“No.” I shook my head and made a hand gesture prevalent in small children. Index finger out, rest of my digits curled inward, thumb up. “I mean guns.”
“Guns make noise.” The guy to the left of Rylie chimed in, I’d seen him before at Smitty’s. He was the one who had continuously eyed me like I was a piece of meat. At the moment I was glad to see the threat of imminent death put the kibosh on his libido, the only thing on his face was terror.
I laughed. “You really think that matters right now?”
“What do we have for guns?!” Ben parroted my question, his quick trigger temper flaring.
“Plenty, they’re in storage though, haven’t been fired in years.”
“Liv, no one’s actually used a gun in ages, now we’re going to try to do headshots?” Cole asked me, worry thick in his voice. It was funny from a man who kept one tucked in his waist.
“You have a better idea? We can’t put boots on the ground out there, it’s too thick.” I turned to Rylie, talking with my hands to make my point.
“Look. We don’t have to take them all out, just hold them off the wall till the sun sets.” Trying to back up the theory, my eyes went up to gauge the descent of the star we revolved around. “Four hours, five tops.”
“We have maybe an hour of prep time before they start getting too close.” Some guy I didn’t know chimed in. Rylie stared hard at me for a moment, those gun metal orbs taking weight of my position. I held his gaze, showing him the strength of my conviction.
With a curt nod, the military man started throwing his weight around, his voice barking orders in a clipped tone.
“You three. Guns. Now. Round up all the people you can find to help fire them on the way. Have a civilian notify the vamps we need them as soon as the sun dips.” He pointed at Cole. “You’re with me to get the shack let’s get those bows handed out.” The shared nod between the two men was more than a passing glance. I knew from one of Cole’s rare moments of openness about his life before the colony that Rylie had been the one to find him and his mother. The two of them had been struggling along the back roads, moving from house to house in search of food and some signs of life. It had been a pure miracle their paths had crossed. Cole respected the hell out of him, it was obvious Rylie felt likewise.
The pair of them started moving away from me, I felt myself frowning. I was not going to be left behind when I could help.
“And me?” I called after him.
“And you?” I knew from his look he was criticizing my combat readiness. True I wasn’t dressed for it nor had I been through any real situations or training in months. Outside of the need to know members of the council, my injuries had been explained away as a horrible fall when I scaled the wall for guard duty one day. No one outside of Ben, Cole and Adam knew the whole truth. I could imagine Rylie worried that I would have a relapse or terror when faced with the same situation that landed me in a hospital bed. Yet, in my heart I knew the same as he did, none of these reasons measured up enough to cast me aside.
That was the thing about life and death situations. Those that are trained for that little slice of hell, for the real rough times, no matter how much temporal distance you place between them and those memories, those skills, those fight not flight reactions, are never forgotten.
“Give me a bow I’ll kill anything you put in my path.” I declared, crossing my arms. To which Rylie actually smiled at me. Maybe I had misjudged his perception. I had figured someone who had been so loyal in the defense of Junction would absolutely hate me for my reputation as an obstinate lone wolf.
“Then go get one and make it happen.”
Everyone worked fast. We had reinforcements at the wall, guns being unloaded from storage crates and ammo being distributed before the deadheads hit the first marker. Ben was giving a quick firing tutorial to everyone who had gathered around. I watched unsteady hands work on loading clips and stuffing duffels. No matter how confident I had fronted to Rylie, my palms sweated as much as the next man despite the cold. None of us really knew how this was going to pan out. Death had come knocking and we very well could all be leaving with it.
Shive showed up along with my Dad. Graham, both big and little, had apparently started rounding folks up making sure everyone was indoors and secure. No surprise to me that they would want to be as far away from the front lines as possible.
Just in case things went south. Not that it would.
Positioning was the hard part. The wall was not designed for many to transverse it at once. We shoved as many people who would fit without shooting each other into the watch tower, then one by one climbed up the pegs and straddled the edge of the barrier. As many clips as we could carry shoved into every pocket and duffels thrown over backs. Not a round was spared in prep for this. Long term this could be problematic for us. Not that anyone cared, if we didn’t live to tomorrow who gave a shit about a month from now?
If my limbs were hurting before climbing that wall a second time should have been agony. Yet as I pulled and stepped up those pegs I felt nothing.
Adrenaline, life’s original painkiller.
We were fifty percent in position when the deadheads noticed us. It started with the closest one, obviously female, her once brightly colored sundress which now hung loosely off of her emaciated limbs. Milky white eyes tilted up, to where we were shouting and moving along, arms rose while the shuffling speed of her feet increased. Perhaps it was my own ego, but it looked like she was staring right at me. The deadhead’s jaw opened, I could only assume a hungry moan worked its way out of those cracked and withered lips. It was not a sound I could hear over the noise the guys next to me were making with their guns, checking clips and arranging their supplies.
That changed in an instant.
One sound became many, other feet increasing their pace.
It was starting.
“Everybody ready!” Rylie shouted from the center of our spread. His booming voice carrying over the howls of the impatient dead.
When I brought my .45 up, the forehead of that summer songstress was the first to go.
I did not get her in the center of the forehead, rather the upper top of her skull, it imploded down the center like a spoiled cantaloupe. The body crumpling into the grass, disappearing behind the many that took its place.
Without another thought I set my sight on the closest one and fired again.
Then I just kept firing.
I didn’t count them, I fired till my gun clicked then reloaded and started anew. The weight of it was heavy in my hands, so different than the bow I was used to. Three clips in we didn’t even seem to be making a dent. They were getting really close to the wall, dead arms starting to reach up too close to dangling feet.
There was a guy about ten feet down from me who had gotten his leg snagged on a piece of exposed metal, the pouring blood drawing them to him like piranhas. He saw the crowd assembling beneath him and started to panic. The more he tugged, the worse his injury became.
Shifting my sights to right below me, I expelled my clip into the closest six dead one at a time. The first three I made the headshot, but on the fourth I nicked it in the shoulder. The bullet going through some uniform patch on his tattered shirt. I couldn’t tell if he was with the sheriff's department, fire department or department of natural resources, the cloth was muted brown.
When I went to reload, movement caught the corner of my eye.
The injured man had fallen off the wall, but some part of his clothing had snagged. Upside down he hung there, utterly defenseless and bleeding out while his head and arms dangled just over five feet above the ground.
Within reach of the dead.
He didn’t scream long, one set to work on his throat almost instantly. Some of the guards started shouting, trying to shoot at the ones who were devouring their friend. Rylie was hollering for them to stand down and focus on the immediate threats in front of them. As morally obtuse as it was, the deadheads that occupied themselves with the
guard’s remains were just cut through the number focusing on us or the wall. It was a time distraction.
We needed all of those we could get. I found myself oddly relieved, almost smiling as the man was eaten alive.
“They are starting to stack! Shoot back further.” I recognized that voice. That was Cole.
“It’s harder to make a shot!”
The sheer volume of the onslaught had started to overwhelm us, I sincerely started to doubt we would make it to sundown. The dead-for-good had started to pile up, making an easy access ramp for their brethren that still had the required limbs to crawl forward. Sweaty, my arms aching from the weight of the gun I focused on keeping my balance on the wall. Something that became increasingly difficult with each discharge of my weapon. My eyes flipped to the location of the man we lost for but a moment. There was nothing left but shredded flesh stuck to a board. The things had managed to dislodge the body about half an hour earlier, finishing off the legs they had been unable to reach previously. That grotesque moment acted as inspiration for my continued balancing act. Whatever pain I was in, it beat the alternative.
As time crawled by we did the best we could, the sun was a semi-circle peeking over the horizon when we someone was screaming last clip, and at least I thought that’s what he was saying. There was so much noise underfoot. The moans joining in a loud choir coupled with the banging against the wall. Three bullets left in my .45. I debated saving one for me, in case-
The wall shook.
What the? The motion startled me so badly I almost fell forward. I grabbed on to the wood and steel with both hands to steady myself, dropping the gun. It bounced off the head of an old man with torn out cheeks below me.
Before I could even process that I no longer had a weapon the wall shook again, the sound of gunfire stopping and being replaced with male shouts.
“Get Down!”
“Everybody off!” Shouts of down down down chanted from every direction. I scrambled to comply. Not sure why we-
The wall bent like a piece of tinfoil. It was coming down.
Be it our weight on top, or their weight pressing at the bottom, the wooden barrier that had protected us for a decade cracked and bent. The sound of gunfire ceased, replaced with shouting as everyone scrambled to back up. Bodies poured down from the top of the wall and scattered over the grass. There were arms flailing, mouths moving.
A section of the wall toppled clean over with a loud thump.
The living were quiet as gravity did its job, staring in shock as figure after figure began to shuffle through the opening. The dead had entered Junction.
The mere sight of their approach struck terror through my very being. This was real danger, not only to me but to everyone I knew and cared for. Wait.
Dad...
Cole...
I didn’t see them, everyone was running backward in the grass toward the town.
“Form rank and hold the line!” Rylie shouted, his voice barely carrying above the chaos. My head whipped around while I got in formation. Why didn’t I see my father? Cole should stick out like a sore thumb with his dual katana yet in the dark night I couldn’t make him out in the line. Where were they? Had they been bitten? A thousand questions poured through my mind, each a picture of countless horrors I couldn’t put to words. I saw the man on the wall, his face replaced with Cole’s eaten alive. No. It couldn’t...
Stop it Liv.
I took a deep breath. Whatever their fate, I would know soon enough. Now I had to deal with what was in front of me. The deadhead’s had begun to spread out as they left the breach, coming at us in a V formation. Due to their various injuries the things seemed to be joining into three strong waves; those with nimble legs, the stiff and the dragging. Good. The more spacing between them the higher our chances with hand to hand.
Sliding in beside Ben I pulled the borrowed machete from my hip. Testing the weight in my tired hands. My fingertips quivered around the hilt willfully denying my steady command.
Somewhere on the line a war cry was born. I don’t know who started it, I only felt my own mouth move to join the call. As they poured toward us, we countered their moan tenfold. A sound not to intimidate them, the dead can’t be intimidated, but to rally our will.
This was our house. We built it, shed blood for it, and died for it.
Our house was not falling. Not now. Not ever.
As one, we charged.
In the heat of the onslaught, my mind shut down the sections of reason and emotion. Existing for the singular purpose of slaughter I became the emissary of true death. The knife in my hand met flesh upon flesh, black blood flew through the air, splashing my clothes and the grass beneath. My blade focused on only the quick retract target areas; eye sockets, soft flesh under the chin. At my feet they crumbled, released into whatever peace awaited them off this earth.
Then they began to stack.
I backed up from the deadheads at my feet, my maneuver room was getting limited.
Last thing I needed was to trip over an arm and leave myself vulnerable. Something cut through the air to my left.
“Shit!”
One of the guys I didn’t know looked horrified as he raised his rapier. He had missed my arm by a fraction of an inch. Dumbfounded, I stared at him for a moment while I steadied my footing. In that brief moment of clarity my brain registered every detail of the strangers face in high definition. The stubble on his squared chin, the thick wave in his blood matted mahogany hair, heavy circles under mud colored eyes. His mouth that was moving to ask me if I was okay. Managing a nod I chastised myself for being so immersed in my element that I had paid no attention to my surroundings. I guess I was damned lucky he didn’t slice through my shoulder. Still I wondered, where did he find a friggen rapier?
The moan in front of me snapped me back; six foot two, nose less with torn lips and a butter knife with a starburst patterned handle stuck in its shoulder.
Knees bending I crouched down, its arms lowered and the deadhead leaned in giving me the proper vantage for attack. Moan cut off into a gargle as I thrusted up through the neck into the brain.
The blood from that fatal wound was cold, pouring down over my hands in a black river as I removed the blade. The thing crumbled to the ground, right atop of a crawler who desperately reached out to me despite the weight on top of it.
Uttering a deep growl, I flipped my hold on the machete, pointing it down. With both hands, I drove the thing into the crown of its head. Milky eyes stopped moving, its arm dropping to the grass like a branch cast from a tree.
A younger Evelyn used to pity them, see them as victims in this whole tragic world of ours. I had so hated getting up close, seeing who they were and where they had been. Now standing in this field between the dead and the living staring at my machete protruding from the skull of this thing I came to the curious realization that I didn’t wonder anymore. Staring at the dead thing I felt nothing but anger. They weren’t victims anymore. We were. Screw whom they had been, who they were was death. Using my foot for leverage against the body, the machete came free of the skull with a sharp pull. Perhaps I had lost a hint of my humanity more likely I’d found a way to put to bed the part of me that was overly nostalgic.
Time only moves forward.
Frustrated by the fading light I squinted trying to determine the distance to the next deadhead in my path, instead I caught a glimpse of the horizon.
The sun had set.
No sooner than that realization planted in my brain did the field grow severely windy, like we had just wanted into the center of a tornado. The gusts whipped my hair into my face, blurring my vision and stinging my skin. I raised my hands to cover my eyes from any debris that got kicked up, brutally aware that lowered my defenses. The strong current chilling the already frigid air to the point where it became unbearable.
Then as soon as it had begun the air was calm. It was quiet...just the soft crunching of boots shifting on the rough grass. My teeth were still chattering
when the cheer started. The field that had been enveloped in darkness was littered with corpses, ones that were no longer moving.
It was done. We had held out long enough. I had lived. I had lived and we were safe. Realization set in slowly, an echoing of it’s alright that unmasked all of the aches and pains I felt in my limbs. I’ve heard people talk about an out of body experience, what I felt at this moment was the complete opposite. It was a heightened internal assessment of my every cell and ailment. My nose was running, ears were ringing, skin covered in a thick spray of dead blood, my legs wobbled, wrists were sore, the gloves I had borrowed from Rylie chafed my hands and I was wheezing like an asthmatic who lost their inhaler.
“Hey.”
I whirled around, finding myself eye level with a broad chest covered in blood splattered black cloth.
“Cole!” I wrapped my arms around the big guy, dropping my machete to the side as my arms swung wide. Neither of us spoke, I buried my face in his chest listening to the beating of each his heart. The soft confirmation that we had both lived through that onslaught.
When he spoke I felt the rumble on my skin. “I guess dinner is off tonight.” I forced a chuckle, which came out sounding like a small dose of mania. I pulled back, his eyes looking somewhat distant.
“We can rescheg, tomorrow maybe?”
“It’s a date.” I met his gaze for a fraction of a second before I started scanning the crowd again. Not finding the person I was searching for.
“Have you seen my Dad?” In the corner of my eye I saw Cole’s head shaking left to right. The cheering had ceased and folks were already breaking up into cleanup squads, piling bodies to burn and evaluating our team for wounds. In total it looked like there had been almost forty of us engaged in hand to hand.
“He was by me before the wall went down, then he ran off with Shive to ready the construction crew. Think they’re going to be at this till well after the sun comes up.” He exhaled sharply. “Nailing by candle light is going to suck.”
Breach (The Blood Bargain) Page 3