by Steven Pajak
I made my way to the sidewalk, pausing to glance at my wife’s rose garden, her current resting place. I sighed deeply and made the sign of the cross.
“I miss you so much, Alyssa. And I miss our babies, too.” Again I wished I’d been able to bring them home to rest with their mother.
I made my way down the slight incline toward Harper’s Knoll. It was a bit brisk, and I found myself wishing I’d grabbed an overcoat. I hadn’t really noticed the cold last night; I was a bit pumped up on adrenaline I suppose.
I waved across the street to a group of people who were making their way to the knoll. I spotted Ravi, dressed in a black dress. She wore black gloves and had a navy blue scarf wrapped snuggly around her neck. I also spotted Iggy and John making their way with the crowd. Iggy looked a bit under the weather—he seemed to be dragging behind the group, clutching the collar of his shirt against the cold day. John on the other hand seemed in good spirits. He clapped his friend on the back and smiled at Ravi as the two exchanged pleasantries. I was glad to see that yesterday’s events hadn’t had a lasting impact on these men.
I stopped at the corner of Churchill and Pinehurst, shocked and awed by how beautiful Harper’s Knoll looked. Reverend Reggy and his crew had certainly taken their task to heart.
Normally, Harper’s Knoll was nothing more than a small field blanketed in lush green grass, with a slight incline on the west side. Now, it looked like the setting for an outdoor wedding for the rich and famous. White fabric covered the grass, rows of wooden chairs were set up just east of the knoll, facing the incline, and white streamers were intertwined in the tree branches and raised like thousands of waving arms when the wind blew. A small stage and podium, also covered with white fabric, sat atop the incline. In the few hours they’d had to prepare, some exceptionally skilled member of our community had fashioned from wood a beautiful resting place for our poor Charlie. His coffin stood next to the podium atop more white fabric.
I started to move again, honored by how the members of the community had come together to create such a sendoff for one of their fallen brothers. I felt warm tears on my cheeks and wiped them away with my sore hands.
Many of the seats were already occupied and I could see that I and the group across the street were among the last to arrive. As it turned out, the entire community gathered on this brisk morning. I wondered if any of them had slept, or if I’d been the only one to indulge.
I met up with Ravi as her group crossed the street. She took my arm in her own and without a word we crossed the blacktop and stepped onto the grass, then up onto the beautiful white fabric. At the front row of seats we parted and I continued past my friends to meet with Reverend Reggy at the base of the knoll while Ravi moved off to find a seat and be among her friends.
Reggy wore his black clerical with white neckband and black trousers. I’d been too groggy at home and I hadn’t realized he’d changed into his formal attire. I was pleased with the formality and I knew Charlie would be, too.
“Rev, this is beautiful,” I said in greeting, and shook his hand. “This is far more than I expected. I’m speechless.”
“It is the least we can do for our brother.” I could tell he was uncomfortable with my praise.
“Will you lead with a prayer, Reverend?”
“Of course,” he said.
Together we walked up the incline and took our places at the podium. Reverend Reggy stood front and center and I stood slightly behind him and to the left.
“Brothers and sisters,” he began, “please rise.”
All at once, with fluidity that reminded me of a school of fish, our community rose to their feet. They stood with their backs to the morning sun, highlighted against the cold morning sky.
“In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit,” Reverend Reggy said as he crossed himself.
As he prayed, I looked out over our people, watching as they bowed their heads. Some held each other’s hands while others prayed alone.
“Almighty God, You love everything You have made and judge us with infinite mercy and justice. We rejoice in Your promises of pardon, joy and peace to all those who love You. In Your mercy turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven; through our Savior Jesus Christ, who died, rose again, and lives forevermore. May You grant our brother Charlie everlasting eternity. Amen.”
Reverend Reggy turned to me and I nodded to him, dismissing him from his perceived obligation of presiding over Charlie’s funeral. I stepped forward and cleared my throat. The sun was bright and I squinted my eyes against its brilliance. The cold air nipped at my ears and found its way down the collar of my shirt.
“Thank you all for coming.”
I put my hands in my pockets and then pulled them out quickly and clasped them in front of me. I was nervous. This was the first time I had to say words at a funeral with so many people looking at me. In the Army, when I lost a man, I wrote a letter. I did not have to feel the weight of the eyes of the bereaved on me.
“Like most of you, I didn’t know Charlie very well before…well, before this all started. He was a pretty quiet guy and he usually kept to himself.”
I took a few steps to my left and stood beside the coffin. I put a hand against the cold wood.
“If you asked me just a week ago if I would ever consider Charlie a hero, I probably would have said no. I’ve known heroes in my time, believe me. But after last night, if you were to ask me, I’d say different. I know now that Charlie was a hero.”
I looked out over the gathered. Their eyes were upon me, enthralled by my words. “Charlie saved my life. In fact, he saved me twice. He gave his life for me just as he gave his life for all of you. And he did it willingly, with love in his heart and courage in his soul.”
Putting both hands on the coffin, I bent forward and put my lips against the cold wood.
“You will be missed,” I said. “May God have mercy on your soul, Charlie.”
Stepping away from the coffin, I came down from the knoll and stood before my friends, choosing my next words carefully.
“I fear that this will not be the last time we gather here, on this knoll, for this purpose. The world as we know it has changed. There are things out there now that want to kill us. They want to infect us and bite our flesh.”
Suddenly I felt warm. A bead of sweat trickled down my right temple. I unbuttoned my suit jacket and loosened my tie. The eyes of a hundred people were still upon me.
“Those crazies out there, those poor infected souls, are not the only ones that would do us harm. Our own neighbors seek to take what is ours.”
I let those words sink in for a moment. Now those hundred eyes turned away, looked at each other. I heard murmurs float to me on the cool breeze.
“If we’re going to survive, we have to work together. We’re all family now. We are all each other have left in this world. Charlie understood, and he fought to his death to protect us from what lies outside those walls.”
“This is only the beginning. I can’t lie to you. Our situation is going to get worse before it gets better. We’re going to be tested to our limits. We’re going to see things we never thought we’d witness and do things we never thought ourselves capable of doing. And you’re going to do these things for the person to your right, to your left.”
They turned to each other again, looking upon their new family with new eyes. The fear was clear on their faces, but I could tell that defeat was not in their hearts. Although unsure about what was coming, I knew that they all wanted to survive.
“I will do my best to help you all live through the coming months, but I can’t do it alone. I need your help. This is your home and you will protect it and your family from anyone or anything that tries to harm us or take what is ours.”
Sweating now, I took off my suit coat and let it drop to the grass. I wiped sweat from my brow and at the same time shivered with pleasure as the cool air found my damp skin.
> “Who will fight with me?” I asked. “Who will stand with me to protect our home and these people?”
In the front row, I saw Brian stand and beside him Bob also rose to his feet. And one by one, each man, woman and child stood, one after another until all were on their feet.
“Thank you,” I said. “Let not Charlie’s death be for nothing. Let not his sacrifice be for nothing! Who will help me lay our brother to rest?”
Men and women stepped forward, more than was needed, but I let them come. They came together, crossing the distance to the knoll. I watched as they gathered around the coffin and lifted it with strong hands.
Reverend Reggy led them. At the north base of the knoll they carried Charlie to the neatly dug grave. I watched while the men and women lowered the coffin into the hole. I noticed that from my deck I would be able to look out across the field and see the very spot where my friend would lay at rest.
As they stood looking down, I stepped up beside my neighbors. Crouching down, I scooped up the loose soil in my right hand. Standing again, I let the earth fall between my fingers. Tears began to well in my eyes again as the dirt fell upon the wood.
“Be at peace, Charlie,” I said.
Brian followed suit, dropping a handful of cold earth into the grave. He walked away, and then Bob was there, and John. Alex and Ravi each took their turn and moved on. For the next few moments I watched as each member of our community bent for the loose soil and let it slip between their fingers and silently moved on.
I was so hypnotized by the monotonous motion of the silent men and women as they paid their last respects that I didn’t at first notice the commotion. I didn’t look away from the grave until I heard a woman’s ear-piercing scream.
Instinctively, I reached down to grab my SKS before I realized I’d left the house unarmed.
Pushing past those gathered in front of me, trying my best to contain the fear that suddenly rose like bile in my throat, I drew closer and saw that something was happening in the third or fourth row of seats. My view was blocked by bodies crowding together, unconsciously flocking toward the activity rather than moving away.
Then I saw people turn with horror and shock on their faces. They started to run. A moment later I heard a gunshot.
I shouted as I slammed into the crowd and pushed my way through. My pulse beat so heavily I felt it in my ears. “Move! Get out of the way!”
I pushed and pulled, struggling to find a way past the crowd of people who were making their mass exodus, as well as those who stood too shocked to move. After what seemed an eternity but was actually less than half a minute, I broke through to the center of the commotion.
Chairs were tumbled and thrown haphazardly in all directions. A woman I didn’t know lay on the ground screaming, both of her hands covering her neck and the gaping wound that bled freely. Her feet tangled in the white fabric and pulled it askew. On the ground beside her, his blood staining the white fabric, lay Iggy. The side of his head was blown open.
I fell to one knee beside him and reached out to lift him.
“Don’t touch him,” Brian said coolly.
I looked up and saw him with his Glock.
“Why?” I asked.
“He was infected,” Brian said. “He turned.” Before I could react, he pointed the Glock at the screaming woman and pulled the trigger.
Charlie was the first of our fallen buried on Harper’s Knoll, but he was not the last. Mad Swine had come to Randall Oaks, and with it came death.
EPILOGUE:
Vengeance
We moved silently across the field, heading toward the extreme west side of Providence’s property line. After much deliberation, this spot had been chosen because it was furthest from the community’s center, was lightly guarded, and would prove to be their most vulnerable point.
For the last half hour, we moved stealthily through the field, taking caution in the dark. It was difficult to see on this moonless night and I was very worried that in our haste we might stumble upon one of the sleeping things that had taken up residence among the maize. The dampness of the cool, moist soil permeated my black jeans. My knees grew numb with the cold. The chill of the early morning air continued to sting my face; the black greasepaint offered no protection from the elements. This was a damn cold November and it made me worry about the coming winter.
The soft rustle and whisper of the dying stalks as our bodies brushed against them became monotonous and I found myself breathing in time with our movement. Crawl and breathe. Crawl and breathe. The silence of the deep morning and my breathing was hypnotic and my mind slowly turned itself to autopilot.
Brian suddenly halted in front of me. I knew he stopped not because I saw him—in the oil black darkness of the morning I could barely see him against the dark soil of the earth—but because of the cessation of his sound. The whispering cornstalks fell silent and I immediately held my position. I shifted my SKS to a more comfortable position on one knee as I listened intently. Almost instinctively I turned away from my brother and checked our rear before finally moving forward as silently as possible to where Brian crouched. When I reached him, my eyes followed Brian’s pointing finger toward what looked like a mound of earth but turned out to be the sleeping body of one of them. With little ambient light, it was difficult to make out the details without a much closer inspection.
I shifted onto both knees now and leaned forward, keeping a tight grip on my SKS. From my slightly improved position I could see it was a man…or used to be. Straining my eyes in the dark, I leaned even closer and looked him over. He appeared to be in his early twenties, perhaps no older than twenty-five. He wore dark jeans, light colored work boots and a bright orange T-shirt. The fact that he looked normal, save for the tell-tale sign of bloodstained lips and mouth, told me this poor guy was recently changed. Still examining him, I wondered if he’d been a resident of Providence or if he’d come from somewhere further away. We’d been experiencing more wandering traffic on Route 20 coming from the west where farmland and small roads which were rarely traveled ruled. Where he came from didn’t matter, of course, but I was curious. Against my better judgment I almost felt sorry for the man before me. I checked myself. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a man any longer, and emotions were best left at home. Emotions could be dangerous in the field.
Looking up, I made eye contact with Brian and ran a finger across my exposed neckline, silently querying my brother whether we should kill the creature. Surprisingly, Brian shook his head distinctly—his long hair held tightly against his skull by a black cap—and motioned me forward with the flick of his gloved hand.
I hated the idea of leaving this sleeping lion at my unprotected back. My instincts told me to I should pull out my knife and end the suffering of the poor soul, and at the same time eliminating a possible threat to our escape route. But this was Brian’s mission and I agreed that I would only play a back-up role. Perhaps that had been a mistake, but I would have to live with that decision.
Shaking my head, acting against my better judgment, I started to move again, as silently as possible, and followed my brother. The whispers rose up against the cold night as he moved to the east. I took one look to the north, toward Randall Oaks, its property line merely a deeper shadow among shadows. Our community was dark and our residents were in slumber, unaware that its leaders were moving them silently—unwillingly—toward a new destiny.
Our mission must be completed before daylight broke across the eastern sky. At dawn, the crazies would rise from their coma-like sleep and so would the slumbering residents of Randall Oaks. No one knew about our mission—not even Bob—and we wanted to keep it that way. No one could know what we were planning to do this night. As it would turn out, this mission would divide my brother and I, and things at Randall Oaks would soon take a turn for the worse.
* * *
The western border of the Providence property line stretched out for more than two miles from north to south, but that stretch of
unprotected property was covered by only two security outposts, each manned by two armed residents. Providence would soon learn their lesson and fill in the gap in their line. But tonight, we used this to our advantage.
For three consecutive nights following Charlie’s funeral, Brian and I had crawled across the field that bordered our two communities. We hastily set up an observation post from within what was left of the grain silo at the abandoned barn—the property had sold to land developers who intended to build another community on it before the whole financial system collapsed on us—and surveyed the movements of these security details. For six hours each night, we made notes on their shift changes and personnel and weaponry.
The first security outpost to the north was of no interest to us and we casually observed it for the sake of thoroughness. Instead, we focused much of our surveillance on the southern outpost, where Comedian had been reassigned from his original post at the Providence roadblock. He was our mission.
Like clockwork, the security shifts ended at 3:30am and the four men who manned the outposts—two to the north and two to the south—were relieved by fresh security teams. By 3:31am each morning, Comedian would be on his way to his home on the extreme southwest end of Providence.
Now, consulting my watch I noted the time was 3:52am. Comedian should be home by now, hopefully his sleep plagued by nightmares of Charlie and the undead.
With the stealth of ninjas, my brother and I made our way from the fields to the edge of the Providence property line unnoticed, using the cover of the low rolling hills and shadows cast by the large homes. If our intelligence was sound, which it was, we knew exactly where we needed to go. Without pause we crossed dewy grass, which we exchanged for damp pavement, and moved silently toward the pale blue single-family home where Comedian resided.
Leaning against the wood siding trying to catch my breath, I could feel the cool night air against my damp pants. My knees and thighs puckered with gooseflesh. Plumes of vapor escaped through my slightly parted lips with each exhale. I could feel Brian’s body next to mine as I surveyed our immediate surroundings. At this time of the morning, all was silent. Street lamps burned brightly but we lurked silently in the shadows cast by the attached garage against which we leaned.