“I wasn’t always; but I recently lost my dad, so I guess I am now.”
“What’s your name, kid?” Hutch pulled a small bag out of his shirt pocket full of raisins and tossed it to him.
“Zach, and I’m not a kid. I’m almost sixteen.” The kid carefully checked the bag out and then dumped in a mouthful of raisins.
“All right, big guy Zach, how long have you been here?” Hutch motioned for him to follow him back to the van.
“Almost four years. My dad was the groundskeeper here before the slabs came. We stayed behind, even after the military came to clear out the place.”
“What do you mean clear out the place?” Hutch asked as they arrived back at the van.
“About two months into the outbreak, the military showed up and started ransacking the house. They took anything of value they could get their hands on. Paintings, furniture, documents, anything they could grab. We watched them roll up to the house and shoot anything that moved—human or otherwise. There were about thirty of us at the time. My mom and dad and I all lived here before, and we knew where to hide when we saw that happening. They stayed for about three days. And when they left, we were the only ones left alive.” Zach took a bottle of water Hutch had retrieved from behind his seat.
“Wow. That doesn’t surprise me, though. I’ve seen similar situations happen in other places. So how have you stayed alive for so long in there?”
“It was the three of us for a while, and with all the food pantries this place had, we had plenty of supplies to survive on until the slabs showed up in force about six months into it. The military knocked down some walls so they could get some of the bigger things out before they left, which allowed the slabs to get in the house. They got my mom first. Me and Dad went about locking down parts of the house that we could and created a safe wing. But, unfortunately, most of the food pantries were in places where the slabs were. Then, two weeks ago, when we were making a food run, my dad got bit. He fell ill right away, and by that evening, he was gone,” Zach said as he showed no emotion.
“What’s the situation in there now with the slabs? I think I came across one of your barriers earlier. And as you probably heard, I might have caused a bigger hole for them,” Hutch said almost apologetically.
“Yeah, that scared the crap out of me. At first, I thought the military had returned. I’m not sure how many are in there. They have come and gone for the last year, and lately, the ones we contained early on have stopped making so much noise.” Zach sat down on the bumper of Hutch’s van and finished off the raisin bag.
“Well, I came to see this place. But if it’s that bad in there, we might as well take it down on top of them, and I will get you someplace a bit safer.” Hutch pulled out another one of his remote drones and placed it in front of Zach. “You ever used one of these before, kid?”
“I had one similar to this a few years ago.”
“Well you know my plan; do you want to help me take this place down on top of them?”
Zach eyed the extra trucks in the back of the van and had a grin stretch across his face, which told Hutch everything he needed to know.
Chapter 6
Young Patch was sitting on the front porch with Storm when he looked up and saw headlights coming up the driveway and stopping at the bridge. He jumped up and turned to run inside, with Storm in tow behind him. He quickly ran into the kitchen and found David and Morgan putting the last of the dishes away from supper. “Uncle David, I was sitting on the front porch and was catching fireflies in a jar. Look, I even poked holes in the lid so that they won’t suffer like last time.” Patch held up the jar to show David.
“Yeah, that’s cool, little man, but I need you to stay out there and let me know when Benjy shows up. Can you do that for me?” David pushed Patch back towards the front door.
“Oh, yeah, Uncle Benjy is here, too. I forgot to tell you that part first,” Patch answered as he took off running back to the front door.
“Wow, that boy has the attention span of a gnat, I tell ya,” he said to Morgan as he tossed his dish rag. “Here, get Renee to help you finish up the dishes. Let me go let Benjy in.”
As David approached the bridge, he paused and waited for Benjy to flash his headlights five times to let him know it was him. After the fifth flash, David walked up and lowered the draw bridge, letting him cross.
Benjy was unloading his last duffle bag of supplies when David finally made it over to him. Immediately, David started poking through the bags. “Relax, it’s in there. In fact, I found two of them for you.” Benjy tossed the last bag over to David.
“Great. These kids have been driving me nuts since the last DVD player broke, and they haven’t been able to watch anything on television since.” David pulled out one of the devices and hugged it.
“Let me stow this other stuff in the shed, and I will be in shortly to catch you up on everything I’ve found,” Benjy said as he watched David run towards the house waving the player in the air.
As Benjy placed the last duffle bag into the shed, he looked over and noticed the keypad was open and flashing, indicating someone was in his labs. He quickly keyed in the code, and just as soon as the door slid open, rushed down the staircase ready to confront his visitor. As he got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw the shadow of a person sitting in his office chair, and he immediately recognized the curly-haired inhabitant as Hope. Slowing his approach since he knew who was down there, he relaxed and entered his office.
“Mind telling me what you’re doing here, Hope?”
“Waiting for you. I think it’s time for some answers. I need some answers.” She tossed the file she was holding in her hands down onto the desk.
“I’m still not one hundred percent positive on what happened to you, but I think I know where to get the answers.” He scooped up the folder to see what she was looking through.
“Well, I’m tired of waiting. So where are the answers?” Hope stood up to face the gray-headed old man.
“If you will allow me to get to my desk, I will show you.” Benjy walked around the right side of his large wooden desk. “It’s here on my computer.” He gently pushed Hope out of the way while turning on the laptop sitting in the middle of the desk.
Hope reluctantly moved around to the other side and then placed both hands on the desk, her body hunched over so she could watch the computer come to life. Even in her hunched over state, she towered several inches over the much shorter man. She remained aware, though, that even her newly-found size and strength meant nothing to the power the gray-headed old man in front of her surely possessed.
As Benjy logged in and pulled up a screen filled with a very detailed map of the United States, she noticed the Internet light was on, indicating it was working. “Whoa, the Internet is still there?”
“Kind of. It’s there, but not the Internet you’re used to. This is the emergency Internet, set up for world leaders to have access to in the case of a national or global catastrophe. You have to have the right satellite connection for this to work, and the clearance to get on it. I, however, was one of the original designers of the system, therefore, I have several backdoors into it that no one is aware of. Before you ask, no, you can’t do a status update on here. Those sites are long gone,” Benjy said with a smirk and a little giggle.
“Not what I was thinking, but that would’ve been cool. What can you access, though?”
“Not too much, really. It’s mostly setup for communication and file sharing. Most of the world leaders have access to it to allow them to stay in touch in case of a total system collapse, or to avoid a military retaliation, or to effect rescue operations and rebuilding efforts. Unfortunately, most of the world leaders were lost early on in the outbreak, and the only elected officials left either didn’t know about this, or don’t have the access codes to get on it, so it has been mostly unused. So, as long as the satellites stay working, though, it’s still there. Here, this was what I was going to show you.” Benjy turned the
screen around for Hope to see.
“What am I looking at? It looks like a warehouse.” Hope tried to make sense of the image in front of her.
“That is one of my safehouses located in Mobile, Alabama. I used that base for a few years back when I was doing the experiments on your grandfather. There are some files there that I need, so I can finish analyzing the results from your blood work that should confirm what has happened to you. I was planning a trip to go there next week and get them, but an alarm sounded yesterday before I left on the supply run. See that door down there that’s open? It’s not supposed to be. So, either I have some survivors who have lucked across my warehouse, or I have had some other visitors there of the more dangerous kind. Either way, I have to leave to check this out and retrieve those files.” Benjy closed the laptop down.
“Well, let’s go, I assume you have a way to get there fast?” Hope said as she stood up and crossed her arms, trying to tell him there was no need to argue with her.
Benjy ignored her aggressive body language and stated his intentions, anyway. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I have a boat that is fully-fueled and ready to go, but I am going alone. The possibility of my people being there looking for me is real, and I don’t need anybody else to be there in case of being captured. If you have become what I suspect, they would be very eager to get their hands on you, and that would not be pleasant. I, however, have ways of moving about by myself that would make it impossible for you, or anybody else to keep up. This is not up for debate, so please don’t make this any worse than it has to be. It will take me about five to six days to make this trip, and then I can give you your answers. I promise.”
“Give me something, anything to go on here. What the hell has happened to me? Am I going to keep growing? Am I going to die from this? Tell me something, damn it.” Hope slammed her fist down onto the thick mahogany desk and cracked it across the middle.
“All indications are that you have stopped growing, at least in height, anyways. You have continued to put on muscle, but that seems to be it. All your blood work was normal, for the most part. In fact, you are the epitome of health. Every test I ran: blood sugars, cholesterol, white blood cell counts, you name it, came back at the absolutely perfect level you can have. I have only seen this one other time in my life, and that was on a young woman I met back in the fifties. I want to compare your blood work with hers, and if it matches, I will finally have my answers. Until then, I have nothing else to tell you without one hundred percent certainty. Can you give me just one more week to get these answers for you?”
“One more week then,” Hope answered as she started to turn and exit his office. “When you get back, though, and you have your answers, I have a few more questions pertaining to what you are and what you can do. I have to know we are safe here.” She shut the door behind her, not giving him a chance to reply.
Chapter 7
David rolled over and looked at the clock and saw that it was only seven in the morning. It had only been two hours since he went to sleep, since he and Benjy had stayed up late making preparations for Benjy’s departure the previous night. He groaned before he rolled over to look out the window to see what was making the sound that had awoken him so early. Outside the window, he found Hope and Renee engaging in some practice with bo staffs right next to his room. He banged on the window and motioned for them to move away before closing the shades again and rolling over to try and get some more sleep.
As the girls repositioned themselves away from David’s side of the house, they saw the front door swing open and spotted Morgan coming out to where they were. As Morgan made her way across the yard, she tied her long blonde hair back with a rubber band. She was wearing a loose-fitting tank top, which revealed the large scar on her right shoulder in the shape of a bite mark. This was the first time Hope or Renee had ever seen it, and they didn’t hide their reaction to it very well.
“Pretty nasty, huh?” Morgan stated as she made her way to them.
“Yeah, I mean sorry, I just didn’t realize it was that bad of a bite,” Hope said as she stumbled with her words.
“It’s cool. I wear it proudly, knowing I’m one of only a handful of people in the world that can say I survived a bite from one of those creatures,” Morgan answered back as she eyed the staves in their hands. “Do you mind if I practice with you some?”
“Yeah, sure.” Renee said as she tossed her staff to Morgan. “Here, take mine. I’m going to sit out for a minute and catch my breath.”
Morgan caught the staff and immediately started spinning it around, checking out its weight and balance. “This is pretty nice, but it’s not very durable being made out of pine.”
“You work with what you have,” Hope said as she pointed to the perimeter of the yard, which was comprised of nothing but pine trees.
“Okay, let’s see what you’ve learned then,” Morgan said as she set into a fighting stance and motioned for Hope to attack.
Five minutes go by, and Renee is standing in complete shock, as time and time again Morgan disarmed or swept Hope off her feet, while never letting Hope land a single blow. Regardless, Hope continued to get up and resume her attacks, showing no sign of exhaustion. It was only after the fifth time of getting her staff knocked out of her hand, and her feet swept out from underneath, that Hope relented to the superior skills of her opponent. “Wow, where did you learn those skills?” Renee asked as she helped her sister up off the ground.
“My dad always wanted a boy, but after getting three girls, he decided he would just work with what he had, instead. So, I was chosen to be his token boy. I was in martial arts from about the age of three until the day of the plague.” Morgan tossed the staff back to Renee.
“You’ve never talked about your old life, pre-plague.” Hope brushed the dirt off her pants.
“I don’t like to think about it. I had a great childhood before, and now it’s all gone. We survive day by day. That’s all I think about now. If Benjy hadn’t come and found me, there’s no telling if I would still be alive.” Morgan turned to walk away.
“Hey, how well did you know Benjy before the outbreak?” Hope asked.
“Not at all, but he seemed to know a great deal about my family. Seemed he knew my dad pretty good, but I can’t remember ever meeting him before. How about you?”
“He was around constantly when we were growing up, showing up every six months or so, staying late into the evening, and leaving without ever spending the night. Guess I should have picked up on that a long time ago.”
“Yeah, how you handling the whole V thing? I gotta admit when I found out, I couldn’t sleep for a week, afraid he was going to come in and bite me or something.” Morgan stopped and returned to the other two girls.
“I’m still not sure how I feel about it. But he has never in all the years we’ve known him tried anything on any of us. I am curious, though, about his feeding. How he does it and how often. Everything about him is a mystery. Can he turn into a bat and fly? Can he turn us into one? Crosses? Garlic? Is he doing some kinda Jedi mind trick on us to trust him? I have a lot of questions that I am going to push him on very soon.” Hope waved Morgan over to sit down and talk, instead of leaving.
“Well, good luck on that. Me and Trip tried that after Trip found out, and Benjy was very tight-lipped on everything. We have come to realize that maybe it’s better we don’t know everything, or that it might be too much to deal with.” Morgan pulled up a lawn chair and decided to stay for a minute.
“Well, the three of you seemed to know a great deal about us before we ever got here. How about catching us up on y’all’s stories? Especially Hunter, who won’t tell me anything about himself,” Hope asked, hoping she’d caught Morgan in a talkative mood.
“All right, that’s fair. I’ll start with me first. Born and raised in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Lived there with my dad, mom, and two older sisters. I already told you about the martial arts, but I was taught everything about hunting, fishing, and sports by my
dad. We were caught by surprise when the outbreak happened while camping in the Smokey Mountains, and came home to a full-blown plague. Mom had already been attacked, and we lost her the first night back. My dad took us to our grandfather’s house in the mountains, where we stayed until we were overrun by a herd of slabs moving through the area at the tail end of the first winter. I lost all three of them, and was bitten myself and thinking it was over for me. That’s when Hunter and Benjy found me. They tied me up and brought me back here until they were sure that I wasn’t going to turn into one of those monsters. After a day or two of severe headaches and fevers, I came right through it like nothing happened. Benjy said he had been searching for me for months and said there was something special about my family. If my dad and sisters hadn’t been killed by the slabs, he said, they all could have probably pulled through. I’ve been here ever since.” Morgan fought off letting any tears show.
Hope could see the emotions in Morgan coming out, so she quickly asked about Hunter and Trip’s stories.
“Trip is easy. He showed up with Benjy about three months ago. He’s from the outskirts of New Orleans, and was in pretty bad shape when Benjy found him. Apparently, he lost his family in the early days of the outbreak, and was taken in by a group of survivalists as he was trying to escape New Orleans. He lived with them until they were overrun by a group of scavengers. They took him prisoner, and from what I’ve been able to piece together, it was a pretty brutal group of people. He escaped after a few weeks and made his way back to his home, thinking he was going to die from the wounds he sustained at the hands of those animals. Benjy got to him in the nick of time, as he was being invaded by slabs when he showed up, and had already been bitten by one. He was in and out of consciousness for about two weeks, until Benjy was able to nurse him back to health. He recovered, but, for the most part, has been kind of reclusive ever since. He follows Hunter around like a lost puppy. If I didn’t know any better, I think he has a thing for him. As for Hunter, well, he’s a different story all together.” Morgan paused as she got comfortable in her chair, indicating it could be a long story.
Juggernaut (Humanity's Hope Book 2) Page 4