Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand

by Cotton, Daniel

  “Any farther north we’d be in Canada,” Oz tells Becka.

  The dead she had warned him about had been far enough away he was able to exit the trailer and return to her. The mob was too deep to risk traveling south. They just started pouring from the woods, heading straight for New Castle.

  The rusty old wrecker’s horn sounds at the barrier. Soldiers are already working to bring the structure down for his entry, and perhaps everyone’s retreat since so many dead are converging.

  “What now?” Becka asks softly as they pass over the dam. She looks down the sheer wall of concrete, tracing the blue line of the Charles River below them all the way to the tiny town that looks even smaller in the distance.

  “I’m going to drop you off at the ranch…”

  “I want to help.” Her full attention snaps to the man.

  Oz lets out an audible breath, “It might get bad down there. Sit tight at the…”

  “No!” She crosses her arms over her chest and resumes her vigil at her window.

  “I really think…”

  “No,” she repeats, cutting him off.

  They don’t speak again during the rough ride to the ranch, or while taking the hill that leads them down into the community.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Oz announces as he exits his truck.

  The sheriff’s eyes light up when she sees the man she’s been so worried about, but her eyebrow raises at the sight of Becka also hopping out of the tow truck. “Weren’t you dropping her…?”

  “No,” he imitates the cheerleader’s obstinate tone.

  “What can I do?” Becka asks eagerly.

  “Schoolyard,” Carla says. “Receive the people we send you, get ‘em loaded, do a headcount, and keep ‘em calm.”

  “Gotcha!” She dashes away.

  “And me?” Oz asks, but already has an inkling as to what his duties will entail.

  “Wrecking crew. I have a present for you on the back of that truck. I know you’ve had your eye on it… Don’t get dead.”

  “I won’t if you won’t,” he retorts, leaning down to give the petite woman a kiss.

  On the flatbed truck, he finds his present--a simple crate made of unfinished wood. The lid of the long box is stenciled in black: M249. The man peels back the lid like a kid on Christmas.

  Oz lifts a belt-fed machine gun from the packing material, brushing away dust from its black finish so he can admire the weapon. It weighs about twenty two pounds, but he wields the beautifully destructive gift with ease. His girlfriend has given him a SAW, a Squad Automatic Weapon, and he can’t wait to use it.

  Oz can’t get fully acquainted with his new toy, though. He has to make sure his kids are all right and on their way to the school. The fact that David’s car is now parked by Nails by Mee has him worried.

  ##

  Mee-Yon and her family are the only Koreans in New Castle. Before the plague, the town hadn’t been able to attract much diversity. The family has owned and operated the only nail salon for twenty years. The matriarch sits filing the nails of a customer, getting an earful of his woes.

  “He even yelled at me for not filling the ice cube trays correctly,” David complains. “How the hell do you fill ‘em wrong?”

  “Aw, sweetie,” the woman empathizes. “You better off. You find a new man.”

  “Oz and I aren’t…” His face flushes. “…we weren’t…”

  “David!” Oz pops into the shop. “Where are the kids?”

  “See how demanding he is?”

  “Hey, you brute!” Mee-Yon points an expertly manicured finger at the large man. “You no yell at her, she a nice boy!”

  “What?” Oz scrunches his brow for an instant then dismisses her order. “Where are the kids?”

  David can see his ex-roommate is serious; he can’t take his eyes off of the enormous weapon hanging across his chest. “They’re at Lindsey’s… She’s showing them how to make ice cream. What’s going on?”

  “Just get to the school! Both of you!”

  ##

  Dan Williamson is hauling a pile of K-rails with a fork truck when he sees Oz sprinting past. “Oz!”

  “Busy!” the man responds without slowing.

  “’Kay. We’ll talk later.” The concrete barriers are to be a stopgap measure should the dead penetrate the walls. He has his people cruising the residential streets to pick up citizens. The first, and only, evacuation drill they ran using the tornado siren resulted in what Dan referred to as a ‘cluster fuck.’ Only half of the people responded, and those that did created a disorganized mosh of bottlenecked traffic. The taxi service idea is a slower process, but will keep them from trampling one another.

  “We’re laying them down but more keep coming.” Carla suddenly appears as Dan drops his load off by the wall.

  “As the buses fill, get them to the dam,” he sadly instructs. “Have them hold there.”

  “Not the ranch?”

  “No. If we decide to blow town entirely that mountain pass is far too long a trek. Better safe than sorry. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Make sure the drivers know to head for Raleigh.”

  “Rally in Raleigh, got it!”

  24

  During Dustin’s questing for supplies he had traveled north, and he remembers seeing a sign indicating a road that leads to Parson’s Dam. The dam and New Castle are synonymous, and everyone in these parts knows it was conceived and built by a guy from the town, but in actuality the place was founded after the Charles River receded.

  The pudgy soldier Dustin had spent a brief amount of time with in Waterloo had told him that people bitten only have less than two hours before they turn. He can’t remember how long ago he was bit, but he doesn’t care as long as he gets there in time to tell them where to find Eve. He is trying to think of something he can ask them to tell the girl, because he hates the idea of her thinking poorly about him since he almost ran away. The rescuers have to tell Eve that he only did it to get her help. Perhaps they can relay to her how he feels, that he loves her.

  Dustin’s vision blurs as sweat invades his eyes after it pours down his forehead. He can’t wipe it away fast enough. If his vision was clear, he’d see his speedometer exceeding 100 miles per hour, and he’d also see the thick throng of walking corpses on the road. The Camaro barrels through them as if they are nothing. The bodies are cleared from his path like snowdrifts in the wake of a plow, and they limply sail over the swift moving car that pays them no mind.

  Dustin tries to watch the road with one eye, while the other is closed tightly due to irritation. No sooner did he regain visual clarity and the road kill slaps fresh smears upon his windshield. The wipers are making it worse, though doused liberally with blue fluid. One effective pass on his passenger side gives him a glimpse of Eve’s home, left like a forgotten toy. Dustin can’t stop though he’d like to, but he has to get her help. He must do this one last thing for his love.

  25

  “Pull back the archers, break out the fine china,” Dan commands. “I want the wrecking crew at the first barrier.”

  The dead have made it to the gates. The bowmen are taken off duty since they are ineffective at this range and angle. The structure is becoming unstable, and the collective exertion of the dead is shaking the wall. The living had once deemed the blockade to be solid, but that was before the enemy became so starved and so plentiful.

  “Archers, go to the base of the hill!” Carla redirects them, putting them where they can do the most good for the cause. “Wrecking crew, two lines! Your fallback position will be the ammo dump.”

  The sheriff listens to the town gossip through an ear piece; the radio chatter keeps her apprised of all communications. “They’re in the woods all around town… Heavy numbers on the west side near the river.”

  The barriers that protect them along the woods are far weaker than those along the roads and fields. Stretches of the river had been left open for access to fishing and wildlife. They always thought they’d be safe wi
th the breaches since the dead won’t enter the water.

  “How are the door-to-doors going?” she asks.

  “Almost complete,” someone answers. “We have three vehicles out in the boonies still.”

  Housing assignments were issued concentrically, starting from the heart of town to keep folks close. Some residents of the town, those who lived here long before the wall, chose to remain in their out of the way dwellings.

  “Where’s Oz?” Carla asks Dan.

  “He said he was busy,” he reports.

  He is happy to see a line of blue buses starting to head up the hill.

  ##

  “Oz,” Lindsey Thompson smiles, relieved to see the man.

  “Hey, Linds. Kids been behaving?” he asks.

  “They’re always such angels,” she replies.

  The scene behind the large man with the massive rifle is a peculiar one; the buses that have been parked at the school are beginning to wind through town, and at the wall soldiers are positioned behind concrete blocks.

  “What’s the commotion?”

  “Barbarians at the gates, so to speak.” He plays off the true weight of it then whispers to her. “Can you get the kids loaded up onto one of the remaining buses? Watch them a bit longer?”

  “Of course.”

  One of the children, a little girl named Desiree, tugs Oz’s shirttail. Like the others, her face is plastered with the ice cream they had made themselves.

  Oz scares most adults upon sight, due to his stature and constant grave expression, but he looks down into the girl’s eyes and softens, dropping to a knee. “Hey, Dez. What’s wrong?”

  Though unable to know the full extent of what is going on, she is perceptive enough to feel the tension in the air. Obviously fearing for the man’s safety, her eyes water. “Stay with us, Ozzie.”

  “I gotta help out here. You all need to stick with Lindsey. She’s taking you to the dam.”

  “The dam’s boring!” she whines. “Can I stay with you?”

  “Afraid not,” he breaks the news gently. “I’ll be there as soon as we’re done here. Promise.”

  The girl surrenders, returning to the others.

  Oz returns to his feet. “I should get down there. Kids, be good.”

  They watch him depart fearlessly back to the frontlines. Lindsey tells the children to leave their dishes where they are and that she’ll take care of them later. Twenty four sticky sets of hands form a chain that she leads to the schoolyard. The woman keeps constant alert over the flock, not wanting to misplace a single precious one. The act fills her with anxiety, being responsible for so many little lives, keeping them safe from an enemy she can’t even see. But she trusts the many figures standing bravely at the wall, those who have volunteered to protect her, the children, and all the other souls that inhabit the town. Once she has them all within the chain link enclosure, she can breathe a bit easier, and she’ll feel even better once they are on a bus.

  “The wipers on the bus go…” Becka stops singing to another group of kids when she sees her old friend from Waterloo enter the yard with a fresh audience. She runs to the woman, who had practically adopted her and Barbara as her own the day the dead began to walk. The women hug each other tightly.

  “Kids, over here!” David calls from one of the last transports out of town. The tiny ones dash to where their other ‘legal’ guardian beckons.

  “Where’s Barb?” Lindsey asks.

  “Up the hill, helping Heather get the Raleigh girls ready,” she must excuse herself briefly to speak into a radio. “Carla, by my count we have almost everyone except for the soldiers and a few stragglers.”

  “There’s some folks refusing to leave. Hold up a bit. We’re going to blow the siren to light a fire under them.”

  ##

  “Burt?” Carla’s voice squawks out of a radio on the west side of town. She had to repeat the name a second time, and loudly, to be heard over the siren’s whine. “Any luck?”

  “One of the hold outs is coming, but McCleary says the lord will protect her.”

  “Yeah he hasn’t met her yet,” the sheriff quips. “Give her one last chance then bring it in. No sense getting others killed for her bullshit. ‘Kay?”

  “Rodger that.” He signs off on his way to the old librarian’s door to issue her one final chance. The tornado warning blares, but when the siren’s scream lowers, Burt hears something coming from the woman’s side yard.

  26

  The first few fearful steps she took in the woods were like those of a baby just learning how to walk. Eve soon grew the confidence to stride, feeling stronger and more capable than ever before. Not long after that she was running, heading east towards the only civilization she knows of. Someone there should be able to help, or at least be able to explain what is happening to her.

  She discovered the Charles River and stopped to admire its wondrous beauty. Feeling as empowered as she did, she figured she could spare the time to stop, laying her hand upon the water so the surface could trace her palm and tickle her fingers. A school of tiny fish made her smile. They huddled close against the stream, hovering with the grace of humming birds. The beige fish that had almost entirely blended into the silty river bottom scattered, scared off by the sudden loud snap of a branch.

  The girl looked behind her to the origin of the sound; a low hanging branch of a dead tree had fallen after being disturbed by another dead thing walking into it. Like a startled deer, she stood straight up and stared at the raggedy ghoul. She had nowhere to run from the approaching figure. The woods were filled with the unclean ones, lumbering between the trees. Eve took steps backwards into the river when she realized the dead were paying her no notice. They passed her by like she wasn’t even there. The zombies drew to the bank and followed the flow.

  The unclean were so close to her she could have touched them had she the desire. Instead she followed them, finding their behavior as intriguing as it was disturbing. What had her worried more than the ravenous monsters was their lack of aggression towards her. Do they see me as one of them? she had thought. Will I become like this?

  The river had taken a left turn, but the dead continued to lead the girl through the woods.

  Eve stands with the dead now as they beat upon the planks of a wooden wall. From their tenacity she can tell they really want in. Where they have loosened a board, they try to squeeze in even though it is far too tight, pushing and pulling one another aside for access to the breach that rolls their rotten flesh away from their bones. The ones bullied to the sidelines stumble to the ground, their limbs and faces avulsed.

  The throng grows as more arrive, despite some lighthearted graffiti that clearly states: Property of New Castle: Zombies keep out! She walks farther along the wall, noticing that it actually uses the trees of the forest as its posts. Eve discovers a tree that looks climbable--a way for her to scale the barrier. Below her, the dead are managing to pull away another plank.

  27

  “We have a breach!” The voice in Carla’s ear announces the news she has been dreading.

  “Where at, Burt?”

  “McCleary’s on Maple Lane,” he reports. “I got her on board.”

  “Good. Bring ‘em in.”

  “A breach?” Dan surmises from her somber expression.

  “Maple,” she pinpoints the threat for him, nodding as he eyes go glassy with uneasiness.

  “The second they pass us, close up shop. We’ll hold back the dead just long enough to give the last buses a healthy lead.”

  ##

  Burt is driving twice the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour along the rural road. He isn’t concerned about the few corpses that have entered; he simply wants to unload the bickering folks in his van. Mrs. McCleary is admonishing the community’s ‘sinful’ ways, claiming such behavior is the cause of all of this. A married couple who are both about her age are countering her. The pair claims to have an unwavering pride in the town that has only grown stronger since
the wall went up.

  The van slows when the driver spots a figure walking unhurriedly along the cracked edge of the road. The leaves caught in her disheveled hair and her dirty dress makes him question her affiliation in their war on the deceased. Burt paces her so he can call out his window, “Hey! Are you all right?”

  The girl turns slowly. “I don’t know.”

  “Get in,” he tells her, taking off the second she is seated. He has his eyes on his rearview but doesn’t see any trouble following them just yet.

  Burt takes in his new passenger, thankful that her arrival has ceased the arguing of the trio. He doesn’t recognize the pretty face and wonders if she might be one of the Raleigh women he had heard about, and if so why is she out here in the sticks. Her blood stained shoulder brings up an important question, “Have you been bitten?”

  Eve inspects her shoulder again where the zombie woman had sunk her teeth in, now just a memory of damaged skin. “I thought so… I guess not.”

  From the rustic side road, they enter the heart of town. Burt takes them straight to the school, while the older citizens resumed the debate he is sick of hearing. “Here you go. Have fun.”

  Seeing a headache waiting to happen, Becka assigns the squabbling folks to the last three seats of one of the buses. The one she has no intention of riding in.

  The youngest of the evacuees has an unfamiliar face. “Have we met?”

  “No.”

  “I’m Becka. You’ll be riding with me on this bus. Go ahead and take a seat, please.”

  A soon as the seemingly shy girl enters through the accordion doors, Becka calls Carla, “We’re moving out.”