by C. Dulaney
“Hold your positions! No one move!” Waters shouted over the radio.
I had one hand clamped on Gus’ collar and the other hand braced against the door. Breathing heavily, hissing exhales so I wouldn’t hyperventilate, I shook my head.
“There’s nothing we can do but hang on and hope like hell we don’t go over the side!” I said, referring to the steep drop off on our left.
“Stay calm. They can’t get to us, we’re safe!” Willis barked. It was the first time I had seen the young man’s training take control; discipline and strength replacing scared youth. “Fasten yourselves in, now!”
He didn’t have to say it twice. If he was any indication of the discipline and training of the Unit, I was sure the rest of my friends were getting the same order. Willis continued barking instructions on what to do if the Humvee rolled (how to prepare and all that shit), and I tried very hard to pay attention to him, but my eyes kept finding their way back to the horrendous scene outside. The runners had split their attention; some were on the cattle, some trying to tear their way into the vehicles.
This is what you’re going to become. Pull your sidearm and eat the barrel.
Mia found my hand and squeezed it hard, her fingers lacing through and gripping mine tightly. Jake twisted in his seat and locked eyes with us, switching his gaze from me to Mia every few seconds.
A sudden and incredibly loud pop whipped his and everyone else’s heads toward the passenger-side window.
“What the fuck?!” Jake’s voice cracked.
That noise had been the sound of his window groaning under the weight of one runner as it was attacked by another runner. Mia and I were speechless, while Jake and Willis were not. Willis began reporting what he was seeing to Waters, Jake continued with the cussing. The attacking runner was literally ripping the other one to pieces, right outside Jake’s window.
“Oh God…look, look!” Mia smacked her hand against my arm repeatedly, short, quick slaps meant to get my attention. As if I hadn’t already been looking out the window. What did she think I was doing, taking a nap?
Except she was pointing up the hillside, where I had not been looking.
“Did that just happen? Did that just fuckin’ happen?!” Jake screeched, still staring at the two runners outside his window, although the one runner had mostly been reduced to shreds, a few ligaments, and gnarled bones.
“Up the hill, Jake. Up the hill,” I said as calmly as I could while raising my voice to be heard. Willis actually started praying quietly. Mia whimpered.
On the hillside next to us, another group of runners had appeared. They were doing what the thing next to Jake’s door had been doing: attacking the first bunch of runners. They didn’t seem interested in the cows, some of which were still alive and thrashing around on the ground. These new arrivals seemed totally obsessed with their brethren. Instead of having a hunger for living flesh, these had an apparent appetite for dead meat.
We watched the slaughter for several long moments, our faces frozen in dazed stupidity.
“I take back what I said. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” I choked out. The noise level had dropped considerably as the battle was now being waged on the bank and not directly against and around the Humvees.
“Is everyone seeing this?” Waters asked over the radio. Even his voice was thick with shock. Someone in Jonah’s vehicle voiced an affirmative, and Willis finally whispered his into his handset as well.
There were stark differences between the two groups, besides the obvious. The second group was in much better shape physically than the first, and they seemed to be twice as strong. Their speed was about the same, but their agility was superior. If it hadn’t been for their ferociously manic attack, they could’ve easily been confused with living, breathing people. Some had suffered wounds, though they were small and hard to see unless you were looking.
And they were bleeding.
They were bleeding!
“Hey, guys…” I began, but didn’t finish because I realized they had noticed it too. All the deadheads we had ever seen leaked a thick, brown goo. The fluid that trickled from these “beings” was red.
Blood red.
“I don’t…what are…someone please explain this to me,” Mia said, her voice sounding as if her lungs were being squeezed by a vice. Gus snorted and jumped up onto her lap, eagerly watching through the glass.
“Convoy, move out!” Waters ordered.
The commanding tone in his voice snapped us out of our comatose gape. Willis’ hand fumbled around until he jerked the Humvee into gear and we rolled out. The three vehicles crept over the bodies, cow and zombie alike, all of us sure that once the runners (or whatever they were), noticed we were leaving, they’d finally attack us. That didn’t happen. Waters’ Humvee led the convoy past the supposed turnoff and continued on toward the main highway. At that point, we had little choice on the matter. Collins was chattering over the radio, informing Waters on the state of the highway, number of hostiles, locations of debris and obstructions.
Those of us not driving were turned around in our seats, staring with fascination and dread at the “new” runners. They had won their battle and were cleaning up the mess as we made the turn and started back downhill toward the blacktop.
Before they were out of sight, I caught a glimpse of a runner who looked like my younger sister, Sophia.
Sophy?
I figured it was my mind playing tricks on me, like it had back at the club. So I quickly buried it with everything else and instead focused on what we had just seen; beings who looked like runners but weren’t dead, attacking zombies, and the can of worms that came with it.
* * *
Cherokee Caverns turned out to be little more than a log cabin-turned gift shop and a gas station. Unfortunately, the gift shop’s parking lot was full of vehicles, as was the station’s. But it wasn’t as bad as we had expected. Part of the deadhead population was trapped inside their cars, while the rest stumbled and dragged themselves about aimlessly. They were, thank God, the slow variety.
Once I noticed that, I tried to understand why they were still there. Why hadn’t they migrated off in search of food? After all this time, how were they still walking? I mean, they weren’t walking very well; in most cases I wouldn’t even call it walking, actually. Most of them were decayed beyond recognition, abdomens blown open from the accumulated gases exploding outward, clothing almost nonexistent, flesh long rotted away.
It had been a long time since we’d run into a group of regular old zombies, and the last we’d seen had been decomposed to the point of just lying in a motionless heap.
My eyes dropped to the floorboard as I choked down the bile that had suddenly risen. It was getting to me, not knowing for sure if I was infected. If I was, I should have turned already. But could I afford to let my guard down by assuming I wasn’t? I had to expect the worst, for my friends’ sake. And doing that on a consistent basis was worrying me sick.
“Adder, get on the 50 cal.,” Waters’ voice jumped from the radio.
The soldier everyone referred to as “Rabbit” popped up through the roof of the middle Humvee and got into position behind the big ass gun. I thought about his nickname and his real name and wondering how the hell he had acquired it.
“Should’ve been ‘Snake’,” I mumbled.
“Huh?” Mia asked.
“Nothing.”
The convoy slowed a bit as the gift shop came into full view. The gas station lay directly across the road from it, and the pavement between was dotted with shambling dead bodies. We were silent as the Humvees weaved a trail through them, even Jake. Waters was intentionally leading us on a path that left the zombies unharmed. I really didn’t think it was because he was concerned for the armored vehicles and keeping them spotless.
“Why aren’t we runnin’ them over?” Jake finally spoke up.
Our eyes followed each deadhead we passed. Some reached out to us, but most simply continued shuffling or crawling
along, that empty, blank stare deeper than it had been months before. Willis didn’t reply; he kept his eyes forward and his face as stoic as the movement of the convoy. I reached forward and tapped Jake’s shoulder lightly, then gave him a slight shake of my head to silence him. Mia breathed deeply next to me. Gus whined softly.
For a second, Jake looked as though he was about to have an outburst, but then his eyebrows arched and he turned forward to stare straight ahead. It had taken him a moment, yet he’d finally realized the same thing Mia and I had. Waters and his men were doing what they could to show some respect for the dead. It had been so long, that notion seemed alien to me at first. Respect the dead? They’d been trying to eat us for over a year! When that intolerance is so entrenched into your very being, it’s nearly impossible to remember a time when things were different. The simple act of driving slowly through a crowd, instead of over them…it had a visceral impact on us.
We remained still for several miles after leaving the tourist hole. No radio traffic, no road trip small talk. The Runners That Made No Sense weighed heavily on our minds. Top that off with the knowledge that in an hour we’d lose our air support, and we were beginning to feel very much alone and extremely vulnerable. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and this was definitely one of those situations.
Behind us, the pack of new runners that had effectively saved us earlier burned through the dead of Cherokee Caverns.
* * *
“You are mistaken,” Waters said.
I’d been trying to convince him and the others of what we’d seen for twenty minutes or so. Jake and Mia tried backing me up, but he’d shot them down just as efficiently.
“No, goddamnit! I know what I saw! They were bleeding, like ─ they were bleeding blood!”
We were pulled off the main road just outside Moblen, the halfway point to the CC. Collins had given us the “all clear,” saying something about the enemy having been neutralized in a 50-mile radius. Neutralized by whom? I had an idea, considering the massacre we’d seen earlier. I tried hard not to assume anything. There could have been pockets of survivors in the area, constantly sweeping and “cleaning house.” Except, we hadn’t seen any survivors since starting our trip. Collins continued circling the area, apparently confident that the noise he was making wasn’t going to draw a crowd, and waited on instructions from Waters.
The good Captain had been standing outside his Humvee having a heated discussion with Michael and John when the three of us began bombarding them with what we’d seen back in the woods. Everyone else was spread out, watching our perimeter until those in charge decided what the hell we were doing next.
“Kasey, come on. You couldn’t have seen blood. They weren’t human,” Michael said, his tone more cordial than Waters’. John’s narrowed eyes slowly roved from my face to Michael’s, then to Mia’s and Jake’s.
“And you two saw the same thing?” he asked.
They both nodded. “Yeah, those fuckers were bleedin’. And not that brown shit either,” Jake said.
“No offense, but I don’t think I’ll be taking your word on that.” John stared at the younger man for a long moment, until Jake finally tore his eyes away and looked off down the road.
I was impressed he’d been able to bite his tongue. But he knew as well as I did, everyone besides Mia was having a hard time trusting him after that stunt back at the club. Alright, maybe stunt isn’t the word. Murder is more like it. Mia and I understood what had driven him to throw Eric off the wall and into the waiting hands of the runners. We hadn’t liked it, not one bit. And we weren’t going to make excuses for it, but we understood it. I think the others did too, to be honest. Especially Jonah. They didn’t know Jake as well as Mia and I did, so they would probably never trust him the same way they had before.
“Okay, okay. Let’s not get into this here,” Michael said and raised his hands up between the two men. Waters seemed confused, thankfully letting it go as nothing more than in-fighting and drama.
I bit my lip and waited for the air to settle before locking Michael’s gaze. “I’m telling you, Michael. Those things were not deadheads. I can’t explain it and I have no idea what they are, but they are not dead. Just think about it, that’s all I’m saying.”
After a round of sighs and questioning looks, the three men nodded.
“Alright, Kasey. Alright. We’ll keep it in mind. Now, if we’re all done bitching and complaining, can we please agree on a route?” Waters said, hands on his hips and one eyebrow sharply arched.
Three backs turned to us in silent agreement as they returned to the map spread out on the hood of the Humvee. Mia snorted and headed off to our vehicle with me and Jake in tow. She was mumbling something when she jerked open the back door and let Gus out. The little dog ran over, sniffed my boots, then took off toward the grass next to the road.
I couldn’t stand it after my friend’s fifth mumble. “What?”
“It doesn’t even matter whether they believe us or not. We know what we saw.” She kicked the pavement with the toe of her boot, breathing heavily and glancing around behind us. Jake was throwing distrustful looks over his shoulder.
“You’re right, we know what we saw. But is it just me, or do you guys feel like the rules of the game are changing, and we barely knew how to play to begin with?” I asked. Gus had returned and was staring up at me, flashing his classic I’m-so-hungry pouty eyes, waiting on something to eat.
“Yeah, that’s exactly how it feels. And I don’t like it.” Mia was grinding her teeth and clenching her jaw. She’d been doing that a lot. Just another sign we were all breaking down.
“Well no shit, none of us like it. Just what the hell are we supposed to do about it?” Jake asked. I assumed it was rhetorical, because neither of us answered and he didn’t press.
“Let’s keep our eyes open. We’re at the halfway point now, and from what Collins said, the road from here to Pency is clear. Based on what we saw back in the woods, I’d say we could keep to the main road and be there in another day. I don’t know though. It’s just a gut feeling, but I think we’re gonna see a whole lot more deadhead killing before we get to the end of this trip. And I don’t mean by us.”
“You don’t think they’ll pursue us, do you?” Mia asked in a tone that was more a statement than it was a question.
I shook my head once. “No, I don’t. I also think that whatever resistance we do run into between here and there will be dealt with pretty quickly. These damn whatever-they-are running around and us being armed out the nose should see to that.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, I see what you’re gettin’ at. You think those things came from the CC?”
I blew out a breath. “Now that I won’t even guess at. Could be the virus has mutated again. The way things have been, it’s hard to tell where they came from and why.”
“But it’s no stretch of the imagination,” Mia countered.
“Don’t assume anything. Just remember what we’ve seen and let’s go from there,” I warned.
“Load up!” Rabbit abruptly yelled from the top of the middle Humvee.
He scared the shit out of us, but we complied and loaded up. Doors opened and slammed, engines revved to life, and the convoy was on the move again. In the sky above us, Collins turned his Blackhawk in the direction of home and flew off.
After remaining on the main road longer than I thought we would, I realized why Waters had been pissy. He had been outnumbered when it came to the route; we were sticking to the main road into Pency. With what Collins had reported, and what we had all witnessed back in the woods, the majority felt the same way I did.
The result finally seemed to outweigh the risk for once.
Chapter Eleven
November 23rd: sometime before midnight
The air was bitter, nipping at any exposed skin like an ankle-biting dog. The smell—let’s just say there had been a silver lining to man’s destruction. Jonah couldn’t remember a time in his life when he�
��d smelled air so clean and crisp. True, it was cold as balls, but he breathed deeply regardless. He stood several yards away from the convoy, his back to the fire and his face to the darkness, hands shoved deep in his pockets, and a rifle slung over his shoulder. His gut told him they didn’t have much to worry about anymore, that he didn’t need to stand watch with the others, and that their struggle was almost at its end. Being the analyzer that he was, Jonah was also aware that it may not have been his gut telling him these things.
He had been keeping a sharp eye on everyone ever since Abby killed herself. He noticed things most people didn’t. And what Jonah had noticed was an increased breakdown of everyone’s spirit. It wasn’t obvious. Well, Jake’s was obvious, it was the slap-you-in-the-face kind. Otherwise the young man wouldn’t have killed the village idiot. All of them were suffering from it, an erosion of their fortitude, a decay of their will, sometimes even a slip from reality. Jonah was slightly comforted by the fact that he realized these things, and because of that he could constantly monitor himself. At least he thought he was monitoring himself. Was he being fooled by his own mind? Was he, the most reliable of the group, breaking as well, and already too far gone to know it?
A twig snapped to his left and his head twitched. Another sign he was losing his edge. He knew better than to jerk at a noise. He forced his body to relax, slowly turning his eyes toward the stand of trees fifty feet from him. The breath he had been holding suddenly released when John stepped into view.
Catch hold of yourself, boy.
Except John wasn’t walking – he’d been running.
Something’s wrong.
Jonah met him halfway across the pavement and fought to keep the quiver out of his voice. “What’ve we got?”
John stood half a head taller than Jonah, yet as he halted in front of the cowboy, he was slumped enough to look him in the eye. Waters and the other soldiers (his friends were standing watch this time), sat around the fire and raised their heads in interest, but made no sign of moving their way. Jonah flicked his eyes from the soldiers back to John and took a deep breath.