Bo held his mom’s gaze.
“All right,” he said finally.
Beckham placed a hand on Bo’s shoulder. “You’re making the right choice.” Then he looked to Donna. “Come on. We’ll give you guys a ride.”
Donna wrapped her arm around Bo’s shoulder. He helped her into the passenger seat of the single cab pickup. Horn took the wheel, and Beckham climbed in the bed with Bo.
“Hold up,” Ruckley called out.
By the look on her face, Beckham could tell she had news for him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I told my team to keep an ear out for word on Timothy. A corporal just found out one of the two militia trucks returned to campus an hour ago,” Ruckley said. “From what the militia told us, your friend Timothy is part of another group that stayed out there to hunt down the collaborators.”
Beckham growled out a curse.
“Did they say where Timothy’s group was last seen?” Horn asked.
“No,” Ruckley said. “But they’re still at the staging area. You can ask them yourselves if you want.”
A loud voice called out behind her. One of the other Rangers was arguing with the straggling crowds.
“Keep moving,” he said in a tone just shy of a shout.
“We need a ride too,” a woman said, pointing at the truck. “Why do they get one?”
“I better handle this,” Ruckley said. “The staging area is between Woodbury Campus Center and Masterton Hall. I’ll meet you there.”
Beckham nodded and tapped the side of the pickup. Horn pulled onto the curb and over the grass to another road curving through a residential area. Then he turned onto Bedford Street and headed for the checkpoints.
Ahead, soldiers and civilians worked together to create sandbag fortifications for machine gunners, and forklifts moved concrete barriers. Razor wire torn down from other areas of the outpost was being redistributed. Snipers and machine gunners perched on the top of the buildings.
The university was quickly transforming into a fortress.
Horn parked in the lot between Masterton Hall and the Woodbury Campus Center. Lines of people snaked away from tents set up in the lawn for temporary housing assignments.
More lines had formed outside a shipping container on the back of a flatbed truck. Soldiers handed out weapons and ammunition to anyone that appeared capable of fighting.
Bo jumped out of the pickup and helped Donna down from the cab.
“You guys go get your temporary assignment for now,” Beckham said. “We’re going to find these militia guys. I’ll come back for you later, okay?”
Donna hesitated, uncertainty crossing her face.
“We promise,” Horn said.
Beckham jerked his chin, and Horn followed him toward a cluster of pickup trucks and Jeeps where about a dozen men in camouflaged fatigues had gathered. They were clearly militia judging by their shotguns, non-military clothing, and unkempt beards.
“Were you the ones chasing the collaborators?” Horn called out.
The men turned from their conversation to look at Beckham and Big Horn. A heavyset bald man with a long goatee hanging to his chest walked over.
“I was part of that group,” he said. “You got a problem?”
“Yeah, we got a problem,” Horn started.
Beckham put a hand on Horn’s arm, trying to coax the man’s burly aggression down a notch. “Problem is we need to know what happened to the other truck. One of our friends was with them.”
“They ain’t back yet,” the militiaman said.
“No shit,” Horn said. “Show us on a map where they went.”
“I can do y’all one better,” the man said. “I can take you there.”
Horn and Beckham exchanged a glance.
“Just a thirty-five-minute drive,” the man said. “My boys and I were thinking about going back out there in the morning. How about we wait until then?”
“We were thinking today,” Beckham said.
The man looked at the sky, eyes narrowed. “We can manage a short trip, but we got to move fast if we want to be back before we lose the light.”
“What do you think, boss?” Horn asked.
“I think this is our best chance,” Beckham said. “Niven made it clear he isn’t sending anyone anytime soon.”
“Better stop wasting time then,” Horn said. He pointed at the man with the goatee. “You driving or you want me to?”
“I’ll drive,” the guy said. “Anyone else coming?”
The other men avoided his gaze.
“The rest of you boys scared of the dark?” the man said, then shrugged. “Guess it’s just us three. Name’s Sam, by the way.”
“Captain Reed Beckham, and Master Sergeant Parker Horn,” Beckham said.
“Nice to meet you, fellas,” Sam said, shaking both their hands. He led them to a single cab Toyota pickup with a mounted M240 in the rusted bed. Beckham went for the passenger side door, and Horn climbed into the back.
The diesel engine of a Humvee roared behind them, and the vehicle pulled up alongside them.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ruckley growled.
“Timothy was our responsibility,” Horn said. “We promised his dad we would look after him. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“Team Ghost does not break promises,” Beckham added.
“That lady back there—Donna, right?—she was right about Timothy,” Ruckley said. “I hate saying it, but we all know he’s probably already dead.”
“Probably doesn’t mean one-hundred percent,” Horn said.
“Sergeant, I know you regret letting the collaborators get away during that first attack,” Beckham said. “This is your chance to get revenge.”
“Vicariously, through us,” Horn said, leaning on the pickup’s cab.
Ruckley clenched her jaw, fists trembling for a second. “God dammit. You’re putting me in a really shitty position here. If Niven finds out I let you go at this hour, my ass is toast.”
“We’ll be back before he even knows,” Horn said.
“You fucking better be, Master Sergeant,” she said. “All due respect, and all that other crap.”
“Can’t hear you,” Horn said. “Because you were never here and didn’t see me leave.” He grabbed the machine gun and tapped the top of the cab.
Sam started the engine, and Beckham closed the door. He kept his window rolled down and charged his rifle as Sam drove out of the lot and through the city. The soldiers manning checkpoints all gave them the same look as if to say, You guys crazy?
It wasn’t the best of plans, but Beckham and Horn couldn’t just leave Timothy out there.
The sun continued to lower in the sky on the ride. Sam didn’t talk much and Beckham kept quiet. They both clearly had one thing on their mind—finding the militia soldiers.
Thirty minutes later they pulled onto a gravel and dirt road.
“There,” Sam said, pointing.
He eased off the gas as they approached an idle truck.
“Stay here and keep it running,” Beckham said. He opened his door and motioned for Horn to stay on the mounted machine gun.
Beckham shouldered his M4A1 as he approached the truck. Bullet holes had fractured the windshield, and the driver side window was shattered, revealing torn seats covered in blood that gave him a pretty clear mental image of what had happened.
He halted when he saw long scratches marred the door.
It wasn’t the collaborators that had attacked the militia.
Variants had done this.
He cautiously opened the truck door to look inside. A pistol with a bloody grip rested on a floor mat, surrounded by empty bullet casings.
Beckham picked the familiar gun up, confirming it was the same pistol Jake Temper gave his son for his sixteenth birthday by the engraving on the barrel.
Never Stop Fighting.
He remembered Kate insisting on holding the party at their house. The memori
es sparked a wave of dread that washed over Beckham, deflating him like a punctured tire. He wiped the pistol handle against his pants to clean off the blood, then stuffed the gun in his waistband.
As he made his way back to the pickup, he scanned the woods. The autumn colors glowed in the final hours of sunlight in what might have been considered a divine view before the age of monsters.
But Beckham knew evil dwelled in those woods and wouldn’t hesitate to show itself once they’d turned dark.
Ruckley was probably right. By all odds, Timothy was likely dead. But there was a chance, however small, that the young man was still alive. If he was, then he was almost certainly a prisoner to the beasts. A fate even worse than a quick slash of a claw to the throat.
He walked over to the side of the truck and looked up at Horn, then pulled out the pistol. “It was his.”
“I could tell by the look on your face,” Horn said quietly. He clenched his jaw, face turning red as he looked out over the forest.
They stood in silence for a moment before Beckham gave an order that almost physically hurt. Timothy’s trail ended here. Coming out here had been a big enough risk. Searching for Timothy now would be suicide.
“We have to get back to the outpost for now,” he said.
Horn didn’t protest. The brash man knew they had no choice. Instead his eyes went low, and he kicked at the pickup bed, muttering a stream of curses.
Beckham got back into the cab.
“Either the guys that stayed out here are all dead or they’re prisoners now,” he told Sam.
The old militia soldier didn’t seem too surprised. “I see. We calling off the search then?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Sam put the vehicle into drive. Beckham kept his rifle on his lap as they drove away. They wound back down the road, surrounded by the hilly forest rising on either side. Shadows enveloped them as the sun began its descent beyond the trees.
“Lost some good men out there,” Sam said, nose twitching. “Men I called friends. Stephen was one of the best I ever had.”
“I’m sorry,” Beckham said.
“Me—”
The M240 barked the same second Beckham saw the men emerge from the woods. Muzzle flashes came from the foliage, rounds peppering the passenger door and shattering the window.
“Floor it!” Beckham yelled. He leaned down, barely avoiding a volley of bullets meant for his head. They sliced past him, but still found a target.
Hot blood splattered his neck as he remained hunched. Beckham glanced to the side. Sam had been hit across his shoulders and chest. Despite the injuries he kept his hands on the wheel and foot on the pedal.
Sam tried to open his mouth to talk, but only blood came out.
The crack of the M240 exploded again.
Return fire punched through the passenger door, letting in rays of light. Another bullet clipped Sam in the neck, blood spraying out. He reached up to staunch the wound, and Beckham grabbed the wheel.
Sam slumped forward onto the wheel, breaking Beckham’s grip.
The truck swerved into the ditch and down an embankment that ended at a cluster of large trees. Beckham sat up. In the side mirror, he saw Horn jump out of the bed and roll into the foliage. The pickup jolted violently at the bottom of the ditch.
There was no time for Beckham to brace himself. Crunching metal and shattering glass sounded when the hood of the truck crumpled against a tree. Beckham’s head snapped into the dashboard. There was pain, but then only darkness.
A voice stirred him awake some time later.
Beckham groaned, his head pounding.
He opened his eyes to a view of overhead branches. Leaves fluttered down behind over a blurred face.
“Boss, you got to wake up,” Horn said.
Beckham’s vision cleared enough to see Horn, a cigarette sticking out from the corner of his mouth.
“There you are, brother,” Horn said. “Can you sit up?”
He grabbed Beckham under the arm and helped him up. Beckham reached up to touch a tender gash on his head, blood still trickling from it.
“Reed, say something,” Horn said.
“Where are the fuckers that ambushed us?”
Horn grinned. “Dead. All four of ’em; I fucked ’em up good. We got to move before more come.”
Beckham saw Horn had already gathered their weapons and added a backpack to the mix. He guessed that’s where the new cigarette came from too.
“Can you walk?” Horn asked.
“I think so. You got the radio?”
“Yeah… but it’s broke dick,” Horn said. “We’re on our own, boss.”
— 7 —
Spotlights snapped on around Scott AFB as the horizon swallowed the last drop of sunlight. They flitted back and forth over the terrain as the soldiers prepared to defend the base for a second night.
Beyond the defenses, smoke still drifted away from smoldering buildings and houses. The crack of gunfire echoed through the early evening as the final hunter-killer teams finished picking off the rogue Variants still prowling for food.
Fitz carried a box of explosives out of the command building. The rest of Team Ghost was working to put up a third fence surrounding the building. The front gate to the first layer of defenses opened as the armored vehicles returned from their missions.
About one hundred soldiers had remained behind to protect the command building from the Variants now that most of the non-combatants had been evacuated. The sounds of hammers and shouting voices echoed over the parking lot.
Fitz was glad that command had decided to try and hold this position.
“Hurry up!” someone shouted.
The urgency was shared by every soldier and Marine working near the command building. They were all exhausted, and Fitz wasn’t sure when any of them would get to rest.
He handed his crate of explosives off to a Marine and then joined Rico who was working on piling up sandbags in the glow of portable lights.
She dropped another onto a small pile and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Both dimples widened when she saw him, but quickly turned to a frown. “You doing all right, Fitzie?”
“Yeah, I’m good, how about you?”
“Glad we saved those kids but worried about what the night brings.” She turned to look out over the defenses. “I got a bad feeling we might have just been delaying the inevitable.”
“I know what you mean,” Fitz said.
She gave him another sideways glance. “Seriously, you sure you’re good? If you need to grab thirty minutes of shuteye, I can pull double duty.”
Fitz nearly laughed. That was one thing he could never fault Rico for. She would look out for everyone else at the sacrifice of her own needs.
“No way,” he said, almost calling her babe. If his teammates heard him call Rico that he would get more shit than a Kandahar porta potty.
Ace, Dohi, and Mendez were working on another mound of sandbags nearby but they didn’t seem to be listening.
“What I would do for a few hours of sleep,” she said. Then she playfully hit him in the arm. “And a little of you know what…”
“Get a room, kids,” Ace said.
Fitz’s cheeks warmed. Apparently they were listening.
“I wish,” Rico chuckled.
Mendez joined in. “Does fucking up Variants get you all as hot as it gets me?”
“Christ, man,” Ace said. “You’re a nut.”
Dohi didn’t react. The stoic man grabbed another sandbag and placed it on top of the mound.
“How you doin’, brother?” Fitz asked him.
Dohi shrugged. He always had a way of keeping his emotions and thoughts close. Trying to get at them was like prying at a crate with a plastic shovel to see what was inside.
“I heard what you did in that chopper,” Ace said. “You did the right thing.”
Fitz recalled what Rico had said—that Dohi had shot a man being torn to shreds by the Variants. His silence made even
more sense.
“Pops always taught me to put an animal out of its misery, and the same goes for humans,” Ace said. “He also told me to always know more than the name of the guy on your left in the assembly line.”
“I track things and I shoot things, what else do you want to know?” Dohi asked.
Ace looked like he was about to try again when a Marine jogged over from an M-ATV holding another rocket-launcher-shaped R2TD device.
“Master Sergeant Fitzgerald!” the man called out. “We’ve got new orders for you.”
Fitz had been waiting on those words, and for the R2TD. Several other teams were already using the surviving devices command had on hand to mark tunnels around base.
Now Fitz had a feeling Team Ghost was going to help beyond the walls again.
They had danced with death too much lately, and although Rico was a skilled soldier, he couldn’t help the anxiety that coursed through him when she was out there on her own.
Of course that was the life they had both chosen, but the past few days were different than the past few years of missions. This wasn’t just hunting down an errant Variant or two. This was all out war.
“Any word on enemy movement?” Fitz asked the Marine as he took the R2TD unit.
“The only activity in this area are the rogue Variants still scrounging for food, but most of them have been eliminated by our hunter killer teams.”
“So no indication that they might attack again tonight?”
“And no sign of the hordes?” Ace asked.
“Not yet,” said the Marine.
Fitz stamped the ground with one of his blades. “They’re still down there. They have to be.”
“Guess it’s a good thing we still have a couple R2TD systems,” Rico said.
“No kidding,” the Marine said. “We’re lucky we got this one. It was on the chopper dropping off those kids y’all rescued.”
“Glad to hear they were evacuated,” Rico said.
“Them, and the rest of the people here. Just us jarheads and our brothers… and sisters left now.” The Marine unslung a pack and handed it to Rico. “These will help the demo teams collapse any tunnels you locate.”
“Thanks,” Fitz said.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 39
