by Hetzer, Paul
Kera looked up at him and gave him a wink and a smile. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this beautiful young girl who gave her love so freely to him. He knew that she desperately wanted to hear him say that he loved her, and truth be told he did, and it was a feeling in his heart that grew stronger daily. It was only that saying it felt like a betrayal to Holly’s memory so soon after he had lost her. When would it be okay to say those words to this girl? He shook his head; he simply didn’t have that answer. She deserved to hear it from him, more than deserved it, she had earned it. He would die for her as he would have died for Holly or Jeremy, and he couldn’t imagine his life without her anymore. God, she could push his buttons at times and sometimes she was confusing as hell, although what woman wasn’t?
Bite the bullet, you fool! his mind screamed at him. Holly would want you to be happy and have someone new in your life. He sighed deeply and firmed the decision in his mind. He would tell her this evening, when they were safe with the National Guard and reunited with his son. He would tell her because that was what was honestly in his heart. He felt a load lift off of his shoulders at the decision and the acknowledgment of the truth that he was genuinely, deeply in love with the woman in the wheelbarrow.
They approached the closed, chain-link gate that obstructed the short road which led to the parking lot in front of the building that looked like it was the businesses’ storefront. He set the wheelbarrow down in front of the gate and Dontela parked the shopping cart next to it. Katherine and Angela gathered around them as they peered through the steel links to what they all hoped was going to be their salvation.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Dontela remarked.
It was only early afternoon and Steven hoped that if a patrol was going to be sent out here looking for refugees they hadn’t already missed it.
“Don’t worry, they’ll show.” He unwrapped the chain from around the gate and slid it open far enough that they could get through. After pushing Kera within the fence, he closed the gate and replaced the chain.
“My journey is almost over,” he whispered to himself as he followed the others into the compound.
When Sarah had woken after she heard Sergeant Heinlich talking with Gypsy Hill, she had insisted with a hoarse whisper that she drive the rest of the way. She felt like an invalid lying useless in the passenger seat. The Sergeant had stopped the Humvee in the middle of the highway and gladly turned the wheel over to the young woman then climbed onto the passenger seat and closed his eyes, relaxing for the last short leg of the trip to the refugee holding center.
A short time later, as the Humvee sped up the ramp that led to the compound he opened his eyes and glanced over at the cluster of attached buildings, astonished to see that a group of people had recently entered through the gate.
“We have visitors,” he remarked in a surprised voice, sitting up in his seat. It appeared to be a ragged group of four or five people pushing all of their possessions before them. He also spotted the array of firearms slung military style to their chests. They looked to be hardcore survivors. There was one man, tall and clean-shaven, pushing a wheelbarrow with someone in it, and all the rest looked to be woman and children.
He couldn’t believe they had actually rounded up some survivors. Maybe God really was working through Shavers somehow or, more likely, was that he had lady luck breathing over his shoulder. They entered Jefferson Highway and sped across the overpass toward the entrance road that led to the old Augusta Equipment business as the road weary group in the compound stopped and watched them approach.
Jeremy gazed out the window at the cluster of people standing on the other side of the fence, cautiously watching the Humvee as it raced by them toward the turnoff. His mouth fell open when he spotted the tall man among the group. His mind refused to believe what his eyes were seeing. He had to be imagining it. It looked like a longer-haired version of his papa. He pressed his face to the window and stared hard at the man as they drove down the road on the outside of the fence.
“It’s him!” he exclaimed excitedly. “It’s my papa!”
“No shit, kid?” Heinlich laughed. He must have had a mental telepathy moment yesterday or some shit like that, to have what he told the boy to come true like this. If there was still a lottery he would have rushed out and played it.
“It’s him! It’s him!” Jeremy cried again, all doubt vanishing from his mind. The Humvee turned the corner onto the road and raced up to the gate with everyone inside feeling the elation that emanated from the excited boy.
Lamar watched the group as it strode down the road and entered the compound. He hadn’t expected another group of refugees. He had spotted them as soon as they came into view off of the highway and had formulated a new plan in his head. He gave orders to Crazy-8 and Roshawna to signal the rest of the crew to not harm the women, especially the tall, dark homegirl with the slammin’ body.
Ah gonna make that bitch mah queen, he told himself. The tall cracker and the kid he didn’t give a shit about.
He moved up to the front door of the building and stayed out of sight, ready to move out when they got within range. He knew the rest of his crew would be waiting for him to make his move first and they would bum-rush the group on his signal. He spotted the gats that every one of the group ‘cept that little white kid carried, so he knew he would have to work fast before they could react and return fire.
“They ain’t spectin’ a thing.” He laughed to himself and nodded to Crazy-8, who stood on the other side of the door frame. None of the newcomers had a single one of their guns ready to go in their hands. It would be just like pinging ducks in a shooting gallery.
The group of refugees stopped halfway to the storefront and turned, looking out toward the highway. Lamar became worried that one of his crew had stuck their damn fool head up and been seen, so he pulled open the door and stepped out.
“Time we smoke sum cracker ass, cuz,” he told Crazy-8 as he walked out into the bright sunshine, extending his Glock out on its side to the extent of his reach as he strode confidently toward the group that now had their backs turned to him. Crazy-8 grabbed the Tec-9 off the table and followed him out. It was too late to turn back when Lamar heard the sound of the engine approaching the gate.
Jeremy’s attention was locked on his father as the Humvee slowed to a stop at the entryway and he launched himself from the vehicle and ran to the gate, yanking off the chain. “Papa, it’s me!” he yelled muscling open the gate on its squeaky wheels. The long-haired man stood with his mouth hanging open and a stunned look on his shaven face.
“It’s me! Jeremy!” he yelled again, racing through the opening with the Humvee quick on his heels. Steven took a couple of tentative steps forward as his mind processed what he was seeing and hearing. With the sudden realization that what he was seeing wasn’t an exhaustion-induced illusion, he broke into a run toward the boy, a grin splitting his face as he called out joyously to his son.
Tears blurred Jeremy’s vision and he rushed toward his father, his arms thrown wide. Suddenly a look of confusion shattered his father’s happy visage and the man stumbled and nearly fell. He looked aghast at Jeremy and his face turned ghostly white.
“Jeremy,” he croaked painfully, and then tumbled forward onto the ground.
It was only then that Jeremy heard the sounds of gunfire around him. In two more strides he reached his father’s side and gasped when he saw the two red blossoms of blood seeping through the ragged holes in the back of his shirt. With strength unexpected for such a small boy, he rolled the man over. Steven, his eyes wide with pain and fear, gasped for a breath and a fine mist of blood shot from his mouth when a ragged breath escaped from his lungs. He gazed into his boy’s eyes and tried to raise a hand to touch his cheek, but his strength failed him.
“I love you, son,” he said in a barely audible whisper.
Jeremy grabbed his hand and held it to his cheek. “Papa, I love you. You’re going to be okay!” he cried
, oblivious to the events unfolding around him.
Suddenly, Kera was beside him and threw herself across Steven.
“Nooo!” she wailed, a heart-wrenching cry, wrapping her hands around his face and holding his head up.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding!” She slid a hand under her lover’s body through the spreading pool of pink, frothy blood and probed for the bullet wounds.
“Papa, don’t leave me alone again.” Jeremy held his father’s hand to his cheek, wetting it with his tears as he held on tightly, as if by sheer will, he could pull his papa back from whatever brink he teetered on.
Steven weakly shook his head and tried to speak as blood welled up in his mouth. He coughed feebly and tried to speak again. Kera laid her ear next to his lips, her dark hair cascading like a black waterfall over his face.
“I love you, Kera,” he whispered in one last exhalation and then died.
Sergeant Heinlich didn’t have the tunnel-vision that so narrowed Jeremy’s view of the world as the boy focused on his father after opening the gate. He saw the two men with pants hanging off their waists and the handgun held gangster style in the hand of the big man in the lead as he strode purposely out of the building. The other raised what appeared to be a Tec-9 one handed and pointed it at the group. He also became aware of more movement on their flanks.
An ambush! his mind screamed while his body was already leaping into action. He tapped Sarah on the shoulder as the first rounds smacked off of the Humvee’s armored windshield and he threw himself up into the shielded .50 caliber gunner’s nest in the center of the vehicle. A belt was already fed into the machine gun and with a quick flick of his arm he pulled the charging handle while rotating the gun on its pintle to find his first target. He depressed the trigger and watched as it virtually tore in two a young black man wielding a semi-auto AK-47 next to a dump bed truck on their right flank. Below, Sarah fired off a three round burst at some other target from behind her open door, and then the firefight started in earnest.
Katherine fell to the ground, pushing Angela beneath her when she heard the first shots being fired from behind her. She heard more rounds whiz by her ears and saw puffs of dirt shoot up from the ground nearby. Angela screamed in terror while Katy struggled to get her rifle unpinned from between her chest and the little girl. She rolled to her side, freeing the carbine, and had to spend a fraction of a second remembering where the safety switch was before flicking it off. A grossly obese black girl was calmly walking out of the building that was right in front of Katy, shooting a frightening looking rifle from her hip. Katy shoved the short-barreled carbine in front of her, steadied it by grasping the forward grip with her left hand and sighted down the open sights at the hulk of a woman. With shaking hands, she pulled the trigger and saw a window shatter behind and to the right of the fat woman. She deftly adjusted her aim and the next round tore into a meaty arm, knocking the woman sideways. Her next rounds stitched a pattern up the fat woman’s abdomen sending her toppling backwards like a felled tree. Dust exploded in spurts around her body and she spotted a man holding one-handed something that looked like a machine gun pointed at her and saw the blasts of flame from its muzzle as he shot it. Before she could swing her rifle around she felt a hot stinging in her calf, like someone had jammed a red-hot poker into her leg.
The man stumbled backwards and the firearm flew from his hand. He reached down and held his hands over his stomach, blood gushing through his fingers. He looked up at Dontela, who stood next to Katy holding the smoking rifle, then his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. Dontela sighted in on his face and squeezed her trigger. The bullet tore into his skull and fragmented, sending skin, bone, and brains flying through the air. Crazy-8’s lifeless body fell over backwards. Katy shoved Angela over to the shelter of the wheelbarrow where it had toppled when Kera had sprung out of it in her haste to get to Steven, trying to get the little girl out of the line of fire.
Lamar strode up to the tall black girl as she fired her second shot at Crazy-8. He swung his pistol hard into her temple. The girl’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed to the ground in a heap. He trod confidently ahead, focusing on the fallen white man who had some cracker kid and a pretty dark-haired girl hovering over him. The gun battle exploded around him as his peeps engaged the Army Hummer parked right inside the gate, but he paid it no mind. His eyes were narrowed in rage.
Where da fuck dem motha-fuckers come from?
He approached the three white people on the ground. It was supposed to be his fuckin’ ambush, not these punk-ass Army cracker motha-fuckers surprising him! His crew was getting slaughtered around him as the big gun on top of the Hummer banged away into their bodies, tearing through any cover that his gang sought. He had not seen his captains fall and had no idea where they were.
Dem nigga’s betta not-a run off!
Bullets zipped passed him like angry hornets, but Lamar felt invincible. “Ain’t no one gonna fade da gangsta-king!” he screamed out loud, reaching down and wrapping his powerful fingers into the dark-haired beauty’s long hair while putting his pistol against the young white kid who was oblivious to Lamar’s presence. He yanked the woman roughly to her feet by her hair and pulled the trigger on the Glock.
Nothing happened.
His eyes focused on his pistol and he saw that the slide was locked back and the magazine was empty. He didn’t remember emptying the gun while he had walked invincibly through the parking lot firing at anything that was white and moved.
“Fuck dis shit!” he growled and made to slam the gun onto the back of the boy’s head.
He felt the cold steel pressing against his cheek and saw that it was the pretty young bitch that had a gun pressed against him.
“No! Fuck this shit asshole!” the girl hissed at him.
He scowled at her. Her gat couldn’t hurt him! The gold caps of his teeth reflected brightly in the sun with his evil demented grin, and then the gold seemed to leap from his mouth as Kera squeezed the trigger of Steven’s Sig-Sauer that she had pulled from his holster as the black man had approached. The bullet tore through the roof of the gangster’s mouth and out his temple in a burst of blood. He took a couple of steps backwards, his smile a ghastly remnant of what it had been a moment ago, then tipped sideways and fell heavily to the ground while blood pulsed in a thin jet from his ruined skull.
Kera’s arm fell heavily to her side, the gun slipping from her fingers, and she collapsed unconscious to the ground while the sounds of the gunfight tapered off around her.
Jeremy stayed hunched over his father’s body in a paralysis of shock, still unaware of the carnage around him. He hoped that this was some horrible nightmare that he would wake from up at any moment. He promised God that he would be eternally grateful if all this was merely a figment of his imagination. Only when Sarah knelt next to him and took him in her warm, soft arms did the reality sink in. Then the sobs began racking his entire body while he clung to the girl in a desperation of utter sorrow and loneliness.
Chapter Thirteen
Shavers and Reese rushed to the ladder that led to the roof where Carroll and Pickeral had the afternoon watch. Shavers rushed up the ladder first, closely followed by the ex-Special Ops soldier. They burst out into the soft light of the mid-afternoon sun, which was dimmed by high cirrus clouds.
They raced to where the two soldiers stood along the edge of the roof, armed and staring off toward the northeast.
“Okay, show me where they are!” Shavers demanded as he came alongside them.
Carroll lowered the binoculars and pointed toward Churchville Avenue. “They headed back that way. We saw them on the road behind that thick hedgerow.”
“Same MO as the ones I saw yesterday,” Reese growled. “They’re fucking hunting us.”
“Bullshit,” Carroll replied. “They ain’t nothing except mindless zombies.”
“Were they acting like the fucking crazies we have come to know and love?” Reese asked sarcas
tically. He stared off into the distance, chomping on the ever-present stub of a cigar. Carroll only shook his head in answer, still not convinced that the monsters were changing.
Shavers took the glasses from Carroll and searched the indicated area. “I don’t like this shit one bit. Something’s going on with those spawns of Satan, something that only spells badly for us.”
The radio in Pickeral’s hand crackled and they heard Murchison’s voice calling. Pickeral replied asking what was up.
“Hey, Charlie, is the First Sergeant up there with you guys?”
Charlotte answered in the affirmative and handed the radio to Shavers.
“This is Shavers.”
Camilla came back on and told him that Sergeant Heinlich had checked in a short time ago and the shit had hit the fan at the refugee center. Multiple casualties. He was requesting a Stryker to transport survivors and wounded.
“Shit!” Shavers yelled. “Can this day get any worse?”
He keyed the mic and ordered Murchison to have Hernandez get her Stryker warmed up, then turned to Reese and told him to go find McCully and for both to get geared up to go with Corporal Hernandez.
Pickeral gasped. “I think this day is about to get much worse, First Sergeant!”
They saw them before they heard them. The ground was alive with movement, as if a dam had burst in the distance and the flood waters were surging toward them, through and around the neighborhoods that extended beyond the avenue that paralleled the Armory. The three men and the woman stood in shock at what their eyes were registering.
“This ain’t good,” Carroll stated unnecessarily in a low voice.