He took a deep breath, then exhaled strongly. "Much like Andrea's I'm afraid. I don't like using guilt by association. It's too similar to genocide and racism. In my youth, and even after collage, I was occasionally swept up in arrest because of my skin color. It still smarts, and I dread doing the same type of acts to others. However, I'll not hold the group back from seeking justice or vengeance as the case may be. I'll support you to some degree by staying in the background watching the vehicles or covering your back or shooting people shooting at us. But if some happen to be captured alive, I'll not take part in executing them."
I said, "Morgan."
He leaned forward to look down the table at Andrea, then across to John. "I've known both of you long enough to know you're good people, and I respect each of you. But I disagree with you strongly. Two of the people viciously murdered, and I emphasize viciously, were my family. I lost a daughter and my daddy to that scum. Another, Josh, was a friend I thought of like family. The fourth, Marilyn, was a nice lady that I met here and liked and respected. I can't let those crimes go unpunished. No one who is worth a good God damn would willingly run with scum who commits rape and murder. I'll kill every damn last one of them with help or alone. But be assured they will all die, or I and mine will die trying. I'll not think less of anyone who doesn't go along, but what's left of my family has committed to doing what's right in our eyes. That's all I got to say."
Everyone was grim when I asked, "Anyone else?"
After long seconds, Shane said, "I'll ask everyone to decide if they want to go or stay behind to guard Deliverance. There are thirty-three members here over age sixteen. I suggest we ask for twenty-four and leave nine here to protect the children and continue the daily work routines. When we find these murderers, no one will stay behind with the vehicles. We'll lock them and take the keys because we'll need everyone. Anyone who doesn't want the responsibility of this should stay behind. There'll not be repercussions for those who choose to not go along. It's a personal choice and you're free to follow your conscience.
"We'll pull a 5' x 10' cargo trailer with enough food and water for two weeks. There'll be room for bedding, extra ammo, and the heavy armament Ed wants to bring. We'll also pull a 5' x 8' with several dirt bikes in it just in case they're needed. An open flatbed trailer with a five hundred gallon tank of diesel will be needed, too. This is Tuesday night. We'll use tomorrow to get packed and ready and leave at 4 a.m. Thursday morning. Who from this group volunteers to go along?" Everyone raised a hand. Andrea stood and said, "Maria, Vera, Suzie, and Vivian volunteered to have food ready when the meeting is over. Let's go eat."
Kira sat in the dining room waiting for me. She'd heard about the massacre and knew I'd be leaving soon to extract justice. She was concerned but accepted it was my duty to lead our people. After I ate, we went to our room.
Paige had stayed with the twins, Tom Jr. and Dominique Jacobs. Kira was breast feeding and the infants were hungry again. I held Dominique while Jr. sucked like a piglet. Paige knelt beside me and looked up with a serious expression. "Mom has to stay here with the babies, so I want to take her place on Thursday."
I frowned at her, then glanced at Kira. She cocked her head, raised her eyebrows, and smiled.
"No way. You're not old enough, you're only fifteen."
"Dad," she replied, "I'm almost sixteen; girls mature faster than boys and I'm far ahead of Mitch in that area. I shoot as well as you or Mom and better than ninety percent of all the people here. I'm at the top of my martial arts classes even against the boys, and I'm in better physical condition that half the people who will volunteer. I've been shooting zombies since I was eleven. You don't need to go out shorthanded just because Mom is breastfeeding. I'm ready to do my part. I can and will do it."
I looked back to Kira. She tone was serious when she said, "She's right. I approve of her wanting to take part. She can handle the stress physically and emotionally. But the final decision is yours and we'll abide by it."
"Alright," I said, "I'll think on it and decide by tomorrow evening." I handed Dominique to Paige, kissed her forehead, and left to take a shower.
Women! They always managed to hit me with something totally off the wall and unexpected. I never had kids before, but now I'm partial to keeping them safe. I looked in the mirror above the washbowl and guilt showed in my reflection. The other survivors at Deliverance didn't want their families taken from them either, but they stood up for our freedom and endured the loss of loved ones without whining and complaining. I knew then that Paige was going with me on the hunt for four sadistic killers.
~*~*~*~
Our five truck convoy arrived in Pierre, South Dakota, at noon Thursday. Instead of driving straight through toward Fort Pierre, we canvassed the small town that had been home to thirteen thousand people. On the north edge of town we passed a small auto repair facility that was a branch of the Billion Automotive new car dealership in Sioux Falls. We'd almost gone by when Shane's truck in front of us signaled for a right turn and went around the block and into the car lot. Behind the building sat the four year old, dark blue Dodge pickup we were looking for. Bullet holes in the sheet metal made the ID positive.
I deflated a little. We had hoped to catch the murderer still driving it, but he had apparently decided to trade it in after the brutal murders. Double doors at the front of the showroom stood open. Inside the building, two new four year old Chrysler sedans sat on the floor. An empty space was next to them where another vehicle had recently been driven away through the double glass doors. It had to have happened in the past week because nothing in the showroom was covered with more than a light layer of dust. Three more new cars sat on the lot, but no new pickups were there.
Shane walked to us from the bullet riddled blue pickup with a smile on his face. "Four year old vehicle registration and insurance papers in the glove box show the truck was owned by Marc Ridder. We at least have a name to look for now." We were near the west edge of Hughes County, at the eastern edge of Stanley.
"Good, let's split up and start at the south end of Stanley County and work our way north. There are few roads so we'll use the bikes to lead. They're not near as threatening as five trucks full of people. Put Martin Jr. on one, Mitch on the second and I'll take the third one. Make sure Junior and Mitch have radios with ear pieces, and I'll need one, too. I'll leave mine with the crew in my truck." I found John, Ira, Mitch and Paige waiting at the truck. "Mitch and I will ride the bikes. You three listen to the radio and try to keep us in range. John, you'll be driving, so I need you and the other drivers to meet with Junior, Mitch and me."
Before the apocalypse had materialized in the U.S, Shane had spent more than a week downloading every type of information I could imagine from Web sites. He had two 100 gig hard drive computers almost loaded with info. When we committed to finding the killers from Stanley County, he located and printed detailed maps of Stanley and the surrounding counties. He laid the Stanley map on the hood of his truck and assigned each of the cyclists a route. Trucks would stay out of sight while they followed each rider. Background noise indicated the bikes had been unloaded, started, and sat idling as they waited for us riders to suit up. We left to get our gear. As I walked, I saw trucks pulled alongside the fuel trailer being serviced.
I sat on the bike with my gear on ready to flip the visor down. Paige tapped my shoulder and leaned around my right side. "Be careful ole man; don't try to out do the young guys." I grinned as she gave me a loving peck on the cheek and then another. "The second kiss is from Mom and Junior and Dominique."
Thirty minutes later, I was cautiously crisscrossing Fort Pierre while Junior and Mitch covered outlying roads that ran like spider webs from the center of the town that had once been home to two thousand people. Surprisingly, we saw few zombies. In fact, as I recalled the hasty trip from Deliverance, we'd seen very few of the menaces, old or new.
Ed called a meeting with Shane and me. It would be dusk in less than two hours, so we agreed to find a suitable plac
e in town to hole up for the night. The only gas station in Fort Pierre had a restaurant and convenience store attached. We ended up staying there. Everything of value had been cleaned out or trashed, but an interior door closed off the restaurant from the gas station. By the time the trucks and trailers were parked out of sight behind the long single story building, food was heated and eaten, and bedding was distributed, the sun was close to setting for the day.
I frowned when I saw Paige bedding down for the night close to Mitch Robard. His dad was on the other side of the room. A pang of parental concern tugged at my heart, but my head had enough sense to say stay out of it and trust your daughter.
The next morning, we were up at first light. Andrea and several volunteers used microwave ovens powered by the trucks alternators and 110 volt convertors to make hot oatmeal and warmed up biscuits and coffee. All of the java drinkers dreaded the coming day when the coffee grounds were depleted. I supposed we'd have to do like the Louisiana Cajuns and learn to drink the strong, harsh, chicory brew.
We spent the morning running down road after road and lane after deserted lane. At two in the afternoon, we were checking War Creek Road at twenty MPH. There were many side roads, and we covered all of them with the bikes. We didn't want to rush and pass by our prey unknowingly. We were looking for signs of recent usage at intersections of side roads, new trash along the roads, or wood smoke from chimneys.
The sun was fading when I heard Mitch on the radio. He had shot past me minutes ago. "I smell wood smoke, and there's a plume rising back in the woods." Shane spoke, "Everyone mark where you are on your map so we can resume searching here if need be. Pull off the side of the road behind Ed's truck and meet up."
I pulled alongside the trailer and dropped the bike beside it. In five minutes the motocross gear was off and my camouflage gear had replaced it. We met fifty feet from a lane on the right. Woodsmoke hung in the still air, and a thin, gray plume from some distance back in the dense woods rose above the trees.
Shane, Ed, me and one other person from each truck would approach the source of the smoke and determine what we'd found. We split into two groups, four people on each side of the narrow, single lane, sparsely graveled, road. We stayed twenty feet from the gravel, pushing though the carpet of leaves on the ground. More orange, brown, and yellow leaves fell as we brushed against bushes and low hanging tree branches.
We'd barely gone fifty yards when we heard a noisy engine exhaust. Ed called on the radio, "The last two people on each side stop the vehicle when it gets to you. No shots if possible." A minute later a red pickup rounded a curve ahead. Shane and Junior were in front of me, so Albert Gonzales and I stepped into the road with Sam and Morgan. The truck's driver hit the breaks as four assault rifles were aimed at the occupant's heads. Our other four members stepped away from their cover to stand menacingly, two on each side of the truck.
The engine was shut off before three African American males stepped from the cab when ordered. They stood with their hands raised. Two passengers were in their mid to late twenties. The driver was older, possibly the father. Fear was evident in their expressions. They were herded together in front of their Chevy truck. The eight of us gathered in a semi-circle as I ask, "Who are you?"
The tall and stout middle aged man answered, "Willie Jones, my sons Richard and Barlow."
"What's at the end of this road, and how many people are there?"
"One house is up there, our home. Our wives and three children are there. Please don't hurt them." As an afterthought he added, "Are you some of Marc Ridder's bunch?"
"Do you know Marc?"
Dejectedly he replied, "Oh, yes. I know Marc."
"What's your relationship with him?"
"None now, other than we try to stay out of his way. What's this about?"
I looked at Shane. "Show them the pictures."
The older man unfolded the prints; he looked at the four pages and then passed them to the younger men. "Marc is the third man. The others are Leroy Iverson, Ronnie Brannigan, and Cecile McAllister. Now who the hell are you, and what do you want with us?"
I told him what had happened to our friends. "Do you know where we can find Ridder?"
"About a year ago, he and his gang took over a place up on Lake Oahe. It's north of here at the other end of the county near Mission Ridge. I know because we keep track of him for the same reasons you're looking for them. They killed my youngest son and my daughter and her husband. He generally leaves us alone because we don't pose a threat, and we don't have enough for him to kill us over."
"Do you have an idea of how many people he has? Are there men and women?"
"Me and Barlow snuck up there in August to see what they were up to. We counted," he looked to his son, "I think thirty-six, with about six or eight being whores. But tough whores. Don't sell them short because they hold their own and fight just like men."
"You said you have no relationship with Ridder now. What was it in the past?"
"Me and Marc went to high school together and played football. He got kicked off the team there and in college, too. He's vicious, likes to hurt people and the more serious the injury he inflicts the more he struts and blows about it.
"He got a degree in mining but couldn't keep a job because of his attitude. Moved back in with his folks about eight or so years ago. He was a surprise baby when his momma was too late for kids. She almost died giving birth and was sickly afterward. She died, maybe six years ago, and his daddy passed about a year later. They were decent people, nothing like Marc.
"We're going after them. We have twenty-five people. Do you want to join us?"
Willie looked to his sons; they each nodded. "Yeah, we'll go. We've got nothing but bolt action hunting rifles, but we're all good shots out to three hundred yards or thereabouts.
Willie nodded toward the way we'd come. "I guess you left vehicles on the road. Bring everybody up to the house and meet the family."
I said, "Not yet." My eyes met Shane's. "Check it out."
Shane stepped forward. "Willie, we don't know you from Adam, so everybody just stay right here while Ed and I check what you told us. For all we know this could be Ridder's compound and we'd be walking into a trap."
Willie stood tall and was emphatic, "Don't you dare hurt my family." Ed and Shane nodded, and then they stepped into the woods and disappeared.
We were all silent for several minutes until I asked, "Where were you headed?"
"Going to a parts store in Pierre to find a muffler for this truck and look for food. Can't find much food no more."
"We're seeing the same thing. Most of it has frozen or been ruined by rain."
A voice called out, "What's going on down there?"
Two women, one heavy set the other slender stood in the road with shotguns pointed toward us.
Willie yelled, "Mabel, put those shotguns down and walk over here. We're okay"
Shane and Ed stepped out of the woods behind the women. Shane said, "Ladies, we'll take the guns, just so no one gets hurt accidentally."
I spoke to Shane, "What do you think? Is it safe?"
"We were close enough to see through the trees. There's a small house and a couple of outbuildings. I don't think they're a threat." Ed nodded his agreement.
Willie questioned Mabel, "How come you came out here like that."
"We heard that noisy ole truck shutdown before it hit the road and knew something was wrong, so we grabbed the guns and came running."
I called our backup crew and told them to all come up the drive. Willie introduced us to his wife, Mable, and Richard's wife, Carmen. Barlow started the pickup and backed it toward the house as we all made small talk while we walked under the bare canopy of overhanging tree limbs.
The vehicles were parked at the edge of the clearing, and then we gathered near the front porch. The house was an old log house with a standard shingle roof that was going bad. It looked like maybe six rooms at the most. It would be crowded for nine people to live in.
Another pickup and a mid-sized Chevy sedan sat under a lean-to shelter near a small wood barn. Chickens ran loose and pecked the ground, and I smelled hogs when an errant breeze blew.
I drank a dipper full of cool water from a bucket ten year old Bryan pulled up from a well and waited for everyone else to quench their thirst. We sat on the ground in a semi-circle with the Jones clan in the middle. I looked to Willie and Mabel. "How are you making it here on your own?"
They looked at each other before Mabel spoke, "It gets harder every month. If it ain't zombies, it Ridder's gang killing us off. And food gets scarcer all the time."
Richard added, "We grow what we can, but we never were farmers and don't know much about it. We're learning but it's not easy."
I looked at the faces around me. "What do you think? Should we invite these people?" Smiles and nods indicated a positive reply.
"We have a large compound in central Iowa; there are currently forty-four of us. Would you like to come with us when we leave? Take your time to talk it over, and let me know later."
Willie glanced at Mable and then the sons and daughter-in-laws. All nodded.
"No need to wait," Willie said, "we're going."
"How far is Ridder's place, and how long will it take to get there in the dark? Willie looked to Mabel. "We're going with them to root out Ridder's bunch, me Richard and Barlow." He turned back to me. "He's about thirty miles north. Maybe an hour or less in the dark. Then there's a twenty minute walk off the main road to the lake."
Ed asked, "What kind of place is it. How's it laid out?"
"Before the zombies hit, it was a fancy resort. The main lodge burnt down about then and wasn't rebuilt. There's a bunch of small cabins by the lake and a larger building where seminars and corporate meetings were held. I think most of them stay in the bigger building, but Marc and some of his cronies and their girlfriends might use the cabins."
"Do you have any idea what kind of firepower they have?" Ed wanted to know.
"Richard spoke up, "I saw assault rifles and pistols, but I didn't see any big stuff like machineguns or mortars or the like. They've got a bunch of pickups. I guess maybe ten."
OUTNUMBERED volume 4: A Zombie Apocalypse Series Page 5