Brent Acuff - Undead Nation 02 (2 page)

A long, silent moment passed between the two before Alex spoke. "That is exactly what I'm saying. It was the main component; the only way."

"Fuck!" Liam cursed and turned his back on his friend. Alex didn't try to stop him as he walked away, muttering curses and hate under his breath.

-----

The .45 caliber Glock barked repeatedly as the paper target disintegrated under its attack. Alex placed every shot in the head of the silhouette, tearing the unfortunate stand-in to shreds. The pistol clicked empty and with a fluid motion Alex replaced the clip. There was barely a pause between the shots for reloading.

When the second clip clicked empty, a voice from behind broke into Alex's thoughts.
 

"Impressive. Very impressive." The unmistakable voice of Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Hill spoke to Alex. "Looks like you may have done that a time or two." Alex slid the safety on and holstered the weapon before turning to meet Hill's gaze. The Lt. Colonel wore a shit-eating grin on his face, and it took every ounce of Alex's self control to keep from knocking it off.

"What can I help you with?" asked Alex. The note of disdain in his voice was not even masked when speaking to the officer.

Hill simply shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, it is I who should be asking what I can do to help." Again with the smile, and Alex waited for something else. "Well?" Hill asked.

"Well, what?" was Alex's curt reply.

"Well, what can I do for you? You've got a big assignment ahead of you, and I was wondering if there was anything else that I can help with?" The Lt. Colonel sounded honestly concerned. If Alex didn't know the man better, he might almost believe him.

"Actually, sir," and the normal sign of respect now dripped with hate. "There's plenty you COULD do, but..." Alex left the words hanging, the Lt. Colonel knowing full well what Alex was driving at.

"Now, Alex" Hill's voice cooed with patience. "I mean supplies. You know that. Our arrangement hasn't changed, but I was hoping that I could get you something to make the trip easier."

"You've got my list. How about starting with that? I need the guns..."

Hill interrupted. "Yeah...the guns. Well, you see, those are going to be hard to find. We might have to find something else. Anything in mind?" The sarcasm in Hill's voice was almost more than Alex could stand.
 

"We have a deal, sir. Those supplies in return for me getting your wife and daughter out of Austin. No guns, no family." Alex turned his back on the Lt. Colonel, removing his Glock and slamming home a fresh magazine. The gun barked again, this time splitting the neck of the silhouette. Twelve more shots and the head was severed from the rest. The paper target flapped in the breeze.

"Agreed," came Hill's voice behind Alex. "The guns are here, ready for your inspection."

Alex nearly lost his control. This asshole was playing a game, a game with the lives of his family. The gun shook in his hand and murder flashed in his eyes. Hill's second in command, Sergeant Major Matthew Cuzman saw this and he flipped off the safety of his carbine rifle. The muzzle swung up to point at Alex's chest.

"Stand down, major," Hill said casually. "Mr. Kemp here is a smart man. He knows that he can't do anything to me without...consequences." The smile never left Hill's face. "Mr. Kemp...Alex, the Kriss Super V's you requested are in the north barn along with the ammunition and additional magazines you require. I'll have a truck brought around and loaded with what you asked. Anything else?"

Alex struggled to speak through his anger. The Glock at his side still wavered, but he resisted the urge to use it. "We'll need Humvee's, sir. Two of them, loaded with food, weapons, and ammunition." The request was more of a command than anything else, the tone of it not lost on the lieutenant.

"Now those, I really don't know if I can get..."

"You get them. No questions; no excuses." Alex turned his back on Hill, replacing the magazine in the handgun for a full clip.

"And when will you be able to leave?" Hill asked.

Raising the handgun and taking aim, Alex responded. "Tomorrow. We'll leave tomorrow."

-----

"What do you mean, 'tomorrow'? Who said we were leaving tomorrow?!" John Tolbert screamed at Alex. The six men who had been coerced into going back to Austin for Hill's family stood in a loose circle around Alex.
 

"We're leaving tomorrow. Everything is ready, so there's no point in delaying the inevitable." Alex's tone was flat, without emotion as he spoke to the men around him.

"Fuck that," John yelled. "I didn't sign on for a suicide mission..."

"But you're on it anyway," Liam interrupted. "You can either bitch about it and get us all in the shit, or shut it, follow Alex's lead, and he'll get us through this."

"Are you insane? This'll never work. There's six of us versus how many thousands of them?"

"Ten," interjected a voice from behind them. Dr. J.J. Cahn quickly closed the open distance between them. Behind him followed three other men, Shawn Davies, Luke Berryman, and Donovan Murphy. "We'd like to...um...volunteer, for your rescue mission."

Alex shook his head violently. "No. No way. You aren't going," he protested. "You don't have a stake in this..."

"We're going," Cahn interrupted. "You are going to need a doctor and a few extra guns." Dr. Cahn smiled wide. "I'm a doctor, and they are the guns," he said, indicating the men behind him.

Alex continued to shake his head. "No. We don't need a doctor..."

"Like hell we don't," Tolbert spat.

Alex turned on the man, forcing himself at John. "And just what good is a doctor going to do us? Huh? You get injured out there and we are putting a bullet in your brain, no hesitation. There is no curing a zombie bite. You are a dead man, and I'll make sure I pull the trigger!" Tolbert cowered under Alex's onslaught. He had just about brought the younger man to tears when Dr. Cahn stepped between them.

"Knock it off, Alex!" Cahn commanded. "You don't get a say in this one. We are going. You need the help and we have volunteered. That's final." Alex's gaze shifted from Tolbert to the doctor, the anger draining away almost immediately.
 

"Fine," Alex said, defeated. "Get yourselves armed and say your goodbyes to anyone you need to. We leave at sunrise." Alex pushed his way through the circle of men, the anger and frustration visible on his face and in his body carriage. He slipped away into the growing dark.

-----

"You can't be leaving? That man couldn't be serious?" Morgan Kemp fought hard not be believe what she knew was true. Only a few days had passed since Lt. Colonel Jonathan Hill had kidnapped Alex's wife Morgan and their five year old daughter, Gemma, in order to force Alex to bring the lieutenant's family out of Austin. Alex simply hung his head, not wishing to look his wife in the eyes.

"Morgan," Alex said. "You can't believe that Hill holding a gun to your head was just for show. I don't have a choice..."

"You could just refuse. Refuse to go. What could he do then?" Morgan knew the answer. Alex knew it too.

"I can't risk losing you and Gemma when I know there is something that I can do about it." Alex raised his head to look in his wife's eyes. They were the color of dark chocolate, and Alex could always remember staring into them, content and happy. "I can't fight him; he's got too many soldiers. I can do this. I can get them out and back here. It will be okay." He paused for a moment, not wishing to utter the next thoughts he had. "If I don't go, he'll kill..."

"Stop. Just stop!" Morgan cut in. "He can't. There's no reason behind it."

"Of course there's not. You know as well as I do that Hill is crazy. I don't know if it's this outbreak or if he's always been this way, but he's gone psychotic." Alex voice was calm, but sad. He understood what had to happen, and he knew there was a chance that he would never see his wife and daughter again.

"There's something else." Alex almost whispered this. Hanging his head again, Alex continued. "I think he knows me, or at least, about me. I think he knows what I've done in the past."
 

The words hung in the air. A question mark for the taking, prompting Morgan to ask him what Alex never wanted to tell her.

"What do you mean by that? By, what you've done in the past?" Morgan's voice held a cautious tone, not sure if she really wanted to ask it at all.

"Morgan," Alex began tentatively, "there's a lot about my past that you don't know...that I haven't told you about."

A look of shock flashed across Morgan's face. "Like what? What haven't you told me, Alex?" A hint of venom crept into her voice. Alex sighed.

"Sit down, Morgan. You're not going to like this. Remember that I told you I was in the military? Before we met? Well, that was only partially the truth."
 

"Alex, you better tell me what is going on here..."

"Please, Morgan," Alex stopped her. "I need to you listen to everything before you ask questions. Okay?" It took a moment for Morgan to agree, but finally her head nodded once.

"Alright," Alex began, stopping a moment to collect his thoughts. "It's true that I was in the military, but that is only the truth on the surface. I was in a division of the Marines that had no ties to anyone or anything. We never asked permission and we rarely asked forgiveness. My unit had the call sign of Neoguard. We were given the task of handling...unusual situations. Situations in which, if the general public found out, there would be mass chaos.

"My last mission was based in China, the Ningxia province in Central Northern China. They had a situation that needed some delicate handling."

"Zombies?" Morgan asked.

Alex looked to her and nodded his head. "Yeah. Zombies.

"The Chinese government was struggling to contain an outbreak of zombies in the countryside. Something that was not uncommon for this province. I guess they decided that they had had enough of the problem and were coming to the States for help. My unit got the call and within forty-eight hours we were on a plane headed for the Chinese border.

"We had no idea what we were in for. We were only given a quick briefing, told that there was a biological outbreak that we were to observe and develop a containment plan. That's where I came in. I was the only intelligence officer sent in the squad, and the person solely responsible for creating a workable plan to deal with what we were about to see."

Morgan stopped Alex in the middle of his thoughts. "Just what exactly did you see? Alex, was it like this?" she asked, motioning with her head outside, to the world in which they were now trapped.

"Yes...and no. We have it pretty good, considering. Remember that we were dropped into rural China; a place even worse off than any PBS Special. There were no roads, no building, electricity...we had nothing. And the people? The people were lower than anything you can imagine. Disease, malnutrition, not to mention the beliefs of the people. It took us a full week before we could even begin what we were sent there to do because of these people and trying to gain enough trust in them to allow us to stay." Alex stopped a moment to shake his head and again clear his thoughts. There had been so much that he had seen and done, and he didn't want to miss any of it. As much as he dreaded sharing these things with his wife, far worse would have been to disrespect those that had been affected by forgetting.

"After a week of gaining the trust of the people, we were finally lead deeper into the countryside." Alex chuckled at this. "None of us thought is could get any more remote than where we had just left.

"We were taken to a tiny village of maybe one hundred people. They lived at the base of a mountain next to the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. It became almost surreal when the horrific events started to unfold.

"My commander, Lieutenant Damon Elliot, and myself were lead to a small hut near the waters edge and set far out from the village center. My skin crawled, Morgan. That first time, hearing the moans of those monsters... I just wanted to crawl out of my body and hide." A shudder ran up Alex's spine.

"Inside the hut, tied at the wrists and ankles were two emaciated bodies. I would never have believed them alive if they weren't moving there on the floor. Broken bones poked through large gashes all over their bodies, but there was no blood. We later discovered that this happened because the creatures twisted and turned their bound bodies in desperate attempts to get at their prey. They were literally tearing themselves apart."

Morgan gasped and nearly retched on the floor, heaving and coughing, but able to keep her body under control. Alex gripped her arm and stroked her back, trying what he could to comfort her. "You don't need to hear anymore, babe. Lets get you some water."

"No," Morgan said through the hand that was covering her mouth. "I want to hear this...I want to know what you saw."

Concern etched Alex's face. "It's not all about what I saw... It's also about what I did. Are you sure you want me to go on?"

It took a moment for Morgan to reply. Alex prayed that she would say no, but his prayers went unanswered. "Yes...yes please finish. I'll be okay."

Alex took his hands off his wife's arm and back. There was a shame that he felt and didn't want to mar his wife with it. "You let me know when you've heard enough, okay? I wish I could say the worst was over, but its not." Morgan closed her eyes and nodded her head, her hand still covering her mouth.

"The men in my unit were under strict orders to observe and report only. We were in no way to become involved with the events that we witnessed. That is easier said than done when you are thousands of miles away from any kind of governing authority, with only spotty communication with that authority. You tend to do what needs to be done, instead of what you are exactly told to do.

"Over the next week and a half I recorded the events that the villagers went through. The two bodies were disposed of soon after our arrival, both of them being burned in a massive bonfire that consumed every last scrap of flesh and bone. Only the teeth remained, and those were gathered carefully and given to the local witch doctor for his remedies.