Winter Apocalypse: Zombie Crusade V (17 page)

“Damn straight!” Carter replied above the howls and shrieks of the monsters pressing in for the kill.

As if on cue, two heavy ropes appeared in the midst of the fighters as Chuck brought the Blackhawk down to hover just fifty feet above the bridge. Nobody wanted to be the first to leave the others behind, so Jack began shouting orders for evacuation. David and Hector were the first to go, and the dogs scrambled into the brush to the east of the highway as they followed their now-flying trainer. Two by two the others were extracted, until only Jack and Carter remained. Lori and Blake had left their .22 autos behind, which allowed the veteran soldiers on rearguard duty to shoot two fisted when they pulled their own pistols they’d kept loaded for this very situation.

The fighting had been touch and go for several minutes before Chuck had announced that the fleet was clear of the bridge, and he’d started lifting the soldiers out of the fray. From that point on, however, the .22s that everyone kept in their weapons belts had been introduced to the fight with devastating effect. Since the first days of the outbreak, Jack’s troops had included the small handgun in their arsenal of weapons, and the reliable pistols had saved the day on numerous occasions. This day was no different.

By the time the ropes were lowered for Jack and Carter, at least forty dead hunters were piled up around the lethal humans, and most of the remaining creatures were wavering in their charge or already chasing the fleet downriver. Not all of the corpses had been put down by the two men, but what they considered a turkey shoot had been exciting while it lasted. They both knew that there was a point where their ammo would be gone, and they had no strength left to wield their medieval weapons. If they continued to push their luck with the ever-evolving infected, the day would come when their options were exhausted before their attackers were all dead. But as they grabbed the ropes for the short lift to the water below, Carter grinned at his oldest friend with a smile that said, “Not today, buddy.” 

Gracie’s mind went blank. She was hypnotized by the black eyes staring back at her own. Behind her, Zach drew his gun and looked pleadingly at Charlotte.

“Honey, I need you to step away from Luke.” Charlotte gently took Gracie’s arm and tried to lead her away from the bed.

A quiet, raspy voice croaked, “Gracie?”

They all looked at Luke.

“Hungry. Cold,” he whispered weakly.

Gracie realized that Luke had started shivering. She quickly wrapped a heavy blanket around him. “I knew you’d come back to me, baby. Here, drink this.” She held a water bottle up to Luke’s lips.

Zach tucked his gun away and looked questioningly at Charlotte. The older woman just shook her head and handed Gracie more blankets.  

Luke choked a little on the water, but his voice was stronger when he spoke again. “That’s better. Really hungry.”

Charlotte offered, “I’ll make him some broth.”

Luke somehow reached out and grabbed Gracie by her wrist. “Just get me some meat.” 

CHAPTER 15

A few thousand feet to the east of the bridge ran Six Mile Creek. It wasn’t much of a waterway, and certainly wouldn’t slow a pack of determined hunters for long, but the stream ran across the flesh-eaters’ approach and was just below the final shallows in the area. It was on this tiny peninsula that David had instructed Chuck to set the team down after evacuation from the bridge. Miraculously, nobody had been lost in the fierce fighting on the structure. The martial capabilities of the warriors that made up Jack’s team, combined with the snow forcing much of the action to take place in slow-motion, had once again allowed the humans to kill a large number of monsters with no loss to themselves. After the southern battles of the previous few months, fighting in the Northern Midwest, and winning with no casualties, was a welcome change.

“Feels good to be home,” Jack shouted over the noise of the rotors lifting Chuck’s Blackhawk after dropping off the last of the bridge-fighters.

Carter snorted. “Seems to me that we left summer and came back to Arctic winter.”

John had to add his two-cents-worth. “Guess that’s one positive thing about the zombie apocalypse: reversed global warming.”

“It’s still November, right?” Tina wondered.

“Yep,” Jack replied as he scanned the riverbank to the west. “I guess it’s possible that this much snow has fallen this early in northern Indiana before, but a blizzard like this has to be a record-breaker. And look at the river: no way it should be icing over this early.”

“Hate to break up the meteorological philosophy class, but here come some of your wives.” John cheerfully announced. “And I’m getting cold just standing around in my sweaty armor, so let’s cut the chit-chat and get moving.”

The relief on Christy’s face was evident as she glided her canoe close to the bank. “Hey guys, what are you doing out here; don’t you know there’s an army of hunters on the loose along the Maumee?”

“Glad to see you too, baby,” David called back. “All your people are past the rapids now, right?”

“Yep, still dry too. What’s the next step?”

“Well, I think our safest bet is to stay on the river all the way to Defiance.”

Christy didn’t like that idea at all. “That’s over forty miles away. We’ve got sick people, mostly elderly.”

“I understand that,” David countered. “But we seem to have a big lead on those monsters right now, and we should try to keep it. Once we get past the confluence with the Auglaize River just west of Defiance, we’ll really have great protection from any hunters still chasing us from Fort Wayne. If we get jumped by a different group, we can lay up on Preston Island for days if necessary.”

After a long pause, Christy finally answered. “Okay, but you tell Chuck to fuel up somewhere soon, and start meeting us near some of the smaller islands to evacuate the people in the worst condition. Actually, you get in my canoe and start protecting me and your baby; I don’t know what you were thinking by running off to Vicksburg.”

Deb was pulling close now, and Carter knew he’d be joining his wife on the river as well. “How’s my best gal?”

“Don’t try to charm me, Carter Wilson; get in the damn boat!”

With their losses the night before, the flotilla was towing several empty craft, so adding David and Carter was no problem.

Jack was intently scanning the canoes slowly floating downstream as the Fort Wayne leaders finished their brief meeting. “Either of you two seen Andi?”

Deb and Christy shared a furtive glance, each hoping the other would volunteer the news of Andi’s capture. The lack of response to his question alarmed Jack, and he asked again, “Where’s Andi?”

Deb swallowed hard and lowered her head. “She was captured.”

Jack thought he must have misunderstood. “She was what?”

Christy elaborated, “She was captured by one of the Blackhawk crews when she tried to make her way to the evacuation docks. She was with a soldier from Middle Bass; he escaped and found his way back to us.”

“The Blackhawks don’t land to capture people,” Jack protested, his voice rising. “There must be some mistake; what’s really going on here?”

Deb tried to explain, “It doesn’t make sense to us either, but you can talk to Lieutenant Heder when we reach Defiance. He says he watched the chopper land and take her. I sent Heder to tell the last of our fighters to evacuate. He was supposed to bring Andi back with him. It was chaos, they were being overrun by the hunters, and they got separated.”

Jack stared at Deb incredulously; his heart was pounding in his chest and he lost feeling in his feet and hands. “Barnes has never bothered to capture anyone before,” he argued.

“We should learn to expect the unexpected from Barnes,” Christy replied. “Lieutenant Heder is the guy Luke saved from drowning during the fight in Buffalo. He got to a boat and barely made it back to us; he saw the guys grab Andi and take off.”

“How in the hell did he escape?” Jack angrily demanded.

Deb shook her head. “He said he thought she was right behind him as they were running from the wall. Said he jumped in some bushes when he heard the chopper, and that’s when he realized she wasn’t with him.”

Jack was temporarily speechless, so Carter spoke for his buddy. “I’ll be havin’ words with this Heder fella when we make camp tonight.”

Deb was feeling responsible for Andi’s abduction. “I want to go with you. I’m the one who sent Heder to get her; he seems like a good guy, and I can’t blame him for staying out of sight when the chopper landed, but I want to know every little detail about what happened after I sent him after Andi.” She didn’t share her own doubts about his story.

“So you believe him? You think some guys in a Blackhawk abducted her in the middle of a blizzard? With the infected all around?” Jack truly didn’t know what to think.

Christy answered with a question of her own, “Why would he lie?”

“Maybe she didn’t make it, and he was tryin’ to spare yer feelins’ by givin’ ya a reason to think she’s still alive.” Carter glanced at Jack, then looked at his wife. “Do ya think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible, but he’s a soldier, and we’re in the middle of a war where we lose people all the time,” Deb pointed out. “He doesn’t know us very well, so why would he be worried about sparing our feelings? Besides, being captured by Barnes could be a fate worse than death.” She regretted words as soon as she said them. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Jack replied. “You make a lot of sense. Right now, we accept Heder’s version of what happened and assume that Barnes has Andi. We’ll get her back. He wouldn’t risk a precious Blackhawk capturing one of our people unless he had some mind-games planned for us. Barnes wouldn’t capture her just to kill her.” He repeated himself for emphasis, “We will get her back. Who’s got her girls?”  

Deb answered, “Carter’s mom took them to the train Ted was using to evacuate the kids.”

Jack nodded, expressionless. “Good enough. For the moment, we have to focus on saving our people here. I’m going back up in the Blackhawk with Chuck and Todd.”

He then turned to Hector. “Will your dogs be okay in a canoe?”

“Oh yeah, in fact, they’ll be our early warning system.”

“Excellent. We’ll refuel as quickly as possible and get back overhead.”

Andi woke with a start, disoriented and wondering, for a few seconds, if she had dreamt everything that had happened the night before. Then she realized that her hands were still bound by flex-cuffs, and she was lying in the gore and filth encrusted uniform she’d been captured in while trying to escape Fort Wayne. No, not captured, she remembered with renewed fury: betrayed. Lieutenant Heder had sold her out, for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, but what really sent her anger to new heights was the realization that the soldier from Middle Bass Island had almost certainly blown the hole in the wall guarding the bridge. One traitor had destroyed everything she and the rest of the people in the settlement had worked to build since the world had been overrun by the infected.

She thought of her daughters, Greta and Cassandra, and her chest tightened. Nothing and no one would ever be more important to her than her children. Lieutenant Heder had separated her from her girls and her friends; now he could be living among them, waiting for another chance to betray them. She focused on her anger, knowing that despair was lurking just under the surface. She tried to imagine what Jack would do if he were in her situation and decided that he would be calm, reflective, and observant. She began to investigate her surroundings.

She’d been lying on a mat on a cold, tile floor. The only furniture in the room was a small table with two metal folding chairs. She began to notice the noises coming from outside the small windows set in the concrete block walls that surrounded her. She stood up and shuffled over to look out on some sort of military base, blanketed in snow. Helicopters were making a racket somewhere nearby, the sounds of their rotors punctuated by the occasional shouts of soldiers she assumed were working on the aircraft or preparing to fly them. She remembered that the soldiers who’d abducted her had almost immediately put a hood over her head, and it hadn’t been removed until they’d tossed her into this room following what seemed to be a rather short flight.

A knock at the door interrupted Andi’s limited reconnaissance, and she turned to see a lone, middle-aged officer entering the room. She had no idea what the man might have in mind for her, but her captors had cuffed her hands in front, and she still had her feet and teeth if she needed to put up a fight. The man closed the door and turned to face her. Neither of them moved or said a word for twenty seconds, so Andi took the time to examine the soldier before her. She estimated the man was in his late forties or early fifties, thin and short, with a small mustache that looked ridiculous when combined with his large nose and narrow mouth. For a moment she was certain she could kill this guy with her hands tied, but then she looked into his eyes and felt a flicker of fear.

The officer smiled when he finally saw the reaction he was looking for. “I hope your trip here wasn’t too unpleasant, Andrea Carrell, fiancé of the mighty Jack Smith.”

He stepped toward her and pulled a knife from his pocket, flipping the blade open with practiced ease as he closed the gap between them. Andi tried to create more distance by shuffling backward, until she banged into a wall. With no other recourse, she swung her bound hands together in an attempt to land a blow aimed at the man’s temple. He didn’t flinch as he caught her swing in his left hand and cut her cuffs with the right.

“Now, now,” he smirked, “no need for violence here.”

Andi rubbed her chafed wrists as she glared at the officer with a newfound respect. He took two steps back and waved toward the table and chairs. “Please, have a seat; I only want to talk to you for a while.”

With few other options, most of which were likely to get her stabbed or worse, Andi sullenly sat down and stared at her tormentor. “Who’s Andrea?”

The officer leaned back in his chair with a smug smile. “Miss Carrell, how did your clothes come to be so . . . crusty? Were you killing flesh-eaters before you were captured in Fort Wayne, at the settlement established and commanded by Jack Smith?”

“Most people are pretty crusty these days without the conveniences of civilized society,” Andi retorted.

“Would you like a hot shower? Or perhaps a bubble bath? A little cooperation will have its advantages.”

When she didn’t respond, the officer leaned forward. “I’m President Matthew Barnes, so cut the nonsense and let’s talk like two rational adults.”

Now that Andi’s worst fears were confirmed and she was face-to-face with Jack’s mortal enemy, the architect of the pandemic, she decided to make the best of the little time she had left and get in a few digs while she could. “Wow, the infamous General Barnes we’ve been kicking the hell out of the past six months; I finally get to meet you.”

If Barnes was offended by the insult, he didn’t show it. “Oh, it’s really only been the last few months; before that you were just fighting the results of my magnificently designed virus.”

“Whatever,” Andi shrugged. “Yeah, I know who you are, and I’m not impressed.”

He smiled again. “I don’t expect the average citizen to even begin to understand the purpose of my work, or what the end result of my efforts will be. While you are certainly a pretty human female, I realize that we aren’t exactly equals in IQ.”

Andi laughed. “Or emotional stability, obviously. If you are still in touch with reality, just tell me why I’m here.”

Barnes shook his head with an expression of mock-sadness. “See what I mean, about the intelligence issue?”

Andi sighed. “You’re clearly not as smart as you think you are. Jack will never, ever, exchange one of his soldiers, weapons, or any other asset for one of his lovers. In fact, you probably would have better luck grabbing whoever he’s sleeping with down in Vicksburg. I can’t even keep his entire ‘attention’ when he’s in Fort Wayne. I don’t know what your pathetic little lackey told you, but I’m certainly not Jack Smith’s fiancé. Not that I wouldn’t want to be.”