The Zombie Virus (Book 2): The Children of the Damned (40 page)

Crazies.

This was fucking new.

Shit
,
this
is
unnerving
! he thought as he gazed back at them. He lowered
the glasses and jogged back to the lawn chair where the radio and a
suppressed Remington 700 set up as a sniper platform sat atop its
open case. That was his contribution to the armory’s weapons
cache.

He picked up the radio and called in to the
comms station inside the building. “We got four crazies scouting
us,” he told them. “Permission to engage?”

“Wait one,” Carroll told him through the
radio.

Shit
,
they’re
going
to
be
gone
in
one
.

Then Shavers’ voice was asking him what was
going on. He described his observation of the four and Shavers gave
him the go ahead to engage the four creatures. He picked up the
rifle and raced back to the corner of the building and set the
bipod on the edge. He lay prone on the tarred roof with the rifle
at his shoulder and peered into the scope. The area where they had
been was empty. He scouted around with the scope and couldn’t see
any sign of the four.

“Fuck!” He grunted and stood up.

Where’d
the
fuck
they
go
so
quick
?

He used the binoculars to scan the entire
area. They had disappeared as surely as if they had never been.

I
got
a
bad
-
bad
feeling
about
this
.

He picked up the rifle and headed back to the
radio. Shavers appeared through the hatch in the roof and rapidly
made his way over to the older soldier.

“Are you sure you saw what you saw?” he
asked.

“I ain’t got the old-timers disease yet, son.
I saw what I saw and I’m telling you it spooked the fuck out of
me.”

“I’ve never seen them react like that
before,” Shavers muttered, staring off in the direction of the
public pool.

“Yeah, me neither. Those things were
hunting
, and I think we’re what’s on the menu.” His steely
eyes locked on Shavers. “Our world’s about to be turned upside down
if those damned freaks can now rub two thoughts together.”

Shavers nodded in understanding. “I think
we’ll need to double the watch and make sure the ready Stryker is
manned 24/7.”

Reese nodded. Could these monsters of
humanity now have the ability to plan ahead? It was all conjecture
until they acted, if they acted at all. Something deep in Kyle
Reese’s gut told him they would find out soon enough.

Jeremy was silent for most of the trip back.
He tried to shove the thoughts of his parents from his mind,
although whenever he let his guard down they promptly reinvaded. He
forced his attention to the other problem burdening his mind. Sarah
and that mean man, Nantz. He tried to come up with schemes to get
between the two, to somehow sour the feelings that seemed to be
growing between them that were so obvious, that even for a ten year
old, they were glaringly apparent. He thought about the kiss she
had given him and the sweet, warm softness of her lips when she had
pressed them to his face. And then his parents’ countenances snuck
back into his mind’s eye and he felt that hollow longing to see
them again raise its heavy specter, and a deep, empty pain of loss
that he hoped would never manifest itself into a terrible
reality.

Sergeant Heinlich tried a radio check on the
Humvee’s unit as they closed in on the area north of Lexington
where they had lost contact with the armory on the way down.
Silence greeted the call.

“We’ll try again in a few miles,” he said and
replaced the microphone.

Sarah stirred beside him, shifting in her
sleep to a more comfortable position. The poor girl looked a wreck
with the dried blood in her matted hair and her painfully bruised
neck. The Sergeant thought more about the encounter yesterday, some
niggling piece that was eating at the back of his mind. He simply
couldn’t put his finger on what it was; something different about
the encounter. He ran through each scene like a stop-frame movie,
trying to determine what was troubling him. Then he about slapped
himself in the forehead. The crazies, they’d
ambushed
them.
They didn’t attack when they first saw them like they normally did.
He must be tired to miss that glaringly obvious observation. That
was a piece of intel that Shavers would want to know ASAP. He
picked up the mic and keyed it to transmit, calling Gypsy Hill.
This time there was an immediate response. Carroll relayed an order
for them to proceed to the refugee compound to see if they had
caught any mice. The Sergeant rolled his eyes and shook his
head.

Where
the
fuck
am
I
supposed
to
stick
anyone
if
there
are
people
there
?

He could probably jam two more people in the
Humvee, three if they wanted to get real intimate. Shit, they
hadn’t found anyone on any of the highways in over a week. Granted,
they hadn’t been sending out patrols like they had at first, but
what were the chances that the signs had already trapped their
first survivors? He had told the boy that maybe his parents had
shown up, however, he knew the odds of that were one in a million.
He sighed, then acknowledged the order and continued up the
highway. They would be at the compound in less than an hour.

The black gangster sat glaring out through
the window of the compound’s storefront at the empty Jefferson
highway interchange. He would be able to see anyone approaching the
place off of either north or southbound I-81. As promised, there
was plenty of food and water stored inside the storefront of the
business and he and his crew had had their fill and the remainder
they had loaded in their vehicles. What there hadn’t been was a
visit from the part-time Army boys yet, and his patience was
wearing thin. After parking all their vehicles out of sight in an
adjacent hotel’s parking lot, he had positioned his crew throughout
the yard of the compound. He had them sitting in the cabs of
several of the businesses’ rental trucks and hidden in the attached
garage that had large doors which allowed quick access to the
parking area where anyone coming through the compound’s gate toward
the building would be immediately surrounded. He figured he might
lose some of his crew in a firefight, yet the trade-off would be
worth it.

Ain’t
no
punk
-
ass
cracker
-
army
goin’
stop
the
new
gangsta
-
king
.

He waved his pistol and aimed at imaginary
enemies, mouthing ‘pow, pow!’, envisioning killing more of his
white enemies with each imaginary trigger pull. He pointed the
pistol at the two women trussed up on the floor at his feet and
again mouthed a ‘pow’ at each. They stared up at him with wide,
frightened eyes and whimpered through their cloth gags. They would
be the first out into the line of fire and would act as a shield
for him to hide behind as he picked off his foe. On the sales desk
next to him sat the Tec-9, loaded and ready.

Crazy-8 came in from a side door and plopped
down in a chair on the other side of the women. “Yo cuz, dem dawgs
gettin’ antsy.” He rubbed the thick black growth of beard on his
chin that softened his cruel face.

“Fuck dem niggas,” Lamar spat. “Dey jump when
I tell ‘em jump.”

Lamar knew the crew was as bored as he was.
He thought about letting them have some fun with the bitches first,
but knew as soon as they let down their guard shit would be going
down.

“Tell dem nigga’s sit tight n not do a
fuckin’ thing till Ah say so.”

They would sit in this motherfucking place
till Hell froze over if need be. As the saying went, good things
come to those that fucking wait.

Steven pushed Kera up the ramp that led to
Jefferson Highway and the compound that the directions on the sheet
of paper stuffed in his pocket had described. He studied the
building as he shuffled up the slope, his arms and shoulders aching
from the day’s effort. The hike from the house in Waynesboro had
been agonizingly slow, what with Angela’s short stride and the
rickety cart that held most of their packs and supplies that
Dontela was stoically pushing behind him. Even the aches that
dominated his body couldn’t dampen his enthusiasm and joy that his
main quest was coming to an end. He didn’t even entertain the
thought that Jeremy wasn’t with the National Guard outfit, he knew
in his soul that his boy was with this group.

There was no movement around the fenced in
corrugated-steel building. He ran his eyes over the entire area
visible from the on-ramp that led up off the southbound interstate
that they had been travelling north on. There was no sign that the
Virginia Army National Guard was presently there, or anyone else
for that matter. In another world the twin buildings appeared to
have been a farm equipment rental and sales business. Steven
wondered if the equipment that was laid out so neatly in the yards
would ever be liberated and used for their intended purposes or if
mechanized farming was out of reach for generations of people to
come.

Kera looked up at him and gave him a wink and
a smile. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this beautiful
young girl who gave her love so freely to him. He knew that she
desperately wanted to hear him say that he loved her, and truth be
told he did, and it was a feeling in his heart that grew stronger
daily. It was only that saying it felt like a betrayal to Holly’s
memory so soon after he had lost her. When
would
it be okay
to say those words to this girl? He shook his head; he simply
didn’t have that answer. She deserved to hear it from him, more
than deserved it, she had earned it. He would die for her as he
would have died for Holly or Jeremy, and he couldn’t imagine his
life without her anymore. God, she could push his buttons at times
and sometimes she was confusing as hell, although what woman
wasn’t?

Bite
the
bullet
,
you
fool
! his mind screamed at him.
Holly
would
want
you
to
be
happy
and
have
someone
new
in
your
life
. He sighed deeply and firmed the
decision in his mind. He would tell her this evening, when they
were safe with the National Guard and reunited with his son. He
would tell her because that was what was honestly in his heart. He
felt a load lift off of his shoulders at the decision and the
acknowledgment of the truth that he was genuinely, deeply in love
with the woman in the wheelbarrow.

They approached the closed, chain-link gate
that obstructed the short road which led to the parking lot in
front of the building that looked like it was the businesses’
storefront. He set the wheelbarrow down in front of the gate and
Dontela parked the shopping cart next to it. Katherine and Angela
gathered around them as they peered through the steel links to what
they all hoped was going to be their salvation.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Dontela
remarked.

It was only early afternoon and Steven hoped
that if a patrol was going to be sent out here looking for refugees
they hadn’t already missed it.

“Don’t worry, they’ll show.” He unwrapped the
chain from around the gate and slid it open far enough that they
could get through. After pushing Kera within the fence, he closed
the gate and replaced the chain.

“My journey is almost over,” he whispered to
himself as he followed the others into the compound.

When Sarah had woken after she heard Sergeant
Heinlich talking with Gypsy Hill, she had insisted with a hoarse
whisper that she drive the rest of the way. She felt like an
invalid lying useless in the passenger seat. The Sergeant had
stopped the Humvee in the middle of the highway and gladly turned
the wheel over to the young woman then climbed onto the passenger
seat and closed his eyes, relaxing for the last short leg of the
trip to the refugee holding center.

A short time later, as the Humvee sped up the
ramp that led to the compound he opened his eyes and glanced over
at the cluster of attached buildings, astonished to see that a
group of people had recently entered through the gate.

“We have visitors,” he remarked in a
surprised voice, sitting up in his seat. It appeared to be a ragged
group of four or five people pushing all of their possessions
before them. He also spotted the array of firearms slung military
style to their chests. They looked to be hardcore survivors. There
was one man, tall and clean-shaven, pushing a wheelbarrow with
someone in it, and all the rest looked to be woman and
children.

He couldn’t believe they had actually rounded
up some survivors. Maybe God really
was
working through
Shavers somehow or, more likely, was that he had lady luck
breathing over his shoulder. They entered Jefferson Highway and
sped across the overpass toward the entrance road that led to the
old Augusta Equipment business as the road weary group in the
compound stopped and watched them approach.

Jeremy gazed out the window at the cluster of
people standing on the other side of the fence, cautiously watching
the Humvee as it raced by them toward the turnoff. His mouth fell
open when he spotted the tall man among the group. His mind refused
to believe what his eyes were seeing. He had to be imagining it. It
looked like a longer-haired version of his papa. He pressed his
face to the window and stared hard at the man as they drove down
the road on the outside of the fence.