Enduring Armageddon (9 page)

About five minutes after our first stop, the creatures were close enough that we had to move the trucks. As luck would have it, one of them stalled out and wouldn’t start, so there were a tense couple of minutes as we did a Chinese fire drill to find room for everyone.
Add that to the kit bag: Have a load plan prepared if a vehicle goes down
, I told myself. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to think like a hardened military veteran.

We played cat and mouse with the group of zombies until we’d killed them all and returned to the stalled vehicle. Wonder of wonders, it started right up so we cross-leveled our security force again and drove back through town. I rode in the lead truck and the Suburban took several hard hits and bumps as we ran down the former residents of the town. It was just like being in a video game except our vehicle actually sustained damage and if we died in this world, there was no second chance.

Our second run through Carlinville yielded a lot less of the creatures, but our firing line did get attacked by several of the fuckers that surprised us from the woods beside the road. I lost two of my guys before we repelled the attack and put the things down and then reengaged the ones who’d followed us out of the ruined town.

After several more runs though, we’d taken care of most of the mobile creatures so I called it quits in order to help preserve fuel. I called Jesse and D’Andre on our short-range radios to let them know it was relatively safe to bring in the trucks and see what we could get.

It turned out to be a gigantic waste of time. My guys had killed probably six hundred zombies, but Carlinville’s supermarket and most of the convenience stores had either burned to the ground or been emptied by scavengers and mutants. We were able to get about a quarter of a truckload of food from one partially-intact storage building, but that food would only last our population about a day, maybe a little more. It wasn’t worth the fuel we’d burned to drive there or the ammunition that it took to clear out the town. It definitely wasn’t worth the deaths of two trained shooters from my security team.

Jesse took total responsibility for the mission’s failure and told us that he’d set up a scouting party and send them out on autonomous reconnaissance trips before we moved the trucks. Once we returned back to Virden, we all pitched in to help unload the measly supplies and headed off to our various homes for the evening.

On our way home, Jesse and I stopped by to tell the families of the men who’d died. It was another throwback to Jesse’s military days. We certainly didn’t need to do it, people died here every day, but it was a courtesy that we’d promised our guys. If they didn’t make it, we’d ensure that their family knew how they died and would be taken care of. I’d done it more than I cared to think about in my month as the security squad chief, but it never got easier.

I finally made it home about an hour later and was still standing in the entryway when someone banged on the door behind me. I’d just taken my overcoat, boots and outer layer of pants off so I was hesitant to open the door and let in a blast of icy air. Rebecca asked who it was, I wasn’t sure, but given today’s disaster, I figured it wasn’t the mailman.

I opened the door to see Justin, my sadistic second in command of the security squad. He grinned at me like he’d just hatcheted his way through a kindergarten class. “Hey, bossman.” He never called me by my actual name. “The big man wants to see you, Jesse and D’Andre. He heard about the fuck up in Carlinville and wants all three of you over there now.”

Shit, this can’t be good
, I thought. “Alright, let me get my clothes back on, it’s cold as hell out there,” I said out loud and slammed the door on Justin’s face. He was an extremely effective killer, but the dude just gave me the creeps. I’d seen what he did for fun and guys like him were a cancer, he needed to go. I decided that I’d talk to Jesse about getting rid of him after our meeting with Allan.

Rebecca sensed that something was in the air and came over to me. She crinkled her nose at the smell of cordite and ash that emanated from my clothes. “What is it?” she asked.

“We had a problem on our mission today. We tried to go too close to the St. Louis nuclear zone. The town we went to was burned to the ground and crawling with mutants. I lost two guys and we didn’t really even get very many supplies, so it was a big waste of resources.”

“I’m sorry, babe. Are you alright? I mean…about losing your men?”

“Yeah, they were both good dudes but we know the risks each time we go outside of the walls. I wish that asshole outside would have been the one to get it,” I said as I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

Almost as if he’d heard me, Justin banged on the door again and yelled, “Let’s go, bossman! Allan said that I had to get you over there now!”

“I’m coming goddammit!” I shouted at the door. “I’ve got to go,” I said as I pulled on my boots and slid the pants over the top so snow and shit wouldn’t get into where my feet were. “Come here, give me a kiss…and hope it’s not the last one from me,” I added and then regretted immediately as Rebecca began to cry.

“Babe, I was joking!” I said as I pulled off the glove I’d just shoved on and ran my hand across her cheek. She leaned her head to the side as if she were trying to soak up every bit of my touch. I kissed her softly on the forehead. “Okay, I gotta go. I love you.”

I turned and opened the door. She mumbled something back but I was already closing the door and didn’t catch what she said. As I settled my fancy new gas mask over my face I told Justin that I was going to kill him one day.

“Looking forward to it, boss,” he said with that damned smirk on his stupid face.

* * *

I’d never been to Allan’s place before. D’Andre and Jesse had told me that it was like a fortress and as I walked up to the normal looking brick house on the south end of town I couldn’t imagine what they meant. There was an iron fence and a few guards that I’d seen around town but never talked to and that was about it. Justin went up and said a few things to one of them in hushed tones and he waved me up the stairs to the porch. The fact that I was looked at skeptically while Justin was allowed to come and go meant I needed to keep an even closer watch on my little problem than I’d originally thought.

I heard several locks being thrown open as we got closer to the door. Maybe there was a little more security than I’d initially thought. We went into the house through a heavy steel door into a foyer that held three men that I’d never seen. I was asked to leave my weapons at the door, so I deposited my carbine, the KA-BAR that D’Andre gave me that first day when I didn’t know how to shoot a weapon yet and my reliable old baseball bat. They gave me a cursory patting down, but even without my overcoat it would have been nearly impossible to feel any type of weapon underneath all the layers of clothing I wore to keep out the cold.

After they were satisfied that I was relatively clean, they led me towards the back of the house and through another reinforced door to what had once been a closet, but was now a staircase leading down. The stairs went deeper than I would have believed from looking at the house and opened into a massive basement level. There was a very large main area with four or five closed doors leading off of it, probably to the storage rooms for the prepper’s personal stash of supplies.

Jesse and D’Andre were sitting on a couch across from a man in a wing-backed chair. Jesse saw me and waved me over. He stood up and said, “Ah, Chuck, glad you could make it. Let me introduce you to Allan, the savior of our town and the mastermind of the plan we are following to get us through these tough times.”

I turned to face a pretty normal-looking white guy with long, greasy hair wearing an expensive bath robe. He grabbed my hand and shook it. “Hey there, Chuck. I’ve heard a lot about you. Good things don’t worry! Sorry I haven’t had you up here yet and we had to meet under these circumstances. Please sit down,” he finished as he gestured towards the empty seat beside D’Andre.

I sat down beside the gathering squad’s number two man, who had that weird stare of a zealot in his eyes again.

“Chuck, did you know that Jesse and D’Andre have been with me since the beginning, before the war I mean?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Back when I was just the town’s minor celebrity nut-job who’d been on the television. We came together and tried to spread the word about being prepared for the end of times. Well these are certainly the end of times my friends.” D’Andre nodded enthusiastically.

“These two are like children to me, Chuck, deadly children with whom I have trusted my life.” He gestured again and four men walked up behind the couch. “Chuck, I don’t know you. I’ve heard great things about your abilities to organize the security team and how you are a natural killer that just needs a little refinement. Did you know that I had taken notice of you, Chuck?”

“Uh, no sir, I didn’t know,” I said. I wasn’t sure that I liked being called a
natural killer
by this man.

“Well I have, Chuck. You’re doing great things for Virden. I see you becoming one of the leaders of our town as we move forward. My children have disappointed me though, Chuck,” he said as he jabbed a stubby finger at Jesse and D’Andre. “What would you have done differently in Carlinville?”

I thought rapidly to something Jesse had said earlier. “We should have sent out a search team to verify the validity of our target. Jesse actually suggested that…”

“After the fact!” Allan cut me off with a roar. His face visually relaxed as he composed himself before continuing. “Jesse recommended that brilliant suggestion after we’d already lost two soldiers, burned through hundreds of gallons of irreplaceable fuel and shot thousands of rounds at these creatures that will eventually kill each other off before they ever travel this far north to bother us. We can’t afford to waste our resources like that. We’ve been lucky so far, but our fuel supply is finite, Chuck. There won’t be any more produced and we’re hemmed in between highly radioactive areas to both our north and south. We will need to continue to expand our sphere of influence, but we can’t do that without resources.”

Allan gestured again and two men each grabbed Jesse and D’Andre from behind and jerked them to their feet. Both men cried out in alarm and surprise.

“Children, you’ve failed the town of Virden. You’ve failed me,” he sneered. Allan turned back to me and said, “Chuck, these men are the shooting stars of our society. They were high in the sky like the moon above, but now they are falling rapidly. I think that you are Virden’s next superstar, but you’ll need assistance. Pick one of these falling stars to be your executive officer.”

“What happens to the person I don’t pick?” I asked in a panic. I’d known this meeting would be bad, but I was expecting a scolding, this had turned strange rapidly and it was frightening me.

“D’Andre, tell Chuck our rules,” the madman said imperiously.

“You...” he hesitated and the look of adoration had clearly disappeared from his eyes. “You don’t question Allan. His word is the law. He foresaw this disaster and saved our town.”

“You see, Chuck, D’Andre knows the rules. I’ll let it slide because you haven’t had the opportunity to learn them yet,” he paused and then shouted to a woman sitting at a desk along the wall, “Trudy! Make sure we publish the rules to our population. It seems a little unfair that we expect them to follow the rules without letting them know what they are. I want them posted on every wall in town.

“So, Chuck. Who will be your number two man, Jesse or D’Andre?”

I was at a loss. What the fuck was going on? Jesse or D’Andre? Who was better for the town, hell, for me? Jesse was one of the more charismatic people I’d ever met and D’Andre was a brilliant planner. I would benefit from both of them…but what happened to the other one if I didn’t pick him? Shit, what did he mean that I needed an executive officer? Was I supposed to be in charge of the gathering squad now?

“Jesse, what is my number one pet peeve?” Allan asked.

“To be kept waiting sir,” he replied instantly.

“Maybe you aren’t our next superstar, Chuck. If you can’t make a snap decision, then you aren’t the guy. I asked a simple question of you. When I ask a question, I expect to be answered. I want to know who you pick to be your number two in the gathering squad. Now.”

I thought rapidly for a moment and looked from face to face. “Jesse should be my executive officer,” I said as I avoided D’Andre’s eyes.

“Very well, release Jesse,” Allan commanded with another of his gestures. D’Andre began to struggle in an effort to free himself from the men holding him. The two who’d held onto Jesse turned and grabbed D’Andre’s kicking ankles. “Take that failure into the next room until I’m done here. I will pass my judgment on him after this meeting.” The guards carried the thrashing D’Andre from the room screaming. Another nonchalantly tossed Jesse’s silver pistol into his lap.

“See, Chuck. That was easy. I have to show the people of Virden that I am willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that our stronghold survives the storm that is coming,” he said.

My mind wandered a little at his use of the word
stronghold
. That’s really what we were, one little reinforced location within a hostile environment. “Failure is like a cancer,” Allan continued. “If I let someone who has failed continue in their current position, then others will think it’s alright for them to fail, or not try as hard. If I didn’t make a move, I’d be considered weak, Chuck. We’ve got to show the people that our society is performance-based and not a system built on nepotism and preferred treatment.

“Chuck, you will take the expertise that you’ve refined over these last several weeks and you’ll lead the gathering crew to excellence and Virden will rise in power and prosperity! Justin will take over the security squad.”
Shit, this guy is a nut
, I thought to myself.

“I want you…” Allan paused as his eyes searched up and to the left in thought. “Actually, I want the entire town, at the square tomorrow morning. Say, ten o’clock. You will be in the first row.” He made another gesture and Jesse and I were free to leave.