The Reaper: No Mercy

by Sean Liebling

  "Transmission recieved. Don't leave us in suspense, Captain. I've read the copy we made of that notebook and the situation doesn't look good."

  "It is what it is. I'll know more within a day. The cult appears to be bad news. I was able to scan some of the interior and deep within their compound is a large cross that they've nailed men, women and even children. I was unable to do a forward recon during daylight, as they have manned machine gun emplacements every hundred feet along the exterior. At this time, their beliefs are unknown, but the fact they've killed children doesn't speak well for them."

  "Reaper, we can and will provide support. Things are going well here. Already, in the last two days, over two thousand refugees have come out of hiding and joined us. It's busy."

  "I knew it would be, Rodriguez, but not at this time. Let me feel the players out and I'll get back to you. As previously discussed, if I don't report back by tomorrow then I'm compromised and this information needs to get to Newaygo."

  "I will make sure it does, but I do not see you being compromised, Reaper. Yes, I'm familiar with your dogma. When the Lord decides it's time for you to go home, he'll collect you!"

  "That's right," this time the Reaper growled, and at that moment, he heard gunfire to the south. The rapid staccato of weapons going off simultaneously made it sound like a pitched battle and quickly the Reaper held the binoculars to his eyes as he zoomed in on the motel across the highway, less than five-hundred yards distant. Instantly he was speaking into the hand-held unit again.

  "Paris Six, something needs my attention. Reaper out."

  "Copy that Reaper, keep us informed. We'll be here." Then the Reaper turned the handset off as he lifted his M40A1 sniper rifle, then crept to the south edge of the roof.

  Looking down and across, he idly noted the distance was too short to require a sandbag and after flipping the magnetic covers up from the scope, he wrapped the sling twice around his hand gripping the fore stock of the Remington 700 and settled into a comfortable prone position. Slowly he panned across the parking lot and saw a myriad of Hell's spawn intermixed with human survivors in pitched battle.

  The scene before him was too confusing to draw more than general picture of the events happening. It appeared the zombies had sensed survivors hiding within the motel premises, and had already breached several of the room doors in search of ... food. By combining their mass, the undead could and did breached locked door, simply by continuing to move forward. The survivors in return were out in force, rushing from surrounding rooms and engaged in melee with the undead creatures in an attempt to hold them back. It did not look good for the defenders as the Devil's Spawn had vastly superior numbers and were aroused in their need for human sustenance. The Reaper instantly recognized the spawn of Satan were in fast mode as they intermixed with humans and as he watched, several of those alive were pulled to the ground. Time to step in, he thought as he chambered the first 7.62 x 51mm round in place and sighting carefully, fired!

  In the parking lot, one of the undead had gripped a machete wielding female survivor by the hair and was pushing her to the pavement. As the lady's mouth opened in a scream of pain and denial, the Reapers ultra-sonic jacket of death was already passing through the head of the creature holding her, bringing it instant, ultimate death to ricochet off the pavement behind them. The unfolding battle was busy, with alive and undead fighting in close proximity to each other. Jason had to be careful that his rounds did not impact a friendly target, after passing through one of the spawn. He had no worries though, as he never missed and carefully aiming, he fired again.

  This time, the jacketed round passed through not one, but two semi-decomposed heads, before impacting against the lower stone archway fronting the main entrance to the motel. The Reaper shifted minutely as his right hand automatically rotated another round into position. Three of the undead were crouched over a young man as he fired upward into their dead bodies with an automatic of some sort, clenched tightly in his hand and quickly Jason sent a round through the head of one, then a second, allowing the man to push the other aside as he staggered to his feet. Before Jason could fire again, the evil ones teeth had fastened on the arm of the gun-toting survivor, bearing him to the ground again. Another round passed through the barrel of the Remington 700, putting an end to the undead wishes.

  Quickly yet methodically, the Reaper kept firing until he was switching magazines. Then again he serviced another of the undead horde before him. The survivors in this group were winning, and the Reaper continued to fire. Every shot through the head, with no misses.

  Jason was on his fourth magazine before the battle was over. The firing from below had ceased and the survivors were milling around while checking on their own dead. As he slowly panned across the turmoil of the last ten minutes, he counted at least eight dead of the groups once living members. He could also see many of those below staring up at his position and relaxing, he slowly stood, while facing them and rested the butt of his sniper rifle against his hip. It was time to get down there and see what was going on.

  Packing his gear up quickly, he proceeded to the ladder only to find the area below crowded with Hell's minions who had heard the shooting and came in search of Prey. The Reaper smiled grimly, for it was he who would prey on them and drawing his colt .45, he started shooting.

  Chapter 2

  Gareth Wood was thirty-six and a large man at six-foot three and two-hundred forty pounds. With his dark hair, broad face and calm demeanor, it was easy to mistake him for just a big happy-go-lucky guy that easily resembled your neighbor and was easy to trust. Few knew his past though, and if they had, such neighborly trust might not have come so readily.

  Originally a native of British Columbia, the sixth province of Canada, as a young boy he had made the journey to the United States with his family as they searched for better paying jobs. Finding them in Macon, Missouri many of his immediate family had followed the move to the United States taking advantage of the boom in Natural Gas exploration. The Gas companies paid well above average wages, with plenty of overtime, and while not rich, his family had become comfortably upper-middle class.

  Though his father had insisted he go to college, Gareth had always charted his own destiny and instead joined the United States Marine Corps. Stationed in the infantry with the 2nd MarDiv (Marine Division) out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and ultimately assigned to the 2nd Combat Engineering Battalion, saw him in exotic places doing exotic activities. Exotic was relative however, unless you considered several tours in Iraq, and Afghanistan, while planting demolitions and blowing up a significant percentage of every area he was assigned.

  Two enlistments later, he'd finally decided the placid environment of heavy combat operations in hostile territories was too tame for his dynamic nature and elected to become a semi-pro wrestler. His big break had come through a friend, who knew a guy and that had lasted for quite a few years while he toured the circuit from West Coast to East. The money had been very good; the female groupies better, and if he hadn't blown his knee out in a power move turned bad might have still been in the biz.

  Three surgeries, several pins and two screws later, found him out of wrestling and working at high-scale nightclubs in Atlanta as a bouncer where two things eventually happened. He became involved in the Mob, and then met a sweet little casino waitress named Jenny, whom he fell in love with. Life had been idyllic until Jenny's superior looks had caused problems with his bosses, for they were not content with her remaining a waitress and the pressure for her to become a stripper had become overwhelming. She wanted to leave, but the one thing you never did was leave the Mob.

  Jenny had quickly turned into a listless shell of her former self, causing Gareth to intervene on her behalf. He had gone to the Caporegime and when that proved fruitless had requested, and been granted, an audience with the underboss for the Atlanta area family. His interference in the local boss’s plans had earned him a beating, and a bad one, along with a warning to get himself and h
is girlfriend in line or they would find themselves permanently unemployed. Gareth had taken their threats seriously, but what the Mob did not account for was his determination to rid their lives of this looming shadow, and the skills and friends he had accumulated while in the Marine Corps. The Mafia knew he was a former soldier in combat engineering and assumed that meant he operated heavy machinery and built bridges and other forms of infrastructure for developing nations that the United States deemed to have national security interests. They had no idea that the battalion he had spent almost seven years in actually blew those bridges and heavy equipment up, or that his working knowledge of lethal chemistry meant every grocery and hardware store was a haven of supplies for homemade plastique. They knew he was from Canada and assumed he had immigrated to America in order to join the service. They also did not know his family resided in Macon, Missouri and Gareth did not intend to reveal that information.

  The Mob was into many lucrative activities, one of which was insurance fraud. They would buy older facilities, insure them for sums larger than they were worth then have a contractor torch the structures for the money. The racket worked, for in each case they would start construction towards renovation, but said construction company's were also owned by the Mafia and while many hours were billed, no man hours were actually performed.

  Gareth needed to make a clean example of what might happen if they were not left alone, but in such a way that he didn't make the underboss or boss of bosses unduly angry. So enlisting the help of two friends from his old battalion and after making several trips to different grocery and hardware stores they had assembled and set a great many charges. Then after ensuring the properties were vacant had detonated those charges, while ensuring his bosses knew that it was the work of multiple people. It had been a win for the Mob for the insurance money and a win for Gareth and Jenny in that they were officially 'retired'.

  Sure, the Mob attempted to hire them in a different capacity after Gareth's skills were proven but they had turned down all such and quietly moved away in the middle of the night to Macon, Missouri. He and Jenny had married and started a new life together. Then, going back to school and passing his commercial driver's license exam resulted in a job as a truck driver for a metal stamping plant making runs to the west coast and back. After six years of incredible married life, they now had three children; two boys and a girl, ages three, four and five, but it was on one of those three-day runs when everything turned upside down.

  For hours before arriving back in Macon, he'd listened to the emergency broadcasts continuously, driving faster, even pushing road conditions to make it back to Macon. Nearing the large city of his hometown, he'd been forced to weave in and out of traffic. In other circumstances he would have been paranoid of being pulled over, but right then, he knew the police had larger problems on their hands. He had made it back and reunited with his family though it had taken hours of fighting off the undead who were attempting to eat every living thing in sight. He was just thankful neither of them had taken the latest flu vaccine.

  Gareth felt he and Jenny were still alive because of his paranoia. In previous years gone past, every time he or any in his family here in Macon had taken the yearly flu immunizations the government advocated, had seen them sicker than you would believe. Eventually, even before he met Jenny, they had stopped doing so and it had proven a successful strategy. They had not contracted the flu since. Once he and Jenny were together, he had convinced her to continue the new family tradition, to which she agreed. It was only later, the day after the rise of the zombies that they learned a tainted batch of vaccine had caused this entire mess.

  He was now located at the America's Best Value Inn, their inner city home having been deemed too small and too vulnerable to the undead hordes. With him were his remaining family; comprised of both of his parents, his brother, a few friends and other survivors they had taken in. Jenny's family had not been as lucky as his, for they had all been out to dinner when the end came and did not survive the aftermath. Those that had not already turned into zombies that is.

  The Inn had all the space they needed and was mostly defensible. It contained a restaurant and bar of which both were well stocked with food stores. A generator out back provided power and they were located near a local grocery distribution center. Before the outbreak Gareth had collected fire-arms and once the violence ensued, he and his brother along with two friends had used those weapons to raid one of the several local gun shops whose owners were mysteriously absent. They had stocked up on everything and trucked it all back to their new location allowing all the adults to have decent protection against this new apocalypse. They numbered eighty-four breathing individuals, with sixteen men, twenty-five women and forty-three children. It was amazing how many children had survived. Immune from the tainted virus, they or their parents had hidden them from the ravaging horde of new risen dead and Gareth could not stop himself from taking every one of those little tykes in, not that his Jenny would have let him, and if they found even more children, they would protect them also.

  Now, he mournfully surveyed their losses after an attack of the undead. The herd, for that's they only way the massed up zombies could be referred to, had caught them by surprise and even though all outside doors were barricaded, the bastards had pushed against the large glass windows of individual outside units and forced their way in by climbing over the sills. Gareth had immediately ordered a counter attack for that was the only way to keep them from the children, hiding in fear within the inner rooms. Now there were nine dead, includingtwo of his men and seven women, one of those men a close friend. Thank god the bastards had not gotten to the children.

  "Who do you think that is? One of the other groups? Military?" asked Dean.

  Gareth was pulled from his reverie at his brother’s question. "I don't know." he responded and together they watch as in the distance a small figure stood atop the old abandoned warehouse, a large rifle jutting from his hip. "But he helped save our ass. I'm not sure how many he killed but it was a lot. I saw them dropping all around me."

  "Yeah, me too. Maybe we should pay him a visit after we get this cleaned up and express our thanks."

  "Look!" and Gareth pointed. "He's disappeared. He may be coming to us." Together both men gazed at the distant abandoned warehouse in search of this man who had assisted them in taking out the undead. He was not to be seen and after several minutes, they turned back to the task at hand.

  "Have Cody bring a truck around so we can carry our dead around back, then grab some boards so we can use the torch to burn in their names. We'll use the backhoe to dig the graves."

  "What about these undead, now dead fuckers?"

  "We'll dig a larger hole somewhere else and bury them there!" growled Gareth.

  "Gotcha Gareth, I'm on it!" and Dean was walking quickly to another one of the men still standing, talking excitedly as one of the women stood beside him while patching the wound on his arm from a bite.

  That was scary, as they had learned early on, that a bite from an undead left untreated, quickly festered into a massive infection. Thank God, they had also raided one of the many pharmacies within the city. Gareth hoped the wound would not become infected, for while the Samaritan Hospital was still open for business, abet with a greatly reduced staff, they literally charged an arm and a leg for their services. You had to bring your own medical supplies along with something of value; food, ammunition, they were even accepting livestock. As yet, supplies were plentiful with a majority of the population dying off suddenly, but Gareth knew that by next year, those supplies would dwindle as everyone hoarded. He was not looking forward to the headache. His group had livestock of their own out behind the Inn. Forty laying hens because everyone liked eggs and a half dozen dairy cows they milked twice a day, then boiled it before setting it out in the snow too cool. The little kids needed the milk and even Gareth had to admit that the rich creamy taste of the fresh stuff was more delicious than any he had purchased from the store
. In the spring they were planning on taking over one of the larger farms and he was suddenly wondering if locating one now might not be prudent.

  "Hey! Who's that?" One of the women was calling out and Gareth recognized the voice of Karen as he looked in her direction. An outstretched arm and pointing finger had him turning again north in the direction of the highway. Coming towards them was a lone figure of a man with a large rifle slung over his shoulder, a large pack of some military design on his back and a large machete swinging from his hand. As Gareth watched, he saw two of the undead move from where they had been hiding amongst the vehicles stranded, or simply left on the road, advancing on the walking stranger.

  "Dean!" he shouted. "The guy needs help. Let's go!" His brother ran too him while looking out across the road and as he neared Gareth grabbed his shoulder and together they ran. His Ar-15, taken from the gun shop was in his hands as was Dean's and he flipped the safety off in preparation to firing, but it was already too late as this man moved to intercept the two undead.

  With quick, sure movements, this man walking towards their sanctuary took out the two zombies approaching. Gareth grinned as he witnessed the lightening quick strokes with the heavy looking blade which saw the undead immobile on the ground within seconds. Man knew what he was doing, was his only thought as he watched the stranger wipe his blade off on the ragged clothing of the dead.

  It was an older man who was approaching them; mid 50's or perhaps sixty, with a short, neatly trimmed beard and muscular build. The large rifle slung over his shoulder was large, obviously custom and had a powerful scope mounted on it. As he drew closer, Gareth recognized a brown Carhartt jacket with brown pants and the pack he carried on his back was obviously of older military issue.

  "I see you had a bit of trouble," the man remarked as he came to a stop and sheathed his machete.