“Yes, Scout?” she asks.
“Is everything okay?” I say. “You look worried.”
“It’s been quite a while since everything was okay,” she smirks.
Suddenly she decides to crack jokes. It’s clear she will do whatever it takes to avoid giving me any information.
“That’s not what I meant,” I sigh.
“I know,” she says. “The truth is we are not nearly as close to our objective as we need to be. We lost a lot of time today, and every minute we lose puts our mission at risk.”
I turn my gaze toward the road, not wanting to hear any more of her empty explanations. I keep hoping for an answer that isn’t coming.
“I can’t stress that enough, Scout,” Lorento continues. “The fate of the world is at stake.”
I roll my eyes. Lorento scowls at my reaction. Her speech seems absurd. I can’t see what a condescending intelligence agent and a handful of soldiers can possibly accomplish to prevent the end of the humanity.
“I’m sorry,” I explain. “It’s just a little hard for me to believe there is anything that can be done to stop this based on what I’ve seen.”
The garage door slides open and the soldiers emerge from the building.
“All clear,” Hoff reports.
“Let’s get these trucks inside,” Lorento orders.
The soldier nods as he opens the door to the truck. He turns the key and steers the truck into the garage. Lorento waits beside me silently as everyone moves inside. I take a step toward the garage but the agent reaches out a hand and grabs the sleeve of my jacket.
“I can tell you want answers, Scout” Lorento whispers. “But I need to be sure that any information will stay between us.”
I look away from her again and turn my eyes to the small sliver of moon above the treetops on the horizon. I can’t stand to look at anyone when I get angry at them. I’ve heard about as much of her excuses as I can stand. She sighs and removes her sunglasses and hangs them over the collar of her shirt.
“We’re going to Iowa to locate a helicopter pilot,” Lorento says.
“A pilot?” I ask.
Lorento nods.
“He will fly us somewhere safe?”
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that,” she sighs.
I fold my arms over my chest and wait for her to continue.
“In the early days of this crisis, the government assigned this unit to help me locate a scientist and escort him safely to a secure military facility in New Mexico. When we stopped to refuel the helicopter at FLW we encountered a hostile force of significant size. We tried to negotiate with them at first, but the situation quickly escalated, and the scientist fell into their hands during the ensuing firefight. We had no choice but to retreat to the helicopter, but we took some heavy ground fire and the aircraft went down. Our medic and the helicopter crew were all killed in the crash. The rest of managed to escape with mostly minor injuries.”
“How long ago did all this happen?” I ask her.
“Several weeks ago,” Lorento says. “It took some time before this squad was recovered enough to begin our efforts to track Bishop down. By then his men had already cleared out of Fort Leonard Wood and took most of the supplies along with them. We didn’t manage to locate them again until this morning.”
“So how do you know this scientist is even still alive?”
Lorento reaches into her satchel and removes the device I’d noticed earlier.
“This tracks a GPS transmitter that I planted in the pocket of our scientist’s pants shortly after we met. We found his bloody clothes in a lodge along with this...” Lorento returns the GPS to her satchel and removes a tape recorder. She clicks a button and the tape begins to play.
“Hello there, blondie” Bishop growls. “As you probably guessed, I found the chip your friend, Dr. Schoenheim, had in his pants. Don’t worry, he’s doing just fine. We’re all having a real good time here. Ain’t that right, Doc?”
Bishop pauses as a man wails incoherently in the background.
“With a little encouragement, the doc told me all about you and your friends and your mission to save the world,” Bishop laughs. “Now see that’s where we don’t agree. It seems to me this whole situation is fixing everything that was wrong with the world. The corrupt, greedy politicians are gone. All the lowlifes in the ghettos and the prisons are eating each other alive. No more terrorism. No more war. No more illegals coming here to—”
Lorento clicks off the recording.
“He goes on for quite a while, but you get the idea,” she says. “Needless to say, his message wasn’t very convincing, and his actions against the government and military make him a traitor and an enemy of the state.”
“Why wouldn’t he just kill this Dr. Schoenheim?” I wonder.
“Bishop envisions himself as the last hope to save humanity,” Lorento says. “Not just from this outbreak, but from going back to the way things were. In his mind, this whole outbreak is an opportunity to set everything right. While he doesn’t want to return any means to resolve the crisis to the government, he would certainly use the research to his own benefit. If he holds the power to stop the dead, we’ll all have no choice but to play by his rules.”
The thought gives me a chill.
“So we get the pilot, get the doctor back from Bishop somehow, and then we all fly off to New Mexico?” I ask.
“That’s the objective,” Lorento says.
Something still doesn’t make sense. I gaze at the open garage for a long moment as I consider the details of our conversation.
“Why don’t we go after Bishop now?” I ask Lorento. “Then we can drive to New Mexico.”
“No offense, Scout,” Lorento says. “This is my job. I call the shots. You have to trust me when I say will have a better chance of pulling this off and transporting the doctor if we have air support. We need the pilot.”
“If you’re in contact with him why doesn’t he just fly down here or whatever. Seems like that would be a whole lot easier for everyone.”
“It would be,” she agrees. “Except he doesn’t know he’s coming here yet.”
“What do you mean?” I wonder.
Lorento retrieves the GPS device from her satchel again. She presses a couple of buttons and shows me a red beacon on the map display.
“I told you I know where he is. I never said we were in contact,” she says. “That’s the reason why we’re running out of time, Scout. With no computers online to update these satellites the accuracy of this receiver degrades more and more each day. It may be twenty miles off today, but tomorrow could be eighty. Within a couple weeks we might not know what state he is in.”
“So we might be looking for a needle in a haystack,” I say. “For all we know, we might get up there and find out he’s dead and wandering out in the woods somewhere.”
“Well, potentially,” Lorento says. “There’s also one other minor potential problem. Our pilot might take some convincing to go along with all this. Well, a lot of convincing. He can be quite... difficult.”
“What man isn’t?” I scoff.
Lorento lets out laugh and then slaps a hand over her mouth. She ducks her head and giggles quietly into her fingertips for a couple seconds. It’s the first genuine reaction I’ve seen from her all day. She might actually be human after all.
Nine
The soldiers surround a workbench with a travel map spread open before them. They have some ration boxes open and look to be preparing some meals in plastic bags as they discuss the possible routes that could take us to Iowa. Other than the small battery powered lantern beside the map, the garage is shrouded in darkness. The echoey room smells of rubber, fuel, and years of cigarette smoke. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust the darkness. I scan the room looking for James and the others. A firm hand seizes my arm and startles me.
“Don’t think I forgot about you, Scout,” Fawn says.
“Jesus, Fawn, don’t do that to
me.”
“Sorry,” she laughs. “Steven told me you took a pretty good shot to the head earlier today. Let me check you out.”
I let Fawn lead me toward a glass doorway that leads to the sales floor of the tire store. There are stacks of rubber tires with a couple of display racks filled with air fresheners, floor mats and bumper stickers. Along the front windows there is a waiting area with half a dozen chairs, a coffee table full of automotive magazines, and small bin of toys in the corner.
Fawn nudges me, and I reluctantly take a seat in the chair next to Nicole.
“Do you remember what my name is?” Fawn asks.
“Of course I do,” I sigh.
“Please, just answer the questions.”
“Fine,” I say. “Your name is Fawn.”
“Do you know what day of the week it is?”
“It’s Thursday, I think, or Friday,” I shrug. “Gosh, who is actually keeping track of that anymore. This is stupid, I’m fine.” I move to get up but Fawn grips my arm and pulls me back down.
“Just another minute,” she insists. “Do you have a headache?”
“Throbbing.”
“Any feelings of nausea?”
“A little,” I inform her. “Just the same feeling I get every day now.”
“You sure you aren’t just pregnant?” Nicole chimes in.
Somehow I resist the urge to find out if she can take a punch.
Fawn removes a penlight from her pocket and clicks it on. She flashes the light in my eyes and studies their reaction to the light. She flicks the light back off and I’m left totally blind for several seconds until my eyes readjust to the darkness.
“You don’t look so great, but you’ll be fine,” Fawn concludes. She grabs my hand and places a couple of tablets in my palm. “These should help with the headache.”
“Thanks, Fawn,” I say. I toss the pills into my mouth and reach out to grab a bottled water from the paramedic. She pats my knee and gives me a smile before she moves to the service counter and returns the penlight and pills to her medical bag. She grabs a different medication and some clean bandages and comes back to tend to Steven next.
For a long time I just sit in the chair and watch Stevie play with a toy dump truck on the floor of the waiting room. The little boy makes rumbling and beeping noises as he steers the yellow vehicle around in circles. It makes me feel better just to watch him playing like a normal kid for once. When I look over at Steven again he has fallen asleep in the chair. Fawn must have really given him some strong stuff for the pain.
The service door to the garage creaks open and Lorento and the soldiers file into the storefront. They pass out some rations to us and I get Stevie to leave the dump truck long enough to take a few bites of food. I grab a bag of corn chips and eavesdrop on Piper as he starts telling Nicole and Val some odd story about a guy named Jervis and a camel.
I stop listening when I notice Lorento slip out of the room. For several minutes, I listen to the sound of her voice in the garage. Even though I can't make out her words, something gives me an uneasy feeling. Then I finally realize what seems off about it. I don't hear anyone else talking out there except her.
I leave Stevie to play by himself and slip behind the counter to reach the service door. Before I push the handle to open the door, I pause and reconsider. I am probably just being paranoid. Still, my curiosity gets the better of me and ease the glass door open. Lorento emerges from the darkness and meets me at the door.
“Did you need something?” Lorento asks me. She closes the cover of her satchel and gives me a smile.
I lean to the side and peer over her shoulder. The garage behind her appears to be empty.
“I just thought I heard you talking to someone,” I explain.
“That’s strange,” Lorento says. She steps around me and returns to the storefront without meeting my eyes.
After she leaves, I take another look around the dark garage. Maybe I am just imagining things, but somehow I doubt that is the case. There is still something she definitely doesn’t want me to know about. After our talk outside, I started to feel like I could trust her. Now, I am not so sure again.
As soon as we have finished our meals, the soldiers bring out a crate of weapons and give us all a crash course on how to handle them. Hoff brings me an automatic rifle equipped with a scope and suppressor along with a .45 caliber handgun.
“Picked these out for you,” Hoff winks at me. “Think you can handle them?”
“Sure,” I say as I take the weapons. I check the safeties before I prop the rifle against the wall and slip the pistol into my thigh holster.
“It’s the same shit that we carry,” he explains. “I thought the suppressor might make it a little easier for you to handle.”
“Now I’m not even going to miss the Glock I had before,” I tell Hoff. “Thank you.”
“What about sleepy over there?” Hoff jerks his head to Steven.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell Hoff. “He’s a terrible shot with any gun.”
The soldier laughs and pulls out an old hunting rifle and leans it against the wall beside Steven.
“Do you happen to have a machete?” I ask Hoff. “Steven will probably miss the one he had.”
“Might be one in the GMV,” Hoff tells me. “I’ll take a look.”
The soldier turns around and settles his eyes on Fawn sitting behind the service counter.
“How about you, gorgeous?” Hoff asks Fawn.
“Oh, I don’t use guns,” Fawn blushes. “Thank you, though.”
“Don’t use guns?” Hoff asks.
“Fawn doesn’t fight,” I tell him. “She doesn’t believe in it.”
Hoff rolls his eyes. The big soldier waves Morris over and the two men carry the crate back out to the truck.
I can understand his reaction. It’s hard to accept that someone could still be that opposed to using a weapon, but Fawn has never killed a living creature. Not even the dead. She has always relied on us to keep her safe.
James sits down in the open seat beside me and props his cowboy boots up on the coffee table and starts unwrapping a granola bar.
“Guess this all worked out pretty good so far,” he says. He glances back at the door to the garage.
“Tell that to my face,” I remind him.
“It doesn’t look that bad, Scout,” he laughs. He takes a bite of a granola bar and glances toward the garage again. “Did Lorento mention where we’re going?”
I fight back the urge to tell him the truth.
“No,” I lie. I know I can trust James with my life, but he is just too honest, even when that isn’t the smartest thing to be. He will just feel obligated to tell the others and so it’s better not to put that burden on him. I look up and see him eyeing me. I must have hesitated too long before I answered. He knows. Damn it. Honest people can always tell when someone is lying.
“I’m still not sure I trust them,” James says. “But I might just be starting to lose my faith in people. Maybe I’m just a glass half-empty kind of guy, but it seems like there aren’t many good people left these days. Sometimes I doubt I’m a good person anymore either.”
“It’s all right,” I assure him. “You’re a good man, James.”
I know James still has had a hard time with the outcomes of some of the decisions he has made. He even feels guilty about Bishop’s men that were killed by the dead in that grocery store. Even if he has done nothing wrong, he always does whatever he can to make things right. Sometimes that just isn’t possible, though.
I notice Stevie has stopped pushing the truck around and rubs his tired eyes. Since his dad is still snoring away, I guess it will be up to me to get him into bed tonight.
“What do you say we get you ready for bed, kiddo?” I ask Stevie.
“Please can I play for just five more minutes?” he asks me.
“You need to get your rest,” I tell him.
Stevie sulks and lets out a frustrated sigh.
> “I tell you what,” I say as I pick up the truck off the floor. “We can take this with and you can play with it tomorrow. Deal?”
“Okay, Scout,” Stevie yawns. He watches as I unzip his Captain America backpack and pull out a blanket before putting the dump truck inside.
“Can you tell me a story?” Stevie asks.
“It’s already pretty late, kiddo,” I tell him. “And I am tired, too. Maybe tomorrow night.”
“My mom used to always read me a book when she tucked me,” Steven says as I cover him with the blanket.
“Stevie, I’m not your mom,” I remind him.
“I know,” he says. The tears start to build up in his eyes and he rolls over so I can’t see his face.
I feel awful for making him sad. He is such a sweet kid, but the pain from losing my own children still feels fresh every day. I know I am not able to care for him the same way a mother would. Maybe, for his sake, I can try to fake it.
“Once upon a time…” I begin…
Ten
A hand clamps over my mouth and startles me from sleep. My eyes dart around the room but all I see is darkness.
“Shhh,” a man whispers into my ear. The warm breath on the side of my face gives me a chill. My heart races.
I try to pull myself free but the rough hands grip me tighter.
“Easy,” the voice assures me. “You’re okay, Scout.”
I recognize the sound of Hoff’s voice and I stop resisting. He feels my muscles relax and then he uncovers my mouth.
“Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” I hiss.
“Shhh,” Hoff whispers.
“What the hell is going on?” I whisper.
“We got company outside,” Hoff says. “Wake everyone up. We need to move out now.”
I nod my head and then the soldier retreats silently to the garage. I turn to nudge James but before I can a hand smacks against the glass at the front of the store. The sound causes everyone to stir from their sleep except Nick. Another hand thuds against the glass. The dark shadows fill the windows as the dead converge on the building.
“Everyone get your stuff and get to the trucks,” I whisper. My hands locate the strap of my pack and the barrel of the rifle.
Rise of the Dead (Book 2): Return of the Dead Page 6