“Yes, Chief.”
Wanikiya strolls along the chain-link fence preventing tourists from falling into the Salt River when they view the dam’s floodgates. Puddles dot the far bank where the water overflowed the banks.
“It was a hell of a plan.”
“She has it in her to be a leader,” Simon agrees.
“Ethan said as much. She had a failure at the Orscheln’s,” Wanikiya says.
“That was a cluster. She saved this camp. We didn’t have the ammo to defend this gate.”
“We’ve more than most in this new world. I don’t like that it’s June and still chilly.”
One of the workers spearing the skulls of the undead and loading the corpses onto a flatbed waves at the Sioux.
Wanikiya waves back. “We get these biters buried with those at the front gate, and we have Major Ellsberg design a no man’s land.”
“We should have more wood than we need for winter. Many of these homes and cabins have fireplaces,” Wanikiya muses.
Simon recognizes hesitancy in his leader. “What about Trixie?”
“She’s our first exile. It might be murder to not give her a gun, but with her anger, she’d charge the gate and shoot one of us.”
“Jail her.”
“I won’t jail her. We won’t waste needed people to guard her.”
“Put her on a boat in the lake as a jail.”
“No. Ethan’s correct. We make it quick. We’ve no time for trials.” Wanikiya says.
“Her offense doesn’t warrant death.”
“There’s no argument. She has chosen exile.”
“Foolish. I’ll drive her the thirty miles to Hannibal and leave her.”
“You travel outside the gate every day, but never such a distance.”
“You can’t leave her toward Mexico. When she finds a gun, she attacks the next group we send.”
“Driving her twenty-five miles and dumping her doesn’t mean she won’t find her way back.”
“That argument’s true of anywhere you drop her off. Which means the only real punishment around here for a crime is death. Unless we build a jail.”
Wanikiya doesn’t care for any of his options.
“Bring back the stocks.”
“Public whipping.”
“You’re killing her if you send her out there without a gun, and any place you drop her off where she can find one we want to scavenge. Hannibal is logical. We don’t have plans to work our way north. Without human intervention, the river will reclaim the city.”
“Public whipping would be based on a camp vote. As a set of violations to invoke such a punishment.”
“They still whipped people in the 1880s.”
“They had the option to jail them.”
“We can’t guard someone twenty-four/seven. It’s bad enough we’re losing her and Aiden. He may be part of the crew on the east side, but we don’t have him to work in here anymore.”
“Keeping a community safe is hard.”
“Keeping order is difficult unless you rule with fear.”
“No disrespect, Wanikiya, but as much as we admire Ethan, and thank God he rescued us, people fear him.”
“He could be a dictator. He knows it. He knows you’d follow him. It’s why he keeps the town meetings. And rules. We remain civilized by sticking to them,” Wanikiya says. “We allow her to make the choice.”
Zeke opens the inner sally port gate.
Simon parks his Jeep.
Wanikiya checks Trixie’s handcuffs. “You’ve one last option to remain.”
“You can’t dictate who I fuck,” she snaps.
“You can’t attack people. We’re going to leave you in a town. Don’t come back. We spot you in range of the fence, and our people are obligated to shoot you.”
“Fuck you! You filthy redskin.” Trixie chomps her teeth as if she is a biter.
“Take her. Don’t uncuff her. Drive away and drop the key where she can find it. She’s not to be trusted,” Wanikiya orders.
“Not even a gear pack? You say everyone who wishes to leave gets a gear pack and a gun. Fucking liar.”
“You aren’t leaving on your own. But we aren’t uncivilized. We’ve packed you a bag, and inside is a lockbox with a disassembled pistol and ten rounds.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, dirty Injun.”
JOINTS LACKING CARTILAGE crackle as Ethan kneels.
Serena jerks her head to seek out the gunshot. “Was that you?”
“Bad knee.” He draws his fingers through some of the foot tracks dragged through the dirt.
“Old man, you need a Hoveround.”
“Always got jokes for a girl who melts in the sun.” Ethan picks out three shoe treads in the destroyed underbrush. Every blade of grass, every scrap of flora trampled. Trees strong enough to withstand the bounce of a human body dot the eviscerated forest.
Thousands.
Hundreds of thousands.
There must be millions gathering at New Madrid. Tree trunks and low branches caked in coagulated blood and shreds of clothing stretch throughout the woods. Ethan creeps around trees large enough to hide a person, gun ready.
“Watch yourself, youngling. I expect to discover a biter speared on a branch.” Ethan scoops up an M16 trampled in the mud. He pockets the clip and jacks the live round into his palm. Those kids fought to the last man. Semper Fi. He smashes the stock against a tree before tossing the broken weapon into the ditch.
The crack of ratcheting metal echoes. The pull of the quake noise has left no stragglers to attract.
“Why didn’t you keep it? We need guns.”
Ethan rises, shaking out his numb leg. “It’s been ruined, and it was covered in blood. The bullets are salvageable.”
“I would have tried to use it,” Serena admits.
“A lot of people would. I would’ve taken it back and had my gunsmith to clear it for use, but we’ll get more at the base.”
“You’ve a gunsmith?”
“And a dentist.” Ethan smiles.
“I’m not sure that’s a bonus feature.” She flashes her mouth of perfect teeth.
A quiver rolls over the ground.
Birds flee from the treetops.
“How long do those happen?”
“In Haiti, I read tiny ones lasted for a year. New Madrid has measurable ones daily. As long as it keeps the biters out of my hair, the ground can shake, rattle and roll forever.”
“That’s one plus in your favor, old man, you still have hair.”
“Gentarra thought you’d be an asset to this mission. Let me know when that happens.” Ethan marches ahead of her.
“I think she thought you’d be better birth control.”
Ethan considers several responses.
Serena continues before he chooses one. “If I’m with you, I’m not chasing Chet. We’ve two pregnant girls.”
“And no Maury to check for DNA results.”
“You don’t need the commercial break to know they’re Chet’s.”
“He keeps it up and he’ll be the father of his own country.” Ethan moves to the road. He gains steps on the blacktop, and his leg muscles relax with use.
“Half our women will be dropping kids at the end of winter, and there’s no prenatal care,” Serena says.
“Gentarra cares about those people.”
“Why are we on the road? They love roads.” Serena chews her bottom lip.
“Between the birds and the quake, should be clear.”
Scattered across the blacktop are hundreds of spent shell casings.
Serena kicks at the brass. “Why aren’t there dead Nachzehrer?”
“At this point, the Marines fired in panic. Or their training took over, which was to make center mass shots. From the stains on the blacktop, those soldiers held until…”
Serena notes the cloud of water in Ethan’s left eye.
“They honored their mothers.”
“How far is this base?” she asks.
“A brisk stretch of the legs.”
Ethan snaps the padlock with a tire iron. Once he releases the latch, the garage door rolls up. Inside, a fitted tarp covers a vehicle sporting a roll bar.
“For someone all big on burning daylight, this side trip better payoff.”
“You want to do the honors?” Ethan snips.
Serena scrunches her face. “There’s bird shit all over the tarp.”
“Its purpose.” Ethan grabs the seam dangling above the concrete and marches backward, dragging the cover from a dune buggy.
“Does it run?” she asks.
Ethan drops the tarp. “Check for a key.”
Serena finds a note duct taped to the steering wheel:
Note to self—
Needs gas and oil
Serena scans the garage. Two cans of gas sit next to the workbench. On a hook above the bottle of engine oil dangles a key on a ring.
“Jackpot. You can’t carry supplies in it.”
“True, but it would allow scouting ahead of the main convoy.” Too bad I’m never going back to the Desoto Bridge. Ethan pulls the door back down and wires the lock shut.
“What about the gas?”
“We’ll get more. I’ve a habit of stashing supplies even in places I don’t plan to return.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone will take them, and you’ll need them?”
“It’s a risk, but so is waking up in this world, and that, child, is never truer than right now.”
“If it has kept you alive, old man.”
“You don’t seem to miss your Tweeting.”
“My house still had dialup. Technology hadn’t reached everyone. Even when you have an iPhone you have to live where there is a signal. Can’t miss what you didn’t have,” she says.
“Makes it easier when it’s gone. I had a hard time giving up warm showers.”
“We’ve a shower at the camp. When it rains a lot, they allow us to use some of the rainwater, but you’re right, it’s freezing balls. And no soap. They spread the runoff on the plants. Another waste. The horde trampled on through. Not a single plant was left. How long will people be hungry before they kill for food?”
“One meal,” Ethan deadpans.
“No way,” she says.
“Three. Three meals. One day. And that would have been when Happy Meals were plentiful.”
“Some in our camp traveled days before they reached safety with us and got a meal.”
“And had you food and not willing to share, they would have attacked,” Ethan says.
THE TIRE PREVENTS Chad from being stuffed under the truck from the repeated kicks to his abdomen. The steel toe boots burst his bladder.
“Stop!”
It takes a moment to register the voice. He pleads for the beating to cease.
“Fucker’s pissed himself.”
Fingers lace into his hair. Chad lifts his head to prevent his scalp tearing from his skull.
“Did you make this?”
His sled shield breaks his nose. Stars decorate his vision. “Yes,” falls from his mouth.
“Smart. Does it work?”
“Haven’t tested it.”
Chad finds himself lifted into the air. He has no idea what’s going on. His left hand grips the leather strap of his shield. Someone pushes him.
Moan-howls fill his ears.
Chad concentrates. Only one part of his body operates at a time, and the pain of the beating has left his legs numb and wet. With lightning streaks dulling his vison, he swings his shield in the direction of the snarls. Whatever bounced off it sends Chad reeling to the ground.
“Get up! Or she’s going to eat you!”
Chad’s rapid blinks restore some of his vision. He wishes they remained starry.
The snarling biter drags her fingernails across the sled, a match for Chad in his weakened state. Her strength remains because she is fresh.
Blood covers her face, neck and soaks into her clothes. Not the coagulated goop but the bright red blood caused by a pummeling of fists and kicks.
Chad crabwalks back to give him distance. He needs to get to his feet. Despite her shredded shirt, Chad thanks his God that Lindsey’s pants are still on, belt in place. He braces himself for the linebacker impact. She bounces off the silver metal. Before she recovers from her stagger, Chad unleashes a haymaker with the shield arm. The echo gongs like a broken plate. Biter Lindsey has no lower motor control. Her ankles crumple. In a hissing fit, she claws at the dirt.
She recovers to get on all fours. Chad raises the sled above his head, and in his best Spartan war cry, he drives the shield into the back of her head. She collapses, limbs twitching. It takes five hard punches to crack the bone to end her.
The lead man slow claps. “Brilliant.” He draws a twenty-two. The bullet punches through shield, the buzzing slug millimeters from kissing Chad’s ear.
“Fuck you.” Chad vows he will kill this man—just not today.
“String her up. Mark this house.”
Two men take a rope from the truck bed.
“Where’s the rest of your group?”
Before Chad protests, the man says, “Don’t lie. You’re too well-fed, and you aren’t carrying any gear. You may be scavenging, but you have people near.”
Chad ignores the pain in his stomach and the throbbing of his head. “I just put down my friend.”
“Yeah. About that. We didn’t kill her.”
Chad contemplates how Ethan would handle escaping. Protect the baby. They drove up on us, he recalls.
“Maybe we did exacerbate it. But she was messed up. One punch to the kidney and something inside her ruptured. Someone did a number on her before we came along.”
The two men bind Lindsey’s legs together.
All five men are armed.
The leader would have been a computer nerd before, with his balding scalp and lanky frame.
Chad remembers no place to run. One of the them cupped Lindsey’s breast. When she scratched him, he punched her. I was being kicked to death next. Protect the baby.
“Now I can guess your line of thought, but revenge in this world is not a viable career choice.”
The men hoist Lindsey’s body. It dangles from the tree branch.
“We mark the houses we clear of all useful items. Now, this shitburg won’t yield much, so we’ve room to check the next house. You don’t want to be a marker.”
Protect the baby.
“I can see you’re considering your choice. We got a secure camp, but we need supplies and people who engineer useful gear. I’m Ainslee. Let’s work on a friendship.”
They wanted me dead. They could shoot. I’m unarmed. Why bother with me at all? “You beat all the people you invite to your camp?”
“If we have to. No peace-loving hippies last long. It’s Darwin’s rules,” Ainslee says.
Chad’s heard this argument before.
“We’re burning daylight, kid.”
Chad detects the ultimatum in the tone. Live to fight another day—for the baby. I’ll kill Ainslee later. Don’t give in too easy. “What about my people?”
“We take you back to our camp. We find you a place. We work on a barter system. The scavenger teams bring in items. We turn it over to the leadership, who pays the workers in items. They trade for other needed products.”
“And everyone works to get along?”
“Nope. Got to police a few fights. Some don’t approve of their payments. Most work hard and get paid, but they don’t get much. Hard labor doesn’t pay as well as those with skills.”
“We’ll work for our share. But we’ve got a newborn.” Chad prays this will protect her.
“That wasn’t the baby’s mother?”
“She died in birth.”
“A baby might prove valuable. Newborns give hope. Something we’re all out of at the MC.” Ainslee smiles.
“ANY REASON WE didn’t drive the dune buggy? It took, like, five miles to get here,” Serena says
.
“Noise. We’ve got enough to deal with without attracting the undead,” Ethan says.
“I thought they headed north.”
Ethan grabs her by the arm, spins her around, snapping, “Don’t you ever think for one minute you’re safe out here.”
She tugs away, mewing, “Okay. Ethan. I won’t.” Her playful attempts to annoy the man she considers old sparked no results. The fire from his eyes raises her gooseflesh over her entire body.
“You might be scarier than the undead,” she mumbles.
Ethan draws his M&P. The twin main gate guard towers and other sandbagged defense positions remain intact. The chain-link fence bent and mashed to the ground by a force of flesh. Carcasses of the once living, mashed through the woven metal, twitch and flail as parts of them, eviscerated among the wire, were pressed in place by the stepping feet of thousands.
Ethan swings by the sandbagged embankment. No soldiers’ bodies. Not many spent casings around either. They didn’t make a last stand here. Might as well get this over with. He marches to one of the still active undead trapped in the chain-link. Ethan lines the glowing white of the night sights with the bobbing head. Don’t want to blow my own toes off.
The report echoes.
The dozens of undead, trapped in the fence, convulse in a bizarre, uniformed seizures. They bite and snarl.
“You woke them up. It will bring more.”
Ethan ignores her.
Staggering from behind the checkpoint station, a Marine with shredded jacket and no arms chomps its teeth, black with congealed blood.
Serena yells in a stage whisper, “Shoot it.”
It’s thirty feet away. Most gun fights occur within twenty-one feet. And most people, even the expert target shooters, miss. People in a panic miss. People who don’t control their breathing miss.
The biter reaches the twenty-one-foot radius.
Ethan remains statuesque.
Fifteen.
“If you’re making your point they are dangerous, I got it. Now shoot it.” Serena quivers.
At ten feet, Ethan raises the M&P. Aim. Breathe. Finger shifts from extended at the side to wrap around the trigger. Exhale. Squeeze—never jerk. Thunder echoes.
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 25
