by A. R. Wise
I slowed my charge as I held my arms out wide, hoping to provide a better shield for Hailey. I was breathing heavy, and my body ached from our escape. I was ready for death, content to have given my love a chance to live.
There was no pain.
I wasn't dead, and I was terrified that he'd aimed for Hailey first.
"Cobra!" I heard Hailey call out to me and finally opened my eyes to see what had happened.
The man with the gun was lying dead ten feet in front of me. A trail of blood rolled away from his head, back down the ramp into the Facility.
I turned to face Hailey, dumbfounded by what had happened, and saw another man standing near her. He was tall, with clothes that were speckled various colors of green and brown as if he'd spilled paint all over his jumpsuit. He had a weapon strapped to his back that was large and similar to the one the dead man held. He was also holding another weapon in his hand that resembled the one our Instructor had used to kill the man in the stairwell. A wisp of smoke trailed up from the barrel of the weapon in his hand.
His skin was black, and he had short facial hair around his mouth. He appeared stronger than the other men I'd seen, even with their armor. His arms were thick and his legs looked powerful and longer than any I'd ever seen before. He walked towards me as he put his weapon into a holder on his belt.
"Hey there." His voice was deep and powerful, yet calming.
"Did you do that?" I asked as I pointed down at the dead man.
"I hope so. If not, then we've got a problem."
"He was hiding over there." Hailey pointed to a small building beside the Facility's exit. "He came out of nowhere. Scared me half to death."
"Are you the one that's been causing the explosions?"
"I am." He walked past me and to the truck. "Come on, let's get out of here before they send more guards."
"Who are you?" I asked as I watched him.
He smiled and winked as he said, "All the pretty girls call me Hero."
CHAPTER 5 – High Rollers
BEN WATANABE
"Where are we headed?" I asked the old man as he drove us through the flat, barren land.
"Down to a place called Vineyard." He pointed ahead. "It's past Hanger a ways."
"What's Hanger?"
He snarled and rolled his eyes. "It's another town out here. I don't go there much these days, not after they threatened to kill me if they ever saw me again."
"I take it the traders pass them by too?"
He looked at me curiously and shook his head. "No. Why do you ask?"
"If the traders stop at this town, then why aren't we going there first?"
He scowled at me and said, "Were you not listening to me when I said they'd kill me if I showed up there again?"
"So you're willing to let them get poisoned and turn into Poppers because they don't like you?"
He grumbled and started cursing under his breath. "Fine, whatever. I don't give a rat's ass anymore. Fucking pain in my ass, that's what you are." It was hard to understand him as he mumbled.
"We can just stop in quickly and check it out. I just want to see if they got poisoned too. Then we can head to the other place."
"Vineyard," said Harrison grumpily.
"Right."
We stopped talking as Harrison stewed, but he soon calmed down and started humming a tune. He hung his head out his window and breathed in the air before commenting on how much he loved the smell of rain. I only nodded an agreement as I contemplated what lie ahead for us.
"What's your story, kid?" asked Harrison. His right hand was draped over the top of the steering wheel and he appeared relaxed as he drove.
I shook my head and shrugged. "Nothing worth telling."
Harrison scrunched his nose and looked over his right shoulder, and then his left. "What's that? Do you smell that? This whole damn car just filled up with bullshit." He stopped his animated reaction and winked at me. "Come on, kid, we've all got a story to tell. You're traveling alone through the apocalypse, on a mission to hunt down someone. Sounds like a story I'd be willing to listen to for a few minutes. Hit me up with it. You can pretend it's a confession and I'll absolve you over your sins." He made the sign of the cross over his forehead and chest.
"Sorry, I don't believe in God."
He seemed surprised by my admission. "You're a Red, right?"
"Yes, why?"
He looked back and forth between the road ahead and me. "How old were you when the virus hit?"
"Thirteen."
"Old enough then." He grimaced and shook his head.
"Old enough for what?"
"Old enough to know that God got pissed and wiped us all the fuck out. The Greens never knew how good we had it. They never saw what the world was like before the end. I was just like you back then, I didn't believe in nothing, but after the apocalypse, boy oh boy, you better believe this old goat started praying."
"God didn't have anything to do with the plague. It was manmade."
Harrison shook his head. "God has something to do with everything."
I laughed at the contradiction that the old man was ignoring. "Ten minutes ago you told me that God had nothing to do with the guns in the back, and now you're saying he has something to do with everything."
"God's a complicated mother fucker." He spoke with comical assurance as he nodded his head and smiled at me.
"I guess so."
"People always ask for a sign, and ask for proof that he's up there watching over us, but every time he gives us one we just ignore it. For fuck's sake, kid, he wiped out damn near every person on the planet and he still can't get any respect."
"If God had anything to do with the plague, then I'll add him to my list."
"What list?" asked Harrison.
"Nothing, never mind." I hadn't meant to mention anything about the mission my father had left me with.
I pulled my pants down and adjusted the bandage over the bite from the zombie back at my former home. It itched like mad and I adjusted the tape to make it more comfortable.
"What's that?" asked Harrison as he eyed my wound.
"I got bit by a Popper in the house earlier." I knew how he would react to the revelation and quickly added, "Don't worry, I'm immune."
"Really? How do you know?"
"Because I've been bit a hundred times in the past two decades and I never got sick."
Harrison scratched his cheek and squinted at my wound as he moved his jaw back and forth with his lips pursed. He seemed deep in thought as he stared at me until he finally spoke. "You're not the first one I've met."
"First what? First person to be immune?"
He nodded. "Yep. There's a girl around here that says she's immune too. She's a tough kid. Runs with the High Rollers."
"Who are the High Rollers?" I asked.
"A group of scavengers from nearby. They roll through the towns out in these parts and wipe out whatever Greys they come in contact with. That's one of the reasons the towns out here were able to survive for so long."
"Sound like good people to have around."
"They're not bad, but they can be hard to pin down, and ain't never been there when I needed them. They're always driving here and there, shooting up shit and leaving bodies around behind them. God only knows what they'd do if the zombies all fell over dead." He laughed at the thought. "They wouldn't know what to do with themselves."
"I haven't met a lot of people that were immune."
"Me neither. Annie's a special case, and so are you I guess."
The immune girl's name caught my interest. "Her name's Annie?"
He nodded.
"Is she about twenty three or twenty four, with red hair?"
He nodded again and looked at me in surprise. "Do you know her?"
"I think I might. I met a girl named Annie back when the outbreak first started. They were doing tests on us, which is probably why we're both immune." I shook my head in disbelief. "What are the chances that we'd both end up out her
e in the mountains?"
Harrison shrugged and seemed unimpressed. "God works in mysterious ways." He stared ahead at the road while I grimaced at him, then he turned and smiled as if he'd been joking.
"Do you think we could find her?” I asked. “I'd like to see if she's the same girl.”
"Like I said, they travel all over the place. They try to protect the area, but that makes it hard to track them down."
"How much area do they cover?"
"I don't know exactly. Up and down the Rockies, through Colorado and Wyoming."
"I wonder if they know about Juniper yet."
Harrison shrugged, then leaned forward and squinted. "Help me look for a noose on a tree in the field out here somewhere. It's the marker for the town. I haven’t been here in a long time so I don't remember exactly where the entrance is. It's in the basement under a small airport out here somewhere. You get in it through the hanger, which is why they put up nooses on trees out here to lead you to it."
"So what did you do to piss them off?"
He coyly glanced at me and repeated what I'd said to him a few minutes earlier, "It's a story that's not worth telling."
"Fine. Keep your secrets, old man."
He pointed to the right of our car as we drove along the field. "There, is that a noose on that tree?"
I looked out at where he was pointing and then back at him in surprise. "That's not even a tree. That's a busted telephone pole."
He squinted harder and then shrugged. "Okay then, keep looking for a noose."
"Can you see?"
"Yes I can fucking see," said Harrison.
I glanced out at the broken telephone pole that looked nothing like a tree, and then back at the old man as he squinted. "No you can't."
"I can see just fine."
"That pole doesn't look anything like a tree."
"It was far away. How am I supposed to see something that far away? I'm an old man, you fucking twit."
"That's what I mean. You can't see that well."
He grumbled and waved his hand to shush me. "I can see all right."
"Why don't you pull over and let me drive?"
He laughed at the suggestion. "Why? Worried we'll get in a header with all that oncoming traffic? Settle down, kid." He pointed out the front window to the right and said, "There, look, I can see the tree out there. That's it, with the noose on it. Right? Look."
I sighed and looked at what he thought was the marker tree. He was right; it was a tall, dead tree with a noose tied to its lowest branch. "You're right. It's a tree with a noose on it."
"See," he said triumphantly.
"But you forgot to mention there's a body hanging from the noose."
He stopped smiling, then leaned forward and squinted to see if I was telling the truth. The corpse was too far away to see any details, but the shape swinging in the wind was certainly human. There were no birds circling, which meant it was a zombie. Birds, as well as other scavengers, won't bother an infected corpse. They'll come near to inspect it, but will swiftly turn away, choosing to starve rather than feast on the diseased flesh.
"Fuck," said Harrison. "That can't be good."
"I'll take it for granted they don't normally do that."
"No. I've never seen them hang someone out here before." He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Maybe we should keep on going to Vineyard."
"No. We should go check it out. If something happened here too, then there's a good chance the trader's food was poisoned."
"And then what?" asked Harrison.
I looked at him as if the answer should be obvious, but then I had a hard time answering. "Then we go and fight back, I guess."
Harrison chuckled until he saw I was serious. "Who? You, me, and the pup back there?" He pointed at Stubs, who had curled up between the packs in the back seat and was snoring. "The traders travel in groups, kid; groups that are too big for us to take out."
"You don't have to come with me. Just point me in the right direction and I'll get the job done by myself."
He rolled his eyes as he slowed the car down to take a right onto a lonely, small road in the middle of the vast plain. "Benny the ballistic missile. Maybe that's what I'll call you. Just point you in the right direction, light the fuse, and get the fuck out of the way. Right?"
"Something like that." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, toward the back of the car. "The Devil left me the tools, all I've got to do is get to work."
Harrison was frustrated with me, which was evident by the way he grumbled and frowned. "You're going to get yourself killed, that's what you're going to do. What do I care? Go ahead and get yourself blown to bits. I barely even know you, Fucknuts." His words came out in a garble and I realized that he was talking to himself. I settled back and stared out the window as we got closer to the airport.
It was a tiny municipal airport that had long ago fallen apart. The buildings were nearly all collapsed and despite the arid climate, plants had managed to break apart the runway, splitting it into hundreds of jagged pieces separated by strips of green overgrowth. A withered tree stood in front of the airport's sign, and a body hung from a noose tied to its lowest branch.
"This looks bad, kid. Looks real bad. We should tuck tail and run."
"Let's just get in there and see if the place is infected." I hadn't smelled the scent of decay yet, but I still sensed death. The eerily quiet airport, the coming dusk, and the swinging corpses set me on edge as we parked beside a large, crumbling hanger. "Leave the car running."
"Before we get out, I'm just going to throw this out there for debate. If you wanted to make sure that no one came by to visit you, what would be better to hang outside than a mother fucking body?" He screamed at me and slammed his hands on the steering wheel when he cursed. He glanced around in embarrassment, as if his raised tone and cursing was an accident, and then clenched his jaw as he seethed, "Let's get the fucking fuck out of here."
"You're an angry guy, you know that?"
He took a laughably long breath, flaring his nostrils as he did, and then exhaled as if pushing out every last breath he had before he spoke. "I'm working on it."
"How come you were so eager to go into Juniper, but you don't want to go in here?"
He leaned over into the back seat to grab his shotgun. "Because I liked the people in Juniper. The people here were assholes."
I laughed, although Harrison didn't understand what I found funny. "I thought preachers were supposed to love everyone. Isn't that part of the job?"
"Kid, what the fuck ever gave you the idea I was good at my job? Now get one of those big guns in the trunk and let's get this over with." He pulled the knob beside the steering wheel that popped the trunk and then got out of the car.
I was about to tell Stubs to wait for me, but the pup was still snoring in the back seat. His lips flapped when he exhaled, causing a distinctive noise that made me smile. I got out as quietly as I could, although I think a tornado could've descended on us without disturbing him.
The FN F2000 assault rifles in the trunk were in startlingly good shape. I had only seen one of them in my life before this. A guard that was traveling with one of my targets had been carrying one, and I stole it after killing them both. It wasn't an American weapon, but I couldn't remember where it originated, although I thought it was Belgian. It was a military rifle, and was designed so that the spent casings would fall out away from the user and not into their face, a feature that was shockingly absent on too many of the weapons that I'd encountered over the years. The only drawback to the gun was its weight. It wasn't dramatically heavier than other assault rifles, but every added pound to my gear was a pound I'd rather leave behind.
I took two of the rifles out and rigorously inspected them. They had 30 round mags in them already, and there were several more filled mags in the trunk as well. I grabbed extra ammunition and stuffed them into my pockets before handing one of the rifles over to Harrison. I was surprised when the old man refused it.
He shook his head and pat the side of his shotgun. "I'll stick with what I've got."
"Are you kidding me? This is a military grade assault rifle."
"And this is an apocalypse grade ass kicker." He kissed the barrel of his gun. "Never did me wrong."
I shook my head and set the extra rifle back in the trunk. It wasn't worth arguing with the old man, and considering he was half blind, perhaps a shotgun was the better option for him. I closed the trunk and slung my rifle's strap over my shoulder. "All right, let's get moving."
"There's usually a guard up there." Harrison pointed at the top of a nearby building. There was a raised section that poked out of the roof and was lined with windows. It would make a good guard post since it provided a view of every direction. I held my hand over my eyes as I tried to peer into the windows, but the glare from the sun was too bright to see anything inside.
The sun had begun to set behind the mountains, and the air had taken on a slight chill as dusk approached. "We’d better get moving before the sun sets. I don't want to be caught out here in the dark."
"That reminds me." Harrison opened the back door of the car and started rummaging through his gear. Stubs woke up and snorted at us before yawning and stretching his front legs out. "Here we go," said Harrison as he produced two large, black flashlights. He tried to hand one to me, but I refused and then flicked the switch under the barrel of my rifle to turn on its modular light.
I gave Harrison an obnoxious smile and said, "Mine's apocalypse grade too."
"I should've shot you in the weeds and left you for the dogs, you smart ass." He put the flashlight back in the car and then rubbed my dog on the head. "How do you put up with this shithead, Stubby?"
"His name's Stubs."
"I know what his damn name is. I'll call him what I want," said Harrison as he closed the car door and walked toward the hanger. He grumbled and I could only catch a few of the curses as he spoke, "…fucking tell me what his name is. Make me go into a fucking death trap, just for shits and giggles. No good damn reason for this. No damn reason at all."
