by W. J. Lundy
Sean didn’t wait for a response; he turned to Henry. “Can you find a way to knock that enclosure in? I need it completely blocked; nothing gets up those stairs,” he said, pointing to the small structure in the center of the roof that served as the only access.
Henry grinned. “I think I can figure it out.”
“Take the boys and make it happen.” He turned back to Spencer. “Clock’s ticking. If you’re staying, I would appreciate someone bringing all the weapons and ammo to the far end of the building. And send one of your troops to inspect the rest of the rooftop—make sure there is no other way up.”
“What about them? We just stop shooting?” Spencer asked.
“That?” Sean said, pointing toward the mass. “Shooting at that would be like pissing on a volcano. We’ll let them see us and keep drawing them in, but for the time being, we need to fortify our position.” Sean turned away and quick-timed it to some sort of improvised greenhouse topped with a roof made of white canvas. He ripped down the canvas top and dropped it on the ground next to him. He looked over the clay flower pots—most of which were empty, probably standing by for the next growing season. He snatched a large five-gallon bucket filled with dark earth and mixed it with water then carried the muddy mixture over to the tarp and began drawing on it.
When he finished, he bundled up the canvas and moved toward the end of the building where the men were already forming fighting positions directed at what was left of the roof enclosure. Sean grabbed Riley from the group and walked to the edge of the roof that faced the distant barn. They stretched out the white canvas tarp now etched with a crude trident drawn in dark mud. Pulling the ends, they fastened it to the edge of the roof and let it hang over the side.
With the banner hanging from the building, Riley looked down at it, confused. “What is this, some sort of SOS?” he asked.
Sean looked out at the dark horizon. “Yeah, now we just hope Brooks can see it.”
Chapter 26
Toledo City Limits, The Dead Lands
The vehicle convoy had left the interstate and drifted north of Toledo, breaking contact with the infected hordes. They’d stopped in an abandoned neighborhood, haunted by dilapidated and burned-out homes with overgrown grass that lined the street. The convoy was all buttoned up, the engines off and the lights out. The only sounds were breathing and snoring from the occupants. Brad looked at Luke in the driver’s seat; the man was sitting back, his eyes focused straight ahead.
“The power plant is in the city?” Brad whispered.
Luke shook his head. “No, just southeast on the Lake Erie shoreline.”
“And they still have power?”
“Yeah, it’s nuke. Place is still online with the original crew—at least that’s what I’m told.”
Brad turned his head sharply. “A nuke reactor? I thought all of those had been safely powered down.”
“From what I understand most were, but Toledo wasn’t. The crew managed to get their families inside and barricade the joint. After a few months, people started to notice Toledo had lights on, and the military sent groups in to secure and inspect it.” Luke put up a finger, pausing and listening. He shook his head and continued. “Anyhow, it changed hands a few times. Was even ordered to power off by the Bunker when they were still running things, but the workers refused. Now the East owns it—well, sort of. It’s in the badlands, but possession is nine-tenths, you know.”
“A nuke plant in the badlands,” Brad whispered. “People are living in an emerald city with all that light surrounded by darkness.”
“It hasn’t been all fun and games for them.”
“Yeah, Gyles told me.”
Luke looked at Brad and tipped his head to the side. “I’m sure he highlighted it. We have a defector on our team. He was one of the plant’s original security officers.”
“He defected?”
Luke nodded. “Like I said, it’s not all fun and games. They have power but suffer from food shortages same as the rest of us. And being isolated brings on its own problems. The engineers have been wanting to safely power down the core for months, but the East is against it.”
“Why do they want to shut it down?”
“Takes a lot of maintenance and specialized people to keep the place running. They have less than ten percent of the staff they used to, and they continue to run out of spare parts. Like any machine, things constantly need replacing. They want to put it to sleep while they can and not wait for something catastrophic.”
Brad sat silently for a moment, thinking. “We sure about this, Luke?” Brad sighed. “If that horde picks up our trail, follows into the plant, and the place melts down…”
“I’ve thought about it,” Luke said. “That’s why we’re not bringing in the entire convoy. It’ll just be us. They have their own mission.”
“Us?” Brad said. “Why me?”
“Cause I need someone that can speak for Texas.”
Brad shook his head. “I told you, I’m not with them.”
“Yeah, I know that now, but they don’t. You do know more about them than anybody else though. We need to convince them to work with us, and this is the only way.”
A knock at Luke’s door caused both men to jump. Luke released the combat lock and the door squeaked open, exposing a young man whose face was covered with a days-old beard. “We’re in the clear, no infected sightings in a few hours.”
Luke closed his eyes and slowly opened them. “Okay, take the convoy and do what you gotta do. Get back safe, you hear?”
The soldier extended a hand and Luke took it. “Good luck, Luke. Been good serving with you, brother,” the man said before stepping away.
“Well, if that didn’t sound like he was sending us to our deaths, I don’t know what does,” Chelsea said wearily from the back.
Luke slammed and locked the door. “You should eat those words. They’re turning around and running back into the horde. They’re going to try and keep them from getting to us. You’re welcome to join them if this is too damning for you.”
Brad put up his hand. “She didn’t mean it like that, and it’s on you for keeping us in the dark.”
The driver put his head down then raised it back up. He turned to Chelsea. “He’s right. I shouldn’t have snapped.” Luke powered on the MRAP and pulled the vehicle out to the shoulder of the road, leaving the lights off. “So… from here on out, it’s all in the clear; you know what I know. We’ve got thirty miles to the power plant. We’ll get as close as we can then find a spot to hole up until morning.”
“And they’ll just let us in?”
“I don’t know.”
The MRAP eased forward, the lights off and Luke driving by moonlight. Gyles was still up in the turret. Riding low, the man’s head was just barely exposed now. He wasn’t up there to fight but more to guide the driver. The MRAP didn’t purr like a kitten and it was loud. The street was lined with cookie-cutter homes, all new construction like a yuppie development. Brad scanned out the side window, spotting green eyes reflecting at him from broken windows.
“The neighbors know we’re here,” Brad said.
Luke nodded. His hands relaxed and regripped the wheel. “Contact is unavoidable in the Beast, but still beats humping it out there on foot,” he said.
The MRAP stayed down the center of the suburban street until it hit a hasty roadblock. Two old police cars parked nose-to-nose cut off the street. Behind them were steel barrels and wood piled up as a makeshift barricade. The shoulders of the road were stacked with piles of debris, as if the residents had used anything they could find to block the street—furniture, bicycles, old building materials. Luke turned to look at Brad. “You’re up.”
“Up where?” Brad asked.
Luke laughed, showing his white teeth. “Come on now, you know I can’t drive through that mess. Go hook the winch cable to one of those cars. I’ll back up and break a lane.”
“Out there?! Hell no, there’s got to be another way.”
<
br /> Shaking his head, Luke replied, “Not one that doesn’t bring us closer into the city. This is the route. Now go on; Gyles has got you covered up top.” Luke reached into a box that was near the base of his seat, coming out with a Glock 21 equipped with a suppressor that was nearly a foot long. “You don’t want to go loud out here.”
Brad took the pistol, dropped the magazine, and checked the slide. Eleven rounds with one in the chamber. He looked back behind him into the crew compartment. Gyles was kneeling in the hatch and shot him a thumbs up. “Don’t sweat it; I got you.”
“I can do it,” Chelsea said from the back.
Brad shook his head and, clenching his jaw, popped the door then eased his head out over the top edge. They’d been driving blackout with no lights, so his eyes had already adjusted to the moonlight. He looked up and noticed the sky was clear and crisp, the air cold. The yards were covered with tall grass and only patches of old snow. He scanned the homes on the right side of the road. A long ranch house was directly next to them. In the driveway of the home rested an old Chrysler mini-van on four flat tires. The house itself had all the windows broken, the curtains fluttering in a light breeze. The door to the home had been pulled free and it was lying in the front yard next to the porch.
Brad stood and looked out over the vehicle to the house on the opposite side of the street. The home was nearly identical in size and shape, yet surprisingly in better condition with no obvious signs of damage. His eyes drifted to the left, and he saw Gyles up in the turret. Brad was surprised to see him holding a SCAR rifle at the ready, the mounted M240 Bravo machine gun in the turret turned down and away from him. Gyles put two fingers to his eyes then pulled them away and spun them in a circle. He then pointed at Brad and down to the roadblock.
Brad flipped the man off in response and dropped to the ground. The sounds of his boots hitting the pavement made him cringe. He stepped away from the MRAP, his boots’ soles echoing in the night. “I sound like a fucking Clydesdale,” he said to himself. He pulled the pistol up with his right arm, holding it to his chest, and he took another sweep with his eyes. Nothing was moving, and there were no sounds. He walked lightly, checking every footfall, as he moved to the front of the MRAP. The winch cable was rolled up from the electric motor and hanging to an eyebolt by a large hook.
Brad grabbed the hook and went to remove it, but the tension was too tight. The hook cable was solid in place and wouldn’t move. He laid the pistol on the hood of the vehicle and fought the hook with both hands, still unable to budge it.
“Release the lock,” Gyles whispered.
The sound of the man’s voice came at him like a hurricane-force wind in the utter silence. Brad froze and looked up at the turret. Gyles was mimicking turning his hand clockwise. “On the motor, there is a twist lock.
Brad shook his head and went back to the long, fire-extinguisher-shaped motor; below it was the spool of cable that wound out and to the hook. Brad felt along the side, finding the twist lock. He released it and immediately felt the slack in the cable. He followed the cable to the hook and was now able to easily unhook it from the eyebolt. He looked up into the windshield and saw Chelsea and Luke staring at him from the cab, Luke pointing toward the roadblock. This also warranted another one-finger salute from Brad.
He lifted the pistol from the hood, took the hook in his left hand, and began walking toward the roadblock. The cable whirred as it unwound from the spool. Brad held his breath, thankful it wasn’t screeching as he thought it might. He weaved in and out of the piled wreckage to a tiny void where the two vehicles met. He could tell by the arrangement of the blockade and a pair of folding chairs that men had stood watch here. On the ground was a pile of expended shotgun shells. He knelt to find a spot to attach the cable before jumping back.
A skeletal hand with curled fingers pointed up at him from under the patrol car. The hand was attached to an arm still wearing a police officer’s dark-blue jacket. Brad shook it off and moved past it to the front of the car, finding a black, steel brush guard. He pulled the cable to get slack then wrapped it around the guard. He turned back to the MRAP; Luke was waving him to return to the vehicle. He did as Luke instructed and made a direct line for the safety of the vehicle.
“You gotta lock the motor,” Gyles said, stopping Brad in his tracks.
He nodded and ran back to the front of the truck and spun the winch lock back into place then quickly moved back to the cab. Chelsea already had the door open when he reached it and piled back inside.
“How was it?” Chelsea asked.
Brad shrugged. “Not so bad, I guess.”
Luke laughed, causing Brad to look at him. “What’s so funny?”
Dropping back into the vehicle from the turret, Gyles looked at him. “Hooking up was the easy part; unhooking after we wake the neighborhood is where it gets tricky.”
“Seriously?” Brad grunted.
“What? You think it was gonna unhook itself?” Luke said. The man fired the MRAP back to life and gunned the engine then dropped the Beast into reverse. The vehicle lunged back then jerked to a halt as the cable tightened. Luke tightened his jaw and pressed on the accelerator. The roadblock began to tremor then broke free, all the garbage and rusted vehicles dragging back in one single mass. The night silence filled with the roaring engine and screeching of the debris being hauled across concrete. Luke began to laugh as he towed the island of debris behind them. The MRAP stopped, and Luke moved it forward just a hair to put slack back into the cable.
The machine gun in the turret erupted, the outside now lit by the strobes of the muzzle flashes. Brad could see the tracer rounds tearing into the house on his right, the fire moving and cutting into the doorway. “You gotta move!” Gyles yelled. “They are onto us now, buddy.”
Luke threw open his door and stood in the frame, his own rifle fire directed somewhere off to his left. Brad leapt from the cab, running for the end of the cable. He saw the wire weaved through the wreckage. Brad stuffed the Glock into his belt and pulled the cable to get more slack then unhooked it from the brush guard. Screams to his front and an infected impacting with the debris jarred him back. He pulled the Glock and fired twice into the thing’s face, the clack clack of the suppressed rounds hardly noticeable over the firing of the machine gun. He cursed himself for not grabbing his rifle.
He unwound the cable from the debris and tossed it free into the street before turning back. He spotted a cluster of infected running at him, and he raised the Glock again, but the charging infected were cut down before they could close the distance. He ducked his head and ran as Gyles provided cover fire. Once again, Chelsea had the door open for him and he ducked inside, slamming his door shut. He heard the clanging and clunking of doors and hatches being locked as the things outside impacted with the armored vehicle. Brad looked down at the Glock in his shaking hand. He took it and handed it back to Luke. “Next time you have stupid shit to be done, do it yourself,” he said.
Luke laughed. “It isn’t stupid if it works,” he said. The man reached for a toggle on the dash and listened as the whirring motor to the front retracted the cable. “Now just hope it don’t twist or tangle or you gotta go back out there.”
“Fuck you,” Brad said, leaning his head back as both Gyles and Luke erupted into laughter.
“I gotta come clean here; I can’t stand you guys,” Brad said.
The cable didn’t tangle and soon the vehicle was back in gear. Luke maneuvered them forward and around the remnants of the barricade. They were out of the neighborhood and on a wide two-lane road. It wasn’t as congested as they’d worried it might be; parts even looked as if they had been recently cleared. There were several cars packed tightly together, angled off and down a grade where they’d been pushed out of the way.
At another intersection was a pile of stacked corpses. The MRAP slowed as they moved past the stack. “Human or Primal?” Chelsea croaked from the back.
Brad shook his head. “Impossible to tell, but a
t one time they were all human.”
The MRAP stopped again. The main road was blocked by many dump trucks and a fire truck, with a pair of defunct Bradley fighting vehicles on each flank. Gyles squatted back into the vehicle. “This has been here for a while. I went past it last summer. There is no way past, and even if there was, you don’t want to get on the other side of it.”
“Why?” Chelsea asked.
Gyles looked at her before he looked away. “Nothing but death over there. Doesn’t matter, the road leads to a knocked-out bridge. Whoever defended this place made phased withdrawals from my inspection last summer. There was a massive fight here before they pulled back and blew the bridge.” The soldier swallowed and looked up at the night sky from the hatch. He leaned forward and directed his words back to Luke. “Take this left up ahead here, follow it around, and we’ll get closer to the lakeshore. I know a place where we can hide until morning.”
“Hide?” Chelsea asked. “We’re stopping again?”
Luke grunted, making the left turn. “We’ll approach them in daylight. Folks are less jumpy than they are at night.”
Chapter 27
Three Corners Outpost, West of Lancaster, Ohio. The Dead Lands
The sun was coming up in the east, breaking through low clouds on the horizon. Sean felt the building rumble as the infected moved around the structure below them. His people were on the roof and could hear the breaking of furniture and the destruction of the building as the mass frenzied just one floor below them, sensing food just out of reach. Sean stretched and looked at his watch; it was nearly six in the morning. The creatures had broken through the walls a bit past midnight and made it to the top floors by two o’clock. By three, they were attacking the barricaded stairwell. So far, any attacks had just caused the structure to further collapse. While it prevented the infected from reaching the roof, it also made it hard to sleep.
