The Passenger (Surviving the Dead) (16 page)

NINETEEN

They made good time
the rest of the way Steel City, arriving shortly before nightfall.

Hicks and Holland soon estab
lished a visual on the murderer, to whom they gave the radio designation Ragman. Cole, meanwhile, got a second wind allowing them to set a faster pace. The tracks eventually crossed a cracked stretch of two-lane highway, which they followed all the way to the fortress’s gates. When they were within sight of the main entrance Zeb and his men dismounted, leading their horses on foot.

Ethan quickly surmised where
Steel City had gotten its name: The outer wall, comprised entirely of steel shipping containers stacked three high, formed a rough circle that squatted grimly in the midst of a massive concrete lot. Battlements of welded steel plates ringed the top of the wall, varying in height from three to six feet, dotted frequently with firing slits. Men and women armed with a variety of weapons patrolled the perimeter, keeping vigilant watch over goings on both inside and outside the wall.

Glancing around as they approached, Ethan guessed the
concrete lot Steel City occupied must have spanned nearly an entire square mile. The town itself only covered about a third of the lot, while neatly arranged shipping containers—enough to double the town’s outer wall—occupied another large corner. On the northeast section, the flattened remains of an enormous warehouse distribution center lay slowly crumbling, surrounded by the burned out husks of dozens of tractor-trailers. Looking at it, Ethan remembered a story his friend Steve McCray had told him, and suddenly made a connection.

Six
months after the Outbreak—about three months after Ethan joined the Army—a group of insurgents led by a militant, pseudo-Christian lunatic set up shop in a massive warehouse and declared themselves a sovereign nation. The Sons of New Zion, or some such idiocy. Once established, they had set about burning, looting, and pillaging everything in sight, not to mention harassing military forces in the region.

It wasn’t long before Fort Bragg and Pope AFB got their shit together, killed off the majority of infected surrounding them, and started mounti
ng reclamation efforts. To that end, they made dealing with the Sons of New Zion their first order of business. A team of Special Forces operators led by Lieutenant McCray, who was subsequently promoted to captain, located the warehouse, reconnoitered it for a few days, and then watched from a good safe distance while a pair of F-16s dropped JDAM missiles on the insurgents’ heads.

Problem solved.

And now, it seemed, the Sons of New Zion compound had been replaced by Steel City. From what Zeb had told them on the way in, the people living here had a reputation for decency and fairness, so long as visitors to their community followed the rules. Steel City was a place of trade and commerce, and the town’s leadership had enacted a set of fair, but strictly enforced laws. These laws prohibited slavery, thievery, violence, and most forms of vice, including prostitution. Alcohol and marijuana were tolerated, but drunkenness and disorderly conduct were not. Other than that, as long as you minded your own business, conducted your trades in good faith, and didn’t start any trouble, life in Steel City was good. But step out of line, and you were likely to learn what a week in the stocks or the business end of a cat-o’-nine-tails felt like.

A
s they drew close, Ethan saw the large main gate was partially open to allow carts and wagons through, as well as a smaller door for foot traffic. A contingent of guards stopped everyone seeking entry, looked them over, and checked their cargo for contraband. Anyone showing signs of illness was turned away. Everyone else was allowed to proceed inside. Ethan noticed that the guards, and the people who seemed to be permanent residents, all wore metal pins on their outer garments with the letters SC etched in black on a painted red background.

“What’s with the pins?” Ethan asked, stepping closer to Zeb.

“Identifies the town’s citizens. Takes a long time to earn one. You have to get at least three citizens in good standing to vouch for you, and then you have to be sworn in by the governor. The sheriff and anyone on the city council can veto a citizenship application, but they have to give a reason for doing so. A majority vote of the city council can override a veto, but that’s never happened.”

“Why not?”

“Folks around here are willin’ to live and let live, but they ain’t very trusting. Like I said, it takes a long time to earn your citizenship around here. If you do, it ain’t likely anybody’s gonna object to you joining up.”

Cole
spoke up from behind them, “What’s stopping someone from just making a fake pin and blending in?”

Zeb chuckled. “Son, I would strongly recommend against trying that. There’s only a few hundred citizens here, and they all know each other by name. If any one of them spotted an unfamiliar face with a citizenship pin, well…let’s just say they don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.”

The big gunner nodded. “Duly noted.”

“All right now fellas,” Zeb said, pushing back the brim of his hat. “Y’all stay quiet and follow my lead.”
He handed his horse’s reins to Hedges and set off toward the gate. Michael’s mouth flattened into a thin line as he watched his uncle walk away, one hand drifting toward the pistol under his coat.

There was a line of people waiting to get in, laden with heavy pack
s and carts full of trade items, but Zeb ignored them and walked straight up to the guards at the pedestrian entrance. A chorus of shouting and complaints went up in his wake.

“Hey
you, stop right there!” the guard closest to the doorway shouted, drawing a pistol. Zeb held up his hands.

“Come on now, Dale. Don’t tell me it’s been so long you don’t recognize me.”

The guard lowered his weapon and squinted. “Sheriff Austin? That you?”

Zeb smiled. “The one and only.”

The guard holstered his weapon and motioned him forward. “Just you,” he said. “Your men have to wait.”

Zeb turned. “You mind, fellas?”

“Not at all,” Ethan replied, “We’ll be right here.”

Zeb exchanged a few low sentences with Dale and two of the other
guards. After a few moments, he stabbed a finger behind him and made a series of impassioned gestures. The guards’ faces went pale. Dale leaned over and whispered something to one of them, who turned on his heel and sprinted through the gate. A few more words went back and forth before Zeb shook hands with the remaining guards and returned to brief the others.

“I told ‘em what’s happening, the short version anyway. They’re rounding up an escort to take us straight to the governor’s office.”

“You must have some serious pull around here,” Cole remarked. “Looks like these people trust you.”

“Fort Unity does a lot of business with this place, and I don’t just mean bartering. When marauders, or big hordes, or whatever else shows up, we send troops to help each other out.
Sort of an alliance, you see.”

Ethan nodd
ed. “Which is why you think they’ll help us with the swarm.”

“Exactly.”

Cole pointed over Zeb’s shoulder. “Looks like we’re about to find out.”

Six men approached them, all armed to the teeth, and at their head was a stocky
, middle-aged man of medium height with a bald head, broad shoulders, and a pair of hard, intelligent green eyes. He stopped in front of Ethan and Cole, subjected them to a brief, intense scrutiny, then turned to address Zeb.

“I appreciate you coming to warn us, Sheriff Austin.”

“It’s the least I could do. This is Staff Sergeant Ethan Thompson, and this is Sergeant Isaac Cole, both out of Fort Bragg. I ran into them back near Hamlet and told them about the trouble we’ve been having. They agreed to help me investigate Broken Bridge. I’m sure you remember Chris and Mike.”

Davis shook hands and exch
anged a quick greeting with them, then turned his attention back to the soldiers. “I’m Rory Davis, sheriff of Steel City.”

Ethan spoke
up, “Pleased to meet you sir.”

“Are you here on behalf of yourself, or the Army?”

“Both, actually. I volunteered for this mission, but I still take orders from Central Command.”

Davis gazed at him for a long moment, his expression giving nothing away.
“The governor will need to speak with you. I’ll escort you to her office.”

He turned
and walked back toward the gate while his men spread out on either side of Ethan and Cole. Zeb noticed the soldiers’ tension at being surrounded.

“
Take it easy fellas, they don’t mean any harm. There’s a lot of folks around here with ill feelings towards the military. This is for your protection.”

“I’m sure it is,” Ethan said, although he wasn’t sure at all.
Cole shot him a glare and shook his head, but didn’t argue.

Sheriff Davis’ men were impassiv
e as they led the soldiers through the gate.

*****

The first thing Ethan saw was the secondary wall.

Constructed much the same as the first one, it was
simply another ring of cargo containers—only one unit high this time—about thirty feet from the outer ring. Machine gun nests, sniper stations, and guard towers populated the top of the inner perimeter, which also boasted welded steel bulwarks for defenders to take cover behind. There was another gate, smaller than the one outside, but this one had been opened wide to allow access to the main gate. It was through here that Davis’ men led Ethan, and as they passed, he noticed that the sides of the containers bulged out a bit, as though under pressure from something inside them.

“Dirt,” Zeb said, noticing where Ethan was looking. “They’re all full of dirt. And rocks, and bricks, and concrete blocks, and anything else that might slow down a bullet. The containers themselves ain’t bulletproof, you know.”

That had occurred to Ethan, but he hadn’t bothered mentioning it. “Looks like a pretty solid place. Easy to defend, tough to attack. They’ve got some salvaged military hardware as well.” He pointed at a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted in a tower above them.

“That a problem, Sergeant?”

“Not at all. If anything, the Army will trade them ammo for food. We’ve got plenty of ordnance, it’s chow we’re always short on.”

“Hm. You might want to mention that to the governor when you talk to her.”

“I might do that.”

The buildings, homes, and b
usinesses were, much like the outer wall, made of shipping containers. Most of them were single units with windows and doorways cut out of the sides, but some were more creatively constructed. To Ethan’s left, he saw two containers stacked on top of each other with a third intersecting them in an L shape. The two containers on ground level held shelves and display stands stocked with vegetables, fish, live chickens, eggs, and still-bleeding cuts of wild hog, among which over a dozen people had gathered to peruse the goods and haggle with a pair of harried-looking clerks. The container stacked above the grocery stalls appeared to be living quarters, as evidenced by clothes hanging from lines on the roof and a pair of crudely wired solar panels next to a large antenna.

As they moved deeper into Steel C
ity, Ethan realized the town was laid out in a series of concentric circles except for the wide, triangular market plaza near the main gate. The smells and noise of the market faded behind him, transitioning into a calmer, more peaceful residential section. The container-houses were numerous enough to form streets and alleys, and Ethan quickly became lost as Davis’ men led him through a winding set of twists and turns.

Finally
, they arrived at a wooden building, which stood out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of metal surrounding it, where they were ordered to halt and surrender their weapons. They handed them over nervously, then followed Davis and his men inside. The building was small, only a little larger than a house, with a large, open lobby ringed by desks behind which city employees scribbled diligently and shuffled papers. Staircases ran up both of the far walls, leading to a line of offices on the upper floor fronted by a narrow balcony. As Ethan and the others entered, the people behind the desks—old women, for the most part—barely spared them a glance.

Ethan noticed
they kept only one hand on their desks, with the other below the tabletop, out of sight. He also noticed the desks were arranged such that if the clerks were to start shooting, they were out of each other’s line of fire.
Never underestimate old women with guns.

Davis motioned for everyon
e to follow him up the stairs, and just as Ethan’s foot was about to hit the first step, his radio crackled in his ear.

“Echo Lead, E
cho One. How copy?” Hicks’ voice was pitched low, almost a whisper.

Ethan stopped and held up a hand. “Hang on just a second. I’m getting a call from my scouts.” He keyed t
he mike. “Copy loud and clear, Echo One. What’s your sitrep? Over.”

“
We’re about four miles or so south of Steel City. I think the Ragman’s plannin’ to stop for a little while. He led his horde off the road and stopped ‘em under a cliff on the sheer side of a hill.”