Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (4 page)

“Of course it is.”

“Because?”

“Because animals eat other animals. It’s nature’s way.”

The need to eat animals was a discussion they’d had many times before. And despite her reservations, it usually ended with her picking warm juicy morsels from the bone of some unfortunate little creature. It was, as he said, nature’s way.

She looked at the hundreds of feathers still covering the bird.

“Even so, it looks like an awful lot of work.”

“Hard work makes food taste better. You know that by now. Or you should, anyway.” He slid the bird closer to her. “Now quit your yapping, and give me a hand.”

She grabbed one of the large feathers and gave it a quick tug the way she had seen him do. It pulled free. Not knowing what else to do with it, she tossed it into the water. The fluffy trail of feathers drifted along the canal like ghostly white canoes down the River Iss.

When they had finished plucking the larger feathers, they began pulling out handfuls of the finer down. Samantha had an easier time of it because her hands were small enough to get a good grip on the soft feathers. When they had plucked all but the very finest tufts, Tanner grabbed the bird by its feet and lifted it into the air.

“We’ll singe off the small stuff when we get back to the house. You got your knife?”

“Of course,” she said, reaching around to pull a small fixed-blade knife from the sheath that ran horizontally along the back of her belt.

“Good. Use it to take the wings off.”

She fanned a wing out, felt around for the shoulder joint and used her knife to cut it in two. When the wing came free, she gently set it on the ground and repeated the process on the other side. Thankfully, there were only the slightest dabs of blood at the joints.

Tanner raised the bird a little higher.

“Now the head.”

Samantha reached down and cupped the head with her left hand. She placed the edge of the blade about midway up the neck.

“Here?”

“A little closer to the body. With all this meat, we’re not likely to eat the neck.”

She cringed. “You can eat a neck?”

“You can as long as you’re willing to get your teeth down in it.”

She stuck her tongue out. “Gross.” Without further protest, she began to saw the blade through thick cords of muscle and bone. It was harder than she had expected, but she finally pushed through the other side. Placing the head on the ground, she said, “I feel like a butcher.”

“Is that bad?”

She nodded toward the bird. “For him it is.”

Tanner grinned. “Just wait. The good part’s coming up.”

“What you call good is never good,” she muttered.

He squatted back down next to the water and laid the bird between them.

“Come closer, darlin’. It’s time to take out the…” He hunted for the right word.

“Guts. You might as well say it. They’re guts.”

He chuckled. “Right you are.”

“Am I going to get bloody?”

“All the way up to your elbows.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Fine,” she said, pushing up her sleeves. “All I can say is that it had better taste like chicken.”

As they finished picking the last bit of golden brown meat from the bones, Samantha retrieved the wet rag and took a second pass at cleaning herself up.

“Well?” said Tanner. “Good, right?”

“A little fatty if you ask me,” she said, wiping a layer of grease from around her mouth.

Tanner carried the bony carcass over to the front door and slung it outside.

“Something for the raccoons.”

“Dr. Jarvis isn’t going to like coming home to find animal bones in his front yard.”

“I don’t care what that man likes,” he said, letting out a small burp.

She went to the window and looked out.

“Where do you think he is?”

Tanner moved up beside her. “Can’t say.”

“He probably needed supplies.”

“I don’t see why,” he said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “There’s a well for water, a river full of fish, and even a small garden out back.”

“How are we ever going to find him?”

“That, darlin’, is a very good question.”

“Without him, we’ll never make it past the infected.” Samantha was still ruminating on Tanner’s idea to inject some of Dr. Jarvis’s blood with the hopes that the infected would take them as one of their own. While it wasn’t very appealing, it was the only plan they had at the moment.

“Let’s start by taking a look around to see if we can find any clues as to where he might have gone.”

“All right.” Samantha caught her reflection in the window pane and paused to study it. She used her fingers to gently trace her lips. “Do you think a boy will ever want to kiss me?”

Tanner’s head whipped around. “What?”

“You know… on the mouth.”

“Oh, Lord,” he said, “here we go again.”

“What? It’s a simple question.”

“No, it’s not. It’s a crazy question.”

“Why? You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“Of course, you’re pretty.”

“Then why wouldn’t a boy want to kiss me?” She puckered her lips. “Is something wrong with my lips?”

“The only thing wrong with your lips is that they can’t stop flapping.”

“I bet I’d be a great kisser,” she said, eyeing him for a reaction.

He shook his head. “I swear you’re going to put me in the grave.”

“I’ve got to grow up someday.”

“That may be, but I don’t need to hear about it.” He started for the stairs. “I’m going upstairs. You coming, or are you planning to stay and study your lips some more?”

She grinned, obviously taking great pleasure in seeing him squirm.

“Right behind you.”

They had given the house a quick onceover the night before, but since it was dark, their only real goal had been to determine whether the good doctor was home. He wasn’t, which left them to camp out on the living room floor. With the fresh morning light, however, the house beckoned to be explored.

From their previous walkthrough, they knew that the Abner Cloud house consisted of three floors, each measuring approximately thirty feet on a side, as well as an attic with the same dimensions. The first floor, which could easily be described as a basement given that the back wall butted up against a hill, consisted of a small foyer, a living room, and a parlor cordoned off with a folding partition. Everything about it was very utilitarian, the designer obviously valuing function over form.

They took the stairs all the way to the top floor, figuring they would start with the attic and work their way down. It turned out that the attic was unfinished, consisting of nothing more than bare sheets of plywood stacked with roofing shingles, paint buckets, and a few hand tools. They descended to the third floor, discovering that it had been divided in half to accommodate two bedrooms with an open doorway in between. The walls were covered in a thick white plaster, recently painted and free of even the simplest of decorations, save for a chair rail spanning the periphery. A stone fireplace was centered along one wall and acted as the floor’s only heat source. Likewise, there was no plumbing, requiring occupants to traipse outdoors to do their business. There were also no beds, chairs, or tables, not even so much as a candle.

“I don’t think anyone lived up here.”

Tanner grunted and continued down the stairs. The second floor was identical to the third, except that each room had a built-in cabinet and a twin-size bed pressed up against the wall. What really drew their attention, however, was the portable intravenous pole and stainless steel hospital cart sitting next to the closest bed.

They walked over to examine the setup.

“Do you think Dr. Jarvis was sick?” she asked, gently squeezing the bottom of the clear plastic bag hanging from the pole.

“Balloon hands, black eyes, and lips like Angelina Jolie… yeah, I’d say he was sick.”

“You know what I mean.”

Tanner read the side of the bag.
Sodium chloride
.

“What’s in it?” she asked.

“Basically just water and electrolytes.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Stuff to keep you hydrated,” he explained.

“Why would he need that? Like you said, there’s a well out back.”

“Don’t know.” Tanner picked up a syringe lying on the cart and sniffed it. It smelled like a cross between vanilla and baby oil.

“Is that medicine?”

“Probably some kind of pain killer. Morphine maybe.”

“Or maybe it was something to help him sleep since it’s right beside his bed.”

“Either way, I think the doc was self-medicating.” Tanner tipped the syringe over. Only the tiniest of drops slid to the other side.

“Do you think he went out for more medicine?”

Tanner nodded. “Could be.”

Samantha rotated the intravenous bag so that she could read a small sticker along the bottom.

“Kaiser Permanente Northwest D.C. Medical Office. There’s an address too—2301 M Street. Do you know where that is?”

“More or less.”

“Meaning if we go look for it, we’re likely to get lost.”

He waved away her skepticism.

“It can’t be more than a few miles. Plus, it’s on our way to Union Station.”

“Tell me again why we have go to Union Station.”

“You know why.”

She sighed. “Because it’s the only way back down to the tunnels.” The mere thought of returning to the passageways under the city caused her to shiver. It was the darkest, most evil place she had ever been. And given where she’d been over the past few months, that was really saying something.

“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you decided to stay here until I got back.” Tanner tossed the idea out like a fly fisherman flicks a featherweight lure.

“We’ve had that conversation, like, ten times already. I’m coming. End of story.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She released the IV bag, and watched as it swung back and forth on the metal hook.

“We could be wrong about Dr. Jarvis. He could have gone out for a pair of new shoes for all we know.”

“Maybe, but a man with a face like his wouldn’t leave home for any old thing.”

“So, that’s it then? We have a plan?”

“More like the makings of a plan. Let’s finish our search before we go all in.”

Chapter 3  

General Hood watched as the Black Dogs used the final few hours to get themselves squared away, cleaning rifles, loading rucksacks, and doing a little PT. It was as much about staying busy as anything else. No soldier wanted to sit around thinking about a mission. It was better to just
do
, rather than waste time wading through all the “what ifs.”

The unit leader, Morant, paced back and forth between the bunks, not to check up on his men—they were all too senior for that—but rather to see if there were any last-minute questions. There weren’t. The mission was relatively straightforward, albeit a bit complicated. They were to breach the bunker under The Greenbrier resort, separate into seven five-man tactical teams, disable the NBC filters spread throughout the facility, and deploy canisters of sarin gas into the air handling system. Once the gas had been given time to work, they would move back in to clean out the bodies, as well as any of the occupants’ personal effects. In many ways, it was a typical search and destroy mission, something that every man knew well. Given the challenges of breaching the bunker, however, it would be anything but routine.

Hood nodded to Morant, and the big man made his way over. He stood a head taller and weighed a good seventy pounds more than the general. Besides his size, Morant’s most notable feature was a thick black mustache that made Tom Selleck’s whiskers look like pubescent peach fuzz.

“Is everyone ready?”

Morant nodded. “They’re piddling the way soldiers do. The sarin canisters have already been loaded, and we’ll be on board and ready to fly in…” He looked at his watch. “Two hours and eleven minutes.”

“Good. The pilots tell me that the flight from Bragg to The Greenbrier is a little under three hours. That means we’ll be onsite by 1800 hours, if not a little before. Ideally, we’d like to be inside the bunker before nightfall.”

“Understood. As soon as we’re onsite, Buckey and two others will rappel down and traverse the air intake shaft. Using cutting torches, they’ll remove one of the circulation fans. At which point, Buckey will squirm through and try to open the ventilation blast door. If he gets it open, the other two men will follow him to the West Tunnel Entrance, where we’ll be waiting.”

“And if the ventilation door is blocked?”

“Then he’ll navigate the bunker on his own.”

Hood turned to study Buckey. The man was barely five feet tall but had thick forearms and a smile that never seemed to leave his face.

“Everything’s riding on him. If he screws the pooch on this…”

Morant shook his head. “Buckey’s a bit of a clown, but he’s good at what he does. Don’t worry about him. He’ll get the job done.”