Crucifixion - 02
Authors: Dirk Patton
Crucifixion
Voodoo Plague Book Two
Text Copyright © 2014
by Dirk Patton
Copyright © 2014 by
Dirk Patton
All Rights Reserved
This work may not be redistributed, copied or reproduced by
any means for any purpose other than brief excerpts used as part of literary
and critical reviews.
Also by Dirk Patton
Voodoo Plague Book One
Rolling Thunder: Voodoo Plague Book
Three
The people, places
and events depicted herein are fictitious and are purely from the author’s
imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Thank you for purchasing Crucifixion, Book 2 in the Voodoo
Plague series. As you’ve probably already guessed from the title this is the
second book in the series. If you haven’t read the first book I would
encourage you to do so first, otherwise you may be lost as this book is
intended to continue the story in a serialized format. I intentionally did not
do much to explain comments and events that reference Book 1. Regardless, you have
my heartfelt thanks for reading my work and I hope you’re enjoying the
adventure as much as I am. As always, a good review on Amazon is greatly appreciated
and the best way to ensure Book 3 happens.
What a bag of dicks!
Colonel Crawford, commanding officer of the Army’s 5
th
Special Operations Group, stood there and smiled at me. Smiling like the
fucking cat that just ate the fucking canary. He’d just imparted the news on
me that by Presidential order I was being reactivated into the US Army. I
understand this can happen in times of national crisis, and the nuclear attacks
on New York, DC and Los Angeles would certainly qualify all on their own, but
the follow on nerve gas attacks that had created millions of homicidal maniacs out
of the population was the larger crisis. Rachel and I hadn’t fought our way
out of Atlanta, rescuing three downed Air Force personnel in the process and
made it to Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee just so I could become a cog in
the big green machine again, even if I was a highly trained and very valuable
cog that had ‘Delta Force Operator’ as part of my resume. My priority was to
get to Arizona to find my wife Katie. I hadn’t talked to her since the day
before the attacks, about two weeks ago, and I had no idea if she was even
still alive.
“Colonel, that’s going to be a real problem for me. I’ve
got a wife in the Phoenix area that I’m trying to get to. I don’t know if
she’s alive, infected…” I trailed off. Rachel, standing beside me took my
hand in hers and gave it a squeeze to let me know she was on board with
whatever I needed to do.
Crawford rubbed a big callused hand across the brush cut
hair on top of his head and suddenly looked very tired.
“I understand your predicament, but this isn’t optional.
Right now we need every experienced hand we can get. We’re trying to
consolidate our resources and be ready to protect the remaining civilian
population from the infected, and I can’t even go into what’s being planned as
a response to the Chinese for attacking us.”
He let out a long sigh and seemed to be wrestling with a
decision. “For the moment, you two get some rest and I’ll see what I can do
about helping you find your wife. We’ll talk in a few hours.”
Crawford ordered the Air Force intel clerk that had run the
background checks on us to get us some chow and some quarters. I was surprised
he specified he wanted us in the visiting officers’ quarters, but didn’t
question the gift.
If the clerk wasn’t happy about taking orders from an Army
Colonel he did a good job of hiding it, jumping to his feet and telling us to
follow him. We exited the secure intel working area, leaving Crawford behind,
and were escorted out of the building. Dog, a large German Shepherd that had
adopted us during our escape from Atlanta, raced ahead of and us took full
advantage of every tree and bush he could find. A short walk later we arrived
at another large, brick building. Opening the door for us the clerk lead the
way through a blackout curtain and we were immediately hit with the wonderful
smell of baking bread. We passed a door labeled ‘Officers Mess’ and stopped at
a small reception desk manned by an Air Force Senior Airman. The clerk
explained the situation to him and soon we had a key and directions in hand to
our room, the clerk wishing us a good evening and heading back to the intel
building.
The room was on the second floor and true to Air Force
tradition was every bit as nice as any Hilton I had ever stayed in with a large
king sized bed, flat screen TV and bathroom with oversized tub. Rachel let out
a decidedly girlish squeal of delight and dashed to the tub and started it filling
with steaming water. I smiled, picked up her pack and weapons where she had just
let them fall on the floor and deposited them alongside my pack against the far
wall of the room. When I returned to the bathroom door Rachel had already
stripped off her grubby clothes and was brushing her teeth with a toothbrush
from the plastic wrapped toiletry kit that had been waiting on the bathroom
counter.
“I’m going to get us some food,” I said, waiting to make
sure she’d heard me. Apparently she did because she waved at me with her free
hand and kept powering the brush across her teeth. Dog followed me out of the
door and I momentarily thought about making him stay behind since I was going
to the mess hall, but decided the hell with it and headed for the stairs at the
end of the corridor.
At the bottom of the stairs we stopped at the reception desk
and I asked for clean clothes for Rachel and me, not surprised that the Air
Force also had women’s underwear available. I took a guess at Rachel’s sizes
and the Airman promised he would deliver them to our room within the hour.
Thanking him I walked down the hallway to the mess, Dog’s nails clicking loudly
on the highly polished linoleum covered floor.
Pushing into the mess hall I wasn’t at all put off when the
conversations at three separate tables stopped and every head in the room
turned to stare at me and Dog. I had been fighting in the field for almost
three weeks, had been shot and was exhausted from running and fighting. I was
also well armed with an M4 rifle, pistol, fighting knife and a tactical vest
loaded down with spare magazines and ammunition. Oh, and I was dirty as hell
and smelled like an elephant’s ass as someone dear to my heart used to say.
Ignoring the stares I walked up to the serving line, grabbed
a large plastic tray and started loading it down with fresh baked biscuits,
mounds of bacon and eggs, fresh fruit, a pile of sausage patties and a stack of
pancakes that threatened to topple over every time I slid the tray down the
shelf in front of the line. Adding flatware and two big glasses of orange
juice to the tray I thanked the civilian food workers that were behind the
serving line and tossed a sausage patty to Dog. He caught it in the air and
swallowed after only chewing once, if at all, then followed me out of the mess
hall with his nose raised close to the tray.
Back in our quarters I set the heavy tray of food down on a
small table. Rachel was in the tub, water up to her neck. I piled food onto
one of the plates I’d brought and took it along with one of the OJs into the bathroom
and set it on the edge of the tub. Rachel thanked me without opening her eyes
and I went back out and devoured every bite of food left on the tray. Well,
not every bite. Dog got his share, too. Pushing the tray away I stood up and
waddled to the door when there were three sharp knocks. It was the Airman from
the reception desk delivering our new clothes. We each got two sets of
standard issue Air Force uniform pants and blouses along with three sets of
socks and underwear for each of us, including bras for Rachel. Separating the
clothing I delivered hers to the bathroom and told her to get moving, it was my
turn. A large splash of water was her answer, Dog getting the worst of it.
Saying the hell with it I reached into the shower stall,
cranked the water on hot, stripped out of my grimy clothes and stepped in. The
hot water felt marvelous as it beat down on my head and shoulders. I had to
soap and rinse twice to feel clean, shaved my head with a disposable razor that
had been provided with the room, rinsed and turned off the water. A towel came
flying over the top of the shower door and I snatched it out of the air and
dried off. Towel wrapped around my waist I exited the shower and shaved my
face after wiping the steam off the mirror. Rachel stood next to me, towel
wrapped around her torso, forcing a comb through her long, wet hair accompanied
by a steady string of curses as the comb worked out tangles.
“So what’s the… ouch, shit… plan?” She asked, peering at me
through wet hair that covered her face and hadn’t been combed out yet.
“I’m deciding,” I answered, rinsing the razor and setting it
aside for future use. I found a small tube of lotion and rubbed some into my
freshly shaved scalp. “Suggestions?”
“I’m with you whatever you decide,” she answered, pausing
her combing and brushing hair out of her eyes to look at me. “You should know
that by now. We’ve been through too much together for me to not help you. If
you want to slip out of here and hit the road I can be dressed in five
minutes.”
I met her eyes and smiled, knowing she was serious and
wouldn’t think twice about helping me become a deserter from the Army.
“For now, we both need rest and another good meal, then
we’ll decide. I’d much rather have the support the Army can provide, but I’m
not going to start playing soldier and forget about Katie. And… thanks. I’m
glad you’re with me.” I reached out and squeezed her hand before walking out
of the bathroom. Digging through the clothes we’d been provided I found a pair
of clean underwear, pulled them on and climbed into the bed. Dog jumped up on
the foot of the bed and curled up into a big ball of fur. Rachel had taken to
sleeping in the same bed with me, chastely, after being abducted and abused by
a group of survivors and I wasn’t surprised when a few minutes later she crawled
into the bed and stole most of the covers.