Gary's Trilogy (Book 3): Still Myself, Still Surviving (The Retaliation) Read online

  Maybe this is something he’s been ordered to do.

  Gary did promise we’d be looked after. Surely then, whoever gave this order to this officer might be who’s in charge all around here.

  “Okay, Lissie. You’re next,” I nominate, letting Ashton’s weight be all on my shoulders. “We might find out what’s going on with Gary.”

  It’s as though I said the magic word. The name “Gary” triggers her with replenished stamina. It’s a boost she needs that she likely never thought she could feel before he was in her life. I once knew that.

  I don’t regret knowing that feeling.

  She launches up off of the ground, and speedily makes her way over to the officer’s arm, at least where it would be, since he’s still assisting Janice on her feet. Ashton’s the next in line, except he’s not so much ready to feel what he’s about to.

  More pain.

  “We’d better hope they have medical aid,” I comment, speaking in a way I know will encourage him to stay clear-minded with his golden wit.

  My fabricated smirk drops when there’s no response from him. As I raise him off of the ground, there’s only a limp moan. His wrinkles have its lines head to the center of his face from response to his pain. He helps by having his hurt leg dangle up in the air.

  We hit an awkward bump in our plan, a problem that I fix in the moment from instant memory of those sack races I used to have in elementary school.

  “We’re hopping, Ashton! I don’t care if you can only jump a centimeter each time! We’re doing it!” I switch sides with him, letting his working leg be right beside mine. I take the first leap up with my right leg, mindful I don’t make an inconsiderate gap between me and him. He’s stoic about it, but I can tell that his pain already wants to burst. “Let’s take a break—”

  “No! Let me keep at it! I can do it!”

  “Are you sure?’

  His fatigued but committed expression scribbles his request straight into my eyes.

  He wants to feel pain. He wants to handle pain better than he has been.

  “Okay. I’ll start up again.”

  I help explore our pacing. Our pattern doesn’t go unhinged after a while of keeping at it, no matter how many times I wished he’d let us stop.

  Once we’ve made a close enough distance to his reach, the officer exclaims, “Get him up here first!”

  Ashton has drained himself severely from our hopping, but when I go to lift his arms up above him, he swats at my hand. “I told you I can do this!”

  His determination hasn’t been good to look at, but I allow him to showcase his non-attractive bravery. His wounded leg lowers when he realizes his other has lifted off the ground. The officer’s rolled-up sleeves expose his forearms, the veins popping out and indicating how hard he’s exerting himself to haul up Ashton.

  Once enough of Ashton has been raised off the ground, enough to where the bottom of his feet are above my head, I assist by pushing his healthy foot further, waiting until there’s no more I can do.

  “Up and at ‘em,” the officer says, more likely to himself than to Ashton. I can’t tell where Ashton has gone off to. I only know I’m next to find out where we all go from here.

  I look back at our bags, left by the rest of our group.

  “Let ‘em go,” I hear the words magnify in my ear closest to his voice.

  My head turns back. “Do you have enough supplies?”

  “That’s what me and my men are gonna find out with the rest of you. Have faith though we’ll have enough.”

  With his head consistently checking behind him, it’s clear to me this is all he’s willing to assist with. Getting our bags only delays his job. He’ll certainly go against me asking for one of my group to substitute on his position then.

  I have to let them go.

  “Okay.”

  He gets me up top with everyone else. I instantly learn why he was on his knees, along with the rest of my group. Because we’re balancing on a piece of the tower leg that made a mangled mess to our building’s front.

  Looked a whole lot more disastrous on the inside. That much I know.

  He pats me and points his finger directly down to our left. The roof of a military jeep is but a drop off away—a rescue boat to get us off the ship wreck. It confirms we don’t have to dive into the ocean of undead.

  “All of us will pile on! Get your injured friend first!” he commands. Arms of undead stretch as far as they will go. Thankfully with me, Lissie, Janice, and this officer helping balance Ashton’s weight, we have the complete strength from him being body-surfed by these dozens of fans wanting a piece of him. “Ladies next, please.”

  Lissie and Janice step forward, letting themselves awkwardly balance their weight on the roof to preserve space for the remaining two, but also to stay as distant from the undead as they can.

  Lissie occasionally kicks one head, then another.

  I get on next, and then the officer. He pats the side of the driver side window, then flinching and swiping away his arm from an undead, as if it were a bug that crawled up on him. Our “chaperone” reverses, gaining enough of a clearing to accelerate through these numbers.

  The metal railing that sticks out on the roof is what we all find ourselves holding onto to maintain balance. We’re on defense for all ourselves, but we don’t forget that Ashton has to be looked after the most in terms of the risk of him sliding around. Therefore, we box him within all of us to stop that from happening.

  We head straight towards the large facility hangar where Gary was led yesterday. The doors to it quickly and rigidly expand open, a timing that could only be expected because we were expected. Our driver brakes hard and rough, but it’s forgivable and thankful when I notice they’ve made the jeep a barricade for the inside.

  “Look, a haze cluster! Guys, move!” I hurry them, panic tinging my tone.

  First, Janice drops off, treating the roof like it were a slide, then Lissie. The driver gets out, before the officer makes his way down. Undead unknowingly are utilizing their combined strength and effort to make the jeep tilt, sliding Ashton, but luckily towards the inside of the warehouse.

  I go to grab the collar of his shirt, which in turn he gives me a hand wrapped around my wrist.

  “Let me drop. I’ll be okay.”

  His words are direct, but also an indirect instruction to the ones below us. All four of them ready their hands. Once I see this, I release hold, carefully helping him slide off.

  “Gotcha!” the officer who helped us exclaims.

  Everything said and done, I’m last off, and the last worried about before several other officers inside close back up the foldable hangar doors. The haze cluster has to be less than five feet away, while the thin outskirt of it is likely three feet fewer before the doors slam shut in time.

  I lean down to hold onto my knees, needing to take a breather. That breather ends when a voice comes from behind prominently, but tiredly, and asks for our attention. “You’re his people. This burdens me deeply… The mission is believed to have failed. Your leader, nor the dispatch he was sent off with, returned to their LZ… We have reason to believe not a single one of them survived.”

  That breath I took was important, because all of the air in me has been gutted out from this…news.

  Chapter I

  (Gary)

  5 Hours Earlier…

  “Holcomb, please. You’ve been pressing too deep and too ridiculously close to me,” I gently warn him.

  “Hey, try showing a little more positivity, all right?” His sarcastic tone is familiar to Ashton’s, which is why I can’t be so grateful for it.

  Jefald, our dispatch’s sniper, is quite comfortable with isolating himself from the rest of us. I believe he’s thankful he’s trying so hard to keep ahead beyond Holcomb and me.

  Our trail right down this mountain has no form, or sense of what’s safe to step on or not. I’m told by Holcomb to let him take point between the two of us.

  It’s
considerate of him, but, every so often I recognize there’s a little phrase coming from under his breath, with the attitude that isn’t coming from what he’s pretending to look at.

  “What are you saying to me that you’re not telling?” I ask, finally grown tired of this needless bickering.

  However, I can’t, nor won’t, stop engaging in it. The way I see it, I’m not to blame for my anger brewing within. There isn’t one, nor two, but several storms in my head at this point in time. Thing is, I won’t let myself steer clear of these storms. I deserve them, and I deserve whatever fight I’ll start with Holcomb.

  “I mean, we heal your knife wound that you kept trying to lie about, saying it wasn’t so bad. You keep trying to make this all about you. Man up, and realize that you’ve done—”

  He’s pushed deep in my trench, so now, he’ll have to scratch his way out of it. Because he’s in front of me, with his left arm careless to my intent, I take it and firmly control the joints so it’s in my stronghold of a grip, bent and stapled right on his lower back area.

  I expected he would try to wrestle his rest of his body to spin out of conjunction with my arm lock. So, in preparation, I proceeded in having him stuck by my right hand, preventing his right shoulder from turning. He’s like a gear that’s jammed and unable to turn clockwise.

  “Gary!” Ernie yells at me.

  Holcomb, knowing my mouth is ready to spit fury by his ear, only strains a chuckle. It’s the way friends would sound when having a physical altercation, as a means to signify a “no harm done” mentality.

  “Come on, man. I was just trying to help you. What else have you got to—”

  It is then he stops talking, already self-critiquing his last statement with a curse to himself.

  Before I can enact the takedown I’ve plotted in my head, my choice of direction is recalibrated. It’s the moment Ernie’s small, but unmistakably detailed eyes, layered with confidence, silently orders me to release Holcomb.

  Keep in mind, Gary, that these people are your last possibility of getting straight to Claw. They also are the last possibility of you getting back to the base when this is all done. Try to only think about Claw, as much as you loathe every flicker of his image.

  I delicately lose touch of Holcomb, ever so slightly, knowing I’ll likely receive a punch in the stomach from him. Though, even as he stares me down in the dark, the veil of night showing only a little of his chiseled and pointy jaw, he doesn’t show the mere fantasy of anger in his eyes. I can tell more with Ernie who has his flashlight on and pointed below us from the left.

  Ernie’s skin, able to stretch many expressions at once, has only one clear look. It’s appreciation.

  “That’s right. You both get along. Holcomb, be mindful of what you say to Gary. Gary, be mindful that Holcomb doesn’t always say what he means. Definitely do not fight him again. Nod if you understand.”

  “I understand,” I mutter.

  Ernie doesn’t appear pleased by the way I sound, but it’s not from having no control over me. It’s from trying to make a moral point.

  “No, no, Gary. I told you to nod if you understand. This, this may be a little something right now to you, but it could escalate. It could escalate to something much worse. I know you’re not a soldier, but quickly know when I ask you to do something in a particular way, you do it. Got it?”

  My nod is all I give. It’s no more, and it’s no less.

  Like a soldier would.

  “Good. Let’s pick up the pace.”

  This is all I am now. As much as I wanted—still want—to show Holcomb how wrong it was of him to bring up what’s left for me…he wasn’t wrong about what he said before I cut him off. This is all I have now. To follow the mission. To follow the orders. Kill C.F.O.G., and help end the apocalypse. This is all I have left.

  Our monumental site of a city looked as though it was in the palm of our hands just 20 minutes ago. Now, it’s got us, and, the way I’m seeing it, this city’s got more teeth from the various enemies that could be waiting to chew us up.

  Dead ahead is a train depot. It’s one with rails that intricately swerve and extend all to the left and right directions. A train shed is farther down right, while ahead is a structural entrance, with a large clock dabbed straight at its peak. Of course, I can’t see exactly the path straight in front of us, since several old train cars block my sight of the opening.

  Those train cars all remain still and frozen in time, like that clock up top is. However, though those train cars remain what they were the last time they’d been pulled and pushed, it doesn’t mean present tense people haven’t found a way to make those cars useful to them today.

  “Undead chained along the cars,” I whisper, even though we can all identify that on our own.

  They are literally hung up off their feet, iron draped to the point I can tell they have been bleeding profusely to every wiggle their bodies make.

  Whoever tied these up had to have been merciless. I couldn’t imagine they were dead when they were chained up.

  “Gary,” Ernie calls out, along with giving me a pat to my shoulder. “Seeing as this is going out, we’ll be finding hostiles around. Make sure you stay the most in cover. Stay closed in by us.”

  Jefald, whose quietness up to this point has been astounding, makes a little groan of anxiety. “Ernie, by the shed.”

  We all examine it as we carefully advance up to one of the train cars. The building’s darkness may be a wasteland to the living, but my mind’s already expecting more than metaphorical darkness to come out of that wide-open shed.

  Some sort of dark danger.

  This train car’s undead have powerful vocal cords, in the means of their abysmal loudness. I’m seeing these as sound triggers. They face the outskirts of the city, warning those already fastened by their surroundings about the—

  “Everyone, take cover!” Jefald preaches in his war cry.

  I don’t get a chance to observe what he sees, but all I need is his hard shove on my body to get fully behind the car’s back wall. Down by that shed begins pops and crackles, only not from fireworks, but from gunfire.

  “Aggressors!” I declare.

  It’s a word that brings familiarity to me, so I can recall the familiarity of how they are.

  Ernie and Jefald make the great leap of fate by both hip-firing and hastening from mine and Holcomb’s car to another one a little down left of us. There are sounds of dings and grazes of bullets on the frame of the train car. I can only envision this is an intimidation method to keep us pinned, at least until the aggressors succeed in charging us.

  Jefald is well engaged, hooting out panting snickers, and stating little remarks of dancing with death tonight, all to purposefully not lose his collectiveness.

  I know the same feeling.

  We find our time eating away, each passing minute going by faster than each bullet that barely misses us. My input to the firefight is with a Glock full-auto pistol, a kind which I never knew would feel like fast darts of injected destruction to the enemy.

  It feels like a trade-off with our dispatch. Jefald and I fire to the 11, 2, and 1 o’ clock spots, while Ernie and Holcomb blend in with ours, seeing as how their car is farther up to the shed, but they also include the 10, 12, and 7 o’ clock regions. With ammo, it becomes a much harder trust exercise, for if I need to reload, I must rely on Jefald to keep the heat on them, while then Holcomb watches our in-between area on his own.

  After a while of this back and forth shooting, a new opening rewards us for our dedication.

  The kind where we had nothing to do with their downturn.

  “I knew it! They’re losing ammo!” Holcomb’s declaration energizes all of us.

  With no other choice, I have to help silence the ones who are defenseless. A few turn around and rush back to their shed, but notably remain in a single running line we can all perfectly aim at. One drops to his knees to immediately pull bullets out from his pockets. The man’s foolish eye-to-
hand coordination punishes him severely, for he falls down by my eyes and hand.

  With bodies littering left and right, their original idea of outnumbering us and successfully attacking us has failed. The remaining people still alive manage to fall back into their shed, this time closing their doors shut.

  They can’t be left alone. They shouldn’t. Not after trying to kill us, and likely responsible for all of these undead on the cars.

  “Let’s go down there,” I say in a tone that’s even chilling to me.

  Holcomb takes hold of my arm with my gun, likely his own precaution. “Hold up, Gary. They’re not the mission.”

  Ernie overhears, and supports Holcomb, even though he himself is also unsteadily keeping eye contact on those shed doors. “We’re here for a bigger reason, Gary. Now, if they try and follow, then they’ll be dealt with.”

  Both of them have their heads turned to either side of me. I can feel their breath exhaling down my neck. I also feel the subtle predatory nature coming out of them, and, as much as I’d like to throw my narrative down to why those people should be finished, I can’t argue against them.

  They won’t argue either. If they wanted to, they’d probably have me unconscious until they’ve taken me to where I’m supposed to go.

  My stern turn of my head to both of them is answer enough of my reluctant obedience. Holcomb releases grip on me. I’m fairly sure he also felt that if one more second had passed I would’ve snatched my arm away. Jefald feels the storms thundering out of me, especially when I walk more through him than by him.

  Right as we leave the train depot, entering onto an unknown street, Ernie flexes his position on me again.

  “Front and center!” This is all that comes from his mouth. A stoic vibration awkwardly comes off me because of it. This only keeps his wheels turning. “Front. And. Center.”

  I comprehend that I must obey him, but, now, that’s not all he wants me to do. I can see it in his small eyes, ready to drown me with all sorts of knowledge. I stare at them, but mine aren’t as keen on keeping watch of them.