The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel (28 page)

“Come on,” Dad said, shaking my arm. “Spear practice.”

I sat up and blinked against the early light of dawn. To the east, the sun was an angry scarlet eye peeking over the hills in the distance. Low banks of clouds rolled overhead in varying shades of red, orange, pale yellow, and finally blue that darkened to steel gray in the west. The air was cool, but heavy with humidity and the promise of higher temperatures to come.

Sophia had rolled away from me in the night and lay curled up under her thin blanket. I brushed the hair from her face and kissed her cheek. She stirred, sighed, and smiled. I kissed her again before I left.

Dad had set up a fast-rope descent to the parking lot. When I arrived, he slid down it like the practiced expert he was, then tossed his harness up to me. Although I was quite a bit taller than him, we were about the same through the hips. The harness fit me just fine. I repeated the process, albeit without quite the same grace and fluidity.

The bucket-equipped HEMTT was already on site, breaking the infected’s bodies by crushing them, then scraping them into a pile in the middle of the pavement. It was gruesome work, but effective. The parking lot was almost clear. Two Bradleys circled the operation, big chain-guns aimed at the thicker knots of undead.

“Let’s find someplace a bit more peaceful,” Dad said. I nodded in agreement and followed him to one of the Humvees. We drove back to 281 and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel where the rest of the soldiers and civilians had spent the night. Evidently, none of them were awake yet except for the guards on patrol. The place was quiet, only a few bleary-eyed troops and roving vehicles on hand to disturb the early morning silence.

Dad pulled around the back of the building near the service entrance where there was a narrow stretch of cracked asphalt, a half-full dumpster, silent AC units, and not much else. To our right was an expanse of slightly overgrown lawn roughly two acres wide.

“Looks like a good spot,” I said. Dad agreed. He drove the Humvee over the curb, parked, and got out.

The old man—who really was not old at all—opened the back so I could crawl inside and dig out our two rubber-tipped practice spears. When I tossed him his full-length faux weapon, he caught it one handed, spun it deftly around his body, and assumed a fighting stance, knees slightly bent, haft close to his hips, rubber tip pointed in my direction.

My own weapon was only half as long, the handle shortened to my specifications. The blade on the end of mine was wider, heavier, and longer than the one my father wielded, although also formed of the same vulcanized rubber. I held it with my hand choked near the blade, the bulk of the handle protruding over my shoulder. In the years since I’d developed this unique fighting style, Dad had never quite sorted out all my tricks.

“You’re too traditional,” I said for the umpteenth time as we circled each other. “Too stiff. You need to innovate.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” he said, a determined look on his face. “I’ll figure you out yet.”

“Why are we still fighting with spears anyway?” I asked. “Wouldn’t knives or machetes make more sense?”

The answer was predictable; I had heard it a thousand times. “Spears were the infantry rifle of the ancient world,” he said. “You’ve probably read volumes about swords, but the truth is spears were the deciding factor in countless battles throughout history. They’re easy to forge, durable, and extend a warrior’s reach by meters without requiring an undue amount of resources to manufacture. Swords, axes, and maces are pretty to look at, but spears, halberds, and billhooks were the preferred weapons of the soldiers of old. And with good reason.”

I nodded along, too tired to argue the merits of modern weapons over ancient. “All right then. Let’s see what you got.”

I barely had time to dodge the tip of his weapon as it whipped past my head. One second my father was standing twelve feet away, and the next he had closed the distance, his spear extended in a two-handed grip. Dad was many things, but slow was not one of them.

Fortunately for me, my boxing coach always insisted I learn and practice the fundamentals of head movement. It is less about being fast than it is about understanding body mechanics, watching your opponent, and knowing where the next attack is coming from. My dad was a competent boxer, among other fighting styles, but he did not start as early as I did. The muscle memory was not as deeply ingrained in him as it was in me. So when he swept the spear to the side after missing with the initial thrust, I had already ducked it and circled away.

“Nice,” he said, grinning. He adjusted his footwork and began closing in on my right. I switched my spear to the other side, having long ago learned the value of being able to fight with either hand.

Keeping my head low and my feet moving, I harassed him with eerie-looking over-the-shoulder thrusts with my spear’s shortened handle, aimed at batting his weapon aside.

“How the hell do you do that?” he muttered, backing off. “It’s like you have a scorpion tail or some shit.”

Rather than answer, I used the distraction to aim a kick at the mid-point of his spear shaft, closed the distance, whipped my weapon forward, and let it slide through my hand. When I felt the slightly flared pommel hit the edge of my palm, I ducked, leapt forward, switched hands, and rolled to my right.

As expected, my father predicted the kick and the thrust, and was ready with a counter-attack. He let his arms go limp to absorb the blow to the spear, executed a spin move like a dancer’s pirouette, and slashed at the spot where my head should have been.

But I wasn’t there.

Instead, the last second dive-and-roll had allowed me to pop up behind him and gently press the blunted rubber edge of my practice spear to his kidney. “Checkmate,” I said.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” he said, smiling over his shoulder. “It’s the last time you’ll get away with it.”

He whipped his spear through a blurring figure-eight motion, nearly knocking my weapon out of my hands and forcing me back a few steps. He pressed the attack, the wooden hafts of our spears clacking loudly against one another. Seven moves later I lay on my back, disarmed, the point of my father’s practice weapon aimed at my throat.

“Okay,” I chuckled. “Point taken.”

“No pun intended?” He helped me to my feet, smiling broadly.

We faced each other, bowed, and set to in earnest.

No more messing around.

An hour later, we had fought twenty bouts. I won nine. Two were a draw. That put us even. Dad called a halt to the action, leaning heavily on his spear, breath coming quickly. I tossed my weapon to the ground and put my hands on my knees. There was a swelling over Dad’s right eye where I had caught him with an elbow in an attempt to knock him off balance. It didn’t work, and he had skewered me in the ribs for my trouble. The attack left a bruise under my arm I would feel for a week. Other than that, a few minor scrapes aside, we were uninjured.

“You’re getting better,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just slowing down.”

I stood up and stretched, feeling a few vertebrae pop back into place. “If this is what you look like slow,” I said, “I’d hate to have fought you in your prime.”

We both jumped when we heard clapping behind us. Spinning around, I spotted Morgan standing on a second-floor balcony, applauding.

“Nice work, fellas,” he called down. “That was some hard-core kung fu shit. The hell did you learn how to do that?”

I smiled and was about to say something witty, but then I caught my father’s disapproving glare from the corner of my eye. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, irritation in his voice.

Morgan held up his hands. “Sorry, man, didn’t mean to snoop. The clickity-clacking woke me up. Came outside to see what the noise was all about.”

Dad glared a moment longer, then motioned for me to get in the Humvee. “Come on. Let’s go check on the others.”

I gave Morgan an apologetic shrug, then followed.

“What was that all about?” I asked as we drove away. In response, rather than driving toward the brewery, Dad pulled down a side street and stopped. He left the engine running, the air conditioner laboring against the increasing temperature outside.

“Caleb, there are a few facts of life you need to understand,” he said. “Things I’ve never discussed with you because I didn’t think it would be necessary.”

“Okay,” I said warily. “Like what?”

Dad breathed out through his nose, staring frustratedly out the window. I thought about Lauren, and the trouble he’d been having with her, the tension and arguments and distance between them, and my heart went out to him.

“Dad,” I said gently. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

He kept his gaze averted for a while, then said, “Caleb, you don’t understand who and what you are. What you represent. What you’re capable of.”

“Okay …”

He reached out and closed his calloused fingers over my forearm with a grip like iron. My father was not a big man, but his strength was a force of nature, muscles hard as oak rippling under sun-browned skin.

“All the training you’ve had,” he said, “the skills you’ve learned … it’s rare, Caleb. It makes you dangerous. People like us, people who can do the things we can do, we’re going to be in high demand very soon. There will be factions vying to round up as many of us as they can get their hands on. The world we knew is over, now. A new world is being born, and it is going to be a dark and violent place. There are people out there who will try to use you if they can. You can’t let them. Never let anyone know what you can do, Caleb. People will try to make a tool out of you. Bend you to their will. If they can’t win you over with charm, they’ll find some leverage, some way to hurt you. They will try to own you. Believe me, son. I know.”

I stared at him for a long time, saying nothing. I had always known my upbringing was unique; the training I had received from Dad, Mike, Blake and Tyrel was something most people never experienced. But it had never dawned on me until that moment just how different it made me. How dangerous.

I had been trained from the age of five to be a super soldier.

I could shoot as well as any Special Forces operator. I was as good a sniper as anything the Marine Corps had ever produced. I had trained for over ten years in jiu jitsu, boxing, wrestling, krav maga, and various weapons styles. Room entries and cover and concealment and combat tactics were as familiar to me as tying my shoes. Not to mention my knowledge of fieldcraft, lock picking, explosives, and a host of other skills.

If I were looking for someone to exploit, I’d be pretty damned high on my list.

Dad saw understanding register on my face and let go of my forearm. “Do you see now, son? You have to be careful. Never reveal more about yourself than absolutely necessary. Do what you have to do to stay alive, but tell no one about your past. Understood?”

“All right,” I said. “I get it, Dad. I really do.”

He stared at me searchingly, and after a few seconds he said, “I believe you.”

The morning sun was bright over his shoulder when I looked at him. “Really?”

“Yes. Because I know you, son, and I can read you like a book.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice.

“And I can see how scared you are.”

Where highways 281 and 290 came together outside of Austin, the northbound lanes were a snarled mess of cars and corpses.

When the people fleeing the capital of Texas realized they weren’t getting anywhere, they jumped the median and tried to use the southbound lanes to escape. The result was a wide, stalled parking lot that spilled out onto the shoulder for dozens of yards in every direction. At some point the infected had shown up, and it was all over but the dying.

I was out on point with Dad, Mike, Blake, and a couple of combat engineers when we made the discovery. Tyrel had stayed behind due to his injuries, along with Sophia, Lauren, Lance, and Lola.

Morgan had decided the best use of our skills was to have us scout the way ahead. We surveyed the scene, then radioed back to the convoy. One of Morgan’s senior sergeants acknowledged and told us to stand by. Shortly thereafter, the Bradleys, a couple of HEMTTs, and the Abrams showed up, along with a dozen troops in a deuce-and-a-half in case infantry support was needed.

After they arrived, Morgan got on the radio and asked us to draw away as many infected as we could while his people worked to clear the road. The rest of the day consisted of my group off-roading in our Humvees and leading the undead around in circles while the troops dragged dead bodies from vehicles, put transmissions in neutral, and stood clear as the heavy armor pushed wrecks aside.

By nightfall, we had made it all of thirty miles and the infected had bitten four troops. But we had reached a point where we could use side roads to parallel the highway, which would make for faster transit. Despite the long, hot hours the convoy had just endured, Captain Morgan elected to press on a few hours into the night.

Tired as we were, no one argued. The moans of the San Antonio horde were close enough to carry to us on the wind.

The four bitten soldiers were kept under observation in the back of a truck for a couple of hours until it became clear their condition would not improve. When the medics gave their final diagnosis, Morgan ordered the convoy to a halt and the men were led out of sight under heavy guard. Three of them looked resigned to their fate, stumbling along and convulsing in the throes of their infection. The fourth, however, struggled and screamed and kicked and begged his brothers in arms to let him go, to let him run for it and take his chances. His words fell on deaf ears.

His voice sounded familiar, so before he was out of sight, I raised my scope to get a better look.

It was Johansen.

While I had not enjoyed my first meeting with the man, I did not wish him to die as one of the infected. Come to think of it, I would not have wished that on anyone.

About a hundred other people and I, including the survivors from the RV encampment, watched in silence as the doomed men were led away. Johansen’s increasingly panicked screams carried to us over the crest of a hill until the boom of a pistol echoed through the woods.

The shouting stopped.

Seconds later, there were three near-simultaneous cracks. Shortly thereafter, a few men lowered a small bucket loader from the back of a HEMTT and drove it in the direction of the shots. Half an hour later, their work finished, they returned to the convoy, faces drawn and somber. No one tried to speak to them. Morgan came over the radio in a quiet voice and ordered to convoy to get under way.

*****

We couldn’t follow 281 forever, so we cut toward Highway 16 and used any flat, wide, unobstructed stretch of ground we could find to take us north until we were within four miles of Interstate 20.

Along the way, we found a gas station with diesel tanks that had not been looted, allowing us to refuel and restock our gerry cans and fuel barrels as well as supplement our meager provisions. Near where we stopped, a side road led into a heavily wooded region away from any significantly populated areas. According to the map, there was a large natural pond nearby. Morgan’s senior sergeant ordered a HEMTT and a few Humvees to break off and get to work purifying as much of that water as they could. Morgan himself radioed us to wait for him and approached our position in his command vehicle.

“Got a mission for you,” he said as he pulled alongside.

“Let me guess,” Blake called back. “Recon I-20, see what we’re up against.”

“You are a man of impeccable logic.”

Dad exchanged a look with his old friend, then said, “Can do. But we’ll need to refuel first.”

Morgan motioned to his driver. “Not a problem.”

After topping off the tanks, we headed north toward the interstate. The section of highway we approached lay in the middle of a steep, broad V that had once been a hill. There were many such places along the interstate where the highway builders had blasted through the landscape in order to keep the road nice and straight. The resulting formation allowed us to park the vehicles at the base of the hill and approach the summit on foot, staying low to avoid detection. At the top we fanned out at ten-meter intervals along the hillside and surveyed the scene through our optics.

By that point, I thought I had seen some bad things. Crossing the bridge over I-35 that flaming evening had been something out of a fevered nightmare. The City of Houston in flames in the dark red distance was a sight that would haunt me for years. The 281/290 junction had been a blood-soaked cluster-fuck of epic proportions. But when I looked down that hillside at Interstate 20, for the second time in my life, I felt a sinking, bowel-constricting panic that I had died and my soul had been damned for all eternity.

It would have taken me years to count the infected. There were cars piled on top of cars on top of even more cars. Tractor-trailers and buses and RVs and every other vehicle imaginable lay overturned and crashed and burned down to skeletal husks. The stench of corpses was a living, crawling thing that reached down my throat and closed a hand around my windpipe. Dead bodies lay everywhere, some still in their vehicles, some on top of them, some on the side of the road, still others crawling, too damaged from the infected who consumed them to mount much mobility.

Organs, limbs and bloody streaks covered every surface, stained the ground red, splattered against windshields, and lay rotting in the ditches on the side of the road. I scanned left and saw a Blackhawk helicopter crashed in the middle of traffic, tail rotor pointing skyward, the skeletal visage of the pilot slumped against his restraints. I scanned to the right and saw a vintage convertible with the top down, the driver in pieces on the ground nearby, and, to my horror, a baby seat in the back. For a moment, the baby seat looked empty, then I realized the padding was beige under the red, and that lump at the bottom was-

NO!

I dropped my rifle, scrambled back down the slope, and got as far away as I could before I was violently, gut-wrenchingly sick. I heaved up everything inside me and kept going, dry-heaving, ribs cramping, abdomen trying to tear itself apart.

Finally, the seizures subsided and I managed to crawl away from my own bile before I collapsed and lay on my side, gasping for breath. A few moments later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey,” Blake’s voice said. “I’d ask if you’re okay, but I think the answer is pretty obvious.”

“Can’t …” was all I could manage to croak out.

“Come on, Caleb. It’s not safe here. Let’s go back to the Humvee. We’ll wait there for the others.”

I followed  him, barely conscious of where I was going, dimly accepting my rifle and slinging it over my shoulder. Blake helped me into the passenger’s seat, then climbed in, cranked the engine, and turned the AC to its highest setting. After a few minutes, the cold air blowing in my face started to make me feel better.

“Sorry about that,” I said, feeling a flush come up my neck.

Blake shook his head. “Don’t be. If I’d stayed a few more seconds, I wouldn’t have been in much better shape.”

“That makes me feel a little better.”

“Man, I’ve seen some things, but that …”

“Yeah. No shit.”

“How the hell we gonna get past that?”

“I’m sure the good captain will think of something.”

We waited with no further conversation until Dad, Mike, and the two combat engineers came back down the hillside. On the way down, one of the soldiers hesitated, turned to the side, and heaved his guts behind a pine tree. The others waited, faces stoic, until he had mastered himself and started on his way again.

Back in his vehicle, Dad calmly and in detail explained the situation on the interstate. Morgan told him to stand by, presumably to confer with his staff, then came back on the radio and requested we return to the convoy.

“Roger that,” my father said. “En route. Recon one out.”

*****

The first time you see heavy artillery fire on a target at close range, you never forget it.

Like the others in the convoy, I waited at a good safe distance for the fireworks to start. Morgan’s men had scouted the various access roads until they found a flat approach on a narrow two-lane. The Abrams and two Howitzers took point, the Bradleys backing them up, APCs waiting the wings in case infantry support was needed during the crossing.

I sat in a Humvee with Blake and Sophia at the rear of the column. My father, Lauren, and Lance were in front of us. Tyrel and Lola waited behind, Mike bringing up the rear in his truck. Dad had loaned his Ram to a trio of pregnant women from the RV encampment so they could escape the discomfort of the deuce-and-a-half they had been riding in.

Travis had observed the transaction, and afterward offered Dad a handshake and a tight-lipped thanks. He did not look in my direction.

Later, we sat on the road eyeing the woodlands around us for signs of infected and waited. There was just enough bend in the road I could see the armor as they rolled forward, stopped about two-hundred yards from the teeming, screeching mass of infected frothing through the twisted metal obstructing the interstate, spread out, rolled to a stop, and aimed their guns.

The radio crackled to life. “All stations stand by. Engaging in three, two, one …”

BOOM
-
BOOM-BOOM

The projectiles traveled so fast there was no distinguishable difference between the thunder of shots and the detonation of high explosives. When the smoke cleared, there was a massive dent in the derelicts blocking our path, cars blown on top of other cars in twisted, broken heaps. But the way was not clear. With surprising speed, the crews reloaded, passed along another warning, and then fired in tandem.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM

The shells pushed the wreckage back further, but not enough to allow the convoy to cross. So the crews kept at it, firing, issuing warnings, and firing again. It took eleven rounds of three-gun bombardment before they finally blasted a lane wide enough to allow the convoy to pass.

The ordnance obliterated the infected closest to the target area, while those standing farther away were either disabled or sent hurtling through the air. Ghouls poured into the gap from all directions, making it obvious we would have to move quickly to get clear.

“All stations, listen up,” Morgan said over the radio. “I want Bradleys Alpha and Bravo to push up the edges of the path and make sure the heavy armor can get through. Once you’re across, Alpha face east, Bravo face west, and annihilate anything undead that comes your way. All other armored units, clear the road ahead until all non-armored vehicles and civilian transports are safely through. Acknowledge.”

After a hasty stream of affirmatives, the first two Bradleys behind the Abrams drove around it and shoved the few remaining cars blocking the path out of the way. Once done, they crossed the highway, drove on top of clusters of tightly packed sedans, and aimed their TOW missiles, chain guns, and M-240s toward the approaching infected.

“And to think,” Blake said beside me, “there was a time people thought Bradleys were a waste of money.”

The Abrams and Howitzers crossed the cratered expanse of I-20 first, Bradleys  and APCs close behind, then the HEMTTs, troop transports, Humvees, and finally us civilians in our collection of vehicles.

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Morgan chose to make sure his most valuable assets made it across first?” Sophia said. “It’s like we poor useless civilians were just an afterthought.”

The Humvee bounced and jumped as we floundered across the gaping holes left in the wake of the artillery shells. There were a couple of worrisome near-stalls, but finally we cleared the highway and picked up speed on the flat two-lane beyond.

“We made it across, didn’t we?” I said, turning to look at her in the back seat.

Sophia looked at me skeptically, then went back to staring out her window. Looking past her, I watched the two remaining Bradleys open up on the approaching horde with their M-240s and chain guns.

The effect was devastating.

At close range, a 25mm chain gun can penetrate tank armor. During the first Gulf War, Bradleys were credited with more kills on enemy armored vehicles than their vaunted Abrams counterparts. So needless to say, firing such a powerful weapon into a mass of necrotic flesh at less than fifty yards was nothing less than gruesomely spectacular.