Rip planted his foot in the stirrup of his horse, hefting himself up onto the animal. “Nope. I suggest you learn to judge situations like I do, Hacker. It’ll keep you alive a hell of a lot longer.”
“And what’s that, sarge?”
“When in doubt, shoot it out.”
CHAPTER 16
An hour later, they were back within the relatively safe confines of Fort Drum. Seabass took it upon himself to see to Casey’s care, taking her to Colonel Patterson’s office. Clay graciously gave up his spot in the colonel’s office for the young girl. His wounds did not stop him from aiding as well, giving up his blankets to keep the girl as comfortable as possible.
Rip stuck his head in the office to have a look at Casey. The girl was sleeping soundly, and Colonel Patterson and Seabass were both kicked back in chairs, watching over her. Seabass looked up and slowly nodded to Rip.
“Get some sleep, sergeant. We got this.”
As much as Rip wanted to get some answers and more information from Casey, the girl was in no shape to help with either. Without speaking, he ducked back out of the room. Seabass was right; he did need some rest. Most of the time that he’d spent resting the last few days had been alcohol or exhaustion induced. It might do him well to get some honest-to-God rest the old-fashioned way. He stowed his gear behind the bar and decided to get some much-needed sleep.
As his worn and tired body hit the cot, the door to Colonel Patterson’s office opened. The colonel looked left and right before settling on Rip. He waved the tired sergeant into his office.
“She’s awake some. She says she wants to talk to you.”
Rip’s rest would have to wait. Getting the information now would give him some time to sleep on it—literally. Rip rose from the cot and dragged himself into the colonel’s office.
Casey had rolled onto her right side and pulled the blankets close under her chin. With no secondary source of heat once the sun went down, there was a slight chill in the air. Rip did not feel it, however. Blessed with the metabolism of a hummingbird, he always managed to stay warm somehow, even during the frigid New York winters.
Rip knelt down in front of Casey. Her eyes met his and she perked up a bit.
Rip pushed a lock of her brunette hair away from her face. She smiled, ever so slightly.
“Thank you for saving me, Rip. I don’t know how much longer I could have lasted in there.”
Rip grinned back, also ever so slightly. “My pleasure, Casey. I have to ask, though. How long were you in there?”
“The night that you left, we were overrun. At first, it was just zombies, and then the Riders came. Dad ran up on a few of them going by the house, and they threatened to kill us if we didn’t go with them. They said we could either go with them, or be eaten by the undead. When my dad refused, they shot him in the stomach.” Casey’s eyes began to well up with tears. “It took him almost two days to die. I thought about leaving the house to come get help, but every time we stepped out, there were more zombies. We couldn’t hold out forever, so I just stayed there and helped Mom take care of Dad. I knew he wouldn’t make it, but I couldn’t get her to leave him.”
“I’m sorry, Casey. I know you did everything you could to help your mom and dad out.” Rip tried his best not to become emotionally involved with the girl’s plight, but part of him couldn’t help it. His own son was out there somewhere and he needed to find out what the Riders were doing traipsing through the woods with the undead in tow. “Did the Riders say anything to you guys that might be of any use? They killed a couple of our men on a scout team. They ambushed with a horde of zombies and took them out. Do you know why?”
Casey propped herself up on her elbow. “I remember them saying something about going to a town near New York City. Some place called Sleepy Hollow. They said that’s where they were going to take us. They didn’t tell us why.”
Sleepy Hollow. The same place where Marshal Crane had taken his son. The same godforsaken town that the Horseman had left for. It was too much for Rip to try to wrap his mind around. He was a combat operator, not some think-tank scientist or philosopher. His IQ wasn’t 160 and he sure as hell didn’t know much about why the undead favored this particular town. A nagging sensation in the back of his head told him that it was time to spill the beans. It was time for him to bring someone else in to the fold. He needed someone to bounce ideas off for the sake of trying to figure it all out.
He needed a fresh mind, a mind that had a different perspective.
He looked into Casey’s eyes. “Casey, I’m going to tell you something. Something that I haven’t told anyone. Granted, I’ve only been around for a few days, but I have to let you know what happened to me
before
you and your family helped me out.”
Casey’s brow furrowed. “Okay. What is it that you have to trust in me that you can’t tell one of these other guys around here? They seem more up to speed on the soldier stuff than I am.”
“I need help. I need a fresh set of eyes on what I am trying to understand. I figure you are about the best one for that.”
“I will try. I can help you with what little I know.”
“Casey, you know much more than you think. I just want to know what I’m getting into. I want to figure out what is waiting for me in Sleepy Hollow.”
Casey sat up on the bed. “You’re going to Sleepy Hollow? What the hell for? That’s where the Riders and all the undead are storming towards. You want to go there? Into the lion’s den?”
Rip looked down. “Marshal Crane took my son there. The zombies are going there. The Riders are going there. It seems like I am the only person that
isn’t
going there now. We have gotten some intel that the Horseman and Crane are going there, but we have no idea why.”
“I’m sorry that Marshal Crane took your son, Rip. I just don’t know what I can do to help you.”
“I know what I have to do once I get there. I just need someone to confide in, someone to tell all the fucked up shit that I have to tell. I don’t have anyone around here that I trust with that information. You were the one who first told me about the Horseman, so I have got to take that as some kind of sign.”
“All right then, Rip. What do you have to tell me?”
Rip took a deep breath and then started with all of the information that he had up to this point. He told her about the mission in Afghanistan that had gotten Crayon killed, the frozen mountain, about Crayon appearing, and about him falling asleep. He told her about waking up in the middle of the woods, the spot where her father had first run into him. Rip regaled her with what he had been through since leaving their home, the run-in with Jeff, the meeting with Crane, and the realization that Crane had killed his wife.
The most difficult parts to talk about were the ones concerning Crayon. He could no more tell why his deceased friend had appeared than why the zombies were migrating south. He still wasn’t entirely sure that the whole thing wasn’t in his head and that he was going to wake up from a horrible nightmare any minute now. The more time that passed, the more he became assured that it was very much real, which proved that he was going to have to die in order to save them from the zombie apocalypse, something that he also told Casey about.
Once he was finished, Rip sat back and let Casey absorb it all. He wasn’t certain, but he could have sworn that she hadn’t blinked the whole time he was spilling his life story to her. He still wasn’t sure why he picked her; there was something about the girl that put him at ease and told him that she was trustworthy. A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed after his story.
“So, now do you think I’m completely crazy?”
Casey smiled again, the small wisp of a grin that said
if you only knew.
“I most certainly do not think you are crazy, Sergeant Irving.”
Rip chuckled. “And why not? All this shit is
happening
to me and
I’m
not sure if I’m crazy or not. I’ve witnessed all this weird shit and I still have my doubts. What makes you so sure?”
“Because if you’re crazy, then so am I,” Casey said, very matter-of-factly.
“And why’s that?”
“Because I hear Crayon too.”
CHAPTER 17
Rip leaned back, astonished. Part of him was relieved that he wasn’t crazy. God only knew that he still wrestled with the fact that he was actually in the predicament that he found himself, but the other—more depressing—fact was that everything he had experienced over the last week was in fact real. Years of booze and the haze of alcohol had put a barrier between himself and reality, and he didn’t have that now. Reality was hitting hard. Colonel Patterson had made sure that Rip couldn’t get any more firewater after his episode with taking a round in the arm.
“So how did you come to hear him?” Rip asked. It was the only pertinent question he could muster.
Casey looked away forlornly. “I started to hear him after I’d hid in the house. That was two days ago. I was starving and panicking out of my mind. Truth be told, I’ve been able to hear others before I heard him. When I was little, I thought it was just imaginary friends, you know, normal kid stuff. As I got a little older, after the zombies came, I started to hear it more often. It scared me at first, but I just got used to it. That is what made me realize that it wasn’t some passing phase; I really could hear the dead.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this when you saw me before? I have a feeling that you knew something was up with me when we first met.”
“I really didn’t know what to make of you, Rip. If you had told me your story then maybe things would have turned out differently for both of us. I knew there was someone coming to defeat the Horseman, but I didn’t think it would be you, to be quite honest.”
Rip leaned forward. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest with you and your father. I was having a hard time coming to terms with what was going on and I didn’t trust you one hundred percent just yet.”
“It’s okay, Rip. We couldn’t have known what we would mean to one another. Now that we do, we can do something about the end of the world.”
Rip smiled dryly. “What do you have in mind? I still don’t know how to kill the Horseman, and even if I did, I’m not sure that I want to. Remember, if I kill him, I die. I’m not very keen on dying just yet, Casey. The Horseman is an intimidating motherfucker. It ain’t gonna be a kick in the balls that kills him; it’s going to have to be something catastrophic to get rid of him.”
“Ask Crayon. I can hear him, but I can’t talk to him or see him like you can. It’s all random voices to me.”
“Crayon isn’t real happy with me. I doubt he still has any faith left in my abilities. The poor bastard thinks I can save the world, and I hate to disappoint him, but it doesn’t look good. My own goddamn stubbornness got the better of me, and now the Horseman is gone with Crane and Jeff. If I hadn’t been such a dick to my own son, things might not have gone all to shit so fast.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Rip. We have to figure out how to get you to Sleepy Hollow in one piece. And between you and me—it’s not going to be easy.”
“The odds are
always
against me, Casey. We have some of the best-trained men left in the world to go with us. We will make it there, or die trying.”
“And I don’t know if it’s just Crayon or if it’s all of them, but they are not happy.”
“Not happy about what?”
Casey looked up with a haggard, red-eyed stare. The girl needed some rest and something to take her mind off the situation, but she knew that she had to help Rip.
“They’re not happy with you, Rip. See, Crayon knows that if you kill the Horseman you will set his soul free.”
“That’s the idea, yes, but he was the one who told me that. It shouldn’t be any surprise to him.”
She held up a finger. “But… the zombies aren’t as dumb as you think. They know if you kill the Horseman they will cease to exist, and they aren’t very happy about that. Each one of them can communicate with the Horseman, and he can order them as well the same way.”
Rip gritted his teeth. The whole goddamned world was against him… literally. “I can dish out just as well as I can take, Casey.”
“I don’t doubt that, Rip, but you need to be careful. There are thousands of undead trudging their way to Sleepy Hollow. They will protect the Horseman to save their own ass. It will be a nonstop mass of zombies between here and there. Long story short, they aren’t going to take this lying down. If you leave Fort Drum, you are going to have an army of undead that you can’t even imagine coming after you,” Casey said. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Is your son worth going through all that trouble?”
Rip had to admit, she had a good point. Jeff had been in his life for less than a week and he’d already taken a bullet for the kid. That incident, of course, was preceded by him being chastised by his only child for being a drunk. He loved the boy, no question about it, but the hesitation that came over him when it came to Jeff just fed the notion that maybe it wasn’t such a hot idea. If Jeff were in his shoes, would he do the same thing? Would his estranged son take it upon himself to battle hordes of the undead in order to save someone that really didn’t know whether they gave two shits about them?
You’re goddamned right he would,
Rip thought.
“I am going to Sleepy Hollow to save my son. If the dead take me before then, then I will see them in hell, but mark my words—I will not quit on my son.”
“Then you are going to need my help, Rip. For my father’s sake and for your son’s sake, we need to watch one another’s back.”
Rip stood, his joints making unnatural popping and cracking sounds. He wasn’t getting any younger. No time to complain about aches and pains; he needed to be at the top of his game. The dead travel fast.
“Get some rest, Casey. Tomorrow morning, we leave for Sleepy Hollow.”
Casey lay back down. “And what are you going to do with him once we get there?”
“Who?” Rip asked.
“The Horseman. How are you going to kill him?”
Rip chuckled. “I have no idea, but I have a friend who does.”