by Wimer, Kevin
Tex was less than two feet away from the armory when a group of walkers lunged for him. Chris turned the barrel of his rifle and began firing—hitting those that lunged for his friend. He knocked a handful of them backwards as the others fell to the ground dead. Tex ran up the steps and fell to his hands and knees beside Chris. He gasped for air as hot brass rained down around him and into his shirt. He was far too tired to flinch from the pain of the hot brass that burned his flesh. He leaned back on his hunches and looked out at the sea of undead. The smell of cordite hung in the air and burned his throat with each gulp of a breath that he took. He watched as the walkers began falling—chewed to bits and pieces. The men atop of the roof were giving them hell. The ground was littered with bodies—dead and dying and those that would soon become the undead. He recognized a few of the bodies from the clothes that they wore. His mind began placing faces to those bodies as his heart sank to the pit of his stomach. He looked past them and to what remained of Graceland. The front gate had been trampled to the ground and the walkers were now pouring in. Tex felt defeated but within that feeling of defeat was a fiery rage that began to burn hotter than the Gates of Hell. He would kill those responsible for this. He would kill every one of them without remorse.
Chris looked at Tex who was still on his knees. The man was breathing heavy, but it was the look in his eyes that told him what he needed to know. Tex was still in the fight. The sound of brass raining down around them reminded Chris of windchimes. He turned and looked at the machineguns atop of the roof—their barrels were starting to glow a bright cherry red. He knew the men couldn’t keep this rate of fire up for much longer. He knew it would ruin the barrels of the machineguns, causing them to burn out. The machineguns would then be worthless pieces of scrap metal. Chris turned back to Tex and tapped him on the shoulder. Tex looked up at Chris and nodded his head.
“We need to get inside,” Chris said, holding out a hand to help Tex to his feet.
Tex took Chris’s hand as he got to his feet. His legs felt like rubber as he wobbled back and forth before being able to hold himself upright and still. The two men stood there for a moment, looking at what was left of the compound. Chris gritted his teeth and fought the urge to shed a tear as the lump in his throat began to grow. The people of Graceland had made this place their home. It had been a place that they had felt safe. Chris felt a gnawing sensation deep within his gut. It was guilt. Guilt for having of come here and for having of brought this upon the residents of Graceland. Deacon had made damn sure to destroy the good that these men and woman had created. He had made damn sure that this vile act of evilness would kill as many of them as possible. Chris knew that Deacon wanted to inflict as much carnage as he could in order to weaken this group as much as possible. He looked at Tex. Deacon had failed. The look in Tex eyes were that of Hellfire. Deacon had signed his own death warrant.
The sound of a door opening behind them caught their attention. The machineguns atop of the roof had started to slow down their rate of fire until they completely stopped all together. The two men turned and looked at the door that had just opened. It was Ron. The man stepped through the threshold and looked at them and then at the ground in front of the building. It was littered with bodies—some of those bodies were little more than just chunks of meat.
“You two going to stand out here all damn day?” Ron asked as he turned his attention back to the two men, “Or do you think its time we start planning Brandy’s rescue?” his eyes narrowed, “We need to kill the bastards that did this . . . all of this.”
Chris noticed the look in Ron’s eyes. The man wanted payback. He wanted blood and a body count that would exceed that of what had happened at Graceland. He wasn’t the only one that wanted that. The survivors of Graceland would want that and then some. Chris looked at the giant man and then at the machinegun he held in one hand with the barrel pointed towards the sky and the buttstock resting on his hip. It was an M60. The Pig as it was referred to by those grunts who carried it through the jungles of Vietnam. It was a beast of a rifle and Ron made it look like a toy in his hands. Tex looked at Chris and then stepped towards Ron and patted him on the shoulder before walking through the door and on into the armory. The two men hadn’t uttered a word to each other. Chris stood there for a moment. The angry sounds of the undead behind him were still there but not as loud as they had been just moments before. He wondered how many more would soon show up. He was sure the sound of machineguns would bring the undead bastards to them. Chris pushed that worried thought from his mind and walked the short distance to the entrance of the armory.
“I want to first save Brandy,” looking Ron dead in the eyes, “and then I want to kill the bastards that did this,” pausing for a tick of a second, “I want Deacon’s head on a stick . . . I want to kill that son of a bitch slowly . . . Killing him quickly would be giving him mercy and the bastard doesn’t deserve that.”
Ron narrowed his eyes a bit while looking at Chris. He had worried that Chris was a mole of some sort—her to cause harm and take whatever they had back to the group he had come from. He was wrong. Dead wrong. The man wasn’t the one he had had to worry about. It was a stranger—a kid that came to them in the night looking for a place to stay and for something to eat. Ron looked at Chris and could see the man wanted what he and everyone else at Graceland wanted. Payback.
“Good,” slapping Chris across the back, “Let’s bring Brandy home and kill the bastards responsible for this . . . All of them.”
Chris nodded his head and then stepped on into the armory. He looked around the interior of the building. He could see those that remained. Graceland’s population had been greatly reduced. Chris looked at the faces of those that stared at him. Some of them looked angry while others looked scared shitless. He was sure a few of them—maybe all of them—had placed the blame for what had happened on him. He wouldn’t blame them if they had. Chris walked deeper into the interior of the armory. He gritted his teeth and began forming a plan in his head of how to save Brandy and kill Deacon.
CHAPTER 18
Tex stood over a set of maps that had been spread across a makeshift table. He gnawed on the hard candy shell of a lollypop while forming a plan that would not only bring Brandy back home but kill those responsible for taking her. He would stop at nothing short of doing those two things. Tex squinted his eyes as he slowly began tracing the outline of the roadways with his finger. He did this serval times before turning to Chris who stood next to him. The group that had formed around the table flinched as a group of walkers slammed their bodies against the bay doors of the loading dock. Chris leaned over the map and looked to where Tex was tapping his finger. The sound of gunfire above them filled the air. Ron had put a handful of men atop of the roof of the armory with semi-autonomic rifles to try and keep the walker population from growing. It was just a band aid solution to a problem that was out of control. Chris’s eyes wondered over the map as he began pointing out the buildings that Deacon and his group were using. It was an old warehouse complex on the other side of the city. The complex had been used for both dry and frozen goods. The complex had security fences around it and Deacon had taken it upon himself to fortify them. He had placed empty shipping containers all around the perimeter.
Deacon had seized control of a place that would allow him to live out the apocalypse with enough dry food to last a couple of years—maybe longer if they rationed it. The frozen foods could last a year or so but not much past that—depending on if the world keeping its power. The electricity hadn’t failed yet, but Chris knew that one day it would. It was anyone’s guess as to when that day would come. Chris looked up from the map and around the table at the men and woman of the rescue group. He noticed that most of them had been a part of the Scavengers while others were just bodies to fill in the gaps of those that had perished a little over an hour ago. Chris cleared his throat as he spoke. He told them about the routes that Deacon and his group took when they left the facility and the routes they
took when going back home. It was never the same way twice. Deacon was a stickler about not using the same roadway in as the one they had used going out. He was a paranoid about it—obsessively paranoid. Deacon’s paranoia had created a pattern—a pattern that would only take a couple of days to figure out. Chris agreed with everyone. The group didn’t have a couple of days to figure out that pattern. The men and woman of Graceland wanted to hit the warehouse complex while Deacon and his men thought they were far too weak to pull anything off. The men and woman of Graceland would use that to their advantage.
“Ron,” Tex said as he looked up from the map, “I want you and your group to hit here,” pointing at a spot on the map. It was the backside of the warehouse complex, “Cubbie, I want you and your group here . . . Take some bolt cutters with you. Make a hole in that part of the fence as large as you can make it without being spotted.”
Cubbie smiled.
“Roger that . . . We will make it large enough to drive a freight train through it.”
Tex nodded. He looked back at the map as he began chewing on the stick of his lollypop. His jaw muscles flexed as he intently chewed on it. He took a breath and let it out as he looked up from the map and at the group.
“Chris you are with me and my group. We will enter here,” pointing at the main entrance of the complex, “We will take guards manning the front entrance and then move inward,” crossing his arms as he rubbed the stubble on his chin. He narrowed his brow and then placed a finger on the map while looking across the table, “Ron, you and your group will link up with us here,” pausing for a second to let Ron and his group see where he was pointing, “Once we are there we will work our way across the compound and to where Brandy is being held.”
Chris looked around the table. The expression on everyone’s face varied. Some had the look of anger while others looked worried and scared. Chris wondered what this own expression looked like. He was a bit nervous but the anger within him burned hotter than the Gates of Hell. He hoped his expression showed the anger that burned within him and the nervousness.
“Cubbie, the main power supply for the warehouse complex is here. Its twenty yards away from where you and your group will make entry,” the two men looked at each other, “I need you to cut the power.”
“You can count on us . . . We will do it.”
Tex looked around the table and took a breath as he began picturing the layout out of the compound. He pictured the power being cut and then him and his team taking out the first set of guards. Tex knew he couldn’t allow Deacon and his group of survivors to gain control of the compound once they started. The strike had to be precise and it had to be fast. Speed was key.
“Once the power is cut . . . We will make entry,” unwrapping a lollypop Tex placed in his mouth and moved it to the one side of his jaw, “We do not make entry until the power to the complex is off. It will level out the playing field.”
Chris looked at Ron who was smiling.
“That, along with our night vision,” holding a tactical helmet in his hands with two lenses clipped to the front of it, “The bastards won’t know what hit them. We’ll be able to see in the dark while they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.”
Chris had learned earlier where Ron had gotten the machineguns. Ron had owned a surplus shop in the town of Broadway. He was also a class three licensed federal firearms dealer. Ron had been in the military for most of his life and had retired to the state Virginia after serving twenty-two years in the Navy. He left the Navy wanting to spend his retirement living in a small town—the kind of town where everyone knew each other by their first name. Broadway had been that town. Ron wanted nothing to do with the hustle and bustle that the big cities offered. He had had enough of that kind of shit while in the Navy. He wanted to not only see mountains in the distance but to be surrounded by trees while earning a living and doing what he loved. Selling surplus gear and firearms.
“Everyone knows their job,” Tex said, “Make sure you do it . . . and let’s all come home together.”
Tex knew that not everyone would be coming back. It was the way of war. It was something he had learned long ago—sometimes it was best to not make friends. Tex had attended more funerals for friends than he cared to remember. He had even held some of those friends as they took their dying breaths. He could feel himself drifting off into thought. It was those thoughts that had had him staring down the barrel of a loaded gun the night of the outbreak. Tex had been alone and he had been drinking. The empty liquor bottle had done nothing to rid him of the images of war. Images of death and destruction and those friends he had watched die. It was the night of the outbreak that had pushed Tex to a dark place—a place most didn’t come back from. He not only felt alone but had felt the world would have been a better place without him in it. The sound of gunfire erupting outside him home had stopped him from the trigger and taking his own life. The outbreak had saved him. It was something he had told no one at Graceland about. Not even Brandy. Tex had felt ashamed—ashamed that he had allowed himself to feel that alone and that the best way to go out of this world would be to take his own life. The outbreak had stopped him from becoming another statistic the government could use during an election year.
Chris looked at Tex. He could see that his friend had drifted off into thought. He could see the look on his face and in his eyes—it was as if he had drifted off into a dark place that had no return. Tex had told him little about what he had done before the outbreak. It was left up to Chris’s imagination to fill in the gaps of what Tex hadn’t told him. Chris knew that Tex had served in the military. He wasn’t sure what branch of the military or for how long. He just knew the man had served.
“Tex,” Chris said as he cleared his throat, “Maybe we should—”
Tex blinked his eyes as he looked up from the map.
“Weapons check in ten minutes,” cutting Chris off and tossing the lollypop stick to the floor, “Ron, help everyone get their shit squared away.”
Ron nodded his head as Tex turned and walked away. Chris looked at Ron who shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. The two men looked at each other and then back at Tex who had walked to one of the four vehicles that they would be taking. Chris watched as Tex opened the door of one of the vehicles and pulled out his gear and began going over it. He watched until he knew it was time for him to do the same. Chris walked to one of the racks that were lined with rifles. He pulled an M4 and began looking it over. He had had little training with a full auto rifle. He had used an M4 and an MP-5 while taking a training course with S.W.A.T. less than a year ago. It was during weapons qualifications. Chris had passed with flying colors. He had been on the fast track to becoming a S.W.A.T. officer before the outbreak took that away from him.
“You are going to need one of these,” Ron said as he stepped up beside Chris, “It will make our job of killing these bastards a lot easier.”
Chris looked at what Ron was holding in his hand. It was a suppressor. He looked over Ron’s shoulder and could see the others within the group attaching them to the ends of their rifles. Chris nodded his head and took the suppressor and placed it over the end of his rifle—screwing it into place. The suppressor would make their attack swift and silent. It wouldn’t be movie quiet—Hollywood gave the world an impression of silencers that were wrong—dead wrong. Suppressors made sound.
“I’ll see you at the rally point,” Ron said, placing a hand on Chris’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze, “Watch your six out there.”
Chris nodded his head as Ron started to walk away.
“Ron,” Chris said, stopping the man from getting to far away, “Thanks.”
Ron nodded and then continued his walk across the interior of the armory. The two men needed to speak no other words to know that they both had gained each other’s respect. Chris turned back around to the table he had been working at and finished checking his gear. He placed a plate carrier over his body. It was far heavier than he had expected it
to be. The magazine pouches were full. He couldn’t imagine wearing one of these day in and day out. Chris had worn a bullet proof vest before but nothing like this. The plates inside the carrier were heavy but it wasn’t the plates that had weighed him down. It was the six rifle magazines that had been filled to capacity and stuffed into the magazine pouches. He moved his upper body from side to side—making sure that he still had full mobility. He took a deep breath and decided that things were as good as they were going to get. He pulled his handgun from its holster and made sure that it was loaded and in working order. He then picked up three extra magazines for his handgun and placed them into their pouches. Chris turned and began walking across the armory and to where everyone was starting to stage up. The sound of rifle fire above him had slowed. The dead that had been banging their bodies against the bay doors had stopped. Chris wasn’t sure when the banging sounds had ceased to exist. He had been lost in his own world.
“You good to go?” Tex asked.
Chris nodded.
“Let’s go get her . . . and kill the bastard that took her.”
Tex had a look in his eye. It was a look that gave Chris chills. The man was stone cold. Tex slapped him on the shoulder and walked towards the others that were going to be heading out and into the cover of darkness. The group had agreed that they would head out while it was dark and strike a few hours before dawn. Deacon and his group wouldn’t guess that they would strike this soon—if at all. Chris watched as Tex made his way down the line to each of the men and women in the group. He checked and double checked to make sure that they were squared away and set to go. Chris looked on for a moment and then turned to those that were staying behind. He took a breath and hoped to see them all again. The voice inside his head cursed him. He knew that at this point he shouldn’t hope for anything. Hope is what could get a man killed.