The Undead Chronicles | Vol. 3 | Dead of Winter, page 19
part #3 of The Undead Chronicles Series
Sticking to the alleys, Bryce and Molly kept out of sight since they weren’t exactly certain where Fournier was heading. The tracking device put them close, but Bryce knew he needed to stay at least a city block away.
“I wonder if any of these buildings have a fire escape in the back,” he said to Molly. “A higher vantage point would be handy.”
Looking at the device quickly, Molly got an idea of where Fournier was located before backing down the alley to fulfill Bryce’s request. Fournier continued to move along a street ahead of them, possibly searching for a specific location. Bryce couldn’t imagine the man needed food, and it felt too soon to search for shelter. A few hours of daylight remained, and Bryce knew the man’s habits well enough to know this wasn’t a normal stop.
Molly returned a few minutes later, appearing optimistic.
“No roof,” she said, “but I gained access to one of these buildings. The downstairs is clear, and there are stairs leading to the second and third levels inside.”
Bryce nodded affirmatively, and the pair made their way into the building a minute later, carefully ascending the stairs to the second floor. Bryce didn’t need the entire floor cleared, but rather the area facing the front side so they could spy on Fournier. Not hearing anything unusual on the second floor, he pointed upward, asking Molly to lead the way to the third floor for an even better view. She headed up, guided by natural light from a few windows in the common hallway of what appeared to be an apartment building. Both expected a zombie to attack them from either direction in an instant, but no surprises awaited them as they stepped foot on the top level a moment later.
A complete lack of the undead worried Bryce a bit, as though survivors, or another of Nadeau’s followers, might have cleared the city and stuck around.
Dust covered the window of the open apartment Bryce chose, so once they cleared the three rooms in the humble living quarters, he propped open the window for a better look outside. He spotted Fournier walking down the street in their direction, so he ducked back from the opening, and Molly took the hint, doing the same. Fournier, however, appeared to be reading some form of paperwork in his hands, searching numbers on the buildings, and street signs to make certain he reached the correct location. His destination was directly across the street, which Bryce considered good fortune if they could see and hear everything the man did, but disastrous if he spotted them.
Fournier reached the front door of a building in the middle of a row of three-story buildings that all ran together, and Bryce couldn’t tell how one would guess which door was correct. Carefully peering around the sides of the window, with semi-transparent curtains blowing in their faces, Bryce and Molly watched Fournier knock on the door twice, hesitate, knock once more, hesitate again, and knock three times.
“Interesting,” Molly said quietly.
“Indeed,” Bryce said, putting the sequence to memory.
Less than a minute passed before an armed man answered the door. A few inches taller than Fournier, he appeared rather intimidating, holding a sidearm in one hand, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Bryce wondered how tedious life in one of the apocalyptic safehouses must have been, and why the people continued to show loyalty to Nadeau.
“I need passage,” Fournier said to the man.
“Name?”
“Xavier Fournier.”
Now the man gave him a quizzical stare.
“What’s wrong?” Fournier asked.
“We heard about the fiasco up north.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Fournier practically pleaded.
Bryce found it interesting that this group, more accurately this network, kept in communication with one another. Nadeau possessed the means and foresight to organize hundreds, possibly thousands of people for a single goal. Perhaps he fed some of them a slanted truth about his scheme, or the lack of options after the apocalypse sealed their allegiance to him, but he certainly didn’t plan to decimate the world on a whim.
“The boss isn’t happy with you,” the man blocking the front door added. “He said you should’ve laid low and bided your time, not created a slave compound.”
“Those people were expendable,” Fournier argued. “In the ultimate scheme of things, they were dead anyway.”
Bryce felt his blood boil because his parents were among the people termed expendable. He exercised enough calm to surprise even himself, because his mind constantly manufactured new, creative ways to torture the man before ultimately killing him, but he refrained. Above all else, Bryce upheld his commitment to the government that employed him. They wanted to find Nadeau, and very few realistic means of locating him existed.
“I don’t think you grasp the situation,” the man guarding the door said. “The boss doesn’t want any of us attracting attention. You were supposed to lay low and await further orders.”
“Things changed,” Fournier said. “People wanted shelter, so we put them to work.”
“That’s not what we heard. Some of your people got here first and told us what happened. The boss isn’t happy.”
“I can make it up to him,” Fournier said. “And where are my people?”
“They moved ahead to the next destination,” the safehouse guard answered. “Like the rest of us, they know there’s a war ahead, and they followed orders.”
“I’ve been loyal,” Fournier said, fighting to avoid sounding desperate. “I kept our people safe.”
“Safe? You let a ragtag group infiltrate your facility and wipe out most of our people because of the trouble you caused. You aren’t going to slip anything past the boss.”
Bryce looked over to Molly, who provided a knowing smirk.
“They were jealous of the facility,” Fournier said. “They were after what we had, that’s all.”
After a few seconds of looking doubtful about anything Fournier told him, the man held up a hand.
“I’ll make a call,” he said before ducking inside, slamming the door behind him.
Fournier shook his fists, openly distraught about being treated in such a way. He’d walked and fought his way to this destination for days, only to have the safehouse’s keeper question his loyalty and methods. Bryce watched the man pace up and down the block for just over a minute before he looked to Molly, who wore a scoped rifle over her shoulder. The pair located it in one of the houses they raided, and she told him about how her grandfather taught her to shoot in her younger days.
“You might want to get that ready,” he said quietly. “I have a feeling our target is about to make a move, and I won’t be surprised if guns are involved.”
Molly carefully slid the rifle from her shoulder and stood back from the window to take aim, keeping the barrel back from view. The last thing the pair could afford was to be spotted from across the street when they had remained so discreet thus far. She laid the tip of the barrel down against the base of the window to support the weight of the gun, knowing she might be holding her position a while.
“Where would you like me to aim?” she inquired.
“At the door,” Bryce answered. “I have a feeling our guard may bring some friends. We can’t afford to lose Fournier now.”
Less than a minute passed before the door opened and the safehouse guard emerged, still holding his sidearm.
“Well?” Fournier asked impatiently, as though he wanted to get started on whatever path was now chosen for him.
Without a word, the man raised his firearm, and though Fournier started to say something when the gun was pointed at his forehead, the words never emerged. The shot rang out through the city, sure to attract the undead, but as Fournier’s body collapsed, Bryce felt his jaw drop from the pure shock of the situation. If anyone should have killed the man, it should have been him or his brother, and now weeks of walking and scrounging were wasted.
Molly looked to him, equally surprised, but awaiting his next directive. Bryce fought the numbness overtaking his body, forcing his mind to concentrate on the present.
“Shoot to wound if he tries to go inside,” Bryce told her. “I’m going down there, so cover me.”
“You got it,” Molly said.
Bryce raced down the stairs, not particularly concerned about how much noise he made because he felt confident Molly could cover him effectively. As he rounded the stairs from the second story, descending to the ground floor, he drew his sidearm, prepared to get what few answers he might from the man guarding the safehouse.
As he reached the ground floor, Bryce yanked the front door open as a shot rang out, and he spied the man dropping to the ground, clutching the area around his knee as his sidearm dropped to the ground. Bryce held up his pistol, crossing the street while keeping the gun aimed at the man.
“Don’t move!” he ordered.
Appearing shocked, the man looked between Molly and Bryce, unable to believe his position was compromised. His eyes shifted to the gun lying beside him.
“Don’t try it,” Bryce said firmly. “I want answers, but I can have a look inside if you have a death wish.”
“Who are you?” the man asked, still clutching his leg.
“Molly, come on down,” Bryce said without letting his eyes shift from his prisoner. “I’m with the government. We’ve been following this man across four states.”
“Figures,” the guard scoffed. “He’s been nothing but trouble for us.”
“So I heard. Where is Nadeau?”
Now the man chuckled, which erupted into a light, choppy laugh laced with pained groans intermittently.
“There are so many protective layers between this place and him. You’ll never find him.”
“I’d be obliged if you provide me with the next safehouse location,” Bryce ordered more than requested.
“You won’t get them from me,” the man stated without falter. “And you won’t get them inside, either. We’re asked to commit things to memory and destroy the originals. Unlike Fournier and some of his people, I know how to follow orders.”
“As do I,” Bryce stated. “You can either tell me, or we can keep putting holes in you.”
“And risk bringing the dead around? I don’t think so.”
An awkward silence filled the streets of Goshen momentarily, mainly because Bryce felt he’d entered a stalemate.
“We both know this ends with me dead,” the sentry said.
“It doesn’t have to,” Molly said, crossing the street to take Bryce’s side. “You work for a man who did an unspeakable evil. It’s not too late to rectify that.”
Now the man gave another pained laugh.
“What you just said is from a certain point-of-view. One that’s wrong by the way. He didn’t do this in the name of religion, or because he suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Whatever you people were told, it isn’t true.”
“Maybe you should enlighten us,” Bryce said.
“I don’t think so,” the man said, quickly reaching for the gun beside him.
“Stop!” Bryce said, knowing what the man intended to do.
Molly took aim with the rifle at the man, ensuring he didn’t endanger her or Bryce. Both watched as he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, taking his own life.
Bryce watched the opposite side of the man’s head explode outward, spewing blood and brain matter on the building and sidewalk nearby. He drew a heavy sigh, because words couldn’t express the emptiness he felt after so many weeks on the road ending in failure. He stared momentarily at the bodies lying at his feet, wondering if any answers awaited him inside, and the sentry lied to him to stall for time.
“I wasn’t going to let him hurt us,” Molly said evenly, as though the bodies and weeks of travel didn’t faze her one bit.
“I know.”
Stepping over to Fournier, Bryce searched his pockets until he located the tiny tracking device that allowed him to follow the man across state lines. Placing it in his own pocket for the time being, he suspected another scenario requiring its use might eventually cross his path.
As though inviting them inside, the door remained open, and Bryce had little reason to believe anyone else was holed up with the dead guard.
“We need to check, despite what he said,” Bryce muttered numbly.
***
Nearly an hour later, the duo had gone through every inch of the business building converted into a makeshift apartment. It didn’t contain an underground lair, like the safehouse in Canada, but the man wasn’t lying when he said it contained no paperwork leading them to Nadeau. Instead, they located books, electronic tablets, a laptop computer, and many everyday items one might expect to see before the apocalypse.
Atop the roof, a solar panel provided electricity for the sentry, giving him hot showers, electricity, and creature comforts most people envied in the present. City water would have failed in approximately a week after the apocalypse, so the sentry had a device rigged on the roof to catch water. From what Bryce could tell, he used gravity to filter it down to a water heater, essentially making it well water from the sky.
Although they felt a bit guilty, each of them took a hot shower within the hour while the other continued searching the apartment for useful items or clues. While drying off, Bryce noticed an electric razor sitting beside the sink. He wasn’t about to use another person’s personal grooming accessories, so he left his beard untouched for the time being.
Having all three stories for one person felt a bit much to Bryce, but he realized guest bedrooms existed for travelers deemed worthy of Nadeau’s benevolence. Bryce located dirty magazines while Molly showered, and he didn’t mention his find to her, or the books he found about survival and prepping, mainly because they didn’t warrant extra attention.
Strangely, the living spaces appeared in disarray, because the man seldom cleaned up the areas, but the guest rooms looked as though they were barely touched during the past few months. Either he kept them presentable, or very few people made it as far as this particular safehouse. All sorts of questions ran through Bryce’s mind about how the organization worked, and why Nadeau cared enough about these particular people when he heeded little mind to murdering millions that fateful weekend.
In the kitchen, they located a pantry stocked with some canned goods, but a lot of sealed packets of rations. Bryce recognized them as being the types of food the military and NASA might use because they provided basic nutritional needs and required little space for storage.
“This guy was fanatical,” Bryce noted when they found the food and his small stash of firearms and ammunition in another room.
“Enough to kill himself,” Molly added. “Who are these people? And why such devotion to a maniac like Nadeau?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t be beating the bushes like this.”
While they continued the search, finding an older videogame console, and games that could be played offline, along with a few Blu-ray and DVD players, they didn’t find evidence of the man keeping anything of use in tracking Nadeau. Even the computer and tablets turned up no information, and though they found a two-way radio, neither dared to use it because they didn’t want to give away information that the safehouse was compromised. Because neither of them knew the lingo used by Nadeau’s people, code words, or how the process worked, they wouldn’t gain anything useful from a radio conversation.
Bryce doubted anyone would answer if he got on there and initiated a conversation or asked for assistance.
Satisfied the converted business offered them nothing else, the two grabbed some rations and a few canned goods for the road. They stepped outside and moved the bodies aside, not concerned in the least about covering them, much less putting them in the ground. Bryce knew Fournier deserved to be picked apart by birds and scavenger animals after his part in genocide. Both of them possessed full packs, and a few extra firearms as they stared at the bodies one last time.
“Where do we go from here?” Molly inquired.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Bryce answered. “Nadeau is somewhere west of here, but we stand no chance of locating him now. I guess we head east and see what happens.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” a voice said from behind them, halfway across the street.
Both Molly and Bryce trained their guns on the man, who held his hands halfway up, not appearing overly concerned.
“And who might you be?” Bryce asked, studying the man.
Reasonably clean cut, the man wore blue jeans and an old New York Islanders sweatshirt. He toted a few firearms, and carried a pack, but Bryce immediately recognized the man’s mannerisms, placing him as military in nature because he carried himself well and seemed very self-assured, despite his surroundings. His blond hair was cut very close to the scalp, and even through the bulky clothes he appeared quite fit.
“Sergeant Eric Linderman,” the man answered. “I’m with the Two-Six out of Camp Lejeune, and I’ve been sent to bring you home.”
Bryce looked at him, slightly perplexed about a few different things.
“How do you know who I am?” Bryce asked, his eyes scanning his own body from head to toe since he wore civilian clothing.
“I think most of the personnel at Norfolk know who you are now, sir.”
“Why would they send anyone for me?” he questioned, “and how on God’s green Earth did you find me?”
“You’re not the only one with a GPS system, sir,” Linderman answered. “They provided me with one, assuming I could track you by tracking Fournier if you were still alive.”
“And why would they think I survived? They would obviously know I was bitten by the infected.”
