by Brown, TW
Eyes stared blankly up at the cloudless sky for several minutes. Then…they blinked.
***
“No!” Catie screamed, but Darlene had her around the waist and both Rob and Sam had a grip on her arms.
She had seen the hordes of undead as they washed over that small ridge and engulfed the open ground around that cross. She had a momentary thought that she wished she was close enough to end that poor soul’s misery with a crossbow. It was just a matter of time before the zombies realized there was a person within their grasp. Yet, for several seconds, the leading edge simply trudged past.
“Dogs don’t look up, and neither do zombies.”
That line was one that Kevin liked to spit out in his awful impersonation of an English accent. She had never seen Shaun of the Dead, but she felt like she had after all the times of hearing Kevin recount it, including some of his favorite lines. One day, he had told her that the part about zombies not looking up had been his own addition to the line, but for some reason, it tickled him to no end to say it.
For a few seconds, it looked as if he might actually be right. Then…one of them turned. She saw a hand reach up and grab the person by the ankle and give a pull. The person lost their footing and fell. In that instant, only being suspended by where he (she was guessing at that point that it was a male) had been fastened to the crossbeam, there must have been a terrific wrenching of the shoulders. That had been the cause of the man’s (she was certain the instant she heard it) scream.
However, she also recognized something in that scream. Like a mother who can pick out her child’s cry in a nursery full of children, she knew the owner of the gut-wrenching sound.
“Kevin.” Her mouth made the word, but it was an act of her mental autopilot.
That person who was condemned to a horrific death was her Kevin! She knew, despite immediately searching her brain for even the slightest possibility to the contrary, that he was going to die. Saving him was an impossibility. Yet, she felt herself trying desperately to move towards him. Her arms reached out, but something was holding her back…pulling her away.
It all happened in the few blinks of an eye, but it seemed that she could live each frame-by-frame moment for an eternity. Her ears refused to allow the sounds of his screams to penetrate. Yet, they would forever exist in her nightmares where she would hear them almost every night for the rest of her life.
One side of him seemed to shift unnaturally, and then she saw his body tear free, the arm still dangling by the twine used to secure it. An arc of blood shot skyward in rhythmic pulses. Then, the other side came free. It was almost merciful as he vanished into that sea of undead.
In that instant, it was over. She knew he was gone. This was the end of Kevin Dreon. Perhaps it was fate being cruel and kind as was her wont. At least she would have no doubts as to if he might be alive somewhere.
There would be no rescue mission. No quest to save her lost love that ended with the fairytale kiss.
“This ain’t the movies,” Catie whispered.
Those around her had no idea what she meant. A few thought that perhaps she had lost her mind. Darlene knew different. Darlene was staring into Catie’s eyes and seeing the depths of her pain. In that moment, she pulled as much guilt into herself as she could manage.
“We need to go,” Darlene whispered. She knew that the woman was hearing none of it. She had shut down everything except the horror playing out a scant fifty yards from where they all stood.
Looking around, they were now the last people still on the island. They would need to head almost on a straight line due west and cross the small slough that separated this island park from the fringes of Lexington.
“Kevin!” Catie screamed at the top of her lungs, as if she were just now registering what had happened. “I love you!”
“We gotta go!” Rob urged.
Yes, Darlene thought, we have to get moving right now. The zombies had turned to this new sound and were now coming their direction. On the positive side of things, the zombie is a simple creature. They would reach the point where they would cross over and then be able to vanish into the woods. That leading edge would stop at the banks initially. The rear of the herd would soon force those in front to stumble forward and act as a bridge.
As they crossed the narrow channel, Darlene looked at her companions. None of them had actually met the man. To them, he was just another poor soul to fall victim to the undead. Their only emotional stake was that they were believers that Erin Crenshaw was a fraud; that she had possibly manufactured situations in order to get the masses to act in a certain way and do things to fit her agenda.
Basically she was government by fear.
They had two choices. They could take this opportunity and escape to form their own community, or, they could attempt to take Erin down and change the course of the large group of people who were following in Erin’s footsteps.
When they reached the other shore and climbed up, Darlene cast one more look over her shoulder. The first zombies were being pushed into that little creek or stream. A thought came as she took Catie’s hand and led the woman into the relative safety and obscurity that the trees provided.
“I am one of those zombies…”
***
“As grand as that gesture is, I say it is a fool’s errand,” Sam said sternly and with a shake of his head. “That woman has people eating out of her hand. She is the post-apocalyptic Jim Jones and they all drank the Kool-Aid.”
“So we just walk away?” Darlene asked. She was not doing so to sway the group to change its course and go after Erin; she simply wanted some form of clarification. So much had been said for both arguments that she had lost track.
The group was hunched around their fire pit. They had made camp on the crest of a small hill that offered them a view into the camp of Erin’s people. It looked to have once been a baseball field; now, it was a mirror of the stars—at least from this vantage point. From above, each of the little fire pits looked like the pinpoint light of a star. With so many spread out, a person could find a pattern if they looked hard enough.
Catie sat alone on the outer-most fringe of the small group. Darlene had brought her some water, but the woman had simply stared straight ahead and not even registered that another person was there. Her red puffy eyes looked even more frightful in the gloom.
“If we do this, it probably ends with us getting killed,” Sam repeated his stance for perhaps the tenth time. “I say we hightail it outta here and just start over.”
“I think we have talked about this long enough,” Rob spoke as he stood. “We need to cast a vote, but before we do, is there anyone amongst us that will have a hard time following the consensus of the masses such as it were.”
Nobody said a word. Truthfully, Darlene was tired of talking, she wanted to know what they planned to do. Either way, she would handle her business.
“Show of hands,” Rob stage-whispered, “who is for taking the fight to Erin.” One hand rose. His. “And for getting on with our lives and getting the hell away from here with our skin intact?” Everybody else’s shot up fast. “So be it.”
Darlene turned to Catie. “Are you gonna be okay with that, Ca—” The name died on her lips.
Catie was gone.
16
Captive
“Wake up, Thalia!”
My eyes opened and Jim was standing over me, blood trickling from a gash on his left temple. I sat up and initially was confused. When I fell asleep, there had only been the three of us along with Blake and Chelsea. Now there were a dozen people at least, and they were all decked out in some very serious body armor.
I finally found Jackson in the clutches of four men who were easily just as large as the man that had always been one of the biggest that I’d known in my life. The worst part was that all of these people were wearing dark face shields so that you could not see their expressions.
Somebody grabbed Jim and jerked him away from me. There was a strugg
le, but I was grabbed roughly and yanked to my feet by one of the faceless invaders.
“Hands behind your back,” a voice demanded.
Still not entirely awake or aware, I guess I took too long. My left arm was wrenched behind me, causing me to cry out. The right arm was treated just as roughly, and I felt something being wrapped around them a few times before being cinched tight.
“Leave her alone!” Jim howled.
For his troubles, he was yanked back by his hair and punched in the gut. He slumped to his knees and began to cough. Jackson was faring no better. The men who had him were taking turns. One would hit him and he would spin or stagger into another that would continue the beating until he finally fell hard onto his back.
“Why?” I asked.
I never saw the fist. Everything flashed, and my vision went dark. Sound continued to come in through a muffled filter. When I could clear my head enough to see, I was looking up at one of the tinted visors that reflected what I hoped was a distorted image of my face.
“On your feet,” the voice behind the mask ordered.
When I saw his fist clench, I struggled to push myself up. I saw Jim and Jackson both being hauled up. What I did not see was any sign of Blake or Chelsea. Either they were lying dead and out of sight, or they had run off into the woods and escaped. I was not sure which I actually hoped for.
“Alright,” my captor hollered, “let’s get back to camp.”
I was shoved forward. Jim was a ways in front of me and I had to assume that Jackson was somewhere behind as we headed south towards the general direction of the La Grande valley.
***
All my life, I thought that we had a pretty decent amount of people living in Platypus Creek. There were even times that I felt crowded.
Three days ago, I was marched into an encampment that was easily ten times the number of people that we had back home. And, if what I was hearing in the bits and pieces of conversation that I managed to eavesdrop on was true, this was nothing more than the “advance” force.
I had not seen Jim or Jackson since we arrived. They had shoved me into a tent that was well guarded as I discovered the first night when I thought that I was being clever. I had feigned sleep when my meal was brought in and set on the small box that was my only furniture. As soon as the person exited, I had crept to the back of the tent and pulled it up enough to slip underneath. The boot that caught me in the side was hard enough to knock the wind from me. I was scooped up and unceremoniously dumped back inside my tent/cell.
I waited every day for somebody to come in and question or kill me. Honestly, both seemed equally as probable. Still, each day passed the same way. Two plates of vegetable mush was brought in by a person who was decked out in the armor and visor that my captors had worn. I was allowed to empty my toilet bucket each morning under escort to a deep trench that made me almost gag the first time I was brought to it.
On the fourth day, two guards entered. Judging by the light outside, it was just about sunset.
“On your feet.” One of the men stepped forward with a leather thong in his hand.
“It takes two of you?” I snarked. That earned me a backhand that put me on my butt. I tasted the familiar coppery saltiness of blood.
“Hands behind your back,” the man who hit me demanded.
I thought about making another sarcastic remark, but it was clear that these guys had no problems roughing me up. I was not stupid. I knew when I was in a “no win” situation. At least I certainly did after I’d been belted once to jog my memory. Once my hands were secured, I was blindfolded.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked. Big surprise, there was no response.
I was led along. There was a vibrant hum to this camp. With so many people, I had to wonder how they did not have every zombie for miles converging on their location. Even at night there was noise, and when we had been brought in, I had not seen any sort of barricade. I had been surprised that they had not simply moved in to Island City and maybe patched up the damage they had inflicted. It had to be better than just being out in the open.
And then there was the whole logistical issue. How were they keeping fed? I walked past a wooden pen and saw a pack of dogs. This only added to the logistical nightmare that it must be to keep this many people supplied while on the move. This was an army.
At last we stopped in front of a large tent. There was no real sentry or anything in front of it, but I was not exactly sure what I should be expecting. I had read plenty of books over the years, and in all of them, the evil villain always had an entourage of guards that sneered or made a general nuisance of themselves.
“Send her in!” a voice called from inside the tent. I was more than a little surprised to hear a woman’s voice.
I walked in and looked around. It was nothing special. There was a cot against one side, and an arsenal of bladed weapons on a rack. There was a folding table in the center of the tent, and a woman was sitting at it with a few tubes that I had to assume held maps.
“Come on in,” the woman beckoned, standing as I walked in alone. My escort remained outside the flap of the tent.
I might have gave a shrug, but I did as she asked and walked up to the table. She got up and came around, removing my cuffs.
“Who hit you?” she asked.
At first I thought it might be a trick. When she came back around and sat down, leaning forward with an expectant look on her face, I answered. “One of those goons of yours that escorted me here.”
“Which one?”
“We never exchanged names.”
“Chance, Randy?”
I heard a rustle behind me. “Yes, ma’am?” two voices replied with unveiled formality.
“Which one of you struck this girl?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. It went on long enough that I thought there would be no answer.
“It was me.”
I glanced over my shoulder and took a better look. Honestly, I had made no effort to really learn anything about my captors. When I’d been smacked, it came out of the blue, and I hadn’t really paid it much mind.
The man was nothing special. Maybe mid-thirties; just a bit older than Melissa if I had to guess. He had short, brown hair and was about as non-descript as a person could be. He could be a teacher, a farmer, or a cook. He did not look like an evil henchman. Just a regular guy.
“Report to the watch commander, Randy. Tell him you will have outrider patrol for the next two weeks,” the woman behind the desk said with all the emotion of a snake. There was something in her voice that scared me. It was like you could hear the violence she was capable of just by listening to her tone.
“Yes, ma’am.” I had no idea what outrider duty was, but I could tell it was not pleasant.
The two men turned and hurried out. I returned my attention to this woman behind the desk. She was actually very pretty. She had dark hair just touching her shoulders and eyes that were large and very blue which were made all the more striking in the frame of her almost perfectly black hair. I say almost because of the few strands of silver that were laced throughout. She was dressed in black (which reminded me that she was my captor, and therefore, probably the bad guy).
“My name is Suzi. I don’t imagine you are quite ready yet to tell me yours?” She had tweaked her inflection at the very end of her statement just enough to hint at a question.
I was not ready to say a thing to her. One of the things that I learned when I was in training to be a field scout was the art of keeping quiet. Of course I had learned that lesson much earlier from the likes of Billy, Paula, and Dr. Zahn. I could not count the number of times they got me to tell on myself by just staring at me and not saying a single word.
“That’s okay.” Suzi leaned back in her chair and regarded me over steepled fingers. “So perhaps I can let you in on a few things. Maybe that will help you realize that I am not your enemy.”
I made a point of keeping her gaze. I could not tell if she was try
ing to stare me down, or if she was just trying to figure me out.
“The first thing that you should know is that we did not engage the people of this area until they left us with no choice. If you are from one of the small communities around here, then you should know that we did not mean any harm, and we would not have launched an attack without provocation. Our patrols came under attack first. We simply retaliated.”
As she spoke, this woman rose and began to pace. That did two things: first, it put me on the defensive physically; second (and I think this had to be her actual reason), it broke our eye contact. She was lying—if not outright, at least partially. I had seen with my own two eyes as this army had struck that smaller community just to the west and up against the foothills of the Blue Mountains. That had been a bunch of college kids that migrated here to escape the insanity of the valley corridor war zone. I believed Cricket over this woman that seemed to radiate a coldness that I could feel physically.
“When we arrived in this valley, we were delighted to find so much lush farmland,” Suzi continued. “When we discovered that there were some settlements, we sent our emissaries to see if there might be a place that we could settle and call home.”
“Where are my friends?” I blurted in the moment that she took a breath during what I was now thinking had to be some sort of rehearsed spiel.
I was not surprised when she did not turn to face me. If she was half as smart as she needed to be in order to be running an operation like this, then things like eye contact tells during a lie were probably common knowledge. However, the one thing I might be able to assume here in the moment is the fact that she has a visual tell in her eyes or on her face when she is being dishonest. I could at least bank that nugget of knowledge.
“They are all alive and well,” Suzi said. She turned after that statement and her face held no emotion at all. It was entirely blank. I was getting nowhere with this playing cat-and-mouse garbage.