Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within

by James N. Cook

  Chapter 1

  Black and Blue

  Chapter 2

  Whirly-Bird

  Chapter 3

  Trojan Horse

  Chapter 4

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Burdens

  Chapter 5

  Escalation

  Chapter 6

  Battle Damage

  Chapter 7

  Price of Freedom

  Chapter 8

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Need to Know

  Chapter 9

  The Cold Logic of Necessity

  Chapter 10

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Job Prospects

  Chapter 11

  Breach of Confidence

  Chapter 12

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Citizen Soldiers

  Chapter 13

  The Subtle Art of Conveyance

  Chapter 14

  Hatchet Man

  Chapter 15

  Dominion of Beasts

  Chapter 16

  Fearful Symmetry

  Chapter 17

  Between Brave and Stupid

  Chapter 18

  Gathering Dark

  Chapter 19

  Sun Doesn’t Rise

  Chapter 20

  Maggots

  Chapter 21

  Of Monsters and Men

  Chapter 22

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Beacon of Hope

  Chapter 23

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Own the Night

  Chapter 24

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Assets

  Chapter 25

  Non-Combatants

  Chapter 26

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Lovely Things

  Chapter 27

  Those Who Sow in Flames …

  Chapter 28

  … In Ashes They Shall Reap

  Chapter 29

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett

  Embers

  Chapter 30

  Welcome Faces

  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.

  SURVIVING THE DEAD VOLUME III: WARRIOR WITHIN. Copyright © 2013 By James N. Cook. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. 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

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Epub Edition © APRIL 2013

  Surviving the Dead Volume III:

  Warrior Within

  By:

  James N. Cook

  For more information, news, and updates on James N. Cook and the Surviving the Dead series:

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  Also by James N. Cook:

  Surviving the Dead Volume I: No Easy Hope

  Surviving the Dead Volume II: This Shattered Land

  Part I

  Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.

  -Miyamoto Musashi

  The Book of Five Rings

  Chapter 1

  Black and Blue

  The first light of dawn was just creeping over the horizon on a clear, cloudless morning. Rays of sunshine pierced the gloom, illuminated like diamonds on a carpet of frost-covered grass. In the distance birdsong filled the air, flittering through the tall, majestic trees that surrounded the field known, not affectionately by those familiar with it, as the Grinder. The morning would have been idyllic if not for the grunts, muffled curses, and dull thuds of flesh hitting flesh from the people struggling around me.

  There were sixty-six in all—mostly men, but a few women as well—dressed in a motley assortment of outdoor wear as they punched, kicked, heaved, and grappled with one another. Thick wisps of steam rose from their heads like ghostly flames as they worked up a sweat in the chill September air.

  As I had done every day for the past six weeks, I spent an hour teaching them new techniques both in striking and in groundwork, before turning them over to Gabriel for drills and sparring. It was the last week of their first phase of training, and Gabe was pushing them hard in preparation for phase two. I glanced at my watch, counting down the last few seconds of the round. The readout ticked down: three, two, one…

  “Time,” I said.

  Gabe grabbed the whistle dangling from a cord around his neck and blew three shrill notes. The recruits fell out of their fighting stances, released holds, and untangled themselves as they got up from the ground.

  “Sixty seconds. Hydrate and switch partners,” Gabe called out, his deep baritone washing over the field. He turned his flint-eyed gaze toward me and reached out a hand for the stopwatch.

  “Rotate in on the next round, Eric,” he said. “Take on Sanchez first, then Flannigan. Hit ’em hard and put some heat on them. I want to see how they react.”

  I nodded, feeling the muscles in my jaw tense. Flannigan I wasn’t too worried about. She was tough but lacked experience and was only about half my size. Sanchez was a different matter altogether.

  The recruits finished drinking from their canteens and began returning to the sparring area in twos and threes. Some of them lingered by their packs a bit longer than Gabe felt was necessary and, never being one to tolerate laziness, he let the offending parties know that if they didn’t hustle their asses up, he would be their next opponent.

  That got them moving.

  After slipping on my old six-ounce MMA gloves and washing off my mouthpiece, I called out to Sanchez and motioned him over. He frowned, his ink-black eyes darkening, and complied.

  Sanchez didn’t look like much. He stood a shade over five-foot-seven, and was maybe a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. Lean and wiry, he had narrow, boyish features that reminded me of every surly kid I had ever seen busing tables at a crappy restaurant. He was an unassuming guy, not the kind of person who would ever start trouble. But someone, somewhere, had taught him the sweet science of boxing, and had taught him exceedingly well.

  Gabe knew Sanchez’s story, but despite my frequent inquiries he had refused to share that information. His reasoning for this was that he didn’t want it to affect the way I trained Sanchez, or any other recruits for that matter. Consequently, the first time I sparred with Sanchez, I had learned the hard way just how quick and accurate he was with his fists. It was not a pleasant experience.

  Sanchez trotted to a halt in front of me. “You need me, sir?”

  “Yeah, you’re with me this round.”

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, fists tightening in his gloves. It had been a week since we’d last fought, and I had gotten the better of him then. I could tell he was itching for a rematch.

  Gabe called out, “Touch gloves, get your hands up. Protect yourself at all times.”

  I assumed a fighting stance, as did everyone else on the field. Hands up, chin down, elbows tucked, knuckles just below my line of sight. My fee
t separated shoulder width apart, weight distributed evenly between the balls of my feet—pure muscle memory.

  Sanchez took a similar stance, his base narrower than mine. Where my footwork tended to be precise and deliberate, not wasting any motion, Sanchez was animated and bouncy. Constantly moving and shuffling, never staying in the same spot for more than a second. He was an annoying opponent, but that was a good thing. As his trainer, I wanted him to be dangerous.

  Gabe signaled the start of the round and, as always, Sanchez lit into me before the piercing note of the whistle had faded into the air. I backed off and circled, giving ground and absorbing shots on my forearms and elbows, amazed again at the kid’s speed. I’m not slow by any stretch, but Sanchez is in a different league. I managed to snap off a few counter-punches, but the kid either slipped them or simply batted them aside. If this had been a boxing match, I would have been hopelessly outclassed.

  Lucky for me, it wasn’t a boxing match.

  Sanchez overextended on a jab, blew the timing on a follow-up cross, and gave me the opening I needed to close the distance and clinch with him. I slipped an overhook around one of his arms, grabbed him by the back of the head, and started launching knees rapid-fire into his midsection. His breath went out of him with the first strike, but his expression never changed. He accepted the blows without complaint and started working to improve his position.

  Just as I’d taught him, rather than instinctively dropping his arms to block the knees—which would have only made things worse for him—he postured up and stepped closer to me, closing the gap that allowed me to throw knee strikes in the first place. Now the fight had become something similar to a Greco-Roman wrestling match, albeit without rules.

  Using a jiu jitsu technique called pomo, which I had drilled extensively with him and the other recruits in previous weeks, Sanchez started fighting his way out of the clinch by reversing the hold I had on his arms. He managed to work one arm loose, backed off enough to avoid the hip toss I attempted, and twisted away from the clinch.

  In a surprising bit of innovation, he faked a jab-cross combination, stepped back, and launched a Muay-Thai kick at my midsection. It was a good kick, with the right amount of snap behind it. But it was also a mistake.

  One of the worst things that can happen to you in a fight is for your opponent to know what you’re going to do before you do it. The moment Sanchez dropped back from that lazy cross I knew what was coming next. When the kick came, I simply hopped back. His boot whipped past my midsection close enough to tug at my shirt. The momentum spun him around and exposed his back, taking him off balance for a second. That was all the time I needed.

  Keeping my head low, I executed an old wrestling trick called a drop-step and shot in for a takedown at Sanchez’s legs. The only counterattack he had available was a spinning back-fist, which he sent whistling over my head. I ducked the blow and committed my weight to the takedown. My shoulder hit his upper thighs, my arms hooked around behind his knees and, with an explosive lifting, twisting motion, I swept him up from the ground and planted him on his back, landing with me in side-control.

  From there it was only a matter of time. It’s hard enough to fight a skilled grappler under the best circumstances, but when said grappler outweighs you by fifty pounds and has seven more years of training than you do, it is simply impossible. Less than a minute after we hit the ground, I had transitioned from side-control into the full mount, softened him up with a few punches to the face, isolated an arm, and rolled into an armbar.

  With his arm stretched out straight, caught between my legs and hands with my hips threatening to dislocate his elbow, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and tap out. Tap or snap, as my old sensei used to say. Not that I would have actually finished the technique and broken Sanchez’s arm, but I could have if I’d wanted to.

  I released the hold, rolled away, and stood up. Sanchez ignored the hand I extended to him, the wooden brown of his face darkening into an angry shade of purple, and got to his feet.

  “Again,” he said.

  “Again, what?” I challenged, glaring.

  He glared back for a few heartbeats. “Again, sir.”

  I motioned for him to step back, and he fell into a stance.

  “Go.”

  The word was barely out of my mouth before he was on me again. The second bout went even quicker than the first; the kid was pissed off and making dumb mistakes. My own temper began heating up at his recklessness, and I started turning up the pressure, hitting him harder and using my strength to my advantage.

  It was frustrating—I had taught him better than this, and he should have been able to put up a better fight. He knew not to let his temper get the best of him, but he was letting it happen anyway. As the round went on, he continued to fight well below his potential, so I continued to make him pay for it.

  All too soon, Gabe blew the whistle. I had taken Sanchez’s back and was applying a chokehold when the round ended. The kid glared sullenly when I reached down to help him up, but this time, he took my hand.

  “Listen, man, you have got to get that temper under control,” I said as I hauled him to his feet. “I know you can fight better than that. I’ve seen you do it.”

  He paused, searching my face for sincerity. After a moment, he let out a sigh and ran a hand through his dark hair.

  “Tienes razon, seńor. Disculpa.”

  I shook my head. “Apologies won’t keep you out of a pine box, Sancho. Get it together.”

  He nodded tersely, glancing up. “You’re bleeding, sir. Want me to get a medic?”

  Just as he said it, I felt something drip out of my nose. My hand came away red.

  “No, don’t worry about it.” I waved him away. “I’ve had worse.”

  As he jogged away to get some water, I pulled a tissue from my shirt pocket and ripped it in half, stuffing the two pieces into my nostrils. Gabe came over to check on me while I pinched my nose to stop the bleeding.

  “You all right?” he rumbled.

  I nodded and jerked a thumb toward Sanchez. “I’m fine. We need to work on his ground game.”

  Gabe glanced in his direction, frowning. “There’s no time. We only have three more months to train, and weapons and tactics are more important right now. Just do the best you can.”

  The big man patted me on the shoulder and walked back to the Grinder, hustling recruits along as he went. My nose didn’t start leaking when I pulled the tissues out, so I figured I was good for another round and called out to Flannigan. The blond spitfire looked at me, touched knuckles with someone she had been talking to, and began jogging in my direction.

  A former marathoner, Flannigan was quite possibly the most physically fit person I had ever met. Her remarkable endurance, paired with a sharp mind and a relentless appetite for training, had quickly made her one of my favorite students. She stood a little taller than Sanchez, albeit with a much lighter build, and had short hair that stood out at odd angles, framing her freckled, oval face.

  “I got you figured out, sir,” she said with a smile as she took her stance opposite me. “You’re going down.”

  I fought the urge to smile, and kept my expression neutral. “Don’t sing it, recruit. Bring it.”

  The whistle blew, and for a couple of minutes, I began to wonder if Flannigan’s bravado was just her way of psyching up for the fight. Things certainly weren’t going any better for her than they had for Sanchez. But unlike the fiery Mexican, rather than getting frustrated when I caught her in a choke (and it was always a choke; I hate hitting girls), she seemed to learn a little something, always making the next bout harder for me than the last. Even so, I wasn’t having too much trouble handling her. I relaxed and trusted my long-ingrained technique to carry the fight.

  And, as is usually the case, that was when I screwed up.

  When I stepped into an outside reap that I had taken her down with many times before, Flannigan slipped out of it, making it look easy. I had half a second to
realize that she had been baiting me before her elbow slammed hard into my shoulder, knocking me off balance. Gripping my lapels, she twisted her torso into a throw called the uchi mata. The throw was nearly perfect, but she had left too much space between us and was trying to muscle my weight over her shoulder instead of relying on technique. Had she been stronger, it might have worked, but the laws of physics bend for no one.

  I dropped my weight and slipped to the side, forcing her to release my shirt and abandon the throw. She turned back into me, closing the distance until we were face to face in an over-under clinch.

  Using my weight to my advantage, I started shoving her side to side with my shoulders trying to open up her stance. Flannigan, rather than trying to fight her arms free, stepped closer, pressed her chest against me, arched her back, and touched her lips to my ear.

  “I like it when you choke me,” she whispered, making me break out in goosebumps. “It makes me wet.”

  I froze up, cheeks burning. I must have blushed from my toes, all the way up to the tips of my ears. It only took me a second to get ahold of myself, but it was a second too long. Her mouth curved into a carnivorous grin just before her knee hit my solar plexus with all the gentleness of a car crash. Breath whooshed out of my lungs, hunching me over and opening up my neck. Flannigan followed up with a hammer-fist strike to my brachial nerve that turned my legs into limp noodles and forced me to lean into her to keep from falling down. This time, when she spun into the uchi mata, there was no slipping out of it.

  My view went from earth to sky as she flipped me straight up and over, pulling on my lapels to make sure that I hit the ground with as much force as possible. Thankfully, there was no air left in me when I landed, otherwise it would have been driven out all over again.

  Relentless demon that she is, Flannigan planted a knee into the bottom of my sternum, slid her fingers down through the neck of my shirt, and twisted the tough fabric into a collar choke. Even though my back was in agony, I was still cross-eyed from the brachial strike, and my lungs were too stunned to draw a breath, I somehow had the presence of mind to cross my forearms between hers, bridge upward with my hips, and break her grip. She pitched forward when I did so, allowing me to shimmy out from underneath her, throw a leg over her hips, roll on top, and pin her face to the ground.