She almost had to laugh when she saw the chain that she had unhooked, finally worked itself free and hit the monster that was chasing them.
They’d made it.
With the children in back crying and Audrey tending to Dan, Amanda focused on getting out of this little town as quickly as possible. It had been a close escape and she hadn’t taken time to process what she’d done. Driving now, safe for the moment she felt her hands shake.
Chopper, who hadn’t stopped barking, was still sitting in the passenger seat. He looked over at her. His face reflected the glow from the instrument cluster and headlights. He was panting from the heavy barking, but his tail was wagging.
Somehow, Amanda knew the dog understood they’d done a good thing today. His happiness calmed her.
Amanda finally stopped the RV on an overpass about 20 minutes after leaving Wall. There was nothing to see in the dark and she drove in a circle just to make sure there was nothing as far as she could see.
The children in back had stopped crying and Chopper was acting like he needed a break. She needed one too.
Dan was the first to speak to her and told their story. When people started to die, he and his daughter had supplied their basement as best he could. He found Audrey walking the streets one day, looking for food for the three kids she’d found and taken in. They had been in the church and she’d heard them crying and promised to care for them.
Dan had been able to contact three truckers who were running in a convoy to Ft. Carson Colorado. They’d heard of a military base there where survivors were gathering. Dan said the truckers had heard their call on the CB and stopped in. “That was before we knew about the monsters. They went to the store to get some food and we were going to have a big meal here before setting off.
“Andy,” he said pointing to the oldest boy, who looked about 14, “went with them. He came back about 20 minutes later, screaming about the monsters. He came running in the house yelling that the truckers were being eaten.
“I shined my flashlight out the front door and there were two running down the street, coming right at us. That was when we barricaded ourselves in the basement. It was five days ago and we had been trying to get someone on the radio ever since.”
Dan didn’t know why the monsters hadn’t broken though to the basement hide-away. He was just guessing the monsters were waiting until they were hungry again, but he didn’t know. They were too afraid to try escaping though the house because of what Andy had told them about the monsters eating the three truckers.
Audrey, who was probably in her early 30s, had short dark hair that was a mess, tattoos on her neck and arms, stood up from the couch in the living area. She hugged Amanda. She had powerful arms. “Thanks to you, we didn’t have to do what we were thinking.” Amanda didn’t ask what that had been.
Dan introduced his daughter Lisa. She was a red-haired girl about eight years old. She, like the rest of the group was dirty and had tear-stains on her face from crying. Dan was sitting on the floor, with his lower left leg bandaged with material from Amanda’s Army first aid bag she’d kept with her. Audrey said bones were broken but she’d gotten the bleeding stopped. There were several deep cuts, probably from teeth, but at least he was alive and for that he was thankful. It was the best she could do.
Audrey introduced the other kids. “This is Andy and this is William,” she said pointing to the two boys sitting on the bed, “and this little girl is Beth.” Beth was a dirty-faced little girl in a blue dress she’d probably been wearing for days. She was holding to Audrey’s arm, looking scared and tired of crying. Amanda nodded to the boys and knelt down to be at eye level with the little girl. “Well hello Beth. My name is Amanda. How would you like something to eat? You’re looking a little hungry.”
The little girl snuggled in behind Audrey shyly and nodded. “Okay, let me get things squared away in here, and I’ll fix everyone something warm to eat.” Amanda showed Audrey where everyone could wash up. She turned on the propane tanks under the sink and told them it would take a few minutes for the water to heat up. She pulled the four towels out from the cupboard and handed them to Andy.
Amanda put together a meal of soup with hotdogs, plenty of crackers, a side of peas and peaches for dessert. She apologized for the simplicity of the meal, but Dan told her it was the best food he could remember eating.
Their evening was spent with stories of how the end of civilization had affected them all. Amanda told of her exodus from Alaska, skipping over the suicide of Spec. 4 Johnson and murder of Pvt. Sheppard. She edited the story, saying they had gone their separate ways. She figured she’d save the kids from further nightmares, but Dan and Audrey probably guessed what had happened.
Once the kids were fed and clean, Audrey asked if, for the night, they could sleep in the bed. Amanda said of course and helped Audrey tuck them all in. She could still see they were afraid, but they were so tired. They were asleep in minutes.
Dan was on the couch, leg elevated. He had his arm over his eyes and thanked Amanda again for all she’d done for them. Amanda smiled and told him it was the right thing to do and he’d have done the same for her.
Chopper was sitting by the door and Amanda said she was going out with him. Audrey followed.
Chopper ran off to do what he needed to do. The rain had finally stopped and the sky was clear. The stars above were brilliant and the moon still below the eastern horizon, giving the whole world they could see a peaceful glow.
A flash from behind Amanda made her jump. Audrey was lighting up a cigarette.
She blew the smoke skyward. “Oh that feels good,” the woman said. “You want one?” she offered Amanda. “No thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“I’m sorry,” Audrey said, stepping further away.
“No reason to be,” Amanda assured her. “Some of my best friends were smokers and as long as we’re outside, I don’t mind at all. Although I hope you won’t light up in truck. If it were just me, that’d be one thing, but with the kids there….”
“That’s funny,” Audrey said. “That’s what Dan said in his basement. I had to go five days without. Another day and I might have gone upstairs and kicked those monsters’ asses by myself for a smoke.” Amanda smiled. She’d never been a smoker, but some of the soldiers in her squad were and they could be sneaky when it came to needing a cigarette.
After a few minutes, Audrey asked what Amanda’s plans were. “I’ve been thinking about it and Dan said there was a gathering at Fort Carson. I was thinking we might head down there. If we leave early we can be there around sun down tomorrow. If there is a camp there, we might find a doctor for Dan.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Audrey said, lighting up a second cigarette. “His leg was pretty torn up. I stopped the bleeding, but there’s bound to be an infection and you don’t have anything in the first aid kit for that.”
“So, Fort Carson it is,” Amanda said, kneeling down to intercept her on-rushing dog. “Oh yes, big boy,” she said rubbing his head. “By the way Audrey, this is Chopper. I picked him up yesterday and he saved my ass twice already. He can sniff out a beast, what you called monsters, from 200 yards away.”
“That’s a good kind of friend to have,” Audrey said, reaching down to pet the big dog. He lapped up the attention. Amanda got out his bowls and fed and watered him. He ran off one more time when he was finished. Amanda picked up his dishes and stowed them.
She found Audrey a spare blanket and she used one of the towels as a pillow. She said she was comfortable on the floor and would be able to tend to the children if they woke up in the middle of the night.
Amanda stretched out in the driver’s seat. She used her jacket as a blanket. It wasn’t as comfortable as she’d been the previous night, but as she drifted off to sleep, she wasn’t unhappy with why she was doing it. Chopper climbed into his place in the passenger seat and everyone in the RV was asleep before the moon was fully above the distant horizon.
* * *
&nb
sp; Cheryl’s peacekeeping platoon grew to 19 men and she made sure they were well provided for. Some of the platoon’s previous members had been forced out and replaced by people she could better manipulate.
Lt. Col. Smith gave her wide autonomy as he was busy trying to make the compound more survivable. As long as she kept the area safe, he left her alone to do as she pleased.
The commander’s comm officer, a pimply faced teenager, had contacted two other groups, but they were too far away to try merging with Smith. He was hoping to locate another military installation that survived so he could move his command to someplace more hospitable.
Most of the east coast, including the DC area was silent and refugees from that area told of widespread destruction from a storm that had walked up the east coast, vigilante groups, death, destruction and other horrors.
Vigilantes were roving and living off the land, killing and capturing what they wanted, causing terror and keeping viable camps from flourishing. Women had a chance with the vigilantes, if they were willing to subjugate themselves to the will of the men in charge.
Men and children had less of a chance.
The worst were stories of packs of zombies attacking camps and eating every human body they could reach. Entire camps were wiped out from the beasts. The survivors had been in groups of sometimes as few as six or seven, but some stories saying as many as 30 or 40. They surviving day to day, having outlasted the storms and the fall of the world.
Anything east of Kentucky was a waste of time Smith decided. He was hoping something west might be possible.
Two men were captured by Cheryl’s peacekeepers. They were ragged and hungry and surrendered quickly after one of her men rattled off 10 rounds from an M-240 machine gun aimed five feet to their left. They were captured while walking north on I-65, headed toward Louisville.
Smith insisted on interviewing anyone who was captured. The men told the story of being attacked east of Birmingham by a group of 40 to 60 vigilantes. Their story was that they were a peaceful group of 30 refugees from Florida working their way to Texas in hopes of finding a safe haven and settle down. They told of being attacked, their women captured and the men killed. They said they were fortunate to be alive.
Smith had heard similar stories, most recently from Cheryl, but what got his attention was the women. Smith had just 11 women in his compound and almost 100 men. It was not a survivable situation and fights often broke out.
Cheryl listened to the men tell their story to the colonel. She asked how many women were captured and the men told her they’d lost 17 women to the vigilantes. One of the men told of others who had lost women in that area as well. The colonel interrogated the men for an hour and afterward assigned them a house in which to live and a small amount of rations.
Cheryl and the colonel spoke afterward. She pleaded that the women must be saved from a life of torture and rape; that they couldn’t be left to the vigilantes. The colonel disagreed, saying he couldn’t spare the manpower or the fuel, but Cheryl laid it on thick. She made up stories of indignations suffered by women in past wars and how she and a hand-picked team could go in and use a military surgical strike to take out the vigilantes and save the women.
“If they captured 17 from that group of refugees, they might have as many as 50 to 100 women held captive. I won’t be able to sleep at night knowing there are 100 women being raped and tortured by those heathens who have no respect for human life,” she pleaded with the colonel, a crocodile tear starting to run down her face.
The men’s stories had been an embellishment at best, out-right lies most likely, but even if just part of their story was true, that there were women being held against their will, the lieutenant colonel couldn’t go home at night and face his wife in good conscience.
If just half of what the men said was true, there might be women needing rescuing and Smith finally agreed to let Captain Cheryl Paxton lead a team 300 miles south to check out the stories the men had told in such detail.
“You can take six HUMVEEs and 20 men, but not more than half the peacekeepers. See Lt. Daniels for armament. You leave in two days,” he finally told her. “That’ll give you time to find fuel, interrogate the men for intelligence of what you’ll be facing and get everyone packed up.
“Down and back in six days, no more, captain. I still need you and your men here. We have a lot of work that needs to be done.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said sincerely and stood up, saluted and left his office.
She knew without a doubt the men her team had captured were lying because she had been held captive exactly where they’d come from some months earlier. She knew the “vigilantes” they spoke of was a simple farmer, several middle-aged men, a couple old women and some kids, who lived in campers and scratched out a life. They’d be no match for an armed platoon.
They might have brought back some astronauts from the coast, but she recalled Randy telling her the chances were less than a 10 percent. Cheryl couldn’t see the farmer and his clan rescuing anyone with a beat up truck and a police van. She figured the spacemen had died so she discounted them.
Cheryl recalled how her quick reflexes had saved her during her escape. Her last action on the farm was killing some guy who ran through the door by shooting him in the head. She wasn’t sure if she’d killed Kellie, but was pretty sure the iron bar she’d hit Randy with had crushed his skull. There was a lot of blood on the floor when he was hit so she was certain he was dead.
She’d shot Kellie in the gut and there was no one on the farm who could have bandaged up that wound. If the woman lived, she didn’t live long and died painfully, hopefully in the arms of Farmer Jerry, the yokel who had built the shelter, made her wear a dog collar locked around her neck at night, and secured her with leg irons during the day.
Cheryl talked to the men some more later in the day when they could be alone and told them she didn’t believe their all of their story. She pulled a gun and said they better start telling the truth or else someone was going to be shot trying to escape.
The older vigilante talked quickly of the attack on the farm and how it really went down. He told her how 14 of 20 men had been gunned down by snipers and machine guns. He wanted revenge because his brother had been killed by the farmer, shot in the head.
When she told him she was taking a team to “rescue” the women there, she asked if they’d made up that part of their story. The man told her he killed at least one and probably two but wasn’t sure. “The place was a working farm with a lot of people on it. They had an armored truck we stopped with armor-piercing rounds and killed the driver, but some guy with a machine gun mowed down six of my men.”
Cheryl told the two vigilantes they were going with her as “advisers.” The one whose brother had been killed, used to be a meat packer and the other worked for a printing company. As advisers, they were pretty useless, but they wanted revenge too and she didn’t want them staying here, changing their stories.
Their lives were in her hands and she’d eliminate them when the time was right.
The rest of her team was made up of 10 of her most loyal men from her platoon, some with wives, giving them reason to want to come back alive. She wasn’t really concerned with the compound here. She knew she wasn’t coming back when she left, but she didn’t tell the soldiers that. They’d either be eliminated if they caused problems or move their wives to the more comfortable farm when she was done.
Cheryl also picked 10 other men she could trust who were not peacekeepers and wanted women badly. After many months here, she had found out who she could trust and who were posers and not worth her time. They’d be along as fodder for her planned attack on the farm. She didn’t tell them that. They thought she’d chosen them for an important mission and were enthusiastic about it.
When she was done with the Saunders farm, she would own it. She had thought about eliminating Smith and taking over his compound, but Saunders’ farm was in a better location, had fewer people, more fuel
and warmer weather. Taking the Saunders farm was a much better option than trying to take over this camp.
She ended up with seven fully-fueled HUMVEEs and 22 men for the mission. Five of the HUMVEEs were armed with the M-2 heavy machine gun, one with an M-134 mini Gatling gun and the seventh had a small M-240 machine gun and the radios with which Cheryl would command her platoon.
The HUMVEEs were diesels so they could scavenge fuel on the way. They had manual hand pumps in each of the military trucks.
Smith met her as her platoon was loading up to leave. He told the captain her primary mission was to reconnoiter the farm and form a plan of attack that would allow minimum casualties to the soldiers going with her, rescue the women and withdraw from the area.
If things went well, she was to further scout Ft. McClellan and Anniston Army Depot for more equipment and supplies. She assured him the weaponry she had included for the “rescue mission” would be more than enough for what the two men had told her to expect.
“Once we’ve rescued the women on the farm and neutralized the threat to others, one squad will escort the women here to safety while I take two others to scout the surrounding military installations, sir.” It was a lie to keep the lieutenant colonel from changing his mind. She saluted and the convoy headed out of the main gate of the compound.
Smith turned to Keith, his pimply-faced communications expert who had come out of his commo shack, and told him the woman was “a real soldier.” Keith had tried to tell the colonel the people the captain and her platoon were going after were just a peaceful group on a farm with whom he’d been talking for the past six months, but the colonel hadn’t listened to him. The communications “nerd” wasn’t military, but was the only one on base who knew how to use what few radios still worked. The problem was there were few people to contact and the colonel only wanted to hear about other military bases. He wasn’t interested in farmers and refugee camps.
Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited Page 18
