The Hunt Chronicles (Book 2): Revelation (24 page)

Even better was they were fully stocked on medical supplies.  We were in the middle of carrying out a second load when Cecil called over the radio.

“Sir, this is Bravo One.”

“Go ahead, Cecil,” Campbell replied.

“We’ve circled the building.  Only a couple of dead-heads in sight.  I recommend Chad and I check it out,” Cecil reported.

“Roger that.  Go ahead.  Keep me updated.”  Campbell turned to Fish.  “If we hurry, we could help them clear out the dentist office.”

Fish nodded and then glared back at Gardner and me.  “Come on girls, get your asses moving.”

We continued to move medical gear to Big Red for the next few minutes.  The mood was good, as it seemed the run was going according to plan.  Then Cecil’s voice blared over the radio.

“Shit!  We have multiple dead-heads in the building!”

Campbell dropped the box he was carrying and pressed his transmit button.  “Get out of there!”

“Shit, shit shit!” Cecil cursed over and over through my earpiece.  “We’re surrounded.  Oh no…”

“Get your asses out of there!” Fish all but shouted back.

“Chad’s been bit!” Cecil said dreadfully.  “Shit, they’re pulling him through—”

The radio cut off for a moment.

“Alpha Three and Bravo Two.  Move to the Secondary Objective immediately and evaluate!” Campbell ordered.

My heart was pounding.  Chad was bit?  I should have been there.  I was supposed to have his back. 

“Enrique, get the engine fired up!” Fish ordered.

I threw what items I had into the back of Big Red and jumped inside.

“Bravo One, status?” Campbell asked over the crackling airwaves.  Jenna and Kolin responded, acknowledging and telling him they were in route.

“Status, Cecil?” Campbell repeated.

“I… I can see Chad.  He’s fighting two dead-heads.  What do I do?” Cecil responded frantically.

“Can you confirm that he is infected?” Fish asked.

“Roger that, Fish.  Damn thing took a chunk off the back of his neck!”

“Let’s go now!” I yelled to Enrique. 

I was being irrational.  Everyone hadn’t even loaded up into Big Red yet.  All I knew was I wanted to help Chad.  I refused to believe he had been infected.

Everyone finished getting into the fire truck.  Fish gave Campbell a grave look.

“Do you want me to…?” Cecil’s voice trailed off.

Campbell nodded to Fish, a somber look on his face.

“Do it,” Fish said coldly.

“Say again?” Cecil asked.

“Finish him.  We can’t have him going scab on us.”  Fish turned to me.  He had to see the hate in my eyes.

“No!” I shouted, but just as I did, I could clearly hear the suppressed sound of Cecil’s gun expending rounds through my earpiece. 

“It’s done.  But I’m not…  Shit!” Cecil’s transmission cut off.

Enrique was pulling Big Red around and we stormed down the side road where the dental office was located.

“Status?”

“Sir, we’re outside of the dental office,” Jenna reported.  “The place is crawling with dead-heads.  I’d say at least eighty to a hundred.”

“Captain, this is Kolin,” another voice said.  “We’ve got scabs on the roof tops.  Dead-heads are coming at our truck.  I can see Alpha Three.  They’re getting surrounded as well.”

“Can you see Vader?” Campbell asked, referring to the Police Armored Vehicle we had requisitioned. 

“Yes sir,” Kolin answered.

“Jenna, can you get Sam into Vader?” the Captain asked.  “We can’t lose it.”

“Yeah,” she replied.  “Should be easy, as long as he left the keys.”

One standard we had when making runs into the city was to leave the keys of our vehicles under the driver’s seats, primarily for reasons like this.  We didn’t want a whole team stranded because the driver had been killed.

I didn’t like what I was hearing.  It sounded too much like we were about to abandon Cecil and Chad.  Even if Chad was dead, I didn’t want to leave him behind.

“We can’t just leave them,” I said, still unknowingly referring to Chad as a living person.

“Quiet, kid!” Fish barked, and then hit his transmitter.  “Cecil, are you there?”

Nothing but static came over the radio.

“Drive by the place and run down as many dead-heads as you can,” Campbell told Enrique.

We rounded the corner and saw the parking lot in front of the dental office swarming with the undead.  There was easily three times the hundred that Jenna originally reported.  Many were crawling on Vader, most likely trying to get at Sam, who had already started up the APC.  Jenna’s truck was slowly pushing its way through the flood of zombies, leaving Vader’s side.

“Kolin, where are the scabs?” Fish asked.

“Across the street.  They’re just watching us.  I’ve seen three so far,” he reported back.

“Damn it, Cecil, come in!” Fish growled into the radio.  There was no response.

“We can’t do this,” Campbell whispered, more to himself than to us.

“I know, sir,” Fish agreed heavily.

Campbell closed his eyes and let out a breath.  “All teams.  Head back to base.  Scab-Wag.”

Scab-Wag was a term we used when we knew scabs had spotted us.  The monsters were notorious for tracking down prey.  Whenever we knew they may be onto us, we would ‘Scab-Wag’, by driving down side roads in the opposite direction of Camp Holly, and slowly work our way back home.

I wanted to argue with them, but I knew they were right.  Cecil had already killed Chad.

Cecil had yet to answer.  Chances were that he was dead, too.  Hopefully, it was quick.  There was always the possibility that he had been bitten and got away.  That was the real fear.  As a scab, it was likely that he would backtrack to Camp Holly.  And though our defenses were as good as I thought possible, scabs were still sneaky sons of bitches.

Fish tried Cecil a couple more times as we zigzagged through Melbourne.  No answer came.

By the time we drove into the motor pool of Camp Holly, it was past noon.

Boomer and I grudgingly got out of Big Red and began to walk away.

We were greeted by guards who gave everyone a once over, ensuring we were not infected.  After I was checked, Boomer and I turned and headed out of the motor pool.

“Christian!” Campbell called from behind me.

I stopped and slowly turned around.  There were no tears, but my chest hurt and hot pressure was building on my face.  I was pissed and sad at the same time. 

“Christian…  I’m sorry about Chad.  I know you guys were close,” Campbell said as he laid a hand on my shoulder.  “I knew Chad from the first days of this nightmare.  He had a good heart.  Just not everyone could see it.”

I didn’t know what to say.  What could I say?  Losing Gonzales was one thing.  I was friends with him, but not like I was with Chad.  He was my partner. 

Dobson climbed off the back of Big Red with the help of Trent.

“Sorry about your men, Captain,” Dobson said.  I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not, though.

“I bet you are,” I said, not realizing that I said it aloud.  I clamped my mouth shut.

“Excuse me?” Dobson growled

“Give him a break, Major.  I’ve lost three men since we found you.  He has the right to be pissed,” Campbell said.

Dobson’s face softened.  “I understand, Captain.  Pitman is the only man I have left.”

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but in hindsight, I can see why Dobson was so stiff and uncaring.  I didn’t know what he had been through.  He and a team of eight went half way across the world to rescue Doctor Tripp, traveled for a thousand miles through hostile lands, surrounded by zombies and scabs and God knows what else, and was trapped on a ship for almost a month at sea.  He had his own loses and had as much grief as anyone else.

But at the time, I was selfish.  I only cared about my pain, my loss.  I didn’t say anything else and walked off.

I found little comfort sitting on the river bank, just outside the fence line.  But it was away from everyone else and that is what I needed at the time.

I sat by the river all afternoon lost in my own thoughts.  I focused on the water mills spinning, providing Camp Holly with a portion of our electricity.  Occasionally, I would see an alligator surface or a fish jump.

Boomer lay next to me the entire time, as though he could feel my pain and loss.  His wet nose would occasionally nuzzle my hand, and then he would lay his head back on my lap.  I absently stroked his back, combing out fur he had yet to shed.

No one approached me for a long period.  Chad didn’t have too many friends around Camp Holly, but everyone knew we were close. 

I heard footsteps approaching from behind.

Karina plopped down next to me with a bowl of soup and a bag of dog food for Boomer.

“Are you hungry?” Jenna said.  I turned and she was standing with two bowls of soup.

“Not really,” I replied.  My stomach hurt, but it wasn’t from hunger.

“Well, you need to eat,” Jenna argued.

“So does Boomer,” Karina said as she spread out the dog food on a towel for Boomer.  He dipped his head down and gobbled up the pellets.

I reluctantly took the soup and sat it in front of me.

Jenna sat down on the other side of me and began to eat.  No words were spoken.  Just having them there was comforting.  They knew how I felt.

I only finished half of the soup and let Boomer lap up the rest.

“It’s just wrong,” I said.  Both girls looked at me sympathetically.

I was going to say more, but Fish came up behind me.

“Gear up, kid,” he ordered.

“Gear up?” Jenna asked before I could say anything.

“Not you, missy.  Just me and the duo here,” he motioned to Boomer and me.

“Where are we going?” I asked, standing up.  The thought of going back outside the wire sounded good to me.  I knew I wouldn’t have time to think about losing my friend if I was busy trying to stay alive in the city.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, and pulled me toward our shack.

Once inside, I began to riffle through my equipment.

“Just bring your Glock.  No rifles,” he said, as he put on minimal gear.  “Hurry up.  We don’t have that much time before nightfall.”

“Where are we going, Fish?” I asked, only grabbing my ammo vest.  I attached my Glock and slid my .22 pistol behind my vest.

“Cecil radioed,” he answered.  “He’s trapped in the dentist office.”

“He survived?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah.  Said he jumped into a room to get away from the Zulus.  It ended up being an X-ray room.  He couldn’t get a signal out.  He keeps cracking the door to send messages.”  Fish finished gearing up and walked over to the door.  “You coming or what?”

I nodded.  “Yeah.  Who else?”

“Just us, kid.  I’m not risking anyone else.  You and I can pull off runs better than the rest of these pogues.”

We circled the inner wall of the camp, and I could tell Fish was being a little sneaky about it.

“Does the Captain know we’re going?”

Fish scowled as we walked into the motor pool.  “Hell no.  He said Cecil would have to wait the night out.  He thinks it’s too close to sundown to send in a rescue mission.”

I looked up at the sky.  It was still clear, but we only had about an hour and a half until sunset.

“Campbell’s right, Fish.  It will be a tight run.”

“Yeah, but it will be tighter if Cecil gets turned over night and we have a scab hunting our camp,” Fish argued as we walked between the vehicles in the motor pool.

“Who’s going to open the gates?” I asked as I let Boomer into our Ford F350.

Just then, DJ came around the corner.

“You sure you want to do this?” DJ asked Fish.

“I didn’t get all pretty to skip the dance,” Fish countered.

“Alright,” DJ huffed and walked over to move the gate.

“It’ll be a foursome,” a female voice said from behind a vehicle.

“Hell no, Jenna,” Fish barked.

“Hell yes,” she smiled back.

“You don’t even know where we’re going,” I told her.

“You’re going to get Cecil.  You two talk too loud and Karina is pretty damn sneaky.  She overheard you talking in your shack.”  Jenna opened the back passenger door and threw her rifle on the bench.

“And if I hogtie you and leave you behind?” Fish asked.

“You can try, honey, but I’ve fought off bigger assholes than you,” she grinned and climbed in.

Fish glared at me, as if I should be agreeing with him.  I simply shrugged and jumped in the front passenger seat.

“I thought you people were supposed to follow my orders,” Fish grumbled as he got in and started up the truck.

“Like you’re supposed to be following Campbell’s?” I reminded him.

“Can it, kid.”