…he’s going to get you Buddy. Run…
He looked back and saw nothing. But that didn’t mean nothing was back there.
…that’s right boy. You can run but you can’t run forever…
With a huff, he threw one leg in front of the other and continued to slog through the snow, dragging the saddle bags along.
Bear saw Buddy off ahead of him. He watched him stumble and fall and he waited while he knelt there. He had followed the spattering of red in the snow. He wondered when he would collapse from losing so much blood.
A zombie was between himself and Buddy. Because it was tracking Buddy, he thought it had to be a brain. They were smart, but he didn’t think it knew he was following it.
When Buddy turned his head to look behind once more, the undead thing darted behind a pine and stood perfectly still.
Bear wondered if he would get back up. Where was the baby? He was some distance away, but when he squinted he saw no evidence of the child.
Buddy stood, half bent over, and staggered on, the saddle bags trailing.
Bear gripped the handle of the flanged mace that much tighter through his glove.
Hey Buddy...
Gotta…gotta run, Harris, he’s…he’s coming for me…
You remember the old man with the boat?
Yeah. Buddy smiled and cleared his throat. He spat. It was a gob of blood, but he was unaware of it.
…nigger…
He stopped and let the saddle bags fall.
Fuck this. It stops here.
He turned to face Markowski.
There was a zombie thirty yards behind him. As he turned he saw it scurry behind a tree. He blinked. The tree was too small to hide the thing and he could see its arm and half its side behind the trunk.
He started to laugh. The effort caused him to double up and grip his stomach. There was blood on his lips.
Fuck. Just a goddamn zombie back there. It wasn’t Markowski with his severed head.
…you did the right thing, you did the right thing…
A zombie he could deal with. If it had been Markowski, he would have had problems. He turned and took one step forward—
…you the man Buddy…
When the bullet hit him in the face it snapped his head back, lifting a piece of his skull free and sending it spiraling through the air to land several yards away.
Bear heard the crack of the unseen rifle. He watched Buddy catch the headshot, saw him plunge to the snow. He wasn’t moving. Bear hunkered down where he was behind the multiple twisted trunks of an evergreen and waited.
The zombie following was confused. It waited behind its own tree for a minute before emerging then running up to Buddy’s limp form. It wore a hoodie. Several thousands dollars worth of diamonds gleamed from the grillz in its mouth. It circled the body and the saddle bags in disappointment.
A second shot rang out and knocked the zombie down.
Bear watched from his concealment as the undead twitched in the snow. He spied four men as they broke from the trees and marched towards the bodies. When they reached Buddy and the fallen zombie, one of the men drew a pistol and shot the undead through the head.
Another used his foot to flip Buddy onto his back. They stood around him and the zombie talking for a bit, after which they gathered up the saddle bags and walked off in the direction they had come, back through the trees.
He crouched and waited for the sun to go down.
“Those were a couple of good shots you made today,” Jim told Pete.
“Ahh, first one was good. Zed went right down. Second one should have been better.”
“My brother, the sniper,” John said. “Mom and Dad would have been so proud.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Not as cold tonight as last night.” Sean said. He was seated atop his sleeping bag, kicking absently at a small branch half in and half out of the fire.
“Not yet,” John said. “Give it time.”
“Nah,” Jim said. “Spring is definitely in the air.”
“What month are we in?” Pete asked.
“Who knows,” Sean said.
“Couple more nights of this and then we head in,” John said.
“Shit yeah,” Jim said. “I hate being out here in the dark with those things.”
“All we seen all week were the two today,” Pete said.
“Yeah, so? You know they’re out there, somewhere, right?”
“Fuck ‘em,” Sean said. “I’m turning in.”
“What else is there to do out here?” Pete asked.
“Hey, John, put a can of beans on the fire for me, will you?”
“Yeah, you got first watch again.”
“Luck of the draw.”
“Yeah, luck of the draw.”
No one particularly enjoyed sitting up for two hours alone while the others slept, but it was generally agreed among the men that the guys pulling first and last shift had it best. At least they could catch a solid six hours of uninterrupted sleep before or after their own turn.
“Wake my ass when the birds start chirping,” Sean said, curling up on his side in his sleeping bag. He had the fourth and final watch for the night.
“Bet you can’t wait to get back into Clavius,” John said quietly to his brother. “See Mei.”
“Yeah.”
“When that girl gets done with you, your ass is gonna be sore for a week.”
“You be careful,” Pete told his older brother. “Or you’re going to wake up tomorrow and your ass is going to be sore.”
As if on cue Sean farted in his sleep.
“Now that’s funny,” Pete said.
Jim had come over with an oven mitt and was getting his can of baked beans from the fire. “You guys want you can stay up and keep me company.”
“Screw you,” John said. “Goodnight.”
Jim walked off to his spot beyond the fire.
“You know,” Pete said, “what the best part about Asian girls is?”
“What’s that?”
“They got small hands. Make someone like you feel like he’s got a big cock.”
“Nice,” John managed sleepily.
Jim sat away from the snores of the group, watching the dark and stirring what was left of his cold canned beans with a spoon. When the grenade exploded in the middle of the sleeping bodies, he was far enough away that the shrapnel wounded but did not kill him.
The blast extinguished the camp fire.
Bear came out of the trees and walked to the center of the camp. Smoke rose from the glowing embers scattered about. Two of the bodies lay unmoving in their torn sleeping bags. A third was moaning softly and shifting around inside his bag.
He walked over to the severely wounded man and looked down on him. The guy’s face was torn and bloodied. The material of his shredded sleeping bag darkened.
“Where’s the baby?” Bear stood over him. When the man couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, he finished him with one blow from the mace.
Jim tried to crawl off into the night, his legs dragging uselessly behind him, when Bear stepped on his lower back and pinned him to the ground.
“Please—Christ—Jesus—”
He reached down and turned him over.
“Please Mister—”
“Where’s the baby?”
“Wh-what baby?”
Bear raised the mace.
“Where’s the baby?”
“I swear to you—Mister, I don’t know what you’re—”
He brought the mace down and brained him.
He walked back to the ruins of the fire and searched in the dark until he found what he was looking for. The saddle bags. The grenade explosion had picked them up and thrown them away from the group.
He squatted down next to the bags and undid the clasp of the first. He dug around through it, searching. His hand gripped something small, smooth and cold. When he pulled it free he found it was a Zippo lighter. He rolled the wheel and watched the flame cat
ch. He considered the fire in his hand then threw the lighter away.
He rifled through the other saddle bag. When his hand closed on soft cotton, he drew it out and looked at the little purple flowered panties. Drained, he exhaled and sat down in the snow, his head bowed. He felt very alone in the universe.
Crusade Reprise
“Bear.”
He recognized the voice and opened his eye.
“Bruce.”
“Found this character lurking around…”
He was on his knees in the grass. In front of him was a blanket on which his pistols and weapons were set, freshly cleaned and oiled. Most of his armor and gear lay massed about the blanket as well. Beside him lay the saddle bags.
He rolled back onto the soles of his feet and twisted around to face Bruce and the kid with him.
“Where’d you find this one?”
“Hanging around the line. Wasn’t with anyone. He’s all alone.”
“Is that a fact?”
“What do you want to do with him?”
“Leave him here with me.”
He nodded, turned and walked off across the grass for the bushes.
The little boy stood there. His skin was black. His hair was grown out and nappy. He couldn’t have been more than ten and he looked like a scrapper. The kid wore pants that were way too big for him. He had secured them around his waist with a loop of rope and cut the bottoms off so they wouldn’t drag on the ground.
The boy had a pistol stuffed in his pants.
“Well. You’re a young one, ain’t ya?”
The boy didn’t say anything. He tried to look tough.
“You use that thing before?” He gestured to the butt of the pistol jutting out of the kid’s pants.
“Yeah.”
“You afraid of Zeds?”
“No.” The boy tried to sound convincing. “Why? You?”
“Me? Are you kidding? I’m terrified of them.”
“But you’re…you’re the man they call Bear, right?”
“That’s what they call me. How ‘bout you kid, you got a name?”
“My name is David Lee Roth.”
He put his head down and shook. When he looked up the kid saw he was chuckling.
“What’s so funny, Mister?”
“Do you know who David Lee Roth was?”
“Yeah. I’m David Lee Roth.”
Bear chuckled again.
“Why you laughin’?”
“I say Jump, or Ain’t Talkin ‘bout Love, or Panama. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“You making fun of my name?”
He had to admit the kid had balls.
“Kid-kid, listen. You’re talkin’ to a guy they call Bear. You think I’d make fun of your name?”
The kid considered it, then said no.
“Let me tell you why I’m laughing.” Bear turned back to his blanket. “Come on over here. Sit down.” The kid sat down opposite him. As Bear spoke he reached down and assembled a 9mm Glock.
“Back in the 80s—the 1980s—there was this rock and roll band called Van Halen. They had a lead singer named David Lee Roth.”
“Van Halen?”
“Yeah.”
“And this guy you’re talking about, he sang for them?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he look like me?”
“No, kid, he didn’t look anything like you. He was this tall skinny white guy, big hair—”
“What do you mean, ‘big hair’?”
“Kid, you gotta understand, this was the ‘80s. Guys wore their hair like women. All poofed out and Aqua Netted up.”
“Aqua Net?”
“Hairspray, kid. Hairspray.”
“What’s hairspray?”
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You with anybody?”
“No.”
“So who named you David Lee Roth?”
“This man and woman I was with for awhile.”
“What happened to this man and woman?”
The kid shrugged, trying not to look sad. “Zed.”
“Zed.” Bear shook his head. He holstered the Glock and went to work assembling the second one.
“If his name was the same as mine why’d they call the band Van-whatever?”
“Van Halen. There were a couple of other guys in the band, last name Van Halen.”
“Oh.”
“David Lee Roth was with them a long time, but not forever.”
“Zed get him too?”
Bear looked up from his work. “Probably. But back then, he left the band, worked as a radio DJ and an EMT for awhile—”
“What’s an EMT?”
“EMTs were the guys who would show up when you had an accident or something. They helped you out.”
“What happened to the band?”
“They got a new lead singer—guy named Sammy Hagar.”
“Like Hagar the Horrible.”
“You know Hagar the Horrible but you never heard of Van Halen?”
“Nope.” He gestured to one of Bear’s weapons. “I know what that is. Knights used to use it.”
“They did.” He picked up his flanged mace and held it for the boy to see. “Want to hold it?”
“It’s heavy.”
“It is.”
“And knights used to wear those too.” The boy pointed to his chain-mail.
“That they did.”
“But what’s that?”
“That’s called a splatter mask.”
“What’s a splatter mask?”
“Tank crews in World War One used to wear them. Protect them from ricochets and all.”
“We’ve got tanks now.”
“That we do.”
“You liked David Lee Roth and Van Halen?”
“I did. Which is ironic…”
“Why’s it ironic?”
“It’s ironic because their kind of music—remember I told you the guys all wore their hair big and long like a woman’s? That type of music used to be called ‘Hair Metal,’ and look at me.” He ran a hand over his bald head and David Lee Roth laughed.
“What happened to your hair?”
Crusade (Eden Book 2) Page 32
