Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (39 page)

Carter crawled off of her and walked to the
door without grabbing his shorts or anything else to cover himself.
He threw open the door wearing nothing more than anger on his face
and the remnants of fading passion everywhere else.

Ilya’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment
as soon as the door was open. He refused to look down but was
dumbfounded, unable to find his words. He had been sent by Colonel
Bear to get Carter.

Carter finally barked, “What!?!”

“Colonel Bear, he sent me...he sent me
to...he wants you to—”

“What the fuck are you trying to say?”
Carter shouted. “Can’t you see that I’m busy? Can’t I have a moment
to myself? Can’t you people figure things out for yourselves for a
change?”

“Sk-skins,” Ilya stammered. “We’ve got skins
on the street. Looks like they’re coming toward us. The
Colonel...he wants you—”

Getting better control of his temper, Carter
said, “Tell him I’m on my way.” He slammed the door and stormed
back into the room, picking up his underwear and black jeans. To
Kit he said, “Looks like we’ll have to finish later.”

Kit rolled her eyes but made certain Carter
didn’t see her gesture. She asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“Get dressed and get ready to fight. D’you
think you were just going to lay around here and wait for me?”

Kit had hoped that perhaps she would see a
little lighter duty if she made herself available for Carter’s
pleasures. She knew it was a long shot but she had hoped to sleep
in a bed rather than down in the lobby on the main floor where most
everyone else was expected to sleep. She didn’t want to have to
sleep in that big room filled with all the odors and sounds that
men make when they sleep. It didn’t look like it was going to work
out that way after all.

She found her clothes near the table in the
corner of the room and, once dressed, she exited his room and was
told where she was needed.

The light was on its last legs when Carter
arrived at Colonel Bear’s side.

“I sent a couple of guys out to look
around,” the Colonel said, “see if they could find any evidence of
the murderers. They’re not back yet and those skins down there are
between our men and us. We need to sweep the street to let our boys
be able to make it back. We can’t afford to keep losing
people.”

Carter rubbed his chin. “How many are
there?” He wanted to ask why the Colonel had sent men out this
close to night, but knew better than to question the Colonel’s
orders or his motives.

“I’ve counted seven and they’re movin’ slow.
They may not know that we’re here yet.”

“I think they know that we’re here in
Whittier, but they may not know that we’re lookin’ down at them
right now. If we do this right, we can get out there and put them
down without causin’ too much of a stir. Then maybe we can get some
rest tonight.”

The Colonel summoned his commanding voice
and ordered, “Make it happen. I don’t care how. Just get it done.
Worry about your freakin’ rest on your own time.”

Seething with anger, Carter descended the
stairs into the group of militia gathered but keeping a low profile
on the ground level of the hotel. To all of their questioning,
worried faces he said, “No guns.”

He walked to the front door of the hotel and
opened it with gusto, attracting the attention of the moving group
of undead changing their trajectory toward him. Carter stepped onto
the street and blew some kisses at his would-be assailants. “Batter
up,” he said.

Seeing them come at him, Carter was able to
deduce much about them within seconds. There were seven but there
were two more trailing some distance behind. They all moved with
the same dexterity and grace of alabaster sculptures. Whatever skin
was showing on the walking corpses was weathered to an inorganic
tone that approached slate and was pocked with open and festering
sores and untreated wounds. Their arms flailed, reaching for him as
they got closer to Carter, standing stock still in the street. When
the things neared arm’s distance from their quarry, their subhuman
moans, voices of the damned, filled the street with their
poison.

Choosing his moment perfectly, Carter leaned
back on his heels and swung his modified wooden bat in a wide arc
in front of him. He had driven sharpened metal wedges into the
bat’s sides, making it into a lethal, medieval looking mace. When
his weapon struck, the multiple blades wreaked havoc. If he struck
his target just right, he could cut straight through bone and sever
the top half of its skull with very little effort.

With his first three controlled swings, he
was very nearly able to do that to three different creatures. He
stepped confidently into the thick of them before any of the other
militia people had joined him. When the quarters became too tight
to swing his bat, Carter dropped it at his feet and pulled his long
hunting knife. He kicked and punched and stabbed, spinning in a
whirling tornado of death. With his swinging blade, he cut off
fingers, slashed throats, and gouged eyes with impunity. Nothing
could get close enough to threaten him with harm. He was a weapon
unleashed.

The other militiamen had moved to help
Carter, but he was more than holding his own against this mob. The
extra people merely cleaned up the mess Carter had made by
finishing off the few knocked down and grievously wounded but not
yet dispatched. They waded into the fray worrying about becoming a
casualty to Carter as much as to the undead. One of them would hit
one of the creatures in the back and then step away to avoid
Carter’s subsequent attack on the same target.

The brawl, because it was over too quickly
and too lopsidedly to be called anything but, ended with Carter
standing in the midst of seven truly dead, broken bodies. He found
his bat at the bottom of the splattered blood and lifeless limbs
and then went back inside, throwing over his shoulder, “There’s two
more skins out there. Can I trust all of you to be able to handle
them without me?”

Walking back through the hotel entrance, he
didn’t give the gawking stares any attention. He was suddenly
struck with a desire for a hot shower and that was his entire
focus. The shower was where he could lose himself so long as the
water stayed hot. For him, a shower usually meant much more than
simply cleaning himself. Showering was a retreat from expectations
and disappointments. He could be alone with his thoughts and sort
out the plans he was always hatching.

Knowing a shower was not in the offing, he
asked everyone, “Where’s Kit? Send her to my room with another
bottle of...hell, I don’t care, whatever is left down there. And I
don’t want to wait.”

With that, Carter walked back up the stairs,
went into his room, and shut the door behind him. Moments later,
Kit scurried up the stairs with a bottle in her hands. Her demeanor
was anything but excited as she made her way to the door. She
paused outside and knocked. When the door opened, she stalled in
the doorway before entering, not sure what might greet her on the
other side. She entered hesitantly and when the door closed
everyone in the lobby felt both sorry for her and thankful that it
wasn’t one of them who had been summoned. They all believed she was
about to face her own battle with Carter and none of them envied
her misfortune.

Jerry and Danny had been sitting on the
balcony for quite some time before either of them said anything.
For Danny, it felt like an eternity. At his age, silence was
exceptionally difficult. He defined himself and developed his ego
in relation to the world around him through speech. Danny needed to
know that his place in the world and his understanding of that
world were within his control. His words were some of the few
things of which he did have complete control.

For this reason and to demonstrate his
understanding of such mature matters, Danny finally asked, “You
thinkin’ about Claire?” He didn’t look directly at Jerry when he
asked his question, but angled his head so that he could see
Jerry’s responsive demeanor.

Jerry was quiet for a few seconds more but
nodding his head. He finally answered, “Yeah. That’s all I’m able
to think about when it’s quiet like this.”

Hoping to say something worthwhile, Danny
said, “She was brave for us and kept us safe, right up until they
took her away.” Danny tried to quell the rising pain in his chest,
but was unsuccessful.

Jerry looked ahead. He didn’t fix his eyes
on anything specifically, choosing to not see the forest for the
trees. He laid his hand on the back of Danny’s neck in a paternal
gesture of warmth, support, and love. He knew the boy was trying so
hard to show that he cared. Jerry appreciated his efforts.

He was… well,
happy
wasn’t the correct word, but he felt something positive in knowing
Claire had been brave for the children. Perhaps her bravery had
helped to save the kids’ lives. It wasn’t much, but it was
something, and it was enough for him to remember her as she was
rather than when he had last seen her on the table of that
converted shop classroom.

She had been tortured and murdered viciously
by a monster of a human being. The militia had taken her from him
and for that he would never be able to forgive them. His raw hatred
for the militia would likely become just another festering wound
with no cure and no hope to address it, as the militia was left in
disarray and under assault by an army of the undead. Jerry could
only wish that the undead had done their terrible work and wiped
the monsters from the planet.

Sitting next to Danny in the cold, open air,
Jerry felt, for that brief instant, some peace begin to settle back
over him. He finally looked over at Danny and smiled at the boy. He
was about to thank Danny for his astute comment, but saw that Danny
was distracted by something in front of the lodge.

Jerry followed Danny’s eyes and saw a woman,
or what had once been one before she had turned. She was
undoubtedly a zeke.

Moving with a determined pace down the long
driveway from the main road, the zeke was partially hunched over
like a wild animal. Her head twitched back and forth, scanning for
prey to either side, perhaps hiding in the trees. The infection
driving her actions could sense food near to her, making her
incensed with wrath. Like a hunting shark, she propelled herself
forward.

Jerry nodded to Danny to ready his rifle
while he did the same. “It’ll be easier to get her from a distance
before she gets up to the door. We won’t have an angle then. Might
make it so that we’d have to go outside to deal with her.”

Danny looked down his rifle’s narrow barrel,
trying to line the iron sights on his moving target. He fired but
the bullet hit the pavement behind her, skipping off into the
forest. His second shot fared no better. Correcting his posture a
bit and holding his breath this time, Danny’s third shot hit the
woman in the abdomen.

“Nice shootin’, Tex,” Jerry said. He pulled
his own trigger and brought the target down. Jerry had the benefit
of a hunting scope and knowing his rifle, but there was more to it
than that.

Jerry was finding that he felt more and more
in his element over the recent days. After the initial shock and
fear of the apocalypse faded, he started to get comfortable in his
new role. If it hadn’t been for Neil, none of them would still be
alive, but Jerry also acknowledged his own contributions. If asked,
he would likely admit that his new confidence was a result of his
recent but tragically brief romantic relationship with Claire.
Somehow, he felt more like a man and more comfortable in his
skin.

Jerry said, “That was a great shot. She was
movin’ pretty fast!”

“Thanks,” Danny replied. “I think playing
video games may have helped. Don’t tell my mom though. It was just
like on a game, only louder.”

Looking back out in the direction from which
the zeke had come, Jerry said, “And thanks for what you said about
Claire. You’re right. I can’t stop thinking about her. I wish there
was a way for me to be able to—”

Danielle burst through the patio door at
that moment. She looked at both Danny and Jerry and then out toward
the trees. “What the hell are you two shooting at?” she
demanded.

Pointing toward the body on the driveway,
Danny said, “We got one. I shot her. Jerry got her in the head, but
I shot her too.”

“It’s okay,” Jerry said. “There was only one
of them. Sorry. We should have come and said something, but it just
happened. There was only the one, so I think we’re okay for now. I
sure as hell hope Neil gets everyone back here before it gets
dark.”

Danielle looked down intently at the corpse,
trying to determine if she knew the person. There was no use. It
could have been anyone.

“What are Betsy’s and Mia’s plans for
tonight if the others don’t make it back before it gets dark?”
Jerry asked.

“It hasn’t come up yet,” Danielle said. “I
think we’re all just planning on—”

“It’s always good to have a backup plan. You
never know what could be thrown your way these days.” With that
said, Jerry twisted himself around in his chair face Danielle. He
smiled at her and pointed out, “I guess I don’t have to tell you
that we’ve got plenty of room. Do I?”

Danielle, momentarily distracted, asked,
“How did you know?

“How did we know what?”

“How did you know she was one of those
things? How could you be certain? How do you know that she wasn’t
comin’ here for some help? Maybe she was in trouble.” Danielle was
nearly in tears by the time she had finished. Her experience in
this new world had been very limited. She hadn’t seen the wholesale
slaughter and unimaginable atrocities that had become commonplace
for Jerry and Danny for several months now. She didn’t
know...yet.