Assuming Room Temperature (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 3) (28 page)

Piss-yellow orbs followed his movement as he leaned slightly closer.

“But I can end it. I can give you... I don’t know. Peace? Rest, maybe? Or at least an end to existing like this.” Jake’s gaze bored into the dead things face. “Do you understand what’s happened to you? Are you trapped in there watching? Awake and aware of what you’ve become, like Leo suggested a while back?”

Ragged fingers clawed at the asphalt. The creature’s saliva-blackened tongue dropped from its mouth as it unknowingly bit its tip off with snapping teeth.

Jake sighed. “I guess that’s my answer.”

That was when a bullet hit the creature in the left temple, sending its brain spattering across the bodies to Jake’s right. The remaining animation went out of the thing’s eyes, and it slumped bonelessly to the surface of Pensacola Dam as he rose and snapped his head around to see Penny lowering her rifle.

“Were you talking to that thing?”

“More likely to myself,” he admitted, “Conversation was one sided, anyway. You didn’t need to do that. I had it covered.”

The ex-deputy sheriff didn’t look at all convinced. “Uh-huh. Yakking it up with a corpse doesn’t instill me with a lot of faith in you, you know.”

“It was no big deal. Just something—”

“Give me a break,” Penny cut him off, “You need to stop naval-gazing and focus. Christ, I told her it was a mistake putting you in charge again...”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Carson snorted. “When you miraculously came out of your fugue? I
told
Kat she was stupid to step down, that you weren’t capable of—”

“Is this really the time?” Henry paused in his work, but kept a wary eye on the next group of bodies.

“When
is
it?” She demanded.

* * *

Unknown to the rest of their little group currently outside the wall, Penny still wanted to turn their blue-haired fan of Hello Kitty’s focus away from O’Connor. She’d had a
very
enjoyable time on girls night, and it was possible a certain someone might be convinced to have even more if Penny could take him down a notch or two. Maybe even convince him to give up the whole leader position. Who knew what might occur if that happened? Three wasn’t
always
a crowd.

Carson turned to Henry. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’re okay with a Talks-To-Zombies over there running things?”

“He’s doing fine. Besides, he’s under a lot of stress right now.” Sampson replied.

“Yeah. I can’t imagine why.” Penny waved a fly away with one hand. There were quite a few gathering over the bodies now. “I’m sure he’s got
tons
of things on his mind. Maybe Rae’s right. Maybe he needs to take another swim or something, just to relieve all that pressure.”

That got Jake’s attention. “Wait. Are you…?”

“Look the fuck out!” George snapped and leveled his weapon in Penny’s direction.

The ghoul had been lying just to her right, unnoticed among a few other now-harmless bodies. There’d been no warning. None. It rose almost unbelievably quickly from beneath one of its compatriots, all grasping hands and frightful hunger, and all but tackled their pretty companion as she was focused on Jake’s growing discomfort. Wounds from multiple rounds had punctured the zombie’s torso and neck, silencing its dead vocal cords which was why it made no sound while laying pinned under two other creatures. It didn’t require a voice though. Only teeth. Teeth it now used to bite through the fabric of Penny’s jeans and into the warm flesh of her vastus lateralis, the muscle of her outer thigh.

Her scream was ringing in Jake’s stunned ears as Foster peppered the zombie with rounds. Unable to go for a headshot for fear of hitting Carson in the process, he tried to hit its spine to at least disable the thing and render its arms useless by severing the spinal cord. That had all the effect of throwing ping-pong balls at a washing machine, which is to say, none. The creature ignored the rounds and sank its teeth deeper, worrying at Carson’s leg like a feral canine would a piece of flank steak. Penny screamed again and began using her rifle to beat at its head and shoulders, trying to knock the horror away and keep it from taking off a chunk. In her pain and shock she couldn’t get the weapon turned around to get a shot off, so she used it as an awkward club against the thing biting at her leg.

Jake and Henry both bolted towards her, ignoring the bodies and gore they ran across in an attempt to reach her before the zombie managed to do even more damage. Sampson’s heavy sledge caught it in the ribs—breaking several audibly—and sent it flying, which allowed Carson to stagger away as he supported her with one muscled arm.

Jake followed the zombie’s flight and, when it skidded to a halt on the ground, took his crowbar in both hands, leapt high over it, then drove the chisel point down at the thing’s face. His weapon’s steel tip rammed into the zombie’s skull, crunching through the nasal chocha (upper nose) at the top of its maxilla, shattering the bottom of its supraorbital foramen (forehead), and speared its rotten head to the pavement. While disabled, the creature didn’t seem willing to die right away. It batted weakly at Jake’s tactical vest as it lay pinned under him and—enraged at its attack on Penny—he began whipping the crowbar’s hook end from side to side, sending its opposite tip rotating about within the zombie’s skull like the mother of all coffee stirrers.

That
had the desired, and immediate, effect. The thing quit pawing at his vest and its arms fell limp to the ground. O’Connor yanked the tool free and speared it again for good measure. His aim was a little off this time and—instead of going into the front of the zombie’s skull once more—the crowbar punctured its left eye. He felt the ghoul’s sphenoid bone pulverize as he spiked it again, then pulled the weapon free. Even though the thing was well and truly dead then, it took every bit of self-control he had to not keep stabbing it. Jake was shaking in anger and wanted to let it loose on something, but the creature was definitely beyond retribution. Body trembling, he settled for standing up and caving in the left side of its head with a rage fueled kick. His boot took the front of the zombie’s face away, and sent pieces flying off to splatter over the Dam’s northern guardrail.

Any other draggers were disregarded as the three of them got Carson back inside the wall, and Oliver ground gears until the dump truck secured the town again.

Jake waved Oliver over. “Penny’s hurt! Go find Barker and get him here

“What happened?” He demanded wide-eyed as Sampson helped Penny sit on the curb. “Oh man... Did she get
bit?”

Foster took one of the man’s arms in a come-along grip. “I need
you
ta’ go get the doc we found. That Barker guy. Do it fast. Don’t tell anyone about what happened here, ya’ get me?”

Oliver was staring at Penny. “But—”

“Boy, I got a gun that can turn you into a big ol’ stain from near half a mile away.” George put his nose nearly to Oliver’s. “Go get Barker. Bring. Him. Here.
Now!”

After giving an audible swallow, Oliver took off as fast as his stocky legs could carry him.

“Firm grasp on the realities of life, that guy.” Foster turned back to regard Penny as Sampson ripped her right pants leg away.

The bite was bad. Though not bleeding profusely, it was quite deep and already looked horrid. Jake yanked open a pocket on his vest, pulled out a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide, tore the cap off, and dumped the entire thing over the wound. Penny barely stifled a scream as the site fizzed and bubbled when the liquid made contact, and her face paled noticeably. Once the peroxide had done its work, Jake pulled another small bottle of iodine, repeated the process, and slapped the only sterile eight by eight bandage he carried in the same pocket over the site. He applied a healthy amount of pressure to the deputy paled again.

“Oh shit,” Penny grated out. “That hurts
so
much more than being shot did.”

“When were you shot?” Jake tried to distract her from what had to be an extreme amount of pain as he gripped her wound.

“Two years back, by a moron trying to rob the local drive-thru.” Penny lay back on the sidewalk. “And watch your hands there, O’Connor. You had your chance to grope me when we met, if you remember? You passed.”

Jake snorted. “Relax. I have to staunch the flow here. Besides, can you blame me if I’m making up for that lost opportunity?”

That brought a pained laugh from Carson as she gritted her teeth. The pair had met after the zombies rose. Actually, Penny had
captured
Jake while she’d been part of what turned out to be a Jim Jones-style settlement of survivors. Later, she’d made her escape with him and Kat during the chaos created by a horde of creatures attacking the settlement, and gone on to become a valued member of their party.

“Don’t bother with it. It’s not a bullet hole or stab wound.” Penny put one hand over her eyes. “I’m
bitten.
I’m as good as dead.”

“We don’t know that.” Jake insisted.

That brought a smile to her face. “God, you’re really not faking that whole ‘nice guy’ persona, are you. Even after I just tried to sandbag you.”

He shrugged. “Life’s too short, lady. Especially nowadays. And Barker’s coming. He’s kind of a flake, but he
is
a doctor. There’s still a chance you’ll be around to bitch about what I do and don’t do for a while yet.”

* * *

Barker stood up from where he’d been examining Penny’s wound. “She has absolutely no chance.”

“Damn. Don’t sugar-coat it or anything, doc,” Sampson admonished him.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no other way to put it.” Barker stripped away the glove he’d used while stitching Carson’s leg shut. “Whatever causes this is nearly one-hundred percent fatal when introduced via a bite. I did hear about a very small number of cases where through
immediate
amputation the victims survived, but those were performed within a minute or two. It’s been nearly thirty now. Far too late to attempt such a procedure, even if I had the proper tools. At this point it simply wouldn’t do any good.”

“Why not?” George stood off to one side, puffing his stogie.

“I can’t very well amputate Miss Carson’s pelvis.” Barker gestured at the deputy’s lower half.

He’d had her remove her blood and goop coated jeans prior to beginning his stitch-work, which the attractive woman’s legs bore. Though the situation was as serious as it could get, Jake felt a bit of disappointment that Penny long ago traded the more girly-themed panties she’d worn during their first meeting for a pair of boxers from the Mimi’s stores. While still quite a distracting appendage, her leg displayed a track-work of discolored veins running up from the bite. The discoloration vanished under the admittedly short edge of her too-small boxers, and reappeared briefly on the outer crest of her right hip.

“Yeah, I’ll pass on that one.” Carson remained on the curb, smoking one of Jake’s dwindling supply of American Spirits. “Wouldn’t want to live without my girly-parts anyway.”

“You are such a guy.” Henry told her brightly.

“So, what? She’s gonna croak?” Foster asked.

Barker balked. “Well. I wouldn’t put it such an insensitive way, but…”

“Jesus Christ. Rae totally nailed your personality. Mr. Tact for sure.” Penny exhaled a cloud of smoke and tapped ash from the end of her cigarette.

Foster was about to reply when his secure radio squawked. He pulled it from his hip and toggled the transmitter. “Yeah, Bee?”

“Uncle George? We’re picking up military transmissions with the Mimi’s receivers. Rae says they’re close. Really close.”

“How close we talkin’?” He demanded.

His niece’s voice crackled back. “
Um... She said less than twenty miles? If the people transmitting keep the same approach speed, they’ll be here in about three hours...”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Everyone get on board!” Mooney called.

There were barely forty minutes left before the forces of Fort Leonard Wood descended on Langley, and the impromptu patriarch wanted all of his people ready to roll. They’d scurried about for the last two hours, gathering their meager possessions, and helping the two fixers with final preparations of some very dirty tricks.

When the older man had finally revealed his plan in private, O’Connor hadn’t known whether to laugh or cringe. While Rae had pressed a pair of electricians into service helping her affix a trio of wireless cameras facing out on the town’s eastern wall. George had disappeared for a while. When he showed up again shortly he was soaking wet, but wore a satisfied smirk. That alone made Jake nervous. Never mind the fact Bee asked him why her uncle offloaded half of their more explosive stores—blasting caps, primer cord, assorted grenades, and seven blocks of C4, a pair of secure radios, and an entire box of prophylactics Kat had retrieved from a drug store earlier in the week.

Not for the first time, Jake was quite glad George Foster was on
their
side. His plan wouldn’t allow their party to hold Langley against the oncoming force, or even put up that much of a fight really, but it sure as hell should buy them the time they needed to get away, hopefully without pursuit.

Barker had taken to caring for Penny back in the Mimi, along with Gwen, her friend Mark, Leo, and Elle, which fooled no-one. While Gwen had a little medical training and a bit of experience, Mark, Leo, and his blonde sergeant were there for if—or rather when—the worst happened. At some point not far off, Penny Carson would either fall into a coma and pass away quietly, or become violent due to the fever burning through her body. While her friends wanted to say their goodbyes, there was simply very little time. General Winston Hess and his men were on the way and, if everything wasn’t ready when their forces began rolling over the horizon well, the survivors wouldn’t be worrying about zombies after that.

Cho put the young survivor Mel on the bus with Mooney herself. The girl was emphatic that she wanted to remain with Kat and her friends, but accepted she wouldn’t be left behind because they were
all
going to Pecos together. Kat was adamant that she remain—reasonably—out of the line of fire, and stick close to the owner of Sunset Bar and Grill until she and the others could link up with them once more at a prearranged meeting spot. With her family dead at the hands of the creatures, and Mooney’s wife having passed years earlier, they’d be good for each other. He’d taken to the teen immediately, treating her like the child he and his spouse never had, and Mel—after realizing he was much like George; crass and blustery, but basically good at heart—had warmed to him quickly. Especially since he was an outstanding cook. She
had
been surviving off of dry goods and canned fruit for months, so being able to eat hot food—let alone
well prepared
hot food—was a dream come true.

“I’ll look out for her till you all finish up lockin’ our back door,” Mooney promised, giving Kat a brief hug before stepping on the lead bus. He raised his voice so the nearby Foster could hear him. “Just make damn sure you don’t let the old man drive. He’ll get lost on the way.”

George acknowledged the comment with a broad smile and a one-fingered salute, letting Mooney know he was number one in his book too, before returning to work hurriedly on some electronic kink-knack with Rae as the passengers buttoned the vehicles up and prepared to move them into concealment. They wouldn’t do so until Jake and Kat dealt with Lieutenant Kirk and his men. Foster had advocated just shooting them outright, but Jake overrode him. While Kirk—and much of the approaching force—were scum, some few likely only stuck with it because the believed there was nowhere else to go. That, and Jake didn’t want to commit cold-blooded murder. Again.

While he believed there was a very large pool of molten rock and a metal straw waiting with his name on it, O’Connor didn’t want to add being used as a sex toy by thorny-crotched succubi in the Ninth Ring to his afterlife marquee.

So. After liberal application of both zip-ties and duct tape, O’Connor and Cho walked Kirk and his men through the eastern barricade single file. One of Kirk’s soldiers chosen randomly led, while the pair of survivors walked at the rear on opposite flanks. This was because the rest—including the lieutenant—all had hastily scrounged pillow cases over their heads to prevent any of them ‘acting up cranky’ as Rae put it. The captives shuffled along, a length of ten gauge fencing wire linked each of their right ankles, insuring they walked in lock-step towards far side of Langley’s eastern
dam.

“You’re all dead.” While there was little in the way of debris on the road’s surface, the bag on Kirk’s head obscuring his vision caused him to stumble. “What do you have? Less than a hundred civilians? Over half of them
women?
When the general arrives we’ll roll right over whatever you can put in place. Then you’ll be integrated into our population.”

“Less talking, more walking. Or I’ll have Kat amuse herself.” Jake yanked Kirk forward by the shoulder of his fatigues.

Kirk laughed behind his hood. “Like how? Having her suck…?”

Jake slapped him upside the head with feeling.

Cho smirked privately. O’Connor had always been open with his firm opinions about how a real man should treat—and speak about—women in general. What they’d learned about General Winston Hess and the new society he endeavored to bring into being—one where women were nothing more than possessions to be debased—caused his bile to rise in the back of his throat. Such twisted values appealed only to boot-lickers, toadies, and sadists. If honest, to him those beliefs smacked of the more extreme religions practiced by dung-eating fanatics that liked to lop people’s heads off, or blow up buildings in the name of one god or another.

Cowards, basically. Men with the souls of cockroaches

He didn’t want to believe humankind could sink to such depths—especially during the most dramatic event in the long history of planet earth since the extinction of the dinosaurs—but there was no choice. Every member of Jake’s party had seen it in spades since the Apocalypse started. He wondered momentarily what history would’ve been like if those mammoth lizards had not died out.

The traveling Doctor would be so disappointed,
Kat thought.
It wasn’t aliens or multidimensional invaders that will finally do us in, it’s our own stupidity. Even now, we keep killing each other…

She didn’t express this out loud. Learning of the odd physician—and especially about his mode of transportation—would only upset Jake, and he’d been under a lot of stress.

Kirk was evidently a slow learner. “The only way out of this for you is to join up with RUST. If you’d only—”

“What’s that?” Jake inquired, still guiding the restrained man along.

“The Reintegrated United States Territories.” Kirk reached the last line of barrels across the dam, roughly eighty yards from Langley’s eastern barricade. “R-U-S-T It’s a short, memorable acronym that—”

“Wow. Look at you, using grown-up words there, Kirk. I’m impressed.” O’Connor brought their line of captives to a halt and ordered them to sit while Cho watched them. She was clearly uncomfortable with the AR-15 carbine she carried for this, and had wanted to stick with her .9mm Glock automatics, but Jake had insisted she have something with a little more “intimidation power” so she’d eventually agreed. The weapon wasn’t that heavy, but she’d made Jake promise to find her a nice pair of throwing knives, some chocolate,
and
a plush Hello Kitty doll at the first opportunity.

Hey, fair was fair. The AR-15 just didn’t work with her outfit at all, so she should get
some
kind of compensation, right?

Jake had wisely kept quiet at that point. Kat took the rifle and she could use it. That was all that mattered.

Kirk continued to spew his particular brand of crazy as under Kat’s watchful eye Jake secured the sitting men shoulder to shoulder in a circle in the center of the road. O’Connor ignored the man’s jabbering, focusing instead on making sure the zip-ties linking their elbows were nice and tight. Wouldn’t do to have one of them getting ideas. There was going to be plenty of fun and games when the rest of their forces arrived and—despite Foster’s emphatic opinions to the contrary—Jake didn’t really want to kill them all.

He’d just finished tightening the final restraint when Penny and Bee slowly made their way through the barricade. Carson looked like shit. Her eyeballs were dull and seemed to have shrunk in her darkening flesh, giving them a look much like Jake’s own perpetually bruised eyes. Sweat ran from the tip of her nose and endlessly down her face. Her dark tank-top was soaked it in. The graying skin along her upper chest and right collarbone displayed the telltale spider web of discolored veins so characteristic to the dead, proclaiming her audience with the Grim Reaper wasn’t far off.

She made her way around barrels, leaning heavily on Bee for support and using her M4 as a cane, until they drew abreast of the final row. Jake revised his opinion about Carson’s appearance. The normally stunning woman looked like
powdered
shit.

“I’m staying out here with them.” Penny sat down tiredly on the closest barrel and put her rifle a-top the one beside it.

Jake shook his head. “No way. We all need to be behind the wall and ready to bug-out when this General Hess arrives.”

The once-deputy sheriff gave him a weak smile. “I won’t be getting on either of those buses, and I’m sure as hell not stepping on the Mimi—or riding in our Hummer—to risk the rest of you when I turn. Fuck...I can already feel it taking me. Did you know the first thing to change is your eyesight? The colors go dull, so everything looks washed out. Like a childhood memory of an overcast fall day...”

“But... That’s suicide.” Kat didn’t look happy at all. “You know that, right?”

Penny’s laugh was wet and ragged. Bee moved to support her as she nearly doubled over in pain before spitting a large, bloody mouthful of nastiness to the pavement. “Yeah, but what’s the alternative? Sit around and moan—no pun intented—about how I wasted my life until I start looking for people to chomp on? Fuck that.”

Bee pulled a bottle of cheap vodka from the small bag on her hip. She’d retrieved it from Sunset Bar and Grill when it had become obvious the two buses were nearly overloaded with survivors—and there was precious little room left to spare in the Mimi—so few stores could be packed inside. She handed it to Penny, then took a seat beside her on the barrel as the dark-haired woman twisted its cap free and took a healthy swig.

“Ugh. Terrible.” She made a face. “Luckily I drank a whole bottle of Rae’s ‘good stuff’ before we came out here. This is harsh enough to take paint off a car.”

“Rae would have a fit if she caught you in her Jameson’s,” Jake told her.

“Funny how dying allows you not to worry about things like that.”

He laughed bitterly at her reply and looked back at the restrained soldiers. “You know, I brought these guys out here hoping to delay their commander. Maybe he’d have second thoughts about attacking right off the bat if his own people were in the way…?”

“Uncle George doesn’t agree, remember? He said Hess never worried about casualties caused by ‘friendly fire,’ and that we should stick with the plan. It’s not the greatest, but there’s no way we can repulse these guys’ friends.” The green-haired young woman waved at Kirk and his cronies. “I already tried talking Penny out of this, but her mind’s made up.”

Carson snorted. “Damn right.
Protect and Serve,
remember? That doesn’t mean just when it’s convenient. Like, say, when I’m not turning into a maggot-head.”

“What are you going to do?” Jake asked quietly.

“Buy you some time.” Penny smiled weakly. Her lips were darkening noticeably as her body fought against the turn. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll earn me some leeway at the Pearly Gates, yeah? God knows I’ll need a good word, if I wanna spend eternity surrounded by hotties and not listening country music in a gynecologist’s waiting room... Look, can I talk with you for a minute? Alone?”

O’Connor looked questioningly at Cho who shrugged and moved a-ways back toward the barricade. Bee nudged Carson with one shoulder and smiled before hopping off her barrel, then followed Kat until he and Penny had some relative privacy.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry about before,” she told him. “I... Well, let’s just say I’ve never been what you’d call subtle.”

“Not really news. If you remember, you
did
kind of suggest we bump ugly to fool your old group back when we first met.” Jake took out his American Spirits and offered her one. She surprised him and took one.

“No time like the present to start, right?” She allowed him to light them both and took a healthy drag. “Damn... Now I understand why people smoke. These go great with shitty booze... Always thought the habit was stupid, but it’s not like I’ll have time to develop lung cancer.”

“I’ll leave you the rest of the pack.” Jake blew a cloud towards their captives.

“Appreciate that.” Carson leaned on her M-4. “You’re a good guy Jake. You didn’t deserve what I did earlier.”

Obviously uncomfortable, O’Connor tried to brush the subject off. “Don’t sweat it. I’m sorry about... Christ. How trite does
I’m sorry you’re going to die
sound? Maybe if I’d been quicker I could’ve shot the damn thing. Maybe if I hadn’t responded when you—”

“Hey, this is on me, not you.” Penny looked at him intently. “You understand that, get me? It was stupid to pull that, outside the walls or not. I was trying to mess with your head. Make you pull back from Kat a bit. Fuck. What a stupid move. I never did crap like that before all these things got up and started eating people. I wonder what changed.”

“Life in the Apocalypse.” Jake shook his head. “I’ve thought about that very same thing a lot. While none of us went full on
Beyond Thunderdome
, all the combined stress and fear kind of push everybody to just say
To hell with it,
and look for whatever comfort they can find.”