Surviving The Virus by D.A. Sanford - HTML preview

Chapter 19: Death to the vermin

As we warm up the engines, I have one last surprise. I grab something from the bed of my truck. Becky is trembling. Without seeing it, she knows what it is. I tell the group.

“This was salvaged from the mutant raid. It was a flag that was on Jess’s father’s store and on her SUV.”

I attach the pole to my cab and unfurl that flag. A little ragged but still good.

“Jack's rod and gun, If it needs kil ing, Jack's can do it. I claim the right to have this flag. Your trucks have the other portion. Lead courtesy of Jack’s”

“The only ones to die are them. FOR JESS, FOR FAMILY!”

I shout then drive out. The others follow and, as planned, the remaining go into total lockdown…

I’m on the radio to the others. They can hear at our home.

We are about a half an hour from their last spot. We wil stop here and use the electric that Bob has been towing.

“Bob, bring it up. You and I wil go scouting. We wil be back shortly.”

As we are driving, I tell Bob,

“This wil be your first battle against humans. I wil give you a choice. When we find them, I have to see their layout. It’s a scene of utter depravity. You do not have to see that if you don’t want to. I wil not think less of you. But if you go with me, even though you may feel like throwing up, swallow it. We need the element of surprise.”

He only says,

“I need to see.”

They are stil in the same spot. Eating and drinking. It seems that they are tired of today’s torture. Only rape is on the docket. We’ve seen enough. We go back tour groups and I explain the layout.

“The prisoner pen is along the right hand side. There are only a few guards watching them. No flames or machine guns near the pen. Use only pistol or your AR”

Who wants that. Amanda says she’l take that on.

We drive right through the center. These are four by fours. They are built to handle rough and slippery terrain.”

They understand and laugh.

“Bob, you remember the laugh you had when I showed up at your cabin and was playing that music loud. You thought it was the funniest thing you could have heard. Guess what they wil think when they are woken up by that music.”

Bob gets a sinister look “It wil scare the piss out of them. Don’t tell me that you have that.”

“Yes I do and have upgraded to a power amp attached to the system. When we are ready, I put on the Flight of the Valkyries. That is the signal to rev those diesels, hit your soot switches and drive like a bat out of hel .

There may me some hostages in their tents try not to hurt them. I say try. Not a single one gets away. Some may try to say they are prisoners. We hold them. The other prisoners wil be the judges. They say rat we put a shot in their head. Again, not one left. Everyone understand?”

Without a word they go to their trucks. It is almost night. By the time we get there they should be bedded down. I start my truck. The song about a man and his diesel truck is right it does make an eerie sound when we fired them up. We head on in.

Their camp is less than a mile. We all stop. I get out and listen. There is just a faint sound ahead. Funny thing is, without the old sounds over riding each other, you can hear sounds for a longer distance.

I calmly walk back. I give everyone the thumbs up.

In the camp, they are settling in. They are rulers of the world. I hear one proclaim,

“It has been a long day but enjoyable. We need to rest up. We kil the rest and then we go to that stupid place that put up those signs. What’s it called, New Hope. Ripe for the picking”.

“What the hel !”

I have the song cranked up we have the engines revved up and as we see the camp we hit the smoke. I would be wil ing to bet that the smell of piss is starting to permeate the camp. Amanda does her job. There were three guards and they all went down. The remaining three trucks wreaked havoc on the people shooting at us. Only a pass through and we took them down to less than ten.

Of those some laid down on the ground in surrender. Some of the others ran but a few continued shooting at us. Bob made them human torches. He must have emptied half a tank on them. As quick as it started it was over. The runners did not get away. Rick fired his machine gun and a thousand rounds of 22 caliber directed at them in a matter of minutes got them.

I pul ed up to the center of the camp. Over the PA I demand, anyone stil in those tents, come out with their hands up. A few women come out. I say that anyone left in tents either is dead or wil be if they don’t come out. What I feel is the rest, come out.

Amanda opened the cage. I walk over to them.

“We are the New Hope defense force. We hunt out rat bags like this that upset our peaceful existence.”

One person walks over to me.

“Aren’t you the ones that took out that mutant horde a while back?”

“Yes”

He looks at the flag

“I remember that flag. You Jack?”

“No, I was his daughter’s husband. We lost her in that attack.”

He turns to the remainder and tells them that there is no worry. They’re the justice squad that have saved us twice now.”

With the man, I walk the line of women that came out of the tents.

“What’s your name?”

He tells me it’s Fred.

“Fred, I want you to tell me who each of these women are in your group and which are with those scum.”

He goes down the line. The first three are his group. The next one he says

“She came with the group.”

“They kidnapped me from another group.” She said frantically.

“Fred, in your observation, did she act like someone that was kidnapped?”

“No, she had free reign of the camp.”

“That was”

I shot her in the head.

“Next woman”

It turned out that all except one more were from Fred’s group.”

I dropped the other one.

His group, from what I can see is seventeen. More women than men. I ask Fred if they have a place for the winter. He says that they have a warehouse that they were able to make the center section suitable to almost comfortably get through the winter.

Their problem is that the gang ate almost all their reserves. Food wil be very tight.

“If you had food would your group be able to make it?”

He says that they would but it was almost too late to scavenge.

I know of a few vil ages around this area so I tell him that we would scout the surrounding towns and collect what we can. First thing was to turn their camp over to salvage anything that his group can use. Especially weapons.

“You’re going to need them to hunt meat.”.

Fred tells me that they are a group that formed while escaping the city. They were not familiar with fire arms let alone hunting.

“If you are wil ing, you wil be able to hunt. We wil train one of you. Let’s get searching.”

The obvious is the box truck that the gang had. We break the lock and open it. It is full of can goods, rifles, pistols and ammo..

“I think that you have found most of your food stores.”

Fred is beside himself.

“Why, why did they take our food?”

“That’s easy. They were the best that our old system could produce. Greedy, sadistic punks that thought of nothing but their own pleasures. In a lawless situation, they become animals that prey on the weak for their pleasure. Like a cat with a mouse. They know that they wil eventually eat the mouse but they wil play with it. Let it loose. The mouse feels it has a chance only to be captured again and again.””

“Fred, is it your intention to form your own vil age? A place where you can live in peace?”

He says that it was their intension.

“Let me tell you about New Hope. We are a small community that has become self-sufficient.

We are a peaceful community that wil defend ourselves to preserve our peace. That peace was threatened by this gang. As you can see, we fiercely defend that freedom. If you wish to live in peace, New Hope wil help you to get on your feet.”

“The contents of that truck are yours.”

I ask their group

“Anyone here that can drive that truck?”

A few raise their hands.

“Fred, is you place stil in good condition?”

“Yes it is. I heard the leader tell his people that they were going to use our home for their winter home.”

“With your permission,” as I point to two that raised their hands. “The two of you, drive the truck over to your home and unload those goods.”

I grab a few rifles and side arms off the truck.

“Our fee.” then I ask,

“Anyone with military training?”

One older man raises his hand.

Handing him a rifle and giving Fred a side arm. “You’re the hunter and you are his protector.

Hunter, I’m going to have Bob there go with you to teach you some of the basics of tracking.

Don’t let his youth fool you. He brought down a trophy buck a week ago that would feed your group for a few weeks. He is an excellent tracker and hunter. He is my nephew and possibly future son in law.”

“Fred, you are the leader, that is why I said that you are the protector. I wil tell you that New Hope wil help you get your vil age off the ground only if you want to live in peace.”

With the line I used a while back.

Pointing to my people and the trucks, “You have heard my words of truth and can see our words of iron”

Fred pipes in with a smile “so you know my words of truth carry the same iron. I love that movie.

As long as we don’t need to cut our hands” he extends his hand “We wil live in peace with you.

We would be grateful for your help to get us back on our feet”

I shake his hand.

As we are shaking hands, far off we hear a single shot. Fred looks worried but I know what that was.

“Looks like Hunter is learning. I just wonder what they bagged.”

A little later, I can tell that Fred is getting worried. I tell him that it must have been something big.

They would dress it before bringing it back. Sure enough they enter the area. Tied to a pole that they both were shouldering was a very big deer.

The man looked proud. I look at them and at Bob with a smile.

Bob tells us that Hunter got this on his first shot. He also said the man now wanted to be called by his new profession. He liked it when I called him Hunter. He now wants to go by that name only. You could see in his face that, for the first time in a long time, he had a purpose, his life would benefit people. He was Hunter.

People with purpose. You can’t have better incentive to be peaceful but be wil ing to defend that peace, even if it could cost you your life.

I can feel her hand on my shoulder and a voice in my head that said, that’s what I died for. Be sad but rejoice. I knew that it was Jess or at lease my mind coming to grips with her death. I’m going with, it was Jess.

My team gets ready to leave. We could have helped them to get to their home but that would be later. Give them some security in keeping it secret. I give then the information on the propane generators. This town has them. Also tell them that we wil listen to a radio channel for contact with us.

During the winter months, they may need help. Weather permitting, I pledge that we wil send help and they do the same.

It was a good trip but time to go home.

We radio back to let them know that we are coming home. Complete success and without a scratch.

It was comforting beyond description when we saw the dealership come into view. We came to a halt and were immediately surrounded by our women. The smell of cooking permeated the entire home. They were making a victory banquet.

After things calmed down and bellies were full, we sat and the topic was the battle. Each of us gave our own prospective of the fight. Almost like those movies about war pilots discussing the air battle, each have their own cockpit view.

It was a lively discussion that felt like it was longer than the battle lasted. Then it came to the main question even the team wondered about. Why didn’t I invite them to join New Hope?

“I did not invite them back here for a few reasons. They were trying to set up their own community. If not for those vermin that raided them, they could have lasted the winter and grown. They wanted peace so they have to make it for themselves.”

“When Amanda and Judy came here, they were alone. Those people are a group. They need to try. Fail or succeed, they need to try. If I gave them a place in New Hope, it would be a hand out.

This way they can earn their own peace.”

Everyone seems to grasp what I am trying to say. I finish by saying that we wil help them if they ask for help. We may visit from time to time with, shal I say, gifts.

We now have another radio set to the agreed channel. Al we can do is monitor it.

Doing some last minute chores outside, I notice the chil in the air and then see a few snowflakes. We need to hurry to finish, winter is almost upon us. We need to get the plow set ups on the pickups, now that we have neighbors.