by Joseph Coley
Jamie fumbled with his M4, but finally managed to get a firm grasp on it. He too swiftly clambered out of the truck, climbed onto the hitch, and ducked behind the flimsy fiberglass cab. It wasn’t the best spot to try to return fire, but it kept him from getting something important shot off. He was lucky enough to catch his attackers between magazines, giving him a slight moment of levity and a chance to figure out just what the hell was going on.
Cornbread didn’t give the guards the same courtesy.
He fired a homemade slug – made of hot glue and 4.5mm air gun pellets – at the first man that he saw. There were no negotiations, no attempt to resolve the conflict. He didn’t know who was shooting at him and, frankly, he didn’t give a shit. It was a cutthroat world. There was no sense in trying to talk it out.
The first slug sailed wide right, but the two men got the hint. Each one instinctively ducked down and scrambled for cover. A derelict car about thirty feet to their left was the best they could muster. The men scrambled over to it and continued firing random shots as they escaped.
Cornbread racked the next round – another hot glue and pellet salvo – as he saw both men duck behind the abandoned car. Jamie eased over to Cornbread’s left and peeked around the corner of the truck. Cornbread pointed to his eyes and held up two fingers, the international sign for I have eyes on two. Jamie brought the rifle’s ACOG scope to his eye. He could see the car, but no movement. Only after waiting for a few seconds did he see the slightest shadow under the car start to move. He fired three shots in quick succession, not expecting any of them to land, but to let the two gunmen know that they meant business. Cornbread followed his three-round burst with another hot glue slug. The round hit the car with a hellacious force, the impact ripping a sizeable hole in the rear quarter panel.
“The next one is gonna be through your head if you don’t identify yourself!” Jamie announced.
“Unless you’re one of our people, then I suggest that you put down your weapons and come out slowly!” Came the reply.
Cornbread looked to Jamie and shook his head urgently. “No way in hell these are your friends, Jamie. I say we pop ‘em and worry about the consequences later.”
“And how do you propose we do that? I can’t get a shot, and you can’t, either. They aren’t gonna stroll out and give up there, hoss.”
Cornbread swiftly reached up to the cab door of the truck and flung it open. Jamie kept his attention to the abandoned car, covering Cornbread’s movement. He fired three more shots as he noticed the two men stirring. Cornbread sat back down behind his shoddy cover, an assault pack in his hand. He opened the pack and fiddled around in it for a few seconds, finally producing a contraption that made Jamie cringe.
“Is that C4?”
Cornbread held up the makeshift bomb. He had taken two Claymore mines, tied them back-to-back, and filled the empty space between them with a half-pound of C4. Three wires ran from a small radio on top of the contraption, one to the C4, and two more to each one of the Claymores. It was a formidable-looking explosive. Cornbread had plenty of time to fidget with some of the explosives and had come up with the device for taking out any size wall or other obstacle. After four months of next to nothing to do, he’d decided to take the bomb with him on their current mission. He reached into the bag again, this time procuring a basketball – flat – with a large slice down the middle of it.
Despite the predicament, Jamie lowered his rifle, momentarily taking his attention off the attackers. “What the fuck are we gonna do with a flat basketball? You plan on settling this over a really shitty game of one-on-one with these assholes?”
“It’s a pain in the ass for a one-armed man to throw something this size, so I figured I’d stuff it in the basketball and chuck it. A flat one tends to flop and stick wherever it lands, too. Besides, no one thinks of a basketball being thrown at them as much of a threat, do they?”
Jamie had to admit to himself that Cornbread had a damn good point. Appearances were everything. The undead weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, so it wouldn’t matter what you threw at them. Living people, on the other hand, were much more perceptive to their surroundings, so a basketball would confuse them, maybe for just a few seconds, but just long enough to take them out.
Cornbread finished stuffing the large bomb in the basketball, turning the radio on and noting the channel that it was on before he did. It was a difficult task for a one-armed man, but he handled it adequately. After applying a small amount of duct tape to cover the hole, the IED (Improvised Explosive Device) was ready. He fished out the companion radio to the device and turned it on.
“Fire off a few rounds. When those fuckers duck down, I’m gonna chuck this thing as close to the car as I can.”
“What if you don’t get it all the way there?” Jamie asked.
Cornbread chuckled. “With the amount of boom-boom this thing is gonna produce; it won’t really matter where I get it, as long as it’s within fifty feet or so.”
“I’m not worried about them, dipshit! What is the blast radius on that thing?”
The gunmen behind the car startled both Jamie and Cornbread. Both stood at the same time and fired off what seemed like a full magazine each, none of the rounds hitting anything but rock and making more holes in the truck.
“Fuck it! Get to it! I got this!” Jamie hollered, and then proceeded to start firing.
Both the men ducked down quickly at the gunfire. Jamie wasn’t going crazy with the rate of fire, firing off two rounds a second, just enough to keep the assailants suppressed. He made a mental count of how many rounds he fired, minus the six he’d already sent down range.
Cornbread didn’t waste any time, either. As soon as Jamie began firing, he stood and sized up the distance he needed to keep them out of harm’s way with the basketball IED. The car was around thirty or forty yards away, which would stretch the limit of his throwing abilities, and was still inside the blast range of the Claymores, but not by much. As long as he and Jamie stayed behind the engine block of the truck, they should remain unscathed.
Or so he hoped.
With all the energy he could muster, Cornbread stood and heaved the IED towards the car. He watched as the bomb sailed through the air and landed about ten feet short of the car.
Well, shit. Here goes nothing, he thought, and grabbed the radio.
Jamie was still firing off rounds at the car when he noticed the ball sail through the air, landing a little short of its intended destination. He stopped firing and ducked down, covering his ears and opening his mouth. With any luck, the shockwave and concussive blast wouldn’t burst his eardrums.
“Fire in the hole…” Cornbread whispered, and keyed the radio.
The blast was considerably larger than he expected. The ball bearings in the Claymores flew out in all directions, penetrating anything and everything in sight. The fourteen hundred one-eighth-inch-diameter steel balls flew out at an incredible 1,200 meters-per-second, flattening anything in their path. Although the rounds were no bigger than #4 birdshot, the sheer force and velocity of the explosion rocked the truck and moved the abandoned car nearly twenty feet. The thunderous roar was bound to attract more of the undead, so Cornbread wasted no time in popping back up, Mossberg in hand, to survey the damage.
The car was nearly flattened and now laying on its top. Gravel and small bits of exploded fragments were still falling through the air. There was a sizeable crater where the bomb went off, dug out of the old asphalt, and a small fire near the now-overturned car.
Cornbread was proud of himself. Not since blowing up Captain White’s LAV had he gotten the chance to blow something up, something that he relished doing. It was a rare opportunity, so he took great pride in the accomplishment.
Jamie slowly let go of his ears, the ringing still there despite his effort to prevent it. He slowly blinked, making sure that he hadn’t joined the ranks of the dead with Cornbread’s handiwork. He looked down at Cornbread, who was scanning back and for
th with the Mossberg. Jamie brushed away bits of gravel and dusted himself off, then slowly climbed down to join his partner.
Cornbread lowered the shotgun and laughed. “I think I got ‘em.”
“I think I’m gonna be deaf for a week. Jesus, ‘Bread, I think we are gonna have some company soon. Every living and undead creature for a mile heard that blast.”
Cornbread was already walking towards the demolished car, his shotgun at low ready. “Then let’s not be around when they get here. C’mon, we gotta find your people in that building.”
“Something tells me if they heard that blast that they would come running. If we just killed two of ‘em then they aren’t gonna be real happy with us.”
“Well something tells me that they weren’t your Good Samaritan people. I don’t think we killed anybody of consequence.”
Jamie was a few paces behind his one-armed friend when he saw the movement near the car. There is no way in hell that someone survived that! He thought. With a closer look, he did indeed see someone crawling from under the wreckage.
“Hold up! One of those fuckers survived!” He swiftly caught up with Cornbread, holding his friend back for the moment. Jamie raised his rifle and slowly turned the corner on the car. As he approached the two bodies, the one closest to him groaned.
Cornbread raised his shotgun to finish the battered subject, but Jamie held it at bay. “Wait. I want to see if these fuckers have anything to say before they die.”
“Well, by the looks of it, the other one is deader’n shit, I mean, look at him!”
The second man was very much deceased. There were multiple holes throughout his body, including several in his head. He looked as if someone had shot him with a powerful shotgun with a wide spread. Blood poured from every hole in his body, both natural and artificial. His clothes were nearly removed from his body, and substantial bits of his hands and face were missing altogether. His cohort favored better, but not by much.
“Yeah, I’d say so, but this one is still kicking, at least for now.” Jamie turned his attention to the man that was still alive. “You tell me something worthwhile, like why you were shooting at me and my friend here, and I will make sure you don’t come back as a dead fucker.”
The man coughed a large spray of blood as he tried to speak. There was little life left in him, and he didn’t look like he wanted to come back as one of the undead. A panicked and pitiful look crossed his face and his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to cry, but nothing was coming out of his eyes except fear.
“Pee…Pee…”
Jamie couldn’t help but chuckle. He thought he caught himself unintentionally losing his mind. God, I do need help, he thought.
“Who are you people?” Cornbread asked. He wasn’t interested in the stranger’s bodily functions.
“We work for the General’s…Pee…Peacemakers.” Was the dying man’s last breath.
Jamie’s eyes widened and his heart rate quickened.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
Then he made sure the dead man wouldn’t come back.
CHAPTER 18
April 18, 2022 – 1648 Hours
Smoke was still rolling out of Jamie’s Desert Eagle when the first people came to see them. At first, two came out, with several more in tow. The carnage perpetrated in the past ten minutes was bound to attract attention, and they were certain that it would, but they were expecting the undead. Jamie had come to the realization there was a good possibility that once they got inside Camp Brown that what they saw wouldn’t be pretty. The Peacemakers weren’t ones to be taking prisoners, let alone take care of them if they did. Several thousand people across nearly a dozen states would testify to that, if they were still alive. Fact of the matter was, you were with them or against them; there was no middle ground.
Cornbread noticed the first couple of people edging towards the gate. He couldn’t immediately tell that they were zombies, but they looked the part. They were dirty, bedraggled-looking, and had a desperate look about them. Even from a distance, they looked malnourished. Cornbread slowly got to his feet, holding his shotgun at low ready, but keeping an apprehensive finger on the trigger. He nodded at the approaching group.
“Jamie. I think these might be your people. They look like shit, man.”
Jamie got to his feet, holstering the Desert Eagle on his vest as he did. He took a deep breath and huffed it out. Frustration was beginning to settle in. After leaving town, he was convincing himself as they drove that what they were doing was worthwhile, but the truth was that he had his doubts. Those doubts began multiplying exponentially after the first bullet flew past his head. Did he do too much? Was he trying to carry out something too big? Was he in over his head? Most certainly, but he was knee-deep in it now. There was no sense in turning back now; besides, he didn’t have any wheels, a problem he needed to fix as soon as possible.
For the time being, he decided to compartmentalize and just take care of the problem at hand, and that was to make the introductions to whomever was watching him right now. He slowly strolled over to the fence line that marked the entrance to Camp Brown. None of the nearly dozen people was saying anything, they just stood in awe. There was a pair of people that walked towards the gate as Jamie approached. Although he couldn’t be certain, Jamie thought he recognized the two men as they neared.
The first man was dressed in jeans that looked to be about two sizes too big, held up by a timeworn belt. His face showed him to be mid-thirties, but nowadays it was difficult to tell a person’s age from looks alone. It never hurt just to ask. He sported a full beard that was mostly red and speckled with a few gray hairs here and there. The man wore an old gray t-shirt that looked to have a band name on it at one point, but it was too dirty and faded to tell now. The second man looked much older, probably in his fifties, with a full beard as well. He looked sickly; his eyes were sunken in and the little muscle that he had clung closely to his bones, along with dirty, bloody skin tears. If infection hadn’t killed him yet, then he just might live forever.
As he got closer, the first man’s face brightened up quickly. He recognized Jamie. The man smiled, something that he looked like he hadn’t done in quite some time.
“I don’t remember your name, sir, but I remember what we did for you and your friends. I assume that you all made it to your destination in Virginia.”
It dawned on Jamie who he was talking to. “Jesus H. Christ! Jim? Is that you? And you…” Jamie pointed to the red-bearded man. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your name.”
The red-bearded man smiled slightly. “Scott, Scott Richards. I remember you, though. Jim and I found you about ten miles outside of Lexington a few months back. I figured you fellas wouldn’t be comin’ back this way anytime soon, especially after what happened in Lexington.”
Jamie walked to the end of the chain-link fence and came through the front gate. He exchanged quick handshakes with Jim and Scott, eyeing the people behind them as he did. They did not look any better up close than they did form a distance; most were injured and dirty, and all of them were malnourished. None of them looked like they had eaten much in some time.
“Well, I am here on behalf of our man in charge. You remember Joe, don’t you?”
“Yeah, the fella that said he’d try to return the favor to us. I sure hope that’s what ya’ll are here for. We’ve been havin’ to deal with more of these Peacemaker assholes. They’ve been here for a little over two months, takin’ our food, our guns, and our damned living area.”
“Are there any more of them?” Cornbread asked. “Name’s Aaron, by the way, but most everybody calls me Cornbread. I’m from the town they were trying to get to.”
“There was a scouting party that left here about an hour or so ago. They were going about ten miles away from here to look for food – for themselves, of course. They don’t give us hardly anything around here. Ya’ll gotta help us if you can. We can still fight.”
“We intend to, but ou
r truck is shot to shit and ain’t goin’ anywhere anytime soon. Do you guys have any salvageable transportation?” Jamie asked.
“No. The Peacemakers made sure of that. They took the last two trucks that we had and the Humvee is busted. The group that is out on patrol has an old Army deuce-and-a-half that they use to gather supplies in. If we could get that truck from them, then we might have a shot,” Jim answered.
Some of the people behind Jim came forward at the mention of a town. They hadn’t had much to be hopeful about for the last few months, and the prospect of getting somewhere safe was better than a Hawaiian vacation to most of them. They fired off questions quickly.
“Where is it?”
“Is it safe there?”
“Do you have any food?”
“Do the Peacemakers have any people there?”
Jamie tried his best to quell the enquiries for the moment. They had bigger problems if the Peacemakers were still in the area. God knows when they would be back. They needed to come up with a plan, and fast. Jamie started to feel like Joe did when it came to making split-second, accurate decisions. It wasn’t easy, by any stretch. Jamie quickly grew a newfound respect for his longtime friend. He had taken on the responsibility of getting to Hazard and getting Jim and his people back to Tazewell, but he’d thought about it for a couple of weeks, since the weather had started to perk up. He’d had plenty of time to mull it over and still hadn’t come up with any contingency plans. There was much more to planning a spontaneous rescue than he expected.
