The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End (7 page)

   Rebekah rapidly banged on the rubber trash bin four times with a heavy fist. Remaining low, she rushed to the back of the one story home. Sworn’s men lifted their MTAR 21s, separated into their original two groups and begun surrounding the house from both the left and right sides.

   Behind the house, Rebekah made a conscience decision. She sprung into the air, and with one foot, landed on the edge of an air conditioner unit; used her weight to spring high enough to grab hold of the rugged shingles in silence and quickly pull up to the flat, tree branch and other debris-filled, rooftop.

   The marauders cautiously moved in, single files toward the rear of the house, flashlights ahead. On her left, they were all muscular-built but mix-matched, moving up slow. The head man weighed about 200, average height. The second was a big guy, taller, could easily pass for three. The final two, about 185 a piece, but the one in the back was tallest of the four, slim. On the right side of the house, all of them were the average build and height. They must have been the new guys, haven’t spent much time in the gym yet and getting their feet wet in the field for the first time. She’d suspected that when she first set eyes on them at the implosion site. They were not ready for the Rebekah treatment, and Rebekah had a superb idea in mind especially planned for the four of them.

   She scooped up a fallen tree limb just wide enough for her hands to grip, long and heavy, to make plenty noise for a group to inspect elsewhere. She tossed it over the trash bin, toward the next house, pass the new guys. It worked. The new guys acknowledged each other with muffled chatter and rapid head bobbles. The lead signaled for his squad to follow him, and they moved toward the neighboring home.

   Now she only had four to deal with.
I have to do this right
, she thought.
Silently… one hum and it’s over. And shall the Qi protect me.

   The mix-matched group made their way to the back. As the fourth one passed by, she took one step off the roof. In sync, with her left palm across his chin, right hand braced around the back of his cranium, she twisted his neck, lightly landed on her tip toes behind him, breaking his fall with her weight, silently laying him in the grass.

  
Perfect! Blessings,
she thought.             

   She moved on the next opponent. Together, she grabbed the survival knife from his weapons belt, cupped her palm over his mouth. By the time he reached for her hand over his mouth, she had already driven the knife into his spine. He was too weak to make that slapping noise made when giving a five to the backside, and the rain was louder than his
umps
. She twisted the blade, pulled up until she heard a sharp crack, and laid him down the same way as the other; extracted the blade and moved on to the next one.

   The heavy rain reduced to a drizzle.

   The third buccaneer began turning around.

   BANG! BANG! BOOM! BOOM!

   He was distracted, along with his partner. Coming from the west end of Maison, many shots fired from different caliber guns and the two troops immediately broke into a sprint.

   Rebekah seized the moment to eliminate her adversary, tossed the blade into the back of big boy’s neck as he ran. He whelped, and his big ass went down with a thump.

   She reached in her lower back and pulled her XDM – knowing the lead nemesis heard the thud – aimed. The last foe turned around with his gun raised, and Rebekah shot twice, once into the center of his bullet resistant helmet, the second, in his throat. He hit the ground.

   Rebekah knew the other group of unscrupulous folks would surely head in her direction now. She holstered her semi-auto and raised the MTAR, crouched at the corner of the house, behind the air condition unit, and targeted.

   The shots back west continued. And the unnatural sound of Sworn’s siren blared from all over, somewhere in the vicinity.

   Outside, light tapping sounds, like a pair of drumsticks being used against a rock by an off-beat amateur drummer, grew, and then stopped. The tapping blended with the burning woods crackling sounds from the fireplace of the crowded duplex that housed both Centre City and Valley’s End survivors.

   “Where is your resistance?” the lumberjack biker impatiently questioned.

   “They’ll be here soon.” Maria answered. “Rebekah should be back any minute.”

   “You said that almost an hour ago. You heard those sirens? That means it’s over.” the Louisville Slugger wielding, two times too big Oakland Athletics jersey wearing Valley’s End survivor stated. “What if they’re already dead, or caught?” he asked.

   “They’re not!” Ann jumped in to exclaim.             

   “Well what’s the difference in us leaving out to the docks now than rather waiting on the resistance?” Girder asked, equally as charged.

   “What’s the difference?!” Neshia argued. “The difference is life or death! We already know what else is out there!” she said. “We came a long way and accomplished a lot by pulling together. The others are out there and on their way. You have to believe they’re still out there.”

   “Oh,” the lumberjack biker continued, “I believe they’re out there! I just don’t believe they’re still alive, little lady.”

   Then, a howl broke loose from outside, somewhere close by, chased by four gunshots. It seemed as if everyone froze to the direction the howl came, then in the opposite direction, to the gunshots. The off tempo tapping grew, but this time people began to hear it, and all stood guard for the worst. The sound stopped at the door. After a few seconds, a series of desperate knocks to the door of the dupe echoed throughout the house. Most was startled, others rejoiced, all was anxious and alert.

   “Open the door!” Neshia cried out. She’d been praying for the best, willing to take her slim chance betting on the home team.

   Everyone backed away from the door, the survivors of Valley’s End with guns, raised them.  The knocking resumed.

   “It’s me!” shouted Rebekah, from the other side.

   “Open the door!” Neshia repeated.

   The grinding woods screeched as two Centre City hoods quickly moved the barricade. Ann rushed to the door and opened it.

   Rebekah thundered inside just as the lightning lit up the area behind her, the tapping noise followed her in, turned into the dragging of amenities. “I got the greatest little Idea!” she said, out of breath. “I need three volunteers!”

   Thunder rumbled the ground.

   Neshia stood amongst the crowd in Rebekah’s poncho, holding a silenced 9mm given to her by a Valley’s End survivor in exchange for the MTAR she’d swapped out for Rebekah’s XDM. Brea and Chase stood on each of her sides. Baker found his place with the rest of the children – for the time being – deep within the crowd without a sound, his head down, eyes shut, ears open. It seemed as if he and Itchy had finally taken a chill pill. Itchy, down off his high, up on his attentiveness – a little paranoid – eyeing around the room as if keeping track of everyone’s movements. Jim and Girder regrouped with their Centre City A-alike brethren, their hardened faces revealed they were not in cahoots with the meantime truce that was established, guns ready-to-go on the first Valley’s End survivor to give an erroneous glance in their menacing direction. Maria stood motionless, hand on her holstered sidearm, side-by-side with the lumberjack biker, not even two feet away from her dearest cousin and the fearless heroine – the mysterious and dangerously interesting – Rebekah Morgan, who seemed to have everything under control.  

   “How did you manage that one?” Ann asked Rebekah, who now sported an enemy uniform, riot helmet cupped underneath her arm and ribcage, reunited with her twin XDMs held in their proper places.

   As the enemy earpiece that buzzed of static – and the in-and-out transmissions she’d chosen not to divulge to the group – Rebekah looked to the China Cabinet Boys and the baggy attired Oakland A’s fan, all outfitted in black camouflage under BPVs, assault rifles in hands, and lightly expressed her amusement, “They were all average.”

  Ann didn’t get it. She did. “Err… yeah… sure thing.”

   But what was the fate of the uniforms original owners?

   It wasn’t long before the group gathered up and departed the cozy dupe into the perfidious city streets they once trusted not too long ago. The rain had slimmed even more, the only lights on Fiche – the Road at the edge of the implosion – was from car fires, random reflections, and the flashlight attachments on the assault rifles. The plan was to walk the street as if the group were escorted prisoners of Sworn’s henchmen, if spotted, handle the situation accordingly, and if the infected were to rise up, put them completely out of their bizarre night-terror-stricken misery.

   For certain Sworn and his entourage had begun moving through the city – and away from the implosion site – Rebekah led the survivors toward Maison, prepping the mock troops for the next stage of her plan before they were spotted and approached by the enemy’s transportation, two black Ford E150 vans.

   The Oakland A’s fan turned out being extremely useful when it came to assisting Rebekah, confronting and dragging the unsuspecting driver out of his comfortable, black leather bucket seat, quickly seizing the vehicle while Rebekah carjacked the other. But there was no telling if they called in reinforcements – considering Rebekah never spoke on the earpiece communications.

   After stripping the drivers down to their crusty undergarments, tying their wrists and bare feet together, hands behind the back, all with their own bootlaces – in loops, coils, knots and twists – Rebekah forcefully shoved their clenched fists in the toes of their combat boots, and the bogus mercenaries hauled them between a freshly built concrete laundry mat and a two-story brick bodega.

   “I’m guessing this is what happened to the others?” Ann queried, as the children and mothers, along with the new versions of Baker and Itchy, filled the vans.

   Rebekah didn’t smirk. As a fact, she refused to amuse her sass, even though that
was
what happened to the new guys – only the new guys tied up each other until one was left. Rebekah knocked that one out with the butt of the MTAR, finished the job herself and stepped off.

   “Where the guys,” Maria asked, catching up.

   Rebekah paused, shifted her head away from Maria and looked around. Near the vans, the survivors scavenged through the soldiers uniforms and confiscated their firearms. The girl in the parka swapped out her get-up for a uniform, the trendy kid in the striped shirt and tight jeans grabbed the other outfit. The lucky owners of new BPVs were just a couple random college school kids with fully loaded .45s.

   Rebekah focused in the direction of the debris-encrusted sidewalk. The other survivors, still anxiously waited on their next commands. Four separated groups, one on each street corner, huddled together in the dark, a block over. “They blew up the road. Like… 4 of them… searching around… coming out a—”

   “What—” Maria loudened.

   Ann briskly reacted, slammed her hand over Maria’s mouth without a second to spare, looked to Rebekah and frowned. “Where are the fellas?” she said, lowered her hand from Maria’s hot spot.

   “No sign of them in the wrea—.” Rebekah answered.

   “You could have said something earlier.” Maria said, calmed.

   “There was no need.”

   Neshia approached the argument.

   Ann jumped back in. “What do you mean,” she stated. “We’re here waiting on them to—”

   Rebekah raised her voice a notch, but continued to speak in the same mannerism. “I heard trucks and gunfire coming up Maison from the west side. It was them. By now they should be on their way across the pit, and we’ll meet them there.” then looked to Neshia.

   Neshia slightly raised her head. Her heart skipped a beat when she’d heard the vital information she needed to know about her father. He was on the way, or already there.

   “Across a pit,” Maria asked.

   “That explosion everyone heard and felt was the ground falling.” Rebekah said, grabbed at the earpiece.

   “What’s happening?” Ann asked.

   “Nothing... just static… ” She lied.

   “We need to keep going.”

   The vans crept behind the survivors, headlights out. Two blocks ahead of the implosion site, Rebekah stopped the group and ordered them off the street and onto the sidewalks, in the shadows. Even though she’d suspected he would be gone by the time they reached their destination, she knew Sworn was tricky, and she needed a strategy to either take him out or move around him if he still lurked the area.

   Already shoulder-to-shoulder with Ann and Maria, Rebekah signaled the lumberjack biker, the mock troops, and the Centre City hoods over. She explained what necessary elements of her approach that needed to be exploited, and how they would execute her devious plot.

   “What about Bleeders and Trackers?” Ann asked.

   “Rebekah responded, “We get everyone off the streets.”

   “And what if we don’t have that option?” asked Maria.

  “We’ll worry about that later.”

   “We don’t even stand have a chance!” the lumberjack biker thought, out loud.

   Side-by-side with her mother and brother, Neshia just happened to be near the discussion, getting an earful, sticking close to her heroine in enemy garments. And it was a damn good thing she was. She spotted Sworn’s men on the east side of Maison, informed her comrades without more ado.

   Sworn’s convoy was at a halt, just the bumpers of their jeeps peeped out from the left side of the street, like they were waiting on a red light to switch green that never would. Everything was fairly dark, and the only light came from the ‘becoming normal’ fires that were spread throughout the entire city. The rear of a trailer – only there was a steel cage attached – in between the jeeps, sat firm to the wet pavement, its gate open with two guards on both sides. There was no time to talk, definitely no time to argue.

   Maria had some questions for Rebekah, figured she was hiding something, which she was. The survivors were ready for anything. Well, almost anything, they weren’t too keen of becoming Bleeder bait. Who would be? The children were safe as long as everything worked out as planned, they’d all be headed toward the docks in no time – maybe after an out-skilled gunfight and an attempted gladiator-style beat down. At this time Ann didn’t really care, she knew more than she was telling, something that would shake the foundation of Rebekah
and
the group, but not too much Maria, because she was in on it. And the real question wasn’t whether they would make it to the docks or not. The question on everyone’s thoughts was… what might have been waiting on them when they got there.

   Sworn’s eerie pitched siren erupted once again. A howl echoed around the survivors, and another… and another. And shadows of the sick, emerged from the buildings behind them.

   “What now?” Jim questioned.

   “You walked us into a trap!” the lumberjack biker asserted.

   “No,” Rebekah defended herself from his accusation. “It was someone else.” She grimaced toward Ann.

   A howl extended from atop the building structure.