Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (29 page)

Cade caressed the trigger thirteen seconds sooner than his
initial estimate.
First to the party, first to leave
, he thought
morbidly as a small, finger-sized hole puckered the glass and a fraction of a
second later the driver’s head, collapsing inward, spouted pink mist. As Cade
worked the smooth action and chambered another round, a cacophony of gunfire
sounded to his right. Closer still, steady controlled pops from Brook’s M4
mixed in with the sharp reports of the kids’ handguns. Amidst the noise he
distinguished the snappish discharge of the Ruger 10-22, telling him that at
that moment Sasha’s combat cherry was broken.

The four-door Japanese sedan, now sans a breathing driver,
veered right and bounced and scraped through the rocks and scrub before coming
to rest high-centered atop a cluster of basketball-sized rocks, its redlining
engine producing a discordant oil-starved death keen.

Meanwhile, the two other fast-moving vehicles—one sporty and
very similar to the first, the other a semi-lifted off-road Volvo—veered off in
a ‘Y,’ both trying to avoid the static metal chevron.

But the evasive maneuver did the driver and passenger of the
Volvo no good. They died instantly, their heads and upper torsos peppered with
a hail of lead pouring from the Raptor’s vicinity. Then, inexplicably, the
Volvo continued on. It scraped noisily along the length of the guardrail,
spewing trim and leaving a streak of forest green paint in its wake. Then, with
the remains of the two in the front seats bobbing in unison, finally the out-of-control
wagon plowed into the Taurus, popping its driver door and releasing the zombie
inside.

Before Cade could bracket the driver of the other import in
his sights, Brook had walked a half-dozen bullets along the windshield and
through the open window, a number of them striking the young woman behind the
wheel.

The passenger, however, in an attempt to save himself,
bailed out of the little car and bounced along the shoulder, all elbows and
knees and knuckles, and then somehow came up firing a pistol from within a
roiling cloud of dust.

As Cade waited patiently for the dust to dissipate and leave
him a clean shot, thankfully the engine of the lead vehicle blew spectacularly.
He envisioned metal parts caroming around under the car’s hood. Then oil fell like
rain onto the desert floor.

The loud pop momentarily garnered the shooter’s attention,
but he continued snapping off rounds toward the F-650 until the slide on his
semi-automatic locked open.

In the F-650, hearing the resonant thunks of lead piercing sheet
metal, Brook threw herself across the seat. Landing flat on her back, she
ejected her magazine and slammed a new one home. Still supine, she released the
bolt and asked Raven if she was OK. From the back seat Raven issued a querulous
and tense affirmative.

Praying her abs would hold her steady, Brook raised her
upper body a few degrees into a half sit-up and then sighted over the lower
sill of the passenger glass. Settling the holographic pip on the shooter, she
got off two shots to no good effect just as the man swiveled around to look
towards the high-centered Japanese import.

Seeing the driver of the lead car alive and sneering over
the steering wheel one moment, then half of the flesh blown from his face the
next brought home the enormity of the situation. Hands shaking, Sasha watched
the little car veer off into the desert. Then, with a flurry of gunfire ringing
out above and to the right of her, she scrunched low over the rifle like Brook
had taught her. She looked down the barrel and trained it on the green car’s
splintering windshield and pulled the trigger. After a handful of seconds, the
latter half of which she had her eyes squeezed shut, the rifle was empty and
the wagon was no longer moving and had become wedged tight against the grandma car
and guardrail. What, if any, effect she’d had on the outcome was lost on her.
It had all happened so fast. But the front seat occupants were dead. That much
was clear. Then the screaming started and as she looked on, horrified, the
recently freed monster made a clumsy pirouette, staggered a couple of steps
toward the smoking car, then thrust its head and entire upper body through the
shattered side windows. As the wailing rose in crescendo and the rotting
cadaver wormed its way into the back seat, the realization that she may have
contributed directly to the deaths of the car’s three occupants dawned on her,
and like a hot acidic tsunami, vomit sluiced from her mouth.

Through the diminishing veil of airborne silt, Cade saw the
shooter simultaneously drop the magazine from his weapon and stand and turn
towards the dying car.

The former move emboldened Cade to stand as well. The latter
provided a perfect silhouette for a snap shot at the shooter’s center mass.

The man had turned back at about the same time Cade was
getting his feet under him and, with just a hundred feet separating them, like
a scene from a Spaghetti Western, they locked eyes. Cade shouldered the MSR.
But the shaggy-haired shooter brought his boxy black pistol to bear a hair
quicker.

Abs quivering uncontrollably, Brook cursed the first two
missed shots. Then she saw the shooter’s head jerk back around and in slow
motion he slapped another magazine in his pistol and was tracking it towards
Cade. “Make them count,” she whispered, caressing the trigger three times.

With bullets crackling the air near his head, Cade saw plain
as day through the scope a triangle of red welts blossom around the man’s
sternum. One projectile entered above his breastbone—the other two struck him
near simultaneously equidistant from each other but a couple of inches lower. A
millisecond after cheating death himself, Cade watched the man disappear behind
the import like a trapdoor had been opened under him.

Chapter 41

Reversing the assembly process, Cade broke down his rifle,
putting all of the parts in their proper places. He stowed the case in back
near Raven’s feet. “You need to get out for a second? Make a
real quick
pit stop?” he asked, nodding towards the roadside scrub and what little privacy
the shin-high bushes might provide.

“Too late,” replied Raven softly. A tick later the tears
began to flow.

“It’s OK honey,” added Cade. “Nobody is judging you.”

Max took advantage of the open door, squeezed past Raven’s
legs and disappeared into the desert.

There was a sucking sound as the passenger door opened and
Brook clambered in. Then the door closed and she said over the idling engine,
“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” replied Cade as he retrieved Raven’s stuff sack
from behind the back seat. Meeting his daughter’s gaze, he pulled her closer
and gently wiped away the tears. After a semblance of a smile returned to her
face, he made a show of pinching his thumb and pointer finger together and then
slowly drew them across his lips, made a locking motion and pantomimed throwing
away the imaginary key. “Let’s go before anyone else shows up.”

Brook asked, “Think they’ll send more?”

“I would,” replied Cade. He whistled and scanned the range
beyond the road for signs of movement. A few seconds passed and then Max shot
from the bushes and leaped into the open rear door, which Cade then closed with
a firm push. He hustled back to the cab. Drive was engaged and he cranked the
wheel hard to the right, reversed and parked alongside the Raptor so that he
was looking down into the passenger side windows.

“What’s up, Boss?” asked Wilson, a measure of
self-assuredness now evident in his voice.

Ignoring the greeting, Cade addressed Sasha, who was looking
up at him from the back seat area. “Brook’s proud of how you handled yourself.”

Sasha wiped her arm across her face before replying. “One of
my bullets might have killed one of them,” she said, brow furrowed, her voice
wavering slightly.

Cade stabbed a finger at each person as he spoke. “Or one of
hers or his or Brook’s or mine ... doesn’t matter. They made their own bed. The
second they gave chase they sealed their fate. You think they came after us the
second time looking for an apology?”

Sasha said nothing.

Wilson removed his boonie hat. Ran his hands through his red
mane and said, “She’ll be all right.”

“You all carried yourselves very well from start to finish,”
Cade said. Then addressing Wilson, he delivered a belated apology for grazing
his cheek. He finished by calling out loudly enough to be heard by Taryn over
the idling motors. “You’re a hell of a driver, Taryn.”

The Raptor’s motor
brapped
twice in recognition.

Cade imagined Taryn sitting behind the wheel, her tattooed
arm in the air sending his bossy condescending ass a one-fingered salute. But
the opposite was true. She was gripping the wheel with two hands, a tear
running down her cheek. Not as a result of her first taste of combat but
because what Cade had just uttered was what her dad said to her after every
single race.
Hell of a driver
. Four words she would never hear him say
in that soothing voice again. But definitely
four words
that meant a
hell of a lot coming from the guy who Wilson had taken to calling Captain
America.

Cade tapped a key on the sat phone and, once it flared to
life, composed an SMS message and sent it to the number Beeson had written on
the map. It detailed the roadblock and the antisocial nature of the people now
calling Green River home. At the very least, Cade hoped the message would
prevent any more attacks. But deep down he hoped Beeson’s boys would roll down
the 70 and deliver the top dogs there some well-deserved curb treatment.

They left the dead bandits where they had fallen, left the
Subaru high-centered and still smoking, and left the high desert above Green
River with the image of the lone Z, legs protruding from the import car,
kicking the air rhythmically like a diver out of water as it gorged itself on
the would-be bandit.

Chapter 42

More than an hour in the hot sun, burning fuel to stay cool,
had only served to make Duncan feel like a fish in an aquarium. One full hour
of leering faces and wanting hands pressing against the window glass. Streaks
of blood and mucous and unidentifiable fluids painted every surface the dead
came into contact with.

Suddenly the two-way radio sitting on the dash warbled.
Daymon said, “Seen anything on your side yet?”

“Nope,” answered Duncan. He released the talk button for a
second. Thought about packing it in and calling it a day when one of the
creatures—a first-turn thirty-something male—began scrutinizing the passenger
side door handle. Then Duncan could have sworn it jiggled.

Wanting to get back to Heidi, Daymon pressed the issue. “Can
we go now,
Mister
Winters?”

“Gimme one more second ... will ya,” drawled Duncan. He
released the talk button. Powered the window down a couple of inches. Looking
into the rotter’s clouded-over eyes, he said, “Anybody home? Why don’t you hop
in ... we’ll hit a drive through.” The creature shifted its gaze from the meat
in the truck and regarded the door again. Let its eyes linger there
momentarily, seemingly lost in thought. Then it looked up and its lips peeled
back, revealing a cracked and chipped picket of teeth. Finally, ignoring the
partially open window which Duncan had provided as a path of least resistance,
the flesh eater snarled and redoubled its efforts on the door handle.
Simultaneously rationalization and reason delivered a knockout punch as Duncan
realized that his little experiment had just provided all of the empirical
evidence they needed.

Daymon’s voice again: “Well?”

Voice wavering slightly, Duncan said, “We’re fucked.”

“Come again.”

“This thing just tried to open the passenger door ...
twice.”

“We telling Lev?”

Duncan said nothing. With the monster still pulling
repeatedly on the outside handle, he put the Ram in Reverse and backed up
rapidly, simultaneously wrenching the steering wheel left and braking, pulling
a ragged looking bootlegger’s reverse.

Lev looked a question at Daymon, who just shrugged and
gunned the Tahoe in reverse, following Old Man’s lead.

Monkey See Monkey Do was the order of the day as Lev
performed a like maneuver in his purloined Chevy and took up station between
the other vehicles.

With the thrumming of the off-road tires reverberating
through the cab, Duncan drove on in radio silence thinking about how much—if
any—of this new revelation he was obligated to divulge to the others. In no
time the quarry entrance blipped by on the right. But Duncan didn’t notice. All
kinds of sayings were fighting for space in his head—
out of sight out of mind,
what they don’t know won’t hurt them, ignorance is bliss
—not one of them
ethical in this application.

Having finally made up his mind how best to broach the
subject of the rotters’ newfound tricks, another thought began needling him.
And as he stopped his rig next to the gate leading to the compound, horrific
thoughts of the massive damage a self-aware horde of rotters could do to the
remaining pockets of mankind stirred within him an overwhelming urge to make
some bubbles and do some much needed forgettin’. He turned the volume up and
immediately heard Phillip’s voice urging anyone listening to answer his call.

“Duncan here,” he drawled. “Come on down and Lev will spell
you.”

“Aren’t you going to put down the rotters first?”

Lost in thought while approaching the bend, Duncan hadn’t
even noticed the knot of fresh turns.

The radio was silent for a tick then crackled with static
and Daymon said, “I’ll handle them.” In seconds he had parked the Tahoe between
the rotters and Duncan’s truck and was standing on the road, machete in hand.