American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (6 page)

Chapter 10

The six men comprising
the assault group took several hours to get to a small house at the end of
Parkview Drive.  After consulting local maps, they felt that the house would be
the wisest choice as a jumping off point for their operation.  Vehicles were
left miles away, the men walking, using the surrounding woods and landscape to
reach their destination unseen.

The men did not delude
themselves into thinking that they could begin and end this easily.  The only
member of their group with combat experience would be on top of the mental
health building directly across the highway from the armory, acting as
overwatch, providing long range fire support. 

The house they now
huddled in, waiting for dusk, was close enough to the main road to allow them
easy access while large patches of trees helped to screen them from view. 

The battle group took
only minutes to clear the house, easily killing the one zombie they found in
the kitchen.  The corpse was set outside, behind some thickly overgrown shrubbery. 

Mike leaned against the
counter, eating chili straight from the can with a spoon he had taken from one
of the kitchen drawers.

“There’s more in the
pantry there guys,” he said, waving his spoon in the direction of the open
pantry door. 

“Mike, that’s your second
can of that shit.  One more and we can just march you right up to these
assholes and have you gas ‘em.” 

“That’s not a bad idea,
Jimbo!   End this without a shot,” Mike fired back with a grin.

Alex looked up from the
table, where he was opening a stale package of crackers.  “I don’t see how you
can eat that stuff.”

“What do you mean? 
Nothing wrong with this,” Mike said around a mouthful of food.

“I mean without these,”
Alex grinned, pointing at the crumbling white squares.  “Gotta have crackers
with chili.”  Getting up from the table, he stepped into the pantry, grabbing a
can for himself.

“This place is damn close
to the armory,” Dean said, looking through the window over the kitchen sink,
seeing only trees and the topmost portion of the armory roof in the distance.

“Yes it is, what’s your
point, Deany Meany?”

Dean turned, scowling at
Jimmy before realizing that was exactly what he wanted, to jab at him.  “Why
hasn’t this place been cleared out?  That’s what I mean.  There’s a bunch of food
and bottled water, medicines in the bathroom, even a .22 rifle and that old
shotgun in the closet.  This place is a mini treasure trove.  Why haven’t those
guys cleaned any of this out?”

Calvin leaned back in the
kitchen chair, balancing on the rear legs.  “Lazy, maybe?  Or they have enough
stuff that they don’t need to scavenge for food anymore.”

“I doubt these people are
lazy.  You don’t survive this long by being lazy,” Dean told his brother.

“I really have no idea,
Dean.  This stuff is here, and I have no problem using it.”  Calvin came down
slowly in the chair, to avoid slamming the front legs, though the wood creaked
loudly as he did so.

“Don’t think about it so
much, man.  You over-analyze this shit, it’ll just make your brain hurt.”

“I know, Mike, just being
aware is all.”

“You aware what time it
is, Dean?” Jimmy asked.

“Just after two,” he
said, glancing at his watch, giving Jimmy a puzzled look.

“We have a long time
until dusk.  Wouldn’t hurt if we got some sleep, it could be a long night.”

Setting down a now empty
can, the spoon clattering loudly inside the tin, Mike said, “Hell yes, I could
use a nap after that.”

“Seem like you guys are
being pretty fucking blasé about all this.”

Every man in the kitchen
jumped at Rick’s voice, turning to see him standing in the doorway.

“What the hell, Rick! 
You about scared us half to death, man!  We didn’t even hear you coming down
the stairs.”

“No shit, Mike?  You
couldn’t hear me over the rattling can, and the idle chit-chat?  You couldn’t
hear me over creaky chairs, and noisy cracker wrappers?”

The other men stared at
Rick for a moment before casting their eyes to the floor like scolded
children.  All except for Jimmy.

“Got it Cap’n.  Shut the
fuck up and pay attention.”  Jimmy spoke without hostility, matter-of-factly
putting into words what Rick was trying to tell the group.

Standing in the doorway,
Rick looked closely at the men with him for this mission.  Other than Alex he
had known them for many years, had no problem trusting his life or those he cared
about to these men.  He also understood that every one of them was terrified at
this moment. 

Sitting and waiting was
the hardest part for anyone heading into combat.  The mind spent far too much
time thinking about possible outcomes, ways the fight could go wrong or get
someone killed.  These thoughts played with people’s minds, often causing them
to act in ways they knew to be contrary to what they should be doing, like
chatting it up loudly, and rattling empty cans.

He forgave them this. 
They weren’t trained soldiers and few had extensive experience fighting armed
men.  Coming up against zombies was one thing.  The mindless shambling undead
did not use logic and reason, they never thought in terms of tactical
advantage.  Zombies were head on, which made them easier to fight, in smaller
numbers.

Human beings were another
matter entirely. 

“I think people getting a
little shut-eye is a good idea.  I’ll continue watching from the upstairs
window for a while.  I can wake someone to take over for me in a few hours.”

Five men spread out
through the house, one man taking a bed in both of the upstairs bedrooms, one
on the couch, and another in a musty smelling recliner in the living room.

Jimmy wandered through
the house for several minutes, unable to decide where he wanted to stretch
out.  After several minutes he took an old hand-made afghan from the back of
the couch Calvin was laying on.  Alex watched from the recliner as Jimmy took
the blanket and tossed it on the floor in front of the front door. 

“What’re you doing?” Alex
asked, watching Jimmy situate the many-colored blanket with the toe of his
boot.  “You make me think of my dog Rush, when he would nest in this rotten-ass
old blanket my mom tossed on the porch for him.”

Jimmy gave Alex a
half-hearted smile and lay down on the stretched out afghan.  He tossed and
turned for several minutes, trying to find the most comfortable position. 
After several more turns he finally lay on his side with his back pressed up
against the door.  He knew no one could even try to come in the door without
waking him.

****

Jimmy woke to faint
vibrations on his back, and for a moment thought that Tam had turned his
vibrating recliner on.  He began to reach out for the off button when his mind
snapped fully awake, realizing where he was.

Craning his neck backward
he watched the doorknob twist several times, tapping against the locking
mechanism before stopping.  Then he heard a faint scraping noise, and it dawned
on him that someone was trying to pick the lock.

He glanced up to see Alex
sleeping in the recliner.  Rick was on the couch, apparently having woken
Calvin to take his place at the upstairs window. 

Slowly, while sliding his
foot up to press against the door, he pushed out, reaching for Rick’s booted
foot on the couch, a couple feet away.  Reaching it, he shook Rick’s boot
several times, gently, hoping to rouse him without any noise.

He wiggled Rick’s foot
twice more before Rick stirred, opening one eye to look at Jimmy stretched
across the floor.   Rick’s other eye snapped open when he saw that Jimmy had
one finger in front of his lips.

When it was obvious that
he had Rick’s attention he pointed that same finger at the front door of the
house.  He clenched his hand in the air, as if grabbing something and rocked it
back and forth, his signal to Rick that someone had tried the door.

Rick nodded at Jimmy as
he slowly began to slide off the couch, reaching for the .45 he carried in a
drop-leg holster on his right side.  Zombies did not try to open doors.

Mouthing the words “Stay
there,” Rick moved toward the door on his knees.  Once there he rested his
shoulder against it and waved a hand at Jimmy, as if to tell him to get up and
get ready.

Jimmy began to move to
wake Alex when he heard a tiny
clack
in the door lock.  He looked back
at Rick and the door just as the door was kicked open hard from the outside,
shoving Rick over.

Two gut-suckers came
bursting through the door, one right after the other.  Rick was moving, but
could not get out of the way fast enough.  The first zombie tripped over Rick,
catapulting directly into Alex who had just started awake at the sound of the
door being violently thrown open.  Alex’s eyes went wide when he saw a face
nearly stripped of skin coming directly at him.  He threw his hands up,
catching the biting thing on the shoulders and shoving backwards with all of
his terrified strength.

The second zombie also
tripped over Rick, its face slamming into the lower back of the first just as
Alex was shoving it backward.  The first creature somersaulted backward over
the second, while inertia caused the second to slam head on into the raised
footrest of the reclining chair.

Alex was moving as the
zombie hit the footrest, but became overbalanced when the chair leaped up,
shoving him forward.  He came down hard on top of the second undead creature.

Rick caught the flash of
a hand reaching in and grabbing the doorknob, yanking the door closed.  This
was an attack.

Jimmy had fallen backward
and almost laughed aloud at the charade before him now.  It would have made the
Keystone Kops proud and been just as hilarious as those old silent films if two
of the creatures tangled on the floor were not trying to eat the others.

People came bounding down
the stairs, no one even attempting quiet.  Bleary eyed from sleep Dean, Mike
and Calvin stood there with weapons raised, unsure of what to do with the
tangle of living and dead they found in the family room.

Alex, still on top of the
second zombie pushed backward with his foot, shoving the creature's head into the
gap between the chair and the lifted footrest.  He kept pushing, forcing the
creature's head further into the gap.

Mike saw the position
Alex had put the zombie in and decided to take advantage of it.  Stepping
forward he braced himself on the headrest of the thickly padded chair and
jumped, landing both feet on the corner of the footrest.

Cloth and wood and steel
crushed the neck of the dead thing, rewarding Mike with a satisfying
crack
though he was not sure if it was wood or bone.  He jumped once more, putting
all of his considerable size into forcing the gore splattered footrest all the
way down.  This time, the noise was definitely bone, as the head separated from
the neck, and was forced up underneath the chair.

Dean had come around the
chair, moving straight to Rick who was still on the floor with the first
zombie.  Jimmy jumped up and went to the door, pistol in hand, leaning his back
against it. 

Rick’s hands were around
the other creature’s throat, just trying to keep the snapping teeth as far from
his face as possible. 

As Dean was leaning down
to put a knife into the gut-sucker’s skull they all heard a loud crash from the
side of the house.

“Someone just
broke in the back door,” Calvin said, his voice tight with fear.  He swung his
M4 around, waiting for who- or whatever may have come through the door.

Chapter 11

Rick pushed while Dean
quickly shoved a blade through the top of the zombie’s head.  Both men jerked
away, turning their faces from the splatter of infected blood.

Rick began to push
himself out from under the body when someone spoke from another room. 

“You fuckers put your
weapons down and maybe some of you will get out of here with your shit still
alive!”

Rick looked up and around
to see everyone had turned away from him toward the sound of the voice. 
Everyone except for Jimmy that is, who was slipping out through the front door
even as he watched. 

“Piss off, asshat!  Only
thing we’re putting down is you sick pricks!”  Questioning eyes turned to Mike,
as if to ask, “
What the hell, man
?” Mike caught Calvin’s look out of the
corner of his eye and shrugged.  “Had to say something,” he whispered.

Three men stepped into
the hallway, weapons up and pointing at Mike and Calvin, the only two they
could see from their angle.  “Back the fuck up, now, or we’ll kill every last
one of you.”

Mike’s eyes grew large,
focusing on the short, slightly balding man leading the little party.  “Renny? 
Renny Marsh, what the hell, man?”

Recognition dawned in the
face of the one Mike had called “Renny.”  “Well if it isn’t
Mike-Fucking-Phillips.  Not surprised you survived this shit.”  Renny’s face
turned dark.  “You won’t for much longer if you don’t put down your damn guns,
Mike.”

Mike and Calvin had
slowly backed away, leading the other men down the hall, toward the living area
where Rick, Alex and Dean were waiting.  No one other than Rick realized that
Jimmy had slipped out the door.

Renny and the two goons
behind him were only mildly surprised to find three men in the living area. 
They were more surprised to find that the two zombies they had shoved through
the door were dead, and no one was bitten.

“Seems we have some bad
intel.  We were told there were only four of you guys, not five.”

Mike and Calvin both
looked at Renny quizzically before daring a glance into the room.  To their
credit neither man gave away that one of theirs was missing, and they actually
had six people.

“Well, you should
probably go talk to your watchman then.  Don’t worry, Renny, we’ll wait right
here for you.”

“Mike, don’t fuck around
here.  Greer wants one or two of you to talk to.  The rest, well, they don’t
matter so much.”  Renny did not have to say they would kill everyone else.  His
tone was more than sufficient to make that clear.

“Who is Greer, and if he
just wanted to talk, why not come himself?” Dean asked.

The goon standing behind
and to Renny’s left, only inches taller than him, with thick, greasy dark brown
hair said, “Damn, you are one ugly fucker aren’t you?  How about you shut the
hell up.”  He punctuated his statement with the barrel of his shotgun, pointing
it directly at Dean’s face.

“Renny, you might want to
back your boy down before things get nasty in here.”

“Mike, things are already
nasty, we have you boxed in here, and there are two more men outside.  Between
that scattergun and the rifle there,” Renny jerked a thumb at the respective
weapons his companions were carrying, “you guys really don’t have much of a
choice.  I’ve got my little pea-shooter here too; you get the first one between
the eyes.”  Renny pointed his heavy revolver directly Mike.

The men from camp Oko
Tipi tensed, ready to scatter and return fire.  They were shocked when Mike
told Renny, “You still pissed because I fired your lazy ass?  Renny, you always
were fucking useless.  Just as useless four years ago as you are today.”

Renny’s eyes flared
wide.  “You god-damn f-fuckin’…”  He stuttered his words, rage getting the
better of him.

“Drop ‘em, now.”  The
words, spoken almost conversationally, came from directly behind Renny.  As he
was turning to see who spoke, his companion’s guns clattered to the floor.

He turned to face a man
wearing a mask of bright arterial blood.  His grin showed white teeth
contrasting starkly with the red, a rictus of horror that caused Renny’s
bladder to loosen, a squeal of fear escaping past his lips.  His eyes locked
onto the blood running in fat droplets from the tip of the soaked beard.  It
was the last thing he saw before his eyes rolled up into his head and he passed
out, crumpling to the floor.

Jimmy stood with an arm
around both of Renny’s goons, pistol to the temple of the man on his right,
large knife blade already causing a faint line of red along the neck of the man
on his left.  One of the men flicked his eyes to the back of the house.

Voice still low, quiet,
Jimmy said, “No, they’re gone.  Both of them.  Where do you think this blood
came from?”

One of the men began to
sag, knees weakening.  Jimmy pressed the blade firmly into his neck, the sharp
singe of pain forcing him to stand upright.  “I had to take your buddies out,
no other choice, but you guys, well, my friends here might have something to
say if I just murdered you both.  On your knees, slowly.”

“Jimmy, you ok brother?”

“Just fine, Mike,” Jimmy
said, walking into the kitchen and taking a musty smelling hand towel from a
rack in front of the sink.  “Took the first guy down easy.  I guess the second
guy heard something, or sensed that I was there, started to draw down on me.” 
Jimmy looked directly into his closest friend’s eyes, almost daring him to
challenge what he had done.  “Got it right in the face when I opened his
throat.” 

Mike stared at his friend
for a moment, then gave him a short nod of his head and turned back to the two
kneeling men.

The one that had been
holding the rifle trembled on the floor, his knees almost rattling on the
hardwood.  The other man glanced at Jimmy and told him, “Greer’s gonna kill you
for that man.  Kill every one of you!” 

Jimmy threw the bloody
towel he used to clean his face with on the floor in front of the man that
spoke.  “Piss on you and this “Greer.”  You bastards hit a kid this morning;
he’s probably dead as we speak.  I don’t really give a fuck,” he said, stepping
up to the kneeling man, “what you shits think.”  Jimmy’s fist snapped out,
hitting the man square on the jaw.  Cracking bone could be heard when the fist made
contact, before the now-sobbing man fell sideways to the floor.

To a man, every one of
Jimmy’s friends was glad he did it.  It was the same thing they all wanted to
do, if not worse.

Alex, who was now
standing near one of the large front windows, spoke up.  “They obviously know
we’re here, so what do we do?  Do we tie them up and leave them here, or take
them with us?”

“Our plan to move on the
armory at dusk is kind of shot to hell,” Rick said.  He glanced at his watch,
then out a window, “Which will be in less than an hour anyway.” 

“Use these guys in some
sort of trade?”

The other man still
kneeling on the floor mumbled something unintelligible.

“Repeat that,” Rick told
him.

“Greer would just as soon
shoot us for getting caught as he would trade us for a single damn bullet.”  He
never once lifted his face, as if he were talking to the floor and not a group
of armed and pissed off men.

“What kind of fighting
force do you have over there?” Rick asked

“Huh?”

“He asked how many men
you guys have, dumbass,” Jimmy said.

“Uh, seventeen people,
uh, men, including us, so…”

“Eleven left over there
to fight.”

Dean looked around the
room at his friends before asking, “How the hell are the six of us going to
fight eleven men with automatic weapons?”  

“Hey, guys,” Alex said,
looking out the window.  He had to say it twice more before those talking over
him responded.  “We may have a bigger problem than the jackasses at the
armory.”

“What are you talking about,
Alex?” Rick asked stepping up to the window Alex was staring out of.  Alex
sidled back and just pointed.

Rick leaned forward and
cupped his hands around his eyes, to see better in the fading daylight.  “Oh,
fuck, get your gear, now!”

Plaintive voices asked
what was wrong.  Rick turned to face his friends.  “It’s a horde, coming
straight for the house.  We have to go!”

“Go where Rick?  We can’t
make it to the cars,” Dean said, his voice much calmer than he was feeling at
that very moment.

Rick looked around at his
companions, sparing a flick of his eyes to the two men on their knees and the
one passed out on the floor.  “Get him up, now, take their weapons.”  Rick
glanced out the window once more.  “We’re going to the armory.”