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.