The Rotting Souls Series (Book 3): Charon's Debt

by Ray, Timothy A.

  His mind raced to try and figure out the best way to tell them without the risk of losing his temper, but he had no clue how to do it.

  “Sean created the zombie virus,” he blurted out while Monica was talking about his grandparents’ choice to remain behind. Everyone stopped talking immediately and his wife let out a groan of despair.

  “That drunk guy from yesterday?” Sam asked, eyes wide.

  “The hell you say,” Casey snarled from his left. “I know that’s bullshit.”

  “Todd, that’s a horrible thing to say,” Rodger reprimanded him and he could almost picture the finger waving in his head.

  Rosilynn was silent, but her eyes said it all; it mirrored his own horror that he’d been living since earlier that morning.

  “I wish I was making it up, I really do. Then I wouldn’t be feeling all this guilt, this overwhelming urge to just through myself to those things out there eating our world to extinction. But I won’t give that fucker the satisfaction. I—won’t,” he told them, trying his best not to tear up and keep a straight face.

  “You do that, I’ll put chains around your neck and make you follow me around, you ass,” Samantha said, reaching behind Monica to slap him in the shoulder.

  “I’ll go over to the other compound and cut his fucking head off,” the ER nurse snapped, and he had seen her with that sword of hers, she’d really do it.

  He shook his head, “he’s not dead. He faked it. Disabled our security feeds and took off in his plane. I have no idea where he is at the moment,” he felt the despair in his voice as he said it. He would like nothing better than to take out this rage and frustration on the man, but his escape had been executed right before all this shit came to light; Sean had the luck of the devil.

  “But I saw—,” Sam began.

  “What? Blood stains? Ben went over there while we went south and it was corn syrup from the fridge. Did you actually see a head wound or did you just look away and turn around, because I know that’s all I did? We didn’t take the time to look; we were actually sad the fucker was dead!” he thundered, pounding his fist on the table.

  Rosilynn growled. “You didn’t check for a pulse? Didn’t even get close enough to see if he was still breathing?”

  “No,” he shot back, angry over his own stupidity. “We got the call that Michelle had taken off in the Huey and from that point on, it was all about trying to stop her; not cleaning up another one of Sean’s messes.”

  His head was pounding now and he knew that he was going to have to take something other than Excedrin to beat it back.

  “Calm down man, how do you know for sure that he did this?” Casey asked, trying his best to get comfortable on one of those inflatable rings; he was not having a good time with it.

  He told them everything then. The other compounds, the things Ben had discovered, the man in the airport, Sean disabling the monitors, and ended with the plane taking off. They all sat there in silence and each looked like they were going to do exactly what he wanted too when he found out—throw up.

  When he finished, he crumpled his can of Coke, took it to the trash, and grabbed another. Why didn’t they keep beer in one of these fridges? He could use one right now.

  “I still say there’s no fucking way,” Casey told them as he retook his seat. “Nah man, we knew the man, he wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “Did we know him? I’m not so sure,” Rosilynn mused. “I mean, think of everything we thought we knew, most of it was bullshit, why not this? It makes perfect sense. That lunatic was obsessed with this shit and all of us were so into creating and planning, that none of us stopped to ask why he was so gung ho about any of it. Maybe he planned it all along, maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

  “You didn’t see him last night, he was drunk off his ass. He wanted to confess, he tried too, but he was mumbling so much I just couldn’t understand what he was saying. No, I don’t think he planned on it getting out, but he is the one responsible for it, of that, I’m sure,” he told them, wishing he could rewind the clock and just beat the shit out of the guy.

  “This is my fault,” Casey mumbled. “All those years ago, I’m the one that suggested this shit, I started it all in motion.”

  Rodger was shaking his head. “Boy, you didn’t start shit. We may have mentioned it, but he would have thought of it anyway. Things back then were bad, but not as bad as they have been in recent years. We were joking around, having a good time, none of us realized just how close the world was coming to an end. Regardless of the method, this shit has been coming for a long time. I know, because I had to hide under desks in mock drills for nuclear attacks, like that shit would protect us somehow. All we were waiting for was someone stupid enough to push a button.”

  Casey didn’t look like he believed it and he sympathized. He had been just as animated as his younger friend about building this place and if there were blame to be placed, it could be equally set on the shoulders of everyone here.

  “What do we do now?” Rosilynn asked him.

  He had thought hard about what to do next and he still didn’t have all the answers. Just a couple places to start.

  “First, this stays between us. If you want to tell Matt, that’s up to you, I know he can handle it, but leave that sheriff guy out of this,” he told her and he got a nod in return. “We have enough to handle without creating more of a mess by letting this get out. We have things we need to tend to around the compound, livestock to feed, crops to tend, defenses to man, training to give. It’s enough to keep us busy for quite some time and we have to be more vigilant in the days ahead. We know for a fact that at least one group of people wants to take this from us, and where there is one, there are bound to be more. We need to bring the new people up to speed; I’ll take them on a tour later and try to assess their strengths and weaknesses; where we need to focus on while training. We need someone up in that tower keeping watch in shifts. I don’t know when Robert will be coming back; but I heard it in his voice, that gunfight in Morenci won’t be enough to deter him, he will return. Next time he’ll be better prepared, so must we.”

  “Surely he won’t be able to do much. He can only have, what? Five guys left after that battle? Where’s he going to get more people? He’ll probably die on the road heading back to whatever hell spawned him,” Casey piped in.

  Monica sighed. “You didn’t hear him, I did. He won’t turn back now. He blames Todd for the death of his daughter. I know that if I lost one of my children, I’d never stop—ever.”

  “How are you to blame for his daughter?” Rodger asked, the older man leaning forward, confused. “Something happen on your trip out of town?”

  “According to Sabrina, he holds me responsible because I didn’t warn him it was coming. I was in such a hurry to get out of town, I didn’t really tell anybody what was going on, didn’t want it to slow me down,” he told them. “Maybe I am, who knows? I have his number in my cell, I had him friended on Facebook, all I really had to do was send a message. But I was so wrapped up in what I was doing, it never occurred to me to worry about him when even my own close friends and family weren’t responding to my texts.”

  “Misplaced anger is a dangerous thing,” the old man muttered. “I understand now. You are not responsible for what happened to his little girl any more than any of us are responsible for whatever sick plan Sean had for the world. There are mad men out there that either create chaos or flourish within it; and those two are beyond any of our abilities to understand or take responsibility for. Maybe he’ll die out there on the road, maybe he’ll come back, but either way, this stopped being about his daughter a long time ago. It’s no longer just revenge, its power; those that want it from those that have it. Daughter or not, he’d still come here to take this place from us, because that’s the kind of person he is.”

  “I just don’t understand how quickly things have changed. How quickly he has changed. It’s only been a day, people!” he nearly yelled. He just couldn’t comp
rehend how fast things were moving and thought that maybe he should step off the merry ‘go round before he was thrown off.

  Rosilynn calmly regarded him for a moment, just letting her eyes take everything in; it was unnerving. That clinical look she gave made you feel like your whole life was on display and that there was nothing you could hide from that icy glare. “It has been one day. But in that one day, the dead have risen and they are out there eating people. A bite may not turn a person, but there are plenty of places to bite that definitely will. The population of undead is increasing, and with it the likely hood of Mankind’s extinction. The military is responding by bombing first asking questions later. A nuclear bomb was set off in the Arizona desert, which was not the best moment in my life, believe me. There are no cops, no first responders, no one to rein these people in. They have been stripped of their liberties for so long that the moment the cage was opened, they escaped with joy at their newfound freedom. All that makes Man evil, that which we hold back for fear of retaliation, is now set loose with no signs of law and order being restored. Those men that tried to rape Sabrina? That asshole with the bomb? It is only the beginning. We have not yet witnessed the true evil of Man and you have to wonder, what is the bigger threat; the undead cannibals or the unchecked horrors that Mankind is capable of committing? You’re right Rodger, we are not responsible for what Sean is done, but the knowledge alone gives us an advantage over everybody else out there. We know who did it, we know where he did it, and we can find that place and destroy it once and for all.”

  “Who knows, maybe some lab geek in that ninth compound has engineered a cure and is only waiting on someone to come get it; can we honestly say we are just going to sit back and do nothing? There are a lot of things I can live with, but that is not one of them,” she continued. “If I’m going to die, either at the hands of some psycho, or some hungry ass zombie, I want it to be doing something that I believe in and know to be right; not hiding behind some wall pretending the world isn’t ending around us. Let’s stop grieving for the world and see if we can’t save it. What else are we going to do? I don’t know about you, but all my television shows just got permanently canceled and my schedule just opened up.”

  Chapter 6

  The Red House

  Todd

  Compound 2

  He was standing in the main communal space of the underground complex. It was the largest room of the entire structure and even though he had passed through it numerous times since his arrival, he had yet to spend any time there.

  It was meant as a gathering place for people to socialize and stretch their legs and as he looked at the full congregation of those assembled, each glancing his way, he began to wonder what he was doing. He didn’t want to be anyone’s leader, but it appeared like he had been thrust into that role with Sean’s departure. Then again, what would it be like had Sean stayed? Would he even be alive to lead them anyways?

  When they had arrived, there were introductions made between the newbies and the vets, and he smiled as his friends were welcomed warmly into their new “family”. The only person that wasn’t in attendance was currently lying in the infirmary; his gunshot wound dressed and the pain meds keeping him knocked out.

  Ben sat apart from the others, using the table near the rear wall as a work station as he continually worked and communicated not only with Joseph and his group, but the other compounds as well. The ham radio had been liberated from the Ferias cage and was setup next to the young man’s laptop, powered on. Not much had been received yet, but it was still early.

  “Some of us have been ridiculed for years for the work we have done here, but I want to just take a moment to thank all of you for getting through it and staying the course. Even through the criticism, we have pushed through, and now there is a genuine chance that we’ll all survive thanks to everyone’s continued efforts and hard work,” he began, feeling like he was making a political speech and hating every minute of it.

  Still, there were a lot of things to discuss and it was better to try and start as light as possible. There was light applause, but things were still fresh and no one was willing to pat anyone else’s back just yet.

  He coughed and took a sip of water. “If I may, I would ask that we have a moment of silence for all those that have been lost and those that may be dying as we speak,” he told them solemnly, then lowered his head.

  A couple of people coughed, but most of them were quiet as they all sent prayers upward for the safety of their loved ones.

  “I wish I was the type of religious person that could comfort you with a passage from a book, but I’m not. The only part worth reading right now is the Book of Revelations and I do believe a Beast has been loosed upon the world and that the Four Horsemen are on the move, that only a miracle will save us. I do not talk of the Horsemen as actual mythical figures, but what they represent that will be our undoing. War is raging, there will be famine and pestilence, and ultimately death. To deny their existence is to be ignorant of what’s going on in the world, and that’s something that we cannot afford to do.”

  He took another sip, then laughed. “I ended up sounding like a preacher anyways, didn’t I?” Some of the others returned his laughter and he saw his oldest son grinning up at him from his left. “For those of you that began this journey with me, thank you for accepting our new friends, and I hope that in the days to come, you can help me prepare them for what comes next. I will not lie to you, just because we are currently safe does not mean that we will stay that way. This afternoon, my uncle and cousin died at the hands of a maniac that wants nothing more than to kill all of us and kick whoever survives to the curb.” he looked to his father for a moment, but the old man was still keeping to himself and glanced away when their eyes met.

  “We drove that man off for the moment, but I agree with Sabrina when she says that he will be back. I have seen into his heart and nothing short of death will free us of him. When he does, he’ll be better armed, better prepared, therefore we must do everything we can to meet him with everything at our disposal. Against the wishes of my wives, and my primary care physician,” he muttered, glaring at Rosilynn, “I have decided to open a dialogue with a man we met this morning, who is part of a large para-military group hiding in the woods to the north of us. I do not suggest that we share space with them, but there is another compound that was designed for backup purposes, and they are more than welcome to take up residence there. I have listened to all the arguments and this is what I feel is right. We may have occasional dealings with them, but for the most part, we’ll remain apart and keep to our own,” he turned to look at the three women in his life, and cringed. “Now is not the time to let hard feelings and misunderstandings undermine our chances to survive. We will be hard tasked as it is to defend this compound without also trying to man and maintain the other one. There is an umbilical between Compound 3 and the other two that we are currently using, and if it should fall into enemy hands, we will have no choice but to blow the tunnels and be cut off from it anyways. I’d rather it be in the hands of that group to the north than have it fall into Robert’s, because then we’d never get him out.”

  “Excuse me Rick—shit, meant Todd, is this a dictatorship? Do we have to do what you say or hit the road?” Casey was altering his prepared question and he winced at the insinuation of a monarchy with him at its head.

  “Not at all. I don’t want to be standing here. I would rather be over there laying on my back making snarky cracks, but someone has to sound like the bad guy and I guess with everyone appearing to gun for me, I seemed like the logical choice,” he returned.

  Casey laughed, “you want me to shoot you in the ass too? Then you can sit on this couch right next to me. Oh wait, you are going to invite the man that did—right into our backup plan for escape.”

  “I’m not the leader, there is a group of us that gets together to decide what’s best for us all, and maybe when we get bigger that can be voted upon, but right now I speak fo
r all of them while I’m up here before you. If I remember right, you Sir, were at that meeting,” he snarked, glaring at the young stoner. “We have two-hundred acres of land protected by a twenty-foot concrete wall, which is great against zombies, but not so much the living. Zombies won’t bring ladders. And how many people do we have to patrol that wall, twenty-seven? And that’s counting the baby over there. Now, when Joseph gets here there will be forty-three, but again, nearly half their number are children. While they will be helpful chore wise, most of them have some years before they are able to help defend us; and we need to prepare now to give them the time to grow up. Rodger has prepared a chore list and even though we might all hate it; this is not the time to shirk our duties. The lumber mill and the forge need to be checked and maintained; there is livestock to feed and yes Casey, cows to milk. I can’t think of anything better suited to sitting on their ass milking utters than you.”

  “Yeah, fuck you too,” his friend muttered and the rest laughed.

  “We will also start having shifts in the towers. There are four main towers that overlook the walls of the compound, one at every point of the compass. There will be four hour shifts rotating and Rosilynn has been good enough to draw up a list for that. The only ones currently excluded from the chores are Matt and Ben, as it’ll take a while for Matt to get back on his feet and Ben has enough on his hands already and we need him where he is,” he nodded to the young man in the back. “It goes without saying that without him, none of us would be here right now, so again Ben, thank you.”

  There was more applause this time and the young man blushed.

  “Chores may start the day, but by no means is that the limit of what we all have to start doing. We need to train and cross train not only the new people, but each other. Refresh our skills. Rosilynn is in charge of first aid and everyone will spend time each day with her going over the basics, so that each of you know what to do when the shit hits the fan. I’m afraid that our defensive teachers aren’t here at the moment, Joseph is on his way in and Matt is laid up, so for now, John has offered to step in and give us a hand with that. Thank you,” he nodded to the former sheriff and the man planted a huge grin on his face and waved.