I walked over to an empty bench and hopped up. There was activity down there in the form of three different sets of headlights, and they were all heading toward the old National Guard Armory.
Chapter 15
Arlo had Dolores re-wrap his legs in clean gauze before pulling on his trousers. There was still considerable discomfort from the burns, especially on the left side, but after taking a few pain pills mixed with Tramadol, the pain was lessened. The leader of the disgraced American military crew managed a few experimental steps around the room and figured he could stand it. He looked in the full-length mirror as he belted on the big .44 magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 revolver. Arlo had wanted one ever since he’d seen his first ‘Dirty Harry’ movie. He could never afford one in the old days, but the new world made a lot of things possible.
Arlo turned left, then right as he admired the look of the weapon on his waist. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. He’d wanted to appear formidable to his visitors, and nothing did that more than a big sidearm, at least in his opinion.
Now fully dressed, the former lieutenant stepped from the bedroom into the parlor of his luxurious hotel suite. Lobo and Arturo were there. Arlo thought it proper to make them wait on him and give them the idea that he was the one calling the shots. He was expecting a reaction to his entrance but was disappointed by the one he received.
“Hey, looky there. He’s walking again.” Lobo did a few claps with his hands. “You must be on so many drugs…you’re trippin’, am I right?”
Arlo ignored him and strode regally over to the table at which Lobo and Arturo were sitting. He gingerly lowered himself into the chair and folded his hands on top of the table.
“I’m told you have news?”
Lobo was slouching low in his seat wearing a pair of jeans with a sleeveless workout shirt. His armpits showed through as well as his body odor. His grin showed one of his front teeth to be darker than the rest, and he had that slightly crazy look on his face again. The sight made Arlo glad he had decided to wear the magnum.
Lobo slapped the table with a flat palm. “Your boys ready to do this thing?”
Arlo looked at Lobo, then at Arturo. He trusted neither one of these two and was reasonably sure he would wind up killing both of them regardless of what happened in the coming days. Arlo was no genius like Lobo, but the former officer knew a few things about human nature. Most importantly, he knew that, since he was planning on killing these two men, they were almost certainly planning to do the same to him. With that in mind, he knew he had to play this game carefully.
“You found them?” he asked.
“Hah! Hell yeah we did,” Lobo answered. “Didn’t I tell you?”
He had indeed bragged that he would find the group who attacked his people. Arlo was willing to give him a few days to accomplish this, but he had real doubts as to the crazy little man’s ability to carry through. He was genuinely impressed that he was back the next day claiming success.
“Yes, you did. Tell me what you found out.”
Lobo pointed to Arturo. The bigger man cleared his throat. He was not comfortable being among these people under these circumstances. He was especially unhappy about being searched and disarmed. Arturo had sized up Arlo on the previous day. They may have been able to work together and maybe even part as friends later on, but Lobo had ruined that with his disrespectful treatment toward the leader of this other, more powerful group. Arlo’s eyes had told the gang Segundo all he needed to know.
“Early this morning, there was a disturbance east of town, way out by the foothills.” Arturo pointed in the general direction of the Sierra Nevadas. “Our scouts picked up on it and watched it unfold. There was a bunch of those crazy infected types attacking a collection of people on top of a hill out there. The people put the Ragers down with no trouble using .22s.”
Arlo scratched the side of his nose and raised his eyebrows. “So? That happens all over the place nowadays.”
The big man nodded in agreement. “True. But our scouts are under orders to check on anything out of the ordinary. This fight was a big enough, and it was close enough, so they checked it out for us.”
Arturo unfolded a map onto the table top and smoothed it out with his hands. He pointed to a portion of it. “This is a map of that area. The foothills are about twenty-five miles from where we sit right here, straight east.
“There is one big hill back there,” he pointed to a wavy line on the map that the Segundo had circled in red. “It’s kind of tricky to see because of the way the land rises and falls in that direction. It was on top of that hill that this fight took place.”
Arturo pushed the map across the table so Arlo could see it better. “Anyway, when our scouts went to check it out, they could see the dead infected, but they couldn’t see any houses or anything like that. That’s odd because the people up there have to be living in something, right?”
Arlo shrugged, and Arturo continued. “So anyway, our people drove out there and couldn’t find anything at first, but then they saw this big gate with a lock on it. Neither the lock nor the gate was typical of what you usually find in that type of setting. The gate was thick steel tubes welded together, and the lock was a big fancy-looking thing. When our boys checked it, they saw it operated with a key, a combination or a fingerprint.”
Arlo started to show some interest finally, so Arturo leaned in closer. “Now, we’ve lived out here for our entire lives. We know what fits and what’s out of place. The ranches and farms in the foothills have mostly narrow dirt or gravel roads leading to homes which are visible from the road. Granted that is not true of every single house out there but…at this place we noticed that behind the fancy lock and gate there was a two-lane paved and a blacktopped road leading up. There was no house visible from anywhere on the street in front of it.”
Arlo looked over one of his guards and smirked. “So? Just because you can’t see a house from the road doesn’t tell me much.”
Lobo butted in. “You’re right, General, and that’s why our people kept digging. They sent a scout up the road. He came back an hour later and said there is a majorly large mansion at the top of the hill. The place has been engineered to keep it from being visible from below. It has a large security wall packed with dirt surrounding a compound with sliding steel gates in four places. And get this…it has two towers sticking up like Hearst Castle or something.”
Lobo sat up in his seat and scooted forward. “But the real kicker is this. The people up there were loading the dead infected on trailers and pulling them behind pickup trucks. And a Humvee. Our scout got a good look at the hummer. It had a dent in the passenger side front fender shaped like a football. We happened to have lost a hummer with the same dent a few nights ago, along with four of our soldiers. We suspect our mutual enemy as being the reason behind it.”
Arturo held up both hands, palms out. “We know it’s not a hundred percent certain…but it’s pretty damned close, don’t you think?”
Arlo smiled. “Close enough to check out.”
The arrangement that the two groups decided on the day before had taken into account the unworkability of blending their people and putting them under one commander. The egos involved would never allow that. What they settled on was an agreement that, should the troublesome group be located, they would be attacked by both sides individually. Arlo would retain full control of his soldiers and Lobo would direct the Mojados. The assaults would be coordinated but individual.
As Arlo had articulated though, first they had to determine if these people back in the foothills actually were the people who had attacked both gangs. Arlo had already advised the Mojado’s leader about the existence of Marcus’ pocket of survivors that his soldiers had attacked on the day of the soldier’s defeat. The disgraced lieutenant, using his military training, suggested another attack on that survivor refuge. He reasoned that the more problematic group had been drawn to aid the survivors once, why would they not do it again?
It sounded like a workable plan to Arturo. Lobo, however, had different ideas.
“I want these bitches to know we’re on to them. I want to drive up to their front door and tell them death is coming. I want them to piss their pants in fear.”
He had continued to rant on. Arlo waited until he ran out of steam then steepled his fingers on the table. “Attacking a fortified position is dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, you can do it, but it is costly. Too costly. I won’t send my people against this place in the foothills unless I’m convinced there is no other way.”
Arturo gritted his teeth and waited for Lobo to react. Refuting an idea that came from the little man was not healthy. He had seen people beaten and, on one occasion, shot between the eyes. Arturo prepared himself to act if Lobo lost control. He watched his leader closely and relaxed when he noted the smile spread across his face. It wasn’t a real smile, of course. In another setting, this Arlo character would be spilling his brains out on the table before them, but Lobo needed the soldiers. They had the numbers, weapons, and training. There would be ample time for violence after Lobo got what he wanted which was the destruction of the group on top of the distant hill.
“Hey,” Lobo responded. “That’s why we came to you guys. You’re trained military right? You know about tactics and crap.” He nodded in an exaggerated manner. “Okay, General. You’re on. We’ll attack the group from the other day and see if that draws them out of their nest. How do you see this going?”
✽✽✽
For the second time in as many days, I was in the little room by the clinic. The man and woman we had rescued on the previous night were sitting on plastic chairs. The man remained handcuffed, and the woman was holding her baby tight up against her chest. She was visibly terrified. The man…well…he wasn’t showing much trepidation at all. He was either fearless or too stupid to understand what was happening. The Major was still concerned that the entire event last night was a ploy to draw the infected into attacking the compound and getting spies inside.
I watched the man as he tried to comfort his wife, holding her hand while disregarding the cuffs. He was African-American, tall, about six feet and five inches I guessed. He had broad shoulders and big arms. His forearms were sticking out of his rolled-up sleeves, and they looked like steel cables. It was obvious that he had spent many hours in the gym. The fuzz on his skull showed he usually shaved his head bare, but it was growing out now.
The woman was pretty, maybe even beautiful. She wore clean jeans that had been donated by Pepper. She was small boned, had big brown eyes and wore her black hair in an Afro style. The baby was silent, content to be in her mother’s arms.
Pops and the Major were sitting in chairs that faced the family. I was standing in the doorway behind them, and Sharon was kneeling, wrapping an elastic bandage around the woman’s foot.
Sharon finished up and stood. “That should keep it immobilized until it heals up.” She turned to Pops. “It’s just a slight sprain, minimal swelling. I’ll check on it tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” It was the first words I had heard the woman speak.
We were holding the family in one of the sleeping quarters in the first sub-level. Jimmy and Buck had swapped off watching them through the night, and both of them were now upstairs catching up on their missed sleep.
Pops leaned forward. “This shouldn’t take long. Tell us who you are and how you came to be running up our hill last night.”
The man held out his hands and looked at the cuffs. “Are these really necessary?” His voice was low and his brows were gathered into a frown.
The Major shrugged. “We don’t know you. We put ourselves in danger to save your lives, so the least you can do is answer our questions. If you are not here to pose a danger to us, the cuffs will come off soon enough.”
The big man seemed to agree with the Major’s words. “Fair enough.” He drew himself up straight in the chair. “Isaac Brenner, Sergeant, U.S. Army Rangers, Fort Benning Georgia.” He tilted his head to the woman. “This is Candace, my wife. The baby is Sarah.”
“That’s a start,” said Pops. “Now why in the world were you outside in the middle of the night in this area?”
The man stretched his legs out in front of him giving us another look at his size. He was huge. His wife looked like a child sitting beside him.
“We’ve been hiding out from those things for a month or more. We were in a new house down close to Academy Avenue. It had been abandoned by the owners, but it had food and the well still worked, at least until the power went out. It did have solar panels so the pump would work during the day which allowed us to flush the toilets and take showers.”
The baby started to fuss, and the woman looked at us with a little bit of fear in her eyes. “I’m sorry to interrupt but, you wouldn’t happen to have any infants here? Any baby bottles or formula?”
Sharon had come over to stand next to me in the doorway. She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. It’s probably the one thing Dan forgot to stock when he supplied this place.”
Pops turned his head around to smile at her. “Now, wait a minute, Miss Doctor.” He turned back to Candace. “Despite what the learned doctor said, we do, in fact, have baby bottles and powdered formula available. I just have to find where we put it. It will take me a few hours, though.”
The young mother nodded. “I understand, but Sarah is hungry. Is there a place we can go? Or maybe get me a towel or something to cover myself?”
“Sharon, would you mind?”
“Yes, Major, of course.” She held out her hand to Candace and led her out of the room, heading for the clinic.
“Now,” Pops continued. “You were hiding out in an abandoned house. Then what happened?”
“We started to run out of food.” He pulled his legs back in and leaned forward with his cuffed hands folded in his lap. “Plus, packs of infected were starting to roam through the housing project at night. They would seem to pick a house at random and attack it, tearing it apart as if it was a living being. They hit several homes near us like that, but we were always fortunate enough to escape detection.” He let out a long sigh. “Then, last night, I tried to sneak out in the darkness and find us some food. I usually only went out in daylight, but we hadn’t seen or heard any infected for two days, so I thought we were safe. I made another mistake of making too much noise when I broke a window in another house. The infected heard it and started searching for me, going through all of the surrounding homes. It was only a matter of time before they would have found us.
“I was able to get back to Candace and Sarah. I considered leading the pack away from them, but I knew they would never survive without me so, I got them together, and we ran.” His face showed the strain that reliving the experience was putting on him. “It sounds crazy, but we had liberated a golf cart from one of the other houses. It was quiet and surprisingly fast. I used it to move around in the daylight sometimes without waking the afflicted so, I piled Candace and Sarah into the cart, and we headed out. I had no idea where to go, but I knew there had to be some isolated farm houses or ranches up in these hills, so I just headed east. The pack saw us and followed.”
Isaac shook his head. “You can’t believe how single-minded those things are. They chased us for a solid forty-five minutes before the cart started to run low on power. We rode it for about ten more minutes before it slowed down enough that the pack was beginning to gain on us. After that, the only choice we had was to run for it.”
The big man shifted his eyes up at us and shrugged. “The last thing we wanted was to have to run uphill but the infected surrounded us, and that was the only direction we had open.”
He looked over at Pops and then me. “I was certain that my wife and baby were going to be savaged by those sick people. You saved my family. There is no way I can ever thank you enough for that. If you want to punish me for putting you all in danger, I understand. I will do anything you ask of me. If you want me to leave here, I will, just please
keep Candace and Sarah safe.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” It was the Major who spoke. “No one here wants to punish anyone.” He stood and unconsciously held a hand to his damaged ribs. “But, you need to understand something. There are people out there who are not happy with us. They want to kill us. If you prove to us that you are who you say you are then you might elect to find a safer place for your family. After making so much noise last night, we suspect those people now know our location and will be coming for us.”
Isaac frowned. “Hey, I know how it is out there.” He pointed to the glowing L.E.D. light above him. “You have power here. You let us use your facilities last night, so I know you have running water, too. It’s a dangerous world wherever you go now. If you let us stay here, we’ll risk it. At least my wife and baby will have a few comforts.” He gave a tiny smile then. “Plus, if you’re talking about a fight, well, that just happens to be my game.”
The Major examined his face more closely. “Yes, you claim to be an Army Ranger. Have you any proof of that?”
Isaac stood up and turned around so that his back was facing us. “My wallet’s right there in my pocket. I don’t even know why I still carry it. Habit, I guess.”
The Major plucked the wallet free of his pocket, and the big guy sat again. The Major pulled a laminated card free and looked at it before handing it to Pops. Pops examined it and gave it back.
“Okay, Sergeant, your I.D. looks valid. I have just one question. If you’re assigned to Fort Benning, that’s in Georgia. What are you doing all the way out here in California?”
Isaac gave another shrug. “My wife was out here visiting her parents when the world went sideways. Most of the soldiers on the base were infected by that time. I knew my family needed me so…I deserted and drove across the country to get here.”
“I’d do the same thing to get to Virgil.” Pops said to the Major. He eyed the newcomer. “What happened to your wife’s parents?”
Virgil's War- The Diseased World Page 25