by Tyler Lahey
She turned as she felt Agis’s hands groping her. The report would have to wait.
…
“I miss the old Cathedral.”
Adira groaned in soft approval, looking up nostalgically at the twisting grey branches that had grown over the road. The magic of that green summer tunnel was all gone now. She pulled a scarf up to cover her mouth, her lips were chapped against the cold. “I used to love winter. Didn’t you?”
Jaxton grunted, his bright eyes scanning the wooded hills to their flanks with the poise of a predator. He hadn’t wanted her to come.
“I used to, Adira.” Liam said, barely above a whisper. Words seemed to carry farther in the cold.
Their little band trudged deeper into the defile as the wasteland stretched out before them. Adira heard a scurry in the leaves, and snapped her head to the noise. The squirrel stole away without a backwards glance.
“We should split up, if we ever hope to find something.” Elvis said flatly. Like them all, he clutched a rifle that would have to be given up as soon as they re-entered the school. It had taken some convincing, for Agis to allow them all to hunt together.
Jaxton shook his head slightly, his all-black form menacing indeed. “Not this close to the hillsmen.”
“Ha!” Wilder shouted as he jumped forward. He rested his knee on the worn pavement and brought his scoped rifle to bear. There was a flash of movement near the frozen river to their right, among the oaks. A shot rang out, wild.
“Nice. I mean really well done. Just great.” Duke exhaled loudly, his breath expelling like a plume in the pale light. He rubbed his red face with his gloves; his pistol remained at his hip.
“I almost had him,” Wilder whispered.
Duke kept rubbing, intent on generating some warmth. “False. That was simply a terrible shot. Let old Tex handle the next one.” He drew his pistol and pretended to fire it.
“Was it a deer?” Jaxton drew closer, his face etched in lines of gravity.
“I think so.”
Jaxton took off at a jog. “Let’s see if we can’t find it again.”
The old factory loomed before them, a titanic beast of rust that lay in the midst of a forest. Its copper towers stood double the height of any tree in their vision.
With only a second’s hesitation Jaxton led them closer. Elvis and Liam fanned out in the dead field, once a carefully manicured lawn. Duke and Wilder raced to an old gas station perched next to the rusted relic of Appalachia.
The metal beast intrigued Adira. It awakened powerful sweeps of nostalgia within her, though she had never had any memories here. It was a relic of another way of life, now long forgotten. The prices reflected on the peeling gas station sign would have been cheap for a decade prior. There was a broken neon Coca Cola light in the window.
Jaxton hissed, and urged them to remain still. There was the deer, a majestic specimen, the alpha of his harem, no doubt. She saw Jaxton raise his rifle with infinite slowness, intent on bringing them all the pride of their first kill. They had been out in the cold each and every day. And every night they had to make the trek back to the school to accept handouts from Agis’s men. They hated it.
Jaxton hesitated for a moment as the deer locked eyes with him, and it spurred into motion. The beast led with its 6-pointed rack of antlers and burst into an empty hanger door. He cursed, and they charged. “Check for other exits!”
Wilder and Duke peeled off to sweep the outside of the structure. Liam, Jaxton, Elvis, and Adira entered the factory, and immediately their eyes struggled to adjust. There were broken sets of corroded machinery all around them. A pale light filtered through a wall of dirty white-colored windows to their right. They stepped over sheets of broken glass and heard a clatter. Passing through the room of broken machines, they entered a second smaller hanger, down a small staircase.
“No where to run,” Jax grunted happily.
Jaxton stopped immediately. The ceiling was low, and the windows in this room were small squares that offered tiny portals to the outside world. Adira squinted in the dark haze, struggling to make out the shapes before her. They were tall and immobile.
She sniffed, and was repulsed by the odors that filled her quivering nostrils. It reeked of death, and festering rot. A sickening dread rushed into her stomach, and she heaved up a paltry breakfast of oatmeal. The stench was organic, as was the material on the floor around her. She raised her boot, and inspected the sticky film that had collected there with confusion.
“What the hell is this?” Liam said, stumbling backwards.
“Animals, maybe.” Elvis said in a surprisingly flat tone. He took a step forward, peering at the immobile tall shapes that were stacked in the dark haze ahead.
Jaxton held a quivering hand up, and hissed.
There was a primal, blood-curdling shriek of a docile animal meeting a savage death somewhere ahead, its screams echoing again and again. Elvis stood a foot in front of Jaxton, his rifle raised. “Get out.”
“Infected?” Jaxton asked in a shaky voice, to no one in particular.
There was a shuffle of movement ahead, and their entire field of vision shifted in the festering haze of the factory basement. The immobile pillars were moving, shifting slowly in the fog of blood and rot. The entire contingent of survivors was paralyzed by fear. Nothing could strike more fear into a heart than the unknown, and these moving shapes in that darkness chilled them all down their spines.
Jaxton stepped back and gave Adira a rough shove towards the staircase. As she stumbled up the creaking metal, she cast a glance back over her shoulder. Advancing towards the men in lazy, methodical sweeps were the same pale-eyed men and women Adira had confronted in the field, all those weeks ago. She turned to run forever, her heart pounding, but knew she would regret it if she just ran. “Jax!” She screamed. But he was already there, as were the others. They charged back up the stairs, the wall of hillsmen stalking through the organic haze a few paces behind.
The five survivors burst out of the factory hanger and into the pale frost. The sun had retreated behind the clouds, and the day was eerily devoid of light and life.
Wilder and Duke were not alone. They stood in the field, shaking visibly. Around them was a motionless contingent of hillsmen. Women with vacant eyes and torn dresses, their aprons tattered and pathetic. Men with vacant eyes and dirty, one-piece mechanic’s overalls. There were twenty of them, all standing at a measured distance from the two men, whose manic eyes darted around ceaselessly.
Jaxton and the others drew closer, rifles pointed.
“Don’t shoot,” a woman croaked. Her vocal chords sounded like they themselves were rotting. She had seen this woman before. Her hair ran in less than a dozen filthy strands that sprouted from a bleeding head and ran past her hips. Her pale eyes resembled those of the infected, but she had spoken. She took a step closer, a hatchet in her hand.
Adira instinctively drew Jaxton closer to her, and felt a presence at their back. Another two dozen hillsmen had emerged from the factory basement, covered in similar articles of stained clothing. The oil marks were old, but the blood was fresh. A great bearded man with pale eyes dropped the dead deer at his feet. Its neck had been ripped out, and the bearded’s mans face dripped with fresh scarlet. He gave them a weird expression, so that Adira could see the red staining his rotting teeth. It wasn’t quite a smile. It was like a person was smiling for the first time, and hadn’t quite figured it out yet.
The hillsmen shuffled around quietly, peering at them like confused predators, or confused prey. It was hard to tell. But Adira saw their hatchets, their hammers, and their axes. And she was afraid.
“Don’t shoot.” The woman repeated slowly with rotting vocal chords, staring at each of them in turn. He mouth snapped a few times like a nervous tick.
“They’re not infected?” Liam asked aloud as he lowered his shotgun a hair.
“They’re fucking infected. It was them who killed Tessa,” Wilder growled, his dirty face a mask of rage
as he eyed the hatchets the hillsmen wielded. He began to raise his rifle once more. Elvis crossed to him in a blink and held it down forcibly. “Now is not the time for that,” he said forcefully.
“What are you?” Jaxton kept spinning on his heel, checking to ensure they were not creeping up on his rear.
The woman continued to sway as her tendrils of hair caught the wind. “Like you. But,” she raised her lanky, mottled arm to reveal a bite mark below the shoulder.
The survivors gripped their weapons with a renewed fervor. “They’re infected. I told you.” Wilder hissed.
“There’s something different about them. That’s obvious.” Adira hissed right back.
“Food.” The woman croaked slowly. As she did, the bearded man with his face covered in scarlet dragged the dead deer to their feet. He snorted viciously and shook his head violently, as if to fight off a spasm, before withdrawing.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Jaxton lowered his weapon. “I have no idea. Don’t touch the deer. If his blood got on it, we could become infected.”
“Food.” The bearded man croaked. “Food. Food.”
“You’ve all been bitten, then?”
The others continued swaying in the cold wind, which they seemed oblivious to. Some snapped their jaws in response. Adira thought she heard a few jumbled words floating on the wind, but most remained silent.
“Why did you attack us?” Adira demanded, forcing herself to stare the pale lady in the eyes.
The woman took a measured step forward, her jaw snapping. Adira jumped back by instinct. “You, came. To us.”
“Give me the word, Jax, and I’ll carve these fuckers up.” Wilder growled.
“No! No, Wilder. Calm down.”
Suddenly one of them screamed and wailed. Her body contorted in a violent twisting, and her apron split at the back to reveal a bony spinal column and mottled flesh.
The pale lady croaked quietly, and within a breath two of the bearded men had pinned the struggling girl down. Another approached slowly, his jaw snapping. He was a massive man, with a giant belly. His gait was like that of a toddler, and he saw without seeing. The man snapped a handcuff onto the woman’s feeble wrist and he sat ambivalently on the frosty grass.
The murmuring had stopped. The girl stood, her wrist hanging at her side. She snarled and hissed like a rabid animal, struggling against her restraint with vicious intent. Her eyes were fixed solely on the survivors. She now resembled any other normal infected.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Food?” The lady with matted tendrils said, pointing at Adira. She took a step forward, as did several other hillsmen, their mouths slack-jawed.
“No!” Jaxton yelled with vicious force. He stepped in front of Adira and raised his rifle. The woman continued to stumble forward till her balding head was pressed against Jaxton’s muzzle. Jaxton was trembling. “No,” he said again, this time more quietly.
The balding woman became motionless, and Adira thought she saw a slight brow furrow. Long seconds past. Adira saw the others looked to her as she thought. Then she stumbled back. “No,” she repeated. “Not food.”
Jaxton nodded aggressively. “Not food.”
There was another shriek, this one from a man in an old mechanic’s uniform, blue against the white field. He dropped to his knees and raged. The balding woman croaked ambivalently once more and the man was subdued by two other men, who again fastened his wrist to their own.
The man rose as an infected, fighting to rip the survivors to pieces.
There was a snap, and a scuffle. The girl with the ripping apron had broken her own wrist with the force of her exertions. The wrist was severely snapped, yet she paid it no mind. She was able to break free of the handcuff, and immediately charged towards Elvis. The bald lady stepped in her path, and brought her rusting hatchet down on the girl’s skull with vicious force. It split like a fruit and sprayed the pale skin red. Her corpse fell to the ground, twitching.
The balding woman did not move to wipe the blood dripping into her eyes, but she did appear to shake her head. There was a brow furrow again. “No, no, no.” She seemed to sigh in a short, corrupted breath. Then she croaked. “Food.”
Upon her word other hillsmen set to work. They approached with hatchets drawn, and greedy eyes. Sparing no time, they hacked away. The girl’s corrupted corpse was soon in several large pieces, shared by several smaller groups. The balding lady looked to the survivors. “Food?” She asked, and for a moment she had eyes as innocent as a child’s.
“No.” Jaxton could see the second man to turn infected had resumed his vacant, pale-eyed stare. He no longer raged and snarled at the survivors. He sat calmly on the grass, next to two bearded giants who calmly undid his restraints.
“They’re like children,” Adira whispered.
“Children?” Liam stared, mouth agape, as they consumed the girl’s body with appreciative zeal.
“There is some intelligence there. They knew to tie up those two before they attacked us.”
“But they wanted to eat us.”
Jaxton nodded. “Aye, and they wanted to eat us. I’m not sure what to make of it. We should leave now, before something changes.”
The survivors quietly withdrew from the circle of hillsmen, most of whom stared at them with calm, curious expressions behind pale eyes. The balding woman snapped her jaw several times and croaked.
As the survivors re-entered the tree-line, they looked back. The hills-men were filtering back into the rusting factory. Most paid them no mind, but Adira could see one raising his hand in a bizarre attempt. An attempt to wave goodbye.
Chapter Fifteen
“Don’t beat yourself up about it son, all’s well. We got the deer.”
Bennett scoffed. “No, you got the deer.”
Billy smiled softly as they walked through the lobby, leaving a trail of melting snow. “I got the deer. You got the deer. Makes no difference to me.”
“It matters to me.” Bennett could hear the others snickering.
Billy clapped him on the shoulder, and went to lead the others to the kitchens. Bennett watched them go and could hear their animated chatter long after they disappeared behind a corner. He sighed. They liked Billy far more than they liked him. And Bennett liked Billy. He was a hard guy not to like. But he couldn’t shake the resentment. Billy knew where to look. Billy knew how to look. Bennett was no commander at all. He was a puppet following Billy’s lead.
“Bennett.” The pasty, red-haired police officer was standing in front of him. “Lieutenant wants to see you.”
Bennett shoved his way past, in no mood for the Agis’ cronies. “Let me wash up first.” He felt a strong hand gripping his shoulder. Bennett turned to face the pasty man with greedy eyes. He had to look up. “Get your fucking hand off me.”
The pasty man drew up, amused. “Best watch the way you speak to your superior, little man.”
“Where’s Agis?”
“The map-room.” He answered flatly, his face a mottled mess of red and white.
Bennett turned and affected a confident stride that would take him to Agis. When he entered, Agis was moving a tiny marker into place on the same map Jaxton had so painstakingly drawn. Harley stood behind him, her face un-readable.
“My friend. Bennett. How did it go this week?”
Bennett looked to Harley, unsure why she was in the room. He didn’t much like her this close to Agis. Women could be a powerful influence on even the strongest of men.
Agis seemed to sense his wariness. “She’s with me, Bennett. Though I appreciate your caution.” He smiled broadly, his teeth glowing in soft candlelight.
“We took down another one today. Near the old fire-watch tower on the Eastern ridge. Took us two hours to haul it back.”
Agis placed another piece on the map, and rose to his feet. “I want to know how you’re doing. There is a time for military reports, but that time is not now.”
Bennett
bristled, but forced himself to relax. The Lieutenant probably already knew how he felt. “I feel ill-suited to the task. The men follow Billy, not me.”
“Billy is a good man.”
Bennett said nothing.
Agis resumed, “I’m pulling Billy from your unit. I hear Billy is getting mighty friendly with these….locals, with your friends. I wouldn’t want him to lose his way.” He eyed Bennett for a reaction.
Bennett stammered, “No Billy means no food. Those days are long and cold, getting colder too. We could barely keep the men motivated to stay out till dusk.”
“Man up, Bennett,” Harley snapped.
Bennett reeled as if struck. Agis rose, his fatherly demeanor disappearing. “You will get the job done. Your team is one of five we have, and they’re all doing their part to provide for the community.”
Bennett stood, slack-jawed. “I don’t know if I have it in me, sir.”
Agis shared a momentary gaze with Harley, and came to Bennett. “I value your loyalty more than any other, Bennett. You can do this.” He procured a small bottle from inside his bulletproof vest. “I don’t want you to ask any questions, I want you to have this. A little something to help you. I expect you will do what is required, from now on. No complaints.”
Bennett found himself taking the bottle of painkillers, though he didn’t know why. He had never used drugs, aside from the occasional joint in high school.
“Well, come on now son. It’s all right just do it here. I need you at 100%.”
Bennett took out one of pills and prepared to swallow it. Agis snatched it and crushed it with a small metal tool. He prepared it in a neat line on the wood, and handed Bennett a tube of paper. “Snort it,” he commanded.
Bennett found himself bending down, and thinking of Adira. He had lost her. She wasn’t coming back. Bennett drew upwards viciously with his nostrils. The pain was almost too much. Agis laughed and patted him on the back. “Good work. Don’t waste any, though.”
Bennett finished the rest of the line in a haze.