Zommunist Invasion | Book 2 | Snipers Read online

  f) Amanda was surprisingly lucid considering the circumstances.

  g) Cassie, Stephenson, and Amanda were members of the chess club. Thanks to their honor classes, they had a combined grade point average four-point-six. If they had any hope of surviving, the only thing they had on their side was smarts. Brawn was nowhere to be seen.

  Cassie continued to play. The thumping from the Nielson’s bedroom was seriously beginning to stress her out. It was also riling up the natives outside, who had returned to scratching and thumping on the outside of the house.

  “Checkmate,” Cassie said at last.

  “What?” Stephenson stopped his complaining long enough to frown at her.

  “Checkmate. Black wins.” Cassie set the chessboard aside and stood. “We need to find the entrance to the attic.”

  “Wait, what?” Stephenson trailed after her into the kitchen.

  “We need to find the entrance to the attic.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to let the zombies inside.”

  Chapter 2

  Round-Up

  “NO.” LEO HAD LOST COUNT of the number of times he’d said that word this morning.

  “You can’t shut me out of this,” Jennifer argued. “She’s my baby sister.”

  “And I’m going to get her and bring her back to you. I told you that.”

  “So I’m just supposed to sit around all day twiddling my thumbs until you get back?”

  “Help Nonna and the others make bombs.”

  “There are more than enough people to make bombs.”

  “We don’t have enough horses.”

  “I can ride with you.”

  “I already told you. There might be more than one person to bring back from the Nielson’s. If you ride double with me, that’s one less place for someone else.”

  Jennifer’s mouth set in an angry line. Leo could see the argument gathering behind her eyes.

  He held up a hand to forestall her. “Jennifer, why are you making this so difficult? I’m going to get Cassie. Why can’t you just let me go get her?”

  Her shoulders drooped. When she looked at him, her expression was earnest. “She’s my sister, Leo. I need to know that she’s okay. I ... I can’t just sit around waiting for you to bring me bad news. I need to see for myself.”

  Leo finally got it. She didn’t think Cassie was still alive. If her sister was dead or missing, Jennifer wanted to see for herself.

  In truth, the odds were stacked against Cassie. The odds were stacked against all of them.

  Leo never had a chance to say goodbye to his father. He’d done nothing more than wave goodbye when his dad rushed off to Rossi to find Lena and Dal. That was the last time Leo saw him. He knew what it was like not to see a body, not to have closure in that way.

  “Okay.” He gave her a curt nod. “You can ride with Anton.” If there were more than two people alive with Cassie, they’d figure something out on the fly. Hell, they’d probably have to improvise no matter how well they planned.

  Fifteen minutes later, Leo, Dal, Jennifer, and Anton were all mounted on horses. Nonna stood on the porch of the cabin to see them off. With her was the rest of the gang: Lena, his younger sister; Jim and Tate Craig, childhood friends and neighbors; and Bruce, Anton’s varsity football buddy.

  “Be careful out there,” Lena said. She spoke to them all, but here eyes were on Dal.

  “Kill any Russians you see.” Nonna’s face was set and serious.

  Leo led the way out, taking a familiar trail he and his siblings had used since childhood. He was on the stocky mare Dal and Lena had brought back from Rossi. He’d been planning to ride the big black stallion named Stealth, but it made more sense for Anton and Jennifer to double up on the strongest animal.

  “Just you and me, girl.” He patted the bay’s flank. She flicked her ears back at the sound of his voice. They needed to name her one of these days.

  “Tell me the route one more time,” Dal said from behind him. He was on the big bay named Thunder that he’d brought back from Rossi.

  “We cross through our land and onto the Gonzales’ farm.” The Gonzales family owned the land that bordered the Cecchinos’. “Then we take a few country roads and ride straight to the Nielsons’.” The journey would take them three times longer than if they used the highways, but there was too much chance of being spotted.

  The Russians had been out in force after the Snipers' attack on Bastopol High. The Soviets had driven by the Cecchino farm several times yesterday. A small group had even broken into the family house and poked around the barn before leaving.

  Leo worried they’d somehow traced the attack on the high school back to them. At least they hadn’t found the road to the cabin, which was hidden at the back of the orchard behind some bay trees that had fallen over in a storm. Nonna and the others had promised to keep a lookout while Leo was gone in case the Russians came back.

  Leo led his team off the trail and through an open meadow to a creek that ran year-round. From there, they followed the creek all the way to the perimeter of the Gonzales property.

  After cutting through the apple orchard and a small vineyard—Mr. Gonzales thought wine would be the next big commodity in the area—they arrived at a small gravel road. It was an offshoot off the main highway that serviced a small cluster of farms.

  Leo had grown up on those roads. He paused on the edge of the grapevines, listening. After discerning there were no vehicles or nezhit nearby, he led the group down the road.

  They hadn’t ridden more than a mile when the rumble of several car engines reached his ears.

  “Get off the road!” He kicked the bay in the flank and led her up a hillside thick with trees. It was covered with ferns, hazelnuts, and pines. The horses nickered as the loose soil slipped underneath her hooves.

  Dal’s big bay charged past them, the first to reach the top of the slope. Stealth, even burdened by two people, passed Leo’s old mare.

  His horse nickered in what Leo imagined was irritation. He patted her side and murmured words of encouragement until she reached the summit. As they reached higher ground, they had a perfect, unobstructed view of the road. The sound of approaching vehicles grew louder.

  It had to be Russians. No American was stupid enough to drive out in the open. Leo pulled out the binoculars he’d brought with them on the journey.

  Nine times out of ten, when he saw Soviets, they were in stolen vehicles. Today was no different. There were two trucks and a jeep. The jeep held two soldiers. Two more soldiers sat in the cab of the pick-up.

  The back of the truck was filled with people. Americans. They crouched in the back of the truck, huddled together in terror under the supervision of another two Soviets. They leaned casually against the back of the truck cab, machine guns aimed at the prisoners.

  “What the hell?” Leo handed off the binoculars to Dal. “What do you think they’re doing?”

  Dal took a look through the binoculars. “It looks like a round-up. I’ve seen them do this before.” His eye were grim as he lowered the binoculars. “I saw them do this in Rossi. That’s when—that’s how they got your dad and infected him.” Dal’s voice choked off.

  Leo felt rage simmer in his gut. “We need to follow them and see if that’s what’s going on.”

  “But what about my sister?” Jennifer said. “You promised to help me find Cassie.”

  He had. It would be easy to turn away from that promise and focus on this new mission. But if it were Anton or Lena out there, he’d be as desperate to find them as Jennifer was to find Cassie.

  “We’ll follow them for a few miles,” Leo said. “If we don’t learn anything useful by that time, we’ll turn around and head to the Nielsons’.”

  “You promise?” Jennifer asked. “You’re not going to change your mind in a few miles and insist on following the Russians all the way to who-knows-where?”

  “I swear,” Leo said. “Just a few miles. Then we head to the Nielsons'.”


  Jennifer nodded reluctantly. Leo led them along the ridge line, which roughly paralleled the road. The trees kept them concealed. They couldn’t keep up as the trucks rumbled past, but the horses moved quickly enough to remain within earshot of the vehicles.

  They followed the Russians all the way back to where the gravel road intersected the main highway. In the intersection sat more vehicles and more Russians.

  The truck with prisoners wasn’t the only one of its kind. There were two others there, both crammed full of scared people. There had to be almost fifty prisoners down there. Leo counted three teams of Soviets, eighteen in all.

  Leo raised his binoculars, watching a soldier approach the closest of the prisoner trucks and open the tailgate. The people inside were herded out by gunpoint. There were men, women, children, and grandparents. They were strung across the road in a long line.

  A half dozen Russians faced the line, each of them armed. As Dal had suspected, they weren’t armed with machine guns. The Soviets each held a dart gun. Tiny red darts sat in a tall cartridge at the back end of the weapons.

  “They have the nezhit virus,” Leo grated. “They’re going to shoot all those people with the virus and infect them.” He passed the binoculars down the line.

  “That’s exactly what they did in Rossi.” Dal raised the binoculars to his eyes and swore. “There has to be nearly fifty prisoners down there. Once they’re infected, they’ll be sent back to their homes to infect more people.”

  “And they’ll all be dead in less than ten days,” Anton said.

  Leo couldn’t stand by and let that happen. No fucking way. His blood hammered in his temples, fueled by his anger and sense of injustice. This was fucking America. This shit was not happening on his watch.

  “Dal, you’re on the first three Russians with the dart guns. Take them out. I’ll take out the second three. Anton and Jennifer, get in as close as you can. Use Nonna’s bombs to take out their vehicles so they can’t get away.”

  “Wha—what are you doing?” Jennifer gasped. “We—”

  Anton and Dal were already on the move, slipping silently through the forest. Leo silently thanked his father for all the years of hunting lessons. They wouldn’t have a chance in hell without his training.

  “We’re saving those people and then we’re going to get your sister,” he said to Jennifer. “Go with Anton and get ready to throw some bombs.”

  Jennifer looked ready to argue with him, then abruptly changed her mind and raced off after Anton. Good. He had more important things to do than argue with her. Like saving fifty innocent people who were about to be shot up with the nezhit virus.

  Chapter 3

  Plan

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WE’RE going to let the zombies inside?” Stephenson cried.

  There wasn’t time to explain. Cassie hurried into the kitchen. “Amanda, where’s the attic?”

  “Why?” Amanda looked from her seat at the kitchen table, where she’d been quietly dabbing her eyes.

  “Just tell me where the attic is.” Cassie’s nerves were frayed. She couldn’t deal with everyone asking her questions all the time.

  “It’s in my parent’s room,” Amanda said.

  Of course it was. Cassie closed her eyes, attempting to compose herself. She set up a chessboard in her head and began to play. White pawn to e4. Black pawn to e5. White bishop to c4.

  By the time she made her third move on the board, she’d regained a semblance of calm. She marched over to the fridge, grabbed the old metal broom, and headed into Amanda’s bedroom. She’d had countless sleepovers in this room.

  Stephenson and Amanda followed her, both of them talking at the same time. Cassie tuned them out and hopped up onto the bed. Black knight to f6. White knight to c3.

  Bracing one foot on the headboard of Amanda’s bed, she rammed the broom handle upward. The sheetrock shuddered and sent down a fine spray of white. Thank God the ceiling in here wasn’t the same knotty pine wood they had in the kitchen and living room.

  “Cassie?” Amanda said. “What are you doing?”

  Black bishop to c5. White knight to d5.

  Cassie braced her feet and went to town. She had to look down to keep sheetrock powder from getting into her eyes. She kept slamming the broom handle into the ceiling until she had a decent sized hole.

  “Stephenson, go get one of the ladder-back chairs from the kitchen.” Cassie shifted and began to widen the hole, battering another section of the sheetrock.

  Stephenson blinked at her from behind his glasses before dashing out into the kitchen. Amanda had slumped to the floor and was quietly crying again. The sound of Mrs. Nielson echoed through the house as she beat at the door. Mr. Nielson was silent.

  When Stephenson returned, Cassie took the chair from him. She wedged the back legs against the mattress and rested the top of the ladder back against the wall. It was ridiculously precarious, but it wasn’t like the Neilsons kept ladders inside their tiny house.

  Cassie tested the chair before climbing up. It sank into the mattress under her weight. Amanda watched the operation with red-rimmed eyes. Stephenson chewed his bottom lip, looking torn between wanting to catch Cassie if she fell and wanting to get out of the way.

  Cassie pulled herself into the attic, scrambling onto a support beam as the sheetrock bowed beneath her weight. Once she had a secure seat on the beam, she used the heel of her Vans to smash the sheetrock beside her.

  Within minutes, she had a wide opening with direct access to the support beam. She poked her head down to look at her friends.

  “We can’t stay in this house,” she said. “No one is coming to save us. Sooner or later, one of the doors or windows are going to get smashed open. If we want to live, we have to save ourselves.”

  Amanda’s head thunked back against the wall. Stephenson licked his lips.

  “You guys are going to climb into the attic. There are only two ways out of here: through the vent at the front of the house, or the vent at the back of the house. The front vent is the best choice because we can get onto the porch roof. It won’t be as far down to the ground that way.”

  Cassie secretly only gave them a fifty-percent chance of survival. Chess kids weren’t made for situations like this. Football players or wrestlers, yes, but not chess nerds.

  “What about the infected outside?” Stephenson whispered.

  This was the part of the plan Cassie dreaded the most, though she hadn’t come up with a better plan in the ten minutes it had taken her to break into the attic.

  “I’m going to let them in through the back door.”

  Her friends stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.

  “What?” Amanda said, right as Stephenson said, “Are you nuts?”

  “This is a chess sacrifice,” Cassie said. Putting it in terms of the game would make it easier for them to understand. “We give up a valuable piece for checkmate. Or in this case, we give up the house to get the Gremlin.”

  The Gremlin. That was the Nielsons’ nickname for the family car. It was an old brown Pontiac with peeling paint that looked like Gremlin fur when seen from a distance.

  “Um, you really can’t compare the Gremlin to a king,” Stephenson said. “I’m pretty sure a king outranks the Gremlin.”

  “You do recall that none of us has a driver’s license, right?” Amanda said.

  “But we all took driver’s ed,” Cassie argued. “We know the left foot is the clutch and the right foot is for the break and the accelerator. Other than that, we just have to steer.”

  “If it was that easy, they wouldn’t require us to take a test and get a license,” Stephenson pointed out.

  “Do either of you have any better idea?” Cassie snapped. She forced herself to moderate her tone. In truth, she was just as scared as they were. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. This is the best idea I’ve come up with. Are you guys in, or do you have a better plan?” She would be thrilled if someone had a better plan.

&nbs
p; Amanda swallowed and dried her eyes on her sleeve. “You’re right, Cassie. We can’t stay here. Just give me a minute to say goodbye to my dad.”

  Cassie didn’t think that was such a good idea. Talking through the door would just rile up Mrs. Nielson. But if it was her father, she’d say goodbye no matter the risk.

  While they waited for Amanda to say goodbye, Cassie went through the house in search of anything that might prove useful in their escape. She grabbed a kitchen knife and slid it into her belt. There was a small selection of tools in the kitchen junk drawer: two screwdrivers, a socket wrench, and two regular wrenches. Cassie grabbed them all. They’d make decent weapons if it came to that. Not that she gave herself or her friends good odds at surviving a one-on-one encounter with a zombie.

  Stephenson came into the kitchen with his baseball cap and school backpack.

  “Are you really going to run for your life with your school books?” she asked.

  “Heck yeah,” he said. “What if I need something out of one of them?”

  “How is a calculous book going to help us?”

  “There’s information in here we might be able to use.” Stephenson patted his backpack. “Brains are our best defense.”

  Since Cassie has come to the same conclusion, she didn’t argue the point. “Here, pick your weapons.” She dumped everything she’d collected onto the kitchen table and went to retrieve her backpack.

  She decided to keep her travel chess set, a birthday gift from Stephenson and Amanda. Everything else she left stacked on the table. She wouldn’t cry if she never had to crack open a literature book again.

  “Here are the Gremlin keys,” Stephenson said when she returned to the kitchen.

  “Good. You’re in charge of driving.”

  “Me?” Stephenson gaped at her. “You know I sucked at driving. I think my teacher almost wet himself when I accidentally ran a red light.”

  “I’d bank on a guy who runs red lights when we’re trying to escape infected.”

  “And Russians. Don’t forget Russians.”

  Cassie had nothing else to say to that. The desperation of their situation pressed in on her from all sides.