The Soldier (Book 2): Sanctuary

by Lundy, W. J.

  Luke raised his hands. “Okay, this is all great, but how does any of it help me with my problem?”

  “Luke, they are talking about evacuating everyone to Savannah. The infected outside is growing every day, and security is losing faith in being able to hold them back long term. As soon as the Colonel can get a convoy plan together, we are gone, bro, and soon—weeks, maybe days.”

  “They are closing the camp? All of it?”

  She nodded her head. “Except for some transient space and a few patrol elements, it’ll all be shut down. They want to increase efforts to supply up in the next few days and then bug everyone out together. We just can’t do enough to stay open and feed all the refugees and fight off the infected. Fort Stewart is guaranteeing that they have a hardened perimeter. There was a FEMA staging area there, and they are heavy with supplies. They’ll leave an outpost here, but everyone else will be going to Savannah.”

  “This isn’t good. It means they are giving up on this entire region.”

  She looked at him sideways. “Well, doesn’t this help you? That girl of yours will be getting shipped off to Savannah soon, anyhow. Cut your losses and move her into the blocks, or hold off. It really doesn’t matter; we’re getting out of this shithole, either way.”

  Luke nodded and scratched his chin. “Janette, this doesn’t feel right to me. There are still people out there. If we leave, there will be nothing left for them, no chance at all. And who the hell are these people, and why are they jamming the radios still?”

  She looked at him and shook her head. “I didn’t tell you this so you could go second-guessing the Colonel. Don’t go mouthing off and starting conspiracies of your own.” She dropped the cigarette butt into the paint can and moved closer. “Listen, I only told you so you could prepare yourself and this girl if she is really that important. We will all be moving out soon. You need to pack your gear and be ready. When the order comes down, there won’t be much time.”

  Chapter Five

  Day of Infection, Plus Eighteen

  North of Hayslette, Virginia

  They were led down a dark hallway by men dressed in heavy clothing. They traveled through the back door and into an even darker passageway. Two additional armed men closed in behind them, pushing them forward. A sense of urgency in the air, the exit door was quickly locked and bolted, blocking the last bits of light in the confined space.

  Not many words were exchanged between the strange men and Gyles. Every time Gyles had attempted get a word in, a stocky man with a pistol hushed him. Once inside, they just kept directing them deeper into the building.

  As there was no effort taken to disarm them, Gyles complied and followed their instructions, signaling for Culver to stay close behind him. Moving farther into the building, the tile floors were scuffed and stained with streaks of thick blood. Flies buzzed in corners and swarmed over bits of flesh. The farther they traveled, the heavier the stench and decay became. Near the end of the hallway, Gyles noticed bullet holes in the plaster walls, blood trails, scraps of clothing, and bloodied bandages.

  He stopped and looked at a shattered doorframe, running his gloved hand over the dark woodwork. There were large caliber holes and obvious signs of buckshot damage. When congealed blood touched his fingertips, he shook his head. “What is this?”

  “Yeah, we had some trouble; same as everyone else,” said a voice from behind. “But we don’t have any infected inside, and we want to keep it that way.”

  Gyles stopped and looked back at the elderly black man who’d greeted them at the door. The man had a silver beard and wore a black wool watch cap. He carried a Ruger .357 Magnum service revolver as comfortably as if he’d been born with it. Gyles took his hand from the doorframe, planted his feet, and said, “I’m cool with this whole take-me-to-your-leader routine, but I have men outside. I’m not cool with leaving them out there, not knowing where I went.”

  “Then tell ’em, soldier,” the man said, pointing to the radio on Gyles’s collar. “What’s keeping you?”

  Gyles frowned and nodded. He took the radio handset from his shoulder and depressed the button. “Kenny, you awake?” he said and waited for a response.

  The radio squelched. “We’re here boss; all clear as far as I can see. Those things haven’t spotted us.”

  “Okay, good. We’re in the church. We’ve contacted friendlies; stay buttoned up and stay quiet.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  The old man grimaced. “You could bring them inside, if you’re worried about them.”

  Gyles shook his head no. “I don’t want to put you at risk. Besides, it’s good to have eyes on the street.”

  The man grinned but didn’t say anything.

  “The cameras—you already have eyes on the street, don’t you? How long ago did you spot us?”

  The old man laughed. “As soon as you turned onto our road, soldier boy. Seriously, let me send someone out for your men. We have a hidden gate on the side wall just behind them. Get the vehicle inside the walls, and we’ll all feel better. Your boys are liable to attract unwanted attention out there, then we won’t be able to help them.”

  Gyles sighed and looked at Culver, who shrugged. He nodded and put the radio back to his mouth. “Kenny, change of plans. Someone is going to come out and meet you. They’ll guide you into the fence. Make sure Mega doesn’t shoot them.” He let go of the handset and waited for a response.

  “Okay, boss, I’ll be on the lookout for them. Mega seems disappointed though.”

  Grinning, Gyles said, “Understood. Stay with the vehicle until I come for you.”

  “Roger.”

  He clipped the radio back to his collar, watching the black man send one of his people back down the hall, the way they’d come. “So, who is running this place?” Gyles asked.

  “Depends how you think about it, but Mister Sherman is running security. He’s the one you want to talk to.”

  “Sherman? Is he in charge or not?” Gyles asked.

  The old man laughed and waved them ahead. The group moved around a corner and to a pair of double wooden doors. The old man stepped in front of them and tapped on the ornate wooden surface then called for them to be opened. With the sounds of locks clunking and chains jingling, the hinges screeched, and the tall wooden doors pulled in. The man pointed up at the doors. “We don’t even know how long it has been since those entryways had been closed. Those old things protested something fierce the first time we tried to force ’em shut.”

  Quickly, they were ushered ahead into a large sanctuary. Ahead of them, people were scattered around the room, some lying on pews, others in the back of the massive room, going through boxes. Gyles looked left and right while Culver moved in behind him nervously as the heavy doors were relocked.

  The soldier looked back to the old man. “Where is this Sherman?”

  The man holstered his revolver then pointed an index finger toward an alcove at the back of the space, where another door was hanging open. There was a guard with an AK-47 rifle posted near the opening.

  Gyles took two steps in the direction then stopped and looked around the space again. “Wait, who are all of these people?”

  “That’s a better question for Sherman. He’s up in the bell tower. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

  Gyles waved a hand. “Lead the way, boss.”

  The old man grinned and shook his head. “I ain’t nobody’s boss, friend. You can call me Zeke, if you’d like.”

  “All right, Zeke, lead the way then.”

  The man smiled and stepped off. While Culver took position behind him, Gyles noticed the other men had dispersed back into the sanctuary area. Whoever was running this place trusted them. They seemed to be conditioned to uniformed soldiers on the grounds. They’d allowed them to keep their weapons, and now they were being left unguarded with only an elderly man as an escort.

  Weaving through people down the center aisle of the church, they reached the alcove. This time, Zeke stepped asid
e and waved Gyles in ahead of him. Gyles hesitated in the doorway, looking up, checking out the space before he entered. The stairs were made of well-polished white stone, the walls painted a heavy cream color that contrasted with a dark mahogany handrail. From above, the stairwell was filled with bright sunlight.

  The young man with the AK-47 nodded as he moved farther aside, and Gyles cautiously stepped into the stairway and began making his way up. In the confined space, he instantly picked up on the howling of the infected. The noises seemed to be focused and directed to him. Gyles froze and looked back at Culver behind him, who gripped his rifle at the tension in his leader’s eyes.

  Zeke, farther down the stairs, said, “Don’t worry about it; the howling gets louder the closer we get to the front of the building. The bell tower tends to channel the noise down the stairwell.”

  “Creepy as hell, is what it is,” Culver mumbled.

  Laughing, Zeke said, “Yeah, I tend to agree, but there is no better place on the grounds to keep watch.”

  Gyles grunted and continued climbing. After several flights and the appearance of stained-glass windows in the walls, Gyles realized they were somewhere in the front right quadrant of the building. They passed another heavy door that matched the one at the bottom and entered a small cubed room. On first appearance, Gyles thought it looked like a well-planned guard tower. The room was at least twenty feet by twenty feet with unfinished plank floors and an enormous black bell hanging high over their heads. The walls were open air, void of glass windows, overlooking the expansive grounds of the church and city around them.

  The tower’s floor was filled with men, lawn chairs, and folding tables. When Gyles entered the room, they all briefly took notice then went back to whatever it was they were doing before he entered. Again, he had the feeling these people were accustomed to seeing soldiers. No mystery on their faces, they appeared bored in seeing him. On any other day, in any other place, it would have looked like a BBQ, based on the way the men carried on like everything was normal. A tall bean pole of a man with a jet-black goatee and greased-back hair ended his conversation with another and walked toward them. He locked his eyes, measuring Gyles up, before stretching out his hand. “You’re new. What happened to Lieutenant Floyd?” he scoffed.

  Gyles kept silent, not wanting to give anything away before he knew what was going on.

  The man shrugged and said, “Name’s Sherman. We were wondering when the Army would come back. Thought you all might have abandoned us.”

  “Back?” Gyles said, shaking the man’s hand.

  The man frowned and looked at Gyles sideways then locked on his name tape. “Yeah, that’s right… ahh… Sergeant Gyles. You’re with the National Guard, right? The delivery is late. People were starting to worry.”

  “Delivery? What exactly were you expecting?”

  Sherman frowned and diverted his eyes to Zeke. “You aren’t here to make the FEMA delivery?”

  “Sorry, friend,” Gyles said, shaking his head. “We’re scouts from a place about twenty miles south. We didn’t have any knowledge of units operating up here, much less a FEMA camp.”

  Sherman made a fist and bit at his knuckle. He turned and looked to the window before turning back to Gyles. “The National Guard has been bringing us supplies and transporting local survivors back to the camp. Not much to brag about, but food and medical supplies, and with the number of survivors we’ve been taking in, we need everything we can get. They pick up people and leave us enough to get by until the next run.”

  Zeke stepped forward. “I told you these soldiers are not part of the Guard; they seemed surprised to even find us here.”

  Gyles nodded and frowned. “Sorry—I’m not with them. Do you know where they went? If people are still operating up here, it could help all of us out.”

  Sherman shook his head and walked toward a window. “For all I know, they joined that party of psychopaths down there. Everything around here seems to be dying. I thought it would turn around by now. But the last day or two, it’s been getting worse.”

  Gyles moved up beside the man. Looking through the tower openings, he had a commanding view of the main gate below and the hundreds of infected surrounding it. His eyes were drawn to a cluster that Sherman was pointing to. He spotted a dozen uniformed infected. Looking out over the city rooftops, he could still see signs of lingering smoke and the ruins of taller buildings in the distance. Along a wide main road, a parade of the infected was moving in their direction. “Shit, how long has it been like that?” Gyles asked.

  “Couple days now. The pack is growing… slow at first, but since dawn, it’s been doubling in size nearly every hour.” Sherman moved away from the window and pulled up a lawn chair, signaling for Gyles to take one across from him. The man reached into a red cooler and tossed Gyles a bottle of water and then another to Culver. “The National Guard was holding a railroad crossing about a mile north, small tent city and camp. It was a good chokepoint and kept most of the demons out of this neighborhood. We hadn’t really seen much activity in this area, so survivors tended to find their way here. Every couple of days, the Guard would convoy in, pick people up, and take them somewhere farther west, to a FEMA camp.”

  “And they just left it, the roadblock? They just abandoned it without warning?”

  Sherman shrugged. “No idea. They didn’t exactly check in with us before going silent. We have radios, but the damn things only work for a couple blocks. They bailed out the night before last. Raised one hell of a ruckus doing it too. There was a rolling gunfight over there as they left town. It wasn’t planned, from what we could tell, just pure chaos. Then a bit after midnight, everything went quiet, lights went out. It got scary dark over there. Then sometime the next morning, these guys in uniform and their buddies started straggling in and surrounding the place. Crowd has been building ever since.”

  Gyles moved back to the window and looked out over the crowd of infected. The group was bunched up and milling around the main gate. Not pushing against it, just gathering there like they were waiting for it to suddenly open and start serving lunch. Looking at a wide street to the north, more were slowly headed in their direction, but none of them moved past the group at the gate. “Why do they all stop here?”

  “Smart ones,” said a man at the opposite end of the tower deck. He was sitting low in a folding chair. Nearly bald with mottled hair on the sides of his head, the man was as old, if not older, than Zeke. He was wearing a vintage army field jacket and holding binoculars to his eyes. Gyles caught notice of a well-worn M1A1 paratrooper rifle leaning against the old man’s chair. The man lowered his binoculars and looked back at the others. “There isn’t no logical reason for them to stop here.”

  Sherman grunted. “This here is Lawson. As you can see, he is a bit salty and opinionated.”

  “Then you tell me why they’re bunching up out there,” Lawson said. “Tell me why they all stop right here at our gate.”

  Culver leaned forward, looking at the street. “Well, they probably followed someone,” he said then looked away like he’d wished he hadn’t spoke.

  The old man smiled and shook his head in disapproval, a deep scowl forming on his face. “Nope—we haven’t made any noise to lead them here. We haven’t been outside the gates in near two days. We keep the lights off, we keep the noise down. We gave no sign. I’m telling you, it’s the smart ones. The smart ones are leading them here.”

  Gyles rubbed at his chin. “And what exactly is a smart one? I haven’t seen them do anything more than run toward the sounds of people.”

  “Not anymore,” Lawson said. “Can’t put my finger on it, but some of them seem to still have something cooking upstairs. Not like human, but maybe like a wounded animal. Maybe the church means something to them, so they gather up here. But I don’t think that’s it. I’m sure one of them down there knows we’re inside. I know those ones in uniform knew we were here. I recognize some from the convoy drops. Then again, maybe they’re just assho
les.”

  “Assholes, huh? That’s some theory,” Gyles said.

  Lawson sighed. “Maybe some of them been watching this place all along, knew we been here all this time and were just waiting for those others to breach the roadblock so as they could have a go at us.”

  “All right, Lawson,” Sherman said, raising a hand. “We been over this. Those things don’t have much more sense than a rabid squirrel, and they certainly don’t wait for reinforcements.”

  Lawson shook his head. “Underestimating your enemy is what gets men killed on the battlefield. We should be packing up and getting the hell out of here.”

  “Maybe so, but that isn’t no battlefield down there. It’s hell, and those are the demons,” Sherman spat back.

  “You’re so full of shit, Sherman.” Lawson waved a hand at him and grunted, going back to his binoculars.

  Sherman turned back to Gyles. “So, you aren’t here for the supply drop, and you aren’t with the National Guard. Why are you here?”

  Gyles reached into a shirt pocket, pulled out the folded cardboard scrap, and passed it to Sherman. “We found this at a market south of here. It was nailed to a telephone pole outside the grocery store. Did you put it there?”

  Taking the worn cardboard and holding it between his fingers, Sherman rubbed his thumb against the worn text. “Father Andre hung these up back in the days after it all started.” He closed his eyes and slowly opened them. “People gathered here then. We got them fed and the National Guard helped transport them to the FEMA camps.” The man looked down at the note again, folded it, and placed it on a table. “That was when the roadblock first went up. Anyone looking for shelter done found one by now. So you said you were at the market?”

  Gyles nodded.

  “You happen to talk to Flynn and his crew? They should be able to help us with our food situation, if you can get word to them for us. Let him know we could use whatever they can spare.”