The plumes of smoke remove his advantage of sunlight in Kade’s eyes, and with this element of surprise he must take advantage of being so exposed in the center of the road with no cover. The M&P leaps into his hand. LJ gets no chance to raise his weapon as two rounds shatter his sternum. A stray round flies between the falling LJ and Kade.
Kade gets a wild shot off. Chunks of asphalt splinter before Ethan. A single round punctures Kade’s right lung. A fifth and sixth round flies between Kade and Hale. Ethan loses track of one round, the other strikes a man in the leg. Before he howls, Hale gets a bullet in the kidney from behind. His instinct once the gun fire started was to turn and run, but he didn’t get far.
His shotgun discharges. Lead balls pelt one of the trucks sending the men in it scrambling.
The soldiers within the guard tower find their opportunity to join the fray. They rain fire on the men in the trucks. This only assists Ethan in expending the remaining nine rounds.
Jameson pops through the hatch. He takes careful aim between each shot, never wasting a bullet or giving his new CO a reason to duck.
A soldier climbs down from the guard tower. He fires on the last remaining men in a truck.
Kade sucks in frantic gasps of air but not enough to fill his lungs. His gun slides with a kick from his hand. A shot rings out. His men, dead or not, are being put to death.
Ethan towers over Kade, slamming a fresh clip into his M&P. “I’m going to move your trucks now.”
Kade hacks blood. “My…”
“Your brother. Me having to move the trucks myself sort of ends the deal. You’ve nothing to offer.”
Blood spills from the chest wound. Ethan leans close to Kade. “You know I don’t want to turn into your kind. So before you expire I’ll tell you. I killed the one brother you sent after Sarah. I also killed another one who was into raping little girls.”
Kade forces himself to rise up. He can’t get enough air to curse this man or even get to his elbows. A hollow point slug imbeds itself in his skull.
“Jameson! Have the wrecker get up and clear the road,” Ethan howls at the corporal. Four soldiers climb down from the guard tower.
The shortest one runs up to him, saluting. “I appreciate the help, sir.”
“Your explosions helped a lot.”
The helicopter lifts off. Colonel Travis steps onto the cargo ramp, being the last of his men to evacuate Fort Leonard Wood. The helicopter races through the black smoke. Travis views what’s left of his base as it burns.
People scatter from the food distribution area. The explosions have sent them into a riotous panic. Many race for the tents of the Bowlin brothers.
“Sir, you need to take your seat in order to close the ramp,” one of soldiers sent to escort him explains.
Thick smoke engulfs much of the base. Through the plumes, he spots the convoy speeding from the front gate. He counts the vehicles. All of them made it out. Knowing his daughter will remain safe allows him to take his seat. Knowing thousands will die because of his cowardly flight will cause countless sleepless nights.
“I DON’T KNOW if I can do this,” Hannah squats behind a tree, her panties around her ankles.
“You said you had to go.” Corporal Jameson, poised on the other side of the tree, keeps his rifle at the ready.
“I do. It’s bad enough I have to use a tree, but I can’t go if you’re watching.”
“I’m not going to watch you poop. I’m just going to stand guard.” Jameson keeps his back to Hannah and the tree. “I can go get Private Sanchez if you want.”
“I’m a girl. I don’t want you to know I poop.”
“I can’t leave you alone, especially squatting in a forest full of lame brains…”
“I wish you wouldn’t call them that.”
“What do you want me to call them?”
“They were people. Someone’s mom, uncle, teacher.”
“They’re the enemy. An enemy we’ve not been trained how to fight.” He raises his weapon. A squirrel races from some grass up a tree. The startling noise draws her attention away from him allowing him to peek at her naked rump.
“Turn around!” she snaps. “I don’t know if I can go with you standing there, but I certainly can’t go with you watching.”
“I’ll stay turned around, but you’re going to have to get used to someone watching. I guess that’s about one of the first things you learn in basic without realizing it.”
“How to poop?”
“There’re no stalls. You’ve ten minutes to be ready once the Drill Sergeant calls Reveille. You ain’t ready, your unit suffers and you don’t want that.”
“Keep talking, it helps me to relax.” She chews her bottom lip to disguise a small grunt. “You ever cause your unit to be late?”
“I don’t think we were ever late. But we had to do extra pushups for this one guy who wouldn’t shower.”
“Why wouldn’t he shower?”
Jameson forgets for a moment he’s talking with a fifteen-year-old girl. “He’d the tiniest dick I’ve ever seen. Like the size of your thumb to the first knuckle.
She looks at her thumb. She bends the knuckle and flexes it a few times. Even having never been with a man she knows that won’t do much for a girl. “Not even an inch.” Poor guy, she thinks.
“I guess his embarrassment was too much. He’d rather stink, so he refused to shower in front of us. The drill sergeant would march past him during inspection and about puke from the odor. Said if one of us was going to stink we’d all stink so we did pushups.”
“‘Til you stank?”
“‘Til there was so much sweat pouring off us. A lot of guys wanted to beat him up, but we just let him shower alone that night. The drill sergeant found out. Said we were a unit. We work as a unit. Drill sergeant set a time for the water to turn on and be turned off. The kid didn’t shower. We did pushups until two men collapsed from dehydration.”
She pulls up her pants. “Well, I guess I’m a big girl. I went potty.” She bounces with a smirk toward the trucks. “So he just showered?”
“We helped him. We got some scouring brushes with the hard bristles like for cleaning burnt-on grease. We drug him into the shower and cleaned him. Told him if he didn’t shower we’d scrub him like that every day.”
“Did it work?”
“I never saw a person with such raw red skin. He showered from then on.”
“Bet he wished he’d just have been laughed at for a small dick.”
The laugh of a teenage girl bites at him. “I guess.” He glances at his own lack of a bulge in his pants. They head back to the circle of trucks parked so not one blocks another but provides cover. The people she helped rescue are tightly packed inside the circle. The soldiers take up defensive positions to protect the civilians eating from brown MRE packages.
The men, now deemed her protectors by her father, hand out MREs to each person.
“Can we set up a tent?” Hannah asks.
“No. No comfort.”
“It’s going to be chilly tonight. If you don’t want to travel at night, can’t we build a fire?”
“Jameson, do you know how to construct a Dakota Fire Hole?”
“Never heard of it.”
Ethan explains, “You dig a fire pit in the center. You can hid more fire the deeper you dig. Don’t build it too high above ground. It will attract biters. Dig a second pit next to the one for the fire and then make a tunnel to connect the two. It will provide air for the fire and hide smoke and flames.”
“If you say it works, sir.”
“It will. Just do it.”
Jameson snaps to the task.
“We’ve headlights. Why not travel at night?” Hannah asks.
“You’ve been in the compound for nine months. I’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the new world. The road clear for a dozen trips has a stalled truck not there yesterday. I can’t explain it. It seems the evidence of people having been around grows but people themselves c
an’t be found, and I’ve already crashed once in the last week.” He hands her a brown packet. “Eat half the MRE and save the other half for breakfast.”
“My father sent plenty of food,” Hannah protests.
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
“I’m telling you how to eat it. My promise of safekeeping will be performed how I see fit,” Ethan says.
“Don’t think you can speak to me like that.”
Jameson slides his finger over the trigger of his rifle at the angry father tone being blasted at Hannah. Ethan notices the finger shift, causing him to flex his own gun hand. Jameson knows this man’s faster than he will ever be even with his rifle already drawn.
“And that food has to sustain you and these people for more than just while we travel. Safe doesn’t mean you get to be a spoiled princess. It’s time to grow up and work for your survival. You brought along more people than I’m able to feed until I get more cattle. We ration the MREs.”
She looks to the soldiers, but none of them—even Nick—seem to disagree with this man. He’s been outside the fence more than all of them put together and lived for all this time, and they respect he knows how to survive. Colonel Travis would never have put anyone else in charge of them.
“I’m not a spoiled princess.” Hannah turns away. She doesn’t want to cry, cry like the little girl this man thinks she is. Her tears are for a father she won’t see again.
Ethan slams on the brakes. The bleeding man falls over the Humvee hood. Hannah’s protector jumps out, drawing his M&P and placing his left hand over the right hand. Jameson mans the fifty caliber. Ker-chunk. The mechanism to make it fire clicks into place.
“Don’t fire,” Ethan orders.
Bam. Bam.
Two biters fall from his pistol.
“It’s bad enough my gun shots will attract more. That thing will bring half the country.” Ethan waves for the soldier in the passenger seat to follow him.
Demolitions specialist Cromwell slides from the Humvee and side steps to the front of the vehicle, weapon drawn. “Is he dead?”
The fallen bloodied man heaves for breath from running to escape the now growing number of undead emerging from the forest.
Jameson swings the fifty cal. toward the emerging corpses. “I can clean them all out.”
“Not yet.” He points for Cromwell to keep his pistol on the man while he rips open the shirt.
“No bites,” Ethan says.
“Someone’s beat the hell out of him.”
“Or abused him for fun.” Ethan follows a line of cuts in the chest with his finger inches above it. “He was running from whoever did this, not those corpses.” He handcuffs the man’s wrists together. “Grab the doc,” he orders Cromwell.
“Why?” Stammers Levin, holding up his cuffed hands. He barely escaped Danziger’s death blow.
“You want my help. I don’t know you, and someone beat you up. Until I decide you’re not going to harm my group, you stay cuffed or I leave you to the biters.”
“Please help me, he’s after me.”
“Who?”
Levin passes out.
He keeps his gun pointed at the bloody man’s head while he feels for a pulse.
The doctor jogs from the personnel carrier. Cromwell pops an approaching biter.
“What happened?”
“He flew over the hood.”
“These wounds aren’t from a car impact. He’s been worked over.” The doctor examines the wounds.
“You find a bite. I end him and we go.”
“I understand.” The doctor nods.
“You better, because your Hippocratic Oath no longer applies to those that have been bitten.”
The doctor nods. “Someone’s cut a chunk of hide out about the size of a pork chop.” He places four gauze pads over a wound where chunks of skin have been carved from his flesh. “This man’s been tortured not bitten.”
“The cuffs stay on. It’s non-negotiable.”
“Can I speak to you privately?” The doctor jerks his head, motioning him away from the Humvee.
“You’ll find, doc, if I think a situation will cost me my life I won’t stand for any negotiations.” Three thunderous booms rattle the air. He spins around. Three corpses fall. Private Sanchez blows the smoke away from her sidearm.
“Anyone bitten has to be put down.” The doctor agrees. “This looks more like someone tried to filet him.”
“Cannibals. I’ve seen evidence,” Ethan says.
“Why would anyone reduce themselves to that?” Cromwell asks.
“If you don’t know how to hunt or fish and the food mart has been emptied, what do you do to quell the rumble in your stomach?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Cromwell observes.
“Used to be my job.”
“But the answers…”
“I don’t like them, but ‘once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote.”
“I’m not smart enough to understand what you mean,” Cromwell admits
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” the doctor explains.
Cromwell completes the idiom, “Then it must be a duck.”
If we helped someone’s lunch get away, they’re going to come after him. And until we know more about this, we keep this fucker handcuffed.”
“Help me,” Levin regains consciousness for a moment to plead.
Cromwell slings his M16, loops his arms under Levin’s armpits in order to pull him to his feet. The doctor takes an arm to act as a crutch and they move the wounded man to one of the cargo trucks.
As they pass the side of the Humvee, Levin trips and slams against the window. Blood smears across the surface. Levin eyes the colonel’s daughter.
Surprised by the man’s appearance, Hannah jerks away. Her blonde hair falls into her face. The doctor half drags Levin to the truck. Jameson pops another Infected.
“You’re only drawing their attention to you,” Ethan warns. “Noise attracts them.” He backs away from the convoy so he can see the back of the cargo truck.
“But they ain’t damn fast.”
“Not as individuals, but even two or three turn into formidable enemies.” He witnesses them secure the wounded man in the truck.
Cromwell races back to the Humvee. “Want me to drive?”
“I’ve got it.” he pops another corpse and climbs into the driver’s seat.
Danziger smashes a DK in the face with a two-by-four. Other undead near him are drawn away at the thunder booms of a machine gun.
He speculates about Levin finding a gun. Would someone be helping him? What kind of person would help him? On the other hand he appears to be some kind of victim of a brutal assault. Running after and screaming Levin’s some kind of killer would more than likely get him shot, not Levin.
Danziger stays hidden in the tree line. He counts the military vehicles as they drive away and ponders, at least they won’t have a young girl in their unit.
The corpses shamble to the road after the trucks. Danziger knows he can’t catch the trucks, and with the DKs distracted, he races back to the barn.
The poor girl. It’s too late for her. Danziger climbs the ladder to the loft.
Kelly’s ankle remains trapped in restraints. She claws at the floor, attempting to drag herself toward him. Her teeth snap at him.
Danziger grabs a crowbar. The perfect instrument of courage for what he has to do. He drives the metal wedge into the top of her skull. She makes a last desperate grab for his legs as her teeth chomp at him for the last time.
Black blood pools on the floor. He drags a sheet over her body, covering all of her. He hovers over her for a moment of prayer, not so much for this girl but for his own. The goodbye he never got to say to his own child he gives to her. Then the promise he made to his daughter he swears to this girl. He will end this serial killer. As long as he draws brea
th, he will never stop chasing Levin.
He rummages through the gear, rifling through duffel bags Levin collected, dumping containers. The man must have found a few homes nearby to get all this stuff in such a short amount of time. Danziger gathers anything he feels will be of use to survive and stuffs everything into one backpack. With the number of roaming biters, he cannot bury this girl as she deserves. She should be buried. But it’s a risk he can’t take. He dumps bottles of chemical and motor oil onto the wood. The dry tinder soaks in the fluids. He cuts open the hay bales and scatters the dead grass over the loft. He covers the girl with an entire bale. The last bale he drops from the loft and jumps down.
A few biters mill around the barn. Danziger empties an oil bottle into the straw and lights a match. The bale ignites. The flames lap at the dry boards. They burst into flames much faster than he expected. The straw and chemicals he dumped catch in a flash of flames.
The crackling fire attracts the milling biters. He grabs the splitting maul from the chopping stump and strolls from the barn. The heavier-than-a-hatchet weapon swings off balance but still shatters the cranium of a DK. Danziger moves toward the road. Roads are dangerous but the military convoy had enough firepower to stay on them with little risk. It will make it easier for him to follow them in order to put an end to Levin.
William Schlichter has a Bachelor of Science in Education emphasizing English from Southeast Missouri State and a Masters of Arts in Theater from Missouri State University. With fifteen years of teaching English/Speech/Theater, he has returned to making writing his priority. Recent successes with scriptwriting earned him third place in the 2013 Broadcast Education Association National Festival of Media Arts for writing a TV Spec Script episode of The Walking Dead.
His full-length feature script, Incinta, was an officially selected finalist in the 2014 New Orleans Horror Film Festival. Incinta received recognition again by being selected as a finalist at the 2015 Beverly Hills Film Festival for a full-length feature. Incinta has advanced in several other script contests, including most recently being an Official Selected finalist in The 2016 Irvine Film Festival. His next life goal would be to see his film transferred from the pages to the screen.
No Room In Hell (Book 1): The Good, The Bad and The Undead Page 29