Chase the Sunset
JAMIE IBSON
“Two-Two-Charlie, contact, wait, out!”
Sergeant Catherine “Cat” Cavanaugh dropped the rope and retreated to the relative safety of her G Wagon. The green, militarized Mercedes SUV provided some much-needed speed, in case the infected turned their way. For once, the plan went as expected, and the now un-barricaded door unleashed a small horde of emaciated infected.
“Now that is a thing of beauty,” Master Corporal Jessie Rowe chuckled. “Are you going to invite the boys to come watch?”
“I—oh.” She reached for her radio PTT again. “Two-Two, Two-Two-Charlie. We’re on the west bank of Wascana Lake, east of the Arts Center. Bring the C6 and, or, a Timberwolf, soonest, over.”
“Two-Two, roger, send a sitrep, over.” Warrant Officer Jim Kolar, Two-Platoon’s acting platoon commander, didn’t often get requests for the medium machinegun or their sniper with his .338 Lapua rifle. Heavier ammunition was rare and valuable.
“Two-Two-Charlie. We removed some of the barricades around the Arts Center and released several dozen infected. They are now in contact with local wildlife. May need something heavier than our small arms. Out.”
Less than a minute later, Kolar and Specialist Rob George arrived, George hefting the beefy C14 Timberwolf rifle. Jim Kolar was in his forties, with a salt-and-pepper cop mustache and a trim green beret, despite the near-freezing temperatures. Rob was a barrel-chested First Nations man with dual-citizenship. He’d been a Bradley gunner in Georgia and returned to Canada after he mustered out. Then he landed a gig as a network engineer at ASU London, where he’d met Cavanaugh. With the H7D3 plague being what it was, the veteran soldier dusted off his old BDUs and assisted wherever he was needed. In theory, he might have been an Allied Soldier (Veteran, Recalled), but what with the zombie apocalypse and all, no one was looking at the org chart too closely. Cavanaugh greeted them with a wide smile.
“You know that feeling you get, when that gloriously cruel bitch, Mother Nature, does clearance for you?”
Kolar cocked an eyebrow puzzled, but George just started laughing. Their sharpshooter pointed to the banks of the shallow, meandering, twisting lake that bisected the southeast quarter of Regina where a bull moose, whose antlers hadn’t quite matured yet, was expressing its displeasure to the Arts Centers’ recent occupants. Violently.
Cavanaugh laughed as it planted its front hooves and double-kicked backward, sending one H7D3 victim flying across the riverbank. He did not rise again.
“Ouch, only a nine-point-two from the Russian judge,” Rowe joked. “Lost points on that landing.”
Pleased with the result, the moose circled like a bucking bronco, sending infected scattering like bowling pins, and fifteen hundred pounds of angry bull crushed the ones that were still moving. It caught another one on its still-developing antlers, bucked its head, and threw the infected on a high arc. The crack and meaty thump when that infected hit the ground was audible.
“Sergeant Cavanaugh, did you actually need the platoon’s heavy weapons?” Kolar asked. He was grinning, so he wasn’t mad . . .
“Absolutely. If that swamp donkey kaiju motherfucker comes this way, this Tinkertoy is only going to make it angrier,” she said, gesturing to her C7. “That’s the fourth moose I’ve seen since we got to Regina, Jim, and then there’s the bears, wolves, and worst of all, the Canada geese. I’m thinking we could mostly just open these infected hives up and let nature do its business. We’re going to be tight on ammo until we reach Dundurn, so let’s get creative and make use of what we can.”
“You make a good point,” George said. He tapped his Timberwolf’s magazine. “I’m down to just three mags. The redcoat’s barracks didn’t have anything but nine-mil and twelve-gauge, which was a bit of a kick in the nuts.”
“Speaking of which,” Rowe replied, and pointed. Kolar and George simultaneously winced as the seven-foot-tall beast kicked an infected male in the groin. The male collapsed and curled up in the fetal position, despite the late-winter snow that still covered the ground, and stayed there.
“Is this your clearance plan, then, Cat?” Kolar asked. “I need to go check on Deadman; they’ve fired up a neighborhood a few blocks away.
“If it’s stupid, but it works, Jim,” she replied. “Can I keep Rob? Just in case our megafauna friend wants to get sporty?”
“Sure,” Kolar agreed. He shook his head in disbelief as the moose crushed yet another infected into paste. “It’s hard to reconcile how enormous they are, isn’t it?”
George laughed. “When I was with Third ID in Georgia, folks couldn’t accept how big they were. They thought moose were like deer, but a little bigger. When I told them, slightly shorter than an elephant, they thought I was crazy. Who’s crazy now, y’all?”
The moose concluded its rampage, with twenty or thirty dead or dying infected staining the snow red. Its flanks heaved with exertion, but it was otherwise unharmed.
“That it?” Kolar asked.
“Hardly,” Cavanaugh smirked. “It’s a big arts center. I’ve got three more doors, and three more ropes. I’ll give my swamp donkey kaiju friend here a minute to catch his breath, and then round two. Mother Nature willing, we’ll have Regina cleared to high yellow in no time. Then on, to Moose Jaw.”
She pondered for a moment. “Anyone know why it’s even called that?”
“Two-Two-Charlie, contact! Wait, out.”
Cat hauled the wheel over to the left, slammed on the brakes, and yanked her C7 rifle from the bracket. This time, her C7 would suffice. With the armored G Wagon in park, she bailed out and laid her forearm across the hood. Rowe joined her from the back seat, behind her. A near-emaciated woman, with a child in her arms, limped out from the tiny village on the right side of the highway and across the street as fast as her weak, starved legs could carry her. Two infected pursued her out into the open. As they’d found in Regina, and Winterpeg, and every other town, village and hamlet they’d cleared, the winter drove the infected indoors, where food was scarce to nonexistent. The few that had survived the harsh Canadian winter had subsisted on their fellow plague victims, and Cat didn’t feel the slightest tinge of guilt when she flipped her selector switch off safe, led the infected a hair, and squeezed the trigger.
The reserve infantry NCO was pretty sure she’d suffered some serious hearing loss over the last many months because the rifle fire didn’t bother her anymore, even without earpro. One more reason she was happy to let the lingering winter do the heavy lifting, clearance-wise. The lead infected fell, Rowe fired a split second later, and the second infected dropped, too. The woman ducked, stumbled, and nearly lost her footing when gunfire shattered the quiet morning, but upon seeing the green army vehicle, she changed directions and limped their way.
“Two-Two, this is Two-Two-Charlie, sitrep. Two infected down, two civilians in the clear, moving forward to make contact.” She checked the road sign for the small cluster of buildings. “We’re just outside Belle Plaine now, over.”
“Two-Two-Charlie, Two-Two-Sunray. We’ll be there in five. Over.”
“Two-Two-Charlie, roger, out.”
“Warrant Kolar, this is Kaitlyn Tillie, and her . . . adopted daughter, Jocelyn. Kaitlyn, this is my platoon commander, Warrant Officer Jim Kolar.”
Kaitlyn sniffed and managed to meet the warrant’s eyes for a moment before looking away again. Jim offered his hand to shake and introduce himself, but the woman shied away from it, like a dog that knew it was about to get swatted with newspaper.
“Kaitlyn, I want you to tell Jim what you just told me. Can you do that?”
Jocelyn looked to be eight, maybe nine years old, with fine but unkempt blonde hair and stick-thin limbs. Kaitlyn seemed too young to be the child’s mother, early twenties at most, with auburn hair that hung in tight, unkempt ringlets. She might have been pretty, six months earlier, but starvation simply wasn’t glamourous. Jocelyn’s lip quivered, and she hugged Kaitlyn’s leg, hiding behind her protector. Kaitlyn didn’t look happy either, but she took a deep breath, looked off towards the city, and spoke.
“There’s . . . there’s two men in Moose Jaw, who come out this way. I hid here, out of town, where there’s almost nobody and almost no zombies. I honestly think the two Miss Cat here shot were the last two. I scoured the houses for what food there was, and we could melt the snow to drink, but there isn’t enough to eat. These men, from the city? They’d come out this way, and they’d trade food for . . . ” she let out a quiet sob, and hid her face in her hands. Cat patted her on the shoulder, and she leaned in close for support. Kaitlyn gathered her composure with a deep breath.
She dropped her hands again, balled her hands into fists and glared at the distant horizon. “They’d trade me food for sex,” she spat, blunt and angry. “I’d hide Jocelyn away in another house when they came through, but they refused to take me away from here, and the weather’s been so cold, and there’s nowhere to go, but Moose Jaw and they’re from Moose Jaw, and they’d only give us enough food to last us until they came by the next time. I haven’t seen them in I don’t know how many weeks now, but the food ran out, and . . . ”
She trailed off. Her rage spent, it broke Cat’s heart to hear the story again. Kaitlyn had skipped over the hardest part though, the part that made this even worse, the part that made these coercive, manipulative rapists immediately, definitely their problem.
“They were wearing CADPAT, Jim, driving G Wagons, and gave her army rations. They’re almost certainly ours.”
Belle Plaine was one of the smallest villages Cavanaugh had ever seen, and she’d seen a lot of small villages. Maybe three dozen houses, a grain elevator for the railway, and a gas station-restaurant-motel called Chubby’s, of all things. Cavanaugh found the station’s wrench to access their underground fuel tank and had everyone top up while Warrant Kolar briefed Two Platoon’s leadership. In addition to that most precious resource, fuel, the gas station had another essential item: maps. Jim spread the paper folder out on the counter for all his section commanders to see and found the Lt. Col D.V. Currie Armoury on the map. He studied the surrounding region as they brainstormed.
“Jessie, you were armoured recce, what are we looking at for weapons and equipment?”
“Tap-Vees, G Wagons, and standard green Chevy Silverados, assuming they’ve got fuel,” Rowe replied. “C6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s. At the reserves level, armoured recce and mechanized infantry are reasonably similar, equipment-wise. It’s the battlefield roles that are different.”
“And we have to assume they have fuel,” Cavanaugh pointed out. “They’ve been patrolling the area, and raping Miz Tillie for months.”
“Could it just be the two of them?” Sergeant Cole Deadman asked. “They’ve just gone completely off the leash because they’re all that’s left?”
“I asked Tillie a few more questions,” Cavanaugh said. “She found all the guys intimidating and didn’t want to say anymore, but there used to be more troops that rolled past. Men, women, older, younger, and she remembered a young female troop named Ellie? She wasn’t sure, her co-driver called her Kayden or something like that, but she stopped coming around once the snows arrived, and that’s when the assaults began. She hasn’t seen anyone other than our two scumbags since. They’re almost certainly legit, but whether they’re just slipping in a little casual sexual assault into their regular patrols on the down-low, or whether they’re all that’s left, no idea.”
“Understood. Did Miss Tillie and her ward accept a ride back to Regina?”
“Yes,” Deadman replied. “Melissa Hanneman is from the Triple Rs; she’ll give them a lift back in one of the technicals with Jas Kaur. They’ve got plenty of room and food at the redcoat barracks.”
“Excellent.” Kolar stabbed the map with a finger and traced a road north to where it intersected Highway One. “It’s a straight shot south along the main drag to the armouries. Cat, you’ll take point again, but I want you to take a pair of C9s with you, in case you come under fire. I’ll be next in the order of march with Vlasic and the C6. Rowe?”
“Warrant?”
“When your folks moved to the frozen north, you landed here, right?” She nodded and shivered involuntarily. Moving to the central Canadian prairies from South Africa had been a very cold adjustment. “Hard as it is to believe, we may need to assault the Dragoon armouries. Would the mall rooftop be a decent place to establish an OP or a firebase?”
Her eyes widened at the request, but she thought for a moment, then traced a route on the map.
“Och, bliksem . . . You’d need ladders to get up most places. But there used to be dumpsters on the east side that might still be tall enough for troops to get up. We used to play kickball there, and whenever someone roofed the ball, we’d scramble up and get it back down. Got yelled at by security all the time, but they were mostly just worried we’d fall and break our domkop necks. Otherwise . . . there’s trees behind the armouries, but they’ll just be bare twigs at this point, nothing’s got leaves yet. The Carl G would make a moerse hole in their back yard from the rooftop if it came down to it, so, yeah. She’d do.”
“Perfect.” Kolar sketched out the route he wanted Deadman and Kane to take. “One and Two Section will approach from the east, and provide security for Specialist George. He’ll scan the windows and initiate if it proves necessary. Go off-road through this park, bypass as much of suburbia as you can, and get to the mall. If the mall doesn’t pan out, send one section north and one south. Keep a block back, and radio if you encounter survivors or infected. If things go completely to shit, we’ll either withdraw the way we came or thunder-run past while you provide covering fire.”
“I see no way this could go horribly wrong,” Deadman said, straight-faced. “What’s ROEs and equipment?”
“We’re trading vehicles,” Kolar replied. “I want the big green machine out front, and our bandit technicals skulking up behind, staying out of sight. They’ve all got big tire bumpers, so use ’em. No gunfire, unless someone’s got a gun and they’re going to use it.”
At Main, Cavanaugh turned south. Burned buildings lined along the west side of the road, the charred wreckage jutted into the sky like the ribs of the roadside corpses, stripped by scavengers and left in ruin. Sections of Regina had looked like this, and Winnipeg before that. The ground had been dirtied and greyed as ash and charred wood mixed with falling snow. Here and there, reddened spots stained the snow where an infected had died, frozen, and was only just starting to thaw out. Vehicles littered the roads, but many of them could just be avoided or driven around.
As they advanced, one particular SUV caught Cavanaugh’s attention. A G Wagon, identical to the one she was driving, sat askew across the southbound lanes. The drivers’ side door was ajar, and a thick pile of wet, melting snow on the roof dripped to the asphalt. Cavanaugh pulled her armoured car to a halt and dismounted. Harris joined her on her search, while Griffin Lawson and Sunny Singh covered their flanks with their light machineguns.
“Two-Two, Two-Two-Charlie, over.”
“Go for Two-Two, over.”
“Two-Two-Charlie. Got a G Wagon here, roadside. Dried blood and old brain matter on the interior, and a C7 on the seat.” She unloaded and cleared the rifle. A bullet flew from the chamber, and one more round sat on top of the magazine. That was all. “Two rounds left. No sign of the previous occupants, over.”
“Two-Two, roger, G Wagon’s owner saved the last rounds for themselves, over.”
“Two-Two-Charlie, keys are in the ignition, but the battery’s dead. We’re carrying on. Out.”
Cat collected the keys from the ignition, but when she stepped out, her feet almost rolled out from under her. She kicked the snow away until she found the offending items—a pile of spent 5.56mm casings. She brushed more chunks of ice and snow out of the way and, in moments, turned up her first rifle magazine. Snow and ice had melted into the void below the follower, but it would thaw. Harris turned up another one, and then she found a third mag and more casings. Someone had done a lot of shooting here, and they’d run out of ammo. She put the iced magazines in the trunk—waste not want not—and had everyone mount up.
“We’re not gonna come back for it, are we, Sarge?” Lawson asked. Lawson had been a private with the Algonquins and straight out of infantry school when the collapse hit. “Thing’s probably haunted.”
“One, of course we are. Two, if haunting a thing is possible, we’re going to have a harder time finding something that isn’t.”
Farther south, a narrow creek and series of ponds divided the burned neighborhood from the commercial district where the armouries lay. A pack of grey coyotes—the wolflike predators, not armoured vehicles—trotted along the creek, on the hunt. Unlike before, Cavanaugh had no faith in her ability to draw infected and the coyotes together in another “lets-you-and-him-fight” situation. She eased up on the gas pedal, and crept past a Canadian Tire, three abandoned fast food joints, and reached the U-shaped driveway for the barracks. The front lawn of the Currie Armouries had several military vehicles displayed on it, and she wished they were still serviceable. A WWII-era Fox armoured car sat next to a six-wheeled Cougar, an M113 rested next to a white UN-marked track she didn’t recognize, they had a Sherman tank, and more.
The barracks themselves were a large rectangular two-story building made of red brick and heavy stone. The remnants of several A-Frame tents with ragged canvas still hung from the aluminum poles all over the grounds in front of the building itself, and the north side of the building appeared to be a fenced-in vehicle park. She saw five-ton trucks, more armored G Wagons, and a handful of the green converted Chevy Silverados.
“Two-Two, Two-Two-Charlie, we’re turning in now, over,” she sent.
“Two-Two, roger, catching up now, over,” Kolar replied. That he’d just dropped Corporal Vlasic off behind the Canadian Tire, to watch them from a second hide with his medium machine gun, went unsaid. It sucked, but they had to assume they were being listened to if anyone in the barracks had a radio. Cavanaugh pulled her armored car to a halt, and Rowe was out the door in a flash, scanning the front of the building with her rifle. Singh and Lawson bailed too, scanning the rooftops and windows.
“Everybody confirm they’re still on safe,” Cavanaugh warned. “We don’t initiate.”
Warrant Kolar arrived next with his driver, and two more G Wagons containing the rest of Three Section pulled in behind him.
“How do we gain access, Warrant?” Private Joel Harris asked. He and Lawson had been through battle school together, and even if they kicked ass at clearance, neither one quite seemed to get the whole “chain of command” thing.
“Let’s try knocking,” Kolar replied. “Stack left, Harris, you asked, you can go first.”
Harris gulped and pulled his bayonet from its frog. He slammed the butt of it against the door several times. “CANADIAN FORCES! OPEN UP!” he bellowed, then stepped aside so as not to be bowled over by the doors if they swung open. They waited ten seconds, and Harris repeated himself. Another ten seconds passed, and he was about to bash the door a third time when they heard a clunk, a chunk, and then a creak as the door swung open. Cavanaugh and Harris stepped forward, and a slim, dark-haired female wearing a combat T-shirt and CADPAT pants greeted them. She eyed their uniforms for a moment and burst into tears.
“Oh, thank Christ,” she gushed and pushed the doors open wider. “Who are you with? Are you here to rescue us? He’s, uh, he’s in through there,” she pointed.
“Who’s through there?” Cavanaugh followed the woman inside, flanked by her fireteam. The enormous wooden doors opened into a broad hallway, with offices on both sides, before passing through another broad archway and opening up into what must have been their interior parade square. “Names, soldier.”
“Govnar!” the woman squeaked. “Warrant Govnar! I’m Elyssa. Private Elyssa Kaliszewska, Sergeant.” She pronounced it Callie-zoo-ska. “You aren’t—you don’t know?”
“Pretend I don’t.”
“It’s easier for you to see for yourself, Sergeant,” the young private meekly replied. She looked as browbeaten as Kaitlyn had. A male soldier rounded the corner from the parade square, and four weapons instantly came up.
“Hands! Show me your hands,” Cavanaugh ordered, and the surprised soldier did so. His hands shot up, and he froze.
“Is this him?”
“No!” Kaliszewska squeaked. “That’s Sergeant Yannick! It’s not his fault!”
“What the hell is going on in there, Cavanaugh?” Kolar demanded from the doorway, and entered the hall regardless. The sergeant was older, perhaps Jim’s age, had thin, patchy scruff, and wore thick glasses. Harris patted him down, found nothing, and then covered Cavanaugh as she quickly searched young Kaliszewska for weapons. Kolar brought the rest of his team into the hallway and advised the rest of the platoon they’d made contact. Kaliszewska started crying again, and the sergeant was pale with a sheen to his forehead as if he might faint.
“What is it you want to show us?” Cavanaugh asked.
“Govnar’s in his office, and . . . and he’s got Rylie in there with him.”
Kaliszewska led Cavanaugh, Kolar, and the rest of the troops into the central drill hall of the armoury, across the wooden floor, and to a set of offices. Sergeant Yannick, whoever he was, remained utterly mute. As Cavanaugh entered the hall proper, she saw another soldier in a kitchenette off to the side, washing dishes. She was also female, and to Cavanaugh’s shock, she wore even less than Kaliszewska, merely a sports bra. She had a shiner, reddened cheeks, and when she looked up to see them, she dropped the plastic dish she was rinsing.
“What’s going on, Private? Why isn’t she dressed either?”
“Govnar, Sergeant—he’s through here,” Kaliszewska replied without answering Cavanaugh’s question. She gestured down a hallway off the drill hall towards an office door marked MAJ. B. C. JAEGER–COMMANDING OFFICER. Cavanaugh pointed a knife-hand at Harris and motioned for him to get behind her. With her rifle at the low ready, she pushed the office door open.
A male in combats sat in the CO’s chair behind his desk. He had a grip on a third female’s ponytail, forcing her to fellate him. She was gagging, audibly.
As the door opened, so did his eyes. “What the fuck!” he shouted, leaping to his feet and dragging the topless woman up with him. Cavanaugh’s C7 snapped up, but Govnar held his victim in front of him as a human shield. The other hand, the one not holding his hostage’s hair, held a pistol, and he pointed it at the girl’s neck.
“Fuck you, ‘what the fuck’!” Cavanaugh snapped. “Warrant? We’ve found our rapist!”
“Hey, take it fuckin’ easy,” the man said. The change in his demeanor was obvious, but he didn’t lower the pistol. “You just surprised me is all. Everyone here knows not to interrupt when I’m enjoying some quality time; no need for the guns.”
“Quality time?” Cavanaugh repeated.
“You can’t blame a guy for wanting a little action, can you?” he countered, but he didn’t lower the gun.
“Quality time!” Cavanaugh snarled.
“You’re makin’ me nervous here,” Govnar repeated. “It ain’t what it looks like! The bitch likes it rough.”
“That’s not what Kaitlyn Tillie in Belle Plaine said, you piece of filth!”
“Fuck you, lady. Just because I want a piece before I share out what little food I’ve got left doesn’t make me a monster. Some people ain’t got nothing of value but time. She’d have starved to death months ago if it weren’t for me. She should be thanking me, that ungrateful bitch.”
“That’s about enough, Govnar,” Kolar spat. “I’m placing you under arrest for sexual assault.”
“Fuck you, Judge Dredd, what, you think you’re The Law? There is no law. The law died last fall, along with Canada, and the States and the rest of the fuckin’ world.”
“Well, gee, I never thought about it that way,” Cavanaugh said. The sarcasm was thick. “I suppose you’re right.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Cat?” Kolar whispered.
“No, seriously.” Her eyes hardened, and she spoke even louder. “If there’s no government, then there’s no law, and if there’s no law, then there’s no crime anymore. The crime rate just hit zero. Nobody has the authority to arrest anyone for anything.”
“See?” Govnar said. “She gets it. No law, no government, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
Kolar gave Cavanaugh a questioning look. Trust me, her eyes said back. “And so can I. So, I’m going to kill you.”
“What?” Kolar and Govnar shouted, at the same time.
“No law, right, asshole? What law is there to protect you from someone like me? Someone who despises rapists with every fiber of her being? You say there’s no law in effect? The law is the only thing protecting you from me!”
“Ho-ho-hold on, hold on a minute. Maybe—”
“No wonder the private said ‘rescue’; you’ve got the women walking around in T-shirts or topless when it’s minus five outside! Sex or starvation? You’re predatory scum!”
“That’s enough, Sergeant,” Kolar said, but Cavanaugh wasn’t finished.
“I should shoot you right now in the kneecaps and turn you over to your ‘unit’! See how long it takes for you to bleed out—we’ve got a trauma medic, she could keep you alive a looong time, you utter disgrace. The law may be dead, but justice hasn’t gone anywhere!”
Govnar seemed taken aback at first, but then remembered he had both a hostage and a gun of his own. “You aren’t doing shit, bitch! You back off and lower your rifle, or the next thing you see is her brains splattered all over your scope. Back off, give me some space, or I kill her now. I know how this shit works. You can’t say no to me! You’ve gotta negotiate.”
The woman he’d been assaulting suppressed a sob and leaned away from the pistol as he jammed it harder against her jaw. It sucked, but Cavanaugh had to admit she didn’t have a shot. The offset between the scope and the rifle was enough that, at this close distance, she couldn’t be sure she could take him out with one round and, of course, the scumbag rapist had his finger on the trigger already. Fight was no good; the hostage would die. Flight was worse; this was their problem to solve. Bluster had failed—but she could submit, partially, turn that a bluff, and play for time.
“Okay,” Kolar interrupted. This time, his eyes said, trust me. “That’s enough, Sergeant. See to the others. I’ll handle this.”
Cavanaugh cursed, but she knew she might have gone a bit too far. She lowered her rifle and backed up down the hallway.
“That’s right, hero, back up. We’re going to get mighty comfy in here. Get me some coffee, Judge Dredd, and have one of the girls bring it in. Hurry up.”
“That’ll take a minute to brew, Govnar. Let’s talk about what you want to get out of this,” Kolar said, negotiating in earnest this time.
“A tall ship and a star to steer her by.”
“I can give you a truck. Full tank of gas. You’re all about trades, right? Food for sex? How about a Lincoln Navigator for her life?”
“A Navigator? I like the way you roll. Bring it right into the drill hall, and leave all the overhead doors wide open.”
“Cover him, Harris,” Kolar announced, loudly. “I’ll see if I can’t rustle up some coffee and a set of keys.”
“Covering,” Harris replied mechanically, focusing down the scope of his C7. Kolar and Cavanaugh slipped back down the hallway together and ushered Private Kaliszewska away from the line of fire.
“All callsigns Two-Two,” Kolar spoke into his radio, once they were far enough away. “Two-Two-Sunray. Things have gone to hell in a hurry, we’ve got a barricaded soldier with a human shield. Two-Two-Bravo, keep eyes on the black/red corner, over.”
“Bravo, black/red corner, roger, over,” Sergeant Deadman replied.
“Sunray, out.”
“Jess, do you have spare combats?” Cavanaugh asked. “Mine need a good scrub before they’re decent again.”
“Sure, be right back.”
Cavanaugh gestured for the Dragoons to follow her into a side office near the front entrance.
“Elyssa, right?” Cavanaugh began, and Kaliszewska nodded.
“Or Kay-Ten, like my last name. K plus ten more letters . . . ”
“I’m familiar with Polish names, Elyssa.” Cavanaugh smiled. She hadn’t been living with this nightmare for who-knew how many months, so she put on a brave face. “Introductions. I’m Cat, Sergeant, originally with 4RCR from 31 Brigade, South-West Ontario. Now I’m with this lashup; we’re calling it Task Force Sunset.” Rowe joined them, carrying a pile of combat shirts. “This is my two-eye-see, Master Corporal Jessie Rowe, six years in Lord Strathcona’s Horse.”
“And I’m Danielle McLeod,” the third woman replied. “Corporal, seven years in. I was a fitness trainer in town before everything went to shit. The girl in there with the warrant is Rylie Hamilton, a new private, like Elyssa here.”
“I assume Govnar demanded you remain undressed?” Cavanaugh asked, and both women nodded.
“When we pissed him off, he’d demand articles of clothing as punishment. Don’t . . . ” Kay-Ten looked to McLeod, and she nodded. “Don’t blame Sergeant Yannick. It wasn’t his fault. He won’t admit it, but Govnar and Connard abused him, too. He’s not a fighter, Sergeant, he’s an accountant from Saskatoon who counted bullets at Camp Dundurn.”
“Who’s Connard?” Rowe asked.
“Another shithead, got bit on patrol two weeks back,” McLeod answered. “He and Govnar arrived together, armoured recce liaisons from the Strathcona Horse.”
“Oh did they now?” Rowe asked. “I call shenanigans. I’ve been there six years, never met no Warrant Govnar, never met no Sergeant Connard. And the Strats aren’t exactly a great, giant unit where a couple senior assholes could be missed.”
Cavanaugh tapped her finger on the SIG Sauer holstered on her leg. “If he’s the kind of shit for brains who thinks women are poor, defenseless waifs, maybe . . . ”
“ . . . Maybe we ought to disabuse him of such antiquated thinking,” Rowe said. There was fury behind her eyes, and without another word, they turned to find Warrant Kolar.
“Jim, what’s your plan here?” Cavanaugh asked. She and Rowe had pulled him aside, and kept her voice low.
“Draw him out, and have George take him down as they go to leave.”
“I have a suggestion.”
And she told him.
“That’s . . . risky,” Kolar objected.
“It is,” she agreed. “But a helluva lot better than relying on Rob to make a headshot, on a moving target, through door glass, while he may or may not have a gun to a hostage’s head. You need to buy us some time to set it up, though.”
“I can start by sending him the coffee,” Kolar said, thoughtfully. “Drag that out as long as I can manage.”
“And here I am, completely out of laxatives and iocane powder,” Rowe said with a smirk. “Plus, he demanded ‘one of the girls’ bring it. We can all guess what he’s got on his mind. I’ll go. I’ve a blade in my boot and if he gives me half a chance, I’ll cut the fokker’s Jakob off and jam it down his throat.”
Kolar eyed Cavanaugh. “She’s your troop, how do you feel about that?”
“It’s her ass, it’s her call,” Cat stated. “We’re low on options and need to draw him out where he’s vulnerable so I can take the shot.” She gulped hard. “The longer he’s in there, the more likely he’s going to just start blasting.”
Kolar nodded at that. “Agreed. Jess, if you’re willing, you’ll deliver the coffee. I’ll have Deadman bring one of the technicals up.”
“Where’s my gawddamned coffee, Dredd?” Warrant Govnar demanded. “I’m getting a bit twitchy in here, lacking my caffeine and all!”
“It’s almost finished brewing, Govnar,” Kolar shouted down the hallway. “Another thirty seconds. How do you take it?”
“Just have the girl bring everything with her. I want a thermos, a travel mug, milk, and sugar. Make sure the lids are nice and tight, I know what happened on United Ninety-Three, so don’t fuck with me on this or she dies.”
“You guys have milk?” Jessie whispered to Kaliszewska.
“We had a couple of pallets of American MREs,” she whispered back. “They came with juice boxes, but with milk in them instead. They don’t go bad for years. I have no idea why.”
“That’s bizarre.”
Kolar confirmed that the tray was prepared, and flashed Rowe a quick thumbs-up. “Okay, Warrant!” he called down the hallway. “We’re bringing you the coffee now. Your soldiers out here are afraid, so one of our females is bringing it in, instead. We have Navigators and Yukon Denalis. Which do you want?”
“I like how you assholes roll, chump, but I’ll stick with the Navigator. What happened to the hero chick? She was way easier on the eyes than you are, old man.”
“We had a disagreement,” Kolar replied. “I felt you could be reasoned with; she did not. So she’s been relieved.” He toggled the PTT on his radio. “Two-Two-Charlie, Two-Two-Sunray. That’s a go for the Navigator, over.”
“Charlie, roger on the Navigator, over,” Private Singh replied.
“So we bring you the Navigator, right here into the building on the parade square, then what?” Kolar asked. “How do we know you’re going to let the girl go?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Govnar said. “I’m a pretty pragmatic guy. If I let the girl go, your psycho Amazon hero chick kills me out of spite. If I take the girl with me and don’t let her go, you assholes chase me down, and the same thing happens. But if I take the girl with me just as far as, say, Highway One, and I let her out there, then we’re square. I know for a fact you’ll be able to follow my tracks in this snow, no matter where I go. So that’s how it’s gonna be. I let her out there, and your pet psychopath is less likely to kill my ass dead.”
“I can’t say I’m real keen on letting you leave with a hostage,” Kolar replied.
“I can’t say I give a flying fuck,” Govnar sneered. “I ain’t getting my ass shot off, and you’re probably less keen on having dead chick brains blown all over this here office, and have it be your fault. So that’s what I’m doing, or people die. Where the hell is that coffee?”
“Coming now,” Kolar answered. Jess had been listening to the exchange, took a deep breath, and composed herself. Did she trust the team? Yes, she did. Could things still go horribly awry? Yes, they could. But courage was being afraid and doing your duty anyway. She lifted the plastic cafeteria tray with the thermos, mug, milk boxes, and sugar, and walked down the hallway, into the lion’s den. When she entered the room, she kept her eyes low and tried to look frightened.
“And who are you, pretty lady?”
“My name’s Jessica, Warrant,” she muttered.
“Hello, nurse! A beautiful redhead with a sexy accent. Where you from? Australia? Kiwiland?”
“Pretoria, Warrant,” she said. “That’s in South Africa.”
“I know where Pretoria is, girl, I just suck with accents. I like you. I think you’re coming with me instead.”
“What?” Jess protested, sounding scared. “That wasn’t the deal!”
“I’m changing the deal.” The warrant leaned out from behind his human shield and pointed his pistol at her. “Lift your shirt, Red, show me you don’t have any weapons tucked into those combats.”
Jess raised her eyes and looked him square in the face. She pulled up her combat shirt to expose her midriff and rotated in place. “I’m just a driver, Warrant,” she lied. “I just drive the snowplow. We don’t have guns enough for everyone.”
“Well, you’ll do nicely, I think.” Govnar smiled with a greasy look on his face and shoved his hostage away. “Get outta here, bitch, Dragan Govnar just traded up.” He gestured for Jess to take her place. The traumatized woman stumbled before dashing out of the room to the drill hall. “You know what they say about redheads?”
“Get stuffed, acourse I do, domkop. You twats seem to think it’s some big secret we never hear. Hardy har har, ‘you can sleep with a blonde, or you can sleep with a brunette . . . ’” she trailed off. She couldn’t get too mouthy, or he might actually hurt her.
“But you won’t get any sleep with a redhead!” the warrant cackled, and Jessica’s loathing for the man plumbed new depths. The hostage disappeared back down the hallway, and Rowe was left alone with the rapist and his gun. He gestured for her to come to him, and she felt violated when he wrapped his arm around her waist and slipped his hand up under her shirt. But the muzzle of the pistol pressed against her jaw now, and she suppressed a shudder. It’s all according to plan, she told herself, but that wasn’t entirely true. She had a blade in her boot, but couldn’t reach it like this.
“Coffee’s good and all, chump,” her captor called down the hallway. “But I’m still waiting for my ride! Might decide Red here can keep me entertained until it shows up.”
“Now hold on, Dragan, I appreciate that you let that young woman go, but taking Jessica complicated things. You fucked us, breaking the deal like that. We’ve got to get the snowplow out of the way to bring the Navigator in, and she was our driver,” he lied. “It’ll be just another minute.”
“Excuses are like assholes, chump, everyone has one, and they all stink,” the warrant replied. “Just git’er done.”
Joel Harris eased his up-armored Lincoln SUV through the overhead doors into the drill hall and made an eight-point-turn that left snowy tracks all over the hardwood. Eventually, he got the SUV backed up to the hallway leading to the OIC’s office, put it in park, and stepped out. The Navigator had been Joel’s pet Mad Max project after the Fall. It had belonged to his parents before they turned, and after they were gone, he went to work in his shop. As the world went to hell, Joel bolted on sheets of armor, or plywood, and affixed chains to the frame. He hung tires off them as enormous, heavy-duty bumpers for high-speed zombie bowling. The sunroof became a turret, and each door had a set of friction-fit rubberized arms to hold an occupant’s rifle. The surviving Lake Soups, the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment, had been duly impressed. He’d led their post-apocalyptic patrols as far as North Bay, where they linked up with surviving members of Canada’s government, holed up six hundred feet down. Now, they were heading northwest with the rest of their rag-tag platoon, to Edmonton. He’d spent a lot of time, energy, and money making the Navigator the perfect war rig. So he very much hoped Sergeant Cavanaugh knew what she was doing.
“Doors are open, and the engine’s running, Govnar!” Kolar called down the hallway.
“Perfect! Now, all you little do-gooders go for a walk, so Red and I can make our cunning getaway. I’ll give you to the count of ten, and if I see a uniform, Red dies first.”
“Back!” Kolar called. “Everyone, back!”
He, Harris, Lawson, and the last three Dragoons retreated to the entryway hall.
“We’re in the hallway now, Warrant! You’re clear to leave!”
“Bring the tray, Red, you’re driving as far as the highway,” Govnar said.
“Yes, Warrant,” Jess replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. Once the cafeteria tray was in her hands, Govnar prodded her with his pistol to get her to advance down the hallway. They shuffled forward, with the warrant using her as a shield to cover his advance. He peered around corners and cleared each doorframe before he committed to entering the drill hall. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she had to remind herself to breathe.
That’d be awkward, she thought. Pass out, and miss the show?
“Get ready to take a seat, on my count,” the rapist piece of shit ordered. As Jess moved to sit in the driver’s seat, Govnar had his eyes glued on the main entrance doorway, and tried to find the edge of the SUV with his right leg. He was getting in the back seat.
Perfect.
“On three, step up into the SUV. Clear?” he asked.
Jessie Rowe nodded. “Clear, Warrant.”
“One, two, thr—”
There was a moment, perhaps one-second-long, where Jess was in the clear. Govnar went to step up into the back of the SUV and lowered the pistol to clear the B pillar. As he stepped up, and his butt cheek found the seat, his Browning pointed at the drill hall floor rather than Jessica. During the first half of that second, Govnar began saying the word “three” and ducked to slide onto the rear bench.
The human eye is attracted to movement. It evolved to spot game on the African savanna, back when prehistoric tribes would literally chase their prey until it collapsed from exhaustion. Being able to detect and focus on that movement was a predator’s instinct, and it was one of the many characteristics that made humanity among the deadliest persistence predators on the earth.
Some of the deadliest individuals on earth, therefore, are trained snipers. Snipers are very, very good at remaining very, very still, which makes it unbelievably hard for the human eye to detect them. While Catherine Cavanaugh had not attended the CAF’s mysterious sniper school, she was still an infantry soldier and understood the concept. Her dark blanket let her blend into the shadows behind the SUV’s dark tint. She only needed to move the tiniest fraction to bring her pistol in line, and then the only thing that moved was her trigger finger. The mid-point of the aforementioned second was when she finished squeezing, and sent a 9mm hollowpoint through Dragan Govnar’s temple, from a distance of about four feet.
Time resumed its normal flow as the bark of the pistol shattered the quiet in the drill hall, and the contents of Govnar’s head painted the floor for about twelve feet. The Browning Hi-Power in his hand clattered to the floor safely beside him, while blood and brains leaked out a baseball-sized exit wound.
“Tango down,” she breathed. Then, she repeated herself more loudly. “Tango down!”
In the front seat, Jess blew out a breath and just gripped the steering wheel for a moment before bouncing out of the cab, as Kolar, Harris, and the others rushed out from the front hall.
“HA! Jou fokken doos!” Jess slipped back into her native Afrikaans. “Bladdy bliksem! Fok jou, boudkapper!” She punted the body, hard, and felt one of the dead man’s ribs crack with the impact, and spat on his leaking corpse. She kicked it again, and then a third time. “And you! You sweet beautiful killer you!” Jess dashed to the rear of the Navigator and flung the hatch open. Cavanaugh sat there, mostly covered by the dark blanket, pale and gulping deep breaths. Jessie grabbed her around the midsection and dragged her out in a bear hug.
“Oooohhh, we are So Totally Besties Right Now!” Jess gushed. “If I batted for the other team, I’d have yer babies. Wow. Oh, God, wow. I’ve got the shakes and everything! I don’t think I’ve been this spun up since that . . . uh . . . I’m not going to finish that sentence.” Jess flushed a bright pink in her cheeks and hugged Cavanaugh even tighter as tears of relief and joy streamed down her cheeks.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Cavanaugh confessed. She bent over to retch.
“Hey,” Kolar said, joining them and kneeling next to her. “Hey. You did amazing back there. Combat breathing. You’ve done this a hundred times before. In-two-three-four-out-two-three-four . . . ”
Cavanaugh breathed deep and swallowed hard as she struggled to keep her breakfast down. “You have no idea how hard that was,” she gasped out.
Kolar studied her, puzzled. “You’ve killed hundreds of zombies since the Fall? Why?”
“And that was the worst. By far. Worse than Thunder Bay, worse than Winnipeg, way worse than Regina.”
“Why?” Harris asked.
“Because he was still human!” she shouted at the floor. “He wasn’t just some naked infected zombie!”
Finally, her legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor. Jessie Rowe joined her and hugged her close. Cavanaugh’s voice became a rasp. “He was a clothed, normal human monster, and that made it a hundred times worse. Infected aren’t people anymore; they’re easy. They’re predictable. They’re just hungry, not evil. I had to sit back there, watching, waiting, praying the perfect moment would appear to shoot him and hope he didn’t kill Jessie, or that I didn’t miss and kill Jessie, or that I didn’t fuck up and get Jessie killed . . . I could barely hear the radio over my heartbeat in my ears.”
“And yet, your fears were entirely for her, and not for yourself,” Kolar said. “There’s cold courage in that. Take all the time you need.”
Rob George, Sergeant Deadman, and Master Corporal Kane entered the main hallway with their teams. George took in the leaking mess on the floor and raised his eyebrows. Her shot placement had been precise, making an almost invisible hole in Govnar’s ear canal, and a spectacular, messy crater on the other side of his head where the hollowpoint exited. Impressive.
“Man, I don’t know what the big deal is,” Lawson whispered to Singh. “So she blasted one fucking scumbag, so what?”
“So you’ll be volunteering to take point on the next life or death crisis, Private?” George snarled. Lawson’s head snapped up, Kolar’s head snapped up, but Rob had no patience for insubordinate noobs and being part of the team without actually holding rank, had its perks. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you mouth off after one of the finest displays of bravery I’ve ever seen. Step up or shut up.”
The platoon sniper left Lawson speechless, crossed the parade square floor, and took hold of one of the dead man’s boots. “With your permission, Sergeant Cavanaugh, I’ll dispose of this for you?”
Cavanaugh grimaced, nodded, and Rowe hauled her up to her feet. “Thank you, Rob. Lawson, we’ll address this further in private.”
Rob dragged the body through the open overhead door and into the icy outdoors. Let the crows and coyotes have him, he thought. For that matter, it might lure some infected out of doors, where that frigid bitch, Mother Nature, would further reduce them. He ignored the leaking fluids and grey matter and stripped off the dead man’s ID plates.
Lawson was pouting when Rob reentered the barracks. He already had a bucket out and a mop in hand as he swabbed the bloody trail left by Govnar’s leaking corpse. Except, the ID plates suggested the dead man wasn’t someone named Govnar at all. “Anyone ever heard of a C Bergeron?” Rob asked the others. He handed the metal ID necklace off to Kolar, who studied the plates.
“That sonofabitch,” Kolar breathed. “Chad Bergeron was a sergeant in the Cambridge Highlanders. He got into all kinds of shit when we deployed with Op Athena. I never met him, but everyone was talking about it. He came home early, disgraced, and accepted a somewhat less than honourable discharge rather than go to jail. They should have jailed him. He extorted locals, intimidation, threats . . . He might have killed some folks, but they never pinned it on him. From the stories I heard, he should have been done for murder one.”
“I beg your pardon, Warrant?” Yannick interrupted. “Disgraced?”
“No, it’s okay, Sergeant, I get it. There’s chaos, people coming and going, units getting parted out, people are dying, then some senior NCO shows up claiming to be a liaison from the Regs. Nobody’s heard of him coming, but that’s SOP for a planetwide SNAFU like this one. He shows up, walks the walk, talks a mean talk, inserts himself into the chain of command, and nobody’s the wiser.”
“Good!” Cavanaugh interjected. “The stress of my having emptied his cranium is rapidly coming to an end. Time for the pitch, Jim?”
“Sure,” Kolar grinned.
Cavanaugh rolled her head side to side, as though limbering up for a race, cracked her knuckles, and smiled to the four survivors. “Ladies, Sergeant, time for us to lay our cards on the table. Task Force Sunset, which I alluded to earlier, is half, more or less, of the in-contact remnants of the Canadian Armed Forces. Task Forces Sunrise and Sunset began at North Bay. There’s a NORAD bunker there, where Prime Minister Singer, General Nadarzinski, ten more members of Parliament and assorted aides, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, and mistresses, are all waiting out this plague, six hundred feet underground. Sunrise started working its way east, to Petawawa, Ottawa, south to Kingston, then following the Highway One corridor east. Their job is to chase the sunrise every day; reconnect with Eastern Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes.
“Task Force Sunset’s job is to do likewise, but westbound. Once we’re done here, we’ll move on to Fifteen Wing and then the ammo bunkers at Dundurn. We have a string of soldiers, militias, survivors, Canadians, between here and the Atlantic, and everyone needs ammo. Ammo will let the survivors clear infected. Ammo will let the survivors clear bandits, opportunists, and the occasional stolen-valour scumbag who needs aerating. Winter has already done a lot of the heavy clearing for us, but it’s still dicey out there. Bagged rations, canned, and dry goods are a finite resource. If our surviving farmers can’t get crops planted, then starvation will kill us as assuredly as H7D3, and it takes time and expertise to grow food and rebuild a distribution network. Distributing ammunition first will break trail. Once Dundurn is up and running, we’re off to Saskatoon and then the big prize, Edmonton. We know there are survivors—North Bay has satellite comms with the Patricias, the real Strats, and the rest of First Brigade. Once we’ve unfucked their logistics and delivered a couple tons of ammo, it’s off to see the Pacific and link up with any surviving units in BC.”
Corporal McLeod exchanged a look with Kaliszewska, Hamilton, and the clerk, Sergeant Yannick. “That’s a helluva pitch, Cat, but we still don’t know what you’re selling.”
“Sergeant Yannick, you worked at Camp Dundurn, correct?”
“Yes, I ran systems there to track accounting the ammunition and arranged deliveries.”
“How’d you like to get back up there? We’ll need someone who can run the show, distributing ammunition across six time zones, eventually. TF Sunset is much larger than just Two Platoon, and we have a follow-on security element who can protect you while you get the logistics train rolling. We could get you home to Saskatoon—if you’d like?”
“I’d like that a lot,” he admitted.
“And you three badass survivors.” Cavanaugh smiled at the other three soldiers. “Have you ever seen the sun setting over the ocean? Would you like to?”