by TW Brown
“But what the blazes blew up?” Scott said.
“I had been in the process of rigging perimeter defenses before the big split.”
“Were you thinking of letting anybody know?” Scott snapped.
“My fault,” Brett wheezed as he finally made his way over to the other men. “He told me about it the other day, but then that girl threw herself off the roof of that other hotel and I forgot in the excitement.”
“Still—” Scott wasn’t done, but Chad cut him off.
“Any other set-ups we should know about?”
“I have two other similar set-ups, one to the west and one to the south.”
“Fine,” Chad said. “So what do we do now?”
“Do you want to end this fight and be rid of those other people once and for all?” Michael asked.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Chad and Scott answered in unison.
***
“We still need to deal with the problem of food,” Nigel insisted.
“Then why don’t you go to the market,” Victoria snapped. “You’re the bloke with the gun…a point you never fail to mention. So why not be the big man and use it on a few of the zeds out there. And while you’re at it…I fancy some crisps.”
A few snickers made their way around the room. Nigel’s face turned red and Claudia looked like she could chew nails and spit tacks. Victoria didn’t care. She was finished with this charade.
“Maybe I’ll send you.” Nigel pushed himself up from his plush chair and brushed his coat aside just enough to flash his pistol.
“Maybe you’ll try,” Victoria said in a flat, emotionless voice. “You like to talk big, but when it came down to it, a man weak from the infection knocked your lights out. You didn’t do a thing but fall and bleed.”
“Oh really?” In a jerky movement that was made even more awkward when he got tangled in the hem of his coat, Nigel pulled the gun free from its holster and pointed it in Victoria’s face.
“Is that it?” Victoria’s lips twitched in a smile. “You think I fear that gun when I know what is out there?”
Pressing the barrel to her forehead, Nigel said in a loud voice that was supposed to sound intimidating but only sounded to Victoria like a naughty child who didn’t want the doctor to give him his shots, “You’ll do well to remember just who has the gun and who no longer has a husband to protect her.”
Victoria did not so much as blink as she continued to look up. Inside, her mind was racing and demanding that she not display any weakness. However, it took all her muscle control not to wet herself. She’d never realized how big the barrel of a gun could look up close.
She was beginning to have thoughts about how it might be if he pulled the trigger. Would it hurt, even for just that split second? Then she saw it; his hand trembled as he held the gun, and at his temple, a tiny bead of sweat bloomed and then trickled down the side of his face.
“You’re nothing but a loud mouthed wanker,” Victoria said with the same flat tone. Her eyes flashed to Claudia who was pacing like a caged tiger. Now she would have no problem pulling that trigger, Victoria thought.
“What makes you think I won’t do it?”
“For starters,” a voice said from behind Nigel causing him to turn his head, “you’re too bloody careless.”
Victoria was no hero. She had no false notions that she would be able to go out into the English countryside and become a one woman zombie-killing machine like in those silly Resident Evil movies. Still, she was no fool, either. She reached up and snatched the gun from the hand that had gone slack the moment the wielder’s attention was diverted.
There was an audible crack, and Nigel scurried back like he’d just been scalded. He clutched his hand to his body and sucked in a huge breath through his clenched teeth.
“Why’d you do that?” he whimpered.
“Do what?” Victoria was confused and almost forgot that she was holding a pistol in her hands. She glanced over at Claudia and flashed a look that said she wasn’t the only woman in the room who would not hesitate to pull the trigger.
“Broke my finger!” Nigel thrust his hand forward to display an index finger with an awkward bend between the first and second interphalangeal joints.
“Well I didn’t mean to,” Victoria huffed as she tried to figure out what to do with the weapon she now held in her possession.
“You want to throw them out, Vix?” Gary Munford asked with a nod at Nigel and Claudia. Gary was a school teacher, or at least he had been before all of this. “Not a soul here will think poorly of you if you do. Just say the word and it’s out in the snow with the pair.”
“No.” Victoria shook her head and stuck the gun in the waist of her loose-fitting jeans. That had been another thing about this whole end-of-the-world situation that had actually been a plus. She’d finally shed the last four and a half kilos that she set out to lose every year before going on holiday.
“You sure?” Gary cast an uncertain glance at the sour-faced couple.
Victoria gave it serious consideration. In all the stories, letting the bad guy stick around always ended poorly. The only dilemma was that this was not one of her stories; this was the real thing and she couldn’t just send two human beings out to certain death.
“I’m absolutely sure.”
“Then at least let us take them down to the storage room in the cellar. We should lock them up for now and consider their fate once all the emotions are in control.”
Good old Gary being just the perfect example of an Englishman. The dead had risen and were eating the living. Most of the city of Basingstoke was either overrun or a charred ruin from all the fires that resulted from the chaos of those first days. Instead of reacting and using his human emotions, he went the British way of “stiff upper lip and all that” as the world spiraled out of control.
“That is fine,” Victoria agreed.
Once Nigel and Claudia were locked away in the cellar, the remaining eleven gathered around a table in the dining room. Somebody had managed to dig up a map of the town.
“We need to get out of this hotel and secure something a bit more open that will allow us to ensure that we live and not merely survive,” Victoria announced. Every pair of eyes looked up at her expectantly. She had called this meeting and told them that she actually had a plan. It was mad, but she believed in her heart that she could do it if she had the support of the group. This would also allow them to add more numbers to their ranks if they did it correctly. “It starts here,” she touched her pen down on the map where she intended to make her stand, “at the Thornycroft Roundabout.”
***
“I’m tellin’ ya, Danny,” Jody Rafe said around a mouthful of cold powdered eggs and burnt toast, “Slider and the captain are plum crazy. They want to turn this place into a prison camp.”
“Maybe they’re just sending a message after our guys got roughed up pretty bad by those locals,” Danny reasoned.
“I was in that office, Danny. I heard it all with my own ears.”
“How are they gonna justify this to the others, there has already been some grumbling about that late night round up.”
“I don’t know but—”
“Attention, all personnel,” the voice on the bull horn was unmistakably Slider. “Everybody is required to muster in the high school parking lot in twenty minutes. That is all.”
“Jesus,” Jody sighed, “what now?”
“You think maybe we should split?” Danny whispered. “I know it can be bad out there, but maybe staying here is not such a good thing.”
“These people trusted us,” Jody shook his head. “I realize they sorta turned on us toward the end, but maybe we gave them a reason. And we sure as heck didn’t do anything to prove their fears wrong.”
“Well I’m with you to the end.” Danny took the last drink from his coffee and stood up placing a hand on Jody’s shoulder. “And there are others who feel the same way.”
Jod
y watched Danny O’Leary leave as he finished his own cup of coffee. He wondered how many residential houses had to be raided in order to provide the men with this luxury. Coffee was going the way of bullets. Sure, you could still find it, but it was getting rare.
Shouldering his rifle, Jody exited the empty mess tent. As he walked along the muddy road that led into town, he began to take a closer look at the faces of the men. They looked tired. Many stared at the ground as they walked, their heads hanging as if it were too much effort to keep their chins off their chests. These men were beaten up and simply operating out of programmed discipline.
As he reached the high school, a queasy feeling began to build in his gut. His coffee suddenly felt like it had changed to concentrated acid, and he could feel an unpleasant burning in the back of his throat.
In the center of the parking lot was a hastily erected platform. It looked like little more than a few saw horses side-by-side with a sheet of three-quarter inch plywood on top. It was positioned directly below a sign that used to welcome students to Bald Knob High School—Go Bulldogs! Draped over the sign were two nooses and standing beside them was Captain Gould and Chuck “Slider” Monterro.
This could not be good, Jody thought.
As the men arrived, Jody was struck by just how few of them remained. He began to do a head count. Counting the locals who had been conscripted, there were a total of fifty-three men and women gathered minus the captain and Slider.
It took Jody a moment to register the fact that the two hooded figures beside them were wearing uniforms. This could not be happening. He began to scan the faces of the men, but everybody was so haggard that even familiar faces were hard to recognize. He wondered only briefly if he looked as worn out and beaten as these other men and women.
As he continued to scan the faces trying to figure out who might be under those hoods, his heart began to race. He couldn’t find Danny. He looked back to the hooded figures and tried to see if the body types might match his friend. It was impossible; they had just been eating breakfast and talking. Yet, he couldn’t see Danny anywh—
“What the fuck is this?” a voice whispered in his ear making Jody jump almost out of his boots. And that would have been a feat considering the fact that it felt like his socks had melded into his skin and that the boots were grafted on by way of the filth.
Jody spun to find Danny standing at his shoulder. He resisted the urge to hug the man. However, the look of relief on his face told the story.
“You thought one of those guys might be me?” Danny gasped. “Well I’ve walked the rows and I can tell you who it is. It’s Livius Nedin and Robb Olson.”
“What?” Jody had to bite his tongue and lower his voice. Several heads had turned his way and two of those heads belonged to the captain and Slider.
“A couple of the guys said that three of the civilian conscripts came into their tent and cuffed them while reading from some piece of paper listing a series of UCMJ violations that they supposedly committed,” Danny whispered.
“This just keeps getting worse,” Jody moaned.
“Men of Charlie Company…a-ten-hut!” a large woman that Jody vaguely recognized as one of the local bartenders bellowed. She was decked out in an ill-fitting uniform that looked as if the buttons might pop off at any moment and burrow into somebody’s eye. The spaces between each straining button bubbled out revealing her pale, cottage cheese-like flesh underneath. Her jowls quivered with each syllable and continued to sway just a bit for a few seconds after she spoke.
The soldiers came dutifully to attention. Heads came up and eyes stared straight ahead, but Jody didn’t think they were seeing anything. The captain climbed up onto the sheet of plywood and Jody couldn’t help but wish for it to break along with the man’s neck. Slider and the woman—Jody thought she resembled those pig-faced guards in Jabba’s palace in the Star Wars movie—manhandled each of the hooded men up onto the platform and then each took a place on either side.
“We have among us men who do not feel the need to follow orders…men who would take for themselves…not just of supplies, but liberties with those we are sworn to protect,” the captain announced, using the bullhorn so that everybody could hear him clearly.
Jody noticed both men squirm, but the nylon line used to bind them had secured their arms tightly to their sides and they could do little more than shudder.
“We have been given a solemn duty and I will not have our honor damaged by a few…”
He droned on, but Jody had tuned him out. This was wrong. He knew both of those men well. Neither would do what they were being charged with. He puzzled over the situation until a collective gasp snatched his attention back to the scene up front. Both men had been fitted with his noose and shoved off the platform. The drop wasn’t severe enough to snap their necks, so they flopped at the ends of their lines for what seemed like an eternity.
It was too much. Jody’s coffee had swirled with his stomach acid and created a toxic mixture. Doubling over, he vomited his breakfast all over his filthy boots.
He wasn’t alone.
***
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” The girl yanked her arm free of the two female soldiers who had brought her outside.
Major Wanda Beers continued to use her knife to clean under her nails. When there was no response, the girl did exactly what Wanda hoped for; she approached within arm’s length.
“Hey…I’m talking to y—” she started.
Quick as a flash, Wanda’s gloved backhand connected with the young female’s cheek sending her sprawling in the snow.
“Shari!” an even younger girl exclaimed and rushed to the one laying on the ground with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
“Erin, no!” the oldest of the females hissed, but made no effort to move.
Wanda looked up and appraised the group. The one who had just spoken showed some usefulness. Well, Wanda chuckled inwardly, at least to the point that she knew to stay still and keep her mouth shut. There was another girl who stood beside her with a look of disdain etched on her face. Oddly enough, it seemed directed more at the two huddled together in the snow than for the soldiers standing around with an assortment of weapons on display—less than half actually had any remaining ammunition, but nobody needed to know that.
“What is it that you want?” This question came from the only male in the bunch, He obviously had a stronger attachment to the pair of females standing than the two on the ground, but it was clear that he would pose little physical threat. He could barely walk.
“Let’s start with names.” Wanda continued to work at her nails as she spoke. “My name is Major Wanda Beers, United States Army. I am the commanding officer of the expeditionary element of Ohio’s 371 Sustainment Brigade. My mission is to seek and secure a location for citizens to use as a safe zone.”
“You look more like a bunch of looting raiders to me,” the young man said. Wanda nodded and that earned him the butt of a rifle in his gut.
“My name is Aleah Brock,” the older female spoke. Wanda looked up and made eye contact. She also looked around at her men. Some of them were already eyeballing this one. She would have to have the word spread once everybody got settled in that unless this girl volunteered for the brothel, she was not to be harmed.
“Okay, Miss Brock, do you want to tell me where your doctor is?” Wanda asked. She heard a gasp from the one she had backhanded.
“What have you done to Peter?” the one identified as Shari screamed as she struggled to her feet.
“So you do have a doctor,” Wanda said.
“We did,” Aleah replied. “He went out on a supply run and didn’t return.”
“You had a doctor and let him go outside these walls?” Wanda said with a disbelieving shake of her head.
“We didn’t let him do anything,” the girl next to Aleah spoke up.
“And what might your name be?” Wanda’s eyes flicked to the girl. She neither blinked nor flinched,
which scored her points in Wanda’s book.
“Heather Godwin…from Heath.”
“Okay, Heather Godwin from Heath.” Wanda pushed away from the truck and slid the knife in its sheath. “So how do a group of girls and one gimpy boy manage to secure a place like this? Who is the brains behind it? Because I have seen some of the work that is done and somebody knows their stuff. So…which of you is it?”
“None of us,” Heather answered. “One of the people who used to live here did it. He left on the same run.”
“Okay…” Wanda had been through this before. Whoever it was had probably hidden during the commotion when they had burst through the doors and began dragging the residents of this place out into the snow. “Nobody so much as utters a word. Any of you who do will be shot. Nod if you understand.” Everybody nodded. “By a show of fingers, and on the count of three, how many weeks ago did he leave? If it was longer than three months ago, just hold up all ten fingers.” She saw the expressions on their faces and already knew what the results would be. “One…two…three.”
As she figured, none of them matched. She walked over to Heather and leaned in very close. “I will give you to my soldiers as a plaything if you lie to me again. Are we clear?”
“Yes.”
“I need to be sure.” She looked over her shoulder to the female soldier standing beside and nodded. Without hesitation, the soldier put the barrel of her handgun against the young man’s temple. “So…how long ago did he leave?”
“Eleven days,” Heather whispered.
“And where did he and the doctor run off to?”
“Newark. They are trying to find medicine for Valarie.”
“The retarded girl?” Wanda glanced over to the bundled up black girl who was standing just outside the doorway staring into space.
“She has Down’s syndrome!” a voice snapped from behind her. Wanda turned and was more than a little surprised to see the girl she had backhanded come to her feet. Her entire demeanor had changed.