by Eli Constant
“Jesus H. Christ, Hunter.” I bent over, shotgun barrel pointed at the ground. “Has something like this happened before? Have they set fucking traps before?”
Hunter hadn’t holstered his gun. He still held it in two hands, staring at the top of the wall and waiting for more intruders. “No. This is new. Brand fucking new.”
“That one that screamed…it’s going to bring a bunch of others. This place will be crawling soon, Hunter.”
“We’ll handle it.” He holstered his gun and walked away from me to re-mount the makeshift stairs. I didn’t want to follow him. I didn’t want to see the bodies of his men splayed out in gory technicolor. “Don’t see any yet,” Hunter called down, his hand up to his eyes as he searched the area beyond the fence. “Need my damn hat.” He was standing atop the vehicle from which the voice had warned us of the trap.
When he looked down, I was glad I was too far away to see the expression that crossed his face. “They didn’t turn ‘em.” Hunter looked at me. “Looks like they just left Willy alive long enough for a good feeding. He’s gone now. Don’t think any of them are coming back as one of those things. Goddamn animals.”
“I’m sorry, Hunter.” Now I did move forward and climb up on the navy-colored sedan again.
“They were crazy kids, but not bad-hearted. They didn’t deserve this.” He was squatting down next to the sawed-out section of roof. I was on top of the double car stack now. I moved forward to peer inside the vehicle.
All three bodies of Hunter’s men were shoved into this one car. Two lying on top of one another in the backseat, one in the front. The two in the rear had been picked clean, even their heads gnawed open so the beasts could suckle on grey matter. The body in the front was slightly less mauled, but only slightly. And it looked like the child zombie had finished the job after the one-word warning that had given us time to react, time to survive. It looked as if a fist had plunged into Willy’s chest, nailing through flesh and squeezing fingers between ribs, to yank out his heart.
Which now sat unbeating and bleeding on the torn-out crotch of Willy’s jeans.
“Shit.” I felt bile build in my throat, but I pushed it down. “I’m pretty sure they usually turn them, keep them alive.”
“Yeah, that seems to be the case around here too. They killed these guys specifically to set this trap. These bastards are smart. Too damn smart.”
“I don’t mean to be crass, Hunter, but be grateful that they killed them outright. It would have been worse to have to put them down yourself. And if they’d been alive…undead…whatever…then the others could have fed on them and healed. It’s better this way.” I stare down at the bodies; I breathe in the scent of the blood, the stomach contents, the last escape of urine and feces. “It’s always going to be better to die rather than become what they are.”
“I’ll agree there.” Hunter looked out into the distance again, away from the carnage beneath him. “Come on, I need to get help to move the bodies and bury them. And then we’re going to string up those sons of bitches on the wall as a warning. If they’re smart enough to set a fucking trap, they’re smart enough to see that we’re not going to go down without a damn fight.”
I nod. I wanted to say, ‘I’ve seen something like that work. It’s a brutal but good idea’. That was before the zombies, before the non-human monsters. It’s something I don’t like to think about. A family couldn’t pay their crossing fee and the coyotes had slaughtered them and put their heads on spikes as a warning to others who might try for a free ride. They’d done more brutal things to the wife and daughter before killing them.
The wall was quiet when we pulled away, no other baddies following the scream of the girl creature we’d killed. Maybe no others were in hearing distance. That would be lucky. Can you be lucky at the end of the world?
Hunter drove us back to the main area of the golf course complex where the club house was and the other buildings I hadn’t explored. He bee-lined for one building in particular. It was different than the other cheery, brightly-painted buildings with the perfect floral arrangements flanking their entrances. This one had no such frivolity. It wasn’t dirty. It was painted a light tan. Yet…it still felt dark. I couldn’t explain it.
“With you dead set on just passing through, didn’t think I’d have cause to bring you here.” Hunter abandoned the Ford, leaving it idling and parked crooked in the spot near the building’s front door.
“What’s this building used for?” My words followed his body as I also got out of the truck. When he didn’t answer, I said his name again. “Hunter?”
“Storage,” he muttered, reaching for the handle of the door and turning it with a jerk. The knot in the pit of my stomach, the one that had been forming and enlarging and making me feel sick, grew even more.
Hunter was a law man. He was trustworthy. But these were untrustworthy times. So what had he done? What lengths had he gone to, to ensure that the folks he cared about survived?
As I walked into the dim interior of the building, I realized that it shouldn’t be as dark as it was. Outside, the sun shone brightly, filling the spaces between clouds with brilliant, blinding light.
In here, shadows moved like living, breathing things.
Looking around, I discovered why. The windows had been boarded up on the inside, sunshine only filtering through slim cracks in the wood. And it smelled.
It smelled like blood gone foul—earthy and rotten with too-ripe vegetables versus a clean metallic. Grunts and groans filled the world around me, joining the smell in some chaotic cluster of rabid life. My eyes began to adjust, my gaze working its way through the shadows until I could see outlines and movement. The building was large and open on the inside, makeshift stalls created out of two-by-fours and chicken wire. Inside the stalls, pacing like nervous animals, were Z adults.
“Oh, my God,” I gasped, realizing that this was a prison for monsters. “You’re not just killing them, you’re trapping them…but why?”
“It’s complicated, AJ.” He moved further into the darkness, nearly being swallowed up by the dim lighting so that I had to move forward to keep him in sight.
“Try me.” I was careful, making sure I stayed in the dead center of the aisle between the cages.
“Some of these things used to be loved ones. People couldn’t let them go, didn’t have the heart to watch them get a bullet through the head. For them, this is a mercy.”
“They’re not alive, Hunter. There’s no cure for what’s happened to them.” A young-looking woman, maybe in her twenties, caught my eye. She wasn’t a woman, though, or she wouldn’t be imprisoned. She looked less… dead than the others, her bright blonde hair that artificial yellow boxed color with just the barest hint of dark brown roots showing against the scalp. There was something familiar about her, something in the features and eyes, even though the color was now obscured by milky film. I paused, staring at her, and jumped when Hunter spoke so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“That’s Dana, my granddaughter.” Hunter lifted his hand, his fingers nearly touching the chicken wire that separated him from his afflicted family member.
“She used to be your granddaughter.”
He turned on me, face fierce. “I’ve spent my entire goddamn life protecting people, AJ. What good is all that if I can’t save someone I love? The government will find a cure for this thing and I’ll be damned if I’m going to kill Dana before that happens.”
“I’m sorry, Hunter.” I could tell that what he needed in that moment was forgiveness. That he knew, in his heart that he should have put the monsters in this building out of their misery. This was his cross to bear, his sin. I worried that it would get him killed, get everyone here killed. “It isn’t safe to keep them here. You must know that. The adult…” I hesitated to call them monsters, with the way Hunter was looking at his former granddaughter, “The child monsters seem to have a connection to the adults, they seem to need them to keep them alive. Or, at the ve
ry least, somehow the adults heal the kids when they’re injured. From what I’ve seen, there aren’t a lot of living…no, God, that’s not the right word. There aren’t a lot of the adult zombies left in this area. What if the kid-sized monsters figure out that you have what they need here?”
“There’s no way they’d get past our defenses, AJ. No way in hell. We’ve got this figured out,” Hunter said like the conversation was over. I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong and that I’d seen what the kid creatures were capable of. He’d seen it to though. He knew what he was dealing with. It surprised me that he could be so irrational as a former Ranger.
But he wasn’t thinking as a Texas Ranger, he was thinking as a grandfather.
“Don. Jacob.” At the sound of their names, two large men carrying an arsenal of weapons across their bodies, strolled into view from where they’d been seated. I hadn’t known they were there. They hadn’t made a sound. Hunter looked them up and down. “Any trouble today?”
“No,” The smaller man, his skin as dark as the surrounding air so that his eyes and teeth were brilliantly white in the shadows, spoke in a voice that was higher than I expected. It was nearly feminine with only enough of a deepness that it saved him from sounding totally pre-pubescent or girlish. “Couple people wanted to come by and set bets for tonight. That’s as much activity as we’ve seen.”
“Bets?” I walked around Hunter, wishing I hadn’t left my bag and shotgun in the car. I was uncomfortable. Three against one. I didn’t know if I could trust Hunter anymore, former lawman or not. “What do you mean bets?”
“I told you we don’t get a lot of entertainment around here, AJ.” Hunter dismissed me with a wave of his hand.
“What does that mean?” I looked away from the well-formed, if a bit short, black man that had spoken and at Hunter beside me.
“I said some of the things in here used to be loved ones, but not all of them.” Again, Hunter said it like his words should be enough, that I shouldn’t need further explanation. He turned away from me, getting ready to say something to the two men manning the storage building.
“And the others?” I pushed, wanting more details.
“We round them up for Friday night battle dome. Only been one of them of course. All this shit ain’t been going on long, but it was a hit. Should have seen the shine on some folk’s faces watching.” The taller of the two men who’d been bathed in shadows spoke with an excited tremor in his voice. He was okay-looking, maybe even approaching good-looking, but his smile was too wide, his teeth too yellow, to actually be handsome. The stringy brown hair didn’t help his case either.
“That’s enough, Don.” Hunter gave him a stern look. “I’m here because I need you to go to the southwest—”
“Battle dome?” I interrupted and quirked an eyebrow, knowing I should be ‘getting’ what he was implying, but my brain wasn’t putting two and two together.
Don’s grin widened, showing that his back teeth were even darker. A canary color even in the dim lighting. “Multiple monsters in a pit, one side of meat hanging from a rope in the center. These bitches will fight to the death for a bite. At least, they did the first time.”
My eyelids parted and I knew a look of disgust had spread across my face. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.” Don bounced on the balls of his feet, his body vibrating with barely-contained enthusiasm.
“I said that’s enough, Don,” Hunter barked.
“Hunter… you allow this?” My jaw dropped, my heart pattering a little faster, a little harder. I didn’t like when my impressions of people were wrong.
“It’s hard to keep people satisfied, AJ. They get bored, they do stupid shit. We can’t afford stupid shit that could bring down the whole fort. We’ve only done it once.” He said ‘once’ like it made the behavior okay. That’s like me saying ‘sure, I shot that guy, but I only did it once’.
“That’s not a good enough fucking excuse, Hunter. Not even two weeks, this shit’s been going on. What does it say about your community that they’re already so ‘bored’ that they have to sink to this sort of shit?” I pointed behind me, at his once-granddaughter who was leaned against the ‘wall’ of her cage and moaning quietly. “You’re sitting here, keeping your monster grandkid chained up, hoping for a cure, but at the same time, you’re using other sick people for entertainment. And the adults fight? Jesus Christ, Hunter. The adult monsters will do what a Z kid says. They’ll fight if they’re told to, but I’ve never seen them aggressive on their own.”
“You haven’t seen enough then, AJ. They’re not as fast, not as smart, but they’re just as much animals as the kid versions.” He turned from me again, went to say something to his men. Once again, I stopped him.
“It’s wrong, Hunter. God, this shit only started a little while ago. If this is what’s happening now, if this is what society is already becoming, what the fuck is it going to look like a year from now if there is no damn cure?”
“Hey, you’re a fucking stranger here. It’s not your job to come in and judge us, you stupid cunt.” Don stepped forward, all the excitement replaced by anger. Jacob stepped towards him as if he was ready to hold the larger man back if he tried to attack me, but it was Hunter that intervened by punching Don in the jaw so hard that a crack resounded through the building, joining the soft moans and growls of the adult monsters around us.
Silence followed the exchange, human silence at least.
And then, the monster that was once Dana, began to scream. It was a high-pitched siren, slamming into our ears.
“Shut her up goddammit.” This from Don, who stumbled towards the makeshift cage, his hands slapped over his ears.
“Don’t you hurt her,” Hunter called, moving after the man who had taken one hand away from his ear to pull out a six-inch blade from a sheath at his waist.
Dana’s screaming intensified, reaching a feverous volume that caused dew to form on my palms and sweat to spring to life at the small of my back.
“Hunter, I’m sorry, but she’s done this before. She’ll bring every monster left in the area down on our heads.” Don raised the blade, getting ready to shove it through a space between wires. He had it positioned beneath Dana’s jaw, ready to sink the knife upwards into her brain. She was still pressed against the chicken wire, wailing, but she didn’t strike out at Don. She didn’t try to ward off the coming knife.
Just as I thought Hunter and Don were going to get into it, with Jacob trying to control the brawl, a radio crackled to life. I swirled, finding the source of the sound. I had to move away from the three altercating men and get closer to see the card table and black handheld sitting atop its surface. It was a Midlands two-way, one I was familiar with.
The men behind me seemed frozen, waiting to hear what words were going to come out of the handheld. I stepped forward, lifting the radio.
“HOTEL JULIET, this is DELTA ROGER FOXTROT. HOTEL JULIET, this is DELTA ROGER FOXTROT. Over.” The stress coming from the voice was a living thing, like a heart beating outside a body, resting against abrasive cloth. It scratched and crackled and scared me.
Hunter was beside me now, reaching for the radio. “DELTA ROGER FOXTROT this is HOTEL JULIET. What’s wrong? Over.”
“ZULUs coming in. More than we’ve ever seen. ETA less than ten minutes. They’re on Morgan’s tail. Over.”
“Fuck,” Jacob said in his not-low-enough voice, the whites of his eyes showing large and ghostly in the darkness, as he rushed up beside Hunter. “Morgan went out on a scavenge this morning. Martha said we were running low on some things and it was her turn. Shit, Hunter. Shit. We got to get out there.”
“She’ll be fine, Jacob. She’s radioed in, given us warning. She knows what she’s doing.” Hunter depressed the response button on the handheld. “Is she coming towards the front? Over.”
“Yes. We saw your truck over at the hen house. Morgan made it sound like a damn army coming our way. We need you. Ove
r.” The alarm in the voice was growing.
“Pull yourself together, Ned. This isn’t the time to lose it. I’m on my way. Over.” Hunter swallowed hard, the sound audible over all other surrounding noises. I wondered what he was thinking, wondered if he was seeing his boys massacred and stuffed in the car. Mostly, I wondered if killing those men was a precursor to bigger things. If the ‘trap’ was the monsters proving they could, and would, get past Fort Del Rio’s defenses. “Ned, do you copy? Over.”
“Copy, HOTEL.” The voice was still on edge like a shredded cable flopping around in the rain, live wires popping and sizzling. The radio gave a last crackle and then fell quiet. Behind us, the monster wearing Dana skin still keened. It was no longer ear-bleeding loud; this was a more pitiful, desperate sound. I moved away from the men, closer to her, my eyes squinted against the dimness.
It made my thoughts race, puzzle pieces that didn’t quite match…turning and twisting, trying to fit together and provide a cohesive picture. “You said she’s done this before? She’s just started randomly screaming?” The monster in front of me turned her head, finding my eyes. An obvious, piercing intelligence was held in those once-brown orbs. I didn’t like that. It scared me more than if she’d looked empty-headed and vicious. Hunter was wrong. The adults were different. They weren’t as animalistic.
“Yeah, a couple times.” Hunter nodded, not looking at his granddaughter.
Jacob was headed towards the door to leave the building. “Hunter, I’ll warn Martha. She’ll get the word out for everyone who can’t fight to hole up.”
“Do that,” Hunter said, his voice coming to life, like being around his Dana made him rethink everything about what he was doing, what the future held.
He said he didn’t jump at shadows. Maybe that was true, but here and now, he was being swallowed up by something dark. A twin of shadows that pitted morality against mortality. Straightening his shoulders, standing like he was once again in command of the world, Hunter spoke once more. “Have her send a group out to the southwest checkpoint too. No one’s protecting our flank there. If you three assholes had shut up long enough for me to tell you why I came here, you’d know that Georgie and the boys were killed. I was going to have you two round up the bodies, make sure they’re actually dead and not going to come back as one of those things. No time for that now, goddammit.”