After the Roads- Sidney’s Way

by Brian Parker

  Jake debated with himself for only a moment. If this was a trap and it’s where he was supposed to die, then he was prepared for it. The decision was already made in his mind. The man was obviously in some type of distress and he had to help him in any way that he could.

  He stepped to the door and looked inside. There was blood around his midsection, the old tan Carhart jacket he wore was soaked through with it. “Fuck!” he grumbled. “What happened?”

  “Girls. Help me…get them back.”

  Jake reached through the window. “Who did this?”

  “Cullens. Those godless heathens.” He coughed dryly, which Jake took to be a good sign. He wasn’t a medic, and had only attended one combat lifesaver’s course, but he knew that a wet cough could mean blood in the lungs and he’d need surgery, which they obviously couldn’t do.

  “I’m gonna open the door and look at your stomach, okay?”

  He lifted his hand and then let it fall. Jake took that to mean that he was fine with being examined. “Are you sure you weren’t bitten?”

  “No, darn it,” the man grunted in frustration. “Cullen boys shot me. Took the girls.”

  “Okay. We’ll get to that in a minute,” Jake assured him.

  “Jake! Jake, what’s going on?”

  He turned to see the sergeant standing up on the vehicle. “He’s been shot,” Jake replied in a voice barely above normal talking range. He needed to be cognizant of the potential for infected in the area, but he hoped the fences along either side of the highway would act as a barrier in case any of them came from the overgrown fields. “Stomach wound. We need Carmen over here.”

  “Okay.”

  While his companions worked on unloading the Stryker, Jake turned back into the truck. He lifted the old man’s shirt away from his belt line. A single, neat bullet hole was about two inches to the left of his navel. He’d taken biology in college, but couldn’t remember if there were any vital organs in that area.

  “I’m gonna look at your back. This will hurt like hell, okay?”

  The man nodded, taking in a sharp breath as Jake leaned him forward. He lifted up the jacket and saw more blood. There was a small exit wound roughly on line with the entry wound. The hole leaked deep, maroon blood.

  Again, Jake wracked his brain to remember his lifesaving classes. If it were a bright red color, that would mean arterial bleeding, which was infinitely worse, but was dark red blood as bad?

  “What have you got?” Carmen asked from behind him. He saw that she’d brought the backboard that had been strapped to the side of the Stryker and the medical backpack.

  “I think we need to get him out of the truck and bandage him up. Then we’ve gotta get off this road and into a building.”

  “Not what I asked you, Jake,” she chastised him. “What have you got?”

  He knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if it was worth using their precious medical supplies if the man was already a goner. “He has an entry wound about two inches to the left of his belly button and a clean exit wound on the back, roughly in line with the entry wound.”

  “Is he still bleeding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Color?”

  “It’s like a maroon. Seems to be coming out very slowly.”

  Carmen nodded. “Okay, that’s all good. Let’s get him out of the truck and strip his clothes off.”

  The older man helped the two of them immensely by sliding the best he could along the bench seat and holding tightly to the steering wheel as they maneuvered to lift him down from the cab.

  Carmen opened the large medic backpack that Sergeant Wyatt had procured from somewhere and pulled out a package of QuikClot combat gauze. She’d examined and rearranged the pack to her liking over the past few days, presumably for moments like this when she needed to work fast.

  Jake helped to roll the patient over as she bandaged the back wound first, and then the front. “I don’t think it hit anything except intestines,” she mumbled, tying the bandage. “There aren’t any vital organs or bones where he was shot, so he was lucky in that regard. If his intestines are perforated, it’s a 50-50 if he’ll live. Intestinal leakage could cause infection. His body may fight it off or he could die from it.”

  “Is there anything you can do about it? I mean, like sew up his intestines if they did get hit?”

  “I’m not a surgeon, Jake. I would do more damage than I would help—that’s a guarantee. The best thing we can do for him is give him pain meds and antibiotics, then hope his body is strong enough to overcome this.”

  An iron-like hand clamped onto Jake’s wrist, causing him to jump. “I need to get the girls,” the older man said through gritted teeth, surprisingly clear.

  “What girls?” Jake asked.

  “Granddaughters. Cullens kidnapped them. Ambushed us.” The hand on his wrist relaxed and Jake thought he’d passed out, then the pressure returned. “Killed my friends.”

  “This— What do you mean they kidnapped them?”

  “Are you stupid or something?” the man hissed. “Kidnapped them. You let your mind finish the rest. I need to rescue them.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, sir,” Carmen cut in. “You’re lucky that you didn’t bleed out and die from that injury. You’ve got a long road ahead of you. If you’re going to recover, you have to rest and stay off your feet. Let your body heal.”

  “But my girls…” His voice cracked and for the first time, the old man’s tough exterior fell away as tears streamed from the corner of his eyes. “I failed them, Sarah. I’m so sorry.”

  “Who’s Sarah?”

  The old man tried to sit up once again. “I have to rescue those girls.”

  “Hit him with some morphine,” Jake ordered. As Carmen prepped the drug, he asked, “Mister. What’s your name?”

  “Vern.”

  “Okay, Vern. I need you to tell me where your hideout is. We’ll take you back there and figure out what to do.”

  “Hideout? My farm is just up the road. Off B Highway.” He pointed to the north. “But my girls are that way, near Tyrone. We gotta…” He slowly faded to sleep as the drugs hit him.

  “Okay, let’s load him up. I’ll check the map, see if we can find this B Highway. He couldn’t have gotten far driving like that, so we must be close.”

  “Are you gonna do anything about those kidnapped girls?” Carmen asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I sure as hell ain’t gonna walk into an ambush with you and the kids in the back of the Stryker. We need to find a safe place to stay and sort this out. If his farm has been safe enough for the last seven months, then that’s probably our best bet for a safe house while we figure out what we’re doing.”

  Carmen nodded her head as she checked Vern’s vitals. “Okay. He’s still alive for right now. We need to get him someplace where he can rest. We might even have to use the blood transfusion kit. Won’t know until I can get a real good look at him.”

  Jake grunted as he picked up one side of the litter and then set it back down. “What’s up?” Carmen asked, setting her own end down.

  “I just had an idea,” he replied, jogging around to the side of the truck. He opened the glovebox and removed a stack of papers. Inside was the vehicle registration with an address on Zielne Road.

  He held it up. “Got the address. I’ll plug it into the GPS and see if we get a hit.”

  “Good thinking,” she murmured as they picked up the litter again.

  It’d be a long shot if the old man lived, but for some reason, Jake thought he would be just fine.

  21

  * * *

  NEAR LIBERAL, KANSAS

  OCTOBER 29TH

  “Take it easy now, Vern,” the Hispanic female cautioned. “You have a very serious injury that could end up killing you if you don’t take some time off and rest.”

  “Don’t care,” he grunted, trying to sit up against one of the male soldier’s restraining hands. He cried out in pain as his punctured abdomina
l muscles flexed. He relaxed and lay back against the pillows. “Holy smokes! That hurts something awful.”

  “I told you,” she chastised him. “You need to rest.”

  “I sure do appreciate everything you folks have done for me, but what I need to do is rescue my granddaughters.”

  “We’ve been talking about that,” the other male said. He wore body armor with a dusty first lieutenant’s bar affixed to it.

  “You in charge?” Vern asked, vaguely remembering that this guy was the one who came to help him at the truck.

  “Kind of. It’s… It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated my behind, son,” Vern grumbled. “You’re either in charge or you ain’t. Are you the highest ranking officer in your group?”

  “Yes, but we aren’t here on official military orders.”

  Vern huffed. “I been reading that the Army’d gone soft. Back in my day, the Army ran like a well-oiled machine and a soldier knew that his place was as a cog in that giant wheel. And you can bet we knew who was in charge at any given time.”

  “You were in the Army?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Seven years. Vietnam for three of ’em, then I wised up and left the service.”

  “Wow. Thank you for—”

  “Can it, son. I don’t need no thanks. I need to get up and go find my girls.” He gestured angrily at the big soldier standing above him. “Now either you tell Mongo here to let me up, Lieutenant, or you go get that sergeant to tell him to.”

  “Sir, give me a chance to talk here. My name is Jake Murphy, this is Private Dickerson, and this,” he rubbed the Hispanic woman’s shoulders, “is Carmen Agusto. She’s a nurse.”

  “Hi,” the woman said with a genuinely warm smile.

  Vern nodded but didn’t say anything. “We also have Sergeant Wyatt. The other woman in our group is Sidney Bannister. And there’s Carmen’s two kids.”

  “Where’s the rest of your unit? The Internet said the government was organizing a response force.”

  “Ah, well… They were overrun. We’re all that’s left.”

  Vern whistled low. “That ain’t good. Just the—what—five of you? That’s all?”

  “I’m sure that more got out, Mr. Campbell,” the lieutenant stated. “We just don’t know.”

  He grunted. “Ok, so just the five adults. It’s nice to meet you and all that, but I need—”

  “Sir, please,” Lieutenant Murphy said. “Let me finish.”

  “Then quit beatin’ around the bush and get to your point.”

  The officer frowned. “You lost several men in the fight—we saw their bodies. This place is too much for you to maintain on your own.”

  “I can manage.”

  “Okay, look,” he said, appearing to finally be getting to the point. “We’re looking to find a long-term place to stay. You can’t get up and your granddaughters have been kidnapped. We want to help you rescue them.”

  “In exchange for staying here on my farm,” Vern surmised.

  The officer looked across the room to where the female soldier leaned against a dresser. Vern tried to look over quick enough to discern what their silent communication meant, but he missed it. By the time he was looking at the woman, her face was a blank slate, staring back at him.

  “Yeah. We’d like to stay—only through winter. And then we’ll be moving on.”

  Vern tried to sit up again, but the white fire in his gut made him reconsider. “Fine. You help me get my girls back and the lot of you can stay through winter. No free chicken, though. You’ll have to work.”

  “We wouldn’t have it any other way, sir.”

  He started to say something about how deserters couldn’t be trusted, but decided to hold his tongue. These people were his best bet at getting Sally and Katie back from those monsters. “Alright, what do you need from me?”

  “Information,” Lieutenant Murphy replied. “Tell us everything you know about these Cullen brothers.”

  22

  * * *

  NEAR TYRONE, OKLAHOMA

  OCTOBER 29TH

  Sally’s vision swam from the blow. She’d tried to stop Russ from strapping Katie to the bed and been rewarded with a vicious backhand across her cheekbone.

  “Hey, now, little brother,” Tim chided. “Don’t damage the merchandise.”

  “Merchandise? We ain’t sellin’ ’em,” the fatter of the two men said.

  “It’s a goddamned figure of speech, Russ! Dammit if your mother didn’t raise the dumbest son of a bitch in the county.”

  “Yeah, she had you,” Russ giggled, obviously amused at his own joke. “I stood watch while you went at that old broad for forty-five minutes. It’s my turn, you selfish bastard.”

  Sally heard a grunt as Tim must have punched his younger brother. “Damn you. When I tell you that we gotta keep this one alive, I mean it.” There was a dull thumping sound of fists against skin.

  She used her bound hands to wipe away the tears, snot, and blood on her face, risking a glance at the two men. They were really going at it. Both of them seemingly equally matched as they traded punch for punch. Russ was already stripped down to just his underwear and the impact of his brother’s punches made his fat ripple with each one.

  “I’m so sick of you telling me what to do!” Russ shouted, oblivious to the fact that loud noises brought the infected.

  “I’m the only reason you’re still alive, you dumb motherfucker.”

  Sally saw the nude form of Katie on the bed. Both of her hands were tied to the bedposts and it looked like one of her ankles. The other was free, and she was using it as leverage to try to push herself away from the Cullen brothers.

  “I hate you!” Russ screamed, kicking Tim hard in the crotch.

  Tim doubled over in pain, but managed to catch Russ’ foot between his legs. He reached out and grabbed the testicles of his younger brother through the underwear.

  “Aiyeee!” Russ screamed as Tim’s massive paw squeezed his testicles.

  The two of them tumbled over in a heap, Russ twisting to get away from Tim’s grip. “You little fuckstain,” Tim hissed. “I’ve had it with you. I’m gonna gut you like a fucking fish and keep all three of these women for myself.”

  Three? Sally’s mind reeled in confusion. She hadn’t seen another woman in the room. When she’d woken up, her and Katie were tied up with duct tape on the floor. Who was the other— Momma!

  Her mother had stayed in the house when everyone went out to fight the infected. If they’d gotten Katie off the lookout perch, then it made sense that they could have gotten her as well.

  She wormed her way along the floor as best she could with hands and feet bound. The two men seemed intent on beating the life from one another and she had every intention of getting her and her sister out of there. The floor was nasty, covered in what looked like bloodstains and dried, flaky white circles of— Oh God. She suppressed her revulsion at the evidence of what these two had been using this room for and continued crawling. She had to make it.

  A noise by the door drew her attention. It was a rapid, electronic tapping sound. She knew she’d heard it before, but couldn’t quite place it in her current state.

  One of the brothers screamed and grunted simultaneously as the tapping sound continued. Russ had pulled an electronic Taser from somewhere and was applying it to Tim’s neck.

  Sally brought her knees to her chest and began to rapidly unwind the tape around her ankles. She kept glancing at the brothers. Russ now lay on his side, facing away from her with his hands between his legs, moaning hoarsely in pain. Tim appeared to be unconscious.

  She finished unwrapping her legs and tried momentarily to free her hands, but it was still no use. There was no way to undo the tape around her wrists without using her fingers. With nothing else to do, she stood and rushed over to where Katie was taped down to the bed.

  Her younger sister’s eyes went wide in recognition, but she wisely kept her mouth shut. On the floor, the men were beginni
ng to stir. Sally looked for a weapon of any kind. Nothing. There was nothing in this room besides the bed.

  Sally reached out and began to unravel the tape on Katie’s ankle. Russ sat up in her periphery vision. “Hey!” he said, trying to get up.

  His bulk worked against him, and he had to put his hand down to push himself up. That’s when Tim grabbed his arm and jerked it violently from under him. “Fucking motherfucker,” Tim snarled as he worked his way into a standing position.

  “Tim, no!”

  Tim pulled his leg back and kicked Russ violently in the ribs. Sally wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard some of them break. “I’ll teach you to tase me, you fat fuck.” He kicked his brother again, causing Russ to wrap around his foot.

  The Taser slid out of Russ’ grip across the floor to where Sally stood, petrified. If she was going to survive this ordeal, then she had to push past her fear. Her family needed her. She bent down and picked up the Taser.

  “Now what do you think you’re doing?” the older Cullen asked, turning to face her.

  “I’m going to take my sister—and my mother—and leave.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Tim sneered.

  Sally held the Taser in front of her like a shield. “Yeah, that’s right.” She’d tried, and failed, to add steel to her voice. As she talked, her fingers tapped against the buttons on the side of the device and she squeezed them, trying to determine how it worked. Depressing both buttons at the same time sent a small blue arc of electricity between the two prongs along with the stuttering tap sound she’d heard earlier.

  “You’re gonna put that little toy down, missy.” He took a menacing step toward her and then yelped in pain as Russ bit into his calf muscle through his jeans.

  Tim turned to kick at Russ and Sally slid up to the headboard. She had to set the Taser down to unwrap the tape around Katie’s wrists.

  “You little—”

  “Look out!” Katie screamed.

  Sally picked up the Taser and pushed the buttons just as Tim lunged at her. The prongs hit him in the face, one in his eye and the other along his temple. He dropped instantly, knocked out cold from the electricity.