Six Feet From Hell: Unity: 6FFH Book #5 (4 page)

Joe
raised his .45 to Captain White’s head and cocked the hammer back. “Why should we trust you? And what promise do we have that you’ll do what we ask of you?”

White
lowered his head in surrender. “You have my word as a Marine that I will do everything in my power to help you.”

Joe
glanced around to the other four men in the small hallway with him. Curtis looked as if he was thinking it over. Jim looked like he wanted to pull the trigger himself, as did Rick. Larry was in deep thought, rubbing his beard.

Joe
eased the .45’s hammer forward slowly and holstered the sidearm. “I’ll call a meeting tonight and those of us that do the decision making will discuss it.”

“Do
what you need to do, then,” Captain White said flatly.

“
If we decide that you should join us, you will stay. If not,” Joe pointed towards the land outside the wall. “Then it’s death by exile.”

CHAPTER
4

April 17, 2022 – 1832 hours

After a hearty dinner of turkey, potatoes and a mixture of corn and green beans, the “essential” personnel were sitting around an old picnic table in the chow hall. The rest of the town’s residents had all left except Joe, Rick, Curtis, Balboa, Jamie, Larry, and Cornbread. The seven men ate together quickly and quietly as they waited for the rest of the residents of Tazewell to file out for the evening. Angel and Heather were in the kitchen cleaning up and keeping track of tomorrow’s breakfast items. They were far out of earshot, unable to hear the heated conversation going on in the main hall.

“Look,
I’m not saying that I trust him, but I think we should consider all choices right now. I’m not suggesting that we just give him an M4 and let him go to town with it, but if he can help us get rid of Wyatt, then I say it’s a worthwhile risk,” Joe stated.

“He’s
not trustworthy at all. Hell, he tried to kill us a couple months ago and now all the sudden he wants to be fuckin’ buddy-buddy instead. I’m not buying it, Joe.” Cornbread replied.

Larry
put his hands flat on the table. “It’s not a matter of trust. If we let him go, he’s going to go back to his people and give us up. If we decide to use him, at least
we
get something out of it,” he paused and then continued. “That being said, his boys haven’t come after him, either. Maybe they’ve given up, maybe not. He might not give a shit about them, and he might not
want
to hook back up. I think it’s just a little too unpredictable that we let him out among us. Wyatt has no idea where
they
are, where
we
are or what we’ve done. I say that we just keep him locked up. It’s the only sensible idea.” Larry turned his attention to Curtis. “Did you mean what you said at the jail? Can you track Wyatt?”

“Yes
I can,” Curtis said confidently. “If he answers that sat-phone, then I can triangulate where he’s at, or at least within a couple miles. If he’s in Alabama, we will know.”

“And
there lies our problem.” Joe leaned forward on the table. “Look, I had every intention of going into that jail, getting the information that we needed, and putting a bullet in his head. When he offered to help, I have to admit, it took me a second to get out of that mindset. I’m not saying the idea is off the table just yet, but I think we should consider he’d be a hell of an asset. He’s not some Special Forces Airborne Ranger, he is, or should I say
was
, a Marine officer. He was following orders. I don’t think
brainwashed
is the term I’m looking for.
Indoctrinated
is a more apt description.”

Rick
interjected. “Yeah but that
I was just following orders
crap is a cop out. He knew what he was doing and he kept on doing it. If he was a
real
soldier, then he would have
helped
the people that he met, not make them into indentured servants.”

Joe
though it over for a second. “Well, let’s play devil’s advocate. If we decide to keep him locked up, what’s going to happen? He’s going to get pissed off and more bitter at us until he finally snaps and takes our people out or gets someone sympathetic to him and then we have a divided town. If that happens, then we will have a civil war on our hands and it’ll destroy us. If we just let him go, he might go back and tell Wyatt everything. Hell, he might not even make it back to Alabama anyway,” Joe turned his right hand over. “On the other hand, if we keep him, we gain a valuable asset and someone that not only has more military experience than the rest of us, but potentially has information that could save our lives. It’s not a matter of
if
Wyatt finds out about us; it’s a matter of
when.
Since Captain White hasn’t contacted him in a couple months, then I’m sure that Wyatt is wondering exactly what went down here. It will take some time for the information to pass down to him, but he
will
find out and he
will
come to kill us. If we at least know where he’s at, we can prepare our defenses. I’m not saying we go out looking for trouble, but we should be ready for it nonetheless.”

“How
will Wyatt even know that it was
you
that took out his crew?” Cornbread asked.

“He
won’t, but I know this asshole and I know what he did to me down in Alabama. He seems like the type to get revenge any way possible, and if there is a way, I’m sure he’ll find it. He’s too big of a threat to ignore. If we can keep White, then maybe we can milk some information from him – information that might save some lives.”

Curtis
spoke up. “So what exactly are you suggesting? That we keep him? Use him?”

“I
think it’s in our best interest to, yes. We use him to train some of our people. If he does well, then we go from there. If he doesn’t…” Joe trailed off and looked around to the faces of his men. Once again, it was difficult to get a read on everyone. A long silence, glances exchanged, and idle fidgeting followed. Joe hung his head and shook it slowly. “Look, if we can’t come to an agreement, then I’m just gonna go ahead with my original idea of blowing his tongue out the back of his skull. I say we put it to a vote.”

“
Aight, let’s vote,” Cornbread said, standing and raising his one good hand. “I’m for keeping him.”

Joe
raised his hand. “You know my position on it.”

“I
say keep him,” voiced Larry.

“I
vote lead poisoning,” Balboa added. “One less motherfucker tryin’ to kill us.”

“Kill
him before he kills us; I can go with that,” Curtis put forth.

“I
don’t want him around either,” Jamie said.

The
group collectively looked to Rick as the deciding vote. He raised his right hand and looked his father in the eye. With a stern, concrete look on his face, he voiced his vote. “I’m with you on this one, dad. I say we keep him and see what we can get out of him.”

Joe
smacked the table, making the other six men jump smartly. “Democracy in action! Maybe there is hope left for this country after all.” Joe got up from the table. “Since Rick, Larry, Cornbread, and I voted to keep him, whenever Captain White is out among us, one of the four of us will be with him always. Until further notice, he is not to be left alone with anyone. I say we leave him in the jail for the night. It’ll be a lot easier to keep track of him in the daytime. We’ve only got about an hour’s worth of daylight left, and I’ve got shit to do. Tell the next shift that I’ll be on to relieve them in the morning. If Captain White asks anything, tell him we will talk to him in the morning.”

“Let’s
wrap it up for the night, boys,” Larry said, stretching and yawning. “I got a bed callin’ my name.”

“Well,
as much as I’d like to, I’ve got one more thing to discuss,” Joe replied.

A
collective of groans and deep sighs answered him back. “Alright, alright, alright. I apologize, but Rick brought something up today that I think that we ought to consider, especially since we are going to be getting some more information out of Captain White.” Joe remained seated, and leaned back to get all the men in his view. “If we have some unwanted intruders, be it Wyatt or not, we are going to have to expand our operating area. I have put a lot of thought into where we should put them, and both are in well-protected areas.”

“And
where might those be?” Larry asked.

“Bluefield
and Richlands both have National Guard and Reserve units that are located right on Route 460. Larry, I don’t know if you’ve checked out either place…”

“We
haven’t,” answered Larry.

“…
Then we should make it a point to get some people, radios, guns, and some vehicles to each one of ‘em,” Joe continued.

Larry
pushed his hands together and let out a low groan. “As much as I would like for us to have a heads up, I don’t think that we are going to have enough people around here to be able to send out a couple to just sit and wait. We don’t have enough diesel or vehicles to put it in. I’m all for it, but we have to do some serious planning if we want to make this work.”

Joe
held his right hand up. “I have an idea for that as well. Both of the wrecked LMTV’s haven’t been scavenged yet. With any luck, they’ll have some useable fuel left in ‘em.”

Curtis
smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand in a classic
duh
fashion. “I forgot about the one in the tunnel!”

The
group turned and looked at Curtis. “What one in the tunnel?” Joe asked.

Curtis
looked up swiftly. “When Wagner and Mike were pulling their shit, we had three LMTV’s. One of them was left inside the tunnel at the state line. It’s loaded down with a little bit of everything. There’s radios, guns, ammo, and some more diesel. It might not be in the best shape after sitting for so long, but we could at least go see what’s left.”

“Why
didn’t you tell us about this earlier? You got a bad case of CRS, Curtis,” Joe said, laughing.

“CRS?”

Joe laughed harder. “Yeah, CRS. Can’t Remember Shit.”

Curtis
chuckled at his own forgetfulness. “Sorry.”

“
Alright,” Joe said, getting back to the situation at hand. “We’ll go tomorrow morning and take Captain White out for a walk. I’ll go with Curtis and Captain White. I’d like to have at least one other so we can have two to a vehicle.”

“I’ll
go. Captain White won’t try any shit around me. If he does, I’ll knock his goddamned teeth in,” Rick spoke up.

“Good
deal. That’s all I’ve got for tonight,” Joe looked to his cohorts. “Anybody else got anything?” He pointed to each individual man, each one shaking his head
no
. “Alright, fellas. Have a good night; Rick, Curtis, and I will leave out after breakfast tomorrow morning. Larry, it’s your town, so I leave everything else to you.”

“We’ll
hold down the fort. Ya’ll be careful in the morning,” Larry said, getting up and stretching again. “Good night, boys.”

One
by one, each man filed out of the building. When their meeting had ended, the daylight had faded and nighttime was creeping in. The days were getting longer, but were still painfully short for the work that needed done. Crews in town were busy taking care of a little bit of everything. The wall constantly needed repairing, the solar panels needed cleaning, the water needed collecting, the firewood needed gathering; there was never a shortage of things to do.

Jamie
pulled Cornbread off to the side after they finished their impromptu meeting. He waited until the others had passed before he spoke.

“We
still on for tomorrow afternoon?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah,
but I still don’t feel right doin’ this. What if we get caught? What if we get killed out there?” Cornbread leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And what if we actually succeed? How are we gonna explain it to Joe and Larry?”

Jamie
folded his arms and lowered his voice as well. “Let me worry about them. I just need the truck up and running for tomorrow. If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to.”

“I’m
still coming; I just hope this works out the way you planned.”

“It
will. I have to make a run over to my house in the morning, but after that, I’m free. I’ve got to get a few things that I have stashed down in the basement.”

“What
have you got stashed away, Jamie? You got a Howitzer down there?” Rick asked. He had unintentionally eavesdropped on Jamie’s conversation.

Jamie
patted him on the shoulder. “No, just a few things we might need around here.”

“I’m
sure that Larry raided your house already. You did have a shitload of guns and whatnot.”

Jamie
grinned. “Yeah, I figured that he did what he had to, but I’ve got a fireproof safe in the basement with some stuff that’ll come in handy later.”

As
Joe walked to the edge of the building, he slowed as he reached the entrance. He leaned over on an old brick pillar and crossed his arms. He listened for a few moments as he heard the few sounds of nightlife in Tazewell, as well as a few of the guys conversing about something. A dog barked, followed by another. The steady hum of a generator buzzed somewhere. Crickets chirped, a few birds sang, but the chilling moan of a zombie in the wilderness destroyed the general peace of nature. As Joe closed his eyes, he tried to imagine what life was like in Tazewell before the world went to hell. He listened intensely again for a few moments. For a brief few seconds, he was taken back ten years ago to a better time, a civil time. The world was at his fingertips. The only worry was what time he had to be at work in the morning. Joe took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Another sound drew his attention behind him.