The Rotting Souls Series (Book 3): Charon's Debt

by Ray, Timothy A.

  “I think we all need another beer,” Manny chimed in, but both men ignored him.

  “We have to be selective on who we invite here. I don’t know you at all, but I know that if Rosilynn did not think you were the right kind of person to be here, that there wasn’t some good in that heart of yours, she would’ve left your ass out there to die rather than bring you here. Because all it takes is one person to fuck everything up. Everyone is infected at this point and it takes one death to set that shit loose. That’s one accident, one fight, one murder; we have to pick and choose who we want to live with because all our lives are riding on it,” he told the man, and he finally dropped his gaze.

  They were all finished eating at that point and Naima was breast-feeding her daughter.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m coming to realize that the world we left is no longer the one we live in, it just takes time to adjust to is all,” John apologized, finally averting his eyes.

  “I know. Just don’t think that every decision is an easy one, because it’s not. We all have family and friends out there that we would love to bring here, we just don’t have the capability of doing that at the moment. I hate having to sit here and wait; the helplessness that I feel, but what choice do I have?” he told them all; trying to get them to all understand what was at stake here.

  It was a lot to shoulder and he needed to have people that could help out, see things from their point of view, and not fight them every step of the way. He knew that they were still in that daze that came from having the rug pulled out from them, but they were going to have to toughen up and get committed, because things were moving too slow and there was a lot of work to do.

  “You wouldn’t mind if I stayed in one of those houses, would you?” Sabrina asked suddenly. “I’m not so hot on enclosed spaces.”

  “Let me run it by the others and see what they think,” he compromised. “As much as I want to say, sure go ahead, there are things to consider. First, you wouldn’t be able to stay there alone.”

  “She wouldn’t be alone,” Alicia muttered softly, not wanting to meet his gaze.

  “Hon, I realize that. But the nature of this plague is such that we can’t afford to have anyone unsupervised, we all need to move in pairs, because like I said, it only takes one person to start it and then we can all die. Right now, we’re all together so it’s easier to keep track of where everyone is and what they’re doing. The doors in your living quarters take more than twisting a door handle to open. So if someone dies in their sleep, they won’t get out of their quarters and attack others while they are sleeping, but that is harder to contain out here in the open. If you go for a walk, fall and hit your head, and no one knows you’re there, you can end up coming back and attacking someone else while they are milking cows or feeding the chickens. There’s a lot of training that has to go into it, things you all need to unlearn from your old lives and relearn for this new one. We are going to help you do that, but you have to be patient with us as we work to safeguard us all, okay? I’ll bring it up and ask what the others think, good enough?”

  “You know you can’t keep me locked up down there,” she responded with a smile.

  “Actually, I think I’ve got enough rope stored that I can,” he grinned back and her eyes narrowed in response. “Not that I’d do that!” he laughed and the mood suddenly lightened. “Now that we’re done with lunch, maybe it’s time we take that tour, eh?”

  Chapter 9

  Safety

  Todd

  Compound 2

  An hour later they pulled their electric jeeps into their parking spaces on the north side of the main building and got out. He stretched his back and tried to get the kinks out. Things had been quieter once they were moving; most of them just taking in the land and getting to know their new home. Even John had kept to himself and he was glad for the reprieve from the accusing looks.

  “I don’t want to know how much it cost to build this place,” Naima told him as they entered through the large double doors of the main building.

  “That’s good, because I don’t know myself. We drew up plans as a group, but Sean is the one that made them a reality. It all sounds too good to be true and you know what they say about that—,” he trailed off, losing himself in thought. Sooner or later he was going to have to let them in on what was going on with their former benefactor. If for some reason he was stupid enough to return, he would have to explain why he shot the man on sight. Was now a good time though? He just didn’t know.

  “It usually is,” Naima finished for him and he was lost; wondering if he had said any of that out loud.

  “What?” he asked, then it came and he grinned at her. “Right. Well, here we have a set of airlocks that most of you should be familiar with now. When we originally built the place, it was not for the sole purpose of surviving a zombie outbreak. In fact, that had to be the very last thing we thought we were preparing for. You had that Ukrainian thing over in Russia, the North Koreans were setting off bombs in the ocean, Iran was pushing for their nuclear program to go forward, China’s overpopulation seemed to indicate a future world war, and terrorist were constantly attacking from all sides of the free world. These airlocks run on a four-minute cycle and were installed in case of a biological attack. If not for the fact that we all had this shit by the time we knew about it, we’d probably be forced to stay above ground as to not contaminate the rest of the complex; but it was too late for that the first time I shook Rodger’s hand. As we are being assured by the White House that this thing lies dormant until brain death, there isn’t much we can do to prevent it. It’s harmless—as long as we all stay alive.”

  “And if one of us dies?” Michael asked him.

  “Then the complex gets shut down. Blast doors will drop, doors will lock, and everything will stay contained until that person is dealt with,” he responded.

  “But how would you know?” the other man inquired and Todd nodded at one of the cameras currently pointed at them.

  “As you see, we are always being monitored, even in your living quarters. It’s not something that is visually watched,” he assured the women as they grew uneasy, “Ben has written a software program that watches the feeds and looks for signs of danger, then it alerts him if there’s a problem. He can shut down the entire place from that keyboard in the communications room.”

  “That’s a lot of power to put in one person’s hand,” John commented.

  “Just remember it was that one person that got us all here safely to begin with,” he returned. He conceded the point but there was little help for it. There was a flaw in every system and none of them had felt very comfortable taking the human equation out of the decision process. A malfunction could kill them all. “And not to scare you, but the entire complex has redundant air systems, but they can all be locked down, and the air sucked out of a room instantly in case of a fire or other unforeseen disaster,” he advised as they exited the airlocks and continued on their way.

  “Oh, that’s comforting,” Sabrina sneered.

  “I assure you that there are a lot of safeguards in place to keep that from causing any living person any harm,” he responded. They were now exiting the stairway to the first sub-basement level. “Now for what you guys probably really want to see, this here on my right is the armory.”

  They entered a large room with steel racks for aisles, each packed with an abundance of weapons and ammunition. There were weapons of every type and design. Now that he thought about it, he had never questioned how they had been able to legally obtain them; the knowledge that Sean had connections in the defense department suddenly illuminated the possibilities for him and he again wondered just how much they knew about the man. “As you can see, we are ready to wage our own war if we have to.”

  The shelves were separated by use and type and each walked their own separate ways as they inspected the arsenal before them. “Holy hell, these are M67s and M14s,” John said delightfully as he inspecte
d the grenades. “These are military grade, how the hell did you guys get this shit?”

  “Sean knew people,” he said with a grin; it was like watching a bunch of kids at Toys R Us with no spending limit.

  “I definitely want a pair of those Berettas,” Sabrina observed out loud as she pawed through the handguns.

  Michael was silent as he browsed and Todd noted the look on his face; the man didn’t know shit about weapons or how to use them.

  Naima, however, was checking out the crossbows and he smiled as she tried to heft a Barnett Jackal while still carrying her daughter. “Got one of Daryl’s in here?” she asked with a smile and he could only nod and grin back. Sabrina had told him about his best friend’s skills with a hand gun, she’d be an easier one to train at least.

  “Got to admit dude, this is a lot of shit, and I don’t have a clue how to use it,” Manny told him, having not gone very far and refraining from taking his hands out of his pockets, like anything he touched would suddenly go off.

  “You’ll learn,” he told the young man and moved in John’s direction. He had recently passed through the area with the shotguns and was now moving towards the rifles.

  John whistled. “M16’s, M4 Carbines, you had some M500s back over there, this is some serious shit my friend. And this AA-12, I didn’t think they were using this yet, it’s still experimental.” When he tried to say something he only got a shake of a head. “I know, he had friends. Still, they must have been some powerful ones to let you guys have all this shit down here without the FBI thinking you were para-military or religious cult. This kind of thing gets you on the watch list.”

  “You know, I thought of that too, but we never seemed to have a problem. Now that he’s gone, I have no way of asking for sure how he managed it,” he admitted to the man.

  “That MP5 over there? No way that’s legal,” the sheriff in him observed and he suddenly wondered if the man retained his cuffs. Not that it mattered, there were some restraints just a few aisles over. “And what the hell do you need M141s for? You expecting a tank to come at ya?”

  “After seeing the Governor roll up in one, how can you dismiss the thought?” he laughed. He hadn’t been comfortable with the anti-tank guns, but Matt had insisted on them, and Sean was more than happy to provide.

  “Still,” John continued, “this is a lot of serious hardware. Claymores, anti-tank guns, semi-automatics, bazookas, you could wipe out a city with this stuff. What exactly where you expecting to come at you guys all the way out here?”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it? We didn’t know. How do you plan for something that may never happen? We wanted a bit of everything so that we could meet any threat that came our way,” he said loudly, but there was no need, the others were making their way back in their direction. “We have the big stuff, which is great and all, but not when you require stealth to survive. So at the moment, most of it is only useable as a last resort and unfortunately by the time we’d get there, it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyways. Now, there are plenty of crossbows that you will all need to be trained on. We have a couple of composite bows, but not many have used them; requires a lot of arm strength. We have swords, both military and Japanese. There are plenty of knives and bayonets, which will come in handy in close quarter combat. We do have suppressors and silencers for the weapons, but not for the real heavy hitters. Each of you will spend time with the M82 sniper rifles, and personally I prefer the AR15s for up close action,” he finished, nodding at a row of assault weapons. “John here will know that maintaining and cleaning his weapon is the most important part of the training and all of you will have to learn how to strip and clean yours before getting to use them. But keep in mind, just because a gun looks great, doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for you, sometimes simpler is better. You don’t want complications and doubt in the middle of a gunfight, it might cost you your life.”

  He walked them towards the eastern part of the large room; where the rest of the gear was stored. “Obviously in hot weather, we don’t want to overdo it on what you’re wearing, but there are essentials you will all need no matter how uncomfortable it is. We have an assortment of these black rubber suits that will protect you against bites. Rothco Forced Entry 5052 Tactical boots, VenTec Tactical goggles, Kevlar hard knuckle gloves, those Olive drab spec ops jackets, thermal clothing, shoulder holsters, tactical combat shirts, utility belts—,” he ran through the list, pointing to each item as he led them through the last bit of gear.

  “You mean I get to dress like the Dark Knight?” Manny asked with a grin and he had to shake his head.

  Sighing, he responded, “sorry buddy, no pointed cowls, they were all out when we did our ordering. However, we do have the Celestron binoculars and night vision goggles, just don’t break them, they’re expensive kid,” he told the young man, slapping him on the shoulder.

  “I can totally Lora Croft this shit,” Sabrina said with a smile and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Now, obviously we can’t expect everyone to get to this room in case of an emergency. There are two smaller rooms similar to this one on the compound, one on the lower level and one above us, for quick arming and defense, but each of you should have some kept in your quarters just in case. Just realize that you will not only need the right ammo, but also a gun cleaning kit to take with you when you go. Also, we should work on getting you guys outfitted with this gear, better to get that out of the way now rather than during a fight later.”

  “Where do you get all these wonderful toys?” Manny quoted as he strolled towards the black jackets and bullet proof vests.

  He took a deep breath and let it all out slowly. It was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 10

  Icecrown

  Todd

  Compound 2

  He left them to put their new supplies and weapons in their rooms and went to check on Ben. He hadn’t heard much from him and he wanted to check in, see how things were going. This morning’s televised event from the White House had been unsettling to say the least, and there must have been something further after the President’s speech.

  “Oh no no no no!” Ben hollered as Todd entered the room.

  “What’s up?” he probed with concern.

  The younger man was at his customary spot, bent over his keyboard and typing furiously.

  Ben made a disgusted sound and pushed away from the desk. “This video was posted a couple of hours ago,” he responded, bringing up the YouTube site on a nearby monitor. Instead of telling him what was on the feed, he just hit play.

  The camera footage was shaky and it gave him slight vertigo to watch it; but his eyes were glued to the hick firing a shotgun at a female zombie in a cheerleader uniform. It was hard to watch as the creature’s arms were blown apart and a shot center mass did little to impede the zombie’s advance. Even without its limbs, it managed to get its jaws clamped on the hick’s upraised arm and moments later a man off camera blew the cheerleader’s head off. The camera shook as the wielder ran to the bleeding man, then a gun came into view and took the hick’s head off as well. The video cut out and he could see why his young friend was upset about it.

  “That was just wrong,” he commented, not sure of how to put what he was feeling into words. “Getting bit doesn’t matter, don’t these people get that?”

  The young man got up and got a can of Mt. Dew; refusing to sit back down and coming to stand by his side. “It’s worse than that, if it was one person, that’d be one thing, but there are hundreds of these videos! You should see the hits they’re getting. They are murdering people, who would otherwise live, because they don’t understand. They’re too wrapped up in what they think they know,” Ben said softly, tears slowly streaming down his face. “So much senseless death. And for what? It doesn’t have to be this way! They were playing with that thing! They stood by, while their friend gets bit, and then they just kill him. It’s too much—it’s just wrong.”

  “We wanted people info
rmed,” he said dryly, remembering the argument they had over it earlier. “Be careful what you ask for.”

  “This isn’t what we discussed,” Ben replied angrily, wiping a tear from his cheek. “We wanted to help teach people how to fight back, how to survive; not misinform them about how the plague spread and encourage senseless murder.”

  He looked at the webcams and had a crazy thought. “Why not fight back? Create a channel and inform the people directly.”

  The young man was in the middle of drinking his soda, and he must have inhaled some, because he started coughing. “You can’t be serious, we’re supposed to be secretive here. We can’t just start posting videos and revealing ourselves to the world.”

  “What do you have to say or show other than the message you want to send?” he thought out loud. “I’m sure no one will understand where we are by what they see on the webcam.”

  “It opens us up to being tracked,” the young man challenged, but he was sounding more interested by the second.

  “And I’m betting you can find a way to work around that,” he replied; trying to motivate the man. It was working, because Ben was sliding into his chair and was opening an outside socket when something caught Todd’s eye. “You still got the feeds up from the other compounds?” he asked, leaning forward and scanning one of the video feeds.

  Ben was hardly paying attention, he had a new mission and was quickly becoming too focused on getting the job done to hear what he was saying. The sun was setting over the Pacific by now and he saw a set of runway lights that looked eerily familiar. There were flashing lights from an approaching aircraft and his heart began to thunder in his chest. “Ben!” he hissed, shaking the younger man’s shoulder.