Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  “Tell us a bit about yourself,” Eden says at the table after the third day.

  I offer a tentative smile but turn my eyes back to my plate. There are six children. Seven, including myself. They had all been here quite some time, guessing from their pink cheeks and bright eyes. The only one who seems out of place is the other girl at the end of the table, with dark, shifty eyes. We have passed in the hallway but have not spoken yet. I try to catch her gaze but she glances away each time, just like I would if someone were scoping me out. It takes me a few moment to realize everyone is waiting for my response.

  “Oh...um...” I say, my voice sounding timid and small, even to myself. This is the most I have spoken in three days. “I was traveling and saw the smoke. I thought there might be people so I followed it to see what I could find.”

  “You smelled the food is more like it,” the young man next to me chides with a grin.

  “Now, Ezekiel,” Eden says with a smile. “You are one to talk. Isn't that your third plateful?”

  The others snicker and cover grins with their palms.

  “So, Ash,” she continues. “You carried with you some pretty strong knives and a hefty crossbow with you. Do you think you might be willing to teach the rest of us some of your weapons skills?”

  The thought of getting my crossbow back is enough to make me agree to almost anything, but I keep my expression neutral, placing my fork carefully back on the plate. “I could do that.”

  “Wonderful!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Many of us have lost our edge being within the safety of our home here. You must be very cunning to survive all that time out there on your own.”

  I catch sight of Ezekiel glaring at me suddenly. I keep his gaze, taking another bite as I do so. “No more so than anyone else.”

  “Did you have a family?” Eden asked. “You must have been young when the Fall happened.”

  “I was eight.”

  “I see.” The room falls strangely silent. “And what became of them, your family?” Every eye at the table watches me.

  “They died, early on. A riot. I've been on my own ever since.”

  She clasps her hands to her heart, “Oh, you poor dear.”

  “I guess it was fortune which brought me to your door,” I say.

  “Yes, yes. Indeed it was.” She stands and begins to clear the plates, stacking them on top of each other before whisking them away to the kitchen. “Well, we are certainly glad you are here. Aren't we, Ezekiel?”

  She gives him a pointed stare until he nods, slumping back in his chair. I sense another twitter of laughter behind everyone else's hidden expressions.

  “I want to pair you two together today for the garden. Ezekiel will show you how to gather and get you acquainted with the process.”

  After the dishes are washed, we all filter out to the garden. Ezekiel gives me a surly look over his shoulder and motions to the row next to him. I kneel down facing towards him and begin pulling up the carrots buried deep in the ground, doing my best to copy his movements. On either side of us, the other children find their spaces, moving with care and skill. Eden walks among us, her hands clasped together as she peers over our progress. I glance over to my partner, turned away from me and yanking at the carrot tops.

  “Your name is Ezekiel?” I ask in a low voice.

  He nods.

  “How long have you been here? At this homestead?”

  “Since the beginning,” he says. “Eden is my mother.”

  “Oh,” I reply, pausing to take extra care with one carrot giving me difficulty. It gives way and I fall backward onto my backside in the moist earth. I try to laugh a bit, but he offers me nothing more than a scowl. Returning to his row, he continues forward.

  “You will be 'teaching us', she said?” He spits the words as if the thought offends him in some way. I remain silent as I realize he is not asking me in search of a response. “What do you possibly think you could teach us? It was you, and people like you, who thought we were crazy. Just like the ark. Everyone scoffed, but we turned out to be right after all. Maybe it wasn't what everyone thought it would be, but it came to an end just like we said.”

  With every word, he yanked harder on each carrot, tossing them vehemently towards the patch of ground between us.

  “Do you remember,” I ask, “When things changed? When everything went bad?”

  “Yes, I do.” His eyes grow distant and he pauses, gazing out into the forest. “We prepared the garden, and the storage house over there. Enough for years to come. The only thing they did not foresee is them growing old, Mom and Dad. They needed people to help them. Tell me, Ash. How did you come to find this place?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he pauses and faces me, leaning onto his knees, “this place is hidden behind a forest, off the main roads, not close to any big cities. How did you find your way here?”

  This is a test. By the sidelong glance he gives, he knows quite well how I found this place. He wants to know if I will tell him the truth.

  “You had it right,” I reply. “It was the food. The smell of the food lured me to this place.”

  He watches me with a clear suspicion, nodding before speaking again. “It is always the food. That was Abraham's idea.”

  The matter drops and we continue down our row, leaving behind us piles of carrots which we will collect on the return trip. Deep in my gut I want desperately to ask more questions, to find out what this place is. Having a meal and a safe harbor is not an indicator of trust.

  “Do you think you can teach us something we don't already know?” he asks after a long while.

  “No, I don't. I've just been out there trying to survive, just like everyone else. But if I do have something to teach you, is there any reason why I shouldn't?”

  He drops a carrot into the nearest pile, black dirt caked around his nails. Without looking at me, he stands and stalks away, leaving me in confusion. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I watch some of the others talking and laughing, passing the time with each other as they gather the vegetables in their row. Ezekiel grabs the bucket and tosses the carrots into it, giving me the obvious cold shoulder as he passes me by.

  “Hey,” the dark-eyed girl calls out to me. “Let's go get some water. It's time for a break anyway.”

  “What is your name?” I ask, after walking over towards the others.

  “Alma,” she says.

  We approach the edge of the forest, just inside the tree line. The double fence curves from the outer edge of the meadow in between the thick trees. The others each have a small bottle strapped to their hips and they take turns filling it under the silver stream dripping off the edge of the rocks. The water trickles down into a small cove in the ground underneath the fence.

  “Here,” Alma says as she hands me her bottle. It tastes cold and sweet, providing an instant relief when it touches my parched mouth. One of the other boys, Travis I think, shares his bottle with her.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  “I've only been here a couple of weeks,” she says, “but it's a good gig here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, they are legit, Eden and Abraham. Do your part and you will always have plenty to eat.”

  She turns back and Travis drapes his arm around her shoulder. Everyone meanders back to the garden, returning to their tasks with languid commitment. I have never before witnessed this kind of behavior. Out there, people move quick with animal awareness. The people within this haven have grown accustomed to the reality of safety. Knowing they don't have to watch every corner to see if a herd of zombies might appear. I still jump at shadows. Perhaps I always will. Yes, the people here are nice for the most part, but I feel a sense of unease, nothing I can put my finger on, save for Ezekiel. At least, Alma seems nice.

  8

  “Hey. It's time to wake up.”

  A gentle hand nudges my shoulder, but I turn my face into the pillow, unwi
lling to acknowledge the day. Each morning there is a brief moment in which I forget where I am. Today is no different, but I cling to the details creeping into my conscience, one by one. The softness of the bed, the sensation of the girl perched at the edge of the bed jabbing at my shoulder. Already the fresh scent of outside lingers on her clothing.

  “Go away, Alma,” I mutter.

  She hops to her feet, no doubt pleased at my waking. “We've got about an hour before breakfast. You don't want to miss it. Eden's killed one of the piglets so it's fresh bacon for us today!”

  Alma plunks down in the armchair next to the brightly painted bookshelf. “Abraham is smoking again today,” she says.

  “What does that mean?” I sit up and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  “It means by the end of the day, there might be another person. These days it's pretty regular.”

  “Is that how you got here?”

  “No.” She laughs, a sound both sharp and light all at once. “Ezekiel found us during one of his supply runs. This is the last stop for many people before heading over the mountains.”

  “What is over the mountains, anyway?” I ask. In the three weeks I had been here, I keep hearing repeated reference to 'over the mountains', and I recall Rachel's desire to go East to the coast.

  “They say there are no Z's there. People starting over. That's the word anyway. This place is just a stopover for many trying to get there.”

  Through the window, the jagged horizon juts into the gray sky. So far I have stayed quiet listening to everyone around me, paying attention to Eden and how she watches over us, her wayward brood of lost orphans.

  “Why don't you go?” I ask, tossing the thick blanket aside and standing up, arcing my arms overhead. “Over the mountains, I mean.”

  “Why would I? Everything I need is here. Travis is happy here too. We can help with the garden and upkeep of the land. As long as the fence holds up, we have no reason to move on.”

  “I see.”

  “Besides, they might be escaping the Z's but there is also the rogues.”

  “Rogues?”

  “The mountain people, just out of reach of the Z's but living off the poor souls they catch traveling over to the East. They steal what they can and live off the land.”

  “If they live in the mountains, why don't they go on over to the coast?”

  She shrugs. “Some people just have to take, I guess. Come on. You're going to miss out on all the bacon.”

  “Go on.” I toss a ruffled pillow in her direction.

  She laughs and disappears out the door. Other footsteps patter down the hall following the tantalizing scent of sizzling pork already drifting through the house. With the blue flannel robe wrapped around me, I peer out and trudge down to the closet room, an entire bedroom filled with a variety of clothing, jeans, flannel shirts, all added to each time they come back from a raid. Eden keeps the clothing for those who come through, often times in desperate need of a new set of threads.

  After I dress, I head to the dining table, clean and refreshed, a feeling I am still trying to get used to. The atmosphere at breakfast is one of excitement. Everyone chatters among themselves, bright eyed, about what firing up the smoker means to the homestead. Eden steps in from the kitchen placing a platter of bacon in the center of the table, alongside the biscuits, followed closely by a large bowl of scrambled eggs. The chatter dissipates as everyone fills their plates, settling into the food.

  “Ash, this is your first time through a smoker day,” Eden says. “The others will have to walk you through it.”

  “What's different about it?” I sop up a bit of grease with my biscuit.

  “Everyone gets the day off,” says Ezekiel who has warmed to me in the last weeks.

  “We're going up to the peak at the far edge of the forest,” says Travis. “You should come.”

  “Okay,” I reply. Alma keeps her eyes on me for several moments, stripped of emotion, before returning her attention to her eggs.

  “That's where we first saw you, you know,” Ezekiel says. “We spotted your truck coming down the highway on the west side of the valley when we were cleaning the spikes.”

  “Cleaning the spikes?” I ask.

  “Ew,” Alma exclaims. “Can we please not talk about that until breakfast is over?”

  “Yes,” says Eden. “That would be best. Perhaps while you are up there you can show Ash how it's done. Now everyone needs to finish up, and don't forget to wash up your dishes before going out.”

  The platters before us are nothing more than empty pools of grease and morsels. Ezekiel and the others bound through the kitchen, leaving more water on the floor than in the sink. Alma stands at the door with her arms crossed, waiting and watching with narrow eyes. I drain the last of the milk in my jar before I join her, and we trot across the porch and out towards the warehouse.

  The others arrive behind us and Alma passes out the water-filled canteens and a knife for each of us for our trek through the forest. Of the seven of us, Alma and I still held a natural distrust of the world around us, despite our growing comfort levels. Travis had acclimated more quickly, she had told me.

  “So what's all this about cleaning the spikes?” I ask, catching up to her at the front of the pack.

  “On the western edge of the property, there is an extra layer to the border fence.”

  Ezekiel pushes up between us. “They never suspected everything would go down the way it did. But after the Fall, that edge had the most of them coming in. After about the third time of rebuilding the fence, they decided to just create another level of security.” He grins.

  “Spikes,” Alma continues. “Buried into the ground. Huge wooden logs, sharpened to a point and facing outward. It's a bit macabre, but it did the trick apparently. The only drawback is, every once in awhile, we have to go and remove the zombies. It won't take long, though. They say there are less of them now than there used to be.”

  We walk for a while without speaking. Without the threat of zombie hordes around each tree trunk I realize, perhaps for the first time, how beautiful and peaceful the forest is. The pine needles scent the air with a pungent aroma. The sunlight drifting through the branches creates an intricate pattern on the ground. We follow the path winding through the trees until it runs alongside the fence extending through the forest.

  A sudden silence descends around us. This can only mean one thing. Zombies. Somewhere close. The forest feels eerie without a single bird or scurry through the underbrush. Even the wind has gone still.

  “Wait,” I whisper, motioning to the others. “Do you hear that?”

  “I don't hear anything,” Alma whispers.

  “Exactly.”

  Ezekiel motions us quiet, adding in an eye roll for good measure. “That's because we are close to the fence. The spikes are up ahead. Come on.”

  We move forward with a solemn caution. Spotting them through the branches, I reach for the knife at my belt. My gaze darts towards Alma who seems frustratingly relaxed. She looks up ahead between the trees, stepping forward and motioning for us to follow. One by one, the others take out their knives.

  The creatures are tangled against the fencing, three of them. Their feet step in place, struggling to move. The large spikes, roughly cut tree trunks, jut out of the ground at an angle and extend outward down the length of the fence from our location. The creatures make ghastly wheezing noises, low growls breaking the silence of the abandoned forest. Arms and legs flail, trying to move forward but hindered by the spikes jutting through their bloody torsos. However, the grizzly sound is not all I hear. Beyond the silence, the scrape of shuffling feet against the ground approaches through the trees. It is difficult to know how many.

  Ezekiel turns with a grin on his face and a flash in his eye. He jogs down the length of the fence until he arrives at one of the gates leading to the space between the fencing. The others follow, and I bring up the rear, unsure of what is to come next. The six of them snake throug
h the gate, doubling back. There is another gate on the outer layer of the fencing where they all gather. Ezekiel reaches for the handle.

  “Wait!” I call.

  Everyone turns towards me and I realize they cannot hear what I can hear.

  “Let me do it,” I say.

  “Why?” Alma says.

  “I have been out there most recently. I can handle them.”

  “We've been doing this for years,” Ezekiel says. “Besides, there are only three of them. I think we got this.”

  “There are more coming,” I say.

  “Even more reason why we should get these down and get out of the way,” he says, but a flicker of doubt drifts across his eyes. He pulls open the gate, the clank of the metal echoing through the trees. Ezekiel, Alma, and Travis move through the wall. The others hang back, knives ready and waiting to see if they are needed. The three of them each go to one of the struggling creatures. A quick jab in the temple and their bodies fall limp.

  Branches snapping, twigs breaking.

  We filter through the gate, everyone moving forward to lift the zombies off the spikes one by one. About five yards away is a large fire pit, and I realize right away what the purpose of it is. Everyone moves with lithe quickness, struggling little to lift the dead body weight off the spikes and dragging them across the ground to the pit.

  They arrive from the left, a different direction than expected. Twenty of them descend upon us, appearing from between the trees, gruesome specters of what was once human.

  “Get back now!” Ezekiel screams, the panic evident in his voice. He motions for everyone to get inside the fence. Travis stumbles, his foot catching on an errant tree root. Alma screams, whipping back to try and get him back to his feet. He struggles and collapses onto the ground, revealing an injured ankle. The creatures descend, right on top of them. Alma wraps her arms around his shoulders and they both squeeze their eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable.

  “Come on!” Ezekiel calls, holding the gate. “There's no time!”

  I grab Alma's knife, cast aside on the forest floor and leap forward, planting my feet between the two of them and the approaching monsters.