Savages (6 page)

“And your men would be stuck here longer than they already will be,” I added.

“It was all a smokescreen,” Harlow said, standing up and beginning to pace his small office. “The Alliance doesn’t want Hollow Rock. At least not yet. They just want to make sure Union forces near their territory stay occupied while they expand southward.”

“And it’s working,” I said.

Harlow stopped pacing. A slow smile spread across his face. “So we let them keep right on thinking that.”

Jonas said, “Do you have an idea, sir?”

Harlow unlocked a drawer in his desk and extracted a satellite phone. “Step outside for a minute, gentlemen. I need to make a call.”

Night fell over Hollow Rock.

I stared at my little corner of the world and had an oppressive feeling of things ending. It was a rotten emotion, like the time a very polite and appropriately subdued officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department called my cell phone and told me my parents had been involved in a car accident.

Are they hurt? They’re at the hospital. Okay, but are they hurt? They’re at Presbyterian Main, uptown. Your mother is in surgery, I believe. How bad is it? I’m afraid I don’t know the extent of her injuries. Fine, what about my father? I’m sorry, Mr. Riordan. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

That same hollow feeling. Like the ground under my feet moved and rippled and fell away. Like I had nothing inside me, no lungs, no heart, no organs of any kind. My blood was smoke. My breath was ashes. Something precious, something irreplaceable, was gone. Taken away from me.

Allison is still alive, I told myself. And my baby. Okay. As long as I have that, I’ll be all right. But what about home? What about the sense of safety and belonging? If the Alliance really wanted to destroy Hollow Rock, they could. Maybe not all the way, but enough to make the place uninhabitable. We could rebuild, but they could come right back and do it again. And again. So what was there to do?

Leave
, was my first thought. Call in every favor. Spend whatever I had to spend. Pack up everything, head for Colorado, and start over. Allison is a doctor, and I can fight. We would have no trouble finding work in the Springs. Or somewhere else, maybe. I’d heard from acquaintances that for the right price, I could buy a plane ride to the Florida Keys, and from there, a boat to the Caribbean.

That part of the world was doing comparatively well, if the rumors were to be believed. Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica, St. Lucia, all safe places. Plenty of weapons, stable government, sustainable food supplies, and most importantly, no infected. Everything a person could ask for.

But what about Gabe, and Elizabeth, the Glover family, and all the other friends I had made? I couldn’t just leave them. Could I? They were all capable survivors. They did not need me. I would miss them, but I could live without them. Right?

The smell of food cooking reached my nose. Not surprising considering I was sitting on the roof of the chow hall. The smell did not entice me. I had no appetite. Probably would not until I was back home with my wife. Then we would talk and figure out what to do next.

I stared across the long field leading to Hollow Rock. The only movement I could see was wandering infected. The moon was almost full and the sky was clear, allowing me to see all the way to the north gate. Hollow Rock was quiet. Fort McCray was quiet. No lights, no laughter, no loud voices coming from the enlisted club. Everything but the barracks and the chow hall were closed. The sentries on the perimeter wall carried suppressed rifles and wore NVGs. Noise discipline was in full effect. Same for Hollow Rock. It had taken a while for things to settle down over there, but they finally did.

So what now, Riordan? What’s the plan?

For right now, I sit here and try not to think too much. Eventually I will get tired, and I’ll see if I can scrounge up something soft to sleep on. Tomorrow, I’ll find Gabe and grill him for information. Or the guys in Delta Squad. Or Captain Harlow. Or someone.

It was late in the night before I got tired. A supply sergeant who owed me a jar of instant coffee—no small debt in a world where coffee grew rarer by the day—earned himself a chunk of credit by issuing me a ground mat and a sleeping bag on the promise I would return them in the morning.

When I slept, I dreamed I was on a small boat and Allison was on a distant shore. There was a swarm of infected approaching at her back. The forest behind them was on fire. Allison did not seem to notice. She smiled, and waved, and rubbed her large round belly with our child in it. I screamed at her to look back, but she did not hear. The boat drifted farther away, the fire blazed higher, and the moans of the undead grew louder. I tried to jump overboard and swim to her, but my legs would not respond. I screamed until my voice died in my throat, to no avail. I did not understand why Allison could not hear me, why she didn’t sense the danger. Then the boat was being tossed by heavy waves, and voices shouted at me from under the water, saying, “Hey, wake up!”, and I could not breath, and …

My eyes opened. Someone had clamped a calloused hand over my mouth. In the dim half-light, I saw a face wearing NVGs with a finger over its lips. I relaxed and nodded.

“Sorry,” I said when the hand let go.

“S’okay. Happens all the time.”

The soldier stood and turned to walk away. “Does it happen to you?” I asked.

He stopped. “It used to.”

“But not anymore?”

“No. I wish I knew why.”

The door to the drill hall closed gently as the sentry went back out on watch. I lay with my hands behind my head and watched the high windows turn blue, then gray, then pale yellow. With the morning came birdsong—high, melodic, and unapologetically disinterested.

*****

“I don’t care how many infected are out there,” Gabe said. “I’m going home.”

“Sir,” the sentry at the gate replied, “I can’t open the doors.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“How are you getting out, then?”

Gabe pointed at the catwalk along the wall. “I have rope.”

“But the infected will be on you in a heartbeat. We’re not authorized to use live ammo right now.”

“Got it covered,” Gabe said. He hooked a thumb at me. I raised my rifle and tapped the suppressor at the end of the barrel.

“But you can’t-”

“I’m not military,” I said. “I can use all the ammo I want. And with this suppressor, I won’t attract any more infected. We don’t need your help. We just need you to get out of the way.”

“What about him?” the guard said, inclining his helmet toward Gabe. “He doesn’t have a suppressor.”

Gabe drew his falcata and held it up. The polished blade gleamed in the morning light. “Got that covered too.”

The guard eyed the Sword of Gabriel warily and took a step back. “Fine,” he said. “Your funeral.”

We stepped past him and ascended the stairs to the catwalk. Gabe unslung the coil of rope across his chest and tied it around his legs and hips like a rappelling harness. I took the loose end and passed it around a section of steel railing, doubling the rope for easy retrieval. Gabe connected the anchor end to a carabiner, stepped up onto the battlement, and began easing his weight backwards.

I looked around the perimeter wall. There were no sentries on patrol. The only guards above ground level hid behind camouflage blinds in guard towers. Captain Harlow did not want the infected to see them and crowd against the wall, as if the ambient noise of more than three-hundred soldiers was not enough to attract them.

I peered over the edge and settled my carbine against my shoulder. The VCOG was set to its lowest magnification. Only a few infected clawed at the wall, but their moans would soon attract others. There would have been many more undead if not for an intrepid old fellow by the name of John Wollodarsky.

Wollodarsky owned an ultralight helicopter he built from a kit before the Outbreak. He told me about it one day while foraging around my store for something to make a fuel filter out of. The ultralight was his backup plan in case he ever had to bug out of Hollow Rock. He cranked it up once a week to make sure it still worked.

On the night of the attack, the crazy bastard convinced Sheriff Elliott to lend him some fuel and proceeded to fly a few laps around town. When he had the ghouls’ undivided attention, he led them three miles away before heading for one of the many safety towers surrounding Hollow Rock.

The safety towers were a recent innovation. I wish I could say they were my idea, but they were not. A caravan leader told Mayor Stone about a town in Kansas that had built fifteen-foot towers with retractable ladders at various locations along nearby trade routes. The idea was to give travelers a place to wait out the infected if they became stranded. It was so simple, and so logically sound, I was ashamed I didn’t think of it myself.

I looked southward and hoped John Wollodarsky had brought enough food and water to last a couple of days. I hoped he was sensible enough to lie quietly until the grunts and groans faded into the distance. I hoped he waited an extra couple of hours in case a ghoul with its throat ripped out stuck around when the others left. Most of all, I hoped he had enough fuel to get back to town safely. Any man who demonstrates uncommon valor deserves a free libation of his choosing. And I intended to buy him one. Or twelve.

“You ready?” Gabe asked.

“One second.” I fired four times, clearing a space for Gabe to touch down.

“Go,” I said.

He went. One bounce off the wall and he was on the ground. Four seconds later, the rope hung limp and Gabe had drawn his sword.

It was a hell of a thing to watch the big man fight. At six foot five and two-hundred fifty pounds, the veteran Marine scout sniper and ex-CIA operative could lay down an impressive ass kicking. His blade flicked out almost faster than the eye could follow, each swipe sending a section of cranium sailing through the air. He killed three ghouls in the same time it takes to say the words.

“Sometime today, Eric,” he said, not looking back. More ghouls were approaching.

“On my way.”

I pulled the trigger five more times. Nine rounds. Twenty-one left in the mag. The tactical sling made a zipper sound as I moved the M-4 around to my back and secured the barrel with a fold of Velcro attached to my web belt.

Unlike Gabe, I did not bother making a harness. There was not enough time. I grabbed the rope, lowered myself over, and clamped it between my knees and boots. Friction heated my gloves painfully as I slid down. Once on the ground, I flapped my hands a few times to cool them, then pulled the rest of the rope from the railing. Gabe glanced back at me.

“Forget the rope,” he said. “We’ll find more.”

Gabe was right. Several dozen infected were lurching toward us, attracted by the noise we made. I dropped the rope. Some lucky soldier, probably someone on overwatch in the guard towers, would retrieve it. Nylon rope is rare these days. Valuable. I hated to leave it behind, but I was not about to die for it.

I took point, Gabe running a few steps behind on my left side. I held my rifle in a right-handed grip, my most comfortable shooting position, which was strange considering I am mostly left-handed. I can do most things with either hand, but with some activities, writing and eating being chief among them, I am an irredeemable leftie. Many years ago on a date, I tried eating right-handed with a pair of chopsticks. My date laughed at me and said I looked like I had a brain injury. I did not ask her out again.

A small ghoul weaved around slower moving adults. I took aim and fired three times before I finally brought it down. Moving targets are difficult to hit on the run. Gabe angled a few feet away from me and knocked another ghoul down with a jumping front kick. The force of the blow sent the skinny creature tumbling ass-over-heels into two more that tripped over it. Three running steps later, Gabe was back in position.

We kept moving, my rifle emitting muted barks and Gabe exerting his impressive reserve of brute force and swordsmanship. The undead seem slow, but are faster than they look. They began to crowd around us. When they were too thick to keep going ahead, we doubled back and ran a hook pattern to the west. This forced the infected to cross paths and bump into one another, slowing them down. Two-hundred yards later, we executed the same maneuver in the opposite direction. Now there was a maelstrom of ghouls whirling and thumping like a pen of blind, drunken sheep.

The horde, such as it was, thinned out ahead of us. As long as we maintained a steady pace, the ghouls behind would not catch up. I slowed to a fast walk as Gabe came up beside me. We were both breathing hard and sweating in the growing heat. The tall grass pulled at my legs and forced me to step high to make sufficiently swift progress.

“Nice work,” Gabe said between deep breaths. With his longer legs, he was not having nearly as much trouble.

I checked my rifle. The slide was locked to the rear on an empty magazine. I ejected it, stowed it on my vest, and inserted a fresh one. Hit the release.
Clack-chop
of a round going into the chamber. A comforting sound.

“Look there,” Gabe said, pointing with his sword.

My eyes followed. Wollodarsky’s ultralight crossed the sky ahead of us, blades beating against the air as it cleared the wall and vanished into the open space at the center of town. I hoped the old man got a hero’s welcome, and I hoped the infected were too far away to track him.

“Crazy old fucker,” I said.

“No crazier than us. At least he’s above the fray.”

I aimed at a ghoul blocking our path. “Good point,” I said, and fired.