Escape from the Damned (APEX Predator Book 2) (5 page)

Theresa, Jen, and Kerry all raised their hands in unison.  “I’ll speak for Mike,” Jen added.  “He’s in.  So, I guess we’re all in.”

“Ok,” he said with a smile.  “Sgt Procell and Jackson stay here.  Everyone else help get the supplies cross loaded.  Keep the Humvee empty for now.”

Jen climbed the ladder to the roof.  Mike didn’t look at her.

“Hey Mike,” she said.

“Jen,” he answered.

“They found more survivors.”

“So did I.” he said quietly.

“What,” she asked.  “How did you find somebody?”

“Don’t make it obvious, but look between those two pine trees just left of the little dirt trail.  There’s a black guy and a white guy.”

She walked along the edge of the roof, trying not to be too obvious.  There, there they were, about 200 yards away.  They were hidden pretty well, but she could see them now that Mike had told her what to look for and where to look.  Wait, the black guy, what was he wearing?  All black.  Shit!

“Mike, I think we have a problem.”  She continued to tell him about the Jackson and Theresa’s experience.

“You think these may be the same guys?” he asked her.

“I don’t know.  How long have they been there?”

“About an hour,” he replied.  “They’ve just been sitting there watching.”

“I need to tell Sergeant Brown,” she said as she headed down the ladder.

“So, how do we play this?” asked Sgt Procell.

“Well, we don’t know where these guys are from,” replied the cavalry NCO.  “We don’t know how many of them there are.  We do know they have eyes on us, and you can bet they know that much about us.  We need to get some intel.”  He looked at the assembled soldiers

“We need to set this place up for defense without them knowing they’ve been blown.”  He looked to Sgt Procell.  “Get some help fortifying the reception area.  If they actually hit us, it’ll be through there.  We need to get an OP out.  When the sun goes down, get someone on it.  Jackson and I are going to see if we can do some snooping.”

He handed Sgt Procell the walkie-talkie Jackson had liberated.  “It’s got about a 500 meter range.  Jackson will have the other one.  Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“You girls stay here,” he told Jen, Kerry, and Theresa.  “Make sure we have people awake in the reception area.”

The women started to protest.

“No, this is not negotiable.  Those are bad guys out there and they’re trained.  You guys may be good at killing zombies, but these guys think, react, and shoot back.  I’m not putting you at risk until I know exactly what we’re up against.”

Sgt Procell, three of the kids, Jen, Kerry, Theresa, and Pvt Williams exited the building and made a beeline for the panel van. Everybody picked up a box and walked inside with it; everyone, that is, except for Pvt Williams.  When he was out of site behind the panel van, he dropped to his belly and began a slow low crawl under the vehicles until he was behind the LMTV.  Once there, Williams gave a quiet whistle, meant to sound like a bird or the wind.

“God Damn It!” Mike began shouting loudly from the roof above him.  “Who’s supposed to replace me on guard?  I got to piss!”  He was lying flat in the bed of the truck before Mike had finished his rant.  Nice!

At the same time, SSgt Brown and Jackson slid off the roof on the opposite side of the building; again unseen by the two scouts.  Jackson led the pair through the surrounding trees.

An hour later, they were 30 yards behind Joe and Leroy.  SSgt Brown could just see the back of the black baseball cap the black guy was wearing.  Jackson was right.  This guy appeared to be a pro.  The other guy kept trying to talk, but this guy was cool and quiet.

The only thing off about the guy was his choice of weapon.  He was carrying one of those pistol caliber carbines.  It had a pistol magazine in the handle and at most held 15 rounds.  Not what he would expect from a mercenary.  Aside from that, everything screamed military.

They heard him before they saw him.  He was not a pro and didn’t try to be quiet.  He was wearing a black leather jacket, had a big pistol on his side, and a backpack over his shoulder.  He was smaller and lighter than both of the guys they’d been watching up to now.  He looked more like a runner.

The guy dropped the backpack at the feet of the big black guy.

“Dinner’s served,” he announced.

“Shut the fuck up,” Leroy whispered to the new guy.

“Thor wants to know what you’ve got.”

“Nothing new,” Joe replied.  “It looks like they resupplied, but nothing else new.”

“Ok, I’ll be back in the morning with breakfast.”  The man turned on his heels and began fast walking west, the way he came.

SSgt Brown looked at Jackson, pointed two fingers into his own eyes, and then at the two scouts.  Watch them.  He then signaled that he was going to follow the runner.  Jackson nodded his head and turned and watched the two men eat their dinner.  He could barely hear SSgt Brown leave his side.

SSgt Brown couldn’t believe how easy this guy made it for him.  He didn’t look around him, didn’t slow down, and never looked over his shoulder.  He almost stopped, sensing an ambush once, but decided that this guy really was this bad.

About a mile away from the vet clinic the man broke through the trees and onto a small dirt road.  Ok, now SSgt Brown knew why he wasn’t worried about being followed.  He couldn’t just go ditty bopping down the road behind the guy.  He stopped.

The guy turned right and started walking right down the middle of the road.  SSgt Brown watched until the guy rounded a bend about 200 meters away.  He slipped out of the trees and quietly moved to peer around the bend.  He couldn’t believe what he saw.

One hundred meters in front of him was an eight foot high concrete wall.  The road ended at a wrought iron gate.  There were several bodies on the ground in front of the gate.  There was an iron sign above the gate.  SSgt Brown could just barely make it out: “Valhalla.”  That makes sense.  Thor is the Norse god of war and Valhalla is where Viking warriors go when they die in battle.

That also explained the ex-military guys.  This could be some survivalist camp.  He needed to find out.  He watched the front gate for an hour.  Nothing moved except the gate guard.  There didn’t seem to be any light coming from behind the wall, but he could smell smoke.

He decided he needed to see the rest of the wall.  After another hour, he could tell it was tall, hard, and nobody had cleared the brush from around it.  The perimeter was a total of about a mile around.  The only noises he heard were crickets, locusts, birds, and once a woman’s scream.   That confirms where that kid’s sister was taken.

He found a tree close to the north side of the wall.  What the hell, he decided.  He climbed high enough to see over.  He couldn’t believe what he saw.  There was a big pink ranch style house in the center of the compound, with a circular driveway leading past it.  There was some sort of out building, like a servant’s quarters or something on the west side of the compound.  The plants were what caught his attention.  There was an orchard and a botanical garden on the grounds.

He counted six males that he could see.  Most of them were wearing the black on black uniform Jackson had reported.  Weapons varied from cheap little gang-banger spray-and-pray guns to a couple of AK-47.  Nobody in the compound seemed to give a shit about security except the guy at the gate.  Good.

He looked at his watch:  0045 hours.  It’s about time to get back to Jackson.  He heard more screaming from the servant’s quarters.  He tuned it out as he climbed down.  I’ll be back he promised himself.

Forty minutes later, he slid quietly in next to Jackson.  They watched the two scouts take turn sleeping.  They weren’t very good.  The shit-bag kid kept falling asleep during his guard shift.  Poor dumb bastard, thought SSgt Brown.  He’s going to die tomorrow.  He and Jackson continued to watch the scouts for the remainder of the night.

Day 19

Outside of the vet clinic.

Joe woke with a start.  Shit, what was that?  He looked at Leroy.  The large black man was sleeping like a rock.  Shit, thought Joe, how long have I been asleep?  The last time he remembered Leroy waking him up was 3:00.  Now the sun was up.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!

He shook the big man awake.“Ok, dude, I let you sleep in, my turn to catch some Z’s.”

The big man rubbed his eyes.  Then he gave a Joe the look.  He knew why Joe had let him oversleep.

“Let me sleep?” he whispered.

“Uh, yeah,” he replied.

“Bull Shit,” the big man hissed.  “You coulda gotten me killed.”

“It’s ok man,” the young guy pleaded a little too loudly for Leroy’s comfort.

“I swear to God:  You fall asleep on me one more time, and I will kill you and feed you to the zombies.”

They both turned at the scream that came from behind them.  Shit, The Rabbit!

“Stay here,” Leroy ordered.  He quickly crawled out of the hide they were in, and ran to rescue his breakfast.

As he got closer, he could hear the moaning.  As he came around an exceptionally larger bush, he saw the runner on the ground.  There were four zombies advancing on him.  He was crawling backwards, trying to regain his feet.

Leroy didn’t hesitate any longer.  He charged at the zombie closest to the runner, knocking it to the ground.  He turned on the second zombie, drawing his combat knife as he did.  He thrust it at the zombie’s face.  The zombie stumbled on The Rabbit’s backpack and managed to dodge the knife.

Leroy’s momentum caused him to stumble over the zombie.  Both fell to the ground.  Leroy kicked and swung the big knife in a wide arc.  This would normally have worked during his days as a hand-to-hand combat instructor.  However, it was a dismal failure this time.  All he managed to do was slash the throat of the zombie that fell upon him with open maw.  The beast bit him in the arm.

He screamed and kicked again.  This time his foot connected with the knee of another zombie, causing it to fall on him also.  He continued fighting and screaming for another few minutes.  In that time the runner died at the hands of more zombies.

Joe heard the screaming stop.  Oh, shit!  What do I do now?  He thought about trying to go back to Valhalla.  No, if they took Leroy, he didn’t stand a chance.  He looked towards the vet clinic.  They didn’t know him.  He heard moaning behind him.  Fuck it!

Pvt Williams didn’t hear the commotion in the woods.  All he saw was a scruffy looking guy in a leather jacket with a pistol in his hand break from cover.  He didn’t hesitate.  BANG!

The young man dropped to his knees.  Then fell face first onto the blacktop, a pool of blood growing under his torso.  Williams began to scan for other threats, but none materialized.

“We’re coming out!” SSgt Brown announced.  And the two cavalry troops trotted out of the woods.

Valhalla

“Yes it was a gunshot!” Lurch said emphatically.  “It sounded like an M-16.  It wasn’t one of those little baby pistol rounds.”

“Shit,” Thor said angrily.

He looked to the short blond guy they called Beau.  “Take Poncho Villa and a couple of others and find out what happened.  Don’t get into a fight, just find out what happened, and get back here.”

The smaller man nodded, turned on his heels, and left the room.  He found Poncho Villa waiting outside the door.

“Grab a couple of guys and meet me by the gate in five,” Beau ordered without slowing.

He headed to his room.  If he was going over the fence, he was going to be well armed.  He pulled a black Kevlar vest over his black shirt, put on a police style pistol belt with a 9mm Glock pistol and large buck knife.

He turned for the door, stopping as he reached it.  Marching back to his night stand, he grabbed the white peaked hat that had become his trademark here in Valhalla.  It’s called the kepi blanc, known the world over as the symbol of the French Foreign Legion.  The man his friends called Beau Geste’s chest swelled with pride as he placed that badge of honor onto his head.

Beau had worked for Thor for several years now.  Thor had two types of employees.  Lurch, Poncho Villa, and Beau were what Thor called his skilled employees.  They were all ex-military.  All had combat experience.  The rest of the employees were what Thor called entry level.  They were the street level thugs who sold on the corners and fought each other for territory.

Beau thought about the name he received upon arrival at Valhalla.  He let out a quiet chuckle.  The name came from a movie about an American in the French Foreign Legion.  The kid was a bit of a screw up and was constantly butting heads with Sergeant Major Dagineau, the senior enlisted man in his outfit played by Telly Savalas.

Dagineau was overly harsh and seemed to have it out for the American Legionnaire.  The two become the final survivors of an enemy attack and Beau is forced to kill Dagineau in self defense.

He found it funny that he would inherit the name Beau.  Of all of the characters in the movie, he’d always identified more closely with Telly Savalas’s character in both personality and temperament.  He saw all of the street punks as the Beau’s of Valhalla