by Joseph Xand
And he hoped when they were finished there wouldn't be enough of the man left to come back as one of them.
* * * * *
It took less than two weeks for a part of the outermost of the two fences to collapse. In retrospect, as well planned as their siege of the prison was (even if they lost one of their crew) Thad saw one major miscalculation in their plan. The Hummer and the four-wheelers, rather than immediately driving into the gates once the convoy was safely inside, should have drawn as many of the dead as they could away from the prison. They could have slowly led thousands of corpses miles away before losing them completely and then circling back.
But instead, the dead followed them back to the prison fences. But whereas before the complete horde was spread out somewhat evenly around the entire perimeter, after the siege, most were crowded around the east and north sides, putting more pressure on the fences on those sides than ever before.
Plus they kept coming. New zombies were constantly wandering in from the surrounding countryside, some of them of the faster-moving variety, drawn in from the droning of their undead counterparts. The noise carried enough that Thad could hear it.
Twelve days after they moved in, the people inside were powerless to do anything as the large outer fence gave way on the east side and the dead masses were allowed access to the inner gate for the first time, paying no heed to the bundles of razor wire ripping them to pieces as they advanced.
Realizing the same would eventually happen to the inner fence, the people inside at least had the wherewithal to try and guide pockets of the dead around to other sides in hopes of taking some of the pressure off the north and east sides.
They also tried to strengthen the fences, at least somewhat. They rounded up the remaining vehicles in the parking lot and, either by getting them started or towing them, parked them against the fence in areas where the most dead were gathered.
But still they were only biding their time, and they knew it.
Thad was mixed as to how he felt about that.
Part of him hoped to see them somehow succeed down below, even if their constant presence, drawing in the dead, meant even more work for Thad than ever before. He quieted or disposed of as many as ten corpses a day. He had little time for his own research and spent more time keeping an eye down below than running experiments and testing samples. Work that he knew, even at this late stage, could prove important.
When the people below first moved in, they went to work cleaning away the dead. They piled up the bodies inside the fences into four large pyres and burned them over a period of three days.
As the fires burned, they broke out a half-dozen scythes and at least that many manual push mowers (tools that Thad knew prison staff had kept on hand as punishment for when inmates committed minor infractions; he'd seen them pushing those mowers or swinging those scythes on many occasions) and leveled the grass, starting with the inner courtyard.
Once that was done, several of the women and a couple of the men decided on a plot of land along the south fence and started plowing a garden, although Thad thought it might be a little late in the season to plant much now. But he was no expert in gardening.
Not all of the group were adults. Thad saw children playing and having a good time in the prison's main courtyard for the first time in its history. Women could often be seen leading the children around and holding classes and other activities in the courtyard.
And it's hard not to cheer for children.
All of that seemed perfectly normal, and were these activities all he knew of his new neighbors below, he might be completely inclined to wish them the best.
But what he couldn't get out of his head was what he saw them do immediately after securing themselves inside the gates and quieting the dead inside.
The first thing they did after clearing the yard was to clear the buildings. Groups of men armed to the hilt stormed each building one-by-one. Most of the time the doors would be locked and they'd have to break the door down, a task easier said than done when the doors are of the prison variety.
Prior to going into each building, scouts would make a circuit around the ground floor, banging on doors and peering through windows, to draw out as many of the dead as possible to where they could be seen. They'd then report their findings to the men who would actually be going in. As the men worked to clear one building, the scouts would move to the next building, and so on.
The entire process took about five hours and for the most part was pretty uneventful, at least from Thad's viewpoint. For all he knew, the men had to fight the dead around every corner inside the buildings. But since each man came out unscathed and ready to move on to the next building, Thad felt they were probably meeting with little or no resistance.
But then they entered the cafeteria.
And whereas five men went in, eight came out.
Even with the toll the passage of time took on the men, Thad recognized the three men immediately. Their hair was longer, their faces were bearded and gaunt, and their bodies were emaciated, but they must have been all that remained of the men Thad had seen on the roof of the building many months before.
They were half-carried, half-dragged into the courtyard, and Thad wondered if they could walk at all. They still wore orange prison jumpsuits, but the outfits were torn and discolored. One man's pants were brown and disgusting as if he'd soiled himself repeatedly, lacking the ability or effort to clean himself up.
At the center of the courtyard, their captors dropped them. As the inmates painstakingly worked their way up onto their haunches, people in the courtyard looked in their direction. Everyone, even the children, turned to regard the curiosities.
The group's commander (the man from the Hummer) walked over to his troops who'd pulled them out. He talked with one of his men briefly, then waved a dismissive hand towards the strange men seated before him. His soldier said something that caused the commander to turn towards the watching children. He yelled something to the women tending them that must have been an order to remove the kids from the scene. The women immediately shuffled them into one of the RVs.
Once the children were gone, the commander walked back to where he'd been before. Meanwhile one of his soldiers walked behind the men in the orange jumpsuits and systematically shot each of them in the back of the head.
Not one of the three men fought back, protested, or even flinched.
Their murder was disturbing enough. Disturbing enough to convince Thad that his new neighbors were not to be trifled with.
But what they did next was even more unsettling.
Because they didn't drag the bodies over to one of the piles of the dead to be burned.
They dragged the men's bodies back into the cafeteria.
With the rest of the food.
Chapter 7
I T DIDN'T TAKE TURTLEMAN long to realize it was safest to stick to the woods. He still ran across the occasional zombie wandering through the forest, sometimes even several at once. But he could usually hear them coming a mile away and had plenty of time to hide behind a tree or in bushes.
But one thing he knew he would never do is climb a tree to get away from them. After the incident on the billboard, he didn't want to get himself in a position to get stuck high up again like that.
Sometimes he'd see a zombie at the base of a tree, clawing at the bark like he was trying to climb it looking up at something. Usually, Turtleman didn't see anything. Whatever the zombie was after had likely jumped to another tree long ago, making a covert escape. Lucky bastard.
Once Turtleman saw a zombie on his knees in front of what looked like a rabbit or foxhole or something. The dead guy clawed at the dirt around the hole and reached down into it as far as he could. He'd probably chased something into it. Whatever it was, it was as good as dead if it didn't have a secondary escape route. Even if the zombie never dug deep enough to reach whatever was in the hole, it would never give up trying. The animal would eventually starve to death.
&nb
sp; Turtleman thought that was too funny.
He guessed he could have helped the animal out were he so inclined. After all, hadn't he been saved from a similar fate by a member of the furry community? Turtleman could have distracted the zombie away from the hole, or even killed it.
But in the end he left it alone. Let the little shit fend for itself, he thought.
Turtleman envied those rugged guys on those survival shows before the world ended. The ones where those guys ate berries and insects and stayed "off the grid," whatever that was. If he were like them, he could backpack to the farthest reaches of the wilderness and live off the land, far away from the nearest zombie.
As it was, Turtleman didn't know how to make a fire without matches or a lighter, and even then it took a while to get it going and lots of effort to keep it going. The only food he knew how to catch usually came in a can, and were it not for manual can openers, even that would elude him. He'd more than once had to deal with a bout of poison ivy, and the first one was before he even left his grandmother's house. Before he was, fully and completely, Turtleman.
Because of his poor survival instincts, rather than hiking deep into the forest, he was forced to stay close to its edges. Close to civilization, or what was left of it.
Close to where most of the dead were clustered.
Of course, even if he was one of those survival guys, he probably wouldn't head off into the deep woods. If he did that, he might never find the Reg Rollinses of the world. He'd never be able to pay them back for everything they'd done to him.
He did, at least, try to kill his own food one time. And he learned something when he did.
Squirrels scream.
Recently while taking up residence in a deserted house near the edge of the forest, Turtleman found a pump-action pellet rifle and a box of BBs. Even though he doubted he could use the gun to kill a zombie, he decided it would be fun to take out some of the local wildlife. He discovered, after reading the instructions on how to aim the rifle by sighting down the barrel, he was actually a pretty good shot.
Turtleman set up some empty soda cans on the hood of an abandoned car in the house's backyard, and he was able to hit most of them on the first try from about forty feet away, and most of them dead center.
He liked to imagine he was a military sniper and that the cans were an army of Reg Rollinses. Turtleman sneaked in from different positions. Reg never saw him coming.
Eventually, Turtleman graduated to shooting at grasshoppers and dragonflies and, eventually, birds. As the birds flitted from tree to tree or landed on telephone lines or fences around the house, Turtleman would take aim. He missed them most of the time, and either the sound of the pellet gun or the whizzing of the BB would send the bird flying. But sometimes he wouldn't miss, and the birds would fall to the ground.
Many times, unless Turtleman just happened to nail them with a headshot, they'd still be alive, but too wounded to fly away. He really liked it when that happened. Then he got to walk straight up to them as he loaded in another BB and pumped the rifle. He'd put the muzzle directly to their heads. He'd always try to think of something cool to say right before he ended their misery, but it always came out kind of corny. Not cool like in the movies.
He'd say, "Suck on this, Reg" or "Hey, Reg, who's the queerbait now?" or "Zero Day means zero days left for you…to live" then pull the trigger.
After a while, Turtleman wandered back into the woods behind the house looking for birds up in the trees. Sometimes he'd find nests cradled among the branches, and he'd shoot into them, hoping to surprise birds sleeping inside. Usually, the BBs passed through the nests, the nests apparently unoccupied.
But then, way up near the top of a tall pine tree, Turtleman spied a really big nest. He guessed it must belong to some kind of huge bird, like a hawk or maybe even an eagle.
Turtleman gave the rifle a few more pumps to maximize its power, then flung up the barrel so that he pointed it practically straight up. It hurt his neck and shoulders a little to be in that position, but he ignored the pain and sighted carefully down the barrel, aiming at the middle of the nest.
After steadying a bead on his mark, he pulled the trigger. This time rather than the high-pitched echo he was accustomed to, signifying the BB passing harmlessly through the empty nest, he was surprised to hear a dull thud. Turtleman strained his neck in wonder, staring up at the nest.
For a long moment, nothing happened. He was about to load up another round and pump up the rifle again for another shot.
Suddenly a squirrel burst out of it with a desperate squeal. Turtleman nearly lost his footing and fell when it happened, it scared him so much.
It shot onto a branch adjacent to the one on which the nest rested, ran quickly to the end of it, and then jumped to a branch on a neighboring tree. From there it scurried towards the trunk of the nearest tree and settled down atop the branch, nearly slipping uncharacteristically a couple of times along the way.
Turtleman had followed the squirrel with his eyes as it moved and stared up at the spot where it had stopped as he reloaded the rifle. A couple of times he had to look down at the gun, and he nearly lost sight of the animal every time he did so. Twice he had to bring his eyes back to the nest and recreate the squirrel's route in his mind. He followed the limb the squirrel had run across, retraced its steps until he saw the small animal way up in the tree, camouflaged and huddled among the shadows of the distant branches.
Turtleman raised the rifle again and sighted in the squirrel as best he could. The target wasn't nearly as broad as the nest had been. Most of the squirrel was hidden above the branch it laid on, very little of its body exposed.
He fired off a round and missed completely. He reloaded, and the next shot struck the bottom of the branch. One more shot hit the side of the branch close to the squirrel.
And then the squirrel made a mistake.
It moved over to escape the side of the branch where the BB had struck, exposing more of its body when it did so.
Turtleman loaded the gun again. He took careful aim, pulled the trigger, and was welcomed with another dull thud. The squirrel yelped again. It jumped from its perch, ran up the trunk of the tree, flew across to another branch (but again lacking the grace most expect to see in a squirrel)and leaped onto a new branch of a new tree. This time it almost failed to accomplish the jump. It clung to the branch with its front claws and just managed to pull itself up. It moved to the middle of the branch and lay still.
Once again Turtleman followed its progress. Once again he loaded in a new round and pumped air into the rifle once the squirrel came to rest.
It was easier to see this time, this branch not nearly as thick as the one before.
He only had to take two shots before he hit the squirrel again. And again the squirrel cried out and moved to a different tree.
This went on for some time, with Turtleman hitting the squirrel six times before it finally found refuge on a branch that offered enough cover so that Turtleman couldn't see it at all, much less take aim. He shot around in the general area where he thought the squirrel might be, hoping to startle it into the open, but there was never any indication he'd hit anywhere near the squirrel.
Turtleman was beyond frustrated. He'd tracked the squirrel for nearly an hour by that point, wasting lots of BBs and effort trying to take it down, and for nothing. How many hits can squirrels take? How was it not dead?
Of course, it could die up in the tree, and I'd never know it, he thought. It could be dead now.
And then he heard it.
An ear-splitting wail pierced the otherwise tranquil, idyllic landscape. It sounded like a woman screaming from absolute and irresolvable grief.
Turtleman nearly jumped out of his skin. He ran several paces from the tree before he realized he didn't know which direction would be safest to run, the scream seeming to come from every direction at once. He looked all around, trying to figure out from where the scream had originated.
He had the
urge to run somewhere, anywhere. Then there was another sound, like something stomping through the brush. Something big.
Then he realized the sound was coming from above.
Turtleman looked up to see the squirrel toppling from where it had been hiding far up in the tree, slamming into branches and being tossed different directions as a result. It finally hit one last branch and slapped the ground fifteen feet from where Turtleman stood.
His heart pounding, Turtleman walked up to the squirrel slowly. Its eyes were open, but it was obviously dead. It had bled from several locations. Parts of its body were twisted in ways that shouldn't have been possible.
It took a moment for Turtleman to realize it, but the scream he'd heard had come from the squirrel. A final, anguished outburst of misery and pain before succumbing to death.
Turtleman smiled. "Cool," he said aloud.
* * * * *
At first, Turtleman considered trying to eat the squirrel. He'd heard of eating squirrel meat before, he was pretty sure. He chopped the squirrel up a couple of times with his machete and pushed its innards around with a couple of sticks, but in the end didn't know what was edible and what wasn't. It was all pretty gross, that much he knew. He nearly threw up when he was poking around at it. Finally, he decided to just leave it. He wasn't that in need of food.
Not yet.
More than anything he wondered about the scream. Was it a one-time thing, or do all squirrels make that sound when they die? Maybe if they die slow and suffering?
Turtleman intended to find another squirrel among the trees and find out.
He moved deeper into the woods, keeping his head high and scanning for movement up in the branches of the pines. Many times he nearly tripped, not watching where he was going. A couple of times he found more nests about the same size and elevation as the one the squirrel had been in, but any BBs he shot into them passed straight through, indicating their emptiness.