Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “I’ll put it away when I’m finished.”

  “I think you finishing,” I tell him, “is what Billings is worried about.”

  “My hands are on the table. I’m not doing anything.”

  “I would hope not.”

  “Get rid of it,” Billings insists.

  “No.”

  “Get rid o—“

  There’s the crack of rifle shot. We all freeze, everyone statue still and staring at Simmons’ walkie sitting in the middle of the table. Tense seconds go by but everything is pure silence. There should be the call of all clear on the walkie or something signifying the threat is down, but there’s nothing.

  Suddenly another crack, followed by two more. Another sounds but this one is farther away. It’s coming from the north, up near the resort. The men around me leap out of their chairs. They run for the door, each of them grabbing a rifle from a gun locker in the corner. I stay where I’m at, feeling awkward and useless.

  “Come on, Laz,” Billings yells at me as he rushes past. He slaps me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me out of my chair.

  I don’t have to be told twice.

  We rush out into the dark. It’s well past midnight at this point. I should be asleep. I should be tired at the very least but what I am is jazzed up, adrenaline coursing through me and pumping hard in my heart with each step I run. We head for the western edge of the plateau that looks out over the gently rolling landscape toward the mountains. They’re the same mountains I was living in just a week ago, back when I still had my hand, but even with that I couldn’t honestly say I was happier. I wouldn’t pay for the life I have here and now with that hand, but since I’m already here I’m not going to say it isn’t better. It’s definitely more exciting and much less terrifying. I know we’re running out here because there are zombies on the horizon, but that threat packs less of a punch when you know that between you and them there’s a sturdy fence and at least ten well trained people with guns.

  “How many?” Alvarez demands.

  There’s a muffled answer from a woman with a rifle sighted.

  “What?” he asks, his tone sharpening.

  She breathes out loudly, pauses, then takes the shot. I can’t see out there in the darkness. Past the dull lights of the town there’s only faint moonlight that does little to illuminate the uneven landscape.

  “Hit. Nice,” someone calls out to the woman.

  I look over to see a guy I can’t recognize in the dark scanning the distance with what must be night vision binoculars.

  “I said,” the woman answers as she turns to face Alvarez, “there’s too many.”

  I’m shocked to find it’s Gabrielle, the same woman I saw only yesterday lounging with a romance novel. Now here she stands with a rifle in her hand and an infected dead on the ground with her bullet in its eye.

  “Too many for what?”

  “For dinner. Where will we find the extra place settings?”

  “Come on,” he mutters in irritation.

  “Too many for us to shoot. We’d be here all night and they’d still keep coming. They’ll press the fences.”

  “She’s right,” Billings grumbles, a pair of binoculars at his eyes. “It’s a swarm. Even with the daylight we’d be screwed.”

  “Great,” Alvarez mutters.

  More gunfire erupts in the night around us. I hear walkies crackle to life as the same conclusion they’ve reached here comes over the line from the resort. A swarm is advancing. There are too many to handle.

  Billings lowers his binoculars to look at Alvarez. Based on the grim tone he took a moment ago, I’m surprised to his face bright with excitement.

  “We’ve gotta call it in, right? This is it.”

  Alvarez stares at him blankly for five long seconds. During that time, Billings never stops looking like a kid on Christmas morning. Finally Alvarez sighs lightly and nods once.

  “Call it in.”

  “Hell yeah!” Billings shouts, reaching for his walkie.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  Gabrielle grins at me. “We’re going to see some fireworks.”

  Billings speaks to whoever is in the radio room and it’s not long before we hear a loud cheer erupt over the walkies. Apparently everyone is excited for whatever is coming.

  Ten minutes pass during which time more and more infected head our way. They aren’t at the fences, not yet, but it’s getting a little close for comfort. Eventually Billings walks back over, but his excitement is dying out. He actually looks a little angry.

  “They have a condition,” he tells Alvarez.

  “I can imagine what that would be.”

  “Want to wager a guess?”

  “How many?”

  “At least three. More if we can.”

  Alvarez shakes his head with annoyance. “It’s not a lot but it’s more than I like letting get that close.”

  “They want to do pick up at first light.”

  “Son of a—“ Alvarez runs his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, Matheson.”

  She shrugs. “You don’t have to be a gentleman on my account. It’s crap. I know it.”

  “Is this about the live zombie they want?” I ask.

  “Plural. Z’s,” Alvarez explains calmly, his composure back in place. “The docs want three right now. We’re supposed to let that many in up against the fences and they’ll take care of the rest.”

  “The fireworks?”

  “Boom,” Billings says quietly, mimicking an explosion with his hands over the western horizon. “Problem solved.”

  “But we have to let three get in close first?”

  Alvarez nods. “Right up against the fence.”

  “I’ve got two now!” someone calls out.

  “Do you have genders?”

  “Two females. One’s a kid.”

  “We’ve gotta wait for a male. If you get any more women, shoot them.”

  “You got it.”

  Billings gets on his walkie. “Day Spa, whatcha got?”

  “No one on the fence yet. Over,” the response crackles over. The professionalism of the answer makes me certain this is a different crew than I heard before.

  More minutes tick by. As they do, more infected creep closer. I can hear the sounds. They’re carrying up over the barren landscape uninterrupted. It’s like a low hum that vibrates to my core. I hate it.

  Gun fire sounds from up north. A few people from the plateau fire as well but no one speaks. There’s no point.

  Suddenly the walkies explode to life.

  “Day Spa to Crow’s Nest! We’ve got a male. Repeat, we have a male Z on the fence!”

  “Billings!” Alvarez calls.

  “Already on it.”

  There’s a brief exchange from Billings on a private channel on the walkie, then silence. Everything is quiet except for the occasional chirp of a cricket from far off and the relentless hum drawing nearer. A gunshot cracks the night nearby.

  “Save it!” Alvarez calls out. “They’re coming.”

  Suddenly I near a new hum. This one is more rhythmic. More of a thumping. It starts from the southeast. Thump. Thump. Thump. The undeniable beating of a choppers prop can mean only one thing.

  The Calvary has been called.

  I don’t see it in the air but I track it anyway, somehow able to feel it as it moves. In this dead silence in the deep darkness, my hearing is my best friend and it pulls me toward the sound of the helicopter with intense eagerness. I’m holding my breath as it approaches the west side of the plateau where the swarm is approaching. I can feel tension and anticipation rolling off everyone around me. My heart is slamming wildly in my chest, my pulse is out of control, my right arm aching in time with the beat.

  Then the night explodes. Fire erupts in the distance and we watch in awe as it branches out, engulfing everything it can get its long, leaching tendrils on. It breathes in the dark, pulling the night inside of itself to consume it and burn brighter and hotter. It feels like
the air is sucked from the world for one long moment as the fire breathes it in to expand its chest wide over the plains. For a second, I wonder if I see them. The infected. I wonder if I can make out the swarm as the light of the fire races toward each of them to devour them. The night explodes in a cacophony of sound, sight and smell.

  The smoke hits us first from this bird’s eye view high up on the hill. Then the rising heat. The boom of the explosives, the crackle of the flames. Then the smell. The god-awful, gut wrenching smell wafts up over us in a cloud of visible horror. I’m reminded immediately of the day Ali Tasered the infected and the horrible stench that burned my nose and memory for days. This is that a thousand fold. I would take the Taser smell over this. I’d happily relive the Taser moment every day for the rest of my life if I could avoid ever smelling the scent I’m ingesting now. It enters my nose and I can taste it on my tongue and before I can stop it I’m vomiting. My meager dinner is at my feet and I’d love to say I feel better but I don’t. I’m heaving, pulling in deep breaths that smell, taste and feel like rotting, burning death.

  Everyone around me begins to cough. I hear more vomiting and I’m glad I’m not alone. I don’t hear any cheering now. No jubilation, no demands for an encore. It’s not what they thought it would be, but revenge seldom is. More often than not, it’s exactly this; ugly.

  There’s gagging going on everywhere and still the fire burns. It consumes what’s left of the dead. Of the undead. Of the second dead. This is what wrong smells like. This is what unholy, unnatural, impossible second life burning to ash on the dust of the earth smells like. My eyes water as I listen to the new rushing hum of flames at work in the distance and I wonder when it will end.

  When dawn arrives we see the aftermath. Our own vomit on the ground. The black smoke curling lazily into the amber glowing sky. The brush fires still burning low and slow. Black, charred remains shriveled to nearly nothing, certainly nothing human, burn with red embers like coals in a fireplace. There’s no one left to stoke them to flames, to urge them to burn. Everyone’s capacity for the macabre has been met and exceeded for the day. Maybe for forever.

  We receive news from all over the town and resort that people on the ground were engulfed in a black cloud of smothering smoke from the explosion. The smell had the same effect on everyone down below only far worse. Some people are still sick from it and probably will be for quite a while. Buildings are being opened up to air out, people are flocking to far corners of the fences to try and escape the smell and the hospital is being swarmed because of its high quality, medical grade air filtration system. The smell is there but it’s not nearly as bad.

  “It’s a hell of a way to wake up,” Kyle tells me.

  He’s rubbing his bleary, red eyes as we stand in line for breakfast. I don’t go down here without him or one of the other armed members of the plateau. The gym is one thing, I’m alone and I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough and fast enough to out maneuver someone who jumps me. But these crowded areas are trouble. It’s easy to get shanked by someone in these close quarters. I’m starting to wonder if life actually is easier here on the inside or if I simply traded one enemy for another. At least with zombies I knew they wanted to kill me and I was allowed to kill them first. In here I’m hamstringed by morality. I’m not allowed to stab that woman in the eye just because she glared at me. I can’t take a crowbar to that guy’s temple for muttering that I’m a freak as he walked past. Is it wrong that that’s my first instinct? Slaughter? Probably, but we are products of our environment and lately mine has been markedly murderous.

  “I imagine,” I agree with him, salivating over the pile of pancakes in front of us. Then a door opens and the smell wafts into my nostrils again. My appetite is lost. “Do you have to play round up today?”

  He takes a long time answering. I worry he’s scared. That he’s afraid to go out there and wrangle zombies with no permission to kill them. No lie, I’d be afraid. But when I glance at him I see him doing exactly what I did. He’s staring with sad eyes at the pancakes sitting golden brown and warm. Perfectly beautiful but completely inedible.

  “Maybe there’s toast,” I suggest.

  He nods glumly, casts one last longing look at the pancakes and moves on.

  “Yeah, I have to go outside the fence to help bring the Zs in.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Nah. I’ve been out there with these guys before. It’ll be fine. We’ve got nets and guns and all kinds of tricks. We’ll set some Wile E. Coyote type trap and bring the things in.”

  “Are you bringing them in here?” I ask, shocked.

  “No, no,” he says hurriedly. “I mean ‘in’ as in to the drop point. The guys on the other side will come riding in on their helicopter, dressed in hazmat suits with big cages. They’ll take them one by one back home to base to be dissected.”

  “And there’s a kid?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he blurts out, his voice turning hard.

  I nod silently in understanding. He doesn’t want to talk about it for the same reason I felt the need to mention it. It’s messed up.

  We eat a quiet breakfast of toast and dry cereal in a far corner of the cafeteria. No one bothers us. People barely even glance at us. I thought that with the reminder of three infected being allowed to press against the fence that people would be all up in arms about removing me from the town, that they would feel like I was a piece of the outside allowed in, but it’s done the opposite. Real zombies creating a true threat has slipped me to the back burner. I could get used to this. We should have infected threating to breach the walls more often.

  After breakfast Kyle heads off to meet with the team that will go outside with him. They have to gear up with protective wear, guns, ropes, nets, knives – the list is endless. It’ll take them half the morning to get ready, like a kid trying to go outside and play in the snow. Takes him hours to put together the cumbersome gear that he’ll only wear for twenty minutes.

  I leave Kyle to it and head for my new bed that I’ve yet to use. I’ve been up for over twenty-four hours and it’s starting to get to me. I’m listing slightly to the left when I walk and my eyes are burning and droopy. It’s when I collapse onto my bed and start to worry I’ll have my nightmare that I realize I haven’t sent word to my parents yet. I haven’t added my name to the list of the living or Beth’s to the list of the lost. I intended to. I truly meant to and when I wake up I will. I vow to myself that I’ll get it done. I’ll get that closure. But for now I’m already halfway gone to REM and I’m too confused and tired to put the right names on the right list.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  When I wake up I find it’s twelve hours later. I don’t normally sleep that long unless I’m sick but considering the night’s events, maybe I qualify. I check in with the guys in the tents, a different group than I’m used to working with, and find that that crew who went out to collect the Zs aren’t back yet. It’s dark outside but no one seems concerned. Last anyone heard on the walkie was that they had tagged and bagged two and were making the drop on the second one. They have the male left to go back for, the one farthest away in the north by the resort, then they’ll deliver him and head back in. It’s a long, meticulous process, one I’m glad I’m not part of.

  I decide to catch a shower, some food and go find Alissa. She’ll be at work again in the hospital by now but maybe I can snag her for just a second. Just long enough to look her in the eyes and see that she’s alright. As I head for the road leading down off the plateau, I eye the radio room. I should go there. I should tell them to add mine and Beth’s names to the lists but I can’t do it yet. I want to, I intend to do it, but I can’t bring myself to have that talk with someone right now. I don’t know who’s in there and I kind of want to wait until it’s someone I know. Someone like Gabrielle who might keep it quiet if I lose myself in there. Or she might pillow talk it to Kyle, I don’t know. I can’t know anything for sure.

  Once I’m clea
n and fed I head out across town to the hospital. I’m breathing in the newly clear night air and feeling grateful for small favors. My dinner didn’t taste like stale death. It’s a good thing to be thankful for.

  “She’s not here, sweetheart,” Adel, an older RN calls out to me when I enter the hospital.

  She’s sitting behind a small desk shuffling papers. She barely looked up when I came in. She’s one of the women who was on rotation watching out for me when I was hurt. I usually saw her through a pain and drug fueled haze but I remember her wrinkled hands being kind and gentle.

  “She’s not working tonight?”

  “No, she’s working. She and Leah were called out to the quarantine tent for the night. They’ve got those boys out there gathering Zs and they’ll all need to be cleaned and quarantined when they get back. Leah and Alissa went to lend a hand.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling surprised. It doesn’t sit well with me having her out there near the fences. I don’t like the idea of her being so close to people coming back in either. People who might try to hide a fever, something I can understand. But when it puts Ali at risk I don’t understand anything but anger. “Do you think it’d be alright—“

  “Go,” she answers without looking up from her paperwork. “That girl is not going to be angry to see you of all people.”

  “I don’t know if other people will be so happy to see me.”

  She looks up at me now, her brow pinched. “And what do you care what ‘other people’ think?”

  “I don’t want to cause trouble for her.”

  Adele laughs. “Jordan, these are not times to be pussy footing around trying to make other people happy. Do you want to see your girl?”

  I smile. “Yes.”

  “And I promise you, your girl wants to see you. So what are you going to do?”

  I lean over the desk quickly, kiss her cheek and turn to run out the door.

  “There you go, getting fresh and starting trouble,” she calls after me. “Good for you, sweetheart!”