American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man

by John L. Davis IV

  They slowly slid back over the hoods and to the ground, wiping their steel clean on pants legs stained from hard use.

  Once the gut-suckers were down the other four men went to work quickly. Calvin and Alex selected a late eighties Civic, something easy enough for them to maneuver. Calvin searched inside several of the cars until he found a filthy t-shirt bunched under a seat, which he gave to Alex.

  The fence was set up in a triangular shape, with the three points cut off. The longest of the flattened points faced the small pond, which lay at the bottom of a slope. When the car was pushed out it would descend the slope rapidly, dropping into the pond, hopefully exploding right before it splashed.

  Jimmy and Mike worked quickly at the fence. Jimmy used his Leatherman multi-tool to snip a line about four feet long halfway up the fence, parallel to the ground, while Mike used his own multi-tool to work from where Jimmy started high up on the fence straight to the ground following the line pole. The constant snipping made their hands and wrists ache so they switched hands every few cuts for relief.

  Dean and Rick had moved to help the two men working with the car. After much pushing and shoving, stifling grunts and wheezes the men had moved the Civic into line with the opening of the fence. They worked together to push away the large generator that blocked the fence.

  “Car’s ready,” Alex said.

  “Almost done,” Mike told him, finishing his last few snips. When he finished he looked at the other men to be certain they were ready and folded the stiff wire back. “We can run from here, make our way across the park, and through the woods without setting this shit on fire.”

  Jimmy eyed his friend closely for a moment before saying, “We need what’s in that building man, so let’s just do this.”

  “As soon as that car passes, we zip tie this wire back in place and wait for the Zoms to move by.”

  Everyone nodded, as Rick moved to the front gate, and began to cut through the plastic ties holding the chain in place. With one left to cut he said, “Ok, do it.”

  Mike folded the chain link back, careful not to let it scrape on the concrete pad of the parking lot. Jimmy stood back, watching as Alex lit the cloth hanging from the open gas hatch.

  Dean and Calvin pushed hard as soon as the cloth took the flame, rolling the car through the gate, letting the slope take it as soon as it was past the fence.

  Mike and Jimmy stepped forward and used several more zip ties to hold the fence in place. They knew that should zombies press the fence the ties wouldn’t hold long, but it might give them enough time to get out.

  The car was nearly halfway between the lot and the pond when Alex said, “I don’t know how long it will take the fumes to catch the burning rag, I just hope…”

  A loud crump and the rear of the car jumped high in the air. It looked as if the car were going to flip tail over tip before it slammed back to the ground. The trunk had shot straight up, the rear panels of the car bursting from each side. Windows shattered, the rear tires burst, gas spewed up into the air, creating a momentary fireball that lit the night, hurting their eyes.

  The car continued rolling forward, the rear rims digging shallow furrows that filled with fire, stopping nearly one hundred feet from the pond.

  “Damn, I hope it’s far enough away,” Alex grumbled.

  Noise from the zombies around the armory rose up, their combined groans creating an oppressive roar. The men remembered where they were and dropped low, below the line of sight, hugging the cars closely.

  First just a few zombies wandered past the fenced enclave, then more and more as the last of the horde, what several of the men thought to be at least two hundred zombies, moved toward the conflagration. The car burned hot and brilliant, as everything that could burn caught fire. For a moment the smell of gasoline and burning plastic and cloth, wire and rubber, overwhelmed the thick odor of rotting bodies.

  The men huddled closely together behind the car nearest the fence, waiting for several minutes, ensuring that no other straggling shufflers were coming. When they were satisfied that the last had gone by Dean quickly snipped the last zip tie and pushed through the gate.

  Holding weapons at port arms, they ran straight for the smashed front door of the armory, only glancing back as they entered the building to make sure they had gone unseen by dead eyes.

  A hard charge down the wide hallway brought them to a large open staging and storage area. Several zombies stood in front of a bank of heavy wire cages that were initially used to store and secure food and munitions, weapons and ordnance.

  The few zombies that remained were transfixed by the cages and what they held, pawing at the thick wire mesh, or forcing a hand in, only to peel their own skin away. The men stepped swiftly and silently across the big room, bringing knives to bear, unwilling to use guns and risk drawing the undead masses now outside at the burning car.

  The gut-suckers were dispatched easily, and the men stepped forward. They too were transfixed by the cages, but unlike the zombies wanting a meal, they stared in horror, struggling to process what they saw.

  Chapter 13

  A long row of heavy wire cages runs along the north-east wall of the large storage room. These cages, approximately five feet by five feet square were used to store everything from MRE rations, to weapons and ammunition. Each cage has a large keyed lock on the front, set into a plate welded into the thick wire of the cage.

  The six men stood there looking at the cages, disgust apparent on every face. The items normally stored inside the cages had been moved out and stacked along the walls and in the middle of the floor. Pallets of MRE rations, stacks of ammunition, even weapon lockers had all been moved out of the wire enclosures.

  The cages had been needed for the people that now lay dead in them. Each of the eight cages held at least one person, though several were occupied by two corpses. Most of which were beginning to reanimate, even as the men watched.

  “Jesus, they kept these people in here like animals,” Alex said, noticing the filth covering the floor of the cells.

  “This was their workforce, the ones we saw gardening and fishing. The sick fucks slaved them, just stood around while they did the work to keep these jackholes alive.” Mike looked around the room, noticing the dead men in the military uniforms, some of whom were turning as well. “Guys, we need to take care of these before someone gets chewed on.”

  Mike and Jimmy set to the grim task of spiking each body strewn about the floor in the head, stilling those that were beginning to turn, ensuring others would not.

  Rick stood in front of the second cage, looking down at the long, thin female form crumpled on the floor. Several bullet holes stitched their way down the woman’s chest and abdomen, soaking the filthy white tank top she had been wearing. “Arianna,” he said quietly.

  As if hearing her name woke her from a long sleep, the thing that had been Arianna opened her eyes, looking directly at Rick. Rick took a step back, startled.

  “No worries there, Ricky, she can’t get you from in there.”

  Rick nodded, turning his head to see Jimmy grinning at him. “Piss off, Jimbo,” he said pushing Jimmy’s hand off of his shoulder. Rick drew his knife and reached through the wide mesh, trusting his bite-guard to protect him, plunging the knife through her eye, instantly halting her forward movement. He yanked the blade out, stood up and shot Jimmy a look that seemed to say, “Not a good time, asshole.”

  Dean walked up to Calvin, who stood staring into the fifth cage in line and said, “Oh damn, that’s nasty.” Calvin swiveled his head slowly, looking at his brother, eyes distant. “Uh, yeah,” was all he could say in response.

  One of the caged men had apparently been snagged by a zombie, which pulled his leg out through the mesh, to the knee. From the knee all the way to the filthy tennis shoe the leg was completely gone. Every bit of flesh had been gnawed away, leaving pearlescent blood-streaked bone hanging out of the cage.

  The leg moved as the brothers stood there watchi
ng, first just twitching for a moment, rattling bone on the wire. Then the leg began to draw in, scraping the macerated bone across the heavy gauge wire, producing a hollow, grating thrum. The men cringed, feeling the noise in their teeth, the pressing pulse of it in their ears causing a moment of dizziness.

  “Oh fuck me,” Jimmy said, walking up to the cage, reaching in, and with a quick jab silencing the horrible noise.

  “Guys, we have a live one down here,” Alex called from the furthest cage.

  “Then kill it and let’s gather what we can,” Mike told him.

  “No, I mean a real live one, as in human, not zombie.”

  The men rushed to Alex, gathering around the cage, looking in at a man that could be twenty or forty, it was difficult to tell from the grime that covered his clothes and dark scabs and bruises on his face.

  The man looked back, his eyes cloudy and distant, though not the gray-white cataracts of an undead. “Water,” he rasped, his voice a raw whisper.

  Dean passed a water bottle through the mesh, loosening the cap. The emaciated man looked like he might not be able to open the bottle. While the man drank deeply, coughing several times, Rick told the others, “We have to find the keys to these cages. There’s no way we can pry this open, and I sure as hell don’t want to go banging on it.”

  “Oh, I bet you can guess who had the key. He’s probably the one laying out there with a neat little hole in his head where Mike shot him.”

  Rick eyed Jimmy for a moment, thinking. “You’re probably right. I can’t see a guy like that giving control of anything to anyone but himself. Jimmy, take two guys, one at the door, one on your back, see if you can find the keys. Mike, you want to help me start looking through this mess, see what we have here?”

  Jimmy opened his mouth, about to say something sharp in reply to Rick’s order, then he closed it, saying, “Cal, Alex, come with me. Let’s find these damn keys.”

  Calvin posted at the door, M4 up and ready, his eye cast down the hill at the still burning car and the zombie horde. Alex followed Jimmy out, on full alert, straining both eyes and ears for threats. Jimmy walked straight to the corpse of the man called Greer and stood there for a second looking down at the dead man, studying the hole in his forehead. “Mike did it right,” he thought and spit in the corpse’s upturned face.

  It only took him a moment to pat through the pockets and find a ring with several different keys, supposedly to the inner doors of the armory, though some looked like car keys. He glanced downhill, seeing that none of the horde had noticed them he took the time to appropriate Greer’s sidearm, a .45 caliber Remington 1911, and his rifle.

  He looked at Alex and shrugged, whispering, “He’s not gonna need them anymore.”

  The three men made it back inside without incident to find Rick, Mike and Dean looking through crates of weapons and ammunition.

  “Find anything good?” Calvin asked.

  “Mike looked up from a crate of ammo and smiled. “Uh, yeah, you could say that. Check this stuff out.”

  Jimmy tossed the keys to Rick and followed Mike and Calvin, curious to know what they had turned up.

  Keys rattled faintly as Rick tried each until he found the correct one. Mike led Jimmy, Calvin and Alex around the room while Rick and Dean helped the man from the cage.

  “Thousands of rounds of 5.56, case after case of MRE’s, several more rifles, we even found boxes of chained .50cal rounds, but we haven’t found a .50, yet.”

  “We’re going to have to get the big truck up here,” Alex said, wondering what they would do if the horde didn’t move on.

  “Yeah, I was thinking about that,” Mike said. The other men waited for Mike to share his thoughts. When it was clear he was not going to Jimmy said, “And?”

  “Still thinking,” was all Mike replied before moving on to a pallet of MRE meals. Using his pocket knife he slit the tape on a carton and pulled a bulky brown package from the box. Mike read the labeling on the bag, “Beef Teriyaki, hell I’ll try it.” He grabbed another bag, and took it to the man now sitting on the floor leaning against a pallet of ammunition cans.

  “We can’t hump anything out of here this late at night,” Rick was saying.

  “We can block up the door, and hunker down here for the night,” Dean offered, tearing open a food pouch for the man rescued from the cage, too weak to do it himself.

  “What’s your name?” Rick asked the man now spooning cold tuna casserole from the pouch into his mouth, holding it close, as if he might miss a morsel.

  “Maxwell Eberdine.”

  “Well, Max, you’re…”

  “Fuckin’ hate “Max”,” the thin man said around a mouthful of food. “Sounds like a dog, Call me Maxwell, or Eberdine, or Eb, just not Max.”

  The men standing around glanced at each other briefly, before Rick said, “Sure thing, Maxwell. As I was saying, you’re gonna have to hang with us here tonight. You are more than welcome to come back to our camp with us in the morning, unless you have somewhere else you’d rather go. Family or friends nearby?”

  “No one close, no family. Was passing through town when my car broke down. Things were bad already, couldn’t find anyone to fix it.” He paused to take a long swallow of water. “Got a room in a motel, ended up meeting some others, we stayed together, survived the winter.”

  Dean and Mike walked away, letting the man tell his story while they searched for a way to block the only open door into the room. The steel door hung canted on its hinges, the force of the horde that had smashed through twisting them out of shape.

  Using a bright yellow manual pallet jack instead of the small gas powered forklift, the two moved a double stacked pallet of goods in front of the door, setting it flush against the doorframe. Leaving the pallet jack under the pallet, lowered all the way to the floor, they rejoined the group listening to Maxwell’s story.

  “…and that’s when these bastards found us. We fought, but they had us outgunned. We didn’t stand a chance. Most of the people I was with died there.” His gaze went distant, remembering the horror of that moment. “They were the lucky ones.”

  “Door’s closed up tight, we should be good in here for the night, as long as we keep it quiet,” Mike told the others.

  Dean and Jimmy spent time prowling through the inventory while the other men slept, taking stock of everything they could find. Dean nearly shouted out loud when they found a large crate that held the .50 caliber M2 that the belt ammo was for.

  It was a piece of good news to share with the others when they woke up. Good news was a rare commodity, and if the Oko Tipi group had other people to trade with good news alone would have been considered of very high value.

  Chapter 14

  The men woke early, stepping outside to greet first light as it broke over the horizon. The mass of zombies still milled around the burned husk of a car, though the horde looked to have thinned. A few burned or melting corpses could be seen twitching on the ground nearby.

  Wasting no time the men moved as fast as they could, helping the still-weak Maxwell along.

  Though they intended to return with the truck and trailer, several of the men chose to bring certain items along that they did not want to risk losing should someone else come along before they returned.

  Jimmy, Dean, Calvin and Alex each carried a metal ammo box containing one hundred belted rounds of .50 BMG ammunition. Mike, the biggest of the men, shouldered the M2 machine gun, carrying it’s nearly eighty-five pounds with little effort, his hand resting on the barrel support as he stepped lightly around the corner of the building, leaving the shuffling horde behind.

  Rick fit the forty-five pound bipod for the heavy gun in his pack, leaving his hands free to help Maxwell if needed as well as keep his hands on his rifle.

  Despite the weight they carried and moving slow to accommodate Maxwell they made good time. Unconcerned with hiding their movements as they had been when first going to the small house, the group followed as direct a route as po
ssible to their vehicles.

  Less than ninety minutes after leaving they were loading up and heading back to Oko Tipi.

  ****

  “He died about two-thirty this morning. Anna was awake when he went. She woke me, and I… took care of him.” Jan walked across the small space and sat heavily in the folding chair by the door. Her shoulders sagged, as if pressed down by the weight of another lost life.

  “You couldn’t have done anything else for him Jan. You know that as well as the rest of us.”

  “I know, Mike, I know. Doesn’t make it any easier. If we had…” She was about to say equipment, before stopping herself. Wishing for something the group did not have was a weak salve to a wounded psyche, an indulgence she refused herself.

  “Now that we don’t have to worry about harassment attacks we can think about hitting the hospital for medical supplies.” Gordy reclined in the little cot, propped up on a pile of pillows and blankets, left leg stretched out in front of him. The knee was still swollen, though not as badly as the day before.

  “Damn it, Gordon, a hospital will be the single most infested place anywhere! How many sick and frightened people were crowding the hospitals when everything went bad? We can’t send people out into that.”

  “We need the medicines and supplies from the hospital, Jan. You know that, I know that, we all do. That stuff is just too important to let sit there and rot while people lay here and die. If we had had those things then maybe…”

  Jan cut him off mid-sentence, “I don’t know that I could have saved him Gordon, even if we had the proper medical supplies.” They were both thinking of Sam, as well as Garret.