Free Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within by James N. Cook

Tom had helped me build it—as well as two others for him and Gabe—and for a place to do one’s business, it was aces high. There was even a window I could open if things got a little too emotional.
    Sitting there in the quiet, my dwindling supply of toilet tissue as my only company, my thoughts began to wander toward the recently signed treaty with Central Command, and how it was going to affect the fight against the Legion. The signatures hadn’t even dried yet, and already we had Chinooks riding into town dropping off supplies, Navy SEALs, and one grizzled old Army veteran with a star on his collar. I had no doubt that the raiders skulking around in the woods had seen the chopper coming this way and had reported it back to whatever passed for leadership among them. If we were lucky, maybe those leaders would decide that Hollow Rock was too tough of a target and look for greener pastures elsewhere. But even that thought made me clench my fists in anger, someone else suffering in our place. The scars on my ribcage were all the reminder I needed of just how ruthless those marauding scum could be.
    No, I decided. I hoped they took the Army’s presence here as a challenge, and I hoped they did something stupid, like try to attack. If they did, we would be ready for them.
    I finished my business and tried to banish the dark thoughts dwelling in my head. The last thing I needed was to be distracted while teaching the morning class … and then it occurred to me that it was Sunday. There wasn’t going to be a morning class. Sunday was visitors’ day, when the recruits’ friends and family could come to the camp to see their loved ones and hear about their training. And considering that General Jacobs and the men who flew in with him would be at the camp to meet with Gabriel and the new militia, things were shaping up to be especially interesting.
    Before I left for the day, I started a fire in the stove for Allison, put some chicken jerky and cold flatbread in a cast iron skillet to warm up, and refilled the big metal mixing bowl in the kitchen that we used as a washbasin. Little things like that were important her, and she had no qualms about showing me how much she appreciated it when I remembered them.
    My rifle hung from its customary spot next to the door, along with my pistol and web gear; cleaned, oiled, and ready to go. I rarely went anywhere without them, even if only for a few minutes. The world had become a deadly place, and it was never a good idea to leave home unarmed, no matter how safe things might seem. I geared up, checked my weapons, and stepped out the front door.
    My breath fogged in the chill morning air, and the sun was just beginning to crest over the eastern sky, bathing the gently rolling hills in amber and gold. Birds took wing in the distance, calling to one another through the dissipating haze. Closing my eyes, I turned my face to the sky and breathed in it, letting the warm sunrise wash over me. In that place, standing under the light of another day, for just a brief moment in time, I was a man at peace.
    I like to imagine that the lines on my face smoothed, the creases in my brow relaxed, and I looked more like the man I had been before the Outbreak—young, confident, and carefree. Before I had watched the end of the world, and before the first time I had done murder. When I was a man who had known sorrow but was ignorant to the true meaning of hardship. A man who had never known the biting cold of a hungry winter or the aching desperation of love in a world gone mad.
    If I had known how the rest of the morning was going to go, I would have stood there for a good while longer.
     
    *****
     
    Gabe wasn’t alone on the Grinder when I emerged from the gravel path leading to the camp. Groggy recruits were unloading two wagons full of supplies under the watchful eye of Sergeant Raymond Grabovsky—one of the two soldiers under Steve’s command who had traveled with him from North Carolina. The