“Great, promote him to team leader for the roof team. You are now head of security for the building. Matt didn’t come back from our battle with the freaks, so you get his job.” My voice sounds blunt and cold, even to me and before she can answer, I am already walking away from her.
Things to do, people to piss off.
The guards in front of the council room door have the good sense to step out of my way as I come walking up. I can hear the high pitched drone of arguing voices even through the closed door as I come walking up to it.
I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down, nobody in the room I am going into is my enemy. All of them, even the most annoying of them, have earned the right to sit on the council. Most of them don’t agree with my new path for us, they want things the way they always have been, because that is how we all have survived this long.
My job now is to convince them that simple day to day survival just isn’t enough anymore. Not with the way that the zombies are mutating and adapting to our tactics.
If we don’t fight back now, they will sooner or later, either overrun us or starve us out. That is the simple glaring fact staring us in the face right now. Our survival depends on carving out a zombie clear space, one dead fucking zombie at a time.
It is evolution baby.
Adapt or die.
We have to adapt to the zombies faster and better than they are adapting to us or they will be the only living things left on the planet.
Taking another deep breath, I push the doors open and step inside.
Chapter Twelve
The room falls quiet as I walk into it, the voices all trail off and everyone turns to watch me as I come in. I don’t say anything at first, I just walk up to the table and grab a bottle of water. I guzzle it down to the last drop and place it gently back on the table.
A headache is beginning to pound like a drum being abused by a hyper active toddler in my skull. Another fucking dizzy spell, a minor one this time comes and goes, as I get ready to do what I came here to do.
Looking around the room, I make eye contact one by one with all of the council people here. Some of them give me frowns, some small smiles, some the barest of nods. None of them speak, a silence has grown that everybody seems to be waiting to see who breaks it first.
I will give you three guesses on who breaks the silence first.
“The Lord has punished you for your arrogance! We must heed his call and replace you as our leader, before your madness dooms us all!” Father Brian shouts out, shaking a fist at me.
Pretty sure everybody saw that coming.
“Calm down, I will make a brief report and then I must attend to other matters. Today we brought the fight to our enemy, we killed a great many of them, but at a cost. This is war people, that means that every victory will come by brave men and women sacrificing their lives to buy it for us. I need to debrief the other team and after that, I will send a runner with all the facts and figures for you to mull over. You can debate them all you want. The fact is that we are at war now, wrap your brains around that people and get with the program. Help or get the fuck out of the way.” I tell them in a loud flat voice.
“There should be a vote.” John Martin says quietly, he gives me a long level stare. There is no aggression in his voice, just a statement of fact.
“No John, this isn’t a democracy. Honestly, I really wish that it was. Sadly that idea died right about the time that the world was over run by the dead. For better or worse, I am running this shit show. We go back out tomorrow and we do it all over again. Then we do it some more, until we win or they win. Once again I call upon all of you to do your duty and either help or resign and get out of the way.” I can hear notes of regret in my own voice, but I can also hear my determination.
I let that soak in for a second or two.
“I need to go debrief the other team, and like I promised, you will know everything that I know afterwards. Send runners to me tomorrow if any of you wish to step down. Otherwise, I will see whoever is left at tomorrow mornings breakfast meeting.”
Father Brian glowers openly at me for a moment and I return that glare until he flinches and looks away.
Then I turn around and leave the room.
I give the guards a grateful tired smile as I pass on my way out and they give me brief nods back.
They are glad to see me go, without a brawl or a shooting. Like most guards, they live by a simple mantra. Bad things happen, but if they have to happen, please don’t let them happen on my watch.
Now, time to pay a little visit to the infirmary and get some much needed answers to some burning fucking questions. Shock or no shock, I need to debrief what is left of the other team.
Rubbing my sore jaw, I start back up the stairs, little shit might be scrawny, but Henry has a surprisingly legit Sunday punch. Part of me, the nasty part, hopes that he gives me an excuse to return the favor as I question him. Since I lost Joyce, I fear that the nasty part is getting stronger and louder all the damn time and it has become more of an effort to keep it in check.
My grief has burned new holes in my soul, I have had to call upon all of my strength not to let it out and out cripple me. Too many people depend on my doing my job, I am responsible for too many damn lives to bitch out now. Big Al left me this legacy and I will not dishonor the trust that he showed in me, as long as my sore heart beats.
The weight of losing Joyce was enough to bear, a cruel burden settled upon my shoulders. I was just learning how to walk through my days without it threatening to grind me down. One of the things that got me through was the stoic prescence of my best friend, he never said much, but he listened and was there for me. He had my back.
And now he is gone.
Left behind to rot on the zombie infested streets.
I stop walking up the stairs and lean against the wall with my eyes closed for a long minute.
Sighing, I take a slight detour and head up to a sniper station.
Katrin is waiting for me, like she knew I was coming, I suppose that she did, I was going to end up here sooner or later tonight.
Some of the folks here spend their Sundays in our makeshift chapel with Father Brian and they take what comfort that they can from that.
I don’t begrudge them that comfort, hell, I envy them that comfort. Never worked for me, or for most of the people who go outside this place on suppy runs or now to battle. We have seen and done too much for that comfort to apply to the likes of us. No, such things are not for us. But we have our own rituals, our own ways of showing our respects.
We both take out knives from our belts and go over to a large wooden beam leaned up against the wall. All of the snipers and guards ignore us as we do what we can to honor our friend.
When one of ours falls, their loved ones carve their intials into this beam.
The damn thing has far too many fucking initials carved into it.
The damn thing is going to have far more, before all is said and done.
“First I go, da?” Katrin asks me quietly, without waiting for an answer she moves past me and stabs her knife into the wood. Her back is to me, so I can’t see her face, but I would bet my life that there are tears on her face.
I know that because, there are tears on mine.
And I am at least as tough as her, right?
Thing is, we are almost exactly as tough.
She also lost her love and continued to do what needed to be done, and now she too has lost a friend, call it salt in the wound of the original grief.
Yeah, that has a familiar ring to it.
Putting her blade back in its sheath, she drags the sleeve of her jacket across her face. Turning towards me again, she walks away, brushing my shoulder briefly with her own as she passes.
A smile flits across my face, for the barest of instants.
From her, that amounts to a comforting hug.
I do my own carving and then I stick the knife back into my belt, wipe my own tears away with the back
of my own damn jacket .
Time to get moving.
Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Viv is waiting for me outside of the infirmary as I come walking up, I knew that she would be. She watches me come calmly enough, she is leaned against the wall next to the door with her hands crossed across her chest. Her face is blank, but her body language screams not to try and go past her to her patients.
“Report.” I order her crisply as I keep on walking towards her.
“Henry is ok, badley shaken, but not physically harmed beyond minor injuries. Russ has a couple of broken ribs, a couple of nasty burns and a badly sprained ankle. Both are currently conscious and lucid, Russ was given pain meds a little bit ago, so he will be in happy land soon.” She answers back at me in the same crisp tone.
“I badly need to debrief them.” I tell her as I slowly pull out my pistol, eject the magazing and place both on a nearby table.
“You don’t need a gun to kill Henry.” She tells me gesturing towards my empty holster.
“Not killing anybody just now, I need to know what happened to them out there. I owe the punk a shot to the jaw, but I can collect on that particular debt another time. Now, we are wasting time we don’t have, so step out of the damn way and let me get this done.” I tell her as calmly as I can manage, she gives me a long look, but then nods and steps out of the way.
But I think she may be suffering from trust issues, because she quietly follows me in.
Henry looks up as I come in and then looks back down again quickly. He looks like hell, pale and shaken, bruises have already formed on the knuckles of the hand he smacked me with.
“Ok kids, let’s try this again with less punching me this time. Report.” I snap the order out and both men flinch slightly.
Russ is sitting on a cot propped up by pillows, his bad ankle is wrapped up and is resting on another pillow. He is shirtless and I see that the doc has wrapped up his broken ribs. One hand is wrapped in layers of gauze, burned I imagine.
“We kept killing them, hell we killed dozens and dozens of them, but they just kept coming.” He croaks out, his raspy voice sounding even worse than usual.
Viv pours him a glass of water and holds it to his lips, he takes a few painful looking swallows and then gives her a weak grateful smile.
“Smoke inhalation, his throat is pretty raw.” She tells me.
“Stun and gun wasn’t working, they seem to have figured out how to skirt the edges of the stun zone. Jumpers attacked us randomly from roof tops all the way out and back. We also ran into a fucking choir of Singers, it seemed like they were trying to drown out our wall of sound with their own noise. It didn’t work, but they tried.” Henry took over in a washed out monotone.
That was interesting, we didn’t run into any Singers in my group, maybe they were all busy with the other team.
“We killed them all and then didn’t see anymore of them. Nobody was affected by their singing, must have been too much background noise. Burners attacked once on the way out and three times on the way back, they killed a lot of our squad. After Jumpers took out our sound cart, it was a slaughter all the way back, we killed them all the way up to the front door.” Henry says rubbing his face tiredly.
Luck of the draw, we had flipped a coin that morning to see which team went which direction. My squad took some losses, but Russ’s squad, to quote the man himself, went through a fucking meat grinder.
“Ok men, rest up, we will talk more tomorrow. Henry, I am giving you a pass on the punch, but if you ever try something like that again, I will toss you off the roof, after kicking your ass. Understood?” I put a cold edge into my voice as I stuck out my hand.
He seems startled by the gesture and takes a second to reach out and shake my hand. His hand is cold as ice and he pulls it back immediately.
“Understood.”
“Russ you are relieved of all duties until the doc here clears you, I will send runners when I can to keep you posted on what is going on. Henry you are relieved of duty for the next two days. You are to speak to no one about what happened, until I clear you to do so. Viv, Russ here is not to have any visitors until I say so. Do I make myself clear people?” My voice is just a little harsher than I had meant it to be.
They all give me nods.
“Write down everything that you remember Henry, every thing that you noticed and any ideas you have about what happened. When you are finished send it to me by a runner.” I call out over my shoulder as I leave.
I collect my gun on the way out.
Heading for my quarters, I pass other Narwhals going about the business of keeping this place up and running. Some greet me, some turn away with angry faces. The loved ones of those whose people didn’t come back from our first battle, most likely.
There will be more amongst them soon, like I told the council, this is war and in war, soldiers die.
We are all soldiers now.
I make a few more stops, checking in on the other four survivors of Team Red. They all tell pretty much the same story and that story matches what Henry and Russ have already told me.
So I have trust issues, I like to verify things when I can.
All four men were subdued and a little shaken, but all four men told me that they were able and willing to go out again.
They will get their chance soon enough.
I make my way through the crowds ignoring any harsh words or looks, I make a quick stop at the armory and get a list of the weapons we lost in the battle. Guns that are just lying useless on the street now, dropped by the dead soldiers that carried them.
The list is too long, I will have to consider sending out a scavenger party to retrieve what we can of them or try another run on the sporting goods store. Either approach is risky, but we cant fight this war without guns. I will discuss the matter later with my new head of security and even later on with the council.
A runner finds me and delivers the message that the work crews can have another two speaker carts ready to roll in twenty four hours.
I am not surprised, they seldom cease to amaze me with how fast those people can get shit done.
Exhaustion pulls at me and I decide to call it a day.
I head back to my quarters and hope that there is enough whiskey left in the bottle for me to grab a few hours of hopefully dreamless sleep.
Doesn’t seem like too much to ask for.
Chapter Fourteen
My sleep doesn’t end up being dreamless.
But instead of the usual nightmares, other dreams creep in, dreams that build themselves out of scraps of memories.
When I was nine years old, my favorite uncle was in the hospital dying of cancer. My parents brought me to visit him all the way up to the end, the last few visits where minus the magic of his laughter and the wonderful stories he used to tell me. The last few visits were spent sitting in a hard chair watching him sleep away the shreds of life he had left in him. The machines he was hooked up to made beeps and other odd noises and the single strongest memory I have of these visits is the smell.
The hospital stench of industrial strength disinfectant, it had a god awful fake floral scent on top of the harsh reek of chemicals. To me it came to be the answer to the question of what death smells like and I have hated hospitals ever since.
I wake up with that stink filling my senses and it’s so real that for a moment, I lie there all but gagging at it.
It soon fades away to nothing as I wake all the way up, as does whatever dream was associated with it.
Shaking the dreams off, I quickly get dressed, arm myself and step out of my room to go grab breakfast before the full weight of my responsibilities comes crashing down on me.
On the floor in front of my door is a grubby manila envelope full of sheets of paper with familiar handwriting on them.
The report I asked for from Henry.
I pick it up and take it with me to breakfast.
O
n the way I send out runners to invite a few people to come join me for a strategy meeting. So far, no runners have come up to me with resignations from council members. Either they are all on board or all plotting against me quietly.
Hey, it is not actually being paranoid if everybody is really out to get you, is it?
Breakfast is a bowl of thin oatmeal with dark lumps that I sincerely hope are raisins, sometimes it doesn’t pay to look too closely.
Mess hall is about half full, I grab a seat at an empty table near the back and start reading Henry’s written report.
It is, as was to be expected, clear and concise. It lays it all out in meticulous detail, the part that interests me the most is what he called the choir of Singers trying to counteract their wall of noise. That hints at far more intelligence than I want the filthy undead things to be capable of. That and the Jumpers being able to target our sound carts tells me that they aren’t just hungry beasts anymore, they can think and they can plan on at least some kind of limited basis.
Which means that we have to think and plan way better than that if we are going to win this war.
“Morning boss.” Greg Bennet says as he grabs a chair across from me, he sits a mug of, what passes for coffee around here, in front of me and takes a sip off of his own.
“Got a mission for you, maybe today, we need to recoup the weapons we lost yesterday. Your call, retrace the other teams route and scoop up whatever they dropped or make another run to the sporting goods store?” I tell him knocking back some of the bad coffee.
He leans back in his chair and thinks about it for a couple of minutes as he toys with the brim of his grungy baseball cap.
“Thinking the sporting goods store, we know there is good stuff there still. Also thinking no stun and gun this time, small team in and out on stealth mode with all we can carry. That’s how I would do it anyway.” He tells me with a shrug.
“Make it so. Pick your team, be careful, we need those weapons, but we also need people to shoot them, so watch your asses out there. If it comes down to coming back alive and empty handed, then you do that, clear?”
War (The Zombie Extinction Event Novels Book 3) Page 5
