Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Book 4): Walking In The Shadow Of Death (14 page)

He heard a crash behind him. He
turned sharply and was hit from the side behind the knee. His leg buckled from
the impact and he fell hard. Brad dropped the pistol as he lowered his right
hand to brace his impact with the tile floor. He just caught the movement from
his peripheral as he fell. It moved quickly, darting across the room. He sensed
the thing coming at him again from behind; he lashed out heavily with the
tomahawk. He felt and heard the sickening crunch as it made contact. Brad
rolled to his knees and quickly sat back on his haunches, searching the room.
He saw movement on the floor. A small child with the back of its skull hacked
away was trying to crawl towards him. Its head was slack against the floor,
only its eyes focused on where it thought Brad may be.

Brad quickly located his pistol and
got to his feet before stepping back. He searched the space for more threats,
finding none. The downed creature moaned weakly as it moved closer towards him.
He didn’t have it in him to use the hawk a second time on the child. He moved
towards it and placed the MKII barrel on its temple and pulled the trigger.
Pop.
The pistol shocked the palm of his hand. Brad fell to his knees before dropping
back against the wall. The house was silent now. He could still hear the moans
from outside, but they sounded far away.

He could smell the stench in the
home, the stink of primal. He could smell the death on his clothing from his
crawl through the mortuary tent. No longer having the strength to hold it,
exhausted from the fight, he turned his head and vomited hard. He continued
until his lungs hurt, his eyes were watering, and he was dry heaving. He had to
get out of the room. He crawled out of the kitchen and into a dining room,
using a chair to pull himself back to his feet. Brad staggered though the house
into a dark living area. Stepping clumsily he fell to the floor.

Brad struggled back to a sitting
position before dropping his head. He breathed in and out heavily, trying to
calm himself. “Suck it up sergeant! You don’t have time for this shit,” he
scolded himself. Brad breathed in the air hard and blew it out, then put his
head back and closed his eyes tightly before opening them again. He looked
around the room. It was a large living room. There was a mantle fireplace along
a wall with fancy furniture surrounding it. A large plasma television hung
above the fireplace. Family photos were carefully placed along the mantle.

Brad recognized the child in a
photo, sitting on the knee of a proud father with the mother directly behind
them. He quickly looked away, burying his emotions. Brad looked to the left and
could see the front door. It had large nails spiking it shut at the top and
bottom. The windows had heavy curtains drawn over them. There was a box of
water bottles in the corner. Brad could see the kitchen table had canned goods
scattered around it. “What happened here? How did they get you?” Brad said as
he forced himself back to his feet. He checked the pistol, dropped the
magazine, and replaced it with a full one.

He cautiously moved down a long
hallway. He found a small child’s room and a bathroom. Brad peeked inside, then
moved on. At the end of the hall was a large master bedroom. Brad moved into
the room. The bed was made and the curtains were drawn. There was an attached
master bathroom. The family had filled the bathtub with water; there were
pitchers and jugs of water on the floor. A large first aid kid sat on the
kitchen counter. Bloody bandages filled the sink. Brad returned to the master
bedroom and sat on the bed.

He was exhausted. Brad sat his
assault pack on the floor and lay back on the bed looking at the ceiling. He
could hear them outside, moving, howling. They no longer seemed to be actively
pursuing him. Still Brad got the uneasy feeling that they knew he was close. He
pulled off the night vision goggles and laid them on the bed next to him.
Slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness, some moonlight leaking into the room
over the top of the curtains. Brad unclipped the M4 from his chest rig and laid
it next to him. No longer interested in fighting the fatigue, he closed his
eyes and let sleep take him.

17.

When he woke it was still dark.
Brad looked at his watch: just after 0400, still a couple hours before dawn. Starving,
he grabbed the pack and dug though it until he found his MRE packets and the
peanut butter. He sat the stack of MREs next to him.
No
, he thought,
shaking his head, he should eat what was on hand first and leave the MREs for
last resort. He stuffed everything back into the pack and stood up, stretching.
He gathered the rest of his gear and pulled the large comforter off of the bed.

He made his way to the kitchen.
With the early morning light he could now see that the child’s arms were
bandaged. The mother had small bite wounds to her neck and face. “So that’s how
it happened. They got your baby. Was he at school? Outside? You probably tried
to protect him, cleaned and dressed his wounds … until he turned on you,” Brad
whispered sadly, looking at the mother.

Without debating or thinking about
it, he grabbed the woman and gently moved her into the basement. He laid her
next to the male, then returned for the child and placed him between his
parents. Finally, Brad covered the family with the bedspread. “I don’t know who
you were, but you didn’t deserve this. Your home saved me last night, and I
thank you,” Brad said before he turned and walked back up the stairs.

He closed the door behind him and
looked around the kitchen. To the right was a small foyer with a back door;
cardboard was taped to it, covering a window. Brad peeled back a corner of the
cardboard. The home’s backyard met the tree line. The yard was fenced and
looked to be fairly well concealed. It shouldn’t be too difficult to sneak
through the back and make a break into the woods. But first he needed to feed
his hunger.

Brad moved back into the kitchen
and began looking through the cupboards. They were empty; most of the food had
already been pulled out and placed on the kitchen table. Brad moved towards the
kitchen table and sorted through the cans. “Green beans and tuna? Breakfast of
survivors,” he said as he worked the cans open. He found a plastic bowl and
dumped the beans into it, eating them cold as he picked at the tuna fish. “I
really do hate this town.”

He went back to the living room.
Finding the package of bottled water, he drank two bottles immediately before
stuffing another two in his pack. Then he moved to the sofa and sat down,
pulling the peanut butter from his pack, needing something sweet to get him
going. He scraped the last remnants from the jar and sat it on the table. Brad
leaned back into the sofa staring at the jar. “Well, I guess I should get ready
to sneak out of here. If I’m quick I might make the tree line without being
seen.

“Yes, peanut butter it would be
nice to just chill here for a couple days, but Kelli needs the dope in my pack.
It’s time to hit the trail again.”

Brad got back to his feet and moved
to the front of the house. He found another side door with a key rack next to
it. He stood still, thinking. “No … that would be too easy,” he said as he
moved towards the window-less door. There was a bolt lock on the door, but it
was currently unsecured. He put his hand on the knob, carefully turned the
handle and pulled the door in towards him. The adjoining room was dark, but
there was enough light to see a small Toyota sedan and a large GMC pickup.

“You got to be fucking kidding me,”
Brad said, smiling. He moved back to the key rack, grabbing a handful of keys
and fumbling through the pile until finding the one he wanted. He went back
into the garage, moving quietly to the overhead door and making sure it was
closed and secured. He didn’t want to be snuck up on. He moved to the large
pickup truck and opened the driver’s door; the dome light came on brightly.
Brad got in the seat behind the wheel, held his breath and turned the key just
a click and watched the dash light up.

The gas gauge lit and the arrow
shot to the ¾ position. The battery showed fully charged. He smiled as he
turned the key back and removed it from the ignition. Some people may think a
truck won’t start after being stored for a couple of months, but Brad knew
better. More than once he had put a car in long term storage during a
deployment and returned months later to have it easily start. He looked at the
dash; it was a loaded model, with four wheel drive and leather seats. The
family must have been well off.

“Yeah I’m not walking today,” Brad
said as he left the vehicle and moved back into the house. He went to the hall
closet and dug around, finally finding what he was looking for: a large duffle
bag. He went to the dining room and stuffed all of the canned goods into the
bag. Then he went to the living room and grabbed the case of water. He started
walking back towards the garage before he stopped. He turned back and grabbed
the empty peanut butter jar from the table. He went back to the garage and
opened the passenger door on the truck and tossed in the duffle bag and water.
He set the jar in the cup holder in the center console.

He went back to the overhead door
and pressed close to the tinted windows. The driveway was heavily drifted with
snow. The road was heavily snowed in also; weeks of pile up and drifting
wouldn’t be easy to get through. Brad checked the trucks tires. They had an
aggressive tread. Obviously the owner was prepared to deal with long hard
winters. “Yeah, I can do this,” he said confidently as he moved back to the
truck and jumped into the driver’s seat. He put the key in the ignition and
again held his breath.

He turned the key and the engine
cranked and purred to life. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the closed
door. “Yes, it would be fun to just crash through it,” Brad said, looking down
at the jar. “But I don’t want to get hung up on the door, that would suck.” He
laughed as he got back out of the truck, walked to the center of the door and
pulled a handle attached to a red cord hanging from the opener’s track. With
the opener disengaged, Brad walked to the door, turned the handle, and the
torsion spring did the work, easily lifting the door.

With the door opened to the
outside, the brisk morning air poured in. The sun was just beginning to shine’
the snow sparkled and reflected the morning light back at him. Brad looked left
and right. There were no primals in sight, but that wouldn’t last long. He knew
from experience they would come running once he was detected. Brad hurried back
to the cab of the truck. He closed and locked the doors behind him, then
flipped the control knob to 4x4 before placing the truck in reverse. “You ready
for this, peanut butter? Well hold on because we only got one shot.”

Brad gunned the engine and the
truck launched backwards, hitting the first drift heavily. He kept his foot on
the gas, maintaining speed down the driveway and turning into the road. 
He continued in reverse until he cleared the heavy drifts, not wanting to get
stuck. When he moved into a clear section of the street, he slowed and smoothly
came to a stop, being careful to stay in his tracks, then slapped the selector
into drive and eased on the accelerator. The truck’s heavy V8 engine roared and
launched forward, easily breaking through the drifts. Brad slowly added speed
to keep the momentum of the vehicle up so that he could crash through the
larger snow banks.

Seeing his turn ahead, he eased up
on the accelerator and slowly crept away from the corner, making a wide angle
right turn and trying not to lose control of the truck. He felt the rear end
fish tail as he finished the turn. Brad steered into the skid and gunned the
engine, letting the four wheel drive pull him out of the slide. He was now
racing towards the main street. He began to see the first primals running out
of buildings, looking at the truck barreling through the snow.

Brad hit the main drag and cut the
wheel to the left. He misjudged his speed and skidded a bit before the truck
slapped against a parked car. He kept the pedal down and his momentum carried
him through another set of heavy drifts. Brad looked in the rearview mirror;
the street was now quickly filling with primals. They were running, but still
struggling in the heavy snow. Brad put his concentration forward, gripping the
wheel tightly as he focused on keeping the truck on the road. He passed by the
gated house he had seen on the way into town.

Driving fast, he dared to look up
at the hilltops where they’d scouted the approach to the town and watched the
brothers pass through on the snowmobile. He slowed the truck, still careful not
to get stuck in the heavy snow. Lowering the power window on the passenger
side, he strained to search the hilltops for Sean, but there was no sign of his
friend. Giving up, he put his attention forward just as he failed to avoid
another parked car, hitting it hard but still able to keep the truck’s forward
movement. 

He had cleared the town now. He
turned the corner and was moving onto open road, plowing through larger drifts
and crashing over downed limbs, cringing as he heard them bang against the
underside of the truck. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw that he had
outrun the primals. He knew they were back there, but for now he was alone on
the road. The farther he got from town the less stalled cars he found. Less
signs of life or primals. He followed the tracks the snowmobile had left in the
snow days earlier, racing up the hill and around the long corner that led to
the house where they had parted ways with the brothers.

As he drove he turned on the radio
and let it scan. He watched the digital tuner scroll constantly without
stopping. He switched to AM and observed the same. Nothing was on the air, only
static if he manually tuned the dial. He reached into his bag and pulled out
the small two-way radio Sean had given him. He fidgeted with it, trying to turn
it on but it refused to power up, the batteries now completely dead.

Brad began to pass homes again. He
slowed, searching for the house where they had hidden the snowmobile. Spotting
it ahead, he slowed and pulled into the driveway of the boarded-up brown ranch
house. Brad put the truck in park but left the engine running. “I’ll be right
back,” he said, reaching across the center console and grabbing his M4. “Bro,
stop nagging, I said I’ll be right back.”

Brad opened the truck’s door and
stepped into the heavy snow. It wasn’t deep here. The wind had blown most of
the snow to the far side of the yard, creating a large drift against the side
of an old woodshed. He closed the truck door and stepped into the road,
listening for movement, or the moans.    Hearing nothing but the
purring of the truck’s engine, he moved to the heavy brush where they had
ditched the snowmobile. It was gone. Brad stood motionless, thinking,
Maybe
it was a different spot
? He walked into the brush and saw where the sled
had been parked under the bushes. “No, this was the right place,” he muttered
to himself, shaking his head. He looked in all directions and searched the
snow. He could see where the brothers’ sled had returned; there was a wide path
in the snow. They hadn’t stopped. He could tell by the way the drifts were cut
and carried past the house.

Brad went back to the bushes. He
knelt in the snow, searching until he found where the sled had been started,
and maneuvered deeper into the brush. He followed the path which led away from
the road, deeper into the woods, before cutting back towards the house. He
followed the trail until he was in the side yard and the trail had been covered
by drifting snow. He froze when he heard the faint sounds of moaning. “Damn,
they are moving fast today,” he said.

He turned and moved back the way he
had come. As he got to the road he heard a crash in a house next door. “Looks
like the neighbors are up,” he said as a primal exploded through the picture
window of a home across the street. Brad stood his ground, staring as the
creature pulled itself up out of the snow and broken glass. “Now what makes
them do that? Why are they so pissed off they would jump through their own
window to get me? I just don’t get it,” he said as he raised the rifle, firing
twice and dropping the primal.

Brad heard a door slam behind him.
Panicked, he spun on the balls of his feet towards the truck. He held his rifle
at the ready, searching for threats as he slowly approached the driver’s door.
He saw movement in front of the truck and stepped quickly to the left, raising
the sights to his eye.

“’Bout time you got here!” he heard
Sean say just as his friend appeared in front of his rifle.

“What the fuck, Sean, I almost shot
you.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t flatter yourself. 
So what took you so long?” Sean said as he continued around the front of the
truck. He had his backpack in his left hand and was carrying his rifle with the
right.  

“Are you serious? I barely made it
out of there!”

“Yeah, looks like you were really
roughing it,” Sean said as he opened the truck door and tossed in his gear.
“Damn, this thing has leather. Man, Brad you’re getting soft, buddy. I mean I’m
not gonna brag or anything, but I walked here.”

“Screw you, just get in.”

“Seriously though, good job,
brother, I was worried about you when we lost coms. Did you get the stuff?”

“Yeah, I think so, I loaded up
pretty good in the pharmacy. Can we just get out of here? I think I have half
the town following me.”

“Waiting on you, brother,” Sean
said as he fastened his seat belt.