by JT Sawyer
“His plan…it’s…it’s beyond even that. He is trying to figure out a way to use the parasites as a means for mind-control. I’m not sure how, but he has had his science staff in the lab below working on decoding how the parasites regulate behavior and physiological responses to threats.”
Vehm’s eyes darted to the ground and he seethed out a breath. “That must be where he took that truckload of survivors who arrived last night.” He slapped his palm on the desk then pivoted around and shot an unflinching look towards Han. “I am putting myself at great risk being here, talking with you about this, but I must know—will you help me before it’s too late? Your father is not sane—you must know that. There are others who feel as I do. If we act now, we can…”
Han raised a hand, shaking his head. He could feel the blood draining from his face. He leaned one arm against the bookshelf, feeling like he was holding up a portion of the Great Wall that was ready to collapse from within. I felt less trapped in the city a few days ago, battling the creatures, than I do here. Vehm is correct in his analysis—Father must be stopped. But who is to put an end to his tyranny—and then what? Is Vehm going to take the reins of the remaining government or will there be in-fighting that will only further reduce our numbers? Han knew on a fundamental level that his father was heading further down the path of insanity with each passing hour, but he didn’t know if he had the strength to do what was necessary and side with Vehm. Han felt like he was suffocating, and he frantically unbuttoned the top of his shirt, loosening his collar.
“You should return to your duties, General, before someone realizes you have been gone too long. None of this will leave this room.” He didn’t look at the man, but just focused his gaze upon a crack in the drywall until Vehm departed.
With the room silent again, he let out a deep sigh, his breathing feeling raspy, as if his lungs were comprised of jagged basalt. He balled his fist, looking over to a photograph of his mother and sister standing beside a lily pond in their backyard. I miss you so much. Why couldn’t both of you be here instead of him? Why?
Chapter 32
“Runa, you should come check this out,” said Mark from the upstairs bedroom, where he was stationed for the morning lookout. Mark was the only one in the group who called him by his last name. Runa trotted up the steps and moved to the east window, which overlooked several miles of hardwood forest. There was a wisp of smoke rising from the treetops.
“Just noticed that,” said Mark. “Looks like it’s about fifteen to twenty miles away.”
Runa nodded, silently acknowledging the kid’s range-finding ability, which meshed up with his assessment. “That’s in the direction of where we are headed this morning. Grab your rifle and gear and wake everyone else. We’ll head out in ten minutes.” Runa hoped the smoke wasn’t connected with the government bunker near Franklin. He didn’t see how it could be, since that place had fortified defenses and was buried four hundred feet below the surface. It has to be from a bonfire, but who’d be stupid enough to give away their position to the creatures like that?
An hour later, Runa had driven the Bronco to within a mile of the thick column of black-and-gray smoke. Everyone climbed out of the rig, donning their backpacks and removing their ARs. Valerie still wore a scarf around her neck bandage, but was decked out in jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket that she had found back at the mansion.
Runa motioned everyone to walk single file, parallel to the dirt road to the right that they had come in on. The crisp autumn air revealed a fine mist from their breathing, but the newly fallen leaves were still damp with moisture, making their passage relatively silent. Approaching the edge of a field, Runa stopped. He used the simple hand signals he had taught the group to indicate they should fan out to either side of him, then pointed back to Jody to watch behind them. Runa could smell an acrid odor that was a mix of what smelled like burning plastic and meat as the cloud of smoke shifted in the wind towards their location. He knelt down, removing his binoculars from his pack, and glassed the setting ahead.
Tucked into the right corner of the field was a cluster of RVs and travel trailers along with four pickup trucks and a motorcycle. Runa could see two men dressed in camouflage jackets standing around a campfire, laughing while they swigged on beer. He could hear the faint hum of a generator coming from behind the first RV. The smoke, the generator, the campfire—these guys don’t seem too concerned about alerting the creatures.
Fifty feet from the vehicles was an array of solar panels whose wiring led to a small shed. Got us an off-grid hillbilly hideaway.
He slowly scanned to the left, zooming in on the billowing column. A young man in his twenties with a scraggly beard was throwing a bicycle tire on the fire, which created another rivulet of heavy smoke. Seems to me there should be a shitload of Tangos descending upon this site with a campfire like that, so what gives? Beside the bearded figure was a stout man with red hair who was barking orders at five men who had just started unloading people from the back of a U-Haul truck. Their arms were bound behind their backs and most bore bruises on their faces.
“I count eight captives.”
“Guess we know what happened to all the survivors left in that town we visited yesterday,” said Jason.
“Looks like quite a mix of people here by their outfits,” said Runa. “These don’t strike me as being from a rural area, more like…” He paused, focusing on a woman in her mid-forties near the back of the line. He recognized her from political briefings on Capitol Hill. Secretary of State Karen Hemmings. He scanned the rest of the captives, noticing one Hispanic man who was wearing an empty shoulder harness for a pistol, while a stocky figure up front was wearing hospital scrubs. The smoke had obscured it before, but now the wind had cleared the field to the right, where there was a table piled high with tactical vests, walkie-talkies, and rifles. He pulled down his binoculars. “Shit, these aren’t people from town—they’re from the bunker in Franklin. It must have been compromised and these bastards got in somehow.”
“I thought it was underground and armed to the teeth,” said Mark.
“That’s generally the definition of a secure bunker.”
Runa clenched his jaw as he watched a red-haired goon smack the secretary of state in the face. The surly thug yelled at one of his men to take her to his RV across the field as the rest of the captives were shoved inside a steel storage container. All the people who made it out of DC ended up in another hellhole at the hands of their own kind.
“What are we gonna do?” said Megan.
He shoved aside his rage for the moment and scanned the entire field again, noting weapons, potential chokepoints, and ambush sites.
“There’s at least seven of them, and probably a few more inside the RVs.”
“Yeah, but they’re a bunch of rednecks; probably half of ’em are drunk,” said Jason.
“These are heartless killers. Some of them could have extensive training in fighting tactics and most of ’em are probably good with a rifle in their hands.” He gave Jason a hard stare. “Don’t ever take for granted your enemy’s abilities or you will surely be taken advantage of.”
The bearded man by the fire tossed a small tractor tire on the fire, then jumped back as the thick smoke snaked upward.
“Why would they have a big fire like that?” said Jody. “Wouldn’t that draw every creature in the area to this location?”
“Or have the opposite effect,” said Valerie. “When I was a kid, we used to put a handful of rubber bands near the entrance to rabbit and coon dens and light ’em on fire to drive the critters out. Worked every time. The chemicals would just cause them to gag.”
Runa muffled his cough as a wave of smoke drifted their way. “Valerie’s onto something, I’d say.” He looked to either side of him, aware that this was going to be their first offensive action together against other people. Normally, he would have a year to train a strike team, and now he was about to ask his group to take the lives of their fellow huma
n beings. He looked at the youthful faces of the three teenagers, reflecting on how they were probably hanging out in the high school parking lot with their buddies or playing basketball last week at this time. Now, they were armed with rifles and knives, about to head downrange and kill. He knew this scene was probably being played out in countless cities around the world as humans struggled to survive against the monsters, both human and otherwise.
“I’m not gonna lie to you—what we’re about to do is going to be ugly. There’s nothing that can prepare you for killing your own kind, but I want you to remember that if we don’t do this then those other people you just saw with their hands tied will be dead within the hour.”
“Why can’t we just shoot them in the leg?” said Jason. “I know these are some bad dudes, but what you’re talking about is outright murder.”
Runa gave him a slow nod. “Son, you speak as someone who has a good heart, and there’s a place for that, but these are hardened thugs who have survived by preying upon the weak and desperate. I’ve fought this type of war before and I can assure you that removing them from the picture is the best option.” He pointed with his thumb towards the field. “View these men as nothing more than rabid animals that need to be put down, and show them no mercy, for they will show you none.” Runa looked at them all as they processed that information in their own way, then he stowed away his binoculars.
“Valerie and Megan, you two will stay here and provide sniper cover for the rest of us.” From what he had already gleaned from Valerie’s stories about her childhood, he figured she came from a family of poachers and would be the best shot out of the group, making her an ideal candidate to cover them. He did a chamber check on his AR then looked at the others. “Mark, Jody, Jason—you’re with me. We’ll make our way around the back of the field and come in by the RVs. Once I eliminate the two men there, we’ll get the woman out and then lay some hate downrange at the rest of these goons.” Runa rubbed the stubble on his chin. “And if I’m right about who that lady is then she’s the next in line to be commander-in-chief of our country.”
Everyone showed a glimmer of hope on their faces as they nodded in compliance. Runa pivoted around, remaining in a low-squat as he moved along the hedgerow towards the vehicles. A few minutes later, they arrived behind the RVs. Runa kept his eye on the two inebriated men standing near the small campfire, both of them making lewd comments about the woman in the last travel trailer.
Five minutes went by before they were in place, with Jody and Jason remaining on the edge of the forest, where they could provide overwatch. Runa took Mark with him. He wanted the hot-headed youth close by and figured Jody would keep Jason’s nerves in check if they were called upon to do any shooting. Given the numbers, he was sure they would all end up with trigger time by morning’s end. Though it was nearly thirty-one years ago that Runa killed someone at close range during his first covert assignment with the Agency, he could still recall the young man’s face and knew in that moment that his soul would be forever marred. Today, there will be no going back for anyone in our group. They will never be the same again. He thought about the stressed but youthful faces of Mark, Jason, and Megan. It ought to have been different for them. No one should have to bear the burden of what they are about to do.
Runa moved alongside the back of the aluminum travel trailer. He could smell the oak logs burning on the nearby campfire and hear the two men talking about their accomplishments in striking the convoy of captives, who were driving south. Runa motioned to Mark to cover him, giving the teenager a stern look to reinforce controlling his weapon. Nothing like going into the line of fire knowing your backside is as vulnerable as your front.
With a lack of suppressors for their rifles, he slid his AR across his back and removed a twelve-inch fixed Bowie knife from his belt. He checked back to look at Jody and Jason, who were in position beside a moss-covered stump, their rifles affixed on the other group of hostiles.
Runa took several deep breaths, his eyes narrowing as he clutched his blade. He crept around the side of the trailer towards the backs of the two men. His movements were fluid, and his predatory habits of hunting other humans returned quickly as the veneer of civility from working indoors at Langley for too many years melted away. Runa wound around a water barrel then sprang up the last three steps at the goon on the left. The Bowie drove into the side of his neck, the two-inch-wide blade slicing through half of the muscles then severing both carotids. The pudgy man gurgled, his eyes widening as he crunched the beer can in his hand. The spray of blood coated the tall thug to the right as Runa swung the blade back in an arc, slamming it into the other thug’s trachea. The man thrust his hands up to the severed cartilage as his voice chortled out a raspy breath. Runa dragged the Bowie back towards him, repeating the same move with greater ferocity, this time driving the blade through the soft tissue and vertebrae. The severed head plunked back onto the man’s folding chair as the body collapsed next to the firepit. Runa looked over at the fat man on the ground, whose arteries had just finished spurting their last wave of bright red blood while his eyes glazed over. Runa remained still, looking around the circle of RVs for any movement. The small ring of trailers blocked his sight from the other area of camp, and he couldn’t tell if anyone was coming from that direction. He swung his head around towards Mark to get visual confirmation, but only saw the teenager’s pale face gazing down at the bloody corpses. The kid looked like he was frostbitten, and Runa hoped the teenager wasn’t going to puke.
Runa waved his hand, bringing Mark’s attention back to him while pointing in the direction of the other thugs. Mark shook his head, indicating the area was clear.
Runa bent over, dragging his soiled blade across the jeans of the headless corpse, then resheathed the Bowie. He pulled the Springfield XD pistol from his hip and proceeded towards the large white-and-blue travel trailer near the woods. Pausing at the side door, he listened for any movement inside, but only heard the muffled gags of the captured woman. Runa grabbed the latch and swung open the door, springing inside and sweeping his pistol to either side.
The woman recoiled into the bed, her hands tied to the corner post. She started kicking her legs as Runa approached. He could see she had a dark bruise under her right eye and a swollen lower lip. Runa lowered his pistol and took a step back from the bed. “Ma’am, we’re here to get you out. I’m Jonas Runa with the CIA.” He looked out the window then back at her. “We don’t have a lot of time before those other pieces of shit realize that two of their men are dead.” He leaned forward, removing the rag from her mouth, then pulled out his Bowie and sliced free the manila rope binding her to the bed.
“The CIA—what the hell are you talking about? Are you part of the recovery team sent down here to the bunker?” She stood up, rubbing her wrists. Her face was pale and it looked like she was going to fall backwards. Runa grabbed her arm but she pushed it away. “I’m fine. I just need a second. When I heard that door open, I thought my time on this earth was nearly over.”
“What happened? I mean, to you and your people—and the bunker?”
She brushed aside a strand of brown hair from her face then adjusted her torn shirt. “A few of my staff and I along with some Secret Service agents made it out of the Capitol, but were stuck in a hotel just outside of DC for two days as those things tore apart the city.” She let out a shiver, then grabbed a leather jacket off a coat rack and slid it on. “Just before the power outage, we were able to get word to Central Command in Florida. They routed a helicopter out of Fort Bragg before it collapsed. That’s what got us from DC to here. Only we were inside the bunker for probably six hours when those creatures started killing everyone.”
“How did they get in?”
“They didn’t—one of the guards must have gotten some of those worms on him or in him during an attack earlier, and it spread like wildfire after that.” She let out a deep breath, her shoulders sagging. “Within two hours, we went from eighty people down to twenty-thr
ee. The whole place was overrun. The Secret Service and anyone else able to fight held them off for a while, but there was nowhere to hide.” She thrust her fist towards the window. “We tried to get back to the helicopter, but there were too many creatures in that direction. With the batteries dead in our SAT phone and the power out everywhere, we had no way of getting in touch with Central Command.” She held her chin up, pulling her shoulders back. “We held out on the run for a few days, stealing cars and moving through the towns; then we ran into these bastards. They ambushed our convoy down this narrow dirt road. Next thing we know, they’d killed most of my protective detail and rounded up the rest of us like we were cattle. By the looks of them, I’d say they’re escaped convicts.”
“Well, Madam Secretary, my team may not be much to look at, but we’ll get the rest of your people freed and you out of here.”
He removed another pistol from his belt and handed it to her. “By now, you probably already know how to use this.” He raised an eyebrow, awaiting her confirmation.
She partially slid back the slide, checking for a round. “Hell, my father was a Marine LRRP in Vietnam. He never thought you should wait for an apocalypse to learn to defend yourself.” She extended her right hand. “Karen Hemmings, and I’m sure grateful for your help, Mr. Runa.”
He gave her hand a hearty shake. “Honored, ma’am. Right now, we’re going to make our way back to the forest then cut around to the east and remove the rest of the garbage holding your people captive. After that, we’ll have to figure out how to get down to MacDill or get them to come to us.”
Chapter 33
Runa was standing behind a heap of broken wooden pallets near the treeline, eyeballing the positions of the remaining five thugs near the campfire. Two men were making a bet on who would get the remaining women locked inside the makeshift cell. The redheaded thug was standing before a Secret Service agent tied to a post, pounding the man’s side with his fist. At first, Runa thought it was to extract information, but then he realized the goon wasn’t asking any questions. He was just beating the man for the sheer pleasure, his eyes aglow with amusement. The last two men were huddled around the campfire, cutting up sections of bicycle tires and tossing them into a nearby pile of discarded rubber.
