by Allen Gamboa
“Franco you good to go?” Jefferson asked the wounded Ranger and ignoring the blabbering pilot.
“I was born ready.” Franco smiled weakly as he slowly stood up. He had started to bleed through his dressings and the pain meds were wearing off. Washington saw the soldier was unsteady so he slung his rifle and grabbed him under one arm.
“Thanks brother.” The Ranger winced as the pain grew worse.
“Regular Army always got to be saving you Rangers.” Washington joked as he helped the soldier walk to the back of the store where the others were gathered.
“Didn’t think you were sentimental and shit.”
“I’m not. I’m just hoping you got a grateful sister somewhere.”
“I do.” Franco groaned as they stopped next to Kantner. “And she loves Grunts.”
“Really?” Washington asked interested.
“No.” The Ranger chuckled. “Got a brother though. He loves Grunts. He’s in the Air Force.”
“You got a mother?”
CHAPTER 68: I’D RATHER HUMP A PUMPKIN
Inside Thanks A Latte
Jefferson waited until all six of them were gathered at the back door of the coffee shop. The Marine once again glanced out the small window then turned to the others. He motioned for Cho to cover him then quickly unlocked the door and cautiously pulled it open. The cobweb covered door made a low sucking sound having not been open in many months. The Marine carefully stepped out of the shops doorway. Drawn by the sound of the opening door, the hungry dead turned in their direction.
“I got this. Get to the parking lot!” Jefferson told the others as he charged the two fast moving flesh eaters. Washington grabbed Kantner by the shoulder and told him to hold onto the injured Franco. Once he’d handed the wounded Ranger over to the pilot, he drew his tactical knife and sprinted over to where Jefferson stood with Kate’s Halligan, slashing at the advancing deaders.
“On your right Jeff! Don’t cut me!” Washington shouted as he ran up the side of the Marine.
“Watch the others!” Jefferson brought the pick-ax end of the fire tool down on the deaders head smashing it into a crunchy pulp. The hungry corpse collapsed to the ground a useless pile of flesh. “See, I got thi…” Two more deaders sprinted out of the building crashing into the Marine, knocking him to the ground. Washington saw his partner disappear underneath the two new arrivals. The soldier desperately slapped at the rotting, grabby hands of the ravenous skin bags. Finding an opening, Washington jabbed the knife into the deaders right eye driving the blade up into its fetid brain. The flesh eater let out a gurgle and went limp, slumping heavily to its knees. Washington jerked the knife out of the cannibals oozing eye socket and kicked the motionless corpse to the ground. The soldier looked over to where he’d seen Jefferson tackled by the two cannibals. Expecting to see the Marine being torn apart, he was surprised when Jefferson used the pronged end of the Halligan to shove both cannibals off and away from him. One of the dead flew onto its back and struggled to get up. The other flesh eater stumbled backwards then regained some balance and charged at the Marine.
“Oh shit!” Jefferson said almost out of breath as he took a step back to brace for an attack. Before the Deader could reach him, Washington came from the side and using his shoulder, slammed full force into the advancing corpses. Letting out a horrible low moan, the cannibal crashed into a store wall striking its rotten head against the broken concrete. Exploding like an overripe tomato, the decaying skull splashed black ooze and brain matter against a dust covered Prada sign. Washington jumped back into a fighter’s crouch as the body slid to the ground, unmoving. The other Deader was now back on wobbly legs, ready to continue its attack.
“I hate these guys.” Jefferson said swinging the Halligan at the deaders neck. The blade sliced into the decomposing flesh spraying dark blood all over itself as the head was flung into an overgrown planter. The rest of the decapitated corpse fell backwards, the fetid body breaking like a piñata.
“Damn!” Washington covered his nose with his hand. “That is some rank shit.”
“Rank?” Jefferson quickly looked around for more dead. “You smell your ass lately? How long it been since you seen a bar of soap brother?”
“That ain’t right Jeff.”
“Neither is yo’ ass.” The Marine stepped over one of the bodies, quickly wiping the dirty ax blade on the back of a corpse. “Thanks Wash.”
“Ain’t nuthin’ man.” Washington shoved his blade back into its sheath on his belt. “Just another time the Army has to save a Marines ass.”
“Ha…” The tiled wall of the Prada store exploded as rounds from the approaching mercenaries smashed into it. Jefferson grabbed his partner by the shoulder and shoved him behind a big weed filled planter.
“Now who’s saving whose ass?” Jefferson asked as he pressed himself against the concrete of the planter, pulling the Grunt in next to him.
“Shit Jeff I know it’s been awhile since you got some!” The solider quickly pulled himself out of the Marine’s grip and checked his rifle.
“Don’t flatter yourself Wash.” Jefferson said giving Washington a hard shove as bullets splattered the rancid mud inside the swamp like planter. “I’d rather hump a rotten pumpkin. Smells better.”
“All that fuckin’ around with meat bags and savin’ yo’ ass and now I got renta thugs shooting at me.” A couple of rounds crashed into the top of the planter spraying concrete chips into his face. “What now?” Jefferson smiled dropped down onto his stomach and crawled over to the end of the planter. He slowly raised his rifle up to a firing position as the mercenaries started filling the alleyway.
“We kill these fucks.” The Marine calmly said as he returned fire.
CHAPTER 69: TOUCHING ME, TOUCHING YOU…
Blacks Compound
Black poured himself a Scotch then relaxed in the big leather chair. Happy with himself he picked up the newspaper his valet had left for him on the ornate coffee table. Carefully leafing through the pages, he found the business section and the stock exchange. Even during the end of the world money still changed hands. The East Coast Safe Zones now contained the recently moved New York Stock Exchange. Black took a quick sip of the expensive Scotch and smiled. Blackheart Industries, his company, was doing well in the pharmaceuticals. Stock was up and that was a good thing. After scanning a few more articles he neatly folded the paper and set it back down on the table. While Black finished the drink, he calculated the numbers in his head. Blackheart was doing well but finding a vaccine for this whole mess he started, would put him on top. It would set him ahead of every single corporation in the world. His power would be…. he poured himself another drink… his power would be the only power. The people would sell their souls for a cure. Replacing the bottle on the table, Black leaned back, deep in thought. His men were close to capturing the trial vaccine, he could just feel it. All his insider’s reports led Black to believe this was the true antidote. The concept of it made him hard, harder than he got torturing the people on his tables. The cell phone on his table rang pulling him out of his lustful meditation.
“Speak.” Black said not bothering to mask the annoyance in his voice as he answered the cell.
“Sir,” Kubicek’s voice was weak and tinny on the other end, same as always.
“Speak.” Black finished off the Scotch and set the glass down.
“I have word from Dolan.”
“And?”
“They are closing in on the target.” Black could hear Kubicek swallow nervously.
“Good but I don’t need maybes. I need to know when you have it.” Black stood up clearly annoyed at the man’s wasting his time. “Just call me when it is handled. Understand?”
“Yes, I just thought…”
“That is where you go wrong, thinking. Let me do that. Just let me know when we have it. Am I clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“There have been some questions abou
t the delivery of medications from the Nitrex plant?”
“Yes?” Kubicek had his attention now. “What about the Nitrex plant?”
“It’s gone silent.”
“Silent.” Black grabbed up the empty glass and gripped it tightly in his hands. The Nitrex plant was one of their big producers of Krokodil. The Industrialist figured that if the plant had indeed ‘gone silent’ then some dead zone gang must have raided them. That was always a risk no matter how much security you hired. In this day and age, it was easy to pay off underlings. Seemed like there was never enough pay day to go around. Black figured some of the Nitrex hired guys were probably in on the raid.
“Our guy at the Southern Strategic Security post isn’t answering either.”
“That can’t be some happy fucking coincidence.” Black angrily paced the room rolling the glass around in his hand. “Somebody must have found out about the Krokodil connection. Nitrex can’t be traced back to me and neither can Strategic Securities. You can though.” His voice took a threatening tone.
“Look Mister Black, they can’t trace any of this back to me. I made sure of that.” Kubicek’s voiced cracked. “I don’t have any kind of finger print on this.”
“You better be telling me the truth Kubicek.”
“I am. There is nothing tying me to this. You think I’m stupid?”
“Yes, I do.” Black threw the glass against the stone wall of his den shattering it into a thousand shards. “Once we have the vaccine I want you to consider Strategic Securities, see if those assholes ripped me off. Understand?”
“Yes…”
“Idiot.” Black tossed the cell onto his chair and glanced down at the broken remains of his glass. ‘Idiot’ He thought to himself. He had let himself lose control and that was something he rarely ever did. Control was everything to him. Scooping up the remote for his sound system he clicked it on. The Muzak version of ‘Sweet Caroline’ suddenly wafted through the well-hidden speakers. Control, Black needed to regain some control. He knew exactly where he could get it. Humming the chorus to ‘Sweet Caroline’, Black made his way to the carving table with its current occupant strapped securely to it. Before he could reach the elevator door, he noticed his man servant Parker standing at the kitchen door. The hired man had hurried into the room after hearing the glass break. Black stopped, swept a hand through his hair and adjusted his suit.
“Sir?” Parker questioned.
“Clean up that glass Parker.” Black turned and pointed to the mess on the floor. Parker nodded and obediently went to get a dust pan and a broom.
“No.” Black countered. “Use your hands.”
“Sir?” Parker frowned.
“Get on your hands and knees and pick it up.” Black told him. Parker had rarely witnessed him losing control but he knew his boss had to do something to regain it.
“Yes sir.” The older man said without any kind of emotion. Parker had worked for him long enough to know that the sooner he did what he was ordered the sooner the pain would go away. As he carefully scooped the wet, glass, shards into his hands he could feel them slicing into his skin, Parker just told himself this wasn’t the worse indignity he’d suffered at Black’s whim.
“Good.” Black could see that Parker was bleeding from the various cuts on his hands. He felt himself growing hard at being able to totally control this man. As ‘Sweet Caroline’ finished, the elevator doors opened. Stepping inside, Black smirked to himself. It was good to be king.
CHAPTER 70: SOUNDS UNAPPEALING
Behind Thanks A Latte
Martone figured he’d been lucky as hell when the assault on the two soldiers began. Digger had opened fire on them before the mercenaries could secure good covering positions. The soldiers had quickly returned fire and the Armenian barely missed being hit in the head by one of their rounds. Martone had been able to hastily dive behind a fallen vending machine for cover as bullets zinged by his scalp. Hugging the dirty ground, he glanced over to where Digger knelt behind a broken mall directory sign firing away at the soldiers hidden behind the large planter. Martone cursed at the recklessness of the Australian, a few more feet and they could have taken them by surprise. Digger, almost sensing Martone’s anger, stopped firing and gave him a wink, that made the Mercenary even more angry. When this was all over he would give the little twat, the ass whooping of a lifetime. Martone gave him a jerky hand signal to stop firing. Digger raised his eyebrows and shrugged. The Armenian gave him the signal to just hold, he rolled over onto his back to look behind him. He signaled for his men to stop firing. Reluctantly the other mercenaries stopped their assault on the planter. Martone rolled back onto his stomach and shouted towards the two soldiers.
“Hey you guys!” The Armenian yelled. “Look, we don’t want to kill you!” Martone could hear Digger chuckle at that. “We just want the cases!”
“Fuck you!” Washington shouted back.
“No need for foul language guy! We can talk, no?”
“No!” Washington replied. “Back off outta here!”
“That’s not gonna happen Guy.” Martone fiddled with his gold chains. “All we want is what’s inside the cases. You guys give it up and we leave you alone. Easy peasey.”
“How about you leave and we don’t kill you!” Jefferson shouted from cover behind the planter.
“Now that is just stupid Guy. All we want is the cases. Simple.”
“So, we give you the cases and you let us go?” The Marine asked.
“Yes Guy, easy peasey. No more bloodshed.”
“I think this is a trap…guy.” Washington added.
“No trap. Just negotiations. I’ll give you five minutes to think about it.” Martone glanced back over at Digger and nodded. The mercenary tightened his grip on his weapon, anxiously waiting for Cutter and Frog to engage the soldiers from the rear.
“It’s a trap.” Washington repeated.
“No trap guy. Hand over the cases and we all go our separate ways.” Martone said testily as he looked down at his watch. The others should be in place any time now. “How about it guy?”
“How about you eat my dick?” Washington shouted.
“Sounds unappealing.” Martone was getting impatient. Killing the soldiers would definitely improve his day. “The cases please!”
“Fuck them Martone.” Digger spat. “Screw all this yapping’. Let at ‘em!”
“And maybe put a hole in one of the cases? No way.”
“You’re being too cautious mate.” The Aussie growled. “Let’s finish this crap salad and be done with it. I need to shove my peter into something!”
“Shut up Digger, I got this.” Martone said almost as annoyed with his partner as he was the soldiers. The mercenary turned and signaled Ali to move in closer. The shaved headed and bearded Iraqi nodded as he slunk in behind Martone. “As soon as Cutter and Frog get in position,” he said in a low voice. “I want both to concentrate their fire on the planter. We’re going to pen them in.” Martone’s radio suddenly crackled to life.
“We have the cases in sight.” Cutter said over the small speaker. “Want do you want us to do?”
“Take ‘em. Try not to kill them all.” Martone glanced over at Digger and Ali. He gave them the signal to move out. “We’ll be right there.”
CHAPTER 71: BE THE SOLUTION
Rear Parking Lot
“How the hell are we going to find something that runs?” Kantner whined as the four moved quickly through the parking lot full of abandoned vehicles. The sounds of the mercenary’s fire fight could be heard in the distance. “The batteries have to be all dead by now.” The pilot said as he stopped next to a Ford Taurus and wiped a finger across its grime covered windshield.
“Come on Ace.” Franco grabbed the pilot by the back of his jacket. “Quit bitching and be the solution. Those two grunts are back there bleeding so your ass can ride on outta here.” Kantner grunted as the Ranger jerked him away from the car. Franco, using his right hand, pulled the pilot along while c
arrying one of the cases in the other. Franco’s wounds were starting to hurt him again.
“Easy with the hand Ranger Rick.” The pilot tried to break free of the soldier’s grip. “I’m moving, I’m moving. I just don’t think any of these tin cans are going to run.”
Cho ignored Kantners whining, the sergeant knew the boozy pilot had a valid point. The more she scanned the parking lot the more she realized their chances of finding a getaway vehicle were very slim. Much of cars in the lot had been there since the beginning of the outbreak.
“So, what do you think?” Kate asked Cho as she jogged along with the sergeant.
“Kantner is right. Most of these vehicles won’t have enough juice to start.” Cho slowed down her pace. “We may have to walk out of here.”
Kate shuddered at the thought of travelling on foot. “What about Jefferson and Washington?”
“They are buying us some time Kate.” The sergeant bit her bottom lip then gave then firefighter a quick look that was filled with sadness. “We need to keep going for their sakes. Not let the sacrifice be in vain.”
“I can go back and help them.” Kate said glancing back in the direction of the strip mall.
“No, they’re soldiers Kate. They know what’s at stake.” Cho continued to look for a working vehicle as she spoke. The sergeant wanted nothing more than to go back and help the two men but she knew the mission was far more important. Too many had already died. “The best thing you can do is help me get these cases to a safe place.”
“They saved me.” The firefighter said shoving the case she’d been carrying at Kantner. The pilot bobbled the container then eventually got control of it. “I owe them my life. Sorry Cho!” Kate said as she spun around and ran back toward the rear of the mall.
“Kate!” The firefighter just gave a quick wave then made a sprint for the mall. The sergeant let out a deep sigh then turned to the others.