Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7)

by Arthur Bradley

  “Winner of the British Open eleven years ago?”

  “Sorry,” he repeated, “golf’s not my game.”

  The door to the clubhouse opened, and Leila and the cadets streamed out. As they approached, Mason turned and introduced them. Ashby shook hands and offered a proper nod to each.

  “Might I ask why you’re interested in the bunker? Are you looking for a place to hide?”

  Rodriguez and Cobb stiffened, but Mason played it cool. Secrets were best kept by acting as if there were no secrets at all.

  “We’re hoping to meet up with a few friends. We think they may already be inside.”

  “I see.” He thought for a moment as if pondering a particularly interesting chess move. When he finally spoke, his voice was different, more calculated. “Have you ever been to The Greenbrier?”

  “Once, a long time ago.”

  “Do you even remember where the blast doors are located? They’re not easy to find.”

  Mason shook his head. “Not really, no. All I remember is that there are three doors.”

  Ashby smiled. “Four actually.”

  “Four?”

  “One isn’t part of the tour, as it were.”

  A hidden entrance? Mason’s gut tightened. If Ashby knew of the entrance, General Hood might also.

  “One door is inside the resort,” explained Ashby. “Another is around by the loading dock. And the third is out by the stables.”

  “And the fourth?”

  “The fourth is part of the air shaft. All of them are hard to find.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “And I suppose you know where each of the doors are located?” Mason said, deducing that some kind of bartering was underway.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve worked here as a golf instructor for more than six years. As such, I’ve seen nearly every square inch of this place. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I used to be engaged to the woman who managed the bunker.” He smiled, and his eyes grew distant, as if he was reliving a particularly pleasant memory.

  Leila stepped closer. “What is it you want, Mr. Ashby?”

  “Who says I want something?” he said defensively.

  She smiled. “Don’t you?”

  He bit his lower lip. “There are five of you, and all of you have guns.”

  “Yes, so?”

  “So, you could help me get Claret.”

  “Who’s Claret? Your wife?”

  The dreamy smile returned. “The love of my life, that’s for sure. I brought her back from Edinburgh when the virus hit.”

  “And she’s where? Inside The Greenbrier?”

  He nodded. “I wasn’t able to get back to her after the explosion.”

  “What explosion?” said Mason.

  “There was a gas explosion in the lower lobby. The whole floor collapsed, along with most of the stairwells.”

  “Is there no way to get past it?” asked Leila.

  “For a group of young people like yourselves, sure, but for an old man like me…” He shrugged.

  “I see.” She looked to Mason. “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s not telling us the whole story.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ashby.

  “You said something about our guns. Getting over a sunken floor has nothing to do with weapons.”

  Ashby’s eyes grew wide, and when he spoke, it was barely above a whisper.

  “There’s something in The Greenbrier. Something alive. Something awful. A monster.”

  Leila raised her eyebrows. “A monster?”

  He nodded.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No, but I’ve heard it banging around, knocking out walls in search of food. I think it eats the bodies of those who died in the hotel.”

  Mason and Leila said nothing.

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “We’ve seen things that were neither human nor animal. Haven’t we, Marshal?”

  He offered a noncommittal nod.

  Rodriguez couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

  “Mister, if you left Claret in there with some kind of monster running around, what makes you think she hasn’t been grabbed up as dinner?” When Leila cut her eyes at him, he responded with, “What? Everyone was thinking the same thing.”

  “Claret’s still there,” said Ashby. “I’m sure of it.”

  “So, that’s the deal?” said Mason. “You’ll show us the doors, but only if we get Claret out first?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way.”

  “No? How would you have put it?”

  “It’s just that when I brought Claret back, I became responsible for her. It’s not like I can…” he struggled for words and nearly choked up. He swallowed and looked at Mason. “You help me to get Claret back, and I’ll take you to the doors. You have my word.”

  Mason considered their options. While there might be someone else in the vicinity who could help them find the bunker doors, it seemed unlikely that anyone would willingly choose to go inside a building that was falling in on itself, let alone one crawling with some kind of mutated creature.

  “All right.”

  Ashby looked surprised. “All right? That means you’ll do it?”

  “I can’t see that we have much choice. We’ll rescue Claret and check the blast door that’s inside the resort. After that, you’ll take us to the other three doors, including the one in the air shaft. Agreed?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s fine,” he said quickly. “Anything to get Claret back.”

  Mason turned to Leila and the cadets.

  “We’ll need to travel light if we’re going to navigate a collapsed building. Everyone check their pack and pull out anything you don’t absolutely need.”

  The group hurried back to the vehicles and began sorting through their supplies. The first things Mason grabbed were two tactical vests with the words “US Marshal” printed on the front and back. Designed for speed and agility, they were lightweight shells lined with curved armor plates. While the plates would stop anything up to and including a 7.62 mm round, they didn’t offer side or groin protection. Even if they had, it was important to remember that tactical vests weren’t about making their wearer bulletproof; they were about increasing the odds of surviving a mistake.

  He slipped one over his head and handed the other to Leila.

  “For me?” she said with a grin. “Really, you’re such a romantic.”

  “Should we take food?” asked Bell.

  “One meal. Same goes for water.”

  “What about ammunition?” said Cobb.

  Mason hesitated. It was a good question. If they found themselves in a firefight with the Black Dogs, they would want every round they could carry. But ammunition was heavy.

  “Bring three magazines for each rifle. If we need more, we’ll either take it from them or try to make our way back here.”

  After Mason emptied his pack of everything but the barest of necessities, he reached into the truck bed and slid forward the heavy crate of Claymore anti-personnel mines.

  Rodriguez, Cobb, and Leila all came closer. Ashby, on the other hand, was busy playing fetch the golf ball with Bowie.

  “Talk about heavy!” said Rodriguez. “I hope we’re not planning on hauling those things with us.”

  “Not all of them, no. But we should at least take a few.”

  Mason used a screwdriver to pry open the lid. Inside were three neat stacks of mines, canvas carrying bandoleers, a cluster of M57 “clackers,” and a pile of M4 blasting cap wire assemblies. He lifted out one of the convex-shaped mines.

  “How do they work?” asked Cobb.

  “They’re pretty much idiot-proof as long as you heed the sign.” He pointed to the words stamped on the face of each mine: Front Toward Enemy. “Once you place the mine, use the peep sight at the top to line it up, insert a firing pin into one of the detonator wells,
roll out a little wire, attach the other end to the clacker, and squeeze it.”

  “How far away do you need to be?” asked Bell.

  “Get at least twenty yards behind it and find cover.”

  She nodded. “Twenty yards, got it.”

  Cobb picked up one of the mines and shook it slightly.

  “What’s inside?”

  Mason gently took it from him.

  “A pound and a half of C4 and seven hundred steel ball bearings. Enough to make a mess of things. Officially, the effective range is fifty yards, but I can tell you from experience they’ll reach out and touch someone much farther than that.”

  Rodriguez picked up one of the clackers and looked to Mason for his approval.

  “It’s safe as long as it’s not connected to the blasting cap.”

  He flipped off the safety bail, and squeezed the handle. It made a loud click.

  “It’s a three-step reaction,” explained Mason. “The handle generates electrical current, the current blows the blasting cap, and the cap sets off the C4.”

  Cobb snatched up another of the clackers and gave it a squeeze.

  “It’s like one of those ignition buttons on a barbecue grill.”

  Rodriguez shook his head, saying only, “Can it be reused on more than one mine?”

  “It can. Just pull off the spent wire, and the clacker’s ready to go.” Mason unfolded the mine’s telescoping legs and stood the unit upright on the tailgate. He bent down and demonstrated how to use a pencil to align the peep sight.

  “It’s not exactly a precision instrument, is it?” said Bell.

  “On the contrary, it’s an area-of-effect weapon. But don’t underestimate its potency. A Claymore mine can clear a room unlike anything else.”

  She said nothing more as she studied the mines with newfound respect.

  Mason stuffed six bandoleers with a mine, clacker, and a roll of wire. He handed one to each cadet and another to Leila. He took the final two for himself.

  “Any other questions?”

  Everyone looked to one another, but no one spoke.

  “All right, then. Let’s go get Claret.”

  Chapter 5

  When a more thorough search of the Abner Cloud House revealed no additional clues about Dr. Jarvis’s whereabouts, Tanner and Samantha accepted that their choices were rather limited. They would either have to seek him out, operating on a hunch that he had returned to the hospital, or they would have to wait. Neither of them were very good at waiting, and it took only a few minutes to stuff their belongings into their packs and head out.

  They trudged around to the back of the building, scaled the small stone wall, and stepped out onto Canal Road.

  “Which way?” she said, looking left and right.

  He nodded to the right. “That way.”

  “That’s the direction we came in last night.”

  “Yep. And it’ll take us all the way back to the Key Bridge, which I’m pretty sure comes out onto M Street.”

  “All right,” she said, starting off down the road. “Might as well get going.”

  Tanner followed behind, occasionally glancing back to make sure they didn’t miss Dr. Jarvis, should he happen to stroll in from the opposite direction. No such luck. If they were ever going to see him again, it would require a little looking on their part.

  Canal Road was a cozy two-lane thoroughfare with a small stone wall on one side and a twenty-foot embankment on the other. The canal itself flowed through a small ravine on the other side of the wall, and from their vantage point, they had a clear view of the shiny green water below. There were a few cars sprinkled here and there, but the road was easily traveled on foot. Trees blanketed them in cool shadows, and other than spotting the occasional droppings from animals that clearly didn’t belong in Washington, D.C., there was no real sense of danger.

  “I’ve been thinking,” started Samantha.

  “Uh-oh.”

  She smiled. “Funny. Anyway, I’ve been thinking that once all this is over, you should sign me up for school somewhere.”

  “School?”

  “You know, a place with books and chalk boards.”

  “All I can remember about school are math tests and cafeteria lunches.” He made a face. “Why would you want to do that to yourself?”

  She shrugged. “I need to get smarter.”

  “That’s what I’m doing—making you smarter.”

  “And I appreciate that,” she said quickly. “Really, I do.”

  “But?”

  “But I think I should learn things besides how to hotwire a car or pull a man’s throat out through his eyes.”

  “Don’t be silly. You can’t pull a man’s throat out through his eyes. You could probably get to his brains—”

  “You know what I’m saying. I need to learn things like English and history.”

  “English and history?” He shook his head. “Darlin’, you and I were clearly cut from a different cloth.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that we’re different, that’s all.”

  “Of course we’re different. You’re a cranky giant, and I’m a—”

  “Human chatterbox?”

  She grinned. “Chatterbox. I like that.”

  He smiled too, recognizing their banter for what it was.

  “So, what do you say?”

  “About what?”

  “School.”

  “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “Really? You’re not just saying that?”

  He nodded. “Really.”

  She reached over and squeezed his hand.

  “Thanks Tanner.”

  “Wait to thank me until after you’ve seen what they’re trying to pass off as tacos.”

  She chuckled. “What about you? What can I do to make you happy?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

  “You are?”

  “Sure. What’s not to be happy about?” He took a deep breath. “The air is clean. No one’s hassling me. And I ate goose for breakfast. Life is good.”

  “Plus, don’t forget you’ve got me.”

  “Yeah, that too,” he said with less vigor.

  A scream sounded from up the embankment. Samantha stopped and turned, but Tanner didn’t even slow down.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” she asked.

  “Of course, I heard it. I’m old, not deaf.”

  “We should go check it out. Someone might need help.”

  “The whole world needs help. A chatterbox and a giant aren’t going to change that.”

  “Still, I’d feel better knowing what’s going on.” Samantha scrambled up the dirt bank on her hands and knees. “Come on,” she said, waving for him to follow.

  Tanner sighed and climbed after her, confident that nothing good was going to come of their butting into someone else’s troubles.

  When they got to the top of the embankment, the area opened up to reveal two sprawling bodies of water surrounded by a chain link fence. Together, the pools stretched a thousand feet from one end to the other, and probably half that in width. At first, Tanner thought they were man-made lakes, which made absolutely no sense given the value of real estate in the D.C. metropolitan area. It was only when he spotted a sign hanging on the fence that he understood what they were looking at. Georgetown Reservoir. No Trespassing!

  Two men and a short, fat woman had gathered in the center of a concrete walkway that bisected the reservoir. They watched as another man waded out into the waist-deep water, shoving a young woman ahead of him. Without warning, he kicked her feet out from under her, and she fell with an indignant splash. He turned, exchanged a few words with one of the men on the walkway, and then began dunking her heard under the water.

  “What are they doing?” asked Samantha.

  “Drowning someone would be my guess.”

  She slowly brought her rifle up to her shoulder.

  “We
have to stop them.”

  “Whoa, Tiger,” he said, resting his hand on the barrel. “We don’t know who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong.”

  “Good people don’t drown other people.”

  “I don’t know about that. I could see myself drowning someone.”

  “Like I said.”

  “Even so, this isn’t our fight.”

  Without taking her eyes away from the sights, Samantha said, “Maybe not, but I can’t stand here and watch them drown that lady. You’d better do something, or I’m going to start shooting.”

  Tanner stared out at the group, considering his options. While he was clearly outnumbered, only the two men on the berm appeared to be carrying rifles.

  Finally, he said, “You ever see the movie Lethal Weapon?”

  She thought for a moment. “Did it star Johnny Depp?”

  Tanner furrowed his brow. “No, of course not.”

  “Because he’s pretty funny.”

  “It wasn’t Johnny Depp. Anyway, in the movie—”

  “I loved him in Edward Scissorhands. Did you ever see that?”

  “No, but—”

  “Oh, you’ve got to see it. He’s got scissors for hands.” She cracked up. “Can you imagine? How could you do anything with scissors?” She pretended to slice the air with her fingers.

  “Sam,” he growled.

  “What?”

  “I was suggesting that you act as the sniper while I go check it out.”

  “You want me to cover you?”

  “That’s right.”

  She looked puzzled. “Then why’d you bring up Johnny Depp?”

  Tanner rolled his eyes. “I’m going over the fence. Try not to shoot me in the back.”

  “Sure thing.” She stepped behind a tree and rested her rifle on one of the branches. As Tanner climbed over the fence, she called out, “Scissors for hands. Crazy, right?”

  By the time Tanner scaled the fence, the group had stopped and turned to face him. Thankfully, the person doing the drowning had also stopped, allowing the victim, a woman in her mid-thirties, to briefly catch her breath. She coughed and spat, flailing about as she desperately tried to free herself. The man in the water was tall and fit, like a tennis player, and he held the woman with his arm outstretched, fingers knotted in the tangle of her long black hair.

  Everyone was eying Tanner warily. Based on their ages and facial similarities, the men all looked to be related, likely a father and his two sons. The fat woman showed no resemblance to anyone and had a pompous air about her. Fortunately, the rifles that Tanner had seen from a distance turned out to be baseball bats. Dangerous, yes, but not in the way a rifle was. The fat woman and the man in the water also each had a fixed-blade hunting knife on their belt. Apocalypse or not, decades of strict gun control laws in the nation’s capital had made it difficult for the city’s survivors to put their hands on firearms.