Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Book 4): Walking In The Shadow Of Death (28 page)

Lights came on in the row of
buildings below. The prisoners were caught and trapped in the open. Men moved
out into the street. Brad could clearly see them, but they were far out of
range for his rifle. A bright flashlight shone across the gravel beach,
lighting the faces of the prisoners. The light moved past the body of the dead
men. The light stopped on the man.
Crack.
The light dropped to the
surface of the road and rolled.

The prisoners raised their rifles
and fired at the men wildly, muzzle flashes lighting them in a strobe. The
guards fired back. Brad watched a prisoner fall with hits to the chest. Brad
raised his rifle and considered firing. Knowing it was unlikely he would hit
the guards at the extended range, he took his finger from the trigger. Brooks’s
and Sean’s fire intensified, giving the remaining prisoner an opportunity to
run back to the cover of the containers.

Men yelled in panic on the ground.
Some ran back towards the buildings. Others mistakenly ran towards the body of
the man with the pistol. Three guards all armed with long rifles ran directly
to the downed man and rolled him over, seeing the blood on his shirt. A man
turned to look up at the hillside … C
rack.
The man’s head snapped back.
His comrades dropped onto the stony surface of the beach. One crawled behind a
body, using it for cover as he squeezed off several shots into the night.

The man fired, pivoting to change
directions as he swept the hillside. The man’s gunfire provided cover for the
suppressed round that took off the top of his head. The remaining member of the
trio, seeing his two friends killed, tried to run back to the shelter of the
building. As he sprinted there was another
crack.
The man fell with a
round through his pelvis, causing him to tumble and roll to the surface of the
street. The man screamed and called out for help, the foreign words now easily
reaching Brad’s ears.

No one came for him. The man
continued to scream. He finally rolled to his stomach and began to crawl
towards the building.
Crack.
The man’s elbow exploded and he rolled to
his back, screaming in agony. The man rolled again, screaming, pleading for
help. No one came for him.
Crack.
The man’s head snapped back, silencing
him.

Yelling and shouting for orders
came from the row of buildings. A ship in the harbor blasted its horn loudly.
Brad looked out into the bay and watched as the ship flashed its navigation
lights. Probably sending some sort of prearranged signal. A door opened at the
rear of one of the buildings. Four men crept out of a back door and along a
wooden boardwalk, moving to the end of the long row of buildings. The man in
the lead stopped at the corner. He turned back to face the men behind him,
whispering instructions.

Crack.
A round ripped
through the forehead of the leader and into the face of the man in front of
him. The remaining men fired their rifles in panic, again at the hillside in
all directions, not able to determine the direction of the enemy. A man jerked
into a wall as he dropped his weapon and reached for his shoulder. The final
man took a hit high in the chest and fell to the boardwalk. The man with the
shoulder wound stood silently, holding his upper arm and looking up at the
hill. He held his good hand over his head as if to surrender.
Crack
.

The ship in the bay blasted its
horn again and flashed its lights. A spotlight came on, searching the water and
trying to reach the coast. A small boat began approaching with a smaller
spotlight of its own searching the pier and shoreline. Brad watched as the
prisoner broke cover from the container; he opened the door, shouting inside. A
group of three women and two men stepped out. They followed the armed
prisoners, running towards the pier. One of the women stopped, seeing the dead
man near the fiberglass boat. She saw the rifles and lifted them, taking one
and handing off the other. They ran past the dead pier guard, also stripping
him of his weapon before dropping behind a large stack of car tires near the
pier.

Brad watched them squat behind the
tires as the small boat drew closer. It headed directly for the pier, sweeping
its spotlight across the water and the pier. The boat stopped forward movement
as it bobbed in the water, its engine still idling softly. Two men were on the
bow, both holding assault rifles. At least one more was in the cabin at the
controls while another was on the stern manning the spotlight. The light panned
from the end of the pier to the beach then completely down the shoreline.

The large ship in the water gave a
blast of its horn, and the small boat replied with a blast of its own. The
boat’s engine changed pitch as it rode closer to the pier with its bow pointed
towards the shore. When it was within a hundred feet, the motor again idled and
the boat bobbed in the water. A man on the bow of the ship called out several
times. After getting no reply, he moved back towards the cabin and leaned into
an open window. He returned with a set of binoculars.

The man on the forward deck
searched the shoreline with the binoculars. The spotlight continued to search
the pier and beach as the boat slowly drifted towards the shore. There was a
single unsuppressed gunshot as the cabin window exploded, dropping the man at
the controls. Energized by the sound of the shot, the prisoners behind the tires
rose up and unleashed a salvo at the small boat. Most of the rounds went wide
or fell short, but the wild shots and noise provided more cover for the snipers
on the hillside. In quick succession the man at the spotlight and the one with
the binos fell into the water.

As the remaining man ran back
towards the cabin, the prisoners found their aim and fired rapidly, rounds
tearing into him, knocking him into the water. The prisoners cheered before
being hushed by one of them, then dropped back into cover. There was another
loud blast from the ship’s horn. This time the blast wasn’t answered as the
small boat drifted towards the shore. The ship let out a long blast, again with
no response. The small boat bounced then slapped against the pier.

A male prisoner looked over the
tires, then got to his feet and ran down the pier followed by a woman. The man
slowed as he approached the bouncing boat. He tried to visually inspect the
vessel then took a running start as he leapt to the rear deck. The man
disappeared into the cabin. The engine cut off and the man returned and tossed
a length of line to the female. The woman pulled the boat in close to the pier
and tied it off. The man ran to the bow and jumped back to the pier before
pulling in and securing the front of the craft.

When the small boat was secure, the
pair ran back, joining the others at the tires. Brad watched as they hugged
each other and shook hands. Brad lifted his binoculars and again searched the
entire area. Slowly he watched more people leave the confines of the
containers. Most just huddled around the entrance, afraid to move any further.
Some walked completely out, and the prisoners by the tires, spotting them,
moved in their direction.

The large ship blasted its horn
over and over, not getting a response from the shore. The prisoners seemed to
ignore the horn now, overwhelmed with their new freedom. A few of them walked
towards the row of buildings carrying rifles. Brad heard doors open and close
and an occasional gunshot as they entered and cleared building after building.
They relit the fire on the beach and huddled around it. People brought
containers of food from the buildings and cooked it over the fire.

Brad watched as children left the
confines of the container and joined the others. He heard a noise behind him
and searched the top of the cliff. Seeing nothing, he dropped his night vision
over his eyes and continued to search the hill and the tree line. He saw a
bright IR strobe. Brad reached up to his own goggles and switched his IR
headlight on and off. He watched as Sean and Brooks came into view and walked
across the incline towards him. Brad got to his feet and walked to join his
friends.

32.

They spent the rest of the night in
the high position guarding the civilians below. Sean was concerned primals may
make their way up the road drawn in by the gunfire, but they never came. The
cove was indeed sheltered and secluded. Brad stayed in over watch on the cliff
as Brooks and Sean retrieved their rucksacks. Even though they weren’t ready to
approach the civilians, they didn’t want to take their eyes off of them.

They had retrieved their heavy
packs under the cover of darkness and returned to the sides of the cliff. It
was still predawn but there was plenty of activity on the beach. Brad sat and
observed the people below. The ship blasted its horn several more times,
causing the trio to look up. The ship now had all of its navigation lights and
spotlights on.

 “Might as well give up on
that shit,” Brooks said as he sat back against his pack, eating a tin of fruit.
“Ain’t nobody gonna reply to that horn.”

“We going down there?” Brad asked.

Sean looked up from his breakfast,
“Yeah, as soon as the sun comes up. I don’t want to spook anyone and get shot
in the dark.”

 The freighter’s horn blared long
and steady, giving a solid blast. The freighter began to drift, then moved
backwards and farther away.

“Something’s happening,” Brooks
said, lifting his binoculars to look at the freighter. “Looks like they’re
pulling anchor.”

“What about that ship? Do we go
after it?” Brad said.

“It’ll work itself out,” Sean said,
finishing his meal. “Looks like they all took to the single freighter, I never
saw movement on the other vessels.”

“Yeah, me either,” Brooks added.
“By my count we brought down twenty last night, and another ten or so at the
roadblock. Who knows what kind of damage the primals did to ‘em.”

Sean stood, straightening his
jacket. “Yeah, we will have to see what answers the civilians can give us. To
be honest, I’m happy not having to take down a freighter with just the three of
us.”

He stood and prepared his pack as
the first glimpses of the sun peeked out over the water. Brad and Brooks took
cues off what he was doing and readied their own gear. They put on their packs
and walked closer to the cliff’s face. Looking down, they could see that more
of the civilians were up and moving around now. They had stacked the dead
guards in a row along the street. Others were moving around the small boat,
searching it and removing gear.

“Figure it’s time to say hello,”
Sean said.

He walked closer to the cliff face
and cupped his hands around his mouth before letting out a loud yell. At first
no one noticed so he tried again, this time getting the attention of a group of
children standing near the buildings. They ran excitedly towards the beach,
grabbing a man by the arm then pointing towards the cliffs. Sean raised his
hands in the air and waved them. The man on the ground waved back and signaled
for them to come down.

“Okay guys, follow me. We’ll follow
the same path as last night, just be careful around these folks, they might be
skittish,” Sean said as he stepped off, walking in the direction of the valley
road. Walking upright and casually it took them less than thirty minutes to reach
the valley that sloped down to the road. The valley was steep, but there was
plenty of evidence of people having hiked these hills in the past.

They followed a steep broken dirt
path down, grabbing trees and vegetation often so that they didn’t fall. As they
got closer, the stench overwhelmed them. Brad stepped into a trench that
skirted the road, then onto the paved surface itself. Looking left and right,
he could see that the road was still littered with bloated primals’ bodies. He
stepped over one and into the middle of the road. Sean and Brooks moved up
beside him. “They need to do something about this, gonna fuck up property
values,” Sean said, looking disgusted.

“Yeah, it was your idea to send the
horde after them two nights ago,” Brooks said.

Sean grunted. “Point taken, but it
did its job. And on the plus side, I bet this attack cut down on the numbers in
the area.”

Brooks stopped and looked up and
down the road, “Yeah, enough here to make up a small town. So much death,” he
said, shaking his head sadly.

“They were already dead, this just
put them to rest,” Sean said, looking at the decaying corpses. “Okay fellas,
weapons down and follow me, let’s make ourselves known,” he ordered.

The trio walked in line, arm’s
length apart as they rounded a bend in the road. As they got closer to the
berm, the primal bodies thinned out. Brad could see drag marks where the bodies
had been moved and thrown into fires. He had witnessed that on the first day of
their arrival. He looked at the top of the earthen barrier and could see that
it was now lined with the civilians. A man Brad recognized as the one who had
been beaten and tied to the mast came forward and walked down the barrier
through a break in the tire wall.

He was armed as the others but his
rifle was slung over his shoulder. Sean stopped and the others stopped with
him. They waited for the civilian to approach them. As he got closer, Sean
waved but the man’s face remained stone solid. He gave no indication whether he
was friend or foe. The stranger stopped a good ten paces away and looked at
them apprehensively.

“You the ones that helped us last
night?” the man asked.

Sean smiled and stepped forward
with his hand extended. “Sean Rogers, U.S. Navy, or used to be,” he said,
introducing himself.

The man gave Sean a puzzled look
and Sean lowered his hand. “Were you expecting someone else, friend?”

The man looked at Brad, then at
Brooks before turning back to Sean. “Where are the rest?” he said in a confused
voice.

“Don’t worry pal, there are more of
us, they’ll be here tonight.”

The man smiled then closed the
distance and extended his own hand, shaking Sean’s. “I’m sorry, so much has
happened. Please, please, come and meet the rest of us.”

The man introduced himself as
Johnathon. He wasn’t from the area. He and his wife had been taken at the
roadblock. It was rare for the raiders to take men, but they had manual labor
to do that day and he got lucky, if you could call it that. Johnathon had been
at the camp for over three weeks. He had lost count after they started locking
them in the containers at night. That was where he had spent days and nights
locked away with his wife and infant child. Johnathon guided them through the
barriers and over the berm where they were quickly greeted and welcomed by the
other survivors.

Brad was grabbed and hugged deeply
by a man and a woman, and several children grabbed at his jacket sleeves and
pants. Quickly they were guided across the stony beach and to the small fire
pit near the shipping containers. They were ushered to sit and eat. Men were
preparing more food on the fire. Johnathon explained how they had been nearly
starved by their captors. Their keepers had plenty of food but rarely shared it
with them.

“Who were they?” Brad asked as he
was served a bowl of stew filled with bits of thick vegetables and seafood.

“They came from all over, but most
of them came from that ship, the one that left.” Johnathon spit and gave a sour
look as he stared where the large freighter had been.

A woman who had remained silent now
stepped forward towards the fire. “Eastern Europe but mostly Russian, one of
them … Mika,” she said, causing others to shake their heads and look towards
the pile of bodies. “Yes, Mika, he talked of home often, he was the devil.”

Johnathon looked to the woman, then
back to Brad and the others. “Mika was one of the worst, not the leader, but he
acted like it.”

“How many are left?” Sean asked.

Johnathon answered. “Not many now …
less than five. The captain and his officers rarely left the ship. At one time there
were twice as many sailors, but they didn’t all agree with the way Mika’s crew
had taken over, especially with the killing. Some ships left after the Coast
Guard vanished, other crews were murdered.”

“Wait … what about the Coast Guard,
what do you mean vanished?” Brooks asked.

Johnathon looked over his shoulder
at the Coast Guard ship. “They were gone long before I arrived.”

The woman spoke again, “Mika’s men
killed them, the Coast Guard sailors.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnathon said. “This
is Jane, she is from here, the village, she has been here since the beginning.”

Sean nodded to her. “Jane, what do
you know about them?”

“It doesn’t matter who they were
now. They were brought here when the quarantines started. The Coast Guard put
their boats in a row and left them there. Men from the government arrived. They
built a road block, it was small at first. They just wanted to keep people away
from the village, keep them from seeing the boats.

“When the attacks started most of
the policemen and military went up the valley to defend the other roadblocks.
Things got worse. Some of those people, the sick ones, managed to get by them,
to get this far. They attacked the village. Mika and his men, they saved us. We
thought. They came forward with the Coast Guard captain. They cleared out the
village, the beach, and built the berm. Mika’s ship had tires and mechanical
stuff for the barricade, others had food.

“Mika … he wanted more, he wanted
to leave the village and move up the road. The Coast Guard had orders to hold
the village. They argued over it for several days. In the meantime we could
hear the fighting from the valley, the shooting. Occasionally a creature would
manage to make it to our barrier. But Mika’s people always dealt with them.

“One morning the Coast Guard was
gone. Mika said they left, but no one believed him. Mika and his people started
going up the road. They would return with vehicles, new weapons. They started
wearing uniforms. Then …” Jane paused and looked down. Another woman moved and
sat beside her.

Jane looked back up at Sean and the
others. “Mika’s men returned with several new people, captives. Women, and
young girls … they did things to them. The other sailors argued, they
confronted Mika. But he was too strong by then, he killed them, anyone who
disagreed. He killed my husband and most of the villagers, sparing only a
select few of us. He imprisoned us, worked us, and discarded us when we failed
to obey,” Jane’s voice began to break as she buried her hands in her face.

Johnathon got to his feet. “It’s
over now. We don’t have to fear them anymore.”

Sean walked away from the fire
having heard enough. He looked towards the ships anchored in the cove. Brad and
Brooks moved across the stone-covered beach to join him. The civilians had
stayed by the fire, letting their saviors have a moment. “What are you thinking
Sean?” Brooks asked.

“I’m thinking I don’t want to stick
around.”

“Really, we just got here,” Brad
halfheartedly joked.

“We need to check out that Coast
Guard boat, get on the radios. Put out to sea before the weather turns on us.”