A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

Even though Taryn couldn’t hear the soldiers’
black guns, her intuition told her what the recurring winks of
orange meant. The men were shooting at the creatures, and in
response the creatures were falling left and right.

Good guys or bad guys?
She didn’t know
what to do. The sobs came in waves and her body convulsed. She
expelled a long drawn out sigh, took a deep breath, and then
emitted a guttural soul shuddering sound into her clenched
fists.

Fearing that her outburst had summoned
Richard and the gang but too afraid to look, she remained out of
sight and scrutinized the chipped black polish on her nails. The
fact that Dickless hadn’t hassled her over
them
was a
mystery that died with him. Beads of sweat rolled from her face
forming a tiny pool on the carpet an inch from her nose. Finally
she summoned the courage, raised her head, and stole another look.
The lone man had made his way to the fuel trucks and it appeared
that he was being attacked by three of the monsters.

Taryn sighed as she came to the realization
she wasn’t wired for this, and now having lost the distraction
provided by the soldiers it was too late to bolt for the revolving
doors and try to get home.

She heard the footfalls of the dead once
again climbing the stairway to her own personal hell on earth. She
had exiled herself in her dead boss’s office, was down to her last
Luna Bar, and nearly out of water.
What a way to die
, she
thought.

Chapter 20

Outbreak - Day 11

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Except for beginning his search at the bar
where Heidi worked, Daymon had no clear idea how he was going to
find his girl. Filled more with fear than hope, he stepped out of
the quiet old building and into the mid-morning sun. And since he
had already poked around the Firehouse the day before, checking
every crack and crevice and finding it completely empty, he locked
the thick iron door on the way out, hoping to keep it that way.

Lu Lu was out front right where he had left
her, blocking the immense roll up doors and the relic of a fire
engine contained within.
What the hell
, Daymon thought.
Someone, Police Chief Jenkins he presumed, had spray painted a
large letter E on the Scouts’ driver’s side door. The amateur job,
complete with rivulets of black paint that had run down and dripped
on the concrete before drying, made Lu Lu look like an entrant in
some rural demolition derby. In disbelief, he skirted the truck
noting that the passenger door had also been tagged with the same
hastily applied markings.

Daymon shook his head.
What’s next?
Tattoos on the inner forearm?
The bad vibe he was feeling in
Jackson Hole was so strong that he almost wished he would have
stayed aboard the Black Hawk piloted by the crazy flyboy Duncan and
gone ahead to Eden instead of being dropped off in Driggs.
Furthermore, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he might
have traded one type of prison for another. Though he never told
Duncan, the need to leave Schriever and find Heidi easily overrode
every other impulse. Besides, he could never see himself
acclimating to the structured nature of life on the Air Force Base,
nor getting used to the cramped quarters and razor wire topped
fencing which only heightened his claustrophobia.

Jackson Hole, on the other hand, had seemed
like a no brainer. That was all before Chief Jenkins filled him in
on this New America nonsense.

I hope this thing heals before I have to
leave this place in the rearview
, he thought to himself,
wincing with each twist of his torso as he folded his lanky body
into the truck.

As he backed Lu Lu into the street, two
tadpole-looking helicopters tore up the air overhead. He watched as
they gained altitude, climbing steeply, and then continued on a
northwest heading towards the Teton Pass roadblock thousands of
feet above the valley floor. He could have sworn the all black
aircraft bore the same red and white flag as he had seen on the
black Humvees in Driggs and the lone Hummer at the Teton Pass the
day before. A sense of foreboding fell over him as he processed how
many obstacles stood in the way of him
ever
reuniting with
Heidi.

To keep his rubbernecking to a minimum and
remain as inconspicuous as possible he practiced moving only his
eyes as he drove the streets of Jackson. Except for the lack of
tourists who usually wandered the streets at this hour in search of
a morning cup of Joe, everything about downtown remained virtually
the same.

He turned right and wheeled down Main Street
which was deserted save for a couple of tanned men busy preening
and watering the colorful wildflowers bursting from their planter
boxes. One of the men looked up from his chore, furrowed his brow,
and shot him an angry contempt filled glare.

What the fuck did I do to you hombre
,
Daymon thought as the glitzy Silver Dollar sign redirected his
attention from the budding resentment. His longtime girlfriend had
been lead bartender there year round since cracking the rotation a
number of years ago. The money was so good that nobody left
willingly. Usually when a position opened up at the hot downtown
night spot—someone had either died or screwed up and gotten fired.
Old Earl, who had helmed the Dollar from behind the bar for more
than three decades, died the victim of a massive coronary at the
age of sixty-nine doing what he loved. Earl’s unfortunate demise
opened up the much sought after full time position for Heidi and
she had been there since.

Steeling himself against the disappointment
he was certain to experience, Daymon set his jaw and nosed Lu Lu
into the curb.

Ignoring the blinking
time expired
warning on the solar powered parking meter he set a course for the
cowhide-swathed door. Using only his body weight and not his core
muscles, he pushed on the steer horn door handle and discovered the
Silver Dollar Cowboy Bar unlocked.
Strange
, he thought. The
bar thrived on late night business and wasn’t usually open this
early. “Hello, anyone in here?”

Golden dust motes hovered in the air, which
Daymon noticed lacked the usual stale beer, bleach tinged, mop
water odor usually prevalent after a
wham bam
night at the
Silver Dollar Cowboy Bar. The rowdy honkytonk, which was located
conveniently within staggering distance of the handful of hotels
and motels peppering downtown Jackson Hole, was the place to see
and be seen in the tourist town. Why it was open during the zombie
apocalypse baffled him.

Daymon ran his hand over the richly lacquered
bar top admiring the embedded silver coins before giving it a
couple of sharp raps. “
Hellooo, anyone in here?
” he
yelled.

A hollow thump sounded from underneath the
counter. Then a man hinged up, massaging the back of his head. He
fumbled in his pockets, produced a pair of bifocals, and donned
them as he spoke. “Just me...
the owner
... doing a little
refrigeration work. I woulda called someone in to fix it, but
seeing as how the phones don’t work and all of my employees are
gone...” The sixty-something, barrel chested man stopped
mid-sentence and paused for a beat, “Daymon! Well, well... what a
sight for sore eyes. I had a feeling I’d served you your last beer.
What’ll you be havin’?”

“Whatever you’re pouring, Gerald,” Daymon
answered as he put his boot in the stirrup and carefully bellied up
to the bar. Festooned with too many Morgan silver dollars to count,
the bar top ran the length of the building, finally wrapping around
like a corral encircling the well-worn mechanical bull. It was
rumored among the locals that a million of the antique silver
dollars were used to decorate the saloon and restaurant. Although a
little small to accommodate a man of his length for any duration,
he still got a kick out of the real leather saddles that served as
bar seating.

Emanating from the airspace above the Silver
Dollar, Daymon recognized the unmistakable sound of the little
black helicopters as they buzzed the city center low and fast. He
looked at the hewn timber ceiling and listened to the rotor noise
pass from left to right.

Gerald hitched up his pants and cleared his
throat. “Since you’re an
Essential—
how about a few fingers
of Knob Creek?” he said with a nod and a conspiratorial wink.

Daymon noted that the word ‘
Essential
’
didn’t come easy to Gerald. Then a light bulb popped inside of his
head.
The stenciled E on Lu Lu stands for Essential.
He felt
like a dumbass and a little foolish for not realizing earlier the
reason he was on the receiving end of so many dirty looks. Hell,
the only two vehicles he encountered had given Lu Lu the right of
way on the road and that hadn’t registered either. Still he
remained extremely pissed off that Lu Lu had been desecrated during
the night.
How did I not put two and two together?
Then
after a couple of heartbeats he answered, “Knob Creek is
better
than perfect.”

“Now son—two fingers is
neat
...not
perfect
,” Gerald said emitting a wheeze tinged laugh.

Daymon tented his fingers and put his elbows
on the bar top. “As long as it’s wet and it helps me forget.” Then
he smiled—probably for the first time since the smart ass Duncan
dropped him off in Driggs.

Daymon watched the owner-cum-repairman,
cum-bartender stretch on his tip toes to retrieve the square bottle
from the top shelf.

“I presume you are looking for Heidi,” Gerald
said as he poured four fingers of the tawny amber bourbon into a
tumbler. “And I have a feeling that what I’m about to tell you
isn’t going to sit well,” he added as he slid the glass to
Daymon.

Over drinks in the dimly lit bar Gerald
recounted how one of Robert Christian’s
recruiters
came to
the bar at closing the Monday after the outbreak. “So this little
guy — along with a couple of rough looking fellas... all armed of
course...” Gerald raised his bushy eyebrows an inch. “They weren’t
soldiers yet they openly carried automatic weapons... you’ve seen
‘em... the kind with all of the doo dads attached. Like in the
movies you know. Then Flat face... that’s the little one—he puts
his pistol on the bar top like he’s Billy the Kid in an old western
saloon. Then the little roach”—holding his hand near his chin—“he
looks up at me and says he’s
borrowing
all of my lady
servers for a party at the
House
. You know the place on
the—”

Not wanting Gerald to waste more words than
necessary Daymon interrupted, “Yeah... I know the place. That movie
star’s
palace
on the hill—whatever happened to Mr.
Action
Flick
anyway?”

“I hope the joker ended up a meal for one of
his former fans. What a sight that woulda been,” Gerald wheezed.
“But I digress. That party wasn’t thrown by the Tinsel Town Turd. A
fella named Robert Christian—real big money guy from Atlanta. He
took over Jackson a couple days after the outbreak.”

“Was Heidi one of the girls they
kidnapped
?” Daymon asked.

Avoiding direct eye contact, Gerald looked
past Daymon towards the front door. “I’m sorry Daymon,” he said
running his fingers, thick and calloused from years of honest work,
through his hair.

“Why didn’t anyone try to stand up to him?”
spat Daymon.

“He had more men and a helluva lot more
firepower than Chief Jenkins—and all of the other officers
combined,” Gerald said in a near whisper. “Some of the boys down at
the VFW hall... they talked about starting an organized resistance
but Bishop got wind of it and had them all beaten within an inch of
their lives. Freddy Joe, you know him. He
was
the bomber
pilot from the big one—he died from the beatin’ they gave him.”

Seething Daymon said, “
That’s fucked
!
Freddy beats the odds. He survives thirty over Hitler’s Germany
without buying it and then some opportunist pricks murder him?”

“Chief Jenkins could do nothing about it
either. And then after Fred Joe died... that broke their back. The
rest of the guys—they lost the spirit to even
discuss
the NA
in public.”

The building shook once again from the bass
heavy sound of rotors thrashing the air as another low flying
helicopter transited the airspace over the city’s center. This one
sounded different—
larger
—Daymon noted.

After a minute the noisy chopper faded into
the distance and Daymon finished his thought. “The veterans meant
well—but
really
what did they think they were going to be
able to do against men armed with weapons like you describe? Now
that’s just one country boy’s opinion. I have a gut feeling it’s
going to take some real badasses to get rid of the dudes.”

“What’s the number for SEAL Team Six?” Gerald
said only half joking. “I know it’s not in
my
Rolodex.”

I know a few badasses
, Daymon thought
to himself.
Unfortunately their number isn’t in my Rolodex
either
. “If you ask me, I think the city is as dead as the
walkers. A fuckin’ shame too. You know... once I find Heidi... I’m
getting the fuck out. Pardon the cursing sir—”

“Heard it before, Daymon,” Gerald proffered
as he downed his Knob Creek.

Thinking the walls might have ears, Daymon
waited a tick before speaking. Then he cast his eyes towards the
rafters trying to decide how much he wanted to say. “If the Police
Chief and his men couldn’t stop the bad guys... then I don’t know
how this place is ever going to get out from under their thumb. And
when I spoke to Jenkins yesterday he seemed
overwhelmed
—to
say the least. Those storm troopers sure have him spooked.”