LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (3 page)

No problem.

Thwap.

“Ouch! Mother fu—“

Squeal.
 

Shit.

“What was that?”

Ky was already on the ground, rolling in laughter.

That was fast. How did she get down there that fast?

“Oh…my…God” she managed, between gasps for air. “You
actually
hit the squirrel and you cut your face—I totally win! I told you so!”
 

I touched my hand to my face and looked at my fingers. Blood.
 

Man, this kid wasn’t going to let me live this down.
 

“Let’s go see about the squirrel,” I said begrudgingly, starting downrange and searching on the ground for the wounded animal.
 

I heard an outraged chatter above my head as I approached the tree line, and looked up. A large, dark brown squirrel was glaring at me reproachfully, glancing back at its full tail—a tail that was now pinned to a tree branch several yards from the unmolested tin can I had been trying to hit.

“Well, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I muttered as Ky walked up. “Thanks for nothing, Rocky.”

The squirrel returned the sentiment with what I was sure was the squirrel version of “go fuck yourself.”
 

“You know, you might want to promise him that you’ll aim for his tail next time. He could hang out here all day.” She was still smiling as I reached up for the arrow.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I suck.”
 

The squirrel chittered angrily as my hand hit the arrow, sending vibrations along the shaft.
 

“Hold on,” I cursed and yanked the arrow free of the branch.

The small creature bolted from the limb, jumping several branches higher before examining its wounded tail.

“You’ll live, dude,” I said wryly, tossing Ky the arrow.

“So, I’ll just stick to my carbine if you don’t mind,” I said, trudging back toward the small clearing. “I obviously can’t be trusted with weaponry that pre-dates the wheel.”
 

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” she shouted, wiping squirrel blood from the arrow head and sighting it to make sure it wasn’t bent. “You were within a few yards. If there were hundreds of those things around you, you would have hit one.”
 

I grunted as I waded through the last of the tall grass and sat down heavily on the tailgate of the truck. The wind shifted slightly, bringing the faintest hint dry, cold air from the mountains.
 

We were in a small clearing on the side of a large hill overlooking the I-5 corridor—the main artery of interstate highway between Seattle and the Canadian border. We had been following rural roads paralleling the massive roadway since we had left the Seattle suburbs, eager to avoid urban areas and large collections of vehicles. The stretch of highway we could see was mostly abandoned, with the odd vehicle pulled over to the side of the road, many with doors open to the chilly air. In the far distance, I could see the flat blue expanse of the Pacific between the shore and a series of larger islands beyond, as the sun began to highlight the details of the terrain around us.
 

“Okay, kid. Playtime’s over. Time to pack it up. Kate’s waiting for us.”

Last night, we had passed near a small town—Big Lake to be exact—and claimed a farmhouse outside of the tiny town center for our own. Every day we found a place to rest and hide from the sun, and every night we moved on. Today, Ky and I had escaped for some target practice while Kate raided the pantry of the house and tried to turn canned tuna into a meal. I didn’t envy her. There were only so many recipes that one could create with canned everything. I wonder if that squirrel was still around…

“You think she found any chocolate?” Ky asked, jumping onto the tail of the truck and tossing her gear into the bed.
 

“You should be so lucky,” I answered, pulling her cap over her eyes and jumping down again. “Let’s go find out.”
 

I took one last look at the wide vista, enjoying the slight breeze despite the chill in the air. The evergreens swayed slightly as the sun began to touch the top of their branches, and I took in a deep breath before turning to the driver’s side door of the large truck.

We had been on the road for nearly a week. The battle in Seattle was still fresh in our memories, and we talked of it often. The militias, the fortified base, the survivors, and the massive explosion that nearly annihilated more than a million undead. We had escaped into a destiny of our own making, choosing the road northward, in search of Kate’s daughter.
 

We were making good time, despite the rural roads. Having made the decision to avoid the interstate, and the bottleneck it entailed, we moved surely and steadily along two lane highways paralleling the foothills of the Cascade mountains. On clear mornings like this one, we could see the ocean sparkle in the distance—a reminder that the world would continue to turn, with or without the human race.
 

Fuel and food were our worries now, and in the sparsely populated areas through which we traveled, we had been lucky so far. Though the hybrid truck used less fuel than our very first ride many months ago—a capable, but environmentally disastrous box truck—we had found it on less than a quarter tank. Small additions were necessary as we plodded along, and when we couldn’t siphon it from abandoned cars or trucks, we raided tool sheds and landscaping companies.
 

Food was a little bit more complicated. Large grocery stores had been picked clean long ago. They were obvious targets, and most people lacked the imagination to look elsewhere. Convenience stores were mostly a bust too, but we got the odd bag of chips or bottle of beer that had rolled under a shelf when we did stop. No, we were a little more creative.
 

Judging by the bumper stickers on the abandoned cars, we could tell we were in area of the country that valued self-reliance. Much like the folks in Idaho, the good people of Northern Washington had a penchant for survivalism and guns, and a quick stop at a few gun stores gave us more than enough information for some successful forays.
 

No guns were left, of course, but there’s one thing that looters never seem to check when they steal weapons and ammo: customer records.
 

Gun stores like to pride themselves on not sending information to the feds, or keeping records that could be used to identify anyone keeping enough arms in their home to power an African coup. But they were still businesses. And businesses run on mailing lists.

A few addresses later, and we were making our way down long winding driveways to the front doors of homes with broken windows and bullet holes to match. Inside, we normally found a respectable pile of truly dead bodies, and a mother load of MREs and bottled water.
 

God bless the dead preppers. The foresight to store up food, and the incompetency to stay alive. I just wished they had laid in fewer bundles of useless seeds and huge packs of made-in-China “military grade” crap, and more bags of Doritos.
 

For shelter, we usually just holed up in the houses we tracked down. On a rare occasion, like today, we found a house with a view, rested on our laurels, and hunkered down for the day. All in all, it had been a quiet week.
 

Oddly enough, we hadn’t seen a single living soul. This was unusual. Since the disease started its run, we had always encountered someone in the wild. In the rural areas far away from popular centers, we assumed that we’d see more people, not fewer. But that hadn’t been the case.

We had passed a few areas that looked like they had been used as campsites recently, and there was no sign of the undead. No cars, no lights, and no sound. It was a truly peaceful—and a little more than slightly eerie—world.
 

The undead were still out there. In larger numbers than we had hoped, but nothing threatening for those in our—unique—position. We had put down a few, but usually just moved away. It was a shame to waste the ammunition.

The truck started smoothly, and I still smiled at the gently persistent chime that alerted me that my seatbelt was unfastened.
 

Silly truck. There are zombies outside. Seat belts are for kids.
 

“You think we’ll make it to the border tomorrow?” Ky asked, sticking her feet up on the dashboard and pulling her cap down over her eyes. I squinted and dropped my sunglasses down and applied the gas. We had stayed out a little too long and were going to regret it if we didn’t get home quickly. The sun was still painful to our eyes and our skin, and while the cloudy weather helped, and the shortening days were a godsend, we still had to plan our time outside carefully. Several days ago, I had been trapped briefly in a small building with an inconveniently located skylight while searching for propane—and my face was still tender where the sun found a direct path to my skin.
 

“There is no border anymore, kid.” I said, pulling onto the road and checking my rearview mirror out of habit. “I’m not sure whether the notion of countries even means something anymore, but I’m damn sure that no one’s standing at the line asking for passports and checking for citrus.”
 

In a habit that she knew bothered me on a strangely visceral level, she blew a huge bubble with the gum perpetually lodged in her mouth and popped it, sucking the candy back into her mouth and making a loud clicking noise.
 

“Huh.” She grunted once. “Well, to the area that used to be the border, then. I’ve never been to Canada. I heard they’re real nice there. And they say things funny.”

I smiled briefly and turned into the small road that led uphill to the cabin we had found for the night.
 

“Yeah, well. They used to be nice. But odds are that circumstances have changed some.”

The small track wound its way up a narrow space between two tree lines, evergreens backlit by the rising sun. My face tingled as the UV made its way through the windshield, and I saw Ky pull her hat down further over her face. The cabin sat about five hundred feet from the small road that ran to the north, and we were lucky to find it when working off of the last shop’s record books. The street sign had been long since blown apart by a bored teenager with a shotgun and a pint of Jack, and it was only Ky’s sharp eyes that spotted the windows reflecting the full moon that led us there.

We pulled up to the back of the house, passing the large porch on stilts that faced the west in an expansive, and what must have been at one time a very expensive, view of the valley below. As the sun crested the top of the large mountains behind us, we trotted inside and shut the door, seeing the first direct rays touch the valley and the sparkling sea beyond, through the slats in the wooden horizontal blinds.

“I wish we could just stay here,” said Ky softly, squinting as she took in the view.

“It’s not bad,” I muttered as I lay my rifle on the breakfast bar between the entranceway and the kitchen. Ky flopped unceremoniously on the thick leather couch and pulled a blanket over her head. She’d be asleep in two minutes, I knew.
 

The attack took me by surprise. Long limbs grappled at my legs and an eager mouth took my hand in a firm grip, warm liquid running down my wrist and smearing the floor.
 

“Romeo!” I yelled, disgusted as I shook the thick drool from my fingers and backed up. He was having none of it. A single jump brought him to my arms, and I had to laugh as he made for my face.
 

“He didn’t want to be left behind,” said an amused voice from behind the large fireplace that dominated the kitchen and living room. Kate had taken a shower, benefiting from the rainwater collectors and small solar water heater that the cabin had been fitted with in preparation for times like these. She wore an oversized tee shirt with a picture of a large knight and the name of a local school, and a gloriously small pair of shorts she had clearly raided from the stores of the house.

“Well, he shouldn’t have torn off into the woods to chase down the panoply of woodland creatures, then. He was warned.”

I pushed him off after he scored a direct hit on my cheek, nose curious at the blood, and he flipped himself in mid-air, landing on his feet and wagging his tail. Can I go again? he seemed to ask.
 

“What’s with the blood?” Kate asked, voice instantly concerned and eyes darting around the room to the windows.
 

“Nothing, don’t worry. I had a … misfire … incident. It was friendly fire.”

“He snapped himself in the stupid ape face after I told him not to do something,” said Ky, her voice muffled by the fleece blanket.
 

“Thanks, peanut gallery.” I grimaced as Kate chuckled.

“Find any chocolate?” asked Ky, still beneath her blanket.

“Sorry kid, total zero on that,” said Kate with a smile. “Just canned tuna, soup and beans, and some delicious looking SPAM.”

Grunt.
 

“How’s the shower?” I asked, giving Kate a quick kiss and removing the tactical harness, shrugging my shoulders and sighing with the relief.
 

“You won’t be disappointed. I even left you some hot water,” she said, picking up a small, pathetic looking apple we had managed to collect from underneath a withering tree on the property. She eyed it briefly before biting into it, scowling at the bitter taste but chewing it dutifully.

“Talk to me while I rinse off?” I asked, pulling my shirt off and walking into the large bathroom. The monogrammed towels and carefully carved soap animals in the dish reminded me that someone had lived here and I wondered briefly why they never made it up.
 

The store room in the basement, hardened with thick walls of cinder blocks and packed with canned food and ammunition, had been untouched.
 

I supposed that when folks think about the end of days, and make their plans, they forget the cardinal rule of battle: no plan survives contact with the enemy.