Surge (20 page)

Not that I doubt Olivia’s leadership skills, or anything like that, it’s just that we’ve never had to kill humans before. Infected, yes, humans, no; so I’m not sure how prepared the others are to take life. As for myself, I’ve already decided, that if some mother fucker is going to try to come in here, and take what’s mine, the asshole is going down, no questions asked. But for the others, I’m not a mind reader, so I don’t know where they stand on the matter. Hopefully, they’re not on the fence, and have decided that defending our home is what counts.

With that settled, I walk over to the wall Olivia’s sitting against; before I slide down to take a seat a few feet away. I decide that I have time for one question.

“Touch me and die,” she mutters while in the middle of a vicious swipe of her machete against her handheld sharpening tool. Seeing how her knives took off Victoria’s fingers as if they were butter, that fucker has to be sharp.

“I won’t,” I reply and meet her eyes to show her that I’m serious. I’ve learned that lesson, thank you very much. “How’d you know that we had an insider?”

“I’ve seen it,” she repeats without looking up. “They probably used the same technique here, since it works like a charm.” Pausing to glance up at me, she continues. “I bet you heard a scream and ran in, looking to help out.” I nod, confirming that. “Congratulations! You’ve been physically and figuratively fucked by
‘The Screamer.’”

“I guess I’m not the only one who thinks with his dick,” Danny retorts. I’m about to go for him, mostly because he’s right and I’m pissed at myself for being so gullible, when the flat of Olivia’s machete lands across my chest. Looking over to meet her hard eyes, I wait for her to speak.

“Don’t take your anger out on him,” she orders. “Save it for the fuckers coming to take what’s yours, keep your sister safe, and make up for your mistake.”

Taking a deep breath to contain myself, because no mother fucker’s getting within two feet of Sarah on my watch, I nod to say I’m good. Her machete stays in place for a minute before Olivia’s satisfied with what she sees and removes it. Shooting Danny a stern look, she continues.

“Just don’t think I’ll save your ass if you mouth off again. Tempers are high, and we don’t have time to deal with bull shit pissing contests.” Danny nods his consent and stays quiet, most likely fearing Olivia’s wrath more than mine. And I guess that I too, would fear a person with a twelve inch blade in their hand.

No one speaks for the next half hour. Olivia puts away her sharpening tools before she slides up her sewn sleeve to check out this massive watch on top of the leather gloves, which I now see reach to mid arm. I’ve yet to see either injury, but she hasn’t shown any signs of pain or discomfort, so I figure they must have been minor. No one her size could have that high of a pain threshold.

Seeing the time, which is only 10:30, Olivia slides her helmet on. After pulling the strap as tightly as possible, she meticulously stuffs her braid inside, but leaves the visor open. Standing up, she picks up her machete and moves toward the door that leads down to the front courtyard. I move to join her, but she waves me back saying something along the lines of me being
more of a hindrance than a help by distracting her with all the noise I make
.
Feeling like a petulant child denied a turn on the swing, but knowing she’s right, I instead join Oscar by the window.

“Anything yet?” I inquire and Carlos shakes his head.

“Do you think this will work?” Danny asks from behind us. Leaning against the wall beside Carlos, I face Danny so that I can answer before Olivia comes to rip a strip off of him.

“Olivia knows what she’s doing,” I answer with complete confidence. “She’s seen it before, so she knows what they’re planning to do, and how to counterstrike it.”

“Ella tiene fuego.” I look to Oscar to translate, since I only know a few phrases in Spanish, like
‘Donde está el baño?’
 Which is,
‘Where is the bathroom?’  
Or,
‘vete a la mierda, hijo de puta quien cocksucks.’
Which means,
‘Fuck you, you mother fucking, cocksucker.’

“She has fire,” Oscar adds. “If anyone can lead us successfully through an invasion of raiders, she’s one of them.”

I don’t like the appreciative quality that his voice takes on, like it’s more than just her badassery he’s admiring. But I got a one up on him, because he doesn’t know the half of it. If he’d seen her chopping fingers as if they were nothing more than a hangnail just a few short hours ago, like I did, I doubt he’d sound so admirative right now.

Oh no, that’s for my depraved brain. It’s currently crushing on the demented girl, interpreting her torturing answers out of a deceitful bitch; to be an honorable act, instead of being what it really is. Which is barbaric. The sick grey-mattered bastard.

“And she happens to be hearing everything you dicks are saying, when she’s trying to listen for an attack,” Olivia’s voice snaps through the door. “So, shut the fuck up, you gaggle of gossiping women, because they’re going to be here any minute. And since I didn’t sign up to be a freaking martyr, and plan on seeing tomorrow, pay a-fucking-ttention.”

We
‘gossiping women’
shut the fuck up immediately.  Olivia is completely right, she didn’t sign up for this, I did. I basically signed our own extermination notice when I invited the snake into our chicken coop. Not only that, but I literally laid with the enemy. Even if my intentions were good, the outcome is still the same. I put the group in danger with my own poor judge of character.

“Jared.”

Olivia’s voice drags me out of my guilt-ridden thoughts. Dragging my eyes over to meet hers, I see something hidden deep in the depths of those grey eyes that I can’t quite identify, but it looks like a mix of compassion or maybe acceptance? I’m not sure what it is, but whatever message she tried to pass with her eyes, must have clicked with some part of my brain, because it gets me to step into the game.

Nodding my head in thanks to whatever the hell kind of woman’s voodoo she just mind fucked me with, I check my gear. Hunting and throwing knives easily accessible on my thigh holster, 9mm locked and loaded on my shoulder strap, and crossbow located on the opposite side with arrows attached. All weapons ready and accounted for, I order Oscar and Danny to check their own supplies. Both Oscar and Danny have knives and handguns, but Oscar has an assault rifle that he’s had left over from his policing days. After making sure that they’re ready, I jog down to the other end of the hallway to see how the others are faring.

Tommy’s currently keeping watch with a sniper at the window, I know he’s also equipped with his own handgun, but he’s no good with knives unless they’re at close range for a hand to hand melee. Mike is next to Tommy, armed with a bat and knives. Mike wasn’t as confident with a gun after the incident with Olivia, so he refused to take the remaining one available; even after she told him that the bullet only nicked her.

John and Carlos are in the stairwell listening for any sign of raiders. Carlos has an assault rifle like his twin, but he was out of handgun ammo, so he’s operating mainly with the rifle or the third bat; the fourth of which is down the other end as a backup. John’s armed with the second crossbow, a magnum, and since he’s like Tommy with his aversion to throwing knives; he was given one of the hunting rifles we got from Hal’s.

“Everyone ready down here?” I ask and see most nod their heads in assent. Then I spy Akio sitting with a bat in the corner, looking like a city kid lost in the jungle. Walking over to take a stab at reassuring him, I try to project as much confidence in my voice as possible. “It’ll all be over soon, Doc.”

“Does it have to begin at all?” Akio asks. “Can’t we just find a compromise? How do we even know that they’re going to attack? Maybe they’re just coming talk, or they want to join with us?”

I highly doubt that they’re coming for a tête-à-tête, when they plan on breaching our barriers and sneaking in like wannabee guerilla war fighters at two A.M., but I let Akio continue to vent his concerns.

“All we have is the word of a stranger, who attacked a member of our group, and performed barbaric torture techniques to force out answers.” Knowing that Akio is an educated man trying to find reason in a world that doesn’t abide by society’s old rules anymore, I cut him some slack.

“We don’t know for a fact that anything’s going to happen,” I agree. “But we also want to be prepared if there is even a small possibility of a threat. Wouldn’t you rather be over prepared, rather than under?” Nodding his head, Akio replies.

“I can see the logic in defending our supplies,” he says. “But I will not attack with deadly intent, without being provoked first.”

“So, what are you suggesting we do?” I ask and Akio shrugs.

“I have an idea,” Tommy replies from near his window perch. It takes me a minute to recover from my shock, since Tommy
never
offers his opinion, or talks much at all for that matter. After I’ve sufficiently picked my jaw up off of the floor, I turn to face him, and he continues. “Ever seen
Home Alone
?”

“I fucking love that movie,” John says. “Little Macaulay kicked Pesci and that other dude’s ass.”

“Exactly,” Tommy nods. “It’s our home, and we have to defend it.

Seeing where he’s going with this, I point out that we already have two booby traps; those being the fridge and washer riggings that John and I set up. I remember Cory shaking his head at our amateur pulley system and claiming that it was going to kill someone; so he refuses to use either of those staircases, unless it’s unavoidable. He’d rather climb down our fire escape, than have a two hundred pound fridge drop down and flatten him like a cartoon character. Hey, it’s been up for months, and no one’s died yet, so I guess that we did a pretty good job. Especially, when you take into account that the only experience with construction work we had, was a semester of shop in high school.

“Those are good,” Tommy agrees. “But we need more, or else it’ll just be an old fashioned s-shoot out once they get up here.”

“Alright, so if they decide to break in instead of knocking politely,” which I can guarantee they won’t be doing at 2 A.M., “then we figure out how to stall them. And we can make some barriers, so that we can duck behind them for cover once they get up here,” I say this to Tommy and see him nod along with the others. “That way it won’t be a slaughter.”

Mutters of agreement pass around, so Mike and Tommy run inside to drag furniture from the great room out; while Akio takes up sentry duty at the window. John leaves Carlos in the stairwell to grab something from the kitchen, which he claims that he has a better use for. Knowing John, he could decide to stand at the top of the stairs and drop cans on unsuspecting victims’ heads; but that would be a waste of supplies, so I’ll stop him if that is indeed the case.

I call Danny over to help me move some furniture over to our side of the hallway. Dragging a couch and a stainless steel coffee table to our side, we now have a little bit of cover to try and dodge a few bullets behind. Mike and Tommy have already dragged another couch in, and are now moving the dining room table into place.

I have to physically restrain myself from throwing myself on top of Diney, and begging for her to be spared. She’s too young! And I haven’t been able to take her for a test drive yet. Fortunately, I’m able to tear my focus away from the table when John returns with his arms full of, out of all things; dish detergent. I raise my eyebrows at him, but he just smiles and takes his bounty into the stairwell with him.

“What the fuck are you going to do with those?” Carlos asks with an incredulous tone. “Bubble them to death?”

“Obviously, you are not a fan of the movie,” John huffs.

He then goes down a few flights of steps as quietly as possible, while I lean over the railing to see what he’s doing below. John unscrews the lid to one of the bottles, and dumps the contents behind him as he walks back up. He continues dumping more bottles as he climbs each flight, so by the time he reaches the top, John’s finished emptying the liquid out of three of his five bottles. All I can think of is that Whit’s gonna be pissed. With Olivia wasting a bottle earlier, and John dumping another three, someone’s gonna get it, but at least it won’t be me.

“Where’re your slick shoes, Data?” I ask as John steps onto our floor’s landing, making him laugh at my reference to
Goonies
.

“I’m good with being Data,” John replies. “That token Asian saved all those stupid white kids with his inventions. Without him, they would have been up shit creek without a paddle.” Adding as if it were an afterthought, he says, “But you get to be Sloth.”

“Fuck yeah I’m Sloth,” I boast. “He may be the ugliest bastard ever, but he’s one strong mother fucker, who’s rocking a Superman t-shirt. And he gets to eat all the Baby Ruths he wants.”

“I’d figure you more of a
‘Mouth’
character myself,” I hear a muffled female voice say from behind me. “Because you almost never shut the fuck up, when I tell you to.” Spinning around to face Olivia, I see her visor is in place and her machete is at the ready. “We got company in five.”

Olivia walks back over to our side, with Danny scrambling after her. I glance at my watch, 12:00 a.m. They’re way earlier than that red headed cunt said they would be, just like Olivia warned us of earlier. I turn to John and Carlos, offering them good luck and ordering them to kick ass, before I jog back to the other side with fury coursing through my veins. Olivia was right once again, I’m glad that I banked my anger, because I can now unleash it on Victoria’s trespassing friends.

Arriving back on our side, I take up my position by the flipped over steel coffee table, which luckily doesn’t affect me in the same way Diney does. Oscar’s with me, while Danny’s hidden behind the couch. Olivia is crouched in her position in the corner next to the door. Since the door opens out, the plan is to have her stand behind it, listen to how many footsteps she can make out, and then signal for when I should cut the rope to the fridge’s booby trap.

Hearing the door to the downstairs open with a loud creak, we know it’s game time. The hallway is nearly pitch black with the candles now blown out, and so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. This allows the sound of light footsteps jogging up the steps to echo up to us, sounding like individual gunshots screaming out their arrival. We all prepare for Olivia’s count with baited breath. It doesn’t take long, after about thirty seconds, she holds up two full hands twice and then one hand with a
‘so-so’
shake, to indicate that there are about twenty-five raiders incoming.