Chapter 8 He did what?
Alex wondered when the guy slept. He looked like he was on the move non-stop. Uther told him that he was sleeping on the bench seat of the truck in between.
Then came the day when Alex decided to take out the main bandits in the area, taking Gitte, Bernd and Sissy with him. They had always accompanied him until then. Bernd was the main source of information about Uther.
Although they had all been through the hell of training, according to Bernd, morale was better than ever. The other soldiers had hope again and that, apart from Schmidt and Doc, there was another officer, especially one who looked after them and gave them a certain regular routine.
Doc was old, Schmidt had no idea what to do after them, let's keep to the status quo, Gitte was only ever regarded as the general's daughter. He himself was considered a breath of fresh air according to Bernd, but Uther. Alex was the chilled out one and Uther balanced between being a stickler, a pedant, a tyrant and a caretaker.
Schmidt never had the idea of teaching the soldiers how to kill the infected, but Uther did. Alex had taken part in some of these exercises himself. Because he wanted to know where Uther got it from. But he was reassured to see that they were all so mutilated that they couldn't hurt anyone.
They all had to learn to shoot at standing infected, at moving ones and even if it was just a sniper, they all practiced shooting them from a certain minimum distance.
They also practiced close combat against the infected. Duty rosters were drawn up, so they also had to patrol the fence and drive through the zone.
Alex asked Uther why, he replied that just because the zone was empty didn't mean that people couldn't arrive in boats or that Silent Dwellers weren't settling there.
So the patrols found 34 groups of survivors who had sneaked into the zone. He entrusted Uther with the integration for one reason, they were afraid of him.
Bernd said that Uther had the two never-used Fuchs troop carriers pull up in front of the hideout and pointed the machine guns at them, making it clear to the people that he would shoot them if they didn't come out. He also chased some groups like a hunting dog after foxes.
Uther hammered into the soldiers' brains, even if they were on the run. They are a danger if you don't have them under control. The survivors were invited, driven to the doctor, examined, registered by Schmidt, weapons collected and taken to better accommodation.
When Kalle, one of the guards, was beaten up by one of the survivors when he tried to help a family and came to the next guard post vomiting blood because he hadn't turned up for duty. Was it Uther who took half the guard crew with him, Sissy hacked into the narrative because she was there because she was on duty with Bernd.
Alex himself was there on a scout tour because of bandits.
Uther stood in front of the building after the two of them and asked the asshole to come out, which he did and it was some kind of thug and two heads taller, he just grinned at Uther with amusement because Kalle was one of the jocks and Uther looked rather normal compared to him.
Alex thought that people really misjudged Uther, just like he did.
The thug didn't even get to swing because Uther gave a shit and shot him straight in the head. He would have looked at people's faces and said.
"The guards will have shooting orders from now on, if you hurt one of them, you get shot, if one of them hurts you, you get shot, if one of you hurts each other. Will be shot. If you have aggression problems, I'll report you to the infected cleaners. "
Alex had to think, he had read something like that in a report. Only that Uther had described it dispute resolution of civilians through emotional stress, with a fatality.
For the bandit mission, they had to go to an old youth center that was walled.
On the 22nd day of his reactivation, Alex decided to storm the old youth home. He manipulated some of the bandits' supply crates, whose camp they had found.
Then they climbed over the wall, it was pitch dark, but cheap techno and hip-hop music was blaring loudly from the home. The grounds were neglected and littered.
Alex ordered the others to be quiet and they walked across the grounds. There were pimped-up cars in front of the building.
Gitte and Sissy killed two bandits who were standing bored guard, teenagers, and dragged the bodies into the darkness. Bernd peered into the building and signaled that he saw seven more.
Two more guards were taken out as they rounded the building, and they waited until it grew quieter from inside, the music stopped, laughter rang out, women's screams too. They entered quietly. They left the light on and saw how dilapidated the building was.
Rats and cockroaches scurried around, garbage piled up on the floor. The main room, which had once been a common room, smelled of alcohol and cannabis, and a single bandit lay dozing in an armchair. Alex estimated him to be 17. He cut his throat and they systematically went through the rooms, killing the bandits.
Almost all of them were asleep or staggering dazedly through the corridors. Two were caught having sex.
The leader of the bandits, about 20 years old, was knocked out by Alex and tied up by his arms and legs.
The others searched the building again, but found no more bandits, only 5 women aged between 12 and 29.
"Bernd announces that we need a truck to take the women away. Sissy and Gitte take care of the women, I'll talk to him here." The three nodded and Alex looked at the bandit. He looked at Alex arrogantly.
"I'll stab you, you sack of shit!" he hissed.
"Ah, that choice of words." Alex searched through his things and found a key and cigarettes, which he lit up.
"The party's over."
"My buddies are going to kill you!"
Alex grinned and took a drag on his cigarette. "Yeah, I hope they're a bit more alive than you and your friends that are left. Come on let's get some fresh air."
He grabbed him by the feet and pulled him down the stairs after him, ignoring his moans and cries of pain. He passed the main room where the women were being looked after by Gitte and Sissy.
One of the women was talking to Gitte, who looked just like her except for her smaller nose; they fell silent when they saw Alex.
"Ei jei jei, if it isn't little Babsi."
The person addressed was the discussant, looked like Gitte and stared at Alex.
"Holy shit, Dad's got his big cat back."
"Big cat? I'm more of a stray cat. But I met a lucky cat on the way here. "
Gitte looked at him askance.
"It's more of a prehistoric cat ..."
Alex grinned.
"That's what I say, lucky cat."
"What are we going to do with him now?" asked one of the other women.
"I'm going to kill him."
They looked at him in silence, Alex pulled him out and forced him to his knees. The women followed him out. The sun was just rising.
"Good, I'll tell you what to do next. You come to the zone, get fed there and then come to the fleet. Unless you say you want to try your luck out here. I'll leave the decision up to you."
Alex pulled out the machete, looked at the bandit who was looking at him dazed, chopped off his head and threw it next to the corpse. One of the women vomited loudly.
Babsi stared at him, then looked at Gitte.
"You're drooling already, Gitte, as soon as he's back..."
Gitte looked at her. "Says the right one."
The truck arrived an hour later, and after loading everyone up, they drove back to the Zone.
Alex studied the maps, the memory cards and the laptop he'd found in the room the leader had set up as his office.
Resource depots and territories were marked, and he compared them with the points he had marked on his map. He had set up his office in a Mowag Duro, but it also served as his sleeping quarters.
He had found the vehicle in the zone and learned from Schmidt that it had served as a mobile HQ for the first few weeks. Babsi surprised him as he was drawing up plans and took him away without a word.
She
left him grinning and left Alex with a WTF. 15 minutes later, Schmidt got into the vehicle, Alex had recovered and was smoking a fag.
"There's someone on the radio who wants to talk to you.