“Odds are you’re right, but it don’t amount to what you think it does,” George answered him. “From what I could tell before the TV and the radio stopped making sense, over half the country became biters- and that was almost a year ago. The number’s got to be a lot bigger now. And from what they was sayin’ on the CB in my truck before I left home, most of them gettin’ bit were folks out on the road. The folks that hunkered down somewhere were the ones most apt to stay breathin’. So yeah, there might likely be people there, but not as many as you’d think. And if you saw the tunnels, the pure size of them, you’d understand. There’s plenty of room for hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in each one.”
“Why aren’t you there already?” Will asked. “What are you waiting for?”
George shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t want to make the trip alone. That’s the long and the short of it. So I stayed to my trees and waited for a group of people to come along that I might could join. There was a smaller group a few weeks back, but I didn’t cotton to the looks of them. Theywasmostalways drunk and didn’t treat their womenfolk right.”
“You know how to find this place. You can take us to it.”
“I’ll draw you a map right now. As long as I can go with you folks.”
Will pursed his lips and contemplated. He looked at Danny and Jiri; something unseen passed between the three. He regarded George and sighed. “Alright, George. We’ll go, and you can tag along with us. Understand, if you’re leading us into something other than what you say, I’ll make sure you die before anything else happens. Got it?”
George nodded. “Sure ‘nuff.”
Will did a quick head count of the people listening to George; most of the group was there. He caught Becky’s eye; her nod was on the brink of imperceptible. He pondered a moment, then spoke.
“First light the day after tomorrow, my family and I are breaking camp and heading out for the place George told us about,” he said. “I’d like for all of you to come with us. If anyone doesn’t want to make the trip let me know, and we’ll split out a few day’s provisions and a weapon for you.”
There was an excited hum as everyone talked at once. He answered a few questions, assured them that they would talk more about it later, then turned to walk back to camp. Danny and Coy ran to join him.
“Did you hear, young bucks?” he asked, throwing a rough arm around each of their necks. “We’re heading west.”
“Do you believed that guy?” Danny asked with a sneer, shooting a glance back at George.
“Yeah, sure. How does it profit him to lie?”
“I don’t know. He could be leading us into something.”
“If he does he’s dead, and he knows it. Did he seem suicidal to you?”
“He didn’t make an impression on me one way or the other. I’ve known him for twenty minutes.”
Will stopped walking and fixed the pair with a sober look. “Listen, fellas, because this is important. You can’t let what’s happened, the terrible things you’ve seen and done, you can’t allow that to snuff out your humanity. Because if there’s no humanity left, no basic decency in people, why are we out here fighting? Might as well all become creepers and turn the earth over to the birds and the bugs. We’ll believe George because he doesn’t have any reason to lie. That’s not to say we won’t be on our toes and watch him like he’s an egg-suck dog. But we will exercise our humanity and help George while he helps us unless he gives us a reason not to. Got it?”
They nodded their understanding.
A smile creased his weather-beaten face. “Good. Now it’s time to go to work.”
“What do you mean, Pop?” asked Coy.
“Put together two teams of five people. Before we head west, we’re scavenging that base and coming out with food, weapons, and winter clothes. Spread the word.”
Alone with Becky inside their tent, rare anger flashed in his wife’s eyes. “This is a bad idea,” she told him for the third time.
“Yeah, I get you don’t like the plan, Becky. I want to hear why.”
“Because it’s unnecessary!” she snapped.
“Food and water and warm clothes in winter are unnecessary?” he asked in a sardonic voice.
“You know what I mean, goddamn it!” Will noted with surprise she wasn’t just mad, she was furious. “We can get those things the same way we did the entire way here- scavenging cars and houses along the way.”
“What you appear to have forgotten, dear, is that scavenging has kept us going, but by the skin of our teeth. We were always short of something- not enough food, not enough water, not enough clothes. Do you remember when scrape on Jiri’s arm get infected, and it damned near turned gangrenous? Not only were there no antibiotics, we didn’t even have a bottle of alcohol or Neosporin to put on the wound.”
“Yes, I remember!” she said in a triumphant voice. “And I remember that you and Danny went into a nearby town, found a pharmacy, and came back with the medicine Jiri needed.”
“Sure,” he said. A spike of anger at her stubbornness surged through him and he raised his voice. “And what if we hadn’t been near a town, or the town didn’t have a pharmacy, or the pharmacy was looted and we weren’t able to find the medicine we needed? Where would Jiri be now?”
“If, if, if, if,” she mocked. “If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that sentence is full of supposition. We’ve scavenged for what we need since the day we hit the road, and it’s always worked out.”
Will fought his anger and spoke in a low, calm voice. They’d had damn few disagreements during their marriage, and when one cropped up they were quick to negotiate a common ground. This was in danger of blowing into a whole big thing, and he fought against that.
“This is an opportunity to do something other than fly by the seat of our pants, Becks,” he told her. “There’s a hospital on the base- we can load up on antibiotics, bandages, and pain medicine. It has a PX that fed over 10,000 soldiers. And from where we stood we couldn’t see any signs of looting, so odds are that the food is just sitting there. Cases and cases of canned food, pallets of bottled water, and who knows what else.”
“There’s no sign of looting because no sane person would try to loot that place,” she said, her voice soft and quiet.
He elected to ignore that comment. “Plus, there will be blankets and winter coats. And weapons, Becky. Imagine if we find the armory- we wouldn’t need to worry about weapons or ammunition anymore.” He took her by the shoulders and looked deep into her sky-blue eyes. Sensing he was making headway, he moved in for the kill. “And think long-term for a minute, babe. Planning ahead is a luxury we haven’t had in a while; for a long time, it’s been about doing whatever it takes to get through the day and nothing else. But just think what it would be like if we get as many provisions as we can take with us. It would mean not taking the time to dig around in cars as we go, not going into houses that are crawling with creepers. But more important than that- there’s a man out front who says 350 miles due west of here is a place where maybe we can build a home. Say he’s right. Wouldn’t it be better, easier, safer, to build that home without having to concern ourselves with finding food, or clothes and blankets to keep us warm, or weapons? Becky, we could be set. We have a chance ride this thing until it’s over, if it ever ends. Or we could finish raising our boy and live out whatever days are left for us as comfortable as is possible. Don’t you see it?” He sounded calm, focused, and convincing, and he could tell he was winning her over.
“And all you have to do to pull this off is get around a couple of thousand creepers,” she chided him in a gentle tone. The anger was gone from her voice, which meant she knew there was no changing his mind. He saw the fort as game-changer in terms of their long-term safety and was going in no matter what she said.
“Who said there were a couple of thousand creepers?” he asked, perturbed. “Nobody knows how many creepers are out th
ere. From where we stood, we counted twenty. Anyone who says there’s more than that is talking out their ass.”
Becky didn’t reply. Instead, she looked at him with a soulful expression. She pursed her lips and let out a long, shaky breath. “Who’s going in with you?”
With that simple question, she moved from fighting him to helping him devise a plan. Will embraced her and kissed her on the cheek. He took her hand and said, “Let’s go figure that out now.”
Chapter Six
* * *
They left George at the camp rather than include him in the sweep of the base. He argued for his inclusion for quite a while, but he had to confess that he had little experience fighting the ‘biters’, as he called them. He had been alone since the outbreak occurred; as a result, he avoided the dead rather than engage them. For Will, that meant too much risk- they’d have to assign someone to protect George, so there would be one less person looking for items they needed and battling any creepers they encountered.
When they were still back at the ranch, Danny printed off a detailed map of the base he’d found on the Internet. Back then the trip to the fort was a safety net in case the worst happened and forced them to leave home. With the map as a guide, they located commissary and central supply, along with the medical center and a clothing store. The map didn’t show an armory, but it showed three places there might be weapons- a gun club, the MP building, and the Marine Corps detachment barracks.
Coy was peering at the map and looked up, wearing a puzzled expression. “Why are there Marines stationed on an Army base?”
“Good question,” Danny said. “I wondered the same thing. It turns out that Fort Leonard Wood did all the military training for four different disciplines. So military police, engineers, something to do with chemicals, and some job I forget from all four branches of the service receive their training there. Eight NATO countries, too. It’s pretty interesting.” He thought a moment, then frowned. “It was interesting, I mean. Now it’s just a bunch of creepers wandering around and bumping into each other.”
In a stroke of luck, the map showed that central supply and the gun club were next door to one another. On another part of the base, the commissary, the clothing store, and the Marine detachment barracks were clustered together, too.
The plan was simple. They would go in with two four-person teams; one team to sweep central supply and the gun club, a second to hit the commissary, the clothing store, and the Marine barracks. After the sweep, the teams would meet at a mid-point between the two locations. Whether they fell back and left or continued on to the medical center would depend on how many supplies they found and the number of creepers they were encountering. The center and the MP building sat far across the grounds from their initial targets; the teams would only sweep them if they were meeting little resistance from the dead.
Each team member would carry several empty grain bags to fill with needed items. Everyone would carry a melee weapon for dispatching creepers noiselessly and a handgun for emergency use only. Over time, the group members that went on sweeps most often had developed their favorite melee device. Jiri favored a two-sided ax. There were a tire iron and a pair of machetes that Casandro selected from depending on his mood. Coy had been using a sickle to cut thistles and sandburs in the pastures on the ranch for as long as he could remember; now he used it to cleave the brains of creepers instead. In an abandoned machine shop outside Ottawa, Clay found a treasure. Someone had taken a three-foot steel rod two inches in diameter and welded the claw end of a hammer onto one side; the other bore a seven-inch dagger blade. He covered the bottom with electrical tape and become proficient at using the weapon. Almost every person on each team had an assault knife. Also, Will carried an M16 and Danny a Heckler and Koch G3. They found both weapons, along with several hundred rounds of ammunition, on sweeps during the long walk south.
Jiri and David hiked into the nearby town of Richland and found a late model Dodge Ram and a beaten old Ford delivery van. The delivery van belonged to a florist before the outbreak; once they had removed the storage racks inside there was nothing but empty room behind the front seat. The group already had a three-quarter-ton Ford; the teams decided to use it and the van. They would leave the Dodge behind in case everyone’s worst fears were realized and no one on the sweep teams returned. Will tasked Becky, David, and George with protecting those that were staying behind.
Will asked George if there were any cattle nearby. George told him of a small herd a quarter mile to the south. “Thembeefs have been eatin’ nothin’ but scrub grass and weeds all summer. They won't hardly make for fit eatin’,” he added.
Will dispatched Coy and Clay to the field that held the cattle. “Shoot the smallest cow,” he told them. “Bring back all four legs, the head, and as many entrails as you can fit in here.” He handed them a rubber bucket. “I don’t think what’s gonna be eating on that cow will mind if it’s tough and stringy,” he told George with a wink.
They tossed the empty sacks and melee weapons in the bed of the truck. They swapped phrases like ‘good luck’ and ‘be careful’ with the people staying behind; no one said goodbye. They traded hugs and kisses. As the teams headed to the vehicles Will called them together. They formed a rough circle around him.
“Danny?” Will said.
“Let’s go rip off their dead arms and beat their dicks in the dirt with them.”
Laughter was still ringing in the air as they climbed into the vehicles and pulled out of the camp.
They hung their bait at the far northeast corner of the base. As it turned out, the medical center, their final target if their luck held out, was located nearby. Will wondered about the wisdom of enticing a horde of creepers to the place where they hoped to finish the day. But it was more important that they draw as many creepers as they could here, away from the buildings they would sweep first. He didn’t expect the bait to keep the creepers occupied the entire time they were inside the camp, he just wanted a head start while the dead occupied somewhere else.
Bloody chunks of beef swung on the outside of the chain-link fence at twenty-yard intervals. Will met with Danny next to the truck while everyone else climbed into the van. The pair clasped hands.
“Give us fifteen minutes to get in position, then honk your horn for fifteen more,” Will said. “After that, you bust ass back to us. I don’t want you out here alone any longer than necessary. And if you draw creepers on this side of the fence, don’t engage-”
“I know, avoid and evade,” Danny interrupted with a smile. “I got it, Boss. We’ve ridden this rodeo before, plenty of times.”
“Not with these stakes. Keep yourself safe.”
“I will, Buddy. See you soon.”
Will dipped his head. He shook Danny’s hand again and climbed in behind the van’s passenger seat. “Let’s go,” he told Coy, behind the wheel.
The first stop was opposite an empty field near the base’s campgrounds. Danny’s team- Jiri, Tara, and a hulking Guatemalan named Casandro- stepped out of the van and waited for him to join them.
Coy motored the van on across East Gate Road for a half mile and stopped. He, Will, Justin, and Clay climbed out. With both teams in position, they waited. The road had a bend that kept Will from seeing the other team. Instead, he passed the time by counting creepers- there were thirteen in his field of vision. The day would turn out bloody for his side if there were a couple thousand soldiers-turned-creeper lurking out of sight. They were counting on the fact that before the government fell and chaos reigned, the armed services were fighting the dead all across the country. The military called most of the soldiers on the base to duty somewhere else- they hoped.
After five minutes of tense silence, a long horn blast cut through the still air, then repeated at regular intervals. At first, the creepers faced north, toward the noise, and stared as if transfixed; soon after, they shuffled toward it. Their eerie moans floated out and reached the teams on the hill. Further inside the base, there was
a cluster of hangers and several blocks of housing. Creepers shambled out from amid the buildings and drifted north, drawn toward the blaring horn.
Will wondered what Danny was seeing. How many creepers was he pulling towards his position? Were they coming at him in waves? Were their numbers high enough to collapse the fence as they piled up, grasping for the raw meat hanging on the other side? He cursed under his breath and kicked at a clump of grass near his foot, drawing looks from his team.
“It’s a good plan Will. Give it a chance to work,” Clay told him.
“It’s Danny, Dad,” Coy said. “He doesn’t know how to fail.”
Will nodded and smiled for their benefit, but he wouldn’t breathe easy until the big blue Ford come over the rise in the road with Danny behind the wheel.
The horn had been blaring in long bursts for fifteen minutes when it stopped in mid-blast. Ten more minutes passed in absolute quiet. There was no sign of Danny or his team.
Will was pacing, fighting to control the panic rising inside him. “Something’s wrong. I’m going back,” he said. “Coy, give me the van keys.”
“Wait!” Justin said in an excited voice. “Listen.” Justin was a twenty-five-year-old ex-auto parts store clerk from Sabetha who possessed uncanny hearing. Time and again since joining the group he helped it to avoid treacherous situations by the simple act of hearing danger before anyone else did.
Will strained but heard nothing. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and held as still as possible. And then he heard it, the faint rumble of a diesel engine. “It sounds like he’s moving,” he said, looking at Justin.
Haven (Book 1): Journey Page 3