by David Achord
“We’ve had numerous successes,” Bob said. “The American spirit is still alive and strong.”
This seemed to trigger something. He asked a slew of questions about who we found and what we did with them. Finally, he suggested the only way we were going to get any cooperation from him is if we procured him one or two young girls for his personal pleasure.
“What age range did you have in mind?” I asked. We had no intention of pimping for him, but there was an ulterior motive behind my question.
“Just old enough where her hair will tickle my nose, if you know what I mean,” he said with a wink and a cackle.
“I’ll look into it,” Bob said solemnly, keeping his expression neutral. He knew what I was doing. I had my laptop open, the little camera was pointed directly at Brumley, and I was recording the entire conversation. Jackson T. Brumley was oblivious. Hell, he probably didn’t even know a laptop had that capability.
The next morning, Brumley met us at the Stryker. Bob and I pulled him aside and handed him a flash drive.
“What the hell is this?” he asked.
I carefully explained everything and even smiled when I saw the color drain out of his face as I told him I’d already emailed it to the president, which wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t know that.
Suffice it to say, we reached an agreement and a new understanding of what was expected from him and the good people of Dayton. To be frank, we blackmailed him. We had a good laugh as we told Joker everything on the ride back to Weather.
The bottom line, Senator Bob Duckworth had adapted. He was an integral member of Mount Weather, and if we ever reinstituted the electoral process, I had no doubt he’d run for president.
Hell, I’d vote for him.
Chapter 12 – Task Force Dark Ohio
After leaving the meeting, I went directly to the section of Mount Weather where the classrooms were located. Kelly taught grades one through six and also taught mathematics to the older students. The kids loved her. I waited patiently while she gave a lesson on English grammar, gave them a writing assignment, and then joined me in the hall.
“Tell me again why you have to go?” she asked.
“Stark did one of his roundabout moves of urging me to go,” I replied.
“He manipulates you,” she said quietly.
I reached and grabbed her hands. “I know he does,” I said. “But, all in all, he’s treated me well. He’s treated all of us well.”
“I know he does, and I know it’s necessary, but it’s always in the back of my mind. I always wonder if one day you won’t come back,” she said. “I mean, it’s almost December and we always get ice and snowstorms in December. All of you might get caught in a snowstorm.” She stopped when she saw the expression on my face. “What?”
“Um, there’s a front moving in, so we’re going to have to hustle if we don’t want to get stuck in it.”
Her eyes narrowed, but instead of giving me an earful, she remained quiet.
I pulled her toward me and gave her a kiss. “I’ll always come back.”
She gave me a reluctant smile and returned the kiss. “I worry is all, I always worry.”
She and I talked some more and I made additional reassurances of how careful I would be before leaving her and going to our suite. When I walked in, I paused and looked around, thinking about Kelly’s concerns. I wondered if indeed I’d return safe and sound. It was always something to consider. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d gone out on missions and had close encounters with zombies or evil humans. Anytime I walked out of those gates, I could be caught and overwhelmed by a horde, bested in a fight, or I could be shot by a sniper. There was always a risk, a level of uncertainty. I knew it and she knew it.
But, there was one thing I was certain of. Whatever happened to me, my wife and my children had a safe future at Mount Weather. It somehow always made me feel better.
Our lodgings were messier than I liked, but having two kids would do that. Especially when one of those kids had the energy of a Tasmanian devil on Red Bull. And, I had to admit, lately I’d let the burden of house cleaning fall upon Kelly, which was wrong of me. I thought, now is a good time to earn some brownie points and hastily straightened the place up before packing a rucksack.
First Sergeant Jeremiah Crumby had beaten me to the motor pool. Standing at slightly over six feet, dark-skinned and a perpetually shaved head, he had a lean, runner’s physique and could’ve been a poster boy for the Marines. He was thirty-two now and in the prime of his life.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Slow. Burns is in the armory and I was about to get us some vehicles,” he said.
“How many you need?” Josue asked. Between him and his son, they could fix any vehicle made, so he was a natural choice to be in charge of the motor pool.
“At least ten,” Jeremiah said. “And the Strykers.”
Josue shook his head. “Only two Strykers working right now. I need time to fix the other two.” He made a head motion toward Jorge, who was bent over, under the hood of a car. “My help is no bueno,” he whispered.
“I heard that,” Jorge said, which elicited some chuckles.
“We’re going to need four-wheel-drive vehicles,” I said. “And we’re going to take the semi. Leave the trailer off of it.”
“You got it,” Josue said.
“What do we need the semi for?” Jeremiah asked.
“I strongly suspect the Dayton people are dead, and if I’m right, we’re not coming back empty-handed. They have several trailers. We’ll take one and load it up.”
A slow smile creeped across the first sergeant’s face. “I like the way you think, Zach. We’ll have enough toothpaste and shampoo for the next ten years.”
“Yep.”
“What’s this I hear about Ohio?”
I turned at the voice. It was Cutter, or Theodore Smith as he was known back before. He’d been living at Fort Detrick up until recently, but two weeks ago, he showed up back at Weather with all of his belongings and asked if he could move back home.
He had not changed much over the years. He no longer kept a scruffy beard, preferring a clean-shaven face these days, and he kept his hair cut military short, but otherwise, he looked no different. At the moment, he was standing there, staring at us expectantly.
“You’ve heard about Ohio?” Jeremiah asked.
I scoffed. “The Mount Weather grapevine travels fast.”
“Yeah, but what’s going on with them?” Cutter rejoined. “Are they all dead or something?”
I nodded. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
He looked around. “You guys are going there to investigate, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we are,” I said. “We need to find out what happened.”
“Count me in,” Cutter said immediately. “Lydia keeps putting me on maintenance duty. I’m telling you, man, I’m going stir crazy around here. So, what about it?”
I gestured at Jeremiah. “It’s up to the first sergeant.”
The first sergeant stepped closer to Cutter and looked him over. “Can I depend on you?”
“You know you can, First Sergeant,” Cutter said.
“Alright, you’re going to be a team leader. Round up some people we can count on. We’ll be gone anywhere from one to three days. Tell them not to expect any sleep the entire time. Oh, and it’s your responsibility to get everyone squared away on rations and water.”
“Roger that,” Cutter said. He flashed me a grin before jogging out of the motor pool.
“I seem to recall a time when you didn’t care too much for him,” I said, even though at one time I felt the same way.
“Yeah, well, he’s come a long way,” he said.
“Yep,” I added in agreement. I walked over and put my gear in one of the Strykers. Thanks to Jeremiah’s help, it only took us thirty minutes to get the vehicles squared away.
“Alright, I’m going to spend a little quality time with my kids,”
I said. “I’ll be back here in one hour.”
I found my brood in the cafeteria. They were sitting with Janet, Sammy, Fred, and Rachel.
“Can I go with you guys, Zach?” Sammy asked as soon as I sat down.
I caught Fred giving me a silent stare. I knew the man long enough to understand what he was thinking.
“You’d be a welcome addition,” I said to him. “But, you’ve got some other obligations, don’t you?”
Sammy’s mouth worked in an effort to figure out a way to talk me into letting him go. I cut him off before he spoke.
“You’ve got school, and I believe you agreed to help Fred get Harold squared away, and then you’re about to begin your, what did Fred call it, your master’s phase of pistol training, right?
Sammy looked at Fred and hung his head slightly. “Yes, sir,” he said. He didn’t argue, but I could see the disappointment in his face.
“Next time, we’ll see what we can work out, okay, buddy?”
He nodded. I felt for him. When I was his age, I was getting up close and personal with zombies and bad guys. Sammy knew this and wanted to be like me. Still, I worried. Obviously, I did not want him to be hurt, but I also didn’t want him to have the nightmares, or the mercurial mood swings I used to have and sometimes still did, thanks to that little demon known as PTSD.
I’d gotten better over the years. Oh, I still had the occasional nightmare, but I’d not had one of those blind-rage episodes in a long time. Like the time at the police department’s property room, back in Nashville. We’d gone there to scavenge. It was full of valuable stuff. We’d been loading up when three men drove up in a van. They declared themselves police officers and accused us of stealing from them. One of them, he told us his name was Detective McElroy, made a lot of disparaging remarks and threats. Fred had decked him, but that wasn’t good enough. Once he regained his wits, he tried to attack me. I went into a rage and bashed his skull in with my handgun.
There were one or two other times, and Fred had his own moments. Hell, he probably had several moments that nobody knew of. One thing both of us agreed on, Sammy had a good soul and neither of us wanted him to ever suffer like we had.
“Young Sam is progressing well with his firearms training,” Fred said, and then he surprised me. “But, his talents lie elsewhere.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. I glanced over at Kelly, who was grinning. “Have I missed something?”
“Yes, you have,” Kelly said. “We’ve recently discovered Sammy has a knack for advanced math. Geometry, trigonometry, calculus, he’s a natural with all of them. Fred believes he would be an excellent engineer.”
“Just like Fred is,” Sammy said with his own grin.
I smiled as I thought about it and held my fist out. Sammy responded and we shared a fist bump. Even Fred got in on the action. As we talked about it, I saw Cutter walk through the cafeteria doors. He spotted me and walked over.
“I’ve got six volunteers,” he said.
I nodded, duly impressed, and looked at my watch.
“Alright, it looks like we’ve got forty-five minutes before muster. Have them help you with the rations and then herd them over to the armory. Joker’s there with arms and ammo.”
“Um, can I drive the Raptor?” he asked.
He was referring to my truck, a Ford Raptor. I loved that truck. It was a metallic green, four-door, beautiful piece of automotive equipment I’d found back during the first year of the apocalypse with a good friend, a man by the name of Howard Allen. He was a mechanic, and with his help, we’d made many post-apocalyptic modifications to it and it had never let me down.
“I would, but there’s a problem. It only runs on gas and all we have at the moment is diesel. Besides, I need someone to drive the semi.”
He pointed out a middle-aged man who’d not shaved in a while. He was scarfing down food like it was going to be his last meal. When he saw us staring, he gave us a thumbs up and spooned another big helping of eggs in his mouth.
“That’s Troy. He’s a truck driver from Richmond. He said he can drive a truck better than anyone.”
I remembered his arrival, a little over a month ago. He showed up at the debriefing drunk and high. I’ll have to say though, it was one of the most humorous debriefings I’d ever been a part of. Troy was a damn funny man.
“Alright, put him on your team,” I said. “He’ll keep you entertained.”
Cutter grinned. “You hear that, Troy? We’re partners.” He then looked back at me. “Alright, I’ll see you in a few.”
As he walked off, I found myself thinking back to the first time I met him and his brother, Shooter. They showed up at the school near Brentwood one day during the third year of the outbreak. I took an instant disliking to them both and did not trust them as far as I could throw them. But, we’d mostly worked out our differences over the last five years. Shooter was still the same, always walking around with that fake smile plastered on his face, but Cutter had changed for the better, and I had to admit I counted on him as a friend.
I stretched and stood. “I guess I better make myself useful,” I said. I hugged my kids and then had Kelly walk with me to the cafeteria’s exit.
“We’re planning on three days, but I’m going to push them. We’ll drive all night and if everything works out, we’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”
“Barring any unforeseen complications,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. We did not put into words what the implication of unforeseen complications meant. I hugged her tightly and gave her a kiss before doing the same to my kids.
Chapter 13 – The Ohio Mission
Eight years without manufacturing had taken its toll. As such, jury-rigging and improvising has become a fine art. We did not have a corner on the market. In fact, when we came across Deacon Schmucker’s people, they had disassembled parts out of a restaurant’s freezer to repair one of theirs.
We did the same, especially with our vehicles, which saw plenty of hard use. Josue and Jorge were masters of the art. Scout teams would routinely bring home auto parts—it looked like a salvage yard behind the motor pool—and the two men found ways to fit parts together that weren’t meant to go together. And now that we had a source of viable fuel, the importance of our fleet of vehicles was higher than ever.
They were lining up the vehicles as I walked over to the motor pool. I knew our vehicles were squared away, although their appearance belied that fact. There were quarter panels of mismatched colors, handmade parts, fenders modified so oversized tires could fit, it all looked like a mess, but looks were deceiving. I stopped a few feet away and watched everyone hurrying about. I counted thirty-eight people with nine vehicles, including the two Strykers and the semi.
I admit, I had not been as hands-on as I normally was when prepping a mission, but hey, rank had its privileges sometimes. I heard Justin barking orders and found him inside the motor pool.
“How goes it?” I asked.
“We’re almost ready. I’m about to give the briefing, Crumby and Burns will do the inspections, and then we’ll move out.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re only running an hour behind.”
I nodded. “Alright, let’s get to it.”
We walked outside and the first sergeant gave the command for everyone to form up. When everyone was assembled, Justin moved and stood to the front of the formation. As Justin listened to each sergeant report the names of the people in their individual teams, I stood off in the back with Jeremiah and looked over the people in the task force. I knew all of them. Some better than others, like Joker. When he and Maria fell in love with each other, we became good friends. We often socialized with the Garcia family and Joker fit right in.
The Marines made up the brunt of the military branch at Mount Weather, with Justin the commanding officer. When we’d first arrived here, a little over five years ago now, Ruth and Justin joined the ranks of the Marines. Two of them drowned in a boating accident and three were currently posted at Fort De
trick. One had moved on.
In the ensuing years, Justin had taken the original Marines and promoted them all to gunnery sergeants, and promoted Jeremiah to his first sergeant. They then created a training program that every able-bodied adult was required to successfully complete. Then, whenever there was a mission, each gunnery sergeant created teams from the populace. Most of the time, we had ample volunteers. It wasn’t perfect, but we did not have the manpower for a standing army. Not yet.
Justin stood in front of them with squared shoulders. When the roll call was completed, he made eye contact with each of them before speaking.
“First, I want to thank you for volunteering for this mission. Hopefully, we’ll be back here by tomorrow, but it may take a couple of days longer, depending on what we run into. So, let me start by going over the specifics of the mission.”
He recited the mission in the standard military five-paragraph format. Most of them listened attentively, which was good. After, he had them stand in formation while the two NCOs inspected everyone’s weapons.
The entire mission briefing took a little over thirty minutes, and we were rolling out of the gate promptly at eleven hundred hours. Team One led out with a Stryker and Jeremiah brought up the rear with the second Stryker. Those vehicles were awesome, but they were finicky and temperamental, so we only drove them on roadways and always kept them at well below their top speed.
I was in the lead Stryker with Justin, Joker, Bob, and a new guy, whom everyone called Flash. He was twenty or twenty-one, almost as tall as me, a slender, sinewy build, and medium-skinned. Melvin and Savannah found him and a couple of his friends living out of the hotels on Virginia Beach. Melvin convinced them to come live at Weather. Justin had dictated splitting up the rookies with the veterans and put him in the vehicle with us.
