Captain Boykin had given up, at least until he saw the fiery look in General Wyatt’s eyes.
Wyatt lowered his head, purposely not making eye contact with the three men that stood before him. In the ten years since the end of civilization, he had aged well. What was once a young, eager lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps had quickly vanished into a coldhearted bastard that was willing to do whatever it took to get to Washington D.C. and get the country back up and running. In the early days of the apocalypse, Lieutenant Andrew Wyatt had a run-in with Joe and his people that nearly ended with both men dead.
Dissatisfied would have been too kind of a description of how he felt as he paced back and forth in front of his men. Captain Michael Styles stood behind the General, his hands behind his back at parade rest. Both men had a look of disappointment and disgust.
“So. Do any of the three of you mind telling me how it is that you have not heard from Captain White in over five months? Or would you rather explain how that there has been no contact with myself or any of my subordinates about the situation in Tazewell, Virginia?” Wyatt asked.
Mikey and Wesley both looked to Captain Boykin for an answer.
Boykin cleared his throat nervously. “Um, sir. We have not had a resupply since Captain White left. He took with him one of the only working radios along with the last two satellite phones that we had left. We thought that we had been abandoned.”
Wyatt looked skyward, still not making eye contact. “I see. You thought that you had been left for dead and that Captain White was either deserting or had been killed. Is that correct?”
Boykin looked around anxiously, unsure how to answer the question. “Um, yessir. We, um, thought that once Captain White had secured the supplies and resources in Tazewell that he may have continued on, or possibly have just left us here, sir. I don’t know what happened to him, sir, but I’m certain that it can’t be good.”
“So you didn’t bother going after him?” Wyatt asked, turning his head slowly to address Captain Boykin.
“No, sir. I thought it best to stay here and keep this area secure. There are too many vital resources we have here to just up and leave,” Boykin answered.
Wyatt stepped forward, nose-to-nose with Boykin. Boykin could see the anger and fiery tenacity in the General’s eyes. Whatever was about to happen to him and his two cohorts couldn’t have possibly been good.
“Vital resources? Your vehicles are barely running and your men are taking a shit wherever they please like a pack of wild fucking dogs! You are a piss poor excuse for an officer, Captain Boykin!” Wyatt yelled, his face inches away from Boykin’s.
Boykin swallowed hard. “I apologize, sir. Now that you are here, we can continue with our mission, sir.”
“Our mission, Captain? No. You see, my mission is to go to Tazewell, Virginia and rid myself of the last bit of insurgency between here and Washington. Do you know that the people in that town are not only responsible for killing several Peacemakers in Kentucky, but also responsible for possibly killing the last good men that I had left in Tennessee?”
“No, sir. I was not aware that,” Boykin said timidly.
“And do you know why you are not aware of that? Because you have spent the last five months sitting on your ass in Northeast Tennessee and not bothering to move! You have not secured any vital resources, nor have you tried to contact another Peacemaker outpost.”
Boykin was on the edge of tears. “I’m sorry, sir. I will do whatever I can to make it up to you.”
“Yeah, let’s go get those fuckers in Tazewell, General!” Wesley Rollins said, finally speaking up.
“That is more like it! I have use for you, son,” Wyatt said. “But I’m afraid that I am going to have to relieve your commanding officer of his duty.”
Before Boykin could adequately process what General Wyatt meant, he was staring down the barrel of a .45.
“Captain Boykin, you are relieved of command,” Wyatt said, and pulled the trigger. Boykin’s head snapped back, his eyes froze open in a petrified look. His body hit the ground before the last bits of his brain did. The shot echoed off the enclosed fishbowl that was Bristol Motor Speedway.
Wyatt turned back to Captain Styles. “Get on the horn with whatever assets we have left in the area and have them here within the next twenty-four hours. We’ve got some business in Tazewell, Virginia to take care of.”
Wyatt aimed the .45 at Wesley Rollins. “Where’s Captain Boykin’s quarters?”
Rollins licked his lips and cleared his throat nervously. “Um…infield care center. That’s where he kept his shi…I mean stuff, sir.”
Wyatt holstered the .45 and stalked his way over to the infield care center, one of the few areas at the speedway that had beds. In its heyday, the infield care center was the top-of-the-line medical treatment area for NASCAR’s drivers. More often than not, it was places like these that had the best supplies. Things that were set aside for the well-to-do of the world were available to anyone that got to it first.
The door to the medical center was ajar. As Wyatt stepped in, the smell of shit was overpowering. Apparently, Captain Boykin didn’t have much of a mind for cleanliness. Wyatt crinkled his nose and continued into the medical center, looking for Boykin’s living area. The main room was largely empty, save for a few buckets filled with shit and piss. The sorry-assed men under Boykin’s command hadn’t taken the time to empty the buckets, obviously losing space to dump their excrement.
Past the main entrance were four separate offices, the last of which was occupied by the late Captain Boykin. Wyatt dodged the buckets of shit and made a beeline for the office. If there was anything of use in there, he needed to find it. Any assets in the area would be pale in comparison to some good old-fashioned intel.
And that’s what he found in Boykin’s office.
It wasn’t so much from Boykin, but from his predecessor, Captain Marcus White. On the desk in the office were a stack of black marble composition books. Inside the notebooks were a myriad of findings. Everything from raid details to personnel logs were inside the books. One in particular caught his attention. Wyatt thumbed through the book and pulled up a seat in Boykin’s overused armchair.
Despite his obvious failure, Captain White did not do so for lack of trying. A quick glance through the journals showed that he had done extensive amounts of work with other Peacemakers. Captain White was well aware of the units in Lexington, Kentucky and Beckley, West Virginia. White had assisted in placing the mole in Beckley. After the downing of Joe’s chopper outside Lexington and the subsequent spying in West Virginia, White was certain that most of the ZBRA units were wiped out. Wyatt was impressed with White’s progress, but still wondered what happened to the missing captain. The last entry in the section was notes on taking over an outpost in the far end of Virginia near Tazewell. As he finished reading the entry, a name popped up, one that he hadn’t seen in nearly a decade.
The entry read “ZBRA commander in northern West Virginia reportedly named ‘Joe.’ Not much else known. May have ties to original units out of the Gulf Coast. This ‘Joe’ might have made his way to Tazewell. Possible ties to the area.” Wyatt grit his teeth. That fucker is still alive? I bet he’s gonna be real surprised to see me. Time to reacquaint myself with the hero of Monroeville.
As Wyatt looked over the notes, Captain Styles entered the room.
“Sir, we have very little contact with any units in the area. It’s difficult to get a signal out through the mountains.”
Wyatt closed the notebook and threw it back in the pile. “I’ve changed my mind, Captain. Round up whatever we can use here. Put those useless fucks out there to work getting ammo and getting the vehicles ready. We leave first thing in the morning. Tell Duncan and Fisher to leave now and report back. I want troop strength, assets, everything. I want to know what I’m up against. I want to know how to hammer these fucks into submission. This shit ends here.”
Time to visit an old friend…
CHAPTER 5
April 18, 2022 – 1900 Hours – Tazewell, Virginia
The Town Council of Tazewell Virginia sat at their usual meeting spot inside the chow hall for the residents of the town. Although they had not met but once before – and that was to form the council itself – there was a heightened level of animosity among them. Most of the eleven men that sat at the table did not have their own agenda, and were pliable and easy to reach a compromise among one another. The original eight men were supplanted by Captain White, Jim O’Malley, and Keith, the latter two representative of the newly acquired Kentuckians who had taken up residence in town. An odd number of councilmen made sure that despite everything else, a majority could be reached in the event of any problem.
And there was a large problem to discuss.
Joe had tried to talk to each of his men individually and get a sense of their thoughts. A person was easy to talk to. People were dumb, panicky, dangerous animals. Doing what they could for the greater good was a lot easier to do when each man was briefed individually. There seemed to be fewer issues when each one had time to think things over instead of trying to argue in a group. While the men were no doubt mulling over their options, the mood going into the meeting was somber at best.
“I think it’s best to let the facts be known first, and then we can move on to why I’ve asked you all to be here. Right now, Larry, Balboa, Keith, Curtis, and I know what this meeting is over, and I think it is best that you hear out Keith and Curtis first, then we can discuss it. Guys?” Joe said, motioning to his tired radiomen.
“As most of you know,” Curtis started, “Keith and I were sent out early this morning to reestablish contact with ZBRA HQ or at least extend our radio range. I am happy to say that the SINCGARS that we took with us is working, but unfortunately, we have yet to make contact with anyone except the base station here in town. I know that we have plans to set up another unit in Richlands and try that route. That being said, Keith and I got a good lay of the land up on the top of that mountain, and well, it ain’t pretty.”
Jamie’s brow furrowed. “What’s not pretty?”
“Dead fuckers. Thousands of them. Curtis and I guessed by their rate of movement that we have about twenty-four hours before they are beating down the walls of town and fucking us up,” Keith answered.
“The tunnel, right?” Captain White asked. “We should have blown that damn thing when we had the chance. Trap ‘em all inside.”
“All those fuckers that we stirred up have followed Route 460 right to us,” Joe said. “Anybody have anything intelligent to say?”
“Thousands? And we have enough ammo and explosives to take care of how many?” Rick asked.
“Even if we hit every one of them square in the brain and got really creative with some of the C4 and Claymores, we would still come up way short,” Joe said, looking around. Each man was on the cusp of saying the same thing, so he cut them off before they could. “And I know that everyone is thinking of leaving town as an option. I know that it has to be an option, but I say that we discuss it first. We have forty-seven people, not including ourselves and our families to think about.”
“What are the odds that this horde just passes us by?” Jim O’Malley asked.
Joe shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. There are five separate exits into town, two of which lead right to the middle of the wall, and the other three lead them close enough to get suspicious. In order for the horde to pass us by, we would have to be extremely lucky and extremely quiet. I’m talking total silence for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and the kind of luck that would have won us the lottery.”
“So we either have to convince people that they should stay and fight, or run while they can. How the hell are we gonna do that if we can’t come to an agreement amongst ourselves?” Captain White asked.
Joe huffed out a long sigh. “I have no idea, but we have very little time to dick around and discuss it. We need to get everyone here first thing in the morning and lay it out. That being said, we need to have plans laid out for both contingencies. Be thinking about that tonight. I want everyone here at 0600 tomorrow morning and I want some ideas.”
“What about Reggie and Boyd?” Larry asked.
Joe had forgotten about Reggie and Boyd. They had left the day prior to hunt some more game. The town’s food was contingent on deer, turkey, and other wild game. Reggie and Boyd had been out the entire day and had planned to spend the night. They were going to hunt at the break of dawn and return to town later in the morning.
“They should be back in time to meet up with the rest. If they aren’t, we will send out a couple of people to get them. They don’t need to be out of the loop,” Joe said. “Y’all get some rest; we need fresh minds first thing in the morning.”
The council silently got up from their chairs and filed out. Heavy hearts and heavier minds left with them. The last man was out of sight when he breathed a deep sigh, not of relief, but of contempt. Once again, the lives of the town were at stake, and he was ill-prepared to handle the decision of what to do about it. Right now, there were nearly a hundred souls in and around Tazewell that had no idea their entire existence was in danger. The undead were slowly plodding away, inching closer to town, and there was exactly dick that he could do about it.
Facing insurmountable odds had been his forte. Hell, he’d pretty much made a living out of it for the last twenty-plus years. There was never a time in the back of an ambulance where he’d thought that he was out of options. There was always another medication, another procedure to stave off death. Rarely did he get excited in his later years. He loved his job, but after more than a decade of doing it, he became the master of his own adrenaline. Slow was smooth and smooth was fast.
Lost in his thoughts, he reminisced about that first day. Riding in the truck from the hospital to the high school with James and David, that first zombie had popped up in the back of the ambulance, tearing David’s ignorant ass to shreds. James wrecking the truck didn’t help matters any, leaving him for the undead. James would eventually get what was coming the next day as Joe, Jamie, Donnie, and Andrew made their way across Route 16. Joe had killed him after the fat bastard had taken a shot at the four of them, with Donnie already injured from a run-in with J.W. and his cronies in town. Losing Donnie at the farm, Andrew killing himself, and the mad dash to get home was all still fresh in his mind.
Once he was home, he felt safe, but it didn’t last long. Eyeing the train on the way home seemed like a solid plan until they had to push the plans up a few hours and hastily got on the road. The train ride through Tennessee. Ronnie sacrificing himself to save them. God, it seemed like it was only yesterday. There was a hurricane in Alabama that nearly blew them away, along with the first encounter with a psychotic Marine that he still hadn’t managed to rid himself of. Throughout the ZBRA missions and all the good he’d done the next few years, those memories were harder to pinpoint, until about four months ago. They’d lost Chris in a helicopter crash somewhere in Kentucky. Maybe that was why he couldn’t remember the in-between years. There was no tragedy, nothing to bookmark those years in his mind. Death and loss had defined his life and memories of it. Nothing good ever stood out, only the bad, and make no mistake, there was something bad on the way.
But little did he know, the dead weren’t the only ones coming.
* * *
Father Rife stood before his people. For the last seven days, most of the communities in and around the far southern tip of West Virginia had made their way to the state line at Bishop, Virginia. From Bishop to Tazewell was a mere fifteen miles, but due to the winding mountain road that separated them, it would take an entire day of steady marching to get there. Not that it mattered to Father Rife; he would ride atop one of the several horses available to him.
Father Rife climbed upon his steed and grabbed the reins. Nearly three hundred haggard, dirty, and well-armed souls looked back at him, eagerly awaiting his instructions. His subordinates had adv
ised against moving such a large contingent in the dark, but he wanted to be able to strike as soon as possible. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, they would be able to reach Tazewell by the following evening. Four scouts had been sent ahead in anticipation of the trek, and two had returned while the other two waited outside of town, out of sight. Their plan was to lie in wait outside of town until the right time to fight, and then attack the town while they slept the following night.
He nodded to his people.
“Tomorrow, we will take what is rightfully ours in the name of the Lord! Too long we have suffered and kept our humility, only to have the sinners in Tazewell take from us! We have lost men, gone hungry, and lived amongst the dead for too long! Tomorrow, we take the town and its sanctuary not only for ourselves, but for God Almighty Himself!”
The three hundred-plus people in front of him cheered in agreement.
Father Rife turned his horse towards Tazewell and nudged its flanks.
CHAPTER 6
April 18, 2022 – 0445 Hours – Outside Tazewell, Virginia
Two men moved silently through the dense, dark woods in the early morning hours. Being unfamiliar with the area, they had chosen to leave the Humvee on the side of the road, nearly three miles away now. Radio reception in the mountains had limited their ability to contact anyone, but they were certain despite the mountains the satellite phone they had would get a decent signal. The next group of scouts was waiting on their word, and whether or not to proceed. They were ten miles away, but it may as well have been a hundred.
Fisher moved forward stealthily, followed by his spotter, Duncan. Both men had been seasoned operators in Marine Force Recon before the world had gone to shit, and those skills were still of great use today. They could move silently, undetected for miles, take out a target, and return without anyone even knowing they were there. Aside from taking out a target, that was exactly what their mission was right now.
Six Feet From Hell (Book 6): End Game Page 4
