Read The Hunger (Book 3): Ravaged Online

Authors: Jason Brant

Tags: #vampires, #End of the World, #Dracula, #post apocalyptic, #Zombies, #apocalypse

The Hunger (Book 3): Ravaged (12 page)

BOOK: The Hunger (Book 3): Ravaged
10.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Colt stepped in front of Lance. “Looks like you’ve had a rough go of it.”

“I’m fine.” Lance puffed his chest out a little bit, before a cough deflated him.

Smooth
.

“You been drinking?” Colt leaned forward, getting a closer look at Lance’s face.

“It’s to numb the pain.”

The major reached into a cargo pocket by his right thigh. He pulled out a small bottle of whiskey and handed it over. “Got a hell of a kick.”

Lance took a swig, not wanting to look like a pussy. The gag reflex accomplished that for him. He handed it back.

He had the desire to go around back and start doing pushups.

Colt nodded at Eifort. “It’s always a pleasure to see another serviceman or woman.”

“Sir.” Eifort stood at attention and saluted him back.

“Not much point in calling me sir anymore, Eifort. Major will do. I’ve earned that much, at least. Don’t bother with the salute either. We don’t worry about the old ways, not anymore. Rank?” He stuck his cigar back in the corner of his mouth and took a drag from it.

“Staff sergeant.”

“Good. Officers have proved mostly useless nowadays.” He tapped his chest and grinned around the cigar. Smoke escaped his lips as he spoke. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Major Colt,” Brown said. “Thanks for the help last night.”

The major turned his attention back to Brown. “Looked like you folks needed some.”

“How did you know?”

“We’re tapped into some of the satellites. They don’t fall out of space just cause the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. We saw a shit ton of them working their way through the woods just at nightfall. I sent the bird up so we could get a look at them with thermal. They were coming at you hard, so I told them to lay the wood down.”

“Thermal?” Lanced asked.

“Thermal imaging,” Cass said over her shoulder. “It sees heat.”

“Exactly. You had a whole goddamn brigade surrounding you. We figured you wouldn’t have the firepower to fight off that many. Of course, we had no idea just how much trouble you would be in. The pilot said they got here in the nick o’ time.”

Brown said, “Your pilot is right. They took out our lights just after sundown. We’ve been relying on those for the majority of our protection.”

“Lights?” Colt turned and looked over the field.

The crowd watching them had grown. They stood thirty yards away, staring at their little powwow.

“We have a generator hooked up to those big lights there. It runs off the natural gas well on the property.” Brown pointed at the nearest light pole. “It’s kept them at bay until last night.”

Another puff of smoke. “How’d they take out the lights?”

“With rocks.”

Lance watched his face, wanting to see how the major reacted to the news. He didn’t emote much, just kept on chomping on his cigar.

“They threw rocks at the lights and broke them?”

“Yes sir... Major, sorry.” Eifort pulled her wet hair back. “The chopper gave us enough time to get some fires built.”

Lance took a half step forward. “You don’t seem that surprised that the Vladdies are able to problem solve.”

“The hell is a Vladdie? You mean the Weres?”

“What? Weres?”

Colt squinted through a cloud of smoke as he let it roll from his mouth. “Some of my men took to calling them werewolves. Weres for short.”

“Werewolves? That’s stupid.”

“They’re big, muscle-bound monsters that kill people and only come out at night. A bite turns you into one of them over a short period of time. No silver, of course, but close enough for government work, I suppose.”

“You think those are werewolves?” Lance couldn’t keep the incredulous look from spreading across his face. He wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the explanations for the infected had become. They were called vampires, zombies, and werewolves. People always wanted to give a name to the evil lurking under their bed or hidden in the shadows.

“Course not. I said that’s what my men call them. Why do you call them Vladdies?”

“Because they’re vampires, sort of,” Cass said. “For basically the same reasons your men call them Weres, I guess. Vladdie is because of Vlad the Impaler.”

“Ah, the first vampire. I like that.” Colt gave her an appreciative nod.

Lance ground his teeth. He half expected Colt to show her how big his dick was soon. Even the way he talked around the cigar made him look like a hard case.

“I thought it was witty,” Cass said.

“It is.” He peered over her shoulder. “That a battle axe?”

“Damn right.” Cass pulled it from the holster and handed it to him.

He grabbed it with both hands, twirling it around. “Good heft. A tad over the top, isn’t it?”

“It’s heavy enough to damage but not so much that I get exhausted carrying it around.”

He grinned and handed it back. “I like your style, Cass.” He looked back to Brown. “I take it you’re in charge here, Mr. Back to the Future?”

“I don’t really like to—”

“Yes, he is. He’s a doctor,” Eifort said. “We took this compound from a band of crazy men who held most of the people here captive.”

Colt kept his eyes locked on Brown’s. “A doctor? Well, you’re worth more than your weight in gold now, aren’t you? It’s good to see a man of intelligence is running the place. We’ve come across several groups of people who are being run by meatheads. They think they can be leaders because they did a lot of bench pressing before everything went to shit. Half of them were working at burger joints or still hanging off their momma’s titties for cash.”

Lance frowned at the titties remark. He didn’t understand it. Was that some kind of military slang?

“They get their people killed and then blame everyone but themselves. Goddamn morons.” Colt kept watching Brown as he puffed on his cigar. He didn’t speak for a full ten seconds. “You look tired, my friend. Running an operation like this, under these conditions, can play hell on your mind. I speak from experience.”

“It’s been rough,” Brown said. “But hasn’t it been for everyone?”

“That it has. That it has.” Colt peered back at his men for a second.

Lance said, “You didn’t answer my question. Why don’t you seem surprised about the Vladdies being able to problem solve? That’s a big deal.”

“Because we’ve already seen other changes in their behavior,” Colt said, turning back to him. “Like I said, we have thermal with the bird. We’ve been watching them for weeks.”

“What have you seen?” Brown asked.

“They’ve moving in packs, but not just in the way animals do. Each pack seems to have an alpha, sure, but they’re attacking camps in a calculated manner. We were at a prison in Northern Virginia about two weeks ago when we first noticed it. We managed to build an electrified fence around the courtyard. The Weres started attacking it at different spots through the night, testing for weak points.”

Colt took a swig from his whiskey bottle. “The bastards tunneled under it a week later.”

“I saw some holes in the ground in Latrobe,” Lance said. “Maybe they’re doing that everywhere.”

“They are. At least, everywhere we’ve seen so far. They dig an interconnected series of tunnels around their nests. Usually, they build off a central hub like a sewer or subway, but lately we’ve seen them breaking their big nests into smaller ones. Harder to kill them off that way.”

Lance bit the inside of his cheek. His legs and hands ached. Colt confirming their fears about the Vladdies getting smarter felt like a kick to the gut. Things were going from bad to worse with each passing hour.

“My men are tired from the trip and the fighting,” Colt said. “I sure wouldn’t mind if you had some grub for them to eat and a few cots to sleep on. Besides, I’d like to have a longer conversation with you all while they’re resting. After that, we’ll help you get your camp secured for tonight. They came so close to taking you out last night that they’re sure to come back at you even harder.”

“Of course,” Brown said. “We have an open policy here—you can come and go as you please. What’s ours is yours. Breakfast is being cooked right now.”

Brown and Eifort walked with Colt back to his men. They spoke for a while, introducing each other, before they moved their vehicles further into the clearing.

Cass turned to Lance. “Well, this is going better than I’d even hoped.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe? They saved our asses last night.”

Lance watched as Colt strutted through the camp, nodding at people and inspecting their setup. “But if they’re so great, why are they here?”

“What?”

“Why are they going from camp to camp? Why are there less than a dozen of them? Something doesn’t add up here.”

Chapter 15

––––––––

L
ance shoveled eggs into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. The booze in his system and pain in his hands made him ravenous. He’d feel even better if he had a little time to sleep.

He sat between Cass and Brown, facing a fire they’d built inside an old tire rim. Eifort was on the other side of Brown, stripping her rifle down.

Colt and two of his men sat across from them on the other side of the fire. He had a fresh cigar and a cup of coffee. His men ate greedily, not even bothering with utensils. They threw their paper plates in the fire when they were finished.

“Why are you here?” Lance asked finally.

“To help.” Colt blew a smoke ring and watched Lance. “Why else?”

Lance didn’t answer. He held the major’s gaze.

“I see you don’t quite buy that,” Colt said.

“Not really. Charity isn’t too big on anyone’s to-do lists anymore.”

“Fair enough. I have two missions. One, to kill as many of those sick bastards as possible. And two, I want to help people survive as best I can. The human race is on the verge of becoming little more than a footnote in the Earth’s history. I’m doing what I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He laughed. “And I’m not doing it out of charity. I’ve spent my whole life preparing for, and fighting in, a series of wars. This is the battle to end all battles, and I’m on the frontlines. This is what I’m built for, and I’m good at it.”

Brown shifted in his seat. “What do you want from us?”

“Just to give us a place to put our boots up for a bit.” Colt looked back to Lance. “And we want to see what the Were... Vladdie, sorry, presence is like in these parts. We’ve been listening to some radio transmissions from a crazy guy out of Pittsburgh—”

“The Wildman of Monroeville,” Cass said.

“Yes, him. His reports have told us a lot about the movements and patterns of the infected. We’d like to meet him. You’re the closest camp to him that we know of.”

Cass tossed a log onto the fire. “He won’t meet with you. He won’t even meet with
us,
and he’s been giving us info for weeks.”

Colt grinned. “We’ll come to an agreement. So, yes, Lance, we aren’t
just
here to help. We want to kick some werewolf ass while we’re here. I hope that isn’t too upsetting to you.”

They continued watching each other for several seconds. Lance felt that there was more going on than Colt was admitting to, but he didn’t know what. He just didn’t like the feeling he had about the major.

If he was so good at leading his men, and killing the infected, then why were there so few of them? What had happened to the last camp he’d been in?

Adam had taken a few of the soldiers out on a scavenging run. They were looking for light bulbs, food, and an assortment of other supplies to help them prepare for the night. Others were building burn piles at strategic points around the camp.

The Vladdies had managed to break the bulbs, but what would they do about the fires? They couldn’t carry water to extinguish them. Brown and Colt had decided that the light provided by the flames was a surer bet.

The mechanics were building cages out of wood and chicken wire to hang around the bulbs. If the Vladdies managed to get around the fires, they would have a much harder time breaking the lights again.

Greg watched as two women climbed a ladder and worked to attach the first cage. “You got it, bro. Put a little higher so... yeah... right there. Nice work, bro.”

“He’s an annoying one, isn’t he?” Colt asked.

Brown ignored his question. “So all you want is a place to sleep? That’s all you need from us?”

“That’s it. We’ll help out around here in exchange, of course. We have a lot of firepower, even if we’re undermanned for the time being. You help us, and we’ll help you. Look at it this way, Doctor Brown, we’ve managed to survive on the road for this long. Imagine what we can help you do at a nice little place like this.”

Lance listened to them negotiate without chiming in. He wanted to tell them that they had to leave, but he had no reason for thinking this. Gut feelings weren’t enough to send someone out into the wild.

Colt waved his arm at the solar array. “You’ve done well for yourselves. And the story about this Ralph fellow getting women pregnant is disgusting. It was a service to mankind that you killed him, Lance.”

“He didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

“Even still. Well done.”

The group dispersed then, leaving the fire to burn out. Brown, Colt, and Eifort walked the perimeter, taking notes and devising better ways to secure the area.

Cass and Lance helped rearrange the sleeping quarters.

More than ten people living at the compound had died during the night. Tents and RVs now stood empty. Possessions were divvied up, beds reassigned.

Arguments broke out.

Cass and Lance worked as arbiters, doing their best to keep the peace. Things calmed down by noon as people began to settle in again. The arguments over possessions had sickened Lance. There were more than enough supplies to go around.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. People worried about property more than they did survival.

Lance walked through the garden, plucking a ripe tomato from a vine and biting into it. He didn’t speak for a while, lost in his own thoughts. He questioned their ability to survive at the compound for the first time in weeks.

He feared losing Cass and his unborn child. He dreaded letting down those who looked up to him. Even with Colt and his men at the compound now, he didn’t like their odds

BOOK: The Hunger (Book 3): Ravaged
10.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Beyond the Veil of Tears by Rita Bradshaw
Dragonfire by Karleen Bradford
The Queen's Pawn by Christy English
The Demon Pool by Richard B. Dwyer
Ancient Chinese Warfare by Ralph D. Sawyer
Liar by Gosse, Joanna
An Eye of the Fleet by Richard Woodman