by Brown, TW
Catie flashed a peculiar smile and shook her head. “Never said that you were. But you should know that, while those little crossbows are good for a zombie a few feet away, they really suck at distance. If this turns into a fight, you would be better off having that sword over your shoulder at the ready.”
“Hey there,” a voice called out. It was the same voice from before minus the bullhorn.
“Perhaps you and your friends can all just move along and let us go about our business,” Sergeant Seiber replied.
“Not much on being friendly, are ya?” the stranger said with a chuckle in his voice.
“These aren’t times for making friends.”
“Look, me and my people don’t want any trouble…honest.”
“You want honest?” the sergeant shot back. “Then let me put out my honest words. We came in for some supplies, got what we needed and then a bunch of explosions happened. That ended our trip. Now we just want to return to our people and be done with it. You can move along and let us go in peace or we can see about upping the body count in the area.”
“Man…you really aren’t friendly,” the man said with considerably less humor in his voice. “Look, lady, my people and I don’t want any trouble. We were coming through with the same idea as you. Thing is, we were actually cutting southwest using Highway 62. We came up on the largest herd of those things that any of us had ever seen. Ain’t nothing left in their path but body parts and destruction. That group is almost a mile wide and about twice that in length.
“We didn’t expect to see anybody on the other side of something like that. When our scouts saw you coming out of the hospital…we got excited. Nobody goes into buildings that big any more. Not if they want to come out. But from what my guy saw, you all went in like nobody’s business and came out with full packs.”
“And if you plan on liberating them from us…well, just don’t expect it to go well,” the sergeant snapped.
“Jesus, lady,” the guy said with obvious disbelief in his voice. “We don’t want your crap. We was just hoping that you could give us a heads-up. We can make our own run inside…but never mind.”
There was a lingering silence. Aleah peeked out and could see a few dozen figures huddled together on the street below. They were in some sort of conference. A couple were throwing their arms in the air, but most just stood with their heads down. A moment later, the group headed back the way that Aleah and the soldiers had come from. A few cast looks over their shoulder.
Once they were out of sight, the sergeant came back inside. “Everybody load up. We need to put this place behind us before the wind decides to change direction and come this way.”
“Why couldn’t we tell those people anything?” Aleah blurted. “They didn’t want any trouble. The least we could have done was tell them—”
“Tell them what, NUB?” Sergeant Seiber cut Aleah off. “If they go there, they will see the same things we saw…and can hit the place for whatever it is they are looking for.”
“But what about that horde they were talking about?”
“What about it?”
“Just seems like something we should know about,” Aleah said with a shrug.
She understood treating people with a certain degree of caution. But, not only did these people not look dangerous, they offered up information that might be good to have more details on. For the umpteenth time, she missed having Kevin on hand. Ever since falling in with these soldiers, she had been treated like a second-class citizen. It was frustrating. Especially since she was pretty sure that she had at least as much experience dealing with zombies as they did.
“We will be heading out…unless the NUB has anything else to offer.” The sergeant went to her pack and began to put it on.
“Actually…I do.”
Every head turned her way. A few faces held no sign of emotion, but a couple—Catie primarily—were shooting her looks of warning. Aleah chose to ignore them.
“If we are heading out, then somebody better make a travois for Henderson. She isn’t going anywhere at the moment. The painkillers have her pretty much out of it.” She tilted her head to where the woman was propped in the corner, chin down on her chest.
Sergeant Seiber walked over and crouched in front of Henderson. She brought the sleeping soldier’s chin up and then eased her back in a gesture of tenderness that had Aleah scratching her head, she dropped her pack and pulled her sleeping bag free and draped it over Angel Henderson.
“Looks like we will be staying for a little while until Henderson wakes up. Yost, take watch out back, Ross, you have the front. Everybody else take the time to grab a few winks,” the sergeant said in a voice that was barely even a whisper.
Aleah went over and sat beside Catie who was already climbing into her sleeping bag. She looked around the room and saw everybody else doing the same thing with the exception of the sergeant who had produced a ragged-looking book and was writing in it with the tip of her tongue poking out one side of her mouth.
“So…you trying to make life hard on yourself?” Catie whispered.
“Huh?” Aleah turned to face Catie who was in her bag and zipped to her chin.
“I don’t know what you did before hooking up with us, but in our group, there are two types…soldiers and civilians. You want to be a civvie…that is fine. But if you want to fit in with us like you seem to…then you need to learn to shut up and do what you’re told. Out in the field, sarge is law. In camp, it is the colonel. In either case…we are expected to follow orders and stay in line.”
“And when they are wrong?” Aleah shook her head and glanced over her shoulder. “You guys what? Just walk into the jaws of death and chalk it up to following orders?”
“It ain’t like that, Aleah,” Catie said, struggling back out of her sleeping bag and sitting up. Her curly blonde hair was a mess, looking more like a fright wig. “But we have made it this far by holding to order and discipline. I know that seems strange to an outsider, but we saw a lot of stuff go down—”
“So did everybody else,” Aleah cut her off. “The dead started eating the living. We all saw some pretty nasty stuff. But if we lose humanity, then what is the point?”
“We can worry about humanity once things settle down.”
“Settle down? You think that the dead are just going to roll over? You think they are gonna decide to just stop eating us?”
“No, but they have to be running out of food. They won the battle, but—” Catie protested. Aleah could hear the doubt and worry creeping in to the younger woman’s voice.
“But nothing,” Aleah said with a shake of her head. “You are trying to ascribe normal traits to something that we know nothing about. They might last for years…hell…they might never die. It has been months and they sure do not show any signs of falling over. And worse, they are starting to congregate into bigger herds. If that many of them are on the move like those people said, then they might not even slow down as they steamroll right through our little camp. You have a perimeter wall that can probably do well to hold off a few thousand…but this sounded like more. And if it picked up all the strays from here…it is like a snowball rolling downhill.”
“I don’t—” Catie began, but was cut off.
The sound of a distant scream carried clearly in the dead city of Newark. It was distant, but it was very distinct. Each person that heard it—Henderson was out cold and probably would have missed it if it happened right beside her—knew ‘that’ scream. Over the months, each had heard it come from friends, family, and acquaintances. It was the sound of somebody being torn apart.
“Everybody up!” the sergeant barked.
In a flash, the room was a flurry of activity. Weapons were drawn and everybody was moving towards the door. Even Yost, the watch posted in the bedroom, was out to investigate. In the general direction of the hospital, the sounds of a conflict could be heard.
“Those people are in trouble,” Aleah breathed as she joined everybody on the ba
lcony.
“Sounds that way,” Sergeant Seiber said with a shake of her head.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Aleah asked, turning to face the sergeant who made no outward acknowledgement of the act.
“Not a damn thing. Those people went there of their own free will. Whatever happened to them is for them to deal with. Our mission was to make this run, obtain the items on the list, and return with those items.”
“So we just sit here and listen to people die? Is that what happened to the Army at the end?” Aleah spat. “Is that why this country fell so quick? You were all so busy worrying about which orders to follow that you sat with your thumbs up your collective asses while the people you were supposed to protect all died?”
“You know, NUB, I’ve had just—” the sergeant turned to face Aleah now with one hand on the hilt of the blade on her belt. Aleah was no longer concerned with this woman or her opinion.
“My name is Aleah. I’m not one of your robots. And for your information…I have been surviving this whole thing just fine without you or your soldiers. When we get back, I’ll gather up my friends and we will be on our way.”
“At least one of your friends isn’t going anywhere unless our doctor takes the time to address his issue of being about a foot short,” Sergeant Seiber quipped with a sneer.
That had been the last straw. She didn’t care what sort of training this woman possessed. She had no concerns about what the other soldiers who were standing around with open mouths might say or do. She drew back to throw her best haymaker of a punch. And she probably would have landed it were it not for the several people who came running around the corner at full speed screaming for help.
12
The Bigger They Are…
From where I am, there is really nothing that I can do but watch. This group or team or whatever the hell they are split just as they came up on the building. I see one person obviously giving directions.
Using my binoculars, I focus on this apparent leader. Either he is wearing a mask, or he is the darkest shade of black I have ever seen in my life. Staying on him for a second, I see it is the latter. Plus, just guessing, he is pretty damn tall. He is a good head and shoulders above anybody in his group. So, unless he is running around with a bunch of ten-year-olds, this is one tall dude.
I really wish that Steve or somebody else was here right now instead of me. Taking the rifle from off my back, I check the safety and bring it to my shoulder. The scope finds the man I have decided is the leader. Curling my finger around the trigger, I follow him as he leads his group down the side of the building.
He stops suddenly, raising his hand in the universal gesture that tells those with him to freeze. I can see him lean forward and then drop to a crouch. Unfortunately, that is also when I lost sight of him. He ducked behind a snow bank. The rest of his group followed suit and now I was really stuck.
A few seconds can seem like forever. Minutes are like days. I have no idea how much time passed, but when the group came into view, I felt my heart try to pound through my chest. They were dragging bodies out into the open and just tossing them aside. I counted four. That number did not add up unless these people had taken out Jon and Jake. My eyes went back and forth between the one body hanging out of that window.
There was a war going on in my head. If these people had just taken down Jon and Jake, our group was screwed. Like it or not, Brad and I do not have what it takes to keep everybody safe…or even together. If I got into it with them, I was as good as dead. Sure, I would get off a shot or two. But that would be the end of my surprise factor. After that, I was a goner. Not to mention that I only had ten rounds for this thing.
Still, I can’t just sit here and let this go. Bringing the rifle back up to my shoulder, the only thought is that at the very least, I can take down their leader. Something darted across my field of vision causing me to pull back from the scope.
I watched as Jon bounded though the snow right for the big guy leading this group. I have a lot of faith in the fact that Jon is a bad ass. Still, I cannot get over how big this other guy is; I think Jon is going to get his butt kicked…if he is lucky.
The two men face off and Jon tackles the leader. Well, he tried to at least. He slammed into the man and I don’t think the guy budged an inch. The big man actually picked Jon up and shook him. Then he just dropped him in the snow. To his credit, Jon popped right up…then he turned and waved my way!
I brought the binoculars up and saw that Jon was smiling! Okay, I thought, more than just a little confused. Then I spot Jake. He is going from person to person, and everybody is slapping each other on the back and doing the high-five-bro-hug thing. To say that I am confused would put it lightly. However, I do decide that I can come down off the roof.
Just as I stand, I see a lone shambler come out from behind a mound of snow. One of the people with the new group just walks over to it and sticks a knife or something in the side of its head and goes back to kicking it with the group like nothing just happened.
I think back to one of the big blow ups our group had not too long ago. If Steve thought that our people were not taking the zombies seriously, he would hate these people. As I cross the open area to them, the same sort of thing happens again. A zombie wanders up and one of them just pulls a weapon, walks over and drops it. I swear, this guy didn’t even stop talking to the group and barely even looked at the zombie!
“So,” the big man was standing beside Jon and looking at me as I walked up, “this must be the Jarhead-in-training.”
I shot a look at Jon who smiled. “Gabe Winters, meet Billy Haynes,” Jon said, ushering me forward.
“Hi.” Seriously, what else could I say?
I craned my neck to look up at the man. His dark skin made his eyes and teeth look all that much whiter. He smiled and took my hand to shake it. It disappeared almost to the elbow. He gave a firm handshake, but wasn’t one of the jerks who try to crack the bones in your hand.
“I guess I owe you a word of thanks.” The monster had a voice like silk! I swear, I bet he could sing his ass off.
“Thanks?” I asked.
“From your little perch there, I bet you could have put a bullet in my head and possibly took out a few of these clowns before they knew what hit them,” Gabe said with a nod.
“Billy has a good head on his shoulders,” Jon said. “So, how long have you guys been on the move?”
I think all the good-natured stuff was over. I knew that tone in Jon’s voice. He was all business now.
“Well, the post was overrun about two months ago.” Just like that, Gabe had flipped a switch. The thing is, he seemed to be reporting in. I don’t really know any other way to explain it other than his voice became void of emotion. That smoothness that I heard when we were introduced was replaced by something entirely different. “I swear, we never saw so many of them before. Best guess is that it was the entire city of Salt Lake.”
“And they just swept through?” Jon asked.
“It reminded me of this old documentary I saw about locusts. The swarm moved through and destroyed everything in its path. The ones who could, grabbed a bite to eat along the way. But for the most part, they just kept walking.”
“So how did you get out?”
I was curious, but I also could not keep my eyes from taking in the new faces. They were all gathered around Jake swapping stories or whatever military types do when they run into each other. I do take a quick head count and come up with fifteen new faces—not counting Gabe Winters.
“We were on patrol and just coming in. We sat on an overlook with our thumbs up our asses. Wasn’t a thing we could do. We even had a handful of civilians with us that we had scooped up along the way. But like I said, that was a few months ago. There were thirty-five of us back then.” Gabe shot a look over at his group. “We were in touch with a group up here for a while…someplace called Serenity or Opportunity or some such thing—”
“Tranquility Base?” I
asked as I turned back to face Gabe Winters and Jon.
“Yeah, that might have been it,” Gabe said with a nod.
“They got hit by raiders and zombies…or raiders using zombies.” I gave the brief rundown of what had happened and how our group had been sent out by Mister Smith and Sergeant Wimmer.
“And where is this guy…Hobart you said his name was?” Gabe asked when I finished. I looked around and realized that everybody had gathered around to listen. Suddenly my mouth felt a bit dry.
“He died…recently as a matter of fact,” Jon said.
Now it was his turn. He told them bits and pieces of what had gone down. I noticed how he left out a few things. Some didn’t seem like any big deal, but a few things stuck out. One thing I noticed was that he never gave away our actual location or how many of us remained. He just kept referring to “the others” or “the rest of the folks” when he talked.
He also had not mentioned the fact that we had a pregnant woman and a doctor in our group. One of those two was probably just trivial. But I think us having Dr. Zahn with us would be a big deal. I made a note in my head to try and keep an eye on what I said in front of these people.
“So, what are you guys doing out in this awful weather?” Jon asked. “I mean, I can understand you wanting to check out the possibility of a last known contact, but why make the trip in this weather? Why not wait until the spring thaw and push through then?”
“We were, but then we got into it with some lowlifes. It turned into a running battle. We actually chased them all the way through Idaho before they gave us the slip,” Gabe said. “I probably should have given up around Pocatello, but it was almost like every single time I was about to call it, they would piss me off again. By the time we passed Boise, I realized where we were at and made the decision to check on that base. When those bastards finally gave us the slip or whatever, I headed this way.”
“Well it is damn good to see you, Gabe,” Jon said, sticking out his hand to shake with the bigger man.