by Joshua Guess
The reptile brain survived by running or killing, and Kell had a bad leg.
He whipped the skillet as hard as he could. Had he the time or capacity to hope for a result, it would have buried itself like a throwing star in the shooter’s face. Instead the cast iron edge thundered into the shooter’s outer left jaw, which caused an involuntary spasm resulting in a tightening of muscles. This resulted in a pull of the trigger and a jerk of the gun.
A three-round burst echoed through the RV and more hot blood flew as the person trying to tie off Kell’s leg took them through the chest.
Kell was laughing as the shooter righted himself, raw fury etched across every line of his face. Then most of his face was etched across the wall, a change Kell only understood once the sound of gunfire registered for what it was.
Emily stepped in through the side door and swept a shotgun around the space for more enemies.
“Is that guy dead, too?” she asked, glancing at the man slumped over Kell’s leg.
“I think so,” Kell whispered through gritted teeth. “My leg is fucked. He shot me. I don’t know how bad.”
“Are you bleeding to death?” she asked. “Getting lightheaded or anything?”
Kell shook his head, which if anything felt heavy. “No. The guy laying on me was trying to patch it up.”
Emily looked out the openings in the RV with short, intense stares as she searched for enemies. Frowning, she stepped to the door with shotgun raised and shouted for assistance. Within twenty seconds, Beth and a man Kell didn’t recognize were inside and helping.
Emily and the man kept watch, occasionally ducking as close gunfire split the air. Beth crouched down and began working under Kell’s direction. He wasn’t sure he could keep himself focused if he had to look at the wound and tell Beth what to do, so he kept his eyes on her face instead.
She was hurt, but that wasn’t shocking considering the fight outside. Her cheek was split and beginning to darken. The cascade of blood running from the wound had begun to dry. Her eyes were bright, though, at least until she pulled back the dead man and looked at Kell’s leg.
“That bad?” he asked.
Beth’s voice was steady. “It’s tied off, but not very well. There’s a lot of damage. One of the bullets went right through your shin bone. I don’t see any arterial bleeding, but that might be because of the tourniquet.”
“Okay,” Kell said, trying to keep his own voice even. Trying, if he was being honest with himself, not to think about this too hard. Treating yourself meant pretending it was someone else’s wound. “If you have a belt, please take it off and bind this. If the bone is broken, we’re going to need to stabilize it with a splint. I won’t be able to move, otherwise…”
Working through it got easier, to his surprise. Like most things it was just a matter of realizing there wasn’t any other choice but to roll up your sleeves and do it.
Mason
Mason popped up from behind the twisted wreck of a Rebound vehicle and fired. He ducked again and circled around, trying to keep out of sight of enemies so he could find the next target.
The first minute after the lines of trucks collided hadn’t been pretty. Even low-speed collisions were disastrous for people not wearing seat belts, and the Rebound crew had men riding in the backs of their trucks. When they had begun boiling out of the crashed vehicles, nearly half had obvious injuries. The quick put down covering fire as they spread out. Those slowed by injury were killed without mercy or hesitation.
He didn’t make the mistake of underestimating the enemy. It took professionalism for an outnumbered force to keep fighting when half they took such an enormous hit. Mason felt for them, strange as it seemed. He knew the rising terror that came with any losing battle and the grit it took to stay on mission without flipping your shit.
And they were losing. Mason would have given the enemy the edge before seeing how disastrous that crash had been for them. As it was now, the remaining soldiers kept moving around the edges of the four lanes of highway that made up the rough square they fought in. The darkness helped, but it could only go so far.
A bullet twanged off the side of the vehicle he crouched next to. Mason threw himself to the side and raised his rifle at the same time, sending a burst toward the muzzle flash. Another burst as he righted himself and darted back the way he’d come.
He thought he’d gotten lucky and actually hit the shooter since no more bullets rattled against the metal behind him. Then he heard distant cursing roughly where he’d been shooting, followed by a shout.
“Fucking hell! Zombies!”
“Surprised it took that long,” Mason muttered to himself. The bypass was a big, well-traveled road. Zombie herds along its length wouldn’t stay away from the smell of humans for longer than it would take to get to them. Gunfire would attract them from much farther away, like moths to flames.
“If you surrender, we’ll protect you,” Mason shouted, surprising himself.
The sound of muffled argument echoed across the road before cutting off suddenly. Then: “We can take care of ourselves.”
“I can see that,” Mason said, pitching his voice to carry. “But you’re going to have to turn your backs on us to defend yourselves. If you fire those guns, it’ll make it easier for us to find and shoot you while you’re busy. You could make a run for us and take your chances, but I have to tell you I don’t think they look good. There are more of us. We’ll cut you down.”
Hopefully that was true. There were more bodies on the ground not wearing the black tactical gear favored by Rebound than he would have liked. Any at all was more than he wanted, but in terms of fighting strength, there was no way to know if the fight would be as decisive as he made it sound.
Which was part of why he made the offer loudly. It was a clear signal to the enemy what would happen to them, and told the militia what to do. Will would never allow shabby, substandard people in his defense force, so Mason wasn’t worried they’d miss the hint.
A long few seconds passed before a deep voice cut through the night. “This is Emery. Stand down. We’re surrendering.”
Mason raised his own voice. “Drop your weapons, raise your hands, and move toward the RV. I strongly recommend against so much as scratching your nose.”
They came from all sides in more of a hurry than Mason would have expected. Then again, being shot was a pleasant death relative to being shredded alive and eaten. He kept his rifle up and ready as the soldiers from the north side of the road approached with arms extended straight up.
Militia members corralled them in short order by working in teams. Four women—scouts, he thought—trained weapons on the captives as two men checked for hidden weapons before zip-cuffing hands together.
The zombies appeared less than thirty feet behind, a narrow wall of pale flesh forty feet wide. “Fire left!” Mason shouted, ordering the men to start picking off the targets on that side first. He wanted to keep guard on the captives, the last of which were showing up on the south side now, but there was no telling how many undead would descend on this patch of ground.
So he switched his selector to semi-automatic, took aim, and fired right.
Mason killed six zombies before his weapon went dry. It was bizarre to be using firearms against them. Bullets weren’t as rare as they had once been thanks to the number of growing industries communities were able to create, but neither were they wasted. It had been so long since he’d fired a gun at a zombie that his brain rebelled against the idea. That didn’t stop him from snatching up a fallen shotgun and emptying it as well.
Unfortunately, that was just the first wave. More zombies began to appear from the woods in small clusters. Mason didn’t know how much ammunition they had on hand, but it wasn’t infinite.
He jogged toward the rear of the RV, where the prisoners were being kept. He waved a hand at one of the militia guards standing there. “Hey, did you guys bring any hand to hand weapons?”
The guard didn’t look away f
rom his charges, but screwed his face up in thought. “Look in the red truck. I’m pretty sure it has a rack on the back window of the cab.”
Mason thanked him and jogged off.
One brief rummage later, Mason walked toward the thickening herd of zombies with a smile on his face and pair of batons in his hands. Two years of hardcore Arnis training had come in much more handy than he ever expected. The batons were aluminum and thicker than the traditional rattan or bamboo, but since he wasn’t using them against someone else flailing about with the things, it wouldn’t be a problem.
It was an interesting reflection on human thinking that, after thousands of years of technological evolution, in a pinch the most common weapon people fell back on was one variation or another of a stick.
“Do we have backup coming?” he asked, pausing by a militiaman with a machete. “We don’t have the wheels to get everyone home.”
The man nodded. “Standard procedure when we’re running any kind of operation at a distance is to have a bus follow behind. They’ll be able to follow our signals. One of the scouts is going to ride back just in case, though.”
Mason raised an eyebrow. “Must ruin a lot of vehicles to justify burning that much fuel.”
The militiaman grunted a humorless laugh. “No, but most of the time when we’re more than ten miles from home it’s to run down marauders. And they usually have a lot of useful stuff.”
If it seemed like a consideration so practical it bordered on cutthroat, well, it was a cutthroat kind of world.
There was a world of difference between what ten men with guns could do to a zombie swarm and what five men with melee weapons could. Firearms were efficient and powerful, but a man with a baseball bat was right in the thick of it, causing chaos and distracting the zombies. The man with the bat—or in Mason’s case, baton—gave the zombie a close target. He drew attention. Firearms were distance weapons. Useful as they were, the batons didn’t run out of bullets.
Mason focused on slowing the herd as much as possible. He did kill the first zombie he came to, which only had one arm, but mostly to use its body as an obstacle. The whistling tip of the baton cracked its skull like an egg. Mason tucked his batons beneath his arm and dragged the dead man by his arm, slinging it at the feet of two more zombies about to close in on another fighter. When they looked down to avoid tripping, the fighter brought his baseball bat down on a skull.
Mason kept moving. They all did. Zombies ran the gamut from slow to murderously quick, and you never knew whether they’d surprise you with a sudden burst of speed. When the undead began to clump up too near the kneeling mass of prisoners, he put himself between and fought like nine kinds of hell to draw the zombies away again.
The fight fell into an almost hypnotic rhythm. Fighters peeled off for short breaks and were replaced by others. When the zombies drifting in from the woods grew in numbers, so did the defenders. No one had to give orders. There weren’t any moments where anyone was overwhelmed. Half a decade of practice by necessity had forged each of them into something the world hadn’t needed for hundreds of years; expert hand to hand fighters with an instinctive reaction to protect each other.
The age of the gun had slowly driven swordsmen to extinction just as the proliferation of other weapons had for phalanxes of spearmen. The risen dead had, in a cute twist of irony, also resurrected the Spartan mentality.
“Ride’s here,” someone called out. Mason stepped away and created some distance between him and the swarm before risking a look.
The bus was rolling up the hill, engine chugging along. He’d been so absorbed in the fight he hadn’t even noticed.
“Start getting the prisoners ready,” he said to whoever was relaying orders.
“Uh, Emily already told us what to do,” said one of the men guarding the prisoners.
Mason grinned. “You should listen to her. She’s scary.”
“She wants you to come in,” the man said. “Your friend is hurt.”
“Okay,” Mason said, then turned to face the people dancing between zombies. “We’re going to start pulling back in a minute. Be ready.”
To a person, they nodded acknowledgment. Mason let his arms fall to his sides, and trudged off.
Upon entering the RV, he was taken aback by how bad Kell looked. The man’s dark skin was ashen, and despite to cool air he was sweating buckets.
Beth, who was huddled over Kell, looked up. Her eyes fell to Mason’s hands and with an excited laugh she grabbed the batons. Mason watched in fascination as she added them to the existing splints already supporting his leg, which contained what looked like every inch of gauze in the place. And more; one of Mason’s gray shirts was wrapped up in there, too.
“How bad is it?” Mason asked.
Kell exhaled hard before he spoke, as if trying to clear his throat but not finding the strength. “Bad. We tried standing me up a few minutes ago. It isn’t happening.”
Beth frowned worriedly. “It’s a damn miracle the arteries in his lower leg weren’t shredded, but I don’t think the bones connecting his foot to his knee are, you know, connecting them any more.”
“Tibia and fibula,” Kell said in a surprisingly casual tone.
“What?” Beth said, tilting her head.
“The bones not connecting my foot and knee. They’re the tibia and fibula.”
Beth stared at him in stunned amazement. “Your leg is hanging on by tatters, and you’re taking the time to correct me about anatomy? Really?”
Mason burst out laughing. It went on for a long time, to the point his ribs ached and tears streamed down his face. He regained control of himself and wiped the tears away. “I’m sorry, but that was fantastic. Classic, really. I mean, if a man’s gonna have his floppy leg talked about, it has to be with the medical Latin, right?”
“Are you okay, man?” Kell asked. “You seem a little jittery.”
Mason waved him away. “I’m fine. When I brought you in here I knew it was going to be a rough night, so I raided my stash.” When Kell stared at him blankly, Mason walked over and opened a cabinet. “Stimulants. I don’t remember what kind, but they’re some sort of amphetamine. Emergency use only, but they did the trick.” He pulled out the small baggie and gave it a little shake.
“It’s powder,” Beth observed. “Sure you didn’t just do a whole bunch of coke?”
“Nah, Judith put this together for me,” Mason said. “I’ve only had to use it once before. Don’t worry about walking, Kell. I can carry you to whatever vehicle we’re going to use, if Beth will keep your foot stable.”
Five minutes later, a huge man covered in scars, high as a park’s worth of kites, carried another huge man like a blushing bride to the back of a pickup truck.
They laughed about it later.
Emily
Everyone was at the clinic, either at Kell’s side or helping with the wounded from the battle. Emily wanted to be there with him, to hold his hand if only because she knew how long he’d gone without even the small touches. She wanted to take strength from him, because wasn’t that what relationships were about? Finding that alchemical reaction when both were weak and somehow discovering new strength in each other?
But no. She had a job to do first.
“We’ve been here for hours,” Mike said, slightly annoyed, when she entered the hangar.
She walked to him and without breaking stride punched him in the side of his face as hard as she could.
The stunned boy toppled off the picnic table, stunned. Randy bolted to his feet and seemed torn between helping his friend and going after the one who’d hurt him.
“Better kill me with the first shot, son,” Emily said. “I’m not in the mood to be nice. And you, get up. That was a love tap to let you know I don’t care how bothered you are by having to wait.”
She let him get up, murder in his eyes, and waited for him to sit back down.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t care what happens to either of you from now on. I really
don’t want you to mistake what I mean. I literally wouldn’t give a shit if you both died right here in front of me. If anything I’d feel a little safer without two dipshits like you putting everyone else at risk.”
Randy opened his mouth to speak, but Emily raised a finger.
“You have one—and only one—chance to come clean with me. If you lie to me, we’re done. For good. And you’re done here at Haven. I will make it my life’s only fucking goal to ensure you’re thrown out on your asses to fend for yourselves. I want you to nod if you understand, and believe that what I’m saying is true.”
Both boys nodded, Randy a little faster than Mike, who was rubbing his already-swelling jaw.
“You went to live inside Haven,” Emily said, her voice dead calm. “Right after, Kell was taken. No one outside our group knew what we were doing, and if they suspected, they had no idea how far along we were. One or both of you left here and started running your mouths, didn’t you?”
Mike worked his jaw, testing its function with a deep wince. “No. Maybe they were watching you guys do the tests or something, because we didn’t say a word.”
Emily stared at him for a long time before looking to Randy.
“He’s wrong,” Randy said in a small voice. “But I don’t think he’s lying.”
Inside her, twin mountains of rage rose up. One was hot, boiling. It urged her to scream and fight, to mindlessly lash out in any and every way. The other was the more familiar cold, a deep rage that begged to know exactly who would miss these two. “Explain.”
Mike was now staring at Randy in what Emily read as genuine confusion. Randy’s head dropped into his hands. “This place has a bar, did you know? We’re adults, so they let us in, and I traded a few things for a pint of whiskey. Mike drank most of it. He started talking to the bartender. She was asking if we were new, since she hadn’t seen us before. That kind of thing.”