In moments, he arrived and quietly slipped inside as he tried not to garner any straggling slabs’ attention. While he sat there in the complete darkness, broken only by the sporadic lightning flashes, he thought about what just happened and decided the weather might actually be a good thing after all. The unusual amounts of wind and rain must have somehow masked his and the other humans’ odor from the slabs. After another group passed by, he cranked the truck up and slowly approached the south gate. As he neared it, he flashed his headlights three times, and watched as Pete jumped down to move the bus guarding the entrance, just wide enough for him to slip into the camp. With a wave to Pete, he continued straight to the armory to find Kyle and the gang.
He backed the truck up to the front door of the armory and Yankee Dave came out to greet him. Dave peeked under the tarp covering the supplies in the bed of the truck. “What goodies did you bring us?”
“Get the boxes inside. After I find Kyle we’ll open them up and I’ll show you how to use them.” Benjy made his way toward Kyle’s house.
When he arrived at Kyle’s, he found the door ajar, so he just walked in, instead of knocking. As he headed down the hallway, he heard voices in Hope’s room. As he entered, he found Kyle and Renee as they stood over Hope, who’d been placed in her bed. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked as he tried to ascertain the situation.
“Benjy. Thank God you’re here. We need to talk.” Kyle turned and began to nudge Renee from the room. On her way out Renee hugged Benjy. He was about to crack a joke like he might on any other night when he noticed the look of sadness on her face that he hadn’t seen on her in a long time. “Please help her. I know you’ll know what to do,” she said before leaving the room.
“Alright, bucko, talk to me. What’s going on here?” Benjy shut the door behind Renee.
After he’d caught Benjy up on the last day’s events, he paused to see if he had any questions or suggestions. Benjy took a moment to soak in all the information he’d been given. “I’ve understood everything you’ve said, but I feel like there’s something you’re holding back.”
Kyle wanted to deny it, but with his daughter’s life potentially in the balance, he changed his mind. He took a big breath and then started to pull his shirt over his head. As he did, he turned around and showed Benjy the scar on his left shoulder. “You see this? I got this the night Sam died.”
Benjy leaned in closer and saw the scar was in the shape of a bite mark. “You telling me she bit you that night? Was it before she passed or after?” He already knew the answer in his gut, but he needed to hear Kyle confirm it.
“After,” Kyle said. “She’d asked me to let her get some rest after she got home from work the night of the outbreak. She said she wasn’t feeling good. I went back later to check on her and found her unresponsive, and after I tried some basic CPR and couldn’t get her breathing, I stopped to call 911. While I was on the phone making the call, she came up behind me and did this.” Kyle absently rubbed at the scar on his shoulder. “You already know the rest of what happened that night.” Kyle sat down beside Hope and rolled up her sleeve to show Benjy his daughter’s matching wound.
Benjy cautiously examined the bite before he stepped back to take in all that he had just learned. After several awkward moments of silence, he said, “You didn’t turn, so now you think Hope might be as lucky as you were.”
“Well, yeah, when I look at all the facts, that’s what I’m hoping for. Fact one, Rico turned in minutes. Fact two, this happened to her early last night and she still hasn’t turned. And fact three, my own bite recovery. I’ve got to believe it’s a possibility.” Kyle looked pleadingly at Benjy for some guidance.
Benjy moved toward the door of the room and paused for a second before turning back. “I think you might be on to something. But for safety reasons, I want you to at least secure her in this room and do not tell anyone else what you told me. We don’t need a panic. Either people get scared and think there is a slab in the making inside the camp, or worse, they get their hopes up that this thing is survivable. For now, the second option is what worries me more. If they start to think that the bites aren’t a death sentence, our security goes out the window. Plus, they all have enough to worry about at the moment. If she does pull through, then we will consider how we move on from here. Honestly, that is if we can survive the next 24-hours.” Benjy then turned to leave.
As much as it pained him to do so, Kyle heeded Benjy’s advice. Before he left the room, he pulled out some large zip ties and secured Hope’s foot to one of the posts on her bed. He checked her temperature one last time and left to take care of his other children.
As Benjy exited Kyle’s house, he made his way back to the armory through the pouring rain. His head swam with questions and thoughts of Hope and Kyle’s recovery after being bitten, so he almost missed the movement out of the corner of his eye. He kept walking after he caught a glimpse of something following him in the shadows and pretended he hadn’t seen anything. He rounded a corner at the house next door to the armory and knew he was momentarily out of sight of his follower. He put on a burst of speed and quickly ran around to the other side of the house in the hopes of circling behind whoever had been following him.
Benjy watched from the shadows and found his follower just as he or she darted to the edge of the house he had just rounded, as they tried to figure out where he’d gone. Whoever it was wasn’t acting like a slab, so he figured it must at least be a human. He didn’t recognize the person or the outfit he wore. It looked vaguely military, but not in any style he was used to. Deciding it was time to get some answers from the intruder, Benjy pulled his knife out and started to creep up behind the stranger. As he closed the distance to his target, Benjy was stopped in his tracks by the sound of a shotgun being cocked behind him. His intended target slowly turned around to face Benjy with a smile on his face.
“We got you,” the stranger said.
“We were sent to fetch you, sir,” the voice with the shotgun behind Benjy said. “I apologize, but the only information we were given was to secure you and return with you to the base.”
As if he were suddenly someone much more proper, Benjy replied, “I cannot at this time. I have been made aware of something quite important and it requires my full attention. I am needed here for the moment.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we were given specific instructions. We are to return with you in no uncertain terms, and have been given the authority to use force, if necessary. Sir, these orders have come all the way from the top.”
Benjy tensed at the news of who had given the orders for his immediate return. “I see. Then let us proceed immediately.” He relaxed his grip on his blade and slipped it back into its sheath. He slowly turned around to face the voice behind him. The one with the shotgun was clad in the same military style attire as the other one. The only difference between their garments and usual military gear was the absence of any marking or insignia that would give away their allegiance. The voice was slightly muffled by the full ski mask he wore, which hid any discernible features.
“New uniforms, I see. Have I been away for that long?” Benjy placed his hands down by his side as he tried to be as unthreatening as possible as he approached his handlers. “How was it you were able to locate me, in any case?” He fell into step behind the strangers as they led him away.
“It was by sheer dumb luck,” the one in the ski mask replied. “We were in Columbus surveying one of your safe houses when we heard gunfire and went to investigate. We saw you fleeing the scene as you put down several slabs on your way out. It merely took us this long to track you back here. We were sent to retrieve you over six months ago, sir.”
“There are many miles between us and home. What type of transportation will we be using?” Benjy asked as they approached the recently repaired section of the wall. He was careful to make sure they weren’t spotted by any of the camp residents as they quickly scaled to the top of the wall and jumped over to t
he other side.
As they landed on the other side, Benjy got his answer. “Over there, sir, by the tree line. We have a Humvee. It is already fueled and will take us to Jacksonville where a plane will be waiting to take you to the base.”
As they approached the vehicle, he saw that it was a full military Humvee, not one of the yuppified Hummers anybody could buy. Still playing it cool as a cucumber, Benjy said, “I hope they were pleased when they learned that you had located me after all this time.” Benjy mentally crossed his fingers and hoped they replied in the way he was hoping they would as they hurried past the houses that were not a part of the camp.
He schooled his smile as he heard the response he had been counting on.
“We’ve not yet informed them that we have, indeed, located you, sir. We wanted to have you in hand before reporting in … well, truthfully, in case you slipped away from us again,” the one with ski mask replied as he went around and climbed into the driver’s seat.
As Benjy got in the backseat of the truck, the other stranger joined him in the rear of the Humvee. While the first one got situated in the driver’s seat and removed his ski mask, Benjy unsheathed his blade and plunged it into the chest of the man seated next to him. He then reached up and wrapped his arm around the neck of the driver before he could react and leaned back until he heard his neck snap.
Once again, reverting back to his more casual form of speech, Benjy said, “Sorry, guys. I know you were just following orders, but like I said, these people need me right now. The boss will just have to wait.” He got out and quickly removed the bodies from the vehicle while he kept an eye out for any backup they might’ve had or any wandering slabs. As he slid the bodies back behind the Hummer, he quickly checked the forearm of one of the men and found what he had suspected. The tattoo was of a yellow star with the body of a serpent encircling it. Satisfied they were who they said they were, he stashed the bodies and returned to the truck. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and secured all their gear in the back. “This thing could come in handy later,” he said as he slipped the keys into his pocket and made his way back to the camp.
Benjy struggled to get back over the repaired wall, but only briefly, and then he continued on to the armory as originally intended before his unintended detour. He was a bit worried at the thought that if he had been found by those two, that more could be on the way, and that was trouble he didn’t want to bring into the camp. He might have to deal with that situation as soon as the current danger was over.
When he finally arrived at the armory, he found Kyle already there, anxiously pacing around the room. Yankee Dave greeted him.
“It’s about time,” Yankee Dave said. “The suspense is killing me! What’s inside these crates?”
“Hand me a crow bar and I’ll show you youngsters how we’re going to protect this place.” Benjy grinned.
CHAPTER 46
Hutch
Hutch stood on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry looking upward at the large hole in the ceiling above. The stage and the building were barely recognizable, since it looked like a large fire had gutted the once-famous country music icon. In his mind he saw the building as it had been in its prime. He had been here once as a kid, and saw Johnny Cash standing in the exact spot, performing in front of a sold-out crowd. From that moment on, he was hooked on Cash’s music. It explained the guitar he had strapped to his back, which was one of Johnny’s, that he salvaged from the country music hall of fame a day earlier. It saddened him to see the Opry in its current state, but he still had to visit one last time before it was gone forever.
He used to play the guitar for his fellow soldiers whenever they had some downtime and had gotten quite good over the many years in the military. He used to joke that once his service was done, he would play at the Opry and write music after his retirement. He decided this was the day he was going to fulfill that promise.
He slowly pulled the guitar around to the front and propped his foot up on a stool he had dragged up onto the stage. He steadied himself before he started to play Ghost Riders in the Sky as best as he could. The notes echoed off of what was left of the walls in the burned-out shell of a theater. His playing grew better as he settled into an old comfortable routine of strumming the strings. As he hit his stride in the middle of the song, he felt like Johnny was up on the stage playing with him.
He’d almost made it to the end of the song when the first slab appeared in the back of the stadium. He just kept on strumming as it made its way through the debris field from the collapsed roof. Then, one by one, he saw more slabs enter as he finished the song. He slung the guitar back over his shoulder and started to walk to the end of the stage with his hands gently tickling the revolvers in the holsters hanging from his sides.
As he stood at the edge of the stage, he could see the slabs coming hard, and he heard their mournful moans. Their faces were blank with their eyes clouded over, and their clothing soaked in blood, but they hadn’t reached him yet. “Yippie-ey-yaaaay!” Hutch drew his pistols and dropped six slabs in the blink of an eye. “I’m not ready to join you yet.” He quickly reloaded one of the guns before he jumped off the stage and moved through the seats, firing into the approaching undead.
With his adrenaline pumping from the advancing creatures and the nostalgia of where he was, it didn’t take long to run through the ammo he had for the six-round Colt revolvers he toted. As he climbed his way to the rear of the theater, he re-holstered his pistols and pulled the rifle hanging opposite the guitar into action. With a precision that would make any gunslinger in the Old West proud, he dropped every advancing slab as soon as they made an appearance as he worked his way to the main entrance of the Opry house that led out onto the street.
As he reached the main entrance, he reloaded all his weapons and quickly kicked open the doors to the street outside. When he stepped out there was an abundance of waiting slabs for him to dispatch. Hutch took a breath and then started to unload round after round into the crowded street. At first, their sheer number overwhelmed him, as it looked that for every slab he dropped two more appeared. Within moments he was on his third clip of ammo, and had thinned the herd considerably. He methodically moved out onto the street directly in front of him and crossed it while he tried to draw as much attention to his location as possible.
As he got across the street, he had a considerable group coming from every direction possible, but he hoped there would soon be more. He made his way to the doors of the movie theater located directly across the street from the Grand Ole Opry. As he entered, he propped the doors open and gave his followers every opportunity to follow. Once inside he had to kill a minimal amount of slabs to get through on his way to the upper floor projection rooms.
After securing the door at the top of the stairs, he moved into the long hallway that ran behind all the projector rooms. He poked his head into each room that looked out into the empty theaters to see if any of the slabs had made their way inside the building. It didn’t take long for the slabs to start filing into the large seating areas. He watched as they did, and made an appearance through the projector windows as often as possible to keep them from losing interest and leaving.
One by one the rooms filled to maximum capacity. Once he felt it was enough, he checked the door that kept him separated from his attackers and felt it was safe enough to move on to his next phase.
Hutch snuck down the staircase and slowly made his way towards each of the doors to the theaters and quietly shut and chained them up. Very few stragglers were left in the public areas of the theater, and he silently dispatched those with his knife so as to not rile up his captured guests. After he locked the last door of the 20-theater building, he made his way out the main door and headed for the rear of the building. As he rounded the corner, he came face to face with over a dozen latecomers to the party. Realizing there were too many for a knife, he slung his rifle around and squeezed off several rounds until they all dropped. Unfortunately, the noise excited t
he trapped slabs in the theater, and they started to bang against the doors as they realized their quarry had escaped.
Hutch broke into a full sprint knowing that those doors would very soon start to give way. As he rounded the final corner of the building, he saw the last phase of his plan waiting for him.
A mostly full gas tanker sat at the rear of the building. Hutch had taken the tanker’s hose and connected it to the main fire sprinkler hookup on the wall of the building. He had an electric pump hooked up to push as much of the fuel as possible into the fire suppression system. Prior to playing the slabs version of the pied piper, Hutch had conveniently removed all the stops from each sprinkler head in the building. This would allow the fuel to spray down inside the entire structure. For the most part, the fuel had degraded to the point where it was useless in a vehicle, but was still flammable enough to do what he needed it to.
Hutch turned on the pump and heard the fuel rushing out as it entered into the pipes as planned. The pump, however, was much louder than he had anticipated, and very soon it was going to draw some attention. He decided it was time to leave and finish this mission from a distance.
Once Hutch was safely inside his mobile HQ, and parked a safe distance up the road, he waited until he figured the fuel had had enough time to completely permeate the building. As he did, he watched as a few slabs exited the theater through the front doors, indicating they had broken out of their locked rooms. Eventually, a few turned into a dozen, then more and more started to leave the building. Not wanting to miss any targets, Hutch reached over to his trusty detonator and flipped it on to ignite the incendiary device he’d left behind in the building. He braced himself and pushed the button. Nothing happened as he gritted his teeth for the explosion.
Humanity's Hope (Book 1): Camp H Page 20
