by Lowry, Chris
I was surprised there weren't more.
“We cleared them,” Jamal said when I asked.
“All of them?”
He nodded.
“A lot of people left during the evacuation, but Byron said if we wanted to be safe we had to eliminate the zombies from town. It's what the patrol guards did.”
If the little punk hadn't kidnapped Hannah, I'd have to admire the prick. He sounded smart, and capable if he could rein in two dozen plus children, which was akin to herding cats. And he eliminated all the threats to his little kingdom by running off or running down potential risks.
“Are you taking notes on this?” I asked Brian.
“On what?”
“What this kid did. When you find Fort Deux, you're going to need to do the same thing.”
“Kidnap kids and kill adults?”
He had a point. I didn't expect him to be as ruthless as Byron, but maybe that's the kind of leader this new world called for. I wondered for a moment if Brian was capable of becoming that type of leader. Ruthless. Heartless. Remorseless.
“What?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“If you want to keep the people in your fort safe, you're going to defend it.”
“Got it,” he pretended to write in a notebook on his hand using his other finger as a pen. “Rules of negotiation. Don't.”
Maybe Brian wanted to be a leader, but he couldn't. Or maybe this kids style of leadership had just worked here, and Brian's would work someplace else, a more utopian type environment.
But I did make note myself of how Byron negotiated.
Ask.
Once.
Then respond in force to enforce your will.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“This is going to sound like a weird question,” I told Brian. “But did you tell him about me?”
“I expect nothing but weird questions from you, and no, you did not come up in the course of conversation. Of course the conversation went something like, “Get out.” “No.” Fireball, so I didn't get the chance to mention you.”
“Good,” I said and turned my look on Jamal. “What about it kid? Do they know about me? That you went to get reinforcements?”
He squirmed then. I could see it in a tightening of the skin around his eyes, the shift from foot to foot.
“What is it?” I pushed.
“I've been wondering why the two other boys ain't been back yet?” he licked his lips and looked away. “I found you, but they would have made the tripwires by now and seen you didn't go any of those ways.”
“Spies?” Brian asked.
“Byron didn't do that before,” he shrugged.
“Then what?”
“Just funny. The timing you know. Like they was safe in the cars so the zombies couldn't get in at them, but they ain't back yet. Funny.”
“Not ha ha funny,” sighed Brian.
“Not at all,” I added. “But do they know you went to get reinforcements?”
The eighteen-year-old shook his head then and made eye contact. No squirreliness there to make me wonder, and if it was a poker face a damn good one.
“You thinking distraction?” Brian whispered.
I looked over his shoulder at the school grounds. The four buildings were set back from the fence line. by a good hundred feet and the land around the school was open and clear. It had been built in what once was a pasture, probably. Cleared land that was easy to access through a long drive, no woods or other buildings to use for cover to sneak up to it.
A full-frontal assault, direct and decisive wasn't going to work on this place.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe more than one.”
Brian settled down on his haunches and I joined him. The others followed until we were all huddled around a square Brian scrawled in the dirt.
I pointed to the front gate.
“Harriet, Peg, Jamal, here. Talk to them.”
“They're going to freak out when they see I come back,” the boy stuttered.
“That's the idea. Get them freaking out.”
“Byron usually tells them to shoot when they freaking. Says it calms the nerves and solves the problem.”
Damn I kind of liked this Byron kid. I mean I was probably going to have to kill him if he didn't give up Hannah without a fight, but I liked the way he thought. If I wasn't afraid he'd slit our throats while we slept, I'd invite him to join us.
Looking at the school and the defense around it, I thought maybe he was better off not joining.
“Do they have rifles?”
“A couple.”
“Are they good shots?”
“It's Georgia man. We get guns put in one hand and a bottle in the other in the crib.”
“But they'll wonder why you're back?”
Those shoulders bounced up and down again.
“Yeah, they'll wonder.”
“So get them to come out and ask. Without freaking out.”
“How?”
“I'll think of something,” Harriet sniffed.
It was her first words since before lunch. Mother's grief.
“Just get them focused on you,” I said. “Brian, you and Anna are gonna come in on this side.”
I pointed to the side of the square that was not quite hidden by the buildings. Brian nodded, getting it.
“It looks like a sneak attack.”
“The idea is they're going to focus on Peg and Hannah, and think you and Anna are trying to sneak in. All eyes up front.”
“You're going in the back door.”
“Where would they keep her?” I asked Jamal.
“We're really only staying in the one building,” he bent down and sketched the four buildings in the dirt, rough childlike scrawls and squiggly lines.
“This one,” he pointed to the one in the rear. “It's got the cafeteria, an assembly hall, and class rooms on the second floor we turned into dorm rooms.”
“Byron sounds pretty organized,” I was thinking.
“He is. He says he's been thinking about something like this for a long time. Planned it even, what he would do just in case of. He's got notebooks of stuff he wrote down and drew.”
Smart kid with a plan.
I was starting to not like this idea.
Hannah sniffed.
It reminded me there was a kid involved. A kid who needed my help. Family. So I took all the second guessing and doubts and shoved them down deep to fuel the rage and tried to think of one thing.
How dare he.
How dare this little punk try to hurt my family.
How dare this little twerp burn down our house.
How dare he tell us to leave.
How dare he kidnap my charge, my responsibility.
I reached down, erased the drawing in the dirt and sent the others to their positions.
I was going to show him what daring was really about.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first distraction worked. As soon as Jamal, Peg and Harriet stepped onto the road and started walking toward the gate, children streamed out of the buildings and walked down to meet them.
Jamal had said close to thirty kids, so I counted twelve in the committee to greet them, with four more back by the building watching five smaller kids.
That left roughly ten somewhere inside counting Hannah.
I had no doubt some of those were watching now. Maybe with rifles, just like me, peering through scopes or sights and moving from potential target to potential target. I hoped they wouldn't take a shot at Brian and Anna. I scanned the windows searching for glare or flash, but I didn't see any, nor did I see any shadows or open panes.
I saw Brian move out of the tree line on the far side of the campus and that was my cue. I shouldered my rifle and began running.
I gave Brian and Peg the pikes Anna and I made to replace the ones they lost in the fire, and gave up my pistol to Brian so he would be armed as well. They had left everything behind in the house burning down, which pissed me of
f because we had found good weapons, and a ton of food that literally went up in smoke.
I blamed Byron for that.
Someone needed to give that kid a spanking. Burning up good food after the end of the world. What was he thinking?
I wished for the pike now as two of the Z on the fence line. saw me moving and began to follow. I'd be able to avoid one, but the other was going to be where I needed to cross over, a junction of brick column that served to support the long uninterrupted back fence.
I pulled the nine inch buck knife I had lifted off a mad General in Florida and held it ready. I hated letting the Z get this close because one bite and I'd have to eat a bullet, but I still had on long sleeves, thick heavy fabric that should resist biting. My hands were exposed so I was going to have to be careful.
I let it get closer and started to gag.
It smelled like dead rotting flesh, wrapped in a methane sulphur cloud and wearing a skunk ass as a necklace.
I suddenly wasn't afraid it was going to bite me, I was afraid I would pass out from the stench. I gagged, held back vomit and tried to stay in focus despite my watering eyes.
It came into reach and I jabbed with the blade, the tip going through the eyeball with a wet plop and releasing a stench ten times worse than the funk around it's body. I did throw up then, the tomato soup mixing with the black blood and gore on the fallen Z.
I just tried to do it quietly.
After a moment, I wiped my mouth and crawled up the back of the fence, dropping down on the other side.
So far so good.
If they had snipers, this is when they would take their shot. I jogged across the grounds to the back of the building and made my way to the side door. It was locked. I thought about bashing it open, but the school had built the doors for the same reason the fence existed. To keep the uninvited out.
Byron made a good choice.
I crept around the side of the building and watched the backs of two young kids looking through the archway at the activity beyond. They were smiling and pointing, and I knew Brian and Anna had been spotted.
I wished we had radios so I could tell them to turn back, but the plan was for them to reach the fence line. and seeing that there was no way in, go join Peg's group up front.
If no one shot them.
The kids were distracted.
I slipped past them and in through one open door to a school hallway lined with lockers. They were blue against the white walls, and I noticed this was home of the Panthers. I wondered if that's what the group called themselves, or if they used some other more militaristic name, something Byron scribbled down after a wet dream or something.
There were four doors off the hall, two to either side and a set of double doors on the far end. I peeked through the windows as I passed the doors into empty rooms on one side, and an assembly hall on the other that stretched to a dark stage.
The double doors in back opened into the cafeteria.
Hannah huddled with a group of small children, holding them close. She looked up and burst into tears.
There was no guard, no one to stop me from taking her.
“You came,” she sobbed.
“Let's get out of here,” I reached for her arm.
She fell into mine and hugged me. The children watched her, and on seeing her tears welled up themselves. Hannah extracted herself from my arms and began to comfort and quiet them.
“I can't go,” she whispered. “You have to get out of here.”
“Of course you can go,” I answered and glanced over my shoulder. If a couple of older kids came through the door it was a turkey shoot. They had straight lines of sight right to me and I didn't think they would care about the innocent lives behind the doors.
“Do you know what's going on here?” she whispered again and nodded her head toward the far end of the cafeteria. “This guy is a maniac.”
“That's why I'm getting you out.”
“I can't. We have to save these kids.”
I lifted the rifle and began to move toward the room she had indicated. I had hoped to just sneak her out of the back door, but if we were going to turn it into a full on rescue mission it looked like Byron and a few of his boys were going to have to go.
Hannah reached out for my arm and held me stay.
“Not like that,” she shook her head. “I can do it. I can get us out. I just need an extra day or two.”
I studied her eyes then as she looked up at me. Blue ice colored eyes under a serious face, too beautiful to belong in this world, and the lines on her brow from seeing things a kid should only hear about as tall tales and legends.
Would I trust my daughter this much? What would I tell her Mom?
I was sent to get her out and the little teenage dictator holding her hostage was in my way.
I shook off her arm but she grabbed it again and held tighter.
“Please,” she said. “We don't have time. Wait.”
What do kids know?
She was asking me to give her time to find a peaceful solution, but it wasn't a peaceful world. Or maybe she had a plan, and I was going to blow it all to hell.
Byron seemed to have a safe way figured out, and was doing just fine. Maybe the kids knew something adults didn't.
I nodded, leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“One day,” I whispered. “Front gate tomorrow at sunset.”
She nodded.
“If you're not there, it all comes down.”
She heard it in my voice and it made her shiver. It almost made me shiver because I knew how serious I was.
I went back out the way I came in and I don't think anyone saw me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You did what!”
Harriet slugged me. I didn't see it coming and it caught me high on the cheekbone. I fumbled back and plopped on my ass in front of Brian, Jamal, Anna and Peg. We were back in the clearing in the woods after I collected them from the front gate with a whistle in the woods.
It let the kids at the gate know there was at least one more person in our group, and I hated to give them that info, but it was our prearranged signal.
I could see Harriet wanted to ask about Hannah as soon as they stepped into the shadows of the trees, but I motioned her to silence as we trekked back to camp.
I put the back of my hand to my face and winced.
“Why?” she screamed.
“I did what she asked me to do,” I pushed myself up off the ground and dusted off my hands.
She took another swing, and I blocked this one with the flat of my arm while Brian and Peg wrestled her away.
“You just left her there? Do you know what they could be doing to her? She's just a little girl! That's the only reason we brought you back, to save her and you can't even do that.”
“Harriet,” Brian said and she burst into tears.
“You were supposed to save her,” she sobbed.
Peg steered her to the far side of the camp and hugged her as they whispered things into each others ears. Consoling things I hoped. It's going to be okay things. Not the we'll shoot him when he turns his back sort of things.
She looked that mad.
Anna reached up and ran a gentle finger down my cheek.
“That's going to leave a mark.”
“She knocked you on your ass,” Jamal grinned.
“Happens to the best of us,” I shrugged. I could feel the skin starting to swell around my cheek and eye.
“Wish we had some frozen peas,” Brian studied the wound with Anna.
“Wish we had some beer,” I sighed, thinking of the pastor and his row after row of beer. It'd be warm, but I could pretend I was in Britain at least.
“Let's move back to the bank,” I said and grabbed the pack and rifle.
“This is a good place to camp,” said Brian.
“Yeah, but if they come at us, I want solid walls between us and them, not strings.”
“Wire,” he scoffed.
&nbs
p; “Might as well be strings to bullets. Walls stop bullets.”
I didn't want to tell them I preferred a counter between me and Harriet, at least for the night, and maybe even the vault. I knew how angry I get as a Dad, and Mom's have the whole bear cub maternity thing I didn't want to come close to crossing.
The others gathered their meager belongings and we made the short hike back to the bank. I had Anna and Jamal do a quick walk around to check that we were alone and no Z had set up shop in the lengthening shadows since we were there earlier.
It was clear.
I let Brian build a small fire in the corner of the room and set up in the vault like I planned and joined the others when they had finished cooking more soup.
“I could get real tired of this,” Brian smacked his lips.
Harriet sipped her can in silence.
“Here's the plan. I saw Hannah in the cafeteria but she wouldn't come with me. She wanted to rescue the other kids,” at this I glanced at Jamal. “Are they there against their will?”
He shrugged.
“Were you?”
“Byron's got a way of talking man,” Jamal lowered his head. “Most of us were alone, but some of them were with adults. The adults were convinced to leave the kids behind.”
“He killed them.”
“No, I don't think so.”
“I'm a father Jamal. We don't leave our kids behind.”
“You did,” Harriet spat. “Twice. Three times now.”
“Harriet stop,” Peg said but it was too late. The words were out there.
“You left your kids to die in Arkansas, and lost another in Florida and now you've left mine.”
I didn't see my face when I stood up, but I saw their faces when I stood up. I saw them all flinch away, saw it through a sea of red rage. Jamal fumbled for his pistol. Maybe he planned to shoot me, maybe he was just trying to keep me from hurting anyone else.
I put the tip of my hiking boot on his hand and pressed down, hard enough that he cringed and cried out, but nothing was broken.