Dead: Siege & Survival (6 page)

“Ops tent,” the soldier reported.

“Benny?” Jody removed his goggles, no longer needing their night vision capabilities.

“Hey, man,” Benny Brazil slung his M4 over his shoulder and reached out to shake Jody’s hand.

“Haven’t seen you since the last patrol.”

Jody’s first opportunity to lead the men on an actual mission had not gone well. Benny had been on that run, but Jody realized with a slight feeling of concern that he’d not seen the man since their return. Having only spoken with Slider on a couple of occasions, he was now dosed with a healthy amount of paranoia. He had little doubt that there were individuals already being groomed to replace him should he stumble or fail.

“Got sent out on a RECON patrol.”

Alarm bells began to ring.

“Funny…never heard of any outbound missions.” Jody slung his own weapon and did his best to appear nonchalant.

“The captain got rumor of another small community holding out just to the south…turned out to be a bust.”

More bells…and a bit more volume. Shouldn’t he be made aware of such things if he were now the leading NCO of the Gunslingers of Arkansas?

“Too bad…it would be nice if we could bring in some folks who weren’t set against us,” Jody said. Benny just stared back silently.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Jody headed across the wide open field and steered himself towards the glow of the operations tent. As he walked, he tried to figure out just exactly what Slider would want from him. When he reached the tent, he fought the urge to ask for permission to enter. That was what subordinates were required to do. He was not a subordinate…at least not to Slider.
Supposedly
, they were co-commanders of the remnants of this unit.

Stepping in, a rush of warmth hit him in the face. A large barrel in the center of the tent had a nice fire going in it. Standing beside the barrel was Slider…and Captain Timothy Gould, the commanding officer of the 153
.

“Sergeant Rafe,” the captain stepped forward with an outstretched hand. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

Jody remained silent for a moment and cast a quick glance at Slider. The man seemed to be more concerned with warming himself over the fire than what was happening in this tent.

“All the citizens have been accounted for, sir,” Jody finally responded, returning his focus to the man standing before him.

“And the second phase of the operation?”

“In progress as we speak, sir.”

“Excellent.”

Jody considered his situation and decided that if he was going to be eliminated, then he had nothing to lose. That prompted his next question.

“I understand a mission was sent outside the wire recently.”

“Just chasing a rumor, sergeant,” the captain said with a shrug.

Jody’s eyes darted over to Slider for any hint of reaction, but there was nothing. He studied the captain. He seriously doubted this young, green ROTC boy had the same ability to mask his feelings or motives that Slider possessed. He was met with a blank stare.

“Perhaps it was not the right decision to send out one of your men without informing you.” The captain made a slight nod of the head. “It won’t happen again. You should be aware of any operations involving
your
men.”

Jody wasn’t sure what to think. The captain sounded sincere. Yet there was still a great deal about all of this that he held reservations about.

“So what will be our next course of action?” Jody asked.

“That is what we called you here for,” Slider spoke, causing Jody to jump just a bit. “We will be separating the women and children from the men. It is our belief that by keeping them separated, the men will perform as requested.”

“Don’t you mean as hostages?” Jody couldn’t help himself. He had been raised by a Pentecostal preacher who had instilled in him the core value of truth and honesty. His father had wept the day Jody rebuffed an offer to continue the evangelical family tradition in lieu of a military commitment.

“I imagine it could be seen as such.” Slider shrugged. His voice held absolutely no emotion and reminded Jody of what a snake would sound like if given a human voice. “But the fact is that we need leverage to hold our position. Logistics are not in our favor. We are grossly outnumbered and need to ensure our authority.”

“So what will we be doing with the women and children?”

“The women will be kept safe and secure. They will be tasked with support services.” The captain went over to the desk with a series of maps of Bald Knob and the surrounding areas. “The children will undergo an educational program and, based on age, some will begin military indoctrination.”

Brainwashing
, Jody thought. Why couldn’t they call things as they were? The women would cook and clean and the children would be brainwashed.

“And what do you require of me next, sir?”

“We want you to see to the separation and housing of the women and children,” Slider said.

Jody looked back and forth between the two men. He felt like he should be concerned. This was not the job you placed under the command of the leading NCO.

“Look, Sergeant Rafe, it is no secret that your…a bit more compassionate than Sergeant Monterro here,” the captain explained. “The men are going to need some convincing to do what we require. That is his forte. The women will need to be made to feel safe. I believe that is yours. Don’t read anything into this.”

Jody looked back and forth between the two men. Neither one gave away even the slightest hint of emotion.

“Will I be doing this alone, or will I be given support?” Jody asked.

“How many men do you think you will require?” the captain returned question for question.

Jody considered what he wanted versus what he felt might be granted him. He knew that, despite what they were saying, this assignment was not one that he was being given due to his compassion. They wanted him out of the way.

“Give me one man…and I want to handpick him.”

“Done,” the captain agreed.

“Just remember one thing, Rafe.” Slider moved away from the barrel and faced Jody with a blank, emotionless expression. “You are being given this job for a reason.”

Jody did not need the hidden meaning of that statement to be explained.

***

Hanover, Ohio—
Major Wanda Beers looked back at the column marching alongside the few vehicles that they were still able to maintain.
The fuel tanker would need to be topped off again very soon
, she thought,
if the gas was still even any good
.

She turned her attention back to the front. The blue piece of cloth fluttered from the street sign indicating that they were still on the right track. That idiot Paul James better not screw this up; she grimaced at the idea that her entire outfit was at the mercy of possibly one of the stupidest men she had ever met in her life.

He had been one of the first to sell out his group during their last stop. He had been under some delusional state of mind that the military could help his wife. The only help for that snarling, drooling, walking sack of guts was a bullet in the head.

Once the appropriate arrangements were made for all the supplies to be loaded up and all the willing recruits had been conscripted, the rest of the citizens were forced outside of the walls of their little barricaded outpost.

Wanda had taken great pleasure in throwing this particular group out into the wild. This was one of those gated communities full of people who bitch and moan about the military, protest their actions, and elect politicians who don’t have a problem cutting defense spending so that little Johnny can go to school and be a juvenile delinquent. They all drove around in their Hybrid cars and chanted things like “No blood for oil!” What did they care? It wasn’t like those rich pricks or any of their children would ever serve. None of them would ever hold a dying friend in their arms that had just had his lower half blown off by an insurgent’s IED.

The day before they were set to leave, she had informed Paul James that his daughter would not be joining them on the journey. The girl was positively useless. She had failed in every task assigned and done nothing by cry and complain when they had placed her on kitchen duty. The only other choice was to put her with the whores who serviced the soldiers. He had absolutely refused.

Wanda had created the “Brothel Brigade” early on. As a student of history, she knew that it had been common in the ancient times for armies to have useable whores travel with them—usually in the rear, and they normally performed other menial tasks like laundry and such to earn their place. Apparently what was good enough for the father was too good for the daughter—Paul had been put in rotation with the men and women in the brothel tent after he had proven to be loyal but useless. Sadly, he wasn’t much better as a whore.

Paul had come to her tent the night before they were prepared to roll out. He said that he knew of another outpost. He admitted that his group was just getting ready to approach them with an offer of joining forces. Ironically, they were concerned with the possibilities of raiders coming along and trying to take over their happy little homes.

He went on to say that this other group had even fewer people, but that they seemed exceptionally well organized and supplied. He didn’t want to reveal the location unless he had assurances that his daughter would be allowed to remain with the group. He said that he would even take a second job to pick up her slack. She could have brought his useless daughter Mary in right then and held a knife to her throat to convince him to talk, but she was feeling generous that day.

“You will go, and your daughter will go with you,” Wanda decided. “A group might be hesitant to take in a lone man. She will help soften them up. You will leave blue strips of cloth as markers and an indicator that you have made contact.”

She could roll with the direct frontal assault, but she didn’t want to waste precious manpower if it was not necessary. Having a man on the inside was the perfect Trojan horse scenario. He would gain this new group’s trust, and then open the gates to allow their access.

Yesterday, one of her scouts returned and reported that blue banners had been spotted. She had slapped herself in the forehead with her palm when she looked on a map and determined the direction led straight to the Longaberger Golf Course. This little tidbit of information had put her on a higher state of alert. There was the possibility that this group might be better prepared and actually led by somebody who knew what they were doing.

When the next round of scouts returned to report that a military vehicle had been spotted, Major Wanda Beers actually considered cancelling the run. She decided to risk one scout who would attempt to get inside the wall and observe.

Four agonizing days passed, and her people were starting to run low on supplies—keeping a hundred and thirty-five people fed was no easy task these days—when the scout returned. Yes, they were very well fortified against the walking dead, but there were no signs of soldiers anywhere. In two days of observation, the only people seen coming and going besides Paul James and his useless daughter were a couple of young females and one male who was often seen using a set of crutches.

The sun was just coming up…somewhere. Here, it was a solid blanket of dark clouds that threatened snow. They stopped at the front entrance to the country club. There were several vehicles in place as a barricade. No sense adding to the chaos by allowing the possibility of zombies to come in during their assault.

Major Beers sent her men and women over the wall. Like any commander worth a damn, she climbed over with the first wave. All the concern turned out to be for nothing. Besides her Trojan horse, all they discovered were three young females between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, one male with a severe leg injury that looked to have received expert attention, and a severely disturbed black girl with Down’s syndrome.

3

Hunker Down

“…and we hope that some way, somehow, Jamie found peace in the end.” The words tasted like ash on my tongue.

What I wanted to do was scream. I wanted to cry. Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury. Every face seems to be numbed with grief and looking to me for something. I just wish that I knew what the blazes that could be.

“We will miss Jamie Blossington, and we will never forget him. Rest in peace, friend.”

I looked over to Billy in case he wanted to say anything. He was simply staring at the pyre with the same empty look that everybody else had plastered on their wind-chapped faces. A quick glance told me that nobody else was going to step forward. I truly believe that we have all had about as much as we could handle if we managed to live a dozen lifetimes.

I touched the torch to the base and stepped back as the flames began to devour everything. There would be little more than a pile of ash and bone in a few hours. Once the fire burned out, everything would be shoveled into a cart and taken to a burial site. A small monument was being fashioned by Melissa, Thalia, and Emily, and would be placed next to Teresa’s in our little graveyard.

One by one, everybody walked away until it was just me and Billy and Dr. Zahn. And that was my newest problem. Of all the people I’d met since this nightmare began, Dr. Francis Zahn was probably one of the most hard-nosed, nothing-can-bother-me person I’d ever met or would ever meet for the rest of my life. That woman had vanished in the past few days. She was replaced by a frail, feeble old lady, who looked like she might crumble in on herself at any minute.

The past several days had been her undoing. It started with Teresa’s death. Teresa, the teenaged GI Jane of the group—and pregnant with Jamie’s child—had come down with the zombie virus or whatever it was. The problem being, that she’d not been bitten or scratched by a zombie. The eventual answer to the mystery: sexually transmitted.

Jamie had been bitten several weeks earlier during a skirmish with a mob. The saving grace had been that he was one of the few who showed immunity to being turned. However, we had eventually discovered that, immune or not, once the virus is in your system, it remains there. A person who displays immunity will still turn if they die from other causes. Nobody made that connection until Teresa came down with the virus for no apparent reason. Dr. Zahn blamed herself for the girl’s death…and now it seemed she chose to shoulder Jamie’s suicide as well.