Thunder and Ashes Page 13

  “Looks like two towers near the main entrance. There’s one guard in each. Armed. Can’t tell with what, but they’re longarms. Probably hunting rifles. Got to figure they’ll be the best shots,” Krueger said.

  “We’ll give them a wide berth,” Thomas said.

  “Look down there,” Brewster said, bereft of binoculars but blessed with excellent eyesight. “Is that a roving guard by the fence, near the corner?”

  Krueger shifted his binoculars to the right and then shook his head. “No, just looks like one of the raiders needed a spot to take a piss. Yep, there goes the fly. And there he goes back inside.”

  The distant figure vanished into one of the warehouse buildings, letting the door slam behind him with enough force that the three soldiers on the hill could hear it.

  “Keep looking, Krueger,” Thomas murmured.

  “On it, Sarge—holy shit!” Krueger exclaimed. “Sergeant, I think you may want to have a look at this. Near the main entrance, far side, ground level.”

  Krueger handed the binoculars over to Thomas, who accepted them and looked in the direction Krueger had indicated.

  “Well, if that don’t beat all, I don’t know what does,” Thomas said, grimacing behind the binoculars.

  “What is it?” Brewster asked, craning his neck to see.

  “Looks like our raider boys haven’t been bothering to exterminate their infected company. They’ve got the main gates reinforced and lined on either side with more fencing. Looks like they have, what, thirty, maybe forty carriers caged up down there,” Thomas said.

  “What the hell would they be keeping them alive for?” Brewster wondered out loud.

  “Security, I’m betting,” Thomas said, scowling. “Anyone approaching would see a horde of the pusfucks at the main gates and turn right around without even bothering to try to take the place.”

  “Not a bad idea, actually,” Krueger said, shrugging.

  “Doesn’t matter anyway,” Thomas said, cutting off the banter. “We’re not going in the main entrance. We’re coming in from behind. Weapons check.”

  The two soldiers with Thomas turned over on their backs and began a thorough inspection of their gear. Sheriff Wallace had provided them with semiautomatic pistols as backups. Krueger had retrieved his bolt-action rifle and the Sheriff had been kind enough to loan him a night-vision scope to attach to the rails on top of the weapon, giving him an added edge in the darkness. Brewster had been handed his double-barreled shotgun back, but he’d managed to beg it off, saying that he’d rather have something that he wouldn’t have to stop and reload after every two shots. After some deliberation, he traded the weapon off for a 12-gauge pump-action Remington that held seven shells.

  The soldiers checked their magazines, racked rounds into chambers and re-holstered their sidearms. The rifles were similarly checked, cleared, re-loaded and held at the ready.

  “Check masks,” Thomas ordered.

  The two men with him opened the bags that hung from their belts and donned the close-fitting black rubber masks, checking to make certain the seals were intact. Thomas joined them in this step, donning his own mask and checking its functionality. Satisfied that they held working equipment, the men replaced the gear in their pouches, bags, and holsters, and returned their attention to the facility across the field from them.

  “Remember, we don’t make a move until Sherman provides us with our distraction,” Thomas said.

  The small group had gone over several versions of a battle plan before finally settling on one they all felt (more or less) had a chance of success. The raiders would likely be settling in for the night, which aided them in their attempt to take them by surprise. Brewster had tried to argue once more that they should just tow the utility truck and avoid the danger, but Sherman had been adamant about having all their vehicles functional in case anything else came up down the road.

  Thomas hadn’t said anything, but he suspected Sherman’s interest in this excursion amounted to more than just fixing vehicles. The general had a tender streak, and the mechanic’s story compounded with the tales of hostility by the raiders they’d heard from Keaton was probably Sherman’s main motivation in going forward. To strike a blow for the good guys, as it were. Sherman probably couldn’t resist, no matter what he said or showed on the outside.

  The plan they had finally settled on was almost elegant in its simplicity. They figured they had a miniscule chance of rescuing the mechanic’s daughter. The facility before them was simply too large to clear before the raiders would locate them and cut them down. Instead, their orders were to get inside, wreak as much of the place as possible, and get back out. If they did sufficient damage to the raiders who had caused the mechanic and the town of Abraham so much grief, maybe they would be able to get the help they were after. Sherman would provide them the key they needed to get in without being spotted and shot.

  Even as the three lay in the cool grass, Sherman was busy half a mile away. He’d accepted the Sheriff’s offer of equipment but selected only one item for himself: a large-bore flaregun, the kind rescuers or victims used to signal for help in the wilderness, as well as a small box of flares. The idea was to launch the flares in rapid succession, hopefully drawing the attention of the raiders in his direction. They might not sally forth from their fortress, but they would certainly be curious, and that might just be enough to allow Thomas and the others to slip in unnoticed

  The one big worry Sherman had was the other attention he might draw: that of nearby infected. Therefore, the older General had spent the last twenty minutes heaving himself upward, branch by branch, into the middle of an ancient pine tree. As far as he knew, the infected couldn’t climb. He’d fire the flares and wait to hear whether the mission was a success over his radio.

  Leaning comfortably back in the crook of a branch and the tree’s trunk, Sherman popped open the box of flares and calmly loaded one of the shells into the gun. He took aim at the night sky and let fly with the first of the flares.

  It popped with the sound of a shotgun being discharged, arced into the sky, and burst into color, a bright orange that must have lit up a square mile of the countryside.

  “Godspeed, soldiers,” Sherman whispered to himself, and watched as the flare sizzled and died in the darkness. He reached down and began to load the second.

  On the hillside, Thomas spotted the flare with ease. It cast a dim glow over the entire field.

  “There’s the signal,” Thomas said, pointing. Brewster jumped up, ready to run for the fenceline, but Thomas stopped him short. “Wait. Wait for them to notice.”

  Krueger was busy studying the guard posts through the binoculars. He grinned behind them, nodding in approval.

  “The bastards are looking mighty intrigued,” Krueger said, still grinning. “They’re all pointing at the flare and talking. One of them’s on a radio. Brewster, scan your channels, let’s see if we can pick them up.”

  Brewster reached down to the radio on his webgear and began cycling through channels. Most of them were picking up nothing but static. Once he hit channel 14, however, voices came through loud and clear.

  “—like a flare out over the woods to the south,” came a voice. “Might be someone in distress.”

  “Easy pickings,” came another voice. “Should we get the crew ready?”

  “No, no, stand down!” came a third, a strong, authoritative voice that must have been the gang’s leader. “It’s night and that flare will have infected running from miles away. We’ve already lost some good men today, let’s not lose any more.”

  The second flare burst then, filling the sky with more of the orange brilliance.

  “Sure is pretty—like the Fourth of July,” came the first voice again.

  “Knock off the chatter, Yoder, keep the channels clear,” came the leader’s voice.

  “All right, all right. I’m off.”

  “He might be off the radio, but he’s sure not taking his eyes off those flares,” Krueger report
ed. “Sergeant, I think we’ve achieved distraction.”

  “Roger that,” Thomas said with a half-grin. “Let’s go.”

  The three soldiers were up and on their feet in a moment, sprinting across the field toward the fenceline. Off to their left in the distance were the guard towers and the fencework swarming with infected. Even the victims of the virus seemed entranced by the bright lights of the flares, and were jostling one another, pushing against the fence as if they wanted nothing more than to run to the source of the flares and investigate it themselves.

  Once the soldiers reached the fence, they went straight to work, silent as ghosts except for the clink and clatter of various bits of gear. Krueger unclipped the wire cutters from his belt and quickly snipped a straight line upwards through the fence until it was large enough for the soldiers to fit through. He pulled the fence sections apart and let Thomas through, followed closely by Brewster.

  The pair came up on the other side of the fence with weapons drawn and at the ready. Brewster held his shotgun out in front of him and Thomas scanned the dark corners of the buildings and containers with a keen eye and primed pistol.

  Krueger came through after them, his rifle catching momentarily on the fence and jingling the steel. The motion earned him a quick “Ssh!” from Thomas, and Krueger nodded in acknowledgement. The trio moved straight for the nearest entrance. It was a heavy steel door with a solid-looking lock on it, and none of them had any keys. Brewster, however, had his shotgun.

  “Did the Sheriff get you any breaching rounds for that thing?” Thomas asked Brewster, pointing hurriedly at the soldier’s shotgun.

  Brewster nodded once. “Frangible slugs. The guy thinks ahead.”

  “Roger that. Take aim at that lock. Krueger, get your pistol out. We might need some rapid fire if the room on the other side of this door is occupied. Brewster, wait for the next flare to pop and use the noise to cover your shot,” Thomas ordered.

  Krueger slung his rifle and drew his pistol as Brewster stepped back from the door, cocked his shotgun, and took careful aim. The trio waited. They weren’t stuck out in the open long. Sherman’s third flare popped, and the moment the sound reached Brewster’s ears, he fired. The slug tore into the locked door, shooting sparks and shrapnel in all directions. When the smoke cleared, the lock had been reduced to scrap metal.

  “Breach it! Go, go, go!” Thomas stage-whispered.

  Brewster drew back a leg and gave the door a heavy kick, sending it crashing open, and the three soldiers barreled into the room, weapons at the ready. They panned their weapons left and right, scanning for targets and finding none. They’d entered a storeroom filled to the ceiling with cardboard boxes sealed in plastic and stacked nearly to the ceiling.

  “Someone will have heard that door getting kicked in,” Thomas said. “Spread out and find cover. Clear the room.”

  “Roger,” Krueger said.

  Brewster nodded and slid off to the right, vanishing between stacks of boxes. Krueger kept his back to one wall, inching along. Thomas moved at a crouch, covering Krueger’s other side.

  Krueger let out a low whistle, catching Thomas’ attention. The old sergeant looked over at the soldier.

  Krueger gestured straight up. Thomas followed the gesture with his eyes and spotted a ladder hanging down from a catwalk that overlooked the entire room. The catwalk itself sported a second ladder, one that ran up to the roof of the warehouse itself. Thomas dropped his gaze back to Krueger, who was patting the rifle on his back and pointing again at the catwalk.

  Thomas nodded. Krueger wanted to move to a better sniping position and cover the movements of Thomas and Brewster below. That was a strategically sound move, and Thomas approved.

  Krueger nodded, swung up onto the ladder, and began to swiftly climb.

  Brewster, meanwhile, was nearing the far end of the large room before he finally heard any noise other than his own breathing. Footsteps, sounding like a pair, were moving quickly toward the room from a wide hallway that branched off of the warehouse. The soldier froze in place, shotgun at the ready. After a moment, he heard voices as well.

  “I’m telling you, man, I heard something in here,” said the first.

  “You’re always hearing things in this place at night,” said the second. “This ain’t a haunted complex, you know. There ain’t nothing here at night that ain’t here in the day.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Dan. I’m saying I heard something loud, like thunder.”

  “Oh, Jesus. That’s the flares outside. Didn’t you hear on the radio? Someone’s out in the woods popping off flares. Poor bastard. Won’t be long before the infected get him. Though, on the upside, tomorrow we’ll get to have our pick of whatever he was carrying, once we find his body.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said the first voice. The footsteps slowed, then stopped. “Probably nothing.”

  Brewster relaxed somewhat. The two might not enter the warehouse room after all.

  “Better safe than sorry, though,” said Dan. “Come on, let’s check it out.”

  Well, shit, Brewster thought. Here goes our element of surprise.

  The two men came ambling into the warehouse, obviously at ease. Each was wielding a rifle, but neither held them at the ready. They were slung over their shoulders, and from the look of them, they weren’t expecting trouble.

  Whether or not they were expecting it, they got it.

  When they were ten feet from Brewster’s hiding place, the soldier swung out from behind the stack of boxes, leveled his shotgun, and fired.

  The blast caught one of the men square in the chest, lofting him backwards several feet to land in a ragged heap. What was left of his ribcage poked out at odd angles, bits of bone and blood sticking up through his ripped clothing.

  “Holy shit—” began the other, reaching up to swing his rifle into a firing position.

  Brewster pumped his shotgun, but the spent round caught in the chamber, jamming the weapon. He cursed, re-cocked the weapon, and managed to eject the spent shell and shove in a new one. By that time, however, the surviving raider had brought his weapon to bear. Brewster looked up and found himself staring down the bore of a weapon.

  A blast sounded, and Brewster cringed, expecting to feel the warm sensation of blood flowing out of his new wound. Instead, he felt nothing, and after a moment he opened one eye. The raider lay several feet away on his side, a pool of blood forming around a fresh head wound. The man’s rifle had clattered to the cement floor. Brewster checked himself for bullet holes and breathed a sigh of relief when he couldn’t find a single one.

  “You owe me,” came Krueger’s voice.

  Brewster looked up to see Krueger laying flat on one of the catwalks high above, waving from behind the scope of his .30–06.

  “I’ll get you a beer at Eileen’s if we make it back to town,” Brewster promised.

  “I’m holding you to that,” was Krueger’s reply.

  “Soldiers! We’ve got incoming!” Thomas said, pointing at the wide hall from which the two raiders had appeared. The sound of harried voices and the stomp of running feet echoed throughout the complex. “They heard those shots!”

  “I’ve got the hallway covered,” Krueger said, staring through his scope. “Brewster, give me backup with that scattergun of yours.”

  “I’m on it,” Brewster said, kicking a small pile of boxes over to serve as a makeshift bunker. He hunkered down behind them and took aim. “Thomas! What’re you doing?”

  “Completing the mission,” Thomas said. He’d backed away from the hall and was trying the other doors that led out of the warehouse. Most were locked, but when he found one that opened for him, he turned to face the two soldiers guarding the hall. “I’m going to see what kind of damage I can do. As far as they know, you’re the only intruders. Hold them off until I get back or until I call you to join me. Hoo-ah?”

  “Hoo-ah!” Krueger chimed.

  “Sure,” Brewster said in a much less en
thusiastic tone. “Happy to hold off the horde for you, Sarge.”

  The first of the raiders appeared in the hall, clutching an AK-47 to his chest and shouting orders to the men that were, no doubt, closely behind him. He made it three steps before Krueger’s rifle round caught him in the chest and dropped him to the floor.

  “Too easy,” Krueger boasted, grinning as he locked and loaded another round.

  “Don’t worry, brother,” Brewster called up, pointing into the hall. “There are more!”

  Raiders began pouring into the hallway, wielding all kinds of weapons, from rifles to shotguns to machetes and even a heavy machine gun that made Brewster wonder just where the men had been picking up their hardware.

  Bullets began to fly into the warehouse as the raiders knelt and took cover in the hall, exchanging fire with the two defenders within.

  Brewster fired another slug, watching with satisfaction as it knocked over a rifle-wielding raider. His death rattle echoed as loudly as the gunshots being exchanged. Krueger’s next shot was at the man setting up the heavy machine gun, but the shot went wide, catching another raider in the shoulder and spinning him in place before he fell to the floor, clutching at the wound and groaning in pain.

  The machine-gunner finished setting up his weapon and let loose a fusillade of bullets. Brewster abandoned his cover and dove to the side as the rounds ripped through the cardboard boxes and whatever it was inside that was being stored, ricocheting off of the cement flooring and tearing up the warehouse. Brewster clapped his hands over his ears to block out some of the deafening noise.

  Krueger fired again, winging the machine-gunner and causing the man to drop his weapon with a curse. The momentary distraction allowed Brewster to swing back into action, firing another pair of shells down the hall. The fragmenting slugs wreacked havoc among the tightly-gathered raiders at the end of the hallway. Several grabbed at wounds and shouted taunts and curses reached the ears of the soldiers.

  “What was that?” Brewster yelled back, firing a third slug down the hall.

  “I said once I get done with you, I’m gonna find and fuck your mother, you piece of shit!” came the reply.