Chapter 9

The next day, Paul woke up as his mother kissed him good morning on his lips and left his chest, he contemplated for a few moments what to do during the day and came to the conclusion that his first action was to look for Salazar, so he freed himself from his sister's embrace and left the bedroom.

"Hey, Daniel," Paul found him sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast.

While preparing a coffee for himself, Paul said, "I will fetch one of those soldiers to get answers."

Daniel stopped for a second. "Can you do it?"

"Yes, I will do it," Paul replied.

Daniel looked skeptical. "I mean, can you get the answers from him? What do you know about interrogation, young man?"

"I haven't done something similar before," Paul admitted, "but I know a few things about harsh interrogation techniques, I could do them but I would like it not to be bloody, so something like waterboarding would be a good start. It's simple and can be done quickly, or the old way of just punching them until they talk." He sipped his hot coffee.

Daniel was not convinced. "I will do it. Just wait, and I will get the answers in a more efficient way. The plan is already in motion; you just need to wait." He continued eating a piece of bread.

"Alright, old man," Paul just shrugged, "if your thing doesn't work, we can always try to waterboard." He left the kitchen and headed to the living room where his mother was sitting.

Paul handed her his cup of coffee. "How are you feeling, Mom?" he asked, massaging her shoulders while she drank from the cup.

"A little better now, baby," Madison said, putting her hand on his. "Don't worry, Mom, I will get Nick back," Paul tried to reassure her.

After a moment of silent companionship, Travis appeared with two cups of coffee from the kitchen. Seeing that Madison already had one, he gave it to Paul.

"Thanks," Paul said calmly, but inside he was feeling this situation a little awkward now.

After a moment, he sees how intimate the mother and son were, and now he knows that Madison left him not just because of the tension between them during this time, but because she was going back to his son, he knew their history, obviously, but now seeing it happening to him who is the one she leaves, it hurt and shook him a little hard.

Still, as Paul did, he tries to move on seeing that it doesn't work for them. Now he is more worried about Nick as a friend and someone who he came to care for during this time, also to see what is happening with Liza, seeing how Chris is acting lately making him worried and about Griselda safety given that Daniel and his family helped him in his time of need.

"I've got to go. I just got to talk to Moyers, you know." Travis says after drinking his coffee.

"He won't give two shits about what happened and us, you know, right?" Paul pointed out.

"If we can just..." Travis tried to convince them. "Hey, Chris," Travis greeted, seeing Chris. "Get any sleep?"

"So, what's the plan?" Chris asked.

"Oh, we were just talking about it."

"Shouldn't I be a part of the discussion? I just think that someone should be looking out for Mom's best interests," Chris insisted.

"We're looking out for everyone," Travis assured him.

"Are we?" Chris challenged.

"We know you're upset, Chris. We all are," Madison added.

"Madison, would you please not interrupt me while I'm talking to my father about family matters, okay?" Chris said angrily.

"Well, well, it seems Chris doesn't give a fuck about anyone else and only is worried about his mother, we get it," Paul said disdainfully.

"Paul, you are not helping anyone like that. Stop," Travis admonished.

"Alright, Travis," Paul relented, taking a sip of his coffee, which wasn't sweet enough to his taste.

Travis went after Chris, holding his arm. "Dad, get off me. Get off me." Chris struggled.

"Bet if that was her, you'd be chewing through the chain-link right now," Chris retorted.

"Stop Chris, Madison, and I... We are not in a relationship anymore. Just stop, alright?." Travis scolded him, still getting irritated and hurt about his situation. "What the hell is wrong with you, Chris? Look at me," Travis demanded." asked him again

"I'm sorry Dad, I don't knew about it." Chris embraced Travis for a moment as support. "Mom... she just got on the truck, Dad."

"Look, Jesus, we don't know what happened," Travis replied touched at his actions and worries.

"They didn't take her," Chris comments worried about what he saw. "No one forced her. She just went willingly."

"Because she wants to help people. She knows they need her, like Nick, Griselda. That's who your mom is," Travis explained.

"What if she dies, Dad?" Chris asked.

"Hey, Chris." Travis embraces him. "Don't go there, I need you to be strong now, okay? I can't hold us together on my own. All right?" Travis pleaded.

"Good man. Now go and apologize." Travis told him, Madison didn't deserve that, even if they were no longer together.

"To her?" Chris scoffed incredulously at that.

"Yeah."

"Are you kidding me? You and her aren't even together anymore, and you want me to say sorry?" Chris didn't want to do that.

"You were out of line." 

"It's called not being an asshole, Chris." Paul mocked him.

"Go be with them if you want, Dad." Chris was a little embarrassed at that comment and angry, still didn't want to back down, and just left.

"I'm sorry, he didn't mean it. When Chris comes back, tell him I've gone to get his mom," Travis told Madison.

"And Nick," Madison added as he left.

"Yeah. Mom, tell the girls I will be back soon. Don't worry and don't get into trouble while I'm not here. You too," Paul said, kissing her lips and putting his hand inside her clothes caressing her breast for a moment making her moan in his mouth.

"Okay, sweetie," Madison replied, kissing him again, and retaliating against him by touching his dick through his pants, making him have a hard time with a hardon walking.

After a while he got to catch up with Travis and started accommodating a little discretely his dick in his pants in a position that would be more comfortable, Paul asked, "So, what's the plan? You expect him to just give us Nick and Liza while asking him nicely?"

"Yes, that's it," Travis confirmed.

"Okay, if that's the only thing we have, let's do it. I hope it works somehow," Paul resigned to Travis' pacifist way.

But Travis was a little uncomfortable about the things he saw and just wanted to know. "Madison is back in a relationship with you?"

A little unexpected at his abrupt question Paul thought for a moment how to be tactful with him, not wanting to hurt him. "Yeah, now she has a different way of seeing things and some things happened recently that made her make up her decision to come back to me, by now, you should know how was our relationship before she got to know you, right?"

"Yeah, I knew about it..." Travis could hear that he was being honest enough with him. "I suppose that's it... I don't consider how she felt during this time."

Paul didn't answer anymore and they continued in silence to where they were going.

-----

"You took three of my people, sir," Travis addressed Moyers.

"I quarantine at-risk elements of the local populace," Moyers replied not caring about taking three or a dozen people, orders were orders.

"At risk for what? How long are you planning on keeping them?" Travis inquired.

"Well, you got to take that up with lady doctor Exner. It's her show," Moyers retorted washing his hands about the problem.

"Fine. How do I talk to her?" Travis asked seeing that he was getting nowhere with him.

"You don't."

"Moyers," Paul interjected, drawing Moyers' attention after staying silent during their exchange. Paul looked at Moyers' uniform and saw his rank.

"Lieutenant Moyers, my brother was taken by your guys, according to you, as a quarantine at-risk element of the local populace, right? What kind of risk can my brother be, being healthy and not bitten? Let me remark the not bitten part again, only being a junkie in the process of being cleaned. So, I would like to know what kind of risk a person like that can be to the local populace, especially when he is under the control of his family in the house," Paul challenged, looking straight into Moyers' eyes without fear, even with soldiers around.

"Look, kid, your brother being taken wasn't by my orders. It was Doctor Exner's thing," Moyers explained, liking the balls Paul had to stand before him.

"Travis, I'm gonna shoot straight with you, okay? You've been very helpful to me. I don't like doing knock-knock raids on civilians. It's bad for morale, but look at these guys. These guys are not warriors; these are kids, and these are little kids who want to go home to mama, or what's left of her. Dark thoughts, Travis, that's my enemy here, okay? So the best thing I can do is keep these kids out in the field, kicking ass, and shooting holes in skin bags," Moyers reasoned with them, also telling the crude truth of the situation at hand.

"Cheer up, son. I've been places where they shoot back," Moyers said to a soldier who appeared a little stressed near them.

"You said you were a teacher or something, right?" Moyers asked.

"Yes, sir." Travis nodded to him, a little skeptical about why he asked it. "English Lit, still am, sir."

"Okay, good. So, you get it. Young men, you got to keep them challenged, got to keep pushing them. Okay, look at this," Moyers gestured to a Humvee with skulls painted on it. "83 of these. 83 of the rotten bastards, all confirmed."

"That's a lot." Travis honestly answered him.

"Yeah, that's a lot. A company record." Moyers was pleased with that answer, as was the group that used the Humvee. "And you, kid? What do you think about it?"

"It's a start, but you will need to paint the whole fucking Humvee with skulls if we want to have hope of having the situation under control someday, and not just this, all the fucking vehicles here present," Paul remarked and pointed all around making a circle motion with his finger.

"I like how you think, kid. I really like you," Moyers said, amused.

"Can you help me get my people back, or not?" Travis pressed, trying to ignore Paul comments about massacring that amount of people.

"I get that you got issues with protocol, but I can't concern myself with civilian problems," Moyers replied.

"If the ones you took don't come back soon, you're gonna have more than me to worry about. You took 11 people. It's a tight-knit community, with a lot of kids. Probably be bad for morale if they all came down here," Travis warned.

"That a threat?" Moyers not liking his tone, questioned him.

"No, sir. I'm just being helpful."

"Okay, Manawa. Let's go see the doc." Moyers loosened up a bit.

"What? I thought you said you couldn't do that," Travis questioned him, with a frown.

"No, I said you couldn't do that. I can do anything I want. I got guns. I mean, Christ, man, the dead may be walking among us, but this is still the United States of America," Moyers smirked.

"Kid, you are going too," Moyers told Paul leaving no room for anything.

"I want your team Oscar Mike in six. Mr. Mayor here would like to go downtown," Moyers ordered a Sergeant.

"Sir." The Sergeant squared and doubted for a second but still clenched his jaw and started talking. "Maybe we could get somebody else this time. First squad's pretty banged up. My men have been awake for 50 hours, sir. We lost Nevins last night," the sergeant informed him.

"50? Here you go. Take that, you got to share it. 'Cause I only have one. Get your ass back in the truck," Moyers said, giving him a white handkerchief.

Paul inside him was smiling at the hilarious man that was this Moyers with his random comments and actions, giving him a fucking handkerchief to clean their tears, even as the gall to tell him to share, what a jerk, haha.

...

"Let me get this straight. You're going downtown, through this mess of DZ flesh-eating whatnot, to get some kid who ain't your son, some old woman who ain't your mom, and some lady who ain't your wife?" a soldier asked Travis as they were moving in the city inside the Humvee.

"Actually, she's my ex-wife."

The soldier laughed. "No. You're kidding me?"

"Yeah. What happened to your face?" Travis asked, noticing the soldier's injured face.

"Nothing, sir. Momentary lapse of patriotism." the soldier avoided his eyes while answering that.

Moyers hit the Humvee roof, alerting the people inside. 

"Now? You got to be kidding me." The sergeant was cursing inside at their bad luck.

"Hoo-ra! We got one. Stop the truck," Moyers ordered a little excited.

"Sir, I don't think this is the best time for..." the sergeant protested.

"For what, Castro? Doing our duty? I don't know what side you're on." Moyers reprimanded him.

"Corporal, summon the Mamba." After the Humvee stopped, Moyers looked through binoculars at the infected. "She's a ripe one."

"How many points?" Moyers asked while preparing a .50 cal sniper rifle.

"First floor, east corner." Sargent Castro was acting as spotter, telling him the data.

"900 yards. Five-mile-an-hour crosswind. Come on, Castro." Adjusting a scope on a .50 caliber Barrett, Moyers asked, "Three points, sir."

"Three? You know I don't do anything for less than a touchdown. All right, Mr. Mayor, guess you're up." Moyers comments and invites Travis to use the sniper.

"Me? No, no. I... I can't." Travis tries to reject him a little uncomfortable with the situation, as the soldiers are looking at him.

"Yeah, you can. It's easy." Moyers still insisted.

"No, I can't. I'm not a good shot."

"It's a tactical mil-dot scope on a bipod. Helen Keller could drill this thing." Moyers laughs at him while explaining that anyone could do it with that.

"He don't want to do it, sir." One of the soldier's comments.

"You are a conscientious objector, Travis?" Moyers pressures him, not liking him denying to shoot the corpse.

"Okay, hold on." Travis seeing where he was going tries to defuse the situation.

"Someone who likes to live under the protection and eat our MREs and sleep in a cozy bed with his pretty girlfriend, but when it comes to getting his hands dirty, he doesn't want..."

"All due respect, sir..." Travis tries to explain himself. "You're not listening, sir."

"I'll do it, sir." The sergeant stepped up.

"Hell, no, you won't! Hell, no. Travis, I want to know what it is, 'cause you don't think that she's human, do you? 'Cause if you do, if that's what you think, then we're just a bunch of murderers. Is that it?" Moyers challenged.

"No." Travis being resigned answered.

"No, that's not it." Reluctantly, Travis took hold of the Barrett. 

"Okay." Moyers a little more happy loosens his chain.

"This is a .50 caliber, so cheek on the stock, tight to the shoulder, press the trigger, don't pull, and open your mouth," the sergeant instructed. 

"Pressure differential or you'll pop your damn retina, man." The soldier who mocked him, now helped him explain why he should make sure to open his mouth.

"That ain't a person," the sergeant reassured Travis, who hesitated upon seeing the target.

"That's what I thought," Moyers says seeing how Travis doesn't have the guts to pull the trigger.

"And you kid? Are you like him, a big mouth only?" Moyers now looks at Paul who was silent until now seeing the show.

Paul just goes relaxed to the barret and takes hold of it, sees the walker through the scope, puts the cross on her head, and pulls the trigger blowing it off, is pretty easy given that Moyers already set the scope to that distance and calculated everything, he dont needed to adjust anything. He licked the kick of the .50 cal, a good damn nice shot.

"A shame that she is dead, was a cute one that Kimberly, there you have one more for the count" Paul smiles showing all his teeth, and says to them.

"Hoo-ra!" The soldiers cry and laugh at that.

"Well done, kid. That's it. Let's keep going," Moyers satisfied orders to move again.

"Wait, there are a few more on there," Paul noted, taking aim with the Barrett and taking out four more infected in succession. "It's a damn waste of ammo to kill these shits using a .50 caliber, you know that right?" he remarked after leaving the weapon.

"Good job, kid. I will get your brother for you," Moyers said, amused. Travis, however, did not appreciate Paul's actions or words.

-------------

While they were en route to the command post where the sick and detained were being held, a radio transmission with shooting and screams in the background was received, asking for evacuation and reinforcements.

"We got a squad pinned down in a library. We're gonna get them out. So when we roll up on this bitch, you stay in the truck," the sergeant ordered Travis and Paul.

"We gotta move!" Moyers insisted, not liking how the transmission sounded.

"Squatters probably. Whole bunch must have turned." The soldier driving commented.

"I thought this area was evacuated," Travis remarked.

"It was. These are the holdouts. Some people don't trust the government. Imagine that," Moyers retorted.

"No matter what, stay in the truck." The Sergeant still insisted again.

After they stopped outside a building the soldiers left the Humvee. "Light these guys up."

"Ready? Go," Moyers commanded the group, which was large and included other teams converging with them. They advanced into the library, shooting anything moving inside.

"Go, go!" Radio transmission

Paul and Travis heard a lot of gunfire from the Humvee. Seeing an opportunity, Paul took hold of the radio inside the Humvee and started changing the channels, hoping to hear some news.

"Paul, what are you doing? You'll get us killed," Travis warned.

"Travis, they didn't say where the fuck is Liza or Nick, you heard the screams on the radio. They'll get all killed inside that building. Let me see if we can hear something on the radio," Paul said, changing the channel to another frequency.

"Alright, but do it fast." 

After a few channels, they heard crucial information.

"To all troops, by order of the higher authority in the military chain of command at 0900 PDT is declared effective the start of Operation Cobalt, all military personnel are to start packing lightly, we are leaving LA Basin, specific steps are to be followed in the next hours, and soldiers are to avoid arousing suspicion in the civilian population in the safe zones while leaving today. Instructions regarding the handling of civilians and quarantined patients will follow separately, involving their "humane termination". Over."

Paul hits the door enraged at the information, they have little time to get out of Los Angeles fast.

"Did you hear that Travis?" Paul looks at him seeing his shocked and horrified face.

"Yes… We need to get out of here"

"Not yet, we will take this Humvee with the machine gun just in case we need it, get in the driver seat, I will show you how to drive it" Paul quickly explained to him how to start the Humvee and where the other things are, he saw a video on his last life about it out of curiosity.

"We're cornered. Get out!" Screams come from the entrance of the library with a few soldiers retreating

"There's too many!" Soldiers panicking started leaving the building."There's too many!" 

As fast as they got inside they left the building, Paul could see atop the Humvee only three soldiers retreating from all the big group that was before.

"Start the truck, Travis, we are leaving, I will ask them a thing and drive away, whatever happens, don't leave before I get the info where are Liza and Nick" Paul yells to him while checking the .50 cal to see if it was ready to shoot.

"Clear, clear!" A soldier drops a grenade in the building entrance killing a few walkers "Here we go, here we go."

When the soldiers started to go to the Humvees, Paul stopped them dead in their tracks with a burst of the .50 cal beside them, seeing Paul atop the machine gun they didn't even think about putting a resistance knowing well that it would kill them easily even with body armor in less than a second.

"Wait there, we heard about Operation Cobalt and their "humane termination" as you call it from the radio," Paul says to them, scanning their every move, ready to kill them.

"Where is my people Sergeant Castro, tell me, or no one of you lots will get to live out of here, we have nothing to lose anymore" Paul interrogates them using their lives as a bargain.

Castro knowing that Paul will kill them if they don't answer, tells him where is the makeshift hospital with the civilians and quarantined patients.

"Alright, well chosen, we will take this Humvee, you can pick one of the others over there to leave"

"Let's go, Travis, get us the fuck out of here, go back home so we can pick all there and go look for the rest," Paul said to him while seeing the soldiers going in the other direction and the walkers starting to swarm outside the building, there was a fucking horde in there.