“Well I’m going!” Kevin said, with revenge written all over his face.
“Me too!” Said Kelly.
Gabe nodded at them.
“Shirley, this is your place so I need you not only to stay here and defend it with the ones staying behind. If something goes wrong you know the area the best and can get away and Bobby Rae over at the Army Surplus store trust you whereas he doesn’t even know us so if you had to go there it wouldn’t be a problem.
Shirley smiled in agreement, appreciating Gabe’s effort to make her feel useful, but knowing a lady her age would only hinder what they had to do.
#
“I wish you would let us go with you, I’m fast and I can kill these things!”
“I appreciate that, but I still want to get you alive and well to the Keys.” Gabe said reassuringly, putting an arm around Jill’s shoulder.
“Well, we haven’t had much time to talk and I wanted to give you something but you might not like it.” Jill said hesitantly. She reached into her book bag and handed him a small stack of papers with visible signature tabs hanging out of the side.
“You have my divorce papers?”
“Yes, I think you should sign them.”
“I thought you liked Gina?”
“You know I love your wife, but I’ve gathered what has happened, I mean she was clearly living with that guy, and I think it is wrong. There is no court or judge to make it official, but I was thinking if you signed these, then maybe you could feel like you could move on with your life.”
“Well, I’m not used to taking advice from a teenage girl, I’m usually the advice-giver, but I appreciate the thought.” Gabe straightened the papers out and handed them back to her. “Look, if she is living with this guy, then even I know she has been cheating on you… So I know that you taught us the Bible says divorce is wrong, unless they cheated on you.”
“God still doesn’t like divorce even then, but yes, that is the only exception he makes.” Gabe sighed, “I actually think that your idea has some merit. When I come back we can talk about it more.” Standing up they both reached for each other and hugged. Just then Brad walked by and Gabe gave Jill another reassuring hug and then called out to Brad to wait up.
“Brad, I need to talk to you.” Gabe jogged to catch up to Brad who was going into the camp store.
“What can I do for you Gabe?”
“Well I know you have thought the government would handle things, but I was really hoping you would come with us.”
“You asked for volunteers and I didn’t volunteer Gabe.”
“I know, but, well you’re the smartest one here and I have a feeling we are going to need someone with your talents on this trip.”
Brad stopped in his track and considered a bundle of tent stakes sitting on the camp stores shelf, 4 for $1.50. “I think that what you’re doing is… dangerous.”
“Me too, all the more reason to have an engineer with us.”
Brad put the tent stakes down and looked Gabe in the eyes. “And you don’t even know if what you are planning will even work.”
Now it was Gabe’s turn to pick up the stakes and study them as if they were something very interesting. Finally he put them down and looked up at Brad. “Again, I agree.” He thought for a second before continuing. But look, our little group of survivors knows something that no one else in the world knows. We know how this started. So it appears it is up to us to finish it.”
Brad started to object but Gabe cut him off with an answer before he could even start. “Yes, maybe there is a government in an underground base somewhere, and maybe there are still plenty of military people holed up in basis across the country, but we haven’t seen any of them and they aren’t here and we are!”
“Look,” Brad said finally getting a word in edgewise, “I’m not trying to stop you. I would just rather stay here where it is relatively safe and wait for… whatever.”
“I really need someone with us to stop me from walking across a bridge that is going to collapse or stop me from running into a building that is about to fall down. You are a problem solver, and we’re going to have a lot of problems on this trip I’m sure.”
Brad looked down at his feet which Gabe took to mean he was considering it.
“With Chris gone I really need another…” Gabe struggled to find the right word.
Brad jumped in with his own answer. “Black guy?”
Gabe looked up horrified at the racial accusation only to see a sly grin on Brad’s face.
“Just kidding. Yeah, I know what you mean. We haven’t actually known each other long, but being together since the very start of this, it feels like we’re the oldest of friends.”
Gabe cocked an eyebrow at him in silent question, afraid to say anything and jinks it.
“Yes, I’ll go with you”
“Yes!” Gabe practically yelled as he picked up Brad in a bear hug.
“Okay, Okay.”
“You won’t regret this.”
Chapter 21
The group had decided that they would be able to avoid a lot of problems they had encountered in the small towns by taking the highway on foot and commandeering cars as open highway allowed. Early the next morning, after saying their good buys, the group followed Shirley’s directions through the woods behind the camp store, down a steep hill and finally came out of the underbrush with nothing but a six-foot fence separating them from the highway. After a short climb over the fence they were on their way. They walked North for about an hour when they began to comment on how the highway was blocked with abandoned cars but that they hadn’t seen a single zombie yet. Gabe knew it was early in the trip but he was glad to see everyone’s spirits were very high.
“Up ahead.” Billy said almost casually. Everyone stopped and then moved toward coverage. Gabe moved slowly ahead and the others followed. Finally getting to a spot that allowed good coverage with a clear view Gabe looked through the scope of the .308 rifle.
“It’s real people… you know, living people.” Everyone exchanged looks of happy surprise. “Wait, yes, there are soldiers up there!”
“Yes!” Brad said with quiet enthusiasm.
The group worked their way closer, staying to cover as much as they could. Finally they had a hushed debate behind a U-Haul trailer.
“This is great! Soldiers and I’ve never seen so many people. There must a couple groups up there, at least a dozen people.” Brad said mutedly.
Manuel spoke up with his slight Mexican accent. “I think we should go around, I don’t trust this.”
“Yeah,” Gabe started to agree, “It does put us at their mercy, but it is a long way around. We would have to backtrack pretty far to get around these hills unseen.”
“Backtrack?” Said Kelly, “But these are the good guys. Aren’t they?”
Everyone exchanged glances but no one answered.
“Fine, I’ll go out their first, and then you guys follow if I don’t get shot.”
“I brought you along to be the smart one, not the brave one.” Gabe said smiling at Brad.
“Well come on then, this is a no brainer, these guys are military.”
Gabe nodded and Brad stood up and walked forward. He held the shotgun by the stock with his finger nowhere near the trigger and as he moved forward he waved it above his head. One of the soldiers saw him but didn’t look too alarmed. “Come forward, put your gun in your bag and get in line.”
Gabe stopped and looked back at the others and nodded them forward. The rest of the group broke cover and began walking forward. The soldier at the front of the line seemed a little surprised to see so many people and barked out a command and another guy came out of a nearby tent and joined him.
Both guys wore fatigues and from where he was at Gabe cold see they had names and rank insignia etc. Both carried what looked like AR 15s and stood at attention. The second soldier had come out of a large tent that looked like the kind you would see in a movie as a field command HQ. Gabe could
now see a third guy was sitting at the end of a long pipe stretched across the road. Gabe noted that this guy didn’t seem to have a gun but was wearing the fatigues. They had two rows of cars parked end to end that created a funnel leading up just a few yards in front of the makeshift plastic arm. As Gabe’s group queued up behind another group, Gabe saw the man push down on one end of the pole causing the other end to go up in the air and two very rough and scruffy guys pushed their motorcycles through and then got on them and after a dramatic kick start they rode away.
“Okay, you need to pay the toll!” The first soldier said to the next group. In front of Gabe’s group there was a Hispanic group that Gabe guessed was a family. There was a middle-aged man and woman he was guessing were the mother and father and two boys, one of around 12 and the other around 15 and a girl who appeared to be 16 or 17. After the soldier had told them they had to pay the toll the daughter said something to the parents in Spanish, appearing to translate. The girl finally answered back after the dad said something in Spanish.
Saying it as politely as she could, the young girl said, “Why do we need to pay?”
The soldier seemed a little annoyed, like he couldn’t believe someone would have to even ask. “We are keeping the highway Z free from Sadieville to Richwood. That’s over 50 miles of Z free walkin’ right there.”
“But we didn’t come from that far…”
“Doesn’t matter, everyone's got to pay.”
After speaking to her dad in Spanish some more, the young girl asked, “What does the toll cost?”.
“What do you have? Give us some food, or ammo, weapons. Money is no good here.”
As the soldier and the father began to negotiate with the daughter interpreting, Brad pulled on Gabe’s sleeve.
“See those turkey vultures.” Manuel said pointing to birds circling above the wooded hill line on their right.
“Yeah.”
Manuel kept his finger-pointing way above the trees as he continued to talk in a much lower tone. “Well keep pretending you’re looking at them. Now I can’t see good up close, have to wear reading glasses, but I’m pretty sure I see smoke coming out of the tree, and I’ve seen a glint now two or three times.”
Gabe didn’t see any smoke but just then he saw the glint in the trees.
Jorge stepped up next to them and shaded his eyes while pointing towards the birds. “Yep, someone is up there with a rifle and they are smoking out of boredom. I’m starting to suspect that not all of these guys are real military.”
They all put their hands down and turned around to see the dad had put three cans of food and a pocket knife on the table. As the guard on gate duty started to lift the poll and let them by, the second guard stopped him.
“The captain wants to see you in the tent.”
As the daughter started to translate to her dad the guard interrupted. “No, he wants to see you, not your dad.”
The girl quickly translated and the girl and her family started to walk towards the tent but the two soldiers pointed their weapons at the family.
“Just the girl!”
“What? No I don’t want to go without my dad!”
The second soldier grabbed the girl by the wrist while keeping his rifle pointing at the family with his other hand. “Come on.”
“As the commotion continued Jeannie whispered harshly to Gabe, “We have to do something!”
“Everyone get ready…” Gabe said quietly, and squatted down so that the line of cars was blocking him from being seen by the sniper in the tree and he took his rifle off his back. Brad swung his bag off his shoulder and casually began to rummage around in it as he moved forward to block the soldiers’ view of Gabe. Manuel pulled a small 9mm out of his waist and Gabe unholstered his Dessert Eagle and offered it to Jeannie. The others grasped their tire irons and hammers in readiness.
“Okay,” Gabe started, “We are going to try and get a stalemate without hurting…”
The yelling and screaming had continued when suddenly the brother of the Hispanic girl pulled out a pocket knife and charged at the soldier manhandling his sister. The other soldier cracked him in the side of the head before he had taken three steps. As the young man went to the ground the soldier pointed his gun at him as if he was about to shoot him. The dad was not a large man, standing only about five foot seven, a good three inches shorter than the soldier, but seeing his daughter manhandled and now his son about to be shot was more than he could take. He let out a roar as he launched himself at the soldier pointing the gun at his son. The soldier brought the gun up and got a shot off but it missed and the man tackled the soldier. Suddenly a third soldier, hearing the gunshot came running out of the tent, and seeing the teen boy on the ground and the first soldier tangled up with the Hispanic man, he threw his gun up to his shoulder and aimed at Jorge who was running forward with Manuel.
All at once a ricochet could be heard hitting the car that Manuel was running by and a shotgun blast hit the third soldier sending him tumbling back into the tent while at the same time the rifle that the first soldier and the dad were wrestling over went off.
Gabe had seen the muzzle flash from the shot that had missed Manuel coming from the sniper in the trees. Gabe used everything his dad had taught him about deer hunting and put it into practice, mentally blocking out his surroundings, taking his time to aim, taking a deep breath and holding it, and finally squeezing the trigger. After firing the world came rushing back in on him, he could now hear several more shots going off behind him. He saw tree branches shake one after the other indicating his shot had hit the sniper and he had fallen through the tree. Spinning around he worked the bolt action to eject the empty casing and bring another round into the firing chamber. He could hear Jeannie still yelling for the soldier to let the girl go.
Now facing the soldiers, Gabe could see the soldier holding the girl had moved her to be a human shield and was firing at his friends. Everyone was scrambling for cover behind the cars except for Jorge. Jorge was staying low but continued his charge and just as the first soldier was standing up, leaving the father on the ground bloody and unconscious or dead, Jorge tackled him. Just as he did, Gabe saw the second soldier get off a shot, shattering Jorge’s right shoulder, but in order to shoot him, he had stepped out partially from behind the girl, and Manuel didn’t waste the opportunity. Manuel got a shot off and hit the second soldier just below the collar bone causing his arm to go limp, but somehow he managed not to lose his grip on the gun. He screamed in pain but managed to jerk the girl back in front of himself and he moved back into the tent.
The first soldier who found himself back on the ground rolled over towards Jorge bringing his gun to bear on him when another shotgun blast rang out and the left side of the soldier's face suddenly disintegrated.
“Let her go you coward and maybe you can walk away from this.” Jeannie yelled pointing her gun at the opening of the tent.
Suddenly two screams could be heard from inside the tent immediately followed by the Hispanic girl running out of the front of the tent. She had a pocket knife covered in blood. Jeannie noticed it was just like the one her family had offered for the toll.
The girl ran past Gabe’s group and collapsed in her mom’s arms. A second later gunshots came out of the tent causing everyone to jump for cover again.
“I’ve got plenty of ammo in here. Come and get me!”
Manuel fired a couple of rounds into the tent and the soldier fired back, but it was clear he was moving around inside, not firing from the same spot for more than one shot. Gabe motioned to everyone to cease fire and stay down. Creeping forward he reached into a box where items to pay tolls sat. He came out with a regular lighter and a zippo lighter. Moving back to cover he lit the Zippo lighter and then crawled forward. He slid the zippo across the ground to the other side of the tent opening and it came to rest in a fold of the tent, he then took the other lighter and held it against the tent nearest him. It took a solid five seconds for either part of the thick
fabric of the tent to light, but when it did, the flames started moving fast.
Manuel had figured out the plan fast and had moved to cover the back of the tent. Within less than a minute Gabe heard Manuel’s gun fire twice in quick succession, and after a pause, a third shot rang out. Manual walked out from behind the tent and gave a solemn nod.
“Do you see the captain they were talking about?” Gabe asked Manuel.
“No, there is no one else in there. musta been the first guy that was hit with the shotgun.”
Gabe went around to the back of the tent and saw the soldier’s body lying face down on the highway pavement, his own blood pooling under him. Gabe reached down and took the man’s knife that was lying beside his body and with one swift stab, put it through the man's skull. Gabe stood back up and looked at the interior of the tent through the whole he surmised the soldier had cut to get away, a table piled with cans of food and other goods was in plain view from where he and Manuel were standing.
“What are you doing man!” Manuel said in surprise as Gabe moved into the tent. The tent was now fully engulphed on the front half and large patches had burned completely away as the flames moved to the top and sides of the tent.
Without answering, Gabe quickly came out with two military ammo cans in his hands. Laying them on the ground at Manuel’s feet, Gabe turned around and went back in and brought out another one out.
Once he was safely outside he set the can down and looked at Manuel, “I think most of the canned food will survive a burning tent, but I didn’t want to take a chance with the ammo.” Manuel just shook his head.
Gabe and Manuel walked back to where the rest of the group was at and saw Jeannie and Kelly applying bandages to Jorge’s shoulder. Jorge was sitting up on the ground and Jeannie was working on the front of him and Kelly on his back.
“How bad is it Jorge?”
“I’ll survive.” Jorge said gritting his teeth through the pain.
Dead Faith (Book 1): Dead Faith Page 13