Winchester Undead (Book 2): Winchester: Prey (17 page)

CHAPTER 37

Peyote, Texas

February 16, Year 1

The concrete ceiling stood at least fifteen feet above the floor of the underground area. Apollo parked the Land Rover in an area marked on the floor as a designated parking area. Like a scene from a low-budget TV movie, three long passageways stretched out before them, each cast in a yellow light from the sodium vapor lighting. The long passageways stretched beyond imagination. There were square concrete pillars every ten feet or so, each painted with a colored band and a letter followed by a number. Chivo walked to where a half-dozen flatbed electric carts sat in charging stations and found a map with a key for the different sections posted on a stand.

“Hey mano, it’s like a map at the mall. It tells you where you should go shopping.”

Apollo and Lindsey joined Chivo by the map. Surprised, Apollo saw that Chivo wasn’t joking. The entire cache site had a key referencing the location of items by colored section, then by row and shelf number.

“Holy shit! It’s like Christmas came early this year!” Apollo pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket and began jotting down notes on where to find the supplies he knew they needed before unplugging an electric cart.

“You two grab a cart for yourself and follow me. We have some shopping to do.” Apollo drove off in a quiet whir of the electric cart.

“Hey Linds, think they sell Swedish meatballs at the concession stand?” Chivo drove after Apollo, laughing, followed by Lindsey in her own cart.

Two hours later, the three sat by their Land Rover with crates of gear. Apollo and Chivo both wore new Army-pattern ACUS and were packing their new packs with items from an incredible pile of supplies. After a quick test, they determined that the electronic gear stored below ground in the facility had survived the EMP attack. They agreed that a facility like this was hardened against just such an attack for that reason.

Lindsey gingerly opened box after box of new equipment, much of which she had never seen before, but her new friends insisted she needed. Chivo took care to assemble her new M4 rifle before driving to the end of one of the passageways to test fire her new rifle and sight-in the Acog combat sight-mounted on the top rail.

Apollo sat close to Lindsey and helped her assemble each piece of equipment, explaining how it all fit together and showing her how it worked. It was as if a film crew making a documentary about the equipment used by Special Forces Operators had decided to leave a pile of gear at her feet after wrapping principal photography.

“How in the world am I supposed to find all the things in all these little pouches, much less use them?” Lindsey was overwhelmed by it all, even with Apollo’s help. He resisted the urge to explain how the MOLLE strap and gear system worked and how he liked it better than the old ALICE system he’d had when he was a young infantry soldier. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you and we’ll practice enough to get you feeling comfortable before we leave.”

Chivo walked back to the group and the pile of gear. He was done assembling his gear. His magazines were loaded, his pouches were full, and his kit was already being worn. The big Barrett fifty-caliber rifle lay on the ground, the bipod extended. The comically large suppressor already attached to the end of the barrel extended the length of the large rifle even further.

“Hey Apollo. If you wouldn’t mind zipping it up, I could use a hand over here.”

Apollo responded with an extended middle finger. Lindsey’s fair skin glowed red. Apollo walked over to where Chivo lay behind the rifle and sat down behind the spotting scope attached to a tripod. Not wanting to risk verifying the accuracy of their optics and rifle sights above ground, Chivo had made an impromptu rifle range and walked it off, then stacked boxes four feet high nearly one thousand feet down the lit passageway. There was no way either of them would step foot beyond the wire and into this dangerous world without testing and sighting in their new rifles. Chivo slowed his breathing, taking deliberately metered breaths before pressing the trigger to the rear. The big rifle barked a four-foot long flame out of the end of the suppressor. The suppressed shot echoed loudly throughout the facility.

“Two down and three right,” Apollo said, without looking away from the eyepiece of the spotting scope.

Chivo clicked the dials on the rifle’s optic to make the adjustments, wrote some notes on a notepad, and reset his shooting position before repeating his breathing cadence and squeezing the trigger again.

“Hit.”

Another series of deliberate breaths and another shot.

“Hit.”

Seven more times, Chivo repeated the long distance shot, and seven more times he scored a hit. Chivo removed the empty magazine and promptly field-stripped the rifle to clean it. Four green metal ammo cans full of .50BMG sat next to Chivo’s pile of gear.

Apollo and Chivo loaded the Land Rover with everything they decided they would need for their mission to South Texas, including some spares of their communications gear with earpieces and throat mics. If what Cliff told them was true, they might need to give some survivors a bit of gear so they could move and communicate effectively.

Lindsey looked at the old-style woodland BDUs that they’d found in her small size; the crisp clean fabric made her feel dirty. Her jeans were dark and greasy from the weeks of wear and days of surviving on the top of the highway sign. She was fairly sure she smelled horrible. The guys found some wet wipes and took an “astronaut bath,” as they called it, before putting on clean underwear, shirts and ACUs. She took her sneakers and socks off before pulling her shirt over her head and stripping naked. Her panties looked disgusting and she was afraid to get too close to them for what they might smell like. They were quickly discarded into the throw-away pile. With a fresh box of wet wipes, she began with her face and worked her way down. The smell of the wet wipes brought a flood of memories rushing back. Memories of her family. They smelled just like baby wipes, and for the first time in weeks, she thought of her baby cousins and her sister’s first child, a baby girl born two weeks before Christmas. She tried to finish wiping herself down, but ended up sitting naked on the cold concrete floor, crying.

Apollo walked around the side of the Land Rover and stopped in his tracks, caught off guard at the sight of Lindsey sitting completely nude on the ground, sobbing into her hands. Apollo’s first and only marriage had lasted exactly ten months, just the amount of time it took for him to return from his first clandestine mission after being selected for The Unit. Not to say that Apollo wasn’t experienced with women; he just wasn’t very good at knowing what to say or do when someone he cared about was emotional. He resisted the urge to retreat back to the other side of the Land Rover, so he walked to Lindsey, sat beside her, and softly held her hand. Lindsey looked at him, her eyes puffy and red, her cheeks wet. “They’re all gone, aren’t they? My family is all gone and I’ll never see them again.”

He wanted to lie; Apollo wanted to say everything was all right, but he couldn’t. He decided to tell the truth. “They probably are. I don’t think many people survived this attack, but you have, and you have to live every day to honor their memory and their love. You know that is what they would want you to do.”

Lindsey began sobbing again. This time Apollo wrapped his big arms around her, Lindsey burying her face in his strong chest. Apollo was scared to move, afraid that he’d told Lindsey the wrong thing, but eventually her crying slowed and her breathing came back to normal. She locked eyes with Apollo and whispered, “Thank you” before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Lindsey stood and pulled the desert brown men’s briefs to her waist. They’d been unable to find any women’s underwear. The Under Armour shirt would have to serve as her bra until they could raid a Walmart or other store for her. Apollo sat there, stunned at what had happened. Strong-minded and of Type-A personality, Apollo simply couldn’t comprehend Lindsey’s emotional swing. Although he did smile upon noticing that her legs were hairy, which he guessed should be expected after the end of the world and all. Lindsey finished getting dressed, tied the laces of her new tactical boots, and looked down at Apollo still sitting on the floor.

“So are you going to sit there all day or are you going to teach me how to use my new rifle?”

Apollo smiled, stood, and looked at his new and also functioning watch. They had about seven hours until sunrise.

CHAPTER 38

The Basin

February 17, Year 1

Jessie didn’t dare move a muscle or even open her eyes quickly. She couldn’t remember what happened and didn’t know where she was, but as consciousness crashed back into focus, some of her new nightmare started replaying in her mind. She had watched Keeley die; she had held her little girl in her arms as life drained from those little green eyes. After that, she remembered being beaten and dragged into a vehicle. The vehicle looked familiar, but Jessie couldn’t recall the details.

Carefully and slowly Jessie wiggled her toes; they felt like they worked. She couldn’t feel her arms and her shoulders burned harshly. Slowly she tried to open her eyes, the lids crusted heavily with dried blood and tears. The room was dark, but the moonlight filtered in through a small window. Her arms were tied tightly behind her and she was on the floor. Jessie realized she was naked and a wave of fear washed over her that she might have been raped.

Slowly more memories came back into focus and she remembered being beaten and spit on, but she didn’t think anyone had raped her, yet. Jessie slowly turned her head and pain exploded from behind her eyes. The pain was so strong that it made her feel like the room was spinning even though she was lying on the floor. She felt like she was falling into a dark hole.

Jessie gasped awake. A flickering candle made shadows dance around the room. The room was familiar, and then she realized she was in a cabin in the park. Another woman sat down, her face blotched with dark purple patches, deep bruises visible in the dim light. She was also nude. The woman held a cup to Jessie’s lips and slowly poured water into her mouth. Then, she took a wet cloth and gently cleaned the dried blood, tears, and snot off Jessie’s face. Jessie could smell urine and then remembered two men in leather vests pissing on her.

The unknown woman whispered into her ear. “Don’t fight. Submit to them and they won’t beat you as badly. If you’re lucky, one of them will choose you to be his old lady, and then you’ll be protected from the others.”

Jessie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had no intention on submitting to anyone except Bexar, and even then their relationship was built on trust and respect, not submission. The other woman untied Jessie’s hands. Her hands, wrists, and arms throbbed in protest as blood flowed back into the muscles when she brought her hands from behind her back.

“Thank you,” croaked Jessie.

“My name is Mary. If you do what I tell you to do, you might be able to survive. Otherwise, the men might kill you once they’re done with you, or they might just keep beating you.”

Jessie couldn’t speak; she only nodded slightly, scared to move much more for the pain that held just on the edge of being unbearable. Mary gave her two white pills. “This will help with the pain.” Jessie didn’t know what the pills were, but she took them. She was barely able to swallow; the pills felt like they stuck in her throat.

“In a couple of hours, I’ll try to sneak you in some more vikes, but those will have to do for now. I better get back to the female cabin before I’m caught. You’ll start to feel better in about ten minutes.”

Mary blew out the candle and quietly walked out of the cabin, leaving Jessie shivering in the dark. Jessie was scared to climb into the bed. She felt more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life. A few moments later, she could feel the pain starting to fade. She crawled into the corner of the cabin on the other side of the bed, pulled the blanket off the bed and curled into a tight ball in the corner, hoping that her Bexar was still alive and that he could save her.

Terlingua, Texas

Bexar rode much faster than he should have been riding, the dark highway’s curves appearing suddenly in the darkness. More than once, he had to swerve to dodge a walking corpse in the roadway. The eastern horizon faintly glowed with the approaching sunrise as he roared past the large Big Bend sign entering the park. For some reason, all Bexar could think about was Hannibal from the A-Team. He had no plan and he had no idea how it would all come together. There was only one thing Bexar was sure of—he was going to kill every single biker in the park. But to do that, he would have to sneak into The Basin from the trail going over The Window. He wasn’t sure they would be in The Basin, but that’s where the cabins were and that’s where they’d attacked before; it was the most likely place and the first place to look. Bexar hoped they didn’t know about the trail over The Window; he didn’t think they would have discovered it in such a short time. Regardless, it was a better plan than riding up the main road.

Thirty minutes later, Bexar pulled off the Ross Maxwell onto the rocky road to the trailhead and where he had stashed the Wagoneer and RV before, hoping if the bikers heard the motorcycle, they would assume it was one of their own. That day seemed like it had happened years ago. Bexar stopped the motorcycle in the same spot the Wagoneer had been parked, pushed the side stand down, and stepped off the bike, which slid in the dirt and promptly fell over. Bexar shook his head. “Fuck this bike. I’m taking back my cabin.”

Bexar removed the fireworks from a saddlebag, stuffed them in his go-bag, and took a step towards the trailhead. His right leg erupted in pain. The whiskey’s ability to hold the pain of the gunshot wound at bay was quickly fading, and a hangover was approaching. Angry at himself, Bexar dug the other saddlebag out from under the motorcycle and pulled the zip-top bag full of drugs out. He took the bag of Vicodin out and stuffed it in his pocket, but not before washing two of them down with a bottle of water. The empty plastic bottle dropped to the ground. Bexar stepped gingerly to test his leg and then started limping slowly up the dark trail towards The Window.