The Living Saga (Book 2): Enduring

by McFall, Jaron

  “A few times, yeah. But they are ricocheting off of the steel plates.” Steph answered. Then she groaned. “But they got one tire. Back left.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cedric said. “It’s a dually. It will stay balanced long enough. And it has run-flats. So long as we stay out of the mud, we should be able to keep going.”

  “And if they shoot the driver?” Anderson asked leaning to the small window at the rear of the cab.

  “Roll down your window,” Eric said.

  Anderson reached to the button, but when he clicked it, nothing happened. “It won’t,” he said.

  “They’ve been replaced,” Eric explained.

  “Bulletproof?” Anderson asked.

  “No such thing,” Collins said. “But they are bullet resistant. So is the windshield and back glass. Didn’t you ever wonder why the windshield doesn’t curve?”

  “I figured the first one busted and you changed it for what you had,” Anderson said simply.

  “Alright,” Cedric said. “Steph, I don’t like you out there. But, I’m afraid they’ll shoot the second you try to climb back in. Are there any bullet marks on the passenger side?”

  Steph slowly walked to the other side. “No. Clean.”

  “On the count of three, run to Squirrel’s door. Squirrel, be ready to let her in. Collins, grab the tailgate and pull it up. Be ready guys. Anderson, as soon as Steph is in, get us out of this mess.”

  Steph slowly turned in a circle to see if she could spot anything while Cedric counted.

  “One… Two…” Cedric took a deep breath as he made eye contact with Steph. Her jaw was clenched, ready to run. “Three!” He shouted.

  Collins leapt forward and grabbed the tailgate. Cedric turned to see Steph crawling over Squirrel right before he was slung backwards by the shift of momentum in the truck.

  It didn’t take long for the gunfire to start back up. For the rest of the ride, Cedric, Eric, and Collins stayed as flat as they could as the truck drove along the winding road.

  Every few minutes, new gunfire sounded. Occasionally, the gunfire changed pitch as they encountered a new gunman.

  “What’s with these guys?” Eric asked after they reached the fifth change in gunman. “How many of them are spread out back here?”

  “Don’t know,” Cedric responded. “Did they expect us or something?”

  “How could they?” Collins asked. “Not like we broadcast our plans over the CB anymore.”

  “No,” Eric said. “I don’t think they could expect us. But that last truck we saw. Was that a propane truck?”

  “I think it was gasoline,” Collins said. “So, they aren’t after supplies or they wouldn’t have blown up that truck.”

  “What the heck are they after then?” Cedric said.

  Eric and Collins exchanged a look, but neither had an answer.

  After another ten minutes had passed, Collins said, “Been a few since the last gunfire. Think we’re out of the woods?”

  “No way to know,” Eric said. He started to lean up to look but Cedric grabbed his arm and shook his head.

  “Like you said,” Cedric stated. “No way to know.”

  Eric was about to protest when the truck began to slow.

  “What’s wrong now?” Cedric shouted, half expecting an ambush waiting in the road.

  “We’re here,” Squirrel said through the back glass once he’d reopened it.

  Cedric leaned up and saw that they were indeed finally at the small propane depot.

  “Think we’re good?” Cedric asked through the glass.

  Squirrel looked at the clock in the dashboard. “At least 3 minutes since the last shot. I think we are.”

  Anderson nodded and Steph added, “But we’re going to need to find a new way back home.”

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “We need that planned before we jack the propane trucks.”

  “Okay,” Cedric said thinking. Only he and Collins were originally from this immediate area, so he turned to him and said, “Highway 113 is blocked off by that explosion. Three springs is covered in gunman. We blew up the bridges, so we can’t go through Bean Station. What about Highway 11e?”

  “That doesn’t go straight home. We’ll have to go through the middle of Bulls Gap.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the size of a postage stamp. It’s that or take a ton of backroads. No easy turnarounds.” Cedric responded.

  Eric was slowly running through the maps in his head trying to backtrack the route Cedric mentioned when he heard Eric speak from the front, “Ced, didn’t you say the depot was empty?”

  “Yeah,” Cedric said leaning up more.

  He peered over the cab of the truck and saw exactly what Eric meant.

  It wasn’t the worst odds he’d had recently with the infected, but this was certainly not a cakewalk.

  Surrounding the tanker trucks was a mass of nearly twenty infected humans. What made this time so bad was something that Cedric always hated to see. A sight that always made his stomach turn.

  Half of the infected were children.

  With their new plan sketched out, they each took their own job and began to work.

  Cedric didn’t have the stomach for taking a steel pipe to a child, even an infected one. So, he had used the argument that there were too many unknown factors to fight.

  Cedric and Steph left the truck with a pair of bolt cutters each and ran for the fence. They began cutting the chain link to create a small opening. Once it was large enough, they went through.

  The pair of Nighthawks slowly edged their way through the fringe of the facility until they reached the set of five huge storage tanks. Each of these tanks were at least fifteen feet tall and fifty feet long. Cedric and Steph each ran to different tanks and started to climb the ladders on the sides of them.

  Once safely on top, Cedric grabbed his walkie talkie and said, “We’re in position,” while holding the button down.

  From his new vantage point, Cedric could easily see where all of these infected came from. Unfortunately, he could also see why they were here. He felt his stomach churning, wanting to throw up at the sight.

  When he’d been here two days ago, the parking lot had been empty. Now, there were two church vans sitting near the front entrance. The front door was standing slightly open where it had been closed before. Cedric followed the obvious conclusion. These were all newly turned infected. But, there must be at least one older one.

  He swallowed back the vomit that was wanting to come up and instead clicked his walkie talkie again and relayed the information.

  “Roger,” was the only reply he got back.

  Cedric turned and saw Steph covering her mouth in shock looking down at the vans. She had been with Cedric on the scouting mission. Given her expression, Cedric knew she had come to the same conclusion.

  Less than a minute after Cedric was finished relaying his message, the truck with the remaining crew was in the parking lot. Cedric watched as Eric cut the chain on the gate with bolt cutters and opened up the gates as far as they would go. Cedric knew where Anderson and Collins were too. If they had followed the plan, they should be climbing up the ladders any second now. When Cedric saw Eric running around the gate, he heard the clanging sounds of shoes on metal. He turned to see the two men on Steph’s propane tank with her.

  Another few minutes passed and then Eric was with him as well. That only left Squirrel sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck.

  “You’re up, Squirrel,” Cedric said into the walkie talkie.

  Squirrel didn’t bother responding. Instead, he began blowing the horn and revving the engine.

  The gate was on the other side of the building in the fenced area, but there were no barriers between the infected and the truck. They heard the horn and turned. Once they started their run for the gate, Cedric sent one last message through the walkie talkie, “They’re coming!”

  The Nighthawks watched as the truck lights immediately died and the sounds stopped. Part of the pla
n was that Squirrel was going to sit in the locked truck covered with a blanket. The infected, having heard a sound in that direction, should continue right past the truck as if it was nothing.

  Cedric held his breath as he watched them run through the gate. He was nearly sure his heart stopped beating for the entire three minutes it took all of the infected to run, walk, and trudge past Squirrel. Once he was in the clear, Cedric exhaled noisily.

  “Well,” Eric said. “At least that went off right.”

  “About time something did,” Cedric mumbled.

  Cedric and Steph stayed where they were while the other three climbed back down. They both raised their rifles and laid into a sniper’s position while they waited. Cedric began counting his breaths to help him stay focused.

  After twenty-two breaths, the men came into his field of vision. Forty-one breaths and they were at their trucks. Sixty breaths, something was wrong. Then, Cedric quit counting after his seventy-eighth breath. The moment he felt like he had to stop breathing. The moment when Eric and Anderson went inside of the building.

  Cedric wasn’t sure how much time passed. He began to wish he’d continued counting breaths. He realized quickly that he was surer than ever that he did not want to be the leader of the Nighthawks. He didn’t want this kind of stress.

  Cedric couldn’t tell if it was his own heartbeat at first, but he knew he heard something out of the ordinary.

  “You hear that?” Cedric said loud enough for Steph to hear.

  “No,” she answered. “What?”

  Cedric changed his focus to Collins, instead of the doorway. He saw Collins had his shotgun raised, waiting.

  Then, he heard it again, more clearly this time. He could hear someone screaming. It sounded like…

  “Stay here!” Cedric ordered Steph.

  He didn’t waste time going for the ladder. Instead, he slid down the curve of the tank and took a straight shot for the gravel. He landed sidelong in the rocks, but immediately jumped to his feet and ran. Cedric quickly slung his rifle back over his shoulder and pulled his pistol from its sheath.

  For months, Cedric had carried a small .22 Keltec. Now, he’d finally traded it out for a police-issued Glock 9 mm. The Glock had some serious advantages over the Keltec. It held 19 rounds of ammo instead of 6, which was ultimately his reason for switching. But, it also had some useful gadgets, such as a laser sight and flashlight.

  He switched both of these on as he ran. As he passed Collins, he shouted, “On my six!”

  Collins immediately drew his pistol and followed.

  Cedric slung the door open and pointed his gun forward. The flashlight lit up the front office. Nothing was there, so Cedric pushed on. He followed the pathway that led deeper into the building. Within a minute, he could hear the sounds of scuffling, so he sped up. He could tell that his crew was fighting something.

  Finally, Cedric burst through the last door and found a scene he wished he’d never sees.

  The room was small, a workshop of some kind. Cedric noticed some tools that he recognized around the shop. But he didn’t absorb any of that information immediately. Instead, he saw the layer of red film that covered the room.

  Cedric took in the sight of one of the huge propane tanks sitting in the middle of the room. And chained to it, one green human. Someone who had been infected for months. Cedric remembered his thoughts from the top of the tank outside as he saw one small pink shoe sitting near the tank.

  He immediately turned and vomited. As he was straightening up, he saw Collins raising his gun. “No,” Cedric commanded.

  Collins paused but looked confused. “He needs to be…” he started to say.

  “The tank,” Cedric said. I don’t know if it has gas in it.”

  Collins nodded and then remembered the reason why they came in. The infected had given them both tunnel vision. He quickly scanned the room and saw an open door to an office.

  Collins drew his machete from its sheath and quickly ended the life of the infected man.

  Cedric wiped his mouth and followed Collins to the office, gun raised.

  When they entered the room, Anderson raised his gun before he realized who it was coming in.

  “Woah!” Collins shouted.

  “You were supposed to stay outside!” Eric shouted.

  When Cedric walked in, he saw Eric sitting in an office chair, shoe off and Anderson kneeling beside him.

  “Were you bit?” Cedric asked.

  “No,” Anderson said. “He almost got bit, but he’s got some quick reflexes.”

  “Still got me though,” Eric said wincing. “Dang thing broke my ankle.”

  “Sure it's broke?” Collins asked.

  “Heard and felt it snap,” Eric said.

  “But we’ve got good news,” Anderson added. He turned and pointed to a large box on the wall that had the word “Keys” written on it in black permanent marker.

  “Why didn’t we just hotwire it?” Cedric asked.

  “Tamper-proof wiring,” Anderson said. “There’s an anti-theft module on them.”

  Cedric walked to the box of keys but ran into a problem. The box of keys was locked.

  “Can’t be,” Collins said when Cedric told them it was locked. “There’s no keyhole.”

  Collins started pulling the door, trying to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “R-F-I-D,” Anderson said looking at the wall safe. “If there’s no keyhole, it is probably a radio wave lock. Just bust it.”

  Collins wasted no time. He took Anderson’s crowbar and began to bash the hinges on the lock box. It took longer than he thought it would, but the box finally opened. Multiple sets of keys began to fall out.

  After they had their keys, and Eric’s ankle was supported the best they could, Collins and Anderson worked together to carry Eric out of the building. With his ankle broken, he couldn’t drive anymore, so they loaded him into the passenger seat of Anderson’s propane truck while the other three checked the levels of propane. None of the tanks were completely full.

  While it wasn’t originally part of their plan, the crew decided to fill their tanks before they left. It took them nearly an hour, but they were finally able to find instructions and figure out how to fill the trucks. Even after that, it took almost another half hour to actually fill the trucks up.

  Finally, Steph left her post on top of the large tank and jumped in the passenger seat of Cedric’s truck. Cedric pulled the walkie talkie from his belt and said, “Squirrel, you ready?”

  No response was given, so Cedric tried again.

  Again, Squirrel did not answer.

  After the third time, Squirrel finally replied. “Man, you really know how to wake someone up gently, don’t you?”

  Cedric groaned but Steph immediately started laughing.

  “Just get yourself up and ready to drive,” Cedric said back over the airwaves.

  “I believe,” Steph said looking at Cedric. “You said it was a cakewalk. A short drive. No infected in sight. Isn’t that right?”

  “How could I have been more wrong?” Cedric said putting the propane truck into drive.

  As Cedric started to push the accelerator, he heard something through his open window. It was faint, but he knew the sound. It was almost like a chopping sound, except in the air.

  Without the hum of the city, it was much more noticeable.

  Cedric shut the engine of the truck off and began to shout for the others to do the same. He picked up the walkie talkie just as the other two tanker trucks went silent.

  “Squirrel,” Cedric said into the walkie. “Run the binoculars to me ASAP!”

  He didn’t wait for Squirrel to get to him. He jumped out of the truck and ran to the ladder again. He climbed to the top of the propane tank and began to look in the sky from the direction of the sound.

  When Squirrel arrived, Cedric shouted, “Throw them!”

  Squirrel tossed the binoculars to him and Cedric looked at the dots in the sky a bit closer now.<
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  “What is it?” Steph asked loudly from the ground.

  “There’s two!” Cedric yelled down.

  “Two what?” Steph asked.

  “Two helicopters!” Cedric pointed and the others began to stare at the dots and listen.

  “Can’t be,” Collins mumbled. “Those things are so far away, no way to hear those.”

  Cedric watched through the binoculars at their flight path. Cedric was sure in just a minute or so, they would be right over top of them.

  “Just a few miles away!” Cedric shouted back down.

  He could feel the smile start to break across his face. He recognized the paint job as a military helicopter. He was just about to shout this information down when the scene changed in the sky. Cedric immediately knew what must have happened.

  A flash of light erupted from the tail of one of the helicopters. It immediately began to spin and spiral out of control. Within seconds, the second helicopter followed the downward spiral.

  Cedric was calculating the estimated distance in his head when he heard Collins shout up at him, “What happened?”

  “I think,” Cedric said. He paused trying to make sure before he spoke. “I think they were shot down by the same people who tried to shoot us.”

  Chapter Five:

  INTO THE HORNET’S NEST

  Cedric slid from the propane tank back down to the ground. He rolled into the gravel to try to ease his landing. He still felt the impact in his joints and groaned.

  “Change of plans,” Cedric said quickly. “The propane trucks need to make it back. Squirrel, take this one. Collins, Anderson, back to yours. Eric, stay seated. Steph, with me. We’ll meet back at base later. Do not come after us.”

  The group immediately gave their affirmation of the orders given and Cedric began to run to the cage-roller, Steph on his heels. He knew that, whether the Nighthawks agreed or not, they would not disobey a direct order like that. He hated pulling Steph into it, but she was his partner on missions now. Headquarters’ rules, all excursions must be done with a partner.

  Cedric fired up the cage-roller as Steph hopped in the passenger seat. “We checkin’ it out?” She asked.

  “Yeah,” Cedric said. “Recon only, for now. We are safe inside the cab. We scope and see.”