“How are you doing Marines?” The Captain America in camouflage asked when he got close to them. Neither Gus nor Mikey had the characteristic Marine Corp haircut anymore. They were both wearing whatever was warm and easily found in a looted Ross. Most of what they had on was covered in weird stains. Jeff was thrown off by how quickly this guy had known they were Marines.
“Outstanding sir.” Mikey barked off the traditional response. He had to restrain himself from following up with a salute. Gus had his hand halfway in the air before realizing they were sort of in a formation. It was really up to Jeff who they saluted. The tall blond man had a half-smile on his face seeing how easily he’d thrown them off.
“I’m Captain O’Donnell. You all are trespassing on government property. Would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?” The captain asked politely. He didn’t mention the array of weapons being pointed at them. This was a man who knew how to negotiate.
“I’m Jeff Blanchette. I’m the Director of the Department for the Continuation of the United States Government. We’re here to reclaim this warehouse. We have orders directly from the President to that effect.” Jeff replied. He’d decided since he sucked at lying, he’d just go with the truth from now on. They could always fight their way out of whatever happened. Gus nodded in approval. Keeping track of all the lies was way too hard. It worked out for Jeff about as well as dating four girls at the same time had worked out for Gus. The death of social media would at least make it easier for him to lie to girls again. You’ve got to take advantage of the silver linings where you can find them.
“Director of the Department for the Continuation of the United States government.” O’Donnell repeated slowly. “That sounds like a pretty difficult job given the circumstances. Maybe even an impossible job. How would you say it’s going so far?”
“Not great. It just keeps getting worse. We spent a lot of time thinking about things like asteroids hitting the earth or massive plagues. The nuclear threat was another one we put a lot of time into. People turning into insane psychic cannibals because of some ancient mummy curse didn’t really make our top ten things to worry about list. At least once an asteroid hits it just kind of sits there. It doesn’t actively hunt for you and try to rip you apart. The only thing in our favor is the surgers are dying out so we’ll eventually own the day again. I think we can work with that to rebuild.” Jeff answered.
“I heard you got everyone on the Ford killed including the President. Then you flew over here and managed to get this base infected. The new President’s been spending a lot of time trying to survive your plans.” O’Donnell waited to see how Jeff would respond to that. It threw Mikey and Gus for a loop as well. Hearing it spun that way cast a bit of doubt on Jeff’s already pretty fantastic story. Only Drew was unshaken. He’d been with Jeff when everything went to hell. He knew what the real deal was.
“The people on the Ford weren’t Jeff’s fault and the President’s a douche. That piece of garbage is responsible for abandoning half the crew to die. He took a helicopter here to this base when he left everyone on the ship to die. Then he managed to get all of these people killed somehow.” Drew said. He turned his head and spat on the ground.
“We’re not huge fans of the guy. We’re all on the same side though as far as trying to get the world back to normal. This warehouse and the others like it were intended to help everybody get through this. That’s the reason we’re here. To continue that mission.” Jeff said trying his best to smooth everything over.
O’Donnell’s face was impassive. His hand rested on his holstered sidearm. An evil looking snub nosed machine gun hung from a strap off his shoulder. He was festooned in the garb of a warrior. Knives, grenades and ammunition hanging off him like he was the Christmas tree at the soldier of fortune magazine headquarters. Compared to him Jeff and his crew were outfitted like they’d been the last people in line to loot an army surplus store.
“My mission is to secure this base against anyone seeking to steal the supplies. One of my secondary objectives was to place you under arrest if you showed up here. I was wondering if you’d be dumb enough to wander in if you saw the tire tracks. You know the President hates you right? The important guy with every military resource in the country reporting up to him? The man who ordered you to come here.” O’Donnell finally addressed them again. He’d spent a good minute just kind of staring at them. There’d been consideration in his eyes. It sounded like he’d made his decision now.
“Not every military resource.” Mikey said in his best Clint Eastwood impersonation. He was trying to break the ice a little bit. He also meant it. He’d never met the President, but he trusted Jeff and Drew. If they said the guy was a weasel, then he believed them. Having Thor show up here to arrest them made it more obvious to Mikey that the President was scared of Jeff.
Behind them the people in the trucks were climbing down. They were all armed. They’d left their children behind in the trailers. On seeing the soldiers barricaded behind the Humvees the refugees started getting into position for a shooting match. Jeff took his hand out of his pocket where he’d been mashing away like crazy on the transmit key on the little walkie. It was the one they used to communicate with the people in the back of the trailers. Yue knew if she heard that random transmit noise her boys were in trouble. Between her and LeBron they’d very quickly marshalled the other survivors in both trailers to get out and help.
“Those aren’t soldiers.” O’Donnell said taking a step back to observe the refugees getting into position. He was annoyed by the amateur hour happening over by the trucks. He was special forces though. He was trained on how to walk into villages full of angry locals and arm them up. He knew that a bullet fired from a rifle held by a ten-year-old girl could kill you just as dead as one fired by a highly trained sniper.
“You going to kill them all?” Jeff asked. He was back to bluffing. He really hoped his poker face had gotten better. The people behind him were cannon fodder against the well-armed soldiers deployed in front of them. What he really was hoping was that seeing those people out there would convince O’Donnell that Jeff was one of the good guys. O’Donnell continued to just stare at them. He was calculating his odds if the space between the trucks and the Humvees turned into the OK Corral.
“There’s little kids on the trucks.” Mikey said. O’Donnell glanced over at him briefly then focused back on Jeff.
“Listen. I’m all about helping the survivors. They’re as American as you or me. You say there are kids over on those trucks? My men’s families are back at the base. What do you think happens if I don’t follow orders? How about we just take you prisoner and everyone else can drive away. Trust me. That’s a good deal. It’s one I can’t promise I can make once the bullets start flying. How about it?” O’Donnell asked.
Jeff hated that he’d put himself and everyone with him in this position. He’d known this might happen and he’d still given the order to drive onto the base. He knew the location of every depot in the country. His head was a treasure trove of information. He could’ve helped all the survivors out there trying to fend for themselves. It’d been the cause he’d devoted his professional career to. All ruined because he’d gone against his instincts and driven onto the base. If the President didn’t have the location to every depot already, he’d get them once he had Jeff on lock down. It wasn’t like Jeff could hold out against torture. No man could.
“I’ll go with you. Let everybody else leave.” Jeff said clearly.
“They’ll kill you.” Drew said looking at Jeff like he was crazy.
“Probably. Tell Yue I’ll miss her. Tell her I said happy birthday.” Jeff said.
“Why don’t you tell her yourself? They don’t have to take you right now.” Drew said. Why the hell was Jeff bringing up Yue’s birthday?
“We kind of do. I need you guys to turn around and head back to your trucks. We’re not leaving here for a few hours. If we see you once we leave then all bets are off.” O’Donnell
said. He waved his arm in the air and one of his men ran over to where they were at. The man pulled out a couple of zip tie cuffs and worked them over Jeff’s wrists. Jeff made no move to stop him.
“What the hell!” A loud feminine voice boomed out from the other side of the trucks.
“Tell them to get back in their trucks. You all need to pack up and be gone. I’m tight wire walking my orders right now by letting you go.” O’Donnell said as his men took Jeff away.
“They’re taking Jeff prisoner, but we can leave!” Mikey yelled back.
“Everyone needs to get back in the trucks and get out of here! I’ll be fine!” Yelled Jeff. That was the last thing he said before a black hood was dropped over his head. The last they saw of him he was being shoved into the back of one of the Humvees. The soldier had to really work on bending him over to get him to fit.
Chapter 15: The Journal
Walking backwards towards the trucks Drew’s heart was pumping a cold, dark rage through his body. He wanted nothing more than to open fire on the men taking Jeff prisoner right in front of them. The only thing holding him back was the thought of the kids sitting in the trailers. Those trailer walls wouldn’t stop the high caliber rounds the special ops guys in front of them would start spewing out at the first sign of aggression.
“We outnumber them.” Drew hissed out the side of his mouth.
“Don’t even think about it. That one guy’s got a ma deuce sitting on the hood. They’ll mow us down like we’re nothing. Just be happy none of us died. Let’s try really hard not to do anything this stupid ever again.” Mikey hoped his answer was enough to restrain his headstrong young friend. This sucked but it could suck infinitely worse.
LeBron had his arms tightly wrapped around a struggling Yue. She was still a little wobbly from her most recent concussion. Otherwise, she’d have thrown her youngest brother off her and charged the Humvees to rescue Jeff. She’d have ended up joining the corpse collection littering this field of the dead.
“Tell him to let me go!” Yue yelled at Drew as he got close.
“I’m sorry Yue. Jeff’s call. He told us to leave him. He said he’ll be fine.” Drew answered.
“Everybody back in the trucks now! We’re leaving!” Mikey yelled to the refugees milling around.
“What about getting supplies?” Tom asked loudly.
“How many of your people are you willing to lose to try and get access to a hole in the ground filled with crawlerz?” Mikey asked him. That shut Tom up. He turned to climb back into the cab of the truck.
“Nope. Get in the back. LeBron and Yue can get in the cab with me.” Gus said. He wasn’t going to let this guy ride behind him again. He had no desire to have another pistol shoved in his face.
LeBron helped an extremely agitated Yue up into the cab. Gus ran around to the other side and climbed in. He felt completely exposed as he wriggled up into the cage with his back to the enemy. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when he was sitting in the driver’s seat once more. Glancing over at the men aiming the large caliber weapons at them tensed him right back up.
In the lead truck Mikey and Drew climbed up into their seats. Drew was still seething over Jeff being taken prisoner. He was a million percent ready to unload every weapon they had in the general direction of the scumbags. Not that any of the small arms they had would do much more than screw up the paint job on the Humvees. Those things were built to withstand roadside bombs.
“Calm down man. Jeff will be fine. He’s too useful for them to whack.” Mikey said. He could tell Drew was close to doing something dumb. He’d done enough dumb stuff himself to recognize the signs.
“There’s only six of them.” Drew said again.
“Yeah. Just six guys who strike me as the Delta Force type. Against them we’ve got a pharmacist, two jarheads, a few scavenger families, LeBron and you. Those aren’t the infected standing around out there. Those guys can shoot back. Those particular guys can shoot back extremely well. We need to be not here before they change their mind about letting us go.” Mikey quickly got the truck in gear and started pulling out of the field. He really hoped Drew was buying what he was selling.
The men positioned behind the Humvees kept their weapons fixed on the two large trucks as they left. They were ready to blow away the occupants at a signal from their captain. O’Donnell was fine with letting the trucks go. He chose to interpret his orders around killing off the refugees as more of a passive strategy. As long as they weren’t actively trying to get into one of the government owned warehouses, he’d let them live. They’d eventually die on their own in the field with no support anyway.
In the lead truck Mikey turned right on the road and silently drove in that direction. Drew noted the direction they were going and was curious where Mikey’s head was at. The only thing in this direction was the graveyard and the mountains. He couldn’t imagine Mikey was in any hurry to return to the mountains. They were lucky as hell to have made it out alive the first time. He didn’t see why Mikey would think it was a good idea to push their luck a second time.
In the truck directly behind them Yue was trying to figure out why Gus had a blood covered unconscious guy in the sleeper section. Gus explained that bit of trivia to her. He was happy she seemed to have gained some level of control over her emotions. Done with the explanation of how Tom and Jim had tried to shanghai the convoy Gus passed along Jeff’s birthday wishes. Yue and LeBron both looked at him blankly. Yue started sobbing again.
“He knows he’s never going to see me again.” She managed to stutter out while LeBron and Gus tried to come up with something to say to reassure her. Gus was stuck on trying to think of a nice way to say he didn’t think they’d torture him very much.
“Jeff knows all kinds of crap. He organized all of this in the first place. They’d be idiots to hurt him. You notice they took him prisoner instead of just shooting him on the spot, right? They also dispatched a crew of their finest. You don’t dispatch a Delta team to apprehend a low value target. He’s going to be fine.” Gus laid it on as thick as he thought he could get away with.
“Jeff’s a smart guy but his memory is crap. Yue’s birthday is like five months away.” LeBron said.
“Yeah, that’s why he wrote everything down.” Yue’s eyes suddenly popped wide open. She sat up so quickly she banged her head on the ceiling of the tiny sleeper compartment.
“You ok?” LeBron asked her with concern. Without an MRI they didn’t know if she had a fractured skull, a bruised brain, internal bleeding or just that nasty knot on her head. She’d just hit the roof with that knot. The look of excitement on her face yielded to one of disgust as her mouth filled up with bile. She swallowed down the mouthful of puke and smiled at LeBron to show him she was fine.
“Did you just drink your own puke?” LeBron asked. A look of total disgust registered on his face. They’d just been parked in a field full of rotting corpses and a little chunky backwash was what grossed him out?
“Hand me Jeff’s bag.” Yue asked LeBron.
LeBron groped around on the floor before coming up with one of the green bags pilots used to carry their flight gear in. They’d had a bunch of them in the back. Jeff had claimed one to carry his junk around in. The general assumption being it had extra undies and a toothbrush and stuff like that in there. Not that anyone had really cared enough about the contents of Jeff’s green bag to make any assumptions.
There was one item in there that Yue was now desperate to get her hands on. Jeff wouldn’t have wasted his last words to them for no reason. She knew there had to be more to the birthday wish. She hadn’t really considered it until Gus and LeBron reminded her of how smart Jeff was and what his role in all of this had been. He’d even told her what he was doing when she asked. He’d been trying to get everything out of his mind and down on paper. Paper in this instance being a journal file in the iPad he’d grabbed out of a looted Apple store.
He couldn’t just write everything in a regular notebook becau
se the information was beyond sensitive. In a world full of demons and desolation Jeff was still worried about doing the right thing. Thinking about that Yue almost went off on another crying jag. She pulled herself together and took the bag from LeBron. Digging through it she was freaked out for a minute when she couldn’t find the iPad. Poking around she finally figured out Jeff had secured it in an inner pocket squeezed between a plastic wrapped pack of fresh tighty whiteys and socks.
“You were looking for his underwear?” LeBron asked staring into the sleeper compartment at Yue. He was trying to figure out what’d gotten her so excited. He was also carefully monitoring her to see if bumping her head again was going to make her pass back out. Jim chose that moment to speak up.
“What happened? Ow.” Jim sat up slowly rubbing the back of his head. Dried blood falling down like giant flakes of red dandruff.
“Lay back down and shut up!” Gus barked out from the front of the truck. He was fully focused on keeping their tires aligned with the tracks Mikey was putting in the snow ahead of them. He didn’t want to risk hitting any random ice patches. He definitely didn’t feel like explaining what was going on to the idiot he’d almost beaten to death in the back of the truck.
Crawlerz: Book 3: The Mountains Are Calling Page 13