Isolation (Book 3): Starting Anew, page 30
part #3 of Isolation Series
There was an uncomfortable silence. “I will, I guess, if I can have that big light of yours,” George finally said. “If they show up should I call over the radio?”
“No!” Nick said hastily. The Wensbrook survivors would certainly overhear. “Just hurry back and find us. We'll decide what to do from there.”
“Okay.” The man accepted the floodlight and made his way up to the hilltop to begin his vigil.
Nick got the others going on their search, pulling out his little flashlight to look around his own area. The forest was creepy even with the light on, and he felt vulnerable with how much attention it drew to him. But on the other hand, now that he was using it he was night blind whenever he turned it off, and ended up blundering into obstacles as often as not until he turned it back on.
They crossed the entire stretch to camp without seeing anything suspicious. Nick moved them a bit north and had them get started again across new ground, suggesting they turn off their lights and try to restore their night vision and rely on that for this pass, since they were heading back towards the eastern edge where trouble might show up.
It turned out to be a good idea.
A few minutes later, the crashing of underbrush up ahead and to the south nearly gave him a heart attack. At least until he heard George calling quietly, voice urgent.
“Here!” Nick hissed back. The crashing shifted directions, coming his way, as he called quietly for Charlie to get Lauren, who was farthest north, and join them.
George's silhouette stumbled around a tree and, as Nick once again called so the man knew where he was, stumbled to a halt in front of him, panting. “What is it?” Nick demanded.
“Jay showed up in a truck!” George gasped. “I heard his voice talking, so I know it's him. He got out and went into the woods, heading for camp. I tried to keep ahead of him and not make too much noise, and luckily he's not using a flashlight and his eyes aren't adjusted to the dark so he's moving crazy slow.”
Crazy was a good description of pretty much everything that guy did; Nick felt a combination of nervous excitement and dread at the news. “He was talking, so there's people with him?”
The patrol volunteer hesitated. “There were, but he left them at the truck and went alone. I think.”
Hmm. Jay did seem the sort to go off by himself. And if he really was alone that meant an opportunity to stop this conflict tonight.
Right now.
Charlie and Lauren arrived, and Nick turned to them. “Jay's here and he might be alone. Lauren, I want you to go get more people, have them sweep the woods from the west and also circle around and try to cut him off if he runs. We're going to try to find him and keep an eye on him, maybe take him ourselves if we can.”
She hesitated. “You sure?”
He wasn't, but after everything Jay had done he wasn't about to let the man get away again. “Only if he's alone, and it looks like we can get him safely.”
“Get him, as in . . .” Charlie asked.
“Capture,” Nick snapped. “Unless he starts shooting at us, we'll let him know we've got guns on him and try to talk him into surrendering.”
“Gotcha.” His friend raised no further objections.
Lauren began picking her way back towards camp, while George silently led them back in the direction he'd come, altering his course to try to guess at where Jay was going so they could get in front of him.
A couple hours of moving around in the darkness had done a little for their ability to move more quietly, and even though it felt like they were making enough noise to be heard all the way in Wensbrook, before long Nick heard even louder crashing up ahead.
He immediately froze, reaching behind to grip Charlie's shoulder. His friend similarly stopped, passing the silent message on to George. They readied their weapons and turned off lights and stood tensely in the darkness, listening to the noise of movement getting closer.
Jay, if that's who this was, was honestly no slouch in the woods in spite of the noise he was making. Maybe he was still night blind, but he was able to pick his way around obstacles without much apparent difficulty.
Then again, Nick thought he remembered someone saying the man was a hunter, so that was no surprise.
Finally Jay came into view, a dark silhouette slipping through the trees, and Nick tensed in spite of himself. The shadow moved into a patch of moonlight, which shone off a bald, pale head, and his heart began to hammer, filling his ears with a surging noise.
George had been right. Jay really was here, all alone and sneaking up to their camp bold as brass.
Chapter Sixteen
Fight
Nick wasn't sure what the Wensbrook leader was there for, whether he was trying to recruit people to his cause or planned more trouble or just wanted to spy. It was even possible the man was coming after him and his scavengers again.
Jay just couldn't seem to leave them alone.
Either way, he wasn't as sneaky as he thought he was, and the survivors' section of camp wasn't nearly as unwary as it had been last time. Jay's little trick with the water balloons had seen to that, forcing everyone back together and encouraging them to form a more cohesive security force.
Which was currently minutes away, depending on how fast Lauren got back. Leaving three against one in their favor, and the element of surprise.
That was more than enough, wasn't it?
Nick leaned back towards George's ear. “Hit him with the floodlight in a slow count of five,” he breathed as quietly as humanly possible, hoping Jay hadn't heard. Then he tapped Charlie's arm, making sure his friend was ready, and raised his rifle to point at the slowly approaching silhouette.
This idiot had come out alone and every single advantage was Nick's. So why was Nick shaking? Had Jay managed to get in his head with all his previous attacks, until he seemed unbeatable?
He grit his teeth, glaring at the figure down the sights of his rifle. Jay had terrorized him and his friends with impunity, using Wensbrook's grievance as an excuse to do whatever he wanted and make good people suffer. It had gone on for long enough.
It's been five seconds, George. Go. Go!
A moment later the darkness ahead was banished by the handheld floodlight, pinning Jay with its blinding glare. The bald man froze in shock, and in that moment Nick raised his voice to a commanding shout.
“That's far enough, Jay! We've got a dozen guns trained on you!” A bit of an exaggeration, but hopefully it would help convince the solitary man to give up without a fight. He put even more steel in his voice as he continued. “Get face down on the ground and surrender peacefully!”
Jay looked flummoxed by the sudden shift of circumstances, and Nick couldn't help but feel a moment of grim satisfaction. Not so fun being on the other end of the gun, is it?
But in spite of his surprise the Wensbrook leader recovered quickly, grinning sardonically into the floodlight. “That you, Nick?” He barked out a laugh. “We just keep running into each other, don't we? Didn't take you for the type to be out hunting in the middle of the night.”
“On the ground, Jay!” Nick repeated harshly.
“Or what?” the bald man asked casually, hooking his thumbs in his belt. Dangerously close to that big old pistol of his.
Nick grit his teeth and put his finger on the trigger. “There's at least thirteen people in the camp who might die of Zolos because of that stunt you pulled with the water balloons! You think I won't shoot if I have to?”
“I don't, actually,” Jay said with a curl of his lip. Nick couldn't believe he was so composed in this situation, with a floodlight blinding him and who knew how many people pointing guns his way; that had to be some sort of insanity. “You're the sort who wouldn't say boo to a goose, as my grandma used to say,” the man concluded with a sort of grim triumph.
The sudden roar of a nearby gunshot made Nick jump half out of his skin. Even Jay jumped. “I don't know about that,” Charlie snapped. “But even if he is, does that apply to all the rest of us? You've got until the count of five to get on your face on the ground, or the next one goes center mass!”
Still grinning, the Wensbrook leader shrugged and raised his hands in silent defeat, dropping to his knees and then flat on the ground.
That was when everything went wrong.
As if his capitulation was some sort of signal, out of the darkness of the trees off to one side two muzzle flashes twinkled like deadly stars. George gave a strangled grunt and went down, floodlight spinning away before shining uselessly into the treetops, and Jay was plunged back into shadows, all the darker now that Nick was night blind.
Nick cursed and dove behind the nearest tree, hearing the whine of bullets around him. The people George had seen in the vehicle with Jay must not have been left behind with it after all; they'd just come behind to cover their leader.
And they'd opened fire on Nick's patrol. Torching houses and chasing his scavengers back to town at gunpoint was one thing, even throwing Zolos balloons targeted at people immune to the virus was another thing. But now these crazy SOBs were actually trying to kill them.
Nick sighted down his rifle at one of the muzzle flashes and squeezed the trigger. “Open fire!” he shouted. Unnecessarily, since Charlie was already doing just that.
The muzzle flashes he'd aimed for cut off, a shrill scream suggesting the man was hit and not just going to ground to avoid the bullets headed his way, and the roar of gunfire diminished slightly. Over it he heard the crashing of a body through trees, heading away it sounded.
Jay running for safety?
He ducked back behind the tree as a rattle of bullet impacts hit the trunk where he'd just been, and he dropped flat in a panic, slamming his elbow into something in a blaze of pain. He lay there for a few seconds, heart thundering in his ears, but before he could decide what to do next the gunfire diminished still more, to what sounded like just one rifle nearby.
Charlie, still shooting, while more crashing sounded as another person began fleeing through the underbrush.
Nick pushed himself up on his elbows and peeked around the tree, rifle ready. His friend had finally stopped firing, plunging the woods into relative silence aside from the crashing of fleeing enemies. In the tense seconds that followed as he searched for threats, especially the first person he'd aimed for who'd stopped firing but might still be there, he almost jumped out of his skin as his radio crackled with Denny's urgent voice.
“Heard gunshots, Statton! Hang in there, we're coming up behind from the direction of camp to support you. Don't shoot us!”
Sure enough, through the trees behind he spotted a dozen lights waving wildly, and heard more crashing and shouted voices. Nick shakily reached for his radio, fumbled it and nearly dropped it, then brought it to his mouth. “Statton here. We've got one wounded, one enemy potentially down or gone to ground and still a threat, Jay and another enemy fleeing towards a vehicle parked on the eastern edge of the woods.”
“Okay, we've got a few trucks driving around to try to cut them off. Turn on your lights so we don't shoot you.”
“Gotcha,” he said, dropping his rifle to grab his flashlight. Then he thought better of being unarmed in this situation and instead pulled out his pistol. “I'm going to check out the downed enemy. Lights coming on.”
Nearby a flashlight beam lanced the darkness. “Charlie, that you?” Nick called. “You okay?”
“Aside from being scared half to death,” his friend answered, flashlight waving wildly behind them to signal the others, then shifting to point towards the man who'd been shooting at them.
Nick shoved his radio back onto his belt and pulled out his flashlight with the freed hand, shining it towards where George had been. “George, you okay?”
His beam landed on the man on the ground, clutching at his hip. “Not really,” he panted through gritted teeth. “Agh, this-this really hurts!”
“We'll get you back to Ms. Griegs and she'll fix you right up,” Nick assured him, shifting his flashlight to also point towards the man who'd been shooting at them; probably not a good idea to shine light on their wounded friend anyway. “Charlie, stay with him and cover me. I'm going to check out the guy who didn't run.”
His friend replied with a grunt, and the flashlight beam wobbled around as the older man moved to join George.
Nick cautiously edged out from behind his tree, moving from cover to cover towards the spot where the muzzle flashes had disappeared. As he got closer he spotted a splash of blood across a few branches low to the ground, and with a few steps to the side spotted an unmoving body on the ground.
“Hey!” he barked sharply, pistol held ready beside his flashlight. “Hands where I can see them, I'm going to approach!”
There was no response. The shot man's shirt was soaked crimson where it was pressed against the ground, and he wasn't moving. A military-looking rifle, longer and differently shaped than Nick's own borrowed AR-15, was sitting nearby as if it had fallen from nerveless fingers.
He remembered seeing in shows that police and soldiers always kicked the weapons away from fallen enemies, just to be safe, then usually patted them down or restrained their hands or something like that. Which seemed like a smart precaution, so he approached the Wensbrook survivor from the direction of the weapon, snagging it with his foot and shoving it well out of reach.
Jay's henchman didn't move the entire time.
Nick knelt and carefully felt his neck, searching for a pulse. Nothing: the man was dead.
With a sigh he stood and stepped back, staring down at the body and wondering if it was his bullet that had ended the poor guy's life. He hoped not, but at the same time he didn't want Charlie to have to bear the weight of that. Maybe it was better they'd both been shooting, so they'd never know. At least not for sure, although that didn't stop the guilt.
His fists clenched painfully around the grip of his pistol and his flashlight. Dang it, he hadn't wanted any of this to happen!
“What do we do now?” Charlie called from behind, sounding shaken.
The question was answered a few seconds later as Lauren's reinforcements arrived, Denny at their head barking orders. The next few minutes were chaos as most of the security volunteers continued on in pursuit of Jay. The few who remained helped Nick search the body, get George stabilized and prepared to move on a stretcher to where Betty waited in camp, and checked the nearby area to make sure there were no further threats.
Jay's buddy had a radio, one of those headset ones. Nick pulled the earpiece out and was getting ready to put it with the other stuff he'd taken from the body when he heard the barely audible noise of talking coming from it.
He cautiously raised it to his ear, hearing the Wensbrook leader's voice. “Artie? Artie, would you answer already? We reached the truck but they've got vehicles coming for us, so we've got to beat it. We'll come back and pick you up when it's safe, even if I have to grab everyone who can hold a gun and swarm these woods, fighting past Statton and his goons.”
Jay's tone was genuinely worried, even anguished. As if he guessed the fate of his friend but refused to believe it. Nick relayed the man's continued stream of transmissions to Denny, who cursed up a storm at hearing that Jay had gotten away.
The bald man's radio transmissions were starting to break up, as if he was going out of range, and on a sudden impulse Nick hit the captured radio's transmit button. “Jay, Nick Statton here. I'm sorry to say the man with you who ambushed us, Artie, is dead. I'll have to clear it with my leaders, but I think it would be fair if we backed off to give you an opportunity to retrieve his body for a proper burial.”
The radio abruptly crackled with the bald man's enraged voice. “You won't get a proper burial from us, Statton!” he snarled. “But I promise you, you're a dead man!”
The threat sent a chill through him, although he did his best to keep calm. “The offer stands. Contact us if you change your mind. Otherwise don't come back . . . we're ready for you now.”
He pulled the earpiece from his ear, although from its muted squawking it was obvious Jay had more threats to offer. “Let's get George back to camp,” he wearily told his patrol.
✽✽✽
Jay didn't come back for his friend's body.
Nick wasn't sure if the man didn't care, or if he didn't trust them to let him come and go without trying to capture or shoot him, but the dead man remained where he'd fallen all night.
It was a sleepless night for Nick, shaken by the firefight and how close he'd come to death, as well as the fact that he might've been forced to take another life. At first light he went out with a shovel to dig the dead man a grave in the nearest clear space, hoping he would be okay with a final resting spot in nature.
Charlie joined him after a while, wordlessly taking the shovel from him to take a turn. And during the breaks when Nick was back digging, the older man busied himself carving a grave marker in the trunk of a tree at the head of the grave.
“Shame we don't know the poor guy's last name,” Charlie mumbled at one point, pausing with his knife. “Or even whether Artie was short for “Arthur.”
“Maybe once this is all sorted out we can find out,” Nick offered without much conviction; senseless as the man's death was, he had been shooting at them. He might've been the one who shot George in the hip, even.
Once Artie was in the ground, they debated briefly whether they should say a few words. Charlie felt like it was something that should be done over a grave, while Nick didn't think the guy would want the two people responsible for his death giving his eulogy.
He eventually left his friend to say something if he so desired and made his way back towards camp with the idea he'd check on George, see how he was doing this morning.
There were a lot of patrols out, Starr and Denny hyper vigilant after last night's violence. Everyone nodded to Nick as he passed, a few asking how he was holding up but most giving him his space. Which he appreciated; he still felt like he was half in a dream, not quite able to believe that last night bullets had been inches away from hitting him, and he'd been shooting at other people in the dark.
