he asked, running a shaky hand
through his dark hair.
“Boise is thick with them ... the fencing here is keeping
them out, for now. Figure when we bug out, so will they.”
Carson paused for a tick, trying to decide how to word the
rest of his answer.
“And?” said Bishop, sensing Carson had more to add.
“We overflew a very large horde near the Tri-Cities in
Washington. Nowhere safe to put down there.”
There was another long silence and Bishop changed the
subject. “Did you find any aircraft where you’re at?”
“A couple of A-10 Thunderbolts in the middle of repairs. The
few helos the Guard left behind are a total loss—”
Bishop rose from the chaise and paced the lawn. “Fuel?”
“All of the underground storage tanks were spared from the
fires.”
“Personnel?”
“Aside from a few deadheads, the place was deserted when we
landed."
“And today?” asked Bishop.
“Today we’ll recon Salt Lake and then we’ll square the box
and head north to Ogden.”
“How much more time do you need?”
“A day or two. Then you’ll know exactly what we’re up
against. Both the living and the dead.”
“Carry on,” Bishop said. He stabbed a key ending the call,
pocketed the phone, and walked down to the lake’s edge where he could see going
up on the other side the first of many crosses he was having erected.
The tithing had stopped coming in, yet he and his men
continued to keep the place free from the roaming dead. He feared that if the
locals continued to be ungrateful for all that he’d done for them in such a
short span, then an example would have to be made of someone.
Chapter 11
Draper, South Dakota
As the pain doubled down, harsh waves of nausea returned in
direct proportion. Fighting the urge to puke, Cade bent over, bracing his palms
on his knees, and took a number of rapid breaths, expelling each one more
forcefully than the last until the pain ebbed and the blue tracers affecting
his vision began to fade.
He rose, shook his head vigorously, and with the monsters nearly
on top of him informed the men in the helo, in rather optimistic fashion, that
he was on the move .
More as an afterthought, the word maybe , usually
forbidden from the Delta warrior’s lexicon, stayed trapped in his head as he took
the first tentative step. And as the seven crucial bones and the spiderweb of
tendons and ligaments supporting them compressed under his full weight, the resulting
pain was sharp and unyielding. Sweat beaded on his forehead, yet he willed
himself to put one foot in front of the other. With more than a dozen Zs on his
heels, he continued trudging forward; there was no need for him to check his
six—it would only slow him down, he reasoned. Besides, in dribs and drabs, during
brief lulls in the cacophony made by the feeding birds, he could hear his
pursuers’ low-timbered moans interspersed with the sound their footfalls produced
trampling the brittle grass. In a last-ditch effort to slow their pursuit, he
zigzagged between a pair of waist-high tombstones, using them like static blockers
in a high stakes game of graveyard football.
At the midway point between the helicopter and the fence separating
the church from the cemetery, Cade took a knee and leveled the MP7 at the
ghouls. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he tried to recall the exact
wording on the warning stickers plastered all over the gas pumps back home. He
knew that any kind of open flame was forbidden in their immediate vicinity. And
if he remembered correctly, the warning stickers stated a safe distance, a
radius measured in feet, inside of which an errant spark was likely to set off
any lingering gas vapors and possibly produce a gigantic fireball.
But his memory failed him. He had no idea how fast or how
far from the source flammable fumes wafted, nor if there was some kind of half-life
he should consider. He supposed every accelerant had its own properties, but the
one he was dealing with was
through his dark hair.
“Boise is thick with them ... the fencing here is keeping
them out, for now. Figure when we bug out, so will they.”
Carson paused for a tick, trying to decide how to word the
rest of his answer.
“And?” said Bishop, sensing Carson had more to add.
“We overflew a very large horde near the Tri-Cities in
Washington. Nowhere safe to put down there.”
There was another long silence and Bishop changed the
subject. “Did you find any aircraft where you’re at?”
“A couple of A-10 Thunderbolts in the middle of repairs. The
few helos the Guard left behind are a total loss—”
Bishop rose from the chaise and paced the lawn. “Fuel?”
“All of the underground storage tanks were spared from the
fires.”
“Personnel?”
“Aside from a few deadheads, the place was deserted when we
landed."
“And today?” asked Bishop.
“Today we’ll recon Salt Lake and then we’ll square the box
and head north to Ogden.”
“How much more time do you need?”
“A day or two. Then you’ll know exactly what we’re up
against. Both the living and the dead.”
“Carry on,” Bishop said. He stabbed a key ending the call,
pocketed the phone, and walked down to the lake’s edge where he could see going
up on the other side the first of many crosses he was having erected.
The tithing had stopped coming in, yet he and his men
continued to keep the place free from the roaming dead. He feared that if the
locals continued to be ungrateful for all that he’d done for them in such a
short span, then an example would have to be made of someone.
Chapter 11
Draper, South Dakota
As the pain doubled down, harsh waves of nausea returned in
direct proportion. Fighting the urge to puke, Cade bent over, bracing his palms
on his knees, and took a number of rapid breaths, expelling each one more
forcefully than the last until the pain ebbed and the blue tracers affecting
his vision began to fade.
He rose, shook his head vigorously, and with the monsters nearly
on top of him informed the men in the helo, in rather optimistic fashion, that
he was on the move .
More as an afterthought, the word maybe , usually
forbidden from the Delta warrior’s lexicon, stayed trapped in his head as he took
the first tentative step. And as the seven crucial bones and the spiderweb of
tendons and ligaments supporting them compressed under his full weight, the resulting
pain was sharp and unyielding. Sweat beaded on his forehead, yet he willed
himself to put one foot in front of the other. With more than a dozen Zs on his
heels, he continued trudging forward; there was no need for him to check his
six—it would only slow him down, he reasoned. Besides, in dribs and drabs, during
brief lulls in the cacophony made by the feeding birds, he could hear his
pursuers’ low-timbered moans interspersed with the sound their footfalls produced
trampling the brittle grass. In a last-ditch effort to slow their pursuit, he
zigzagged between a pair of waist-high tombstones, using them like static blockers
in a high stakes game of graveyard football.
At the midway point between the helicopter and the fence separating
the church from the cemetery, Cade took a knee and leveled the MP7 at the
ghouls. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he tried to recall the exact
wording on the warning stickers plastered all over the gas pumps back home. He
knew that any kind of open flame was forbidden in their immediate vicinity. And
if he remembered correctly, the warning stickers stated a safe distance, a
radius measured in feet, inside of which an errant spark was likely to set off
any lingering gas vapors and possibly produce a gigantic fireball.
But his memory failed him. He had no idea how fast or how
far from the source flammable fumes wafted, nor if there was some kind of half-life
he should consider. He supposed every accelerant had its own properties, but the
one he was dealing with was
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