Carlie Simmons (Book 4): The Gathering Darkness (9 page)

Chapter 19

“How many of these rotting pus-bags do we
need?” said Brimley, a thick-bodied convict who was standing in the woods fifty
yards from an eighteen-wheeler whose back door was ajar, its inky interior
filled with the sounds of several people screaming for help.

A bearded man with a shaved head was
squatting next to him, his eyes fixed on the stream of undead moving up the
cargo ramp into the truck. “I heard one of the crews packed a hundred-fourteen
into a semi two days ago. Gotta be some kinda record,” said Butler.

“Well, shit, we have to set our sights
higher then. Maybe if we only tie up one captive inside for bait instead of four
that’ll give us space for a few more undead. The colonel said he’d reward the
drivers with the biggest payload and the most mutants, though those seem hard
to come by anymore.”

They could hear the screaming intensifying
from inside the cavernous mouth of the truck as the horde entered and began
feeding. Butler pretended to put his hands over his ears. “Ooh, I hate that
initial sound of the bone crunching, don’t you?”

“Better them than me. Besides, they were
just a bunch of dumb ranchers.”

Brimley looked to the right and started to
laugh. “Look at that fat fuck in coveralls bumbling up the ramp. Cornfed
bastard—they growed ’em big in these parts.”

Butler glanced at his watch. “Alright, we
give ’em two more minutes to feast and then we mow down the stragglers outside
and close the door.”

“You soundin’ like a smooth operator, my
man. How many of these you done?”

“This is my fifteenth run this month and
hopefully my last. Not too many small towns left to round up in anymore. I
don’t like having to go this far out to get fresh meat.” He pointed to the rear
of the truck. “I can tell you this—once the last row of bolts on the interior wall
can’t be seen no more, you’re lookin’ at a hundred freaks inside. I think this
is gonna be a record breaker.”

The ear-splitting screams inside had long
subsided and a few creatures were starting to mill near the cusp of the cargo
ramp. “Looks like the order’s been filled—let’s wrap this up and get the hell
outta here. We gotta meet up with the rest of the convoy on the outskirts of
Yakima,” said Butler.

Brimley grabbed his canister of pepper
spray and rushed forward as Butler followed behind. Brimley showered the
creatures inside the truck with the red stream while Butler cut down the few
outside with his AK. They quickly rolled down the door, slamming the padlock in
place, snipping off a few sets of corpulent, greasy fingers that got caught in
the middle.

The walls of the semi-truck pulsed and
groaned like a steel python that had just swallowed its prey. Both men ran
around the front and hopped inside, their faces beaming. “Fuck yeah, let’s
roll,” said Brimley. “I think we scored the jackpot. I can almost taste that reward
of fine whiskey sliding down my throat already.”

“Let’s just wait until we see what
Mitchell thinks. Pretty sure he’s gonna be grinning.”

Brimley’s grin faded and his face grew
somber. “I tell ya, I’d hate to be those other boys who showed up last week
with an empty rig. Mitchell’s probably still got them strung upside down in the
mutants’ cell.”

Chapter 20

Carlie motioned her team to halt as they
neared a hand-hewn footbridge over a small stream, nineteen miles northwest of
Yakima. After their helo insertion at daybreak, they had covered four miles of
deer trails familiar to Eliza to get them near the edge of her former mountain
encampment.

“It’s almost a mile from here. This is a
little-known route so there shouldn’t be any sentries to worry about but it won’t
make for a warm welcome if an entire team of soldiers comes traipsing in.”

Matias stepped up towards Carlie. “We’ll
hold a position here until we hear from you.” He put his hand on his chest and
smiled as the two women started to walk away. “And don’t worry about us—we’ll
be fine communing with nature.”

As they passed along a pass between the
mountains, Eliza looked up at the treetops while inhaling the fresh scent of
conifers. “This place was like a sanctuary for me. At times it was hard to
believe there was an outside world.”

“You knew this lady Darcy well?”

“She welcomed me in after I freed her and
her friends from those convicts. She and her people invited me to stay.
Sometimes I think about what it would be like to live up here for good. Darcy’s
a cool lady.”

“Then there’s someone besides me who is
lucky to have you for a friend.”

“Friends—with how bossy you are, I never
forget who’s team leader,” Eliza said with a chuckle.

Rounding a bend in the faint trail, Eliza
stepped on a small sheet of bark that began emitting a shrill sound. She looked
down and saw a pressure-plate alarm. Within seconds both women heard movement
to their sides as two armed men in ghillie suits closed the distance.

“Drop your weapons,” yelled a lanky man to
their right, his face obscured by foliage and paint.

Both women did as instructed and raised
their hands. As the crew of shooters hovered around them, two more people came
walking down the front of the trail. One of them pulled back their leaf-covered
headpiece while increasing their pace.

“I always told the others you’d come back
one day,” said a gray-haired woman rushing towards Eliza.

Carlie instinctively inserted herself
between the woman and Eliza. “It’s OK, this is Darcy,” Eliza said, moving
around and reaching her arms out to pull the woman into an embrace.

“Look at you,” said Darcy as she pulled
back after a long hug. “I never doubted that you’d make it back to Fort Lewis—just
that we’d ever see you back here again.”

Eliza slapped Darcy on her shoulder. “You’re
still feeling like the same iron-woman I remember.” Eliza looked around at the
others, nodding at some familiar faces. She looked around at the forest and
faint trails then back at Darcy. “I didn’t think this route in would be of
concern, being this high up.”

“There’s been more activity down below
lately, especially near Yakima. Lots of thugs passing through the area in large
trucks, probably from the south. Oddly enough we rarely have problems with the undead
any longer.”

Eliza glanced at Carlie and then shot a
concerned look back at Darcy. “That’s actually why we’re here,” said Eliza. “We’ve
got some things we need to talk about—a storm that’s brewing at the prison near
the border.”

“That gutter trash is a ways off from
here.”

Carlie moved up and extended her hand to
the others while introducing herself. “Not for very long.”

Chapter 21

“Everything is ready, Colonel,” said
Jeffers into the radio of his jeep near the main prison entrance. He was standing
by a convoy of thirty-seven semi-trucks and eleven assorted cars. Twenty-nine
semis were jammed with nearly a hundred zombies each, their presence revealed
through a cacophony of scratching and moans. The remaining trucks contained
ammunition, weapons, medical supplies, food, and heavily armed troops. Mitchell
had emptied all of his five hundred plus men from the prison and surrounding
regions for this assault on the dam. The modified fuel truck was parked
separately inside the rear warehouse beside an ambulance and a food resupply cargo
van.

“Good—then head out. You know what to do
from there. I’ll be in contact with you when things fall into place,” said
Mitchell, who was standing beside the fuel truck. “And make certain to reassure
our sacrificial lambs standing guard near the prison entrance that we are
coming back for them. I need them in place to make it look like we still have some
presence here.”

Mitchell watched the convoy pull out of the
front entrance like a giant chrome-and-metal serpent undulating along the road.

He moved inside the mechanics’ bay and
walked to the back of the fuel truck. He climbed under the rear section towards
an open hatch with a green glow emanating from inside. Mitchell hoisted himself
up and then lowered a hand down to close the hinged concealment lid covered in
faux gauges, sealing himself inside.
At long last, I will be free of this revolting
prison
—
never to be faced with looking at a cell with bars again. A new
home
—
a real command center to dole out orders for my forthcoming empire.

Mitchell scooted to the rear section,
resting against the cold metal, and looked at Deacon beside him and then around
at the eleven armed men sitting in silence. The only noise other than their
breathing was from the heavily sedated mutants chained up at the opposite end,
their own internal rumblings of constrained hunger echoing along the insulated
inner hull. He reached above his shoulders and grabbed two ropes that were
attached to welded bolts in the sides of the tanker. He pulled them down and
secured them to the climbing harness around his waist. He’d had the welder
install these attachments for each man so they wouldn’t be at risk of slamming
into the front if they stopped suddenly and, more importantly, to avoid being
jarred into the mutants on the bumpy four-hour ride ahead. When he was done, he
flipped open a small laptop and checked on the link with the external mini-cam
he had placed on the underside of the fuel tanker. This allowed him to see what
was happening in a 360-degree view around the hull.

When
he was satisfied, he placed the laptop down and pulled out the remote control
device for the mutants’ shock collars then stared into space, reviewing his
plans. A few minutes later, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes,
running through a quote from General Douglas MacArthur that he always recited
before a battle.
"The
history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words: too
late.  Too late in comprehending the deadly purposes of a potential
enemy.  Too late in realizing the mortal danger.  Too late in
preparedness.  Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance. 
Too late in standing with one's friends."

When
he was done, Mitchell smiled, thinking of the walls of Fort Lewis.
Too late
for humanity’s holdouts and the last mantle of our omnipotent government. The
mighty secretary of defense, Conrad Lavine
—
your world is about to constrict
just as mine did when I was thrown to the wolves. We come for you and your
illustrious base.

Chapter 22

After Carlie called up the rest of her
team, they followed Darcy back to the main camp and filled the entire group in
on the growing menace below. Carlie and Eliza both took turns describing the
threat and the larger picture of life in the Pacific Northwest along with
Pavel’s research for an antidote. She discussed how imperative it was to use
their location as a forward staging area for a rear assault and emphasized that
she welcomed any help in the resistance. The group’s mood oscillated between
silence and gasps as they tried to absorb the information. Some just wanted to
retreat further into the mountains while others said they should stay and fight
any invaders who ventured into their tiny stronghold. In the end, Carlie knew
that it was a difficult decision and that they’d have to discuss it amongst
themselves.

Darcy showed Carlie’s group to her cabin
to rest and get some food while she spoke with the rest of her community. After
downing a meal of venison stew, Carlie joined Matias on the front porch. He was
sitting on a handhewn stool, watching the debate that was ensuing across the
camp. She pulled up a bench and sat next to him, draping her arms over the
knotty pine railing. Carlie watched the fervent expressions of the faces in the
distance as they weighed the pros and cons of joining the resistance effort and
protecting their way of life.

“Not an easy thing to do—contemplate
leaving this idyllic setting and facing the horrors of the world again. Not
sure I’d want to depart from here myself,” she said.

“Yeah, I can see how this place would grow
on you. But the battle ahead will come to this place eventually.”

Carlie lowered her head slightly, thinking
of all that she and her friends had endured these many months now to be faced
with yet another hellish stormfront. “Seems like we never get a break anymore.
Life is always about being on the run, even now that we’re living at Lewis.
Like we’re always clawing to stay out of the abyss and not knowing if the next
day you’ll slip on the toehold you just busted your ass to reach. As if zombies
and a global pandemic weren’t enough, we have to contend with a butcher
hellbent on killing off our own kind.”

Matias pulled his eyes from the crowd and
looked at her. “We will make it through this. You just have to have faith in
life.” He paused and leaned forward. “Did I ever tell you about the time my
vehicle convoy was struck by an IED in Afghanistan?”

“You’ve made a few references but I never
wanted to press you for details.”

“It happened on my third deployment to Afghanistan.
Our Humvee was hit so hard by the explosion it was knocked fifty meters off the
road. My skull was fractured in four places and I had shrapnel in my chest. Most
of my unit didn’t make it. I was in ICU for weeks. The docs told me later that
I flatlined three times.” He placed his arms on his knees and interlaced his
fingers while staring at the clouds. “They told me I shouldn’t have made it at
all—they weren’t sure how I survived. I had a lot of time to think about things
while I was recuperating and decided that I wasn't going to waste any more time
on frivolous bullshit, acting like my life was a rehearsal for something else—that
I’d pursue the things that mattered the most: time with family, friends, and
work that meant something.”

Carlie looked at him, marveling at the
story but wondering where he was going with this.

“Don’t wait to decide what the hell’s
important and worth the precious sand in your hourglass. That’s the grand
takeaway, then and now.”

“You talking to me or about life in general?”

“Sometimes I feel like you are so used to
looking out for all of us that you haven’t had any time to enjoy even a sliver
of happiness in this world. And after we win this battle, we will still have a future
of uncertainty ahead of us, Carlie. That’s just not going to ever change. We’re
back to wresting a living from our surroundings like our forebears.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t have legions of
flesh-starved biters wanting to take them down.”

“There’s always going to be another
stormfront to endure, whether it’s the undead or something else. It’s the
in-between moments with the ones you love that you have to seize. Otherwise
what’s the point in merely surviving through all of this? In the end, love is
the solution to most problems—spending time with the ones who matter the most and
finding that one love of your life that you would cross an ocean to be with.”
Matias thought back to his own family who had disappeared in Arizona during the
early days of the pandemic. Though not knowing what had become of them had worn
the walls of his soul threadlike, he was determined to see them again even if
it meant wading through the sands of time until his days in this world had been
served.

Carlie pressed her lips together and let
out a brief sigh. She gave Matias a silent nod and then folded her fingers into
each other and slowly turned her head back to the encampment while letting his
words percolate through the bedrock of her psyche. She got up and put her hand
on his shoulder, giving him a slight squeeze, and then moved down the steps
towards the forest to gather her thoughts.

***

In the morning as Carlie pulled on her
fleece overcoat around the fireplace in the cramped cabin, Darcy entered with a
fresh pot of coffee. She placed it on a sandstone slab beside the entrance and
pulled up a chair. “I told you I’d have our answer for you by sunup so here I
am.”

Darcy unraveled a green wool scarf around
her neck and loosened her puffy jacket. “Twenty-four of us will accompany you.
The remaining fifteen will stay here—they’re mostly parents with little ones or
old-timers much creakier than me. There’s also the Crowley ranch southwest of
here with a few dozen folks. We trade with them once in a while and they would
want to know about what’s going on.”

Carlie raised her eyebrows and looked over
at Eliza, who seemed equally surprised at the numbers who’d be joining them.
“That’s outstanding and we sure welcome the help.”

“When do we leave?”

“I need to radio back to Lewis and update
them on things here. They’ll provide us with a shipment of weapons and gear so
I’d say we’re looking at tomorrow at the latest before heading to the dam.”

Carlie poured a cup of coffee and glanced
out the window at a young man in a gray down jacket running beside the pond
below. He was waving his arms and yelling as he climbed up the porch steps. “Just
got word on the radio from one of our scouts on a nearby hilltop. There’s an
eighteen-wheeler heading southeast about thirty miles out.”

Darcy’s eyes darted along the ceiling for
a second and then over to Carlie. “They’ll have to drive over Perkinsville
Pass. I know a shortcut that will put us just above that road if you want to
get a better look.”

She swigged down the tar-black coffee and
grabbed her rifle. “By all means.”