These Dead Lands: Immolation

by Stephen Knight

  “Hold on!” Hastings shouted.

  The woman ignored him and started to ride away, but she must’ve thought better of it, because she stopped forty feet or so down the road. A late model black-over-tan Dodge dually pickup rounded the bend. Two men squatted in the bed, both with beards and wearing old woodland camouflage battle dress and grimy baseball caps worn backward. At least two more men sat inside the cab. They had all been hooting and yelling until they spotted Stilley’s Humvee. Tharinger spun the .50 around until he had it leveled on the big Dodge 3500.

  “Captain, let me know what you want me to do!” Tharinger called.

  “If they start shooting, you’re clear to fire,” Hastings said. “Ballantine, call Hartman and Guerra forward. Reader, back me up!”

  Hastings hurried over to the side of the road, M4 at his shoulder, and motioned for the truck to stop. The driver didn’t seem inclined to comply, so Hastings fired a single round through the enormous chrome grille. The big truck stopped so abruptly that the two men in the back nearly catapulted over the cab. Over his radio, he heard Ballantine call the second Humvee forward, and from the corner of his eye.

  Reader trotted toward the rear of the truck, covering the two men there with his assault rifle. “Do not fucking move!”

  “What the fuck is this?” one of the men in the back hollered. His nose was bleeding, and he must have dropped his rifle. But he kept his hands up in the air. His companion still had his weapon, a mean-looking tactical shotgun, but he hadn’t pointed it anyone. Yet.

  “United States Army!” Hastings shouted, staring down the men in the cab. “Exit the vehicle immediately, or you will be fired upon!”

  The driver’s eyes widened, and he held his hands up over the steering wheel. The man in the passenger seat didn’t seem nearly as intimidated as he practically glared at Hastings through the glass. While the driver was overweight and sported an ill-groomed goatee and mustache, his cherubic face framed by a virtual waterfall of greasy brown hair, the man beside him was slender and blond. His hair was in a long ponytail, and he appeared to have retained some general sense of what hygiene was.

  “There ain’t no Army anymore, motherfucker!” the man with the shotgun in the back yelled. “Why the fuck are you stopping us?”

  “Get out of the truck, or you will be fired on!” Hastings repeated. “Five seconds! Tharinger, stand ready to fire into the cab on my count! Five! Four! Three! Two—”

  The two men jumped out of the bed. Reader took a few steps back, keeping them both lined up in his targeting picture. The driver’s door slowly opened, and the fat one half fell out of the truck. He wore a stained black T-shirt, worn black jeans, and battered cowboy boots. A white Stetson fell to the road at his feet, and he looked down as if contemplating whether or not to pick it up. A chrome-finished pistol was tucked into his waistband. The pony-tailed man kept his eyes locked on Hastings as he slowly opened the door. Something about the furtiveness of his movements was troubling.

  “Passenger! Remain where you are!” Hastings reinforced the command by sighting on the man’s head through the red dot scope on top of his rifle.

  Ponytail sneered but stayed seated.

  “What the fuck is this?” the man with the shotgun shouted.

  “Reader, if that man does not put down his shotgun in three seconds, kill both of them,” Hastings said.

  “Roger that,” Reader replied. “Boys, dump whatever weapons you have right now, or I’ll shoot. Three. Two—”

  “Fuck you!” The man raised his shotgun.

  Reader fired three rounds into the man’s chest, driving him back against the truck.

  With a shriek, the guy with the bloody nose held up his hands, then he went to his knees as the crotch of his jeans turned dark. “No, no! No, don’t shoot me!”

  “Reader, if you need to put that man down, do it,” Hastings said. “Your call.”

  “Tharinger, keep that truck covered,” Ballantine said. “I don’t trust that fucker in the passenger seat.”

  “Hooah, Sarge. Got him lined up nicely here,” Tharinger said.

  “Driver, disarm yourself right now,” Hastings said. “When you’re done, move over to your friend there, and get on your knees with your hands on your head. Passenger! Remain where you are!”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Ponytail said.

  “Guerra, keep your eyes open for any other threats,” Hastings said over the radio. “Over.”

  “Roger that, Six. We’re good for the moment. Over.”

  When the driver had joined the other man, Hastings shouted to Ponytail, “Passenger! Slide across the seat and come out through the driver’s door. Keep your hands in our sight. If you do anything we think is stupid, you’re dead. Only warning.”

  “Fine. When do you want me to come out?”

  “Right now would be plain awesome with us.”

  The man sneered at Hastings again. Keeping his hands above the dashboard, he scooted across the bench seat.

  “He’s armed,” Tharinger called down. “Looks like a little Heckler & Koch rifle slung off his right side. Also saw a pistol on his belt. And FYI, the guy’s got blood all over his jeans.”

  “There’s supposed to be more of them,” Ballantine muttered.

  “Stay sharp,” Hastings said.

  Ponytail finally alighted from the truck, his hands still held high. He wore a denim vest over a black T-shirt, and his faded jeans and surprisingly clean white running shoes were dappled with specks of fresh blood.

  “Weapons,” Hastings said. “This is—”

  “My only warning or you’ll shoot me,” Ponytail interrupted. “Yeah, yeah, tin soldier. I heard you the first three times you said it.”

  “Dude, you are not exactly approaching this situation in the best way,” Ballantine said. “Do as you’re told without further comment, or I will shoot you in the right knee.”

  From the cab of the Dodge, a voice crackled over a speaker. “Jerry, what’s going on up there? Did you catch the slope bitch or what?”

  “So which one of you is Jerry?” Hastings asked.

  “That’d be me,” Ponytail said.

  “What’s with all the blood, Jerry?” Hastings asked.

  He jerked his chin toward the woman astride the motorcycle. “She and her friends set up an ambush. Thing is, they didn’t realize how many of us there were, so they got their butts waxed. We were chasing her down to exercise justice.”

  “Justice, is it? Okay. Who’s on the other side of the radio? What is that, a CB?”

  Jerry said nothing.

  “Silence isn’t going to work out here, Jer. Tell you what, let’s see you place your weapons on the ground in front of you, then you move over to your friends down there. Remember, my man on the fifty will chop you in half the second you do anything he even thinks might be stupid.”

  Jerry looked up over Hastings’s shoulder and smiled in Tharinger’s direction.

  The guy’s nuts. But Hastings didn’t know for sure if the woman was telling the truth. And one man was already dead. He had been trying to draw his weapon, and Reader had been forced to fire.

  “Movement in the trees on the other side of the truck,” Tharinger said. “Reekers. Probably drawn in by Reader’s shots. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.”

  “Blow me, brah,” Reader said.

  “Distance, Tharinger?” Hastings asked, without taking his eyes off Jerry. “Hey, Jer? Want to comply with my order, please?”

  Jerry shook his head. “With those things moving in? Are you out of your fucking tin-soldier mind?”

  “Reekers are about a hundred meters out, still moving among the trees,” Tharinger reported. “They haven’t spotted us yet. Can’t get a count, but it’s got to be more than a few. Hey, Jerry, if I were you, jackass, I’d do as the captain orders. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that I haven’t applied another few ounces on the trigger, but I feel a sneeze coming on, so get ready for things to change.”

  The woman r
ode her bike over and stopped beside Hastings. She flipped up her visor. “Kill him. He’s a rapist and a murderer.”

  “That’s a lie, bitch,” Jerry said. He was still looking at Tharinger.

  “Six, movement across the parking lot,” Guerra said over the radio. “I count over seventeen reekers heading our way. You want me to engage, or should we fall back? Over.”

  “Roger that, Guerra. Break. Hartman, pull up here. We’re moving out in just a minute. Over.”

  “On our way, Six. Over.”

  “Jerry, your weapons,” Hastings said.

  Jerry finally managed to peel his gaze from Tharinger. “Okay. Okay.” He reached around behind his back and very slowly brought out a SIG516 short-barreled rifle. It was similar to Hastings’s M4, but much smaller, a personal defense weapon more easily concealed. Jerry pulled the weapon’s strap over his head.

  Then he snapped the weapon up and pointed it right at Tharinger.

  Hastings’s two shots were lost to the sudden staccato crackle of the .50 caliber. Jerry was blown virtually in half as the big rounds slammed through his chest, pulverizing flesh and bone and muscle in an instant, turning connective tissue and supportive biologic infrastructure into a jellified mass. The man collapsed to the road in a spreading pool of scarlet. His mouth moved as he tried to breath with lungs that weren’t there, and even if they had been, they were no longer attached to his diaphragm.

  “Fuck! Oh fuck!” the driver cried.

  Hastings turned on him immediately. “How many of you are there? Tell me!”

  “Don’t say anything, Lenny,” the man with the bloody nose said.

  Hastings shot Bloody Nose through the head at close range. Lenny squeaked and gagged.

  Hastings took a step back in case the guy started puking. He didn’t want some redneck upchucking all over his boots. “How many?”

  “Six more!” Lenny said. “We got a roadblock up the road—”

  The woman rolled the bike closer, glaring down at the pudgy man. “Are they still alive, fucker?”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it!” The pudgy man looked up at Hastings with imploring eyes. “I wasn’t me! It was Jerry and the others. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it!”

  “You are so full of shit.” She turned to Hastings. “Are you the commander here?”

  “Yes.” Hastings kept his rifle’s sights on the man. As the driver began sobbing and incoherently pleading for his life, Hastings felt nothing but mounting loathing. He wondered about that. The world was ending, and he was only moments away from taking another man’s life, an American’s life, over charges that hadn’t even been proven yet.

  The woman ignored the blubbering man. “Are you going to help me?”

  From the truck, the CB radio blared again. “Jerry, this is Frank. What’s with all the gun fire? Are you guys all right? Kick it back, man!”

  “Who’s Frank?” Hastings asked the fat man.

  “Jerry’s brother.” Snot dribbled from his nose and ran through his mustache. “He’s like you, a Marine.”

  “An active duty Marine?” Ballantine asked.

  “I dunno.” The man shrugged. “Maybe. I dunno. He came back to town about a year ago. Could that mean he’s still in the Marines?”

  Tharinger called down to them, “Guys, those reekers are starting to get close.”

  Hastings heard a moan, then another. He took his eyes off the sobbing fat man and glanced over the hood of the Dodge Ram. Several ragged-looking corpses were tottering out of the tree line. No runners… yet.

  “Sergeant Reader, gather up the weapons and toss them into the Humvee. Ballantine, go get your truck and get ready to move out.” Hastings looked at the woman on the idling motorcycle. “Lady, what’s your name?”

  “Diana.”

  “Hi, Diana. Get off your bike, dump your weapons, and get in that truck.” Hastings pointed at the big Dodge.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “We’re going to pay Frank and his pals a visit, and if things aren’t what you say they are, I’ll want you where I can get you.”

  “What about my bike?”

  “We’ll come back for it. The deadheads aren’t interested in it.”

  She seemed to think about that for a moment, then she killed the motorcycle’s engine and pushed down the kickstand. She slid off the bike and regarded the approaching zombies, flexing her fingers beneath her black leather gloves. She unzipped her jacket, pulled out a small-caliber pistol, and put it on the ground beside her feet. Next, she unstrapped the machete and dropped it as well. “The gun’s empty. I don’t have any more bullets.”

  “Front seat or backseat?” she asked.

  “Backseat.”

  Diana pulled the helmet off and ran a hand through her medium-length black hair. Her skin was dark, and her eyes were bright. She appeared to be nervous but not frightened. Hastings didn’t know what to make of that. She stepped over the bodies without any trace of remorse, pulled open the rear door of the truck, and climbed onto the bench seat.

  Reader gathered her weapons and dropped them into Stilley’s Humvee. Hastings told the chubby driver to get into the driver’s seat of the Dodge.

  While Reader guarded the driver, Hastings walked around and climbed into the passenger seat. He stuck the barrel of his M4 into the pudgy man’s side. “Try not to hit any bumps.”

  “Where we goin’?”

  “To meet your friends.” Into his radio headset, Hastings said, “Stilley, stay at least a hundred yards behind us. Tharinger, stay on the fitty. Reader, ride shotgun with Stilley. Ballantine, your call if you want to take your truck or mount up with Hartman. Hartman, I want you playing rear guard. Guerra, don’t be afraid to use the Mark if things get hot and you have a shot. Questions? Over.”

  There were none.

  “Let’s roll,” he told the driver.

  *

  The fat man drove about ten miles per hour, which Hastings thought was probably unusual.

  He poked the man in the ribs with the M4. “Why so slow?”

  “You said to try and not hit bumps! I don’t want you shootin’ me!”

  “Drive faster,” Hastings said. “You pull up like an old lady, they’ll know something’s up.”

  The fat man swallowed and accelerated.

  “How far is it?” Hastings asked.

  “About a mile and a half,” Diana answered.

  “Describe the roadblock.”

  “A few cars parked nose to nose, with another off to one side to keep folks from driving around it,” she said. “Behind the roadblock, there was this truck and another one. I pulled around the roadblock on my bike, but the others weren’t so lucky. They were driving an SUV, couldn’t go around.” She leaned forward and slapped the driver on the back of the head. “Are they all dead now, you fat fucker?”

  “I don’t know! I swear, I don’t know!”

  “Knock it off,” Hastings told her. “I want you to keep calm and stay put.”

  “You don’t understand, man. These guys are fucking animals.”

  “I get that just fine.” Hastings spoke into his radio. “Tharinger, I’ll probably need you to lay down some suppressive fire, so get ready. Ballantine, it would be great if you and Reader could dismount and back me up on foot. Over.”

  “Roger that, Six. We’ll have you covered. Over,” Ballantine responded.

  “Coming up on it now,” Diana said. “So listen, General, what’s your plan?”

  “Pretty easy,” Hastings said. “If they’re what you say they are, then I intend to kill them. If not, I intend to kill you.”

  “Awesome.”

  *

  The big Dodge approached the roadblock. Off to one side, hidden amongst the trees, was a blue crew-cab GMC pickup with a shell covering its bed. Like the Dodge, it had been lifted so a heavy-duty suspension and big tires could be mounted underneath the frame. Three men stood in plain sight near the roadblock, but the rest were no
where to be seen.

  Hastings got back on the radio. “Ballantine, I’ll need you guys up here pretty quickly. Tharinger, let me know when you’ve established line of sight with the engagement area. Over.”

  “Six, I’ve got it,” Tharinger said. “Thing is, those guys are going to be able to see us too. Over.”

  “Can’t be helped. Six, out.” He nudged the driver with the rifle again. “Stop here. Put the truck in park and leave the keys in the ignition.”

  The guy did as he was told. “Okay, now what?”

  “Now you wait for me to tell you what to do. Both hands on the wheel—I lose sight of one, I pull the trigger.”

  “Okay. Okay.” The man quickly grabbed the steering wheel.

  “Six, we’ve got you covered,” Ballantine said over the radio. “Reader and I are in the woods on either side of the road, and Tharinger has overwatch. Guerra thinks he’s got a good bracket lined up with the grenade launcher if things really go to hell, and we’ll help him walk his fires to target. Over.”

  “Roger that. Who’s left, and who’s right? Over.”

  “Six, Reader is to your left. I’m to your right and about thirty meters behind you. I can’t tell if there’s anyone in that GMC pickup you passed. I have it under surveillance, and I’ll pop anyone who tries to line up on you. Over.”

  “Roger that, sounds good. Okay, we’re getting out of the vehicle. Over.” Hastings eased open the passenger door and stepped out. Keeping his weapon trained on the driver, he reached around and opened the rear door. “Okay, driver, slide out. Diana, move over to this side but stay in the truck.”

  “All right.” She slid across the bench seat.

  “Do you see any of your party?” Hastings asked.

  “No.” She pointed to the left. “But you can see their Explorer there, parked in front of the roadblock.”

  “Understood. Ballantine, keep an eye on Diana as well. Over.”

  “Roger that, Six.”

  The driver slid out of the truck, trying to still keep his hands in sight. As he stepped out, he slid in some mud and fell onto his flabby ass. Hastings shook his head and kept his M4 trained on him while also trying to keep one eye on the three men standing by the roadblock, who were watching him intently. They all held assault rifles, but Hastings couldn’t tell whether they were civilian or military versions. It didn’t really matter. The only difference between the two was that the civilian versions didn’t fire on full automatic, which was a mode of fire professional soldiers rarely invoked. The civilian versions could kill someone just as dead as their military counterparts. All the men wore some manner of camouflage clothing, and they had a backwoods air among them. Hastings wouldn’t have been surprised to discover they were veteran hunters and trappers, as those professions were regularly encountered in that part of the state.