Warrior Wednesday: The Warrior Women of Dominion, Part Two
In which Hannah is older, wiser, and over it.
I’m continuing my contribution to Substack’s Warrior Wednesday and the celebration of the women badasses in my trilogy, Dominion of the Damned. Continuing with the main protagonist, Hannah Jordan, here she is much further along in her journey (ICYMI, here’s her introduction from last week). This Hannah is a bit more jaded, a lot more tired, fed up with the state of the world and biding her time until she can do something about it.
This is an excerpt from the third book in the trilogy, Revolution.
Hannah pushed aside a clump of hair stuck to her face and wiped sweat from her brow. Even with the canvas sides rolled up, the back of the truck was stuffy, her skin sticky, the late afternoon air swampy with humidity and so thick it took effort to draw it into her lungs. She’d lost track of the date, but surely by now they’d crossed into early fall. Not that you’d know it by the weather.
Licking her dry lips, she handed Noah to Chris and got up to check on her patient. For the fifth time, she knotted her long hair to get it off her neck. What she wouldn’t give for something as simple as an elastic band.
No one spoke as she squeezed between rows of knees and feet to make her way to Ramirez, seated near the tailgate where she could stretch out her wounded leg. She didn’t miss the wary looks the soldiers gave her as she moved past them; they’d been looking at Paula and her husband the same way for the entire trip.
Reaching Ramirez, she knelt before her to inspect her leg. “How is it?”
“I think it’s good to go.” She wrapped her hands around her bare thigh. “It’s still tender, but it’s all closed up.”
“So I see.” Hannah stood up and offered a hand. “Want to try standing on it?”
Ramirez took her hand and allowed Hannah to pull her up. She shifted, putting weight on the wounded leg, wincing slightly, but then bouncing a little. “It’s sore, but nothing I can’t handle.” She looked at her leg, then back at Hannah, her expression rueful. “I just wish I could’ve grabbed another pair of pants before we had to take off.”
“Maybe when we stop, you can cut off the other pant leg to match.”
Ramirez nodded. “Not a bad idea. Lord knows it’s still shorts weather.”
Hannah smiled. “Take it easy. You’ve still got some healing to do.” Leaving her patient to get comfortable, she returned to her seat.
Her other patient seemed fine. His wounds had closed, and you could barely see a mark where the bullet had gone through. His internal injuries also appeared to have healed, because he exhibited no ill effects. Not physically, anyway. Now and then, he would glance up and catch the looks from his soldiers, who would quickly look away. The sarge would squirm in his seat and give the same wary look to his wife and son.
Settling in her seat, Hannah took Noah back from Chris, whose relief was palpable. Hannah didn’t blame him. Heat, humidity, thirst and, she suspected, cutting teeth all conspired to make the baby fussy and fidgety. Doing her best to soothe him, she cooed reassurances in his ear and gave him her finger to gnaw. Hard little nubs poked through his gums, but they hadn’t yet protruded far enough to cause her finger more than mild discomfort.
She didn’t mind. With both the sarge and Ramirez healed past the point of needing her attention, she was glad for any distraction. Otherwise, she’d be bursting out of her skin with anxiety over getting to Balthazar’s compound, and what they’d find once they got there. Thinking about Alek, about what he might be going through, wondering whether he was even still alive, made her feel helpless, a feeling she couldn’t abide. Especially not now, so soon after being unable to do anything for Graham.
She couldn’t control Noah or make him feel better or prevent him from crying if he set his mind to it, but at least she could do something, exert some kind of influence over him. It kept her mind from drifting back to the attack at the camp, or the slaughter at the prison, or how what she wanted most was to rip Esme apart with her bare hands.
The brakes squealed and the truck slowed, causing everyone to lurch forward. For a moment Hannah found herself crunched between Chris and the truck wall before the truck halted and everyone righted themselves. Hannah hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery rolling by outside the truck. Looking out now, she saw buildings packed side by side, all of them two or three stories, words etched on windows advertising antiques and thrift stores and pawn shops. A typical small town main street.
Beyond, she could make out rolling hills rising to meet a cloudless sky. They weren’t in the Ozarks yet, but they were close.
The doors of the cab opened and closed, and then Captain Burell and Private Rhodes appeared on either side of the truck. “I think we can use a rest stop,” the captain called out. “And we need supplies.”
Hannah blew out a sigh of relief. Her thirst was bad enough to give her a headache, but despite her dehydration, she still needed to pee. And she needed food and diapers for Noah, whose supplies were running dangerously low. A teething toy would be nice while they were at it. Hopefully the town hadn’t been scavenged and picked over to the point there was nothing left.
One by one, everyone climbed out of the truck. Hannah came last, handing the baby to Paula before climbing down and joining the others in a satisfying stretch. Her butt ached from hours on a thinly padded bench, and her joints felt stiff and sore.
“If we’re going exploring, we should split up into teams.” Dunbar turned to Paula. “You and the little one stay with the truck. Keep the doors locked and the windows up.”
“Do you want to suffocate us? Maybe my new powers include defying heat stroke, but this baby’s already burning up.”
Dunbar sighed. “Fine. Crack the windows. But keep an eye out and roll them up at the first sign of trouble.”
“I’ll stay with her,” said Ramirez. “My leg’s better, but I don’t like my chances if I have to outrun something.”
“Should I stay with Mom?” asked Chris.
His father shook his head. “You come with me. Francis, Haynes, you’re with us.”
The soldiers exchanged glances, but fell in line next to the sarge.
Hannah felt someone brush her arm and turned to see Julia standing there. “I’ll go with you.”
“Okay,” Hannah said, not sure why the ex-vampire had singled her out.
Rhodes came over to join them. “So will I.” He glanced at the Captain. “If that’s all right with you, sir.”
Burell nodded. “That leaves Prout and Zuckerman to join me.”
“It’s high school dodge ball all over again,” the rabbi said as he moved to join his team.
“If only dodging balls was the worst of our worries,” the soldier named Prout muttered.
“All right.” Burell raised his voice to be heard by everyone. “We need food, water, and gasoline. Sarge, head to the other end of the street and work your way back. The rest of us will each take one side of the street. If you run into shamblers, don’t shoot if you can help it. Let’s all meet back here in half an hour.” With that, he waved for his team to follow and headed across the street toward the pawn shop at the end of the block.
As the sarge led his team up the street, Hannah turned to survey their side. She spotted a Dollar General parking lot a block behind them. “Let’s start there.”
No one argued. She helped Paula and Ramirez get settled inside the truck, handed off Noah and his bag, then jogged to catch up with Julia and Rhodes, already headed toward the store.
The doors had been smashed. Glass glittered on the front walk, but most of it lay shattered on the floor inside. The three of them stood at the doors and listened, but heard nothing to give them pause. Rhodes readied his rifle to take point, but Hannah stopped him, pulling her knife and motioning for him to fall behind her and Julia. He was, after all, only human.
The grim set of his jaw making his reluctance known, he fell back and followed her lead, letting his rifle hang at his side and pulling a large knife from his belt. Hannah stepped through the broken door, cringing at the glass crunching under her boot, loud enough to her ears to be heard for miles.
Inside, they paused and waited. Still, they heard no rustling, no muffled groaning, no signs that their noisy entry had summoned ravenous boogey creatures. Hannah’s shoulders detached themselves from her ears and lowered to their proper place as she relaxed. She kept her knife in her hand as they spread out, checking aisle by aisle to make sure the store held no surprises. Shelves had been picked over, but not emptied out. They might find something to make their stop here worthwhile.
“Looks clear,” Rhodes announced at last. He turned and headed toward the front of the store.
“Where are you going?” asked Julia.
He glanced back at her. “To grab a shopping cart.” He kept going.
Hannah looked at Julia. “Something tells me you’re new to the Dollar General experience.” A knowing smirk was her only response. Hannah studied her a moment. “Why did you want to team up with me?”
Julia answered with a half-shrug. “I trust you.”
“Seriously? After what we did to you?”
“I trust in your competence. Of all the members of our expedition, you seem the least likely to get us killed.”
“Um, thanks.”
Rhodes returned with a small yellow shopping cart. “I think I spotted some jugs of water on aisle six.”
“Great. You two start loading up. Do me a favor and keep an eye out for baby supplies. Baby food, cereal, diapers, that sort of thing.”
“What size?”
Hannah blew hair out of her eyes. “Anywhere from six months to a year, I can make work.”
“Got it.”
“Where are you going?” asked Julia.
“To find a bathroom. Need to come with me?”
“I am, as you say, good. Do you think the facilities will work?”
“I don’t really care. It’ll still beat squatting over a trench.” She glanced at Rhodes. “No offense.”
“None taken. At least I only have to squat half the time.” He winked.
Hannah smiled in spite of herself. She could get to like Rhodes. All the more reason to hope he’d get through this alive. “I’ll catch up with you guys soon.” She went to hunt down a restroom.
She found one at the back of the store. Holding her knife with one hand, she slowly pushed open the door with the other. The sweet, sickly smell of decay smacked her in the face, assaulting her hyperactive nostrils, rancid enough to trigger her gag reflex and make her rethink her opinion about peeing outdoors. Daylight poured in through the front windows, lighting the store enough to see well, but the bathroom was another story. Gazing into the darkness, it took a moment for even her enhanced eyes to adjust. She could make out two stalls. The closest was closed. The door to the right of it hung slightly ajar.
The closed door rattled. Behind it, something moved.
Backing up, she let the door swing shut and drew in a deep breath. The air in the store was dusty and dank, but it tasted like a spring breeze compared to that of the restroom. Doing a quick recon of the nearby aisles, she found a large jug of cat litter and used it to prop open the door. After giving her eyes a second to adjust, she took a gulp of air and held it as she crept closer to the occupied stall and crouched to peer under the door.
She saw legs clad in skinny jeans rolled up at the cuffs, ending in feet dressed in ballet flats. Even in the dim light, the skin on the feet looked mottled, and the white of an ankle bone gleamed from one leg. The feet kept shuffling forward, the body attached to them bumping repeatedly against the door.
Hannah straightened up and debated whether to open the door and dispatch the trapped shambler. She also debated abandoning her scheme and going around the back of the building, but the situation had become too urgent for that. Her mind wandered briefly to who the corpse might have once been, what circumstances had trapped her in the Dollar General restroom at the point of her death. Or had she haplessly wandered in there afterward, or maybe been trapped deliberately by someone who couldn’t bring themselves to end her?
Whatever had happened, it made no difference now, but the shambler wasn’t going anywhere, and Hannah had more urgent business to attend to. She slipped into the open stall and sat down to attend said business, leaving the door to her own stall open to let in light.
Her body’s relief was almost euphoric. Hannah leaned her head back and closed her eyes to savor it. But they snapped open when the door in the next stall stopped rattling. She heard shuffling, then silence.
Slowly, quietly, she raised her right foot, drew her knife, and waited.
She didn’t wait long. A hand reached under the stall, groping, grasping. The fingers brushed Hannah’s left boot. She brought the right one down hard, smashing the hand beneath it. That didn’t deter the head from following, teeth gnashing as it sought purchase on Hannah’s boot. She swept the knife down, penetrating the base of the skull where the head met the neck. The shambler kept moving, kept squirming forward, gnawing at Hannah’s boot.
Any sense of pity she’d felt moments ago for this creature melted away as revulsion flooded through her. She lifted the knife and slammed it back down in the same spot. When she raised it again, the shambler turned its head, and this time Hannah stabbed the soft spot at the temple. The shambler went limp, but Hannah raised the knife and brought it down again, and again, and again. By the time her disgust and rage were spent, the head was nothing but a mass of hair and bone and brain matter.
Hannah got up and stood over it, panting, not wanting to think about how good that had felt.
Her mind flashed to Chris, that first time they’d taken him out after bringing him back from death, the fury he’d unleashed on a swarm they’d encountered. At the time it had disturbed her, but now she felt a kinship toward him, an understanding she hadn’t been capable of then.
Of course, it wasn’t the shamblers who were the object of her rage. But they made a satisfying scapegoat in the absence of the vampires who’d slaughtered her people, ripped apart her family and made a habit of destroying every home she’d managed to find since this whole nightmare had started.
Hannah went to clean herself up at the sink. There was no water, so she used a wad of paper towels to wipe off her knife and clean ichor from all the places it had landed. She found it on her boots, jeans, hands and arms, and suspected it was in her hair as well. She peered in the mirror to check her face, but it was too dark to make out a clear reflection. She was glad for that. She hated the violent, angry version of herself this world was turning her into, and she didn’t feel much like looking herself in the eyes just then.
She found Rhodes and Julia in the food section near the front. They each had a shopping cart. Rhodes’ was laden with cases of bottled water, plus four gallon jugs of distilled water and several liter-sized bottles of sports drinks. He handed her one, and she uncapped it and gulped it down.
“Everything go all right?” Julia looked her over, her delicate brows arching at what she saw.
Hannah looked down and saw spots she’d missed, already beginning to dry and turn crusty. She shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Julia pursed her lips, but said nothing. She reached into the cart and produced a tub of baby wipes. She opened it and took one out, then came toward Hannah, taking her by the chin and cleaning her face in a surprisingly motherly fashion.
“Thanks,” Hannah said when she finished. She took another wipe and used it to clean her hands and arms. “What else did you find?”
“Diapers.” Julia indicated a box stuffed beneath the cart on the rack over the wheels. “And these.” She reached in and then held up a stack of thick cotton towels and a package of large safety pins. “They should suffice once your diaper supply runs out.”
Hannah nodded, not sure what to make of Julia’s thoughtfulness. She bent over the cart to see what else they’d gathered. Two cans of formula, several boxes of baby cereal, and a box of teething crackers. One of them had thought to grab a couple of toys, a small rubber giraffe and a little stuffed dog. “This is perfect.” She looked from Julia to Rhodes. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” said Rhodes, “but now we need big people food.” He inspected a large can of mixed nuts as he spoke, then tossed them into Julia’s cart.
“Some of us could use a change of clothes, too. I’ll go see what they’ve got.” Hannah went to the front of the store to grab another cart before making her way to the clothing racks. Without taking time to worry about style, she grabbed indiscriminately, loading the cart with tee-shirts, sweat shirts, sweat pants, leggings and pajama bottoms. It had been spring when the outbreak shut everything down, but this rack held winter clearance items. Despite the current heat, the weather was bound to take a turn soon, and they would all be glad for the warmer clothing.
She was holding up a pair of sweats, trying to gauge whether they would fit Ramirez, when she heard the gunfire. It sounded distant, like it came from the opposite end of the town. She tossed the pants back into the cart and ran to the front of the store. Julia and Rhodes both met her there, carts abandoned.
“What do you think that was?” More gunfire punctuated her question, this time with screaming.
“I don’t know.” Rhodes took up his rifle. “But I suggest we go see.” Without waiting for anyone to second his suggestion, he took off out the front door. Hannah glanced at Julia, who didn’t appear eager to investigate. She followed Rhodes, leaving Julia behind to do what she thought best. Behind her, she heard words muttered in a strange language that nevertheless came across clearly as swearing. She looked back to see Julia trailing her, and smiled. There was hope for the reluctant hybrid yet.
More sounds of gunfire, shouting and screaming wiped the smile from her face. She pulled her gun and picked up speed, running toward more trouble, because of course, because this was her life now, and what else should she expect?
Dominion of the Damned is currently available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. The first book, Desolation, is now only 99 cents (free in KU)! To get it, click the image below.