Free Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) by Joseph Tatner Page A

driving for a couple of hours through, around, or over vehicles on the freeway. Still no sign of any brain-eaters anywhere, not even in the cars they ran over, but what Floyd saw up ahead made him stop the vehicle. He zoomed in one of the outside cameras and used the toggle to move it around. He pulled out his map book and checked and double checked. He played with a couple of the other cameras as well. There was no mistaking it.
    “Mikki, did you ever want to go to Disneyland?”
    “Yeah, when I was a kid. But not since creepers took over the freakin’ world. I never got to go, though. Why?”
    “Because it’s gone.”
    “What do you mean, ‘It’s gone’?”
    “I mean it’s gone! No more Pirates of the Caribbean, no more Haunted Mansion, no more It’s a Small World.” OK, no big loss on that last one . “No Indiana Jones ride.” Now that was a bummer . “Take a look. That smoking hole is right where Disneyland used to be.”
    Mikki looked at the monitors. There was another pit ahead like the one they had trudged through before. She looked at Floyd’s maps and back at the monitors. They had taken Harbor Boulevard straight north from The Grant Boys until the road disappeared into a blast zone that coincided exactly with the former location of the amusement park.
    “Well, I’ll be damned,” Mikki said.
    Floyd shot her a look, but she ignored it. Continuing on, he drove down into the pit. Even though neither one had ever been to the Magic Kingdom, and knew they never would have had the chance in a world full of zombie tourists anyway, they still both got the weirdest feeling of sadness knowing that a place that had given joy to millions of people for decades was now just a charred hole in the ground. And it wasn’t just Disneyland. There were numerous pockets of vaporized buildings for miles around.
    “Ya know, Floyd? I’m startin’ to see a pattern here, and I don’t like it.”
    “Me neither. No doubt as a tourist spot, this place was heavy with brain-eaters. I think it’s pretty obvious the military used some powerful shit to try and stop the infestation.”
    “I was thinkin’ the same thing. Colonel Trowbridge said they had RPGs that could take out a city block, but this is much bigger than that.”
    “I’d say a tactical nuke. Army probably swept in soon after and wiped up whatever brain-eaters were left and burned ‘em. That would explain why there are no bodies of any kind. And that would also explain the Super Z’s we ran into. Musta happened pretty quick. Otherwise, there would have been a run on that gun store. Looters would have stripped it bare.”
    “That would explain somethin’ else, too,” Mikki said, ominously.
    “What’s that, Mikki?”
    They were just coming up out of the other side of the pit. Mikki toggled one of the forward cameras and zoomed in. She pointed to the monitor and said, “It explains that!”
    Floyd looked and saw several vehicles like Behemoth up ahead, along with a number of tanks. Real tanks! The military had clearly occupied this entire area, but for whatever reason, they weren’t entirely successful. About a hundred Super Z’s were standing around, inert. Many were holding machine guns or pistols as if they were now glued to their bodies.
    “Tanks!” Floyd exclaimed, pointing out the obvious.
    “You’re welcome,” Mikki answered. Floyd groaned. “Oh, come on! I had to say that! Maybe they’ll think we’re one of ‘em,” Mikki offered. “We’re in one o’ their trucks. Or whatever this thing is.”
    “Technically, it’s a TAV: tactical assault vehicle.”
    “Yeah, whatever. I like your name better. ‘Behemoth.’”
    “Yeah, me too. Well, they don’t seem to be paying attention to us yet. If they know how to fire those tank cannons, though, were dead.”
    “We could just go around, Floyd.”
    “Yeah, but then we’ll never know what we’re dealing with. Let’s play this out.”
    ‘OK, Floyd. When did we have a brain transplant?