If anyone complained, I could say the gaps between the bars were too wide, and the creatures were able to slip through easily, and once the group was thin enough, it was even easier for them to get out of the cage.
9
During the first few days I spent watching the zombies in the shipping crates, I killed as many of the turned as I could. I disposed of the bodies by rolling them down the side of the cliff and into the water below. No one ever noticed.
I had no idea at that time what Dominic wanted the zombies for, but whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t strictly for training purposes, and anything I could do to hinder his plans, I would do it.
I also found it odd that Dominic gave me that job without any help or supervision. He was showing me something vital to his plans for Edge Burrow or perhaps Liberty Island, which I found strange considering, if I were him, I wouldn’t trust me. I’d made my opinion about him clear. I guessed he hoped that one of the creatures might get free and kill me.
Answers to some of my musings came three days later when Jasmine and a few other women approached me while I was working the farthest end of the yard. I was trying to empty one of the cattle trailers. I nearly gutted the woman who’d wrapped one arm around my waist and a hand around my mouth in an attempt not to startle me—I assumed.
“Don’t scream,” Jasmine said before I reacted.
“What the fuck?” I said when the woman let me go.
“I don’t think anyone is guarding you, but we didn’t want you screaming in surprise.”
“Not the best way to go about that. I nearly stabbed you. Whatever. What are you doing sneaking around here?”
“We need to talk.”
“About?”
“About Dominic.”
I’d learned from passing conversations that the people of Edge Burrow called Dominic King for no other reason than he wanted them to call him that. Most didn’t do so when they knew they were outside his line of hearing. Only those utterly terrified or devoted to him did all of the time.
“And how the son of a bitch needs to die?” I said, looking at each woman in turn and daring them to argue with me.
“Precisely,” Jasmine said, also glancing at the women with her.
All of them nodded in agreement.
“What do you have planned?” I said, leaning against a metal crate and causing the occupants to pound the inside in an attempt to get to me.
“Nothing that we think will work,” Jasmine said, looking defeated.
“Then why come to me?”
“We were hoping you could help us.”
“How? I haven’t been here long enough to know anything about Dominic, and I’m stuck out here every day. I’ve seen very little of the town or its inhabitants. I barely know my way from my home to here.”
“And here is key.”
“How so?”
“We think whatever he intends to do with these creatures is our best chance of getting to him.”
“Do you know what he’s planning?” I asked.
“Not exactly, but we think it involves the bridge and Liberty. Sonia says she’s heard a rumor that he’s working with some people on the island to lower the bridge.”
“What does that have to do with the zombies?”
“We don’t know. All we know is that the crates start at the opening to the maze. The maze leads to the bridge. We need you to keep your eyes and ears open to everyone who drops off a crate. Let us know if you discover anything. If Dominic makes the slightest change out here, we need to know about it,” Jasmine said.
“I can do that, but the people rarely say anything in my presence. I’m sure that is on purpose.”
“Well, see if you can sneak up on a conversation,” she said. As she did so, she regarded our surroundings as if she were looking for places for me to hide. Her gaze fell on a scattering of the dead undead that I hadn’t yet rolled into the water.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s on me. The first day they showed me this place, I figured Dominic had something unpleasant planned for these things, so I’ve been killing as many as I can before he could use them. More arrive every day, so I haven’t made much of a dent in their numbers, but that doesn’t stop me.”
“Good thinking.”
Our group walked the yard, looking at the maze and the stockpile of zombies, and talked a bit longer, but with no firm grasp on Dominic’s plan, we couldn’t make one of our own. We figured that we’d just have to wing most of it once the time came—if it happened before we could discover more information.
I’d hoped Jasmine and Charlotte’s group would meet every day so that we could stay up to date on what each of us knew, especially since I knew nothing, but they didn’t. I had so many questions. What time I had in the afternoons after I cleaned up from a day of braining zombies, afforded me little time to explore the city or talk to the residents. Our schedules never allowed for another meeting, though.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
10.
Every morning, a car would pick me up around eight. The driver would take me to the shoreline and drop me off before returning around six in the afternoon to take me home. The person behind the wheel never said a word about how bloody and dirty I was each day. The driver had to mention my appearance to Dominic or someone in charge, but if he or she did, no one inquired as to what I was doing.
My actions didn’t matter. My work along the shoreline didn’t seem to make a difference in the town. I suspected that Dominic gave me the job to keep me out of the town proper where I couldn’t talk to anyone and to keep me busy.
I’d barely been in Edge Burrow a week when the bridge came down. I wasn’t sure what was happening at first. I was doing my job—the one Dominic assigned me and the one I gave myself. I was further down the row of containers and away from the center of Edge Burrow than I’d ever been.
Each day, a group of scavengers would bring in another truckload of zombies, setting the container down at the end of the row. Helping the group herd the creatures into their crates wasn’t part of my job description, so I didn’t volunteer to assist them, nor did the people dropping off the cargo ask me to do anything. I was just supposed to make sure the dead stayed in the crates once they were there.
The morning the bridge came down, I’d noticed that someone moved some of the crates closer to the entrance to the cattle maze that led to the mouth of the bridge. A second change was the extra guards patrolling the area. The guards gave me a cursory glance when my driver dropped me off, but nothing more.
I hurried away from the people with guns, wishing I had a radio to contact Charlotte to let her know what was happening. Wanting to be as far out of the people’s sight as possible and hoping that I’d be able to sneak away to find one of the women, I’d started patrolling the farthest group of crates. I also hoped that I would hear something from anyone dropping off new zombies.
One of the guards might have answered me had I inquired as to what was going on, or he or she might have gone straight to Dominic to tell him that I was nosing around where I shouldn’t. I hadn’t been in Edge Burrow long enough that any action out of the ordinary wouldn’t appear suspect, so I hadn’t bothered. I wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
A few times during outings around town, I’d tried to help a slave—that’s what became of the women that didn’t fight in the arena—but their owners had lashed out and drawn attention to me. For the first few days, Dominic could chalk my behavior up to learning the way of the city, but not after that.
Eventually, I’d stopped helping, but I’d started keeping notes on who I’d have to kill after Dominic to prevent the town from continuing in the man’s footsteps. Every man who willingly owned a slave was on the list.
I’d kept my search for Jeremiah or other children as discrete as possible, but Charlotte had been right. I never saw a sigh on a child. I did see a pregnant woman, but she’d been so battered and bruised that I hadn’t dared ap
proach her on the chance her master was nearby.
At the first metal on metal sound of the bridge moving, I took off running toward the front of the cattle-yard. Charlotte met me half-way there and pulled me out of the guard’s line of sight.
“It’s starting,” she said.
“I gathered. I had no way of contacting you. Some of Dominic’s people moved the crates in the night, and there are guards when there previously hadn’t been. What’s the plan?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We haven’t been able to find out any more about Dominic’s intentions, just that it’s happening now. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens. A few of the townsfolk are making their way to the bridge where all the action is. Rumor has it that people will be crossing once it’s down. We need to see what he’s going to do to them and with all of these zombies first.”
“How many of the town’s people will be on this side of Edge Burrow today watching?”
“Most, I would assume.”
“Should we try to free some of the slaves whose masters aren’t watching them?” I asked as we made our way to her vehicle.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’ll be many in town who won’t have a guard.”
“Then we should go to the school first. Who’s on duty there?”
“Jasmine, still, and a few others.”
“All of them on our side?”
“Pretty much. Can you handle killing those that would stop us?” Charlotte asked me.
“I don’t know. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Where should we take the women?”
“I have no idea. The best we can do is to make sure the group has supplies and tell them to run. If we can kill Dominic, they just need to hide for a few days.”
“If we can’t kill him…”
“That isn’t an option. Dominic has to die. Do you understand me? You make it clear to all that we meet that the first person who gets an unobstructed shot at him has to take it even if it means their death. He and those like him cannot inherit this planet. We won’t survive.”
“I know. I understand.”
She looked doubtful, but I knew when the time arrived to do what needed doing, she’d come through.
Charlotte drove like a bat out of hell to the school where all the women who weren’t members of Edge Burrow still resided. No one flagged us down. No one followed us. I imagined that Dominic had most, if not all, of his people at the bridge poised for whatever it was he was about to do.
The way we flew into the parking lot of the school, I figured Jasmine, at the very least, would have rushed out to greet us, but no one did. No one peaked out of a window to see about the commotion. No one fired upon us. The school sat still. I knew the second we exited the car that it was empty.
“Shit,” I said. “Do you think Dominic had his people do something with them?”
“I wouldn’t think so. Hopefully, Jasmine took advantage of the situation and moved them.”
Cautiously, in case the school was a trap, we cased the entire grounds but found no signs of life.
Next, we went to the storage unit to see if the supplies were still there. They weren’t. That was a good sign. We just wished we knew where the women had gone.
“What do you suggest we do now?” Charlotte asked.
“I guess we go back to town. Our original, tentative plan still holds. Find the others. See if we can get some of the slaves the hell out of town before their masters miss them. We also need to stop Dominic from doing whatever the hell he’s planning.”
We tried to move through Edge Burrow as inconspicuous as possible. All the people we met were regular citizens—ones that only somewhat knew what was going on behind the scenes of the town. They weren’t guards. They didn’t own slaves. They merely existed in the city. There weren’t many of them. Nearly all were out and wondering what was happening at the bridge.
Charlotte and I told them what we knew, which wasn’t much, and hinted that they might want to hide or better yet leave town. I don’t know if they took us at our word or not. We didn’t stick around to find out.
None of our operatives, the best term I could think of for them, were home. The slaves on my list to save were also missing.
“What do we do now?” Charlotte asked as we looked at the empty skyline where the bridge had been.
“Go back to the maze. Let’s see what we can find out about the bridge and if those people from the island have made it across. Maybe everyone is there, and we’ve been worried for nothing.”
To keep from drawing attention to ourselves, we drove back to where we’d initially been and walked toward the maze and the front of the bridge from there. The zombies along the shoreline were in a frenzy. They knew something we didn’t. The closer we got to the bridge, the more nervous I grew.
“Charlotte. Tera,” someone half-whispered half-hissed from my left before I got too close to the action.
We stopped and looked around for the noise.
“Over here,” the voice said. That time I registered that it was female.
I looked to my right behind a row of boxcars to see a hand waving at us. Jasmine’s head popped around the corner just long enough for us to see it was her. She looked awful.
We ran to her to find that she was with a few others from our group. All looked like hell.
“We’ve been looking for you,” I said, taking in their appearance.
“A group of Dominic’s men came for us early this morning. We’d already moved the supplies to a safe house along with some of the more mobile women, but somehow they knew about it as well. We put up a fight, but they took them anyway.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The bridge. Dominic is using the people who crossed as zombie bate, and if they aren’t enough, he’s going to use the women from the school and some of the slaves,” Jasmine answered.
“That’s where they all are, then. Shit,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“What are we going to do?” a woman, whose name I couldn’t remember, asked.
“We’re going to put a stop to this. That’s what we’re going to do,” I said.
11.
“You have a plan?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, you ladies aren’t going to like it, though, and the chances of us surviving are slim. Hell, most of those women are probably already dead, but we have to try to save them, right?” I said.
The group looked at me, then around at each other as if to ask, do we really? I couldn’t blame them. My idea sucked. I wanted to run, to hide, to escape to the west, and forget that I’d ever run into Charlotte, discovered Dominic, and wanted to see Edge Burrow.
“We have to try,” Jasmine finally said.
The other women reluctantly nodded in agreement.
“All right. Jasmine, where did you take the supplies for the school?” I asked.
“An abandoned farmhouse about an hour’s drive north of where we were,” she said.
“Good. Do we know where we can find working vehicles for each of us?”
“Most of us have one of our own, and they’re parked nearby,” Charlotte said. “There’s also a garage near the arena that should have some if we can’t find one between here and there. Why?”
“I want you and a few of the women to start escorting people out of town. The start of the maze is just up ahead. Two others, who don’t know the town well, and I, will cause a distraction, which might enable some to escape while Dominic’s men are preoccupied. We’ll kill a few guards and let loose some zombies if we have to.”
“You’re going to let those things out of their crates?” someone asked.
“If I have to,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
“But they won’t go after just Dominic and his closest followers. They’ll come after us all,” the woman replied.
“Then, we’ll have to move quickly,” Jasmine said, “and hope that most of the zombies follow the maze to the bridge.”
“We’ll try to keep the letting loose of the zombies as a last resort, but they may be our only way of stopping Dominic’s people. Too many of them obey Dominic for us to kill every one of them by ourselves. Just focus on getting the slaves and anyone who wants out of this mess away,” I said.
Others added their fears to the conversation.
“Look, we’ll do what we can, but we have to do something to draw attention away from the rest of you. Get to the entrance of the bridge. I’m betting that’s where the slaves are. Do your best to free as many as you can. Kill any of Dominic’s people that get in your way. We don’t need a single one of those assholes surviving this. Once you have enough people to fill a car, someone takes that group to the farm. Jasmine, give everyone directions.”
“But we don’t know what’s going on, not really,” a woman said.
“No, we don’t. But we’re positive it isn’t good. It can’t be. If on the off chance we’re panicking for nothing, then fine, but using someone for bait rarely ends well. I mean, we could waste more time trying to figure things out, but I’d rather not, considering these men need to die. Today is as good a day as any. If you aren’t up for this, go. I won’t stop you. You can go to the farm or anywhere else, but I can promise you that Edge Burrow won’t be safe for any of us if Dominic survives.”
“I’m staying,” the first protester said, though she didn’t look happy.
More than a few nodded in agreement.
“Good. Let’s move. Spread out if you can. Stay quiet.”
The group nodded. We separated and moved toward our assigned destinations.
The two women with me said their names were Sonia and Caroline. Neither had been at Edge Burrow very long. Both looked terrified. I felt horrible for leading them to what was undoubtedly their deaths, but they’d volunteered.
We weren’t far from our destination. We were also lucky enough not to have to be too stealthy because the moans of the dead were so loud they drowned out all other sounds. As we approached the entrance, we saw rows upon rows of empty crates. A thousand or more zombies must have crossed into Liberty at that point. The island was large. I prayed that anyone still there would be able to hide from the horde.
Shore Haven (Short Story 4): Welcome To Edge Burrow Page 5