Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (23 page)

Jerry was distracted from his musings by Emma’s question, “So now what?”

“We go forward,” Neil said, all business, “but we also stay ready. Emma, how is the load on that machine-gun there?”

Authoritatively, she corrected, “It’s an assault rifle and I’ve got plenty.” She patted her own backpack and an ugly orange fanny pack stretched tightly and bulging slightly across her hip.

Neil asked Jerry, “You good?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a few boxes of shells in my pack and both pockets are full. If we don’t run into too many more of them, I should be good for days.”

Jerry continued, “Hey, Neil? How about if you’re gonna do something like that again, you let us know first, huh?”

Smiling, Neil said, “I can’t promise anything but I’ll try. I just saw those three and all I could think about was—”

Emma interrupted him, “It’s okay, Neil. We get it. Remember that it ain’t just you that’s got a score to settle with those fuckers. Save some for the rest of us. Alright?”

Nodding, Neil pointed down the road with his shotgun. “Shall we?”

When they rounded the bend, the visitor center fell out of sight, but in the distance they could finally see the Bear Valley Staging Area where cars, buses, and all manner of vehicles gathered to await their turn to pass through the substantial Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to Whittier and beyond.

There were no more undead to be seen. In fact, the sense of desolation and loss couldn’t have been more acute. Of course there were more idle vehicles waiting in vain for their drivers’ return. Suitcases and other pieces of luggage and travel packs, some still closed and full but most having spilled their contents on the road, were discarded randomly all along the route. Here and there were also the eviscerated and mostly devoured corpses of past victims, some adult sized piles of bones but many seeming more likely to be those of children who met their gruesome fate many days earlier.

The snow thinned somewhat but the wind, cold and biting, found renewed resolve, whipping itself into a determined frenzy. It blew straight out from the lake, originating from the icy Portage Glacier some five miles distant from them and out of view. The cold cut right through their light gloves and even found passage through the multiple layers covering their legs. Exposed ear lobes, chins, and noses all struggled against the unforgiving arctic chill.

“It’s fucking cold!” Emma groused. “Remind me again why I live here.”

Neil agreed and sympathized with a silent nod, but chose not to speak and allow the cold air into his mouth and lungs. The frigid gust seemed to blow without end, threatening to chill them all to the bone. Without a word, Neil started to walk, turning his back to the wind as much as possible without losing sight of what lay ahead. Emma and Jerry joined him in his slow, determined trek.

The cold and the quiet forced Neil to retreat inward with his thoughts. Such introspection was not always the most comfortable set of circumstances for Neil. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with his own thoughts under the best of conditions, and this was decidedly not the best of conditions.

He felt depressed and more than a little resentful, but he had a hard time in finding a target for his resentment, which led him to spin that resentment on its head and direct it back at himself as well. He stung with loss and disappointment, despite its familiar bitterness. None of that was surprising. In fact, most of that was fairly predictable. He was, however, growing concerned with his own detachment to everything.

That’s not to say that he didn’t care about Meghan’s death or about the others’ lives. Quite the contrary, he did care, but his caring seemed to be trumped and bested at every moment by the predictably bad turns that life seemed to throw at him.

Neil didn’t hold himself responsible for Meghan’s death. Well, maybe he did, but that wasn’t the big issue...it wasn’t the suspicion that had Neil once again doubting the wisdom of keeping him their de facto leader. Neil was actually merely concerned that perhaps he was just unlucky and that maybe his own luck figured into the fates of everyone else.

He once saw a movie with William H. Macy playing a worker at a Vegas casino. He didn’t deal cards or spin roulette wheels or even mix drinks; he was a “cooler”. He was so unlucky that his mere presence at a table cooled everyone else’s luck the moment he appeared. If there was a gambler on a streak, Macy would walk up and put the streak to an end with doing nothing more than just being himself.

Neil wondered if he was their cooler. Were they all doomed to failure because of the same luck that he seemed to have been dealt in every other pivotal moment in his life?

Emma saw Neil’s distant expression and said, “Hey, Gloomy Gus! Stop enjoying your misery all to yourself. Why don’t you share a little?”

“You don’t want any of what I got. Believe me.”

“I wouldn’t’ve asked if I didn’t want to know. Give me a little credit, would ya?”

“Can’t we just drop it? I promise to stop persecuting myself if we don’t have to have this conversation.”

With her smile and trademark humor in her voice, Emma said with more than a little condescension, “Did that work for you in your marriage? With Meghan? With your mom?”

Neil lifted his head and asked of the heavens, “What is it with you women?”

“It’s not our fault that men are so much less complex and more predictable than women. It’s just the way things are and the reason why I still want you to talk.”

“Still doesn’t make it right.”

Emma was wise to Neil’s continued stall tactics and said as much, but they had drawn close enough to their destination and possible danger that she let the moment pass. Instead, she checked the load on her firearm and let it settle into a better firing response position rather than the much more casual manner in which she had been carrying it.

They crossed another bridge, this one much shorter than the initial bridge before the first tunnel. The shallow creek below was barely deeper than the rocks that formed its bed. Its lazy waters rippled with each wind gust, but otherwise seemed content to merely sit and wait to freeze. On the creek banks below, there was more luggage which had been tossed aside in an obvious rush. The unnaturally bright colors of the bags and some of their spilled contents contrasted against the pristine location obscenely.

On either side of the road much closer to the entrance of the tunnel sat buildings of various sizes and of various operational roles. All of them shared similar rustic construction themes, trying their utmost to blend in with and accentuate the surroundings. Whatever intended function these buildings may have once had, they had more recently become the failed final refuge of desperate souls. And like every other refuge before, this one had failed to shield its occupants from the newly awoken undead terror stalking the fading remnants of humanity.

The largest building, an official looking A frame structure, appeared to have been frozen in partial birth. An emergency vehicle had been caught halfway in and halfway out of the large garage which had closed violently and suddenly onto the large yellow truck’s roof. Apparently trapped in the wreckage, the passengers became easy targets for the ghouls who had been hunting them. Hellish streaks of crusty human remains streaked the yellow doors and sides of the vehicle around the shattered windows through which the undead had feasted upon the helpless victims inside. Shredded bits of clothing, likely discarded by gnashing teeth, twisted and curled on the pavement in colorful patterns. The many pieces of fabric not attached to the ground by the hellish glue of blood and tissue moved to and fro like unfettered leaves caught in the wind.

When Neil saw up close the gargantuan metal garage door sealing off the entrance of the Anton Anderson Tunnel, he was struck with a confusing mix of relief, gloom and wonderment. The door, after all, was closed which led him to be hopeful that it had been shut in time to preserve the town and the people beyond.

However, DB’s question and warning about access echoed loudly in Neil’s mind. He wondered how exactly to gain entry to the other side. His hope and pessimism were at odds with one another again.

There would be no time for any such conflict however. As they marveled at the engineering feat in front of them, the quiet was interrupted by a not too distant echoing pop, followed by another, and then a flurry more.

“Gunshots?” Jerry said.

Already running, Neil said fearfully, “We gotta get back! They need us!”

Jerry’s eyes, as wide as the tunnel in front of them, looked beyond Neil toward the sound of the gunfire. The possibilities chilled him from inside out. He thought about Claire and felt his blood pressure skyrocket until his pulse echoed in his ears. His empty stomach did a single somersault, twisting itself around the churning acid inside.

Both the lurking terror and the unforgiving cold were forgotten as the three of them broke into a full sprint. They ran hard for a few minutes, the only sound besides the gunfire their heavy footfalls and labored breathing.

Then Neil stopped abruptly, resisting the urge to double over for lack of oxygen in his lungs. The burn in his chest was torturous but his growing suspicion was even more so. He paused while Emma and Jerry looked at him doubtfully. They wondered why they were stopping. Neil merely listened and confirmed his suspicion.

The shooting had stopped. It appeared that whatever battle had been fought had come to an end. The torturous quiet fueled their fear and angst all the more.

They flew through the shorter tunnel and found themselves in a better position to see the building the others had been occupying. The first thing seen was a thick trail of smoke, like a beam of light announcing a midnight madness sale, rising from the structure. It was not a promising sign at all.

Jerry was the first to resume the marathon. Neil could feel the other man’s fears and knew that there was no stopping him. Neil looked over at the still gasping Emma. “We gotta stick together. We can’t let him go down there by himself. No tellin’ what he’ll find or what will find him.”

“Let’s stop wastin’ oxygen then.” And Emma was running again.

Neil, too, was passing a trot pace back toward a sprint again. He didn’t see the horde of zombies that he expected to be standing around the parking lots and lanes. In fact, he didn’t see any of the undead at all. Why had they been shooting?

The three of them ran across the road and then hesitated next to the visitor center. Emma and Jerry were realizing the same thing that had already occurred to Neil.

Through her struggling breaths, Emma asked, “What’s the deal?” She bent over with her hands on her knees and tried to slow her lungs and her mind.

Pointing, Jerry asked, “Who’s that out in the open?”

“If that’s Duke over near those trees, then the man is probably DB,” Neil said.

Emma asked again, “What does that mean? What happened?”

It was DB lying in the parking lot. There was blood pooling around him and mixing into a dirty crimson soup with the gravel and dust under him. From in front of the building, Neil could see that the doorframe was smoldering slightly while white smoke was billowing out the shattered front window.

Neil knelt beside DB and touched the man lightly on his shoulder blade. DB was still breathing, but it was shallow. Neil cautiously rolled the man onto his back and hoped for the best.

To Neil’s surprise and relief, DB opened his eyes. He started to speak but a blood choked cough stifled his efforts. Neil used the sleeve of his coat to wipe away the blood from DB’s lips and cheek, the bright red fluid nearly shone against DB’s pale skin. Neil looked down upon the man and felt a frustratingly familiar sense of helplessness.

DB finally managed, “...fucking militia. Think...think they got everyone else. Duke needed to go outside and I think we ran into—”

“Save your strength DB. You’re gonna need it. Hang in there.” Neil could almost feel the fear in DB’s eyes. He knew the reality of his situation even if Neil wasn’t willing to admit it to him. His wounds were mortal. The multiple bullets in his chest and abdomen had destroyed many of his internal organs and blood was beginning to pool in his insides.

Emma surveyed all around them while Jerry had gone into the burning building, emerging with only three largely empty backpacks and a couple of smaller caliber rifles that he had stood in the corner of a pantry closet. He shook his head to answer the question the others wanted to ask.

DB said again, “Fucking militia. Took the others. Kenai. Go to Kenai and find them.”

Neil offered DB some water, but the other man refused. “I’m bleeding out, Neil. I can almost feel it. My legs are numb. I don’t think I can feel anything but cold below my waist.” DB drew in another breath, this one much deeper, and held it, then let it out slowly. “Take care of Duke for me. He’s a good dog and always been loyal. You’re a good man and I know I can count on you. Watch out for him.”

Emma looked over at the dead dog lying near some trees and couldn’t contain the tears any longer. She stepped away and tried to regain control, but it was pointless. She could only suppress so much grief for so long until, like a mug filled to overflowing, it just spilled out.