Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 3): Liberation (10 page)

Tommy got to his knees and leaned forward as if a couple more inches would give him a better view.

“There he is, Sheriff Miller! There’s my Dad!” Tommy yelled.

Beside him Jacob was calm.

“Describe him. What is he wearing?” he said.

“The red tee shirt and cargo pants! There!” Tommy yelled.

Beverly clung to herself even tighter and turned towards them. She waited for the shot to ring out, the shot that would release her husband from a walking nightmare and her son from Death’s hold, the shot that would allow them both to move on. The seconds ticked by and no shot came.

Beside Jacob, Tommy lowered the binoculars. He began to holler.

“You missed him! You didn’t free him! My Dad!”

The fear and desperation in Tommy’s voice were too much for Beverly, she turned and seized her son, pressing him to her breast. His body spasmed as he wailed against her.

Across from her, Jacob calmly rose. Walking to the rear of the Cherokee, he broke down his rifle and stowed it. He retrieved his body armor and began to strap it on. Bracers, vest, leather jacket, fingerless gloves, shin guards and knee pads.

Beverly looked at him, confused.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Jacob did not look over at her. He grabbed his Ruger Mark I and screwed on the suppressor. Laying it on the tailgate, he retrieved four magazines and began to stuff them into the pockets of his leather jacket. Satisfied, he grabbed a full face black motorcycle helmet and put it on. Jacob leaned in and grabbed two final items, a bottle, and a coil of rope with wooden handles affixed to either end. This he put his arm through and hung off his shoulder. The label on the bottle read
Deer Urine Spray.
He applied it liberally over all his clothes. Without saying a word, he tossed the bottle in the back of the Jeep. He went to the driver’s side and leaned in, pulling the keys from the ignition.

Sensing something was happening, Tommy stopped crying and looked up at Jacob as he approached. Beverly and Tommy both fixed their eyes upon him as he stood there, holding out the keys to the Cherokee. Their noses crinkled as the foul smell of the Deer Urine scent hit them.

“If I don’t come back…” he said.

Beverly reached up and took the keys from Jacob. Before she could say a word, Jacob flipped the dark face shield of the helmet down, turned and started down the tracks toward Centerville.

Fifteen

…Just Go!

…You’ve got the keys! Drive!

…You’ve got to do what you have to, Tommy will understand!

But one look at her son and she knew in an instant that he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t understand and he wouldn’t get over it. There was even a chance that he wouldn’t forgive her.

As if reading her mind, Tommy mouthed the words, “No, Mom…”

Beverly released her white knuckle grip on the keys, the tension in her body relaxed.

Jacob walked, shadowing the horde as it moved through the center of town. This was not his kind of work. It wasn’t practical, wasn’t efficient.

It wasn’t safe.

From his vantage points above the horde, he could see them, through the scope, differentiate the mass from those he felt a debt. He knew he had to get ahead of them, but going around them wasn’t the way to do it. It would take too long. The deer urine would mask his scent, make him appear as something besides a meal, but it didn’t mean he could stroll along with them like it was a Thanksgiving Day parade. He knew Tommy’s Dad was in the rear and he hoped that in the bottle neck that was the town, he had remained so. Still, he wouldn’t know until he was practically among them.

Jacob crouched behind a Dumpster in the back of B
ubba’s Big Chicken Diner
. The deer urine mixed with the smell of garbage and he felt confident that, for the moment, he was undetectable. Once inside the town limits and with the rear of the horde in sight, he had cut down a side street looking for a place to watch them. He glanced down the alley. Through the gap between the walls of two buildings, he watched as the horde shuffled by. Where he was now was not a place to take his target. Once he located it, he could anticipate where his best chance might be. To do that he knew he had to get higher.

Jacob sprung from behind the Dumpster and crept to an access ladder fastened to the wall across and down from the Dumpster. The horde was close. If they noticed him, and if even just a few funneled down the alley, the rest would sense it. He would be surrounded and cut off. The shuffling and moaning of the horde gave him some cover, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Jacob tucked the Ruger into his jacket and began to climb.

He moved to the edge of the building and looked over at the horde below.

Red shirt… Cargo pants…

Jacob let the words echo in his mind as he searched. Finally, as the horde continued to move past, he saw him. Jacob tracked his gait, trying to determine where his path would take him, what building might he stray close to, in what darkened recess could he seize what was once Mark Sanders and…

The thing that was Mark Sanders shuffled slow, loping gradually to the left. Jacob tracked him and then looked across the street and three blocks up. A flower shop, dark and empty sat facing the street. A large gaping hole was in the front of the building where plate glass would have been. The glass lay shattered on the sidewalk in front. Jacob knew he would have one chance and he would have to be fast. He eased away from the ledge and back down the ladder.

He sat in the shadows of a demolished vacuum cleaner repair shop and stared out the open door. The flower shop was directly across from him. The muscles in his legs were taut like a spring and he was ready to pounce. He had wanted to cross the street, to wait for Tommy’s father in the shadows on the other side. His confidence failed him on two fronts: the first, that Tommy’s father would stray close enough for him to simply reach out and grab, and the second, that he would be able to cross the flowing current of the horde undetected. Should they sense him crossing and attack, he would not stand a chance. So he waited. He kept his face shield down. While it did much to block out the sound of the Dead, it did little to mitigate the smell, theirs or his. The Decay mixed with the scent of deer urine threatened to roll his stomach, but he held on. He had done two things to prepare. In front of him was a vacuum cleaner lying on its side, wheels pointed towards the street. Propped up against the wall to his left was a piece of glass. He had wiped it clean enough to dimly reflect the store behind him. To let something sneak up on him was to die of foolishness and Jacob Miller was not going to be foolish.

The moments ticked by until the thing that was Tommy Sanders’ father stumbled into view. Jacob uncoiled the length of rope from his shoulder and gripped the handles in each hand. He moved those hands down to the vacuum cleaner and shoved it in one motion out into the path of Tommy’s father. The object went unheeded and the shuffler tripped and fell to the ground. Those around it gave no notice as they dragged themselves past their fallen comrade, their raspy wheezing and groaning not lifting an octave in alert. Jacob strengthened the grip on the rope’s wooden handles. As the shuffler began to push itself up and rise, Jacob Miller leaped from the shadows and ran into the street.

As he ran toward the shuffler, he dropped the wooden handles to waist level. Not slowing his pace, he caught the shuffler’s neck with the rope, crossed his arms, and pulled tight. The slack went out and the rope tightened around the thing’s neck. Jacob’s velocity slowed under the new weight and he dragged the shuffler from the street. When he got to the flower shop, he dived into the shadows through the ruined display window, dragging the shuffler with him. The two crashed to the floor and Jacob lay still, using every ounce of his strength to keep the rope tight around the thing’s neck. The shuffler did not try to pull the rope free, did not suffer the asphyxiating effects of Jacob’s garrote. It struggled all the same, sensing that what held it fast could be eaten.

Beneath his helmet, beads of perspiration ran down Jacob’s face and into his eyes. The strain in his arms began to burn as he kept the tension on the rope. He had to wait, wait for seconds, wait for them to stretch into minutes as the horde passed by in the street. He doubted he could wait for them all to go, but every one that passed was one less that might be alerted, one less that might alert the others. With his head up, Jacob lay on his back and stared through his face shield to the display area of the flower shop. Gradually, the horde thinned until they passed by in widely spaced singles. He moved his left hand down the rope where the ends crossed at the base of the shuffler’s head. He held the rope tight and reached into his jacket for the Ruger. He placed the silenced pistol to the side of the shuffler’s head. It struggled, hissed, tried to twist its head around. With gnashing teeth, it tried to satisfy its hunger, its eyes rolling around in its gory head.

Jacob hesitated. It was not a thing he was dispatching, this had been a man, a father, a fellow officer of the law. In his own dealings he looked into their faces, remembered them and then liberated them. Jacob brought his feet up and loosened his grip. Withdrawing the rope, Jacob kicked away the thing that was Officer Mark Sanders. Jacob rolled backwards to a standing position and readied his pistol. Across from him the thing that was Tommy’s father fell back, then tried to stand. Jacob waited for it to gain its feet. When it did, it looked around, then settled its hungry gaze on Jacob. Jacob raised his face shield and looked the thing in the face. The two locked eyes and there was a pause. For the space of a second, Jacob saw Officer Mark Sanders standing before him as he was, then the image was gone and the shuffler charged him. When the distance between them was cut to half, Jacob fired. Two whispers of the Mark I put the shuffler down.

Mark Sanders was free.

Sixteen

Beverly raised the binoculars and checked the tracks into Centerville. She was obsessing and she knew it, but everything hinged on seeing Jacob Miller walking back down those tracks towards them. It had been hours and now dark was threatening. How long did she wait? How long before it was obvious he wasn’t coming back? How long before leaving was the only choice they had left? These questions plagued her mind, but each time she moved herself to answer that question, she looked at Tommy. He was unmoved. When Jacob had left, Tommy had gone to the Cherokee. He sat on the hood and stared down those same tracks. It didn’t matter what might be obvious to her. Until it was settled in his mind, they would stay. She felt deep within herself that to try and make him leave before he was ready would tear a rift between them that might never close. And so she lowered the binoculars and took a seat on the hood of the Cherokee next to her son.

Jacob sat in the back corner of the ruined flower shop and waited. Outside in the street, the last of the horde passed in twos and threes. Even if he could make it out and back to Beverly and Tommy, with the light fading and the darkness coming on fast, he couldn’t risk an encounter with the Dead. So he sat with his back to the wall and stared through the helmet’s visor out into the street as they passed. He did something he hadn’t done in a long time, he prayed he wouldn’t see someone he once knew in their ruined faces.

Tommy had wanted to, but he just couldn’t. Finally, Beverly had given him a reprieve, promising that at the first sign of Jacob’s return, she would wake him. Tommy lay on the hood of the Cherokee with his head in his mother’s lap. Beverly fought sleep, resolved to not fail her son, promising to be ready when the time came. It had not been easy staying awake, but it wasn’t the lack of sleep that troubled her the most. Her thoughts swirled around in her mind, nipped and bit at her like a pack of wolves testing the weakness of their prey. She thought of Gary and the substation, and his loss drew first blood. She thought of the journey she, Mark, and Tommy had undertaken to try to get to Colorado. When her thoughts fell to Mark, alone in the tunnel, fighting for their lives so that they could flee, the hungry wolf that was her misery delivered a mortal wound. Now here she was waiting for an outcome she knew was certain. Another would fall so that she could continue to have a chance at a life. How many, and how high a cost would have to be paid before she got to a place that offered a chance? She bit down hard and fought her emotions, vowing that her son would not be the next to sacrifice himself for her. Regardless of what lie ahead of them, her son would live, would have a future. She reached down and stroked her son’s hair, brushing it from his face. Not wanting to wake him, she clutched the binoculars and scanned the tracks to Centerville.

There was movement and Beverly blinked. She took a breath and felt the fear rise in her throat. There was a second of time that stretched into what felt like hours before she gasped in relief. Without wanting them to come, tears burst from her eyes as she lowered the binoculars and woke her son.

“Tommy! Wake up! Jacob! He’s back!”

Tommy jumped from the hood of the Cherokee and ran to the edge of the rails and stared down the tracks. He watched as Jacob Miller walked toward them. In his hands he carried a cardboard box. Tommy turned back to his mother with eyes full of hope and sadness. Beverly slid off the hood and stood next to her son as Jacob made his way towards them. When he was close, he stopped and looked down at Tommy. Tommy could not meet his gaze, his head hung low and he stared at his feet. He tried to be a man, but didn’t know how. Jacob raised the visor on his helmet and looked at Tommy with kinder eyes than Beverly thought him capable of. He slowly offered Tommy the box.