by Jill James
The girl took her by the hand and led her to the supply tent. In less than half an hour, Selena found herself washed up, dressed in camo gear, and handed a tranquilizer gun.
Cassie took less than two minutes to teach her how to point it and to give her some safety instructions and she found herself shoved out the tent and thrown up into the back of the pickup truck.
As they went around a curve on the road, Selena held on to the side of the truck with a tight grip. The camp disappeared from sight and for a moment she felt herself actually missing the place. They had guards and traps and other women and girls. It promised safety.
“Where will we go to hunt?” Selena asked the girl beside her who looked just as clueless as she felt.
The girl’s dark-brown eyes shone with a rage deep inside. “I don’t care just as long as we get rid of them all.”
“The zombies?”
“The men,” the girl gritted out between her clenched teeth.
Selena turned away from the anger that seemed to burn the girl deep enough inside to be a raging fire waiting to explode. She didn’t want to be nearby when it did. Her gaze swept over the mountainside. Spring had hit the area like an explosion in a flower shop. Reds and purples and oranges painted every hillside. Sunlight shone down from a giant yellow ball in the sky and puffy white clouds dotted the bright blue.
Why couldn’t the world be this beautiful all the time? Why did there have to be zombies and bad men?
All too soon they came down off the peaceful mountain and hit the streets of the small town below. She didn’t know the name of this town and there were no signs standing as far as she could see. Fires burned nearby and far away. A gray haze clouded the sky.
The truck slowed and stopped as they neared a park. A breeze set the swings to swaying and she could hear the clang of the metal chains hitting the swing set. The call of birds was the only other sound in the silence.
Into the quiet came the harsh yells of men. The loud voices and the anger in the words proclaimed an argument. Before Selena could even figure out what they were fighting about, Belinda was out of the truck and headed their way.
The woman was a blur as hands and feet moved in a dancer-like motion. There was beauty in it until the blood started flying. Even then, the splashes of red added to the feeling it was all a show. Two more men came out of the trees and ran toward Belinda.
Selena tried to yell but nothing came out of her dry throat. The girl hit her arm and got her attention. “Come on. It’s our turn.”
The girl hopped over the side of the truck and jumped to the pavement. She took off at a run, her tranquilizer gun held out in front of her as if she had done this many times before and she knew what she was doing.
Selena followed as quickly as she could, the gun bobbing as she ran. With a small pop, the girl’s gun went off and a colorful dart hit one man in the chest. Selena swerved as he fell to the ground and raised her gun at the other man.
His dark eyes and dark skin reminded her of Juan. She locked her jaw and pulled the trigger. “I wish it was a real gun,” she yelled at him, smiling as he stopped and crashed to the dirt.
“Excellent, Selena,” Belinda said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a chocolate candy bar and handing it to her. “Your first tag. I knew I was right about you. Channel that anger and hatred. Put it to use. This world has no time or place for weakness. The weak die and walk, the strong live and run. We’ll make a warrior out of you in no time.”
Belinda turned as the older girls started tying up the men. The girl who had been beside her was stomping and kicking the downed men. She yelled words worse than her friend, Dylan had ever used. Some of them she wasn’t even sure she knew the meaning of.
Blood rushed through her veins. She thought of every man at the church who’d yelled and hit and hurt their women. She thought of Juan selling her like a slave, like a thing, like she meant nothing to him.
She broke the chocolate bar in two and held out a piece to the screaming girl. “My name’s Selena Mor—Sterling,” she said refusing to ever use Juan’s name again.
The girl took a bite and mumbled around a mouth full of chocolate. “Trisha Adams, but I like just Trish.”
The moans of the undead echoed across the playground. Trish grabbed her hand and yanked her toward the trucks. “Time to go.”
“What about the men?” Selena yelled as they ran.
“Mealtime for the zombies,” Trish yelled back, laughing as they jumped in the truck.
She looked back and stared as the skinbags reached the tranquilized men and started feasting. Blood flowed across the dirt as they ripped into the unconscious men.
Her stomach heaved and she vomited chocolate onto the road. They’d never had a chance, they were drugged, and it was her fault.
The truck took off with a squeal of tires. Trish slid next to her. “Don’t feel so bad. They were going to be slaves. Slaves, zombies, what’s the difference?”
An argument caught on the tip of her tongue. She’d seen the drugged men in the cages. Were they really different from the skinbags? Shambling along, not knowing anything except eat and walk.
By the third stop of the day, Trish had managed to pull her out of a funk, as her mom used to say when she sat and pouted for no good reason. By the last stop, she was yelling with her new friend and kicking the drugged men. She felt power. She was a little girl and she’d taken down full-grown men. Knocked them to the ground, tied them up, and taken them for slaves. Now they could see how they liked it.
Back at camp, Selena headed to the supply tent to return the camo shirt and pants. She found Cassie there who told her to keep it. “You are a hunter now. It’s yours to wear.
“Here’s a holster. Keep the gun. You’re allowed to use it if a man tries to escape. It is your responsibility to stop them. With any means necessary.”
The girl handed her a knife in a sheath. “Strap this on too. Remember, any means necessary.”
Selena headed out of the tent with her head held high. She was a hunter now. She looked around. Everyone looked at her differently. They smiled as she walked by, a few of the little girls saluting her.
Before she knew it, her steps had carried her to the man cages. The quiet was missing today. Yells filled the clearing and the sounds of a scuffle carried to the trees. She moved closer. A large man in camo like hers struggled with the guards. His bellows carried across the space.
“Son of a bitch. Get off of me.”
It took four women, but they got him to the ground and tied up. As they stepped away, she saw the blood covering his tan shirt. One of the women cut it off of him. She gasped at the hole in his side. They flipped him and another hole appeared on his back.
“It’s a gunshot. We’ll have to cauterize it. If it gets infected he’ll be of no use,” a tall black woman said.
Selena didn’t know that word, but it couldn’t be good when a teenage girl came with a metal rod, the end red with heat. The black woman took it. She thought her name was Denise.
“Aren’t you going to drug him?” the girl asked.
Denise smiled. “Why waste them? He’ll get them afterward.” With that, she jammed the hot metal against the man’s side.
His hoarse screams bounced back from the trees until they ended and his head flopped to the side. When Denise did the same to his back he didn’t even move. She stood by the tree as the doctor came and put a shot in his arm. She knew he wouldn’t yell anymore now.
Working together, the group lifted the man and his head fell forward. She jammed her fist into her mouth and bit into her knuckles. She tried to breathe. A hum sounded in her ears.
“Commander Jack,” she whispered, just before she turned and ran to her tent and threw herself on her cot.
Chapter Thirty-one
Paul, Suz, and Josh
Paul Luther’s Log
Ryde Hotel Base
Ryde, California
Spring/Summer, 1 AZ
Things have gon
e from bad to worse. Hoping to update this later.
Paul stared at Josh’s grim face. He was not going to like the latest news from the Fisher farm. The way things were going, he was sure he’d hear John had an army headed their way.
“They’re all gone.”
“Brandon and his group? Did they leave a message or anything?”
Tears sprang in his husband’s eyes. “They’re all dead. Even the baby.”
He fell back into his chair, the feeling in his legs gone. “The skinbags got them?”
Josh shook his head, the words spilling from his lips in a disjointed tumble. “They were murdered. The word ‘Traitors’ was painted across the front porch in red paint.” He shuddered. “I pray to God it was paint.”
Paul’s fists knotted on his thighs. He longed to punch a wall or a certain old man’s face. “Old John,” he whispered.
Nodding, Josh reached to the floor and placed a bag on the desk between them. “I got the parts Joseph asked for. Anything else that looked like it went to the generator too.”
“That’s something,” Paul muttered, staring at the small square of sky in the plywood-covered window.
“You would think, but no,” Josh added, standing and taking the bag with him. “Joseph says there’s sugar in the fuel. We can’t run the generator until it’s all taken apart, cleaned, and reassembled.”
Paul ran his hand over his hair, wishing he had enough to pull out and glad he didn’t at the same time. “How long are we talking?”
“He says he can have it back together and running by tomorrow at the earliest. Means we’ll have to patrol tonight or we’ll be neck-deep in zombs by morning. I saw several groups on the way back from Fisher’s.” He swung the bag on this shoulder and stood in the office doorway. “I’ll take these to Joseph and help him take apart the generator. Maybe we can shave off some downtime if he has some help.”
He nodded. “Grab one of the Muncy boys while you’re at it. He can help and maybe learn something in the process.”
“Josh,” he called as the man started walking away.
“I’m glad you made it back safely.”
Josh smiled. “Love you, too.”
Paul had a small smile as Josh left. It died quickly at the thought of Brandon and his family being gone. They were not only another line of defense down the river, but they had been friends. John and his so-called friends had to die. Let them show up here and the fires of Hell would rain down on them. He slammed his fist down on his desk.
Lunch was dismal, with long, grim faces. Paul moved his fried fish around on the plate, gazing from person to person. He hadn’t seen such gloom since the well had been poisoned at the RV yard and they’d known they’d have to move on. The adults were silent and the kids were taking advantage of the neglect to torment and tease each other.
The cap fell off the salt shaker and Connor covered his fish with a mound of salt. He took out his frustrations on Dylan by smacking him in the arm. The small boy jumped and knocked over this water, all over Sarah Madison’s plate. The little girl started crying.
“Enough,” Paul yelled as he jumped out of his seat. “No more. We’ve been through tougher times than this and we’ve pulled together. Did we die in our homes when the dead rose and took our world away? Did we give up when the army deserted us at the Streets of Brentwood? Did we roll up and die when Peters came through with his zombie army and tried to take the mall from us? Did we sit and whine when the RV yard was made uninhabitable by Bennett’s toxic church?”
“Fuck, no,” Dylan yelled, his fist in the air.
Paul laughed. “That’s right, fuck no.”
“Until Joseph gets the generator fixed, we will deal with it,” he continued, turning and meeting each person’s eyes. He nodded and smiled. “Until the government gets here, we will continue on. Until Old John and those bastards attack us, we will ready our guns and be prepared for anything. If the zombie hordes come, we’ll deal with them too.”
“No zombs, but we did see a lot of smoke coming from the farms upriver,” Charlie Muncy said as he walked through the door. “Thinking someone attacked them.”
He and his son, Zach headed to the kitchen and returned with plates of fried fish and sliced tomatoes. They took their seats and dug into their food.
“Gotta be John and his crew. Those farmers probably didn’t join him either,” Josh said, his face red and his eyes cold.
“Brandon and all the people at the Fisher farm are dead. Josh saw signs that John tried to recruit them and they refused,” Paul told the group.
“You got a plan, Commander?” Charlie asked between bites of fish.
He nodded. “We are moving everyone to the top floors of the hotel. All guns, weapons, ammo, and equipment as well. The only people outside for the next day or two will be Joseph and whoever is helping him with the generator. If we are attacked, we’ll be ready. Let’s move. By dinner, I want the radio and the kids on the top floor. Shannon will stay with them. I’ll be arming the explosives out back and adding some to the front. With the Fisher group gone, we can assume anyone coming is a hostile unless we see otherwise.”
Everyone finished off the meal and headed to his or her duties. The hotel corridors rang out with activity as everything of use was carted to the top two floors. He smiled as he passed the boys of Rogue Vantage carrying the ham radio and its various parts up the stairs.
Several hours passed in the hot sun as he played with his explosives and traps. They may not all be army-approved, unless by army you meant Rambo, but his prepper dad had shown him a thing or two about keeping unwanted visitors away. He laughed. The old man would have loved the zombie apocalypse. He would have been in his element building hole traps and barricades with spikes and other nasty goodies.
He would have to settle for just a few surprise elements since he was a crew of one, but if John and his group showed up, he’d take a few of them down before they ever got to the hotel. If they didn’t get the repel sound turned back on sometime soon, the traps would work just as well for trespassers of the undead persuasion as well.
Suz’s voice rang out across the hotel’s yard as he set the last pressure plate and covered it with dirt and weeds. He took the path of notched trees back to the hotel. The small nicks in the trees holding no meaning for anyone but him. But every row of trees in the orchard had at least one IED planted along its path.
The several he had left would go out front after dinner. Then no one was going outside, except to the generator building.
The dinner hour passed in a mood as different from lunch as night from day. The little girls laughed as the boys told them jokes and Connor shared the pictures in his latest book. The meal was skimpy, but laughter and smiles added to the happy atmosphere.
He walked over to the kid’s table. “No one goes outside. I mean no one.” Happy to see they all nodded with serious faces, he patted the little ones on the head. “Just for a few days. When the generator is fixed, we can turn the repel signal back on.”
By nightfall, the explosives ringed the building. Paul stretched and sighed as his back popped and cracked. He cleaned up at the river, sitting on the dock, eyeing the gleaming water. “Come on, Teddy. If anyone can make the journey, you can.”
He trudged upstairs feeling much older than his twenty-eight years. With Josh out in the generator building, he opened the door to Suz’s room. Her gentle snores that she refused to acknowledge sounded in the dim room.
Spotting the pill bottle on the nightstand, he walked over and gazed down at his wife. Soon, he hoped, she would tell him what nightmares made them needed. Had made them needed for a while. He couldn’t fight an enemy he couldn’t see and he couldn’t help his wife if she didn’t let him. Reaching out, he swept the perspiration-damp hair from her face. Walking to the doorway, he stepped through and silently closed the door.
A light shone under the door in Josh’s room across the hall. He pushed open the door and found him there, shuffling through his books on
the desk.
“I thought you would be out with Joseph,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Josh looked up. “I will be. Just getting a book for guard duty. Zach and I are going to take turns since it’ll be an all-nighter.”
Paul laughed. “You’ll make corporal before you know it with planning and thinking like that.”
“I learned from the best,” he said, with a quick hug before he opened the door and left.
Still smiling, Paul sat on the bed and pried off his boots. He eyed the king-sized bed. Two spouses and he was sleeping alone. Something wrong with this picture.
His mind continued to race and sleep eluded him until he wished he’d taken one of Suz’s pills. When sleep came, it was stringy with the rest he needed.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jack and Lila
Lila’s Notes:
Somewhere near Mount Diablo
Headed to hunter’s blind
Spring, 1 AZ
Sleeping in a tree is damned hard on the back and other sensitive body parts.
She awoke to silence. The moaning din of the undead that had chased her into sleep did not greet her in the morning. In the brightness of the rising sun, Lila looked down to the dry grass and welcomed her aloneness.
Her impatience to get back to the hunter’s blind and Jack had her fingers slipping on the hasty knots she’d tied last night. With a silent ‘yes’ she pulled the knot loose and shoved the rope into her pack. She dropped it to the ground and followed as fast as she could swing down from the branches.
Shrugging into the shoulder straps, she hiked up to the next plateau. No foul stench of dead flesh. No moans of the perpetually hungry. She moved on, groaning as she found her body hurt more today than yesterday. Glad she didn’t have a mirror to see her bruises, she still felt each and every one of them.
Wanting to rush to the bunker as she stepped out of the trees, Lila took time to use the lessons Jack had taught her. She circled on the edge of the clearing, noting every broken branch, each crushed plant amid scattered dirt. Boot prints littered the area around their hiding spot. The prints moved in random circles. She breathed deeply. The zombs must have moved through here before they sent her up her tree.