Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (24 page)

Neil said gently, “You and Duke can count on me. He is a good dog and you’re a good man. You deserve one another my friend.”

DB, meanwhile, began to whisper into Neil’s ear. The dying man’s voice was fading fast, as was the life in his eyes. Just above a whisper, DB spoke to Neil who listened intently, trying to hear every word. In mid-sentence, the words simply stopped.

Neil looked down into the other man’s vacant eyes, which still glistened with a gloss of tears. With the palm of his hand, Neil closed the other man’s eyes and stood up.

Emma asked, “Is he…?”

“Yeah.”

“What was he saying to you?”

“He told us to go get those fuckers! Can you guys give me a hand here?”

The three of them moved DB’s body over to where Duke’s was lying. They laid the two “old men” next to one another as respectfully as they could and paused for just a reverent moment. There wasn’t time for words, and grieving was to be done on the run.

There was not time to be spent on anything other than the hunt. They needed to track down the others in their group, and they needed to make up lost ground as quickly as possible. The unfortunate reality was that sudden, violent death and loss had become such a prevalent component of their lives that pausing to observe another person’s passing was easily forgotten.

They darted between the vehicles on the choked Portage Glacier Highway, throwing caution to the wind, dodging in and out of tight spaces without a thought of the dangers that might be waiting for them.

They were fighting against their struggling lungs and heavy feet, but none of them slackened their pace one bit. They were running so blindly that, when Della emerged dragging behind her a kicking and struggling young man dressed in camouflaged military fatigues, all three nearly tripped into one another.

Gaining his balance, Jerry said with quite a bit of relief in his voice, “Della! Christ, it’s good to see you.”

Without a smile on her stone cold visage, Della said, “Now that ain’t no reason to take the Good Lord’s name in vain, Steve.”

Neil asked curiously, “Whatcha’ got there?”

“I gots me a man who had a mind to do some evil but is havin’ second thoughts now. Ain’t he?”

The terrified and hurt militiaman pleaded, “She broke my fucking arm.”

Della smiled and dangled her tire iron proudly in front of herself. Not satisfied in the least, Jerry kicked the man hard in the back. He would have liked to have been sated with the sound of the other man’s air suddenly evacuating his lungs, but he wasn’t. So he kicked him again. This time, Neil pulled Jerry away.

He leaned down next to the scared and hurt man much the way he had with DB, but there was neither sympathy nor sorrow in his eyes. He asked, “Hurt?”

The other man, still breathless, nodded. Neil smiled and punched him in the face hard. The punch hurt Neil’s fingers despite wearing gloves, but seeing the other man’s nose explode in a spatter of red across his cheeks helped him forget the pain.

“That’s as good as it’s gonna get,” Neil snapped. “You’re gonna lead us to our friends or it’s gonna get a lot worse. Understand me?”

The other man’s crying suddenly stopped. His expression became very serious and even a little defiant. Neil could rightly read the fact that the man was going to be anything but compliant. Neil swallowed, and smiled his understanding of the unspoken message he’d received. “Don’t worry little man. You’ll tell us everything we need to know because, you see, we got nothing left to lose. And you, well, you’ve got ten fingers and ten toes to start with. Do you understand that?”

The militiaman understood clearly what he was being told and was fearful of the pain, but he had been trained and knew what to expect if he was broken. The officers back at their base in Soldotna had warned all of them of the interlopers they would encounter and their evil godless ways. He knew if he betrayed them, there would be hell to pay...literally.

And so, with wide eyes and sealed lips, he waited for the worst.

Claire awoke, bound and gagged, lying across the back seat of what appeared to be a squad car. Disoriented, she wondered for a moment, hoping actually, if maybe the past several months had just been a rufie-fueled nightmare. Through the pounding pressure in her temples, she fantasized that perhaps the world was how she remembered it before the apocalypse. When she forced a blood and snot filled breath through her nose though, she remembered how she had gotten there in the first place.

Earlier that morning, she was just waking and wondered where Jerry had gone. He was normally right next to her while she slept. He’d been there when she had drifted off to sleep but was absent when she awoke. Yawning and stretching from her uncomfortable spot on the floor, she looked up to see DB standing at the front door. He was looking out at first, but caught sight of her movement and turned to see her. He muttered something under his breath that Claire didn’t fully comprehend but she understood his meaning all the same. Duke needed to take a leak, so he and his dog were going out for a quick walk.

Claire rubbed her eyes and smacked her lips together. She was lying on the floor of a small dining area of the coffee shop. No amount of blankets or extra clothing piled under her was capable of making the floor comfortable under normal conditions, but the pain in her back from her fall contributed to her extra stiffness. Danny, Jules, and the other two kids whose names she never seemed to be able to remember were still sleeping near her, but other than them, there was no one to be seen.

Jerry, Neil, Emma, and Della were all out of sight. She thought that maybe they were just in other areas of the shop. She stretched her arms high above her head and felt the pain in her back and shoulder again. They still hurt like hell, but at the moment she didn’t feel like just going back to sleep to escape the pain. She winced her eyes as she shifted her spine one way very slowly and then the other to try and loosen her tense and bruised muscles.

She was just starting to get her wits about her when she heard a pop outside. It took her just a second or so to realize she had heard a gunshot that sounded like it was just outside the front door. She shook her head, thinking she must have just imagined it, and then she heard another shot which sounded almost like a very large firecracker.

Danny woke to this latest noise and looked over at Claire for any hint as to what it was. The two were still looking at one another when a shadow passed in front of the window on the room’s front wall. Still a little confused about what to do, Danny allowed instinct to take over. He pulled the small pistol from his pocket and pulled the slide back to ready the firearm.

Suddenly the front door burst open and a man wearing a military uniform burst through. At first, Danny and Claire hoped that the man was there to save them. Maybe the Army had finally come back to Alaska to set things right again. When they saw his grizzled face and menacing expression, however, they both realized his intent was anything but to save them. He wasn’t a zombie, but he was likely just as dangerous.

Danny didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger on the pistol, which kicked three quick times against his palm. All three bullets found their marks in the camouflage-clad man’s upper chest, neck, and face. He fell to the ground writhing for a moment in pain and then suddenly he was still.

Claire grabbed the pistol from Danny just as a trio of similarly dressed men rushed through the doorway. One of them was quick to run toward Claire, who hesitated momentarily. He kicked the pistol from her hand and then cracked her on the head with the butt of his rifle. The lights went out immediately for her and stayed that way until now.

In addition to the pain in her back, she was now contending with a new pain in her jaw and left side of her face. She tried to sit up but was finding that exceptionally difficult. Every move she made, she could feel the crusty scabs on her back split and ooze fresh blood. Her shirt was already pretty well plastered to the wound and her movements, however slight, were pulling the fabric away with bits of flesh still attached. She whimpered involuntarily at the sensation.

From in front of the steel screen separating the front and back seats, she heard a gruff male voice say, “Is someone waking up back there? Don’t worry. I know you can’t speak. You can just listen instead. You shot Sullivan’s cousin back there and he ain’t gonna like that one bit. You’re just lucky he ain’t with us on this scouting run or you’d really be hurtin’ right now. Don’t worry though. He’ll be waiting for you back at camp. He’s gonna be real happy that we brought you back. Pretty little thing like you gonna help keep us all warm.”

The gravity of her situation sinking in, Claire’s fear took hold. She wondered about the others. Where was everyone else? Was Jerry still alive? Where was she being taken? She started to wrestle with the binding on her wrists but to no avail. Her ankles were also too tightly bound for her to free them.

And then her thoughts focused and she wanted to demand where the kids had been taken. Why were they not with her in the car? She tried to force the handkerchief gag from her mouth, creating a bit of a ruckus. She tried using her teeth to saw through the fabric, but had no more luck with that than she did with freeing her hands.

Grinding a toothpick between his teeth, the driver looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. His words oozed out of him like poison, “Feisty little thing, aren’t you? You’re gonna be real popular. You just wait and see.” He produced a guttural grunt on the heels of speaking and then smiled another toxic, toothy smile.

His smile, so full of hostility, melted all the defiance out of her. Claire wanted to be tough like all heroines from action movies...Jolie in
Salt
or Arquette in
True Romance
. Try as she might, however, she couldn’t quiet the paralyzing fear in her chest. She did the only thing that came to mind. She emptied a night’s worth of waiting from her bladder onto the seat.

She knew she would eventually regret it when her wet underwear and pants begin to chafe and rub her bottom, but she appreciated the soaking she gave to the cloth seats nonetheless. The smell would take a hell of a lot of scrubbing to remove. And judging by the terrain that passed by the windows, she easily presumed where they were on the highway. It was still quite a distance before they would be arriving anywhere, so she reveled in her quiet rebellion and waited until she was able to urinate again.

While Claire was measuring her fate, Danny was also trying to be strong in the back of a yellow and green Vend Alaska panel truck. He looked around at the other three pairs of wondering, scared eyes and knew that they were all looking to him. The other children needed for him to be their rock. He was expected to be the strength to help them survive this latest encounter. Unfortunately, Danny’s distraction was palpable in the dimly lit truck interior, as if it were another passenger along for the ride.

To say that Danny was conflicted in his feelings toward Neil at the moment would earn a nomination to the Understatement Hall of Fame. He understood that Neil, if he was indeed still alive, was the best hope that any of them had to survive their abduction. Danny forced himself to expel any thoughts that Neil, Jerry, and Emma had already met their demise. If Neil was dead, then so was his hope that things were going to work out for any of them.

At the same time, however, he couldn’t deny the resentment he felt toward Neil for having left in the first place. If he had still been there, maybe things wouldn’t have gone as badly as they did.

Danny envisioned himself defending their new home alongside Neil. He imagined standing at the window, with his rifle in hand. They had stopped
Them
; he had stopped
Them
, whoever
Them
happened to be. The battle was won and they were all safe again, and he had helped. He was no longer a burden or an afterthought. He mattered. But it was Neil’s approving look that made the fantasy complete. It wasn’t about the killing or the saving for Danny. He just wanted to make Neil proud of him and that was really enough at the present.

As it was, Danny was unfortunately forced to focus on his reality and not on his fantasy. He couldn’t stop rewinding and reliving those fateful moments in the coffee shop. He didn’t remember taking the pistol from his pocket; it was simply in his hand at the right moment. In his memory, the pistol glimmered like the finely honed steel of a hero’s sword. He pointed the gun and then the man was down. He couldn’t be certain that he had even pulled the trigger. Other than the man’s body on the floor in front of him and the pulsing sensation in his palm, he had no way to know for sure what he had done. He couldn’t remember the man’s face. Hell, he may not have had time to look. Everything had happened so fast.

And now...now, he couldn’t help the reverberating echo in his mind of the words,
I killed a man
. Like an explosion of fireworks, the words flashed in blinding patterns, until the echo found the back of his throat and he whispered, “I killed a man.”

Giving the thought voice made it all the more real. He hadn’t denied his memory before, but now he couldn’t possibly do it. He uttered the simple words as quietly as the flutter of a bird’s wing. His voice barely tickled the air.