by M. D. Massey
“I grew up around a bunch of boys in a tough neighborhood, remember? You’re Latino, you should know we like to play with knives.”
I harrumphed in response. Sure, I liked to play with knives just as much as the next guy, but even after the apocalypse I wasn’t keen on promoting racial stereotypes. “Just be sure he doesn’t make any noises that don’t sound like humping, and we might get out of here in one piece.” I gestured to the door with a wave of my arm and a bow. “My lady, your date awaits.”
She walked by and popped me with a respectable horizontal elbow strike to the gut that caused me to exhale with force. “Let’s just get this over with.”
- - -
We walked back to the gate, the doc hanging on my arm and stumbling every few steps. She’d even unbuttoned her ACU jacket to reveal a bit of cleavage, courtesy of the tight olive-drab tank top she wore underneath.
I leaned over and whispered, “Man, you can really slut it up when you have to.”
She stumbled into me and elbowed me again. “Eyes front, asshole.”
Deciding that two could play that game, I reached over and scooped her up, goosing her ass as I did so. I decided to carry her the last fifteen feet or so, to avoid another one of those vicious elbows. She still got in a heel kick to my nuts that I barely managed to take on the thigh. I winced and made it look like I was having fun, while the doc squealed like a sorority girl at her first frat party.
“Woo-hoo! I heard there was a party at the gate!” She rolled her head around and whipped her hair in my face. Twice. I spat hair out of my mouth in an attempt to clear my airway.
Topo whispered down at me, “Damn, son, you got her plastered! Shit, get her in the gatehouse before she wakes up the whole compound.” Carter opened up a makeshift door that had been cut out of the shipping container next to the gate. He ushered us in, and then showed me where they’d managed to rig a secret entrance into the next container over, behind some metal utility chests that were stacked head high. Carter then backed out, looking the captain up and down as he left. Once we were clear I set the doc down and rubbed my thigh, and then I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Well, that’s going to leave a mark.”
“Stop being a baby,” she replied with equal amounts of scorn and amusement in her voice.
“Last time I take you out on a cheap date and leave you with a serial rapist.” She huffed at that. “Now remember, I have to give the signal, so you need to stall him.”
I could hear her patting the knife in her pocket in the dark. “I make no promises.”
“Then just keep it quiet.” I walked out and climbed up on the wall. “She’s all yours, Topo.”
He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Aw, hell, I’ve been eyeing that sweet piece of ass since she got here.” He began climbing down, but paused when his head was level with my feet. “Oh, I almost forgot. Carter’ll let me know if anyone comes around with some weight on their collar. But if someone asks for me, I’m taking a shit.”
I nodded. “You got it.” I turned as if to walk off down the wall, then paused before I’d even taken a step and chuckled. “Hey, Topo—just a fair warning, she likes it rough.”
He grinned, wide enough for me to see his teeth in the dim light from the watch fires we’d lit in fifty-gallon drums earlier. “Oh, I’ll take care of that. She ain’t gotta worry about me being gentle.”
I watched him disappear into the guardhouse, and then pulled a matchbook from my pants pocket. Matches were hard to come by these days, and I hated to use one like this. But it was the easiest way for me to signal Gabby and Bobby, so I had little choice in the matter. I pulled out a corncob pipe and some tobacco I’d won in a card game two nights previous and lit up with the match.
Once the smell of tobacco wafted down to Carter, he looked up. “Hey, you mind if I—”
BOOM! A loud explosion sounded from the rear of the compound, right where I’d told them to set it. I just hoped they were able to figure out how to set off the Claymore without blowing themselves sky-high in the process.
Soon, the explosion was followed by howls that pierced the night. I yelled out at the top of my lungs, “It’s a ’thrope attack!”
Carter looked up at me with fear in his eyes, and then ran back to the gate. He began looking out the porthole in the sheet metal doorway, intently searching the night for ’thropes. “I don’t see anything!” he cried out.
After another howl, he panicked and began blindly firing off into the night, making it easy for me to drop down behind him and rip out his throat with my bowie. As he stood there unsteadily, gurgling and spurting blood, I slashed twice more across his face, parallel to the initial cut. Anyone inspecting him in this light would hopefully think he got killed by a ’thrope. I let him go and watched him crumple to the ground, carefully wiping my knife on his BDU jacket before sheathing it.
After dragging Carter a few feet out of the way, I unlatched the gate and went back into the guardhouse. As I walked in, Captain Perez was crawling out from behind the utility crates, buttoning up her ACU jacket. “Topo?” I asked as she stood up.
“I punched him in the throat when he got distracted by the explosion.”
“Eh, too bad. I really wanted to do that to him.”
“Yeah, well—I made sure he was still breathing, then I knocked him out cold. He should be fine, but I doubt he’ll be singing opera anytime soon.”
“That’s also too bad—I really don’t think he deserved such gentle treatment.”
She snorted a laugh. “I’m a medical professional, Scratch. I’ll kneecap somebody in a heartbeat, but I won’t kill unless I have no alternative.”
“Your call.” I threw her Carter’s ACU cap, and she hurriedly put it on, tucking her hair up under it in an effort to disguise herself. Once she was ready, I pushed her out the door and toward the gate. “Gate’s open. Better take off before someone gets here.”
She turned and got in my face. “Wait, you’re not coming with me?”
“I’m going to be right behind you—there’s just something I have to do first.”
She growled in frustration before replying. “Just don’t get yourself killed—it’s not worth it.” Then she turned and ran out the gate. I shut it after her and ran back into the compound, which was now milling with militiamen in various states of undress. Many were running around in their underwear, carrying rifles and heading up on the wall. I could already see some muzzle flashes and hear the sounds of gunfire from various points around the perimeter.
Those fools didn’t know it, but they were shooting at ghosts. Before I left, I’d instructed Bobby and Gabby to use some old BDUs we’d found in the airfield supply room and turn them into scarecrows. They probably had a half dozen set up in the tree line around the wall, giving the militiamen something to shoot at while they ran around howling in the night. Assured of the fact that the troops would be occupied for a brief time, I started scanning the compound for my target. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before I spotted the colonel, barking orders in front of one of the quonset huts at the center of the facilities.
I ran forward and ducked to cover behind the CHUs, peeking around the corner to be sure I had the right range and a clear line to the colonel. Then, I pulled the pin on a frag grenade and let it fly. The explosion sounded off a few seconds later, and as I surveyed the aftereffects, I could see the fat bastard rolling around on the ground, bloodied and crying for help. I decided to finish the job, and took a bead on him with my HK.
Just as I was about to pull the trigger, I heard a loud voice sound off behind me. “Hey, what the hell are you doing? The wolves are out there!”
I turned around to see Ratcliff yelling at me from about thirty feet away. Shit. “I just thought I saw one get inside the wall—false alarm.” I cursed my bad luck, and hoped to hell that that Colonel Klink would bleed out before the night was up.
Then, I ran to where Ratcliff was waiting on me and followed him to the wall. Just as he was climbing
up, I slipped my arm around his neck and placed him in a rear-naked choke, applying pressure with my biceps and forearm to the sides of his neck. He struggled, but only for about eight or ten seconds; I released the pressure just a few seconds past the point where his body went limp. Once I’d checked him for a pulse, I set him down gently against the perimeter wall, laying him on his side so he wouldn’t choke or hurt himself when he came to.
“Sorry, Ratcliff,” I whispered to his still form. When the smoke cleared tomorrow and they figured out what’d happened, I hoped he’d appreciate the fact that I didn’t just kill him and dump his body in the latrine.
After I’d made sure Ratcliff would wake up with nothing more than a pissed-off disposition, I grabbed my gear from where I’d stashed it earlier and sprinted to an area of the wall that was still unmanned. Checking right and left to make sure no one was watching, I climbed up and slipped off the side, rapidly disappearing into the night. As I entered the relative safety of the tree line, I allowed myself just a moment’s worry about what tomorrow would bring, once these jokers figured out they’d been had. I held a slim hope that they’d think I was killed and carried off in the attack, but with Carter still alive, I doubted the chances of that happening.
- - -
[9]
DIE
I caught up to Gabby, Bobby, and the doc at a previously agreed-upon rendezvous point about halfway to the Facility. Then, I handed Bobby my ruck and instructed them to stick to a blacktop road until they got back to the Facility and to wait for me there. Once I had them headed back to the Facility, I backtracked to the militia compound in order to throw them off our trail. From what I’d gathered, they didn’t have a competent tracker in the bunch, but I didn’t want to take any chances that they’d find us later on.
With their commander down and out, I suspected the militia would be in a state of disarray and confusion for a while. Leakey had been too stupid to appoint junior officers, relying on the sergeant major to handle the day-to-day execution of his orders. Without a clear succession in the chain of command, they’d likely be operationally crippled until someone stepped up to take the reins. I suspected there’d be some infighting in Leakey’s absence, and hoped it’d be enough to cause them to fragment completely.
As I left false trails on the jeep tracks and dirt roads in and around the militia compound, I contemplated what I was going to do once I got back to the Facility. Was I really willing to potentially sacrifice my humanity, in order to save the people I cared about: Kara, Janie, Sam, and all the rest? Not to mention getting revenge on those bastards for what they did to Donnie Sims. He might have been a bit of a coward, but nobody deserved that. Hell, I couldn’t even figure out what they’d done to him, much less determine how much of a threat he’d be later on down the road.
There was also the question of those punters. Somehow, Pancho Vanilla must’ve known about Gabby’s “condition.” Otherwise, why would he have shot her with a silver bullet, when a standard round would’ve put her down just as easily? I had a lot of loose ends that needed tying up, and to be honest I wasn’t sure that I could do it as just Scratch Sullivan, card-carrying member of the human race.
I also wanted to know more about Captain Perez and what she knew about Them. Thus far, she’d been suspiciously mum on the research she’d done for the military, and I was certain she knew more than she let on... a lot more, in fact. First order of business when I got back to the Facility was to grill her on everything she knew about Them, and especially on what these treatments could potentially do to me and Gabby down the road. The kid I couldn’t do anything for, but if it looked like the cost was too high...
Aw, who was I kidding? I’d do it in a heartbeat if it meant saving Kara. I just needed to know the score so I could punch out if it ever came down to that. I’d get my answers once I got back to the Facility. I just needed to make sure that no one from the compound could follow our trail.
Then, I’d have my answers... one way or another.
- - -
I was so deep in my thoughts that I never saw the ambush coming. I turned a corner on an old jeep trail, and the next thing I knew I had half a dozen militia pointing gun barrels at me. There was no sense in fighting; I was out gunned, out manned, and they had the drop on me, dead to rights. I spent a moment chastising myself for being so careless, and then I dropped my rifle and raised my hands in the air.
At least the doc, Gabby, and Bobby got away. That was some small comfort.
“Aw, shit—lookee what we got here.” Atkins, one of Corporal Jones’s cronies, was eyeballing me down the barrel of an AK-47.
“What the hell, Atkins—they don’t trust you with a real weapon?” I nodded at the rifle in his hands.
Atkins grunted. “Keep on a talkin’, pretty boy. The colonel’s got sumthin’ planned fer you, and he says whoever brung you in alive’d get a per-motion.” He licked his lips and smiled, and I noticed he was missing several teeth. “’Sides, if I killed you before Jones got a holt of you, he’d be awful dis’pointed.” Atkins stepped forward and butt stroked me across the face, and then he instructed two of the soldiers to disarm me and pull me to my feet.
Despite all those action flicks Hollywood used to put out, there’s really no easy way to deal with multiple enemies with firearms, even at close range. Before I even had a chance to recover from getting thumped by Atkins, they had my hands zip-tied behind my back. There was nothing I could do but comply and hope I’d have a chance to escape later, before they decided what they were going to do to me.
The whole march back to the compound, Atkins continued taunting me and telling me how they were going to beat me into a bloody pulp. I was getting a real Deliverance vibe from him, and I decided I was going to kill him first, whenever the opportunity arose. It was a short three-mile hike back to the compound, and I was glad for the fact that I’d decided to make a false trail to the west, opposite of the direction that the doc, Gabby, and Bobby had gone. Atkins promised me that they’d find the doc, but somehow I doubted that. It was a small comfort, at least, to know they hadn’t also been captured.
When we got back to the camp, they marched me through the gates and straight back to the same quonset hut where I’d first met the colonel a few days back. As I walked through the front door, I reflected on the fact that this was exactly the way I walked in the last time, under guard and disarmed. And to my surprise, the crazy piece of shit was sitting behind his table again, looking at his maps, and still very much alive.
The colonel glanced up as I was marched in. I saw he had quite a few cuts on his face; also, his right arm was in a sling and he had some crutches leaning against the table nearby. But otherwise, he was in pretty good shape for someone who just had a grenade go off next to him. I guess the surprise registered on my face, because he looked me in the eye and laughed.
“Surprised to still see me standing. Or, well, I suppose sitting. As it turns out, one of the men saw the grenade you threw and tackled me to the ground, protecting me with his body. A good man, Gordon. I’m putting him in for a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, once we reestablish communications with command.” He nodded, and wiped his eye with his good hand.
“You’re probably wondering how you got captured. Well, as soon as the men told me you and the captain were missing, and we found that idiot specialist who was on guard duty with you, I put two and two together and realized that you’d helped her escape. So, I sent out squads to wait at likely ambush points, on the odd chance that they’d run across one of you. And here you are.” He tapped the fingers of his uninjured hand on the table. “Now, what to do with you?”
I stood there, stock still and looking him in the eye the whole time. Nothing I said or did would change his mind, and I was certain he’d already decided my fate, long before I walked in here. I figured firing squad would be his first choice, but I couldn’t be certain.
He turned to look at Atkins, who’d been standing off to the side at attention with his weapon at por
t arms. What an asshole. “Atkins, is your squad responsible for bringing this traitor and deserter in?”
Atkins cleared his throat and spoke up. “Yessir, we caught ’im over yonder past the range.”
The colonel nodded. “Excellent work. I’ll be putting you all in for a promotion, once we dispose of your prisoner. Take him out to the center of camp, and tie him up to make an example of him for all the troops to see. Then, he’s going to the pit.”
Atkins somehow managed a half-assed salute without dropping his piece-of-shit Chinese AK, and replied, “Yessir!” Then he and his squad marched me out and tied me up to an old light post in the center of camp, where I baked in the sun and suffered the hateful stares of most of the camp inhabitants.
- - -
About an hour later, the sergeant major walked up with Jones and Topo. I noticed that Jones was walking with a limp, and I took a small bit of satisfaction in that. The sergeant major looked me over, and then spoke in a low, clear voice. “Corporal Jones, Specialist Topo, I believe the prisoner needs to be checked for weapons on his person. Take him someplace secure and search him.”
Jones gave me a murderous look. “Will do, Sergeant Major.” Topo was silent, and I could see why. His throat was bruised, and I could hear him wheezing a bit as he stood there.
As the sergeant major walked off, I could hear him call back quietly over his shoulder, “The commander wants to send him to the pit later. Make sure you leave him in one piece.”
Jones looked as though he was somewhat disappointed by the sergeant major’s instructions, and he leaned in to whisper in my ear, “I’m about to see how close to killing you we can get. And once they find that hot-ass doctor, Topo and I are going to rape her till she bleeds out.”
Topo laughed, but it looked like it hurt him to do so. I didn’t say a word. In SERE school, one of the basic premises you’re taught in order to survive once captured is to avoid insulting or encouraging your captors. While smart-aleck remarks might make for good movie dialogue, in real life all it serves to do is make things harder on you if you’re captured by the enemy. And, I had no illusions at this point: I was in enemy hands.