The Rotting Souls Series (Book 4): Charon's Coffers

by Ray, Timothy A.

  She nodded her head, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. “I didn’t tell you this, I didn’t even tell him, but I was pregnant. I knew what it was from, there was little denying it. Matt and I hadn’t had sex for months when you guys showed up, just too tied up with work, and suddenly I’m pregnant?”

  “You never told—,” he began.

  “Because I swallowed a pill and ended it. As much as I wanted kids, that would have devastated him. I mean, there would be no question who’s it was, right?” her eyes raised, focusing on him, fear rolling around beneath the surface. “I can’t lose him, Todd.”

  What was he supposed to do with all of this? Why was she choosing now? “Okay. Well, you told me the two of you were trying to have a baby, spending a lot of time working on that, in fact. It is possible it’s his.”

  “Yes, it is. And no matter who’s it really is, it will be regardless,” she said, her eyes making it clear there would be no argument on the subject.

  “Ros, we had sex once, briefly, come on,” he remarked, giving her a sideways glance.

  She chuckled, “what? Last night? You’re fast buddy, but no one’s sperm is that fucking fast. Look, I know that I asked you to forget what happened, to not even think about it, but really? You’re going to sit there and deny, to me, that we had sex two months ago? Don’t you remember that seminar that brought me to Phoenix? You snuck up and kept me company, without telling anyone what you were doing? I kept it from Matt, I kept my promise and haven’t said a word, but let’s be realistic here, that’s when it happened. And once? With you, apparently all it takes. I’m not stupid. That’s twice now you’ve knocked me up, and with five years of trying with Matt, to have that happen right after you and I have unprotected sex—again. It’s a no-brainer.”

  The fact was, he had forgotten about Phoenix. With the world gone to shit, the mad-rush to get out of town, with everyone he loved in danger, it had completely slipped his mind. How had he forgotten it? He didn’t know. She had been insistent that it stay between them and he had made a point of forcibly believing he hadn’t done that; but he had. And like the night before, he had been short on protection and they’d been so riled up— “Okay. So what now?” he managed, trying to wrap his mind around what she was saying.

  “This baby, if that is what this is and not my paranoid mind overreacting, is Matt’s. You’re right, he and I did have sex right before we left town, and we don’t exactly have the facilities needed to verify DNA anyway, so that’s no problem. You two do have similar features, hair, eye color, so it won’t be like a blond-haired baby popping out of two brunettes, or with darker skin, so that much will be fine. I need you to not fight it, to let it be. Don’t interfere. Or he and I will just disappear. There’s a whole world out there now and plenty of places for us to live, and if we go, you will never find us.”

  He was speechless.

  “Todd? Please?” she begged, her lower lip quivering.

  “I—wouldn’t—I can’t. I wouldn’t interfere. I’m happy for the both of you. How could I not be?” he managed.

  She leaned forward and embraced him. “Thank you,” she whispered, squeezed him tightly, then leaned back once more, tears flowing down her cheeks.

  “May I have a drink?” he asked, his throat aching and a few of his own tears threatening to spill forth.

  She smiled, lifted the glass and tilted it enough for him to take a few sips without it flooding the front of his shirt. “Your parents are dead, as is Monica’s mother and sister.”

  He spat the water out, spraying her face and making her recoil. “What?”

  “They died in the firefight. Casey, Roxanne, Manny, a few others, murdered by mercenaries that Sean hired to bring him down here,” she told him calmly, gauging his reaction.

  The horror he felt in his soul was all encompassing, now his grief surged forward and overwhelmed him. “My parents? That son of a bitch killed my parents?” The last words he had with his mother had been spoken out of anger—

  “Yes,” she answered quickly, her hand reaching out and touching his leg in an attempt to comfort him. “From what we’ve learned from a surviving member of his goon squad, he had them pick him up in Washington shortly after he lost his feeds to the compound. He knew what it meant, what would happen next, but thought it would be you going after him, not Monica. He boobytrapped the landing site in Washington and left on a helicopter the mercenaries brought with them. They didn’t want to be detected, so they flew south and landed just outside Morenci, not long before we came through ourselves. The battle there was over, but the undead were swarming the streets. They battled their way through, commandeered abandoned vehicles and drew the walkers after them as they headed up her by ground. One of his men worked at disabling the cameras, while another drew the undead towards the walls, using them as a distraction to make us think that Renny’s crew was behind it. Joseph went out thinking the threat was external. He didn’t know that Sean was already inside.”

  “How could he get in without anyone realizing it?” he asked, not really thinking of what he was saying. His mind was still reeling from the information he’d been given, the grief over his parents overwhelming everything to the point where he wasn’t even really listening.

  She took a sip of water, then faced him once more, “he had an entrance put in, like the one you and I came through on the northern wall.”

  “Of course he did. Bastard loves his secrets,” he blurted out, choking back tears.

  “It was an ambush. People were dying before they even realized that the threat was behind them, within the compound, not threatening them from without. It would have been a slaughter, but Michelle blew up one of the tankers with a rocket launcher and killed most of Sean’s men,” she explained, making his head jerk up. “I know, we still don’t understand why she even had one. She won’t talk about it. But it wasn’t enough. He still had plenty to round everyone up and line them up like he was Negan carrying a damn baseball bat. He murdered the Baileys, Casey was shot by one of his men, and he personally killed Roxanne for baiting him. Only the arrival of Bill’s group stopped him before he killed Nick as well.”

  “My kids? Sam?” he asked, mind reeling.

  She smiled slightly, “Matt wasn’t lying, they are okay. They are in their room right now, waiting to see you. But I can’t take you to them until you calm down. They won’t take the chance you’ll go after Sean.”

  “After everything, how can you sit there and let him live? Why Ros?” he asked, blinking away the water that was stinging his eyes.

  “Because he claims there’s a cure.”

  Chapter 20

  Sequestered

  Monica

  Malmstrom AFB, Montana

  “Ma’am, I need you to follow me,” a kid in uniform told her.

  She had just gotten off the helicopter and was too wrapped up in what was going on to pay him much attention. She hadn’t been able to see anything since they’d taken off in Washington and from the amount of activity surrounding her, she wished she had gotten an aerial view so she’d have a better idea of what they were stepping into.

  “It’s a fucking zoo,” John muttered, watching as a group of soldiers jogged by in camo fatigues.

  The runways had mostly been filled, with only one or two being left open for actual use. The rest had been used for cargo space, giant containers that looked to be shipping containers, stacked on top of each other so closely she doubted a single body could squeeze between. They were three to four high, and formed a wall that stretched beyond her capability of being able to see.

  Vitarius whistled as an Abram tank roared by, a mechanic in coveralls following close behind, yelling at someone inside as he directed him to a hangar on their right. Other vehicles that looked to be needing repair were scattered haphazardly in front of the hangar, and dozens of people were toiling around them.

  “Where the hell are we?” Naima asked, eyes widening. A jet flew by overhead and she ducked, hand instinctively goi
ng to her head. “Holy crap, that was close.”

  Mark was helping Jenn down from the helicopter and a couple of soldiers were disembarking on the other side. She didn’t see the commander that had forced them to come along, but felt assured that it wouldn’t be the last time they’d meet.

  “You’re at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana,” a voice spoke up, and she turned to find a twenty-year old man with cropped black hair and a shaved face, unbelievably wearing a white shirt and tie, staring at them with a grin upon his young face. “I thought that would be obvious.”

  “Nothing is obvious, son,” Mark snarked. “Like, what the hell are we doing here?”

  “If you’ll just come with me, I’ll explain things to you,” the man replied, motioning with his arm for them to follow.

  Vitarius rolled his eyes, “looks like a paper pusher. Bet he’s yet to even fire a gun.”

  The man’s smile faltered, “appearances can be deceiving. Now, you can follow me voluntarily or I can have Captain Braddock come back over here and escort you where you need to go. I’m trying to be nice about this, all things considered.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she blurted out, glaring at him. Yet, her feet began to move, the others slowly falling in behind her.

  “Your status has not yet been clarified, friend or foe,” he explained, pausing as a jeep thrust by.

  John coughed, “you go on about the obvious, but you seemed to be missing it as well. We’re not undead, so that would be friend, not foe.”

  It was like the man didn’t even hear what John had said, as he continued walking towards a two-story building in the distance. “You’ve got to understand, this whole thing has been seen as either a very big accident or a terrorist attack. As you have admitted knowing the man we believe responsible, as you have even mentioned that you were formerly friends with him, it becomes a gray area about what you may or may not be responsible for in regards to the billions that have died since this outbreak has occurred. You can imagine, not even Hitler is as hated as Mr. Flaggerty is about to be. He too had friends, and a special tribunal to deal with them.”

  “Did you just refer to me as a Nazi?” Mark growled, coming to a stop. “I know damn well you didn’t, otherwise I’ll bury my foot in your fucking ass.”

  “Mark—,” she attempted, putting a hand out, but he slapped it away.

  “No, it’s fucking bullshit. We had no idea about any of it. If we had, we would have tried to stop it. Fuck, we were going to Washington to kill that asshole, not to help him,” the larger man snapped.

  The man’s tie blew with the wind as he turned to face them, “And that’s the only reason you’re not in cuffs being escorted to the brig. But you might end up there anyway, I don’t know. There’s a lot of people here that think the best thing to do is to put a bullet in the lot of you and be done with it.”

  She stopped walking and stared at the man. “If you want us dead, why bring us here?”

  “Oh, I never said I wanted you dead, just that others do. I, on the other hand, have been watching you people for a long time and I know for a fact that none of you knew this was going to happen,” the stranger answered with a smirk. When he saw her questioning glance, he laughed. “Oh, come on, you really think you were flying under the radar?” he mocked, using his fingers to accentuate quotation marks. “Flaggerty spent quite a chunk of money, investing in land, buying weapons, working with defense contractors. Parts for a Huey? He didn’t tell you that shit was off Ebay, did he? Because that sort of stuff flags. Then there’s the contractors, engineers, mechanics. You guys may have thought you brought a lot of that stuff together, but the truth is, you had very little to do with any of it. He brought people in while you people were at work, putting together that chopper of yours, installing security systems, building the compounds, setting up the agriculture, the piping, the solar panels. The man could barely figure out how to install a satellite dish for cable without a manual, you really believed him when he told you otherwise?”

  “The only reason you were allowed to carry on was we had bigger fish to fry. Your compounds were in the pipeline for a serious FBI investigation to see if you were a bunch of nutters. Defense contracts or not, no way Mr. Flaggerty should have been able to get hands on some of that tech you all are using, just no way. Something dirty was going on, we just thought we had more time,” the man finished, shaking his head.

  “And why do you say you know for sure that we didn’t have anything to do with it?” she asked curiously, trying to wrap her mind around everything that was being said—none of the last seven years had been what they thought. They had all been played for fools.

  The man pointed at Mark, “he was in Columbus, almost near ground zero. You and your husband were still in Tucson. Those girls out in California didn’t even make it out of their town. That couple from Las Vegas, they’d have known better to be anywhere near that strip when this shit hit, and that old couple from Utah never even made it, did they? Not to mention your SWAT friend out of Arkansas and that stoner kid out of Texas. Pretty fucking spread out for a bunch of people planning for an apocalypse. If you had any clue what was coming, you’d all already be there safely behind those walls, waiting it out. No, I don’t think you’re responsible, but I do think you’re accountable to help clean it up. Like it or not, you were involved with the man that started this. The man that actually helped get a dirty bomb into the hands of religious fanatics and pointed them at a major city. A man that cares so little about people he deems friends, that he’d kill them the instant they questioned anything he did. I mean, he had no problem icing your friends or your wife, right?” he asked, and Mark’s face froze.

  “Excuse me?” the bigger man stammered, eyes narrowing.

  “Fuck me, I thought they’d told you,” the man moaned, glancing around nervously and trying his best to stand beneath Mark’s hard gaze. “Look, I’m sorry okay? I thought they let you call home during your flight, it never occurred to me—.”

  Mark stepped forward, making the man backpedal a couple of steps. “Are you telling me my wife is dead? That Sean killed her?”

  The man’s hands were up and for the first time, she saw a hint of fear in his eyes. “Okay big guy, I’m not your enemy. Maybe—.”

  “Monica, get Todd on the phone—NOW!” Mark thundered, her hands already trying to fish it out of her pockets and frantically dialing home.

  As it began to ring, she handed it over and gave the pencil-neck a dirty glance. Things were about to go to hell and she didn’t know if she’d be able to stop it. Or maybe join in and help him kick some ass herself. It was fifty-fifty and as Mark waited impatiently for the phone to pick up, she realized she didn’t know which way she’d go.

  Chapter 21

  Clean Up

  Sabrina

  Compound 1

  It took a lot of maneuvering, but they were able to get the wreckage of the tanker moved away from the wall it had incinerated, largely due to the wench on the Humvee and a lot of men pushing it out of the way. Then they had used the fuel truck to place a different tanker across the gap, using shrapnel and other metallic debris to create a makeshift barricade. One that someone would have to constantly stand guard by, at least until they could repair the breach.

  The important thing was, the fires were out and she had just finished helping get the last body moved to the jeeps for transportation over to Compound 2 for burial. Bill had offered to set some of his folks to doing that, knowing that it was too personal of a job for those that were left, and most of that was kids.

  It was horrifying, when she thought back to that meeting they’d held, all the people that had been assembled, to know that almost all of them were gone now. Alicia was standing by her side, dirty, exhausted, but still alive. Joseph had gone over with the last of the bodies, Sam and the other children having already gone ahead of him. That left, what? Matt, Todd, Ros, Jim, and Valerie? Were there any other adults left? Who the hell was going to take care o
f all these kids? She sure as shit was no babysitter. Fuck that noise.

  All those people had come here to be safe, but was it? Were they really better off here? It seemed the more you had, the more other people wanted to take it away from you. Maybe she should just take Alicia and head home, see what’s left, who in her family might still be alive, and try to start over. She recognized the logic of how difficult it would be out there on her own, most of the cities abandoned or severely crippled, but it beat being here with a large fucking target on her back.

  “What do we do now?” Alicia asked her, almost as if catching a whiff of her thoughts.

  She smirked, “the only thing we can, head back to the other compound.”

  “I think they rode off in all the jeeps,” Alicia groaned.

  She paused briefly to look at the blood stains on the ground by her feet, people that had been murdered right in front of her, and thought of how close she had come to being one of them. “The pain in your legs will remind you you’re alive. For the moment, let’s be grateful for that.” The chastened teen looked away and she had a momentary flash of regret, but shoved it aside. If they had to walk, they walked. What the fuck else were they going to do?

  She started towards the doors that would lead into the tunnels when something caught her eye; a discarded rocket launcher. “Yeah, don’t think we should just leave that out here,” she snarked, snatching it up. “Damn, shit’s heavy.”

  “What did you expect?” Alicia smirked.

  Rolling her eyes, she hefted it in front of her and began her trek down the steps. There was a cart at the base with weapons they’d scavenged after the firefight, and she gratefully threw the launcher on top of it. Let someone else deal with it, at least it wasn’t out there in the open lying in dirt.