by Brown, TW
When they began to notice a few buildings spread out over the area, they slowed and started trying to seek shelter from the storm that was now close enough that they could smell the electric tang of ozone in the air.
At the top of a small hill that appeared to offer a good view of the surrounding area sat an old white church. After ensuring that it was empty and not holding any surprises, they ducked inside. It proved to be just in time. The rain came so hard that they had to almost shout to be heard even though they sat huddled together.
“I think he got himself in over his head,” Scott said. “He started acting all strange when we made this choice. It was like he suddenly felt he was running things.”
“I admit he was acting weird,” Chad agreed. “But he was still one of us. He didn’t just stop. We have been through a lot together. Too much to just abandon him.”
“I think he just wanted you guys to see that he could do stuff, too,” Ronni said.
Scott and Chad exchanged glances. After some raised eyebrows and shrugs, Chad turned to his daughter. “What do you mean?”
“Every time something happened, it was one of you two making the decision for everybody. Back at the camp, you were the one who had us all leave after the soldiers abandoned it. It was you two who took us to Yosemite and then when everything bad started there, Scott was the one who took charge of getting you free, and then you two decided that we should leave that place. Brett just always went where you told him.”
Chad scratched his head. That might account for some of it, but had he really just been ordering Brett around this whole time? They had been friends for years…much longer than he knew Scott. But when he replayed things in his mind, it did always seem to be him and Scott making the moves.
“That still doesn’t give him the right to act like a dick,” Scott grumbled.
“Maybe not,” Chad said. “But we are still a group. We are all each other have. I say we have to at least try and figure out a way to see if we can get him out of there.”
They sat in silence for a few moments as a particularly loud crack of thunder shook their tiny refuge, sending dust sprinkling down from the rafters. Another bright flash that seemed to come from right outside lit up the interior of the church, quickly followed by an explosive boom that caused one of the few remaining windows to crack and then fall in a cascade of glass.
Ronni let out a little shriek, and even Chad and Scott jumped. The storm was in full fury now as the rain sounded like it might be able to hammer its way through the roof. Outside, the water was falling in big droplets that struck the ground so hard that they created a mist that rose about two feet.
“We got in just in time,” Chad said, most of his statement cut off by still another peal of thunder that reverberated through the open church.
Wind and rain poured in through the open windows—even the ones facing away from the storm, such was its wrath. A gust of wind pressurized the building in an instant and blew the front door open. Chad jumped up and rushed to close it. He had to struggle against the wind, and just as he pulled it shut, he caught a glimpse of a few dark figures moving their direction. He hurried back to Scott and Ronni, his weapon drawn along the way letting them know trouble was coming.
“Spread out,” Chad yelled over the storm. “We have this altar and the railing here to help give a buffer. Draw them in and see if we can stack the bodies to give us even more protection.”
They set up, Chad on one side, Scott on one side, and Ronni behind the altar. The door shook in its frame. Of course, with the storm, it was impossible to tell what the source could be.
When the doors flew open, they all prepared themselves for the fight; each subconsciously gripping and re-gripping the handle of their weapon. A handful of dark-cloaked figures stumbled in and sort of poured around the entrance.
One of the figures rose up and tossed back the hood of its cloak. All three expected to see another of the zombies. None of their minds had managed to catch up enough yet to see the discrepancy in a zombie throwing back a hood. That is why all three staggered back when the zombie spoke.
“You must be Chad.”
***
“So what is the deal with the mask?” Vix asked.
The figure standing over her cocked his head to the side like he was confused. He seemed to shake himself out of it and thrust his weapon forward once again.
“I said for you to get your hands up,” the man growled.
“Listen, I am sure that you might be able to fool some folks,” she glanced over at Gemma who had her hands thrust to the sky, “but I had a nephew who had the same toy. Nice touch painting it, though. It hides the bright orange tip. But unless you plan to kill me by annoying me with the hideous noise that thing makes…”
Vix climbed to her feet and slapped the “weapon” away. Stepping past the man like he was not even there, she took in the surroundings. The courtyard was large and open with grass that had gotten over knee-high and all but strangled off the flowers that had been carefully planted to border the walkway.
“Hey, you can’t just go walking around here,” the man said, hurrying back around to get in front of Vix.
“Listen, we have been on the road for days. The rain is coming and I would like to get inside before it soaks me. We aren’t staying long, just long enough to avoid this little storm and let those zeds find something new to get interested in, then we will be gone.”
With that, Vix brushed the man aside and continued for the door of the church. Gemma hurried to catch up, giving their masked “captor” a dirty look as she passed.
“Shame on you for pulling a gun on a pair of ladies,” she huffed.
As they reached for the door of the church, the man shoved past and placed himself firmly between them and the door. The toy gun had been replaced by a knife.
“You can’t just go barge in there,” the man insisted.
“You hiding something?” Vix stepped back. Her hands drifted down to the assortment of weapons hanging from her belt.
“You can’t just go barging in to somebody’s home…err…” he seemed to be momentarily tongue-tied.
“You live in the church?” Gemma asked. “I could see hiding in one for a while, but I would never feel comfortable staying in one for too long. It would be like God was always looking over my shoulder. I would be in the confession booth every single time I said a bad word.”
“Look, whoever you are, we just want in out of the rain for a while. We are not staying. But…we are coming in and staying here for a while. You can either get out of the way, or use that thing.” She nodded to the blade.
The man looked down as if he had forgotten he was even holding it and hastily stuffed it back in its pouch at his side. His head dropped and his shoulders slumped. Vix gave an inner sigh of relief. She had not figured him for the cold-blooded killer type. But these days it was getting hard to tell.
“And take that silly mask off,” she added. “You can’t catch the zombie infection by breathing it.”
“No,” the man reached up and pulled the mask away revealing a face that was losing the war with acne…and he was perhaps fourteen…maybe, “but the mask has eye protection.”
“Does your mom know you’re here?” Gemma snorted, trying her best to hold back a laugh.
The young man’s face cracked a little around the edges. “She died a few months ago,” he mumbled. “In fact, everybody is gone now but me.”
Gemma’s face went immediately from a smile to a look of sorrow. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“The stupid cow opens her mouth without thinking more often than not,” Vix interrupted. “Look…” she left that word hanging, inviting him to give his name.
“Harold Wentz, mum” the boy said with a slight bow.
After formal introductions were finished and Vix told him to never call her ‘mum’ again, she returned to the issue at hand as she saw it which was to get inside before this rain came. She was sick of being cold and wet.
/> “So can we get inside now, Harold?” Vix made for the door. Once again, he stepped in front of her. However, now that she could see his face, she saw the flush.
“I…umm…” the boy stammered and sputtered.
“Do you need a moment to…” Vix paused to consider the words she should use, “…clean up a bit before inviting in company?”
“Yes please,” Harold said.
Vix nodded and Harold opened the door enough so he could slip inside. The door shut and Vix turned to look back at the grounds, paying close attention to the area around the gate. It looked like it had been fortified in a matter of speaking. A car was parked up against it on their side of the wall.
“Why does he need to clean up for us to come in?” Gemma asked, the confusion obvious in her voice.
“Could be anything,” Vix said with a tired shrug. “Most likely…” she glanced over her shoulder and dropped her voice to a whisper, “considering his age, I imagine it is porn.”
“Gross!” Gemma squealed and made a face.
Eventually, the door opened. To his credit, Harold had removed his makeshift body armor and looked to have run a comb through his hair. He ushered them in with a bit of a flourish and showed them to one of the pews that was decked out with overstuffed cushions.
The three engaged in small talk for a while. Eventually, Harold asked the question Vix was waiting for.
“So, what brings you here to London?”
“She won’t say,” Gemma spoke before Vix had a chance to open her mouth.
“Actually,” Vix shot a glare at the girl who was by now either oblivious to it, or really good at ignoring them due to their frequency, “I am here to find something that I think is worth the risk.”
“Wow,” Harold sighed, “the only thing I could think of that might be worth risking yourself like that for would be the Arthurian and Medieval display that was going to be shown at museum before all this zombie nonsense began.”
Vix shot Harold a look of incredulity. The boy stared back for a moment…and then a huge smile bloomed on his pimple-littered face.
“Please take me with you,” Harold begged.
Gemma had heard everything that was said. She looked first from Vix and then to Harold. The two were grinning like idiots. Once again, she had the feeling that she was missing something.
***
“Tomorrow we are making a run east to the outskirts of Jonesboro,” George sat at a table across from Jody and Danny. “There are some housing projects on the outskirts. We still have a few months before we can get our gardens up and running. We are doing okay, but food is still something that we are concerned about.”
“What are you doing for water?” Jody asked.
“The nearby stream to the west,” George said. We have to haul it in a wagon, but we got a good pump and the six tanks hold four hundred gallons each. It is an all-day evolution, but we have a water tower here that we are using, so fortunately we only have to do that weekly.”
“Any way to run a line from the stream to the town?” Danny asked.
“Over two miles?” George laughed. “Not likely. Hell, we’re just fortunate that we have it as close as it is. Heard reports that some of the cities in the Southwest like Phoenix, Vegas…even LA, the population was dying faster from lack of water than they were zombies.”
Jody had heard some of those stories. Of course he had also heard tales of power plant meltdowns in the eastern part of the United States, subway flooding in New York and, if rumors could be believed, the reclamation of the city of New Orleans by the ocean. Considering that the media was under a tight choke hold for almost as long as they managed to stay on the air—his unit had actually been stationed at a local television network for a few days until the grid dropped and it no longer mattered—he wondered how anybody really knew anything beyond what they could see with their own eyes.
“Well, I just wonder how long you can go if the town ever gets surrounded and has to lock itself down,” Jody said as he took a closer look at the map George had spread out on the table.
“If we ration, the estimates have it at almost a month.”
“And is that estimate made based on a full tower?” Jody asked.
George was silent, confirming what Jody already knew. He glanced at Danny who seemed more interested in the tattered Playboy he had managed to find.
“You have some heavy equipment around here.” Jody spun the map so that George could see it the way he was looking at it. “I propose that, instead of making this Band-Aid run to Jonesboro, we start on a canal.” He traced a line with his finger from the stream to their location.
“We were thinking that over. Most folks figured we would wait until winter was behind us. That is some pretty miserable work,” George said.
“So you plan on using picks and shovels?” Jody asked.
“Hell no!” George laughed. “We got some pretty heavy duty equipment over at the MorSoy facility. Not to mention what we can find around some of these farms.”
“Which is why I think we should move now,” Jody said. “The diesel will probably last a little while longer if we are lucky. It might already be bad. Fuel has a shelf life, George.”
The big man sat back in his chair nodding and running his index finger along the scar on his face. He looked over to the men who had continued to sit silent during the meeting.
“You heard the man,” George barked. “Start filling tanks…crank the engines and see what we have. This job starts first thing in the morning.”
All the men started to get up with the exception of one. Jody could already tell that this was going to be the voice of opposition.
“I just got one question,” the man said with a flick of his eyes that held Jody’s for just a second before returning to George and then scanning the other men who were in the process of standing. “Who made you leader?”
At first Jody thought that comment was directed at him. However, he followed the man’s gaze straight to George. To his credit, the much larger man seemed to take the query in stride. He stood, which prompted the other men to resume doing the same.
“Remar, we have been through this…I am not anybody’s leader. I am open to ideas from everybody. We make these choices as a group with the hopes that we will be able to survive this nightmare.”
“So when do we vote?” Remar pressed. “I just heard an idea tossed out that we actually did vote on…the run to Jonesboro. In its place, we got a job that we agreed would be best put off until the weather clears just a bit.”
“And none of us took into account that our fuel would possibly be bad by then. So, unless you are excited about digging this ditch by hand…” George let the challenge hang for just a few seconds. “Didn’t think so. Now, if there are no more questions, we got work to do.”
Jody got up and followed George. Of course Remar decided that he needed to stand in the doorway. Jody came nose-to-nose with the man and raised his eyebrows in what he hoped came across as more of a “do you mind?” than a “you wanna do something about it?” look.
Remar stepped aside, but he grumbled something as the soldier passed. Jody ignored it and instead called out, “You coming, Danny?”
“Huh?” was all he heard his friend mutter.
Looking up, Danny saw the room vacant and Jody’s back disappearing down the hallway. He rolled the magazine and shoved it in his back pocket. Tonight was his designated shower night—this town was worse than the Army when it came to scheduling a person’s routine—but at least now he had something to look forward to beyond the hot water.
***
Major Beers backed up the stairs. Darkness was coming quick and she had no idea how many of her people—if any—still remained alive. Their attempt to keep the zombies from crossing the bridges had failed on both fronts. The railroad bridge never did get blown, and the vehicles that they used to clog the other only slowed the flow for about half an hour. The bodies that were smashed against that barricade eventually became a r
amp for those behind them.
As far as she knew, any remaining ammunition that they possessed was gone in the first ten minutes. At least that was when she stopped hearing any more gunfire. It was very possible that she was the owner of the very last bullet; and she would be damned if it would be wasted on a walking corpse. Nope, that bullet was all hers.
“There is a conveyer somewhere up ahead through one of those doors.” The voice of Suzi McFarlane made the major jump. She was thankful for the dark. She’d shown enough weakness in the presence of what had been her army.
“And that would mean what?” Major Wanda Beers asked, doing her best to sound like she was still in charge.
She had no idea exactly what of, but she still had to command as long as one “soldier” remained. It did not matter that the soldier in question was a civilian that she had just conscripted.
“We can cross over to the other building. That will take us to the rear of this facility. From there, if we can find an opening, it would just be a matter of making it to the woods beyond,” Suzi explained.
“You have a pretty good knowledge of this place…were you a local?”
“No, ma’am, but I made a few patrols on foot. One thing I have learned is to always know your surroundings. When those things show up, if you are only familiar with the front and back door, and those happen to be clogged…then that is it for you.”
Major Beers was coming to like this young lady. She was tough, resourceful, and left nothing to chance. Just maybe they would survive this ordeal.
“Lead the way, McFarlane,” Major Beers stepped aside and allowed the Suzi to pass.
Together they wound through open bays of all sorts of machinery, small offices, and monitoring stations. They had travelled in relative darkness for quite a while, so when they reached the first open area, the two were momentarily frozen. They looked at each other and then both broke out laughing.