Running Towards The Abyss Read online

  “Ok, that’s enough for now. Good job,” said McCain. “Let’s take a break and then come back in a little while and work on using a rifle.”

  Benton made a face at him. “My shoulders and back are sore. This is a lot of work.”

  “True story. You’re using some muscles you haven’t thought about for awhile. Hopefully, you’ll keep practicing what I teach you and become a deadly weapon. These are dangerous days we’re living in, Elizabeth Benton, and I want you to be prepared to protect yourself.”

  “Did you teach Melanie to shoot?” she asked.

  Chuck smiled at the memory. “I sure did. I was known as the cool dad because I would take her and her friends shooting when they were teenagers. As Mel got older, I tried to take her to the range regularly. Of course, she lost interest and didn’t want shoot as much as I did. I’d have to bribe her by taking her out to a nice restaurant after we left the range.

  “When she started dating Brian, it turned out that he was a gun guy and loved to shoot. On one of their first dates, he took Melanie shooting at range near the UGA campus. She told me later that she outshot him with one of his own guns.”

  “Nice!” said Elizabeth. “I hope I get to meet her one day.”

  A cloud passed over Chuck’s face but he forced a smile. “I’m sure we’ll cross paths again. Remember, I promised to take you and Mel out to eat.”

  McCain walked into the kitchen to check the temperature. It was a sunny day and the skies were clear for the first time in almost a week. Thirty-nine degrees. We’re getting there, he thought. Maybe tomorrow, Beth and I can get out of here, return her home, stick around at the college for a day or two, and then I can be on my way.

  Firearms instruction can be a very hands-on process. The instructor will often need to help the student make small adjustments in their stance or grip. Chuck was a very good firearms instructor but he found that being so close to Elizabeth was a definite distraction.

  He spent a much longer time teaching her to use the AR-15 rifle because it was a more complicated gun. He taught her how to load the weapon using an empty magazine for safety, as well as how the long gun functioned. Then he had her stand up and worked with on her grip, stance, and aiming the rifle.

  As Chuck stood behind her with his arms reaching around the young woman to adjust her grip, Beth leaned into him, looking into his eyes, and smiling. “If you wanted to hug me, you should’ve just said so. This gun is getting heavy.”

  “You’ve got to take this seriously,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Plus, it’s not nice to tease an old man. It’s not good for my heart. Now come on, let’s work this.”

  “Hang on,” she said, lowering the AR-15. “How old are you? I’m guessing forty.”

  “Bless you, my child,” McCain said. “I’m forty-four. And I’m guessing you’re all of twenty-seven?”

  “Close. Good guess. I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Ok, now that we’ve established that I’m old enough to be your father, let’s get back to work.”

  Abandoned house, Thursday, 1600 hours

  Chuck had kept an eye on the thermometer throughout the day and knew that it was forty-three degrees outside and the sun was starting to do its work. The snow on the driveway was thawing and the snow in the yard was turning back into water. He could see the ice on the street in front of their house becoming slush.

  He began mentally planning the drive back to the Northeast Georgia Technical College. It was approximately a fifteen to twenty mile drive, depending on their route. That was a lot of driving in a world where bands of robbers or Zs could be waiting around any corner to ambush them.

  The interstate was close by, but he had seen and experienced first-hand the dangers of using it for travel. The surface streets presented their own set of dangers but were a better choice. When the thousands of zombies swept up the interstates leading out of Atlanta weeks earlier, they had left destruction in their wake. Sections of the interstate were completely impassable, with hundreds of abandoned and wrecked vehicles, as well as the remains of the victims. Many zombies still lingered, watching and waiting for their next meal.

  From what McCain had seen, the side streets would give them a better chance of success. He wished he had another of his shooters with them in the car to even the odds. How great would it be to have Andy or Scotty with him? Or Eddie and Jimmy or any of the other CDC agents? But, they were taking care of their own families and loved ones. Chuck and Elizabeth would have to do the best they could.

  “Really?” Beth squealed, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly when Chuck told her of his plan to leave the next day. He hugged her back, enjoying the moment.

  When she finally released her grip and stepped back, McCain saw tears in her eyes. Her left eye was still bruised, matching his own black eye, but most of the swelling on her face was gone. And it was such a pretty face, he thought, staring at her. Beth looked up at him, gazing into his eyes, a sad smile on her face.

  “It’s been a traumatic few days, hasn’t it?” he asked her, sensing what she was feeling.

  Elizabeth nodded her head, wiping the tears off her face with the University of Alabama sweatshirt she was still wearing.

  “What do I tell them at the school? How do I explain why I’m alive when everyone else got killed? I guess I still feel guilty.” She hung her head.

  Chuck nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Remember what we talked about. Feeling guilty is normal but it wasn’t your fault. I’m going back with you and I’ll help you tell them what happened. I think everyone’s going to be so glad to see you. And I’m holding you to your promise. You promised me hot showers, hot chow, and clean clothes.”

  Benton managed a smile, the torrent of emotions flowing through her now including feelings for the big man standing in front of her. “I’m glad you’ll stay for a few days. I want everyone to meet you so I can tell them what a superhero you are.”

  Chuck laughed, embarrassed. “Okay. Right now, I’d like you to practice some more with your rifle and pistol. We have a long drive through hostile territory tomorrow and we may need your gun fighting skills before the day is over.”

  For the next hour and a half, Beth practiced her weapons handling with a newfound intensity. Chuck didn’t try to overwhelm her with knowledge. The main things he stressed were getting the gun on target quickly, focusing on the front sight, and not jerking the trigger. These skills were just scratching the surface of what she really needed to know but, for now, they would have to do.

  Their dinner consisted of more cold canned meals. Elizabeth had chicken vegetable soup, while Chuck found a can of beans and franks. They enjoyed a bottle of California Chardonnay, sharing the only drinking glass Beth could find in the kitchen. She’d insisted on the wine, telling McCain it was their last night together in the cold house and promising not to drink too much.

  “What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?” she asked him, as the sunlight began to wane, and the living room darkened.

  “Hopefully, nothing. Maybe we’ll just drive straight through and get to the college without incident. But we do have to be prepared in case we lose the vehicle.”

  “Lose the vehicle?” Benton repeated, the alarm evident in her voice.

  “Remember, the guys that got you also took your car. I didn’t tell you before, but I lost two vehicles the first two days after I started my trip.”

  “What? How did you lose two cars in two days?” she asked incredulously.

  Chuck lived east of the small town of Dacula, in what was still a somewhat rural area northeast of Atlanta. McCain had bought his house twelve years earlier, just as Metro Atlanta exploded with growth. His quiet neighborhood was just one of many that had sprung up.

  When Chuck had started his journey three and half weeks earlier, he’d left his personal Chevrolet Silverado locked in the garage at his house. Instead, he took one of the gray Nissan Armadas his men had rented after losing their government issued SUVs durin
g the fight against the zombie hordes in Atlanta a few months earlier.

  One of his teammates, Scotty Smith, along with his paramedic girlfriend, Emily Clark, had been staying with McCain since the zombies had overrun Atlanta. Smith’s apartment was near ground zero where the dirty bombs had detonated, while Clark lived west of the city, eliminating the possibility of either going back to their homes.

  Chuck had told them to stay as long as they needed a place to live, but he was leaving to find his daughter. With the communication grid down, he hadn’t spoken to Melanie in months and he had to know that she was OK. Scotty felt an intense loyalty to Chuck, the kind of loyalty that comes when men experience battle together. Emily, however, was planning on traveling to her brother’s house near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where her parents had managed to escape to. McCain could see that his friend and teammate was torn between wanting to help him or staying with the woman with whom he had fallen in love.

  “Scotty, Emily needs you more that I do,” McCain said, loading his supplies into the Armada.

  “I know, Chuck, but it’s going to be dangerous out there on the road by yourself. Man, I’m sorry. I feel like I’m letting you down,” the former Army Ranger sniper said, hanging his head.

  “You’ve never let me down, Scotty. You take care of that girl and secure my house when you leave. I left the gun safe open. Take whatever you need and lock it up, too.”

  “Do you think Andy and Eddie and the guys are going to be OK over there at the CDC site?”

  Chuck shrugged. “I hope so. I gave them the option of leaving but Eddie and Andy didn’t want to risk their families’ safety trying to get to their relatives. Eddie’s people are in Illinois and Andy’s are in central Florida. Those are both long drives with zombies and bad guys along the way. Hollywood has stayed in close contact with his folks in LA until things fell apart and California wasn’t affected as much as we were on the east coast. Jimmy told me he may try to get to Athens to find Grace.”

  Andy Fleming, Eddie Marshall, Jimmy Jones, and Alejandro “Hollywood” Estrada were a part of the CDC Enforcement Unit. Fleming and Marshall were both team leaders, and Estrada was on Eddie’s team. Jimmy was Eddie’s assistant team leader. Dr. Charles Martin, the Assistant Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the CDC, had agreed to allow Fleming and Marshall to house their families inside the CDC compound if the two men would oversee the security of the facility. Jones and Hollywood were both single and had also volunteered to stay at the rural location, assisting in keeping it safe.

  “I’m proud of them for staying,” Chuck continued. “If it wasn’t for Melanie, I’d stay, too.”

  Smith grabbed his boss in a bear hug. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Emily came out of the house as Chuck was preparing to start his journey. She embraced him tightly and said, “Thanks for taking care of us, Chuck,” kissing him on the cheek.

  Clark had been the paramedic who had patched up Scotty and Andy, after they were both shot and wounded in a gun fight with terrorists trying to spread the zombie virus in the initial bio-terror attacks. Smith had convinced Emily to give him her phone number and they had been dating for a couple of months.

  McCain smiled at her. “You look after Scotty. Good luck on getting to your parents and remember, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.”

  He left his house at 0800 hours, saying a silent prayer for protection for himself, Melanie, Scotty and Emily, and all the men who had worked for him. Chuck had heard reports of homes being broken into by roving bands of thugs. Some of Atlanta’s notorious gangs had fled into the suburbs when the Zs took over the city.

  As criminals moved into the affluent suburbs, citizens attempted to protect their homes. In many cases, the second amendment worked as it was intended to, and residents were able to protect their families and property by shooting these intruders. In other cases, criminals with no concern for human life slaughtered innocent victims who had something that they wanted.

  The reality was that, for the moment anyway, society was breaking down. Very few, if any, police officers were working anymore, so no one was left to keep the peace. With the breakdown of the power and communications systems, most officers had decided to abandon their posts and focus on getting their own families to safety. McCain couldn’t blame them.

  He and his two CDC teams had worked as long as they could. They had performed a number of rescue missions around the city, saving people who were trapped in their homes when the zombies came through. Once Chuck lost contact with the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency, however, he had sent his men home for the last time with orders to get their families somewhere safe. He allowed them to keep all their weapons and equipment and got each team member to write down their escape locations so he could get in touch with them later.

  As zombies and gangs continued to wreak havoc, National Guard troops were finally released to supplement the local police in killing the Zs and curbing the lawlessness. In reality, the Guard did not have the training or skill sets to be effective. Roadblocks manned by troops were overrun by zombies or criminals.

  Citizen soldiers operated under very strict rules of engagement when dealing with living, breathing people. The roving gangs did not have any rules of engagement, ambushing the roadblocks, killing the soldiers, and stealing their vehicles and weapons. In other cases, robbers simply waited until zombies overran National Guard positions and then just walked in and took the equipment they wanted.

  Chuck’s house was over ten miles east of the interstate. His plan was to take surface streets that paralleled the highway for his trek northeast to Hartwell, but he wanted to at least scout out I-85 and see how it looked. Georgia Highway 20 was a large interchange where the interstate crossed the four-lane road. McCain intended to take the ramp up to the interstate and see if it looked passable. He didn’t want to get stuck on I-85 but if it was reasonably clear, he might use it to go north as far as he could.

  There were cars scattered all along most of the surface streets the closer he got to the interstate. Partially eaten bodies were becoming a common sight, as well. He saw several small groups of infected loitering on the side of the road and in the parking lot of a convenience store near the interchange. As the big Nissan SUV rumbled by, the zombies heard the noise, and began to follow.

  The overpass was only about a quarter of a mile away and Chuck’s senses went on alert as he scanned the area looking for threats. Just as he started to turn up the northbound entrance ramp to I-85, he saw movement on the bridge. Three figures and the glint of sun off glass let him know that things had just taken a turn for the worse.

  To his right, McCain saw that the ramp was blocked by a tractor trailer and four passenger cars. He might have been able to get around it but the heavy bang of a bullet impacting the front of his Armada urged him to find cover fast. The sound of the gunshot was followed by another, this one punching a hole through the middle of the windshield, shattering it, and striking the passenger door.

  McCain accelerated towards the closest safe place, under the bridge. The overpass was close now, just a hundred yards away. Another bullet thudded into the metal hood of the Nissan, sparks shooting into the air. Two other weapons joined the shooting now, their bullets striking the engine compartment and the top of the SUV. Chuck jerked the steering wheel to the right and to the left, trying to throw off their aim. A rifle round found his left front tire, deflating it immediately, making the vehicle difficult to steer.

  Red emergency lights began flashing on the dashboard. Just a little further, he thought. He smashed down the power button praying that his window would go down in time for him to get off some shots. Thankfully he was left-handed, and drawing his Glock, McCain quickly fired ten shots in the direction of his attackers. Another bullet smashed through the roof of the Armada, just missing his head but striking his headrest as he fired out the window. The attackers’ gunfire ceased as the smoking SUV rolled to
a stop underneath the bridge.

  Chuck did a quick reload of his pistol as he was exiting the vehicle. He grabbed his backpack and his rifle, running across the oncoming lanes of the highway, scrambling up the bridge embankment, and hiding behind one of the concrete pillars on the opposite side of the road. The zombies that had been following him were over five hundred yards away, still shuffling in his direction, the gunshots agitating them, and making them growl even louder than normal.

  Two minutes later, McCain heard voices and saw three figures cautiously maneuvering down the embankment on the far side of the roadway. The three men were all in their twenties, all carrying long guns. One of them was heavyset with long brown hair and a full beard, carrying a bolt-action, scoped hunting rifle. Another had a shaved head and goatee and was armed with an AR-15. The third man was thin but carried himself with a military bearing. He was carrying an AK-47 and wore a chest rig with extra magazines.

  Their voices were amplified under the bridge. The man with the AK was clearly angry. “I told you not to shoot the engine, you dumb ass. The goal was to kill the driver, not the car, so we’d have a ride.”

  “I’m sorry, JT,” the larger man with the hunting rifle said. “I think my scope got knocked out of whack when I dropped it. Those shots weren’t even close to where I was aiming. I know I hit him, though. That last shot probably got him right between the eyes.”

  “Well, let’s see what he’s got and then get out of here before those zombies get to us.”