by Tyler Lahey
Duke shoved Wilder back, “No more. Let’s go.”
Wilder snatched up his rifle and coat, and stormed away from the rigid and mangled equine corpse.
Liam and Elvis drew closer from the crowd’s edge. Jaxton nodded. “We didn’t win any friends here today,” he said lowly, surveying the hostile faces in the crowd.
“Are we giving up?”
Jaxton drew a deep breath, and looked to his friends. “Something has changed. Come on.”
“TARGETS!” An officer roared.
The crowd snapped to the rear as one; most of them were unarmed. A dozen infected were coming across the old vegetable fields at a sprint. The unarmed crowd moved with a surge towards the open doors. Through the crush advanced a handful of men, armed with guns.
“Firing line!” Agis bellowed, his voice carrying far in the winter air.
His officers took up positions on the far edge of the asphalt, as Jaxton snapped the safety off his own rifle. His own men checked their weapons with grim faces and hard mouths. The foe was closing in. They could hear the frozen ground cracking with each frenzied step.
When the beasts closed within one hundred feet, the line opened up, answering nature’s challenge with a hail of lead and smoke. Most of the panicking survivors stopped to watch, so confident were they in the abilities of Agis’s men.
Adira was unarmed. She stood some thirty feet behind the wall of brawn and steel, and surveyed it closely. Half the infected were already down, writhing in the dirt in the glimmering distance. The rest were closing fast, their limbs pumping frantically with the smell of blood on the air.
At the edge of the line, Agis stood with his cronies. Harley was beside him, Adira did not fail to notice. As the firing continued, he said something to her and the men around him. These kept their weapons raised, but Adira did not think they were firing. Were they out of ammunition? The others took down all but one infected. As this final mutation of nature approached with bloodshot eyes and snapping teeth, Agis regarded it coolly. He seemed to anticipate its trajectory, and still he did not fire his weapon. Adira frowned.
The infected woman passed through the large spaces in the firing line and headed straight for the horse, now surrounded by a pool of icy blood. But there was a man in her way. A poor fellow with a pistol stood before her, newly recruited into the Lieutenant’s forces. His pistol snapped back again and again, but the infected woman did not falter. She sensed his presence and ripped his neck out at the sprint. Then she was cut down in a hail of gunfire that echoed in the wooded hills around them.
The survivors edged closer, morbidly fascinated by the bitten man, who was now writhing on the ground in a fountain of his own scarlet. The police officers surrounded him, and held back his friends, who clamored to come to his aid.
Agis strode into the circle, his M4 assault rifle positioned on his hip. Kneeling, he rested a gloved hand on the struggling man for a moment. Then he rose.
“WILDER!” He roared. “Where is he? Wilder! Let him see what his handiwork has achieved!”
The crowd craned their necks. They took up the call. Where was he?
Wilder was there, shouldering his way through the crowd. Agis beckoned him greedily.
“Come. Come. You brought this poor beast out here and executed it. Failing to anticipate the frost, it froze. And now it has drawn a dozen infected upon us, alerted by the smell of flesh and blood. And Nate here, is dying because of it. Because of you.”
Nate’s friends stood, their fingers wagging with rage. “This is your fault!” “You murdered him!”
Agis held up his hands. “Friends. Friends. Allow Wilder the opportunity to right his wrong. Wilder, help him pass in peace.” He offered him his own rifle.
Wilder did not move.
“So be it.” He held back the others. “No. I will do it. I hope to be a leader to you all, and I will not ask anyone to do something which I myself am not willing to do.”
He gestured broadly as the man at his feet clawed at his own throat, the blood gurgling loudly. The crowd’s eyes were fixated on the scene.
Agis raised his rifle. “I am sorry, Nate.” The weapon rocked back twice against his shoulder, and the struggling stopped as two neat holes appeared in Nate’s forehead.
No one moved. “When the community doesn’t live by the rules, people get hurt,” Agis said mournfully.
A girl was kneeling at Nate’s side, her eyes red with tears. As she rose, she turned to Jaxton. “Give up the guns. Stop this madness! Give up the guns!”
Adira felt her insides revolting. This could not have played out any better for Agis.
Others took up the call, jabbing fingers and jeering. “Give up the guns! This was your fault!”
Everyone that still clung to a personal weapon found themselves surrounded by a miniature mob of angry survivors. Someone punched Wilder in the face, and he went down.
The mob sensed the blood, and it turned vicious. The people wrenched the weapons away from them, shoving and yelling. Those armed were too surprised and overwhelmed to resist. Soon, all the weapons were being delivered to the officers, who collected them greedily.
Liam fought his way through the crowd with Jaxton, Elvis, and Adira. Bursting through the mass of struggling bodies, they sprinted inside to the safety of the school.
“Where the fuck did that come from?!” Liam shouted, panting.
“He let one though.” Adira said.
“What do you mean?”
“They stopped shooting on purpose. Agis let that one infected through. I saw it all.”
Jaxton frowned at her. “Adira, what are you saying?”
“I’m just telling you what I saw. I don’t like this Jax. I really don’t.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lieutenant Agis called for quiet, and raised his hands above the crowd gathered in the dimly lit cafeteria. “Let all who were so violently assaulted yesterday accept a meal from the community. I did not endorse such behavior, and I am glad it is behind us. Please, come.” His outstretched arms beckoned like those of the expectant father receiving his children.
One by one, they came. Those who had been so aggressively stripped of their weapons by the angry mob the day prior slinked out of the crowd, hungry and alone. Jaxton too smiled at each as they approached, but bristled when Bennett came to stand beside him in his paramilitary gear.
As Liam approached the cook, Harley stepped out to greet him warmly. The large man refused her callously, and crossed the final distance strutting like a peacock displaying its colorful plumage.
“You made the right decision,” Bennett said in a low voice as the pair watched Harley’s face turn bright red.
Jaxton did not look to his side. “Your validation is unwelcome, friend.”
“Do you have a problem with me?”
Jaxton chuckled lightly at his old friend’s burning face. “It’s not something that pre-occupies the mind, but now that I think of it, yes, I do.”
Bennett stood straighter. “Well, I’ve always admired your honesty.”
Jaxton stood to face him. “Yet I’ve never admired yours. Perhaps you can redeem yourself.”
Bennett shrugged.
“Somehow, some way, a tiny voice in the back of my head is telling me this new Bennett, the one who turned against his friends and sided with an outsider, this Bennett is really just a little boy who’s still worked up over a girl.”
Bennett met the icy gaze evenly, his gloved hands flexing. “Wow, what an insightful guess. Obviously wrong, but good effort.”
“Lucky for you, Bennett, I want peace. And I want calm. So lets just leave it at that, shall we?” Jaxton stalked away without another word and filtered through the crowd, whose mood was ticking upwards with every bite of food.
Bennett saw Agis approach, and he steeled himself mentally. “Sir.”
His superior nodded warmly, and stood at his side. “You see? You see what compromise can bring?”
Bennett stuttered. “To be ho
nest, sir, I didn’t think they were going to budge.”
Agis grinned easily. “Of course they were going to. But let’s not discuss in terms of them…and us. We are all working towards the same goal, and disarming the general population was a great step towards that goal. Would you agree?”
Bennett nodded crisply. “I do. There are too many wild emotions for everyone to be armed with deadly weapons.”
Agis nodded, “exactly. I knew I could count on your support.”
Bennett beamed, and awaited the chiseled man’s next words eagerly. Agis dropped his voice to a murmur.
“Our priority now is food. It is both a blessing, and a curse. They have surrendered all control to us, their superiors, with the promise we deliver it daily. If we deliver, they are ours. If not, they have an excuse to act out of line, to challenge the community.” He sighed. “The food runs are going to get harder. It’s December now, and the cold is setting in. My units have depleted supplies of game within the abandoned town itself. Groups will now have to hunt and forage alone the valley walls, on the ridges.”
“We’ll get it done sir. Count on that.”
Agis turned to face him. “I know you will, Bennett. I am putting you in command of a hunting unit. You will have a quota now, and will spend many days in the wild.”
“Sir…. of course, but.. but I have no hunting experience.”
Agis held up his hand. “No matter. I’m assigning them to you. Our lead expert, if you can call him that, Billy, will be on your team. Just get them in, protect them, and get them out. Understood?”
Bennett grinned wildly, and Agis reached for his back pocket. “You have one of our vests, as you should. But it needs a little embellishment.” He pressed a Velcro strip onto Bennett’s chest. Bennett ran his fingers over the white letters, POLICE.
Agis clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re one of us now.”
…
She dragged their futon a little closer to the cluster on the floor. The others were breathing softly around them, sleeping fitfully in the cold dark.
“I hate this,” Adira whispered.
Jaxton wrapped his arms around her, and wondered how long it would be till dawn. “In spring, we’ll get out of here. Pick ourselves a nice house and live there. King and queen. How does that sound?” He whispered.
“Already plotting to get rid of us, the lovebirds.” Liam was still awake beside them.
“God. There is no privacy.”
Elvis was too. “Not when there are six of you sleeping five feet apart.”
Jaxton grumbled and re-adjusted, trying to get his feet under the three blankets. He was sure he would be able to see his breath, were it not so dark. “I miss the windows.”
“The windows would make it even colder.”
Wilder groaned himself awake. “Why are you guys talking…It’s the middle of the night.”
“Liam’s fault,” Adira chirped.
He guffawed in response, and tugged his skullcap tighter.
“We need to contribute now, guys.”
“Politics in the morning.” Wilder grumbled.
Jaxton was staring at the ceiling, though he could barely make it out. “People are going to start seeing us as a burden if we don’t contribute.”
“All for the community!” Liam croaked.
“Let me rest, you fools.” Adira whispered. Some of the others offered semi-clever retorts in the cold darkness, but the room was silent again soon.
…
Bennett collapsed in the dampness of their shared sweat, heaving in the dark.
“Good boy.” Layla gushed between breaths, patting the back of his head.
The two slept alone, in a little annex closet above the kitchens. Bennett slid on a sweatshirt, mindful of his good fortune; the others had to sleep in winter gear. Agis had given him this room, near the center of the school.
He could make out the substantial curves of Layla’s body shifting around, but he was no longer interested. He was able to observe her passively, and he was pleased her shape had no power over him. Bennett sighed, knowing that ambivalence would lessen every minute.
“The big man. Hunting and being a leader.”
Bennett frowned; he still didn’t care for the girl’s conversation. “Hush. Layla, how many men have you slept with?”
Layla mused audibly. “I forget,” she answered slowly.
Bennett sighed. He knew she wasn’t trying to be coy, or sly. She was just stupid. Sometimes he wondered whether he was taking advantage of her in any way, considering what a simpleton was. He doubted it- she wasn’t all that dumb. And he was pleased to know that it didn’t matter either way. Bennett had shed the hyper politically correct trappings of society within days of the apocalypse.
“How’s Jax?” She asked, drawing her naked body to his clothed one.
He leaned back, semi-grateful for the opportunity to talk freely. There was no reason to be guarded. “He’s not buying into Agis’s message. Or his policies. Personally I think he’s just waiting for an opportunity to balance the scales. The status quo benefits him right now, but he’s not the type to play second fiddle for too long.”
Layla lay still. “He has good looking friends. Liam sure is.”
Bennett pursed his lips loudly. “You’re lucky I don’t give a shit about you. But Liam. Liam’s got something about him these days. He probably knows about Harley and Agis. Sometimes I catch him staring, with a holocaust in his eyes. That scares me. It probably should scare Agis. I don’t know. They all hate him. The ones with Jaxton.”
“I like Elvis. He’s nice to me.” She crooned, placing Bennett’s hands on her chest.
Bennett didn’t respond physically, instead deep in thought. “Elvis. Elvis is another interesting one. I remember there was a day in the field, when I confronted him. The kid let his parents die in front of him. I don’t know though, there’s something different about him too. Iron in his step. Looking for a redeemer maybe….something to settle the score. How he goes about that…”
“Agis might want to know about these kinda things big boy. Right?”
Bennett jeered. “I suppose. Not that I would tell him. I mean, they’re still my friends, in a way.”
“You never talk to them.”
“I know that. That’s not what I meant.” He felt his eyelids fluttering. “I’m going to sleep.”
Bennett grinned in the dark. It felt good to speak his mind without worrying about the person listening. Layla was good for that.
She sat next to him and rubbed his head till he was breathing deeply.
Layla licked her lips as she drew a towel around her, and put on her slippers and a fur hat. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she whispered.
Bennett just groaned, half asleep. She laughed absent-mindedly, and sauntered away. Bennett found himself watching her go, and knew her power over him was growing again. He lay awake for what seemed like an eternity waiting for her body to come back to him, but somewhere along the way sleep stole over him like a thief in the night.
The second she cleared the door to the annex, her pace quickened. She wiped the insides of her thighs dry and shivered. Agis had provided her with a supply of birth control for the assignment, but the risk still scared her. She jogged down the empty halls barely lit by starlight from the overhead windows. Passing the doors, she caught the guards staring at her vacantly. Her footsteps lead her up the stairs.
There was Annabelle, her heels clicking on the tile. She slowed to a stop, her hair pulled back tight in a ponytail.
Annabelle snorted. “A midnight visit from the town harlot. Just what I wanted to see.”
“Do you have these little quips stored away for every time you see me?” Layla snapped, the slow vocal fry gone from her voice.
“I see you’re that Bennett’s little slut. Agis probably didn’t have to spend much time convincing you for this one did he.”
Layla’s lips tightened. “Everyone has their place,” she spat quickly. “Even yo
u, bitch.”
“Be careful what you tell him this time. He seems to listen to you carefully. Why he does that, I can’t begin to imagine.”
Layla smirked in the soft white light, shadows across her face. “Don’t pretend like you’re so much better than me. I remember what you did in the last town. What you gave to all those people. Just like he asked.”
Annabelle’s slender, elegant frame became rigid. “Don’t you ever speak of that again. Do you hear me?” Her words projected violently from her mouth, and she was unaware of the spit that flew with each word.
Layla grinned wolfishly as she kept walking. “Just don’t think I’ll let you forget.”
By the time Layla had gone, Annabelle was leaning against the cold concrete to support herself.
Layla drew into the library, and approached the door. She knocked three times.
Agis’s face appeared, flushed with hazy eyes. He grinned greedily, and opened the door wider to reveal a naked and impressive musculature. He drew her in, and tore the towel from her body. Shadows from the flickering torches danced across her and another lying on a cot. Harley rose on her elbow and inhaled appreciatively. “About time,” she cooed.
“Wait. I should report to you now. I can’t be long. He’s sleeping but he could wake up.”
Agis pressed himself against her as Harley drew her nose close to the table. Snorting violently, she leaned back, anticipating the heady flow that would come from the painkillers. He nibbled on Layla’s ear. “Stay a few minutes. Have something.”
He pushed her towards Harley’s naked form.
Layla surveyed the bags and bags of powders, pills, and opiates that were scattered around the room with covetous eyes. “What the fuck; I didn’t think you had this much?”
Harley reached up and drew Layla to her. “What do you want? Anything you want.”
Layla’s heartbeat was thumping for the first time that night, despite Bennett’s best efforts. “I- I could go for some blow,” she pushed out, her voice husky.