The Deadland Chronicles (Book 2): The Undead Horde

by Spears, R. J.

  Clayton regarded it for a moment then must have decided it was best to take it. The two men shook hands, with Zelanski taking a long step back after they broke contact.

  Again, a conversation took place, but it was too far away for either Del or Mason to hear.

  “I want to know what the hell is going on,” Mason said, and there was no disguising both his frustration and anxiousness.

  “We can’t make our move until Clayton calls us in,” Del said.

  “This meet and greet can’t take forever,” Mason said. “The horde is on its way, and our people could get overrun at anytime.”

  “There is that,” Del said and shrugged, trying to act like it didn’t bother him, but, in truth, he was no less worried than Mason. He just hid it better.

  A couple of the soldiers who had been standing back edged closer to the confab between Clayton, Berry, and Zelanski, seeming to want to be in on the conversation. Berry turned to one of them, said something, and the soldier laughed. Berry let out a hearty laugh, and even Clayton smiled.

  Del got a sense that they’d be called in soon.

  At least, that’s what he thought in that instant, but things can change fast.

  “We should just kill him,” the soldier who had been standing at the back of the truck called out as he brought up his rifle and aimed it Clayton.

  Zelanski jumped out of the line of fire so quickly that he nearly fell over and still ended up stumbling for a few steps before coming to a stop. Clayton remained in a relaxed pose but eyed the soldier with a suspicious stare.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Berry said as he put his hand in the air. “Stanz, you need to calm down.” He took a step toward the soldier with one of his hands out. “Just lower the rifle.”

  The soldier named Stanz said, “He’s probably with the men who attacked us. They killed Pierce.”

  Berry said, “He said he’s not.”

  “How do we know that for sure?” Stanz said.

  “You saw what he did,” Berry said. “He could have shot any one of us, and he didn’t.”

  “He could have shot Pierce!” Stanz shouted.

  Berry dropped his arm and placed his hand on his rifle, ready to bring it up in an instant if he had to. The other soldiers in the vicinity of Clayton stepped away from him, giving him a safe assured distance.

  “I didn’t shoot Pierce,” Clayton said, his voice even and calm.

  “You’d say that,” Stanz said.

  Thirty yards away, Mason went to one knee and leaned into the truck of the tree to steady himself. Then he slowly brought up his rifle and started to take aim.

  Del whispered, “You shoot the soldier and this whole thing gets messy.”

  “He’s got Clayton in his sights,” Mason said.

  “But if you shoot, they’ll probably kill Clayton and we lose the truck.”

  Mason lowered his aim just a little and said, “I’ll just make sure.”

  “You do that,” Del said.

  “I’m ordering you to lower your rifle, Stanz,” Berry said.

  “You can’t order me to do shit,” Stanz said. “We’re all Privates here.”

  “You have followed my orders up until now,” Berry said.

  Clayton stepped next to Berry in clear view of Stanz but let his rifle hang at his side.

  “Stanz, I don’t know you all that well, but you...all of you are on this road in a truck that is out of gas. You know there’s a horde of zombies coming that makes a fucking super bowl crowd look tiny. I can offer all of you a way out of here, unless you like walking. And know this, when you have to stop to sleep, because we all need sleep, they will just keep coming. Each day, they will get closer. You shoot me and you’re dooming yourself and all these men.” He paused and held Stanz in an unblinking stare. He raised his hand and pointed off into the woods and added, “And yeah, if you shoot me, my men in the woods will blow your fucking head off. But, you go ahead and shoot me.”

  Stanz looked off into the trees, his eyes flitting over them wildly, searching for something he couldn’t see. He brought his attention back to Clayton and held him there for seconds that seemed to span on and on. A few seconds later, he lowered his rifle and took a step back.

  Berry started toward Stanz at a steady gait. Stanz didn’t try to get away, but no one would say he was making a stand as his rifle dangled at his side. As soon as Berry got to Stanz, he sntached away the man’s rifle.

  “You asshole,” Berry said, “you could have gotten us all killed.”

  Clayton remained where he was standing, making sure that Stanz had adequately calmed down, then he scanned the woods. “Mason! Del! You can come in now.”

  Chapter 31

  A Call in the Dark

  “What’s taking them so long?” Jo said.

  “We can’t wait here forever,” Donovan said as he stood at the driver’s window of the truck.

  “Why don’t they call on the walkie?” Jones asked from his place in the passenger seat.

  “Should I call them?” Jo asked as she held the walkie-talkie in her hand.

  The three of them shared glances, and Donovan finally said, “If they are into something, then we could give them up.”

  “They’d probably have it off anyway,” Jones said. “Clayton would see to that.”

  Jo balanced the walkie-talkie in her hand as if trying to discern its weight. “I feel so useless.”

  A shout came from the convoy. “Donovan, how long are we going to wait? We need to get going.” It was Troy.

  Donovan rolled his eyes but then said, “He’s not entirely wrong. The clock is ticking.” Involuntarily, he looked to the west where the zombie hordes were. He turned and shouted back to the convoy, “We’re waiting for the go ahead.”

  Troy responded immediately, “Those zombies aren’t going to wait.”

  Donovan looked like he wanted to say something, but whatever it was passed. Instead, he whispered under his breath, “What a pain in the ass.”

  Jo stared at the walkie-talkie for several seconds, but something changed in the set of her face, and she said, “Dammit!”

  “I know,” Jones said. “It’s frustrating.”

  “No,” Jo said as she hoisted the walkie-talkie toward her face. “It’s not that. I should have done this sooner.”

  Jones shot out a hand toward the walkie-talkie, but she pivoted away from his reach.

  “I’m not calling them,” Jo said as she turned the dial that changed the channel on the walkie-talkie. “I’m calling someone else.”

  Donovan asked, “Who else is there to call?”

  “I need to change the channel, and they may not answer,” Jo said, “but it’s worth a chance.”

  “Jo?” Donovan asked, wondering what was happening.

  She put her index finger in the air to tell him to wait a second, and she pressed the talk button.

  Chapter 32

  Taking the Call

  Henry thought he heard a noise, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He and the rest of their refugees were still in the dance hall where Eli and his men had sequestered them after they had arrived at the Sanctum. They were being held there in quarantine in case any of them were infected with the zombie virus.

  Henry was sitting on his cot, watching his mother, Ellen, talking with Billie Sue. The two women had hit it off since Henry and their group had arrived at the Sanctum. In his eyes, Billie Sue was a oddity. She claimed that she had visions. Of course, when they had been at the church and the Manor, Joel had experienced visions, and some of them had helped save the people at the Manor.

  Molly, who was resting across from him on her cot, thought that Billie Sue was a zealot. Or, as Molly put it, a nutcase.

  “Henry, your backpack is talking,” Molly said as she sat up.

  Henry turned to her and asked, “What?”

  “Your backpack is talking,” Molly said.

  It took him a couple more seconds to put two-and-two together, and he started to jump forward toward his b
ackpack, which lay against the wall, but stopped himself. There were guards placed around the room, supposedly in place to protect their group, but they were really there to make sure no one left the building. The security protocol was for Ellen and Henry’s people to remain inside for another twenty-four hours. The guards may have been lax about it, but Molly had slipped out earlier and gotten caught. Eli and his men didn’t like people who didn’t follow rules and nearly branded Molly with a hot piece of metal -- to teach her a lesson to follow the rules. At the last instant, they stopped their sadistic act and told them that it was a warning.

  That little incident put Henry, Ellen, and specifically Molly on edge. When they had entered the Sanctum, they thought it was going to be a safe haven. While it may have been relatively safe, it seemed it was far from a haven.

  Henry checked the closest guard with a sideways glance and saw that he was leaning against the wall, and his eyes were narrowed to slits. It wasn’t slits of mistrust, it was slits of boredom and fatigue.

  “It’s my walkie-talkie,” he said.

  “Your what?” Molly asked as she jerked to a sitting position.

  He said, “Shhhhhh. Not so loud.”

  She lowered her voice and asked, “Who’s calling you?”

  As inconspicuously as he could, he slid along his cot, which was in the back corner of the room, as he edged forward. As he got closer, he heard a muted voice coming out of his backpack. It was too low to hear or understand.

  He reached out with his foot, hooking it around the strap on his backpack, and then pulled it near. He kept his eye on the guard as he leaned over and unzipped it. As soon as it was open, he heard the voice.

  “This is the mission team. Is there anyone out there?” Jo asked.

  Henry examined the guard closely and said to Molly, “I need a distraction.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Do something to get that guard away from me,” Henry said.

  “Like what?”

  “Think of something,” he said.

  The little speaker sounded again as Jo’s voice came from it. “This is the mission team. Henry, Ellen, anyone, are you out there?”

  Molly jumped up from her cot and headed on a beeline right for the guard. As soon as she got in front of him, she asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  The guard’s face registered surprise as he said, “What?”

  His hair was cut short under an olive drab baseball-style cap, and he sported a beard and a mustache that was neither cut short or out of control and wild looking like several of the other guards. Some would call him clean cut.

  “Do you have a girlfriend or are you guys not allowed to fraternize with the newcomers?” she asked.

  Henry tuned her out and focused on the walkie-talkie. A tingling sense of alarm ran through his body as he saw the battery level registering close to five-percent, and he cursed himself for not turning it off after the last time he checked it. But he also knew, if he had, he would have never have heard Jo’s message.

  Jo spoke again, “Anyone out there at all? Come on, Henry.”

  Henry laid down on the cot, placing his back to Molly and the guard, then pressed the talk button and in a whisper, “Jo, it’s Henry.”

  She nearly whooped through the tiny speaker, and Henry desperately wished he had a pair of headphones. “Shhhhh, keep it down please.”

  Jo picked up on the cue immediately and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you safe?”

  That was a good question. They were safe from the deaders, but he didn’t feel comfortable at the Sanctum after how Eli and his men had threatened Molly. Deep down, he suspected they were okay as long as they played by the rules. He just wasn’t sure what the totality of those rules were and whether they applied to everyone or just to his group.

  There he was again, thinking of the forty plus people in their little refugee party as “his” group. How could they be? He was just a fifteen-year-old kid, but with people like Jo and Del away in the field, the responsibility fell to him and his mom.

  “We’re in a safe place, but we’re still getting to know the people here,” he said, tucking the walkie-talkie under his chin and keeping his voice quiet.

  “Is everybody still with you?” Jo asked.

  Calvin’s face flashed in his mind, the fear and pain on it after he had been bitten by a zombie resonating. Henry had worked so hard to keep all their people alive, but that was his one failure.

  “We lost Calvin,” he said. “He got infected, and we..we…” He couldn’t finish.

  “I know,” Jo said, and he heard the resignation in her voice. She had been there, too. “Where are you?” Jo asked.

  “In Athens,” Henry said. “On the campus here. Some people have built up some walls between the buildings to make a...a... a kind of fortress.”

  “Then why are you whispering?” she asked.

  “Something happened last night,” he said. “It sort of spooked me. It wasn’t good.”

  A voice spoke away from the microphone that Henry didn’t recognize. It said, “Ask if my people are there.”

  Henry asked, “Who is that talking?”

  “We’ve met some people. They are friendly.” Jo relayed the question, “Can you let us know if there are people there…” She stopped, and Henry heard the voice speaking off-mic again. She rephrased her question again. “Are there people there from a prepper’s compound?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “We have been held in quarantine for the past day and a half just to make sure none of us are infected. We’ve only seen the guards.” He paused for a moment and said, “Wait. There was another woman here. She came to check us out, and her name is Billie Sue.”

  The voice spoke again, and Henry could tell that, whoever it was, they were excited.

  “Are there more people with her?” Jo asked.

  “I think so, but we haven’t met them. I can’t talk for long. The guards are close by.”

  “Are you sure you’re safe?” Jo asked.

  Henry needed to contemplate this for a few second and finally said, “Mostly.”

  “Should you leave?” Jo asked.

  “I don’t think we can,” Henry said. “Our vehicles are out of gas, and we were about out of supplies.”

  There was a long pause, and Henry glanced back at Molly, who was practically leaning on the guard, giving the guy a huge smile and all of her attention. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he had to attend to the conversation with Jo.

  “I have to tell you something,” Jo said. “You’re probably safe there. There is a massive horde of the undead on their way from the west.”

  “What do you mean by massive?” Henry asked.

  “I mean thousands and thousands. They’re heading in from the northwest and cutting across to the southeast. We don’t know why they’re gathering like this, but they are very dangerous.”

  “Maybe you should come to us.”

  “We’d love to do that, but some of what you’re saying and not saying is making me more than a little nervous.”

  “What choice do you have?” Henry asked.

  “You may have a point,” Jo said. “Do you think they’d welcome us?”

  “I don’t know for sure but probably,” Henry said. “They rescued us from some road bandits.”

  “Really?” Jo asked. “We’ve run into some of those.” She went quiet for a moment. “What’s it like there?”

  “I’ve only seen a little bit of it, but they have fifteen-feet-tall walls built up, spanning between the buildings. I think they are mostly brick, and they look sturdy. I don’t know what they do for food, but they served us some fresh vegetables last night, so I think they’re growing their own crops.”

  “They sound like resourceful people,” she said. “Maybe, they’re just being cautious?”

  “They tried to brand one of our people with a hot iron last night because they left the building.”

  “Oh,” was all that Jo said.

&n
bsp; “Listen, I think it’s safe enough,” Henry said. “And from what you’re saying, you need to get off the road. When can you get here?”

  “As soon as we can,” Jo said. “I think we’ve run into the same bandits you did.”

  Henry started to say something, but a shadow fell over him, and he stopped. Some intuitive sense told him that this was not good news, so he switched the channel on the walkie talkie and turned it off. When he rolled over and looked up, he saw Eli standing beside his cot wearing a scowl and holding Molly tightly by the arm. The guard Molly had been talking with was on Eli’s other side, and his face was filled with color.

  Molly blurted out, “Henry, I tried. I really did, but I think I was going to have to marry the guy to keep him from seeing what you were doing.”

  Eli shot Molly a look, and she shut up. He looked back to Henry and asked, “Who were you talking to?”

  “Friends,” Henry said.

  Eli put out a hand, and Henry knew immediately that he wanted the walkie-talkie. Henry knew the safest and best bet was to hand it over. So, he did. He hoped that wasn’t the last time he ever spoke with Jo.

  Chapter 33

  The Other End of the Line

  “Henry? Henry?” Jo asked but got no response. She looked to Jones and said, “I think something happened.”

  Donovan said, “But he said they were safe.”

  “For now, but something was going on there,” Jo said, her brow creased in tight lines.

  “But it sounds like they’re at a place that could ride out the horde,” Donovan said. “And maybe we could.”

  “That’s a big maybe,” Jones said.

  Jo said, “I’m not sure we have a lot of choice.” She looked at the gas gauge for a moment. “The tank is about half full, and we don’t know what else is out there.”

  “All I know is that we need to move soon,” Donovan said, taking another glance toward the west.

  “Agreed,” Jo replied.

  “We’ll lead,” Jones said. “And have Madison and Ryan ready for whatever comes our way.”