by Brown, TW
As she grew older, she heard the comments, saw the mothers pull their children just a bit closer when they passed by. When she grew older still, she heard the giggles and the mean remarks made by the ignorant children who would smile to her face one moment and say horrible things the moment that they did not think she could hear them.
The catalyst came in her freshman year of high school. They had moved to a new district when the government came back and asked for her dad to oversee a new project that had something to do with a top secret space platform. They needed him to iron out the issues they were having with the fuel.
She had earned a spot on the varsity cheerleading team. She was the only freshman to do so and could not wait for that first game when she could show off for her dad.
The boy across the street had agreed to drive her dad over and make sure that he was front and center. Aleah was having the time of her life. The team was winning and the squad was pulling off some of their best routines with practiced precision. Shortly after halftime, one of the girls made a comment about “the freak in the wheelchair” and how he was probably some kind of perv who couldn’t get a woman and got off watching young girls.
Aleah was mortified. All of her happiness turned to hurt and shame. She dropped her pom-poms and ran all the way home in tears. She was sprinting up her street when the headlights of a car came up from behind.
“You okay?” a voice asked from the window as the vehicle came up alongside her. It was Stanley Eisen, the boy from across the street.
“What happened, sweetie?” her dad’s voice came from the back seat.
Aleah could not bear to repeat what had been said. She shook her head and tucked her chin to her chest, turning into her driveway.
That night, Stanley sat quietly while Aleah sobbed. Eventually, after her dad had drifted off to sleep, she related what the girls had said. Stanley simply nodded and listened.
The next week, every single girl on the cheerleading squad had their hair fall out in clumps. Aleah kissed her first boy that same week. She dated Stanley until her dad was re-assigned to a new facility in Michigan.
“You gonna be ready in an hour?” a voice called from across the open compound.
Aleah turned to see Angel Henderson and Jan Seiber heading her way. Each had the handle of a sword jutting over her shoulder and a small crossbow barely larger than a pistol but sporting a surprising 80-lb draw. An assortment of knives hung from their belts, and both were already decked out in full protective gear from head to toe.
“Heading over now,” Aleah answered with a wave.
She crossed the open ground of the compound and once again could not help but be impressed with the set up. All the way around was a “fence” consisting of trailers from semis turned on their sides. All of the tents were in the center of the clearing and RVs came off like spokes to a wheel.
At any given time, there were ten soldiers—although that term was being used loosely since she was now considered a part of the outfit—walking the tops of the trailers on watch. In addition, there were four towers at each compass point that were manned from first light to full dark.
The most impressive sight was the tank parked by the main entrance. Of course it had long since run out of fuel, and there was absolutely no ordinance for it, but it still made for an impressive sight. She imagined that more than one group of would-be raiders had passed by after seeing it. There was something to be said for appearances in certain instances.
Aleah entered the tent where her cot had been assigned. She opened the footlocker and pulled out her gear. She would have to go to the armory for a majority of her weapons. However, she had her favorite machete in with her standard gear which consisted of a full snowsuit that was amazingly lightweight, gloves, goggles, lined, steel-toed boots, and an insulated face shield.
Forty-five minutes later, she was dressed out like Angel and Jan. Four others were coming along, but Aleah didn’t know them personally. The commander of the camp, the one everybody called “Cyclops” as long as she was not within hearing distance, had assigned the team.
Aleah had only met Colonel Dawn Shipley one time, and that was on the day she arrived. The colonel came to the tent where everybody was being treated and told them that they were free to go, but if they stayed, they would have to undergo a three day quarantine and then they would be expected to join the ranks.
***
“Everybody pulls their load here,” Colonel Shipley had said with a voice that was far too gentle-sounding for the person it came from.
Colonel Dawn Shipley had been in a Humvee driving down some side street in Bagdad when the IED blew. It snapped the armored Humvee in half like it was made of balsa wood. A piece of hot, twisted steel drove into her face just above the left eye. The corpsman that arrived first had her written off for dead.
Several months later, the colonel was being touted as a medical miracle. Copies of her x-ray with the piece of metal piercing her skull had been passed around like a nudie picture in a frat house. It had cost her the eye and pieces of her memory—including any and all recollection of the man she was about to marry.
He arrived at the hospital when she came stateside. He spoke with her, but Dawn Shipley was no longer his “ray of sunshine” that he remembered. This woman was harsh, cold, and suffered from horrible facial disfigurement. He could almost endure the first two, but that final one was the nail in the coffin of their relationship.
Then Major Shipley poured herself into her job and rose through the ranks after fighting the Army and its attempt to send her into retirement. She had been at a seminar in Cleveland when all hell broke loose.
With no unit, she had fought and worked her way south to Columbus solely because she knew that to be the location of the president’s daughter. She would hook up with any military unit she found once she arrived. It had proved more difficult that imagined. The roads were living enactments of the movie Death Race as chaos took a firm toehold.
Eventually she found her way to Columbus. But by then, the city was in flames that would never see a fire crew, the undead outnumbered the living by thousands to one, and the president’s daughter was gone. Luck had shone on the colonel a few days later when she heard the sounds of heavy machinery rolling through.
She caught up with the caravan just in time to see it blow through a barricade. She watched in horror as the soldiers swarmed the helpless civilians, shooting some, tossing others to the horde of undead that gathered in their wake.
She was watching this nightmare unfold when her eyes caught movement on the rooftop of a building just down from the one she was hiding in. That was how she found the all-female camp consisting of soldiers, some civilians, and much to her surprise, the president’s daughter, Shelly Bransen.
Since that time, she had instilled order into the ragtag group. While many of the women had suffered some horrible ordeals in the months after the dead began to walk and wipe out the living, there was a fighting spirit that would have gone a long way to dispel the myth that women could not be effective combat soldiers. Even Shelly Bransen had taken to the training and proved to be not only an excellent shot, but very cool under duress.
Everything was shaping up nicely until Willa Nelson had taken off after that damn fool Kevin Dreon. Had she known that the man accompanying him was an actual doctor, she would have ‘detained’ the pair and convinced them that joining her group would be beneficial to all concerned.
Here it was almost two months later and Kevin Dreon was now in her camp. She had heard all sorts of wondrous things about his ability to devise plans when dealing with the undead. It seemed that he was one of those ‘zombie geeks’ before the real world event. Not one to turn away a valuable resource, she had taken in the group when they arrived and explained who they were. It had been unfortunate that Sergeant Nelson would not be returning. However, it was good to have some intel on the renegade Major Beers and her band of looting marauders.
When the man known as Kevin Dreon
had arrived, it was on the verge of too late. The initial reports were that the best they could hope for was that he lost a foot. However, death was still sitting at the table for the first few days. Doctor Thompson had done her miracle and kept the man alive. In addition, the man had arrived with a young African-American woman who suffered from, among other things, Down’s syndrome. It also turned out that she was hallucinatory and prone to fits.
When the doctor initially suggested making a hospital run for prosthetics and the materials needed to provide them to Kevin as well as a few of the other survivors that had joined them over the harsh winter months, her initial reaction had been to say no. However, it was eventually argued that the benefits of this outweighed the dangers. Besides, making a run on the hospital now might actually be feasible. The undead did not just remain stationary. It was almost a certainty that there would be plenty inside the hospital to deal with, but it would be a great benefit for them to acquire as much of the medical supplies as they could before they were all rendered useless.
***
“I mean what I say, ladies,” Colonel Shipley fixed the group with her one good eye. It burned a crystal blue and held more power than if she’d had both at her disposal.
“Yes, ma’am,” Angel Henderson snapped to attention and saluted.
“I mean it, Henderson. If Miss Brock here steps out of line and endangers the mission, you either put her down or leave her ass behind.” The colonel gave Aleah a hard stare. “I don’t want you bringing back the undead population of the city of Newark, Ohio on your heels because she wants to make life better for her lover boy.”
“Excuse me,” Aleah snapped. “But in case you missed out on the whole plan, we aren’t just doing this for Kevin. A lot of your people will benefit.”
Colonel Shipley had no trouble suppressing her smile. She had done exactly what she wanted with her words. She had put the group on notice and she had gotten under this girl’s skin. If she could insert that splinter of doubt into the Brock girl, then hopefully she would not venture too far out on the limb.
She certainly expected the young lady to do everything in her power to make this mission a success. That was actually her reason for including her in the first place. She had a vested interest in seeing it through. However, she did not want her so blinded by her desire to help her boyfriend that she took unnecessary risks.
“Be that as it may,” the colonel said without the slightest pause, “I will not jeopardize my people or this location. We cannot move out until this frozen slice of hell thaws out a bit. In case you haven’t noticed, almost half of my people have suffered from frostbite to some degree. We did not plan this little run until you insisted that you had enough background on the area for it to be a possibility. Going into cities may not be as dangerous as they were a few months ago, but rest assured that there are still plenty of the dead walking those streets to make it a considerable risk.”
“We will be back within the week as ordered,” Jan Seiber spoke up. She shot a look at Aleah that basically told her to be quiet. “I am sure that Miss Brock is aware of the importance of the mission while still realizing that we have to operate within certain safety parameters.”
Jan Seiber was a seven-year veteran besides growing up an Army brat. She knew full well that there was absolutely no sense in arguing with an officer. They always felt like they were right…no matter what reality might say to the contrary. The best way to deal with the brass was to smile and nod. Once you got in the field, the “real” soldiers did their job.
“I will hold you to those words, Sergeant Seiber.” With that, the colonel turned and headed back to the tent complex.
Seven figures dressed out in full exposure gear, each armed with a variety of ranged and close-in weapons, headed to the ladder that would allow them to exit this nameless camp. As they climbed down, a cold wind blew, whipping up any of the snow that had not frozen over. None of them remarked or even really noticed the dazzling prismatic display as the sunlight refracted when it struck the crystals of ice and created a rainbow swirl of color all around them.
9
Billy
“…and as we gather here together, let us try not to think only of the loss each of us feels, but to remember all the wonderful moments that we shared with our dear and beloved friends, Steve Hobart, Jesus Sanchez, DeAngelo Cribbs…”
I hear the words, but I still can’t believe that he is gone. Looking around at what is left of our group, I don’t see a single dry eye. When Teresa and Jamie died, everybody felt it. But this…this is different.
“Billy?”
I snap my head up and see the doctor looking at me expectantly. Oh yeah…I have the torch. With a nod, I lean forward and allow the flames to lick at the pyre. I hear a wail behind me and don’t need to look to know that it is Melissa. She has been a basket case since she heard. In fact, it is almost a contest between her, Cheryl, and Melinda to see who can cry the longest. I can’t blame them, but I seriously cannot take much more of it.
As the fire burns, I watch everybody peel off and head back up to the cabin. I can’t help but notice that Thalia falls behind. Eventually she stops. Nobody seems to notice. She watches them all file through the door and then I see her head down the hill towards Death Alley.
I give the fire a cursory glance and head after her. The last thing we need is a missing child. I try not to be mad at the so-called adults. I mean, how do they not notice a little girl missing?
“Thalia!” I call as I round the corner. I see her standing at the drawbridge. Good thing she isn’t strong enough to hoist it herself. Who knows what she has on her mind. “Wait up!”
“Oh…hello, Billy,” she says quietly.
“Where you headed?” I ask.
“Will you help me get Buster?” I am ready to tell her that right now might not be the best time when she turns and looks up at me with tear-filled eyes.
Crap.
I nod and lower the bridge so that we can cross. I start trying to sort through the events from almost two weeks ago. I recall our group making a run for the rendezvous location. If it wasn’t for Jake, we might not have made it.
Man, if there is anybody that I want to be more like…it’s that guy. He waded into that cluster of zombies like they were nothing. I never saw anybody use knives like that. I gotta have him show me how the heck he does it. He was like a human blender. The thing is, a lot of times when you use a blade on a zombie, you can get it stuck. Not Jake. The guy is a machine!
By the time we got down the hill, it was almost dark. All three of the children were too tired to keep walking. Me, Brad, and Christina were carrying them while Jake and Cheryl led the way. I remember Buster being with us up to a point. I guess I never paid attention. At some point, the dog just wasn’t there.
To be honest, I was tired and we’d had to fight through more zombies than I care to remember. Not once did we see one of the raiders. Raiders…what a joke they turned out to be.
I paused when Thalia started to enter the woods. We were already too far away from the cabin if something were to happen considering that everybody was inside and we didn’t even have anybody in the crow’s nest yet.
“Thalia?” I called. She looked back at me, but then she just kept going! I knew better than to go wandering the woods without my knife, so I pulled it out and continued to follow.
I kept searching my memories for the last time I saw that little dog. Nothing was coming to mind. Things had gotten so crazy. Between hearing the sporadic gunfire and hoping that our people were on the winning side, then add in dodging zombies and hoping to God that you didn’t step on one that might be buried in the snow like with what happened to Emily, and noticing details seemed to go right out the window. Seriously, I don’t know how guys like Jon and Jake do what they do. Nothing seems to rattle them.
I remember Jake leading us through the worst of the herd. From then on out, it was mostly stragglers or ones that came out when they heard us since there really wasn�
��t any way we could make this trip in silence.
Once we reached our fallback location, Jake put me and Brad up on the roof to keep watch. At some point, the doctor came up with some hot water and a complete change of clothes for me. I honestly don’t know which was better. I didn’t much care for her standing there while I changed even though she is a doctor and all. It felt like being naked in front of my grandma.
When I went down after Cheryl relieved me, I just sort of collapsed. That was it until morning and Jake was waking me up. I must have missed the initial report, because everybody was standing around with shocked looks on their faces and Jon was in the room with some girl tied up and gagged. She looked a bit like an MMA fighter at the end of a nasty ground-and-pound match.
It took me a few minutes to pick up on the fact that we had suffered some casualties, but it wasn’t until I saw the look in Melissa’s face that I realized that Steve was one of them. I get that we lost some others, but Steve and Jesus were the biggest losses as far as I was concerned—Steve, because he just always seemed to know how to keep us together as a group, and Jesus because he was a bad ass like Jake and Jon.
Plus, to be honest, I didn’t really know Doug Coates, DeAngelo kept to himself and the women, Nickie and Fiona, well…they were women. I never hung out or spoke to either of them unless it was to pass something at the table during a meal or to share any information during watch turn over.
A weird sort of growl snapped me back to reality. I had to shake my head a few times to clear it and totally focus on what was happening. Thalia had this blade that was almost as big as she was. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but it was easily as long as her arms. She held it in both hands and was circling to the left, away from me. About ten feet away was the ragged remains of Buster the Border Collie. She was missing one of her hind legs, but she could still move well enough on three.