After darkness obscured the view of the fields to those in the guard towers, he crept toward the prison’s only entrance by road. He didn’t think those in the towers had any night optics, but he would be prepared just in case.
He inched up to the road. When he reached the ditch that ran along the side closest to the woods, he crawled down into it. He stopped and listened. He couldn’t forget that those in the prison weren’t his only enemies.
The dead still wandered at will.
Hearing nothing, he crawled on. He reached his objective, a small culvert under the road. Runoff drained through here during the rainy seasons. Right now, the drought had caused it to be bone dry.
He pulled forward the small bandoleers that he had looped across his shoulder and chest. They were part of the loot from the armory. They hadn’t only taken weapons and ammo.
They had also liberated a shit-ton of ordinance. Now he was glad they had.
He set up two Claymore mines facing the road and wired them up, connecting the blasting cap on the end of the wire to the fuze well. When he had finished, he unspooled the wire and secured it just inside the tree line. He barely had enough wire. It was close.
He rigged up a second claymore on the opposite side of the road from the first and angled toward the prison. Any patrol vehicle using this road would be destroyed, as would the occupants.
With the first part of this plan compete, he went back into the woods to continue his preparations.
Chapter Five
Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst
Angie
A week had gone by since Cam had left. Angie missed him terribly. She kept thinking about their last night together, and how much Cam meant to her. She couldn’t possibly think about their wedding though, not yet. She didn’t want to jinx it. Not that she believed in that, but still…
She turned the talk away from wedding plans whenever it came up. When Cam came back, then she would bug the crap out of everyone about it, but not before then.
In the meantime, she wanted to concentrate on keeping to the schedule Cam had set before he left.
They were supposed to become as proficient as they could with the M249 without actually firing the thing. So, Jim had them repeatedly disassembling and assembling the weapon, loading it, charging it, and clearing it over and over and over until she thought her fingers would bleed. The positive thing? She could probably do it in her sleep now.
In fact, she kept seeing the damned thing every time she closed her eyes.
The others were doing well with it, though Jean had decided to concentrate on the smaller weapons. Angie didn’t blame her; they were much easier. She also continued her ready-up drills, concentrating on speed and precision. She still couldn’t transition very fast to an adjacent target, but Jim had said that will come with more practice. For now, she was satisfied with what she had.
She was just coming back from doing a series of sprints to improve her running speed, when she spied Jim talking with Nick near the supply tent.
“Hey. What’s going on?” she asked, wiping the sweat from her face with a small hand towel.
“We’re just talking about the pharmacy run tomorrow. I’ll go back over it with everyone later this evening, but I wanted to make sure he was completely comfortable on the fifty-cal.”
Jim picked up his ruck and slung his weapon over his shoulder. Angie walked over and picked up a can of ammo, while Nick grabbed another. They all walked back toward the boats.
“So. Are you?” she asked Nick.
“Oh yeah. I’ve spent plenty of time on it now, though I wish I could have fired some. Hey, maybe I’ll get a chance on this run,” he said, teasing.
“Geez, I hope not,” Angie said frowning.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Jim said, glaring at Nick.
Nick looked chagrined. “Yeah, we probably won’t see anything or anyone. Hell, I bet nothing fun will happen at all.”
Angie just shook her head. Did they think she was stupid?
“Look, I’m just worried. I don’t like the thought of you both being gone, plus Cam being gone. It seems like that leaves us pretty wide open.” She frowned and considered all the things that could go wrong.
“Jess ran out of pills already, Ang, and she is miserable. You’ve seen her. She looks horrible. We need to get her some meds. Bradley was even talking about putting her on an I.V. because she was having trouble keeping fluids down. She needs them.” Jim took her hand and squeezed.
“And this has nothing to do with that whole manly ‘pursuit of adrenaline-pumping action and adventure’ thing?
Nick gave him another chagrined look.
“Of course not!” Jim said, before turning to look at Nick. “Go on ahead, Nick,” Jim said.
Angie pursed her lips and gave him a skeptical look.
“Spend the evening with me. We’ll have supper together and talk. It will be fun,” he said.
She stared at him, and he stared back. She crossed her arms, then relented.
“Of course, I will,” she said.
◆◆◆
That evening, she took as much care getting ready for her supper with Jim that she had with Cam. She was looking forward to spending an evening talking with him. Even though they spent a good part of the days together, they were usually too busy with other things. In the evenings, everyone was so tired that they went to bed early.
Instead of dressing up, she pulled on her nicest casual clothes. She thought the dress would give the wrong impression. She felt anxious and a little embarrassed getting ready, because Cam’s words kept echoing in her head. Talk to Jim about it? She didn’t know how to bring it up. What was she going to say? ‘Hey Jim, my future husband said we could be in some kind of strange post-apocalyptic plural relationship’?
That wouldn’t go over well with anyone.
She hadn’t had much time beforehand to plan a great supper for them, but she took as much care in setting up as she had before. She laid out candles and a bottle of Jim’s favorite wine. She had made soup and a loaf of olive & cheese bread.
Luckily, Jean had made plenty of bread a few days ago, and it was fantastic. She just split it down the middle and topped each half with a mixture of the cheese that Jess had waxed, canned black and green olives, mayo from the store, jarred ghee, onions, and garlic. The ghee and cheese had been salvaged from the wreckage of the lodge. It was almost gone though, and then they would be out of luck.
She had even picked the green onions herself. She was studying local plants in her down time and had found many here on the island that were edible. Some were good, but some she had tried were bitter and largely inedible. One such experiment was the dandelion greens salad.
She had found plenty of these greens growing wild around the lodge and had so looked forward to eating salad again. The book had warned about the bitterness of the mature greens, but she decided they couldn’t be that bad.
They were.
They were so bitter that nobody could eat them. They were obviously best in early spring, so she would try again then. She had found some smaller ones that were slightly better, but for now she would move on to something else. The knowledge could still help them someday, should they ever need to forage for food.
God help them if they did.
She was interrupted by the tent being unfastened. She heard a sharp intake of breath behind her and straightened from bending down to light the candles. She turned slowly and was shocked completely by what she saw.
Jim stood in the doorway of the darkened tent…and he was wearing his uniform. The one she loved to see him wear. He looked sharp, and sexy, in the crisp, black uniform. The silver gleamed in the candlelight. It also cast shadows on his strong, handsome face. He had shaved too, and the new leanness of his cheeks emphasized just how chiseled his jaw was. She was speechless. Her heart leapt in her chest.
What was his game?
“Officer Morrison, I didn’t realize you would be coming here t
onight.”
Jim’s eyes gleamed in the flickering light and he decided to play. “Well Ms. Tate, I got wind of a serious crime being committed here tonight. Maybe we can discuss it over dinner?”
She bit her lip and pretended to consider it. “I don’t know. I’m expecting company, and he might not like finding me here with a police officer,” she said coyly.
What was she doing?!
Jim walked closer and she saw that he was wearing his utility belt, sans pistol. He hooked his thumbs in the belt as he drew closer. His brought his face down to hers and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“He was unavoidably detained,” he said. “As will you be if you try to leave. You’re stuck with me babe,” he teased.
Her eyes went to the cuffs in a pouch on his belt. He followed her gaze and she saw a smirk before he could hide it.
“Have you done something wrong, Angel? Do I need to detain you?” he asked, narrowing his gaze and running a finger over the handcuff pouch.
She only nodded. His eyes wandered down to her mouth as she licked her lips. She saw his gaze darken and he clenched his jaw.
“I mean no,” she said quickly. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Feel free to question me during supper,” she specified, trying to put some distance between them.
Wow. What had gotten in to him?
He trailed his hand down her arm, his calloused fingers rough against her skin. His hand landed on the back of her chair, and he pulled it out for her. She sat down and looked up at him.
“I don’t see any way out of this for you,” he said, regretfully taking his chair.
“Maybe we can work something out?” she asked, playing the game. “There must be something I can do to prove my innocence.”
“Let me think about it,” he said eyeing her speculatively.
She served the meal, and he poured the wine into their glasses.
“This is really good,” he said, chewing the bread. “Why don’t we have this more often?”
“Because there’s about a million calories in it. Plus, we’re running really low on butter and cheese. We’d have to find a cow somewhere.”
“That can possibly be arranged,” he said mysteriously.
She raised an eyebrow in question, but he refused to answer her.
“What’s the plan tomorrow?” she asked him, sipping the delicious Cabernet.
He finished his spoon of soup. “Nick and I are taking the Humvee with the fifty. We’re going to Jameson’s, then coming back. No big deal.”
“Jameson’s Pharmacy! That’s in the middle of downtown! It’s a huge store. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why not a smaller one?” she asked, concerned about the possibility of Z herds.
“There is less chance of it being cleaned out, because that’s where the first herd was, and it’s gone now. Plus, it’s a larger pharmacy and they are more likely to have the right medications. Brad has a list too. Don’t worry about it, Ang. If it looks bad, then we’ll go to a different one,” he said, shrugging.
She sighed with impatience. She didn’t like this at all. Not only was Cam gone, but now Jim would also…and what was it with these men and their disregard for danger?
“It’ll only be for one day?” she clarified.
“Should be, but you know how these things are. Nothing is really guaranteed to be quick anymore. You know what Cam says…hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”
“All right, all right. I don’t need to hear it again,” she said, holding up her hand.
“Are you finished?” he questioned, glancing down at her plate.
“Yes, I can’t eat another bite.”
◆◆◆
They were sitting around their old firepit behind the lodge. Jim had gotten another bottle of wine and they were talking about their lives before. From the gist of his stories, she figured out that he was one of the more popular guys on the force, and also the one getting in the most trouble for pulling pranks and talking back.
She could see that.
His arm was along the back of the bench they both sat on, and she felt a tug on the ends of her hair and realized he had been rubbing her hair between his fingers.
“I love you, you know. I know we don’t talk about, because of you and Cam. You don’t have to say anything.” He sighed and went on. Another time, before, she would have stopped him. She didn’t this time.
“I knew it from the first day I saw you back at the store. You walked past me in that room right before everything started happening and I knew I wanted you then. I was going to find you after I finished with that shoplifter, and I was going to ask you out on a date.” He stopped and looked at her, gauging her reaction. He smiled wryly…and sadly. “Even in the apocalypse I can’t get the girl.”
“Jim—” She started, but he cut her off.
“I know that you love Cam and are marrying him, but I love you too. I love you will all my heart and I can’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with you,” he said so seriously.
He was never this serious. He was hurting and she was causing it, though inadvertently.
She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him tightly. Her heart was so full of love for him, and his words made her want to cry. They were so sincere.
“I—” she took a deep breath and hoped Cam had meant what he said. “I love you too, Jim. I really do. I fought it and hid it and tried to push it down because of Cam. I love him too. I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here with me.” She leaned back and looked at him more honestly than she had ever been able to. “I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Jim cradled her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. He ran his hands down her neck and stopped at her shoulders. She felt the wonder of it to her soul, and she knew what she was going to do.
He pulled back. “That was worth Cam killing me twice when he gets back.”
She snorted.
Jim
Jim drove down the main road back toward town. Nick got on the turret as they got closer. Jim saw a few straggling corpses along the road. They looked bad.
Their skin had blackened in places, and it presented a startling contrast with their cloudy eyes. They seemed to have lost very little of the mobility they had. Jim wondered how long it would take them to rot into oblivion. Hopefully soon. Maybe the winter freeze would affect them.
Maybe it would kill them for good.
They passed by the small group of dead slowly and Jim considered stopping to put them down. They reached out their black-tipped fingers to grasp at the vehicle and started moaning as they anticipated a tasty morsel.
He kept going. Maybe they would stop on the way back, right now they had a mission to complete, and it was best not to get sidetracked.
Get out of my head, Cam.
They reached the outskirts of town at nine in the morning. The sun was over their shoulders and shining down pleasantly on the buildings. It was a typical Midwestern small town, but the streets and building were starting to show signs of neglect.
Grassy areas that had been tended to by the city department were now growing freely. Small cracks in the pavement had started getting larger without repair.
Paper, debris, and rotting corpses littered the parking lots and the sidewalks. As Jim drove through, he slowed. He wanted to know how these corpses had died. They hadn’t been here before, and it was important to find out.
He placed the Humvee in park, set the brake, and jumped out.
“Nick, cover me,” he said as he went over to the fallen Z.
He reached the pile of rotting flesh, covering his mouth and nose against the cloying stench that permeated the entire space surrounding it. The shirt didn’t help much, it just filtered through more slowly. He used the toe of his boot to shift the dead thing over onto it’s back. Its skin slipped around dreadfully, and the gelatin-like mass leaked unpleasant fluids. It was enough to make even him want to hurl.
Its head flopped strangely loose on its
neck.
“Oh shit,” Jim said in distaste and hatred as he recognized the puss bag’s tattoos.
“It’s one of those fuckers that broke into the store!” he shouted to Nick in disbelief.
Brownish bodily fluid started leaking into a small puddle below the dead thing. It ran from every cavity, eventually trailing toward Jim’s feet. He watched in disgust as it got closer. The damned thing’s insides were so rotten that they were liquifying. The stench, horrible before, now became almost unbearable. Jim’s eyes watered as he studied the repulsive creature carefully.
His gaze trailed up past the empty eye sockets— they had long since rotted away. There, on the side of the Z’s head was a hole. It had been shot. Someone had cut it down, then it wandered here, and someone shot it. The question is, was it the same person who did both? Or two different people?
“It was shot, cut down and shot,” he said in disbelief to Nick as he climbed back into the Humvee.
He released the brake and they drove on, getting closer to the center of town and their destination. He needed to tell Cam whenever he came back. They had passed the store and Jim made a mental note to come back some time and get the propane tanks. They had meant to before, but there hadn’t been time.
They passed the road to the station, and he wondered if it would be worth stopping to clear out the arms room. They didn’t really need the stuff, but maybe they should anyway. Keep it from getting into the wrong hands. Maybe on the way back.
If he keeps finding things to do on the way back, he may never make it back.
◆◆◆
They stared at Jameson’s Pharmacy in shock.
It was completely destroyed. It looked as if it had been looted around Z-day, then set on fire shortly after. What the hell would cause people to want to burn down a store? There had probably been a lot of valuable things left in there.
He wondered if it had been that group of thugs that attacked their store.
Refuge From The Dead | Book 3 | Dead Fall Page 6
