After the Roads- Sidney’s Way

by Brian Parker

  “Jake Murphy, from the US Army,” he replied with a smile that she probably couldn’t see in the darkness.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Grandpa was right. The Army is here to save us!”

  Jake’s smile faltered. “Not exactly… We’re not safe out here. We need to get to the safety of a building.”

  “What about Tim and Russ?”

  “Are those the Cullens? The ones who kidnapped you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dead.”

  “Good,” the girl replied.

  “What about our mom?” the second girl asked.

  “I— I think I saw her body. I don’t know what she looked like, so I can’t say that for sure. There was a woman at the front door—”

  Corn stalks snapped and dried leaves rattled off to his left. Jake spun, taking a knee and bringing his rifle up to his shoulder in a mostly coordinated motion. Three rows away, an infected was bulling through the field directly toward them.

  The woman’s warm breath on his neck startled him. “Don’t shoot,” she whispered, barely audible. “Just wait.”

  It went against everything Jake was trained to do. He’d always killed every infected he saw, thinking that each one killed was another step closer to ending this nightmare. But the girls had survived out here, outside of the walls of Fort Bliss, for seven months. Maybe they knew something that he didn’t. He held his fire and watched the creature, ready to shoot it the moment it broke through the row in front of them.

  It stopped. The male looked around and sniffed the air, trying to locate the humans it must have heard talking. Jake adjusted his aimpoint slightly, centering the IR laser attached to the rails of the M-4 on the center of its forehead.

  It knew they were there, Jake was sure of it. Every fiber in his body screamed at him to kill it, end its miserable life and the immediate threat. The M-4 would make enough noise in this wide open, silent field to bring every infected within a mile directly to them. There was no telling how many more of them were in the field, and he estimated that he had about a hundred and fifty rounds left—plenty to go up against human targets like he’d planned, but not nearly enough for a running gunfight against a horde of infected coming from every direction.

  The deranged scream of an infected pierced the night, making the creature in front of them snap its head in the opposite direction of the farmhouse. It hesitated for a moment and then took off running, screaming in response.

  Jake breathed out slowly. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. A soft pat on his shoulder reassured him that he’d done the right thing.

  Somewhere nearby, probably less than three or four hundred meters, a horse cried out in terror. The sounds it made broke Jake’s heart, but he knew that it was the best thing that could have happened for their survival. More infected joined the first, screaming as they streamed through the cornfield toward their meal.

  They waited for a few minutes, then began the slow, arduous return trip to the safety of the Stryker. When they finally broke the edge of the field, they sprinted across the open gravel parking lot to the big vehicle. Jake opened the hatch and let the girls inside.

  “I have to recover the bodies of my team,” he told them, to which they nodded.

  Neither girl said a word as he loaded Caitlyn’s body into the back of the Stryker with them. He was respectful and took the time to wrap her in a blanket that one of the women who’d left El Paso with him had brought. It took a lot more dragging, pulling, and making noise to retrieve Dickerson’s body. Jake was exhausted by the time he’d maneuvered the big man into the compartment.

  When he was done, he used some wet wipes to clean away the blood from his hands. He showed the girls—he still wasn’t sure which one was which—how to use the CVC helmets because he’d need their help navigating back to the Campbell farm.

  Then he took off his body armor and crawled inside the driver’s compartment to begin the trip back to the safety of the farm. With luck, they wouldn’t run into any of the infected that were likely still streaming toward the scene from all over the countryside. The girls couldn’t operate the machine gun up top—not that he’d want to risk more noise—so he’d have to try to run over anything he saw to keep them from following him back to the Campbell’s place.

  That, he could do, he thought, grinning as he gripped the Stryker’s steering wheel, put it into gear, and pulled the big vehicle out of the farm’s parking area. It didn’t take long for his first target to appear, running down the dirt road, drawn by the sound of the big engines. He was already up to 30 miles per hour when the front slope of the Stryker clipped the infected at chest height. It went spinning off into the ditch, probably with several broken ribs and a cracked sternum.

  He smiled and began to hum a tune to himself. In this crazy world, you had to find something to keep you from going insane yourself. Or maybe he was already certifiable. Maybe those were the only type of people who actually wanted to survive.

  Jake was okay with that.

  26

  * * *

  NEAR LIBERAL, KANSAS

  DECEMBER 1ST

  “How’s mom and baby?” Vern asked, walking from the stove where he’d scooped a large helping of eggs from a pan onto his plate. He walked hunched and still required the assistance of a cane after his ordeal last month, but soon, he would be good to go and wouldn’t have to rely so much on Jake and his granddaughters to keep up the farm.

  “They’re doing well,” Carmen replied, adding a spoonful of scrambled eggs to her own plate. “Despite being about a month early, the baby seems extremely healthy, even full-term. I’d never say this to Sidney, but it makes me wonder if she was pregnant about a month before she thought she was.”

  “What? That’s just— Never mind, none of my business. I wanna tell you what…” Vern began, pausing when Jake entered the dining room and set his rifle in the corner by the door. “Jake,” he acknowledged.

  “Mr. Campbell,” the soldier inclined his head. “Sally’s up in the lookout. Just gonna get some breakfast real quick, then head back up there.”

  Vern accepted it with a grunt. He was positive that Jake and Sally were sweet on each other—without any evidence, of course. It was just how they talked to one another, which could be attributed to their shared experiences at the Cullen farm, he guessed. If he looked at it truly objectively, as a Christian, then he knew that they were just friends, but given what he’d just been told by Carmen, he wasn’t too sure about these city folks. The old man wanted to keep his grandchildren pure for when the real Army showed up eventually and took back the countryside.

  Vern originally thought that Jake and Sidney were together and the baby was his. He couldn’t keep these damn kids and their relationships straight. In reality, Jake and Carmen were the ones who were sweet on each other. They even slept in the same bedroom. He’d been opposed to it at first, but eventually relented. If Carmen kept the soldier honest with Sally and Katie, then he decided it was for the best.

  Vern shook his head. “Now, what was I sayin’?”

  “You asked about Sidney and baby Lincoln,” Carmen replied, placing a hand over Jake’s as he sat down beside her.

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I need to go congratulate that woman. I was worried that she’d be hollerin’ something fierce. I remember when my Sarah had our boy, Jeff. Whoo wee! I think her screams were loud enough to rouse old Ezekiel’s bones.”

  Carmen smiled, but Vern knew that she didn’t understand the reference. She’d been raised Catholic and had almost no idea what the Old Testament said. But he was trying to work on that during their nightly bible study.

  “She did very well,” the nurse agreed. “She’s probably one of the strongest women I’ve ever met during labor.”

  “Yeah, I thought we’d be shooting infected for days after today,” Jake replied.

  They’d taken extra precaution for the birth and ringed the house and the chicken coop with an additional layer of concer
tina wire. Turns out, they didn’t need it. If Sidney had so much as whimpered during the baby’s birth, Vern hadn’t heard it.

  “So, now that the baby’s been born, what are you planning to do, Jake?” he asked, dreading the answer. The farm was a lot of work, even in the reduced capacity he’d been forced to operate at. Losing John, Scott, and Jesse was catastrophic for his and the girls’ way of life. When he’d made the deal with the soldier on the day the girls were kidnapped, it had been with the understanding that their stay at the farm would be temporary.

  “Well, sir,” Jake replied after swallowing a mouthful of eggs. “If you’ll have us, we’d like to stay on for a while. Not permanently, but just through the winter. Without Caitlyn and Dickerson’s expertise at maintaining the Stryker, it’ll be dangerous to drive in the winter.”

  Vern leaned back, taking in a sharp breath as his internal injuries sent a flash of pain through his body. He wasn’t healed enough to work the farm exclusively. There was firewood to chop, cattle to feed, stalls to be cleaned out—all things the old man thought were too tough for the girls to do.

  “Let me tell you, Jake. That makes me happy. I don’t like to admit it, but until I heal up, I need your help around here.”

  “I know you do, Mr. Campbell,” the soldier replied. “And we need your help. On the road, in the back of a Stryker, is no place for a newborn.”

  Vern reached his hand across the table, offering it to Jake. The younger man shook it. “Until spring then,” the farmer stated.

  “Until spring.”

  “Having that cat around will help with the mice,” he grunted in acceptance of his new, long-term visitors. “Now, Miss Carmen.” Vern looked at the woman. “You think Miss Sidney is ready for a visitor? I’d sure like to see that little feller before I go out to gather the eggs for the morning.”

  “I think that can be arranged,” she replied. “If he’s anything like his mother, he’ll be tearing around this farm in no time.”

  Vern smiled knowingly. He’d made a deal with Jake, but he knew they were here for the long run, until this plague ran its course, or the Good Lord came back, whichever came first.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  “I want those deserters found. Immediately. Do I make myself clear, Jim?”

  Jim Albrecht scratched idly at his shoulder where the wound from the uprising two months ago was finally starting to heal. Doctors assured him that with time, he might even be able to raise his left arm above his head. “Might” being the key word in their prognosis.

  “Sir, what good does it do us to go after Lieutenant Murphy?”

  “Watch yourself, Colonel,” Major General Bhagat cautioned. “I will not allow a lieutenant to incite a riot—check that. To cause an outright rebellion. The person who started all of this isn’t just going to get away free and clear. I want him brought to justice.”

  Jim tempered his response. The uprising would have happened whether Jake Murphy was at the camp or not. That had been the general’s plan all along. He wanted a small-scale revolt that would eliminate a hundred thousand refugees. That would have bought them a few more months’ worth of food, enough time for the second site at Yuma Proving Grounds to be completed.

  But the carnage that’d ensued during the rebellion was on an unforeseen scale. Almost all of Camp Three was in ruins. The close confines of the base walls made it like shooting fish in a barrel for both sides. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were dead or dying, an entire brigade—his brigade—was combat ineffective due to death and injuries, and an untold amount of food had been destroyed when the refugees set fire to the warehouses before the threat was finally eliminated.

  The general’s little revolt was a nightmare that the men and women of the First Armored Division had to live with on a daily basis.

  “Sir, that rebellion would have occurred whether Murphy was there or not,” Jim countered. “It was a powder keg, waiting to explode.”

  The division commander held up his hand. “Just stop right there, Jim. I won’t let you defend that piece of garbage deserter. My S-6 tells me that his Stryker’s BFT pinged up at some small town in Oklahoma called Tyrone about a month ago. Since then it’s been turned off or destroyed, we don’t know which.”

  He sighed and stood before continuing. “It’s a nasty business, Jim. But I can’t let the Iron soldiers think they can desert their unit without consequences. Now, are you gonna go get my Stryker back or do I need to find a new Ready Six?”

  There it is, then, Jim thought to himself. The old man was threatening to shitcan him if he didn’t go after Murphy. Given their current state of affairs, he didn’t have the luxury of retiring and fading away when morally ambiguous circumstances arose like his predecessors had. He would remain on Fort Bliss until the siege was over. He couldn’t put himself—or his family—through that.

  “I can put together about a platoon of men, sir,” Jim Albrecht stated. “Can’t guarantee any more than that.”

  The general smiled. “I knew I could count on you, Jim. Now go drag that worthless deserter back here so he can face a military tribunal.”

  Jim stood quickly, his shoulder protesting the movement as he brought up his other arm in a stiff salute. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  The general returned it, seemingly annoyed at the protocol that everyone still followed. “Dismissed, Jim. Now that this business with the uprising is over, I have to prepare a report for the president.”

  Jim nodded and turned to leave. He sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming mission. But he had a job to do, and by God, he was going to get it done.

  This is the end of the first installment of Sidney’s Way. Her story will continue shortly.

  The Five Roads to Texas world is ever expanding. Look for more adventures from the minds of other Phalanx Press authors soon.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brian Parker was born and raised as an Army brat. He's currently an Active Duty Army soldier who enjoys spending time with his family in Texas, hiking, obstacle course racing, writing and Texas Longhorns football. He's an unashamed Star Wars fan, but prefers to disregard the entire Episode I and II debacle.

  Brian is both a traditionally- and self-published author with an ever-growing collection of works across multiple genres, including sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, horror, paranormal thriller, military fiction, self-publishing how-to and even a children's picture book, Zombie in the Basement, which he wrote to help children overcome the perceived stigma of being different from others.

  He is also the founder of Muddy Boots Press, an independent publishing company that focuses on quality genre fiction over mass-produced books.

  FOLLOW BRIAN ON SOCIAL MEDIA!

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/BrianParkerAuthor

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/BParker_Author

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