“Hello,” Connor answered.
A brief pause.
Connor’s face fell.
“We’ll be there in less than an hour! Stay safe. We love you both.” He hung up and turned to his brother, “We need to get there now!”
“What’s wrong?” James asked, already speeding up. The roads had been decently clear so far and he hoped it would stay that way.
“The men who are hunting survivors, they’re at Uncle Tom’s house. Mom didn’t think they’d seen the barn, but they’re at the house.”
“Damn. We’ll get there soon, and when we do, we’d better be ready,” James said.
Connor nodded and climbed into the backseat where he began preparing their gear for a little “hunting.”
~~~
They pulled onto the dirt road leading to Uncle Tom’s house with their headlights off. Connor had his AR out the window, watching for any sign of movement as they slowly continued down the road. When they came around a line of trees, they saw two running vehicles parked at the house.
“Got ‘em,” Connor whispered, swinging his rifle towards the vehicles. James pulled the truck to a stop and grabbed his binoculars off the dash.
“I see four men and two trucks, and some lights in the field leaving the barn,” he said.
“Plan?”
“Let’s go back to the neighbor’s house, then cut through the trees by the barn, get mom and dad, and get the hell out of here.”
“Roger that.” Connor nodded.
He backed the truck up along the road and into the neighbor’s driveway, pulling to a stop next to the house and making sure to turn the dome lights off.
James quickly grabbed their mom’s Ruger American .270 with a 3-9x40 Vortex scope and swung it over his back and then picked up his AR. Connor grabbed their dad’s AR from the backseat. Jack’s AR-15 was a basic Ruger with iron sights and a thirty-round magazine. Connor swung it onto his back and picked up his own AR.
“Let’s do this,” Connor said.
They took off through the field behind the neighbor’s house, heading for the tree line that would lead to the barn. Hearing one of the trucks pull out of the driveway of Tom’s house, they watched the taillights. The truck turned onto the road and headed to town. Good. Fewer of them, James thought.
Going through the field, they only encountered one zombie, which James killed with his tomahawk. Crouching in the trees, they looked toward the barn where their parents should be hiding. By the light of the moon they could make out two figures standing by the entrance a hundred yards away, armed with a rifle and shotgun.
“No!” James whispered, knowing these figures were not their parents. Connor flipped out the bipod on his AR and set it down on the ground while James did the same.
“Just like prairie dogs,” Connor told his brother.
“Yes,” James responded. He sighted on the left one while Connor sighted on the right.
“One, two, three…” Connor counted down.
The suppressed shots were separated by less than a second and the two bodies slumped to the ground. The brothers stood up and ran in a crouch to the barn. Arriving at the doors, they stabbed both men in the head with their knives. No need for them to come back and make life harder. James peered through the partially open barn door.
“You know, you could have made this a lot easier on yourself,” a cold voice said from inside.
James froze. There were two men inside, one armed with a baseball bat and the other a handgun. Luckily, they had their backs to him, and he quickly scanned the room. It was a typical barn with a hayloft, stalls on the ground floor and everything covered in hay. There were six bodies lying on the floor, fresh blood pooled around them. He noticed a collapsed figure in front of the two men, but he didn’t see anyone else in the barn.
He held up two fingers to his brother, who crouched next to him as they posted up outside the door. James rushed into the room in a crouch, stopping briefly to take aim at the man with the handgun. He fired and blood sprayed out the man’s chest as he fell to the floor. The other man had just turned around when his brother’s bullet took him in the abdomen, doubling him over.
The brothers swept the rest of the room—James the left side and his brother the right. James ran up to the slumped figure on the ground. It was their father, Jack Andderson.
“Dad!” James cried as he fell to his knees, looking at his father, who was bruised and bloody, looking like he’d been shot in the stomach and beaten nearly to death.
“Son…” Jack said, his voice barely a whisper.
“What happened?” James asked, taking in his dad’s wounds, tears brimming in his eyes. He wasn’t a doctor and had no formal training, but even he knew his father was beyond saving. He reached down and grabbed his father’s outstretched hand.
“They took your mother… she—”
He coughed and blood leaked out of his mouth. James didn’t know what to do.
This cannot be happening!
“Your brother?” his dad asked.
His eyes were closed and James knew he was fading quickly.
“He’s here.”
Connor came over and took their dad’s other hand.
“I’m here. Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll get her back,” Connor said, a hard edge in his voice.
“I love you, boys… proud of the men you…” His voiced faded and he breathed his last.
James gripped his father’s hand tighter. He could not, would not believe his dad was gone. With tears streaming down his face, he felt that same tear from Felicia’s death rip even deeper into his heart. He could feel a part of himself dying and a hardness creeping in. How could God allow this to happen? What was the purpose in this, the good that could come of it?
“We need to go now,” Connor said.
Getting up and going over to the two men they had shot, Connor looked at them. He flipped the one over who’d been shot in the stomach and saw that he was still breathing. James stood up, wiping the tears from his eyes, and pulled out his knife. He looked down at Jack and knew he couldn’t let his father come back as one of them.
When he was finished, he wiped the blood from his blade off and replaced it in its sheath as he walked over to stand next to Connor, who crouched by the wounded man.
“Tell me where they took her,” Connor demanded. He shook the man, who just coughed and spit a glob of blood at him. “Suit yourself.”
Connor shot the man in both legs and walked out the door. The man screamed weakly and began to roll around, grabbing at his legs. James kicked the baseball bat away and went over to the other man, picking up the handgun. It was a .38 revolver, his mom’s handgun.
Damn them, he thought. He looked around the rest of the room, counting six bodies that had been there before they’d come in. At least their dad had put up a good fight; he’d been able to kill half a dozen of them before he’d gotten caught.
James walked out to stand next to his brother in the crisp night air.
“The men by the house,” James said, “we’ll get them to talk.”
His brother nodded and they started towards the house.
The night was cool with dew on the tall grass as they crouched in the field behind Uncle Tom’s house. They could only see one of the men in front of the remaining truck, smoking a cigarette in the light of the headlights. More than likely, four of the men had gone with the truck earlier, leaving only one unaccounted for.
“Maybe he’s in the house,” James whispered.
They crept around to the side of the house, staying in the tall grass. The man standing in the headlights wouldn’t be able to see into the darkness. For all practical purposes, they were invisible as they stalked their prey. As they moved, they got a better view of the scene in front of the house. The truck was parked in the driveway. The man who was smoking leaned against the grill of the truck, looking out at the barn in the distance. On the other side of the house was an attached garage with the door open. Inside, the other man wa
s scavenging around in a blue car.
“I think I heard something,” the man with the cigarette said. “It sounded like a scream.”
“Oh, shut it,” said the other man. “Ain’t nuthin’ but the night playin’ tricks on ya.”
The smoking man grunted and took a long pull on his cigarette, blowing out a cloud of billowing smoke.
“I’ll take the guy smoking. You kill the one in the garage,” Connor said under his breath.
James estimated the man was about fifty yards away—a relatively easy shot. He sighted on the man’s back as he rummaged around, took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The man slammed forward against the car and slid down the side, falling to the ground.
The man smoking looked over at his companion, “Fu—”
He was cut off as a bullet slammed into his shoulder, making him drop his cigarette and grasp the wound. Another round took him in the leg and he crumpled to the ground with a cry of pain. As the man squirmed on the ground, the brothers came out of the darkness into the light of the headlights. James looked around, making sure they had taken care of them all, while his brother kept his gun trained on the wounded man.
“I don’t see any more,” James said, coming over to train his gun on the man.
James threw Connor some rope he’d found in the back of the truck, and Connor caught it, leaning his AR against the side of the truck. He grabbed the man by the throat, yanked him up and slammed him against the grill. He pulled the man’s handgun out of his holster and the knife from his boot and threw them away. He then took the rope and bound the man’s hands behind his back. The man struggled a little at first but stopped when Connor punched him in his wounded shoulder.
“Now, we’re gonna to play a little game,” Connor said in a voice that made even his brother shiver. He pulled out his tactical tomahawk and brandished it. “It’s called ‘how much do I hurt you before you tell me what I want?’ Sound like fun?”
“Screw you,” the man sneered.
“Alright.”
Connor cut off a part of the man’s shirt and shoved it into the man’s mouth. He then slammed the spike of the tomahawk into the man’s thigh and savagely ripped it out. The man screamed, but Connor slapped him in the side of the head with the flat of the blade.
“Let’s try again. Do you want to play the game or not?” The man tried to say something but couldn’t get past the gag in his mouth. “Just nod.”
The man nodded.
“Good, now where did they take the woman from the barn?”
The man looked at him and said something that couldn’t be heard through the gag.
Connor ripped the gag out, “What was that?”
“Why would I rat my men out?”
In response, Connor slammed the tomahawk into the man’s side and jerked it forward, cutting a huge gash.
“I’m losing my patience!”
“Okay, please,” the man said, gasping.
“Tell me, now,” Connor growled.
“The courthouse. . . they took her to our base in the courthouse.”
“The one in Linklon?”
“Yes, but you won’t make it in time. They have a game they like to pl—”
The man’s taunt was cut short as the blade of the tomahawk ripped through his throat. He grasped at the wound, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood. Connor casually walked over and collected the man’s knife and handgun while the man slumped to the ground, the life draining from his eyes as blood pooled on the ground.
James looked at his brother with mixed feelings. He’d never seen Connor like this before, not that he could blame him. It had been the only way to find out and James would have done the same thing, but it was still a hard pill to swallow.
James looked at the man on the ground and noticed a red ‘X’ painted on his shirt with what looked like dried blood. He walked over to the man in the garage and rolled him over, noticing the same thing. At least they marked themselves so they’d be easy to identify and kill. James took the man’s machete since they were one short and then he jogged over to the truck and noticed his brother looking around in the backseat.
“They don’t have much in here. Just a bag with some supplies,” Connor said, pulling out a yellow bag.
“Let’s get to the truck then,” James said.
They ran out to the road and back to James’s truck, seeing nothing along the way. Connor threw the bag in the back seat and climbed in. James already had the truck started and they flew down the back roads, heading to Linklon, Nebraska.
9
Safe-Haven
Sunday, post-outbreak day two
Emmett looked in the rearview mirror at the two women in the backseat and glanced over at the empty passenger seat. It hadn’t been his fault, he knew that, but it didn’t relieve the guilt he felt. Trying to save his wife had failed; in the end, shock and blood loss had killed her. He banished the thoughts. What happened had happened. There was no changing that now, only moving forward. He read the clock on the dash: ten forty-three. They should probably stop for the night. Pulling off the interstate at the next exit, he parked the truck on the overpass behind an overturned semi.
“Are we stopping?” Alexis asked, blinking the sleep from her eyes.
“For a few hours. If you girls want to get in the back and lay down, it’ll be a lot more comfortable.”
He shut the truck off and looked back at them.
“I’ll be fine in here,” Ana said, patting the backseat.
“Can I sit in the front with you?” Alexis asked.
“Sure, let me check the perimeter first.”
He grabbed his Beretta and attached the flashlight onto the rail underneath the barrel. He flicked the light on and stepped out, scanning his surroundings. The underside of the semi made a wall to the north, while the guardrail helped obscure the view from the south. To the west was a parked car and the east was where they’d come from. Looking under his truck first, he then went over to the parked car. He shone the light inside and something stirred, raising a hand.
A survivor?
He pulled the door open and took a step back, a horrid smell invading his nostrils. The infected pulled itself from the car and thudded onto the road outside, definitely not a survivor. He shot it in the head, the suppressor muffling the sound. He checked inside, but there weren’t any more. Walking around to the back side of the semi, he looked in the top of the cab. There was a body with its head bashed through the windshield. It wouldn’t be coming back. He walked back to his truck and opened the door for his daughter.
Getting out, she gave him a hug.
“I miss her, Dad,” she said, choking back a sob.
“I do too, sweetie. Your mom and I may not have gotten along the last few years, but I still loved her.”
“I know, Dad. You did everything you could.”
Emmett took a step back and looked his daughter in the eyes. He could see her grief, but she was far from defeated. He gazed into those hazel eyes and saw determination and a will to survive.
“I’m proud of you, Alexis. You’ve turned into a fine young woman and I couldn’t be happier.”
He pulled her back into the hug, feeling a surge of emotion. He usually kept those more in check, but with all that was going on, he figured the least he could do was let his daughter know how much he loved her. They stood there for an uncertain amount of time, silent tears streaming down Alexis’s face. He held her and let himself feel all the things he had denied for years. A great sadness was washed away by the love he felt for his daughter. If he had to he’d destroy the whole world just to save her. Finally breaking the embrace, he stepped back and wiped the tears from his daughter’s eyes.
“We should get some sleep. No telling what we’ll face tomorrow,” he said.
She nodded and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”
She had a slight smile on her face when she climbed into the passenger seat. He walked around to the other side of the
truck and shook his head. His daughter knew how much he disliked her calling him “daddy.” He’d made a huge deal about how she was a grown woman now and should not address him like that anymore. But he had a sneaking suspicion she knew that he secretly liked it. He climbed into the seat and glared at her, and her smile widened as she closed her eyes and leaned the seat back. He was careful not to let her see his smile.
Ana was already sprawled out in the backseat fast asleep. It had been a long couple of days. He looked back at the young woman they had picked up. They’d been through a lot already, and he trusted her. She was skilled at shooting and killing the infected, and she’d be an asset for them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something. They hadn’t learned much about her—just that she had some strangely sacrificial friends and walked around with an air of confidence. Ana was an anomaly and he was curious about her past. Not that it mattered much now. It was a whole new world and someone’s past only mattered if it would help them survive. He leaned his seat back and held his Beretta in his lap. He would sleep for six hours and then they’d need to be moving again.
Emmett was moving before he was fully awake, his gun up and pointing out the window where the sound had come from. It was just an infected thumping against the back window, trying to get in. With the bars on the windows, it couldn’t even touch the glass. He looked at the clock. He’d slept for six and a half hours.
I overslept, he thought, I haven’t done that in years. He leaned his seat forward and turned the truck on. The girls stirred but didn’t wake up. They could use a little more sleep. Putting the truck in reverse, he backed up. The infected tried to keep pace but couldn’t. It was now in front of the truck, slowly coming at them with its arms outstretched.
He nodded to it. Thanks for the wakeup call, he thought as he ran it over.
They were back on I-29 a minute later, resuming their trek northwards.
~~~
Ana awoke, stretching and sitting up in the backseat.
“What do you have to eat?” she asked, yawning.
The Brother's Creed (Book 1): Outbreak Page 9
