The Doc bobbed his head. "I concur."
Tara looked up and down the table. "So where does that leave us?"
"We need to sell it to them." Jiri spoke without looking around, his eyes glued to the table. "We have to sit them all down at the same time, explain what’s coming and ask for help. Convince them we can’t pull this off without every single one of them."
Will tilted his head, trying to make eye contact with the professor. "Who gives that speech? You? You're the one used to speaking to groups."
Jiri looked up, shaking his head in disagreement. "It has to be you, Will. You're the leader, the boss, the guy in charge. You’re the person they respect or fear the most. It's got to be you."
7
* * *
Robert McGrew grumbled to himself as he threw his meager collection of belongings in a gunnysack. A narrow-waisted man with broad shoulders and bulging biceps, he was angry at himself for going against his better judgment. "The second they told me I had to be part of their group I should have left and never looked back,†he groused as he stuffed his spare pair of blue jeans in the sack. “It’s stupid to try to form these little towns. They never work."
Robert showed up the quarry five weeks previous, having learned about it from a stranger on the road. That in itself was an oddity- strangers on the road tended to give him wide berth. He had a big head and a fleshy face with high, Slavic cheekbones and hooded eyes. His wide and bulbous nose sat above thick, rubbery lips. His features, coupled with the tattoos that covered both arms and his chest and neck, gave him an aura of danger he didn’t deserve. He looked like the lethal enforcer for a loan shark, but it was an illusion- he hadn’t been in a fight since Mikey Thompson busted his lip and brought tears to his eyes outside the Dairy Queen in fifth grade.
He met the stranger, whose name turned out to be Jeff, outside an empty house north of Fayetteville. Robert was traveling north from Mississippi with no particular destination in mind. After he lost his wife and two children to the zombies and a third child to a group of men who'd raped her for three days then traded her for a pot of potato soup, he knew he didn't want to spend one more day in the Magnolia State. He drifted north in a fog of shock and grief that didn't start to lift until he met Jeff.
They shared a fat squirrel and some bitter greens for their supper, and as they drifted off to sleep Jeff told him of a place sixty miles north of the Missouri-Arkansas line, a wondrous collection of underground tunnels and caves called The Underground. It was a place safe from the zombies; a place big enough that a man could find a spot inside to call his own and be left alone. Jeff was a truck driver for a bread company with a warehouse at the facility, and he had been there many times.
Robert asked him question after question about the magical-sounding place over the next four days, as they walked from Fayetteville to Bella Vista. There, Jeff was bitten on the ankle by a policeman-turned-zombie with one eye and a broken arm. He drew Robert a detailed map to his destination, put a rusty twenty-two pistol in his ear and pulled the trigger. Robert traveled the rest of the way alone.
His arrival in late December caused a crushing disappointment with Jeff. The Underground was far from the free-wheeling, claim-your-own-piece-of-land Utopia his late traveling partner proclaimed it to be. In fact, a group of people had set themselves up in charge of the place and denied entry to almost everyone else.
A guard at the entrance escorted him to their boss man, an affable cattleman named Will with a capable air and a smile that seldom made it to his eyes.
"Unfortunately, we can't let too many folks stay just yet," Will told him. "There's no way to feed more than a couple of hundred people. We have plans in the works and hope that changes with the summer."
"Is that right? You'd think a place like this would be chock full of food."
"And you'd be right. It was, at one time. But half the warehouses were blast freezers that held frozen food, so all that went bad when they lost power. And then some packaged food went over, too. I didn't get here until November myself, and the people here before that mowed through the edible food in the warehouses much too fast."
"Why not let whoever wants to stay, stay, and let them worry about feeding themselves?"
The affable farmer gave him a dejected half-smile. "Because a thousand or so people living here would deplete the local wildlife in a matter of months and ransack all the houses within an easy distance even faster than that. And then, Mr. McGrew, I wouldn't be able to feed my family. And I didn’t walk here from the Kansas-Nebraska border by way of Central Missouri to be unable to feed my family. Once we are producing our own food we can increase the population. But until then we have to keep our numbers down and only let in people who can earn their keep."
Will ran him through an interview- where he lived, what had he done, what skills did he possess? He asked if Robert had killed anybody and what his opinion of the creepers.
"What you mean, my opinion about them?"
"Some people think we shouldn't put them down. They say it's a sin against God, or that there will be a cure one day and people can go back to normal. People on the other extreme think it's fun to chop off their arms and legs and leave them to lie there, or they put themselves and others in danger trying to get one more kill."
Robert dropped his head and pondered for a while, then looked back up at Will. "I don't have any feelings one way or the other, Sir. I'll kill one if I need to save myself, though I’d just as soon avoid them if I can. I can't hate them- it's not a choice they made. It would be like hating a man for getting cancer."
Will regarded him in silence long enough for Robert to grow uncomfortable. He was about to say something impolitic when Will broke the stare and gave him an appreciative bob of his head. "That's a way of looking at it I haven’t heard before. But it's true, isn't it? Nobody ever weighed the pros and cons, then chose to be a creeper."
He dropped his gaze for a moment, and when he looked back up he changed the subject. "So, tell me about you. What have you done, what can you do?"
"You mean for work?"
"Work, hobbies, things you're good at. What abilities do you possess that you could bring to the community?"
"I'm trained as a blacksmith and a welder, but I don't have my tools or equipment."
Will's eyes lit up. "If you told us what you need, and we got it for you, you could work as a smithy and a welder?"
Robert tried to control his hands and stop fidgeting. He turned away from Will and looked off into the distance as he spoke. "I would have to? In order to stay?"
Will spread his hands out before him. "Unfortunately Robert, we're not in a position to allow people in that don't have something to offer. Is that a problem?"
"I don't understand. There's a ton of room in those tunnels. Why can't I pick me out a spot, stay out of everybody's business, and tend to myself?"
"Because we are trying to build something here. We’re creating a community, where the whole is stronger than any of the parts. If everybody did what you said — picked out a spot and worried only about themselves — in a short time we’d have people stealing from and killing each other. Until some man or group took control and enslaved everyone else. In other words, we’d live in a Wild West town without a sheriff. That's not what I want for my family."
"I don't have a family to consider- I lost them back home. I just want to be left alone. I won't bother anybody, and I don't want anybody to bother me."
The stocky rancher stood up and clapped his hands together. "Then I guess this isn't the place for you. I'm sorry for your loss." He extended his hand; Robert, a bit dazed by the sudden change, offered his and they shook. "You're welcome to a meal before you hit the road, but don't stay past dark. The tunnels on the other side are off-limits- those are ours, too."
Will turned to walk away, but turned back after a few steps, his jaw tight and his eyes narrow. He pointed a long, thick finger at
Robert. "You know, I don't get you. I've had grown men get on their knees and weep when I tell them they can’t stay here. Women have offered me sexual favors. I offer you a place to stay and you refuse it."
Robert didn't speak, he just shrugged his shoulders and kicked at a spot on the ground.
Will took a step in his direction and pointed at the top of the bluff. "You'll die out there. You know that, right? A man can't survive on his own anymore. If the creepers don't get you, you'll starve, or get a little cut that festers and turns gangrenous. And you choose that over food, shelter, medicine? A chance to be part of a community of people working together to do great things?"
Robert felt hot tears threatening to fall and took an angry swipe at his eyes. He looked at the ground and muttered, barely moving his lips.
Will cupped his hand behind his ear. "What's that? I can’t hear you."
Robert’s hands curled into fists. He stuck his neck out and yelled as loud as he could. "Everybody I get to know or care about dies!" His tears fell fast and hard, and gut-wrenching sobs bubbled up from deep inside of him. He screamed at the sky and threw punches in the air.
To the man's credit, he didn't try to comfort Robert; he let the storm of emotions run its course. When he was all cried out, Will motioned Robert over to a big chunk of limestone and whacked the top with an open hand. "Sit there.†He offered Robert his canteen and took a dip of chew.
They sat on that rock for two hours. Robert bare his soul. Will listened and asked the occasional question. When they were done, Robert had committed to staying for a time. For four weeks, he would be an active member of the community, working, eating, and living with and alongside the other residents. Will vowed to search the equipment tunnel for blacksmithing equipment, and to task a scavenge team with finding whatever Robert needed that they didn't already own. "If you end up sticking around, we'll build you a forge. Lord knows we have plenty of work for you. As far as the welding- someday electricity will run through here. Come see me about it then."
Robert gave him an absent-minded nod. "Tell me something, honest. Why did you try so hard to get me to stay? I’m sure you have people already who can pound out a horseshoe or a hunting knife. What is so important about me?"
"Honest?"
Robert nodded his head.
"You are the saddest-looking man I've seen since the outbreak started. Your sadness is in your eyes, the way you stand, the way you don't look at someone when you speak to them. Sorrow oozes from your pores. I had you pegged for a guy who would be dead in a week if you walked out of here. Figured you’d kill yourself outright, or just give up and let the creepers get you.†Will gazed at him for a moment, gave him a nod, and walked away.
Robert stared at his back, open-mouthed. He hadn’t realized it until he heard it spoken, but he knew the man was right.
8
* * *
Life in the quarry was better than Robert expected.
True to his word, Will send a team out to locate the items he needed to build a forge in the northeast corner of the pit. They got enough brick to make a rectangle five feet long by three feet across, open in the middle, with an air pipe extending from each end. The forge walls were three feet high, and Will even sent a crew to construct a covered wooden frame over it. During an afternoon spent searching the supply tunnel, Robert found several pairs of heavy-duty tongs and pokers, hammers and shovels, and an eight-pound sledge. He also found metal bars and slabs of various sizes, perfect for casting and forging into other tools.
A pickup truck delivered a load of charcoal for fuel. The men who unloaded it for him said it came from a charcoal factory not far away and promised to deliver all he needed. "There are mountains of charcoal piled around the plant," one of them said as he tried in vain to wipe the dust from his clothes. "The briquettes near the top are wet and ruined, but after about five feet in they are as dry as a dead dog's dong. Just give us three or four days’ notice so we can work you into the schedule."
Robert winced at the deliveryman, whose name he later found out was Bruce. "Five feet? It must've taken a long time to shovel that deep into the pile."
Bruce and his men laughed. "We don't shovel. There was a backhoe at the factory. We hotwired it, jumped the battery, and knocked the top off the pile, all in about fifteen minutes."
He thanked the deliveryman and got to work shoveling briquettes. These weren't the kind of people he expected to find, he mused as he worked. Most of the people he met had a job and worked hard. They were polite, and no one took offense if he didn't talk to them.
Three weeks into his stay, a truck carrying a large team of men bounded across the pit and stopped at his forge. The truck’s rear-end tilted precariously, with its rear end inches off the ground.
As they grew closer, he saw Will standing in the bed with his elbows resting on top of the cab. He wore a short sleeve shirt and a straw hat and gave Robert a broad grin. The truck crawled to a stop next to the forge and Will vaulted out of the back. He clapped his hands together and shouted. "McGrew! Come over here and see what we got you."
Mystified, Robert made his way to the back of the truck. Two old and ratty blankets covered a lumpy and shapeless object in the bed.
"Are you ready for this?" Will asked. Without waiting for an answer, he ripped the blankets aside like a magician revealing an illusion.
Robert stared, agog, at a pair of anvils sitting beneath the blankets. "Holy smoke," he said, running his hand over the hard surface. His experienced eye could tell they were high quality, made of heat-treated forged steel. He pushed and pulled on them and estimated the bigger of the pair weighed 400 pounds, while its little brother clocked in at just over 300. The surfaces were unmarred, meaning tools had never struck them. "Where did you find them?"
Will's eyes sparkled and his smile grew even larger; he seemed to find great joy in Robert’s surprised pleasure. "We sent some guys out on a run not long after we got here, sent them out to see what they could find in an old fabrication shop up by Jasper. It was a bust- someone already looted it. But on the way back, one of the fellas saw a farmer had set up a farrier’s shop behind his house. They grabbed most of his tools, and we made note of the anvils in case there came a time we needed them." He looked Robert in the eye and grew solemn. "Are you ready to go to work?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"The let's figure out how to wrestle these heavy sum-bitches off the truck. Do you know where you want them?"
Robert helped fight and tussle them into place, then got busy pounding out horseshoes, door latches, and all manner of blades. He found himself a spot in tunnel number five, the shaft next to the one Will lived in alongside the people he'd been on the road with and most of the Originals who had moved into their tunnel (The story of the split between the rancher and The Judge became instant quarry lore. He learned during his first week there that the only people who remained in the Original’s tunnel were the Judge, Mark, his number two, and a few druggies and people that didn't want to work). His spot was off by itself, but not enough to make him seem antisocial. He constructed a little shack out of sheet metal and scrap lumber and picked through the rows of cast-aside furniture for a bed, a dresser, and a comfortable chair.
After months alone, it was odd to be around people. He encountered them when making his selections at the food bank, and as they wandered over to his forge because they needed something, or to just say hello. He ate supper at the communal meal in the evenings and usually picked out a seat where no one else sat. But if people wandered over to chat or walked up holding a tray of food and asked if they could sit with him, he never refused.
Slowly and by fits and starts, he was becoming a member of the community. And to his surprise, it felt good. For the most part, the other people were friendly, helpful, and capable. They had jobs and they got up in the morning and went to work. They put in a hard day and gathered with their friends in the evening for a meal that was good
, if plain, and fellowship. When he lay in bed at night and thought about the day, the word that came to him most often was normal. If you set aside all the crazy situations that existed because of the apocalypse, the Underground had the atmosphere of a normal small town.
Until a few days ago, when everything changed for him.
9
* * *
The community leaders — Will, Jiri, Danny, The Doc, Tara, Terrence — mostly dropped out of sight and were tense and withdrawn if anyone approached them. Rumors ran from one end of the pit to the other at lightning speed- The Judge shot Will's son in a coup attempt: Will's son and Danny disappeared to start a rival camp: Will or Jiri had cancer and would die any day.
Tunnel-dwellers who paid attention to such things said the leaders met in private several times a day for meetings that ran for hours. A small but vicious firefight raged for ten minutes down the road the night before. And then came the worst. The rumors died off save for one, and that one was on everybody's lips. A much larger and stronger force who wanted the tunnels for their own was poised to attack them.
That was enough for Robert. With a start, he remembered just how much he hadn't wanted to stay here in the first place. He'd be damned if he would die over a little patch of mining shaft far under the ground. He walked to his shack, doing his best to avoid people along the way. If he had to walk near someone else, he buried his face in the crook of his arm and muttered.
At the shack, he stuffed his sack with his extra pair of jeans, three clean shirts, and assorted underwear, socks, and handkerchiefs. He wore his handgun, a thirty-eight caliber Glock, around his waist; he retrieved three boxes of ammo from the top shelf of his dresser and placed them in a pouch inside the sack. He fastened the sheath for his knife around his belt and jammed home a deadly homemade combat knife with a razor-sharp blade on one side and a serrated edge on the other.
Threat Ascendant Page 3