Crawlerz: Book 3: The Mountains Are Calling

by R. S. Merritt

  “Ok. I get it. These things will try and beat their way in if they find us. We have windows all over the place. That’s going to make life difficult. We have doors that don’t seem half as strong as I thought they were now that I’m seeing this. Thank you. This was a good wake up call.” The captain said.

  “We stopped about three hours from here at a gas station to spend the night. Those things were rocking and rolling on the trailers the whole night. They may not have made it here yet, but they’re getting pretty close. You’ve got to be ready or this whole place will get wiped out.” Yue reiterated what Jeff had already subtly emphasized. She was determined to get the point to sink in with the captain. There were lots of little kids in the powerhouse. They’d be ripped apart in seconds if the crawlerz showed up.

  “We brought an architect named Carl along with us. He’s the brains behind having saved most of the community living on an island over by Charleston. Let’s enlist him to get the powerhouse up to crawler code.” Jeff said.

  “Maybe we can have it done before you get back. Or if he says we need supplies you could grab them or arrange for someone else to do it?” Sheridan asked. Yue did a mental doubletake. What was the guy talking about with the returning from somewhere? Judging by the crestfallen look on Jeff’s face he hadn’t wanted for the captain to bring that up either. The oblivious captain stood by waiting for an answer.

  “We need to get these trucks unloaded tomorrow. It’s already too late tonight. We’ll leave you any supplies we have. I don’t think we’ll be coming back anytime soon. No reason to drag the infected here if we don’t need to. Hopefully you’ll put a lot of work into building out defenses that you never need.” Jeff said.

  They talked briefly about a few more things before hopping back into the cart and taking it back across the dam. From there they raced down the trail to get back to the dam in the quickly receding daylight. Yue nodded at the sentry standing watch in the shack as they passed it. Another building that needed to be shored up in a hurry.

  Once back in the powerhouse Yue wasted no time in cornering Jeff to find out what the hell was going on. A bit of hushed conversation in between the generators was enough to make her wish she‘d just gone to sleep and waited to talk to Jeff in the morning. Instead of returning to her bunk with her brothers she slid into the bunk Jeff had claimed as his own to spend the night there. Perched way up in their bunk on the wall Drew and LeBron watched Yue disappear into Jeff’s bunk.

  “Oh Yue. What would mom think.” LeBron said shaking his head.

  “I guess now the worst thing that could happen is I wake up spooning you.” Drew joked. LeBron smiled and got comfortable. He had a bad feeling about all of this. If the biggest thing they really had to fear was who spooned who he’d be a very happy person.

  Chapter 7: The Roach Motel

  “I don’t care what anybody says I’m never going to get used to the pee smell.” LeBron said sitting up. He’d been paranoid the whole night that he’d accidentally roll out of the bed. A thirty-foot drop to the cold concrete floor below would be a horrible way to wake up.

  “What smell?” Drew asked straight faced. LeBron ignored him. He was busy looking down at the floor to see what was going on below. He almost fell off the bunk after all. Mikey suddenly popped his head up over the side letting loose an overzealous announcement of good morning. He was big time amused that he’d almost startled LeBron into plummeting to his death.

  “Do you have a reason for being this annoying this early?” LeBron asked. He was trying to not let the fear of falling show on his face. He didn’t want to give Mikey the satisfaction.

  “Your beautiful sister and the nerdy Sasquatch she’s busy making mistakes with asked me to get you. Sounds like we may be going on a trip. Grab your crap unless you want to have to climb back up here and get it later. You’ve got time. Not like we’re rolling out right now. Unless they want to roll out right now. I don’t really freakin know.” Mikey said as he disappeared from view back down the ladder.

  “We just got here.” Drew said sadly gathering his gear together on his side of the bed. He grabbed his rucksack and started shoving everything into it. Occasionally he’d smell test something and throw it to the side. Most of his bag was filled with bullets, food and water anyway so it didn’t take him too long to pack.

  He helped LeBron lever himself over the edge with his equally hefty pack then followed him down to the floor below. It wasn’t a climb you wanted to make multiple times a day if you could avoid it. Especially not if you were lugging all your gear around with you. Looking around the crowded floor they spotted Yue talking to Harley over by the bunks on the other side of the room. They headed that way.

  “Good luck guys.” Harley said with a wave as he walked quickly past them on his way to wherever he was going.

  “What’s up with him?” Drew asked Yue when he got close enough to talk using his inside voice.

  “Why do we need luck? I mean at least more than usual.” LeBron asked.

  “Why do you look so sleepy?” Drew added the third question while waggling his eyebrows in a mildly obscene manner that he thought was hilarious.

  “I was up all-night planning with Jeff.” Yue answered with a yawn and an annoyed look at the eyebrow acrobatics.

  “Is planning like a code word? If you just want to talk to Drew about it, you could spell out what you were doing so us children wouldn’t know.” LeBron said.

  “Nope. I got a beautiful young woman to climb into my private oasis and all we did was make plans until we both fell asleep.” Jeff said from behind them. LeBron and Drew both turned around guiltily wondering how long he’d been standing there. Before Drew could make any smartass comments about Jeff’s manliness Yue started explaining what was going on.

  “The President reinstated Jeff which I think you both already know. What you didn’t know was he ordered him to put together a force to gather all the supplies in the various depots. He’s supposed to load up the trucks and then bring everything to a centralized point for redistribution.” Yue said.

  “Why not just leave the stuff where it’s at and distribute it from there? That’s why they put it in multiple places to begin with I thought.” LeBron said. He was busy trying to read between the lines. If Yue and Jeff had really spent the whole night planning, there must be more to it than she was letting on.

  “We can talk about the details later. Right now, the important thing is to get out there and start gathering the supplies.” Jeff said loudly. He was talking way louder than needed to communicate with them. LeBron and Drew both got the hint. It wasn’t safe to talk until they got out of this place.

  “Ok. Who’s going with us?” Drew asked. He was looking all around to see who Jeff was trying to fool with the loud talking. Yue stepped on his foot to get his attention. Between Jeff yelling like an idiot and Drew craning his neck trying to search the room the subtle approach wasn’t working out great. Although, it was actually working out a little bit better than she’d expected. When it came to Drew and Jeff acting like nothing was going on, she had very low expectations for their abilities. They were doing their best to meet those low expectations.

  “Not Harley I’m guessing.” LeBron said. They’d noticed when they all went after Jeff outside the day before that Harley hadn’t joined them. Drew started making whipping noises.

  “Correct. Harley’s staying behind. He’s got a girl now. She came with two kids that he’s taking care of. We’re not taking any kids with us and we’re probably not coming back here. That eliminates anyone with a family from coming. It’s basically going to be us plus the jarheads. He came over to tell me he couldn’t go and remind me we need to pick up the people we left at that graveyard.” Jeff answered.

  “Why do we have to go?” LeBron asked.

  “Jeff’s going so I’m going. If I’m going, I know both of you are going to want to go. Besides I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving you guys here. Between you, me and the pee smell I don’t give thi
s place a very high rating on the long-term survivability scale. They’ve gotten lucky so far. I don’t want to be here when that luck runs out.” Yue said.

  “Then how do we leave all these kids here?” Drew asked. Nothing could ever be easy. The leading cause of death in the apocalypse was empathy. If you let yourself care too much for other people you were doomed.

  “They’ve got as good a chance here as they do with us. Better even. Our first mission is to gather the gear out of the warehouse we just left. The warehouse full of crawlerz.” Jeff said. LeBron nodded his head as understanding as it finally him. They were being sent on a suicide mission. Drew still didn’t get it.

  “Plus, we showed Sheridan the trailers so he got to see how hard the crawlerz can hit. We have Carl working on ways to strengthen the place up. It’s actually already pretty secure.” Yue said.

  “Except for the windows everywhere and the way they don’t mind cracking the doors open to help air the place out. I think we can all agree this place is a death trap. The morons still have most of their supplies sitting up in the parking lot.” Drew hissed. He could care less about the grown men walking around in the stinky cavern. Every time he heard the giggle of a little kid though he got more upset.

  “Have you not met Harley? He will get these people –“ Yue was cut off by the muffled sound of gunshots outside. Weapons appeared as if by magic in each of their hands. Doors were slammed shut and men started calling out what they could see happening outside. Those men were being yelled at by the people actually experienced with dealing with the crawlerz. They were being informed in no uncertain terms to shut their damned mouths.

  The SEALs lined up on the door closest to where the shots were coming from. Captain Sheridan was leading them. Drew and LeBron jogged over to make sure they got the door shut and locked once the GI Joes ran out to get themselves killed. Looking at the captain’s determined face Drew knew it was useless to try and stop him. Maybe he wouldn’t get his whole team killed. Maybe there was just a couple of surgers running around outside. It’d be good for these guys to get some trigger time and see how fast the enemy really was. The captain took his team out the door. Drew made sure it was locked up tight after them.

  A few more muffled shots then silence. The people watching from their bunks out the grime covered windows could just make out the SEAL time fire squad disappearing up the trail to the guard shack. Jeff decided this would be a good time for them to leave. He quietly passed the order around for everyone to grab their gear and assemble by the other side of the powerhouse. Before they could slip away the doors opened back up on the far side of the powerhouse to readmit the SEAL team. Jeff ordered his team to stay where they were and went to talk to Sheridan.

  Jeff and Sheridan came back over a few minutes later. The captain walked around to shake each of their hands and wish them luck. He let them know he appreciated their advice and was going to begin acting on it immediately. To emphasize that he was serious about acting on it immediately he left to go meet up with Carl.

  “Out the door and up the hill. Do it by the numbers and stay silent. Crawlerz turned the guard in the communication’s shack sometime last night. His relief got turned this morning when he went up there to take over the watch. He managed to shoot the original guy and then the rest of his team took him out. Now they’ve got two dead men and no clue where the crawlerz are that turned them.” Jeff filled in the team.

  A wild-eyed Harley ran over to them as they were about to head out the door. He pulled Jeff to the side and held a heated conversation. Jeff was shaking his head and Harley was looking like he was about to lose it. Their noses were about two inches apart. The brunt of it was that Harley had changed his mind and wanted to leave the base with his girl and kids. Jeff was telling him that wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t going to bring kids with them on the mission they were on. On top of that they couldn’t afford to let a group of refugees know about the dam. The whole point of it being a secret was to keep it from being overrun.

  Harley rammed Jeff into the wall and screamed that he was taking them. Gus smashed the butt of his M-16 into the side of the big man’s head. A dazed looking Harley turned to fight off the Marine. Gus swung the butt of his rifle again and Harley fell to his knees. Jeff brought his knee up hard into the center of Harley’s face. Mikey helped by grabbing a shoulder and shoving Harley down to the ground. The rest of them stood by helplessly while Harley was beat to the ground. Breathing hard Gus kicked Harley hard in the stomach to make sure he stayed down.

  A gun went off and Gus fell over backwards. Drew pulled Yue to the ground and screamed for LeBron to get down. Looking up from the floor he saw the woman Harley was with standing stock still with a stricken look on her face. The pistol she’d shot Gus with was still held out in a two-handed grip in front of her. Blood blossomed on the front of her thick white sweater as multiple Marines put rounds into her. She dropped the pistol and fell to the floor. Harley was on his hands and knees crawling over towards her. This time it was Mikey who stepped forward and slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the man’s head. Harley collapsed to the ground with sightless eyes staring off to the side.

  Marines and SEALs moved in. They quickly stripped Harley of the dozen blades and pistols he had hidden on his body. Then they dragged him over to the jail bunk Jeff had recently vacated. The blood soaked body of the woman on the ground had two sobbing children lying on top of her in a big heap. Sheridan came forward with his mouth hanging open in shock. He looked at Jeff to see if he had any ideas on dealing with all of this. Jeff shook his head and ordered his team to get up and prepare to move out.

  “What do I do about Harley?” Sheridan asked. It was a fair question since Jeff’s group had been the one to bring Harley along. Now Jeff was walking out leaving the corpse of a young mother on the ground with her orphaned children crying on top of her. A gigantic madman was tied up in a bunk not twenty feet away from them.

  “When he wakes up and chills out let him bury their mom. Then make sure he knows these two kids’ lives depend on him. He’s a great asset to this place. Utilize him.” Jeff answered.

  “Yeah. A great asset alright.” Sheridan said staring down at the grief-stricken kids covered in their dead mother’s blood.

  Yue took in the image of the children trying to wake up their dead mom. A couple of women had come forward to pry the children away. The SEALs and other men were standing around uselessly. The Marines who’d shot the woman were looking everywhere but at the corpse. Gus was being helped to his feet. His body armor had stopped the bullet from doing anything more than bruising him. He’d gotten in a shot at his assailant after being hit. These were the images that stuck in Yue’s head. The ones she knew she’d see again in her dreams.

  They made it up to the trucks without any other issues. Sheridan had requested they leave one of the electric Harleys up in the lot. Jeff helped roll out two of them. He left the cords needed to charge them coiled up in the lot by the bikes. At some point it started snowing. Lightly at first then really coming down.

  The convoy pulled out of the parking lot and headed back down the small road through the massive forest. Each of the cabs was silent as the occupants watched the white flakes hit the windshield. Most of them reliving the shooting of the mother back in the powerhouse. They were Marines. Training had taken over when the woman pulled a gun and shot at them. Shame still blanketed them like the snow starting to cover the ground. They drove on in silence.

  Chapter 8: Snow Blind

  “We need to stop and put chains on the tires.” Mikey’s voice sounded abruptly from the walkie talkie. Those were the first words spoken since they’d left the dam. The snow was coming down in blinding white sheets now. It wasn’t the typical first little flurry of the season. This was a straight up blizzard.

  LeBron and Yue had grown up in the south. It took a minute for the strange phrase to make sense to them. He was talking about chains for the tires. She had no idea how they worked or how
to put them on. Gus tapped gently on the brakes to bring them to a controlled stop.

  Gus opened his door and slithered down through the access hatch to get out of the metal cage. LeBron followed him to help. He was curious how the whole chain thing worked. Yue stayed up in the cab. She was more than happy to have some private time with Jeff. He hadn’t shown any interest at all in the chain conversation. He just sat there staring out the window at the winter wonderland swirling around them.

  On the ground outside the truck LeBron marveled at how deep the snow had already gotten. He stomped through the thick white layer of coldness behind Gus. They walked back towards the truck Mikey was climbing out of. Drew emerged from the other side right as they got there. They met in a small group waiting for the driver of the third truck to wander up. Once he did all eyes shifted over to Mikey. He was the only one of them with the experience needed for this sort of thing.