Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  Crawlerz

  Book 4

  “From the Ashes”

  R S Merritt

  Text Copyright © 2021 Randall Scott Merritt

  All Rights Reserved

  This series is dedicated to my beautiful wife and family.

  Cover Design By:

  Harry Lamb

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Apology Accepted

  Chapter 2: Live Bait

  Chapter 3: Waking Up to a Nightmare

  Chapter 4: Into the Breach Once More

  Chapter 5: Fortress of the Forlorn

  Chapter 6: The Best Laid Plans

  Chapter 7: The Red Kool-Aid

  Chapter 8: Documenting the Damned

  Chapter 9: Out of the Frying Pan…

  Chapter 10: Desperate Times

  Chapter 11: Last Ditch Effort

  Chapter 12: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

  Chapter 13: Witchy Woman

  Chapter 14: Witchy Woman

  Chapter 15: Square One

  Chapter 16: Going a Little Cray Cray

  Chapter 17: Hobo Warriors

  Chapter 18: Learning by Doing

  Chapter 19: City of Brotherly Love?

  Chapter 20: In the Darkest Depths of Mordor

  Chapter 21: I’ve Got This

  Chapter 22: The End of the Line

  Chapter 23: The Only Easy Day was Yesterday

  Chapter 24: One Step Forward

  Chapter 25: Always Ready

  Chapter 26: Attention on Deck

  Chapter 27: Quarantined

  Chapter 28: One Bite at a Time

  Chapter 29: Don’t Forget to Bring Snacks

  Chapter 30: Inspiration Leads to Perspiration

  Chapter 31: There and Back Again

  Chapter 32: Spelunking with Demons

  Chapter 33: Better late than Never

  Chapter 34: Way Worse than Ants

  Chapter 35: Send out the Clowns

  Chapter 36: On a Train Bound for Nowhere

  Epilogue: An Apocalyptic Shift in Paradigm

  Author’s Note

  Other Books by RS Merritt

  Chapter 1: Apology Accepted

  The train slowed as they approached what they hoped was their stop in Fayetteville. None of them were super excited about spending the night in the cargo car. If they didn’t make the city in time, then that’s what they’d be doing though. Yue smiled as she looked over at the seats where Drew and Lisa were casually pouring on the PDA. Lisa must’ve forgiven Drew for being an idiot back at the train station. If a little jealousy was going to get in their way, then they were going to have a ‘hard row to hoe’ considering the state of the world today.

  The train came to a stop with a jolt that rocked everyone forward in their seats. Various train noises ensued culminating in the sound they’d all been waiting for. The doors were opened. A soldier came aboard ordering them to grab their stuff and muster out on the train platform. Wondering why the soldier had felt compelled to say ‘muster’ instead of just asking them to meet up on the train platform Yue gathered her things together. At least they’d gotten the majority of their gear back. Yue was thankful for the comforting weight of the AK-47 across her shoulder.

  “Time to go lovebirds!” Yue called out to Lisa and Drew. The two were so busy gazing into each other’s eyes that they hadn’t even noticed that the train had stopped.

  Having reeled Drew and Lisa back to reality Yue turned to follow LeBron out the door. LeBron was fussing around trying to get the straps on his pack loosened up enough to allow him to sling the heavy pack over both shoulders. He was fully ok with Drew making fun of him for not wearing his pack over one shoulder like all the cool kids. The sound of a scuffle from the platform captured everyone’s attention. Looking out the door LeBron and Yue saw Harley slam a Marine to the ground and leap forward.

  With no idea what was going on the two of them sprang forward to help Harley. Lisa poked Drew with her finger and pointed. Charging after LeBron and Yue they knocked a few other refugees out of the way as they rushed forward to see what was going on. Out on the platform Yue struggled to grasp what she was seeing. A soldier was straddling LeBron. The soldier was throwing punches while her brother did his best to get up off his back. Harley was throwing a man in a camouflage uniform into the air. Standing directly behind that unfortunate soldier was her tall nerdly hunk of burning love himself.

  Her hunk of burning love’s mouth was hanging wide open as Harley reached out for him. Yue rushed forward taking just enough time to plant a solid kick in the groin of the man beating up on her little brother. Leaving LeBron to take it from there she rushed forward to keep Jeff from being murdered. Behind her Drew and Lisa came out the door and immediately jumped into the fray. The guy who’d been beating up on LeBron caught Drew’s combat boot to the side of his face. There were a couple of Marines who’d been tasked with checking for crawlerz underneath the train. They came charging up on the platform with rifles aimed in the general vicinity of all the havoc.

  Hoping she wasn’t about to get shot in the back Yue ignored the newcomers and focused on what was happening with Harley and Jeff. Harley had his back to the wall and a pistol shoved into Jeff’s waist. He had his other massive arm wrapped around Jeff’s neck. For his part Jeff hadn’t made any sort of move to defend himself. Yue found that odd since it wasn’t like her man didn’t know how to scrap. She’d seen him fearlessly wade into groups of crawlerz with his rifle pouring out a steady stream of death. Realizing he hadn’t done anything to defend himself she stood still to see what was going to happen.

  “I’m sorry about Marguerite. That’s on me. Do what you need to do.” Jeff said clearly so that Harley and everyone else could hear him.

  Harley shoved the barrel of the gun deeper into Jeff’s side. Yue whimpered softly in fear. She involuntarily took a step forward. The armed Marines who’d shown up were pointing their rifles at Harley. Neither of them had a clear shot with him using their boss as a human shield. Drew and Lisa came up behind Yue. For his part Harley stood there like a statue. His face blank except for the rage burning in his eyes. That fire burnt out on the platform. Harley slid his pistol back into his waistband and let Jeff go. Jeff ordered the Marines to stand down. He waited for them to acknowledge his order before he moved. He was making sure they didn’t waste Harley as soon as they had a clear line of fire.

  Jeff turned to say something to Harley, but Harley was already walking away from him. The big man made the extra tall Jeff seem small. Crisis averted Yue ran to hug Jeff. One of the two Marines misread the situation horribly. He thought she was another assassin coming at their leader. He stepped in with a hard jab from the butt of his rifle right into her stomach. Yue collapsed to the ground gasping for breath. The confused Marine was knocked out of the way by an irate Jeff jumping in to see if Yue was hurt.

  “Sir?” Asked the other Marine. He was probably thinking he needed to take Harley into custody. Instead of just rushing forward and doing it he was asking permission. There was obviously something going on here that he wasn’t aware of.

  “Stand down. These are friends. Mostly anyway. The big guy isn’t to be harmed.” Jeff said.

  “Hey babe. You gonna punch the guy who took the cheap shot?” Yue asked in between trying to breathe. She was smiling while she said it though. It was going to take more than this little brawl to ruin her good mood. She’d actually found Jeff! He was alive! Harley hadn’t murdered him in cold blood!

  Jeff may not be trying to punch the frazzled Marine, but Drew took one look at his sister and was in the guy’s face. To his credit the frazzled Marine stood stock still and took the abuse being hurled at him. Well,
he did for like thirty seconds. Then he shoved Drew hard enough to bowl him over backwards and turned to leave. He didn’t turn fast enough to avoid an enraged LeBron who came out of nowhere and knocked him to the ground.

  “Everybody chill! Stand the hell down!” Jeff yelled at the top of his lungs.

  It was a good thing he decided to intervene. Drew had a knife in his hand and the Marine was slipping on a pair of brass knuckles that he kept in his pocket. It was questionable if shooting someone would be forgiven. A little slap fighting between friends shouldn’t be that big a deal. The shouted order from Jeff made the Marine decide to back off. He settled for flipping Drew off and throwing LeBron a pissed off look. Lisa grabbed Drew’s shoulder to keep him from going after the guy. Harley was at the end of the station with his face pressed into his arm. He was sobbing like he’d just seen Old Yeller for the first time.

  “Hey Jeff. Glad you’re not dead.” Drew said sticking his hand out. Jeff smiled at Drew’s typical bluntness. He grabbed Drew’s hand and pumped it a few times with enthusiasm.

  “Right back at you. What took you guys so long?” Jeff asked turning to help Yue to her feet. He shared a quick awkward kiss with her since she couldn’t stand up straight. She was still trying to recover from the rifle butt to the gut. It didn’t help that Jeff was over a foot taller than she was.

  “We took the scenic route.” LeBron said moving in for a back smacking hug from Jeff.

  “This is my girl Lisa.” Drew said walking over to put his arm around her. She smiled and gave Jeff a half wave. She was just as used to blood and violence as the rest of them. She’d hoped they could be civilized when there weren’t any of the infected around though. The immediate escalation to a street brawl as they stepped off the train was a little much. She was so sidetracked by all that she hadn’t even noticed it’d taken Yue giving Drew a pointed look to remind him to introduce her.

  A small group of men gathered around as they greeted Jeff. The other refugees had shut the train door and were refusing to come out. The Marines they’d struck were glowering at them. They were obviously harboring hopes of running into them in a dark alley at some point in the near future. It wasn’t a pleasant situation for a chat. Jeff hated to send them on their way. He especially hated separating from Yue so quickly after reuniting with her. A lot of people were standing around staring and more were starting to show up. Jeff needed to deal with all of this before he could relax.

  “Ok. I need to get this mess all squared away and have a few things to knock out before I can call it a day. I’m going to have one of the men you didn’t injure escort you all to Cape Fear High. That’s where you’ll be spending the night. I’ll be over there in an hour or so to hook back up with you.” Jeff kissed Yue and turned to a senior NCO to give him his orders.

  “Well that was fun.” Drew said once they were all settled into the back of the truck that was running them over to the school. They’d gotten to board first leaving the bulk of the refugees behind to wait for the next truck. It was only supposed to be a ten minute drive. Their escort had been intent on getting them out of there quickly before they could cause any more havoc.

  “You ok Harley?” Yue asked. Harley hadn’t said a word since everything went down. He looked up now with eyes reddened from the tears he’d shed. Although to be fair his eyes were always pretty red anyway. Especially early in the morning.

  “I was going to talk to him like I did with Gus. He’s not an evil man. I saw him and I just snapped though. When I had my gun in his ribs, I almost pulled the trigger. Not because I thought killing him would make me feel better. I knew if I put him down those jarheads behind him would’ve put me down right afterwards. I failed Marguerite. She trusted me and she’s dead. I didn’t even stick around to take care of the kids.” Harley put his head back in his arms as Yue and Lisa rushed over to console him.

  Everyone else continued to sit around staring at one another. This was a lot to digest in a short amount of time. There were a couple of refugees staring at Harley like he was an alien. They were probably wishing they’d waited for the next truck instead of crowding onboard this one before their escort had stopped everyone from jumping on. Seeing a massive man who’d just ripped through a bunch of armed Marines like a hot knife through butter bawling his eyes out and admitting loudly that he wanted to die was a little much.

  Thankfully for the refugees the ride ended quickly. Before they knew it, they were standing in a high school gym being asked which parties needed to stay together. Once they’d been separated accordingly, they were guided to their temporary sleeping quarters. The school itself was dark and creepy. All of the windows had been covered with solid metal plates. They had to stop and open gates in chain link fences that stretched from floor to ceiling to keep moving down the hall. Light was provided by long lines of LED bulbs that’d been strung along the hallway.

  “How many people live here?” Yue asked the man they’d been handed off to. Their new escort was responsible for getting refugees settled in and organized. He also was one of the people who did the orientations they’d put together for the newcomers. He’d been introduced as Private Malone. Everyone in the group who liked country music was now stuck with that song in their head for the rest of the day.

  “There’s normally between a hundred to two hundred people. It just depends on how many show up to join the force or seek shelter.” Malone answered.

  “Isn’t that a lot of people to have in one place?” Yue asked him.

  “It is. I’ll go ahead and answer your next question. It does attract a large number of the infected.” Malone said.

  “You mind answering the obvious next question too?” LeBron asked. No one in the group liked hearing they were spending the night in a gigantic crawler magnet.

  “You’re wondering why you’re being shoved in this building with a hundred other people when everybody knows that large groups attract the infected. You may even be wondering why you’re being spread out instead of having everyone stick to one location like the gym or something.” Malone stopped talking to open the next gate and let them through. He nodded at the guard sitting at a desk by the gate watching them.

  “You going to keep us in suspense or what?” Drew asked as Malone opened the door to the stairwell and motioned for them to follow him up.

  “This is the part people don’t like. It’s the part I think convinced the higher ups to start taking in groups like yours.” Malone stopped talking again to lead them up the stairs. Drew was considering kicking him in the back of the head if he didn’t stop with the suspenseful pauses. He needed the man to stop being annoying and just tell them what the hell was going on.

  They stopped on the third floor. It was much better illuminated than the lower floors. The windows had been covered with chain link inside and out instead of sheets of metal. Bright rays of sunlight filtered into the hallways making everything feel less like a dungeon. The strands of LED lights on the lower floors had just added to the creepy vibe. The door to each classroom was solid wood and there were still fences blocking the hallway to slow down the infected if they did get inside.

  “Not taking any chances here are you?” Drew said admiringly. Malone nodded and opened the door to one of the classrooms after consulting the scrap of paper he had with him. It was the same piece of paper Jeff had handed to their escort when they’d left the train station earlier.

  “We try not to. If you have a chink in your armor those things find a way to walk right through it. I guess you guys already know that though since you’re still alive.” Malone stepped into the empty classroom and waved them in.

  The room they walked into had been converted to barracks style housing. Lots of cots and stacks of boxes with supplies in them. There were a couple of windows they could see out of through multiple layers of fencing. The late afternoon sunlight was painting the room a dull gold color.

  “What’s the part most people don’t like?” LeBron asked looking around. This all seemed prett
y fine to him.

  “You guys came here to join the force, right? You look more like hunters than gatherers anyway. We’re always looking for ways to kill large numbers of crawlerz without wasting too much ammo. Instead of hunting them down individually we’ve been luring them to a central spot and killing them all there. What’s the best way to draw the infected to a spot?” Private Malone asked with yet another dramatic pause. They were getting a bad feeling about where this was heading.

  “Put a bunch of people somewhere. The crawlerz sense them and come running.” Yue said softly.

  “Do you guys make a bunch of noise to get even more to come?” LeBron asked.

  “Fireworks start an hour after sundown.” Malone answered seriously.