The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel (24 page)

Luckily, I didn’t have to find out. The doorway came and went and there was no thunder of large-caliber death along the way. I stomped angrily toward the main gate, head down, stride determined. Behind me, I heard Travis scramble after me.

“I told you to stop!”

“I told you to go fuck yourself.”

“Jerry, don’t let him out of the gate.”

The guard who had been so kind to me earlier obeyed immediately and aimed his rifle at my chest. I stopped. “What the fuck, Jerry?”

“Just doin’ my job, kid.”

Footsteps crunched behind me, then stopped. “Listen,” Travis said. “Just calm down, okay? There’s no need for this to go any further. Just let me search your pack. If you’re telling the truth, this whole thing will be over with and you’ll be free to go.”

I looked around and saw people begin to emerge from campers and stand up from seats in the shade. They wandered closer, eyes wide, no doubt wondering what all the excitement was about. Slowly, I turned and faced Travis, once again forced to squint against the sun’s glare. Shading my eyes with my right hand, I could see his pistol was holstered, but his fingers dangled close to the grip, the retaining strap unbuttoned.

Slimy son of a bitch.

“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, kid,” he said. “Drop the bag.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

My right ear didn’t itch, but I reached up with my left hand and scratched it anyway.

I expected Mike to shoot Travis first.

What I failed to consider was how the situation looked from his perspective, staring through the Leupold scope mounted to his M1A rifle over a hundred yards away. As overwatch, his priority would be to eliminate the most egregious threat first—Jerry, in this case.

At that range, the impact came barely a fraction of a second before the report. The 7.62mm projectile, traveling at over 2500 feet per second, hit its target with a sharp metallic
THWACK
. 

I had a scant moment to think,
Thwack
?

There should have been a meaty
WHAP
, followed by a gurgling scream, the sound of a body collapsing, and limbs thrashing in the dirt. Instead, there was a startled cry from Jerry and the sound of a large piece of metal being dropped.

Things happened quickly after that.

In the lightning rapidity of thought, I realized Mike had directed his fire at Jerry first, but whether or not he had killed him, I had no idea. Something told me he had not, but I doubted Mike would have left him in any condition to be a threat to me either. I did not dare look over my shoulder to find out, however, because I was too busy charging headlong at Travis.

One of the many lessons my father taught me about unarmed combat is the Twenty-One Foot Rule. It goes like this: If a man is standing twenty-one feet away from you, and you have a holstered sidearm, in most cases, the attacker will be able to reach you before you can draw your weapon. I did not believe my father when he first told me this, so we did an experiment. He had me wear a holstered training pistol, took up a rubber knife, backed off exactly twenty-one feet, and told me to try to draw my weapon and aim it at him before he could get his hands on me.

After the sixth time he put the tip of the little rubber knife to my throat before I could clear my pistol, I finally believed him.

Travis had a bit of an advantage: the retaining strap that normally kept his pistol from bouncing out of its holster was not buttoned down. However, when the report reached his ears—shockingly loud in the quiet of the burned-out barrens—he whipped his head in the direction of the shot.

It was all the encouragement I needed.

There were less than twenty-one feet between us, maybe twelve at the most. I covered the distance in three long strides. By the time Travis recovered and began to reach for his weapon, it was too late.

One hand grabbed his wrist and pushed it away from his sidearm while the other covered his face, blinding him, wrenching his head backward and pushing him off balance. After forcing him back two steps, I reared back with my right leg and brought a knee into his solar plexus with all the strength I could muster. The strike hit with enormous force, driving the air from his lungs in an agonized
whoosh
. He doubled over, gun forgotten, a high-pitched gasp peeling from his throat as he tried to pull air into his chest cavity.

The key to victory, once you have your opponent hurt, is to be relentless, to never let up, to hit them again, and again, and again, until they go down and do not get back up. The principle of continuous attack.

The next blow was an elbow strike to the temple. It turned his legs to rubber and made his eyes roll around independent of one another like a goggle-eyed lizard. I followed the elbow up with a spinning back fist to the jaw that spun him around, but amazingly, he kept his feet.

Tough son of a bitch
.

When his back was turned to me, I stomped the crease of his knee, forcing him to the ground. He immediately tried to stand up, but again, I was on him too quickly. With the fingers of my left hand curled into a half fist, I slammed the edge of my palm into his brachial nerve once, twice, three times. On the fourth, he went down limply and did not move.

Not wasting any time, I yanked his gun from its holster and brought it up to the low ready position. The sights tracked first to the left, then right, following my line of vision. I kept my finger tight on the trigger, taking in some of the slack. I expected to see a crowd of people staring at me, maybe a mixture of shock and anger, some of them standing open-mouthed, some of them going for weapons. Instead, all of them, including Jerry, who clutched a bleeding left forearm, gaped southward at a rising plume of dust stretching skyward and approaching rapidly.

“What the hell?”

I lowered the weapon and looked around again. No one was paying me any attention. I took a few deep breaths and cleared my thoughts, focusing on my senses. The first thing that came to me was the rumble of vehicles, lots of them, diesel engines, the hum of tires, and a rapid, metallic clattering.

Treads.

Which meant … what? Tanks? Bulldozers?

Shit.

I looked up again and saw dozens of black plumes, exhaust stacks. As the noise of them closed the distance to the compound, I heard the engines begin to ratchet down, the grinding and grunting of big transmissions downshifting as they slowly came to a halt.

Calmly, so as not to draw attention to myself, I walked toward my carbine and pistol. They lay on the ground near Jerry where I last saw them. I was a few feet away before he noticed me. When he saw me coming, he tried to step in my way.

“Hey,” he said.

I raised the pistol. “Jerry, you do not want to fuck with me right now.”

He paled. “Okay.”

“Step away, Jerry.”

He did, four steps. I motioned with my free hand for him to keep going. When he had gone far enough, I stooped to pick up my rifle, still pointing Travis’ gun at him, then retrieved my Beretta. Once I had my gear sorted out, I lowered the pistol and motioned Jerry over. He complied, warily coming to a halt a few feet in front of me. I dropped the mag from Travis’s gun, cleared the chamber, and thumbed out the remaining six rounds. They made little puffs in the dust as they fell to the ground. That done, I tossed the whole works at Jerry’s feet. He was not bleeding too badly, telling me Mike must have shot his weapon out of his hand. The cuts were undoubtedly from shrapnel.

“I’m sorry about all this,” I said. “But Travis had no right to search my things. He may have been a cop once, but he isn’t any more. He has no jurisdiction here, or anywhere else for that matter. If he had just let me go on my way, none of this,” I pointed first to Jerry’s wounded arm, then to Travis’ still prone form, “would have happened.”

“I’ll tell him that when he comes around,” Jerry said drily. “Don’t think it’ll make much difference, though.”

“What about you, Jerry? Are you all right?”

“My fucking arm hurts.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m not terribly sympathetic. You were pointing a rifle at my chest, after all. And besides, it could have been worse. A lot worse.”

Jerry cast a nervous eye in the direction the shot had come from. “Who the hell was that, anyway?”

“A friend of mine.”

“What is he, a sniper or something?”

“Something like that.”

Jerry looked back at me, eyes wide around the edges. “He could have killed me.”

“Is that a realization, or a question?”

“He still out there?”

“I imagine so.”

He held up his hands and backed away. “Tell me something, kid. Why do you need a sniper watching this place if all you wanted was some water?”

I leapt up on the Cadillac at the gate and casually strode across its hood. “Insurance, Jerry. It’s a dangerous world we live in.”

*****

There were thirty vehicles in the convoy.

Most of them were the wheeled variety, but there was one Abrams tank, a couple of mobile Howitzers, and four Bradley fighting vehicles. I also counted eight Humvees, six M35 deuce-and-a-halfs, five armored personnel carriers, and four HEMTT cargo trucks. The line of vehicles came to a halt in front of the settlement’s main gate as I turned southward and began walking down Highway 281.

The plan was to stroll casually by and turn left at the southeast corner of the wall. I saw no reason why the Army, or Marines, or whoever it was would be interested in a lone traveler, even a well-armed one. This was Texas, after all, where firearms were as common as cowboy hats.

So when a Humvee’s passenger door opened a few feet away and a soldier spilled out, carbine trained in my direction, shouting at me to get my fucking hands in the air
now
, I froze in genuine shock.

“I said get your goddamn hands up!” he yelled when I didn’t move. Slowly, I did as ordered.

“Turn away from me.” The soldier said. I tried to read his nametag, but his arms covered it.

“What’s this about?” I asked. “Why are you-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” he screamed, going red in the face. “Turn around now!”

“Johansen,” a sharp voice said to my right. I turned to see who had spoken and saw a man in fatigues approaching. He had a captain’s insignia on his uniform. “Lower that weapon right now.” 

“He’s armed, sir.” The soldier, Johansen, said.

“Yes, and if I were in his place, I would be too. Now lower your weapon, Sergeant.”

Johansen complied, glaring daggers at me. The captain stepped closer and reached out a hand. “Sorry about that. The sergeant here is a little overzealous at times.”

I shook the offered hand, not taking my eyes off Johansen. “You don’t say.”

Johansen’s already red face darkened. Beside me, the captain said, “Name’s Morgan. Insert joke here.”

It was inappropriate, but I chuckled, finally looking away from Johansen. “Captain Morgan?”

The officer smiled. “Yep. I’m a real hit at parties.”

“You a deserter?” Johansen growled.

I looked back at him. “What?”

“How’d you know he’s a captain? He never identified his rank.”

I pointed. “It’s right there on his uniform.”

“How do you know what a captain’s bars look like?”

“My old man was in the Army.”

“Mmm-hmm. And where did you get that M-4?”

I looked down. “It was a gift.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Morgan asked.

I handed it to him. He glanced at the manufacturer’s stamp, then handed it back. “Rock River Arms. I hear they make good stuff.” He shot a pointed glance at Johansen, who looked crestfallen. If the gun had been made by Colt, it would have looked bad for me. I was in Army surplus tactical gear, after all, and was old enough to have enlisted in the Armed Services. But Rock River Arms did not make M-4s for the military, that was Colt’s job, thus invalidating Johansen’s suspicions.

The sound of doors opening and boots hitting the ground echoed around us. I glanced up and down the convoy to see soldiers exiting vehicles and starting the process of setting up a perimeter. A few of them started heading in our direction, no doubt intent on speaking with the captain.

“Are you in charge of all these guys?” I asked.

Morgan’s expression sobered. “Sadly, yes. We’re a bit of a rag-tag contingent, you might say. Came up from San Antonio, what’s left of it, anyway. Where are you from?”

“Houston, originally,” I said, seeing no point in lying. “Not much left there either.”

“So I heard.”

“How bad did San Antonio get hit?” I didn’t think it was a good idea to let on that I already knew, considering the hijinks my father and the other guys got into less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Bad. We were part of a larger force along Highway 46. Tried to keep the infected from spreading north.” He shook his head. “Didn’t last long. What you see here is a big chunk of what survived.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He nodded, eyes fixed in the distance. “After the retreat, we got orders to head north to Colorado Springs. Supposed to look for survivors along the way, ask them to come with us, render what assistance we can. Can you tell me anything about this place?” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the wall of RVs.

I thought of Jerry’s wounded arm, and Travis’ prone form just inside the gate, and wondered how to play it. After a few seconds, I said. “My best advice is to watch yourself around these people.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I came here to trade some ammo for water. Things were friendly enough at first, but then the guy who runs the place tried to shake me down. Said he used to be a cop, wanted to search my stuff. I told him to go fuck himself and went to leave, and he had one of his guards draw down on me. I got a buddy out there with a scoped .308 watching over me. He shot the gun out of the guy’s hands while I used the distraction to deal with the leader. I was just leaving when you guys showed up.”

“I’m sorry,” Morgan said, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Did you say there’s a sniper in the hills?”

“Yep. Marine Force Recon, old friend of my father’s. We’ve been traveling together since Houston, looking out for each other. Figured it would be best for him to hang back in case these people weren’t as nice as they seemed. Turned out to be a good idea.”