by Mike Staton
“I’ll keep that in mind. For now, however, I need you here. We don’t even know which way they went.” Ian started to turn away again, but paused. He pitched his voice lower, just for her. “I don’t think they should get away scotfree with this either. And you’ll be on my short list if I send people out to find them.”
It was more than what Kat could ask for.
Chapter 9
“OW!” Percival flinched away from the prodding probe of Doctor Claire Strand.
“I’m not even being that rough. Quit complaining, my usual patients never do.” Claire leaned back from his side.
“Isn’t your typical patient a dog or cat?” Percival grumbled. “Don’t get me wrong, Doc, but…”
“I’m more qualified to inspect your wounds than you were to stitch them up in the first place.” Claire stepped away from him. She turned her back and jotted down something on a notepad. She was a slender woman with little meat on her bones. She wore clothing slightly too large for her, a long dark coat, jeans, and baggy grey shirt, that left quite a lot to the imagination as for her body beneath. She kept her black, with shoots of grey, hair pulled into a high, tangled ponytail at the top of her head. Her narrow face accentuated her dark eyes that were ever so slightly far. She possessed long, delicate fingers perfect for plucking and poking at his tender wound.
“Kat said this was looking pretty gnarly couple days back.” Claire turned back to Percival. “Looks just about cleared up now.”
A few days had passed since Dan’s funeral. Life on the farm settled into a simple routine of rise, work, sleep. It was a quiet simplicity that he enjoyed.
“It was all red and puffy. You know, an infected bullet wound.” Percival looked over her shoulder and out the window as she poked at the wound again. He focused on not flinching away from her.
“I assume from the funny faces you’re making, this still hurts?” Claire smiled sweetly at him.
“I was shot. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.” He slammed his eyes closed to hold back tears as Sarah’s gasping face jumped to the forefront of his mind. “Can… Can we move on?”
He’d made such strides in the past few days. He’d not focused on the dead. He’d not thought of the people he’d lost. He’d lost himself to helping to rebuild. To plan. To survive.
A flash of anger zapped through him. The strong, almost irrepressible desire to go find Proxies’s cronies who’d killed his friends.
He’d also hung the destruction of Prosperity Wells on their shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Percival.” Claire’s gentle hand on his uninjured shoulder brought him up out of his fiery pit of anger. “Let’s get a better look at your shoulder.”
She stepped onto a stool and peered at his shoulder.
“Yup. Zombie bite.” Her light tone was almost as infectious as the virus the undead spread.
“Gee thanks. And here I was worried it might have been an ROUS.” Percival let the tension drain out of his body.
“ROUS?” She gently touched the area around his shoulder.
“Oh come on. You know. The Princess Bride. Rodents of Unusual Size?” Percival let out an exasperated sigh.
“Want the good news or the bad news?” Claire started reapplying bandages to his injuries.
“Give it to me straight, doc. Am I going to die?” Percival rolled his eyes. He already knew he was a dead man.
“Your bullet wound is healing nicely, all things considered. It would have been better to have it professionally stitched shut, but… Circumstances. I know.” She taped off the bandage and moved to cover both sides of his bullet wound with two separate patches. “Your bite looks like most other zombie bites I’ve seen. Devoid of infection and surprisingly clean. You’re lucky the zombie didn’t take a chunk out of you and just bit in and out.”
He nodded once. “Was that the good news or the bad news?”
“Good news. You’re healthy, all things considered. You’re healing as best as can be expected. You’re fit, though I wouldn’t recommend doing anything too strenuous with your shoulder. You do still have open wounds there and it wouldn’t do to aggravate them. I want you to check in with me over the next few days or weeks.” She didn’t need to add the obligatory ‘if you last that long.’ “Bad news: you’re infected. That’s a clear zombie bite, not some freak who was acting like a zombie. But you already knew that. You’re living on borrowed time.”
“Why am I feeling better then? No one feels better.” After a few days at the farm, he’d even started to think sharper.
Claire shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know. Call it a mixed blessing. Call it your unique body chemistry. Call it your stubbornness.”
“Thanks.” Percival didn’t quite feel better about the diagnosis. He’d approached Claire when she’d arrived with Veronica to hopefully get a better answer to why he felt better and less sick.
“You’re welcome, Percival.” She smiled at him, pulled her gloves off with a snap of latex and pitched them into a trashcan as he slid off the dining room table. “I know it goes without saying, but make the best of the time you’ve got.”
“You know I will.”
* * *
Kat raised her rifle slowly. She steadied herself against the tree, sighting down the iron sights at the bunny just a few yards away. The little grey and white beasty hadn’t noticed her. She was about to live up to her namesake by pouncing the critter with a leap of hot lead when her ‘hunting partner’ crashed through the underbrush to her right.
The bunny bolted and Kat lowered her rifle. “Damn it, Coop.” She muttered under her breath as it fogged in front of her.
“What’s the glare for?” Cooper stepped on another twig that let out an earth shattering crack through the silent forest.
“You spoiled fresh dinner. That’s what the glare’s for.” She slung her rifle.
“Oh? Sorry. What was it?” Cooper turned in nearly a full circle, looking for her prey.
“Rabbit. Was going to be rabbit. Trail for the deer went dead a while back and…” She stopped and shook her head. “You spoiled it. Spooked the little thing and prevented me from nabbing it.”
“I already said I’m sorry.” He shrugged.
“Yeah, yeah. I forgive your clumsiness and blundering. We might as well finish our circuit around the farm.” Kat turned to lead the way back to the semi-trail that’d been forged a couple miles out from the Glover Farmstead. Enough people had come in since the attack that establishing daily patrols had become a necessity for public morale.
She’d volunteered and been disappointed when she’d learned she wouldn’t be able to go out on her own. She’d been saddled with Cooper to show him the ropes and basics of a patrol for the Watchmen.
“I’m detecting some lingering annoyance and insincerity in your words.” Cooper shot a winning smile at her.
He certainly was pretty enough that the sparkling whites got him off the hook from costing them a fresh meat dinner. Almost. “Oh, I forgive you for making noise. I don’t forgive you for costing us dinner. What do you remember of making patrols?”
“Stick to the route. Which we haven’t. Stay quiet. Which I haven’t. And stay alert. Which I have.” Cooper counted off the ‘rules’ on his gloved fingers.
Kat nodded. “How can you say you’ve stayed alert?”
“I noticed you disappeared from the trail and which direction you’d gone.” Cooper smiled again at her.
“You should flip your mask back down.” She didn’t want the prettiness of his face to distract her again. “I hadn’t exactly hidden which way I went.”
He shrugged and pulled his tactical gas mask back into place. “Worried about me and my safety?”
“I’d prefer not to lose you to a spitter just because you were dicking around without your mask on.” She moved past him on the trail.
“So you do care.” Cooper turned to follow her.
“Are you flirting with me again?” She glanced over her shoulder at him.
She opened her mouth, closed it and turned back forward.
“Or would you prefer cheesy pickup lines like: If I told you you have a nice body, would you hold it against me?” She could hear the smirk in his tone.
She answered with a silent shake of her head.
“I’ve got others.”
“Any that actually worked?” She carefully stepped over a fallen log and paused.
“Once asked a chick if she had a mirror in her pants—“
Kat cut him off with one finger. “Hear that?”
“No…” His demeanor changed in an instant from flirty and friendly to serious and concerned.
She closed her eyes, slid an earplug out and listened. The rustle of wind through the trees and fallen leaves answered her. She remained silent and listening. She even reached out and laid a hand on Cooper’s muscular forearm to still him.
The soft, shuffling rustle of dragging footsteps through underbrush wound their way to her. She dropped into a crouch. She opened her eyes and looked at Cooper as she slid the earplug back into place.
“Someone walking with a dragging foot off…” She waved her hand in the direction of the sound and resettled her mask. She unslung her rifle. “Guess you get some hands on training today.”
His eyes lit up.
“Not like that… boys,” she grumbled and stalked off through the underbrush. “Keep as silent as possible. They track mostly off sound.”
He nodded and followed her. He was nowhere as silent as she, but less noisy than the zombie ahead of them. She stalked, following the soft shuffling steps, through the forest and crested a small hill. She dropped to her belly as she wormed over it and among the leaves. She paused and looked down into a tiny valley between two hills.
The zombie shuffled forward, dragging its right foot. It had, at one point, been a he, and wore tattered, blood spattered, t-shirt and jeans. Clothing that would be too cold for anyone living, but since the undead didn’t feel cold, it didn’t matter to it. It’d suffered from another’s bite, she could see the chunk missing from its forearm and blood spatter on its hands.
Cooper slithered up next to her.
“How’d you know?” he breathed.
“Rule two: stay alert.” Kat scanned the rest of the area. Zombies, especially this far out, were rarely solitary beasts. Their horde nature lent itself to meandering in trios at the smallest grouping. This one, after she’d observed it for several minutes, appeared to be alone.
“One zed, no evidence of others. Hasn’t given an indication that it has detected us. What would you do?” Kat lined up a shot with her rifle as she whispered to Cooper.
“Shoot it,” Cooper answered, just as quiet.
“And if you’re not alone in the woods?”
“We’re not alone.”
“Precisely. How does that change your approach to this situation?” Kat didn’t take her gaze off her target, though her finger remained stretched against the body of her rifle instead of coiled around the trigger.
“Shoot it.” His stubbornness started to sound through his pretty demeanor.
“Shooting, even something as small and relatively quiet as my .22 is loud and might draw others in. Were I alone, I’d climb a tree and shoot it dead to rights. However, since I’ve a big, strapping, strong young man with me, what other options does that open?”
Cooper rolled his eyes and drew his machete as he climbed to a kneeling position. “Not my first tango, you know.”
“Your first patrol though, and we don’t want to draw down a horde. Don’t you worry, I’ll be watching your cute rear.” She smirked at him, even though she knew he’d not be able to see it.
“You pick now to flirt.” He rolled his eyes.
“Do it quick and quiet. If it gets off a feeding moan, we’d’ve been better off shooting it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He duck-walked down the hill as quiet as someone not properly trained to walk silently through the forest could.
Silently she enjoyed the view from her vantage point for a moment before she returned her focus to the task at hand and brought the zombie back into the careful aim of her weapon.
Cooper hit the bottom of his hill and ducked behind a tree. The zombie continued its shuffle in a direction away from him. Cooper slid around the tree and tiptoed toward the zombie.
The zombie froze, and Cooper did the same. It took half a step and lifted its nose to the air and sniffed once and dropped into a low crouch. That was new behavior.
The low, almost animalistic growl it uttered snapped the puzzle together.
“Stalker. Shit.” Kat adjusted her aim and snapped off a shot. The bullet punched into its decayed skull and turned its brain to Swiss cheese. The stalker dropped to the ground as the sharp crack of her .22 echoed through the forest and died out. She remained silent, listening for answering growls, or a feeding moan.
She popped into a crouch as Cooper came from around his tree and shot a glance her way with an accompanying ‘WTF?’ facial expression. She waited, going so far as to pull both earplugs, and turned in a slow, silent circle.
After a few silent minutes had passed, she moved down the slope and joined Cooper.
“What the hell? Just showing off?”
“No. I don’t need to do that. It was a stalker. One of those isolationist type zombies that Percival described.” She led the way over to the felled zombie and kept her rifle trained on its head.
“Stalker? You really think Percival encountered zombies that act like giant cats or wolves?” Cooper scoffed.
“I think our evidence is right here. And there’s the spitter he told us about. Mutations and variations to the norm.” Kat bent close to the downed zombie. She carefully lifted one of the limp arms and checked the bloodied hand. The fingertips had been chewed into small, sharp, bone claws. “Stalker. Complete with the claws that Percival described.”
Cooper shook his head. “Shit.”
Kat let the hand drop and stood upright. She turned a slow circle. “We should get back. Colonel Pull, Hope, and Percival need to know about this thing.”
*
Kat climbed the stairs of the farmhouse and moved down the hall. She knocked on the door to the makeshift briefing room.
“Big on this military stuff, eh?” Cooper asked. He stood just behind her.
“Big on the discipline part, yeah.”
“He wasn’t actually a colonel, you know.”
Kat nodded. “Yeah, but he was a cadet colonel and in the leadership of the ROTC on campus.”
“Heard he ran at the first sign of danger.” Cooper tucked his gas mask under his arm.
“I’d recommend you don’t spread that nasty rumor.” Kat surprised herself with the coldness of her voice.
Ian had run when the shit hit the fan. Direct violence scared him. He didn’t handle it well and froze in the heat of the moment. She’d seen it and pulled his ass out of the fire.
It’d cost her Yulia. Yet she didn’t blame Ian for it. He’d run himself ragged on the flipside of the table. He brilliantly ran the farmstead and organized the remaining Watchmen. He had a tactical mind and the ability to see the bigger picture.
So what if he froze or ran when zombies hit the fences?
“Of course.” Cooper raised both hands. “No need to go all psychotic on me.”
“I’m not…” She knocked again. “Really. He’s got it tough. Harder than others realize.”
“Come in,” Ian’s voice drifted through the door.
Kat twisted the knob and pushed into the room. New markers had been added to the map on the desk and a spread of papers lay over it. An orange Army man flag caught her attention. She glanced at it, pondering what it meant in Danielsville.
She looked at Ian. He looked much better since he’d been getting regular sleep. The dark circles under his eyes had almost vanished and the creases and worry lines had faded away. He actually looked his 20 years instead of verging on
70. Not many knew just how close he’d come to a psychotic break before Hope had insisted that the farm wouldn’t implode without his direct guidance.
“Corporal Holter reporting in.” Kat snapped a salute.
“At ease, Kat.” He snapped a return salute. “Mister Wellington, close the door please.”
The informal ease sent up a red flag with her. They were both ‘on duty,’ so it didn’t make sense for him to address her by her first name. “Sir?”
Ian waited until Cooper’d closed the door. “We’ve heard something. On the radio.”
That revelation almost blew her whole report about the stalker out of her mind. “Really? You’re not shitting me, right?”
“This doesn’t go past us.” Ian looked at Cooper. “Watchmen, and only a select number of Watchmen know. I’ll make a general announcement when I’ve determined it’s time to do so. Zack caught a broadcast out of Danielsville.”
That explained the new flag.
“That’s awesome!” Cooper grinned.
“Did he talk with someone? Or was it a repeating broadcast, like the one Percival heard?” Kat leaned in. She felt just as excited as Cooper expressed, but kept a tighter lid on her feelings.
“Live person. He didn’t get to talk for long. Their power situation isn’t as cozy as ours, but they sound friendly.” Ian’s face split into a rare smile. “Once we’ve had another chance to talk, I’ll tell others.”
“Did you warn them?” Kat asked.
“We shared a little knowledge. Told them about the spitters and they confirmed having run into those and the stalkers,” Ian said. “This is big.”
“No shit.” Kat grinned again.
“Did you tell them about the army assholes who hit us?” Cooper asked.
“Not yet.”
“They should be warned.” Kat licked her lips. New survivors. People who had lived through the apocalypse. The prospect excited her. It excited her to the point of almost giddiness. “Speaking of, I’ve got something to tell about our own situation.”
Ian’s demeanor dimmed as a cloud of worry crossed his features. “Go on.”