“The Wolf Riders are the enemy here. I know Sly’s done you wrong in the past, but this is worse.” Ahmed shook his head. “There are a lot of dead coming this way. We can’t afford this fight.” Ahmed pointed at Sly. “None of us can afford to be fighting each other. Not now.”
Jim’s mouth clamped shut and he wiped a hand over his head letting his fingers run through his hair. “Jesus. This is bad. Jes too?”
Sly stood at the top of the porch and nodded gravely.
Jim stared at him. “Can we come in? And talk about this? We don’t have anywhere left to go.”
The idea of bringing six armed men into his home reflected on Sly’s chiseled face. Armed men that had come there to kill him. He nodded stiffly. “Get those children out of the cold.” He waved them on, and the Singleton men walked up the stairs. Sly held the door open. “Hurry up now, letting all the warm air out.”
The two family leaders met eye to eye.
“Come on in, Jimmy.”
“All right, Sly. I will.” He stood quietly, judging if Sly meant what he was saying or if he was hiding men with guns in the next room. “Thanks for apologizing the other day.”
“You know I didn’t mean it.”
Jim smiled. “That’s why I turned that jerk-off down on his offer.” He planted a finger in the center of Sly’s chest. “Didn’t come from the heart.”
“I mean it when I say you’re welcome here.”
Jim gave him a tired smile. “I appreciate that.”
STEELE
Camp Forge, IA
The glow of the fire and candles in the dim morning light warmed the parlor. Steele draped an arm around Gwen, his new wife and mother of his child. He pressed his nose into the top of her head. Her hair held a faint scent of rich floral lilac. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing her in, pulling her tighter into his body.
He whispered, “I love you.”
She studied him with affection from below. “I love you.”
“Gosh, quit it, you two,” Haley said. She stared at them from beneath the Christmas tree. “Can we open presents yet?”
“Not until after we eat,” Becky said. She aimlessly thumbed through the same magazine for the thousandth time.
“Come on, Mom, just one?”
The sisters shared a glance together until Gwen said, “Why not?”
Becky tossed her magazine down, holding a finger in there. “One. And don’t be expecting anything anyway.”
“I won’t, Mom.” She tore into a package wrapped in what was probably the last of the wrapping paper.
John smiled at Steele. “Can I get ya a warmup?”
“Thanks,” Steele said, holding out his cup.
John took it and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Smells great, Lydia,” Steele said over his shoulder.
“My newest grandson-in-law is quite the schmooze,” Lydia called back.
John came back in and handed Steele a piping hot watery coffee. It was practically decaf at this point but at least it was some semblance of normalcy.
“Oh, man,” Haley said in dismay. She held up two gray wool socks. They dropped to her lap in defeat. “Clothes again.”
John stifled a shared laugh with Steele.
“Grandma made those,” her mother said. “So be thankful.”
Haley’s face twisted in disappointment. “More clothes. I just want my iPad to work.”
Becky wagged a warning finger at her. “Well, it ain’t. Be thankful that you got anything.”
Lydia came into the parlor. “How do you like them, sweetie?”
Haley rolled her eyes, and Becky swatted at her with a flat palm. “What do you say?”
Haley’s voice came out as a mumble. “Thank you, Grandma.”
Lydia grinned. “You’re welcome, sweetie. We won’t have you losing a toe this winter. Food’s almost ready.” She disappeared back into the kitchen.
“I’m going to help her,” Becky said with a warning glance at Haley. “No more presents until after breakfast.”
Haley stared dispirited into the fire.
Steele knew a fix. “Say, John. You didn’t happen to hear anything last night?”
John crinkled his brow. “I thought I might a heard something outside.”
“Me too. Jingle bells or maybe a hoof or two.”
Haley’s eyes lit up with wonderment. “Santa?”
Steele narrowed his eyes. “I mean, who else really could it be?” He stood and walked over behind the tree. He pulled out a package and held it close to his face, under thorough inspection. “Says right here: To Haley, Love, Santa.” He looked back at Haley and shared a glance with Gwen. “Says Santa, so he had to have come.” He handed the present to Haley. “Shhhh. Mom won’t mind.”
“Yup!” Haley ripped into the package flinging paper to the floor. She shook the oblong box. “It’s heavy. I can’t open it.”
“Here, let me see,” Steele said. He reached out for the box and took it from her. He slung out a knife that was clipped on his pants pocket and sliced the clear plastic tape on the end of the box and removed the weapon.
“Whoa!” Haley exclaimed. Steele handed her the empty firearm. Her eyes lit up.
John giggled at Haley’s excitement, clapping his hands together. “I think I used to have one just like it.”
A genuine smile crossed Steele’s lips. The muscles in his face were beginning to fatigue from all the smiling. It was John’s old BB gun cleaned and repackaged. He gave a questioning glance at Gwen. “I thought it would be a way to start marksman training.”
Gwen nodded, a tear appearing in her eye. “I know.”
He took the gun back from her. “I got my first one when I was only a little older than you. It shoots BBs. You might even be able to kill a squirrel with it.”
“No way!” Haley exclaimed.
“Yup.”
“Now there are strict rules with these. Never point it at anyone. You can only use it with an adult around. We don’t play with it inside. If you show me that you can do this safely, then maybe we can start training with one of the big guns. Is it a deal?”
“Umm, yeah,” Haley said. She took the BB gun back and hugged it. “So cool. Can we shoot it?”
“I’ll set up a target after breakfast, and we can try it out.”
“Awesome! I can’t wait. Mommy, Santa got me a gun!”
Becky shouted from the kitchen. “I heard. I wonder if Santa thought you were a few years older than you are.”
Haley wobbled her head back and forth. “Too late now. It’s mine!” She brandished the weapon in both hands in the air.
He shared a look with Gwen. “She’s going to have to learn sooner than later.”
“I know, but it was always supposed to be a fun thing. Not a necessity.”
“That’s the way it is.”
He hopped back on the couch and embraced Gwen, gripping her hands. “The first day of our new life.”
She smiled at him. “I’m cherishing every minute of it.”
TESS
Camp Forge, IA
Timid light shone on the other side of her eyelids as they lifted slowly into her head. Feeling as though they weighed a thousand pounds, her lids fell closed again, like steel curtains too heavy to keep open. Her body felt like she had been packed into a coffin then stuffed with cotton. Her limbs, numb and cold, tingled all over with pins and needles.
“Traitors,” she mumbled. “Must tell Steele.” She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to right her ship. Her head spun with a wicked buzz.
She tested her hands, flexing her fingers. Rough binding kept them in place near her waist. Shallow breathing came forced as if she had to remind herself to inhale and exhale on a regular basis.
Pushing herself upright, she shook her head. She lay in the corner of an empty spinning cabin. Bags, blankets, and trash littered the floor, but no people.
She tucked a knee underneath her and shakily stood, falling back into the cabin wall. Woozy,
she rolled her shoulders stumbling forward. What is wrong with me? “Fuck.”
Toppling into the door, she swung it open. The doorframe steadied her, giving her a moment to skim the rest of the camp. A fresh dusting of snow settled upon the cabins, barns, and farmhouse held within the protective walls of Camp Forge. Lazy flakes swirled in the morning light. It was a picturesque Christmas landscape, or at least would be if they weren’t in the middle of the apocalypse.
The camp was quiet. Men and women would normally be moving about in the early morning collecting both water and wood for the start of their day, but no one was near the water pump. In fact, not a thing stirred in the camp.
She charged out into the bitter snow. Must warn Steele. Traitors in the dark. Her elbow propped her upright along the exterior of the cabin. I can’t think.
When the log sides disappeared and only empty space met her arm, she stumbled and fell. White ground rushed to meet her face. Crunch! The crisp coolness melted into her face and hands. Breathing hard, she forced herself back up.
Armed men stood shadowed behind a cabin. They viewed her in silent indifference. Their faces were covered and dark. Their eyes cruel. They were men prepared to get a dirty job done and didn’t care who got in the way.
“No!” Fumbling, she ran for the farmhouse. Her chest was heavy and tight. She felt her torso with numb fingers. A package was strapped around her, wires running from it. She blinked weighted eyelids. Her mind felt stuffed with cotton. Must warn Steele. Her feet broke through the snow as she stumbled forward. Snowflakes spun through the air like a tossed about snow globe.
She blinked at the two bodies sitting outside the Red Stripes’ barn. They were slumped, heads hanging as if they had fallen asleep. A mass of men lined the side of Major Ludlow’s troops’ barn. Guns held in their hands, they watched her in eerie silence. Not one uttered a word.
Her voice belonged to a frog. “Help!” No one picked up a hand to help her onward. She rushed toward the Reynolds’ white-and-black shuttered farmhouse.
Step by foggy step she trudged upward, each stair attempting to reach out and trip her. The cold air burnt her lungs with every breath. Collapsing to her knees on the porch, she bent forward and slammed her fists into the door. We have a chance.
STEELE
Camp Forge, IA
Three loud thumps resounded off the farmhouse door.
John stood from his parlor chair and tucked in the loose parts of his checkered green and red shirt. “How’s that food coming, Lydia?” Dutch and Rocky barked and yipped near the door. “Quiet, you two.”
“Just about ready. Eggs and bacon and plenty of it.”
John meandered toward the door. “Little early for guests.”
“Well, let them inside. We don’t want anyone else getting sick,” Lydia called from the kitchen.
He glanced over at Steele and Gwen with a broad smile. “But it’s Christmas.”
The dogs continued to bark. “Get back, you fools,” he hollered at the animals.
Steele sat forward in his chair. “Haley, grab that box there.” He pointed out a small package that contained pellets for her BB gun. “It’s over there on the other side of the tree.”
“I should really help Gram,” Gwen said.
“Nonsense, love. Relax. It’s our honeymoon.”
Her eyebrows rose high on her face. “Honeymoon in Iowa?”
“We could take a trip down to Missouri?”
“Never thought I would say that this is exactly where I want to spend my honeymoon.”
The clicks of nails on the hard wood floors escaped as the two labs ran back down the hall, fleeing the wrath of their master.
Steele called toward the kitchen, “Sure smells good, Lydia. Glad I didn’t know you sooner or I would have been as large as a barn.”
“We got plenty for you, big boy.” Joy filled her voice at preparing to fix food for everyone.
“And big girl,” Steele poked at Gwen.
She shook her head. “You’re on thin ice.”
“Already? We’re only just married.”
“It’ll be the last day if you don’t get that tomahawk out of my hip.”
He adjusted the handle away from her. “Is that a tomahawk or are you happy to see me?”
She gave him an unamused smile. “Why do you wear those all the time? Can’t we have one day off?”
“No, we can’t.”
Haley held up a red box. “This one?” Pellets clanged together inside.
“Yup. Bring it over.”
There was a gasp from the foyer making the hair on Steele’s neck stand on end. Gwen tried to look around him.
Alarm saturated John’s voice. “Tess, dear God, what happened?”
Steele stood, his hand drifting for his firearm.
A white light embraced him, washing over everything like an ocean wave of heat. He only had a moment as the sound deafened him and sent him floating into the air a blind man.
JOSEPH
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, CO
“What happened?” The masked guard stuck a finger at one of the body bags, his eyes reading the situation with suspicion.
“Level 2 disease outbreak. AMRSA.”
“AMRSA?”
“Airborne methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.” The guard’s eyes grew larger with each additional scientific word.
“Turn them Zulu?
“No, but.” Joseph leaned closer and they leaned away from him. “If it were me, I’d rather turn Zulu than die like that.”
“What’s it do?”
“Suffocates you from the inside until you drown yourself. Horrible to watch.”
The guard’s hand stayed away from the zipper and clutched his M4 harder. Joseph scrunched up his nose. “It’s been snowing outside. Been so long since I seen light. Real light. Let me tell you, it gets dark down there.”
Shaking his head, the soldier goaded him. “Stop talking. Get those out of here.”
Joseph nodded. “Sorry, I understand. Where do we normally take the highly contagious bodies for outside disposal?”
The guard motioned further down the loading docks. “There’s a room on the side there.”
Joseph started to push the stretcher. “Thank you.” A small ounce of relief filled his insides with every step away from them.
With a little more distance between them, one of the sentries had a sudden burst of bravery. “Say, where’s the normal guy who does this?”
Joseph brought himself to a halt. Sweat dripped along his skin. It had been a nightmare through every layer of the complex that they traversed. The soldiers, civilians, and everyone seemed to see them, but nobody had wanted too much to do with people pushing stacked body bags in HAZMAT suits and surgical masks.
“You tell me? You think I want to be pushing around a bunch of highly infectious corpses?”
The soldier blinked. He studied his clipboard for a moment. “All right. It’s gonna be a few days though. They aren’t making that run every Thursday and Saturday. Just Saturday’s now.”
Joseph’s eyes grew in diameter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just that. Once a week for body disposal. What’s it matter anyway? As long as they ain’t moving, I could care less.”
“Got it.” Joseph shook his head. His voice became a little gruffer. “They don’t tell us shit down there.”
The guard glanced up at him and he smiled with his eyes. “You and me both.”
The loading docks were about two hundred yards through a curved dome entrance into the base of the mountain. Everything was off-loaded into a giant chamber that resembled a cave, but a cave that had been rounded out, no hanging stalactites or growing stalagmites.
All goods were inspected there before being carted farther into the interior of the complex. Everything went through a hulking X-ray scanner. Shit. TSA has got better looking things than that, he thought. Large boxy openings for semi-trailers lined the warehouse so goods could easily be unloaded. H
e passed soldiers unloading crates of ammunition from the back of a trailer.
Joseph steered his stretcher along the elevated platform. Hollis assured him as long as the base didn’t “button up” due to a more heightened security threat, the mountain base would continue to receive supplies from the outside. He stopped near a plain gray warehouse door. He tested the handle. It was locked.
“I’ll get that for you,” came a familiar voice. Dr. Hollis ambled over, his white doctor’s coat flaring at the sides. He put his ID card to the scanner and the door clicked open.
“Everything okay?” he whispered.
Joseph shoved the stretcher inside and flicked on a light. Four body bags lined the back wall. He turned on Hollis, speaking too loud. “There’s no disposal today.”
“I’ll help you,” Hollis said. He grabbed the plastic-covered feet of the first bag. “I know that now. They updated the scheduling. Nobody consulted me.”
“What are we going to do? They can’t stay in here for days. Someone will find them.”
Hollis paled. “I don’t know.”
They set the body down on the ground. Joseph crouched next to the body bag and unzipped the zipper down the center. Byrnes’s face was that of a man in a deep sleep and had the look of a deeply depressed brooding vampire, his cheeks gaunt and his face set in a permanent disapproving frown. Joseph stood and went for the next one.
They organized the bodies in a row with the others opening the bags of everyone yet living.
Hollis eyed them with worry. “I’ll check on them in an hour.”
“What are we going to do? Eventually they are going to figure it out.”
Hollis grabbed Joseph’s sleeve. “They think they’re dead. There’s no reason for them to come looking. We are fine. We must go on with the plan.”
***
Joseph pushed the last stretcher of body-bagged prisoners down the loading dock. The wheel on his stretcher squeaked and twisted about forty-five degrees to the side in annoying intervals causing the stretcher to stick on the floor and turn errantly to the right. Then he would have to push harder until the dumb thing rotated back around. Thirty seconds later, he was steering the cart back on track. He almost lost a body in front of an officer when the wheel completely stuck, refusing to rotate at all, and he had to rock the stretcher to propel it back into motion.
The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Page 32
