“Yeah but we’d lose time going east, more of a chance we’ll be out at night. And the towns on the way to Damascus aren’t that big on either road, so we don’t really gain anything by going that way.”
“No point in really discussing it much now. We haven’t made it to the school yet.” John’s steady attitude and practical reminders was a grounding rod for Tal, and he was reminded of just how much stood between them and survival. He was already a far cry from the frightened tourist he’d armed in the back of a delivery truck.
I guess an apocalypse will do that to a body, he thought.
“True. Ok, let’s worry about getting to the school first.” He walked over to the window and looked out to gauge the length of the shadows, and saw none. “It’s about noon right now. Do we want to do this now, wait for night, or try the morning?”
“I don’t think we’d survive another night run.” Said John
“Nor me.” Agreed Christine
Omar and Nasir spoke swiftly in Farsi and Omar spoke for both of them.
“Nor us, and if we try now, we risk getting caught out at night without a safe place. At least here we are safe, as much as can be hoped for anyway.”
“Makes sense. We all good with that?” Christine, Omar, Nasir, and John all nodded their ascent; Isabella looked like she couldn’t care less. “Ok. John, can you hand out some of whatever food you found? We’ll bed down here tonight and continue on at first light. God willing.”
Chapter Twelve
Tal awoke the group one by one early in the morning, the dawn still grey and the sun still below the horizon. John had already packed the food into the backpack Nasir had found, and the group had selected weapons from the pile. The barricade had already been dismantled to give the group time between any noises they might have made deconstructing it and making their egress. Omar and Nasir had the cleaver and pipe wrench, respectively and the boy carried the bag with the remaining weapons, while Christine and Tal had retained their firearms. Tal had, however, appropriated one of the nine
millimeters and holstered the Jericho behind his belt, not wanting to have to touch the thing any more than was necessary. John carried the fireman’s axe and the food.
“Tal, I want a gun.” Isabella held out her hand as though expecting Tal to simply hand one to her with no questions asked.
Um, no fucking way. Not till she gets her head on straight.
“Let’s wait a little on that, sweetheart. I’ll be straight with you, you’re still emotional and we only have so many rounds. I don’t need you going all ‘act of God’ out there like a one person wrecking crew.”
Isabella simply stood an looked at him with that strange, hollow face before dropping her arm and walking to the back of the group as they lined up to exit the house. Whilst Tal was glad she didn’t put up a fight, he was also a little unnerved that she acquiesced so easily.
“Alright everyone. Let’s do this. Stay tight, stay quiet. Avoid and evade is the plan, no unnecessary shooting, ok?” Tal waited for everyone to nod their understanding before turning to check the street for movement.
Once he was fairly certain that there was nothing in the immediate vicinity, he opened the door and moved out into the town. The sound of crows greeted the survivors, and the
settlement had the look and feel of a recent attack. The gentle breeze coming in off the desert set discarded papers dancing. Some of the houses had doors open and windows broken, a stray cat darted inside one as the group began slowly walking down the line. Maybe the undead hunted them too. Tal had taken point and Christine tail guard as they both had guns and the knowledge to use them effectively, John just in front of her as an extra line of defense; Omar and Nasir just behind Tal as Omar had also looked over the map and knew the route; they all felt Isabella would be safest in the middle.
As they approached the cul de sac on the left, the group moved off the street proper and to the far side of the road where it met the dirt of the ridge. Most of the walk was uneventful, Tal stopping periodically when he heard something that could be movement, and one occasion when they had almost passed the street leading into the cluster of houses. The familiar wail floated out from the homes, but only for a moment.
Maybe it thought it saw or heard something and decided it was wrong, Tal thought, though as soon as he heard it he motioned for everyone to find cover.
After a few minutes of silence, he gave the order to move out and they left the bulk of the town’s houses behind. Once they had reached the final stretch of road with houses to the left, the group had a clear view of the desert floor; dun colored expanses dotted by bits of hearty scrub. The sand and dirt stretched out and ululated into hills and ridges, and far into the distance the Red Sea formed a blue line across the horizon. Out on the scrabble, a few moving shapes could be seen shuffling around, the dead obviously moving from place to place in search of food. Tal saw a street sign which, in what now seemed like another world, marked this as Derekh Nakhal Prat street.
Here came the most difficult part of the journey so far, getting across that open stretch of road without being seen by any wandering dead. Thankfully, their eyesight didn’t seem to be very good, judging by all the sniffing and the encounters Tal had back in the city. Looking out to the right side of the road, the left lined with houses, Tal scanned for movement. Off in the distance were what must have been a few of the undead, not many though, two perhaps three though one had disappeared behind a ridge. They were shuffling slowly, apparently deprived of sensory input with no prey in sight, toward the direction of Jerusalem.
You won’t find much there. At least I hope you won’t. At any rate it’s better than them heading this way.
There was a large circular road in front of them, which they crossed quickly, and they stopped just before Derekh Prat street which sloped gently down to Kfar Adumim. It was about 1000 feet of nothing but opportunity to be seen.
Going over that road, they would be skylined for close to three minutes at a moderate jog, and if one of those things came out from their side and saw them, they’d have to run and fight. For that matter, if one or more were tucked away in Kfar Adumim and saw them running toward them, they’d have to run and fight. The entire plan was dependant on the hope that these towns were sparsely populated, and that the residents had either fled somewhere else or, worst case scenario of course, their corpses shambled off to greener pastures. That and the total lack of options; no options always made decisions easier.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but desperation is the mother of stupid choices.
Tal called the group to a halt and thought about their options.
One at a time is no good, too much space to travel. Someone gets in trouble, can’t guarantee anyone could make it in time to help, and the longer we stretch this out, the more chance we’re seen. One long line is just as bad and ten times as visible. There’s six of us…two groups of three abreast. Minimize our exposure from the side and front. If the first group runs into trouble, they can run back and warn the others; all of us won’t be in the shit then. That’s our best option. Well, it’s our least worst anyway.
The group clustered around Tal as he explained the plan.
“John. You, Christine and Nasir will follow me, Omar, and Isabella. We go first, side by side, and then your group follows after thirty seconds. Christine and I will be cover in case it becomes necessary to shoot for each group and we come back together at the first house on the other side. Got it?”
Everyone nodded their ascent, and Tal took a few moments to see if there were any signs of movement before tapping Omar and Isabella to get ready. Isabella still had that blank, emotionless look on her face, but Tal hoped that she’d be compliant until she got herself together again. All three of them lined up, shoulder to shoulder with Tal and Omar on the outside and Isabella in the middle, and they proceeded at a slow jog toward Kfar Adumim.
The run was tense, Tal scanning from side to side for enemies, shooting glances at the ho
uses rapidly approaching for silhouettes, checking to make sure Isabella was still moving with them. It wasn’t until they had reached the first house and took cover against the molded plastic fence that Tal realized he had been holding his breath for a good part of the run. It had taken about two and a half to three minutes to make the distance, so he knew that John’s group would be quickly behind, though they were currently hidden from sight by a shed just before the house.
Tal took up a position at the front corner of the fence, hunched down and on his knees, until he was just barely hidden from the direction of the town, and waited for John’s group. Within a few seconds he heard the muffled thump of feet as they came jogging up to his position. Thankfully, the maneuver had gone off without a hitch. Now, however, they had to traverse an entire town possibly crawling with undead before they reached the grocery store, let alone the school. Tal had spent as much time as he could memorizing the land around their route and had reserved the possibility of going around the town until he had a better idea of the way the houses were situated. Looking at the densely packed buildings and narrow spaces in between, he opted to go with the circuitous route.
“Listen,” Tal said in a low tone, “the houses are too close together. If there is anything in there, we have no way of getting clear in time, and I’m not losing anyone today. Change of route, we are going across the street and down the side of the ridge a little. The map shows that it flattens out about ten yards from the ridgeline and is a few feet lower than the houses. If we stick to the ridge side, we can go pretty much undetected for most of the way, no houses for about 500 yards. Then we cut across a thin section of neighborhood and hit the store. Everyone got it? Good. Follow me.”
One by one, so as to not draw attention with a line of people, they crossed the road and moved down the slope until they were no longer visible from the populated side of Kfar Adumim. The terrain was slightly rocky and there were a few places where they’d have to use some muscle to get up out of the dips in the landscape, but overall it was not a difficult route to take. Off to the left, the group could once more see the Wadi Kelt and the desert range beyond.
The wadi, clearly dry at this point, would still provide an efficient barrier from the roving undead approaching from the northern side of the town, and the ridge line would do the same from the southern inhabited portion. The walk along the ridge side was almost pleasant, marking one of the few occasions the group could relax their vigilance a little. They had seen so few undead in either town, and only a few stragglers out in the desert reaches, presumably having no more prey where they started and now heading to find more elsewhere. The lack of those hellish moans was also a boost to the group’s psyche, or at least to everyone but Isabella, whose eyes slid over everything without seeming to take in anything.
After about 300 yards, the group came to a low dip in the ridge face and they rested for a moment in the shade the walls provided. The road at this point was several feet above them, and the first houses on this side of the road were only a few hundred feet away, so Tal ordered the break before they would have to be on point again. After a few minutes respite, Tal gave to order to move on carefully, any misstep here would result in a quick descent to the wadi floor several hundred feet below them.
It’s not the fall that’ll kill you; it’s that sudden stop at the end, he thought and quietly chuckled to himself. Gallows humor.
Tal took point and climbed up the incline on his hands and knees until he reached the point where the path came even with the road once more. Looking over the lip of the ridge quickly, there didn’t seem to be any movement nor did he hear any wails or sounds. After a few moments to make sure nothing moved, he waived the group on, and each person climbed up the same way. As each member of the group cleared the road, they jogged quickly forward and to the left until they were behind the first house but also a safe distance away. The ridge line flattened out here a little wider before slipping steeply down into the wadi, giving them just enough room between them and the houses to feel like they could take the descent if they needed to.
As they continued from the rear of one house to the next, the ridge narrowed and brought them very close to the dwellings. Many had broken windows and they could see clearly into one, where dark swaths of dried blood marred an otherwise white living room wall, every time the light breeze moved the venetian blinds. The ridge flared back out and the group was able to see the school building, but the parking lot where the busses would be kept, if they were there at all, was still hidden from sight. The group moved stealthily from one house to the next until Tal called a halt just as the ridge was widening. The sun was higher in the sky, not quite yet noon, but the temperature was steadily creeping higher. The desert was a place of extremes.
“Ok,” he began in a low whisper, “right through this section of neighborhood is the grocery store. I don’t know what will be waiting for us between here and there, but when we hit the store, stay focused. Only necessary items, canned food, bottled water, medical supplies, that kind of stuff. Only things that’ll keep. If you can find a back pack or duffle bag or something, fill it up. I don’t want to be running to the school with fifty cans of corn in my arms.”
There were only about four houses between them and the store, so Tal spent only a short time listening and looking over the section of housing before moving them in. The walk was slow and tense. Tal went first with his nine millimeter held in front of him, as he was most familiar with the path they were to take, while Christine brought up the rear with her rifle. The tension took hold the instant the houses closed in. Every board on a wooden fence that creaked in the wind, every flutter of curtains through broken window glass set the teeth of the group on edge. The distance couldn’t have been more than two to three hundred feet, but the walk felt like it was a hundred times that, the last walk of a doomed man on death row down The Last Mile. The houses were haphazardly placed, no clear alleyways or neatly rowed back yard fences, so the group had to walk around a few obstacles, clotheslines and hedges mostly, in order to stay on route. Soon, the white sided houses opened to the rear of the small grocery store, and the group took up a position on the building’s back wall as Tal and Christine took a moment to recon the road in either direction.
The street was blessedly devoid of movement, so Tal waved the group around the front. The glass door was unlocked and Tal couldn’t see anyone moving inside the store, so he motioned Christine to his side and, using hand motions, told her to go in and clear the store when he opened the door. He threw open the door and Christine went in, rifle to her shoulder. Once she called that the store was clear, the rest filed in and Tal shut and locked the door behind him. The store was small, mostly convenience items, but immediately the group fanned out to start collecting what they could from the shelves. Omar went behind the counter and found a few canvas bags to hold what they scavenged and passed them out to the rest of the group. Most of the group was moving cans around on the shelves, trying to find ones unopened or undamaged and the noise of their rummaging masked the small sound which only Isabella heard coming from the rear room of the store. In the back was a wooden door, probably leading to a stock room, from behind which a strange sound
intermittently carried.
Isabella walked slowly towards the door, still dazed but strangely drawn to the sound as though finding the source would make some vital connection in her mind. Perhaps, if she found the source of the sound, she could find that crucial part of herself that had fled when her father died. With every step she took, the sound grew a little more defined, not louder per se, but sharper. It was like the sound of sand paper slowly gliding over wet stone. Less than an arm’s length from the door, she stretched her hand out and grabbed the handle.
Unbeknownst to her, Nasir had been walking toward Isabella when he saw that she was headed towards the door. He saw her hand reach out and grab the handle and called out as she began to turn.
“No! Don’t open!”
But it was too
late.
The door swung open slowly and Isabella froze in horror. The sound revealed itself to be one of the undead, kneeling with its back to her in a puddle of dull red; his teeth trying to tear a chunk of muscle from the chest of the corpse of what might once have been the store owner. As muscle fibers snapped, and fat tore between the monstrosity’s teeth, Isabella sharply inhaled to keep from screaming, but the ghoul heard just the same. The thing quivered at hearing her and its head snapped up and turned slowly toward the source of the sound. The instant it saw her, it abandoned its dead meal for the promise of living flesh, and leapt up wheeling toward her and lunging, the beginnings of the howl being birthed in its chest.
The thing closed the distance in a flash, fresh prey spurring it to a frenzy and it bared its teeth and stretched its jaws in an attempt to bite Isabella in her face. Its teeth were so very close, so close that she could smell the odor of fetid meat and see the shreds of rotted green flesh, when Nasir pulled her back by her shirt and the pipe wrench he had carried since Nofei Prat crashed down on the top of the things skull.
The others, alerted by Nasir’s yelling, started rushing over to where Isabella now sat on her backside and Nasir was still pounding his wrench into the head of her would be attacker. After a few more swings and the beast’s head now the consistency of hamburger meat, Tal grabbed the wrench amid Nasir’s flagging back swing.
“I think you got it kid.” He said.
Breathing hard, Nasir’s head snapped to face Tal, a menacing snarl plastered across his face, until realization dawned that he’d overcome the threat. He let the wrench go with Tal still holding it by its head and hurried to Isabella’s side.
“Are you ok? It did not bite? Please, you are ok, yes?!” he began looking her over and tried to take her hand so that he could examine her arm for bite marks.
Isabella simply sat there with the same dazed look on her face until his hand touched her wrist. The instant contact was made, she lifter her face to look straight into Nasir’s eyes. He though that perhaps she was just in shock and he wanted her to feel safe and at ease, so he gave her a slight smile to let her know that everything was going to be ok. Instead of thanking him, or crying, or trembling, or frankly any of the reactions one might expect from a person who’d almost been killed to their savior; to everyone’s amazement, Isabella cocked her right arm back and punched Nasir straight in his face. Caught completely by surprise, Nasir fell back on his rear end, his nose already starting to bleed, while Christine rushed forward and grabbed Isabella’s wrist and slung her other arm around the girl’s midsection.
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