by Brown, TW
***
Am I dead? Heather wondered. Lifting her head slightly, she winced in pain. A new sensation at her neck introduced itself and received an answer from practically every other part of her body. It was as if this one pain sensation had brought to life all the others that she’d been blissfully unaware for the last several seconds.
Blinking her eyes a few times, she could make out a blurry pocket of light, like the exit of a tunnel, a few feet away. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she got her hands underneath her body and pushed up. Her head hit something solid with a painful thud. This caused her arms to bend, and once more she collapsed face down. That small impact on her body was agonizing, and Heather lay still, listening to somebody close by. It took her a moment to realize it was herself.
Determined to reach that hazy, blurry light, Heather reached out with her hands and crawled forward. Inch by inch she crept on her belly, gritting her teeth against the pain. Her efforts were finally rewarded as she reached daylight. Several smells assaulted her senses at once. The most dominant being that of burning hair and flesh.
Her ears still rang a bit, but she could hear the roar of the flames even from the distance she was from the inferno. She struggled to her feet and was stunned by what she saw. A huge crater was in the road and extended outward to the fields on both sides. Ten yards closer and she and Cary would’ve been crispy critters. The car they’d been beside was now upside down, no sign of the guns they’d had in place to pick off any survivors. It was clear that wouldn’t be necessary. The lead truck, flat-bed, and bus were blown to oblivion. Both Hummers had been tossed aside and were in flames. There was the curious sound that reminded Heather of the popcorn machine at the movie theater, but it sounded like the batch was almost done. That sound was occasionally echoed by a ting of something hitting something metal.
Heather glanced back towards town. What she saw wasn’t good. How could so damn many of those things still exist after all the raids and fires, not to mention the vast numbers that she and the guys had put down. She needed to find a weapon, then Kevin and Cary…preferably in that order.
Climbing out of the ditch, she swooned just a little bit and looked down where she’d been. The hood of what was probably the truck she’d been shooting at lay across the ditch. She swallowed hard, noticing all the debris laying around, including a long piece of steel the size of her arm that was jutting out of the ground right near the marks made from where her body skidded into the ditch. Had she not flipped over…
She shook her head slightly and winced at the pain, not only between her temples, but in her neck. It was as if she’d slept on it wrong, only a hundred times worse. The moans of the undead were starting to make themselves heard above the fire. It was time to move. Looking around, she wasn’t pleased to see that the cornfields were going up in flames, and those flames seemed to be headed towards their farmhouse.
Scanning carefully, she finally saw a heap next to a Happi-Tyme delivery truck; Cary. With a slow limp, each step seeming strangely similar to the gait of the approaching horde of zombies, she made her way towards the vehicle through the smoldering wreckage strewn everywhere. She was halfway across the road before realizing that a lot of the “debris” was human body parts.
Kneeling beside Cary, she was relieved to see his chest rising and falling. The sight of fresh blood dripping down the delivery truck’s side had given her more than a little concern. Looking him over, nothing seemed…out of place. She could see the sheen in his hair from the open wound. Seeing the head-sized dent, it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.
“Cary?” She patted him on the cheek, getting no response. “Cary,” she said more fearfully. “CARY!” she yelled, slapping him across the face. The man moaned and his eyes fluttered open just a bit like a car that wouldn’t quite start the first time, she gave it another try.
“…don’t,” Cary mumbled, finishing his last thought out loud.
“Wake up!” Heather urged. “We gotta move!”
Cary blinked a few times rapidly and moved, trying to get his eyes to focus on the face above his. He moaned again, the sound pounding in his ears seeming strange and a bit off.
“You have to get up,” Heather urged. “They’re getting closer and we have to move before they catch sight of us.”
“Shaw?” Cary asked
“No,” Heather leaned down looking under the delivery truck, back towards town, “worse.”
Cary slowly tested his neck, turning his head, first right, seeing a black cloud rising from the huge crater and all the burning wreckage around it, then left. He could see the reason for Heather’s sense of urgency. They were coming in droves from Heath, all of them funneling onto this long stretch of lone blacktop.
“Help me up.” Cary extended one arm. Heather stood, then carefully helped pull the somewhat shaky man to his feet.
“We need to find Kevin.” Heather’s voice was a little fluttery and, at first, Cary thought she was trying not to cry. Then he got a look at her.
“Holy crap!” he breathed. “You look like you’ve been dragged behind a four-wheeler through a mud pit”
“Yeah?” Heather looked up at him through the hair that had fallen into her face. “Well, people in glass houses.”
They turned away from the steadily approaching horde of zombies—their moans were growing louder—and made it to the lip of the crater, using as much of the road debris as possible to stay out of sight.
“Hold on,” Heather said motioning for Cary to stay put. She hurried back the way they’d come until she reached a smoldering section of what looked to have been the flat-bed. She knelt and came up with a large black revolver.
“Whatcha got?” Cary squinted, his vision still blurry.
“I think it’s a .357.” Heather flipped out the cylinder and emptied the contents in her hand, rolled them around a bit, then reloaded the weapon. “Five rounds.”
“It’s a start.” Cary shrugged and slung an arm back around Heather’s shoulder as she returned, stuffing the gun in her pocket.
“How far up was Kevin?”
“We’ll need to skirt the crater,” Cary answered. “Can’t very well get past it. As much as I hate the idea, we’ll have to split up and find him.”
“What makes you think we’ll have to find him?” Heather asked.
“Because, if he was okay, he’d be looking for us already.”
Heather nodded and led the way, helping Cary navigate his way down into the ditch. She fought to hide her pain and only really showed it when she craned her neck to get a glimpse at the zombies closing in steadily. Her greatest worry came when climbing up the other side of the ditch. Cary had a lot of trouble, and she had very little in the way of strength to offer when it came to helping him up.
Finally, they were able to duck inside the rows of corn. Now they had a new problem. The field was on fire and seemed to be catching fast. Fortunately, the blast had sent the burning debris arcing over the front part of the field. Still, they both knew they had only moments to search for Kevin, then they’d have to leave. To make matters worse, the wind was effectively blowing the flames towards the farmhouse. Already there was a wide path of smoke between them and the house thick enough to practically obscure it from view.
“I’ll skirt the front,” Cary said. “You go in a bit and start heading away from the direction of the farmhouse. If you find him, don’t yell. Come to the edge of the row and get my attention.”
“I wouldn’t yell,” Heather grumbled.
“No,” Cary gripped her arm firmly before she ducked between the tall cornstalks, “you probably wouldn’t have, and I should give you the benefit of the doubt. Now go.”
Heather ducked down the row and made her way in a few yards before turning left and plunging into the next row. She couldn’t force the smile off her face. For the first time, she felt like one of the team instead of the helpless little girl who needed watching over and protection. She looked both ways, wincing at th
e terrible pain in her neck that went down between both shoulders and seemed worse when she looked right than when she turned her head to the left.
Row by row, she pushed through. Each time, she turned her entire body. First left, back towards the road, then right. She repeated this four more times when, just as she was beginning to worry about the sounds of the cornfield really starting to catch, she stepped through to find Kevin was sprawled face down to her left only a few feet away from the end of the row. He’d fallen between stalks, and was sort of on his knees, his stomach stretched over the rise that the corn grew from.
She hurried towards him, stepping over a large, jagged piece of metal that had landed like a spear, plunging into the earth. She whispered a quick thanks to whatever had allowed that piece of flying death to miss Kevin. She reached him and put her hand on his back. She allowed tears to fill her eyes only once she’d felt the rise and fall of his breathing.
She struggled to her feet and made it to the end of the row. She saw Cary to her left on his hands and knees, crawling along the rows away from her. Picking up a dirt clod, she threw it, wincing at the new explosion of pain. Cary turned, and nodded when she motioned frantically. She didn’t wait any longer and rushed back to Kevin’s side.
Being as careful as possible, she slid him down and rolled him over. She had to stifle a gasp. Blood was trickling from one cheek, but it was the nasty gash on his forehead that bled freely, forming a mask made even more unpleasant as the dirt on his face had turned to a bloody paste.
“Is he alive?” Cary crawled up beside Heather, his breath labored.
“Yes,” Heather fought back the urge to cry, making her voice sound hoarse, “but look at his face.”
Cary leaned in, then, after looking around, he simply tore off a piece of his shirt sleeve and wrapped it around Kevin’s head. He pulled it tight and did his best to situate the knot right above the wound. “There,” he nodded. “Now let’s get him up and moving.”
“Kevin.” Heather shook the man’s shoulders.
“C’mon.” Cary nudged her aside and slapped the man hard across the cheek. “Kev! Yo, Kevin, wake the hell up!”
The man mumbled something and his eyes fluttered. Cary slapped him again and reached behind his head, sitting the man upright as best he could.
“Help me get him up,” Cary urged. “I can’t do this alone…and as it is, you’ll be supporting most of his weight. We gotta move, now.”
“Kevin,” Heather whispered in the man’s ear, “you have to help us, baby.”
The man stirred, but it still took all of Cary’s and Heather’s efforts to get him up on his feet. Once they did, Heather led the way, taking them deeper into the cornfield. Kevin moved like a sleepwalker, and twice, they tripped and fell to the ground in a heap. Both times, all three cried out in pain.
Eventually, they were clear of the smoke. However, they could still smell it. Sometimes Kevin would mutter a string of unintelligible words, and once, Heather clearly heard him say Mike’s name.
After twenty minutes or so, Cary couldn’t go on any further. For the last five minutes, Heather had been struggling under Kevin’s weight, trying her best to quietly urge him to keep moving. The rest came at a perfect time, her left knee was starting to buckle about every ten steps or so. Easing Kevin down, she sat on the small mound between a pair of cornstalks and tried to catch her breath.
“I can’t go on,” Cary whispered.
“Yes, you can.” Heather leaned forward with a look of concern. Cary was flat on his back, eyes closed. “I can’t do this by myself. I need you to help me keep Kevin moving.”
“Kevin can’t move either,” Cary said with a sigh. “He’s done, and so am I.”
“What?” Heather asked, slipping past Kevin and squeezing in beside Cary on her knees.
“I can’t move,” Cary gasped, chest rising and falling as he struggled to breathe. Those zombies were roaming the field and it was just a matter of time before they came stumbling this way. “You have to run. Save yourself.”
Heather looked down at the man who still had his eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain. She felt her chest tighten from sorrow, but strangely her eyes remained dry. Then she realized it wasn’t sadness that had her heart crushed in its grip. It was anger. “Bullshit.”
“What?” The man’s eyes flickered open and looked up at her.
“You shut up and listen to me for a change,” Heather snapped. “I sat quietly while you two planned out everything. I cooked, cleaned, and played maid to you, Kevin, and Mike. I’ve learned how to kill zombies and wield weapons all because you guys have told me that I need to learn how to survive. Well, I’ve learned. And the first thing that I learned is that you don’t quit. Ever.”
Cary stared up at the girl who was now scolding him like his mother used to when he wouldn’t eat his green beans. He hurt so bad, she just didn’t understand. Then his eyes really took her in. She was dirty; tears had made muddy streaks down her cheeks and then dried. She had nicks and cuts and bruises all over. There was a dark smudge down one side of her face that he’d initially mistaken for dirt. That girl’s tore up from the floor up, Cary mused.
“Rip up some of those stalks.” Cary sat up. “It won’t be much, but it’ll keep me on my feet. Can you get Kevin up?”
“Yeah.” Heather scooted back over to Kevin’s poor body. “Wake up, sweetie.”
Once again his eyes fluttered, but he didn’t wake. Cary sat up and scootched on his butt beside his friend. “You get me those stalks and rip off all the leaves, I’ll get Kevin up.”
Heather went to work, having a bit of an idea as to what Cary would need. She felt the leaves cutting her hand as she tore them off. Kevin had been insistent about gloves, but she didn’t need to worry about a little nip turning her, and she didn’t like how stinky her hands become after wearing gloves for hours at a time. Now she wished she’d listened.
“Umm…I don’t want to be the one to make things just a bit worse,” Cary said, tugging on her pant leg.
Heather looked down at him. His eyes were wide and staring at the end of the corn row. She didn’t actually need to look to know what was coming. Still, she did anyways, needing to know how much time they had. Several of the Heath zombies were indeed coming. There wasn’t a need to peek down any of the adjacent rows to know.
They were coming.
12
Digging In
“How do you think we’ll keep this from caving in?” Aaron asked.
“I am going on blind faith.” I shrugged.
“How’s that been workin’ out for you so far?” Barry snickered.
“Look,” I planted the tip of my spade in the ground, “I’m not the master ditch digger of the universe, but if we dig this trench about five or so feet deep and make the sides as vertical as possible, we might have a safe place for the winter.”
“Like Serenity Base?” Jamie quipped.
“Don’t be a jerk.” Teresa elbowed Jamie in the ribs. “You say something like that around Emily…”
I nodded in agreement with the sentiment, but all of this talking was burning daylight. I set my foot and used it to plunge the spade into the ground. “I’m gonna get started. If any of you plan on staying here, I’d grab one of those manually-operated-earth-removal devices and get busy.”
“Huh?” Aaron scratched his head.
“A shovel, idiot.” Jamie took his frustration over being elbowed by Teresa out on his friend with a not-too-gentle slap on the back of his head.
“Hey!” Aaron yelped.
I continued to dig, ignoring all the grab-assing. My late grandfather had used that trick on me. After a little guilt-tripping about the lack of work ethic in the “younger” generation, he’d set to whatever task needed doing and ignore me. Eventually, I would be right there with him doing whatever needed to get done. He was like the Pied Piper of unpleasant jobs. He’d died of a heart attack about seven months before all this madness…in his back yard splitting wood
“Steve?” Randi tapped me on the shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“How wide are we looking to make this ditch or moat or whatever you wanna call it?”
“I’m thinking about four feet ought to do nicely.”
“Perhaps I can wrangle the girls to help me and Chloe mark off a route. I saw some stakes and string in the tool shed,” Dr. Zahn offered.
“That’d be great, Francis,” I said, catching that slight narrowing of her eyes, letting me know how much that really bugged her. So far, I was the only person bold enough to call her by her name and not her title.
“Yes, Doctor,” Randi emphasized the word and shot me a look of disapproval, “that is a great idea, plus, I know that the girls want to feel like they’re helping.”
I went back to work, and within twenty minutes, everybody was busy. It was actually kinda nice. Things hadn’t—nor would they—felt normal, but this was as close as it gets. We’d had that sense back at Serenity. Still, no matter how nice things got, there was that nagging threat in the back of your mind. As if to illustrate the point, Jack, who was currently on watch at the moment walked past me, drawing the big sturdy blade he kept at his hip in a leather sheath.
I glanced up, quickly spotting the pair of zombies wandering out from the trees on the far side of the now overgrown picnic area. One of them was no bigger than Thalia. That made me immediately seek her out with my eyes.
She was kneeling beside Chloe, holding a small wooden stake with an intense look on her face. She watched as Chloe picked up a nearby hatchet and used the blunt end to tap the stake into the ground. I expected her to flinch or move her hands, but she never did. They moved several feet, and this time Chloe helped steady Thalia’s hand, then gave her the hatchet. I felt that old, pre-zombie apocalypse objection race the fear that was blooming in my stomach.