Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (28 page)

This all passed without registering for Neil. He didn’t take his eyes from the road passing under them at dizzying speeds. With the information he had been given by Steve, he felt empowered again and on track. At every tight corner, he downshifted to help him control the vehicle but quickly pushed it forward as soon as the road straightened again.

It was on a particularly wide turn that Neil, Emma and Jerry first noticed the flashing red and blue lights ahead. Neil let the truck slow considerably as he considered the possibilities. Was there an accident ahead? Was someone pulled over for speeding? What could those lights possibly mean?

After two more bends, they were upon the scene. In a small parking lot with access to the river beyond, a Soldotna police car sat with its signal lights spinning absently. Around the car and the parking area were the bodies of several decomposing ghouls and two or three fresh corpses whose dark blood rested in gathering pools near their bodies.

“This is all new,” Neil remarked. “Like it just happened a little bit ago.”

Steve, his hands still tied, peeked over the seat in front of him and nodded his head. “That’s Howard’s car and I bet that’s Howard on the ground next to it. He was with us on our supply run.”

Jerry broke his silence by asking angrily, “Is that what you call it? A supply run? Where does kidnapping figure into that? I mean, what ‘supplies’ were you looking for that you could’ve gotten confused with taking someone against her will?”

Neil didn’t interrupt or redirect. Jerry’s questions filled the interior of their truck and looked squarely at Steve for an answer. Steve, for his part, didn’t shy away nor did he conceal the shame he felt for having to answer it. “I was just looking for food and fuel and maybe survivors that needed our help. I didn’t mean for...we were...” Steve felt the knot of guilt tightening itself around his windpipe. “I was wrong and I knew what we were doing was wrong but I was too scared to say so. I want to help you find your friends. I wanna help. They can’t be that far off now. I’m surprised Carter let them turn on those lights. He’s usually more careful than that.”

Jerry, his anger still stoked and burning bright, shook his head and looked out the window again. Off the road slightly and obviously drawn to the pulsating lights like a moth to a flame, a zombie, with his shredded clothes and discolored skin, was meandering awkwardly toward them. Jerry said, “We got company on this side.”

“Yeah. We’ve got a couple over here too,” Neil said. “I guess we should get going. Huh? Those lights will be drawing them in.”

Emma said, “Maybe we should take these fools first. There are only three of them. We could—”

Neil interrupted her by putting the truck back into gear and saying, “No time. We have to catch up to Claire and the others.”

They sped away, leaving the gathering menace behind them. They felt like they were getting closer. For that reason, Neil drove with a little more caution. While still pushing the truck’s speed above the posted limit, he knew that he needed to be mindful of running them into a trap. This Steve kid seemed to be on the level, but he could have been just as easily leading them into an ambush.

When the truck came to a sudden stop, Claire and the children gripped one another in the darkness. They heard more voices, including some that sounded distinctly feminine. Claire tried to get a sense of where they had arrived. It sounded like a bustling center of activity. It sounded like the recent past. It sounded roughly like a fair or a market.

It seemed like an age before the truck’s back door finally rolled up. The din of voices quieted at the sight of the newcomers. Standing exposed and seemingly on display like animals in a menagerie, Claire and the kids hiding behind her gazed back at the scores of eyes looking up at them. There was a loud pause while everyone considered what would happen next.

The steel gray skies overhead were eagerly yielding to the forceful advances of evening. It would be dark soon which meant that nearly a day had passed since they had been taken. A lot had happened but Claire was more concerned about what was still to come. Darkness and the night had long been associated with misdeeds and evil. Perhaps it was the anonymity of darkness that encouraged the evil deeds of men. There was little to no accountability beneath a concealing shroud.

If torment was one of Claire’s concerns, she needn’t bother with her worries. She stood in the back of the truck for a handful of moments before she was dragged out by a tangle of grabbing hands. She heard someone say gruffly, “She killed Slade?” and then, “Yeah. Shot him full o’holes.” And finally, “Sullivan’s gonna be pissed.” The last comment made by several different voices was met with a concerned hush.

The kids were all pulled away from her and led somewhere out of her sight. She was being carried away by her outstretched arms and legs. Countless hands found their way under her loose shirt, pinching at her skin and roughly rubbing the feminine curves held beneath her cotton bra. Claire tried to ignore the gruffness of the touching. She was in a loading bay of some sort at the back of a building. In the area around the bay, the other cars of the convoy had joined still other cars and trucks all parked in a fenced parking lot. That was all she was able to see before she was carried through two sets of double doors.

Claire was carried through a series of doors and hallways, lined with lockers and other doors, and came to the realization that she was in a school. She wondered to which school she had been taken but ultimately it didn’t matter. Her scared eyes scanned the walls and doorways for any recognizable banners or names which might give her a clue. Her wondering was cut short, however, when she was stopped and handcuffed to a hospital gurney in a room with a single panel of working overhead fluorescent lights illuminated faintly by a lone bulb. The scant light buzzed and flickered as the failing exposed bulb resisted burning itself out like all of the others which sat around it like lifeless glass skeletons. To her right, was a counter with a couple of sinks and to her left was a series of large, heavy workbench-like stations. It looked like a shop room or some other technical classroom.

She felt alone and scared, but her sense of isolation was short-lived. She heard someone clearing his throat from over in a dark corner just out of her sight. She tried to angle her head so that she could see better, but it was for naught. He was in a blind spot intentionally.

He spoke with a quiet menace. “I hear you killed my cousin. Damned shame really. He was always braver than he was smart. Me, I woulda’ sent in someone else to take the first bullets. I understand it was at least quick for him. I guess I could judge that as a kindness...but I won’t. You see, Slade was the only family I had left in the whole world. He wasn’t much, but he was mine. Sounds kinda like a bumper sticker. Doesn’t it? Well, I promised his mother that I’d take care of her boy. Aunt Lilly was always my favorite, so I meant it when I promised it to her. And it didn’t change my mind or my promise when I drove the business end of a ball-peen hammer into her skull and left her to gurgle and spit her last filthy breaths in the middle of her fucking kitchen either.”

She heard him take a drag from a cigarette and then fill the small partitioned room with smoke. He said in the same, disturbingly calm voice, “Now you’re wondering if I killed her before or after the shit hit the fan. To me, it doesn’t really matter. Never really did.” He paused and took a drag from his cigarette. The smoke twisting in lazy circles above her head was the only evidence, other than the icy voice, that she wasn’t alone.

His voice, playing in the shadows like the dark echoes of a cave, whispered, “People say that tragedy...war and such...can bring out the best and the worst in people. I like to think that maybe all that’s happened is that I can just be me finally.”

Claire wanted to crane her neck around so that she could see better, but decided against it. She was afraid that such a position might look too compromised and might invite unwanted attention. A moment later, she realized the attention was coming her way whether she wanted it or not.

She didn’t hear him approach and had no way to expect it when her cheek, just below her eye, began to sizzle and burn from a cigarette cherry pressed against it. Her surprise came close to suppressing the pain; but when the momentary adrenaline surge subsided, Claire’s skin screamed in pain. She tried to withhold her shriek, but it forced its way out anyway.

Through the pain and her terror, Claire heard and glimpsed a flame sparking to life from a Zippo lighter. She heard a long pull from another cigarette and waited for his next move.

On the far side of the fenced area at the back of the school, Danny shielded Jules, Nikki, and Paul from a voracious, growling, gray-skinned beast. The chain links separating the zekes from the four of them didn’t seem nearly strong enough as it sagged and bowed like a sheet of sail in the wind. But as they backed away from the one fence, they only drew closer to the one behind them, which had more of the hungry ghouls waiting on the other side.

The children had been placed in the center kennel of a block of dog kennels atop a cold slab of wet concrete which had once been basketball courts. Sitting at the epicenter of the demons’ attention, Danny’s stomach was churning and turning as the undeads’ sonic buzz became unbearable.

Just short of whimpering, Jules said softly, “I’m real scared, Danny.”

“Me too.”

“What are we gonna do?”

Danny didn’t hesitate a second before he answered with as much reassurance as possible, “Neil will come for us. You just wait and see. Neil will get us outta here.”

The tears coming now, Jules asked, “But what if he doesn’t?”

“He’ll come,” Danny promised her. “He always comes. You’ll see.”

By that time, they had all started crying as they moved by inches forward and back, staying just out of reach of the snapping, snarling jaws only so many inches from their own faces. A particularly nasty wet, guttural groan that reeked of waste and decay oozed through the fence behind them, making them all jump nervously.

In their terror, none of the children could hear the wicked laughter coming from a scattered few spectators enjoying the sport. They also couldn’t see the handful of people, mostly women and old, demoralized men, who walked aimlessly around the loading bay area. They didn’t appear to be prisoners, but they were anything but free. They appeared to be moving and stacking stores of supplies in cardboard boxes, wooden crates, and aluminum tins which were unloaded from a series of trucks. It wasn’t necessarily back breaking labor, but it was enough to keep them occupied and gave them purpose.

If Danny and Jules had been able to see Alec, they might have been jealous, but there was really no need. Alec was at least inside and away from immediate harm, but he was far from safe from his own anguish.

He was first tied down to a hard, wooden bench and was subjected to a form of water boarding by a man everyone called Carter, whom Alec had seen in charge of the operation in which he had been abducted. Carter would alternate between administering the torture himself and directing others in the proper method. Carter was a tall, dark man with black hair and eyes to match. He always wore a black tee shirt and snug, black Levi’s. His arms were thick and wiry, the many tendons and veins throughout showing through his skin in many places. The mint scented chewing tobacco forever tucked in his front lip preceded his presence. Alec began to dread the aroma because when it became stronger he knew that a new level of suffering was about to be introduced.

This went on for hours, during which he was denied rest or even reprieve from his suffering. Later he was beaten with bamboo sticks while wildly loud music was played directly into his ears from ear buds which were held in place by tightly wrapped layers of duct tape. The water, the music, the pain, and the deprivation all took their toll on him until he was completely pliable.

Alec was bruised and bloodied, but Carter was always careful not to actually hurt the boy. They needed more loyal troops and someone like Alec was a very good potential recruit. It was all about applying the right amount of pressure and then offering a seemingly generous and protective hand.

The time it took for Carter to turn Alec’s allegiance was amazingly short. The boy’s exhaustion and hunger contributed in no small part to the easy success in making him join with his new brothers. Of course, under the conditions in which Alec had been kept, time lost its distinction. It became soft and doubtful.

Poor Alec’s already fragile soul was incapable of resisting such torture and so he did the only thing his broken mind could think to do. He became one of them in a matter of hours, but Alec Houser had actually fled, never to return again. Alec Houser ceased to exist.

The place to which Claire and the children had been taken was indeed a school. It was once Skyview High School, although it would barely be recognized as that now. Once a place of learning and community, it was now a bunkered fortress...a redoubt in the wilderness.

As a structure, it was as far removed from its original purpose as it possibly could be. The people, too, were different. At first, they were just frightened souls hiding from the gathering threats of doom.