by RW Krpoun
How had they escaped? The plan seemed perfect enough: fires to create confusion, a release of infected subjects, followed by a surgical strike by seizure team of four professionals to recover the sample itself.
Instead, the Gnomes had escaped, even taking one of the seizure team captive. Nor had their meddling ended there-they had assaulted the base camp for District 12’s assets in the immediate region, destroying a helicopter. The latter meant the Gnomes had been able to flee the area unobserved.
His aide entered the command room. “Doctor, additional data.”
“Proceed, Mr. Weatherford.”
“Photo analysis has identified two more of the men from the security camera footage taken at Berlin. File 112, sir.”
Cyrus brought up the information. “I see.”
“They have recruited two members at some point along the way, along with a second vehicle. The recon team found this vehicle, which was crippled in the break-out, and found the body of the missing seizure team member there as well. From papers found in the truck we have identified the two new recruits.”
“So we have confirmed there are still seven?”
“Yes, sir.”
The doctor stroked his fingertips. “So, this ‘Yard Gnome Action Team’ consists of one soldier, an escapee from a mental institution, a pro wrestling promotion agent, a criminal of the biker variety, an overweight slacker, a recent immigrant from Poland, and one unidentified subject?”
“As of our last data, yes, sir.”
“Really-a group of misfits, rejects, mental midgets and society’s dross-how are they still wandering about?”
“They are fairly competent at violence, sir. That’s not a higher brain function.”
“True.” Cyrus moved data around on his screens. “Still, we need that sample.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And please speak, Mr. Weatherford. Do not withhold your opinion.”
“Sir, I think we may be…underestimating this group.”
The Doctor tapped the arm of his chair before answering. “The course of recent events sustains your point. Do you have a conclusion?”
“Not fully sir, more of an assembly of uncomfortable facts. This soldier has a proven career in Afghanistan, albeit as an enlisted man. The surviving escapee is troubling-he not only escaped, but he also removed or corrupted every bit of his personal data on file at the institution before leaving. We don’t even have a valid identity for him. Everything about him suggests…training in some sort of covert activity. It’s as if he was deliberately living his life off the grid.”
“Likely just another homeless person cluttering up the urban landscape.”
“Except that he checked himself in voluntarily, and paid for his treatment, sir.”
Cyrus sat up. “Really.” He found the dossier and pulled it up on the center screen. “Why would a man check into a facility, and then mount an elaborate escape effort? He could have walked out at any time.”
“Exactly, sir. This makes me wonder…are we really looking at a random group of subjects thrown together by events? We have two highly trained subjects identified so far. My speculation is that we may be looking at a decoy operation, a highly developed team intended to draw attention away from the real Fastbox Two.”
The doctor studied the screens. “Assign a member of the staff to extract all possible data on these subject’s backgrounds and prepare a seizure plan. A Tier One staffer. Have someone else double-check all our previous sources to ensure that we know where the real Fastbox Two is.”
“Yes, sir. What should I tell the tactical commander?”
“Re-assign him and his surviving assets. There are only two bridges across the Mississippi into Arkansas, so bring the teams covering them up to speed. The mouse may be free, but we know where he is going.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have one of our specialists look into this Lieutenant Colonel Nelson,” Cyrus decided. “The Ranger is simply a tool, a blunt object suited to simple tasks. Remove his controller’s guiding intellect, and he will be easy prey.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marv stirred once, when the RV slowed to a stop, but the tone of voices that came through the folding barrier were normal, so he drifted back off, his pistol under his pillow and the payload in the crook of his elbow like a kid’s teddy bear.
He came fully awake just shy of fourteen hundred hours. Taking the time to make the bed, shave, and wash up before heading into the main area, he was pleased to note that his stiffness and bruising was backing off a little.
“Look who’s alive,” Chip grinned. “Want some stew?”
“Stew would be great. Where are we?” Brick was driving, Bear was in the passenger seat, Dyson was sitting in Doc’s green folding camp chair between them, and the rest were lounging about the main area.
“About ten miles from the point on the map you marked ‘full alert’, and about twenty from the Ole Muddy,” JD held up the battered road atlas. “We stopped once to siphon fuel out of a farm tractor abandoned on the side of the road, but that was it. Speaking of which, we’re low on diesel, and our food situation is pretty thin. After supper all we’ll have are Slim Jims and jerky.”
“Any news?” Marv sat in the booth as Chip set out a paper bowl of Dinty Moore stew and a Coke. “Thanks Chip.”
“Some. The great state of Mississippi seems to doing OK-lotta guns around here. The news channels are back up-seems FASA has been killing politicians and generals. Apparently we nuked Indonesia, China has nuked three of its own cities, and India set off a bomb inside its own borders. The flu and its attendant zombies are running wild in Asia and the Pacific states, but it’s less dynamic in Europe and the Middle East, and there’s no word about Africa. Central and South America has issues, but they don’t seem to be terribly off, although the central government of Mexico is gone. New York and LA are war zones, but our military seems to be hitting back pretty well.”
“Could be worse.” Marv dug into the stew with enthusiasm. “Any ideas about resupply?”
“Yeah-actually its Addison’s idea.” The promoter gestured towards the dark Gnome, who shook his head. JD shrugged and continued. “Obvious places are just that-obvious. Mississippi is doing OK, but there’s still trouble and displacement, and a lot of people looking to re-supply in out-of-the-way places, same as us. Even towns like Berlin who are safely out of it are seeing runs on merchandise.”
“Ok, but you have a cunning plan, right?”
“Yeah, Addison came up with the idea: the Deep Web, which is the Internet’s under-belly, pretty much off the grid sort of stuff. Bear kicked in some ideas of an extra-legal nature, and between them they came up with places which not a lot of people know about.”
“What kind of places?”
“Well, specifically we looked for narcotics relay points,” Bear explained. “I’ve never taken part in the drug trade, but I know quite a few people who have, and I know that they use the Deep Web to communicate because the Feds are hell on phone and e-mail. Addison knew people who know where to look, and so it went.”
“What are these relay points?”
“Places where a mule hauling a serious load of dope can safely stop without the risk of official attention. The big organizations use ‘em. Anyway, we tracked one down that’s nearby. It’s perfect: a semi-independent operation that served narco and regular black market trade, and based on its location the odds are very good it’s been over-run by the infected.”
“A zombie fight is a good thing?” Chip asked, putting a paper bowl of canned preaches in front of Marv.
“Better than a firefight,” Marv observed, licking his spoon clean and starting on the peaches. “Tell me about the place.”
“It’s a scrap yard, auto graveyard sort of place. Provides fuel, vehicle repairs, and other support. Its a regular stop on the human trafficking circuit, which should mean food storage. It’s also how the outbreak started in that area.”
“Dude, were you a human tra
fficker?” Chip asked, a bit nervously.
“No, I wasn’t,” Bear scowled. “I moved some…illicit goods on occasion, mostly electronics and booze. No dope, no people, nothing bad.”
“Where is it?”
“About thirty miles north of here, off the beaten track. Close enough to a town that the zeds could gimp their way to more people, but if we come in from the south we’ll avoid populated areas,” JD passed over the road atlas.
“What about murder or assault, dude?” Chip asked.
“I just moved some stolen freakin’ goods and the occasional gun,” Bear snarled. “Wholesale, and never in Texas. The guns, I mean.”
“Sure, I was just wonderin’,” Chip bobbed his head nervously. “So no robbery or…”
“Chip,” Marv wiped his mouth and stood. “Don’t sweat it-it’s a brave new world. Day before yesterday I killed three uninfected guys, last night I shot one and beat the crap out of another. These days it ain’t who you used to be, it’s who you are today, and today we’re putting in on the line for the common good.”
“Yeah, the fact that Bear used to be a slimy criminal scumbag is no longer relevant,” Dyson agreed, grinning.
The biker shot the Georgian the finger without taking his eyes from the road.
“So we head for the rally point?” JD asked.
“Yeah.”
“By the way, why do you have us heading for the middle of nowhere?” Dyson asked. “You had a pretty specific route marked.”
“There’s only two road bridges across the Big Muddy between Mississippi and Arkansas,” Marv finished his Coke and tossed the can into the trash. “Two very obvious chokepoints. If FASA hasn’t blown them, they’ll be watching them close. What I wanted was a family-owned barge operator to move the RV across the water. Two bridges are easy to watch, but an entire river isn’t. Once we’re across they’ll play merry hell catching up with us.”
“What makes you think those businesses are still open?”
“I don’t know, but where we’re headed there are two whose bases or ports or whatever you call ‘em are fairly isolated from urban areas. If neither is available we’ll find a regular boat and abandon the RV. The key is to get across the river-once we’re on the west bank FASA’s job of killing us gets a whole lot more complex. If we get across with the RV and a full tank of diesel, well, life will be a lot easier.”
“Relay place have shop?” Brick asked from the driver’s seat.
“Looks like, from what we gathered on the Net,” Bear said.
“Make weapons, armor.”
“What do you mean?” Marv asked.
“Need better weapons, quiet weapons,” Brick kept his eyes on the road, rolling north now. “Longer, head-smash weapons, shield. I know machine shop, weld, lathe. Couple hours, boom, we much better.”
“Guns do draw attention,” Dyson observed. “They’re great when it’s like the RV park was, but I-75 would have been easier if we could have been quiet.”
“We’ll look at what the situation is when we’ve got the place sorted out,” Marv nodded.
Chapter Seven
Gnomehome was parked on the reverse slope of a low hill while the Yard Gnomes knelt on the shoulder of the road at the hill’s crest and passed the binoculars back and forth. The relay point was a mile away in the center of the flatland stretching north, and a slow steady rain pattered down.
“Looks like about twenty acres fenced, with trees on three sides and pasture to the north,” Dyson observed, his work shirt darkening from the rain. “Road all the way around, entrances in the long sides, north and south.”
“Woodlots,” JD amended. “Those are woodlots. Light forestry.”
“Whatever.”
The fence was beige tin sheets bolted to welded pipe frames, much battered and stained, and both gates stood open. Most of the acreage enclosed was taken up by stacked junk vehicles and piles of rusting transmissions, axles, and other components, with muddy lanes slithering in between. The north and south gates were connected by a graveled road which also separated the relay point’s two buildings. To the west was a long, open shed tall enough to accommodate semi tractors and which was separated into seven stalls, two of which were fitted with overhead doors that were rolled open to reveal a machine shop. To the east was a flat-roofed cinderblock building painted white with green trim; both buildings were surrounded by graveled parking areas. Two travel trailers with electrical and sewage hookups were parked against the north fence.
“No vehicles,” Marv observed. “And no fuel pumps.”
Addison leaned close and pointed. “There, behind the truck stalls. Above-ground tanks.”
“Haven’t seen those in a while,” Chip observed. “In Texas it’s all below-ground.”
“Why aren’t there any vehicles?” Dyson asked. “Lots of infected people, but no vehicles.”
“North gate’s got one gate down,” JD passed him the binoculars. “You can’t hardly see it for the mud. Looks like people bailed really fast. As in crash through the gate fast.”
“Which is how it spread,” Addison mumbled. “They ran, with friends in the car who were bit.”
“OK, not too bad,” Marv nodded. “We back up to within a hundred yards of the gate, get their attention, and mow ‘em down. That should get most-then we move in and clear the place.”
“Why back in?” Dyson asked.
“In case there’s more than we expected. Easier to run away when you are already facing away. JD, can you do it?”
The promoter studied the road. “Yeah, so long as slow is acceptable.”
“Yeah, it is. You’ll stay in the rig, the rest dismount and form a firing line. Any questions?”
“Can’t we give peace a chance, dude?” Chip grinned.
“That only works if you’re a brain-dead hippie. Let’s get this done,” Marv checked his watch. “Four hours until sundown, which with the cloud cover will come fast.”
“At least its not so hot here,” Bear observed as they trudged back to the Gnomehome. “I think it’s about eighty.”
“Fewer bugs than Florida,” JD agreed. “We really need to keep the RV-I can’t go to war without AC and laundry.”
“Man, was it really just the day before yesterday?” Dyson asked. “Crossing that damn river, and all that? Seems like a month.”
“Gotta say, there is nothing like the prospect of a zombie chewing your face off or some terrorist back-shooting you to really make you live every minute,” JD nodded.
“Huh,” Marv stared at the backing cam’s monitor. “Try going back another twenty yards.”
“They don’t seem to want to play,” Dyson observed from the passenger seat.
“Maybe they like being inside the fence,” Chip suggested.
“Maybe they understand an ambush when they see one,” Marv said grimly. “Animals can spot or sense traps-if the zombies are operating off the lower functions they’re bound to have some degree of cunning.”
“Well, there’s always the simple way,” Bear observed. “We send Chip to the gate as bait.”
“Hey!” the big man protested. “Not cool, dude, not cool.”
“We need someone more aerodynamically streamlined,” Marv grinned.
“I’m game,” Dyson sighed.
“Gay, you say?” Bear smirked.
“Bite me.”
“There’s a glut on that market.”
“OK, stop here, and stay ready,” Marv shook his head. “Always the hard way. Dyson, you sure about this?”
“No, but I’ll do it anyway.” The Georgian held up a manila envelope. “JD, I’ve leaving this here under the visor. I get it, there’s instructions written on the outside. Just in case.”
“Yeah, since you mention it...,” Chip pulled an envelope from his back pocket and tucked it under the visor.
“Just in case,” Brick added one.
“Get moving before we get all misty and New Age,” Marv racked the door open. “Spare a glance to the sides
now and then-a couple may have wandered off. JD, watch our backs.”
“You can count on that.”
The Gnomes moved a few feet beyond the rear of the RV and formed a line across the muddy road, the rain still coming down.
“Everyone ready?” Dyson slung his Mini-14.
“Lets roll,” Bear grinned. “I’ve got dibs on the next rifle we get-this Mossburg is nice for close-in work, but I need something that fires faster and reloads easier for general use.”
Dyson walked briskly to the open gate and stepped through, and immediately they heard the weird wailing moan being sounded by a dozen throats. The muscular Gnome drew his Python and fired a single shot, the Magnum’s heavy bark echoing across the wet landscape, and then began trotting back towards the firing line.
“Hold fire,” Marv cautioned the others. “Wait for them to get fully involved before we open up. It will be a lot easier to face them out here than in that maze.”
“Why don’t you start the dance?” Bear shrugged, drawing his Glock. “This is more your speed.”
“This is like the Napoleonic wars, dude,” Chip observed nervously. “Standing in a line waiting for the other guys to get close.”
“Napoleon was asshole,” Brick observed.
“He created a very forward-thinking code of laws,” Chip protested.
“Shut the fuck up,” Bear snapped. “It’s like being on the freakin’ History Channel here.”
Ragged figures came shambling out the gate, moving with a purpose.
“Is it me, or are these a little more…certain in their footing?” Marv asked as Dyson trotted up.
“More flexible, better balance,” Addison mumbled.
Bear tugged his black gimme ball cap a touch lower. “They look worse, though. More dead.”