by Gary Chesla
The men started down the ladder, except for Bill, he wanted to stay and watch me shoot the bow.
I only had ten bodies to put down at the back gate. There were about twenty-five remaining at the front gate. From the wall, I was able to quickly take care of the dead even with the wobbly homemade arrows. I breathed a sigh of relief when the last body fell.
“OK, men,” I said when I came back down off the wall and found the others lined up in front of the main gate. “I got the rest of them.”
The men began to cheer and slap each other on the back.
“But that doesn’t mean we are done,” I smiled. “Use the shovels and rakes and drag the bodies out about fifty feet away from the fort and put them in a pile. Do not touch them with your hands, whatever you do. After you have them piled up, I’ll set them on fire before the damn flies land on them and carry the infection inside the fort. Just be careful and don’t get too close to the bodies, some of them could still be able to move.”
I looked up on the wall at Bill, “Is it clear out front?”
Bill studied the field for a few seconds, “All clear,” he called back.
“Ok men, let’s get this part over with,” I said.
The men opened the gate and went out front.
Charlie walked over to me after the others had gone through the gate.
“That was quite an operation you did there,” Charlie said. “Where the hell did they all come from?”
“In the middle of the night Bear began to growl and stare at the back gate,” I replied. “It was too dark to see what was out there, we didn’t know what we would find until this morning. I was hoping that they would just stagger on by, but they spotted Ed up on the wall, then all hell broke loose.”
“I’m glad you were here to lead the men, we’ve never had to deal with so many of them before,” Charlie said. “I think three was the most that ever came around before.”
“At the meeting later this morning, you will need to have the men go out and gather up more rocks and wood in case more of the dead show up later,” I said. “If I might make a suggestion, I think everything else can wait until the fort is restocked.”
“Do you think we could expect more of them to come around tonight?” Charlie asked.
“We have to assume that more of them could show up and we need to be ready for them,” I replied. “If we wouldn’t have been able to fight them off this morning, we could have been in trouble. The way the back gate was rocking when the dead began piling into it, I think it would have collapsed in another hour or so, then the dead would have been inside the fort.”
“Maybe we should shore up the gate first?” Charlie suggested.
“No, we need to resupply first,” I said. “The gate can wait another few hours.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Charlie replied. “OK, I’ll bring it up at this morning’s meeting.”
Suddenly the men, looking panicked, all started to run back into the fort through the front gate.
“What’s up?” I asked as they approached where Charlie and I were talking.
“There are more of those things coming,” Fred said.
“How many?” I asked.
“A lot,” Fred replied, fear showing on his face.
I ran over to the ladder and climbed up on the platform for the front wall. When I reached the wall, I stared out at the woods line. The woods line looked like an ant hill that someone had kicked, stirring up all the ants who were now pouring out into the field. There were more bodies coming out into the field than we could handle even if we had a week to try and resupply the fort.
I went back down into the courtyard.
The men all looked anxiously at me.
“I have an idea and I hope it works or we’re all in trouble,” I said. “Hang onto your shovels and be ready.”
I ran over to my lean to and grabbed three of my best arrows. I tore up an old rag I carried with me to wipe blood and gore off my shores, tore it into three pieces and wrapped them around the ends of my arrows. I then walked over to the gate and smeared grease from the gate’s hinges over the rags.
I walked over to the men and said, “Close the gate behind me, but make sure you open it for me when I come back.”
I called for Bear and we walked out through the gate to meet the dead. The old story of David and Goliath passed through my mind as I walked out into the field.
The dead were three hundred yards away as I walked into the field, studying their movements as I walked. I needed to keep the dead together in a tight formation for my plan to work.
I walked to within a hundred feet of the dead, waving my arms to be sure the dead saw me, but I didn’t need to worry about that, they were already focused and coming my way.
I had done this maneuver two or three times before, but never with this many of the dead. When I felt I was just about in position, I called Bear.
“Bear,” I said.
Bear looked at me carefully.
I knelt down next to him and pointed to the big stone out in the field off to our left.
“Bear, stone, herd,” I said sternly. It was something I had taught Bear to do about six months ago.
Bear whined, then took off, running full speed towards the dead. He came to a quick halt twenty feet in front of the lead zombie, then he took off again and ran a wide circle around the front of the pack. When he had their full attention, he ran out to the stone that I had pointed to and sat down, facing the dead.
The dead flow like water, where the front of the pack goes, the rest follow and soon they were all crowding together to go towards Bear.
It was then that I got out my lighter. I laid the three arrows on the ground in front of me and lit the greasy rags.
I picked up the first arrow and sent it into the leader. The second arrow I put into the front of the pack twenty feet to the right of the leader, the third arrow twenty feet to the left.
After a year, like I said before, the dead are little more than black dry skin tightly stretched over bone. They burn like dry pine needles. The flames started at the front of the group and slowly spread through the entire group. The staggering torches began to fall to the ground, where they continued to burn. The ones behind continued to move forward into the flames. Soon black smoke filled the air above the burning bodies.
I whistled and Bear came running back to where I stood, watching the flames consume the dead.
“Good Boy,” I said as I scratched Bear’s head. “Good Boy.”
When I was sure the plan had worked, feeling relieved, I decided to head back into the fort.
I was walking back to the fort when I saw all the men standing on the wall, shouting and waving their hands.
I was too far away to hear what they were shouting, but I was tired and just thought that they were celebrating again.
It was then I head the loud sound of feet pounding the ground behind me.
As I turned to see what was going on, a dark dead body with a large black furry creature attached to it slammed into the ground five feet behind me.
Along with the sound of bear snarling fiercely, I saw a head and an arm fly off to the right. Then bear grabbed a leg and tossed the now unmoving body into the air.
Bear then trotted over beside me, quite satisfied with himself.
If I haven’t mentioned it before, I can get careless sometimes, especially when I haven’t slept in a long time. But Bear never misses a thing and he always has my back. I guess that is why I’m still alive.
When I walked back into the fort, all the men were smiling as they came to congratulate me. They came up to me to thank me for what I did. When Bear came walking by, they stepped back and gave him a lot of room. Instead of just fear, like has always shows in their eyes when Bear gets close to them, today I think I saw the look of respect. A lot of fear, but also respect.
I’m positive that the thought of them eating Bear never crossed any of their minds today.
As Bear came over and laid dow
n by my feet, Charlie came stumbling across the courtyard looking bewildered.
He looked at us and asked, “Have any of you men seen my wife? I can’t find Susan.”
Chapter 7
When the men went out to finish burning the bodies, I walked over to Charlie.
“When did you last see Susan?” I asked.
“I’m not sure if it was last night when we went to bed or if it was this morning,” Charlie replied. “It could have been this morning, but everything happened so fast this morning when all the shouting started, I can’t be sure. But I can’t find her anywhere now.”
“When was the last time anyone else saw her?” I asked.
“No one else has seen her since last night,” Charlie replied. “Did you hear anything during the night?”
“Nothing that would have been Susan sneaking around in the fort,” I replied. “All we heard was the dead going by the fort.”
“God, I hope she didn’t go out with the dead,” Charlie said. “Sometimes when she can’t sleep, she goes out in the courtyard to get some fresh air, but I didn’t hear her get up last night.”
“Do you always hear when she gets up?” I asked.
“Sometimes, but I was sleeping soundly last night,” Charlie replied. “You were on watch last night, what do you think could have happened to her?”
“I was concentrating on what was going on outside the fort, but I’m certain that no one came into the fort last night,” I replied. “If I had to choose between someone coming in and taking her or her sneaking out of the fort, I would have to pick that she left the fort on her own.”
“But your dog would have seen her,” Charlie said.
“Bear knows that Susan isn’t a threat, so if he saw her, he would just ignore what she was doing,” I replied. “Have you searched everywhere inside the fort? She could still be around here somewhere?”
“I looked everywhere I thought she could be, but maybe I’ll go look again,” Charlie sighed. “Maybe what happened this morning scared her, and she could just be hiding somewhere.”
“Take another look and if you can’t find her, I’ll try to get Bear to see if he can find what direction she went.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Charlie replied.
“By the way Charlie, any objection to me getting the guys organized and having them start to carry more rocks and wood to restock the fort?” I asked.
“No, that’s fine, do whatever you think is necessary,” Charlie replied, sounding absent minded as he turned and walked across the courtyard.
“Well that’s something,” I said to myself. “He didn’t tell me to ask for volunteers and then have everyone vote on it. He must really be shaken up by Susan’s disappearance to just say do whatever I think is necessary.”
Charlie had given me the impression that he was a control freak and liked feeling that he was in charge of everything, regardless of whether he knew what he was doing or not.
I walked over to the front gate to see what the men out front were doing. I envisioned that I would see them all standing around staring at the flames or something useless like that, but I was surprised to see them all busy dragging the bodies of the dead over to the burn piles with their rakes and shovels and pushing them into the flames. It was another one of those moments when I began to think these people could still be saved with a little guidance.
Then I saw Ed fall into the flames, followed by Barry and Fred trying to drag him out of the flames with their rakes. Thank God Ed didn’t catch on fire, I could only imagine what those two would have done to put out the flames. I was going to rush out and pull Ed out of the fire, but decided that Ed didn’t look too badly injured, he should survive the ordeal without my help.
I went up on the wall to supervise the activity out front, and to watch for any new guests, while I thought about what needed to be done today. I wondered why we had seen so many of the dead this morning. Why did so many of them show up today after two weeks of only seeing two or three a day? What had changed?
Then my thoughts turned to the four missing women, could they be the reason for today’s sudden influx of the dead? Could Cheryl, Connie, Betty and Susan have gone out towards the interstate? Could they have run into the dead, not knowing where they were going and what they would run into, and ended up attracting the dead, causing the dead to turn and start coming this way in larger numbers?
“That could be possible,” I said to myself, “It makes more sense than anything else we had come up with to explain where the missing women had gone.”
I decided that my new theory was worth checking out, but first I needed to get these people working on preparing the fort in the event that we would find ourselves faced with another large group of the dead showing up. In order to be prepared we would need a lot of heavy items to throw off the wall, I would also need to replace all the arrows that Bill and I had just made yesterday, we needed water and of course something to eat. Unfortunately, it all sounded too much to expect of this group in one afternoon. But I had to try, what other choice did I have other than to just sit back and watch these people pick up trash and hope that would keep them safe.
Then another thought ran through my mind, it was what I had been afraid could happen at the fort if it was ever attacked by an especially large mob of the dead. If a mob showed up that was much larger than the one that attacked us this morning, the fort would not be able to withstand such an assault. The gates of the fort were not all that secure, this place was a tourist attraction and not a real fort meant to withstand hostile enemy attacks like the original fort. Even if the fort withstood the initial attack, these people would panic and hide in their quarters. If the attack didn’t end quickly, and the dead didn’t give up and just go away, these people would soon starve. I couldn’t in good conscience just leave them like this, no matter how much the voice in the back of my head told me that now was the time to get the hell out of here, they were people, not the most ambitious or the smartest people, but they were still people. Especially now that they had a strange problem that they had no idea what to do about. Now that they seemed receptive to listening to reason for a change, I felt this could be my opportunity to show them what they needed to do to survive. I still felt that I needed to move on, but not until these people got their act together, at least until they had learned how to protect themselves. To leave now would be condemning these people to a cruel and confusing death, something I wasn’t willing to do. At least not yet, but I knew I could always change my mind if these people pissed me off, which they seemed to have a habit of doing frequently.
But in order to save the forts inhabitants in the event the fort was breached or surrounded, there had to be a way to get everyone quietly out of the fort without the dead knowing what we were doing. This was a project that could not be accomplished in one day, but it was a problem that needed to be addressed now. It was the one thing I could do, if I could manage to accomplish it, that might give these people a chance to survive after I was gone.
My thoughts were distracted when I heard the men talking as they come back in through the main gate. I looked down to first be sure that Ed was with them, he was a little singed and had black ashes smeared all over his face and clothing, but other than that he didn’t look too bad. I think he should live.
I climbed down the ladder and met the men in the middle of the courtyard.
“Good job men,” I smiled. “Get cleaned up and meet me at the firepit in ten minutes for a meeting. We have a lot to do today if we expect to survive another attack. See you in ten.”
The smiles quickly disappeared from the men’s faces, which I sort of expected. I’m sure they felt that their day was over and they could just sit around now and relax. But if they wanted to survive, they would have to earn it. I couldn’t do it all by myself.
Ten minutes later the men all started to slowly make their way to the firepit where the morning meetings were held. I saw Charlie making his way to the firepit too, he still seemed lost and confuse
d, so I assumed that he hadn’t been able to find Susan anywhere inside the fort. When the men reached the pit, I decided to take control before the group fell back into their old habits and started to ask for volunteers to pick up trash or start picking teams to play cards.
“Charlie?” I asked. “Any luck finding Susan?”
Charlie just shook his head no.
“Can you give me something of Susan’s that would have her smell on it?” I asked. “I’ll go outside the fort and see if Bear can pick up a trail.”
“Sure, Thanks,” Charlie nodded.
“I’ve been thinking, and I have another theory that I would like to check out,” I said. Charlie perked up and looked at me, his facial expression told me he was looking for something to give him hope, but the look in his eyes told me he didn’t expect, like with the other women, that we would be able to find Susan.
“The last two weeks, and according to what you have told me about the fort since you have been here, there have never been more than three of the dead show up here at any one time,” I continued. “When I went out to look at the interstate two weeks ago, there were thousands of the dead still following Route 75. I was thinking, when the dead start moving in any particular direction, they tend to keep going in that direction unless something distracts them and causes them to change course. So, I asked myself, why all of a sudden did a hundred of the dead decide to show up at the fort this morning?”
“The dead just got lost,” Ed replied.
“Possible, but as I was wondering about why so many of the dead showed up here this morning, then I started thinking about the women who have disappeared,” I said. “If the women left the fort and walked out towards the interstate, they may have run into the dead out on the interstate and the dead started to go after them. The dead changing direction to go after the girls could be the reason so many of them showed up here this morning.”