ROTD (Book 3): Rage of the Dead

by Dyson, Jeremy

  “What are we going to do now, Chase?” she asks me. I can hear the hopeless despair in her voice.

  “I’m going to finish digging this hole,” I say and toss more sand.

  “I mean where are we going to go?” Claire says.

  I stop digging for a second to catch my breath and impale the pile of sand next to the hole with the shovel.

  “We can’t go back to the house,” she says.

  “I know that,” I say.

  She doesn’t seem to realize I haven’t been thinking about anything except putting my friend in the ground. I lost everyone. The only thing I can do is to make sure I take care of Mac now. Lay him to rest. Maybe it’s too late to do anything for the rest of my brothers. But at least I can do this one last thing for Mac. It might not be much, but at least it is something.

  “I really don’t know,” I tell her. “I’ll figure something out.”

  I pry the shovel free and finish digging as she goes back to the truck to get out of the hot sun. Once the hole is several feet deep, I climb out and walk over to drag the body of my friend toward the grave. I reach down and take his dog tags off his neck.

  I am too exhausted to pick him up, so I just roll him into the ditch. He lands all twisted up with his face in the dirt, so I drop back down in the hole and shift him onto his back. Then I climb back out and take a look at him, but it’s still too hard to see him like this, so I immediately start covering him with white sand.

  After I finish covering the grave, I shove his rifle in the ground and prop his helmet down on top of it. I take his dog tags and wrap the chain around the barrel so they hang there.

  I take a step back and look at the ground one more time.

  “Sorry, brother,” I say. “I did the best I could.”

  Twenty-five

  As the fiery sun descends below the desert, I climb into the truck and take a sip of water. I have no idea what to do now. We were lucky enough to find a quiet place to lay low for a couple of months. It wasn’t much, but we got by. Now we’re back out in the world, with a few days worth of food and water between us and death.

  I know we will have to figure something out, but it is already getting late and after everything that happened I just can’t handle dealing with all of our problems right now.

  So, we decide to spend the night in the truck. There isn’t much out here, and we can see for a couple miles in every direction. We’re as safe here as we’ll be anywhere for the night.

  Claire tries to make conversation, but I don’t feel like talking. After enough of my one word answers, she eventually just gives up. We eat some stale chips and split a can of baked beans in the quiet night. Then I tilt the seat back, and try to get comfortable enough to fall asleep while Claire keeps an eye on the desert.

  In the middle of the night, I wake up after having a dream where I saw the rest of my platoon as shambling corpses walking toward me through the ghostly white sands of the desert. As I open my eyes and take a deep breath, I notice Claire snoring quietly in the seat beside me. I only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, but I decide to stay awake and let her rest. It’s not like I want to go back to dreaming after that nightmare.

  I just sit there in the quiet of the truck and stare at the stars until the sun starts to rise and I can’t see them anymore. After dawn breaks, I get out of the truck and start checking our supplies.

  We’re down to our last couple bottles of water. We still have a cardboard box full of food. Nothing that looks particularly appetizing. There is some jerky, stale cereal, animal crackers, saltines, peanut butter, and some assorted cans of fruit, veggies, beans and tuna.

  I grab Mac’s pack, but I open it and see his notebook on top and then I close it back up and set it aside. I can’t bring myself to look through his stuff yet.

  At least we have a full tank of gas in the truck. That ain’t much, but at least it’s something. I check how much ammo we have left and break down and clean the Honey Badger. Then I sit in the bed of the truck and refill my empty magazines while I wait for Claire to wake up. Finally, as I climb down from the truck, she opens her eyes and groans from the pain of sleeping sitting upright in the seat all night long.

  “Good morning,” I say to her. I pass her a water through the window to rinse the taste of sleep out of her mouth.

  “Thanks,” she says. She grabs the bottle and takes a drink.

  “Go easy,” I tell her. “We only got a couple bottles of water left.”

  She lowers the bottle and puts the cap back on.

  “Do we have anything to eat?” she asks.

  “Not much,” I tell her as I reach into the bed of the truck and grab the box of cereal. She takes it and stares at the box. Then she opens the top and reaches a hand inside and pulls out a handful of colorful fruit-flavored loops.

  It’s already late in the morning. We probably should have gotten on the road hours ago, but the fact is I still have no clue where we should go.

  I take a look around us at the harsh desert. The terrain surrounding White Sands is stark and unforgiving and now it belongs to the dead. Claire hands the water back to me and I swallow down the last drops before tossing the bottle back inside the pickup.

  “What do we do now, Chase?” she asks me.

  “I don’t know,” I admit.

  Hundreds of soulless creatures trudge across the desert. It appears the dead at the base have spotted us. It will take them quite a while to reach us, but we will have to get on the road soon.

  The scorching sun glistens off the sand and slowly cooks our bodies. No human can survive very long in conditions like this. But those things out there aren’t human. They’re relentless. Remorseless. And they’re everywhere now.

  I listen to the endless moans of the dead carry on the wind, but then I hear another distant noise.

  “You hear that?” I ask Claire.

  “What?” she asks. “I don’t hear anything.”

  I hold a finger to my lips so she stops talking. The unmistakable whirring of a helicopter cuts through the stifling air. After listening for a few more seconds, I’m sure I’m not just imagining things. As the sound of the bird gets louder, I scan the horizon.

  “A helicopter,” I say to Claire. “Heading this way.”

  The Osprey emerges through the clouds hanging over the eastern horizon and circles around Holloman Air Force Base and the swarms of dead below. The sight of the military aircraft is surreal. I have to wonder who could possibly be on board.

  Maybe they are just more of the fractured remains of our armed forces, like the Army units from El Paso. It probably just means more shit to deal with.

  The bird peels away from the overrun airfield and turns towards the Tularosa Basin.

  “What is he doing?” Claire wonders.

  “It looks like he is trying to find a spot to touch down,” I say.

  The engines on the Osprey shut down as the pilot circles above the desert. The fool must have run out of fuel up there. Claire and I watch as the aircraft wobbles down to the ground and spews up a cloud of sand as it makes a hard landing. I hold my breath for a long moment, expecting an explosion that doesn’t come. The corpses in the area begin to converge on the crash site. If anyone managed to survive that landing, they won’t be alive very long.

  “We should get moving,” I say to Claire. “That crash will draw every walking stiff for miles.”

  “They could still be alive,” she pleads as she watches me load my gear back onto the truck. She folds her arms across her chest when she sees my indifference. “They’re probably with the military. We have to do something.”

  “They’re probably dead,” I say. “And we will be, too, if we don’t get the hell out of here.”

  Gunfire from the direction of the helicopter proves me wrong a moment later. I bring up my rifle to scope the area again and see a big ass guy dressed in SEAL fatigues hauling a woman out of the cargo bay. A long-haired brunette and a man dressed in black tactical uniforms follow
him out into the white hot sands and cover him as he runs into the Osprey and retrieves another person. The big guy returns carrying a kid in his arms and is trailed out by a scruffy dog.

  As the man in the black uniform scans the desert for threats, he spots our vehicle parked on the dunes. He waves an arm in the air to show he is friendly, but keeps his rifle at a low ready. I don’t move to return the gesture.

  These people aren’t military. Not all of them anyway.

  “Get in the damn truck,” I growl at Claire.

  She ignores me and waves her arms over her head.

  “They need help,” Claire says. “And we do, too.”

  “Claire!” I say.

  Before I can stop her she is heading down the hill, skidding down the hot sands. This woman is hell bent on getting me killed. I decide to leave her ass to die out here in the desert with them.

  She made her own damn choice.

  I walk around and get in the pickup and start the engine. After I shift the truck in drive, I look back to see Claire running toward the chopper through the sand as the dead from Holloman swarm toward their position.

  “Dumb bitch,” I growl.

  I slam a fist on the steering wheel, then I crank it to the right and drive down the hill.

  I slow down alongside her and tell her to get her ass back in the truck. She ignores me and keeps walking toward the crash site.

  “I can’t believe you would let them die out here,” she shakes her head.

  “I’m just trying to protect you,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, yeah, the mission,” she scoffs.

  “It’s not about the mission anymore,” I say.

  “We did it your way last time,” she says. “That didn’t work so well. This time we do it my way.”

  “Damn it,” I curse.

  Claire turns her head and keeps walking as I roll along beside her.

  “Fine,” I relent. “Just get in the truck, Claire. We’ll go help them.”

  She stops walking and stares me down before she finally gets in the passenger seat.

  I hit the gas and we rumble over the sand until we reach the helicopter. We get out and the big guy in the SEAL uniform looks me up and down as he heads inside the bay of the Osprey again.

  The man in the black fatigues approaches the vehicle cautiously.

  “We came to help,” Claire tells him.

  The man shifts his gaze to me and my finger hovering over the trigger of the Honey Badger. He gives me a nod and then smiles at Claire.

  “I know you were taking a chance just by coming to help,” he tells Claire. “Thank you.”

  “Who are you guys?” I demand. “How’d you get all this shit?”

  “I’m Blake,” he says. “Not sure you will believe me if I tell you how we ended up here, but I will. After you give us a lift out of here.”

  He looks to me for agreement. My eyes shift from his face to the kid crying beside the body of a woman that looks to be dead. These people don’t seem very threatening, but they don’t exactly seem very capable either. Still, I am curious how they ended up here, and I know that Claire will continue to give me shit unless I offer to help them.

  “Fine,” I agree as I open the door to the truck again. “Just hurry the fuck up.”

  Twenty-six

  “Oh my god,” says Claire.

  “What?” I pause with my hand on the door of the truck and turn back to look at her.

  “That’s him,” she says.

  “Who?”

  “That’s Dr. Schoenheim,” Claire says.

  She runs over to an old man in a lab coat and boxer shorts that is being helped out of the helicopter by a young blonde woman. Claire gets in front of them and the doctor looks up at her with a smile as he seems to recognize her.

  “No fucking way,” I mutter to myself.

  “She knows him?” Blake asks me.

  “Yeah,” I say. I’m so stunned I can hardly get the words out. “They worked together. We brought her out here a couple months ago to meet up with him.”

  “We?” Blake asks me. His eyes search the area around us.

  “My platoon,” I tell him. “I’m the only one left now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he tells me.

  Claire hugs the doctor and then she turns and helps him as he makes his way toward the truck. A smile crosses her face as she waves and points to me and says something to the doctor. She looks more alive today than the entire time we’ve been together.

  “This is fucking unbelievable,” I mumble.

  “Let’s hurry up,” says the Navy SEAL. “We still got a bunch of shit to move.”

  I wait by the truck while Blake and his crew load everyone and all of their supplies into the overloaded pickup. Maybe I should have helped them to speed things along, but I decide to keep an eye on the truck. They seem alright, but I don’t know them, and it’s better to be safe than dead.

  “I’m sorry,” I pull Blake aside when he returns to the truck. My head feels like it’s spinning. “We thought everyone from the team out of Chicago was dead.”

  “You did?” Blake says.

  “We heard the helicopter crashed months ago,” I tell him.

  He seems as confused as me.

  “Really?” he says. “How did you hear that?”

  “This guy,” I say. “Logan. He was some moron the CIA sent to tag along with us. He was in satellite contact with Cheyenne Mountain.”

  “What happened to that guy?” Blake asks.

  “Bought it back in the first few days,” I tell him.

  “So you’ve been out here waiting for us all this time?” he asks.

  “Not exactly waiting,” I say. “More like just surviving.”

  “Blake,” the brunette woman interrupts. “We should probably get moving.”

  With everyone piled into the truck, I start the engine. Rolling through Alamogordo with the cab overflowing with people is probably not the best plan. If I have to swerve to avoid the dead, that might be all it takes to send someone tumbling out of the truck bed. We’re going to need to secure another vehicle. I start driving in the direction of the welcome center near the entrance to the White Sands National Monument.

  “Where are we going?” the big Navy SEAL asks. “You guys have a safe place you’ve been staying around here?”

  “We did,” I say. “But I don’t think it will be safe there anymore.”

  The sight of so many new faces makes me nervous after everything we have been through. I’m not sure I’m ready to trust people. I keep checking the rearview mirror, looking at the men in the backseat and the rest of the group in the bed of the truck.

  “You were military,” the Navy SEAL says. It is more of an observation than a question.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “What unit?” he asks.

  I tell him.

  “You the only one left?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “What about you?”

  He doesn’t say anything, which I take as an affirmative.

  “Recon,” he says. “What’s your name, Marine?”

  “Chase” I tell him.

  “Chase,” he says. “I’m Hoff.”

  “You in charge?” I ask him.

  “That’s a laugh,” Hoff says. “Like these people would actually listen to me just because I served.”

  “They probably should,” I tell him.

  “That’s not how it goes, though,” he says.

  I pull up in front of the visitors center and park the truck out front. Several abandoned cars sit in the parking lot.

  “We should check these cars,” I say. “Probably going to be hard getting through those things with this many people in the truck.”

  “Good call,” Hoff says.

  He opens the door and hops out of the pick up and approaches the SUV with his rifle ready. Once he makes sure the front seat is clear, Hoff smashes the driver side window. He pokes his head inside and checks the back seat. After he reaches in and unlocks
the door, Hoff inspects the dash. He pulls out something from his bag and starts messing with the steering column.

  I finally get over the shock of everything that happened today and start to consider the situation rationally. I scan around the empty parking lot and the dark visitor center and then glance at the clock in the dashboard of the truck. My fingers wrap around the keys and I cut off the engine and open the door.

  “What are you doing?” Claire asks me. “We should start driving toward Los Alamos. Maybe we can still try to do something to stop this nightmare.”

  “I know you want to get to Los Alamos,” I tell Claire. “But we are staying here. Just for the night. We have no idea what might be waiting for us in Los Alamos. I don’t want to be going in to an unknown location in the dark.”

  I take a look back at the truck bed and all the strange new faces with their eyes on me. They look like they have been through hell already. I realize they must be just as apprehensive about me as I am about them.

  “You folks can leave if you want, but I’m telling you we should wait. You have no idea what it’s like around here,” I tell them. “The situation is kinetic. Getting up to Los Alamos is not going to be easy. We have to exercise caution.”

  “Sounds good to me,” says a guy with dark hair and a slight southern accent. “We could use some time to catch our breath.”

  “Okay,” agrees Blake.

  “Say young fella,” says the southern man. “Give me a hand getting the lady inside.”

  I cock my head to the side as I try to figure out if this guy is trying to be funny or not. He glances back at me when I don’t move and notices my missing fingers.

  “Oh shit,” he says. “I didn’t see that, brother. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I can help you.”

  I walk around to the rear gate and wait for everyone else to climb out of the truck. The woman on the bed of the pickup looks beat to hell. Her face is swollen and bruised. She has matching black circles around her eyes.

  The dead didn’t do this. Someone beat the hell out of her.

  I help lift her out of the vehicle, and she groans slightly as we carry her toward the front door.