Carlie Simmons (Book 4): The Gathering Darkness (12 page)

Chapter 31

Duncan was standing over the western edge
of the Grand Coulee Dam with his binoculars, scanning the areas below. It had
been a wet winter and the water level on the retaining side of the reservoir
was a hundred feet deep. On the spillway before him, the water dropped off
considerably as it swept through the river and disappeared into the lowlands in
the distance. Situated on either side of the concrete structure were the three
generating plants. Two were built on higher ground while the third and oldest
structure was situated on flatter terrain. Their safety concerned Duncan the
most as their protection required his forces to be spread thin along the upper
wall of the dam. Coming to the valley on either side of the dam were the four
central access roads. He had hoped to have these lined with claymores but given
their compressed timelime they barely had the hours necessary to secure the
immediate grounds.
They obviously want the dam intact or they would’ve just
focused on severing power lines and stations between here and Lewis. That means
they will have to enter this meadow.

Duncan looked along the curved ramparts of
the dam, checking to make sure the machine-gun placements were ready. Situated
along each end of the dam were several sniper teams. Down below, the last of
the troops were filing back into the facility after having locked the flimsy perimeter
fences near the main road.

He met with a group of his garrison
commanders one more time to discuss their plans for the defense. His troops
consisted of close to a hundred personnel at the dam and then two hundred more
spread around the roads to the front and rear of their location. Duncan had no
indication of the numbers of enemy human combatants and knew they would be
severely outnumbered with the undead. This was starting to feel like the
medieval castle sieges he had studied in the past. Those never ended well—the
invaders either starving out the occupants or breaching the walls with their
superior numbers. If he had had more air transport, they could have brought additional
manpower to the dam and surrounding areas but their warfighting capabilities
had been reduced to World War II standards and many of their helo crews were
still on missions along the west coast. He had had better odds in battles
overseas in recent military campaigns where he had the comfort of knowing they
could call in for air support or be extracted from a hot-spot. Now, they were
alone and dependent on footpower, small-unit tactics, and their hastily
fortified position. There were no other forces to call upon that could swoop in
and boost their firepower; no reliable satellite support to confirm precise
enemy numbers and locations; and no mobile scouting units to provide real-world
information on the ground beyond their present location. Tactics and brutality,
akin to trench warfare, were the norm they had returned to and he dreaded the
slaughter that was about to unfold.

The virus laid humanity low but now we are
about to help further the effort through our own savagery and inhumanity
against our own kind. My God, how did it come to this?

Kulovitz came up alongside him, a radio in
his left hand. “The second convoy that split off is heading up Highway 155 from
the south—twenty semi-trucks and six passenger vehicles. The other group split
off to the east.”

Duncan rested his hands on the metal
railing before him and peered at the horizon. “Matias’s team is the closest to
that region. Instruct them to blow the bridge on Highway 155 and take out as
many of the hostiles in the explosion as possible. Then dispatch the rest from
a distance with RPGs.”

“What about the second convoy?”

“We’ll have to head them off ourselves
down below. There’s no time to take out the roads along that route and they’ll
be on our doorstep within the hour.” Duncan stepped a few feet over towards the
stairwell that led down to the spillway. “Meet me below with a group of twenty
men. I’ve got something in mind that may turn the tide in our favor.”

Chapter 32

Carlie wove the jeep along the narrow
muddy roads for several miles until she made it back to a two-lane highway.
Heading north, she floored it along the leaf-littered blacktop. Occasionally
she would reach a high point in the road and see the looming snow-capped peak
of Mount Hood near Fort Lewis in the distance but realized she still had three
hours more to cover, if the roads were still accessible.

As she crested a ridge and descended, she
saw a man walking with two small children a few miles up near an abandoned
propane truck. Upon rounding the next bend they were gone. Carlie slowed the
vehicle as she neared the derelict truck, searching the treeline for the three
wanderers, but didn’t see any movement. She searched the ground instead for
tracks. A set of bootprints accompanied by two sets of smaller tracks veered
off into the woods to her right. She thought about driving on but the sight of
the small children concerned her.

It was too risky to get out and try and
find them and she had to get to Lewis. As she was about to step on the
accelerator, she saw a young man emerge from behind a massive tree stump at her
three o’clock. Beside him were two identical girls with long blonde hair, their
faces streaked with dirt. The man held a Winchester rifle low at his side and
then raised up one hand as he moved cautiously onto the road with the girls
velcroed to his legs.

Carlie quickly scanned the woods to her
left and the rearview mirror for any movement then stepped out of the jeep, her
hand on her pistol. The two girls were shivering and the man looked like he
hadn’t slept in days.

“I’m Jake,” he said, slinging his rifle.
“And this is Anna and Arial. We could sure use some help, ma’am. Our ranch got
attacked a few days ago and we’ve been on the run ever since.”

“Carlie—out of Fort Lewis.” She nodded
over her shoulder. “You mean the place along the creek about twenty miles
southwest of here?”

“Yes, ma’am. That was my grandparents’ home.”

“Sure sorry to hear about your loss. I
just came from there after clearing out some rodents posing as men.”

She took off her jacket and handed it to
Arial, who reluctantly stretched out her dainty hand but then quickly bundled
up in it. Carlie walked back to the vehicle and grabbed a blanket for Anna. As
Jake swaddled her in it, everyone stopped and tilted their heads to the left.
The noise was faint but emanating from the horizon.

For Carlie, it was an all too familiar
sound and one she hoped held promise. The low humming sound increased and she
trained her eyes along the treetops to the east, searching for what had to be
one of their helicopters.

She rushed back to the jeep and removed
the binoculars from her pack. As the object came into view, its form glinting
in the morning sun, she read the numbers off the side, confirming that it was
one of their birds from Lewis. A huge smile beamed across her face. Then she
realized that they were just a speck on the ground. The skies were too overcast
to use the signal mirror from her survival kit. She glanced back at the
capsized truck and then at the jeep.

“Alright, we don’t have a lot of time. I
need you all to hop in the vehicle. I’ve got to draw them to us before they’re
out of range.”

“What makes you think they’ll stop?” said
Jake as he helped each girl crawl into the back seats.

“Oh, they better—no one likes to be on the
receiving end of my wrath,” she said with a smile as she removed the spare gas
tank from the rear. “Or so I’m told.” Carlie removed the spout and splashed
fluid around the old truck. Then she hopped into the vehicle next to Jake and
took off. The Blackhawk was nearly out of sight.

Coming to a screeching halt two hundred
yards away, she leapt out with her M4. Kneeling, she rested the scoped rifle on
the rear bumper and took aim at the bulbous tanker on the back of the truck.
Hope
there’s a trickle of propane left in there still.
Unconsciously she
steadied her breathing and squeezed the trigger. The tanker ignited as a small
mushroom cloud of orange roiled skyward.

Chapter 33

“Over there.” Jared pointed to a flaming
sliver that had shot up through the forest three miles distant. The snakelike
tongue of orange disappeared as quickly as it emerged.

Shane tapped the helo pilot on the
shoulder and pointed to the location. In seconds they moved along the forest
until they saw the slice of road below and a flaming vehicle.

A short distance away was a green jeep
with two occupants waving their arms and jumping. “Take us down,” yelled Shane,
straining to make out the form of the woman on the left.

The pilot swung hard to the right and
zoomed in towards a dip in the highway that was free of trees, fifty yards to the
other side of the jeep. As they flew over, Shane saw Carlie below and felt his
heart punching through his chest.

“Let’s go—let’s go, set it down,” he
yelled at the pilot above the rotor wash. He was out the door just before
touchdown.

Chapter 34

With guidance from Darcy and a few of her
group, Eliza, Matias, and their team were inserted via helicopter on a
ridgeline two hundred yards away from Highway 155. They trotted down to a low
outcropping of boulders and set up their spotting equipment along with
unloading a crate of RPG-7 rocket launchers and several Barrett .50 caliber
sniper rifles. The highway below passed through a narrow valley before crossing
over the two-thousand-foot-long section of road that went over Osborn Bay Lake.

Matias lay down on the snow-encrusted
ground and adjusted the sights on the spotting scope. Eliza squatted next to
him, preparing an RPG.

“I’d say that taking out the cluster of
boulders above the road where it meets land would effectively seal off their
passage but it would be even better if we can take them out at the center point
of the road before that,” he said.

“Doesn’t look like we’re gonna have much
time to decide on an alternate plan,” Eliza said, pointing to the approaching
convoy coming from her left, six miles distant.

“Alright, here are my thoughts,” he said.
“We take out a few of the lead and also rear trucks once they get onto the
narrow portion of the highway over the water. That should bring them to a
standstill. Then our snipers start dispatching any stragglers. We’ll save the
chokepoint by the boulders as a secondary location in case Plan A doesn’t work
out. Once they’re past the chokepoint, they’re out of our reach so let’s make
this work the first time around.”

He sat up on one knee and reached for an
RPG. He positioned himself several feet away from Eliza while two more of their
men gathered on her left in a similar placement with their rocket launchers
poised. The remaining members of their team had set up with the Barretts.

“Wait for my signal,” said Matias. “I’ll
take the lead truck.” He squinted through his sights to line up the crosshairs
on a chipped segment of the highway then he peered back to his left to check on
the progress of the convoy that was fast approaching.

As the first semi-truck rolled along the
highway over the lake, Matias held his finger steady on the trigger. “Wait for
it.” With sixteen of the twenty-three trucks now on the two-lane road, he
squinted and took aim on the engine block of the lead semi. “Now!” In unison
the rockets roared from their chambers and sped like yellow meteors over the
low scrub then along the water’s surface, impacting their targets in a fiery
explosion. All four trucks were engulfed, their occupants incinerated instantly
while the cargo sections at the rear buckled and gave way. In minutes hundreds
of undead began pouring out of the sides towards the other vehicles whose
frantic occupants were scrambling to drive out in reverse or plow past the
flaming wreckages. The snipers beside Eliza went to work, their powerful .50
caliber barrels cracking the crisp air as drivers were dispatched. The
remaining vehicles saw convicts bursting from the doors and diving into the
frigid waters or running along the highway from the direction they had come.

Eliza dropped her spent rocket launcher
and retrieved a sniper rifle, methodically removing lone convicts staggering
along the road.

Darcy moved beside her and knelt down, her
face taut. “Those men are on the run—they’ve given up the fight. It’s over.”

“Anyone aligned with the prison and with Mitchell
is inhuman—far worse than the flesh-eaters. They have no place in our world as
far as I’m concerned,” said Eliza.

“You can’t just massacre those guys,”
murmured a young man from the rear of Darcy’s group.

“Look, these convicts are like roaches,
scattering when you put the kitchen lights on in some abandoned house. They’ll
just rear their heads again when they butcher and rape others. That’s not a
price anyone should have to pay for our lack of follow-through in this moment.”

Darcy and the others stared at Eliza for a
moment, realizing she was right but not wanting to follow through on such
outright slaughter of their own kind. They had survived in their isolated
encampment largely through avoidance with the outside world and trying to erase
the horrors of the early days of the pandemic.

Eliza leaned back and clutched the older
woman’s wrist. “These men
will
stumble across you and your group one day—maybe
not at your camp but on a run to town for supplies or on a hunting trip. And
then all you’ve struggled for will be lost. Now is the time to end this.”
Eliza’s face was resolute and her eyes unwavering. From Carlie and her other
mentors she had learned to be a skilled fighter but her past experiences
surviving in this new world had taught her to be a ruthless killer when the
situation demanded it. Eliza realized in that moment that she could never be
content residing in Darcy’s encampment however idyllic her memories had become
of the place. It seemed like life would always involve fighting to protect what
was yours and making the hard decisions while being willing to pull up others
along the way who didn’t want to bare their own claws. She returned her
attention to her scope and began firing off timely rounds into the panicked
thugs below, executing her actions without hesitation or remorse.