by Eric Vall
“Thirteen total,” the brunette said.
“Are they injured?” Tara asked.
“Yes,” Paige said, “but none of them have broken bones or are severely bleeding. They’re well enough to travel, but Marla will need to look over them when we get home. I only checked out their limbs.”
“I understand,” I told her, and I put a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at me with eyes that were filled with tears. It had to be especially hard on her being our resident nurse. She dealt closely with these women, and she had to keep a level head when examining them and not let her feelings get in the way.
“Thanks,” Anna told her. “I know it can’t be easy on you.”
“It’s alright,” Paige said, and she took a shaky breath.
“We really do appreciate it,” I told her. “And I’m sure they do, too.”
“Thanks,” she said with a small smile. “We should get them out of here.”
“I want to see where Brody is first,” I told her.
“We need to take out the patrols first,” Anna said.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “They’ll need to stay here until everything is over. Can they lock the door from the inside?”
“Let me check,” Tara said, and she ran over to the front door. “Yeah, they can if they do it the same way as it was from the outside.”
“Great,” I said, and I turned to address the group of women. “We need to make sure the coast is clear. There’s still some patrols out there, and we need to take them out. Do you think you all can hold on in here for just a while longer?” The group nodded in agreement. “Alright. After we leave, lock the door behind us, and don’t open it for anybody who isn't one of us. If you want you can pick just one person to open it for.”
“Her,” one of the women said, and she pointed at Paige. “We’ll open it for her.”
“Alright,” I said. “Only open the door for Paige. We’ll be back to get you soon.”
Just then a shot sounded from outside, and I recognized it as Bailey’s new sniper rifle.
“Shit,” Anna said.
“That’s Bailey,” I added. “Let’s go.”
We took off toward the door. The patrols weren’t due back yet, so there was no telling what the hell was going on out there, but we were about to find out.
“Lock the door!” Paige called back as we burst through the door to the courtyard.
I scanned the area quickly and saw Bailey in the tower still. She let off round after round, and I followed the line of her gun to two jeeps that were parked on the road.
It seemed someone had come back from patrol early.
Chapter 9
“Get down!” I yelled and I pushed Tara, Anna, and Paige behind the nearest building.
“They must have come back from patrol early,” Anna said. “They weren’t due for a while.”
“It’s alright,” I said. “We’ll take care of them.”
“You don’t think they know we’re here, do you?” Paige asked.
“No,” I said, “if they did there’d be more groups here than just the two.”
I watched as Bailey took down one of the men with a headshot, then she ducked down into the tower to avoid the spray of bullets that came her way.
I quickly pulled my rifle from my back and took aim. There were six guys that I could see, though they tried to hide behind the vehicles. Two of them had stood up to fire at Bailey, so I aimed at one’s head and pulled the trigger.
The guy went down with a splatter of blood against the tan jeep, and a second later the other guy who had been shooting went down as well. I turned to see that Anna had her rifle aimed, so I shot her a quick smile before I turned my attention back to the men in the jeeps.
Bailey let off a shot and one of the guys at the back of the jeep fell over. I could barely see him behind the vehicle, but his feet went from upright to sideways, so I thought that was a good indication that she had gotten him.
The blonde sniper took cover again, and I waited for another set of men to pop up, but just as one of them did he went down. The angle wasn’t from my area, and none of my girls had let off a shot, so I knew it had to be Brody. He was still a damn good shot, and he would be a formidable opponent when we went to kill him.
But maybe I’d just murder him as soon as this was over.
I took out a guy who tried to carefully lift up and get a round off, but Brody’s gun fired once more and another guy went down at the rear end of the jeep.
Only one guy remained, and I waited for him to come out.
“Alright,” a voice called. “I give up! Don’t shoot!”
The man stood up and tried to come out from the side of the jeep, but Brody took him down with a shot to the temple.
I could have used that guy to gain some information about the outpost and the boss, but it seemed Brody hadn’t thought that far ahead. Or maybe he did, and he was once again trying to hide something from us. Either way, we were supposed to do things my way while in Vermont, so I’d have to have a talk with him about killing people who surrendered.
I wasn’t going to let the guy live, but I had a few questions for him before it came to that.
“All good?” I asked Bailey.
“Nobody else around!” the sniper called down from her post.
“Brody took out a few of those guys,” Anna said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“More than he’s done since we met him,” Tara sneered.
“It’s true,” Paige agreed. “He hasn’t been a lot of help.”
“I’m not sure killing someone who gave up is being helpful,” Anna said. “We could have at least interrogated that guy.”
“I’m going to have a talk with him about that,” I said. “I’m irritated about it as well.”
“I don’t think you should,” Paige said.
“Why not?” I asked. “He agreed, anything on the Vermont side is my territory.”
“Yeah,” Tara said, “but I think he’ll just lie anyways.”
“Right,” Paige agreed, “and it might just make him more suspicious than he already is. I think we should let it go for now.”
“Yeah,” Tara said, “we’re just biding our time before we fuck him up at this point anyways.”
“Alright,” I agreed, then I pulled off my backpack and pulled my water bottle out. “Paige, I want you to go give this to the women inside and explain what’s going on. I don’t want them to be even more scared with all the shooting.”
“Here, take mine, too,” Anna said as she pulled out her water.
“Me, too,” Tara said.
“Okay,” Paige said. “I’ll head in there.”
“Lock the door behind you,” I told her, and she nodded, then headed toward the building.
I stood outside the building and watched as Brody and his small team came from the building across the courtyard.
“Seems like it's about time to take a look around,” he said as he came toward us.
“I’m guessing everyone in the barracks has been taken care of?” I inquired.
“You know they have,” he told me. “And in the building back there? You find the women?”
“I did,” I told him. “Paige is in there with them now.”
Even if Brody wanted to try something, he knew better than to try and take out one of my girls. He knew that if he caused any of them harm he would die a most slow and painful death.
“Hm,” Brody said, and he looked around.
“We have some time before the patrols come back,” I said. “We’re going to look around and see what we can find.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed.
“We’ll take this side,” I said with a gesture up the way. “You all take that side.”
“Fine,” Brody said, but his jaw set in anger. He knew that the arsenal was on our side, but I wasn’t about to let him get his hands on anything before we did. I had no idea what he would try to take, and I wasn’t going to
give him access to any more weapons than what he already had.
We’d look through it first and see what was there. Brody’s team would have to deal with it.
I really didn’t think that the others in his group would care, they already seemed to like us more than Brody, but their leader was already obviously irritated.
We split off into two groups, and I waited to make sure Brody went into a building on his side, then I led the girls to the arsenal. It was a storefront that looked like it had once been a porn store or something. The outside said Ms. Kitty’s Wonder Emporium, the windows were blacked out, and the front door had a cage of sorts on it.
Why would they leave the windows open, blacked out or not?
I yanked on the door, and it opened easily, so we stepped inside and propped the door open. I looked around the room and quickly realized why they hadn’t been worried about the windows. They were boarded up from the inside, but you couldn’t tell from outside since the windows were already blacked out.
“Whoa,” Tara said as she stepped through the door.
“I second that whoa,” Anna said.
“It is impressive,” I said as I looked around. The whole building had been cleaned out of the porn stuff, and there were makeshift shelves put up all around. The shelves were stocked with rifles, pistols, grenades, and ammunition. There was even some C4 in the corner, and some vests and helmets thrown on the floor toward the back.
“They’re definitely well stocked,” Tara said.
“Uh, yeah,” Anna agreed, and she looked around the room with wide eyes.
“They have some cool stuff,” I said. “But a lot of it is the same.”
“Lots of ammo, though,” Tara said.
“And some C4,” Anna added.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll definitely take that.”
“You want me to put it in my bag right now?” Anna asked.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I said. “There’s not much of it, and I don’t want Brody to see it at all if we can avoid it.”
“I can fit it in my bag easily,” Anna said as she scooped up the C4. We’d learned before that C4 was very stable, and wouldn’t go off without something to initiate the blast, so I wasn’t worried about her having it on her back.
“What else do we want to take while we’re in here?” Tara asked.
“Let’s throw a few cases of ammo into our bags for now,” I said. “Especially the higher caliber stuff for Bailey’s rifle. We’ll come back later, but I know that Brody will want to split everything.”
“Ugh, whatever,” Tara said with an eye roll. “Let him have it, we’re gonna fuck him up soon anyway.”
“Yeah,” Anna agreed. “I don’t think it will be too big of a deal to let him have some stuff right now. We’ll get it back eventually.”
“Besides,” Tara said, “this ammo will definitely help with us going through our own supply in order to take out these druggies.”
“Good point,” I said. “So just throw some in your bags for now, then we’ll go back through the rest of our side.”
“This place is weirdly clean,” Anna said.
“Messiness begets messiness,” I said. “If you allow your soldiers to start to be sloppy in their daily lives, then they’ll eventually become sloppy in their work.”
“Is that why you military guys have to, like, bounce a quarter off your bed or whatever?” Tara asked.
“That,” I said, “and to teach us discipline.”
“I’m sure you can learn discipline without having to make your bed with a ruler every day,” Anna chuckled.
“You don’t use a ruler,” I laughed. “And yeah, I’m sure you can, but just think of the amount of men that come through basic at any given time.”
“I guess that is a lot of people to keep under control,” Anna said, and she pursed her lips.
“With a good portion of them being testosterone fueled young men,” I said.
“Fair point,” Tara said. “I guess controlling basically everything about their daily lives would make it easier to control them as a whole.”
“Not to mention you create a sense of camaraderie,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Tara asked.
“You’re all in it together,” I said. “You all have the same tasks, you have to make your beds at the same time, get up at the same time, eat at the same time, it creates a bond of sorts.”
“Hm,” Anna said. “I think we kind of experienced that before you came along.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did,” I told her. “You all had to work together to survive. I’m sure it bonded you more than you even realized at the time.”
“Yeah, I guess I kinda like you guys,” Tara said, and she shot Anna a playful smile.
“Back at ya,” the redhead chuckled.
“You two better watch it,” I teased, “or I’m going to tell Bailey and Paige about how nice you were being to each other.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Tara said with a mock glare.
We loaded up our backpacks with ammo and the C4, and I took several grenades, but we left the rest to be split up later, then we went back outside to check out the rest of the buildings on our side.
The next one we came to was the cafeteria it seemed. It was a large restaurant that hadn’t required much conversion to fulfill the needs of a mess hall.
“This place has obviously been used,” Anna said as we looked around.
“The supplies must be in the back,” Tara said.
“Let’s check it out,” I agreed, and I led the girls back to the kitchen. There were some boxes of produce in the kitchen, but the real score was in the freezer. It didn’t work any longer, but it was filled with non perishables, and even some smoked meat, so at least a few of the guys must have been hunters.
It was impressive, though. The amount of canned goods was staggering, and there were even boxes of instant potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and anything else you could think of. These guys must have not only stolen food from anyone they came in contact with, but I bet that they went through every grocery store in the towns they went to.
“Jesus,” Tara breathed as we took in the sight of the full walk in.
“That’s a lot of stuff,” Anna said. “I’m super hungry all of a sudden.”
“It will definitely come in handy,” I said. “We’ll have plenty of food to keep us going before harvest.”
“Even after, probably,” Anna said.
“Doesn’t it seem kind of weird that they would even have all of this?” Tara asked.
“No,” Anna said, and she pinched her eyebrows together at Tara. “What do you mean? They stole a bunch of it I’m sure, and they probably looted everywhere from here to fuckin’ Canada.”
“Well, yeah,” Tara said. “But aren’t meth heads not really hungry? Isn’t that the stereotype? That they don’t really eat.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But these don’t seem to be your average meth heads.”
“I guess that’s true, too,” Tara agreed with a nod.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go check on Bailey and Paige. We’ll gather Brody’s team, too. I don’t want him doing anything without us.”
We headed outside, and Brody’s team was out there as well, counting fuel by the jeeps.
“How’s it look over there?” I asked.
“Twenty drums,” Brody said.
“A good amount,” I said with a nod. That would go a long way to replenish our supply from when we had to haul water and go on unexpected runs. “Let’s take a break and get some water. It’s hot out here, I don’t want anybody getting sick.”
“Alright,” Brody agreed, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Guys, come over here.”
“Actually,” I said, “would someone mind taking over for Bailey for a while? I just want to give her a little break.”
“I can do it,” Roman offered.
“Thanks,” I told him. “How’s your arm?”
“It’s okay,” he said, “thanks.”
“We’ll have Paige look at it again before you leave,” I said.
“Unnecessary,” Brody said with an eye roll. “It’s a small cut, he’ll be fine.”
“We’ll still have her take a look,” I told him with a forced smile.
Roman took over for Bailey, and I carefully pulled out a water bottle from my backpack so that Brody couldn’t see the contents. The girls and I had taken water from the cafeteria since we had given ours to the women inside. I cracked open the top and took a long pull. It really was hot as hell, and I could feel the sweat on my forehead. The sun above just wouldn’t relent and the day seemed to only grow hotter and hotter.
“Hey,” Bailey said as she ran over to us. “Thanks for giving me a break.”
“I’d say you’ve more than earned it,” I told her with a smile.
“How are the women inside?” she asked.
“They’re alright,” I said. “As alright as they can be, anyways.”
“Oh, there’s Paige,” Bailey said, and she pointed behind me.
Sure enough, Paige was on her way out of the bank building, but I was surprised to see that some of the women were behind her.
“Paige,” I said as I rushed toward her. “What’s going on?”
“They want to leave,” the brunette told me.
“What?” I asked, genuinely confused. I didn't want the women anywhere near Brody, so I was unsettled with them being out in the open as it was, but for her to say that they wanted to leave, that just didn’t seem right. “We’re going to leave as soon as we can, but we have to take out the patrols first.”
“No,” Paige said with a shake of her head. “They want to leave and go south.”
“Let me talk to them,” I said.
“That’s why they’re out here,” she said.
Only three women had come outside, so I walked over to them, careful not to move too quickly.
“My name is Tav,” I reminded them. “Paige says you want to leave?”
“We do,” one of them said, and I recognized the voice as the one that had come through the darkness from the room they had been in.
“What’s your name?” I asked softly.
