Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (15 page)

A few people absently nodded their heads, eyes staring off into space. Gabe heaved a deep sigh before continuing, his tone gruff and to the point.

“You don’t need me to tell you about Russell and Blankenship, about what kind of people they were. You all knew them better than I did. They were good soldiers, and they died protecting the place they called home. If there is a more honorable thing for someone to give their life for, I don’t know what it is. The best thing we can do for them now is to remember them for their courage, and honor their sacrifice by making sure that they did not die in vain.”

The recruits focused on him now, paying attention. I saw Sanchez and Flannigan seated next to each other, hard expressions sharpening their youthful faces. I couldn’t tell for sure, but by the angle of their arms, it looked like they might have been holding hands.

“As much as I know we’re all hurting right now,” Gabe continued, “and as much as I know you don’t want to hear this, it needs to be said: The Legion is still out there. We dealt them a blow today, but they’re not done yet. Not by a long shot.”

There was a pause while he let that sink in.

“I want you to remember this day,” he went on. “I want you to remember the way you feel right now, and I want you to remember the sacrifice that those two made to defend the people they swore to protect. I want you to remember that it was the Free Legion who brought this on us with their stupidity, and their belligerence. I want you to remember that this fight isn’t over yet, and that this town, these people here who have worked so hard to make Hollow Rock a good place to live, still need you. I still need you.”

Gabe looked out over the faces staring back at him, and met their eyes. More than a few of them raised hands to brush at their cheeks, while others simply sat still, stiff with suppressed rage.

“We’re all going to need a little time to get ourselves together,” Gabe said. “I’m giving all of you three days’ leave. Go see your families, visit your friends, do whatever you need to do. If any of you don’t want to report for training on Thursday, I won’t think any less of you for it. And if you need to talk to someone about what happened today, a shoulder to lean on, or just somebody to listen, I encourage you to do so. You all know where I live, and my door is always open. Don’t hesitate to walk through it.”

With that, he stepped down and walked out the front door. The militia followed him, and dispersed toward their respective homes in silence. I thought about following Gabe, but decided against it. He needed some time to himself, and for that matter, so did I.

*****

A bottle of Mike Stall’s homemade hooch sat on the table in front of me, the cork still wedged firmly into the neck. There was a corkscrew under my palm. The metal was cold against my skin, and I was seriously considering putting it to hard use. It had been weeks since the last time I had gotten drunk, and if there was ever a good time to break the streak, today was it.

I thought about Grayson Morrow’s terrified face, and the tremor in his voice as he begged me not to kill him. I thought about the LAW rocket that had laid waste to three lives in less time than it takes to blink, and the odd giddiness I felt when the explosion hit me in the gut. I thought about the screams of all the Legion troops I had wounded, and the way the trigger felt beneath my finger when I shot the men who tried to rescue them. Their faces, and the faces of many others, hyper-magnified through the lens of a scope, stared at me every time I closed my eyes, agonized and accusing.

Before I realized what I was doing, the cork was out of the bottle and a splash of clear liquor spilled into the glass in my hand. It went down hot and angry, and blazed into a pool of fire in my gut that slowly, ever so slowly, eroded my waking thoughts until, with barely an inch of liquid left standing from the bottom, I stumbled out of my boots and into bed.

I didn’t dream that night, but dreams are patient things. They are always there, silent, waiting, and unswayable in their determination to tear at our minds with their claws. And dreams, much like hangovers, don’t create themselves, but are a function of consequence, created by our own folly, hubris, and cowardice in the face of our darker natures. As strong as I sometimes fool myself into thinking that I am, and as much as I wish I could be, I am no more immune to these things than anyone else.

Part II

Know your enemy; know his sword
.

-Miyamoto Musashi

The Book of Five Rings

As I walked home, I thought about Sadr City. The memories of that place, like all my memories, stood out as stark and clear as the day they happened.

The insurgents there had numbers, but they were outgunned, out-skilled, and facing the most advanced military force on the planet. We had weapons at our disposal against which they had no defenses. We had virtually unlimited resources of firepower, communications, aircraft, artillery, and armored cavalry. We occupied the streets of their cities, we lived in the battle zone, and we hunted them down and killed them where they lived.

Muqtada al-Sadr—that fat piece of shit—sent wave after wave of his Mahdi street rats after us and, time after time, we burned the bastards down. It was only after we had wiped out nearly his entire homegrown army that he finally decided to sit down at the bargaining table with Coalition leadership and put an end to that chapter of the war in Iraq.

No one left to die for him, his political allies running for the door, facing the prospect of being on the wrong end of a drone strike, and the fucker finally capitulates.

Imagine that.

I had a feeling things weren’t going to be any better with the Legion.

The steps of the front porch groaned under my weight when I stepped on them, as though sensing how I was feeling at the moment. When I went into the cold, empty living room, there was no light inside. I followed the silver luminescence of moonlight until I found the kitchen, lit a single candle, poured myself a strong drink, and sat down in the silence. Alone.

My ears were still ringing from the LAWs I had fired, the right side of my face was stinging from shrapnel that had blasted into it at some point, and my shoulder was sore from the repeated recoil of my SCAR. I rubbed the bruised skin on that side, and reminded myself to chase down Sanchez tomorrow and get my rifle back. If anything happened to it, I was going to hand him his ass on a plate.

Right after I asked Grabovsky to put him in for a Bronze Star, that is.

Flannigan, too.

Out the window, the last cobalt bands of the daytime sky were darkening into black, and the crescent sliver of the moon shone bright against a cloudless sky. It was cold enough in my little house to see my breath in the air. Not wanting to wake up freezing my ass off, I stepped out the back door to gather up a bundle of firewood, brought it inside, and got to work starting a fire.
Not for the first time, I wished my kitchen was big enough to push my bed into so that I could sleep closer to the heat of the stove.

Squatting there, hands in front of the flames trying to work some feeling back into my fingers, I heard footsteps crunching up the gravel drive. By the tread, and the cadence of the steps, I had a pretty good idea who it was. When the knock at the door came, I didn’t move.

Go away, woman
.

The knock came again, more insistent this time.

“I know you’re in there, Gabe. Please, I just want to talk.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers and squinted, feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on. Taking my time, I popped a prescription-strength Motrin big enough to choke an elephant, washed it down with a shot of booze, and opened the door.

“Can I come in?”

I stepped back and held out an arm toward the couch. She stepped inside, shut the door, and stood close in front of me, looking up at my face. Her hands reached out and curled around mine, drawing me closer.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her eyes shining in the dim light. “I would have sent help, but everything happened too fast. There wasn’t time …”

“There was nothing you could have done.” 

“I know, but … I just feel terrible.”

Where normally she looked poised and collected, at that moment, she just looked miserable. As much as I wanted to be angry, standing there in that quiet room with that handsome, frightened woman, my irritation bled out of me and left me feeling empty. I sighed through my nose and shook my head.

“This isn’t your fault, Liz,” I said. “None of it.”

My fingers cupped her chin, and I kissed her gently. “You’re doing the best you can, same as everybody else. It’s the Legion that did this to us. Not you, not me, not anyone else in this town—the Legion. Don’t forget that.”

Her arms went around my waist and she squeezed, her head buried in my chest. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t want her there, didn’t need her, that I just wanted to be alone. But my arms—traitors that they are—encircled her shoulders and squeezed back. I smelled the homemade soap she washed her hair with, and leaned my cheek against the top of her head, closing my eyes to breathe it in.

She could have had her pick of any man in town, single, married or otherwise. Hell, there were even a few women she could have chosen from. Instead, she had chosen me. A tattered, war-weary man in his early forties who was old enough to know better than to get mixed up with her, but still young enough to find it exciting. Added to that, I was not one of her citizens, not one of her voters, not one of the people she was responsible for governing. I was an outsider, and when my business here was finished, I would quite literally be packing my bags and moving on. Any problems our liaison created for her would be wiped away the moment my shadow darkened the north gate for the last time.

Up until that point, I had thought that the mayor only wanted two things from me: the destruction of the Legion, and a warm body to hop in bed with. Now, I was beginning to wonder.

We stood there holding each other for a while, rocking gently, until my aching knees reminded me that not only was I getting older, but that I had put my body through a lot that day and I needed to rest.

“Come on,” I said, taking Liz’s hand and leading her into the kitchen. “My everything hurts. I need to sit down.”

She smiled, and followed me.

We sat by the stove in silence, enjoying the warmth and taking comfort in having each other close by. I made tea for her, poured another whiskey for myself, and watched her as my eyes adjusted to the dark, the heat from the stove slowly radiating throughout the room. She sat a little too still, her shoulders a little too tense, and in her eyes, I caught a trace of hidden unease.

“Something on your mind?” I asked.

She sipped her tea and looked away before responding. “You’re going to be debriefing with General Jacobs tomorrow, right?”

I nodded.

“I know it’s probably a bad time, but I was hoping you could tell me what happened out there.”

She saw my eyes narrow, and quickly reached out a hand to cover mine. “Look, Gabe, I’m sorry about what happened today, but I need information. I’m the mayor of this town, and if I’m going to do my job, then I need to know what this fight cost us today, and how badly we hurt the Legion. You’re the first person in forever to fight them up close.”

I sighed, and felt the headache get a little worse. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell me,” she said, her dark eyes growing serious. “How many of them were there? What were they armed with? Did they have vehicles or horses? Were they all men, or were there women, too? Did you overhear them saying anything to each other?”

I got the picture and held up a hand. “Okay, okay. You need something to write with?”

She nodded. I got her a notepad and a pencil, poured another shot, and sat back down at the table.

“Okay, anything you remember. No detail is too minute, tell me all of it.”

So I told her.

All of it.

From the chatter of the fifty-cal that was the harbinger of my shitty day, to standing rear guard and gunning down infected as the last few wagons passed through the gate. When I had finished, several pieces of paper lay on the desk, written on front and back, and Liz was massaging the muscles of her palm.

“I haven’t heard a story like that since David got back from the war,” she said.

“David was your husband?”

She nodded. “He was in Nashville on a golf weekend with some of his old Army buddies when the Outbreak hit. The last I heard from him, the infected had cut him off from coming home, and he was leading a small group of people north into Kentucky.”

“Nothing since?”

She shook her head and looked down at her hands. I reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry.”