DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  “It seemed like the right thing to do,” Graham said with a nod. “Had to change our policy eventually. Started having some murders, rapes, all sorts of nasty business. Some of the people we let in were worse than the monsters outside the fences. Still, we have managed to create quite a nice place here.”

  I had to wonder what things might have been like if we had come in from the northeast instead of the southwest a year ago when we had pulled off one of our first group rescues at a warehouse complex in La Grande. I do remember seeing the damage from the fires and all the undead. I also seem to recall that it looked like there was a lot of fighting going on between the living factions. This was where we had picked up Sunshine and her people…and that little boy who’d been infected and almost killed Thalia.

  That was the first time that I’d seen Steve really lose it. That was also when it began to sink in for me that this whole nightmare was not going to end any time soon.

  “About six months ago, a military convoy arrived. By then, we had our wall in place, the spill trench was dug, and we were getting ready to hunker down for winter. We’d hit several of the area farms, taking anything useful or edible and either drying it or putting it up in jars. Actually had to empty an old feed warehouse and build rows of shelves to hold it all.

  “That convoy had rolled right past us and into the heart of La Grande. For weeks we could hear the shooting. It was like having the opening thirty minutes of Saving Private Ryan on a loop with all the gunfire and explosions…and the screaming. One thing about this new world, sound can sure travel farther than we ever realized.

  “One day, I guess they decided to send a scouting party to check out what they obviously assumed was just a small outpost of survivors. What they failed to realize is that damn near everybody in these parts is an outdoorsman. Maybe not all…but most. And by this time, we had ventured out to the outdoorsman shops, pawn shops, Walmart, and damn near every house within a three hour walk. We were heavily armed. And then we found the armory—”

  “It was your group?” I interrupted. “We had assumed it was Winters and his crew.” I was referring to the big mystery of where all the guns had vanished to from the National Guard armory depot.

  “You know what they say about assuming things,” Graham said with an easy smile. “That was one of the first places we hit after things settled down…lost a few really good people that day.” He sighed deep and once again I knew that he was seeing things from the past on that unforgiving movie screen that sits in our brain.

  “So you were fighting Winters and all those folks at the military compound since a few months into things.” I made it a statement rather than a question based on what I’d heard. I was quickly corrected.

  “Nope, after that first encounter, they stayed away. That sure didn’t do much for some of the other smaller groups holding up in these parts. Even heard from some of the folks who joined us over the winter that they had started to venture out to some of the surrounding areas. But the stories we first heard were simply too bizarre to initially believe.” Graham folded his hands on the table and leaned forward, his expression grim. “Seems that they were using mobs of groaners as shock troops…leading them to whatever their new target might be and letting them soften things up before swooping in. I imagine that they were honing their skills in preparation for an assault on our location. That last part is just speculation, but it would make sense.”

  “So is there something special about this place and we just happened to luck in on it?” I asked. “I mean, is this valley special. What the heck is so big about La Grande and the surrounding area.”

  “Sort of like a Garden of Eden,” Graham answered. “The soils in these parts are fertile from the volcanic residue. That makes for some good crop yields. We have even managed to save a good amount of livestock. Cows, goats, chickens and the like. Plus there is the university which had a fantastic agriculture department. But I think that the big deal is that little facility that was just coming on line out on Cove Highway. In fact, now that things are settled here, we are preparing to make a run out that way ourselves.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. When I did not bother to ask, he gave me a nod.

  “You’re a great deal smarter than some would expect from somebody so young. You hold your tongue, don’t give up too much. I gotta say, wish my son had some of your sense.”

  I fought back the heat that was trying to creep into my face. I was never good at accepting compliments. That didn’t mean I did not love them just like anybody else; it was just that I never knew how to take them. Did you say something as simple as “thank you” or did you return their compliment with one of your own? I never could figure that out.

  “Out on Cove Highway, some foreign company…I think they were Swedish or German or something,” he continued after I sat there silent, wondering how to respond to his compliment. “I just know that their company name had them little dots over some of the letters. Seems they were developing massive wind farms and had everything in place for some experiment. They have all the components in place for a wind farm that would power a city the size of La Grande prior to the zombies coming. Our power draw would be a fraction of that.”

  “I may be missing something,” I finally had a comment worth saying. At least I sure thought so. “But unless you have a bunch of engineers or really smart folks, how do you think you are going to make something like that work?”

  “Because a dozen of the engineers from that facility live here,” Graham said proudly. Personally, I thought he was giving away too much information to a relative stranger. But then again, what was I going to be able to do?

  “So you think you guys might have power of some sort up and running here someday?” I thought out loud more than actually asking.

  “By this time next year at the soonest, but still, yes there is a very real chance that we will have power up and running.”

  That would make this place really dominant, I thought. With most people just struggling to survive, the idea that an entire town would have a power grid was impossible to imagine. It would also make them a huge target.

  “So now you understand why we are trying to bring on some good people,” Graham interrupted my thoughts. “We will stand out like a drag queen in the Vatican.”

  I had never heard that particular saying before. It made me laugh before I could catch myself. The harder I tried to push it away, the stronger the visual became.

  “So, I guess now is as good of a time as any to ask you if you would be opposed to joining our community here. More specifically, we’d like you to volunteer for the expedition to the wind farm facility.” Graham had just been laughing with me, but like a switch had been abruptly flicked, he grew serious as he hit me with that request.

  I sobered up in a hurry and found that I suddenly forgot how to laugh. The sound died in my throat like somebody had just punched me in the larynx. I sat back and looked the man in the eyes. All those warning bells that I had worked hard to shut off when I had made the decision to come here and join this group suddenly began to ring with renewed urgency.

  “Why me?” It was a very simple question.

  Graham was now the one doing the staring; all of that good-natured stuff that had been so evident on his face vanished like it never existed. I was suddenly reminded of Jake. Was this just a case of me being so young that I was no good at reading people who seemed to easily see my every thought and emotion?

  “Did you think that the men who first paid you a visit did so randomly?”

  “No, I thought it was because I was on the outskirts of the compound.”

  “That was just a fortunate circumstance for us. The reality is that nobody comes in or out of La Grande without our knowing. We have people spaced all the way around this area and saw when you first arrived as well as your hasty departure a while back. We also watched that compound suddenly suffer an outbreak and then the departure of two men. One who later returned and eventually led an assau
lt on our town.”

  I was floored. How in the hell did they know so much? It seemed improbable if not impossible. Graham’s smile returned just as the gate opened. When Darla entered, I felt just a touch of anger flicker in the pit of my stomach. She had played me!

  “Sorry, Billy, I hope you understand,” she said as she joined us on the porch. But the person who came next was the real surprise.

  “Carol?” I breathed.

  “I hope that we will be able to be friends, Mister Haynes,” she said, her voice suddenly sounding so different in my ears.

  “I don’t—” I started, but my mouth shut quick and I sprang to my feet, my head craning around to the sliding glass door. The last of my group was inside that house. They had followed me and trusted me. I had led them to…

  That was the problem. I had no idea what I had led them to; my head was spinning.

  “You must understand,” Carol joined our little party on the back porch and stood beside Graham who remained seated and Darla who had plopped down into the last available chair at the table, “we don’t mean you or any of your people any harm. Sadly, we have encountered some very bad individuals in the past several months. When our scouts first discovered your group up at the Wallowa Forrest State Park, we wanted to ask you then to join us. Unfortunately, that was right around the same time we were faced with Winters and his people. We could not spare the manpower to send an emissary.”

  “An emissary?” This was getting more confusing for me, not less.

  “We are not fools here, Mister Haynes. We are going to need manpower to secure this location. Yes, we have over a thousand residents currently—”

  “A thousand!” I blurted, cutting Carol Wills off and causing Darla to actually jump and reach for the blade on her hip.

  “As I explained, we are intent on reclaiming this area from the groaners. We want to bring back at least some of the creature comforts. Of course that will make us a natural target for some.” Graham was now echoing my own previous concerns back to me. “To do this, we need people to want to come here and live. But they also have to be willing to live by certain rules and want to be part of the solution rather than the problem.”

  I honestly believed that I could faint. All of this was so overwhelming and beyond anything that I imagined possible. Suddenly, our little cabin up in the woods seemed so primitive. I remember how excited we had gotten when we’d come up with a gravity flow shower head and a way to warm water so we did not have to take freezing cold showers. These people were talking about breathing life into an honest to God city.

  “So why did you join us and not simply have our people meet with your people?” I asked Carol. “I mean, you even went out on a mission for crying out loud.”

  “Yes, and I learned a great deal about the people in your community in doing so. In addition, I was able to identify some possible dangers,” Carol said with a shrug. “We might have completely decided against trying to connect with your group were it not for the doctor. Something like that can make you willing to overlook certain things like the fact that you had soldiers in your group.”

  “So you are saying that every soldier is bad?” I challenged. “Because I got news for you, Dr. Zahn was an Army doctor.

  “We are not saying that at all,” Graham said with a shake of his head. “But we have come to be more distrustful of the military. A justifiable reaction considering what we have witnessed in the past several months.”

  I sat back in my chair and tried with little to no success to wrap my mind around all of this. Finally, I turned my full attention to Carol Wills.

  “So how much of your story is real and how much is part of your cover story?” I asked.

  “Everything you know about me is true. The lie was in my omission…the parts that I did not tell you. And, Mister Haynes, if I may put this before you, I did develop a genuine liking for you and some of the others. I hope that you will come to understand that I was acting in the best interest of my community. Much like you did for yours. I was never more happy than to hear that you had come here to negotiate for my release. It let me know that I had not been wrong in liking you.” Carol actually had the decency to look embarrassed.

  “So why the big show about capturing you? Why the fingers in a box? Why not just come out with it.”

  “That is my fault,” Graham spoke up. “Actually, the plan was to extend the offer to you, reveal at least some of our secrets to you and ask you to possibly bring along those you felt could be trusted. However, the concern was that you had become…sucked in by Jake and Jon—”

  “Hold on!” I snapped, slapping the table. “I have no idea what the heck was going on with Jake, but Jon was a good man. He was not like the others.”

  “Perhaps,” Carol and Graham both said with a look passing between them that made me think they were not convinced.

  “Am I missing something?” The sliding glass door opened and Dr. Zahn stepped outside. I caught a glimpse of Melissa just before she ducked back behind the corner created by the stairs leading up to the room that I had woke up in.

  “Dr. Zahn, a pleasure to finally meet you,” Graham said with that same tone he had used when we first met. He was stepping past me with an extended hand ready for shaking.

  “Can it,” Dr. Zahn snapped, causing the man to stop in his tracks.

  Yep, they might be able to bulldoze me, but they would find the doctor a much more difficult task. And now it was my turn to sit back and just observe. The first thing that I noticed was how Darla’s face gave away the fact that she was wishing that she could vanish. Dr. Zahn was giving her an evil glare every few seconds while still managing to whittle away at both Graham and Carol.

  “Well, if we are to stay,” the doctor finally spoke after she had been told basically the same story I’d already heard from Graham and the now slightly prickly Carol Wills, “I will have some demands.”

  “Demands?” Graham sputtered. Dr. Zahn held up a hand and shut him down.

  “In case you have not paid attention, we have been surviving in much harsher conditions than you for the past year. We can walk out of here…provided we are truly not being kept as prisoners…and we can fend for ourselves. Perhaps we will not have the potential for electricity…but make no mistake, we will survive.

  “So, yes, I have demands. The first is that I have a lab that will be equipped with the things that I will give you on a list. The second is that Mr. Haynes not be compelled to embark on this little mission of yours, but rather be given the chance to decide if he chooses to or not. And last, that you allow us to continue to live together as a group in this residence until some, if any of us, feel comfortable enough to obtain a place of his or her own.”

  That was all quickly agreed to. Dr. Zahn said that she would have a list in the morning. She also said that I would not be giving my answer until tomorrow as well.

  They were about to leave when Dr. Zahn spoke up again. “One last thing. The young lady…Darla is it? She stays with us.”

  “I don’t—” Graham began, but Darla cut him off.

  “I’ll stay.” She stepped over beside the doctor and gave a reassuring nod to both Graham and Carol.

  Once it was just the three of us, Dr. Zahn spun on the girl. “What have you told them?”

  “N-n-nothing,” the girl stammered.

  “Not just about my work, but also about Grady and his people!”

  “Not a word,” Darla insisted.

  “If you are lying to me and anything happens to them…I will deal with you myself. They are fully aware that your people exist. And if they wish to join you, they will do so on their own.”

  “You have my word,” Darla said meekly. She had my pity; it was not a pleasant experience to be on the receiving end of Dr. Zahn’s wrath.

  “And now for you, William.” The doctor spun to face me again. “I want you to go on this mission. I won’t compel you or make it a demand. But I believe that this would be beneficial for the sake of the group.
It will show that we are ready to step in and do our part. Also, it will give you a chance to see how these people operate out in the wild. You have spent enough time around soldiers to get a sense of things and how they should be done. Also, if this place is what they say it is, I want somebody that I trust to bring it all home. I want our man to be in the mix.”

  Dr. Zahn trusted me! Sure, she had said plenty of other things, but the one thing that I would take away from this moment was the simple fact that I was somebody who Dr. Zahn trusted. That, and she had referred to me as a “man”. Coming from the doc, that was a pretty big deal.

  I was still standing there several minutes after the doc had ordered Darla to come inside where they could speak privately. I was basking in a glow that was nowhere near as warm as the rising sun from the words of somebody who I respected so very much. I never heard or noticed Katrina come outside.

  “You in there?” She was snapping her fingers in front of my face.

  “Huh?” I shook my head. “Sure…what’s up?”

  “Some guy is at the front door. He has a box that he says must be hand delivered to you.”

  That was odd, I thought. Not to mention the last time I’d had a box delivered to me personally. I was almost hesitant to go see what it was.

  Still, I reasoned that it was unlikely to be another box of fingers. I went to the front door and accepted the large and very heavy parcel. Lugging it to the living room, I set it down on the great big coffee table and unceremoniously tore it open.

  My eyes almost bugged out of my head at what I discovered.

  “Holy crap!” I heard Katrina breathe from beside me.

  Holy crap indeed.

  16

  Vignettes XLVIII

  “…and so I decided to come here,” Vix said as she and Amanda sat in a pair of lawn chairs that were perched on a platform that had been built into the roof of the cottage. She had given her the long and unedited version of everything that had happened since that first zombie in the hospital. That seemed like a lifetime ago.