D-Day managed to graze Fred’s head with a right, but Fred parried the follow-up left and delivered an uppercut to D-Day’s chin. D-Day’s head snapped back, and his knees began to buckle. Fred wasted no time; he tucked his chin in, squared up, and put all his weight into another thunderous punch into the man’s jaw.
Spittle flew from his mouth from the impact and he went down, hitting the frozen ground with a loud thud. Fred took no chances. His intention was to finish the fight by planting the heel of his boot between D-Day’s eyes. He missed.
Instead, his heel connected with D-Day’s mouth. The noise of crunching teeth caused the crowd to emit an audible gasp. Fred stepped back and watched D-Day while he took some deep breaths. Satisfied the man was out of action, he gazed at the crowd.
“Anybody else feel the need to insult my mother?”
There were several grins and a few more shakes of the head. Fred grunted and walked back over to Sammy. Ruby ran over to D-Day and crouched beside him. She put a hand to his bloody face and tried to shake him back to consciousness without success. She then looked up at Fred with pure, unadulterated hatred in her eyes. Standing, she pulled a thirty-eight snub-nosed revolver out of her waistband.
Before she could act further, her wrist was suddenly seized in a vice-like grip. First Sergeant Crumby had been watching her the whole time. When he saw her go for her gun, he ran up behind her. He grabbed her left shoulder with his other hand and squeezed tightly as he shook the revolver out of her hand. He then leaned in and put his mouth to her ear.
“You try to commit murder in front of me, I’ll kill you and your man, right here, right now. You got it?”
“You’re hurting me!” she screamed.
The first sergeant let go of her and she ran off, leaving her so-called husband lying on the ground, groaning in misery. Jeremiah picked up the revolver and unloaded it. He shoved the bullets into his pocket and tucked the revolver in his waistband before walking over to Fred.
“Appreciate that,” Fred muttered.
“I just wanted to tell you, you’re a tough old SOB,” Jeremiah proclaimed with a grin.
Fred looked at the first sergeant and a hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
“Heads up,” Sammy whispered.
They turned and saw the president and Rhinehart walking over.
“Well, you got that out of your system, Mister McCoy, although I cannot say I approve,” President VanAllen remarked. “So, are you going to accept the job?”
“Said I would, didn’t I?” He had finished putting on his gun belt but he was too hot to put on the vest. He stared at the president, waiting.
For some stupid reason, Gil VanAllen, a desk riding financial consultant in his past life, tried to stare down Fred McCoy. It didn’t work. Instead, he turned to Jeremiah.
“First Sergeant, please brief Mister McCoy on his responsibilities for this mission.”
“Aye, sir,” Jeremiah replied, but he did not salute. After the two men had walked away, a few people walked over and complimented Fred. Jeremiah waited until everyone had left before speaking.
“We have a mission briefing in an hour with everyone that is going on recon missions, and before I forget, I must thank you.”
“For what?” Sammy asked.
Jeremiah gestured at Fred. “If it weren’t for this, only a couple of people had planned on volunteering, if any. There’ll be a few more now” He smiled and gave a mock salute to Fred. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
“I’ll be there,” Fred replied. He turned to Sammy. “I’ve worked up a powerful appetite. Let’s go eat.”
Chapter 15 – To Cauterize or Not to Cauterize
Doctor Stephen Kincaid made a tsking noise as he inspected Justin’s arm. His friend and colleague, Doctor Hiram Smeltzer, did the same.
“Well, Captain, I have good news and bad news.”
“Spit it out, Doc,” Justin said.
“Cauterizing it at this point would be painful and probably ineffective. Stretch seems to have done a good job of cleaning and dressing the bites, but there was a delay of a few hours. Your tetanus vaccination is still good for a couple more years, but it won’t prevent rabies. Do you have excessive salivation?”
“No. In fact, I could stand to have something to drink. A cup of hot tea maybe,” he said and looked hopefully at Ruth. She nodded and hurried off.
“Alright, that’s a good sign. We’re going to leave these wounds open and keep a loose dressing over them. I have some Neosporin in the lab. It’s expired, but it won’t hurt to squirt some on these bites.”
“So far it sounds like good news, Doc,” Justin said.
The doctor frowned. “When Shooter called this in, I did a little reading. Rabies may take ten to sixty days before it presents itself.”
“If I have it, what happens?” Justin asked.
“I’m afraid you will die,” Hiram said. “There is no cure. If you don’t have rabies, I’m concerned that you may have sustained nerve damage. The wounds are pretty deep.”
Justin gave a terse nod as Ruth came back with a steaming cup of tea. He gave her a small smile and took a sip. It was n herbal spice blend that he could have done without, but he didn’t complain. Stephen started to say something more, but Justin cut him off.
“Alright, Doc. If you two have something to take care of, do it now. We’re going to have an important meeting in thirty minutes in the cafeteria and it’ll last until lunch.”
They indicated they understood and hurried off. Stretch waited until they had shut the door before speaking.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“Shitty with a healthy dose of shitty,” he replied. “Rhinehart has always been difficult and VanAllen is worse. They think they know everything. He was a financial consultant, back before, did you know that?”
Ruth scoffed. “My uncle was a financial consultant. He told me it didn’t matter what he told his clients to invest in, he got a commission no matter how poorly the stock or mutual fund performed.”
“Sounds right up his alley,” Justin muttered. “They showed me the intel report from Missouri. Clay had pictures of Chinese soldiers getting off a paddle boat.”
“A paddle boat?” Ruth questioned.
“Yeah. Think about it. It wouldn’t take much to convert some of the older ones back to steam engines. My guess is they came up from the delta. And, if I had to guess, there was more than one paddle boat full of Chinese troops traipsing around.”
“What did Rhinehart and VanAllen think of that?”
“They had very little interest,” Justin said. “But we’ll go over it together. If there are more, and I’m sure there are, Fort Detrick is a possible target.”
“Alright, I’ll get on the intercom,” Ruth said and sighed. “This shit never seems to end. So, how’s your arm, really?”
“It hurts like hell.”
“I’ll rig you up a sling. You should take a quick shower and change before the meeting.”
“Yes ma’am,” Justin replied.
Chapter 16 – Recon Briefing
Fred and Sammy walked in the Tactical Operations Center almost an hour after the fight. When they walked in, Joker looked up and grinned.
“I hear we missed an educational tutorial in the fine art of fisticuffs,” he said.
“You should have seen it,” Sammy exclaimed. “Fred put it on him.”
“It was long overdue,” Flash remarked. “That man has a mouth on him, and he’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t like blacks.”
The three of them talked while Fred studied one of the many topographic maps that was lying on the table. Someone had created overlays of sectors around Mount Weather. Fred suspected it was Zach’s work. Joker stood and walked over to Fred.
“What are your thoughts?” he asked.
Fred glanced over. There were now others in the room that Fred had not heard enter, which made him question if he had taken a few more punches to the head than he’d realized.
To be honest, while sitting in the cafeteria, he’d stiffened up and his hands began to ache to the point where there were occasional shooting pains up his arms. He’d have Rachel ice them down later, but in the meantime, he was not going to show any weakness.
“It’s a lot of area to cover,” Fred said.
“Yes, it is,” Jeremiah said. “Ideally, we’d need at least a dozen patrols for each sector, but this is all we have.” He waved a hand around the room, which now held eleven people.
Fred recognized most of them. There was Joker, Flash, Hicks, Slim, one of the Redbank women, Kyra he believed, and a few others. There were a man and woman he’d never seen before. They gave him a respectful nod. He didn’t know if they’d witnessed the fight or heard about him. He returned the nod with one of his micros. He walked over to a chair by Sammy and sat. Fred then casually placed his hands under the table and furtively massaged them.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Jeremiah said. “Obviously, we are limited in manpower. You’d think we have more, but you all know how that goes. So, I’ll make it simple; your mission is to recon these sectors and determine if there are hostile forces in said areas.”
The first sergeant continued with his mission briefing using a modified version of the military’s five-paragraph format. There were a lot of gaps in the mission order. Paragraph two, the situation, consisted of Jeremiah saying, “There may be enemy troops out there.”
This segued into Jeremiah informing them of the possibility of foreign soldiers on American soil, hence the objective of the recon missions.
“If you happen to spot them, do not make contact and do not let them see you. Complete the standard SALUTE report and call it in as soon as it is safe to do so.”
A hand shot up. “What do we do then? Keep following them?”
“That decision will be made if and when you spot them.”
Jeremiah explained radio procedures and frequencies. The mission briefing lasted fifteen more minutes. When he was finished, he asked who wanted to pair up and what part of the countryside did they want to recon. Flash was the first to raise his hand and asked to recon the Virginia Beach area. The first sergeant, knowing Flash grew up in that area, immediately agreed. A couple of people volunteered to join Flash.
Joker then raised his hand. “What’s the latest on Melvin and True?”
“They are currently in Cincinnati where they are still actively looking for the alleged soldiers that Clay had originally reported. Unfortunately, they have missed their scheduled comms. I’m sure they’re okay and we’ll hear from them later.”
There were a few murmurs, but nobody was overly worried. After all, Melvin and True were a tough pair.
“Alright, we’ve got Virginia Beach covered,” Jeremiah said and pointed toward another sector. “Who wants to recon this area? Someone volunteer or I’ll decide.”
“How come we’re only looking east? What about the northern and southern areas?” one of them asked. Jeremiah shook his head.
“If we had more people, sure, but the cold makes it improbable that anyone would come from the north and the people at Oak Ridge are actively patrolling their own area. The coastal area is a lot of territory. We’ll recon what we can and then evaluate what we learn. Alright, let’s hear it. Volunteers or you’ll be voluntold.”
Fred cleared his throat. “If nobody has a problem with it, I’d like to take this area here.” He pointed toward a section on one of the maps. “I’ll start there and work my way toward Annapolis. It’ll take me a few days, but I believe I can cover the entire section.”
“Alright,” Jeremiah said and used a marker to put Fred’s name on the dry erase board for the appropriate sector. Jeremiah then gazed at the remaining people. “Alright, Fred needs a teammate and I’ll bet a dollar to a donut he’s going to be doing his recon work on horseback. So, which of you can ride a horse?”
A young woman immediately raised her hand. Fred glanced over and his brows furrowed slightly. She was in her twenties, about five and a half feet tall, brown hair braided down the back and stopping a couple of inches below her shoulders, the rest of her hair was hidden under a worn black Resistol cowboy hat. She was no prissy beauty queen, more of a hard riding cowgirl type. Her nose was slightly crooked from an old break, but otherwise she was a good-looking filly. Fred had seen her type before, back in his rodeo days. Fiery, independent. Her type was only interested in stallions. Both the four-legged and two-legged kind. If he were a younger man, and single…
“No need,” Fred said. “I work better alone. Nice hat though.”
She narrowed her eyes at Fred, like he’d insulted her. “You’re going to need someone to watch your back.”
Fred grunted and turned to Jeremiah. “I’ll go ahead and sign out the gear I need today and head out from my house in the morning.”
Fred didn’t wait for an acknowledgement. He stood and walked out with Sammy following. It took only a second for the woman to jump up and run after them.
Chapter 17 – Nikki
“Yo, dude!”
Sammy and Fred turned toward the voice. The woman had exited the building and was walking quickly toward them. They stopped and waited for her to catch up.
“His name is Fred, not dude,” Sammy scolded. “Most people call him Mister Fred. Maybe you should too.”
The woman narrowed her eyes at Sammy for a second before responding.
“Alright, Mister Fred, I want to talk to you,” she said.
She stood about three feet from Fred, staring at him like they were about to argue. Or fight. Fred noted she had smooth but taut features, a little bit of windburn to her cheeks, and hazel brown eyes that were smoldering now. Sammy fully expected Fred to turn his back on this woman and walk off. After all, Fred didn’t talk to anyone. But he didn’t do that.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nikki.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you around. Where are you from?”
“I live with a small group who live over near Shenandoah Park. You and Zach came through a while back looking for some people. Rumor is y’all found them, and they aren’t around anymore. Since then, I’ve heard a lot of stories about you two.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nikki. What do you want to talk about?” Fred asked.
“I’d like to talk about working with you,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I rode up here for one reason. I’ve heard a lot about you and some of the stories seem bigger than life.”
“Like I said, don’t believe everything you hear,” Fred said.
“Yeah, no doubt, but I’d like for you to teach me what you know, and what better way to start than to let me team with you on this recon mission?”
Fred found himself shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“The area you picked is zed country, but you know that. You’ll need someone to watch your back,” she retorted. When Fred didn’t respond, she pointed at his hands.
“You beat the hell out of that man, but now your fists are hurting. Don’t think I didn’t see you rubbing them. That’s probably going to hurt your shooting skills, don’t you think?”
Fred gave a small nod of acknowledgement. “You could be right, but I’m not much of a people person, that’s why I don’t go holding seminars.” He gestured at Sammy. “I generally only deal with one or two people at a time. Sammy has come a long way since I first met him, and if I needed anyone to watch my back, it would be him. But he’s a new father and has responsibilities here. Now, as far as traipsing out in the country with a young gal, I don’t think the mother of my child would care much for it.”
“Care much for what?”
They all turned in unison to see Rachel and Serena walking toward them. Even wearing a heavy jacket, Rachel’s bulge was noticeable. Before Fred could say anything, Nikki walked up to Rachel and extended her hand.
“Hi, I’m Nikki. I’m trying to convince Fred to let me go w
ith him on his recon mission.”
Rachel stared at Nikki a moment before staring at Fred and then back at Nikki. “Careful, the old man still packs a potent load,” she said with a sly grin and a pat on her belly.
Serena and Sammy burst out laughing. After a moment, Nikki grinned. Fred couldn’t help but notice her teeth were in excellent shape except for a missing bicuspid. Having good teeth was a challenging feat nowadays.
“She used to embarrass me frequently,” he said. “The one thing I’m always certain of now is there’s no telling what she’ll say.”
Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Page 9
