by Lee Thomas
“There was movement at the house. It wasn’t a distraction; they were holed up there. Fifteen of them just left and jogged off down the street.” He replied, stepping back as I swung my feet off the bed and reached for my boots. He left the room as I stood and reached for my sword belt, and I followed right behind.
“There has been slight movement of the curtains on the second-floor windows, so that’s where they are keeping watch from. There was hardly any light escaping when they exited, so either the fire is low, or it’s blocked from the front door somehow. We know of three inside as there were two looking out the upper windows and one shutting the door when the fifteen left.” Shelby reported.
“So let’s plan on double that. Is there any way to take out the guards on the second floor without alerting the rest of them?” I asked.
“We do have three silenced rifles. We can try to take them out as they look out the windows.” Tony answered.
“Good, let’s try that. Get our best shots up on the second floor with a good vantage point and see if we can do that.” I said. Tony nodded to Henry, Jared, and another man I couldn’t remember the name of and they took the rifles and headed up the stairs. We waited for them to find a good spot and wait for a good shot, and in the meantime, we planned what we would do after that.
“So, after the lookouts are taken care of, what are the chances we could just rush the place? Are we sure there are no lookouts on the ground floor?” Shelby asked.
“Not that we have seen. All the lower windows seem to be boarded up pretty tight, so unless there are some hidden holes to look through, then there is no way to spot us from the ground floor.”
“We could go out the back and slip through a couple of yards, cut across the street several houses down to help avoid being seen. We could then sneak up to the house, maybe breach both front and back at the same time. If our snipers can take out the upper level guards at roughly the same time, it could create enough confusion to allow us to rush in and take the house easily. We could then simply wait for the rest to return and ambush them on the way in.” Marceline suggested.
“I like that idea; let’s let the snipers know, and then we will start moving.” Tony said. Someone ran upstairs and told the three sharpshooters to wait until the rest of us were in position before taking a shot. We then quickly got ready and silently headed out the back door, leaving the three sharpshooters and three others to watch their backs. The remaining ten of us started jumping fences into yard after yard, going about four houses down before creeping to the front yard. Peeking out around the corner, we could barely see the windows of the house, which meant they wouldn’t be able to see us very well either. Following Tony’s hand signals, we jogged across the street one at a time, staying as low as possible to stay in the shadows. We made it across the street without hearing an alarm raised and crouched down behind the house there.
“You five, stay in the back yards, the rest of us will go in the front. Check your fire when you enter, make sure it’s not us. Stay sharp, I don’t want anyone hurt, and let’s take at least one or two of them alive if we can.” Tony instructed. Everyone else nodded, checking weapons one last time, and then we split up and headed out. Tony had pointed to me as one of the ones staying out front, so I followed him along with the others. We crept along as close to front of the houses as we could, using the cars and shrubbery as cover. Reaching the house next door to our target, we crept slowly past the garage door, watching for movement from the upper windows. Tony waved to our spot across the street and got a quick flash of light in response. Glancing up, we could see that got the attention of someone in the house as we could see small movement from a curtain. There was no light in the room, but the moonlight hit it enough that we could see it.
Following the hand signals from Tony, we crept up to the door, two of us going to the right of the door, I went to the left, and the last man got ready to kick the door in. Tony was the first one to the right so he reached out to turn the knob. He nodded, indicating it was open, and we all prepared ourselves. Tony turned it far enough to open it, threw it open, and they rushed in, moving silently at first. There was a man sitting facing the fire, and the first of our men inside grabbed him in a choke hold before he could alarm anyone. Clearing the first floor, we met the other half of our team coming in from the back, and we used hand signals to indicate the ones upstairs were not taken out yet.
While the fireplace was lit, it wasn’t a large fire, but it was enough to light the living room somewhat. A creak from the top of the stairs told us that at least one of the men was coming to check things out. Several of us raised our weapons towards the door where the stairs would let out, and two went through the kitchen to cover the hallway. One man stood just inside the door, and when the other man’s gun showed through the door he grabbed it, pulling the other man inside and throwing a punch to his jaw, followed by an elbow, effectively stunning him and taking him to the ground. Taking his weapon, we sat him on the couch and guarded him while four others crept upstairs to deal with the other watchman. The sounds of a scuffle and some quick yelling said they found him, and the gunshots said he didn’t want to come quietly.
The man we had was now tied to a chair in the living room and when two men came down the stairs, they informed us that they found the injured men, had them secured in a bedroom, and were treating their wounds. The other lookout decided to fire, so unfortunately he was now bleeding on the floor upstairs, but would not be a problem. We posted our own lookouts in case the others came back, and then proceeded to see what info we could get out of our new friend.
“What’s your name?” Tony asked, standing in front of the man. He just glared back at Tony and refused to answer. The other prisoner was tied up and laid on the couch, still unconscious from our initial rush.
“I’m not going to repeat myself again, what’s your name?” Tony asked again. The prisoner just turned his head and ignored the question. Tony nodded to one of the men standing at the side, who took a step and swung his fist as the prisoner turned to look at the sound of the footsteps. Our man’s fist connected with his cheek, whipping his head back around and slightly rocking the chair. Dripping blood from his now cut cheek, he glared at Tony, who simply shrugged to say, you should’ve talked to me. Another man clocked the prisoner again from the other side, splitting his lip in the corner.
“Are you ready to talk yet?” I asked, sitting in the other armchair in the room. He glared at me, dripping blood from his cheek and lip, then glanced back at the others standing around.
“Lance.” He finally mumbled, still staring daggers at us all.
“Lance. My name is Sheldon. This is Tony. Nice to meet you. Now, what I want to know Lance, is why did you and your people shoot at my people without any provocation?” I replied.
“You were there, and you look like you have a lot of supplies. We want them.” He answered me. I stood up, looked around the room at the others, and started pacing.
“Well, that’s just too damn bad Lance; you see, we are kind of partial to what we have, and we don’t want to let it go. Now, we saw fifteen of you leave a little while ago, but tell me, how many more are you are there? Where is your main camp?” I asked, pacing behind the couch now. I kept my movement going around the room so he didn’t get too comfortable looking at one spot, and to try to intimidate him to hopefully get him to talk without inflicting anymore beatings on him.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he laughed, then coughed as he spat out blood after one of the men hit him in the face again. With him staring daggers at us again, I shook my head in disappointment at him.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Obviously, you are from a camp that prefers the hard way, but I am hoping you will see reason. You see, we are a sizable group, and as you have seen already, we are well defended. At least against the infected and animals, we haven’t had to fend off a large-scale attack by humans yet, but I don’t foresee that going badly either.” I paused to lean on the ba
ck of the armchair I was sitting in and just stare at Lance for a minute or two, glancing around the room occasional, trying to look I was deciding what to do.
“We’ll see when the rest of us get back how ‘badly’ that will go.” He jeered, earning a punch to the stomach. He sucked in air as best he could since he couldn’t bend over much being tied to the chair, but his coughing fit seem to finally start to rouse our other friend. He moaned and started moving a little, so two of our guys sat him up on the couch and lightly slapped his face to help him wake up. He gave a start and a little jump when he woke up and realized he didn’t know the men holding him up, then the realization of us kicked in, as well as the fact Lance was tied to a chair and he himself was tied up.
“Don’t say anything, Jason, don’t tell these fuckers anything.” Lance cried out once he realized his friend was awake, and could draw breath again. Another punch to the lower ribcage shut him up for a bit again though.
“Jason, Sheldon, nice to meet you. As you can see, your friend Lance here is being most uncooperative. I hope you will be more so.” I started, spreading my hands as I spoke. My men sat on the couch beside him, Tony stood near the wall beside the fireplace, and we all glanced at the door as our watchmen from across the street finally came over. “Jason, here’s the deal. Your people shot at my people, with no provocation. There are some among my group that say I should just shoot you all now and be done with it. There are also some that say I should just let you go, and I’m still deciding what to do with you. Since Lance here doesn’t want to cooperate, it is going to end up being up to you apparently. Are you willing to cooperate with us?” glancing over at Lance showed me that he was obviously trying to communicate without talking, or intimidate Jason into not talking. I nodded to the man next to Lance, who grabbed his chair and spun him around, facing the fire. Kicking the legs out from underneath it, he held it with Lance’s face dangerously close to the coals now. Once he started screaming, Tony walked over and put a rag in his mouth and tied it with a towel to muffle the screams.
“Now, Jason, where were we. I want to talk, and Lance has elected not to. If we can talk like civilized human beings, his face won’t be burned off and we all walk out of here intact. What do you say?” I asked, not exactly in a sweet voice. I wanted him to think I would order my man to drop him in the fire and let him burn, when all our men knew I wouldn’t do it.
“Wait, wait, pull him up and I’ll tell you.” He said, just before Lance’s face touched the flames. He was sweating and red, but no permanent marks had been done yet. My man set his chair back upright, but kept it facing the fire. Lance was yelling at Jason, but with the gag in place nothing could be made out.
“Alright, let’s get started then, shall we?” I stated, sitting in. the other armchair. “Where, and how big, is your main camp, or base, whatever you call it?”
“North Carolina. I don’t know the name of the town.” He said quietly.
“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” I replied. “How many of you are there?”
“I don’t know the exact number, there is always a team or two out searching for supplies and survivors.”
“What’s your setup like?” Tony asked.
“We are in a hospital. It’s big enough for everyone without us all being on top of each other.” He told us.
“How do you feed yourselves? I know you can’t possibly be still scrounging for food after this long.” I asked.
“There is some farmland just to the south and west of us. We put a fence around it too and are growing some things.” The more Jason talked, the more Lance struggled and tried to talk, but the occasional slap on the back of the head kept him mostly quiet.
“Can you find it on a map?” I asked Jason. If we could locate their camp, we might be able to find some way to watch them so we wouldn’t be caught by surprise again.
“Maybe, I don’t know. We have been moving back and forth in all directions for a while, so I’m not even sure I could find my way back. I’m not that good with directions.” Jason answered.
Sighing, I stood up and started pacing, glancing at my watch. It was around two in the morning now, and I wondered how much longer the ones that left would be gone. I thought it might be a good idea to be gone by the time they got back, so I told the men to start wrapping it up. The ones upstairs were gathered, along with the injured men who decided they would rather stick with us for the medical treatment we could offer. Lance would be the only problem, but he was gagged and tied still, so we could carry him. Jason agreed to behave, so he was left ungagged and his legs were unbound, but he would be watched. I wanted to leave little evidence of our presence here, but I also wanted them to know that they were not invincible. By three we were leaving the house, moving to the end of the block in the opposite direction the others left, in case they were heading back yet, moving quickly, but as silently as possible. Lance continued to try to make noise, but his gag kept him muffled enough it didn’t carry.
As we moved, I had two men stay ahead of us to scout, watching for any sign of the others, infected, or mutants that might be out. The moon provided enough light that we weren’t totally blind, but not totally exposed either. We zig zagged through the streets towards the wall, heading towards the gate. We figured the others would probably be heading for the gate also, so the closer we got, the higher the tension rose. We had sent the wall guards a message letting them know we were near so they wouldn’t just open fire on us as we came into view. We were forced to stop and hide twice as the scouts motioned to us, which turned out to be a small group of infected, which the scouts quickly, and quietly, dispatched. We finally made the last turn and could make out the guard towers above the wall. We were about two blocks from the gate, but we still hadn’t see any sign of the others yet, not had we heard any gunfire. I decided to err on the side of caution, and directed the group to head into a house a block and a half from the gate. The scouts were notified and made their way back to us as well.
“What’s wrong?” Tony asked after we cleared the house and settled the prisoners.
“I don’t know, I just got a feeling, you know?” I replied. “Check the wounded, post a watch, and get the scouts to check out the area between here and the gate. Stay in the shadows, but check the houses. I want to make sure the others are not waiting in a house for us to come back, you know?”
“What makes you think they would do that, and not attack the wall outright?” Shelby asked.
“Because setting an ambush for an unsuspecting group as they came home is what I would do if I was attacking a base, especially close to their gate. That’s when their guard would be lowest because home was in sight.” I answered calmly. She simply looked at me for a few seconds and then turned to go stand watch. I looked at Tony who just shrugged, then I went and sat on the couch. Lance was put in an upstairs room with two guards, and the wounded and Jason were here in the living room with me, with only one guard.
“I want to thank you three for being cooperative. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’m not going to stand by and let my people be hurt either. I’m sure you can understand that.” I said, trying to strike up a conversation.
“You didn’t really give us much choice, now did you?” one of the wounded replied.
“I see your point. But to be fair, you only got shot because you shot at our wall first. We were defending ourselves, so technically I could kill you all right now and claim I was defending my people. Why were you attacking us?” I asked.
“We need the resources you apparently have. That’s what we do, we take what we need to survive. It’s best if you don’t get in our way.” The second one answered.
“Well, then I suppose you don’t want to hear my proposition then.” I stated. They looked at each other for a while then, talking lowly between themselves and Jason. After a few minutes, one of the looked back towards me.
“We’ll listen, what’s the offer?” the first one asked.
“Alright, a chance to
be reasonable after all. Like yourselves, we are just trying to survive. We constantly must guard against the infected, or whatever you call them. That is the reason for the wall. It also protects us from the mutated ones and wild animals. We haven’t had to test it against other humans before, but as you could see, it apparently holds up well. We are not depending on scrounging or stealing to survive, but rather we started growing our own crops and raising a few farm animals we managed to run across. Every survivor group we have run across so far has opted to join us, even if they were already self-sufficient. Because of that, we have grown stronger, and extended our reach. If you decide to join us as well, maybe we talk to whoever runs your group and join together. I’m not looking to take over anything, but an alliance between our two groups would be beneficial for everyone.” I explained. If they did have a hospital, with a fence and crops, they would likely have a helipad. That would make it easy to ferry supplies and people back and forth, and give us another location to grow food and search for other survivors from.
“There’s no way that would ever happen. We don’t work with anyone, or for anyone. You want to work for us? Maybe then we can work something out. Otherwise, you’re wasting your breath.” The second one stated. I could tell by the attitude, and the expression of the other one, that my best bet would be with Jason and the first wounded who spoke.
“What’s your name?” I asked the first one. If we could win at least one or two of over, then there might be hope for the rest of their group.
“Lonny. That’s David.” He replied after a slight hesitation, tilting his head to indicate the second man. David just glared at Lonny to get him to shut up, but much like Jason, Lonny wasn’t paying attention.
“Lonny, David, Jason, all three of you have a choice here. Even Lance, if he is willing to listen to it. I’m not looking to take anything from anyone, or come in and take over anything. I want to help people and help ensure the survival of the human race. You and your group can either be a part of that, and help us rebuild this country and civilization, or try to come and take us down and be crushed for the effort.” I said, simply and calmly. I wanted them to understand that I was not playing around, but I was willing to give them a chance to choose. This was the first time I was almost certain that people would decline the offer and we would have a rival group to contend with. If they chose the latter, we would have to seriously reconsider the defenses on the wall. We had several automatic .50 cal’s that were designed to be vehicle mounted we could mount on the guard towers if we needed to, and I was sure we could travel back to the Army base at Petersburg for more weaponry if we needed to. I got up off the couch and walked out of the room then, leaving them to think about what they were going to do.