by Glynn James
There was a long pause on the other end. Sarah swore she could hear the sergeant major gritting his teeth, and cursing in his head, from two miles up the road. Finally he spoke. “Sarah. Listen. COME BACK. You hear me? You make it to that extraction point. We need you.”
What Handon didn’t say, but what she could hear perfectly well, was: I need you.
“That’s received,” she said quietly. “Five-Five-Eight Tango Papa out.”
* * *
She looked over at Homer in the dim instrument lights as she put the truck back in gear. Then, looking forward again, down the long dark road they faced, she got the vehicle rolling. And she asked Homer a question.
“So what’s your new mission?”
Homer looked across at her in the dark, and felt the weight, the impossibility of what he was doing now. Duty to unit, to country, to humanity, had always come first – for very good reasons. They had to come first. That he was putting all that aside now and seeing to his family instead was wrong. He knew it was wrong. And he knew he’d be judged for it. He just no longer had the strength to resist. He was weak. And he was a sinner.
“My mission is the same as yours,” he said. “I’m going back for my family.”
“Small world,” Sarah said.
Homer smiled. “Why don’t you let me help you with yours, before you drop me off.”
She nodded. “You can help me. But after that… wait, where’s your family?”
“Virginia. Tidewater region.”
Sara nodded again. “I hear it’s nice there.”
Homer looked across at her again.
STRONG woman, he thought…
Two Zulus Walk into a Bar
Handon shook his head in the cold, exhausted, dark march along the roadside.
He hadn’t argued with Sarah on the radio because he knew there was no point – no point in trying to make her do anything. He had wanted desperately to stop her, but knew full well that he couldn’t. He had clocked that about her immediately; it was the very first thing about her. The woman had resolve. She was never going to be made to do anything.
And it was precisely because he couldn’t stop her that he needed her to stay so much – for that exact quality.
Though, the way she had head-faked him with driving back, and then radioing in her goodbyes, rankled a bit. But she almost certainly did it that way because she knew Handon would be equally obstinate. He also figured maybe this was karma, and he deserved to lose her. Some part of him felt like he had taken out his rival, namely her husband – not to mention the death of her son…
If it hadn’t been intentional, or at least negligent, he had at any rate failed to save them.
It was all a terrible, sprawling emotional minefield. And Handon was out of his depth.
Not only did he need to be focusing on his job and his team right now – his team was precisely his job – but getting back to that would probably be mentally healthy for him. The squad didn’t need hand-holding; they were pros and would get the job done.
But they deserved proper leadership.
And Handon had just had his first desertion. Which couldn’t be a good sign.
He closed the gap with Ali ahead of him, and touched her on the shoulder. Placing his mouth near her ear, he said, “Sitrep on Homer.” Handon was pretty sure he already knew. But he needed to hear it. Ali exhaled, just audibly in the nearly silent night, then spoke in a thin whisper.
“He’s gone back for his family.”
Handon held his temper at this. “His fu— his family’s in Virginia. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get on a plane with us, than try to fight his way back overland?”
“I think he figured this might be his only chance to get away.”
“He’s a fucking SEAL, he can exfiltrate from anywhere.”
“You’re preaching to the preacher here, top. I didn’t want him to go way more than you did.”
Well, Handon had the story now. And, within seconds, tactical concerns demanded his attention, anyway. From the back of the column, he could now make out the squat shapes of the few buildings of Lakeview as Henno, on point, made a disperse hand signal and led them in. Handon slung his rifle and drew his short sword – and thought about how much he’d miss Homer’s boarding axe.
But he still dared hope they might get back onto the water with a little less noise and chaos than they’d perpetrated getting off it…
* * *
Homer gently pushed the rifle’s night optic away from Sarah’s eye. He pressed his mouth to her ear and said, “Let me do it.” She nodded rapidly a couple of times and slid to the side. Homer slid into her place behind his own weapon.
The two of them were belly-down on a rise in the forest, three hundred yards from the overrun and burnt-down cabin. A lot of trees interceded, but they could peer through them, and had a pretty decent view of the clearing.
It was now yet another piece of property squatted upon by the dead.
This was damned difficult, but Homer thanked God they were able to spot them from here – both the man and the boy. Horrifyingly, the two writhed on the ground beside each other, thrashing, grasping. But if they hadn’t been visible from here, Sarah and Homer would have had to go back and scour the scene from close up.
Homer hadn’t really expected to find them at all, not still moving. But they must have been protected from the worst of the blast by the great mass of dead that had pressed around them. And Sarah knew what she had seen. Homer also figured they had already been in the process of turning. Handon would probably lacerate himself about the way this had played out, for years, if not forever. But there had never been any saving these two.
Sometimes the only possible salvation is God’s.
So Homer sent them off to Him, first one, then the other, with single shots at range.
They were too far for the sound of the suppressed rounds to carry to the clearing. Homer slid the rifle back off the rise along with his body, then rose and took Sarah’s hand. He led her through the forest back to the high section of road where the truck was parked up. He thought he had to lead her – it was pitch black, and only Homer had NVGs. He had ardently wanted not to take one of the team’s dwindling supply of night-vision kit.
But he would have had to explain why he was leaving them.
That had been the moment when his irreconcilable duties had finally come into fatal conflict. And for the first time, his duty to the uniform, and the team, and the world, had come in second. There was no point in wallowing in guilt about it. If he had acted wrongly, one day he would be judged.
Though that day might at least be a little further off, with the help of the NVGs…
* * *
Lakeview was a tiny place, and its dead slept. But several of them stood slumbering between Alpha team and their ride. Handon moved up to point. He’d rather take the risk himself. Plus Henno’s cricket bat, while no doubt very satisfying to swing, wasn’t the quietest melee weapon the team possessed.
Ahead of him in the dark, on the main and only street, two figures stood a few meters apart, their heads and bodies at those very uncomfortable-looking angles the dead favored. Handon padded forward silently like a big cat, slid his blade through the first head from behind, lowered the weight of the body with the sword, withdrew it, and did the next one, all in two seconds.
The others followed him out from the cover of the buildings. Ahead of them was the small wooden slat marina – more a single main pier with a few branches off it, and perhaps a dozen moorings. Sure enough, in the leftmost berth, a squat little cabin cruiser bobbed lightly in the swell. In ten seconds the team had scampered aboard, unslung their rucks, and taken up defensive positions – mainly facing back toward the town, but not solely there.
Because they’d been attacked from the water once already, and nearly to their great cost.
Handon laid his pack down then moved across the little cockpit to the controls, as Ali cast off the mooring lines. Sure enough, the engine cran
ked on the first press. And as the backlighting on the instrumentation came up, Handon also saw with a smile that it had a completely full tank.
Good old Sarah. Always prepared. And a little preparation goes a lo—
The sound of throat-rattling moans approached fast from behind, followed by suppressed gunfire. The engine had woken the town.
“Now would be good, Sarge,” Henno said, head down to his sight.
Handon spared a look behind him. Eight or ten palsied figures were running at them, across the street, and then down the pier. Romeos, Handon thought. Hmm, haven’t seen them in a while. They fell in ones and twos from the accurate fire from the boat, and as Handon pushed the throttle forward, he thought how harmless the runners looked after the new ones.
But as he thought it, and as the boat pushed away, two crazy-ass sprinters broke through the ranks of the others, making that screaming noise, and launched themselves through the air toward the rear deck of the boat. Henno and Juice, belly-down on the deck, fell over each other scrambling away, toward the front of the cockpit.
But the Foxtrots fell short and splashed in.
Already sitting down, Predator stuck his hand up and gave them the bird, high and proud.
“Sce-reewww you, Lakeview!”
The town, and the shore, receded rapidly behind them into the blackness.
* * *
Homer and Sarah sat in silence in the dark of the truck for a few seconds.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “I thought I could do that. I thought I had to.”
“You could have done it. But you shouldn’t have had to.”
She nodded and squared her shoulders. “So tell me how you plan to get to Virginia.”
Homer shrugged. “Pick up a vehicle. Make my way overland.”
“I’ve got a vehicle,” Sarah said, wryly. Homer inched away from her on the seat, not liking where this was going. “I’ve also got supplies,” she said.
“Last I checked, your cabin was burnt down and overrun. And the team cleaned out your truck.”
“You don’t think those were our only supplies, do you? I’ve got a cache in the woods a mile from here.” Homer looked skeptical. “We had to be ready to go on a second’s notice if we lost the cabin. It’s even bear-proof.”
Homer smiled, but shook his head. “It’s incredibly kind of you. You’ve already done so much for us. And I’m sure I’ll never forget your kindness. But you need to get to safety, to the carrier. You don’t need to be messing around with me on highways and in population centers.”
“But your carrier’s sitting off the coast of Virginia, right?”
“Yes.”
“So if we can make our way to the Virginia coast, we can certainly get to the carrier.”
“Those are big ifs. Including fighting our way across a third of North America. No, this is for me to do. Alone.”
Sarah knew she was making an impulsive decision. But she was feeling her sudden freedom, and this decision felt like the right one. The only thing that could mean anything, now or anytime, was our love for the people in our lives – however strangely they had come into them.
And that love had to be manifested.
“Handon told me about your family,” she said. “About how you’d had to leave them, to try and forget about them, all this time. Well, you came with me for mine. You didn’t leave me alone with that. And I’m not going to leave you alone to search for yours. Also, maybe… maybe yours can still be saved. But I’m not letting you go alone.”
Homer looked across at this radiant woman in the dark. Simply, he was trying to figure out if she was an angel. But as the man said: There might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling fully. “It’s a road trip, then.”
They both laughed at the silliness of this. If it was a road trip, it wouldn’t be like any they, or anyone, had ever taken before.
Both of them looked ahead into the darkness now. Sarah started the engine, released the brake, put it in gear… and then she and Homer went forward into the night.
* * *
The boat and the team zipped now over the glassy black surface of the enormous inland sea of Lake Michigan, the sky above them slowly clearing and starting to leak starlight, though the moon was still missing in action. The air rushing by and around them was cold and flecked with spray, but clean and rejuvenating. It felt good.
It was all starting to feel something like… hope.
Once Handon had the boat four miles out into the lake, he swung it north, put them onto a heading for Beaver Island, and set the marine autopilot. Then he called a team meeting. The last time he had called any of his people aside, it had been to give them a dressing-down. He had been right to do it, but he needed to make sure they knew they were forgiven, and that they were welcomed back into the fold.
Now the remaining four of them, plus the silent scientist, gathered around.
Handon looked each one in the eye, just giving it a minute.
He didn’t come out and say what he needed to say. He just started showing it. “How’s everyone?” he asked. And he meant it. “Predator. How’s the leg?”
“Won’t slow me down,” Predator said. “I’ll get it set on the flat-top.”
Handon nodded. “Ali? Your arm?”
She smiled. She hated to admit how nice it felt to be asked after. “Sore as shit, honestly. And probably not healing right, but oh well. It’s not the first time.”
“You get down to ship’s hospital when we get back.” She nodded in the darkness. Handon scanned the group again. “We’ll do a hot wash when we’re RTB. But any tactical concerns or input at this point?”
Various heads shook.
“Nought,” said Henno.
“All squared away here, boss,” said Juice.
They got Handon’s message, which was all subtext, but no less clear for that: I know I let myself get distracted. And things got very weird for a while. But my mind’s still on my job, and on my people – on you.
“Okay,” Handon said, finally. “We’re still a team, and we’ve still got a job to finish.” Both his expression and his tone softened now. “But, you know what, I think just maybe we’re going to make it. And complete not just the most important mission in our operational history. But the most important op ever run by anybody – ever. So we should feel good.”
Ali seemed to be giving him a troubled look.
Handon stared back at her. “Feel good, I said.”
“No, not that.” She was actually looking over his shoulder, where she pointed now. There was something in the water, coming up on them quickly. Handon turned and throttled the boat all the way down. It immediately slowed and splashed in the black, glinting water.
The shape loomed out of the darkness, still drifting toward them, or rather them toward it, fast enough to make the operators bring their weapons to bear.
“Is that…?” Juice said, his question drifting off into nothing. It didn’t need to be said. They could all now see what was coming toward them, even though the shape was obscured by the mist that now rolled across the lake surface.
Slow ripples of water lapped against the side of the cabin cruiser as a tiny rowboat passed by, heading in the opposite direction, and within ten meters of them. It was only in view for a few seconds. Sitting facing each other, motionless and staring soullessly into each other’s eyes, were two human figures. They turned their heads and looked at the bigger boat, and its passengers, but otherwise just sat without moving, oblivious to the world around them. It was a man and a woman, both caked in bloodstains, clothing rotting and flesh falling away.
And just as quickly, the boat was gone, slipping silently into the darkness.
Juice shook his head and said, “What a goddamned crazy-ass place this is.”
“What I can’t for the life of me figure out,” said Henno, “is how that happened…”
Ali said, “Newlyweds?”
Everyone busted out with laughter. Predator cupped his hands and shouted after the rowboat, “Don’t worry, dudes! Hang in there! We’re gonna fix it!” He clapped his hand on Dr. Park’s shoulder, nearly causing him to collapse.
The whole group roared with laughter.
Handon shook his head, but he smiled deeply as well. He thought, Well, I suppose you do have to look on the lighter side of things… including the goddamned ZA.
He dug around in his pocket for that cigar stub, which he had half-smoked on the last boat. To his delight, it had both dried out and held together. He even found a waterproof match and got it lit. He drew deeply and exhaled, scenting the cold and clean lake air.
Thinking about it, he realized they were in pretty good shape. They still had the mission objective safely in hand, the scientist and his work. They’d only lost one more guy – and might still get him back. It was now a straight shot up the lake to their extraction point, barely a hundred miles of open sailing, and they weren’t dependent on the wind this time. They had more than enough fuel for the trip, and Drake had promised them a ride when they got there.
What could possibly go wrong?
He pushed the throttle all the way into the panel, and the engine roared back to life.
And the boat, and all of them, surged powerfully forward into the black night.
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Come back and live through the beginning of the end of the world, in
ARISEN : GENESIS, the riveting and bestselling ARISEN prequel.
A world fallen – under a plague of 7 billion walking dead
A tiny island nation – the last refuge of the living
One team – of history’s most elite special operators