The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (44 page)

They reached the next ladder up in less than two minutes. Mac split off the scout and another of the men to take that spot. He and the last man hurried to the farthest ladder, one more street over. The tunnel continued, but this was as far as they would go. Mac slung his rifle on his back and pulled out his Hunter’s knife, eight inches long and three wide, with a serrated edge opposite its cutting surface. The knife was a nightmare of a weapon.

At least to those he would use it on.

Mac lowered his voice as he spoke to Sheridan, his last man, and motioned upward. “I’ll raise up the cover and check for hostiles. If it’s clear, I’ll head up and you’ll cover. Check?”

“Check,” the soldier said.

Mac nodded and climbed the ladder, slow and easy so as not to make any unnecessary noise. He didn’t think the crazies would be patrolling this far out, but it was only a guess that the dilapidated hotel was their base.

Daylight shone in around the manhole cover. Mac shook his head, remembering how he’d argued against a daytime attack. Carson had argued back that they’d never expect an attack from behind, especially because it was the middle of the day. One of them would turn out right.

He pressed one hand against the manhole cover and tested its weight and whether the years of neglect had sealed the cover to the street with rust and debris. The cover barely budged. He braced his legs against the ladder and his back against the underside of the manhole cover. He’d seen old movies in the bunker that showed guys just lifting these things like they were nothing. Buncha bullshit. He strained and managed to lift the manhole cover just a little.

He set it back down slow and thought for a moment. There was no other way out of the sewer, but if someone was waiting, it’d be a deathtrap. He looked down at Sheridan. “I’m going up quick and rolling that way.” He pointed to his left. “You come up quick and cover me as I recover. This is gonna be fucking loud.”

Sheridan nodded and climbed up as far as he could without being in the way.

“Exiting now,” Mac said.

Two sets of double clicks came back, an indicator that the rest of his team had heard and was ready to move on his signal.

Mac took a couple deep breaths, then heaved as much as he could. He had good leverage and a strong back, so the cover slid up and over somewhat fast. He threw himself out and rolled to the left as Sheridan popped up to cover him.

The ruins of houses lined the street in both directions. To the north, he could just see the top of the hotel over the house closest to him. Both men raced to the house to the north and threw themselves down in cover. Mac was behind what remained of the brick wall the owners had used to border their yard, Sheridan in a position near to his own.

Both men waited, silent and prone, for any sign that they’d been heard. Nothing happened, and Mac was both surprised and not: surprised because of the sheer lack of security, but not, because these weren’t exactly trained military men. They were zealots, focused on their orders and blind to everything else. Out-of-the-box thinking had been trained out of them for years, and it would be their downfall.

Mac motioned to Sheridan and indicated they would proceed around the house and toward the hotel. The plan was to rendezvous with the men in the second manhole and together take up positions across the street from the hotel. They crept through the waist-high grass, around the corner of the house toward the backyard.

Nature had returned with a vengeance to this small plot of ground, and several large trees obscured their view of the back fence. They crouched down and brushed tree limbs and bush branches out of their way while making as little noise as possible. The overgrowth was thick, but they could see gaps in the back fence big enough for them to get through and a store on the other side.

“Anything?” Mac whispered.

Sheridan shook his head.

Mac spoke again, this time into his mic. “Romeo Six, Strike Actual.”

A moment later, Carson’s voice came through his headset. “Romeo Six, go.”

“We are at Station One, ready to advance on your green. Say status, over.”

“We’ve got some walkers, but they’re not getting in. Nutballs out there too but haven’t shown themselves yet. Green to proceed to Station Two, over.”

“Roger, Strike out.” A noise off to his left got his attention, and Mac saw the manhole cover lift up where his second pair of men waited. “Second team, clear.”

The manhole cover lifted faster—again, placed instead of scraped. Mac and Sheridan moved at the same time as the other two men piled out of the manhole. All four took positions at the rear of the store. Mac noticed that the faded sign on the back door read, “Larry’s Auto Parts.”

He tried the door and found it open, for a wonder. He took a closer look and noticed that the metal frame was bent and scarred. Someone had jimmied it at some point in the past, before Z-Day when the chaos was at its worst. Just as he was about to open the door and move inside, he realized that looters wouldn’t have left the door closed. They wouldn’t have cared. That meant someone could be inside, and likely someone from the Church.

Not even they were stupid enough to leave the building across the street from their base unguarded.

There had been no sign of the others by now, and Mac was getting nervous. Either they’d guessed wrong about the Church’s base of operations or the zealots were even dumber than he thought. Neither option would have been good news. Stupid zealots were even more dangerous than smart ones, at least in combat.

He motioned to the other men to take precautions, and when all were ready, he threw open the door. Sheridan caught it so it wouldn’t clang against the wall, and they waited for some sign of occupancy. Still nothing.

They couldn’t be this lucky. Something was going on. Was the rest of the convoy drawing all the zealots? They might be spreading even more thin than the convoy if that was the case. They might be expecting reinforcements themselves… Mac sighed. There was no way to know what was going on without getting in this building. He readied his rifle and turned to face the door just as a voice came from inside.

“Brother Malchus, is that you?” There was a pause. “Come inside, you’re letting the heat in. Did you find the water?”

Mac heard steps heading toward the door and pulled his knife once more. He slung his rifle across his back and flattened himself to the wall beside the door.

“Malchus, what say you? Have you found the water or—”

Mac cut him off as he hauled the man out of the door and slammed his body against the wall. All the air whuffed out of the churchman’s lungs, and he sagged against Mac’s arm across his chest. Mac’s other arm held the big Hunter’s knife to the zealot’s throat.

“How many are you?” Mac hissed. He pressed the knife against the man’s throat almost hard enough to break the skin. “How many in the building? How many across the street?”

The zealot coughed and tried to push Mac away, but he stopped as Mac pressed the knife in harder. A thin trickle of blood slipped down the man’s neck as his eyes widened.

“Answer me or die here,” Mac said. He could see fear warring with hatred in the man’s eyes and wasn’t sure what he would do, so he leaned closer. “I don’t mean die right away, either. We’ll desecrate your body so even your dear and fluffy lord won’t want you anymore. Or you can answer my questions and we’ll tie you up and leave you for your people to find… maybe. Choice is yours.”

The man’s brow furrowed as he considered the offer, then he nodded, or tried to. “I’ll talk,” he said.

“How many in here?”

“Just me and Malchus, but he went to find some water. Hasn’t come back.”

Mac nodded to Sheridan, who took up position at the corner of the building opposite one of the others. They’d spot this “Malchus” fellow as he came back.

“What about the rest of you? How many?”

“Uh… maybe…” He hesitated.

Mac shifted the knife from the man’s neck to his groin. “Do I start the desecration early, boy?”

The fear in the man’s eyes won out, and Mac knew he had finished resisting. “No! No. I was just trying to get the right number. There’s about twenty or thirty of us, plus Brother Ezekiel. And Brother Benjamin.”

“Where is everyone?”

The zealot shook his head. “Most everyone is up at the infidels’ hideout. The attack started ten minutes ago.”

“Most everyone?” Another prod with the knife.

“Brother Jared is on top of the old hotel. Brother Ezekiel is in the command post on the ground next to it. And Brother Benjamin is with the forces at the hideout. Plus us here to guard the ones who stayed behind.” He said this all in a rush, desperate to avoid any unwanted modifications to his person.

“You’re doing a bang-up job, ain’t ya? That’s it? Nothing else?”

“That’s it, I swear to our Heavenly Father. Please don’t desecrate me.” He started shaking. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Contact,” Sheridan whispered. “Two mikes.”

Mac snorted. “Looks like your buddy found the water after all. Let’s go arrange his reception. And don’t worry, I’m not going to desecrate you.”

The zealot sighed with relief.

“I’ll let the mandatory prion treatments that you’ll receive as prisoners do that for me. You’ll never be one of the Cleansed, Brother.”

The soldiers moved inside the building, with Mac handing the zealot off to Sheridan. The man was babbling and raving after Mac’s revelation, and the lieutenant was glad to be rid of him. Moments later, the man was trussed and gagged in the store’s office. Mac and one of the others waited by the now-closed door for the presumed Brother Malchus to enter.

It didn’t take long. The door swung open, and Malchus stepped inside. Mac used the second or two needed for Malchus’s eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, and Malchus was soon bound and lying next to his brother in the office.

“Secure?” Mac asked Sheridan, who nodded and went to take up a position near the front of the store.

Mac sat down in the store manager’s chair after testing it out to make sure it would take his weight. When it held, he sat down and looked at both men. They lay on their sides facing each other, their hands behind their backs in zip-cuffs. He tapped the first man on the forehead with the pommel of his knife.

“Anyone up top? On the roof?”

The man shook his head.

“What about the other buildings?”

The man hesitated again. Mac leaned in, and the first zealot shook his head back and forth as quick as he could, mumbling through his gag. Mac had a flash of inspiration. “Anyone besides Brother What’s-His-Nuts on the hotel, I mean.”

The unnamed zealot sighed with relief and shook his head.

“Okay, then you can both live. For now. At least we won’t kill you. You’ll eventually work your way out of your restraints, but I expect that neither one of you will bother us ever again. Am I right?”

Malchus glared with hate in his eyes as the other man nodded enough to loosen his head on his neck. Mac noticed that look and leaned down to the one he hadn’t threatened yet.

“I can see that look in your eye there, boy. Once you’re free, you can ask your friend here about what I’ve promised to do to him should he cross me. The same will happen to you. That is, of course, assuming you don’t just kill him first.”

The hate and anger in Malchus’s eyes didn’t abate even a little, and Mac knew that nothing he could say would make the man scared of him. He sighed.

“I should kill you here. Just slit your throat and leave you for your crazy friends to collect at some point in the future. Or turn you into a walker and let you feed on your friend.”

The gleam that came into Malchus’s eyes at that, added to his fervent nodding, convinced Mac that the man was four bullets short of a clip. He actually
wanted
to be a walker.

“You people…” Mac said with a shake of his head as he put away his knife. “You people are downright insane. I mean, I knew it before, but now…”

Mac stood and pulled his sidearm from his holster. He tore what was left of the cushion off the back of the chair and knelt down next to Malchus. “You’re a special kind of stupid, son. And I can’t have you following me or causing a ruckus. Start your praying, ‘cause this is the end of the line. No Heaven for you.”

The man was still mumbling through his gag, his eyes closed, as the muffled shot went through his head.

Abandoned Costco

Sergeant Carson was tired of waiting. The waiting was the worst part. He knew it was silly, but he still wished they’d attack already and get it over with just so it would be done. He could handle the fight, however it went, but the interminable waiting… and the moans from the walkers didn’t help either.

“Romeo Six, Strike Actual.”

This signal, at least, was still secure as it came through his earpiece from MacPherson’s strike team. They were at the extreme working range for these units, and their transmissions were being relayed through Charlie on the roof, so Carson was glad to find that they still worked. The concrete walls that were currently their shield were also a prison, in a way.

“Romeo Six, go,” he said.

“Secure at Station Two, awaiting your green, over.”

“Roger that, Strike team. Hold position. Still no activity from the crazies, and we’re okay for now. Don’t want to get them too riled up if we don’t have to.”

“Roger that, Romeo Six. Holding position.”

Carson walked over to the man-sized door next to the big roll-up doors that they’d brought the vehicles through. The small window he had on the outside showed only the walkers that still banged on the doors, splattered with the blood that had been thrown by the zealots. They still hid out there in the parking lot behind the rusted cars and trucks, though.

He jerked back as a shot caromed off the door no more than a few inches away from the window. Someone out there wasn’t too bad a shot and had seen him staring out. He wasn’t too worried as long as they stayed out there. A concerted effort could take down the big doors, but nothing short of a .50-cal was getting through the double-insulated concrete walls of this place. Provided the zealots didn’t storm them en masse, they could hold out for reinforcements.