“OK, give me a SITREP, everyone sound off.”
“Jacob, I’m OK. I got zinged in the arm.” He was looking at a slight trace of blood where a round had scratched him. Doc was already checking him over.
“Ahmed, I got two on the way back while you were all peeling back.” Ahmed had been at the rear of the column and had taken the time, as we rushed past him, each in turn, to drill two of the attackers.
“How many?”
“I saw at least a dozen.”
Jonesy spoke up. ”Where the hell is Brit?”
Then we heard her scream. Loud screams, cut off in mid screech. I tore off across the field, just as Doc wrapped me in a bear hug and tackled me to the ground. A shot zinged overhead, right where I had been running a second before.
“Nick, NO! We are outnumbered and right now that will get you killed!” He held me tight despite all my struggles to get free, until I had calmed down. Meanwhile, Ahmed had boosted himself up into a huge oak tree, and was sighting with his binos, looking back the way we had come.
“I see her. She is being carried… they have disappeared into the woods on the far side of the next field.”
We moved cautiously to the sight of the firefight. Three bodies lay there. One was dead, another was bleeding out, clutching his groin as his life drained out of a severed artery. He shuddered, then lay still. The last sat against a tree, a little further back, wheezing from a punctured lung, blood pooling in his lap as it ran out from under his dirty T-shirt.
I approached the one up against the tree, slowly, my rifle pointed at his chest. I could hear him wheezing and he was getting paler by the second. A rusty revolver was held limply in his hand. I kicked it away. H gave no protest. He was fat, had a double chin. I knew what that meant. He was a cannibal. No one had that kind of access to fresh, fatty meat anymore in the wilds. No one except those who had crossed the line. He had prison tattoos on his hands. I knew by that where they had taken her, but I needed to know for sure before we committed to a course of action.
“Doc, we need to question him. Help me.” I pushed the man over onto his side, the wounded side. Immediately, his breathing increased and he groaned. Doc waited for him to exhale before slapping a piece of MRE bag onto the wound and taping it up.
I poked him in the head with my gun barrel until he showed some signs of consciousness. I wasn’t in the mood for being nice.
“Wake up. Where are they taking her?”
“Huh…. What? Hurts.”
I nodded to Doc, and he gave him a shot of morphine. The mans’ face relaxed and he came back around a bit.
“Your buddies. They captured one of our people. Carried her off. Where are they taking her?”
“Fuck you. A female? Bet she’s going to taste good… when they’re done raping her,” he rasped.
My eyes blazed over red, and I kicked him in the wounded lung as hard as I could, heard a rib snap. The man screamed in pain over the morphine.
“You’re going to die, and you can do it hard or easy. Tell me, and it’s easy. Don’t, and it will be hard. Your choice.”
The man tried to catch his breath. Doc grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.
“Nick, chill out. You’re going to kill this guy.”
“Doc, he’s a fucking cannibal. I am going to kill him. We don’t have time to play games here. If we can catch them before they get wherever they are going we have a good chance of getting her back. Otherwise, she’s dead, if she isn’t already. His life isn’t worth hers.”
The man was coughing up blood now. I walked over and whacked the butt of my rifle across his nose. He cried out in pain and started cursing me again.
“AHMED, COME OVER HERE!”
“Listen, shitbag. Ahmed was a torturer for the Taliban.” Standing behind the man, Ahmed’s eyes shot up. He had been no such thing. I ignored him. “He is going to fuck up your last hours on earth so bad you will beg me for death. Doc here can keep you alive for hours while Ahmed rips you apart. Tell me, and it’s quick and easy, I might even let you live. Don’t and he goes to work.”
“OK, the p-prison.” He started gasping for air and bleeding from the mouth again.
“Great Meadows?”
He nodded his head.
Damn. Great Meadows was a few miles north of here, a New York State maximum security prison. We had to get to her before they got there or we would never see her again.
“Let’s go!” I yelled, and I ran. Ahmed passed me, on point.
We left the wounded man on the ground. I let him live. The Zombies would not.
Chapter 13
“Nick, hold up. Wait a minute, let us think this through before we, how do you say, do something rash…” Ahmed had stopped in front of me and was pulling out a Google map printout of the area.
“Let me show you a trick we pulled on you Americans time and again in my country. We know where they are going, and they are carrying a prisoner. They may have wounded with them. Judging by the shape those others were in they are likely to be overfed and out of shape. They are also probably following the main road back to the prison. We can get ahead of them here…” he pointed to a spot just south of the prison, where a road crossed over the canal “…and ambush them. If we continue to chase them down we may run into an ambush ourselves.”
“OK, Ahmed, you’re a better strategist than I am. Let’s go for it. If we haul ass up through the woods on this azimuth we can get behind them. But we have to run.”
And run we did. Weapons at the low ready, we pounded along, maintaining a steady pace that ate up the ground. The woods were free from undergrowth but we still took a chance. Out here in the countryside, the Zombie presence shouldn’t be that much. What I was worried about were others from this cannibal group who heard the sound of gunfire, and who might be heading this way. Chance we had to take. We rotated taking point, going by compass bearing in a straight line across overgrown fields and stands of trees.
At one point off to our left, through a break in the trees, we saw them moving up the road. We stopped to count and get a better estimate of their numbers. There were seven left. Two were carrying Brit slung up on a pole. One had fallen behind, obviously wounded. As we watched, the tail man turned and shot the one lagging behind. Six left.
“Well, I guess they’re going to be moving faster now.”
We got into position just a few minutes before they got there. We went to ground on the north side of the road junction, just inside the tree line. Doc scanned for Zombies in our back area, pulling security.
“Ahmed, this is going to be on you, mostly. Our Z guns aren’t going to have much range and we can’t risk hitting Brit. It’s up to you with the sniper rifle. Let them get close so Jacob and I can get some too. Drop the two carrying Brit, Jacob will work in from the left, me from the right.”
They came up in a gaggle. No security, just moving quickly down the road. I figured they felt safe, being only a few miles from their home ground. We waited until they had turned toward the bridge and were strung out in a line in front of us.
I heard Ahmed’s rifle utter a loud cough next to me, and the lead guy carrying Brit fell to the pavement. The other one carrying her dropped a second later, still staring at his partner. I fired two rounds into the lead man. Jacob opened up on the rear. My target went down firing wildly into the ground, emptying his rifle into the dirt. Jacob shifted aim to his next target, but rounds started coming back at us, zipping overhead, firing high in panic. Ahmed shot once more, The last man knelt and aimed a pistol at Brit, who lay trussed on the ground.