by Brown, TW
The armored truck directly behind his vehicle was already surrounded. The man he had assigned to ride on top had apparently tried to stop one and lost his footing. He was on the ground with at least twenty of those things fighting for a piece; that was all Aaheru needed to see.
“Sons of Egypt!” he bellowed. “Gather on me and let us send these restless dead to their eternal slumber!”
From every nearby vehicle, the men who had not already come out with their leader poured forth. It was almost a contest as to who could respond quickest. Nobody wanted to be the last man to answer the call for fear of displeasing his pharaoh.
“You,” Aaheru pointed to a small cluster of middle-aged men, “cover our rear. Kill anything that moves.”
As one, they turned and rushed to meet the oncoming threat. He sent the remaining men forward with instructions to clear the path ahead. Once they were engaged, he turned to Ahi—who he had restrained from joining in on the attack.
“Gather the women and follow me,” Aaheru whispered.
Ahi glanced over his shoulder at the men who had charged the mob at their heels. Already, several of the beasts were coming out from between the vehicles, effectively cutting them off from the group.
Once the women had been herded off the truck, they began the jog to the waiting vessel. On the brow of the closest, a few men stood idle. Aaheru moved to the front as his small entourage reached safety. Without a word, he grabbed the closest man by the shirt and, in one fluid motion, heaved him back at the dozen or so undead that had continued to pursue.
As the screams began, he stepped up to the man responsible for the detail. “Pray that you never fail me again,” he hissed.
“How have I failed—” A backhand across his face cut off the question.
“You waited safely on board and did not think to clear the pier for our arrival? Are you a child who needs to be told every single detail? I had to sacrifice several of your brothers to reach this ship because you did not think to secure our way. Now begin untying us and get us out to sea.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, they were navigating the harbor. The hulls of several partially sunken ships jutted up in a nautical representation of a graveyard. After a head count was taken, Aaheru went on a tirade, scolding the security teams and the men who had secured the ships. Once he retired to his quarters, he smiled. They had lost less than half of their numbers. Over three hundred souls remained. Things had actually gone better than he’d hoped.
***
“…and that was it…Thad and his group didn’t make it,” Juan said as he stood in the wash basin and continued to soap his body up and down.
“I don’t think we should risk any more runs to the mainland until spring.” Mackenzie set the bucket of warm water down and then hopped up onto the counter.
“Weather ain’t gonna matter.” Juan picked up the bucket and began to ladle the warm water over his body. He looked down in the tub and was disgusted by the putrid brown color. He wondered how many people’s blood was mixing together at his feet. “I think we should stay away from any sort of city. The best bet is to make a run out to the sticks.”
“You mean travel farther away?” Mackenzie was almost yelling.
“We got it pretty good,” Juan admitted. “But finding those kids…” His voice trailed away and Juan felt something strange tighten in his chest.
“They are settling in,” Mackenzie said with a smile. “April is getting them assigned places to live. Most of them want to stay in the same house, which is fine. We still have about fifteen or twenty that are empty, so we are really doing well in that respect.”
At the mention of April’s name, Juan tensed up. There was a long silence before he finally spoke. “She tell you what happened?”
Mackenzie hopped off the counter and came over to the wash basin. She opened the curtain and saw that same haunted look on his face that he’d had after JoJo. “She told me.”
“And?” that single word held a ton of weight, and all of it was sitting squarely on Juan’s shoulders.
“You did what needed doing.”
“But—” he tried to protest, but she placed a finger on his lips. “April is fine. She realizes what had to be done as well. In fact, she feels awful for giving you such a hard time over it.”
Juan finished washing up and slipped into some clean, dry clothes. He had just sat down with Mackenzie when the knock came at the door. It was dark. It was never a good sign when somebody knocked on the door after dark. He flashed an apologetic look to Mackenzie, who simply smiled and nodded for him to go answer it.
“This better be—” the words died on his lips. Frank was standing in the door with a dog in his arms. It looked dead. There was a slow expansion and contraction that indicated breathing. “Is that the dog you were chasing?”
“Gidget,” Frank said through the tears in his eyes. “I don’t know how, but the stupid dog followed us.”
“Besides the long swim, what the heck happened to her?”
“Well, remember how we told you she got attacked by one of those…things. Well…as crazy as it seems, I think she got hit again.”
“Bring her in.” Mackenzie had stepped up beside Juan and already had rubber gloves on. She pulled the blanket away and hissed between her teeth at the bite mark. A good chunk had been taken from the left front shoulder.
“There’s more,” Frank whispered. “A few of the guys took one of the boats and left about twenty minutes ago.”
“This isn’t my problem,” Juan said. “I won’t make anybody stay here against their will.”
“They went looking for Donna.”
“Still not my—”
“Juan Hoya!” Mackenzie snapped with enough venom and volume to cause the dog to raise its head.
“What?” Juan spun around with an expression that was part confused, part annoyed. “Didn’t you just say something a little bit ago about no more supply runs to the mainland? You want me to go chase after ghosts now?”
“They’re children,” Mackenzie insisted.
“They were doing okay until they met us. They just lost one person. And now they want to go over and search for someone who is chasing somebody who comes to her in her dreams? We’ve lost how many in the past few weeks? It is the way things are now.”
“No,” Mackenzie whispered. “It is the way things will become if we do nothing.”
“So what do you expect me to do?” Juan asked.
“I want you to help—” The dog made a whimpering sound and Mackenzie turned just as its eyes closed and it gave a single convulsive shiver.
“Mackenzie,” Juan said as calmly as he could. “Step away from the dog.”
She looked at Juan in confusion for a moment before the realization settled in. The problem she had was that she just hadn’t seen what Juan had out on his supply runs. Her mind didn’t immediately register the fact that dogs turned just like people. And even if somebody showed immunity, when they succumbed to death, the virus was able to complete its task.
Everything seemed to shift into slow motion at that moment. Juan saw past Mackenzie to the dog lying on the table. He saw its eyes open and shift to the nearest target available. He was vaguely aware of Frank saying something.
On instinct, his hand went to his belt…but who wears a weapon at the dinner table? There was nothing. All of his gear was either in the bedroom or hanging up on the wall on the other side of the room. As the dog’s head rose and its mouth opened wide, all he could think was, Why didn’t I keep something by the door?
***
Smoke curled skyward. From his position on top of the Yosemite Hotel, he could see perfectly all the carnage of the last few days. Michael Clark had been true to his word. The fight was indeed over. The bodies strewn about the snow, surrounded in halos of blood, were testament to the finality.
A solitary figure emerged from a clump of trees. Chad had to shade his eyes to be sure before he called out.
“Hey, Mike!” Chad
called.
The man looked up. Even from this distance the scowl was visibly apparent. “It’s Michael,” the man hollered in response.
“Sorry.” Chad was anything but, despite the fact that the man had been the key figure in ending the little war between the factions, he was not happy about the method. Also, he was not totally convinced that it had needed to be so final. There had been absolutely no attempt to negotiate a peace settlement.
“So…Michael…Brett says that you guys found the handful that tried to run.”
“Yep.”
“I also notice you aren’t escorting any prisoners.”
“None to be escorted.”
“They all fall off of cliffs?”
That was a bit of a dig. After the initial explosion, a few of the residents had run for it; hightailing it to the woods. Michael had gone after them with a few hand-picked individuals. When he’d returned without any prisoners as Chad thought he would, he and Scott had asked what happened to the people.
“They fell off a cliff,” was Michael’s response.
“Hey, Chad?” Michael called up.
“Yeah?”
“Kiss my ass.”
“I take it he didn’t come back with any prisoners?” Scott said over Chad’s shoulder.
“Nope,” Chad replied. “And the funny thing is, I didn’t know he went out again. I thought you and Brett were making this trip.”
“I was all set to leave and he came by and told me that there was something more pressing that he didn’t think anybody would want him taking part in.” Scott turned his back on the ledge and leaned against the waist-high brick wall.
“Sounds ominous.” Chad leaned his rifle against the wall and gave Scott his full attention. The newest decision was that the precious ammo and the guns would stay in camp. Any patrols would take bow and arrow or one of the dozen or so crossbows. Firearms were just too precious to risk in the field.
“Actually…” Scott paused and Chad suddenly had a feeling that he did not want to hear what was about to be said. “It’s about the food.”
“Jesus,” Chad sighed. “When isn’t it? The last few meals have been crap and everybody is griping. They should be thankful they picked this team after what was discovered.”
The rigged explosions that were set off in their enemies’ stronghold had caused a pretty good fire. But it had burned out and left part of the building intact. Late yesterday afternoon, Chad and a few others went in to look around. Partially because they wanted to see if there might be anything worth salvaging. But also because Chad wanted to make sure that any survivors found would be taken in and offered a chance to step across the line. Of course there would be a probationary period and all, but it was a better alternative than just murdering them.
They had not found a single living survivor. What they had found was a horrific scene of butchery. With food obviously in short supply, at least some of the people had decided that cannibalism was an acceptable alternative to starvation. That one room smelled like a slaughter house with a repulsive mix of blood and shit and meat.
“I did an inventory and sat down with a few people who knew what they were talking about and our situation of food is…grim is the nicest way I can put it,” Scott explained.
“Okay,” Chad nodded, “what are we looking at?”
“A month tops if we ration carefully.”
“So we have plenty of time to stock up. I don’t see the problem,” Chad said with a shrug. “We will send out foraging teams right now.”
“And go where?” Scott asked.
“There should be plenty to hunt, and we can hit some of the small towns and communities.”
“The zombies have scared away a lot of the wildlife, and besides, most of the herds are not this far up. They are hugging the line down where they can still graze.”
“So we send out hunting parties.”
“You aren’t getting it,” Scott huffed. “We came up here in a bus, so the few hours that trip took may not seem like such a big deal. However, none of our vehicles will get us out of here. A couple of guys have checked on the snowmobiles and the plowing rigs, but that cold snap we had a few weeks ago that hung in the sub-zero range for that stretch…it sapped batteries, caused cables to break and basically turned every motorized vehicle in this place into its own little monument.”
“But we have bad weather gear…skis…all sorts of stuff.”
“And nobody wants to take a trip that will last at least a few weeks with very little chance of success just to return with enough food for one or two people to eat for another day or so. We can’t get out and come back with enough for the group. There are over fifty people here…feeding that many takes a lot more food than any of us realized.”
Chad let it all sink in. He hadn’t considered any of this a few months ago when they had left Modesto in search of someplace safe…or, as it turned out, at least safer from the walking dead. His only thought had been that staying in populated areas would keep them in constant danger.
When they’d first arrived, everybody had been so excited to discover kitchen pantries full of food. There had simply been so much, and when looked at with one or two pairs of eyes…it looked as if it could last forever. They had been so wasteful. Everybody was cooking for themselves those first days until Colonel Morris had stepped in and made some rules. As expected, folks had bitched…but a majority saw the logic. After a while, it was the norm.
Colonel Morris’s death had lasting repercussions. The whole place had fallen into disarray in his absence. This latest news would cause a panic.
If it was just him, alone and free of responsibility, the choice would be easy. However, he had Ronni to think of and watch over. He would need to do something…the question was simple.
What?
He had no answer.
***
“Excuse me, miss?” the young girl climbed up on the wall next to Victoria.
“Who you calling ‘miss’? My mum has long since passed,” Victoria snorted.
“Sorry, Victoria,” the girl mumbled an apology.
“And that’s another thing…nobody calls me that. Just ‘Vix’ is fine.”
“Right, then…Vix.”
“And you’re Glenda Baker’s daughter, yeah?” Vix knew it was something like Jenna or some such thing.
“Gemma.”
“Right.” Vix considered her next words carefully and with as much sensitivity as she could muster. “So…your mum and dad didn’t make it?”
She saw the pain on the young girl’s face. She really didn’t have a handle on being sensitive. It was one of the great things about her Ivor. He didn’t get all caught up in the flowers and whatnot. He showed her how much he loved and cared for her in a million other ways that had much more meaning. For the past several years, it had been as much about them being best mates as being husband and wife. They joked and teased and made fun.
“…and I just hadn’t ever seen so much blood.”
Vix looked up with a grim face that she thought might pass for sympathetic. The poor girl had been pouring her heart out while she daydreamed. To make matters worse, a few zeds had spotted them atop the wall and were making their way over.
“We need to get moving,” Vix said as she pushed off and landed in the snow on the other side of the wall. She took a few steps, but didn’t hear anything behind her. After being certain that she still had enough open space between her and the trio of undead making slow progress through the shin-deep slush, she turned back to Gemma. “You coming or not?”
“I just…” the girl’s voice faded.
Vix tried not to be angry. After all, she couldn’t be much more than fifteen years old. Still, the girl had volunteered for this mission, it was a bit too late to fall back.
“I will do this alone if I have to,” Vix said with as much calmness as she could muster. “But getting through that big, open parking lot is going to be a pain.”
She heard the crunch-squish of the
nearest zed and turned to discover that it had gotten closer than she realized. It lurched forward and its hands swiped at her, missing by inches. Too bad for the zombie that it lost its balance and fell face down in the wet snow.
Drawing the heavy fireplace poker that she favored, she drove it through the back of the downed zombie’s skull. Planting her foot on its back, she tugged the weapon loose and cocked back for the next one. The swing was a bit low and caught the creature in the side of the neck. The awkwardness of the strike caused her wrists to turn just enough, and she yelped in pain. The poker tumbled from her grip.
Shaking her arms to try and work away the pain, Vix backed up and drew the decorative sword she had taken off the wall of the hotel. One thing about English history, it was chock full of plenty of tales about knights and swords…the bloody things were practically everywhere it seemed. As she was about to take a swing at the still approaching zed with the nasty dent in its neck, a figure flashed by.
Gemma drove the large kitchen knife into the eye of the zombie and the two went to the ground in a heap sending a wave of wet snow out in a big oval. Vix only glanced down as she stepped past to meet the final zombie of the bunch. In an anti-climactic thrust, the sword went all the way through the head and out the other side. The creature fell, taking the weapon with it. Vix’s wrist hurt terribly and she was forced to let go.
Flexing her fingers, she retrieved all of her things and helped Gemma to her feet. The girl had a nervous smile on her face that was way too big. All of her teeth showed and she looked almost like she was about to cry again.
“That was a right good thing you did there,” Vix complimented. “Though you should give a word of warning when you are gong to barrel past somebody who is about to swing a sword.”
“I can’t believe I killed it!” Gemma gasped like she had been holding her breath the entire time. “That is the first one I ever did in on my own.”
“Wait…you haven’t killed so much as one of those things?”
“No…I always ran. I kept waiting for them to chase me or something. I was worried that their slow walk was a trick, and as soon as I came after one…it would run after me and tackle me to the ground.”