by Ricky Sides
Then, to his horror, Herman saw that his men hadn’t been firing at the dog. Instead, they had elected to fire in their panic at the encroaching zombies, thus shattering the flimsy barrier that stood between the men and the zombies.
Shaunna heard the dying screams of the men inside the truck as they were beset from all sides, but she wasn’t interested in them. She was already walking down the road, following Dana’s faint odor that the vehicle had carried with it. She would track it to its source with the untiring will of a hunter that only a zombie possesses.
Shaunna stopped in the middle of the road and checked to make certain she still carried Lily’s remains in her hand. She screamed in rage when she saw the remains and resumed her journey as she held the head up for Lily to scent her enemy.
Behind the Alpha female, the rest of the zombies heard her scream and moved to follow her. They left the ravaged corpses of the five men behind. All had been partially consumed by the zombies, but they had received their nanobot injections, so none of them would rise to plague mankind as undead creatures. Sadly, this was the best thing that could be said about any of the marauders.
***
Spent from their lovemaking, Dana brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked at the watch on her arm. “It’s been well over an hour since you sent out the patrols,” she noted. “Shouldn’t they have reported in by now?”
“They know better than to interrupt me when the trailer is rocking,” John said lasciviously.
“That’s good to know. I wouldn’t have wanted them to interrupt us just now,” Dana said.
Feeling generous because of the quality of the sexual experience he’d just enjoyed with Dana, John said, “I’ll get dressed and go get a report from the guys. There’s no sense in keeping you in suspense.”
“Thank you. I’ll rest better if they can tell us there are no groups of zombies closing in on us,” Dana admitted.
John dressed, exited his RV, and walked over to a campfire where he saw one of the team leaders that he had dispatched on the patrols earlier. He soon learned that the team had nothing to report. “I would have knocked at your RV, but it sounded as if you were putting your new woman through her paces in bed, and I had nothing urgent to report,” the man explained.
“That’s fine. I was busy for a while, and wouldn’t want to be disturbed unless it was important,” John said, and then he asked, “Have you seen Herman?”
“No. We left at the same time. I expected him to beat us back here. He had a better route to patrol.”
“He took the Brinkley run?” asked John.
“Yeah, and we took the county road route, so we had to drive slower than his patrol could have driven.”
Big John cursed.
“Is something wrong?” asked the patrol leader.
“I don’t know, but Dana is convinced there is a danger headed for us. That’s why I sent you guys out in the first place.”
“What would that woman know about such things?”
“She knew enough to be the one who spotted Bennett and his people today, and that was from inside the RV. She also knew enough to survive alone and unarmed out there for months on her own. Would you care to try that?” John asked.
“Hell no, Boss. I was just asking.”
John shook his head in irritation. “Rouse the men. Tell them to get ready to evacuate the base. After that, I want you to head down the route Herman would have taken. Exercise extreme caution. I want a damn report on that route and I want it ASAP.”
“The hell with that, man,” one of the marauders said.
“He’s been drinking, Boss. I’ll handle him,” John’s underling said to head off the anger he saw flaring in Big John’s eyes in the firelight.
“Screw you too, Jack. I been wanting me a drink all afternoon, and I don’t aim to head back out on another damn patrol tonight,” the intoxicated man responded.
“Axel, you…” Jack began, but Big John laid his hand on his shoulder to simultaneously silence the man and nudge him aside.
The drunken marauder saw John take a step toward him and tried to draw his pistol from his holster with the intentions of menacing the leader. John moved toward him so quickly that the man didn’t have time to complete his draw before he was on him. John’s big meaty fist collided with the side of the man’s head, knocking him unconscious. John spun around to see the rest of the patrol team and gauge their reactions, but none of the men looked upset about the incident.
Jack shrugged and said, “What can I say, Boss? The man’s an idiot. I knew his mouth was going to overload his ass one day. We all did. Right, boys?”
The rest of the team voiced their agreement.
“He was going to draw on me. I can’t let something like that go,” John said.
“I know, Boss. I wouldn’t either,” Jack said.
“Strip him of his weapons and tie him to the stake outside the fence, and then get on with your patrol,” John ordered.
Jack knew John was testing him and his team. If they complied with his orders, they would pass the test. However, if the team hesitated in the slightest, he would then consider them all to be a threat, and no man remained a threat to Big John for very long. “Let’s go, guys. You heard the boss,” Jack ordered his team.
John watched the men carry out his orders. He also checked with the radio operator to see if the patrol had radioed in any vehicle problems, and if he had received any answers to the messages he had sent out earlier, but the man on duty said there had been no contact with either patrol that he had sent out, and no word yet on the other messages. The camp was roused to life and men scrambled to load supplies in the available transports. Several trucks were hitched to trailers that would carry most of their food and ammunition. After the patrol left, he returned to the RV where he informed Dana that the patrol he’d sent toward Brinkley had failed to return.
“We should leave then,” Dana said in a calm tone of voice.
“I sent the other patrol to check that route. We’ll hear from them soon, and if we need to leave, we will. Meanwhile, I have the men preparing to break camp. In another hour, we’ll be able to leave at a moment’s notice.” He shrugged and added, “We were planning to go confront Bennett and the people at the refuge tomorrow anyway.”
“What about your dependent families?” Dana asked.
“What dependent families?” John asked.
“You mean your men don’t have any women here for them?” she asked.
“Oh, there are a few among the men, but not very many, and those that are with us are like minded. Meaning they are willing to fight to take what we need from anyone who stands in our way.”
“I’m surprised more of the men haven’t accumulated women,” Dana remarked. “Then again, I’ve seen how they treat those they come across.”
“We don’t kill those with fighting spirit, if they are willing to come with us, but we aren’t in the charity business. If a woman wants to resist my men, then yes, they end up dead,” John explained unapologetically.
Dana shrugged her indifference to the plight of the women John’s men encountered and changed the subject when she asked, “So what’s the plan? I mean, your men will be up all night if we leave. Do you still plan to go up against Bennett and the people of the refuge tomorrow?”
Once again, John was impressed by Dana’s mind. He was beginning to consider her an invaluable resource when it came to advising him. He had already considered the problem of confronting the people of the refuge with an exhausted group of men and made plans to alleviate that concern. He shook his head and said, “We won’t need to travel all night. I know a place we can reach in less than thirty minutes that the zombies wouldn’t be able to reach before morning. If we have to leave tonight, then we’ll head there and camp for the night. Tomorrow morning, we’ll head out for the refuge from there.”
“Give me a piece of paper and a pencil and I can draw you a map that might help,” Dana said.
“Thanks, but I’
ve been there. I already know the layout of the place,” John said.
“Do you know where the refuge shelters are located? What about the woods? Are you aware of the dangers in the forest around the place? There’s a gulley in one section that could injure your men if they stumbled into it in the predawn hours.”
“What makes you so sure I’d want to move the men into position before daybreak?” John asked.
“Look, I’m no military strategist, and don’t claim to be one, but I have watched more than my share of movies with boyfriends who liked action flicks. Even I know you try to get your people into position before the enemy knows you’re there.”
“That’s true,” John admitted. He got her the requested pencil and paper and watched as Dana drew a crude sketch of the refuge and the woods surrounding it. He noted the position of the ravine and stopped her when he asked, “Is that to scale?”
“Probably not,” Dana admitted. “And I’m not certain it is oriented correctly. The curvature may not be facing in the precise directions. I had fallen into the damned thing and was disoriented when Bennett and his team walked me out. Why? Is it important?”
“I doubt it. I just wondered if I could add cartography to your list of skills,” John responded.
“No, but I do understand you need to know as much about the enemy camp as possible.”
Dana and John worked on the map for another few minutes before they were interrupted by a loud knock on the door of the RV. The patrol had radioed in and reported sighting hundreds of zombies on the road, and they were heading in the direction of the camp. Jack’s patrol was on the way back and would soon make a report in person.
Dana was present when Jack reported to John. The man had seen hundreds of zombies coming up the road. “Did you see a female leading them?” Dana asked.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Jack responded to her query. “It was the damnedest thing. It looked like she had a pet German Shepherd with her. Oh, and she screamed at us. When that happened, all of the zombies stopped walking and stared at us.”
“I wish you had made a picture of her,” Dana said.
“I didn’t think it was that important, but the dash cam most likely got her before we turned around,” Jack said. His vehicle was equipped with a camera because John wanted one in a scout truck for recording potential targets as they made a pass.
“Get the storage unit and bring it to me, and then get your people ready. We’re pulling out ASAP,” John said.
When John was able to load the storage unit to examine the video evidence, he scanned the memory until he located the segment he needed to see. He heard Dana’s sharp intake of breath as she recognized Shaunna.
“That’s her. That’s the zombie I saw at the church,” Dana said.
Chapter 11
The siege.
When Herb and his team arrived at the refuge, they met in Herb’s cabin for a debriefing. Having seen the degree of the militarization of the men of Big John’s camp, they decided that it would be prudent to make certain preparations as a precaution. They called on the special skills of Tommy Gunn to facilitate that process.
In the wake of his arrival at the refuge, the former soldier who had been an explosives expert in the military had been tasked with designing explosives packages that could be used to help augment their defenses. He had then taken the time to prepare a comprehensive plan and sought the approval of the council for its implementation. The council had agreed to the plan for the devices to be constructed, but due to safety concerns, they wanted them stored in a secured location. They would not be deployed until such a time as a threat assessment indicated the need to do so.
After the ditch and second fence improvements had been added to the defenses, the council had asked Tommy to reassess the original plan, taking into account all of the strategic changes. The explosives expert was still in the process of building the additional devices that would be needed to address those changes, so it wouldn’t be possible to implement all of his plans. However, Herb and Randy felt it was time to deploy what they had available.
Tommy and the members of Herb’s team had worked together all that afternoon deploying the explosives packages that they had available to them.
***
Trevor Williamson studied the wood line with care as the sun rose above the top of the forest canopy. He had arrived to begin his shift at guard duty in the southeast tower well before sunrise because he had woken early and couldn’t go back to sleep. He had been in position for about twenty minutes when he had experienced the sensation that someone was watching him. He put it down to nerves at first. After all, he, along with all the other guards, had been briefed about the possibility of a hostile visit from the men at the camp Herb’s team had visited the previous day.
A cold north breeze blew against Trevor’s back as he studied the trees. Their leaves had turned brown and were beginning to fall, but much of the forest was still concealed from view by those yet unshed. Several times, Trevor thought he spotted movement in the small breaks in the cover, but he could never be certain he’d seen what he thought he was seeing. An hour after daybreak, the same van that had visited the refuge two days ago turned onto the long drive and headed toward the gate.
Trevor noted the presence of the vehicle, but kept his focus on the wood line because he thought he had detected movement earlier. His diligence was soon rewarded when several men crept into view and briefly paused in a spot that he could observe due to the thinning foliage. They soon resumed their movement and passed out of view, but he had seen enough. The guard used his radio to contact Raman Chandler. He reported what he had seen.
The other guards, hearing Trevor’s report, then became hyper-vigilant. Soon the southwest tower guard reported seeing movement on his side of the wood line. Raman didn’t wait for further reports from the guards. He contacted Herb and Randy via radio and informed them of what was happening as they prepared to greet the visitors in the van.
In response, Herb had the guards at the gate fall back to prone positions atop the nearby berms, where they would be much more difficult for men in the woods to shoot.
The van stopped in front of the gate and Big John emerged carrying a short handled white flag, which he waved for all to see, and then he stood still and waited.
“I’ll go see what he has to say,” Randy volunteered.
Herb shook his head. “Not this time. I have some things I want to say to this guy, and a couple of questions to ask him. Leave this one to me. I want you to stay back here. I need you ready to mobilize all our fighters, if it proves necessary.”
“What if he just skips talking and starts shooting?” Randy asked. He didn’t like Herb meeting the man alone because he didn’t trust him, even if he was carrying a flag of truce.
“If that happens, then you guys have my permission to shoot back,” Herb said with a frown.
“That’s it? That’s your plan?” Randy asked incredulously.
“Mutually assured destruction was a deterrent to nuclear war for decades. I think he’ll know better than to start shooting while he is standing there in the open,” Herb replied, and then he strode toward the gate.
Randy watched as Herb walked away. He hoped his friend was right, because if he wasn’t, then he just might be walking to his death.
***
At that precise moment, the Alpha female zombie, Shaunna, stopped near the compound that Big John’s people had abandoned the previous night. She saw the man who had been bound to a post near the gate, as did her minions. Many of the zombies began to move toward the hapless man whose eyes widened in mortal terror. He screamed in fear when the zombies closed in on him and began to tear at his body as they moaned in anticipation.
Shaunna ignored the distraction of the man’s screams. Instead, she concentrated on the fence that separated her from the abandoned campsite. The wind blowing across the encampment carried the scent of her enemy to her sensitive nostrils.
Shaunna screamed in rage and
headed toward the nearest section of fence. Goaded on by their leader’s vocalizations, the zombies that were not busy feasting on the man tied to the pole soon joined her. They pressed their bodies against the fence as they had done the day before. This time, they seemed to know that their leader wanted to get past that barricade. Her small army had learned to breach simple defenses. It was a remarkable achievement for them. Very few groups of undead had ever mastered that ability, and those that had were all led by one of the rare Alphas.
Soon, the zombies had torn down a section of the fence and Shaunna led them inside the abandoned encampment. The scent of humans permeated the grounds. Her minions moaned in excitement as they moved toward a few tents that had been left behind by men in their haste to break camp the previous night.
The zombies found no additional prey inside the fence and they soon returned to pick the bones of the man who had been tied to the post. Shaunna found her anizombie German Shepherd there, ripping the man’s genitals from his body and eating them. She sniffed the air and began to follow the scent she had been tracking for days. The anizombie saw her leaving and moved to join her. The rest of the zombies followed them.
The anizombie’s enhanced sense of smell made it possible for the zombies to follow the faint scent trail left by Dana as the marauder convoy headed for Interstate 40. This time, Dana’s odor was different. She had taken multiple showers since she had arrived at the marauder encampment. That caused her body odor to be much less pronounced and therefore, more difficult to track. They were forced to travel slower at first, but once they reached the Interstate, there were fewer alternative routes, so Shaunna began to run again. Her minions spread out along the trail. The fastest zombies managed to stay near the Alpha female. The rest fell behind, but followed at their best speeds.
***