Escape The 1st Omnibus: WTF Books 1-3 (8 page)

“Agreed,” said Junayd, briefly touching his hand to his heart before grasping Brad’s in a tight handshake that quickly turned into a hug.

The ride back to the compound was quiet and uneventful. The vehicles pulled into a narrow ravine that twisted around and behind the customs compound. The large truck lurched to a stop and the small man dropped the tailgate of the truck. The men jumped out, stretched, and looked around. “Go through that hole in the fence,” said Junayd, pointing. “If you go through and follow the fence until it ends, you will see the railroad track that will lead you back.”

“How do you know that?” asked Brad.

“My cousin and I have been raiding and smuggling things from this customs yard for years. We only asked your permission to stay here to be polite,” Junayd said, giving Turner a cold stare. “We have plenty of work fighting those things in the city; we really do not need to be bothered with fighting Americans also. Get back to your warehouse and prepare your men. We will be at your gates shortly after the sun sets.”

“Why not wait till tomorrow? You know they are more dangerous at night,” asked Brad.

“More dangerous? Yes, but also more predictable. We will use distractions to move the packs where we want them while we deliver the people to you. Be ready for them,” Junayd said as he turned and walked back to his car. Shutting the doors, the engines started and the vehicles drove back down the ravine.

Sean walked by and patted Brad on the shoulder; a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by Turner. “You did good Brad, now let’s get back to the hooch,” said Sean as he stepped to the hole in the fence, gesturing for the men to go through.

They made their way back to the warehouse and received a warm welcome from the waiting men. Brad briefed them on what had happened and that they were about to receive guests. Sean and a couple of the soldiers cleared the warehouse next door so that it could be set up as lodging for the incoming civilians. Brad took Sergeant Turner on a tour of the compound and helped his men settle into the building. They were more than happy to see the flush toilets and running water. Brad got Cole started on preparing the evening meal and then he told them all to get some rest. As Brad was leaving, Turner called him over.

“You’ve done well here, Brad, and you did good getting these men here safely. I just want you to know that I won’t step on your toes,” said Turner. “It seems the world has gone to shit quickly. I don’t know where that leaves the military, but I
am
a platoon sergeant and it’s going to stay that way. However, I think you have proven yourself, and you should be the acting lieutenant until we come up with something different.”

Brad grinned. “I appreciate the gesture, Sergeant, but I don’t think you have the authority to give battlefield commissions,” he laughed.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, but this is the best I got, Brad. It allows me to save face, and will keep the men from getting caught up in a power struggle,” responded Turner.

“Well then, sounds good to me. I have work to do, Sergeant, we can talk again later,” said Brad.

“Okay buddy; and how ‘bout you drop the ‘sergeant’ shit? We can catch up after I grab some shut eye.”

Brad walked outside the warehouse door; he bumped into Sean heading back in the other direction. He explained what had just happened with Turner.

“Well damn, I didn’t think the guy had it in him, but I think it was the right decision. I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to work together, maybe I was wrong,” said Sean.

“Sergeant Turner isn’t a bad guy, and he has a lot of combat experience. I trust him.”

They were beginning to lose the daylight, so they retreated inside and climbed to the roof. Just as the last bits of sunlight faded, they heard a distant explosion. A fire began to burn and they heard reports of the AK47 rifles.

“Well there’s Junayd, right on time,” said Brooks. They could see the primal crazies shifting in the streets and heading for the racket on the far side of town. Sean grinned when the two flares popped and went high into the sky. “They must have learned that trick from your sergeant,” he chuckled.

“Wherever they learned it, it’s working. Look at them all, they go to it like mosquitoes to a bug zapper,” laughed Cole.

Eric pointed down toward the railroad gate at the front of the compound. “They’re here.”

Brad stood to look and saw four large flatbed trucks overloaded with people; a few more than he had expected. He watched his men open the gates and guide the overloaded trucks in. They led them all the way down to the empty warehouse. Brad left the roof and made his way down the ladder. When he reached the small convoy of vehicles he was greeted by Junayd with another stiff handshake.

“Thank you my friend,” Junayd said. “These people had it very badly out there; I do not think you realize how much safety and security these fences will give them.”

Brad watched as his men helped women and children exit the vehicles and enter the warehouse. He moved into the building with them; it was dark, but they were afraid to turn on any lights while the overhead doors were still open. Sean and his men had laid out cardboard into makeshift mats on the ground for the people to sit on. Brad quickly noticed that the warehouse was laid out in a very similar fashion to the one they were using.

As he walked, he saw that Eric had converted one of the offices into a medical clinic where he was treating a small child while others had already started to get in line. The loft area was already occupied by several men and they were carrying their limited supplies up the stairs for safekeeping. Brad looked around and tried to get a count in his head.

“Junayd, you have nearly fifty people here; this will be a lot to feed,” Brad said.

“Seventy-two to be exact; and yes it will be a lot, but the city holds resources. Unlike Americans, we know how to live off this land. We will be fine my friends, shortly my men will return from their mini-Jihad against the monsters in the city. Let’s walk so that we may greet them,” said Junayd.

As if on cue, they heard the vehicles approaching the gate. While they walked, Brad saw his men working with some of Junayd’s men to open the gates and escort the small car in. Once the car pulled in and killed its engine, the small man from before stepped out with four other local fighters. Junayd exchanged words with the man and then patted him hard on the shoulder while facing Brad.

“This is Hasan, he is my best soldier.”

Brad extended his hand and smiled. “I think we almost met earlier today. Thank you for your help, Hasan, and good work getting the people here safely.” Hasan smiled as he returned the handshake.

The next several days were spent improving the small camp. The soldiers decided to give up the warehouse space to the civilians and they all moved into a small guardhouse near the gate. Although the guardhouse was smaller, it gave the soldiers privacy and relieved them of the guilt of leaving the families crammed into the single space. They continued to stand watch nightly on the roof of the warehouse in the sniper hide they had set up. With the help of Junayd’s men providing distractions so that the noise wouldn’t attract the primals, they were able to utilize some of the heavy equipment to move the railroad shipping containers into a large wall. After a few days’ work, the compound was now ringed in by the large forty-foot-long, ten-foot-high containers.

The men slowly made improvements to the camp’s perimeter. After the wall was constructed, they started to lose some of the fear of making noise. Any stray primal that moved too close to the compound was quickly terminated with the use of Sean’s suppressed sniper rifle. After a week, the camp was fortified. Containers stacked end to end completely enclosed the camp. They had a sliding gate and the men had cut access doors into the containers that held food or other valuable supplies. Brad was extremely happy with the progress made.

Late on the thirtieth night after the outbreak, Brad made his way to the communal fire pit inside his former residence. The warehouse now was divided into small shacks constructed of cardboard and crates salvaged from inside the containers. He saw Junayd with Sean and Brooks off to the side of the fire so he sat next to them. Once he was settled, a smiling young woman handed him a bowl of rice and dried meat. A child handed him an energy drink which made Brad laugh.

“You have done well by these people Brad! They would welcome you into their tribe,” said Junayd.

This gave all of the military men a laugh. “I am honored Junayd, really, but this isn’t my home. I think there is more for me than this.”

Sean gave Brad a serious look. “That’s exactly what we have been discussing lately. Brooks and I have decided that it’s time to move on; we have to see where things are at.”

“What are you getting at Sean, you want to leave? Where will you go?” answered Brad.

“Brad, I’m afraid we’ve been forgotten out here. We were thinking we could make our way to Bremmel; things should have died down by now. We should be able to gather supplies from there; then do our best to make it to Bagram down Route 76. It won’t be easy, but I’m confident we can make it. Bagram fell fast in the early days of the outbreak; maybe there’s something left, maybe we can find an aircraft and get out of here.

“Oh yeah, and we want you to go with us.”

It had been weeks since the first attack – since the day the world went dark and everyone had forgotten about them. The day he lost his company and most of his friends. They must have more to worry about than a half-dozen stranded soldiers in the back forty of the world. No contact, no messages, not even a flyover from a friendly aircraft. They were completely isolated and alone.

“Target, twelve o’clock. Primal on the wire,”
the spotter whispered.

Brad’s team had done well for themselves, considering their situation. They had held up in the customs compound at Hairatan; they’d fortified it, made it a refuge. Their previous mission, in their old life, had been to patrol the streets looking for the Taliban. Now they worked with a former Taliban commander named Junayd, rescuing civilians and rebuilding in the furthest reaches of Afghanistan. Once enemies, they were now unified in a common goal to survive.

“Identified, primal on the wire,” Brad whispered, pulling the rifle into his shoulder and letting his cheek rest on the butt stock. Gripping the heavy M24’s handguards tightly, he forced himself to relax as he lined his dominant eye up with the scope.

The routines had become monotonous, the same tasks over and over. His deployment to Afghanistan had felt the same, but this was different. There was no real end to this, no day circled on a calendar to work towards. No goal to reach, no motivation to press forward. This was just surviving every day, day after day. They did patrols into the city to salvage goods and locate survivors. They had found plenty of the later, but never any soldiers. He feared his men might be the last remaining U.S. forces in country.

“Range twelve hundred meters, dial eighteen plus one click,”
ordered the spotter.

The compound was home now. Survivors of all types seeking refuge had come here looking for safety inside the fences. They all came together working the walls and doing the tasks that kept a camp running, soldiers and civilians side by side now. Brad’s men knew the compound wouldn’t stand against a large mass attack. How could it? Their own base had fallen in the first days, and it had been heavily fortified. That was when the attacks came in the thousands. More recently they would come at the walls in twos or threes. Unless something alerted them, it was very rare to see more than ten at a time during the daylight. No one wanted to think about a mob pressed against their gates, but they knew they were out there.

“Roger, eighteen plus one dialed in,” Brad answered.

His men hated the patrols. But they were a necessary evil, essential to the survival of the group. This wasn’t like hunting the Taliban, which could lead to days or even weeks of boredom, broken only by minutes of unrelenting violence. This was constant. The soldiers were almost guaranteed to run into conflict every time they left the wire. And unlike before, there would be no calls for medevacs or air support. During the last patrol Brad went on, they’d searched the village market. From all appearances, the place had been abandoned and well picked over, but they needed to break into the old storage warehouse to be sure.

“Wind from three o’clock, six miles per hour, dial wind right, two point three,”
came the spotter’s adjustments.

The warehouse was infested with the primals. When they’d opened the large, double doors, they were immediately engaged. They often found hives of them behind locked, barricaded, and closed doors like this. In the early days of the attacks, families would seek refuge in their homes, securing themselves in, often with wounded loved ones in tow—not knowing that their injured family member would turn and attack them in their final hiding place. That was before they’d known how it spread, how deadly it was. Before they knew a deep cut or bite would bring on the rage.

“Roger, dialed two point three, target indexed,” Brad whispered, making adjustments to the rifle without taking his eye off the target.

It had taken most of the day and a large amount of ammo to clear out that hive. They had no for sure strategy against them; the primals played by no rules. Primals massed quickly and would pour from every direction if they sensed prey. They had no fear of injury or death; they couldn’t be suppressed; there was no shock and awe to use against them. Primals couldn’t be intimidated into surrender.