Suddenly, the shooting stopped and Bryce could hear Logan call out, “All clear.”
“Bryce, are you okay?” Logan yelled out.
Bryce poked his head out and saw his friends in the street next to their vehicles. He got up and walked out from behind the Outlander and waved to the guys, indicating that he was fine.
“You guys saved my ass, thanks!” Bryce said with absolute sincerity.
None of them said anything to him about how he had almost gotten himself killed by rushing forward into the battle with no backup. They could all tell by the look on his face that he knew what he had done, and he had learned his lesson the hard way.
Bryce checked the tire on the Outlander and found that it was flat, and the vehicle sat on the rim. Added to that, the whole side of the vehicle looked like Swiss cheese.
Hopefully nothing was too badly damaged, he thought to himself.
As he looked toward the front of the vehicle, he saw a dark liquid drip from the passenger door. His throat seized up; when he realized that he hadn’t heard Benjamin move one bit during the entire exchange. As he moved to open the passenger door, he realized that the liquid was blood, and when he jolted the door open, he found his father crumpled up under the dashboard with his stomach clutched.
“Shit! Dad, are you hit?” Bryce asked, even though he could see the blood all over the inside of his vehicle.
Logan sprinted over to the vehicle after he heard Bryce and he quickly assessed the situation.
“Robby, grab the first aid kit from the Ford and get it over here, now!” Logan yelled.
Robby did as he was told and hauled ass with the medical kit. They carefully slid Benjamin out of the vehicle and onto the ground. Logan opened his shirt and found a single bullet hole in Benjamin’s stomach. Logan rolled him over gently and found no exit wound.
“Listen guys, the bullet is still inside his stomach, and we need to get it out of there, but this is not the place. Right now, we need to stabilize him and get him back to the compound where Christine can take it from there,” Logan explained to the group with his lackluster medical training.
Bryce stood there and looked at the men who laid dead in the street, the men who did this to his father. One of the men moved ever so slightly still, because his wound had not been fatal, and nobody had checked to see if they were still alive in the middle all of the commotion.
Bryce slowly walked toward the man who lay in the road, and found that he was not a man at all. He was some punk teenager who probably used to hassle kids for their lunch money and spray profanities on city property. Now he was part of this ragtag thug group, and had picked the wrong crew to roll with, which had been unfortunate for him.
Bryce had positively no remorse as he pulled out his Taurus .45, leveled it on the boy’s head, and pulled the trigger three times. The resulting explosion of the boy’s head created a mist that sprayed all over Bryce’s boots and pant legs. He stared down with pure hatred in his eyes as the smoke from his barrel billowed out in the cold air, and the pink mist from the boy’s crushed skull settled onto the ground.
The sudden gunshots caused everyone to spin around with their weapons at the ready. They saw Bryce stand in front of the dead boy, and watch him bleed out on the asphalt. On Bryce’s face was a sick and sadistic smile.
“See you in hell,” Bryce said to the nearly decapitated teenager.
At that point, Logan could see that Bryce had turned a corner that he could not recover from. He was no longer a civilized man; he had just become a cold-blooded killer.
Logan knew that this was a slippery slope to be on, because he had been down that slope once before himself. Once the bloodlust kicked in, it was hard to come back into reality. Logan desperately hoped Bryce was not too far down the rabbit hole to come back out. Logan had put a lot of trust in Bryce and he felt like he owed the man at least that much since Bryce had saved himself and his family.
However, in the long run, Logan had to look out for his own. He would have to keep an eye on Bryce from now on, because this kind of behavior could lead them to a difficult position down the road. This was the kind of behavior that spawned dictators and drug lords. It could also be the behavior that spawned a good leader, in this particular setting, because he was willing to do whatever it took. For now, Logan had bigger fish to fry; he needed to save Bryce’s dad, and he needed to do it now. The skillset of a doctor was invaluable and Logan couldn’t afford to lose the man.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Payson, Arizona
Logan instructed Jessica to hold pressure on Benjamin’s wound as they loaded him into the back of the Ford with her at his side. With the Outlander on a flat tire, Logan, Robby and Bryce were going to haul ass back to the hatchery in the Ford. Bryce left Trevor in charge of getting the tire changed on the Outlander and getting all of the vehicles back to the compound safely.
In their hurry to leave, Bryce didn’t tell Trevor to make a decision about the people they saved from the band of thugs. The group of survivors had come back to the scene of the shootout after the bullets stopped flying. There were three men, armed with hunting rifles or handguns, two women, and two children, both in their teens.
They all stood around, uncomfortable but grateful to have been saved, as the hatchery members tended to Benjamin and took off. After the Ford had turned the corner and headed off into the distance, the survivors decided they should thank Trevor and his men.
Finally, the oldest man came up to Trevor; he looked like he had to be in his sixties.
“Thank you so much for saving us from those men,” the older gentleman said to Trevor.
“No problem, sir, that’s our job now. I guess,” Trevor said hesitantly.
Trevor wasn’t exactly sure what the hell his job was anymore. A month ago he was on Uncle Sam’s payroll, then that all fell apart, and he was not under anyone’s supervision. Now, it seemed that he had walked into the hands of a Navy SEAL, who took orders from an Army quartermaster. His life made no sense to him anymore. Still, Trevor would carry out any orders they may have, because until it no longer benefitted them, he only cared about what was best for his three remaining men. For now, Bryce provided what they needed.
The old man waved his party over, and they all looked genuinely happy to be alive.
“Do you guys have a military base or something we could hitch a ride to and get the hell out of town?” one of the younger men asked Trevor.
Not quite sure how Bryce would want him to proceed from here, Trevor just nodded his head and waved them over to the vehicles.
They shared idle talk about their stories and adventures while Jose changed the tire on the Outlander.
Ten minutes later, Jose had the tire changed, and he hopped in and started the engine. Trevor told Nathan to hop into the pickup truck and had Anthony get on the M249 in the bed of the flatbed with all of the survivors.
They rolled out with their slightly smaller convoy and headed out of town, back toward the hatchery. The trucks had to take it considerably slower on the way up the hill due to the extreme loads.
Forty-five minutes later, they made it back to the hatchery and parked the vehicles outside the warehouse building.
Trevor told the survivors to stay put and had Anthony stand by them, not necessarily because he was worried about them, but just in case. He headed into the crew quarters to find Logan, since he knew Bryce would most likely be occupied with his father, and just as he got to the door, Logan walked outside.
“Are these people the ones we just saved?” Logan asked Trevor.
“Yes, sir, they needed a safe place, and I figured this was as good as any. Seeing as how Bryce likes taking in stragglers, I figured he wouldn’t mind.”
Logan was not exactly sure how Bryce would react, but he hoped he did not mind. He believed in Bryce’s cause, and trusted him to some extent, but he also had witnessed a side of Bryce that concerned him.
Logan walked over to the survivors and stuck out his han
d to introduce himself, “My name’s Logan Bartlett. Nice to meet you all, and welcome to our home.”
The older man reached out and shook Logan’s hand. “My name’s Harry Steeple, and this is my family.”
He introduced his family. First, his oldest sons and their families, Henry, and his wife, Missy. Next, he introduced Henry's two children Emily, who was sixteen, and Riley, who was thirteen. Last, Harry introduced his son Mitch and Mitch’s wife, Gloria.
The Steeple family all shook hands with Logan, and assumed that he was the leader here. Harry presumed as much and asked the question.
“So are you the leader of the group?” he asked.
“Not exactly. Bryce, the guy who saved you, is the de facto leader around here,” Logan told the Steeple family. “He brought us all here, just like you. This was his place when the shit hit the fan.”
Harry accepted the answer and continued, “So where do we go from here?”
Logan thought quietly to himself for a second, not exactly sure where to go from here, because he had never initiated anyone into the group.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I am going to have you guys hang out outside while I check with Bryce and see if he has any questions,” Logan said. “Trevor, please show the Steeple family around the compound while I discuss it with Bryce,” Logan directed the lieutenant.
With that, Logan walked briskly back to the crew quarters and found Bryce near his father. Christine had been able to safely remove the bullet from Benjamin’s stomach, and they had managed to stop the bleeding, since no main arteries or organs were hit. Benjamin got lucky; Logan figured. Most belly wounds did not go as well, especially in older men. Christine was able to give him some antibiotics that Jessica rummaged up from their medical supplies, but there weren’t many left. That was a little concerning for everyone. Benjamin would need to keep a strong dose of antibiotics onboard to keep infection at bay, since bullet wounds tended to be dirty and infectious.
Logan tapped Bryce on the shoulder softly, and spoke into his ear to tell him about the new survivors.
Bryce spun around and had a cold look on his face. He stood up and left his father in the care of his wife and family. He walked outside and watched Trevor show these unknown people his entire compound.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Bryce said. “Who authorized these people to come back here, and why are they being given the grand tour? This absolutely undermines our security.”
“Well, I guess Trevor made the call to bring them back here, and I didn’t want to bother you about it yet, but we didn’t know what to do with them,” Logan began, “Isn’t this part of the mission; To build a colony of survivors? Well, this is how we achieve that mission, by bringing in survivors.”
“You’re right, Logan, sorry,” he said, clearly shaken up by the day’s events.
“Do they have any valuable skills? We need to have some type of checklist,” Bryce stated.
“Let’s interview them, and learn what they have to offer,” Logan reasoned.
“Not right now, just get them situated in the office building with the soldiers, and we will sit down with them later, I need to get back to my dad,” Bryce said, and walked away.
Logan found Trevor and told him the plan. They rounded up the Steeples and herded them into the office building. They gave them sleeping bags and told them to pick their cubicles, just like Trevor and his men. The two kids took one cubicle. The two couples took a cube each, and the father took his own cubicle. Just like that, the office building was at full capacity.
Logan realized this and started to think about where they could house more people. They needed the warehouse for storage and vehicles. The armory was out of the question, and the shed was full of damn explosives. Any additional survivors were going to have to camp out, or they were going to have to start building some new housing alternatives. They couldn’t expand without space to accommodate people, and this was one crucial downfall of the hatchery. It was small and had almost no room for expansion.
Logan told the Steeple family to get settled in and left them to get cleaned up using the bathroom in the office building. He walked back to the crew quarters where almost everyone was currently located. They all hovered around Benjamin; he was sprawled out on the kitchen table, and there was a substantial amount of blood everywhere.
“Why don’t we move him to his bed, and let him sleep?” Christine offered.
Bryce nodded silently, and he and Greg gently lifted Benjamin and brought him to his bed so he could rest.
The ladies spent the better part of the next hour cleaning all the blood in the kitchen. Then, they turned the MASH unit back into a mess hall and started to cook dinner for upward of twenty people that they would now have to have to feed. Jessica looked in the pantries at her supplies and frowned.
“I’m not sure how long this food is going to last if I am going to have to cook for twenty people,” she said out loud.
“You let me worry about that, you just keep doing an awesome job,” Logan said.
She gave him a smile and nodded her head.
Logan left the kitchen and decided it was time to get in bed. It had been a long day, and he was exhausted. In the morning he would have to deal with the fallout from today, but right now all he cared about was sleep.
Chapter Forty
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
The following morning broke on the compound and all was quiet. Nobody left their beds in a hurry; they were all reluctant to leave their warmth. Most of the group still slept quietly. Everyone that is, except for Benjamin.
Benjamin woke up at first light and lay in his bed in intense pain. He tried to sit up so that he could look at his stomach where the pain radiated from. This created too much agony, so he poked and prodded around instead.
He lay in bed for over an hour and tried to keep his eyes closed so that he could rest, but then the pain became too much for him to bear. He called out to Jessica on the bunk above him, and felt the bed stir as she moved around. A moment later, her long slender legs fell over the side of the bed, which were followed by a pair of pink panties that covered her firm ass. She plopped down to the ground. She at least had the decency to sleep with a T-shirt on, but no bra. Benjamin didn’t exactly mind the gorgeous blonde’s choice to sleep half nude in the bedroom they shared, but right now, when he was this vulnerable, it made him a little uncomfortable.
For Jessica, it was business as usual because she responded with, “Hey, Benjamin, how are you doing, buddy?”
“I feel like shit, Jessica,” he replied coldly.
“I hear yah. You took a damn 7.62 round to the belly. That shit will mess you up all right. Don’t worry, though, they got it out, and it didn’t hit anything worth dying over,” she said with a twisted smile.
In too much pain to banter, he just told her, “Can you get me some more painkillers, this is kicking my ass.”
Without another word, she glided across the room.
What a strange woman, Benjamin thought.
A few minutes later, she arrived with a small bottle of pills.
“They aren’t the really good shit, but they should do,” Jessica said. She set the bottle down on his chest and placed a cup of water next to his bed. Then she climbed back up into her bed, and within minutes, she was passed out again.
Benjamin struggled to sit up and grab the pill bottle, Percocet. That should take the edge off, at least, he figured. He popped the top off the pill bottle, grabbed his water and downed two of the pills.
A little while later, as the pills kicked into action, they made him extremely tired and sent him into a drug-induced slumber.
While he was sleeping, he had a strange, but vivid dream that played over and over like a Groundhog Day from hell.
They were back in the Outlander on the road in Payson, just before Bryce stopped in front of the truck full of thugs. Bryce jumped out of the vehicle and Benjamin looked to his right as one of the men started shooting
. He tried to duck down under the dashboard, thinking the door would stop the bullets and save him. He cleared the doorframe and scrunched into a ball, and then suddenly, white hot pain lashed in his stomach. Benjamin twisted around to look at his stomach and found a single hole in his shirt as blood oozed out. He tried to hold pressure on the wound, but in his crumpled up state it was extremely difficult. Time flew by as bullets struck the vehicle, and the pain became extremely powerful, eventually he passed out.
Strangely, when he passed out in his dream world, he woke up in the real world. His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw Christine near his bed and watched as she took his vitals. In a chair next to his bed was his son, Bryce.
After he saw his father wake up, Bryce got up from his chair, and came to stand by his father’s bedside.
“Hey, Dad, how are you doing?” Bryce asked.
“I’ve been better,” Benjamin replied.
“Yeah, I bet.”
The father and son talked for a little while, and went over what happened yesterday and also where they were going to go from there. After a little while, Bryce decided he needed to go so that his father could rest.
***
Bryce grabbed a quick bite of breakfast since everyone else had already eaten and went outside. He ran into Logan and asked him to round up the four soldiers and the Steeple family, and meet him back inside at the crew quarters.
Bryce went back inside and asked his group and the Bartlett family to gather around. A short time later, everyone from the office building was inside with them, and the entire living room and kitchen were full of people.
Bryce stood in front of the TV and raised his voice so that everyone could hear.
“Listen up, everybody. We have taken on quite a few new faces lately, and we need to get to know each other. I want everyone to state their name, any skills that might be worthwhile to our group, and a brief background,” Bryce told the group.
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 21
