“Don’t get me wrong,” I replied. “We could damned sure use your help, but we will survive without it. If you stay with us when this is over, you need to accept that.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“Now, we have more than enough of a fight ahead of us without fighting amongst ourselves,” I added. “Agreed?”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
This time he said “sir” like he meant it.
“When this is over,” I said. “I really hope you decide to stay. I’d like the opportunity to earn your respect, Top. To show you we’re not just a bunch of hillbillies with guns.”
He smiled when I said that.
“If I run into problems, I won’t hesitate to ask your advice,” I said. “And if you have an idea, I’ll gladly listen to it. The most important thing is completing the mission and getting my team back home alive.”
“On that we’re in total agreement,” he said.
“Outstanding,” I said. “We’ve got some common ground, after all. Let’s build on that and get this show on the road.”
“Hoo-ah,” he said.
He snapped me a crisp salute which I returned. Then he executed a perfect about-face and headed for his Humvee. Seconds later, we were all inside our vehicles and heading for the ramp to the surface. Bowman and Packer slid the gate open as we came up the ramp and we exited without hesitation. I could see them securing the gate behind us as we sped on up the road.
No one said much as we headed back into town. The mood was somber as we passed the burnt out wreckage of our vehicles that were lost in the ambush. The area was strangely clear of zombies. As we shot across the intersection, I could see a large crowd of zombies to the north of us. It looked like they were heading away from us as if they were following something. I didn’t think about it for long, though. I had other things on my mind.
When we passed the National Guard and Reserve Center, I could see that the building that held the MRE’s was now open. I knew that we had closed the door when we raided it on the day this all broke out. I could only assume that the Freemen had raided it sometime in the last couple of days. I smiled in the knowledge that we had beaten them to the armory. It was a small victory, but I was happy to take it.
When we turned down the side street that would take us back to the jail, I slowed almost to a stop. The road looked clear and I’m not sure why I hesitated. Spec-4 leaned over and looked at me. I didn’t meet her gaze, but took a deep breath and slowly released it with an audible sigh.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m not completely sure,” I said, slowing to a complete stop.
I sat there for a moment with the engine idling before my radio came to life. It was the First Sergeant’s voice I heard loud and clear.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?”
I turned and looked out my window as the other Humvee pulled alongside us and stopped. The Corporal they called Jackson was on the SAW. Southard was on our SAW and leaned back inside to glance at me.
“Yeah, what the fuck?” he asked, grinning.
“I’m not sure,” I said, both to Southard and into the radio. “My gut’s warning me about something. I can’t say what, for sure.”
“How accurate is your gut?” asked the First Sergeant.
“I trust it,” said Spec-4, reaching over to key the mic. “He hasn’t steered us wrong, yet.”
“Copy that,” said the First Sergeant. “What’s next, then?”
“Wilder, take the wheel,” I said, getting out of my door.
“Wylie?” she said, anxiously. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Just stick close in case I have to get back inside fast,” I said, slipping on my pack and checking the load on my weapons.
Then, as an afterthought, I slipped the hammer into my belt. Bringing my M-4 into a ready position, I headed off down the street. I kept sweeping the road in front of me and the houses on either side. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I had a feeling that something was definitely wrong. Spec-4 slipped the Humvee back into gear and crept along behind me. Both gunners brought their weapons to bear and covered the sides of the road.
I kept my left hand on the tactical grip on the front of my weapon and my right hand on the pistol grip. I was careful to keep my finger off of the trigger, but I went ahead and switched the weapon from safe to semi. I brought the weapon tight against my shoulder and started sweeping with the sights of the weapon. With every step I took, the feeling of danger increased until it was almost a buzzing in my head. Something was very, very wrong.
“This is a waste of time,” said Southard. “Get in the vehicle and let’s get the hell out of here.”
I just waved him off with my left hand and continued sweeping from side to side. I could hear a brief exchange behind me which ended with Spec-4 whispering just loud enough that I could hear her.
“Give him a minute, Chuck,” she hissed. “He’s not the type for wild goose chases.”
As we approached a section of road that had several cars parked along both sides, something caught my eye. I froze, mid-step, and crouched down. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach as I found what I’d been looking for. It was a trip wire made from what looked like fishing line. It was almost invisible to the naked eye. If I’d been driving, I never would have seen it in time to stop. I probably wouldn’t have seen it at all.
Releasing the tactical grip with my left hand, I checked the tension on the line. It was taught and didn’t have any play to it. It had been set very well. Whoever had done this was a professional. That didn’t make me very happy. Fortunately, I had a professional of my own.
“Ramirez,” I said into the radio. “I need you up here. Bring your kit.”
“Copy,” he said, in his thick Hispanic accent. “I’m on my way.”
Seconds later, he trotted up next to me with a bag in his hand. He was smiling his perpetual smile and wearing dark sunglasses. He was one of those guys that looked good in anything.
“What you got, man?” he asked, putting his right hand on my left shoulder.
“Trip wire,” I said, pointing. “Looks like fishing line.”
“Madre de dios,” he said, taking off his glasses. “Remind me to never question your gut, jefe.”
“What are we looking at here?” I asked. “How bad is it?”
“Give me a second,” he said, handing me his glasses and weapon. “Cover me while I take a look.”
I motioned for the others to cover the area while I covered Ramirez. He crawled along the trip wire and looked under the vehicles. Although it wasn’t very warm, I was sweating profusely while I waited and covered the area.
“Wylie,” said Spec-4, “we’ve got company. I count a dozen or so zombies heading our way from the south, ETA five minutes at their current speed.”
“Copy that,” I said. “Maintain positions.”
Ramirez stood up and came towards me, shaking his head. He didn’t look happy, anymore. In fact, he looked shocked.
“Look, jefe,” he said. “The guy that did this really wanted whoever tripped it to die. There’s enough claymore mines and C-4 under those cars to put us in orbit.”
“Can you disarm it?” I asked.
“Give me a few minutes,” he said, opening his pack and taking out a small tool kit.
“We may not have a few minutes,” I said. “We’ve got zombies inbound.”
“I’ll try to hurry,” he said, “but it’s not a good idea to rush this. One wrong move and we’re chunky red rain.”
“Well, let’s not do that, then,” I said, smiling. “We’ll hold them off. You clear the trap.”
Ramirez turned without another word and went right to work. I started to head back towards the Humvee when First Sergeant Gregory approached me, crouching low and moving quickly.
“I told the others to get down,” he said. “We’re going to have to deal with those zombies and buy your guy some time.”
“I’m not sure h
ow we’re going to do that without making a lot of noise,” I replied, glancing towards the south to try to get a glimpse of the dead.
“Here,” said the First Sergeant, reaching into his bag. “We all deployed with these but with only three of us, we have a few spares.”
He handed me a black cylinder that I recognized as a silencer. It was cool to the touch and looked like it hadn’t ever been used.
“I don’t think my barrel is threaded for one,” I said, starting to hand it back.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied. “Special Forces have been using a different kind for years.”
He took the silencer out of my hand and slid it over the end of my barrel. Then he locked it in place right over the top of my flash hider. I was shocked and amazed. I’d never seen a silencer like it before. I hadn’t even heard of one like it. It completely eliminated the need to have your weapon machined to accept the silencer. I couldn’t help but hope it worked as well as it went on.
“Are they effective?” I asked.
“We’re about to find out,” he replied. “We already handed these out to your people.”
“Then let’s take out some zombies,” I said, and headed for the Humvee.
The others were already in position as the First Sergeant and I slid in beside them. We were crowded behind the Humvee, using it for cover. I was keeping half an eye on Ramirez to make sure nothing snuck up on him, as he busily worked on the explosives with calm and precise movements. Right then, I wouldn’t have traded places with him for anything.
“Everybody, get ready,” I whispered. “Pick your targets.”
I estimated the range at less than fifty meters. The shots should be easy for all of us, at that range. The zombies still hadn’t noticed us. I think they were just wandering our direction, randomly. None of them seemed alert, in the slightest.
“Fire,” I hissed.
The silencers worked like a dream. Even with seven shooters, the sound was very quiet. In fact, the slap of the bolt was louder than the report of the weapon. In seconds, all of the zombies were down and no longer moving. My people were good, but the Rangers were amazing. My shooting had always been good, but they were experts. Especially the one they called McDonald. He was their designated marksman. The man was almost surgical with a rifle.
Once the zombie situation had been addressed, I turned and headed back towards where Ramirez was working on the explosives. He was crawling out from under a car with his grin back on his face when I trotted up.
“I pulled out six claymore mines and three different C-4 charges that held about two pounds each,” he said, shaking his head. “Mano, that’s called overkill.”
“Are we clear?” I asked.
“As vodka,” he said, loading the explosives into his bag. “Let me secure all this stuff and we can move out. It’s a good thing you stopped us. What tipped you off?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I replied. “I think some of these cars had been moved. It just looked different to me. Something set off my warning bell.”
“Whatever did it,” said the First Sergeant, coming up behind me, “you just keep listening to it. That instinct of yours probably saved all our lives.”
“No probably to it, First Sergeant,” said Ramirez. “There were enough explosives in there to take out most of the block.”
“They were planning on taking out a convoy,” I said. “They must have thought we’d be going back to the jail for additional supplies.”
We all piled back into our vehicles and I slid behind the wheel. Spec-4 reclaimed her spot in the passenger seat and the gunners returned to the turrets. Seconds later, I was driving through the deactivated trap and continuing on our way. We continued on towards the back of the jail and our actual destination, Central High School.
I was noticing that there weren’t any large groups of zombies in the area. Maybe they were spreading out looking for food, or maybe they just wandered off. I’m not sure why they weren’t in the area, but I wasn’t going to complain. I’m thrilled that the zombies had something better to do than to eat us. Maybe if we were lucky, they were chewing on some Freemen.
When we pulled into the parking lot of the high school, I went around to the back. I knew this school well since my oldest son actually went there. I’d been inside a number of times. Although I’d never actually seen the cave entrance, I knew it was there. There were only so many places it could be. It was the oldest high school building in town, so the entrance had to be under the original parts of the building.
I couldn’t see the back of the jail from where we were, but I knew the damage had to have been catastrophic. I could still see wisps of smoke climbing into the air from the far side of the utility company. It had to have burned for days. The fires must have spread to both the historic and the new courthouses, because there was smoke trailing into the air from where I knew that both of those buildings stood.
Along the back entrance to the building was a breezeway where we could park the Humvees without them being seen from the road. I turned around and backed into the breezeway, stopping a few feet from the door. The First Sergeant followed suit and came to a stop a few feet from my front bumper. Once we were out of view, everyone started climbing out and grabbing their gear.
“Listen up, folks,” I said, as we gathered together. “There is likely to be a lot of zombies inside the school. I’m not sure if they evacuated it before the shit hit the fan.”
“Silenced weapons only,” said the First Sergeant. “Fire teams of two and watch each other’s backs. Everybody buddy up.”
He glanced at me to see if I would argue with him, but I just nodded and smiled.
“He’s right,” I agreed. “Stick together and no one goes anywhere alone.”
Everyone paired up and we did a quick weapons check. Once we were content that we were as ready as we were going to get, we headed towards the rear entrance to the school. Spec-4 and I took point with First Sergeant Gregory behind us paired up with Ramirez. Southard paired up with Matthews and the two Rangers stuck together.
The doors were locked but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Taking my combat knife out of my boot, I stuck the tip into the gap in the door and angled it towards the locking mechanism. Then I struck the handle with my hammer. There was a metallic clank and the lock popped free. I pulled the door open and removed the knife. The tip was scratched but not damaged. Sliding it back into the sheath, I brought up my M-4 and turned on the tactical light.
“Stay close,” I said as I slipped inside.
Spec-4 was right on my heels as we filed in and fanned out in the hallway. It was mostly dark inside the school with enough light filtering in from the windows to create pockets of light and shadow. To our left was a hallway that led to the commons area and cafeteria. The old gymnasium was to our right. I knew that was one of the oldest sections of the building, so I decided to start my search there.
The door to the gym wasn’t locked, but it was completely dark inside. Our tactical lights swept the room and illuminated two zombies that were shuffling towards us from near the locker rooms. I swiftly snapped a shot and dropped what had been a woman that was dressed like a coach, in a bloody tack suit. Spec-4 nailed another one in a tattered and bloody button up shirt with bloody khakis. He was only wearing one loafer. He fell in a heap next to the coach. I noticed that there were school ID’s dangling from lanyards around their necks.
We swept the gym in a pattern and didn’t see anymore zombies. Teams of two fanned out and swept the adjoining rooms. I heard suppressed weapons fire from a locker room followed by a muted, “Clear.” Near the west entrance, there was a locked door. I knew where it went, since my son had told me that they took shelter down there during a tornado warning a couple years before. It was the old basement beneath the gym.
I didn’t want to make any more noise than was necessary, so I quickly checked the coach. Just as I had hoped, she had a set of keys attached to her ID lanyard. I snagged them a
nd returned to the locked door. On the third try, I found the key to the lock. Seconds later, we were moving down the stairs using our tactical lights to illuminate the way.
At the bottom of the stairs, I discovered something I didn’t know. My son had failed to mention that it was a dirt floor. As we swept the area, there were lots of boxes stored in piles, but something did catch my eye. On shelves and in alcoves all along the outer wall were old trophies. I didn’t check the inscriptions on any of them, but going by the amount of dust and cobwebs, they had to be decades old.
Two minutes later, we had swept the entire basement and found nothing even remotely resembling a cave entrance. That left only one other possibility. The front part of the building was the oldest part of the entire campus. It had to be in the basement beneath the theater and classrooms of the main building. As I was turning to head back up the stairs, I nearly jumped out of my skin and almost shot a full length mirror that was leaning against the wall. It took me several seconds to get my heart rate back under control. Fortunately, the darkness covered my moment of near panic.
We left the gym and headed for the cafeteria. I knew we had to cut through there to get back to the main part of the building. In the cafeteria, there were about a dozen zombies. Two of them looked like cafeteria workers, but the rest had been students. They were all about the same age as my oldest son. I froze when I recognized one of them. His name had been Phillip Chandler. He was a friend of my oldest son and had been to my house several times. He was a good kid and deserved better than this.
First Sergeant Gregory sensed my hesitation and gave the order to fire. I was grateful for that, since I’d been lost in my own thoughts of the last time I’d seen Phillip playing video games with Elliott at my house. The zombies all fell to the floor and I never fired a shot. Spec-4 had to shake me by the shoulder to snap me out of it. I glanced at her and gave her a “thank you” nod.
“Did you know them?” asked the First Sergeant.
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