Tyrel volunteered.
The other three split up in the Humvees and found positions where they could keep an eye on Tyrel without being spotted. Blake dropped him off on River Way a mile north of the junction before falling back.
Tyrel covered the remaining distance on foot, leaving behind his gear and weapons except for a knife, a pack containing a few bottles of water, and his ever-present Beretta M-9. He made it about halfway unmolested, but as he drew closer to the roadblock, the undead began to appear from doorways and storage sheds and clusters of dense foliage. At first, he simply sped up to outpace them, but the moans they sent up alerted other infected farther down the line. Ghouls began to converge from all directions, forcing him to draw his weapon and begin taking potshots. Not enough to wipe them out—he lacked sufficient ammo for that—but enough to clear a path.
As the dead become more numerous, he had to set a harder and harder pace to keep away from their grasping hands. With over a quarter mile to go before he reached the roadblock, he found himself down to his last two magazines. At that point, he turned and signaled to Mike, who had taken position a few hundred meters away on overwatch.
From a rooftop, Mike sighted through a Leupold scope mounted to his Barrett .300 Winchester magnum and started picking off infected. After four shots, he had cleared a path for Tyrel to a house on the side of the road. Tyrel sprinted for it, kicked open the front door, and disappeared inside. Moments later, he emerged with a .22 rifle and several hundred cartridges.
.22 rifles are not very powerful, but at close range, they can penetrate a ghoul’s head—or a person’s—with lethal results. In many cases, the bullet enters the skull but loses the necessary kinetic energy to exit the other side. As a result, it ricochets inside the brain case, effectively turning gray matter into guava paste. Tyrel used this phenomenon to his advantage as he fought his way the last few hundred yards to the berm bordering the roadblock.
The moment he topped the rise, a trio of armed soldiers riding ATVs surrounded him, guns leveled. Tyrel tossed down his weapons when ordered to do so, put his hands on his head, and went down to his knees. The soldiers quickly bound his hands and feet with zip ties, lashed him to the back of an ATV, and drove back to camp. At this point, Dad and the others lost track of him.
“We weren’t sure what to do at that point,” Dad said. “For a while, we just waited and watched. Kept eyes on the camp, trying to catch sight of Tyrel. After nightfall, we set up a watch rotation and switched to night vision. Blake was on watch at about three in the morning when they finally brought him out.” Dad nodded in Blake’s direction.
“They’d stripped him down to just his pants,” Blake said, “but other than that, he didn’t seem hurt. There was this fenced-in enclosure like the ones you see on prison yards where they put guys doing time in solitary. The guards put him in there with a few dozen other people. Looked like some kind of quarantine.”
“The enclosure was close to the edge of camp,” Dad resumed. “They’d made a restaurant across the street into a command center. We figured if we caused a disturbance there, we might be able to sneak in and get Tyrel out.”
“Now, you gotta remember,” Blake cut in. “This whole time, the fightin’ don’t stop. Helicopters flying back and forth shootin’ anything that moves, artillery blowing shit up, machine gun nests goin’ crazy—I’m tellin’ you, man, I ain’t never seen anything like it. And the whole time, you can hear the infected getting closer and closer. Not quickly, mind you, but slow, like the tide coming in. And those soldiers knew it, too. I could see it in their faces, the way they moved, the way they talked to each other. They were nervous. Scared. Like they knew they couldn’t hold out much longer. Saw a bunch of ‘em sneak off in the middle of the night.”
“That’s what tore it for us,” Mike spoke up, “the deserters. We weren’t about to take a chance on that place being overrun with Tyrel still in there.”
Dad nodded. “So once we had a visual on Tyrel, we moved.”
“First thing we did,” Blake said, “we caught up with a few of those deserters. Found a couple ‘bout the same size as Joe and me and took their uniforms. As you can imagine, they weren’t too happy about that. Asked us what they was supposed to do to survive. I told ‘em there’s plenty of houses to scavenge on the way to Colorado, at least one of ‘em was bound to have some clothes. Probably weapons too. In the meantime, we needed the passwords to get into the camp. We left ol’ Mike behind with ‘em as an insurance policy in case they gave us bad intel.”
“Turned out to be unnecessary,” Dad said. “The units there were ad-hoc. Mix of Marines, National Guard, Air Force, even some law enforcement types. Nobody seemed to know anybody. All we had to do was wait until the end of watch and slip in with the guys coming off duty. Walked in like we owned the place.”
“Next part was easy,” said Blake. “Joe climbed on top of a truck and found an empty room in the command center while I rounded up some materials and made a napalm Molotov. Waited until I was sure I couldn’t be seen, then lobbed it through a window. Made a hell of a mess.”
“So the alarm goes up,” Dad cut in, “this fire truck comes rolling over, everybody’s looking at the command center trying to figure out what happened. Blake and I work our way over to the enclosure and catch Tyrel’s attention, sneak him a pair of wire-cutters. He tells us to find a vehicle and come around to the west side. So we go over to a motor pool and try to talk our way into a Humvee, but the supply sergeant isn’t having it. I’ll give you one guess how we handled that situation.”
Blake chuckled. “After we dragged him behind a stack of fuel drums, we drove back to the enclosure. Tyrel, he’s got these dudes standing around him in a circle all casual like while he cuts a hole in the fence. Soon as the hole’s big enough, he jumps in the Humvee and we book it for the gate at Highway 281. The rest of the prisoners run for cover. When we start getting close to the gate, one of the guards sees us coming. Steps in front of us, starts yelling at us to stop. We don’t, and this guy manning a fifty-cal starts swinging it our direction. I yell back to Tyrel, and he gets on the sixty and sends a few warning shots their way, just enough to make ‘em keep their heads down. We bust through the gate, but by then some dudes on a guard tower start shooting at us. Tyrel returns fire, but takes one in the leg doing it.”
“I didn’t know why at the time,” Dad said, “But they didn’t bother chasing us. It wasn’t until we got back to our vehicles I figured it out.” He finished his spaghetti and tossed the empty packet aside.
“Turns out, just as we were leaving, the infected breached the south perimeter.”
*****
I told them what happened to Bob and Maureen. Dad listened, nodding sadly at the end. “I’m sorry you had to see that, son.”
“I think I should go check on Phil,” I said.
He shook his head. “Too many infected between here and there. I can’t let you risk it.”
“I’ll take Dale’s boat. All I need is one person to help with the lines.”
“I’ll go,” Sophia said, a little too quickly.
Dad glanced at her, then back at me. “Fine. Take your rifle. Clear the yard before you make landfall. If it looks too dicey, abort. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but we barely know Phil. He’s not worth risking your life over.”
I smiled at my father. “It’s not a terrible thing to say, Dad.”
He held my gaze, eyes steady. The two of us had always been on the same page for the most part, but I think it made him feel better to reaffirm it. “Don’t take too long,” he said. “I want us out of here in an hour. We should be ready to roll out by the time you get back.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I want to leave this place as much as you do.”