“We’re doubling back on Highway 114 and connecting with Interstate 70,” Brooks replies. “From there we head west and try to rendezvous with more troops.”
“Shouldn’t we try going to Mansfield, like the last communication said?” Brubaker asked.
“Negative, Sergeant. I’m sure by now, Mansfield is part of the red zone and we want to be clear of it before Operation Washout moves to phase two and they start sterilization procedures,” she replies.
“Is that what happened at Mapfre Stadium?” the sergeant asks.
“You’re on a need to know status, Sergeant Brubaker,” Brooks barks. “Right now, all you need to know is to follow me and stay off the radio unless you have something to report. Clear?”
“Roger that, Major,” Brubaker replies, dropping the jeep’s mic into its cradle and muttering, “Fucking cunt,” under his breath.
“What do you think she’s hiding?” Ferguson asks him.
“I don’t know, yet,” Brubaker replies.
As they started to roll out, Brooks was leading their convoy with Nichols behind the wheel, to an as yet, undisclosed destination. The military-grade, halogen headlights shattered the darkness in front of them. Brubaker and Ferguson followed closely behind the lead vehicle with the other two MTVs coming next. The one transporting the majority of their soldiers going first and the second, loaded with their gear and just a few soldiers, following. This left Privates Gracey and Merriweather bringing up the rear and guarding their flank. When the lead vehicle got to Highway 114, Nichols turned left without bothering to signal, a maneuver that annoyed Brubaker on an instinctual level. He followed, exaggerating the use of his turn indicator, with the MTVs right behind him.
“Shit! Stop!” Merriweather shouted the instant the tires of their jeep met the highway. Gracey slammed on the brakes, lurching them both forward with the sudden stop.
“What is it?” Gracey asks, searching the darkened sides of the road, trying to find the reason for Merriweather’s alarm. He hoped it was merely a deer or something similar his passenger had spotted, and not a horde of the infected coming for them. If he’d had the time to consider this, he’d have reasoned if it had been a horde, Merriweather would have been inclined to tell him to go faster, rather than stopping.
“We left the dish behind?” Merriweather replied. It took a moment to make sense of what the man was saying. Gracey’s first thought was that he’d left bowl or some other eating utensil behind. But it only took him a second to decipher the real meaning.
“We didn’t leave shit behind,” Gracey tells him.
“It’s your fault,” Merriweather replies.
“My fault? You’re the radio operator, Mark. How the hell is this my fault?” Gracey asks.
“You were rushing me!”
“Fucking dumbass,” Gracey replies. “You know we’re going to get a bunch of shit for this from the sergeant, don’t you? I ought to make you walk back and get it.”
“Stop screwing around and just drive back there. It’ll only take a couple minutes,” Merriweather says.
“Hold on,” Gracey shouts, reaching for the mic and dreading the call he was about to make. “Serge. Come in. This is Gracey, over.”
“What is it, Gracey?” Brubaker responds.
“Merriweather left the dish back at camp,” he begins.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Merriweather shouts over him to deflect some of the blame.
Gracey immediately released the talk button and asked, “Do you really want me to tell the sergeant he was rushing you?”
“Please don’t,” Merriweather replies.
“Then shut the fuck up,” Gracey tells him.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Merriweather?” Brubaker asks. “You have one damn job to do and you managed to fuck it up. Now we have to stop and wait for your ass, while…”
“That a negative,” Brooks interrupted the sergeant.
“And for the future, we will exercise military discretion at all times while using comms. Sergeant Brubaker. We are not stopping and waiting for two of your men to correct their epic mistake. We can discuss disciplinary measures once time allows. In the meantime, we keep rolling. No exceptions. Private Gracey. You and Private Merriweather go back, retrieve the satellite array and rejoin us. Is that clear?”
Gracey paused, allowing his sergeant to acknowledge the major’s orders before he also replied with an affirmative. He shifted into reverse, backed up a few yards, shoved the jeep’s transmission into gear and spun the tires on the pavement as he turned back down the access road they’d just been on.
“Where is it?” Gracey asks, searching the darkness.
“Over there,” Merriweather replies, pointing to the south side of where their camp had stood. “You see it? Over there on the ground.”
“I see it,” Gracey grunts. He pulls the jeep up within a few yards of the mesh dish and the electronic box it’s sitting on, so that his headlights are shining directly on them.
Merriweather jumps out and runs to the device. The jeep’s headlights temporarily blind him, and he’s forced to shield his eye with one hand until they adjust. As the spots clouding his vision begin to disappear, he quickly disconnects the dish from the box, collapses it like a small umbrella and sets it on the ground. Next, he detaches the cable connected to the back of the box and begins coiling it around his hand and elbow, like a climber’s rope. Within a few wraps, the cable goes taut.
“Back up!” he shouts to Gracey.
“Why?” he replies.
“Because you’re parked on the damn cable!” Merriweather answers.
Gracey mutters something as he shifts into reverse and backs up several feet. Merriweather continues to coil the cable, covering his sleeve with dust as the spool grows around his forearm. Reaching the end, he wraps the last few feet around the coil to prevent it from unwrapping and becoming a tangled knot. With the cable secured under his arm, Merriweather carefully picks up the box and dish, and places them in the back of the jeep with the other electronic equipment. He gets back into the passenger seat, expecting Gracey to congratulate him on the speedy retrieval.
“Before we leave,” Gracey begins. “Is there anything else you’re forgetting? Maybe the radio mic or something as unimportant?” he asks.
“No,” Merriweather answers with a deflated tone. “That was everything.”
“Good,” Gracey replies.
Shifting the jeep into gear and sending a spray of gravel behind them as they left, neither of the men were aware of the multiple sets of predatory eyes watching them from the trees.
Chapter 10
Dave and Ben waited another minute after the four military vehicles passed them, just as they all hoped they would. All they had to do now was gather everyone else and head off in the opposite direction. The tension that had been steadily growing for over an hour since seeing the first vehicle pass by on its way to the rendezvous with the other soldiers, was washed away as the vehicles passed them. Dave felt as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time they’d been waiting. He stood from the bushes they’d been hiding behind and stretched his aching back. Between the initial hike earlier in the day to the forced run through the trees to rejoin the others, and now crouching in the brush for an hour, he couldn’t remember the last time his muscles had ached so much. Ben mirrored Dave’s stretching but didn’t appear to be in as much discomfort. They stepped out onto the road at the edge of Highway 114, staring in the direction the small convoy had gone.
“Maybe things are starting to work out, after all,” Dave says, pulling out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket.
“It’s about time,” Ben agrees as Dave sparked his lighter and ignited the tip of his smoke.
“Let’s go back and get the others,” Dave says around an exhale of burned tobacco.
At that instant, they were both startled by the growl of an engine and instinctively spun on their heels to face the approaching vehicle. The two men were frozen like deer a
bout to be trapped in the jeep’s headlights as it started to crest the rise a hundred yards away. Because the intense beams of light were still pointed above them, having not reached the top of the short hill, their paralysis was only momentary. They both connected the dots quickly. Either this vehicle had purposely waited behind the others before following, or it was by accident. Either way, there was almost no chance in hell it wasn’t with the other troops that had just passed them. Dave began raising the barrel of his shotgun, his lit cigarette still smoldering between his lips. He didn’t know if shooting between the headlights would have any effect at that distance, but was unable to think of anything else to do.
Ben saw the barrel coming up and instantly did the math in his head, probably from years of playing combat simulation video games, and decided it was pointless. Given the distance to the approaching vehicle, and the spread of the double-ought buckshot about to be projected from the shortened barrel, Dave would be lucky if any of the pellets hit the jeep, let alone did any damage. If they were trapped in a confined space or at closer, non-armored range, it would have been the perfect weapon to inflict massive damage. But these were not those conditions. Ben pushed Dave’s barrel down with one hand and shoved him hard with the other. Dave tumbled into the bushes before he could fire and Ben dove next to him, at the same instant the headlights leveled on the empty highway. As the jeep neared where they’d been standing seconds earlier, Ben and Dave heard it slowing to a stop.
“Nothing to see here, fellas,” Dave whispers to himself. “Just go catch up with your friends.”
“Quiet,” Ben hissed softly, holding his finger in front of his lips and then using it to point toward the trees behind them. “Go slow,” he whispers.
Dave nodded and carefully started moving, desperately trying to remain silent as he crept over the dried twigs and leaves. Ben crawled next to him as the jeep sat idling a few feet before the turn to the private road.
“Let’s just go. The sergeant’s going to be pissed if we don’t catch up soon,” Merriweather says.
“He’s already pissed, thanks to you,” Gracey replies. “Besides, I know I saw something as we came over the hill. It might have been a deer, or something, but it really looked like a person. Maybe two,” he says, pulling the high-intensity flashlight from the jeep’s storage compartment between the front seats.
“So what,” Merriweather says.
“So, what if it’s the guys who shot at our guys last night?” Gracey asks. “Don’t you think the Sarge would be a little less pissed off about your fuck up and maybe even happy we were running behind? Especially if we could bring back one or two of the fuckers for questioning. And look, see there,” he says, shining the light down the private road. “It looks like someone’s driven down there recently. Maybe even today.”
“How do you know?” Merriweather asks.
“I just do,” Gracey says with a shrug. “I’ve always been able to track and hunt, ever since I was a little kid. It was like a natural gift. By the time I was twelve, I was better at it than my dad. In fact, you see right there,” he says, moving the light.
He swung the beam across the road and aimed it where Dave and Ben had been waiting for the soldiers to pass by a second time. It was just a few yards from where the two were now hiding. Dave and Ben looked away from the jeep, hoping the bright light hadn’t already reflected off their eyes or be shined directly on them to bring their silhouettes out of the shadows.
“I can see from here that someone or something big stood there recently,” Gracey continues. “Probably rested there for a while. Maybe even laid down on that very spot.”
“How?” Merriweather scoffs, certain Gracey was exaggerating his abilities.
“Do you see the way the grass and bushes are bent over in places and smashed down in others?” Gracey asks, but Merriweather just shook his head in the negative. “I’ll bet if I got out and looked, I could tell whether if it was an animal or a man. Either way, I could come pretty close to guessing their weight. Within twenty pounds or so.”
“No shit?” Merriweather asks, beginning to buy-in to the claims.
“Cross my heart,” Gracey replies, making the traditional schoolyard sign across his chest.
“So, what do you want to do?”
“I think we should drive down there and see what’s at the end of this road,” he says, moving the light to shine down the private road.
“Should we call in and let the major know what’s going on?”
“Not yet,” Gracey answers. “If I’m wrong and there’s not shit back there, I don’t want to be in any more hot water than we are. And if there’re only one or two guys back there like I think there are, then we should be able to handle them. I can just imagine the look on Brubaker’s face when we roll up with two of those fuckers from last night. He’ll probably get a three-quarter chubby just thinking about interrogating those bastards. But hey,” he adds. “If there are guys back there, you follow my lead and do what I say. You’re just the radio guy, so remember that.”
“I’m a soldier too, you know. I went through the same training you did. So, you remember that,” Merriweather replies.
“Fine. Just try not to shoot me,” Gracey says, cranking the wheel to the left and turning down the private road.
“Fuck!” Dave blurts as the soldiers sped past. Jumping out onto the road, he jerked his twelve-gauge up, but the soldiers had already disappeared around the first bend in the road. “You should have let me take the shot,” he says, glaring at Ben.
“You can ground me later. Come on!” he replies, cinching his rifle over his shoulder and running after the jeep.
Dave struggled to keep up with his son, having at least thirty years on the kid and smoking longer than he’d been alive. Ben never picked up the cigarette habit, other than the occasional, alcohol-driven craving, and his stamina for running proved it. But with the fear-induced adrenaline coursing through him, Dave managed to not fall too far behind.
When they reach the first bend where the soldiers had disappeared, they spotted them farther away. Because of the lights blazing in front of the military jeep, it was hard to even make out their silhouettes, but it looked as though they were just sitting there, possibly considering which one should man the 50-caliber chain-gun to blast their family to pieces. The same way the soldiers had done at Haviland Hardware & Rental. Images of the carnage other soldiers had wrought upon innocent people running for their lives, flooded his thoughts. Dave swallowed back the gorge rising in his throat from his desperation.
Ben fought to spin his rifle over his shoulder, but by the time he had the over-tightened strap loose enough to line up a shot, the jeep had crept forward a few yards, making an unobstructed shot impossible. They could still see the soldiers’ relative position by using their headlight glaring through the trees as a marker. The moment Dave considered telling Ben to take the shot anyway, regardless of the trees and foliage separating them, the headlights lurched forward and then went dark. Dave and Ben instantly made the same assumption without saying a word to one another. The sneaky fuckers were planning to drive up on Pam and the rest of the family with their lights off, switching them back on once they’d reached them. This would temporarily blind them with the intense glare and render them virtually defenseless. But Dave thought even if they didn’t see the jeep, Pam and the others would have to hear it approaching. Dave cursed silently as he and Ben started sprinting to catch up. Ben stumbled in one of the deep ruts in the road. With his free hand, Dave snatched his son by the back of his jacket, keeping him from going down. Less than a dozen strides later, Ben saved Dave from the same fate in another of the invisible trenches and potholes that peppered the old road. They hadn’t even thought to bring a flashlight with them when they’d set out. This lack of foresight was now forcing them to slow their pace to a more controlled jog, rather than the reckless sprint they’d been using. Dave knew the entire family would definitely be well fucked if he or Ben broke a leg trying to get
to them. Even with their added caution, they slammed into the abandoned jeep around the next bend. Another thing a simple flashlight would have helped avoid.
“Goddammit!” Ben cursed when he banged his knee off the rear bumper.
“The fuckers are walking in,” Dave whispers, searching the pitch-dark forest for any signs of the soldiers’ whereabouts. He could barely hear sounds coming from their impromptu camp, but they didn’t strike him as sounds of alarm. They were the sounds of his family talking to one another as they prepared to leave once he and Ben returned. Through the murmur, he could even pick out the occasional bursts of laughter. These were the sounds he’d expected to hear if everything had gone according to plan.
And with that thought, reality punched him in the gut. Before he and Ben set off to chase behind the soldiers, he should have radioed to Pam and let them know the soldiers were coming. He immediately began berating himself for his stupidity. What was the point in having the fucking walkie-talkies if he forgot to use them when it mattered most? He’d remembered to radio the first time, to let them know Major Brooks was headed to the rendezvous with the other soldiers. But when they’d headed back the other direction an hour later, he thought he’d just enjoy a leisurely smoke and a walk back, letting them all know it was time to leave once he and Ben returned. Then when things went to shit, he’d lost all of his common sense. Forgetting the simplest thing to keep everyone safe. Stay in communication. Now, Pam and the others could potentially pay the ultimate price for his unforgivable incompetence.
The F*cked Series (Book 4): Hard Page 11
