A Spring of Sorrow

by Arthur Mongelli

  *

  Tensions gradually dissipated in the pharmacy over the next couple of hours as the small talk broke into the sharing of stories.

  “Don't be worried about Peter, he looks like a big, mean biker, and he is. A biker, that is. Not a mean bone in that man's body. He used to ride with The Saved, a Christian biker gang that used to bring presents to kids in the cancer ward and help little old ladies cross the road,” Jane broke into sincere laughter at how the man's appearance belied the truth of his nature. “He is a damn good man and takes good care of me.”

  When they relayed Bob's story of Cheyenne mountain and the rumors of communities near it, Peter and Jane exchanged a look.

  “You guys know about it?” Will asked excitedly.

  “Maybe, probably . . .” Peter said at length, looking nervously at Jane. “My guess is that the town he was talking about them seeing on the satellites was Donner. The only problem is, they aren't really too eager to open their doors up to strangers.”

  Jane and Peter exchanged another look, this one stretched on for the span of a few heartbeats. Jane appeared a little annoyed with him but eventually threw her hands up as if to say 'whatever'.

  “They got a doctor in there, Linda's her name. She comes out to the camps to tend to anyone in need of care. If we can get out of here before the baby comes, you may want to try and get her there,” Jane informed them. “But, like Peter said, they aren't too welcoming, they got quite a strict process for letting people in.”

  “Is that why you have a cart full of medicine?” Tim asked, honestly curious. “You all don't seem like the Oxy crowd.”

  Peter nodded assent to Tim as Jane finished whispering something in the big man's ear. He stood abruptly and moved out of the pharmacy into the supermarket, disappearing as he swung the broken door closed. When he passed through the door, Jane resumed speaking:

  “After they finish with interviewing new folks, they make you a list of supplies the community needs, they want to be certain that everyone is willing and able to contribute to the community.”

  “How many people are living there?” Laura asked from the corner she sat in.

  Christine lay half on Laura's lap, half on the floor, with Laura dabbing at her sweaty brow with a wet cloth. Sophie and Luna were busily at play with a display of children’s accouterments the little girls had spotted on the way back to the pharmacy. While tensions among the grown-ups had eased Sophie had asked for Jen's help, in the guise of toileting in private. As soon as they ducked out of the pharmacy she had fetched the entire rack, dragging it back into the pharmacy. Luna adopted a purse with a puffy image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on it, while Sophie took a pink one that had a big white Hello Kitty face on it. Both of the girls wore pink sunglasses and cheaply made feather boas as they pranced around the rear of the pharmacy department. Luna followed along, doing her best to approximate the older child's mannerisms.

  “Not sure, we haven't been inside. It's not a big town, though, just a ranch community up in the high plains, maybe a few hundred people if I had to guess. There's a couple thousand outside the gates, though. People like us, wanting to get in and be part of it. You all should do your best to get that girl there,” Jane paused, nodding her head in Christine's direction. “At least you'll have a doctor attending the birth. Even if they turn you away after.”

  Peter returned through the door and Jane turned to him, alarmed by the hint of worry she saw in his soft blue eyes.

  “What is it Peter?”

  “The doors are holding but the glass in the window next to them is cracked, there are probably hundreds now that the slow ones have filtered in. It won't be long now, I think.”

  Jane paled at the news as they all understood the meaning of his statement.

  *

  The soldiers that manned the gate and perimeter of the base were tasked with the duty of keeping the fence clear of undead. As it was only steel chain link, any number of undead greater than a dozen or so building up on the other side would risk a breach. The civilians that Mark followed outside the safety of the fence were required to drag whatever undead that the soldiers had neutralized the previous day to the burn pile outside the fence. Soldiers shadowed the civilians from safety, inside the fence with their night vision on, providing cover. Maybe they are really there to prevent escape? Mark thought darkly as he moved towards the prone form of another corpse. It was face down with its stiff fingers still curled around the chain link fencing.

  An hour later the fire was burning high and bright, evaporating the sweat on Mark's forehead as he watched the flames lick the human limbs piled about each other. Though it was reminiscent of holocaust footage he had seen in school, Mark was not only emotionally unaffected, but the sight before him was comforting to him. It bestowed a feeling of accomplishment and safety. The warmth of the fire, the feeling of his body tired from manual labor, and relaxing watching the dead things burn all coalesced into something akin to contentment for him. It was a life he thought he could get used to, if not for the fears of Grayson's whims and what might happen to Amber.

  The happy feelings only lasted until morning mess, when he caught sight of Grayson walking out of the officer's mess with a smile on his face, his men bustling all around him. The hushed conversation of the night previous came back to him in that moment and his mood soured. As much as he dreaded the possible outcomes, he knew that it was time to talk to Amber about his fears. He knew that if things moved further along or something bad happened he couldn't live with the knowledge that he kept things from her. That thought was interrupted by heavy rumbling in the distance. Earthquake? he wondered as he ushered Amber to the door of the mess-hall and out into the weak spring sun. The air-raid siren cut through the air as soon as the meager warmth of the sun touched their faces.

  “Shit, get to the tents,” Mark called as he started to run, half-dragging her across the base.

  “What's going on Mark?” Amber cried back, her voice on the verge of panic.

  “Someone or something is approaching the compound.”

  Mark could hear Amber panting as he dragged her towards the tent-camp. His untidy, gnawed fingernails dug into the soft flesh inside her wrist as they ran. He finally slowed inside the perimeter of the tents, releasing his grip on her.

  “So why are we at the tents?” she panted out between gulping huge breaths of air.

  “Start packing essentials, be quick.”

  “Are we leaving?”

  “No . . .” Mark replied hesitantly.

  Amber could see by the look on his face that there was more to the story, but urged on by his insistence, she dropped the subject for the time being, and started packing.

  “We need to be ready to bolt, Amber. We aren't safe here, we aren't safe anywhere.”

  He stopped suddenly, halting her. He grasped her, taking both of her wrists in his hands and turned her to face him.

  “I'm going to do everything I can to protect you, Am, I swear. But you need to know that at any minute I may grab you and tell you that it's time to go. I need you to be ready for that. I need you to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat, with me, or . . . if I'm not here, without me.”

  Amber could see the urgency and fear in his eyes. It was fear that had been brewing for weeks. A fear that had festered among Grayson and his rag-tag bunch of leering men and was almost certainly validated by the midnight conversation that drifted to him while she slept. They finished packing essentials hurriedly and dragged their packs to the flap of the tent when the sounds of rolling thunder came to a stop outside. Drawn to the mystery, Mark exited the tent and started drifting towards the gate.

  The thunderous cacophony was in fact a herd of steer that a handful of people had driven up to the gates. Mark moved along the fence line until he finally was able to catch sight of the strangers. It looked to be three generations of family as well as a few stragglers. An older gentleman spoke to Grayson and the Lieutenant earnestly. At points, the conversation got animated, the
older man removing his western hat and running his hand over his balding coiffure before replacing it atop his scalp. Mark's eyes moved to the rest of the group, there were five men between the ages of eighteen and fifty, three women. There was only one child among them, a little girl of six or seven years of age, clutching a tattered dun brown teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck.

  The conversation went on for nearly an hour, the rest of the group eventually moved away from the conversation, back to their pack-horses and to check on the cattle. The little girl followed behind a woman who Mark assumed to be her mother. Like a miniature shadow, she trailed just behind the woman's right leg. Though the urgency of starting a family had driven his actions since the heart attack, Mark was suddenly grateful he had never had children. Looking at the little girl, he couldn't imagine what it must be like as a parent in the apocalypse. It wounded him to think about the fear involved in dragging your child through the endless dangers out among the undead. He shook the gloomy thoughts from his head and moved his eyes back to the gate, where the older gentleman was shaking hands with Grayson and Baker. Without realizing it, Mark had moved across the camp to within spitting distance of the gate. When the Lieutenant and Senator turned to move back into the compound they locked their eyes directly on Mark, who was then forced to say something.

  “Everything good?” he asked, trying to sound as manly as possible.

  “Steaks for weeks, Mark, Steaks!” Grayson barked back giddily, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed.

  *

  “Is there a storage room or an office back here? A way out or a door we can lock behind us? Anything but this deathtrap of a pharmacy we are in?” Tim barked, assessing their current situation.

  He thought that they might be able to fully barricade the door using some of the furniture in the room, maybe even close it indefinitely, but then they would be trapped with no alternate escape and extremely limited food. They would either die of starvation or get eaten in an impossible escape attempt. He felt like the walls of the small pharmacy were closing in on him.

  “Everyone, get up now!” he shouted, grabbing the undivided attention of everyone present. “We have to get out of here, now!”

  Without a further word, he ran over to the corner and picked Christine from where she lay on the floor, moaning. The rest of those present looked to each other, uncertain, before they too gathered themselves up. Tim moved across the room to the cart of pill bottles.

  “Jen grab the guns,” he commanded.

  This drew a gasp from Jane, though she didn't move to stop the young woman who scooped the guns up from the cart. Tim dropped Chris unceremoniously down atop the assorted white boxes and pill bottles that filled the cart and grasped the handle. He spun the cart around, aiming it towards the broken door and waited impatiently as the others prepared themselves. Jen scooped Sophie into her arms who was still dressed in her glasses and boa and clutching her Hello Kitty purse. She set the girl into the cart next to Christine before handing Will, Laura and Tim their pistols. Laura stood waiting with Luna wrapped under her coat, her face a mask of worry and resignation.

  “Move, now!” Tim barked as he shoved the cart out through the broken door.

  He heaved on the cart awkwardly, turning the overloaded, top-heavy thing around to the rear aisle of the store. The sound of shattering glass and the fast undead piling through the broken front window of the store echoed loudly back to them at the rear. The roars of the fast undead sounded loudly, chilling their spines and eliciting more than one panicked squeal.

  “Run!” Jen shouted, putting a hand on the shopping cart to help get it up to speed.

  Beams from their flashlights shone all about the absolute dark of the supermarket as the six of them ran, carrying and pushing Luna, Sophie, and Christine. Will cast a curious light shone down the aisles that ran the length of the store. Down each and every one ran the fast undead, drawing ever closer as they approached the middle of the store, where the front entrance was located. Will paused briefly and could see beyond the shapes and silhouettes of the moving forms where the front window was breached, spilling the gathered undead inside. His blood ran cold at the quantity of shapes he saw moving about.

  A blinding light accompanied by the loudest sound Laura had ever heard boomed out from beside her, eliciting another scream. Jane had paused in stride and the machine gun she held spat flame from the barrel down the next aisle. Contrary to their initial belief, the petite woman managed the massive weapon with expert ability. The flames erupting from the end of the weapon lit her face up. An angry scowl was fixed on her face and her teeth gritted in effort as the heavy weapon cut down a handful of undead that had reached the end-cap.

  Peter stepped forward putting a final bullet in the skull of one of the undead that still moved. Then they were running again, headlong across the rear of the store to catch up to Tim and the shopping cart careening across the back of the store. Footsteps slapping on the linoleum gathered in ever-increasing numbers behind Will, who having paused momentarily was now taking up the rear. His sphincter clenched, expectantly, anticipating at any moment the feel of a cold, dead hand grasp hold of his arm.

  *

  Baker completely ignored Mark's question and his presence. He used Grayson's pause to respond as the opportunity to move away and hurry off to the barracks. An hour later, the family of ranchers was escorted into the compound and moved towards the officers’ bungalows, far from the tent community. There was much grumbling in the tents that evening, suppositions that the newcomers were higher on the social ladder and the jealousies that came with that.

  “Mark?” came Amber's voice from behind, as he finished dumping the lunch waste onto the burn pile.

  “Hey, Am,” he called back swinging the bus tray back around.

  “Mind telling me what that was all about earlier?”

  Mark sighed heavily and shook the last bits out of the bus bin before realizing there was no way around the conversation.

  “You're a woman, Am. That's something that is rare around here, especially being young and fit. . .” He trailed off, leaving the implications unspoken.

  “I'm your wife Mark, you don't think anyone would . . .”

  The silence lingered for an uncomfortably long time, leading Amber to believe that he just might believe it. Mark was at a loss as to express his thoughts without scaring her. The last thing he wanted was for her to demand their immediate departure.

  “I don't know Am, all I know is that there is a lot of testosterone flying around this place. You hear all the fights.”

  “Yeah, I wish there was no booze here. It makes me think of the way things came apart at Jack and Esme's. You think that something like that might happen here?”

  “Well we certainly can’t afford to get comfortable. But, no, Grayson is a lot of things. He is harsh and callous, manipulative and scheming, but he isn't stupid. He wouldn't let things get to the point they did at the cabin.”

  “He scares you, doesn't he?”

  “A little,” he replied, hesitantly. “His entire 'Holy War' rebuilding nonsense reminds me a lot of a cult leader in a documentary I saw a few years back. To be honest Am, if I were stronger, braver, I think I would want to get the fuck out of here.”

  “Why don't we then?”

  Mark just looked at her, he wanted to break down and sob. To confess to the woman just how weak and scared he was. He wanted to tell her that he couldn't protect her and was too scared to try. Instead he just shook his head and looked down at the ground.

  “Mark, I mean it,” she cast back, stepping closer into him. “What's the worst that happens? We get bitten and die, eaten maybe? I feel like death is so present. It's everywhere, all the time that it almost doesn't even matter anymore. But these people, if they can and might do the things you are afraid of, isn't that scarier? Isn't that worse for us and the world in the long run? If we stay, aren't we condoning this shit?”

  “I don't know, Am. Sometimes I think I'm
just paranoid. I feel like we should be safe, with the soldiers and razor wire. We have plenty of food and water. But to tell you the truth, I'm more scared and paranoid and desperate now, than when we fled Jack and Esme's place. Maybe my trust issues are taking me for a ride, making me question a good thing. I don't want to risk putting you in danger, but I fear that doing nothing puts you in worse danger. I'm stuck in a logic trap of sorts, one whose ramifications are death on one hand or rape and death on the other.”

  Amber grew quiet at the last statement and the two stood looking blankly at one another for an answer that neither had. Amber wanted nothing more than to climb into the tent and hide until someone else figured things out.

  “Well, we have our shit packed. Maybe let's sleep on it?” she said at last, breaking away from the conversation in the direction of the tent camp.

  “That's what I have been doing, Amber, for a few weeks now,” he replied, spinning on his heels to follow her movement.

  Amber stopped mid-stride, shocked by the statement.

  “Why didn't you talk to me earlier about it, Mark? You mean to tell me that you've kept us both in danger all this time?”

  “I'm sorry, Am. I didn't want you to panic. But now, we are in a place where we have to get permission to leave, and frankly, I'm scared to death.”

  *

  Laura, carrying Luna under her coat, almost slid into a display of bagged pepperoni as Tim made a hairpin turn, cutting between the deli and the bakery and through a set of dented metal swinging doors. She made the turn followed by Jen, then Jane and Peter who strode side by side. Jane's short stature had to move at nearly twice the pace to stay astride the much larger man.

  As Will cut the corner, he was certain he felt the breeze of something move past the back of his neck. As he came through the double doors, he could hear the sounds of the things behind him crashing into the side of the deli counter he had just passed by. From the racket they made, it sounded like there were a great many of them piling up and tripping over one another. A firm hand grasped his bicep and pulled him roughly to the side just inside the swinging doors. A shrill squeak of terror sounded through his gritted teeth, stemming from somewhere deep in his sternum. It took him a moment to recognize the hulking form of Peter, standing before him.