The Reckoning - 02

by D. A. Roberts

  “Nice night for a walk,” I said, as I raised my weapon and pointed it right at him.

  Shades spun around but his weapon was leaning against the back of the guard shack. He started to fumble for the pistol on his belt, but stopped when he saw that all three of us had him covered. He was tense for a moment, then visibly relaxed and took his hand away from his pistol.

  “What brings you up here?” he asked, acting innocent.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I replied.

  “I just came up to check the gate,” he lied, looking nervous.

  “Who were you talking to on the radio?” demanded Spec-4.

  “What….er….what radio?” he asked, stammering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What the hell is going on, Bertram?” demanded Josh, iron in his voice.

  “What are you talking about, Sarge?” whined Shades. “I just came up here to check the gate.”

  “There’s a guard stationed up here,” I replied. “Inside the guard shack.”

  Spec-4 stepped to the side and glanced in. Then she glanced back and shook her head.

  “What did you do with the officer that was on duty up here?” I demanded, raising my weapon.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he whined. “I just told him that I was here to take over. I told him I couldn’t sleep and there was no sense in both of us being awake.”

  I decided right then that I would have to do something about that. We’d put a protocol in place to make sure no one surrendered a post to someone unless they were supposed to be there. Maybe we could use a password or something like that. But that was something to worry about later. Right now, I had more pressing things to deal with. Like my rising temper and the little traitor that we’d just caught.

  “Let’s cut the bullshit,” I snapped. “We were watching you on the camera and listening to your radio with the scanner. We know what you were doing.”

  Shades seemed to grow even paler in the cold moonlight. He started getting very nervous and twitchy. I was afraid he was going to do something stupid, like fire off a shot from an unsuppressed weapon. As quiet as it was, the shot would be heard for miles. It would certainly attract the attention of any zombie in range of the sound.

  “Keep your hand clear of that weapon,” I snapped. “If you so much as twitch, you’re a dead man.”

  Slowly, he raised his hands, but his eyes kept darting back and forth like a trapped animal.

  “Turn around very slowly and place your hands against the back of the guard shack,” I instructed.

  “Fine,” he said, snidely, “but I want the woman to pat me down.”

  “In your dreams, scumbag,” said Spec-4, disgustedly.

  Shades turned towards the wall but kept looking over his shoulder at us with a smirk on his face. I determined right then and there that I was going to wipe that smirk off of his smug little face. Once his hands were against the wall, he continued his mocking tone.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Arrest me? I don’t submit myself to your authority. I’m a Freeman. Your government no longer exists.”

  I took two steps forward and drove the butt of my weapon into the back of his head, bouncing it off the wall. He fell to the ground, unconscious. There was a bloody spot on the wall where his head had struck it.

  “No one ever said anything about arresting you, asshole,” I said, almost under my breath.

  Quickly, I removed his pistol and searched him. I found his extra ammunition and the radio he’d been using. I also found a hand drawn map of the Underground and all of our defenses were marked on it. Then I placed him in handcuffs and double locked them, just to be sure. His head wound was superficial. It would bleed for a few minutes, but he’d be fine. I wasn’t going to waste our medical supplies on him.

  “What are you going to do with him?” asked Josh, a surprising amount of anger in his voice.

  “Actually,” I said, grinning, “I think I’ll let him go.”

  “What?!” said Spec-4, shocked.

  “Just trust me,” I replied.

  I sent for an officer to take over gate duty. Then Josh and I each grabbed one of Shades’ arms and lifted him off the ground. We carried him between us and took him back down to the Hive. Once back down at the nerve center of the Underground, I set about organizing my next move.

  “Josh, I need a disposable vehicle,” I said. “Something we won’t miss.”

  “How about the security truck?” he asked. “It’s all but useless. I wouldn’t take it out during a toddler attack, let alone in the midst of zombies.”

  I remembered the vehicle he was referring to. It was an SUV, allegedly. It was one of those tiny, stripped-down economy SUV’s that was about as useful off-road as a submarine in the desert.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s perfect. Can you have it brought around?”

  “I’ll get on it,” he said, and headed out.

  “Want me to do anything?” asked Spec-4.

  “Yeah, get me Ramirez,” I said. “I have a job for him, too.”

  She gave me a suspicious look but headed out, leaving me alone with Shades. He was still out cold, so not much of a conversationalist. I just leaned back in my chair and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. Josh was back first with the Shit Utility Vehicle. It was white with a yellow light bar on top and the security company logo emblazoned on the side.

  By the time Shades regained consciousness, I had my plan ready. Once he was looking around and groaning, I approached him with a cup of coffee. The coffee was for me, not for him. He wasn’t getting jack shit from me. When his eyes focused on me, he scowled.

  “Hit me from behind,” he muttered. “Typical. You know you couldn’t have taken me if my back hadn’t been turned.”

  I’ve heard inmates make similar statements about how I never could have done anything if they weren’t in handcuffs or behind a door. It was pure bullshit. I’d always wanted to be able to call them out on it and shove it in their faces. Well, the rules had changed since the apocalypse started. For one, I didn’t have to take his shit anymore.

  Handing my rifle to Spec-4, I reached down and removed his handcuffs. Then I stepped back and waited for him to get to his feet. He cautiously stood up, waiting to see if I was going to rush him or just shoot him instead. Once he was on his feet, I held out my hands with the palms up.

  “Well,” I said, “here I am. You’re not cuffed and I’m not behind you. Show me what you’ve got.”

  “You’re wearing body armor and you have weapons,” he said, backing slowly away.

  I dropped my equipment belt to the floor and tossed my hammer on the desk. Then I removed the body armor and dropped it beside the belt. Removing my boot knife from my boot, I sat it on the table and gave him a mocking smile.

  “What now?”

  “The others will interfere,” he said, almost whining.

  “No they won’t,” I assured him. “If you win, you walk out of here.”

  His eyes started darting around the room, desperately searching for an escape route. There were only two doors out of the room. Spec-4, Ramirez and Southard were covering one and Josh and Banner were on the other one. They hadn’t put down their weapons, either. His only way out of here was through me.

  “Are you going to do something or are you just full of shit?” I asked, mocking him.

  Suddenly, he rushed forward in a blind charge. There was no technique to his attack; it was just pure schoolyard bullshit. As he reached for me, I sidestepped and grabbed his extended right wrist with my right hand and twisted sharply. When he screamed and lifted his head, I smashed him right in the mouth with my left hand. Blood and teeth flew into the air as he fell to the ground.

  “My kids fight better than you do,” I sneered as I let go of his arm.

  He rolled around on the floor for a few minutes, holding his mouth.

  “Come on, asshole,” I said. “I even used my left hand. If
I’d used my right, I would have broken your jaw.”

  “I think he’s had enough,” said Josh.

  “You’re probably right,” I agreed. “These Freemen have no heart. They’re all bad-asses against unarmed civilians or when they outnumber you. One on one, they’re nothing. They’re undisciplined, untrained and unintelligent. Basically, they’re just thugs.”

  “We’ll see,” Shades managed to mutter between whimpers.

  “You’re pathetic,” I said. “You’re not even worth killing.”

  “So what do you want to do with him?” asked Southard.

  “Give him a gun, some food and a car and get him the fuck out of my AO,” I snapped.

  “What if he goes and tells the Freemen where we are?” asked Spec-4, concerned.

  “Let him,” I said, sarcastically. “If they’re not any better than this idiot, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Southard and Banner dragged him to his feet and out of the room. I watched as they shoved him inside the crappy little SUV and tossed a couple of MRE’s in the back seat. They also unloaded his rifle and tossed it in the back. Then I walked out of the Hive with the others behind me.

  “Listen to me, asshole,” I said. “Take this and get the hell out of here. If we ever see you again, I won’t be this merciful.”

  Shades didn’t waste any time. He fired up the engine and took off for the exit. Southard followed him in a Humvee with Banner on the SAW. I had already stationed Webber on the gate to let him through. Once he was out of sight, I turned back to Spec-4 and Ramirez.

  “Do you think he bought it?” asked Spec-4.

  “I thought my performance was convincing,” I assured her. “I’m willing to bet he’s convinced we’ve totally underestimated the Freemen.”

  “With any luck,” said Spec-4, “he’ll head right for them.”

  “Yep,” I agreed. “Ramirez, how did you rig the explosives? There’s no way to know how long it will take him to get back to wherever they are now.”

  “Don’t worry, mano,” he said, smiling. “There are enough explosives in that SUV to put it on the moon. They’re rigged to a pressure switch. They’ll blow when he gets out of the vehicle.”

  I just smiled and nodded. Not only had we sent the traitor packing, we had sent him back to his people with a little surprise. It was one that I was very certain that they would not enjoy, so long as Shades didn’t stop or get dragged out of the vehicle by the dead. Well, even then we would take out the traitor and a shitload of zombies at the same time.

  All in all, it was a good move for us. If he made it back to the Freemen he would deal them a severe blow when the explosives detonated. He didn’t have a radio and only had one magazine of ammunition. If he was going to report back to them, he’d have to do it in person. He’d have to get out of the SUV to make his report. Then he’d deliver our message instead. Our message was simple.

  Boom!

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Deadly Response

  “Men should be either treated generously or destroyed,

  because they take revenge for slight injuries

  - for heavy ones they cannot.”

  - Niccolo Machiavelli

  Shades had only been gone about half an hour when we heard the explosion and saw the fireball roll skyward. The explosion was almost due south of us, from somewhere near Springfield Lake. I couldn’t figure what was out that way that they would want to take control of, but I hoped we had just done massive damage to it. With any luck, we got them all. Unfortunately, my luck doesn’t get that good.

  I fixed the location in my head as best I could and headed down to the Hive. I wanted to look at the big map on the wall and try to figure out where that explosion had been. There weren’t all that many places out that direction that could easily be defended. When the secondary explosion went off, it shook the ground beneath my feet.

  “What the hell was that?” I yelled at Spec-4.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, shocked.

  We ran back up the ramp to see a massive cloud of black smoke rolling into the sky. You could see the flames leaping into the air. It had to be at least three miles away, yet we could clearly see the flames. Whatever we hit, it must have been extremely volatile. Then realization began dawning on me.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered. “They were at the Fabretti Ammunition Plant.”

  “The what?” asked Spec-4.

  “Fabretti Ammo,” I said. “I completely forgot about that place. They have a plant outside of town where they make ammunition.”

  “You must have hit the powder storage,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Good,” I replied. “That should cost them dearly.”

  “Let’s hope they get the message and leave us alone,” said Webber, standing beside the gate.

  “I don’t see how they could mount much more of an offense,” I answered. “How many of them could there be?”

  “Quite a few if they recruited all the inmates we released,” said Webber, looking back at me with a worried look on his face.

  I hadn’t considered that. I knew that they had been watching us for some time, but I didn’t know for how long. Potentially, there were a few hundred possible recruits that we had just turned loose.

  “That would explain how they knew we were in the jail,” said Spec-4, shaking her head.

  The Freemen were the perfect group for a bunch of recently released criminals. They hated law enforcement, the government and anyone who got in their way. They took whatever they wanted and had no regard for anyone other than themselves. In fact, I would guess that every one of the Freemen probably had a rap-sheet somewhere. It would explain all the crappy tattoos and lack of discipline I’d observed.

  “Let’s just hope that they don’t know where we are now,” I said, still watching the rising black cloud.

  The fire had died down where all we could see was the glow, but the black smoke cloud was massive. I was thankful that the wind was blowing it away from us, not towards us. Even if we didn’t get all of them, I knew that we had dealt them two heavy blows in the last two days. We’d destroyed huge resources of food and weapons. We’d also taken away two secure bases where they could rest and go to ground. All in all, we’d hurt them badly. The question was did we hurt them bad enough to keep them from coming back after us? I could only hope so. However, hope was not enough. We were going to have to assume that they would come after us again. To do anything else was to invite disaster.

  We returned to the Hive and I located the Fabretti plant on the map. It was on the far side of Springfield Lake in a remote location. It was surrounded by a high chain-link fence and you couldn’t see the place from the road. If they had avoided the attention of the zombies, they could have held up in there almost indefinitely. That explosion and fireball had rang the dinner bell for every zombie within ten miles.

  I doubled the patrols that day and had Josh change the rotation. If Shades had managed to give away any info on us, I wanted it to be wrong. We would change our patrol schedule and double check all of our defenses. The last thing I wanted to find was sabotage. That was one reason why I had insisted on Shades being assigned to internal security instead of exterior. There were fewer things he could do without being seen.

  By mid-day, all of my patrols had checked in. There were no signs of tampering with or breaches in our defenses. Internal sweeps had found nothing, either. Hopefully, we had minimized the impact he could have on us by never letting him have access to sensitive areas. Josh had talked to all three of his security staff to make certain no one was working with Shades.

  Lasagna was irate that Shades had “betrayed their uniform” by going to the Freemen. Weasel-face had found a girlfriend among the survivors we had brought in with us. He was now sharing a sleeping area with one of the women who had been inside the drugstore we liberated when we lost Alex Parker. He now had a vested interest in keeping this place safe.

  Packer was livid that Josh would even
question her. She told him that she had heard about how the Freemen treated captive women. She wanted nothing to do with anyone who would do something like that. She calmed down when he explained that it was just precautionary to ask everyone who worked with him. She explained that she hadn’t ever trusted or liked Shades. I believed her. I’d seen the look she gave the three stooges the day we met at the front gate.

  The afternoon passed with me and the others going over the changes we were implementing in security procedures. We changed times, frequency, number and composition of the patrols. We even added a relief password to the guard rotation to keep someone from assuming a post that they weren’t assigned to, just in case. It was almost dinner time when my radio crackled to life.

  “Front gate to Grant,” said a voice I recognized as Corporal Winston.

  “Go ahead,” I replied.

  “You might want to get up here,” he said. “There’s something going on. We hear music up here.”

  “10-9,” I said, surprised. “Say again, did you say music?”

  “Confirmed,” he replied. “You’d have to hear it to believe me.”

  “On my way,” I said. “Out.”

  I grabbed my weapons and pack, and then ran out the door of the Hive. Bowman was just getting out of a Hemmitt when I cleared the steps. He was wearing his uniform, but not the body armor and weapons. He also had grease on his face and hands.

  “Hey, Wylie,” he called. “Got a second?”

  “Not really,” I replied, “unless you can tell me about it on the way to the front gate.”

  “Climb in,” he said, grinning.

  We both piled into the Hemmitt and he fired up the engine. As he was pulling it into gear, he turned to me with a big smile on his face.

  “I’ve been tinkering,” he said, as he started driving for the ramp.

  “With what?”

  “I took one of the mini-guns we scavenged off of the crashed C-130 and mounted it on the back of this Hemmitt,” he said, proudly.

  “That’s awesome,” I replied. “What made you think of that?”