The Survivalist

by Arthur T. Bradley

  “What is it?” he bellowed.

  Words failed her, and she resorted to pointing. A human eyeball bobbed in the water beside him.

  “Quit being a sissy,” Tanner said, scooping it out and tossing it into a corner. “It’s just an eye.”

  “Seriously, does anything freak you out?” she said, stepping closer and handing him the flashlight.

  “We’re all just soup, darlin’.”

  She made a face. “That might explain why I’ve never liked your soup.”

  He grinned. “Just keep watch while I see what’s down there.”

  “Okay, but try not to get anything in your hair.”

  Tanner disappeared under the water for a second time. With the flashlight in hand, he could see that the ceiling was dotted with thousands of pencil-sized holes, no doubt used to flood the corridor. He scanned the floor for a drain but wasn’t able to locate one. Too bad, he thought. It would have been nice to find a giant rubber stopper.

  He turned the light to look down the corridor. There was a heavy gate blocking the passage, and beyond that, darkness. The barrier looked to be about twenty yards away, but distances underwater could be deceiving.

  Once again, he pushed back up through the open hatch.

  “Anything?”

  “A corridor with a gate at the end.”

  “Can you swim to it?”

  “Too far to get there and back safely.” Tanner pulled himself out of the water and stood, staring down at the open hole as if the blood-laced water might somehow provide an answer.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to figure out a way to see what’s on the other side of that gate.”

  “Do you really think there’s more gold down there?”

  He shook his head. “Whatever’s down there was considered more valuable than gold.”

  “What could be more valuable than gold?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Diamonds maybe.” Her face lit up. “Mother would surely be happy with those.”

  Tanner had no idea how well diamonds translated into power in post-apocalyptic America, but they certainly couldn’t hurt Mother’s position. Besides, everyone knew that diamonds were a girl’s best friend.

  “Come on,” he said, starting for the door.

  She hurried after him. “Where are we going?”

  “To find a way to breathe underwater.”

  Chapter 16

  Korn towered over the pudgy woman, his chest heaving in and out like that of a wild beast fresh from the hunt. Soldiers stood to either side, holding her upright. A trickle of urine ran down the inside of one of her thighs, slowly seeping into the topline of her white sneaker.

  The big general leaned in close, his monstrous face inches from hers.

  “You will tell me what I want to know,” he said, his voice slow and ominous, “or I will have your arms torn off.”

  The woman’s head rocked back and forth, but she could not force a sound from her throat.

  “Who is in charge of this place?”

  She blinked, tears spilling out both eyes. Again she tried to speak, and again her voice failed her.

  He motioned to the two guards, and they stretched her arms out to either side.

  “His name!” he barked.

  “Locke,” she said with a feeble croak. “Oliver Locke.”

  “Oliver Locke,” he repeated, tasting it like the foulest of medicines. “Where is he?”

  “B-b-bus.”

  Korn looked toward the western fence.

  “Locke was on the bus?”

  She looked down at her wet sneaker. “I don’t know, maybe.”

  Korn grabbed her gruffly by the chin and squeezed until the inside of her cheeks began to bleed.

  “Did you see him get onto the bus? Yes, or no?”

  Unable to look at Korn’s hideous face, the woman pressed her eyes shut.

  “Yes,” she breathed, knowing full well that it would be the last word she would ever utter.

  She felt the hands that held her arms shift slightly and then release her. Confused, she peeked out through narrow slits. Korn and his men had already turned away and were marching toward the western gate.

  Unable to comprehend what had just happened, she collapsed onto the dirt, trembling. She lay like that for nearly twenty minutes, watching as Korn’s army of monsters climbed back into their vehicles and barreled west along Highway 666. She thought it only fitting that what must surely have been a demon from Hell chose to travel along the Devil’s Highway.

  One thing worried Mason more than anything else—the flap of blown tire lying on State Route 10. It would tell his pursuers the bus had turned south, and once they knew that, it wouldn’t be hard to zero in on their hiding spot at the old steel plant.

  He looked over at Brooke sitting on the steps of the bus. Her hair hung in wet strands, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. What should have put him off only drew him closer to her. She was the damsel in distress, the maiden who needed protecting. It was hardwired in his DNA to want to come to her aid, and the fact that she was less than perfect made her only that much more desirable.

  “Stay here with Locke,” he said. “Care for him as best you can.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re leaving? Again?”

  “I have to. We blew a tire before turning off. If I don’t move it, they’ll find us for sure.”

  She stood up and came closer, the heat of her body wrapping around him like a blanket.

  “It would be easy for you to leave us. I know that.”

  “You’d deserve it.”

  “I know that too.” She gently placed her hands on his chest. “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

  His eyes hardened. “I am too.”

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe since you tried to have my own men kill me.”

  “I knew they wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Instead, you’d have had me kill them?”

  She struggled to answer. “What would you have done to keep your father safe?”

  “Believe me, my father doesn’t need safekeeping.”

  “But if he did? How far would you go?”

  “Only as far as my conscience would allow.” He took a step back, and her hands fell to her sides. “That’s what worries me about you, Brooke. I don’t know what yours is capable of anymore.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I understand. I do. But I’m going to make this up to you. You’ll see.”

  Mason didn’t know if such a thing were even possible, but he saw no reason to discuss it further. Instead, he whistled for Bowie, and the big dog meandered over from where he had been resting.

  Brooke inched further away, and as she did, Mason drew his Supergrade and held it out to her.

  “Take it.”

  “Why?”

  “In case someone finds you before I come back.”

  “Daddy has a revolver in his waistband. I can use that to protect myself.”

  “Six rounds might not be enough.” He pushed it toward her. “Better to have a backup.”

  She started to reach for the weapon, and then stopped.

  “No,” she said, gently pressing her fingers against the Supergrade. “This is yours.”

  The only thing Mason knew for certain was that he was racing the clock. If the infected discovered the blown tire, things were going to unravel very quickly. On the other hand, if he could keep them guessing about where the bus had gone, he might just find a way to slip through their net.

  He sprinted along Industrial Park Road, cut across an open field, and emerged onto a small paved lane. A warehouse of storage lockers lay to his left, the small orange-roofed manager’s building straight ahead. He darted past it, cut through a small copse of trees, and settled beside the media center that had been designed to look like a home. There was nothing but green grass between him and Highway 10.

  Bowie pressed his nose aga
inst Mason’s ear, and he reached over and gave the dog a soft scrub under the chin.

  “This last part’s the trickiest.”

  He leaned out from behind cover and studied the highway. No one was in sight just yet, but he detected the faint growl of engines rumbling in the distance like an approaching thunderstorm.

  It was now or never.

  “Here we go!”

  Mason broke from cover, Bowie quickly catching up to him as he raced out onto the highway. The long flap of tattered rubber lay in the center of the road, black skid marks marring the asphalt. He snatched up the battered strip of tire and ran back toward the trees. When he was safely out of sight, he tossed the rubber into a thick pile of leaves. The skid marks on the highway might still tip his hand, but short of having a wire brush and a bucket of soapy water, there was little to be done about them.

  Next up was to find a set of wheels. To his right was a taupe building with crimson cloth awnings over the doors. A dozen or more service trucks equipped with cylindrical tanks sat parked behind a wrought-iron fence. There was no sign for the business, but given the design of the trucks, Mason thought it likely they performed lawn care or carpet cleaning.

  While the service trucks were probably slower than an old Yugo, they were hands down better than a school bus with blown tires. Unfortunately, diesel fuel was even worse than conventional ethanol-treated gasoline when it came to water contamination. The good news was that many service vehicles were equipped with built-in demulsifiers and separators to help remove water from their fuel systems. If Mason were lucky, not only would he be able to get one of the trucks started, he might even be able to drain enough fuel from the other vehicles to top off its tank.

  As he approached the fence, Mason saw that the gate had been pried open. Bowie sniffed a padlock and chain lying on the ground.

  “People help themselves nowadays,” he explained. “We’re no different.”

  Mason pulled open the gate and, together, he and Bowie entered the parking lot. As he approached the first of the service trucks, his hopes began to fade. Two of its tires were slashed, and the front windshield had been smashed with a block of concrete. He moved on to the next, and then the next. Some a-hole had gone to the trouble of making sure that none of the trucks would ever see the road again.

  Before he could decide if there was a way to patch something together, a gunshot sounded. It didn’t come from the road but instead from a farmhouse to the northwest. It was low-caliber, likely a .22. Seconds later, an animal bellowed in pain, its low-pitched cry echoing across the open field. Another shot rang out, but still the animal didn’t quiet.

  “Jesus,” Mason said, scrunching his face. “What the hell are they doing?”

  A third shot sounded, and the screeching turned to a faint moan.

  Mason had had enough. Whoever the hell was doing the shooting needed a lesson on killing.

  With Bowie at his side, he marched across the open field, his fury rising with every step. His path took him to a small gravel driveway with a brick mailbox at the end. He flipped open the box and found a handful of mail, all from nearly a year gone past and all addressed to Arlo Jensen.

  “Arlo, it’s time you and I had a talk.”

  Stuffing the mail back into the box and flipping it closed, he continued up the long driveway. The property consisted of a single-story yellow farmhouse, four grain towers, a couple of large plastic water tanks, an old barn, and two multi-stall garages big enough to house tractors and farming equipment. The yard was overgrown but well-trodden, as if folks were living on the property but too busy to take proper care of it.

  As he approached the farmhouse, Mason nearly tripped over a freshly dug grave. Grass and weeds had just begun to push up through the soil, meaning the lucky inhabitant had been put to rest within the past couple of months. Another grave sat beside it, this one marked with a marble headstone that read, “Trudy Jensen, the love of my life.”

  Shouting began sounding from around the back of the house. It wasn’t a call for help, but rather an exclamation from someone exerting himself.

  Bowie let out a little woof.

  “I hear him, boy. Let’s go see what’s going on.” Hoping to avoid looking like a SWAT member rolling off the truck, Mason slid the M4 around to hang across his back. His Supergrade was more than enough for what was likely a drunken farmer out shooting coyotes.

  As he rounded the corner of the home, he found neither a drunken farmer nor a coyote. Instead, a middle-aged man in blue jeans two sizes too big knelt over a fallen cow. A woman and her twin pre-adolescent boys stood to the side, her hands covering their eyes as the man sawed at the animal’s throat with a knife. Spurts of blood sprayed across his arms and chest like he was some mad alleyway slasher. The cow’s rear legs twitched, and its eyes blinked as it emitted a weak rasping sound.

  Jesus, the poor beast was still alive.

  Bowie seemed particularly troubled by the scene and inched closer to Mason as he let out a soft whine.

  Mason slid the M4 back around to the front of his chest.

  “Get the hell off that animal!”

  The man scrambled toward a .22 rifle lying nearby in the dirt.

  Mason brought the M4 up. “You touch it, and I’ll show you the right way to put down an animal.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, climbing to his feet. He slid the bloody knife back into a sheath that he held in his other hand and moved closer to his wife and children. “We needed the meat.”

  Without another word, Mason stepped forward and shot the cow just above its eyes. The gasping and twitching stopped immediately as it settled lifelessly to the ground.

  “A man has no right killing if he doesn’t know how to do it properly.”

  “I just got unlucky with my shots, that’s all,” the man said, looking at his feet. “But it’s done now. Thank you.”

  Thank you did not at all seem appropriate for what had just transpired. If it hadn’t been for the frightened look on the children’s faces, Mason would have given the man a good drubbing.

  Hoping to keep his emotions from getting the better of him, he took a deep breath and turned to look out across the field. Dozens of cows grazed on the rich green grass. None seemed even the slightest bit concerned about the bloody passing of one of their sisters.

  After taking a moment to calm himself, Mason turned back to the man.

  “How long have you been raising cattle?”

  “Not long. We came down from Pittsburgh to live with my brother a few months ago. Unfortunately, he passed shortly after we arrived.” The man looked to his wife. “I’m afraid we’re just city folk trying to find our way.”

  Mason glanced over at the rifle. “Well, you sure as hell don’t put down an animal this size with a squirrel gun.”

  “It’s all I have at the moment.”

  “That’s no excuse for what you did here.”

  The man pressed his lips together and nodded. He stepped forward, wiped his hand on his jeans, and extended it.

  “My name’s Blake Jensen, and this is my wife, Maggie.”

  Mason reluctantly shook the man’s hand, accepting that while he may have been a fool, he wasn’t a threat.

  “Deputy Marshal Mason Raines.” He turned and offered a polite nod to the missus. “Ma’am.”

  Blake continued, saying, “And these two handsome gents are my boys, Dillon and Cooper.”

  Mason glanced over at the boys. Both were studying him, uncertain if he posed a danger to their small family. He gestured to Bowie, and the big dog moseyed over to the children. A few reassuring face licks later, they were busy darting around the yard, playing tag with their newfound friend.

  “That’s one big dog you got there,” said Blake.

  “Sweet too,” offered Maggie.

  Mason nodded his thanks. “No matter how much Bowie’s seen, he hasn’t lost his love for children. That’s something, I suppose.” He looked off in the direction of the highway. The infected cou
ld come rolling along at any moment, and while the farmhouse wasn’t in sight, it didn’t mean that Blake and his family wouldn’t be discovered.

  “What is it?” Maggie said, her head turning to follow his gaze. “What’s coming?”

  “The kind of trouble that none of us can handle.”

  “What are they looking for?”

  Mason tightened his grip on the M4.

  “Me.”

  “I see,” she said softly. “And I don’t suppose they’ll bother discriminating between you and a family just trying to get by in this awful world.”

  “No. They won’t.” He turned to Blake. “I’ll help you get this animal over to the barn. The rest of you need to get inside for the night.”

  Maggie immediately called, “Come on, boys. Time to get ready for supper.”

  They moaned about having to quit playing with the big dog, but came to her nonetheless.

  She glanced over at Mason. “You’re welcome to stay if you like. We have more corn and grain than we could ever eat.” She looked back at the bloody cow. “And if you’d be so gracious as to help my husband tend to this, we might even have some fresh meat on the table for a change.”

  As was the case in many marriages, Maggie was the one who looked for ways to move forward in the face of adversity. With her at their helm, perhaps there was hope for the Jensen family yet.

  “Fresh meat is tough. It’d be like chewing jerky.”

  “Even so,” she said with a shrug, “it’d give the boys some much needed protein.”

  Cleaning a full-size cow was no easy task, but Mason accepted that if he didn’t do it, the animal would surely rot before being eaten, and that was something he simply couldn’t allow. Besides, he thought, it would do him and Bowie good to be out of sight for a while. Hiding in a barn was as good a place as any.

  Leaning against a thick wooden post in the barn, Mason said, “Any chance you’ve ever butchered an animal this size?”

  Blake shook his head. “The closest I’ve come is cleaning a few trout at camp as a boy. But I’m willing to learn.”

  Mason knew that it was not his responsibility to teach Blake how to properly kill and butcher a cow. On the other hand, if he didn’t do so, there was an entire field of animals that would suffer unnecessarily. Responsibility or not, this was a teaching moment that fell squarely on his shoulders.