“Like … to be slaughtered?” asked Nelson. “But these had to be seasoned survivors after all these years. How could they be … I dunno, tricked?”
“Look,” Hemp said. “I’ve been trying to avoid going here, but I’m worried about Kingman. We’re not exactly a secret. We didn’t know about this group in Great Bend, but maybe they didn’t have anyone knowledgeable in amateur radio and maybe they never heard our broadcasts. The other option is what I said earlier. Perhaps they just arrived here recently and hadn’t really established yet.”
“You think whoever – or whatever – did this,” said Flex, “might hit Kingman next?”
“Flex, your guess is as good as mine,” said Hemp. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, we’re all on WAT-5. Let’s put in the eye drops and get this done. The sooner it’s over with, the sooner we can try to find the kids.”
CHAPTER SIX
After duplicating the glowing, pink eyes of the standard rotters, Gem, Flex and Punch headed out to investigate any nearby homes that appeared to have been recently occupied, or that appeared to be fortified in some way. Hemp, Charlie, Dave and Nelson headed off to City Hall.
Both groups had two radios, this time all set to channel 12.
Gem stopped the Ford in front of a yellow house. The grass was shorter than the other homes, and there was an old manual push mower tucked against the front porch. There were boards on the windows with what appeared to be view holes drilled every few feet.
“Good a start as any,” said Flex. “But pull over to the side. If anyone’s inside, they could take pot shots at us.”
“Our eyes are bound to freak anyone out if they run into us in a dark hallway,” said Punch.
“We’ll make sure we’re announced,” said Gem. “Let’s go. I’d like to get this over with as soon as we can and get back on the road. I still think this is a waste of time.”
“Hemp usually knows his shit, woman,” said Flex. “Maybe we should withhold judgment.”
Gem pulled the car to the side of the house where there were no windows. Everyone got out.
With Queenie in fire position, Gem led. Punch chose his tactical shotgun for this outing. Flex had his Daewoo, which he had replaced three times since the beginning of the infection, and it was by far his comfort weapon.
“If you don’t mind, Gem, I’ll lead the way,” said Punch, his voice a whisper. She allowed him to move in front of her. “Let’s head to the back of the house. Too much cover in front.”
They worked their way to the rear. No walkers came out of the nearby yards to get to them, and nothing at all moved in the distance, though they were alert and constantly scanned the streets, sidewalks, and other areas.
Punch stepped onto the porch, his boot not making a sound. He waved Flex and Gem up behind him. He reached a sliding door and hooked his fingers around the handle, giving it a pull.
Turning to look at them, he said, “It’s locked, but hold on.”
Flex and Gem nodded together as Punch leaned his gun against the deck railing. The vertical blinds were fully closed, so he put his palms flat on the glass and pushed upward.
The locked audibly popped, and Punch slid the door open.
Suddenly a blast sounded from inside the house and the entire glass shattered, peppering all of them in the face and knocking the three of them off the porch, with Punch coming to land on his back on top of Flex, who had just missed landing on Gem.
Gem was on her feet first, her Uzi pointed at the shattered door.
Flex and Punch were up next, brushing glass from their clothing and staring at the darkness beyond the fluttering blinds.
“Hello!” shouted Punch. “We’re not here to harm anyone!”
“We saw the town square,” said Gem. “All of your friends and neighbors killed. We’re trying to find out what happened.”
Another shot rang out, this time breaking the window of the house directly behind them.
“Knock that shit off!” yelled Flex. “We’ll help you if we can!”
“Fuck this,” whispered Punch. You guys stay here and keep talking, distracting them. I’ll go around to the side and look for another way in.”
“Better get the fuck in there before I kill them,” said Flex.
“If you hear me kick in a door, that might be a good time to charge inside,” said Punch. “Whoever’s in there is going to be instantly focused on that noise. Just get low when you do.”
Punch disappeared around the corner. It did not take very long for Flex and Gem to hear the noise. It sounded as though Punch had a battering ram.
“Go!” shouted Flex, spreading apart the blinds and diving into the bedroom that lay beyond. Gem came in right behind him, diving to the floor beside Flex, her Uzi in front of her.
The gun went off again and the round whizzed overhead. Punch had been right to tell them to get low.
“Stop shooting!” shouted Flex.
Another shot sounded, but this time it was directed away from them.
Flex nudged Gem and nodded. “Let’s get up a bit and see if we can get a feel for the room.”
When they had charged through the verticals, several had broken off, so a decent amount of sunlight now filtered into the room.
They raised their heads to peer over a double bed between them and the source of the flying rounds.
On the bed in front of them, lying on its back, was a shriveled corpse. Dark stains, clearly spatter, dotted the pillow beneath its head, and wisps of gray hair stuck out from its dried skull.
“Holy shit,” said Gem. “Scared me.”
Flex looked over to see the room was now empty. Whomever had been shooting at them had slipped away.
A thump came from outside the room, accompanied by a squeal and a cry. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” came Punch’s voice. “Stop struggling, please. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You okay in there, Punch?” asked Flex.
“I am,” he said, and as Gem and Flex got to their feet, Punch appeared in the doorway with an old woman in front of him. She stared at the corpse on the bed and then at Flex and Gem. Then she slapped at Punch’s arms, tears flowing down her face.
Gem did not hesitate. She walked around the bed and put her weapon on the dresser. She approached the woman and took her hands, though the elderly woman tried to pull away. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “I’m Gem Sheridan. Behind me is my husband, Flex, and the man holding you is a former Marine named Punch. We’re not here to harm you.”
“Let me go!” she shouted.
“Her rifle’s empty,” said Punch, nodding toward a bolt-action rifle lying on the floor by the door.
The old man on the bed had to have been her husband. Flex went to the corpse and looked it over.
The blood spatter was from a head shot, administered right in the center of the forehead.
“They killed Henry!” she cried. “Came in here and saw him in the bed and shot him right there!” she screamed.
“I’m so, so sorry,” said Gem, not letting go of her hands. “We’re here to find out who these people were,” she added.
“They were murderers!” said the woman, who appeared to be in her late seventies or early eighties. Her white hair was dirty and the creases on her face told the story of each year she had struggled through since 2011 and the start of the apocalypse that now spanned a decade and a half.
“I … I crawled from under my bed to beneath the sink in the bathroom,” she said. “I tucked in there and slid over as far as I could to the corner. They opened it and took a first aid kit from in front, but they didn’t see me, I was so far back.”
“Was that after they shot your husband?”
“Henry wasn’t my husband. He was my brother,” she said. “My husband died years ago – before the monsters came. Henry had a stroke a couple months ago, right after he got here from Arizona. I hadn’t heard from him in so long I thought he was already dead, but there he was on my doorstep, delivered by some good people.”
�
�What’s your name, sweetie?” asked Gem, releasing her hands. Punch let go of her shoulders, and she shuffled to the bed and sat on the corner, by her dead brother’s feet.
“I’m Irene Danner,” she said. “Henry was my older brother.”
“So you were alone before he got here?” asked Punch.
“I still haven’t forgiven you, young man,” said Irene, looking at Punch.
“You were shooting that rifle, ma’am,” he said. “I had to come at you from the rear. It’s my training. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and looked from one to the other of them, her intense, green eyes checking for signs of deceit.
“Irene,” said Gem. “My Godson and another young girl came through Great Bend within the last day, we’re pretty sure. We only need to get an idea what happened so we can figure out what conclusions they might have reached. They’re pretty special kids, and we know they didn’t turn back.”
“I couldn’t make it to the square for the meeting,” said Irene. “I know it’s just a walk from here, but Henry here was bedridden, and he’s been having bladder issues. I had to stay to tend to him.”
“What did you hear, ma’am?” asked Punch.
“It was terrible,” she said, her eyes darting between them and her brother’s body on the bed. “Can we go into the other room?”
Flex noticed what had distracted her and said, “Sorry, ma’am. Yeah, let’s go in the other room.”
The four walked into the living room where Irene Danner sat on the end of a threadbare sofa. The interior of the house appeared to have been from the 1980s, with wood paneling and green shag carpeting.
“When I heard you at the back door, I thought someone came back to kill me,” she said. “They left ten, twelve days ago I think. I mark my calendar every day and I haven’t really counted them up. It’s on the fridge.”
Punch got up and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with something in his hand. “Exactly two weeks,” he said. “Good guess by Hemp on that.”
“Who was here, Irene?” asked Gem.
“They were young men,” she said. “I could tell from their voices.”
“Good move getting under the bathroom sink. I wouldn’t look for anyone in there.” asked Gem.
“If I didn’t, I’d be dead now,” she said. “I was under the bed when they shot Henry, and when they left the room for a few minutes it didn’t seem safe enough, so I hurried myself up and moved. I had my gun with me, but all my bullets were in a box under my mattress, so a lot of good it did me.”
“At least they didn’t find it,” said Punch. “Have you needed it since they left?”
She shook her head. “No, but I did see a few of those things outside. Zombies, people were calling them. I didn’t shoot at them because I’m just not that good a shot. If I missed they’d come over and try to get in.”
“Smart move,” said Flex. “Anyway, Irene, do you know what the meeting in the square was about?”
“I thought I had the flyer here somewhere,” she said. “I might’ve burned it for heat. It was an organization meeting. There were some folks up in Hoisington who wanted to join with us. A nothin’ little town, even worse than this one. I’ve been there a lot of times over the years.”
Punch looked at Flex. “I wonder if Max and Isis found one of the flyers,” he said.
“Irene, have you heard from anyone else since that happened?” asked Flex. “Any survivors?”
She shook her head again. “Not a peep. Just those things in the street, the zombies. And not many of them. I had enough water, but I’m runnin’ out of food. They just built a big greenhouse for the town where we were going to grow our own food and we had a line on some cattle, too. There was a large herd roaming wild a couple of miles west of us that they were gonna go try to round up the day after the meeting. I bet we could have had it better than a lot of folks if all this hadn’t happened.”
“How many people lived here before the massacre?” asked Gem.
“The number 345 rings a bell,” she said. “It was always big news when we hit another ten, you know, like 320, 330, 340, and so on. Felt like we were creatin’ a real community again.”
“Where did you live before this all happened?” asked Punch. “I ask because my grandma was a sweetheart just like you and this house reminds me of her old place.”
“That’s because this old lady’s son built this place a long time ago, mister, and I decorated it myself. I was born and raised in another tiny house on the other side of town. My place is close to the town square and I can tell you I’m glad I was here. I’d have died a few times over if it wasn’t for them using my garage for storing supplies.”
“Who is them?” asked Punch.
“My nephew and a friend or two that I had left would go out on supply runs and they’d just bring everything here. One day they quit comin’ and I never heard of ‘em again. But I had all the food and water, I sure did.”
Flex did not need to ask what she thought happened to them. If you went out regularly enough, your ticket would eventually get punched. Their son’s fate proved that with a vengeance.
Irene continued: “Place was pretty overrun with the monsters until Colin and his group came into town.”
“Colin?” asked Gem.
“Colin Weller,” said Irene. “He showed up one day with over a hundred or so people, which brought us up over three hundred, and they just started wiping the things out.”
“How did they kill them?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “Guns mostly. Knives and swords, though I have no idea where they got the damned swords.”
“Did they kill anyone else – like the other folks did Henry?” asked Punch.
“No, no,” she said. “Colin was a good young man. His group came from Garden City and Dodge City, they said. Got as many survivors as they could and came here.”
“Why?”
“How do I know? Maybe it was worse there. The younger people brought me food and water on a regular basis, so I just bided my time with Henry, hoping it would end and we could get back to normal life again. They even brought me firewood in the winter. It was better than what I’d been going through before they showed up.”
The radio on Gem’s belt clicked, and Nelson’s voice came on. “Dudes, you read?”
Gem pushed the button. “Nel, we’re with a resident named Irene Danner. She said there was a meeting called. Two weeks ago.”
“Yeah, Gem, that’s what we found. The announcement sheet says they were supposed to get together to discuss creating a cooperative between two towns. Great Bend and Hoisington.”
“Where’s Hoisington?” asked Punch.
“Where’s Hoisington?” asked Gem.
“Dude, I looked it up on my map like right away. So the good news is we don’t have to drive like seven hundred miles to Casper Wyoming.”
“Yeah, but the bad news is we have some murderous A-holes to deal with,” came Dave’s voice over the radio.
“I wonder if this is connected to the red-eyes not coming when Isis and Max call them,” said Gem, her eyes meeting Flex’s.
“Might be,” he said. He turned to Irene. “Irene, we’d like you to come with us. We have a community of over 600 people just a bit south of here, and it’s secure and safe. But we can’t take you right this minute. We’ll go ahead and get Henry’s body out of here and you can just stay put. We’ll come back for you after we see what we have to deal with in Hoisington.”
“I don’t want to see those people again,” she said. “They brought those things inside.”
“What?” asked Gem.
“The monsters,” she said. “I saw their feet when they were in the room. Their darned moaning and snarling just scares the bejesus out of me. I almost peed myself when I was under the bed.”
“You were very lucky, ma’am,” said Punch. “That was some fast thinking, and it’s the only reason you’re alive now. Let us come back for you, okay? Stay out of sigh
t until we do?”
She nodded. “There’s really nothing left out there?” she asked, her eyes tearing up.
Gem went to her and put her arms around the old woman who had spent her entire life in Great Bend, Kansas. “No, sweetie,” she said. “It’s not the place you remember anymore. But we’ve made a pretty nice place, and it’s still in your home state.”
Her frail shoulders almost appeared to melt into the cushions of the sofa itself, they were so slight and defeated. “I’ll wait. I’ll miss Henry.”
“Okay,” said Gem. “We’ll go now, but before we head out we’ll drop you more water and some canned goods. We’re glad you’re alive.”
“Not as glad as I am,” she said. “And I’m glad I didn’t shoot you.”
“Not as glad as we are,” said Flex. He knelt down in front of her on the sofa and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “You remind me of my grandma, but I was a little kid when she died,” he said. “I’d love to have you with us in Kingman.”
*****
They rolled Henry’s decomposing body in a rug they found in the garage, and carried it into the neighboring yard so it would not be visible from her window.
Flex, Gem and Punch didn’t bother searching any more houses. Irene hadn’t gone to the meeting, but she did know the basics of who attended and how they were invited. It was enough information with what Nelson had found.
As the Crown Victoria pulled up to the city hall building of Great Bend, Kansas, Nelson sat on the front porch, a map book on his lap. He looked up as we trotted up the stairs. “Hey!”
“Hey, Nel,” said Flex. “Hoisington, did you say?”
“Yeah, man. Small, like Kingman, I think. Still northwest of us, too, which fits with what Max and Isis said about the direction of the stagnant Mothers and Hungerers.”
“How far?’ asked Gem. “I want to be there like now.”
“It’s only like ten miles north of here,” said Nelson. “And since we’re still standing around this place, that’s too close for comfort.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Flex.
“Because, dude,” said Nelson. “If they did this to these folks, they’re evil. And if they’re evil, then 10 miles is within striking distance, so they could be anywhere between here and there, including in this place, hiding somewhere.”
Dead Hunger VII_The Reign of Isis Page 10