by C. Dulaney
Oh, and the breathers. Can’t forget about them.
“What are you talking about, man? We’re fine right where we are. You think we’d eat this good on the outside? Hell no. Least here we got a safe place to sleep and as much food as we want,” the female tech replied. Her colleague grunted and stared at one screen in particular. After a long moment, he leaned forward and tapped the screen.
“There, you see that?”
“See what?” She shook her head and went back to her Sudoku. “You’re so full of it, Adams.”
“I’m serious! That breather keeps staring at the camera.” Adams leaned closer, his nose nearly touching the screen. “Wonder what he’s thinking…”
“He’s thinking about breaking your neck, he ever gets out of there. Now shut up already.”
Adams fell back in his chair, anxious and more than a little bored. Same shit, every day. Watch the security feeds, sleep. Watch the security feeds, sleep. It didn’t help he had to share the small room with the meanest bitch he’d ever known. If only she’d been one of those the scientists had taken last week. Adams knew he’d never be lucky enough to get rid of her. He knew what was going to happen to him though. Eventually the scientists would come for him. He saw what they did, every day on the monitors, to those people. Watched and said nothing. Until now.
His eyes roamed the screens. A few showed the lockups, like that man who kept staring at him. A few showed the Cage. Others showed worthless shots of empty hallways here and there. The most interesting was the laboratory. The room adjacent to the lab with the big, bolted door didn’t have a camera, so Adams couldn’t see the goings-on inside. But he had a damn good feeling what was on the other side of that door.
Runners.
He sighed deeply and turned his focus back on the Cage. A hundred breathers, all in different stages of defeat, sitting or standing around, heads down and shoulders slumped. That’s where the scientists held their “shipments” until they were ready for them. What Adams wouldn’t give to be able to set those folks free on his way out of there. Of course he wouldn’t though; he didn’t have a death wish. The guards watched that Cage like it was Fort Knox. He’d be gunned down if he even appeared to be heading in that direction.
I won’t end up like that.
Adams didn’t know where he’d go once he was outside, but he knew he couldn’t stay any longer. The scientists were getting desperate, snatching up people who worked for them so they could continue with their mad science experiments. Well, they had been up until this last shipment. It had been a big one, as evidenced on screen two; but that wasn’t the point. None of this was going to end well. No way it could, if those bastards were insane enough to release runners. Just let them go, right out the front door! Have a good trip, don’t forget to write. Adams could put up with a lot, and he could accept quite a bit more, but even that was too much for him to swallow.
“Gotta hit the head,” he said, slapping his hands on the arms of his chair. The wench beside him grunted, never raising her eyes from her puzzle.
Asshole, he thought to himself. Out loud he said, “You want anything while I’m out?” Realizing she wasn’t going to answer, he slid his chair back, stood up, and turned his back to the monitors for the last time.
* * *
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That tired old cliché must have run through my head a hundred times that afternoon. The way our wall had been breached was ironically similar to the prison breach we’d endured earlier in the year. The fact that every single surviving member of the Prison Gang was now stranded on the wall, with no way out and jackshit for ammunition, well that was just eerie. The only difference between the prison break and the club clusterfuck was that Nancy wouldn’t be driving to our rescue in a beat up old pickup truck.
We had moved out of the end watchtower and were resting just outside it, in the open. This way we could stay a bit warmer, catching the last rays of the sun as it went down, the club blocking our view of the docks. With John’s help, I’d finally managed to get Jake under control. Now he sat with his back to the ledge, his knees drawn tight to his body with his forehead resting on them, and his arms wrapped around. He hadn’t made a sound in over an hour, and all attempts by us to get him to talk had failed.
I sat next to him, legs stretched out and feet hanging over the edge, my empty rifle resting across my thighs, staring out over the dead bastards that did this to us. Jonah sat on my other side with his head down, the brim of his hat hiding his face, and John was on the other side of Jake talking back and forth to Michael over the radio. Eric, that simpering piece of shit, was curled up in the fetal position several feet away from the four of us. Damn good thing too; I wanted nothing more than to grab him by the hair and throw him down to the ghouls.
We could see Michael’s group now; they had moved outside the end platform as well. I don’t know why we didn’t walk over. We could have been sitting with them over on the other side. I think we were just too overwhelmed by what had happened, too heartsick and defeated to seek comfort in one another. I did notice, however, that the voices plaguing me for weeks had suddenly disappeared. I guess the mind can only cope with one shitstorm at a time.
“Kasey,” Jonah whispered. I looked over and saw he had raised his head and was staring toward the makeshift barn.
“Oh crap.” I struggled to my feet and barely had the presence of mind to lay my rifle off to the side as I stood. The runners were breaking into the barn, and all the horses were trapped inside.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I yelled, throwing my hands in the air, completely helpless.
The commotion I was making, added to that of the newly stirred-up deadheads, forced everyone’s attention to the barn. There was still enough daylight to see the swarm move as one, converging on the barn once they realized it was possible to break inside. I had forgotten about the horses; I’d been too wrapped up in grief over losing Nancy and the kids. I’d thought about Gus, but so far he was safely locked inside the house, and the runners had not been able to break in. Yet.
Michael, Mia, Abby, and Todd were pitching a fit on their side of the wall, trying to draw the zombies’ attention. A new source of food had been found, there was no deterring them now.
“No, no, no,” I wheezed over and over, shaking my head as if simply willing it to stop would make it so. Daisy, I’m so sorry.
“Don’t watch.”
Jonah grabbed my elbow and forced me to turn around. My breathing was heavy and rapid, tears streaming down my face, as I stared out over the treetops beyond the wall. I turned my head once and saw John running his hands back and forth over his bald head, his mouth and eyebrows moving through a series of emotions all at once.
Jonah jerked on my elbow again. “The trees, Kasey. Look at the trees and listen to me.”
He kept talking like that for a long time, about nothing really. Just words of reassurance and distraction, anything to help lessen the effect that my horse’s screams were having on me. At the height of the carnage, as I was desperately trying not to throw myself over the ledge and end my suffering at the bottom of the twenty-foot drop, Eric decided to come out of his paralysis. Piercingly so. That asshole jumped to his feet and started yelling his face off, throwing his hands in the air and shaking them around like a chimpanzee. It would have been funny, if it hadn’t been for the fact that there were fifty-plus deadheads tearing the horses apart, and that we had all just witnessed the horrible deaths of five of our own just a couple hours before.
“Shut up you fucking idiot!”
Jonah had left my side and was moving towards Eric, who was standing several feet away on the cowboy’s side. John was sliding his way past Jake and heading towards me, his head whipping back and forth between the horde inside the barn and the wailing banshee on the wall. Eric’s pitch rose another octave once he saw Jonah heading his way.
“Noo! Don’t touch me!” he screamed and started jabbing his fingers toward the barn. “Hear that?!
They’re going to eat us! Eat us! Tear our guts out like those horses!”
“Shut up before they hear you!” Jonah hissed again, cutting the distance between him and Eric by half.
I wiped the tears from my face and was stepping back against the ledge, giving John room to walk by, when I heard a soft voice next to me.
“You’re gonna draw attention to us.”
Jake lifted his head up from his knees and was looking past my legs toward Eric, who was still whooping and hollering and swinging his arms around, backing away from Jonah. In hindsight, I should have known Jake was about to do something drastic. I saw something in his face, his eyes. Something that looked a lot like that day in Ohio, the day we found Shannon and Kyra. I was still reeling from the attack on the barn and Nancy’s terrible death. Let alone the horses’ screams, my horse’s screams, were still reverberating through the air. I’d even forgotten about our people on the opposite side of the wall; ironically they were standing with their hands in the air.
I kneeled down next to Jake and stared at him, but he didn’t meet my confused gaze.
“Jake?”
He glanced at me quickly before turning his eyes back on Eric. “Sonofabitch is gonna get us all killed.” His voice was like steel.
Then he braced his hands on his knees and pushed himself up, straightening his back and rolling his shoulders. I tilted my head up, following his movements with my eyes, my back to Eric, John, and Jonah. Several scenarios ran through my mind, none of which were anything close to what actually happened. Jake walked past me, his hand brushing my shoulder. I turned on my heel as he slid by, still down on one knee and watching with growing apprehension.
“Eric, cut the shit. Stop that hollerin’.” Jonah was trying to coax Eric, who had stopped shrinking away and was frozen in place. The runners had indeed noticed and where slowly turning their heads in our direction.
“John, what the hell is going on over there?” Michael’s voice shouted over the big man’s walkie. John was standing behind Jonah, left hand up.
“Yeah man, that’s right. Just be quiet now. No reason to be yelling. We gotta stay quiet,” John said, his right hand slowly moving to the walkie and turning the volume down.
“I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die,” Eric said over and over, his voice no longer a shriek, but still a high-pitched desperate whisper.
“No one is gonna die, so long as we keep our heads, okay?” Jonah eased closer with his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.
“Yeah, we’re gonna make it out of here. You just have to calm the hell down,” John added.
More of the runners had noticed us, which was stupid considering they already knew we were up on the wall. I kept looking back and forth between them and the scene unfolding next to me. I felt like an observer, completely outside the situation. I suppose shock will do that to you. Michael and the others were still on the opposite end of the wall, waiting for someone to tell them what was going on. Somewhere in my mind I thought, Stay at the end, don’t draw attention to the staircase. Which would have been an excellent point to bring up, had it not been for Eric wailing like a harpy.
Jake tapped John on the shoulder, nodding back in my direction. John misread this gesture and moved out of Jake’s way, walking over to me and kneeling down.
“You okay?”
I opened my mouth to tell him yes, and that I hadn’t asked for him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Jake and the way he was moving. He grabbed Jonah by the upper arm and pulled back on him. That forced Jonah to step behind Jake, or else he would have fallen over the ledge. This entire string of events seemed to stretch out for hours, though it was really over in seconds.
“Hey, what are you doin’?”
Jonah reached out to spin Jake around by the shoulder. My dear crazy friend was too fast. The next thing we knew, Jake had Eric by the hair with one hand and was plowing his other into Eric’s face. John jumped to his feet and Jonah succeeded in grabbing Jake’s shoulders, but the younger man shook him off and kept slamming his fist into Eric’s mouth and nose. John had to wrap his arms around Jonah to keep him from falling over the ledge, so for a precious few seconds, they were unable to help the victim of Jake’s wrath.
“Jake,” I said too quietly for him to hear.
I looked over and saw half of the runners were definitely headed in our direction. The rest were being distracted by Michael and the others; they were yelling and shouting profanities, waving their arms, dancing around in place. I’m not really sure why they did this, to be perfectly honest. In the end, it didn’t matter. By the time Jonah and John found their footing and were in any position to help Eric, Jake had thrown him off the wall.
Not the outside of the wall, which would have probably killed him anyway, but on the inside, headfirst into the crowd of deadheads that had once again gathered beneath us.
“NO!” John and Jonah bellowed as one.
I jumped to my feet, mouth open and eyes wide, staring down at the hungry mass ripping Eric to shreds. He hadn’t even screamed. I hoped it was because Jake had knocked him out before tossing him over. I don’t think that’s what happened. The runners are like a giant meat grinder when there’s a group of them.
“Jesus Christ! What did you do?!” Jonah literally squealed like a girl.
He and John hadn’t moved, however. Not one step did they take toward Jake. They stood stock-still with their arms at their sides, hands clenched into fists.
“What did you do?!” Jonah repeated.
Jake simply stared back, his face slack and detached. John started to make a move around Jonah, I assume to throttle Jake. I stepped up behind the big man and grabbed the back of his shirt. Once he felt the tug, he swung around, fists up and ready to fight.
“No, John.”
I laid my hands on his fists and pushing them down to his waist. I kept eye contact with him as I squeezed by, having to press myself so close to him an observer would think we were intimately acquainted. After putting John behind me I laid one hand on Jonah’s back.
“Let me handle this,” I said. He twisted his head and glared at me, then finally helped me switch places with him.
“Jake,” I said.
I was just as appalled as the others by what he’d done, but this was Jake. Next to Mia, he was at the top of my priority list. No way was I going to let the others hurt him, no matter what he’d done. I held my hands out to him as I approached, hoping he wouldn’t snap on me and throw my ass over next. His face didn’t change; it remained calm and blank. Once I was close enough to touch him though, I realized he wasn’t as indifferent as he appeared; there were tears sliding down his cheeks.
“Oh, Jake.” I wrapped him in a tight hug.
He buried his face in my shoulder and wailed, his arms hanging limp at his sides. As I rubbed his back and smoothed his hair, I turned my head and glanced over at the opposite side of the wall. Michael and the others were heading over, and were already halfway between the end and left gate platforms. That passing thought I’d had earlier flashed again in my mind like a strobe light. Keeping one arm around Jake, I turned my body and extended my other arm out.
“John, walkie! Now!” I shouted to be heard over the runners below. I snapped my fingers impatiently when John only stared back at me; my friend’s massive shift in emotion had scared them both stiff as a board. “Now, goddamnit!”
He twitched as though he’d been pinched and jerked the walkie off his belt. I grabbed it from his hand and keyed the mic.
“Michael, stop! Stop!”
Jake was leaning heavily against me, and the other two men were looking at me like I’d lost my mind. I watched as Michael slowed down, forcing the others behind him to stop. He brought his walkie to his mouth and said something in reply, but I couldn’t hear it. John had turned the volume down and Jake was bawling into my neck. I turned the dial with my thumb and tried again.
“Repeat that, I didn’t hear you!”
“I aske
d why the hell should I stop?! Jake just pitched Eric off the fucking wall!”
I jabbed the walkie in the direction of the staircase before answering.
“Because if you draw their attention to those stairs, we’re dead!” I released the mic and waited. His group didn’t move back. They didn’t move any closer to the staircase either.
“Oh my God, the stairs…” Jonah whispered behind me.
A heavy weight fell over all of us as we realized what that meant. If the runners found the stairs, we’d be helpless to stop them. Unlike the slow zombies, these fast ones could climb. We wouldn’t be able to stop them, and we wouldn’t be able to get away from them. It was too long of a drop off the other side of the wall, and the club was too far away from the ends of the wall to attempt a jump over.
“Alright. Let’s stay in the end platforms, try to keep their attention on us,” Michael finally answered. His voice was uneven, almost panicked. I understood the feeling. What was worse, it seemed as though Waters had finally left us hanging with our dicks in the wind.
I handed John the walkie and started leading Jake to the end platform. Michael was ushering the others on his side back to their end, yelling at the runners and drawing their attention back toward the platform. John and Jonah picked up on it and began cussing a blue streak at the deadheads on our side, leading them along like the Pied Piper.
“It’s okay, Jake, just don’t look,” I said to him as we stepped up into the platform.
It was impossible for me to not look down at what remained of Nancy’s body, so I shielded Jake’s view of it as best as I could. It was almost dark now, making it difficult to see inside the roofed enclosure. I led him over and sat him down with his back against the watchtower’s wall, crouched down in front of him, and smoothed the hair from his face.
“You gonna be good now?” I asked after he abruptly fell silent. Jake looked up at me and his forehead creased, his mouth twitched, and he took two ragged breaths before answering.