“It hasn’t turned yet,” Patrick gasped, walking over.
“Who gives a fuck?!” Ian shouted and Patrick froze. “Even if people don’t turn when they die from something other than a stinker, there are still over seven billion stinkers on the planet!”
Spinning around in mid-step, “I’ll let you two take care of that one,” Heath said, moving back to the other side of the buggy.
Stepping away from the recharging station, Dwain noticed the Stirling engine had been shot and there were a dozen bullet holes in the mirror. The large battery had several holes, along with the attached box on top that housed the inverter and computer.
Making a wide circle, Dwain saw Ian and Lance staring at each other, huffing like caged bulls. “Someone is in for a world of shit,” Dwain mumbled.
“We find who did it and we kill their mothers with butter knives,” Ian grumbled. “If any breast fed, we chop her tits off first.”
Trembling with rage, “We make a machine that sucks their eyeballs out of their ass!” Lance shouted.
Leaning back, Ian slowly nodded. “We can build a machine to do that.”
Picking up Ian’s magazines, Jennifer smirked. “Oh, I’m so watching that.” Walking over, Jennifer started shoving Ian’s magazines back in his vest and drop platform. “What’s the damage?”
“The bot is dead!” Lance shouted. “All four motors, two of the three battery banks and CPU, along with the recharging station!”
“So, is it time for a deed?” Jennifer asked.
Putting the game camera down, Ian shook his head. “No, this is way past a deed. An exploit is called for.”
Tossing his laptop in the buggy, Lance reached in and yanked out the sword. Tossing the scabbard away, Lance strolled over to the body beside the battery. Kneeling down, Lance searched the body as Ian reached in the back of the buggy, grabbing a machete. “A deed is to teach a lesson. An exploit is only used to let one know; this is payback. Think of it as coating your dick in honey and covering it in ground up glass before you shove it up their ASS!,” Ian finished in a bellow, gripping the machete tight. “The only lesson this time is: they will die slowly, cursing their mothers for giving birth to them!”
As Ian turned away and headed over to Lance, Lance stood up and hacked the body’s left boot off. When Ian joined, Ian hacked off the right and then they started chopping up each leg, taking a one inch slice off. Dino ran over and latched onto the left arm, growling and shaking the body.
Turning, Lance hacked the arm off at the shoulder and Dino spun around, shaking the arm violently. “Yep, if I was in that group, I’d just pull my pistol and shoot myself in the head,” Dwain stated, and everyone nodded.
Walking to the backseat of her buggy, Lilly pulled out two machetes and strolled over before handing one to Jennifer. They both nodded at each other, and strolled over and started chopping up the body with the boys. “You know, I’ve never been scared of anyone in my life, but those boys absolutely terrify me,” Patrick stated with no shame.
“Why they choppin’ the body up?” Holly asked, holding Dawn. “We need to find those pirate asses.”
“We know where they are,” Patrick said. Heath and Dwain spun to him and Dwain grabbed Patrick’s arm.
“You really know?” Dwain asked cautiously, and Patrick nodded. Dwain turned to tell the boys and stopped, seeing them playing soccer with the head. “Um, Lance? Ian?” Dwain called out, and cringed when they stopped and turned to him. “Patrick knows where they’re at.”
The fact Ian and Lance didn’t run over unnerved everyone. Instead, they calmly walked over, and the low light from the LED bulbs made the grey skulls on their masks seem to pulsate. “Where?” Lance asked in a tense voice.
Clearing his throat nervously, “Ahem, five miles north of here,” Patrick answered. “Got a map?” he grinned nervously.
Pulling out his map from his cargo pocket, Lance spread it over the hood of the buggy. Moving over, Patrick pointed northwest of Woollum at a valley. “They were there three weeks ago,” Patrick said. “They don’t act like that mot-,” he paused, seeing both skulls staring at him, “the Devil Lords or that white supremacist group. To be honest, they act like frat boys. Well-armed and demonic frat boys. They are set up behind a wall of semi-trailers and have about ten acres blocked off.”
“You joining?” Lance asked in a dead voice, and Patrick nodded and forced a grin. Glancing at the map, Lance stabbed his finger down. “Move here to these two houses in this draw. There is a creek and food stockpiled there. Ian and I locked the doors, but the keys are in the mailboxes. Don’t go in the third house because that’s where the food was stored and we didn’t clean up the body parts the little Devil dicks left.”
“Much obliged,” Patrick responded with a dry voice.
Grabbing the map, Lance turned to Ian who only gave a curt nod. “Heath, be ready, so don’t stray far from your house. You’ll have to keep the stinkers in check now until we call,” Lance said, folding the map up.
Swearing he could feel malevolent hatred the boys had for the group permeating the very air around them, “We’ll be waiting,” Heath nodded with a forced grin. “We gonn’a attack ‘em?”
“Hmph,” Ian scoffed, heading for the buggy. “They don’t get off that fucking easy.”
Chapter Thirteen
Northeast of Dover, Tennessee
Glancing at her watch as she sipped her coffee, Sandy looked up across the half of the Cumberland River they still had to cross and dropped her hand down, resting it on Dan’s back. After reaching the river two days ago, they confirmed their speculation and spotted a military unit on the bridge in Dover. They could only see the south end, but saw the shipping containers stacked three high and three deep, blocking off the south end. Just before sundown that first day, they watched a helicopter fly in and land on the bridge.
The helicopter never shut down its engines and only stayed a few minutes before it flew off, heading northeast. Staying near the river, they’d crept up half a mile to the bridge. On the bridge they could make out the roofs of several vehicles, and watched some drive north on the bridge out of sight, but they could still hear the engines. From the map, they knew the bridge was nearly six hundred yards long and none of the vehicles were leaving, so they reasoned the north end was blocked off like the south.
Pulling back to their hiding spot, Sandy had talked Mary into letting her swim out to Dover Island and check it out. It was only a hundred and fifty yard swim, and that was nothing to Sandy. Not finding anyone or stinkers on the island Sandy swam back, and they swam the horses over, taking the night off.
Throughout the next day, they heard the helicopter come back and turned on the shortwave and emergency radio. Hearing the repeated message for assistance from the commander, Sandy turned the emergency radio off and just listened to the shortwave. More than one person called over the shortwave for the commander to screw off, but they finally got the information they wanted. The horde was on the other side of Kentucky Lake. Letting the horses relax, Sandy and Mary cleaned their gear during the day and into the night.
Hearing movement, Sandy glanced back. “Left the sugar out,” Sandy said in a low voice, watching Mary pour a cup of coffee with Ann beside her.
Filling her cup, Mary shook her head, yawning. “Don’t need it.” Taking a sip, “I remember when I wouldn’t touch a cup of coffee unless it had creamer, sugar, and other flavoring. Shit, now I would just mainline the shit into a vein if I could for the caffeine,” Mary scoffed.
Giving a nod in agreement, “You had forty more minutes of sleep,” Sandy told her.
Grabbing her foldable chair, Mary carried it over beside Sandy. “After taking yesterday and last night off, I feel ready to go.”
Ann waited until Mary sat down before sitting down beside her as all of them looked over the river. “I was really expecting the current to be swifter, especially with how high the water is,” Sandy noted, taking a sip of coffee.
“Glad t
he current isn’t swift,” Mary replied, clearing her throat.
Finishing her cup, Sandy turned to Mary and asked, “Have you thought any more on how far we should go?”
Letting out a long sigh, “I agree we shouldn’t push the horses hard unless we have to,” Mary answered. “Their hooves look good, but their feet are tender.”
“We’ll keep to thirty miles tonight and see how they handle it. If they stumble, we’ll do twenty the next night and if we need to, we will take another night of travel off.”
“This sucks,” Mary groaned. “We are less than three hundred miles now and have to slow down.”
Nodding, “Yeah, but having to walk would suck a thousand times worse,” Sandy reminded Mary, and Mary grunted in agreement. “To be honest, I don’t want to move real fast around here anyway. I understand what Johnathan and Bill meant now about population density. Now that we are here, there are more people. To be honest, I figured they’d be dead and we would just have to dodge more stinkers.”
“On that note,” Mary said, standing up. Moving over to the packhorses and grabbing the shortwave and emergency radios, Mary came back and sat down. Turning on the emergency radio, she adjusted the volume to hear the commander’s recorded message, but only got static.
Giving up, Mary hit scan, but the radio didn’t pick up any FM or AM transmissions. Turning it off, Mary turned on the shortwave and immediately got voices.
“-h the base fell last night,” a man’s voice blurted out, and Mary turned the volume down more.
“I wouldn’t move around much because those stinkers are at Campbell strong,” another gruff voice said.
“There are still troops on the bridge in Clarksville,” a whiny voice cut in.
“In Dover also,” the gruff voice said.
“Where did all those choppers go?” the first voice asked.
“Only saw one helicopter take off before the base was overrun last night,” gruff voice answered.
Reaching over, Sandy turned the volume off. “That gruff voice. He’s close, but to know that and about Dover, he has to be moving,” Sandy pointed out.
Shaking her head, “I think it’s one of the soldiers,” Mary objected. “You hear how clear his transmissions are? He’s close, but has to have good mobile gear.”
As Sandy thought about that, Mary turned the volume back up.
“- no didn’t see any vehicles heading north,” the first voice answered.
“I thought I spotted some big trucks heading north without lights,” gruff voice said.
“If they did, they didn’t take 41,” the first voice replied.
“Why in the hell would they take 41? Hopkinsville is packed with stinkers,” a new voice chimed in.
“No trucks headed to Clarksville, and we watched those troops try and shoot their way out this morning, but they were surrounded by a hundred thousand stinkers, easy,” whiny voice said.
“If Dover lays low, they’ll be able to leave in a few days,” the new voice said. “They have a large group of stinkers to the north, but on the south side they have a chance to make it.”
“I doubt it,” gruff voice replied. “Don’t forget there is a horde on the other side of Kentucky Lake.”
“Yeah, other side, dummy,” whiny voice shouted. “For them to go east, they would have to travel down to Linden. Talked to a guy down that way yesterday and he said most stinkers there moved out with that horde. They’ve actually been able to go out and stockpile food and supplies.”
“Hey, you, talking with throat cancer,” new voice called out.
“Yeah,” gruff voice replied.
“How come when I triangulate your signal, it comes up in Dover in the middle of the river right at the bridge?” new voice asked.
There was a pause of a minute before gruff answered. “I’m watching the troops.”
“Yeah, sure,” new voice laughed. “We have two guys there watching, and your signal is coming from a Hummer parked in the center of the bridge.”
“You’re military!” whiny voice screamed.
“We just want to live,” gruff voice answered.
“Yeah, by feeding civilians to the stinkers!” first voice shouted. “I saw that with my own eyes in Hopkinsville at the refugee center. The walls started falling and troops left while the people were ripped apart. None even had weapons because you assholes took ‘em!”
“I wasn’t there, but we have civilians here armed and keeping watch. The only ones not armed here are a few little kids,” gruff voice answered.
“Why don’t you head for Michigan? You can be a jack-booted thug again,” new voice grumbled.
The shortwave was quiet for several minutes and finally whiny voice came back on. “Guess he doesn’t like admitting what they turned into.”
“No,” new voice answered. “They are all around the bridge scanning around and looking for our group that’s keeping an eye on them. They head south and they’ll die, and it won’t be by stinkers.”
“Glad we didn’t set up on that peninsula,” Mary mumbled with wide eyes. “They might have found us.”
“Mary,” Sandy said, pointing west. If they moved to the end of the island, they could barely make out the bridge two miles away. “This island would make a good lookout, but whoever is watching them is doing it from Dover. My guess is from one of the buildings.”
Getting nervous, “Think we need to pull back more?” Mary asked.
Since they were in the middle of the island, “We can’t see the bridge, so they can’t see us,” Sandy answered. “We’ll be gone when the sun sets.”
“They might have those little drones,” Mary offered.
“Just like we can’t see through foliage with thermal, they can’t either. We are under trees. Unless they fly the drone feet off the river, they won’t spot us.”
Feeling very relieved at the confidence in Sandy’s voice, Mary listened to the shortwave as first voice came on. “You watch out for those military guys,” first voice warned. “They’re sneaky. Watched a group of them track down folks talking on radios. We move, so they can try.”
New voice laughed, “As is, everyone except that military guy. Just got a message from our team and that guy is an army captain. But he was telling the truth about civilians being armed. That’s the only reason we haven’t hit them.”
“Yes, I’m an army captain,” gruff voice came back on and admitted.
“Well, Captain, you can call me Blue unless you head south, then you can call me Red,” new voice answered.
“Why?” whiny asked.
It was the captain who answered. “Blue is friendly forces and Red is hostile forces in war games.”
“Oh, you can just call me Red,” whiny stated.
“I’ll be double Red,” first voice chimed in.
“Gentlemen,” the captain said. “We have a common enemy; stinkers, and you want to engage us?”
“Not really, but your guys engaged my brother when he just wanted to ride this out at his house,” Double Red answered. “So I get a clear shot at you, I’m taking it.”
“Anyone else?” the captain asked.
“Come south and we will do the same,” Blue answered in a forbidding tone. “You and your troops made your bed, so now you have to lay in it.”
“He damn sure isn’t heading north,” Double Red chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe how many stinkers are piled up on the north end of the bridge.”
“Wrong. We already scouted there,” Blue replied. “Captain, my advice is lay low and leave when you can because everyone saw who the military backed, and it wasn’t the people. Oh, to let you know, your counterparts in Canton have already been overrun. They blew up the bridge over the lake, but there were enough stinkers on this side to knock down their wall, so you can quit calling for them.”
“Clarksville won’t last much longer,” Red chimed in. “There are so many stinkers on the north side, they are pushing the wall of shipping containers down the bridge.”
�
�I’m begging anyone for help,” the captain pleaded.
“Yeah, like your general,” Blue smirked. “We watched two days ago when a group went to help draw off some stinkers. After they led a nice group of stinkers off, a chopper flew out and took them by force and brought them inside the camp. Of course, your boys shot three of them because they didn’t want to go.”
“That wasn’t my call!” the captain shouted.
“And yet you stood by and let it happen,” Blue replied in a dead tone. “You know, the more I think on it, I’m going to ask my group just to get rid of you and that way, we only have to worry about stinkers and gangs.”
“We took out that gang from Fairview,” Double Red stated. “There’s another small group of a dozen or so, but haven’t found them yet. We are tracking them, though.”
“Sounds like the group we took out in Elkton,” Blue offered. “But there’s another one of about sixty in Pleasant View we are after right now. Once you cross I 65, gangs start becoming common place.”
“We can help,” the captain responded.
“No, you can’t,” Blue answered. For several minutes the captain called out for each one, but none responded.
“We see troops, we’re slinging lead,” Mary declared, turning the shortwave off. She glanced over and saw Sandy marking the topo page of their area. “You can’t do that.”
“It’s not our spot, so I don’t care,” Sandy replied. “Listening to them, we need to swing further north of Ft. Campbell and stay near the Little River. We need to avoid any field we can by staying in trees.”
Leaning over and looking at the map, “That should be easy until we get to Lafayette and turn northeast. My real estate company used to carry property between Hopkinsville and Campbell, and that’s farmland.”
Looking up from the map, “We will be in Kentucky. Finally, and there are always trees,” Sandy said with a grin.
“Oh,” Mary nodded. “Yeah, I thought you wanted forest, but there are those fence line tree rows.”
“That’s all the cover we need.”
Turning back to the river, “After swimming the lake, a hundred and fifty yards seems like we could jump it,” Mary said, finishing her coffee.
Forsaken World (Book 5): Homecoming Page 15