Page 56 of Redemption (Devil Dogs of the Apocalypse #4)

Jax

We were wrong.

We were so wrong.

Even though we had a hunch there was something else going on, these people, this... community , is far more than anything we could’ve imagined.

Lineman duty.

One glimpse at Betty and it should’ve been obvious. With that number of modifications, there was no doubt; we were headed right into the center of it all.

Straight to the zombie horde.

Tank even alluded to the task at hand, stating there were “growlers to tame.” I knew what that meant in a logical sense: danger, and a shit ton of it.

With the rate at which people were turning, I assumed we were probably going to thin the herd to keep the numbers from growing.

That this was how they kept Phoenix Rising safe from being overrun by the undead army.

But this? What we were actually going to be doing? No one could’ve prepared me for.

Sweat drips off every inch of my body and falls to the blacktop as I crane my neck to look at the sky and the scorching heat beating down on us from the unforgiving sun.

We’ve been out here for hours.

Doing what, you ask?

Fixing redirection walls. The very same walls we came up against in Jacksonville. Apparently, it’s all part of one giant network of piled vehicles and debris meant to deter and redirect the large horde that currently runs from Jacksonville all the way across eastern North Carolina.

It's the whole reason why the town didn’t need a fence.

The vehicle pileups did the job for them, acting as a convenient, already partially placed security perimeter.

The idea is genius. The undead wouldn’t deliberately climb over the barricade.

Not while the area directly in front of them was wide open.

Which meant that unless someone came through and damaged part of it, a storm blew through and wrecked a section, or wildlife did something to disturb it, it was secure. A formidable Plan A.

And then there was us, the linemen—Plan B—who were tasked with repairing any breaks in the chain.

I don’t blame them at all for erecting and wanting to maintain this enormous piece of defensive engineering. Shit, I did the same thing back at my house—walking the perimeter each morning, making sure things were good to go—but this is on a whole other level.

Working with Casper, I put the little coupe into neutral and guide the wheel while he pushes it into place against the current barricade.

The others in our group are doing the same: taking abandoned vehicles from up the road and fortifying the already established wall with additional layers.

One duo is even using a forklift to add height to some areas.

Somehow, they figured out how to rig the equipment to run off solar power, and, on days like today, the machines can run for hours.

I hate to say it, but the whole operation is pretty impressive.

Once our vehicle is in position, I exit and meet up with Casper to find the next car we need to move.

It’s strange; I didn’t think I’d find anyone here that I’d consider a decent person.

But Casper?... He’s not like the others.

Where violence shines unreservedly in the eyes of those around us, his are kind and almost..

. sad. While we were working, he told me that he’s been a part of the community for over six months and that he was happy here, but he did so with a wide smile that was obviously forced.

Anyone looking close enough could see the pain sitting just behind his eyes—the truth of his real experience within Phoenix Rising.

Despite my eager curiosity to know that truth, I don’t press him for answers. Especially in response to questions I shouldn’t be asking of someone I’m not sure I can fully trust yet.

Especially not in the presence of—

“HURRY UP, YOU FILTHY CUMRAGS! WE STILL HAVE TO GO TO THE BURN PITS BEFORE SUNDOWN!” Tank yells impatiently as he leans out from Betty’s driver-side window.

It’s where he’s been this entire time, supervising the lot of us from a comfortable seated position while we sweated our asses off doing all the work.

I’ve had my eye on the bastard ever since we started this work trip. You know when you can just look at somebody and see the evil in their soul? Well, this guy radiates it.

A few minutes later, we finish up with this area and pile back into the truck. Tank cranks the engine and takes off in a direction that takes us even farther from the town. It doesn’t take long, however, before I see our next destination rising in the distance.

The plume of smoke we spotted when we first came through Jacksonville still billows to the heavens, a towering beacon guiding us to where we’re headed.

It takes about a half hour to reach the new worksite, but when we do, my jaw drops at the sheer enormity of the bonfire they created in the middle of a four-way intersection.

An eternal flame, at least three stories tall.

We stop about a block away, the heat from the flames already burning my skin before I even exit the vehicle. Together, we line up in front of Tank as he issues our assignments and designated work quadrants, along with gloves and shovels.

Back together with Casper, we walk over to the far-right side of the fire, scanning the tree line for any fallen branches we can add to the blaze before we rejoin the others to discard yesterday’s garbage.

“Gotta make sure the fire keeps going throughout the night, so we need to pile it high with everything we can find,” he says, chucking a log over a small pile of tires and into the flames.

I noticed some of the others removing them from the vehicles we relocated earlier but didn’t realize why they did so until just now.

Casper and I—using my one good arm—grab a fallen sapling from the side of the road and haul it to the fire, throwing it in when the flames become too much.

But before we can turn around to collect another, Casper steps up to the very edge of the blaze, where only embers remain, and looks down at the ground.

He freezes there, stuck in time for a moment before suddenly stumbling back, almost losing his footing, as his hands come up to his face.

“Casper?” I call to him, but he remains there, motionless as he stares into the flames. I step over to him, concerned about his reaction. “What is it?”

Without a word, he lifts a single finger and points to a darkened lump on the ground. I step closer to get a better look but instantly regret it as the form of a body starts to take shape.

While the man’s lower half is sufficiently scorched, the upper portion remains unburned.

I stare down into the unseeing eyes of the man before me—wide open and with brown irises.

With his upper body relatively unmarked, he obviously wasn’t the victim of a deadhead mutilation, nor was he found mid-transition, if his clear eyes are any indication.

But the single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead...?

Holy fuck. Did they kill him?

“That was Brown,” Casper says with a shaky voice, “Or, to some of us, Rico. He was in charge of acquisitions—finding supplies or survivors to bring back here—among other... duties. But he wasn’t a bad guy, not like some of the others you’d meet around here.

The man was pretty much a pacifist, wouldn’t even kill a bug if it crept up on him, and he was terrified of bugs.

” He shakes his head at the gruesome scene, his body trembling uncontrollably.

“Fuck, man, what did you do?!” he asks the half-charred body lying on the ground.

“What did you do?!” he says louder, causing a few heads to turn our way.

When I notice the attention he’s beginning to draw, I pull Casper from the corpse and turn him away, focusing his gaze and thoughts on me for the moment.

“Hey. Focus, man. Look at me.” He doesn’t answer, just keeps trying to look behind him to the depths of the raging inferno.

I snap my fingers and finally grab his attention.

“ Breathe, Casper.” I capture his gaze with mine and mimic what I’m asking.

“In and out, man. In and out.” After a few minutes, his trembling diminishes.

With watery eyes, he gives me a single nod of acceptance, and without another word, we return to our work, shoveling debris while also silently burying the man known as Rico beneath.

Although my shoulder is killing me, I lift the shovel and push some more of the debris, aiming to cover the man’s body, but my foot lands on something with a sickening crunch .

Up until now, it’s been tree limbs, garbage, pieces of wood, car parts, everything and anything you can think of.

But, when I lift my foot, I realize Rico’s not the only one who’s been laid to rest here.

Dozens of bodies lie at my feet.

While I don’t know what led up to the bullet that caused Rico’s untimely demise, it’s understandable that the town would want to burn their dead rather than bury them.

It takes less time, less of a chance for infectious disease to spread.

But this? The abnormal number of fresh bodies lying right here?

Not even looking like they’ve decayed more than a few days? All with bullet holes to the head?

I remind myself that we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

That the United States literally lost almost eighty percent of its population due to the contagion.

But it’s been over a year. And with the security they put in place to stop the zombies from infiltrating their camp, having this many unnatural deaths shouldn’t be normal.

“This is what they do,” Casper says ominously, inching closer to my side. “Stray from their beliefs and you end up in the fire.” He widens his eyes, his movements jittery and filled with panic. “Stay on the path,” he begs of me. “Stay on the—"

“Hey! Casper! You’ve taken a long enough break over there. Get back to work! New guy’s got to get familiar with the job sooner or later! Trial by fire, as I always say!” Tank smiles, the emotion heartless and filled with sinister intent.

We go to do just that when, off in the distance, a man I didn’t get the name of tries to take advantage of Tank’s distracted focus and drops his shovel before darting off to the other side of the road.

Tank, however, with a speed unbecoming of his size, turns and lifts a gun in the guy’s direction, firing a single shot directly into the back of his head.

Bullseye.

The guy goes down swift and hard.

“Hoooweee! Now, would you look at that?” Tank croons, grinning while twirling his gun around his finger.

“More fuel for the fire. You two, grab him.” He points to the guys in the group next to us—Jim and Thomas.

Silently, they put down their shovels and lift the man off the ground before heaving him onto the flames, almost like this is a regular occurrence.

Holy fucking shit.

“Oh, God...” Casper whimpers next to me. “That was Stone. Why did he? Shit... SHIT .” He turns to do the same—to run off into the woods behind us—but I stop him, dropping my shovel with an audible clang and grasping his shoulders in a tight grip before he can make another move.

“Pull. Yourself. Together,” I whisper through gritted teeth to him. My previous work as a wartime squad leader returns to the forefront of my mind as I shut everything else down besides what I need to survive this fucking shitstorm. Casper’s body, however, remains charged and trembling with rage.

“I can’t fucking do this anymore. I can’t let them... Fucking... Cara . No more. No fucking more. We gotta get outta here. It’s only a matter of time before—”

I latch on to the tiny amount of information he deemed important enough to bring up during a time of crisis.

“Who’s Cara?” I ask, trying to get his mind on something vital to him, something that may mean more to him than his own life.

“She’s... She’s my wife. We came here together, but... but they... they took her. The things they do... You have no fucking idea.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t push him. We don’t have time to get into specifics, but I keep his focus on her.

With my voice barely a mere whisper, I reply, “Cara doesn’t want you to try to run away only to die like Rico or Stone. You need to stay strong for her. You say you want to get out of here? She’s going to need you alive to do so.”

Something must get through to him because he lifts his eyes to meet mine, determination overtaking the trepidation I saw only a moment ago.

I incline my brows in return, indicating without words that we’ll continue this conversation later.

Thankfully understanding, he nods back, and, like before, he turns and gets back to work.

I do the same, but my heart continues to pound beneath my chest.

He fears for his wife in this place.

A woman.

Cole questioned the matter the day we stumbled into this town.

He noticed there weren’t any women meandering about the town like the men were.

We knew, statistically, there should be females in this town somewhere, but, at the time, couldn’t figure out where and didn’t have the motivation to stick around and find out.

But Casper has a wife in the community. Who, due to what she’s been through during their time here, he’s willing to undergo a rebellion—or at the very least, a desertion—for.

It begs a few questions, like, what the hell is really going on here?

Where are all the women? And if they’re all being held somewhere together, hidden from the public’s view, what exactly could they be doing to Aly if this man is reacting this way?

If it’s the deplorable darkness my mind is currently filling with. ..

Then where the fuck are the guys so we can find our girl and blow this place straight to Hell where it belongs?