Carter was younger, wilder, and less predictable than Sullivan, by no means perfect himself. Sullivan had posed significant challenges to the Colonel as well, but the Colonel had been a much younger man when he had taken up that gauntlet. The Colonel had been Sullivan’s peer mentor, but he was looking and feeling more and more like a father for Carter and neither man wanted that.
The tension was becoming palpable and the Colonel was concerned others would start to pick up on it. Carter’s attitude had the potential to undermine the Colonel’s authority and that was completely unacceptable to Colonel Bear. He expected everyone to follow his orders to the letter and, perhaps more importantly given their current circumstances, needed everyone to follow his orders so that they could all prevail. They were at war and dissent could not be tolerated.
He needed to choose his time though. For the moment, the Colonel needed Carter’s ferocity. The moment would pass however. At that point, Colonel Bear would need to have identified a replacement just as fierce but much less independent. He needed someone smart enough to understand and sometimes interpret his orders but also of an intellect that was beyond questioning those orders. He didn’t want a dullard, but he also didn’t need someone fully capable of functioning without the Colonel’s direction.
The Colonel hoped that Earl would be that replacement. He was strong and seasoned, but he was also a pleaser without any real ambition. Earl acted like he wanted to have more responsibility, but he shied away from any real challenges. He did, however, exactly what the Colonel told him to do without any hesitation, and that was what the Colonel wanted. He didn’t want the job done with the snide comments or caustic sneers.
The time would come that the Colonel would teach Carter a lesson and then the younger man would be able to make a decision about which course he wanted to follow: be a team player and do what he was told or the Colonel could get very creative in releasing Carter of his duties and his life. The Colonel imagined the confrontation and how disheartened Carter would be to find that the militia was loyal to the Colonel and not to Carter. Colonel Bear had been their provider and protector since the early, dark days of The Fall. What had Carter been other than a bully? He could see them all lining up behind him when he confronted Carter with his choice.
Chapter 80
Walking into the enormous lodge, Carter was taken aback by how fresh all of the blood and gore was. Some of it was still sticky beneath his boots, clinging to the floor when he lifted his foot like errant pieces of reddish brown chewing gum mashed nearly flat onto the surface of the wood plank flooring. The pantry had food but wasn’t as stocked as the Inn, and the liquor cabinet had bottles but, the collection paled in comparison to what they had left behind. There were several bottles of gin and vodka, though he didn’t see a single bottle of good Irish whiskey. The lodge owner must have been a serious martini drinker or something.
Carter barked, “What a pussy!”
One of the nameless, gun-toting drones of the Colonel’s militia stepped into the room. “What was that?” he asked. He was one of the bigger guys always driving around in the Colonel’s Hummer, probably thought he was in the inner circle somehow. Big and dumb was how the Colonel liked them and this guy definitely wore that description like clothes. There really was no point in learning his name, Carter knew. He was much easier to ignore if he didn’t possess a real identity.
Intimidated neither by the man’s posture nor his size, Carter said, “Relax chief. Talkin’ ‘bout the former owner. Not that I need to explain myself to you.” Carter dropped the bottle of vodka he had been holding and smiled when the crash of glass upon the hardwood floor caused the big man to flinch.
The man retreated into the hallway when Carter barked at him to finish his sweep of the house. They moved methodically from room to room in teams, searching closets, bathrooms, under beds and behind furniture. The big house looked as if a war had been fought in it, leaving carnage and death in its wake, but it certainly appeared that some time had passed since.
There weren’t any lingering undead to be found. The place appeared cleared already. Doors down hallways were shut; kitchen cabinets were open and sparse at best; there was no bottled water to be found; and all the skins had been taken down with accurate and efficient gunshots. Carter recognized all the signs and understood what it meant.
Somewhere in Shotgun Cove lived a group of very organized, trained, and well-armed people, capable of making the Colonel’s militia look like the amateurs they were. William said that a hardened killer named Neil led them. Through his fever, William talked about several deadly accomplices, even mentioning that there were two children with them as dangerous as any of the others. Seeing the bodies dealt with in such a fashion helped Carter to believe some of what William had said. He believed enough to realize that they were going to need more men.
They needed to get everyone recalled to Shotgun Cove before they made their move. Carter knew that it had to be done right or they would all pay dearly, so he made up his mind that he would go after the men at the tunnel entrance, Earl, who was sent to get them in the first place, their people back at the Inn, and any survivors from the truck they lost in Whittier. He didn’t suspect it would take much convincing with the Colonel to set him on his task. It was what Sullivan would have done and so Carter would do it instead.
The conversation with Colonel Bear was amicable, almost syrupy. The Colonel expressed such pride in Carter’s tactical foresight and willingness to get the job done and so on. It didn’t take long for Carter to become bored with the praise and drift off into his own thoughts. He was thinking about a long time ago when he was playing Pop Warner football as a kid. It was such a random memory with no context in his present reality, but it was a surprisingly refreshing image. He felt somewhat bitter when the Colonel mentioned that someone named Bruce would be going along to help. The comment shattered the memory like a hammer through a window, catching Carter off guard. He was anxious for the time alone, which had been a rarity as of late.
Carter asked, looking at the group in front of them, “Who the hell is Bruce?”
The big guy from in the house who had confronted Carter stepped forward. His chest was trying to burst through both the shirt and jacket he was wearing. Carter wondered if the oversized man would be able to fit in his truck and was considering that thought when the Colonel asked pointedly, “Is there a problem, Carter?”
Feeling the dagger at his back like Caesar did in the forum, Carter turned slowly and answered, “Nope.” He turned to the big Bruce. “Let’s go, Brucy.”
“It’s Bruce.”
After placing another painful pinch of tobacco into his lip, Carter sneered, “It may have been but now it’s Brucy. You’ll get used to it.” The fire behind Carter’s eyes didn’t allow any further comment despite the obvious size disparity between the two men.
Chapter 81
Carter and Bruce quickly cruised out of the developed area of Shotgun Cove and did so without uttering a single word to one another. The roads had thawed quite a bit with the day but were still slick with black ice on the patches covered by shadows. Carter felt the truck give slightly on a couple of turns, but for the most part the drive was smooth.
Carter was drifting off into his thoughts, barely keeping his eyes on the empty road ahead. Bruce too was distracted. The Colonel said something to him that had piqued his curiosity; something to the effect that he was looking for a replacement for Carter and the quicker Carter disappeared the quicker that change could take place.
Bruce was fairly certain that was what he heard. The further they drove away from the conversation, the less sure he was of himself. He knew he needed to take some drastic action. Whether the Colonel was ready to replace Carter or not, Bruce was tired of having him sitting so comfortably on his self-assigned perch. Carter wasn’t that tough; he was just willing to be cruel and do what others weren’t, and could do so without any restrictive emotions or attachments.
Most of what Bruce t
hought wasn’t as coherent or linear as that, but his brain processed those basic assumptions in bits and pieces. In very rudimentary ways, he was able to connect the disparate shards of information to help him develop an understanding of the Colonel’s intention.
He looked over at Carter. He appeared to be watching the road intently. Bruce really didn’t like Carter one bit...not even a little. Carter was an asshole and needed to be shown that he wasn’t the cock of the walk that he thought he was. He was a little man with a little man’s complex. Bruce was perfectly willing to teach that lesson to Carter and now that it appeared that he had the Colonel’s blessing it was only a matter of time. He looked forward to crushing Carter’s nose all over his pale, pasty face.
Carter felt Bruce staring at him and turned his head to meet the man’s glare. Carter smiled like a jack-o’-lantern, his teeth blackened and rotting from tobacco use. Neither man saw the first few of the walking corpses they passed on the either side of the road because they were too busy staring one another down. When Carter returned his eyes to the road, it was just in time to see the approaching wall of death with eyes in front of them.
The road was full to overflowing with staggering, decaying, filthy undead creatures. Not even a tank could wade through the river of doom. Carter slammed on his brakes and turned the steering wheel hard to the left. The truck went into a directed but uncontrolled slide, plowing into layer after layer of zombies. Carter winced harder and harder the further they drove into the herd, but he was not out of control. He unlocked his door, rolled down Bruce’s window, opened his door, and leapt out, shouting over his shoulder, “So long, Brucy!”
Bruce shouted something in response but his screams of pain quickly replaced his angry voice when the truck came to a stop. Carter could only imagine Brucy’s fate and smiled.
Carter was pleased to see that the road around him had been cleared of skins by his truck. There was no way for him to be able to run all the way back to Shotgun Cove, but Bruce’s death screams were working to distract all the creatures immediately around him. There was an impossible incline on one side of the road and a terrifying drop off on the other side.
Making his decision in an instant, Carter ran to the side that fell away and started down it. He disappeared from sight, sinking below the road surface height fairly quickly. He was hoping to completely drop out of consideration by the fiends. It appeared to be working. He was alone and able to catch his breath. He never took his eyes off the edge of the road above his head as he contemplated his next move.
Bruce’s cries had vanished and the mass sounded like it was on the move again to Carter. Their feet shuffled along the pavement in an uneven, rhythm-less march, like an army seeking a fight. The wind was blowing into Carter’s face as he looked ahead of him toward Whittier. The path in that direction was more reasonable than the path back to Shotgun Cove, which became much sharper with less vegetation on which to hold. He wondered how long it would take for the procession to pass his position.
Not willing to wait, he picked his way forward into the wind. Luckily, there was a seldom used footpath just a few feet up from the precipice’s edge. The angle at which he was forced to walk caused his legs to ache, but he pressed forward.
He wondered if the herd would stop before it came to Shotgun Cove and then wondered why it would. There was nothing between them and the little community. It was likely the Colonel they were following in the first place. Those other people...the ones who had attacked them at their camp in Soldotna; they probably had no idea that either the Colonel or those things were moving toward them.
Carter thought about all those other people in the Colonel’s militia but couldn’t find an ounce of concern for any of them. He hardly knew any of their names and knew nothing about them as people. There were a couple he knew he could count on in the thick of a firefight, but that was an impersonal fact to know about people.
Neither Colonel Bear’s militia nor the killers upon which he sought retribution knew that their doom was heading straight for them and Carter didn’t care a rat’s ass about any of them. He figured he would make his way back into Whittier, find a vehicle that he could get started, and then he would figure out his next move. Going back to Shotgun Cove to warn any of them never entered his thoughts. He didn’t care what happened one way or the other. They could all die for all he cared.
Chapter 82
The Colonel stared at the young man standing in front of him. “Say that again,” he demanded.
Out of breath and clearly excited by the news he was delivering, the young man leaned forward and said again, “I...think... I think we...found ‘em.”
“You found who, soldier?”
“People. We found people. They’re down at the end of this road at another big lodge. There was a bunch of ‘em. They were moving stuff, gettin’ ready for somethin’ maybe.”
His breathing getting quicker and his mouth filling with saliva, the Colonel asked, “How close are they?”
“Just down the road. We could walk there and they wouldn’t know that we was even there. It would be like shootin’ fish in a...in a…”
“Barrel. Yes, get everyone together. We’ll hit them now. We’ll strike at them while they are unaware. We’ll ride down upon them like Valkyries descending from Valhalla to harvest their souls.”
The young militiaman stared at the Colonel and went so far as to nod, but had no clue what the massive Colonel was talking about. It did sound pretty cool to him though. He ran back out of the dining room where he’d found the Colonel.
The young man, Marcus, was one of the few with a little bit of military training; he’d attended the Alaska Military Youth Academy a few years back.
The Colonel could hear him gathering everyone. Colonel Bear was excited at this opportunity. If they could attack and defeat these strangers without Carter’s help, then maybe the Colonel would have an easier time convincing all of the others to back him when he confronted Carter. If they were all basking in their victory when Carter returned, the Colonel would be able to take whatever steps he deemed necessary when the moment arose. That was all for later. For the time being, he would focus on taking his vengeance on those deserving it down at the end of the road. He would bring all the vengeful spirit of the ancient Furies with him and deliver the justice he knew those people deserved.
There could be no pity, not even for those children. Real justice knew nothing about pity or mercy because it had no need of either. That was the nature of true justice. It was cold, pure, and beautiful.
The Colonel drank the martini made for him by Zach, another of the men who rode with him in his Hummer. It wasn’t cold and it didn’t have an olive, but it was strong and that was what he wanted. Having finished one already, he could feel the liquor in his cheeks and lips, which were warm and flushed.
“Marcus! Bring me my rifle. It’s about time for us to be going. Our destiny awaits us at the end of the road.”
Chapter 83
Creeping through the woods like the boogeyman, the twenty or so remaining members of the Colonel’s militia approached William’s lodge with as much stealth as the forest floor would allow.
They walked partially bent at the waist, trying to evade detection from the potentially watchful eyes inside the lodge. Most barely breathed, afraid that their breath might give away their position.
Their target seemed impossibly far away and not getting any closer despite their best efforts. The trees, a healthy mix of Sitka Spruce, Alder, Birch, and Cottonwood, were tall and narrow but growing in dense pockets in the thin, glaciated soil. They had to pick their way around and sometimes under the twisted nests of branches to maintain their gradual approach. Through this section of forest there were no clear-cut trails or paths. They had to slog their way through knotted layers of vegetation, doused with a growing blanket of frosty white.
By the time the militia had reached the edge of the tree line bordering the lodge’s cleared property, most of their fingers were stiff a
nd cold and their cheeks protested in splotchy patterns of pink and red. They paused, not certain what came next.
The Colonel had told them to get near to the house without being seen and then assault it aggressively. It sounded so easy when the Colonel said it, but faced with the task without the Colonel’s continued direction or encouragement, none of it was so clear.
They had all been surprised to learn that Colonel Bear was sending them into battle while he and Greg were going to remain behind. The two of them would wait in the Colonel’s Hummer, his command vehicle as he called it, and serve as a tactical reserve. He could rush into the fray with his tank-like rig and deliver a decisive and crushing blow at the right moment.
Unfortunately, none of them knew how to carry out an assault. None of them were soldiers or had any idea about how to be one. They were scared and doubtful of themselves, unsure of how to begin.
After several tense moments, one of the men in the group stood out from the trees and waited. Nothing happened. The lodge looked as unthreatening as generic building anywhere else. It wasn’t a haunted house, exuding terror and threats with its very presence. No, it was just a really big house and it appeared to be empty.
Others joined the first man standing out in the open and again there was no response from anyone in the house. They started to walk down the driveway toward the building, which sat at the bottom of a fairly significant incline. Parked near the lodge was a nice looking Land Rover, covered in snow and looking as if it hadn’t been moved in an age.
The first man said to everyone else, “I don’t think anyone is home.”
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution Page 42