Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3)

by Sean Schubert

  The militiaman understood clearly what he was being told and was fearful of the pain, but he had been trained and knew what to expect if he was broken. The officers back at their base in Soldotna had warned all of them of the interlopers they would encounter and their evil godless ways. He knew if he betrayed them, there would be hell to pay...literally.

  And so, with wide eyes and sealed lips, he waited for the worst.

  PART III

  35

  Claire awoke, bound and gagged, lying across the back seat of what appeared to be a squad car. Disoriented, she wondered for a moment, hoping actually, if maybe the past several months had just been a rufie-fueled nightmare. Through the pounding pressure in her temples, she fantasized that perhaps the world was how she remembered it before the apocalypse. When she forced a blood and snot filled breath through her nose though, she remembered how she had gotten there in the first place.

  Earlier that morning, she was just waking and wondered where Jerry had gone. He was normally right next to her while she slept. He’d been there when she had drifted off to sleep but was absent when she awoke. Yawning and stretching from her uncomfortable spot on the floor, she looked up to see DB standing at the front door. He was looking out at first, but caught sight of her movement and turned to see her. He muttered something under his breath that Claire didn’t fully comprehend but she understood his meaning all the same. Duke needed to take a leak, so he and his dog were going out for a quick walk.

  Claire rubbed her eyes and smacked her lips together. She was lying on the floor of a small dining area of the coffee shop. No amount of blankets or extra clothing piled under her was capable of making the floor comfortable under normal conditions, but the pain in her back from her fall contributed to her extra stiffness. Danny, Jules, and the other two kids whose names she never seemed to be able to remember were still sleeping near her, but other than them, there was no one to be seen.

  Jerry, Neil, Emma, and Della were all out of sight. She thought that maybe they were just in other areas of the shop. She stretched her arms high above her head and felt the pain in her back and shoulder again. They still hurt like hell, but at the moment she didn’t feel like just going back to sleep to escape the pain. She winced her eyes as she shifted her spine one way very slowly and then the other to try and loosen her tense and bruised muscles.

  She was just starting to get her wits about her when she heard a pop outside. It took her just a second or so to realize she had heard a gunshot that sounded like it was just outside the front door. She shook her head, thinking she must have just imagined it, and then she heard another shot which sounded almost like a very large firecracker.

  Danny woke to this latest noise and looked over at Claire for any hint as to what it was. The two were still looking at one another when a shadow passed in front of the window on the room’s front wall. Still a little confused about what to do, Danny allowed instinct to take over. He pulled the small pistol from his pocket and pulled the slide back to ready the firearm.

  Suddenly the front door burst open and a man wearing a military uniform burst through. At first, Danny and Claire hoped that the man was there to save them. Maybe the Army had finally come back to Alaska to set things right again. When they saw his grizzled face and menacing expression, however, they both realized his intent was anything but to save them. He wasn’t a zombie, but he was likely just as dangerous.

  Danny didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger on the pistol, which kicked three quick times against his palm. All three bullets found their marks in the camouflage-clad man’s upper chest, neck, and face. He fell to the ground writhing for a moment in pain and then suddenly he was still.

  Claire grabbed the pistol from Danny just as a trio of similarly dressed men rushed through the doorway. One of them was quick to run toward Claire, who hesitated momentarily. He kicked the pistol from her hand and then cracked her on the head with the butt of his rifle. The lights went out immediately for her and stayed that way until now.

  In addition to the pain in her back, she was now contending with a new pain in her jaw and left side of her face. She tried to sit up but was finding that exceptionally difficult. Every move she made, she could feel the crusty scabs on her back split and ooze fresh blood. Her shirt was already pretty well plastered to the wound and her movements, however slight, were pulling the fabric away with bits of flesh still attached. She whimpered involuntarily at the sensation.

  From in front of the steel screen separating the front and back seats, she heard a gruff male voice say, “Is someone waking up back there? Don’t worry. I know you can’t speak. You can just listen instead. You shot Sullivan’s cousin back there and he ain’t gonna like that one bit. You’re just lucky he ain’t with us on this scouting run or you’d really be hurtin’ right now. Don’t worry though. He’ll be waiting for you back at camp. He’s gonna be real happy that we brought you back. Pretty little thing like you gonna help keep us all warm.”

  The gravity of her situation sinking in, Claire’s fear took hold. She wondered about the others. Where was everyone else? Was Jerry still alive? Where was she being taken? She started to wrestle with the binding on her wrists but to no avail. Her ankles were also too tightly bound for her to free them.

  And then her thoughts focused and she wanted to demand where the kids had been taken. Why were they not with her in the car? She tried to force the handkerchief gag from her mouth, creating a bit of a ruckus. She tried using her teeth to saw through the fabric, but had no more luck with that than she did with freeing her hands.

  Grinding a toothpick between his teeth, the driver looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. His words oozed out of him like poison, “Feisty little thing, aren’t you? You’re gonna be real popular. You just wait and see.” He produced a guttural grunt on the heels of speaking and then smiled another toxic, toothy smile.

  His smile, so full of hostility, melted all the defiance out of her. Claire wanted to be tough like all heroines from action movies...Jolie in Salt or Arquette in True Romance. Try as she might, however, she couldn’t quiet the paralyzing fear in her chest. She did the only thing that came to mind. She emptied a night’s worth of waiting from her bladder onto the seat.

  She knew she would eventually regret it when her wet underwear and pants begin to chafe and rub her bottom, but she appreciated the soaking she gave to the cloth seats nonetheless. The smell would take a hell of a lot of scrubbing to remove. And judging by the terrain that passed by the windows, she easily presumed where they were on the highway. It was still quite a distance before they would be arriving anywhere, so she reveled in her quiet rebellion and waited until she was able to urinate again.

  While Claire was measuring her fate, Danny was also trying to be strong in the back of a yellow and green Vend Alaska panel truck. He looked around at the other three pairs of wondering, scared eyes and knew that they were all looking to him. The other children needed for him to be their rock. He was expected to be the strength to help them survive this latest encounter. Unfortunately, Danny’s distraction was palpable in the dimly lit truck interior, as if it were another passenger along for the ride.

  To say that Danny was conflicted in his feelings toward Neil at the moment would earn a nomination to the Understatement Hall of Fame. He understood that Neil, if he was indeed still alive, was the best hope that any of them had to survive their abduction. Danny forced himself to expel any thoughts that Neil, Jerry, and Emma had already met their demise. If Neil was dead, then so was his hope that things were going to work out for any of them.

  At the same time, however, he couldn’t deny the resentment he felt toward Neil for having left in the first place. If he had still been there, maybe things wouldn’t have gone as badly as they did.

  Danny envisioned himself defending their new home alongside Neil. He imagined standing at the window, with his rifle in hand. They had stopped Them; he had stopped Them, whoever Them happened to be. The battle was won and they were all safe
again, and he had helped. He was no longer a burden or an afterthought. He mattered. But it was Neil’s approving look that made the fantasy complete. It wasn’t about the killing or the saving for Danny. He just wanted to make Neil proud of him and that was really enough at the present.

  As it was, Danny was unfortunately forced to focus on his reality and not on his fantasy. He couldn’t stop rewinding and reliving those fateful moments in the coffee shop. He didn’t remember taking the pistol from his pocket; it was simply in his hand at the right moment. In his memory, the pistol glimmered like the finely honed steel of a hero’s sword. He pointed the gun and then the man was down. He couldn’t be certain that he had even pulled the trigger. Other than the man’s body on the floor in front of him and the pulsing sensation in his palm, he had no way to know for sure what he had done. He couldn’t remember the man’s face. Hell, he may not have had time to look. Everything had happened so fast.

  And now...now, he couldn’t help the reverberating echo in his mind of the words, I killed a man. Like an explosion of fireworks, the words flashed in blinding patterns, until the echo found the back of his throat and he whispered, “I killed a man.”

  Giving the thought voice made it all the more real. He hadn’t denied his memory before, but now he couldn’t possibly do it. He uttered the simple words as quietly as the flutter of a bird’s wing. His voice barely tickled the air.

  Jules could tell something was different with Danny. He should have been scared or at least worried, but all he appeared to be was distracted. She needed Danny to be there with them instead of wherever his thoughts had taken him. Didn’t he know that? She looked at him, trying to see more of his face in the sparse illumination. She cocked her head this way and then that, but the shadows were too powerful.

  Finally giving up, Jules chose to lean against Danny’s chest again and hope the security his presence had brought in the past would return. She was feeling a new fear this time but it was just as real and just as terrorizing.

  The only other thoughts to which she was able to retreat were wondering where those mean, scary men had taken Alec. They had grabbed Claire and pulled her away by her arms, dragging her behind them like she was already dead. Alec was led away on his feet like the other children, but he had been separated from Jules and the other kids when they had gotten through the cars on the highway. When he protested, one of the men hit him in the face and on his back and on his.... The image of Alec’s beating was too painful for Jules to consider. The end result had seen Alec thrown into one car while Jules, Danny, Nikki, and Paul were all led to the truck in which they were riding.

  Jules just couldn’t figure out what she and the others had done that was so wrong. Why were those men so mad at them? She thought that maybe the building in which they had been sleeping was the army men’s house and they were just angry that she and the others were there, kind of like the Three Bears. She couldn’t remember what had been Goldilocks’ fate, but she was pretty certain she got away. That was the solitary shred of comfort and hope to which she clung; Goldilocks got away.

  Alec, meanwhile, was sitting in the back seat of a Humvee between two large, malodorous men. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and was becoming the color of eggplant. The blood had stopped oozing from his nose, and a fair amount had dried and crusted above his upper lip, forming what appeared to be a rust-colored mustache. His hands were bound in his lap but his ankles, unlike Claire’s, were free. No one spoke to him. In fact, no one spoke in the vehicle at all. On occasion, the static from the CB radio in the dashboard would crack with distant voices, but none of it made any sense to Alec.

  He stared at his lap, afraid that any wandering his eyes might do would solicit another pounding to his temple or the back of his head. He wondered where DB and Della were. He thought he saw a body near their building as he was being pulled and dragged away, but wasn’t certain if perhaps that was another person Claire might have shot.

  Alec retreated into the shell from which he had only recently started to emerge. The retreat didn’t require any real effort on his part. His will obligingly ceded ground until he had none at all. He merely retreated beyond the depth of his skin, turning down the volume on all of his senses as he did. His withdrawal was hastened when one of his abductors struck him on the back of his head. He leaned forward slightly until all that he could see was the dark, wiry carpeted Humvee floor. He stared so long and so intently that his eyes strayed from focus and threatened not to return, which Alec did nothing to discourage. When he did finally look up, his vision had become blurred and dark.

  He was detached enough that he didn’t feel the next handful of random blows to his skull. The final, an elbow to the bridge of his nose, had started anew the gush of blood from both nostrils, which coursed down across and around his lips and dripped in long, gooey strings of dark crimson from his chin. He made no attempts to stop the flow of red.

  36.

  Neil was learning that the problem with bluffing about torture is that sometimes, when your bluff has been called, you have to be willing to torture to keep the bluff going. Neil was contemplating this unfortunate reality as he drove them all south on the Seward Highway.

  The silver Dodge Ram truck had been thankfully left unmolested by the fleeing militiamen. It sat with the keys still in the ignition, seemingly waiting for their return. Neil cast a single, longing look toward the pile of stones covering Meghan’s body off the road a bit, but wouldn’t spare the time to run over to her. He needed to ask her for advice. He had been robbed of both her and Dr. Caldwell’s point of view in just a handful of days and he was beginning to feel a little blind and disoriented, like a boat without a rudder.

  There wasn’t time to contemplate next steps however. The sustained shooting had obviously attracted the unwanted attention of the herd of zombies that had been wandering back and forth along the Seward Highway. They were starting to appear in small and large groups along the Portage Glacier Highway and were threatening to overrun the road and restrict any attempts to escape. There was no time to dawdle.

  Neil, Emma, and Jerry climbed into the front seats while Della and their terrified and bound prisoner took their seats in the back. They had plenty of gas and daylight, so Neil was confident they could get to where they needed to be. The only problem was that Neil didn’t know ultimately know where they were going. He had a fair idea about the general area but it didn’t go any further or deeper than that. He was going to need some more specific directions eventually, and that’s where his problems really began.

  It was fairly evident their young, scared prisoner would not willingly share the location of the militia camp. He hadn’t said a word since his little exchange with Neil and didn’t appear as if he was going to be talking any time soon. They were at a stalemate of sorts, but there were other distractions, like getting on the trail of their kidnaped friends.

  They found themselves on the run again; this time toward something rather than away from it. It was running, but it felt different. This kind of running was agitated and aggressive. With the growl of the truck all around them, they began to feel like predators, perhaps a pack or a pride, on the hunt.

  Lucky for Neil, the rhythm of the road passing under his tires had always had an enchanting effect upon him. Today’s drive was no exception.

  The gentle vibrating buzz touched him from his toes to his eyeballs, massaging and relaxing the tension that seemed to plague all of his joints and muscles at once. Like a boa constrictor coiling itself tighter and tighter around its prey, Neil’s tension was a formidable force. It resisted its utmost, but the soothing sensation subdued the constricting energy and banish it to his memory. The reprieve was welcomed with a quiet satisfaction across Neil’s face.

  And lacking any road music to accompany the drive, their soundtrack was the persistent but understated chorus of rubber on pavement. The warm refrains were distant kin to the mesmerizing words of a hypnotist.

  Under such conditions was th
e closest thing Neil ever came to experiencing Zen. His mind wandered without scope or direction. He merely was. There were very few other times in which he could so totally lose himself in such empty but complete existence. He was an empty vessel for thought and experience during those brief moments. Neil’s thoughts were as untamed and free as a Joyce novel diving headlong into stream of consciousness.

  There was really no point in his trying to control or direct his musings. His thoughts quickly became a raging and unpredictable surge which gradually became a parade of faces: Grandma and Grandpa Jordan, his boyhood friend Doug, Dr. Caldwell, a random zombie with its weathered gray skin and hungry snarl, Danny, his mom and dad, his boss sitting in his enormous leather office chair as if it were a throne, and between each random image he caught glimpses of Meghan. Her smile held no judgment or accusation. She was as lovely and as missed as spring.

  Along with Neil in the front seat sat Jerry and Emma, who seemed to share in Neil’s quiet reverence. No one spoke. Words, for all of them, seemed so intrusive and out of place, like trespassers.

  In fact, the only sound that any of them made, with the exception of the occasional deep breath or throat clearing cough, was Della and her soul piercing humming. Her songs never had lyrics but they all seemed so full of meaning and purpose. Next to her, seemingly lost in the drifting melodies of Della’s tune, the militiaman, restrained with duct tape and cable ties, sat and awaited his fate.

  Neil chanced a glance at him in the rearview mirror and was struck with how young he seemed. He was no militiaman; he was a militia boy, scared and alone. For Neil, the boy was his only link to Danny, Jules, and Claire. Their prisoner was unable to hide the fear lurking in his eyes. It has been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul and in the soul emotions are pure and deep. And it was quite obvious to Neil that, despite the boy’s resolute but calm facade, the prisoner was terrified about his immediate future.