by TW Brown
“So we send out hunting parties.”
“You aren’t getting it,” Scott huffed. “We came up here in a bus, so the few hours that trip took may not seem like such a big deal. However, none of our vehicles will get us out of here. A couple of guys have checked on the snowmobiles and the plowing rigs, but that cold snap we had a few weeks ago that hung in the sub-zero range for that stretch…it sapped batteries, caused cables to break and basically turned every motorized vehicle in this place into its own little monument.”
“But we have bad weather gear…skis…all sorts of stuff.”
“And nobody wants to take a trip that will last at least a few weeks with very little chance of success just to return with enough food for one or two people to eat for another day or so. We can’t get out and come back with enough for the group. There are over fifty people here…feeding that many takes a lot more food than any of us realized.”
Chad let it all sink in. He hadn’t considered any of this a few months ago when they had left Modesto in search of someplace safe…or, as it turned out, at least safer from the walking dead. His only thought had been that staying in populated areas would keep them in constant danger.
When they’d first arrived, everybody had been so excited to discover kitchen pantries full of food. There had simply been so much, and when looked at with one or two pairs of eyes…it looked as if it could last forever. They had been so wasteful. Everybody was cooking for themselves those first days until Colonel Morris had stepped in and made some rules. As expected, folks had bitched…but a majority saw the logic. After a while, it was the norm.
Colonel Morris’s death had lasting repercussions. The whole place had fallen into disarray in his absence. This latest news would cause a panic.
If it was just him, alone and free of responsibility, the choice would be easy. However, he had Ronni to think of and watch over. He would need to do something…the question was simple.
What?
He had no answer.
***
“Excuse me, miss?” the young girl climbed up on the wall next to Victoria.
“Who you calling ‘miss’? My mum has long since passed,” Victoria snorted.
“Sorry, Victoria,” the girl mumbled an apology.
“And that’s another thing…nobody calls me that. Just ‘Vix’ is fine.”
“Right, then…Vix.”
“And you’re Glenda Baker’s daughter, yeah?” Vix knew it was something like Jenna or some such thing.
“Gemma.”
“Right.” Vix considered her next words carefully and with as much sensitivity as she could muster. “So…your mum and dad didn’t make it?”
She saw the pain on the young girl’s face. She really didn’t have a handle on being sensitive. It was one of the great things about her Ivor. He didn’t get all caught up in the flowers and whatnot. He showed her how much he loved and cared for her in a million other ways that had much more meaning. For the past several years, it had been as much about them being best mates as being husband and wife. They joked and teased and made fun.
“…and I just hadn’t ever seen so much blood.”
Vix looked up with a grim face that she thought might pass for sympathetic. The poor girl had been pouring her heart out while she daydreamed. To make matters worse, a few zeds had spotted them atop the wall and were making their way over.
“We need to get moving,” Vix said as she pushed off and landed in the snow on the other side of the wall. She took a few steps, but didn’t hear anything behind her. After being certain that she still had enough open space between her and the trio of undead making slow progress through the shin-deep slush, she turned back to Gemma. “You coming or not?”
“I just…” the girl’s voice faded.
Vix tried not to be angry. After all, she couldn’t be much more than fifteen years old. Still, the girl had volunteered for this mission, it was a bit too late to fall back.
“I will do this alone if I have to,” Vix said with as much calmness as she could muster. “But getting through that big, open parking lot is going to be a pain.”
She heard the crunch-squish of the nearest zed and turned to discover that it had gotten closer than she realized. It lurched forward and its hands swiped at her, missing by inches. Too bad for the zombie that it lost its balance and fell face down in the wet snow.
Drawing the heavy fireplace poker that she favored, she drove it through the back of the downed zombie’s skull. Planting her foot on its back, she tugged the weapon loose and cocked back for the next one. The swing was a bit low and caught the creature in the side of the neck. The awkwardness of the strike caused her wrists to turn just enough, and she yelped in pain. The poker tumbled from her grip.
Shaking her arms to try and work away the pain, Vix backed up and drew the decorative sword she had taken off the wall of the hotel. One thing about English history, it was chock full of plenty of tales about knights and swords…the bloody things were practically everywhere it seemed. As she was about to take a swing at the still approaching zed with the nasty dent in its neck, a figure flashed by.
Gemma drove the large kitchen knife into the eye of the zombie and the two went to the ground in a heap sending a wave of wet snow out in a big oval. Vix only glanced down as she stepped past to meet the final zombie of the bunch. In an anti-climactic thrust, the sword went all the way through the head and out the other side. The creature fell, taking the weapon with it. Vix’s wrist hurt terribly and she was forced to let go.
Flexing her fingers, she retrieved all of her things and helped Gemma to her feet. The girl had a nervous smile on her face that was way too big. All of her teeth showed and she looked almost like she was about to cry again.
“That was a right good thing you did there,” Vix complimented. “Though you should give a word of warning when you are gong to barrel past somebody who is about to swing a sword.”
“I can’t believe I killed it!” Gemma gasped like she had been holding her breath the entire time. “That is the first one I ever did in on my own.”
“Wait…you haven’t killed so much as one of those things?”
“No…I always ran. I kept waiting for them to chase me or something. I was worried that their slow walk was a trick, and as soon as I came after one…it would run after me and tackle me to the ground.”
“Where would you get an idea like that?”
“The pictures. That movie 28 Days Later—”
“Those weren’t really zombies,” Vix interrupted as she started across the road. “Those people were infected by monkeys and went raving mad.”
“And then there was that show…Dead Set…I wonder if Davina finally got it for real?”
Great, Vix sighed inwardly, I am facing the end of the world with a Now magazine junkie. She reached the middle of the road and looked around. She had to peel her hood back and remove her glasses because the steady, cold rain was making it almost impossible to see. Up one way, she saw a nasty traffic snarl blocking most of the road; down the other were fewer cars…and several dark figures that were moving in their direction.
“What do we do?” Gemma asked as she came up beside Vix.
“We follow Hackwood until we get to War Memorial Park. It is a long bit, but we can hide in the college once we make it,” Vix explained.
“But I thought we were going to Wickes?”
“Maybe we are, but in case you haven’t noticed, none of the busses or taxis are about. We will be on foot the entire way. This rain is worse than the snow. I don’t know about you, but I am already soaked to the skin.”
Without another word, Vix crossed the M3 and quickly found herself in the parking lot of a huge fitness center. In one window, a woman stood with her face pressed to the glass, a gruesome rip across her throat giving away the cause of her demise. Her form-fitting exercise clothing still showed off a physique that Vix imagined hadn’t seen too many candies or bags of crisps.
Lot of good that was d
oing her now, Vix thought.
***
“You think old Pitts had the right idea?” Danny stood at the door. Inside the gymnasium were all the women and young children.
“What do you mean?” Jody asked.
“Well…he grabbed his girl and headed for the hills. You think he had a line on what the captain was up to?”
“No…I think he ran because of the immunity thing and not wanting her cut up like sushi so that a bunch of halfwit military and government doctors could try and guess at what made her the way she was. He ran to protect his private piece of ass.”
“Not much of a romantic?” Danny scoffed.
“Romance has nothing to do with it,” Jody explained. “I am not entirely sure that the captain realized what he had with Slider until recently. The locals acting out gave him an excuse to act. Slider gave him the right weapon.”
“So what are we gonna do?”
“Right now we are gonna go inside and get these women on our team,” Jody said with a shrug.
“What good will that do us?”
“Don’t be so sure,” Jody cautioned. “You endanger a mother’s child and you better be ready to reap the whirlwind.”
Danny followed Jody inside. The first thing that they noticed was the smell. These people hadn’t been allowed to wash, and their bathroom facilities consisted of a row of mob buckets behind a few roll-away classroom partitions.
“Holy Je—”
“Stow it!” Jody hissed.
He looked around the room at the faces that were all staring back at him and saw a lot of variations of fear in those faces. However, in a few…he saw something else. Jody Rafe saw anger. Not just the run of the mill public display of outrage and injustice that soldiers had endured over the years when called in to control the sometimes unruly citizens of the United States. Nope, this was the seething hatred that was commonly seen on television when footage of anti-American protests were taking place in countries like Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
“Can I have your attention, ladies?” Jody handed his weapons over to Danny and nodded that he stay put. He walked into the center of the room where these women could easily mob him if they chose to do such a thing. “I realize that you are all probably angry, scared, and confused. I am here to—”
“Where have you taken all of our people?” a woman snapped, cutting Jody off.
He gave her a second look. This room had a wide variety of ladies and young girls. Any of the women deemed fit for service had been plucked from the mob and sent to what was being called “indoctrination” by the captain and Slider. Jody knew better. There seemed to be nothing wrong with this lady. She appeared to be in her mid- to late twenties. She was fairly tall, easily able to look him in the eye without craning her neck which put her a scant few inches under six feet. Most noticeable were her dazzling blue eyes and long blonde hair. She had that girl-next-door pretty in full effect complete with a splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any of your names.” Jody turned all his attention to this woman figuring that if she was bold enough to speak out, then she might just be what he needed.
“Selina,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now…can we dismiss with the crap, and how about you tell me where my dad and brother are…as well as everybody else?”
“They are safe,” Jody started. He had come in with an idea of how he was going to address the crowd but hadn’t anticipated a confrontation this quick. “But I won’t lie to you…they are not going to be treated fairly and all of you are the leverage that will be used to ensure that they do exactly as they are told.”
Gasps and murmurs of dismay circulated throughout the room. All of the emotional outbursts triggered the younger children. In seconds, the room was awash in tears.
“I’m not asking you to trust me.” Jody took a step closer to Selina so that only she could hear him. “However, I think I can help. It is gonna be risky, but I don’t trust your chances otherwise. I will help, but I need you to keep quiet for now and convince everybody to do as I ask.”
“And how do I know this isn’t just part of the game?” Selina shot back in a voice just above a whisper.
“Why would I do this? Can you even remotely think of one reason for me to pretend?”
“So what are you planning?”
“Actually…it is still a work in progress,” Jody admitted. “But I have a question for you if you don’t mind.”
“I have alopecia,” Selina said and pulled off her wig.
“Is it terminal?”
“Hair loss? Not likely, but if you tell the goon squad that went through and started picking off every able-bodied person in town that you have terminal cancer…”
Jody was confused. He had no idea what the hell alopecia might be. It sounded terrible, but her comment made it clear that he was missing something.
“Umm…”
“I have a condition that makes my hair fall out. When your soldiers came door to door, I pulled off my wig and told them that I have cancer.”
Jody looked at Selina in disbelief. She was a fast thinker and obviously held no love loss for the current regime. She might very well be exactly what he was looking for.
“Can I ask you a question?” Danny leaned forward and whispered.
“Go ahead.”
“Does that condition affect you everywhere?” He wiggled his eyebrows and flashed a smile as his eyes travelled down the length of her body.
The slap made a loud echo in the room, causing every head to turn in their direction. All the crying had stopped.
***
Major Wanda Beers stepped out of her tent. The cold was already seeping into her body and that pissed her off to no end. She’d had a sweet deal going when they had happened across the country club. Now, here she was, back to camping out in the elements. Sure, her tent had a woodstove, but that did little more than take the edge off of cold days like today.
She went about the daily business of organizing her camp. She was a little disappointed in her soldiers. A few had gotten themselves killed by being careless. That had done nothing to heighten their vigilance which was how this man Kevin and who knows how many others were able to wage a successful campaign of terrorism against the 371.
Lately, there had been a few deserters to compound the problems. This morning’s muster had revealed the largest desertion to date. She was starting to reconsider a few of her edicts. There were two points that seemed to rub the soldiers the wrong way—the first being the fact that she had forbidden anybody from ‘taking liberties’ with one of the original residents of this compound. Not being too fond of the current trend in music (she preferred real music like the Stones or Pink Floyd), she’d had no idea who Shari or her bratty little sister had been in the world before all hell broke loose.
She’d been unimpressed when it was revealed that some tabloid cover girl was in their midst. However, apparently some of the men had offered her all sorts of ‘perks’ in exchange for a bit of intimacy. The girl had refused…as was her right under Wanda’s rule.
That had been the big surprise. When they’d initially taken over this location and the current residents had been presented, Shari and her sister were deemed practically useless. However, when a possibility had been raised that would involve getting rid of the retarded girl—Down’s syndrome! She heard Shari’s voice growl in her mind even now—it was like a switch had been flipped. Now, Shari was usually one of the first people awake in the camp. She worked from before sun up and went well after sunset.
Wanda had forbidden any of the soldiers from forcing their will on any female. She had been called a lot of things since the dead began to walk. Most of them were deserved. She didn’t really care. However, one thing she would not condone was rape. That was still an offense punishable by death. When a few of the troops decided to test that rule and had trapped not only Shari, but the one named Aleah as well, and had their way forcibly with the young ladies...Wanda
had shown her resolve.
The hangings had been conducted immediately following the tribunal where two of the men had quickly offered up the other three members of this little gang of miscreants during testimony in exchange for leniency. The three were declared guilty and executed. The other two were given leniency. She had them tossed over the wall with nothing but the clothes on their back.
Yet, there was still the problem of Kevin and his band of terrorists. They seemed to strike at will. Her guards were turning up dead almost every day. Obviously this guy had some serious training. He was managing to slip in, put an arrow through two walking sentries and escape with little trace…in three feet of snow!
She knew that the killings were a single person because of the few clues they had managed to glean. But it was the torching of the huge golf club’s main building that made her realize that she was dealing with a well-organized group. The thing was, up to that point, she had been willing to offer the man amnesty. He obviously had a good head on his shoulders. He was a definite step above the normal ground-pounders under her command. However, now she just wanted his head. He was too dangerous to keep alive.
She had eavesdropped on a few of the conversations with the members of his group that she had, for all intents and purposes, captured and conscripted. They spoke of this Kevin Dreon person like he was some sort of perfect combination of genius, saint, and messiah. A person like that would eventually be a threat to her authority.
Walking through the camp, she could feel the tension. It was bad enough that she was trying to ensure the survival of all of these ungrateful bastards…but now the insubordination was something she was going to have to deal with directly. Her attempt to lure this Kevin in to her grasp by staging the execution of the young lady with Down’s syndrome had failed to produce; further proof that this individual was savvy and a force to be dealt with as soon as possible.
“Excuse me, Major Beers?” a female voice interrupted her mental ranting.