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“Tom hit it better this time,” I said.“No wiper fluid needed.Tell him, ‘Good job.’”
“A lot of undead in the tree line,” Roland said over the walkie before Kevin could say anything.“It’s going to get messy.”
I groaned and caught up to the MRAP.
“Andie’s on your tail,” Kevin said.
The next three minutes were an absolute splat fest.
“I really hope the weather warms enough for rain,” I said, using the wipers.
“Don’t count on it,” Kevin said with a chuckle.
We reached the four remaining members of our team thirty minutes later.They sheltered beside a building in the center of a field.Two were on the roof as lookouts, and two were on top the trucks.We’d learned quickly not to leave the trucks unattended.
Mateo’s voice came over the walkie.
“Land, sea, or sky?”
“Unground,” came Roland’s coded reply.“Any problems?”
“A few.We handled them quietly.”
We bumped along through the field and came to a stop beside the other vehicles, immediately cutting our engines.Idling drew too much attention.
“We move in five,” Patrick said, getting out.
Kevin relayed the message while I stretched my legs outside and looked up at the partly cloudy sky.
The sun was well past its zenith.We had another two hours of light before we’d need to hunker down for the night.Hopefully, that’d be at the FOB, which Roni affectionately called, “fucking oasis, bitch.”Each of those forward operating bases truly was an oasis and much better than holing up in the MRAPs and Stryker overnight.
Tamra climbed down the rope ladder with Mateo and joined the others.We divided the supplies and split our numbers between the six remaining vehicles.Our convoy had been bigger when we’d started out, but as our numbers thinned, we’d left unneeded vehicles behind at the FOBs we passed along the way.
The two MRAPs carried our “nightlights.”The telescoping poles with LED spotlights tipped to the ground kept us safe from the dogs at night.Didn’t do a damn thing to keep away the undead, though.However, without the lights taking up space, the MRAP provided a decent amount of room for a few hours of sleep.
The Stryker was our security blanket.It moved debris off the road just as well as the MRAPs but came with the added bonus of the forward-looking infrared cameras, also known as FLIR.It allowed us to spot undead and dogs at a distance.The two Humvees carried our backup MRE rations, which remanded mostly untouched.And the fueler kept us from having to search for fuel.So far, anyway.
The two newly acquired electric cars were purely to help with scouting since they ran quieter than the Humvees.
I typically drove an MRAP when we were all together.My aim with a weapon was passable, but I made up for my lack of firearm skills behind the wheel.
We were on the road again within Patrick’s allotted time, heading west on every imaginable backroad known to man south of Parsons and Wichita.Patrick was in the lead MRAP with Tom, reading the maps and avoiding any roads we’d used on the way in.I brought up the rear with Kevin in the passenger seat and Katie watching out the back.
“Did he give any reason why we’re backtracking?”Katie asked.
“Yeah,” Kevin said.“We located the source.There were at least fifty of them.Faster than we suspected.Wrecked my weapon before my finger even twitched on the trigger.We need more men to complete the mission.”
I could feel his glance.
“Or women,” he added.“They seemed to have a thing for women.”
“What do you mean?”she asked.
“I wouldn’t call my stupidity a thing,” I said.“I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“I don’t think so.You got him talking.And the way he looked at you…” Kevin shook his head.“It looked like that big guy wanted to take you instead of a truck.”
CHAPTERTWO
