“And the horde might not be far behind,” Tank added.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said. “If we check, at least we’ll know if we can go around or something.”
Tank took the lead, stepping over the coupler connecting two train cars, and proceeded to the other side of the tracks. A couple of undead walked towards him from the left and he raised Frostmourne above his head and charged to meet them. As he ran at the two undead with a sword raised over his head, he realized that maybe he should’ve just waited for them to come to him. Oh, well. He brought the blade down on the first one’s head, breaking the skull with a loud crack, and it collapsed. He quickly recovered from the swing and made a rushed side-swipe at the other one’s head. The blade smacked against the skull and it crumpled. His sword was extremely heavy to be swinging around for very long and he was still sore from earlier. A noise from the ground made him look down at the second undead who was trying to crawl towards him with a broken neck. He hadn’t even killed the thing.
“Muradin’s dwarves! Doesn’t anyone stay dead anymore?” Tank exclaimed, slamming the point of the sword into the undead’s skull.
That killed it.
Garett walked up, chuckling. “That’s one way to do it.”
“It was well worth it,” Tank said, admiring his bloody blade.
“Looks like the train goes on both ways for a while,” Kathy said, walking up with her handgun held ready. She smiled at Tank. “Nice job.”
“Thanks. I know what I’m doing,” Tank said.
He smiled inside. These people are probably missing all these awesome Arthas references, Tank thought. Such a waste.
“Seems like it,” William said, “but what about that last one?”
“I had it well in hand.”
“I don’t know,” Kathy said, “it seemed like—”
A gunshot, followed by screaming from behind, cut her off.
Tank wheeled around and started back towards the caravan. What was it now?
As he made it to the other side of the train, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye and instinctually brought his sword up. The blade blocked the crowbar from bashing his skull in, but was dented from the impact. Surprised, he looked over at the man holding the crowbar who looked just as shocked that he’d blocked it. Before the assailant could gather himself, Tank body-slammed the man, his extra bulk throwing him to the ground. Without thinking, he drove his blade down into the man’s chest. Ribs shattered and the man let out a gasp as the air was driven from his lungs. Tank pulled his sword out and the man looked at his wound and then up at him, before his head lulled to the side.
He’d just killed a man.
The thought caused him to hesitate for a second, but the sound of a gunshot from next to him forced him into action. He looked around, noticing that Garett had taken a knee and shot another man who was dragging a body out of one of the last vehicles. Kathy was running toward the rest of the caravan to help. Most of the other vehicles were turning around and starting to drive west on Prospect as more armed assailants tried to get inside their vehicles. Their assailants didn’t seem to have many guns and were having trouble hijacking the now moving vehicles.
Running forward at a man with a baseball bat who’d been trying to get into his truck, Tank swung at the same time the man did. His blade became embedded in the wood of the bat and the man dropped it. Tank tried to pry his sword out quickly but the man had already drawn a knife and taken a step towards him. He had dropped his sword and drawn his handgun when a gunshot sounded. The man’s head jerked, blood and brains spraying out the back of his skull. He collapsed and Garett ran by him.
“We need to go! There’s more coming!” Garett yelled, climbing into the passenger seat of his truck.
Tank ran while looking to where the rest of their caravan had been. All the vehicles but one were a couple of blocks back down the road. The one that was still sitting there had the beaten bodies of five survivors piled around it. Most of their assailants were coming from that vehicle and running toward his truck. Tank jumped in just as William and Nick climbed into their trucks. They all three turned around, with Tank in the lead, and headed towards their attackers who were running at them. Those people slowed and raised what few guns they had, but hesitated. It was all the time Tank needed. He slammed on the gas and sped up, leaving their assailants with two choices—move or get run over. They all chose the former.
He sped past as they jumped out of the way. Swerving around abandoned vehicles, he kept up his speed as much as possible as the people began to fire at them. All the rounds went wide and his truck was hit only once in the passenger side mirror.
“Bastards,” Tank mumbled, then louder. “Everyone okay?”
“Yeah,” Eva said.
“No, I’m not okay!” Chloe screamed. “Some random people just tried to kill us! What the hell is going on?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Tank said, “maybe the end of the world?”
“Smart ass,” Chloe said.
“Thanks for the assist back there,” Tank said, glancing at Garett.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Couldn’t let my driver get shot.”
Tank laughed. “True. Now where will the caravan go?”
“Plan B is to head north on Lemay to Long Pond Reservoir, then take Highway 1 to the interstate,” Garett said.
“Then that’s where we go.”
Taking a right onto Lemay a minute later, Tank checked his rearview mirror. Nick and William were still following behind him. Up ahead he could see taillights as darkness slowly encroached on the city.
“You think that’s them up ahead?” Eva asked.
“Probably,” Garett said.
“Hopefully,” Tank amended.
He glanced down next to him where Frostmourne sat. No, where Frostmourne should’ve sat.
“Hell!” Tank exclaimed.
“What?” Chloe asked, worried. “What is it?
“I left Frostmourne back at the train.”
“What?”
“My sword.”
“That’s it?” Chloe asked. “You scared me half to death because you lost a stupid sword?”
“First off, it’s not stupid; you are. Second, it’s not just a sword, but that is somethin’ you can’t understand. And thirdly, shut the hell up. You’re beyond annoyin’.”
“Well, I think you’re an asshole.”
“You’re right on that.”
Chloe snorted, shaking her head. “Whatever.”
By the time they made it to Long Pond Reservoir, they’d caught up with the rest of the caravan. Tank flashed his lights and one by one they stopped. Tank pulled up to the lead vehicle, Nick right behind him. Nick’s truck must’ve been hit by a few more bullets because one of his back tires was low. The lead driver, some old guy he hadn’t met before, got out of his tan minivan. Tank stopped his truck next to him.
“We didn’t know if we should try and fight or not,” the old man said. “So we just ran.”
“You did good,” Garett said. “No use in more people staying and dying. We’ve lost too many as it is.”
“We wanted to help,” Bob said from his Ranger, behind the minivan.
“Not much you could’ve done,” Tank said.
“Yeah, but still…” Bob said.
“I’ll need to find a new ride before we get on the interstate,” Nick shouted up to them. “Something big and mean lookin’.”
“Of course, you would,” Tank mumbled.
“We should go,” Garett said. “We’ll take the lead.”
“Okay,” the old man said, getting back in his minivan.
“Time to burn some rubber!” Nick yelled from behind them.
Tank lead the caravan north onto Highway 1 with Nick right behind him and the rest of the vehicles following. The highway was packed with abandoned vehicles but only a few undead. They made horrible time and it was completely dark when they arrived outside of Wellington. Tank slammed on the brakes, cursing. Behind him, Nick
had suddenly veered off the road into the parking lot of a church. Tank turned around and followed, headlights shining ahead.
“What the hell is that?” Garett asked, as his lights shone on what Nick had seen.
“Somethin’ mean lookin’,” Tank said, smiling. “Hell yeah.”
Sitting in the parking lot of the church was a red semi-truck with a makeshift plow attached to the front and metal grating over the windows. The thing looked like a beast, and with that leading them, nothing could get in their way. They’d be able to plow through whatever they needed to. The big rig started right up and within no time they were turning onto I-25 with Nick leading. They’d finally made it to the interstate after four long days.
“Seems like our luck is finally beginning to look up,” Tank said.
“I think you’re right,” Garett said.
Their luck had not, in fact, started to look up as they spent the entire night pushing vehicles aside to continue on the interstate. It was even more crowded than in the city. It seemed that everyone in Fort Collins and Denver had decided to head north for whatever reason, and they’d used both lanes to try and get there. By the time morning arrived, everyone was exhausted from having to help push vehicles out of the way. The big rig—which Nick had named Big Bertha—was only so good when the abandoned vehicles were five or six deep.
Finally, they’d made it to the Wyoming border and the interstate was a lot less crowded. The sun rose above the horizon, painting the clouds golden. Garett looked out at the sunrise as the girls slept in the back seat.
“Another day,” Garett said, solemnly. “We survived another day.”
“What is today?” Tank asked.
“Wednesday, I think,” Garett said.
“What does that make it? Five days since this all began?”
“Yeah, not even a week yet.”
“Damn, and we’re just in Wyoming. We have a long way to go.”
“Yep.”
Tank picked up his iPod, selecting a song. Rolling Out by JT Music played through the speakers and he turned it up—not enough to wake the girls, but enough to truly enjoy the song. For the first few lines Tank just listened, but by his favorite part he was singing along.
“‘I'll blast your face and wreck your grill.
Rip off your top, you bet I will.
But in the event that I get killed.
You'll have some massive treads to fill!’”
“What the heck is this?” Garett asked.
Tank laughed at the tone in his voice. “It’s a video game rap about a game called World of Tanks.”
“Is that like your theme song or something?” Garett asked, a smile on his face.
“I guess it kinda is, never thought of that. I just figured it was fitting with the chorus.”
“Well, turn it up then,” Garett said.
After listening to it twice in a row they were singing the chorus together.
“These empty homes I used to know, all broken down,
On lonely roads I roam alone through smoke and clouds,
We all know our foes will come for more, so hold your ground,
We'll mow 'em down, let's show 'em now, we're rolling out!”
The world was ending, but he’d been right. This wasn’t the end; it was just the beginning. The song ended and another one by JT started playing. He turned the volume down a bit.
“Where are we headed anyway?” Garett asked.
“Alaska. I have a couple of friends that got this crazy plan.”
“Really? Any idea how we meet up with them?”
“Good question. I haven’t called in a few days. Maybe…”
Tank let the statement hang as he grabbed his cell phone off the dash. He found the contact he was looking for and pressed the button on the screen, holding his breath. The phone actually rang through!
“Hello?” James Andderson answered.
“So, you bastards are still alive!”
To be continued in:
OUTBREAK
Thanks for reading TANKED!
I hope you enjoyed this short prequel to the Brother’s Creed series! This was just to give you a little backstory on the iconic character of Tank (who sadly you won’t see until book 2) and to give you a taste of my writing style. If you liked Tanked then check out the first book in the series:
GET OUTBREAK NOW
Special thanks to JT Music for giving me permission to use their lyrics in this story. If you haven’t heard of them then you need to head over to YouTube and check them out by clicking on their logo below!
They have some seriously kickass video game rap videos!
To watch the video for Rolling Out
CLICK HERE!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am a Jesus Freak and follower of the Way. As an adventurous nerd, I love the outdoors and when I’m not found high in the mountains of Alaska, I can be observed living on the rolling plains of eastern Montana with my wife, guns, and two katanas. I have a passion for all things imaginary and find inspiration in the wilderness, away from all the distractions of life. Some of my other passions include hunting, shooting, board and video games, hard rock, movies, reading, and the Walking Dead.
Learn more about me at:
www.joshuacchadd.com
Also by Joshua C. Chadd
The Brother’s Creed Series
Outbreak
Battleborn
Wolf Pack
Bad Company (Coming Soon)
Book 5 (TBA)
Tanked Page 4