by C. A. Hoaks
“Oh Dios mío!” Martina gave into Della’s urging and stumbled after her.
Chapter 42
Team Building
“Who are you three dipshits?” Brian demanded.
All three men shot to attention while one stepped forward and announced. “PFC Carpenter, sir. This is Private Allen and Private Simms, sir.”
“What is going on here? Why are you with this bunch?” Brian demanded. Billie still pointed his gun at the young men in uniform.
“Orders, sir. Permission to speak candidly?” Brian gave the nod, and he continued. “We had no choice.” Carpenter answered, “We’re supposed to be scavenging supplies for the town of Utopia.”
“Sir, Major Bishop ordered us,” Allen, a dark-haired twenty-something with a pronounced overbite answered, added.
“By stealing from people?” Brian growled. “What kind officer is this Major Bishop? Does he know you’ve been stealing and assaulting survivors? You better have a damned good story.”
Carpenter answered. “It’s not us, sir.” He pointed to his two friends. “We’re just trying to survive. Just like everyone else.”
“The military is supposed to be protecting Americans, not attacking them. When did the military get new orders?”
“Sir, it’s Major Bishop. He’s gone crazy!” Simms interrupted.
Brian gave all three a harsh glare. “Enough. Carpenter, you have three minutes to tell me how you three got in this position.”
Carpenter took a deep breath then began. “When this started, about sixty of us came out of San Antonio with a convoy of survivors with Major Bishop in command. We stopped at a roadside park the second night. We set up camp for the busloads of evacuees. We had trucks with supplies-tents, MREs, water, the whole shooting match. We had three Strykers, a couple Humvees and six Greyhound buses loaded with people. There were over three hundred civilians; men, women, and kids. I figure some of the individuals from the buses were sick. In the middle of the night, all hell broke out. Major Bishop gave the order, and we just left them. We loaded up men and left. Anyone not on board got left behind.”
“Carpenter kept looking over Brian’s shoulder in the direction the biker had escaped.
Brian sighed. “What in the hell do you keep looking at? What’s going on here?”
“Sir, we have to leave. The Major will think we did this. He’ll send men to kill us.”
Brian sighed. “Where is this Major?”
“Utopia, sir. It’s a couple hours west of here. Bishop will think we did this.”
“If we’re gone, and they can’t find you, will they leave these people alone?” Brian sighed.
“Not likely. Bishop will send Captain Griggs.”
“Griggs? Marcus Griggs?” Brian’s face mirrored his disgust. “A big black guy?”
“Yes, sir,” Carpenter answered. “He likes to hurt people, and he’ll take his time killing everyone here. These people need to leave. Griggs won’t be happy just stealing everything they have.”
Brian turned toward the large truck being unloaded by Juan and Leon. Two boxes were pushed to the tailgate, and both men jumped to the ground. Brian called them over.
“Stop what you’re doing and ask the adults in the house to come out here a minute. We need to have a quick talk.” Brian turned back to Carpenter. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“No, sir.” Carpenter stared at the ground.
A few minutes later four of the adults from the family appeared. A middle-aged man stepped up and reached out his hand to Brian. “I’m Rob Gutterman, this is my wife, Jenny. This is my brother, Jim and his wife, Lauren. Your friends told me about what you did. I’m sorry we didn’t realize what you did for us. We were just so scared…but that’s not what you want to speak to us about is it?”
“No sir,” Brian answered. “PFC Carpenter is convinced the man that escaped will come back and bring others that won’t be interested in leaving survivors when they come.”
Rob turned to the soldier. “You’re sure they’ll come back here?”
“Yes, sir,” Carpenter answered.
Rob turned back to Brian, “And you’re suggesting?”
“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m just telling you the situation,” Brian answered. “As I see it we have two choices. Leave or stay and fight. Before you decide, know this, when I say we, I mean me and these men will fight with you if that’s your choice.”
Rob looked worried. “What kind of numbers are we talking about?”
Brian turned to PFC Carpenter. “Well, answer the man.”
Carpenter swallowed hard then answered. “Sir, yes sir. Griggs has about a dozen people left that Bishop would let him take for a mission. He’d likely bring an additional seven or eight of the biker types and hard cases Griggs picked up along the way. So I’d say, twenty at the most.”
Rob looked crestfallen. “We don’t have a place to take the whole family indefinitely. There won’t be enough of us to fight that many.”
Brian sighed. “You have half a dozen adults. We have six men.” He looked pointedly at Carpenter, Simms, and Allen.
All three men nodded. “We have a good chance of pulling this off.”
“If they come,” Lauren interrupted. “Two hours is a long way to travel nowadays. Maybe they won’t even come back.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but they will come. Major Bishop and Captain Griggs will take killing these men very personal. Besides, Bishop will see us as traitors. He’ll come for no other reason than to stop deserters. We’ve seen it before, Simms announced.
Brian sighed. “I know Marcus Griggs. He’s a man with a big ego, and I doubt he will let this go even if Bishop would.”
“Then we have to leave,” Jenny lamented. “Where can we go?”
An old man with a bandage on the side of his head approached the group and growled. “This was my old man’s place, and I won’t be leaving.”
“Dad?”
“Quick gawking.” The old man growled. “I ain’t dead yet. Those bastards won’t be driving me off my land. Now, Captain, how do we kill these bastards when they come?”
Brian felt the corners of his mouth pull up into a smile. “Well, Mr. Gutterman, if we can get prepared in time, I think we have a good chance of stopping them. I wish we had a few more rounds of ammo, but we’ll do with what we have.”
The old man looked at Rob, and Jim then gave them a quick nod. “I think we can cover you on that.”
After a brief planning session, they decided on an ambush site three hundred yards from the ranch buildings in the same direction as the man had escaped. It was agreed Tammy, Rob’s mother would take the six younger children to a hunting cabin a mile away. Rob’s son, a fifteen-year-old boy, would take them to the cabin in the woods.
The younger members of the family climbed into the back of the twenty-year-old pickup while Tammy and the fifteen-year-old settled in the cab. He pulled the pickup onto a dirt path and stopped. Rob followed the truck to a narrow dirt path the truck had disappeared down. He climbed into the cab of an old flatbed truck and backed it into the road between the brush and straggly trees obscuring the path. With the path blocked, Rob, with his son at his side, put the key in a metal can and nestled it into the grass. After laying several weapons and boxes of ammunition in the back of the pickup truck, he hugged his son. “There’s supplies at the cabin to last for quite a while if you hunt. If we don’t come for you, leave the others and bring your rifle. Do what needs to be done, son. Give your family peace.”
The boy hugged his father then climbed into the truck and cranked the engine. Rob stood at the side of the path and watched the pickup drive away. Finally, he turned and walked back to where the others were busy readying the ambush.
Jim brought out a front-end loader, and the rest of the men loaded the bodies into the scoop. When they found two of the bodies were not exactly dead, Brian zip-tied the arms and legs then drug them out of the way.
Rob asked. “What did you do that for?
”
Brian grinned. “Everyone grab a bike and let’s get them down the road.”
Rob chuckled, “Now that’s sick but won’t they know something’s up?”
Jim drove the tractor to the middle of the road at the designated ambush site between a natural narrowing of the way with thick brush and trees on either side. He dropped the bucket, and the bodies fell to the ground in a heap.
“We’ll park a couple bikes, lay the rest down. Spread them out, so they block the road. Drag the bodies nearby.” Brian ordered. When the rest of the men were busy doing as he’d said, he walked to Jim. “You think you can steepen the ditches on both sides with that thing?”
“Sure. Give me an hour.”
“Make it as steep a drop off as you can next to the roadway. Work your way back from the ambush as far as you can on both sides. Make a big berm on both sides at the midway point and the far end. You got about two hours.”
When the bodies and bikes were staged, Brian called out to Rob. “Do you have a couple lengths of chains? We need to keep the dead bikers stumbling around the roadblock to stop that bunch long enough for us to take out as many of Grigg’s men as possible.”
Jim finished the left side of the road excavation, and the men stepped into the brush with machetes and retrieved clumps of green brush. They carried the brush to the front of the mounds and used it to disguise the new-turned earth.
When the blockade was complete, everyone adjourned to the front porch, and Rob brought weapons out in a wheel barrel with thousands of rounds of ammunition. With Brian’s help, they divided rifles and handguns into groups for each shooter depending on assigned position.
Near the end of the time Brian had designated for preparation, the women had taken the time to prepare a big meal of fried venison, rice, and gravy with homemade bread. Slices of fresh tomato and a large pitcher of sweet, cold, spring water topped it off. The men filled magazines between bites of the quick meals. Once the group had eaten, thermoses of hot coffee and sandwiches were made for later.
They sat in the shade of the front porch.
“How long before they come?” Lauren asked.
Brian sipped at a cup of coffee. “Hard to say for sure but I know it won’t be long.”
Chapter 43
Hell on Wheels
“That one?” Matt asked.
“All we have to do is fill the tank and get the keys,” Tate answered from where she clung to the side mirror while she stood on the top step of a black tractor.
It’s the biggest one out here.” Matt lamented.
“Yep. It’s the Cadillac of trucks. The tractor has been upgraded with a super-size sleeper, refrigerator, microwave, four spare tires and gets nearly twenty miles a gallon without a load. It has leather seats, two gas tanks, and solar panels on the roof, onboard Internet….” Her voice trailed off, and the gleam in her eyes faded.
“Sounds like a real gem,” Matt answered, his voiced laced with sarcasm.
“That was stupid. I guess I don’t need all that shit, now.”
“No, tell me. How much would a rig like this cost back in the day?”
“The last “Cadillac Mack” was three-hundred-fifty-thousand. This one, they didn’t even put a tag on it. I’d say close the four-hundred thousand.”
“Shit! You could buy a fucking mansion.”
“It was at the truck show in Houston a few months ago. I was hoping it was still here.”
“And if it wasn’t?” Matt asked.
“I’d be getting one of the other trucks.” Tate jumped down from the truck. “We have to find a key. No way to hotwire a rig like this.”
Tate with Matt in tow headed for the business office. Matt grabbed her arm and pointed to the street outside the fenced lot. “Our arrival has drawn some attention.”
Half-a-dozen infected stumbled down the street toward the truck lot. They could see the men and women were covered with grievous wounds. The arm of one of the victims was torn from the shoulder, leaving ragged remnants of flesh and fabric. Another victim’s face was a shredded mass. A nearly naked woman with only scraps of underclothes clinging to her thin body stumbled down the street tripping along on a broken foot.
“We’re on the edge of town. There shouldn’t be too many around,” Tate commented.
“I hate the fuckers. I can even smell them from here,” Matt muttered.
Tate shrugged. “It’s not from them. There were two in the repair shed. I used the bolt cutters to brain ‘em. My guess is, that’s what you smell.”
“Damn, woman. Didn’t your old man tell you to take care of your tools?”
Tate walked to a plastic bucket with rainwater still standing. She dipped the end into the bucket and swished it around, then pulled it out and held it up for inspection. “There. All clean. Happy?”
“Gonna rust.” Matt grumped.
“You’re a real killjoy.” Tate rolled her eyes and headed for the door. “There’s a chance someone is in here.”
Brian reached for the door, but Tate elbowed him away. “I got this. You can back me up.” She set the cutters aside and slid the machete from her belt. She cracked the door and sniffed. “Smells like….”
“Dead shit.” Matt interrupted. “I’ll slam the door open, you go left I’ll cover the right.”
“Well, aren’t you just GI Joe,” She snarked.
Matt slammed the door back with his right hand, with his left holding a machete ready to end anyone coming toward him. The reception office was empty, while the dead smell wafted out from deeper in the office. He could hear Tate gagging at his side. He stepped further into the room.
“Breath through your mouth,” Matt advised.
“And taste it?” Tate gulped as she struggled to take shallow breaths. “No thanks.”
“Let’s get those keys and get the hell outta here.”
They moved from the reception desk toward a narrow hall. The stench of death grew stronger the further they walked into the building. Matt pulled a LED light from his pocket and clicked it on. He directed the beam into the darkened abyss of the hallway to expose three doors, one on either side of the hall and the third at the end. The closest door was cracked. Tate walked toward the door with Matt close behind. When she got the doorway, Tate turned and whispered over her shoulder. “Cover my back.”
Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the door open. Matt followed and pointed the beam into the office and fanned the white light from right to left. The desk was a cluttered mess of papers, with books and binders stacked on the floor next to it. A computer monitor and keyboard took up space at the side of the bureau.
“That’s the bookkeeper’s office. Keys won’t be in here.” Tate turned and walked to the next door on the opposite side of the hall. “Keys will be here or in the back office.”
Matt pulled the bookkeeper’s door closed after a quick perusal and finding nothing worth retrieving.
Tate got to the closed door with a metal plate that signified Sales and rapped a knuckle on the wood, then placed her ear against the barrier. She did it a second time and waited. Finally, she turned to Matt and whispered. “Nothing.”
She reached down to wrap her free hand around the knob. She turned her wrist and pushed the door open. Matt stepped closer and noticed a curtainless window filled the room with light. Through the glass, they could see the truck lot and a collection of damaged bodies standing at the fence beyond.
“Damn. We need to get this done.” Matt announced.
Tate stepped inside the office and move across the room to the desk. She scratched through the top drawer until she found what she was looking for. She pulled a small key on a green leprechaun fob. “Got it.” Tate crossed to a white cabinet on the wall and jammed the key into the lock at the side. With a quick twist of her wrist, the cover opened. Over a dozen keys hung from pegs. Each key included a laminated tag with a vehicle description. Tate turned over each of the labels, read the identification and moved to the next. Three minutes later,
she turned to Matt.
“Not here.”
“Well, pick another one and let get going.”
“No!” She stormed around Matt and headed toward the door at the end of the hall. “You won’t help me then I’ll do it myself.”
His hand shot out and grabbed her bare arm. “Slow down. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help.” Matt stepped around her and exited the office. He turned toward the last door at the end of the hall. “We’ll find them if we can.”
Together they walked to the last office door. Tate struggled to whisper. “I know who’s in there, I saw his car on the lot. His name is Arty Tucker. He and my daddy were big buddies.”
“Sorry.” Matt knocked on the door, again there were no sounds from inside. He turned the knob, cracked the door and fanned the beam across the room seeing a grotesque body slumped in the office chair. The side of his head was little more than a black hole. Dark trails of blood and globs of brains splattered the wall to his side.
The smell of death wafted from within as if a dark, putrid cloud. Tate jackknifed, and remnants of trail mix and water spewed from her mouth to slide down the hall paneling. When her stomach had nothing more to lose, she righted herself and pushed past Matt and stomped into the room. She took one look at Arty then deliberately looked down at the desk at a photo.
On it lay a glossy eight by ten photo of a man standing in front of the black truck. A set of keys had been placed next to the photograph. Beside the picture lay a handwritten note. May God forgive me, cause I can’t face this world. If you had the balls to put down Little Bill and Merle and got in here, take what you need. P. S. Take care of my rig. Good luck Art Tucker.
Tate picked up the note, picture and the keys, turned and headed out the door. Matt followed close behind. Once outside, she walked to the side of the building to a drink and snack machine. Tate took a step back then kicked out shattering the glass front. She grabbed a bottle of water, opened it and took a long drink then poured the rest over the back of her head and neck. Tate caught the second bottle, took a mouthful then spit it on the dirt. “God damn. That was as bad as I’ve ever seen.”
