A World Apart (Part 1): 8,000 Miles Page 8

  CHAPTER 13

  Everyone from the group met up on the roof of the building, except for Susan, she didn’t want any part of this plan. There were several rows of metal buildings that started directly south of their building. Each metal building contained six rooms that were built for up to four people. John’s room was in a building three rows back and in the middle of that row. It was at least one hundred feet away from the back side of the building. From the top of the building, John was able to point out his barracks building to his new friends. They could circle the roof and see how many zombies were milling about around the building, but they couldn’t see in between the rows of barracks buildings, to see what laid in wait for them.

  There was only the one door in the front from which they could exit the building, so they would have to make their way around to the south side and through the rows of barracks. “There’s a lot of them down there.” George told the others. “We will have to deal with quite a few of them to make it to your barracks.”

  “Well it’s too many to just run through them.” Ed stated.

  “Susan said earlier that the leadership had authorized deadly force against the infected, right?” John asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Shelly responded.

  “Have you killed any?” John asked the group.

  “We haven’t had to yet, but I suppose it is inevitable.” Ed said. “I guess we were still hoping there would be a cure or something.”

  “We are going to have to let go of our reservations sooner or later.” George added. “We won’t survive this if we don’t.”

  “Do we all agree that the only way we are going to make it to that building is if we thin the herd down there?” John asked.

  They all nodded.

  “We should try to kill as many as we can from up here then.” John said. “It is the safest course of action here.”

  “I guess you’re right John.” Ed agreed. “We might as well get to it; if we are lucky, the shots will draw any that are hiding in between those barracks.”

  They spread out to the four sides of the roof. Ed and Damien took the west side of the building, George the north, Shelly the east, and John took the south. George had given John an M4 rifle, to replace the AK-47 he had taken from the dead terrorist during his escape. He only had about half a magazine of ammunition for it.

  George wasted no time. He took aim on the closest zombie to the door below. It was a soldier that he used to know, when it was alive. I hated that guy. He thought. He pulled the trigger. The sound from the shot echoed off the neighboring buildings. The others were startled from the sudden sound. The bullet ripped through the top of the zombie’s head; it fell limp to the ground. George watched for any movement. Nothing; the zombie was dead, for good this time. The other zombies in the area reacted to the shot. At first, they simply looked in the direction of the shot. Soon after they started moving towards the building. Some of them moved in the wrong direction, the echoes off the surrounding buildings were most likely misleading their sense of direction.

  After their initial startled reaction, the others took the cue and started clearing their respective sides of the building. Damien took aim at a zombie on the west side of the building. He had never been the best marksman in his unit, but he was determined to do his part. He shot at his first target. Dirt kicked up right next to the zombie’s foot. Shit. Damien cursed his aim. The zombie barely reacted when the bullet barely missed it and struck the ground. He shot again. The bullet entered the zombie’s body, just above its left shoulder, knocking it to the ground. Damien stared wide eyed as the zombie struggled back to its feet. “What the fuck?” Damien cursed, out loud this time. He shot it again. This time the bullet hit it square in the chest. The zombie fell to the ground again, and again started to rise. “Mine’s not staying down!” He yelled to the others.

  “Shoot it in the head!” George yelled back.

  The others acknowledged George’s answer to Damien’s problem as well. It went on for several minutes. They were each taking their time with every shot. There was no reason to rush, the zombies weren’t shooting back. Not every shot was a head shot, in fact, it took most of them two to three shots per zombie, to kill them. George was the exception. He cleaned up his side in short order. He had gotten each one, with one shot, until the last one. He missed it completely. He cursed himself for ruining his perfect streak, but nailed it right between the eyes on his second shot. He took a last look around the area, saw no more zombies, and went to the south side of the roof to join John.

  Pretty soon, all of the zombies in range of the roof were lying motionless on the ground. There were at least thirty corpses around the building. They watched the isles in between the barracks buildings, looking for new monsters to join the fray. A couple more wandered in slowly. John and George took them out. They waited for several more minutes until they were satisfied that no more would come out into the open. They all sprinted to the hatch that would give them access to the lower levels of the building.

  They came to a stop at the front door several minutes later. John would be joined outside by George and Shelly. Ed and Damien would wait by the door to let them in when they returned from the barracks. The three going out were each armed with an M4 rifle, an M9 pistol, and a knife. Ed and Damien had given up their own magazines of ammo to give the team going out extra. “Ready?” John asked George and Shelly. They both nodded.

  “You be damned careful.” Ed reminded them. “We’ll be right here, ready to open the door when you get back. Don’t take too long.”

  They all nodded determinedly.

  Ed threw open the door and John led the group out and to the right. Shelly was directly behind him and George took up the rear. John and his team moved hastily, as they stepped over the corpses in their path. Ed watched until they disappeared around the corner of the building, then he closed and secured the door. He and Damien sat against the wall on both sides of the door and waited for their friends to return.

  As John rounded the corner, with Shelly and George in tow, he moved south along the side of the building with determination. They didn’t have time to even consider the carnage, littered around their feet. The group reached the half way point of the building when one of the zombies laying at their feet reached out and grabbed Shelly’s ankle. She shrieked in surprise and fell forward. The zombie had been shot in the head, but the bullet had apparently grazed its skull, missing the brain completely. The monster started crawling over Shelly’s prone form. It barely reached her thighs before George was on top of it. He shoved his knife into the back of the creature’s skull, up to the hilt. It slumped over on top of Shelly’s legs and stopped moving. George yanked his knife free and pulled the corpse from on top of her. He helped Shelly to her feet and they got back in the file, behind John. John resumed their march forward.

  John reached the corner and slowed their pace. He peeked around the corner to make sure there were no more monsters lying in wait to ambush them as they passed. The way appeared to be clear and he wasted no time moving forward. They ran across the open ground and in between two buildings in the first row of barracks. There were only a few corpses lying in the vicinity of their path at this point. It took a few seconds to get to the far corner of the first barracks building. John peered around this corner, just like he did at the headquarters building. He looked both ways and saw no creatures in wait. They quickly crossed the expanse between the first and second row. They moved against the wall of the next building. As John passed in front of a window, he nearly jumped out of his boots when a zombie banged on the glass next to him. The monster was trapped inside the building and wasn’t a threat to them, it just startled him. John regained his composure and continued forward.

  John came to the next corner and repeated his careful inspection down the lane between the second and third rows. As soon as he peered to the right, he saw three zombies ambling in their direction. He brought his rifle up to the ready and shot the closest one in the h
ead. The zombie fell to the ground. Shelly came around John’s back and took aim at another one with her pistol. She had it down after three shots. John brought the third one down before George could join the fight. John stepped off before the third zombie hit the ground. He didn’t want to linger, just in case the shots had attracted more unwanted guests.

  He could see his barracks three buildings up the row, past the monsters they just took down. They moved towards it quickly. As they passed each open area between the barracks, they could see a zombie here and there moving around off in the distance, but nothing was close enough to them to be a threat. John moved the group straight to the door. He opened the door while George and Shelly stood back at the ready. They looked down the hallway inside. The hallway was illuminated by the windows that lined it on the left side. “All clear!” George announced. Opposite the windows on the left side, were six doors, and a seventh door facing them at the other end of the hall, it led to the shared bathroom. “Let’s get inside,” John told the others, “my room is the last one on the right.”

  They went inside the building and closed the door behind them. “I’m going to go straight to my room. Why don’t you two check out these other rooms, see if there is anything useful.” John suggested. “I won’t be long.”

  “Good idea.” Shelly agreed.

  John headed down the hall as Shelly and George prepared to enter the first closed room. John heard the first door splinter behind him as he made his way to his room. “Clear!” He heard George report. He looked back and saw his two friends disappear into the room. He reached his door, it was locked. He had the key to the room hanging on his dog tag chain around his neck. He pulled the chain over his head and inserted the key into the door and unlocked it. John opened the door and looked inside. The room was dark. John’s room was a four-man room, like every other room in the barracks, but he only shared it with one other soldier. They had rearranged the room to be more comfortable for two people. The room was split in half by wall lockers and each side had a curtain hung, to provide some measure of privacy between the two occupants. John noticed a rancid smell and assumed his roommate had left some sort of food out to rot when everything fell apart. He moved inside the curtain on the left side and saw all his belongings untouched. His laptop was sitting on the desk, next to his bed, right where he left it when he ended his video chat with his wife the day he had left on patrol.

  John hit the power button. He was hoping the battery might have held out after the power went off; he hoped there might be a message left for him from his wife, before the wireless internet was lost, along with the power. He was looking for any indication that Angie and Sam might be okay. The laptop was dead. John sighed. He opened his wall locker and retrieved his back pack. John was stuffing some clothes into the bag when he heard something. It was a low guttural grunting sound. Then something bumped into the back of the wall locker, visibly moving the piece of furniture. John froze in place. There was a zombie on the other side of the room. It hit the locker again, almost rocking it over on top of John. The creature knew something living had entered the room, but seemed confused by the obstructing wall of lockers and the curtain. It seemed as if it didn’t know how to get to John. The wall locker rocked again. The zombie seemed to get frustrated, if that was possible, and started pounding its fists on the locker.

  John knew his friends were too far down the hall to help him, probably in the second or third room by now, and too far away to hear the ruckus from the enraged monster. John started to move. He slung his rifle over his back and pulled his pistol from the holster. The smaller weapon would be more useful in the close quarters. He moved to the curtain, that closed off his side of the room, as quietly as he could. He pulled the curtain back and peered towards the other side of the room. He could see the other curtain moving from the disturbance of the zombie’s efforts to get through to him, but it apparently hadn’t figured out that the curtain would give way easier than the metal locker. John slipped through his own curtain at a crouch and circled around to the door, with his back to it and his weapon trained on the curtain the whole time. John assumed the zombie was his roommate in life, another sergeant in his unit. They weren’t super close, but he was a nice enough guy. His last name was Thompson; John didn’t know his first name. The two shared a room, but they didn’t hang out during their down time. They were friendly to each other, but they were both going out on different missions at different times. This was advantageous to both, because that meant they each had the room to themselves often.

  The zombie was still banging away when John positioned himself with his back to the door. “Hey Thompson!” John called out. The zombie stopped fighting with the wall locker at the sound of John’s voice and walked right into the curtain. The curtain came down with the zombie as it charged right at John. John got off a shot before the thing crashed into him. He lost his weapon as the monster collided with him. “Shit!” John cursed. The curtain was still over the thing’s head as John tried to hold it back with his hands. He could see the outline of its face, the curtain sinking in its mouth as it tried to snap at John with its teeth. The zombie actually latched onto John’s shielding forearm momentarily, but the curtain caused its teeth to just slide off his arm and close together onto the empty curtain. John struggled to reach his knife with his right hand as he continued to hold the thing off with his left arm.

  During the struggle, the curtain slipped down exposing the zombie’s head. John recognized his roommate immediately. He had his knife at this point, gripped firmly in his right hand with the blade pointing downward. His left forearm was braced under the creature’s chin, holding it at bay. He brought his right hand up high and plunged the blade down hard, into the top of the zombie’s head. John eased the limp form down to the floor. “I’m sorry this happened to you Thompson.” He said as he yanked his knife free of its skull.

  After he had his knife back in hand, he used the curtain to clean his blade, then put it back in its sheath. He took a moment to inspect the body of his dead roommate in what little light there was in the room. The body wasn’t disfigured, like many of the zombies he saw roaming around the base. He found a bite mark on his roommate’s left wrist. It looked like the bite wasn’t deep, the skin was barely broken. John surmised that Thompson had received the bite at some unknown point from an attacking zombie, became infected with the virus, and died in his bed from it. He felt sad. His roommate had likely died here alone, not understanding what was happening to him. He wondered how long the undead monster that rose in his roommate’s stead had been trapped inside this room. John looked at the body again and noticed that the flesh had begun to decompose. He realized then that the smell that assaulted him when he entered had come from Sergeant Thompson. He also noticed that the zombie’s arms and legs were bone skinny. He pulled aside the sheet, and lifted the thing’s t-shirt. The creature’s stomach was sunken in and its ribs were clearly visible, the skin sunken in between each one.

  John pulled the sheet back over the body and returned to his side of the room. He thought about the emaciated zombie, knowing it was locked in here the whole time, without food, and began to wonder how long these things could survive without eating. John shook his head and decided he would explore that question later. He stuffed a few more items of clothing into his bag and was about to leave. He stopped suddenly and turned back towards his desk. He pulled open the drawer and retrieved his wedding ring. John looked at the wall behind the desk and saw some pictures of his family and a world map hanging up. The map had two red paper arrows glued onto its surface. One was pointing to Afghanistan and it had ‘You Are Here’ written in black on it. The other arrow was pointing to West Texas and it had ‘Sam is Here’ written on it. The maps were Angie’s idea, to help Sam understand where his father was. Sam had an identical map hanging up in his bedroom, with the same arrows glued onto it. On Sam’s map, the arrow pointing to Afghanistan said, ‘Daddy is Here’. Angie had made John a map also, so he could always think abou
t Sam while in his room.

  John pulled the photos and the map off the wall. He folded the photos up inside of the map and put it in his bag. John said a final silent prayer over his roommate’s body, then stepped out of the room. George and Shelly stepped out of the adjacent room, just as John entered the hall way. George had another M4 rifle slung over his shoulder that he had found in one of the rooms and several new magazines of ammunition stuffed into his cargo pockets. Shelly had a pillow case full of various dry goods, snacks, that she had found throughout the rooms. George and Shelly hadn’t run into any of the former occupants of the rooms. The group reformed and left the building. They made their way quickly back to the headquarters building without incident, only spotting a few zombies that were too far away to worry about. Ed and Damien were waiting for them when they reached the door and they were all back inside safely.

  “Well?” Ed asked John.

  “I got what I needed, thank you all for the help.” John replied.

  CHAPTER 14

  The truck stopped moving only a few minutes after the group was taken captive. Angie could smell a strong dusty odor in the air. She heard the truck doors open and Sam crying again as the men in the cab stepped out of the truck. Within a couple of seconds, she felt the truck dip, as someone stepped up onto the bed to retrieve them. The kidnapper grabbed one of the men first, and she heard a thud and a grunt as either Jerry or Derek was thrown to the ground from the bed of the truck. The other male captive followed the same route shortly after. So far, no one had grabbed her, but the man who had climbed into the bed, stepped off. She heard him say, “let’s go,” followed by shuffling footsteps, as her male companions were dragged away. The sound of Sam crying receded as well. Angie wept and feared the worst.