Surviving the Dead (Book 7): The Killing Line (31 page)

“Sure they will,” Mason said lightly. “I’ve seen the manifests. But they don’t need all of it, right?”

Tyrel grinned. “Of course not. Without us, they’d get nothing back at all. Entitles us to a small finder’s fee.”

The two men shared a quiet laugh. It was both illegal and against their government contract to pilfer from trade recovered from marauders, but what the government did not know couldn’t hurt them. Tyrel lived in the real world. He understood he had to keep his men happy, and happy meant well paid. Unlike the regular military, Blackthorns were not bound by contracts of enlistment. They could quit anytime they wanted. If Tyrel wanted to keep them, he had to give them a reason to stay.

“Fun fact for you,” Mason said.

“What’s that?”

“One of those FTIC contracts you mentioned is in the name of Gabriel Garrett. Ring a bell?”

Tyrel turned his head. “The guy we’re bringing out from Tennessee? The new trainer?”

“The very one.”

“Hunh. So that means he was with one of the caravans that got hit by those Storm Road assholes.”

“Yes. Want to know which one?”

“Sure.”

“Spike’s.”

Tyrel was silent a few seconds. He remembered hearing of Spike’s demise and being angered by the news. Not just because he had lost two of his Blackthorns, but because Spike had been a regular customer. And as founder and CEO of the Blackthorn Security Company, Tyrel hated to lose a good client.

“So Garrett’s the one who survived and went after the prisoners. The one who led the rescue mission.”

“General Jacobs will never admit it,” Mason said, “but yeah. I think so.”

Tyrel went back to looking down the hillside. “Must be one tough son of a bitch.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Makes me wish I could be there for the interview.”

“Not me,” Mason said. “I’m happy right where I’m at. I’ll take field work over administrative bullshit any day of the week.”

“Amen to that,” Tyrel said.

The two men lay silently in the darkness until dawn, watching. The settlement went quiet after a while, the gunfire and screams ceasing. Men patrolled the streets with naked aggression, daring anyone to step outside. Tyrel figured they had the place on lockdown. It was what he would have done, given the circumstances. It raised his estimation of the leader of the Storm Road Tribe, and his desire to kill him, that much more.

Enjoy the spoils, you son of a bitch
, Tyrel thought.
You won’t have them for long.

Gabriel

It’s always a wonder to me how easy it is to get used to one’s circumstances. Doesn’t matter how jarring the transition; give yourself enough time, and you can adjust to anything.

Leaving Kentucky for Paris Island was tough at first. It was hot, and there was a lot of yelling, and running, and pushups, and I remember being confused as hell the first week or so. Then things sort of fell into a routine, and I grew accustomed to the heat, and the yelling, and the bugs, and the constant use of physical training as punishment, and I got to know the men around me, and we came together and things weren’t so bad. By the time boot camp was over I thought I would kind of miss the place.

The years spent in Iraq and Afghanistan were no different. At first there was confusion and fear and a lot of mistakes, and then I got a handle on things. And while none of it was exactly pleasant, I learned to deal with the daily challenges, indignities, and difficulties. Even the constant danger of being killed eventually became background noise.

Kansas had been a bad experience, but there was one positive out of the whole mess—I had not seen a single infected during my tenure there. It was a departure from life in Hollow Rock, where the moans of the undead and the staccato crack of distant gunfire were an ever-present miasma. After a while, I reached the point where I noticed these things only vaguely, much the way I noted sunshine or cold or the smell of wood smoke on the wind. A perfectly natural and expected occurrence.

Consequently, the weeks spent in Kansas spoiled me. The absence of wailing ghouls was akin to the cessation of a pain I didn’t know I was feeling. I started sleeping better at night. My overall mood improved. Food tasted better. Sex was more enjoyable. The brilliant play of colors along a morning horizon once again held the hopeful majesty I remembered from my younger days.

And then we reached the Colorado border.

The first indication of trouble was a young sergeant in our deuce-and-a-half transport truck pressing his fingers to his ear and motioning for his squad to stop talking. He said something into the mic I could not hear and then stood up.

“Got a horde inbound,” he said. “Big one. Back on the clock, ladies.”

The convoy halted, the brakes on our transport squealing. A cloud of dust swirled around the truck as troops filed past us and hopped to the ground. I looked across at Eric.

“What do you think?” I said. “Lend a hand?”

Eric grabbed his rifle and stood up. “Why the hell not. Got nothing better to do.”

“I’m coming too,” Sabrina said.

“Long as you stay with me or Eric,” I told her.

“Fine.”

I glanced at Elizabeth. “You staying here?”

She responded by laying down on the bench and putting a rolled blanket under her head. “I have faith in the might of our armed forces. Think I’ll take a nap.”

“Too bad the bench isn’t wider. I might join you.”

She smiled languorously. “You’d be welcome.”

Sabrina made a gagging noise and jumped down from the truck. Eric put on his MOLLE vest, checked his rifle, made sure his canteens were full, and went after her. I went down to one knee and kissed the woman I loved, taking my time about it.

“Wow,” she said when I came up for air.

“Wow yourself.”

“What was that for?”

“Because I wanted to.”

The smile became carnivorous. “What else do you want to do? I can’t help but notice there’s a canvas over the door and it’s just the two of us.”

I kissed her again, lightly this time. “Later. Somebody’s got to keep those two out of trouble.”

Her hand cupped my cheek. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

The morning had been sunny and clear, but there was weather moving in. A wind had picked up from the east and brought with it the howling, keening cry of the approaching horde. Thunderheads gathered in the far distance, a line of towering gray behemoths looming over the plains. Looking westward along the convoy, I caught sight of Sabrina and Eric talking to a young woman with captain’s bars on her uniform. Eric said something to the captain which prompted her to shake her head and point back toward our truck. Eric said something else, looking frustrated. I quickened my pace.

“Listen, we don’t need civilians getting in the way. Just wait in your truck and let us handle this,” the captain said as I reached them. A rocker patch on her left shoulder identified her as part of the Army Expeditionary Corps, meaning she had been a Marine until just over a year ago when the Marine Corps was disbanded and absorbed into the Army, along with the Air Force.

“Everything okay, Eric?” I asked.

The captain shifted her irritated gaze over to me. Her nametag read Silverman. She was medium height and build, probably in her early thirties, had dark curly hair under her cap, a pair of large brown eyes, and was not at all unattractive.

“I’m trying to explain to the good captain here that we can help her,” Eric said. “But like most people in uniform, she’s under the mistaken impression that civilians are useless. It’s almost as if she’s incapable of realizing we’ve survived the Outbreak just as long as she has, only without the benefit of the Army’s resources. Which, in a backwards twist of logic I cannot claim to comprehend, somehow makes us less than qualified to kill ghouls.”

Captain Silverman’s fists balled up at her sides. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, asshole?”

I let out a sigh. Eric was getting angry, and that wasn’t going to help anything.

“It’s not his fault,” I said. “He went to Princeton.”

Silverman looked at me in surprise for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. Her fists became hands again.

“Well that explains a lot,” she said.

“Your alma mater?” I asked.

“Villanova.”

“Ah. Understood.”

“You?” 

“University of Hard Knocks, otherwise known as the Marine Corps. Started out in infantry, then scout sniper school and Force Recon the last few years.”

“No shit. What units?”

I told her. The smile faded, her expression growing respectful. Silverman tilted her head toward Eric. “He with you?”

“Yep. Spent the last few years training him. The girl too.” A small lie, but the captain didn’t need to know that.

“I’m his daughter, by the way,” Sabrina said irritably. 

Captain Silverman smiled at her. “Yeah. I can tell.”

“We’re not trying to cause trouble,” I said. “We have our own weapons and ammo, and we’re willing to lend a hand.”

Silverman scratched the side of her neck and glanced at the soldiers taking position atop trucks, Humvees, and HEMTTs. A few Bradleys and an Abrams were breaking off from the column and heading toward the approaching infected.

“If I’m honest,” she said, “we could use the help. I just don’t like endangering civilians. Goes against the job description.”

“We can handle ourselves.”

The captain looked us over, reassessing in Eric’s case. She seemed to note the way he wore his gear and the casual way he held his sniper carbine, a sure sign of long practice. “Yeah, I guess you can. Hang out here for a minute.”

Silverman walked farther west toward the front of the convoy where another, more senior captain stood. She said a few words to him and pointed in our direction. The older captain shrugged and said something back. Silverman gave him a thumb’s up and returned to speak with us.

“You see that HEMTT?” she asked. “Guys with long guns on top of it?”

I looked where she pointed. A knot of troops armed with bolt-action rifles and sniper carbines were climbing atop the truck she indicated.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Snipers and designated marksmen are going out to provide overwatch. You can ride with them.”

“Will do.” The three of us headed over to the truck.

“You ready for this?” Eric asked Sabrina. “Been a while since you shot a rifle.”

“You’re always telling me I need more practice. Is this not a chance to practice?”

“It certainly is.”

A sergeant stopped us when we reached the HEMTT and asked us what we wanted. I invoked Captain Silverman’s name and said I was a Marine scout sniper the other two were skilled shooters. He gave us a funny look, but let us climb the ladder. Once on the roof, we received more funny looks, but no one bothered us.

The HEMTT was a flatbed carrying a cargo container. We rode atop the container, and I was pleased to discover some enterprising soul had welded galvanized steel bars to the outer edges to form low hand rails. By the scorch marks and obvious scoring of angle grinders, I guessed the rail had been welded on and cut off several times.

The driver leaned his head out the window. “We got everybody?”

A master sergeant turned to the driver. “Yeah. Everyone who’s coming, anyway.”

“Tell everybody to hang on.”

“Roger that.” The master sergeant turned to address the assembled troops. “You heard the man. Stay low and hang the fuck on.”

The driver put the HEMTT in gear and the engine roared as we began trundling over the countryside. I kept one hand on my rifle and one hand on the rail as we bumped and heaved along. The height of the cargo container beneath me allowed me to see into the far distance where thunderheads were moving straight at us, and swiftly. The storm’s shadow fell over what looked like an undulating black carpet pouring slowly over a hillside perhaps a mile away. It covered about a quarter of a mile running north to south, and had morphed into the now-familiar teardrop formation. Across from me, a soldier came up on one knee and peered at the horde through his scope.

“Damn,” the young man said. “Big one. Gotta be two thousand or more.”

“Don’t sweat it,” the soldier next to him said. “This container we’re sitting on is full of ammo. Over a million rounds.”

I blinked. If he was right, we were sitting on a staggering amount of wealth.

“Might need it before the day’s over.”

The soldier sat back down and gripped the rail. A flash of blue and orange lightning moved among the approaching clouds, bringing with it a peal of thunder. The wind from the east picked up, blowing dust and debris into my eyes. I put on my goggles, checked my rifle, and waited for the fight to begin.

*****

The storm held its rain for the moment, but the wind had kicked up a hazy cloud of dust, casting the sky in turbulent shades of yellow and orange.  To the north, an Abrams tank that had disappeared behind a hillside a few minutes ago reappeared on the horde’s left flank. It stopped on the top of the hill and turned its turret toward the horde. The tank was perfectly silhouetted against the sky, an ugly lump of death-dealing machinery juxtaposing with the calm, gently rolling countryside.

Sensing a photo opportunity, I took out a small digital camera with rechargeable batteries I often keep with me. It took a moment to get the zoom and focus right and press the button, and by some stroke of improbable luck, I captured the very moment the tank fired. The sound and concussion startled me. Not because I’ve never been around tanks firing, but because it was as if pressing the button on the camera had been the catalyst that made the cannon go boom. I lowered the camera, let out a breath, and looked at the image I’d captured.

“Holy shit,” I said.

Sabrina leaned over. “What?”

“Look at this.” I turned the camera in her direction.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s pretty damn cool.”

The tank squatted black and featureless against the amber burn of the northern horizon, a ball of smoke and expanding gasses bursting from its cannon like a silent scream. The bullet-shaped projectile emerging from the exploding cloud floated in perfect stillness in the fraction of a second before it rocketed downhill. Dimly, I noted the sound of it detonating over the heads of a few thousand infected, leaving a circular crater of pulped corpses in its wake.

“Whoa,” Eric said. “Must be using frag rounds.”

I looked where the shell had hit and agreed with Eric’s assessment. A few seconds later, six Bradleys opened up with their 25mm chain guns, sending parts and pieces of ghouls flying into their undead compatriots. The Abrams continued firing, its crew sending ordnance downrange with the speed and accuracy of experienced troops. Each shot created a circular clearing that was quickly swallowed up. The Bradleys kept their strafes at roughly head level, steadily whittling away at the ghouls’ flanks. The chattering of M-240s joined the cacophony of chain guns and artillery.

The HEMTT continued toward the horde until we were less than a hundred yards away. The tank crew and Bradleys noted our position and adjusted their fire accordingly. I was willing to bet they had done so without being told.

On our HEMTT, the sergeant in charge unslung his rifle and assumed a seated firing position. “We ain’t here to look pretty. Get to work.”

The other marksmen moved to the edge of the cargo container and began taking firing positons. I came up on my right knee, squatted on my back leg, and rested my elbow on my left knee. The rifle slid into position like a key in a lock, the reticle lining up just where I wanted it to. I made a small range and windage adjustment to my scope, sighted in, and started firing.