Hope stared at the creature as she watched Hunter walk back over to it, and it acted like a slave would as its master approached. It kept its head down, almost in fear that it was going to be punished for the earlier attack. As Hunter arrived, he knelt to eye level, and as he spoke, it flinched, as if Hunter was about to hit it.
“You’re not in trouble,” Hunter said as he looked into its eyes. “I have some questions for you. Will you answer them for me?”
The monster looked at him and then over at Hope, who was slowly approaching the two of them. “Nice girl, helped deer,” it said in a very slow almost childlike manner.
Hope looked at it, confused for a second, until she remembered the feeling she had outside of something watching her. “Were you watching me outside?”
“Yes, nice to deer.”
“Do you have a name?” Hope asked as she knelt next to Hunter.
“Yes, other master called me Fraakky, Frenky, Freeenkkys,” it tried to answer before it got frustrated and growled at its own trouble speaking. Then it got up and walked slowly over to one of the desks and picked something off of it to hand to Hope.
Hope looked down and found a torn cover off of a book. As she saw the name of the book, she dropped her hands to her sides and laughed. “You have got to be kidding me. I now know one day I am going to wake up and realize I have been dreaming this entire nightmare because of some flu-induced fever or something,” she said as she handed the torn book cover to Hunter.
She then turned to the creature and asked, “Your name is Frankenstein?”
“Yes, Frenkysine,” the monster answered.
“I’m going to call you Franky. Okay?” Hope looked over to Morgan and Trip, who had finally decided to join them. “Can you believe this, you two?”
Morgan leaned close to Hope before she answered, while Trip stayed characteristically silent. “Benjy said to me many times, you have to remember history was written by the survivors. After the last year and a half, I would bet there is more truth in the fiction we read growing up than we ever thought possible.”
“He said the same to me when I woke up from my bite. I just never thought about it that way,” Hope answered as she started to get the sinking feeling that the world was not through showing her its secrets.
“If you ladies are through with the chitchatting, I would like to ask Franky here some more questions,” Hunter said as he interrupted them and slid a chair over to talk to the creature. “Where is your other master now?”
“Gone for long,” Franky answered. “He told me to wait here for him, but never was back, so I tried to find him. Looked for long, then came back to wait.”
Hunter was about to ask some more questions, when suddenly the creature stood at attention and started to smell the air. The creature towered above him, with Hunter figuring he had to be almost seven-feet-tall. Then the creature started to growl towards the door. “What’s wrong? What’s out there?” He turned towards the door and got his answer as two slabs appeared in the open doorway.
Franky jumped past Hunter before he could say anything and rushed at the new arrivals. Hope and Morgan were almost knocked down as he ran past them and let out a roar as he smashed into the slabs. He picked them up with his massive hands by their heads and crushed them as easily as one of them would do to an egg. He then disappeared through the doorway and engaged more that hadn’t been seen yet.
Hope was the first one to make it to the doorway to see what they were facing, and she found a crowded hallway of slabs being torn apart by the rampaging Franky. She watched as he cleared out the dozen or so slabs in a matter of seconds, and then moved out the main door to the bunker before disappearing into the now-darkened night, howling as he did.
The four friends tiptoed through the mess of bodies littering the hallway on their way to the door, checking each one to make sure they were finally and permanently dead. They found that Franky was very thorough in his demolition, as not a one of the slabs was left with an intact head. As they made their way to the open door with guns drawn, they found a rather large herd of slabs had tracked them there, but Franky was making quick work of them all. They kept their flashlights trained on him and watched as he dispatched slab after slab, almost effortlessly, only occasionally taking their eyes off him to put one down that was getting a little too close for comfort. Within minutes, Franky had progressed far enough into the encroaching visitors that they couldn’t see him with their flashlights anymore. They could, however, still hear him as he bellowed and tore his way into the horde.
Hope looked over at Morgan. “I can see why Benjy wanted to find this cure so bad. That thing is bad ass.”
“Yeah, my only question, though, is how are we going to get him back home? Even if we had the plane, he wouldn’t fit.”
Trip was about to speak up when a gunshot rang out from the distance, and he stopped as the first syllable was coming out of his mouth. Hope and Hunter, reacting first, dove back into the bunker. Morgan was about to jump back inside the bunker doorway when she saw Trip falling to the ground, with blood starting to pour through a wound in his chest.
Chapter 37
The plan was solid under the best of circumstances, but currently that was not the case. Hutch was working with three young untested amateurs, whose only real training came from video games. However, they had survived, and survived for a long time, and in a much more dangerous world than Hutch had grown up in, and they seemed to have adapted what they had learned in the virtual playground to work for them in the real world.
After everyone had woken up and apologies were accepted on both sides, Hutch outlined his POA—Plan of Attack. In quick order, they accepted the plan as being very valid. They had a vested interest in its success, which was the reunion with their parents who were recently taken by the thugs, so they agreed to join forces.
Hutch was loading the last of the supplies into the back of the van while his new partners were keeping the perimeter secure from any incoming slabs. So far, they had only eliminated fifty or so slabs, as they had kept to the Sioux City’s outskirts, to avoid the bulk of the slab population in town. Hutch threw the last box in the back and whistled for them to move out. Two of the boys, Braden and Brantley, jumped in the back, while Brayson jumped up front with Hutch.
They referred to themselves as the Killer B’s, but Hutch had nicknamed them the Three Amigos, in honor of one of his favorite movies, because of how stupid they acted at times. They earned the name earlier in the day when Braden had shot a slab from a long distance, nicking it in the shoulder and causing it to spin around in a move reminiscent of Michael Jackson. They had spent the next two minutes with each of them trying to replicate the shot, until Hutch grabbed his gun and put it down permanently.
Even though he was annoyed by their childish game, he was impressed with their marksmanship. Hutch never had a chance to have kids because of his military career. But just spending the afternoon with the Three Amigos had reinforced that it wasn’t a bad thing that he’d avoided parenthood.
Now, loaded up and ready to go, Hutch headed back towards the Railroad Museum, where they were going to unleash hell on a group of people that deserved no quarter.
As they pulled up to the safe spot Hutch had scouted out earlier in the morning, he could hear two of the Three Amigos in the back arguing about something, but couldn’t quite make out what it was. As he got out of the driver’s side and walked around to the back of the van, he could hear the argument getting more intense, so he hurried to the back and flung open the doors. He found Braden and Brantley wrestling on the floor while each of them had a hand on a Barret .50 caliber sniper rifle. They were both claiming ownership of it until they looked up and found Hutch, who had been joined by Brayson, standing there looking at them. Hutch was about to speak, but was beat to the punch by Brayson.
“Dudes, really. That isn’t yours, and all you’re showing Hutch is that we’re not ready for the mission at hand. Put it down and get out of his van,” Brayson
yelled at his only slightly younger friends. As he watched the two boys exit the back of the vehicle, he leaned over and picked up the rifle. “I’m the squad leader, so I get the big gun.” He posed with the rifle in his hands.
Hutch leaned over and snatched the rifle quickly out of Brayson’s hands, just as the other two started to protest. “Nobody’s using this gun. It’s too big for the mission and would only give away our position the first time we fired it. Now do not go through my stuff again or I will shoot all three of you in the leg and leave you here to suffer while I go save your parents.” Hutch put the gun back into the metal container it had been stored in. He then leaned over and slid another metal tote to the edge of the van’s entrance and pulled out three M-4 rifles with sound suppressors and handed them to the boys, making sure they weren’t loaded first.
“These are what we’ll be using, but first we have some preparations to make.” Hutch tossed each of them one of the cardboard boxes or milk crates loaded with the supplies.
After an hour, they had everything ready and in position, so Hutch went over the plan once more with each of them so they would all know their roles. When he was sure everything and everyone was ready, he handed each of them an earpiece and microphone to put on, and they each fell away to their designated spots.
Hutch was the first to his spot on a ridge facing the main gate of the compound. Brayson was the first to chime in that he was in position, quickly followed by the other two. “All right, here we go.” Hutch leaned over and lit a fuse to one of the fireworks he’d kept from Kentucky. It took a couple of seconds before the firework exploded out of the tube and into the evening sky. Even though it wasn’t dark yet, the firework brightened up the sky, but it was the explosion that Hutch was really after.
The guard at the main gate was quickly joined by two more of his friends coming over to investigate the noise. “I’ve got three here,” Hutch whispered over the microphone. The other three quickly chimed in that each of them had eyes on at least two men. “Okay, on the initial launch, and then a second with the main explosion.”
Hutch then leaned over and lit a second fuse. He looked through the sights on his gun and placed the crosshairs center mass on the first guard he found. As the mortar again launched out of the tube with a thunderous explosion, he squeezed the trigger, and the guard dropped. The other two didn’t see what happened, as they were craning their necks upwards, following the smoky trail of the firework.
As the firework exploded in a brilliant display of colors, he squeezed the trigger two more times, dropping both of the distracted guards. “Mine are down. Report,” Hutch whispered as he moved to a new location. All three boys excitedly reported in with success, claiming to have dropped their targets at each side of the camp.
“Good,” Hutch said. “That leaves us only seven more that I know of. Get in position for the next phase.” He grabbed hold of a water balloon from a bucket and loaded it into a large slingshot tied to two trees.
He then watched as all seven of the remaining men came out to investigate the fireworks, but quickly found their fellow thugs dead on the ground. They scrambled for cover, looking out into the tree line. As he watched the scramble take place, he lined up his improvised missile with the slingshot onto the one with the Mohawk from earlier, and fired a balloon into the compound.
The balloon hit a wall next to him and popped, splashing him with the liquid inside of it. The man looked puzzled at first, until he smelled the contents of the liquid and started to panic. As he turned to warn his comrades, he noticed several more balloons flying into the area, with all of them landing near or directly hitting one of them. They all started to raise their guns to fire into the trees until he started to yell out to them just as another balloon landed at his feet, soaking him. “Stop! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
One of the guys didn’t get the message in time and started firing blindly in the direction of the trees as even more balloons were arriving. As he fired, one of the balloons hit his rifle head on, and the muzzle flash from the gun ignited the combination of lighter fluid and gasoline bursting out of the balloon and engulfing him in flames. He dropped his gun and fell to the ground, ready to do the famous stop, drop and roll every kid had been taught, but with the accelerant all over him, it didn’t work quite as well as he hoped it would. None of the other men wanted to approach him, since they, too, were covered in whatever liquid was on them, and didn’t want to risk igniting along with him.
The man screamed for several seconds until the pain caused him to pass out and completely succumb to the fire. After the screams died down and the fear of the same happening to them sank in, Hutch finally called out to the camp: “We have flare guns all pointed at each of you. If you drop your weapons and open the gates, we’ll let you live. If you put up any resistance, any resistance whatsoever, you will join your friend on fire. You have until NOW to comply!”
One by one the thugs drop their guns and raised their hands into the air. They all kept an eye on the smoldering body of their comrade and moved quickly towards the gate.
As they approached, the one with the Mohawk was noticeably missing from the group, and Hutch started to scan the open area for him. He, finally, caught a glimpse of the man slipping into a building on the far side of the complex, that looked like a visitor center, flanked by several vintage train engines and boxcars.
He made note of the man’s location as he slowly moved out from his cover to meet the approaching men at the gate. He called out for Brayson and Brantley to meet him there, and told Braden to keep a watch for any trouble from the tree line.
As the men met Hutch, he passed his flare gun over to the two boys as they arrived, while he moved behind the men to bind their hands and feet. After the men were secured, he told the boys about the one lone thug they had left, and how he was going after him, and instructed them to free the prisoners and find their parents.
Hutch took off into the direction of the visitor center and started to do a search of the area for the man with the Mohawk. As he slowly entered the building, he found the clothes from the man had been shed and were lying in the middle of the floor, meaning that Hutch’s threat of fire was no longer valid. So, he put the flare gun away and pulled out his sidearm and continued his search.
He heard a rear door slam shut and made his way towards it. As he did, he saw a window facing out towards the rear of the area and slipped over to see if he could watch where the man was heading. He spotted the man climbing into an old wooden-sided coal car, stripped down to only his underwear and boots, but still carrying his rifle. He watched as the man disappeared from sight and into the antique railcar, and then the barrel of his gun stuck out of a gap in one of the wooden boards, aimed right at the backdoor of the visitor center. Hutch scanned the area and realized there was no safe way to approach.
He thought for a minute on how he would get to him and then it hit. He turned and ran back out the front of the building and made his way quickly through the freed prisoners and the kids who had been reunited with their families, trying to stop and thank him.
“Stay here and don’t go anywhere else yet. We have one more problem to resolve,” Hutch said as he ran through them.
The recently freed prisoners look confused, but got the message, and they all took cover as the baldheaded soldier disappeared from their sight. The boys who were huddled up with their recently found parents gave them a short rundown on who he was and how he had made it possible for their rescue. As they were finishing up, Hutch returned, carrying the large .50 caliber rifle from earlier, and headed back into the building he had come from.
Hutch snuck back over to the window he had watched the man from earlier and checked to see if he was still there. He found the barrel of the gun still sticking out of the railway car in the fading sunlight and grinned.
He crawled back to a kiosk in the middle of the room and propped the gun up on top of it, to give him some stability. He looked through the scope and lined up a shot jus
t behind the barrel of the protruding gun. With a short squeeze of the trigger, the rather large bullet made the short trip into the railcar, blowing a hole clean through both of its walls. As the debris from the shot settled, he could see he’d caught the man squarely in the chest and severed him clean in two. A man of Hutch’s experience had learned to control the emotions, happy or remorseful, that came with every killing of another human, and with the zombie plague upon them, every human life was precious so that one day they could rebuild the world when this mess was all over. But this man was garbage, as far as Hutch was concerned, and he smiled a little bit, knowing he would not be a part of the world any longer.
Hutch picked up his gun and headed back out to where the freed captives were still hiding. He called for Braden to come out and join them, since the danger was over. As he arrived, he told them it was all clear, and he was quickly swamped by the thankful crowd. As Braden rejoined the group, he found his mom and walked her over so they both could thank Hutch for the rescue. Brayson and Brantley join them also as he approached the soldier.
“So, you got to use the big gun, huh?” Brayson stated, eyeing the weapon in Hutch’s hands.
“Yep. I’m the squad leader today, so I get the big gun.” Hutch grinned.
“So, you got the one with the Mohawk,” Brayson answered. “I kinda wanted a piece of him.”
“Yeah, I got him, kiddo. I can guarantee you one thing, though,” Hutch said pausing for a response.
“What’s that?”
“He won’t be getting a respawn after being shot by this baby.”
The three boys fell out laughing and slapped the older man on the back.
“So, you wanna hang with us for a little while?” Brayson asked. “We could really use someone like you to help us keep the slabs off our asses.”
Juggernaut (Humanity's Hope Book 2) Page 19
