Aaron, on the other hand, was quiet and reserved, rarely speaking out of turn, and he always tried to diffuse situations, rather than escalate them. He spent a lot of time cleaning up Brandon’s messes, but they were a pair, always compensating and complimenting each other’s shortcomings.
At least until Brandon was killed. During the battle with the Lord of the Dead, he had charged outside and been taken out in an RPG attack. That’s when Aaron’s character changed. It was as if he had decided he needed to take Brandon’s place. It was that or he had a death wish because he constantly stood up to the soldiers that had occupied the Manor. Despite saying they had placed the residents under ‘house arrest’ for their own good, Aaron saw through their bullshit.
It had been this ‘take no shit’ attitude that had gotten him killed. He ended up in a face-off with the leader of the soldiers, Colonel Kilgore. In the end, Kilgore killed him in the most brutal way.
Del saw Jo reliving Aaron’s death, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “I miss him, too, but we can’t go there. We need to get whatever you’re after and hit the bricks.”
She wiped at her eyes for a moment and said, “I know. I know. It’s just so damn hard being here in their room again.”
“What is it you’re after?” Del asked. “I can help you look for it.”
“There’s no need,” she said. “I know where it is.”
She tiptoed through the debris, making her way to the bathroom. Del followed but stopped in the doorway as he watched Jo make her way to the toilet. For a moment, he thought she might have plans to use it and even started to back out of the opening, but instead, she grabbed the tank lid off the toilet and set it aside.
Since her back was to him, he wasn’t totally clear what she was up to, but after a moment, she fished a sealed plastic bag out of the water. She turned whatever it was and held it away from her body as the water dripped off it for a few seconds.
All Del could see was a small dark rectangle in the bag with a bunch of wires.
“What the hell is that?” He asked.
“This is a sat-phone. We used it to call Joel, or he could call us.”
“How the hell did you know that was there?” Del asked.
“Only Aaron and I knew about it.”
“So, you kept me in the dark about this?”
She held it up in the air. “This thing was dangerous. If Kilgore found out about it, I have little doubt he would have done something terrible to whomever had it. We had to keep the circle tight.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” he said.
She knew she didn’t have time to soothe any hurt feelings, but she pulled the phone from the bag, found the power switch, and pressed it. Nothing happened, so she knew it was probably dead.
“Do we even know if it still works?” Del asked.
“No, we don’t. The battery is dead. It’s been sitting here for a month or more.”
“How are you going to charge it? If you hadn’t noticed, we don’t have electricity anymore.”
She held the bag closer to him, displaying the wires connecting to what looked like a row of small dark panels. “With this solar charger.” She folded up the bag and shoved it in her coat pocket along with the phone.
“Well, didn’t you think of everything,” he said. “My question is, who are you going to call? It’s not like there are a lot of people with one of those.”
“There only needs to be one person,” Jo said,
She didn’t say anything as she passed him and headed toward the hall.
Chapter 3
They’re Coming Through the Trees
Jo pushed the door open, and the sunlight streamed in, causing her to squint. Del put a hand on her shoulder before she stepped out and leaned close to her ear. “Do we want to tell Donovan about what you found?”
She didn’t know why she’d keep it secret, but some little voice inside her told her to hold her cards to her chest. “We’ll keep it to ourselves for now, but I won’t go out of my way to keep it hidden.”
Someone shouted out in the field, “Just get on the trailer.”
When Jo’s eyes adjusted to the brilliance of the sun, she saw people grouped around the equipment trailer hooked up to the back of the tractor. Mason stood beside them, waving his arms and directing them to climb onto the trailer, but their body language bespoke of hesitance and downright resistance.
“We’ve got to get moving,” Mason implored, but no one moved.
Donovan came into view, walking at a quick pace toward the crowd, but he pulled up when he spotted Jo standing in the doorway. He stood still for a moment, holding her in a stare, then redirected his attention toward the people.
“Come on,” Jo said as she strode out of the door. Del hit the sunlight and blinked it away as he picked up speed as they headed for the truck. His current goal was to stay out of the mess Donovan had on his hands with his people.
Clayton stood beside the bed of the truck, smoking a cigarette. Madison and Ryan sat on the hood, their legs dangling over the grill as they chatted in quiet tones. The Benton Sisters remained inside, but Jo heard Clara’s husky voice carrying on the breeze.
Jo and Del made their way to the truck and stopped beside it.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Madison asked.
“Yes,” Jo said.
It was easy to tell that this answer didn’t satisfy Madison. Her legs moved in an agitated fashion, but Jo didn’t offer up any more explanation.
Madison opened her mouth to ask another question, but Donovan shouted Jo’s name. Del watched Jo’s expression for a moment, and she didn’t do a good job of disguising her reluctance to get involved.
“Jo, can you come over here for a minute?” Donovan asked.
Jo’s face fell along with her shoulders. She closed her eyes for a moment then snapped them open and yelled over to Donovan, “On my way.” She looked back to Del and said, “Get everyone ready.”
She started away as Del walked back to Clayton. When he got close him, who was finishing up his cigarette, he said, “Those things will kill you.”
Clayton raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re kidding, right? It’s not like there’s not a thousand zombies out there ready to tear us apart. There are at least a million other things that will probably kill me first.”
Del replied, “You do have a point, but it’s still a nasty habit.”
When Jo got beside Donovan, he didn’t wait and asked, “Can you tell these people why we need to hurry to get out of here? Some of them think the trailer isn’t the best way to travel, plus they haven’t seen what you’ve seen. They want to take some time to find a better way. Maybe you can enlighten them.”
Jo eyed the people milling about and started in. “You can believe or you don’t have to, but I just came from west of here, and there are thousands of zombies heading our way. And I mean thousands. More than you’ve ever seen.”
A man asked from within the crowd, “How do you know they’re coming this way?”
Jo took in a calming breath and let it out. “Because they’re so many of them, they look like they might span miles going north to south. They won’t miss us.”
Another man stepped through the crowd and planted both of his feet down on the ground solidly and crossed his arms. For most people, he would be called burly. Some might say he was a little fat. “You’re telling us that you know that there is a horde as large as a big city coming through here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Jo replied but knew her story wasn’t selling to this man.
The man uncrossed his arms and said, “Listen, we’ve been surviving this as long as you have and probably better. We would still be doing it if it hadn’t been for the soldiers who destroyed our compound.” He hitched up his belt then started in again. “Here’s my point; we have never seen anything like what you’re saying before. It seems sort of far-fetched.”
Jo took a moment to compose her response. “What is your name, s
ir?”
“My friends call me Troy.”
“Troy, these are unprecedented times. Sometimes, I think there are more surprises than normal things. What I can tell you is that we have seen them with our own eyes.” She stopped and pointed at the truck where her people were. “If I thought we had time, I’d bring each one of those people over here to testify, but to be quite frank, we don’t have it. And I’m not waiting around much longer.” She continued to hold Troy locked in a stare. “You can do what you want, but me and my people are leaving in five minutes -- with or without all of you.”
This news had to come as a shock to Donovan’s people. They were preppers and had sunk their lives into getting ready for some sort of catastrophe that would take down the world. The zombie apocalypse, as strange and unlikely as it was, proved them right.
They had built an underground compound out in the country. It had water filtration, solar power, and all the conveniences of a survival bunker. They thought they could ride out anything, but they hadn’t counted on a direct military strike. Fortunately, they had three exits.
A majority of their people escaped out one of them, but another set of them were scooped up by the soldiers and whisked away to parts unknown. Donovan and a small team of his men went in search for them, and that’s how they linked up with Del and Jo.
One thing led to another and Del, Jo, Donovan, and Mason were able to get their people free from the Manor. It wasn’t without a cost, as they lost Lou, one of their team. It was a loss that still cut deep for Mason.
Donovan took a step closer to Troy. “You need to listen to her. I haven’t seen what she’s seen, but I believe her. We don’t have the time to debate or find better vehicles.”
Troy said, “That trailer is out in the open air. If we run into any trouble, it would be a death trap. And don’t get me started about the tractor. What is its top speed? Twenty-five miles an hour? With the number of people we have to load and pull on the trailer, I would guess the best we could get is twenty miles per hour.”
Jo broke in and said, “We have seven with us, but we can take two to three more. They’d have to ride in the bed of the truck. That would thin down the people that’d have to ride in the trailer.”
“Why don’t your people take the tractor and we take the truck?” Troy asked.
A couple of the people behind Troy nodded their heads and made approving noises.
That’s when Donovan put his foot down. “That is their truck. They risked their lives to pull all of you out of that basement. We’re not playing fair-is-fair. This is what it is. Now, we need to load up and go.”
“Not so fast,” Troy said.
Casey stepped from the crowd and said, “Troy, you can argue all you want, but I’m getting on that trailer.” She looked into the crowd and asked, “Who here can drive a tractor?”
A skinny man with mutton chops raised his hand.
“Alright, Drew, you’re the man. Anyone that wants to go, climb on the trailer.”
“Who put you in charge?” Troy asked, taking a step toward Casey.
“No one,” Casey said. “I just want to live and don’t have time for bullshit.”
She pushed into the center of the crowd, and it was as if by a force of will she drew most of the people with her. A few of them stood, seeming to balance on one foot toward standing with Troy but with their other foot starting toward the tractor.
Troy’s face reddened, and he said, “This is not over.”
But it was.
A moment later, one of the women who still looked like she could be in Troy’s camp raised her arm and pointed across the field toward the tree line. “Look over there. There’s somebody coming through the trees.”
It was less of a someone and more of a something. Forms moved under the dark canopy of the trees. Dark shambling figures wobbled and weaved, bouncing along in that unmistakable way that the undead do. At first, it was only a few breaking from the tree line. It didn’t take long for the zombies to get an eyeful of juicy people, and they started toward the complex and the vehicles in the field.
There were maybe a couple dozen zombies, but it was easy to see that there were many more dark forms just behind them, stumbling through the underbrush and tree trunks.
Someone shouted, “There’s more on the northwest side.”
All heads turned their attention to the trees in that direction. The dirt road that Jo and her friends had come in on was there. Zombies were starting to pour out of the break in the trees, filling the field with their undead glory. They moved like lava, slowly but deadly. Unavoidable and unstoppable.
This broke any indecision in Donovan’s people, and Troy had to fold his cards and leave the table.
“Load up!” Donovan shouted. “Now!”
There wasn’t anything about Donovan’s appearance that made him stand out. What he had was an innate charisma. He exuded an intangible quality that is found in many leaders. Maybe it was confidence. Maybe it was a command persona, but people listened to him. How his people reacted to him in the following moments was just an example of his leadership.
Some would say that he was ruggedly handsome, standing in at just over six-foot tall. Unlike many of the men who let their beard grow out to look like wild versions of lumberjacks, he kept his in check. That is when he had time. At this point, he was looking a little shaggy.
To their credit, Donovan’s people didn’t panic, but any doubts about leaving immediately evaporated. Donovan and Mason shouted orders as people loaded up onto the long equipment trailer. There was nothing fancy about it. It was about twelve feet long with two wheels on each side. Short metal rails about sixteen inches high made up three sides, while a tall falling gate was situated on the back. The gate was designed to lay down on the ground to allow other vehicles or wheeled equipment to be driven onto the cart.
The only thing going on the cart today was people. People who felt very exposed out in the open when compared with the people being transported in the trucks.
Jo jogged back to the truck but turned when she heard footfalls behind her. When she turned, she saw Casey tugging two teenagers along with another one trailing behind.
When she got to Jo, she asked, “Can you take these three? The cart is bursting at the seams.”
“Sure, we can put them in the back with Madison and Ryan,” Jo said.
The hand-off was made, and Casey ran back to the equipment cart just as Drew fired up the tractor. Smoke plumed from the exhaust as he gave it too much gas.
The three teenagers consisted of two boys and a girl, all of them around fifteen or sixteen. The boys looked like brothers, short and stocky with dark, thick black hair. One was clearly the older of the two and led his brother along. The girl was tall and willowy with short blond hair and eyes full of fear. She couldn’t help but look at the approaching zombies every few seconds.
Jo turned to the three teens and made quick introductions, poking her thumb over her shoulder into the bed of the truck. “This is Clayton, Madison, and Ryan. You guys are?”
A small tremor of tension rippled through the teens when they looked in at their soon-to-be fellow passengers. Jo wondered what it could be and hoped like hell it wasn’t a race thing. Clayton was black, but so was Sergeant Jones. She would have none of that. No way. No how. But when she took a second look, she quickly knew what it was. Clayton was in uniform. They had been captured and held hostages back at the Manor.
That could certainly be the reason they were apprehensive.
“Clayton’s one of the good ones. He wasn’t at the Manor when you were taken captive.”
The teens still hesitated, but Madison broke the ice and said, “He may be a hard ass, but he’s not one of the asshole soldiers. You can trust him.”
Clayton put up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender and said, “I know it’s hard to take in, but I never agreed with any of the shit they pulled with the civilians. That’s why I left when the Colonel went all medieval on the people there b
efore. If you want, I’ll take a place in the trailer.”
Clara Benton stuck her head into the window between the cab and the bed of the truck and said, “He’s a good egg. He protected my sister and me back at the farmhouse. He even dusted and mopped when we asked.”
Maybe that thawed out the drifting cloud of mistrust, but the older looking boy said, “Okay.”
They all knew they had little choice. It was get in the truck or walk.
Before he climbed in, the older boy said, “I’m Noah. This is Nick and Nora. They’re my brother and sister.”
“All names that start with the letter N,” Madison said. “Didn’t your parents have any imagination?”
“Our parents are dead,” Noah said and sucked all the oxygen out of the conversation.
“Introductions are over,” Jo said. “Del, get in and start the truck. We need to get on the road.” She looked at the teens and said, “Clayton, get in the back with the kids. We leave in thirty seconds.”
The truck roared to life as Jo strode toward the passenger door. She was in the cab by the time Noah, Nick, and Nora had climbed into the truck bed. Five seconds later, Del put the truck into gear and moved them to the head of the convoy.
It wasn’t much of one. A pickup truck, an Army Jeep, three ATVs, and a tractor, which was the weak link. It was pulling a trailer full of scared and nervous people, and its best speed was, indeed, twenty miles per hour, moving them along at a snail’s pace.
Chapter 4
On the Road
“Where are we going?” Gertie Benson asked from the backseat.
“East,” Jo said.
“But where east?” Gertie asked.
“We have friends ahead of us somewhere to the east,” Jo replied.
“Who do you have there?” Gertie asked. Despite her years, her mind was sharp. Like her sister, she had good genes. Most of her ancestors had made it into their nineties and were still vital and aware into old age.
The Deadland Chronicles (Book 2): The Undead Horde Page 2