“It’s unlocked. Come in slowly with your hands where I can see them.”
The door opened and a woman entered. She held her hands in the air, looked for me in the darkness, and caught my outline in the shadow of the pantry shelves.
“Paranoid much?”
“Kept me alive this long. What do you want?”
“Trade talk.”
I lowered the shotgun’s barrel. “Who else is with you?”
“No one. I came alone.”
“Turn around. Keep your hands up.”
She did. I stood up, shotgun raised. “Out the door. Keep moving until I say stop.”
The woman walked outside. I kept longer than an arm’s length between us and followed. When I stepped outside, I let her keep walking and swept the area with my weapon. There was no one in sight.
“Stop right there.”
She stopped.
“You wanted to talk. So talk.”
“Can I put my hands down and look at you?”
“Pull your shirt up so I can see your waistband.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Are you serious?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
She raised her shirt, revealing a narrow waist with an interesting flare of hips. There were two little dimples at the small of her back I had a hard time not staring at.
Stop it. Stay focused.
“Turn around. Keep your shirt up.”
The woman complied. I saw no obvious weapons. She was wearing a long-sleeved brown t-shirt, cargo shorts that were probably from the boys’ department of some long-dead retail store, and a pair of hiking boots.
“Pull your waistband out and move your thumbs through it front to back. I better not see anything other than air in your hands.”
Even in the dim light of the early post-sunset hours, I could see irritation cloud her face. Nevertheless, she did as I asked and put her hands back up. No hidden weapons fell loose.
“You happy, Paranoid Pete? Can I put my hands down now?”
I lowered the shotgun. “Sorry. Can’t be too careful these days.”
Her hands fell to her sides and she gave me an appraising stare. I wondered what she must be seeing. I was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only a pair of black mesh basketball shorts. My hair had grown down past my shoulders and was tied back with a piece of leather. I had a beard that would have made a Viking proud. The Outbreak, and ensuing harsh living conditions, had cost me ten percent of my body weight. Nevertheless, I had worked hard over the years to stay in shape. Early on, I had concluded keeping fit was critical to survival out here. I figured I looked okay from the neck down. The neck up, however, was not much to write home about.
“Can you stop pointing that damn gun at me now?”
“Sorry.” I engaged the safety and let the weapon hang from one hand.
“Should we talk out here,” she said, “or would you like to go inside?”
“Out here is fine. More light to see by. Hang on, I’ll get you a chair.”
I went back inside, grabbed a folding metal chair from a hook on the wall, and set it down across from the log I used as a stool. We both took seats. I laid the Mossberg over my lap.
“So what do you want?” I asked.
“Are you always this welcoming?”
I let out a long breath. “Look, I’ve been out here by myself for a long time. Imagine how I must have felt when a small army showed up out of nowhere and parked in my back yard. I’ve already had a bad encounter with one of your people.”
“Yeah, John Terrence. I heard about that.” She smiled as she said it. I finally noticed her face. The hair was cut short like a man’s, but on her it looked appealing. She had light brown eyes, high cheekbones, and a dimpled smile. I figured her at about five foot eight and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds.
“What did you hear, exactly?”
“That he tried to bully you like he does everyone else, and you knocked him on his ass. Took seven stitches to patch him up.”
I nodded, eyes on the ground in front of Caroline’s feet.
“What happened? What did you do to him?”
“I hit him with an axe.”
Her head tilted back and she laughed long and hard. It was a good laugh, musical and vibrant, a light, tenor voice lending humor and sincerity. After a while, she looked down and wiped tears from her eyes.
“God, I wish I could have been there to see that. Don’t get me wrong, John’s not a bad guy, but he’s belligerent as hell sometimes. Me and everybody in the command structure have been telling him to tone it down, you know? Sooner or later he was going to pick a fight with the wrong guy. Looks like it finally happened.”
I felt my face redden. “I’d really like to talk to him before he leaves.”
“Why?”
“To apologize. I should have handled things better than that.”
The attractive head tilted, and she seemed to be rethinking her initial assessment. “You gave him a lesson in humility. Just because he’s big doesn’t mean he gets to go around trampling people. I think he understands that now.”
I shifted my eyes to the mountains in the distance and the purple and black of the western sky. It was always beautiful over there at this part of the evening, my favorite time of day.
“What did you say your name was?” I asked.
“Caroline Fleming. Yours?”
“Alex.”
“Got a last name Alex?”
A few seconds passed. “Alex isn’t good enough?”
“Your name is Alexander Muir.”
I went still. “Recognized me, did you?”
“Not at first. The hair and the beard threw me. But then you turned your face and I saw that scar on your forehead. Got that in your third fight, if I remember.”
“Third fight in the Show. Fourteenth overall.”
“How many stitches was it?”
I winced at the memory. “Twenty two.”
She whistled. “Jesus. That was a beast of an elbow.”
“Worst one I ever took. Wasn’t until I saw myself on the Jumbotron I realized how bad it was.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw your skull. Looked like you got mauled by a grizzly.”
“Felt that way too.”
Another laugh, softer this time.
“But you won. Blood in your eyes and everything. Choked him out before the ref could stop the fight.”
“I wasn’t feeling much pain at the time. Felt it plenty when the adrenalin wore off, though.”
“That’s why you were so popular back then, why you had so many fans. Classic blue-collar guy, brash, loud, tough as nails, not an ounce of quit in you. The other fighters didn’t like you very much, but they sure as hell respected you.”
I looked at my toes. I did not feel like that guy anymore. Someone else had lived that life. I just carried the memories. The money, the women, the fame, the recognition, taking pictures, signing autographs, posting on social media, fight week, training, sparring, cutting weight, the whole sorry mess. That was a different person. Someone I didn’t know anymore. The man I was now measured his life in hours and thought little beyond making it through to the dawn of another morning.
“You came here to talk trade,” I said, looking up. “I’m guessing somebody peeked in the windows around here.”
She accepted the change of subject with a nod. “Pretty much.”
I went into my cabin, emerged with a keychain on a small green carabiner and a Coleman lantern, and nodded toward the far end of the row. “Come on. See for yourself.”
Caroline held the lantern while I found the right key and unlocked the door. When it was open, she stood inside the entrance, lantern raised, and let out a low whistle.
“How many M-4s in that stack, you figure?” she asked.
“Fifty two. I counted them twice.”
She pointed a finger. “And how many boxes of ammo?”
“Which kind?”
She turned the dark eyes o
n me. I found myself gazing into them with more than a little interest. “How many other cabins do you use for storage?”
“All of them, except the one I’m sleeping in.”
Caroline turned toward the narrow path and did a quick count. “There’s twelve cabins here.”
“Yep.”
“And they’re all as full as this one?”
I nodded.
“Jesus, Muir. You’re sitting on a fortune.”
“I know. And call me Alex.”
She gave me the smile again. I was not sorry to see it. “Only if you call me Cary.”
“Deal.”
THIRTEEN
I let Cary borrow my bike to ride back to the convoy and retrieve a notebook and clipboard. When she came back, we spent a couple of hours taking inventory. Her eyes grew wider and her attitude became increasingly excited the more cabins we went through.
“So is this the whole thing, or is there more back where you found it?”
“This is everything I could bring back. There was other stuff, mounted grenade launchers and shit like that. Left them behind.”
“Why?”
A shrug. “Too heavy. Didn’t have the tools to take them down, and wouldn’t have known what to do with them if I did.”
“So they’re still out there?”
“Last time I looked, yeah.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Couple years. Nobody except you guys have come out this way since then, far as I know.”
“What kind of shape do you think they’re in?”
“It doesn’t rain much out here. You could probably get them working again. Got any ex-military types with you?”
“We have some people.”
“Well, no one has claimed that stuff, so I guess it’s all yours.”
“I’ll look into it. Now about the gear in the cabins…”
“Yeah?”
She paused to think, white teeth chewing on a full bottom lip. “You know what, let me talk to Esteban about it. I’m not sure what we can offer in trade.”
“Okay. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes. I’ll be with Esteban.”
“The two of you on a first name basis?”
The smile came again. I was growing fond of it, and quickly. “Only when the troops aren’t around. Otherwise, he’s Commander Cortez.”
“Why do you call him that?”
“What?”
“Commander. The only branch of the service where commander is a rank is the Navy. You guys don’t look like Navy.”
“Volunteer militias have a different rank structure. Grunts go by the rank of private. We’re divided into two companies, four platoons each. Platoons are divided into squads. The number of troops in a squad depends on what they do. Each squad has a sergeant, each platoon has a lieutenant, each company has a captain. Captains report directly to the commanding officer. Or commander, for short.”
“Oh. Sounds pretty simple.”
“That’s kind of the point. There are also auxiliary officers, like me. I hold the rank of lieutenant, but I’m mostly in charge of keeping track of our supplies.”
“So you don’t do any of the fighting?”
“I never said that. In fact, that’s one of the few hard rules in the militia. Everyone fights, even Esteban. Here, look at this.”
Cary reached into a pocket and pulled out a uniform patch. It was round, had a desert tan background, and was about three and a half inches in diameter. It depicted a black skull that looked like Frank Castle’s memento mori from The Punisher comic books sewn into it. There was an M-4 and an axe beneath it like crossbones, a pair of angelic wings behind the skull, and a single word embroidered in black:
HELLBREAKERS
“Who are the Hellbreakers?”
Cary reached for the patch. “That would be us.”
I put the little piece of embroidery in her hand. “Kind of dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Ask Esteban about it sometime. He’ll tell you what it means.”
“I’ll do that.”
Cary pocketed the patch and gave me a jaunty salute. “See you tomorrow, tough guy.”
“See you.”
I watched her walk away into the night, notebook and clipboard tucked under one arm, and felt a longing inside me rise from a place I thought had died years ago.
It was nice to feel alive again, if only for a moment.
*****
“I’m afraid we don’t have much to offer you.”
I looked at Father Cortez and said nothing.
“You see,” he went on, “the food we have is barely enough to keep my people fed. We need all of our weapons, and you clearly have no need for ammunition, not that we can spare any.”
My mind turned the news over, sorting through the possibilities.
“You’re gonna be clearing Phoenix, right?” I said. “I mean, that’s the end game. Exterminate the infected and raid the place for salvage.”
“You are correct. However, most of the salvage raiding will be done by federal forces. We only take what we need to survive. The rest we leave behind.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, federal forces? Is the Army coming here after you leave?”
Father Cortez lowered his gaze. “That is something else I need to tell you about. I did not mention it before because I felt you were agitated, and bad news would have only made things worse. An angry man with a gun can be very dangerous, and I do not know you very well. I apologize, Mister Alex, but I felt it best to wait to tell you this thing.”
I closed my eyes, let my head drop, and rubbed a spot between my eyes. “I guess that’s understandable.”
The priest interlaced his fingers between his knees. There were smile lines around his eyes that made his unhappy expression incongruous with the honest, sun-darkened face.
“You see, once we have made the city safe, the federal government will send salvage teams to take away anything of use. They will be mostly civilian workers, but they will have an Army escort. This I must tell you, Mister Alex—when they go back to Colorado, you should go with them. They will give you asylum and help you find a place to live. When they are finished with this city there will be nothing left for you.”
I felt my teeth begin to grind. My hands closed and my knuckles went white.
Six years. Nearly six years I had lived here, alone and at peace. The infected rarely bothered me. I had all the water I could drink, adequate wild game, and a plentitude of non-perishable food to salvage in Phoenix. I’d done countless hit-and-run raids into the city, and aside from the occasional tooth marks in my firefighting suit, I’d never run into any kind of danger I could not escape. Not to mention the fact I had ample weapons and ammo and no one to bother me for hundreds of miles. Taking it all together, life out here was not too bad, as long I as I did not mind being alone. I had never craved the company of others even before the Outbreak. Life in the desert had done nothing to change that. And now, out of nowhere, this man I had never met until two days ago was telling me it was all about to end. My self-imposed, peaceful exile was over.
I tried to say something. My mouth opened and shut several times. Finally I stood up, turned my back on Cary and the priest, and walked away.
By the time my feet decided to halt their angry trudging, there were over two hundred yards of desert between me and my cabin. I took a deep breath and slowly relaxed my balled fists. Something wet trickled down my fingers and fell to the thirsty Arizona hardpan. When I looked down, I saw my fingernails had dug bleeding half-moons into the skin of my palms. The desert drank the blood quickly, only small dark spots bearing witness to the offering.
This can’t be happening.
But it was. And there was nothing I could do about it.
FOURTEEN
Cary and Father Cortez were still there when I returned nearly an hour later. It was well into mid-morning. The sun glared its fiery hatred from an empty blue sky. I washed my hands in the cabin, cleaned
out the wounds, and wrapped my hands with thin gauze strips secured with athletic tape. That done, I put on a white t-shirt and my Foreign Legion hat and sat back down on the log outside. The two militia officers looked at me expectantly, eyes drifting to the bandages on my hands.
“So you don’t have anything to offer in trade?”
Cortez shook his head. “I am afraid not, Mister Alex.”
I nodded slowly. “How long after you leave until the Army gets here, you think?”
The priest turned up his hands. “Hard to say. Maybe a few weeks. Perhaps less. They will want to clear the city before winter.”
I pondered this. There was no way, absolutely no way, I could survive here without the bounty provided by the City of Phoenix. I knew nothing about wild edibles and even less about farming. And being the son of a policeman, I knew all too well the pointlessness of trying to make a government entity, federal or otherwise, change its mind. Phoenix would be cleared, and everything not bolted down—and probably a lot of things that were—would be taken away. No more canned food, no more bags of rice and beans, no more scurvy-preventing preserved fruits. Nothing but me, a water pump, and wild game. A man cannot survive on meat alone.
“I have a question.”
Cortez gave a single nod. Cary stared at me intently.
“You said the Hellbreakers are a volunteer militia. Does that mean they don’t get paid?”
“They are not given a salary as soldiers are, no,” said Cortez.
“So they’re not compensated for what they do?”
“Well,” Cary broke in, “they are, but not by the government.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, when we clear a place, we get first crack at salvage. I keep up with who finds what and make sure they get credit for it. Most salvage is used by the militia to stay operational, but when we eventually get back to the Springs, everyone who sticks it out will be entitled to federal credits equivalent to what they contributed.”
“And the ones who don’t make it back?”
“Everyone fills out a will before they join up, unless they don’t have anyone to will their possessions to. In that case, their share of the credits will be divided evenly among the militia’s survivors.”
Surviving the Dead (Novel): The Hellbreakers Page 7