Cascade, p.55
Cascade, page 55
“Not a concern. Execute your task, and when that is complete, make your way to the southwest corner of the administration building. A bird will set down there, in the parking lot, to pick you up.”
“And the Marines?”
“Not going to happen. Confirm you have received and understood this message.”
“Received and understood,” Mule said, although he didn’t understand. But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been given orders that made no sense. He switched over to the in-team channel. “Unplug your mikes and cameras,” he told his team. “I don’t care if they say they’ve stopped recording. Junior, you’re left, Badger, you’re right, I’m upstairs, and Smith, you’re on the front door, just in case anyone gets by us. Anyone have a problem?” He looked them all in the eyes. Badger looked a little sick, and Smith and Junior looked angry, but none of them said anything. He nodded once. “Okay, make it as quick as you can.”
Mule turned around and started back up the stairs, and ran into Plaid Shirt on the way down. “Everything okay?” the man asked.
“Yeah, no worries,” Mule said. “Come on back upstairs with me, I need to talk to everyone.” He paused, and let the man, two steps above him, turn around and start heading back up. Mule followed him into the break room. The three men were still sitting at the table. The woman was in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea. Mule shot Plaid Shirt in the back of the head, and while he was falling turned to the three men and put short bursts into each of their faces. The third man had barely begun to stand up when he died.
Mule turned, and the woman was there at the counter, coffee cup in hand, eyes and mouth wide in disbelief. What she’d just seen was so far outside her realm of experience that she literally couldn’t believe her own eyes. It wasn’t the first time Mule had seen such a reaction. The woman just stared at him as he raised the Honey Badger, centered the circle/dot reticle on her forehead, and pulled the trigger. The coffee cup didn’t break when it hit the floor, which surprised him.
He verified that all five were dead, then headed downstairs. Just from the looks on the faces of his teammates he knew the job was done. They made their way back to the administration building in silence, called in their position, and were told a helicopter was inbound, thirty minutes out.
For ten minutes, none of them said anything. Finally Junior sighed, and said, “Well, I guess now we know why they didn’t want one of the DOE teams on this.” He glanced back over his shoulder, but neither the turbine building or the containment domes was in view. “With no one watching over this thing, how long do you think it’ll be before it blows, or seizes up, or whatever?”
Nobody had an answer for him.
PART IV
THE SWITCH HAS FLIPPED
Nothing seasons like hunger.
Unknown
Chapter Forty-Five: Taylee
Taylee had tried TMZ, and Ellen, The View and The Real, but they were all reruns, so she was binging Chicago PD, just to do something. She’d never liked having to work, but at least it gave her something to do. Got her out of the apartment. And brought in some money on top of her benefits. And child support, not that any of that had shown up in months. But the Starbucks was closed. And JJ’s day care was shut down too, Mrs. Collins had decided the virus was just too dangerous. Taylee understood the decision, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Had to be happy about it.
She thought Jason Beghe, the actor who played Detective Sergeant Hank Voigt, was hot. Sure, he was old, but he had it going on. Kept it tight. She tended to like older guys—and it wasn’t a daddy issue thing, gross, she hated her father. There was just something about older men. And while she still hated guns, and didn’t like cops either, there was something about a man in charge, with a gun in his hand…maybe because she knew how wrong it was? All that toxic masculinity.
JJ wasn’t interested in the show, he found it boring, and he’d tired of watching cartoons on her phone, so he was playing with his toys in his room. Quietly. Alone. Which was a minor miracle. Until he came wandering into the room, one of his little rubber monkeys dangling from a fist. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”
She paused the episode. “Yeah? Me too, I guess. Let me see if I can find us a snack. You go on, keep playing, see if you can get those monkeys to finish their fight, and I’ll bring it in, okay?”
“Okay. And they’re not fighting, they’re building a castle.”
“Then why are they so loud?” He’d been acting out as the monkeys, and doing a lot of fake, gruff shouting in the next room. And banging. Boys were always banging things.
“‘Cause they’re construction guys. Construction guys are loud.”
Taylee frowned, then laughed. A house across the street had suffered minor damage from an electrical fire, and several months earlier it had been under repair. JJ had enjoyed watching the construction workers putting up a wall and a new roof. She remembered they’d been quite loud, playing rock and roll and shouting to each other in addition to the sound of hammers and saws and nail guns. She’d found it annoying.
She walked into the kitchen, and her smile immediately disappeared when she remembered that they didn’t have any snacks. Not really. She’d finished the popcorn the night before, bingeing the most recent season of Gray’s Anatomy. She and JJ had finished the chips the day before that, when she’d made nachos. Melting cheese over chips was quick and easy, and they both loved the cheesy crunch. She still had cheese, and some deli-sliced ham. Did she have any pizza rolls left? She couldn’t remember if she’d finished the bag. She opened the freezer, but all she saw were two bags of frozen vegetables that had been in there so long she couldn’t remember buying them. No pizza rolls, no frozen pizza, nothing she—or more importantly, JJ—would consider food.
She opened the refrigerator. Drinks, a whole lot of random condiments and small bottles of weird stuff—like capers—but not much actual food beyond the cheese and ham. The cupboard was just as bare. There was a little cereal in one of the boxes, and some pasta, a few cans of soup and tuna, but not much else. All the good stuff she’d been able to find on her shopping trip a few days earlier was gone, eaten, or nearly so. One of the grocery stores she’d gone to had closed because of the virus, and the other was only letting twenty people in at a time to shop. Everyone else had to wait outside in line, social distancing. Last time she’d driven by the line had stretched to the end of the block.
Stomach uneasy, she stuck her head into JJ’s room. He was in the middle of the floor, surrounded by toys. It looked like a bomb had gone off. “I’m going to go talk to Mr. Weber for just a second,” she told him. “Then I’ll bring you a snack.”
“Okay,” he said, not even looking at her. He had one of the small rubber monkeys in one hand and a segmented wooden snake in the other, and he had them fighting, or dancing, or something.
She left the door open as she walked down the hall. She knocked softly on Weber’s door. She hadn’t seen him in two or three days. She knew he’d been sick, but assumed it was a cold, or from smoking too much weed, not the zombie virus. She’d thought about putting on her mask before coming over, but worried that he’d feel insulted. And she didn’t want that, especially since she planned on asking him for some food.
There was no response, so she knocked louder. And heard something inside, probably. A sound. Someone moving around. “Weber?” she called out. “You there?” She waited. Nothing. “You still sick?”
She tried the knob, and found it was unlocked. He only left the door unlocked when he was expecting her. Or was so stoned he forgot to lock it. Sometimes he got so stoned he forgot to close the door. She pushed the door open and took a few steps in. “Webby? You got any snacks? JJ’s looking for something crunchy, and—” Suddenly he was there, in front of her. Wearing nothing but sweatpants. His eyes were wild, and his hair was wilder. He stared at her like he didn’t recognize her. “Ummm,” she said, backing up. She could smell him. He was rank, and stank of sweat and shit.
She backed up down the short apartment hallway, through the door, and was outside in the corridor before he charged with a wordless shout. She squawked, jumped, and tripped over her own feet right as he flew through the doorway. He bounced off the wall, just missing her as she fell to the carpeted floor.
Just at that minute a car passed by the front of the building, and the sun, reflecting off the windshield, shone through the windows above the front door and moved across the white wall of the hallway twenty feet away. Weber saw it and charged after the lights, forgetting about Taylee on the floor behind him.
He thundered down the hall, then stopped when he got to the landing. The sun was shining off the glass of several cars parked in front of the building, right through the front windows. With a wordless shout Weber hurdled the five steps and hit the front door at a full run. It few open and he tumbled across the small concrete pad at the front of the building. He staggered to his feet, started to run at the bright sunlight reflecting off the nearby cars, then an old SUV rolled by, its tires loud on the street, bass thumping from inside. Weber charged after it.
Taylee stood in the middle of the hallway, at the top of the stairs, unsure what to do. She’d bruised her elbow and her butt, falling down, but she’d been so scared that the adrenaline was making her heart flutter, and that was scaring her as much as Weber’s near-attack. After a few seconds’ hesitation she went down the stairs and out the front door, and looked down the street. She didn’t see the SUV, or Weber. And she wasn’t sure what to do. She looked up and down the street, but didn’t see anyone. No witnesses, and no cops.
She went back inside. Weber had damaged the front door, but it still locked. She went up the stairs. If any of the other residents had heard the commotion, they’d ignored it. Nobody was sticking their heads out. Then again, maybe a third of the cars that usually parked in the lot, and the street out front, were gone. People heading out of town, maybe. Probably there’d be even more cars gone, but a lot of the ones still there were newer ones, the kind the President had shut down. She never thought she’d be so grateful to have an old, piece of shit car. Taylee walked down to Weber’s door, which was wide open. Even from the hallway his apartment stank of weed and sweat.
She looked from the open door, down the hall toward the stairs, and back. That had to have been the zombie bug, she’d never seen him act like that. Chasing a car, he was sure to get arrested by the cops. Locked up. No, sent to the hospital, for treatment. Unless he got hit by a car, or something.
She looked into his dark apartment. Could you catch the bug just by going into the apartment of someone infected? She didn’t think so. He’s…he’ll be back, she thought to herself. But she was sure he wouldn’t want his door left wide open.
Taylee went back into the apartment. It was a mess, and stank. And was dark as a cave. She opened up the vertical blinds and blinked in the bright light. He’d kicked over a few things, but the place wasn’t much more of a mess than usual—although he tended to pick up if he knew she was coming over. She wandered into his bedroom. It looked like he’d sweated through his sheets, they were disgusting. She checked out the bathroom, wrinkling her nose at the unflushed toilet, and flushed it for him.
Back in the main room, she looked out the window, up and down the street as far as she could see. No sign of him, and no commotion. She wondered if he was still running, chasing the truck. She’d heard a lot of infected did that, like dogs. What did they plan to do if they caught the car? Bite it?
She opened his refrigerator, and was unsurprised to see it was nearly full. His cupboards were as well. He always liked to eat, especially when he was high, and didn’t have any qualms about spending his money on food.
The spare key was right where it usually was, in a dish in a corner of the kitchen counter. She grabbed it, and a box of granola bars. Payment for looking after the place while he was gone, in the hospital or wherever. She locked the door behind her, and went back to her apartment, closing and locking the door behind her. “Snacks!” she called out.
The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.
Stephen Hawking
Chapter Forty-Six: Matt
There were several ports in the Ford’s center console, and charging cords ran in every direction like a spider web freshly under construction. Matt’s cord didn’t quite reach all the way into the back seat, so he was leaning forward as he talked to his wife.
“No, I was able to rent a truck,” he told Carli. He ignored Leslie’s questioning look to see if he’d give his wife the details.
“I thought all the rentals were frozen,” Carli said. She sounded relieved to hear he was on his way home.
“I found a bit of a loophole. They would rent to a local, so Aunt Mary had to help with the rental. But it’s on my card, so if you see the charge…”
“Oh, okay.” Matt was deliberately ignoring Leslie now, who was slowly leaning forward, into his field of view, giving him a look. “So how long before we see you?” He couldn’t help but smile at how excited Carli sounded at the thought of him coming home.
“It’s still going to be days. Three days, maybe more. Probably more. Since we’re carpooling, we’re heading down to Atlanta first, then stopping off in North Carolina. But the truck seems nice, so as long as there’s not a problem getting gas—”
“Or roadblocks!” Disco called out from behind the wheel.
“Or roadblocks,” Matt added, nodding, “it’s just a matter of time. I mean, we’re not even out of Vegas, yet, but…”
“Roadblocks?” Carli said, concerned.
Matt shrugged. “The President did say she was going to restrict travel between the states. Or try to. But they’re likely only going to be on the interstates. And some states have already said they won’t do that. Texas. Which is why we’re planning on taking 40 west, it cuts across all the southern states. The ones least likely to put up roadblocks.”
Matt’s head bounced off the seatback in front of him as Disco said, “Whoa.” He looked up, and Disco was driving the truck around a car just stopped in the center of the road, in the middle of a block.
“They just left in the middle of the road? They couldn’t push it off to the side?” Jack complained.
“Did they run out of gas or break down?” Leslie asked.
“Neither, I had to bet,” Jack said. “That was new, only a few years old. Not every car was parked when the President ordered them shut down. And I guess the PD’s too busy with,” he almost said zombies, “with infected to worry about towing cars.” He looked at Disco. “I guess you’ve got to watch out for cars just left in the middle of the road.”
Carli had heard most of the conversation. “You be careful,” she told Matt.
“We’re being careful,” he assured her. He neglected to mention he was the only person in the car not carrying a gun.
He’d been off the phone less than thirty seconds when Disco spotted something in the side mirror. “Okay, what’s this?” he said.
Matt looked over his shoulder. Two vehicles were rapidly approaching, coming up behind them at a high rate of speed. They were weaving in and out of what traffic there was, coming dangerously close to one another. Then he saw them impact lightly once, then again. Disco moved the truck over, into the curb lane, to get them out of the way.
Matt saw the passenger in one of the vehicles lean out, a pistol in his hand, and he fired over and over again, blowing out the window of the other car, the gunshots muted pops. And apparently he hit the driver, as the second vehicle abruptly swerved over and slammed into the first in an explosive collision right as they passed the rental truck. The momentum sent both cars tumbling through an intersection, lightly hitting a passing car, smashing into a building in a spray of glass and metal. Matt saw a body fly out of one of the vehicles.
Disco rolled the truck to a gentle stop at the intersection, obeying the red light, and the four of them looked out the windshield at the carnage across the street. Matt was shocked by how fast everything had happened. “Jesus,” he breathed, his body thrumming with adrenaline. The body on the pavement wasn’t moving. He saw Disco shaking his head.
“Rookie mistake,” Disco said cheerfully. He took his foot off the brake as the light changed, and after he looked both ways, just to make sure, he drove through the intersection. “If you’re going to shoot at the driver of a moving vehicle, either do it from a helicopter or do it far behind or from in front of that vehicle. You don’t do it when you’re right next to the other car, or something like that will happen. That, gentlemen, and lady,” he exclaimed loudly and with a smile, “was a self-administered IQ test.”
“Aren’t we going to stop and help?” Matt asked, looking out the back window as the scene retreated into the distance.
“No,” everyone else in the car said at once.
Two blocks up, Disco pulled into the parking lot of a small strip mall. “What’s up?” Jack asked.
“Be just a bit,” the former Green Beret said. He hopped out and walked to the bed of the truck and started rummaging around. He was back in a minute, his suppressed Daniel Defense Mk 18 in hand. He stuffed it, muzzle down, on the far side of the center console, next to Jack’s leg. He glanced at Matt and Leslie in the back seat, then at Jack.
“Remember how I said the trick was to pay attention, to know when the switch had flipped? We just saw a running gunfight, and two cars plowed into the side of an H&R Block. At least one dead, from the way that guy ragdolled out the window.” He paused, and cocked his head. “You even hear any sirens?” He waited a few seconds, then nodded. “Right.” He pointed at the short-barreled rifle down beside Jack’s leg. “Loaded, safety on. Aimpoint’s on. You don’t need my permission, but use your best judgement.”
