Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (36 page)

“So what’s the plan then?” he asked.

The Colonel sat back in his chair which creaked and popped due to his excessive weight. He laced his fingers together behind his head and neck, which didn’t seem to have a defining line separating the one from the other, and exhaled a long, satisfied deep breath. “Tell me about the teenager you brought in. Any chances he might become a new recruit?”

Sullivan smiled. “Carter’s already working on it. He’s pretty good at those things. I’m sure he can get it done.”

“Good. And the woman?”

By that time, Sullivan caught scent of the Colonel’s ripe breath. He stood up and walked over to the window, so as to subtly escape the hovering odor.

“Sullivan...”

With a sinister slant to both his eyes and his voice, Sullivan said, “For what we want of her, she doesn’t need to be on board with your...vision. She just needs to be...well plied. Believe me, she won’t have any fight left in her when I get done.”

“She’s no good to us dead, Sullivan,” The Colonel admonished.

“She’s no good to us at all. She’s just another liability. Ya might as well let me have my fun for once. I listen to you and I follow your orders. Don’t I deserve a little R-n-R? Haven’t I earned it?”

The colonel wrinkled his face into a question. He asked with his head tilting slightly, “Earned what? What are you plannin’ to do?”

Sullivan smiled a grin that still had idiomatic canary feathers fluttering around it. “I earned you not asking any questions on this one. I earned no interference. And afterward, you can tell me what to do and when to do it, but let me be right now. Like I said, I earned it.”

The Colonel leaned farther into his chair and somehow projected enough of his musk to fill Sullivan’s nose. The gum was failing him, and he was becoming bored with this discussion. He needed to go back up to his room for a few minutes. There was a bottle of Johnny Walker that was calling out his name. And then it hit him. The bottle. He could be real creative with that bottle. And if it broke, he could use the pieces. His creativity pleased him immensely.

Leaving the room slowly, Sullivan said over his shoulder so the two women could hear him as well as the Colonel, “I got it covered boss. The woman will know her place at our feet...just like all women should know.” He shot the two women in the front office a smile, from which they cowered and looked away.

Neil slammed his hand against the steering wheel in frustration. He continued to wait for some revelation. They needed a plan and he’d be damned if he could think of one. He knew they were both outnumbered and outgunned. He wondered if the militiamen were expecting them. He also wondered about the discipline of the militia forces. Would they have pickets on watch outside their defenses or would they simply hide behind their walls and wait?

Really, zekes weren’t tactically creative. Neil and his group had used that against them many times over the past several weeks. They didn’t use subterfuge or stealth. Zombies were nothing if not predictable. They simply came at their quarry relentlessly, overwhelming any resistance through sheer hunger and rage.

If he knew that, then maybe this Colonel guy knew that too. There really wasn’t much need to have people outside the walls so long as there were diligent lookouts atop the walls. Neil needed to think of a way to use that against them.

In the road ahead, shuffling along the pavement like a stray dog, a lanky, bony wraith saw the shiny, silver truck barreling toward it. The zombie raised its ashen arms and started to head on a collision course with the truck. The ghoul, which had once been a woman, perhaps a housewife, a mother, a neighbor, was showing the advancing signs of decay through the tattered shreds of clothing that still clung to her emaciated frame and trailed behind her like a fluttering war banner. Her teeth were fully exposed, the skin around her mouth having curled away. Her cheekbones protruded through gaps in her skin, as did some of her ribs and part of her right shoulder. Some of the bones peeking through were the result of the wounds which had claimed her life in the first place. The closer she drew to the truck, the more fearsome she became.

Neil looked over at Emma, expecting to see an approving nod, as he edged the truck into a more direct path toward the thing in the road. She wasn’t even acknowledging that Neil was looking at her. She was too busy looking at the zombie too, at least that was what she wanted Neil to think.

Of course Emma saw him look over at her and she knew exactly what he needed, but she also knew that he was also expecting to look over and see Meghan giving that nod. Emma wasn’t willing to be that person; she just didn’t have it in her anymore. Her affection for Dr. Caldwell had caught her by surprise, almost as much as his affection for her did. She hadn’t found much luck in love in her life.

She’d been in love and had been loved, but it never seemed to last. And after each, she had always sworn she would never love again. This particular time was no different, other than perhaps her resolve and resignation.

It wasn’t that Emma was trying to be heartless. She cared deeply for Neil, respected him, and appreciated him, but it was simply not enough to encourage her to let down her guard and make herself vulnerable again. She wasn’t willing to go down that path another time. Some people might feel compelled to seek mates and relationships, but Emma wasn’t one of those people. All the warmth and security and whatever else one derived from romance did not come close to balancing with all the misery, loss, and whatever else she would suffer when the relationship eventually failed.

Jerry was instead the one who commented on Neil’s apparent decision. “Uh, Neil, have you thought that maybe hitting it with the truck might not be a great idea?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, I’m the damned teenager here. Why am I the only one who might be worried her head or other body part might come through the windshield or my window? I like being warm and dry for a change. Oh yeah, and my legs not always feeling tired is pretty freaking cool, too, by the way. So, I think it might be a good idea to take care of this truck so maybe it’ll take care of us.”

Neil corrected their course and steered them away from the zombie who turned slowly as they passed and hissed at them its disappointment. “Sorry. I guess I just let myself get distracted.”

As if answering a question that hadn’t been asked, Della said, “Maybe that’s the key. Maybe them monsters distract everyone. Maybe they can help us. Maybe they can be our distraction.”

Emma shook her head and asked, “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“No, Della’s right,” Neil said. “I was trying to figure out how to get Claire and those kids back. I was comin’ up empty to be honest. Steve, you said the Colonel had more than twenty men and a bunch of guns?”

Steve, watching a trio of wretched ghouls loitering in a parking lot of a looted and burned business, answered, “Yeah quite a few more’n twenty I guess. That is unless Carter’s convinced any more of the other men in the group to join his men and then who knows how many? When you caught me, I’d been out with them boys for a few days lookin’ for supplies and scouting around in general. Carter’s real persuasive, I’d guess you’d say. They got a couple of honest to God machine-guns and a bunch of guns that might be what you’d call cousins of military hardware. They got some other odds and ends too but I don’t know what all of it did.”

“Twenty guns is enough,” Neil remarked. “That’s more than we can deal with. We need some kind of an edge if we’re gonna have any hope at all.” Neil slowed the vehicle and turned left. He asked, “So how are we gonna do this then?”

Royce, his hair as white and stormy as a cloud, stood in the doorway of the small conference room of the Skyview school library. He looked over his shoulder to make certain no one was within earshot. Satisfied, he said, “I don’t trust no one here. No one gives a rat’s ass about no one else.”

Jess nodded her head in agreement. She was about to say something, when Royce continued, “No one except you that is. I need help and you’re the only one here that I can ask.”

Jess was caught off guard by his candor and by the compliment. She looked up at him this time and nodded much more slowly. She was agreeing without having first heard what was being asked of her. She would have agreed regardless. She had been missing something for quite a while and she suddenly realized what it was: purpose. She no longer went on outside excursions and her duties as a laundress were less than fulfilling.

Royce, almost with a whisper, said calmly, “I’m gonna go get those kids out and then get them away from here. And I can’t do it alone.”

“I’m in.”

Royce smiled as much as he ever did, revealing his perfect teeth which were as white as his hair. “I was hopin’ you’d say that. I really didn’t know how I was gonna do it alone.”

“How do you plan on getting them out?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m gonna go do it now.”

Jess leaned forward and whispered, “Well hold on just a second. I might have something that will help.”

Just outside the doors of the conference room was a bookshelf that housed, among other things, Toni Morrison’s
Song of Solomon
. Jess walked up to that section, touched the book lightly and then pulled it from the shelf. She reached in quickly, as if she was thrusting her hand into boiling water, and then pulled it back out with something small, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. She held the item in her hand as if weighing it for authenticity, and then rolled it out of the cloth.

It was the revolver Simeon had given her. There was a small handful of shiny bullets lying in the cloth next to it. The little gun seemed almost a child’s plaything but the bullets added to the toy a sense of purpose and gravitas.

Royce, his eyes wide with wonderment, asked in disbelief, “How the hell did you hide that?”

“Girl’s gotta have her secrets.”

More than a little pleased, Royce gushed, “Well hallelujah for that, sister. I think you just made all this a lot easier.”

“Royce, what about that woman?” Jess asked with concern. “Are we gonna try and help her? We can’t just leave her.”

“One thing at a time. We gotta get those kids outta that hell those bastards put them in. If we can actually get that done, then we can talk. Well, get it done without...”

Jess finished for him, “...getting us both killed.”

Royce said, “I figure either way, something gets resolved tonight.”

Jess opened the back door where Simeon had slept all those weeks ago. The outside air was crisp and dry against her cheeks as she entered the dark evening. While the short days of winter were still some time off in the future, the nights were starting to become much darker much quicker. Due to the absence of any artificial light from street lamps, vehicle headlights, or neon store marquees, the darkness seemed so much more absolute in the dead of night. Luckily, there was still some lingering purple tinted light when she stepped outside.

She looked over and could make out the contours of the cages sitting like an isolated archipelago in a concrete sea. There was something else too. A swirling twist of air with a little more than just air to it. Snow. It was faint, not much more than frost that spread wet kisses on the cold air, but it was definitely there. Jess stopped and breathed in the cold moisture which crowded out all the warmth in her lungs. The chill swept through her from the inside out.

Almost at once, she could hear the snarling, snorting foulness of the undead who had been caged in kennels surrounding the children. Luckily, the loading bay and car lot were both empty.

Jess had been concerned that her resolve might fade a bit when actually facing the task. She was pleasantly surprised to find that hearing the creatures steeled her nerves and set her on her path. There were at least three of the militiamen patrolling along the wall perimeter but still some distance away. All three walked with the enthusiasm of a mall cop on beat after hours.

Jess looked at Royce, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of the cages. He was carrying a mop handle that he had sharpened and honed into a very lethal point. He was also carrying an equally sharp but much shorter filleting knife.

Ignoring any looks thrown their direction by the armed men, the two of them walked up to the nearest cage. Jess said over the grunts of the ghoul separating her from the children on the other side, “Hold tight, kids. We’re here to get you out.”

Danny, who had neither slept nor sat since he had been locked inside, sighed and started to cry tears of relief. He knew someone would come for them. He just thought it would have been Neil. He didn’t care at the moment though. He just wanted to be able to rest his legs and his eyes. He’d been fighting both the cold and sleep all day and into the night. He knew that if he was to surrender to sleep, he would have ended up in the clutches of one of those things that was almost close enough to touch him as it was.

The frigid air would have made sleep difficult as well. He and the three other children were pressed as tightly together as possible due to more than just fear of the zombies. They were freezing, their teeth chattering uncontrollably and shivers running the lengths of their bodies every few seconds. Danny tried to hug all of them against him through most of the day, but he was starting to get so tired. For a moment, he was afraid the voice he was hearing was merely a hallucination.