Surviving the Dead (Novel): The Hellbreakers

by James N. Cook

  “Perhaps we should talk inside the wagon, no?” Cortez said. “It is very hot out here in the sun. A little shade will put us all in a better frame of mind, I think.”

  I looked around at the quartet of strangers and wondered just exactly what the hell I was getting into.

  “Sure. Lead the way.”

  *****

  There were little flaps about as wide as a man’s hand cut every foot along the wagon’s canvas cover. A gentle breeze fluttered the fabric, sending lancing streaks of sunlight dappling through the wagon’s interior. The breeze and the shade did nothing to lessen the temperature—it was just as hot inside the wagon as outside—but I was much more comfortable without the merciless Arizona sun pounding down on me.

  I sat on a wooden box someone had labeled ‘FLOUR’. The others sat on boxes marked with labels such as ‘SUGAR’, ‘BAKING POWDER’, and ‘FEED GRAIN’. My rifle was across my lap, safety off, round in the chamber. Upon sitting down, I reminded everyone to keep their hands where I could see them. They complied, not seeming the least bit annoyed by the request. One of my hands was on the grip of the weapon, the other on the handguard. I kept my finger off the trigger, which was about as diplomatic as I was willing to be under the circumstances.

  “So what do you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “Are you out here alone, or are there others close by?” Father Cortez asked. The others stared at me expectantly.

  I debated what to say for a few seconds, then decided I was too hot, tired, and hungry for lies. So I told the truth.

  “I’ve been on my own out here for about six years now.”

  “Six years?” Cortez said, eyes wide.

  I nodded.

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “With no help from anyone?”

  My eyes narrowed. “You got a hearing problem, Padre? I already answered that.”

  He held up a mollifying palm. “I am sorry, Mister Alex. It is just that I have never met someone who has survived for so long on their own. In this new world, you either find help or you die. It is the way of things. How have you survived, if you do not mind me asking?”

  I shrugged. “There’s plenty of food in Phoenix. It’s old, but most of it’s still good. The dry air helps.”

  “There are a great many infected nearby, if I am not mistaken.”

  “You’re not, but they’re spread out over a pretty wide area. If you move fast and stick to the outskirts, you can scavenge whatever you need. A rifle and plenty of ammo helps too.” I patted the AR-15.

  “And that axe you carry. It has seen hard use, I would guess.”

  “You guess correctly.”

  “I know it is impertinent to ask, but could I take a look at it? It looks very unique.”

  I gave him a flat stare. “No. This axe hasn’t been more than an arm’s reach away from me since the day I found it. I’m not about to change that now.”

  The palm came up again. “As I said, it was an impertinent request. My apologies.”

  I nodded. The four strangers looked at one another, and something seemed to pass silently between them. My finger slipped slowly and carefully over the AR’s trigger.

  “Mister Alex,” the priest said, “I must ask you another question. It is obvious you know of a source of water somewhere nearby. You would not have lived this long without it. You see, my militia is running low on water, and if we do not find some soon, we will be in a very bad situation. We will lose animals, and some of our people may die. Could you tell me where to find this water, por favor? I would consider it a great service, and would give you whatever reward we can reasonably spare.”

  “The Gila River is just south of here.”

  “Yes, and it is as dry as the desert around it. What little water remains is not safe to drink.”

  I locked eyes with Cortez. As a fighter, I had learned to read people. The most telling part of anyone’s personality is the eyes. Whoever first said the eyes are a window to the soul was not simply coining a cliché, but stating a universal truth. And in the eyes of Esteban Cortez, I saw nothing but sincerity and more than a little worry. There were tired rings under bloodshot retinas, and the skin of his face was gaunt between cheekbone and jaw. Dust clung to his hair and beard, and his skin had the leathery quality of someone who was in the early stages of severe dehydration. I glanced around at the others and saw they were in no better shape.

  After letting out a long breath, I put my rifle on safe and stood it beside me.

  “If you wanted to kill me,” I said, “you could have done it by now, couldn’t you? I saw how many people have guns out there. I’m guessing there’s at least one person with a scoped hunting rifle or something. Could have put me down on the highway, no problem. Sound about right?”

  The priest nodded solemnly and gave me an appraising look. “You have a very logical mind, Mister Alex. You are correct in your assumptions. But I have no desire to see you come to harm. Nor do any of these other people. We are here to kill ghouls and find salvage. That is all. Our mission is to help people, not to hurt them.”

  Whether I liked it or not, curiosity was sinking its hooks into me. I wanted to know more about these people, and I wanted to know exactly what Father Cortez’s stated mission entailed. There was only one way to find out.

  “I know a place where you can get all the water you want,” I said. “But I hope you have plenty of buckets because there’s only one spigot.”

  Cortez’s face blazed with hope. “Please, Mister Alex. We will take fresh water however we can get it.”

  I let out a sigh. In truth, I had known from the moment he asked what my answer would be. It was only an innate sense of caution that had delayed me this long. Fate, or destiny, or the will of the universe, or God, or whatever force directed things had seen fit to help me stay alive this long. And if that were the case, perhaps coming across Father Cortez and his people was neither accident nor coincidence. Or maybe I was just rationalizing. Either way, I knew what I was going to do.

  “I’ll get on my bike. You’ll have to turn the convoy around, Padre. You passed the place I’m taking you five miles back.”

  “Thank you, Mister Alex. We are grateful for whatever help you can give.”

  “Right. It’s getting late. We should get moving.”

  I got up, uncomfortable with the excited eyes staring at me, and stepped down from the wagon. Before I started pedaling, I asked Alice if I could borrow her hat. She gave it to me wordlessly, but not without a curious narrowing of intelligent green eyes. I grabbed a canteen, poured some water into the bowl of the hat, and shared it with the oxen.

  Animals aren’t as hard to read as people. The beasts were grateful.

  Alice, not so much.

  EIGHT

  Two hours later, I sat in a folding chair outside my cabin, sipped real coffee, and watched a long line of bucket-toting militiamen and militiawomen fill up at the hand pump and wander off to take water back to thirsty livestock and thirstier troops.

  This went on until well after sundown. When it became too dark to see, a crew of six people rode wagons into the camp and set up a large generator and several banks of floodlights. The generator was olive drab in color, and, according to the writing on the box, multi-fuel. One of those fuels turned out to be ethanol, which a militiaman poured into the fuel tank before activating the machine. It was loud and annoying, but the floodlights turned night into day and allowed people to work long into the night.

  I got tired just watching them.

  A brief conversation with one of the militiamen revealed that yes, the alcohol they were using to fill the generator was drinkable. In fact, they had bought it from a whiskey distillery. Although it had not been aged in a scorched, white-oak barrel, it would get the job done. This last was said with a wink and a smile. I asked what he would take in trade for, oh, say, a couple of liters. He filled up a two-quart canteen and held it out to me.

  “No charge. We were in a bad spot bef
ore you showed up. This water is a Godsend.”

  I took the canteen. “Thanks.”

  A smile. “Least we can do.”

  Sometime close to midnight, Father Cortez walked over to me with a tripod camp stool in his hand.

  “Could we talk for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” I said affably, feeling a little buzzed. “Free country, right?”

  “Perhaps a little too free,” Cortez replied as he sat down.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Before we talk, I must ask if you will remember this conversation in the morning, or if maybe we should have this discussion when you are not drinking.”

  I capped the canteen, set it on the ground beside me, and gave the priest my attention.

  “I think I’ve had enough anyway. And yes, if I stop now, I’ll remember this in the morning.”

  A nod. “Good.”

  “Take a drink, Padre?”

  He waved a hand. “Not for me, thank you. I do not drink.”

  I chuckled. “Not sure if I trust a man who doesn’t drink.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up slightly beneath the beard. “There was a time when drinking was all I cared about. It nearly destroyed me. Once I was restored, I swore a vow of sobriety to God. I intend to abide by it.”

  It’s not every day a man reveals to you he is a recovering alcoholic. I suddenly felt like a smart-ass kid being scolded for telling a dirty joke in front of grownups.

  “Sorry, Father. I didn’t know.”

  “How would you? There is nothing to forgive. Besides, you may well have saved not only my life, but all of our lives today. I thank Christ in Heaven that our paths have crossed.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so as usual, I said nothing. We sat quietly for a few moments, watching the last of the workers fill water barrels and cart them away.

  “So where are you folks headed?” I asked finally.

  “Phoenix,” Father Cortez said.

  I turned my head slowly, feeling my eyebrows go up. “No disrespect, Padre, but are you out of your mind? That place is a meat grinder. There are thousands of infected in that place. Hundreds of thousands. You won’t make it six blocks.”

  The small smile returned. “In the morning, you will see. For the moment, I just wanted to thank you again for leading us to this water, and to assure you we mean you no harm. I can see you are tired. I am as well. We will speak again soon.”

  With that, he picked up his stool and walked toward where the wagons had circled a few hundred yards away and a small tent city had sprung up. The light of cooking fires looked achingly inviting, nestled as they were in the vastness of the big, black desert. Part of me wanted to go out there, introduce myself to people, and see if I could make a few friends.

  The rest of me, however, was hovering on the edge of exhaustion. I took another pull from the canteen of clear liquor, waited until the burn receded, and went to bed.

  NINE

  The next morning, I awoke to a knock at my door.

  I sat up and groaned at the pounding in my head. This was the part of drinking I had forgotten about. I searched my memory and found nothing missing from the events of the previous evening, which told me I had not gotten too wasted.

  After stumbling out of bed, I wandered over to the makeshift sink and grabbed a bottle of acetaminophen, chewed up three pills, and washed them down with a few swallows of water. The pills tasted like detergent and misery, but I knew from hard experience that chewing them up made them work faster.

  The pounding at the door came again, matching the pace of the agonizing drumbeats encircling my skull.

  “Hang on a fucking minute!” I shouted, and immediately regretted it.

  I tugged on a shirt and a pair of mesh shorts, pushed my hair out of my face, tied it at the back of my neck, and answered the door.

  “What?” I asked, eyes closed against the bright desert sunlight.

  “Commander wants to speak with you,” a deep, gruff voice replied.

  I cracked one eye open and found myself peering at a wide, heavily muscled chest. At my height, that made the man in front of me quite the monster.

  Looking up, I saw I was speaking to one of the men I had spotted at the front of the convoy yesterday. He was at least six-foot-nine and probably weighed something close to three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. A thick reddish-brown beard dominated his face, giving him a distinctly Scandinavian look. Pale blue eyes regarded me from under a tan boonie hat.

  “Well, tell him to come here, then.”

  A shake of the head. “Don’t work that way. Let’s go.” He turned and started walking away.

  “Get fucked.”

  I closed the door and locked it, grabbed my axe, and sat down on the bed. As expected, the knock came again. Louder this time.

  “The commander wants to see you. Open the door or I knock it down.”

  I thought about the dark-eyed, gentle-spoken man I had met the day before and wondered what he would think the way his underling was treating me.

  All right, asshole. You want me to open the door? You got it.

  I turned the axe around so the blade was facing me and the hammer end was facing outward. My left hand turned the dead bolt with a snick of metal, and I took a balanced fighting stance.

  “It’s unlocked.”

  The door opened. The very moment the blue-eyed giant’s head appeared, I swung the axe from twelve o’clock to six and smashed him in the forehead. The blow was hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to do any real damage.

  The big man stumbled back a few steps, eyes unfocused, blood leaking from a cut above the bridge of his nose. The blow had knocked off his hat, revealing a round head with close cropped hair the same reddish color as his beard.

  Before his eyes could focus again, I reversed the axe and rammed the butt end into his solar plexus. The air went out of him with a pained gurgle. As he bent over I pushed down on his head and dropped a heavy elbow on the back of his neck. He stumbled a few steps to his right, tripped over his own feet, and went down.

  I stood over him and pointed the axe at his face. “Let’s get something straight, shit-for-brains. I don’t answer to you or your commander. You ever beat on my door like that again and it won’t be the back of my axe I hit you with. We clear?

  A thumping of hooves sounded to my right. I kept my eyes on the downed giant, backed away a few steps, and waited for the approaching rider.

  “What is going on here?” Father Cortez demanded, eyes blazing with a combination of surprise and anger.

  I gestured with my axe. “I don’t like people beating on my door like they’re the fucking cops. Your boy here has an attitude problem.”

  Father Cortez looked angrily at the man on the ground. “John, what did you do?”

  John, as Cortez called him, was just regaining his senses. “What?” he asked feebly, staring at the priest without comprehension.

  “I told you to ask this man, politely, if he would come and speak with me.” The dark gaze swiveled in my direction. “I am guessing he was less than polite, Mister Alex.”

  “You could say that.”

  Cortez rode the horse to one of the cabins across from mine, tied the reins to the porch rail, walked back over, and squatted down next to John the Giant.

  “Here,” the priest said, producing a canteen. “Close your eyes.”

  He dumped water over John’s head. The man blinked, sputtered, and finally regained his focus.

  “What happened here?” Cortez asked.

  John pointed at me. “That son of a bitch attacked me.”

  “And why did he do that, do you think? He does not strike me as a man who does violence without provocation. Did you do anything to provoke him, John? Tell me the truth.”

  “The truth is,” I said before John could respond, “he damn near beat my door off its hinges. Told me to follow him like I’m a fucking dog or something.”

  Cortez stared fire at Big John. He
withstood the gaze for all of about three seconds before lowering his eyes.

  “I knocked pretty loud. And I didn’t ask too nice, either.”

  “Then let this be a lesson to you, Lieutenant. Courtesy is far more effective than contentiousness.”

  Father Cortez helped the much bigger man to his feet. By the way he was supporting John’s weight, I surmised the little priest must be a lot stronger than he looked.

  “I apologize for this man’s belligerence, Mister Alex.”

  “I’m not one to hold a grudge, but you should keep this guy on a shorter leash. Might get himself hurt. Know what I mean?”

  Cortez walked John over to his horse and asked, “Can you ride?”

  “I think so.”

  “Go and see Doctor O’Rourke. And if you should meet Mister Alex again, I expect you to offer your sincerest apology.”

  The big man glanced at me, then suddenly found the horn of his saddle a fascinating sight. “Yes sir.”

  With that, he hauled the horse around and rode away at a trot. He looked a bit unsteady.

  Now that the adrenaline had worn off and my irritation had receded, I began to feel the first nauseated tingling of remorse.

  “Sorry about that, Padre,” I said, lowering my axe. “He just caught me at a bad time.”

  Cortez gave a faint smile. “A man has a right to defend his life and his honor. You were not in the wrong in this situation. Again, I apologize for the actions of my lieutenant. He is a good man, but he is also fiercely loyal. And I think, perhaps, he has grown too accustomed to being obeyed.”

  “Well, in my case, he better get unaccustomed to it.”

  A small laugh. “I sent John here because I wanted you to see something. I did so without thinking, and that was a mistake on my part. When I realized this, I decided to come here myself.”

  “Good thing you did. Situation could have gone south in a hurry.”