Back at the farm Steve was sending out the A-10s with cluster bombs along with the Gatling Cessna. His next round would be the choppers. The A-10s swooped down hitting thick clusters of blues before they reached Omega. The blues came in groups of dozens to tens of thousands. The Apache’s launched in time for the next massive wave that hit Omega at 1800.
With very few blues coming from the south Bruce pulled most of first platoon to the north end of the bridge. The bodies of blues were stacked fifteen to twenty high in places starting fifty yards from the end of the bridge. When the Apaches came in the Blackhawks followed dumping off ammunition. The Strykers and LAVs were hammering away at the groups as they charged the bridge.
It was 0312 when Bruce called a cease fire. The pile of bodies now was over ten feet tall forming a semi-circle around the bridge and went back almost half a mile. They could hear movement in the pile, but Bruce didn’t want to waste the ammo.
Looking at his radio to make sure it was on the farm net Bruce keyed his radio, “Hello Big Daddy Two, this is One. You there?” Bruce said with a dragging voice.
“Here Bruce,” Mike said.
“Hey told ya we’d win,” Bruce said.
“Yes you did,” Mike replied chuckling.
“What does it look like out there now?” Bruce asked, thinking about their next action.
“Well if you wait four more hours you can shoot a few hundred walkers,” Mike told him.
“Fuck the walkers, I request permission to return to base,” Bruce said.
For a few second Mike was caught off guard. “Permission granted,” Mike told him.
“We’re pulling back about thirty miles and taking a nap. See you tomorrow,” Bruce told him.
“See you tomorrow my brother,” Mike said turning around looking at the command group. They all were tired from helping run the battle, hungry from missing lunch and supper because they helped load choppers and planes, but happy. Omega was coming home. “Well let’s get some sleep, our people are coming home tomorrow,” Mike said getting up, thankful Omega had held the line.
Chapter 21
Omega rolled into the farm the next day at 1000. Like all the other times they returned home, the entire clan was there to welcome them. The vehicles had to weave through the people until they reached the barn. Half the family was waiting on those family members that were on the team at the barn. Stephanie and Angela were having hell holding the kids back as the vehicles stopped. PJ was doing his damnedest to climb over Stephanie to get out of her arms. He knew that those trucks held Daddy and he wanted to go to them.
Angela was fairing no better than Stephanie and one could say worse. Cade was pulling away from her and Angela had her other arm wrapped around both twins trying to stop them. The kids were winning the battle until Angela threw them on the ground and laid on them. Looking up at Stephanie, Angela watched PJ go over her shoulder and try to crawl down her back. The only thing that stopped his meeting with gravity was Stephanie had a death grip on his ankle.
“Holy shit, I was going to ask you for help but he’s kicking your ass,” Angela told her. Stephanie knelt down still holding a screaming PJ by the ankles who was hitting Stephanie on her back. Not realizing in his two year old mind that her hold on him was the only thing keeping him from hitting the ground face first.
When she was down on her knees she lay on her side and let go of PJ’s ankles. Thinking he had freedom, PJ stood up only to realize that he was facing the wrong direction. Turning around to run to Daddy, Stephanie wrapped her arms around him. “Hold on you little turd. Wait until the trucks stop and you can tear the damn things apart!” Stephanie yelled out as PJ struggled against her. Stephanie looked over at Angela, “Next time, I take those three and you’re taking PJ!” she informed her.
“Let’s flip a quarter for it?” Angela asked hopefully.
“Forget it,” Stephanie told her as Mike walked over holding Cassandra.
“Problems guys?” Mike asked smiling looking at them on the ground holding down kids.
“Don’t start Mike,” Stephanie warned as Nancy came over holding Joshua.
Stephanie looked up at Nancy and Mike both the kids were just sitting in their arms calmly. “What did you, drug them?” She asked and started thinking about that for the next time.
Mike just laughed at them as Sherry managed to crawl out from under Angela. Angela grabbed her and moved Sherry to her legs then wrapped both her legs around Sherry to hold her still. “No we didn’t drug them. I’m here and so is their mom. She’s waiting on Conner and the kids slept with her last night,” Mike answered.
Cassandra and Joshua liked Conner but looked at Mike and Nancy as the other momma and daddy. Conner was just a friend that Mama liked, to them. Mike and Nancy spoiled them and gave them bunches of hugs and kisses. It was still in Cassandra’s mind that Mike said he would be her Daddy along with Mr. Bruce. She called Mike, Daddy as did Joshua and Bruce, Daddy Bruce. Well, except Joshua he did call Mike Da-Da but Bruce he just squealed at and everyone took that for Daddy Bruce.
It was nothing against Conner, he loved the two kids. Cassandra could remember the beatings from her father Jim and the mean things he had done to mama. Mike and Nancy loved her all the time like Mama did. Conner had a long road to pave before she would totally accept him. Joshua just followed Cassandra’s lead.
Giving up Stephanie threw her legs around PJ who started yelling “No,” at her hitting her legs with the one arm he had free. “Like hell, if you wait I’ll let you go when the trucks stop. Then you can beat the hell out of Daddy!” Stephanie yelled back.
“He’s not even two Stephanie, I don’t think he understands the swearing or more than one subject at a time,” Nancy told her.
Stephanie glared up at Nancy, “He’s just putting on a show to fool everyone. PJ understands a lot more than everyone gives him credit for. I really think he plans this stuff out,” Stephanie told her. Nancy just started laughing as the trucks turned off their engines. The crowd kept on cheering as Omega climbed out of the trucks.
Sitting in the copula in his RG, Bruce had a bird’s eye view of Angela and Stephanie’s plight fighting the kids. Grinning, Bruce climbed out on to the roof slinging his SCAR behind his back and unzipping his vest. Watching as the trucks turned off their engines, Bruce wondered why Mike and Nancy weren’t helping them. When he saw Sherry climb out from under Angela and get put in leg scissors he guessed they didn’t want to get hurt.
Seeing Bruce jump on the hood the crowd moved around the truck stopping him from jumping down. Smiling, Bruce climbed down as people patted his back and shook his hand. Making his way through the crowd Bruce wondered what all the fuss was about, they just saw him a three weeks ago.
When Stephanie saw Bruce come out of the crowd she yelled, “Let’em go! I see him!” They released the hounds as Bruce stepped out of the crowd. The twins left the boys in the dust but Cade was giving it everything he had to get to Bruce to get some hugs and kisses. PJ was moving as fast as his little legs would carry him. In his mind he was moving at the speed of light, to everyone else, an old lady with a walker could’ve beat him to Bruce.
Seeing his welcoming committee, Bruce dropped his vest and SCAR on the ground and knelt down holding out his arms. Sherry and Emily hit Bruce in the chest hard, almost knocking him down. They had his face covered once with kisses before Cade made it to them. Squeezing his way between the twins, he put his wide open arms across Bruce’s chest. Leaning down Bruce started giving kisses to all three. Bruce looked up and saw PJ still running for everything he was worth toward him.
“Come on PJ, Daddy’s here!” Bruce yelled encouragement to him. Hearing Daddy, PJ let out a squeal and tried to run faster but fell down. Not to be deterred his hugs and kisses, PJ jumped up, well slowly pulled himself up, and continued on to Daddy. Laughing Bruce could see that PJ was getting tired as PJ ran up and wrapped his arms around Sherry’s waist.
“Hey PJ, I’m further in,” Bruce told PJ as he sq
uirmed an arm through and hoisted PJ up. When PJ got to Bruce’s face he started kissing him with slobbery kisses. Bruce fell back with the kids in his arms laughing as they all gave hugs and kisses. The clan saw Bruce and the team with their families and slowly walked away smiling.
“Emily, Sherry, y’all don’t love bubba no more?” Jake asked walking up.
The twins looked up, “Bubba!” they shouted together and jumped off Bruce and ran to Jake. Jake kneeled down scooping them up in his arms. Mary came over to them and they included her in the love beat down.
Danny walked over and stood over Bruce who was getting hugs from Cade and kisses from PJ. In Cade’s defense PJ did cover Bruce’s face with slobber. “Hey PJ, don’t I get any love?” she asked.
PJ looked up from Daddy and yelled, “Dan-Dan!” as he crawled off of Bruce into Danny’s arms.
“Cade, can I have a few kisses?” Mindy asked walking up. Cade looked up and saw his buddy and climbed off of Bruce and ran to Mindy.
“Hey! That’s my welcoming committee,” Bruce protested, having all his lovin’ taken away.
“Whatever,” all three said together.
Bruce started mumbling as he stood up and gathered his gear off the ground as Max walked up to him. “Well at least you still love me,” Bruce said looking down at Max. Max barked and took off running past Bruce. “I think I’m fixing to leave,” Bruce said turning around in the direction Max ran off.
Angela and Stephanie had wrestled Buffy down to the ground and were covering her with kisses making her squeal with laughter. When Buffy yelled for them to stop as she was laughing they started licking her face. Max seeing them lick Buffy’s face joined in. It is totally different when a human licks a face compared to a dog.
“You lick your butt Max, quit!” Buffy yelled turning her head trying to get away from that big wet tongue.
As Bruce walked up the three stood up with wet hair and faces. Max was not very discriminating in his licking of Buffy’s face. Bruce dropped his gear looking at Angela and Stephanie, “You French kissed the dog before me? Something’s really wrong here,” he told them.
Stephanie was wiping her face off as she replied, “Bruce, that damn dog of yours licked my make-up off. How? I don’t know, because it takes me a while to get it off.”
“Well now you know how to get it off,” Bruce told her grinning.
“Dog slobber will never be a popular method of makeup removal,” Angela said, wiping her face off as well.
Bruce wrapped both of them in his arms kissing both, “Well what about Bruce slobber?” he asked.
“That has some possibilities,” Stephanie replied as she kissed him back.
Angela was trying to pull Bruce down again so she could kiss him but gave up and climbed him like PJ climbed Stephanie. Wrapping her legs around his waist Angela joined in the kisses. “Now I know where PJ learned that human wall climbing technique,” Stephanie said watching Angela.
“Hey you two are taller than me so I have to come up here where y’all are. I would’ve climbed you but after PJ beat the shit out of you, I thought you could use a break,” Angela told her.
Stephanie turned to Bruce, “Your son is crazy,” she told him.
“How so?” Bruce asked pulling Stephanie close.
“Bruce, he has no fear. He will jump off anything and don’t say ‘when he gets hurt he’ll stop’ because he didn’t,” Stephanie told him with a serious face.
“It’s just a phase Little Red,” Bruce told her.
“Bruce, we put two gates on the stairs and nailed all the windows and doors to the balcony on the second floor shut. We need to find a psychologist for him,” Stephanie replied.
“Little-,” Bruce started, but Angela cut him off.
“It’s no good Bruce, I already tried to reason with her. I told her Cade was the same way but she didn’t listen,” Angela said.
“Well Nancy has some child development and child psychology books,” Bruce said.
“She read them in a few hours Bruce. She came back naming diseases I’ve never heard of and I’m not that far from med school,” Angela told him.
“Bruce-,” Stephanie started and Bruce put his finger on her lips.
“He’ll be fine. We just have to make sure he doesn’t jump off something really high. Then he’ll learn the law of gravity, ‘It’s a bitch and you can’t beat it’,” Bruce told her.
Letting out a sigh, “Okay Bruce, I’ll give you that but what the hell is his fascination with toilets? I had to duct tape our toilet shut and you know what PJ did?” Stephanie asked. She answered before Bruce had the chance to ask, “He goes down to Mike’s room and just starts flushing stuff down the toilet. We still don’t know what all went down.”
“It’s normal Little Red,” Bruce assured her.
Stephanie looked in Bruce’s eyes and felt her heart flutter as he smiled at her. “You two did an excellent job with the kids and clan while I was gone. I saw them beating you down when we drove up and I have to say, I’m impressed,” Bruce told them.
Stephanie kissed him as she told him, “Today, Cade’s my only child the others are yours.”
Bruce looked down at Angela on that one, as Angela told him, “Hey I don’t have any kids today they are all yours and hers. They were all little demons.”
“So I have two wives and all the kids? That really doesn’t seem fair,” Bruce pointed out.
“It is today,” Angela told him.
Bruce laughed and kissed both of them and hugged them tight. Letting them go, Angela unwrapped her legs from his waist, jumping to the ground. Looking around Bruce saw most people had gone back to work. Omega was unloading equipment off the trucks. Even the twins and Cade were trying to help. PJ was trying to climb the RG. Bruce was sure if he did, PJ would try to fly.
Leaning down Bruce grabbed his gear, slinging it on, and grabbing Angela and Stephanie by the hands he led them to the convoy. Mike was talking to Conner, Ted, the kids and Carl when Bruce walked up. They stopped talking and turned to Bruce.
“What did I do now?” Bruce asked them.
“Nothing, we were talking about Willie,” Mike told him.
“Oh, that’s okay then,” Bruce replied as Angela and Stephanie wrapped their arms around his waist. Bruce wanted to tell them to back up just a little but didn’t have the heart. It was real hard to look like a badass when you have your wives hanging on you.
“What’s wrong with Willie?” Stephanie asked. Bruce gave her a condensed version and his reaction to Willie’s intolerance of torturing blues.
“That’s really weird,” Angela said when he finished.
“You really taught one to be afraid?” Stephanie asked in amazement.
“Oh yeah it was sexually arousing,” Bruce replied getting a dark look on his face as he grinned. Angela and Stephanie kissed him on each side of his face and hugged him tight making the dark look disappear.
“You’re so totally bad ass,” Angela told him.
“Yeah, you are the can of whoop ass,” Stephanie said grinning.
With his ego bloated Bruce poked out his chest, “Oh yeah, I’m bad,” he said.
Mike laughed, “Okay Michael Jackson, what are we going to do about Willie?” he asked.
“’We’ are moving him to Gamma and I’m pulling another replacement,” Bruce answered.
“And what am I going to do with him?” Mike asked.
“Nothing, my team brings pain, misery, fear, agony, torment, suffering, destruction and death. Your team only brings destruction and death, he shouldn’t have a problem with that,” Bruce answered grinning.
Mike wanted to grin but the way Bruce listed off the credentials of Omega with pride and felt really good about it, Mike couldn’t even force a smile. That’s what Bruce was bringing to his enemies not defeat but a living hell on Earth and in this new wasteland, that was saying a lot.
“Fine Bruce, I’ll put him second in command of Gamma. Will you and Omega take it easy for a few weeks? The o
nly down time the team has had is when you have playmates and you don’t get that,” Mike asked.
Bruce looked at Mike with a serious face, “Mike, there’s too much killing that has to be done. We can’t take much time off. I’m pulling us out for a week then we’re heading back up into Arkansas then into northeast Texas. Then I’ll pull us back again then we head to the other side of Toledo Bend in east Texas for a few weeks. After that we will start hitting big cities, I’m thinking Houston first,” Bruce replied.
Mike was taken back, not by Bruce’s words but his reaction. His face was serious but Mike could see excitement in his eyes and the longing to kill. To Bruce it didn’t matter, blues or gangs, they were one in the same, he would and could get joy from both.
“Bruce there was almost seven million people in the Houston metro area. Can’t we start with something a little smaller?” Mike asked knowing it was hopeless.
Bruce snorted, “That means after we’re done in Houston we have seven million less to deal with,” he answered grinning at the thought of killing seven million blues.
“You’ll do great baby,” Stephanie said kissing him on the cheek.
“Just use your gun baby, and not your sword. When you shoot some I want you to yell our names out to,” Angela added then kissed his cheek.
Again they shook Bruce off the hate, catching him off guard, leaving him speechless. Mike just looked at the three and left wondering at Debbie’s wisdom leaving those two with Bruce pumping up his ego. The others left with Mike not because they were worried about attacking such numbers, they just wanted to go and tell the other team members. They had Bruce to lead them so they didn’t fear anything and Bruce was going to lead them on a slaughter of epidemic and historic proportions.
When they were alone Angela looked up at Bruce, “Speaking of sexual arousal Bruce, would you please tell Stephanie to quit pinching my nipples so hard, it hurts,” she told him.
Pushing both away, Bruce stepped back from them with shock on his face as he started to blush and stutter, “Wh- wha-What?” he managed to get out.
Blue Plague: Rage Page 26