The big man got off the bike. He took the time to rack a shell into the chamber of his tactical shotgun. He strode towards the truck with his intimidation factor dialed up to a thousand. Yue scrambled out of the sleeper section and over on top of Jeff. She hit the button to roll down the passenger window and stuck her head out of it.
“Hey Harley!” She yelled at the super-sized terminator walking towards them. Jeff looked completely confused. Just because the man was riding a motorcycle didn’t mean Yue could just call him Harley, right? Down on the ground Harley cracked a big smile at the sound of Yue’s voice.
“Hey! How’s it been? Drew and LeBron with you?” Harley yelled back.
“Hey man. I’m here. Drew’s in the truck behind us. We sure are doing a lot of yelling out here on the road.” LeBron yelled just loudly enough for Harley to hear him. Jeff was squirming around uncomfortably. Yue and LeBron were both squeezing in with him in the passenger seat to yell out the window. At LeBron’s reminder on the need for silence Harley walked over to talk to them. He stopped and stared at the cage trying to figure out how to get into the truck.
“Friend of yours?” Jeff asked while Yue was busy whispering out instructions for Harley to climb up so he could talk to them. Before LeBron could answer Harley had squeezed himself through the access hatchway and was having a whispered conversation with Yue.
LeBron and Jeff listened while Yue filled in Harley on the fate of the faux Gypsy band that he’d been a part of. Harley’s face melted into a sorrowful expression before he buried his face in his hands. The people in that gypsy band had been his family. Yue weaved her way through the rest of their journey since Harley had roared out of the compound on the same bike he was riding now. Finding out Charani had lost her life on the carrier set Harley’s massive shoulders to heaving with unsuppressed sobs.
Harley pulled himself together after a minute of unconstrained grief and asked them where they were headed. Jeff jumped in before Yue had a chance to answer. He explained who he was and told Harley that they were transporting refugees to a safe area. Then he volleyed the same question back at Harley.
“Why are you headed towards the warehouse?” Jeff asked curiously. He suspected he knew the answer but didn’t want to make any assumptions.
“I ran into these guys after that idiot Leander sent us all out to die. They were squatting in the back of a run-down Target living off whatever they could scavenge. They started off with a way bigger group but now these guys and their families are all that’s left. We were headed over to see about getting our share of the supplies in the warehouse. That’s what it’s there for right?” Harley asked with sarcasm dripping all over his words.
Jeff kept his face neutral, but he was cringing on the inside. This was the reason the bases needed to be kept secret. Once a steady stream of people showed up looking for a handout the crawlerz wouldn’t be far behind. It’s not like people were going to watch their kids starve to death. Not if there were someplace that they might be able to beg some food from.
“It was. Now it’s filled with crawlerz and corpses. No way to get at the supplies.” Jeff answered.
“Where are you taking the refugees?” Harley asked.
“We have another place that should be safe. I don’t know that we can add any more people to the party. We may already have too many honestly. I know other places though.” Jeff answered. He was working through all the locations in his head. He needed to take the time to document what he could remember each base having instead of trying to rely on his admittedly poor memory. Shuttling refugees to different bases with different capacities to support them was going to get real complicated real fast.
“Yeah. Considering how secure the warehouse turned out to be I’m not too sure we’d want to go with you anyway. Where are these other places?” Harley asked.
“Can’t tell you where they are. Once we take you there you won’t be allowed to leave.” Jeff said evenly. Harley didn’t seem too concerned about that. Of course, he’d shown up here riding the electric bike he’d ‘borrowed’ from the warehouse that he wasn’t supposed to be allowed to leave.
“The place we’re going is heavily defended. I’m going to be calling out who we are as we drive up. They’ll either let us in, send us away or start shooting at us. If we show up with too many people, they’re definitely going to turn us away. They might not let us leave. They’ll be worried we’re going to show back up demanding food or something. Kind of like you’re doing right now.” Jeff explained to Harley.
Harley’s face went through a range of emotions during Jeff’s explanation. Pretty much the entire spectrum from righteous anger to pissed off to acceptance. LeBron found his own stress level dropping considerably once Harley had moved into the acceptance stage.
“The group with you now get to go to a nice secure base. We’re not allowed to come along. What do you expect us to do? We’ve got women and children with us too.” Harley kept his head in the window. He wasn’t leaving until he got an acceptable answer.
“How many of you are there in total?” Jeff asked.
Jeff and Harley went back and forth on the logistics of it. The gist of it was that they’d get the current refugees situated then come back for Harley and his crew. The only reason Harley was even entertaining the idea was because LeBron and Yue were willing to vouch for Jeff. After the back-and-forth Harley climbed down and got back on his bike. They followed him up the road to where the rest of his group was waiting. Part of the discussion had been around leaving them with enough supplies to tide them over a few days. They wanted to keep them from having to go out and forage while they waited for Jeff and his team to come back for them.
The convoy got moving up the twisty road with Harley leading the pack. No surgers showed up which was a great sign. The sooner they only had to worry about the crawlerz the better. If they could move around freely during the day that’d afford them somewhat of an opportunity to live a better life. Harley turned off the main road into a cemetery.
“This is an interesting choice.” Jeff remarked as they drove up the narrow road past the decrepit looking groundskeeper’s sheds.
The grounds might have been well maintained at one time but now everything was one big patch of weeds. Harley parked his bike in front of a large mausoleum. The men in the pickup truck jumped down and spread out to secure the perimeter. Everyone piled out of the cab of the lead truck. They met up with Harley and walked with him around to the trailer. Once they had the trailer open, they pulled out a crate of MREs and some big cans of drinking water. LeBron still thought it was weird that water could be stored in cans.
Drew came out to join them as well. Everyone else was keeping their distance. Once the supplies were unloaded, they went with Harley to meet the rest of the group staying in the cemetery. The group was living in a couple of large above ground mausoleums. A pile of coffins about thirty yards away showed where the former residents had been evicted to. The thick concrete walls of the above ground crypts looked seriously crawler proof.
A handful of kids stared up at the newcomers sullenly. The children were obviously malnourished and overly pale. Their eyes were doing that sunken hungry child thing like the kids in a Sally Struthers infomercial. One of the ones where she guilts people by saying that instead of buying a cup of coffee every day, they could be feeding an entire village. The women in the mausoleum were all as well armed as the males they’d seen in the truck. They looked very comfortable with their weapons.
“When did you guys get this all set up?” Jeff asked Harley.
“We put it together yesterday. This is something these guys have been doing since the beginning. It’s gotten a lot more practical now though since the surgers are clearing out. Being in a protected place at night that you can leave during the day is freakin wonderful. How long before you come back?” Harley answered. He was losing a big chunk of his intimidation factor by holding up one kid on his shoulder while letting another one ride around on his leg.
“We’ll hopefully get there by tomorrow night. We’ll turn around the next day to come back so maybe three or four days. Assuming nothing happens, which is always a big assumption.” Jeff answered honestly.
“You’re not thinking about ambushing us and taking all our stuff, are you?” Drew’s question came out of the blue. Everyone turned to stare at him. He’d once again proven he was about as subtle as an out-of-control manure truck flying down a mountain road with no brakes that’s also on fire. From the look on his face, he didn’t care if his question offended anybody. Harley broke into a big grin.
“Way too close to it being a fair fight. Fair fights are for losers. I trust you to do the right thing. There aren’t very many people I’d say that about. Don’t make me look like a mark.” Harley said seriously.
“You’re going to be their hero with all this canned water.” LeBron tried to bust up the tension. It came out awkward and weird. Drew must be rubbing off on him. Yue was shifting her eyes between the two of them trying to figure out which of her brothers was the biggest idiot. Everyone had shifted their attention over to LeBron when he spoke out. Once they figured out that he didn’t have anything to add to the conversation beyond expressing his fascination with canned water they went back to ignoring him.
“So, you guys just like roll up into these dead guy houses with axes and a bunch of Febreze and go to town?” Drew asked curiously. Yue rolled her eyes at the insensitive question. It wasn’t like moving some coffins around was any worse than anything the rest of them did to survive on a daily basis.
“Pretty much.” Harley said shoving some weapons and ammunition into a green military issue backpack.
Drew nodded and continued poking around inside the mausoleum asking some of the people inside questions about how they secured it at night. LeBron and Yue both appreciated Drew’s curiosity. He was trying to learn how they could do something similar if needed. They both hoped they’d never have to sleep in a tomb though. No matter how practical it was. Even considering the state of the world they all lived in now this place still rated pretty high on the creepy scale.
“I bet the crawlerz start using them to sleep in at night when they leave.” LeBron whispered to Yue. Yue glanced over at her overly serious brother.
“So what?” She asked him in an annoyed whisper. He’d obviously had some kind of critical insight he was dying to share. She braced herself for the useless trivia coming her way.
“Bloodthirsty crawlerz with amped up adrenaline systems camped out in crypts coming out only at night. Remind you of anything?” LeBron whispered back.
Yue made the connection and found herself rolling her eyes at her other brother this time. She was going to get a migraine with all this eye rolling in such a short period of time. The crawlerz were the stuff of every nightmare. The virus had been around for at least a couple of millennia. They were dealing with the same sorts of horrors their very distant ancestors may have dealt with. Horrors that’d evidently made their way into folklore and legend. That didn’t really help them much now did it? She didn’t think loading up on garlic and crucifixes was going to solve all of their problems.
Sidetracked by the conversation with LeBron Yue completely missed everyone saying their goodbyes. She saw Harley and a pretty woman walking hand in hand towards the open door of one of the trailers. They had two kids in tow. Harley casually hopped up into the open trailer. He turned around and helped the woman load in the two kids before extending a hand to help her in as well.
“I guess he’s tagging along after all.” Jeff watched Harley’s little family disappear into the trailer. There was a mixture of annoyance and amusement warring in his eyes. Drew walked back to the truck Mikey was driving and climbed up into the cab. Deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to fight about it Jeff shrugged and worked his way up into the cab of their truck.
“He’s a good one to have along. Even if he turned out not to trust us as much as he said he did.” LeBron said with a grin.
The brother and sister pair worked their way into the cab after Jeff. LeBron was wondering why Jeff hadn’t let them go in first. That mystery was solved when Yue held a quick make out session with Jeff right in front of him. LeBron left wondering if Jeff had actually planned to climb in first to snag that quick bit of intimacy. Yue had probably arranged it all somehow being the master manipulator that she was. Like most of the things she made happen he couldn’t quite figure out how she’d done it.
When LeBron stopped halfway through climbing into the sleeper section for his kiss and hug from Jeff all he got was a shove towards the back.
Chapter 3: ‘Dammed’ if You Do
The trucks bounced over the debris on the small two-lane road before finally merging onto a larger highway. Jeff steadfastly refusing to give them any clues as to where they were headed. Gus was turning on roads as ordered with only a vague idea of their final destination. Jeff guided them with an atlas in his hand and a hard look on his face. He was once again responsible for people’s lives. He was determined to get them to safety. Yue remembered him saying that the base they were headed to was heavily guarded. They may shoot at them rather than letting them in. Jeff looked ready and willing to shoot back if he thought it’d help the kids in the back. She loved him for that.
What she didn’t love was how dark it was getting. They were heading into winter. The sun was getting lazier every day. It was falling out of the sky way too early for her liking. Jeff had also noticed the encroaching darkness. He started working with Gus to find a good place to pull over. They certainly weren’t going to be welcomed by the people at whatever top secret hideout Jeff was taking them to if they showed up after dark leading a parade of crawlerz. Between the scavenging at the warehouse and the unplanned detour to drop off supplies for Harley’s people they were running way behind schedule.
They pulled off the highway into a small travel plaza. Like most places it’d been thoroughly looted. There were two moldering corpses lying in plain sight on the pavement. The windows of the storefront were smashed in and glass and trash were scattered around everywhere. No surgers came stumbling out to ask if they needed a fill up though so that was good. No doubt there were probably a few crawlerz eyeballing them from the dark depths of the ruined buildings. LeBron could sense them watching. He didn’t bother asking if anyone else could feel it too. The answer was always a vague yes. No one really wanted to think too much about it. The crawlerz were physically terrifying enough without having the ability to worm into your brain and screw with you psychically too.
The three trucks lined up in the parking lot. A few Marines got out to do a perimeter sweep. It was getting dark fast. The Marines kept their distance from the broken storefronts. The darker it got the more likely one of those things would leap out from the dark and grab one of them. It was like tip toeing through a nest of slumbering rattlesnakes. You wanted to be in a protected place before it was dark enough for them to come out without the sun making them loopy. If they ever had the time and some crawler volunteers maybe they could figure out exactly when that sweet spot was. For now, they just all got more cautious the darker it got.
With no major issues spotted by the Marines the trucks were turned off for the night. Everyone piled into the trailers for a restless night of their crazed pursuers banging away on the trailer like it was a gigantic steel drum. Nothing more relaxing than trying to sleep with one eye open while you waited to see if this was the night the walls finally gave way. Reinforced with sheet metal or not the crawlerz were giving the trucks a serious pounding on a nightly basis. Eventually some seam or bolt was going to give. When that happened, the monsters would rip open the trailer like a giant lunch pail.
Jeff climbed up into the trailer ready to rest after a long day. It was immediately apparent that chilling out in a secluded corner wasn’t going to be on the agenda for a little bit. Amita and Carl were waiting to welcome them with a zillion questions. They were plainly upset by the earlier detour to supply the refugees at
the cemetery. Amita was ticked the cemetery refugees had been given the supplies they considered theirs. Jeff waited until the doors had been secured to address the two of them. All the while wishing he’d walked back to a different trailer to spend the night in. Harley would’ve been much more fun to talk to than these two princesses.
“First of all. The supplies in these trucks don’t belong to you. They’re the property of the government department that I’m in charge of. I have no idea what made you think you owned any of this. You guys are refugees just like the people at the graveyard. We’re going to help other people we find along the way. That’s our mandate. You need to get on board with that. Any questions?” Jeff asked sternly. He was hoping that little speech would shut them up, he was sorely mistaken.
“How do we buy our way onto this base if we give away all the supplies before we get there? They’re not going to be thrilled to have a few dozen more mouths to feed dumped on them. I’m guessing they don’t have a giant mountain of supplies like the warehouse you talked about did.” Carl said. He was borderline upset. The supplies Jeff had given away may have been the currency needed to purchase his granddaughter’s safety. It was a solid reason to be upset and Jeff could respect it. He could respect it, but his job required him to rise above it and look at the bigger picture.
Crawlerz: Book 3: The Mountains Are Calling Page 2