Dead Man's Land

by R. J. Spears

  Each one wore his control collar, and Rex was, as always, ready to deliver any correction if it were needed. Or if he just felt like it.

  “They’re no different than the others -- scared shitless and looking for any chance to run.”

  “But are they learning?”

  “Yes. The kid is great. Watch him for a second.” They did, as Ryan brought his team of zombies to a complete stop , then marched them backwards for forty paces and then reversed them, making them march forward for nearly one hundred yards. The zombies moaned and groaned, but in low tones and not the excited sounds they made when food was near. Anthony knew this lot was getting used to being controlled and conditioned more and more each day.

  “Maggie’s doing really good, too,” Rex said. “She may a bitch and complain, but when she puts her mind to it, she makes things happen.”

  The rapport with Rex was a bit too chummy for Anthony, but they had an agreement. It had been an agreement with the devil for both of them. It galled Anthony even to remember the night he had been forced into it.

  It had been a bad night for him. Very bad, indeed.

  He lay next to the charred bus, his body burnt and broken. Soot filled his nostrils, and he found breathing a challenge. Things had gone decidedly bad for him. He had ambushed a group of the church people and had them trapped in the street, but then another group of people had come upon the scene, turning the tide against him.

  Just hours before, he had found himself inside his precious bus. Where once it had been a safe harbor, it had become an inferno. Ammunition exploded around him, and his left foot had taken the brunt of a grenade explosion. It was only through the force of base animal will power that he had even made it off the bus alive, but not intact.

  He didn’t know if or when Rex would show up. There was a good chance another zombie would come upon him and decide it was time to feed. He had used up all of his remaining energy fending off the one attack. That zombie body lay across his legs, pinning him to the ground.

  The stars above him were starting to fade as a hint of the sun suffused the sky with its far off glow. His foot ached, a pulsing deep wedge of pain that overwhelmed him at times, sending him into unconsciousness. He came out of one of these black dreams and saw a shadowy face hanging over him. He reached for his knife, but it had slipped off his body into the darkness while he had been out of it.

  He reconciled himself to being taken by one of the creatures that he had once dominated when the creature spoke.

  “How you doing, boss man?”

  “Rex?” Anthony said in a soft, raspy whisper. The pain of talking tore at his throat.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Rex said.

  “Get this thing off me,” Anthony said, referring to the zombie he had dispatched with his knife earlier.

  A moment later, he felt a weight lifted off his legs, but it had brushed his damage foot, and he let out a choked scream.

  “Man, that foot looks bad,” Rex said. “Really, it looks like a part of its gone.”

  Anthony had been afraid to look, but he suspected as much.

  “And you’re looking a little toasted around the edges,” Rex said, and there seemed to be some mirth in his tone.

  “Help me up!” Anthony said, anger surging through him as his hand went to his control panel in search of Rex’s control button. This whelp needed some discipline.

  Rex shot out his hand and grabbed Anthony’s arm. “Ah, ah, ah, I wouldn’t do that.”

  The anger swelled within Anthony, but Rex held his hand back from the button, squeezing hard on Anthony’s arm.

  “Listen up,” Rex said, “I know what you can do with the touch of a button. I also know that you own me because of this collar.” He pointed to his own control collar. It hung on him like a yoke, ready to burn the life out of him. “But we need to come to an agreement ‘cause I ain’t never done nothin’ to show you any disrespect. I don’t want any more than I have right now, but I can’t go ‘round the way things are. I know what you can do to me and what will happen if I try to take this collar off by myself, but I need out from under this thing.” He tugged at his collar, unconsciously. Anthony had built a fail-safe into the collars. If one of his subjects tried to remove his collar, he would receive a lethal electric shock.

  “There will be no agreement,” Anthony said in a low hiss.

  “If we can’t come to an agreement, it’s going to end badly for you and probably for me, too,” Rex said. “But neither of us wants that. You’re good at what you do. I don’t mind being your second. I’d like to think I’m sorta good at it. But, if you don’t agree to take this thing off me, I’ll walk away from you and make a lot of ruckus while I do it. I’m sure the zombies will find you and have their own little barbeque, munching down on your ass.” He paused and let that sink in. “Yeah, I know you’ll probably torch me, too, but I think we can come to an agreement. Can’t we?”

  Anthony knew doing anything else but agreeing was mutually assured destruction, but it didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow. After years of being on the wrong end of the stick and then owning the stick -- lock, stock, and barrel, he didn’t want to relinquish any power or control. His anger nearly boiled over, but he held it in check.

  “Do we have an agreement?” Rex said, leaning down into Anthony’s face.

  “Okay,” Anthony hissed out.

  “I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, but I need you to say it.”

  This was getting to be almost too much, but, once again, Anthony stuffed his fury back down inside. “I agree to remove your collar. Now, get me the hell out of here.”

  “Not so fast,” Rex said, “first, the collar comes off.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “But once you have that off, you can do anything you want to me.”

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” Rex said, and his mischievous smile returned.

  They had come to terms. Anthony took Rex through the steps to remove his collar, and Rex stayed good to his word. He got Anthony back to their base and nursed him back to health. It was touch and go as Anthony came down with a serious infection, but together they beat that back, and Anthony seemed past the worst of his injuries. His foot, though, would never be the same, and the scarring from the burns on his back, neck, and arms weren’t a pretty sight to behold. His stamina had yet to return to full strength and he tired easily as the pain took its toll on him, but he endured.

  Anthony felt their “working relationship” was even better than before, but it was hard for him to trust it. He had never trusted anyone in his life, except his mother, and he knew he would never truly trust Rex. At some point, when his full strength returned, he’d have to find a way to change the power differential again, but for now, he let it be. Rex was necessary for keeping his little empire growing and prospering.

  “Would you look at that?” Rex asked in astonished frustration. “Felix has just about got Norman boxed in by those trees. These controls are only so good.” Across the field, Norman was frantically backpedaling as a group of zombies streamed toward him. He wasn’t aware of Ryan’s group just behind him, and it would only be seconds before he stumbled into them.

  Rex bounded off the bus, shouting at Felix. “Felix, you dumb ass. If you get Norman killed, I’ll personally let the zombies eat your ass.”

  Anthony couldn’t help but smile. Rex was a great second-in-command. He was brutally efficient and, while not all that smart, he had an animal cunning that served them well. Too bad, he didn’t know his place, but that would have to wait. Revenge took precedence over everything except owning the city. It was a close second, though.

  Chapter 8

  Field Work

  The sweat rolled down Russell’s forehead, dripping into his eyes. Spring was in full form as leaves filled the trees and many flowers were in bloom. In the afternoon, the temperatures reached into the high sixties, which was a welcome change from winter’s cold and desolate
grip.

  His shoulders ached from hoeing the ground over and over again, but the day-in/day-out-exercise of working the soil had done his wounded arm and shoulder some good. While it would never be 100 percent ever again, it was close to being fully functional. It felt good to be able move it with a limited amount of pain, and he no longer felt the herky-jerky hitch in his shoulder.

  Travis managed the teams as they prepared the ground between the Manor and the golf course for planting. They had already done their first planting in the courtyard inside the Manor’s main walls, but this space outside the complex was where they would cultivate their primary crops. Inside, they had planted tomatoes, potatoes, and other more specialty items. Out back, they were going with the money crops, as Hub used to call them. Corn, soybeans, and a little wheat. If things went well and the weather cooperated, they might have a decent harvest by the fall. Maybe even earlier with the corn. In fact, they were counting on it as they knew foraging wouldn’t sustain them in the long run.

  It was back breaking work, since much of it had to be done by hand. Russell sometimes reflected on how primitive this seemed. Until the Outbreak, farmers used their massive John Deere tractors to do the work, sitting in their air-conditioned cabs. With gasoline in short supply, they had been knocked back to the middle ages. Gasoline that could have been used to power the tractors and plows was being rationed for foraging trips. When it came to raising their food, gasoline was reserved only for the big jobs.

  This sort of work required lots of labor, but their ranks had grown over the past couple months with more survivors straggling in. This was a double-edged sword for the people at the Manor. More people meant more labor, but also meant a greater demand on their food stores. The writing was on the wall. There were only so many cans of creamed corn, pineapple, and Spam to be had in the surrounding area. Growing their own food was essential to their long-term survival.

  Everybody pitched in or was delegated to work details. Teams worked from sunup to sundown every day. A select few actually enjoyed it and liked the idea of getting back to basics. Another set took it on as a part of their responsibility, and the final set complained nonstop about how this was below them. Steve Hampton was a part of this final set.

  “Hells bells, it’s hot out here,” Hampton said, wiping at his brow while taking an extended break.

  “It certainly is,” Russell said as he continued to work at the ground, moving a fist-sized rock from out of one of the rows he was working in.

  “I’m not sure why I’m out here,” Hampton said. “We’d be better off if I were to stay in the guard tower.”

  “We’re all on rotation,” Jo said, working two rows over from Russell and Hampton. “It’s your turn in the barrel, like all the rest of us.”

  Hampton groaned, but didn’t return to work immediately as he made a small production of pulling out his water bottle and taking a luxurious drink as the others worked around him.

  A clanging of metal sounded off to their right, followed by shouts. Nearly everyone looked in that direction and saw Brandon standing at the crest of a hill with a sword in his hand. Aaron and Devin stood with him, also holding swords. Brandon shouted something, and Aaron took up a defensive posture. Brandon moved in on Aaron, swinging his sword at half speed. Aaron countered the move as the sword clanged together.

  “What are those fools doing?” Hampton asked.

  “They’re practicing with swords,” Jo said.

  “What the hell for?” Hampton asked.

  Jo stopped, leaned on the handle of the rake and looked at Hampton. “You see what we’re doing out here by hand? It’s because we don’t have enough fuel to use the tractors. Fuel isn’t the only thing we’re going to run out of. At some point, we’ll run out of bullets. Crazy as Brandon is, he’s looking to that eventuality.”

  “But swords?”

  “And spears and clubs and whatever else we’ll have to fight with,” she said.

  “I’d want a mace,” Russell chimed in.

  Hampton shook his head and said, “Then you’re as crazy as them.” He pulled up his water bottle and took a long pull. He was just about to put it back when a shot rang out. The water bottle jumped from his hand and fell to the ground as he jerked around, startled.

  At first, he thought it was Brandon and his sword-wielding idiots, but he saw they stood just as startled as the field workers. Another shot sounded, and Hampton, along with all the others, looked up in the direction of the shot to see Kara braced in one of the Manor’s guard rooms on the third floor. Kara moved slightly and fired again.

  This time, the field workers followed the trajectory of her aim and looked just in time to see a zombie (missing most of its head) spill down a gentle hill just three hundred feet away. It tumbled into the body of another zombie. A third zombie, seemingly oblivious to the plight of his comrades, but intent on getting to the human smorgasbord at the bottom of the hill, trudged on. Another shot rang out; the zombie’s face disappeared, and it went down in a heap.

  A small ripple of tension flowed through the field workers as they waited to see what would happen next. These zombie incursions weren’t common, but they weren’t rare, either. However, the appearance of three zombies was very rare. It got people wondering if there might be more about to come over the rise. A few people at the Manor had seen a true horde of zombies and knew the terror they could invoke. The others could only imagine it, and that was enough for them.

  The seconds ticked away and no one moved. Some of the field workers looked to each other for some sort of cue on what they should do. No new movement came at the top of the hill.

  “All clear,” Kara shouted.

  “Whose turn is it for cleanup detail?” Hampton asked.

  Travis strode up to Hampton and said, “That would be you.”

  “Shit,” Hampton said as his shoulders slumped.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have help. Russell, you can help.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Russell said, dropping his hoe and stretching.

  “Can we use the ATV to drag the bodies?” Hampton asked. “It’s just over in the shed,” he added, pointing to the large shed just off the back dock.

  “We can’t spare this gas,” Travis said, “but here’s the deal; after you’re done dumping the bodies in the pit, you can call it a day.”

  For Steve Hampton, that was little consolation. Quitting time was just a half hour away anyway, and handling the dead was a stinky and thankless job. Hauling three rotting corpses back to the pit was as appealing as having your fingernails yanked out.

  Russell fell into bed that night, exhausted. His muscles ached from a hard day’s work, but he felt good about it after months of hiding alone in town. The isolation had not only caused his body to atrophy, but also his soul, too, had felt as if it had shrunk and shriveled. While having Paige with him helped, being among a group of people was what truly healed some of the psychic wounds of losing his brother and friends. He knew they’d never replace Cody, but these people were becoming his family.

  The only thing needling his mind at that moment was Paige. She had been nowhere in their room when he came back from dinner, but that was nothing new. Her maniac need to convince people that they needed to go back to the church, bending any ear she could find, was stressing their already frayed bonds. He almost welcomed the idea that she wasn’t there because it avoided another tense argument.

  He only became concerned when she wasn’t there in the morning and he discovered some of her things were missing. This concern intensified to worry when he looked for her in the Manor and she was nowhere to be found. The ante went up when Russell discovered that one of the group’s vehicles was missing, along with weapons.

  Chapter 9

  Panicked Interlude

  “Paige is gone,” Russell said to me. He was out of breath and talking quickly, his voice edging toward panic. Brandon stood next to me, unperturbed, with his arms crossed. We were in a hallway leading to the dining room. A few
people were up and heading to breakfast.

  “Slow down, slow down,” I said, “what do you mean?”

  “Paige is gone. I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Could she have gone for a walk or a hike or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She didn’t come back to the room last night. I checked, and one of our vehicles is gone. And some weapons.”

  He had my full attention. Before, I thought he was just an excitable kid, but my heart beat a little faster. “You’re saying she took one of our trucks and some guns?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?” Brandon asked with an edge to his tone.

  “She’s been trying to convince people since we got here that we need to go into town to check out the church.”

  “But you said all of the people there are dead.”

  “They are, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Since you guys….” he stopped, then continued. “Since the leadership team turned down her request to go into town, she’s been trying to get others to go with her. It looks like she finally convinced someone.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything to us about her doing this?” Brandon asked, crowding in towards Russell. Russell’s gaze went to the floor.

  I put up a hand between them and said, “Back off, Brandon. That isn’t helping.” He took a reluctant step backward and shot me a hard stare. “Who would have gone with her?”

  “Wayne had a brother there. Maybe she convinced Ben. He had family there, too.”

  Brandon sighed loudly. “So we have an undetermined amount of our people, in one of our vehicles headed into town with our weapons. How long have they been gone?”