Running Towards The Abyss Read online

  “Hey, Jake, Mr. McCain,” the senior of the two said. “What brings you way out here?”

  “Robert, Todd,” Nicholson acknowledged. “I’m just showing our guest around. You guys see or hear anything?”

  Both men shook their heads. “All quiet,” Robert answered.

  Jake told them of their discovery of intruders. The concern was evident on both their faces.

  “For now, gentlemen, let’s keep this quiet,” Nicholson said. “I don’t want to cause a panic. I’ll brief the rest of the security team later.”

  Both men nodded in agreement.

  Jake looked at Chuck, his hand on the shoulder of his sentry with the AR-15. “Robert teaches in our Computer Information Systems Program but he’s also a competitive shooter. He’s helped me with a lot of the firearms training for our people. He’s a really good instructor. Todd’s a student in our Emergency Medical Technician Program. It’s always good to have an EMT around.”

  McCain smiled at the men. “Nice to meet you, Robert. Todd and I met briefly yesterday when he let Elizabeth and me in at the roadblock.”

  “Mr. McCain, I haven’t gotten a chance to thank you for what you did out there and for bringing Elizabeth back,” Robert said, extending his hand. Todd nodded in agreement.

  “Please, call me ‘Chuck,’” he said, taking the proffered hand. “I’m glad I was there for Elizabeth. I’m sorry about your other friends.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Todd replied.

  Robert and Todd continued their patrol while Jake and Chuck walked back across the field towards the inner perimeter. Nicholson motioned at the retreating figures. “We run two patrols at a time. Those guys will walk the outer circle like you and I did. I have another pair who have the inner ring. Since we don’t have any night-vision, once darkness hits, both pairs walk the inner ring.”

  The secondary perimeter of which Nicholson was speaking was the outer sidewalk encircling the school’s buildings. McCain had only been on the interior sidewalks during his short stay at the college. Jake walked him around the walkway and showed him the fighting positions they had set up every hundred and fifty feet. Most of them were three- or four-person foxholes surrounded by sandbags.

  “We’re limited in the number of people that we have so there are times when I have to pair up a male and a female to patrol the perimeter together. That hasn’t worked out so well. I get out and walk all hours of the day or night to check on our teams and I’ve caught them making out instead of patrolling.”

  “They have the same problem in the military,” McCain smiled. “I mean, what could possibly go wrong with assigning a nineteen year old guy and a nineteen year old girl to sentry duty out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Call me old-fashioned,” Jake admitted. “I just don’t feel comfortable pairing up two girls. I think it’s safer having at least one male per team, but I’ve never caught two women making out with each other. I just feel better having some guys out there. Today, Robert and Todd are together and Jessica and Maria are together. One pair works the outer perimeter, the others have the inner one for a while and then they swap.”

  “Complacency breeds a casual attitude,” Chuck commented. “When I was a street cop, a road sergeant, that was one of the few things that earned one of my officers an ass-chewing. If they didn’t use good tactics and didn’t have their head in the game, I’d be all over them.”

  Nicholson nodded in agreement. “It was the same with my guys and girls in Iraq. We were in a war zone but because we weren’t frontline troops I was always having to adjust somebody’s attitude.”

  “I’m sorry for being nosy,” said McCain, after they had almost finished their loop of the sidewalk, “but Tina got kind of emotional last night when I was talking about finding my daughter. I got the feeling that there are some issues with her kids?”

  Nicholson looked at his companion, trying to decide what to say. He finally sighed. “Yeah. You’re right. She has a son and a daughter but has no idea what’s become of them. Her loser of an ex-husband dumped her several years ago and ran off with his secretary. Tina’s kids are her life and she’s a great mom. Her son, John, joined the army after high school and drives tanks. Guess where he ended up?”

  “Iran?”

  “You got it. It wasn’t a long war but he was over there when the Iranian terrorists launched those last virus attacks here. She feels that he’s probably safe at some base in the Middle East somewhere.

  “Her daughter, Missy, is another story. She moved to Manhattan a few years ago to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. She’s actually had a few roles, both on and off Broadway.”

  Jake looked across the campus. “Missy texted her mom right after the car bomb went off near the 9/11 Memorial. She was only five or six blocks away, walking to a job interview, and heard the explosion. Tina told her to find some place safe and get off the street. She never heard from her again.”

  Chuck closed his eyes. “Man, that just sucks. I won’t say anything to her unless she brings it up.”

  The two men ended the tour back at the administration building where Jake pulled out a master key, and opening the front door, motioned for Chuck to go in first. Tina sat at a desk, formerly the domain of the receptionist, with six field telephones in front of her. A large map of the college campus hung on the wall next to her.

  “And this is the communications center,” Nicholson said, with a laugh. “We have walkie talkies but they’re useless since we have no electricity and they have to be recharged. These field phones only need D batteries to work and we have a pretty good stock of those. Anything going on, Beautiful?”

  Tina smiled, but saw something in Jake’s eyes. “No, all quiet. Did you see anything?”

  “We’ve had people watching us,” he answered, telling her what Chuck had found.

  She didn’t say anything, trying to imagine what it might mean. Jake stepped over, putting his arm around Tina’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. It’s gonna be OK,” he told her, kissing her on the lips. The woman’s eyes opened wide in surprise and embarrassment, looking over at Chuck. She gently pushed Jake away.

  “Not now, Jake. Sorry, Chuck,” she said.

  “Don’t apologize to him,” Nicholson said, grinning. “I mean, he’s in love with a girl half his age.”

  McCain laughed. “Amazing, huh? A sweet girl like Elizabeth falling for an old guy like me?”

  “You’re not that old, Chuck,” Miles said.

  “Sure, he is!” grinned Jake. “Of course, I’ve got my hands full with you.” He leaned over and tried to kiss Tina again. She laughed, turning away, and he only managed to get her cheek.

  “See, what I mean? Tina’s too fast for me, but she’s got me wrapped around her little finger.”

  “After all that Elizabeth’s been through, we’re glad to see her happy again, thanks to you,” Tina said, nodding at Chuck with a warm smile.

  Nicholson nodded. “That’s true, my dear. Where was I, McCain? The good-looking redhead in the room distracted me. Oh, yeah, the field telephones. We snagged six pairs from that army surplus store. There’s one at the main entrance roadblock, and another four are divided out among the fighting positions I showed you on the inner perimeter. The sentries are supposed to call in as they walk around the sidewalk. It takes ten to fifteen minutes to get from phone to phone if they aren’t rushing or making out. The last phone is in my room so Tina or whoever’s working the switchboard can reach me.

  “Again, not perfect, but between the phones, whistles, and the sound of gunfire, we should be able to determine pretty quickly where a potential intruder might be. We have a quick response force that is supposed to respond to any alarm within five minutes or less. We’ve drilled the QRF, but in the middle of the night, in a crisis, who knows how they’ll respond?

  “So now that you’ve seen everything and, especially since we know that we’ve had some intruders, I’d like your feedback. Like you said, sometimes a fresh set of eye
s might see something that I’ve missed and obviously I missed something really big. But, I think that a conversation of that magnitude needs to be handled over a glass or three of that nice bourbon you have.”

  Chuck laughed. “Sure, Jake. No problem. Let me go check in with Beth and see what she’s up to. I also want to use your gym to get a workout in, so let’s plan on connecting later this afternoon.”

  East of Carnesville, Georgia, Saturday, 1500 hours

  The three-car convoy turned onto the dirt driveway several miles outside of Carnesville. This was their last stop of the day. None of Carter’s other team leaders or gang members wanted to be part of Joey and Wesley’s raid on the college campus. They were content to ride out the zombie apocalypse, robbing and looting wherever they could, but a suicide mission? Not so much.

  Greg Davis peered out the blinds of his single-wide trailer, clutching his Mossberg .12 gauge pump shotgun. He’d known they’d come for him, he just hadn’t known when. Davis watched the nine men exit the two pickups and the passenger car. Surprisingly, he didn’t see 5-0 with them. He figured Carter would handle this one himself, or have sent Neil Dodd. Neil was almost as scary as 5-0.

  Greg recognized Joey Lester and Wesley Maddox and assumed the rest of the men with them were their gang. They were all armed, which was normal in the current state of affairs, but that fact only heightened Greg’s paranoia. While Davis knew who Lester and Maddox were, he had never known 5-0 to use them for his enforcement or disciplinary duties. Maybe 5-0 had promoted them? Or would coming after him be a demotion?

  Greg’s memory of the previous week’s events was a bit hazy, but he hadn’t forgotten the fear he’d felt watching that big man, who had called himself ‘Chuck,’ gun down Tonya and then threaten to kill him. Thankfully, the murderer had not found all of his drugs. Greg always carried some crystal meth on him in both of his socks. After Chuck had left that day, resuming his own journey, Davis fired up the small metal pipe, already loaded with the drug. The rush was instantaneous and for a few fleeting moments, Greg felt better.

  The feeling didn’t last, though. It never did, quickly being replaced with anxiety and paranoia. He only had a small amount of meth left and needed to get back home where the rest of his drug stash was hidden. A look across the room at Tonya’s dead body and the whimpering baby beside him quickly brought him back to reality.

  I can’t go home. Tonya’s dead and that bastard stole 5-0’s drugs. Mike’s going to kill me, Greg knew.

  “But it wasn’t my fault,” he said, out loud. “How was I supposed to know that the guy was going to shoot her? He was supposed to just give up his stuff and leave.”

  After Tonya and Greg had entered the abandoned house, Chuck had stayed outside to deal with the zombies that they’d all heard growling nearby. Greg told Tonya that they would rob the stranger as soon as they got a chance. If he resisted, they’d have to kill him, but they sure didn’t want to attract any more Zs with gunshots.

  Tonya was a good, submissive prostitute who always did exactly what 5-0 and Greg told her to do. Carter had trained her well and the girl knew that her own supply of drugs was dependent on following orders. When Greg had told her to rob Chuck, he’d had no doubt that she would do it.

  Davis understood, or thought he understood, that most men would hesitate to shoot a woman, preferring to just comply and give her what she wanted. Why hadn’t that Chuck guy just gone with the program and given up his guns and equipment? Instead, Mr. Tough Guy had to shoot Tonya, hit me in the face, and leave me handcuffed all night. Then, he took our stuff. The big man had even stolen the little bit of food that they’d had for this short trip.

  Davis put his head in his hands as he sat against the living room wall. “All you had to do was just leave your guns and then get out,” he mumbled, feeling the anger rising inside of him. “But no, you had to be some kind of bad ass. Kill the woman, punch me, and then take our guns, drugs, and food. You better hope I don’t ever run across you again, Chuck.”

  This was supposed to have been an easy job. Greg had been running drugs and girls for 5-0 for the past six years. The corrupt cop had started off paying Davis in cash. As Greg’s meth habit grew worse, though, Carter started compensating him in drugs and sexual favors from the hookers.

  Carter’s instructions for this mission had been simple. Take Tonya and the drugs to an address a few miles south of where they had met Chuck. This was the compound of a biker gang that 5-0 did a lot of business with. Tonya would be their party girl for a week and in return, the bikers would give Greg a bag of weapons to take back to Carter as payment.

  Greg and Tonya had left after lunch on Monday in Greg’s 2005 Nissan Sentra. Davis should have been back home that afternoon, but whatever money the drug dealer should have spent on maintaining his car had long been smoked up in the form of crystal meth. The thirteen-year old Sentra had sputtered to a stop eight miles north of the abandoned house.

  Tonya had been so scared having to take Jeremy out in the cold. What if the baby cried and they got eaten by zombies? Thankfully, they hadn’t encountered any people, living or dead, on their walk until Chuck had invited them to share the house for the night.

  The reality of his situation hit Greg in the face. What if he comes back? the sudden thought frightening him. Oh, my god, what if that Chuck guy comes back to kill me? I’ve got to leave right now!

  “But he said not to follow me,” Greg mumbled to himself, the meth intensifying his paranoia. He has to be long gone by now. It’s time to get outta here, he thought, as he scrambled to get his stuff together, gathering his few possessions. He decided to light his pipe for another quick hit before hitting the road.

  “Oh, that feels so good,” he murmured. Baby Jeremy started to get fussy and wanted out of his carrier. Greg glanced at the child and shook his head. Davis suspected that the baby was Carter’s son but, really, the list of possible fathers for Jeremy was quite long. He might even be my son, he thought in surprise.

  Greg had walked across the room, knelt beside the child and put the pacifier in his mouth. After a moment, he had quickly stood, turned his back on Jeremy, and bolted out the front door.

  “Greg? Are you in there?” Joey asked, knocking on the front door of the run-down trailer. “It’s me, Joey Lester. Listen, man. We need to talk. 5-0 and a bunch of his guys are dead.”

  Davis stayed quiet in the dark living room, clutching the shotgun tightly. He’d been smoking meth almost non-stop since Thursday, his mind foggy and his thought processing slow. This could be a trap, he thought. How could Mike be dead? That didn’t make any sense. Who could kill 5-0? Something about Joey’s words rang true, though. He had always known Lester to be a straight-shooter.

  The front door opened a crack and Joey saw a pair of sunken eyes peering out at him. The mixture of Greg’s body odor, vomit, and raw sewage hit Lester and Maddox in the face.

  “Whoa, Greg,” said Wesley, “you been crapping inside?”

  Without running water, most people did their business in a bucket and carried it outside daily. The odor from inside the mobile home smelled like an outhouse.

  “You okay, Greg?” Joey asked. He knew of Davis’ drug habit and proclivity towards binges. Lester had never understood why Carter had kept Greg working for him. One day, Joey had gotten the nerve to ask his boss about it. 5-0 had shrugged and told Lester that Greg was a childhood friend who had been there for him in a moment of need.

  A quiet voice came through the partially opened door, “Did you say Mike is dead?”

  Joey nodded and told Greg about the scene of death they had found in their safe house. Lester spoke slowly, making sure Davis was digesting what he was telling him. When Joey finished, the front door opened all the way and the gaunt figure of Greg Davis stepped out onto the small wooden front porch, sitting down on the top step, laying his shotgun across his legs.

  “I thought 5-0 had sent you guys to kill me,” Greg said, looking around at the other men.

  Lest
er knew that meth tended to make its users paranoid. “Why would he send us to kill you, man? You were one of his favorites.”

  Davis told the group what happened the previous Monday and how Tonya had been killed and the drugs stolen. In Greg’s version, though, Chuck had robbed the two of them, gunning down Tonya when she tried to resist. A stunned silence greeted him when he finished.

  “He…he killed Tonya?” Hoss Harper finally asked in disbelief. She had been his favorite of Carter’s girls and he’d visited her every chance he got.

  “What did this guy look like, Greg?” Maddox asked.

  “He was big, probably about the same size as Mike. Dark hair. He had on dark clothes and gear like a soldier or something. He had one of those military rifles, an M-16 I think.”

  Joey and Wesley exchanged surprised looks. “That sounds like the same guy we saw at the college wearing 5-0’s NASCAR hoodie,” Lester said.

  Maddox nodded. “It sure does.”

  Something occurred to Hoss. “Where’s Tonya’s baby?”

  Greg suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I guess that guy, ‘Chuck’ was the name he gave us, took the baby with him.”

  “So this Chuck was walking and he stole a baby to carry around with him? That don’t make any sense,” Wesley observed. “And he didn’t have no baby when Joey and me saw him drive into the college.”

  “I don’t know,” stammered Greg. “He must’ve gotten rid of the kid by then. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “Why didn’t he kill you, too?” Don Lester asked. “I mean he was pissed off enough to kill Tonya and took all your stuff, including that kid. Why would he leave you alive?”

  “Like I said, you’ll have to ask him. I just knew 5-0 was going to be mad. Those bikers are probably pissed, too, ‘cuz they didn’t get the drugs or the girl.”

  It was obvious to everyone that Greg Davis was strung out on his drug of choice but it was also clear that he had encountered the man who had probably killed Mike Carter and four of his associates. There were some glaring holes in Greg’s story, especially concerning Tonya’s baby. For now, though, they needed Davis to help them, if they could keep him off the pipe until tomorrow night when they raided the school.