by Brown, TW
He paused, then went to the infirmary. Flipping on a monitor, he watched the screen grow brighter until the picture came in to view. A sea of bodies remained smashed in tightly against one another. The fence had fallen long ago and now the bodies were pressed up against the concrete bunker that sat over the hatch allowing entry or exit to this godforsaken place.
He switched off the monitor. The truth had to be faced… he…they were never getting out of this place. It was their home and their tomb. He sighed, running his fingers through his thinning hair. He rolled his head in an exaggerated circle, going from having his left ear practically resting on his shoulder, to the right. He rolled forward, tucking in his ever-decreasing-in-definition double chin to his chest.
He rolled back and caught his reflection in the dead eye of the blank television monitor. He could see the smudge of darkness under each eye. He reached up and touched the knobby lump on the bridge of his newly misshaped nose. He’d done his best to set it after Lucy had punched him in the face, breaking it. She hadn’t been receptive to his last batch of wine.
Once again she’d insisted that nothing could go wrong and no harm done if he’d just make her a batch of meth. He’d already made the foolish mistake of admitting that he had all the ingredients necessary to synthesize the product.
“You’ll make alcohol, a poison that destroys the brain,” Lucy had raged, “but you draw the line at meth? What are you afraid of? The world is over! You even said so. Nobody is coming. What’s the big deal if I do a little meth? You could even keep it in your little mad scientists’ lab and dole it out in controlled amounts.”
“Meth is a highly addictive substance that is—” he had tried to reason with Lucy. That was when her fist smashed into his face, breaking his nose.
“Get out!” Lucy had screamed as her fists rained down on him.
He’d retreated from his room, scurrying across the hall into the empty living quarters of one of his former colleagues. He’d gone to the mirror with a dirty tee shirt, intent solely on cleaning up the blood when he saw that his nose was obscenely crooked. Setting it as best he could, Reginald fell asleep weeping.
When he awoke, he’d considered confronting Lucy, going so far as to stand outside the door with his hand on the knob for several seconds. Eventually, he chickened out, and here he was in his lab. Alone. He wandered around unable to decide exactly what task to undertake. He kept returning to the observation cells, staring at the specimens inside.
Eventually he made his way to the grow room and checked on his rows of plants. He kept telling himself that he needed to get Lucy in there to see how things worked. Also, he needed to give her the keypad codes. While he was always careful, it was impossible to discount the possibility that an accident may occur. Of course, after last night, he had no doubt that she would put him down if he turned. Hell…she might do it even if he didn’t.
Checking the storerooms, he did a mental calculation of the vast quantities of dried and packaged meals. There should be enough to sustain four people for five years without supplements from the garden. Food was not an issue. The combination wind and solar power setup that supplied them with electricity should be okay for a while. Also, their generators were ready just in case. For all intents and purposes, they should be able to live comfortable for a few years without worries.
Of course, if that mob topside ever dispersed… Reginald looked down on the long table. When had he done all this? Beakers, burners, and pans were laid out along with all the ingredients for a rather impressive batch of meth. Could it really be no worse than the wine and brandy that he’d cobbled together? And once he did this one thing Lucy would be his. His mind flashed to that first night he’d surprised her with the wine. She’d actually been…pleasant.
Reginald pulled out the folded up piece of paper from his pocket. Like he would anything else, he double and triple checked his list. Going over to the lockers, he donned all his protective gear. Then, with a shrug, Reginald Cox went to work on his first—and only, he promised himself—batch of crystal meth.
***
“Down this way.” JoJo jogged ahead of Juan, Thad, and Mackenzie.
Everybody walked single file down the path leading to one of the island’s larger beaches. JoJo signaled for everyone to be quiet, and moved into the trees and vines so the others could come up alongside.
A trio of aluminum canoes had been pulled up onto the sand. Some backpacks had been set in a row on a dune, and a man and woman sat beside them, passing back and forth a canteen. Both were wearing handguns holstered under one arm and had pistol-gripped shotguns propped beside.
“Is there such a thing as a militant hippie?” Thad quipped barely above a whisper. Mackenzie put her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Juan glared at everybody, then tapped JoJo on the arm, “I’ll go out, you cover me.”
“Not by yourself!” Mackenzie grabbed him. “If we go together, it might seem less threatening to have a woman with you.”
“Good point,” Thad agreed.
If it were at all possible, Juan scowled even deeper. He stared down at Mackenzie who returned his look with wide eyes and a hint of a smile. She knows she’s pushing my buttons, Juan thought. There was no way she wasn’t coming with him. That was clear in her expression.
“Fine,” Juan said, his shoulders dropping just a bit. “But you stay back a few steps once we get close. If I gotta box, I don’t want you in the way.”
“Yes, my big, brave man,” Mackenzie cooed.
With a huff, Juan turned and stalked out onto the beach. He was halfway across the wide-open space before the couple actually noticed. The guy fumbled for his gun, but the girl beat him.
“Don’t let that thing come out of the holster,” Juan warned, holding his empty hands out in front of him.
The girl ignored the warning and drew, bringing her shaky hands up and aiming at Juan’s chest. Juan stopped, making a point to wiggle the fingers on both hands. The man had his partially drawn, but slid it back. He did however rest a hand on the nearby shotgun. Juan’s eyes flicked angrily between the two.
“You realize that if we meant to hurt you, we’d have already shot you.” Mackenzie stepped forward, hands planted on her hips.
“We ain’t lookin’ for any problems.” The man reached over and eased the gun down that the girl beside him still held with a frighteningly visible tremor.
Mackenzie looked them both over. The guy had shaggy brown hair, and very dark eyes. His skin was coffee-with-extra-crème-brown, and he had a brace on his left leg. That was a concern if he was bitten. The woman was much darker and younger. She placed the man in his thirties or forties. The woman was barely twenty…if that. She had a bandana tied to her head, but a fluffy, black ball of hair stuck out the back.
“Where are the rest of your group?” Juan growled.
The couple looked at each other as if trying to send signals with their eyes on how to answer. Mackenzie decided to play her first card. “Look, my mother is at the house and all I want to know is if I should be worried about your little group stumbling across her and doing something.”
“Your mom?” the woman asked hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Juan reasserted himself in the conversation. “We got a few people here, been tryin’ to get this place set up for a while now.”
“That was you guys who blew up the bridge?” the man said.
“Yep,” Juan nodded. “Figure them deaders don’t care much for water, so we took out their only way across. Now all we gotta worry ‘bout is the living.”
“Had some bad experiences?” the man asked, sounding sincerely sympathetic.
“And given a couple back in return,” Juan said with as much ice in his voice as he could muster. He was done playing. Either these two were gonna chill, or it was time to thrown down. If only Mackenzie would’ve stayed out of the way, he didn’t like her out in the open. “So if the girl wants to keep her gun drawn, I’m fixin’ to even the odds.”
“You’d rather stay,” Mackenzie finished.
“That’s sorta up to y’all,” the man nodded. “But, yes, it’d be great.”
“What’s up with the leg?” Juan pointed to the wrapped up limb with the makeshift brace.
“One of those damned things—”
“You been bit?” Juan’s hand fumbled for his weapon which had Sandra reaching for hers again, but Mackenzie and the man both kept still.
“Let me explain!” The man held up his hands.
“Let’s just go, Lavon,” Sandra pleaded, pointing her pistol at Juan, but not looking at the big man.
“Juan,” Mackenzie touched his shoulder, “put it away.”
“Let me tell ‘em,” Lavon kissed the woman gently on the forehead. He turned back to Juan, “How long you seen people last after they got bit?”
“Day or two.” Juan shrugged, lowering his weapon, but refusing to holster it.
“Yep,” Lavon agreed. “That seems to be ‘bout it. Only this bite is five weeks old.” He made a point of showing his hands, then sitting down and carefully unwrapping the leg.
Juan was unable to help himself and moved close. By the time Lavon finished, he was standing directly over the man. Sure enough, there was an ugly chunk of calf muscle missing. But it was scabbed over.
“Had ‘em tie me up really good that night,” Lavon said. “By the second day, other than the pain and the headache…nothing. I’d seen folks turn. It’s ugly, and they get this smell. And then there’s the eyes…the capillaries get black by the end of the first day. So when the second day came and nothing had happened…you start to hope, ya know?”
“Never seen somebody heal from a deader.” Juan knelt down to look closer at the almost healed wound. “That’s tight.”
“Yes, well… the group we were with didn’t think so,” Lavon sighed. “At first it was understandable, everybody thought I’d turn. Only, when I didn’t…well…people acted freaky. If I drank from a cup, nobody would touch it. If I used a fork or anything for that matter, people acted weird. And pretty soon, it was like I had an invisible fence with about a twenty foot radius.”
“They left us in the middle of the night,” Sandra sobbed. “A few folks stayed…one of ‘em had a brother get AIDS in the late Eighties…said it was a lot like that.”
“Anyways, our little group was tryin’ for Sauvie Island. We were up on a ridge the day the bridge blew up,” Lavon said, taking Sandra’s hand. “Thought it was our old group tryin’ to keep us away, then we saw three people we didn’t recognize—”
“That was Juan and my mom and I,” Mackenzie said. She stepped up to the woman. “My name is Mackenzie. My mom’s name is Margaret. The two guy’s hiding in the bushes we’re fixin’ to give the ‘all clear’ sign to are Thad and JoJo. Also, we got one guy injured…his name is Keith.”
“And I’m Lavon Green, this is my wife Sandra.” Lavon looked up at the big man towering over him. “There are four others…and we’d love to stay. We’d work hard and do our share—”
A distant gunshot sounded, cutting off the introductions. Everybody turned, trying to tell which direction it came from. Then…a noise like a strand of firecrackers followed.
“That’s from towards the house!” JoJo burst from the trees and onto the beach.
“Mom!” Mackenzie cried, and sprinted across the sand.
***
Scott leaned out the window, “Looks clear,” he whispered.
“Let’s go, people,” Chad said as loud as he dared. The parking lot of Riverbank High School was mostly empty. A few zombies were staggering around the far side of the fenced tennis courts, and they’d had to put down a few as they’d cut across the baseball field, but for the most part, the area seemed clear.
“What is the deal with high schools?” Brett grumbled as he boosted Ronni through.
“Common area, most folks know where it is,” Chad shrugged.
They’d seen all the military constructed fencing around the football field. That’s why the initial thought was to bypass the place. The sight of so many birds circling overhead made them decide to check things out. It was more out of curiosity. They’d all been at the Modesto High FEMA center. The possibility of other survivors, especially ones that might need help, had been the catalyst.
It had been a slaughter. There was zero sign of any lingering military presence. But, likewise, there could be no doubt that they’d been in charge at the high school. Towers still stood at regular intervals around the fenced perimeter. Mounds of brass casings glittered in the sun around the bases of those towers. Bodies, the remnants of tents, and all sorts of debris littered the football field. Men, women, and children lie dead; bloated and rotting in the late summer sun. Swarms of birds circled, swooped, and pecked. Not a single sign of a living soul could be seen.
Once everybody was safely inside the classroom, everyone broke into small groups. Ronni was in a corner with her two friends, Tammi and Krystal. Chad sat down under the window they’d climbed through and opened his pack. Brett came over and slid down beside him.
“Not much of a group, are we?” the man mumbled as he dug out a bag of shelled, unsalted peanuts and a bottle of water.
“More like a half-dozen little groups,” Chad agreed.
“What’s the deal with Ronni?”
“You mean why is she hanging with other teenage girls instead of sitting with her dad?” Chad sighed. “Probably because even in an apocalypse, teenage girls are exactly that…teenage girls.”
“Seems to be takin’ losing her mom pretty well.”
“Yeah, Donna was telling me, before all this crap, that Ronni is a real loner. Used to spend days in her room not talkin’ to anybody. She’d make an appearance for a little while, then vanish again.”
“Still, you’d think after all the stuff that’s gone down these past few months, she’d stick to you like glue.”
The two men ate in silence like most everybody else. The only noise was the occasional giggle from the three girls. After a while, Scott and a couple others slipped out after breaking the doorknob. Great, Chad thought, so much for safety. Now somebody would have to keep watch. And where were these guys going? They’d been lucky enough to find an open window so they didn’t have to break in. The room had been locked. They had a safe place to sleep. Well, he positioned his pack so he could get a nap, it wasn’t like anybody was in charge. And he wasn’t anybody’s boss. Apparently that included his daughter. His eyes just began to close when the sound of running feet startled him back to wide awake. Immediately he scanned the darkening room for his daughter. He relaxed when he spied her in the corner just to his left, curled up with the other two girls in a spot farthest from the door that opened to the hallway beyond. A murmur of alarm and confusion was already rising in the room.
“Get a few people out here!” Scott panted. His bat was dripping a dark thick fluid and what looked like a clump of hair was hanging from the middle of the barrel.
Chad grabbed his hand axe and glimpsed Brett pull out his katana. He was gonna have to ask where he’d found that thing. It was very effective, especially in close quarters. Two men he didn’t know along with that big gal, Penny Doucet, rushed out to follow Scott, who was already jogging back up the gloomy and frighteningly dark hall to a big four-way intersection where two bodies were already sprawled on the tile floor in dark pools that formed black looking halos around their crushed heads.
“Found the cafeteria,” Scott whispered when the group caught up. “Only problem was that I guess ten or so folks tried to hide there. It looks like at least one of them had to be infected. They got Junior.” Chad didn’t know who ‘Junior’ was, but figured it was one of the three guys—
“Hey!” Chad stopped everybody. “That’s one, but didn’t you leave with three?”
“Yeah, that’s why I came
back for you and the others,” Scott explained. “That little pack in the kitchen is just one group. Another handful came in from behind when we were fighting the first group. Got that Thatcher kid and Old George Farmer.
Once again, Chad couldn’t match a name with a face. Still, people were dead, and they might need every available hand if a real fight happened, and he wasn’t just thinking about zombies. There could be more assholes like Sheriff Kollars out there. They would have to talk about this later.
“So how many are wandering around here?” Penny demanded.
“Couple dozen…I think,” Scott replied.
“That you know of,” Brett snapped.
“But all the food,” Scott insisted. “If we can just deal with that little problem—”
“Three people are dead!” Penny cut him off, stepping up into his face. I’d sized the two up and decided that if a fight broke out…it was even money. “You’re runnin’ around like nothing is wrong, but three people are dead.”
Scott mumbled something under his breath, his eyes dropping to the floor for a second, then his head snapped up and his expression was one of anger and defiance.
“I’m tryin’ to do something while everybody just lays around, content to sleep.”
“Listen,” Chad finally spoke. He didn’t want to alienate one of the people who had stood beside him against Kimberly, Sheriff Kollars, and that idiot Duane Bowers, but things were starting to crumble. “I get that you are trying to be proactive, but we had a closed, locked door. You took it upon yourself to break it and go wandering around. You didn’t say anything to anybody—”
“I don’t gotta ask permission from nobody to do a damned thing,” Scott snapped. “I’m a grown man.”
“Sure,” Chad agreed. “But if we’re gonna be a group, then we need to make group decisions.”
There was a long pause and an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Slowly, Scott’s angry look softened. He nodded. “Yeah…I guess you got a point.”