Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (6 page)

“Checking the
route?”

“Yeah, we need to
turn off before we hit the city and take service streets to the farm she’s at.”

“And you’re double
checking, right?”

“Fourth time, but
I’m not counting.” He looked up and said, “Let’s go.” Stryker chuckled and
returned his attention to the road as they pulled away. He noted the earth has
turned a darker, richer color and the mesquite and cedar were replaced by
colorful azaleas that were planted in the median between the roads. Dogwood and
massive oak trees dotted the landscape, and the air seemed more humid and
heavy. They passed an abandoned refinery and oilrigs dotted the terrain. A
pipeline ran parallel to the highway for several miles, and then turned south.

They crossed the
Mississippi, immediately turned north, and rode for another hour on secondary
roads before Sarge announced, “We’re almost there. Turn left on the next gravel
road.” Stryker saw a lonely farmhouse on a hill in the distance. It was white;
as they approached, he noted two outbuildings and an old tractor sitting on
flat tires parked in front of the barn. Stryker stopped around fifty feet from
the house. Both men got out and grabbed an M-4 from the truck bed.

“Cover me,” Sarge
said, then walked toward the house with the carbine at the low ready. Stryker
saw a curtain move slightly on a front window and immediately raised his weapon
and brought the scope to his eye. The front door exploded open and a young lady
burst through it screaming, “Grandpa” while she ran toward Sarge. They collided
and exchanged fierce hugs.

When Sarge turned
toward Stryker, his face was glistening with tears. Stryker kept his distance
and let them finish their reunion. She asked a question, and when Sarge
answered, she put her hands over her face and wailed in anguish. A minute or
two went by. Sarge whispered to her and she straightened up, wiped her eyes,
and adopted a resigned expression. When Sarge gestured for him to come over, he
shouldered his weapon and stopped a few feet short of where they stood.

“This is Erin,”
Sarge said.

“Name’s Stryker.
Pleased to meet you.”

“Same here,” she replied,
her upper lip still quivering. Stryker examined the girl with a frank and open
stare. She was unusually tall and slender, with auburn hair tied in a ponytail
and striking green eyes that glowed with intelligence. She was wearing shorts
and a tank top and her arms were muscled. Her features were fine and her legs
were long and well defined. She returned his stare with one of her own. Stryker
could see absolutely no resemblance to Sarge.

“Are you sure my
folks are dead?” she asked her grandfather.

“I buried them.”
Another long pause went by, she looked away and then back. “How’s your sister?”
Sarge asked, the concern clear in his voice.

“She was fine when
I left. We are going to get her, right?” Now the concern was in her voice.

“Bet your ass we
are,” Sarge replied. “Let’s go inside.”

“I’ll unload the
truck,” Stryker offered.

“We’ll help,” Erin
said.

After three trips
with them loaded down like Sherpas, all their gear lay stacked neatly in the
living room. Stryker got MREs and bottled water. The sat at the dining room
table with their carbines against the wall behind them. Sarge said, “Give us a
brief. We don’t need much until the time of the attack. From that point on, I
want every detail.”

“Understood.” She
stopped to collect her thoughts and said, “When everybody started dying, one of
the men in the dorm who was studying medicine called his father who was a
doctor. He said we should seal off the dorm by locking the doors and taping
duct tape around the cracks and windows. We were next to the cafeteria, so we
moved canned and dry food into our rooms. We didn’t leave the dorm for the
first year. The water and power both came from the campus utility facilities,
so we were good to go.

“After a year, we
lost power but still had water, and everyone who was going to die had died. We
knew that, sooner or later, the virus would die and it would be safe. Problem
was we didn’t know how long that period would be, so we stayed put. We started
going out to find more food in the cafeteria and didn’t see anyone, so we got a
little bolder and left the building. That’s when we realized we were being
protected by the ROTC guys and the campus police. They took turns guarding the
main gate and would only talk to us from a distance so we couldn’t catch the
plague if they did. About six months later, they were all dead. Two of them
died at the gate.”

Stryker looked at
Sarge and they both wondered how the guards lasted that long, but remained
silent. Erin continued the story. “When the food from the cafeteria ran out, we
started raiding other food facilities on the campus. We heard gunfire at night,
but always off in the distance. We figured we’d be fine so long as we stayed on
campus.”

“So you didn’t
touch any bodies?” Stryker asked.

“There weren’t any
in our wing of the dorm. It was spring break and there were only seven of us
there. Five girls and two boys.”

“Did you try to
find weapons?”

“Of course, but
it’s a college campus. Weapons were banned. They only ones we could get our
hands on belonged to the dead guards and nobody wanted to take a chance on
touching anything on them.” She paused, thinking for a moment. “I think Mike
and Ed were going off campus to raid stuff. They denied it, but I think they
were going to pharmacies to get drugs. Whatever happened, the gang followed
them back to the dorm and waited until everyone was asleep. All I can tell you
is that I woke up with a gun to my forehead.”

“Can you draw a
diagram of the building where you were held?” Sarge asked.

“Sure.”

“Do that, and then
give us the full brief from the moment you were captured until now.” She left
the room and came back a few minutes later with a drawing that looked like a
racetrack with bleachers surrounding one end of the long side.

“We’ll get to that
later. Go ahead and brief us from the time you were captured.”

“I got dressed and
we walked down the hallway. I had heard shots earlier and saw the boys were
dead in the entryway to the dorm. Gunshot wounds to the head, execution style.
When I got outside, I saw the other four girls by a large truck. They loaded us
in the back with four guards. Two men rode in the cab. Total number was eleven
men, four with shotguns, four with ARs, and three with bolt-action hunting
rifles. They all wore cammo and looked like they were comfortable with their
weapons. They also had extra magazines on tactical vests and side arms. My
guess is they were either ex-military or law enforcement, but I can’t prove
that.

“We drove to a spot
about four miles from here, directly west, and they unloaded us into some
stables that were converted to cages. It’s an old horseracing facility. The
electricity is still on there – I don’t know why. There was tack and feed still
there. They forced us to take off our clothes because they didn’t want us to try
to escape, but the way they looked at us, I knew that wasn’t it. They separated
us and put us into the cages.”

“Did they…?” For
the first time in his life, Stryker saw Sarge at a loss for words.

“The second day,
one of the guards started in on Elle. But Brody, the leader, stopped it. He
beat the guy half to death, then called all the men in and said that we were
his property and nobody was getting a taste until after he did. He said he
would be gone for five days and if anyone touched us, he would kill them. So
nobody did.”

“How long ago was
that?”

“Four days ago.”

“Tell me more about
Brody.” Sarge said.

“He’s a mean SOB.
He treats his men like crap, slaps them around, and screams all the time. If I
had to guess, I would say he’s probably a sociopath. And, he’s big – about the
size of the incredible hulk here,” she added, pointing her thumb at Stryker.
“But with a heavier build. He’s got a bad burn scar that covers his face and
wears a machete. He has one of the ARs.”

“You sure they’re
ARs?” She just stared at Sarge with a look of condescension as she inclined her
chin toward her chest.

“Okay, just
asking.” Sarge held both hands in front of him, palms forward. “Daily routine?”

“In the morning,
first they escort us to the bathroom, one at a time. Breakfast was at 0800
hours. Lunch was served around noon. Same drill. Dinner at 1800, again followed
by a trip to the bathroom. There were always at least two guards present and
they worked in eight-hour shifts. They don’t live there because we heard
vehicles coming and going. I don’t have a clue where they live, or if they live
together. Both guards sat in stools with their backs toward the entrance of the
building. They usually started out pretty sharp, but seemed to peter out at the
end of the night shift. I actually saw one of them fall asleep on the second
night.” She paused for a second.

“There were three
other girls there when we arrived. The first morning we were there, they were
auctioned off. We could hear the bidding and the catcalls. They passed my cage
on the way out and the girls were all naked.” Stryker could hear the anger in
her voice building. She shook her head once and continued. “Then we heard them
screaming as they were led away. I could tell because the screaming got weaker
as the distance increased.”

Stryker handed her
the drawing and asked, “Where are the doors and windows on the building?”

“The main door is
here,” she said, touching the map on the east end of the building. “There’s a
garage door here, just to the north of the main door. Four windows go down both
sides, all accessible from ground level. There is a small back door here on the
opposite side of the building from the main entrance. I never saw anyone come
in or go out of the building using any door but the main entrance. The four other
girls are in this corner of building.” She tapped the southwest corner of the
map. “There is a wide corridor that goes through the middle of the building and
the bathrooms are next to the cages we were in.” She stopped and looked at the
map, apparently to confirm she had it all right.

“Questions?” Sarge
asked, looking at Stryker.

“A few.” He looked
an Erin and asked, “How can you draw the entire building? Did you see it from
the outside?”

“Yes. It was sunup
when we arrived and the truck slowed down so I figured that was the
destination.”

“If you weren’t
sold at the auction, how did you end up with the guy you did?”

“I was a gift. He
was Brody’s half-brother and Brody apparently owed him something.”

“How did you get
away?”

“He was drunk when
he picked me up, and we stopped for him to go to the bathroom. There was a tire
iron in the back seat. I grabbed it and hid behind a bush. When he passed me on
the way back, I hit him on the head with the tire iron, stole his cell phone
and pistol, and drove the Jeep here. It’s parked in the barn. I called Grandpa
from about a mile away. I had to keep walking until I got a signal.”

“Is he dead?”

“I think so.”

Stryker gave her a
moment, and then continued. “Show me on the drawing where you think the women were
standing when the auction was taking place.”

“The men were
directly above us. There’s a small, elevated stage about fifty yards from the
front of the building, so I’m guessing they’re on the stage.” She had closed
her eyes to think about the distance, something Stryker often did when
examining his own mental photographs.

“Are there any
terrain features we should know about? Any bushes or trees or other places we
can use for cover or concealment?” Stryker stopped himself and asked, “Do you
know what I’m talking about?”

“Of course. I
started shooting with Grandpa when I was nine years old.” She closed her eyes
again, they blinked open, and she looked at the drawing. “There’s a tool shed
here, and a small hilltop here.” She pointed twice at the map. “The tool shed
sits at your two o’clock if you’re seated in the bleachers. The hilltop has two
trees and a large clump of bushes. Both are not cover, but concealment. It’s
around 150 yards from the bleachers.” She looked up at the two men and said,
“When are we going?”

“You’re not
coming,” Sarge said in his command voice.

Erin’s face turned
red, her eyes blazed, and then she leapt to her feet and stuck her face in
Sarge’s. “You’re not leaving me here like some helpless little air-head. That’s
my sister in there!” she screamed, the veins in her neck and head bulging. “I
know how to handle a weapon; I’m a better shot than you. I’m going, and that’s
final.” She stomped out of the room.

“That apple didn’t
fall far from the tree,” Stryker murmured, remembering Sarge’s tirades during
basic training. Sarge just glared at him, giving him the furry eyeball. Stryker
sighed and said, “You’re not going to convince her to stay and we’re wasting
time. We can set her up as a sniper on the hilltop, and if it goes south, she
can back down the hill, get to the truck, and get away.”

“So, let’s go,”
Erin said as she entered the room. She was wearing a drop holster with a Glock
17.