by Kirk Allmond
Chapter 12
Red River Depot
Renee found Victor sitting with his legs crossed on floor of his cabin. He and Max were building a giraffe with Legos. She watched from the doorway as Victor explained to Max why giraffe's have such "silly long necks" and "crazy tongues." Max was smart and often asked questions that other children his age would not ask. Victor was so proud of Max, and it showed every moment that he spent with his son. Max giggled with delight as Victor stuck out his tongue, badly imitating a giraffe reaching for high leaves on a tree. Renee placed a hand over her mouth and tried to suppress a laugh of her own. It didn't work.
Victor looked towards the door and smiled as he saw his sister. "What's up, Ren?"
"Hey, Vern," she said. "Hey, little Max-monster!" She tousled the small boy's hair as she sat down on the edge of their bed. The father and son started to build a lion now. After a few minutes, Renee spoke. "We're almost out of food. I'm not sure what we have that the kids will eat now. I just got Holly to eat some canned green beans."
"Oh, those are yum!" said Max. He was still focusing on building the lion as he spoke. His little hands worked quickly.
"We're stopping later today at a military base for ammunition," said Victor. "I'll keep an eye out for some food. There was a large civilian contingency at this base. We should be able to find something."
Renee thought about that for a moment before she said, "I'd like to be in charge of finding food."
"Yeah! That's a great idea, Aunt Renee," exclaimed Max.
"I'm inclined to agree with my boy," said Victor with a smile and tousled Max's hair. "Who do you want with you?"
"I can get in and out by myself without anything seeing me," she said. "If I have someone with me, I'll have to fight every zombie I come across. And honestly, that's just not something I feel like doing."
"What if you come across more than you can handle? You'll have no backup," said Vic.
"I survived for six months with two small children, no backup, and no super powers. I think I can handle an hour or two by myself," she said with a smile.
Victor looked at her and sighed. "I won't stop you, but I don't like it, Ren. How are you going to carry all the food we need?"
His sister shrugged. "I'll find a wheelbarrow or something. Vic, I made it months with only an hour a day to scavenge. This is what I'm good at."
"If you find a good stash and the coast is clear, come back and get some help to haul it out," said Vic, against his better judgment. "We're about an hour from the base now.”
"All right," said Renee, standing to leave. "I'll go get some things ready. I'll grab a radio so we can keep in touch, and I'll let you know how it goes."
"Thanks, Ren. Be safe," said Vic as he watched his sister walk away.
"Don't worry, Daddy," Max said. "She's really good at finding stuff."
Victor smiled and kissed the crown of Max's head. "You're right, buddy. And guess what?"
"You love me most?" Max asked and looked at his dad.
"Oh my gosh!" Victor exclaimed. "How do you always know?"
Victor scooped his little boy up into his arms and began to tickle him. Max's giggles filled the train car, and Victor silently wished that this moment would never end.
----
The train crossed a small river and entered a huge prairie. It had been turned into farmland and was now overgrown. Miles after mile of rotten corn, still standing in the fields, flew by. Victor sat in the dining car, watching the countryside pass him by. Every now and then, he would spot a zombie stumbling through a field. Once, he saw huge flocks of birds take wing as one-stepped too close. Zombies make great scarecrows, he thought absently as he planned their trip into the military base. Eventually, it was getting difficult to think straight, and Vic could no longer fight the exhaustion that was coming over him. He stood and made his way back to his train car to sleep a little. He decided he was worth more with a little more rest under his belt.
It wasn't long before Victor awoke to Shelton's voice over the train speakers. "Next stop, Red River Army Depot. Bradley Fighting Vehicles, ammunition, and food. Ten minutes away."
Victor scrubbed his face in his hands and stood up. He looked in the mirror behind the bar where tens of thousands of patrons had sat to drink while they traveled across the country. He absently wondered if any of the previous patrons were still alive as he studied his face. He looked haggard. The stress of his life and lack of sleep was definitely taking its toll. His eyes were hollowed out and had big, dark bags under them. He took a deep breath and headed off to gather his things and meet Marshall and John outside.
Victor was the first one off the train. The army base was visible in the distance. It was about a mile north of the tracks. Marshall stepped up beside Victor. "You're going to make me carry it all, aren't you." It was a statement, not a question.
"Not my plan at all. If things work out accordingly, we're going to load up a Bradley to haul it all back here and drive it until we find a flatbed train car to haul it," he replied. "Do you think you could lift a tank up onto the train?"
"If we could find ground solid enough that I didn't sink in, I think I could. It would help if we had some kind of crane to steer it or guide it into place." He paused and then with further consideration he decided. "I'm sure I could lift it," he said.
John stepped down off the train and said, "Lift what?"
"A Bradley tank," said Marshall. "Onto a train car."
John grinned. "You're scrubbing up a tank for me! Oh, hell yeah!"
Renee's voice floated by from directly in front of Victor. She appeared shortly after and asked, "How long do we have? And what radio station are we on?"
"Channel four, Ren," said Marshall. "Let's check in every half hour. If I don't hear from you in thirty-five minutes, I'm going to come looking for you. Okay?"
"Sure thing, Marsh. I'll talk to you in half an hour," Renee said before calling back, "I'm off!"
The three men started a slow jog towards the base. It was warm and sunny but just cool enough to remind them that it was December. But in comparison to the rest of North America, it was certainly not cold by any stretch. It took them just under ten minutes to get to the base. Inside the fenced yard, there were four zombies in civilian clothing—two men and two women. It was getting hard to tell due to how badly the zombies were decomposed, but the two men could have been twins. They were both wearing the same khaki pants, the same white button-down shirt, and matching light blue ties.
John holstered his pistols and scouted around the edge of the field before picking up four rocks, each about the size of a lime. Ever the show-off, he juggled them for a second, the stones forming a perfect circle around his head. As each landed in his right hand, he threw it. The rocks passed perfectly through the chain-link fence and struck its target in the skull. All four zombies crumpled to the ground, motionless.
"Jesus, John. That's insane," said Marshall.
John smiled and said, "I'm more than just guns." He walked over to the gate and reached through the iron bars to unlatch the gate, which was closed but unlocked. The guard shack to the left was closed and empty. Before the end of the world, an electric motor and armed soldiers would have opened this gate. John pushed the gate open, just wide enough for Marshall to walk through, and stepped onto the property.
Victor switched his eyesight and scanned the property for any auras that would indicate living people. Seeing nothing inside the base, he switched back and stepped up beside John, followed by Marshall.
"M1 to Rolling Thunder. We're inside the perimeter. On the way to objective one."
"Copy that, M1," replied Shelton. "We'll keep the engine warm in case you come out hot again. Like always."
"All right," said Victor after releasing his throat mic. "Let's find us a tank."
The three men jogged towards the largest building on the complex, lined with garage doors.
Renee was a little over a mile away, having covered twice the distance of th
e three men in half the time. She stopped, still invisible, and peered in the window of a small, one-story rancher. She knocked softly on the door and watched again. When she was certain there was no movement inside, she tried the front door. It was locked, so she moved around to the back of the house and tried the sliding door, which was also locked.
The glass door proved easy to lift off the tracks. Renee set the sliding door to the side and stepped inside the house. In the pantry, she found a dozen cans of food, but the real score was several boxes of macaroni and cheese. Max, Maya, and Holly will be so happy, she thought with a smile. She slipped her backpack off and put the food inside. She poked around the rest of the kitchen and put a stainless steel pot, the lid, and a large spoon into her backpack.
In one of the bedrooms, she found a military backpack. It was much bigger than the one Renee had, so she dumped her smaller one into it and then put the empty pack on top.
She repeated this process three more times, loading a few kitchen utensils and food into the pack at each of the houses she stopped at before deciding this was going to take too long. After four houses, she had enough food for about one day. She decided the best thing was to drop her pack off at the train and see if she could find the commissary.
She shot off towards the train, leaving a thin trail of dust in her wake.
-----
Inside the huge garage, Victor, Marshall, and John squinted, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the murky interior. It was hot inside the huge metal building, and although a little sunlight passed through the high windows, it wasn't enough to penetrate the darkness of the vast building.
The facility appeared empty, and there wasn't a sound. It was eerily quiet inside, approaching unsettling. Victor was the first to break the silence. "We need to find one that looks complete and see if we can figure out how to get it started," he said. "Do these things have keys? Marshall, do you think you can figure that out while John and I go look for the ammunition dump?"
"Sure, Vic," said Marshall, heading towards the first of more than a dozen of the tanks.
John and Victor headed down the hallway at the same time Renee slid through the gates of the base, headed towards the commissary.
Marshall pushed the start button on the huge diesel motor and heard a distinct clicking. It was the sound of a dead battery trying to turn the starter motor over.
Renee, John, Victor, and Marshall all froze in place, exactly where they were. An amplified voice from outside called out, "Immune humans inside, stop what you are doing and come out with your hands up. We have your train. Its occupants are unharmed and will remain so if you comply."
Victor felt a rage building inside him unlike any he had ever felt before.
Chapter 13
Capture
Victor and John caught up to Marshall as he was climbing down out of the tank.
"I think this one will work. It tried to turn over, but the batteries are dead," he said.
"Good. Stay close to me; we have no way of knowing what's out there. I should have left a watch outside," said Victor.
The blue had mostly drained out of Victor's eyes, leaving them a cold grey color. His hands balled into fists. They had Max, Maya, and Holly. "Why does it always have to be the hard way?" he mumbled to himself, readying himself for the fight.
"What?" asked John.
"If they've hurt Max, heads will roll. I'm through fucking around. I'm through trying to be nice," said Victor.
Marshall laced his fingers together and turned his hands inside out, cracking his knuckles. "Let's go see what they want," he said.
"I smell a lot of guns. This is gonna hurt," said John.
The three men opened the door to find an entire company of men facing them in a semi-circle. Victor scanned the crowd and found that they were all human. Three men had solid auras like his own. They were standing to the side and behind a man wearing a hat with two gold stars on it. There were six men in a squad on the far left side of the ring that he suspected all had enhanced strength. They were all nearly as tall as Marshall, and all wore shorts and sleeveless shirts. Victor was unsure if any one of them could get a shirt on without ripping the sleeves the first time they bent their arm.
To the right, there were nine men each holding a light machine-gun with a chain of bullets leading up to a backpack. Victor began to understand what this was. It only took him a minute to find the squad of fast movers. Each of them was holding a knife, hatchet, sword, or some combination of bladed weapons and had their side arms holstered. They had strength, gunners, speed, and mentalists, which meant they probably had a group of invisible scouts somewhere around.
“Ren. Run,” Victor sent to his sister. “Stay away.”
"Sir, the leader just contacted someone. Looks like about two kilometers southwest," said the man standing to the general's left.
The three men with solid auras and the general walked towards John, Marshall, and Victor, who were standing just outside the door.
"I'm General Gordon Lightfoot," said the man with the stars on his cap. "I'm building an army of immune humans, and we could use you." His tone was not that of a request. He met Victor's gaze steadily as he stuck out his hand.
Victor quickly thought about his response before he took the General's hand in a firm grip. "I'm Victor Tookes. These are my brothers, Marshall and John. We are on a mission. We stopped here hoping to find ammunition, unaware that anyone would have a claim to it. We didn't intend to trespass, if you lay claim to this base," said Victor. He paused for a second before continuing, "Unfortunately, we must decline your request to join your army. We are otherwise engaged."
Lightfoot looked slightly annoyed. "I'm afraid, son, that wasn't a request. If you don't comply, we will kill the oldest girl. If you continue to disobey, we will start removing pieces of the boy."
Victor considered his options. They were backed into a corner with nowhere to go. The three of them could fight, but if Victor's guess was right, almost everyone in front of them was a super. Victor had no idea how strong they were nor how much combat experience they had. Victor hadn't met anyone as powerful as Marshall and John yet, but he was sure they were out there. It didn't seem like a fight they could win, at least under these circumstances.
"Stand down. We can't win this fight," Victor said to John and Marshall.
"Good choice, son."
"I'm not your son," Victor said coolly. "Lead the way."
General Lightfoot looked slightly amused. "Not so fast. Where's your fourth person? The scout," he asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Tookes.
"Yes you do. You contacted him right as you came out of the base. Don't lie to me, son."
Victor stepped towards the general, causing every gun in the circle to point at him. "I have no idea what you are talking about.” His eyes glinted as he spoke before narrowing as he said, "I am not your son."
The three men were led towards a covered deuce and a half and were allowed to climb inside.
Renee watched from a distance. She was worried about being able to keep up with the trucks. She'd watched everyone being bustled off the train and overheard a man tell Maya that he was taking her to her mommy after she complained that she missed her. They know I'm out here, and they know I'm a woman, she thought, considering her position. But they don't know where I am, and it appears that they have no way to see me.
She took off at a run across the brown grass, careful to avoid any bare spots that would kick up dust swirls. When she hit the pavement, she really poured on the speed. She rocketed down the road leading to the base; there was really only one way for them to go for the first four miles. Then she paused at the first intersection. There was no option to continue straight north; she could only turn west or east. She knew that Fort Hood was west and remembered Shelton saying that all the survivors would have been shipped down to Fort Hood outside of Dallas. Renee turned right and shot down the road, west towards Houston, and several miles ahead of the c
onvoy carrying her family. Finally, she came to the on-ramp of I30. Neither of the signs said Dallas or Fort Hood, so she decided to wait. She knew it was a couple of hours by vehicle to the army base, but she was unsure she could run that far. She knew she had to try to hitch a ride.
-----
Victor sat in the back of the truck bouncing down the road, wondering how in the hell they were going to get out of this. At least one of the three men around the general was able to see when he communicated with his team. Attempting to do so now would probably be bad. He closed his eyes and focused on auras. The more he focused, just like back at the train yard, he found himself out of his body. He couldn't talk to anyone, but maybe he could gather some intelligence on their captors. He pushed himself forward, sliding easily through the front wall of the truck into the cab, and listened to the conversation there.
"Did you see their strongman?" asked the driver. "Holy shit, he makes Appleton look small."
"Shelton said they were powerful," said the passenger.
Victor lost his concentration and immediately appeared back in his body. Fuck. Shelton. Can't be Corbin. Shelton is a common enough name. Victor sat there, dumbstruck. Dozens of scenes played out in his head, Shelton always standing in the background, doing something—making a pot of coffee while they all discussed plans in the dining car, checking out the brake lines of the locomotive while they all stood on the ground talking about plans. Then the real question hit him. How did Frye know where I was? Victor knew that he'd been had.
He calmed himself, closed his eyes again, and floated forward. This time, he didn't stop in the cab of his truck; he moved forward into the Humvee directly in front of them. He wasn't flying; there was no feeling of floating along between the vehicles. He just intended to be in the Humvee, and then he was.
