“My daughter?” Jack asked, laying back in the grass.
“Anna’s alive.”
“And Cole?”
“Dead,” said Carla. “Brice killed him. I saw Cole’s headless corpse fall from the Press Room’s window.”
Jack nodded painfully. Then he tried to stand, but she wouldn’t let him.
“You must rest, Jack.”
“We’re surrounded by zombies,” Jack said. “There is no rest. Besides....”
“Besides what?”
“We have a nuclear bomb to find.”
“You think he hid it here?” she asked, alarm seeping through her calm tone.
“Yeah... yeah, I do. I know he hid it here. It’s why he led as many infected L.A. victims as he could to this place. It’s why he led us here, too.”
“Where in the hell do you think he put it, Jack? The stadium is huge.”
They both turned to look out into the baseball field. The SUV, parked in the center of the stadium. Hell, parked on second base.
“Mike and Jared,” Jack said. “Cover us.”
* * *
Jack and Carla found it.
A shiny suitcase covered in blankets. They had the back hatch open as zombie after zombie fell nearby. Their friends would keep them safe, as long as the flow of bullets picking off the enemy held up.
“Please tell me you know how to dismantle a nuclear bomb,” she said, worriedly.
“No, I don’t,” he confessed. “But I know how to dismantle a standard detonator.”
It was obvious that what they were looking at was the equivalent of a “dirty bomb.” And this dirty bomb, he saw, was detonated with C-4. It also had a countdown on it.
A countdown that was activated.
They weren’t down to their last few seconds, not like in the movies. Except he knew the boys and Julie only had so many bullets and the undead were swarming. Not to mention, a stray bullet could heat the bridge wire just enough to set it off.
Normally, a device like this would be armed with numerous safeguards and would also require and sustainable energy source to carry through the activation. Wiring it like Cole had done, which seemed far too amateurish than what he had anticipated, made the situation so much more volatile.
“As you can see, Cole hooked up a motorcycle battery that’s hotwired to the bridge wire—totally insane to do this,” Jack advised. “But, knowing who we’re dealing with explains a lot. Bottom line? It’s gonna be a guessing game as to which wire is bringing the heat to the bridge wire, and if we run out of ammo from the dugout, our zombie pals could inadvertently trip the sensors and it could bypass the timer.”
“And we would all go Kaboom?” she surmised.
“Yes, Kaboom for us and the whole damned metropolitan area,” advised Jack, glumly. “So, it’s gonna be eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Okay?”
Carla hesitated before answering, and Jack waited patiently. After all, the fate of possibly millions hung in the balance.
“Okay.” She released a low sigh while nodding for him to pick the right wire to cut.
Jack turned his eyes heavenward and offered a prayer for guidance. Then he picked the one wire he figured a brilliant nutcase like Cole would go for, and snipped it.
Click.
Chapter Twenty-six
Hi, Jack Carter here.
It’s been a couple of months since we left Dodger Stadium for the last time. Things are different now. I smile when I see an elephant in the hills, clearing out underbrush and bringing up a mouthful of vegetation with her trunk. I think of elephants as our fire marshals. Before the next dry season comes, we’ll need to sink a water tank and keep it filled for the zoo animals that have made the hills in L.A. their home.
Aside from the occasional Sumatran tiger sighting, things have settled down a little, although we are still adapting to a new life of self-preservation and protection.
When it came down to it, I didn’t have the courage to cure my daughter. Sorrow filled my heart from losing my brother, and I laid in bed while Carla and Mike did what was necessary for the water cure. Brice and Jared had stayed with me during the process.
It had to have been horrible for my daughter. She showed more courage than anyone I’d ever seen, fighting for both her own life and sanity. She made it through the ordeal—the water cure as she called it—and today, I can see that she is full of joy, eager to face the new world we are all becoming accustomed to. My Anna shines now. She shines at the clear days, and the rain, and the stars, and especially, at Jared. He returns her gaze with an easy smile, a protectiveness that I’m coming to trust.
There is still hope, too. We have used the observatory computers and labs sparingly, and the place is generator powered, for now. And we’ve come in contact with others who are beating this, just as we are. Perhaps in time, and maybe with Mike’s skills as a trained pilot, we can connect with them.
Maybe we should have let the nuke go off. Maybe it would have slowed the spread of the infection. Or not. But we made a judgment call. A call to live. A call to fight.
We spend our time mostly divided between the observatory and the Los Feliz home, although Brice and I venture to the zoo every day to care for the animals who still take refuge there, too afraid to leave their only home. Brice loves the animals, and now I understand why he has spent the last three decades providing for those in need. Sometimes, we hear a wildcat at night—most have probably moved up into the local mountains, but not all. We still carry arms whenever we venture out, especially up at the Hill, or as we have come to call it, Zombie Mountain.
I know Anna is hoping for new wildlife. She watches and waits to hear the meowing or young growl of a litter and has made gentle friends of the meerkats, who seem to like peering at us from around the observatory grounds and come close to her when she chirps at them.
Almost every night, the house in Los Feliz is full. Carla has moved in, as has Mike, Jared and Brice. Carla and Anna team up together, against us men. They monopolize the bathroom with their female grooming sessions and occasional laughter and girl talk. But it’s all right. Something normal, and we cling to those last vestiges of normalcy in this violent, crazy world.
Carla and I still keep our security beats, roaming the zoo and observatory for miscreants, and of course, for the infected that remain quite numerous. They may not ever go away. But we have each other, which is enough for now.
Much of my free time is spent gardening now, preparing for a spring planting. After all, we need food, good fresh food, and a lot of it to keep us healthy and strong.