by Damon Hunter
“No need for any of that,” Vance said.
“That ain’t up to you,” he said as he kept moving forward, “That is my call and the call of my partners with the arrows. Just so you know, what they are thinking is to put an arrow in everyone’s legs. Then I fire a shot in the air and I go back in the trees and watch them eat you.”
“Or, how about we be friends here?” Clay asked. “We’re all team human after all.”
“I’ll think about it, but first things firs,” the bearded man replied.
“What do you want?” Vance asked.
The man pointed to the transponder. “I want that.”
“I don’t think so,” Clay told him.
“Well, it is on my property. I figure I have a right to it.”
“Do you even know what it is?” Vance asked.
“No. But you assholes thought it was important enough to come back and get it, so it must be valuable. And like I said, it is on my property.”
“This isn’t your property,” Vance said.
“No shit? Then who does it belong to?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Your friend have a name?”
“Corrigan.”
“Well. That happens to be my name too.”
Vance was about to say ‘Bullshit’ when it struck him why this guy looked familiar. Instead of arguing, he said, “You’re his kid.”
The young man smiled. “Damn right. Who are you?”
“Eric Vance. We served together.”
“Marines?”
“Yeah.”
“My dad hated the Marines.”
“I know.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“How do I know you are?”
“I’ve got the people with arrows aimed at you. I’ve got no reason to lie.”
“He kept a room for you,” Vance said. “Though it was not exactly age appropriate.”
“I told him to change that shit when I came back, but as much as I loved him, he was batshit crazy. Even though a decade had passed since I left and I was standing right in front of him, he kept thinking a ten-year-old was coming back.”
“Your dad had his issues, but he was still one of my best friends.”
“Well, in that case you won’t mind giving your friend’s son that cool-looking device you have in your hand.”
“I don’t think so,” Vance said. “Call off your archers and we can talk. Like he said, we are all team human here. We can help each other.”
“Nah. You give me the thing and then if I feel like having a conversation, we can talk.”
“You’re being stupid, kid,” Vance told him.
“Do I need to do a countdown or some shit? How about I count to three and then we start playing cowboys and indians on your ass.”
“Come on, kid,” Clay said. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Corrigan said, “Three.”
“Call them off and we can all benefit,” Vance told him.
“Yeah, seriously,” Bo added.
Corrigan said, “Two.”
Chapter 12
Caroline Rutherford’s House - Oceanside, CA
Donna found the sound of a dog barking to be a welcome distraction. Even though she and Eric Vance had split a long time ago and their breakup was not the kind in which people stay friends afterwards, she still cared about him and could not help but worry. When they were together and he was a soldier stationed overseas, she often thought it would be better to be there with him than home wondering if he was okay. She figured her imagination may have made it worse than it actually was. Being with him in the middle of the war zone this time she realized she was wrong, terribly wrong.
They needed to get out of the Quarantine Zone and do it fast. Among the many reasons were her daughter’s sanity. The kid seemed to enjoy being ‘Killer Kate’ more than Donna thought she should be. She was tempted to make her quit watching whatever S.W.A.R.C. had posted, but as bizarre and sick as it was, her watching YouTube with two other teenagers was the most normal thing Donna had seen her daughter do since the evacuation went sour.
Instead of telling her to stop, Donna moved to the front door to investigate the dog barking outside.
“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked as she left the laptop and followed Donna to the door.
“Who knows what happened to his owners?” Donna said. “He sounds hurt. I figured I could put out some water or something.”
“Don’t open the door. It will infect us all,” Jennifer told her.
“It’s a dog.”
“Not anymore.”
Donna paused before opening the door and said, “Dogs don’t get the rot.”
“The hell they don’t. Whatever you do, don’t open the door.”
Tanner joined them by the door. “She’s right. I saw one turn.”
“My brother was infected by a dog bite,” Jennifer said.
“Everything I read said different,” Donna told them.
“If what you read was right, my family would not be infected,” Jennifer said.
Everything Donna had heard about the rot said it only infected people. Right or wrong, though, there was no question the two teens in front of her believed dogs could get it and pass it on. She decided opening the door was not worth the risk.
“Maybe we should go back and wait in the living room,” Donna said.
By this time Bar and Katelin had joined them by the door.
“Did you say your family was infected by a dog?” Bar asked.
Jennifer nodded her head. The thought of what happened to her family had tears fill her eyes until they were running down her cheeks.
“Sorry,” Bar said. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I think only certain infected can do it,” Tanner said.
“Like the vampire rotters?” Katelin asked.
“Yeah, but more specifically ones like my dad.”
“Your dad?”
“He’s different somehow than the others. For one, he is still walking around after I put a set of gardening shears through the back of his throat.”
“I don’t know,” Donna said. “They’re all different, I’ve seen some with tusks. They’re tough to kill, too. Stuff that takes down a regular person or ambler doesn’t always work.”
“It’s more than that,” Tanner said.
“What do you mean?” Bar asked.
“He talked,” Tanner told him.
“You sure?” Donna asked, adding, “The infected don’t talk.”
“Heard it myself.”
“What did he say?” Katelin asked him.
“The first time, just ‘son’. I thought it was his last words before the infection got him, like he was warning me or something.”
“Probably was,” Donna told him.
“Maybe, but the timing was wrong. He was too far gone when he said it. Then I heard him again, at Jennifer’s. He said ‘son’ again and then what I think was ‘come’.” Tanner looked at Jennifer and asked, “You heard it, didn’t you?”
Jennifer wiped her eyes and said, “Sorry, I heard it make a noise but I didn’t make out any words, but to be fair, I was freaking out then. You had just cut off my dad’s arm and killed my mother so I wasn’t really listening. He could have said, ‘Son, come,’ I just didn’t hear it.”
The barking dog became louder. Katelin reached for the sword behind her back.
“Let’s not go out and kill any dogs just yet,” Donna said. “Why don’t we sit down?”
Everyone left the foyer and found spots to sit in the living room.
“Anyone check on Gavin since we got back?” Katelin asked.
“No,” Donna said. “Caroline said he was fine. She said she had checked on him recently and he was still playing video games in Tanner’s room. I could hear the game when we came in.”
Bar looked upstairs. “Me too, but I don’t hear it anymore.”
“I’ll go check,” Donna said.
&n
bsp; She bound up the stairs and looked in Tanner’s room. The television was still on but the game was paused. Gavin was not in the room. Donna assumed he went to the bathroom but found the door to the bathroom in the hall wide open and no Gavin inside.
Caroline was still downstairs feeding Grampy Gary and Donna wondered if she should ask Caroline before checking out the rest of the upstairs. She decided it did not matter and gave the other two bedrooms, one which Doug Rutherford had turned into an office, a look. Gavin was not in either one or anywhere upstairs as far as Donna could tell.
While they were talking by the door, it was possible he slipped downstairs without them knowing it. Donna went down and headed for the most likely destination for a growing boy, the kitchen.
She found him there, along with Caroline. They were standing by the sliding glass door leading to the back yard.
“Is that your dog?” Gavin was asking Caroline.
“No, but he looks hurt,” Caroline said as she reached for the door handle and began to pull.
“Don’t,” Donna yelled but Caroline had already started to slide the door open. As soon as she got it open a crack, the German Shepherd shoved its snout inside and forced the door open to the point he could bound inside.
The dog forced its way inside and knocked Gavin to the floor. Caroline was saying, “Bad dog,” when it turned and jumped on Gavin.
Chapter 13
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
Ana had seen the arrows come out of the avocado grove at the edge of the clearing. From her vantage point on the roof of the Urban Assault Wagon she could see the archer. Avocado trees were not really meant for climbing, they were not that tall and the branches were not usually very thick, but the archer had managed to perch himself in one to fire the arrows at Vance, Bo, and Clay.
She could have picked him off with her AR-15. The shirtless man who walked into the clearing would be an easy shot as well. The ease at which she could have taken them out made her fairly certain they never saw her. The way they were operating reminded her of her and her friends when she was not the only living member of the Southwest Apocalypse Response Crew. They had good ideas for fighting the infected, but without fail, they neglected to plan for something and paid for it in the worst kind of way. These two were operating in the same half-smart way. They put together a good strategy for dealing with Bo, Vance, and Clay but had not considered that the three of them did not come alone.
Clear shots or not, the horde could not have gotten too far away and once she pulled the trigger they would all be on their way back to the bunker.
Had the man with the bow put an arrow into someone or the shirtless man come into the clearing with his gun raised she would have risked summoning the horde and put bullets in each of their heads. Since they seemed to want to talk she took a different strategy.
After turning off the Suburban and taking the keys in an attempt to not be half-smart and let someone take their ride, she put the rifle over her shoulder and drew a hatchet and her Glock.
Ana could hear them arguing as she moved through the trees. The archer had an arrow in place and the drawstring pulled back. He was ready to fire if the other man did not get what he asking for. With all his concentration on the clearing, he was easy to sneak up on. She saw someone, probably Corrigan, had mounted a platform about halfway up one of the thicker trees, giving the archer a place to be in the tree without worrying about falling out. Some two by fours had been nailed to the trunk, making a crude ladder. Ana climbed onto the platform without him noticing.
Ana put the barrel of her Glock to his temple as the man in the clearing said, “Three.”
“Put down the bow or I blow your head off,” she told him as she thumbed back the hammer to let him know she was serious.
He put down the bow, saying, “Them rotters will be all over us as soon as you pull that trigger.”
“What do you care? You won’t be around to have to worry about it.”
She heard the man in field say, “Two.”
“You might want to tell him he lost his backup. They aren’t the types to give up.”
The man with the gun to his head yelled, “Ben.”
Hearing his name was enough to have the shirtless man stop counting and say, “Jesus fucking Christ, Billy, can’t whatever you have to say wait? We are kind of busy here.”
“It can’t really wait.”
“Then what?”
“There’s a girl with a gun on my head. She says she will kill me and I don’t think she is bluffing.”
Before Ben Corrigan could respond, he noticed while he was yelling at Billy that both the guys in TMRT uniforms had drawn their pistols and pointed them his way.
“If you really are Corrigan’s kid, you should be smart enough to drop the gun before I have to threaten you,” Vance told him.
Ben Corrigan dropped his pistol and put his hands up over his head.
“Where is the other one?” Vance asked.
“What other one?” Ben replied.
“You said there were more than one person with a bow.”
“I lied. I do that sometimes.”
“Lucky for you, that team human stuff I was saying wasn’t bullshit,” Clay said as he stepped forward and took the pistol Ben Corrigan had dropped.
Ana marched Billy, who had the beard and hair Ben did but was wearing a shirt, into the field.
Ben asked, “What are you going to do to us?”
“Nothing,” Clay said. “You can have your father’s property all to yourselves. We’re leaving.”
“You taking my gun?”
“I should, but I’ll be nice and I’ll leave it on the road. You can get it after we leave.”
“We can’t leave them here,” Bo said.
“Of course we can,” Clay replied.
“We should take them with us,” Bo said.
“You miss the part where this asshole was going to kill us if we didn’t give him the transponder?” Clay told him.
“No, but that doesn’t mean we should leave them to die out here. Like you said, we are all team human.”
“We’re just leaving. Whether they die or not is up to them.”
Bo looked at Vance. “He’s your friend’s kid.”
“It will be hard to trust them after this. I still have to sleep once in awhile,” Vance told him.
“What makes you think we want to come with you assholes anyway?” Ben said.
“Us assholes may have a way out of quarantine,” Bo told him.
“Seriously?” Billy asked.
“Yeah.”
“What if we apologized?” Billy said. “We just thought you were looting our dad’s property.”
“Our dad?” Vance asked.
“Brothers from another mother,” Ben said. “He would have a weird room down there too if dad had known about him ten years ago.”
Vance looked at the two half brothers and said, “You have something to say then say it.”
“I’m sorry,” Billy said.
“Me too,” Ben added.
Vance looked at Clay. “Their dad was a friend of mine.”
Clay lowered his gun. “Are we all in agreement from here on out we are all on team human?”
“Yeah, go team human,” Ben said sarcastically.
“For sure, team human all the way,” Billy added.
“Speaking of our dad, any of you see him?”
“Yeah,” Vance said, “but he wasn’t your dad anymore.”
“Ambler?” Ben asked.
“Vampire rotter,” Vance replied.
“You kill him?”
“It was him or me, but yeah, I did,” Vance told them. “If that makes any difference, I’m sorry.”
Neither brother said anything. Vance could tell the news of their father’s demise hit them hard.
“That change the way you feel about coming with us?” Vance asked.
“He was your friend, so I suppose you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t ha
ve to,” Billy said.
“I don’t know. I suppose I can forgive you given the circumstances,” Ben said, “but it isn’t going to be easy.”
“You can understand how we might be a little raw about the whole thing?” Billy added.
“I can’t,” Ana said. “I’ve got to see all my friends die over the last two days. Except one. I killed him myself. Shot him in the face.”
Clay climbed back on his bike and said, “Do what you want, but we have to get moving. Meet us at the car, if we look back and see you walking our way we’ll wait. If you do join us, don’t do anything to make us regret this.”
He motioned to Ana. She took Billy’s bow with her as she took the seat behind him while Vance and Bo mounted the other bike.
“Hurry over,” Vance said. “Take too long and I may change my mind.”
They made it across the field quickly. When they looked back, the brothers were still standing by the TMRT transport discussing the matter. Vance put the transponder in the Urban Assault Wagon while the others put away the bikes.
Once the bikes were back in the trailer, Clay put the pistol and the compound bow by one of the fence posts.
“They don’t look like they’re coming,” Clay said.
“No,” Vance said. “Too bad. I feel like I owe Corrigan.”
“I suppose we ought to leave. If they wanted to go with us they could have,” Clay said.
Bo joined them, saying, “It seems wrong. We leave them and they are going to die for sure.”
“Going with us is not a guarantee either,” Clay said.
“Still seems wrong.”
Vance nodded. “It might be, but so would something happening to the others while we waiting for someone who is never coming.”
“I guess so,” Bo said.
They turned to see Ana had unslung the machine gun on her back.
“We’ve got trouble,” she said.
“All the more reason to get out of here,” Clay said as he looked down the road. All he saw were a few amblers in the distance. Considering what it could be, this did not seem reason to get excited. They would be gone before they got close.
