by R. J. Spears
We had won, but the cost had been high. He nearly destroyed our safe harbor.
But there were bigger costs because we had lost friends. Close friends. Travis. Brandon. And a few more. I hadn’t been able to stick around for the full body count.
We would have liked to have been able to take a moment and mourn the losses and put our home back in order, but the military arrived, and we were on the run. Again. Some things never change.
“Here’s a good place to stop,” Brother Ed said, pointing to a stand of evergreen trees ahead of us on the trail.
Together, we stumbled under the pines where the ground was only semi-damp in places. Collectively, we collapsed to the ground, grunting and groaning on impact. Naveen cuddled up to Kara for warmth. Jason closed his eyes as he set against the tree trunk and, from what I could tell, went immediately to sleep.
I wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week, but someone had to stay on guard. That usually fell to leadership. Since I was in charge, the duty fell to me.
“Brother Ed, you take a rest. I’ll do first watch,” I said.
“You’re kidding me,” Brother Ed replied. “You came back to the Manor beat to crap and then we high-tailed it out of there. You can barely stand. I’ll take first watch.”
I didn’t know if that was a show of kindness or self-interest. I was nearly ready to crash, and he knew it. He probably guessed that I would zonk out, leaving us unguarded.
“Okay, I won’t argue with you,” I said as I leaned back against a tree and closed my eyes. I was planning on staying out for only a few minutes. I doubted if my eyes were closed for more than a minute before I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
I don’t know how long I was out, but I awoke to find a firm hand gripping my shoulder, gently shaking me back and forth. Against my body’s protests, I opened my eyes and discovered muted shafts of pale sunlight streaming down through the breaks in the tree cover. I couldn’t tell how long I had been asleep, but it was more than a few minutes. It had to have been hours.
When I turned to see who was shaking me, I saw Kara kneeling next to me, a serious set to her expression as she looked past me into the woods that surrounded the pine stand.
“How long have I been out?” I whispered as I looked past her to see Brother Ed sacked out against a tree. Jason was still asleep, and Naveen lay fast asleep with her head in his lap.
A hint of morning light was at our backs, but it was still quite dark. The world around us was mostly inky shadows and stark black objects.
She whispered back, “Shhhh. There’s something or someone out there.”
“Living or dead?” I asked, feeling a chill seep into my gut. What if there was a platoon of well-armed soldiers ready to take us out? I kicked myself (figuratively) for stopping to take a break, but we had little choice. We were all almost ready to collapse.
“I don’t know.”
“Are they coming from the south or the north?”
“North,” she said, intently scanning the trees
North was better than south because I rationalized that the soldiers would come from that direction, but, in reality, they could have been dropped north of us by the helicopter and hiked back in our direction.
Of course, it could have been more deaders, but whoever was coming at us wasn’t making much noise. From my intimate observations, I had never seen the zombies attempt stealth, but there was always a first time. The reality was that if I were betting, I’d have placed my money on the living. The question was whether they were friend or foe? In my experience, even if it was the living, it was probably a foe, because we had very few friends left in the world.
I picked my rifle out of my lap and brought it up to a ready position, staring into the dark woods ahead of us to the north. This went on for several minutes, and my sleep deprived eyes started burning as I attempted not the blink for fear of missing something in the shadows. I scanned my view to the left, and I saw something move. It was big and looked like an entire bush. This caused my mind to shift into cognitive dissonance because bushes don’t move. At least not in my past experience.
But this one did, confounding my preconceived perceptions. I tried to keep an eye on my moving bush, but it quickly blended in with all the other dark bunches of foliage and I lost it in the sea of dark green. I caught movement in my peripheral vision and jerked my head to catch what it was. It turned out to be another moving bush. It could have been the same bush, but it was so far from my past sighting, that I doubted it.
Still, my little pea brain was trying to wrap itself around bushes that moved. It had accepted the dead coming back to life, why not ambulatory bushes? Maybe there was an evil druid going around creating armies of animated attack bushes. I decided not to take any chances and bought my rifle up to my shoulder and sighted this new moving bush. It drifted slowly along, but like the last one, this bush disappeared behind a couple of trees with extra-wide trunks, and I lost it. These were some stealthy bushes.
“Are you seeing moving bushes?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good. At least, I’m not alone in my latest bout of insanity.”
“Shhhh,” she said shushing me again.
We both scanned back and forth, but I couldn’t see anything move, bush or not. I contemplated waking the others after about two minutes of looking but decided against it. I laid my rifle in my lap, and I was about to throw in the towel and chalk it up to fatigue or insanity when I heard a slight squishing noise off to my right. I slowly turned my head in that direction and saw a bush moving directly at me, low and slow. The odd thing about this bush was that it held a rifle and it was aiming directly at me.
I nudged Kara, and she jerked a little, and I felt her turn in my direction, but I held my attention on the armed bush.
The bush spoke a moment later and said, “Don’t reach for your rifle or I will be forced to shoot you.”
Chapter 4
Occupation
“It’s only a matter of time before he starts applying some hard pressure on us,” Aaron said in a whisper.
“Like they haven’t already,” Jo said, as her hand went to touch the bandage on the side of her head, a product of being pistol-whipped by Colonel Kilgore. Doc Wilson wanted her to stay in bed for a couple of days, but she refused. After being up and around some time, her head still felt woozy from the attack, making her doubt the decision to ignore him.
“Fuckers,” Aaron said under his breath as one of the soldiers walked by their table. The soldier glanced his way, but Aaron only looked the soldier’s way and smiled a broad shit-eating grin.
They were in the dining hall, sitting at a table in amongst the other civilians at The Manor -- or what was left of it after the attack. The dining hall wasn’t badly damaged in the attack by the Lord of the Dead, but the front of the main building was a total loss. Fire had ravaged the building, and the remnants of the smoke and charred wood clung in the air, heavy and foreboding. The only thing that had saved the rest of the complex from being ravaged by fire was the fact that Aaron had released the water tank on the roof the building and that had quenched the flames. Still, the electrical system was badly damaged and the heat only worked sporadically across the entire complex.
At least two dozen people were in the dining hall, eating quietly with either blank or anxious expressions. It had been only a couple of months earlier when they had been celebrating their first home grown crops in this very room, enjoying the fruits of the harvest, planted and cultivated by them. Things had actually looked a little rosy in the face of a zombie apocalypse, but fate had made an about-face and pulled the rug out from under all of them, leaving them dazed and afraid.
Kilgore stationed soldiers to guard the people remaining at the Manor. He also smartly confiscated all the guns he could find, leaving those left behind defenseless. Kilgore knew that was a must because he only had three dozen soldiers with him and the only way to keep the people in check was to make sure his so
ldiers had weapons and the people at the Manor did not.
It didn’t help that zombies still filtered in towards the complex like an aftershock of an earthquake, drawn in by the sound of helicopters flying repetitive sorties. That required soldiers on constant watch for deaders. Watching the living and the dead stretched Kilgore’s troops thin, leaving them stressed and on edge. It wasn’t a good combination as people’s nerves were already badly frayed.
Once the soldier got a safe distance away, Aaron asked, “What are we going to do?”
“For now, we wait and watch for an opportunity,” Jo replied. She took a peek and saw the guard was turned away. “Were you able to hold back any guns?”
Aaron leaned in towards her and said, “No, but some of the others may have kept their stashes. We can check with folks later, but the soldiers were pretty thorough.”
“Be careful who you ask,” she said. “I’m not sure we don’t have some of our people sympathizing with Kilgore and the soldiers.”
“Like Mrs. Hatcher and Steve Hampton.”
Mrs. Hatcher was the group’s resident shrew who rarely had a good thing to say and whose stock and trade was rumors and negativity. Steve Hampton was an ‘every man for himself’ type who rarely considered the concerns of the group. If things went south and it came down to him or you, it was always him. He could be trusted as far as you could throw him.
“To name a few,” Jo replied.
The soldier did an about face and headed back their way. Jo and Aaron returned to their silence and ate their cold oatmeal, keeping a watchful eye on the soldiers.
Once the soldier passed them and got a safe distance away, Aaron said, “I do have some of our hand-to-hand weapons that Brandon kept hidden, just in case.” A dark cloud of pain passed over Aaron’s face as he remembered his best friend who had died in the battle with the Lord of the Dead.
“A lot of good those will do us when facing off with assault rifles.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Aaron said. “We do have the cache of weapons in town and one at the old farm.” Placing caches of weapons in the field was a custom for the group.
“They might as well be in France. They’re not letting anyone out of here,” Jo replied, eyeing the guards. “Don’t mention anything about the weapon stocks to anyone. Loose lips sink ships.”
They were silent for a few minutes, lost in their thoughts as people around them chatted quietly and ate. The soldiers on guard duty milled among the diners and kept a watchful eye. To say the mood in the room was gloomy was an understatement.
For so long, many of the survivors in their group had waited for the cavalry to arrive and save the day, but after the first group of rogue soldiers had tried to kill them and the second one had taken them hostage, most had learned their lesson. Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me. Trust levels were pretty low.
“Have you heard from Joel?” Jo asked.
“Nothing on the Sat-phone, yet,” Aaron asked. Joel and Aaron both had satellite phones they had obtained from spies that had come into their midst. Among the people at The Manor, only Aaron, Jo, and Russell knew about the satellite phones and how Joel was going to use them to communicate while Joel fulfilled his holy mission to the north.
“Just make sure that you’re on and off that thing fast,” Jo said. “I’m betting they can be tracked by you know who.”
“I only have it up long enough to check, and then it’s off.”
Jo started to speak again, but a sound of some kind of commotion echoed their way down one of the long entry halls. From what she could hear, it sounded like shouting and some sort of scuffle, and it was coming towards the dining hall.
A woman’s voice shouted, “Take your hands off him. He didn’t do anything.”
A male voice responded sharply, “Ma’am, keep out of this.”
Everyone in the dining hall went totally quiet, and the soldiers became more alert, bringing the weapons up to a ready status. Jo and Aaron looked at each other, and both got up from their seats.
One of the soldiers turned in their direction and shouted, “Sit down. Now!”
Two soldiers burst through a doorway off to the left of the dining hall manhandling a teenage boy named Henry. He was Greg’s son, the man who had been the Manor’s former leader, but he had died in an ill-fated trip to town for medical supplies. Behind the two soldiers was a tall, lanky soldier with a sneer and greasy black hair.
“It’s that prick, Lodwick,” Aaron spat out taking a few more steps toward the soldiers.
Ellen, Henry’s mother, followed the small entourage, desperately trying to press past Lodwick to get to Henry. Lodwick held out an arm to keep her at bay.
The group stopped a few feet into the room, and Lodwick circled around to the front of his little posse. Ellen moved with him, still trying to get to Henry.
“He’s just a boy,” Ellen screamed as she rushed for Henry.
Just as she was just about to reach him, Lodwick lurched forward and planted his fist into her stomach. Almost instantaneously, the people in the room gasped in shock. Ellen doubled over and fell to one knee, her face beet red as she tried to take in the lost oxygen.
Henry jerked violently to get free. “Let me go!” he shouted.
Lodwick turned and nodded to one of the soldiers and the soldier smacked the butt of his rifle against the side of Henry’s head. His body went slack as the other soldiers held him up.
If the crowd in the room was shocked before, they were doubly so now.
Aaron stepped out of the crowd on a beeline for Lodwick, but only made it five feet when Lodwick whipped out his sidearm and fired it over Aaron’s head. Everyone, along with Aaron, ducked and a few people screamed. All motion stopped in the room
“People,” Lodwick shouted, “We’re not having an uprising here, so sit the fuck down!”
With their weapons up, the guards already present in the room slowly backed up to join Lodwick’s group. The soldiers glided their aim over the people, seeming ready to pull the trigger at any instant. The tension level in the room seemed as taut as a guitar string.
Ellen teetered back and forth on her knee, tears leaking down her face. The rest of the people kept their distance, some wanting to come to her aid and others wanting to run from the danger.
“This boy,” Lodwick said with a hint of sarcasm, “was trying to slip out of the compound. We all know that this is strictly against the rules.” His eyes seemed to challenge anyone to question him.
Unable to withhold himself, Aaron asked, “Why is that again?”
Lodwick locked Aaron in on hard stare and said, “Because we need to keep you inside where we can keep you safe.” That was the party line from Kilgore. Everyone knew that was a bogus excuse and that their safety was of little concern to Kilgore and his troops. They wanted Jason Carter, and if they got him, they might leave the people alone. Might was the operative word. In every action, the soldiers left little doubt they might just kill everyone no matter what happened.
“Then why are you strong-arming the boy and giving that woman a beat down?” Aaron asked.
“The boy was trying to escape, and his mother objected that we are taking him into custody.”
“Bullshit,” Aaron replied.
“He was outside the complex,” Lodwick said. “He was going somewhere. Anyone want to speculate on where he was going?”
An unspoken question passed between Jo and Aaron as they glanced into each other’s eyes. Did Henry know about the secret gun caches and, if so, was he headed to one of them? Only a few people knew about the caches, but there was a good chance that Greg had let Henry know.
Jo went into action and pushed past Aaron, starting toward Ellen. The guards tensed up and looked to Lodwick for some direction.
“Hold up there, lady,” Lodwick said looking a little surprised.
Jo ignored Lodwick and just kept moving until she got to Ellen where she knelt down beside her. It took some quiet coaxing, but s
he was able to get Ellen onto her feet. Ellen still looked pale and drawn, taking in ragged breaths.
“Is this how you protect us?” Aaron asked, putting up his hands with over-emphasized air quotes.
“You need to shut the hell up,” Lodwick snapped at Aaron, obviously running low on patience. His grip tightened on his sidearm reflexively and the soldiers slowly aimed their weapons at Aaron.
Some of the crowd started moving slowly away from the soldiers, trying to discover an exit strategy. Those standing around Aaron stepped away from him, giving him plenty of room. A few of the others started cautiously closing around the soldiers, steeling themselves for some sort of action.
Jo sensed that the situation was about to go terribly wrong, but felt helpless to prevent it. Sure, they had numbers over the soldiers, but the soldiers had guns that could reduce their advantage in terms of numbers very quickly.
A few of the crowd grasped chairs in their hands and seemed to be preparing to throw them or rush forward with them. The soldier’s eyes either widened in anxiety or narrowed in determination. The situation was barreling quickly towards a tipping point that no one seemed ready or willing to prevent.
“Hey!” A voice shouted from behind the guards and every head turned to look behind the guards.
Sergeant Jones hurriedly strode into the room sensing an upheaval that was about to happen and he knew it was something that no one wanted, especially himself. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Our perimeter guards caught this boy trying to escape,” Lodwick said.