by Jill James
She slid down to the bottom of the hunter’s blind and called out in a low tone. “Jack, I found your medicine.”
Her eyes adjusted to the murky darkness in the bunker. Her breath caught and her heart pounded out of control. The place was empty. A crumpled T-shirt sat beside a brown-encrusted bloodstain on the concrete floor.
“Jack,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
She wanted to sink down to the ground and cry and a whimper escaped her throat. Selena was lost. Jack was lost. How easy would it be to take a sharp knife to her wrists? A little pain and then they would all be together.
Kicking the wall felt better, until the pain radiated up her leg and set all her injuries on fire. The agony bit into her brain. She couldn’t kill herself. She’d only come back as the undead.
“Hell, no,” she yelled, the sound reverberating through the closed confines of the concrete pit. “What would Jack do?”
He would gather Intel and assess the situation. That’s what he would do. Okay, she could do that. Start with the concrete hole. The puddle of blood was small. Not enough for Jack to have bled out and turned. Not enough for him to have been attacked by zombs. Either scenario would have painted the drab gray walls a bright, shiny red. Didn’t happen.
Her breath evened out. Do circles. She stepped out of the hole into the brightening day. The clearing was painted in a golden haze. The dry grasses stood out as if etched into glass. Jack had told her to do circles to get information about an area. Each one wider that the last, until you covered the location. She walked around the bushes and shrubs protecting the hunter’s blind. The plants were stomped on and broken as if a group of people had moved through here. All she found was a few drops of dried blood. So, not the skinbags. They left blood, gore, and body parts everywhere they went. Along with that never-ending stench. The air smelled of sun-warmed plant life.
She pounded her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Think, Lila. Think.” If they had found Jack and wanted his stuff, they would have shot him down in the hole or up here if he’d made it in his condition. Not enough blood down there. Not enough blood up here.
Another circle and another circle. She was nearing the edge of the clearing above the pit when she spotted a bright red among the pale greens and dry yellows of the woods plant life. Bending over, she picked up a small metal object with a tuft of red feather-like pieces at the end. She placed it in her hand and stared at the drop of blood on the tip.
A tranquilizer dart, the kind zoos used for animals. She dropped it to the ground and wiped her hand on her jeans. The path up here was more trampled than it had been, with a flattening of grass up the embankment to the dirt road, a dirt road probably not used since before the shit hit the fan. She bent down and picked up a bloody sanitary napkin attached to a piece of silver tape.
Deep tire tracks dug into the dry dirt of the road. She reached out a hand and touched them, her fingertips trailing across the pattern. Her legs gave out and she plopped to the ground. She threw her head back and yelled to the sky. “Where are you, Jack?
“I can’t do this alone,” she cried. She would have sat there until the zombies came to eat her flesh if it hadn’t been for the voice across the dirt road.
“You aren’t alone, I’m here.”
Lila looked up with a start. “Who’s there?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know who’s there, but I’m here.”
She squinted and peered into the darkness of the tangled trees. The heavy growth kept the sun from penetrating. A gnarled, bent-over shape shambled out of the line of trees. At first, she thought it was a skinbag and pulled her knife, getting off the ground into a crouch.
“Oh, shiny,” the thing said, staring at her knife.
In small movements, Lila eased the knife back into the sheath and stood. She towered over the thing, its head barely coming to her chest. It moved closer, a hand stretched out toward her knife.
Lila pulled back. “I don’t think so.”
The woman yanked her hand back and slapped it herself. At least Lila assumed it was a woman. The thing had on a nightgown and pink toenails peeked out from underneath. She caught a glimpse of a small, wrinkled breast through a hole in the tattered gown.
She twisted her head and looked up at Lila with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Did you lose something? A very handsome man, maybe?”
The woman twirled in a circle and Lila spotted a hospital bracelet on her arm. She grabbed it. Lewis, Francesca was typed across it.
“Mine,” the woman said, pulling her arm back.
“Francesca, did you see who took the man?”
“Maybe,” the woman said in a little girl voice. “What’s it worth to you?”
Lila pulled off her pack and dug inside among the drug bottles she’d taken from Silas Black, reading labels and discarding them. One had a few pills in it and Ecstasy written in pen on a sticky label.
She took it and held it just out of the reach of the small woman. “Did you see them take Jack?”
The woman eyed the pill bottle like a kid in a toy store. “Was he the one in spotty clothes?”
Lila shook her head. Spotty clothes? Then it dawned on her. She meant the camo gear. “Yes, it was brown, beige, and white.”
“They took him in their big truck.”
She brought the bottle closer. “Who are they?”
“The sisters. They take all the men.” She pointed to the bulk of Mount Diablo. “They take them all up there and they never come back.”
Lila handed the woman the bottle and watched as she clutched it to her chest and scrambled back into the trees, disappearing in seconds.
It all led back to the Sisterhood and the mountain. She shifted the pack on her shoulders and started climbing.
Selena
Maybe it hadn’t been Commander Jack. Maybe if she told herself that enough times it would be true. Selena had to know if it had been him and why he was here. She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t eaten.
She dressed in her camo and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Looking a mess would get her another beating with the belt. She’d gotten it twice yesterday. Once for not concentrating at target practice, and another for too many wrong answers on a test.
Promising herself just a peek at the men to be sure, she strolled through the camp to the man cages. Some were empty this early in the morning, a lot of the men in the tents with the Sisterhood members. She heard the moans like the zombies from the tents at night.
She spotted the camo pants in the cage at the edge of the clearing. Squatting down, she placed her hands on the bars. His face was scruffy with a beard and his eyes were sunken in his head, but she would recognize the commander anywhere, even without Canida written on his jacket pocket.
“Mister Jack,” she whispered.
A few of the other men stirred and turned over. She whispered louder. He opened his eyes. She gasped. They were dark and he stared right through her. His cheeks above the scruffy beard were red and splotchy. His lips were cracked and bleeding.
“Lila,” he whispered, the word barely louder than the breeze through the trees.
“Did you see my mommy?” she asked, excitement raising her voice.
“Lila. Here,” he murmured, closing his eyes.
Her heart fell. Her mother wasn’t in camp. She knew everyone here and no one new had arrived since she had. Her mother was dead.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She had the Sisterhood. Standing up, she walked back down the path, never looking back.
She dug into her breakfast as Belinda walked down the aisles of the tables. The woman stopped and smoothed Selena’s ponytail.
“How is my warrior princess today?” she asked with a smile.
“Very good, Leader Belinda.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps we will take you on a supply run this afternoon.”
When Belinda turned her back, Dana stuck her tongue out at Selena and gave her the evil eye. Weren’t they supposed to be sist
ers?
She turned in her seat. “Leader Belinda, can Dana go, too? She had all tens in target practice yesterday.”
Belinda’s smile grew. “Of course, Selena. We must look after each other. We are sisters.”
“Sisterhood of the Earth,” Selena and Dana intoned together.
Belinda left and Selena turned to find Dana putting a cookie on her plate.
“Thanks,” Selena said, biting into the chewy oatmeal cookie.
Time passed swiftly and before she knew it, it was time to leave for the supply run. Dana came rushing into her tent out of breath.
“Are you ready? Leader Belinda said we have ten minutes or she is leaving without us.”
Selena put the tranq gun in its holster and strapped on her knife. “Ready to go.”
She felt like the warrior princess Belinda called her as they rode down into town. A few zombs shambled across the road, but they were no match for the enforced ramming grill on the front of the truck. She and Dana cheered every time they bumped over a skinbag.
The truck slowed as they approached a big-box store. Selena had loved going with her mom. It had been their secret. Juan hated the place, said it wasn’t where they were supposed to shop. But, she and mom loved it.
The enormous jars of cookies.
The gigantic boxes of candy.
The endless rows of goodies of all kinds.
She jumped out of the truck and Dana followed, pulling their knives as the zombies moaned and headed their way. The bigger girls rushed in and knocked them down and Selena and Dana moved in and pushed their knives through their mushy skulls.
A few waited inside, but were quickly dispatched. Belinda put an arm around Selena’s and Dana’s shoulders. “Pick one thing just for you. You don’t have to share with anyone unless you want to. To the victors, go the spoils. Or in our case, to the warriors, go the goodies.”
She raced to the candy and cookie aisle, mice and insects scattering at their footsteps. Selena reached for the chocolate bars but stopped. That was her mom’s favorite treat. She grabbed the cookies in the plastic jar instead. She shook it and peeked inside. No bugs. Good.
“You aren’t taking the chocolate bars?” Dana asked.
Selena shrugged. “You can have them.”
The girl snatched them up and turned the box over to check for holes and chew marks. “Nope, this one is good to go.”
With them all working together, the truck was filled to the brim with just enough room left for them to fit.
Selena tucked herself in the corner and Dana sat beside her, munching on a chocolate bar. The girl broke off a piece and handed it to her. She hesitated, but took it.
The chocolate melted on her tongue. No wonder her mother had liked them so much.
Chapter Thirty-three
Paul, Suz, and Josh
Paul Luther’s Log
Ryde Hotel Base
Ryde, California
Spring/Summer, 1 AZ
What good thing can you say about a battle except we didn’t have long to wait? If this is my last entry let it be said we did our best.
“I won’t tell you again, John. Go home.” His voice carried via the bullhorn. Paul knew the man and his followers heard him, because John’s face grew beet-red and he raised his fist and shook it at them.
The only thing keeping the mob from advancing was the red smear on the driveway from the first man who’d tried to run up to the front of the hotel and found an IED. The rest were content to stay well back and take potshots at the front of the building.
The sound of the turret gun facing to the rear firing boomed in the room. “Cease fire,” Paul yelled. Silence came, followed by the explosions from the back and the screams of the wounded and dying.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, John. Just leave us in peace. We should be fighting the zombies, not each other. We can all get along.”
“Fuck you.”
“Okay, then,” he said, putting down the bullhorn and standing behind the turret gun. He squeezed the trigger and laid a line across the driveway about twenty feet in front of the men. Asphalt ripped and flew through the air. An IED went off as the line of bullets hit the pressure plate.
“Shit,” he muttered. “That didn’t help.”
The men on the road opened fire. The bullets pinged off the front of the building. A yell came from the room to his left, followed by a man’s cry.
“Zach!”
Paul rushed to the room. Charlie Muncy leaned up against the wall, his oldest son cradled in his arms. The blood covered the man’s hand where he tried to stop the flow from a wound on the boy’s neck.
“Zach, don’t leave me,” he whimpered, tears in his eyes as he looked up at Paul.
He tried to talk, the blood gushing from the hole and gurgling from his lips. “Dad, don’t let me turn.”
“Of course, Zach. Dad will take care of it.”
The boy breathed on a sigh and his chest didn’t move. Charlie pulled his knife and placed the point on his son’s temple.
“I can’t,” he whispered, dropping the knife.
Paul squatted beside them. “You don’t have to.” He pulled his knife and slowly pushed it in to sever the spinal cord.
“We finish this,” he gritted out as he stood and strode to the other room.
He threw down the knife with Zach Muncy’s blood coating the blade and snatched up the bullhorn. He moved to the window and pushed the button.
“John, you have a young boy’s blood on your hands. You started this, but I will finish it. You have five seconds to leave.”
His answer was a bullet in the window frame by his head. “So be it.”
Paul stepped behind the gun and turned to see Josh at the other one in the room across the hall. “Don’t leave anything down there alive.”
He counted down.
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
The barrage was deafening. His mind shut down and his movements became automatic as he fired round after round into the crowd of men. Their bodies exploded and painted the road with splotches of blood and gore and red. Everything red. Everywhere red. All he could see was red.
Several tried to make a run for it and stepped on the IED’s he’d planted along the side of the road. Their gore fell and mixed with the mess already there.
His fingers grew numb and still he fired.
Nothing moved and still he fired.
Still he fired, until Josh pried his fingers off of the trigger.
His ears ringing, it took a moment for the moans to filter through to his brain. The first line of shambling skinbags came down the road past the line of trees. Some stopped to feast on the buffet provided on the front driveway of the hotel.
Paul selected his shots, but they kept coming. They spread out and filled the road. Several tumbled down the riverbank and fell with a splash into the river. The turret gun clicked empty. He held his cramped, throbbing hands down at his sides. He stared as a multitude of walking corpses crowded toward them until the black asphalt was hidden in a sea of blood and tattered clothing. Their hands reached for the humans in the windows and their moans grew in volume as the horde grew.
“How many undead can there be out here?” Suz said over his shoulder. “There can’t have been this many people up and down the whole river.” She wrapped her arms around him and leaned her chin on his shoulder.
“Maybe if we’re quiet they’ll move on.”
He shook his head. The sound of bodies pressed against the plywood-covered door and windows downstairs carried through the open window along with the stench of hundreds of moldering dead.
Paul pushed away from the window frame. “Have Shannon and Joseph take the kids to the roof. I put some supplies and the flare guns up there earlier. Maybe someone will come down the river, even if it’s the government they may have a place for children. You and Josh go up with them.”
&nb
sp; Josh stomped into the room. “We aren’t going anywhere without you. Don’t go all ‘no guts, no glory’ on us now.”
Paul wrapped them both in a hug. Tyler Muncy came running into the room, skidding to a stop. “Dad says there’s a boat out on the river, tying up to the dock.”
He turned to the window at the boy’s words. Men stood on the deck of the boat, weapons in hand. Their ammo was gone. He’d counted the explosions, the IEDs were gone. Even if they evaded the zombies, the government seemed to have weaponry to make their case.
“Fuck me,” he whispered.
The men on the boat opened fire.
Cody and Ran
She stood on the boat’s roof among the sails. Standing on tiptoe, she could just see the bright pink of the Ryde Hotel. The sound of shooting bounced off the riverbanks and filled the air. It sounded like machine guns firing from the hotel.
Ran rushed to the pilot’s seat. Teddy spotted her and yanked his headphones off. “Don’t tell me you saw some zombs in the water when I’m trying to listen to Boyz II Men.”
“No, there’s shooting. I think the hotel is under attack. But I don’t know if it’s our guys trying to take the place or trying to defend it.”
“Well, we can’t just call them up and ask, can we?” he said, nudging her to take the wheel. “Keep the sails pointed just like that. I’ll get the guns and the men.”
She held the boat steady as Teddy returned with Seth, Cody, and enough guns for an army. Uncle Steve had had a stockpile, among them a couple of AK47s Cody had jumped on. Boys and their toys, she thought, shaking her head.
Unfortunately the wind changed direction, leaving her at a loss how to do anything about it. Teddy handed her his Uzi and took the wheel. The wind change also brought the information of who was attacking the hotel. The stench of undead flesh wafted over them.