by J. W. Vohs
“Stubbornness, I guess,” Charlotte explained. “You didn’t back me up when I was trying to send a message to Uncle Larry and his family about not accepting Curtis because he was black. You should have cut them off, like I did, but you just tried to get along with everybody and not take sides. How could you not take sides?” She paused for a breath, and the fire in her eyes faded to blank indifference. “But we just agreed to forget about that.”
Carter looked miserable. “I ain’t ever been good at apologizin’, but before ya go fergetin’ ‘bout how I disappointed ya, let me say I’m truly sorry. I never put myself in yer shoes, and I was a lazy brother. You didn’t seem to need me, goin’ off to college on a scholarship and marryin’ a football star. I shoulda listened to ya.”
“And I should have believed your unlikely story about a zombie virus,” Charlotte replied. “We got busy with our lives, big brother, and we drifted apart. I held a grudge, and you were a clueless macho man.” A small smile slowly crept over her face, “I guess you needed to overcompensate since your little sister could always kick your ass.”
Carter protested, “Once I hit puberty I could hold my own.”
“Maybe, but you were a late bloomer. I think you were driving before your voice changed.”
David couldn’t help but laugh out loud, which drew a narrow-eyed glare from Carter. “I’m David Smith,” he said, offering Charlotte his hand, “and I have no idea how your saintly mother didn’t lose her mind raising you two.”
Charlotte actually squealed, “Momma, oh my lord, how is she? Where is she? Is she alright?”
“She’s fine,” Carter reassured his sister, “and she’ll be even better when she sees ya’ll.” He motioned to T.C. and Lucy. “Next time we radio Fort Wayne, all of ya’ll should talk to her.”
Captain Harden held up his hand indicating that he was about to call the meeting to order. Charlotte took a seat in the front and pulled Lucy into her lap, while T.C. reclaimed his old spot next to Harden’s side.
Carter and David took turns explaining everything that had transpired, even going back to what had happened in Afghanistan a decade earlier when the virus first appeared. The story took hours to share, and by the time they were finished the leaders of the Vicksburg settlement looked at the northern fighters in a much different light. Everything they heard matched up with what they had experienced and learned from groups of refugees traveling downriver. A few people had been holding onto hope that some vestiges of government and authority remained, but nobody was surprised to learn that they were on their own.
Finally, Captain Harden asked the most important question, “How can we help you fellas?”
“Jack plans to lead Barnes west,” Carter carefully explained, “find a place along the river to make a stand.”
Harden nodded as he growled, “And he’s thinkin’ about leadin’ the bastard to Vicksburg . . . ”
Carter shrugged, “We didn’t know anybody was here till we met the folks up in Cairo. We could try to divert Barnes from here, but the bridges along the Ohio are all wrecked so he needs a crossing spot on the Mississippi for his army.”
“Memphis?” Harden suggested.
“Maybe, but we heard Memphis is a wreck. If Barnes can’t get his monsters through the city to the bridge, he ain’t gonna go that way.”
“So lead the son-of-a-bitch north of Memphis!”
Carter kept his voice neutral and calm. Then he lied. “I’ll definitely tell him that y’all are here, and he needs to figure out another plan. I’m just tryin’ to explain what brought us downriver. Ya think I’d endanger my own family?”
Harden leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I know Kentucky and Tennessee like the back of my hand. Your boy goes messin’ around with Barnes, and geography and weather are gonna drive him south. If this Jack character starts blowin’ bridges along the Cumberland and Tennessee, he’s gonna force that army of infected this way, especially if Memphis is unusable.”
“Well, I don’t know the lay of the land as well as you do, sir, but I do plan to get back and find Jack as soon as possible.”
David had kept quiet as the tense exchange between the two soldiers unfolded, but now he felt like he had to make a point. “Captain, you do know that Barnes will come for this bridge eventually, right?”
Harden just shrugged.
“Sir, his arrival is only a question of when, not if. He’s determined to conquer the whole country, especially the food producing regions. He’ll need to control the Mississippi, just like our ancestors did.”
The captain frowned, “These walls will make him think twice about attackin’ us.”
“I imagine so,” David agreed, “but if he stations thousands of hunters at either side of the bridge he’ll eventually starve you out.”
Everyone in the room knew that David was right, but they’d all suffered so much in the previous months that they just couldn’t wrap their minds around the possibility of losing their new home like they’d lost the last.
Captain Harden stared at the floor in a gesture that suggested he’d known this bitter truth all along. “My grandpa rolled with Patton; used to tell me how the mean, ol’ bastard thought fixed defenses could always be defeated with enough time and pressure.”
Carter nodded, “Jack says the same thing, and he’s a history professor.”
Harden looked up, “I thought he was in the Rangers with you?”
“He was—saved my life too, but he got out after his first hitch and went to school. Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s one smart, tough, son-of-a-bitch.” Carter looked over at Charlotte. “Maybe he could even give my sister a run fer her money.”
The so-called leadership council may have held sway at some distant point in the past, but it was obvious from how quiet they were that Harden was the real power in Vicksburg. He stared at his friends and neighbors for a long moment, every one of whom he felt acutely responsible for. He then sighed as he turned back to Carter, “You get Jack down here and we’ll listen to what he has to say. You guys have obviously learned a thing or two about fightin’ this war.”
Carter held out his hand to the weary, worried soldier, “Fair enough, sir. Now, I’ve been doin’ a lot of talkin’ an’ it’s dryin’ me out. Any chance ya got any cold beers ‘round here?”
CHAPTER 15
As the last of the hunters tromped away from the river in a south-westerly direction, Jack was forced to cross off one hope from his list: the creatures weren’t following the winding Ohio. He had hoped that either through pilot error or hunter instinct the horde would keep the river on their right flank as they continued to search for a bridge to the west. Now he was fairly certain that the host was moving back to Highway 60 as quickly as possible, where they would be able to make much faster progress and nearly halve their marching time in their move toward Hawesville or points further west. Jack believed his troops still had time to accomplish his next goal, which was to reach a bridge over Clover Creek before Barnes did, but there was definitely no time to waste. The wounded were loaded onto several Hummers along with drivers and guards, and promptly sent on their way back to Fort Wayne. Then everyone was ordered into the motorboats he’d placed along the Indiana shore days earlier.
As the watercraft sped along with the current, Jack finally had time to think hard about what had just happened in Brandenburg. He had hoped to bleed the hunter army at the bridge, and bleed they had, but he’d expected the battle to last for many hours, if not a day or two. Still, the span had been rendered useless to Barnes and at least ten thousand highly evolved hunters were now floating dead in the cold water of the Ohio. He honestly didn’t know if the fight on the bridge was a victory or defeat, but he did know that his small force needed to hurry. Three days ago, he’d asked Chad to plant a small convoy of SUVs in the small town of Cloverport, where Highway 60 was forced to bridge a fairly wide body of water the maps identified as Clover Creek. The so-called creek petered out just a few miles south of town
, so destroying the bridge, as well as a second span through Cloverport, wouldn’t slow the horde down for long. But Jack hoped to use the place to get Barnes’ attention and let him know who was causing him so much trouble here in Kentucky. Once the general took the bait, Jack planned to lead him on a merry goose chase toward the Mississippi.
He realized that many factors in the war were now out of his direct control; the most important one being the vital need for Carter to find a place to gather troops and set up a defense. Of course, Carter’s success would depend upon the conditions and attitudes of the survivors they all hoped would be found in large numbers along the Mississippi. The river-people would need to accept the wisdom of joining together and fighting Barnes sooner rather than later. Jack fully expected to meet resistance among the survivors. They had made it this far on their own, and not too many imaginations could begin to picture the reality of the number of flesh-eaters eventually headed their way. Hopefully the leaders of the scattered communities would be people of vision and courage, for both would be needed in the struggle to come.
Jack’s thoughts were interrupted by a question from Luke, who along with Zach, Maddy, and new-arrival Jared, had clambered into the same boat their beloved leader had chosen.
“What the hell happened back there? I’ve been fighting these bastards for five months and never saw them behave the way they did this morning.”
“Wish I had an answer for you, kid, but I was just as surprised as you were by how the fight went down.”
“Hell, Jack, that wasn’t even an organized retreat, let alone a fight. We were really lucky we didn’t lose everyone on that first wall.”
“I know, believe me I know. All I can do is speculate, and my guess is that Barnes can get these hunters to do just about anything he wants after having them under his control for so long.”
Luke frowned, “I can understand how the choppers couldn’t get the army to stop pushing for a while after we blew the bridge, but all those hunters smashing themselves into the walls so the others could climb over them . . .”
Maddy decided to jump into the conversation. “Well, we’ve all been so surprised as the months have gone by and they’ve continued to evolve, but maybe we’ve missed something important about their group mentality.”
“Are you suggesting that the hunters in the front of the army knowingly sacrificed themselves so those behind could eat?” Luke sounded skeptical.
“No, dummy,” Maddy shot back, “I’m just saying that we better not assume we know what the hunters in this army Barnes is using are going to do in any particular situation.”
“She’s onto something there,” Jack interrupted the sparring teens. “We’ve fought some vicious packs that kept coming until we killed them all, and we’ve encountered others where survivors retreated once their leaders were dead. The hunters in the armies rounded up and sent our way during the summer were large, but in the end they turned out to be just a bunch of hungry infected trying to reach their prey. These creatures hadn’t even seen us, but they still attacked those walls with no consideration for their own well-being or need.”
Luke pointed at Jack as he nearly shouted, “That’s it! I knew something was bothering me beyond the obvious; those hunters didn’t see us before they charged!”
Maddy smirked, “That’s what I was trying to point out before Jack interrupted me.”
Jack made a slight bow in Maddy’s direction. “Well, you’re right about these hunters being different from any we’ve faced before.” He hesitated and quickly made eye contact with each of the teens, “So next time you face these bastards, try not to get killed.”
The tiny flotilla reached Cloverport faster than Jack thought it would, a small mercy that he silently thanked God for since he felt out of place when surrounded by teenagers. These teens seemed to always end up at his side, and they’d proven themselves to be smart and dependable fighters, but when it came to socializing Jack wasn’t sure what to make of them. He couldn’t tell if Zach and Maddy were a couple or just friends, and he really didn’t care as long as there was no drama to interfere with their judgment. In the presence of these young soldiers, Jack felt the weight of responsibility; he became the mentor he felt he should be, and, for the first time in his life, Jack felt old.
Chad was already on the shore as Jack’s boat approached, calmly sipping a pilfered can of Coke as his troops kept watch on the nearby buildings. “Looks like we beat your old buddy here, and the vehicles are right where we stashed them.”
Jack grunted his understanding before asking with a tone of irritation he regretted even as the words left his mouth, “Are the bridges still wired up?”
Chad’s brows furrowed as he tried to figure out what was going on. He guardedly explained, “We need to drive over there to check on that, thought you might want me to wait for you.”
Jack released a heavy sigh as he shook his head, “Sorry—it seems I get crankier the older I get. ”
“Hey,” Chad snickered, “I know what you mean. Little things are starting to annoy me. One of the guys in my boat keeps picking his nose, and I’m planning on pushing him overboard.”
“Whatever,” Jack laughed, “take me to your bridge.”
The ride took only a few minutes, and Chad’s soldiers needed less time than that to determine that the explosives were still ready to blow. Basically, in spite of everything that had happened since sunrise, Jack’s plan was still intact. The vehicles were pulled away from the Highway 60 bridge, all of them facing west and ready to get out of Dodge in a hurry if the need arose. The sun was slowly sinking on the horizon an hour later when the waiting soldiers heard a helicopter approaching from the east. Jack was waiting under the bridge with the six prisoners they’d captured that morning, where he had to threaten to shoot them if they didn’t climb up on the span to wave at the Blackhawk. He had no intention of hurting the frightened men, but they had no way of knowing that. The captives were scared that hunters would reach them before the chopper did, but the real possibility of Jack’s bullets sent them scrambling.
The men waved makeshift flags at the pilots but remained utterly silent as the craft slowly circled the bridge. After a tense minute or so, the helicopter slowly settled on the surface of the road just across the creek, at which point the unarmed soldiers ran to their rescuers as fast as they could. Jack waited until the Blackhawk was well away before trotting back to where his force was waiting.
“They take the radio with ‘em?” Chad asked as he gave a thumb’s up to one of his squad leaders who immediately pulled a detonator out of his pocket.
“Yep, if all goes well I’ll have Barnes on the CB at nine-o-clock.”
Just then the air above was filled with the ground-shaking roar of the bridges being blown. Jack waited until the dust settled before declaring, “That gives us three hours to put some serious distance between this million-footed monster and our tired butts.”
The highway leading to Owensboro was relatively open until they came closer to the city, but even when there were significant blockages, the off-road capabilities of the vehicles Chad’s troops had liberated from a lot near Toledo over a month earlier were able to quickly skirt the wrecks and keep on moving west. Just after eight-o-clock, the convoy pulled off the highway and began setting up an armed camp quickly and efficiently. They had seen at least a dozen packs of hunters on the road before the last of the daylight faded away, and despite their efforts to be as quiet as possible while preparing for the night, more of the monsters showed up to see what was going on. Jack had to resist the urge to join in the fighting he heard taking place at a number of locations around the site, trusting that Luke and the fighters assigned to him for the night’s guard were able to handle the infected.
Jack needn’t have worried. After being so easily brushed off their carefully designed defenses at the bridge that morning, the soldiers were itching to kill hunters. With NVGs, Kevlar-reinforced leathers, and first-class helmets, the fighters on the perimete
r was confident they could handle anything but a mass attack that they doubted was possible in the absence of helicopters. They were correct in their assumption that the camp couldn’t be overrun by any of the packs prowling the area, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some hard fighting before the site was fully secured. At the center of the camp the vehicles had been pulled into a loose circle they called a laager, with concertina wire filling the gaps. The troops were trained in preparing and defending such a formation, but with the knowledge that somewhere to the east a massive body of infected was heading in their direction, the soldiers knew they needed to extend their perimeter and keep the laager available as an option of last resort.
Luke kept moving from post to post as the scattered fighting continued, checking on all of the soldiers assigned to his detail to determine if anyone needed his help. At one point Zach was facing a pack of about a dozen hunters that threatened to overwhelm his position in spite of the deadly, silent pistol-fire supporting him from both flanks. The burly teen still had plenty of energy after taking a nap during the ride in the Hummer to which he’d been assigned. His sledge-hammer seemed to be whistling slightly as it swung in vicious arcs through the night air, crushing skulls and scattering brain-matter with nearly every stroke. Luke took out three of the monsters with his bow at ten meters, while Zach finished the last of the flesh-eaters with a satisfying crunch as the heavy head of his weapon nearly decapitated a big female. Without a word between them, Luke retrieved his arrows while Zach used a rag to clean gore from his visor and gloves. They nodded at one another in silent compliment as they passed in the darkness.
While the fighting on the perimeter slowly died down, Jack sat in a Land Rover with his radio and waited for the call from Barnes. At nine-o-clock on the button, a voice came over the speaker, “Jack Smith, are you out there?”
Jack didn’t recognize the voice. “This is Jack, but you don’t sound like General Barnes.”