by TW Brown
She locked eyes with Paddy, her expression stone cold serious. She felt giddiness in her belly when the smile he’d been sporting slowly melted from his face.
“What?” the little man finally asked.
That single word was like a stone thrown into a mill pond. It sent a ripple across the camp and silenced all of the laughing and joking that had kicked up as it usually did every night. Seamus released Gable from the headlock he’d placed the man in and even went so far as to brush at the man’s heavy tunic as if to wipe away the wrinkles.
“You have yourself a bet, little man,” Vix said flatly. She emphasized the word ‘little’ as she tugged on her other boot and stood up. “But if I win…then you have to sing God Save the Queen.” She cupped a hand to her mouth and turned towards, Gable to direct her next statement. “That is a proper anthem, yank.”
Paddy bellowed with laughter, but Vix spun on him and raised a finger. “Not so fast. One more thing, you gold hording little gnome, you said that I have to wrap myself in the Irish flag. Well, I won’t desecrate the British flag with your grimy little body. No, you will sing God Save the Queen…naked and saluting the Union Jack with a proper salute.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Paddy stood and extended a hand to Vix. “You have yourself a wager, lassie.”
The camp erupted in a chorus of hoots, cheers, and jeers. Vix smiled; she’d found herself a home.
***
“I see three,” Ronni whispered.
She and Chad had set out for the general direction of what they hoped would be a camp of undeclared merchants. Not for the first time, Chad marveled at how the few communities in the area had managed to band together. That had certainly been a welcome change. And not only did these separate communities have each other’s back, but they also made it a point to set up a well-patrolled perimeter. No merchants entered the region without clearance. Sure, that had caused some of the peddlers to refuse to come in with their wares, but the bountiful game and excellent farming ensured that more were willing to submit to such petty trivialities. They usually went on their way with traded goods that could fatten their purses enough to make it well worth the trouble.
“Me too,” Chad agreed. “That is what I find so strange. I can’t recall the last time I only saw a group numbering less than a hundred.”
“Maybe a leading edge?” Ronni said.
“No herds within sight of even the most remote patrols.”
Ronni knew that, but she was just as thrown off by this discovery as her dad. And there was one other thing that made these zombies different.
“I don’t figure those walkers to be any older than six months to a year, might even be more recent than that judging by the fact that the one man still has stuff dangling from that abdominal wound.” Chad handed his binoculars to Ronni.
That was one thing about zombies that had their insides torn out to any degree; over time, the insides finally broke free or eventually pulled out when the zombie moved around. That caused the ultimate creation of the zombies that Chad referred to as “humps” since they all ended up walking sort of stooped over.
“You want to take them down?” Ronni nudged her dad in the side.
“Shouldn’t be much trouble, besides, I would hate to just leave them out here wandering around. This close to the lodge, it would just take one curious kid wandering away from the safe zone to cause a tragedy.”
Ronni stood up and drew her blade. “C’mon, there are only three. It should be a piece of cake.” Chad grabbed her arm and shook his head.
“I don’t care, the rule is that you use the crossbow at all times for any target unless they happen to surprise you and are too close.” Chad was reciting one of the community rules. He had asked about it one day, and the answer had made him actually feel sort of silly.
“Why would you take even the slightest risk that you might get backsplash, much less the bite or scratch potential? You have zero chance of any of those things if you use the bow.”
He had not used his blade since then. Ronni had a job inside the fence and Chad was willing to guess that neither of them had likely seen a zombie since they’d settled in. That might explain her desire to “live dangerously” during this little vacation.
Chad loaded his own weapon, but he had no plans on actually using it. The targets were far enough away that his daughter should be able to dispatch them all long before they even covered a quarter of the ground between them.
Her first shot went wide and he heard her curse under her breath. Her second shot hit the lead zombie in the chest. The creature rocked a little, but otherwise continued on towards them now that they had finally seemed to locate their living prey.
“Do you even know where the range is back home?” Chad quipped.
“Oh shut up,” Ronni hissed as she fired her third shot. This one flew true and hit the zombie just to the right of the nose. The creature stumbled and fell into the snow without a sound. She turned and glanced over her shoulder just long enough to stick out her tongue and cross her eyes at her dad before setting up for the next shot.
She did not miss again as she took down the other two zombies. Once that was done, Chad and Ronni started over towards the downed corpses.
“These are way too fresh, Dad,” Ronni said as she toed one of the corpses. “I mean like within the past day or two.”
Chad had to admit that he was strangely proud of his daughter for making that observation. It was perhaps a bizarre thing to be proud of, but it told him that, while her shooting may be suspect, she still held on to some of the important things that they had learned during those first several years together.
“Maybe there was a small camp nearby,” Chad guessed.
He moved around the three bodies and saw a few things that had him wondering. For one, all three zombies were men. One of them was wearing a wedding ring which could be no big deal; however, he also wore a bracelet that had been made from wooden beads. There was a single word strung together: DADDY. This was obviously fairly well worn, but there was no way it was over a decade old.
“Let’s take a look around.” Chad bent down and plucked the bracelet, stuffing it into his pocket.
“Dad!” Ronni snapped, disapproval obvious in her voice.
He looked up and then realized what she was visibly upset about. “If we find the people that knew these men, I think somebody there should have the bracelet,” he explained.
“But not the wedding ring?” Her voice held a certain dubious quality that Chad had come to know well over the years.
“Fine.” He knelt and tugged the plain gold band from the man’s finger and put it with the bracelet. “Happy?”
Ronni nodded and the two began to follow the tracks in the snow. As they hiked deeper into the woods, Chad began to wonder if these men were hunting or looking for something. Often, the sets of tracks divided into three different trails. After splitting up twice, he and Ronni agreed that the men who had become zombies had split and each checked the surrounding area before converging on a location and traveling together again for a while.
They were discussing the possibility of perhaps giving up on this little quest when Ronni held up a hand and silenced her dad. She stepped back and lifted her nose to the air, giving a few good sniffs. Chad had often been impressed by his daughter’s sense of smell. He used to tease her that she was part Bloodhound due to her ability to seemingly detect certain smells that told her that there were living people close by
“Smoke,” Ronni whispered, her eyes drifting slowly as she turned in a complete circle before determining the direction she believed that it was coming from and then pointing. “That way.”
Chad knew better than to dismiss his daughter’s olfactory insight. He took the lead, heading up a fairly steep hill that crested on the edge of some very dense woods. When they reached the top, they could see the hints of smoke curling skyward from just a short distance inside the tree line; an orange glow was visible in the relative da
rkness.
“Well?” Ronni said to her dad.
“Well what?”
“Do we go check this out?”
“What is the deal with you?” Chad turned to his daughter and folded his arms across his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“When did you get into adventuring and all this? You always liked the peaceful times and got agitated whenever it got too hairy.”
Ronni looked away from her dad. She even went so far as to take a step forward so that he could not even really see her profile. That settled it; she was hiding something. He knew his daughter well enough that he forced himself to back off. The more you pressed Ronni, the less she offered.
“Can we not talk about it right now?” she finally whispered.
Chad didn’t want to talk about it later; he wanted to talk about it right this minute. Whatever it was, it was obviously weighing heavily on his daughter. Still, he wanted this trip to be enjoyable, getting Ronni all riled up would not help make that happen.
“So, what do you think?” she turned back to her dad after a few seconds of lingering silence that was only broken by the distant snaps and pops of the fire that he could hear now that he was paying closer attention.
Chad considered it for a moment and decided that if he was going to have any peace this week, he would have to capitulate to his daughter’s sudden and unusual desire for adventure.
“Let’s go.”
She actually clapped her hands and squealed with excitement. Together, they tromped into the woods. Less than a couple hundred yards in, they came upon something that had Chad scratching his head. Smoke was seeping up seemingly from the ground itself. There was no sign of snow in a large circular area that extended well into the woods. Just to the left was an open hole in the ground that contributed a good majority of the smoke to the scene. Also, orange flames licked up from the rectangular opening.
“What is this, Dad?” Ronni turned to Chad, the confusion he felt mirrored perfectly in her expression.
“I am gonna go out on a limb and say this is some sort of underground bunker,” he finally offered with a weak shrug.
“Thanks for that observation, Mister Obvious,” Ronni quipped.
Chad started forward, veering towards the opening. Ronni hurried to move in beside him and both of them had their crossbows drawn, loaded, and ready. They got to within about twenty or thirty feet when the smoke became too thick for them to go any closer.
“What do we do?” Ronni pulled the collar of her shirt up over her face to try and filter some of the smoke.
“Well…we can walk the perimeter, see if there is another way in.” Chad mentally slapped his forehead. What on earth was he doing?
He was actually relieved when she accepted that idea as a good one. Of course, his hope was that they would find no other viable entry. They could abandon this place and report it when they returned to the camping area. His daughter would be happy that he let her have this foray into the woods, and he would be able to enjoy this little vacation.
“Is that an entrance?” Ronni grabbed Chad by the arm and pointed.
Sure enough, just ahead was a hollowed out tree. If they would have come from any other angle, it is unlikely that they would have seen it. Instead, they were looking directly into the trunk of what had once been a massive tree. Somebody had gone to considerable effort to make this look like any other tree that had been hit by lightning. The top was jagged and well weathered. It did not stand out at all other than the crease right where it looked like the tree sort of folded in on itself just a little.
“You watch my back, I will take a peek,” Chad finally said. Ronni opened her mouth, but he held up a finger to silence her. “This is not up for debate.”
“Fine,” she agreed with only the slightest stomp of her foot actually giving away her displeasure.
Chad knew that a bow of any sort would likely be useless at this point. He drew his belt knife and pulled out a cloth-wrapped torch. Just before he reached the tree, he lit the torch. It gave off just enough flame to see ten or so feet, but he wasn’t planning on needing much more than that.
He could smell it before he even reached the tree entrance—the undead. It had been a long time since he smelled them in such a heavy concentration. He glanced over his shoulder at his daughter and saw her watching him with a curious fascination.
“Let’s go,” Ronni hissed suddenly. Her expression had changed from curious and excited to a look of uncertainty and concern.
Chad stopped. He was less than six paces from that tree. He agreed whole-heartedly with her choice of action, however, now that he was this close, he could not help it; he had to know what was here. If anything, this definitely merited being reported to the people in charge of the security of the campground. If there were zombies in the area in any real numbers, they should be made aware.
He took another step closer, and now it was his daughter insisting that he not do this. Chad almost laughed at the situation. He was at the tree and thrusting the torch inside the hollowed out entrance. There was a narrow passage carved into the ground that sloped downwards. This had to be some sort of underground bunker or perhaps a tunnel complex. He could not see far, and the fact that the passage was eventually consumed by the darkness let him know that it went back a ways.
He was just pulling his arm back when a scream echoed from that darkness. There was a flash of light deep down the incredibly long passage. The image that was almost burned into Chad’s eyes was horrifying.
***
“You can’t be serious,” Selina gasped.
“Afraid so,” Jody said as he went through his checklist.
It had been a while since he had gone out into the wasteland beyond their little community and its safety corridor. He had forgotten how much crap a person had to carry for even the shortest trips. Things were markedly different from the old days when you could count on slipping into an abandoned house or two to re-supply. These days, you had to live off what you carried, be able to hunt, fish, or trap, as well as know what sorts of wild plants were safe to eat.
“Why can’t we just let them come to us? Or, if we do have to go after these people, why not let somebody else do it?” Selina almost pleaded. “Why does it always have to be you?”
“That’s just it,” Jody sighed. “It hasn’t been me for a while. I was just slipping into the background and letting others deal with everything.”
“So?” It was obvious that Selina did not see a problem with things the way they had been.
“Look how everything has sort of fallen off?” Jody slid his pack onto his shoulders and faced Selina. “We are not in the clear yet. The world is just now starting to settle. The problem with that is the same as it has been throughout history. There are always going to be those who want what others have, and unless you are the biggest, the baddest, and the strongest, you will fall under the heel of those who seek to reside at the top of the food chain.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why you have to be the one to lead this raid or whatever you want to call it.” Selina actually shoved him back and away from the door, planting herself firmly in his path.
“Because I want to ensure that it is done right. I want to ensure that our children have a world to grow up in that is at least marginally safe.” He placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “And this is not a raid. It is an extermination. I won’t pussyfoot around it. I don’t plan on us returning with anybody left in our wake that might be a danger.”
Selina’s mouth opened, and then snapped shut. She grabbed Jody and pulled him close, smashing his lips with hers and allowing that kiss to be an expression of not only her love, but also her anger and frustration. When he walked out the front door, Jody was still reeling just a bit, but he quickly brushed aside the sensations from that peculiar kiss that was lingering with a physical presence.
Standing in a loose formation were the eighty people from the community that would b
e joining him on this mission. He had no false pretense when it came to what they were about to do. His people were going to war. They were not even giving the option of diplomacy the slightest consideration.
He related all of that to the group. Despite the fact that it had been made very clear at the mandatory town meeting two nights prior, he wanted to hammer that fact home with absolute certainty. Everybody assembled answered with grim nods to the affirmative.
Satisfied, he turned to go. Glancing back, he looked up into the window of his house. Selina was standing there with his children. Alana was beside her mother and Jenna was cradled in Selina’s arms. He gave a wave and was surprised at how relieved he was when it was answered; not just by Alana who blew him a kiss as well, but also by Selina. He had been worried that her anger at his being the one to lead this mission might result in no response. If something bad were to happen to him, he did not want her to regret how they had parted ways.
Always the realist, aren’t you, Jody? he chided himself as he led his group out the main gates of the community.
They had two days of long hard travel ahead. While he had certainly doubted what the man had said about the number of inhabitants in his community, he actually believed the location that had been given. After looking at a map, he had found what was once the town of Delaplaine, Arkansas.
The location was not much more than a speck on the map; much like Cash, Arkansas where Jody now called home. It stood to reason that small communities would have been the best possible locations for any potential of survival. There were even reports from wandering travelers that passed through on occasion of entire towns that had managed to come through the zombie apocalypse without losing hardly one person. These oddities were sometimes spoken of with awe, but most often with fear. To have survived intact—which included not only keeping the undead at bay, but also being able to repel the human raiders that were a plague to the landscape—these communities had to be something incredible and led by very strong people who had to most likely make some very difficult decisions in those early years.