Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3) (17 page)

Within a short period, his ranks grew
and so did their need for supplies to keep up with the demands of
new recruits. Alvin organized groups of raiding parties and
attacked other surviving pockets of uninfected humans, taking what
they wanted and leaving death behind.

Alvin studied the demons and learned
to use them to his advantage. It took long months for him to
eventually perfect his methods, but he had lots of practice and he
did not give up easily. Each time he failed, his desire to succeed
would become even greater.

They corralled the demons, put them
in pens, and then transferred them to small vans or trucks that
they used to ram through the defenses of other communities. The
demons would distract the men and women who came forward to defend
the community against the infected, while Alvin and his men would
watch, biding their time.

When the moment was right, Alvin and
his platoon would swoop in, killing men, women, and demons without
remorse. While they killed, another group would pillage the
community, taking whatever they wanted, including any men or women
who chose to join their group rather than be slaughtered.

After six months, Alvin’s army spread
south, deploying their teams and methods upon every group of
survivors they found, killing demons and capturing new ones when
needed. They stayed out of the areas heavily populated by the
demons, skating along the outskirts where humans had a chance at
survival. Eventually, they turned north toward the Route 20
corridor. They took Kappy’s restaurant as an outpost where they
rallied before they first attempted to take Providence.

Providence was the largest community
Alvin had yet attempted to take; he failed at his first attempt and
was forced to pull back his men. However, failure was not an option
for Alvin. He had taken casualties on that first attempt, but so
had Providence. But he had replacements which they did not. He
regrouped his army, brought in more men and women from surrounding
outposts, and armed them.

After two days, Providence fell. As
it turned out, though, the sprawling community was a flop, yielding
very little for Alvin’s men. He had expected vast riches from the
community, enough to give him a breather for a couple of months, to
last him them through the colder months. Hell, the way Providence
had fought Alvin completely expected they had something worth
fighting for.

After scouring every home in the
community, Alvin finally turned his group back to the outpost where
they planned their next wave of attacks. They would shift to the
west, moving through the more populated areas, then circle up
north. At the time, Alvin did not realize that if he’d headed just
a mile or so north beyond Providence he would have come upon
Randall Oaks, where he would have discovered the remaining
residents of Providence had retreated with all they could carry
during the two days that he restocked his army.

So Alvin moved west, splitting his
army, sending half to the northwest. He also sent out advance
parties, often one or two men who could move quickly and undetected
to reconnoiter. They could spy on communities or often join and spy
from within and then disappear into the night, only to return at
some point in the future with an army of men.

* * *

We all sat in silence, taking in
Tammy’s disturbing description of Alvin Stone, his rise to power,
and his demented use of the infected against people who were only
trying to survive, to make sure their loved ones might have a
chance to grow old.

“Do you want some water?” I asked.
She had been speaking for twenty minutes.

She nodded her head. “And I could use
another smoke, if you don’t mind.”

While I retrieved a canteen, Brian
got another cigarette going for Tammy. He took the seat in front of
her now and watched as she smoked.

“You’re doing great,” he told
her.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

I set the canteen on the table and
Brian started to rise from the chair, but I put a hand on his
shoulder and he sat back down. We all needed a break. Brian tapped
out a cigarette of his own and lit it. He watched Tammy as she
gingerly drank from the canteen.

“That’s nice and cold,” Tammy said,
wiping her chin with the back of her hand. “I haven’t talked this
much in a long time. Usually if I talk this much, I catch a
beating.”

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Brian
said. He reached out to touch the left side of her face, but pulled
his hand back when Tammy feinted away. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going
to hurt you. I wish I hadn’t hurt you before.”

They both smoked their cigarettes
while I studied the map with Phil. Although he found the map at
Kappy’s, this was the first time he had a chance to look at it. I
could tell he had questions, but he didn’t ask, knowing I didn’t
have all the answers. At least not yet.

After a couple of minutes of awkward
silence, Tammy reached out, took my brother’s hand, and brought it
up to the side of her face. She put his palm softly against the
bruise that started to form where his fist struck her back at
Kappy’s. His fingers moved gently over the purple-pink flesh. She
closed her eyes and her head tilted back slightly.

I caught Phil watching them. Clearing
my throat, I got his attention. He raised an eyebrow but I just
shrugged my shoulders. Several more minutes passed before I walked
back to join them. Moving the canteen, I took a seat at the edge of
the table.

“We’ll get that looked at soon,” I
said, indicating the bruise.

Brian let his hand fall slowly away
from her face. He gripped his own knees, but I could see his hands
tremor. He was embarrassed, but I knew he probably wanted to keep
his hand there, to continue to caress her cheek. Perhaps later,
he’d have more time, but Tammy had more to tell us.

“Sorry, Tammy, but we need to get
back to it. I’d really like to know more about the map. Can you
help us with that?”

Tammy nodded her head. She took
another drag of the cigarette, but this time she did not put it
out. “May I?” she asked and pointed in the direction of the table
where the map was spread out.

“Yes, please,” I said.

We all rose together and joined Phil.
I noticed Brian’s hand on the small of Tammy’s back as they crossed
the distance.

She placed her cigarette at the edge
of the table, and leaned over the map. Indicating one of the
circled areas with the red X crossed through it, Tammy said, “This
here indicated an area that Alvin and his army raided. Over here,
the ones that are just circled in black, those are outposts or safe
locations where the raiders can fall back or resupply without
having to trek back to the main camp.”

“What are these?” I asked, pointing
to Finnegan Farms, which was circled in red, without a red X
through it.

“The red circles are places that have
been scouted. They send out one- or two-man teams to check out
areas that Alvin thinks might have supplies or things we can use,”
Tammy explained. “If scouts tell him the location bears fruit, he
marks it on the map with the circle and plans for attack on another
day.”

“And these dates? Do you know what
they mean?”

Tammy moved around the table,
brushing up against Brian—”Excuse me, sweetie”—and shifted the map
so that she could read it better. “So the first date here…and the
second one, too, are dates the scouts checked out the area. Over
here, these dates indicate test attacks—”

“What do you mean, test attacks?”
Phil asked.

“Let her finish, dude,” Brian said.
He touched the small of Tammy’s back. “Go on. Don’t mind him.”

“I won’t, darling,” she said.
“Anyway, they do test attacks to see what the other guy’s response
time and tactics are. These dates with the asterisk are actual
attack dates. The question marks are possible dates to conduct a
raid.”

“Jesus,” Phil said. “So that first
time they attacked Providence, that was a test to see how we’d
react? Of all the underhanded—”

“That’s actually a sound tactical
strategy,” I said. “Tammy, did Alvin have any military
experience?”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. As far as
I know, he was just a guy in a suit who rode his Harley on the
weekend and pretended to be an outlaw. A weekend son of
anarchy.”

“What happened here today, that was a
test, too?” Phil asked.

“This morning was just a test run.
The plan was to fall back to the outpost, resupply, then hit again
tomorrow or the day after.”

With his hand still on her back,
Brian said, “There were only five or six guys at your outpost.
That’s not enough for a second attack.”

Tammy stood up and turned to face
Brian. She had to look up at him when she spoke. “There are more
coming, a lot more. Alvin was supposed to meet us at the outpost at
first light with a platoon of reinforcements. Your walls pose a
challenge, and his solution is to throw lot of men and women at
it.”

“Maybe he’ll turn back when he sees
what happened to his men at the outpost” Brian said. “Maybe he’ll
know we’re serious and he’ll lose his nerve.”

Taking both of his hands in
hers, Tammy said, “Darling, when he sees what your brother’s done,
he’s going to go from bat-shit crazy to full on
Cujo
.”

Now she looked up at me and said,
“The man whose face you stomped unrecognizable was Mikey. Alvin’s
little brother.”

* * *

“
He won’t stop. Alvin
is…
driven
.
Once he sets his mind on something, he has a laser focus and he
won’t stop until he gets what he wants or he dies trying.” Tammy
finished her cigarette and crushed it under her shoe. She took a
sip of water from the canteen.

She laid her hands on Brian’s
thighs and leaned forward so that she their faces were less than a
foot apart. Her nails were cracked and ragged, and dirt lined the
cracks of her knuckles. “Mikey wasn’t the sharpest knife in the
drawer, but he was Alvin’s baby brother and he loved him like he
loves nothing else.
Nothing
else
.”

From his pocket Brian pulled out the
Doral’s and offered Tammy the last cigarette. She took it, poking
it into the corner of her mouth and waiting for him to light it up.
After a long drag, she blew out a thick film of smoke and leaned
back in her chair, though she kept one hand on my brother’s
thigh.

Consulting her watch, she said,
“In less than three hours, Alvin will arrive at the outpost. When
he sees his brother laying in a pool of blood, naked as the day he
was born, he’s going to go ballistic.
Nuclear
. Complete meltdown. It won’t
take him long to figure out what happened and where to come looking
for revenge. He’ll come right for us here and he’ll kill every last
man, woman and child in this place. Me included.

“At first, this was about what you
have and what he could take from you. He had us watching all the
comings and goings here for a week now in preparation for this
attack. Alvin only held off this long because he needed to figure a
way around your walls. None of that matters now; he’ll be blood
thirsty with revenge for his brother.”

“I can understand him wanting revenge
on me, on Randall Oaks, but why would he kill you?” Brian asked.
“You had nothing to do with his brother’s death.”

“He’ll kill me for living.” Tammy
said. “No matter what happens now, I can’t go back there. I’m as
good as dead.”

“You can stay here, no one will make
you leave,” Brian said. Obviously, he didn’t care whether Phil or I
had any objections.

“That’s sweet, but I don’t feel any
safer.”

“
Why would you throw in with
people like that?” Phil asked. “If this guy is crazy like you say,
why stay? Why follow someone like
that
?”

“Back off, Phil,” Brian said and
turned in his chair so he could look at the other man. He was just
itching to continue the argument from this morning and he found his
chance. “Did you forget the man you followed? The man who brought
war on us? Was he any different?”

Phil was speechless, caught off
guard. “Are we really going to go there again? That was different,”
he finally stammered out. “What Frank did was so that we could
survive. He wasn’t a blood thirsty lunatic like whoever she
described.”

“
Bullshit,” Brian retorted.
“You knew what he was doing not only to us, but also the rest of
the communities was wrong. What we were doing was trying to
survive. What
you
guys did was bully and take what you didn’t earn. And
kill when anyone stood up to you.”

“You hold on now,” Phil said. His
face was suddenly flush and his hands began to open and close with
nervous frustration. “We provided security for many of the smaller
communities and we only requested what we thought was fair
compensation.”

The tension was suddenly thick enough
to cut with a knife. I realized at any moment this argument could
go south. I knew I should put an end to it now before something bad
jumped off, but I could not bring myself to interfere.

“
Request?
Is that what you said, Phil? Don’t make me laugh.
You
demanded
,
and when we didn’t comply, Charlie died. You remember Charlie,
don’t you? I hope you fucking see him in your nightmares because
that is on you!”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Are we going
to keep rehashing this shit?”

Ignoring me, Phil said, “Don’t you
dare put that on me.”

He started toward Brian, but he
stopped when Tammy asked, “Do you have kids? Mr…I’m sorry, I didn’t
get your name.”

At first, Phil was quiet, surprised
by the question. The tension that filled the room seemed to
suddenly dissipate. “My name is Phil,” he finally answered. “No, I
don’t have kids. I’m not sure what that has to do with this—”