Dead America The Second Week (Book 7): Dead America: Carolina Front, Part 4

by Slaton, Derek

  “There is no way that isn’t a trap,” Coleman said immediately. “Why would he just happen to have that written on a piece of paper, ready to slip it to you? There’s no way that is legit.”

  Terrell shrugged. “Either way, we’re gonna go run it by Xavier first. We need to get these supplies back home.”

  “Military grade weapons, huh?” Hoyt said as they walked back towards their trucks. “We could really use the ammo.”

  Terrell nodded with a wink. “Would save you from having to use that shotgun as a fancy club.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As the quartet rolled back into town with the two big trucks, Terrell pulled his over at the front gate. The cluster of workers there were ready and waiting for the rebar, and grinned with excitement at the big haul.

  “Run into any trouble?” one of the older men asked, but the Captain just clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle, my man,” he replied with a grin, and received a thumbs-up in return. He and Coleman strolled through the gates after Walter and Hoyt drove the other truck inside that housed the still and other supplies they’d grabbed from the houses.

  Xavier met them outside of the main hall, and waved with a bright smile. Terrell returned it, unable to resist the optimism always oozing from the leader of Clinton. Every time they returned from a run, he was always happy for their safe return.

  That day the man in question wore a pristine light green plaid suit, a nice contrast to his dark skin in the sunlight.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to your vast wardrobe,” the Captain said by way of greeting as he extended a hand to Xavier.

  He chuckled and shook first Terrell’s, then Coleman’s hand. “I never would have gotten to wear this kind of thing in my past life,” he said cheerfully. “We make the most of what we can. Come inside, the ladies will bring you a nice late lunch.”

  “Yum!” Coleman chirped.

  Terrell motioned over his shoulder as they walked in the front door. “The guard towers look like they’re taking shape pretty well.”

  “Yes, thanks to your input, our defenses are really coming together,” Xavier said. He led them to a conference table in the corner where the sweet elderly Ruth was pouring a few steaming mugs of coffee.

  Coleman put a hand over his heart. “Ruth, my love, you always know exactly what I need.”

  “Sit down, young man,” she replied gently, giving him a wink as she wandered off with the empty coffee pot. June arrived with two bowls of maple and sweet potato soup with fresh baked buns, and the two soldiers practically salivated as they took their seats.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Terrell said politely, and June patted them both on the shoulders before heading off.

  “So, how did it go? I see you came back with an extra truck,” Xavier commented as he sat down at the head of the table, taking up his coffee mug.

  Terrell stirred his soup to cool it down before eating it. “We secured three pallets of rebar and some other food and supplies from some of the houses. The extra truck had a large still in it, which we figured would be useful as an explosive for defense purposes.”

  “Good find,” Xavier agreed.

  Terrell blew gently on his soup before continuing, “We also ran into Miles.”

  “Ah, young Miles,” the older man replied, shaking his head. “How did that go?”

  “His partner was ready to fight, but Miles talked him down,” Terrell replied. “He also slipped me this.” He slid the note across the table and then took a few tentative sips of his soup.

  Coleman pushed his already empty bowl away from him and leaned back in his chair with his coffee mug. “It’s a trap, for sure,” he said, wiping the orange mustache from his top lip.

  “We don’t know that,” Terrell countered.

  Xavier shook his head. “It is suspicious.”

  “Of course it is,” the Captain agreed. “I never said it wasn’t. But the pull of possible ammo… I think it’s worth the risk.”

  Coleman shook his head. “It’s not. They’re just trying to draw us out and leave the town defenseless so they can come and take it for themselves.”

  Terrell shrugged. “And if it is a trap and we don’t go, they’ll be able to take the whole town because they’ll have a huge cache of military grade weapons at their disposal.”

  “So we should risk it because they might be stronger than us?” Coleman countered.

  The Captain shook his head. “No, we should risk it because we might be able to load up on ammo and weapons.”

  Xavier clucked his tongue to get their attention. “I don’t like the thought of leaving us defenseless, but I agree with the Captain,” he said. “I think it’s worth it to at least check it out, see what we can see.”

  “If just the two of us go, we can stay incognito and quiet,” Terrell replied.

  Coleman opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “That’s a good idea,” Xavier agreed. “If you’re both up to it, we’d be forever grateful.”

  The Corporal smacked Terrell on the back as he downed the last of his coffee. “What are you waiting for, Cap, hurry up and eat your lunch!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Well, this is unpleasant,” Coleman said brightly as he made a makeshift couch out of garbage bags.

  Terrell climbed up into the waste truck behind him and flopped into the bags. “Could be worse. They could have run out of garbage bags.”

  “Always looking on the bright side of life, Cap,” the Corporal replied, lounging on his new cushy love seat.

  “Be safe, gentlemen,” Xavier said to them with a nod, and both soldiers waved at him before Hoyt closed the back of the truck.

  He and Walter would be the ones doing the dump run, just like they always did every week. This way they’d be avoiding doing anything out of the ordinary, and if anyone was watching, they wouldn’t know that Terrell and Coleman had left. Just an old dude and his friend taking out the trash.

  The walkie-talkie in Terrell’s pocket beeped, and he fished it out.

  “We’ve got a shadow, gents, sit tight,” Hoyt reported.

  The Captain sighed. “Ten-four. Keep us posted.”

  “Sit tight?” Coleman asked. “Where would we go? Eventually they’re gonna have to dump us.”

  As if on cue, Hoyt came in, “We’re going to have to dump you.”

  “Great,” the Corporal chirped.

  Terrell chuckled. “Ten-four,” he said, and stuffed the radio back into his pocket. “We’re gonna have to burrow in, so we’re not seen.”

  “Lovely,” Coleman replied, and began to wriggle his way underneath the couch he’d made.

  Terrell shimmied in between a bunch of the garbage bags. Thankfully the smell wasn’t too bad, considering all of the perishable biodegradable stuff went towards compost for gardening. They buried themselves as best they could, and waited for the truck to back up.

  The telltale bleep-bleep-bleep of the truck precluded the hydraulics lifting, and the soldiers grasped the garbage bags around them to make sure they had a quiet, hidden soft landing.

  They tumbled out, being buried in bags, and stayed put as the truck righted itself and headed off away from the dump. A few tense minutes later, the walkie-talkie beeped.

  “They’re following us,” Hoyt came in. “Not sure if there is anyone surveilling the dump, but we’ve drawn the attention of our shadow, at least.”

  Terrell brought the radio to his mouth. “Ten-four, we’ll wait a little bit and see what’s up. Thanks for the ride.”

  “Be safe,” Hoyt replied.

  Coleman sighed, surprising the Captain with how close their heads had landed next to each other. “How long is a little bit, Cap? I don’t know what’s digging into my back, but it’s unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant is better than dead,” Terrell replied, but didn’t wait terribly long before gingerly pushing his way to the surface. He stayed as low a
s he could, peering through cracks between bags, surveying the surrounding area. The dump seemed quiet.

  “We good?” Coleman asked.

  Terrell wriggled his way up through the bags. “We’re clear,” he confirmed.

  The Corporal leapt up out of the bags like a whale breaching the ocean, gasping for air dramatically. “Ah, thank fuck,” he declared, quickly running down the little hill of trash to the dirt below.

  Terrell shook his head and followed, readying his weapon just in case there was a trap waiting for them. But it seemed that the dump was deserted.

  They headed through the mountains of garbage, running around to the back of the dump to the back entrance. There was a lone zombie outside of the chain link door, and Coleman quickly dispatched it with his knife. They ducked outside, guns pointing this way and that to make sure they didn’t have company.

  “Clear,” Terrell confirmed, and they relaxed as they headed across the dirt road to a walking trail. “The car should be just up in the bushes on the other side of this hill.”

  Coleman chuckled. “Should be,” he teased. “I know there’s plenty of people around that could have stolen it, but now I’m imagining zombies taking a joyride.”

  “Thank fuck they aren’t that smart,” Terrell replied, letting out a deep whoosh of breath. “People are hard enough to deal with, let alone zombies that can drive.”

  The Corporal stretched his arms above his head as they walked, and cracked his neck from side to side. “Have you wondered why they’re not smart, though? I mean I guess when you die, your brain stops working, and since it’s decomposing with the rest of you I guess you lose whatever intelligence you had.”

  “I really don’t want to imagine smart zombies,” Terrell replied.

  Coleman shrugged. “But if they were smart, they might not want to eat us, you know? If they still retained their memories?”

  “That would be almost worse, though,” the Captain shivered. “Imagine dying, and then coming back to life as a rotting corpse? If they did keep all of their memories and personalities, they’d have to deal with being zombies.”

  “Worse for them, better for us, though,” Coleman shrugged. “At least we wouldn’t have to kill ‘em.”

  “Yeah, because we haven’t had to kill any humans with memories and personalities in this apocalypse,” Terrell shot back, sarcasm evident in his voice.

  The Corporal paused and then nodded. “Point taken.”

  They headed through a copse of trees and found the little sedan buried in branches that a few of the Clinton men had planted there in case a covert vehicle was needed. This was definitely one of those times.

  The keys were in the ignition, ready and waiting, and the soldiers got comfy in the leather seats as Terrell started the car.

  “This is actually pretty nice,” Coleman said, running his hand along the dashboard.

  The Captain revved the engine and grinned. “You can enjoy it for the next forty miles to Goldsboro.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The soldiers stashed the car in some bushes, making their way covertly to the air force base.

  “Okay, let’s see what we can see,” Coleman grunted as he climbed up a dense tree, scoped rifle slung over his shoulder. Terrell followed him up so they could continue to talk as the Corporal got the lay of the land. “What building did the note say?”

  “You won’t be able to see it from here,” the Captain replied. “Interior building four, room 367. It’s going to take some hunting to find the right door in there.”

  “So sketchy,” Coleman replied, shaking his head as he perched on a thick branch, bracing his foot into a knot on the trunk. He got comfortable and held up his rifle, using the scope to have a look around the base.

  Terrell stayed standing, feet on one branch as he leaned on a higher one, crossing his arms. “Maybe it’s a storage room? It would make sense to hide the weapons somewhere as opposed to just leaving them all lying around for anyone to find.”

  “Or it’s a trap,” Coleman shot back, but there was no venom in his voice. They’d had this argument already, and he’d lost, and that was that. “The door to the armory is hanging open, so it’s definitely been cleaned out.”

  “What else do you see?” Terrell asked.

  The Corporal pursed his lips as he surveyed the runway. “No planes left, except for one crashed at the end of the runway. There’s no movement over there either, so either the corpses were obliterated in the crash, or they’re wandering around somewhere else.”

  “It’s hard to get a handle on any of that with us being almost two weeks into the apocalypse,” Terrell mused.

  Coleman lowered his gun for a moment, brow furrowed. “Hell, it has been almost two weeks, hasn’t it?” He shook his head, almost in disbelief. “Is it weird that it feels like no time at all, but also kind of like forever?”

  “Like it’s the new normal?” The Captain suggested. “Yeah. It is weird, but I get it. I think it’s just because we have to adapt or we die. So scoping out air force bases for weapon caches and potential traps is just our lives now, buddy.”

  His companion rolled his eyes. “Wonderful,” he replied, sarcasm evident in his tone. He raised the scope to his eye again. “I can’t really see much of the buildings from here, but at least I can cover all of the incoming roads. I don’t know if there’s going to be a better spot than this if you still want me to stay on the outskirts for sniping.”

  “I do,” Terrell confirmed. “I’ll leave you to your tree, then.”

  “How’s your ammo?” Coleman inclined his head to the rifle on the Captain’s back.

  “Zero,” came the reply. “So make sure your shots count, because I have no extra for you until I get back.” He tightened the strap on his rifle, that would be useless unless he found a big box of bullets inside, and began the climb down.

  “Be safe,” Coleman hissed, and Terrell gave him a thumbs up as he hit the ground.

  He pulled out a set of heavy-duty wire cutters and set to clipping a hole in the chain link fence so he could slip through. He pulled his handgun, the only weapon he had that still had any ammo, and ducked through the hole.

  First, Terrell jogged across the asphalt towards the fallen plane, inspecting the rubble. One of the engine intakes was completely caked with crimson, and he wrinkled his nose at the thought of someone getting sucked inside and liquified by the blades. The saving grace was that it was probably a zombie that had wandered too close while the thing was still running.

  He poked his head inside the cab, where there was one slightly shifting charred corpse. It was so burnt that it didn’t even have a working mouth anymore, its charred skin flaking off with each little wriggle.

  Terrell drew his knife and leaned in the window, stabbing it in the head to put it out of its misery. If the thing even knew misery.

  The Captain stood up, taking a deep breath as he glanced around. He raised his radio to his lips.

  “There’s nothing out here,” he said. “Neither alive or dead. It’s really quiet.” He turned the volume far down just in case.

  Coleman crackled through. “It’s creeping me out, Cap.”

  “I hate to admit it, but me too,” Terrell admitted. “I want to think that this is karma finally on our side, but even no zombies wandering around? Something feels off.”

  “You want to get out of there?” Coleman asked, though his tone betrayed that he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  The Captain shook his head. “Nope,” he replied, popping the p. “If there’s even a chance the cache is here, I have to risk it.” He continued to explore, wandering the quiet base as he made his way to the building in question. There were a few headless corpses strewn about by the front doors, blood splatters long dried. He’d be willing to guess it was from the first week, maybe even the first day. The corpses were long rotten.

  “Would you rather get eaten by a zombie, or have to eat part of a zombie?” Coleman asked, and Terrell chuckled under his breath.
They’d played this game a lot over the years, to pass the time when they were out waiting for battles.

  He tapped on the door of building four, waiting for noise inside. None came, and he entered cautiously, swinging his gun around before relaxing.

  “How old is the zombie?” he asked into the radio as he found a stairwell up to the third floor.

  Coleman laughed back. “That makes a difference?”

  “Yeah, I mean, if I’m going to die or have to eat rotting flesh, I want to know just how rotten it is,” Terrell replied.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  The Captain cocked a brow. “Are you saying you’d get eaten?”

  There was a pause. “You know, I think you’re right, it does matter how rotten it is.”

  “See?” Terrell replied, shaking his head as he reached the top of the stairwell. He tapped on it again, waiting for movement, and pursed his lips. This would be the game changer. “Entering the third floor,” he said, and clipped the radio to his belt.

  “Fingers crossed,” Coleman replied.

  Terrell pushed the door open and slowly made his way down the dim corridor. He could have sworn he heard movement, but when he froze and strained his ears, there was nothing. He kept his handgun at the ready, just in case, and checked the door numbers as he went.

  “There you are,” he murmured to himself as he came upon Room 367. He gently turned the knob, but there was a padlock holding the whole thing shut, so he got to work with his lock picking gear. Soon the large lock hit the floor and he returned the kit to his pocket.

  Knowing that it might be locked for sinister reasons, Terrell drew his gun again before inching the door open. He peered inside the large storage room, stepping in slowly. The shelves were bare in the dim light. His heart sank.

  He’d been misled. He hadn’t realized how big of a part of him had been hopeful for the break until this moment, when there was nothing here for him. He turned, and then a blinding emergency light blared into his face, burning his retinas.