Allegiance (26 page)

Outbreak - Day 16

Near Driggs, Idaho

“No, no, no,” Heidi
mumbled.
Then, as she stirred from a
deep sleep, her right hand shot from under the threadbare sheet and went to her
neck where she caressed the sore muscles and tendons. In his failure to choke
the life from her, Robert Christian had inflicted a large measure of damage to
her skin in the exact shape of his clasped hands. The thumbs were crossed at
the base of her neck, and the faint outlines of four fingers encircled both
sides before meeting over her spine. Angry blue and purple bruising was going
yellow around the edges. Subconsciously she dug her heels into the mattress and
arched her back until the springs protested. This continued for some time as
she battled something or someone in her nightmares.

Finally the foreign
noise roused Daymon, who had always been a bit of a heavy sleeper. So much so
that he had even been known to wake up to a Glock in the face on more than one
occasion. He opened both eyes.
Still dark.
His hand went to the
nightstand. Grasped the pistol grip of his combat twelve gauge. It felt heavy
and powerful in his hand. The reassuring smell of gun oil hit his nose as he
lay there in the dark, eyes open, ears straining to hear.

“I don’t want to. No.
Leave me alone.” She drew a lungful of air in.

“Heidi... Shhh, you’re
OK. It’s just a nightmare,” Daymon whispered. Although Robert Christian’s
brutal attack had muted her voice like Marlon Brando’s in the Godfather, he
still reached across the bed and placed his free hand over her mouth.

Her eyes flicked open,
wide and white in the dark. She forced a raspy yelp through his strong rough
fingers. She fought back at first, flailing and punching until she realized who
was staring her square in the face. It
was
Daymon and
his
dreads
were brushing her cheek. His breath tickling her neck. Not one of her former
captors—breath rank with alcohol—leering in her face after having done God
knows what to her against her will. Simultaneously she nodded in recognition
and relaxed her muscles.

Daymon felt the fight
leave her, then saw her eyes ask a question he couldn’t answer. At least not
until he did some investigating. He rolled out of bed to his right, weapon
braced against his leg. No need to check—there
was
one in the chamber.
He stood rooted, listening to the night again. Something had his sixth sense tingling.
When Jenkins turned in he indicated he was a La-Z-Boy sleeper, and that’s where
Daymon placed him based on the low timbre snoring emanating from downstairs.

Daymon made his way to
the window. It was still cracked halfway as he had left it, and the screen was
wholly intact.

Except for the
occasional cricket or coyote, the night sounds had changed profoundly since the
outbreak of the Omega virus two short weeks ago. The skies had been quiet
twenty-four/seven since the jetliners were no longer flying their usual
patterns. Furthermore, the several hundred-ton multi-car freight locomotives
that used to deliver food to the majority of the population living on both
coasts were now reduced to the world’s largest paperweights, and no longer
roared cross-country adding to the noise pollution. Right now, everything was
still outside. The silence was enormous—quiet as the dark side of the moon.

Then he heard an engine
laboring. Bad lifters clattered out a metallic discordance somewhere in the
distance. As he pulled his dreads back and listened closer, he could tell that
the vehicle was approaching from the east—travelling the same road they had
come in from.
Survivors from Jackson?
he wondered.
Maybe Gerald had
escaped from the Silver Dollar
, he hoped.

Whatever the case, he
would know shortly. The vehicle was getting closer, and for only the second
time since leaving Jackson Hole the prospect of coming into contact with other
survivors was close to becoming reality.

He pressed the
binoculars to his face, hoping to pick up the oncoming vehicle through the
trees at about the same spot he saw the Hummer pass by earlier. Though his
hopes weren’t high that he’d be able to tell who the driver or passengers were,
the fact that the moon was bright enough for him to discern the make and model
did lend him some solace. As he waited and listened to the engine noises
approaching the rise, he wracked his brain trying to remember what kind of
truck old Gerald drove. Suddenly a pang of remembrance struck him, followed by
a strange feeling of familiarity. Even on its last legs and obviously going
through its final death throes, he knew who the vehicle belonged to. The
problem was that he had no idea who was driving her.

Lu Lu broke the crest of
the hill, one dim headlight lighting the way. Resisting the urge to rush
downstairs and roll Jenkins for the keys to his Patrol Tahoe, Daymon just
watched his old green Scout as it made a few slight detours around the
smattering of walkers patrolling the main road. He continued taking in the sight
for sore eyes until she was out of view and the sad-sounding engine was no
longer calling his name.

He didn’t remember
leaving his keys in his old truck when he had left her for dead at the apex of
the Teton Pass, but neither had he seen them since. In fact, there were many
details about the last few days that he had lost or had conveniently forgotten
about. He was good at survival, and purging the attention-robbing clutter from
the forefront of his mind was a fall back mechanism that had kept him focused
and one step ahead of the game.

Outbreak - Day 16

Near Driggs, Idaho

If the vehicle had been
any other make, model, or color, Tran was certain he would have driven on by
without giving the property a second glance.

But it wasn’t, and he didn’t.

The truck was sitting in
the open at the end of a long uphill driveway which naturally drew his eye to
it. The yellow paint, augmented by the high riding moon, shimmered like a neon
glow stick.

Tran knew that if the
truck was there, then so were the animals who had left him for dead. Ignoring
the demons walking the road, he slowed momentarily. He suddenly felt
irresistibly drawn to the house. Like a moth drawn to a flame or Gollum to the
ring, he needed to get to the house.

But he resisted the urge
to jump on the brakes. Instead, he peeked at the odometer and watched the far
right dial tick off five-tenths of a mile. At three-tenths he passed a small
knot of undead that initially had had their backs to him. Their reaction time
stunted, they were only able to reach for the truck as it passed them by. When
the odometer ticked by the half-mile mark, the road took a slight bend to the
right. He slowed his borrowed ride to a crawl and checked the mirrors.
All
clear.
There were no demons in sight, so he stopped on the right shoulder,
snuffed the one headlight, and removed the keys.

After clambering from
the Scout and onto the road, Tran turned and waited for the demons to come. And
when they didn’t appear around the bend at once, he began to walk in their direction.
His oversized boots beat a clunky rhythm on the lonely moonlit road as he
followed the left-sweeping curve He could see the house in the distance, but he
couldn’t see the brothers’ truck. He knew it was there. There was no doubt
about it, he had seen it up the hill, and for reasons he couldn’t explain he
knew the brothers were inside the distant house. The evil the two men radiated
was palpable.

He marched ahead, and as
he cut the corner by degrees the zombies he had driven around came into view.
They watched him coldly. He imagined they were choosing which part of him they
would eat first.

But what they did next
caught Tran by surprise: the entire group inexplicably about-faced, and as soon
as he had cut through their ranks he could hear their clumsy footfalls—the
scuffing chorus of worn shoes commingled with the wet slaps of putrefying
feet—as the throng fell in behind him.

Walking through the
wavering corpses was one of the hardest things he’d ever forced himself to do.
Though his every instinct screamed for him to turn around and flee, the need
for vengeance somehow overrode the impulse and compelled him to keep moving—to
keep putting one boot in front of the other no matter how awful the smell of
their decaying flesh.

He followed the road,
trailing undead wingmen for twenty minutes; then, as he neared the gated
driveway where he had almost plowed down the zombie congregation, his boot
kicked a nice sized rock, causing the monsters to turn and regard him with
their clouded pale eyes. At first he sensed some sort of recognition on their
part, but it vanished as quickly as it had manifested.

He dug deep down inside
searching for the courage to ignore their scrutiny and trudge into their midst.

Limbs hanging limply at
his sides, he wove his way to the metal gate. He was careful not to touch any
of the gathered dead. Partly because they made his skin crawl worse than a
pillowcase full of scorpions. But mostly because he had no idea whether their
sense of touch remained. He harbored a fear that one brush with his warm body
or a simple puff of his breath on their frigid exposed skin would cause them to
turn on him. He hadn’t come this far to be torn apart yards from his first
taste of sweet revenge.

Moving mechanically,
Tran reached his blood-caked arm through the gate and pulled the metal pin from
the slide bolt. He snicked the bolt open and replaced the pin so the chain
wouldn’t clank and alert the brothers. Then, feeling the cold steel through his
pajama top, he leaned into the gate. It opened effortlessly.
Almost there,
he reminded himself.

With cold runners of
anticipation coursing through his body, he hobbled painfully along the worn
dirt road, point man of the undead procession. Once he was half way between the
gate and the house, he picked up his pace to put some distance between himself
and the pack. And as he skirted around the yellow SUV he stumbled purposefully
into the left front fender. With his left hand he brushed the hood and found it
was cold to the touch.

He fought his desire to
use the handrail and gingerly climbed the stairs to the front porch, stopping
for a tick on the landing in order to catch his breath. The gash on his brow
began to throb and sting as sweat cascaded over his bloody face. He ignored the
urge to wipe the perspiration from his eyes as he gazed through the glass pane
inset at eye level in the center of the door. Nothing moved except for the
shadows cast by the flickering flame atop a partially melted candle. The house
was quiet inside, and if the brothers held true to form, Tran thought optimistically,
by now they would be their usual inebriated selves, passed out and dead to the
world. He smiled at the prospect. Dead to the world—
soon, my Neanderthal
friends
.

He checked the screen
door. It was unlocked.

The wooden steps creaked
behind him as the dead continued to follow his lead. He reached an arm inside
the crack between the jamb and the screen door and worked the ornate brass
handle. Inexplicably, this door was also unlocked.

***

The door swinging wide
made no sound. And as the dead crossed the threshold between the porch and the
living room, their footfalls were instantly absorbed by the oriental rug
covering the hardwood floor.

Lucas’s eyes fluttered
behind closed lids. He was in the midst of a nightmare that had suddenly become
all the more real in his mind. Because now, not only could he see and hear the
monsters that had amassed outside of the gated walled compound manifested in
his dream—he could
smell
their carrion stench.

The nightmare had become
so vivid that his subconscious finally had had enough, and he awoke with a
start. He put his palms to his eyes and rubbed the sleep from them. Then, when
he rolled sideways and tried to rise from the sofa, he was slammed back down
onto the worn out springs with three hundred some odd pounds of hungry snarling
zombie on top of him.

It took half a heartbeat
for him to realize that his nightmare had been supplanted by the real thing.
But half a heartbeat was too late. He found himself in a fix with his arms
pinned near his face and the butt of his pistol inaccessible and being ground
into his gut. Pushing up against the cold dead weight, he craned his neck at an
ungodly angle in order to protect his face from the snapping teeth. He kicked
his boots at his assailants and found only the partial bottle of scotch, which
crashed to the floor, and the still burning candle that followed it.

Unbeknownst to him, the
evasive move exposed the fingers on his left hand from the second knuckle down
to a goon’s sharp canines. The sound of crunching bone reached his ears before
the pain signals made it to his brain. And when they did, he let out a shrill
howl. The surge of adrenaline following the loss of his middle finger gave him
the strength necessary to arch his back and roll out from under the crush of
pallid bodies.

He hit the floor cussing
and screaming, and crawled on his hands and knees. He made his way past a patch
of rug that had just caught fire. Kept pushing forward, staying low to the
floor, towards the hall leading to the old couples’ bedroom. The only room in
the house with a bed—the room Liam had commandeered for the night.

The zombies wormed along
the floor after the meat until their bony fingers found purchase.

Lucas kicked at the
dead, oblivious to the fact that his fate had already been sealed when his
digit was severed. He rolled onto his back and grabbed at his pistol with his
good right hand. As it cleared his belt buckle, his finger brushed the
sensitive trigger, sending the hammer down. The discharge was deafening in the
enclosed hallway. The large caliber slug entered Lucas’s inner thigh, shredding
everything in its way and then punched through the rug before embedding an inch
deep into the old growth oak floor. Flesh and muscle was instantly pulped and
the femoral artery was severed, resulting in an immediate large scale loss of
blood from the gaping through and through.

***

Having just been
awakened, not from the initial ruckus, but from the scream and the string of
expletives coming from the living room, Liam rolled off of the bed. His knees
hit hardwood and he found himself nearest the window and away from the dresser
he had propped his rifle against.

The doorway opened up to
the hall that was amplifying the sounds of a life and death struggle happening
in the living room. Those telltale grunts and hisses combined with the
eye-watering carrion pong told him all he needed to know: Lucas had let his
guard down and the house had somehow been compromised.

“Lucas,” he yelled. “You
in there?”

Nothing.

Boom!

The unmistakable report
of his brother’s handgun rolled down the darkened hall.

One shot?
Liam thought incredulously.

Then, spurred into
action by his brother’s apparent lack thereof, he dove across the bed, arms
outstretched. He landed on the soft queen mattress and sunk in immediately,
rolled off, landed on his knees and commando-crawled towards his rifle.

But the dead beat him to
it. As they barged into the room, one of the moaning creatures careened into
the dresser, causing Liam’s AR to fall to the floor out of reach.

As Liam stared at the
gun, stiff hands tore into his flesh. He heard fabric rip and felt every
vertebra in his back pop as he was slammed face down against the floor. A
searing pain stabbed his skull as one of them tore into the exposed nape of his
neck.

“Lucas... help. Help
me!” He bawled and pleaded for his life. He begged God. Called out for his mom.
During his final moments on earth, the sounds coming from his mouth were
unintelligible and had been reduced to an inhuman, high-pitched warble.

From his spot behind the
screen door, Tran witnessed the demons pour into the house and pounce on one of
the brothers. Their weight pushed him from the couch to the floor, where he let
out a howl like that of an injured animal.

Tran’s skin crawled from
the shrill sound which was followed by a litany of swear words, and then
simultaneously the man kicked a candle to the floor and his gun went off in an
explosion of light and sound.

Then he watched with
grim satisfaction as the man crawled through the flames to the back of the
house with the demons in pursuit. From his spot on the porch, and over the
stink of the dead, the metallic smell of hot blood hit his nose.

As the first man crawled
for his life, another voice, baritone and distant, called out from the rear of
the house. It only served as a siren song for the dead as they flowed down the
shadow-filled hall towards it.

Having seen enough, and
not wanting to get caught in the middle of the feeding frenzy, Tran waited a
beat for the last of the zombies to file into the house. He cast a quick glance
down the stairs. Surveyed the lawn and the drive.
Clear
, he told himself
as he eased the screen door shut. He descended the steps as he had climbed
them—slow and deliberate. He followed the drive to the road with a sense of
satisfaction after having fed the brothers to their own bad karma.

With the screams finally
silenced and the fully engulfed house lighting up the night sky, Tran concluded
his lonely trek down the rutted road. After two right turns he was on the
smooth blacktop heading for the green SUV. And as his boots scraped out a slow
steady cadence, his thoughts turned to the brothers. He couldn’t fathom why,
with the world in the state that it was, that the two had relied only on the
gate by the road to keep out the demons. Hubris rolled down hill he supposed,
and like Robert Christian their overwhelming sense of entitlement ultimately
led to their downfall. Tran’s only hope was that there was a hell, and that the
sadists were already there.