Bad Company (The Brother's Creed Book 4) Read online

  Bad Company

  The Brother’s Creed

  Book 4

  JOSHUA C. CHADD

  Copyright © 2018 Joshua C. Chadd

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by

  Blade of Truth Publishing Company

  Cover art by Johnathan Chong

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Contact the author via email at: [email protected]

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64248-004-7

  ASIN: B07CSGTD5X

  Contents

  Copyright

  Colors of Heroes

  Dedication

  Preface

  Prologue

  1 The Rising Sun

  2 Life Goes On

  3 Deer in Headlights

  4 Bootlegger Saloon

  5 The Leap

  6 Training

  7 Just Another Day

  8 The Date

  9 Meeting

  10 The Episode

  11 Prey

  12 The Kiss

  13 Sunburst

  14 Secrets

  15 Helping Hand

  16 Safety

  17 Bitten

  18 Blood for Blood

  19 We’ve All Gotta Die

  20 Change of Plans

  21 The Cost of Survival

  22 Quick to Forget

  23 Finally Living

  24 Adopting an Introvert

  25 Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

  26 A Sword and a Promise

  27 Red Wire, Blue Wire

  28 Red River

  29 Questions

  30 Massacre

  31 The Greater Good

  32 Discoveries

  33 Answers

  34 Hornet’s Nest

  35 Behind the Gun

  36 Attack

  37 Rebel Souls

  38 As the Dust Settles

  39 Always on the Run

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  A percen

  tage of the profits from The Brother’s Creed series will be donated to Colors of Heroes®.

  Freedom is never free!

  Colors of Heroes is a 501c3 nonprofit foundation dedicated to rebuilding confidence for combat wounded veterans and gold star families through new relationships and outdoor adventures.

  Learn more at: www.colorsofheroes.org

  You’re th

  e one who taught me to be a man, to stand for what I believe in, and to do what is needed to protect those I love. I may have killed off your character in the first book, but don't think you haven't been present in all of them. Your influence is a part of all the characters—especially Emmett. You’ve taught me more than you’ll ever know and helped shape me into who I am today.

  I would not be the man or author I am without your constant guidance and teaching!

  We’ll always have those rebel souls.

  This one's for you, Dad!

  Prologue

  Zeke looked through the heavy-duty fence at the town beyond. It was impressive to see how well the government actually worked when the country was at risk. Considering how much the two political parties argued, they normally couldn’t get anything done. When he’d come over to America all those years ago, it’d been a different country. There had still been the pointless arguments, but the country and its government had stood for something. All that was gone now, and it was instead a melting pot of hate and chaos, which reminded him of home.

  Inside the ten-foot-high fence, a guard walked by, glancing out into the night. His gaze passed by where Zeke lay and then moved on. Even with the night-vision goggles the guard wore, there was little chance he’d see Zeke. Zeke had been trained at a young age to move without being detected and had mastered that skill a long time ago.

  The town in front of him had been turned into part-compound and part-military base. The fence, which was almost like a wall, was secured by stationary guards every hundred yards, as well as roving patrols. They weren’t taking any chances. The fence itself was impressive and looked like it could withstand a lot of punishment before going down. Between the patrols and the fence, he didn’t think his current group would be able to sneak in and out without getting caught. That left them in need of a new plan if this was the town where those cowards were hiding.

  He stood up and continued to sneak around the fence, careful not to get too close. Coming to the southwest corner, he followed along the west side, heading north. The thumping of a helicopter sounded in the distance and Zeke merged with a small divot in the field, expertly disappearing from view. The chopper flew in from the east and settled into a clearing just inside the fence. Without shutting the engine down, soldiers brought six civilians to the chopper and loaded them up. As it took off and headed back in the same direction it had come, his mind began to ask questions about what they were doing and where the chopper was going.

  Zeke shut his mind down.

  He had one task that night—locate the people who’d decimated their group and report back to Jezz. They’d been searching for over a week and had come up with nothing. They knew the group was heading north, but had they continued on or stopped somewhere along the way? The latter would be the only scenario that allowed Zeke to find them; otherwise, they were all on a wild-goose chase.

  More than likely they would’ve come through this town, but whether or not they were still there was the question he’d find the answer to tonight. He waited for a few minutes after the chopper left before rising to a crouch and continuing his circuit.

  Drawing even with a street that ran through town to the east, he pulled to a stop and brought up his binoculars. Sitting outside a white-roofed house was a black Ford F-450 with a topper and shooting platform welded to the top. It was one of the survivors’ trucks they’d stolen back from the Reclaimers. They were there.

  Zeke smiled.

  Finally, after all this time, he’d found them. The search was over.

  Moving closer to the fence but still staying hidden in the shadows, he stopped and watched the house. Before too long, an older man carrying an M4 rifle approached the truck from a side street. He went up to it, put his rifle in the front seat, and then went into the white-roofed house. Zeke didn’t recognize him since he hadn’t seen any of the people when they’d been captured. Still, he knew these were the ones they were after.

  The group had stopped on their journey north, taking refuge in the border town of Coutts. It would be the biggest mistake they ever made. It wouldn’t be easy for Zeke with a town this well-fortified and guarded, but he’d find a way in, and then he’d teach those punks a lesson that they’d remember for the rest of their lives, however short those lives were.

  Movement caught Zeke’s eye and he looked along the inside of the fence. There was a squad of six soldiers heading his way at a jog. There was no way they’d spotted him, but still, he faded farther back from the fence, lying down in the field once again. The soldiers reached the spot flush with where he’d been and looked out into
the darkness.

  “The sensors picked up movement here,” said one of the soldiers, his voice carrying a hundred yards to Zeke.

  “Probably just a raccoon or a deer like most nights,” said another soldier.

  “Still need to check it out and make sure it’s not an infected or hostile,” said the first soldier.

  They waited for a few minutes before splitting up and going down both sides of the fence. One stayed behind, scanning the darkness through his night-vision goggles. Zeke didn’t even twitch until after the lone soldier had moved off while speaking into his headset. They must have motion sensors along the fence. That made things even more difficult but still didn’t affect his plans. No matter where these people went or how secure they thought they were, he’d find them and have his revenge. He didn’t care that Jezz wanted them reclaimed. He had a debt to settle.

  And a debt couldn’t go unpaid. It just wasn’t how things worked.

  Zeke moved off into the night, heading back to where he’d meet with Jezz and the rest of her Reclaimers. The new group wasn’t nearly as strong as before, but the added bodies would help in the end. He didn’t like them as much as the last ones. Jezz tended to reclaim most of the people they stumbled across now and only recruited the vilest she could find—the kind of people Zeke used to be hired to kill. He itched to do the same now but held himself back. He wasn’t that man anymore. He was a survivor, and if that meant playing second fiddle to a psychopath, then so be it. As long as it helped further his goals, he’d play that fiddle the best he could, and when he no longer needed Jezz, he’d do the world a service and reclaim the Reclaimer.

  1

  The

  Rising Sun

  Post-outbreak day 17

  James burst through the front door, Beretta M9 .22 handgun leading the way. Immediately, he noticed two zombies crouched over, eating something a few aisles down. With two rounds from the suppressed handgun, they were on the floor, sporting small holes in their heads. Tank followed James into the room, sweeping left while Connor swept right. James could barely hear the almost silent gunshots from their M9 handguns as they moved off to either side. His attention was focused ahead as three more zombies rounded the end of the aisle, heading towards him. With the handgun shooting subsonic .22 LR rounds, the sound of the three bodies hitting the floor was louder than the gunshots. James ventured further into the grocery store, stepping over the five bodies, and saw that the first two he’d shot had been feeding on the body of an emaciated golden retriever.

  His brother and best friend joined him by the door leading into the back room.

  “Clear in here,” Tank said.

  Connor nodded at the door and James moved up, readying himself. He looked to Tank and then his brother, nodding. Connor opened the door and James entered, flashlight shining into the partially dark supply room. He moved into the room, Tank on his heels and Connor covering their six. His head on a swivel, he scanned the shadows, looking for any signs of hostiles. Large shelving divided the room into three sections. James took the middle while Tank took the left and Connor the right. James had made it halfway to the back wall when he heard cursing, followed by suppressed gunshots to his right.

  “I got a bunch of ‘em over here!” Tank yelled from the other side of the eight-foot stack of crates and boxes.

  James turned and ran back to the front of the room, ducking around the corner to join Tank. His friend was a few steps ahead of him with dozens of zombies shambling towards him. Tank had holstered his handgun and was now letting them have it with his fully automatic SAW machine gun. The suppressor kept the shots from being extremely loud in the confines of the room, but it was far from silent. James moved up to Tank, quickly holstering his handgun and grabbing the ACR combat rifle hanging at his side. Looking through the four-power ACOG optic, he acquired his first target—a large zombie weighing over three hundred pounds. It made a loud smack as it fell face-first to the hard floor. The sound of Connor’s suppressed ACR rifle soon joined James and Tank’s, and the zombies began to drop like flies.

  Tank fired a small burst, dropping the last one. The spent 5.56 casings tumbled to the floor, clinking in the now silent room. James watched the downed hostiles to make sure none of them moved while Connor turned around to check their six. The three of them stood there for a few seconds as adrenaline coursed through their veins.

  “Nothin’s movin’,” Tank said, eyeing the pile of corpses.

  “Clear back here,” Connor said, lowering his ACR.

  “So this is what I’ve been missin’ out on?” Tank asked, turning to the brothers with a wide smile on his face.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Connor said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  “Hell yeah, it does!” Tank said.

  “It just feels good to be out here again,” James said. “I was feeling cooped up back there.”

  “I agree,” Connor said. “I didn’t want to lose my edge with all that sitting around.”

  “Well, thanks for the assist, boys,” Tank said. “Shall we finish clearin’ the room?”

  “Roger,” Connor said.

  The rest of the back room was clear. They’d only found a fresh corpse in the corner where the zombies had come from and all the supplies seemed to be intact. Either no one had thought to look in any of the boxes and crates piled in the room, or they didn’t have the equipment to haul them off.

  Meeting at the door leading back into the grocery store proper, James pulled a small hand-drawn map of the town from a pouch on his plate carrier and circled the grocery store they were in. “Let’s gather all the small stuff scattered around,” James said. “We’ll leave the crates for them to get later.” He moved off to the front to grab a shopping cart.

  The large grocery store had been ransacked and most of the shelves were bare. Wrappers and empty boxes were strewn about, but a few intact items were also in the mix—a bag of chips here, a can of corn there, a package of hot dog buns buried under the refuse.

  James pushed the cart to the far right aisle where Tank was digging through a pile of cereal boxes. James’s ACR rested on the small basket at the back of the cart, allowing the flashlight beam to brighten the aisle ahead. The windows in the ceiling cast scattered light down onto the floor, poorly illuminating the large room.

  “You ask her out yet?” Tank asked, dumping a few cereal boxes into the cart.

  “Not yet,” James said.

  “C’mon, bro,” Tank said. “What’s holdin' ya back?”

  “It’s just… complicated,” James said.

  “Ya scared?”

  “No,” James said but hesitated. He wasn’t scared; he was terrified. “Maybe a little.”

  “Why be scared? She’s just a girl, and girls aren’t nearly as scary as fightin’ off hordes of undead!”

  “Are you sure about that?” James asked.

  “Oh yeah, they’re not that bad,” Tank said. “Or is it Emmett you’re afraid of?”

  “I’d be scared of him,” Connor said from the next aisle over. “He’ll probably kill you if you hurt his daughter.”

  “Thanks for that, bro,” James said.

  “No problem,” Connor said. “If you do have to break her heart, just make sure you’re very far away.”

  “Although he could probably shoot that far,” Tank said.

  “Yeah, over a mile with the right setup,” Connor said, coming around the end of the aisle to deposit a box of assorted dry goods into the cart.

  “Maybe just break up over text,” Tank said.

  “Phones don’t work,” Connor said as he moved off to another aisle.

  “Right,” Tank said. “Okay, maybe you are screwed.”

  “Enough!” James said. “I haven’t even asked her out yet, and I’m not afraid of that.”

  “Then what is it?” Tank asked. “What’s holdin’ ya back?”

  “What’s the point of dating? It’s not like we can get mar
ried and have a family and a normal life. There’s no such thing as a normal life anymore. Either one of us could die tomorrow.”

  “Precisely! You might not get another chance,” Tank said.

  “So then, what’s the point?”

  “It’s called livin’ life,” Tank said, looking directly at him. “As you said, you might die tomorrow, so there’s no point in wastin’ time bein’ afraid. If you want to experience life, you have to live it.”

  “That’s oddly profound.”

  “You know me. I’m not just full of wisecracks but deep insight as well.”

  James barked out a laugh. “That’s true,” he said.

  “Plus, if you do die tomorrow, at least you’ll have one date under your belt, and maybe somethin’ more,” Tank said with a wink.

  James laughed. “It’ll just be a date, nothing more.”

  “Not even a kiss?”

  “Well, maybe that, but not the other stuff.”

  “Oh, trust me, I know that. You’ve been adamant about that since middle school. God forbid you let yourself slip up now at the end of the world.”

  “I’ve been holding to my convictions this long. I might as well stick to them till the end now.”

  “And I respect you for that,” Tank said, defensively. “But it don’t mean I have to do the same.”

  “I know that,” James said. “I never meant you had to. I’m just choosing to stick with it, is all.”

  “Good,” Tank said, moving around the end of the aisle and into the next one. James followed, pushing the cart.

  They finished cleaning out the store, ending with two carts full of supplies. Connor exited the store first, with James and Tank each pushing a cart behind him. Outside, there were a few zombies gathered in the parking lot. As soon as they saw movement, they started their slow shuffle towards the storefront. Connor made quick work of them with his rifle, and within a minute, the way to their vehicle—Scourge—was clear. James and Tank pushed the carts over to the large armored LAPV while Connor continued to cover them. They loaded all the supplies into the back of the rig, filling up a quarter of the available space.