The Deadfall

by Lilly Black

  He was packed and ready to take them there while Olivia and the others led a herd of corpses up the road he had walked the night before, chopping down trees that only he knew how to dodge to make it difficult for anyone to follow him when he and his family escaped. Today, Olivia was furious as she saw the devastation to the beautiful forest around her road.

  "What happened here?" she wondered aloud.

  "I don't know," Liana said, "but we cleared three different piles of trees and brush off the road on the way down. When I first saw the way they were set up, I thought they might be traps, but they were just roadblocks."

  "Jimbo," Olivia growled.

  "How would they be traps?" Ravi asked.

  "Deadfall traps where you dig a hole then cover it with brush so the prey falls in when they walk over it."

  "Deadfall. I like that word. It would be a good name for the compound," Ravi said.

  "Nobody's trapped here, Ravi," Phil said. "We're a community."

  "Yes, but we can't very well call it Sunshine and Rainbow City. We want it to sound like a terrible place to scare off terrible people," Ravi said. "Hell, we probably should have left Jobe hanging down there as a warning to anyone thinking of breaking in."

  "The Deadfall," Olivia said. "I like it. I like your idea of a deterrent at the gates too, just maybe not at the main gate."

  "I like the name," Liana said, making it clear that it was the only part she liked, but as the gates of the Deadfall came into view, the conversation died when one of the guards' voices was heard over the walkie talkie, bringing ill tidings.

  Just inside, Jimbo sat with his family in a stolen truck, demanding that the gate be opened so they could leave. The guards asked Olivia for authorization, and knowing that Jimbo would hear her, she responded by saying that no one was a prisoner here and that residents were free to leave whenever they wanted.

  "But, we're herding corpses into the pit right now, so you can't open the gates until they're all in," she added. "Please ask them to wait patiently."

  "Yes, ma'am," the guard said, and then he asked Jimbo to sit tight.

  "I don't have time to sit tight. Every second I waste here is a second of daylight I'm losing," he argued. "Do you want my family to die out there because we couldn't get where we're going by nightfall?"

  "I understand, sir," the smaller, younger man said, and Jimbo could see that he was intimidated. "I just cannot open that gate until they finish on the other side. It would put everyone at risk."

  "I don't give a crap about anyone in this place who isn't in that truck right there, so I'm going to give you a choice, son. You can open the gate, or you can end up in that pit yourself," he threatened, pulling out a pistol and holding it against the man's chest. The other guard pulled his gun, aiming it at Jimbo, but he was shaking so badly, Jimbo just reached out with his free hand and snatched it away from him.

  "Now what're you gonna do?" he taunted them, and when they didn't answer, he said, "Yeah, that's what I thought. Open the dadgum gate!"

  The guards looked at each other and realized they had no other choice. They firmly believed that this man would shoot them if they didn't, and they weren't entirely sure that he wasn't going to shoot them anyway once they gave him what he wanted. The one closest to the panel sighed and entered the code.

  "Good boy," Jimbo said as the gate slowly began to open.

  Outside, tethered to posts designed to keep them from falling in, Olivia, Liana, Ravi, and Phil stood on the bridge luring the dead to them then pushing them into the pit, and when they noticed the gate moving, the dead noticed it too. Drawn off course by the motion and the sound of the gears turning, they rushed toward the opening.

  "What the fuck?" Olivia demanded loudly as she reached for the remote on her belt loop that controlled the gate. She pressed the button to make it close again, but it wasn't moving quick enough to stop some of the corpses from slipping through. Four made it inside with a fifth one caught between the doors, and without a safety feature, it just kept trying to close until it crushed the bones and splattered filthy, black blood all over the front of the compound.

  "We have to get in there!" Liana called out to Olivia as she pushed a corpse into the pit. "He's trying to kidnap June and the kids."

  "You go on inside," she said to Liana, planning to follow when they were finished, but Ravi stepped up.

  "We can handle the rest. You go do what you need to do," he said, wiping off his brow, sweating even in the chilly fall temperatures from working so hard putting more corpses in the pit than anyone else. He had already taken off his coat, and Olivia was worried about him being exposed while fighting the dead.

  "Are you sure?" she asked, and when he insisted, she nodded and thanked him before unclipping her tether and hurrying into the alcove in the stone where they had built a door for foot traffic. Liana caught up to her, and while she entered the code, they both gasped as they watched Ravi struggling with a particularly tenacious corpse. He was bathed in sweat, his surprisingly ripped muscles flexing through his damp, white shirt as he fought to escape the strong grip the corpse had on his shoulders, and even when he pushed its legs over the edge, it continued to chomp at him. As it dangled unwilling to let go, Ravi finally head-butted it to get its mouth away just long enough to use his hands to pry himself free. Then he threw it down into the trench with the others.

  "Oh, my God!" Liana gasped as she stared back at him, anxious.

  "Go!" he shouted at them when he felt their eyes on him. "Don't worry about me!"

  "Be safe," Olivia said, and she and Liana went inside where they were greeted by a nightmare. The guards had been bitten, and one was already up again, so there were now five corpses surrounding Jimbo's truck. He hit the gas, backing up, and when he saw Olivia, he rolled down the window.

  "You better open up the gate, or I'm going to ram it!" he yelled at her.

  "I can't open the gate! It's jammed!" she lied, hoping to buy some time as she and Liana started shooting at the dead. Even with their silencers, the commotion drew more people, and since most of their best fighters were out looking for Jobe, it was the younger residents who came, like Savannah and her friends.

  "Get back in the lodge!" Olivia shouted at her daughter, then she turned to Dani. "Radio Alek and ask him to get everyone back up here!"

  Dani nodded, ushering Savannah, Bella, and Sally inside, but some of the others picked up weapons and tried to help. It was a mistake because even though Liana had trained them in hand to hand combat with the dead, she hadn't covered every eventuality, and one young woman, who walked by what she thought was a thoroughly dead guard and got bitten on the ankle before she knew what was happening.

  It had become complete chaos on both sides of the wall. Outside, the men struggling to get the remaining corpses into the pit had to remove their tethers to chase after them once they became distracted by the noise coming from inside where Jimbo revved his engine, threatening Olivia as he tried to force her to open the gate. Alek, Jax, Aiden, and the others who had been in the outer rings were running up the mountain, but they still had a long way to go when Jimbo hit the gas.

  The truck tires spun on the gravel, slinging it as the vehicle picked up speed. He ran over the dead, then he hit one of the living, and he just kept going until someone unexpected got in his way.

  Noah.

  He jumped between the truck and gate, and when June saw her eldest son in her husband's direct path, she reached out and grabbed the wheel, forcing him to hit the brakes or run directly into the stone wall. The truck skidded to a stop, tearing up the grass to the left of the gate, and furious, Jimbo threw the truck into park, backhanded his wife, and jumped out to deal with his son. As the first group came home, Alek stepped through the door from the middle ring just in time to see Jimbo approaching Noah, and his immediate response was to rush to protect the boy. Olivia stopped him.

  "I've got this," she said, asking him instead to take his group to find and put down the rest of the dead who wer
e wandering through the compound.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, wishing he could kiss her because it would have felt so right, but instead, he rushed off to do her bidding while she kept her gun trained on Jimbo as he threatened his son.

  "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

  "Stopping you," Noah said firmly as his father strode toward him with an ominous glare, but the boy refused to be intimidated by him anymore.

  "You think you can stop me? Get your little, sissy butt in the truck before I beat it!"

  "I'm not going anywhere with you," Noah said, looking at his father bravely through his swollen eyes, "and you're not taking my mom or my brothers either."

  "Oh, is that what you think?" Jimbo said, his expression irritated but amused.

  "It's what I know," he said, pulling his gun out from behind his back. Then he started shouting so everyone could hear. "Last night, this man drug me out in the woods and beat me until I passed out!"

  "That's a lie," Jimbo growled, and he took a step toward the boy, raising his fist to threaten him long before he was close enough to make contact. Without hesitation, Noah squinted his eyes, zoned in on Jimbo's kneecap, and fired his gun, and the much larger, stronger man fell to the ground, screaming in pain.

  "It's not a lie," Noah hissed, "and you're never going to raise a hand to me again. You're never going to hit my brothers again. You're never going to rape our mother again. You're never going to kill anybody else like you did Pastor Jobe." Then he raised his voice once more. "Last night after he left me in the woods to freeze to death, this man kidnapped Jobe Stricklan and murdered him! Thou shalt not kill, father." He stared him down. "Thou shalt not kill."

  "You calling me a sinner, boy? Your mother's the one who broke a commandment!" Jimbo cried out as he got to his feet, taking one clumsy hop toward his son with his wounded leg dragging, his eyes issuing a warning.

  "You really believe that, don't you? And you think that because Pastor Jobe's an adulterer, you had the right to put him to death," Noah said, and as his father inched closer to him, he turned to the gathering crowd. "That's what the sign around the Pastor's neck said when they found him crucified. Adulterer! Not rapist. Adulterer! Who else but you would put that sign around his neck?"

  "Honor thy father, boy!" Jimbo roared as he limped forward.

  "Stay away from me or I'll shoot out your other knee. I swear I will," he said, and when his father kept coming, Noah fired a second shot, hitting him just where he said he would. Jimbo howled as he fell to the ground and lost control of his mouth.

  "Goddamn you to Hell, you little, fucking bastard!" he spat, and June gasped as she stood by the truck protecting her younger boys.

  "And finally the real Jimbo Connors shows himself," Noah said with pure hatred in his eyes.

  "Watch your mouth or I'll fucking kill you!" Jimbo roared.

  "And I'll bet you already picked out the verse you're going to use to make yourself feel righteous when you do it!" Noah shouted. "You're nothing but a cruel and selfish excuse for a man, and there is no place in this world for your kind of hate anymore!" He aimed the gun at his father's head.

  "You'll burn in Hell for this! You'll all burn in Hell for this!" Jimbo threatened, glaring back at June, but this time she didn't let him chase her eyes away as the words of her first-born chilled her to the bone.

  "I'm your son," Noah said. "I was born in Hell, and I lived there for twelve years, but not anymore." Then he calmly unloaded his gun into his father. Every bullet made contact, and as Jimbo's blood spurted and splashed, nearly the entire community looked on. Some were unsure what they were witnessing, but those who knew the situation had decided to let it unfold. Aiden and Jax had returned, both standing with their guns trained on Jimbo to protect Noah if necessary, and though neither of them even knew half of the story, they only lowered them when they saw a bullet enter Jimbo's head.

  Feeling safe at last, June ran to the side of her eldest son, wrapping her arms around him and crying as Alek came back after clearing the property of the last of the dead, tears in his eyes, a small, blonde child limp in his arms. Because of Jimbo's selfish decisions, they had lost six members of their community today, including the little girl who was bitten as she fed the chickens at the barn. She should have been safe there. Everyone should have been safe within the walls, and though Olivia still believed that leading the herd to the pit was the best decision at the time she made it, she would always wonder if they would have suffered fewer casualties if they had just shot them all at the lower gate.

  That night, after burning their dead, the community gathered in the lodge to pay their last respects. With no bodies or pictures, everyone shared stories about the two women, three men, and the little girl they lost. Jimbo's body was burned with the rotting corpses, and no one had any kind words for him, not even his children. The same was true of Jobe, though Olivia insisted that his remains be treated with dignity like the other community members. After the ceremony, the time came for a moment of silence so those who chose to pray could, but only a few said a quiet prayer for him. If there was a heaven, maybe he didn't deserve it, but at least his fate was no longer in their hands.

  That was one of the worst parts of leadership for Olivia. None of them had expected that it would be such a difficult task, but it was especially hard for the reclusive woman who had moved up on top of a mountain to get away from people. She had been doing fine so far with her friends and Alek, but she was starting to remember why she and Reid preferred the company of animals to humans.

  She also preferred the quiet of their mountaintop, and as everyone in the lodge went silent in that moment, it was suddenly clear just how loud the ringing in their ears from all of the gunfire had become. She and Liana had discussed possible damage when Randy discharged his weapon in the back of the Right Way truck, but now that she was experiencing it firsthand, she realized they couldn't wait any longer to do something about it.

  After the solemn funeral service, while Dani wheeled out a cart with a keg of beer and several bottles of wine, turning the dining room into a mead hall so they could drink to their dead, Olivia took Rena aside to discuss solutions to their dilemma. They had a large stash of noise cancelling ear muffs from Randy's shop that were supposed to block out anything over 80 decibels to allow the wearer to hear ambient sound, and Olivia realized they needed to begin wearing them on away missions if nothing else.

  "I've been working on a short range comm system we can use out in the field," Rena told her. "I could probably modify it to work with the gun muffs."

  "As long as the comm system won't affect their ability to hear ambient noise in both ears," Olivia said. They had to be able to hear if anyone or anything was sneaking up on them.

  "I'll make it work," she promised, excited to get back to her shop and get started.

  "I can't wait to see what you come up with," Olivia said.

  "Me either!" Rena chirped as she grabbed the cell phone she'd been tinkering with all evening and headed out of the lodge. She was one person who had really found her niche in the apocalypse, and Olivia was so glad Alek's group had been the one to save her. Her talents would have been wasted if she was still stuck out there struggling to survive on her own or if she had crossed paths with some other group, like the ones Randy had killed through the mail slot of his shop. The cannibalistic dead were scary, but Olivia was more afraid of what humanity was becoming outside her walls. She wanted to get as many good people inside as she could while making sure that she and the community leaders remained among the good people.

  And good people don't lie to stay in power. That night, she found herself wrestling with her conscience over the decisions her friends seemed to have made easily - letting a lie about a dead man stand. Jobe, for all of his flaws, did not deserve to go down in their history as a rapist, but it wasn't even about Jobe at this point...or June. It was about covering her own ass.

  How could she lie to all of those people who trusted and depended on h
er? Worse yet, how could she tell them that she had been advocating killing an innocent man without a trial?

  This scenario was a prime example of why she and Reid had basically dropped out of society.

  Day 28

  Last night, after everyone cleared out of the lodge and went to bed, Olivia sat alone by the fire, unable to sleep. Alek sat down beside her to comfort her because he suspected he knew what was bothering her. It was bothering him too. He understood that they needed to protect June, but he wasn't sure that covering up her role in the events that happened that day was the best way to do that. If June needed to be protected from anyone, it was herself.

  Olivia was torn between her loyalty to her old friend and her need to be open and honest. She was having the same issue when it came to Alek sneaking into her room at night. She hated lies, and it was probably because she seldom did anything she felt like she needed to lie about.

  She and Alek decided to sleep on it, but she was restless and woke long before he did. Evil had stayed in bed with them, and as soon as she heard Olivia stir, her eyes were glowing in the darkness. Olivia quietly got dressed, then she and the cat slipped out the door. The sun hadn't even begun to rise yet, and she could see her breath as she headed toward the back exit of the inner ring. She wanted to walk in the woods and think, and she couldn't do that inside the wall. Besides, she was armed with three guns and a jaguar. The guards at the gate didn't even argue with her when they saw her enter the code to open the door.

  "Be careful out there, Ma'am," one of them said as she and Evil started up the mountain. The very top stood several hundred yards higher than the spot where they built the compound, and as they climbed, they passed the two hunting cabins and came to the spring that provided their water and fed the stock pond. She made a mental note to be sure that they protected their water. The next wall was going to encompass the entire middle ring, which included the spring, but she felt like it should have its own barricade at this point as it was their most precious resource.