Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent (22 page)

The naked horde was streaming up the north bank of the river, thousands and thousands of them, congregating in a screaming mass of angry arms and grasping hands, a hundred feet from the riverboat anchored in the current.

Everything I saw down the steep mountainside was wrong. B
lack diesel smoke was pouring out of the riverboat’s exhaust pipes. Someone was hoping the combination of anchor and engines would keep the boat from being washed downriver. The engines were straining in the current. The rough water behind the boat’s propellers was frothy white. The deep-throated diesels rumbled through the shouts of the infected.

The boat drifted from side to side on its bow anchor. The river’s surface wasn’t smooth. It was flowing. It was rough—I’d never seen it that way—and it was wide. Way up over its banks.

The remains of a boathouse floated past the riverboat. Debris, two-by-fours, siding and half of a house’s roof were jostled through the current and down the river. A capsized ski boat and a dozen white-skinned bodies were in the water. On the banks, the river flowed white between trees and around houses built too close to the bank.

Murphy’s voice, empty and sounding like it was speaking a thought that sneaked out without any conscious choice, said, “Holy shit.” 

“This part of the river never floods,” I muttered in a pointless defense of what I’d said much earlier. “
It never floods.
”

But the water was rising, even as we watched.

A house on the south bank, directly across the river from us, collapsed and came to pieces in the water running over its foundation.

The wind picked up in a blast that blew needle-like droplets of rain into my eyes. Looking up, I saw a
mass of roiling black clouds above a wall of torrential gray rain stretched across the sky north of us and moving our way. Lightning illuminated the clouds from within, and thunder rumbled over us.

The storm wasn’t done yet.

Murphy was the first to react. “We need to get down there.” He looked for a way to get off of the deck and down to the steeply sloping yard ten feet below.

Without the slightest inkling of a plan, without any idea of whether we could help or whether those on the boat needed it, especially without any idea of whether we could even get there, I hollered, “Fuck it!” With one hand on the rail, I vaulted over the side, trying to control my fall.

I hit the wet grass squarely with both feet, but they slipped out from underneath me, sending me skidding and rolling down the length of the backyard, until I hit the thin metal bars of a fence fifty or sixty feet down the slope.

With a grunt, Murphy hit the fence beside me.

Catching my breath, I asked, “You all right?” While waiting for an answer, I checked that I could move my arms, legs, fingers and toes. Nothing seemed to be broken.

Up on his knees, holding
himself steady on a fence post, Murphy said, “I’ll live.”

Realizing that I no longer had my machete, I looked for it in the grass.

God, it was stupid of me to jump with that in my hand.

Thankfully, rather than being stuck in me, it was stuck straight up in the dirt near where I’d first hit the turf. My pistol, which I’d stuck in my belt just a second before jumping, was in the grass halfway up the slope.

“We should have looked for a better way down,” Murphy grumbled.

He was right.

Going back up the slippery grass slope easily ate up any time I’d saved by following my impulse to get down the hill quickly. Nevertheless, we were soon over the fence and doing some combination of jogging, slipping and falling as we cut across the steep slope toward the river and toward the boat that, for the moment, was keeping our friends safe.

We were maybe a third of the way down the mountain, out of breath, standing on a limestone outcrop, looking for a path that didn’t seem to get steeper or more rugged as it went. Directly below us was a hundred-foot drop straight down a jagged cliff face. The wind was howling out of the north by then, carrying on it the haunting wails of the infected at the river’s edge.

Murphy was pointing to a path that looked like a promising way down when the riverboat’s anchor line snapped with a crack that cut through the wind and the voices of the Whites.

Even as the thick rope recoiled into the air, the riverboat was already spinning sideways. The current relentlessly drove it to shore, on our side of the river, where the Whites were screaming their excitement at their shift in fortune.

“You still have grenades?” Murphy hollered as he started to run.

I had four or five in my bag. I jumped off the outcrop and ran through the gap in the cedars that just swallowed Murphy. He wasn’t running down the hill so much as across it. It took only a moment to figure out he was headed to the top of another cliff that might put us above the bulk of the horde on shore. Well, not really above, but close enough.

The riverboat’s path was erratic as it struggled against the current. Figures ran across the top deck. One stopped and pointed. The boat listed hard to starboard and the figures on the upper deck tumbled toward the side rail.

“Faster,” I shouted.

Murphy and I were both running between scrubby cedars on a thirty-degree slope across rocky limestone so rugged that it promised to break ankles at any misstep. An impossibly loud scrape of metal hull on stone stopped us in our tracks.

We were out of time.

The current was pushing the riverboat across the rocky bottom close to shore. It listed further to starboard and the bow jammed between several large oaks just south of the horde’s main body.

Murphy already had a grenade in his hand and positioned himself at the edge of a thirty-foot drop. The nearest tree was far below. He heaved the grenade without a hope of reaching any White near the shore. It arced through open air.

As I awkwardly fished a grenade out of my
Hello Kitty backpack, Murphy’s grenade flashed fire and exploded in the air just above the trees. A thunder crack of sound hit us a fraction of a second later and I understood Murphy’s purpose. Another of his grenades was already in the air.

I tossed a grenade, dropped to a knee and unscrewed my silencer as fast as I could. Once it was off, I started firing ineffectual, but noisy, rounds toward the mass of Whites below. Murphy and I were noisy bait, trying to draw the horde’s attention away from the riverboat.

But my rifle wasn’t the only one firing.

The riverboat erupted in gunfire as Whites climbed through broken oak branches and made their way onto the sloping decks.

Run. Go for the ski boat.

I aimed at Whites on the bow of the boat, but they were so far away. Round after noisy round blazed through the barrel of my rifle. Each seemed to evaporate in the air on the way to their distant targets.

More grenade explosions and then Murphy’s rifle came alive.

Far below us, tempted by our noise, hundreds of the
horde were screaming up the cliff, making their way through the trees. But it wasn’t enough.

Down on the riverboat, three people were climbing to the roof of the pilothouse as a wave of Whites flowed onto the upper deck.

“Jump,” shouted Murphy.

It was
Mandi and Brittany on the pilothouse, followed by slow Russell.

A ski boat with four occupants disconnected from the far side of the boat. It struggled in the current as it slipped fifty, then eighty yards downstream before it came around.
Dalhover’s spidery figure stood in the bow with a rifle at his shoulder, spewing bullets at the Whites on the boat. Amy took up a position beside him and added her weapon to his fire.

Whites were on the ladder up to the pilothouse roof.

Russell stood at the back corner, pushing Brittany behind him as he screamed, face upturned to the clouds. Bravely, Mandi held her ground on the center of the roof and shattered each bald white head with bullets from her gun.

“Jump. Dammit, jump,”
Murphy shouted.

It was thirty feet to the water from up on top, a scary height from which to jump into a violent current.

Please, jump.

I reloaded and emptied another magazine in the direction of the boat. The effort felt frustratingly futile. But I had to do something, and pulling the trigger on my weapon seemed the only thing I could do that had any hope of helping my friends.

Mandi stopped firing and fumbled with a magazine.

Dammit, she should have practiced that
.

Dammit.

Fuck.

Whites were on the roof.

She got another magazine pushed into the receiver on her rifle and fired, but five or six Whites were on the roof by then. Jumping into the water was the only escape, but for some reason, she didn’t see that.

Whites fell in front of her as she pulled the trigger again and again, and again, backing up a step each time the fire shot out of the end of her gun.

Then she was empty and reaching for another magazine.

Murphy howled.

Mandi tried to reload but was instantly overwhelmed.

Horrified, I stopped firing.

Mandi kicked and punched and fought, but too many hands were clawing, too many jaws snapped.

More Whites flowed past the melee. Brittany hugged Russell from behind, burying her face in the small of his back, and then the Whites were on them, too.

For an impossibly long moment, Russell stood firm, as hands tore at his clothes and clawed at his skin, shielding little Brittany. But one grabbed her arm and pulled her away. It seemed the only thing I heard was Russell’s pained scream. The only thing I saw was bloody white skin.

Dalhover
and Amy stopped firing and their boat started to drift down the river. The black clouds rolled over. The wall of rain hit us and hid the world from view. I could barely see a dozen feet in any direction. The wind threatened to blow us off the rock and lightening blazed all around.

With my voice cracking, I said, “We have to go,
Murph.”

I was torn between hunkering down in a safe place or rushing out into the storm—doubling down on futile action, which seemed to be the order of the day—in an effort to go all Null Spot and find Steph and the other survivors from the boat. But Steph was with Dalhover. Dalhover was as smart, resourceful and tough as he was abrasive. Hell, they were all smart, resourceful and tough. I couldn’t offer any help they would need. I chose instead to ride out the storm in the house with all the windows, the one on the ridge where we had parked our Humvee.

The storm blew itself out overnight and the sun rose to clear blue skies and blazing heat. The drought was broken. The heat wasn’t. Autumn should have been knocking on the door, but was tardy.

Murphy, who’d turned into a silent statue of himself, went out on the back deck early that morning and sat. He didn’t eat, though there was plenty of food in the house. He didn’t drink. Most noticeably, he didn’t speak. He stared at the sunrise. He watched the river below. He watched the sun go down later that day. He just sat in his chair and watched the colors of the world change.

I realized that as much as I wanted to go downriver and find
Steph and the others, the person who was most likely to benefit from any help I could give was Murphy. And though I didn’t explicitly do anything to help, Murphy needed time to recover—he loved Mandi. I kept an eye out for him while he stared despondently at nothing and tried to find an open road to pass through his grief.

On the second day, I awoke on the couch in the living room. When I sat up, I saw Murphy standing at the rail on the deck with a box of dry cereal in his hand. I watched for a moment and saw him eat a handful and the concern I’d had the previous day started to fade.

I went outside and took up a position by the rail a few feet to his right. I glanced down at the cereal. He scooped a handful for himself and handed the box to me. It was a little stale after a month in the pantry, but it was better than no breakfast.

Far below us, the water level had dropped, but the current in the river was still running fast. All of the hills had been saturated in the storm and the runoff was filling the creeks, which flowed down to the Colorado River. All up and down the valley, wide swaths of debris, uprooted trees, and demolished houses littered the banks.

“Why don’t we ever see any normal people?” Murphy asked, eyes wandering over the flood destruction below.

For a few long minutes, I thought about that. Or I thought about what I should say about what had happened two days before. “Are you all right?”

Murphy nodded, turned to me and put on his familiar smile, but his smile was alone on his face. His eyes were sad and angry.

In the absence of an answer, I leaned on the rail and looked at the wall of
trees growing just outside the backyard fence. Nothing was moving but branches swaying in the wind. We had no infected company that could be seen. “You know, Murphy. I admire you in a lot of ways.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re Murphy.”

No response.

“Do you remember that day when we went to your mom’s house?”

“Have you ever tried to cheer somebody up before, Zed? ‘Cause you’re not very good at it.”

“I’m not trying to cheer you up, Murphy.”

“My mistake.”

“I know it’s hard, what happened the other day.”

“Yep.” Sitting on the rail on the other side of Murphy was a coffee cup. Murphy picked it up and took a sip.

“I can’t imagine how hard it is for you to smile when you do, when the world just wants to be a big fucked up mess.”

Murphy didn’t say anything about that. Something down in the river seemed to have grabbed his attention and wouldn’t let go.

“What I’m saying is, I’m with you, no matter what you need to do. You want to stay here and stare at the walls, I’m here with you. You want to go downriver, I’m there with you. If you need to cry about it, I won’t shame you for it.”

“Big boys don’t cry.”

“Everybody who’s still alive cries. It might be the only thing that keeps us human.”

Murphy nodded and watched as a couple of mockingbirds swooped into the backyard,
aerobatically chasing a grasshopper.

I figured I’d try humor. “You know, I already went online and ordered my What Would Murphy Do bracelet.” I smiled. “Don’t let me down, man.”

Murphy chose to answer. “You know what Murphy would do?”

“No.”

“Murphy would kill some Whites. Murphy needs to kill some fucking Whites.”

We said nothing for a long time.

To have Murphy wholly invested in my plan to slaughter Smart Ones was one of my goals. But the cost he paid, we paid, for that was too high. Hell, we didn’t yet know the full cost. Steph, Dalhover, Amy and Megan had all gone down the flooding river with the current. Who knew if they’d found a safe place or drowned?

Could it be they all died?

The thought sent a grievously sharp pang through my heart.

Thinking about all of that while the sun slowly rose in the late morning sky, I asked about something that had been bothering me. “Is this all my fault?”

Murphy shook his head and looked disappointed. “Self-pity?”

“No.” I looked up at him. “If we’d been there with them instead of going off and chasing across town, would it have turned out differently? Could we have saved them?” It wasn’t self-pity. I really wondered. I needed to know if I was making bad choices that were hurting people.

“As much as I’d like to blame you for dragging me off, Zed, as much as I’d love to punch you in the head until I felt better, I know I might as well go out there and punch a tree trunk. What happened wasn’t anybody’s fault. Nobody knew God was gonna drop a Noah flood on us. Nobody knew the anchor line was gonna break. After that happened, nobody could have done anything. Maybe if we’d been there, the outcome would have been different. Maybe we’d both be dead now. Maybe all of us would be.”

Did that make me feel better, blaming it all on random circumstance?

“We need to go downriver and see if we can find the others,” Murphy said.

I nodded and looked downriver. “Thanks. I need to know if they made it.”

Murphy looked at me. He knew I was mostly talking about Steph. “Seems the only way we’re gonna know for sure is to hike down there and find something that’ll still float. That’s the only way to get downriver that makes sense. Do you remember which boat they took?”

The picture of
Dalhover and Steph firing from the bow of that boat was etched into my memory but the painful memory that followed. “Yep. It was the Malibu with the black hull.”

Changing the subject, Murphy pointed down to where the riverboat had run aground. “It’s gone.”

I looked down the length of river visible from our perch. Just to keep the conversation going, I said, “Do you think it sank, or washed down?”

Murphy shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“I don’t see any Whites down there anywhere.”

“Maybe they’re afraid to come out.”

“Should we test out these silencers to make sure they work like we hoped, before we put ourselves in a situation where we’re depending on them?”

“Might want to. When we get down there, we could shoot some Whites from the boat and see what the others do.”

“But they’ll be able to see us. It might be the visual cue of the gun will be enough to set them off. Hell, just them seeing us in the boat will be enough.”

“What do you think, then?”