by Sikes, A. J.
Back under cover by the depot, Gallegos called the squad to hold up. They stayed close to the building while she and Reeve stayed near the busses.
“We got a prisoner here,” she said, letting her M4 hang on its sling and drawing her sidearm. The man lay slumped against the curb where Reeve had left him before he went to pace by the busses. He alternated between lifting his weapon and aiming at the man and letting his M4 hang on its sling.
The col-lab took ragged breaths and rocked on his side.
“The fuck do we do with him?” Reeve asked.
Gallegos checked the others. Welch was at the back of the bus, busy watching the street.
Dom was still hanging his head, hardly in the game anymore it seemed. Matty had it together, but was more concerned about keeping Dom on his feet than worrying about the col-lab they hadn’t killed yet. Only Jo looked at the man with any kind of worry on her face.
“They took my son,” the col-lab said. “Get him out of there, please.”
“Why the fuck should we help you?” Gallegos asked. She stepped over to him, standing between him and Reeve.
“Nat Tucker and his son are down there with them.”
“That ain’t Tucker in the truck there?” Reeve asked.
“No. That was Allred and his boy up front. I didn’t know the guys in back. They only joined us two days ago.”
“Where’d they come from?” Gallegos asked.
“I don’t know. They were soldiers, like you.”
“Hardly, motherfucker,” Reeve said. “For one thing, we’re Marines. For another, they weren’t shit.”
“They were men like you and me. Just men trying to survive, and that gets harder every day. It’s not our fault God sent these devils. It’s people like—”
“If Tucker’s not in the truck, where is he?” Gallegos asked.
The col-lab glared at her, but he swallowed whatever words he had on his tongue. His face fell and tears filled his eyes. “They got Nat and his boy when we were chasing you down. We stopped at one of the caches and got swarmed by the monsters. I always knew that would happen. Nat didn’t want to believe it, but I knew.”
“Caches, huh? Tell me where they are. You got ammo there? Food? Water?”
“All of that, yeah. But it ain’t much. Don’t think you’ll get enough to make it out of this city alive.”
“That makes two of us. Now tell me where the cache is at.”
“Underground. In their lair. You get to it from the high rise. It’s in a conduit tunnel. We had a deal, and Nat figured people like you would find anything we tried to hide above ground. So we hid our reserves down there.”
“You dumb motherfuckers,” Reeve said.
“Fuck you,” the col-lab spat back. “I know you’re going to kill me. I don’t deserve any better. But they’re still alive, all of them. The monsters keep them alive until they eat them. Everyone we gave them. And my son. My boy didn’t want to help, but I made him do it. God forgive me, I made him. He never had his heart in it. Tucker would have given him up if he hadn’t helped. Now he’s—God forgive me. Carl, I’m so sorry. I’m—”
Gallegos pulled her sidearm and put one in the man’s chest.
“Enough of your crying, cabrón,” she said. “Tucker and them are with the sucker faces now? Good.”
“What about his son?” Welch asked.
“His what?”
Gallegos turned around to see Welch had come closer, leaving his post by the bus. She stared hard into his eyes. Maybe it was the strain of battle, or losing Mahton, or Reeve and his deke bullshit. Whatever it was, Gallegos had to get her head clear about her squad. That meant they all had to pull their own weight and follow her orders. And right now, she didn’t need Welch the-guy-who-might-be-a-deke fucking arguing about what she said they should do.
“You listen to me, Welch. I don’t care who this motherfucker’s son is or was, or where he is. What I do care about are the people who were with us three days ago and who aren’t here now because this pinche loco culero and his friend Tucker gave them to the sucker faces. I care about Mahton, the man we lost trying to take Tucker down. The man who died to save my skin, and yours.”
“I got people down there, too, Sergeant. I care about getting them all out if we can.”
“You got people?” Reeve asked, coming up close to Welch.
“Yeah,” Welch said, and shifted back a step.
“Who? Who the fuck do you know who might be down there? Except maybe your guys who weren’t in the truck that Jo took out?”
Welch reeled back like he’d been kicked in the dick.
“The fu—you think I’m with them? You still think that, man?”
“I’ve been thinking it since I met you, Welch. You’re a fucking deke. Own it and take your medicine like your buddy here.”
“He was never with Tucker,” Jo said. “He couldn’t have been. We’d have seen him before.”
“You saw this dude before?” Gallegos asked, kicking at the dead man on the ground.
Jo took in a breath and let it out. She shook her head, and looked at the pavement.
☣
Jed felt the ground drop out from under him. The col-lab said everyone was alive down there.
The monsters keep everyone alive until they eat them.
They’d just lost another man to sniper fire, but they’d finally taken out the col-labs in their truck. They knew where the others were, plus where they stored their gear. And for the first time, Jed thought he might actually see Meg Pratt again. He might be able to rescue her after all.
And here comes Reeve with his deke bullshit.
Jed was sure Jo would stand up for him. She trusted him. She had to. But she dropped her eyes when Sergeant G asked her question. The other two firefighters were staying out of it, just huddling by the wall. Reeve looked about ready to chew his own teeth out, he was so pissed off. Sergeant G still had her sidearm out. She kept it by her side as she stepped closer to Jo.
“You said you’d know if Welch was with them because you’d have seen him. But you didn’t see this man, did you?”
Jo shook her head again, but she quickly lifted her chin and stared Gallegos in the face.
“Jed’s a good man. He could have let me fall out of the truck a hundred times, or get pulled out by the monsters. He didn’t. He saved me more than once, and I’d do the same for him.”
“Okay then. That’s good enough for me,” Sergeant G said, holstering her sidearm.
“Speak for yourself, Sergeant,” Reeve said.
Quick as lightning, Sergeant G spun to stare Reeve in the face.
“I will speak for myself, PFC Reeve. And you’ll remember that when I speak, it is your duty to listen.”
Reeve looked ready to spit or fight or do anything but stand there and take an ass-chewing. Jed stepped up closer to him and Sergeant G. For her part, she was even more beat down than Reeve and looked twice as ready to forget about the mission and just take the man to the pavement with extreme prejudice.
“Y’all, this ain’t how we survive. This ain’t how we do it, oorah?”
Sergeant G blew out a breath. Without looking at Jed, she grunted an Errr and stepped back from Reeve.
To Reeve she said, “Get your sight picture right, Private. Insubordination ain’t part of my formation.”
Jed stood ready to jump in between them, but Reeve backed away and shook himself. His face fell and he bit down hard on his bottom lip. When he recovered he looked at Sergeant G and nodded, squaring himself away and moving off the street toward the sidewalk.
“Good to have you back,” Sergeant G said to him as he passed.
“Good to be back, Sergeant.”
Sergeant G gave Reeve a nod, then ordered everyone off the street and inside the depot.
Gallegos led them into the hide and around the ruined stairwell to a back hallway. She and Reeve muscled a hole in a barricade they’d set up. The squad went through, with Welch at the rear. She told him and Reeve
to close up the hole and had the others hold position in the hallway. She went forward and opened a mop closet underneath a firehole.
Reeve and Welch finished up, and Gallegos waved for everyone to join her by the closet. “I don’t have the strength left to make the jump on the stairs, and I don’t think the rest of y’all do either. We do this fast. In, regroup, and out. No bullshitting,” she said, looking straight at Reeve and Welch.
They grunted a pair of near-silent Errrs at her, but she was too beat to give them any shit about it.
One by one, starting with Reeve, they were hoisted up through the firehole she and Mahton had come down that morning. Matty went second, then Dom, Jo, and Welch. Gallegos closed the door behind her and reached for Matty’s hand. He helped her up and she was home again, in an empty office that was down one floor from her gym and her bunk, and down the hall from the barracks where the men slept.
She tried not to think about Mahton’s body lying in the hallway back at Tucker’s stronghold. If it had been a different time and place, they would have taken him back to whatever served as a base of operations and washed him clean, dressed him in his traditional clothing, and cremated him. He deserved better than what he got. They could have at least brought him back here.
If they hadn’t been running for their lives.
Just don’t have the time or space to do right by the dead anymore. And every minute it seems to get harder to do right by the living.
Her squad stood in a wide circle around the firehole, with Welch and Reeve in opposite corners.
“Move out,” Gallegos said. “Back to the barracks, everybody gets some chow. Reeve, Welch, take turns cleaning your weapons first. And I want the stairwell mined with the Claymores we got.”
Welch took point and moved into the hallway leading to the hide. Dom and Matty followed with Jo bringing up the rear. At the entrance to the Stable, Welch held the squad up and double checked the room.
“Room’s just like we left it, Sergeant,” he called back. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s been in here.”
“Everyone get inside. Eat, clean your weapons. Matty or Dom, there’s an extra M4 in there. One of you take it. Double time,” Gallegos said. “Me and Reeve are going to mine the stairs. Welch, come close the door after us, and be ready to let us back in. Two taps on the desk, rah?”
“Oorah, Sergeant,” he said. He’d unloaded the SAW and began disassembling it, but now set it aside and stepped up to join them by the door. The firefighters sat around the barracks room ripping into MREs. Matty had already grabbed the spare M4.
“One of y’all always be on guard. Weapon up and ready while the others eat. Rah?”
They all nodded. Matty set aside his meal, lifted his weapon, and moved closer to the door.
“Let’s go,” Gallegos said, eyeing Reeve and Welch before she turned her back on the room and set off down the hall.
They rounded the corner and came face to face with the back of their barricade. It was intact and up to speed, just like they’d left it.
This can’t last. They’ll find a way in. Sooner or later. They’ll get in.
Reeve and Welch muscled the desk out of the way, opening their passage to the hallway beyond. Gallegos went first and Reeve quickly followed after. She waited until Welch had the desk wedged into the space before moving on.
At the top of the stairwell, Gallegos posted against the wall, looking down into the cavern below. The place stank of piss and smoke and death.
Wasn’t too long ago I didn’t notice the smell.
She dropped her pack and helped Reeve get the mines set up. They positioned them at the mouth of the hallway, aiming toward the ruined stairwell, and ran the detonator into the first room in the hall.
“Anything comes up here, it’ll get hit,” Reeve said.
“We need someone watching the stairwell. I’ll stay here.”
“Negative, Sergeant. You’ve been on point all day. Let me take first watch.”
“You want to check that attitude again, Reeve. Get your sight picture right. You’re ready to cash out. I know I’m no better, but that comes with the job.”
“I’ll be good, Sergeant. Just throw my dinner down the hall. Gimmee that pork rib, rah?”
She watched him for a moment, checking for signs that the strains of combat were making their way back into his soul like they had outside.
We’re at our limit. All of us.
“Be careful, Reeve. Don’t let the sucker faces get the jump on you. You fire the mines the second you see them.”
“Oorah. I ain’t playing the hero today. Maybe next week. Depends on what the scriptwriters do, but my agent thinks I got at least another season before they take me out.”
Gallegos barely held in her laugh. “That’s the Reeve I remember. Here, swap mags with me. I’m full.”
She handed him the magazine in her weapon and replaced it with his. Now she was down to maybe six rounds. Without anything more than a quiet Errr, she left Reeve in the hallway and moved out to join the rest of her squad.
☣
In the barracks, Jed cleaned the SAW while Jo and Dom ate and Matty sat guard by the door. They’d popped their eyes wide when they saw the stacked cases of MREs. Everyone had dug into the first bag Jed tossed them without asking for favorites. It was then that he realized they hadn’t eaten a proper meal in who knew how long.
“What’s the last thing y’all ate?” he asked as he slid the bolt back into his weapon.
In between bites, Jo told him it had been a mix of stale bread, cold canned beans, and the remains of frozen vegetables that they’d kept in the firehouse freezer.
“The power went out two or three days after the virus started. Our freezer stayed cold for a day or two after that, and we didn’t start throwing out rotten food for at least a week. I guess somebody had the foresight to keep the power plant under wraps so the suckers couldn’t get in.”
“They got in anyway,” Dom said.
Jo nodded and went back to her dinner. She finished it up and swapped out with Matty, who went back to his bag of chow. Jed wiped the feed tray one more time, set the bolt forward, and wiped a trail of CLP off the charging handle. He’d worked fast, and knew he could have spent another half hour on the weapon before he got all the carbon out of the thing. But Sergeant G or Reeve would be coming back soon, and he hadn’t had any chow yet.
Jed grabbed an MRE and ate like a recruit with a DI barking down his neck. Matty was finishing up beside him. Dom and Jo kept watch on the hall.
“Y’all can have another if you want,” Jed said. “We got plenty here, and we can’t take it—”
Two metallic pings sounded and Jed was on his feet and out the door like a shot. He got to the barricade and hauled on the desk. It scraped a few inches before he lost his grip. He went back to it and tried again, but he could only get it an inch at a time until Matty joined him. Together they pulled it free.
Sergeant G crawled through the opening and stood on shaking legs, looking beat down and out of juice.
“Reeve’s watching the stairs. We put the mines out and he’ll blow ‘em if he needs to. Meantime, somebody needs to run him his dinner.”
“I’ll do it,” Dom said.
“He says to bring him the pork rib.”
Matty went back to the Stable. He came around the corner a moment later with an MRE in his hand.
“Welch, go with him. I’ll watch the door while you’re out there.”
“Oorah, Sergeant.”
Jed joined Matty in crawling through the tunnel at the door. He gave Sergeant G an Errr, and sent a last look back at the corner, thinking about Jo and hoping she was okay.
☣
Gallegos settled into her favorite spot around the trash hole and dug into a chicken dinner. Dom stood guard with the shotgun, by the door. Jo sat across from Gallegos, close to where Mahton used to sleep. She sipped from a canteen. Their water was running really low now they had three extra bodies to sustain with it.
“I hope we don’t die trying to find it,” Dom said. “Are you sure we need to?”
“We got people down there. Dead or alive, I don’t know for sure. But until I do, I have to assume they’re alive. That means I have to help them. The cache is secondary, but . . .”
“I feel the same way,” Jo said, digging back into her meal. “I just don’t like the thought of going underground where those things live. Out here on the streets it feels almost even, like we at least have a fighting chance. But down there, in their territory . . . I’m afraid we’ll all be killed because we don’t belong down there. That’s their home now, so they’ll be defending it better.”
“Don’t think of it like that. Think of it like any other mission. You’re always going into unfamiliar territory. Enemy territory. But what you’re bringing with you is a whole lot more than they’ve ever seen before. You’re the variable they can’t account for because you’re foreign. They can’t predict what you’ll do.”
“You make me want to believe we’ll survive this,” Jo said, halfway between crying and smiling. Her grin almost took hold, but it didn’t make it to up to her eyes.
“So believe it. You’ll be good out there, Jo. You were good on the way here, in the truck. You even took out the enemy’s vehicle with the forty mike-mike. You too, Dominic. Rah?”
Dom nodded, but kept his attention on the hallway outside. Jo swallowed her food before saying, “Rah.” Gallegos couldn’t help but smile at that.
“So Welch taught you how to talk Marine.”
“Yeah. I mean Rah.”
“You think he’s good people? Be straight with me.”
“He’s all right,” Dom said. “I trust him.”
Gallegos nodded at him, then looked at Jo, who held her gaze for a long breath, inhaling and exhaling fully before she replied. “I think he wants to survive just like the rest of us. I think he did something before this all happened, or he saw something that he needs to keep hidden. Whatever it is, I don’t think it means he’s working with Tucker or his people.”
Jo went back to her meal.