by Jean Booth
Michael let out a bloodcurdling scream as the zombie’s teeth cut into his flesh. It tore a hunk of skin from his clavicle, latching itself onto Michael like a monkey. Its head snapped back with the impact of Emery’s bullet. Michael fell with the zombie, one hand holding tightly to his seeping wound, the other gripping his gun.
“Michael, I was too late. Shit! I’m sorry. Michael, I’m so sorry.” Emery ran over to the man who’d just saved his life, and held him as he lay dying on the pavement. “What can I do for you?”
“Hug your son,” Michael coughed out, “That’s what I was concentrating on as I shot the bastards. Make sure you hug him.” Michael smiled through his pain. “I’m turning. I can feel it.”
“Michael, thank you. I’ll tell the other’s how w-wonderful you were and I promise to hug Jacob. You know what has to be done now, right?” Emery began to cry.
Michael nodded.
“Do you want me to wait?” Emery asked.
“No. I can feel the changes. Just end it. Emery?” Michaels’ voice was a scratchy whisper, his blood an ever-enlarging pool beneath him.
“Yes?” Emery said. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were all supposed to make it back to the compound together.
“Thank you.” Michael smiled, and closed his eyes.
Emery gently laid his friend down on the ground. He pulled out his gun, and held it to Michael’s head. Afraid he would lose his nerve if he waited too long, Emery pulled the trigger. Michael went still.
Rechecking the cab of the semi, Emery cleared it of any remaining body parts and started it up. He pulled it a few feet away from the store’s entrance and waited so Kevin could get in. Kevin leapt into the cab and the two men pulled away.
“Door secure?” Emery asked, his voice still tight with pain and loss.
“Yes. Looks like I missed out on one hell of a party. Jesus! I can’t believe how many there were. I tried to get to the ones underneath, but I couldn’t find a shot. Where’s Michael?” Kevin looked around at the carnage surrounding them.
“You should’ve seen him man. You’d have shit yourself. He was a thing of beauty, the final executioner of the undead. He looked like you, when you get into the zone. I’d have never believed it myself if I hadn’t seen him in action. He was responsible for most of the kills. I got a few, but damn.” Emery’s voice cracked with the weight of his grief. He hated that his friend had finally learned to kill, just to die. Emery refused to wipe at the tears that spilled from his eyes, even though they stung his scratched cheek and made him look weak in front of Kevin. Michael had been a good man with a very kind heart, no matter what anyone else thought of him. “He was bitten.”
“No shit?” Kevin smoked his cigarettes in silence for the rest of the trip to the compound. Emery supposed this was all the grief he could expect from him. As they neared the exit to the farm, both men tensed in fear. Surrounding the walls were hundreds of the brain-eating monsters.
SARAH
“Sarah, there’s a caravan headed this way. Oh!” Matt’s yell ended in surprise when he rounded the end of the aisle and saw Jessica. “I guess you already know about them, huh?”
Sarah grinned. She would never get used to his easy, nonchalant attitude about everything. She still had her hand on Jessica’s wrist, forcing it and the rifle closer to Matt’s feet than his chest. Jessica’s mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Two of you?” She asked in awe, lowering her rifle to her side. “We never thought…I mean, wow! How?”
“There’s about twenty more back at the farm,” Matt replied with a cheeky grin.
Sarah knew he was excited to see someone in fatigues. He’d confessed to her that he hoped the military were working on a plan to eradicate the zombie infestation. He always said they knew more than civilians, and could solve this problem quickly. That is, if they had survived the initial outbreak, as it appeared they had.
“Jessica, this is Matt. He and I set up a small farm outside of town. It’s not large enough to house all two hundred of your survivors, but it works well for us. We could try to help you to do the same. It’s a good thing you came here first, Matt. Apparently, they all have shoot-on-sight orders,” Sarah said. She could tell that Matt was disappointed that the military was in the same boat as everyone else, and—it seemed—somewhat worse off than their little camp of survivors.
“That’s right, I need to tell them you’re here and still human. Are there any more of you wandering about?” Jessica seemed to be having a hard time grasping everything.
“For so long I believed that the two hundred at the hospital were the only survivors. I’m still not sure how we’ve survived this long,” she muttered.
“Why don’t you go out and talk with them and we’ll finish loading this for you? Holler when you want us to show up,” Sarah suggested. She tried not to let the struggle show in her voice. Jessica needed this food more than they did back on the farm, but she hated having to spend any more time than they needed out here to find more somewhere else. She hated having people dependent on her for survival and now she was adding to her dependents, again.
Matt was right. They could always go hunting. They would survive the winter better than those in Jessica’s care. At least her farm had working electricity and running water. From the sounds of things, Jessica’s charges were barely hanging on.
“Is that safe? What if I attract a zombie?” Jessica asked, horrified.
“We’ve only seen one in this town so far and it won’t be bothering anyone ever again,” Matt replied. “Go on. I don’t want to get shot. If you can explain to them that we’re still human, maybe we can help y’all out.”
JESSICA
Jessica was glad she had waited before shooting Sarah. She still couldn’t believe her luck. Two survivors, and more on a farm.
She went outside to speak to her team members. They’d all be so excited to hear the news. If these two had survived, there was a possibility that others could have as well. Jessica slid to a halt, impatiently waiting for her team to reach her. She was excited but didn’t want to get shot on accident.
“Private Gibbs, what seems to be the problem?” her commanding officer demanded, pulling up next to the curb. He exited the vehicle, waving the others over to join him.
Jessica sobered, standing at attention to relay her news.
“Sir, I found survivors, Sir,” Jessica said, completely unable to contain her excitement.
Her commanding officer stepped back in shock.
“Are you absolutely certain? It’s not a creature pretending to be human to gain entrance into our sanctuary?” he asked. Jessica knew he was skeptical because of the news he’d heard a few days ago. He had been careful not to share it with anyone on his team; Jessica only knew because she’d overheard the radio conversation.
A team in Colorado had found a lone survivor and brought him back to their compound. They found out much too late that it was a zombie acting human in order to have a guaranteed meal for weeks. The Colorado team had been decimated before the man left. By the time they’d figured out what was happening, he had gone.
“Sir, no, Sir. They didn’t even want to see our setup. They invited us to see theirs and to help us become more self-sustaining.” Jessica knew she wasn’t explaining things correctly. “Sir, you should come talk to them.”
“Carlson! Johnson,” he barked, watching them come to attention immediately.
“Sir,” they replied.
“We’re going to check out Gibbs’ survivors.” He eyed them pointedly. He turned back to Jessica Gibbs without disguising his skepticism. “Lead us to your survivors, Gibbs.”
Jessica was determined to hide her excitement. She had to force herself not to run back to the aisle where she’d left Matt and Sarah. She was thrilled to see that they were still there, waiting for her.
MATT
“Sarah, Matt, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Sergeant Stevens,” Jessica said, grinning from ear to ear.
“
Hi,” said Sarah.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Sir,” said Matt. “It’s difficult to believe you’ve managed to save so many people. Have you heard about a cure or safe zone yet?” He craved any news of an ending. He didn’t want to live the rest of his life in fear.
Sergeant Stevens narrowed his eyes, but Matt held his gaze, not even blinking. He was used to the skepticism and untrusting gaze of others, even more so in these strange days. He stood, waiting patiently for the older man to speak. When the silent confrontation came to a close, Matt didn’t like what he heard.
“We don’t know of any cure. It appears that there’s a small faction of the infected leading the others. The leaders appear to send the others out to herd us to where we’ll be easy prey. Then they take us out, eating our brains and leaving the remains for the others as a sort of reward. They’ve also resorted to another form of cannibalism. The leaders pick out the infected that appear to have any humanity remaining and eat them as if they were still one of us. It’s barbaric. No place is safe and you shouldn’t bring anyone into your home.” Sergeant Stevens cleared his throat, seeming to hesitate before making a decision.
“There’s a story that a zombie in Colorado masqueraded as a person, and waited until he was welcomed into the colony before attacking. He slaughtered the entire town last week. More than five hundred souls were taken.” Sergeant Stevens was pale.
“My god. No one’s doing anything?” Matt replied, as horrified as the sergeant.
“Nobody knows what to do. We’re simply trying to protect people that are still healthy. It’s not looking good though,” Sergeant Stevens replied.
Sarah piped up and told the sergeant about their farm. She explained that they had hydroelectric and solar power and were working on irrigating two acres of the land for vegetable farming.
“I hope that someday the zombie problem will be eradicated and we’ll be able to expand to other farms, live how people used to. Right now we’re just trying to make it through the winter to see if we can even grow crops next year,” she finished, speaking quietly as she always did around authoritative men.
“That sounds almost too good to be true. I’d love to see all of that myself,” Sergeant Stevens replied, skepticism returning to his voice.
Matt could hear his hesitation. If he were in the sergeant’s place, he’d be skeptical too. Their setup was a dream come true. He would have a hard time accepting help after what the sergeant had just told him about Colorado. If the zombies were able to pass as human, how could they ever know whom to trust? Even some of the humans were questionable characters.
“Let’s load your trucks with food and we’ll take you there,” Matt suggested.
Together, the six of them gathered all the canned goods, pasta, and nonperishable things they could find and loaded them into the trucks. Sarah offered to give them all the frozen things she’d gathered as well, but Sergeant Stevens declined.
“We don’t have the capacity to store any of that and it would spoil before we could ever get any use out of it. Thank you for your kindness, you’ve already done more than you know.”
They finished loading as many of the nonperishables into the sergeant’s vehicles as they could. Then Stevens followed Sarah and Matt on the road back to the farm.
“Stevens seems stressed. I hope he doesn’t scare the kids. Did you see how he watched us? Do you think the other teams fared better than we did?” Sarah mused aloud. “I hope everything worked out as planned for the other teams.”
Matt’s mind was still on Colorado. He had no idea that the infected could be so cunning, especially after so long without fresh brains. There weren’t that many humans left in hiding, of that he was certain.
“I hope so. I think Stevens was just scared. He’ll warm up when he sees Dog, and the kids. Everyone does,” Matt replied.
Matt glanced at Sarah as they approached the farm. She was looking anxiously out the window, and he knew she was trying to think of anything else they could do to hide it from the road. Suddenly her eyes rounded with surprise.
“Matt, stop,” she yelled, almost half an exit away. She put one hand on his arm and pointed toward the farm with the other. “Oh my god. Do you see that?”
They were stopped on a rise in the mountainous landscape, the farm a slight distance away and hidden amongst the trees. If Sarah hadn’t said something, he’d never have noticed until it was too late.
“Zombies,” he whispered.
“There must be hundreds of them. Oh my god. Matt, what are we going to do?”
Matt opened the door and stepped out. He could hear the distant sounds of guns exploding and little else over the wind that blew constantly in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
“Look over there,” Matt said as he came up next to her. He pointed down the road, to where the exit would be on the other side of the freeway. In the middle of the road was a large semi, complete with trailer. “Isn’t that Emery’s rig?” Sarah nodded, her face pale.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Sergeant Stevens had pulled over behind them, and approached them with annoyance evident in his voice. “Why’d you stop so quickly and almost add to the wrecks here? Are you trying to get us killed?”
“It’s our farm,” Sarah said in a whisper, pointing. A small glimpse of the buildings could be seen through the cluster of trees. “It’s being attacked.”
FRANK
Frank hated the raids. He worried incessantly for the young adults that left, knowing, as they all did, that they may never return. He also worried about those that stayed back. Typically the best shooters left, leaving the remaining adults to watch the children and work on projects for the farm. They all practiced shooting and no one was terrible, but Frank still worried.
He spent the better part of the morning digging up dirt for the crops with a few others. The Nevada soil wasn’t easy to work, and they all had to pitch in, taking turns with the tools they had until they broke. Hopefully Emery’s team would return with more tools soon.
Lunch came and went before the first team arrived back at the compound. They were quiet and tense, as if trying not to relive a bad experience. Frank hung back, not wanting to intrude or cause them any undue stress, although he was desperate to know what had happened.
The girls were silent, Jennifer still on high alert from their raid. She paced around the front of the trucks, leaving only to talk to the gatekeepers and wait as they gathered more ammo. This was bad.
Frank heard the tail end of Mark’s conversation with Bryant and knew that whatever had happened had the team spooked. They were obviously going to have to live the next few days on high alert. Quietly and as unobtrusively as possible, Frank herded the children into the house under the pretense of watching movies. It was the best he could do with them until he received more information.
He had the kids gathered inside just as Kaitlyn and Mark drove out of the compound to dump a truck. He hoped the kids couldn’t feel the tension in the air as badly as he did. The front door slammed open, followed quickly by the sound of feet pounding toward the rooms. Frank left the children—still absorbed in the movie—and went in search of the person who had just come inside. He found Jennifer pacing in the master bedroom, clenching her crossbow with both hands.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, closing the door so the children wouldn’t overhear their conversation.
“Oh my god. Frank, it was awful. They’re so much smarter than we expected them to be. They plotted, waiting for us to get tired and make a mistake. There must’ve been almost fifty of them.” She was shaking, and never stopped pacing. She turned and collapsed against him.
He wrapped his arms around her reflexively, holding and comforting her, as he’d wanted to since he’d first seen her. He knew he was too old for her, but the feel of her soft body in his embrace made him forget all about their ages.
“Shh, you’re okay now. Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked as he held her close. He carefully picked her up an
d sat with her on his lap on the large bed. She kept her arms clenched around his body and he couldn’t help the rush of pleasure that engulfed him at that innocent gesture.
She told him everything that had happened on the raid, her face buried in his neck. From the confident, cocky beginning to the terrifying moments with the super zombie. “I thought we were going to die today.”
With fresh tears in her eyes, she kissed him. It was a desperate kiss filled with longing, fear, and need. It took him by surprise. For a moment, he froze. Then he began to return it, matching her passion. They were locked in this embrace when the alarm interrupted them.
“Jennifer, did you hear that?” Frank asked, a little breathlessly.
“Yes. What is it?” she asked.
“It’s part of the alarm system I installed. I designed it to beep whenever the motion sensors were tripped outside the fence line to alert us to watch the cameras. It’s new. I haven’t even had a chance to show Matt and Sarah yet. Come on, let’s see what we have,” he said, pulling her up off the bed.
He held her hand as he led the way to the dining room that they’d converted into a control center. One wall was almost completely covered with monitors looping through the various cameras set up around the perimeter of the fence, both on the fence line and outside it. There was a master control panel beneath, made from computer parts they had found in the city.
Frank sat in front of the monitors, turning off the alarm, and looking for the sensor that had set it off. Jennifer stood behind him, also looking for anything abnormal in the screens. She let out a gasp.
“Look,” she said, pointing at one of the screens.
“Oh my god,” Frank replied, flicking the switch that started the warning alarm throughout the compound. Within minutes, the entire farm was crowded around the pair.
“What’s wrong?” someone asked.
“This isn’t another drill, is it?” An annoyed voice spoke up, laughing uncomfortably.