by Joshua Guess
Ron ran a hand across his buzzed hair. He didn't show nerves, ever. His one trouble spot was difficulty suppressing irritation. “Then why'd you decide to come for this one?”
I nodded toward the captured tanker. “Partly because I find it deeply satisfying to use their own supplies against them. A little because I like the idea of making the convoy disappear without a trace, and I wanted to be a part of that. But mostly? It's the first strike. I couldn't miss it.”
I didn't head straight back to base. Being out here was a chance to meet up with a few team leaders, though most of them were off on their own assignments. That was a big part of how our plan worked; everyone had to be self-sufficient. There weren't going to be a ton of these meet-ups, mostly because my people knew the score. I had no doubts about any of them being able to do their part without someone hovering over their shoulder looking for updates.
These particular team leads were all secondary units whose specific missions would only happen once several primary goals were met. It was supposed to be their gathering; I was only dropping in because I happened to be in the area.
Not to kill the suspense, but I didn't make it. While I knew the terrain around Sons territory pretty well, northern Kentucky is littered with the remains of countless small towns and country houses. You can't remember them all.
That's how I stumbled onto the proverbial one-horse town. At first glance it was hard to even tell if that was what it had been. A handful of small houses lined one side of a badly overgrown blacktop street, the road curving away sharply just past the last of them. A few more years would see it completely gone, broken apart by the trees, bushes, and vines already invading every structure I could see.
Another lonely hamlet was not what kept me from the meeting, but rather my luck in noticing the figure keeping watch atop one of the homes before he saw me. I ducked down and went perfectly still, narrowing my eyes so they wouldn't reflect errant moonlight.
The old instincts kicked in, the ones carved into my brain like commandments. Stay quiet, stay still. Observe and worry about conclusions later but don't stop them if they try to work their way to the forefront.
Armored and large, the dark shape barely discernible through the gloom was definitely a man. Probably my size if not a hair bigger, and the bulk wasn't all ceramic plates and Kevlar. What was he doing out here? The gear was clearly Sons property. I'd seen it enough times to know it was all stolen from the same warehouses.
If there was one guard here, there were probably more.
Probably.
We were operating well outside the patrol zones. The Sons had a lot of bodies to spare, but they were increasingly more cautious about risking them. Too many casual deaths would eventually eat into the reserve of defenders needed to maintain control of their little kingdom. I had to remind myself at every turn not to underestimate these people. They knew the score as well as I did. If the Sons played it cautious and well, they would survive another year here. By then they'd be so entrenched it would take an all-out war to end the threat. None of us wanted a scorched-earth campaign. That was the entire reason for the strike force.
I observed the watchman for a long time, at least half an hour. I didn't have to think about the tricks you need to maintain stillness in those circumstances. I flexed my muscles one at a time to avoid cramping and controlled my breath completely on autopilot. What bothered me the most wasn't that the watchman was there—he could very well just be a scout—but that he didn't seem particularly worried about actually watching.
He seemed to be waiting for something as he stood there like a statue, occasionally shifting his weight. A slight wind began to blow, not much more than a gentle breeze. I caught the faint scent of death nearby, which was hardly a surprise, and something else. A smell I knew intimately.
Blood.
When the shuffle of zombie feet began to crunch through the woods at a distance, I didn't feel the hot ball of terror that had come at the beginning of the Fall. They were no more dangerous than any other threat, and generally less so than living human enemies unless you were caught off guard. I had ampules of ammonia to ward off the dead if it came to that.
As the horde shuffled closer, I took a risk and hunkered down a bit more. Zombies tracked by smell but that didn't mean they couldn't see. Turns out I didn't have to worry; they never got close enough for catching sight of me to become a possibility. The silent watchman straightened and stretched from his perch on the roof, then hopped down to the top of the porch before casually dropping to the ground.
He raised a hand and I saw something, well, flop, for lack of a better word. For a wildly inappropriate second I thought this armored giant had for some reason brandished a large dildo at a swarm of zombies, like he was going to magic them away with it.
Then I realized it was a hunk of meat, though in my defense it was at least roughly cylindrical in shape.
The watchman moved toward the herd—and that was what it was. It didn't take a genius to suss out what he was up to. The dude was rounding up zombies, and not to wipe them out en masse. Using them against enemies was bedrock tactics in the this new world. I wasn't surprised or even terribly bothered by the sight. We planned for this kind of thing.
What did bug me was that the Sons were doing this at all. We'd gone to great lengths to hide our presence out here. Though, if we'd been spotted for sure, why hadn't they used their superior firepower against any of my teams?
I wanted to follow him and learn more. Second to that, I wanted to go to the meeting. I did neither. Instead I made my way back to my vehicle and returned to base. Better to let the others know about this now rather than risk my neck and potentially losing the intelligence if I got killed or captured.
You might think I was let down not to be able to cause a little more mayhem, but no. There would be plenty of time for that. And when it came, I was sure I'd be begging for a break from the blood and death.
7
The next week was mostly boring for me. We had a flying company—a unit dedicated to floating around and filling in where needed—stick themselves onto any large group of zombies they found. After a couple days word came back that the Sons were gathering a swarm, just as expected. Shouldn't have surprised me that so many of the dead were around even in current conditions. There were a couple thousand Sons camped out on the land making up their kingdom, and they didn't have the multiple layers of entrenched defenses places like Haven did. Getting the zombies into groups and leading them away before they became a threat made sense.
It was five days after my little side trip before I was able to get back out, and on the seventh my team and I got unlucky.
I'd left Allen and Greg behind to man the fort while I slipped into a small cluster of buildings that could generously be called a village with Jo and Tabby. It was more of a way station, like the place I'd seen the lone herder. There were probably a lot more homes and small businesses I couldn't see, now devoured by the landscape, but my concern was not for them.
“I count six of them,” Tabby said as she watched the group of enemies gathered around a prefab metal building. We were up in a tree a few hundred yards away, hopefully far enough not to be noticed.
Jo grunted a minor note of disagreement. “Your angle is just a bit off from mine. I see seven. One of them is behind the stack of barrels there.”
“So,” I said, more to myself than to my partners, “what comes in barrels and needs half a dozen armed guards to protect it between shipments? What's so important they can't just stick them in that little warehouse and not draw attention?”
“Hmm,” Jo muttered. “Oil?”
Tabby shook her head. “Wrong kind of barrels. Those down there are blue plastic. Oil comes in drums. And we already know they haul gasoline in tankers.”
I grinned. “Well, they did. I have a suspicion their supplies will start getting low pretty soon.”
We watched for a few more minutes, until the guards grew bored and began finding places to s
it. They'd been waiting here already when the delivery came. We observed it, mostly because my people were stretched thin and this hidey hole wasn't on our radar until a couple days ago.
“You think another truck is coming back?” Jo asked.
I thought about it as Tabby answered. “Not likely. The Sons are pretty efficient. They'll want to use as little fuel and draw the least amount of attention possible. These guys are out here alone.”
Jo frowned. “Then why did they leave the delivery outside? Why not load it into the warehouse?”
A thought struck me. “I bet it's full. They can't fit anything else in there. Which means whatever they're stocking up, it's about to all be moved. No other reason to build a stockpile of anything unless you want to haul every bit of it somewhere else in a hurry.” I blew out a breath. “We have to get in close and get a look.”
Jo didn't roll her eyes, but I felt her do it in her brain anyway. Spend enough time with someone and you start to learn every mannerism, even the ones they suppress. “You mean we go down there and kill them, then pilfer their stuff.”
“No, not necessarily,” I said defensively. “Maybe we'll...well...yeah, okay. You got me. I'll take point on distraction duty. You two handle ranged combat.”
It took maybe three minutes to climb down the tree in a way that didn't draw the eyes of the guards toward us. Thankfully the elm was ancient and strong, with no snapping branches on the descent. We didn't plan much past our discussion in the tree. These guys were armed with both melee weapons and rifles, but the latter were slung on their backs. They'd know better than to attract enemies, living or otherwise, with loud noises if they could help it.
I divested myself of my own guns except for the small Glock strapped to my ankle inside my boot. It was deeply uncomfortable but also invisible.
Then I just kinda walked out with my hands up.
“Hey, fellas,” I said as I cleared the edge of the woods. “Whatcha got in those barrels? Is it gold? Pirate gold?”
The six men reacted mostly as I expected them to. They were an even mix of Sons—that is, the original recipe made up of the biker gang, even if that designation and style was only ever a front for a larger criminal organization—and members of the private military company Artemis Security, now long since defunct. The differences in appearance were almost nil at this point; virtually all of them had shaggy hair and beards. The Artemis guys generally had more rigid bearing, however, and the tightly controlled movements of men trained to drop into a war zone and provide backup to actual soldiers. Most of them were probably vets themselves.
And that shit right there? It pissed me off to no end. I'm no jingoist, okay? You take any gung-ho recruit and put them through a couple years of service and they'll be the first to tell you the military is full of human beings, with their drama and politics and desire to make a paycheck. We're not and never have been a heroic legion of people proudly waving the flag while spreading democracy far and wide. We're just people. But ones who made a choice to follow a code higher than us. To maintain ideals, however imperfectly, because we believed in trying to do right while paying the bills. I lost my illusions about the service long before I left it, but I still have an immense respect for the work and most of the people in it. There's honor to be found there in great supply.
These fuckers gave that up. So when they universally scanned my face and saw the scars, the flash of recognition didn't bother me. Nor did the way they brandished their weapons in tight grips. They weren't deathly afraid of the boogeyman in front of them, probably because they had numbers. That was fine with me. I didn't need them in pants-shitting terror to do my job.
And besides which, by the end I'd teach them better.
The two on the outside reared back as arrows sprouted from their faces. For Jo and Tabby these were easy shots. Less than a hundred feet with compound bows, after months of practice on targets and zombies alike, wasn't even something they had to think about. Their buddies didn't even notice. They were too intent on the threat right in front of them, which was the whole point.
The closest guard raised his weapon, a heavy baton, far overhead with both hands. It was a power move completely lacking in grace. If he connected, there was no doubt in my mind my skull would resemble an egg thrown at a brick wall by a major league pitcher.
Here's where training comes in handy. People think learning martial arts—or really, learning to fight in any way—comes from memorizing specific things to do in particular situations. And to a degree, that's true. You want a set of tools to use based on the problem in front of you.
But what that training actually does is prepare your mind for the fight itself. As the beefy bearded man in front of me lunged forward with his mighty blow already beginning to arc toward me, I stayed calm. He was fast but telegraphed the move far ahead. Even watching him slip both hands onto the baton, I knew what he was going to do.
Which was why drawing my knife and stepping forward into his charge was easy work. His strength was in the force of the strike about to be unleashed. Back bent, arms tensed with cables of muscle standing out, entire body a bowstring of effort meant to unleash every joule of energy onto my noodle.
It also left him completely defenseless against a preemptive attack. Which was why I moved in rather than defending myself, and stabbed him in the throat.
In the movies, fights take up minutes and for some reason the combatants always punch or kick each other in places that have virtually no stopping power. In real life you want to end the fight as fast as possible.
He went down, and I shoved his body aside as he dropped the club and tried to staunch the bleeding from the artery I'd slashed open as I yanked my knife through. Not the way the Marines taught it, but then I wasn't one of them.
I stepped past him just in time to take a hard thrust from a machete right in the gut. A moment of shock overwhelmed my brain. That guy was fucking quick. I hadn't caught the movement at all. There's a primal bit of reaction no one can or should rid themselves of, which is what I experienced in that split second as the blade bit through my coat.
You want to freak out a little when you're stabbed in the middle. It's a good survival instinct. I got mine under control right as the guy trying to shank me through my large intestine widened his eyes in a surprise closely mirroring my own, looking up from the wound that should have killed me with confusion written on his face. The machete sliced through the outer layer of the coat, no problem. The layer of overlapping plastic discs backed by ballistic ceramic, however, held up just as they were designed to. The web of sticky plastic fibers holding all that homemade armor in one cohesive unit also did a good job of keeping the tips of blades from skittering too much.
It was heavy. It was hot. It had saved my life more than once. I love my armor.
I punched that guy in the face with the knife still held in my fist. The heavy knuckles of my modified gloves broke all kinds of things in the middle of his head. I know the nose snapped, and probably the interior of his left eye socket. I slapped the blade away from my belly with my free hand and grabbed him by the belt as I slammed my fist into his face two more times in rapid succession.
Then I tossed him into my third opponent just as Tabby and Jo took down two more.
I didn't play nice with the two not bleeding out or incapacitated by arrows to the face. The one I'd thrown was in bad shape, barely able to comprehend the world around him thanks to my hits to his face. It was a blessing, in a way. I don't think he knew what was coming when I slashed his throat.
The guard he'd knocked down must have seen the carnage wrought by the hidden archers backing me up, because as the fountain of blood from the dying man tangled in his limbs washed over his face, that last one raised hands in surrender.
“Oh, you're adorable,” I said. “Your guys made it pretty clear there wouldn't be any quarter. And honestly I already have all the captives I could want or need.” His last act on the earth, as I wrestled with him and slipped my knife into t
he space between two neck vertebrae, was to glance at the metal building that had been his charge to defend. Guess he was the dutiful type.
Cleanup didn't take long. Jo and Tabby loped in once the coast was clear and helped me with the remaining guards. One of them managed to pull the arrow from his face. It had gone through his cheek and lodged in the roof of his mouth. I don't know that I've ever seen someone so furious in my life. Felt kind of bad to take advantage of his mindless rage and kick him in the junk with a steel toe before putting him out of my misery.
“That's all of them,” Jo said, straightening from her own bloody work. She wiped her knife off on a dead man's pants and slid it back into its sheath. She jerked a thumb at the building itself, with its darkened entrance inviting the curious in for a look around. “Let's see what's so damn important they had to stockpile it here.”
“You two keep watch out here,” I said. “On the off chance more of them do show up, I don't want all three of us caught off guard. I'll scope out what they're storing and if it's something our people can use, we'll send a runner to Haven to haul it off. If not, we'll think of some way to keep it from the Sons.”
Tabby nodded at this. Of the pair, she was far more in line with the purpose of the task force. She understood the logic behind cutting off supply routes and denying the Relentless Sons their resources. It was in its own way an old-school mentality to have about conflict.
Jo merely looked uncomfortable. She was far younger than either of us and spent half her life living in a ruined world. The idea of destroying a resource simply to deny it to an enemy was foreign to her.
I walked into the rectangular opening cautiously, trying to let my eyes adjust as best I could. Clearly I didn't do a good enough job, because just past the harsh outline of the doorway created by direct sunlight spilling inside, where my vision was the worst, I broke a tripwire.
A panel slid down from above and slammed over the doorway. The chattering sound of metal ratcheting together implied a lock, which only made sense in a trap like this. At the same time, something else opened. Sounded like a door being slammed wide by an impatient office worker looking to get free for the day.
