by Brown, TW
Valarie was the first to actually notice the approaching figures heading their way. Twice she tugged Kevin’s arm to get his attention. Finally she simply stopped and yelled his name at the top of her lungs.
“Huh?” Kevin stopped and looked around.
He looked back at Valarie who was pointing towards the wall of vehicles off in the distance. Kevin turned and saw the dozen or so dark shapes heading his way. He looked over his shoulder. The dead were still coming at their slow-but-constant pace.
They were trapped.
6
Catastrophic Loss
So many thoughts go through your mind when you know that you are about to die; every moment that you wasted on stupid things instead of spending time with friends and loved ones, all the choices that you made…that were wrong, things you wish you would have said to those that you care about, things you wish you would have said to people who pissed you off, some of it is pretty trivial, but the overwhelming feeling is that you didn’t make the most of your life.
At least that was going through my mind as I saw the shadow creeping across what I assumed would be my final resting place. Well, at least until I got up and started eating people.
“This sucks,” I whispered.
I tried to move my left arm, but it was useless. My right arm was fine, but fighting off a zombie is more of a full-body experience. Sure, I wouldn’t go down without doing everything in my power to survive, but I just didn’t see how this would pan out any other way than me ending up dead. Oh yeah, and then there was the shootout taking place all around me. I never realized that you could actually hear bullets whizz past.
I heard the crunch of the snow as death approached. My right hand fumbled around for any weapon that I could lay my hands on. I found the handle of an axe that I hadn’t even realized was dangling from my belt. As I worked it free, a figure appeared above me. Of course all I could see was the dark outline.
“Steve?” a familiar voice said.
“Doug?” I managed through the overwhelming relief that almost equalized the pain.
He crouched down and actually seemed to burrow into the snow beside me. He rested a hand on my chest and was giving me a look that took me a moment to decipher: fear.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Umm...” he seemed to struggle with the words. Finally he just nodded to my head and shot a glance to my shoulder.
“Oh,” I sighed, “yeah, I took a good one to the shoulder. The head wound probably looks worse than it is. You know what they say about those.”
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“If you help me to my feet, you better believe it.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Just be careful. We have zombies pretty much on all sides. They are having a hell of a time in this snow, though. The raiders seem to be backing off. I saw Jon and he told me that this group is falling back, but that he thinks this may have only been an insurgence…or something like that. He thinks they are part of a bigger group.”
“Wow, you are full of all sorts of good news,” I mumbled. That seemed to fluster Doug for a moment.
I thought about it and realized that I hadn’t really spent too much time getting to know Doug Coates…or his wife for that matter. They had joined us a while back after a bunch of us basically rescued them from a pack of zombie wolves. But other than the occasional pleasantry and morning greeting, I didn’t really know this guy. Yet, Jon had selected him to be part of the group that stayed behind to fight while the others made a run for it.
“If I help you to your feet, can you walk on your own or do you need my help?” Doug had already dismissed my comment and was back to the business at hand which was survival.
“I am pretty sure I can walk.”
“Okay, then I am going to take off for some trees nearby. DeAngelo is there and is actually the one who saw you go down and sent me to you.”
I only had a second to wonder why he hadn’t bothered to come himself. That’s because Doug grabbed my right wrist and yanked me to my feet. I only had another second to marvel at how strong he was before the sound of a rifle and a puff of snow right beside me reminded me that I needed to move my ass.
I was pretty sure that I could not have made it had it not been for Doug clearing the path. As it was, the pain from my shoulder coupled with the loss of blood, and the fact that my leg was reminding me that it was not entirely healed either, had me moving slowly and with a drunken stagger that rivaled my craziest New Year’s.
Looking around, Doug had not been exaggerating. Zombies were visible on all sides. A few had come though that opening that I’d created. Others were floundering in what was, in my mind, reminiscent of dinosaurs in the La Brea Tar Pits. Every so often, I spotted a creeper moving across the surface of the snow, but even those were slowly sinking.
My mind flashed back to Emily. I was pretty sure that was how we’d lost her. If we survived this, I would have to pass along that the snow would need to be treated like a mine field from now on.
I passed within just a few yards of three zombies that were up to their waists in the white, frozen quicksand. All of them strained and thrashed about as they reached for me to no avail. It was very difficult not to react and take them down, but they were of almost no consequence, I was in no condition to fight, and there were still people shooting. However, I honestly could not tell who was shooting at whom. If not for the occasional puff of snow exploding nearby, I would almost feel safe.
We reached the trees and I collapsed. Now, to clarify…we had maybe travelled twenty feet! It had seemed like a thousand, but it was really not all that far.
“Man…you scared the crap out of me,” DeAngelo said with obvious relief.
“How so?” I rolled over onto my back and tried my best not to just pass out from the pain.
“If I had to be the one to tell Melisa and Thalia that you didn’t make it…” His voice trailed off and I could tell he was more than just upset about the fact that he might have to be the one to pass on news of my demise. He winced as the tree he was leaning against shuddered from the impact of a bullet. Bringing his rifle to his shoulder, he snugged his eye up to the rubber cup attached to the scope. I heard him take one deep breath and hold it. His rifle roared once…twice.
I waited for another shot, but it was not forthcoming. Not only that, but a strange quiet fell. Eventually I could make out an occasional moan or groan from one of the undead…but the gunfire had ceased. We had made it! The big man looked down at me with what I first mistook for a wicked grin.
Then I looked at him closer. His eyes were already showing the black tracers.
“Dammit, DeAngelo,” I said around the giant lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.
He glanced down to the long rip on his left arm. I was pretty sure he hadn’t just snagged himself on a stray branch or piece of jagged metal.
“Yeah…well if it wasn’t for Jesus…” He took a deep breath and I was pretty sure that the pain he was swallowing had nothing to do with the visible injury that was going to be his death sentence. “That bastard came out of nowhere just as a pack of those things had trapped me. I was in the trench we had cleared at the edge of the parking lot. Jon had found me and told me get back up to the house. He said that the raiders hadn’t made it up there and that he was pretty sure they were falling back. He wanted me to secure the area and make sure.”
“Jesus had just found me and we were already on our way,” Doug spoke now as DeAngelo closed his eyes and pressed his lips tight in obvious pain. “There were a couple of walkers milling about on the porch. Jesus had me wait while he slipped inside. I heard one shot. When he motioned me inside, there were three bodies. One with her throat cut just in the entry, another pinned to the wall by the fireplace by a big knife, and the third right at the base of the ladder to the crow’s nest. I waited while he went up the ladder. He came down a moment later saying that it looked like whoever these people were, they were backing off, but he said i
t as he sprinted past me.”
“He must have seen that I was caught between the two groups of zombies—” DeAngelo started, but Doug cut him off.
“I don’t think so. He kept saying something about how it couldn’t be possible and some stuff in Spanish that made no sense to me…and one name.” Doug shot me a look, but he couldn’t keep eye contact. A chill that had nothing to do with the snow wrapped itself around my heart and threatened to steal my breath.
“Emily,” I breathed.
“But you took her out into the woods.” Doug was giving me a look that I could not read. DeAngelo was a different story altogether.
“You couldn’t do it.” The words were not an indictment. They were stated as a simple fact. When I looked up at the big man, I saw understanding.
“I tried,” was all I could say.
“So that day that you took off…” DeAngelo started, but he squeezed his eyes shut again and slumped to his knees.
“I took her way out into the woods. When she stopped breathing, I laid her down and waited.” I explained the strange behavior that I’d witnessed in the child-zombies and how I had to know if there might be something left in Emily…if maybe there might be something different with her being a child…hell, I don’t know.
“Was there?” Doug blurted. “Was there something different?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.
I thought back to that moment when she climbed to her feet. I hid behind some nearby trees and watched as she seemed to look around. At one point, I had been certain that she was staring right at me. But then she turned and wandered off. I knew as I watched that she was no different. Except for the fact that she was still Emily as far as my heart was concerned and I could not bring myself to end her. What was one more of them in the big picture of things? That was the rationale that I used to ease my mind as I had returned home that day.
Any chance that we had of delving deeper into this conversation ended when Jesus seemed to explode from a nearby snow bank. He was about ten feet away and just to our right.
“Run!” he snarled as he bounded towards us.
I got to my feet and was rewarded with the world choosing that instant to simply tilt sideways. At least that is what it felt like. I ended up on my side with snow clogging my mouth and nose as I gasped and sucked it in.
I felt myself lift up and found Jesus’ face right in front of mine. He wasn’t happy.
“You didn’t kill her.”
That was all he said, but he really didn’t need to explain, we both knew just what he was talking about. My mind reeled. How could she have come back? She had wandered off almost in the exact opposite direction of our location.
“She killed Nickie,” Jesus was almost touching my nose with his now.
“Oh my God,” Doug moaned.
For just a moment, I felt the exact same way. My weakness had led to the death of another. For so long, I had tried to do everything right for the group. I had tried to be the strong one and make the tough decisions. But the truth remained that I was no leader. I was a survivor. Nothing more.
“Jesus!” Doug screamed.
I felt something brush my leg. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Jesus and I both looked first at Doug, but then our eyes tracked to where he was staring.
DeAngelo.
The big man was on his hands and knees. With one of his enormous hands, he reached out and grabbed Jesus by the leg. What I had felt brush my leg was his arm as it came between us. It was merely luck of the draw (and I will die thinking so…I refuse to believe DeAngelo had any or made any choice). Jesus was the loser as DeAngelo’s hand wrapped around Jesus’ ankle and yanked him from his feet.
The three of us tumbled to the ground with me landing on the very top. I have no idea where DeAngelo bit, but Jesus screamed. I pushed off and barely made it to my feet. That proved even worse as DeAngelo was able to rise up just enough. Had there been no sound, you could have thought that the two men were about to kiss.
There was sound. Lots and lots of sound.
At some point, Doug had decided he had enough and bolted. I looked around and caught just a glimpse of him vanishing over a hump of white back in the direction that Jesus had come from. Something in my mind was trying to connect, but it was like the first time I had tried to drive a stick shift. I must have missed two or three times trying to get it into gear.
Then Doug screamed.
That was when I realized Jesus had been running from that direction. I used a small tree to get all the way up to my feet, fighting the swoon; I knew that if I did not start moving right this second that I would die here. Part of my brain said that maybe I deserved to do just that.
When the snow darkened with shadows, I still stood there. I honestly do not know if it was because I was actually considering the possibility of simply giving up, or if it was because I was weak from blood loss, dazed from the past few minutes, or close to blacking out from the pain in my shoulder.
When the dozen or so zombies stumbled through the opening that Jesus had created, most with fresh smears of blood on their hands and faces, the spell was broken. I pushed away from the tree and plunged back out towards where Doug had rescued me a lifetime ago—at least that is how it felt at the moment.
In my mind, I just told myself, left foot…right foot…left foot…right foot. I was doing okay as long as I stayed in our shoveled out paths or in the tracks made by others—living or dead made no difference as long as I did not have to bound through the snow; almost waist deep at the thinnest, but up to shoulder deep in other spots.
Then I ran into Nickie.
I was in one of the trenches that would eventually bring me to Death Alley. From there, I would make for the house and then wait for whoever showed up. At this point, I was pretty sure that Jon was the only one left alive out of those of us who had stayed behind. I kept going through it in my head: Fiona, DeAngelo, Nickie, Doug, Jesus, Jon, and me.
Yep. If Jon was alive, then it was just the two of us. Even worse, I was responsible for most of them in some way. Fiona had been stuck to a tree by a raider. I wasn’t responsible for that as far as I knew, but who could be sure at this point.
So there was Nickie on her hands and knees with her face dripping blood as she lifted it from the belly of a person that I did not recognize. That meant it was obviously one of the raiders. Closer inspection revealed that the person had been shot in the legs. That left it open to all sorts of possibilities. It could have been one of us that did the shooting…or perhaps “friendly” fire. I seem to remember a sweatshirt that said something like “I like you, but if the zombies come, I’m tripping you!”
It seemed a lot funnier at the time.
Nickie hissed at me and the body twitched. Oh, God, the person is still alive, I thought with just a touch of pity. Sure, he—yep, it was a guy—was going to try and take all of our stuff, but that didn’t mean I was happy to see the person being feasted upon.
I drew my axe as she tore the hole in the poor man’s belly just a little wider so that she could gain better access to some of the juicier bits. I am so glad that she didn’t look up as I took two unsteady steps to get closer. With as much energy as I could muster, I brought the axe down on the back of her head. It stuck fast in the skull and I simply lacked the strength to retrieve it.
For what I think was the first time today, luck was with me. Nickie had a really nice curved machete hanging from her belt. I grabbed it and took a few steps before stopping in my tracks and going back. After dispatching Nickie’s meal/victim, I continued. No sense leaving one behind me that might get up and be on my trail in a few minutes. As it was, I had my doubts on my ability to make it up the hill to the cabin.
Shoveled pathway or not, I was dizzy and in a lot of pain. My left arm hung useless at my side. My leg was starting to add to the choir of discomfort. If I was a dog, you would put me out of my misery…and right about now, I wasn’t so sure that wasn’t such a bad idea.
Left foot…right foot…left foot…right foot…
I reached the uphill slope and made it about ten feet before my legs buckled and I collapsed. I was facedown, but could hear the moans, groans, and cries of the undead. I made it onto my back. At least if they came, I could try and fight them off.
I was trying to make sense of it all. Who were these people? Why us? And what was the deal with the zombies? They were not very good in the snow. Also, you couldn’t really control them. So how did this happen?
“Steve?” I heard a familiar voice.
“Down here, Jon,” I called.
I heard footsteps crunching in the snow and hoped that they were Jon’s. It would be my luck at this point that a zombie or six just happened to be on the trail between me and Jon. Thankfully that was simply a pessimistic and quickly dispelled thought. Jon came around the corner. But he wasn’t alone.
“Who’s your new friend?” I asked.
Jon yanked on the cord he had tethered to and wrapped tightly around the wrists of a young lady. She made a hissing sound between her teeth and staggered forward until she was at his side. I guess I was not too surprised or outraged when he shoved her to the ground hard enough to make her start to cry a little. Don’t get me wrong, it seemed strange, even a little awkward. But I was honestly just relieved to see him.
“Caught her just as she reached the tree line.” Jon knelt beside me, but kept himself in position to watch his captive.
“Making a hasty retreat?” I guessed.
“Nope.”
I looked at Jon and saw a look that gave me concern. I wasn’t absolutely positive, but I would say that he looked worried.
“She was on the trail of the ones we sent away.”
With those words I suddenly had an understanding of his expression. I guess it was easy enough to read on my face.