Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (51 page)

It was about then that she heard a snap,
which sliced the air near to her and was quickly followed by the
undeniable crack of a firearm. From behind her, she could hear the
thing stumble and then hit the ground awkwardly. She could still
hear it grunting and making other noises so it obviously wasn’t
dead yet.

Jerry stopped dead in his tracks, spun
around, and raised his rifle all in one agile movement, sighting
down the barrel. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the trigger and the
demon fell silent.

“Gooooo!” he urged. “Keep goingggg! We can’t
stop!”

Mia and Jules met them at the front door of
the lodge and let them in, bolting the door quickly after them.
Danielle fell on the floor and felt her anxiety and relief overtake
her. She was weeping and trying to control a relieved laugh at the
same time. She was also attempting to regain her breath despite her
protesting lungs. She coughed and hacked uncontrollably while Mia
and Jules attempted to soothe her.

When Danielle looked back up, she realized
Jerry wasn’t there. No sooner had they made it inside than he was
running up the stairs toward Danny out on the veranda. Jerry hadn’t
said a thing; he had made his way to the next assignment that would
keep them alive.

Once she had gathered her breath, Danielle
asked Jules, “He’s taken good care of you hasn’t he?”

Surprisingly astute for a young child, Jules
answered, “Jerry saved me and Danny just like he saved you today.
Neil and him keep us all safe.”

Still fighting back some tears, Danielle
admitted, “He makes me feel safe too.”

“Got ‘im,” Danny said, peering down his
barrel at the approaching target. It was the sixth one already
since Jerry and Danielle got back and that wasn’t counting the one
that Danny shot to help the two of them get inside. Danny had shot
four of them and brought down three of those that he hit.

It felt good to finally be called upon to
contribute in a meaningful way. He wasn’t doing kids’ work this
time. Danny was using the rifle that Neil had given him.

With each pull of the trigger, Danny’s heart
rate increased and his cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red. There
was no denying his excitement.

Nikki was gone, and so was that pretty lady
with the white hair. There were glimpses of emotion and something
else, which nagged at him between the gunshots and the tense
moments just before and after. The something else was an emotion
which he associated with lying to his mother or betraying his
friend. It was a needling sensation that twisted his stomach and
chilled his heart. He thought that it felt like guilt, but there
was something buried within the emotion that was unfamiliar. If he
was able to identify it, he might recognize it as grim
satisfaction. He wasn’t satisfied that either the girl or the woman
had died, but he was decidedly satisfied that
he
had not. It was like a soldier’s guilt of having
survived a battle when so many others he had known did not. It was
a sour lump that burned when Danny swallowed and made his eyes feel
hot from the inside. He didn’t like it one bit.

Sitting with the boy, Abdul sensed Danny’s
unrest in the boy’s fidgety posture, erratic breathing, and
distracted expression. Abdul had seen it many times before back in
Africa on the faces of hopeless survivors of any number of
catastrophes. Abdul hummed the contagious harmony from Bob Marley’s
“Three Little Birds.” He watched the trees as intently as Danny,
but he continued to hum the same refrain.

In time, Abdul would sing refrains from the
song, doing his utmost to mimic Bob’s angelic voice,
“...
sayin’
don’t
worry
, ‘
bout
a
t’ing
.
‘
Cause
,
ev’ry
little
t’ing’s
goina’
be
alright
...”

Abdul sat for a while longer, singing the
occasional song lyric. The man noticed the boy begin to tap his
fingers on the chair’s metal frame to the time of the melody. The
boy was settling back further into his chair’s cushion. His eyes
were still distant and sorrowful, but the rest of his body was
releasing some of the metaphysical toxins plaguing him. Danny
hadn’t outwitted or outrun his demons yet, but they were giving him
a little space for the moment.

When Abdul went back inside, the music in
Danny’s head departed with him and all of his dark troubles rushed
back. He wasn’t left alone for long though. Jerry stepped through
the door and took the spot vacated by Abdul. Distracted himself,
Jerry completely missed Danny’s anxiety. The two sat silent for
quite some time.

Fortunately, there was ample distraction for
the two of them while they watched for any more activity in front
of the lodge. A steady breeze had become a determined wind, blowing
free the few stubborn leaves still clinging to the trees all around
them. The placement of the lodge and its angles helped to shield
them from much of the wind’s wrath, but they weren’t spared
completely from the cold currents. The snow had picked up as well,
threatening to become a full-blown storm. Visibility was
challenging despite the sun still casting a dull glow through the
persistently bellicose clouds. Jerry and Danny both agreed that the
coming night posed some significant challenges if any zekes decided
to pay them a visit.

There was also the problem of the others
having not returned. Neil, Emma, William, and Jess were still on
their supply run, causing everyone to be a little jumpy and on
edge. They all tried to eat, but it felt like they were all
visitors eating their host’s food while he was away. It didn’t seem
right to any of them.

Jerry never vacated his post and kept a
watchful eye on the woods. He sent Danny back inside to get himself
something to eat and to warm his young bones. Jerry thought that
perhaps he needed some more time alone to digest and process all
that had happened and was still threatening to happen over this
long day. Jerry’s eyes never strayed from watching the trees, but
he was seeing none of it. He barely noticed when Danielle
eventually brought him a plate of baked salmon and wild rice. The
food was likely delicious, but Jerry could only bring himself to
pick at it. He had a lot on his mind and not much of it was
good.

Not even Danielle’s presence was enough to
draw him away from his thoughts. He hardly acknowledged her when
she delivered his meal. She had intended to thank him for saving
her life, but his palpable distraction was enough to drive her away
to wait for him to be more emotionally available. She could sense
how distant he was, having had a lot of practice with her brother
in that pursuit. If Jerry was anything like her brother, she knew
that if she left him alone for a bit, he would eventually get more
comfortable with his thoughts and rejoin her. The other option was
that she completely invaded his space and demanded attention from
him, letting her experiences with her moody brother dictate her
actions. With all of that in mind, Danielle touched Jerry’s
shoulder through several layers of warm clothing and coats, and
decided to give him his space and his quiet by going back
inside.

Jerry couldn’t deny the anxiety he was
feeling, growing stronger the longer Neil and Emma were gone. He
cared about both of them deeply, but it was more than that which he
was considering. With the three of them together at each other’s
sides, he felt like they had a fighting chance to survive. He
didn’t think he could do it alone. There were too many variables
and too many ways that things could go wrong, and he didn’t think
he could do what Neil had done for so long.

There had been a number of times when he
doubted Neil’s decisions but most of those had worked out for all
of them. In fact, to Jerry’s knowledge, most of the problems they
encountered had not arisen as a result of Neil’s decisions. He
always did his best to get them out of every jam, whether it was of
his making or someone else’s. Jerry thought back on all the times
over the past few months in which it felt like all hope was lost
but somehow Neil would come through for them.

To be certain, they had lost people along
the way and Neil always dished out for himself the most substantial
portions of blame even when he should have been acquitted of any
negligence. The chaotic few months flashed through Jerry’s mind as
a series of snapshots...people, homes, cars, darkness, hope, and
loss.

A vision of his love Claire as she lay
lifeless and butchered on a classroom lab table tormented him.
Whose fault had that been? Was Neil or Jerry to blame? Or someone
else entirely? He wished he had an answer for that question. If he
could lay blame at someone’s feet, then maybe he could start to get
past all of his anger and his grief.

The bastard responsible for the horrific
things to his ladylove was dead and forgotten, having been left on
the impersonal Skyview High School floor. Jerry had a hard time
accepting that circumstance as a reasonable resolution to his pain.
It just didn’t feel like it was enough that he was dead. Jerry
wanted him to suffer the same agony and torturous end that Claire
faced...alone. That, perhaps, was the thought that affected Jerry
the most.

He couldn’t deny his resentment of Neil for
not allowing him to stay behind with Claire, but at the same time
he understood how unrealistic that was. Claire was dead and Neil
needed Jerry’s help to ensure no one else was lost. He understood
it but he still harbored some anger toward Neil for making him
leave her. It was irrational and unjustified, but it was still
there in the back of his thoughts.

All of that was exorcized out of his mind
when, three people emerged from out of the woods, two of them
helping the third walk. Jerry realized it was Emma and Jess
carrying Neil, who appeared to be injured and barely able to walk
unaided.

Where was William? What had happened to
Neil?

Jerry hopped up from his chair and leaned
his head into the doorway. “They’re back!” he shouted. “Someone go
let them in. Danny, get your rifle ready and meet them at the door.
Watch their backs. I’ll watch from up here.”

From the top of the stairs and just inside
the door leading to the veranda, Jerry listened to the activity
below while Emma and Jess helped Neil back into the lodge. He heard
the story; how they had made it onto the cruise ship and found it
absolutely festering with the undead. Jess recounted the moment
when William shot Neil and how William simply vanished from
sight.

Jerry’s chest tickled and tingled, imagining
how it must have felt to be shot. Allowing his medical training to
kick in, Jerry examined Neil’s wound, pressing a towel against it
tightly to staunch the bleeding. He needed someone to get back to
the lookout post to make certain the three of them hadn’t been
followed. “Abdul and Danny, get upstairs and watch for any zekes.
Make sure we’re clear.” Both of them headed back up to the
veranda.

Neil smiled at Jerry when the younger man
led him into the living room and said calmly, “It looks a hell of a
lot worse than it actually is,” Neil said. “It went straight
through.” Neil’s voice sounded slightly winded, as if he had been
exercising vigorously.

Jerry was relieved to hear the man’s voice
and to confirm that it wasn’t a voice racked with pain or weakness.
It just sounded like Neil and that was all Jerry needed to hear to
know that things were all right in the world.

Jerry nodded to his friend and then said to
everyone, “It looks like it’s just tissue damage. It’s gonna hurt
like hell for a while, but if we can prevent any infection, this
shouldn’t be life threatening.”

Colonel Bear looked out into the darkness.
He couldn’t see it through the darkness and snowy skies but he knew
that the mammoth cruise ship was bobbing on the restless Prince
William Sound. He finished his drink while he stared into the gloom
and imagined his next move and all the possibilities it might
yield.

When Carter told him about the people he saw
board the ship, the Colonel’s intuition told him immediately that
it was the people for whom he was looking. Ultimately, it wouldn’t
matter because anyone would do. The fact that Carter may have
recognized one of them helped the Colonel to really believe.

Knowing they were out there was important to
him, but the ability to show to everyone in his militia that he
knew what he was doing in finding them was important to those he
led. He needed them to trust him as much as they feared him. It was
a subtle combination of the two which allowed him to assemble his
army around him. Fear wasn’t enough over the long haul, but trust
would keep all of them around. If they could trust him to find them
food and avenge their deaths as in the case of his lieutenant
Sullivan, then he’d always have his troops.

The Colonel had feared they had lost the
scent of their quarry when they came into Whittier, but he had seen
other opportunities. Whittier could be their fortress...their
city-state from which they could build anew. Whittier could be
their impregnable castle with its own natural defensive wall and
ample sources of food and fresh water. It was better than the
Colonel could have imagined and it was all theirs, or at least it
would be after some minor...housekeeping.

They needed to eliminate the threat of the
skins still lurking in the city and then track down the other
people threatening his and his militia’s claim to their new home.
He had feared this second priority would prove unduly elusive until
by lucky happenstance fate once again had favored the Colonel.

A young militiaman named Mason patrolling
along the shoreline on the opposite side of the Inn saw what he
thought was a body on the rocky shore. It was one that hadn’t been
there the other times during which he had patrolled the same
area.