Transformation: Zombie Crusade VI (18 page)

The march to the depot was as miserable as advertised; trudging through a foot of snow was nobody’s idea of fun, but the company passed through the main gates at noon.

Luke had arrived at the depot without incident. Once inside, he scanned the area for potential danger. The place looked like a giant junk yard of snow-covered vehicles surrounded by various buildings, including massive warehouses. Luke began to worry about the number of flesh-eaters that could still be hiding throughout the facility, and he quickly located a few small packs of hunters.

Luke was glad to be on his own; it gave him the opportunity to see just how much protection his hybrid state afforded him when facing multiple creatures. He approached the first group slowly, keeping an eye out for any of the special type who seemed to want to communicate with him. Luke was both disappointed and relieved to find only “normal” flesh-eaters, none of whom were particularly impressive. After circling the group a few times, he decided to try something different; he was mildly surprised when he was able to reach out and snap the tallest creature’s neck without facing any resistance. He was even more surprised by the complete lack of aggression when he sliced through another hunter’s head with his axe and spattered bloody brain matter all over the rest of the group. The most unnerving thing happened when Luke took a few steps back, away from the blackening snow fanning out from the split in the dead beast’s skull; the remaining hunters began to follow him.

At first, Luke wasn’t sure what to think, so he sprinted about twenty feet in the opposite direction.  Sure enough, all seven hunters kept pace behind him.
What the hell?
Suddenly it occurred to him that he must have killed the pack leader. He laughed bitterly as he realized that, for the moment, he was the alpha male of his own personal pack of hunters. He had no idea how to communicate with them, though he expected that they would be able to respond to simple commands if he knew how to give them.
Sort of like dogs.
It only took his mind a few seconds to adjust the comparison—
like rabid, murderous dogs just waiting for an opportunity to attack humans.
His next thought brought a flood of conflicting emotions.
But I am human
. He said it out loud, “I’m human,” and worried that he still needed convincing.

Luke reminded himself that the infected were once humans too. Barnes had stolen their bodies and their lives; in a way, these creatures were innocents—diseased innocents. He decided his bow would be the most humane and palatable way to finish off the rest of the pack, if he could establish and maintain sufficient distance. Fortunately, Luke’s peripheral vision picked up a large rat, within striking range, scurrying around the corner of a building. With one fluid motion, Luke drew, aimed, and fired. He jogged over to the deceased rodent, retrieved his arrow, and tossed the trophy to the approaching pack. Their demeanor was instantly transformed as they snarled and snapped at each other, fighting for the small piece of fresh meat. Their growls grew fainter as, one-by-one, Luke dropped each hunter in the bloodied snow.

When Luke located other packs on the base, he only observed them long enough to determine if there were any of the
different
hunters, the ones who didn’t act like the others, the ones that tried to communicate. He didn’t try to rationalize why he felt compelled to spare these special creatures; he just knew it was the right thing to do. Just like it was the right thing to eliminate the dangerous, mindless beasts still lurking in the depot. By the time he’d spent an hour and a half scouring the area, he was fairly confident that the base was hunter free for at least a mile in—Gracie’s squads would have to take over from there until the rest of the troops arrived.

  Luke was trying to remember which of the buildings held what kind of vehicles when Gracie radioed from the highway. He made his way back to the main entrance and watched his troops spill through the gate. They arrived cold, caked in snow, and more than ready to take a break from the frigid wind. Luke directed them to the loading dock attached to the first building on the left, across from the visitor’s center—the same building where he’d found boxes full of MREs, many chewed through, but some appearing potentially rodent free.

Luke watched Gracie circulate among her squads with a combination of genuine friendliness and no-nonsense authority; he admired her natural ease with people, and he knew the depot would be in good hands while he kept his promise to the kids in Texarkana. He motioned for Gracie to join him by the main doors.

“Did you find anything here that we need to worry about?” Gracie asked as she narrowed her eyes and tightened her hood under her chin. “You’re a little blood-spattered.”

“There were a few hunters in the vicinity,” Luke explained. “I’m sure there will be others since this base is pretty massive, but I think a methodical sweep of the buildings will be a good training exercise.”

Gracie nodded. “We’ll be here for a while, right? I won’t mind a little indoor living, out of this damn wind.”

“I think I can handle that,” Luke agreed. “For now, let’s get those snow plows and other vehicles running to help Zach and Maddy bring the rest of the troops.”

Gracie knew her husband had something else on his mind. “And what, specifically, will you be doing?”

“Well, as soon as we can get a few of these Hummers fueled up, I’d like to take some of your soldiers with me to the school in Texarkana.” Gracie’s eyes lit up, but Luke held up his hand, anticipating her desire to go with him. “You know I need you here, Babe. If you’re in charge, I won’t worry, at least not too much.”

“Flattery again, eh?” Gracie sighed. “You know how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting those kids. And besides that, we’re newlyweds, but I never get to go anywhere with you.”

“That’s not fair,” Luke objected. “We’re in the middle of a month’s long, cross-country honeymoon cruise.”

Gracie could only laugh as she faked a punch at her husband’s gut. “Fine, run off on another adventure and leave me to manage everything at our temporary homestead. Sergeant Jenkins is in charge of my diesel mechs, and he’s a good fighter. C’mon, we’ll track him down and get you on the road.”

Jenkins had five Hummers road-ready an hour later. Luke directed the small convoy through the gate and onto the road to Texarkana, almost giddy with anticipation at seeing the youngsters and their brave guardians again. The route to the hideout was as cluttered as any other system of roads and highways in America in the wake of the outbreak, but the power of the military vehicles, their off-road capabilities, and the strong winches they sported, allowed Luke’s small force to cover the distance in less than two hours. Several times during the trip, the noise generated by pushing or pulling wrecks from the road attracted small groups of infected whose members were too infirm to have followed the hunters to the bridge. Most of the creatures were missing limbs. As survivors had noticed early on in the outbreak, the virus could heal massive physical trauma as long as enough protein was being consumed by the infected, but limbs didn’t regenerate.

The crippled flesh-eaters were easily dispatched with Luke’s arrows and the soldiers’ crossbow bolts, leading Sergeant Jenkins to radio Luke from the rear. “Well, sir, looks like we killed all of the first class hunters yesterday.”

“We got a lot of them,” Luke admitted, “but I saw dozens escape the kill-zone near the end of the fight. Don’t allow yourself to assume that any of the infected we see aren’t capable of ripping your throat out in the blink of an eye.”

“Roger that, sir.”

As the lead vehicle finally approached the building where Billy and the students were located, Luke stood up in the gun-turret so whoever was on guard duty could see who was leading the impressive convoy.

The vehicles were rolling to a stop in front of the old school when Jerome appeared from beneath a nearby alcove where he’d been observing the street. Seeing Luke in the first Hummer, the tough kid with a huge heart smiled widely and raised a hand in greeting. Luke returned the gesture with a thumbs-up, relieved to learn that the youngsters were okay.

Luke slid down into the back seat and crawled out onto the street. He covered his troops as they quietly emerged from their vehicles and took up firing positions near their leader. Only then did Luke wave Jerome over from his post. Following established protocol, nobody said a word until they were all inside the building and the door was barred. Even then, they spoke in hushed tones.

“You kept your word,” Jerome whispered with a sparkle of what could only be excitement and disbelief in his eyes.

“I said I would,” Luke matter-of-factly, but kindly replied.

“People say lots of things,” Julian said as he rolled his wheelchair next to Jerome.

“True enough,” Luke agreed as he fist-bumped Julian, “but I’m not lots of people. Situation still the same here?”

“Yeah, ‘cept I don’t think we’re as hungry as we were the first time you seen us,” DJ piped up from the back of the room where he was helping another boy fasten heavy-looking leg braces.

“So, Mr. Raker followed my advice and increased rations?” Luke asked no one in particular.

As Jerome nodded, the thirty-something teacher with haunted eyes emerged from the back stairwell. His shoulders were slumped in exhaustion, but he still managed to sprint across the room. His enthusiasm was infectious. “You did it, son, you did it!” As Luke smiled and shook the teacher’s hand, the students broke into spontaneous applause. “Can we evacuate the children yet?” Billy Raker asked earnestly, without letting go of Luke’s hand.

“We killed over a thousand hunters yesterday. There’re still plenty around, but the best and most aggressive are dead.” Luke’s smile broadened as he pointed toward the street. “We have enough armored Hummers out there to take all of you out of here as soon as you can be ready.”

“Where will we go?” Jerome asked cautiously.

“First, the depot for a few days; my troops are setting up a temporary camp there.” Luke turned to Billy. “Our medics will look your people over, and we’ll make sure everybody gets plenty to eat. In a day or so, I’m gonna personally take you and the kids to Vicksburg.”

“Mississippi?” Billy exclaimed.

“Yeah, I’ve spent some time there, and they’ve built one of the best fortified settlements I’ve seen.”

Billy looked a bit skeptical “Why would they want to take us in? We’re basically a bunch of high-maintenance strangers.”

Luke grinned. “Trust me; they’re good people. I know you’ll be safe in Vicksburg.”

Julian tapped Billy’s arm. “Can we start loading the Hummers now? Some of us are ready to go.” He patted the duffel bag perched in his lap and pivoted in his wheelchair. “I can carry stuff if you need me to.”

Luke looked at the teacher and raised an eyebrow. “How soon can you be ready?”

“If the men you brought with you can help carry the boys and their chairs, we should be able to pull outta here in ten minutes.” With tears in his eyes he added, “God bless you, son. I didn’t figure anybody would think that folks like us were worth saving.”

“I can’t guarantee that you won’t ever meet up with people who think that way, but I promise you’ll be welcomed and protected in Vicksburg.” Luke couldn’t explain why these disabled children had become so important to him, but he felt as though they shared a common bond. In their own ways, Luke and these children were each outsiders—misfits in a dangerous and complicated world.  Luke’s mind flashed back to the hunters who had so easily accepted him as their pack leader, and a small shiver ran down his spine.

CHAPTER 16

True to their words, the soldiers with base-experience knew right where all kinds of heavy equipment was stored, and they knew how to find the diesel needed to power the vehicles. Soon after Luke headed to Texarkana, a snow-plow was on its way back to the camp along the river. Two Hummers carrying eight fighting men escorted the plow-driver in case he ran into any hunters looking for trouble.

As soon as the snow-removal crew left the base, Gracie began to set up an operational center in the huge Headquarters building. Several squads were tasked with ensuring that the building was hunter-free and coordinating adequate space for temporary housing. Then she organized her first salvage crews to look for what she considered the most important goods in the new world: food and medicine.

With her wealth of experience in searching the ruins of America for supplies, Gracie planned for fighting as well as hauling. Just like the soldiers securing Headquarters, everyone on a salvage squad was in full armor, carrying an assortment of spears and hacking weapons. No one grumbled about the order to go food-hunting in full-combat array given all the various buildings and abandoned vehicles that could easily conceal surviving hunters. Gracie left two guards with her best mechanics; their orders were to start a collection of trucks and Jeeps that were still in good working order from the area around the main gate. She then joined the first salvage crew in a noisy truck, followed by an even noisier Jeep, and they slowly worked their way through the maze of roads crisscrossing the depot. Gracie was somewhat surprised that they didn’t seem to attract a single hunter as they rumbled through the streets.

The girl whose father had been a civilian worker at the depot was driving the truck, and she led Gracie and the squad to a large group of old warehouses that she hoped had been overlooked by looters after the Army’s collapse. “Right here, ma’am,” she explained as they pulled into the complex. “I think that most folks who passed through here woulda hit the newer looking buildings first, but appearances don’t mean all that much on this base.”

“What do you mean by that?” Gracie wondered.

“Well, various units were assigned their own warehouses so their equipment wouldn’t get mixed up with other outfits’ stuff. There’ll be a lot of old tents and other junk in these buildings, but plenty of times when troops came out of the field they’d leave cases of MRE’s squirrelled away for the next time they headed out.”

“Isn’t this place just for repair and maintenance of tactical vehicles?”

The girl shrugged. “Yeah, and it was originally designed to store ammo, but you could always find a bunch of odd stuff here.”

“Do you think there could be any medical supplies?” Gracie tried not to sound too hopeful.

“Probably not in the warehouses, but there was a med clinic on base,” a bearded young soldier interjected.

Gracie sighed. “I expect that the troop medical clinic would have been cleaned out early on in the outbreak. Maybe they stored clinic supplies in another building; it would make sense to stock up on things they used a lot of—we should search the storage facilities close to the med clinic.”

The girl laughed in a friendly manner. “Ma’am, my daddy always said that nothing about the military made sense. I asked him once what military intelligence was, and he said it was an oxymoron.”

Gracie recognized the hollow detachment in the girl’s tone and asked quietly, “What happened to your dad?”

The girl slowly shook her head before answering. “He died trying to save my mom, who was trying to save the neighbor’s dog. I saw it all from an upstairs window; stayed in the house for three months . . .”

Gracie swallowed the lump in her throat. “I watched my dad die too.”

The girl shrugged again. “I’d rather not think about it right now, ma’am.”

“Me neither,” Gracie agreed. “Let’s get to work.” She shouted her orders to the rest of the group as they all lined up in the blowing snow beside the truck, “We’ll start with the building directly in front of us—stick together and stay in formation.”

They stepped over and around several piles of bones near the entrance to the first warehouse, a grim reminder that they could be walking into a confrontation with the infected. Gracie held up her hand to stop the group’s advance. “As soon as we’re all inside, we’ll let our eyes adjust, then make a bunch of noise until I give the signal to stop. Then we wait to see if we managed to attract anything. Everybody clear?” All nine heads nodded silently.

Tensions gradually abated as the group repeated this process several times while working their way through the first warehouse. They loaded up the truck with a sampling of the various field supplies—tents, poles, parkas and other winter gear—that were located stacked in one of rooms labeled “Washington’s Snivel Gear” in sloppy block lettering. It quickly became painfully obvious that taking inventory on this base was going to involve sorting through massive amounts of damaged and worthless junk, but there were clearly gems to be found among the jumble. The most exciting and valuable items to be scavenged from the first building were old fuel stoves of various sizes. These were originally designed to heat Army GP medium and large tents, but they could also be put to good use indoors as long as they were tapped in to some sort of ventilation system.

With only a couple hours of daylight left, Gracie decided that checking out the area around the medical clinic would be the most valuable use of the rest of the afternoon. Most of the buildings in the vicinity of the clinic were obviously commercial and administrative facilities, but a modern-looking structure several blocks away from the health center looked promising. As Gracie led the team up to the front of the building she could see that the door was cracked open and several window frames were shattered. She silently pointed to the damaged areas and waved forward the four-person team that had been leading the way into obviously dangerous buildings.

One of the soldiers stood to the side of the entrance and tentatively stuck the tip of a pry-bar into the crack Gracie had pointed out moments earlier. A gentle push behind the handle caused the door to creak halfway open on rusty hinges, and a second member of the team used the hook on his halberd to pull it the rest of the way free. Two fighters stepped forward with their spears ready, the man who’d used the pry bar now holding a pump shotgun at the ready in case a pack of hunters came rushing from the building.

As with every other forced entrance of the afternoon, after a few tense seconds of waiting, the team walked through the doorway without incident. A minute later one of the soldiers gave the all clear signal to Gracie and she led the rest of the squad into the structure. The first thing she saw upon entering was scattered bones and hair lying amid a pile of shredded clothing; at least one flesh-eater had been in here early on in the outbreak. She knew that the rest of her troops would be on high alert after viewing the carnage left behind. Her driver was giving the remains a closer inspection, soon finding a .45 Auto and using the toe of her boot to send several brass casings rolling across the floor. Whoever the victim had been, he or she had managed to put up some type of fight.

Gracie suddenly found herself wishing Luke was here; she felt anxious. A memory of David Smith, Luke, and the rest of their unit walking through piles of spent cartridges from her father’s guns as they approached her came roaring into her consciousness. She had been cradling his head as he fought for his final breaths . . . She almost jumped when one of the soldiers touched her arm and lifted his visor to whisper, “Ready to continue, ma’am?”

She forced the unwanted anxiety from her mind and refocused her thoughts on the immediate task at hand. A brisk nod was all it took to send the team into action. They were standing in a small reception area with a long counter-top that still featured several computer monitors. A short hallway extended beyond the counter, open doors on either side that looked as if they had once been supervisor’s offices. Those rooms had been cleared by the entrance team, and one of them had dark stains all over the floor and desk; there was no way to determine if the struggle that had occurred in the office was related to the remains of the corpse in the reception area.

Gracie was thankful that the door at the end of the hallway was apparently undamaged and securely closed. One of the soldiers tried the handle and found that it was locked. A small battering ram was immediately passed forward, and the doorframe shattered around the heavy-duty locking mechanism after several powerful blows. The door itself hardly moved, due to a huge stack of chairs, tables, and everything from computers to a coffee-maker piled behind it. The leading troops managed to push everything aside after a few seconds of heavy pushing, but everyone was concerned about what might be waiting behind the barricade.

The team pulled on their NVGs and went in by the book: weapons ready and positioning themselves for immediate combat. Their efforts were unnecessary. Another pile of bones and clothing were found just beyond the pile of junk used to block the door, and a few feet away lay a partially decomposed corpse. A chunk of skull was missing along the right side of the head and winter had frozen the body. Rodents had obviously been steadily working over the remains. Gracie figured that one of these people had been infected when they secured themselves behind the door. She suspected that the person who was now a pile of bones had pulled his wounded friend in here before constructing the barricade. The infection had run its course and given the injured creature enough strength to take down and feed on the other, but the protein it gained there hadn’t been enough to allow the beast to overcome its dreadful head wound.

Gracie finally motioned the team forward after her inspection of the morbid remains, but anxiety still floated through her nervous system. She attributed her worries to the memory of her father’s death, but was annoyed that she was experiencing difficulty in shaking such thoughts of the past during a potentially dangerous mission. As per orders, the squad formed a protective circle and began making noises. They’d been using this tactic all afternoon, but had yet to attract a single infected in any of the buildings they’d searched. This time was no different from the others; nobody was home.

The soldiers switched from NVGs to mounted headlamps and flashlights. Helmet visors were lifted to facilitate easier communication, and they spread out in groups of two to look for usable items. Gracie was soon called over to a large room off what turned out to be a receiving dock area. The room was filled with pre-fab shelving units stacked with boxes. A tall, capable soldier everyone called “Okie” pulled one from its resting place and wiped dust from the top.

“Look here, ma’am,” he proudly declared, “Cephalexin—that’s an antibiotic.”

“It is,” she replied, “and a good one for the types of injuries soldiers usually deal with.”

The second soldier in the room called for her; he was a corporal from Texas named Billups. She found him on his knees, pulling boxes from a pile of clutter caused by several of the shelving units falling down. “Ma’am, all of these boxes are filled with morphine,” he excitedly explained. “How long does that stuff last?”

“I’m not sure . . .” she answered, her words cut short by a loud rustling noise from under the mound of boxes and shelves.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Just rats,” he absent-mindedly answered. “They’ve been rooting around in here since we walked in.”

Gracie focused the beam of her powerful flashlight on the mess just beyond the soldier. The bright light illuminated the scene, and Gracie’s warning died on her lips as her mind processed the scene. Billups had removed the glove from his right hand and pulled a small knife to cut the stout tape holding the lid of the box in place. In almost slow motion, long, white fingers reached up from under the pile and locked onto Billups’ hand. He was then jerked downward, a shrill scream escaping his lips. The cry of surprise almost instantly turned to one of fear and pain, and Gracie, training and experience leading to immediate action, slammed the blade of her halberd into the jumbled boxes next to where the hand had appeared.

The point of the weapon pierced something soft and giving, then Gracie felt the halberd shifting as whatever she had stabbed reacted to the assault. Billups yanked his arm free in a spray of blood as Okie reached the scene and began frantically kicking boxes aside as he searched for the creature his commander had pinned to the floor. Seconds later, the light from his helmet revealed a pair of dull-black orbs glaring at them from an emaciated, fish-belly-white face. The creature was hungrily chewing the flesh it had managed to tear from Billups’ hand, a low moan escaping its throat in reaction to the sight of nearby humans.

Gracie hadn’t seen an infected in this condition for months, but she knew what to do with it. Before Okie could react, Gracie jerked the spear-point of her halberd free of the shoulder it had struck and plunged the blade into the creature’s face. The monster shook for a brief moment before going still. The room was now glowing from the lights of the rest of the squad crowding in to see what was happening. Gracie shouted orders from behind the visor that she had pulled into place without realizing it. “Clear this damn room!”

She pushed the shaft of her halberd into Okie’s hands. “Keep that thing pinned down just in case I missed the brain.”