Running Towards The Abyss Page 17

  “I bet they’ve got a lot of food over at that college just waiting on us,” Hoss chimed in. “If Joey and Wesley saw fifty or more people, they’re keeping ‘em fed somehow.”

  “Yeah,” said Don, angrily. “They’re eating good ‘cuz they cleaned out our safe house. I think we need to load up while we’re there and restock some of our supplies.”

  “Look,” Joey cut in, taking another puff off of the bong. “We’ve got to stay focused here,” tilting his head back and blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. “We’re going to be outnumbered real bad. I think we stick to the plan of getting in, taking out that guy, and grabbing the hot chick. If she resists, we kill her, too, and then bug out.

  “We can try to grab whatever’s close, but they have a security team and they aren’t going to just let us walk in there, kill one of ‘em, kidnap a girl, grab a big load of supplies, and then leave. And we don’t know if anybody else besides Dodd is going to join us or not. Hopefully, we’ll have better luck tomorrow when we visit some more of 5-0’s people.”

  “What do we do if we strike out again tomorrow?” Wesley asked.

  Bo Harris spoke up. “We’re still going whether we get anybody else or not, right, Joey?” The statement was as much of a challenge as it was a question. “That man killed my daddy and I’m gonna kill him. And that girl you two saw needs to pay as well, but we can let her pay on installments.”

  Several of the other gang members laughed at Bo’s crude joke.

  Joey looked around the room and saw everybody staring at him. Was he tough enough to keep leading them? This seemed to be the unspoken question. He took a swallow of beer and made eye contact with Bo.

  “Oh, yeah, we’re going. Sunday night. And if it’s just us, we’ll do the best we can. You guys need to know, there’s a lot of people on that campus. Like I said, I counted at least fifty and there’s probably more than that. We’re really going to have to figure out the best way to get in, and we’re going to need to be really sneaky. They’re going to have us outgunned but I reckon those college students ain’t never seen any real action. We’ll go by one of the other safe houses beforehand and make sure we’ve got plenty of firepower and ammo. Plus, we need to restock our food,” he said, nodding at his brother.

  Bo sat back and nodded, satisfied, enjoying another pull on the smoking bong when it was passed to him. He hoped that he was the one who got to put a bullet into that big bastard’s head for killing his old man. And he planned on being the first one to enjoy that sweet girl. Maybe they could even grab a couple more of those little college cuties while they were at it.

  The Northeast Georgia Technical College, Lavonia, Georgia, Friday, 1930 hours

  They had started in Chuck’s room. Beth had lit the three candles that were in the sitting room. In the candlelight, Chuck handed Elizabeth her present. It was a 9mm Glock 19 pistol. He gave her three magazines, ammo and a holster to go with it. He had found the gun in the stash at the kidnappers’ house, no doubt stolen off of someone else whom they had ambushed.

  “I want you to wear this or carry it on you all the time. I know you guys have a security team, but I’d feel so much better knowing you have a firearm to protect yourself. It’s a little bit different from that Springfield that you were carrying, but we’ve got two days for me to give you some lessons.”

  Beth’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I’d like you to give me some lessons, Mr. McCain. Up close and personal, just like last time? Yes, please!”

  He laughed and said, “I bet you would. I’d offer you a drink to warm you up but the only thing I have is some bourbon and we both know that you and whiskey don’t mix so well.”

  Now it was her turn to giggle. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? I’m not even sure what all I said.”

  “Trust me, it was memorable.”

  “Well?” she grabbed at his ribs, trying to tickle him. “Aren’t you going to tell me? How about if you come over to my room? I have a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that I’ve managed to hoard and I’d love to share it with you and maybe loosen your tongue up a little.”

  “Do you think we need a chaperone?” he asked. “I don’t want your neighbors spreading rumors about how you were spending time alone in your room with a strange man.”

  Benton chuckled. “If you knew all the hanky-panky that’s happening in this dorm, you’d be shocked. I mean think about it. There isn’t a lot going on and entertainment options are limited. I’m just hoping no one ends up pregnant. We don’t have any doctors here and I don’t know if Karen has ever delivered any babies. That would create a whole different type of campus drama.”

  They sipped their wine in the flickering candlelight of Beth’s small living room. Elizabeth was feeling better now and both of them enjoyed sitting, talking, and continuing to get to know each other better. Chuck had shown her how to wear the Glock after attaching the leather holster to one of her belts. The gun sat perfectly against her right hip. McCain planned on working with Benton as much as he could over the next two days, helping her to become familiar with the pistol, teaching her how to draw and fire it.

  After several glasses of wine, Chuck knew he needed to go back to his room and get some sleep. Before he could get up, though, Elizabeth set her glass down, moving onto Chuck’s lap, straddling him. They kissed for several minutes until Beth finally laid her head against his chest.

  “Take me with you when you leave,” she said, quietly. “I can help you.”

  He didn’t answer her right away. McCain had known this conversation would come and he wanted to handle it correctly. He kissed her on top of the head and said, “No, I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?” she asked, pleading. “You know you need a driver. You saw how well I drove on the way up here. It’s dangerous out there for one person on their own.”

  “I know, but there are two reasons why I’m not taking you,” Chuck answered. “Number one, these people all need you here. You’re one of the primary leaders and they’re looking to you for guidance. You know that your place is here, at least for now.

  “Number two, I love you and I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt. There are no guarantees that I can protect you where I’m going. I’m not even sure I can protect myself. If I end up having to worry about you out on the road, I might get both of us killed, and the thought of that scares me more than us being apart. Stay here. You’ll be safe and they need your leadership.”

  “Ok,” she said, resignedly. “I won’t argue with you, but you’re wrong about one thing. My place isn’t here anymore. My place is with you. Even while we’re apart, my heart will be with you, so you’d better hurry back to claim it!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Evil Intentions

  The Northeast Georgia Technical College, Lavonia, Georgia, Saturday, 1000 hours

  Chuck and Jake walked across a wet, grassy field towards the edge of the technical college’s campus. With the daytime temperatures in the mid-forties, most of the snow had melted, leaving just a few patches where the sun had not yet reached. Back to their right was the main driveway coming into the campus, as well as Admin and several other buildings.

  McCain was wearing his pistol belt, his body armor over his sweatshirt, and his rifle slung across his chest. Nicholson was similarly attired with a Sig Sauer Sig516 rifle slung over his shoulder. His Kimber pistol was secured in a holster on his side and a lit cigarette hung from his mouth.

  “That’s a nice .45 you’ve got,” Chuck said.

  “I love my Kimber. I’ve always been a big fan of big bullets. What about you? Are you really a 9 mil fan or is that just what you had to carry for work?”

  “I guess it’s both. This is my issued Glock 17, but I like the .45. I even carried one early in my police career. But I know for a fact that if hadn’t been for the high capacity of my Glock I wouldn’t be here. Starting off with eighteen rounds before I have to reload has kept me from getting eaten by zombies several times.”

  �
�Fair enough,” Jake shrugged. “Whatever works. When the first wave of Zs came through here, me and Jason put them down with .22s. I had a Ruger 10/22 rifle and he had a Browning Buckmark pistol. We both had other guns with us but we wanted to see if the little bullets would work.”

  “It sounds like they did,” Chuck commented.

  “Mostly. We used the .22s because we didn’t have any idea how many zombies were in the area and we didn’t want the sound of our shots to carry. The main problem we saw with the little bullets was it occasionally took two or three shots to put one down. Those rim fires didn’t always penetrate the skull as well as I would’ve liked, but yeah, they worked.”

  Nicholson actually moved quite well on his prosthetic leg over the large field surrounding the campus. The school had open space of several hundred yards from the college buildings to the forest that encircled it. This was a large buffer-zone for sentries to pick off Zs or criminals who tried to cross during the day. Of course, at night it would be a different matter entirely because no one on campus had night-vision goggles.

  “How’d Elizabeth take it when you said you were leaving Monday?” Jake asked.

  Chuck shook his head. “About as well as could be expected. You saw her at dinner. When she heard what I said, she looked like she was going to be sick.”

  “I told you it was gonna be a tough sell. That girl’s in love with you and I hope you don’t break her heart.”

  “Man, I already feel bad enough. I’ve fallen in love with Beth and I don’t want to see her get killed. It would just be too risky to take her along.”

  Nicholson nodded. “You’re right. It’s dangerous out there. I’ve got her Cherokee over at the shop where we teach auto repair and some of my students are going to fix it up for her. You guys had an eventful ride. A bullet hole, a damaged front end, a smashed windshield, and a really nice coating of blood and gore.”

  They were almost to the edge of the forest, when Jake paused and turned to McCain. “For what’s it worth, we’ll take care of Elizabeth for you. I’m not letting her go out on any more raids. I didn’t want her to go on that one but she insisted, saying she needed to lead by example. She has nothing more to prove and, like I said last night, I’m not sending any more of our women out. There are plenty of other ways to keep them busy around here.”

  McCain was thankful for Nicholson’s words. Beth did not need any more adventures.

  Chuck had asked for the walk around the edge of the forest so he could look for likely entrance points. With only one driveway, there was a real possibility for intruders to sneak in through the forest. McCain wanted to see how good Nicholson’s security measures were on the far edge of the perimeter.

  “We really have two perimeters,” Jake said, stopping and pointing at the edge of the woods. “This is the outer one. We’ve got trip flares set up ten feet inside the wood line on anything that even looks like a trail or an access point.”

  “That’s cool. Where’d you get the flares?” McCain nodded, peering intently into the woods.

  “I’ve always loved this kind of stuff. I’m a Marine, after all. I already had some but we looted an Army-Navy Surplus Store a while back and found all kinds of useful items.”

  “Have you ever had animals trip them?” Chuck could see that the undergrowth was not very thick here, making it easy to see almost a hundred yards deep into the hardwood forest.

  “Maybe it was an animal. We had one go off in the middle of the night a month or so ago. We got into position and waited. One of my security guys fired a couple of flares up into the air to illuminate the area, but we never saw anything.

  “We did have zombies trip some flares one night not long after we killed that first batch at the barricade. Eight of those nasty things came stumbling through the forest one night at 0200hrs. Tina was in my office manning communications and I was actually sleeping in my own bed for a change. I heard the whistles, which is what we use to call everyone to action, so I jumped up, threw my stuff on, and got there before the shooting started.

  “It was good that I was there. When those kids started shooting, they couldn’t hit crap. We threw up some flares and killed all of them inside fifty yards. After the last one fell, I looked down and realized I’d forgotten my pants. I’d put my leg on, thrown on my web gear, grabbed my rifle, but I forgot my pants and showed up in my boxers.”

  McCain laughed. “I bet that made a lasting impression on the guys.”

  “It would’ve been OK if it had been guys, but most of the security working that night were girls.”

  Chuck smiled and shook his head. “And you’ve got the trip flares around the entire campus?”

  “Mostly. We started running short so we didn’t rig the areas where the forest is the thickest behind the school. So, yes, it’s not as secure as I’d prefer but we only have so many flares. We put a couple back there, just not many.”

  Jake started walking again, wanting to continue the tour. McCain was still staring into the forest.

  “What’s on the other side of these woods, Jake?”

  Nicholson stopped when he realized McCain wasn’t following him. “Nothing really. Adams Farm Road is the main road in front of the school. Why?”

  “How far through the woods is that road?”

  “A few hundred yards, I guess.”

  “Can you show me where the flares are so I don’t trip them? I want to take a look at something.”

  Jake hesitated. “Sure. I was wanting to walk you around the rest of the perimeter, though.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” Chuck said, “but I want to check something out. I want to see how easy it would be to get through these woods. If you want to wait here, no problem. I can catch up with you later if you don’t want to go.”

  “I’ll come with you; I need to show you where the flares are anyway,” Jake responded, hearing the slight challenge in Chuck’s voice.

  Nicholson guided the two of them around trip wires until they were inside the woods. “Now what?” he asked.

  McCain didn’t answer as he stepped past Nicholson, concentrating on the ground in front of him, moving deeper into the forest. Ten minutes later, Chuck stopped suddenly and knelt down, pointing to fresh footprints making a trail towards the school. Jake’s eyes widened at the tracks that had been left behind on the muddy ground.

  “Do your teams come into the woods?” Chuck asked quietly.

  Jake shook his head. “No, these aren’t ours. My people don’t have the training to patrol the forest.”

  McCain knew the prints were at least a day old but he didn’t want to take any chances, silently clicking the selector on his rifle to “Auto.” He motioned to Nicholson to follow him and cover their rear. The muddy tracks looked like they had been created by two people wearing boots. Chuck and Jake moved slowly for a hundred and fifty yards, climbing a slight ridge, and stopping at a large downed pine tree.

  Chuck saw the indentions where two intruders had lain. He got down on his stomach, peering under the tree. He figured they were a hundred and twenty yards inside the wood line and then another hundred yards from the Admin building. One would not have a commanding view of the campus from here but could observe this area near the entrance completely undetected. I wonder if our visitors have been watching any other parts of the campus? he pondered.

  “These are very fresh tracks,” McCain said, getting to his feet and pointing to the ground. “I’m guessing whoever they are were here within the last twenty-four hours.”

  Nicholson nodded, clearly disturbed by this news. “What now?”

  “Let’s follow the prints back to where they entered the woods and see what we can see.”

  Twenty minutes later, the two men exited the woods at a gray double-wide trailer with a dirt driveway, noting with alarm the fresh tire tracks and two more sets of boot prints. Nicholson and McCain moved cautiously behind the abandoned residence, where they saw the back door standing open. A quick search of the interior revealed that it was
empty except for some old furniture that had been left behind.

  Standing next to the fresh tracks on the driveway, Jake looked at Chuck with new respect. “How’d you know?”

  McCain shrugged. “I didn’t. It’s just that the trees on this side of the campus are mostly hardwoods, so the undergrowth isn’t very thick. Definitely not where I’d approach from, but the guys that we’re dealing with strike me as the type to take the path of least resistance. And if it’s the same ones I saw at the kidnappers’ house, it’s no surprise they’d be doing a little recon if they figured out where we are from the school ID cards.”

  “You said yesterday you didn’t think they’d try anything.”

  “Who knows how criminals think?” Chuck smiled bitterly. “I can’t imagine that small group I saw trying to assault this campus but obviously, someone has been here, seeing what they could see.”

  Jake led them back to the school property and they continued walking around the campus. The rest of the forest surrounding the college was thick with undergrowth and briars, Chuck noticed. As they completed their loop of the outer perimeter, two members of the campus security team approached them.

  One was a tall, slim man in his thirties wearing glasses with a pistol belt over his jeans and web gear over his black coat. The other was a muscular younger man wearing black cargo pants, a cammo jacket, with a large black canvas pouch attached to his belt. The older of the two was carrying a tricked-out AR-15 with a flashlight attached to the front rail and a ACOG scope mounted on top of the gun. His companion cradled a scoped, bolt-action hunting rifle with a black composite stock. Both men had whistles hanging around their necks. They paused as they got to McCain and Nicholson.