“Sounds intense,” I whispered back.
“It was,” he assured me. “They had me in a tent of some sort, tied down to a stake in the ground. When I decided it was time to make my break, I bolted out through the flap ready to run, but my foot caught on a patch of slick and I tumbled forward face first into a wet pile of mess. I turned my head at the last minute and my cheek collided with something hard, almost knocking me out. I looked down at my hands and saw blood, and for a moment I thought I was already done for. Then I realized what it was. It was a chopping block of wood and steel with a butcher's cleaver in it. There was a head lying on top that used to belong to a small child. His unblinking eyes were staring dead into mine. They had carved him up like a Thanksgiving turkey right outside my tent, and left the unwanted parts out for the flies to lay maggots in.”
I didn't know what to say. I felt my stomach churn in the darkness, and for some reason I thought about poor little Sam. I could still see his sad eyes staring at me as I gave him the Snickers bar and sent him on his way to die. In my mind, those same eyes stared back at me from that slaughter block.
“I heard one of them laugh behind me, and I wheeled around in terror,” he continued. “Turns out they hadn't seen a thing. Unity Gang had joined them after the feast and they were too busy bartering with them to notice me. I heard them arguing over a price for my head, but I didn't stick around to hear what the bid was. I sprang up and ran straight out into the desert night. When my lungs burned and my legs felt like they were made out of heavy old tires filled with concrete, I remembered that head on the block. An animal fear ran through me and kept me moving. They say I was like a savage covered in dried blood when they found me and put me in quarantine. They thought for sure I had been bitten. I was unable to speak, I was panting and moaning, and I was soaked from the head down in human blood. To this day, my buddy Roger says he came within seconds of popping a cap in me.”
There were other similar stories you'd hear being passed around, but none quite as colorful or as jarring as that one. I hoped that I'd never cross paths with cannibal Alphas, especially after coming so close to being taken by their kind back in Paradise City.
I'd rather go down fighting than surrender and let them do that to me, I thought.
Above Freedom Town was a small highway called 58 that led to the city center of Barstow. Sometimes trouble came from that direction, but not often. There wasn't anything up there that interested us. There was an old strip mine operation that worked the land for precious metals, and back against the hill stood a huge, ominous white building that once belonged to one of the companies in the aerospace industry.
Below Freedom Town was Pearblossom Highway and civilization, or what was left of it. We were nestled to the west of Helendale and Silverlake, between highways 395 and 15, out in the middle of nowhere where no one would ever need to bother with us. There had been talk from the start about pushing into the well-manicured neighborhood to the east, especially with it's lake front properties and the cool breeze it would afford us to ward off the desert heat, but it had been ruled uninhabitable for now. While I never said anything when the others would daydream about it, I knew I didn't want to live there. I was glad we weren't being asked to reclaim it. One thing I'd learned was that moving into abandoned neighborhoods came with unexpected surprises. First of all, you'd have to clean it up and clear it of danger, and not just zombies. People kept all sorts of strange things they had no business collecting and left them just strewn around in suburbia. The more money they had, the more junk they acquired.
The other reason was that once you established something as yours, you had to defend it. That's when you became a target. The others might not understand it, but as far as I was concerned it was inevitable. Once we moved in and prettied everything up, it would only be a matter of time until the bikers came to get their piece of our freshly restored nirvana. Then we'd be just like the people of New Lompoc, making horrible decisions and turning on ourselves to protect our little scrap of land, the small piece of civilization we'd carved out for ourselves. I didn't fancy the idea of taking orders from another guy like John, or worse still – becoming him!
Out in the camps of Freedom Town we had a peace most settlers couldn't imagine, even if life was tainted by hard work and austerity. It was clean, honest, and unattached.
Attachment is the root of all evil, I reminded myself. Once you become attached and you can't bear to part with something, that's when they've got you. That's when people get hurt and lives are lost. That's what turns people into real monsters.
The only problem with our plan was the Alphas. They were just too damn unpredictable. You never knew what they really wanted, and having no leader, no central focus, just made them that much harder to deal with.
They're nothing but a bunch of sociopaths, I thought. No conscience, no morals, no feelings. They're worse than zombies in so many ways. Zombies are victims too. Alphas are Satan's lapdogs.
As I made the turn around the Northwestern part of the perimeter I heard some rustling in the low-lying scrub brush and stopped dead in my tracks, listening for anything. First, I scanned my immediate area from the boots out, then I began checking the weeds for signs of movement. The last thing I wanted was to mistake a crawler for a rabbit and get taken down. It happened more than people realized. Zombies didn't die just because you cut them in half or tore off their arms. People ran them over, people diced them up, but still the dead kept coming. A pair of teeth and a functioning brain stem were all they needed to keep going. Most people were so terrified of them, they didn't check to make sure they'd taken out the brain. That was the only way to kill them for real. That was the only known way to ensure they didn't come back. Most people didn't give a damn about making sure they were put down for good. That's why it was entirely possible that in a desolate, uninhabitable place like the edge of Freedom Town, I might find the tattered remains of some horrible nightmare trying to pull itself up my leg to take a bite out of me. I felt a surge of anger rush through me as I thought of Sam again.
You didn't have a choice, I thought, but it felt like a cop-out. Knowing now that there was a cure, that Sam might have been able to turn back into a little boy, only made my throbbing sense of guilt worse.
You promised him you'd come back for him one day, I thought. What if he is still up there in that neighborhood where you first found him, locked in a house waiting? What if he can still be saved?
A dry gust of wind came from the east carrying with it the hint of rattling cans and hushed voices, like the distant dull roar of the ocean. I turned and looked in the direction of the rail yard and drew out my sword, ready for action. If the Alphas were spoiling for a fight, they were in for a surprise. I was in the mood to go to war!
Chapter Five
My heart beat fast as I wound around the north perimeter of the Freedom Town fence. I kept my eyes peeled toward the top of the rail yard looking for signs of bikes or scavengers who could pick the metal clean from the lines. One too many spikes missing could cause a catastrophe that would not only cost us lives, but also cripple our town. Without supplies, we wouldn't last long out in these extreme conditions. Our little desert flower would wither and die faster than a bouquet of roses left in a hot car with the windows up on a blistering summer's day.
In an effort to bring back some sense of order and normalcy, the military had scavenged rail and set up connecting lines from the base to the northern entrance of Freedom Town. There was already a functioning line that led down toward Los Angeles from Edwards. It then rode the baseline of the mountains up and past Pasadena, then cut through the uninhabited areas behind Simi and Moorpark, and went straight out toward Ventura. Before it ever reached Paradise City, the conductor would bring it to a halt and one of the soldiers would connect them toward Hueneme. It was how Felicity and I had gotten out to Freedom Town in the first place, and how supplies were kept moving out to the desert even with us being cut off from major centers like Barstow and Vict
orville. According to what the General told me, the hope was that when the time came to reclaim the main streets of Barstow, a city famous for it's magnificent, crisscrossing railroad lines, we'd already have a running line ready to go.
“Z Day may have knocked us back a little,” General Helmer had confided to me one night, “but not to the Stone Age some people think. Maybe back to the Wild West. Gunslingers and steam engines. Thing is, we know how to create electricity, we know how to purify water, we know about medicine, we know so much. Did we get set back by all of this? Sure. No doubt about it. But we can rise again, much faster than our ancestors could. As long as men and women still possess that fire in their bellies to create a better future for themselves, the light of humanity will never burn out.”
It all sounded great, that high and noble fancy talk, but it also meant that we were bringing danger closer to us as well. It meant someone had to constantly patrol the area and protect the rail lines from Alphas, zoms, and above all else…bored kids. Just like any other town, Freedom had its own gang of delinquents who seemed to thrive on causing trouble. Those reprobates were my least favorite part of the job.
Who'd have thought I'd get so sick and tired of kids that were close to my own age? I remember when I used to sit up all night dreaming about being a normal kid again. Now it's all I can do to hide my resentment of these spoiled children who had no real responsibilities, and all the time in the world to cause trouble.
I spotted a flash of brown hair down by the tracks at the same time I heard a young girl giggle. Stepping forward away from the fence my foot caught loose dirt, slipping into a soft hole. Immediately I lost my balance and toppled forward. My sword clattered as I lurched forward, while I fought back the string of swear words forming on the tip of my tongue. My ankle screamed, but it wasn't broken. It was just a little sore from having my weight momentarily placed the wrong way on it. I heard the voices in the distance, still laughing and chattering, oblivious to my presence.
“Man, I hate those kids,” I mumbled to myself, rubbing my ankle and checking it for a sprain. I looked over to see a mangy piece of carpet by the side of the fence, along with a loose plywood board. “Those little jerks are going to get someone else killed.”
Freedom Town had its fair share of teens. When I was back on the base at Vandenberg, I had to find ways to keep myself occupied. All the kids did. In Freedom Town though, things were different. There was always something that needed to be done. Kids as small as seven or eight could help by holding equipment, fetching supplies, bringing food and water to workers, collecting scrap, or simply being one of the lookouts.
Most days they had school in the mornings, and homework to finish at night. As members of Freedom Town they also had chores to complete. Part of the charter described the need for radical self-reliance and sustainability. The plain version of this translated into a grueling list of daily chores and grunt work. All the unpleasant tasks like sanitation and food preparation and perimeter sweeps were split up between all the residents. The kids were not exempt – not even small children.
Despite all of this, the Freedom Town teens still found ways to screw around and cause trouble. They dug holes under the perimeter fence, then covered them up with old scraps of carpet and sprinkled dirt over the top. In addition to being a major security breach these “Charlie Tunnels,” as they called them, were also a safety hazard. One of the smaller kids sent to inspect the fence line for breaks fell into one and broke her foot. She had to be sent to Edwards for medical attention. A meeting was called consisting mostly of community elders, along with teens hanging their heads down the entire time, eyes glued to their own shoelaces…but the digging continued. They were like determined convicts intent on escaping our prison paradise. Locals began calling them the Brat Pack, and the name stuck. The kids soon used it as a badge of honor.
Alcohol is forbidden by law in Freedom Town. If zombies were to come – or worse yet, Alphas – people needed to have their wits about them. Despite knowing this, several of the older residents set up a still the first week after I arrived and had been put in charge. They'd pilfer apples from the canteen and turn them into hard cider. After a while, a process was refined through which they began to turn corn into potent moonshine. They kept the spoils of those tiny souvenir Coke bottles, which they'd cork themselves and stash away, often meeting in secret at a place they called McKeel's Saloon, which moved from tent to tent without warning. The members of this supposedly secret society called themselves White Dogs or Freedom Town Racers, all references to the early days of running illegal moonshine. I knew about it, hell everyone did, but I never said a word.
“People need to have their secrets,” Moto had once said to me when I was back on the base at Hueneme. He'd been facing a similar situation. One of his subordinates had been found with some illegal contraband, a bottle of Sailor Jerry rum. Moto had refused to turn him in or take it away. I didn't understand why at the time. Having contraband was a direct violation of military law. Moto could even get in trouble if people found out he knew about it and word got back to his general.
“People need to feel like they can still have a little bit of their old lives,” Moto continued. “You take that away from them, you don't know what they've got left.”
It didn't take long before the Brat Packerz figured out how to pilfer a few bottles and squirrel them away. They'd sneak off-site through the Charlies and head up to the rail station to drink, boast, smoke cigarettes, and play Truth or Dare. There was even an abandoned rail car they dubbed 'Look Out Mountain' where kids would mess around and make out.
Cans of spray paint had been shipped from Hueneme to Edwards, and eventually sent over to Freedom Town. There were stacks of every color of Krylon you could ever imagine, even gold and copper. The idea was that eventually Freedom Town residents would be enlisted to head over to Silver Lakes and Helendale, and go door to door through the beautiful suburban homes to scavenge for supplies and useful materials. The military was supposed to make one quick sweep of the area, then set us loose. We would then move through and pick the neighborhood apart, one house at a time. When we'd finished, we would then spray the sides of the house with color-coded symbols to indicate what we had found and that the residence had been cleared. The idea came from how government contractors handled the cleanup of ruined homes in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.
Instead, the cans were just stacked in one of the supply outposts and covered with a tarp. It didn't take long for the Brat Packerz to stumble onto them. Soon there was nearly a third less spray paint cans, and the rail yard had come alive with vivid art. It appeared that one or more of the Brat Packerz were actually talented graffiti artists.
The old me would be impressed instead of wanting to find and punish them, I thought, as a heaviness seeped into me. Things had changed so much in such a short time. Would they always be like this now? Would I be crushed under the weight of angry strangers expecting me to perform the small miracle of erecting a functioning town in the middle of a dry lonely desert?
I reached the edge of the clearing and hid behind a patch of weeds and the rusted out body of an old abandoned Buick. I could see several teens laughing and filling in the blanks of a six-foot-tall mural that read, appropriately enough, Pack Rulez. The leader was sixteen-year-old Scott Kastanian, which wasn't shocking. He'd been a constant source of friction for me since I had taken over at Freedom Town. He was as big a fan of Felicity Jane as I had been before meeting and becoming involved with her, and this only seemed to worsen his hatred for me. He questioned everything I did, spread rumors about me in the camp, coughed loudly whenever I spoke at council, and generally got under my skin every chance he got. I was also fairly sure he'd been behind my nickname, Sour Grapes. It had started off by some of the kids calling me Alexander the Great, then over time it changed as each kid threw in their own take on it. Alexander the Great became Alexander the Grape, then Grape Ape, and finally just Sour Grapes.
Kids and their ridicul
ous nicknames, I fumed as I watched Scott laugh and tell stories while sipping from a Coke bottle. It was one of the hardest parts of being in charge, not being able to really be one of them anymore. I was now married, the old guy, the boss man, the jerk. I thought about Benji and wished he were here with me.
He'd set them straight for sure, I thought. I wouldn't mind having someone in my corner, someone to spread some good rumors about me, maybe talk about how I took on a zombie horde once and even outsmarted Nazi bikers.
Standing next to Scott was his best friend and partner in crime, Tyler Finch. There were also several young girls watching as they worked on filling in their artwork. The girls ranged in age between eleven-year-old Penelope Campbell to sixteen-year-old Janice Johnson. I was surprised to see her out in harms way after what had happened to her sister that same morning. She had on makeup she'd no doubt pilfered from other women in the camp, a tight clinging tube top, and a jeans miniskirt. She took a huge swig off a bottle of homemade hooch before lighting up a cigarette.
A flash of anger stirred within me, but I worked to contain it. They were sitting ducks out here, drawing attention to themselves, and to the rail yard. They were breaking all the rules and tempting fate. I didn't know which made me angrier. That's when I heard a small whisper in the back of my mind that froze me dead in my tracks.
You're only angry because they have something you want. They are young and free and able to make mistakes. You never got to be a kid, to break the rules, to test the limits. Maybe that's why you are failing at leading this town, failing at your marriage, and failing as a soldier.
“Hey,” I yelled, moving quickly from out of my hiding space. All eyes turned to me. Tyler's mouth fell open in complete surprise. It was clear they had not known I would be pulling the watch duty, and had not expected me to be there. Perhaps in the past Andrew had turned a blind eye to this kind of behavior, but he was no longer here.
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