Free Deadrise 2: Deadwar by Steven R. Gardner Page A

upon was Urie, a small cattle community and little more than a main street along the highway, with a few private driveways leading to cattle ranches. It was populated by a couple dozen zombies, which the boys on the bikes quickly dispatched.
    They passed through Urie, and a couple of miles later they came to a crossing in the highway. Mountain View was to the right, south, while Lyman was straight ahead. Smitty gave the signal to turn right to Mountain View.
    “Radio home. Give a report.” Smitty rolled through his memory, trying to recall what he knew of this area. It was mostly sheep and cattle ranchers in these townships, taking advantage of the large, fertile meadows found abundantly at the base of the mountains. But now that he was thinking about it, he seemed to recall staying at Mountain View several years ago. An old farmhouse and grounds had been converted into a ski lodge, and some lifts were built to access the mountain slopes. He wracked his memory; it had been in the late eighties, maybe the early nineties; there was a ten-year period there that seemed to blur together into one drug fogged haze. The lodge had been a modest place, able to house maybe two hundred people. Come springtime the population had withered down to a handful of year round residents who comprised a skeleton crew for the lodge. He hadn’t been a skier himself, but skiers liked cocaine, weed, acid, mushrooms and pain pills and Smitty had been there one winter to supply them all.
    There were no zombies visible as they approached the lodge. The road wound south through the lush forest, until a road sign announced the turn off for the Mountain View Lodge. Both bikes fell behind the truck, letting it take the lead down the narrow, two-lane road. The drive widened into a large, open parking lot able to house several dozen vehicles. Set back perhaps one hundred yards from the lot, accessible by another single lane road, was the Mountain View Lodge; a sprawling, three-story structure that still had the look of a simple farmhouse. The parking lot was completely empty, and there was a steady column of smoke coming out of the lodge’s two chimneys. Smitty brought his truck to a halt.
    “Chico, put out the white flag.” Smitty said. Chico reached behind the seat and grabbed a wooden pole, about a meter long, with a white flag tightly coiled around one end. Chico rolled down his window and held the flag out with one arm, unfurling it. Once it was fully free, he set the base of the pole into a notch mounted on the roof above the passenger door. A couple of minutes later, a white flag arose from the rooftop of the lodge. Smitty eased the truck ahead slowly. Looking out his window, he motioned Angel to bring his bike parallel to the driver’s window.
“You stay cool.” Smitty said harshly, pointing at Wild Billy.
“I’m gentle as a pussy cat.” Wild Billy said, pantomiming innocence.
“I mean it Billy.” Smitty cast him a cold, hard look. “Chico, pass the word to Augie, then call home, give a report…”
     
    It turned out there were one hundred people holed up inside the Mountain View lodge, which could comfortably sleep twice that. They had several head of cattle corralled in the back, plenty of canned food and dried goods, weapons and ammunition. They were led by a man named Hughes, a rugged outdoorsman in his early forties, with short dark hair, a stout build and a hyperactive nervousness about him. He was wary of them, and his people never took their hands off their weapons.
    “Look, we are not your enemy. We are from a community about fifty miles from here. Do you know where Kittewa is?” Hughes nodded suspiciously. “That is where we are. We are out looking for supplies, other survivors. My people are going to be eager to meet you. If you wish, you could be relocated.”
One of Hughes people leaned over and whispered something to him. Hughes nodded, looking at Smitty conspiratorially once again.
“How do I know you’re not calling