Allegiance (9 page)

The girl came into view
at the same time the two gun-toting assholes mounted the porch, zip-ties in
hand. She was the spitting image of her mom, only thirty years younger.
Probably too young to drive but, certainly in the bandits’ one-track minds, she
was mature enough for
other
things.

Depositing the bullhorn
on the hood of the nearest vehicle, the scrawny leader crabbed between two
Jeeps and made his way to the porch, a pronounced pep in his step.

Though he knew Lev was
returning to this position, Chief sensed the camouflage-clad man well before he
came low crawling from cover. The sixth sense had been a welcome and constant
companion since he was a young boy, an innate ability that had saved his life
more than once.

“First class shit show
happening down there,” Lev intoned as he formed up next to Chief.

“Nothing we can do...
right
now
,” Chief replied, removing the binoculars and fixing a gaze on Lev, who
understood fully what ‘
right now
’ implied.

Having composed himself
somewhat, Mister Gudson mouthed a few silent words, embraced his kids, kissed
them both on the forehead, and then brought his wife into the fold.

Though he couldn’t hear
what was being said, and reading lips was out of the question due to the angle,
Chief could tell by the man’s expression and body language that he was saying
his final good byes. Then, with painfully slow movements, he straightened and
turned towards the henchmen. In seconds he was trussed and had been dragged
down the stairs and over to the lawn, his knees carving dusty furrows in the
gravel.

Lev, who had been
watching through the scope affixed to his M4, stated in a monotone voice, “I
think we are about to witness an execution.”

“Nothing we can do,”
Chief reasserted.

Ignoring the dad, Rat
Face vaulted the stairs and stopped directly in front of the remaining three
Gudsons. After running his hands over the women, giving the younger of them a
much more thorough inspection, he barked orders to several of his men. Then he
about-faced and descended the stairs two at a time.

Next, he strode towards
the prostrate Gudson, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and without
deliberation shot him behind the ear.

As the lone shot echoed
off the house and through the clearing, mom and daughter began to scream. They
were quickly separated and cuffed, arms bound tightly behind them, then
escorted to a white van where they were unceremoniously thrown into the back.

The boy, now alone on
the porch, sobbed silently his body wracked by tremors.

Once again Rat Face made
his way to the porch. He intertwined thin fingers into the kid’s straw-colored
hair, forcing him to a kneeling position. “Like father like son,” he said, his
voice booming over the heads of his men before reaching Chief’s position.

Chief knew what was
coming next but failed to divert his eyes. A glint of sun off steel preceded
the crimson torrent as the killer drew a wicked looking blade across the boy’s
pallid neck.

A leader who is not
afraid to get his hands bloody
,
Chief thought, fighting off the bile rising in his throat. He had seen them
before
on the inside
and they were the worst of their kind. The rare
human animal who enjoyed and fed off of the pain and suffering of others.

“One less mouth to
feed,” the man bellowed as he held the convulsing body upright. Aerated blood
bubbled and frothed from the gaping second mouth, while, like a baby bird
trying to leave the nest for the first time, the boy weakly beat the air with
his arms.

Rat Face released the
handful of hair, letting the corpse pancake onto the porch face first, then
wiped his knife on the boy’s tee shirt. “
Search the house top to bottom!
”
he screamed, corded muscles bulging in his neck.

Like army ants the men
stormed the house, and in a matter of minutes the Gudsons’ considerable pantry
had been emptied of food. One man emerged, brandishing the only firearms in the
house: both pistols of some kind.

War whoops resounded, engines
started and the vehicles began a clumsy dance, drivers backing and wheeling,
trying to extricate their rigs.

One at a time the
vehicles rolled down the gravel drive and were soon swallowed up by the forest.

Incredulous, Lev said,
“That’s some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen. And believe me... I’ve seen some
shit.”

“It’s a close second for
me,” whispered Chief.

With a sideways look as
the white van disappeared from sight, Lev lobbied to go down and make sure the
two males were indeed dead.

“No need,” replied
Chief.

“Why’s that?”

“No way we can help them
even if they’re hanging on.”

Judging by what the
animals proved they were capable of, and coupled with the blood- and gore-streaked
Econoline van, Lev and Chief both arrived independently at the same conclusion:
the lawless bandits who had just massacred Gudson and his boy were undoubtedly
responsible for cutting the fence near SR-39 and letting the dead onto Logan’s
property. Considering their numbers and their utter disregard for human life,
they could not be taken lightly.

With the exhaust notes
receding into the distance and the chilling sound of Gudson’s final pleas
echoing in their heads, the two men melted into the tree line. Then, after a
thirty-yard hike through the dense undergrowth, Chief’s voice crackled in Lev’s
earpiece. “You smell it yet?”

“Yeah,” Lev answered
crinkling his nose. “Rotters?”

“Not exactly,” Chief
said somewhat cryptically.

Not in the mood for fun
and games after what he had just witnessed, Lev muttered an expletive and
pushed ahead. A moment later, after stepping over a crumbling moss-coated snag
bristling with up thrust volunteers, he put his boot into the offending deer
carcass.

A snicker sounded in his
earpiece. He looked up to see the grinning American Indian whom he was quickly
forming a close kinship with, and then reciprocated with a reluctant stress-relieving
smile of his own.

Outbreak - Day 15

Colorado Springs,
Colorado

Brook pointed out the
safety—a sliding lever above the trigger guard on the left side of the carbine—and
made sure it was engaged before snugging the rifle to the girl’s shoulder.

“Put your left hand on
the front grip... like this.” She positioned Raven’s hand and then put her foot
between the girl’s heels and moved her stance apart incrementally. “Does that
feel stable?”

“I guess.”

“Good. Right before you
get ready to fire, you flick off the safety... this lever here. And just before
you
squeeze
the trigger—and I want you to
squeeze
it just
once—you have to press the rifle tight to your shoulder and lean your body
forward a tad to counter the recoil. This gun is going to pop your shoulder a
bit—that’s the
recoil
part—but don’t worry,
Mom
has got your
back.”

“Do I have to...”

“
Yes
you do,
sweetie.”

Raven finished her
sentence. “... shoot the things?”

“They’re not
people
anymore. Remember... we talked about it already. They won’t feel it and they
won’t
hate
you for it either.”

“How does God feel about
it?” asked Raven tentatively.

“God’s on board,
sweetie,” Brook answered matter-of-factly. And deep inside their brains
somewhere, they’re grateful they are not going to be walking around against
their will anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yes sweetie, really,”
Brook said.
I know I would
, she thought.

“I’ll try it again... if
they won’t be mad at me. You promise, Mom?”

“I promise.”

Brook’s reasons for
bringing them to this remote part of the base were many. She had been meaning
to tell Raven about her miscarriage and hadn’t found the time or the place.
Also, she wanted to familiarize herself with the new equipment affixed to her
rifle. The day before, Cade had had the armorer fit the M4 with an Eotech
holographic optic combined with a 3x flip down magnifier. She remembered what
he had said about the new set up. “
The Eotech will be perfect for dinging Zs
up close and personal. Then, with one simple motion you engage this magnifier,
and voilà, you can reach out a little further. Basically you get the best of
both worlds in a tidy little package
,” were his exact words.

“Now this is your
sight,” Brook said to Raven, trying her best to explain it so her twelve-year-old
wouldn’t become confused. “And wherever you put the red dot is where the bullet
is going to hit. This thing,” she flipped the cylindrical optic mounted before
the holographic sight up and then back down to demonstrate its range of motion.
“It makes things that are farther away look like they are much closer.”
I would
have made a horrible teacher
, she told herself. She hoped she hadn’t
sounded condescending like Cade often did whenever he tried to school her in
the matters of shooting, basic security, and situational awareness.
Furthermore, she hoped she wasn’t throwing too much at her daughter at one
time.

But unfortunately, the
fact that they were leaving at first light didn’t leave her with much of a
choice. Besides, outside the wire, three shooters, no matter how green Raven
was, would give them better odds of making it than just her and Cade.

“Do you get how it
works?” Brook asked.

Mimicking her mom’s
actions, Raven pressed her cheek to the stock and manipulated the slide out
function once or twice. “Yes Mom, I see what you mean. Now can I shoot it?”

“You’re
ready
?”

“Yes Mom. Now quit
asking me if I’m
sure
... or
OK,
or
ready
.”

Wow,
Brook thought, if this is twelve-year-old sass,
what are the teen years going to throw at me? Then she remembered their current
situation and the fact that every new day was going to be tougher than she and
Cade could have ever imagined. A little over two weeks ago her most pressing
concerns had been trivial compared to surviving the Omega outbreak. Choosing an
orthodontist—hardly daunting stuff, she mused. Fearing the dreaded talk about
the birds and the bees—trumped by explaining why the dead had risen and how it
was now OK to put a bullet in their rotten brains.
Hell
, Brook thought,
Raven
probably knew more than she let on about reproduction anyway.
Should make
the concept of miscarriage easier for her to grasp though. At that, she pushed
all of these troubling thoughts down inside and reminded herself that they
could be dealt with after she and Raven had put a few rounds downrange. She
grimaced at the wording that had involuntarily entered her stream of thought, then
smiled at the realization that not only was she beginning to act like her
husband, she was starting to think like him as well.

From their vantage point
in the guard tower they could see for miles. The only things poking through the
hard-baked ground were smatterings of low scrub and tufts of some type of hardy
savannah grass clumped here and there. Adding contrast to the ochre dirt,
yellowed lace-like tumbleweeds bounced across their shooting range. And though
the guards had already cleansed the perimeter of the dead that had been drawn
by the commotion caused by the vicious outbreak, there were still a few random
Zs lurching about on the horizon. Only three of them were close enough to
engage with any chance for a successful hit.

“OK... see the taller
one with the necktie fluttering in the wind?” Why the thing had been dressed
for success at the onset of the outbreak was anyone’s guess. But Brook decided
that using generic descriptors like body size or type of clothing the flesh
eater was wearing would convince Raven they were less human and more like a
walking mannequin. Monikers like male, female, adult, and especially kid were
removed from her lexicon when Raven was within earshot.

Raven put her cheek to
the smooth polymer stock and her eye near the rubber-ringed glass lens as her
mom had demonstrated. “Got it,” she said with an air of confidence that belied
her age and physical stature.

Good job
, Brook thought, and then in order to shore up
Raven’s four and a half foot frame, braced her knee against the girl’s bottom, reached
around her shoulders and gently gripped the rifle to lend a little extra
support.

“Remember, we do not
jerk
the trigger... we
s-q-u-e-e-z-e
the trigger. Whenever you are ready,
sweetie.”

Pow!

Smiling, Raven glanced
at her mom.

“Very good. Now try
three in a row.”

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Though the short-barreled
M4 offered very little recoil, the consecutive shots jolted both of their
bodies. Then, slowly, as Brook sensed Raven becoming more comfortable with the
rifle, she eased up on the pressure entirely and backed away.

Geysers of soil erupted
around the shambler’s bare feet.

“Aim for its head, right
in the center.” She didn’t want to say between the eyes... it just sounded a
little too macabre.

Dragging her aim up
slightly, Raven paused for a second, barrel wavering, and then ‘
squeezed
’
the trigger like Mom had instructed.

Pow!

Raven remained standing.
The decomposing first turn did not. The monster collapsed to terra firma
convincingly in a puff of russet dust, knees jutting skyward, its cratered face
staring vacantly at the blue Colorado sky.

“See sweetie, it doesn’t
kick as much as you feared. A little more than the .22, but Mom needs you to
get used to it just in case.”

“In case of what, Mom?”

In case Mom or Dad
dies
, Brook thought to herself.
Yet another eventuality that needed to be covered but would have to wait.

“We’ll sit down and talk
about it after we shoot.” Brook traded Raven the smaller Ruger 10/22 rifle that
she had procured for her a few days prior for the Colt M4. Though Raven had
balked at the time, Brook had a feeling that the Ruger would be more to her
liking after being exposed to the substantial kick of the M4.

Raven regarded the rifle
for a second, then, displaying what she had already learned about the workings
of the 10/22, removed the magazine, inspected it closely, and then seated it
into the well in front of the trigger guard. She pulled the handle located on
the right side of the rifle to chamber a round and double checked, making sure
the safety was on.

Good girl
, Brook thought.

Finally, Raven looked
coyly over her shoulder at Mom and flashed a lopsided grin as if to say, ‘
See,
I got this
.’

Fantastic
, thought Brook, noting that her daughter had
practiced safe firearm handling by keeping the barrel pointed down range as she
went through the motions.

“See if you can hit that
one with
your
rifle.”

Raven said nothing and
shouldered the Ruger. At only four and a half pounds, the polymer-stocked varmint
rifle was still not a feather in her grip. Then, without further prompting,
Raven squeezed off ten rounds—about one a second—until the gun went silent.

The fallen cadaver had
twitched slightly after each good hit.

Six out of ten
, Brook thought to herself. Certainly room for
improvement, but the major hurdle had been cleared—Raven had stepped to the
plate and swung for the fence. So far so good. But as hard as it was for Brook
to contemplate, the nagging question remained—if push came to shove, when any
one of their lives were in jeopardy—would Raven be able to use the weapon
against a hostile human being? It was a question Brook didn’t want to have
answered. Her heart fluttered and she felt her throat go dry, tightening like
an invisible ligature had been placed around her neck. Hot tears welled in the
corners of her eyes.
Hell, this wasn’t supposed to be happening,
she
told herself. School was supposed to start back up in a few weeks, and holding
to their annual ritual they should be gracing the doors of Old Navy and the Gap
right about now—not blowing away walking corpses in the high desert of
Colorado. She fought off an overwhelming tide of nausea and swiped away fully
developed tears.

“OK, good shooting,” she
said, but in her own head the words sounded hollow and distant. “Now reload and
see if you can hit the two smaller ones in the distance.”

“The kids?” Raven asked.

“The two smaller
walkers,” Brook said.
Can’t sneak one past you
, is what she didn’t.

Though the undead pair
shuffling towards the fence were still roughly thirty feet away, to the human
eye the damage they had suffered prior to reanimating was clearly evident. Both
had wounds to the forearms and hands—defensive in nature—indicating they’d
fought off attackers. Both had bites around the face and neck telling that
those efforts had failed them.

Brook brought her rifle
to bear, not to put the kids out of their misery—she would leave that up to
Raven if she could get past the fact that they had once been kids around her
age. Brook merely wanted to examine them, up close, one at a time, using the 3x
scope. Her crosshairs found the boy first, displaying the ghastly wounds in
vibrant detail. Nearly every scrap of flesh was missing from the left side of
its neck between the partially exposed clavicle on up to its constantly
snapping jaw. On the opposite side of the Z’s face, the skin and subcutaneous
tissue had either been chewed off or rent from its skull by brute force. Brook
swallowed hard, and felt her finger willingly moving towards the trigger.

“Mom... why don’t you
just call them what they were before they got bit,” Raven said impassively. She
paused to insert a full ten-round magazine into the Ruger. “Those were kids...
a boy and a girl,” she added. Then, without hesitation, she lined up the iron
sights, fore and aft, drawing a bead dead center on the male creature’s stark
white forehead.

Pow!
A single shot from the M4 rang out, causing Raven
to jump and lose the lined up shot. A millisecond later, she witnessed the left
half of the boy’s face dissolve in a gale of putrid flesh and ivory bone
flecks. Then, after regaining her composure, the pig-tailed girl shot her mom a
sidelong look, sighted on the other Z, and sent a single .22 long rifle round
into its cranium where it bounced around, carving furrows through the impulse-sending
gray matter. Instantly, like someone had cut its legs, the rotting shell of a
young girl that was once someone’s daughter collapsed face first onto the sunbaked
earth.

Brook grimaced. Her
eyebrows hitched up an inch.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,
she
mused. She turned her back on the twice dead trio then sank to the plywood
floor.

Raven engaged the safety
and propped her rifle in the corner, then joined her mom on the floor where
they sat shoulder to shoulder, lost in their own thoughts. Meanwhile, behind
them, out of sight but light years from being out of mind, what may have been
three-fourths of a complete family festered in the sun.