“I’ll be right back. I need a replacement for my rifle.” Doc trotted over to the barricade and started going through the dead soldier’s equipment. He found six packs and brought them back along with four undamaged rifles. I had no idea what model they were, but they looked nicer than ours. Doc added their supplies to ours and inventoried them.
“Ok boys and girls we got some problems. Fall back to the Beast so we can work through them,” radioed Kuppers.
We drifted in from our details and sat on the ground. Angel came over and sat in my lap. We gave Kuppers our full attention. “First problem: The Beast is not going to be able to continue. And if it could, we have no way to put it back on its tires. Second problem: according to the map, we are still about 109 miles away from Fort Bragg. And finally, we will need to start walking, and I suggest off of the highway for now. Any questions, concerns, or ideas?”
Doc jumped in, “Why don’t we just grab a vehicle and hot wire it? We should be able to get to Fort Bragg faster that way, and there must be thousands of available cars.”
Vic answered his question, “That is a fabulous idea. Let’s all jump in an unarmored car and drive on up Highway 1. Not like we will do better in it than we did in the Beast.”
“How about we find some off road capable vehicles then?” Cupcake suggested.
“That is actually a pretty good idea. But, we will need more than one, and a lot of fuel. Oh, and for the bad side, they won’t provide much protection if and when we get attacked again,” Brian threw in his opinion.
“How about another boat?” Apache inquired.
Everyone turned to me for my opinion. I looked back at all of them with a confused look. “I have nothing guys, sorry,” I answered the unasked questions.
Kuppers stood there looking very uncertain, something I had never seen on him before. Even during battle, he stayed calm and sure of himself and the situation. To be honest it was a little unnerving, or was it scary? We sat there quietly digesting all of the information. Angel leaned against me and then looked up into my face. “How about we go camping tonight and think about it?” she said in her sweet little voice.
Kuppers stared at her for awhile before smiling. “Not a bad idea, little lady. Grab all your gear and packs. We need to put some space between us and this area before anyone or anything shows up. Brian, we need to move fast. Can you carry Angel for a while?”
Brian got up, stretched his back, and gave a thumbs up. “Want a shoulder ride, sweetheart?”
Doc stood up and looked over at him, and in his best high pitched voice said, “If you’re offering, I’d love to!” Everyone laughed heartily as Brian blushed a little.
“I think he was talking about me, Doc!” Angel cried out, and that made everyone laugh even harder.
Brian strapped on his pack and made sure it rode slightly higher so Angel could be more comfortable on his shoulders. Kuppers picked her up and placed her up high on Brian. She let out a whoop in wonderment. “I can see so far from up here!”
I waited a bit, then yelled, “I call next!” Brian gave me a sour look and shook his head.
We all strapped on as much gear as we could and headed off the road and into the trees. We headed east once away from the road, after a mile or so, and turned north. The entire way we had spread out in a loose formation, with Senshi far in the lead. Doc stayed in the rear just out of sight, watching our backs. Apache, Cupcake, Vic and Kuppers walked along the edges, keeping Brian, Angel, and I in the middle. We continued for four hours traversing open fields and a couple of small creeks.
Senshi called back on the radio for us to stop and wait. Brian took Angel off his shoulders and had her sit at his feet as he pulled his rifle to his shoulder and then slowly sank to one knee. I stepped 10 feet from Brian and dropped to my knee near a small tree. Kuppers moved forward and left the rest of us behind to form a small, spread-out circle. Doc moved up closer but stayed behind to guard our rear. I had my MP5 up on my shoulder and was looking through the scope at the field in front of us. Moving it slowly left and right, I tried to examine anything that might look out of place.
After sitting there for thirty minutes, the radio clicked open and Kuppers told us to move up to their position near a small pond about three hundred yards up. “Ok, honey, I want you to walk with me this time, ok?” Brian asked Angel. She smiled up at him and nodded yes.
The group stood and we started our guarded walk. I made sure to walk slightly in front of Angel, trying to shield her from anyone watching us. She was our main concern. We knew if danger came upon us she would be the one we needed to protect first. Apache kept looking back and checking on her and then would turn and shake her head. I asked her later why she kept doing that. She said we looked like a bunch of bears walking with Goldilocks.
We came up on Kuppers just under a small copse of trees near a small pond. He and Senshi were sitting cross-legged on the ground waiting for us. Angel ran up and jumped into Senshi’s lap and let out a sigh. “That was a far walk! I’m tired and hungry.”
Senshi looked up at us with a horrific confused look. “I’ll make dinner and get the area secured,” he said in a rush, attempting to get to his feet.
Brian pushed him back down before he could upend Angel. “That’s alright little buddy, you watch Angel there and rest. We will take care of everything. Plus, she looks comfortable. You wouldn’t want to ruin that, would you?”
Senshi looked stricken, but Angel turned and gave him a big hug and kissed his cheek. He, of course, melted. A smile spread across his face as he blushed a bright red. Angel had that effect on all of us. Brian and I put up the tents in a semicircle facing the pond. Vic, Doc, and Cupcake ranged further out securing the area around our encampment. Kuppers pulled out some extra MREs he had brought, so we didn’t have to dive into our personal supply just yet. Apache left the team and went north, doing recon farther out for our walk the next day.
After an hour of completing our jobs, we, excluding Apache, gathered around and ate dinner as a team. We joked and reflected on the day. “Dan, got to say, you have really stepped it up. When I first met you, I thought you would turn out to be a whiny little man, but you’ve developed into a real, honest hero,” Doc said.
I blushed and almost choked on my spaghetti and meatballs meal. I looked up and met his eyes. “I’m not a hero. I have been lucky, and to tell you the truth, I am out of my league when it comes to all this. Heck, I am amazed I haven’t accidently shot one of you in the back,” I tried to joke my way out of the compliment and the conversational topic.
Alas, it didn’t work. “Dan, if you hadn’t run to my side and laid down covering fire I would be dead, instead of sitting here with Angel on my lap enjoying my friends company.” Senshi hugged his arms around Angel as he spoke.
I went to open my mouth to express it was nothing when a hand landed on my shoulder and a voice interrupted me. “When I first taught you how to use that gun, I thought you would never be man enough to stand up when needed. But you proved me wrong when you were saving those men. On the battlefield, I was seeing a different man than I had met back at the station. You were forged in battle and came out the other side one of us,” Apache finished by kissing my cheek and sitting down next to me. Then the flood started, and I had to put my face in my hands. Since this whole damn thing started, I easily get overwhelmed with emotions.
“Boss, I watched you go from being a mild man, to a leader, to a man of action. I would be completely comfortable calling you a hero,” Brian threw in his feelings on the matter.
I was at my end at this point. I never did well with praise. I blurted out, “Enough of this guys. I am doing what I think is right and trying not to let anyone down. I don’t want to be a leader or a hero. I just want to get to Julie and help keep you all alive. Then when all is said and done, maybe help with taking down those Initiative assholes. Whatever happens between now and then is fate.” I sat back and breathed deep trying to calm down.
Kuppers stood quickly, throwing his MRE onto the ground and pointed his finger at me. “Fuck fate, son! Fate is something you blame your failure on because you didn’t try hard enough. You are a warrior, and we make our own damn fate. You reach down and do what it takes because no deity is going to step in and take care of you. The minute you decided to live, instead of lying down and dying trapped in that goddamn tower, is the day you gave up on fate.” He picked up his MRE packaging and stood there looking down at us. “All of you listen up! Cupcake and Brian have watch tonight for fours hours, then Apache and Doc. Rest of you, police your area and get to your rack. We have a long day of walking in front of us tomorrow.” He turned and walked over to his tent, unzipped it, and climbed in. Vic followed, since they were sharing. No reason for everyone to have their own tonight. Apache stood and stretched her back, then took Angel’s hand, and they went off to bed in their shared tent. That left me and Brian sharing, Doc and Cupcake sharing, so Senshi was lucky and had his own. Except that he stored the extra equipment in with him.
I climbed into our tent, removed my boots, and slid into my sleeping bag. I lay there, exhausted, but my mind would not stop thinking about what everyone had said. I knew I wasn’t the same guy. I’ve fought that internal fight already. The question that I had was, “If I am not that same guy from a week ago, then who am I?” No matter how much I lay there and thought about that, I could not answer it. Would Julie recognize this man? Could she love who I was becoming? I felt like I was losing a game that I didn’t even know I was playing. Does that make sense? Sleep took forever. It forced me to torture myself for answers I could not find.
Ever since those vivid dreams of Angel, I had not dreamed again. I woke up being pressed against the outer material of my tent by the Sasquatch himself. I wriggled out of my sleeping bag, grabbed my boots and emerged from the tent into an early pre-dawn day. Vic was awake sitting on the ground with his back against a small boulder overlooking the pond smoking a cigarette. I walked over and smiled down at him. He slid over, giving up some of his rock. I eased myself down and took the offered space for my back. We sat there, passing a cigarette back and forth. No words spoken. We watched the first sign of light creeping over the mountains, igniting the sky into reds and oranges. I felt an ease come over me, the first since all this shit broke. “Thinking about your wife?” I finally broke the silence.
“Thinking about Julie?” Vic asked back.
“Touché,” I laughed softly. Then I came back to reality and felt the stress pushing my shoulders down once again as it climbed onto my back like that proverbial bitch of a monkey. “I haven’t seen her in so long Vic. What if I have changed too much through these experiences? What if she doesn’t like what she sees?” I scratched the top of my head and felt my hair. That is so weird to me. I hadn’t had this long of hair on my head in years.
“Dan, don’t fill yourself up with trivial questions and concerns. You know who you are and the reason for who you are becoming. Anyway, this girl has been holding a flame for you for a long time. Just be yourself and give your heart to her. Kind of hard for a girl to dislike little things after you have travelled so long and not let the specter of death stop you.” He handed over a bottle of water, I took a swallow, and handed it back to him.
Everyone woke at that moment and came out from their tents, stretching and complaining about their night’s sleep. We sat around and ate our MREs. When we were done, Brian sat with me and walked me through cleaning my weapons and the importance of doing this little chore. I had never thought about that and was certainly happy he explained in great detail what to do. Once complete, we broke camp and repacked our Zomgo bags. Brian helped me strap my pack onto my sore, aching back and secure the shotgun to it. He handed me half of a pill, and I took it knowing it would help dull my pain and help me keep moving. I settled my MP5 on my chest, secured the 1911 into my leg holster, and felt ready to move.
At this point, Doc walked over and handed me a small messenger bag. I looked inside and saw some loaded magazines. I looked at him confused. “Those are for your MP5, Dan. They are hollow point and add a little more punch then your regular ammo. As you saw yesterday, your gun cannot penetrate armor. So aim for body parts not covered by vests. But, if needed, these little things will help. They still will probably not penetrate, but it will keep their heads down and give you a chance at getting a more aimed shot off. That’s all I have, though, so don’t use them all up at once.” I thanked him, and he walked away.
We gathered around Kuppers. “According to the map, a golf course and housing community are coming up. It’s a small community but will have its own dangers. We can either bypass and head inland east or cut right through it. Any comments or suggestions?”
Everyone turned their heads toward me. I gave a quizzical look right back. “Um, why are you all looking at me?”
“Because, Boss, you usually have a great idea sitting in that melon you call a head,” Brian answered for everyone.
I smiled and shook my head. “Sorry, I got nothing this time.”
Cupcake spoke up then. “I suggest we go onto the golf course. Rich people had a habit of buying old Hummers. I still say we get our hands on one and use it to go overland. This hike is going to be long and take up more resources than we can carry.”
Kuppers looked thoughtful for a bit and scratched his chin. “It’s an open space and, if need be, we can hole up in a house if we get encircled by the zombies. And let me say, I am not happy with this word ‘zombies.’ Alright, let’s start heading in that direction. Senshi, take point. Let’s try to move fast. I want to have all the sunlight we can get when moving through this community.”