Текст книги "The Darkest Place"

Автор книги: James N. Cook

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

FIFTY-ONE

We marched parallel to I-25 until we reached a road that ran under a highway overpass. It was early morning. The yellow circle of the sun was hazy and muted behind a gauze of powdery gray clouds. A bracing chill in the air kept us cool as we set a hard pace.

Rojas marched ahead of me as we turned off the highway and followed an access road up the slope of the Rampart Range. The altitude increased sharply for half a mile, then the lead squad turned right onto another road marked by a green sign gilded with ornate black ironwork, reading Aspen Applause Way. Another sign with tarnished brass letters announced we were entering Aspen Acres Luxury Homes.

LaGrange called the platoon to a halt and radioed for his squad leaders to meet him at the head of the column. While they talked, the rest of us sat down and drank some water. During the march, I had noticed a long, cylindrical bundle wrapped in brown canvas lashed to Rojas’ pack. Curious, I asked him about it.

“That’s my pride and joy,” he said, grinning. “You’ll see it when it’s time to kill some walkers.”

I raised an eyebrow, but let the matter sit. A few minutes later, Tyrel came back over.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” he said. “Third and fourth squads will head north and set up overwatch on the far side of the development. First squad will head east and hang back in reserve. LaGrange will monitor comms and direct operations as usual. Our job is to approach from the west and find out what we’re up against. Henning saw infected in the neighborhood when he reconned the place, but he didn’t get an accurate count. So keep your eyes open and stay on your toes. Rojas, I want you and Hicks on point. Show the new guy how we do business.”

“Works for me,” said Rojas.

“Caleb,” Tyrel continued, pointing at me. “Follow the man’s lead. He’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but he knows his job.”

I acknowledged with a single nod. Tyrel said, “Any questions?”

Silence.

“All right then. Let’s do this.”

The other squads broke off in their various directions. By Tyrel’s reckoning, we were directly south of the development, which meant we would have to turn left off the highway and travel upward through dense woodland to reach our destination. As we walked, Rojas told me climbing the side of the mountain was a good thing despite the effort involved.

“The walkers don’t like climbing,” he said. “They’ll do it if they’re chasing something, but otherwise, they follow the path of least resistance.”

“You seem to know a lot about the infected,” I replied.

“In this line of work, you have to. Keep your eyes open. You might learn something.”

We passed signs informing us we were entering the Aspen Acres Nature Trail. Tyrel turned onto a dirt path that took us east down a set of long switchbacks, then up again over a ridge.

As we topped the ridge, I stopped and stared at the valley below. Nestled in the bottom were clusters of what my father would have called McMansions, big ostentatious monstrosities of homes lacking in character or charm, completely incongruous with their natural surroundings. They sat on half-acre lots with paved U-shaped driveways boasting four-car garages and swimming pools choked with leaves, algae, and debris. Infected wandered the streets, tiny as ants in the distance. Rojas stopped beside me and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Looks good,” he said. “Nothing burned down. Should be plenty of salvage.”

“Quite a few infected down there.”

“You wanna earn, you gotta take some risks.”

A quarter of a mile from the tall metal gate surrounding the development, Tyrel held up a hand for the squad to stop, signaled for silence, then pointed at me. I took the hint and moved up until I was close enough to kneel beside him.

“Fix your suppressor,” he said in a low voice.

“What’s wrong?”

He pointed ahead through the woods. I followed the line of his finger and saw the problem.

“Shit. Infected.”

He withdrew his suppressor from his vest and tightened it down over the muzzle of his M-4. I did the same. “Had to happen sooner or later,” Tyrel said. “Let’s try to do this quietly.”

Tyrel ordered the rest of the squad to fan out in diamond formation and watch all approaches. While they obeyed, the two of us worked our way down the hill, watching the infected the whole way. The ghouls moved in our direction, heads turning and twitching like deranged birds. I guessed they heard us, but had not pinpointed our position yet. This meant we would have to work quickly; if the infected got a fix on us, they would start squawking and bring every walking corpse in the valley down on our heads. When we were about fifty yards from the closest of them, Tyrel signaled a halt.

Leveling his rifle, he held up two fingers and made a go-forth motion over his shoulder. Taking that as a cue, I peered through my scope, sighted in on what had once been a fifty-something man with a bushy white beard, and squeezed the trigger. To my right, the muted crack of Ty’s M-4 broke the silence.

Wasting no time, I picked another target and fired. Before it fell, I caught sight of its eyes through the magnified view of my scope. Its milky gaze was fixed firmly in my direction, looking right at me. Or so it seemed, anyway.

Half a magazine later, the infected were all down. A couple of them started making odd chuffing, croaking noises, but we shot them before they could work up a head of steam. Tyrel glanced back at me, gave a thumbs-up, and signaled to fall back with the rest of the squad. On the way, he radioed third and fourth squads for a status. They were in position, so Tyrel asked them to fire a few rounds to get the attention of the infected in the streets below. Seconds later, three sharp cracks echoed from the north.

“That ought to buy us some time,” said Tyrel. Back with the rest of the squad, he said, “Rojas, I want you to take Hicks and move straight down the hillside.” He pointed due east from where we sat, directly toward the development. “Radio when you’re close enough to make an assessment.”

Rojas stood up. “Will do. Come on, new guy. Class is in session.”

I got to my feet and began following him down the hill. Behind me, Tyrel said, “Head on a swivel, Caleb. Got it?”

“Got it.”

*****

Rojas put his back to the wrought-iron fence and laced his fingers at groin level. “Up you go.”

I stepped into his hands, gripped the cold black fence poles, and levered myself up until I could put a boot on his shoulder. Once there, I stepped up, grabbed the support crossbar ten inches below the spear-shaped tips of the fence, and pushed until I was lying halfway over. The thick material of my MOLLE vest kept me from being skewered.

Throwing my legs over, I planted my boots against the fence and slid down. “Okay,” I said to Rojas. “Your turn.”

Leaning against the poles, I reached my hands through and laced my fingers as Rojas had done for me. He climbed up nimbly, pushed off my shoulder, and threw himself over the spikes.

I said, “Looks like you’ve done this before.”

He looked smug. “Once or twice.”

As I turned toward the street leading into the neighborhood, Rojas hissed for me to stop. He dropped his pack, unlashed the bundled cylinder, and carefully rolled it out onto the dead brown grass. When he stood up, he was holding a three-and-a-half foot double-edged sword.

“Hicks, meet Penelope.”

I stared. The sword looked nothing like what I had seen in books and museums. Its blade was wide and thick like a Roman Gladius, but much longer. I could have called the leather-wrapped hilt two-handed, except it was far more than that—four-handed, maybe. The crossguard was a simple rounded rectangle of aluminum, just wide enough to keep the wielder’s hands from slipping up onto the sharpened edge. The blade’s color was a dark reddish-black, like something forged from the leaf springs of a large truck. I had a feeling that was probably not far from the truth.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

A grin. “Ain’t she a beauty?”

“I don’t know which is more worrisome. The fact that you named it, or that you think it’s a girl.”

He laughed. “She’s named after the first girl that ever gave me a blow job and swallowed. We take good care of each other.”

“What a beautiful story.”

“Don’t be jealous.”

“The hell did you find that thing?”

“Had it custom made. Cost a small fortune, but it was worth it.”

I thought about the rubber-tipped spears my father had trained me to wield, and asked, “Who made it for you?”

“I’ll introduce you to him when we get back to town. For right now, we got work to do. Let’s go, new guy.”

We crossed a hundred yards or so of grassy downslope leading to pavement. The asphalt was dark black, free of potholes, the center and shoulder lines vivid yellow and white as though recently painted, the kind of road a wealthy HOA had once paid good money to maintain. I wondered how long it would be before it cracked and crumbled and gave way to trees.

The neighborhood was laid out in a cloverleaf pattern consisting of four concentric circles, each circle lined with houses that grew larger as they wound toward the center. The one we approached was on the southwest portion of the development where the flat valley began sloping up into the mountains. Ahead of us, we saw infected milling about in the yards between houses, slowed down by dry grass nearly knee deep. As we drew closer, the ground began to level out until it was flat and even and the outer row of houses loomed ahead. We stopped at the intersection and dropped to one knee.

“Okay professor,” I said, scanning ahead with my scope. “What’s the plan?”

Rojas pointed to a three-story beast directly across from us. “There. We’ll go in through the back door and clear the place. See if there’s a way onto the roof.”

“Think the infected have seen us yet?”

“Doubt it. They can’t see for shit, but they’ll hear us soon enough. Mark my words.”

We covered the distance at a jog, slowing down as we drew closer to stifle our footsteps. I stopped twice to fire at infected I knew would detect us long before we reached the house. When we reached the back yard, a trio of walkers rounded the corner, snapped their faces toward us, and opened their mouths. I would have shot them, but Rojas took off in their direction, sword raised. I cursed and followed.

The first one began to croak as Rojas swept his massive blade from right to left, sending the top half of the walker’s head spinning into the grass. Without missing a step, he pivoted on one foot and brought his sword down in an overhead chop at the second ghoul, splitting its skull down the middle. Now that he was out of the way, I had a clear shot at the third infected. I took it.

Rojas jerked his weapon free and looked over his shoulder, irritated. I nodded toward the house as if to say, let’s go. Rojas mouthed, Asshole, then joined me by the door. I reached out and turned it slowly. Locked. Rojas rolled his eyes. “Fuck’s sake.”

I held up a finger, took my lock picks from a vest pocket, and went to work. Ten seconds later, the lock turned and I opened the door.

“After you,” I whispered.

Rojas nodded appreciatively and went inside.

FIFTY-TWO

We swept the house. Empty.

Kitchen: untouched. Lots of canned food and non-perishables. Bedrooms: mostly guest rooms, one master with a full wardrobe that had not been disturbed in a while. Garage: a Cadillac Escalade with a full tank, a live battery, and keys hanging from a hook on the kitchen wall. Standard stuff in the living room.

The bathrooms turned out to be a gold mine, lots of toilet paper. Rojas said we could split the TP fifty/fifty. I asked if LaGrange would have a problem with that, being that I was only a probationary militiaman and only entitled to a half-share of the profits. Rojas said it was the reward we got for going out on point. First pick of the spoils, even for newbies. The only rule was whatever we took had to fit in a trash bag.

It is amazing how much one can fit in a trash bag when properly motivated.

There was a locked door in the kitchen. I picked and opened it to find a set of wooden stairs leading down into darkness. Rojas clicked the button on an LED tactical light and shined it around. The walls were concrete, a single bulb dangled from the ceiling, and a heavy-looking steel door stared at us forbiddingly from the bottom.

“What do you think?” Rojas asked.

“We’ve come this far. Might as well.”

He put his sword down on the kitchen counter and drew a Sig Sauer pistol from his belt. “Let’s go.”

As expected, the door at the bottom was locked. I borrowed Rojas’ flashlight, stared at the lock a few seconds, and selected a couple of tools from my set of picks. It took me a while to line up the tumblers—this lock was much more robust than the one at the entrance—but finally, they clicked into place. I turned the knob.

“Take it easy, now,” Rojas said. “Sometimes we find booby traps.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, man. Lost a guy about a month ago. We were raiding this trailer park, right, and the guy, Simmons was his name, opens a door with a shotgun wired to it. Blew a hole in his guts the size of a grapefruit. Bled out before we could get help.”

I let the knob ease back. “Jesus.”

“No shit. So take your time, homes. No rush.”

Using the flashlight, I checked the door the way my father had trained me to, first going around the edges and looking for anything out of the ordinary like wires or electrical contacts. Just because the power was out did not mean there couldn’t be some kind of backup.

The seal looked normal, so I began easing the door open a centimeter at a time, hands sensitive to any resistance. Feeling none, I opened it wide enough to poke my head inside.

“Holy hell.”

“What?” Rojas asked.

Grinning, I opened the door the rest of the way. “Take a look.”

He grabbed the light and shined it into the room. “Holy hell.”

Beyond the threshold was what I could only describe as a survival bunker. The steel door I opened was one of two doors, the second looking like something taken from a bank vault. It was open, telling me whoever built this place was not expecting trouble when they left, however long ago that was. Which meant they had not been here since the Outbreak, or any time reasonably close to it.

The room was roughly thirty feet square, had shelves lining the walls all the way to the ceiling, a table, two chairs, a recliner, and a single bed. The furniture was arranged in the center, the shelves laden with boxes, crates, bottles, buckets, and every container in between. White stenciling on a green metal cabinet at the far end of the room read: ARMORY. Rojas and I looked at each other.

He said, “I’ll radio LaGrange.”

*****

“So here’s how we do it,” Rojas said. “You probably figured out by now the walkers hunt by sound. Right?”

I nodded.

“Right. So the way we get them out of here is to make them chase something, wait until they’re out of sight, and then we clean up. Simple enough?”

“In theory, yeah. I’m guessing the practical application is more complicated.”

He smiled in approval. “Yes, it is.”

I shifted, resettling my rifle in an effort to get comfortable, boots digging against asphalt shingles for purchase. After radioing LaGrange we had broken the lock from the gun cabinet, taken what we wanted, and stashed the weapons, ammo, and pilfered toilet paper in the attic. That done, we used Rojas’ sword to bust out a window and climb onto the roof.

“How are you going to draw them away?” I asked.

“Remember that Escalade in the garage?”

I turned my head and looked him in the eye. “You better make sure you have plenty of running room.”

“Don’t worry, new guy. This ain’t my first rodeo. Now here’s your part, man. If I run into any trouble I can’t get out of, I’ll fire three shots in the air. You hear that, you come running. Try to draw off the infected. That’s your job. Got it?”

“If I hear three shots, come running. Got it.”

“If you have trouble finding me, fire a shot in the air. Just one. I’ll fire again to lead you in. All right?”

“One shot. Understood.”

He climbed back through the broken window. A minute or two passed before I heard the Escalade roar to life and the sound of the garage door going up.

“Here we go,” I muttered.

The key now was to stay calm and be patient. I put my cheek against the M-4’s stock, dominant eye two inches from the scope’s rear aperture, finger off the trigger. The lines of the reticle were comfortably familiar as I scanned right to left, doing a mental count of the infected. There were dozens lurching toward us, drawn by the noise we had made climbing onto the roof and the sound of the Escalade idling in the garage.

“Go time, Rojas.”

The undead coalesced into a loose congregation, the least injured leading the way. Those with disabled legs moved slower, some crawling on hands and knees and some slithering on their bellies. Rojas backed the Escalade out to the street, cut the wheel, and began rolling slowly toward the undead. The sound of the engine was enough to keep their attention, but just for good measure, he laid on the horn. I wasn’t expecting it and jumped, nearly dropping my rifle.

The air filled with moans and screeches as the living dead emerged from yards, open doors, broken windows, and the hills surrounding the development. A few of them got close enough to slap at the Escalade’s windows, not a danger really, but worrisome enough Rojas increased his speed. When he reached the end of the street he cut through two front yards to get around the biggest knot of infected, then headed toward the street connecting the four quadrants of the neighborhood.

Twenty minutes later, he had made a full circuit of the development, visiting every street and laying on the horn to draw out the dead. I had to admire his work; he managed to congregate the infected in the central plaza without cutting off his own escape route. And he was patient about it, not hurrying or rushing, but taking his time and doing the job properly.

When it was clear he’d drawn out as many infected as were capable of following him, he angled toward the main road leading out of the neighborhood. I lost sight of him after that. My guess was he would take them back to the same stretch of highway our platoon had followed to get here, then double back. My intuition turned out to be correct when, an hour later, the Escalade sped back into the neighborhood. Only now, instead of just Rojas on board, it was filled with the men of first squad. I climbed down and went out the front door to the yard.

There was a crawler with one leg torn in half and the other totally missing dragging itself toward me across the street. It was an older white man, dressed only in a shredded black terry-cloth robe. The torn remnants of his thighs fluttered behind him, writhing like snakes in the long grass. He arched up and reached a clawed hand in my direction, gnashing his teeth and snarling. The milky eyes were red-rimmed, the face twisted with hunger and blind, unreasoning rage. I held out my carbine one-handed, put the barrel a few inches from his forehead, and pulled the trigger. A red mist erupted across his back. He gave a shudder and collapsed.

“Rest easy.”

Behind me, I heard LaGrange say, “If only they were all so easy to kill.”

I turned and began walking toward him. His men were already out of the Cadillac, two of them with ratchets and heavy-duty bolt cutters hard at work removing the seats.

“Nice work, new guy.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t do much. Just killed a few walkers. Rojas did the hard work.”

“He told me you’re pretty handy with a lock pick.”

“Product of a misspent youth.”

He grinned. “Tyrel said you’d be useful. Looks like he was right.”

A croak split the air to my left. I leaned around the SUV and spotted a walker with a broken leg rounding the corner, maybe sixty yards away. Casually, I raised my rifle and cracked off a single shot. The walker dropped.

“Tyrel also said you could shoot at least as well as him. I didn’t believe it. Looks like I was wrong.”

“So did I pass the interview?”

The smile widened. “Consider it a probationary offer. Don’t fuck up too bad for the next thirty days, and I’ll sign you on as a full member.”

I held out a hand. “Good enough for me.”

We shook on it.