-wide trailer—Cade wolfed down a quick
meal
consisting of cold MREs and warm beer and listened while his friend and mentor
brought him up to speed on what to expect once outside the wire. Finally, after
a couple of hours reminiscing about days gone by, and ruminating over the bleak
outlook the small pockets of survivors scattered about the United States yet
faced, Beeson had gone to a file cabinet and produced a pair of laminated
topo-maps that detailed the countryside that lay north by west between FOB
“Last”
Bastion and the compound outside of Eden, Utah. Then, with a forlorn look,
Beeson had handed the maps over and issued a stern warning that made painfully
clear that, though they were friends, now that Cade was no longer wearing the
uniform, under no circumstances would Beeson be able to
legally
mount a
rescue should
anyone
find themselves, as the salty colonel had worded
it, ‘Up shit creek without a paddle.’ Then the colonel had added, in black
sharpie on the bottom of the map, a string of numbers followed by three capital
letters: SAT. At the time Cade had smiled, knowing that it was an unspoken
insurance policy and left it at that, saying nothing more. Finally sometime
between 0100 and 0200, with FOB Bastion under full blackout restrictions,
Beeson shuttled Cade to his temporary quarters in the Humvee, running with the
lights off.

Once there, Cade had said his good byes and, resisting the
urge to salute, turned on his crutches and made his way to the door.

After watching the colonel’s ride crunch out a U-turn and
wheel away to the west under the moon’s soft glow, Cade knocked lightly on the
locked door to the single-story double-wide, inside of which he guessed Brook
and Raven and the others were already fast asleep.
Nothing.
Nonplussed,
he conceded that a sustained and continued pounding on the door was needed
before someone stirred inside. The response started as a subtle vibration on
the floor that resonated all the way to the aluminum sill near his feet.
Finally, footsteps, getting louder as they approached, stopped at the door and
it creaked open. An unsmiling Wilson poked his head out and inexplicably let
him enter without a query nor challenge to his identity.

So much for operational security
, Cade had thought at
the time.

But now, hours later, with the first rays of daylight
probing the curtain’s periphery and a considerable chill hanging in the air, he
shivered under the thin sheet and looked around the cramped quarters. Noting
that the accommodations were nothing more than a rectangular living room housing
two rows of cots instead of the obligatory sofa and coffee table, he realized
why Wilson had given him the cold shoulder when he’d come knocking. The poor
kid had been trapped in the makeshift barracks for several long hours with the
four females, with only Max as his wingman. Suddenly the hardened soldier felt
a little sorry for leaving Wilson to fend for himself. Hell, he thought, from
his experience, two against one was hard enough—to be sequestered with four of
the fairer sex, in what amounted to a jail cell minus the bars, was nothing
less than cruel and unusual punishment. At the very least, man-to-man, he owed
Wilson an apology.

But that would have to wait. He had some shopping to do. So
he hinged up and threw on a black tee shirt, laced up his remaining Danner and
slipped on the walking boot, cinching the Velcro down tightly. He took a moment
to look around the room and see how different it appeared now that it was awash
in thin shafts of daylight. The combined living and dining room was carpeted in
rust-colored shag and paneled with dark wood. In the far corner was a tiny wood
stove. Through a doorway to the right was a utilitarian kitchen minus the
appliances. All in all, the entire place struck him as some kind of hippie
crash pad or a stop on a modern day Underground Railroad. Except for the framed
photo on one wall of a girl standing in front of a man and a woman, both in
their early thirties by his best estimate, there was nothing at all homey about
the shack.

Adding to the
ambiance
, the group’s gear and weapons
were strewn everywhere. An arm’s reach away, paralleling his, was a
metal-framed nylon cot; the sleeping bag atop it lay open and had partially
spilled off onto the floor. Next to the abandoned cot was another with two
forms pressed together on its meager two-foot-wide sleeping surface. Cade
recognized one of Raven’s pigtails snaking from under the woven afghan blanket;
at the moment it appeared she was attempting to sleep-wrestle the bedding from
her mom.

A couple of yards past the ongoing struggle, near the cold
stove at the rear of the room, another trio of similar-sized cots were nosed in
against the wall. Judging by the red manes peeking out from under their
respective blankets, Cade surmised that two of the lumps were Wilson and Sasha.
And on the cot beside Wilson’s, fully clothed and sleeping atop a puffy orange
sleeping bag, was the raven-haired late addition tagalong to FOB Bastion named
Taryn.

All present and accounted for
, thought Cade. He
corralled his crutches from the floor, a move that brought Max out from under
Raven’s empty cot. The Australian shepherd spun a half circle and leaned
against Cade’s good leg, then cast a backward glance full of longing at him. It
was obviously a preplanned and perfectly executed move that garnered the
recently adopted dog a thorough scratching behind the ears.

When he’d finished doting on Max, Cade said a few quiet
words in the dog’s perked ear, then shrugged on his shoulder rig and placed the
compact Glock 19 in the Bianchi holster dangling under his right armpit. Next,
he retrieved the full-sized Glock 17 from underneath his pillow and slipped it
into the low-riding drop-leg holster, securing it within easy reach on the
outside of his left thigh.

Finally, blowing a kiss towards his sleeping family and
being as quiet as a man on crutches with a clunky boot on one foot could be, he
rose and threaded past his sleeping wife and daughter. Stopping near the door,
he fished the keys from Brook’s pants pocket and couldn’t help noticing the
now-folded plain white envelope he’d given her the day before. Ignoring the
death letter, he verified he had the correct keys by the leather fob with the
blue Ford oval. They went into his pocket, then he rooted through his ruck and
retrieved a black Sharpie. He looked around for something to write on, a scrap
of paper perhaps—anything but the death letter. Finding nothing he shrugged,
leaned against the wall, and scrawled a message to Brook chest-high on one of
the recessed vertical panels on the inside of the front door. Then, leaving Max
to watchdog over them all, he slunk out into the flat light of morning.

But before he’d closed the door behind him, a second volley
of rifle fire disturbed the quiet. He poked his head back inside and was
relieved to find that everyone’s breathing remained still and rhythmic, an
indicator to how conditioned they had become to their
new normal
.

Chapter 3

The second consecutive flash of orange entered Duncan’s
field of vision as he was sighting on a raggedy first turn over the barrel of
his .45. A microsecond later, there was an arrow buried deeply into the female
rotter’s eye socket, its shaft still quivering as the creature crashed to the
ground, limp. Suddenly, realizing what had just taken place, Duncan smiled wide
at his good fortune and said a silent prayer to Oops assuring him that they’d
meet again—but apparently at a later date.

“Yo, pusbags,” a voice shouted from downhill and behind the
SUV. “Come and get some dark meat.”

Taking a couple of long strides forward, Duncan navigated
the fallen bodies and grabbed onto the rig’s sloped hood for support. He looked
down the length of the Land Cruiser’s passenger side and was greeted by a
familiar sight.

Crossbow shouldered and bouncing against his back, the lanky
firefighter had swapped out for a machete and was spinning through the clutch
of dead like some kind of whirling dervish trained in the martial arts. In a
matter of seconds, Duncan witnessed the flashing blade relieve two of the flesh
eaters of their heads, and then behind a graceful full swing saw Daymon lop off
the top third of another’s from the brow up.

As the severed heads bounced towards SR-39, picking up speed
like a pair of hair-and-flesh-wrapped bowling balls, the third creature toppled
backward, impacted the ground viciously, and entered its nearly intact brain
into the downhill race.

“The cavalry is here,” shouted Duncan. Aiming cross-body he
dropped another pair of decaying interlopers with single point-blank headshots
and added, “And it looks like he brought a knife to a gunfight.” A guttural
chuckle spilled from Duncan’s mouth as he shook his head, another attempt at
clearing the Jack-induced haze.

Out of nowhere, a jagged fork of lightning transited the
pewter sky nearby. Immediately the following clap of thunder ripped the still
air, reverberated off the foothills all around, and then died to nothing,
leaving only the sound of raindrops pinging mightily on the Cruiser’s sheet
metal.

Daymon said nothing as he appeared wraithlike next to
Duncan, who was now visibly wavering, about to lose his tenuous grip on the
vehicle. Then, with no trouble at all, Daymon hustled the smaller man into the
passenger seat, slammed the door, and backpedaled uphill and around the
Cruiser’s grill.

In the next instant he had the bow cocked and loaded and was
tracking around to the driver’s side, where, after a quick glance at the
shrouded forms of Gus and Logan, let the missile fly.

The razor-sharp barbed arrow crossed space in a fraction of
a second and stopped a freshly turned walker, twice-dead, in its tracks.
Noticing the newly opened window of opportunity, Daymon tossed the bow to the
ground and dashed for the Toyota. He hauled the door open and hastily folded
his frame behind the wheel. With a pair of rotten hands reaching in, he slammed
the door and locked himself inside the rig without a second to spare.

“What the hell were you thinking?” asked Daymon as he tucked
his dreads behind his ears. Receiving nothing in response, he flashed an
expectant sidelong glance towards Duncan and found the Vietnam-era aviator dead
to the world, chin parked hard on his chest, snoring.