Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (54 page)

In short, they were scared. They were not a
confident army marching off to war. They were an army of conscripts
and thugs without a truly common purpose or focus. The only thing
they shared was an intense fear of the Colonel and his wrath.

Colonel Bear, once again in the driver’s
seat of his big black Hummer, shouted over to Carter, busy picking
which militia would ride in which vehicle and then the order of the
vehicles. “Carter! Carter!”

Carter could hear the Colonel’s voice, but
it was reminding him of his father’s more and more lately, so he
chose to ignore it, pretending that he couldn’t hear it for the
engines running all around him. Defiantly, he took a fresh pinch of
chewing tobacco from the tin in his inside jacket pocket and
stuffed it between his lower lip and his teeth. He ground the minty
wad into his lip, trying to reopen the sore on his gums, which was
trying to heal. Forcing it down further, Carter was finally able to
feel the surge of pain he was seeking. He relished the buzzing pain
and finally turned around to acknowledge Colonel Bear, looking at
Carter with annoyed eyes and an irritable expression.

“Carter, did you send someone back to get
the rearguard?”

Walking toward the immobile man, Carter
answered, “Yes, sir. I sent your boy Earl back to get them.”

“How long ago?”

“A while ago. He’s not too bright though,
sir. It might take him a bit. I told him to follow up into Shotgun
Cove after he picks up the couple we’re leaving here at the Inn
with our prisoner.”

“Did you tell him to have the tunnel
closed?”

“Yes sir. But—”

“But what, Carter? Did you send someone out
to do a job for which he was obviously ill equipped? You’re not
gonna fuck this up are you?”

Carter spat and let the bit of brown saliva
that found its way onto his lips and chin rest there while he
continued his discussion with the rotund man in the big sport
utility vehicle. “Well, sir, I got the impression that you wanted
Earl to be given more responsibility. I thought this was a
reasonable test of his leadership capabilities. It shouldn’t be a
hard assignment and is one that falls within his abilities, but if
you think that maybe it’s beyond him...well, I guess I could head
on back that way and—”

“Don’t be a fucking clown. Earl will get the
job done. He might just surprise you. So long as you gave him clear
orders, we should probably expect him to arrive a little after we
head up to the Cove. He could be Blucher arriving on the fields of
Waterloo when needed the most by Wellington to defeat Bonaparte.
You’ll see.”

“Yes, sir. Chances are we won’t even need
him, but it’ll be nice to have something to fall back on. And if he
doesn’t get the tunnel closed, we can always go back there
afterward and do the job right.”

Satisfied that Carter seemed to be seeing
things the way he wanted him to, the Colonel smiled. “Exactly. How
else are we gonna find you some help? You can’t be expected to do
everything. Besides, anything can happen these days. We need to
make sure we have people trained as possible...replacements. It’s
how any army would work.”

Carter, trying not to let the little bit of
concern he was feeling find its way into his voice, commented, “If
I’m not mistaken, it almost sounds like you’re lookin’ to replace
me.”

With arced brows, the Colonel turned away
from Carter and said to him and everyone in the Hummer with him,
“Everybody’s replaceable. Remember that.”

The rest of the militia pulled away in their
motley collection of trucks and utility vehicles. The clouds of
exhaust from the convoy resisted being absorbed by the weather,
lingering as toxic pockets of gray air, which moved away
reluctantly with the wind’s encouragement. Mason stood in the Inn’s
doorway until all the trucks had disappeared into the storm,
swallowed by a churning sea of white.

He and two others had been tasked with
staying at the Inn to watch over their prisoner while awaiting
Earl’s return with the rearguard troops. Upon Earl’s arrival, all
of them were to pile into Earl’s and the other vehicle left on the
far side of the tunnel, and join the Colonel in Shotgun Cove. They
were told it would likely be only an hour or so wait, so catching
up with the others should not be much of a challenge.

When Carter asked for volunteers, the man
and woman, who Mason hadn’t bothered with getting to know back at
Skyview, stepped forward. Carter eyed the two of them and thought
rightly that they only made themselves available because they
planned on having an extended romantic encounter while they waited.
The Colonel’s lieutenant appeared unsure of what to do at first but
then Mason too offered himself up to remain at the Inn with the
prisoner. He had, after all, been the one caring for William up to
that point. He might as well stay too.

Surprised and pleased with Mason’s
initiative, Carter had nodded his agreement and even flashed a
smile at the younger man. Before leaving, Carter gave Mason one of
their automatic weapons, an MP5 which had been recovered from an
abandoned tactical police vehicle on the Kenai Peninsula. Mason was
surprised too when Carter touched him on the shoulder and told him
that he was proud of Mason for showing some testicular
fortitude.

Now, seeing the last of them depart, Mason’s
mouth was dry and his heart was racing as his anxiety and fear
mounting. He wasn’t distressed because the others were leaving him
behind, although there was a certain, nagging fear coming from that
as well. No, his real focus and worry was arising from a decision
he had just made concerning their prisoner.

The man was still tied to the bed though his
fever had settled somewhat, thanks in large part to Mason’s care.
The young man had gotten his hands on some tea bags and was able to
heat some water for it. He forced the sick man to drink the hot
liquid, despite the other man’s protest. William had no way of
knowing what exactly Mason was giving him. For all he knew it could
have been poison.

Mason’s true moment of glory came when he
searched through the establishment’s kitchen and found a container
full of chicken bouillon cubes. William greedily drank the salty
broth when Mason brought it to him. With a full, warm belly, sleep
came much more peacefully for William, allowing him to rest and not
spend the time shivering with fever.

As the hours passed, William’s color
gradually returned and the fever subsided. It was while Mason was
caring for the man that he decided to take action. He needed to
prove to himself that he was not a coward. Regardless of being in
an extremely weakened state and tied to a bed, William was still a
very imposing figure, so it was going to take all of Mason’s
resolve to be able to pull off his plan.

Now, sitting back in the little hotel room,
his companions in the bar living out some very loud public sex
fantasies in the vacant bar, Mason sat in the uncomfortable hotel
chair and watched William as he slept. Mason was trying to
screw
his
courage
to
the
sticking
place
, as has been said by others before
him. He thought maybe it was Shakespeare but it could have been
Johnson too.

Holding his breath, Mason pulled his knife
from its sheath on his belt. The long silver blade had curves like
a woman and, when the light hit it just right, glinted like
jewelry. He had already locked the door, so it was only the big man
lying tied to the bed and himself in the room. He exhaled a
partially controlled sigh and stood. He’d get this done quickly and
then leave the two losers behind somehow. He could find a good
place to hide in Whittier. Things would probably work out; they
always did.

Mason told himself all of this and more as
he walked across the room, the blade rising and falling on its flat
side into his palm. The trick to this, he convinced himself, was to
just do it and don’t think about it. That’s what Carter would do
after all. Carter would act once he’d made up his mind. He wouldn’t
hesitate. Mason hoped he could be that decisive. He’d find out in
less than five seconds if he could do it.

The convoy crossed over from the seaside
portion of the city to what locals referred to as downtown. In the
few moments since they had left the Inn at Whittier, they had
already driven over or past close to ten skins heading in that
direction. Luckily for Mason and the lovebirds back at the Inn, the
creatures turned about and followed after the trucks.

More than one of the drivers directed their
vehicles into and over the staggering wraiths, their bones
crunching and cracking beneath eager tires. Often, the crushed
being, like a persistent cockroach, was still moving and trying to
pursue them afterward.

The last truck across the tracks was a big
black Ford F250. Sitting in the right rear seat was Kit, thankful
for a little distance between her and Carter. She hoped that maybe
he would forget about her. She was fairly lost in thought about
days gone by, before the end of days or whatever it was that was
currently unfolding, when she looked to her right back in the
direction of where the tunnel would have been had it not been
obscured by the storm. Kit looked away but then looked back quickly
as the truck began to pick up speed.

It took her a moment to process what she was
seeing. It looked like an endless flood of skins coming at them
from the heart of the storm. She gasped, “Oh my God.”

Sitting next to her was Nils Martinson, a
former warehouse worker with broad shoulders and a strong, square
forehead and jaw, but a voice that ringed with a child’s higher
pitches. Hearing Kit’s comment over the loud music blaring from the
speakers, Nils looked over Kit’s shoulder and saw the same thing
but had a problem believing what he was seeing.

It was a gray wall of flesh. There were
faces, arms, legs, and torsos, but he couldn’t pick out any
individual bodies; they all blended into one amorphous blob of
rotting tissue. He tried to get the driver’s attention but his
voice could not find enough volume. As a result, the dark knowledge
he and Kit had was kept from the rest of the militia.

The horde on the road did not miss the
moving vehicles. Further agitated by the close proximity of prey,
the beasts produced a bloodcurdling bale that beckoned Hell and all
of its wrath to the Earth. Unable to keep pace with the trucks, the
procession of ghouls, with the patience of death itself, followed
as best as they were able.

Sitting at the wheel of the lead vehicle,
Carter was surprised almost immediately by the sheer number of
skins on this side of the city. The hideous creatures were
everywhere, shuffling toward the engine sounds they were
hearing.

Carter turned left on the first cross street
he found and then followed that in the general direction of the
Shotgun Cove Road. Driving much more conservatively than he had
been lately, Carter dodged in and out of groups of the fiends
wandering onto the road aimlessly. Soon, he stopped trying to dodge
them, and pressed his accelerator, deciding to drive through them,
their bodies creating dull thuds with each dreadful impact.

The trucks behind him followed his lead and
swerved recklessly on the slick, icy pavement. It was just a matter
of time before one of them lost control and ended up in a
compromised situation. More of the undead were finding their way
onto the road as well, making the drive all the more difficult.

Dwight, driving the last vehicle in which
Kit and Nils were sitting, did his best to match the swerving
patterns of the vehicles preceding him, but the ground was slick
and made slicker by the vehicles in front of them. As a result, the
big Ford fishtailed, and when Dwight tried to regain control he
overcorrected and sent the truck spinning.

It came to rest at an awkward incline off
the road, the tires spinning uselessly on the soft surface beneath
them. It was stuck and was not going to be going anywhere without
some assistance.

Inside the truck, like after any traffic
accident, all of the occupants were sitting in stunned silence,
waiting for something else to happen.

Nils was the first to act. He opened his
door and nearly fell out due to the angle in which he found
himself. Only his seatbelt restrained him, which he quickly
unlatched. Before dropping out, he shook Kit’s arm to break her
stupor.

She sat motionless, but when a wretched,
rotting face pressed itself hungrily against her window, Kit found
her motivation. She slid across the black leather bench seat and
practically flew out Nils’ open door.

Her rifle was still in the back of the
truck’s covered bed but she had a pistol in her hip holster, which
she immediately got into her hand and pulled the slide to ready the
firearm for use.

No sooner had she turned than a pair of
skins confronted her. She fired two shots quickly, punching a hole
through one of their foreheads and bringing it down. The other
bullet hit her target’s shoulder, doing only superficial damage to
the thin tissue stretched tautly across its bones, and changed
trajectories after exiting, shattering the truck’s rear quarter
window. The truck’s engine revved loudly, belching a white cloud of
smoke. Kit realized Dwight was trying to drive himself out of an
impossible situation, but he didn’t realize yet that it was never
going to happen. The tires were unable to gain traction in either
drive or reverse. The only thing that moved was partially frozen
mud and mud, given to flight by the freely spinning wheels.

Kit then heard a scream coming from inside
the truck, which was encircled with skins, all eager to get at the
delicious flesh awaiting them on the opposite side of the glass.
Their fingers scratched and clawed while their snapping teeth
streaked and clicked upon the widows. It was Edith, who preferred
to be called Eddie, screaming. She was still sitting in the front
passenger seat and hoping that Dwight would somehow get them freed
from their deadly and worsening predicament.