The Hunt Chronicles (Volume 3): Crusade

by Demers, J. D.

  I moved to the final latch on my side. A zombie’s hand came over the edge and pulled itself so I could see its face. It was impossible to tell the sex of it. There was no hair and half of its teeth were missing. The dead’s jaw, which appeared shattered, attempted to snap at my boot.

  I shot it once in the head and it fell limply to the ground.

  After I flicked the last latch I kicked the wall over. The two-foot metal wall swung up and over, stopping at a ninety-degree angle. It was now virtually impossible for the dead to climb on top of Big Red, even with the fencing lining the sides.

  Seconds later, Pittman released the wall on his side.

  “Okay, Christian,” the big man said as he climbed back into the turret, “get your ass below!”

  He grinned approvingly.

  I smiled back and climbed down into cab of the truck.

  “I’ll take the blame for that, Christian,” DJ said as I closed the hatch. “I should have had those down before we left. Thanks.”

  “No problem,” I lied.

  It was a big problem. That scab had almost taken my head off. I really couldn’t get mad, though. How many times had I made stupid mistakes that had almost gotten me killed? Leaving the walls up was minor in comparison.

  DJ kept driving, bringing us closer to the next neighborhood. It, like the previous one, was packed with zombies.

  “Pittman,” Dobson said over the radio, “Be proactive on any scabs you see. Don’t hesitate.”

  “Roger that, sir,” Pittman responded.

  Campbell began to relay more information about the neighborhood ahead and what routes to take. Boomer nuzzled up to me as I tried to sit back and relax.

  “Any sign of scab traps?” DJ asked the Captain.

  “Negative,” he responded. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Zombies are blocking much of my view of the roads.”

  “Great,” DJ grumbled.

  “Christian,” Daniel said, “you’re bleeding.”

  He was staring at my arm. I looked down and saw a small gash near my wrist.

  “No biggy,” I said, wiping the blood off. “It probably happened on one of the latches.”

  “Still, clean it up,” Daniel said and pulled his medical bag onto his lap.

  He quickly cleaned it and added antiseptic before he wrapped it with a bandage.

  “Can’t have you dying of infection,” Daniel mused. “You’re supposed to save humanity.”

  I smiled, and then braced myself as we rammed into another horde of zombies.

  Pittman began to call out scabs. He reported at least five magazine changes as we barreled through the horde of dead. This time, none were able to jump on our vehicles, though Pittman did say one tried and missed, becoming zombie food.

  “I don’t think they’re trying to attack us,” Karina noted.

  “Tell that to Pittman,” I retorted.

  “I’m serious,” she shot back. “I think they see us as a way out of this mess.”

  “She’s probably right,” DJ agreed. “Too bad this flight is all booked up.”

  Campbell guided us through the rest of the housing development and to the intersection we were supposed to cross.

  “It appears to be clear of traps,” Campbell told us. DJ drove forward and we crossed the intersection. The road took us just east of the church.

  “Take a look at that,” Daniel said in awe.

  The church was under siege. Thousands of zombies of all shapes and sizes were pressing on the buildings. We could see small figures moving along the roof tops and jury-rigged bridges. It was a battle of the two species and I didn’t care who won as long as some of them died.

  As we drove on, the number of zombies started to dwindle. I didn’t even want to know how torn up and crusty the shovel was with flesh and guts. I just knew I didn’t want to clean it off. If the retention of the smell was any clue, Big Red was covered in zombie goo.

  We calmed down as the number of zombies became so sporadic, we would go a mile or two without seeing one. The roads were far south of the populated areas, and the houses were spaced some distance from each other.

  Karina was annoying Daniel, explaining physics to him while DJ drove silently, lost in his own thoughts. Boomer slept between Daniel and me with his head on my lap. Dobson wanted Pittman to stay in the turret until we stopped, fearing we might run into another scab nest.

  Like DJ, I was thinking to myself. I stroked Boomer’s mane as I recounted the fight on the back of the fire truck.

  I had gone through a whole magazine in less than a minute. Pittman went through at least five during our fight through the second neighborhood. That was almost two hundred rounds and we were only on the first day of the trip. And that was just with two of us shooting.

  We had twenty thousand .556 rounds for the M4s and AR15s when we began, with another eight thousand of other calibers. It sounded like a lot, though Fish regularly argued that we needed more. The Major agreed but Campbell wasn’t having it. He wanted Camp Holly to have as much ammunition as possible.

  My thoughts went deeper into the issue.

  What happened when the world ran out of ammo? Was there someone out there making more gun powder? Would there ever be? Zombies we could learn to deal with without firearms. But scabs? Would we resort to bows and arrows? Like they would stop a scab. Hand to hand? From personal experience, I knew that was a joke.

  I kept the thoughts to myself, though. There was enough stress floating around in our party.

  Campbell attempted a mid-drive recovery of the UAV. They were able to snatch it out of the air on the second try. Soon, he had another one up, scanning the area. The idea of giving away our presence with the drones was abandoned. I couldn’t blame Dobson for coming to that conclusion. Scab traps were a lot scarier. No one wanted the vehicles to become immobilized.

  Campbell soon directed DJ toward a burned-out barn around five o’clock. We drove through tall grass to the location and left the vehicles running to draw out any possible zombies in the area.

  Like the mindless creatures they were, thirteen zombies came out of the woodline lumbering directly toward us. Fish and Jenna disembarked and joined Pittman in eliminating the small gaggle.

  Our camp set up had been practiced fifty times before we left. Everyone knew their part. We parked the CDC bus and Big Red like a “V”, ass ends first. The F350 backed up to the opening. After that, we secured the fencing that was attached to Big Red’s sides to all the vehicles, making a semi-safe triangular enclosure. We finished in fifteen minutes.

  Three guards would be on duty at all times, excluding me. The Major didn’t want his Package taking a scab spear to the chest, I guess. Each guard had night vision goggles and would be on the tops of each vehicle. The true guard was Boomer, though. He had been slated to sleep outside the vehicles.

  Ideally, we wanted to park near buildings and stay inside them, but out here, there weren’t many options.

  The area stunk of the dead, but it was nothing new. We all had to sleep with the odor at one time or another.

  DJ was in Big Red, talking with Camp Holly on the HAM radio. Pittman, Karina, and Enrique were on first guard shifts.

  I was sitting in the grass eating dinner with Boomer when Dobson approached. He glared down at me.

  “Next time I give you an order, you better damn well follow it,” he said in a harsh whisper. Why he whispered, I wasn’t sure. Everyone in the grassy area in between the vehicles could hear him.

  I glared back at him. “Sir, I did what I thought was right. Pittman could have died. We forgot to drop the walls.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Dobson said, no longer whispering. “You keep doing stupid shit that is going to get your ass killed. Then what? We’re all putting our lives on the line for nothing just because you think it’s right? If you die we all die! Stop being a selfish bastard.”

  At that, Dobson spun and walked to the CDC bus.

  “He’s right, you know,” F
ish said from behind me. He took a knee and began to fiddle with a long piece of grass in his hand.

  “Pittman needed help,” I said halfheartedly, turning to see him.

  “Yeah, he did,” Fish agreed, keeping his voice even. “And you probably saved his life. But, there is a bigger picture here.” He turned and looked at the fire truck and pointed. “DJ left his family for you. Granted, it’s so he can bring the vaccine back to Camp Holly, but still, he’s here to keep you safe, just like everyone else here. I understand you want to do the right thing. But sometimes, the right thing ain’t the right thing, kid.”

  “I can’t let someone die for me, Fish,” I said and turned back to stare at the ground.

  He stood and let out a breath. “You’re gonna have to…and you’re gonna have to learn to live with it, too.”

  At that, Fish turned and entered Jenna’s truck, his chosen bed for the night.

  “Don’t let them get to you, Christian,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah…” I trailed off. “I guess they’re right.”

  I was torn. Do the right thing or…do the right thing? What was the right thing anymore? I didn’t know.

  “Bah,” Jenna said as she plopped down next to me. “What do those boys know. They’re all about following orders and the mission and blah, blah, blah. Sometimes those types forget there are real people they’re dealing with, not robots.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered.

  “Daniel said you got hurt on your heroic rescue of Pittman?” Jenna asked, changing the subject.

  I laughed at the word “heroic”.

  “A little scratch. Nothing big,” I replied, trying to change my mood.

  “I fixed him up,” Daniel said awkwardly. It was getting dark, but I could still see Daniel’s face. He had an odd look to him.

  Jenna grabbed my arm, examining the bandage. “Good job. Someone’s gotta keep him alive,” she said, smiling at me. It was a warm smile. Daniel noticed.

  “I guess I should leave,” he said harshly and stood. “You two have fun.”

  Daniel walked over and climbed into Big Red.

  Jenna rubbed the back of my neck while I stared at the fire engine.

  “What’s his deal?” I asked.

  Jenna was silent for a moment, and then sighed.

  “He’s jealous,” she finally said.

  “Jealous? About what?” I asked, turning to face her.

  “He’s not a fan of you and I being close, honey,” she said with a frown.

  I didn’t take “honey” as a term of endearment from Jenna. She called everyone that. However, the two of us had been pretty close over the past month. It was nice to have someone to talk to late at night that wasn’t a blabber mouth like Karina or an asshole like Fish.

  “I don’t see that it’s his business,” I stated. “Why does he care?”

  Jenna’s face changed. I easily recognized guilt.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, backing slightly away from her. Her hand, which was rubbing my neck, fell to the grass.

  “Daniel and I... well, we shared a moment,” she said softly.

  “A moment?” I asked sarcastically. “Are you saying you slept with him?”

  She didn’t have to answer me. It was written all over her face.

  “I wanted to tell you,” she said and then stayed quiet. I must have given her a pretty nasty look. I don’t know why. She wasn’t my girlfriend. We had spent a lot of time together lately, though.

  I tried to compose myself. “I…I guess I can’t say anything about it. It’s not my business.”

  “No, I should have told you,” she said, staring at her hands on her lap.

  “Can I ask when this happened? Back at the Ace Hardware Compound?” I guessed.

  She shook her head no.

  “When?” I said a little too quickly.

  She looked up at me. Tears were forming in the rim of her eyes.

  “The day Gonzo died,” she whispered as a tear ran down her cheek. “Daniel was there to comfort me. I—I liked you then, but you were so…so standoffish. Daniel and I, well, we had a few drinks. It was comforting. We were both upset and, well, it just happened.”

  She wasn’t crying because of what she did. I could tell that. She was crying at the memory of Gonzales. A part of me was mad that she slept with Daniel, but another, more reasonable part, understood. She was hurting. Hell, he was hurting, too. In a way, the two took Gonzales’s death harder than I did.

  Just as she said a few seconds before, they shared a moment. A brief moment in time where they could comfort each other and nothing more.

  Then a thought hit me.

  “Jenna, why did Daniel come with us?” I asked in a serious tone.

  “Daniel wanted us to be together,” she grimaced. “I told him no. I told him that night was special, but my heart wasn’t with him, that…that I didn’t know if it could be with anyone right now. When he volunteered, I confronted him. I mean, we all know he isn’t cut out for this journey. I told him I knew why he was coming and that he shouldn’t. That he and I were never going to happen.”

  She reached up and rubbed her temples, giggling.

  “He told me I was full of myself and that he had a right to help out. I think he knew that I…I was spending a lot of time with you.” She wiped her eyes and then smiled at me.

  “Now you know,” she said, letting the worry wash away. “If you don’t want anything to do with me, I understand.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “No?” she said and began to stand up. I grabbed her hand and pulled her back down.

  “No,” I repeated. “I mean…I understand.” I waited a couple of heart beats before I continued. I had never talked to a girl like this before. Hell, I never really met a girl like Jenna before.

  “Jenna,” I continued, “I understand that was a rough time for you. I should have been there for you. I wanted to be there. My mind has been so screwed up. The secret of my immunity was eating me alive. Hell, the thought of it is still brain wrecking. And now, I don’t feel like I know where my place is anymore.”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re saying, Christian,” she said, confused.

  “Heh, me either,” I chuckled. “Look, things are crazy right now. They’ve been crazy for the past five months.”

  “Are you saying they’re too crazy for you and me?” she asked bluntly.

  I thought about that. For the first time, I felt in a do or die situation with a woman. I made my decision.

  “I’m saying that with all this crazy shit going on, what’s one more crazy, stupid idea,” I said.

  “Mr. Christian Hunt, are you asking me to go steady with you?” she snickered.

  “If we’re going to get all high school-ish…yeah, I guess,” I said, smiling.

  She grinned. “High school it is, then.”

  At that, she leaned over and gave me a very long, very intrusive, kiss.

  Her breath was spicy and sweet, reminding me of peppermint. It also reminded me that unlike her, I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care. After a minute, she backed up, smiled, and walked to her truck.

  I eyed her truck for a while. For the first time, I felt a positive stir in my stomach. A good burn in my chest. Those had been signs of worry before, now they were uplifting.

  “Christian,” a voice said from the shadows. It was Doctor Tripp.

  “Yes?” I said as I stood, wearing a ridiculous smile. Boomer stirred and stood next to me.

  My shit eating grin disappeared the moment I saw her face.

  “I never want to see that again,” she said harshly.

  “Excuse me?” I snapped. “No offense, Julia, but it really isn’t your business.”

  “Not just my business, but mankind’s business,” she shot back as she approached me. Her voice stayed low, but was daunting nonetheless.

  “How is my love life mankind’s business? I’m still immune to the virus if I have a girlfriend or not,
” I retorted.

  She stepped up to me, only standing a few inches away. She reminded me of an angry teacher.

  “You may be immune, but you also may still carry the virus!” she said angrily. “For all we know, you could have just passed it to Jenna through your saliva. She could be going through the transmutation right now.”

  “I thought you said my blood was clear of the virus,” I argued.

  “That I have seen,” she returned, the irritation very clear in her tone. “I don’t have the facility to culture your blood the way I need to. I could have easily missed it. We don’t know what is floating around in you, and until we do, hands off. As it is, I need to inform the Major and put a guard on her.”

  “Don’t do that,” I pleaded, fully understanding why she was worried. I was beginning to worry myself.

  “I have to, Christian,” she said, standing her ground.

  “I’ll watch her. I just don’t want her to think…” I stopped myself from continuing.

  “You have to tell her anyway, Christian,” Doctor Tripp sighed. Her confrontational manner gave way to concern. “But for now, we need to make sure she is not infected.”

  “Look, Boomer can tell. I’ll sleep next to her truck all night,” I begged. “If she’s okay in the morning, I promise, hands off for now on. And I want to be the one who tells her.”

  Doctor Tripp glared at me and then her face softened. “Okay. But if she starts to change, you call for help immediately. And you will tell her in the morning.”

  I nodded, not sure how I would tell her.

  I waited up until Jenna’s guard shift. Boomer never alerted to her or any other threat that night. Regardless of our sentries, we all knew Boomer was the primary alarm for danger.

  I less than eloquently explained to Jenna what Doctor Tripp had said to me. Surprisingly, Jenna was more receptive than I was. She said she understood and would patiently wait until I was cleared for… well, more intimate activities.

  It was good traveling weather the next day. The rain was heavy enough to keep zombies at bay but light enough not to impede our progress. Within twenty minutes, we had packed up the camp as we had rehearsed, and were on our way by 8:30 in the morning.