“We should confront these beasts head-on,” Ulrich suggested.
“Wow, there’s a shocker,” said Ahole. “But I’m with the big guy. It’s safer that way, and we’re burning daylight here.”
Cortez asked, “Anyone opposed?”
The group all answered or nodded in the negative as they began checking their gear and weapon placement; anything that the carriers could possibly grab ahold of was secured.
“Ulrich, Petrova, and Ahole, you’re with me. We’ll circle around and hit them from the east. Everyone else is with Miller. You’ll come in from the west,” Cortez ordered. “We’ll meet in the middle and take it from there. Let’s go.”
~~~
Ulrich’s ax came down powerful and deliberate; each blow dispatched another infected. The bulky Scandinavian was so methodical with each swing of his mighty ax that those around him were certain that he had planned the next ten or twelve swings. For every carrier he put down, someone like Genevieve with her naginata or Miller with his machete could easily put down three. Sometimes they got back up, though; the dead Ulrich fell were certain to never rise again.
Alex was perplexed but in sheer delight over the spectacle. “I’ve been meaning to ask, where the hell did he find a battleax?” Alex was a new addition to the excursion team. She was picked up along with a group of kids about a month after Miller joined up. Prior to that, she was just wandering from town to town with no destination in mind, content to live life as carefree as she was able, considering the state of the world in the aftermath of the crisis.
“A pawnshop we raided in the early days,” Simon explained. “You might be surprised at the cool stuff some of them have behind the counter. You know there was this one shop—”
“Is now really the time for this?” Cortez chided.
“Probably not,” Simon said with a shrug. “The lady has questions.”
The three of them joined the fray. They dispatched the carriers as quickly as they appeared. After months at sea and with dozens of excursions under their belts, Cortez and his team had become a well-oiled machine. Folding new members into the group wasn’t something Cortez did lightly. Miller and now Alex, however, exceeded all expectations; they worked in lockstep with the veteran crew.
Miller dislodged his weapon from the skull of a downed infected as he gave the general area a brief scan. “That’s the last of them,” he said while wiping gore from his gear.
“Record time, I might add.” Ahole patted Miller on the back as he gave the signal to fall out farther down the main drag.
At Miller’s feet, one of the carrier’s guts were busted open; it had eaten too much. Its stomach had burst, filling its chest cavity with decaying meat. Eventually the thing must have run into a sharp corner—maybe even the shattered pizza shop storefront—tearing the skin on its stomach open and releasing its contents. Miller inspected the beast closer. Those weren’t tears across its abdomen at all; they were knife wounds. Had Soraya passed by here recently?
Before they could continue their trek, Ulrich summoned Miller.
At the Scandinavians feet lay a petite desiccated corpse. She had light coffee skin and long black hair tied up in a tight bun. The body was adorned in a white tank top and green fatigue pants. Ulrich’s ax had cleaved the thing’s head in two down to the neck. Battle damage or not, identification was impossible, as in a former life, this carrier’s face had been badly ravaged. Its nasal cavity, cheekbones, and teeth were exposed; no discernible features remained. Miller took one look at the thing and said, “It’s not her. Move out.”
~~~
The excursion team continued marching two by two into the dark heart of the resort; chatter was kept to a minimum. Even with a few hushed conversations here and there, the group’s senses were honed to perfection. At the slightest movement in one’s peripheral vision, even the greenest excursion member would home in on their target and have it identified as a threat or not in a fraction of a second. They were good, Miller thought. If only… He stopped himself short of another round of what-ifs and should-haves. Weeks ago, Sam told him that he needed to let Soraya and Rachel go. “Dwelling on it out there on the road is only going to get you killed, too,” said Sam. “They would want you to move on.” He was right.
The silence drove Ahole mad. Contrary to what his namesake implied, he remained upbeat and positive even in the face of despair. “How many excursions do you reckon this makes, Miller? I can’t even tell anymore. They all just bleed together, mate.”
“Fifteen,” Miller replied coldly. “Pretty much one every ten days since I signed on.”
“Yeah, we like to keep you busy,” Ahole responded. “Hey, did I ever tell you—”
Ahole was cut off by Cortez, who fell back from the lead position. “Ahole, take point.”
“On it, boss.” Ahole jogged up ahead.
Miller nodded. “Thanks.”
“He means well.”
“I know.” Miller focused his sight on the looming hotel. “I just don’t want to hear it. Not today.”
“I hear you, hombre. It’s this place. I know,” Cortez said with as much compassion as the road would allow. “One way or another, after today, you can put all this nasty business behind you.”
~~~
Alex stood out among her black-leather-clad fellow excursion members. That was not to suggest that she was underdressed for the occasion, as she was adorned head to toe in leather of her own. She was dressed in the same worn browns and tans topped off with the dirty bandanna that Miller and Cortez found her wearing months ago. The newest member of the team was an easy fit with their unit. Having lived off the land since at least the earliest days of the outbreak, she was better-accustomed to this new life than most. Alex needed no introduction to the pitfalls of a heavy footstep or determining with lightning efficiency whether to fight or flee when the decision presented itself. The suggestion that she was homeless or a transient prior to the crisis came up from time to time, but she never confirmed or denied her origins. When asked about her past, she only smiled; she always smiled.
Alex had grown a sort of kinship with Simon in her time with Cortez’s unit. Both growing up in foster care and learning to take care of themselves at a young age forged a bond that was not easily broken. In quiet times, they shared stories, often bragging about who was quicker to up and bolt on a shitty situation. In their own way, they were comparing battle scars.
“Is it common to lose many of your own on a simple supply run?” she asked. “You guys don’t seem to fuck around.”
“Common? No. Not with Cortez in charge, anyway. Knock on wood. We have lost people, good ones, too,” he said with a touch of remorse. “It’s usually an all-or-nothing situation.”
“Quit fucking around.”
“Absolutely serious here. Nine times out of ten, the whole crew comes back, or no one does at all.” Simon fiddled with his rifle again. This line of questioning made him anxious.
Alex was done pushing for answers. Now wasn’t the time for this conversation, or the subject hit too close to home for Simon. She dropped it. People died, and someone close to him was lost, it seemed. He would open up or he wouldn’t; she wasn’t about to pry.
“What I wouldn’t give for a simple supply run today, you know?” She had to talk about something. The weight of Miller’s goal wasn’t only crushing for him. Miller wore his emotions on his sleeve, and Alex soaked them up like a sponge. “A rescue mission. I can get behind that.”
Simon sidestepped the rescue mission conversation altogether. “Supply runs are never simple. Complacency will get you killed out here faster than anything else. That’s the first thing we teach prospects.”
“Prospects?” she asked.
“Yeah, like you were back at the end of summer. We evaluated you like everybody else, and you ended up where you were supposed to.” Simon motioned to a larger-than-normal pothole Alex was close to tripping on.
“I saw it,” she said as she leapt over the obstacle. “I
make it a point to look at people when they’re talking to me.”
“Right.” He chuckled. “You’re probably too clumsy to make PR. It’s okay, though. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses.”
“The fuck’s a PR?”
“You know, prospective runners. Light armor. Hell, light weapons, too, for that matter. They’ve got to keep on their feet. Never linger, at least not for too long, anyway. But most of all, you’ve got to be quick. Fleet of foot.” Simon performed some fancy footwork for Alex’s amusement, dancing in place and bobbing and weaving in and out of imaginary obstacles.
“You’ve either got it or you don’t,” he said. “You see, a runner’s main purpose is intel. Finding a promising spot for supplies, then running back for the bulk of the team. They clear the place out and then we all abscond with the spoils.”
“Which would be the rest of us,” Alex added.
“You got it. Petrova and I spent an entire day creeping around this city after Haven anchored offshore the first time. While the rest of them soft snobs living on Haven were sipping Mai Tais, we were crossing off no-no spots from our maps and circling potential jackpots. You ask me, this right here is the easy part.”
“Never say PR again.”
“After everything I just said, that’s all you’ve got?”
“For now.” She shrugged. “Looks like we’re just about here.”
Ahead, blocking much of the main strip, a toppled-over building littered the street. Debris was piled nearly twenty feet high in spots. Clearly another casualty of whatever bombed portions of the city. Beyond the rubble, a thirty-story hotel was the prize. Its lighted signage had gone out long ago, but its name, the Grand, was still legible. All ground-floor windows were mostly smashed and boarded back up from the inside. The two entrances visible from the pile of rubble had been blocked off with abandoned vehicles. Its westernmost entrance was sealed off with a box truck, the truck’s roof offering easy access to the hotel’s second floor. Following Cortez’s lead, the group belly-crawled its way toward the top of the rubble pile. Everyone was careful to stay out of view of potential hostiles that could have been lurking in the shadows just inside the windows above. The area surrounding the hotel was surprisingly devoid of carriers.
“Someone lives here,” Miller said without hesitation.
“Or they did,” Cortez suggested. “Let’s keep our expectations in check.”
Cars and trucks were arranged in a semicircle connected to the front of the building and acting as a secondary barrier to keep the dead away. A van had been pushed in front of the main lobby doors, securing them shut. Miller and the others scaled the first barrier, then pushed the van out of the way and entered the lobby of the Grand.
~~~
Whoever called this place home—or at least did for a time—had the lobby secured in such a manner that there was no easy way in or out. Windows were painted over and boarded up, and heavy furniture was piled against the doors and lower windows. The same was done outside, only with vehicles used as blockades. Strategically placed vans and box trucks suggested that whoever lived here must have been using second-story windows to gain passage to the street.
“Whoever sealed this place up wasn’t taking any chances.” Alex tugged on some plywood fixed to a window frame. It wouldn’t budge.
The excursion team spread out into the first floor of the hotel. In groups of two, they performed a fast but efficient sweep of the premises. The kitchen was thoroughly scoured of any and all foodstuffs. An antique dumbwaiter seemed to still be in service as an efficient means of transporting scavenged goods to the safer, higher floors.
The stairwells were crammed full all the way up to the second-floor exits with chairs, mattresses, and all other variety of furniture typically found in a hotel. The dead would never get beyond this even if they somehow made it into the lobby. It wasn’t easy, but the excursion team navigated the obstacle. Ulrich remained in the lobby. He wasn’t exactly nimble, and if a fast escape was in order, helping this hulk over the debris field could cost precious time. Alex stayed behind with him. No one on Cortez’s team was left alone, regardless of how well they could handle themselves.
Once the remainder of the team surmounted the obstacle in the stairwell and was safely on the second floor, Cortez doled out assignments. “I want two teams. Miller, Petrova, and Ahole will search the even-numbered floors. Genevieve, Simon, and I will take the odd. I want a thorough search of every inch of this hotel. Tear this place apart. We’ll meet at the roof. Stay in radio contact. I expect status updates every ten minutes. Move out.”
Floor after floor was combed over with nary a sign that anyone lived at the Grand, save for the remains of clearly scavenged rooms. Desperation and dread were creeping in. With each passing floor searched unsuccessfully for his quarry, the realization set in for Miller. She wasn’t here and time was running out. Miller flung a flat-screen TV across a suite on the fourteenth floor; it shattered a mirror into a million fragments. A dresser was next. It ended up on the balcony. The bed and nightstands didn’t fare much better.
Ahole heard the commotion from down the hall. He readied his weapon and charged for Miller’s aid.
Petrova stopped him. “Leave him be.”
Ahole nodded in agreement. Even still, he stood sentry a few doors down. He offered no witty remarks or snark-laden comments; Ahole merely waited for his teammate to calm.
Miller sat on the edge of the bathtub in the room’s ruined lavatory. He breathed heavily as a hundred images of himself stared back from a shattered mirror. He hung his head. This was it; it was over.
He left the room and his destructive outburst behind to wander the halls. Miller was contemplating what his next move should be—if he should continue the search alone or go back to the ship with the others—when his radio roared to life.
Cortez was on the other end. “Miller, get up here, hombre,” he said. “Top floor. You’re going to need to see this.”
CHAPTER TWO
147 Days Ago
Miller’s destination was masked by the weather; it was too late to turn back, even if that was an option. A storm was rolling in, and with it came the rain, rough seas, and fog.
Cortez’s boat cut through the water; each bounce splashed the craft’s passengers with salty spray. He hesitated with the shortwave radio. Cortez was sure to get a dressing down for breaking protocol, and he wasn’t in the mood. “Expedition three inbound with minimal scavenge. All excursion team members accounted for, plus sixteen. Repeat, all accounted for, plus sixteen. Over.” Cortez released the tiny button on his water-logged radio. He eyed his boat’s companions as he waited for a reply. He couldn’t help but wonder if he did the right thing by going back for Miller. Sure, his team was all accounted for, but that foolish gambit could set a precedent. Breaking protocol like that could get you killed; it was a sentiment he pounded into the heads of those in his charge. Maybe next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.
The pilot of the small boat had nothing to say except for the occasional ribbing over Cortez’s decision to go back for a complete stranger. He was otherwise preoccupied with navigating an increasingly nasty sea. Miller remained silent. Since departing Poseidon’s Rest, his eyes stayed fixed on the horizon as if through sheer willpower he could bring his friends back to him. If he was contemplating what lay ahead or lamenting his losses, he kept it to himself. The small craft slapping against the waves was all that broke the silence.
Much to Cortez’s relief, someone on the other end of the radio finally responded. “Expedition three, this is Haven. We have your team securely on board. Rendezvous at portside cargo bay two for unload and de-cons. Over.”
“Copy that,” was Cortez’s reply.
The boat slowed as it cut through the fog. A tremendous shadow began to take shape in the distance. As the insignificant craft got closer, a colossus of a ship revealed itself. Closer still and it was obvious that Cortez and his unit weren’t exaggerating. Floating before them and s
afely anchored a half-mile offshore was a massive cruise ship. Huge blue letters adorned the stern of the vessel, revealing one simple word: Haven.
Already aboard Haven, the rest of the survivors and their would-be rescuers gathered in a large loading bay; their weapons had been confiscated upon arrival. In its heyday, that part of the ship would have been bustling with dozens of workers scurrying about. Now it was manned by a skeleton crew; the area itself was used mostly for storage. Row upon row of supplies were securely shelved floor to ceiling. Luggage and souvenirs large and small were organized in the center of the room and stretched deep into the darkened hold. A half dozen armed guards patrolled the area, cautiously keeping watch on the ship’s new guests.
They were joined by a handful of people wearing long white smocks and holding clipboards for taking inventory. Haphazardly stacked crates of foodstuffs seemed to be sorted in order of perishability. The white-coat-wearing inventory-takers filled a cart with moldy loaves of bread and slimy vegetables. All the while, laughing about the undesirable food.
“What’s so funny over there?” Vanessa asked. The apparent joke concerning old but still entirely eatable food going to waste was lost on her. “This stuff could feed us for weeks. Why even bother scavenging the resort when you have all this?”
Genevieve leaned into Vanessa’s ear. “We don’t just scavenge foodstuffs. The things we do bring back go into a pool for everyone—mostly everyone, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, we’re home.”
Genevieve, Simon, and the rest of Cortez’s crew left their duffels and scavenge in a pile as they entered the main chamber. The inventory-takers were fast to separate the bags’ contents atop a line of stainless-steel tables. Scavenge went in one pile to be sorted while the excursion team’s belongings were placed in plastic bins to be sterilized and returned later.
“Light score?” one of the inventory-takers commented behind a thin germ mask.
The Roaming (Book 3): Haven's Promise Page 2