A line of bodies lay together at the bottom of the steps leading to the small loft. Each of them had hands immobilized and a single gunshot wound to the head. They were all men.
“They executed them,” Deb gasped. “This was the Neighbors?” Kahn shook his head.
“No, this is the people with the helicopter. Soldiers, must be.”
“Monsters,” she said, inspecting the zip ties around the wrists of the executed.
“Notice it’s all men, no women or kids,” Jesse stated. Of course, Mel was on his mind as he realized they must have taken more of their population for their sick torture. Nobody replied but they all thought, Bella-- Jack-- Daisy-- and where was Captain Louis?
Kahn suddenly sprung up the stairs to the loft. He grabbed at an item hanging to the left and came back with a yellow sun dress on a hanger. Daisy’s dress. His blood ran cold as he realized these people must have taken her. How could I have left her behind? How could I let her out of my sight? He shook with fear and rage, clenching the yellow cloth in his fists.
A clattering came from farther into the building. Past the rows of bunks and mattresses was a kitchen area where a metallic clang echoed. Kahn joined the rest, holding his ax in front to lead the way toward the disturbance. It sounded again, metal clanging on the floor, and they crouched as they crept past the low service bar toward the entryway. Jesse jumped around the corner into the kitchen, brandishing his hatchet in position to strike.
A couple bodies lay on the floor, but nothing was immediately threatening. He lowered the weapon as the other three trailed in behind. The state of the normally pristine cooking area was shocking. Bullet holes riddled the walls and cabinets, and the cabinets and drawers had been emptied onto the floor in a chaotic mess.
Sitting upright was the body of their cook, Jonathan. The dead man sat in the nearest corner with a black hole just below his left eye. He had owned a restaurant near the university across town and ended up joining the Burned Woman’s group this spring after being found by Jesse’s patrol. Jonathan was always so excited to serve food to the grateful community that rescued him. This execution was pointless, and the four survivors stared at the open eyes and the pool of crimson below the man’s legs.
A low moan sounded from the second body against the opposite wall. The crew jumped and raised their weapons again, waiting for the inevitable attack. The second body shifted, but didn’t raise to its feet. It moaned again.
“Oh shit, Captain!” Kahn yelled, dropping his hatchet to the ground and sliding forward on his knees. He took Louis’ arms and rolled him, exposing the blood-stained front of the officer’s uniform. He had two bullet holes in his torso, and his clothing was soaked with blood. He moaned again as Kahn forced him to sit up. The wounds in his chest flowered with fresh blood.
“Kids--” he said in a faint voice. “Safe--”
Kahn couldn’t tell if his words were a question or statement. “We haven’t found the kids yet. Where’s Daisy? What happened?”
“Kids-- Daisy was-- taken-- We heard the helicopter-- tried to fight--”
“Save your strength,” Lars said, joining the pair on the ground. “We’ll patch you up.”
“Not--” he said, pausing. The captain closed his eyes. His chest moved in a shudder and Kahn waited for the man’s final breath. Working in supply at LOSTOP he had resented Captain Louis’ arrogance. But now, having seen him rescue Jack and Bella and seeing his change from reluctant member to active participant in their quest to save Jesse’s wife, Kahn had a new perspective on the supply officer. They were losing a great man and a friend. Kahn found tears filling his eyes and he wiped them away with a swipe from his sleeve.
“Guys, what do we do here?” Deb asked in a shaking voice. Two living members of her group were kneeling next to one that might soon be dead. She gripped the handle of her ax, waiting for the worst.
Without warning, the captain’s hand jumped to Kahn’s collar. He gripped the cloth and pulled his former orderly, leaving a bright red stain on the gray coverall. Kahn leaned in.
“Don’t let them take the kids. Don’t use them as currency. You’ll be like them. You’ll be--”
“Captain?” Kahn asked. The man’s grip loosened as his body went limp. His arm hovered in the air for a moment before dropping to the ground. Lars leaned into the captain’s chest, listening for breathing or a pulse. He rose and shook his head.
“He’s gone,” Private Lars said.
“Then we need to get out of here, he might not stay dead for long. Let’s--”
CLANG!
The same metallic noise that attracted them to the kitchen in the first place rang throughout the room. They all jumped, Kahn especially, and scrambled away from the body of their colleague. Kahn and Lars joined Deb and Jesse, looking for the source of the alarming noise.
A small scraping sound came from the cabinet behind the captain’s body. Kahn and Lars looked at each other before gently gripping Louis’ clothing and dragging his body away from the doors. When his weight was pulled from the lower cabinets, the doors shifted slightly before popping open.
Two small forms huddled in the shadows. Jack and Bella Wither cowered together quietly amongst the cookware, kept hidden and protected during the attack by Captain Louis, who shielded them with his body.
Chapter 34
- Missing
Missing
Ty and Specialist Jones…
Sergeant Kimble…
Tom Wiggins…
Captain Louis…
And now Daisy was missing. They had searched the rest of the living quarters. Reverend Green and the Burned Woman were also missing, but Kahn’s thoughts only focused on Daisy and how to get her back.
“I’m taking them back to LOSTOP,” a faraway voice spoke. Kahn drifted slowly back to the room and the rest of his people. The voice was part of a bigger conversation about what to do now that their home was broken and their people were dead or gone.
“What about her?” Deb asked. Kahn followed her gesture and saw Ice, still unconscious, on the sleeping bag where they had left her.
“I’m taking her too, and Ricky. They can’t fight and I think you guys are walking toward a big one,” Lars was the one speaking. Kahn took inventory of his surroundings and realized he was sitting at a dining room table. He had an open can of soup in his hands. It was red. Tomato. He stared at the thick liquid and felt sick.
“Okay, but is your base the best place to go? The helicopter did attack you there,” Jesse said.
“Yes, but it’s the only place I know is relatively safe. We had food there, and barracks, and vehicles, and weapons. Then you guys will know where to find us. I’ll keep them from harm until you do,” Lars stood, taking a set of keys from Deb and packing several more cans of food into a backpack.
“Not the kids,” Kahn said in a low voice. Deb, Jesse, and Lars paused and looked at their companion. “We’re taking the kids to the Neighbors.”
“Hal, that’s crazy. You’re walking into a gunfight and you want to take a three-year-old and a twelve-year-old?” Lars scoffed.
“I’m ten,” Bella interjected, making the adults realize they were having this debate in the same room as the children involved. The next reply was in a significantly lowered voice.
“The kids need to go with Quentin, Hal. What are you thinking?” Deb replied, glancing into the corner where both kids sat on the floor. They were coloring with pencils on one white wall of the church sanctuary. Jack scribbled, but Bella was drawing an idyllic picture of a house. There was a family standing outside, parents and two kids. As the adults watched, Bella paused to admire the scene before suddenly reaching up with the pencil. She quickly drew a large X over the figure of the dad, and then over the mom.
“We’re not walking into a gunfight,” Kahn said, drawing the attention back to him. “We’re walking into a hostage situation. Those are our bargaining chips.”
A long silence filled the room before Jesse nodded. “You’re right,�
� he said. “He’s right. We don’t know how many of them there are. We walk in with guns blazing and we’ll end up dead before they even know who we are. We bring those kids and we’ve got a chance of finding the reverend and the Burned Woman and Daisy.” Deb shook her head and rapidly paced five steps toward the small altar and five steps back.
“Fine! Fine. But the first sign of trouble and we get out of there,” she pointed her finger into Jesse’s chest. He nodded and muttered in agreement. Lars shrugged.
“They’re just kids, guys, this isn’t the North Korean border. You can’t just trade them--”
“No, this isn’t like that. Even swapping hostages with North Korea had rules. Now there are no rules. We’re giving these kids back to their family and taking back our own. That’s it,” Kahn stood, setting the unappetizing soup on the table as he did.
“That’s it,” Deb replied. “No revenge killings?” Kahn thought for a moment. Ever since he left the Lone Star Outpost his heart burned with hate for Llewelyn and the Neighbors. All his drive came from fantasies of payback for the murder of his brother-in-law, his wife, and his child. Kahn lived to see the day when he could watch the old man die.
Well, he could die another day. Today, they are getting Daisy back. Today, Kahn lived for her.
“That’s it,” he agreed. “No revenge killings. Just trading family for family.”
That seemed to satisfy the group and the conversation broke apart so Deb and Jesse could help carry Ice to the vehicle they allocated to Private Lars. Ricky followed, grabbing the heavy backpack and waving a quick goodbye to Kahn. Kahn’s appetite returned now that he convinced the rest to trade the children. He nodded to Ricky and downed half the cold soup in a single long gulp.
After that, he just followed Deb and Jesse. She took the kids under her wing despite saying she didn’t like children. Kahn was happy to let her do so. He carried his weapons, his hatchet and carbine, and followed Jesse’s plan. He felt like they were close. Close to the Neighbors, close to the end.
Just before dusk they arrived at a small apartment Jesse said was a familiar observation post for them. As Deb found a place for the kids to settle down for the night, Jesse explained this was where they were conducting recon on the Alamodome before finding Kahn and the rest out east. Deb joined the two men in the kitchen and helped prepare a quick, unsatisfying meal of stale crackers and canned chili.
After eating, they moved to the living room of the small, third-story apartment. Jesse retrieved the binoculars they had left on the windowsill last time they tried to observe the stadium and brought them to his eyes.
He gasped, bringing Deb and Kahn to the window.
The iconic Tower of the Americas, typically looming over downtown just across the highway from the Alamodome, was gone. The skyline was empty. The path to the distinctive stadium was littered with massive blocks of broken concrete. The curve of the tower’s restaurant and observation deck was visible, glinting in the sunset from its broken position on the ground. The stadium itself was untouched by the collapsed tower but the latter had fallen directly onto the elevated highway, shattering the road and throwing cars and bodies through the air. Jesse passed the binoculars to Deb and she studied the pieces of the column that had come down. One thirty-foot chunk had crashed into a similar apartment building to the one they currently occupied, taking the flimsier building down. She could only imagine the earth-shattering crash that came with the collapse. Every survivor and walking corpse must have heard it drop.
She handed the magnifying glasses to Kahn and he immediately saw the result of the tower’s fall. If the Neighbors were in the stadium, and it seemed likely at this point they were, they were now surrounded by the dead.
A gray ocean of corpses filled half the parking lot in front of the big building and wrapped around the edge that faced the now-decimated highway. Kahn could see the mass of bodies writing and shifting like it was a single organism. The biters massed up and over the large stairway to the stadium’s glass entrance doors and as he watched, fascinated, dozens continued to push over the edge and fall back into the crowd below in a mad cycle of instinct to get into the building.
“Look!” Jesse exclaimed, now also watching the corpses. Kahn had already spotted the headlights of a truck as it pulled up to the service entrance gate from the underground interior. The lights shone through the heavy metal as one figure frantically pulled to open it and release the idling vehicle. The nearest corpses began to take an interest in the truck and slowly rising gate and turned to shamble toward the escaping humans. The hair on Kahn’s neck stood on end as he realized he was seeing some of the Neighbors fleeing the trap their downtown home had become. Is Llewelyn with them?
One of the delivery doors on the loading dock suddenly sprang to the top of the rolling hinges. A man stood at the top of the concrete dock, looking to be yelling at the approaching corpses. They turned on an unsteady track and made for the dock instead of continuing toward the opening vehicle gate. The man disappeared back into the darkness of the delivery area as the first of the dead reached the chest-high dock. Kahn could see it frantically reaching and clawing at the concrete. The next dozen hit the same spot and continued to claw at the surface like desperate insects. Finally, one gained a purchase by stepping on one of the others. It was able to get waist-high to the dock and climb mindlessly onto the top of the loading bay. Several more hit the dock and soon a half-dozen more followed the first into the shadow of the building.
The trick of the loading dock also didn’t last long enough. It only distracted the first thirty or so hungry corpses. The idling truck became impatient and sped out of the three-quarters open gate, striking the top and bending the frame before it could fully open. The man who had been struggling with it ran after the speeding pickup before spinning around and running back toward the open door. A second vehicle, a much smaller sedan, also sped out the exit and the frantic door-opener waved and jumped toward his allies to no avail. As the third vehicle, another pickup, drove out, he drew a pistol and shot into the gaggle of corpses now within reaching distance. Three more escaping vehicles drove out of the building and not a single vehicle slowed to attempt a rescue. He fell to the ground and was descended upon by twenty gray figures. Many more raced into the now-exposed basement of the stadium, looking for their next meal.
“There’s our entrance,” Kahn said. “That’s how we get in.”
Chapter 35
- Friends and Neighbors
Friends and Neighbors
Hot wind blew across the sloped roof of the Alamodome. The sun was already baking the metal surface of the tall buildings, and the columns in the center of the roof cast long shadows. The stench of the summer of the undead drifted with the wind and choked the survivors here.
Two of the new hostages, dropped off the previous day by the Russians, sat against two of the columns. Sweat glistened and they both breathed heavily of the foul atmosphere here. They waited, with their captors, for the Russians to return. The slavers who took them and gifted them to the Neighbors were now their only hope to escape the siege by the dead on the street.
The third was immediately dismissed into the general population below. She had looked at the leader with burning black eyes as the helicopter left them with the stadium dwellers. He dismissed her as he gave the order to evacuate this domed fortress that had protected them for months. Talked about how his people had saved so many, saved people from themselves since the surviving citizens of downtown San Antonio couldn’t help watching the storm. He brought them to safety, like he always did. And he was the only one that could lead them and keep them safe. He was their savior. He asked for and constantly received praise from his people.
But only those people he called Neighbors. Those others, the ones living outside the Alamodome, like the third prisoner. They were failing. Failing until they came to him. Until they ignored how he survived and said his name, asking for help.
Llewelyn Wither.
He spent the p
revious few days like he spent many, ranting to everybody around him about the state of things. How unfair the situation was. Didn’t he work the hardest? Wasn’t he the most successful? Nobody was surviving like his people. So why were people like these he held captive out there trying to take from him? Trying to fight him? No, he complained, being surrounded by the undead wasn’t his fault. It was because of these others. Failed infrastructure made that tower fall, made the dead gather. He had waited for days, despite the advice of others around him, until reluctantly giving the order.
They would leave here. Just the Neighbors, like it should be. The rest? Who cares? They called on the radio for the helpers with the helicopter. No way Llewelyn would risk leaving on the street level, not when he had friends in high places. Nothing wrong with getting along. Nothing wrong with calling for a little help now and again.
So now the man lounged in a chair on the roof of the Alamodome with two guards and two hostages. He sat in the shade of a small canopy inhaling cold smoke from an expensive cigar. Nothing could shake his belief that they were secure and highly successful. Not even the rancid smells drifting up from the parking lot, or the occasional breathy growl that came to their ears would convince him otherwise.
Not even last night when Llewelyn heard squealing tires followed by piercing human screams. The screams meant someone, it sounded like maybe Jeff, didn’t make it. But the sounds of the truck engines meant some had. Escaped to follow Llewelyn’s orders.
Spread the word, Neighbors! Tell them all we are stronger than ever and looking for a new headquarters. The biggest yet. Some place where we will keep working to make our nation great again!
Llewelyn smiled, remembering the words and twirling the small device in his hands. He was taking this to the next level. The stadium was too small for what the Neighbors were ordained to do. They’ve outgrown this place, just like they outgrew the factory before. Now that they had outposts all over the state, they’d start the next phase. They wouldn’t stop at San Antonio, or even all of Texas. No, this would be a movement like nothing ever before in history. He would take the Neighbors and make Amer--
Nation Undead (Book 2): Collusion Page 24