Dead Man's Land

by R. J. Spears

  While everything in my being wanted to jump out of the truck and take her in my arms, I could tell I had better listen to what she was saying.

  “Jump on board,” I said.

  She stepped up onto the truck’s running board, and I eased us around the house. The barn was about thirty yards off the back of it. Jason stood holding one of the large barn doors open for us and Old Man Schultzy had the other one.

  I took the truck out of gear and glided into the barn in neutral, pulling up next to one of our trucks. Naveen and Madison stood next to it, looking nervous. The barn darkened as Jason and Mr. Schultz quickly closed the doors.

  As soon as I killed the engine and stepped out, both of the girls were on me, hugging me tight. For the second time in a matter of minutes, I felt myself close to tears. I lifted both of them up in my arms, groaning because they were getting heavier. I spun them around once and set them down. Jason came up and squeezed my shoulder, but he had a troubled look in his eyes.

  “You look terrible,” Naveen said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Well, it’s the truth,” Madison said. “You look like you were cooked in a camp fire.”

  “I almost was,” I said.

  “What’s the situation here?” Brother Ed asked.

  Kara walked up and said, “The others moved on. I told them to when we headed here. What’s happening back at The Manor? Jo made a call out to us on the walkie-talkie, but she used the code word that we shouldn’t come back right away. A military officer called out to us after that, requesting that we return back to the complex. No, that’s not right. He demanded we return with Jason.”

  “Did you reply?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Good,” I replied.

  “Who’s back there?” she asked.

  “Russell, Jo, Aaron, plus a young kid I rescued and a lady who was working with the Lord of the Dead.”

  “What!?” Kara said.

  “Russell was trapped out in the field with this woman and they were surrounded by zombies. She had some kind of limited control over them. Not like what the Lord of the Dead had. She said she was made to do his bidding. I can see some of that. He had those shock collars on them. Anyway, she’s with our people now.”

  “Where were those helicopters headed?”

  “I would imagine that they are looking for you and the others, but they really want Jason.”

  “What if they find us?” Naveen asked.

  “I won’t let them find us,” I said, trying to sound confident.

  Jason scribbled something on a pad and held it up. It read, “What if they find the others?”

  That was the $64,000 question. They had a convoy and would be easy to spot. “I don’t know,” was the best I could say, but it stung. I was responsible for every person at The Manor, but I knew that Jason was the priority. Abandoning them to their fate wasn’t something I relished, but the truth of the matter was that we were no match for a small army. There would be no heroic rescue of those people at The Manor.

  Jason scribbled away again and presented his pad to us. “Why don’t I just turn myself into the soldiers?”

  “No!” I nearly shouted. My intensity shocked the two girls who winced and took a step back. I decided to take it down a notch. “You know what would happen to you if we did. And there’s no guarantee that there won’t be a retribution on all of us for harboring you. And just so everybody remembers, the spies they sent in our midst died by our hands. If they have any suspicion about that, it’s something they won’t just forgive and forget. Besides, you are too important for the plan that God keeps sending into my brain. Not that I want it and not that He’s spelling it out all that clearly.” I felt myself starting to get wound up again and stopped, sucking in two deep breaths. “You know it. I know you do.”

  Jason looked me in the eyes and, after a moment, nodded his head.

  “So, what are we doing?”

  “We’re heading north,” Naveen stepped forward and said.

  “Why? What’s so important in the north?” Kara asked.

  “My daddy’s lab is there,” Naveen said.

  Jason held his pad out for all of us to see. It read, “It’s too dangerous. I should just go alone.”

  “That’s not happening,” I said. “We’re going with you.”

  “We can’t take everybody,” Kara asked. “What about Mr. Schultz and the Benton sisters?”

  Mr. Schultz took that moment to shuffle close to our group and say, “Don’t you worry about us. We can take care of ourselves. Can’t we Gertie?”

  “Yes, we can,” one of the gray haired old ladies said and I assumed it was Gertrude. I could never get their names sorted out.

  “Besides, if you leave that big truck of yours, I can drive it,” Mr. Schultz said. “I used to drive one of those at the mill.”

  “Okay, Brother Ed can stay and help with them and Madison and Naveen can stay behind, too.”

  “No,” Naveen said, her voice as loud as I had ever heard it. “You need me. I know how to get to my daddy’s lab. Plus, I’m seeing the same things in my head as you are. I’m supposed to go.”

  “I’m going, too,” Brother Ed said.

  I stepped closer to him and said in a soft voice, “We need you to stay with the old people and Madison.”

  “You’re not hearing me,” he said. “I’m going. If the fate of the world is left in your hands, then I think I need to be there to make sure it happens. And don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  There was a set to his face that told me that getting him to stay behind wasn’t in the cards. I threw up my hands.

  “I should go, too,” Madison said, tears forming in her eyes.

  Kara pulled Madison close and said, “Shhh, shhhh, you need to stay here with Mr. Schultz and the Bentons. They need someone young to help them out. Can you do that?”

  “You guys are going to leave me just like my mom did,” she shouted, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

  “We’re coming back,” I said, leaning down. “I promise you that.” And I meant it, even though I knew I had no way to back it up. That’s the thing about making promises that you can’t back up, because if you’re dead; you won’t be around to be called a liar.

  I’m not sure my promise helped, but she calmed down some as Kara hugged her tightly.

  Naveen came up behind Madison and started rubbing her back. She comforted Madison by saying that she would be back, too and they would have such fun.

  I walked over to Madison and got down on one knee to look her in the eyes. “Listen, we have to go away for a while. You’re going to be here with Mr. Schultz and the Benton sisters. They’ll take good care of you. They’ll need your help, too.”

  She shook her head, but there was such a deep sadness in her eyes that I almost decided right then not to go. We could all take off in the morning together and head south instead. Maybe we’d get away from the undead and all the evil assholes of the world. Maybe we could just make a life for ourselves and be happy?

  Then the reality of what I was responsible for hit home and I knew there was no chance of running. The Man upstairs was sending me all my visions for a reason. Going north was the only option. Sure, it meant leaving this sad and tragically mistreated child in the hands of strangers, but they were strangers I trusted.

  I reached out and took her hand. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  She resisted for a moment, but then gave in and walked with me over to Gertrude and Clara, who were standing quietly off to the side. Madison’s tears had stopped, but she had a look of uncertainty in her eyes.

  When we got to Clara, she reached out a hand for Madison and said, “Come on. Let’s go inside. There are cookies.”

  I don’t know if it was her hand or the cookies that broke the ice, but Madison reached out her hand and gripped Clara’s tightly. Together, they walked out of the barn and toward the house. Both of the older women immediately started mothering her in soft, calming
tones.

  I felt the tension of one less responsibility lift from my shoulders and, even though it was the slightest bit of relief, when the fate of the world rested on you, every little bit helps.

  Brother Ed edged up beside me and asked, “What’s your plan? When are we leaving?”

  I wished I had a grand plan. Everything in the last few hours had been completely governed by reaction and survival. I knew we had to go north, but what lay ahead was uncertain. The only thing I truly knew was that there was a good chance we wouldn’t make it alive.

  It was then that we heard the beating of the helicopter blades in the distance. Kara rushed up to beside me.

  “We need to get everyone out of sight,” I said and started for the door. Kara and Brother Ed followed. Jason went over to the door that the Madison and the others had just left through and slammed it shut. I cracked one of the large barn doors, but the house blocked any view into the valley.

  Kara must have read my mind and said, “We could try the loft.”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Of the remaining adults in the barn, Mr. Schultz was the only one to stay down with the trucks as getting to the loft meant climbing a rickety wooden ladder. Ladder climbing was a thing of the past for him, and he knew it. It held as all four of us as we climbed upward, but I had my doubts a couple of times as the wood creaked loudly under my weight.

  The view from the loft was decidedly better. We could see out into the valley in three directions. To the east and south were farm fields. Most were covered with tall grass and weeds. To the north were woods, but cutting alongside them, far off in the distance, was an old country road winding like a gray ribbon through the trees. It wound along and sometimes was swallowed up by the trees, but, for the most part, we had a clear sightline into it.

  The noise of the helicopter blades beat away in the distance, but sounded like it was getting closer. We watched and waited as I felt an anxious ache start to churn in my stomach.

  After about ten minutes, as the helicopter volume increased, Kara said, “There,” as she pointed to the east.

  There was a dark blip on the horizon, floating gently above the trees. It gradually grew bigger along with the sound of the helicopter blades. A second blip appeared similar to the first.

  “Do we have any binoculars or anything?” I asked.

  Kara and Jason shrugged, so we watched some more with our naked eyes.

  My worst fears became reality when we saw a row of vehicles on the road below the helicopters. It looked like several trucks, but from our remote perspective, it was hard to make them out.

  “Oh no,” Kara said, putting a hand to her mouth.

  “Do you think it’s our people?” Brother Ed asked.

  “It’s gotta be,” I said. “What other caravan would they be escorting back this way?”

  Hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be our people, it seemed like we were all holding our breaths. We continued watching as they weaved in and out of the forest, dropping in and out of view for the next few minutes. They reached a wide-open expanse where the forest had been cleared, and it was then that we were absolutely sure it was our escape convoy. The helicopters hovered over the convoy menacingly, like birds of prey. I’m certain had any of the trucks tried to make a break for it, they would have been shredded by the choppers’ big guns.

  “Who knows where you are?” I asked Kara.

  “No one, but they might guess,” she replied.

  “We need to move then,” I said. “We’ll leave as soon as it gets dark."

  We spent the next few hours prepping the truck and getting a limited amount of supplies on board while we watched the skies for the helicopters to return. Fortunately, they didn’t.

  I made sure I grabbed the satellite phone we secreted away there a few months earlier. I only hoped Aaron would be able to check the phone at the time we agreed on. We left most of the food and a couple of weapons with Mr. Schultz. He said he had been in the Korean War and could handle himself. I doubted he had fired a gun since the ‘50s, but there was little choice. The Benton sisters had been life-long pacifists and wouldn’t even touch a gun.

  We’d have to pick up food on the road wherever we could along the way. That was nothing new. We had survived day-by-day in the city in that fashion.

  The minutes ticked by slowly as we waited for nightfall. The sun dropped ponderously slow and seemed to hang on to the horizon line as if the night were a lurking enemy. Maybe it was? The last long line of pinkish-orange dissolved away in a final blink and we knew it was time to go.

  Leaving was killing me on the inside. It was bad enough that I was leaving three geriatrics and Madison to their own devices, but I was leaving everyone back at The Manor to whatever the soldiers wanted to do with them. My heart kept hoping that the troops would move on once they discovered Jason wasn’t there. My head said something entirely different, and it wasn’t a pretty picture.

  I kept asking myself whether Greg would have left, but he wasn’t around and he certainly never received any text messages from God telling him what to do. What we had to do was clear. Doing it was the hard part.

  I gathered our group together in the barn and we talked through several potential plans for the ones remaining, such as what to do if zombies showed up or if the soldiers returned. It was all moot, really. They’d do what they had to do in whatever way they could.

  This discussion could have gone on for hours, but I knew we were just putting off the inevitable. Mercifully, Jason put an end to it when he held out a piece of paper saying that we needed to leave. Kara gathered the entire group on a circle, and we prayed for traveling mercies and for God’s protection over the people we had to leave behind.

  We were about to break our little huddle when the walkie-talkie in Kara’s pocket squawked to life, and a voice came through loud and clear. Kara quickly retrieved the walkie-talkie and held it out so that we could all listen.

  “This is Colonel Blake Kilgore of the United States Air Force. If you’re listening, then we would like for you to return to your complex. We offer you the safety and security of the United States military.”

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  There was silence for several seconds, then he spoke again. “There is nothing to fear. Please return to the complex. We are in search of a young man named Jason Carter and we know he is among your group. He is critically important to the safety of all humanity. If you let us have him, we will go on our way, and no one needs to get hurt.”

  That was laying your cards on the table. Yes, indeed. Some might say he was being subtle, but there was nothing subtle about it. He would do what he had to do to get his hands on Jason. What he didn’t know was that I would do whatever I had to do to prevent that.

  The question was, what should I say? Or should we say anything at all? Saying nothing left the door open, and maybe they would come searching for us and find the old farm house. Or maybe they would start hurting the people left behind to wring any information out of them. Responding at all let them know we were still out there. There were no clear upsides.

  On impulse, I snatched the walkie-talkie from Kara’s hand and brought it to my mouth. “We have Jason Carter. He is with us.”

  “Who is this?” Kilgore responded.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. We are taking Jason Carter with us and heading south. There is no profit in harming any of the people with you. We will not bring him back. This is our last time we will speak with you, and we will not respond to any further communication.”

  I dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor, brought my boot up, and smashed it down onto the walkie-talkie, shattering it into tiny pieces.

  “Why did you do that?” Brother Ed asked, his expression aghast.

  “Because they would only use it to extort us to come back by harming people at The Manor. We’re not going back and we don’t need to listen to anything they do. I only hope I bought us some time by sending them south. There’s no more time to t
alk, so let’s go.”

  I walked to the truck, opened the driver’s door, and got in. I could feel a terrible nervous energy coiled inside me, ready to spring. What that outcome would be, I had no idea, but I was about action and momentum right then. I only hoped the others were going to play along.

  It took all of them some time to overcome their shock, but Jason climbed into the truck and Kara followed with Naveen a few moments later. Brother Ed took the longest to get over my actions, but he climbed into the back of the truck and shut the door.

  There was nothing left to be said. I started the truck up, and Mr. Schultz opened the big barn door, displaying a view onto a dark and brooding sky filled with slate gray storm clouds. A bolt of lightning flashed, searing its path into my eyes.

  “That’s a good omen,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, but no one in the truck picked up on my feeble attempt at humor.

  “Killjoys,” I said as I put the car into gear and slowly pulled forward, leaving the lights off on purpose, hoping not to stick out in the darkness.

  As we passed by Mr. Schultz, he said, “Godspeed, son. Godspeed.”

  We slipped off into the dark. God only knew what was in store for us.

  We weren’t out of the door more than five minutes before the skies opened up like the flood that sent Noah’s ark afloat, the rain pounding down hard on the truck. We hit the bottom of the hill, came to an intersection and headed north.

  Into the Deadlands

  Books of the Dead 4

  PREVIEW

  It was a dark and stormy night.

  Oh geez, I know I sounded like the worst book ever written. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs, either. This was a monster storm. It was raining elephants and blue whales. The raindrops came down like hammers, pounding on the exterior of the truck. Water seeped through gunshot holes that peppered the exterior of the truck. Those were a result of a recent battle to the death with a madman I liked to call the “Lord of the Dead.” More about him later.