by Spriggs, Kal
“Good job, Team Five, now get your ass out of there,” Jack said.
“Roger, see you back at base,” Team Five's Leader reported.
Jack took a long moment to try to take it all in, to see everything he could with his own eyes, before he started down the stairs. The movement of the zombies, the barricades, all of that meant something and Jack's mind was turning over those meanings. Understanding the big picture would make the difference between life and death for him and his people, and here he was trying to out-think a living, thinking opponent.
He just hoped he figured things out better than Malik.
***
“You're right, sir,” Woodard said later that night. “There's too many of them and they're too well-equipped. We can't have those bastards at our rear.”
They'd put together a sand-table of the city, the bridges, and the main rail lines and roads through the entire thing. So far, the prognosis looked grim.
“They definitely seem to expect us to head north,” Josh Wachope said. They'd identified several enemy positions. Nidal Malik had positioned heavy weapons and snipers on the approaches, with heavier barricades on the south side of town. But on the north side...
“They've got to be setting up some kind of ambush,” Josh said. “Either here...” he pointed at an area where the rail line went through a hillside, dropping down low so that there was high ground to either side. “Or maybe at the bridge across the Missouri here.”
Jack nodded. Those were the most obvious points. Since there were only a few rail lines headed out of the city, it looked like those were the best points. There were only two sets of train tracks that led north out of the town.
“Unless he wants us to try to swing through town on our way south?” Tim asked.
“Doesn't make sense,” Josh shook his head. “There's a couple of tracks we could take south, but we'd have to be stupid to try it. We'd be going through extremely constricted terrain in the central part of the downtown area. A half dozen men with rifles could pick us off, much less the weapons he's got.”
“So why north?” Robert Brockman asked.
Everyone looked at him. The architect shrugged, “I mean, why would he assume we're going northwest?”
“I sort of hinted at it earlier,” Jack said. “Maybe he believed me.”
“Leavenworth is in that direction,” Josh Wachope said. He shot Jack a look, “Have you asked Doctor Madison what happened there? There might be some military survivors there we could link up with.”
“I'll ask her, but that's a good point. Maybe there's potential help in that direction,” Jack said. He stared at the sand table, then pulled out the map of the city. “I don't think that's an option, though... trying to get through that area is going to be nearly impossible.”
“Going south is going to be hard, though,” Chavez pointed out. “They've got at least those three armored vehicles, plus some Humvees, all of them with fifty cals. If they see us coming... and I don't see how they couldn't, then they can still shift south and tear us up.”
“True enough,” Jack nodded. The problem was that the train was too big, too loud, to try to sneak through the city. Even if some of his people managed to take down some of the guards at the south end quietly, the ones up north couldn't possibly miss the noise and sound of the train and that didn't even take into consideration the lookouts that Malik had in the tall structures around the city.
Stealth isn't an option. Jack thought to himself. They were outgunned and outnumbered. He couldn't think of any kind of distraction they could do that wouldn't be suicidal and pointless. Malik's trucks could take shortcuts and get ahead of their train, they could pursue them out of the city, if necessary... unless he managed to hurt them badly enough.
The problem was, they had the one heavy crew served weapon and not nearly enough ammunition to do the job.
“Okay, we're going to need to hit them hard, somehow,” Jack said. He went through their weapons and equipment. Radios, rifles, shotguns, many of them low on ammunition. They were low on primers for reloading, they were low on powder. They were even low on bullets. Paul had been melting down led from car batteries to make more. Jack grew frustrated and he pulled out the list of stuff they had found in the area. Electronics, useless, fireworks, more than useless, they'll just draw zombies, fertilizer... Jack looked up. “How many tankers of diesel did we find?”
“Five, I think,” Tim said. “Why?”
Jack began to smile. The idea was risky, dangerous, and something of an all or nothing gamble, but if it worked...
“Alright,” Jack said. “Here's the plan...”
***
Jack stepped away from the planning session and walked towards the cook tent someone had set up. The sun had set and the whole camp was pitch black. Here and there he stumbled and tripped. Their perimeter guards had a mix of night vision scopes and goggles, but he knew only too well that the batteries for those were getting to be almost non-existent.
This will help... hopefully.
He opened the first curtain and then made sure it was secure before he stepped through the second one. The double sets of curtains prevented any light from escaping. Light at night would draw zombies just as certainly as noise.
The tent was mostly empty, all but a couple of cooks who were cleaning up and starting to pack their big kettles and other cooking supplies. Tim had already given everyone the word to get ready to move, it seemed. That was good, they'd have to scramble to get everything ready in time as it was.
Jack saw Doctor Madison seated at one of the folding tables near the back, her head in her hands. He grabbed a plastic bowl with beans and rice in it and moved to sit across from her. “How you holding up?” Jack asked softly.
She looked up, her eyes red from crying, “Oh, sorry, I just...” She shook her head. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause a scene or anything...”
“You're fine,” Jack smiled. “What's the problem?” He asked it gently, even though he already suspected the answer.
“This... all this, you know? It's so safe. It's almost civilization. After everything I've been through, it all just kind of came crashing in on me. I've been fighting to stay going for so long, trying to keep it all inside of me and...”
“And now that you feel safe you feel overwhelmed?” Jack asked. “It's a response a lot of folks have, in the first few days after they join us. Mostly from the people who've been through the worst of it. Believe it or not, but we get plenty of people who survived in isolation, hiding out and getting lucky, until we came along. But we also get a lot of people who have survived by their fingernails, who've seen their friends and family pulled down by the undead.”
She nodded at that. “Yeah.”
“So,” Jack said, “Tell me what happened to you.”
She looked up sharply, “Is this some kind of interrogation?”
Jack shook his head, “No. But you might have some information we could use, especially anything about Fort Leavenworth, since that's where you came from. Besides, generally speaking, talking about this stuff helps.”
“I don't know about that,” she replied. But she gave a sigh. “I was a Doctor there at Leavenworth. It was nice. I worked at the post clinic and did some extra time on the weekends at the prisons there. I was single, it was my first job out of med school. It was far enough away from home that everything was new and exciting.” Her expression went sour as she said that.
“Prisons?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, there's the military prison, but there's three federal prisons on the grounds there. That's part of why...” she trailed off, her gaze going distant. “That's part of how things fell apart.”
“What happened?” Jack asked.
“Too many mouths to feed, mostly,” she said bitterly. “The post commander made a decision, he couldn't guard all the prisoners and the perimeter, and he didn't have the manpower for it. So he started releasing prisoners into the countryside to fend for themselves. He didn't want to just
kill them and create more undead. But a lot of those prisoners had nowhere to go. They staged a big attack on one side of the post, some of the military prisoners rioted at the same time...” She shrugged. “Everything went to hell. I was at the military prison at the time. Nidal and some of the other death row inmates dragged me and a few others along with them, grabbing weapons and whatever vehicles they could on the way.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Do you know if anyone survived?”
“I have no idea, it was all so confused. The gunfire brought undead from Kansas City, we barely made it across the bridge into Missouri.” She shuddered. “Malik was paralyzed. Half of why they brought me along was to help him. He didn't get... he didn't become what he was until we got to St Louis.”
“Where'd they get the weapons, ammunition, and trucks?” Jack asked.
“There was the remains a military convoy, just on the edge of the Mark Twain forest, south of St Louis. They were trying to circle around town and head east when they found it. All the drivers were missing, it was like they'd just stopped and climbed out and never came back. It was all loaded up there, five armored vehicles and pallets and containers with ammunition and weapons. That was when they decided to go into the city, to see if they could find anything valuable.”
“And?” Jack asked.
She looked up, “That's when they ran into the Hand of God. I wasn't there. I heard about it later. It smashed one of their armored trucks, killed two of the three leaders for the group... but it spared Nidal Malik. It saw something in him... or that's what Malik said, anyway.” She swallowed and picked at her food with her plastic spoon. “He walked back to camp the next morning. Walked. On his own two feet when I would have bet good money that he never would have walked again. He told the other escaped prisoners that he'd been chosen. A couple of them thought he was crazy. One of them argued with him. Then Nidal had a dozen zombies walk out of the woods and they ripped him apart. After that, no one argued with him.”
“I'm sorry,” Jack said, reaching out and putting his hand on hers.
She didn't answer for a long moment. “I stayed, I did what I could for the people they captured. I tried to tell myself that any good I could do would be good enough... but I was just terrified. What he did, what he can do... it's not right. It's not of this world.”
“I know,” Jack said. “And we're going to put an end to it... and him, I promise.”
She took a bite of her food and then her dark eyes met his. She flushed a bit, “Sorry for all of that. I suppose I do feel better for talking about it, though.” She grimaced at the taste and looked down at her bowl, “I guess I miss the food, though.”
“Yeah,” Jack grinned. He took a mouthful of the beans and rice and he couldn't help but flash back to the juicy steak he'd had as Nidal Malik's guest. That almost makes the whole thing worthwhile.
“So, Captain,” Doctor Madison said, “tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Doc...” Jack protested.
“Call me Katie, please. Everyone calling me Doctor all the time gets old,” she smiled.
“Fine, but call me Jack. I'm not a big fan of everyone calling me Captain,” Jack replied. He sighed, “Not much to tell about me. My parents both died a few years back. My brother died in the first few days of all of this...” he shrugged. “I was assigned with Third Infantry Division, we were fighting the zombies on the east coast... right up until we ran out of bullets and fuel and everything else.”
“How'd you get in charge of all this?” Katie Madison asked.
“Accident and chance as much as anything else. I'd fallen in with a group of survivors. We stuck together and we'd taken refuge in a train yard. Paul was there. He'd been a mechanic there for decades and that was where he'd taken his family.” Jack couldn't help a flinch as he remembered how Paul had lost his family back in Cincinnati, trying to cross the Ohio. That was Jack's fault. He sighed, “Anyway, I asked him if he could get some of the train engines going, if we could load the cars up with food and supplies. The rest just sort of happened.”
“You don't like it when people call you Captain, do you?” she asked.
Jack couldn't help but look away. “It's not something I'm all that proud of.”
“What, military service?” She asked.
“No, not that at all...” Jack struggled to find the words. Finally, he settled for the unvarnished truth. “Before all this happened, I got passed over for promotion a couple of times. That meant I had to leave service. I submitted my letter of resignation. I was getting ready to take leave, to go back home and get a normal job. Then all this happened.”
“Why is that a problem?” Katie asked.
“Because the Army said I wasn't good enough,” Jack ground out, feeling once again the sense of betrayal and anguish. “I gave them everything I had and I wasn't good enough. That's why I feel like a fraud. I'm a Captain, yeah, but only by technicality. Another few months and I'd be no different from anyone else.”
“You are different, though,” Katie said. This time, she was the one who reached out a hand and rested it on his. “You put all this together. You're the center to this whole group of survivors. And when that... that thing was going to kill me, you stood up in front of it and you hurt it.”
Jack couldn't meet her eyes. None of that was anything special. He'd done what he had to do. That was it. No more and no less. “Well, that doesn't change anything, not really. I'm a Captain, yeah, but that's not how I see myself.”
She leaned back and he could feel her eyes on him. Studying, watching. He found himself feeling oddly uncomfortable under that gaze and it took him a moment to realize why. He cared what she thought about him. Jack wanted her to think good of him, despite the fact that he'd laid out his embarrassing past.
“I should go,” Jack said. “Lots of work to get done.”
“I'll see you later, Jack,” Katie said to him as he rose. “And Jack?”
“Yeah?” He asked as he rinsed his bowl out.
“I think they were idiots not to promote you.”
***
Jack was headed back to the planning group, his mind going back to Katie Madison, when he came across Paul Montandon in the dark.
“Hey Paul, careful out here,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Paul said absently. He looked around, “I can't find my keys.”
“Well,” Jack grinned, “you aren't going to find them in the dark. Let's get back to the group, right?”
“Yeah,” Paul nodded. “I just need to find my keys.”
Jack felt worry squirm in his stomach. “Paul, are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul leaned heavily against the side of the train. “I'm... I think I...”
He didn't finish talking before he collapsed. Jack hurried to catch him. The man began to go into convulsions and Jack dragged him back to the cooking tent. “Doctor Madison!” He shouted, “I need your help!”
She pulled back the flap of the tent and Jack dragged Paul inside. The old man's face had gone pale and the scar on the side of his head stood out against it. “He's having some kind of seizure,” Jack said.
“Is he...” Doctor Madison asked.
“He's alive,” Jack said, checking the man's pulse to be certain. He swallowed, “Paul was diagnosed with brain cancer before all this started, some really aggressive kind... I think this is related.”
“Okay, lay him flat...”
“Doc!” Tim came running into the tent. “Doc Madison! There you are, Cat's water just broke, we need...” He seemed to finally take in the situation in the tent. “Oh, shit, is Paul okay?”
She peeled back Paul's eyelids and shone a flashlight in each eye. “Some kind of seizure. His pupils are huge, I'm worried he might be going into shock.” She looked up, “I know he's your friend...”
“Go see to Cat,” Jack replied. “We'll get Paul back to the medical car.” Though Jack didn't know what good that would do. If this were a result of the cancer, he didn't know what any of t
hem could do. Paul had been living on borrowed time as it was... it seemed that time was quickly running out.
***
Chapter Fifteen
Jack climbed down from the medical car and he couldn't help but sway a bit in exhaustion. “How's it look?” Josh Wachope asked.
Jack rubbed at his eyes, “Sorry, I hadn't even seen you there.” He gave a sigh, “It's not good. Paul's still alive, but he's in and out of consciousness. And Cat... well she's having a rough time of things.”
Josh winced. His wife, Heather, had given birth to their second child only a few months before all this had happened. She'd had access to all kinds of medicine and doctors and it had still been difficult.
Without any kinds of painkillers, without any more expertise than their one doctor, Jack didn't know if Tim Kennedy's wife would survive.
“How go the preparations?” Jack changed the subject. He didn't want to think about how he might lose two friends in the next few hours. We haven't even attacked yet.
“We're getting things prepped,” Josh said. “The hardest part is getting the train ready. We've got everyone who isn't prepping other parts filling sandbags and putting the steel plates in place.”
Jack nodded. They hoped that the steel plates and sandbags would protect their passengers at least somewhat. They'd also rigged what protections they could on the engines, though with how the diesel engines needed air flow that was difficult at best. The steel plate they'd managed to salvage should at least provide protection against smaller caliber rifle rounds.
Several of the mechanics were at work, welding armor in place on the front of Engine Three, even while a couple others were making the modifications so that the plow would connect to it. “The rest?” Jack asked.
“McCune, Baxter, and Knighton have helped to draw out what they saw of the compound. If you could look it over, that would help,” Wachope replied.
