“Yeah,” I whispered as I opened my door. “We’d hate to lose those.”
“A bearing is a terrible thing to waste,” he quipped, but he followed me, as did the others.
We crept up to the metal barrier that had once kept cars from plummeting onto the street below (though considering there was a smoke-streaked hole in it now, I’m guessing that had stopped working months ago) and peeked over.
And there it was.
I don’t know what I’d pictured when I thought about a Midwest Wall. Maybe some kind of fortress like you see in China, I guess, built of steel or rock or brick… or heck, all three for good measure. But now that I saw it, I realized those kinds of reinforcements would take decades to build, not months under the worst kind of circumstances.
Instead, this “wall” was more like a fence. In fact, it was a fence made of chain link with reinforced towers at specific intervals as far as the eye could see. Along the top ran sharp razor wire coiled in unavoidable loops so no one could climb over. All that made the other side look more like a prison than a safe haven.
Or maybe we were on the prison side. It sort of felt like that because there didn’t seem to be any way to escape and get to the safe side. Not only was the fence marked with big CAUTION: ELECTRIC signs, but there were other barriers that would keep us right where we were.
Namely zombies.
Lots and lots and lots of zombies. A shitload of zombies was probably the most accurate measurement.
Like back at the house near the hospital the previous day, these zombies could obviously smell the survivors on the other side of that fence. The idea of getting to those survivors called to them, an undeniable siren song that had them bouncing up against the electrified fence.
“Whoa!” McCray breathed as yet another one shambled forward, arms flailing like a fish out of water, and did just that.
The fence was definitely really electrified because the moment the rotting body hit it, there was a huge spark and the power threw him backward at least ten feet.
For a moment the creature lay still and I straightened up. Was this a new killing method? Because if electricity would do it, I was pretty sure there were ways to rig huge arcs that could wipe out dozens of zombies at a time.
But no, after a few seconds the pathetic creature popped back up to his feet and lumbered back toward the fence. Only this time his hair smoked gently, sending wispy puffs off in the fall breeze. If he did that enough times, he was going to catch fire.
Now you might think a fire zombie would be great. Or that it would kill them. Not so much. Unless the flames burned hot enough to destroy their brain, which normally took a long time, fire didn’t do shit. All you ended up with was a flaming corpse running around roasting everyone in sight like a campfire marshmallow before he ate them. Not good.
“Look at them all,” I said as I stared down at the zombie mob. “There’s no way we can get by.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure even I would risk it,” Dave agreed. “Especially since even if I walked through them and made it to the Wall, I’m guessing those guards would just shoot me thinking I was one of them.”
“What guards?” Nicole asked. She crouched down next to us and craned her neck.
Dave pointed and both of us followed his direction. Shit, how had I missed that? Behind the first line of barbed wire and chain link was a second, elevated platform made of much sturdier steel and wood. And standing on it were at least thirty soldiers, in formation, guns raised and ready to fire if a zombie dared to even put their pinky through the fence.
“They don’t look like they’re fucking around,” McCray whispered.
“I’m guessing these guys are of the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ vein when it comes to the zombies.” Dave shook his head.
“But you’re not a zombie,” I whispered. “We’re not zombies. If we could get their attention, maybe they’d send a helicopter for us or a rescue unit.”
I gazed around, but I didn’t see any helicopters in the sky, circling around to assist potential survivors. But then again, it had been months. Probably the survivor faction had thinned considerably during that time. Maybe they only sent out troops to assist when they knew for sure survivors were there.
“Yeah, maybe,” Nicole muttered, but she didn’t sound so certain.
I rolled over to look at her. Her eyes were narrowed and worried. I was going to ask her why, but before I could, I saw a truck coming from the distance on the other side of the road that went under the freeway overpass. It was booking, too, heading straight for the zombies and the gate.
“Hey, we’re about to find out how they let people in,” I said as I flopped back on my stomach and peeked through my rifle site. “There’s a truck coming and it’s driving too steadily to be someone infected.”
The other three looked back and then we all leaned forward as the truck barreled under the overpass and squealed to a stop in front of the gate.
Now that it was closer, we could actually see it. It was an older model, big truck with some kind of camper shell attached to its bed. The whole thing had been heavily armored, sort of like you always see in the best zombie movies.
Clearly someone was a smart person and handy with a welding torch, because when the zombies starting banging on the vehicle, it didn’t even rock. They clawed at it, trying to find purchase to climb up, but there wasn’t any chance of that, either. They merely slid down because there were no handholds or footholds to be found.
I wanted one. You know me and new toys.
After a couple of seconds, a hatch at the top of the truck slowly opened and a man’s head popped out. We were probably a hundred yards away but the breeze blew toward us, so I could actually hear him when he bellowed, “You can’t lock the uninfected out!”
I blinked. Maybe I couldn’t hear him so well after all.
“Did he say they’re locking the uninfected out?” I hissed beneath my breath.
Nicole’s face had paled considerably and she took a moment before she swallowed and said, “That’s what I heard.”
“Shhh,” Dave barked. “We have to listen.”
We all shut up. The man on the truck spoke again. “I know you have ways of testing us, of proving we’re not infected, but still you refuse to let us in.”
Nothing but silence from the soldiers greeted the man’s stunning accusations.
He continued, “You can’t hide what happened from the survivors on the other side of your wall. You can’t keep up the lie that we all died. Even if you blow up all the radios, even if you cut off the cell phone service from this side, even if you bomb the cities. The truth is going to come out eventually.”
Even McCray, lost in his own universe at least 80 percent of the time, understood what this new guy below us was saying.
What it meant was that the government was actively working to keep out the survivors.
“My wife is on the other side,” the man pleaded. “And I’m coming in.”
Finally one soldier stepped out from formation and drew a bullhorn up from somewhere within the crowd of soldiers behind him.
“Sir, you are in a red zone. You are ordered to back away from the fence or you will be fired upon.”
“I’m not backing away!” the man on the outside with us insisted at a near-scream. “You have to let me in!”
“You have five seconds to comply,” the soldier’s voice came again over the bullhorn. “Five.”
“Please, let me in!”
“Four.”
“You can’t do this to an American citizen!” the man screamed.
“Three,… two,” the guard continued, apparently unmoved by the pleas.
“Get back in the truck,” I whispered, praying he would somehow listen. “Please!”
But he didn’t.
“One.”
The guns went off all at once in a haze of smoke and flame and bullets that ricocheted off the armored truck and struck zombies all around.
But what they
mostly found was their mark. The man on the truck slumped forward and blood began to trickle from the porthole he had opened and down the sides of the truck. The zombies raced to the vehicle, licking the blood like it was fudge on a sundae.
“No!” Dave gasped.
I turned away from the scene and lay on the dirt at the side of the highway for a long time before I was able to speak again.
“H-He wasn’t doing anything,” I stammered, as much to myself as to anyone else. “Just trying to get inside. He wasn’t infected. Why didn’t they help him?”
Nicole pushed away and crawled back to our truck on the overpass. She sat with her back against the wheel and stared at us. I’d never seen her look so pale. So worn. All her reporter bravado was gone, replaced by jaded, heartbroken certainty. She already had a theory. And she was ready to tell us.
“In all these months, the only time I saw any military presence was when they were firebombing the cities,” she said softly.
I bit my lip as I tried to think back. She was right. From pretty much the moment the outbreak started, all air traffic ceased. I’d certainly never seen the National Guard or the Army or anything.
“There’s only one reason they wouldn’t come out to help us in all this time.” Nicole shook her head. “It’s a cover-up.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, that can’t be right.”
Nicole shook her head. “You heard that guy in the truck as well as I did, Sarah. He said they weren’t letting survivors in off the Badlands.”
“In fact, he said they were telling everyone on the other side that we’re all dead,” Dave said in a hollow, empty voice.
She nodded. “If that’s not a cover-up, then tell me what it is?”
“Your friend is right,” came an unfamiliar voice from beside the truck.
All of us swiveled, weaponry at the ready, toward the voice. A woman stood at the tailgate of our truck. She was totally Resident Eviled out, too. Loose-fitting pants, tight black tank top, military-style jacket, thick blonde hair tied back in a braid. I would guess she was around forty, though she was one of those people who had genetics on their side when it came to the way they aged.
Oh, and she was pointing a missile launcher at us like we were in a Halo game or something. Suddenly our little rifles and shotguns seemed way less scary. Especially since about ten other people came strolling up behind her with a variety of weapons that even the military jerks down below would have coveted… if they hadn’t, you know, shot us all first.
“As you can see, you’re outnumbered here, so it would be a good idea if you lower your weapons and come with us,” the Missile Launcher Woman said.
Dave shook his head. “No, we’ve played this game two times before. We don’t go with cults. Stranger Danger and all.”
The woman laughed. “We’re not a cult, my dear. And the reason I ask you to come with me is because in about ten minutes those military forces down there will send a rocket up here and blow you all to smithereens. Come with us and you’ll live.”
She shrugged as she lowered her weapon. “Or stay and die. It’s really your choice.”
I glanced at Dave and he looked pissed because there was no way to prove what she said was wrong. And if the military was really trying to keep all of us out, she was probably right. They most likely already knew our position and were scrambling… um… bogies (sorry, most of my military lingo comes from Top Gun) to wipe us out.
“Well, when you put it that way,” I muttered. “How can we refuse your invitation?”
We all got to our feet and in a flurry of activity we were walked down the highway away from the Wall and the military. At the bottom of the hill where we’d just come from was another one of the armored trucks just like the one the military had blown up down at the Wall.
“After you,” the woman with the missile launcher said as she motioned to a wide open door on the dark back of the vehicle.
Leading into the truck was a ramp that we marched up like the best little minions being led to certain death. But as the door swung shut and left us in cool darkness, I had to shake my head.
“We do have the best luck in finding the crazies, don’t we?” I sighed as I rested my chin on Dave’s shoulder.
His laugh was drowned out by the voice of the woman who had spoken to us earlier. “Like I said, we’re not crazy.”
The big vehicle started up and a dim, blue light snapped to life in the cargo area we sat in. I blinked as I looked at our… captor? Except we weren’t tied up; she hadn’t confiscated our guns and ammo… hell, she wasn’t even holding a weapon on us anymore. So she wasn’t like anyone else who’d ever taken us hostage before.
“So what’s your deal, lady?” Dave asked, his voice tired like he was so over this. And who could blame him?
“My name is Kathleen Domingo,” she said and she reached out her hand to shake his.
He did it, but he never smiled. “So what’s your deal, Kathleen?” he repeated in the very same tone. “Do you need virgins for a sacrifice or just bodies to feed to your pet zombies or what?”
The woman chuckled again. “If we were looking for virgins, I doubt any of you would qualify.”
The four of us looked at each other and then shrugged in turn. She had us there.
“As for our ‘deal,’ we’re just survivors like you. And we’re trying to find a way to communicate with those over the Wall, just like I think you’d like to do.” Her smile fell and a hardness entered her eyes. “Just like Isaac tried to do earlier.”
“Is that the guy with the truck like this one?” Nicole asked. “The one who got—”
The woman nodded. “Yes.”
I looked at her. Her eyes were so sad, so hollow.
“He was your friend,” I whispered. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Kathleen shook her head sadly. There was a moment’s hesitation, but then she continued, “Isaac was married, but he and his wife were separated after the attack. He worked outside the perimeter they ultimately set up and lived within. When they shut the ‘border,’ he was trapped out here.”
I shut my eyes. Dave and I had fought to stay together. I couldn’t imagine being separated and not knowing what had happened to the other. It was so… Berlin Wall–Cold War.
Kathleen stared off at nothing. “She was pregnant at the time of the attack. His baby was due today. He’s been desperate to get to his family, tried everything. I think something snapped in him this morning. When we realized he’d taken a vehicle and headed for the Wall, we followed him. But it was too late.”
Her gaze dropped down and her face looked long and tired for a moment. Then she shook her head.
“But we found you even if we couldn’t save him. At least we could stop you from trying something equally foolhardy to get inside.”
The truck bumped and lumbered before it came to a stop. The doors to the holding area opened, but the outside was dark. We all hesitated.
“I promise you,” the woman said as she got up and walked out into the ominous dark. “We’re not going to harm you. And if you don’t decide to stay with us, we’ll load you up on supplies and send you on your way.”
I arched a brow of disbelief. Was this woman kidding? Or had we actually found some kind of savior?
She motioned around her. “But come with me, hear me out, share whatever news you have, before you make any decisions.”
Dave looked at me for a moment and then he nodded. “Okay. But just so you know, we’ve killed better cult leaders than you.”
She laughed again and it was a pleasant sound. “That’s duly noted.”
We got up and followed her. The moment we stepped off the truck, I realized why it was so dark. We were underground. I smelled earth and green, and there was a pleasant damp coolness to the air. Very different from the rotting death that permeated the air above us.
“What is this place?” I asked.
A few lanterns strung up along the ceiling lit the room… or whatever we w
ere in… which became clearer. Though hardly. The lamps weren’t very strong and they cast everything around us in a sort of scary shadow and light.
“It was a storage area for crops at one time, a long time ago before refrigeration became standard,” the woman explained. “And then it was upgraded by the farmer who lived here as a nuclear bomb shelter in the fifties. Luckily he decided to keep it up as a tornado shelter once the Red Menace was gone.”
“Yeah, who knew we’d all have to worry about the Gray Menace eventually,” McCray muttered, inspiring another brief grin of appreciation from Kathleen.
“He might not have anticipated the, er, Gray Menace, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared. When the zombies attacked and the government started to work on the border, he guessed where it was all going to lead. And he was nice enough to let us all come down here to hide.”
One of the others in the room smiled, but it was sad. “Good old Jacob.”
“The zombies got him?” McCray asked. Always tactful, that one.
“No, just old age, about a month ago,” Kathleen reassured us. “But sit.”
She motioned to a worn-out table that had been set up in the middle of the big, empty room. There was food there. Real food! Piles of apples and pears, as well as some dried meat and fish that made my mouth water.
It also pretty much erased all our remaining misgivings. We might be wary by nature by now, but we weren’t going to turn down a real meal.
There was a flurry as all of us flung ourselves into the chairs. McCray grabbed for the closest thing to him, a pear that looked like it was perfectly ripe, but the rest of us waited. Stupid leftover manners.
Kathleen smiled. “Go ahead and join Mr. McCray. You must be hungry.”
“How do you know his name?” Dave asked, his hand hesitating above an apple as he glared at Kathleen with renewed suspicion.
“Um, I own all his CDs?” Kathleen laughed.
“Thanks, love!” McCray said, his mouth full of pear juice, which sprayed all over the table. Lovely.
“Maybe I could even get an autograph later.” Kathleen blushed.
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