Storm of Ghosts (Surviving the Dead Book 8)
Page 34
I picked her up, carried her upstairs, put her down on the bed, and showed her.
Several times.
It was well after dark before we stopped, both of us exhausted and sweating amid rumpled sheets. Her hand was warm on my chest as we lay next to each other.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
I looked out the window. The sky was clear and I could see stars over the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains. “Now I’d like us to get married.”
She sat up and kissed me gently. “Of course. But what about after that?”
I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I still have another year and a half left on my sentence.”
“You mean your enlistment.”
“Same thing.”
Miranda was quiet for a while after that. Finally she said, “How much time are you going to spend away?”
“Probably a lot. I’ll make sure Gabe and Tyrel know to look in on you. If you have any trouble, let them know. They’ll take care of it.”
“I can take care of myself, you know.”
“I know. But everyone needs help sometimes.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
“Then why don’t you ask?”
“Don’t have to. All the help I need is right here.”
Miranda’s gaze softened, the blue of her irises floating in the glow of a moonbeam shining through the open window. I felt myself falling, and I didn’t ever want the feeling to end.
“Where did they send you?”
“West,” I said.
“The Republic of California?”
“Former Republic of California.”
“I heard the broadcasts. They said there are still KPA troops out there.”
“About four thousand or so. More than enough to cause problems.”
“How long do you think they’ll hold out?”
“Probably about as long as KPA forces in the Midwest did after the Alliance fell apart.”
“I also heard we seized their things. Weapons and oil and stuff.”
“Yep.”
“What happened to all the ROC troops out there?”
“Most of them are dead. Some of them were captured.”
Miranda thought about that. “What’s going to happen to them? The ones that were captured.”
“I honestly have no idea. But whatever it is, I doubt it’s going to be good.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Neither am I.”
She looked quizzical. “I thought you hated them?”
“Hate is a powerful thing. It takes a lot of energy to maintain. Somewhere along the way, I decided not to spend mine on things that do me no good.”
“Very wise of you.”
“I’m not completely hopeless.”
She smiled again, and then grew thoughtful. “The civilians, the ones that came over with the North Koreans. I heard they were relocated to Idaho,” Miranda said.
“I heard the same thing.”
“What do you think they’ll do there?”
“I don’t know. Grow potatoes?”
Miranda laughed, her voice like bells ringing. “I guess this all leaves one big question.”
I rolled over so I could look at her. “What’s that?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why come over here in the first place? Why make enemies of the Union? Why not try to live here peacefully?”
I thought about that for a while. “As to why they came over, I think they didn’t have much choice. Things were a lot worse in Asia during the Outbreak than they were here.”
“That’s saying something.”
“Yes, it is. As to why they antagonized us, I think it was the only way they knew how to deal with Americans. You have to understand, these people were brainwashed from birth to hate us, fed all kinds of lies about us. Near the end of the fighting, a bunch of KPA soldiers in Washington committed suicide rather than let themselves be captured. Cut their own throats ‘cause they were out of ammo.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is. And it’s not the action of someone who thinks there’s hope in surrender. It’s what you do to avoid an even worse fate.”
“But the civilians surrendered.”
“Maybe they didn’t believe the hype. Or maybe they were just scared and didn’t know what else to do.”
“At the risk of sounding callous, I’m glad I’m not one of them.”
“Me too.”
Another silence settled into the room. We let it sit for a while until it grew bored and wandered off.
“So I repeat my earlier question,” Miranda said. “What now?”
“Now I report in every morning like I’m supposed to, make love to you as often as you’ll let me, and we build the best life for ourselves that we can. Sooner or later I’m going to get another mission, and I’ll have to leave for a while. I’d like to promise you I’ll always come back no matter what, but we’re both grownups and we know that isn’t how the world works. Bad things happen to good people for no reason at all. The good guys don’t always win. People like us don’t always get what we deserve, because what you or me or anyone else deserves has no bearing on the equation. I’ll do whatever I can to stay alive, and you’ll do the same. And hopefully, one day, we can start over in a better place where I can put down my guns and not have to live like this anymore.”
Miranda kissed the tip of my nose. “Sounds like a plan.”
We lay entwined together long into the night. Miranda’s skin was smooth and soft against mine. She laid her head on my chest, put a possessive arm around me, and eventually, we slept.
For once, I did not dream.
FORTY-SEVEN
Heinrich,
Eastern Colorado
Heinrich sat on the bench of his wagon, looked across the flat expanse of eastern Colorado, and thought it ironic the same private army that nearly destroyed him just months ago was now keeping him safe.
Maru sat on a stool next to the wagon tending a cook fire. A small pot hung suspended from three sticks, chicken and dried vegetables and barley boiling within. Beneath the pot, flatbread sizzled lazily in a cast iron skillet smeared with pig fat. The big Maori picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the pot, flipped the flatbread, and went back to staring at the fire.
“How long?” Heinrich asked.
“Couple minutes on the bread. Little longer on the stew.”
“Getting hungry.”
“Makes two of us.”
The sun was setting to the west, painting the sky in shades of peach and lavender. Stars were already visible to the east, while farther south, a full moon hung low on the horizon. It would be a warm, bright night with plenty of breeze. The tall grass on either side of I-70 rustled and swayed in the wind. Behind where Heinrich sat, a long caravan of wagons crouched in the middle of the interstate. In front of him, another caravan had also made camp farther westward. Blackthorns on horseback patrolled in both directions, eyes alert for signs of infected or encroaching marauders.
“Strange, the places life takes you,” Heinrich muttered.
After leaving The Holdout, the Storm Road Tribe had made their way west through Kansas. It had been no trouble at all to pose as traders, and what few federal patrols they ran into gave them only a cursory inspection and sent them on their way. Heinrich decided there was something to be said for operating under a legitimate front. Perhaps he would have to rethink his strategy going forward.
Outside the Wichita Safe Zone, which they had bypassed lest they risk one of them being recognized (there were several Army deserters in the tribe), they crossed paths with another caravan heading in the same direction. As unspoken tradition dictated, Heinrich and his entourage had met with the caravan’s leaders and shared a meal together around a fire. The caravan leader’s name was Holloway, and he was a firm believer in safety in numbers.
“Got four Blackthorns working for us,”
Holloway said. “It’s a fair haul back to the Springs. The more of us there are, the less likely we’ll be attacked.”
You’re not wrong about that.
“How much do you want me to pitch in?” Heinrich asked.
They sat and negotiated for close to an hour. Finally they settled on a price they could both live with and shook on it. The two caravans had traveled together hundreds of miles since then, watched over by Blackthorns, the hard-eyed young men in their dark uniforms oblivious to who it was that traveled with them.
Heinrich had given his men strict orders not to talk to the Blackthorns, and if engaged by them, to simply walk away from the conversation. It turned out to be an unnecessary precaution. The Blackthorns had no more interest in talking to Heinrich or his men than they did in talking to a stone. They were hired to do a job, and that was what they focused on. Heinrich appreciated their professionalism. However, this sentiment did not lessen in the least his desire to kill them. And he would kill them, he determined. But that was a problem best addressed one step at a time. For now, the next step was moving into Colorado Springs, getting the lay of the land, and setting himself up as a legitimate business man. From there, he could make further plans.
Maru finished making their meal, then stood up and offered a plate to his chief. Heinrich accepted it and began eating mechanically, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. Maru looked around, leaned in, and spoke in a low voice.
“So what’s the plan once we’re in town?”
“We settle in,” Heinrich said without looking at his second in command. “We gather intelligence, and then I’ll put together a plan to take down the Blackthorns.”
“Any idea where to start? Once we’re settled in, I mean.”
Heinrich looked at Maru, his eyes cold and empty. “Everyone has a button you can push, some kind of leverage you can use against them. We know who the leaders of the Blackthorns are. Tyrel Jennings, Hadrian Flint, and their head trainer…what was his name again?”
“Garrett,” Maru said. “Gabriel Garrett.”
“Right. Anyway, we find what buttons we need to push, and we push them. Hard.”
“Those Blackthorns are tough nuts to crack. What kind of leverage would work against them, you reckon?”
“That’s an easy one,” Heinrich said, turning his attention back to the city lights in the distance.
“We go after their families.”
The saga will continue in Surviving The Dead Volume 9
Coming soon …
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Also by James N. Cook:
Surviving the Dead series:
No Easy Hope
This Shattered Land
Warrior Within
The Passenger
Fire in Winter
The Darkest Place
Savages
The Killing Line
About the Author:
James N. Cook (who prefers to be called Jim, even though his wife insists on calling him James) is a martial arts enthusiast, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a former cubicle dweller, and the author of the Surviving the Dead series. He hikes, he goes camping, he travels a lot, and he has trouble staying in one place for very long. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, children, and overactive imagination.
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
STORM OF GHOSTS: SURVIVING THE DEAD VOLUME 8 Copyright © 2017 By James N. Cook. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author and Amazon.com.
FIRST EDITION
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Epub Edition © JUNE 2017