Savages (3 page)

When I hesitated, Thompson reached out a hand. “Give me your rifle and I’ll do it.”

“No. I got it.”

I hugged the ground as I snaked my way toward the tank, once again wishing like hell I had brought my ghillie suit. My clothes and gear were a light desert tan, which matched the color of the grass. So at least I had that going for me.

A minute or two later, I stood up behind one of the Howitzer’s treads and, just for kicks, rapped my knuckles against the outer surface of the crew compartment. Or whatever it’s called. I may as well have knocked on a mountain. I had expected a hollow ringing, like hitting the side of an oil drum, but only got a dull thunk. I doubted the men inside could hear.

I should have asked Ethan if he radioed the crew. Now would be a really bad time for the driver to put this thing in reverse.

I waited half a minute with my hands pressed tight against my ears. If the gun went off with me this close, the best I could hope for was the mother of all migraines. There was also the recoil to consider. The crew had not bothered to put down the Howitzer’s spades, so if they fired, I was going for a ride. And not the fun kind.

Another minute went by. No boom. I knew Ethan was not stupid, but one can never be too careful. After taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I stood and balanced my rifle atop the tread. The scope magnified the pine stands a few hundred yards distant, bent and twisted trunks and limbs still falling against one another. I did not see the sniper, but that did not mean he was not still out there. If he had half a brain, when the first artillery shell went off, assuming it did not kill him, he would have scrambled for cover. Then again, the frag rounds had shredded the better part of an acre of forest and sent lethal shrapnel over a much larger area. If the sniper had been anywhere in the vicinity, he was hamburger.

I searched some more and waited. I still did not see the sniper. No shots came my way. At the very least, we had forced him to keep his head down. Hopefully he would stay that way. Shifting position, I turned my attention to the horde. The big gun had eliminated all but maybe thirty or forty undead, only one of them rigged. They seemed disoriented, walking in wide, unsteady circles. I wondered if the concussion from the blasts had thrown off their equilibrium. The undead hunt primarily by sound, so maybe the gun had blown out their eardrums. An interesting theory. I lined up a shot at the last ghoul rigged with a bomb and detonated its vest. Its limbs were still pinwheeling through the air when I hit my belly and started crawling back to Delta’s position.

“Horde is toast,” I told Ethan. “Only a few dozen left, none of them rigged.”

“Good. Thanks, Eric.”

“Anytime.”

He got on the radio and gave a sitrep, then told us we were to head south to meet the other half of First Platoon en route via Chinook.

“Expect the southern horde to be rigged as well,” Sergeant Kelly said. “Riordan, try to detonate as many vests as you can. Everybody stay behind the Howitzer on the way down there. Never know if there might be another sniper. Let’s move.”

The mobile artillery piece pivoted in place and turned toward the south wall at the speed of a slow run. As we followed it, I said to Thompson, “What about Fuller?”

The lines of his face were tight and sharp. “We’ll come back for him.”

I spared a glance at the fallen soldier. He lay where we had left him, no breathing, no nervous twitches, no movement at all. The total stillness of death. 

Rest easy, amigo. Your fight is over.

Half an hour later, the southern horde was a scattering of dead bodies in a field.

The Apache, Second Platoon, the Ninth TVM, and a contingent of town guardsmen had eradicated the horde pouring in from the north. But it was only a temporary reprieve. The battle had been loud, and every walker within ten miles was undoubtedly on its way to Hollow Rock.

While First Platoon trudged behind the Howitzer toward the north gate, I said a quick goodbye to Thompson and set off at a run for the southern wall. Once there, I hollered until a guardsman noticed me, recognized me, and lowered a rope ladder. Climbing over the wall was not the safest way to get into town, but it was the fastest. And it put me on the ground a few hundred yards from my house.

The streets on my side of town were lined with houses and trailers in roughly equal proportion. Looking around, it did not appear as if any of the artillery shells had landed nearby. All the smoke and shouting came from the north, closer to the gate.

I surmised the north gate had been the suicide troops’ primary target, the buildings behind merely collateral damage. And it was a lot of collateral. The north gate was the entrance for trade caravans. Consequently, new buildings had popped up close to it to serve the needs of visitors and traders. There was a livery, three outfitters, food stands that served grilled meat and roasted vegetables, a clothing exchange, public latrines and showers, a feed and tack shop, a guardhouse, and more than a dozen trading stalls. Gabriel and I owned two of them. One for general goods, and one for weapons and ammunition. They were not manned today, being that no caravans had been spotted heading toward Hollow rock for the last week and a half. But there was a strong possibility both my stalls, and the inventory inside several metal lockboxes, had been destroyed. I did not care. The only thing that mattered was finding Allison.

My boots crunched in the gravel driveway as I sprinted to the door. I tried the handle and found it locked. For a moment, I debated unlocking the door and going inside, but decided against it. Allison was not home. If she had been when the fighting started, she would have left by now. She was not the town’s only medical doctor anymore, thanks to the Phoenix Initiative, but I knew she would not stand idle when people were hurt and dying.

Next to the house Allison and I share is the place her grandmother lived until her death a few years before the Outbreak. Gabriel lives there now. He has made a number of improvements to the property, including a half-acre corral and a small barn where he keeps his horse. I jogged into his back yard and entered the barn through the open front entrance.

The barn smelled of hay, grain, piss, shit, and sweaty horse. Red was in his stall, head up, prancing and whinnying, spooked by the explosions. I walked over to the five-foot wall that contained him and spoke soothingly.

“Easy now, big fella. Easy now …”

I put my hand under his nose and scratched and rubbed his neck just below the ear. He calmed quickly. Red was an agreeable horse most of the time, but tended to bolt when startled. Fortunately for Gabe, Red did not startle easily. I grabbed a lead rope and clipped it to one of the rings in Red’s halter, opened the door to his stall, and led him to the dirt-floored tack room. A western saddle hung over a sawhorse in the corner, along with blankets and reins. I laid a blanket over the horse’s back, saddled him, and connected a bit and reins to his halter. He accepted the bit without complaint.

“Come on, big guy,” I said as I swung into the saddle. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Red walked slowly out of the barn and paused a few seconds to sniff the air. I had ridden him enough times to know he was not one to be rushed. Impatience nagged at me as I gently kicked his haunches, urging him forward. He walked, then began to trot. I kicked harder and he picked up to a light gallop. I kicked with more insistence. When Red finally realized my hands were loose on the reins, he opened his stride and gained speed. I kept urging him on until we were flying over the grass bordering Seminary Street toward the north side of town. Red might have been slow to get started, but once he got going, he could really move.

The smoke grew thicker as I rode closer to the gate, orange tongues of fire lapping angrily in the near distance. My eyes watered and I had to put my goggles on and pull my scarf over my mouth and nose. Red did not seem bothered. I tugged the reins to slow him down as we approached the clinic.

Through the black and gray haze, I could see nurses and volunteers moving in front of the entrance. I dismounted Red, turned him toward home, and slapped him on the haunches. He took a few clattering steps, swung his big head in my direction, and gave me a mildly offended glare.

“Go on, Red. Go home.”

He snorted and set off at a trot.

I jogged toward the clinic, rifle clutched, gear bouncing on my vest and belt. The smoke had been thick when I arrived, but the wind shifted direction and I could see better now. Near the gate, low wooden buildings burned furiously amidst shattered rubble. I glanced toward where my two stalls were, and sure enough, they were smoldering slag heaps. There might be something salvageable, I thought, but it would have to wait.

“Allison!” I shouted. No one answered. I yelled again. Same result. A nurse I knew named Brett Nolan walked past and I grabbed him by the arm.

“Brett, where’s Allison?”

“Inside,” he said, prying my hand from his arm. “She’s busy. There are a lot of wounded.”

“But she’s okay?”

“She’s fine.”

Relief flooded through me. I had to put my head between my knees until a bout of lightheadedness passed.

“You okay?” Brett asked.

“Yeah. Just catching my breath.” Feeling better, I stood up straight.

“We could use some help,” Brett said.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Drop your gear in the lobby and go talk to Samantha. She’s in the storage room behind the reception desk.”

“Will do.”

I put my rifle, vest, and web belt on the floor behind the counter and poked my head in the storage room. “Sam?”

Samantha Walcott, physician’s assistant, stood up and faced me. She was in her early fifties, over six feet tall, lean, weathered, and hard as an iron chisel. “What?” she snapped.

“I’m here to help.”

“Take these,” she handed me a bundle of clear plastic bags. “Bandages. Give them out to the nurses, then head to the gate and help the guardsmen look for wounded.”

“Where’s Allison?”

“Busy.” Sam turned around and began sorting through boxes again. I was dismissed.

I went back to the parking lot. More bodies came in on carts, on horseback, in the Sheriff Department’s lone electric vehicle, on litters born by weary, frightened townsfolk. Some of the wounded walked themselves in, bleeding and limping and crying out in pain. A boy of no more than fifteen stumbled, fell, and was still. A nurse ran to him and checked his pulse, then rolled him over. There was a piece of shrapnel the length of a man’s forearm protruding from his chest. His eyes were wide open and fixed, glassy, lifeless. The nurse closed his eyes, dragged his body into the grass, and moved on.

Nurses took the bandages from me. When my arms were empty, I ran for the north gate.

*****

Mayor Stone’s paranoia was Hollow Rock’s saving grace.

I remember once going to see her at town hall on some small matter of public affairs she had asked me to look into. As I entered her office, she sat facing a window, feet perch on the sill, silhouetted in warm morning light. She turned when she heard me knock and asked me to sit down.

“Something on your mind, Elizabeth?” I asked.

“There’s always something on my mind.”

“What’s the topic of the day?”

“The wall,” she said.

“What about it?”

She laced her fingers over her stomach. “Too many people in this town take it for granted. Especially on the north side of town where it’s all concrete and steel. I look at the wall and I think about the Outbreak. I think about all the military hardware leftover from units that were overrun. I think about grenades, and bombs, and rocket launchers, not to mention all the materials that can be used to make improvised explosives. All just lying around waiting to be snatched up. I think about that, and I think about the Alliance, and the ROC, and all the raiders and marauders and assorted scum out there, and I think about how easy it would be to plant something ugly and volatile against the wall and watch from a good safe distance while it lit up the night. I think about that, and I wonder what we would do if it ever happened.”

“I’ve lost sleep a few nights dwelling on that subject myself.”

She spun around in her chair. “Did your contemplations yield any useful insights?”

I looked down at my fingernails. “The way things are going, I don’t think it’s a question of
if
, Liz. It’s a question of when. And how bad. You should talk to Ethan Thompson about it.”

“Why Thompson?”

“He told me a war story once about a place back in North Carolina called Steel City. Went there to stop some lunatic from leading a horde around and attacking small settlements. Ask him about the layout of Steel City. Might give you some ideas.”

She nodded twice, turned back to the window, and looked steadily toward the east wall while I gave her my report.

I did not get much sleep that night.

*****

By two in the afternoon on the day of the attack, everyone that could be saved had been. Forty-eight people lost their lives, including Private Fuller, a sheriff’s deputy on the force less than a month, and two men from Second Platoon on duty at the main gate when the first shells hit. In less than ten minutes, a small band of ROC suicide troops had killed more than twice as many people as the Free Legion did in over a year of raids.

I was filthy, sweaty, and exhausted by the time I helped pull the last of the bodies out of the rubble and ashes. The town’s sole functioning fire engine put out most of the fires, while crews with shovels and buckets kept the isolated ones contained until they burned out. To the north, the sound of gunfire tattooed the air as all of Echo Company and the Ninth Tennessee Volunteer Militia, reinforced by the Sheriff’s Department and a hundred town guardsmen, engaged the infected attracted by the fighting.

Mayor Stone appeared out of the dissipating smoke near the entrance to the clinic. She was speaking to Allison and one of the doctors from the Phoenix Initiative, Sudesh Khurana. Dr. Khurana was a small man in his late forties, balding, dark brown skin, rimless glasses, and sharp, intelligent eyes. His manner was brusque, but according to Allison, he was a highly skilled and eminently competent surgeon. An education at Johns Hopkins has that effect on people, evidently.

Allison spotted me on my way over, stopped talking mid-sentence, and ran into my arms. The mayor looked on with kind impatience.

“You’re all right,” she said.

I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “Yeah. I am.”

Her arms tightened and we stood that way for a few seconds, holding each other. I kissed the top of her head and then her lips and tried very hard to breathe against the constriction in my chest. I let her go and held her at arm’s length.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’d say I’ve seen worse, but that would be a lie.”

“And the baby?”

A small smile. “The baby is fine, Eric. I’m only five months pregnant. It’ll be a while before it’s big enough to cause trouble.”

I looked down at the slight bulge in her trim stomach. Anyone not as familiar with her body as I was would not have noticed it. But I did. I stared at it often, and covered it with my hand when we slept at night, and wondered with a mix of fear and anticipation what the little person growing in there would be like when they came out. Would we have a boy or a girl? Would he or she look like me, or Allison? Either way, I hoped the baby had blue eyes. I have always liked having blue eyes.

“Doctor Laroux,” Sudesh Khurana said. “We have patients.”

Allison nodded and stepped away. “I don’t know when I’ll be home,” she said.

“Me either. I’m going to go help out with the infected. Could be a long fight.”

“Be careful.”

“Always. Mayor, I assume you’ve set that contingency plan we discussed into motion?”

“Deputy Glover is coordinating as we speak,” Elizabeth Stone said. “But the forklifts and propane are in storage on the other side of town. When you reach the lines, tell Captain Harlow we need twenty minutes to get the containers in place and probably another half hour to fill them with ballast.”

“I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you. I’ll send a rider when the breach is secured.”

“I’ll let him know that too.”

Allison’s cheek was covered in soot, but I kissed it anyway. Then I retrieved my rifle and gear and made my way toward the sounds of combat.