by Bryan James
“What do you think?” I whispered to Kate as she kneeled down next to me.
“Time to make some noise?” she asked, completing my thought.
“Bringing them to us is easier than looking around,” I said. “And I’m not interested in wasting a lot of time here.”
She smiled, and her face glowed with mischief.
“Me neither,” she said simply, then leaned over and pressed her lips firmly against mine, stealing a deep, passionate kiss as she suddenly rapped her machete against the steel support of the machinery behind us. The metal rang like a bell, once, twice, three times.
But the kiss lingered.
After several minutes, we rose and scanned the darkness. No noise, no movement.
Quickly, we jogged to the left, being careful to perform the same exercise with a shorter fuse—and absent the kissing, to my chagrin.
Still nothing.
Now sure that the main floor space was clear, we motioned for the group, bringing them into the shelter of the building before we fanned out and checked each smaller space.
The entire mill was laid out in a simple structure. Processing equipment, like the conveyors and machines that turned logs into boards, were grouped to the right of the main entrance. More cutting and refining equipment, for more accurate cuts, were to the left. Unseen from the outside was another set of doors at the very end of the building behind the lumber processing area, that opened out, but were so flush to the wall that they hadn’t been apparent from our circuit outside. We guessed that this mill was a local operation, designed to be a one-stop shop for local timber needs. There certainly was enough supply in these sprawling forests.
After five minutes of exploration, Reggie found a generator with a full tank of diesel. Eli joined him as they stared at the controls under a flashlight, puzzling over whether they could get it cranked up, and whether the battery was still any good.
Kate and I took Ky and made a quick but thorough sweep of the offices on the upper floor. A single staircase led from the mill workspace to a small second floor nearly three stories up. A huge window looking out onto the mill floor sat in the wall of a conference room with a whiteboard and a large wooden table and eight lonely chairs. This room allowed entrance into three small offices and a control room of sorts, with computers, monitors and an assortment of mechanical controls. Two storage closets off a small kitchen held a variety of wonderful supplies, including a bag of sugar, several large cans of coffee and creamer, and a collection of chips and crackers that had been intended for a vending machine, but instead had a hand-written note on the side, indicating that each bag was $1.50 on the ‘honor system’. On a whim, I tried the water faucet, wondering and hoping that the mill was on its own pump, and it had a small backup power source.
Water spurted from the pipe and into the drain, and Kate and Ky smiled as it poured out, like nectar of the gods.
We had power, water, a fence, and a parking lot full of heavy machinery. Finally, things were looking up.
***
Through the office level, there was also a small bank of windows that looked out toward the road, over the fence line and to the west. From our position on the hill, looking out, we could barely see the narrow outline of the Trans-Canada highway branching off to the northwest, disappearing into a line of trees far into the distance.
And from here, we could also clearly see the rolling tide of the dead. They had already reached the industrial and commercial area a mile to our west, and they were slowly moving through it, like ants on a picnic. Seemingly intent on a goal far to the east—likely attracted to the same noise and light of the volcanoes erupting behind us that had pulled the herd to us at the dam—we could only watch as they got closer to where we stood. I had yet to pull Kate aside for a full detail of their experiences—we had gotten only a few words in between meeting and securing the building, but I knew she had things to tell me. Her looks were alternately anxious and slightly haunted, sparing glances toward the children as she helped everyone inside.
I knew she had to be doubting whether we could continue this journey. Whether it made any sense to do so, given the circumstances: tsunamis, earthquakes, herds of the undead. But I also knew she ultimately would not be deterred. Not until she opened the door to her ex-husband’s apartment and found her daughter, alive or dead.
We hadn’t discussed how we were intending on locating her if she wasn’t home, especially in a city of three million, likely all dead now, even if it weren’t under water by now.
But those were details. Everything right now was big picture. It had to be.
There was nothing else for her.
Everyone was inside, now, and the main doors had been closed. No one could locate a lock large enough for them, however, which was a concern. There was no clear way to keep them locked shut. Although there was a mechanism there with two large holes on either side of the opening, they seemed to call for some sort of huge padlock, which was no where to be found.
So today we would be relying on silence.
The entire group was upstairs, enjoying chips in the conference room and talking softly, when the convoy arrived.
I supposed—in retrospect—it had been a pretty stupid move. But in our defense, we were mostly fixated on the storm of the undead that was barreling toward us and would arrive on our doorstep when we parked the vehicles.
But we should have known.
With an armed group trailing us, out there somewhere, we should have thought to hide the vehicles we stole from their former camp.
“Mother fucker,” Kate whispered, her face serious and drawn. She had been plastered to the window since we made camp in the building, eyes scanning the horizon. Now, her hands were clenched next to her sides as a group of women in various degrees of combat dress fanned out against the entrance, a humvee pulling right up to the gates as the remainder of the group took up support positions, alternately pointing toward and away from the fence.
Beyond them, the herd was massing, now starting to filter into the trees between the residential area and the road—no more than a half mile from where the convoy sat now. But that herd, that walking, devouring force of slavering nature, would not yet be visible to the convoy. It would still be hidden by the trees.
Much like a tsunami preparing to crest on shore that appears only as a slightly elevated horizon, there was not even a pullback of sea water to herald their coming. Only silence and time.
Slowly, I panned my head from left to right, marking the large transport vehicle, the two humvees with the turret-mounted fifty cals, and, most importantly, the young woman with a large, thick-barreled weapon held professionally against her shoulder, pointed at the gate.
A grenade launcher, unless I missed my guess. And if she took those gates down, our fortress became our tomb.
Even from this distance, it was clear that we were going to have to go speak with our visitors.
Suddenly, gunshots split the air. A single volley on full automatic, sounding like a jackhammer.
It was the fifty cal, and tracer rounds arced into the roof of the mill on the far end. Instinctively, everyone in the room dropped down as streaks of light shot through the ceiling on the other side of the building.
Instantly, I brought my head back to the window and looked past the convoy.
The herd had accelerated. And it was turning directly toward the gunshots.
“Those ass-sucking idiots!” Rhi yelled, stomping to the window. “They’re gonna bring that herd right to our door!”
“They can’t see them,” said Kate, cursing as she picked up her rifle. “They’re going to knock that gate down if we don’t come out. We have to go talk to them, now!” At that, she bolted from the room.
“Wait!” yelled Ethan, as Rhi and Ky also exclaimed loudly. “They’ll gun you down!”
“No, they won’t,” I heard Kate say softly as she bounded down the steps and pulled the large doors open again.
All I could do was follow, afte
r speaking briefly to Ethan and Rhi and watching them instantly disburse.
This could get interesting really quickly.
***
It wasn’t far from my mind that we had less than five minutes to resolve this before the herd would come boiling out of those woods beyond the road. Even now, I expected the first of them to arrive, which would destroy our blessed anonymity and leave us trapped inside the fences in perpetuity.
Kate barreled forward, heedless of the armed women outside. Her rifle was slung over her back, and her eyes flashed with anger as we approached the gates. I stared over the group’s shoulder for signs of the approaching herd, but we were down the hill now, our vantage point gone. It was doubly eerie now that I knew they were there, but could see nothing. Only a vague smell of rot and decay that blew in alternating gusts of wind from the west.
A vaguely attractive woman with a severe face and short brown hair pushed her way to the front of the pack of soldiers, no weapon in her arms but her hand resting lightly on her sidearm, almost as if she only needed the comfort of knowing it was there. An athletic build underneath an Army uniform with Captain’s bars gave her away as the leader of the group.
“Captain,” said Kate, her voice barely under control as she neared the gate. Several rifles were pointed her direction and, I noted with some chagrin, the remainder were pointed directly at yours truly. As if I represented the truest possible threat to peace, love and democracy.
“Kate.” The soldier’s response was cold and monotone, although a humorless smile slid into place across her thin lips.
“We didn’t think we’d find you this far so quickly, but I guess you proved your resourcefulness. Looping back around us for the trucks—that was pretty clever. Although I must say, impressively fast. I’m not sure how you pulled it off, but … I guess it must be the meth.” Her face twisted again in a grin that lacked any notion of sincerity.
I tried to keep my own face stoic and calm, without betraying my surprise that Kate had apparently become a meth user since we last parted ways.
People changed, I guess. I’d stay with her until her teeth fell out, at least. Then we’d see.
“And you found a friend,” Starr’s eyes evaluated me as I simply stared at her, not knowing exactly how to insert myself in this intense little shitting contest.
“I didn’t know you swung that way, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the deception.”
Kate shook her head and glanced up over her shoulder.
“I don’t have time to explain, Starr, but that wasn’t me. There’s more of us here, just trying to survive. Ky and me—we left because we don’t agree with you and your people. On your methods of staying safe. We don’t want to hurt you. But I’m not asking you to understand that right now. We don’t have time.” She slowly raised her arm toward the trees behind the convoy.
“Because in about four minutes, we are all going to be on the receiving end of a herd that looks to have emptied out every city and town between here and Vancouver. If they see you here—or us—our cover is blown, and all of us are going to die. You need to keep moving and you need to leave now.”
Kate’s voice was sincere and contained equal measures of fear and anger. Behind the leader, several women turned their heads unconsciously, scanning the forest behind them, past the wrecks of cars and the overgrown median.
Starr allowed actual mirth to escape her countenance and the loud chuckle sounded to my ears slightly unhinged. Turning slightly at the hips, she tossed back to her group.
“Isn’t that convenient? Our wayward daughter has a convenient excuse on tap for why we shouldn’t pull her ass back in and ice the rest of her friends. What a shock.” Her minions laughed briefly, but I noticed the fear now resting firmly in their eyes as the thought of an implacable herd approaching began to settle in.
Still, several of the real soldiers in the front lines kept their eyes forward and heads on swivels, scanning the interior of the property for threats, rifles up and ready.
“I’m not making this shit up, Starr. Get your head out of your ass for once and think of the children back there. You have lives at stake—just like we do in here. We have about very little time now before those things come boiling out of that forest. We can't sit here and piss that time away, or we’re going to die. If you can’t get past your own issues, think of your people for fuck’s sake.”
“And what would you have me do, Kate?” Starr asked, her voice lowering now for a more intimate discussion. She leaned forward, putting her hands on the bars of the gate and staring at Kate with frigid eyes.
“Leave you be? Let you walk away from us? Let you take your secrets? Not when they could mean so much to me and my people. Could do so much for our way of life.” She shook her head and looked at the hardened gates, shaking them once approvingly.
“No, no. I can’t do that.”
Kate came forward now and I flinched, thinking to pull her back. Several rifles came up immediately, tracking my movement. Her face was near Starr’s now, eyes flashing.
“Don’t you understand? If you don’t leave now, we’re all going to die. Those things will know we’re here. They’ll surround us. And we will never leave. Even if they don’t get in, we’re going to die. And you? You have less of a chance. Try motoring down this road with thousands of them on your trail, in front of you, bogging you down. You’re going to die out there. All for this petty vendetta shit. It’s going to mean exactly jack fucking squat in a minute.”
“And why shouldn’t we kill you now?” The rifles behind her and the fifty cal turret turned slowly as she spoke.
This was a good enough time to prove we weren’t alone. My hand rose slightly in a clenched fist, and two rounds hit the ground on either side of Kate and I, deliberately far enough from the convoy so as to know it was a show, not an attack.
Starr blinked once, and grimaced as she scanned the building for the position of the snipers.
Kate didn’t flinch. “You know why you were following me. You want to know why I’m special. How I came to be that way. I can show you. But for that to happen, we all need to survive.”
Starr opened her mouth to respond. But as she did so, the clock expired.
The game was over. The jig, completely and utterly fucking up.
A scream shot through the air as a rifle began to fire on semi-automatic in the rear of the convoy, closest to the opposite side of the highway. The party had begun.
Hundreds of creatures, packed close together and all shambling forward in hunger, were emerging from the trees. Tattered clothing and gaunt frames bearing rotting skin and malevolent expressions of pure need.
Starr released Kate and drew her arm back through the gate.
“Sir?” It was the woman with the grenade launcher, looking hopefully at the protection offered by the gates.
The captain’s snarl was disgusted, but almost seemed amused as she shook her head.
“No. Leave the gates intact. We’ll leave our friends here so we know where to come back for them when this is all done.” She walked backward away from the gates as the machine guns and engine noise began to drown out her words.
“Good luck, bitch. We’ll be watching. And we’ll be back for you. Count on it.” She spat once in the dirt and turned on her heel, sprinting for her truck and drawing her sidearm.
Already, the herd was thick on the road, but was slowed by the thick traffic on the northbound side. The convoy used the shoulder to turn around to the south, thick truck tires managing the grassy shoulder effectively. The lead vehicle began to chatter away with its fifty caliber emplacement, tearing through zombies that wandering into its path. Hundreds had already poured over the southbound lane, and they packed the median.
The heavy thwump of several grenades thinning the herd to the south was loud in the chill air. More rifle fire and more explosions tracked the convoy as it sped south. It seemed that they were running out of space to operate, though, as I watched the retreat. The herd wa
s pressing in on all sides, narrowing their route and pushing them closer to the tree line. At one point further along, maybe a quarter mile from our position, the traffic jam was broken by a single wide space, maybe where a car had been stolen or moved for some purpose. This allowed more than fifty to pour into the path of the convoy. The lead truck tore into the crowd of undead, taking heads and limbs from bodies, but unable to thin the bulk of the crowd. The fourth truck in the convoy, a smaller imported version with only two passengers, bogged down on a corpse and its front left wheel caught. Careening wildly to the left, it slammed into a tree trunk and we watched as the airbags deployed and the glass shattered.
Instantly, the creatures were on it, reaching through the destroyed windows, finding flesh and smelling blood.
The bodies were ripped from the cab and pulled to the ground. Their clothing shredded, and hands finding soft, delicate spots to rend and tear. The screams were drown out by the chatter of rifle fire as the herd followed the noise and was drawn forward.
But it wasn’t just the convoy they wanted.
It was too late for us too.
Drawn to the gate by necessity, we now stood exposed, two healthy, tasty humans alone and visible.
They were coming for us, and we had nowhere else to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men ...
“It’s like Black Friday or something.” Ky’s voice was quiet as she stared out the window, her night vision allowing her to see the hordes of undead pressing themselves against the metal fence and the thick gate. It had been hours since the herd arrived, drawn to their presence by the appearance of Starr and her minions. They were so thick outside that the trees in their midst shook constantly from the pressure of bodies behind them.