by Jon Schafer
The Staff Sergeant laughed, “I don’t drink any more, but then again, I don’t drink any less.”
After Fagan took a sip, his eyes began watering and his throat felt scorched.
“What is this?” He gasped.
“Moonshine,” Cage told him as he chuckled at the man’s reaction. “I make it myself.”
“More like battery acid,” he replied, then took a long drink.
When he recovered, Cage said, “I’m happy to see you here. There’s a lot going on that you might be able to help me with.”
“But I won’t be under your command,” Fagan told him.
“I’m going to change that if you’re agreeable to what I have to say. I need you for something else I’m doing, so I could send someone else from my command in your place.”
Fagan considered this for a moment before asking, “What about the cherry, Major?”
“If you want to keep him, he’s yours,” Cage said. “I’ll just send two replacements instead of one.”
Fagan nodded and said, “Then what do you have going on, sir?”
So Cage told him.
***
After eating, Jimmy wandered around the base as he searched for a way out of it. He could see by the amount of birds perched on the electric fence that it wasn’t charged and his spirits rose. But then he remembered what the Major had said about them being surrounded by thousands of Z’s, and they dropped. If he went out on foot, he knew that he wouldn’t last a day.
As he walked by the motor pool he could see three Humvees and a Stryker assault vehicle along with a collection of high-lift, four wheel drive pick-up trucks. If he could get his hands on one of those, he could make his way back home and be reunited with what was left of his family. A truck like that would bust right through the gate.
Remembering the stories told by a cousin who had been a bootlegger, he recalled him saying that you could make it all the way from Texas to Florida and then back through Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas on the dirt roads that crisscrossed the south. His cousin’s claim to fame was that he could travel a thousand miles without his tires ever touching a paved road.
He resolved that if an inbred, dumbass could do it, then he could do it. Jimmy had barely taken two steps toward the nearest of the vehicles off the road when a sentry challenged him.
Acting friendly, Jimmy said, “I’m PFC McPherson. I just got in today and I saw these trucks. They’re beauties. I just wanted a closer look at them.”
“This is a restricted area,” the guard told him. “We have orders to arrest anyone not authorized to be here and shoot anyone who resists.” Studying Jimmy, he added, “I’ve never seen you around, so I’m going to cut you a break. Just to let you know, since you’re new here, the motor pool and the farmhouse are off limits. So far, no one’s tried to break into the farmhouse, but we get a lot of people trying to bust in here.”
“Why?” Jimmy asked.
“To grab a truck and haul ass,” the sentry replied. Waving a hand around him, he added with a laugh, “I don’t know where they think they’re going though. This whole area is thick as a shit hole with Z’s.”
The sentry had relaxed so Jimmy stepped forward, stopping when he was only a few feet away and said, “That’s crazy. I just got in from New Orleans and it’s a war zone there.”
“You just came from Orleans?” The sentry said in awe.
Seeing that he had impressed the man, Jimmy took another step forward. “It was rough, but it looks like its pretty sweet here.”
“It’s okay,” the sentry told him. “Depends on what duty you get though.”
Jimmy saw that he had gained the man’s trust, so he took another small step forward. He looked around casually as if to check the area out, but it was really to see if anyone was watching. His plan was to kill the man, take one of the trucks and head for Owens Grove, Louisiana. He had his rifle and his combat harness hanging with ammunition and two hand grenades, so he thought he would be all right. Everything else, like food and water, he knew he could scavenge. It was a spur of the moment plan, but he knew that sometimes those were the ones that worked best.
About to point to the generators behind the sentry and ask a question about them, hoping get him to turn around so he could butt-stroke him in the back of the neck with his M16, he was stopped by a voice that called out, “What in the hell do you two think you’re doing?”
Both men snapped to attention at the voice of authority as a Sergeant approached with pistol in hand.
Jimmy’s heart dropped at the knowledge that the fickle finger of fate had foiled his plan.
The Sergeant berated the sentry for letting anyone get close to the trucks and threatened to put them both under arrest. He gave them a chance to explain, and when he found out that Jimmy was new to the base, he seemed to relax slightly but still kept his pistol at the ready. Telling the sentry to continue his rounds, he told Jimmy he was going to give him a break this time, but if he ever saw him in a restricted area again, he would shoot him himself.
Jimmy scurried back to the road but could feel the Sergeant’s eyes boring into the back of his head.
Moving a short distance away, he turned and looked back. As his eyes ran over the motor pool looking for another way in, he realized it was a good thing he hadn’t taken out the guard. From the angle he was looking now, he could see numerous sentries patrolling the area. He might have taken the first one out with a knock to the head, but he would have been cut down before he could hotwire one of the trucks.
With a sigh, Jimmy turned to head back to the Major’s office.
***
Staff Sergeant Fagan walked out of the trailer housing Major Cage’s office as his mind reeled. Seeing Jimmy sitting on the steps, he said, “Come on, PFC.”
Jimmy asked, “We going to report to the farmhouse now, Sarge?”
“Not yet. I think we just got reassigned. Give me a minute to think about this.”
Wondering how this would affect his plans to desert, Jimmy asked, “What now, Sarge?”
He thought over what Major Cage had told him about there being a possible cure for the HWNW virus, along with the Malectron that Doctor Hawkins was working on. Abruptly he responded, “You don’t question orders PFC, you follow them. When it’s time to let you know where we’re going and what we’re doing, I’ll let you know. Until then, be quiet.”
Jimmy fell silent as Fagan considered what he had learned in his talk with Cage. The uses for the Malectron were endless, but so were the abuses. Having grown up in the nuclear age, he didn’t like the idea of anyone having an ultimate weapon.
On the other hand, there was Doctor Connors and her research, but that seemed like a long shot. She needed someone who was immune to the virus and those were few and far between. Thinking about this, he realized that a lot of the people who’d been bitten had been shot in the head before they turned. He himself had taken out fellow soldiers and civilians that he thought were infected. He wondered if he might have inadvertently killed someone who wouldn’t have turned into a Z. He shuddered at the thought, not just from the fact that he could’ve possibly killed someone he didn’t need to, but also because they might have held the cure.
His mind drifted to one Corporal in particular who’d held up his bleeding hand as he pleaded for his life after being bitten. He’d assured the other men on his team that he would be fine. He swore that if he turned, he wouldn’t come after them.
They shot him in the head anyway.
A fairly simple man, Fagan weighed his options. The Major had asked him to do everything in his power, and use all the contacts he’d made in his seventeen years of service, to reach out and help him find someone who was immune to the HWNW virus. Cage had told him that he knew he couldn’t order him to do this but was calling in a favor.
And what a favor, Fagan thought. But when a man saves your life, you owe him big time.
He’d also given him another option. Fagan could report to the farmhouse and go about
the business of bringing in the dead for the doctors to study and nothing more would be said to him on the subject of finding a cure. Doctor Hawkins would perfect his Malectron and put it to whatever use the Joint Chiefs decided.
Telling the Major he needed to think about it, Cage replied that he should take his time. He wasn’t due to report to the farmhouse until the following morning, so he could even sleep on it if he wanted to. All he had to do was either check in with Lieutenant Randal, or show up at the communications center at 0600.
Fagan reached a crossroad and stopped. Looking to his left he could see the farmhouse. The signpost in front him read that the communications bunker was to his right.
“Which way, Staff Sergeant?” Jimmy asked.
Without hesitation, he turned to the right and said, “You just got a promotion McPherson, you are now a radio operator. Come on, we’ve still got a lot to do tonight.”
“I don’t know nothing about radios, Sarge,” he said.
“It’s easy,” Fagan told him. “You talk, they listen. They talk, you listen.”
“But what about all those frequencies and stuff,” Jimmy said.
“Just do what I tell you to and you’ll be fine,” Fagan assured him.
An unbidden memory suddenly popped into Jimmy’s head. He’d dated a girl in the twelfth grade who told him that FINE was an acronym for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. Now Jimmy wasn’t so sure that it wasn’t true.
***
As Major Jedidiah Cage walked the perimeter of the fence, his men and women called out to him in greeting. Light and noise discipline had been relaxed since it was apparent the dead knew they were here, but the soldiers still maintained military order in their speech and actions. Physical training was mandatory five days a week and an area had been cleared on the north side of the compound for close order drill. Sir and Ma’am were required when talking to an officer and the revised universal code of military justice was enforced.
Stopping at an M60 machine gun post, he exchanged small talk with the A gunner for a few minutes. When the man asked if they had gotten cigarettes in the last resupply, Cage told him they hadn’t, then threw him a pack of his own. Moving on to the next position, he found Corporal Shay, one of the Guardsmen who had served with him in Little Rock. They talked about his family, now living in a resettlement camp, and Cage promised he would get him some time on the radio so he could talk to them.
He walked over to an observation post where he found a woman who needed to go to the bathroom. Covering her position until she got back from the latrine, he used her night vision scope to scan the woods. He could see movement but wasn’t sure if it was the dead or the wind blowing through the trees. The last Humvee patrol had reported they were still there, but were staying away from the base.
When she returned, Cage spoke with her about her plans to marry one of the mechanics that worked in the motor pool. They had no chaplain or religious figure on the base, or any chance of one showing up anytime soon, so he’d decided to marry the couple himself. He told her he wasn’t sure if it was legal, but they would give it a shot. She hugged him, tears in her eyes at the news.
He stopped at the next fighting position. Here he found the .50 caliber heavy machine gun being broken down and cleaned by its crew. Asking what was wrong with the weapon, they replied that it was regular maintenance while assuring him they could have it up and firing in less than a minute if needed.
Cage knew it wasn’t just maintenance, and that the crew was making sure the .50 worked at peak performance for what everyone thought would be an invasion of the dead, he told them they were doing a great job and continued on.
On his way to one of the four observation towers they had set up at the corners of the base, he saw some motion inside the camp. Cage stopped and looked slightly to the right of where he thought he had seen movement. His eyes traveled back and forth across the spot as he let them adjust, so he could see better in the low light.
Slowly, a shadowy image staggering toward him came into view.
At first thinking it was a Z, he shrugged his M16 off his shoulder and let it slide into his hands. About to call out a warning, he realized it wasn’t one of the dead. It was just a drunk. Cage kept his weapon at the ready anyway because he knew from previous experience that anyone under the influence was unpredictable, maybe more so now that the dead were walking the earth, and some people felt they had nothing to lose.
As the figure approached, he could make out his features. Lowering the barrel of his rifle, he called out softly in greeting, “Lieutenant Randal. How are you doing tonight?”
Randal stopped ten feet away, reeled slightly and said in a loud drunken voice, “I came to find you. I wanna talk.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The rail line:
They followed the train tracks as the miles faded behind them. If they went too fast, they found that the shuddering caused by driving over the railroad ties was unbearable, so they kept their speed under twenty miles an hour. Rolling through mostly forest, they did drive past an occasional industrial or residential area. Here, they saw the dead; but only in passing, as the creatures were too far away to catch up to them. Occasionally they would hit a stretch where they could see the Interstate, but the only thing that stood out on it were the billboards, which people now used to tell friends and relatives where they were going.
After the landline and cell phone systems crashed, people fleeing from one place to another in search of sanctuary would paint messages on any flat surface they could find. The sides of buildings were used, but the most common writing surface was the billboards lining the roads.
The occupants of the trucks read the messages with interest, hoping to see something about an aid station or a safe haven they could go to. That was until they saw one painted over a Coppertone advertisement in blue, six-foot high letters.
It read:
MOM’S DEAD
DAD’S DEAD
SISTER’S DEAD
YOU’RE DEAD
AND NOW SO AM I.
Bellow it, a rotted body twisted in the slight breeze as it hung by its neck from a rope.
Reaching the outskirts of Cleveland, they started to see more of the dead. As they moved through the small town of Texas City, they had to speed up as the walking corpses of its former citizens came out to greet them. When they were back in a rural area again, Tick-Tock stopped in the middle of a large forested area and radioed that they were taking a break.
Steve and Heather jumped from the bed of the truck and walked to where Tick-Tock was standing as he stretched to get the kinks out of his back.
As they approached, he said, “I’m not sure if I like the vibrations or not. It’s kind of like laying in a massage chair, but you can only take it for so long and then it starts to hurt.”
“I’ve got bruises on my ass that’ll last a month,” Heather commented.
Steve wanted to ask her if he could see them later, but instead turned his mind to task by asking Tick-Tock, “How far do we have to go before we get to a turn off?”
Tick-Tock reached into the cab of his truck then pulled out a map and laid it out on the ground. He flexed his hands then pointed to a spot on the map, saying, “We should cut off here, right before we hit Livingston. That’ll put us on the left hand side of the Big Thicket Preserve. There’s a road that crosses the tracks that’ll lead us right into the middle of it. If that’s jammed with traffic, we’ll just have to go cross country.”
Laying another map on top of the first one, he said, “This is the preserve. Once we reach it, there’s a bunch of fire roads that cut across, so we shouldn’t have any problem finding a way through. It would be nice if we could take 190 straight through and into Polk, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. You can see where I’ve marked our alternate route in highlighter.”
Folding it up, he handed it to Steve and said, “Give this one to Brain; I’ve got another copy I can use. That way, if we get separated or somethi
ng, he’ll know the way. I was going to give it to him before we took off but we kind of got interrupted.”
Steve gave a hard laugh and said, “Yeah, that was a little too close.”
“What was the hold up?” Tick-Tock asked.
“I had to go after Heather,” Steve replied.
Tick-Tock turned to her and asked, “And where were you?”
“I went after some people that ran for the boats. I was trying to bring them back to the trucks,” she explained.
“Should have just left them,” Tick-Tock told her and then said firmly, “I’m not going to jeopardize my skinny white ass for those people, so keep that in mind when you make those kinds of decisions.”
“Don’t worry, next time I’m just going to leave them,” she said. Heather then turned to Steve, “We need to let everyone know that from now on if they split from the group for any reason, they’re on their own. Tick-Tock’s right about this, we agreed to bring them with us but not to babysit.”
Steve nodded. When he’d made the deal to take the refugees from the Battleship Texas with them, his thoughts had been on Miss Carlson and how he’d left her. But he could see now that he’d rather have a hundred retired schoolteachers like her than the bunch he had now.
Climbing onto the hood of Tick-Tock’s truck, he called for everyone’s attention. Heads rose up like meerkats from the beds of both trucks as the survivors from the Texas popped up to listen to what he had to say. When it had been announced that they were taking a break and could get out and stretch their legs, they refused. They argued that it was too dangerous.
Steve tried to keep it positive, saying, “I want to let you know that it looks like the next part of our trip should be pretty easy, but we need to have some rules. The first one is that you need to do exactly what we say, when we say it. The second is that if you get split from the group, you’re on your own. We lost four people today because you people can’t seem to follow a few basic orders.”
He was about to go on when Sean called out, “We didn’t lose four people, you did. You’re supposed to protect us and you let Fahey and his aides run off to God knows what fate.”