“It looks nice and secure with all the barriers we made on the outside, but the more athletic Zs have no problem getting through. Some scamper up the sides like monkeys. We’re to the point where we setup four heavy machine guns to clear most of the Zs away that get too close. Then, the rest of us lockup for the night in our shelters. You won't find anyone walking around inside the walls or outside once it gets dark. We planned on a going away party tonight so now you’ll be our guest of honor.” Wilson parked next to a prefab building that looked like a small prison with bars on the windows.
“You’d be surprised how many Zs those bars have kept out,” Wilson opened the door to the building to let her go first, “and how many guests they’ve helped keep in.” He slammed the door behind him and locked it. Gloria felt herself go cold as he grabbed her by the arm and marched her to a room that was filled only with pillows and mattresses then shoved her hard so she fell to her knees.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Gloria’s question came out as a whimper. Wilson’s smile made her shudder as he stood and looked down at her.
“Because you advertised you were coming here to ‘cut off the head of the snake.’ Don’t feel bad, I have ears in all the other camps, too. I admit I only had limited plans for you. And I’ll just follow those plans tonight. After I’m done playing with you, I’ll give you to my officers for the rest of the party. In the morning, if you pleased us, you can walk away. If you don’t please me, I may keep you as a pet, or throw you in the stable for whoever wants to use you, along with the other slaves.
Gloria saw red and was not even aware she was rising to attack the bastard in front of her. He saw it coming and stepped towards her and slapped her hard open-handed. It caught her by surprise and she fell back onto her back with her sunglasses flying.
“Damn, girlfriend, what the hell are you on?” Wilson was taken by surprise when he saw her eyes, two tiny pinpoints looked back at him from red eyes, her eyelid muscles twitching uncontrollably. “You’re a junky! That’s why those sunglasses never come off. I heard rumors you were a Z. That changes things. I have enough candy from the police evidence lockers to keep you happy for a long time.” Wilson took out a bar from his belt and flicked his wrist and it extended a full yard. “Now, be a good little slut and take off those clothes. I want to play.” Two more men walked in and stood with their backs to the walls. One held a few ropes in his hands, while the other had a long metal bar. Both men smiled at Gloria and she felt violated just by their looking at her.
Gloria felt a hard pain on the side of her head as she fell over on her side. Her ear and cheek felt like they were on fire. “That was a ‘love tap’, honey. Now get out of those clothes.” Gloria didn’t look up as she pulled the peasant blouse over her head, and then crossed her arms in front of her, covering her partial nudity. Wilson was joking with the two men, talking like they were at an exhibit. He jabbed her in the stomach, making her move her arms, bringing out a new roar of approval from the pair behind him, while playfully poking at her with the bar.
“Screw you!” Gloria shouted as she jumped to her feet. She did not see Wilson swing the bar, she just felt a sharp moment of pain, then blacked out as blood poured from her broken nose.
Chapter 34
Douglas City, Wyoming, April 8, 2029
The fields before him contained every type of military vehicle in the inventory Caleb thought as he turned off the road. A young specialist carrying a clipboard waved him down. “Sir, are you returning your vehicle or do you need maintenance on your vehicle?”
“I’m here to inspect the vehicle for my mission. Senior Airman Wetzel and a few others from my team should be here already.”
The specialist pointed towards the back of the huge lot. “Sir, they’ll be on the ready line. That’s the last row. All your vehicles have been inspected and fueled. Your men have already signed out the Ma Deuces for each of the trucks.”
“I’ll need to turn in this vehicle then, I guess.” The specialist handed him a worksheet.
“Just leave the worksheet filled out on the driver’s seat, and park on the ready line and I’ll collect it and return it for you, sir.” Caleb nodded and got back into the truck and headed for the ready line. With the exception of a half dozen troopers swarming over four vehicles, there was no other activity. Senior Airman Wetzel gave a brief wave to him as he drove closer.
Wetzel waited for Caleb and Fotos to exit their truck before saluting and reporting. “Sir, it’s like an apocalypse miracle. All the vehicles are in great shape. Most of them are even low miles. The bad news is that we got a bunch of Army to fill out our crew. That huge Army truck has a pair of NCOs and the other truck has a couple corporals. The NCOs know their shit, been on top of all of us to make sure the trucks are all good to go. Staff Sergeant Angel put in a requisition with POL and has diesel. She figured we’d need 710 Gallons, so she requested 20 barrels of diesel in order to have a safety margin. She helped run convoys in the sandbox, so it’s old hat to her.” Caleb looked at Fotos and could see she was unhappy with the arrangement.
“Where is the Staff Sergeant now, Airman?” Fotos asked, trying to keep her unhappiness from being apparent and failing miserably.”
“Ma’am, she’s checking the mounts on the trucks to make sure the M2sare correctly attached. Says she saw one fly off one time and it wasn’t something she’d like to see again. I don’t think she trusts us because we’re Air Force.
Caleb was not looking forward to being there when Fotos found Angel. He could sense her anger. They found her on top of the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck’s armored cab. There was no trailer attached to the truck yet. “Staff Sergeant Angel,” Fotos asked loudly. She was immediately rewarded by the sergeant rolling off the top of the cab and landing directly in front of her.
“Ma’am, I’m Staff Sergeant Angel at your service.” The woman was only 5 foot 2 inches, and built like a fireplug. Her sunburned head looked almost square, with her hair cut back to an inch, and her dimpled chin sticking out like Kirk Douglas. She was wearing her camouflage pants and a grease stained tan undershirt, straining against her muscular chest and arms. If she was a bodybuilder, she was an overachiever.
“I understand you took the liberty to order the fuel for the trip Staff Sergeant. How did you come up with your numbers and authority?” Caleb could feel relief from Fotos for finally getting the question out that was angering her. He also felt Angel’s mood go from neutral to happy, though it didn’t show on her face.
“Ma’am, the orders that were issued have me authorized to requisition supplies along with you and Lieutenant White.” She pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket and held it out for Fotos to see. “Ma’am, you can see our names have asterisks behind them to denote authorization to requisition supplies.” Next, she took the orders back and stuffed them back into her pocket, then pulled out a small ringed tablet from her opposite pocket. “Ma’am, based on the distance of our mission and vehicle types, I ran the numbers on each vehicle for one way, then doubled it for round trip and added fifteen percent for good measure. I have my calculations right here, if you think my numbers are incorrect.” She held out the oil-stained tablet for Fotos’ inspection.
“I’m sure your numbers are correct, Staff Sergeant. I wasn’t aware requisition authority was extended beyond myself and Lieutenant White.”
Slam! Never admit failure to someone under you unless you’ve built up mutual respect, Caleb thought, waiting to hear the NCO would say next.
“Ma’am, I guess they factored in my fifteen years of experience, and six tours in the sandbox helping run convoys, and that the convoy mission was being run by junior officers without previous convoy experience.”
Shack! The sergeant has hit the target and time for the real fun to begin, Caleb thought.
“Sergeant, I appreciate your candor. What would you recommend for munitions and rations?” Fotos asked, her demeanor appearing professional, yet neutral.
“I have the n
umbers for both in my tablet, ma’am.” She started to reach into her pocket, but Fotos held up a hand to stop her.
“I’ll trust your numbers, go ahead and order them.” Fotos gave her a nod that made the sergeant smile.
“What’s the count on grenades and LAWs for the mission, Staff Sergeant Angel?” Caleb asked, breaking the moment the two women seemed to be having.
“I have one case of M67 fragmentation grenades, that’s thirty in the case. I didn’t figure in LAWS for the mission, sir.”
“Go ahead and order a couple LAWS for each vehicle, it was highly recommended to me that I should. And it wouldn’t hurt to get another case of grenades. We might be tasked to supply others while we’re on the road. Oh and what type of trailer do you recommend for the HEMTT?” Caleb asked.
“Sir, I was going to inform you that the best choices, in my opinion, would be either containerized or open top. If needed, we could use the container for an emergency shelter if we find ourselves surrounded by the Zs at night. The open top would make things easier to load and unload, especially when we’re refueling the vehicles on the road, but be more susceptible to pilferage.”
“I think we have plenty of room in the cabs of our vehicles if needed. I also like the thought of refueling as quickly as possible. What do you think, Lieutenant Fotos?” Caleb asked. The question took her by surprise and she took a moment as if pondering the question.
“I’d like to refuel vehicles as quickly as possible also.” Fotos answered, slightly embarrassed.
“I’ll get the open top with canopy and update the requisitions with supply for all the other items, Sir, Ma’am.”
“Very good, carry on Staff Sergeant Angel.” Caleb tried not to laugh as Fotos sounded like a pompous ass impersonating someone from the British Army.
“The technician is finishing the last update with the satellite system, sir. He’s working on your truck now,” Angel mentioned. Caleb looked at Fotos and shrugged his shoulders before they headed over to the four door version of the tactical pickup truck he’d been driving earlier. A pair of camouflage covered legs was sticking out the open front passenger door. A screechy noise coming from the pants’ owner as he tried to sing along with the song he was listening to on his earphones while working on the satellite system.
“I know the source of that noise,” Caleb said as they neared the truck. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then grabbed both legs and shook them while making animal noises. A cry went up from inside the truck as Caleb’s victim kicked back and screamed for help. Caleb quickly let go and took a couple of steps back. His victim pulled his legs in and managed to close the armored door in only a matter of seconds. The rest of the team came running, some armed, others holding tools as weapons. Caleb looked through the armored door’s window and smiled at his victim.
“You stupid bastard!” could be heard being shouted from inside the truck as the door swung open, knocking Caleb to the side moments before Senior Airman Brown jumped on top of him and tried to pin him down. Caleb let him think he was winning, then easily used his superior strength to buck him to the side and jump back up first.
“At ease, Airman.” Fotos shouted, immediately scaring the young man enough to pop to his feet, cringing.
“Everyone get back to work. I want to be able to depart first thing in the morning. Lord help whoever’s vehicle is not ready or breaks down.” Caleb said loudly. Once the small crowd broke up, Caleb grabbed the Senior Airman in a bear hug as it was returned with equal fervor.
“Damn Asher, I’ve missed you. Are you part of this goat rope, too?” Caleb turned to Fotos, “This was my partner in crime on the first night. He rode shotgun with me and helped rescue folks from all over the base. I see a few more stripes on his chest, too. Senior Airman Brown, this is my friend and commander of our convoy Lieutenant Fotos.”
“Please to meet you, ma’am.” Brown said stiffly. Fotos tried not to smile at the airman’s discomfort.
“Caleb, I’ll take care of the paperwork on your truck so you have a couple minutes to play catch up.” She turned away before either could salute.
“Damn, she’s a bitch, but nice ass. She can walk away from me all day.” Brown said, laughing as Caleb joined in.
“So what the hell are you doing to the trucks, Asher?”
“The Fourth Infantry down at Fort Carson was supposed to be the first unit to get the new sixth generation SATCOM Mobile Command Units. These units provide voice, data, text, GPS, and the ability to find friendly vehicles nearby. It also will find all military vehicles that have Blue Force Tracking without disclosing us to them. It has a mapping system that’s out of this world. If we wanted to leave supplies hidden somewhere, it’s easy as hell to mark them on our map, then we can decide who to share that info with. It can also allow civilian phones and wireless to access it for limited use, depending on who and how the device is logged in. If I logged you in with your network credentials and your cell phone, you could login on any other system anywhere if I set it up that way, or restricted to one unit.” Brown excitedly explained.
“But will it get porn?” Caleb asked, sounding serious. Brown didn’t bat an eye at the question.
“I’m sure you can find porn. If not now, soon. They are already creating unofficial sites for sharing information not military specific. The backbone of the entire system is SIPRNet. As we expand into new towns and regions, they will setup one of these units with limited capability in each town. If they’re right and the world’s population is only ten percent of what it was, SIPRNet would be able to handle all the traffic.
“Caleb, did they issue you a GI tablet yet? They work perfect with this system. Everyone here in the team has already been updated into the system. When you log into the system, your credentials will be saved so you can login with your tablet. They gave me five extra sets of the gear in the event we find any towns or groups to add to the network. This should be an exciting trip.”
“Just two things, amigo. We have to play the officer-enlisted game when anyone else is around, especially Fotos. Second, on the road everyone is a potential enemy. I’ve been shot once and poisoned once. Imagine we find a group of survivors that have their shit together. They invite us into their camp or compound for the night, that’s when they kill us in our sleep for our gear. You don’t want to get comfortable out on the road, that’s how you get dead.”
“You boys get old home week out of your systems?” Fotos asked as she returned to the truck.
“We had ‘the talk’, even though I screwed up first by messing with him while he was working. We’re straight now.” Caleb replied.
Brown looked a little uncomfortable as he added.“Yes Ma’am, I’m straight, too.” Fotos tried not to laugh at the look on both their faces.
“Have either of you driven one of these trucks before? It looks like a lot of room to pile up stuff in the bed of this thing, but looks short and narrow to me.”
“That should be enough then to throw our field gear, bedding, water and food.” Caleb replied, not really paying attention to what she had to say.
“You’re right. I guess the inside of that thing will feel pretty small when we bed down for the night. At least it’ll be safe inside.”
“Think again. I’ve shared a room with Asher before, he snores like a freight train and talks in his sleep. Did I mention he gets up three or four times a night to pee?” Fotos looked over at Asher and he returned the look with an embarrassed half grin.
“I suggest you find a 2 liter bottle for nighttime use. And I don’t want to see it, hear it, or smell it. Do you understand me?” Fotos looked happy with herself.
“I sure do ma’am, except my nightly problem includes number two, not just number one. Do you think I should try to find some type of funnel, ma’am?” Fotos looked back at him and his face was blank, making him look even more stupid, in her opinion.
“I’m going to go over tomorrow’s itinerary with Sergeant Angel. See what other supplies we mig
ht need.” She held her arms straight down at her side and seemed to stomp as she walked away.
“Caleb, aren’t we playing a dangerous game there? I don’t think she likes me to start with.”
“She’ll warm up to you. The first time I met her she drew down on me. I didn’t know if she was going to mug me or what. Oh and never call her ‘Anny,’ she used to get ragged about that marvelous ass she has by being called …”
“Anny the Fanny!” Asher chimed in as they both broke out laughing. Fotos heard the two laughing behind her, Give an airman a commission and you have an airman being paid too much. That boy is too young and immature for a commission, and how did that idiot buddy of his manage to get to be a Senior Airman? Both should be a couple of privates with the Army. As cannon fodder.
Staff Sergeant Angel watched as three vehicles converged on hers. The first was an older deuce and a half, she could see the drums of fuel between the wooden slats on the side of the truck. The next truck, also a deuce and a half, had placards on the front signifying it was carrying explosives. The last truck in line was hauling the trailer, which would carry the supplies that were now in the first two trucks. “God give me strength!” she shouted to the sky as she headed for the first driver to explain the problem and to return in five minutes. The second driver laughed in her face, but pulled away to return in ten minutes. The third driver backed up and disconnected the trailer and wisely disappeared before being put to work loading the other truck. Angel easily hooked up with the trailer at the same time as the truck carrying fuel returned. Her assistant driver pulled up from the opposite direction driving a forklift. Angel dropped the gate as the other truck driver directed Martinez in unloading the first pallet of fuel drums. Martinez expertly delivered the first pallet without difficulty as Angel pushed the pallet to the front of the trailer, cursing the entire way that the pallets only held four drums each. She’d have to reposition them later for a better load plan, then laughed since she’d be carrying ammunition and fuel, breaking innumerable peace time rules to begin with.
Infected World Trilogy (Books 1-3): They Only Come Out At Night Page 56
