by Brown, TW
Chick was a mess. His belly had been ripped open, and a zombie had taken a pretty big bite out of his face. It was almost unrecognizable. In fact, the only reason I knew it was Chick was the clothes he was wearing. However, there was one more disturbing thing about the Chick zombie. He had an arrow jutting from the back of each meaty thigh. A shot like that would make it hard to walk, much less run. This indicated that somebody had brought Chick down so that the zombies could get him. Of course, if the crossbow bolts jutting from his legs did not give it away. The ball gag in his mouth certainly did the trick.
“What the…” I heard one of the men gasp as we got a good look at Chick—what was left of him at any rate.
He and another zombie stumbled to the first torch, seemed to regard it for a minute, and then headed for the second. Once they passed that one and approached our camp, I figured that his buddies would take them down. Instead, they spread out a bit, took down the stranger, and then just observed him as he would go for first one of them, and then another.
I started to get up, but Jim grabbed my arm and pulled me down. “You don’t learn very well,” he breathed.
I turned to see Jim standing there, but my eyes darted to his bed. There was a Jim-shaped lump in it. I looked up at him and he pulled me back while easing down beside his bedroll.
“Okay, Biff, take him down,” Maddy finally barked.
A large man that looked like a shaved gorilla with a blond crewcut stomped forward and drove a large knife into Chick’s head. The corpse toppled and then his friends, or whatever these people were, moved in and gathered around the body. They started pointing and mumbling to each other.
Meanwhile, Jim was taking pine branches from his bed roll and just sort of feeding them into the fire or tossing them into the shadows. I watched him and then turned back to our escorts. They were engaged in their own thing and did not seem to be paying us any attention. I guess that was a good thing for Jim. He had all evidence of his little ruse disposed of and they had not been any the wiser.
That night, Suzi’s people split themselves in half and kept watch. Apparently they were not content with just one person keeping lookout. I wanted morning to hurry up and get here.
It didn’t.
Morning eventually came with a harsh toe to my side. I rolled over on the defensive to see Maddy walking away. She did not even glance back as she went to her gear and shouldered her pack. She did say that things would be different from here on when we traveled.
I still wanted to talk to Jim about last night. I would have asked him then, but the sentries were walking the perimeter of our camp which had been condensed significantly. Maddy wanted us all in close for pretty obvious reasons. I was still amazed that they did not suspect us of this attack.
Jim and I started shouldering our gear, but one of the other women came over to me. “You and me, kid.” She stood with her hands on her hips and an expectant look on her face.
Did she mean we were going to fight? I glanced at Jim who currently wore no expression at all as he looked from me to the she-giant.
“Umm…” I started, but then the last of the saliva dried up in my mouth and no more words would come out.
“We have first scout patrol. Give your pack to one of the guys, keep just your canteen, your knife, and your machete.”
I am pretty sure my look of relief gave me up, but for added measure, I let a huge sigh escape my lips. “Thank God,” I whispered.
The woman gave me a strange look and then walked over to her own gear. I noticed that she was strapping on some extra protection in the form of shin guards and even a helmet with a flip down visor. None of that for me, though. I had jeans and a heavy shirt with a leather jacket and gloves.
I was given a tin cup of lukewarm and watered down oatmeal and then we were told to get started and that Maddy and the rest of the group would be heading out in about an hour at best. With that, the big woman gave me a little shove and we were on the road.
I remember the first time I had walked this pass on the way to Island City. I recall how amazed and overwhelmed I was with seeing the world. Now, as sad as it seemed, I just wanted to be home. I wanted to see Melissa and Stevie, Billy, and Dr. Zahn. Hell I would even be happy to see Kayla Brockhouse.
“Name’s Sylvia,” the woman muttered as we climbed over a section of the road that had buckled.
“Thalia,” I replied.
A grunt of some sort was her only response to that. We had not gone on another ten minutes when we came across what had obviously been where Chick was ambushed. Sylvia motioned for me to stop as she made an inspection of the area. I looked around and tried to figure out what might have happened by what I saw.
The only thing that I was certain of was that Chick had taken down three zombies. The area where that little scuffle took place was a dark stain on the asphalt. One of the zombies had both arms ripped off. I was admittedly impressed. Eventually, Sylvia either had enough information or decided to give up and motioned for us to resume.
I wanted to talk to this woman. I wanted to ask her how she could feel good about living the way Suzi ran things. The only problem with that was the fact that this woman scared the beejeezus out of me.
“Hold up!” she whispered all of a sudden.
I had been walking along minding my own business. I had not really known why I was chosen to join on this little venture, but I quickly found out.
Sylvia moved over by me and I assumed that it was so we could have each other’s backs if another ambush came.
Nope.
Her arm whipped out and coiled around my neck so fast, that I barely had time to blink, much less make any attempt to get away. She pulled my body against hers and then turned to the left. I could feel her hunch down to use as much of my body for cover as she could. Sadly for her, it wasn’t much.
I heard a sound and then felt Sylvia’s arm sort of tighten for just a second and then go completely slack. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t exactly go slack in time to keep her from dragging me off my feet. I rolled over as quickly as I could and found myself looking into her dead eyes. Oh…and there was a knife sticking out of one eye socket. I guess she should have pulled down that visor.
I pushed away and was trying to get to my feet while drawing my machete. My eyes went to the crossbow, but it had actually slipped from Sylvia’s shoulder and skittered a few feet away. I was stuck out in the middle of the wide open highway with the nearest cover much too far for me to have even half of a chance of making it.
“Thalia Hobart!” a voice called.
I wanted to cry. Never in my life had hearing Paula Yin’s voice sounded so good. When she stepped out from behind a derelict and rusted out old car, I could not help it. I did cry. The tears started and I wondered for a few seconds if maybe they might not ever stop. At this point, I might have had the same reaction if it had been Kayla. Probably not…but maybe.
Several more figures emerged from the woods on both sides of the highway, but my vision was too blurry for me to make out faces. However, voices were no problem.
“Thalia!” a familiar voice boomed. A second later, I was scooped up and spun around in a huge circle.
“Billy!” I squealed, although I seriously doubt anybody could make out my words between my throat being a pinhole and Billy squeezing the little air I did manage to get into my lungs right back out in a whoosh.
“You look like warmed over crap, kiddo,” Billy said as he put me down.
I started babbling incoherently as I tried to tell him about everything that had happened to us in the span of one or two actual breaths. He held up his hands and told me to slow down. It took a lot of control, but at last I was able to tell him, Paula, and the others gathered around a good outline of my story. I know I left a lot out, but I was pretty sure that I had given them all of the important bits.
“So Jim will be coming this way soon?” Billy asked.
“He should be with the rest of our escorts. The thing is, they were pret
ty spooked by whatever happened to Chick. They might pull up again if Sylvia doesn’t check in. I have no idea what their system is, but it would seem likely that they will not just keep moving. As it was, our scout rotation seemed to be every few hours,” I offered.
“I think Jim has them pegged for about half the norm,” Billy said.
“What? How do you know that?” I gasped.
“He slipped out of camp the first night and got a message to us. He has a network of runners at communities all over. They sent a guy on horseback. We rode most of the way here and then left our horses at one of the trading posts a ways up the road.”
I was floored. My thoughts of how I had been suspicious of him started to creep up on me and I stuffed them. I really should have known better; Jim was one of the greatest and most wonderful men I knew. How could I have ever thought him capable of being a mole? I knew now that I would have to come clean with him some day, otherwise my guilt would eat me alive.
“I owe that mop head a freaking bucket of beer,” Paula groused, snapping me back to the situation.
“A bucket of beer for what?” I asked.
“I told him that you would have known that he slipped out. He said that you were clueless and had bought into him being injured just like your escorts,” Paula grumbled.
“We can worry about that later,” Billy said, sounding all business. “Give me the rundown on this group. I want numbers, weapons, and how they travel. We probably have about ten minutes to get in place, so be quick.”
“Didn’t Jim tell you?” I asked.
“Yes, but it always helps to use an old carpenter’s trick…measure twice, cut once. I just want to be as sure as possible.”
I gave them the report, was handed Sylvia’s crossbow, and then joined Paula where she would be waiting as we set up this ambush. I was just getting into my spot when a thought hit me hard.
“What about Jackson?” I turned to Paula.
“One thing at a time,” the woman said as she brought her binoculars to her eyes.
“But that place is huge, and he is being kept in a cage in dang near the center of camp. It ain’t like we are gonna be able to just slip in and save him,” I insisted.
“And I said one thing at a time,” Paula snapped. Nice to know some things never change.
I stayed quiet for a minute, but then I had another thought. “Have you ever heard or read about a guy named Randall Flagg?”
Paula looked at me with those dark eyes of hers and I wanted to crawl under a rock. “Of course I have. He is a character in an old Stephen King book. Some sort of amalgam of the devil and the boogeyman. He had powers, but he could look like a normal guy. He used the typical animals like crows to spy on the good guys. Why do you ask?”
“Could somebody like that exist?” I pressed, ignoring the question.
“No. That is just fiction.”
“Didn’t they used to say that about zombies?”
Paula was quiet for a minute, and then she turned on her side to face me. “Why are you asking about this stuff?”
“The leader of that army down in the valley? Her people say that she knows things, and I think they are convinced that she was behind the death of their friend. They were really spooked.”
“Yeah, you can thank Jim for that as well. He fed that crap to you knowing that they were listening. It was like telling ghosts stories when you are camping. Now every snapping twig is the crazed killer come for his victims,” Paula said with a smile. “That guy is frightening the way his mind works. Sounds like he got them scared out of their pants.”
“So then there is no way that Suzi has some sort of powers or magic working for her?” I asked, needing to be reassured.
“It is all a bunch of superstitious nonsense,” Paula said. “No!” she exclaimed when I continued to look at her with obvious doubt all over my face.
I turned back to the road. I was torn between still holding on to some sense of doubt and feeling like a complete moron, and accepting Paula’s answer.
I was still going over it in my head when I saw something. Coming up the road was the leading element of my escort. I could make out Maddy as she led the way. She was joined by four others. Next came Jim, his limp as well as his being about half the size of the huge man who walked beside him with a crossbow in his hands easy to distinguish. Last were the remaining five members of the group.
This was about to become a slaughter. I shoved thoughts of Jackson out of my head. They had rescued me, we were about to rescue Jim. They would obviously have something in mind for Jackson. Just because I could not think of something did not mean that these more experienced people like Billy, Paula, and Jim did not have a plan already brewing.
“Now!” Paula whispered.
7
Vignettes LXIII
Juan sat on the log watching Della and Denita. Apparently, Gerald had been very thorough in his training. And while Juan was a bit annoyed by how some stranger could tell his girls that their dad might go “live with their mom” or some such nonsense, he couldn’t really fault the guy. It was not the world he grew up in.
Juan returned his attention to his daughters. Della was standing in the open field. She was singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” at the top of her lungs while the deader staggered her direction.
This particular zombie looked like the sort of man that had lived most of his life in the Alaskan Wilderness. His beard hung down almost to his belt and was a macabre nest of all sorts of bugs and might have given home to a nest of rodents at some point. His end looked like perhaps it had come at some of the wolves. One arm was shredded and torn up. The bones of the forearm had been snapped at some point between the elbow and wrist. However, there were some other nasty rips and tears on his legs as well that just did not look like they came from a human zombie.
Juan finally spotted Denita; she was slipping up behind the deader, moving at least quiet enough that neither he nor the walker could hear her approach. At last, she was close enough and came in with a brutal swing of her club. The barrel of it caught the zombie right behind the knees. Then, like sharks in a frenzy, both girls were on the monster, swinging hard and fast until the head busted open.
“I win!” Della crowed.
That was another peculiar aspect to this little event. The girls had turned it into a contest. Whoever struck the blow that broke open the skull was declared the winner.
“Nice work, girls,” Juan called from his comfortable spot sitting on the log. “So how many of these deaders have you two killed now?”
“Thirty-seven if we get to count those yucky wolves.”
That had been something that Juan would like to bring up with Gerald when he got back. Killing the human versions was one thing, and the wolves were not that much more agile, but they often travelled in small packs as well as being a tiny bit faster. He was not entirely sure that he was okay with his girls being put in that much danger.
“Daddy,” Della said, both girls now suddenly stopping in their tracks and looking at him with odd expressions etched on their faces.
“You girls ready for lunch?” Juan asked.
“Don’t move,” Denita whispered.
In an instant, the two girls split up, each moving out wide of his location. They were looking at something behind him. Juan craned his neck and spotted the problem right away. It was almost prophetic. Heading his direction in their strange swaggering gait were five deader wolves.
“Girls, you need to get back to the cabin,” Juan warned.
A lone walker was one thing, but a small pack of wolves? That was an entirely different story. He doubted his own ability to withstand such an attack. He also knew that he would not be able to escape using the crutches. While deader wolves were not much more coordinated than their human counterparts, they could still move at a pace equal to a slow jog or fast walk. That was a speed that Juan was not able to reach at this time. They would drag him down long before he reached the safety of the cabin.
Suddenl
y, he was very thankful that Gerald seemed to have made it a point to teach some more advanced survival skills to his girls. They were about to become orphans, and it looked like he would be reuniting with Mackenzie sooner rather than later.
The girls did not seem to be taking his demand that they go back to the cabin with any seriousness at all. They were both crouched and had moved past him. They were on either side of the pack and almost even with them at this point.
“This isn’t some game, girls. Now do what I told you and get your butts back to that cabin!” Juan snapped, putting his “serious dad” voice in effect for good measure.
“Keep talking, Papi,” Della whispered barely loud enough for him to hear. “That will keep them focused on you.”
“Dammit, I said this isn’t some sort of game. Those are wolves, and there are five of them. Now get back to the cabin.”
It was as if his girls had suddenly gone stone cold deaf. They did not even glance his direction. The two tiny figures continued to creep along. At this point, they had gotten past the deader wolves and were now changing course to come up from behind. Meanwhile, the wolves were not making any attempts to approach faster than their stalking creep. It freaked Juan out to watch what was almost a drunken parody of these once beautiful animals as they crept closer.
There had been many discussions about how deaders seemed to hold on to certain instincts. That had become part of the theory about why the children acted so different. Most children were wary of strangers after a certain age. If some sort of vestigial instinct remained, then that was as good of a reason as any. Personally, Juan’s stance was that all zombies were bad and needed to be taken down.
“Us or them,” had been his mantra for quite some time. Of course, he applied that to the living, the undead, child zombie, wolf, or just plain deader.
“You girls are in big trouble when we get home,” Juan warned as he drew his machete.
That acted like a switch. Just as with the child zombie that would ignore or even shy away from a person, the moment that weapon was drawn, the game changed and they reverted to their primary function: kill the living.