The Hunt Chronicles (Volume 3): Crusade

by Demers, J. D.

  I relocated again, kneeling beside a tree. By the time I scanned the area, all of the Bogdons were down.

  “Clear?” Dobson asked over the radio.

  “Clear,” Fish sounded off.

  “Clear,” DJ said.

  “Clear,” Pittman acknowledged.

  I let out a breath. “Clear.”

  Boomer was beside me when I stood up, anxiously wagging his tail and pointing at the massacre on the road ahead of us.

  Dobson appeared on the opposite side of the Ford Explorer. I realized it was him who had shot the man in the passenger seat. The Major was covered in mud from the drainage ditch on the other side of the road. He had crawled two hundred feet through the muck to get into position.

  “You okay, kid?” Fish asked. I never saw him sneaking up on me. Either he was just a slick bastard or I had let my guard down.

  I nodded and the two of us marched through the brush to meet Dobson.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Plan Foxtrot?” I asked as we negotiated the ditch.

  “We actually devised six plans last night,” he said as he climbed the embankment. “Didn’t want to confuse everyone by them trying to remember each one. Just myself, DJ, Dobson and Campbell knew about each contingency. We would be barking out the orders anyway, so it really didn’t matter.”

  His point had merit, though I still would have been more comfortable knowing our reaction tactics.

  Enrique and Daniel broke through the brush behind us.

  Dobson’s suppressed pistol discharged. I glanced over at him as we approached. He was standing over the man with the megaphone. He glared back at me, and then to Fish.

  “I don’t approve, Fish,” he scowled.

  “I didn’t ask you to,” Fish retorted. “I needed an extra shooter. Daniel and Enrique are subpar compared to the kid.”

  Dobson didn’t respond. He knew Fish had a point. The Major didn’t have to like it, though.

  Major Dobson was Pararescue, a form of Air Force Special Forces. The primary job of PJ’s, as they were called, was to go in and rescue downed pilots. They were given training on battlefield surgery, evasion, search and rescue, tactics, and combat. The latter two were not nearly up to par with most Operators, though.

  Fish’s level of training, experience and skill in combat well outmatched that of either Dobson or Pittman. In the beginning, I thought Fish was just a sniper. But he was more than that. Sniper training was just one of the tools in the arsenal of a Green Beret. He didn’t talk much about what he had done in his past, but I knew he had served in places like Africa, the Middle East, South America and Afghanistan. For twenty years, he worked with an elite collection of professional soldiers, trained in multiple forms of combat, languages, survival and diplomacy—though, I couldn’t see him as a diplomat. They specialized in working in small groups or alone. Green Berets were among the top Special Operators in the world.

  Dobson knew all this, which is why I’m sure he let the matter lie. Plan Foxtrot was undoubtedly Fish’s idea anyway.

  “Christian,” Dobson began, “help put the rest—”

  “Jenna’s down!” Campbell bellowed over the radio.

  “How bad?” Dobson asked, but I didn’t wait to hear.

  I ran at full speed down the muddy road, almost slipping a few times. Boomer sprinted ahead of me, unsure of what the excitement was about. Preacher had begun to walk toward us as I darted past him. He didn’t have a radio and gave me a look of confusion.

  “Christian!” Dobson yelled.

  I glanced behind me. The Major was jogging to catch up with me. Daniel and Preacher were right behind him, doing their best to trudge through the muck.

  I ran around the F350 and along the side of Big Red. Pittman had dismounted the turret and was quickly moving to the rear of the fire engine.

  I rounded the corner and saw Jenna on the ground, leaning against the CDC bus. DJ and Campbell were standing in front of her. Kneeling next to Jenna was Doctor Tripp.

  “I’m fine!” Jenna hissed.

  A wave of relief washed over me at the sound of her voice.

  I broke between DJ and Campbell, earning grunts from the two.

  Jenna was wincing as Doctor Tripp cut away the blood soaked right sleeve of her shirt.

  “Water!” the Doctor ordered. DJ removed a canteen from his web belt and handed it to her.

  Jenna glanced up at me, and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt as Doctor Tripp poured water over her arm. Blood washed away from the skin, revealing a tiny hole near her triceps.

  “It went straight through,” Doctor Tripp determined, washing away more blood that had seeped from the wound.

  “How bad is it?” Dobson asked as he jogged up to our group.

  “Not bad…at all,” Jenna spit through clenched teeth.

  “Doctor, let Daniel and Pittman have a look,” Dobson said.

  “I’ve got this,” Daniel said, breathing heavily from the run over. He nudged me to the side and bent down next to Jenna.

  Pittman had climbed off the back of Big Red and joined the medic.

  “Get back,” Daniel told me. His eyes were sharp. I don’t think it was necessarily directed at me, but he was just as worried about Jenna as I was. I hesitated a moment until Jenna gave me a weak smile.

  Karina exited the CDC bus and joined the party.

  “Pittman?” Dobson asked as he and Daniel examined the wound.

  “Just a flesh wound, sir,” Pittman replied. “.556 round passed through the muscle. Don’t think it hit the bone.”

  “Ahhhgh!” Jenna screeched as Pittman pressed on the entry and exit wounds.

  “It’s okay,” Pittman told her, but she just glared at him, gritting her teeth. “Daniel and I can get her patched up in no time. We got this,” he assured the Major.

  “Roger that. Move her into the lab,” Dobson ordered.

  Daniel took off his emergency med kit as he and Pittman lifted Jenna up and guided her to the bus. Doctor Tripp followed and shut the door behind them.

  “Karina, get on Big Red. Keep those little eyes peeled,” Dobson commanded her.

  “Yes, sir!” Karina responded with a part sarcastic, part excited salute. In seconds, she scaled the back of Big Red to take her post.

  The Major turned to the rest of us. “Everyone else, let’s get back down there. Scavenge anything useful and make sure each body is permanently down.”

  For once, I was happy to be excluded because of my immunity. I had no desire to take a second look at the two men I killed. Even more importantly, I wanted to go inside the CDC bus and check on Jenna. I began to walk toward the bus.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Dobson asked, grabbing my arm. The rest of the group had already started marching toward the HUMVEE and Ford Explorer.

  “I…I didn’t think you wanted me out in the open. I was just going to go check on Je—”

  The Major yanked me closer to him. Boomer let loose a rumble in his chest, but Dobson ignored him.

  “You wanted this bloodbath, remember? Take on the Bogdons?” he snarled, and then pointed at the CDC bus. “You’re lucky that’s all that happened. It could have been ten times worse if we tried to assault the mill.”

  “You think this is my fault?” I asked, honestly astonished.

  Dobson let go of me and took a step back.

  “No, but you need to get something straight. If that round was a foot to the right, we would be taking a sledge to Jenna’s skull right now. Some of the best Operators I’ve met have been killed by random fire from poorly trained, hut living, Taliban. It doesn’t take much in a firefight. The next time you feel like you want to throw your two cents in on getting in a shootout, remember that. Next time, your little girlfriend may die. Or Karina. You try walking around with that weight.”

  His point was made, and it sunk in pretty deep. I was being foolish about taking on the Bogdons. Risking my friend’s lives to be chivalrous was just childish and irresponsible. Dobson was right,
and I hated him for it.

  I began to walk to the bus, but he stopped me again.

  “Oh no,” he said with a dull chuckle, “you get your ass to those trucks and help clean up. It’s your mess too, remember?”

  I clenched my jaw in frustration. He was right, though. I asked to be in the shootout. I even convinced myself it was the right thing to do. I don’t think I was wrong, but it didn’t stop the churning in my stomach during the walk back to the slaughter.

  By the time the Major and I made it to the HUMVEE, all of the dead had their heads smashed in.

  “Help me, Christian,” Enrique called.

  I walked over as he was lifting the legs of one of the corpses. It was the man from the turret. His face was barely recognizable after someone had bashed his skull with one of the breakers. For that, I was happy. I preferred the gruesome mess to a face that may haunt me in my dreams.

  I lifted his arms and Enrique and I carried him over to the ditch near the woods. As we walked, something plopped into the mud from the corpse’s pocket. Enrique and I tossed the body down the embankment, where it joined its six former companions.

  On the way back, I saw the object. A memory of Chad flashed before me. It was a cell phone, similar to my old friend’s. I had left it back at Camp Holly so there would be a record of his life.

  Enrique knelt and picked it up.

  “You want?” he asked and handed it to me.

  “No,” I muttered, staring at it as he rested it on my palm. “It just reminded—”

  “Holy balls!” Fish shouted, cutting off my words and thoughts. “Major! Looks like Christmas came early.”

  I reflexively shoved the phone in my pocket as I approached the HUMVEE.

  Fish stood at the opened rear hatch as DJ and Dobson approached from the opposite side.

  He had taken the lid off a small crate about twice the size of a shoe box. Inside were twenty different objects, separated into their own little compartments. Some of them were cylindrical, others were shaped like balls, but each had a pin and release handle.

  “Heh, where the hell did these guys get grenades?” DJ exclaimed.

  “Probably the same place they got the Hummers,” Fish answered.

  “I’d say they got more than one crate,” Dobson said as he picked through the container. “Incendiary, high explosive, fragmentation… Looks like they mixed the crates up so they had a variety.”

  “I have even better news for you, Major,” Fish said with a crooked grin.

  “What’s that?” Dobson asked as he replaced the lid over the grenades.

  “No radios,” Fish chuckled. “The Hummer didn’t have one. They must have taken it out or something. We checked the vehicles and the bodies. These dumbasses never thought to grab radios for communication. Can’t believe they made it this long.”

  A slow smile spread across Dobson’s face. “That means they couldn’t tell the Bogdon Mill they had run into us.”

  Fish nodded with a wicked grin.

  “Alright,” Dobson said so all could hear. “Take anything useful. Food, water, weapons, magazines, every bullet. Detach that M240 and bring it as well.”

  We collected three M4s and two hunting rifles along with a twelve gauge. The M240 machinegun, with its five hundred rounds were the big prize, even outshining the grenades. The powerful weapon could take down a cinder block building. We also added a nice cache of ammo for our own guns and a couple more pistols.

  I found out that Fish, myself, and Dobson had been the only ones to deliver death to the scum of the Bogdon Mill that day. In that, I actually found comfort. Jenna, DJ or any of the others didn’t have to live with murder on their conscience.

  I know some people would not see it that way. Well, they’re wrong. It may have been justifiable, but it was still murder.

  By the time we were done and had pushed the Bogdon vehicles into the nearby ditch, Jenna had been stitched up. Dobson decided to reorganize the caravan to allow Jenna to rest. Fish, Preacher and Enrique took the F350. Daniel stayed in the CDC bus with Jenna just in case the wound was worse than they thought. Campbell continued to drive the bus while Doctor Tripp continued the study of my blood.

  Dobson and Karina joined DJ, Pittman and myself in Big Red. After a harsh warning from the Major to keep her head on a swivel, Karina was allowed to ride in the turret as a lookout. I think Dobson did that just so he didn’t have to listen to her incessant babble. Pittman didn’t complain.

  Thirty minutes after our firefight with the Bogdons, we were back on the road and out of their territory by noon.

  I was silent for much of the trip that day. Dobson himself rarely spoke unless it was to communicate with the convoy or work out directions. DJ and Pittman talked a lot and even tried to engage the Major and myself. We didn’t bite.

  It was then that I realized that Dobson was just as shaken up as I was. I don’t know if, or how many people he had killed in his service. Probably not many during combat operations. PJ’s were never sent purposefully into combat by themselves. He might have had to kill a few people after his rescue of Doctor Tripp and his trek through the Middle East.

  But now, he had killed an American. It seems silly to think there is a difference, but there is. It is one thing to be in a foreign country fighting for your own survival and another to take the lives of people you had once sworn to protect. The Pararescue motto was “That others may live”, yet Dobson assassinated a man that day.

  Farm country was disappearing as we continued into the afternoon. Patches of woods soon turned into long stretches of forest. Zombies were also appearing in larger numbers, though nothing like we had seen in the beginning of our journey. We had definitely left the Bogdon area of influence.

  I was struck by a tinge of jealousy as my mind wandered to Jenna. I wanted to be with her in the CDC bus. It was silly, of course. Daniel was a trained paramedic and I could barely apply a Band-Aid. Their previous relationship, as brief as it was, still made me uncomfortable. But Jenna was a big girl and undoubtedly had feelings for me. I pushed the thoughts aside every time they surfaced. The squirrely feeling I got when I thought of Jenna was becoming more of a sickness than something I enjoyed, and was starting to irritate me.

  We had changed our direction and begun to head west. Gainesville was to the north. It was the largest college community in the state of Florida and everyone pretty much agreed that running into a million Zulus was probably a bad idea.

  Route 40 was desolate. Few cars littered the road and, thankfully, any traffic jams we came across were easy to navigate around. There was plenty of zombie sign, but we were blessed by a break in the weather. The sun shone through the clouds sending most of the ghouls into hiding. Scabs or their cursed traps were nowhere to be seen.

  As time ticked by, Dobson found a spot on the map he thought would be excellent for making camp for the night. We made it to the location just after 4 PM.

  It was a dam and lock control complex for a wide canal that led off for miles, dumping into the Gulf of Mexico. Dobson’s choice was a good one. The complex wasn’t large, but it was surrounded by water with only two bridges, one to the north, and a pontoon bridge to the south.

  Only two zombies were at the complex, and easily dealt with. Within half an hour, we had set up our defensive perimeters. After I finished helping with the fencing, I snuck away to the CDC bus to check on Jenna.

  I greeted Doctor Tripp as she exited the bus and walked up the short steps.

  Daniel was sitting in a chair across from Jenna, who had been laid on the cot.

  Her chest moved rhythmically. She had fallen into a deep sleep, helped by the pain meds Daniel had administered to her. Her arm had been neatly wrapped in gauze, without a trace of blood to betray her wound. It showed the impressive experience and skill of Daniel’s stitch work.

  Daniel peered up at me and nodded as I took a seat on the floor next to her.

  “Is she okay?” I asked him, not meeting his gaze.

  “Yeah, s
he’ll be fine,” he said evenly. “She’s a tough girl.”

  “That she is.”

  I was about to hold her hand, but stopped and retracted. I felt ashamed. I knew how the man sitting next to me felt about Jenna.

  Daniel stood. “It’s okay, Christian.”

  I looked up at him, nodded, and took her hand.

  Daniel headed for the door, but stopped before walking down the steps.

  “I won’t pretend to like it. I understand, though.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I…I’m not a tough guy. I know that.”

  I turned to look at him. His normal jovial face contorted into a stone mask.

  “Daniel,” I began to say. He continued before I could say more.

  “But if you hurt her, or she dies because of you, I will kill you. Vaccine be damned.”

  Daniel stepped out of the bus before I could muster anything to say in return.

  His words burned into me. Everyone was there to keep me alive. If anyone died, it was because of me. Jenna was no exception. Circumstances had changed and her welfare meant more to me.

  Daniel, I knew, loved Jenna. I wasn’t sure how I felt, though. There were feelings…strong feelings, but love? I had never loved anyone in that way.

  Time went on and Jenna soon woke. We carried on small talk. I decided not to bring up what Daniel had said, preferring to keep the mood light and positive. Just as darkness took over, she fell back asleep and I left the bus to get something to eat.

  The meal for the evening consisted of the dried beef the Taylors had given us, along with canned vegetables. I grabbed my portion and retreated to the F350 while everyone else sat around the center of the fenced area conversing.

  I wasn’t interested in what they were talking about. Most of it seemed to be drivel and argumentative about a world that no longer existed. Fish and DJ went back and forth between Doctor Tripp and Daniel about politics, Enrique and Preacher were discussing religion and the difference between Baptists and Catholics, while Pittman attempted to feed his oversized hunger by picking off Karina’s plate. Boomer cared little for any of it and was resting near the fire truck.

  I sat in the F350, reviewing the day’s events as I finished my meal.