Plague Town (28 page)

Kai got to his feet in an effortless move that belayed the beers he’d already consumed.

“Well, when you put it that way...” With Lily still on his lap, Tony tossed his empty bottle in the trashcan, grabbed another full one from the little table, and popped the top.

Gabriel grabbed it before he could take more than a sip.

“You’re pushing it,” he said, and there wasn’t a trace of amusement in his voice.

Tony scowled at him.

“C’mon, man,” he protested, “It’s a free country. We’ve earned a couple of brews.”

Gabriel stared him down. Tony tried staring back, but lowered his eyes after only a few seconds.

“You suck, Tofu.”

“Yeah, Joystick, I guess I do.”

“That’s X-Box,” Tony grumbled.

Lil looked a little pie-eyed as she slid off Tony’s lap, wobbling slightly. I got the feeling she hadn’t done a hell of a lot of drinking before becoming a wild card. Grabbing a bottled water, I twisted off the top and handed it to my loopy roomie.

“Here, kiddo,” I said.” I’ll get you some ibuprofen.”

Lil took the water, but frowned.

“I wannanother beer.”

“And I want world peace, so we’re both shit out of luck tonight.”

I ducked into the bathroom and grabbed the ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet, shaking four into my hand. Two for me, and two for Lil. As I put the bottle back, I noticed a brown prescription bottle next to the toothpaste—some drug called Clozapine with the name Lily Kiputh on the label.

Huh. Wonder what these are for?

Shutting the cabinet door, I dry swallowed my pills and rejoined the dwindling party, making sure Lily took her dose with what was left of her water.

“Let’s go, troops,” Gabriel commanded. I stood by the door with folded arms as he herded the rest of our visitors out.

“You really know how to kill a party, don’t you?” But I smiled as I said it.

Mack stopped for a quick hit-and-run scritch for both of the cats, and then a hug for me.

“You done good, kid,” he whispered.

Then it was only Gabriel in the room.

“Get some sleep, okay?” And then he was gone.

The next day dawned way too early for my taste.

And it dawned without a hint of sunlight. The trees and buildings were masked with the kind of fog filmmakers conjure up by using machines. All that was missing was the blue backlighting. It was also one of those thick, drippy fogs that soaked hair and clothes after just a few minutes. Shitty for the work at hand, but great for the skin.

All the wild cards were stuffed into a Chevy Suburban, the back row of seats folded down to make room for our gear. Gabriel drove and Gentry rode shotgun.

We took the main road leading down toward Redwood Grove, then cut to another one that bypassed the town and headed twenty miles west to Bigfoot’s Revenge. There we would start our search and destroy, and if we attracted any undead attention, it would be easy enough to lead them away from campus. At least, this was the working theory.

The whole strategy thing gave me a headache.

After about half an hour, Gabriel pulled the SUV into a cedar-chip-and-dirt parking lot. The tourist trap had been around since the 1950s, one of the more popular stops on the way up through Northern California. It boasted a souvenir shop with carved bears, eagles, totem poles, and bootleg Disney characters carved from
redwoods. There was a motel comprised of twelve quaint log cabins, and a coffee shop claiming “the best mochas in the Pacific Northwest.” There was even a drive thru redwood on the property, but it had been blocked off ever since a Hummer got wedged in the middle and had to be extracted with a winch.

There were about a dozen other vehicles in the lot, some parked neatly at the edge, others skewed haphazardly as if the drivers had skidded to a halt in a hurry. The front passenger door of an old blue Chevy Impala hung wide open, and I could see blood pooled among the wood chips underneath.

No sign of unlife as we piled out of the truck, but the fog was thick enough to mask a lot of activity.

Piles of redwood burls were stacked up on the porch along with the wooden sculptures. A seven-foot redwood Bigfoot, arms outstretched menacingly, loomed at the base of the stairs. Donald Duck peeked out of the fog from his perch on the landing and a large eagle sat on the railing, wings in perpetual flight.

The eerie silence combined with the mist actually made old Bigfoot look kind of scary.

I adjusted my gear, making sure my weapons were in place, my M-4 at the ready, and my hair still tucked beneath my helmet. The rest of the wild cards were all doing the same—including Kaitlyn, who seemed unusually tense, even for her.

Her expression was pinched, almost haunted, as she looked around. If she’d been anyone else, I’d have asked what was wrong and tried to help. But I preferred not to have my head bitten off, thank you very much. Especially by a fellow human.

We’d opted to go without nose plugs this trip, to give us the advantage of an extra warning system. The heavy fog was deceptive, dispersing scents and muffling sounds, making it hard to pinpoint directions. Given that the zombies could approach from any direction through
the surrounding woods, it seemed better to have all our enhanced senses up and running.

In fact...

I caught a whiff of something rotten. A branch cracked beneath a foot, off to my left at the edge of the parking lot.

“Incoming,” I said as a friggin’ ginormous male lurched out of the fog like something out of—you guessed it—a horror movie.

This porker was fatter by far than the pudgy businessman who’d first taken a bite out of me. Its blue-and-red checked flannel shirt could have doubled as a tablecloth, and I didn’t know they made jeans that size. Rolls and ripples of pasty sallow-green flesh flashed where the hem of the shirt couldn’t quite meet the waistband, which was doing its best to hide under all the stomach fat.

I didn’t see any obvious causes of death—no bites, scratches or other injuries. In fact, other than a little gore around the mouth and the definite undead tint to its flesh and eyes, this guy looked fairly normal. I’d have put money on a heart attack.

Can you turn after you’re already dead?
I wondered.

It stretched out its arms as best it could, gave a pathetic, hungry moan, and continued to lurch toward us.

“Whoa, dude!” Tony laughed. “Last thing you need is more food.” He turned to us. “He’s as big as the fuckin’ Death Star.”

“Jenny Craig time for you, fellah,” I muttered, unsheathing my sword.

“Oh, come on,” Tony whined. “Lemme have this one, Ash.”

“No fair,” I protested. “I smelled him first.”

“Pu-leeeeze?”

I rolled my eyes and gave a little gesture.

“Go for it.”

“You’re too nice,” Kai said. “That one’s gotta be worth a lot of points.”

“Nah,” Gentry replied. “Too slow. Easy target. Biggest problem is if it falls on top of you. But Tony would have to be pretty damned clumsy to let that happen.”

“Wanna place bets?” Kai grinned.

“Hey, I heard that, Lando,” Tony growled.

“You just be careful there, Joystick.”

Tony growled again, but chose not to reply.

We all watched as he plucked a sledgehammer from the porch, then casually strolled up to the Death Star zombie, easily hefting the weapon with both hands. It cracked me up, ’cause I expected him to see how hard he could ring the bell at the fair.

Unable to resist the cheap shot, Tony swung the hammer like a baseball bat and hit the zombie in its gut, no doubt expecting to knock it on its ass.

Whomp!

The hammer bounced back as if made of rubber, and the unexpected rebound knocked Tony on his ass.

Even Gabriel smiled.

Death Star moaned again, its attention now fully on its fallen prey.

“Get a move on, kid.” Gentry said, tapping an imaginary watch. “Plenty more to kill without you messing around.”

Tony scowled and scrambled to his feet. He circled behind Death Star and without further ado smashed the sledgehammer against the back of its skull, once, then twice. The zombie staggered forward, and then toppled over onto its belly with the slow majesty of a downed redwood. The ground shook as it hit, bits of dust and redwood chips flying up and out from the point of impact.

It was unfortunate the thing landed face down, because we were all treated to the unlovely sight of very fat, rotting plumber’s crack.

Tony raised his hammer for one last blow to its skull.

Keee-runch.
Dead zombie.

Wiping the head of the sledgehammer on Death Star’s flannel shirt, he grinned in satisfaction.

“Let’s see how many ghouls heard the big fat moaning dinner bell,” he said.

Sure enough, more moans drifted through the fog, coming from all around, signaling the approach of more zoms. A door creaking on its hinges turned our attention to the souvenir shop. A tiny female tugged open the heavy wooden door, squeezing through the opening. It couldn’t have been more than five years old when it had died, filthy blond hair in braided pigtails tied off in jaunty pink ribbons that matched the color of its T-shirt and frilly little skirt. Large chunks of flesh were missing from its neck, arms and shoulders.

It saw us and eagerly staggered towards the stairs, sad hungry mewls emanating from its mouth.

Someone gasped.

I turned to find Kaitlyn staring at the little girl zombie with an expression of such sorrow and agony it almost hurt me just to see it. I remembered the story she’d told about watching her friend and the friend’s daughter being ripped to pieces in front of her.

Oh jeez... it can’t be.

“Megan...”

Kaitlyn’s agonized whisper told me it could, and it was. A wave of pity swept over me and it didn’t matter that I knew it wouldn’t be welcome. The raw pain on her face demanded it.

Mack stepped forward and unholstered his M-4. His eyes were leaking slow, steady tears as he took careful aim and pulled the trigger. The zombie collapsed at the top of the stairs and Kaitlyn gave a great keening wail, knees crumbling underneath her as if they couldn’t support the weight of her grief.

Mack went to hug her, but she pushed him away and
then held herself, arms crossed protectively across her chest as she rocked back and forth in time to her sobs.

But we didn’t have time to comfort her. Other zombies staggered out of the trees on all sides, and from the interior of the gift shop. I heard thumping sounds coming from some of the cabins as the zombies inside tried to get out to see who’d come to dinner.

We all formed a rough circle around the still stricken Kaitlyn, covering all angles of approach, M-4s in hand. Tony tossed his sledgehammer onto the ground next to the SUV.

“Pick your targets, and don’t waste ammo,” Gabriel barked. “Clear space, and if you miss the head, finish the job.”

Almost instantly we had upwards of thirty zombies closing in from all directions, gory phantasms clutched by the mist. Gunfire filled the parking lot, the sound oddly muffled by the heavy fog, the smell of cordite mingling with the scents of pine, cedar, and zombies.

Especially zombies.

Even in the heat of the moment, I was impressed at how well my fellow wild cards kept their heads under pressure. The sight and smell of these things were truly horrible, and having them close in like that—arms out, mouths stretched wide to reveal teeth dripping with blood and black fluid—was a sight to freeze the heart of most people. Which is probably why a lot of folks died without running. I’d been through it in town, and still it gave me the creeps.

But the wild cards never faltered, and within minutes all the zombies we could see were sprawled dead around us.

We stood in silence for a moment. The only sounds remaining were those of Kaitlyn’s grief, which had trickled down to a few choked sobs, and the steady thumping on the inside of some of the cabins.

Gabriel knelt alongside her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“You need to pull it together,” he said quietly. “You’re going to get yourself or one of your team members killed if you can’t.”

Kaitlyn’s eyes flashed with a look of wild hatred that quickly diffused into an almost bewildered expression, as if she suddenly realized where she was, and why... and didn’t like it much.

Gabriel’s gaze held steady.

“Can you pull yourself together?” he asked. “Can you do this?” Then he added, “We need you.”

Kaitlyn gave a wrenching, watery sigh, and then nodded.

“Yes. I can do this.” She took a deep gulp of air, and it was as if something she’d been carrying suddenly dropped off her shoulders. She got to her feet, actually letting Gabriel help her. Then, even more surprisingly, she squared herself, and looked at Mack.

“Thank you,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it. But it needed doing.”

Mack reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, then looked around at the rest of us, pausing when she reached me.

“I am, too,” she said. She held my gaze for a few seconds, then walked off to the edge of the parking lot. Not exactly touchy-feely, but more than I ever expected.

Gabriel gave her a few moments before speaking.

“Time to check the shop and the cabins.” He pointed in my direction. “Ashley, Kaitlyn, Mack, and Kai, take the cabins. The rest of us will check the souvenir shop and the back area. Everyone, keep an eye out for more flesh-eaters trailing in from the woods. Any trouble, give a holler.” He patted his walkie-talkie. “Any questions?”

I cleared my throat.

“Any reason we’re not working in our normal teams?”

“We may not always have the time to divide into specific teams,” he replied. “You need to know you can
count on any member of the wild cards to back you up.”

I nodded.
Okay then.

“Kaitlyn?” he said.

Kaitlyn turned her head in response to Gabriel’s call, then rejoined us, shoulders straight, the set of her jaw determined.

Four cabins were lined up in a row next to the souvenir shop. There were three more in a rough semi-circle off to the right, front doors a few feet back from the right side of the parking lot, backs nested among the trees.