The Survivalist (Solemn Duty)

by Arthur T. Bradley

  Even with the pull of the HMMWV, the tractor trailer struggled to straighten up, instead sliding sideways across the slick. Frustrated, the driver finally leaned an arm out and waved for them to stop.

  Mason watched the entire show with quiet fascination. The oil was more of an obstacle than he had anticipated, and he began worrying that if it proved too challenging, the convoy might be forced to turn back.

  Instead of giving up, Dix got on the radio. A few seconds later, the other HMMWV made its way across the oil. Once it was safely on the other side, Diego hooked a second tow rope to it and trudged back out to attach the other end to the tractor trailer. With ropes now hooked to each HMMWV, the two heavy vehicles began to pull the truck across the slick in unison.

  It worked. The semi managed to slowly come back in line, and before long, the big rig found solid ground under its tires.

  Mason smiled. While solving their problem, they had also solved his. All he had to do now was wait.

  With a method now worked out, Dix’s team put a little finesse to it. Diego stood at one edge of the slick and tossed the tow ropes across one at a time to the next driver before he entered the oil. With two ropes pulling from the very beginning, the second tractor trailer managed to cross with much less fuss, and Diego and Dix were quick to congratulate each other on a job well done.

  Crouching behind the trees, Beebie had been watching the operation with great amusement. There was something about seeing Diego slip-slide his way across the oil that was nothing short of hilarious. Twice Beebie had to bite his fist to keep from bursting out laughing. Bowie watched with equal interest for a while but eventually grew bored and settled onto his belly to chew on a pine cone.

  As the cab of the third truck cleared the edge of the slick, Beebie readied the flare by removing the plastic cap covering one end. He turned the cap around and dragged the striker pad across the ignition button. Much like a match, the flare flashed to life, bright yellow flames shooting out its end.

  He rushed to the edge of the trees and lobbed the flare out onto the oil. It bounced once and rolled, finally settling at the center of the slick. Diego, Dix, and the other members of the security detail were too busy worrying about the tractor trailer to see the flare sail through the air. What they did see was the result of oil coming into contact with strontium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, and sulfur burning at more than two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

  Woosh! The entire sheet of oil burst into flame with a thunderous roar.

  Mayhem quickly ensued. The two HMMWVs slammed into reverse at full speed, pulling the last thirty feet of the trailer out of the fire. Once the truck was clear, Diego hopped out and quickly disconnected the tow ropes, freeing up the HMMWVs. Dix and the second gunner swung the Brownings around, hunting for something to shoot.

  There wasn’t anything. There was just fire and smoke.

  As they frantically worked to gain control of the situation, Mason simply rolled off the pipes to land atop the trailer of the fourth truck. He lay there for a moment, giving the burning oil time to create a thick white cloud between the last truck and those that had already navigated across. Confident that he wouldn’t be seen from the other side, he slowly high-crawled toward the cab. When he was in line with the passenger-side door, he leaned down with his Supergrade in hand and pressed it through the open window.

  The driver was a soft bellied man with flushed cheeks and long brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. Mason recognized Roy immediately, having run security for him a few times in the past. Roy had a reputation for being good natured and hardworking, and Mason had never seen anything to the contrary.

  Roy slid his hands higher on the steering wheel so there would be no misunderstanding about his intentions.

  “You aimin’ to shoot me, Marshal?” he said with a drawl.

  Mason popped the door open and slid in beside him.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Roy. I do need the truck though. You okay with that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not mine.”

  “Put it in reverse and get us back to that little roadway that cuts across the median.”

  Roy shifted the truck into reverse and began backing down the highway while looking in his oversized side view mirror.

  “Never figured you for this kind of work.”

  “Normally, no. I need the truck to get someone out of trouble. I don’t suppose you know what’s inside?”

  Roy shook his head. “You know the score. They never tell me what I’m haulin’. Probably figure I’ll run off with it if it’s somethin’ valuable.”

  Less than a minute later, they arrived at the cut through, and Roy put the truck in low gear as he proceeded to bump his way across the median. As he did, Mason kept his eyes trained on the burning oil slick. The smoke was so thick that he could no longer make out the vehicles on the other side. So far, things were going according to plan. In his experience, that was usually when everything went to shit.

  This time was no exception.

  An armored HMMWV suddenly appeared at the edge of the smoke, moving fast, no doubt to keep its tires from melting and forever becoming trapped in what was the equivalent of a burning tar pit. Even at a distance, Mason could see Dix pulling himself upright to slide in behind the Browning.

  “Ah hell,” he breathed.

  “Marshal,” Roy said, gesturing ahead, “they with you?”

  Mason turned and saw Beebie and Bowie standing in the small dirt road.

  “For better or worse,” he said, leaning across Roy to pop his door open. “We’ll take it from here. Tell the misses I said hello.”

  “Will do,” he said, climbing out. “For what it’s worth, I hope it all works out for your friend.”

  “Thanks Roy. Stay safe.”

  Roy stepped down, offered a cordial nod to Beebie, and moved over to stand under the shade of a tall oak tree.

  As Beebie and Bowie scrambled up into the truck, Mason hollered, “Let’s go! We got company!”

  Even before Beebie had closed his door, Mason dropped the transmission back into gear and continued bouncing the truck across the uneven dirt roadway. Bowie nearly fell off the seat, finally balancing himself with his front paws propped precariously on the dashboard and his head pressed against the roof.

  Gripping a thick grab bar above the door, Beebie shouted to be heard over the whine of the big diesel engine.

  “Looks like Dix is gonna get another go at you after all!”

  “Yeah,” growled Mason, “only this time he has a fifty cal.”

  Chapter 16

  Tanner leaned back and placed one foot in front of the other, carefully descending the steel ramp. Samantha walked beside him, her flashlight illuminating the sloped floor to keep them from losing their footing. The air stunk of waste and decay, and the humidity was so high that it felt as if they were walking through a warm, wet breath.

  Samantha wrinkled her nose. “Down we go into yet another smelly dungeon. Thanks Tanner.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  She swished a hand in front of her nose.

  “Pee-yew. It’s like all your dirty socks went down here to hide.”

  He cracked a smile. Samantha often used humor to fuel her courage. Good for her. Everybody needed something to help keep them going when the world seemed to be squeezing from every direction at once.

  The ramp led down to a wall spattered with small tidbits of flesh and dried blood. The corridor turned right, and then right again, doubling back on itself as it descended further into the silo. There were no bodies littering the hallway, but something violent had obviously happened to leave so much carnage behind.

  Samantha noticed a peppering of bullet holes interspaced between the spatter.

  “Purdy’s men must have shot something here,” she said, touching one of the holes. “Do you think they killed it?”

  Tanner pointed to a wide smear of blood leadin
g down the ramp.

  “No, but they hurt it.”

  Following the trail of blood, they continued around the switchback, weapons up and ready.

  “How deep do you think it goes?” she asked.

  “Must be a couple hundred feet to have fit an Atlas.”

  “Do we have to go all the way to the bottom?”

  “If we want Mama Bear, we do.”

  “Mama Bear?”

  “Big bad ugly who’s responsible for this mess.”

  “Who says there’s a Mama Bear?”

  “Darlin’, there’s always a Mama Bear.”

  Before she could say anything further, the corridor ended abruptly at an open door. Inside, they saw several long consoles dotted with big square buttons and shattered monitors. Strewn about the room were overturned chairs and bookcases tipped over to leave black binders spilled across the floor. A large air vent opened in the ceiling, its cover hanging down like a trapdoor that had been inadvertently left open. Directly beneath it sat a thick steel panel, the corner peeled away, as if someone had been searching for treasure hidden deep within the walls. On the opposite side of the room was a matching door, also sitting open.

  Samantha inched forward and swept her flashlight from side to side.

  “This must have been the control room.”

  Tanner bent down and picked up one of the binders. The sticker on the front was too faded to read, but inside was some sort of operator’s manual. The pages were old and yellowed, but he could still make out a set of procedures. None of it made any sense, and none of it was important.

  He gently placed the binder back on the floor, hoping to keep noise to a minimum.

  Samantha’s light settled on a wall dotted with more bullet holes.

  “The fight moved in here.”

  “They were pressing ahead. Good for them.”

  “Maybe they managed to kill everything.”

  “If they had, we wouldn’t be here.”

  Tanner pulled out his flashlight and began circling left around the center console. Samantha chose to go right, flashlight in one hand, derringer in the other.

  “Well, at least they cleared this part. That’s something, I guess.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tanner detected movement from high above her. He spun, bringing up the Mare’s Leg.

  “Sam, get down!”

  She hit the floor an instant before he fired. His shot went high, missing the creature as it dropped from the open air vent.

  Like a two-headed hydra, the monstrosity had the shape of a large Y, the upper halves of two men glued together at the waist with a single set of legs shared between them. With torsos facing in opposite directions, the creature looked equally capable of fighting to the front or rear. The half facing Samantha was emaciated with knotty bones protruding from every joint. Wearing a tattered yellow t-shirt printed with the words “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor,” he looked like a redneck in the middle of a serious binger. The half facing Tanner stood in stark contrast, bare-chested and thick with muscle—clearly the heartier eater of the two.

  Shuffling closer, Tanner shifted his aim as he looked for a clear shot.

  There wasn’t one. With the metal walls and consoles, any shot he fired had a very real chance of ricocheting around the room to strike him or Samantha. Abandoning the idea of a quick kill, he flipped the Mare’s Leg around and charged into battle.

  Seeing the bony half of the hydra towering over her, Samantha rolled to her back and raised the derringer.

  Boom!

  The bullet caught him in the gut, sending a splash of blood onto her pants. Despite the wound, he bent forward and began savagely beating her while the rear facing creature hurled binders and other debris at Tanner.

  Samantha thumbed back the hammer to fire again, but before she could squeeze the trigger, the hydra knocked the weapon from her grasp.

  “Tanner!” she screamed, flutter kicking it in the face.

  Tanner barreled forward, swinging the Mare’s Leg like a cricket bat. The walnut stock crashed into the rear-facing head, cracking one of its cheekbones. The beast screamed in pain as it began pummeling him with fists covered in thick yellow callouses.

  The hydra hit Tanner with the expertise of a professional pugilist, three sharp body blows to the gut, bladder, and ribs.

  Refusing to retreat, Tanner jabbed the barrel of the Mare’s Leg forward like a policeman’s baton. It struck against the creature’s sternum, dimpling his chest. He drove it forward again, the indentation deepening as cartilage and bones began to give way.

  Desperate to stop the strikes, the half-man facing him grabbed the gun and tried to wrestle it away. Unwilling to let his opponent take control of a loaded weapon, Tanner drove a knee up into a weird mishmash of a groin that the two men shared.

  Both halves of the hydra howled in pain.

  Tanner tried to knee it again, but the beast turned slightly, and his leg deflected away. Before he could try for a third time, the creature hit him with a powerful right cross, setting him back on his heels.

  While Tanner fought his half of the creature, Samantha struggled against hers. She kicked and hit, repeatedly batting away its mouth as it tried to bite off her nose. Frustrated by her frenzied attacks, the bony half-man pushed aside her arms and sank its teeth into one of her shoulders.

  Burning pain caused her to cry out, and she hammered her tiny fist against the creature’s face. Instead of releasing her, the hydra gnawed her flesh as it tried to grind its way down to meat and bone.

  Desperate, Samantha reached around for the blade at her back. She slid it free and frantically stabbed under the creature’s jaw. The ache of his bite was so intense that there wasn’t much force behind her strike. Fortunately, the razor-sharp blade did most of the work, slicing through flesh to pin the creature’s tongue to the roof of its mouth.

  The hydra released her, jerking back to send a shower of warm blood onto Samantha’s hands and chest. Free from the horrible pain, her eyes cleared, and she went on the attack. Wrapping her legs around the creature’s midsection, she pulled herself up and began repeatedly stabbing the point of the knife into its belly. The creature shuddered as its bladder let loose, urine spilling onto the floor.

  As the front half took the wrath of Samantha’s unchecked fury, Tanner slipped the Mare’s Leg over the hydra’s rear-facing head. Using the weapon as a pry bar, he twisted as far as he could before giving one final ferocious jerk. The spine severed to leave the head dangling in his hands, like a giant flesh-covered marble.

  With both halves now dead, the creature collapsed, twitching as its synaptic impulses sorted themselves out.

  Samantha pulled the knife free and crawled over to her derringer. When she had it in hand, she stood, wincing as she tried to inspect her injured shoulder.

  “I’m hurt,” she whined, sounding as if she might cry.

  Tanner came closer and stretched the neck of the shirt down over her shoulder. Beneath was a deep ring of purple teeth marks. Fortunately, the skin remained unbroken.

  “You’ll be all right.”

  “Are you sure? It bit me, with its mouth,” she added, as if that needed to be said.

  “You’ll be all right,” he repeated.

  “But a bite means I might turn into one of them. That’s the way these things work.”

  “Says who.”

  “Says every zombie movie ever made.”

  “Well, it didn’t break the skin. No blood, no zombie. That’s the rules.”

  “Really? You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  His assurances seemed to help, and she slowed her breathing to better control the pain.

  “Why would it bite me anyway? I thought you were the one who tasted so good.”

  “You know what they say, even a carrot soaked in steak juice tastes delicious.”

  She stared up at him, the pain temporarily replaced by utter confusion.

  “What are you talking
about?”

  “I’m the steak. You’re the carrot. What’s not to get?”

  She closed one eye as if that might somehow help to process his very strange analogy.

  “You’re saying that you made me taste better?”

  “Must have,” he said, turning toward the door leading down. “What other explanation could there be?”

  “If that was the case, why didn’t it try to eat you?” she said, hurrying after him.

  “Maybe it was a vegetarian.”

  “A what?”

  “A vegetarian. They only eat vegetables.”

  “I know what a vegetarian is!” she exclaimed. “But I’m a person!”

  “Then what’s all the talk about carrots?”

  Her mouth fell open, words completely failing her.

  Tanner smiled. Sometimes the best way to get a person’s mind off pain was to tie it into a knot and force them to slowly untangle it. Fortunately, that was something he was especially good at.

  As they approached the exit, he said, “Dim your flashlight. It might keep us from waking up anything else.”

  Samantha pulled the scarf from her neck that she had taken from Gran’s house and wrapped it around the end of the flashlight. The light shown out with a diffused yellow glow.

  “Good?”

  He nodded. “Perfect.”

  They stepped through the door and discovered that it led to a white hallway resembling a torpedo tube. The walls of the shaft were smooth and circular, the diameter twelve feet across. With the muted flashlight, Samantha could only see a few paces ahead. Even with the limited range, however, she saw two men lying prone on the metal floor. Both had clearly been on the wrong end of a beating, broken noses, missing teeth, and swollen eyes. Neither man moved, and in the dim light, it was impossible to tell whether they were alive or dead.

  “Purdy’s men,” she said.

  Tanner held a finger to his lips and cocked his head sideways, listening.

  As Samantha quieted, she detected a faint singing coming from the darkness. The voice was wispy and playful, but also terrible and unnerving.