Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Crusade (Eden Book 2) (27 page)
Bear hadn’t been eating the way he should have these last few days. Their rations were limited and he wanted to make sure Julie got the sustenance she needed for herself and the baby. He would forego most of his own rations in such a way that no one would notice, making sure Julie got more than the others because she needed it.
He pressed on as far as he could but knew he would soon collapse in the snow from exhaustion. He couldn’t let it come to that. Better to turn and face the undead hordes while he still had some strength. A few minutes later the snow let up. They faced a wooded hill, and he made his decision.
“We stop here,” he said.
“
Here
?” Mickey asked.
“We’ve got to keep going,” Julie said.
“I can’t.” Bear breathed heavily. “Not with him.” He crouched and shrugged Buddy off to the ground. He stood and arched his back, trying to draw his elbows together.
“There might be thousands of them out there,” Gwen said. “Let’s leave him and—”
“No!” Julie said. “How many times do I have to go through this with—”
“I don’t mean we leave him on the ground,” Gwen said, feeling woozy as she settled herself on the snowy hill. “We’ll put him up in a tree or something.”
Bear shrugged out of his equipment and gear, laying his weapons side by side on the snow near where he stood. He buried the mace handle up in the snow at his feet. He looked at the Glock in his hand and holstered it.
“Mickey, let me see that shotgun of yours.”
“Well, this should be interesting,” the voice belonged to a female and came down off the hill.
Bear turned.
There was a black woman seated on the rise several yards away from them. She had an enormous afro and a scar down one side of her face. She was dressed in white camouflage fatigues that helped her blend into the hill, but on top, incongruously, she wore a waist length Red Kangaroo fur jacket. Next to her was a backpack and she had an M-16 with an M-203 grenade launcher attached resting across the pack, the 16’s butt in the snow.
“You’re planning on fighting those zombies all by yourselves?”
“Who—who are you?” Mickey asked, aware his hands were without a weapon, as were the woman’s.
“You can call me Tris,” she said. “That’s what they call me. And I get real uncomfortable with your friend aiming that street sweeper at me.”
“No offense,” Bear said. “Make your intentions clear and we’ll decide where I bury the buckshot.”
“My
intentions
? Take a look at this.” Tris raised her hand slowly. She was gripping a hand grenade. “See this? Fragmentation grenade. And that’s the pin hanging off my neck on the chain. I wear this for the day my time to check out comes. Planning on taking as many of those dead motherfuckers with me.”
“Like Blaster,” Mickey said under his breath, thinking of
Uncommon Valor
.
“It was Sailor,” said another female voice behind him.
He turned and there was a woman with an MP-40 submachine gun there, decked out in white from head to toe. Even her boots were taped up with white duct tape or something to help her blend in.
“See Tris? He knows the movie I was talking about.”
“Yeah,” Tris said, her focus on Bear. “My friend Lauren there told me about the grenade around the neck thing. You know, I get real nervous when people aim anything larger than a .45 at me. And when I get nervous, my palms get real sweaty, and when my palms get sweaty…”
Bear lowered the muzzle of the USAS-12 but kept watching Tris.
“I’m going to stand up now, so don’t any of you get jumpy with those bang sticks.”
Tris stood and Gwen could see she was tall, at least as tall as Julie, and the afro added another eight to ten inches on her. Tris replaced the cotter pin in the grenade and secured the explosive device around her neck, tucking it under her fur.
“You’re right,” Mickey said. “It was Sailor. Tex Cobb.” He turned to Tris. “What’s with the pimp jacket?”
“That how you talk to a woman when you first meet her? Well wise-ass, let me assure you, I keep my pimp hand strong.
“Sounds like you brought all of them this way,” the black woman added, referring to the moans drawing closer.
“The tall one looks pregnant.”
“You pregnant girl?
Damn
, big man, there you go with that shotgun again. I just asked your friend a question. You don’t have to go and get all hostile on my ass.”
He lowered the muzzle.
“Shit,” Tris said.
“Yeah, I’m pregnant,” Julie said. “You a farmer? What’s with the sickles.”
In addition to the various pistols she wore on her person Tris had two hand-held sickles strapped to her back.
“Tris isn’t into agriculture,” Lauren said. “She’s like death. The other one don’t look so good,” Lauren indicated Gwen.
“Fuck you, you skinny bitch,” Gwen managed.
“What is it with you people?” Lauren asked. “I meant you look like you’re bleeding to death right here and now. It wasn’t a comment on your looks.”
“What are you two doing out here all alone?” Mickey asked.
“We’re not alone.” Tris raised a hand and waved it forward. Figures materialized from the hill, camouflaged against the snow in white parkas, holding assault rifles wrapped in white tape and cloth. One by one the figures came down the hill, fanning out, and Bear figured if he had to he could take out one, maybe two, before they lit him up.
“That big mean looking motherfucker hits me with that shotgun,” Tris said out loud, “you blow him in two, okay Lore?”
“I got your back.”
Lauren had her hands on the pistol grip and stick magazine of the vintage German submachine gun. She kept it aimed at the ground but appeared ready to bring it up into play if she had to.
“Bear?”
His good eye darted to the man who had called his name.
“Bear? Is that—Buddy!
Buddy
, no way, I—”
“Panas?” Mickey was overcome with joy. “Panas, is that—”
“Mickey! Julie and Gwen—Gwen what happened?”
“I shot her,” Mickey said sheepishly.
“Oh,” Panas said. “It’s okay, Tris. I know these people.”
“These the people you’re always talking about?” asked the black woman. “From the city?”
“Yeah. I can’t believe it, but yeah.” Panas reached them and hugged each in turn, starting with Mickey. “Julie, my god, you’re—”
Gwen lay down on the snow, exhausted.
“I am,” she heard Julie say.
“We got a couple hundred Zeds coming to play,” a man’s voice.
“Well, Steve, let’s get ready to rock,” Tris spoke.
Gwen’s head felt thick.
She watched Panas embrace Bear. He couldn’t get his arms around the man.
“Damn, bro, you’re a big one,” she heard someone say. “Anyone ever tell you you reminded them of a wrestler or somebody? My roommate is going to friggin’ love you…”
“Gwen, can you hear me?”
Panas
.
“Y-yeah,” she said but it felt like someone else was spoke for her.
Bobby? Was that her Bobby leaning over looking at her?
“Okay, this woman is going into shock,” a voice, seemingly from a distance. “We’ve got to get her back to…”
And then all was black.
When she opened her eyes she was in a warm bed in a softly lit clean room. Her Bobby was no where to be seen. Instead, Mickey was sitting next to her bed in a chair.
“Gwen.” An expression of pure joy swept over his face.
“Mickey…”
“Thank God you’re okay. I feel so bad, I can’t—how do you feel?”
“I feel…fine, I think. What’s this?”
She raised her arm. A tube disappeared in her forearm.
“An IV. Dr. Malden said you lost a lot of blood. It was my fault, Gwen. I shouldn’t have taken that shot. Not from so far away. Not when the zombie was so close to—”
She held up a hand for him to stop.
“Where are we?”
“Gwen.” He leaned forward. “This place is amazing! It’s just like Buddy said. You know who’s here? Panas, Biden—those guys from Eden. You’re never gonna guess what they call this place! Clavius City—you know, like Clavius Base in Kubrick’s—”
“Okay, Mickey,” she cut him off. “Julie?”
“She’s fine. She just stepped out.”
“The baby?”
“Not here yet.”
She managed a weak smile.
“And there’s this woman. Man, she’s so friggin’ hot and I think she digs me. She likes the same movies I like, can you believe that?”
She couldn’t believe it but thought there was someone for everyone. “How long…how long have I been like this?”
“Since yesterday afternoon. We had a huge battle, hundreds of zombies. You should have seen it. These people can fight! They’ve trained and they know how to deal with zombies. That black chick—the one that looks like Erica Badu? She was fucking Zed up—”
“Zed?”
“That’s what a lot of people here call them. The zombies. Zed.”
“Oh.”
“And Bear? He was a maniac. He cranked up that chain saw and sprang right into them, and then when it ran out of gas he was tearing them to pieces with his bare hands.”
“Buddy?”
“He’s…well, hopefully he’s going to be okay,” He leaned closer. “The doctor says it sounds like Buddy was on some serious psychoactive meds or something. He’s got issues, Gwen.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Mickey laughed. “But he was right. I mean, look at us, we’re here.” He swept his arms out to encompass the place, “Well, I mean, you haven’t seen yet, but you will. This place is so cool, Gwen.”
“We’re safe?” she asked him, noticing he wore a pistol.
“Yeah, this place is locked down.”
“I see my patient is awake.” Dr. Malden knocked as he entered the room. “How are you feeling Ms. Evers?”
“I feel…fine, I think, and…and it’s Gwen, doctor, not Ms. Evers.”
“If you don’t mind.” Dr. Malden leaned over her and pulled one of her eyelids up, shining a small light in her eye. “Uh-huh, now the other.”
“Gwen!” Julie rushed to the side of her bed and grasped her hand.
“Julie, I’m—”
“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay, and wait until you see where we are.”
Bear loomed in the background, between the door and the bed.
“Well,” Dr. Malden said, standing up and stepping back, pocketing his stethoscope. “That arms going to be in a sling for awhile, but you’re friend is correct. In the long-run, no major damage. You got lucky.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Gwen hadn’t said those words in so long. She couldn’t remember how long ago she had seen a real doctor. “How did I get in here? All I remember is a bunch of voices and then, nothing.”
“Mickey carried you in,” Julie said.
“Thanks.”
“It was the least I could do.” He blushed.
“You’re right, you bastard.” She smiled. “Next time aim farther to the right with that scattergun.”
She noticed everyone was wearing a side arm, including the doctor.
“Stacey.” Dr. Malden signaled and a woman entered the room. “Gwen, this is Stacey—”