“Oh really? He was a PJ?” said Southard, grinning. “Then Spec-4’s all yours. I’ve got dibs on the Indian.”
“Half Indian,” corrected John from behind us. “I’m only half, thus the beard.”
Southard nearly jumped out of his skin. I just laughed. I was long since used to John’s way of showing up without warning, just when you didn’t expect it. He was like a Zen Batman, appearing calmly out of the shadows whenever you mentioned his name.
“Don’t think that since I prefer a bow that I can’t shoot a gun,” he said, grinning.
“Ok, Tonto,” said Southard, “you’re with me.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” said John. “You don’t call me Tonto and I won’t scalp you in your sleep.”
“Sounds like a deal,” said Southard, sheepishly.
“Way to go, Chuck,” I said, grinning. “How’s that foot taste?”
“Besides,” said John, mock-seriously. “I prefer Geronimo or Sitting Bull. They were at least real Native Americans.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “John, you’re with Big Chief Dumb-Ass there in the Humvee with the trailer. Spec-4 and I will have the other one and take point.”
“You drive,” said John to Southard. “I’ll take the turret.”
“Ok, people,” I said. “We’re going to be taking back roads all the way to my sister-in-law’s lake house. It’s in the middle of nowhere near Cape Fair. I’m not taking the main highway. It’ll be clogged with traffic and if they’re watching the roads, they’ll watch the main ones closest.”
“What if we run into a road-block?” asked Southard.
“You’ve already seen what they’ll do to their own men,” I said, gesturing at the church behind me. “Don’t expect a warm welcome. Besides, no roadblock’s going to stop us. I’m going to get Karen and the boys out of there if it kills me.”
“Before we go, I’d like to offer a prayer for our safety,” said John.
“It couldn’t hurt,” I agreed. “Go ahead, John.”
John took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then he spread his arms wide and leaned his head back with his face towards the sky.
“May the Great Spirit bless all who travel this day. May our journey be swift as an eagle in flight. May our path be clear and our purpose fulfilled in safety. And may the Great Spirit guide and keep us from the dead that walk among us,” he said, almost chanting.
“Let’s hope the Great Spirit is listening,” said Southard.
“The Great Spirit always listens,” said John. “We just don’t always understand the answer.”
“Spoken like a greeting card,” said Southard, smiling.
“Alright folks,” I interrupted. “Let’s get moving. We’re burning daylight.”
Everyone double-checked their weapons and ammo before heading towards their assigned vehicles. I walked over to the fence and climbed up the lookout ladder next to the gate. Just as I had feared, there were almost fifty zombies milling around on the east side of the fence. I’m sure that some of them had been attracted by the sound of us working, but many of them had been there for some time. Lucky for us, the fence was solid.
“If we open that gate, we’ll be swarmed,” I said. “We’d better go back out the north gate.”
“I saw another gate back near the edge of the field,” said John. “Over beyond where all the bodies are piled.”
I didn’t really want to go that way, but it would put us out past the zombies and on the road that I wanted to take. I milled it around for a few seconds, before deciding to not go that way. I couldn’t do that to Chuck. Even if his family wasn’t there, it’d be torture for him to drive past without getting out to look for them.
“I think we should go that way,” said Southard. “It’s the shortest way out and it gets us on the road we need to be on.”
“Chuck,” I said, “you…”
“I know,” Southard interrupted. “Tell me I’m wrong, though. We need to get on that road to be on the route you’ve planned.”
“We can go around,” I said. “I’ll get us back on the right road. I don’t want to put you through that.”
“I want to,” he said, almost whispering. “I need to.”
“Are you sure, Chuck?” I asked, softly.
He thought about it for a few seconds before answering me.
“I’m sure,” he said, shaking his head.
We climbed in the Humvees and headed around to the back of the church. Then we turned south behind the parsonage. We were driving between row after row of bodies. There had to be over a thousand people lying in that field. We were almost halfway through when I saw Chuck’s Humvee stop and he jumped out. Before I could get our Humvee stopped, he was already pulling two tiny bodies off of a pile.
Even from a distance, I recognized his two little girls. Chuck was cradling them and crying as I ran up to him. He was kneeling on the ground, rocking the girls in his arms. I could see Melodi lying on the ground in front of him. They all had a small caliber hole in the middle of their foreheads. Other than the bullet wound, there wasn't a mark on them. There was no way that any of them could be infected.
I did the only thing that a man can do for his friend at a time like that. I sat beside him and cried with him. I cried hard at the tragedy of it. There wasn’t any sense to it. The virus only spread through bites. They were killed for absolutely nothing. I cried for Chuck, I cried for his family, and I cried in shame for the thought that popped unbidden into my head.
“Thank God I didn’t send my family to the Evac-Center.”
I hated myself for even thinking that, right then. It popped into my head without any conscious thought. I’d never tell Chuck that I thought that, but I felt guilty none-the-less. I don’t know how long we sat there in the dirt, crying and I don’t really care. Somehow, I found myself with an e-tool in my hand. Through the tears, I dug three graves. John and Spec-4 helped me and we left Chuck to grieve.
It was full on dark when we finished. We made crosses out of pieces of wood that we pulled off of crates. We lashed them together with boot-laces. We put their names on them with a sharpie. It wasn’t much, but it was the best we could do. John said a few words of comfort over the graves, but I don’t remember them. I was numb with shock and grief.
We talked it over and decided that it was best not to try to drive at night. The headlights would be a dead give-away. Instead, we pulled the Humvees next to each other and all climbed inside ours. Then we locked up and buttoned down for the night. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but we wouldn’t get eaten in our sleep.
I pulled out a bottle of Bushmills from my rucksack and handed it to Chuck. Everyone but John took several pulls of the fiery Irish whiskey. I was breaking my rule about not drinking in the field, but this was different. We needed the drink to soothe our nerves. At least now, we knew for certain what happened to Southard’s family. We could mourn their loss. We could also make plans to make the people responsible pay dearly for it, too. Plans I have every intention on carrying through with. We would find a way to make them pay for this.
We got as comfortable as we could in the canvas seats and tried to get some sleep. At least it was cool that night and we didn’t have to worry about over-heating. I set my watch to wake me up at 0700 hours and drifted off to sleep. Despite the soreness of my muscles, I felt myself slowly relaxing as my eyelids grew heavier.
I awoke in full daylight with a sudden start as something impacted with my window. I turned to see who or what it was and looked into the face of a soldier wearing full protective gear and a gas mask. He was pointing a weapon at me and motioning for me to get out. I glanced quickly around and saw that we were surrounded. More than a dozen soldiers in protective gear were all around us.
“Get out of the vehicle, sir,” said the one next to me.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, and flipped him off.
Then he slapped a block of C-4 on the window and stuck in a detonator.
“I
’m going to ask you one more time, sir,” he said. “Get out of the vehicle.”
The thought ran through my head that we were dead either way. If we got out, we’d be executed just like the people from the Evac-center. There was enough C-4 on the window to put us into a low orbit, and I was considering my options when it hit me. He’s too close to detonate that. They’ll all be killed too.
“Screw you,” I said. “I’m not budging.”
“Fall back!” he shouted, and pulled out a remote for the detonator.
The soldiers started falling back and I knew that we were about to be blown to kingdom come. I glanced around and found that I was alone in the vehicle. I couldn’t see anyone. Spec-4, Southard and John were nowhere to be seen. Then I panicked, thinking that they’d already been captured. I grabbed the door handle to get out, but it wouldn’t budge. I started pulling on the handle frantically, but it wouldn’t move. I could see the soldier starting to press the button. I could even see a little red light on the detonator blinking on and off. I closed my eyes and screamed, “NO!” Then there was a bright flash of light.
I opened my eyes to see Spec-4 leaning across the seat and shaking me.
“Wylie, are you ok?”
It was still dark outside. I was sweating heavily and my breathing was fast.
“I…uh…I’m not sure,” I panted.
“You were screaming in your sleep,” she said. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“Yeah,” I said, “just a stupid dream.”
“Good,” mumbled Southard. “Shut-up so we can go back to sleep.”
“Sorry, Chuck,” I said. “I’ll let you sleep.”
The moon was full and my watch said it was 0206 hours. I’d been asleep for about five hours. That was good enough. I could see all around the area very clearly in the moonlight, so I got out of the vehicle taking my weapons with me. I shut the door quietly and stood in the cool air. I didn’t use a flashlight, because I didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. Spec-4 got out of her side and came around to stand next to me.
“Want to talk about it,” she whispered.
“Not really much to talk about,” I whispered back. “I just dreamed that the Army caught us and was going to blow me up.”
“What about the rest of us?”
“I don’t know. I was alone in the Humvee.”
“Weird,” she said. “But then again, nightmares usually are. It’s ok, though. You’re fine.”
“I know. It just shook me up. It was pretty realistic.”
“Wylie,” she said, hesitantly, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, anything.”
“Is there any chance for us?” she asked, softly.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, for you and me,” she said, “For us to be together.”
“I don’t know, kiddo,” I replied, and put my arm around her. “I love my wife. But I care about you, too. We’ve gotten pretty close during all of this.”
“I think I’m falling for you, Wylie,” she said, looking down. “I tried to ignore it, but I can’t. I’ve never met anyone like you. Everyone always treated me different because I’m a woman. In the Army they acted like women couldn’t do the job, even though I did all the time. You treated me like an equal from day one. You never treated me like I couldn’t do the job. You always made me feel important.”
“Hell, kiddo,” I whispered. “You’re probably better at this stuff than I am. I haven’t been a soldier in a long, long time. Besides, don’t sell yourself short. I’d have never made it this far without you. None of us would have.”
We stood there in silence for a while, just listening to the night. I could hear movement beyond the fence. For the first time standing there in the dark, I could hear the soft moan that the zombies made as they moved. I’d never noticed it before. It was unnerving but it did tell me that if you listened, you could hear them coming in the dark. I tucked that little piece of information back into my mental file box.
"I'll be your friend," I whispered, holding her close. "I'll hold you when you're scared. I'll even die to protect you, but I can't promise more than that."
"It's enough," she whispered, softly. "For now."
Chapter Nineteen
Breaking Containment
"“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”"
— Robert Frost
.
07 April
Since neither of us was tired, we crawled into the other Humvee to talk for a while. I’m not sure when I dozed off, but the next thing I knew I awoke to my alarm going off. I didn’t want to move, but I knew we had to. The sun was up and we needed to get moving. Gently, I shook her awake
“Wake up, sleepy-head,” I said. “It’s time to get moving.”
We both sat up and started gathering our gear. My back was stiff from sleeping in a chair and I felt like every muscle in my body was cramped. I had to stretch my muscles just to get moving. Once we were up and ready, I scanned the area and found no zombie hordes around us and no gas-masked soldiers either. I got out and headed over to the other Humvee to wake up Southard and John. They both woke up reluctantly and sat up, stretching.
“What time is it?” asked John.
“0708,” I replied. “Time to get moving.”
Spec-4 came up behind me and handed me a cup of MRE coffee. It was cold, but it was caffeine. I made a face, but drank it anyway.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling. “That was awful.”
“No hot water,” she replied, smiling. “What did you expect? Starbucks?”
I just chuckled as we started tossing our gear into the Humvee. John and Southard got up and headed for theirs.
“Where did you two go last night?” asked Southard, walking around to the driver’s side of his Humvee.
“I didn’t want to wake you up with my nightmares, anymore,” I replied. “We slept in your Humvee.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” said Southard, eyeing me speculatively.
Heading over to the fence, I climbed the ladder next to the gate and peeked over the top. There weren’t any zombies outside the gate, but they were close by. I climbed down and walked back to them.
“We’re going to do this a little differently than before. The zombies are too close for it to work like it did last time.”
“What have you got in mind?” asked Southard.
“We open the gate and you guys drive out first,” I said. “I’ll drive out second and stop just outside. Wilder will close the gate, then climb over the fence and jump onto the roof. I’ll leave the turret open and she can dive in. Then we’re on our way.”
“I’ll cover you guys from my turret,” said John. “If they get too close, I’ll cut a few of them down.”
I looked at Spec-4.
“Sound good to you?”
“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. “No problem. I can handle it.”
“That’s my girl,” I said, grinning. “Let’s do it.”
Spec-4 climbed into the back of our Humvee and opened the turret hatch. Then she climbed back out and headed for the gate. I got in and locked the doors. Once Southard and John were inside, I fired up my engine. John climbed into the turret and worked the bolt on his SAW. Southard fired up his engine and gave me a thumbs up.
Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) Page 51
