After The Virus | Book 3 | New World Order Read online

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “He thinks he’s doing God’s work,” Sam answered. “Or maybe that he is God, or a messiah, or something. He doesn’t treat his own people badly, so long as we do what he wants, and he’s really free with rewards and praise. It’s weird. I don’t know why he hates you guys, either. Maybe it’s because you’ve got all the women or something.”

  “What?”

  “Aside from the Warriors of Christ group,” he replied. “There’s maybe four women in the whole group. Most of them are older, too, except for a little girl.”

  “Warriors of Christ?” I asked, drumming my fingertips on the tabletop.

  “Yeah, a sort of militia-slash-cult compound that we found a bit north of Huntsville,” Sam said. “They were isolated and managed to miss the plague that wiped everyone out. There are a couple of other militias, too, but they weren’t as lucky, really.”

  I nodded and frowned. Sam had put at least one name to the compounds Price had contacted, but he hinted at larger numbers, maybe, than what Wilcox suggested. In that regard, at least, I suspected the sergeant had the more accurate estimate. Sam was a bit excitable.

  “Not your kind of people?” I asked after a long pause.

  The young man shook his head. “Not at all,” he told me. “I joined Sergeant Wilcox and his team as their tech guy in hopes of just getting out of Birmingham.” The young man looked down at his hands, then raised his head and gave me a sheepish smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I shot at you and your girl.”

  “Jackie,” I said flatly. “You’re lucky we felt like taking prisoners.”

  He paled and nodded vigorously. “Thank you for that.”

  “Yep,” I said and looked at his empty plate. “You want more chicken or anything?”

  “Oh! Yes, please,” he replied as I stood up, giving me a good facsimile of puppy-dog eyes.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I told him as I headed out into the hall, closing and locking the door behind me.

  “What about this one?” Angie asked almost as soon as the lock clicked shut.

  “Opportunist,” I replied. “Selfish. Pretty much an average twenty-something male, I reckon.”

  “So, do we put him into a barrel and bury it,” Angie asked. “Or do we house-train him and let him into the house?”

  I laughed and gave her a curious look.

  “Did you ever read Heinlein?” I asked.

  “I saw Starship Troopers,” she replied.

  “He said something about male children; that they should be put into a barrel and fed through a hole until they reach eighteen, at which point you make the decision to seal up the barrel or let them out.”

  Angie giggled and shook her head. “Pretty extreme, but I can kind of see where he might’ve come from with that.”

  “Yeah.” I turned and stared at the door for a long moment. “I think I’m going to recommend bringing him in, too, under the same conditions as the sergeant.”

  “I’d recommend we don’t house them together,” she opined.

  “I agree. Once the others give me their opinion, we can see who’ll sponsor them. For now, though, Let’s get Private Pryor into a room and see how he stacks up,” I said. “I’ll go get him a plate and meet you there.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a broad grin before disappearing off down the hallway, heading for the detention cells. Emptying this place out would definitely free up some resources. Sitting on these three for a week had been a pain in the ass, what with guarding them and feeding them.

  I headed into the observation room. Someone had made coffee, and Jackie offered me a steaming cup of it when I walked in. I smiled and gave her a grateful nod.

  “That boy needs boot camp,” Gene groused.

  Bruce smirked.

  “I agree with you there, old man,” the survivalist said. “I had a look at that AR-15 of his. Expensive and with lots of toys, but it barely looked like it had ever been fired.”

  “I’m not sure I trust him with a gun of any kind, yet,” I threw in. “Same as Wilcox, though, I’m recommending we offer them a place, but we keep our eyes on them. Ultimately, it’s up to the group as a whole, though.”

  “Everyone deserves a chance,” Jackie said.

  “Singular,” Bruce commented. “As in one. These nitwits have already blown it by attacking you.”

  “I’m mixed on this,” Estelle said slowly. “I’m not sure I want to trust them, but I’m not happy with the idea of executing them, either.”

  “I’m not sure how to count that,” I said. “And Bruce, are you going to be staying with us, or heading back out to Arizona?”

  “I don’t know, yet,” he replied, shrugging his thin shoulders. “Jury’s still out.”

  “You love us,” Jackie teased, fluttering her eyelashes at the older man.

  He just snorted and looked back at the young man staring wistfully at his empty plate.

  “Well,” I said. “Time to see what Wilson Pryor’s about.”

  “Good luck,” Gene tossed after me as I took my coffee and headed to the last empty interrogation room after gathering up another couple of covered plates.

  One plate went to Samuel, and the last accompanied me to the room where I would wait for Angie to bring Wilson. The third surviving member of Wilcox’s team. He had been quiet and sullen throughout the week, barely interacting with any of us when we delivered food and checked on the prisoners.

  I settled into my chair and folded my hands on the tabletop. Would the young soldier be a problem? Maybe. I’d have to handle him just right if I was going to break through to him.

  The door clicked open, and Angie prodded Wilson Pryor into the interrogation room. He wore a sour look and didn’t even glance at the plate of food as he ambled over to the chair opposite me and flopped down as best he could with his handcuffed hands.

  “That’s yours if you want it,” I told him, gesturing to the covered plate.

  Wilson grunted and regarded me.

  I huffed and met his gaze.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I asked, smiling faintly.

  He scowled, and his eyes flickered in the direction of the plate before returning to mine.

  “Fried chicken,” I told him. “It’s probably getting cold.”

  Wilson’s left eye twitched.

  I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

  “Okay, private,” I said firmly. “What the hell is your problem? You and your squad attacked us without any warning, same with that team in Atlanta.”

  “We were told you murdered one of our people at the Welcome Center,” he said at last. “Even still, we just planned to watch you, but Price radioed the order to Sergeant Wilcox.”

  “Let me tell you a little something about Hunter Blake,” I drawled. “That son of a bitch tried to kill me twice and packed the Welcome Center with explosives to see how many more people he could get.”

  “Why should I believe you?” the young man demanded.

  “What reason do I have to lie to you?” I countered. “You and yours tried to kill me, too. By all rights, you should be fertilizing my garden, but here I am sitting down and offering you a plate of damn good fried chicken, while you’re an ungrateful little shit. Didn’t the Army teach you better, son? Hell. Didn’t your mother?”

  Wilson stiffened, but I wasn’t done with him, yet.

  “Maybe you ain’t figured it out yet,” I said. “But we’re all Americans. I was Army, same as you. Did my time in Afghanistan during the war and walked away with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Since this virus hit, I’ve been doing my best to pull together the people I’ve found and give them a place to live and feel safe.”

  “Until that asshole Blake pulled his shit, and the rest of you showed up with your war-faces on, I was perfectly happy to go about my day without having to hump around a combat rifle. Now, thanks to you, I had to resume carrying something a bit meatier than a hunting rifle as part of my daily o
utfit.” I paused and took a breath, glaring at the wide-eyed young soldier across from me. “Like I told your sergeant, I’m through playing nice. Now, you eat your damn fried chicken. Then we’re going to have a conversation about where you want to be in the near future.”

  “But-”

  I slammed my fist down on the table.

  “Eat. Your. Goddamned. Chicken,” I growled.

  Wilson reached for the plate.

  Truth be told, I never reached the rank of sergeant. I held E-4 specialist when I was discharged, but I’d been acting squad leader for my mechanic team, and I’d worked with enough sergeants that I could play one passably well, especially when it came to shouting down trainees and wet-behind-the-ears privates just shipped over from boot.

  None of them needed to know that, though, but I figured the sergeant suspected.

  I settled back into my chair and crossed my arms to watch Wilson Pryor dig into his meal. He ate fast, like I’d expected, done in less than ten minutes. I nodded slowly as he replaced his utensils on the plate and covered it.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  A slow nod was his answer, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “What do you think of Price?” I asked pointedly.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “He’s ambitious, but…” Wilson’s voice trailed off.

  “But, what?”

  “The people he’s found,” the young man replied. “They’re more like… fanatics… terrorists… At least the ones who aren’t just civvies are.”

  “What about them?” I wanted to know. If there were just people in Price’s groups that weren’t fighters, then we’d want to be careful. Likely, they didn’t know what their leader was doing.

  “I’m not sure how many people are just flat out non-coms,” Wilson offered. “There’s a little community of about ten or so that live in the neighborhood around the church. They garden and scrounge and do work on things, but none of them carry anything more than maybe a sidearm or shotgun, if that.”

  I nodded slowly and studied the man.

  “You looking for points with us, then?” I asked after he looked up and met my gaze.

  Wilson nodded slowly.

  “I think so,” he replied. “I never should have raised arms against fellow Americans, not even now. Not without damn good reason.”

  “Good choice,” I said. “Guess the next step is to see how the rest of the family decides.”

  3

  Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Cities in Dust” played quietly in the background as we all gathered in one of the briefing rooms of the Opelika police station. The little family had grown in the past few months, and while we hadn’t really felt any growing pains yet, I was determined to hold them off for as long as possible. One way I intended to do that was gatherings like these.

  Town halls, so to speak.

  Everyone had food, along with sodas, sweet tea, or water, and we lounged around like it was more of an indoor picnic than a serious discussion. Virgil had Tommy and Irene off at a smaller table, with Penny helping. Everyone else sat around the conference table that Bruce, Virgil, Bill, and I had moved into the large, open space.

  “The gardens are doing well,” Jackie reported, in between nibbling on some of the fried chicken we had. “Same with the animals. We’ll be seeing a bit more livestock in a few months, which should put us in a better position of sustainability. Not just that, I think there’s going to be a strong comeback among wild critters, too. We’ll still want to be careful of the usual suspects, Lyme disease, rabies, and parasites, but I think we’ll be pretty well off.”

  “We’ve got a good supply of fuel,” I added as she settled back down. “Solar is powering the main house and cottage, along with the well pumps. We’ve got propane for most of the generators, which will last awhile. Gas, aviation fuel, and diesel, though, will slowly become a problem unless we can lay in stockpiles of oil and do our own refining.”

  “Feasible, but not easy or quick,” Bruce threw in.

  “Right,” I said. “We also need to build our defenses up from motion sensors and a wi-fi camera network to something a bit less friendly. That group in Birmingham is a little over a hundred miles away, but they’ve been happy to get up in our business a couple of times, now. With extreme prejudice. I, for one, am not content to let this stand.”

  “Letting bad behavior continue only encourages it,” Angie mused.

  I nodded and looked around the room. Almost everyone paid attention, even the two teenagers. Tommy, though, was engrossed in playing with baby Irene.

  That was fine.

  “We’ve got three prisoners,” I continued. “None of them seem overly happy to remain a part of Price’s Birmingham township, and we’re going to have a talk about their fate once I finish my original thought.”

  I scanned the room and took a deep breath before I continued.

  “Our defenses are kind of shoddy. We’re decently armed, especially with the BearCat, Bruce’s M35, and the Blackhawk to back up our small arms. Our-” I paused and sucked in a breath. It felt wrong to use the word enemy as a description for fellow survivors and Americans, but that’s what they were. “Enemy has access to armor from Anniston Depot, and God only knows what from the Redstone Arsenal. Fortunately for us, he doesn’t have that many people, but unfortunately, they still outnumber us.”

  Michelle Young, one of our newer folks, raised a nervous hand. I nodded in her direction, and she stood. It was almost amusing, given that she’d been a teacher before the virus hit.

  “Can’t we just talk to them?” she asked, looking around at the rest of the room before focusing on me.

  “I’ll leave it up to all of you,” I said slowly. “I ain’t inclined to answer two attacks with an olive branch, and from what our prisoners said, the good reverend isn’t likely to reach out, either.”

  “Oh.” She settled back down in her seat and looked down at her hands.

  I hated to burst anyone’s bubble like that, but we were pretty much heading down a path that would lead us into a fight that I didn’t want. Hell, I doubted any of us wanted it.

  “What are you proposing?” Gene asked. “Defense-wise.”

  “You want the long or short list?” I shot back, smiling faintly.

  “Let’s go short,” he replied.

  “Better access control,” I said. “Posts, fences, razor wire at the perimeter to go with Penny’s cameras and motion sensors. Scheduled patrols. Maybe a gate or blocking vehicle on the road along with spike strips. I’d like to start reinforcing the houses, too.”

  “May I throw in some suggestions?” Bruce asked, looking right at me.

  “Go right ahead,” I answered.

  “Home fortifications are all well and good, but you might want to consider clearing out trees and such around the houses to eliminate cover for attackers,” he said. “Barring that, well, maybe traps?”

  “I’m not so sure about traps,” Angie spoke up. “With all the animals and the kids…”

  “Yeah, probably not the best idea,” Gene mused.

  “Well,” Bruce grumbled. “There’s always going on the offensive.”

  “I like that idea,” Gwen opined. “Dangerous, but…”

  “Definitely dangerous,” I agreed. “But something to consider.”

  “Really?” Bill Foreman asked. “Is that a good idea? I mean, maybe they’ll just give up and stay where they are, since they failed.”

  “We got lucky,” I said flatly. “What happens if they show up in a tank, or helicopter, even a damn Cessna with some idiot tossing grenades out the window?”

  Everyone grew silent. Gene, Angie, and Bruce all nodded slowly. Bill deflated visibly. He’d been with us when some of the men from Birmingham attacked Bruce’s big truck on the road to the National Guard depot in Atlanta. We’d been damn lucky that the old survivalist had a Gatling gun in the back. I’d had no idea that 45-70 rounds like that would mess up a humvee like they had. We’d won that one, but by
the skin of our teeth.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “What I’m proposing is to shore up our defenses here, but I want to take a few people to Maxwell-Gunter in Montgomery and see what we can find. Once we’re happy with home defense, I mean to take some volunteers and go check out Birmingham.”

  “If you’re really sure,” Jackie said slowly while the others, mostly the folks with no military background, murmured back and forth.

  I nodded.

  “We have to,” I told her. “We also need to expand our ability to broadcast. That radio station at Auburn is a good bet, at least for the local area. I suspect we need to go shortwave to get reach like Price has, though.”

  “That’s for sure,” Penny spoke up. “He’s got a clear broadcast out to at least one-hundred and fifty miles, and the shortwave can reach, well, around the world with enough power.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, then scanned around at the concerned faces of my friends and family. Then I focused on Estelle and Gwen. “We have to pull the rest of your associates out of the CDC and get them to Auburn. It’s still further than I’d like, but it’s almost an hour even by helicopter to get to Atlanta, and we already know they’ve been under surveillance by Price’s men.”

  “Pretty sure he wants the nuke,” Bruce muttered. “We need to shut that thing down.”

  “We’ll need to address the pathogens we have stored there,” Gwen observed. “But Estelle and I agree. We’ve looked at the closer facilities, and they’ll serve, provided we can get reliable power.”

  “Reliable power seems to be our biggest issue with damn near everything,” Gene said, and focused on me. “What’s our priority?”

  I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose. There was so much to do, and a lot of it required my direct attention. Still, there were things that the others could do.

  “First,” I said slowly. “I think we need to address the elephant that isn’t in the room. We need to decide what to do with our prisoners. Gene, Bruce, Estelle, and Jackie witnessed me talking to them, so I’m going to have them tell you their thoughts.”

  “What about you?” Bill asked.

  “I’m abstaining,” I replied. “For now. I’m going to step out. Come get me when you’re ready to put it to a vote.”