Allegiance (3 page)

Outbreak - Day 15

Yoder, Colorado

Squinting against the
rising sun, Cade fumbled in his pockets searching for his Oakleys but came up
empty. “Shit,” he blurted out loud. “You’re only thirty-five years old,
Grayson
;
you’re too damn young to start misplacing stuff.”

In the distance, the
town of Yoder, population two hundred and twenty-two, arose from the desert.
One- and two-story buildings at first, then light standards, indiscriminately
parked vehicles, and street signs came into view.

Nothing moved except for
the flying rats. In the weeks since Omega burned across the United States, the
buzzards, ravens, and crows took over the cities and towns that had once been
dominated by living humans. The rapacious birds had also adapted, changing
their taste from the occasional road kill to the rotting human corpses that
were suddenly in abundance.

Cade eased off the gas
and let the truck coast to a stop. His brown eyes flicked over the business
marquees atop the deserted buildings.
Nothing.

He slowly urged the
truck forward, weaving around a putrefying corpse inexplicably still gripping
the handle of an overturned shopping cart.
Cleanup on aisle five,
he
thought morbidly. Garbage was strewn on both sides of the street and glass
shards sparkled on the sidewalk in front of what he guessed had been the only
bank in town. He caught movement in his peripheral vision as an intact page of
newsprint, carried on a wind gust, fluttered across his line of sight. The
words ‘
Walking Dead
’ registered in his brain like some kind of warning,
and then the litter was gone, cartwheeling down the street.

He parked the truck two
blocks in, straddling the yellow line, adjacent to a boarded up hardware store
and a greasy spoon diner that he guessed had served its last Blue Plate
Special.

Spoiling for a fight, he
scanned the buildings on both sides of the street, paying extra attention to
the darkened doorways and windows.
Still nothing.

Keeping his foot firm to
the brake, he pinned the gas pedal to the firewall. The power plant roared and
strained against the mounts under its hood, threatening to lurch out of the
engine bay. He eased off the gas and let the burbling exhaust resonate off of
the buildings for a beat and then silenced the engine.

Before long a disheveled
looking first-turn stumbled from the narrow alley separating the diner and the
adjacent used book store. Meanwhile, movement from the opposite side of the
street drew Cade’s gaze as a trio of shamblers emerged through the destroyed
double doors of a thoroughly looted mom and pop grocery store. Broken glass
crunched underfoot with each unsteady step as they plodded into the sunlight,
their milky eyes searching for fresh meat.

Adding to Cade’s
welcoming committee, a handful of flesh eaters materialized from the buildings
and side streets a block distant. The morning sun at their backs cast long
swaggering shadows, further exaggerating their slow and steady advance.

This situation that Cade
had purposefully gotten himself into reminded him of a scene straight out of an
old spaghetti western complete with the
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
theme song playing on a repeating loop in his mind. He was Clint and the
desperados were closing in.

He took a mental
inventory of the approaching dead, prioritizing each one based on its proximity
to him, and what kind of cover he had to fall back on if the need arose.

Who needs a kill
house for live fire practice
, he
mused.

Two twists secured the
suppressor to his Glock 17. He didn’t mind the extra weight attached to the
pistol. In fact, it served to keep down muzzle climb and helped lessen recoil
caused by the slide jacking back after each discharge.

In effect, the
can
turned the polymer semi-automatic pistol—already a natural extension of the
Delta shooter’s arm—into a near silent, yet still, deadly accurate weapon.

In his peripheral vision
he perceived the undead trio that had emerged from the grocery store nearing the
Ford’s passenger side. However, since the dead woman from the alley was nearly
at his door, she would have to be dealt with first.

After double checking to
make sure the Glock was locked and loaded—which had become the gold standard in
the new post-apocalyptic world—he powered down the window and drew a bead
between the walker’s lifeless eyes.

“You look like hell,
lady,” he said as the Glock popped once. A pink mist haloed the monster’s head
and it crashed to the asphalt, limbs askew. The shell casing bounced on the
road a couple of times then rolled out of sight.

“
I’ll be right back.
Lock the doors and keep away from the windows,”
he would remember to tell
them.

He sprang from the cab,
banged the door shut, and for good measure put another 9mm bullet into the Z’s
temple. As he stepped over the ghoul’s splayed-out body, he made himself a
mental note
—always double tap.
Then, like clockwork, the adrenaline surged
from his adrenal gland as the fight or flight urge took over, and like energy
transiting water, the naturally-occurring stimulant pulsed through his trunk
and limbs, snapping him into what his instructors at Fort Benning referred to
as ‘
the zone
.’ And as he consciously checked and calmed his breathing,
time seemed to slow down, and his surroundings and the emerging threats around
him snapped into acute focus.

Crabbing sideways in a
combat crouch, he rounded the front of the truck, went to one knee, and waited
in ambush for the first of the trudging trio to make his Glock’s acquaintance.
As he held the pistol steady in a two handed grip, he could feel heat emanating
from the Ford’s ticking engine—warm on the right side of his face and forearm.
A sudden eddy of wind tinged with carrion and heated motor oil blasted his nose,
causing him to screw his face up in disgust. A heartbeat later a pair of
scuffed Nikes shuffled into view under the front bumper, followed closely by
the rest of the lurching creature. Cade lined up the front and rear sights,
focused on the soft fleshy spot underneath the creature’s chin, and caressed
the trigger, sending two 9mm Parabellum slugs screaming upward. Hot shell
casings pinged off the grill and ricocheted across his face as the one-two
punch lifted the Z off the ground and deposited it into the other two walking
corpses.

Failure to feed
, Cade thought to himself as he simultaneously
dropped the suppressed Glock and withdrew the black combat dagger from the
sheath strapped to his right thigh. While keeping a low center of gravity and
distributing his weight evenly on the balls of his feet, he waited patiently
with the razor sharp Gerber clutched in his right hand. He envisioned Raven,
sitting wide-eyed and vulnerable in the truck alongside Brook, who would be
clutching her M4 carbine ready to use if he should fall to the dead. He wasn’t
being chauvinist by insisting his family remain inside the vehicle. He merely
wanted a little insurance when push finally came to shove—because if somehow he
and Brook got into trouble and both became infected, he knew beyond a shadow of
a doubt that Raven would not survive a day outside the wire by herself—she just
wasn’t ready yet.

Two in front, six to
go,
he thought to himself,
keeping the running commentary going in his head.

He paused for a beat to
allow the nearest walkers time to regain their footing, and then he mounted a
frontal assault. Sunlight glinted off the ten-inch blade as it flashed forward
and up, producing a wet sucking sound as it pierced the first ghoul through the
eye socket. Cold fingers grazed his wrist as the pale creature went limp and
slid from the deadly weapon.

Momentarily ignoring the
half dozen creatures still the better part of a block away, he focused fully on
the immediate threat to the front—an overweight Z encumbered by a hanging beer
gut and a swinging pair of pallid D-cup sized man boobs.

He shifted the Gerber to
his left hand and reached for the butt of his backup pistol with the other.
Truth be told, since training exhaustively in the Delta kill house at Fort
Bragg—shooting with each hand from every conceivable position and angle—he had
no equal when it came to pistol marksmanship.

Seeing as how the
compact Glock already had one in the pipe and its safety was integral to the
trigger, all that was left for him to do was aim and work the trigger.

The booming reports from
the 19 were like night and day compared to the suppressed Glock 17 which he had
purposefully dropped to the blacktop by the truck’s left front fender. Two
bullets travelling at thirteen hundred feet per second cut a V in Man Boob’s
forehead, and in an explosion of white bone and greasy hair, peeled his cranium
up and away. The resulting rooster tail of gray matter squelched to the ground
in a wide arc as the corpse collapsed forward, coming to rest face down at the
Delta operator’s feet.

“Double tap,” he said, wiping
a bead of sweat from his upper lip. “Does the trick every time.”

He straightened up, and
feeling a little cocky, bellowed, “Who is next?” He stepped over the cold
bodies, trying to decide how he wanted to tackle the remaining six Zs.
Test
out the truck or use the pistol?

He decided to finish the
exercise with the thirteen rounds remaining in the compact Glock. He closed the
distance, firing as he walked, and after dinging the first two with clean head
shots, he dropped the magazine which still held nine shells. Then, with the Zs
but a few steps away, he pulled a fresh magazine from the Fobus double mag
holder clipped to his belt, slapped it in the well, and released the slide.
With the semi-automatic in a two-handed grip, he dropped to one knee and walked
fire from right to left. In three and a half seconds he had discharged eight
rounds from his Glock, giving each of the remaining Zs a vicious double tap and
a much needed second final death.

In less than five
minutes, on a lonely road in sleepy Yoder, Colorado, he had answered his own
nagging doubts with a solid solo performance. The perceived rust that had
accumulated during the fifteen months while he had been away from running hot
ops with his Delta unit had been scoured away, and with only his life, and no
one else’s on the line, he had passed his own impromptu Q course.

Wyatt’s back
, he told himself as he kneeled to retrieve the
suppressed Glock and magazine from where he had discarded them.

Once he was back inside
the truck, he punched open the glove box and extracted the Thuraya satellite
phone, stabbed out ten digits and placed the receiver to his ear.

Outbreak - Day 15

Near Victor, Idaho

The two-story clapboard
house rested on a flat plat of land at the end of a rutted gravel drive that
ran downhill about the length of a football field to the asphalt two lanes that
joined up with State Highway 33 a quarter of a mile away.

The turn of the century
affair was in dire need of a new coat of white. Several rundown outbuildings dotted
the property, and a number of rusting cars waged a losing battle against the
elements on the upslope behind the old farmhouse.

On the west side of the
property, a picket of conifers stood guard between the house and SH-33
connecting the Teton Pass nine miles to the southeast and Victor, Idaho five
miles to the northwest.

With his saucer-sized
belt buckle scraping against the pitted porcelain kitchen sink, former Jackson
Hole Chief of Police Charlie Jenkins leaned over the overflowing mess of dirty
dishes. He parted the yellowed curtains, allowing a shaft of morning sun to
splash across the knotty pine table, brightening the drab cramped space. He
pressed the binoculars to his face and scanned the asphalt road that ran
perpendicular to the gate at the end of the gravel driveway.
Nothing
.

Thankfully the feeder
road hadn’t seen any zombies since they’d arrived at the house two days prior.
He shifted his gaze to the highway. “
Goddamnit!
” he exclaimed. Another
large pack of the rotten beasts, numbering more than fifty he guessed, shambled
along the road heading towards Victor.

“Whatcha got out there
Charlie?”

Jenkins flinched and let
the curtain fall back into place. Then he whipped around, instinctively with
his gun hand near the butt of his holstered pistol.

“You’ve gotta cut that
shit out,
Daymon
,” Jenkins said. “You can’t keep sneaking up on a fella
like that. Good way to get yourself killed.”

“You’ve been pretty
jumpy last couple a days, Charlie. It’s a good thing that pistola didn’t clear
leather,” the dreadlocked man replied, nodding towards the lawman’s black Sig
Sauer. “If it did, I’d have to ask you to cut back on the coffee and donuts.”

“Cop joke... very funny.
I haven’t slept but a few minutes here and there since I left Jackson. Hell, I
could use some caffeine right about now. And a big fat maple bar would be
heaven.”

“That makes two of us,”
Daymon replied. “What kinda bed and breakfast they running here anyway? Coming
down from upstairs I expected I’d be walking headlong into the wonderful aroma
of bacon and country gravy.”

Jenkins chuckled. “Yeah,
I wish these folks hadn’t of cleaned out their pantry before they vamoosed. Not
much you can whip up with chicken noodle soup, evaporated milk, and pumpkin pie
filling.” He removed his prescription Aviators and pulled a microfiber wipe
from his breast pocket. “What the hell am I gonna do when this square of fabric
wears out?” he mumbled, giving each lens a thorough wipe. “’Cause I don’t think
China’s gonna be pumping these things out anytime soon.”

Daymon said nothing. He
could care less about China or Charlie’s second pair of eyes. He just crossed
his arms and leaned back against the long dead refrigerator.

“OK, let’s cut the small
talk and get down to brass tacks,” Jenkins said. He replaced his glasses, pushed
them back onto his nose and shot Daymon a no nonsense look. “How’s Heidi— have
you gotten her to eat yet?”

“A little soup, but
that’s all. Swallowing seems to be her biggest problem,” he answered slowly.

“Daymon... she
needs
to eat,” Charlie said, concern creeping into his gravelly voice. “That little
lady of yours won’t get her strength back if she doesn’t. And
we
won’t
be able to go
anywhere
until she can get along on her own. Hell... it’d
be even better if she could handle a pistol—or that crossbow of yours. You and
I could carry the carbines I took off the NA guards.”

“Yesterday she lifted
her head and I noticed her eyes trackin’ me around the room,” Daymon replied,
trying to change the subject. “I figure that’s a step in the right direction.
Whether she can travel soon is debatable. And she’s pretty messed up
mentally... she barely lets me touch her.” He flashed a tight smile that did
not go unnoticed by Jenkins.

“I’m sorry to hear that.
Based on my experience, victims who have been through what your girl endured
all react differently. Some bounce back right away. But most do withdraw for a
time. I’m sure she’ll come around. You and I both know she’s been through a
lot... just gotta give it some time,” Jenkins said reassuringly.

“The whole thing feels
strange... that’s all. It’s like she doesn’t see
me
most of the time.
She practically looks right through me,” Daymon said with a pinched voice.

“Sorry son,” Jenkins
said softly. “How has she been sleeping?”

“Not well…” Daymon
replied, gazing towards the hall. Straining to hear any sound coming from
upstairs, he pinned his dreads behind his ears, wincing noticeably as he did
so. “She wakes up a lot...
nightmares
.”

Jenkins hefted the field
glasses and resumed scanning the road below. “How are
you
doing Daymon...
are those gashes on your chest still red and hot to the touch?”

“Yeah, and I’m getting
sick of them tearing open damn near every time I sit up quick or make any
sudden movements. It’s been a
frickin
week and the things are still
leaking that green and yellow shit. When do you think it’s bound to heal?”

“I’ve been thinking
about that,” Jenkins said. He paused for a long while, like he was
contemplating something very serious. Daymon could almost hear gears turning in
the former police chief’s head as he watched the balding man watching the dead
down on the highway. “Your wounds
are not
healing,” Jenkins added. “And
that could become a real problem down the road—perhaps a
lethal
problem.
I think we ought to stay here at least a couple more days. Be better so the
both
of you can rest up some more. Do a little
healing
... if you know what I
mean.”

Daymon moved a step
closer and slid a chair from under the kitchen table. “
No
, I’m not
following,” he intoned. Then, spinning the sturdy chair around so that its back
faced his chest, he took a seat and leaned forward, arms folded, and stared
intently at Jenkins. “I’m getting real sick and tired of sitting here in this
mothball-smelling house and eating cold soup while you watch those things march
by. What the hell are you
afraid
of, Charlie?”

Jenkins sighed. “I’m
afraid
of us getting stuck out there with you at half speed and this old man who is
slowing down by the second having to pick up the slack. And this mothball-smelling
house that
you
picked out… It has kept us warm at night and out of sight
and alive for the last two days. And as long as we don’t do anything stupid
that will draw one of those herds up here, we can stay as long as we want.”

“I don’t like how that
sounds, Jenkins... you’re allowing yourself to get too comfortable. I
do not
want to stay here. I
want
to get to Eden where I know there are
good
people, where I don’t have to look at dead folk hanging from a cross.” He
looked at the floor again, trying to determine how much of the information he
had just received via the Thuraya satellite phone he should divulge. Finally he
decided to offer up the Cliff’s Notes version. “I got a call from my friend
Cade a little while ago. He’s the soldier guy I was trapped with in the
farmhouse in Utah. Not unlike this
farmhouse.
”

Jenkins perked up. “The
same guy who stuck a gun in your face?”

“Yeah... did it more
than once.” Daymon grimaced at the memory.

“With
friends
like that…” Jenkins muttered.

“He’s a good guy,”
Daymon insisted. “He said he was calling from Colorado Springs and then he gave
me the GPS coordinates to the compound.”

“So if the call went
through, then that means the satellite network is still up and running. And if
it is, then the GPS in the cruiser should still work.”

Daymon eyed the keys to
the Tahoe. “I’m ready to go five minutes ago.”

Jenkins lowered the
binoculars. “Patience,” he said, looking the younger man in the eye.

“Alright
Chief
,
I’m good with us staying here another day or so,” Daymon conceded. “But that’s
it.” He stared at the floor with his dreadlocks hanging around his face. After
a beat he looked up and again locked eyes with Jenkins. “Now that I know
exactly where in Utah the compound is, I want to get Heidi there as soon as
possible.”

“Before we move on
you’re going to need some antibiotics, or by the time
Heidi
can travel,
you
are gonna be laid up and about as useful to me and her as tits on a boar.”

“Sounds like something
my Daddy woulda said...”

“I’m just saying. You
can’t mess with the little itty bitty bugs because they
will
multiply
and put you down for the count.” His face hardened and he added in a low voice.
“Maybe kill you if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“The compound is only a half-day’s
drive from here,” Daymon pleaded.

“Listen, Daymon, I’m not
going to argue with you, but if you take a turn for the worse you’ll be taking
chances with all of our lives.”

“I can pull my own
weight,” Daymon hissed. “Been taking care of myself for years.”

“It’s not just
you
anymore.”

Daymon went quiet.

“Does Heidi know how to
handle a gun?”

The former firefighter
shook his head because he knew exactly where Jenkins was going with this.
“She’s a bartender, Charlie,” he replied icily.

“This isn’t going to be
anything
like Jackson Hole. Those things are going to be
everywhere
,” said
Jenkins.

No shit
, thought Daymon. If only Jenkins knew how much
death he had seen during the circuitous route he had travelled from Jackson
Hole, to Salt Lake City, to Colorado Springs, and finally ending up back in
Jackson Hole.
If only he knew the half of it
.

The floorboards creaked
as Jenkins crabbed around the kitchen table and traversed the dining room.
Without saying a word he parted the curtains and looked out one of the leaded
windows bracketing a built in that was filled with knickknacks, books, and
candles.

“Whatcha got
this
time,
Charlie?”

“Nothing out of the
ordinary... just another group of
walkers
,” Jenkins replied, his voice
dripping with contempt.

“They on 33... or the
feeder road?”

“Still only 33, and it’s
a good thing we got ahead of them,” he added.

Staring the former police
chief directly in the eye, Daymon said softly, “It’s a good thing we got the
fuck out of Jackson when we did. Are you sure you gave the locals plenty of
time to escape? Did Gerald get out OK?”

“I called on him myself.
Got the feeling he was going to play captain and go down with his ship. Most of
the essentials and conscripts defected overnight, and were long gone before the
barrier failed. Hell, some even went during the day, openly defying their
great
leader.”
Jenkins drew the curtain and turned, facing Daymon. “I saw this
coming. Robert Christian started unraveling the second the people of Jackson
stopped kissing his ass—and that was on day one. Then the shit really hit the
fan when Bishop proposed blocking the passes and setting up the barricade. The
truth was that the people were more afraid of the dead than
anything
Christian, Bishop, or his boys could do to them.”

Silence.

Rubbing his red-rimmed
eyes, Jenkins added, “The dead won... and if I don’t go check a few of these
farms around here for some kind of antibiotics... you might be joining them.
I’m a country boy... you know that, Daymon,” he intoned. “So I was sitting here
without my coffee and racking my brain asking myself who in the hell keeps
antibiotics in the country? Then the answer came to me... a horse farm ought to
have a good deal of medicine. They’re always dealing with one hoof infection
after another.”

Daymon nodded an
affirmative, then slowly arose from the chair and spun it around so it faced
front. It screeched on the linoleum as he parked it under the table. Before
going back upstairs, Daymon gave Jenkins a firm squeeze on the shoulder. It was
his way of thanking the man without saying something awkward that he might
regret.

***

Jenkins’s plan was
simple. He decided he’d coast from the house to the gate, the Tahoe in neutral
with the motor running. The idling engine wouldn’t draw much attention, he
reasoned, however, he was a little concerned that the gravel crunching and
popping under the off-road tires might equate to a dinner bell to the dead. If
all went well he would get through the gate undetected, secure it behind him,
and then glide quietly downhill until he was in their midst, then wrench the
transmission into drive and speed west before the abominations knew he was even
there. With any luck the monsters would follow, and would remain oblivious to
the house on the hill.