The Undead Chronicles | Vol. 3 | Dead of Winter, page 41
part #3 of The Undead Chronicles Series
Metzger spotted Hewitt’s gun beside him on the ground, and he immediately felt compelled to keep his friend and Hannah away from the man.
“Stay back!” he yelled, catching them both by surprise as they had to look around, before spotting him on the second story.
Freezing in their tracks, they appeared to ask Metzger for direction, and he motioned for them to return to the rear doors. Timmons held out his left arm, like a boom gate, keeping Hannah from taking another step forward, but Metzger worried that his protective friend might try to resolve the situation himself. Indeed, the Navy captain appeared uncertain of which action might prove the best, and his eyes drifted in the direction of the piles of corpses nearby. He stared momentarily, taking a few deep breaths, and Metzger felt certain his friend would rush forward and risk a confrontation with the wounded Hewitt. In the end, he trusted Metzger enough to heed his request. Backing away with Hannah, both kept their eyes on Hewitt until they reached the doors and returned inside.
Hewitt continued to lament his likely broken ankle, not trying to rise from the ground, so Metzger left the room through the broken door and briskly went down the stairs, navigating his way to the dining area. There, he found a concerned Timmons who grabbed him by the arm as he attempted to pass through to the rear doors.
“You need to finish him,” Timmons said sternly. “He’s a danger to all of us.”
“We need him, Scott.”
“We need him like a hole in the head, Dan. There’s no reason to keep him around.”
“Please, just kill him,” Hannah added, her face etched in fear after nearly being killed by her former ally.
“I don’t want to keep him around,” Metzger said, looking to both of them. “We need to take him to Norfolk.”
“What?” Timmons asked, his expression indicating he thought Metzger had lost his mind.
“He has the same immunity as me,” Metzger stated. “He survived that cut from my sword that was covered in zombie blood.”
“That could be a fluke,” Timmons argued.
“How?” Metzger countered. “When everyone else dies from it. This could be our one chance to get the military off our backs, because you know they’re looking for us.”
Timmons started to say something, but his open mouth froze momentarily, giving Metzger an opportunity to say what he needed to.
“Stay here,” he said to both of his companions. “I’m going to deal with Hewitt.”
Again, Timmons started to say something, but Metzger cut him off by holding up a finger and making a statement.
“That’s final,” he said sternly.
He started to walk away, but turned around sharply as something crossed his mind.
“Find me some rope, or handcuffs, or something. We’re taking this fucker back with us. Alive.”
Metzger tried to read the captain’s thoughts, but Timmons maintained a neutral expression. He turned to head outside once again, prepared to deal with Hewitt, knowing his plan might easily fail for a number of reasons. If it did, his situation wouldn’t really change, but it certainly wouldn’t improve. They sent specialized soldiers after Bryce, and Sutton had called to warn him that the military paid a visit to the area where he, Gracine, and the others were currently staying.
When he stepped out the back doors once again, Metzger spied Hewitt in the distance trying to stand on his bad ankle, and utterly failing. As the man tried to put weight on it, he collapsed, hitting the snowy concrete hard. Walking with a purpose, Metzger assumed Hewitt still possessed his pistol, because it wasn’t lying on the ground. He needed to ensure he didn’t get shot while he either subdued Hewitt, or reasoned with the man.
“Stop!” he shouted, as though a police officer pursuing a suspect.
Hewitt indeed froze in his tracks, and his right hand slowly reached for what Metzger assumed was his gun tucked somewhere in his jacket. Metzger continued closer, spying cover to his right in case he needed to avoid gunfire.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “You have a sniper rifle trained on you right now.”
He wasn’t positive the man bought the lie, but his hand stopped short of reaching into his jacket.
“Just kill me and be done with it,” Hewitt said, though his words didn’t sound like a man ready to die.
“I’m not going to kill you unless you make me.”
“You tried once before.”
“Believe me, if you didn’t have immunity to the virus, I would’ve put a bullet in you a few minutes ago.”
Hewitt appeared conflicted, but ultimately, he signaled he was going to slowly reach for the gun, which he tossed several feet away from him once he pulled it out. Knowing he was in the clear, Metzger let his anger get the best of him, rushing forward to stomp Hewitt in his injured ankle, causing the man to howl in pain. Not only had the man murdered almost two dozen people, but he threatened to kill Timmons without a shred of doubt or remorse. Metzger couldn’t let such sociopathic behavior go unpunished.
Metzger tucked his own firearm behind him, taking a deep breath as he debated how to deal with Hewitt. Dropping down and mounting the man’s chest, pinning his arms to the ground, Metzger lit into him with several punches to the face, repeatedly and rhythmically until he began to feel pain in his own knuckles. Even so, he continued to pummel Hewitt, knowing he needed to keep the man alive, but not in pristine condition.
“Whoa!” Timmons said, rushing up behind Metzger and pulling him off the man, allowing Metzger to see the blood and busted skin on Hewitt’s face as the man groaned, rolling over on the frozen path.
Timmons released his solid grip on Metzger’s arms, but kept a hand on his shoulder to make certain no further beatings occurred.
“This is kind of a role reversal,” Timmons admitted.
“I can’t kill him, but he can’t go unpunished for what he did,” Metzger muttered, looking at his reddened, sore knuckles.
“Yeah, I know,” the pilot said slowly, glancing in the direction of the bodies.
Once he felt assured Metzger wasn’t going to batter his adversary again, Timmons walked over to grab the discarded firearm.
“We can’t be keeping him prisoner for too long,” he said. “It’s dangerous for everyone at the resort.”
“I know. That’s why we need to get him to Virginia as soon as the weather allows.”
Timmons shook his head, though Metzger wasn’t sure his action was based on the notion of heading south.
“What is it?”
“Hannah and I got blindsided by this creep and you’ve had the wherewithal to talk him down, subdue him, and realize his importance within seconds. Hell, if it was me, I would’ve put a bullet between his eyes and never realized the wasted opportunity.”
“That option is still on the table if he gives us any trouble, Scott. But delivering him to the military might get them off our backs.”
“I hope you’re not planning on walking up to their front gates, son.”
“Hardly. I’ll hammer out the details, but I’ve got a plan for that, too.”
Hannah approached them from behind with several synthetic portions of rope.
“It’s all I could find,” she said, looking a bit guilty for being taken hostage, or her earlier alliance with Hewitt when she didn’t know better.
“Neither of you need to feel bad about him surprising you. He’s been here a while and knows the lay of the land. And he’s obviously gotten some practice at killing the living.”
Metzger looked to the bodies, and Hannah got her first real look at them, drawing closer momentarily until she realized exactly what happened to them. Putting both of her hands to her face, she withdrew, on the verge of sobbing because she realized how close she came to joining the victims that once occupied the lodge.
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head before retreating to the main building in a dead run.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Timmons volunteered. “You going to be okay?”
Metzger nodded, understanding his friend was really asking if he could keep a level head.
As Timmons walked away, Metzger went about the business of flipping Hewitt over and tying both his hands and his feet for the time being. He didn’t want the man to put up any kind of resistance until he formulated a solid plan to transport him back to the resort, keep him prisoner, and somehow get him back to Virginia. With the sat phones continuing to function, he had an idea how to make contact with the military brass, but he also considered the risk of giving away any information that might lead them to the Adirondacks, or his loved ones.
Metzger struggled with the risk versus reward, because he didn’t want such a dangerous man around his family. He reached for the gun behind him, stopping just short of clasping it, because he knew killing Hewitt doomed any chances of the military ceasing their search for him and his brother. Looking to the piles of bodies, he wondered how many of them were blood relatives, or risked their lives for one another before their senseless murders.
His hand slowly wrapped around the gun’s handle, but he stopped just short of lifting it from his belted pants. For several conflicted seconds, Metzger contemplated the appropriate move, watching Hewitt writhe in pain along the ground, somewhere between a cognizant and unconscious state. Looking skyward, he wanted to let out a yell to vent his frustration, but Metzger knew the dangers of doing so. Instead, he released his grip and decided he’d come this far, and he wasn’t about to let Hewitt go to waste when his blood might help create a vaccine or a cure for the plague.
Timmons returned a few minutes later, his face registering a bit of surprise that Metzger hadn’t changed his mind about keeping Hewitt alive.
“We’re staying the night,” Metzger decided aloud. “We’ll use his room since he already has a fire going.”
“There’s enough supplies in there to last us for months,” Timmons said, thumbing towards the lodge.
“They’d last a single person a lot longer than that.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known.”
“And now that I do know, I’m not letting it go to waste. I’ve got some pretty good ideas how to deliver him without any of us getting caught up in the military’s web.”
“That’s good, because they’ll be looking to pin something on me other than an admiral’s star.”
“Don’t worry,” Metzger said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “With this, they won’t have much cause to be pissed at us.”
Timmons chuckled doubtfully.
“It’s pretty obvious you don’t know my former employers very well.”
***
Nearly an hour later, the three found a spot in the lodge where they were able to use a small chain and some handcuffs to secure Hewitt to a metal railing behind a bar located in the dining area. Metzger did most of the work because Hannah remained traumatized, and Timmons didn’t feel especially well after being struck in the head.
Each room, it turned out, was like a hotel suite, complete with fireplace, furnishings, walk-in showers and hot tubs that didn’t appeal to Metzger without electricity for hot water. Beds, some disheveled, and some appearing they were made that morning by housekeeping, appeared equally luxurious. Wood adorned virtually every wall, and every piece of furniture in the lodge, and Metzger understood why a group of just over twenty people chose to call Lake Placid their home.
“I thought I knew him,” Hannah lamented, sitting on the floor close to the fire, which provided them warmth enough to comfortably sleep in the room.
“You couldn’t have known,” Metzger told her. “The apocalypse. It changes people.”
All three of them sat near the fire, soaking in the warmth momentarily. Although they located candles and other supplies, in addition to the food, they chose to let the fire be the sole illumination within the suite.
“You sure he can’t escape?” Timmons asked, barely glancing in the direction of the dining area one level below them.
“I’m not sure of anything,” Metzger replied. “He never even stirred when I moved him. He’s either a really good actor, or I busted him up worse than I thought.”
“Those people,” Hannah said, her voice trailing off momentarily. “How did he kill so many of them?”
“They’re like anyone else, Hannah,” Metzger answered. “They left this place to find supplies, and he probably picked them off a few at a time. We all know that sometimes people don’t make it back, so by the time they had an idea what was going on, there weren’t enough of them left to make a stand against him.”
A monster among men, Hewitt could easily defeat most people with his bare hands, but given a gun or a knife, his lethal nature was amplified.
“If he wants to escape, he’s going to have to earn it,” Metzger said, knowing from testing the railing personally that it wasn’t going to give without a fight.
“Why do you have to let him live in the first place?” Hannah questioned.
Her fear of Hewitt remained apparent after nearly dying at his hands.
“He has immunity to the disease,” Metzger explained.
“I know,” Hannah answered somewhat testily. “It’s not worth the risk.”
“Tell that to anyone bitten by the infected,” Timmons butted in, slight irritation in his tone. “Dan has risked life and limb for his family and people he didn’t even know. Yourself included. You saying you don’t have faith in him?”
“I don’t have faith in our chances of survival if Adam gets loose. A normal person doesn’t stack bodies like firewood in their back yard.”
“I’ve already taken steps to make certain he doesn’t get out of that room without us knowing,” Metzger assured her.
He planned on securing their room, and checking on Hewitt throughout the night to make certain the man didn’t escape. To ensure Hewitt didn’t escape without detection, Metzger used some baby monitors he found in a storage area to listen to the dining area. They ran on electricity or battery backup, so he was able to power them with some extra batteries, thankful for both finds.
Hannah took the bed, with insistence from Timmons and Metzger, while both men slept on the floor, practically cocooned in blankets with fresh pillows that never saw use after the crumbling of society. Reasonably accustomed to the warmth a fire provided, Metzger discovered it felt slightly better on this particular evening after such an exhausting day of travel and combat. Images of the bodies in the courtyard ran through his mind at first, but he soon drifted off, knowing such horrors were a regular occurrence in the new world.
Metzger experienced an odd dream in which he was home with his parents for a weekend, and Bryce was supposed to join them shortly because he was between tours. For some reason, Isabella and Nathan weren’t coming, which Metzger considered odd, but in the recesses of his mind the entire dream felt awkward, and not because his parents were deceased. Whenever he dreamed about the days of having a normal life, he questioned why his mind ventured there. He supposed those better days comforted him, allowing him to escape his current living conditions.
What woke him from the odd dream was the jingling of chains through the baby monitor he set beside his makeshift bed on the floor. Somewhat groggy, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked at the monitor, finding the volume knob turned lower than he recalled setting it before lying down. A few feet away, Timmons continued his uninterrupted slumber, snoring lightly, so Metzger looked up to the bed, finding it empty. At first, he figured Hannah went up to use the restroom, but he heard the chains again through the baby monitor and perked up, looking to the suite’s door, finding it slightly ajar. The bathroom door was also ajar, which he saw by firelight, knowing Hannah would have taken a candle inside and closed the door behind her, were she using the bathroom.
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered, clamoring to his feet, startling his friend in the process as he grabbed his gun and his sword before exiting the room in a hurry.
Immediately regretting not putting on footwear, Metzger headed for the stairwell in sock feet, carrying his weapons. Dust atop the wooden floors kept him from sliding as he started and stopped several times in his hurry to get downstairs to the dining room. He navigated several stairwell landings by what little natural light made its way inside the lodge, finding the main level shortly.
From there, it wasn’t far to the dining area, and as he reached the mammoth room, he stepped inside, hearing nothing at all. Cautiously taking a few more quiet steps over the cold floor, Metzger eyeballed the bar area, needing to step closer for a full view of the area. Natural light from the moon and stars made its way inside the French doors, and numerous windows, providing adequate lighting for him to make out some details.
When he neared the end of the bar, he found a pair of feet sticking out from behind the wooden structure that he knew didn’t belong to Hewitt. Sucking in a nervous breath, Metzger held the firearm in his right hand and his sword in his left, prepared to shoot first and stab if necessary. He immediately assumed Hewitt somehow got Hannah in his clutches, or lured her downstairs, but decided not to call out until he saw how the scene before him unfolded. Trying to keep his breathing quiet, slow, and calm, he began to round the edge of the bar, unable to hear his own footsteps, which he considered a blessing.
All the while, his heart pounded in his chest because he wasn’t mentally prepared for a third encounter with Hewitt, despite his senses being heightened beyond belief.
“She came down here to kill me,” Hewitt’s voice finally broke the silence, startling Metzger enough that his feet left the wood flooring.
Now knowing the voice came from behind the bar, Metzger stepped around, aiming the gun at Hewitt, who sat on the cold floor, still handcuffed to the chain looped around the bar railing by one hand. His voice sounded monotone and matter-of-fact when he spoke, as though entirely incapable of experiencing human emotions at this point.
