The Soldier (Book 2): Sanctuary

by Lundy, W. J.

  Sanctuary

  The Soldier: Book Two

  W.J. Lundy

  COPYRIGHT

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  SANCTUARY

  The Soldier: Book 2

  By W. J. Lundy

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Some places, especially military locations and facilities, are intentionally vague or incorrect in layout and security perimeter. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  © 2019 W. J. Lundy

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading

  About the Author

  Also by W.J. Lundy

  The Invasion Trilogy

  Donovan’s War

  OTHER BOOKS FROM UNDER THE SHIELD OF

  Labyrinth Royale

  FIVE ROADS TO TEXAS

  After the Roads

  For Which We Stand

  Convergence

  Showdown at Chimney Rock

  DEAD ISLAND: Operation Zulu

  Invasion Of The Dead Series

  THIS BOOK WAS FORMATTED BY

  Chapter One

  Day of Infection, Plus Eighteen

  North of Hayslette, Virginia

  Rounds punched into the Sheetrock overhead, the space filled with dust and rifle smoke. Gyles rolled away from the impacts, bits of plaster biting at his face. He crawled behind the meat counter to his rear. A bright flash of light and an explosion from the front of the building washed out his night vision. He shoved the now useless NVG (Night Vision Goggles) up and away from his eyes then pressed his back to the wall. He could sense a soldier directly to his right, another to his left. Even though pitch-black, he knew they were there. He could hear their heavy breathing, the clattering of their equipment. Gyles grabbed for the Motorola radio microphone hanging off his right shoulder.

  “Cease fire, cease fire! You’re hitting us in the crossfire, dammit!”

  The gunfire continued at a frantic pace. More incoming rounds zipped overhead, the telltale buzzing of near misses smacking the meat counter. Glass and metal exploded and popped as it was riddled with rounds. He rolled back to the ground, pressed against the gritty tile floor, trying to make himself small while rounds pinged and smacked all around him. The howls of the Primals filled every break in the gunfire. He reached for the radio again, but before he could speak, the building went silent.

  A weak voice broke the silence. “I’m hit.”

  Another call, this time from his left. “Medic! I need a medic.”

  Gyles moved to a knee and leaned forward, peering over the meat case to his front. Staring into the darkness, he dropped his night vision goggles back over his eyes. In the smoke and dust, it was nearly impossible to see. He picked up on muffled voices of the squad to his front. He flipped on the infrared headlight, illuminating the space in artificial light that could only be seen in his goggles. His men appeared in tones of green and black.

  What only minutes before looked like a clear, vacant, grocery store—a place with fully stocked shelves—was now a scene of carnage. The infected lay dead across the floors, shelves of goods destroyed from automatic weapons fire. Rifle smoke and the stench of burnt gun oil filled the air. At the far end of the store, he could see the sparkle of Second Squad’s infrared headlights, the green lasers from their rifles cutting through the smoke, and the twinkle of the IR strobes off their equipment.

  They had attempted to secure the large grocery store. Recon elements moved in first, using cameras and surveillance drones, then Second and Third Squads moved through the main entrance as Gyles took up the rest of the platoon and cut through the loading dock doors. The plan was to secure and seal the building at both ends. With all of their heavy weapons at the front, they hoped to be attacked there. Then Gyles would use his team to bring the goods out through the docks to be loaded onto trucks, which would be arriving as soon as they entered and cleared the structure. They ran this operation plenty of times and never had a problem until today.

  They covered every approach, and the recon elements said the store was empty. Gyles moved his team up, breached the warehouse doors, and then something had gone horribly wrong.

  He reached back to the radio. “Reaper One, this is Five; what the hell is going on over there?”

  “Five, this is One. We had heavy contacts pour in through a manager’s office. We missed it on the recon; they got between us. Sorry ’bout the crossfire.”

  Gyles shook his head and sighed. “Get security set up, lock this place down—no more surprises. The trucks are on station and we’re beginning the load out. I want to be on the road ASAP.”

  “Roger that, we’re on it.”

  Gyles clenched his jaw and looked to a soldier kneeling beside him. Sergeant Alvarez, a former Georgia National Guardsmen assigned to his new platoon of Army veterans. The man was strong and reliable and had quickly made himself valuable to the team. He was fast to rally the troops and possessed a natural ability to remain calm under fire. Gyles was surprised at how Alvarez always managed to know the pulse of the platoon, like it was a living and breathing creature. If something was amiss with the men, Alvarez knew it.

  “How we looking?” Gyles whispered.

  “Kipperson took a hit,” Alvarez said, turning away. He flipped up his NODS and used the sleeve of his forearm to wipe away sweat.

  Gyles knew the kid, but just barely. Kipperson was a private, an active duty wrench-turner they’d recovered from a stranded convoy three days earlier. He was a mechanic by trade, but with the state of everything, every man was now a shooter as far as Gyles was concerned. Many of the recent adds to the Reaper Platoon had come to him that way.

  Men he didn’t know, skills as diverse as the passengers on a New York City subway. As the senior Army member of the camp, Gyles was made the impromptu leader of all the Army elements. And playing second fiddle to the Marines that ran the camp, the Reapers found themselves out running salvage missions as the Marines defended the camp and looked for survivors. Even with every resource in the field, the camp was on life support. They were day-to-day on food, and the numbers of infected outside the gates doubled daily. That meant every available soldier moved out on every mission; they needed everything they had to keep the survivors fed.

  Gyles grimaced and looked back at his squad leader. “The mechanic. How is he?”

  The junior sergeant pursed his lips and shook his head. In the pixilated view of the night vision goggles, Gyles knew he’d lost a man.

  “He bled out, Sergeant, hit bad.” Alvarez paused and let out a deep breath. “Hell, even a medevac and level one trauma center wouldn’t have made a difference for him. What the hell happened, boss? Thought this place was empty.”

  Gyles frowned and slowly dipped his chin in understand
ing. There were no EVACs here, no medical helicopters or ambulances to bail them out if they got into trouble. Only two weeks into the end of the world and the support model had gone to shit. With the camp being the only known forces in the region, the Reapers were on their own if they got their asses caught in a sling. There was no backup, no quick reaction force to come to the rescue in Primal country. That was just how it worked now, and his men had come to accept it.

  “I don’t know, Alvarez.” He exhaled loudly and ordered, “Leave two men to recover his body then take the rest of the squad into the structure. We need to start loading the trucks with anything in here still worth salvaging.”

  “We’ll get it done, Sergeant,” the man said, turning back toward the rest of the unit, the men still spread out along the back wall of the market.

  Gyles stood and walked away from the others, considering the vastness of the store to his front. There was everything in here… food, hardware, clothing, even auto parts. He wished he had the trucks to really empty the place out, but food was priority.

  Chem lights were snapped and tossed into the aisles of the market. Soft, green light glowed around them, lighting the space and exposing the carnage. Gyles pushed his night vision device up again and saw soldiers running down aisles with large bags, deploying them at scattered intervals, as others began stuffing them full of dry goods. He turned at the sounds of squeaking wheels and saw a pair of soldiers pushing rows of shopping carts.

  Other men hastily filled the metal baskets-on-wheels with canned goods then looped back, running them to the trucks. It was like that in Primal country. Things might be quiet now, but they could change in an instant. Every minute outside the walls was a gamble. Gyles rubbed the back of his neck and looked toward the wall, where two of his men were bagging the body of Private Kipperson.

  “Groceries for a life,” he whispered to himself. “How long can we keep this up?”

  “What was that, G-Man?”

  Gyles turned and saw Weaver beside him. “Sorry about the friendly fire, boss. They were on us like stink on shit. If we hadn’t let loose when we did—well, they would have eaten our asses for sure.” Weaver looked beyond his platoon sergeant to the soldiers bagging the body. “Oh shit. I didn’t know.”

  “This is on me,” Gyles said, looking away. “I shouldn’t have divided the platoon. Should have kept us together and cleared the store front to back.” He turned and looked back at Weaver. “You said they came in from a manager’s office. How the fuck did the recon team not notice them on the sweep?”

  Weaver dipped his chin and pointed his flashlight to the west side of the building. “Yeah, over there behind the Home and Garden area… pair of hidden doors. Recon boys are already on it. They said it looks like an old stock room converted to admin use. They just missed it; the door didn’t stand out to them. And whoever hid there post fall tried to disguise the opening. The noise breaching the warehouse doors must have woke up the Stalkers.”

  “Stalkers?” Gyles asked.

  Weaver grunted. “It’s what the recon troops have taken to calling the sneaky ones. The little bastards that lay in wait. Guess they’ve had some run-ins.”

  “Primals that ambush—how much worse can it get?” Gyles shook his head and stepped off. “Never mind, let’s go check it out.”

  They walked past the soldiers, who were moving both ways in pairs, running full carts out to the large trucks while others returned with empty ones. Nearing the aisles, Gyles could see that the damage to the stock wasn’t as bad as he’d first expected. There were still plenty of undamaged canned items and entire shelves of dry goods.

  “This is a good take—a lot more in here than I expected to find,” Weaver said, observing the teams.

  Gyles nodded. “Yeah, but even with all this… what is it? Two, maybe three days of food? By the time we split it between the barracks and the survivor camp, we’re still all going to be losing some weight.”

  “Hey, boss, if a day’s work buys us three days on the right side of the dirt, that’s a win in my book.” Weaver lowered his voice and moved closer. “Say, you heard any news from DC? Someone else has got to be out there. How long you think we have to hold before the rest of the division rolls in and relieves us?”

  Gyles shook his head and moved past the men, not interrupting their progress. “Nothing. I agree someone has to be there. We didn’t do anything special, and we made it this far.” He followed a path of dead Primal bodies through the store and into the home and garden area. It was the only place he saw any signs of looting. A glass case in the sporting goods corner was smashed. Empty ammo boxes and trigger locks lay on the floor.

  Gyles pointed at the mess. “Someone got themselves strapped.”

  “You think they are in here?” Weaver said.

  Gyles shook his head. “Hope not. If they are, they’ve turned.”

  Ahead of them came muffled voices and flashes of light; Weaver’s men had already secured the office area. Gyles moved to a pair of free-swinging doors and pushed them open, stepping inside. The space had a foul musty odor, like unwashed bodies and human waste. The office area that once held cubicles and desks had been dismantled and stacked like firewood. The remnants of office furniture piled high barricaded a rear exit door on the back wall. The center of the floor, where the desks had been, was now covered with tents and sleeping bags. The large space had been converted to a full-on campsite. The only thing remaining in place was a large wooden conference table covered with camp stoves and dishes. Cases of canned goods were stacked up against a near wall.

  Gyles pointed at the stockpile. “Make sure someone gets that stuff, can’t afford to leave anything behind.”

  Weaver nodded and looked at the tents, pointing his rifle barrel at the huddle of them. “They had it pretty good in here. Loads of food and water, walls on all sides. Hell, better than the base camp even.” Weaver nodded and turned in a 360, taking in a full view. “This place was locked down. Doors at both ends of the market were secure… whatever got them didn’t break in. They let it in.”

  Gyles moved toward a body and knelt over it. The middle-aged man wore denim pants and a Realtree camo T-shirt. His head was twisted back with the mouth wide open, his right hand still clutching a Mossberg shotgun. Expended shell casings littered the floor between the dead man’s boots. The body had been ravaged, a chunk of the throat missing. Gyles reached for a jacket near the body and placed it over the man’s head. “Someone got inside. They got close, or the fighting would have been near the entrance or outside. We didn’t find any dead out there.”

  Weaver turned on his own flashlight and lifted back a flap on one of the larger tents. He flinched then stepped back, shaking his head. “More of the dead in there.”

  Gyles moved closer. The tent floor was covered with bloody bandages, gauze, and bodies in the same mangled state. He rubbed his temples. “Someone let an infected in; they tried to patch him or her up and they turned, most likely at night. This fella was probably on watch. He did what he could, but it wasn’t enough. Once he fell, it was just a matter of time.” He sighed and looked down at a child’s body. “Lots of folks bit—probably hid all over the store, waited until the infections took hold, and they turned one by one. Why do they still take in the injured?”

  Weaver shrugged. “The only cure is a bullet. People know it, but they just can’t do it when it’s their own family and friends.”

  Frowning, Gyles said, “This thing just doesn’t stop killing.” He looked to a pair of soldiers patrolling the space then stared at the scene a final time, imagining what horrors must have taken place. He spotted a child’s shoe, and his eyes fixed on it. Suddenly feeling ill, he called it. “Bag up anything useful and get the hell out of here. We egress in ten mikes.” He turned to Weaver. “Come on, I need some air.”

  The pair moved through the market and exited the back doors, onto the loading docks, where the trucks were nearly filled. They continued down the steps to a back lot where men stood wat
ch. The men of the recon team were across the street, rifles up, watching a faraway intersection. The surrounding city was silent, not a single vehicle on the road, no movement on the distant sidewalks. The place was a literal ghost town. A young soldier quickly ran from the recon team across the street, stopping just short of Gyles’s side, and made a report.

  “So—nothing then? No contact?” Gyles asked, clarifying. “Where the hell is everyone?”

  “No, Sergeant, even when the shooting started, it stayed quiet out here. But the recon team found this on the corner,” the man said, holding a scrap of white cardboard. Its blue ink had run, and the paper was warped from the rain. He handed it to Gyles. “It was stuck to a telephone pole.”

  Survivors—come to the church, all are welcome.

  Gyles stared at the words, then turned and passed the strip of cardboard to Weaver. “What do you make of it?”

  Weaver shrugged and passed the paper back. “Doesn’t matter what we think; it’s not our mission. We salvage the market and RTB. We got enough mouths to feed.”

  “We just return to base, even though there could be people out there?”

  Laughing, Weaver shook his head side to side. “That’s not even what that note says. It could mean anything. And you were the one just bitching about the supply situation. Three days, right?”