Kyle turned and headed back to the Devastator to see how everyone else was fairing. He found David in the turret still unleashing hell on the swarm of slabs still coming up over the short cliff side. Billy and Tim were almost back to the Rambler, and Ron was still firing into the tree line, dropping slabs as quickly as they appeared.
“We have to go,” Kyle yelled. “Load up now!” Kyle did his best to be heard, but his cries were drowned out by the massive amounts of gunfire being unleashed all around him. Kyle ran over to Ron and tapped him to get his attention. “Load up. Go!” he yelled as he saw dozens more slabs come out of the woods. He checked over his shoulder and found that Billy and Tim had made it and had just climbed into the Rambler. He locked eyes with David again and motioned for him to get the Devastator fired up. Ron fired once more then jumped up and he and Kyle sprinted towards the Devastator.
As the two friends entered the bus and shut the door, they could see the approaching swarm coming out of the woods, pick up speed, and massively grow in volume. Already at least a hundred or more ran out of the tree line, hungrily hunting their prey. Then they heard the distinct sound of the mini gun barrel warming up and turned just in time to see Billy open fire into the swarm. Firing at over 3000 rounds a minute, the swarm was immediately cut down to nothing more than chum and fleshy mulch.
“Let’s go!” Kyle said to David. “Swing by the Rambler, then haul ass; this is getting out of control.”
David turned the Devastator around and pulled up beside the Rambler, and motioned for Tim to turn around then follow. Tim acknowledged and pulled forward to find room to turn around.
Kyle looked back as they pulled away to see Big Poppa Don fire into the pack of slabs heading towards him. He watched as Don unloaded his clip into them, then he threw his gun at them in a last-ditch effort to keep their attention on him and not on the retreating vehicles. As the pack refocused on Don, they picked up speed as they made a beeline straight for him. Kyle then watched Don take the grenade from under his arm and pull the pin just as the pack smashed into him. They hit like a freight train, with so much speed and ferocity that the grenade was knocked clean out of his hand. Stunned, Kyle watched it roll away from Don and his intended targets and felt sick. Don would now suffer horribly, as the pack he’d tried to take out was no longer impeded. Remembering the live grenade, Kyle frantically tried to spot where it had rolled away, but he found it too late to signal a warning and watched in horror as the Rambler came past the pile of rocks where he’d left Don, just as the grenade rolled under the other car and exploded.
CHAPTER 31
EIGHT MONTHS PRIOR TO THE CAMP H INVASION
Christo and Benedictus
The dusty ruins of the Alamo sat in the distance and sent a wave of impending defeat coursing through Christo as he looked at the devastated remains. He truly hoped the shattered remnants of the once proud Alamo was not an omen of things to come. He had been in its shadows for days as he awaited the arrival of his friend Benedictus, who’d sent him word to come and meet. Sadly, as of yet, he hadn’t shown up. However, with the way things were, he could understand a possible delay. Yet, his patience began to thin drastically. He was just getting ready to leave when he caught a small glimmer of light appear and disappear just as quickly atop the main wall of the historical building.
“At last, he is here,” Christo called out. “Get your gear. We’re moving out.”
Lucia and Cecilia turned from their posts where they had been watching the other directions and gathered up their gear. Once they’d glanced about for movement, they all moved out across the empty moonlit filled parking lot toward the Alamo.
Christo carefully led the way, eyes flicking in every direction as he checked all around their group to ensure they were alone in the darkness. Although he was the shortest of the group, he still set a pace that had his consorts struggling to match his stride. As they approached the main gate, he heard the lock turn, then the door opened just enough to let the new arrivals enter quickly before it was shut and locked behind them. Norris, one of Benedictus’ consorts, stood in the entrance and quickly bowed his head to Christo before he beckoned them to follow him to his master.
As they entered the large opening in the center of the old monument, Christo found his friend waiting as he sat on the ledge of an old well. He dropped his gear and hurried over. “It is good to see you alive and well, my friend. I was beginning to worry that you would not arrive to our meeting,” he said very excitedly. In his zeal he momentarily dropped his Spanish accent and let some of his natural British accent come through.
Benedictus stood and greeted Christo with a genuine hug, and he found himself smiling for the first time in much too long. “It has been a journey full of, as yet, untold trials to get here, but I am here now, and that is what matters for the moment.. How long have you been waiting? I hope it wasn’t too long, as I know how impatient you can be.”
Lucia immediately smothered a small chuckle as Christo turned to give her a disapproving look. “Only a couple of days, but it may as well have been weeks in this miserable Texas heat,” Christo responded as he smoothly slid his Spanish accent back into place. He moved to take up a seat on the ancient water well in front of him. “Now then, please tell me what is so important that you felt it necessary to meet in this dangerous time?”
“First and foremost, I must tell you that we have all been summoned by our esteemed leader. We are to meet him in South Florida for what I can only assume to be a meeting of the entire Council to discuss what has happened. You were well-hidden by the time the word went out, but I thought I might have an idea of where you would be hiding. However, I have a more pressing matter I was hoping you would help me with. I need you to please help me find my wayward consort. I have not seen him since before the outbreak, and quite some time before in fact. When it was time for him to return, he again, did not arrive, and I am still unable to locate him. I hope, with your help, that we can find him before we go to our meeting.” Benedictus once again took a seat on the edge of the well next to Christo.
“I have always thought you give him too much freedom. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“I had hoped he was in New Orleans, but that proved a dead end. I have a list of five safe houses he has used over the years. Each of them are located between where we are now and our designated meeting place in Florida. I had hoped you would agree to lend me your support as we travel to the meeting and look into each one along the way. He has always been a resourceful person, so I am not quite worried for his personal safety. My need to locate him stems from his remarkable past for experimentation. My hope is that wherever he is hiding, he may also be working on a cure for the calamity we face.” Benedictus stopped for a moment as he turned his attention to a noise coming from outside the walls. “Norris, go see what that is.”
“It is most likely one of the patrols that come through here regularly,” Christo said. “We have noticed them making their rounds roughly every 30-minutes for the last three days. They are quite thorough. Twice, they stopped in and swept the post office we were taking shelter in as we waited for you. However, I am not sure why as of yet, but they haven’t seemed to pay the smallest bit of attention to this place.” He then leaned over and tossed a pebble into the well and listened for a second before he heard a distinct plop as the pebble tumbled into the remaining water at the bottom. “Huh, I assumed it would have been dry.”
“We will wait until tomorrow night to move out. We will need the cover of darkness to escape and make our way to the coast. I have a small boat that will get us up to the Mobile area where we can start our search for my consort. If that proves unfruitful, there are a couple more stops along the coast we can investigate on our way to South Florida. I believe staying in the Gulf of Mexico will provide us with the safest way to travel, as I had found most of the roadways completely blocked.” Benedictus turned back and watched for the return of his consort.
“I, too, found the roads to b
e almost useless on our journey to reach you. In fact, most of the roads we did cross looked like nothing more than huge buffets set up for the picking as the wave of infection spread. It astounds me how absolutely fast this overtook the population and how little we were prepared for it. After the last time, you would have thought we had learned our lesson and have contingencies for this. In fact, I believe that will be my first question to our illustrious Kane when I next see his face,.” Christo turned to see Norris return from his scouting.
“It was just a single patrol, sir,” Norris reported. “They made a loop through the area and have since sped away.”
“Good. Now, would you take Lucia and the as ever lovely, yet quiet Cecilia, and find us a suitable place to rest? I want to be settled by sunrise so that we may have plenty of rest for our journey tomorrow night.”
The two Masters watched their consorts leave, then they situated themselves closer to each other in an effort to not be overheard as they continued their conversation. Each knew that the other was eager to talk about the conditions they had faced and share their respective conclusions. Benedictus was the first to break the silence.
“So, tell me of the situation in South America and your travels. Do not spare any of the details.”
“Well, when the outbreak was first reported in South America, I immediately ordered every president and head-of-state to lock down our entire continent. But with the corruption that runs rampant down there, most of them either didn’t heed my word or were overruled by the Cartel’s influence in the government. It quickly became apparent that my warnings were pretty much ineffectual. When the first cases were documented down there, the people were unprepared for how quickly the plague would spread. It was not long before it was out of control.” He paused a moment to reflect and collect his thoughts.
“We then went into hiding and fell back to my home in the mountains of Columbia to await backup troops to fortify our position. When they finally arrived in the form of a UN force, we were surrounded on all sides by the infection. The Panama Canal was a great barrier to keep the infected from the north away, but it also became a choke point. Many of my people tried to get away from the growing infected masses through the canal and were unaware that this was not isolated to our lands. By the time I received word from you, the canal was full to bursting with the bodies of the dead being tossed in from both sides. I wish I was exaggerating when I say that the number of bodies in the canal was so thick that one could walk across the dead as some sort of macabre bridge. Imagine, a true bridge of the dead.” He closed his eyes for a moment and visibly shuddered as the memory of so many thousands of bodies in the canal surfaced in his mind. He had seen much in his travel to Texas, but that memory plagued him with its constant recurrence.
He collected himself and continued, “As we moved through Mexico, we stayed away from any populated areas as best we could. Even so, almost on a daily basis, we were besieged by the dead until we reached Monterey. There, we ran into a massive horde of the infected, and the last of my troops were taken from me. The three of us were barely able to escape and slowly make our way across the border. However, I have found the American resilience here in Texas has almost completely eliminated the threat of the infection. Unfortunately, at the cost of creating a very tightly-controlled security zone that made it very difficult to navigate our way here to this location. Now, tell me what you have discovered since the outbreak. If I am not mistaken, it seems that the first signs of this current catastrophe began here on your watch.” Christo leaned back hoping to finally discover any information that could explain how the current outbreak occurred much faster and spread further than was planned.
“It is true that the first reported infection happened in Kansas City,” Benedictus began. “I, however, was not here in the States at that time. I was on my way back to the US after a trip overseas to meet with the Russian President at the behest of Kane. That particular meeting was very short. I was sent on a small diplomatic mission to verify that the Council’s wishes were being followed concerning a new US military buildup in the North Pacific. Kane wished me to look into the Russian’s policies and confirm they had our wishes included and also to assess if the troops in the North Pacific would be an issue for them. When I landed back in the States, I was notified about the attack. Unfortunately, by that point, most of the infected from the original attack seemed to already have been delivered to their intended destinations all around the globe. If you recall, we originally had only intel of one outbreak location, the one in Kansas. However, based on the little Intel I was able to gather before everything collapsed, I had my suspicions that there was more than one original point of infection. It was simply impossible for the original Kansas location to have spread so quickly. I was able to discover that there was, indeed, a wide scope of infection reports coming in from around the globe. As they say, the math just didn’t add up. I knew there had to have been more origination points based on the initial reports of outbreaks and also based on the number of people infected at the Kansas attack.” He paused a moment to make sure the other consorts had not returned.
“By the time I was able to gather enough information to realize what was happening, the president was dead and the vice-president had disappeared from the face of the earth. Yet, somehow, and for some time, he was still calling the shots for the military. There were many failed attempts to retake several large cities that eventually broke the remaining military forces beyond repair. Eventually, there were no longer any effective units anywhere. It seems the only place that held itself together was here in Texas. They seem to have somehow wiped out the plague here in this part of the country, as we didn’t run across a single undead on our way here once we crossed the Texas border. The patrols, however, are the bigger problem, as we found out after we were stopped by one. It seems that whoever is in charge here now, was not of a noticeable rank before the outbreak. Unfortunately for us, this means we are not in control of whoever this person is. I was on my way to make contact with this person when we received word of Kane’s meeting, and have since changed our plans for the time being. Once the gathering of The Council is over, I fully intend to return here and meet the man in charge and make sure he is aware of the power structure. If he puts up a fuss it is a simple enough matter to get rid of him and put someone of my own choosing in his place.” Benedictus waited for Christo to soak up what he had just been told.
“There is a large disparity between what we had planned and what has actually occurred. It seems, as though there will be a great many number of questions to be asked at our gathering. For now, I will retire for the night. I shall consider what you have told me and we will talk more on our journey as we look for your lost consort.” Christo got up and made his way over to the old Garrison Building where his consort Cecilia signaled to him, indicating she had found them a place to sleep.
Benedictus followed shortly behind his fellow Council member, and after he secured the area, he, too, went into the building to get some much needed rest.
CHAPTER 32
Kyle and The Guys
Kyle stared in disbelief as he watched the Rambler tumble end-over-end and come to rest on its roof, the tires still spinning.
“Stop!” he yelled out to David.
David abruptly brought the Devastator to a complete stop. Ron bolted to the back of the bus to see what had happened. He had apparently gone speechless when he eyed their companion vehicle upside down.
“We gotta go back and check on them!” Kyle yelled again to David.
“We can’t. Look again,” Ron said as he pointed to the Rambler.
Kyle turned to see the swarm of slabs quickly advancing on the overturned vehicle.
“We wouldn’t get there in time,” Ron spoke out again.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Kyle barked back.
“Hang on, guys,” David said as he jerked the wheel on the bus and gunned it.
David aimed the front of the plow at the approach
ing swarm and in one pass mowed down roughly 20 slabs. He pulled the bus up alongside the Rambler and angled it so he could block as much of the swarm from the vehicle as possible.
Kyle yelled over to the Rambler through one of the portholes while Ron opened fire from the other side at the approaching slabs.
“They’re not moving,” Kyle yelled over to Ron and David. “I’ve got to get over there.”
“Too late! Look out the back!” David yelled.
Kyle looked out the back window and saw that the swarm David was attempting to hold from the other direction near the cliff had almost made it to the Rambler. Before he could come up with a rescue plan, the swarm was on top of the overturned vehicle. All Kyle could do was watch in absolute horror as Billy and Tim’s bodies were yanked out of the car and torn apart in front of him.
“Go! Go! We have to get out of here before they turn their attention on us!” Ron yelled up to David.
David again punched the gas and spun the Devastator around making sure he hit as many slabs as he could with the plow on his way out. Kyle sat, numb and in complete shock.
“Hey, what the hell happened back there? Where did that grenade come from?” Ron asked.
“It was one of mine. I gave it to Don to help slow them down, and let him go out by his own hand.”
“I thought you were putting a bullet in him. What the hell were you thinking? You know the deal! You get bit on a run, and as much as it sucks ass, you get put you down immediately,” Ron scolded Kyle. “Now we’re down three guys and a vehicle. Jesus Christ, this was not supposed to go down like this.”
“I’m sorry. This one is on me. I just thought I would let someone decide their own fate for a change.
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