Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (23 page)

“I was out on some stupid community service
project. It was an invasive weed-pulling afternoon on some trail
that I’d never been on and didn’t plan on visiting ever again. We
all gathered at Soldotna High School. Anyway, we were all in the
back parking lot waiting for the event sponsors to come pick us up.
Up drives this big Humvee. It was gorgeous and black as hate. The
license plate read: BEAR. It came to a stop and outta the passenger
door steps this bigger than life guy. You guys know what I mean
about him. Yeah, he’s fat but it’s more than that. He fills the
room, no matter how big. Well, that parking lot got a lot smaller
all of a sudden. He was hauling a bunch of the tools they would be
using, so he only had room for one passenger.”

“And you stepped up?” Oscar asked. “Just
like that?”

“Hell no. The Colonel looked too military
for me. He looked like a guy who might have lived an entire life in
the Marines or something and now only did it as a hobby and to feel
important and powerful. I had no interest, but I was the closest.
So I climbed into his backseat and was surprised to see that the
seat next to me was empty. He could’ve taken more. If I had any
sense, I probably should have been worried about being carted off
somewhere, but looking back, I think I kind of invited that sort of
thing because then I could get away with killing someone and not
getting into trouble for it.”

Oscar and Cody shared a quick, worried look,
which was not missed by Carter.

“No such luck though,” he said. “This other
guy was quite a bit younger than the Colonel but still older’n me.
He was driving. He didn’t say much until we got out onto the trail.
Me and him got paired up that day and I don’t think he stopped
talking long enough to even breathe. That guy was long
winded...Sullivan I mean.

“He called me out good and quick too. He
said he could see through the bullshit game I was playin’ on
everybody else. He told me he could tell that I was high on
something right then too. Probably Vicodin or something...and I
was. He said none of that mattered and he didn’t give a rat’s ass
what I did. It was my business and not his. I respected him for
that but wondered if it might not just be a trap, so I kept my
guard up.

“A little later he said something that
caught my ear though. He said that if I cared about what I did or
had the chance to do it, then he might be able to help. He kept
saying that being able to make choices for yourself is the only way
to be happy, that it wasn’t nobody’s business what anyone else did
and that people who thought differently were enemies of the state.
They
were the true threat to liberty.

“He went on and on ‘bout choices and power
and liberty. Most of it sounded pretty damned good to me. At the
end of the day, he shook my hand and gave me a phone number to call
him. He said that as soon I turned eighteen, if I was willing to
learn and work hard, I could come stay with him and the Colonel.
They had a place for me where I could do whatever the hell I
wanted. I could drink, smoke, and fuck anything I wanted, so long
as that didn’t include doing guys, ya know. But really, anything
was possible.

“I stuck that number in my wallet and didn’t
forget the conversation. I woke up remembering things he said and
went to sleep wondering about others. It was a long two months
until I turned eighteen, but as soon as I did I called. The next
day, I moved out to The Ranch and started my apprenticeship, so to
speak. I learned about firearms; how to care for them, how to fire
them, and how to truly use them. I learned about explosives and got
to blow shit up. I learned other shit, like growing crops and
animal husbandry...ya know, kind of like being a shepherd. Colonel
said that we needed to learn how to provide for ourselves when the
shit hit the fan.

“And in all of that, I stopped drinking and
stopped doing drugs. I got real focused on being good at everything
Sullivan was good at. That guy could shoot, so I wanted to learn to
be that good too. He knew how to track animals on the hunt. He knew
how to use a bow. He knew how to skin his kill and when the best
time was to go out on the hunt. Ya know, when the animals would be
out and at their most vulnerable. He knew about all that and I
wanted to learn.

“The Colonel was good too but even then he
was a big guy, like I said. He didn’t go out on many hunts that he
couldn’t get to in a truck. He was awful busy as a lawyer too. He
was like the anti-ACLU, at least that’s what he used to say. He
fought everything and usually won too. Because of that, he had lots
of money and spent it on some real cool toys for us. Hell, you saw
some of the equipment we have. It’s made all the difference, ya
know.

Oscar asked, “What about your parents? Did
you tell them where you went?”

Cody added as he closed another panel, “Did
you go back for them when everything started to go down?”

Carter spat a jet of tobacco from between
his two front teeth. “No, I never told ‘em. I just disappeared.
Left a note though. That was Colonel Bear’s idea. He was afraid
that if I didn’t, they would go to the police. They mighta thunk I
was abducted or something. Truth is, I felt more like some
kidnapping victim living with
them
than I
did out on The Ranch. We didn’t need the police or any other
government stooges nosing around us. So, I let em know that I was
leaving and would be traveling across country. I pawned everything
I had of value and left. When everything started to go down, I
didn’t care enough to go back for them. They may not have even been
living in Kenai anymore. Hell, I don’t know and don’t care. They
were a necessary evil that I had to endure before I was truly born
out on The Ranch.

“The Colonel, he helped me get my GED and
then later on got me into some online technical classes. I never
saw the point of either, but if the Colonel says to do something,
well then, I do it.”

Some commotion outside drew Carter’s
attention. He leaned his head out the door and called out, “We got
company. I guess I need to go say hello. Cody, Colonel Bear said
that if you can’t get this son of a bitch running and get that
goddamned door open soon, he’s gonna have me shoot you.”

Cody didn’t take his eyes away from his work
but nodded. When Carter did finally leave, Oscar asked, “Do you
think he means it?”

Cody didn’t bother to answer because they
both knew what kind of person the Colonel was and that Carter
willingly did his bidding. The reality was that they had few
options and the Colonel had kept them alive so far.

He was worried though. The Colonel wanted
him to use a portable generator to open the Whittier tunnel gate.
Cody didn’t think he could get enough power out of the thing to
lift the gate even an inch, but he would try. He thought if he
couldn’t make this damned thing work, he might be deemed worthless
and then... He didn’t want to contemplate that. He would just have
to figure a way to get that damned gate open.

There was a small group of the undead
wandering up the Portage Highway toward the militia. Carter ordered
the armed men and women in their group to hold their fire until
they could get a better idea about the size of the oncoming mob.
There were probably twenty of the shambling creatures, their bodies
losing the battle to the elements and slowly freezing. Both their
arms and their legs were much stiffer, sometimes popping as they
moved when frozen flesh cracked and split to allow movement.

Carter joked, “An unsightly bunch aren’t
they?”

Allison Crawford, a tough older gal with
long, wiry gray hair, asked, “Should we take them?” Her fingers
were dangerously close to pulling the trigger on her twenty-two
caliber semiautomatic rifle, which she held at the ready. She was
standing behind the front of a truck and leaning across its
hood.

“Remember to shoot for the head,” Carter
reminded them. “Don’t waste your ammo shooting them anywhere else.”
He figured there would be waste regardless, but he wanted to teach
them all to be calm like Sullivan used to do with him.

He missed Sullivan, who had died back at
Skyview. Carter’s friend and mentor didn’t fall victim to the
undead though. He’d been shot... gunned down in cold blood by the
terrorists that attacked them. Colonel Bear told Carter that
Sullivan had been interrogating one of the new prisoners and had
been surprised, probably shot from behind. How else could someone
get the jump on a guy like Sullivan? It just didn’t stand to
reason.

Their attackers might have been trained by
the military. Hell, it could have been a raid instigated
by
the military. The boy that had been
“liberated” with the girl Sullivan had been interrogating said that
the group had come from Whittier. He wasn’t from Alaska originally,
so some of his details were a bit hazy. All the boy’s sputtering
and whimpering from the water boarding didn’t help Carter
understand him either, but that was the price he had to pay to get
information from an unwilling source. It seemed relatively reliable
information.

When Carter mentioned that to Colonel Bear,
it seemed like lights suddenly lit behind the Colonel’s eyes.
Whittier would make a hell of a place to go. Whittier had access to
the ocean, rivers and forests; all full of bounty to keep the
Colonel and his militia alive. It also had a mountain separating it
from the mainland. It could be fortified and held indefinitely.

Maybe that was what those other people had
thought too. The Colonel reasoned that maybe those other folks had
already done all the hard work for him, clearing the streets of the
skins
and maybe getting basic services back
on line. With those possibilities circling his broiling mind, the
Colonel formulated a plan. They would take Whittier and then start
anew. If any of the other people already in Whittier wanted to join
them, he would consider it. He wasn’t heartless or without reason.
They might be able to help him. The leader though, whoever the hell
that was, would suffer. Colonel Bear would see to that himself. The
man responsible for taking away Sullivan, his right-hand, would
pay. Colonel Bear vowed nothing if not revenge. He wanted blood for
blood.

Seeing Colonel Bear seething with rage,
Carter nodded to the shooters. They immediately commenced firing.
Only about half of the people took their time and shot well. The
others merely closed their eyes and pulled their triggers until
their guns were empty. He chided himself for not doing a better job
of training these dolts.

Many of the skins moving toward them
stumbled as the unleashed storm of lead hit them from three sides.
The bullets tore through the desiccated flesh like a hot knife
through butter, most exiting the undeads’ backs. Bits of clothing
and rotting skin and tissue fluttered through the air like clouds
from a nightmare. The little blood that emerged was dark and
coagulated, spattering like jelly when it did happen to hit the
pavement. Those shooting at specific targets and firing in
controlled bursts did the job though. In no time at all, the herd
of skins was brought down and ceased to move.

Carter wandered into the thick of the
bodies, searching specific corpses until he found what he wanted.
From the front pocket of a skin wearing the coveralls of an
automobile mechanic, he removed a mostly full tin of chewing
tobacco.

He shook his find in the air like a trophy
and announced, “Fuck yeah! It isn’t my brand but it’ll do. Why
don’t some of you come on over here and see what else might be on
these folks? Look for lighters, matches, cigarettes, food, anything
really. Ya never know what you might turn up.”

Carter looked down and saw a very nice watch
on one of the thin, gray arms and thought to himself that he could
use a new timepiece. When he lifted the arm though, the body to
which it was attached moved. The man had been shot in the head but
the bullet had only grazed him, removing his ear and a chunk of his
cheekbone. His sternum as well as his abdomen was full of fresh
holes.

“You just don’t know when to quit do you?”
Carter said to the creature when it reached up at him. “Look at
you. You’re a fucking mess.” Carter pulled a long, serrated knife
from his boot and eased it into the thing’s eye socket, then
twisted it. With its brains now scrambled irreversibly, the ghoul’s
mouth fell open and went slack. Carter took his knife from its
head, wiping the blade on the creature’s sports coat, and then
removed the watch.

He’d never had a nice watch before, and now
he finally did when time had really lost most of its meaning. No
matter. He liked the look of it on his wrist. The other militia
members had watched him in shocked awe while he went about his
work. He was so cool and casual about killing. None of them wanted
to be on the receiving end of his knife or his wrath. A few brave
souls ushered forth and started to search the other bodies. There
wasn’t much to be retrieved: some un-chewed but soggy gum, a couple
of lighters, some cigarette packs with a handful of usable
cigarettes still in them, and a bunch of worthless cell phones.

They left the bodies were they had fallen.
They didn’t plan on being there for much longer, so there was
really no point in tidying up after their latest battle. This
wasn’t the first group with whom the militia had to deal, though it
was the biggest so far.

They couldn’t see it, but coming down the
Seward Highway, drawn to the sound of their guns, was a massive
herd of thousands of the undead. They shuffled slowly but made
steady progress and each time the militia discharged their guns,
the herd’s attention was renewed. The infection propelled them
forward in search of their next feeding.