by Dana Fraser
As forgotten as the site looked, it wasn’t empty. There was a semi-truck parked, the engine off but a body behind the wheel. The vehicle was angled to where Thomas could see markings spray painted on the side. The symbols meant it was a service truck for Project Erebus. He had seen the same marks being painted at the camp he had infiltrated in West Virginia.
Thomas heard the brush of stiff fabric over cold ground a heartbeat before Sean slid into place next to him. He didn’t know whether to be impressed with the kid or dismayed at his failure to hear him sooner.
“Abandoned your post already?” Thomas whispered.
Sean ignored the jab. “She’s at a hundred and two.”
Thomas didn’t reply. He adjusted the focus on the field glasses to get a look at the driver. The man might not even be alive.
“We need to shift objectives,” Sean said after a few more seconds had passed. “Medicine for her first, Dover second.”
Thomas looked at the kid and wondered if he had even noticed the truck and trailer. It was kind of hard not to, both were big and black and still shiny despite the decay and destruction that had taken over most of the man made elements of the landscape with all the burnt out homes and vehicles.
Crawling on his belly, Thomas moved about a dozen feet to his left. From his original observation point, all he could see was the driver’s profile. If the man was dead, it hadn’t been long. There was no visible rot to the flesh. But his head lolled back and his mouth was open.
Dead or sleeping.
All Thomas could tell was that the driver was older than him but not up there with Isaac. He was also a big man, the extra chin suggesting that very little of the bulk was muscle.
Sean followed Thomas to the second spot like an irritating puppy covered in a thick slime of sarcasm.
“You happen to have any thoughts on the matter?”
The question was followed by the faint sound of something pounding on metal.
The driver woke with a startle.
“You happen to notice I’m engaged in surveillance?” Thomas sniped as the driver straightened and he got a good look at the man’s face.
Fuck me six ways to Sunday!
He’d only seen the face once and had barely been able to stomach looking at the man’s twisted features for more than a glance, but he recognized the driver from the encampment.
The name teased at the periphery of Thomas’s memory, Sean’s presence a distraction.
Back in West Virginia, it had taken mere seconds for Thomas to realize that the driver was more messed up in the head than the rest of the mercenaries who had latched onto Project Erebus.
What was it he had thought? Not all “fucked up,” but…
All chucked up.
Yeah, that was it. The driver’s first name was Chuck.
Chuck Yardley.
His mind conjuring up the full memory, Thomas swallow down a wad of bile.
“There’s no escort,” Sean growled. “We sit tight until he passes. Now answer my damn question.”
Thomas barely heard Sean. His mind was too busy working on an idea. He watched Yardley get out of the truck and bang on the side of the trailer.
“Quit your fucking noise or I’m coming in!”
“Damn,” Sean whispered, finally concerned with the presence of Yardley. “Do you think that’s…”
Sean trailed off. Thomas didn’t need him to finish to know what the kid was thinking. He had told Sean and the others everything he knew about Project Erebus minus the part about Becca. He had whitewashed some of the darker elements. But it was clear to his entire party that, having decided to kill off almost the entire population of earth, the people in charge of the apocalypse had determined that most human life had no value. It was disposable.
It was also entertainment.
There were “disposable” human beings in the back of that trailer. Most of them were likely to be women and children, easier to control and more exquisite in their pain. That was how sick the world had become—or how it had always been beneath the thin veneer of civilization.
“What are we going to do?” Sean asked.
Thomas caged the wild laugh clawing at his throat. He had half a mind to throw back the question as he had done on earlier outings with Sean.
What are you going to do, Junior?
Thomas felt bad for the people in the trailer. But they weren’t his mission objective—Becca was.
Serving overseas, he had walked past dying kids before, back when Hannah was a teen and Ellis was in primary school. To the extent he had considered the injured as he passed, it was only to evaluate their potential as a threat to the safety of his troops and the completion of his mission.
Those were the calculations a commanding officer was forced to make all day, every day.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sean move his rifle into position. Thomas placed a calming hand atop the barrel.
“If you miss, he’s on the radio calling it in,” Thomas softly warned. “And even if you hit him, we don’t know for certain that there’s no escort or someone else up in the cab. Or if he has to check in on any schedule, which would leave us with drones in the air as we try to get away at a pace of two miles a day.”
“So we just let him leave?”
Thomas smiled to hear the anger in Sean’s voice. Becca had said nothing about Sean’s rescue of her. But Thomas had picked up enough from the soldier since those first days at the house in Evansville to suspect Sean had never intended to save her or help her survive afterwards. He had merely come across a cabin full of psychopaths with supplies he needed.
Whatever had happened at the beginning of the end had driven Sean away from other people. Becca had brought him back.
“No,” Thomas answered as he watched Yardley reach into the truck and pull out a roll of toilet paper and a shotgun. “But we need to act fast.”
Surprising Sean, Thomas didn’t surge forward toward the road but moved quickly backwards.
Seeing the confusion in the young man’s eyes, Thomas flashed a grim smile. “You’re not going to like this, but the other side wants Becca. They really, really want her.”
The confusion didn’t disappear, it intensified.
Wrapping his hand around Sean’s shoulder, Thomas squeezed.
“I’m turning her in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THOMAS DIDN’T HAVE the luxury of briefing the others on his plan beyond a rudimentary sketch of their roles. He ran into camp with an order for Isaac to head up the bluff and take cover where he would have a clear shot all along the eastern side of the truck and trailer. The old man had barely picked up his rifle when Sean ran up protesting.
“For the love of God, go!” Thomas urged Isaac before rounding on Sean. “I’ll deal with you in a second.”
He turned to Becca. She had grabbed the second Maxim 9 Thomas had given her as they headed out from Evansville.
“No gun for you,” he said, carefully sliding it from her hand and giving it to Sean. “Take this, but he can’t see it on you.”
“Baby, you’ve got to trust me,” Thomas coaxed as he turned back to Becca and grabbed a length of rope.
She didn’t voice her trust and he didn’t look her in the face to see if the smallest trace of it still lived in her expression. He just looped the rope around her wrists.
She started to twist, her arms and torso shaking.
“I know baby, it’s the worst thing to do to you, but it’s to keep you safe.”
If she didn’t already hate him for not being with her when the power went out and she was alone in the world, she would definitely hate him now and forever after. He was ready to lose her forever if it meant she survived.
“Thomas…” Her voice warbled with terror and then she looked at Sean.
Sean—the man who had rescued her and kept her alive when she was too weak to live on her own. The man who had abandoned his own safety to get her the rest of
the way home to Evansville.
“Sean,” Becca pleaded. “Don’t let him—”
Thomas spun, surprising them both, and cold cocked Sean. The kid stumbled backward and Thomas followed up with a vicious punch to the solar plexus.
None of them were in top physical shape for their ages, not after the hardships of the last month and a half. The kid folded to the ground, his wind knocked out of him just long enough for Thomas to get the ropes around his wrists, too.
Sean started to buck and kick, so Thomas hauled off and hit him again. Becca picked the rifle up by the barrel, her gaze wild.
Thomas jerked it from her hand knowing she’d been about to knock him out.
“Both of you shut up and quit fighting,” he growled. “I’m not tying him up the same, see. I want him to have access to the pistol.”
He gripped Sean by the chin. “Get it? We need to walk straight up to him.”
Sean looked at Thomas like he had lost his mind. Maybe he had. Maybe there was a better way. But he didn’t have hours to plan it. Grabbing a rag, he gagged Sean then hauled him to his feet before turning to Becca.
“No, Thomas. Please.”
She was walking backwards as she begged him to stop whatever the hell was going on. Her calf hit the trunk of a tree. She pitched backwards.
Thomas lurched forward, caught her, then held her just long enough to sit her on the severed trunk. In those brief seconds, he felt all the terror that vibrated through his wife’s body.
Merciless, he stuffed a gag in her mouth then reached into the side pocket on his pack and pulled out the memento he had kept with him since the night at Hank Reynolds’ shack.
Thomas slid the patch over his eye then looked at Sean.
“That son of a bitch driver? He knows me. You’ve got to trust me, soldier.”
With no time to waste, he scooped Becca up and folded her over his shoulder, adrenaline fueling his legs. Becca didn’t fight him. Her body turned limp and threatened to slide off.
“Follow me,” he barked at Sean and headed up the bluff.
Right before they would have crested, he stopped and put Becca on her feet. She swayed but didn’t fall down. Her eyes had a glazed cast to them. Thomas didn’t think she was there with him and Sean.
She was back in that cabin, stuck in a time after her husband had failed her and Sean hadn’t arrived to save her.
“Here,” he said, tying the two of them together. “This is a slip knot, just like your hands.”
Thomas led the way, his rifle pointing forward and his field glasses hanging from his neck. As soon as they were over the top and both the truck and its driver were in sight, Thomas cupped his mouth and yelled.
“Chuck, you old son of a gun!”
Caught in the open, standing next to the driver side door with a duffle bag open at his feet, Yardley froze like a rabbit sensing a predator.
“Don’t tell me you forgot old Billy!” Thomas bellowed and tapped at the patch.
Yardley unstuck and shook his head, bending a little at the waist and planting his hands against his knees.
“Man, are you a sight for sore eyes,” Thomas yelled and tugged on Becca’s rope to bring her and Sean forward. “You heading west on one twenty?”
Yardley hesitated then answered with a nod as Thomas led his captives across the road.
Thomas grinned, his mind summoning up images of a dead Chuck to make keep the expression authentic.
He gave the end of the rope a little bounce. “Well, I’ve got me some priority cargo going the same way.”
Hesitation turned to suspicion as Yardley looked over Becca and Sean.
“You sure about that?”
Thomas bobbed his head, grin widening before he jerked a thumb in Sean’s direction. “This one’s only worth getting her to behave. The broad is the real catch.”
“Maybe twenty years ago,” Yardley murmured.
Picturing the man’s head on a spike, Thomas laughed. “Some kind of brain. They sent me out special to hunt her down.”
Thomas drew Becca closer, staring into her eyes as he kept selling the story to the driver.
“Guy giving me the briefing was going on about shit like Behavioral Predictive and Molding algorithms. Or maybe it was Behavior Molding…shit, I don’t know!”
All the color fled from Becca’s face. She went weak in the knees, Sean saving her from falling by bracing her body with his.
Yardley bust into a barking laugh that went on for half a minute before he stopped and dried his eyes. Pointing at Becca, he shook his head and laughed some more.
“I’ve seen an ocean of guilt on a lot of broads’ faces, but nothing quite like that!”
With the tension easing and the introduction complete, Thomas’s heart stopped trying to break his ribs.
He gave the rope a little flick. “I need to get her to Black Diamond alive and without her brain being fried.”
Yardley’s brows danced upward.
“She’s been sick since before I caught her,” Thomas explained. “You got anything like antibiotics with you…maybe in the load you’re carrying?”
“Carrying entertainment, not supplies,” Yardley answered with a lecherous grin before looking Becca over from head to toe. “Might have something in my personal stash.”
Thomas handed Yardley the rope. “If they don’t reward you at drop off, I will.”
Thomas’s pulse kicked up another notch as greed sparked in Yardley’s gaze.
There were several points in Thomas’s plan where he knew things could get dangerous. This was one of them. But the kid had the Maxim 9 and Isaac had a bead on the driver. Not to mention that Thomas was the first one Yardley would try to kill now that he knew Becca was valuable alive.
“Your radio working?” he asked, if only to stop the wheels he could hear spinning in Yardley’s head.
The driver nodded. “Just did my two-hour check in before you about scared the crap out of me. Got my ass chewed for stopping for a little shut eye.”
“Some kid in charge, I bet,” Thomas grumbled as he slowly moved toward the open driver side door. “You mind if I call this in now? I been off grid half a month and want to stake my claim.”
Thomas stepped onto the side rail as he asked, his gaze flicking between Yardley and searching for the shotgun he’d seen the man carry into the trees when he was going about his morning business.
Thomas spotted the weapon placed across the top of the dash.
“Gotta reset the channel for you,” Yardley answered with a tug on Becca’s rope. “Might have been doing a little side chatting this morning.”
“Sure,” Thomas said and turned to step down. Spotting movement in the storage space behind the seats, he froze.
Dark brown eyes stared at him, the lashes trembling as they swept toward freckled cheeks. It was a girl, young enough to be one of the “lambs” Yardley had licked his chops over back at the camp in West Virginia. Her mouth was gagged and her hands were tied in front of her.
“First you want to tell me why you’re driving around with a corpse?”
Whatever cunning plan Yardley had been planning to unleash evaporated at the question. He dropped Becca’s rope and rushed toward the door as Thomas slid along the side rail to make room.
“Looks like she suffocated on the gag,” Thomas said as Yardley wrapped a meaty hand around the door’s armrest and heaved upward.
Waiting until the driver had one foot in the air, Thomas brought the Karambit up and sliced deep across Yardley’s throat.
Becca screamed behind her own gag. Sean freed himself from the rope and pulled Becca out of harm’s way as Yardley fell backwards, his hands grasping at his throat.
“I’ve often wondered if there truly is a hell,” Thomas said as he jumped down. “Now I hope there is.”
Numb to the fact that his terrified wife was watching, Thomas grabbed Yardley under the chin as he jammed a knee against the man’s spine.
“Knives don’t carry a lot of
certainty,” he counseled as he flashed the Karambit’s blade so Chuck could see.
Twisting on Yardley’s neck enough that the head turned, Thomas placed the tip of the blade against the sweet spot between the base of the skull and first vertebrae.
“There’s a very sudden certainty here,” he said and pressed just lightly enough to puncture the skin before carefully slicing a line to just below Yardley’s ear. “A slower certainty here.”
A foul odor filled the air as Yardley’s bowels emptied into his pants. Gibberish filtered past the driver’s lips, the words wet with spit.
“Here, though,” Thomas said as he moved the blade back to where he had made his first cut. “Here you have to carve deep to finish the job.”
“Colonel,” Sean said, pulling the gag from his mouth. “Becca can’t see this.”
The kid’s plea slowly filtered past the rage as Thomas took up a slow and steady sawing motion that would eventually sever Yardley’s windpipe.
He didn’t stop, didn’t alter his pace, just glanced once in Sean’s direction and replied.
“Then cover her eyes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE GIRL WASN’T dead and, whatever sick need Yardley had thought to fulfill, she was still untouched beyond being tied up and gagged.
Isaac, racing down the hill as Thomas disassembled Yardley’s throat, was the first to reach her. He took her out the other door, away from the carnage and untied her. Sean took Becca around to the other side, too, leaving her clinging to the child as he hustled to the back of the trailer and unlocked its doors.
Finished with Yardley, Thomas ignored the sideshow and searched through the dead man’s bag for antibiotics. There were a couple dozen pill bottles in two large Ziploc bags. He found five different prescriptions that might help his wife.
He took the pills to Isaac, his gaze bouncing away from Becca as she stroked the girl’s hair and mumbled something about the numbers being gone.
Still at the back of the trailer, Sean leaned into view and motioned for Thomas to join him. Feet dragging, he left the pills with Isaac and obeyed the younger man’s summons.
