by TW Brown
“Were they from that camp?” I asked.
“Nope, we got eyes on that camp. They have not been back inside the walls for quite a while. Kept losing too many foot patrols for some mysterious reason.” That last statement was greeted by a few titters from his group.
There was a long silence that began to become more than a little uncomfortable. The other two members of Cricket’s little band had removed their head gear. Both were men. One of them looked to be about Melissa’s age, maybe close to forty. He had a nasty scar on his face, but it did not look like a bite. It was more like a burn. The skin of his right cheek was all lumpy and puckered. He had dark brown hair that was turning gray, and his eyes could not seem to find any one place to settle. We made eye contact once and he almost looked embarrassed by it.
The other guy was perhaps in his twenties. He was Hispanic and I could see the hint of a tattoo peeking above the neckline of his jacket. His black hair was buzzed down to just stubble, and he had an oddly well-trimmed beard. I say oddly because they all looked like they were living in the wilderness where things like shaving or trimming a beard to such precision takes time and a few minutes in front of a mirror. He smiled when we made eye contact and now it was my turn to blush just a little as I realized that I had been staring. He was perhaps the most attractive man I think I have ever seen in my life.
“We should be going,” I blurted, catching just the hint of a smile on the man’s face as I took one more look before forcing my eyes to tear away from him.
“Rodrigo!” Cricket snapped. “Quit it!”
“Quit what?” the young man asked in confusion.
“Put your damn hat back on, you’re getting the young lady all twitterpated.” Cricket winked at me and made me blush so hard that I felt like my ears might catch on fire if this continued.
“Thalia? Are you okay?” I heard Kayla ask over the rushing of blood echoing in my ears and my thudding heart that had somehow moved up to my throat instead of staying in my chest where it belonged.
“F-f-fine,” I managed. I hopped from the porch and turned to face Cricket. “I would love to stay for a while, but I have to get going. I need to make some observations and then report back.”
“Oh my!” Cricket laughed. “Girly, you are perhaps the worst liar I have ever seen in my life. If I ever get the old gang back together for our regular poker night, I absolutely must invite you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Even I heard how fast I was talking. The lie was leaping from my tongue and waving its arms for everybody to see.
“Please tell me you and this other young lady are not out here by yourselves?” Cricket jumped down beside me and leaned down to where he could look me in the eyes.
I wanted to tell him that the rest of my group was around someplace, but I knew that he would see through me. While I did not have to actually tell him everything, I felt that maybe I could share part of my reason for being here.
“A couple of us got captured by those people.” I hiked a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the sprawling camp. “We got away, but there is concern that she might try to hunt us down and attack. I was just trying to check and see if they showed any signs of coming after us.”
“You escaped from that place?” Nat asked, sounding impressed.
“I had help,” I said, deciding that I was still being truthful enough that I would not give myself away.
Cricket seemed to consider my words for a moment. At last, he clapped his hands together and stood up. “Okay, kids, we should move along. It is obvious that this girl don’t want our help. Trust is a thing earned more than given. She don’t want us meddling in her business.”
I looked around and saw shrugs, but nothing much more than that as the four fell in and began to follow Cricket away. I looked at Kayla for any clue as to what she felt and got nothing but a raised eyebrow.
“Wait!” I called.
Cricket turned around and motioned for the others to stop. He said something to Rodrigo and then broke away from them to return to where I was still trying to figure out exactly what I was doing.
For better or worse, I took a gamble and told most of the story to the old man. I left out little things like how I had actually run away to do this and that it would be very probable that somebody might come looking for me since it would not be a mystery as to where I had run off.
Cricket was silent for several seconds. I looked over at Kayla and saw that she was not entirely pleased with my revealing all that I had to these strangers. Then I scanned the faces of Cricket’s little team who had strolled up during my account. They appeared to be interested in what the old man might say and kept glancing back and forth between me and him.
“I guess we know what we will be doing today, kids,” Cricket finally said, rubbing his hands together for emphasis. “We will need to be extra careful. That group over yonder is nothing to take lightly. We already seen how they done our people. And I still ain’t heard good reasons one way or the other to make me believe them folks is here for any reason but to take what ain’t theirs. This Suzi woman is feeding you a yarn, pure and simple. She rolled into this valley and destroyed everything that she saw fit to mow down. The smaller communities were not her target. She wants Island City. We got walls and farms and proper houses. Hell, even gots a power grid once somebody that knows how to fix it can come in and take care of the damage.”
“So what do you suggest?” Kayla asked. “You seem to be all fired up to do something, let’s hear your plan.”
Cricket smiled and gave Kayla a wink. “You are a spunky one, I’ll give ya that much.” He turned back to me. “You say that terrible noise we heard was something they did to lure the zombie mob away?”
“Yep, they had noisemakers. A bunch of them went out on horses and actually changed the path the zombies were taking. Led them south, back down the valley and away from La Grande,” I explained.
“Well then, seems to me like we need to bring them back, only, we gotta do it in such a way that they won’t be able to just send out a few people on horseback. If we plan this right, we can split that herd into smaller groups. Once we do that, we bring those groups in from different sides. If they use the noisemakers, it will only serve to lure in some or all of the other groups.”
It sounded like a good idea. The only problem that I saw with it was how we would manage such a feat. We would have to get close to that herd for one thing, and that was not something I was all that excited to do. Then there was the whole thing about trying to split the herd into smaller groups and bring them along until they were positioned just so.
Cricket had already come back to the porch and tossed his knapsack on it so he could rummage through it. Eventually he produced a very worn and tattered looking map. He unfolded it and spread it for us to see. It was hand drawn, but I could tell that great pains had been taken to ensure that it was not only detailed, but very accurate.
He showed us where everything was in relation to our current position. He traced a path with his finger in the direction that the zombie herd had been taken. The land to the southeast had all been farms way back in the old days.
“Seems likely that they will move along the La Grande-Baker Highway. Zombies ain’t much in the way of brains, but they are a lot like electricity and follow the path of least resistance,” Cricket explained. “If we can break them up into smaller groups, we can actually come in from the north and the south. The hard part will be keeping that group moving up from the south from getting too far away. This will rely on timing, and without any form of communication, that will be tricky at best.”
“Bicycle.” Rodrigo stepped up and I felt my heart do a flip in my chest as he placed a hand on my shoulder to make room and squeeze in. “If one of us travels with each team and has a bicycle ready, we can give updates.”
“Something moving like that is bound to draw attention,” Cricket warned. “It ain’t like runnin’ in the shadows or the tall grass. Whoever does that
will have to be using the roads. How do we know that Suzi woman ain’t got patrols out there?”
“They have horses,” I finally managed to say once I found a drop of saliva in my mouth.
“Horses are easy to spot, plus, they make noise. A good bicycle is pretty quiet,” Rodrigo insisted.
“So I take it you are one of the volunteers,” Cricket said, and then turned to the others. “Who else thinks they can do this?”
There was a moment of silence, and I saw Nat start to open her mouth, but Kayla blurted, “I’ll do it.”
Now it was my turn to give dirty looks. She and I needed to stay together. We still did not know how we could rescue Jackson. And if we were going to bring in a herd of zombies, then getting him out was even more important. It would be like I was putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
“Well then we best get a move on. The more we talk, the further away them walkers get.” Cricket turned to me. “You and I will pick teams. You go first.”
Pick teams? I thought. This wasn’t some sort of game. My friend’s life was at stake. Still, if he was willing to help, and since I did not have a better plan, I guess I would have to make do with what I had at my disposal.
Also, beggars can’t be choosers. I was not so foolish as to believe that I was going to somehow pull off a miracle. In fact, if I gave it too much thought, I began to wonder about my sanity. This plan had lots of flaws, but it was simple at its very core; and one of the things that I had learned in my relatively few years on this earth was that simplicity was often best. Too many times, things were botched because we made them much more difficult than necessary.
“Nat?” I finally said once Cricket gave me a nudge.
Once we had finished, it was also decided that the odd person out, the other girl who went by the name of Nadine, would post up on top of the old Island City Elementary School. A forty foot tower had been built on top of the building that gave at least some sort of vantage point. Nadine was told to slip into one of the houses and find some sheets. If it looked like any serious activity was taking place in the encampment, she was to hang the sheets from the tower. Again, it wasn’t a perfect system, but it would have to do.
We all headed out once a pair of bicycles in good working order was found. Kayla would stick with me and Rodrigo with Cricket once we had to go our separate ways.
By the end of the day, I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find the zombies. It was obvious that they had come this way as the ground was littered with things best not looked at too closely. Also, there were the occasional creepers that could not keep pace. Those were easy to spike as we traveled all that day and then the next.
At last, on the third day, we could see the tail end of the herd. Fortunately, it looked like we had caught a bit of a break. A small town had acted almost as a natural jetty for the zombies. They had sort of scattered a bit and diffused. I did notice that a few structures had large mobs of the undead gathered around them, and I had to wonder if we might actually be saving some strangers as we went about our business.
It was not easy to get the zombies’ attention. With so many of them moaning and crying, they were really quite loud. We banged on the hoods of cars using the pommels of our machetes, but that only generated a limited interest from those closest. It wasn’t until Rodrigo appeared with a huge sledge hammer that we finally managed to start pulling a good number away. It was far from the majority of the herd, though; and as we moved away leading the chunk that had been enticed, I noticed two locations in particular where the mobs of the undead had not been drawn away. There had to be somebody or a group inside. I would try to make it a point to come back here if we managed to pull this off.
And free Jackson.
And survive.
It took the better part of the next four days to get half the distance covered. At this rate, I did not think that we would ever get back to the La Grande area. Cricket sent Rodrigo ahead on his own after the second day just to get a visual on Suzi’s people and ensure that they were still encamped in the open valley.
I had to wonder why she had yet to occupy Island City. It made no sense to remain out in the open. The second time that Rodrigo was sent was also the day that our groups separated. That proved to be quite a chore and my herd ended up being the smaller of the two by almost half. It was still a very large group numbering in the thousands, but the group following Cricket back along the La Grande-Baker Highway stretched on for at least a mile and were shoulder to shoulder across all four lanes and then some as they trudged along.
The early days had been a simple matter of all of us moving ahead far enough so that we could make camp and get some rest. One person was tasked to stay with the herd and keep them coming, and we rotated out of that position regularly. Once we got closer to the valley, we knew that sleep was going to be a luxury that we could not afford as we needed to try and keep the herds on track after the split.
Cricket had the unenviable task of looping them back around and actually leading his bunch in a massive circle before re-directing them back towards the encampment. As the sun set, on this, the sixth day, I knew that tomorrow would see things happen fast and furious.
I was excited as well as scared. It had already been agreed that once we knew the herd was moving towards the encampment and riders were sent out to whichever one of our groups came within sight of their patrols to employ the noisemakers, I would be going off on my own to see if there was any way that I would be able to save Jackson.
Oddly enough, it was Kayla who pulled me aside. We had moved ahead far enough that I would be able to catch a final nap before embarking on my mission. Nat was currently down the road a ways and leading the zombies along by banging on a huge garbage can lid with a rather nifty looking spiked club she usually carried on her hip.
“Thalia, don’t do anything foolish. Jackson would not want you to die trying to save him. It would sort of defeat the purpose. If you can do this, great, but if not, you need to be smart enough to run. Just promise me that you will keep that option open.”
I was actually a little choked up.
“I promise,” I finally answered.
I had no idea if I was being honest, and I don’t know if she believed me, but it would have to do. Things were about to get crazy.
13
Vignettes LXV
The next several days, Juan continued to test out his leg. The swelling was almost gone, leaving only some nasty discoloration behind. The girls liked to tease him and say he had a deader leg because of the ugly greens, blacks, and purples.
While there were moments when he would feel the pull of sorrow at the loss of Mackenzie, it would usually end up being a short-lived dip as his daughters filled his heart with a happiness that he had not realized until now that he had taken for granted.
One morning, Juan woke to absolute silence. While that was not all too uncommon, there was also something else niggling at the back of his mind. He sat up in bed, his eyes going over to where Denita and Della slept.
Empty.
“Girls?” he called, pulling on his boots.
There was no answer, and Juan reached over for his crutches. Making his way to the door, he opened it to discover a slight drizzle beginning. The sky was overcast, and a breeze made the chill morning air seem that much colder.
Juan stepped out onto the porch and looked around. He didn’t see anything. Listening, he heard nothing except the sound of raindrops hitting on the corrugated metal roof of the smokehouse.
Juan called again, still not alarmed. After all, it wasn’t the first time that he’d woken up to discover that the girls were already up and about. They’d become very good at keeping themselves busy. Juan had decided to steal a page from Gerald’s book and shown them the game of “who can pick the most weeds from Gerald’s garden” one afternoon. Oddly enough, it hadn’t caught on. Still, the girls were receptive to the idea that it would be nice to keep things taken care of for the man in his absence and had m
ade it a point to pick weeds despite its lack of a fun factor.
By the time he’d made a complete circuit of the cabin’s grounds, occasionally calling out Della and Denita’s name, Juan was beginning to grow concerned. The one rule that he had stressed repeatedly was the one about not going out of sight of the cabin unless he was with them.
While the girls were both smart, that did not give them all the necessary tools to deal with an unforgiving Alaskan wilderness that still sported bears, wolves (living and undead), as well as zombies. A shudder rippled through Juan as a few other ideas still ingrained in his mind from the days of the old world made an appearance. The main problem with those thoughts resided in the simple fact that, if anything, people had gotten worse.
After two more circuits around the cabin, and a third where he hugged the tree line, Juan was overwhelmed with dread. He’d gotten lazy. He’d let himself believe that the girls would be fine and that they would not get into any trouble.
“They’re freaking seven years old, you idiot!” he cursed himself. “Of course they are going to disobey…get into trouble.”
Juan looked skyward. “Is this how it goes, God? I find happiness with Mackenzie, so you take her away. I come to the realization that I still have my girls to live for, so you take them from me too? Are you trying to tell me something?”
Juan raged and swore. He said things to God that would have made his mother cry. He alternated between challenging any deity that would listen, to begging for their help. He was still kneeling in the mud when the snap of a stick made his head pop up. He looked in the direction that he was certain the sound had come and hoped for a very specific outcome. He wanted his daughters to come through that brush…alive. He knew it was important that he specify. At this exact moment, he doubted his ability to do anything but accept a horrible fate if the zombified versions of Della and Denita emerged.