by Mike Staton
He didn’t say a word, just thrust his bat into Hope’s hands and took her place in carrying the stretcher.
By the time they’d arrived at the farmhouse, a tall, lean young man had stepped out onto the porch. He wore an army ROTC dress uniform with Colonel bars on his lapel. He filled the uniform nicely, and wore a pistol on his hip. His dark hair was shorn in the military high and tight. His eyes looked slightly sunken, and Percival immediately wondered when he last had a good night’s sleep.
“Ian,” Percival said.
“Colonel Pull, preferably Mister Polz. Is Mister Slowell with you?” Ian nodded to another Watchmen member. “Mister Goddell, take Dan to the infirmary.”
The young man took the stretcher handles from Percival and moved away toward one of the tents set up in a portion of fenced in yard.
“Karl’s not with us,” Percival said when Ian’s gaze returned to him. “He didn’t make it back.”
A darkness passed over Ian’s features, and almost immediately vanished as he collected himself. “Unfortunate… Are you all there is?”
Hope stepped forward. “There’s 15 more of us on the way. A handful, skeleton crew really, remained behind in Prosperity Wells.”
“Did someone find… I’m being incredibly rude. There’s much to talk about, but the front porch is hardly the place to do it. Richard, if you, the other parents and your kids would like to relax, there’s a small recreation area in the back of the house. We’ll have to set up more sleeping areas in the barn tonight though.” Ian gestured to the side. “I assume that Dan is your sole injured?”
“Not sole.” Percival tugged his jacket and shirt aside to show the edge of his bandages. “We can talk about it more in private.”
Ian gave a brisk nod. “This way.”
The young man led the way into the farmhouse. The front door opened to a short, but efficient, hallway that also provided a stairwell to access the second floor. An open doorway led into a dining room, repurposed for briefings it looked like, and was opposite an open doorway to a kitchen.
Further down the hallway another pair of doors on either side led away into a living room and a closed door. The hallways terminated in a door directly opposite the front door and lead out into a back yard.
Ian led them halfway between the front pair of doors and the back and depressed a panel of the wall beneath the stairwell. It slid back and to the side. The hidden door blended so smoothly with the wood paneling of the wall that had it not been opened for him, Percival would have missed it entirely.
The stairwell beyond the secret door contrasted with the warm, friendly feel of the farmhouse. Instead of pleasant, wood paneled walls, the stairwell was built of slate, grey and bare concrete. The stairs that’d led upward were a rich mahogany while these were utilitarian metal.
Both portions of the building served a purpose. The one above was a home, the one below was a shelter.
Ian led the way down into the darkness. He flipped a switch on the wall and half a second later a series of fluorescent overhead lights flickered to life revealing semi-domed structure that, while cramped, still felt spacious.
The space before him was clearly meant for a main living space. It held a utilitarian, wooden dining table, set with a map of the area instead of dishes, and a small relaxation zone with a couch and flatscreen television mounted to a metal wall. The floor was unfinished concrete with rugs laid out to add splashes of color, or a sense of softness to the room. One wall bulged out into a small kitchenette with a stove, fridge, and sink. Wooden cabinets hung from the wall over the limited stone counter space. A range hung over the stove while a microwave sat atop the fridge.
Two other doorways, on opposite walls, lead deeper into the compound that lay hidden beneath the farm. Kat hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that old man Glover was a prepper.
“Holy shit,” Hope muttered.
“We coopted it for our base of operations for now. It won’t last, unfortunately. We moved too much of the nonperishable supplies away from here and into the town itself.” Ian walked to the table. Percival remembered that day. Karl had been nonspecific as to where his Watchmen had found the cache.
Atop the table was a map of Prosperity Wells. Atop the map were several utensils, knives and forks, and a handful of salt and pepper shakers. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the utensils and shakers represented entities in the town like some old war map.
“What I need most from you, since Mister Slowell isn’t with you, is information. We can do our job, but only with information. Let’s start with who found you and where.” Ian pushed a salt shaker into Percival’s hand.
“Kat Holter.” Percival studied the map for a moment. It took him longer than he wanted to clear the cobwebs around his mind to find Brown College. He put the salt shaker down. “Here.”
“And the status of the town there?” Ian gave no indication of whether or not he was glad to hear that Kat still walked among the living.
“Town’s a shit storm.” Hope reached out and flicked the salt shaker over. “It’s dangerous. Worse than before we cleared it.”
Ian stared at the map, crossed his arms over his chest for a moment. He reached out and swapped the salt shaker for a pepper shaker. “Where were you holed up and is Corporal Holter remaining behind to help secure it?”
“She’s escorting survivors here.” Percival put the salt shaker on the Community Center. “Lillard Wolf is leading the securing effort here.”
“You’ve mentioned the dead. Any sign of the living? To be honest, had you and Dan not been riding atop that Humvee, you might have been shot on sight.”
“Signs of fighting, but nothing remaining in the town that I saw. But I only got there yesterday.”
Ian nodded.
“We didn’t see anyone.” Hope looked at Percival. “Some of us didn’t even believe that we’d been attacked by something other than a giant horde.”
“Something drove them into us. We couldn’t figure out why our distraction techniques and divertin… Someone attacked us and hit us hard. They had military hardware, but that’s a story for another time.” Ian straightened. “I’m still waiting for reports to come in from my other scouts.”
“Do you have a plan?” Percival asked.
Ian was silent for a long moment. He looked up at them. “Of course I have a plan. I’m not some four star with his nuts in his hand.”
“Good. Winter’s coming and this place, as awesome as it is, won’t house 30 people. Much less 40 or 50 if you’ve more Watchmen than I’ve seen.” Percival straightened as well. He reached into his jacket and took out his AAA map. “May I?”
Ian nodded.
Percival unfolded and spread the map out over the tactical map of Prosperity Wells. “I saw some pretty fucked up shit out there. Especially in the last few weeks before my return, but it ain’t all bad. And we can finish this out strong.”
Ian nodded. “Go on. Is there another commune out there that’s willing to help?”
Percival blinked a couple of times at Ian. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the man seemed to be hiding something. After a moment, he shook the thoughts out of his head. “I’m sure there is, I just didn’t come across it. A lot of places are abandoned. A lot of places have left behind stuff we can use to get through the harsh winter, but we’ll have to rely on ourselves to do it.”
“You’re talking in circles. Start in the beginning and tell us what’s out there. Do you know who hit us?” Ian asked.
“Yeah. I have an idea.” Anger flared in Percival’s gut and he tamped it down. He funneled his efforts into recalling his extended scouting trip with his friends from campus. “A week into our excursion we met this kid, Evan, tough as nails and final survivor of his group that’d gotten cornered…”
* * *
“I don’t want to walk through the woods any more. The brambles hurt and the twigs trip me up,” Heidi whined.
Kat ignored the complaint. It wasn’t the f
irst, and she was certain it wasn’t the last. She’d already taken to ignoring the questions concerning whether or not they were going in the right direction.
Across country, and she knew this path almost like the back of her hand, would cut their travel from 15 miles to 10 or so. Even if the terrain was rougher. She just wished she hadn’t had to break her pace down to a quarter of what it normally was.
Maybe she was being unfair, it was a third. She let out an exasperated sigh. This was another reason she preferred to work alone. Or with her spotter, Yulia. She licked her lips and swept her gaze around. Cutting across country, which included a fair portion of hiking through forest, meant a shorter distance. But it also meant that there were times when visibility was extremely limited.
And the 15 people following her were noisy as all hell. Hadn’t anyone taught them to step lightly and carry a big stick? Apparently not.
“Why’re we sitting here, waiting?” Cooper asked. Cooper was one of the more tolerable people around. Bright enough to know when to keep his mouth shut, pretty enough to look at when it wasn’t. This particular moment fell into the latter category.
“I’m trying to listen for zombies, or bad guys, or other survivors, or even other Watchmen,” Kat explained. She didn’t waste more breath on the matter. She figured it’d go over, or more likely, through his head.
She rose out of her crouch and continued the walk. She cradled her rifle across her front. She was ready to make use of the weapon at a moment’s notice.
A part of her missed the comforting weight of her sidearm, but that was in the hands of her rearguard.
Her rearguard. She shook her head. She wasn’t a leader, she wasn’t supposed to have a rear guard. She was a follower, a tool to be used; a scalpel to be used to excise tumors or other unwanted elements.
“What?” Cooper asked. He fell into step beside her. “Something wrong?”
“Not precisely.” Kat paused midstep, raised her rifle for a moment, and decided she’d seen a squirrel dart up a tree. Lots of things were wrong, but she didn’t want to complain to Cooper about it. “We’re just not making as good time as I’d prefer and I’d rather we make it out there today rather than tonight or tomorrow.”
He nodded once and turned around. He cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a holler. “Everyone! Pick up the pace. At this rate, it’ll be next week before we’re there.”
“Liar.” Irritation bloomed within her for the noise he’d just made.
“Today’s Sunday. Next week is tomorrow.” Cooper stuck his tongue out at her.
She noticed that the rest of the survivors in her charge had picked up the pace at his shout, and her irritation dissipated.
“Stop flirting.” Heidi let out a little huff.
“I wasn’t… He…” Kat muttered. She turned her back to the others and plowed ahead.
“Good job, Heidi. You flustered our guide.” Cooper moved to catch up with Kat.
She shook her head as he caught up with her. “I wasn’t flirting.”
“I know you weren’t. I was.” Cooper smiled at her.
Kat’s mouth split into a smile as well, but froze as she caught sight of movement behind the group. The sound of some cat coughing up something wet and sick echoed through the forest. She adopted her professional demeanor immediately. “Circle up.”
She’d not heard of the infection jumping species, but at this point, she’d not be surprised by it either. She just hoped that the beast were among the more advanced specimens. She didn’t want to contend with an animal, even a housecat, capable of springing around and spreading zombism with a bite.
The other survivors froze rather than circle with her. The lack of action annoyed her, enough to distract her from sweeping the woods for threats as the horrific, wet gurgle echoed through.
“Form up, everyone watch outward.”
“You heard the woman!” Cooper shouted. He tucked his shoulder against Kat’s and soon the rest of the civilians followed suit.
“What the hell is that?” Heidi asked.
Kat brought her rifle up, swept it in the direction that Heidi pointed. She was among the few with a firearm in the group.
A pallid man stood far enough that it was difficult to tell if he were dead or not. He didn’t have the telltale ashen quality to his flesh that the long-term dead took on, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t a member of the freshly turned either.
He wore a near immaculate long sleeved t-shirt and jeans, didn’t seem to have any outward injuries. Outside of blood splatter on his right sleeve…
He quivered, convulsed, and the wet gurgle echoed through the forest once more. The sound, combined with the crunch of shuffling footsteps on dry, dead leaves, sent shivers down Kat’s spine.
She let the ice sliding down her spine drop straight into her gut and cool her nerves. “He’s infected.”
She lined her rifle’s iron sights on the man’s forehead and watched him vomit a dripping red mass into his right hand. He cocked his arm back and whipped the globule through the air, right at Heidi.
Kat uttered a curse, depressed her trigger, and snapped her round right through the ghoul’s left eye. The sticky, red, wet mass slammed into Heidi’s face and drove her to the ground as she let out a blood curdling scream. She thrashed fingers clawing blood and chunks of fetid flesh from her face.
Kat ripped her attention from Heidi. The spitting freak hadn’t been alone. A small horde shambled past the fallen vomiter.
“Horde! Franklin, help Heidi. Everyone else, form up around them. Watch your faces, watch for flying goo.” Kat raised her rifle once more and put a bullet down range.
A zombie toppled to the earth. She sighted in on its friend and put it down with two pulls of her trigger. Downside to her .22 was that sometimes the bullet didn’t always get into the brainpan.
The deep boom of her sidearm joined her fire as the horde approached from a different direction. The sharp crack of a rifle cut through the din of combat.
“They’re over here too!” someone shouted.
“Keep calm! Get your weaponry out!” Cooper shouted.
“Heidi’s out!”
“Heidi’s dead!”
“Fuck!”
“I’m out!” The rifle shots ceased.
“Reloading!” The solid booms of her sidearm cut short.
The horde loomed closer. The bolt of her rifle snapped open.
“Reloading!” Kat shouted. She dropped the magazine out of her .22 and swiftly replaced it. Though not swift enough to get more than a single shot off before she shouted, “Facemasks and hand weapons!”
She fired once more and slung her rifle. Her hand-axe sprang from its sheath at her side. Her stomach turned a couple flips as the horde shambled closer. They’d thinned the numbers considerably, but not dispatched all of the mass of zombies. At least the dead didn’t outnumber the living in this encounter.
“Pick your targets, let them come to you!” It was training, basic and common sense, that every Watchmen member received. That and appropriate ways to swing a melee weapon of choice.
She took a deep breath, blew the stench of rotting, walking meat out of her nose and stepped into the first corpse.
She shoved it with her off-hand and ducked the grasping, outstretched arms. She repositioned herself and cracked her hand-axe into its temple. The wedge bit deep into the ghoul’s head and the hefty former man dropped into a pile at her feet. She wasted precious second wrenching her weapon from the corpse. A second later the chaos of combat encompassed the cluster of survivors as the fevered combat spread around their circle.
Those without masks clustered in the middle, those with them stood, surprisingly valiant, against the undead wave that crashed and broke.
Kat fought. Her hand-axe severed unfeeling fingertips with a swipe. It bit into a man’s face with the next swing. She danced away from a bulbous man with a distended stomach almost to the point of bursting. She lost her axe as she drove her hand-axe into the
side of his neck.
The next moment she found herself, paintball mask spattered with red, on her back struggling to breath beneath the mass of undead fat man. Her hands shoved against his neck, keeping the snapping jaws at bay. They threatened to slip at any moment from the wet, viscous matter weeping from the wound she’d caused. Her breaths came shallower and shallower. The damned bastard was going to smother her before ever getting his teeth into her.
This was how she died.
Her arms burned, weakened, and let the heavy bastard’s teeth drop an inch. All sound faded as she lost her grip and the zombie went limp. Its mass settled mutely atop her, still smothering her slowly as it pressed down on her chest.
She gasped, not enough air in her lungs to cry out for help as her world narrowed toward a pinprick.
The weight suddenly lifted and sweet, delicious air, flooded her lungs. Cooper and Tony finished rolling the fat bastard off her.
Kat rolled onto her side, and thrust herself onto hands and knees, drinking in precious oxygen.
The world exploded back to life and sound. Someone cried. Someone groaned in pain. Someone talked hurriedly. Someone let out a whoop of victory.
After the burn faded from her lungs, Kat forced herself back to a standing upright. She yanked her paintball mask up and surveyed the scene. She counted 12 heads upright. Were two people dead? There were easily that many dead zombies scattered around them as well. Losing people hurt, but they’d come out of this surprisingly well if only two had fallen.
“Report?” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat. “Who’s hurt?”
No one turned toward her. Cooper extended her hand-axe to her. He’d even wiped the gore from it.
“Hey, who’s in what state?” he shouted. Everyone turned at his booming baritone. He gestured to Kat and their gazes turned to her.
“We need to move quickly… our gunshots will pull more in this direction and we don’t want to be here when they get here.” Kat wiped blood and debris from her paintball mask. “Is anyone hurt?”
“Heidi’s…” A voice called from the cluster of survivors.