“Fifteen, maybe more.”
“Hold.” He turned around and faced me and Romeo. “Who’s he got with him?”
“Kirk and Jimmy,” Romeo answered.
“Marquez, how far out are you?” Zach asked over the radio.
“Not far, maybe two clicks to the north, off Lester Road.”
“We’ll meet you there, hold tight.” Zach signed off and we followed him quickly to where the patrol boats were docked. I guess we were going to save some people. Joy.
I always struggled with these sort of issues, especially as the group grew closer. But this was our first sanctioned rescue mission. A few of the Islanders had requested missions to family homes to look for survivors. We never found any.
But we had never gone out of our way to rescue anyone. The groups we’ve encountered we stopped and chatted with and then they moved on. Sometimes we saved their asses, sometimes it was just a brief encounter. But we never went out of our way.
Why risk our lives for strangers?
It sounded harsh, but it was our post-Z world. I valued the lives of the group. A stranger was a wild card. They might be bit or a dangerous individual and then we put our own lives on the line. Zach had made a split second decision to assist. I didn’t agree with him, but I would follow him.
We raced through a small inlet that ran along Lester Road until we spotted Marquez’s boat and drifted up to him. We would have to wade through the shallow shore to get to land and I wasn’t looking forward to it. The area was muddy and would be hard to navigate quickly if something happened.
“Marquez, report,” Zach called to the man.
“From what I can tell, two females with about fifteen Z’s surrounding their hold-out. They must have just run in there right before we drifted by.”
“Have you heard anything?” I asked.
“I did hear another shout about five minutes ago.”
“We going in there, boss?” Kirk asked.
“Yeah, might as well,” Zach shrugged. “Marquez, Kirk, come with me, we’ll take out the right flank. Alexis, Romeo, and Jimmy, go up left. We’ll meet at the entrance.
So we went. Fifteen Z’s and six skilled killers was child’s play. I was panting and looking around for more after a few minutes with three Z’s at my feet. Romeo, the show-off, had gotten five, but my ego was intact when I realized Jimmy had only landed one. The tough mechanic was scowling at Romeo.
“Hello?” a timid voice called from within the building.
“Ma’am, are you okay? We’ve cleared the area.” Romeo walked up to the door.
“My friend, oh my God, my friend, she’s been hurt.”
“Can you open the door? We’re only here to help, promise,” Romeo said in his most sincere voice. The door opened slowly and big brown eyes peered at us from a very dirty face. She had to be in her early twenties, but her large, scared eyes made her look like a child. It didn’t help that she was severely underweight and was probably just barely five-foot.
Her lip trembled when she took in our group. We were all rather large and layered in military gear and weapons, our arms covered in homemade armor, our faces streaked with blood.
“We have a camp not too far from here. We have medical supplies. One of our men heard you scream, so we came to assist,” Zach stepped forward all macho, save the day, charm in place. I wanted to kick him and then felt guilty for my evil thoughts. There was no winning with me. “My name is Zachary James, ma’am., We’re here to help.”
“She’s hurt, Margaret, bad.” She opened the door wide and motioned for us to come in. The smell was rank. I should be used to the nasty aroma of dead rotting flesh and spoiled food, but it still fucked with me every time. When we ran out of deodorant, I was going to have a hard time coping.
The scared girl led us to a woman huddled in the back of the front room of what used to be some sort of office building. She was cradling her arm and her skin was already that sickly gray that screamed BITE victim. Her eyes looked up and assessed us with calm acceptance. She knew what was going to happen.
“Can you help her?” the girl asked us.
“I’m bit, Lani, no one can help me,” The woman whispered, her voice scratchy and filled with pain.
“You can’t be bit, Margaret, I need you, you can’t do this to me!” She wailed and began to cry, her sobs edging on the hysterical side.
“Shush, Lani, you’re acting like a child. Who’s in charge here?” the bitten woman asked. Zach crouched down next to her.
“What can we do?” He asked.
“Please, can you take care of her? She’s not meant for this world. I tried, but I failed. She’s a good girl, but she needs help. She’ll die on her own.”
The girl in question began to sob louder, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you, Margaret! Don’t make me go!” She went to fling herself at the hurt woman and Romeo went to stop her, but when he put his hands on her she began to whimper and shy away from him.
“We can ask her, but…” Zach shook his head looking at the girl. She was a mess and didn’t look like she wanted to be anywhere near us. The woman grabbed his arm and I rushed to his side, my gun discreetly at my side. Her eyes widened, but then she just nodded. A pleased smile drifted across her face for a split second.
“No, you have to just take her with you. She won’t want to go. We escaped, it was hard on her. The men, they were predators” she breathed in a ragged breath. “We got out before they touched her, she was lucky. I could take it. She would have been broken quickly. She’s so gentle. I couldn’t watch it happen to her. I promised her father I would get her to safety. You have to –you can’t leave her on her own.”
“Where were you? Where are these men, these predators?”
“Lakeview, they’ve taken over the strip mall across from St. Nicodemus, the high school. It started out as a refugee camp, but the soldiers couldn’t maintain control for long. Now–,” she gasped for breath, which came out ragged and sounded wet. There wasn’t much time. “–it’s run by some kind of gang, all men. They do well trading and most of the girls and women are used for sex-trade or high barter items. They kept us locked up until we were needed.”
“We’ll take her,” I spoke up, surprising myself. I couldn’t imagine this kind of existence. How did the world go to shit so fast? This woman had dealt with so much and was about to die and all she could worry about was the girl. The fact that she spent her dying moments pleading for the girl’s life spoke volumes. She had to be good people. When I agreed her eyes closed and she smiled a small resigned smile.
“Can I ask one more thing?” Her eyes met mine, not Zach’s, and I dipped my head once for her to continue.
“Don’t let me turn.” She motioned weakly to the gun at my side.
“No, Margaret, no, no, no.” Lani’s sobs turned to wails of denial when she realized what her friend was asking.
“Get her back to the boat now, Romeo. Marquez and Jimmy fall back with him., We’ll meet you at the boats. Give us five.”
“Sir.” Romeo grabbed the girl by the arm to drag her away. Her screams became a pitiful hiccupping sob as his large size registered. She began whimpering and then just slumped to the floor at his feet in a dead faint.
“Fuck,” he cursed as the thump of the girl’s head made us all wince. Romeo leaned over and grabbed her by the arm and with a move that looked rehearsed threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Without any preamble. he headed out the door, Marquez and Jimmy trailing behind him on point.
Zach and I turned our attention back to the woman while Kirk took look-out at the door.
“Do you want to do it or do you want me?” I asked her. What the fuck did I just offer?
“I’m Catholic. Please make it quick.”
“Make your peace,” I said quietly and I heard the first whispers of a prayer cross her lips.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” Her breathing became ragged and the gurgle of death
replaced her prayer. I raised my M9 and shot her straight between the eyes.
FIVE
Morality Quagmire
The girl didn’t come to until we docked at the compound. She began to scream the moment we tried to lift her out of the boat. Her screaming drew the attention of a few curious people that had been waiting for our return and they jostled to get a better look at our cargo.
“Get Isaiah, tell him to bring his kit,” I screamed to anyone who would listen. I saw Grace break off from the crowd and run toward the barracks. It wasn’t long before Isaiah was running toward the docks, his little black bag in hand. The girl’s screams had cut off, but she had collapsed onto the deck and was whimpering like a beaten dog. I didn’t know if I should pity her or slap her to get her to stop all the hysterics.
“What is wrong with her?” Isaiah asked as he boarded.
“I don’t think anything. She’s just had it pretty rough,” Romeo answered.
“She’s probably in shock,” Isaiah said. “Someone is going to have to carry her in. She might fight.”
“I got her,” Romeo said as he kneeled down and scooped her up. To all of our shock, she didn’t react. She just continued whimpering and actually curled into Romeo’s chest.
The two men disembarked and headed to the barracks leaving us all staring at their backs.
“Well, that was fun.” I grabbed my pack and stormed off the boat. I guess we were now responsible for some fucked up girl. It was my fault too. I had agreed to it. I just couldn’t have said no to the woman, Margaret. How can you tell a dying woman no? Now we have some lightweight lunatic using up our supplies and resources. What could she do for us at the compound? All of us had our role to fill. Even the ones that weren’t strong, or mechanical, helped out. Grace and Julie weren’t trained enough to go on clean-up or supply runs, so they helped with the children and organized supplies, cooked, even fished and pulled up traps with Bubba.
What would we do with a girl who was afraid of her own shadow? I needed to let off some steam, so I headed to the gym in the barracks.
The place was pretty well stocked with anything a girl needed. We had gotten rid of all the electrical equipment and I missed my elliptical workout like mad, but there were weights, a few manual treadmills and stair steppers that ran on manpower alone along with three punching bags and an area covered in mats for sparring. I had begun training with Baby a few weeks after I settled at the compound and she had made sure I was ready for anything.
The place was pretty well stocked with anything a girl needed. We had gotten rid of all the electrical equipment and I missed my elliptical workout like mad, but there were weights, a few manual treadmills and stair steppers that ran on manpower alone along with three punching bags and an area covered in mats for sparring. I had begun training with Baby a few weeks after I settled at the compound and she had made sure I was ready for anything.
I changed into a t-shirt and shorts that I kept in one of the employee lockers and headed for the weights. I wasn’t a huge fitness fanatic before Z, but now I was obsessed with becoming stronger and more efficient. I still wasn’t as good as the grunts. They were all ex-military, all specialized and well-trained, but I was getting there.
“Why’d you stomp off in a huff?” Baby joined me, grabbing a weight twice as heavy as the one I was using.
“I’m just as surprised as you that Zach agreed to go out there.”
“He probably did it because of the last Chalmette supply run. He knew Marquez was going to go in anyway.”
Directly to the south of us was an area called St. Bernard Parish, which was made up of five towns and a handful of smaller communities further down into the marshland. Chalmette was the biggest city and the one directly off of Highway 47, so it was a quick shot for supply runs. Because of the density of people, we didn’t go down there all the time, usually keeping our supply runs to the outskirts. But last time we needed a specific part for one of the boats, so Chalmette it was.
We hadn’t been in the city for five minutes when we heard a shout for help. It sounded female and it was coming from the second story of one of the buildings that lined one of the main drags of the city, Paris Road. We couldn’t pinpoint the location, but Marquez was all hot and bothered to go save this person. He had worse hero tendencies than Zach. And we usually would help, if it didn’t look too precarious. We had a policy of not risking our lives unnecessarily.
Zach didn’t want him to go this time though, since we couldn’t lock down the location. Marquez was antsy the entire time we went through the store, and when we heard another yell, he almost bolted out by himself. The second yell locked down the location for Baby, who was on point at the front of the store. She knew where the scream came from and we decided to put together a little rescue mission.
We were too late. From the looks of things, it had been a survivor group holed up in the top of a restaurant. And from what we could guess, one got bit and the whole group went down. Marquez insisted that if we would have tried to rescue them when we heard the first scream, we would have found a few of them alive. He still brought that up with Zach regularly.
“If Marquez wants to play Superman every time, he’s gonna end up gray and moaning,” Baby scoffed.
“Hopefully, this rescue will get it out of his system.” I was tiring and had accomplished my goal and worked off a bit of my anger. I was done with the workout.
“All these macho boys and their hero complexes, fit to give a girl a headache.”
“You don’t like heroes, Hannah?”
“Oh, I like heroes, girl. I like heroes just fine. They just better back up their hero bullshit with a bit of brains or they’re fixin’ to be dead heroes.”
SIX
Lakeview
After my grueling workout, I went to check on the new girl. My guilt was a palpable bubble around me. Who knows, she could be an engineer or some genius herbalist and could save us all. Isaiah Smith had her on one of the hospital beds in the small clinic he had set up. She was out cold.
“What’s the verdict, doc?” I pushed through the doors with Baby behind me. We both went to the girl’s bedside and looked down at her. She was a scrap of nothing, very petite, too skinny with long, dark, scraggly hair. She was of dark-complexion with dusty brown tones that hinted at Indian heritage. Underneath the grime, you could tell she was pretty, if you like that big-eyed doe look, but it was obvious she was trying to hide her looks. Her hair was a mess and there was dirt caked into every crevice of her face, as if she purposefully rubbed it in.
Isaiah had hooked her up to an IV and I gritted my teeth thinking about what we went through to requisition those supplies.
“She’s malnourished and dehydrated, which was probably what exacerbated the shock. I hooked her up to a saline drip and it’ll bring her around in time. It looks like she hasn’t eaten much in a long time. She’s severely underweight and from what I can tell she’s been abused.”
“Abused? How can you tell?” I asked.
“She has what appear to be cane marks on her back and a lot of bruising.”
“Jesus, the other woman that was with her mentioned they had escaped from the camp in Lakeview. Do you think it’s what we feared, that they are basically selling women and children and abusing them if they aren’t a commodity?” I was feeling a bit ashamed about thinking this woman was useless.
“There is no way to know until she can tell us, which shouldn’t be that long. She seems in good shape aside from the starved and dehydrated aspect.” Isaiah shrugged.
“Have Grace or Julie come talk to her when she wakes up, or maybe just be there for when she wakes up. She seemed a bit skittish around the men, and if she did go through what we were told, it might be easier for her to see a woman first.” I looked at Isaiah and he nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll get one of them over here. Thanks, Alexis.”
“You did all the work, Doc. Get her up and running so we can give our newest S-
Island resident a proper welcoming.” He chuckled as we left him in the infirmary.
Baby and I stopped in the hallway when we got out of earshot of the infirmary.
“So, you think these Lakeview rumors are true?” Baby asked.
“It’s looking like there’s something out there. The woman with her, Margaret, said it was a refugee camp that was overrun by some gang. They use the women like currency, force them into prostitution or trade them off for commodities. The only way we can know for sure is if we send someone out for reconnaissance. And I don’t want to risk anyone, I’m sure Zach will feel the same way.”
“But if they’re doing shit like this, we’re going to have to face them at some point. I know it’s ten miles away, but that is too close for comfort.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “I’m sure they’re hearing rumors about us too. There was that one group that was heading west last week. They probably ran straight into them.”
“Well, no one knows our exact location, so we’ll spot them before they get close.”
“We should probably go a little farther on patrol just in case, look for any living that look suspicious. I’ll run it by Zach and then let Marquez know,” I said.
“I gotta relieve Cole on watch. If I see Zach, I’ll let him know you are looking for him.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
SEVEN
Make the Misere
Zach found me in the supply warehouse. We had put Frank Boudreaux, a man we all called Bubba, in charge of supplies. He was an older man that rolled in with Frank Ito a few months back. He was also pure Cajun and probably our biggest asset. He knew how to fish, catch crabs, crawfish, live off the land, grow crops and had run a general store in bayou country before Z. Ito’s group came in with a truckload of supplies and an ice chest of trout when they sped over our bridge. It was like manna from heaven.
“We low on da salt, vitamins and Justin say he wants grits if you can find ‘em. I wouldn’t mind no grits either, even that instant stuff that come in those brown packets.” I jotted down his request on the supply list that we updated constantly. It looked like the next run would have to be somewhere with a little more variety of items.
Fight (NOLA Zombie Book 2) Page 4