Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within

by James N. Cook

  Dumb move on their part.

  I wrapped my scarf around my face, detached the suppressor from my rifle, and ran up the hill toward the closest knot of gunmen. They were working in three-man fire teams, spread out at five-yard intervals. Not much room to work with, but it would have to do.

  “Hey!” I shouted as I drew near.

  One of them turned to look at me. He was young, not even old enough to grow a beard, and he looked frightened halfway out of his mind.

  “They got a sniper dug in up this way,” I called out, pointing to the right, “He’s shot six guys, but we got him pinned down. Come on, I need more help to take him out.”

  With that, I turned and began running back up the hill.

  One of the many lessons I’ve learned in my life is that if you act like you know what you’re doing, nine times out of ten people will buy it. After a few running steps I stole a glance over my shoulder and, sure enough, the three men had left their post and were following me up the embankment. I was a good thing I had covered my face, otherwise they might have seen me smiling as I tried not to laugh at them.

  When we were halfway back to the scene of my original firefight, one of the raiders behind me snagged his foot on a root and pitched face-first into the dirt. One of his companions, the oldest of the three, stopped and turned around.

  “Goddammit, Grayson, watch where the fuck you’re going,” he said, reaching down.

  They were his last words.

  The report of my rifle startled the man next to him, who had been looking backward when I put a bullet through his friend’s head. He had half a second to register shock before two more bullets ventilated his brain and sent him to his final reward.

  I looked down at the last of them, fully ready to pull the trigger again if he moved. His rifle had gone flying from his hands when he tripped, and lay on the ground several feet way, out of reach.

  “Please,” he said. “Please, don’t kill me. I didn’t want to do this, you have to believe me.”

  Tears began to drip down his ruddy cheeks, and even though I firmly believed that he would have killed me if the tables had been turned, something made me hesitate. Maybe it was the sincerity in his voice, or the fear in his eyes, or maybe it was just the fact that he was so damned young, I don’t know. But I didn’t shoot.

  “What’s your name, boy?” I said, pointing my rifle between his eyes.

  “G-Grayson. Grayson Morrow.”

  “Tell you what, Grayson Morrow, I’ll make you a deal. If you want to live to see another day, you will do exactly as I tell you to. Make one false move, or even twitch in a way that displeases me, and I will paint the ground with your fucking brains. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Y-yes s-sir.”

  He was shaking now, eyes wide with fear. Good.

  “I want you to put your face down on the ground, look away from me, and put your arms out with your palms up to the sky. Do it now.”

  He did as I said, his back twitching with quiet sobs.

  “Cross your feet.”

  He did.

  I took one hand off my rifle, drew my pistol, and then slid the M-6 around to my back. Keeping my gun trained on him, I grabbed one of his upturned palms, bent his arm at the elbow, and planted a knee into the back of his neck. With his arm trapped on his back, and his face planted in the dirt, he had nowhere to go. I holstered my pistol so that I could grab a few zip-ties from a pouch on my belt.

  “Give me your other hand.”

  He struggled awkwardly, but finally managed to flop his arm onto his back. I seized his wrist and pulled his hands together, then switched my grip to his fingers and applied pressure. The boy hissed in pain but didn’t try to move.

  “I’m going to put zip-ties around your wrists. I will need both hands to do this. If you try anything, I will kill you. Understood?”

  He nodded as best he could. “Yes, sir, I’m not gonna try anything.”

  It took me a few seconds to secure his hands, but he was as good as his word. He didn’t move.

  “I’m going to bind your legs now. Again, if you try anything, you will die.”

  I moved down to his feet, tied his knees and ankles together, and then rolled him over onto his back. I needed a gag but didn’t have anything to make one out of except my newly trussed-up prisoner’s clothing (I sure as hell wasn’t using mine), so I pulled my fighting knife from its sheath. Upon seeing the blade, the boy started bucking and thrashing to get away from me.

  “NOOO! Please, don’t-”

  I cut him off by putting a knee in his chest, a hand over his mouth, and my knife against his throat.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I hissed, leaning close. “I’m going to cut off strips of your shirt, and then I’m going to put a gag in your mouth. But if you make one more goddamn sound, I will open you up from neck to nuts and leave you for the infected. Do I make myself clear?”

  He nodded, his eyes bulging.

  Another nervous minute went by as I sliced up his shirt, stuffed a wad of material into his mouth, and then tied it off with strips from his heavy jacket. All the while, I kept an eye on the woods around me, half expecting a dozen raiders to step out from behind trees with guns blazing. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

  With my captive secured, I dragged him under the low hanging boughs of a nearby cedar, used a length of para-cord to tie a slipknot around his neck, and then anchored the other end tightly around the trunk of the tree.

  “You should be well hidden if you stay still,” I said, leaning in to whisper to him. “If you try to get away, that cord around your neck will tighten. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you what will happen next.”

  The boy nodded and tried to talk. I couldn’t make out what he said, and leaned closer.

  “What was that?”

  “Hu-ahout eee enhehud?”

  I patted him on the cheek and smiled my nastiest smile. “If the infected show up, then I strongly encourage you to strain against that cord as hard as you can, and pray it chokes you to death before they get to you. From what I hear, getting eaten alive is a shitty way to go.”

  I left him there, and just as I was about to start moving back toward the sound of the fighting, a bright red flare lit up the sky about a quarter-mile away.

  Well it’s about goddamn time, Grabovsky.

  Another flare went up, this one near the top of the ridgeline, signaling the cargo’s position to our reinforcements.

  I set out at a dead sprint, trying to get back to where I could hear Gabe and the others still fighting for their lives. No more than ten steps had flown under me before I heard the cataclysmic crack-BANG of the other LAW rocket, followed by the shattering THUMP-THUMP of two grenades, which was then followed by the rat-tat-tat of automatic fire. Unless I missed my guess, my friends had just blown a hole in the marauders’ line and were shooting their way out.

  My theory proved correct when, after nearly a full minute of running toward where I last heard them, Sanchez came around the upturned root of a fallen oak and damn near ran head-on into me.

  We both skidded to a halt, stopping close enough to reach out and steady each other before we fell over.

  “Holy shit, you okay man?” I said, looking over his shoulder for the others. “Where’s Gabe and Flannigan?”

  “Right behind me,” he said, breathless. “Come on, we gotta keep moving, the Legion isn’t far behind.”

  He let go of me and kept running down the hill. I waited until I saw Flannigan winding her way through the trees, and the larger shape of Gabe bringing up the rear. Every fifteen steps or so he turned, cracked off a few shots, and then continued sprinting down the hill. Flannigan saw me and opened her mouth to yell.

  I cut her off. “Just keep going. Catch up with Sanchez, and get your asses to the bottom of the hill. Reinforcements will be here any minute.”

  I waited for Gabe, taking cover behind the fallen tree. He sprinted down the hill and stopped just behind me.

&nb
sp; “Come on, let’s keep moving,” he said. “There’s too many of them, we need to fall back and meet up with the reinforcements.”

  “Okay, go on,” I replied. “You go first, I’ll cover you.”

  A couple of figures were visible up the hill, winding their way down through the trees. Gabe sprinted for cover farther down, while I stayed where I was and waited for a clear shot to present itself. I didn’t have to wait long.

  Gabe’s pursuers didn’t see me, which made it easy to stitch the nearest one with three rounds straight up the middle of his torso. His partner saw him go down, and tried to skid into cover behind a tree, but I already had a bead on him. Two shots to the legs dropped him, and two more to the head finished the job.

  Not seeing anyone else, I turned and ran to get behind Gabe’s position, staying low and making sure I didn’t cross into his line of fire. When I was halfway to him, he started firing at something up the hill behind me. I heard a scream, a few voices shouting, and then I was past Gabe. I counted twenty steps, then stopped and took cover behind a tree trunk.

  “Move!” I called out.

  Gabe fired two more shots, then stood up and retreated. “Four more,” he shouted on the way by. “High up on your right.”

  I peered through my scope where he had indicated, and saw more raiders hunkered down taking potshots at us. While I was taking aim at one of them, I noticed that the weapons they all carried were either military issue M-16s or AK-47s. Curiouser and curiouser.

  My first shot took the gunman through the throat, so I followed up with two more center of mass. He was still moving and, even from a distance, I could hear him screaming. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Good enough. The other three resumed shooting at me in earnest, evidently having spotted me, and started concentrating fire on my position. Not good. I triggered a short full auto burst over their heads to get a break in the fire, then backed off and ran in the same direction as Gabe.

  We went on that way for what felt like forever, taking turns retreating and laying down cover fire. All the running was beginning to take its toll. My lungs burned, and my legs were starting to get shaky. It seemed that for every one marauder we took out, two more appeared to take their place. But their pursuit had slowed, no doubt because of the high volume of casualties they were taking. I guess there is something to be said for good marksmanship and high-quality optical sights. That, and the psychological effect of watching someone’s heart get blown out through their spine didn’t hurt either.

  As we were crossing a dry streambed near the base of the hill, Gabe looked up and saw movement through the trees behind us. He tapped my arm with the back of his hand and motioned ahead.

  “Can you see who that is? And please, for the love of God, tell me it’s backup.”

  I raised my scope and peered through it. “It’s Grabovsky. He’s with a squad of about twenty, fanned out and on approach. You got another flare?”

  “Yeah, I do. Come on, let’s take cover. We’ll hold the line until they get here.”

  We jumped down into the streambed and laid our rifles on the bank, taking aim at the enemy advancing in the distance. Checking my vest, I found that I was down to my last two magazines, not counting the half-empty one in my pocket. Good thing the G-man was close; things might have gone badly for me otherwise.

  I deployed my bipod and began looking for someone to shoot while Gabe took another flare from his vest and popped it. Grabovsky could now see where we were, but on the downside, so could the raiders. In their place, seeing my quarry sending up a signal would have given me pause. Why would we want to be seen if we were outnumbered and on the run? Seemed like a logical enough question. I looked up the hill to see if our pursuers were wondering the same thing.

  Nope. Apparently not.

  Not only were they still coming, they had actually sped up and were baying back and forth to one another like a pack of wild, excited dogs. I had to shake my head at that. Never underestimate the power of stupidity.

  My first target was a tall guy with an AK. I put a three-round burst into his stomach, watched him fall, and waited to see if anyone wanted to be a hero. Another man a few steps behind stopped and tried to drag him behind a tree. I shifted my aim and triggered another burst through the side of his chest, killing him before he hit the ground.

  While looking around for someone else to shoot, it occurred to me that I was getting entirely too comfortable with using the old wound-and-wait trick. It was effective, but damn if it wasn’t brutal.

  No one else tried to be a hero. The others spread out, split up into two-man fire teams, and started advancing down the hill in a skirmish line. I dropped from sight below the edge of the bank and ran to another spot a few feet to my right. Gabe opened up with his SCAR, fired three rounds, and got three screams of pain for his efforts. He dropped down and moved in my direction while I popped up and started laying down short bursts of suppression fire.

  Come on, G-man, hurry the hell up.

  From behind me, just as I was getting ready to cease fire and run for cover somewhere else, I heard the distinctive, hollow phump of someone triggering a grenade launcher.

  “Shit, get down!” I yelled, but Gabe was already taking cover.

  The grenade flew over our heads and detonated into the hillside about thirty yards up from us. I wasn’t sure if it hit any of the marauders, but it sure as hell got their attention.

  Two more grenades came flying through the air, followed by the staccato burst of someone opening up with a squad automatic weapon (or just SAW, for short). It was, quite possibly, the sweetest sound I had ever heard in my life.

  “Come on,” Gabe shouted to me. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I followed him around the edge of the streambed, practically crawling to stay below the edge of the berm, and kept moving until we were out of the Legion’s range and somewhere behind our own forces. Feeling a little safer, we climbed up the steep bank, drank some water, and took a moment to figure out which way we needed to go.

  “Sounds like they’re up that way,” I said, pointing northward.

  “I think you’re right,” Gabe replied. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  A few minutes later, Gabe stopped and knelt down behind a thick oak trunk, motioning for me to do the same.

  “What is it?” I asked. Gabe flapped his hand at me to stay quiet.

  “Blacksmith,” he called out.

  A moment went by in silence, then from ahead of us I heard, “Eagle.”

  I would have recognized that accent anywhere. We got up and stepped around the tree.

  “Where’s Flannigan?” Gabe asked as Sanchez emerged from cover.

  “Over here,” she said, standing up from behind a fallen log.

  Sancho grinned. “What took you so long?”

  “Got held up at that dry creek bed,” Gabe replied. “Come on, let’s find the others.”

  I bummed a couple of magazines from Sanchez, reloaded, and followed them toward the sound of the fighting.

  *****

  It was mostly over with by the time we reached them.

  Using exactly the same tactic the Legion had employed against us, Grabovsky had split his forces into three assault teams and deployed them in a pincer formation, spreading them out and surrounding the raiders at the top of the ridge. He led the main assault force straight up the middle, but occasionally slowed down and let the Legion hold its ground for a while. This used up a lot of ammo, but it gave the two squads moving up the flanks time to get into position.

  The marauders, backed up against the top of the ridge with nowhere else to go, had tried to make a break for it by running down the steep hillside leading to the highway. Grabovsky waited for them to reach the bottom—where they were out in the open with no place to take cover—before signaling to the squads lying in wait to open fire.

  It was a slaughter.

  Two SAWs and about twenty M-4s opened up on them all at once, hitting them in a twin vector that pointed
like an arrowhead toward the far side of the highway, and the escape that they would never reach. The raiders positioned on the other ridge and, while still trying to lay down covering fire, decided that discretion was the better part of valor and melted back into the hills. The G-man sent a few fire teams to find them, but they had disappeared.

  Once the dust settled, it was clear that the militia had scored a solid victory against the Legion, but it did not come without a price. Four recruits were wounded, two of them seriously. Not wanting to waste time waiting for wagons to arrive, Grabovsky ordered the wounded carried back to town on litters. Half the platoon volunteered to help, which allowed them to set a running pace by rotating carriers every few hundred yards. I watched them hustle away and hoped that they would get to Allison in time.

  Just as they passed from view, the first distant moans of the undead slithered to my ears from the surrounding forest. I hustled back to where Gabe and Grabovsky were ordering recruits to round up the fallen cargo and stage it for retrieval.

  “Hey G-man, I don’t suppose the helicopter is coming back this way is it?” I asked.

  The muscles of his thick neck writhed under his skin as he shook his head. “ ’Fraid not. Fucking bullet clipped a hydraulic line. She’s grounded until we can get repair parts flown in.”

  One of the recruits standing near us stood up straight. “Hey, do you hear that?”

  Gabe looked in the direction the sound was coming from. “Yep. Sounds like the infected found us.”

  He placed his hands around his mouth and shouted, “All right ladies and gentlemen, we have incoming. The walkers are on their way. We need to get this cargo squared away and take up defensive positions. LET’S MOVE.”

  Hearing the moans made me remember my prisoner, and I slapped a hand to my forehead.

  “Fuck me running,” I hissed.

  Grabovsky looked at me. “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

  “No, shit, dude, I totally forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  “I captured one of them.”

  “One of them who? The Legion?”

  “Yes.”