THEM
Season 1 Episode 2
A Post-Apocalyptic Thrill Ride By
M.D. Massey
Modern Digital Publishing
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Copyright © 2014 by M.D. Massey.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
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Austin, Texas 78727
THEM Season 1 Episode 2 / M.D. Massey. —1st ed.
Contents
SWALLOW
PARCHED
PRAYER
PARTING
FOEMEN
FRIENDS
COUNTRY
CARE
HUSHED
Dedicated to those who stalk the night
so that others may sleep in peace
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh —
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh —
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there —
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve —
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.
~Herman Melville, Shiloh: A Requiem
[1]
SWALLOW
As Gabby fell in the water, I immediately dropped all my gear and dived in after her. She hadn’t gone far, yet her body was limp and lifeless as I lifted her head out of the water. A few hard strokes got me back to where I could reach the dock, and thankfully Bernie was there to help me lift her out. I’d never thought about how small she was, but as he took her from my arms I noted that she was so light I probably could’ve easily pulled her out, even without his help.
Once Bernie had her, I scrambled out of the lake and immediately started a battlefield trauma assessment, checking her from head to toe. Thankfully it didn’t look like she’d gotten too much water in her lungs, and she was still breathing, so I pulled back her shirt to see where all the blood was coming from. She’d been shot in the left side of her abdomen, with the entrance wound in the left upper quadrant just below the rib cage, possibly with a small-caliber rifle round. I couldn’t find an exit wound, so I assumed something had slowed down the round before it hit her, that maybe it was a ricochet instead of a direct hit. I hoped that was the case, because the less kinetic energy a round hit you with, the less internal damage it would cause.
Bernie brought me a first-aid kit from the boat and opened the case for me. There was a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the case, as well as some disinfectant liquid. I was completely unprepared and unqualified to perform emergency surgery to remove a bullet, so all I could do was clean the wound, stop the external bleeding, and get Gabby on antibiotics until I could get her to someone who knew more about field surgery than I did. I doused my hands with alcohol, poured a bunch on and around the wound, and then began cleaning the area with antiseptic and a sterile gauze pad. Once I had the area good and sterile, I covered it with more gauze and taped it shut. Then, I applied a pressure bandage to the area. That was as much as I could do for the moment.
After I had her wound dressed, Bernie helped me move her into the main building and onto one of the dining tables, suggesting to me that it would be the best place to care for her. He looked at me with regret, and I could tell he’d seen a person get gut shot before. “Don’t look good, Scratch—not without a doctor.”
“I know. The problem is, I don’t know of a single qualified surgeon anywhere around here. The last one we had in the settlements got eaten by one of his patients, dumb son of a bitch that he was.” Gabby chose that moment to start to stir, so I looked over at Bernie and pointed by the door where I’d dropped my gear on the way in. “Bernie, can you hand me my bag?” Bernie brought me my backpack, and I rummaged around until I found what I was looking for, a waterproof hard case where I kept my most important, life-saving chems and drugs. I pulled out a packet of antibiotics, mixed the packet in some water, and had Bernie help me prop her up. She choked most of it down, grimacing in pain as she did so.
“Ugh. That tastes like ass,” she muttered to us weakly.
I had to smile at that. “You’ve been shot—that ‘ass water’ will help prevent your wound from getting infected until we can get the bullet out.” I paused and squeezed her hand. “This was my fault. I should’ve been looking after you better.”
She shook her head, gently. “Naw, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have stood up. One of those assholes got a lucky shot, right after I pegged that guy who was climbing into the boat. I turned around to wave at you, and that’s when I got hit. I should know better—my tío would have my ass for this.” She grimaced. “Oh man, I might have to throw that back up.”
“Try to avoid it if you can help it. Antibiotics are going to be critical for keeping you healthy until I can get you to a healer.”
She shook her head, more vigorously than the last time. “No. No healers. Take me to La Araña. She’ll know what to do.”
I was skeptical at best about the idea. “I thought you said La Araña was a curandera—I doubt very seriously she’s trained in trauma medicine.”
Gabby chuckled softly, then grimaced again. “Just trust me, Scratch—she can help. I don’t want no one else cutting on me. Nothing but butchers in the settlements. I’ve seen it.”
I nodded in agreement, because the kid had a point. “Okay, we’ll follow your lead.” I’d already decided that getting her back to the safe zone would take too long, anyway. Despite the antibiotics, she’d likely be septic by the time I got her there. Plus we’d play hell dodging the undead along the way. Nos-types could smell fresh blood from a ways off; they were like sharks when it came to blood. Taking her sixty miles in this condition would be a mistake.
Gabby’s eyes closed, and then they fluttered open again. “God, this hurts. Give me a map so I can show you where she’s at.” I handed her my map. She looked it over for a second, and pointed to a heavily wooded area about five miles north and east of our current position. That was a hell of a lot better than trekking back to the safe zone. Even so, Gabby had mentioned La Araña several times previous to this, and I wondered why she didn’t head there when her uncle disappeared on her. I tried to hide my suspicion as I responded. “That close, huh?”
She opened her eyes, just barely, and sighed. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I was going to take you to meet her once we were done here, while we were on the way to where my uncle vanished. Just get me to her and she’ll explain everything.”
“Fair enough. But I want straight answers once we get there—and you’d better not die on me before I get them.”
She flipped me off in reply. “If I look like I’m going to die from this mosquito bite, you can shoot me yourself. Now, leave me alone until it’s time to go.” I chuckled and left t
he canteen where she could reach it.
Bernie looked at me with suspicion in his eyes, and motioned for me to follow him outside. “Well, what do you think?”
“I was going to ask you that. These are your hunting grounds, no pun intended. This being your neighborhood and all, I was wondering if you’d ever heard of this woman.”
He shook his head in the negative. “Nope, can’t say that I have. Heard talk about some medicine woman out in the sticks further south, but I couldn’t tell you what or what not about it. That area she pointed out is pretty damn close to here, and I think we’d have known if there was a healer living in these parts.”
I rubbed my chin and considered the possibilities. “Unless she was laying low, or just passing through.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But from where, and why?”
“Bernie, your guess is as good as mine, but I’ll just have to worry about that later. Right now I need to figure out how to get Gabby to this medicine woman before dark. Let’s go see if those punters left us some transportation.”
- - -
We found a horse and a mule, and I loaded up Gabby and headed out with a quick goodbye to Bernie and Margaret. They were good people, and I hoped to see them again soon. They wished me and Gabby luck as we left the gates, and I reflected that we were going to need it. There was no guarantee that we’d find this curandera friend of Gabby’s, and besides, she was in no shape to move. But, we really didn’t have a choice in the matter; it was either move her and get some help, or let her die. Either way, the kid was pretty much screwed.
After about a half an hour, I looked back and saw that Gabby’s wound was leaking blood, and she was swaying in the saddle. She looked pale as all hell, and I was worried that she’d fall out. As we were taking the old county and farm-to-market roads, I’d been keeping an eye out for a place to rest since we left the Canyon Lake settlement. I spied an old gas station ahead, and made a beeline for it. Once there, I tethered the animals and got Gabby down from the saddle to check her wound.
Right away I could she was out of it, and besides that she was mumbling incoherently, something about not being a monster and needing to find el diablo, or un diablo, or something like that. I decided she was just having a fever dream, so I checked her wound and saw it was leaking badly, and the bandage was soaked. Just as I was about to change her bandage, I heard a crash from inside the gas station and saw two deaders milling around inside. They’d probably been in limbo mode until we pulled up, but I could see they were getting agitated and trying to get to the door, which was nothing but shattered glass and a pull bar.
I had no idea how many more deaders might be around, so I decided to just wrap Gabby back up and move on quickly, rather than risk being attacked and overrun. Besides, we were only a few miles from the spot where Gabby had indicated that La Araña was camped; the quicker I got her there, the better. I looked over at the store and saw that the deaders were now fighting each other to get out of the gas station door, and would soon be on us. Frustrated and feeling quite useless, I quickly secured her back in the saddle and moved out, leaving the deaders from the gas station moaning and shuffling in slow pursuit far behind us.
Within minutes of leaving the gas station, we came to an old blacktop road that looked like it could take us north into the wooded area Gabby had pointed out to me earlier. I headed us up that way and followed it as it wound through the area, finally coming to a dead end at an old dammed-up creek. Thus far I’d seen not any sign of the old woman, and nothing to indicate the presence of a single other soul living out here, either. It was getting close to dark, Gabby was delirious, and if I didn’t find a place to hole up soon we’d both be toast. I backtracked up the road a bit and took a side trail that looked like an overgrown country driveway. Bingo. It ended in a circular drive for a home that someone had cleverly built from an old prefab metal silo.
The silo house looked like it’d once been fortified, but now the front door hung off the hinges and the entire place looked abandoned. However, the windows were still boarded up, and if the place was clear of undead, it might make for a more or less secure place to hide overnight. I left Gabby on the mule and dismounted, then entered the building with my HK at the ready.
I noticed ample evidence of a bloody struggle as soon as I entered the home. It was clear that someone or something had broken down the door, and there were large blood smears on the entryway floor. From the looks of it the blood was weeks, maybe even months, old. I paused to listen, but heard nothing to indicate any movement inside the house. Silence was no indication of safety in the Outlands, however, so I moved as quietly as possible as I continued to clear the rest of the first floor.
Following the circular flow of the layout, I entered the living room next. There I found more blood everywhere, furniture pushed up against the windows, and broken glass and china all over the floor. Further in, I reached the kitchen area and found a single corpse lying facedown on the table, long dead from a gunshot wound delivered at close range to the back of the head. It was a teenage boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen; I noticed he had a paperback copy of The Hobbit wedged in his hands. Probably never even saw it coming.
Just past the kitchen I came to a laundry room and a family room, both empty and devoid of movement. With the bottom floor clear, it was time to head upstairs. I took a quick peek outside to make sure Gabby was alright; she was still in direct sunlight, so for now she’d be as safe as possible under the circumstances. Once I was certain she was okay, I headed up the stairs with as much speed and stealth as I could muster.
The top of the steps opened into a hallway that forked off at right angles in two directions. Most folks tended to turn right when given a choice; I’d learned long ago that it paid to be unpredictable. So, I decided to go left and crept down the hall as rapidly as stealth would allow.
The hallway ended in three doors, and two were ajar. I nudged the closest one open with the barrel of the HK, revealing a child’s room decorated in pastels and princess posters. There was a small figure on the bed with the covers pulled up over its head. I drew my tomahawk and pulled the covers back with the spike on the back of the axe blade; the corpse was a small girl, maybe seven or eight years old, who’d died of a single gunshot wound to the temple. I was starting to get an idea of what had happened here. I sheathed the tomahawk and moved on, reflecting on the scenario that was revealing itself before me.
After the War and the subsequent occult species invasion, a lot of people decided that this was the final Apocalypse and simply gave up outright. But despite the apparent hopelessness of it all, there were also many families that attempted to hold out in isolation, thinking that if they just made it through then eventually they’d be saved. I’d come across scenes like this many times before; a family holds out for a while, but as hope turns to desperation they end up making some sort of death pact with each other not to be taken alive and turned. Eventually, something gets to them, whether an undead attack, or sickness, or just a case of the crazies, and some loony schmuck decides to follow through on the suicide pact, whether the rest of the family approves or not. I hated coming across these scenes.
Sure enough, the other two rooms on this side also had family members that were killed by a single bullet to the cranium. Moving to the other end of the hall, I found the same thing in a bathroom, but this time it was a woman in the tub with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was likely the mother, and decided to spare herself the torture of hearing her family suffer. I left the bath and turned to the final closed door, which I assumed was the master bedroom. Folks always seemed to retreat to what they felt was the safest place in the home to eat the last bullet.
I opened the door, and saw a corpse on the bed with a suppressed Colt 1911 in its hand, with old brain matter and blood spattered and encrusted all over the headboard. I walked over and took the sidearm from him, breaking a few fingers off in the process. I checked the slide for function and to see if it was still loaded. One in the chamber and
two in the mag. The Colt would make a good replacement weapon for Gabby, if I could keep her alive to use it. I shoved it in my waistband and quickly checked for more ammo in the nightstand drawers.
Suddenly I heard a shuffling sound behind me, and turned to see a tall elderly deadhead in bloodied and torn flannel pajamas bearing down on me fast. The thing was already on top of me before I could get the barrel of the HK around, so I used the weapon as a barrier in order to put some distance between us. As I struggled to keep the deader off of me, the ugly bastard was snapping at me all the while and trying his best to take a chunk out of my arms. The old cuss smelled like mothballs and death, and was surprisingly strong for a dead octogenarian.
Out of options, I moved my left hand to the center point of the rifle and reached for the Colt in my waistband. It only took a split second for the zombie to use my lack of leverage to knock the rifle away and snap his mouth on my sleeve. I almost crapped my pants when I saw his mouth lock onto my arm, until I realized that the old man didn’t have his dentures in; the poor bastard was gnawing on my arm with nothing but gums.
Saying a silent prayer to thank God for old age and poor dental hygiene, I placed the barrel of the .45 on the thing’s forehead, watching it chew in vain as I squeezed down on the trigger. But right before I felt the trigger break, I remembered that we were all alone out here with night coming on fast. So, I released the trigger and just pistol-whipped the thing repeatedly until I felt its head cave in with a loud crunch. It dropped in a heap and I kicked it away from me, continuing past it into the master bath from where it’d emerged with the .45 at the ready to make sure there weren’t any more surprises waiting for me. Once I was certain that all the corpses present were blessedly and truly dead, I ran down the stairs two at a time to get Gabby inside so I could barricade us in before nightfall.
- - -
[2]
THEM (Season 1): Episode 2 Page 1