Torn Apart (Book 2): Dead Texas Roads

by Hoaks, C. A.

  Once clean, Tate stood close to the communication’s trailer and watched the festivities close to the recreation center. The soldiers and civilians alike were celebrating the haul with soft drinks and a few cans of lake-chilled beer.

  Having spent the afternoon at the barn, Larry walked up to the cluster of soldiers and accepted a beer. “Well, looks like we made a good haul. I have a couple things to discuss with Matt. Is he up at the house?”

  “He hasn’t made it back,” Jake answered before glancing over his shoulder toward the gate at the edge of the campgrounds. “I figured he’d be back by now.”

  “Do you think we should go out and look for him?” Dreschel asked.

  Before anyone could answer, Lawson, stepped back inside the communications trailer, “Shut up!”

  Larry put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. The shrill shriek silenced the buzz of voices. The crowd stood frozen in quiet.

  “I heard something. I think it was Matt,” Lawson yelled, “Be quiet!”

  Tate closed the pen knife she was using to clean oil and grime from under her fingernails. She stepped to the corner of the trailer under the open windows.

  A voice broke through the static. “Monroe to… ly… head… to… Or… Bitch…. Ov… n Out.

  “What did he say?” Larry asked.

  Lawson answered, “I couldn’t tell. There was a lot of static. I couldn’t get anything except “Monroe” and “bitch” something.”

  Tate turned and walked back to the white cab. During the few hours she’d been at the camp, she had tossed out the personal items from the previous owner and taken an inventory of what was left in the tool box and items stored in the cubbies. She had cleaned the unit, got the sheets washed and with the help of a couple of the women, found all she needed to make a new home.

  She climbed into the truck cab and turned the key. After checking the gauges and lights, she cranked the engine. She put the truck in reverse and made a k-turn. When she cleared the campers and maintenance shed, she headed for the entrance. The guard made no move to open the gate, so she called out the window. “Open the fucking gate, or I’ll go over it!”

  The soldier hustled to the gate and swung the heavy gateway open.

  Tate eased off the clutch, and the rig rolled forward. She glanced into the side mirror one last time to see Jake and several soldiers running after her. She gunned the engine and left the campgrounds behind.

  They could catch her with a Humvee, but she didn’t think they would bother. She figured she owed the damned soldier. She was going to repay the debt. She wasn’t one to leave a debt unpaid.

  She knew where Matt had turned off to lead the infected fuckers away, so she figured she could backtrack and find him. She could save his drunk-ass and then…well. She wouldn’t owe him for saving her ass.

  She spent the next hour backtracking roads to the turn off Matt had taken. She drove by and headed toward the Orange Bitch they had moved to the side of the road. When she got there, she was disappointed to see half a dozen infected milling around. At the sound of the truck, they turned and stumbled toward her. She aimed the truck at the group and took out three with the brush guard on the truck. She pulled the silenced 9mm and shot the last three as they stumbled to their feet. When Matt still didn’t appear, she called out. “Monroe! Hey, you around here?”

  The only reply was another three infected stumbling from behind the truck wreckage. Tate sighed. “Come on ass-hole. If you’re around here, give me a sign.”

  Again the only response was the pitiful moans of the infected. Tate reached behind the seat to retrieve a machete. She put the truck in park, got onto her knees in the seat and leaned out the open window. She raised her blade and brought it down on the closest head. When the body slipped down to the asphalt, the remaining two monsters stumbled closer. Tate finished off both and then pulled the white truck as close as she could to her orange rig. She put the truck in park and slid over the bench seat and climbed out the passenger window to the top of the door of the Orange Bitch.

  She squatted on the door looking down into the small compartment that had been her home for the past two years. It hadn’t been disturbed since she had left. She used the steering wheel to ease herself inside. She spent a couple minutes grabbing her pillow and stuffed clothes into a second pillowcase. She took one last look around and was satisfied she had found everything salvageable from the cab. She tied the case closed with a belt then pushed the bundle through the window. Making her way out of the truck she climbed back into the cab of the white truck shoving the bundle into the sleeper behind the seat. As an afterthought, she retrieved the onboard navigation disk from the SD drive.

  Tate slipped the SD disk from her truck into the navigation slot of the white truck. She turned on the ignition and slid her finger to the navigation icon. After a minute, the image began to morph into the surrounding terrain. She scanned the area for a few moments, then zoomed in at the intersection nearly ten miles down the side road where Matt had turned. Half a mile beyond was a grid of streets. Since she was sure it was the way Matt had taken, she thought she could imagine what happened.

  It would be the place to set up a road block if they were protecting a community. They could turn traffic away and protect access by infected. Matt had delivered a horde to the community's doorstep. He would have been caught in the line of fire and couldn’t have made it to the crossroads so he would have headed out cross country. She decided there was only one way to head, back to the highway across open scrub grass and mesquite to the Bitch.

  If he was headed for the highway, then she had a pretty good idea which direction to head to find him, but it was nearly dark. She decided to wait until morning. She picked up the mic and clicked the button. She listened, but there was no reply. If he was out there, he wasn’t listening or unable to respond. Tate backed up the white rig and rolled over the cattle guard heading south then parked a quarter mile from the road. If he came toward the Orange Bitch, he would stumble right into the white truck. If not, she’d head out to look for him at dawn.

  Chapter 17

  Resurrection

  Lieutenant Brian Jameson looked through the blood smeared fourth-floor window of the office building to the streets below. A lot of the infected had followed the first exodus of surviving soldiers in army vehicles as they thundered from the base. He and PFC Billy Walker had watched the army pull out, unable to do a thing about it without a way to contact them.

  Brian had known there were still soldiers on the base, but when he had lost his radio unit, he had no way of contacting them without drawing attention to their hiding place. Land lines were down, and cell service was overloaded. None of the calls connected. The one time he had gotten his wife’s cell phone to ring, it went to voicemail. She hadn’t answered. He had no way of knowing if Liz and his daughters even still alive? He forced his thoughts from his family. Brian could do nothing to help them, and he had people to help here and now.

  They thought they were alone then they saw a couple soldiers in the distance loading up a Humvee.

  “If we cut across the base we can head northwest. Maybe we can catch up when they leave.” Brian made plans then they moved out, determined to catch up. Then the soldiers jumped in the Humvee and drove away.

  “Son of a bitch!” Billy whispered. “We’re so fucked!”

  Brian reached out and shoved the kid behind a vehicle, then fired a silenced round into the head of an infected woman who had taken notice of his outburst. “Be quiet now."

  They spent the next few hours working their way past the enlisted men’s barracks and office buildings and around groups of infected. By late in the afternoon they realized most traffic was at a standstill and any vehicles that were still moving were quickly brought to a stop and surrounded by the infected. No noise was the key, so they were traveling on foot, at least, until they reached the edge of the city.

  Even if they found the surviving soldiers, they would be surrounded by the dead. The powerfu
l military vehicles were rolling dinner bells.

  As the afternoon sun began to fade, they were left at the edge of a strip center. Only one door seemed intact, so Brian used a crowbar to pop the door from the frame and slipped into a building. He sniffed and signaled Billy to come inside.

  They wedged the door closed then moved into the darkened building. They made their way down the long hall to a small break room and found three people huddled in the corner, too afraid to even turn on a light as long as electricity was still on. They had had few supplies to start with and nothing but water since the day before. The stench of unwashed bodies and rotting foods wafted from the room.

  The two women and an overweight salesman were so terrified they could barely speak. Brian and Billy calmed the hysteria caused by their arrival and got enough information to know they needed food. Brian shared a few their supplies, then left the trio eating while they went to scavenge supplies from other offices in the building.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Billy asked.

  Brian used the toe of his boot to ease the door open as he held the silenced handgun in front of him. The room was a call center filled with thirty-plus waist-high cubicles, arranged in four rows of office cubes extending the length of the space. One row was positioned against the wall on either side, and the two middle rows were separated by five-foot soft walls.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone is in here, but be ready, Billy. Go through the drawers and cabinets. Look for anything we might be able to use, shoes, food, pants, or t-shirts, even jackets, if you can find a couple,” Brian ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Billy grinned.

  Brian moved to the passageway on the right while Billy approached the corridor to the left. Brian moved past the first cubicle with an assortment of post-it notes across the bottom of the computer screen and a photo of a little dark-haired girl in front of a birthday cake. Was she still alive? Were his own daughters still alive? He laid the picture face down and opened each of the drawers in turn. There he scored a handful of Slim Jims and two candy bars. He dropped them in a plastic bag from the wastebasket and turned to the cubical to the right.

  Billy moved down the opposite corridor opening drawers, dumping bags and checking out every cubical. It took nearly ten minutes for both men to search all the offices. At the end of the aisle, Billy looked around the corner and grinned. Over his shoulder hung three pairs of jogging shoes tied together by the strings, He held a jacket, a thick cardigan sweater, and some kind of a shawl.

  “Only scored a couple Ramen noodle cups, but not much else in the way of food. They had a butt load of rotten salads,” Billy announced. “But I got shoes.”

  Brian nodded. “I got food, and a pair of shoes, small, though. Most of my side was men. They worried more about food than clothes.”

  They cleared the manager’s office and found a bowl of candy, but little else of value. They got back to the trio and settled down for the night. The two women, Paula and Margo, had worked in an office across the street. When an injured employee attacked fellow workers, the two women ran to the office building, slipped inside, then locked the door. They quickly learned the call center, where a friend worked, had been evacuated and the only person left was an insurance agent. Dale Witman was a three pack a day smoker and showed it. He only learned of the mayhem when the two women arrived since his office was at the back of the building. The three had decided to hunker down and wait for help. Help that never came.

  Brian tossed the four pairs of shoes on the floor in front of the two women and Dale. The women tried on shoes and settled on the two smaller pairs leaving Dale to wear pink jogging shoes. When he started to protest, Brian turned and glared at him.

  “Wear ‘em or not. I don’t care. But I’m telling you right now, you keep up, or we’ll leave you behind.”

  Dale slid his feet out of his expensive loafers and jammed them into the pink running shoes. He walked across his office to settle in the corner with a cup of Ramen soaked in room temperature water. The two women ate the last of the noodles, then made beds from the clothing brought back and fell asleep quickly. Brian and Billy were left with crackers, jerky and bottles of water to wash them down. After eating, they took turns watching out a narrow window at the top of the outside wall.

  After an uneventful night of watching infected move through the streets, the two men woke the others up at dawn. They left the building through the back door and moved to the end of the ally. That was the end of the leisurely stroll. In less than a block, they were caught between two groups of infected and pursued. They were forced to run past buildings, and down alleys until they ended in a parking garage stairwell.

  “Do something.” Dale clutched at Brian’s arm. “I’m going to die! I can’t keep running.”

  Brian jerked his arm away. “Shut up!” He cracked the door glanced up and down the block. “We go up. Billy, move out. Stop at the next floor.”

  At the second level, Brian stepped to the secured door. He jammed the crowbar between the door and wood facing. With a crack of wood, the door swung open. Billy stepped inside, fanning the light from side to side and sniffing at the stagnant air. The place was a beer pub, and the stench of stale beer wafted from the darkened room.

  Billy stumbled at the sight of three bodies slumped in a corner booth. The table was littered with dozens of beer bottles. Brian steadied the kid with a hand on his shoulder and pushed past to him into the room. He whispered at Billy, “Secure the door.”

  Billy eased the door closed, grabbed a chair and jammed it under the doorknob. He wedged it tight with a kick of his heel. Brian led the others into the bar just as one of the three men snorted and groaned then returned to slumbering. Brian gave them a quick once-over and realized the three men were alive but dead drunk. Three tool belts, the kind wore by construction workers lay nearby. Apparently, the men had been in the bar for more than a couple days judging by the empty bottles and remains of meals eaten.

  “Lights on,” Billy commented.

  Paula, with Margo in tow, went to the bar. She pulled a rubber band from a stack of receipts and used it pull back her long dark hair before digging around behind the polished bar until she found coffee and filters. Both women cleared the bar of debris and spent a few minutes to wipe away spills before searching for edibles. The smell of coffee filled the air, by the time the women with Billy’s help wiped down the grill. The trio found potatoes, sliced ham, and eggs in the frig. They peeled potatoes and threw them on the gas grill. Paula opened a package of tortillas heat while Margo stirred onions and chunked of ham into the potatoes.

  “Won’t be long now,” announced Paula.

  Brian accepted a cup of coffee from Billy and grinned at the two women. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven, ladies.” At the smell of food cooking and coffee, the drunks began to stir. They looked around, and Brian nodded at Billy. “Take coffee to our new friends. My guess is, they’ll be needing it.”

  Plates of taquitos were set on the bar with paper plates and a stack of napkins. The group gathered around to enjoy the Mexican breakfast meal. While he ate, Billy told the construction men how they ended up at the bar. When Billy had eaten his fill, he took Brian’s place watching through the small peephole in the front door.

  Brian filled his plate and opened each taquito to add Picante before he settled down to eat at the table where the men sat with Dale and the women. He asked, “So Eugene, Juan, and Leon, what’s your story?” He took a big bite of filled tortilla.

  Eugene, the foreman of the construction project the trio had been working on, answered, “We were working on a building a few miles from here before the attack. We took outta there together. My truck got hit by a sedan a few blocks from here. We barely escaped a bunch of those crazy people.”

  Juan interrupted. “I knew the bartender that worked here. When we got to the front door, it was open. No one was here, so we came in and locked the door.”

  Eugene chuckled. “We decided to have a beer
and discuss what to do next. Been here ever since.” He belched. “We couldn’t decide, and we had food and beer.”

  Billy laughed. “Guess you missed the back door being unlocked.”

  Leon, a muscular black man with a big smile, chuckled. “We weren’t thinking about it too hard. We were scared shitless.”

  “We’re leaving in the morning. You can come or not. Up to you,” Brian answered.

  Juan leaned closer. “Where are you going?”

  “Keep going southwest, until we can find a place to get a ride, then head out of town.”

  “We know a place. It should be empty, and there’s a car lot nearby.”

  Brian looked up. “How far?”

  “Two or three miles, maybe,” Juan answered. “Depending on how we go.”

  “That’s a doable distance. If you’re willing, we’ll leave at first light.”

  The three men looked at each other and then Eugene nodded. “We’re in.”

  Brian decided the men were a decent trio, just overwhelmed by the situation. He figured the construction workers would be recovered enough to make the trip after their drinking binge and resulting hangovers. The food prepared by the women did a lot to aid in their recovery.

  As the sun set and the bar darkened, everyone migrated to booths and tried to get comfortable enough to sleep. Soon, the women were sound asleep, and Dale curled up on the floor on a pile of cardboard.

  For Brian, it was a losing proposition with all the noise from the dead in the street. He and Billy repacked backpacks and readied supplies before Billy settled on a vinyl bench near the door and within minutes fell asleep. At one, Billy replaced Brian watching the street.

  Eugene and Juan were the first to stir. Juan put on coffee and threw two rounds of sausage on the grill and cut them in four-inch length. He heated flour tortillas, and as people got to moving around, he passed out the impromptu breakfast.