The Bloodless (28 page)

CHAPTER 14

Warehouses & A Little Luck
 

              Crowder and Buggs peered out from behind a thicket of bushes at the still-empty warehouse. The android had told them the Bloodless were only a couple minutes out but they had been waiting longer than that. “What could be keeping them,” Crowder wondered aloud.

              “No clue,” Buggs said. “Ambushed. Detour. Who knows?”

              “Maybe they just dropped dead,” Crowder said, vain hope in his voice.

              “Already dead.”

              “You know what I mean. Hey, have you been having troubles with your communicator?” Buggs shook his head. “Mine’s been cutting in and out for a few days now.”

              “Do a reset,” Buggs suggested.

              “That’s a good idea, though I don’t like the fact it’ll be down for several minutes,” Crowder said as he began to shut down the communicator.

              “Better that way. More reliable. Backup?”

              “No, dammit,” Crowder said, “I left it back at my place. Oh shit, what’s that,” he added in a hushed tone as his communicator shut down.

              In the distance a low rumble began to sound and soon hundreds of undead bodies could be seen through the darkness approaching the warehouse. Large groups of the Bloodless began to file into the building through the rear loading bay and as quickly as they showed up, they disappeared into the warehouse. Crowder and Buggs waited for a few minutes to see if anything would happen or if there were any stragglers. However, nothing else happened. In fact, too much nothing happened and that’s what got them worried.

              “This ain’t right,” Buggs said quietly.

              “No, something definitely feels wrong, but kind of familiar at the same time,” Crowder said. They looked at each other for a couple seconds then made identical movements for their weapons, Crowder unholstered his sidearm and Buggs unsheathed his hunting knife.

              Buggs, being more skilled in close quarters combat, eluded the Bloodless grabbing for his neck and plunged his knife deep into its head via the temple. Crowder wasn’t as agile. A Bloodless wrapped its arm around his neck and started to drag him off towards the warehouse where more Bloodless were filing out en masse. Buggs came to Crowder’s aid and liberated the Bloodless’ head from its shoulders. The two men then turned tail and fled in the opposite direction of the horde now stampeding towards them.

              “We should split up,” Crowder yelled as they ran.

              “Why?”

              “It’ll be easier to hide! I’ll contact you as soon as my com comes back up!”

              Buggs nodded and they split up and headed in different directions. Crowder tried to keep an eye on Buggs as they separated and put distance between each other but it became harder as the darkness swallowed him. That’s when something strange happened. As the Bloodless got nearer to where they split up, they all headed in the exact direction Buggs went. This unexpected phenomenon caused Crowder to stop in his tracks. He couldn’t figure out how they knew exactly where to go. The Bloodless didn’t even attempt to go in his direction. Crowder watched as the last of the Bloodless changed direction and then noticed that his communicator had booted back up.

              He looked back in the direction of the Bloodless and his heart skipped a couple beats. The bodies at the back of the group broke off and started right towards Crowder. He knew himself to be out of sight but still they made a bee line for him. He looked down again at his communicator and understanding came to him like water escaping a broken dam. He began to run away from the oncoming Bloodless and held his forearm up to his face. “Buggs,” he yelled, “turn off your communicator! I’ll find you after a while!’

              Crowder shut his communicator down again and made some more sharp turns. Sure enough, the Bloodless that were coming after him became lost and stopped following him. They stood in one spot for a few minutes apparently trying to detect any kind of signal they could but when they ostensibly could not sense anything, they turned and headed back towards the warehouse. Crowder headed back towards where Buggs and he split up and watched as the other Bloodless made their way back to the warehouse as well.

              Several more minutes were allowed to pass before Crowder set off in Buggs’ direction. He felt a little helpless as he knew it would be next to impossible to find Buggs in a densely wooded area in the middle of the night. “Buggs,” he whispered as loud as he could in fear of any Bloodless lingering in the area. He called out a few more times and eventually Buggs answered.”

              “Here,” Buggs said in a normal tone. “They knew. Followed me exactly,” he added as he emerged from his hiding spot.

              “It’s the coms,” Crowder said as he regained his composure. “They’re somehow drawn to the signal.”

              “Electromagnetic.”

              “What,” Crowder said confused.

              “The electromagnetic signal emitted from our communication devices is long wave and in its inception was known to attract a certain amount of attention from simpler creatures. Bloodless’ reconfigured brains must pick up on the signal,” Buggs explained in a tone implying that he always spoke in long, eloquent, knowledge filled sentences.

              Crowder stood looking shocked at Buggs. He had never heard anything that loquacious come out of Buggs’ mouth since he met him. His responses were usually limited to a few words at the most. “Well that’s bad,” he was finally able to say.

              “Yes. Bad.” Buggs was back to his terse responses.

              “So what do we do now?”

              “Warehouse.”

              “Right,” Crowder said, “stick to the original plan. I think we’ll keep our coms off this time, eh?” Buggs nodded his agreement and the two men made their way back towards the now-filled warehouse. The nearer they got, the more time they took to make their approach. Trial and error was not something they had time for, nor firepower. They knew they had to make it count, the only other option being failure followed by death.

              Leaving their communicators off this time around proved to be the missing link in the chain that pulled them closer to the objective at hand. Buggs offered to take the first peek into one of the many large windows on the side of the building. He looked longer than Crowder would’ve dared but it seemed to be just long enough.

              “Nest,” Buggs said.

              “Nest,” Crowder repeated. He didn’t really know what to make of that statement. Buggs did him the favor of elaborating.

              “Bloodless nest.”

              Delayed comprehension forced its way onto Crowder’s consternated face. “They have fucking nests,” he said aghast.

*****

              “Of course they have nests,” I said slapping my palm to my forehead. A few days had passed without hearing from either Crowder or Buggs, but when they finally radioed in with this news, my fear and anger melted away. I’m not sure what took them so long to check back in but I had a feeling they wanted to be wholly sure of what they had discovered before reporting it.

              “It’s not like they are going to sleep in houses!” I couldn’t believe I never thought of that. The Bloodless being attracted to our communicators’ signals was obvious to me as well, though I never really connected the dots on that one. “Good job guys,” I said, my spirits soaring higher than a junkie on a twenty-four hour crack binge. I had to hand it to him, Crowder insisted on staying behind and it paid off enormously. This was vital information and it gave us new life.

              Since we couldn’t continue with our main objective at the time, I decided that we might as well take on a few side jobs. Locating and eliminating these nests was going to be first on the list and I also made a mental note to have Fox adjust our communicators so the signal emits on a different frequency.  I told Crowder and Buggs that I would get in contact with them later for new orders and switched my com to standby. I then readjusted the gun in my other hand and pressed it a little bit closer to the head of the woman kneeled in front of me.

              “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked calmly with just a hint of anger in my voice. I found her hiding out about a hundred yards from my tent. All the trappings of a surveillance job surrounded her; binoculars, cameras, radios, all that good stuff. She didn’t answer right away so I cocked my gun’s hammer and pushed the muzzle a little bit deeper into the thin layer of flesh wrapped around her head. “It might be a good idea to answer me if you would prefer not to see what you skull’s insides look like.”

              “I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing here,” she finally responded, albeit sarcastically.

              “You know what I think,” I said, irritation ringing in my ears, “I think you aren’t exactly in a position to be giving me any sass. Now, who are you and WHY the fuck are you here?”

              “My name is Emma Luck,” She responded.

              “Emma Luck?” I asked skeptically. “That sounds made up.”

              “That’s because it is,” she said. “My parents made it up and gave it to me when I was born.” I had to hold back a chuckle on that one. “I’m here on my own volition. Word about your fight is spreading. I wanted to see it for myself. Gotta be honest here Dan, not that impressive.”

              “We’re not about show,” I said defensively, pulling the gun back a little, “we’re about results. We’re actually getting things done.” Who was this bitch? Coming here and criticizing my operation, our operation? She caught me at a bad time anyway, had she come earlier she would’ve seen the shack, random supplies, and - ah, who am I kidding? It wasn’t the least bit impressive. “What do you want?”

              “I want in,” she said simply.

              “In? You want in?” I lowered the gun.

              “Did I fucking stutter,” Emma said scathingly as she climbed to her feet. “Your team is down one and I figured I could fill that void. You need a weapons specialist, yes?”

              “No,” I lied.

              “Dan, I’ve been following your outfit for a while now, I know you need a weapons specialist.”

              “How long have you been following us?” I asked.

              “Long enough to know you need a weapons specialist,” she answered.

              I stood and looked at her for a few moments. I couldn’t quite get a lock on her and what she was about. She was a tiny thing, pale brown hair and a sallow face, not exactly an imposing figure. I figured she had a death wish or was brain damaged in some way. The look in her eyes told a different story, she seemed stone cold serious and very much sane. Her use of sarcasm was spot on though which is always a good sign.

              “You’re a weapons specialist, huh?” I asked, finally breaking the momentary silence. Emma nodded her head, clearly fighting back a smart-ass retort. “Who did you work for?”

              “United States Armed Forces,” she said, a hint of pride in her response. Something stirred inside my brain, but I didn’t know what it was.

              “What kind of weapons did you design?”

              “The kind that kill people,” she deadpanned.

              “Hm, I thought you would’ve been a good addition,” I said, “but as you know, we already have an asshole on the team and one’s quite enough.” I began to walk away with a smug sense of self- satisfaction teeming over my skin.

              “Wait, wait, wait,” she pleaded, running after me, “you have to let me join. I promise I won’t be an asshole.”

              I turned and looked at her, “Now, is that a promise you can keep?”

              “Okay, okay, I promise to at least keep it to a minimum.” And when I continued to stare at her, “Look, you need me. Those two weapons your friends brought back, I know exactly what they are and what they do. You need me, and I need you.”

              I raised my eyebrows curiously, “You need me?”

              “Not YOU, but what you’re doing,” Emma said.

              “Fine,” I said pushing some reservations I still had down into the pit of my stomach, “you can join but there are a few rules that you WILL follow.” She nodded her head. “This is what I tell everybody who joins. First, you will call me Daniel, I hate the name Dan. I will also accept sir or your majesty. Second, you will follow my orders implicitly. I don’t give pointless orders, it all has a reason and an end goal. Third, you will look out for those around you. We are all accountable for each other, Burns will make sure you never forget that. And fourth, there is no such thing as too much information around here. If you know something, share it.”

              “Oh, well if it’s information you want, then information is the name of my game,” Emma said, her spirits much higher and her speech was very energetic, almost breathless.

              We started walking back towards my tent. I decided I would show her our current situation. “I thought weapons were the name of your game?” I asked.

              “Right, weapons and information. I made a lot of connections in my line of work, they have a lot of information.”