Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation

by Scott, Joshua Jared

  * * *

  “Always something,” yawned Briana. After checking to ensure Asher was still asleep, she’d curled up beside me. “And on the day you come back even.”

  “Murphy’s law.”

  “You should track him down and kill the bastard.”

  “I would like nothing more,” I assured her, rubbing her lower back, “but he’s very good at hiding.”

  “Think we should do anything more about this? And move more to the left.”

  “Mary’s been told to keep an eye out. She’ll tell Michael the same tomorrow.”

  “Mary was not happy when you said that she cannot antagonize Tim.”

  I stopped the massage and fell back into the sheets. “As pissed as she was over the whole thing, I couldn’t trust her to not tease him, make comments, or do something else that would make it worse.”

  “Mary’s a good girl,” argued Briana.

  “And how would you have reacted back when you were her age? Well, wife of mine, answer me that.”

  She slapped me lightly on the top of the head and turned off the lamp. “I’ll tell her to not be mean too, so we know she’s gotten the message, but that’ll have to wait until morning.”

  * * *

  Marcus was back, having been found by one of our patrols. The story he told was dreadful. This news immediately overwhelmed the drama that was Mary Thornton and Tim Myers and set off a short lived panic as people began to compare this brotherhood thing to the raiders. The fact they were insane religious zealots far away as opposed to psychotic mass murderers trying to get us was brought to the forefront, and that soon died down.

  Lizzy was to be released from the hospital, but she decided to stay and share a room with Marcus so she could keep an eye on him. It would also help determine exactly what had happened. We knew the basics, but he was in terrible shape, suffering from malnutrition and stomach cramps due to eating nothing but meat he shot or caught in snares, as often as not improperly or under cooked . Marcus also had a long gash on one thigh that he got climbing over a barb wire fence. It was infected, despite his efforts to wash and clean the wound. To top it all off, he had never been one to go hiking, and the long, roundabout route he was forced to take to avoid the shambling dead had left him physically drained and barely capable of walking. His recovery would be a long one.

  “Those fucking miserable bastard fucks!” screamed Lizzy.

  Briana leaned in close. “I am so glad Asher is with Steph right now.”

  “She’s on a roll,” I agreed.

  Mary nodded. “No doubt.” She pranced into the room and plopped down beside Marcus. “What you do to make Lizzy so mad?”

  “Little girl, she gets mad all on her own.”

  “Marcus, don’t you dare fucking start!”

  “Calm down before you pull out your stitches,” I ordered.

  A pillow came flying. Being soft and fluffy, it did no damage.

  “Self-control, remember?”

  “Don’t fucking self-control me either. I’m through with that shit. I’m me, and that’s that.”

  “What is she talking about?” asked Briana.

  Mary looked just as confused. Marcus likely had no idea either, but he was still hurting and remained flat on his back so it was hard to tell.

  “Lizzy can explain it later,” I said, “if she cares to.”

  “Listen up,” she began. “I’ll be just as angry and irate and fucking miserable as I want!”

  “Unless Asher or another child is around,” I corrected.

  She gave me a curt nod. “Not in front of babies, but they are the only exception.”

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  “Everything,” said Marcus. “All that I remembered from the lake. Just finished, right before you got here.”

  “The same stuff he said a couple days ago,” clarified Lizzy, “but with more details on what they did, on how our people were fucking murdered. What is wrong with everyone? Can’t we meet one decent group somewhere!”

  “We’ve met good people before,” commented Briana, “and you do need to sit still. Here, let me see your bandages. If you tore the stitches you won’t ever be getting out of here.”

  “They’re about to come out on their own.”

  “Not for several days yet,” said Briana, “so stop squirming while I peel the tape back. Oh great, blood. Stupid girl.”

  “Don’t girl me, girl,” snapped Lizzy.

  “I’ll girl you all I want,” declared Briana, right back at her.

  “Ladies,” I said, “please don’t start fighting. We apparently have a new enemy that needs to be dealt with. No civil wars until that’s over. Mary, go find a doctor or nurse to take a look at Lizzy.”

  “Maybe I should take Lizzy to them,” said Mary, “make her do the walk of shame.”

  Lizzy slapped Briana’s hands away and got to her feet. “I’ll find the doctor myself. They’re probably hiding in the next room, and they don’t need to be hearing this until after you two are told. It fucking sucks.”

  As she departed, wincing with each step – Lizzy had indeed torn several stitches with her violent movements – Marcus repeated what he had told her, complete with details. I was not overly surprised. Our luck works in screwy ways, and after the good that came with crushing the raiders, there had to be something bad following. Briana and Mary appeared distraught, especially Briana.

  “I do not want you leaving home again,” she stated, looking at me with her lovely green eyes. “Damn it, Jacob, I just got you back.”

  “We have to do something,” protested Mary. “They kidnap visitors and feed them to zombies. That’s pretty evil.”

  “Oh, it’s evil,” agreed Briana, “but is it our problem, excluding those of us who were killed?”

  “We can’t do anything just yet,” I said. “We need Marcus back on his feet and debriefed to see what else we can pry from his memory.”

  “I’ll be good soon. I’m about better now.”

  Mary whacked him on the forehead with an open palm. “Are not. Argue, and I’ll beat you to death.”

  “Mary,” said Briana, “it isn’t time for your jokes. I know they help you deal, but really.”

  “Sorry.” Her head fell.

  “And that wasn’t you getting yelled at either. That’s me not being able to deal with your humor because I’m tired, pregnant, getting rounder by the day, and I just know that no matter how much I hate it, both you and Jacob are going to go running off and getting shot at again!”

  “I think you’re more stressed than me.” Mary trailed off.

  “I am not going anywhere yet,” I reiterated.

  “The word being ‘yet’,” said Briana. “Face it, we have to do something – there’s no one else who can or will – and it’ll be mutiny if we let three of our people getting killed that way go without some kind of punishment.”

  “It’ll be bad for any other survivors who meet them too,” pointed out Mary.

  “We will deal with it, and you can go ahead and let everyone know that we will. However, not just yet. I want to have Harlan call the islands and get some satellite images of that area. They can send us pictures so we have a good idea of the layout. This is an actual town, not the random, shifting camps of the raiders. They’re in the open too. We don’t have to sneak around to find out what’s going on. We can use everything we have against them too. Hell, we could even have the government deliver a couple of tanks if we wanted.”

  “The islands might be too far off to make it worth the effort,” said Marcus. “Could use artillery if you wanted.”

  “No indiscriminately blasting children,” stated Briana.

  Mary’s smile vanished.

  “Yeah,” I said, “we do need to be careful. I don’t want a repeat.”

  “Lizzy told me about the cave.” Marcus shook his head. “Crying shame. If I was making bad jokes like Mary here, I would say almost as bad as me losing my hat.”

  “What happened
to your hat?” she asked. “You lose it? I thought it wasn’t here because you can’t wear it while lying in bed. You lose your shoes too?”

  “They’re in my cabin. Lizzy had someone clean them up and drop em off. The hat was eaten by a bear. I’ve worn that cowboy hat for nearly eight years. It might have been ratty, but it was a damn fine hat.”

  “Why would you feed a bear your hat?” demanded Mary. “Don’t you know that they can get sick.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose.”

  “I should hope not!”

  “What happened?” asked Briana.

  He closed his eyes, embarrassed. “Met a bear. It had cubs and charged, so I ran for some rocks. My hat fell off, and the bear tore it apart. Damn thing then hung around for three hours before finally going away. Just sat there eating and playing with its babies.”

  “That’s one mean bear,” agreed Mary.

  “Back to the issue,” I said. “We will get satellite intelligence while Marcus recovers. I also need Lizzy and Renee to restructure the militia. Some full timers are getting tired of it or are worn out and want to shift to farming or something else. Others want to move from on and off volunteer status to full time. With those who died and some of the wounded not ever going to be able to fight again, we really have to take the time and get sorted out, and that has to be done before we go off on another trip.”

  “I’m tired of the good people getting killed all the time,” muttered Marcus.

  “We all are,” said Briana. She patted his shoulder. “Jacob’s right. We get the militia redone and keep working on making the Black Hills safer. After that, we can talk about how we deal with the lake crazies. Mary, make sure you tell your friends that there will be payback but we need to organize and plan first. That way everyone will know inside an hour.”

  “I can do… Hey! Not at all nice.”

  “We’ll do an official announcement, Mary,” I offered, “but go ahead and start the rumor mill that there will be a delay so we can take care of things the right way.”

  * * *

  Five days after Marcus returned, we celebrated Mary’s birthday. It was a good sized party. There was Briana, Asher, and myself. Michael and his uncle were invited of course. Marcus was there. Like Lizzy, he spent a lot of time sitting down due to his injuries. The twins were present, as was Renee, Steph, Jenny, Laura, and a dozen or so similarly aged friends.

  As to Michael, I had decided shortly after the incident with Tim to go ahead and assign him to one of Randall’s work teams as a laborer / guard. This kept him away from the town and decreased any unintentional, or intentional, gloating Mary might do by spending every available minute with him. It also meant he would quickly learn his way around the Black Hills. Since he wanted to be a full time militia member, that was worthwhile.

  Renee was also of interest during the party. She had arrived early with a huge bouquet of wildflowers which she dropped in Mary’s lap.

  “Here you go.”

  “Flowers!”

  “They’re hand me downs so don’t get too excited.”

  “Really?” Mary retrieved a vase. “How so?”

  The older woman sighed. “Rudy gave them to me.”

  “I heard you went dancing with him.”

  “I was drunk. You often dance with idiots and assholes when you’re drunk.”

  “It’s true,” I said, passing by so I could set a tray of miniature sandwiches on the table.

  “Threw up on myself that night too.”

  “Shame,” laughed Mary. “You can ruin your clothes doing that.”

  “Although, Rudy isn’t all bad.”

  “Really? Tell me the details. What have you two been doing?”

  Renee shook her head. “Mostly he flirts, like always, with everyone, but he has been unusually attentive. I think he’s full of shit, mind you, but I can’t recall him ever giving anybody flowers before.”

  “Come to think of it,” said Mary, tapping her lips with a single finger, “I can’t either. Maybe he really does like you.”

  “With Rudy’s record, he is going to have to prove that several times over before I take him serious.”

  “Nobody takes Rudy seriously,” I said, passing by on my way to collect more food from the kitchen.

  “Exactly,” said Renee.

  Interlude – Sergeant Brown’s Story

  Sergeant Brown was brought to the Black Hills by Kimberly. Xavier, always ready to spend unproductive time with his friend – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those two eventually tied the knot – quickly volunteered to fly a helicopter to the airstrip and ferry them back to the valley. The pilots then headed for the brew house while the sergeant was escorted to the citadel to speak with me and Briana.

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  He shook Briana’s hand and waved at Asher who was playing with building blocks on the carpet. My son, who witnessed no shortage of strangers coming and going, waved back. He then knocked over his tower and promptly started rebuilding it. There are times, frequent times, when I’d rather play with him than deal with my adult responsibilities. This was one of them.

  “My pleasure,” replied Brown.

  “Sergeant,” I said.

  “Jacob, or do you prefer Consul?”

  “Jacob’s fine. We don’t actually use any of the titles we came up with for our positions, outside of record keeping.”

  “We are about as informal as you can get,” agreed Briana. “So, what you got for us?”

  “Mostly what the captain said in his transmission. I’m to review the security arrangements and defenses of the Black Hills so a preliminary evaluation of this location’s use in clearing the dead can be made. I also have some news about a raider we encountered.”

  That caught my interest.

  “In addition, I have formal orders relating to the transfer of the soldiers stationed here and their families, all to Hawaii.”

  While this interlude did not begin in the manner of most – I was part of the conversation, something that would normally be included in a proper chapter – most of what Sergeant Brown told us was directly related to his activities or information he received as part of his duties over at Yellowstone National Park.

  * * *

  The sergeant was patrolling the western edge of Yellowstone where the battles had been fought and the region to which the raiders had initially pulled back before fleeing northwest along the Idaho border when he came across motorcycle tracks. Crouching, he felt the dirt with his fingertips. Yes, definitely new. The ground was soft following a light rain, and these marks were crisp and unmarred. None of his people had been through, so it had to be an outsider. He called it in and headed for high ground in an effort to get a better view of the area. Planes would be coming, but Sergeant Brown was not the sort to sit back and wait.

  “Anything?” asked Captain Briggs.

  “Not yet. The direction is likely north south.”

  “There’s no indication the rider is still near your location?”

  “Nothing,” replied Brown. “The cave is due south of me. It may have been someone confirming what happened there.”

  A pause. “I’ll have a Pave Hawk drop off a squad in case there are raiders present, perhaps to recover the bodies.”

  “Jacob buried them, using explosives to collapse the entrance even more fully. That would be difficult to get through. Days of work at the very least.”

  “They may not know this, likely do not. It is possible that some raiders will go there to see what they can. They might even try some light digging before they realized how futile that would be. Remain where you are. I will let you know what we find.”

  The sergeant settled down beside a tree, keeping his binoculars handy. A few minutes later he glimpsed the Pave Hawk buzzing over the treetops.

  * * *

  Well, well, he thought.

  A single dirt bike was coming through the woods, heading north. He heard it long before it came into view, and this gave Sergeant
Brown ample time to leave the small rise and move to intercept. Leaping over a fast rushing brook, he slid on the loose soil, losing his balance. The soldier managed to regain control before he was soaked, but one boot ended up in the water. Cursing softly, he pressed onward.

  “Raider, knew it.” The words were a whisper.

  There was no time to alert Captain Briggs, so Brown lifted his rifle and took aim. The round struck the man in the chest, knocking him backwards off the bike which slammed into a tree.

  “Don’t think about moving,” he ordered, rapidly closing the distance.

  Not a sound filled the air. There were no other vehicles in operation and likely no more of the enemy.

  “Name?”

  The raider, a young man in late teens or early twenties, clutched at the wound. Blood was spurting through his quivering fingers. There was a pistol at his side, tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and an assault rifle in a leather sling on the dirt bike. He made no attempt to grab either.

  “Who are you?”

  Light brown eyes turned toward the sergeant. The raider tried to say something. All that came out was a bubble of crimson. It burst on his lips. There was a final shake, and he fell still.

  “This is Brown.”

  “Status?” asked the captain.

  He looked around again before replying into the radio. “Single raider on a dirt bike. He’s down. Minimal firepower and supplies. Looks like he’s been going hungry, pretty thin. No food on him or in his saddle bags.”

  “Do you know what he was doing?”

  “Came from the direction of the cave. Assuming there are no others, I think he headed south to that location, took a look, and was returning north. I suggest focusing the aircraft in that direction. Did the squad find anything?”

  “There are some tracks, very limited, from a motorcycle. There is nothing to suggest the site was disturbed.”

  “A survivor or scout who heard what happened and wanted to see for himself?” suggested Brown.