TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story (10 page)

Firing a few more rounds at the guy's torso as he ran forward Beacon paused long enough to put two killing shots into the guy's head and neck before jumping behind a tree. One more to go if his zombie count was correct he thought while listening for movement.

Bull yelled and fired his rifle as a pistol shot rang out. Beacon peered around the tree trunk. Bull was sprawled on his face just a few feet from his two tree refuge. A guy in a red shirt waving a large revolver was running towards Bull.

As he got within spitting distance he fired another round into Bull's back. It happened so fast there was nothing Beacon could do to stop him but Beacon vowed the man in the red shirt would not live to see the sun set.

Keeping trees between himself and red shirt Beacon began quietly walking down the slope in his moccasins towards the excited man who only now seemed to notice that his ambushing buddies weren't answering his war whoops.

Red shirt discovered the man Bull had wounded and Beacon had finished off. Pointing his pistol in front of him red shirt began backing in circles around and around in the clearing.

Beacon stepped out from behind a tree where he'd have a clear shot. As red shirt's turning brought him around to face Beacon the man's eyes widened in surprise as Beacon put a bullet between them.

Well almost. The hollow-point entered his left eye expanding as it continued on into his brain and ricocheted around the inside of the man's skull, coming out through his right eyeball.

Without so much as a twitch the guy toppled over backwards like a falling tree. With two long leaps Beacon was behind another tree crouching down searching with eyes and ears for more zombies.

He couldn't leave Bull. He had to see if the kid was still alive so after a few seconds of deafening silence Beacon ran down to crouch by Bull's still body.

Trying to look in all directions at once Beacon used his sense of touch to find Bull's neck. No pulse at the side of the throat. Beacon jumped back behind a tree.

After a few more minutes of silence birds began to chirp again. Beacon carefully circled around to the trail below where the ambush had occurred. At a soft spot on the trail he counted five sets of footprints. He'd accounted for all the attackers, but so much shooting might have attracted other zombies. He had no time to waste. He followed the footprints up to a point where it was plain to him the men had heard Bull coming down the hill.

The tracks told him they'd spread out in a hasty "L" shaped ambush at the point where he'd found them. The man Bull had killed lay sprawled behind a log across the trail that formed the foot of the "L" with his semi-auto commercial AK-47 in the dirt. Bull's elephant gun had put a bullet through the rotten log and the ambusher.

There was no time to spare, he had to get Bull and the weapons out of there before any zombie reinforcements came to investigate all the gun fire. Beacon scooped up the AK, cleared it and grabbed the three full magazines the man had on him as well as the man's belt and the hunting knife on a sheath hanging from it.

The man Bull had wounded and Beacon had finished off yielded a 12 gauge shotgun about dozen shells and a large butcher knife plus his belt. Red shirt had a hatchet through his belt. Beacon took both plus a pocket knife, the .357 and two dozen rounds in the guy's coat pockets. The screamer had four boxes of twenty-two long rifle ammo and a scoped bolt action Remington rifle.

Beacon put the ammo in his inner pocket of his buckskin jacket keeping it for himself. The man's belt and hunting knife went into the pile that Beacon was building by Bull's body as he went up to search the body of the man he'd shot in the base of the skull. It yielded a battered lever action Winchester 30-30, two dozen or so bullets, a rusty butcher knife and a belt. Beacon put the 30-30 rounds in his pocket for Old Bill.

Beacon started to use the ax to fell two straight twelve foot saplings, but it was too dull, he'd give it to Old Bill to sharpen later. Pulling his Randall from its sheath he chopped the saplings down and lopped the branches off with its seven and a half inch blade.

He took off Bull's coat then refastened it at the neck running the saplings in through the bottom of the coat and out through the neck hole. Arraigning the saplings in a "V" shape he fastened three of the belts together and looped them around the saplings at about the half way point, just below Bull's jacket, to form an "A" with the long thin tops of the saplings sticking out beyond the top of the letter shape. Then using some of his 550 cord and some rope he'd found in one of the ambushers pockets he tied some strands across the opening between the two poles above and below the belts being careful to tie the strands just above the stubs of the hacked off branches

He then refastened Bull's coat and rolled Bull's body into the middle of the "A" frame securing it to the upper frame by lengths of rawhide. The coat and belts together with the cordage formed a sort of net under the body. Tying the top of the two saplings together with one of the belts he now had a travois. He tied the long guns together with the last of the belts and threw them on the travois next to Bull's rifle then stepping between the saplings at the apex of the "A" he lifted it and headed down the trail dragging his load behind.

One of the kids in the watchtower spotted Beacon dragging the dead body up the road and an armed party was sent out to investigate. A runner returned to the fort with the news so virtually the entire population of the fort crowded around as the men laid the travois turned stretcher by additional manpower down in the courtyard.

Maggie couldn't decide whether to grieve for her little brother or accuse Beacon of murdering him. She managed to do a bit of both. Beacon told the assemblage what had happened. Maggie immediately challenged his story. Beacon had anticipated her reaction and had a plan in place to deal with it. He demanded Old Bill and Buck be taken to the scene to investigate. He wanted the question settled and he didn't want a bunch of greenhorns trampling around out there destroying the evidence.

Old Bill rode up to the scene of the ambush wearing a brace of Colt single action Army revolvers in .45 Colt, on a double holster rig which ringed his thin waist with the big cartridges. Across the saddle horn he balanced a Winchester Model 1894 in 30-30 caliber as young Buck walked worshipfully ahead leading the horse. Of course Buck wore a Colt single action Army revolver in a western style leather holster and carried a Winchester 1894 rifle too. Both guns had been given to him by Old Bill on the kid's last birthday much to Maggie's dismay.

Buck was Maggie's other younger brother and now the only family she had left. Buck idolized the old man who was teaching the twelve year old how to be a "real Mountain Man" just like him. Unlike Bull; Buck listened. The two got on famously which made Maggie's blood boil but Buck ignored her pleas and threats and she couldn't stop the kid from hanging out with the old man and run the Sanctuary Settlement at the same time.

When the group got to a point just below the soft spot in the trail Beacon stopped. Old Bill took Buck up on foot to have a look.

"Five of'em." Old Bill announced. Buck nodded, Maggie glowered.

Old Bill had Buck police up two fired brass AK-47 cartridges near the dead man at the log before going on to examine the rest of the scene telling everyone to stay behind the log because he didn't want "You damn fools trampling all over creation!"

Despite the pain in his knees, Old Bill followed the footprints to each of the bodies pointing out sign to Buck along the way and retrieving brass cartridge casings, shotguns hulls, two pocket knives and a can opener Beacon has missed in his haste. At last he motioned to the group at the log. They flooded forward to hear his verdict.

"It happened just like he said," the old man rasped nodding to Beacon. Buck nodded agreement. "They couldn't have seen Bull from where they were when they split up, so they must have heard him a comin' down the trail," he added.

"Bull got that one by shooting through the log" Buck said proud of his departed brother.

"And this one," Beacon added ignoring the fact that he'd finished off the wounded man. Beacon had enough notches on his guns in the eyes of the group and it would assuage Maggie's grief to think her brother had taken two of his killers with him.

"This is the man who shot Bull in the back and killed him," Beacon said pointing to the red shirted body on its back. He started to explain what the other corpses had been doing when he shot them but stopped when he realized everyone was staring into the eyes of the dead man with a tiny bullet hole in each eyeball.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Beacon said patting Maggie's shoulder. She turned away and started crying.

Some of the men started stripping the clothing off the corpses. Beacon noted they left the blood soaked clothes behind. It hadn't gotten to that yet, he mused, but soon every scrap of manufactured cloth would be coveted blood on no.

They piled all the bodies beside the trail and hung a handmade "NO ZOMBIES" sign over them as a warning to others. Only members of the group would know what they meant by "zombies". Beacon hadn't argued against the label Maggie had insisted the group attach to marauders, murderers and looters. He picked his battles and that one hadn't been worth fighting. Besides, the corpses said "Stay Out!" louder than any sign could.

A week had passed and things were back to normal except for Maggie's seething anger at Beacon. The doe was wary. Slowly she took another step forward her ears twitching. Beacon squeezed the Ruger's trigger gently. The little rifle's report had been absorbed by the trees before it traveled a quarter mile. The tiny bullet broke the deer's neck so it was dead when Beacon got to it saving him the trouble of blooding his Randal. He threw the whole carcass over his shoulder. He'd have to hurry back to the fort if he was going to stand his usual shift on guard duty tonight.

The Sanctuary Settlement's gardens and farming activities drew deer like nails to a magnet and Beacon was often hard pressed to keep their numbers down.

There was no need to dress out the deer, once in the fort the intestines would become sausage casings and the rest of the innards would be turned into something useful even if it was only food for the dogs. Old Bill was still teaching the women of the fort how to use every scrap of hoof an' hide in preparation for the day when pre blowup supplies ran out.

They were closing the gates as he approached in his buckskins and moccasins with the dead deer. After dinner he took the dark to midnight shift in the watchtower while Old Bill and the women finished butchering the deer.

The shifts were supposed to be rotated but Beacon had traded all his day shifts to others all too eager to be free in the evenings when the fort's social activities took place. Eventually the watch captain just started assigning him the shift he wanted and no one complained.

There was a full moon this evening so it wasn't hard for Beacon to watch the cleared area around the fort. Boredom was giving way to sleepiness as he neared the end of his shift and awaited his relief.

Gail

The gray wolves fur of his coat made Beacon nearly invisible against the gloom as he stood watch in the tower. Beacon's gaze swept past the corral, which was on what was usually the downwind side of the fort, seeing once again the rolling pasture in the moonlight. As he turned to the plowed fields he noticed a small figure crouched at the edge of the turnip field.

He carried his M1A rifle when in the guard tower for several reasons. First unlike the diminutive pop of the 10/22 the loud report of the M1A's 7.62 mm rounds would wake up the fort's inhabitants if he needed to raise an alarm. Not to mention the rifle's .308 caliber bullet instantly stopped every man sized target it hit center mass.

Secondly the large light gathering objective lens on the telescopic sight coupled with the scope's magnification enhanced his night seeing ability. It didn't hurt that he didn't have to carry the twelve pound rifle/scope/magazine combination around much in the watchtower.

Through the scope the figure in the crosshairs looked like a skinny child in a dark canvas duster and Stetson. Technically the kid was a looter and he was supposed to shoot looters, but Beacon didn't take his weapon off of safe as the figure limped back to the tree line clutching a few tiny turnips. The kid had only one shoe and the resulting limp prevented Beacon from determining the figure's gender from its stride. The figure looked anxiously back down the trail towards the valley as it disappeared into the trees.

Beacon pulled back the edge of the cuff on his wolves' fir jacket and glanced at his diamond encrusted self-winding gold watch. His relief was due. He decided to investigate.

A few minutes later Beacon heard his relief shambling up to the watchtower's ladder. Telling the man he'd be going hunting in a few minutes Beacon hurried to the trailer he shared with Old Bill and exchanged the M1A and its magazine laden vest for the Ruger 10/22; putting a few twenty-five round "banana clip" magazines in the inner pockets of his wolves skin coat he headed out the door with his escape rope before Old Bill could awaken and question him.