Z-Burbia (Book 2): Parkway To Hell Read online

  “Eight over there,” one of Critter’s guys says.

  “Fuck,” I mutter as I take down two more Zs. “In the building and get secure? Or fight our way out and come back later?”

  “I’ll leave the strategy to soldier boy,” Critter says. “What you feelin’, Captain?”

  “Jace and I will get inside and hunker down,” Leeds says. “Try to see if we can figure out what’s going on with the gas. You and your men split into two teams. One draws the Zs off, while the other hoofs it to Whispering Pines for reinforcements. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds like a fine plan,” Critter says. “Let’s take a few more out before we make our move. Less Zs to see y’all go in there.”

  We do just that and kill half the Zs in the station before Leeds and I duck into the building and slam the door. There’s enough light for us to see, but Leeds pulls out a flashlight and cranks the handle, bringing the bulb to life. He shines it around and we both cover our nose from the stench. The place is coated with Z gunk. It’s all over the banks of instruments and the couple of rolling chairs that are pushed into the corners.

  “God,” Leeds says, “they must have been packed in here shoulder to shoulder.”

  “I’m guessing they were lured in by that,” I say, pointing to the nearly picked clean bones strewn around the room.

  The space is maybe twenty feet by twenty feet. An efficient concrete building designed to keep the transfer station controls secure and out of the elements. Not exactly built for comfort. I roll one of the chairs against the wall and stand up on it. I can just peek out of the window and see Critter splitting his group in two. One group heads off towards Whispering Pines, while the other starts jumping and shouting, drawing the Zs after them and away from us. I can see that Critter has stayed with the diversion group. Guy may be self-serving at times, but he’s got balls.

  “Are they gone?” Leeds asks, watching me carefully. Which is the only way the man watches anything: carefully. He isn’t one to leave things to chance. If there is one thing I have learned in the past two months, it’s that Captain Walt Leeds likes to be informed. He doesn’t rush into decisions.

  “They are now,” I say, “well, except for a few stragglers, but that was to be expected.”

  “Then we better keep it down,” Leeds says, motioning for me to get off the chair, “and stay out of sight. They see motion in here, then they’ll wander over to investigate. That’ll just bring more.”

  “Yep,” I smile as I step onto the soiled concrete. “Not my first Z rodeo.”

  “Of course not,” Leeds smiles, “I’m just used to giving orders.”

  “I’m married, so I’m used to taking them,” I laugh then look at him seriously. “Don’t tell Stella I said that. Please.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Jace,” he says then starts to look at the control panels. “We should probably make the best use of our time and figure this out. Cob would have been able to make sense of this stuff. He was the team engineer.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I frown.

  “For what?” Leeds asks, looking at me. “You aren’t still blaming yourself for Cob and Stick, are you? If you are, then knock it off right now, Stanford. They were soldiers and they died fighting. No better honor.”

  “Well, there are a few better honors I can think of than saving some spoiled suburbanite’s ass. Especially since I got y’all into that fight in the first place.”

  Leeds waves me off. “We were going to have to get into the fight eventually.” He takes a deep breath and turns away from the controls to face me. “Listen, Jace. Vance was a psycho, pure and simple. He was a corrupt banker that likened himself the Appalachian Al Capone. And that was pre-Z. Post-Z? He thought he was a Roman emperor. And just as sick and twisted. My team was already coming across more and more of his followers every time we ventured close to Asheville. Your situation may have chosen the time for us, but it was our fight.”

  “Yeah, but-”

  “No buts. None. Don’t disgrace the memories of my men by looking for excuses. They helped stop a dangerous man that was going to kill many of your friends. In this day and age, we can’t afford to lose a single life.”

  “Which is my point,” I counter, “we couldn’t afford to lose Stick and Cob.”

  “Fair enough,” Leeds nods, “point taken. And rejected. They died doing what they love and what they were born to do. They were soldiers, just like me. At some point, we die horrible, bloody deaths. That’s our nature.”

  “So I’m guessing you don’t have plans to retire in Boca and play golf until the next apocalypse then?”

  He grins. “No, don’t think so.”

  “Well, then we better crack the code to this shit,” I say, putting my hands on the control bank. Then pulling my hands away and wiping them on my jeans. Z yuck. Ugh.

  The control bank is made up of dials, knobs, levers, and other doodads that look completely random. Labels and names are faded or covered in gunk. I gingerly wipe off as much Z yuck as I can, hoping a little clarity will occur. It doesn’t. Just looks like a bunch of dials, knobs, levers, and other doodads.

  “What? Is this the 1950’s?” I ask. “Looks like the set to a bad scifi movie.”

  “USB ports are over here,” Leeds says. “Instead of yanking the whole unit out, they just upgraded with a computer interface.”

  “Good thing the place is solar powered,” I say, “or we’d really be fucked. Now, I can just plug my computer in and…oh, wait, I don’t have one. Never mind. We are really fucked.”

  “For a man of intelligence, you can be very stupid sometimes,” Leeds says pointing to a shelf across the room. “You think they only had PhDs working this station? Not likely.”

  “Manuals?” I ask.

  “Manuals,” Leeds nods. “We better get to reading before we lose the light.”

  “Lose the light?” I glance up at the windows. “You don’t think they’ll be back to get us before dark?”

  “Not without a vehicle,” he answers, “which will make too much noise and put us back in the same position we were in before. We’ll spend our time and resources fighting Zs instead of fixing this station. No, they’ll be back in the morning.”

  “Wish I had my blankie.”

  He grabs a binder from the shelf and tosses it to me. “Cuddle up with this. It should warm the cockles of your heart.”

  “Captain, I’m gonna need you to buy me dinner first, if there’s gonna be any cockles warming.” Leeds doesn’t laugh. “Okay, fine, not my best joke.”

  “Less joking and more reading.”

  “Roger,” I say as I plop into one of the chairs and crack open the binder. “More reading. Got it.”

  It doesn’t take me long to realize the manual isn’t going to tell me much without some context. I look up at the shelf and see a binder marked, “Reference.” Handy. I take it down and open it. This is what I need. It’s filled with basic definitions and procedures. All I need to do is study this manual and I’ll have at least a key to understanding the rest.

  I sigh and settle in to get the job done. After a few minutes, I look up and see Leeds watching me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You just remind me of my nephew,” Leeds says. “He had a brain like yours. What do you call it?”

  “I call my brain Steve,” I say.

  “No, smart ass, what do you call it that you do?”

  “I’m a generalist,” I shrug. “I have a knack for understanding pretty much any subject with just a little research. I tend to master skills quickly and then move on. Not everything sticks, but the majority does.”

  “What doesn’t stick?”

  “I can’t wrap a present worth a shit,” I say. “I have tried and tried. I take my time, I’m careful as hell, but they always look like a four year old did it. Can’t figure it out.”

  “But this isn’t a problem?” he asks, indicating the control banks.

  “I don’t know yet,” I say, tapping the referen
ce manual in my hands, “I’ll let you know.”

  “You do that.”

  “Are you finding anything?” I ask.

  “Nothing I can understand,” Leeds says. “I have found names for the individual controls, but nothing about what they do.”

  “Can I see that?” I ask. He hands me his manual. I look it over and then roll my chair up to the control bank. I set both manuals down, side by side. “Can I keep this one?”

  “You can keep them all if you think it will help.”

  “Between these two, I should be able to get us up to speed.” I look up at the windows. “I wonder if we can cover those. I’m gonna need light soon, but I don’t want it to bring the Zs.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Leeds sighs. “I have an idea.”

  I have an idea too, but don’t want to say it. It’s not fun. As Leeds gets up and starts to gather up the Z yuck, I see he has the same idea. I go back to the manuals while he busies himself with coating the windows with gunk. Soon the room is cast in a hazy, reddish glow. Leeds finishes and walks to the door, flicking the light switch next to it.

  “Will that work?” he asks.

  “It’ll work perfectly,” I say, “but, will it attract Zs is the real question?”

  “We’ll find out once the sun goes down,” Leeds says. He rolls a chair to the door and leans back against it, his head turned so his ear is right on the steel. “You do your brain thing and I’ll do my soldier thing. If I hear them coming, I’ll turn out the lights until they wander off.”

  “And if they don’t wander off?”

  “Then study hall is over and we wait it out in the dark,” Leeds says. “I’d recommend sleeping, but I doubt either one of us will if we have Zs knocking to get in.”

  “Then let’s hope they don’t knock,” I say, focusing harder on the manuals.

  “One can only hope,” Leeds replies.

  At least a couple hours go by before I make my first breakthrough. I spin around and look at the control banks against the wall behind me.

  “Find something?” Leeds asks. His eyes are closed so I’d figured he’d gone to sleep.

  “I don’t know yet,” I say, studying the control panels. “I think so.”

  I trace the panels with my fingers, looking at the manuals, and then at the panels; back and forth, back and forth.

  “I didn’t cause the shut down,” I say. “That’s a relief. Maybe Brenda will shut the fuck up about it.”

  “Not likely,” Leeds says as he gets up from the chair and leans over me to look at the panels.

  Brenda Kelly is the HOA Board Chairperson. Yes, despite the fact that Whispering Pines pretty much burned to the ground, there is still a Home Owners’ Association. And that’s not the surprising part! Brenda colluded with Vance, to what extent none of us knows, but she still colluded with him and it resulted in the deaths of my friends and neighbors.

  Yet, the HOA voted her back in as Chairperson of the Board! Why? Because they are frightened sheep and because she undermined any faith in me by leveraging the fact that I blew up Whispering Pines. Sure, I did it to help everyone and to try to stop Vance and his crazies. Problem was that I was in a semi-coma for a few days while she was busy rallying her troops. One vote later and she’s still in charge of Whispering Pines, and I’m out here, my hands sticky with Z yuck, while I try to figure out how to make things better for everyone. Unlike Brenda Kelly, the fat twat.

  Not that I want the Chairperson job. Fuck no to that! Thankless job and one that is filled with bullshit. Some folks are made for bureaucracy. I am not one of those folks. I like to think around red tape, not create more just for the fuck of it.

  “Jace? Hello, Stanford. You in there?”

  “What? Sorry,” I smile, “just mentally hating Brenda, that’s all.”

  “Hate on your own time,” Leeds says. “Tell me why you don’t think the gas shut down was your fault.”

  I point at a diagram in one of the manuals then at the control panels. “Each of these panels controls a sub-region of Asheville, see?”

  He looks the panels over and then shakes his head. “No, what am I looking for?”

  “See this one? West. This one? East. There’s north, south, downtown, etc. You can shut down specific regions without shutting the whole station down.”

  “Makes sense,” he nods. “So what did you find?”

  “Look at these panels,” I say, pointing to all but one. They are dark, not a blinking light. The last one isn’t dark, but has quite a few active lights. “They’ve been switched off. Not tripped because of any failsafe, but switched off.” I flip through the reference manual. “According to this, the failsafe is local. Whispering Pines did get shut off automatically, but probably at the main pipe down the road from the development, not from here.”

  “That still sounds like it was your fault,” Leeds says. “Not judging, just observing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re right, but it can be fixed at Whispering Pines. As soon as it’s safe to turn the gas back on, we can do it locally. We don’t need to come here.”

  “What’s that one?” he asks, pointing to the active control panel. “Where does it go?”

  “North Asheville,” I reply, “and if I’m right, that includes us, unless we’re on the west line. I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter for right now. What does matter, is that someone intentionally turned every region off except for this one.”

  “So it was Vance then,” Leeds says. “What was he up to?”

  “No, I don’t think it was Vance,” I reply. “Remember, his mansion is down in Biltmore. He may have set up shop in North Asheville, but the crazy fucker had his undead family still in the south part of town. Why would he shut off a resource to there? I’m sure he would still need it for something.”

  “New player?”

  “Maybe,” I shrug, “I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m focusing on this right now.”

  “Keep studying,” he says and sits back down, “you’ve done great so far. Keep at it.”

  “Great pep talk,” I smile as I get up and grab all of the binders, spreading them out before me.

  Leeds closes his eyes and smiles. “I’m a born leader. Just comes naturally.”

  I notice the fluorescent lights flickering slightly above and look over my shoulder. It’s dark outside. Fingers crossed, I can work it all out before we have to turn the lights off.

  “We’ll have company soon,” Leeds says.

  “How do you know?” I ask, looking over at him. His eyes are still closed.

  He taps his ears. “I can hear them out there. Not many, but enough. How are you doing?”

  “I think I have a few things figured out,” I say. “How much time do I have?”

  “An hour, maybe longer,” Leeds says. “What have you figured out?”

  “I’m pretty sure I can switch these panels on and get the gas flowing to the entire town again,” I say.

  “Do we want to do that?” he asks.

  “Can’t hurt,” I say.

  He opens one eye and locks it on me. “We’re talking about natural gas, Stanford. It can hurt quite a bit.”

  “Right. My bad,” I say. “But that’s what failsafes are for. If there is anything wrong with the lines, then they’ll shut down locally.”

  “That’s quite an assumption,” Leeds says. “Maybe they were all shut down for a reason. Maybe it was Vance and despite his mansion in Biltmore, he cut the gas on purpose.”

  “My gut says no to that,” I answer, “I can’t say why, just that it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t seem like Vance’s style.”

  “You killed the man, Jace,” Leeds says. “You didn’t hang out and read each others’ diaries. You have no clue what his style was or what he was thinking.”

  “What are you? The devil’s advocate? I’m floundering here at best. I could use a confidence boost, not a smack down.”

  Leeds sighs and leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He fixes me with that Captain’
s glare of his. “My job is to protect lives, not coddle intellectual egos. Your job is to be smart, not coddle your own ego. If I do my job and you do your job, then shit will get better. If either of us fail, then shit will get shittier. How’s that for a confidence boost?”

  “Perfect,” I say, giving him a thumbs up. “I feel like I can do anything now.”

  “Good,” Leeds says. He cocks his head and then shakes it. “More Zs. The windows aren’t clouded enough. And they can probably hear us. Time to get silent. You have maybe twenty minutes before we go dark and really hunker down.”

  I don’t even answer, just get back to studying. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go by and I’m even more sure that Vance didn’t shut the gas off. But who did?

  “I want to turn it all on,” I say finally, “before we sit here in the dark for the rest of the night.”

  Leeds studies me for a very long minute. “You’re sure about this?”

  “No,” I answer honestly, “I’m never sure about anything, yet everyone still asks me to figure it out. We’re going to have to take a risk.”

  “And why turn them all on?”

  That’s a good question. Why do it? Why not leave them off since the line that (probably) feeds Whispering Pines is already on?

  “Because I can,” I say. “And because there could be other survivors huddled in their basements way over in East Asheville that need this gas to get through the next few days. If it isn’t already too late.”

  “It’s the apocalypse, Jace,” Leeds says. “If they can’t figure out how to survive without natural gas, then they aren’t going to last long no matter what we do.”

  “Just give me a shot, will ya?” I ask. “I won’t blow us up.”

  “Right.”

  “Seriously,” I say, showing him a diagram and the paragraph below it, “the transfer station has backflow regulators. If something goes wrong, this place is perfectly safe. We’d have to pry open a pipe and drop a match inside to do any damage here.”

  Another long minute of the Leeds stare.

  “Captain?” I ask. Now I can hear the Zs outside. Their moans are getting louder. I don’t know how many are out there, but enough to hear our voices. We have to decide now.