At the End of the World

by Charles E Gannon

  Rod was nodding. “It’s because of the boat.” We all looked at him. “The time we spent at sea, I mean. We learned to, had to, count on each other out there or we wouldn’t have survived. We brought that with us today. That’s what kept us together, kept us on the plan. Not because we knew it would work, but because we knew we could count on each other.”

  Well, Rod would probably never be our leader, but he had my vote for our official motivational speaker.

  I leaned back against the wall. “So, we’ve got to improve, but we’ve got a solid foundation. That’s why we won, and because we did, we came away with another big advantage.”

  “Which is?” Prospero’s tone was what the English call “droll.”

  “We got to see how the infected really act in combat. That means we have a better, more accurate understanding of our enemy. And that means we can make better plans.”

  Nods all around. Even Prospero, who asked, “So: what changes do you suggest?”

  I’m not tactful by nature, but I knew I had to do my best at that particular moment. “I think the tactical idea behind today’s plan—of bringing the infected into a kill zone—is great. But I think it would work better if we could find a site where we’re in less danger and they are more exposed to our fire.”

  Nods all around again. Prospero’s was hesitant. As I expected.

  “So how do we do that?” Jeeza asked. Looking straight at me. Again. Didn’t even glance at Prospero. And he saw it.

  Rather than leading with my ideas, I leaned back. “Suggestions?” I asked.

  Chloe shrugged. “We need to find a more secure position. Someplace even the most crazy-ass infected can’t get to easily. And it should be higher, if possible.”

  “With a clear field of fire in all directions,” Rod added.

  Chloe shook her head. “Not that important, against the infected. They’ve got no sense of caution. They don’t even bother trying to hide. They just come straight at you. It actually makes their movement really predictable. If we can force them into a limited number of approaches, that will keep them bunched up and easier to hit.” She smiled around at the rest of us, playful. “Or, should I say, harder to miss?”

  “Okay,” Steve said quietly. “But wherever we set up, we have to know all the approaches. Really well. Today, from the east, we couldn’t see them until they were really close.”

  Rod frowned. “Didn’t they come down the east road?”

  Steve shrugged. “A bunch did. But a lot didn’t.”

  Jeeza nodded. “Some of them seemed to just come in out of the fields.”

  “Any pattern that you noticed?”

  “Only one. The ones who seemed to appear out of nowhere on the embankment came up out of the flats to the southeast.” She stopped, thinking. “More were just starting to come around Lady Hill as we left, heading towards us across Donkey Plain.”

  Prospero looked at me. “Which means they were coming from Green Mountain. It’s the only other place with enough water to support so many. So I was wrong. Again. They did hear us and they did come running straight for us. Didn’t bother to use the road. They took the straightest path.”

  I nodded slowly, seriously. I was glad he’d owned that; it meant he wasn’t a total prick. But I didn’t want my reaction to have any “I-told-you-so” in it. “Do you think that they might follow us into town?”

  Prospero’s tone was cautious. “Earlier today, I might have said yes. Now, I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Frankly, like everyone here in Georgetown, I still believed they are guided by primitive thoughts and plans.” He shook his head. “Now, I am thinking that they might simply be creatures of stimulus and response.” He nodded at Chloe. “Like sharks. So, by the time any latecomers reach today’s ambush site, there won’t be much there to excite them, except for the unburnt parts of the stalkers we killed.” He shrugged. “For all I know, they might consume the charred remains, motor oil and all. But unless we show lights or make noise here in Georgetown, there’s nothing to bring them here. We didn’t leave any trail they’d think to follow.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Then let’s figure out how to put down the rest of the stalkers. First step?”

  Rod shrugged. “We do the math. We killed fifty-three today. According to the council’s estimates, that would leave about forty-seven.”

  I nodded. “Yep, but I’m going to roughly double that and assume that there are still ninety infected active on this island.”

  “So you’re assuming they must be able to go into torpor really quickly and really effectively,” Jeeza commented. “Because you just took forty-three of the ones we thought had been stalker-fodder and converted them back into walking, breathing, biting monsters. That have been snoozing for weeks. Maybe months.”

  I shrugged. “I’d rather overestimate their numbers rather than underestimate. Besides, you said the ones to the east were converging on us from all over.”

  Jeeza nodded, eyes widening. “So you think they’re just…hibernating in burrows or something?”

  “Or something,” I agreed.

  “It’s quite possible,” Prospero slid into a chair with sun-bleached upholstery. “The temperature is constant and mild. You don’t need much shelter, and there are volcanic vents, caves, and crannies wherever you go.”

  “You mean,” said Chloe, eyes suddenly like a startled cat’s, “that these motherfuckers could be popping out of the ground like—like bugs in spring? So when we walk by, they smell breakfast, and bang—they’re up and after us with teeth bared?”

  Prospero sighed. “Might not be quite that rapid…but yes, that’s the basic idea.”

  Chloe’s look of horror had already turned into straight-browed, locked-jaw determination. “You know, it’s getting to the point where I’m looking forward to killing them. Where do we find a better kill zone? Someplace they can’t overrun us?”

  Prospero held up his hands. “To attract them, we have to make noise or otherwise call attention to ourselves: something dramatic enough to bring them in useful numbers. But outside of Georgetown, we can’t truly be sure that any place is safe.”

  Steve lay flat on the floor. “Which means,” he said to the ceiling, “that no matter what, we always wind up being the bait.”

  “And they could arrive in such numbers that they’d surround us.”

  “Surround, yes,” I muttered. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can get to us.”

  Chloe had a calculating look in her eyes. “What have you got in mind, Alvaro?” She almost smiled. “I know that look.”

  “Well, what kind of structure would be best for what we’re trying to do?”

  “You mean, if we could just snap our fingers and summon it?” asked Rod.

  He really had played too much D&D. “Sure,” I answered.

  “A fortified tower. With a moat. And a drawbridge.”

  Yup, waaaay too much D&D. But he was right. “Anything else?”

  “Enough room for supplies. And for ten times the ammo we think we might need. A well in the basement. No doors or windows on the ground level. Oh, and a way to make noise to bring them all to us.”

  “Need anything else in your designer keep?” Jeeza asked with a fond grin.

  “Well…you. Of course.” Rod grinned back at her.

  Jeeza blinked, then blushed and beamed. Their compartment was going to be noisy tonight. Well, noisier.

  I kept the focus where it had to remain. “Rod, what if I told you we can get you that tower?”

  “I’d ask, ‘where’ve you been hiding it?’”

  “In plain sight.”

  Prospero rested his forehead on his index finger. “This should prove interesting.”

  I ignored him. “It’s got an absolutely unobstructed three-hundred-sixty-degree field of fire. And the maps say we can get to it without exposing ourselves to stalkers.”

  Even Prospero was serious and focused, now.

  Steve sighed. “Enou
gh drama. Just tell.”

  I smiled. “The Golf Ball.”

  Except for Rod, everyone else just stared. Rod smiled, breathed, “Yeah.” Like he was on the verge of having a nerdgasm.

  Jeeza swallowed loud enough for everyone to hear. “Alvaro, that’s on Cat Hill. Which is really close to the U.S. base housing. Really, really close.”

  I nodded. “At some points, less than one hundred yards. That’s the beauty of the plan.”

  “Sorry,” murmured Prospero, “but that’s the insanity of the plan.”

  His tone had been even, but I couldn’t let that kind of talk slide, especially not from him. “Is it insane, Percy?” He blinked. “The Golf Ball is separated from the base by a chain link fence topped by razor wire. According to the council’s last survey two months ago, it’s intact.

  “Now, if the infected somehow get over that, Cat Hill is a smooth volcanic cone about eighty feet high with slopes that range from thirty to forty-five degrees. At least, that’s what it showed on the topo maps you forced us to damn near memorize before today’s ambush. And if the zombies manage to somehow scramble up that completely barren slope, the crest’s perimeter is also ringed by chain link fencing, and has two solid buildings, one with a second story.”

  Prospero was frowning but did not look confident. “And just how do we get there? The only access road goes through the housing complex before it passes through a gate and winds back behind Cat Hill.”

  I smiled; it wasn’t friendly, I admit it. “Percival, you really need to pay closer attention to the maps you wave under our noses. Have you looked closely at the fence that separates the Golf Ball from the base?” While he was still fumbling for a reply, I went back at him. “Well, I have looked at it. It actually starts at the fuel terminal on the western outskirts of Georgetown. It’s got a patrol and access road all the way along its landward side.”

  “True. But that does not lead to the Golf Ball.”

  “Not directly, no. But there are two gates in that fence as you head south on the patrol road.”

  He nodded. “Which are padlocked.”

  “Yeah, until we take one of the police ATVs down along the other side of the fence and unlock the southernmost gate. With a pair of bolt cutters.”

  Chloe was looking excited and scared all at once. “So let me put the pieces together. We send someone to check the ocean-side of the fence, starting at the fuel terminal and going all the way down to the southernmost gate. If they don’t run into any stalkers on the way, they signal that it’s safe and cut the lock off the gate. Meanwhile, we drive our DeRanged Rover down the access road on the other side of the fence and they open the gate and then lock it behind us. At which point we are all on a back road to the Golf Ball.”

  I nodded. “An old construction road. Some of it is overgrown, now. We’ll have to go slowly and carefully. With both Rovers.”

  “A second Rover?”

  “Yep. Necessary.”

  “Why?”

  I grinned and cocked my head toward Rod. “To bring all the gear the Master Wizard wants to have in his tower. And so that if one of the Rovers fails, we can get out in the other.”

  Prospero was nodding more seriously, now. “Inventive. But once you’ve clipped the padlock, you’ve opened up a point of access for the infected.”

  He’d walked into checkmate. “Three reasons why that’s not a problem. First, we’ve got plenty more chains and padlocks here in town, and last I heard, the stalkers aren’t real handy with bolt cutters. Secondly, if there are only a hundred of them left, they’re not going to swarm into so large a pack that it starts streaming along the fence, trying to find another way in. Thirdly, if some of them did find a way in, most would head directly toward where they can see what’s making all the noise. Namely, us. Which brings them to the same side of Cat Hill that overlooks the stalkers we’ll be shooting down in the base. And if a few leakers wander the other direction, they still have to get up the back of Cat Hill and through the perimeter fence.”

  “Okay, but they could camp out all around us, couldn’t they?” Jeeza asked, frowning. “And if they do, then what? How do we get out?”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms, but before I could reply, Chloe must have read the answer on my face.

  “We don’t,” she said, wide-eyed but smiling. “Alvaro, you are crazy.”

  “Like a fox,” Rod added. “Sure. Given the numbers, it’s the perfect solution.”

  Steve looked over. “Help. I’m lost.”

  Rod was jabbering so quickly, so excitedly, that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “It really is the perfect wizard’s tower, Steve. Think it through. We drive up to the top, re-padlock both the lower fence and upper fence behind us. We start honking the horns and doing the French knights’ bit from Monty Python’s Holy Grail.”

  “What?” asked Chloe.

  Rod smiled. “We taunt them. Parade around. Make them crazy with hunger and rage. And they come to us. However many are left. But there aren’t thousands of them. There aren’t even hundreds.”

  “Yeah,” Steve allowed. “But they’ll be coming through the base. A lot of houses and other buildings down there.”

  Chloe nodded. “Yeah, but remember: they don’t use cover. So actually, the buildings will funnel them into completely predictable kill-zones.”

  Jeeza was looking at all our faces. “But still—how do we get out?”

  Prospero sighed. “A very sane question. But the answer is: they don’t intend to.”

  “What?”

  I nodded. “We stay on Cat Hill until there aren’t any left to come at us. The ones in the base will hear and charge us right away. Any skulking around the airfield will come a little later. With all the gunfire and all the horns, even the ones on Green Mountain will come down to check it out. Mostly because it will sound a lot more exciting and promising than trying to hunt donkeys and sheep. That’s the whole point of the plan: to make enough noise so that, within a day or two, almost every active stalker will try to attack Rod’s tower.”

  Jeeza glanced at Prospero. “You okay with this?”

  His grin looked broken. “‘Okay’ is not the word I would use. But it is an inspired bit of madness.” He looked at me. “Even if I go along with it, there’s one other problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “The same one that almost got us killed today. I thought we knew how the infected would behave. I was wrong. Could we be wrong this time, too? Is it possible that if they take enough casualties trying to get up Cat Hill that will spark a new behavior? That they turn back to shelter behind the buildings of the camp?”

  I shrugged. “You’re the one who told us that no one here in Georgetown has ever seen infected turn tail. Neither have we. Today they took over fifty casualties and never stopped.

  “But for argument’s sake, let’s say that fifty-five is their breaking point and at that point, the rest hide behind the buildings.” I smiled. “They can’t do that and camp out near the Golf Ball’s back entrance at the same time. So they won’t see or know if we climb into the Rovers and leave. At which point, we go back to town, rest, restock, and return to the Wizard’s Tower for round two. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

  Steve was looking at the ceiling. “You’re right. The numbers work. Let’s say they only take fifty more casualties. Even if the rest were to follow us back here, there’s enough firepower in town to finish them off.”

  Rod looked excited. “So, we’re on? Operation Wizard’s Tower is a go?”

  “Looks like it,” Chloe affirmed. “Just one last detail.” She looked at Prospero. Not unfriendly, exactly, but like it could swing that way really easily. “We need to know who’s in charge this time.”

  Prospero held up both hands. “Not me. This plan is your brainchild. But I’m happy to follow along.” His eyes changed, got a little less friendly. “This time.”

  I nodded at him; he nodded back. We understood that we had mutually agreed to kick the can labeled “overa
ll command” a little further down the road.

  Because right now, we had to prepare for another stalker-killing mission.

  October 20

  It’s fucking 2 AM and I can’t sleep. I was just lying there, thinking about tomorrow (well, today now). About all the things that could go wrong. About all the ways my plan could get my friends killed.

  Yeah, we worked the details. Yeah, we’ve got all the gear ready. Yeah, everybody is sure this will be a big improvement.

  But still, everyone is scared. And they’re probably scared of the same thing I am: that the Captain is right. That no plan survives contact with reality. So maybe they’re all lying awake and staring at the ceiling, too.

  At least Chloe isn’t. I don’t know if it’s in her genes or the way she learned to cope with her screwed up home life, but it’s like she can take her worries, lock them in a mental box, and shove it aside. I don’t know how she does that. God knows I can’t.

  So here I am writing in this stupid journal. Psychologists and social workers used to claim that saying something out loud, or writing it down, helps you see it more clearly. I’m not sure about that, but it definitely makes each waking minute feel like a minute instead of an hour. Unlike when you’re worried that every minute might be your last; then, each one feels like forever.

  The last time I felt time expand and stretch that way was on the journey here, in the middle of the storm. I tried to write about that weird state of mind, but it was more fluid than the water itself, probably because words can’t hold it, can’t pin it down. It was like trying to write about the way everything slowed down while fighting the pirates in Husvik. I gave that up after trying half a dozen times. I couldn’t get my head, or words, around it.

  See, when you start thinking back on an event that was short and crazy, you discover that all its different parts—the actions and reactions—have become a blur. And it’s not just because the passage of time takes the edge off your memories. It’s because when the shit hits the fan, the only thing you’re thinking about is staying alive, and, if you can, sticking with the plan.