Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (41 page)

“You do realize it’s a rescue mission, right? The goal is to get in and get out without shooting anyone. You’d be just as bored, except without three hot meals a day and a warm bed.”

The G-man glared at me. “You fucking know what I mean.”

I sighed, and shuffled my feet. “Look man, it’s not that I doubt your skills, okay? Eric is like a brother to me. We go way back. If you were in my place, wouldn’t you want to be the one handling the op?”

He glared daggers at me for another moment, then let out a breath, looked down, and shook his head. Some of the venom drained from his tone. “I’m not even in your place and I want to handle it. But you have a point. If it were Wilkins or McCray, I wouldn’t want anyone else pulling their asses out of the fire.”

The stiffness left his shoulders, and he scratched absently at the back of his head. He obviously wasn’t thrilled with the situation, but at least he wasn’t going to hold a grudge. I figured that was the best I could expect from him.

“I gotta go talk to Great Hawk. I’ll see you around.” I turned to leave.

“Hey, Gabe.”

“Yeah?”

“If I don’t see you before you leave, good luck. Watch your ass out there.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Great Hawk watched the proceedings without interest, his dark-red face impassive. I took a seat a few feet away from him on the podium.

“Looks like we’ll be working together after all,” I said.

He pinched a toothpick from between his teeth and flicked it into the grass. “Do not worry about Grabovsky. He is not a man to stay angry for long.”

I looked out across the field where Marshall had ordered the recruits to their feet. The squad leaders huddled up for a quick meeting, and then fell out with their squads to begin the next exercise. Sanchez and Flannigan were among them. Grabovsky had promoted them after they helped prevent the Legion from stealing our supplies.

“We leave in forty-eight hours. Steve give you the mission briefing yet?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have everything you need? If not, you’ve got full access to the armory.”

He shook his head. “I am prepared. Thank you for the offer.”

He shifted his gaze to the surrounding forest, his eyes tracking over something in the distance that I couldn’t see. “I take it that Captain McCray has explained to you what has been happening?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Caught me by surprise. The guy had me fooled; I thought Central Command was holding out on us.”

The Apache chuckled. “He understands the value of deceiving his enemies.”

“That he does. Listen, we’ve never worked together before, so I want to make something clear. My priority here is getting Eric home alive and in one piece. Anything else takes a back seat. And that includes any hidden agenda Steve is serving by sending you out with me.”

Great Hawk looked at me, and his mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile. “You do not trust the Captain?” 

“No, I don’t.”

“That is good. I do not trust him either.”

*****

On the way home, I passed by the doublewide trailer the Glover family had moved into shortly after we arrived in Hollow Rock. It wasn’t far from where I lived, but I didn’t visit them very often. My duties with the militia gave me a viable excuse for my absence, but in all honesty, I was avoiding them. Not all of them, really. Tom was still a good friend, and Brian begged me to visit more often every time I saw him. It was just Sarah I didn’t want to see. And of course, it was just my luck that as I rounded the bend past their house, Sarah was out in her front yard playing catch with Brian.

Fuck’s sake
, I thought.
What the hell is she doing home in the middle of the day
?

“Gabe!” Brian screeched when he saw me. The kid was going through puberty, and the change had turned his voice into something akin to a vulture eviscerating a cat. Nevertheless, I couldn’t hold back a smile as he ran over to me and threw his arms around my waist.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, my heavy jacket muffling his voice. “What are you doing away from the camp?”

“Got business out this way.” I hugged him back and patted him on the shoulders. “I’m headed over to Doc Laroux’s place.”

He leaned back and looked up at me, concerned. “Are you sick?”

I chuckled. “No, son, I’m fine. Just work stuff. She takes care of the militia, you know.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Forgot about that.” The clouds over his face cleared, and his smiled shined through like the sun. “Got time for a catch?”

It was on my lips to say no, but Sarah chose that moment to wing an underhanded pitch straight at my face. I caught it one handed and winced. Sarah had played softball from junior high all the way through college, and she had a hell of an arm.

“Come on, Gabe,” she called out. “We haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. Come visit a spell.”

“Yeah, come on.” Brian grabbed my sleeve and began dragging me toward their yard.

“Well, I guess I can stay a little while …”

“Great, come on.” Brian broke into a run.

I followed him and took up position near the front of the house. The three of us made a wide triangle.

“Heads up.” I threw the ball to Brian, who caught it deftly in his old baseball mitt.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself?” Sarah asked, as Brian lobbed the ball to her. She caught it and side armed it to me, gently this time.

“Same old, same old.” I lied, and tossed the ball to Brian.

“I hear the militia’s getting ready to graduate soon. ’Bout a month from now, right?”

I nodded. “Yep, pretty close to that.” Sarah opened her mouth to speak again, but I jumped in. “How’s the new job treating you?”

The ball came my way again. As I caught it, Sarah absently reached a hand to the gold-plated star on her shirt. “Things are getting tense.”

I flipped the ball to Brian. “How’s that?”

“All of us deputies spend more time on patrol with the security details than we do keeping the peace here in town. Most folks around here are honest enough, but there’s a few that are becoming a problem.”

Brian sent the ball sailing through the air, and Sarah bobbled it in her oversize glove for a few seconds before bringing it in.

“You know how it is,” she said. “When the cat is away, the mice will play.”

I caught the underhand she threw me, and sent it Brian’s way. “There anything I can do to help?”

She smiled at me and caught the pitch Brian threw at her. “Sheriff Elliott has it covered. We don’t need to put the fear of God in them just yet. If we do, though, I’ll let you know.”

“Mom, are you hungry yet?” Brian chimed in.

She folded her glove around the ball and stuck it under her arm. “Sweetie, I was hungry when I got here. I’d be eating lunch right now if you hadn’t dragged me outside to play catch.”

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands and trotted toward the house. “Can we eat at the picnic table?”

“Sure, honey. Don’t forget to bring the water.”

The boy went up the stairs in two nimble leaps and disappeared through the door. I watched Sarah as she walked toward me, waiting for the old familiar lurch in my stomach. It didn’t show up.

“How’s he been doing?” I asked when she stopped beside me.

“Better than before. He had a lot of nightmares after the firefight.”

I nodded. “Yeah. My first one hit me pretty hard, too. But I was a grown man then.”

“I won’t lie to you Gabe; he was bad for a while.”

I glanced at her, and her eyes held a depth of sorrow that only parents with damaged children know. “He woke up every night for two months. Not screaming, or anything. Just disoriented. Confused.”

She walked over to the picnic table and sat down, still facing me. “Tom had the same problem. I saw some things during my time with the Bureau, so it didn’t bother me as much, but the two of them …”

I walked over and sat down beside her. My pulse stayed steady, and my breathing was calm and even. The old desire to reach out and hold her seemed to have left town.

“It gets easier,” I said. “Time dulls the sharper edges, and after a while, it almost feels like it happened to someone else.”

“Brian seems to have learned to deal with it. Most of the time, he just seems like a normal kid. You would never guess that he killed seven men in a shootout just a few months ago. But at night, when he’s getting ready to go to sleep, that’s when it hits him.”

I looked down at my hands. At the scars, and the burn marks, and the miles etched into the skin. “That’s when it hits all of us, Sarah. In the darkness, and the silences, and the spaces between. When we got nothing else to do but listen to the howling of our own souls. And when you’ve been through what we’ve been through, that howling is a mournful sound.”

She smiled a sad smile, and leaned over to rest her head on my shoulder. “You’re good at that, you know.”

“At what?”

“Understanding.”

I smiled down at her. “For a friend, I do my level best.”

She gave my arm a quick hug, and then sat up as Brian came back outside bearing a picnic basket.

“Care to stick around for lunch?” Sarah asked.

“ ’Fraid not, I have to get going.” I stood up and started walking back toward the street. “You be safe now, you hear?”

“Bye, Gabe,” Brian called, waving.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah watch me walk away for a few moments, and then turn to help Brian lay out their meal.

On the walk to Allison’s house, I thought about Sarah touching my arm, and hugging me. A few months ago, it would have left me nearly breathless. Now, I felt the same kind of warm affection as I did for Allison. Or Carmela, the old lady down the street who did my laundry, and sent me home with empanadas when I visited her.

My infatuation with Sarah had been a terrible affliction, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I might finally be cured. Maybe the chemotherapy of sharing a bed with Elizabeth had sent that particular cancer into remission.

I smiled at the thought, and felt something let go inside of me.

*****

Allison made tea for us, and even broke out some of Eric’s sugar stash. I stayed quiet while she prepared it, sitting at the kitchen table and watching her.

She had been a handsome woman when I first met her, with shining brown eyes, a lithe physique, and thick hair that hung well past her shoulders. But the weeks that had passed in Eric’s absence had taken a toll on her. The crow’s feet around her eyes were more pronounced, the cold had etched deep, dry wrinkles into her hands, and frown lines had shown up around her mouth that hadn’t been there before. The lustrous hair that she had once taken pride in now hung lank and unwashed. She hunched over when she walked, her arms drawn tight to her torso, and she had lost weight, which I wouldn’t have believed possible. She had been lean before, but now she was downright gaunt.

“You haven’t been eating much, have you?” I said, as gently as I could.

She picked up the kettle, about to pour water into our cups, but hesitated. “It’s been busy at the clinic,” she said. “Two more women had babies this week. One of them is sick. It’s bad, we’re not sure if she’s going to make it.”

“The baby or the mother?” I asked.

She finished pouring the water and set the kettle back on the stove. “The baby.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She put her back to the counter and crossed her arms over her stomach. “It’s been difficult since the Outbreak, dealing with infants. We just don’t have the same resources or facilities. Children are dying of illnesses that used to be easy to cure. Simple colds and minor infections can be lethal. It’s frustrating.”

Her eyes stayed down as she spoke, but I saw the pain and worry written there. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her, trying to take care of people with limited medical supplies and no electricity to power the clinic. Perseverance is the toughest form of strength, which Allison had in spades. But she was wearing down, and it showed.

“Allison, I have something to tell you, but it’s not something that I’m supposed to talk about.”

She looked up, eyes narrowed. “Okay.”

“You have to keep this between us. This is serious.”

She nodded, and made a twirling gesture with one finger. “Gabe, I’m a doctor. I know how to keep a secret.”

I took the teacup she handed me. “I’m leaving tomorrow on a rescue mission to find Eric. We’re bringing him home.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stood there staring. “Is he all right?”

“He’s alive,” I said. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”

Allison took that in, and sat down at the table. “It’s been so long. I was starting to think …”

I reached out and covered her hand with mine. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She smiled at me, bringing some of the old light back into her eyes. “So where has he been all this time? I know he was sent to spy on the Legion, but no one will tell me anything else about it.”