“Don’t go,” Jennifer pled. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
“Yeah. Wait for Shader to get back. Then we can decide what to do,” Gonzalez added.
Garrett reluctantly took a seat and quietly simmered. He knew that bad things were going to happen. It was not a matter of if, but when. He wanted to do something to prepare. Anything to give them an advantage once the shit hit the fan.
— 34 —
Hope Torrence
Schoepe Boy Scout Camp
“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Hope was standing over the industrial stove in Beckham Hall. She could hear hundreds of campers in the main dining hall, all crying out for food. Hope had all six burners going. Large pots of boiling water bubbled, spilling out over their brims. Hot water splashed onto the metal burners. She opened the double oven to check on the trays of cookies she was baking. She’d put them in over an hour ago, but they hadn’t even melted down into their final shape. The chunky chocolate chip dough still had not begun to cook. She adjusted the temperature up to 500. She just hoped they’d cook soon.
Hope looked down and began to grab live lobsters from a large, wooden box. She had to use outdoor grill tongs to pick them up. They dropped into the boiling water but kept crawling back out. At one point, she had almost a half a dozen red crustaceans crawling around on the stove top. She couldn’t understand why they hadn’t died.
The cacophony from the Boy Scouts was becoming deafening. She heard them chanting for food.
She kept trying to put the lobsters into the pot, and they kept crawling back out. It was a strange game of whack-a-mole. The lobsters were unrelenting.
Smoke began to pour out of the oven. She jumped back and flung the door open. All of her cookies had burned and several of them were on fire.
The kids were screaming. She panicked. She grabbed one of the boiling pots and threw it on the oven fire, burning her hands in the process.
The screams from the hungry boys became louder. She heard them pounding on their tables. Pop. Pop. Pop. They were using their forks to drum out a tune. She was frantic. Nothing was right. She finally threw her hands up and began to run away.
Hope bolted upright. She’d fallen asleep in John’s bed. She was waiting for him. She wouldn’t be able to rust until she knew that he’d gotten home safely.
“What a horrible dream,” she sighed. She squinted and checked her watch. It was nearly eleven. She lay her head back on his pillow and smelled his musky scent. She allowed herself to drift back and relax. She began to think.
Hope couldn’t stand having John gone. After they confessed their love for each other, the dam of emotions burst, and her feelings flooded out. She felt like a teenager again. Only this time, it was better. Teens had crushes. Infatuations without responsibilities. What she’d felt with John was so much deeper. Appreciation for his physical and mental strength as well as the maternal gratification of finding a father for her precious son. This was so much more powerful than the innocent lust of a teenager. John was a protector. He’d shown his honor over the last years helping Kyle become a responsible adult without pressuring her for more. John was a real man. Someone who took responsibility for her and Kyle along with the rest of the group. He was a leader who gave orders but respected her in all ways. The perfect man had lived a quarter mile down a dirt road from her for almost two years, and it took an apocalypse to bring her out of her shell.
But now the reality of the situation struck home. Before, she didn’t want to risk a relationship for fear of abandonment. She couldn’t get hurt if she didn’t let anyone in. She also justified her decision to avoid dating because she had a son who needed her full attention. Having had a horrific divorce stripped her of the ability to trust. It created a wall around her soul.
Now, her fears were far graver. With John, it was now about life and death. He had been gone all afternoon and now several hours into the night. She wasn’t worried about him cheating on her, like her first husband did. She feared that he’d be killed, or worse, turn into one of those monsters.
Her eyes began to droop even more. She hadn’t completely woken from the daze you get when a dream or nightmare keeps dancing on the edges of your consciousness. She kept seeing fragmentary images of the macabre fantasy. The lobsters crawling and leaping out of the boiling water and hearing the kids slamming their spoon handles on the Formica tables. It had almost sounded like someone had set off firecrackers.
She began to drift off again, when the beating of the tables started back up. She forced herself awake. She didn’t want to repeat that nightmare. It was all too unsettling.
She pushed herself out of John’s bed and stumbled outside to the porch.
She sat on the plastic couch that John was fond of using for his naps. She leaned back and looked out at the night sky.
Pop! Pop!
She sat up, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream. She caught her breath as more of the tiny explosions echoed from the distance. She hadn’t dreamed the sounds after all. She’d just incorporated them into her nightmare.
It was gunfire. And it was coming from the campsite where the new families had temporarily taken shelter.
Bra-ta-ta-tat.
Kyle! She had to find him.
Boom! Boom-baboom! Several shotguns fired.
Hope sprinted off the porch and ran to the camp’s administrative building. She and Kyle shared space with the rest of the original group, creating bedrooms out of the camp’s offices.
She flung the door open to the business office, frantically searching for her son.
No one was there. It was abandoned.
She ran out and cut under a copse of trees that stood between her building and Beckham hall. She ran with abandon. The only thought was of her son.
The gunfire was creeping closer but dissipating in intensity. Hope exploded through the door to the cafeteria. The eating hall was empty. She turned and checked the kitchen along with the loading dock area. No one was around.
“Kyle!” she screamed. “KYLE! ANSWER ME!”
“In here!” she heard from the business office.
Hope tried turning the locked door. “Open it!”
She heard a deadbolt sliding back and the twist of a knob lock. She pushed herself into the room as soon as the door started to move.
“Hope!” It was Laura Reedy, the San Diego detective who, along with her EMT husband, had been invited to stay at the camp by Jennifer Blevins. She was there with her daughter, Lisa. There was no one else.
“Where’s my boy?” Hope begged.
“He’s out there. He went with the rest of them. Someone had to stay with Lisa, but everyone else grabbed a shotgun and ran south.”
“I’ve got to find him,” Hope said, a tinge of panic in her voice.
“No, Hope. Let me go,” Laura said. “You stay with Lisa, and I’ll bring him back.”
“There is no way I’m leaving my son out there.”
“My husband and son are out there too!” Laura replied. “Besides, you don’t even have a gun. What are you going to—hey!”
Hope had no time for logic. She spun and sprinted out of the office, leaving a very angry woman behind. She pushed through the outside door and followed her son south.
Shotguns were firing from just beyond the next stand of trees. She raced through ankle-high mountain grass, straight toward the battle ahead. She heard a boy’s scream, and her mind went blind with anger. She sprinted forward, into an unknown maelstrom. A mother protecting her young. She never gave it a thought that she had no weapon, and deep down, she knew there were infected out there. And by the sounds of the battle, there were a lot of them.
Hope rushed through the small stand of trees and found herself in the middle of a pitched battle. The sound of gunfire was deafening and coming from different places.
She saw muzzle flashes to her right. The mini-explosions sen
t flames almost a yard out of the tubes. She ran to them, desperate to find her boy.
She was almost to a small group of people and began yelling her son’s name.
“Kyle!”
A shadow spun toward her and raised a shotgun right at her. She froze and threw her hands up.
Click, was all she heard.
“NO! It’s me. Kyle’s mother.”
Chris Reedy grabbed the shotgun from Gavin Gringleman.
“Hold it, boy!”
Chris waved her into their defenses. The Gringleman boys were his only companions.
“Where’s Kyle?” Hope asked.
“I don’t know,” Chris said. He turned to Gavin and reprimanded him. “Reload. I told you to reload whenever there’s a break in the action. Don’t wait until it’s empty.”
Gavin began to slide shells into the underbelly of the shotgun, shaking his head with fear and frustration.
“Where is he?” Hope said forcefully.
“He was with the Darden twins. They were holding our left flank. I called for them to pull back, but I lost track of them,” he said regretfully.
Gary Gringleman seemed detached from the conversation, distracted by his own thoughts. “The infected… they’ve got dogs. At least, they acted like dogs.”
“What do you mean?” Hope asked.
“One of the infected was the leader. All of them did what he told them to, including the dogs.”
“How is that possible?” Hope asked, looking at Chris for confirmation.
“He’s right. They had one male that seemed to be in charge. I don’t know what kind of creatures they were running with, but they were armored, nearly hairless, and about the size of a large dog or small wolf.”
“They’re fast, too,” Gavin added. “I saw…” His voice trailed off as an unwanted memory thrust itself to the forefront.
“Things are really screwed up,” Chris said. “Without Carver and Kinney here, we’re undermanned. I mean, John was supposed to lead a squad and my wife, the other one. Neither one is here.”
“What about the Yuma families?” Hope asked. “Can’t they help?”
“They’re dead,” Chris said somberly. “That’s why we were pulling back. We need to get to the office or even Beckham. At least they’re block construction and not canvas tents.”
“All of them?” Hope quietly asked. There were seventeen men, women, and children who had come up from Arizona.
“Yeah. We tried to help but by the time we got to their encampment, the infected were all over the place. Every tent was ripped apart and the infected were…” Chris’s voice trailed off.
“They were eating them all.” Gary finished Chris’s sentence.
Shotguns erupted from their left and Hope spun toward the battle.
“Wait. We’ll all go,” Chris said.
The four began to jog toward the noise. With only a partial moon in the sky, they trotted slowly. Several times, Hope nearly wrenched her ankle on the ground’s uneven surface or the occasional rock.
Three more blasts revealed the other group’s location. Hope sprinted ahead, determined to get to her child.
“Wait!” Chris called.
It was too late. Nothing was going to keep her from Kyle’s side.
Kyle Torrence
When the first of the gunfire started. Kyle was in Beckham Hall with the other kids. Mrs. Reedy was the supervising adult and they were all playing a board game. Everyone, that is, except the Lisa Reedy. Being much younger that the others, she was content to sit and watch the older kids interact.
They had all been trained to keep their shotguns at their sides, and tonight was no different. But by the sounds from the Yuma encampment, there was a major battle being fought. So rather than rushing right to the battle, Mrs. Reedy had a different plan.
“Back to the admin building!” Laura Reedy said. “Get my husband and bring all the spare ammo you can carry. You’ll need more than what’s in your tube.”
The boys did as they were told. Mr. Reedy was already armed and had a box of 12-gauge buckshot for each of them.
Kyle shoved spare shells into his front pocket as he looked about, trying to find his mom.
“Tuck in your shirts!” Mr. Reedy commanded.
They did as they were told and over a dozen more rounds were dumped down each one of their shirts.
Then they ran toward the sound of battle.
It was dark, but his young eyes quickly adapted to the dimly lit ground.
Mr. Reedy had to be pulled in the right direction. His older eyes didn’t see as well as the boys could. Kyle took the lead. It was just over a quarter mile to the encampment. Darkness, the uneven ground and the disorientation caused by the gunfire all slowed them considerably. It took them a few minutes longer to reach the tents than it would have during the day.
The guns from the Yuma group went silent before they got to the battle, and Chris Reedy pulled Kyle back. Silence meant that either they’d killed all the infected, or the infected had killed them. Either way, there was no need to rush.
Chris took the lead and crept into the underbrush, just outside the encampment. Menily, Kyle, and the Gringleman boys did likewise. They eased forward and stared out at the scene.
A tent was on fire. Its sides had collapsed and the wooden framed furniture inside was cooking off. It gave them enough light to see that there were no more people left alive. Dozens of infected and several four-legged animals were feasting on the corpses of the seventeen.
“Those are the things that bit my dad,” Menily whispered to Mr. Reedy.
The Darden twins pushed their way forward and looked out as well. Brett Darden hadn’t seen the infected before this, nor what they could do. His brother had fought them when they’d gone to the hospital to retrieve insulin. When the young man got a look at the carnage, he let out a gasp.
One of the four-legged creatures took notice of Brett’s tiny cry, and it let out a screech, getting the attention of a number of its brethren. One, in particular, seemed to clue in. It screeched and barked in reply. Dozens of the infected looked up from their feast and turned toward them as one. They let out a primal scream and began running right at the group.
“RUN!” Chris Reedy hissed. “Back to the camp!”
They all turned and sprinted away. Except, Chris Reedy became disoriented and ran in the wrong direction.
Kyle sprinted forward, followed by Menily and the Darden twins. They hadn’t gotten more than a hundred yards out of the underbrush when the yips and cries of the infected dogs bellowed out from the trees they’d just left.
Kyle looked for Mr. Reedy, but he and the Gringleman brothers were nowhere to be seen.
“Hasty ambush!” Kyle said, pointing at a small cluster of trees just ahead.
The four ran to the trees and spun around.
Kyle and Menily stepped forward and brought their shotguns up. Five dog-like creatures sprinted forward. Over a dozen infected people were not far behind.
“Wait for me to shoot,” Kyle said.
Menily shook her head. “No, you wait for me.”
Kyle had to smile. She was feisty and didn’t take orders well.
The popping and cracking of the creatures’ joints was barely audible over their primeval cries. Kyle recognized the canine sound beneath the infected creatures’ screams. But the night masked the rest of their features.
There was a swale just in front of them, about twenty yards away.
“When they get to the dip, shoot low. That worked back at the hospital. We shot out their legs. It’s hard to hit their heads when they run.”
“Gotcha,” Menily replied.
The lead animal tried to jump over the depression. Kyle pulled the trigger just as it left the ground. The pellets caught it in mid-air and pushed its lower jaw out of the back of its neck. It died instantly.
Menily let loose as well, taking the legs out from under the next creature. The thing howled and cartwheeled end over end. It slid to a sto
p ten yards in front of them. One of its partners stumbled over its body and it too tumbled on the ground. Kyle put two blasts into its back. It stopped moving.
Both Kyle and Menily emptied their weapons, all five of the animals were on the ground either unable to walk or dead. The pair stepped back and began shoving shells into the underside of their Mossberg shotguns as the Darden twins stepped forward and took their place.
Trey and Brett were ready, although the flash from so many shots reduced their night vision. The teens squinted into the dark, catching glimpses of shadows bouncing up and down on the high-desert pasture.
“I can’t see them,” Trey complained.
A malevolent scream blasted out of one of the creatures.
“I can see their eyes!” Brett yelled.
Kyle looked up. Yellow, burning slits were bouncing up and down on the dark grassy field.
“Aim just below the eyes,” Kyle shouted.
The twins let loose with shot after shot. Each boy fired, pumped another round into the chamber, then fired again. Screams of pain followed almost every blast, but the eyes were getting closer. The twins hadn’t finished emptying their guns when Kyle joined them. A wall of lead stopped three of the closest creatures, but still more came.
The twins ran out of ammo, leaving Kyle alone. There were two creatures left and they were within yards. He pulled his trigger and got a click. He was dry. A screech came from the closest one. It dipped to the ground and exploded toward him with an impossible leap. Kyle brought his shotgun up, trying to block the infected attack. The hungry eyes flew at him. There wasn’t time to defend himself. He braced for an impact that would likely kill him. Suddenly, he was hit from his side, sending him toppling to the ground.
He felt wind from the leaping creature as it flew over top of him. He could smell its foul, decaying odor.
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