Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within

by James N. Cook

  “I’ll do that. You take care, Phil. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

  I left his office and stepped outside into the driving wind. A pair of ski goggles kept the snow out of my eyes as I walked home. I thought about Captain McCray, and how I had treated him. Constantly suspicious of his every action. I thought about how I’d always given him a hard time, always assumed he was working toward his own ends. I still wasn’t sure if I was wrong about that, but whatever else Steve had done, he had died a brave and loyal soldier. He had pledged his life to protect what was left of the United States, and he’d kept that oath. For that, if for nothing else, he had earned my respect.

  When I got home, Liz was sitting by the stove in a terry-cloth robe reading a novel.

  “How’d it go?” she asked, looking up.

  “Jacobs told you about the facilitator, right?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “How are you not bouncing-off-the-walls excited?”

  She laughed, her voice musical in the chill air. “Who says I’m not?”

  She stood up and walked over to me. Her arms went around my neck, and I pulled her close, squeezing and pressing my lips to her cheek. I ran my hands over her back and realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Or a shirt.

  My hands drifted further down, and discovered an absence of panties. Elizabeth’s fingers slid up my neck, bringing out the goosebumps. I leaned back just far enough to tilt her face up and press my lips to hers until they parted, and I felt her soft tongue against mine. I took my time and did a thorough job of things. Her hands kept moving and she let out a soft moan.

  I came up for air. “I hate this robe. It looks terrible on you.”

  She giggled, and snuggled closer. “Maybe you should take it off me.”

  That was exactly what I did.

  Chapter 30

  Welcome Faces

  It always surprises me how quickly people move on with their lives. Whatever the event, through any tragedy, the survivors always find a way to carry on.

  We lose a loved one. We have a funeral. We spread the ashes, we hold each other and say comforting things, and then we get on with the business of living.

  A house burns down. We sift through the charred remains and salvage what we can. We carry off the wreckage and make plans to build a new home. And then we get on with the business of living.

  We suffer trauma, and lose our way for a while. We mope silently around the house for a few days. We get drunk. Being drunk feels better than the hurt, so we get drunk again. Finally, we get a stern talking-to from our significant others telling us that while they know we’re hurting, drowning our sorrow in a bottle isn’t going to make things any better. Then that significant other kisses us gently, and something breaks loose, and then we’re crying like a baby again. Later, when all the tears are wiped away, we feel better. Stronger.

  And then we get on with the business of living.

  *****

  In late December of one of the best and worst years of my life, I attended two events. One of them a month late, and the other far too early.

  The first was the graduation ceremony for the Ninth Tennessee Volunteer Militia. Or as they jokingly called themselves, the Bloody Nine. At first, I thought that whoever named them must have been a big fan of Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series. But apparently, that was not the case. Some of them said it was because they had seen combat and taken casualties before they had even graduated from basic training. Some said it was because of their unit patch, a crimson 9 on a plain green circle. Whatever the case, either name sounded better than simply “the militia.” At least their unit was now important enough to warrant capitalization.

  In the spirit of naming things, the Bloody Nine’s training facility, formerly known simply as “the camp,” was renamed Fort McCray. Mayor Stone even commissioned a plaque in Steve’s honor, and in honor of all the brave men and women who had given their lives in defense of Hollow Rock.

  I think Steve would have liked that.

  Sanchez, Flannigan, and two others were promoted to NCO and assigned one squad each. Marcus Cohen gave up his deputy’s star, accepted a field commission from General Jacobs, and took the helm as the Bloody Nine’s commanding officer. He was a good man for the job, but he wasn’t the general’s first pick.

  That had been me.

  Needless to say, I turned him down. I can barely hold myself together most days, much less a militia. I told Jacobs as much. He had smiled sadly, patted me on the shoulder, and let the matter rest.

  The second event was Steve’s memorial service. It had taken the Army a while to recover his remains, and the remains of the men who had died with him. The remains had been transported back to Hollow Rock, cremated, and the ashes either sent back to families, or buried at a nearby cemetery. Steve had no family left, so in Hollow Rock he remained. It was nice to have him close by; I could go and talk to him if I wanted to. Maybe he could hear me, maybe he couldn’t. There was only one way to find out, and while my enthusiasm for life had dimmed somewhat, I hadn’t sunk that low just yet. Someday, maybe. But not now. Not while I still had Allison in my life. And Gabe. And the Glovers. And all the other friends I had made along the way.

  On my way home from the memorial service, I stopped by the clinic to check in on Allison and see if she had any work for me. Now that the Legion was gone, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I spent most of it at the clinic helping out where I could. Washing sheets, emptying bedpans, sterilizing instruments, having hot, steamy monkey sex with Allison in the supply closet. You know, the basics.

  My heart and soul stood in front of the clinic with a couple of nurses, all of them watching a bustle of activity up the street at the VFW. I stopped beside her and bumped her with my hip. She smiled and bumped me back.

  “What’s going on down there?” I asked.

  “Remember Gabe saying that the Army was leaving a few troops to ride out the winter with us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they arrived today. The mayor is putting them up in the VFW hall.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I’ll go introduce myself.”

  She swatted me on the butt. “Maybe you should.”

  I strolled up the street and turned into the small courtyard the VFW shared with the town hall. It was covered in over a foot of snow, but someone had shoveled the walkways clear. Townsfolk were hustling back and forth setting up cots, carrying in supplies, and building outhouses in the field behind the building. I approached a group of soldiers standing just inside the entrance. They were huddled in a cluster, sipping instant coffee and trying to stay out of the way. One of them laughed at something a tall, blond fellow standing beside him said, and turned where I could see his face.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  His beard was gone, and his hair was cropped short. He had lost weight, maybe about twenty pounds. He looked leaner. Denser. His face was sharper around the edges, and more weathered than I remembered. The eyes were the same, if a little darker from hard experience. But the smile was what gave him away. I would have recognized that shit-eating grin anywhere.

  I called out, “Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around?”

  The men stopped talking and looked at me. Their faces were a mixture of confusion and hostility. Their hands began straying toward weapons.

  All but one of them, that is. He just stood there looking shocked.

  “Eric? Is that you?”

  The tall blond man looked down at him, and then at me, and I recognized him as well. He was a lot different than I remembered. He was bigger, more filled out, and looked ten years older even though it hadn’t been nearly that long.

  I smiled at the two of them and walked closer. “What’s the matter, Ethan. Aren’t you happy to see me?” I clapped Justin on the shoulder. “You too, man. It’s been a long time.”

  Ethan Thompson, my old friend from Alexis, North Carolina, broke free from shock and swept me up in a bear hug,
laughing.

  The rest of his men just stared.

  *****

  Ethan and Justin came over for dinner that night, along with Gabe and Elizabeth. We ate, caught up with each other’s lives, and generally enjoyed being in good company. After dinner, Justin pulled a laptop computer out of his pack and showed us the portable solar array he used to power it. The battery had a full charge, enough to last five hours. So we opened a bottle of Mike Stall’s finest, huddled around the small screen, and watched movies until the batteries died.

  At one in the morning, the womenfolk called an end to the night’s proceedings, and informed us menfolk that it was time for bed. I proposed that our guests crash the night in the spare bedrooms rather than brave the cold on the way home. I didn’t get any arguments.

  Swaying a little drunkenly on his way to one of the guest rooms, Ethan stopped, walked over to me, and threw his arms around my shoulders. He was just as bull-strong as I remembered.

  “It’s damn good to see you again, man. I wondered what happened to you. Andrea’s gonna fucking freak when she hears you’re still alive.”

  I smiled and slapped him on the back. “I’m happy to see you too, man. Now let me go. I can’t breathe.”

  He released me, allowing my ribcage to expand, and then punched me on the shoulder and ambled off to bed. As he shut the door behind him, I thought about all the trouble we had gotten into back in North Carolina. I thought about how far he’d come to be here, and how much he must miss his family back at Fort Bragg. I thought about the time he’d told me about his father, and how he still didn’t know what had become of him. Mostly, though, I thought about how people drift in and out of our lives, and the legacy they leave.

  I went to my own bedroom and curled up next to Allison. Time passed, the wind blew outside, and although Allison was soon snoring softly, I lay wide awake, staring out the window at the moon.

  Restless, I got out of bed, pulled on some warm clothes, and stepped out onto the porch. As I came through the door, Gabe’s voice startled me.

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  I rounded on him. He was swaying slowly back and forth on the porch swing. I hadn’t heard him come outside. That was Gabe for you. If he didn’t want you to hear him, you didn’t hear him.

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  He gestured to the wall in the distance. “Feel like going for a walk?”

  “Sure. Why the hell not?”

  We grabbed our rifles just to be on the safe side, and walked to the nearest watchtower under a clear, starry sky. The bloated snow clouds had drifted away a few days ago, but they had left their damned howling wind behind. It blew strong and freezing over Hollow Rock, cutting into exposed skin and grabbing words and laughter from people’s lips before they could reach their intended ears.

  We reached the wall and began walking a slow circuit. Along the way, we exchanged short, respectful greetings with the guards we ran into. Everybody knew us now, and understood what we had done for the town. Gone were the suspicious stares and low whispers behind cupped hands. Now we got handshakes, and invitations to dinner.

  At the southwest corner, the wall climbed a low hill before turning east at the apex. There, it fell away on the other side and revealed a gently rolling vista of fields and little copses of trees that stretched away toward the Ozarks. Gabe and I stopped, put our backs to the wind, and stared for a while.

  “Shame about what happened to Steve,” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I feel bad, you know? I was always so standoffish to the guy. I never really trusted him, and I made sure he knew it. I always assumed he had his own agenda.”

  “Maybe he did,” I said. “If so, it doesn’t matter now.”

  The wind picked up, and I had to lean in to hear what Gabe said next. “Gonna be a rough winter.”

  I looked up at the sky, and at the ribbon-like, striated little clouds speeding across the full moon. “Gonna get worse before it gets better, I think.”

  “You could say that about a lot of things.”

  I glanced at him. His flint-gray eyes were nearly as pale as the snow.

  We stood for a little while longer, watching the wind howl over the frozen fields and drive streamers of snow across the expanse of flawless white. I closed my eyes and leaned back into the wind, letting it support me. I tried to imagine what my future was going to be like. What storms the coming years were going to bring. Nothing that came to mind pointed to a brighter, happier tomorrow.

  But that’s why people work. Why they prepare, and hope, and dream, and strive to grab the future’s delicate threads and pull them in with steady hands. We all strive, and we all fail. And with that failure comes the monster, born of fear and fed on uncertainty, that lives in each and every one of us.

  The wind curled around me, and I imagined a dark ball, deep down in the center of my chest. Black, and undulating, and streaked through with red. I imagined it boiling from within, sending out heavings of orange along its surface like flares erupting from the sun. I imagined my body going pale, then translucent, and then invisible. The ball of anger, and hurt, and sorrow the only thing left of me.

  I imagined the wind swirling around it, each molecule reaching out and stealing away a little portion. Bit by tiny bit, I imagined that ball growing smaller and smaller, eroding away under a sandstorm of winter breath. I imagined that blackness being born up by the wind. High over the wall, across the frozen distance of Tennessee, over the Ozarks, and out into the far, wide plains beyond. When it was gone, I opened my eyes.

  I was still there. Still alive.

  I decided that was a good thing.

  Despite all I had been through, despite the pain, I was grateful that I had another day ahead of me. That I had love, and light, and warmth in my life. And no matter how tough things got, no matter how dark, I vowed to myself to always remember that.

  Eventually, the chill became annoying, and Gabe and I stepped down from the tower. We turned down the road and started back toward where our two houses, and our two lives, sat comfortably close to one another.

  Walking together, we went home.

  For more information, news, and updates on James N. Cook and the Surviving the Dead series:

  Visit James N. Cook on Facebook

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  Also by James N. Cook:

  Surviving the Dead Volume I: No Easy Hope

  Surviving the Dead Volume II: This Shattered Land

  About the Author:

  James N. Cook (who prefers to be called Jim, even though his wife insists on calling him James) is a martial arts enthusiast, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a former cubicle dweller, and the author of the “Surviving the Dead” series. He hikes, he goes camping, he travels a lot, and he has trouble staying in one spot for very long. Even though he is a grown man, he enjoys video games, graphic novels, and gratuitous violence. He lives in North Carolina (for now) with his wife, son, two vicious attack dogs, and a cat that is scarcely aware of his existence.

  If you enjoyed Warrior Within, you may also like the exciting zombie apocalypse thriller Victim Zero, by Joshua Guess. Read on for a preview!

  Chapter One

  Kelvin McDonald, who was only called by his rightful first name when some woman or another in his family was angry, sat in his office long after his staff went home for the day. It had been seven years since that last trip before being awarded his doctorates; seven years of constant research into the strange organism he'd drunkenly dubbed Chimera on a night out with his team members.

  The world hadn't really been a different place then, but looking back on how much of his life changed from that day, it seemed like someone else had lived it. He had entered college at sixteen, sought after by every university with a science program to speak of. Full scholarships offered and finally accepted, Kell found a home at Stanford. He remembered those first few days on campus; a tall and gangly black kid, too young to need a sh
ave more than every third day, southern accent not thick enough to get him laughed at but always present and commented on by the west-coast cast of characters around him.

  His first few days were hard, but in the biology department he fit in for the first time. The memory of discussing microbiological theory and favorite research papers with peers sharing his excitement was a treasured one. Like an heirloom, Kell took that one out often. It was polished and beautiful and sharply detailed. His first few days at Stanford were a major turning point in his life.

  At twenty-six he went on that trip, ten years of hard work that would have been twelve or thirteen if not for his brilliant mind and perfect recall. Before his next birthday he was awarded those sheepskins; one specialized in microbiology, the other in genetics. Kell had always suspected the initial months he'd dedicated to studying Chimera had played a part in the decision to grant his doctorates. It wasn't a secret the faculty wanted him on staff as a researcher. Indeed, it worked out that way.

  A year later Stanford was made an offer it couldn't refuse. Kell didn't know how much money exchanged hands, but the biotech company that bought out every scrap of Stanford's research into Chimera, Sinclair, was international and enormous. A few years before they'd been hit with a lawsuit decision that required a hundred-million dollar payout, and the company hadn't hesitated.

  The only catch to the deal was that Kell came with it. The man who lived and breathed Chimera would have to leave his home of more than a decade.

  Kell agreed with the proviso that if he were so vital to the company that they wouldn't buy the research without him attached, he got to choose where he did his work.

  The office he sat in, with only the recess lights burning, was the place he'd settled after leaving the university. An hour and a half north of his home, the Cincinnati division of Sinclair Global was his. Entirely his—no other work went on in the subdued building.