Then, out of all of the buildings in the complex, hundreds of people emerged. They walked up to Bryce, saluted him, and stood in formation. They assembled in front of him like an army, like they were his own personal army. They stood in front of him and waited for his command. That was when he realized that in order to build his empire, he would have to make many great sacrifices.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
Logan watched as Bryce fell over the railing, thirty feet straight down, and splashed into the water below. Luckily, the water was deep enough under the bridge, so Logan hoped that he hadn’t been seriously injured from the fall. Either way, Logan still had to get to Bryce quickly or he would drown.
“Cover me! I’m going to get Bryce!” Logan yelled.
Bravo team opened up their weapons and dumped everything they had on the enemy below while Logan sprinted to the end of the guardrail to begin his slide down the embankment.
Logan tried to slow himself down, but he slid too fast and scraped his hands and legs as he descended. With no way to stop, he careened down the embankment and crashed into the creek. The creek had a little ice on the edges from all of the cold weather and the frigid water took the wind right out of him. He came up for air and immediately bullets struck the water all around his head.
Logan dropped below the surface again and swam toward the direction in which he had last spotted Bryce, which was directly toward the enemy. Logan quickly paddled up to Bryce as his men above returned fire to try and buy him some more time.
Logan reached out and grabbed Bryce by the collar of his shirt and pulled his head out of the water. He dragged Bryce to the edge of the creek and pulled him out of the water. Bullets zinged all around and narrowly missed both of them. Logan dragged Bryce behind a large boulder and took cover, before he checked Bryce’s pulse, which was still strong, despite the blood loss and the bitter cold water.
Next, he checked his breathing, and Logan could tell that he had sucked in some water. Logan rolled him over and slammed him on the back a few times, which caused Bryce to cough and sputter, as water dripped from his mouth. Bryce’s eyes opened slowly, and then he wildly looked around in an attempt to gain his bearings.
“What the fuck happened?” Bryce exclaimed.
“You were shot, and then you fell off the overpass,” Logan told him.
Bullets crashed into the boulder behind them, which caused them both to duck reflexively. Logan told Bryce to stay down so he could check him over, while he did a quick once-over and thankfully did not find anything broken. Logan did, however, find the bullet hole in the younger man’s left shoulder, and he shook his head.
Bryce saw Logan shake his head and thought that this was the end and said, “Is it fatal?”
Amidst all the chaos, as bullets flew, and blood all over, Logan chuckled, “No buddy, you’ll be fine.”
After Logan knew that Bryce would be okay, he told him to keep his head down, and to stay there.
Logan got up from behind the boulder and sprinted to a big outcropping in front of him. Shots rang out from his right and he spun with his rifle and tracked with his sights before he finally found the shooter. Logan fired two rounds, which struck the shooter in the chest and immediately put him down. He ran out from cover and shot another man who popped his head up at the wrong second.
Next, he crashed through some bushes and came up next to another one of the shooters. The man looked at Logan with fearful eyes, and Logan placed the hot barrel of his rifle in the man’s face and pulled the trigger, which splattered the remnants of the man’s head on the rocks behind him and showered Logan with the mess.
Logan disregarded the blood and gore on his pant legs and peeked out from behind another rock as he changed out his magazine. When he popped his head out, he was met with a hail of gunfire from fifteen feet down the creek. Return shots came from the overpass and took the man out before he could even duck down again.
Logan took this opportunity to move forward again, as he sprinted forward and dove behind a downed tree. When, he popped his head up to take a peek, twenty feet in front of him, the rest of the resort group was in a flat-out run. There were only three men, two women, and Roger Wilson. The rest had either been killed or incapacitated.
Without an ounce of sympathy, Logan stood up and fired twenty rounds into the backs of the group. Four of them went down before they realized they were even being fired upon, the fifth spun around and fired his gun, but subsequently caught a bullet in the nose from Logan’s rifle. Roger Wilson stood out in the open, and brought up his M4, the M4 that Bryce had given to him, and tried to shoot at Logan.
Logan shot Roger in the knee, and as his leg gave out underneath him, he fell to the ground. Roger’s rifle clattered into the water next to him. He crawled toward the rifle and splashed in the water with his hands, while his leg bled all over the new snow, which quickly turned into a muddy red slush.
Logan casually walked over to Roger and what remained of his men, and dropped his rifle into his sling as he went. One of the women was still alive, and when she reached toward a pistol, Logan pulled out his sidearm and shot her in the head.
Normally, he would have been against killing women, but today, these women had chosen to be soldiers, the same as him. In war, soldiers died, both “good” and “bad.” As for this soldier, well she had picked the wrong side.
Logan walked over to Roger, just as the former salesman got his cold hands on his rifle, and he shot Roger in the wrist.
Roger reeled back in pain and looked at his mangled wrist. His hand hung awkwardly on torn and damaged ligaments, as blood ran down his forearm.
“Roger, what the fuck were you thinking, man? Honestly, what did you think you would achieve here?” Logan scowled at him.
“I wanted justice! Justice for my men, and for myself! Bryce used us, and he got my men killed. Then on top of that, he stole more of my men,” Roger yelled out in a panic.
“All your justice got you was a few bullet holes and the rest of your men and women dead,” Logan explained to him very calmly.
Logan grabbed him by the good leg and started to drag him on his back toward the overpass. He dragged him through the rocks, tree branches, snow, mud and water. Roger pleaded and cried the whole way, and left a trail of blood in the snow.
By the time Logan had dragged Roger the entire distance to the overpass, the rest of the men were at the bottom and had tended to Bryce. They had his wounds field dressed, and he sat up against a rock.
Logan pulled Roger in front of Bryce and dropped him.
“I brought you Roger so you can decide to do with him as you like,” Logan said to Bryce.
Bryce looked at Logan, and then looked at Roger. Bryce didn’t wait even a microsecond before he pulled out his Taurus 24/7 and set it on his lap.
Roger looked at Bryce with red, tearful eyes and pleaded for his life.
“I wanted to make you a friend and an ally, Roger. Instead, you betrayed me, killed two of my men, and wounded several others,” Bryce said.
Internally, Bryce knew he was fortunate that only two of his men were killed. After he considered the force they were attacked by, they had made it out fairly well.
“What should we do with him, Commander?” Logan asked.
“Let’s get out of here so we can get some dry clothes. Restrain him and throw him in the back of a truck, then we need to go into the resort and clear the rest of them out. I want them all brought back to the Hatchery. Leave someone to pick up all the bodies and weapons, too,” Bryce ordered his men.
They did as they were told, first they restrained Roger, and then, they helped Bryce out of the creek area and into a nearby truck. They took him straight up the hill toward the Hatchery with Roger in the back of the truck.
***
Logan changed into a dry set of clothes that someone had in the back of one of their vehicles, and then he got his gear back on. He led Bravo team into the resort a
rea and was met with zero resistance. Apparently, they thought they hadn’t thought it was imperative to defend their home, because they took almost all of their people and munitions with them.
Logan rounded up the remaining women and children and forced them into the backs of their trucks. They all cried and screamed about their husbands or lovers, because they knew that they must all be dead for the Hatchery crew to round them up like they were. Some of the children cried out for parents who would never return, parents who had abandoned them to follow a fool like Roger Wilson.
The task left Logan heartbroken, since he had children of his own, but these were hard times, and there were hard lessons that had to be taught. If the resort group was going to attack another group of people, they had damn sure better win that battle, because that was the lesson that they had learned.
Logan and the others drove back to the Hatchery compound without speaking a word to each other. The women and children screamed in the back of the trucks, under guard by some of the Bravo members.
Logan and the others arrived at the Hatchery, which looked like a warzone triage unit. Christine ran around and patched up their wounded men, while she tried to get everything under control. Even Bryce’s father forced himself out of bed to help her out. The two of them were covered in blood up to their elbows, and the wounded men yelled out for painkillers.
On the ground nearby, covered in bloody sheets, were undoubtedly the bodies of Trevor Steele and Nathan Jenkins, their only two fatalities.
Bryce sat in a chair with his shirt off and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders for warmth. His wound was patched up the right way, and he looked like he was not in much pain, due to whatever heavy pain medication they had given him.
The Bravo men rounded up all the women and children and forced them into a circle in the middle of the parking lot. As Bravo team put the survivors in the circle, some of the men had a concerned look on their faces. They were not entirely sure what would be done with the people, but two days ago some of them had been friends, and all of them neighbors.
Logan brought Roger over and placed him in front of the women and children.
Bryce got out of his chair with a large amount of effort, and in an opioid-induced gait, he walked over to the group of people in the middle of his compound. They all looked scared and afraid for their lives, which was rightfully so.
Bryce pulled out his Taurus for the final time and pointed it at Roger’s head.
“This is the man you have followed since the Outbreak,” he said calmly. “Today, he saw fit to attack me, my people, and my family.”
“As you can see, that didn’t turn out as well as he had expected it would,” Bryce continued.
“Instead of whatever he promised you, he got a lot of your men and women killed, some of whom were no doubt your mothers and fathers, or even sons and daughters,” Bryce said.
“I was more than willing to help your group, and eventually take you into the fold. Instead, as a collective, you’ve failed me, and I can’t let this go unpunished.” This time, he spoke more directly to Roger.
Without another word, hesitation, or even a single thought, Bryce stumbled over toward Roger and placed his pistol against the top of the man’s head. He pulled the trigger one time and blew Roger’s brain out the back of his skull, which splattered all over the ground, directly in front of the women and children. Then, he took a second and wiped the blood off his Taurus on the side of his pants.
Bryce raised his voice to be heard over the screams of the women and children, “Now, I don’t know who you women are, but you have one of two choices.”
“You can either join this group on a probationary period, or you can choose to be shot like this piece of shit in front of you,” Bryce explained, and kicked Roger’s corpse for emphasis. “I can’t let you leave and further compromise our mission, you must understand.”
“I am not some child-killing lunatic, however, so the children will be taken care of either way,” Bryce told them.
“You have ten seconds to make a decision,” he said and walked to a group of three women, who coddled the children as they screamed in fear.
He placed the gun in the face of one of the women, and unilaterally, they all made a decision.
“We’ll stay with you and keep out of trouble, just don’t hurt us!” one of the women screamed
“Good, that’s excellent news,” Bryce said and walked away.
Logan caught up with him a second later and whispered into his ear, “That was pretty fucked up, Bryce. You didn’t have to execute the motherfucker right in front of them!”
“I want to let them know that I will not tolerate any more bullshit. These people will fall in line and get with the program, or they will not be around any longer. I am done negotiating with people. They can either join the colony and follow the rules, or we are going to get rid of them,” Bryce said coldly.
“Now round these women and kids up, dump them in a cabin at the Church Compound, and have someone stand guard,” Bryce ordered before he went inside to pass out.
Logan took a second to contemplate what Bryce had just told him, and nodded his head slowly. Logan wasn’t sure where they were going to go from here, but he knew that things were going to get very ugly from here on out.
Epilogue
The rest of the month passed by without incident. Bryce and his men took their time to heal and recover, which took quite a while for some of them. Logan, Robby, Bravo team and the rest of Alpha team had looted almost all of the nearby homes one by one. They had found tons of useful supplies and equipment. They also hit the jackpot when they found a Mormon family’s home that had an attic completely full of supplies.
The new group of people from what was left of the resort group had been placed in one of the cabins down at the Church Compound. They had been placed under constant watch from one of the compound members. Their loyalty could not be trusted at all, especially under the circumstances of their addition to the group. At one point Bryce had entertained the idea of just getting rid of them and dropping them off in the middle of Payson to fend for themselves.
In the end, he couldn’t put himself up to the abandonment of a bunch of women and children in an infected town. He may have turned a corner on his morality, but he was no monster. Not only that, but he did promise to take care of the children, and it was not the fault of the children that their family members had been so careless.
Bryce finally woke up, got out of his bed and headed outside to take a walk around the compound. His shoulder still hurt where the bullet had entered and exited. It was more or less his shoulder, but it felt like it was his whole chest. Both Christine and his father told him how lucky he was that it had not actually hit him in the chest, or he certainly would not have made it.
While Bryce walked around, Anthony Smith poked his head out the door to the office building and yelled, “Commander, come listen to this!”
Bryce walked over to the office building, which had been totally renovated and turned into actual quarters. The Steeple family and the rest of Alpha team wanted a little more privacy than cubicles, and Greg had helped them out. Greg built new walls, and they had built some bunk beds. They didn’t have proper mattresses, but they were better than sleeping on the ground.
When Bryce walked in, Anthony waved him over to take a look at his radio. The radio had been scavenged from the resort after everything had cooled down. Unfortunately, it was a mess, and it took the sergeant a fair bit of time to get it all fixed up.
Bryce approached the radio and the sergeant turned it up so Bryce could hear. Over the speakers, he heard a person talking.
“Transmitting from the Camp Navajo Military Base. We have food, water, clothing, munitions, and security. We are currently taking in survivors. Make your way west of Flagstaff off I-40. After being screened for infection, you will be accepted into our camp.”
Bryce listened to the recording two more times, and analyzed it in his own mind. After a min
ute, Anthony looked up at him and asked him what he thought.
“Is this the first time you’ve heard this?” Bryce asked.
“I was going through the channels one by one listening for anything interesting and I stumbled on it. I was just about to come find you,” Anthony replied.
Bryce knew exactly what Camp Navajo was, and he knew that he had to go find Logan. He left the building and walked around the compound and looked for his second in command. Just as he was about to give up and ask someone where Logan was, he heard gunfire come from the direction of their makeshift shooting range. Bryce knew that must have been where Logan was, so he headed over that way.
After a short walk, Bryce found Logan and some of his other men. He waved at Logan and beckoned him forward. Logan said something to the guys that Bryce couldn’t hear, and they nodded as Logan walked away.
“What’s up, boss?” Logan said with a smile.
“Anthony found a very interesting radio transmission that is supposedly coming from Camp Navajo,” Bryce explained.
“Camp Navajo?” Logan asked with a funny look.
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 30