by Brian Parker
Worry must have been written clearly across her face. “Infected,” Sidney replied. “Don’t know how many.”
Carmen rolled onto her back, continuing until she was sitting up. She stood and walked around the bed to where her pistol sat on the table beside an empty bottle.
“How is he?” Sidney asked as crouched beside the window and pulled the shade once to make it roll up about a foot so she could see the road below.
They were too far away to discern individuals, but she saw heads bobbing on the road beyond where she’d put in the fence. The mass of former humanity looked to be about a half a mile or so from reaching her new obstacle. That many of them would just bowl through the wire, it was meant to stop ten or fifteen, not a horde.
“He’s good. Took a whole eight ounces,” Carmen said. “He started laughing like crazy when we played peekaboo.”
Sidney turned to her and smiled. The absurdity of talking about mundane day-to-day life while their imminent death was approaching wasn’t lost on her. She’d often rolled her eyes during movies when people would have completely normal conversations in the middle of gun battles and high stress situations, but she understood it now. It was the mind’s way of keeping the body from going into shock.
“How’s it look?” Vern’s gruff voice came from the doorway.
“Not good,” Sidney answered. “I can’t tell for sure, but looks like a few hundred of them about a mile away.”
Vern frowned. “I told you that fence was a bad idea.”
“It wasn’t a bad idea,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low enough to allow Lincoln to sleep. That’s all they needed was for him to wake up and begin wailing. “That road is a liability. Leaving it wide open was just inviting disaster.”
“Making all that darned noise putting in those fence posts was what brought all them things here.”
Sidney gritted her teeth and counted to ten inside her head as Vern said something else that she didn’t allow herself to hear. He was their host, without him, the five of them would be out on the street. She’d just been trying to contribute to the group’s safety so she wouldn’t feel so bad eating all of their food.
“I’m sorry, Vern,” she allowed herself to say. “I thought it was the best thing for us. You were right.” That last part made her scream inside because the old man was most definitely not right about the road.
Vern’s features softened. He was nothing if not predictable. The old man would fight you tooth and nail about something, but the moment you agreed with him, everything became right in the world. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. We’ll take care of this mess and those fences will work just like you planned once this big group is gone.” He shuffled into the room and pointed at the baby. “But I think little Lincoln there is gonna need to be moved back to Carmen’s room. We’re gonna need those windows.”
Sidney nodded. Her bedroom was at the front of the house overlooking the driveway and the road—not the best place for the baby if they had to defend against an attack, like now. She leaned her rifle against the wall next to the spear she’d made from a closet rod and kitchen knife. She hoped she never had to use that thing. If she did, they were as good as dead.
She dropped her coat on the chair, went to the bathroom and washed her hands. Then she picked up the baby from the bed. He stirred slightly as his head lifted from the bed, but stayed asleep. She held him to her chest, carrying him to Carmen’s room.
Carmen’s other children, Patricia and Miguel, were in the room playing with the few toys that Jake had brought back from the grocery store. The nurse grinned. “He’s such a good boy.”
Sidney agreed with her. “He is. Thank you for helping me with him so much.”
Carmen shrugged. “I’m not much use with guns and stuff, so I’m just glad I can help wherever I can.”
“Hey!” a harsh female whisper came from down the stairs followed by muffled conversation.
“What’s that?” Carmen asked.
Sidney shook her head and handed the baby to Carmen, who accepted him naturally. She was much more gentle and experienced with him than his own mother was.
As Sidney padded down the stairs, the sound of arguing got louder. The voice of Katie was easily discernable, but the she couldn’t quite make out what the males said.
“…after I let you fuck me, you’re gonna just take off and leave?” Katie asked.
The wall between them muffled the response. Sidney didn’t like the implications of the small snatch of conversation that she’d caught. She hurried the last few steps and turned into the kitchen.
Directly into the barrel of a suppressed M-4 rifle. “That’s far enough, Sidney,” Caleb said.
“Caleb?” Sidney asked, throwing up her hands. “Who’s up in the crow’s nest?”
“Fuck the crow’s nest,” Demetrius Brown said. “This place is about to get overrun. We ain’t staying around here with you fools to die defending a damn house that you can find anywhere.”
“You can’t find a farm like this anywhere,” Katie hissed. “We have running water, electricity, food. We’re set up great here. We just need to—”
“Can it, bitch. We’re leaving.”
“You’re not taking our stuff,” Sidney asserted impotently. She’d left her rifle in the bedroom upstairs. She couldn’t stop them if they wanted to take everything that the Campbells owned.
“We’ll take what we want,” Brown replied.
“We’ve been planning to leave for a few days,” Weir, the medic stated. “We got the truck filled with supplies.”
“My truck?” Vern asked, coming down the stairs.
“Our truck,” Brown corrected him.
“Now you wait a doggone minute,” Vern protested. “I put you up under my roof, fed you—fought alongside of you…and this is how you repay me? It’s been a mighty long time since I was in the Army, but I know they didn’t teach you to act this way.”
“You’re right, Mr. Campbell,” the medic replied. “It’s been a long time since you were in the Army. We don’t appreciate you trying to act like some sort of drill sergeant or something.” He held up his hands, letting his rifle hang from the sling. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to go somewhere where all of these infected aren’t, maybe Canada where it stays cold.”
Weir turned toward Katie. “You’re welcome to come with us, babe. It’ll be a tight fit in the cab of the truck, but we’ll make do.”
“Are you kidding me?” Katie seethed. “I’m not abandoning my grandfather—my home—for some guy that I barely know.”
“I think he knows everything about you,” Brown sneered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vern asked, looking from the soldiers to his granddaughter.
“Grandpa…” Katie whispered, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“The infected are at the new fence!” Sally called from upstairs where she’d presumably been watching from a window.
“That’s it,” Weir said. “We’re out of here.”
He shouldered past Vern and Sidney. “Rob…”
The soldier turned back. “You coming or not, Katie?”
“Don’t do this,” the youngest Campbell begged.
“Are you coming, or not?” Weir repeated.
Katie shook her head, the blonde locks flying wildly in her assertion that she wouldn’t leave her family. “No.”
“That’s it then, Weir,” Caleb grunted. “That dumb bitch is the only reason we stayed this long. You done got what you wanted. Let’s go.” He dropped the barrel of his rifle and stepped around Sidney, who slowly lowered her hands.
Her shoulders were on fire. She hadn’t been aware of how tense her muscles had become as she stood there with her arms raised.
“Still ain’t gonna allow you to take my truck,” Vern asserted. “A man’s gotta stand up for what—”
Brown butt-stroked Vern in the side of the head from behind. The old man grunted as his knees buckled underneath him. Kati
e cried out and Sidney barely reacted in time to catch him before he fell further. The dead weight carried her forward and she tripped over Vern, falling to the side. Her back impacted against the corner of the kitchen table. A jolt of pain traveled the length of her body.
“Be grateful we didn’t just smoke all y’all,” Brown said as he stalked through the door without bothering to shut it behind himself.
By the time Sidney was able to sit up, Katie was beside Vern. “Ugh,” she groaned, attempting to reach the center of her back where she’d hit the table.
The sound of tires on gravel echoed through the house, spurring Sidney into action. She pushed herself up painfully and walked to the door. The old Ford pickup’s red tailgate was all she saw as she looked through the door. She considered taking aim with one of the rifles and putting a bullet in the head of whoever was driving, but she abandoned that fantasy as quickly as she dreamed it up. It would have been a tough shot for an experienced marksman, and she’d only learned to shoot a gun about two or three months ago.
“Goddammit!” Sidney cursed as she closed the door and put the metal bar into place.
“You…shouldn’t take…the Lord’s name in vain,” Vern said haltingly from the floor, where his head rested in Katie’s lap.
“Grandpa!” Katie exclaimed.
“That’s me,” he grunted as he tried to sit up.
“No, just—”
“We ain’t got the time to sit around, girl,” he said, gripping Katie’s leg to pull himself up. “Whoa,” he exclaimed, holding the side of his head. “Those boys sure had me fooled.”
“Me too,” Katie muttered.
Vern rolled over onto his hands and knees so he could get up. “We’ve got some things we need to discuss later, young lady.”
“Yes, sir,” Katie replied.
Sidney rolled her shoulders, wincing at the pain, but immediately regretting it. Vern had just been beaten with the buttstock of a rifle and he was still moving around. Suck it up, buttercup, she heard Jake’s voice in her mind. A quick accusation toward him for saddling them with the three soldiers flashed through her mind and she stifled it just as quickly as it’d appeared. Jake hadn’t known the men would act this way. He wasn’t to blame for what they’d done.
“Hey!” Sally yelled, all attempts to remain silent abandoned. “Who’s in Grandpa’s truck?”
Sidney looked up the stairs. Sally stood on the landing, the other suppressed M-4 rifle on her hip. “You don’t want to know,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Demetrius, Caleb, and Rob took off,” Mark called up to her. “Beat up Mr. Campbell and took the truck.”
“What!” Sally exclaimed. “Grandpa, are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Vern replied. “We need to get to our positions. If those three open the fence, we gotta start shooting right away. Thin the herd.”
It was a sad procession to the farmhouse’s second level as Sally joined Katie near the middle of the stairs to help their grandfather the rest of the way. Sidney stumped along after them, attempting to stretch out the rapidly forming knot in her upper back. Mark brought up the rear, holding Vern’s hunting rifle and the suppressed rifle that had at one time belonged to one of the farmhands who’d died before Sidney and Jake showed up.
Sidney and Mark went into her room, where she scooped up the M-4 before crouching at her window. Vern and the girls went into his room. That left no one besides Carmen to watch the back side of the house, and she only had the pistol. If any of the infected had made their way south through the fields, they were the least priority compared to the mob making its way down the road.
She eased the window upward, the old home’s counter-balanced windows creaking as they made their way along the track. Shooting out the glass would have been simply stupid, especially in the winter. Similar sounds echoed down the hallway, telling her that the Campbells had opened their windows as well.
Sidney saw the red truck edge toward the mob of infected that were milling around the fence that blocked the way toward town. She brought her rifle up. Through the small scope, she saw that the fence she’d spent all morning erecting had done its job. The infected were unsure of where the sounds they’d followed had come from, so they were unwilling to get tangled up.
Until they saw the Ford.
The sight of the rusted, old truck riled them up and they began throwing themselves at the fence. The truck’s bright red brake lights illuminated the early evening dusk. Then the white reverse lights appeared and the truck began fishtailing backward until the driver pulled the steering wheel hard, sending the back tires into the ditch alongside the road. The engine roared loudly as he put it into gear and pulled the truck out, heading in the opposite direction of the horde toward the first row of fencing that she’d installed that morning.
The truck rumbled up the road, speeding by the driveway. Sidney turned back to the mob. The first of them had successfully trampled over their brethren caught in the concertina wire.
“They’re through the wire!” she called out.
“Just let ’em pass,” Vern replied. “Maybe they’ll chase after those morons and not even turn up the drive.”
Sidney resisted the urge to begin shooting. Vern was right. The infected hunted by sight and sound. Right now, they were chasing a loud, giant red target. She pivoted on the windowsill again, peering through the scope at where the truck had stopped in front of the wire opposite of the mob. The Ford’s bright headlights illuminated it clearly. At this distance, the concertina looked like thin, white strands of spider silk, but her ripped and tattered jacket was proof that the stuff was razor sharp and deadly.
The soldiers were going to have to cut the wire to get past it. Two of them jumped from the passenger side of the truck and began using small handheld wire cutters, probably from the multi-tools that seemed to be a universal attachment on every soldier’s belt. It would take them a long time to cut through the thick wire with just those small pliers.
The driver of the truck backed up, picking up speed in reverse. The bumper slammed into the first of the infected, bending it in half as the creature’s head impacted against the tailgate. It fell under the truck as the driver kept going, taking out several of the infected before he’d lost too much momentum and had to drive forward. He was attempting to give the other two as much time to complete the task as possible by taking out the infected with the truck.
The ear shattering sound of jet engines broke Sidney’s attention. Overhead, a plane roared by, seemingly close enough to touch. The pilot opened fire with his machine gun, rounds impacting all around the infected. She let out an involuntary whoop of jubilation. The Air Force was here!
The jet banked around and followed the road, lining up his shots perfectly on the infected. The poor creatures whirled this way and that, unable to determine where the sound came from. The pilot shot skyward once more, then executed a barrel roll to bring him in line with the infected once more. He fired a longer, sustained volley, ripping the last knot of infected to shreds before firing at the Ford and into the men cutting the wire. Their bodies danced a disgusting ballet as the bullets tore through them.
Sidney watched in horror as the truck began to burn. It rolled slowly to a stop within twenty feet of the wire. In the light of the dancing flames, she saw the bodies of the two soldiers splayed across the concertina wire. Neither of them moved.
The jet circled low, fired another quick volley and then roared off toward town.
“Darn it,” Vern said over the screech of Lincoln’s frightened wails. “I loved that truck.”
Sidney grinned at the old man’s perseverance. The Air Force had clearly made a mistake by shooting at the truck when they were killing the infected… Right? Surely they hadn’t shot at humans on purpose.
Right?
20
* * *
NEAR LIBERAL, KANSAS
FEBRUARY 20TH
It took them ten minutes to mop up the infected on the road. Ver
n refused to let anyone leave the house to see if the soldiers needed aid until he was sure that all the creatures out there were dead.
“That’s all we need is for one of y’all to get bitten,” he’d said. He was trying to look out for everyone that he could and it was smart to be cautious in their new world. One slip up and you were as good as dead.
Carmen was practically frantic by the time she handed the baby off to Sidney so she could go see whether the men could be saved. Sidney sat in her room holding Lincoln and watched as the older woman made her way down the driveway with Sally and Mark providing security for her.
Vern watched from the window in his room as well. Between the two of them, they were capable of taking out any threat that remained. She’d lose a couple of seconds to respond to an immediate threat because she would have to put the baby down, but luckily, the infected were basic in their actions and could be taken care of easily if it was only one or two of them.
Katie stumbled into the room, obviously troubled over what they’d just witnessed. Sidney figured that she and Rob Weir had been hooking up by the way they acted around each other, but the whispered piece of conversation that she’d overheard before the soldiers stole the truck confirmed her suspicions. Vern suspected the truth, but he would be livid if he ever found out for sure. Now that the kid was dead, though, Sidney wondered if he’d continue to press for the truth. Probably not.
“How are you doing?” Sidney asked.
“I’m… I’m a little fucked up right now,” Katie replied, mouthing the words ‘fucked up’ quietly so her grandfather wouldn’t hear her from the next room. “I barely knew them, but they were people, you know? It doesn’t bother me to kill the infected, but I just watched three guys get blown up right in front of me—one of them I’d been with a couple of times.” She frowned and sat down on Sidney’s bed. “It’s just weird.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, shifting the baby into the crook of her arm so she could reach out to put a hand on the younger girl’s knee. “We live in a fucked up world. Nobody thought those boys would take off—well, I didn’t think so at least. Never saw it coming.”