by Won, Mark
Sure enough, there was one fewer cars blocking my path. I accelerated through the gap without any difficulty. My understanding of the primitive mind had suggested that they would all abandon their posts to join in the opportunity for conflict. I never get tired of being right, especially when it comes to killing people I don’t like. I suppose that might make me a bit arrogant.
Back home I led Dr. Jed into my super bunker. I was getting sick of everyone knowing all about it but I guessed that ship had sailed. Jed started looking over John’s wound and he looked in Luke’s eyes. Then he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
The Doc had John on my surgery table in an instant. He opened his bag and I offered to help. He seemed dubious.
“How much medical experience do you actually have, Matthew? No offense, but this is going to get a bit messy. More so than a bullet to the arm.”
“I once fixed up a guy who had a sucking chest wound.” That had been years previous, which I didn’t bother to mention.
Jed wanted to know, “And your patient survived until you got him to a hospital?”
“Well, no. But he would have.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jed was busy working while he talked. He’d already given John a shot of something and cut off his shirt.
“It’s just that I was the one who shot that little double crossing weasel in the first place. I only needed him alive until I could get the pictures I’d paid him to take.”
Doc Jed looked a bit confused. “I thought you were a farmer.”
I told him, “That’s the kind of thing that sometimes happens to people who try and steal a farmer’s land. Or to little double crossing weasels, who let themselves get paid off by people trying to steal a farmers land.”
The doctor’s confusion had me a bit worried. I needed to keep him on track if I wanted my friends to survive.
“These two boys had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. I’ve just met them. They weren’t even born when any of that ancient history went down.”
He said, “Whatever happened before is none of my concern. Maybe, back before all this, I would have cared. You know, gone to the cops, like any law abiding citizen. But that was then and this is now. Hand me that retractor.”
Just like that we were working together. Sue handled suction. I mopped brows, handed tools and was a general extra pair of hands in the wound. What a mess. All those floppy looking guts all over the place; John’s insides looked like a sausage makers workshop.
Part way through Jed asked, “Do any of you match his blood type. The saline I brought won’t keep him going forever.”
I had to tell the Doc that I hadn’t the foggiest. Neither did anyone else. The doctor had only one little bag of type O, ready to go. I directed Anna to my dried plasma supply and advised her how to reconstitute it. She said it was a lot like making a meal out of some of my dried food packets. That girl was doing great at keeping up a brave face.
That’s when Luke decided to wake up and start stumbling around. He was mumbling something about ‘God’s fiery retribution’, ‘lay waste the burning malefactors’, and ‘human torches illuminating the path of the righteous’. That boy did like his fire. I had to yell at Sue to get him under control before he bumped into the doctor.
The whole mess was over in less than an hour. That doctor really knew his stuff. By then Luke had his head on straight and John was stable.
I said, “So Jed, how were you planning on going home? Another plane ride?”
“I don’t think that would be wise. I haven’t forgotten about the brigands surrounding us, have you? I’m concerned we might not make it to the airport.”
I tried to be reassuring, “Don’t worry about them, Doc, I plan on getting rid of them real soon. Just give me a couple of days, and whatever is left of their crew will be heading for the hills. Then I can drive you back to Haven personally, if you’d like.”
“How are you going to ‘get rid of them’?”
I replied “I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but that’s okay. Plans never survive contact with the enemy, anyway.”
“I’d like to keep an eye on my two patients for a few days, in any case. I’d also like to radio back home and report in, if I may.”
Yes sir, things were looking up. It was time to go hunting.
Chapter 7: Plans, All Seems Darkest, and the Beginning of the End
First off, I made sure someone was on camera duty at all times. The only thing holding the bandits back was their fear of my turret and electric fence. I doubt they understood the limitations of either defense. I couldn’t constantly count on that ignorance to protect us, however.
Secondly, those screw heads were able to react in a coordinated manner. When I stopped at that roadblock and started shooting, it’s not impossible that the reinforcements had just heard the gunfire, but I found it much more likely that they had discovered the joys of the citizen band radio. That or some kid’s toy walkie talkie set. With morons, it could go either way.
Thirdly, how were they even still around? With all the zombies that they’d brought into the neighborhood, where were the bandits holed up? I realized that I’d gunned down or fried all of the more aggressive, strong, or fast zombies. Even so, It was hard to drive around without bumping into one here or there (literally). Even bandits had to sleep sometime.
I decided to take a page from their book and see what deception could accomplish. I only had one armored vehicle left and I didn’t want to have to sacrifice it, too. Fortunately, everyone who had been visiting had left a vehicle when they’d rode off to Haven. It made my driveway look like the mecca for trailer trash but it also gave me a number of expendable vehicles to work with.
I chose a nice four door that happened to have tinted windows and packed its trunk and back seat with enough dynamite to make a meaningful point. I absolutely do not trust civilian remote detonators with that kind of payload. I still had no real idea what kind (if any) of radio communication the bandits used. It would have been real embarrassing to have one of their random conversations explode my bomb prematurely. Especially if it killed me. Fortunately, I had a couple of mil spec radio detonators laying around.
I tried to keep and ear open across all wavelengths. It would have been nice to pin down the enemy frequency. I didn’t have much luck. Once in a while I’d catch a garbled hiss, but nothing I could zero in on. My guess was that the bandits were keeping their distance and saving their batteries. They probably didn’t have too many radios to work with.
My next step was to construct three scare crows that could pass for women at a distance. That took some doing, but with the girls help I managed to construct a few passable imitations.
The girls were real helpful with recording messages of utter helplessness and distress. They were careful not to ham things up, while still making a big point of their vulnerability. I made sure to have some kind of mention made of how they supposedly knew where a truck full of booze was. Information that the supposed damsels in distress would trade for help. Also, the girls made a point of reinforcing their desperation by saying that they were out of ammunition. I figured that ought to do it.
That night I loaded my bicycle in the back seat, over the explosives, and under the scarecrows. Then, making sure to keep my headlights off, I drove out to the location of my choosing. A nice little kill zone between two farmer’s fields with nothing but nice flat space between. The local farmers hadn’t planted yet before the Change, so there was no cover to be had.
I had decided to set my trap at night because, in my experience, gutter trash like to sleep a lot. No sense being out and about when they were.
It would have been nice to have set up a few bombs around the bait car but I didn’t really have enough detonators for that. I decided to just make do with what I had.
The bike that I’d brought along made getting over to the nearest farmhouse a timely matter. I approached the front door with some trepidation. There might be ghouls or ogre
s inside. Probably zombies. I popped another glycerin capsule and opened the front door.
Inside, all was silent. I made a little noise, hoping to attract some straightforward attention. My efforts were noticed by the occupants, a pair of zombies came toward me from the next room.
My weapon of choice for this outing was a little .22 pistol with an oversized suppressor and a laser sight attachment. With no idea where the bandits were located, I didn’t want to take any chances being discovered. For all I knew they were hanging out in the very farmhouse I was attempting to clear.
I took those two zombies out, no problem. Then I moved inside and quietly closed the door. After waiting a moment to be sure no more zombies were coming my way, I did a room to room search of the farmhouse. There were another two zombies in the upstairs bedroom, but they were no more trouble than the ones downstairs.
After all that, I tossed the corpses in the basement and took a nap in an unoccupied upstairs bedroom. I set my alarm for ten o’clock.
-
When I had awakened, I turned on my CB and hit the replay button on the recorder. If this didn’t work I’d have to move to a new location and try again, next night. I had high hopes though, the girls had given me a gold mine of helpless invitation. Total run time of thirty-two minutes and fifty-five seconds. I started flipping through the channels.
The thought had crossed my mind that maybe some genuine good Samaritan would show up. What would I do then? My plan for telling the difference was simple: if they looked like trash, I’d burn them. If a helpful soul did show up, I’d just explain the situation and invite him home.
As it happened, I didn’t have long to wait. Within ten minutes, four cars came racing down the road straight for my trap. It was almost too easy. I know all the ancient writers warn against ‘underestimating the enemy’, but with those dunderheads underestimation was proving to be quite a chore. I checked my six to make sure no one was using this as a distraction, just in case. All was clear.
I had been afraid that the bandits might try and communicate with the ‘stranded, helpless women’. My answer to that was to have the girls act as if they weren’t receiving anything. A simple ploy for simple minds. The point was moot. These vermin were far to intent on their supposed prey to bother playing games.
The large number of bandits that got out of their cars did surprise me. I had anticipated, maybe, two or three. After all, how many villains should it take to subdue three women? For these trash, the number was sixteen. With luck that was all that was left.
They pulled right up to the bait car, got out, and fell all over each other trying to be the first inside. That’s when I triggered the detonator. I wouldn’t have been too shocked if the ensuing explosion could have been heard from space. Even as far away as I was, the windows were all blown in. A giant mushroom cloud rose majestically into the sky like some deadly harbinger of war. I might have over done it a tad. Well, better to explode it and not need it, than need it and not explode it (at least, that’s what I always say).
I got out of that farmhouse and began phase two of my battle strategy.
Now that I had their attention, I thought that they would surely open up all lines of communication to discover what the heck was going on. Then, my plan was to listen in to communications from their headquarters and to triangulate its location. Back in my day they taught trigonometry in high school.
Again, I didn’t have long to wait. The bandit leader was called ‘Daddy’. I pitied his children. He was shouting at everybody to find out what just happened. I found that promising. I doubted he was more than twenty-five miles away as CB radios had a somewhat limited range. That I’d never heard the bandits’ radio communication before implied they usually kept their transmission range short, possibly intentionally. Which in turn implied the probability that they had someone who knew something about radios. That meant at least one not completely stupid enemy. Unfortunate, but nothing for it. I’d just have to take my chances.
It took me about twenty minutes to get the two points of my triangle pointed right at Daddy. That guy just wouldn’t shut up. I got the impression that things hadn’t been going his way lately. He had eight more cars out and about. Each were crewed by more than one man. Back at his base, Daddy was keeping a few prisoners under guard. It was hard to make a good guess of how many guards there were, but I got the impression his prisoner guards were also his praetorian guard. It seemed that Daddy was reluctant to send out any more reinforcements. The road agents were not happy. By the time I’d learned all that, I must admit, I was looking forward to meeting Daddy, myself, briefly.
First things first. I had to pedal back home to get a new ride. I had seriously underestimated how far I’d driven. By the time I got back I was covered in sweat and needed a refill of nitroglycerin pills (did you know those things don’t blow up when you hit them with a hammer?). All in all, a very productive day.
Next morning I checked over my maps and discovered the location of our enemy. Considering my margin for error, I decided to head out just after dark to scout it out. That gave me plenty of time to feed the animals and play with Spot and Zilla. Those guys were hilarious. Watching them compete for the frisbee never failed to bring on a smile.
Just before the sun touched the horizon, I drove out my gate. I had chosen another throwaway, a truck. This time I put in a little reinforcement. Just a couple simple steel plates for the doors, nothing special. Other than that I just had my ordinary away bag. And Emma, of course.
About a mile from my target destination I pulled over and got my bike out of the back. I wanted to ensure as stealthy of an approach as possible. All I took with me from the truck were a few weapons and tools plus a little food and water. Just enough to get by in a pinch.
The neighborhood was silent. I made a note that there were no zombies around, none at all. I thought that was a good sign. I’d see if I could make some fresh, by morning.
It was a tract housing district and I knew the layout of that particular model. When I’d been forced to sell I’d managed to get a juicy building contract. I’d literally seen those houses inside and out. There was no place in them for a crew of the size I was looking for.
That caused me to expand my search into an adjacent light industry area. Right off I saw a rather promising large warehouse style building, with a nice corrugated metal roof. The building had large metal doors all around, except for its public entrance area.
The building used to do tool and die work, and was owned by a prominent local company. I remember they had a reputation for hiring, especially after the last population boom.
The main doors had their glass covered over with some kind of metal sheeting. I could tell from the street that it looked like a rush job. The same could be said for the windows. The loading bay doors were all closed, except for one that had a semi truck backed into it, thus sealing it off. There were a bunch of cars in the employee parking lot, but that didn’t signify much. If there were any bandits inside I had no idea how many cars they had brought with them, or how many had already been there when they arrived.
I ditched my bike and advanced toward the structure. I needed a closer look in order to confirm my suspicions. Walking along the wall I found a bunch of bodies strewn around an emergency exit. The aroma was horrible. There were maggots everywhere and rats scurrying away from me. Some of the corpses looked to be well over a month old, largely skeletal, some no older than a few days.
There were also a bunch of garbage bags strewn about. Some were torn open, so I was able to get a good look at a bunch of empty food cans and water bottles. My investigation also discovered a number of bags full of excrement, presumably human. All that helped to confirm the use of the building as a den for the robbers I was looking for. I also had to assume that they didn’t have a great deal of water. At least not enough to keep the toilets working, the pigs.
The stench was so offensive that I thought that there was no way anyone would be sleeping on the other side of
that door, but I really didn’t want to take any chances. Setting up another trap would’ve been just the thing.
I was feeling saddened that I’d used up so much dynamite in the last engagement. I could have set up a nice little trap in the parking lot for the next time anyone took a drive. I checked my watch and, with a sigh of regret over lost opportunities, decided that it was time for me to get on with it. There was always so much to do lately.
Forcing entry was out of the question. There was no way for me to bust down one of those doors. The front doors had all been reinforced with steel. I had to question if it were even possible to open one of those, with or without a key. I snuck around and tried a few doors just in case, but none opened. They were either locked, barred, or welded shut.
Of course, I’d brought my key gun. The trouble with it is that thing is kind of noisy. I couldn’t afford to wake up the whole neighborhood just getting in. That would defeat the purpose. My lock picking skills were never all that great. Give me ten minutes with bobby pin and a screwdriver and I could get you back inside your apartment, but the locks on the emergency doors were beyond me.
The hinges were my next thought. If I could oil them up enough maybe I could just pop them right out. After a closer inspection I could see there wasn’t enough oil in Texas to do the job. It looked like I’d have to cut part of the pin off to do the trick. It looked like it would be quite a job trying to keep quiet about it, too.
My tools were all back with my bike so I brought everything around to the emergency door and started cutting. After each hinge I stopped to listen at the door before continuing. When the final hinge fell the door just about flattened me. It fell right out of the frame. I put my hands up and tried stepping back. The door scrapped along my chest plates and I grabbed it just before it hit the cement. I was careful to set it down quietly.
Inside, all was dark. I put my night vision goggles on. That was much better. I was in a large warehousing area, not the machine shop proper. It was filled with a bunch of crates. Some empty, some full, some in between. All kinds of pieces and parts lining the shelving, waiting to be loaded into a truck that would never come. The isles were surprisingly wide, for a warehouse, and I could see my way to another door leading deeper into the building.
