Deadlocked 6

by A. R. Wise

  "Billy and some of the others have been continuing to attack military bases." I blurted it out and was anxious to hear what he thought.

  He nodded and closed his eyes as if he'd already suspected as much. "And by others, you're talking about Kim. Right?"

  "Yeah. How'd you know?"

  "Artie said something a while ago that made me suspect something was up," said Zack. "He never admitted anything in particular, but he said that Kim was doing things that he couldn't condone. It was one of the reasons the two of them stopped trying to patch things up." He shook his head and scowled. "God damn you, Billy. Doesn't he see how he's tearing this place apart? And for what? If he already had his goons out there attacking the military bases, despite being told not to, then why would any of them think that your desire for peace had anything to do with making us susceptible to attack? Don't you see how damn stupid that is?"

  I hadn't thought of that, and hearing him explain it bolstered my confidence. "That's a good point."

  "No shit it is." He tapped his index finger to his temple. "There's more than air up here, beautiful. When you explain to the lieutenants that Billy's been sneaking around, behind our backs, and attacking the bases, then they're going to have to agree that the attacks on the towns had nothing to do with our drawdown."

  I considered his idea, but then winced when I thought of a problem with it. "I can't do that."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Because Kim, Annie, and Hero are all in on it."

  "So?" he asked.

  "They're guilty of treason."

  "I fail to see the problem here." He crossed his arms over his barrel chest.

  "They'll all get demoted. Kim, Hero, and Billy will lose their seat at the table."

  "Darling, I know you care for them, but so the hell what? They did the deed, now it's time to pay the price."

  "I don't want that, Zack."

  I expected him to be angry, but his mild demeanor didn't change. "Your heart's bigger than your head. That's one of the reasons I love ya."

  "Stop it," I said, dismissing his affection. He frequently flirted with me, but I always ignored his advances. It wasn't that I found him unattractive, on the contrary, his large frame and burly voice were very alluring to me, but I'd long ago pledged my devotion to my late husband. As I frequently said, 'David was married to me all of his life, so I plan on being married to him all of mine.'

  "How are we going to deal with this?" I asked, ignoring Zack's advance.

  "You know my vote: Tell everyone what Billy's been up to and go from there."

  "And then risk the lieutenants voting to exile my daughters? Come on, Zack, you know I can't do that."

  "Then you're complicit in this." His relaxed position belied his stern warning. "If you protect them by keeping this a secret, then you're just as guilty as they are."

  "I know."

  He sighed and then took a long breath before rubbing the back of his neck as if trying to ease a tense muscle. "I don't think anyone would be callous enough to try and exile your daughters. Where would they be sent to? The towns were destroyed. In the past, when we kicked someone out of the Rollers they always had the option of going to one of the nearby settlements. That's not an option anymore. Exile is a death sentence, and I can't believe anyone would do that."

  Zack stood and walked toward me. He reached out to comfort me, but I was reluctant to accept his embrace. I moved away, but he grasped my shoulder and pulled me into his arms. I curled my hands over my breasts as he wrapped his thick arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

  "Besides, you've got more than enough votes to keep them from being exiled," he said as he held me.

  "No, that's just the thing. You're wrong." I squirmed out of his arms. "Billy, Kim, and Levon won't get a vote because they were in on it. You and I will vote to let them stay, but Kayla and Dustin have been pushing to split the Rollers up for years. They want nothing more than to see Billy and his crew sent off on their own."

  "Okay," said Zack. "That leaves Clyde. He's been with us since the beginning. I can't imagine he'd vote to exile your daughters."

  "Are you sure about that?" I looked up at him and could see that he wasn't. "Are you willing to bet the lives of my daughters on Clyde's decision? What I'm worried about is that there are so many people involved in this treason that it'll start the talks of division all over again. Kayla, Dustin, and Clyde have all said that we'd be better off if the Rollers split in two. This is just the sort of thing that can make that a reality. If Billy, Kim, and Levon don't have votes, then Clyde, Dustin, and Kayla can finally get what they've been pushing for."

  I pulled at the side of my hair and groaned in frustration. "Fuck, Zack, everything is going to hell. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid."

  "Then I guess we keep it a secret, at least for the time being. We have to wait until Dustin, Kim, and Hero get back anyhow. No one's voting on anything until they're here."

  I shook my head and listened to another of Annie's rifle shots. "There's another problem."

  "And what's that?" he asked.

  "Clyde already knows. Annie and I told him what was going on."

  Zack grimaced, thought for a moment, and then shrugged. "Then that settles it. We have to tell Kayla, and when Dustin and Artie get back, we'll tell Dustin too."

  Another rifle shot echoed through the camp. The short time between shots concerned me, but not enough to investigate.

  "I know. I've been running around all morning trying to avoid this meeting."

  Another rifle shot. I frowned as I looked out the tent's door and wondered why the pace of Annie's gunfire had quickened so much.

  "Can I ask you a tough question?"

  I looked away from the tent's door and back at Zack. "Sure, what?"

  Annie took another shot and I heard the clank of her bullet casing as it bounced of the truck's roof.

  "Would it be best to let them all go?" he asked and seemed worried his words might hurt me.

  "What do you mean?" I looked back at the tent's door as another gunshot rang out.

  "Maybe you need to let the Rollers split up."

  I sharply turned to him, a hateful scowl on my face. "What are you saying?"

  A pistol fired, which turned my anger into concern.

  "Maybe we'd be better off if we let Billy and the others go off on their own."

  I ignored him as I walked to the tent's door. "That was a pistol. Did you hear that?"

  The brilliant afternoon sun blinded me as I walked outside. Zack followed behind as we entered the fray. Rollers were rushing through the yard, equipped with guns, and taking position on top of various tankers. They weren't just focusing on the North, they were taking up position to face every direction.

  "What's going on?" I asked of one of the nannies that were gathering the children.

  It was Rachel, an older woman that we'd rescued several years back from a slave trader. She was in her sixties and was a devoted caregiver to the Roller children.

  "They've got Greys all over," said Rachel. She was out of breath from trying to gather the frightened children. "Every direction."

  "Jesus," I muttered as I looked around, assessing the situation.

  "That's not all," said Rachel. "There's fire. We just started seeing smoke."

  "Where?" asked Zack.

  Rachel motioned in a circle. "All over, everywhere."

  "What in the hell?" asked Zack.

  "They're attacking," I said. "They're lighting fires to force the Greys toward us."

  I rushed to the trailer that Annie was on. Along the way I screamed out orders for the camp to get ready to evacuate. "We need the partitions raised, now! Get the Captain’s Tent packed up, and fill every tank. We're going to get out of here as soon as possible."

  "Annie," I called up to her when I reached the trailer with the crow's nest. "Tell me what you see." I started climbing as Annie answered me.

  "Someone lit a fire in a line out there. They're pushi
ng a ton of zombies our way." She stayed on her belly, aiming through her sight, as she spoke to me.

  "How much time do we have?"

  "Until what?" she asked just before taking a shot.

  "Until the Greys get here."

  "I don't know. These Greys are moving faster than most of the ones we deal with. I don't think they're that old, or at least not very rotted. They might not even be Greys. I'd bet they were delivered here, just like in Vineyard."

  "By the military?" I asked.

  "Yep," said Annie. "They tracked us down and are trying to wipe us out."

  "But why like this?" I stared at the black smoke on the horizon. "If they know where we're at, why don't they just drop a bomb on us? Why go to all this trouble?"

  Annie looked away from her scope and pointed off to the west, towards the mountains. "Because they're trying to capture us."

  I looked in the direction she pointed and saw what she meant. There was no smoke to the west. The plains where we were camped sat beside a major highway, and on the other side of it was a small ghost town. It looked as if someone was trying to herd us in that direction.

  "They surrounded us with fire and zombies in every direction but that one, and they're hoping we try to escape that way. We've got something they want."

  "What the hell could they want this badly?" I asked.

  Annie looked from me down to the transport vehicle that we'd left parked outside of the Roller's circle of tankers. It was the truck that carried Harrison and the stranger named Ben.

  "And we've got the pilot too," said Annie. "Maybe they can track one of those guys." She looked through her scope again as she lined up another shot.

  "Shit, I should've thought of that," I said. Billy's treason had consumed my mind, and the possibility that the military was tracking their pilot, or his brother, hadn't occurred to me. We were aware that the military tracked all of their vehicles, but we'd never captured any of their men before.

  "You got a plan?" asked Annie.

  I didn't.

  CHAPTER TEN - LAST CHANCE PASSED

  Mike was driving the ATV with Brian behind him, in a seat facing the opposite direction. The terrain was flat, for the most part, although Mike enjoyed bouncing over tree limbs whenever possible.

  The ATV caught air as he raced over a small hill and Brian screamed out in anger. "God damn it, Mike. You're going to get us both killed."

  Brian was holding a flamethrower, and the orange stream of fire dissipated to a flickering blue light as he released the trigger to yell at his partner. The ATV had two rows of seats, both just large enough to hold one person. Brian was precariously perched sitting backward in the rear with a plastic jug of fuel at his feet. The flamethrower had been rigged to accommodate the extra fuel jug because their job required them to burn a large portion of the plains.

  Mike and Brian had started on the south side, and looped around a large circle surrounding the High Roller camp. It was their job to light the fire that would force the zombies to head into the center of the ring, where the Rollers were camped. Underground compartments had been loaded with corpses around the perimeter, and each gate was remotely opened when Mike's ATV passed it. No one was required to activate the release mechanism because a radio signal from a unit on the ATV did it for them.

  This was part of a system that had been designed for the initial outbreak of the virus, twenty years ago. Trucks filled with corpses had been placed in parking garages all around major cities, the doors befitted with the same locking mechanism that the compartments around the Roller camp had. Then, when the apocalypse began, the military helicopters were sent in with the remote signal that would open the truck's doors.

  The plan this time was to force the Rollers to evacuate their position and head into a small, dilapidated ghost town. General Jerald Scott had been planning this for years, and had detailed satellite images of all the Rollers' usual campsites. Over the past couple months they'd been installing hidden underground compartments beside Roller camps in preparation for this day.

  General Scott was at odds with The Electorate, and none of the Wolfpack were privy to the cause for the schism. Whatever the reason, Jerald had lied to The Electorate about the High Rollers. He told them that the group had been wiped out, when in actuality they were still being tracked. He was trying desperately to find the person in the area that was immune, and The Electorate insisted that the mysterious carrier had been in league with a terrorist named Reagan.

  Mike was one of the members of the Wolfpack that believed there was a war coming between Jerald and the members of The Electorate, but everyone spoke of it only in hushed tones. The Wolfpack were loyal to Jerald, and were the only soldiers in the area that knew the truth about The Electorate's role in the apocalypse. The rest of the grunts were lied to, and told that the virus started as a result of a terrorist plot to create a biological super weapon.

  Most of the roads were blocked, except for a single thoroughfare, where an ambush had been set up. The goal wasn't to slaughter the rebels, but to capture them. Not only had they taken a member of the Wolfpack hostage, but they were housing an assassin that Jerald wanted taken alive.

  The roads all around the area had been littered with spike strips, which would force the Rollers into the center of town. Jerald had installed a speaker system in the town to give the Rollers his demand, and if they didn't comply then he was willing to release the army of Undying that were being kept under the town. Members of the Wolfpack had asked to try a different tactic, and simply load the rooftops of the town with soldiers, but Jerald didn't want to risk anyone other than a member of the Wolfpack getting their hands on the person that carried the immunity. For that reason, they had to resort to unique measures.

  While all of the soldiers were immune to the original strain, no one was immune to the Undying mutation. From what the Wolfpack had been told, there were only two known cases of people that might be immune to that mutated virus. One of them was a girl in her mid twenties, and the other was a man that had once been a member of the Wolfpack but had been kidnapped. It had long been suspected that the mysterious girl was living in this area, but now they had proof that the kidnapped member of the Wolfpack was with the Rollers as well.

  Jerald wanted to accelerate the search, which is why the virus was unleashed upon all of the local towns. Anyone that didn't come down with symptoms after a day were taken into custody. They'd finished with two towns, but had trouble with the third. Jerald initiated an assault upon the third town after the attempt to poison them failed, but The Electorate caught word of the plan and insisted that a man named Victor, who wasn't part of the Wolfpack, take over the attack. Victor wanted to force the townsfolk to retreat to the streets, where a horde of zombies would be waiting for them. Then, after the zombies slaughtered them, soldiers would move in to collect the bodies that didn't turn.

  The assault failed, and when the Wolfpack retrieved the data from the downed helicopter Victor discovered the truth about the High Rollers, as well as the kidnapped member of the Wolfpack. Jerald made sure that Victor disappeared after that, and Mike assumed this was the reason The Electorate had suddenly taken such interest in what was going on in Colorado. Whatever backroom war had been brewing between Jerald and The Electorate was just about to boil over.

  "Hold on!" Mike yelled out joyfully as they approached a ditch that ran along the highway. He barely decelerated before plunging into the gully and then back up the other side while Brian screamed out in fear and frustration.

  "You piece of shit," said Brian.

  Mike laughed as he drove along the side of the road, avoiding the spike strips. He headed back to town, staying on the side of the road, while Brian continued to incinerate the dry brush. They passed the blockade that would funnel the Rollers into the city's thoroughfare and Brian finally switched off the flamethrower, his job complete.

  "That thing gets fucking hot, man," said Brian as he shook his gloved hands. The black rubber gloves glistened as if
they'd begun to melt.

  "Pussy," said Mike as he turned the corner to head into town.

  This was one of thousands of ghost towns left to rot in the post-apocalypse. The building's facades were clinging to their frames, some drooping forward as if wanting nothing more than to collapse to the street. This was once a thriving downtown area, replete with adorable family owned shops. Some of the quaint signs still decorated entrances. There was a barber shop, it's red and white pole now dulled by the weather, and a diner with a pig's head that hung over the door. There was a church in the distance, positioned in the center of the road where the main thoroughfare split in two. The prominence of the building was a testament to a world long since lost, where religion was a center point for a community. Now it looked like more of a gravestone than a steeple.

  There was a Corvette, gleaming red, its body polished and sparkling in the afternoon sun, parked in front of the church.

  "What the fuck?" asked Mike as he slowed to a stop, fifty yards from the mysterious vehicle.

  "What's up?" asked Brian as he stood up from his awkward, backward position and looked at the car. "Hot damn! Who's is that?"

  "I don't know," said Mike.

  "That thing looks like it just came off the floor." Brian was older than Mike, and remembered the days before the apocalypse. "Haven't seen one like that in a long time. Pull up to it." He was excited and slapped Mike's shoulder.

  "You sure? You don't think this is a little weird?"

  "Weird?" asked Brian. "What's weird about it? I bet Tom found it in some garage around here. You know how he likes cars."

  "I don't know, man," said Mike. "I've got a bad feeling about this." He looked around at the desolate shops that surrounded them and suddenly felt trapped, as if he'd walked into his own ambush.

  "Who's the pussy now?" asked Brian.