by Lori Whitwam
Rebecca, who always observed and analyzed every detail of her surroundings, studied the gathering for a moment. “Twenty-five. We’re all here.”
I decided to take her word for it. According to the announcement, there were twenty on our team, and five alternates. I recognized most of the faces present, though I only knew a handful of them very well.
The three of us stood together near one of the remaining stacks of lumber and watched as Marcus Sharpe, our team leader, jumped up to take his position on top of the improvised stage. A solidly-built man of around forty, his close-cropped dark hair had touches of white at the temples. I knew him fairly well in his capacity as a patrol captain, and had been on runs with him myself. I didn’t know a lot about his life before the outbreak, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had included military service. He’d been good to Quinn, I remembered, and that was enough to make me feel satisfied with his role in our team.
Marcus raised his hands to quiet the conversations going on among the small crowd. “Welcome to fallback team three.” He was clearly trying to sound official and serious, but I was sure I detected a glint of excitement in his eyes.
Beside me, Rebecca snorted. “Sounds like a shitty action movie title, don’t it?”
It kind of did.
Marcus swept his gaze over his team. “I’ll hit the highlights first. Number one, some of you might’ve reconsidered since you signed up yesterday morning. And that’s fine. It’s a big decision. If you changed you mind, maybe because someone close to you didn’t make the list, or because you thought it through and came to a different decision, just say so. This ain’t something anybody’s being forced to do, and there’s no shame in stepping out of your place in the team.” A few people shuffled uneasily, but his voice held no amount of condescension. He was very direct and pragmatic.
While Marcus paused to see if anyone had anything to say, a hand slowly raised toward one edge of the crowd. I recognized Roger Boggs, a young guy I’d served with on patrol a couple of times. I thought his job involved the motor pool, or something else mechanical. I didn’t know him well. Marcus nodded, indicating he could speak.
Roger glanced around, nervous, before clearing his throat. “I want to go, Marcus. I do. But…um, Frannie didn’t get picked, and…” His voice trailed off, and he hung his head.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Marcus said. “I told you, I told everybody, no shame in not going. You’re a helluva mechanic, Roger, and you’ll be valuable here. That’s what I got this here list of alternates for.” He held up the paper and spoke to all of us. “Volunteer only, people. Got it?”
Roger nodded, looking slightly better, raised a hand in farewell to Marcus, and left the meeting area.
Marcus studied the list a moment, then seemed to arrive at a decision. “Okay, then. Looks like the alternate with skills closest to Roger is…” He took another quick glance at the paper. “Daisy Simmons, come on down!” he said in his best Price is Right imitation. There was a round of chuckles, and a girl with a blonde ponytail sprouting from the top of her head stepped forward. She was absolutely glowing with pride. Looking at the gender mix of our bunch, I was pleased to have at least one more female on the team.
While Marcus was filling the vacancy left by Roger, Melissa had drifted a short distance from my side and was whispering excitedly with Faith Campbell. Faith’s mother, Jocelyn, was also part of the team, and I assumed she’d be managing our kitchen, since she’d been a key figure in the Compound’s kitchen from the beginning. Faith was also seventeen, so she and Melissa were close friends. I was thrilled the two girls wouldn’t be separated.
My attention was pulled from Melissa and her friend by a sharp finger-poke to my ribs. I turned to find Theo grinning at me. “Hey, Hale, glad to see we get to keep working together.”
“Me too, Theo.” I gave him a nudge with my shoulder. I truly was happy to see him. He’d taught me to fight, and he was a good friend. Sometimes I thought he hoped for something more, and I couldn’t say I hadn’t given it some thought, but the ghost of Quinn hovered between us, making us both uncertain.
It was soon time to get back to business. “Anybody else?” Marcus asked. “No? Well, the plan is to leave in three days. We’ll be organizing and doing a little training until then, but if you change your mind at any point, just say so. We had plenty of volunteers, and if you feel better about working here instead of…somewhere else, that’s the way it’ll be.”
“Where we gonna be headed?” The deep, gravelly voice belonged to Neil Richmond, the fiftyish man in charge of the livestock. I knew him from Melissa’s work there. And I blamed him for the goats.
Marcus nodded to acknowledge the question before dropping to sit on the edge of the platform. “That’s the thing, Neil. The council knows where the teams are going, and the team leaders know where their team is going. But other than the two escorts accompanying each group, nobody else gets to know until we’re on the road.”
There were murmurs and grumbles all around, and I glanced at Rebecca, who shrugged. I guessed it made sense. If the teams knew now, it was a sure thing the whole Compound would know before lunch. The fewer people who were aware of the location of the fallback points, the less chance the information could fall into the hands of the enemy, either through a spy or a captured resident.
“Then how do we know what to pack up?” Neil asked.
“We’ll be discussing that here in a minute. But first—” Whatever Marcus had been about to say was interrupted by a bell ringing from the east gate, signifying an attack.
Everybody froze, listening to the pattern of the bell’s peals. The number and timing of the rings told us what we were facing. After a moment, I mentally decoded the alarm to indicate a moderate swarm of zombies, single location.
Marcus had apparently interpreted the signal too, and barked into the walkie-talkie he pulled from his belt. “All posts, I have a team in the vicinity. We’ll cover it.” He re-holstered the device and turned to us. “All right, boys and girls, let’s clean up this mess and get back to business. Meet back here one hour after the all-clear.”
“About fuckin’ time.” Rebecca whipped her sword out of the sheath on her back. She’d been inside the walls for nearly a week since her last patrol, and she had a lot of pent-up aggression to unleash.
I drew my machete. “Melissa,” I said, calling her attention to me. “You and Faith stay up on the wall. Be our eyes.” The girls could fight, if they had to. Anyone who went outside the walls had to be able to defend themselves. Melissa had a hatchet with a modified longer handle, and she was a pretty good shot with an arrow. But within the Compound, there was no need for them to be put at risk. If the swarm turned out to be more than we could handle, there were plenty of seasoned fighters within shouting distance.
We raced to the east gate, while Melissa and Faith clambered up the ladder to the guard tower. The two men currently on watch brought us up to speed. “Forty or fifty,” one told us. “Came from the logging road on the north side of the clearing, not moving fast, but clustered tight and coming steady.”
Marcus gave a terse nod, and we were out the gate, which was secured behind us. We fanned out before the advancing zombies, automatically pairing off with fighters we knew. Rebecca and I drifted to the right, angled slightly away from each other to widen our collective range of vision.
“We got this,” my partner said confidently, tucking her braid down the back of her shirt and giving her sword a practice swing.
This pack of zombies was a mixed one. There were some that seemed—for lack of a better word—fresher, and those moved a little faster than the ones with more wear and tear on their bodies. Funny how missing a foot or having a knee bent the wrong way slowed you down, even if you were already dead.
I selected my first target, a woman with half her scalp missing, and the remaining strands of steel-colored hair trailing down over the shoulder of a tattered and gore-encrusted knit poncho. I didn’t think the garment had been stylish
even when its owner was alive. Gave a whole new meaning to “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that.” I swung my machete, putting an end forever to her final fashion faux pas.
I was methodical, stepping around fallen corpses and acquiring target after target, but Rebecca was a whirlwind. Her sword flashed again and again, and the zombies in our section were soon eliminated.
My eyes sweeping the battlefield, I saw Theo about thirty feet to our left. He seemed to have misplaced his battle-buddy, and had his hands full with five zombies, all of which seemed determined to put him on their lunch menu. We moved over to join the fight.
“Thanks,” he panted between swings of his machete. He had enormous upper body strength and preferred a weapon resembling a broadsword, but it was too big to be practical to haul around unless he knew he was headed into battle.
“Where’s your buddy?” I asked, dispatching a formerly middle-aged man in a striped golf shirt. Black, rotted blood burst from the top of his ruined skull.
Theo jerked his head toward far side of the field. “Few more came out of the trees. Sent him over to assist.” Rebecca leaned over a fallen—but not yet permanently dead—zombie at her feet. She plunged the point of her sword into its eye until we heard it grind against the back of the skull. She jerked the blade free and glanced around. “Looks about done here,” she commented.
She was right. But as I scanned the area where Theo had sent his partner, things weren’t going so well. I heard Melissa shout, “More coming, over there!”
I looked where she was pointing. Yeah, we should go help, but I wasn’t sure we’d be in time. I saw three men, one of whom was Theo’s partner, almost surrounded. We watched the drama unfold as we ran.
A tall, thin young man was swinging wildly with a spiked bat, but there were three zombies focused on him. Theo’s partner and another man were helping hold them off when they could, but they had attackers of their own to take down.
We were still a good forty feet away when the guy caught a foot on something in the grass and went down. Adrenaline flooded my system, and my sprint kicked up a notch. Theo’s partner saw the other fighter’s dilemma and whirled to come to his aid. He took down two deadlies with consecutive blows of his hatchet. When the hatchet slipped from his grasp, he let it go and drew a dagger from his belt, but then seemed to stumble. He staggered, fighting for balance, but there was a zombie body in the way, and he fell. I watched in horror as he braced his arms for the impact, but his dagger led the way and embedded itself deeply in the thigh of the guy on the ground.
The young man let out a howl, and Theo’s partner scrambled to his feet, pulling the weapon from its fleshy sheath and turning to face the remaining zombies, which were closing in.
“No!” shouted Theo. “What are you doing? You don’t pull it out!”
His friend swung, puncturing one zombie’s skull, then turned to face Theo. “What? Oh. Oh god!” He looked down to where the other man was curled on the ground, hands clutching at the wound on his thigh, blood gushing between his fingers.
Theo arrived at the scene and pointed to me and Rebecca with his free hand, then toward the remaining fight. “Go!”
We went, while he knelt beside the man writhing in the grass.
Luckily, the rest of the team had things well in hand, and in a few minutes we had eliminated the last straggler. We ran back to Theo and the injured man. He was being lifted, one arm over Marcus’ shoulder and the other over Theo’s. Theo’s partner had the uninjured leg, and Davey, one of our best hunters, held the other. They carried him in a semi-reclining position across the field. An Asian man—I thought his name was John—was running alongside, one hand clamped tightly over the bloody wound.
We all reached the wall and were met by Vincent Mills, the doctor assigned to our team. He’d been left at the gate, because while we could train almost anyone in any skill, doctors were an exception. We didn’t have the facilities or resources, let alone the time, to teach anyone what an experienced doctor already knew, so doctors were protected at all costs. He directed the men toward a tarp someone had spread in the shade of a pair of oak trees, his medical bag already placed nearby.
Dr. Mills and his assistant Lisa quickly cut away the leg of the man’s jeans and went to work. “Nice job,” he said to John. “How’d you know to pinch off that artery?”
John shrugged. “Not the first wound I’ve seen.”
“Well, you probably saved his life,” the doctor said, sweat beading on his mahogany skin.
Meanwhile, Theo’s partner was hovering. “God, oh hell, Isaac,” he said to the injured man. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking! I mean, I fell, but I pulled it out. There were more of them, and…Man, I shouldn’t have done it that way. You could’ve died.”
He was right, but I couldn’t say I blamed him. When zombies were closing in, intent on ripping out your guts, the only thought was to get your hands on a weapon. If he hadn’t armed himself, even though it risked Isaac’s life, they might have both been dead before Theo, Rebecca, and I could reach them.
Theo still looked pissed, but he clapped the leg-stabber on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Gil. There wasn’t a good choice there.” He glanced at me, and I saw he was trying to settle his emotions. “We were too far away, so you had to do what you had to do.”
Gil pushed long, sweaty black hair back from his face, undid the tie at the back of his neck, and re-secured the whole mess. “I know. I guess. But, man, I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, but Isaac feels worse, so suck it up.” Apparently Theo had exhausted his daily supply of sympathy.
Marcus rose from where he’d been kneeling by Isaac and the doctor. “All right, everybody. Show’s over. Good work out there.” He paused to catch Gil’s attention, then gave him a nod, including him in his praise. “Doc’s got things under control here, and Isaac’ll be fine. Go clean up, and be back at the meeting place in an hour.”
Dismissed.
I turned to go and met up with Melissa as she descended the ladder from the tower. “You were great out there,” she said.
“Gee, don’t sound so surprised.” It had been over a year since I began learning to fight, but it still seemed like a novelty to Melissa.
She snorted, and I went to put my arm around her, but she darted away. “Ew, no. You reek.”
The rush of the fight fading, I realized she was right. I looked at Rebecca, who only smirked and headed toward the house. I took a tentative whiff, then exhaled and decided breathing through my nose was not an option for a while. The oily, rancid stench of the dead coated the inside of my sinuses and clung to the sweat on my skin like wet tissue paper.
I knew what had to be done. We’d heat the water in one of our rain barrels and use the manual pump to hose off the stink. We wouldn’t have time to get the water hot, but we could at least take the chill off. I pointed at Melissa. “You’re on pump duty.”
She fanned her hand in front of her nose. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Fifty-five minutes later, we were back at the former lumberyard near the east gate. Rebecca’s hair was tightly braided again, but mine hung loose and drippy down my back. I wasn’t fresh as April sunshine, but if I didn’t breathe in too deeply, I’d do.
The atmosphere of the team was crackling with residual energy from our fight. I flexed my shoulders, still hot and sore from swinging my machete, and let my gaze wander over the people around me. They were now, for all practical purposes, my family. We would depend on each other for everything in the coming days…possibly even years. I knew the council had made sure we had a wide range of skills and talents, but we were a physically diverse bunch as well. Melissa and Faith, at seventeen, were the youngest, and Neil Richmond was the senior member of the team. Cooper Merriweather, the brother of Dr. Vincent’s assistant Lisa, was perhaps nineteen, and an exceptional woodsman. His skill with hunting and fishing had carried the communal kitchen through some lean times in the pas
t. Patrick Gough, one of the construction and woodworking crew, might be twenty. We were black, white, Hispanic, and Asian…a regular post-apocalyptic United Nations.
While it was a nice feeling, none of it mattered. What did matter was how we could contribute to building a new home and keeping each other safe.
Marcus resumed his spot on the platform and called for attention. “I want to commend everyone on your teamwork today. I know a lot of you haven’t fought together before, but you jumped to the challenge. Yes, we had an injury, but how you responded to it showed me we chose the right people for this group.” He paused as some of the team nodded and nudged each other in affirmation. “Isaac will be fine, but he’s going to be laid up for at least a few weeks. We can’t wait for him, so his spot will be reassigned.” He scanned the faces of the remaining alternates, who were clustered together toward the rear. “Gil Traynor. You’ve been working with Isaac and Fitz on the radio and communications setup, so you’re in.” I guessed this meant Isaac had been our radio specialist.
Gil’s head snapped up, a look of shock in his odd gold-brown eyes, and he began to sputter. “Me? But…it was my fault. How can…?”
Marcus cut him off. “Isaac got injured. That happens in a battle. You continued to address the threat, and when it was eliminated, you assisted in getting your teammate evacuated and back to the wall. You’re in.” His tone said there would be no further discussion on the subject.
There was some shuffling of feet and a few mutters, but Gil was now part of fallback team three, and that was that.
“We leave at eight in the morning, three days from now. You have that long to decide what you’re taking, and to handle personal business. You’re no longer scheduled for any duties within the Compound, other than responding if we come under attack again. We’ll train from eight to ten and four to six the next two days.” He stopped to grab a water bottle and was bombarded with questions.