DEAD: Confrontation

by Brown, TW

  As the fire burns, I watch everybody peel off and head back up to the cabin. I can’t help but notice that Thalia falls behind. Eventually she stops. Nobody seems to notice. She watches them all file through the door and then I see her head down the hill towards Death Alley.

  I give the fire a cursory glance and head after her. The last thing we need is a missing child. I try not to be mad at the so-called adults. I mean, how do they not notice a little girl missing?

  “Thalia!” I call as I round the corner. I see her standing at the drawbridge. Good thing she isn’t strong enough to hoist it herself. Who knows what she has on her mind. “Wait up!”

  “Oh…hello, Billy,” she says quietly.

  “Where you headed?” I ask.

  “Will you help me get Buster?” I am ready to tell her that right now might not be the best time when she turns and looks up at me with tear-filled eyes.

  Crap.

  I nod and lower the bridge so that we can cross. I start trying to sort through the events from almost two weeks ago. I recall our group making a run for the rendezvous location. If it wasn’t for Jake, we might not have made it.

  Man, if there is anybody that I want to be more like…it’s that guy. He waded into that cluster of zombies like they were nothing. I never saw anybody use knives like that. I gotta have him show me how the heck he does it. He was like a human blender. The thing is, a lot of times when you use a blade on a zombie, you can get it stuck. Not Jake. The guy is a machine!

  By the time we got down the hill, it was almost dark. All three of the children were too tired to keep walking. Me, Brad, and Christina were carrying them while Jake and Cheryl led the way. I remember Buster being with us up to a point. I guess I never paid attention. At some point, the dog just wasn’t there.

  To be honest, I was tired and we’d had to fight through more zombies than I care to remember. Not once did we see one of the raiders. Raiders…what a joke they turned out to be.

  I paused when Thalia started to enter the woods. We were already too far away from the cabin if something were to happen considering that everybody was inside and we didn’t even have anybody in the crow’s nest yet.

  “Thalia?” I called. She looked back at me, but then she just kept going! I knew better than to go wandering the woods without my knife, so I pulled it out and continued to follow.

  I kept searching my memories for the last time I saw that little dog. Nothing was coming to mind. Things had gotten so crazy. Between hearing the sporadic gunfire and hoping that our people were on the winning side, then add in dodging zombies and hoping to God that you didn’t step on one that might be buried in the snow like with what happened to Emily, and noticing details seemed to go right out the window. Seriously, I don’t know how guys like Jon and Jake do what they do. Nothing seems to rattle them.

  I remember Jake leading us through the worst of the herd. From then on out, it was mostly stragglers or ones that came out when they heard us since there really wasn’t any way we could make this trip in silence.

  Once we reached our fallback location, Jake put me and Brad up on the roof to keep watch. At some point, the doctor came up with some hot water and a complete change of clothes for me. I honestly don’t know which was better. I didn’t much care for her standing there while I changed even though she is a doctor and all. It felt like being naked in front of my grandma.

  When I went down after Cheryl relieved me, I just sort of collapsed. That was it until morning and Jake was waking me up. I must have missed the initial report, because everybody was standing around with shocked looks on their faces and Jon was in the room with some girl tied up and gagged. She looked a bit like an MMA fighter at the end of a nasty ground-and-pound match.

  It took me a few minutes to pick up on the fact that we had suffered some casualties, but it wasn’t until I saw the look in Melissa’s face that I realized that Steve was one of them. I get that we lost some others, but Steve and Jesus were the biggest losses as far as I was concerned—Steve, because he just always seemed to know how to keep us together as a group, and Jesus because he was a bad ass like Jake and Jon.

  Plus, to be honest, I didn’t really know Doug Coates, DeAngelo kept to himself and the women, Nickie and Fiona, well…they were women. I never hung out or spoke to either of them unless it was to pass something at the table during a meal or to share any information during watch turn over.

  A weird sort of growl snapped me back to reality. I had to shake my head a few times to clear it and totally focus on what was happening. Thalia had this blade that was almost as big as she was. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but it was easily as long as her arms. She held it in both hands and was circling to the left, away from me. About ten feet away was the ragged remains of Buster the Border Collie. She was missing one of her hind legs, but she could still move well enough on three.

  “Thalia!” I snapped. She may just be a little kid, but give her credit, she didn’t even glance my way for a second. Her eyes were locked on that dog. Or rather, what was left.

  I started forward and raised my own weapon.

  “No!” Thalia said. I could not see her face, but I knew crying when I heard it. “Buster was mine and Emily’s dog. I do this.”

  Then she started saying something in Spanish. Again, I couldn’t understand a word, but I know praying when I hear it.

  The problem I faced was that if I stood here like an idiot and let this little girl handle her business…and she got nipped…I was gonna catch every kind of hell imaginable…and probably some new varieties as well. The best I could hope for was that they would not throw my ass out in the snow.

  I edged just a bit closer. I guess Thalia knew that I couldn’t just stand there. She rushed that dog with her blade raised and came down hard with it on the furry little head.

  I’ll be honest, I was having my doubts about my own ability to hack that little dog. She might have been Thalia’s and Emily’s, but everybody spent their fair amount of time scratching her belly or rubbing her ears. More than once she and I had played a little fetch.

  “I’m sorry, Buster,” she said with a sniff as she pulled her weapon free.

  For just five years old, she had just pulled a pretty wicked move. I was impressed. Still, we needed to get back to the cabin. We walked in silence for most of the way. When we reached the blazing funeral pyre, Thalia stopped. She stared up at the bodies, and even though they were all sort of lined up together, I knew which one she was looking at, so I just stood quiet and let her have her moment.

  “Do you think there is a Heaven?” Thalia asked, breaking the relative silence. I mean, it wasn’t perfectly quiet. I had never really noticed how loud a fire was until all of this.

  I stalled for a moment. Hell, Thalia, I’m only seventeen. I don’t have any idea what I believe. That was what I thought; what I said was, “Maybe.” Seriously, that was the best I could do.

  “I think there is.” With those words, she turned and walked up to the cabin.

  I followed and expected to be greeted by a flurry of questions. Instead, it was just more sad looks and quiet. Thalia went over to the bench where Misty was sitting by herself. I could not see or hear anything, but Misty looked at Thalia for a second and then got up and moved to a chair on the opposite side of the room. Melissa, Cheryl, and Melinda had obviously gone back to their beds. Dr. Zahn was sitting in a chair by the fireplace beside Jake and Christina. Jon and Sunshine were over in a corner whispering, and Brad was suiting up to head for the crow’s nest. Levent and Rabia were at the table, both seemed to be praying. They each had their eyes shut tight and were rocking forward and back just a bit. From where I stood I could see their lips moving but couldn’t hear anything.

  That is it. That is all that is left of our group. One way or another, we had lost everybody else. It had been a nasty several days. I was headed to the back to look for something to eat when Jon waved me over.

  “I want you to come with me,” he said barely above
a whisper. I glanced at Sunshine and could tell that she wasn’t too happy.

  “Where we headed?”

  He didn’t answer and just walked to the big bathroom that we had been converting into more sleeping quarters; we wouldn’t need those for a while now. At least I knew where he was taking me. The question was why.

  We entered the room and Jon walked right over to the figure tied up in the corner. He pulled off the gag and crouched down in front of her. He had captured her the day we lost everybody. She was one of the would-be raiders. So far, only Jon had been in the room during her interrogations as far as I knew. Heck, I didn’t even know the lady’s name.

  “This is the last chance,” he said with no emotion at all.

  Honestly, I did not see how this lady had held out as long as she did. Just hearing Jon’s voice like that was enough to make me have to pee. She just stared up at him with what was almost a smile on her face.

  “Then what? You beat me up again? Big deal.” Her voice sounded kinda sexy to me even though she was talking through swollen lips and her nose was obviously busted. Well, that or pretty much every girl was starting to sound sexy.

  “Actually…we have a nice big fire outside. You see, you and your people are responsible for a lot of my friends dying…so maybe I will just take you outside and let you join them.”

  It took me a minute, but then I figured out what Jon was saying. I guess it took her a few seconds as well. I saw the look on her face the moment she realized what Jon was getting at.

  “You wouldn’t do that…the doctor lady said that there wouldn’t be any more torture. She promised—”

  “She isn’t in charge!” Jon cut her off. As mean and aggressive as that statement felt, he still was managing to have absolutely no emotion in his voice. Yep, I would have totally wet my pants by now. “And I am not going to torture you…I will simply toss you on that fire and let you die.”

  “How is that not torture?”

  I could not believe she was still arguing.

  “Because…I am talking about execution.”

  “You mean murder!”

  “Call it what you will,” Jon said with a shrug.

  He leaned down and shoved the gag back in her mouth. Then he looked over at me. I was confused. I had absolutely no clue what help he thought that I would be at this point…or any point for that matter.

  “Grab her feet, Billy,” Jon said.

  I don’t know where it came from, but somehow I found my body moving forward. With about as much coordination as the damn zombies, I leaned over and grabbed her feet. We had gone about three steps toward the door when she really began to thrash about. She was trying to say something.

  “Drop her,” Jon said, and let her upper half go. She hit the ground with a nasty thud before I could get my hands to do as they were told. I let go of her feet

  He knelt beside her and pulled the gag down again. The only problem was that she had gotten the air knocked out of her a bit when her upper body hit the floor. She made a few weak croaking noises while she kept shaking her head. Finally, she seemed to get back her ability to breathe, and then eventually to speak.

  “What! What do you want me to tell you?” the woman wheezed.

  “I want to know your numbers, the location of your camp, and how you brought that herd to us,” Jon hissed. “The same questions that I have asked you time and time again.”

  The woman closed her eyes. After taking a few deep breaths, she finally started talking.

  “Our group sort of came together over the past few months. We are what is left of probably six or seven other groups, and if you think we are something…then you have no idea. Down in the valley around La Grande, there are probably three major groups and a dozen or so little ones all within about twenty miles of each other fighting over every scrap.

  “Some of us got together after our groups were either wiped out or sent running and we decided to head up into the mountains. Didn’t seem that any of the others were too excited about heading up into this frozen bit of hell.”

  Jon urged her to continue, but she gave a slight shake of her head and glanced at the bottle of water on the counter. I hadn’t given it much thought, but now that I looked closer, her lips were pretty chapped and I could tell just by her face that she hadn’t eaten much if anything in a while. I guess that went the same for water. Jon grabbed the bottle and held it to her lips, allowing her to take as much as she wanted. I guess he was a one man good-cop/bad-cop team.

  “And how about a little something to eat?” the woman asked after making this sigh that sounded like she had just found a small slice of Heaven.

  “You give me some solid information and I will think about whether or not you will live long enough to merit me dishing out something for you to eat or not,” Jon said.

  Hmm, I guess Bad Cop was back. For just a moment, I thought that she was going to shut down and clam up, but I imagine she was pretty tired of being kept tied up in a dark room with no food, and water only when somebody thought about giving her some. And by somebody, I mean Jon since he was not allowing anybody else to ‘visit’ the prisoner.

  “Look, we were hungry…there were seventeen of us and we ran in to this guy, Patton I think was his name, who told us that you people had kidnapped his daughter and then kicked him out of your camp. The whole team was ready to come in with guns blazing, but then some of his story stopped adding up. First he had found your camp by accident, then you people had raided his…just weird stuff. I mean, this guy could not tell even the simplest lie. He was really bad at it. Plus, we separated him and his friends and the stories were all over the place.

  “So, long story short, our leader, Vern Tasker. Finally had enough and when he told this jerk he was no longer welcome, the guy went crazy—”

  “Just stop right there,” Jon interrupted. “You don’t think that we found them? The guys were strung up and the girl was missing? So if you want me to think that things got heated and that your people…this Vern Tasker or whoever, took the time to hang Patton and the men, but that the woman was spared?”

  I saw the lady’s shoulders droop. She really did not have any idea who she was messing with. I bet she thought that Jon was just some guy…normal like Steve or me or Brad. She was dealing with a Marine. All I could do was sit back and watch. I could tell by the look on her face that she knew she was busted.

  “We did it…alright?” she said after a long pause. “When we ran into Patton and his crew, we initially were going to ask them to join us, but he was unhinged. The problem we had was that so were the others. It got ugly fast and before you could say anything, Vern had the guys strung up. He took the woman into his tent, but that isn’t what you think!” she said that last bit really fast. I could see the darkness on Jon’s face, and I imagine that the lady did as well.

  “Okay…then you tell me what I should think.”

  “She was in pretty bad shape,” the lady explained. “He was actually concerned that she had been snagged by Patton and his group against her will. She was pretty out of it. I never saw her again. The next day, we found out that at least some of that lunatic’s story was true…you people did exist.”

  “So you just decided to harness a mob of zombies and take us out,” Jon was stating more than asking.

  “The zombies just turned out to be a lucky break,” the lady said, shaking her head at Jon’s accusation. “We got up early that morning to make our move and the herd was just passing by. We fell in behind them.”

  Jon glared at her for what seemed like forever. Seriously, I don’t know how the woman did not wet her pants unless she was just so dehydrated…

  “Okay,” she finally caved. “A few times, when they started to wander off course, Vern got the idea to send somebody around and ahead of them and lure them back on track.”

  “Then maybe I should just throw you in a pit with a few and be done with you,” Jon said with an icy tone that I was certain could not be a bluff.

  “I
am telling you everything! I am telling you the truth!” she insisted.

  “Then tell me where your people make their camp.”

  She seemed to squirm for a few seconds. Jon gave me a nod and indicated that I grab her feet. I did not know what pit he might be referring to unless he meant the moat that circled our cabin on the hill, so maybe we were back to throwing her in the fire. I really did not want to be here at this moment.

  “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “The best I can do is give you the general area that we roam. We have not been able to set up a permanent camp yet. We tried twice, but got ran off by bigger groups. Believe it or not, there was some talk about trying to join up with your group, but our scouts saw the little girl and we just figured that maybe it was one more tiny piece of Patton’s story that was true.”

  “If I show you on a map where we are—” Jon started.

  “I can show you whatever you need to know,” the woman said. “Just, please…don’t throw me in a fire or feed me to one of those…things. I would rather you just shoot me and put me out of my misery than to go out like that.”

  “I am going to put the gag back in, and I will be back in a few minutes. When I return, I will bring a map. If you try to screw around, you go straight to the bonfire. Understood?”

  She nodded. Jon gagged her and then motioned for me to follow him out. I gave her one last look on the way, I thought I saw tears in her eyes. Maybe Jon had actually broken her. But what do I know?

  We stepped from the room and Sunshine was standing there with the doctor. I could tell right away that they weren’t happy.

  “I thought we discussed this already,” Dr. Zahn said with a tight-lipped expression on her face.

  “Nothing happened…I did not lay a hand on her,” Jon said.