“Sometimes we will have to do the unthinkable to set ourselves into the position that is best for us. You said that to me, brother, a long time ago, and never did I think it would mean that I would do what you just made me do. This is my Council, and there is nobody that can now stand in my way.” Kane dropped Rowland’s rock-hard heart next to his petrified body before he turned and headed back to his office to get some rest.
Chapter 41
As the shadow approaching the main door grew ever larger, Hunter’s finger began squeezing more and more on the trigger. He was hoping it was Franky returning, but just as the shadow was filling the entrance, it unexpectedly split into two distinct human-shaped silhouettes.
He figured it was the next wave of soldiers coming and readied himself to fire as soon as they showed their faces.
Then, just as they were about to enter through the door, they stopped. He saw one of the shadows raise up an arm and knock on the doorframe, as if they were friends coming to visit.
“Knock, knock,” a lone voice rang out. “Is anybody home?”
Hunter turned to look at Hope and Morgan who had a look of vengeance in their eyes and were covering his back from the protection of a few overturned desks. “What the hell?”
The voice rang out again, and this time with the noticeable hint of a Chinese accent. “Knock, knock. We just want to talk to you.”
Morgan stepped up. “Go to hell. You should’ve talked before you shot our friend. We will freaking kill you if you step foot in here.”
“We are unarmed and just want to talk. Nobody else has to die tonight.”
Hunter continued to keep a steady eye on the door, ready to fire. He could hear footsteps coming up from behind him and before he could turn and see who it was, Hope put her hand on his back and looked over him into the hallway.
“Who the hell are you?” she yelled out.
“Just some people who need what you have in there. We work for the government and need that cure so we can end this madness.”
Hope motioned for Hunter to step back for a minute so she could talk to him. “Hold on while we think about it.”
Hope looked at Hunter. “It’s bullshit, duh, I know, but I want to get my hands on these guys and get some truth out of them. I say we let them in and take them prisoner and find out who they really are.”
“It’s your call, girl. I say we shoot them on sight and be done with them,” Hunter said right before a voice chimed in at the doorway they were standing at.
“That’s not very nice,” a voice spoke out from right behind the two of them, causing Hope and Hunter to jump at the unexpected and close reply.
As Hunter turned to see who was there, he was hit in the chest and sent flying across the room into the covered carcass for a second time.
Hope was struck also, but, instead of being sent flying, she stood up to the blow and moved to counter it. She finally got a look at her assailant and found a very thin man in an all-black military style outfit standing before her, with the arm that he’d struck her with still extended.
She grabbed the man’s arm and tried to twist it, using a technique Renee had taught her, but found his strength rivaled her own. When she realized she wouldn’t be able to use muscle against the man, she, instead, switched to Judo and used his strength against him.
Instead of pulling, she immediately reversed her force and shoved the man backwards into the hallway until he started to push back, and then she shifted again, this time grabbing a hold of his tactical vest and throwing him into the concrete wall next to the doorway.
He hit the wall hard and fell to the ground, but just as quickly got back up as Hope dashed back into the room, shutting and locking the door behind her.
As she scooped up her gun, she slid back into position behind the desk and took aim at the door. She then heard the man start to have a conversation in the hall.
“Brother, what the hell was that?” a new voice chimed in.
“I wasn’t expecting someone with that kind of strength, but it won’t happen again,” the original voice replied. “When we go in there to kill them, save the curly-headed one for last. She’s mine.”
Hunter finally recollected himself and moved over to Hope’s side. “I think we’re in trouble. I managed to see a necklace on the one that hit me, and it looked awfully familiar to one that Benjy had in the bunker back at camp. These may be more of Benjy’s people. Based on that printout you showed me, they intercepted your conversation, and here they are. We’re screwed if that’s the case.”
“You’re saying those are vampires, too?” Morgan asked from her hiding spot. “How the hell are we supposed to fight them?”
“Try to hold them off. I have an idea,” Hunter whispered as he ran over to some of the shelving across the room.
Hope looked over to Morgan who was looking a little paler with the new revelation of what they were up against. “Hey, remember, I supposedly killed one of them back at my old camp, and that was when I was still growing and not in my right mind. Imagine what I can do to them now. I just kicked its ass in the hallway, so we at least have that going for us.”
“Did I just hear that correctly? You were the one that killed our dear brother Tovas?” the voice said through the closed door.
“You damn straight I did, and I won’t have a problem putting you down, too.”
“Then we will kill your friends and take you back home alive. We have some friends that will want to know how you did that before they make you pay.”
Hope took a deep breath as the gravity of the situation started to become apparent, but she knew it was time to take charge and make sure no one else died this night, and in this room. She got up from her cover and grabbed a hold of the largest desk she could find in the room and slid it up near the door, but not against it, leaving a little gap between it and the door. She then grabbed as much of the smaller items in the room as she could, and scattered them all around the desk, creating a debris field the bad guys would have to navigate through when they eventually entered.
Morgan caught onto what Hope was doing and joined in with the defensive strategy. She looked over to Hunter and found him still steadily searching for something, hoping that he found what he was looking for, if it would give them a fighting chance.
Just as the girls were getting done blocking the door, they started to hear a loud pounding down the hallway. Morgan looked over. “What’s that?”
“It sounds like they’re hitting the walls with something,” Hope answered, quite confused.
Back in the hallway the two men were near the beginning of the long tunnel and were taking turns punching the wall with their fists. After several blows into the wall, it finally started to crumble a little before it completely caved in, revealing a hidden room.
Antony looked over at Wylan, who had delivered the final crushing blow into the wall. “There, I told you I could hear it in there.”
“Right as always, my brother,” Wylan replied as he walked through the newly created doorway and looked at the generator providing electricity to the bunker.
Antony walked over to the generator and grabbed a hold of the power lines leading out of it, and yanked them out, sending the bunker into darkness. “Shall we now go get our prize?”
Hope heard the wall come crashing down and had a sinking feeling that whatever they were up to, it wasn’t good for them. Just as she was about to turn to warn Morgan to be ready, the lights flickered and then went out, plunging them into darkness.
Morgan gasped at the sudden change until a light came on from behind. She turned to find Hunter coming at her with his flashlight and toting a container with something in it.
“Let me see the barrel of your gun,” he said as he snatched her rifle from her and started to pour something down the barrel. “You will only have one shot with this, so make sure you hit them.” He then ran over to Hope, who was snatching the night vision goggles off of one of the soldiers who had earlier made it into the room.
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“What’s that?” Hope asked as she handed her gun over to Hunter.
“Salt. It won’t kill them, but according to Benjy, it will burn like hell if it penetrates their skin,” Hunter replied before he handed the rifle back to Hope, careful to keep the barrel pointed up.
“Here, take these,” Hope said as she tossed the goggles to Morgan. “Hunter has his flashlight, and I can see fine in the dark, so you need these.”
Morgan nodded as she put them on and took aim at the door.
Hope looked over and checked on her two friends one last time, and then she looked over at the body of Trip. She knew the odds weren’t in their favor, but she wasn’t going to let anything else happen to them, even if that meant that she had to go down. Before she took aim at the door, she reached her hand into her pocket one last time and checked the grenade she’d lifted off one of the dead soldiers when Hunter wasn’t looking earlier, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
Chapter 42
Fargo, North Dakota, used to be called the gateway to the West, back when settlers were heading to explore America.
Nowadays, it was just like every other major city Hutch had visited—a graveyard.
It was also the place of his birth, and he had spent the week getting familiar with it. Before he arrived, he had never stepped foot here, at least not that he could remember, since his parents had moved him to Kansas City when he was two.
At the moment, he was enjoying his visit to an airplane museum he had found by accident. He had to clear out a small contingent of slabs when he arrived, but it was nothing his sidearm couldn’t handle. As he walked around the museum filled with planes dating all the way back to World War II, he kept a close eye on his watch. It was currently a little after noon, and he had a timetable he need to stick to.
While he was sightseeing, his latest trap was lying in wait in the downtown area of Fargo.
He jumped up and looked inside one last cockpit, an original P-51 Mustang fighter, enjoying the simplistic technologies used back in the forties, and thinking about how brave and confident the pilots must have been, flying these into battle without any real help from radar or computers to tell them where they were going and what they would be facing when they got there.
He sympathized with them as he thought about his current mission. He didn’t have the benefit of reconnaissance aircraft or the ability to call in for back up. He showed up, not sure what kind of enemy force would be lying in wait. He had to improvise each and every time to achieve victory. Just like them, he relied on his training and sheer willpower to come out alive.
As he was lost in thought standing on the ladder next to the plane, he didn’t hear the sounds of approaching footsteps until they were right next to him. His foot was grabbed, and he snapped back to the present, snatching his foot back, and turning to see what was there.
He found one lone slab reaching up at him, grasping for anything it could latch onto. Hutch reared back with his boot and kicked the slab squarely in the forehead, sending it tumbling backwards away from the ladder. He watched as the slab quickly got back up and resumed its advance towards him. As it arrived back at the base of the ladder, he put the boot to it again; and the scene repeated.
Hutch pulled out his trusted sidearm, a Colt .45 semi-automatic, and flipped the safety off before he pointed it at the creature’s head. He stared at the creature as it made its way back towards him and noticed for the first time what it was wearing. It still had a portion of the outfit left on it from the day he’d been attacked and turned into what was currently in front of him. He noticed the insignia embroidered into the torn and tattered shirt as the one he had seen all around the museum that day. He also saw its nametag still attached to the shirt and squinted to see the name BRIAN across it.
He thought about how poor Brian probably worked there his entire adult life trying to make a good impression, with hopes to one day be the big shot running the place, or how maybe this was just a pit stop in his life until he could save up enough money to get out of Fargo and head somewhere to make a name for himself.
Regardless, he had died in this very building and had been trapped here surviving off whatever unlucky person had happened to come inside. Hutch watched the mindless creature as it swung its arms trying to grab him atop the ladder he was standing on, not even aware how to climb the ladder anymore. He aimed carefully and pulled the trigger; the bullet struck Brian in the head and dropped him to the ground, no longer a danger to anyone ever again.
Hutch holstered the weapon and climbed down the ladder looking at his watch. “Time to go. See ya later, Brian.” Hutch stepped over the now twice-dead body and headed for his van.
He drove back towards downtown Fargo until he arrived at a large building at the beginning of a row of even larger buildings leading into the center of the former business district.
None of the buildings would be considered skyscrapers in any bigger city, but they were big enough to suit Hutch’s current needs.
He parked in the rear of the building and grabbed a large duffle bag from the back of the van and headed through a backdoor inside. He made his way up to the top of the building until he reached the roof access. He carefully maneuvered over a tripwire set earlier, and exited onto the roof of the building. From there, he could see most of the major street intersections downtown, and had a great view of all the other buildings. Buildings he had meticulously searched for any survivors still hiding, and now, over the last few days, wired up with explosives.
After a rather disappointing adventure in Sioux City, where the only real kills were the thugs he’d rescued the people from, he was looking to get back to doing what he had set out to do: kill a lot of zombies at one time.
He’d tried to salvage his trip after the rescue, but due to some mechanical issues with a couple of farming combines, he found he had to cut his losses and leave the cleaning-out to the locals. He left behind a few weapons to help out, and gave them some pointers, but that was all he could do.
This day, however, should be a much bigger success as he looked down onto the streets and found it teeming with the undead wandering around. The city of Fargo had been home to a little over one hundred thousand people before the outbreak, and from the looks of it, he had almost half of them down there in the streets right now.
He checked his bait and found it still hanging from a street light stretched over one of the bigger intersections. The bait was a large moose he’d had the unfortunate pleasure of hitting with his truck as he pulled into town. It was hurt and dying, anyway, so he decided to not let it go to waste, and used it to attract as many slabs as he could for the fireworks.
He pulled out a small .308 hunting rifle and used the scope on it to scan the area and see how many he had down there at the moment. At first he wasn’t impressed with the numbers, that was until he noticed they were all starting to wander into the buildings surrounding the town center.
He saw floor after floor of slabs walking around. He noticed most of them were concentrated in the areas of the building where he had planted his explosives, as if they could still smell him there, and were trying to find him. Thankfully, the building he was on was boarded up and secured, so he figured he shouldn’t have any issues with them coming after him there. However, if they did, he had a few surprises that would make it hard for them to get all the way to the top.
He looked back at his watch again and saw that he still had almost an hour until the show started. That’s when he reached back into his duffle bag and pulled out three more rifles and a large ammo box and started to load the rifle in his hands. He decided he needed to do a little target practice while he waited to make sure he was still proficient, and to make sure that his weapons hadn’t gone out of calibration since the last time he had used them.
He got all the guns loaded and staged and took up a position on the edge of the building. He had already placed some markers in the streets, giving him different distances so he could sight in for various situation
s. He looked down and found a five-hundred-yard mark and sought out the closest slab to it. He saw what looked like a man, almost completely naked, and with just a few scrapes of clothing hanging on to him for dear life.
He puts the crosshairs on it and after a few seconds squeezed the trigger and hit it in the chest, knocking it to the ground. He then watched as it got right back up and continued staggering around as if nothing had just happened. Hutch then took aim for the head, now that he had the cold barrel shot out of the way, and his aim was true, as he put a round through the side of the slab’s head, stopping it dead in its tracks.
Hutch smiled at his still-sharpened skills. He was told over and over as he was retiring about how old S.E.A.L.s lost their edge, and only had two options after a long career, to grow fat and lazy, drinking beer in some beachside town chasing around younger women and talking about their glory days, or grow fat and lazy in a trailer park trying to forget all the things you had been through by drinking cheap liquor until your liver decided to quit.
He had a different plan than either of those, but the flood of the dead changed all that for him. Instead, his retirement had been harder than the life he was used to in the military, and he had had to stay sharp to pull off what he had been able to do.
He liked to think that he would one day be able to put down the guns and finally retire for real, but as he looked down onto another city full of these creatures, he knew it would be a while longer.
Humanity's Hope (Book 2): Juggernaut Page 21