Primal Resurrection: A Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Novel: Book 8

by W. J. Lundy

  Three Corners Outpost, West of Lancaster, Ohio. The Dead Lands

  With the rifle sling looped over his thumb, Brooks reached forward, feeling ahead with his gloved hand. He turned his head to the side then, pushing with the toe of his boot, slid ahead in the soft soil until his face was next to the base of a large oak tree. He lay motionless, listening to the faint sounds of Joey crawling up beside him. He closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them, he looked out across a large open expanse of meadow.

  Three-foot-high, uncut grass blew in the breeze. Brook scanned and could see tree trunks in places where the grass was pushed down or covered with remnants of a heavy snowfall. He could tell that this was either an intentionally cut field of fire, or the people in the outpost ahead clear-cut it for firewood. Either way, it provided them with a tactical disadvantage. There would be no way to approach the building unseen in the daylight. Brooks rolled to his side and repositioned his scoped rifle so that when he dropped back to his chest it would rest in the pocket of his shoulder, and the large scope would sit at just the right relief from his eye.

  Turning his head slightly, he could see that Joey was now beside him, level with his waistline. The Marine rifleman was on his right side and looking through a pair of scout binoculars. “Two on the roof; hard to see it, but there’s another in that corner window to the right of the door,” Joey whispered.

  Brooks eased into the rifle and scanned. Ahead was the long, red-brick building. It reminded him of every movie high school he’d seen as a kid—long and red-orange with evenly spaced windows outlined in white limestone. He almost grinned, reminiscing of the time before his country was overrun with death. He pivoted and searched the knee wall along the roofline.

  “Got ’em,” he whispered. There were two men, equal distance apart, armed with what looked like lever-action rifles. He let his eye scan the windows. Joey had already identified a target, but he had to be sure. He panned left, stopped, and moved back to the right. “Got the man in the window,” he said. The last man didn’t appear to be armed, but it wouldn’t make sense for him not to be.

  Brooks focused hard on the scope’s reticles and called out ranges to Joey, who confirmed his estimates.

  “You are planning on killing these vatos?” Joey whispered.

  “Planning for the worst, brother, preparing for the—”

  A vehicle engine paused him. Brooks held his breath and slowly moved his eye from the scope. He paused and listened. They were loud engines; he could hear them shifting gears like trucks.

  Joey heard it too. The Marine rifleman was already sliding back and changing his position so he could better angle toward the road. He settled in just as three vehicles slowly came into view—an old and badly rusted armored car followed by two deuce and a half military vehicles, painted in a woodland camouflage pattern. The armored car pulled through the intersection, turned left—followed by the first deuce and a half—and stopped directly to their front, leaving the last vehicle on the main road.

  Doors slammed and hatches opened. Before Brooks could process it, there were nearly twelve armed and uniformed men standing in the street. They were dressed in ACUs—the old Army Combat Uniform. Not only that, they walked and carried themselves like soldiers. Brooks had seen enough militia groups and good ol’ boys to know the difference between a boy in a surplus uniform and a professional. The hair on the back of his neck began to tingle.

  “What the hell are we looking at here, hermano?” Joey whispered, the man’s eyes glued to the binoculars.

  “I don’t know, but we can’t let them get inside. Chief is in there.”

  Joey pulled away from the binoculars and looked at Brooks. “I’m not sure I’m okay with killing soldiers; at least, not our soldiers.”

  Brooks bit at the inside of his cheek. He was thinking the same thoughts but didn’t want to let it move to the front of his consciousness. Right now, they were just targets, and that was how he wanted them to stay. “We don’t know who they are.”

  Joey sighed, and Brooks looked back to the road. Men were opening a flap on one of the troop transports. Other men were removing five-gallon fuel cans, topping off the trucks. A pair of soldiers walked along the side of the road, discussing something. The pair was definitely in charge; Brooks knew it. It was all the same—the same scenes he’d seen hundreds of times on hundreds of exercises: convoys stopped and men went to work while officers planned.

  The main gates of the outpost opened to reveal a pair of men who flanked an older man with a white beard. The trio exited the gate, approaching the soldiers on the road. Brooks shook his head and pulled the rifle back into his shoulder. If he was going to act, he had to be quick. But who? Who deserved a bullet? He closed his fist, blinking his eyes rapidly, trying to think.

  “We can’t fight them. Just give Chief a chance, bro. He’s talked himself out of deeper shit than this.”

  Brooks clenched his fist and pulled his eye away from the scope, knowing Joey was right. Firing now would just stir a hornet’s nest. His mind was flashing, trying to bounce through contingencies. What if Chief is counting on him to fire to allow his escape? What if they were inside and ready to hit them from two sides? His hand contracted and released the pistol grip. He felt Joey’s hand on his shoulder. “Relax, bro. Chief’s got this.”

  Brook took his hand off the rifle and held his empty palm toward Joey. “Okay,” he whispered. He moved his eyes back to the group in front of the outpost. The trio were now in the yard in front of the building, talking to a pair of men. They appeared to be the ones in charge of the military outfit. A man turned and waved at the heavy vehicles then looked back to the white-bearded man from the outpost. The bearded man nodded his head and waved toward the outpost. One of the soldiers turned and pointed to a pair of men near a troop transport. The men grabbed large rucksacks and rifles from the back and double-timed it up the street to join the men on the lawn.

  The other soldiers broke off and returned to their vehicles. Engines started and roared to life.

  “They’re leaving,” Joey whispered.

  “Not all of them,” Brooks said, his eye back on the scope. His crosshair was on the tall man speaking to the white-bearded man from the outpost. When the tall man turned, Brooks could see the railroad track on the man’s cover. An army captain. “They are military, but whose?” Brooks whispered to himself. He kept the reticle on the captain’s head as he listened to doors slam and gears grind. The trucks didn’t turn around; instead, they took the turn to the right, moving back toward the south. “I bet this guy has no idea I could put his lights out,” Brooks whispered. “Just a few pounds off the trigger and all of his problems go away.”

  “Easy, killer,” Joey whispered. “Let’s let this convoy get out of here before doing anything rash.”

  Brooks kept the sight on his target. The man in the crosshairs turned back and accepted his pack from two younger soldiers. Brooks could tell these men were green; they didn’t have the same posture as the veteran he was targeting. There was something about the man in charge, something that told him he should pull the trigger. The engine noise faded as the vehicles pulled away. The group of men approached the steps. Brooks was still on the glass, his finger twitching, wanting to make the shot. He pulled his hand away and exhaled as the men walked through the threshold and the gate closed behind them.

  “Hey, Boss, what’s that?” Joey pointed his gloved finger to the road leading to the north. Far on the distant blacktop surface, they could see wavering lines, like the ground was pulsing.

  Brooks adjusted his body into the scope and tried to focus his eyes, thinking his mind was playing tricks on him—the brain seeing movement where none existed. “Can’t be,” he whispered. He closed his eyes tightly and slowly opened them. “We have to get back to the vehicles.” When Brooks pulled his eye away from the glass, he could see that Joey had recognized it too. Ahead on the road and moving in their direction were Primals, possibly creepers stacked in shoulder-to-shoul
der, and more than he could count.

  “What about Chief?” Joey said.

  “He’ll be better off inside those walls. Right now, we need to worry about us.” Brooks was already crawling backward, dragging his rifle and pack with him. “Where in the hell did they all come from? There were a couple hundred at the roadblock, but this…” he whispered and closed his eyes, thinking of the sight through the scope… the sea of bodies, the heads moving rhythmically.

  “It’s not the same group,” Brooks grunted, moving back into the cover of the trees. He rolled to his back and sat up. Leaning down, he offered a hand to Joey and pulled the Marine to his feet.

  Joey looked back over his shoulder. “We haven’t seen a horde since the fall. How are they back?”

  Brooks shook his head. “They aren’t back. It’s all of this; all the activity. The train, the vehicles, the fighting… It’s bringing them all in.”

  “From where?” Joey asked.

  Already jogging back toward the barn, Brooks said, “That group? Probably Columbus, Cincinnati, maybe even Indianapolis. There are a lot of big cities around here. Cities we don’t know shit about.”

  Joey laughed. “We ain’t in Kansas anymore, are we, Dorothy?”

  “Nah,” Brooks spat. “This is fucking Ohio.”

  Chapter 22

  Thirty Miles North of Coldwater Compound, Michigan Safe Zone

  Chelsea screamed, and Brad leveled his rifle, bleeding off an entire magazine before stopping to reload. He heard Gyles’s shotgun fire again, the noise echoing across the enclosed school, further enraging the Primals in all directions. Brad flinched, knowing what was coming, as another wave of infected crashed against the outer barrier fence. “We’re surrounded,” Brad shouted as he reloaded, and then called out for them to board the bus while he fired more suppressed rounds into the fence. His rifle barrel was sizzling, the suppressor at the end beginning to glow.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Gyles yelled, cranking the bus engine to life.

  Brad heard the bus’s diesel engine roar then turned and saw the door open. Brad fired off another burst into the gap in the fence then sprinted for the bus. He dove through the opening, and Gyles slammed the heavy piston that forced the door shut. Just moments later, the bus shuddered as the wave of infected collided with it.

  Brad rolled to his back, breathing heavily. He could hear Gyles laughing manically, cursing at the infected as the bus ground into gear and lurched forward. Primal hands slapped at the body of the bus, their infected screams drowning out the sounds of the engine. He looked up and saw Chelsea’s gloved hand. She pulled him back to his feet, and he followed her to the back, dropping heavily into a bench seat covered in green pleather. He rested his rifle against a seat’s back and took in deep breaths.

  Pushing farther away from the aisle, he leaned in toward the steel-covered windows. Gyles was moving fast down the access road, creating separation from the things pursuing them. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. How had they closed on them so quickly? How did they find them again? He thought back to what had just happened. They’d made it through the outer gate and into the lot without being detected. Gyles moved to the bus while Brad stayed back with Chelsea to cover the auto shop’s doors.

  Then it happened—a low buzzing at first that quickly became a high-pitched siren. The white quad copter swooped in from overhead then blared more high-pitched beeping sounds. Like a recess bell, roars emanated from the school’s hallways. Brad raised his rifle and popped off several shots at the drone—all missing—before Gyles removed the Mossberg from his back. The soldier leveled the barrel and put a blast of bird shot into the quad copter that sent it crashing to the ground.

  The outer doors of the auto shop buckled as a stream of them poured out. Brad was able to stop several of the first group, killing them in the doorway and blocking the path for others. More moved past them as he reloaded, hitting the tall chain link fence that divided them from the school. Still more came, and the second wave was double the size of the first. The infected made it to the fence and were piling over by the time Gyles entered the bus. Brad had ordered Chelsea in and then he piled in behind her… He closed his eyes tightly; somehow, they made it.

  But still… how the hell had they been found?

  Brad lifted from the seat and moved up beside Gyles. They were racing down a snow-covered road. Moving south, the road had several vehicles pushed off to the right side, up and over the shoulder and into a ditch. “Where we going?” Brad asked him.

  “A place I know. I got some friends up here.”

  “Friends?” Brad asked. “Then why didn’t you say something about it earlier?”

  Gyles shrugged and looked up into the rearview mirror before fixing his eyes back on the road. “Palmer doesn’t know about them; most folks don’t.”

  “Palmer?” Brad said. “What? You don’t trust him?”

  “I trust him just fine. Only he has his place and I have mine,” Gyles snapped. He slowed to maneuver around a burned-out pickup truck then shifted gears as he sped onto a straightaway. “Couldn’t take the risk in front of him. There was a reason Brown separated you out from the others, but we had to be sure.”

  “Sure?” Brad asked.

  “Had to make sure you were one of us,” Gyles said, glancing at him. “You don’t understand what we’ve been up against. What Sergeant Brown told you last night about the recon to the south, what’s been happening, it’s all true. But the rest about being told to stand down? Well…”

  “You’ve never stopped fighting,” Brad said.

  Gyles clenched his jaw and nodded before saying, “No, not all of us. But there are very few that go out and do the dirty work. We’ve been sending out scouts, and what we are seeing isn’t good.”

  “You already told me about infected, how the numbers are growing.”

  Gyles scoffed. “It’s far more than that. Most people inside the compound don’t even know this war is being fought. We know the senator’s plan won’t work; we know it’s all bullshit. Even with the best of walls, the infected will overcome us in a year.”

  “So you all just do your own thing. Is it mutiny or treason?” Brad asked, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

  “Fuck that noise,” Gyles spat back. “The senator has no more constitutional authority than any of us do. He’s a sham, only looking out for himself. If shit gets too bad in the south, he’ll just jump on his chopper and head north.”

  “But you sent Palmer back to move the people right back to the senator.”

  Gyles nodded. “Yeah, and he will, and he’ll tell them we were planning to find out who was attacking the compound.”

  “And we are?” Brad said.

  Gyles nodded his head. “Mostly.”

  “And what does that mean?” Chelsea said, stepping closer.

  Gyles looked out at the road, slowed and turned onto a dirt path crossing a snow-covered field. “We have a camp; there are people there like us.”

  “Military?” Chelsea asked.

  Turning back in his seat to look at her, Gyles grinned. “Militia. Some were military before the fall. National Guard types, Army reservists, whole lot of veterans, but the majority are just your traditional minuteman.”

  “What’s a minuteman?” Chelsea asked.

  “Like I said…” Gyles grinned, turning back to the road. “Militia.”

  The road narrowed and became closed in with trees that hadn’t been cut back. Overgrowth shaded and darkened the surface of the road. Gyles shifted into the lowest gear and brought the bus to a crawl, going around a steep embankment that took the bus west. The road ended and Gyles guided them onto a gravel drive that the snow had been removed from.

  “Where are we?” Brad asked.

  “I can’t say exactly, but it’s about two miles north of the wall.”

  Brad began to argue that point when the gravel drive ended at a tall wooden gate flanked by double-stacked shipping containers. Gyles moved the bus clo
ser and cut the engine. He placed his hands on his lap, took a deep breath, and sighed. He reached out for the handle and released the piston, allowing the door to open.

  Brad leaned toward the windshield and looked left and right, seeing no one. “Is anyone here?” he whispered.

  “Oh yeah, they’re here watching us. Grab your gear and follow me; someone will bring in the bus later.”

  Brad looked to Chelsea, who already had her ruck by the carry handle and was following Gyles off the bus. Brad shrugged and grabbed his own pack, following them out onto the gravel road. Brad saw that Gyles had his rifle slung so he did the same with his own before following the man to the large wooden gates. There was a well-worn foot path leading beyond the gate to the stack of shipping containers to the left. At the bottom left was a blue container with US STEEL stenciled on the side. Near the middle of the container was a narrow line of wooden pallets arranged like a boardwalk that led to a door cut into the side of the container.

  Gyles approached the door and pounded on it with the back of his fist. Immediately, they heard the clanging of chains and the screeching of metal from the inside. The door pushed out and revealed the face of a tall black man. He had a scar across his forehead and a crossed rifle tattoo on the side of his neck, the bottom of the tattoo barely concealed by a green-and-black patterned shemagh. The man stepped on to the pallet boardwalk and looked beyond Gyles to stare at Brad for a moment before switching to Chelsea then back to Gyles.

  “Where’s Brown?” the man asked.

  Gyles shook his head. “We lost him last night; they hit us at Palmer’s strip mall.”

  The man shook his head. “I told that bastard the place wasn’t safe. We lose anyone else?”

  “No, the rest of us made it out and holed up at the Zoo until it was safe to travel here.”

  “You followed?”

  “Can’t be certain; they were using drones. We knocked one down but could be more.”