by Bible, Jake
“What doesn’t stick?”
“I can’t wrap a present worth a shit,” I say. “I have tried and tried. I take my time, I’m careful as hell, but they always look like a four year old did it. Can’t figure it out.”
“But this isn’t a problem?” he asks, indicating the control banks.
“I don’t know yet,” I say, tapping the reference manual in my hands, “I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
“Are you finding anything?” I ask.
“Nothing I can understand,” Leeds says. “I have found names for the individual controls, but nothing about what they do.”
“Can I see that?” I ask. He hands me his manual. I look it over and then roll my chair up to the control bank. I set both manuals down, side by side. “Can I keep this one?”
“You can keep them all if you think it will help.”
“Between these two, I should be able to get us up to speed.” I look up at the windows. “I wonder if we can cover those. I’m gonna need light soon, but I don’t want it to bring the Zs.”
“Yeah, I know,” Leeds sighs. “I have an idea.”
I have an idea too, but don’t want to say it. It’s not fun. As Leeds gets up and starts to gather up the Z yuck, I see he has the same idea. I go back to the manuals while he busies himself with coating the windows with gunk. Soon the room is cast in a hazy, reddish glow. Leeds finishes and walks to the door, flicking the light switch next to it.
“Will that work?” he asks.
“It’ll work perfectly,” I say, “but, will it attract Zs is the real question?”
“We’ll find out once the sun goes down,” Leeds says. He rolls a chair to the door and leans back against it, his head turned so his ear is right on the steel. “You do your brain thing and I’ll do my soldier thing. If I hear them coming, I’ll turn out the lights until they wander off.”
“And if they don’t wander off?”
“Then study hall is over and we wait it out in the dark,” Leeds says. “I’d recommend sleeping, but I doubt either one of us will if we have Zs knocking to get in.”
“Then let’s hope they don’t knock,” I say, focusing harder on the manuals.
“One can only hope,” Leeds replies.
At least a couple hours go by before I make my first breakthrough. I spin around and look at the control banks against the wall behind me.
“Find something?” Leeds asks. His eyes are closed so I’d figured he’d gone to sleep.
“I don’t know yet,” I say, studying the control panels. “I think so.”
I trace the panels with my fingers, looking at the manuals, and then at the panels; back and forth, back and forth.
“I didn’t cause the shut down,” I say. “That’s a relief. Maybe Brenda will shut the fuck up about it.”
“Not likely,” Leeds says as he gets up from the chair and leans over me to look at the panels.
Brenda Kelly is the HOA Board Chairperson. Yes, despite the fact that Whispering Pines pretty much burned to the ground, there is still a Home Owners’ Association. And that’s not the surprising part! Brenda colluded with Vance, to what extent none of us knows, but she still colluded with him and it resulted in the deaths of my friends and neighbors.
Yet, the HOA voted her back in as Chairperson of the Board! Why? Because they are frightened sheep and because she undermined any faith in me by leveraging the fact that I blew up Whispering Pines. Sure, I did it to help everyone and to try to stop Vance and his crazies. Problem was that I was in a semi-coma for a few days while she was busy rallying her troops. One vote later and she’s still in charge of Whispering Pines, and I’m out here, my hands sticky with Z yuck, while I try to figure out how to make things better for everyone. Unlike Brenda Kelly, the fat twat.
Not that I want the Chairperson job. Fuck no to that! Thankless job and one that is filled with bullshit. Some folks are made for bureaucracy. I am not one of those folks. I like to think around red tape, not create more just for the fuck of it.
“Jace? Hello, Stanford. You in there?”
“What? Sorry,” I smile, “just mentally hating Brenda, that’s all.”
“Hate on your own time,” Leeds says. “Tell me why you don’t think the gas shut down was your fault.”
I point at a diagram in one of the manuals then at the control panels. “Each of these panels controls a sub-region of Asheville, see?”
He looks the panels over and then shakes his head. “No, what am I looking for?”
“See this one? West. This one? East. There’s north, south, downtown, etc. You can shut down specific regions without shutting the whole station down.”
“Makes sense,” he nods. “So what did you find?”
“Look at these panels,” I say, pointing to all but one. They are dark, not a blinking light. The last one isn’t dark, but has quite a few active lights. “They’ve been switched off. Not tripped because of any failsafe, but switched off.” I flip through the reference manual. “According to this, the failsafe is local. Whispering Pines did get shut off automatically, but probably at the main pipe down the road from the development, not from here.”
“That still sounds like it was your fault,” Leeds says. “Not judging, just observing.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right, but it can be fixed at Whispering Pines. As soon as it’s safe to turn the gas back on, we can do it locally. We don’t need to come here.”
“What’s that one?” he asks, pointing to the active control panel. “Where does it go?”
“North Asheville,” I reply, “and if I’m right, that includes us, unless we’re on the west line. I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter for right now. What does matter, is that someone intentionally turned every region off except for this one.”
“So it was Vance then,” Leeds says. “What was he up to?”
“No, I don’t think it was Vance,” I reply. “Remember, his mansion is down in Biltmore. He may have set up shop in North Asheville, but the crazy fucker had his undead family still in the south part of town. Why would he shut off a resource to there? I’m sure he would still need it for something.”
“New player?”
“Maybe,” I shrug, “I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m focusing on this right now.”
“Keep studying,” he says and sits back down, “you’ve done great so far. Keep at it.”
“Great pep talk,” I smile as I get up and grab all of the binders, spreading them out before me.
Leeds closes his eyes and smiles. “I’m a born leader. Just comes naturally.”
I notice the fluorescent lights flickering slightly above and look over my shoulder. It’s dark outside. Fingers crossed, I can work it all out before we have to turn the lights off.
“We’ll have company soon,” Leeds says.
“How do you know?” I ask, looking over at him. His eyes are still closed.
He taps his ears. “I can hear them out there. Not many, but enough. How are you doing?”
“I think I have a few things figured out,” I say. “How much time do I have?”
“An hour, maybe longer,” Leeds says. “What have you figured out?”
“I’m pretty sure I can switch these panels on and get the gas flowing to the entire town again,” I say.
“Do we want to do that?” he asks.
“Can’t hurt,” I say.
He opens one eye and locks it on me. “We’re talking about natural gas, Stanford. It can hurt quite a bit.”
“Right. My bad,” I say. “But that’s what failsafes are for. If there is anything wrong with the lines, then they’ll shut down locally.”
“That’s quite an assumption,” Leeds says. “Maybe they were all shut down for a reason. Maybe it was Vance and despite his mansion in Biltmore, he cut the gas on purpose.”
“My gut says no to that,” I answer, “I can’t say why, just that it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t seem like Vance’s style.”
“Y
ou killed the man, Jace,” Leeds says. “You didn’t hang out and read each others’ diaries. You have no clue what his style was or what he was thinking.”
“What are you? The devil’s advocate? I’m floundering here at best. I could use a confidence boost, not a smack down.”
Leeds sighs and leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He fixes me with that Captain’s glare of his. “My job is to protect lives, not coddle intellectual egos. Your job is to be smart, not coddle your own ego. If I do my job and you do your job, then shit will get better. If either of us fail, then shit will get shittier. How’s that for a confidence boost?”
“Perfect,” I say, giving him a thumbs up. “I feel like I can do anything now.”
“Good,” Leeds says. He cocks his head and then shakes it. “More Zs. The windows aren’t clouded enough. And they can probably hear us. Time to get silent. You have maybe twenty minutes before we go dark and really hunker down.”
I don’t even answer, just get back to studying. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go by and I’m even more sure that Vance didn’t shut the gas off. But who did?
“I want to turn it all on,” I say finally, “before we sit here in the dark for the rest of the night.”
Leeds studies me for a very long minute. “You’re sure about this?”
“No,” I answer honestly, “I’m never sure about anything, yet everyone still asks me to figure it out. We’re going to have to take a risk.”
“And why turn them all on?”
That’s a good question. Why do it? Why not leave them off since the line that (probably) feeds Whispering Pines is already on?
“Because I can,” I say. “And because there could be other survivors huddled in their basements way over in East Asheville that need this gas to get through the next few days. If it isn’t already too late.”
“It’s the apocalypse, Jace,” Leeds says. “If they can’t figure out how to survive without natural gas, then they aren’t going to last long no matter what we do.”
“Just give me a shot, will ya?” I ask. “I won’t blow us up.”
“Right.”
“Seriously,” I say, showing him a diagram and the paragraph below it, “the transfer station has backflow regulators. If something goes wrong, this place is perfectly safe. We’d have to pry open a pipe and drop a match inside to do any damage here.”
Another long minute of the Leeds stare.
“Captain?” I ask. Now I can hear the Zs outside. Their moans are getting louder. I don’t know how many are out there, but enough to hear our voices. We have to decide now.
“Fine,” Leeds says, “do it.”
“Cool,” I smile. “Wish me luck.”
“No,” Leeds says, “luck better not have anything to do with this.”
I nod and look at the manuals, then at the control panels. Slowly, carefully, I start to flick switches. I systematically go from one panel to the next, turning them on until the entire control bank is blinking and flickering.
“There,” I smile, wiping my hands together, “Asheville has gas again.”
“Good,” Leeds says. He reaches over and turns the overhead lights off, plunging us into a darkness lit only by the control bank. “Now get some sleep and rest that brain. We’ll have some killing to do in the morning, I’m sure.”
I try to get comfortable in the rolling chair, but it just isn’t working. I contemplate lying on the floor, but the amount of Z yuck discourages that thought. It’s going to be a long night.
Then the explosions start. Quite a few of them. Way off across town towards the east.
“Long Pork,” Leeds snarls.
Dammit.
Chapter Two
“On your left,” Julio calls out as he pivots to the side and jams a spear through the eye socket of a Z staggering towards him. He twists the spear about and tosses the Z onto an ever-increasing pile of corpses filling the entrance to Whispering Pines.
Julio is a short Hispanic man, the parts of his torso that show from under the black tank top he wears is covered in dark black and blue tattoos. They run all the way up his arms and up his neck. His head is shaved except for a thin, short Mohawk. On his belt, strapped to his right leg, is a nasty looking short sword. But the spear is more appropriate for the Z clearing job at hand.
The person he’s talking to, Elsbeth, doesn’t pause to answer, just spins and slices the head off the Z with one of two curved long blades she holds. She kicks the head and the falling body towards the pile, but isn’t as precise as Julio. She is a tall, young woman, intensely beautiful. Her hair is cut short and tucked under a Hello Kitty trucker’s cap. The sleeveless t-shirt she wears shows off her muscled arms, and she moves about with the grace of a cat. A very deadly cat.
“Are you even going to try to hit the pile?” Julio asks as he spears another Z and disposes of it on the pile.
Elsbeth shrugs as she ducks under the outstretched arms of a Z and comes up with a blade through its chin, piercing the skull. The thing’s jaws clamp shut and it grows still as she pulls the blade free and kicks the Z over. It misses the pile by several feet. Elsbeth looks over her shoulder at Julio and smiles. The condition of her teeth is all that mars her beauty, but being raised a cannibal didn’t lend itself to a lifestyle of proper oral care.
“I kill them,” Elsbeth grins, “let the others clean up.”
“Except we will be the ones cleaning them up since half the camp went back to the Farm today,” Julio says. “We’re short teamed until the new crew shows up in two days.”
“Why do we have to do all the work?” Elsbeth asks, a small whine in her voice. Most wouldn’t notice, but Julio has been fighting Zs with her, shoulder to shoulder for two months straight. He notices.
“Because we do it right,” Julio says. “Better us than some of those lazy asses we’re doing this for. We’d just have to come back and finish the job anyway.”
“I don’t like the lazy asses,” Elsbeth says, both blades lashing out, separating Z heads from Z bodies. She makes a small effort to push the bodies and heads towards the pile. “They should work harder. Not us. Them. Poop snotty fart faces.”
“You’ve been hanging out with the kids too much,” Julio laughs as he spears a Z in the gut, then turns it to block two that are coming at him from the left. Elsbeth moves in and takes the heads of all three. Julio yanks his spear free and stabs each decapitated head through the skull, ending their gnashing thrashing. Even separated from their bodies, the Zs still try to chomp some human flesh. Only way to stop them is to kill the brain. Such is the way in the zombie apocalypse.
“So?” Elsbeth asks. “The kids are fun.”
“Not as fun as me,” Julio grins, his eyes looking Elsbeth up and down. He loves how the sweat soaks her t-shirt between her boobs and across her belly.
“No,” she grins back, “not as fun as you. We’ll have fun tonight, right? You fell asleep last night.”
“I was tired, El,” Julio says. “We spent the whole day killing Zs. A man needs his rest.”
“A girl needs her fun,” Elsbeth counters. “No sleeping tonight.”
“You’re so cruel,” Julio laughs, “but I think I can handle it.”
“Promise.”
“I promise. No sleeping tonight.”
Elsbeth moves away from the Whispering Pines entrance and takes out one, two, three, four, five Zs before retreating. Julio joins her, dropping three. They stand there for a second, looking at all the Z corpses that litter that part of State Highway 251. The sun is setting and the French Broad River that is across the highway, about twenty yards from the entrance, starts to reflect the sky’s orange and red glow.
“Pretty,” Elsbeth says.
“I can’t believe you decided to turn down Special Forces training to be part of this crew,” Julio says. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for you,” Elsbeth says, grabbing his ass. “Mmmmm. And Platt yells a lot. I don’t like the yelling.”
“How about some screaming?” he asks, giving her a wink. “I know you like to scream.”
Julio takes her up in his arms and kisses her hard. Her hands squeeze his ass harder, making him jump. She presses against him and lifts one leg up over his hip. Their mouths are jammed together, hungry with passion.
“Jesus,” John says as he and Stuart come walking around the bend in the road. “Can’t you wait until you’re in your tent?”
“And have cleaned up,” Stuart adds, “you two are covered in Z.”
Elsbeth pulls away from Julio and smiles at the two men. “He’s not falling asleep tonight. I’ll be on him for hours.”
Julio shakes his head and takes her hand, pulling her towards the new gate that stands open at the Whispering Pines entrance. It isn’t as big or secure as the original gate, but it keeps the Zs out for the most part. Enough for those inside to get a good night’s sleep with only a couple of sentries on duty.
“You are one lucky bastard,” John says to Julio as he follows them inside, shutting the gate once Stuart is in. He and Stuart place reinforced bars across the gate, securing it for the night.
“It’s not luck,” Elsbeth says. “He has to work hard for me. No lazy ass gets in my pants. Nope, nope, nope.”
“Yeah, how about we eat a little, and then clean up the Zs?” Julio asks. “You two up to lend a hand?”
“Sure,” Stuart says. “Let us stow our gear and grab a bite too.”
“I gotta shit something wicked,” John says. “Been holding it for the last mile.”
“Ooh, me too,” Elsbeth says. “I’ll come shit with you. We can talk about your day.”
“Still working on that personal space thing, eh?” John laughs.
“I don’t need any,” Elsbeth shrugs. “Not my problem if others do.” She looks at Stuart. “Except for Stuart. He has to have space or he’s a grumpy bear. Grumpy bear Stuart is not fun.”
“You can say that again,” John says.
“Hey, lay off,” Stuart says. “I can be fun.”
“Yes, you’re a barrel of laughs,” Julio says. He winks at Elsbeth. “Have fun taking that shit. Wash your hands before we eat.”