Green Fields (Book 4): Extinction (33 page)

Nate cleared his throat, drawing my attention back to him.

“Keep us updated. But until further notice I’m not sure all of that will really concern us. Can’t say I’ve developed a fondness for getting scrutinized by the cowards behind their fences. If we can touch down here every couple of weeks to recharge, I’m more than okay with taking on more interesting contracts than the odd mail run.” Not that we’d done that so far, but I agreed with him.

Rita shrugged, although she seemed annoyed at what came damn close to a dismissal from Nate. “Have you looked at our blackboard yet? There are probably a few tasks up there that might strike your fancy.”

“Already got a new contract,” he told her.

Her brows shot up. “You’ve barely been here for twenty-four hours.”

“Got everything covered that needed doing,” he said, his eyes briefly skipping over to me. “Besides, I’m afraid that if we stay much longer, half of my gang will need liver transplants.” Any warm and fuzzy feelings that might have come up inside of me were immediately quenched. Yes, I’d gotten wasted, but not that wasted. I also had no intention whatsoever to come close to any sort of alcohol any time soon.

Rita seemed as irritated as I was, if for a different reason, I was sure. “Why, what did you snag up?”

“The guys over at the Silo want some specimens. For research. Might as well do the delivery if we would have gone after them in the first place.”

“Specimens, huh?” Jason remarked. “Need some help?”

Nate gave a grunt that could have meant anything. “I think that your guys could do with a few days more rest. But of course I won’t say no. I’ll leave it up to you. If you’re afraid out there on your own, we can always pick you up on the way back.”

Jason’s laugh made me smile, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise when he declined.

“Not sure how you manage to run such a tight ship that your people won’t revolt if you don’t give them at least half a week here, but my guys have already told me in no uncertain terms that they’re not moving out until Rita here kicks us out.”

“Then you better bug down for a nice extended vacation,” Rita practically purred. I wondered if I should mention in passing how—and, more importantly, with whom—Jason had spent the night, but who was I to instigate a cat fight that would likely end in a death match?

There was some more debating going on about the details of what the traders wanted in the new treaties, but seeing as none of that concerned us, I was ready to beat it. Nate seemed to agree, yet before we could take our leave, Rita held us back. She looked conflicted, which was enough to set my teeth on edge, but when she spoke up, it was with concern rather than spite.

“Take care out there, will you?” When she caught my surprised look, she laughed. “Seriously, I don’t know what to make of you. Either you got balls the size of pineapples, or you’re completely insane.”

That made me shrug. “Probably a little bit of both?”

She snorted. “Either way, what Aldo said before is true. We have lost an alarming number of people over the past couple of weeks, and I’m not sure if it’s really related to the streaks migrating northward. With at least one group that I know of, I’m positive that they were in a territory that’s been quiet for months. Should have been a milk run.” She paused, then shook her head at something that must be bothering her. “Maybe this sounds crazy, but I’m starting to think that it’s not a coincidence that a lot of the groups that bite it out there have girls with them.”

“Come again?” I asked, wondering if this was going to be the next jibe at my lack of proper military training.

“And it’s not just the scavengers and traders,” she went on, ignoring my protest. “Jason mentioned that two of the girls in one of the settlements that they keep dropping in are missing, too. Sure, they might have run away, but one of them had a younger sister that she never would have left behind, least of all without telling her so. I’ve been asking around, and a few of the guys mentioned that they didn’t see some of their temporary sweethearts, either.”

“Temporary sweethearts?” That one was too good not to ask for clarification.
 

I got a glare from her in return. “Whores. Lost that last bit of smarts at the bottom of a bottle last night?”

It was insanely amusing to see Nate tense at that. Clearly, he was the only one allowed to insult my lack of control. How adorable.

“You think that’s connected?” he asked.

Rita shrugged. “You know the stats, right? Even in the large settlements, we have more men than women left. Sure, whoever we lose is sorely missed. But if they have tits and a womb, the impact is twice as grave.” A hard twist came to her lips. “We all know that neither I nor Little Miss Science Geek here will contribute anything to the propagation of the species. It’s in all our best interest to take good care of those women who will.”

Nate considered for a moment but then nodded. “I get your point. But why would anyone be targeting women? Every guy with two brain cells left knows that harems are only appealing in theory. Throw any three women into a lot together and expect to get eviscerated by them sooner or later.”

“My guess is as good as yours,” she admitted. “But while you get to go out there and have some fun, it’s my duty to take care of my people. All of my people. Not just those getting drunk here night after night. Like it or not, but I care.” She let that sink in for a moment. “Well, if you really want to leave today, you better get ready now. Our extended parameter reaches almost fifty miles now, so it should be safe to camp in that area. Outside of that you’re on your own.”

Nate gave her a dazzling smile. “Just as we like it.”

I didn’t quite get how that was a hit that landed, but she turned around without saying another word, just leaving it at a small nod to me. I looked after her but decided that I really didn’t have to know everything.

“So you won’t let me sleep my hangover off here? Bastard,” I grunted.

“Should have thought of that before you got wasted,” Nate advised as he turned toward our camp. Looking at the cars, it was evident that Pia had already broken the good news to everyone. We looked about ready to move out.

“Any chance I can still swing by the market and pick up something? That woman at the pastry stall pretty much made me promise to come back at least once.”

He considered, stopping for a moment to let an ATV zoom by. “Take Burns and Romanoff with you. Might as well pick up some additional provisions. While I’m not saying I don’t trust those guys at the Silo, there’s no guessing how long it will take to hunt down and kill us some super zombies. At least we won’t be starving in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir,” I drawled, giving him a bright smile when he flipped me off. At least I was getting my baklava. That was more than I could have wished for a couple of weeks ago. And I should probably swing by the Girls one more time, too, unless I wanted to get pelted with paintballs next time around.

Our trek across the country to the Silo was less eventful than I’d expected. Except maybe for the four days we spent trying not to get slaughtered while we did some scouting, maneuvering, diverting, and hunting. It was almost scary how we rose to meet our new task in life. Yet after taking well over twenty super zombies out, we had to accept defeat—none of them looked tampered with, and while they were all hard to kill, they weren’t like the ones around Harristown. We contemplated trying to hunt for one of the streaks next, but after a short yet heated debate decided not to. Pia was right when she said that it wasn’t worth it. Twice we’d gotten away clean. Tempting fate a third time was just plain stupid. Andrej pointed out that if anyone really wanted one of the stronger ones, they could always send us after them if something like with Harristown happened again. Should my paranoid suspicions that Harristown had been some kind of dry run turn out to be true, something similar would occur again. It stood to reason that in the event of that happening, we should not take that contract, but for now, packing dismembered super zombie pieces away was enough of a task for us. We ended up filling ten boxes and three trunks worth of trash bags as it was. No one could claim that we weren’t diligent about trying.

Tamara hadn’t been kidding when she’d warned us that on our own we would never have found our destination. Montana had never been known to be a particularly densely populated state. Now, it was empty. Oh, we saw our fair share of wildlife enjoying the balmy weather that a brief cold front brought, but if there were more than a thousand shamblers left in the entire state I’d eat my boot. I’d so gotten used to the overall destruction the Midwest had suffered that seeing everything mostly intact here, if slowly falling into disrepair, was alien. Roads, where they had been flooded, didn’t bear any tire tracks. There was not a hint of decay in the wind. After the hell of Harristown and the chaos of Dispatch, it was a calm, if somewhat desolate, oasis.
 

If we’d wanted to just drop off the face of the earth, here we could have done so in a heartbeat.

The only sign that things weren’t quite back to how they had been before humans had populated the area was that we still had a radio signal, patchy sometimes but for the most part strong enough to keep checking in with Dispatch. We made it to the foothills of the Rockies easily on our own, and then we followed the directions that Nate had jotted down. So close to the mountains the land reminded me of Wyoming, but then we could have dropped by our folks at the bunker with just a few days’ deviation. After Nate’s explanation of why our exodus had met virtually no protest in the end, I wasn’t too keen on reconnecting with Emma and the others.

It was mid-afternoon when Nate told me to take a right turn—and there was no road to turn into, just a meadow with increasingly higher grass. No signs, no ruts, no nothing. Just the lone fir tree standing apart from the thicket behind it.

“Think that’s it?” I asked, unable to keep my skepticism in check.

Nate shrugged. “Says so here.” He glanced at his notes again. “Tamara warned us not to roam too far off-course. They supposedly got half of the entry vectors mined.”

“Remind you of someone?”
 

The corner of his mouth perked up. “Not in a bad way.”

There was no ditch that could have wrecked the car, so I went ahead and angled the Rover across the field and around the tree. Still no ruts, but there was a gap in the vegetation that let me breach the cover of the trees. In a car less suited for this terrain it would have been impossible to go on, but I managed, if at a rocking crawl. The others followed, the trees soon swallowing our entire column.

About half a mile later the forest thinned, opening up into a much larger, sprawling meadow. I was almost surprised to find two buildings, a house and a barn, smack in the middle of it. There was also a square of asphalt connecting the two, but no road leading there that I could see. Both looked just as any other building we’d passed, with the paint peeling in places and the windows gone blind from a year—or decades—of no one being around to clean them.

“This is creepy,” I noted as I let the car roll toward the house, not making a move to increase the speed but trying to take in as much of the open space as I could. “Do you see anyone around?”

“Nope,” Nate said, sounding more annoyed than puzzled. “But I’m sure that they are watching us.”

“Did you see a lookout?”

He shook his head. “No. But one of the last trees had scrape marks where a camera could have been attached.”

“Or a rabid squirrel had the time of its life,” I suggested, but doubted that he was wrong.

We reached the asphalt patch, gravel crunching under the tires as grass gave way to harder ground. Still nothing. “Where to?” I asked.

“Park in front of the barn.”

I did. Still nothing. We waited until the other cars had come to a stop behind us before Nate got out, looking around. I followed, leaving my shotgun in the rack. If they really had mines everywhere and surveillance cameras up in the trees, they might not react well to us brandishing firearms like a bunch of lunatics. Then again, like supposedly flocked to like, and we weren’t the ones who had hunkered down in a decommissioned missile silo.

A whirring sound, followed by mechanical grating, made me whip around. Across the asphalt, hidden by the grass, must have been some kind of trap door because a lone figure suddenly appeared from the ground, walking up a flight of stairs. He—the bulk underneath his gear made it plain that it was a man—scrutinized us, his rifle at ease but ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He scanned the surroundings quickly before he focused on us, stepping closer but remaining at a comfortable distance.

“You got a delivery for us?” he called across the lot.

I felt a hint of unease creep up my spine, wondering if this was going to be the next instance of us being left outside of the gates.

“We do,” Nate replied simply, seemingly completely at ease as he stretched.
 

The guy jerked his chin at the house. “We have our decontamination chamber in there and the cargo elevator that leads into the labs. If you could bring everything over, that would be great.”

He didn’t move, but a moment later the door of the house creaked open, revealing two figures in bright yellow hazmat suits. Seeing that made my brows shoot up, but the soldier was quick to reassure us. “Not because of you. But they can get pretty anal about biosafety procedures. Guess that comes with the territory when you spend over eight months trying to set up a proper lab in a glorified maintenance closet.”

I didn’t know exactly what to make of that, and I was more than happy to just watch as Nate, Burns, and Andrej got busy lugging over the sacks and boxes containing the rotting remains we’d reduced the zombies to. The hazmat suit troupe even had a lab trolley ready where everything was piled on quickly, before they retreated back into the building, decisively closing the door in our faces.

“Any of you injured?” the soldier asked. “Or need a trip through the bleach bath? If not, please follow me. The hangar’s below the barn.”