A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (13 page)

***

In an identical tree stand near the far
eastern edge of the property close to SR-39, Glenn Sampson, a
forty-year-old former ski instructor from Park City, Utah, stood
watch, listening to a pair of crows cawing overhead bickering like
an old married couple.

Seth’s voice, sounding stressed and nervous,
crackled from the two way radio. “Rotters
are
coming your
way and there are too many to count... better stay in the
stand.”

No shit
. “Roger that,” Sampson said.
“Can we get some help out here?”

“They’re two minutes out.”

“Well tell them to
fuckin’
hurry—I can
already smell the rotters.”

The noisy birds went silent.

Sampson poked his head through the square
cutout serving as a window.

Gasping for air, two men, one obviously
helping the other along, wormed their way through the shadow filled
underbrush.

Sampson shouldered his AR-15 and tracked them
briefly before they melted back into the forest.
Holy shit...
those weren’t rotters,
Sampson thought to himself.

Just then, the smaller trees near the road
began to quiver and sway. The moans and groans began, followed by
what sounded to Sampson like a herd of blind elephants making their
way up the slight rise from the fence line bordering the road
below.

Then he detected engine sounds in the
distance—like one or more vehicles were on the move, heading south
on SR-39.

The moans and breaking twigs and rustling
leaves rose to a crescendo as the rotters emerged from the forest
all at once. Clearly the uphill battle with Mother Nature had taken
a toll. Weeping purple fissures covered every exposed inch on their
bodies. Still they continued on, trudging lockstep in unfaltering
pursuit of their quarry with only one thing on their collective
minds—fresh meat.

***

“Alert
everyone
and make sure you
break out weapons for
all
of the adults,
”
Logan
barked as he absentmindedly twirled his black handlebar mustache,
something he did when he was under a great deal of stress.

As soon as the order left Logan’s mouth a
symphony of electronic alarms sounded as the remaining game cameras
concealed around the perimeter tripped in rapid succession.

Seth darted his eyes over the eight separate
camera feeds displayed on the monitor, and after a few seconds said
frantically, “We have rotters infiltrating from the northeast
corner, the east perimeter near thirty-nine, and from the south.
The cameras west and north near the entrance are still quiet.”
And I hope they stay that way
, he thought. The idea of
rotters and possibly bad guys with guns fully encircling the
compound stood the hairs on his neck at attention.

“Just walkers?” Logan queried.

Seth pressed his face closer to the flat
panel scrutinizing each individual pane. “As far as I can tell, but
it’s hard to tell from these images... at least none of them appear
to be armed.”

“Especially not this guy,” Lev cracked,
tapping the feed from camera six.

“The rotter’s still got one arm,
smartass
,” Seth shot back.

“Come on Lev... not now,” Logan added as he
snatched half a dozen Motorola radios off of the shelf near Seth’s
head. “Who’s on security?”

Seth answered, “Sampson and Gus are in the
stands. Jamie and Jordan are on the ground.”

As he passed the handful of two-way radios to
Lev, Logan said, “Here... distribute these and grab me a rifle.”
Then twirling his ‘stache like a propeller, he added, “Who said it
was OK for Jamie to take Jordan out there with her—considering the
dirtbags we just killed? And Jordan is as green as they come.”

“Jamie’s a big girl. She knows the score.
Don’t worry Logan... Chief and the rest of his quick reaction force
should be topside in a moment,” said Lev, trying to reassure his
friend who had done a poor job of keeping his crush on Jamie under
the radar. “Besides, if it’s just a few rotters Jamie can handle
them with one of her foliage-covered arms tied behind her
back.”

The mere thought of his favorite woman
dressed head to toe in her ghillie suit brought a brief smile to
Logan’s face.

“Seth... go get my brother. I don’t care
what
he says, or how much he argues with you... and he will
argue. Just make sure he comes back here with you,” Logan said as
he took the taller man’s post.

Three men sidestepped their way through the
security center heading towards the armory.

As an afterthought Logan yelled at the
retreating men, “Make sure
everyone
vests up. There are
bound to be bad guys with guns out there—rotters don’t use wire
cutters.”
This has to be directly related to those fellas we
killed the other day
, he thought to himself. Then he remembered
the bullet-riddled zombies they had left in the middle of State
Route 39.
Just like a trail of bread crumbs showing the way
.
He cursed his stupidity soundly, hoping it wouldn’t cost them their
lives.

Chapter 15

Outbreak - Day 11

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Fully a day removed, Freda Nash couldn’t stop
reliving the solemn service.

General Desantos’ funeral was not the first
she had attended during her twenty year career.

A career spent working behind the scenes in
one capacity or another with the 160th SOAR and the covert
operators the Special Operations Aviation Regiment ferried to and
from battle the world over.

Desantos’ casket wouldn’t be the last to
resonate with the impact of dirt and rock. In her mind’s eye she
could see Cade, Lopez and the other shooters grieving over Mike’s
final resting place in the Colorado Desert. She kept seeing the
tense expression paining Annie Desantos’ face as the first volley
from the twenty-one gun salute honoring her husband’s ultimate
sacrifice rang out. She remembered Annie holding her newborn, Mike
Junior, while her twin daughters crushed in from both sides each
with a tiny arm encircling Mom’s waist.
The family circling the
wagons
, Nash thought. What she would have given to experience
that one more time.

She removed her cover with slow deliberate
movements and placed the rigid navy blue hat on its wooden perch,
wedged between a C-130 model airplane and a framed photo of her and
a much younger—nearly carbon copy version of herself. Frozen in a
loving embrace, the two women in the picture were standing in front
of an enormous white house adorned with vertical box columns,
dental molding, and multi-colored stained glass.

The petite woman unpinned the gray streaked
brunette bob, releasing her shoulder length hair. Her gaze lingered
on the photo which had been taken on orientation day in front of
the Widney Alumni house on the USC campus—one of the best days of
Freda Nash’s life save for the day the young girl in the photo had
been born. It seemed like she had escorted her daughter from
Colorado to the West Coast only yesterday. Yesterday in Colorado,
she thought, was nothing like that warm So Cal day in late August
three years ago. In fact, she wanted to forget yesterday
entirely.

Nash strode to the gray filing cabinet
nestled in the corner partially obscured by an American flag. As
she pulled on the top drawer, the tracks, which were in dire need
of a shot of WD-40, screeched an ominous warning that seemingly
implored her not to venture inside. Then a little voice in her head
said,
It’s after five somewhere
. After a second on tiptoes,
armpit deep in the top drawer, she extracted the unopened bottle of
premium tequila given to her by Mike Desantos
after
the
famous Bin Laden raid in Abbottabad Pakistan. An olive branch no
doubt—since the Major had been left out of the loop on that one.
Only the President, his high level cabinet officials, two drone
drivers and the SEAL and Delta commandos who were conducting the
raid had known who Geronimo really was.

With an anticipatory grimace Freda slammed
the drawer shut; the resulting rusty squeal warned,
You’ll be
sorry
. In no mood to heed her own common sense she pulled three
shot glasses from deep within her desk, placing them in a neat line
parallel with the name plate parked atop her desktop. The smell of
pure agave tickled her nose when she cracked the seal, and after
filling the three shots to the brim she took a long pull from the
bottle.

While the flat screen monitor flickered to
life, Nash retrieved the remote from underneath a pile of weeks’
old paperwork that would never see the inside of a filing cabinet.
She thumbed play, starting the recorded feed from the Global Hawk.
Since she had already watched the mission unfold live she saw no
reason to revisit the entire mission from start to finish. Nash
bumped the DVR to 10x speed and watched the Delta teams in their
three fast attack vehicles skitter along the screen looking like
cockroaches fleeing the light. “There,” she said aloud as the child
zombies swarmed the FAV and proceeded to attack Mike Desantos.
Trying to ignore the fateful moment, she let the DVR blaze ahead.
Out of sight, out of mind
, she told herself.
Yeah
right
. She picked up the first shot glass downing the tequila
without pause. “For you Cowboy,” she said, choking from emotion
more than the unaccustomed sting from the 80 proof alcohol.

She watched the special operations buggies
dart along the freeway, like Speedy Gonzalez on amphetamines,
before stopping abruptly atop an overpass. The operators hopped out
and scurried around, machine guns blazing, while the second group
armed the final nuclear device, all in an attempt to save Colorado
Springs from the undead juggernaut.

Nash bumped the DVR speed to 30x, squinted
her eyes, and waited for the inevitable flash. A few seconds later
the screen went white. The major’s finger hovered over the pause
button, hitting it only when the feed returned to normal and after
the camera zoomed in on the remnants of the walking dead. The
horde, several hundred thousand strong, had been obliterated, their
ashes darkening the two roiling mushroom clouds.

“Mission accomplished,” she whispered,
hoisting and quickly downing the second shot.

Once more Nash fingered the fast forward
button, sending the hard drive into a fit of clicking and chirping.
The rapidly advancing color feed changed to black and white and
without looking at the transposed coordinates ticking by she knew
it was the days old Keyhole satellite footage. She had risked
career suicide by having the satellite retasked in order to confirm
what her gut had already told her.

Parked in a geosynchronous orbit directly
over Southern California, the military satellite recorded the very
disturbing week old images. Nash felt her stomach free-fall as the
white, concrete and glass Webb Tower, bracketed by Lyon Center and
Fluor Hall, came into view. Blue-black smoke billowed from the
fourteen-story student housing building. The career Air Force
officer looked over her shoulder to make doubly sure that she was
alone, then let the hot tears flow while staring at the carnage
that had taken place in and around the USC campus. Scattered about
the pristine grounds, bodies of victims and walking dead filled the
screen. An emergency vehicle tore down the street in front of Fluor
Hall, its destination a mystery. The sense Nash had harbored in her
gut since Z Day plus three had just been confirmed. Nadia’s
personal safety never made it high enough on the Major’s triage
list. The country, in its final death throes, had inexplicably
sucked up all of her time, attention, and resources. Therefore she
had totally abandoned her only daughter to a fate unknown, and for
that she would forever hold herself responsible.

“For you, Nadia,” Nash expelled the words
between body wracking sobs, and then finished the final shot of
tequila. “I miss you honey...”

As the night wore on, frightening footage of
Los Angeles falling to the dead churned across the flat screen, and
the level of Patron Anejo in the hand blown glass bottle gradually
closed the distance to the desk top. “Gotta be careful,” Nash
slurred to herself. “One too many and I might be tempted to put a
bullet in Pug’s brain myself.”

***

Nash opened one eye. The 50th Space Wing logo
caromed around the LCD flat panel. Leave it to the U.S. Air Force
brass to squander the taxpayer’s money on a vanity screensaver, she
mused. Was there any other reason a flying toy like the Global Hawk
could cost a hundred million dollars? The pork-loaded bills that
had passed so easily through the Senate and the House of
Representatives in the years before the Omega outbreak only added
to the ballooning national debt which had been running away from
its masters for more than a decade. She smirked, then tilted her
head back and closed both eyes.

***

From her vantage point, the rectangular
screen seemed to have been stood on end. She opened the other eye,
and then became aware of her head’s relation to the metal desk top
and the pool of saliva lapping at her cheek.

What have you done Nash
? she asked
herself. It wasn’t like her to let personal matters infiltrate her
professional life. Being a career officer didn’t mean you couldn’t
be human. It meant you had to be human on
your
own
time. With the events of the last twenty-four hours and the
possibility of more saboteurs roaming the base she should have
never opened the bottle. And furthermore, she reasoned, if Colonel
Shrill had come by, her ass would have been grass, and he would
have been mowing it.

As she swiftly disposed of the three shot
glasses and the damning bottle of
to-kill-ya
a very large
transport flew at tree-top-level over her office. That it had come
in from the east meant it had to be one of the Hercules that set
out foraging for fuel hours earlier. As if on cue the second
turboprop blazed overhead, also on approach to the westernmost
runway.