Music City Macabre: The Low Lying Lands Saga: Vol. 1 (13 page)

“Is everything in order? What did he say?”

“He said, my friend...that they will never see it coming.”

“Glory to Chaos and The Eighty-Eight! That he would be pleased with the work that we do today!”

“Indeed, Brother. Indeed. Let us go rally the troops.”

Kade strode out of the Hard Rock
and walked onto the stage. He approached his customary microphone and took it off the stand. He didn’t intend to take long.

“All right, everyone. Shut up!” The crowd was a bit too wired and didn’t take heed. “Shut up! Shut up! Shuttupity up! You fuckers better start paying attention. LISTEN UP! Right now while you jerk offs aren’t paying attention, there are forces at work that want to take ALL of THIS from you!”

He felt sometimes, despite the fact that he loved them—well as much as he could love anything—that they were hopeless. As great a leader as he was, he couldn’t do everything! He needed the Freaks to listen and obey. If they were indeed going to murder the entire state of Tennessee, they had to tighten the bootstraps on this operation.

“Do I have your attention now? How many of you like the current state of affairs? Murder! Death! Kill! Rape and Pillage! All the free meals your tummies can handle. This is the most perfect Freak safe zone there is. I will do my best to protect and provide for you but you have to work for it. And today all of you miserable fuckers are on the clock. Punch it!”

It looked like ten thousand arms shot up into the air. They screamed, “TIME TO GO TO WORK!”

“That’s right!” Kade spat into the mic. “Time to go to work. Your job today is to rain down on the Murfreesboro Safe Zone like a plague of pestilence.”

“PUNCH IT!” The Freaks boomed in unison.

Your job today is to kill everything you see breathing.”

“PUNCH IT!”

Your job today is to take everything back that those people took from you.”

“PUNCH IT!”

Your job today is to annihilate all of their communications abilities. If there is a radio, smash it. If there are computers, destroy them. If there is a box of fucking envelopes, burn them!”

“PUNCH IT!”

“And your final job today is to relieve those rats of every ounce of gasoline they possess. We’re taking the tanker, so you best fill her to the rim with Brim, you assholes.”

“PUNCH IT...OOOOH TIME TO GO TO WORK!” The Freaks erupted into a cheer of exultation and crazed euphoria.

“All right then. Fall out to your transports and get to work. We have twenty-six miles of fairly easy interstate to travel. They’ll hear us first. Then they’ll see us. They will not be able to stop us.” Kade dropped the mic to the stage with resounding feedback and walked off towards the convoy.

As expected, five short hours later, the objective was in view. Just a short hop off of Interstate 24 and there they were. The old Middle Tennessee State University Health Services building. When Kade finally decided it was time to take down the Murfreesboro rat cage, he briefly considered moving the entire operation there. However, that idea didn’t last long. For one, it would’ve taken too much work. More importantly, destroying all of the medical equipment within those walls and any medicine or any antibiotics, along with a total massacre, would set the Regular movement back on its ass.
God damn Regulars,
thought Kade,
they’re like fuckin mosquitoes. How ever many you kill, there’s always more. Well, this time we brought about five hundred flyswatters.

The convoy of well over two hundred cars, trucks, motorcycles, and one very large tanker truck converged on the MSZ. Kade’s Black Suburban led the centipede-like entity of vehicles into the parking lot, but it was only a formality. Kade stopped directly in front of the entrance, about a hundred feet back, and waited while the slow moving line broke in opposite directions, quickly surrounding the over 200,000-square-foot building. Once the building was surrounded, the Freaks started to scream. It was a chilling sound that was accompanied by the revving of engines and the firing of a multitude of weapons. This strategy was devised by Kade as the introduction of the intended victims to their imminent doom. He wanted to scare the shit out of them. And it did. He didn’t have to be inside those walls to know they had already won.

Once Kade heard the war cry, he knew it was time to begin. But, honestly, this part always gave him a thrill. The cry started out as a low rumble and grew into an overwhelming tidal wave of terror...or ecstasy, depending upon whose side you were on. Kade always let this go on for several minutes before he sent up a red flare. The flare was the signal for those wild-ass jackals to calm the fuck down. And they always did. Because they loved this part.

Kade had two giant speakers attached to a rather large contraption in the bed of his truck. When he flipped the toggle, the speakers would rise to about ten feet up in the air. It was a nice wireless setup that Ortiz had jerry-rigged for him.

He got out of the truck and flicked on the microphone he kept in his truck for just this type of special occasion. He wasn’t a fool. He knew he had sights trained on him but for some reason—it was crazy actually—they never shot him. He had thought about that once. The only reason he could think of was this: however long he chose to speak for was that much longer they got to live. Because they were going to die.

“Good afternoon neighbors,” he said politely into the mic. “You may or may not know me, my name is Kendrick Kade. But for today’s exercise you can call me Kade. I can only hope you heard us coming and have been able to fortify your establishment. You see, we have come to kill you all. And we will. I have an army of Freaks and they are, well, hungry. But we’ll get to that.

“More importantly, me and my merry band are looking for a fight. It’s been awhile since anyone brought the fight to...wait...that’s never happened. I own this territory. We took Nashville. All of it. The big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew down that safe zone. So, what are you? Are you the bricks, or the sticks? I’m betting...the sticks. You know, it’s a fuckin Freak parade just thirty miles down the road. It’s high time you joined us.

“It begs the question, how have you managed to hang on this long? I think I know. It’s the medical center you have there in your compound. I’ve had reliable intelligence from
within
your Safe Zone that says highly skilled medical personnel have flocked here since the Collapse, and that they not only have the medical equipment all fully operational, but you have these highly skilled medical and technical minds doing “good work” for the Regulars. Well that stops today. Starting in about, oh, five minutes me and my boys here intend to cripple this operation. No, scratch that, we are going to annihilate you. When we’re through today, Luke Skywalker would think he won the fuckin lottery when he found Aunt Beru’s smokin’ ass on the ground compared to you. You feel…”

A shot cracked off from an indeterminate point, went through Kade’s hand, and blew the mic to bits. Pieces from the microphone tore through Kade’s hand and a small but damaging piece lodged in his forehead

Everyone stood absolutely still for a brief moment. Kade was bent over, covering his face with his bloody hands. He stood up tall and pulled the piece of microphone from his forehead which caused a torrent of blood to flow from the gash.

With a blood soaked face and through gritted teeth Kade said, “Kill them! Kill. Them. ALL!”

THE BLACK HAND SERVES

Lou Bixby had been the Chief of Communications for the Murfreesboro Safe Zone for exactly one year. He’d worked his way up through ranks after showing up injured and near death at the front door of the MSZ about a year and half ago. He was also a card carrying, and rather fiercely loyal member of The Black Hand. He was sent to the MSZ after he willingly took a bullet in the leg and a vicious beatdown from Ortiz. It had to be authentic or they never would’ve bought it.

Before The Descent, Lou had been a Navy midshipman with a specialty in communications. There wasn’t anything that could put two people in contact that he couldn’t operate or construct. Case in point, Lou built from existing undamaged components a communications array, which he had to credit Middle Tennessee State University for having a top-notch communications department. He supposed when the shit hit the fan and the looting and destruction had happened, college campuses weren’t deemed the greatest targets.

He had pitched a plan to The Three about leading a party over to the communications building and cherry picking enough equipment to build a competent way to talk to other safe zones. The irony was, a Black Hand agent helped create The Network
.
But that was his job. Kade specifically told him, “You do everything in your power help them. Get in deep, Lou. I want them to be green with rage when they come to find out that we tore them down from the inside. I want to see it in their eyes. All I want you to do is set up a way to talk to me one time so we’re good. Then wait for the signal.”

So that’s what he did. On more than one occasion he very much wanted to ask Kade when they were coming because, well, he was really building them up quite nicely. The Health Services Building took up about half of the Recreation Center of the former MTSU. While Lou did drag his feet, he’d been an integral part of getting the Med Center back up and running. It was shocking really, how the world fell and Freaks didn’t trash the shit that mattered. OK, yeah they did, because there was no society anymore, but that’s partially because the society are now freaks. The shit that’s around is basically still good.

Then, on an epically glorious day, Lou Bixby received the message he’d been waiting for. Kade told him in two days, at an exact time, he was to disable the communications array and kill the security feed. Lou was in the know about a scouting party that was in Nashville and felt it would add a nice touch to make them aware in real time, before he slipped out, that the base was under attack. That way they couldn’t possibly do anything about it, and would be crushed upon their return. Kade lauded his sickness and told him to proceed.

On this day, Kade would not actually get a fight from the MSZ inhabitants. There just wasn’t enough time to enact even their most basic defense protocol. Lou Bixby had, in fact, disabled communications after sending the message to Shields, Cole, and Prescott. He didn’t know what was so important about this Prescott guy, but Shields had gone with Cole, and they had lucked into finding him.
Who knew he’d have a CB radio?
Didn’t matter. This place was Freak Food.
Hasta la vista, baby!

As he made his way down the hall, he thought he heard a gunshot. It was faint, but he was pretty sure of what he heard.
That was unexpected. I better get the hell out of here.
No sooner had he thought that, he heard what he could only assume a cattle stampede sounded like coming his direction. He turned around and started to run. Arrows from a compound bow entered center mass, at the back of his head, and a silver tipped arrow replaced his nose. He was dead before he hit the ground.

MASSACRE AT THE MSZ

Even though the main security feed had been disabled, the Security detail didn’t panic. They simply adopted an attitude similar to Davy Crockett at the Alamo. They were going to defend the MSZ until they couldn’t any longer. There was simply no opportunity to evacuate, and there wasn’t enough time to get set up. The longer Kade talked the longer they lived. He was right about that.

Jim Hawkins was the commander of base security and he was scrambling. While he didn’t have the ability to send out a base wide security alert, it was too late for that anyway. His personnel wore walkie talkies at all times.

He was able to bark several sets of order into the radio as he was running to his quarters to retrieve his sniper rifle.

“We don’t have a lot of time here. Get
one
and
two
into the Pod. Quickly. That is first priority. Next, establish a wall, as many security and non-security bodies that you can find. Protect The Network
.
Finally, whoever else may be hearing this, YOU HAVE TO FIGHT! Whatever you have, whatever you can, you use. You must help us. Go to the front entrance and fight. I know what I’m asking you to do, believe me, I do. And I’ll be joining you later after we send a few Freaks back to Hell where they belong. FIGHT, PEOPLE!”

Hawkins made his way to the roof as fast as he could. He was sure The Freaks had spotters looking at the roof, but he had to take a shot. He made his way down the roof and to the front corner. He had one shot. And he didn’t have a spotter. If he could take out Kade, they were still all going to die, but the next guys to come along hopefully would be able to take advantage of a wild bunch without a leader. He guessed. He had no idea.

He sat in the corner with his back to the wall. He had the butt of his rifle flat on the roof and the barrel pointing skyward. He said a quick prayer that the deaths of his friends, his family, would be quick and painless. And that the MSZ would go down fighting and never surrender. He popped up, dropped the gun to the edge of the roof, sighted up, and fired. Kade moved and his shot only hit his hand and killed his mic.
Damn.
He’d missed. He ran back down to join the others as he heard the stampede of running, screaming and shooting within the walls of the MSZ.