Skull's Shadows (Plague Wars Series)

by David VanDyke

  By then, the undergrowth erupted in gunfire.

  Skull dropped and rolled as far as he could to the right. He found a thick tree trunk and stood back up in the dark. The patrol was still shooting, but at where Skull had been, not where he was.

  He counted muzzle flashes. Eleven. Aiming by feel rather than the iron sights he couldn’t see in the dark, Skull fired slightly to the rear and right of one of the muzzle flashes. Then he did the same with another, and another.

  Return fire spattered into the thick trunk of his covering tree. He dropped to the ground and high-crawled farther to the right in order to take another firing position.

  Abruptly the enemy fire shifted again as two rifles began shooting at the infiltrators. The remaining eight soldiers concentrated their shots on the new threat firing at them.

  Stupid boys, thought Skull with a combination of frustration and pride. They had at least drawn the attention away from him.

  He came to a knee behind a fallen log and knocked out three more before he was driven back by return fire. A bullet plucked at his sleeve and he low-crawled away.

  “They’re trying to flank us,” said one of the commandos.

  “Krill, keep suppressive fire on the ones to our front,” ordered another voice. “Everyone else focus on the flanking force.”

  It’s just me, assholes, thought Skull, and I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than you have.

  Rounds continued to come his way, but they all went over him as he hugged the forest floor. Raising his head carefully, he could see the muzzle flashes and the enemy perimeter had shrunk to the point that the men were in a fairly tight circle. These were regulars, but Skull downgraded his opinion of their elite status. Veteran troops wouldn’t continue to highlight themselves this way, or fall back to a cluster, as if being close together improved their survivability.

  In fact, it wouldn’t.

  Skull dug through his pack and pulled out two fragmentation grenades. He pulled the pin on the first and tossed it into the middle of the flashes, repeating the process with the second. Then he put his head down and covered his ears.

  The firing continued for a few more seconds before there came a muffled whump, followed shortly after by another.

  Skull jumped up without his rifle, pulling out his flashlight and Glock to rush toward the center of the enemy. One badly wounded soldier turned to fire at him, but Skull kicked at the weapon, and then shot the man dead.

  He saw another with blood pooling out of his side trying to crawl into the dark undergrowth. Skull plugged him in the back. The other men were already dead.

  “It’s me,” Skull called to the two boys. “It’s all done. I’m coming out. Hold your fire.” Walking slowly forward, he used his flashlight to make sure there were no more enemies in hiding, but was confident he’d taken them all out.

  “Anson, it should make you happy to know,” Skull said when he approached, “that we have officially helped your friends back there fighting. If this group had gotten into their rear area and…”

  Skull’s voice trailed off. He saw Anson sitting and sobbing. He was holding Kevin’s upper body in his arms. There was a neat bullet hole in the center of the younger boy’s forehead with an ugly exit wound on the other side dribbling brain matter onto his brother’s shoulder.

  Head shot, Skull thought as his chest squeezed tight. Just like Zeke. Edens can’t heal that much damage. Cursing under his breath, Skull walked up to the boy. “Come on Anson. We have to go.”

  “He’s dead,” the older boy sobbed.

  “I know,” Skull answered. “There’s nothing you can do for him now.”

  “Just leave me,” the boy said, rocking his brother.

  Why not? Skull thought. I’m not responsible for either of them. Just keep walking, I’ve done what I could and I owe them nothing.

  Instead, he reached out and grabbed the older brother by the trapezium muscles at each shoulder, lifting him painfully to his feet.

  “Ahh!” screamed Anson, coming out of his daze. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Saving your life,” Skull answered. “Now follow me.”

  Anson shook the other man’s hands off. “I’m not going anywhere. Didn’t you hear me? Kevin’s dead.”

  “Yes, I hear you,” Skull answered. “He’s not Kevin anymore.” Skull kicked the body in the side. “It’s just a piece of dead meat.” He kicked him again and again. “He can’t feel anything.”

  “Stop that!” Anson cried out.

  “This dead lump of flesh is not your brother,” Skull said, “no more than that rock or tree. Are you going to stay here and get killed over a lump of dead meat or a rock or tree? Or do you want to see your mother and father again?”

  Anson looked at Skull angrily, and then his defiance seemed to melt away. He put his face in his hands and began to cry.

  Skull reached out and grabbed him by one sleeve, dragging him westward. This time, the boy didn’t resist him. Skull collected his gear and started moving as quickly as he could dragging the boy behind him.

  They traveled this way for about an hour before coming to a dark farmhouse. A late model sedan and an old farm truck sat in the driveway. Skull made his way to the truck, knowing it would be easier to do what he needed to with an older vehicle.

  Skull opened the driver’s side door of the truck and bent down under the dash. Holding his flashlight in his mouth, he pulled the ignition wiring harness down and separated the green, red, blue and yellow wires. Taking out his knife, he stripped a section of each wire. Looking around with his flashlight, he noticed an ancient cassette tape in the cab. Skull yanked out a length of the polymer tape and cut it with his knife. He then used the stuff to bind the blue and yellow stripped sections as tightly together as he could. A piece of copper would be better, but maybe this would do.

  Yellow and blue and Christmas too, he thought, reciting the litany to remember how to hotwire a car.

  He then held the green and red wires, touching the bare sections together.

  The starter and ignition engaged. It took several tries, but finally the vehicle rumbled to life.

  Skull stood back up. “We’re in business. Get in.” He looked around and didn’t see the boy.

  A dog began to bark from inside the farmhouse. A light went on upstairs.

  “Dammit, son,” Skull hissed. “Where in the hell are you?” He walked around the truck and scanned the area with his flashlight, seeing the boy standing nearby looking out over a pond by the house.

  An outside door slammed.

  Skull turned off the flashlight, ran to the boy and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “You better get off my prop-ar-tee,” yelled an old man’s voice.

  Pushing the boy toward the truck, they were blinded by the old man’s flashlight.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” A shotgun blast took out the truck’s passenger side window.

  Skull shoved the boy into the cab of the truck and heard another blast, putting dozens of tiny holes and dings in the truck just to his left.

  Turning with his flashlight and Glock in opposite hands, Skull moved toward the shooter.

  He saw an old man in a bathrobe and slippers trying to reload a double-barreled shotgun while holding a large flashlight of his own. He kept dropping shells, and then reaching down to pick them up.

  “Leave it,” Skull said coldly a few feet from the old man.

  The farmer’s fingers went lax. The shells and shotgun slipped to the ground. He held on to the flashlight long enough to get a look at the apparition of death in front of him, and then he dropped that too.

  “If you ever want to see the sun again this side of heaven,” Skull told him, “you best turn around and go back to bed. I need your truck, not your life.”

  The farmer stood still for a moment, and then spun on his heel, leaving the shotgun, shells, and flashlight where he’d dropped them. He walked into his house and several seconds later the upstairs light went off. The dog stopped b
arking.

  Skull hurried back to the truck and climbed in the driver’s side, making sure Anson was secure in the passenger seat. Putting the truck in gear, he drove down the driveway and at the next road turned west. He continued for the next several hours, trying his best to keep going in a westerly direction at every road junction.

  Finally Anson roused himself. He turned to look at Skull. “We should have buried him.”

  “There was no time,” Skull answered.

  “But, he could get eaten by animals,” Anson said, “or rot in the heat. It’s not right.”

  “It’s not wrong either,” Skull insisted. “Like I told you back there, it’s a piece of meat and no more. Your brother is gone.”

  Anson was silent for a long time. “So, why do we ever bury anyone?”

  Skull looked at the boy and then back at the road. “Habit. Superstition. Comfort. I don’t know. All I know is that it doesn’t make a lick of difference to the dead.”

  “It just seems wrong is all,” said Anson, “he was my brother.” Then he was quiet again.

  It is wrong, thought Skull, remembering the girl he buried in New Mexico.

  They rode in silence down the dark road.

  Chapter 22

  Skull and Anson continued driving generally southwest for several days. Traffic grew in intensity and many of the vehicles were packed with people and belongings, refugees from the fighting. Skull was amused to see the sorts of things people decided to take with them when they were on the verge of losing everything.

  Strapped down on top of vehicles or in truck beds he saw widescreen televisions, mattresses, sofas, china cabinets, gas grills, satellite dishes, an exercise bike, a grandfather clock, canoes, a large stone statue of the Virgin Mary, a small pool table, several stuffed deer heads, jet skis on trailers, riding lawn mowers on flatbeds, a portable Jacuzzi, beer kegs, a huge saltwater aquarium still filled with tropical fish, and what looked like at least one Civil War era canon in incredibly restored shape.

  Skull realized he and Anson were exceptionally conspicuous because their truck was empty, drawing some funny looks.

  Fortunately, they spotted a set of life-size plastic animals in front of an abandoned house one evening and loaded them up. No one paid them any further attention now that the truck bed contained three pink flamingos, two deer, a black bear, a blue ox, and what might be Paul Bunyan complete with ax solidly planted on plastic shoulder.

  At night they stopped and slept in the cab and then continued during the day. It was too dangerous to drive at night anymore as people were camping out on the roads and had taken to driving without headlights for some inexplicable reason. Skull had thought that the best plan would be to get over into Texas again and travel south until they could cross over into Louisiana. Maybe the presence of the boy would help get them across, making an armed man seem less worrisome.

  Skull wondered how he would manage to ever make it to Maryland and the mission he’d set himself if he kept getting distracted by these pressing but unimportant matters. I’m lying to myself, he thought after a while. Do I really want to sneak or fight my away across the U.S. into a heavily populated area just to take vengeance, or maybe to cause a pinprick to a governmental organization that will probably hardly notice the disruption? They must be shoveling money like coal at Plague research.

  Yet, what else can I do that might make a real difference?

  Anson hadn’t said a word since the conversation about burying his little brother. Skull had almost forgotten he was there and jumped slightly when the boy finally spoke.

  “It’s my fault he’s dead, isn’t it?”

  Skull wanted to lie to him to ease the kid’s pain, but couldn’t. Shouldn’t. “You certainly didn’t pull the trigger, but at least partially, yes.”

  Anson wiped an eye. “Stupid kid. He never really wanted to come in the first place. Always followed me wherever I went and did what I did.” He blinked sadly and looked at the man beside him. “I should have let him go, like you said.”

  “Yup,” Skull answered without hesitation.

  Anson sighed and watched the road. Finally he asked, “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “You learn to live with it or go ahead and die with it,” said Skull from hard experience.

  The boy fidgeted. “I don’t know how to live with it.”

  “It’s your choice. The hurt will fade some, but you’ll never really get over it. This will always be with you.”

  A sudden realization seemed to come over him. “What am I supposed to tell my family?”

  “You tell them the truth,” said Skull. “All of it. That’s best. Don’t hide from it and don’t hide from them. They deserve to know what happened to their son. You talked about courage and not running from your duty back there...well, telling them the truth is your duty now and may be the bravest thing you’ll ever have to do.”

  Silence fell again, and this time the boy didn’t break it.

  Skull turned on the radio to fill the void. He’d listened off and on for several days, but most of what they heard was rumor or conjecture. Working his way through the stations, he found one that sounded more official than the rest.

  “...have confirmed that a major military operation is underway in southwestern Arkansas involving active duty, reserve, and National Guard troops from multiple services. The White House has issued a statement describing surgical strikes throughout the self-proclaimed Arkansas Free State to eliminate criminal elements violating federal and state law. Casualty figures are still coming in, but appear to be in the hundreds at least. Many more have been arrested and now the roads are filled with civilians fleeing toward what they believe is sanctuary in Texas. Now, we return to your country oldies. Coming up, Hank Williams…”

  Skull scanned forward until he found more news.

  “...House stated that citizens of Arkansas have nothing to fear and urged them to return to their homes. Meanwhile the governor of Arkansas has resigned in the scandal and been replaced by Cantrell Boyd, leader of the majority Unionist Party in the Arkansas State Senate. Elections are expected to take place in...”

  Skull hit the button again.

  “...Texas asking people not to try to cross the border. Their police and military are evidently overwhelmed and there have been some reports of armed clashes between Texas border personnel and frustrated citizens waiting to cross. Meanwhile, Congress passed a resolution this morning authorizing the President to use the U.S. Navy to blockade the Texas coast in an attempt to contain the Plague and the Mexican government has agreed to close their border with Texas in return for cancellation of all debts owed to the U.S. Government. There are still flights in and out of the state, but they are under intense scrutiny for...”

  Skull skimmed until the radio found a classic rock station and left it there.

  By the next morning, traffic came to a standstill and didn’t move any further. Skull got out and walked forward a few hundred meters to talk to people on ahead. They told him the traffic hadn’t budged since the previous morning.

  “Time to walk again,” Skull told Anson when he returned to the vehicle. He broke down his M4 into two pieces and stowed it in his rucksack before putting it on. He didn’t want to spook any border personnel, and if he needed to defend himself had the concealed Glock and his knife. Besides, a lot of men and some women stalled on the highway went armed, some conspicuously.

  They walked slowly and steadily, resting in the shade and eating what food they had every couple of hours. That night they slept under a large tarp attached to several trees with a few dozen other strangers. A campfire provided something to cluster around, but Skull heard little talk. These refugees seemed to be the orphans, the loners, those without family or a group to belong to.

  The look of the lost, Skull thought. Those who mourn.

  That night they were awakened by a gunshot. In the dim light from the burned-down embers of the campfire, Skull and the others could see a man slumped over. Skull reac
hed out and pulled the man towards him by his shoulder. His head lolled back and the light revealed a black hole where his right eye used to be. Both hands fell from his lap toward the ground. One contained a small-caliber pistol and the other a photograph of the man with a pretty woman and baby.

  Skull and the men dragged the body away from the fire into a nearby field, and then went back to sleep.

  The next morning they started walking again and by noon saw the Texas border. Military vehicles, floodlights, and silent loudspeakers lined the area. People were jammed in together tight, and the federal troops facing the Texas border appeared to be simply watching people try to cross instead of questioning or screening them as before.

  The reason became apparent after the two were able to push their way through the mass of humanity. A large construction work sign read, Texas Border Closed to Everyone Except Edens Seeking Sanctuary. Lines of people waited nearby to enter one of the large medical tents, presumably to prove their status.

  “Let’s go,” said Skull pulling them forward.

  “Why?” Anson asked. “They won’t let us through.”

  “I think they might,” replied Skull.

  They pushed their way forward until Skull stood in front of a young man in uniform, who looked at them with a bored expression.

  “Corporal,” Skull said. “This boy here needs to cross. He has been separated from his family that we believe is now in Texas.”

  “Can’t you read the sign?”

  “The boy has the Eden virus,” Skull explained. “He’s a carrier.”

  “No, I’m not!” exclaimed Anson.

  The corporal pointed tiredly to the line at the medical tent and recited, “Go over there and get tested, and if positive you may be allowed to enter. For all others, the border is temporarily closed.”

  Skull looked at the long lines to get tested and then back at the crossing in front of him. So close.

  “Why would you say that?” said Anson. “I’m not standing in that line to get tested.”