by Castle, W. A
I reach into Ulises’s magic bag of weapons and reach for a pistol and a bolo machete in my hurry to be armed with something. Clara and Lexi follow my lead and arm themselves to their teeth.
“Maddison,” momma grits, “Lord Almighty, tell me you are not going out there, baby, please.”
I shake my head and turn to her, “Momma, I am protecting us, you, the children, everyone. Can’t you see that? What happens if we just stay here and the flesh eaters find us and break into the house? I am going out and keep them from getting close to the house and to see what on earth is going on out there. You can’t change my mind about this momma.”
“The guys are-”
“The guys are what mom? Please don’t say the guys are handling this. What’s happening to you?” I ask her in disbelief. Momma would never had just sat down and let anyone take care of her; she would have said she didn’t need anyone, especially a man to take care of her and she would get shit done.
Momma scoffs and turns away from me but before I can open my mouth and say anything else Lexi cuts me off by stepping in front of me.
“Maddie and I will go and check things out. Clara and you will hole up in one of the rooms with the children and stay put,” says Lexi, her gaze boring into momma.
I am taken aback that Lexi, who usually does everything in her power to stay away from me, is proposing this. I only stutter for a second before nodding and accepting her offer. I turn to Clara who is already nodding and rounding up Eli and Patty. Momma turns to me without looking at me and nods before heading into one of the rooms at the back of the house.
“Let’s go,” I say to Lexi.
We split up as we round the house and once we make sure the immediate vicinity is clear we meet up again. I would be lying if I said roaming around in the dark didn’t put my nerves on end, anything could be lurking in the dark. The machete feels awkward in my left hand and having nowhere to secure it I opt to put the pistol in my waistband and hold the machete with both hands as Lexi and I make our way to the back of the property where the others are.
As we inch closer everything becomes more chaotic. Yells, grunts, growls and screeches are all I hear. The odd ‘pop’ of a firearm can be heard but from what I hear the others are fighting the flesh eaters hand to hand.
“How did flesh eaters get in? I thought this place was safe,” Lexi whispers as her fingers flex around her gun.
“It is. It was. I don’t know what’s going on,” my response is a bit redundant since she knows there’s no way I would have an answer.
Just as we round a set of houses we stop dead in our tracks. My jaw would have dropped to the ground if I hadn’t been frozen in terror. An entire section of the gate behind the last row of houses is half torn down and I instantly see how it had happened. That horde Nadine and the others had been running from seems to have made their way into our temporary safe haven. Most flesh eaters are still stuck behind the falling gate but too many are managing to get through, that’s when I see everyone, Nadine’s group and my group fighting together to keep the flesh eaters at bay. But there are just too many of those things.
Lexi and I give each other a fleeting look. I can see my fear and shock reflected in her eyes. But then her face hardens and she gives me a nod. I nod back, my own face hardening.
My face breaks into a scowl when I hear gun shots and turn to see Nadine firing my missing gun. Son of a gun, the only thing I can think of is she must have lifted it off me when she hugged me. The discovery leaves me feeling foolishly betrayed.
I hear Trevor scream in the distance; my eyes zero in on my guy being knocked back by a flesh eater and just as the thing is about to go for Trevor’s exposed neck, a man from Nadine’s group sends a knife flying into the thing’s head.
In sync, Lexi and I break off in a run towards the chaos in front of us. I raise the machete and it finds a home in the skull of a straggler. I twist and pull harder than I thought I would have to, to pull the blade free. The unexpected resistance of pulling out the machete from the straggler’s head winds me momentarily.
“Maddison,” Ulises’s familiar low growl comes at me from the side. I see him stalk his way over to me and when he reaches me he grabs my arm and starts to haul me back from the fight.
“Let go Ulises!” I wrench my arm away from him.
Ulises looks at me with murder in his eyes and I can’t help but walk backwards as he stalks towards me, looking like a fuming bull, “Are you trying to get yourself killed? You have a son to think of, go back to the house and lock yourself in. Now,” he barks and I balk.
I look past him readying myself to give him a good whopping but a growler running full speed towards us grabs my attention, “Duck!” is all I say before stepping to the side, reaching behind me, taking my pistol out and pulling the trigger. It takes me two shots to blow the flesh eater’s head off. Ulises whips around and then looks back at me. Before he can continue his rant, I pat his arm reassuringly and run off to where the others are fighting off the flesh eaters in cluster.
I see the old man from Nadine’s group standing his ground, shooting at advancing growlers until his gun runs out of bullets. A shriek rings through the chaos around us and three previous stragglers perk up and take off towards the old man.
Fuck me. This horde has a fucking Shrieker calling the shots. I run full speed towards the old man who is too busy reloading his gun to see death running full throttles at him. Only after I unload my clip at the running flesh eaters does the old man look up in surprise. I run up to him and grab his arm as gently as I can, “Please, sir, go back into the house, we will deal with these things.” I try to coax him to move but he refuses.
“Now listen here young lady, I may be old but I can still shoot this gun and keep my friends safe,” he says giving me a stern look. I can’t help but fight an indulgent smile at his stern tone.
“Of course sir, I was just-” before I can finish my sentence I am hurled into the old man, we both go tumbling hard into the ground. As I try to lift myself off the old man I feel a sharp pain on my lower back and then a bone-deep throbbing.
I cry out as I throw my body back and twist away from the growler. I lift my gun ready to shoot but when I pull the trigger it ‘click’s’ and no bullet comes out. I growl and throw the doggone thing away. I reach to where my machete fell on the grass when I was thrown down. Just as I am unbending myself, the growler pounces on the old man who is still on the ground.
“No!” I hear a woman yell behind me.
I don’t turn to see who it is, instead I throw my body against the growler and snake my arms around its throat to keep it from lunging forward into the old man. In the struggle, one of my arms dislodges from its throat and the flesh eater manages to bite the inside of my arm. The thin sweater I have on performs a small miracle and doesn’t allow the teeth to break my skin. I have survived bites before but I am not sure I can survive them repeatedly.
A blade whizzes close near my face and imbeds itself into the flesh eater’s eye. The thing goes limp and I end up tumbling on top of it, my arms still underneath it.
It is Nadine who stabbed the flesh eater in the eye. She pulls me up and yanks my sweater sleeve up, “You’re lucky, the bite didn’t break the skin,” she says hastily before moving to help the old man up.
Maybe this one didn’t, but the bite on my back is throbbing like a mother fucker, and my clothes back there feel uncomfortably wet.
As Murphy’s Law has it, the gate holding the majority of the flesh eaters out finally gives way with a loud crash. There’s a shriek and the growlers enter into some type of frenzy.
“What the fuck is that?” Tom and the others come to a stop behind me, taking in the scene with horror. The gates are down, the flesh eaters are in an obvious excited state but none of them make a move into the property.
The group managed to kill all the flesh eaters that had gotten into the property, but I am not entirely sure we are equipped to handle this many flesh eaters at once if t
hey all come at us at the same time.
“We need to go. Now,” Aaron says somewhere from behind me. I don’t move a muscle. I am locked in a staring contest with the Shrieker. I don’t know why or how but I know that if I break eye contact with this thing, all hell will break loose upon us. The Shrieker used to once be a man who had a thing for ugly Hawaiian shirts. Instead of laughing at the socks with sandals the thing sports, I feel a heavy ball of dread settle in my stomach, all these creatures were normal human beings once. They are still in there somewhere but after all of this, are they really? This is what I should have become when I was bitten back at the library. This is what I may yet become.
I feel a hand land on my shoulder and I do my best to shrug it off, “You guys need to go now. I’m not kidding, ya’ll need to run now,” I say slowly through gritted teeth. The distraction of talking allows the growlers to advance towards us a few steps.
“What are you talking about?” Jax’s breath hits the side of my face.
Leave. I plead in my head. To my startled surprise the growlers all take a step back in unison. The Shrieker cocks its head and its mouth breaks into a sinister sneer as it takes a series of challenging steps towards me.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“What the hell is that thing?”
Questions and murmurs erupt from the group.
My lip curls up in a snarl, “Leave!” I yell at the flesh eaters. I take determined steps towards the flesh eaters and as I step forward they step back, all but the Shrieker, whose sneer hasn’t left its bloody torn up face.
I hear my name behind me, but it sounds muffled and far away. I push forwards into the pack of flesh eaters. In this moment I feel connected in some way to their subconscious. Not their human subconscious, but to their animalistic one. I feel like I am marking my territory. Again, these creatures remind me of a pack of animals, which leads me to a whole new series of conundrums.
Why are they listening to me? All except for the Shrieker, that is. It’s like it and I are fighting for the control of the horde. I am lost as I stare into the depths of the creature’s deformed eyes.
A pair of hands shakes me so hard I stumble and my eye contact is broken. As soon as the contact is broken, the horde breaks loose and the ones that don’t break into a full sprint right away, saunter their way to us.
There is no time to think or second guess ourselves in this moment. I see some of Nadine’s group break up and run off in the opposite direction. I want to run away too, the last time I was confronted by a horde of flesh eaters I was nearly torn apart alive… I push away the flashbacks that want to break through and instead I grab for my machete and throw myself at the nearest flesh eater. If there’s any hope that we are going to make it to see dawn there is one thing we have to do first.
“Find the Shrieker, we kill it and we have a chance against these fuckers!” I yell behind me where the others are battling against the flesh eaters.
At some point Jax and I end up fighting side by side. He looks at me fleetingly and the look he gives me breaks a piece of my heart. He looks at me like he is wary of me. He looks at me like he is afraid of me.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when heavy artillery starts bringing down large chunks of the horde. Ulises and a few men from Nadine’s group are on the roof of one of the houses shooting some gnarly looking machine guns.
I spot the Shrieker who is lurking in the shadows between the houses near the fallen gate. I break away from the others and stealthily make my way towards it. I jump in front of it. It lunges for me and I swing my machete, aiming for its head but I end up imbedding the blade on its collar bone instead. I pull back and strike again, slicing off half its face. The Shrieker throws its head back and howls before snarling bloody, broken teeth at me.
“Quit your hollering,” I spit out and swing once more, this time I hit it right on the side of the head, the flesh eater falls to the ground and tries to scramble back up but before it can do so I swing again down on its head. Again and again until there’s not much of a head left. When I stop I am panting and holding my side trying to catch my breath. I get up shakily and when I turn around, I come face to face with a pale faced Nadine.
“What?” I hiss as I walk past her. I am still more than a little prickled that she stole my gun by feigning friendliness.
“If you are going to insist on being stupid, at least do it well armed,” Ulises says with a glare, running up to me and handing me a Glock. While I was dealing with the Shrieker, it seems like the others have dispatched of almost all the flesh eaters. Apparently I have underestimated the power of Ulises’s semi-automatics and Nadine’s group’s familiarity with killing flesh eaters in hand to hand combat.
I scoff and take the Glock from him, “Thanks,” I half smile at him, “really, thank you,” I shake the gun slightly in my hand, “That Nadine woman took my gun without me noticing. I didn’t even realize it was gone until I reached for it and it wasn’t there.”
Ulises’s usually glaring eyes narrow even impossibly more as he looks back at Nadine who is a few steps behind us as we walk back to the others. I know she can hear us, but I find I can’t care less. I do not feel one bit guilty at tattling on her.
When we stop in front of the others, I feel the shift of energy between them. Some avoid my eyes and others openly scowl at me, looking ready to put me down like one of those flesh eaters. I busy myself looking at the dead flesh eaters around us making sure they are all really dead.
“What the fuck was that?” one of the men that had come in with Nadine glares at me, his chest heaving.
“Matt, back off” Tom shoots the guy a warning look.
“But seriously, what were you and that thing doing? It looked like you were communicating with it,” says Lexi. She is standing to my left, her arms crossed against her chest in a defensive pose.
I shift my lowered gaze until I find Trevor and then to Jax, they are the only ones I feel I owe some sort of explanation to, but I have no explanation to give. I purse my lips and shrug dismissively then turn away from them, heading back to the house.
Nadine reaches for my shoulder and as soon as her hand makes contact with me, I whirl around, smack her hand away and slap her across the face. Tom makes a move towards me but Ulises holds him back with a head lock.
“That’s for stealing my dammed gun,” I say and walk away.
Footsteps follow me but I don’t stop until I reach the house and call out for the others to come out. I quickly turn the lamps on in the room.
Clara comes out first and then momma then the children. Diego is fussy and whimpering so I instinctively reach out for him, momma surrenders him to me without a word. I press my lips to his head and smell his head. My world is in chaos and filled with uncertainty, but it has always been like that for me even before all of this. For some reason having Diego close to me gives some grounding sense to all of this. He is the greatest gift I have ever been given, and I can’t help but send Janet a thanks. I have one clear mission, to protect him. Eli sees me and instantly glues himself to me; he hugs me from behind and wraps his arms around my belly, I try not to react when he presses against my newly acquired bite. Even reserved Patty looks from behind momma and gives me a small smile.
“What the hell?” I hear Clara exclaim and see her raise her arms, a gun in each hand. We all turn to see what Clara is pointing at and see Nadine and her group walk into the house we have claimed for ourselves. In the next moment everyone is inside the house. I can see the outsiders surprise at seeing the children.
“What are they doing here?” Clara turns her glare to the guys who were supposed to be keeping an eye on the outsiders.
Aaron pushes past the group and kneels next to Patty and takes her in his arms.
“Get out. Now,” I say looking at Nadine. I hold Diego close to my chest, smoothing his blanket over his body. I turn to Aaron, “You were right last night,” I say scornfully. If the horde hadn’t broken down the fence, what would Nadine hav
e done with that gun? Would she have turned it against Aaron, Jax or Ulises or Gary? Or worse, would she have turned the gun against one of the kids? “I’m sorry. I will heed your warnings next time.”
Aaron stands to his full height and nods at me. Apology accepted, I guess. But Jax doesn’t meet my eyes when I look at him.
Ulises moves to stand protectively beside me still holding his semi-automatic at ease.
“Maddie,” Nadine whispers. Her expression is apologetic but I can sense she isn’t truly sorry about what she did, “I had to do it. You took our weapons. I couldn’t leave my people defenseless. And it’s a good thing I did too, because if that horde had broken through and I hadn’t had that gun…” she trails off.
“I think we are getting side-tracked about what we really should be concerned about. Something isn’t right with her,” a woman whose name I remember as Stacey, after hearing her name being called while we were fighting the flesh eaters, steps forwards and points an accusing finger towards me.
Eli’s arms tighten around me. I lower an arm and smooth out his bowl cut hair, which still makes me smile every time I see it. I caress his chin, lifting his face towards me and smile down at him. I don’t want him hearing the others calling me out, I couldn’t bear it if he, too, turned away from me. I pull away from him and hand him Diego, “Can you and Patty please look after Diego while we talk to these people?” I ask. When he looks like he’s about to protest I say, “Please?” After a moment, he begrudgingly relents. Aaron nods to Patty then she and Eli take Diego to one of the rooms at the back of the house.
“If we’re going to be sharing this space, we deserve to know what the hell is going on,” John, the old man I had gotten a bite on the back for, now turns against me.
“Who the hell said you guys are staying?” Aaron scoffs, taking a step towards the old man, “You’re not entitled to shit.”
“Listen here, man, you need to back off,” Tom, Nadine’s husband, says stepping forward to confront Ulises.