by Joseph Xand
Once Beechum reached the infield, the tall grass subsided. Their first day here they'd found rusting grounds-keeping equipment in a maintenance shed, and Moss had ordered the grass in the infield, from the bases to the dugouts, cut down. They'd managed to start one of the riding mowers, but Moss wouldn't allow it because of the noise. They found two manual push mowers, but they still had to chop the grass low enough for the mowers to do their jobs. Around the pitcher's mound, they pulled up a 25-foot diameter circle of grass, leaving nothing but red dirt. In the middle of the circle, at the height of the mound, a fire smoldered, fueled by the bodies of the several walking dead they'd had to clear off the field upon arrival.
The convoy was parked in a semi-circle along the baselines, from home plate to second base. It consisted of two supply trucks, a deuce-and-a-half and a five ton, an M-548, and the police transport, newly acquired. The only vehicle missing was the Humvee, which Schuler had taken to go map shopping. Inside the baselines, next to the various vehicles, shelters had been erected, either free-standing canvas tents or makeshift lean-tos, also canvas, attached to the sides of the larger vehicles. From the base camp, Moss' quarters and command center rose awkwardly a few feet above the grass in the distance. Over the last few days, a thin trail had been worn in the grass leading to his tent. For some reason no one knew, no one would ever know, Colonel Moss had always preferred to set up his quarters away from the rest of the division.
Beechum, with Murphy and Moss in tow, turned left at second base towards the home-team dugout where Tucker, Caldwell, Cadagon, and Fuller were waiting; the latter two had never left to scout a southern route over the Licking River, as they had been ordered to do. Everyone wore baseball caps that said "Morehead River Otters." They found a box of the souvenirs in a maintenance closet behind the visiting-team dugout. They had apparently adopted the high school's mascot as their own.
Beechum glared towards third base. Phillips stood guard behind the police van. Phillips made eye contact and tipped his hat to Beechum, a general acknowledgment, if not a half-hearted salute to their new Commander-In-Chief. Beechum also noted the crumpled body of Captain Rodriguez lying between first base and the pitcher's mound. Phillips's handiwork. He was ruthless and trigger happy. He would have to be watched closely.
When Beechum reached the dugout, the four men there shuffled and gave a small salute, though they didn't come to attention. Beechum recognized them with a nod.
"Report," he commanded, looking at Cadagon.
"No problembo, Boss. Everything went smooth as shit. We're just watching over the prisoners." Cadagon gestured towards the dugout with his head.
"Yeah, but Revis and Barnes took a tumble down the stairs walking down into the dugout," Tucker chimed in. "Whoops!" Most of the men laughed. Beechum didn't.
A voice arose from the shadows of the dugout behind Cadagon. "Yeah, real brave men you are. Beating up men with their hands cuffed behind their backs. They still managed to get in a shot or two on you pussies! How's your head, Caldwell?"
"Hey, fuck you, Pops! Why don't you shut the fuck up before I come down there and shut you the fuck up?" Caldwell screamed back. His hand rubbed a lump on his forehead where Revis had managed to head butt him.
"Just undo one of my arms and then come down here and try it, Caldwell. Or are you afraid of getting your ass kicked by an old man?"
Caldwell took two steps towards the dugout, but Beechum reached out and stopped him with a hand to the chest. Caldwell met Beechum's eyes, and Beechum shook his head.
Beechum moved past Cadagon and Fuller and peered into the dark of the dugout. He shielded his eyes with his hand to guard against the glare and even then had to squint and let his eyes adjust. He first noticed Barnes sitting on the bench and leaned against a post, his arms behind his back. He looked exhausted and possibly unconscious. His chest rose and fell heavily beneath a blood-stained uniform. His face, unrecognizable, was an explosion of bruises, cuts, and welts. Revis seemed even worse off. He lay on his side across the bench, his arms also pinned behind, and somewhat beneath, him. His face was a bloody pulp of meat and beneath his head, a puddle of blood had pooled. Beechum couldn't tell if he was breathing.
Finally, he saw Lieutenant Colonel Keene, who peered up at him angrily through slits of eyes. He was hunched over, his hands cuffed to a bench railing. His dark skin helped him blend into the darkness. But those eyes. Those eyes Beechum could see plainly. And in them burned all the fury of hell.
"Beechum, you son-of-a-bitch! This is mutiny!" Keene barked up.
"Told ya," Murphy replied quietly, leaning towards Nunez and smiling. Beechum glared back at him, and Murphy dropped the smirk as he lowered his eyes to the ground.
Beechum turned back to the dugout. "It didn't have to be this way, Keene. There were other options. I tried to convince you and Moss, but you wouldn't listen."
"Moss did listen, Beechum. He told you we'd look into it when we got back to Monroe. But, soldier, this is a military operation, and we have our orders—"
"Fuck the orders! Military operation? There is no military! Not anymore! Hell, there may not even be a Monroe. But with these supplies and the right shelter we could hold up for a long time."
"Beechum, those supplies are not ours to do with as we please. We have an obligation to the civilians we've sworn to protect."
"What civilians, lieutenant? Huh? Those burning in the fire out there? 'Cause that's all we've seen for three weeks now. Well, I'm done playing the hero, Keene. I don't look good in tights and a cape. It's time to survive. Anyway, it's too late for anything else. Something tells me if I cut you loose, we couldn't go on with the mission as if nothing ever happened." Beechum glared at Keene, searching. It took Keene a long time to answer.
"No, Beechum, you're right," he finally responded. "It is too late. You are a traitor to your country, soldier. If you were to let me go, I'd have to kill you."
Beechum sighed and shook his head. He looked to the sky and found no reprieve there either. Biting the inside of his lower lip, Beechum took two steps back and nodded to Tucker.
Tucker raised his M-16, angled it into the dugout, and let out two quick bursts of shots, sweeping the gun from left to right and then back again.
Smoke blew directly into Beechum's face, and he blinked to regain his vision. When he finally did, he again looked down into the dugout. Keene's body slumped halfway to the floor, facing sideways, held up by the cuffs stretching his arms. Barnes lay draped partially on top of him. Revis was on the dugout floor, face down, his hands sticking up behind him.
Beechum spat into the dugout, a final statement against senseless duty and oppressive honor. Then he turned his attention to other affairs. He looked out at the camp on the other side of the diamond through the smoke drifting up from the pitcher's mound.
"Murphy, you're with me. The rest of you, let's close up shop and get ready to move out. I wanna leave as soon as Schuler returns."
Cadagon moved to speak, but Beechum was already walking away towards the caravan, Murphy trailing behind.
Beechum made a beeline for the police transport van, walking around Rodriguez's body.
Upon arrival, Phillips also started to speak, but Beechum cut him off. "Open it," he said bluntly.
Phillips shouldered his M-16, popped his cigarette into his mouth, and yanked a metal pin out of the slot where a lock should be. He twisted a steel arm 180 degrees until he heard a snap, then pulled open the right-side back door. Then he pulled down a handle until there was another pop, and opened the left side.
Travers' large, overweight frame sat on a wood bench affixed to the right-side wall. His arms hung above him, cuffed with a long chain to a rail. His legs were also cuffed, a thin chain connecting his ankles and run through a steel loop welded to the floor. He turned away from the sudden intrusion of light, but not before Beechum noticed a swollen cut underneath Travers' eye, making his large, round face fatter than it already was. Travers' thick, small-rimmed glasses laid on the flo
or of the van in front of him, one lens cracked. The bulky man seemed terrified.
The woman seated across from Travers and restrained similarly didn't look scared. Not at all. She didn't turn away from the brightness. She merely squinted and searched until her eyes fixed squarely on Beechum.
"You son-of-a-bitch," Meyers leveled calmly.
"You know, I keep gettin' that today," Beechum returned, smiling back to Murphy and Phillips. Behind them, he could see Tucker and Fuller rolling up a tent.
"What do you want with us, Beechum? Why didn't you kill us like the rest?"
Beechum rested his hands at the top of the entrance to the back of the van and leaned in. "Well, Meyers, I don't know if you've noticed, but dedication to the cause has been waning among the troops," Beechum poked a thumb towards Murphy and Phillips. "But what you got between your legs, private, is a one-hundred percent, bonafide morale booster. And I know you wanna do what you can for your fellow soldiers."
"Fuck you, Beechum!" she shot back.
Beechum chuckled. "In time, Meyers, in time. But I like your enthusiasm." He motioned for Phillips to close and secure the doors. Phillips snapped the left side shut when Travers spoke up.
"Wuh…what about me?" Travers managed feebly.
Beechum stopped Phillips by raising a hand and leaned into the right side of the van, nothing but a silhouette from Travers' perspective.
"What's that, Travers?"
"Wuh…what about me? Wuh…wuh…what do you want with me?"
"Wuh…wuh…well, faggot," Beechum chided, "we got plans for you, too. We're gonna have some fun, don't you worry."
Travers began to cry, a slobbery, blubbering mess.
Beechum moved from the doorway and both soldiers were quickly submerged in darkness again.
Stepping out from between the vehicles, Beechum noted that the soldiers, his soldiers, were nearly finished wrapping up camp. Looking in the direction of the far-side dugout again, his eyes were drawn to movement. Shaking his head, he hurriedly strode towards the body of Rodriguez, Murphy moving quickly to keep up. When he got to the dead man, Beechum pulled Moss's Colt 45 from the front of his pants. Rodriguez was just beginning to twitch back to life.
"Phillips!" Phillips, still standing guard behind the police van, turned to face Beechum. "Really?" Beechum asked regarding Rodriguez's rocking body.
Phillips shrugged.
Just as Rodriguez was pushing himself up, Beechum placed the gun to the back of his head and put him down, for good this time.
Beechum replaced the gun and stood tall. He took in everything around him. To his right, Schuler drove the Humvee back through the side gate. Out in far-left field, between the supply trucks, he could hear a small legion of the dead pounding on the fence. He couldn't see them through the tall grass, but they were there. In deep-center field, half the command center was engulfed in flames, the other half collapsing into the fire. The two cigarettes Beechum had tossed in the corner.
"Dammit," he said to himself, quietly enough so even Murphy, by his side, couldn't hear him.
Beechum took off his baseball cap, wiped sweat from his brow with his shoulder, and then replaced the hat. He turned towards the other men. All standing. All waiting. For him.
"River Otters! Let's move out!" he ordered. Immediately the men dispersed, climbing into the assorted vehicles.
Murphy took the opportunity to get in a word. "Hey, Boss. You know, I've been thinking. We could head south, you know. Like, to the Florida Keys. Maybe find an island somewhere that's uninhabited where the ZD can't reach us. Maybe—"
"We're not headed south, Murphy."
"No? But I was…uh. No? Okay. Uh…where to then, Boss?" Murphy asked timidly.
Schuler pulled up in front of them, rolling down the window and holding out a Rand McNally's. Beechum took it and started towards the passenger side. Looking over the hood of the Humvee, he shot Murphy a curt smile.
"Prison."
Chapter 3
L ONG BEFORE BEECHUM SHOT Moss, or before Operation Outreach, or military/civilian outposts (although the First Baptist Church in Athens, Ohio was operating a crisis center), or the North Central Corridor, or Moss' return from retirement; long before Karen was attacked in the barn, or before she began holding daily vigils over her mother's grave, or before Dr. Thaddeus Palmer was warned against believing in safe havens, and just a little before he devised a weapon made out of a broom handle and rebar, and about the time the first dead body fell from the sky, a young girl and her even younger brother were trapped in the basement of their home in a small, suburban neighborhood in southeast Pennsylvania.
They'd been in the basement for seven weeks, although trapped only the last five and a half.
When word of a deadly outbreak of some strange sort first came out, the kids' parents weren't all that concerned. But when the first cases of the outbreak were discovered in Philadelphia, their father drove to the local grocery store and stocked up on can goods, bottled water, and batteries, among other essentials. Enough supplies to last them a month.
They considered calling the oldest sibling, away at college, and having him come home, but in the end decided he was safest on the west coast where he was.
As the crisis worsened, the family moved into the basement. Every night when the kids fell asleep, the parents would sneak upstairs to watch news coverage in order to keep abreast of the latest information, the channel reception in the basement being too sketchy to bring the TV downstairs. And their father was certainly not concerned enough yet to redo the satellite wires.
Every morning when the kids woke up they'd find their parents sleeping next to them.
But one morning, 14-year-old Elizabeth Glasgow woke up to discover her mother absent. Her mother had apparently not come back to the makeshift bed, a lone mattress tossed on the basement floor. She looked over to the mattress on the other side of the room where her 11-year-old brother slept, and he was also alone, their father missing as well.
Lizzy stretched groggily, not too worried. The crisis was probably finally over and her parents had decided to sleep upstairs, but left the kids in the basement rather than having to wake them up.
For so young a child, Lizzy's brother snored with the best of them.
"Brandon," Lizzy called quietly. The boy didn't stir, nor did his snoring falter. "Brandon!" she called more loudly. Still nothing.
Lizzy gave up and decided to let the lazy little shrimp sleep. She stretched again before swinging her feet out from under the warmth of the heavy comforter and into the warmth of her soft slippers.
A single shaft of light stabbed across the room and spotlighted hundreds of fluttering, minuscule particles of dust and other material that would otherwise have gone undetected; tiny ghosts hurled into existence, if only for a moment. A two-inch, unshaped hole of light bore into the far wall about two feet to the left of a light switch that no longer worked.
8 a.m., Lizzy thought.
To alleviate boredom, three days ago Brandon watched a clock and followed the light, marking the wall and eventually the floor every half hour (starting at 7 a.m.) as the day progressed until the light disappeared altogether, just after 1:30 pm, when the sun rose above the house.
The light came through the basement's solitary window arranged high up the basement's east wall. Most of the window was painted over with a dark blue color, the Glasgow's having inherited the paint job when they bought the house. A previous owner had been an amateur photographer and had envisioned turning the basement into a darkroom, an endeavor that was never successful. But the paint remained, save for the small circle that chipped away over time, allowing a young boy to turn a basement into a giant clock—at least for six and a half hours a day.
Lizzy stood from her low perch and crossed the room to the staircase. She made her way up the creaky, wooden stairs and considered stomping on them as she climbed to see if it would wake her brother, but then decided against it. If her parents were making breakfast, she wanted first
choice of the pancakes and bacon.
When she got to the top of the stairs, she found the door double-locked from the inside, with both the lower knob lock and the heftier deadbolt. Strange. How had her parents planned to get back in? Lizzy wondered. They had a key to the deadbolt, but the key to the lower lock was misplaced long ago by the house's previous owner, and Lizzy's father had never gotten around to replacing the lock.
Maybe the locked door explains why they never came back to bed, Lizzy thought. They accidentally locked the door behind them when they left, couldn't get in and decided to wait until morning to re-enter the basement rather than waking us up.
Seemed logical enough, but that meant the outbreak might not be contained, which meant more days down in the basement. Lizzy sighed disgustedly at the thought and unlocked and opened the door.
The first thing Lizzy noticed upon stepping into the hallway was that there was no one in the kitchen (the passageway leading into it was across from the basement door), and she didn't smell the wonderful aromas of breakfast—sizzling bacon, fresh-ground coffee, butter hissing in the skillet. Instead, her senses were attacked with the rancid stench of decaying flesh. Lizzy heaved, but covered her mouth and nose.
The second thing she noticed was the corridor's side table tipped over in front of the case opening leading into the living room, the antique lamp that had sat on it smashed to pieces.
Lizzy walked slowly down the long corridor towards the fallen table. "Mom? Dad?" she asked the stale air.
As she approached the entrance to the living room, although she couldn't see the TV, she could hear a female news reporter on it reporting the latest on the outbreak at a low volume. Not ten minutes ago, the governor of Pennsylvania released a statement declaring the city of Philadelphia to be completely lost. This is incredible, and until recently, unfathomable…
The curtain, normally motionless, whipped into view. As Lizzy stepped over the small, corner table laying across the entrance, she could see why. The large double window was completely shattered into the living room.