“Go get the drone and bring it back here I have a mission for you.”
“I never get any of the fun,” he got up off the ground and started walking away muttering under his breath. “It’s always Cupcake go get this, drive this, do this. No one ever lets me kill anyone anymore. Fucking…” he broke into Polish at this point and I tuned him out.
I strode over to find Tom passed out from the pain from his ruined hands and wrist. Tess stood nearby guarding him. She saw me coming and moved to smack Tom awake. I motioned for her to standby. I checked his pulse and barely found it. Shock was a mother of a thing. It made big men small and smaller men puddles. I had no more supplies that I was willing to waste on this man. I pulled my pistol to put a bullet through his head when Hase appeared by my side.
“Let’s slow down on the gun fire. There is a small horde nearby and moving in our direction already. There are more of those faster and smarter ones in the group. I think our little firefight got them moving in our direction,” a radio somewhere squelched.
I moved over to the pile of clothes and equipment we had scavenged from the enemy and picked up the offending radio. It was a nice military radio, and a voice was coming out of it.
“Tom, you fucking piece of shit come in! If you don’t come in and I have to come after you, I am going to break your arms and throw you in the arena.”
I took the radio over to Max and handed it to him. He nodded his head in understanding and cleared his throat before pushing the PTT button. “Chief, Tom is busy dropping a deuce and told me to answer the call.”
“Why would he let a little piece of shit like you use the radio?”
“I just do as I am told Chief.”
“Damn right you do, you shit head,” boisterous laughter came over the open radio. “So, what was with all that gun firing? Did you get hard?”
“A small group of survivors wanted our shit and Tom had us rain down hatred on them.”
“Did you get anything good?”
“Nah, they were a bunch of pansies with nothing worth taking. We shot them all after a brief battle. Everything is good, we will reset and wait for anyone else stupid enough to take us on.”
“Great job, tell Tom we will send the next shift tomorrow night.”
“Yes Chief.”
The radio went to static and then nothing. Max stared at it. “I don’t believe him. I bet he is planning on coming tomorrow morning for a surprise visit. He was too calm and nice. He is never nice and never ever says good job.”
“I need to make my move soon,” I scratched my chin and thought things through.
Cupcake came up then with the drone’s carrying case. “The power is all topped off and she is ready to go,” he set the case down and undogged the latches, before opening the case and retrieving the drone. He unfolded the propeller arms and extended the landing gear and antennae. I handed him my ruggedized tablet and he plugged in a power source to charge it. He initiated the program to pilot it and set the course for it to follow.
I pointed to a section of forest on the tablet screen. “I also need this area checked using the infrared and LIDAR. I am looking for a hatch or some kind of hole into the caverns below.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will take care of it. Why don’t you got eat and relax. I will come find you when I find something,” he made a go away gesture with his hand.
I flipped off Cupcake and moved back over to Tom. I checked his pulse again and found it after a lengthy time. It was very slow and weak, this man was not long for our world. I took Hase’s suggestion of not using the gun and instead broke Tom’s neck with my hands. It was a sound I was growing used to, like dry twigs snapping. I made my way to Max and checked out his map and detailed tags on each structure. He had Morley’s cabin labeled and made indications of the guard posts and their two towers. “Heaven, if we had to take this little makeshift fortress out, how would you suggest we do it?”
He studied the map for a second. “I would snipe these towers and take out their guards. I would then make entrance over these two walls and move two men down each side hitting anyone with a gun. The only place that would require a sustained firefight would be this Morley guy’s cabin. He has good defenses set up. We would win no matter what though, not much loses on our sides. I am worried though, on how these prisoners would react if their husbands are the guards we end up killing. We need to find a way to let them give up their arms and surrender.”
I nodded my head and walked toward to Athena and Stephanie. “Stephanie, if I was able to take out Morley, do you think most of the guards would throw down their weapons?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head.
I smiled at Athena and felt a shroud of exhaustion roll over me. I had slept on the Humvee during the drive, but hadn’t really eaten much, and stress tends to drain my energy at a record pace. I found a comfy tree and sat down, placing my back against it. Tess came over and handed me a plastic one-liter bottle of water. I cracked the lid and drained it in one large gulp, she took it from me and tossed a paper sack onto my lap. I opened it and found three wrapped sandwiches, a bag of chips, and a can of warm Coke.
“Where the hell did you get these?”
“They were on the supply pallet, the guys brought with them. Eat up, there are more,” with that Tess turned and left me to enjoy my bounty.
I cracked open the soda and took a small dainty sip. It was like heaven; the sandwiches were next. I have no idea what was in the sandwiches, but I devoured them. The chips were corn chips, my favorite. Those I took my time eating, in the end I ripped the bag open and licked the salt out. I finished the Coke, burped, and leaned back against the tree. Before I knew it, I was out like a light.
No dreams this time of Angel or the boat. It was one of the best, deepest sleeps I had had in a while. I woke to someone shaking my shoulders. I cracked an eye open and found Cupcake’s ugly mug smiling down at me.
“Wakey, wakey, time to take hand off snakey and get to work. Come on Cinderella, up.”
“This better be good asshole,” I growled.
“You want to see video from drone?”
“Did you find anything?”
Cupcake rolled his eyes and sighed. “No Sasquatch, and that is why I am waking your giant ugly face to look at. Nothing,” he threw his hands in the air and stomped away muttering in Polish.
I got up off the ground and tried to massage out the knot in my lower back that had taken up residence during my nap. I was getting old and feeling worn out, a vacation sounded like the greatest thing in the world at that moment. I stopped in mid step, thinking about that little thought. The world was in shit, I was probably going to die in the next couple of days, I would never get to go on vacation, even if a place now existed to go to. Everywhere was covered in the walking corpses of death. I jogged after Cupcake and found him sitting at a bench with Max, in the waning light of the day. I checked over to where Stephanie had been cuffed and found her missing, I turned my head to check on the body of Tom to, also finding it missing.
“Okay Cupcake, give me the long and skinny,” I sidled in next to him on the picnic table bench.
“I flew high over the entire fortress and the surrounding area out to a mile. I ran the LIDAR and mapped out the buildings as we took pictures on the regular camera. Using the software, on the tablet I overlaid the data. If you look here, you can identify the zombie pens, I count out fifty heads. Across the camp here, you can see the area they keep the women and children. Over here looks like a guard’s bunkhouse, which Max verified for me,” he then pointed to a large open area. “This is where they keep their vehicles, which includes two up armored Humvees, some chopper styled motorcycles, and a couple of off-road bikes as well as some off-road trucks.”
I took the tablet from Cupcake and studied the areas. I zoomed in on the lone cabin set far away from everyone else. A large man was standing on the deck his long gray hair around his shoulders and a cigar in his mouth. I handed the tablet to Max.
“Is that the
self-titled Chief Morley?”
“Yeah, and as you can see there are six guys guarding the perimeter of the cabin.”
“Cupcake, call a briefing and get everyone over here in the next five minutes.”
“Sounds great Sasquatch, but let me show you this first,” Cupcake took the tablet from me and zoomed out.
Cupcake moved his finger across the image and stopped on another area. He then zoomed in on a cleverly built lean to that the LIDAR had picked up. He then zoomed in on the spot more and stabbed his finger at the image. Two men were sitting on lawn chairs next to two tents, guarding what looked like a small cave entrance. The front tire of a motorcycle poked out.
“Now, I will go wrangle everyone, thanks!” he stood and moved off.
I studied the tablet and zoomed out, creating a path in my head from this spot to the small cave entrance. I was gonna go spelunking, and hunting. In minutes, the whole team minus Kot and Nunzio, who were out trying to coax the small horde away from us, and Dead Eye, who was on overwatch up in some tree. I outlined my plan to the team and waited for their chance to pick it apart.
Moonie asked the first question. “And why is it we give two shits about this Morley guy?” he continued chewing on the end of his unlit cigar.
“We don’t, we care about the women and children prisoners,” Hunter pointed out.
“Like the Hunter said, the wee ones, you uncaring old fart,” spoke Gillian my Irish super spy spoke up.
“I was just checking. So, what do you want me to do?” Moonie asked.
I eyed Moonie and his cigar. “Stay here and check over our vehicles and make sure they are road worthy. Oh, and do some of that A-Team shit you do and get one of those semi-trucks working.”
“Why don’t I just shove my boot up your ass young man?”
“Better get a ladder old man. While you’re looking for one, why don’t you go do what I ordered?”
He stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth, chewed on it for a second, before turning around and waddling away, flipping me off as he went. That little bastard was a guy I knew would have my back anytime. He just liked to give everyone a hard time.
“Boys and girls, what do you think of my little plan?”
Doc stood up from his cross-legged position on the ground and made his way through the crowd. “This could get messy really quick,” he blew a bubble with his pink bubble gum, popped it, sucked the gum back into his mouth and chewed. “Who are you taking with you on your little side trip?”
“Does this mean you are volunteering?”
Doc smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger twisting the ends and eyed me. “Why not? Sounds like fun.”
“Doc and I will hike down to that cave entrance, eliminate the guards and enter. Hopefully we can find our way to the escape hatch leading into Morley’s cabin and secure him while you guys hit the camp and spread madness. Hase, the rest of the team is yours, give us thirty minutes to get into place and another ten, before you hit the tower guards and make your way into the camp. Hopefully we can do this with limited loss of life. I do not want to rescue these prisoners only to leave them with no one to protect them.”
“No worries Sasquatch, we will shoot to wound,” Hase kicked the dirt under his foot.
“Hell no, if you have to shoot, you shoot to kill. If someone raises their gun toward you, you put them down. Any losses on our side is unacceptable, got that?”
“Loud and clear,” Heaven spoke up.
I took Doc and we moved off to our Humvees and equipment stash. We changed out the batteries in our night vision glasses and topped off our magazines. I took the XM25 off my back and placed her into the Humvee and promised her I would be back for her. Doc and I took the time to check over our gear and secure anything that rattled or reflected light. We needed to go into the guard’s camp like those Ninjas in the eighties movies. We took time out to check each other’s gear and when we were sure we had what we needed and were prepared, we took off into the trees.
I led the way through the quiet forest, our footfalls falling softly, scarcely making a rustle on the fallen leaves and needles carpeting the ground. We were forgoing the night vision goggles, as the moon up ahead was full and bright, giving us more than enough illumination to move by. A voice spoke in my headset, bringing me to a halt. Doc and I both moved to our knees.
“Enemy guard twenty-five yards ahead to your two o’clock. Hold still, taking the shot,” Dead Eye informed me through our radio. The shot was not entirely silent, but the body dropping ahead of us made more noise as it pitched back onto the ground. “Clear, proceed on.”
I answered Dead Eye by breaking squelch twice. Doc and I moved up to the body and stripped it of its weapons. Dead Eye was as good a shot as his nickname suggested. His round took the unsuspecting guard through the top of his right eye and punched out through the bottom of the left ear. I could feel him watching us through his scope. I never liked being in the line of fire, whether my own or the enemy. Doc and I worked quickly, dragging the body to a fallen log and throwing leaves and dirt on it. Doc scratched up the earth, to try and hide signs of the guard’s demise. We moved off again, double timing it toward our objective. The guard put us behind the clock I kept running in my head.
As we came closer to the cave entrance we slowed and went back to creeping like big hunting cats about to take its prey. Doc reached out with his hand up, then clenched it into a fist. I stopped and lowered to the ground as he opened his hand and moved it toward the ground. He then painfully slowly turned his head and pointed to his eyes. He had seen the enemy. He then showed me three fingers and pointed out in front of us. I belly crawled up next to him and set my SCAR down on the ground. I found a place where I could see the three men standing around a smoldering fire, smoking cigarettes. The three men were all dressed like scum bag bikers, all leather and tatts. I pulled my gun up inch by inch and molded my cheek up against it as my eye examined the enemy through the night vision scope. The fire was blotting out my vision through the scope. I went to the iron sights by tilting the gun slightly to aim at the man on the far right. Doc had done the same with his rifle but would take the man on the far left. Whoever shot first and killed their objective would take out the middle man.
I took a deep breath and relaxed, willing my heart to calm down. I let out half the breath and slid my finger inside the trigger guard. I squeezed the trigger back a centimeter at a time till the rifle bucked in my hands, I watched the blood spray from the back of the man’s throat and quickly moved my aim on to the third man’s chest. As I fired my second shot, I witnessed my round hit the man square in the middle of his breast bone as Doc’s round hit the man in the jaw, obliterating the bottom of his face. Our rounds were pretty much right on top of each other.
Doc and I waited a couple of minutes for any alarm. When none was raised, I turned to Doc. “Nice try, but I was faster.”
“Yeah but mine was more accurate. Why would you take a man in the chest? Were you trying to give him a chance at letting out an alarm?”
“That round obliterated his heart and probably collapsed his lung. He had no breath to call out an alarm.”
I worked my way to my knees and covered the scene, giving Doc a chance to get up and cover me, while I finished getting to my feet. We moved into the small campground and checked the area finding it clear. I found a machete nearby and checked out the quality of it. Someone had a passion for edged weapons. This thing was nice, not like the knock offs from Walmart. The edge had been honed to a razor-like finish. I slid it into my belt. As I was doing that, Doc had checked the three men to make sure they were dead. Without a word we moved into the cave.
Asclepius
Chun, Butch, and Joseph stood in yet another airlock mantrap waiting to enter the last part of the facility. They had gone through every nook and cranny of the facility verifying that it was clear of Ridder and the dead. Their ears popped from the air pressure change as a green light above the inner door hissed and slid open. Butc
h took lead as Chun held Joseph back. Butch held the shotgun in his hands, buttstock tight against the crook of his shoulder. He made a circuit around the diameter of the cavernous circular room. He came back to the elevator.
“This is one giant fucking room, Doctor. I found doors at the far end, but they seemed dogged tight.”
“Yes, those are the control specimen rooms. They house patients for testing, come this way please.”
Chun and Butch followed Joseph to a bank of computers in the middle of the room. He sat on a round stool like he had done it a thousand times before. He moved the mouse on the console and the monitors in the room all flashed on, giving the room an eerie blue glow. Joseph punched a set of keys and spoke into a microphone. The screen changed to a desktop full of icons. Joseph picked up an earpiece and inserted it into his ear canal. He slid out a thumb drive from the inside of his pants pocket and inserted it into a small port. He stood and moved to the middle of the room.
“Janet, you on the air?”
An English accented female’s voice came out of the ether and sounded like it was coming from all around them. “Good to see you are well, Doctor Hedley. I have run a self-diagnostic of the USB drive and found it clean. Would you like me to upload the files inside?”
“I am well. Thank you for asking, Janet. Yes, please simulate the formula on the drive designated Asclepius as an inoculation to Wild Fire and report its effectiveness. Also start the incubators and bring them up to temperature,” Joseph picked up a tablet nearby and powered it up as he spoke.
“The simulation has started Doctor. Incubators one through eight are reaching temperature. Incubator nine is showing an alarm and I am running diagnostics. Incubators ten through fifteen have reached temperature.”
“Excellent, how are our specimens?”
“All specimens are still alive and secure.”
“Outstanding, please bring up their quarters on the big screen.”
Two emitters glowed on the ceiling and projected a faint image into the air, that grew sharper and sharper as the lab lights slowly dimmed. Butch and Chun took a step back as they gazed at the images. The projection showed camera feeds of small cell-like rooms without a chair or bed. Each cell was filled with two chained up zombies. Tubes ran into their necks and more tubes connected to their stomachs. They had neither legs nor arms, they hung from chains attached to hooks driven through their shoulders. Chun seemed aghast at the images, but Butch seemed to quickly get it under control and understand what he was seeing. He even came to the realization that he agreed with it.
Zombie Theorem: Dark Times Book Five Page 22
