Reavers (Z-Risen Series Book 4) (3 page)

13:45 hours approximate

Location: The Deadlands of CA

When we left the safe house, Diane hopped in the back and sat next to me, crunching me into the middle. Frosty sat up and pushed her head between us so I could scratch her ears. Diane rubbed Frosty as well, assuring the dog that they could be buddies. I didn’t bother telling her that since she’d given Frosty food, the dog was now her new best friend.

Diane stared outside as the Escalade buzzed along a couple of roads. The driver seemed to know this area well, and chose backroads over larger four-lanes.

“Remember when it took thirty minutes to get out of a town during rush hour? Now it can take three times longer if you don’t know the lay of the land,” Diane mused.

Frosty tried to crawl up into Diane’s lap, which was amusing in its own right. The dog was big enough to take up half the seat by herself. She petted the dog and told her she was pretty, which was funny considering the mutt had scars, tan and yellow tufts of hair and generally looked like she was a reject from a puppy mill.

“Not really. I spent a lot of my last few years at sea or in foreign ports.”

“Must have been nice. I always wanted to travel.” Diane said.

“You a merchant seaman?” Douglas asked from the front seat.

“I was in the Navy,” I said.

“I did a stint in the National Guard when I was a kid. I hated it,” Douglas said.

“Now you have your new group, Reavers. Interesting name.”

“We didn’t pick it,” Diane said. “It’s not a pretty world out there. Zombies in every building, filling the streets, and meanwhile the US Government is at a loss as to how to contain. Remember all the news feeds when the virus first hit? How it broke out in a few cities overnight? How did that happen?” Diane asked.

“I was out to sea when it happened, so I missed the outbreak. We rolled up on shore a week or so after the shit hit the fan. San Diego was already overrun. We managed to hide and move north, but it wasn’t easy. What we’ve heard about the first few days doesn’t amount to much. Rumor and speculation mostly,” I said.

“Nice that you and your sister found each other and got out of the city,” Diane said, but her tone didn’t say anything about how nice it was. She sounded a little bit hostile.

We needed to maintain the illusion that we were together because we were family. No sense in going down the rabbit hole of how we had been stuck with a Marine, not to mention Anna, a member of Bright Star. If they found out about our association, I doubted we’d be welcomed with open arms.

But I knew the look that Diane had just given me. She thought Christy was some kind of companion to me, the kind that doesn’t have a choice. Christy was the best, truly like a kid sister, and she was a teenager to boot. I’d protected her from day one, and didn’t plan to ever stop. Not only that, but she’d saved my ass on more than one occasion.

“So you all got together and decided it was time to protect the world from Bright Star?” I changed the subject.

“Not really,” Douglas looked over his shoulder. “Little more complicated. Rumors persisted at the start of the outbreak that a terrorist organization had unleashed something. Then those rumors turned into grumblings as the virus spread--grumblings that there was more at work than just a terrorist group. Who has that kind of technology, anyway? That shit’s the stuff of thrillers and bad SyFy Channel movies.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Not sure, but there was a period of time when Bright Star were suspected of being the architects of the virus. Something that got out by accident.”

“How does something like that get out by accident, at multiple locations, and at the same time and how about the fact that barely anyone’s heard of Bright Star before a few months ago?”

“Million dollar question,” he said.

“So no one knows where the virus originated from nor how to stop it. That’s just fucking great,” I mumbled the last part.

“Does it really matter anymore? Most of the US is dead and shambling around looking for flesh. Parts of the world are rumored to be virus-free, but how long can that last? Once the US economy collapsed, the rest of the world wasn’t far behind. Last I heard, you could take a wheelbarrow full of Euros and buy a loaf of bread. Just like the end of World War I,” Steve interjected.

Douglas fired up the SUV and we pulled out of the parking lot. He checked a map and then eyed a street sign. The vehicle sped up and poked along abandoned roads for a few minutes.

I picked out figures behind drawn curtains. Zs roamed the streets in small groups, but most gave us no notice.

“This has been great and all, food, a free ride, and getting intimate with the little strip search. Lemme guess, you guys used to work for TSA.”

Diane chuckled.

“Nothing wrong with being overly cautious,” Steve said from the driver’s seat.

“Guess not. So now that we’ve checked each other out, are you indicating that we're welcome with open arms into your little utopia?" I asked.

"First of all, it's no utopia. We work. We only accept people who are skilled, and by skilled I mean good at stuff other than bashing in heads," Steve nodded at my pipe wrench.

“I was an engineer,” I said.

“Great. We got enough pencil pushers.”

“No. I was in the Navy and I used to work on big engines. I also worked on our desalinization plant, so I can turn salty water into clean water with the right equipment and chemicals,” I said.

“That’s interesting. Not that we have easy access to sea water, but it’s an option we can consider. We’ll get you checked in, and if you work out, great, if not, no hard feelings.”

“No hard feelings, like a bullet to the head?” I asked.

“Christ, man. We’re not fucking savages. We’d send you on your way with a sack lunch and a handshake. Just don’t take it personal. Every person on site has a clearly-defined job, and if you don’t fit in, then have a nice life. Just don’t fuck with us in the future.”

I chewed on that for a second. Did I really want to get stuck with a bunch of farmers who were interested in the future of mankind? My future of late involved looking for a place to hide, scrounging food, and shooting things in the head.

“I’ll be honest. I’m sick to death of constantly looking over my back, hiding, running, scrambling for guns and food. I’ve had enough of this apocalypse. I’d love a place to call home.”

Christy looked at me. “What about…”

“I know. We left friends back there, or maybe they left us. We’ll probably never see them again. We have to do what’s right to survive,” I said. As far as motivational speeches went, it was nothing stellar.

I bit my tongue and hoped they didn’t ask too many questions. It was fine to mention we’d had companions, but that’s all these folks needed to know.

Christy clammed up and lowered herself back into the seat. She crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t say another word for a while.

I got it. She was worried about Anna and Joel. Not to mention Roz. The last time we’d seen her, she was in the back of a truck, and having suffered an attack at the hands of a shuffler, she’d been a bloody mess.

But what concerned me was the fact that she had been acting weird, not to mention vomiting up food and blood after the attack. I didn’t want to speculate on what form of virus the shuffler might have infected her with. She hadn’t turned while we were all together, so there was still hope.

Where was she now? I wanted to go back for them.
All
of them. I was mad at Joel, but maybe he had a reason for deserting us. We’d had strong words with each other, and I'd thought for a minute I’d been looking into the eyes of an enemy, but I'd understood: his girl was hurt, and he was doing everything he could to find help.

We crossed at least one main road and then shot across an empty four-way stop. They cut across another street and entered a rural area that was all small buildings, restaurants, and apartments. They drew up in front of a church that had been half-burned to the ground. The other half was covered in soot and ash, but still stood, including most of a cross on what had been a white tower. They pulled around to the back of the structure, but not before Steve hopped out and moved a few shrubs aside. This revealed a path that was well-worn. The driveway allowing access to the back was all bumpy dirt, so Douglas took it slow.

The SUV came to a stop a few seconds later as Douglas picked his way over holes and drove over a bunch of standing water. Steve stayed behind and covered the entryway, then jogged to catch up with us.

The back of the church butted up to a few houses and was surrounded by sequoias. A car was parked at an angle that would allow a quick exit from the location.

The men poked their heads into the back of the broken wall and called softly. They exchanged looks, and Diane stiffened in her seat.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I think so,” she said. “I hope so.”

Steve carried a handgun--a 9mm, if I’d had to guess. Once again, Joel Kelly's influence on me over the last few months shone through. From the second Steve had pulled the gun, I'd started to think about magazine capacity and caliber.

Douglas carried what looked like an MP5, but the profile was a little off. I studied the gun and wondered what it was. Diane had tucked Christy’s snub-nosed revolver, and my favorite gun--my Springfield XDM--into her backpack, and had placed it in the rear of the vehicle, nestled among a variety of gear. I looked in the rear of the SUV and wished the weapons were in my hand instead of stashed away. I caught sight of a couple of tents, sleeping bags, and a portable cooker.

“Everything okay?” I asked Diane.

She stared out the window and didn’t seem to hear me or just pretended not to.

“Diane?” I asked.

She spun and looked at me in surprise. Then her expression softened.

“Sorry, I zoned out for a moment.”

“It’s cool. I zone out a lot. I’m good at it. When I worked on the ship I knew how to take a nap standing up,” I said.

“How do you sleep standing up?” Christy asked.

“You work for three days in a row without sleep and then you just sort of find a corner, lean against a wall, close your eyes, and sleep,” I said.

It was true. We’d once done an operational readiness at sea for a week. I was on port and starboard duty, but during my off shift I still had to work. I’d figured out how to grab a clipboard to log readings, find a place with little foot traffic, and take my standing nap.

“During the first few days of the apocalypse I barely slept,” Diane said. “I’d doze, but it was like every single noise, every single pop or crack, I was convinced it would bring a zombie. I was so tired I was seeing things.”

“I still see things,” Christy said. “I see my brother with the Zs. I dream about him chasing me down and eating me while I scream his name and beg him to stop.”

“Jesus, Christy. I didn’t know,” I said.

“In time you’ll…” Diane didn’t finish, because someone smashed into the door.

I’m not going to lie. The three of us screamed in unison. Now, in a horror movie, this would be the part where one of your friends was fucking around and trying to scare you. This wasn’t a horror movie.

The Z had attached itself to Douglas’s back, and rode him like a bizarre game of chicken fight. Douglas swung around and slammed into the side of the car. He reeled away, Diane right behind him. She came out of the passenger side, gun raised, before I could even catch my breath.

Another Z chased Steve, who fell backward, landed on his butt and fired into the air. The rotter was dressed in black, and its head was a mass of wounds. It fell on Steve and drove him to the ground, putrid hands reaching for his head, mouth looking for his neck.

Three more shambled out of the building, and that’s when I snapped out of it. I didn’t know these guys from Adam, but they didn’t seem like the tightest group of Z hunters I’d ever come across. On the other hand, I’d had the shit scared out of me by sneaky Zs more than once in the last few weeks.

I fell out behind Diane. She advanced on Douglas, drawing her sidearm.

The Z that was on Douglas was a big one. He had the tattoos of a surfer riding high on his formerly body-sculpted frame. Short blonde hair stained a shade of dark blood didn’t add to his looks. His face--probably tanned and looking photoshopped back in the day--was now a mass of bite marks. Part of his nose was missing, and teeth shone through a hole in his cheek.

Diane lifted the gun, but didn’t fire, for fear of hitting Douglas.

The older man struggled to get out from under the Z. He got his arm up, locked it under the surfer’s chin and pushed, but the man had weight on his side.

I pushed Diane away, grabbed the dude, and hauled him off Douglas. He flopped to the ground, and stared at me with milk-white eyes.

“Shoot him, I’ll help Steve,” I said.

Steve at least had his gun out, but he fired it in a panic. The round struck the Z in the gut,--a woman in her twenties--and stopped her momentum. She flailed her arms and knocked the weapon down. Steve took a step back and fired again, but this shot wasn’t anywhere near her head. She reached for him and got ahold of his shirt. He batted at her arm, but she had a strong grip.