A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  “Wait a minute... I forgot to flush,” Brook said, cutting Raven off at the pass.

  She didn’t want to have to explain all of the blood. And it wasn’t the right time to further traumatize her by letting her know that her sibling had just died.

  When the shit hit the fan the previous night, Cade had been away on yet another mission with his Delta team, leaving her and Raven alone to fend for themselves. During a deployment in the old world the only life in jeopardy had been Cade’s. But thanks to the deadly rampage, it had become evident to Brook that she and her daughter were no safer inside the wire than out. Since her flight from Fort Bragg she had become extremely capable of protecting her family, but she still longed to have all three of them together again for good. The fifteen months prior to the Omega outbreak had been, hands down, the best stretch of family time she could remember since Raven was born. That she had given Cade her blessing to rejoin the Unit and embark on another mission didn’t soften the blow of losing her brother Carl. The silver lining to the very dark and brooding cloud hanging over her world was that Raven hadn’t been murdered along with the others. The big man up above had been looking out for her daughter, who had somehow missed crossing paths with the killer by only a few seconds. Timing is everything, Brook thought to herself. By the time she found Raven, sitting on the curb sobbing, the infirmary was already fully engulfed in flames and there was nothing she could do to save Carl.

  As Brook sat with her arm around Raven watching the building burn with her brother trapped inside, she could think of only one thing: it was about time she started getting her way. The Unit, the Country, President Clay, and the myriad other forces pulling her husband away were going to have to take the back seat. Maybe losing the baby now was a blessing, some sort of sign, she thought. Bottom line, after her family was together again for good, she would be bringing another Grayson into the world—crawling with dead or not—this she would not be denied.

  Brook found her way back to the tiny slab of fabric the military called a bed. The side of the lumpy mattress Cade had fallen asleep on hours ago was now lonely and cold. She knew her man—either he was jogging around the base or the Delta operator was at the mess hall filling up on coffee. He rarely slept the day before an operation, spending every spare moment checking and rechecking weapons and equipment, poring over Intel and endlessly running scenarios through his head. He did everything he could to keep the talented Mr. Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) from worming his way into the equation. One missed detail would be all it would take to make the upcoming operation go sideways—and spoil everyone’s day.

  She also allowed Cade all the breathing room he needed during his after-action decompression, when sleep became especially elusive for the Delta Force operator.

  Brook knew that her husband had been on one constant operation since the day the dead began to walk and that he was running on sporadic bursts of adrenaline and dangerous levels of caffeine. Whether he was on base or away on a mission, she wasn’t going to let her resentment build. And considering the events of the night before, she was determined to be as supportive as possible, even if that meant not talking about her loss. Cade would eventually open up and grieve for his friend Mike Desantos, in his own way, and when he did she would be there for him, all ears, eagerly awaiting her turn to be heard.

  ***

  Three hours earlier.

  It was one of the rare instances when Brook had failed to read her man correctly. Cade couldn’t sleep. The thoughts of revenge, very graphic in nature, looped through his mind like a snuff film. It was as if the killer’s face was tattooed on the insides of his eyelids and the flat-faced mongrel taunted him every time he closed them.

  Cade dressed and laced his boots in the dark, being careful not to wake his wife and daughter. He gazed at the woman he loved before leaving to confront the man he truly hated.

  Brook snorted and then grimaced in her sleep. No doubt she was having a whopper of a survival dream. Cade had stopped referring to the nocturnal horror movies in his mind as nightmares. He now referred to them as survival dreams, figuring it was his mind’s way of staying on the razor’s edge even when it was supposed to be at rest. At any rate, he hoped Brook was learning a thing or two from hers.

  Easing the door shut behind him, he made doubly sure the lock was engaged. The fact that there might be other killers roving freely about Schriever made it entirely necessary.

  Chapter 2

  Outbreak - Day 10

  Schriever AFB

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Security Pod

  Senior Airman E-4 Croswell snapped to attention, a crisp salute merging with his blue beret the second he recognized Captain Cade Grayson’s approach. The leather-bound ledger that had been used dutifully to document the time and identity of anyone coming into contact with General Mike Desantos’ killer launched off of the E-4’s lap and slapped the floor perfectly flat, issuing a loud report.

  “At ease, Airman Croswell,” Cade ordered.

  The E-4 relaxed slightly, scooped up the fumbled log book, and plunged his arm under the gray folding chair blindly searching for his only pen.

  “No need for formalities. Colonel Shrill sent me... under the radar,” Cade lied. “This visit stays off the record,” he continued, glaring at the younger man. Cade didn’t receive the response he was hoping for. Unlike most enlisted personnel, Croswell didn’t melt. He gamely deflected the Delta operator’s attempt at persuasion by saying, “I have orders to follow. I cannot allow you entry without signing in.”

  Doubling down on the bullshit, Cade persisted. “That man in there murdered my friend General Desantos...” Cade paused in order to let his words sink in. “That waste of skin also murdered my wife’s brother, and three other helpless people in the infirmary. And to cap it all off... that monster killed the doctors and destroyed the lab containing the antiserum that everyone on this base has been buzzing about.”

  “I wasn’t told what the man did to get thrown in here. I knew it had something to do with the fires... I had no idea how bad it was,” said the E-4, his glare softening.

  Sensing he was almost home, Cade put on a full court press. “It’s way too late for me to go back... wake up the Colonel just to satisfy you. Listen, you didn’t achieve the rank of Senior Airman because you couldn’t follow orders... I get that. You received that patch because of your ability to make decisions, the correct decisions, on the fly,” Cade said, locking eyes with the cleancut young man.

  Adam’s apple bobbing like a rowboat in the ocean, the airman’s heavily lidded eyes broke from Cade’s and looked at the clock and then back, settling on the two silver bars pinned to Cade’s beret. “Go on in Captain. You were never here.”

  After exchanging salutes with the airman, Cade went through the inner door and stood directly in front of the glass separating him from the murderer.

  The man calling himself Pug lifted his head and stared daggers of rage through the observation glass. A shudder traced up Cade’s spine; it was as if the seated and manacled prisoner on the other side of the one way mirror could see him, head shifting, seemingly following, as the operator paced back and forth. If he didn’t know any better he would have thought that the flat-faced mongrel had x-ray vision—or at the very least the olfactory senses of his canine namesake.

  Cade paused outside of the steel door and tried to quiet his inner voice—the repetitious droning chant that demanded revenge, all the while valiantly fighting the desire to march in and end it all here and now. Standing there with E-4 Croswell’s eyes burning a hole in his back, he came to the conclusion that he would be battling these urges until Pug had drawn his last stolen breath. That he had lied to keep his name off of the ledger baffled the hell out of him. What the hell was I thinking? Just kill the fucker and waltz right out, hoping the anal E-4 wouldn’t intervene. What then, Grayson...kill him too to cover it up? Trying to distance himself from his momentary character shift and mental lapse of judgment, he opened
the heavy steel security door. Cade’s entrance elicited a wan smile from the man who called himself Pug. The two were far from strangers. The night before, after the man had been captured, Cade had been given immediate access to him. Back-to-back fifteen second waterboarding sessions had failed to elicit any information, not his real name, not where he came from, who sent him, nor if there were more saboteurs or agents inside of Schriever. After Pug’s third introduction to simulated drowning, he divulged only his name and that he had left Jackson Hole two days prior—the rest of his story still remained a mystery.

  The fact that the prisoner had weaseled his way onto the base in the company of four other survivors, with a hidden weapon, pointed to some semblance of intelligence. That the man nonchalantly walked back to the civilian tents after his murderous rampage, leaving a perfect trail of wet footprints for the security personnel to follow, was, to say the least, very hard to fathom. Was it a mental lapse on the killer’s part, Cade asked himself, or had he wanted to be caught

  Pug had spent the last few hours marinating under the sterile white light bulbs. By design, the air was frigid due to the constantly running air conditioner. Comfort was now a thing of the past for the murderer, and Cade was going to see to it that the man would spend each minute from here on out wishing he were dead.

  “I have a question for you, big man. Why did you intervene and save the other survivors?” Cade said, letting the question hang.

  Manacles clanking, Pug shifted in his seat. Then he bent at the waist, stretching across the table to massage his swollen face with his cuffed hands.

  “Did you save those people because you like teen girls? Or do you like ‘em younger? I have a daughter, she’s eleven... gonna be twelve real soon.” Cade paused, again waiting for a response. He wanted to find a crack. Anything to get the dialogue flowing. The real physical pain would be applied as a last resort. Cade had a promise to keep and he knew that once he started, nothing was going to keep him from finishing the job.

  The killer slowly moved the chain along the affixed bar that bisected the center of the table top as he stared at his blurred reflection in the brushed stainless steel. Don’t talk, the voice counseled.

  “Too bad the prison system isn’t what it used to be. They’d adopt a Short Eyes like you in a New York second. You’re a small guy... you’d be real easy to pass around. Like a party favor. They’d have their way with you until you were worn out and broken. You would enjoy that wouldn’t you?”

  Don’t let him talk to you like that Pug. Stepdad did that to me... we would never hurt a kid. Don’t let the fucker call you Short Eyes. Bash his face in.

  Cade waited for a response.

  Nothing.

  “I know you came here with a group... but you were really alone. The redhead and her brother... they told us that they met you for the first time on I-25. Said you came out of nowhere, gun blazing. Said that you saved them like some kind of super hero.”

  Cade was no dummy. This Pug bastard was crafty—he’d give him that. Stalking them and watching from afar. Waiting for the opportune moment to insert himself into the equation—brilliant.

  As soon as Pug heard the words super hero the demon lurking in his brain couldn’t resist the urge to sing its theme song. Here I come to save the dayyy.

  “I know who sent you.” Cade crouched on his haunches to look the man in the eye. “Pug... Robert Christian sent you here.”

  No recognition. Cade had hoped to see some sort of expression, however small. He kept probing.

  “I want to know who helped you after you got here. Little runt like you couldn’t have pulled the whole thing off by yourself. Someone on this base provided you with the gun.” He already knew how the gun had been smuggled in; the security personnel had found the ruptured Camelbak bladder in Pug’s tent. He was trying to chip away at the man’s self-esteem, which from the looks of him was probably on the low side. A person like that, Cade knew, could be malleable and easily persuaded with the proper motivation.

  Pug smiled and said, “I’m just a traveler—a survivor.” Here I come to save the day.

  The arrogance masked behind the smile wasn’t lost on Cade. He walked behind the prisoner, and after counting to ten Mississippi delivered an open handed roundhouse to the left side of Pug’s head. “Wipe the fucking smile off of your face. The kids’ stories match up—no

  discrepancies. Their names are in the Denver yellow pages,” Cade bellowed. “Then we looked into Ted Keller’s background. He lived in the same building as the siblings. His name is also in the phone book like the others. It turns out you killed Ted’s partner in the infirmary.”

  “I knew they were fags,” Pug sneered. That wasn’t in the script, the voice cried.

  Cade lashed out with another open handed roundhouse, catching Pug across the opposite ear and starting it bleeding. The blow produced a stark white hand print.

  A look of shock lit up the prisoner’s flat face.

  “I didn’t do it,” he croaked. “I’m just a traveler trying to survive.” Then he spat. The bloody globule slapped the floor near Cade’s boots. Get us out of here, the all too familiar voice urged.

  “Very few people on this base even know you’re here, and once you talk—because you will talk, everyone does eventually—I’m going to kill you.”

  Pug opened his good eye and said, “Francis is already dead. Dad killed him.” You don’t tell him anything.

  “Pug or whatever the fuck your name is, I’m going to Jackson Hole and I will find out who you really are. I’m going to find out who sent you here, bring them back with me—have a little fun—and then kill them too.”

  Pug launched out of his seat as far as the restraints allowed and bellowed, neck veins bulging, “Good luck with that!” Calm down and wait. Have faith. We will get out of here, one of the more rational voices soothed. In a moment of clarity Pug suddenly doubted the familiar voices in his head. He wished that he hadn’t left his pills in the obscene marble bathroom in the dead Denver Nugget’s mansion. It was too late for wishing now.

  For a schizo like Pug, once the voices took over, short of a medical intervention there was no going back.

  Cade was pissed to say the least. He wanted to glean all he could so he might start the wheels of justice grinding. Secure some vengeance for his dead friend Mike Desantos. Not only had this waste of skin murdered Carl, he had also killed Doctor Fuentes and Jessica Hanson and then burned the entire research tent to the ground along with all of the equipment—including the computers and the data stored on their hard drives. Cloud storage and the Internet were things of the past in this zombie-plagued world. The few doses of effective lifesaving antiserum that remained went up in the inferno. Pug’s actions had effectively signed General Desantos’ death warrant, depriving Annie Desantos of a husband, his three kids of a father and Cade of his best friend. He wanted more than anything to put a boot to the fucker and a blade in his black heart, and after the trail of death and destruction the man calling himself Pug had left in his wake the night before, a good beating and a quick death would be letting him off easy. As a matter of fact he deserved no less than a million lifetimes of agony as payback for the innocents he had murdered in cold blood and the lives he had forever altered.

  Pug’s face never changed from the expression of detached amusement he had been wearing since the second brutal slap, and he didn’t move a muscle as Cade’s mouth hovered inches from his ear. “After I’m finished with the vermin in Wyoming I am coming back here to exterminate you.”

  Cade exited the room without a backward glance. He snatched the ledger out of Croswell’s hands, signed in and then promptly signed out.

  Airman Croswell shot the operator a quizzical look.

  “That fucker in there... he’s still breathing. And that means it’s no longer our secret that I dropped by,” Cade said as he stalked out of the room.

  Croswell watched the door slam shut behind the captain and then waited until he was certain that the pis
sed off officer wasn’t returning. Then he peered in the window to confirm the captain’s claim. The scene inside caused him to drop the clipboard once again and bolt into the interrogation room.

  Chapter 3

  Outbreak - Day 10

  NORAD Complex

  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  The living dead pressing against the razor wire-topped fence began arriving days ago, shortly after the President’s Osprey landed for the first time just outside the entrance to the old NORAD facility.

  Located within Cheyenne Mountain, the super secure complex consisted of tunnels and bunkers which were carved into the solid granite deep enough to withstand a direct nuclear blast. Cheyenne Mountain had originally been selected to house the North American Air Defense Command because of its structural integrity and its close proximity to both Schriever Air Force Base, twenty miles to the northeast, and downtown Colorado Springs, just a stone’s throw to the North.

  After having its command and control transferred to Peterson Air Force Base, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex had been placed on a warm standby status. Luckily for the President, the Air Force personnel had the dusty facility up and running hours after she had reclaimed it as her own.

  Valerie Clay sat alone in the darkened war room watching the grisly image splashed across the eight wall-mounted flat panels. The combat command center had once been filled with airmen and officers whose sole job it was to monitor the entire northern hemisphere and provide an early warning in case of a Soviet Union nuclear first strike.

  Clay watched as the monsters in the front of the crush were being slowly compressed through the heavy gauge wire fencing. Jostling for position behind them, the hundred plus zombies were driven by one impulse—to get at the meat they knew was somehow associated with the noisy machine.

  The President sat in the dimly lit room not at all concerned about the abominations assembled outside—it was the untold millions of migrating dead that the satellites had been tracking from space with their high powered cameras that caused her the greatest concern. If the fence failed—and it would eventually— the second line of defense would contain them long enough for her protection detail to hustle her out to Marine One and away to safety. In the days since the facility was chosen to serve as the new White House, Clay’s secret service detail, with the help of soldiers from Fort Carson, had brought in the twenty shipping containers which now encircled the makeshift grass landing pad. Stacked two high, the two-ton steel rectangular boxes weighed enough to keep the throng of dead from displacing them and were too tall for the creatures to climb over. Although a tight fit because of the Osprey’s twin tilt rotors, the President’s bird still had sufficient clearance for takeoff and landings.