by Joe McKinney
By that point, the other two had turned to face him. They watched their friend hit the wall, then slump to the ground, rubbing the back of his head.
The guy with the screwdriver stepped forward, wielding it like a knife. He said, “All you gotta do is step aside, man. It ain’t worth your life.”
Barnes just stared at him.
“I mean it, man. I’ll fucking run you through.”
“Put your weapon down and get facedown on the ground,” Barnes said. “Or I’ll kill you.”
The man Barnes had knocked against the wall stood up. The other three seemed to take that as some kind of cue, and the man with the screwdriver lunged forward like he was going to stab Barnes in the belly.
Barnes stepped outside the man’s thrust, grabbing his wrist with his right hand and pulling the arm straight while at the same time pivoting his body so that he could strike the back of the man’s elbow with his left hand. The man’s arm broke with an audible crack and he screamed. At the same time, Barnes bent the wrist back to the man’s shoulder and kept downward pressure on his doubled-up arm, walking him around in a circle until his momentum forced him to fall face forward on the grass.
When the man rolled over onto his back, Barnes slammed his heel down on the man’s mouth.
He turned back to the other two just as one of them threw a clumsy roundhouse punch. Barnes dodged it easily, then closed the distance with a flurry of left jabs and a hard right to the solar plexus. The man doubled over, unable to breathe. Barnes grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled his face down to meet his knee.
The man fell back on his ass, his face covered in blood, trying to gulp air through his shattered nose and mouth.
One of the patrols had been alerted by the noise and was running up from the cottages. The third man saw them coming, looked at Barnes, and took off running in the opposite direction. Barnes motioned for the patrol to cover the two injured men and ran after the third man.
He caught him just as they entered the playground. Barnes pushed him forward and the man tumbled to the ground, landing beneath the swings.
Barnes was on him before he could get to his feet. He wrapped one of the swing’s chains around the man’s neck and yanked on it. The man was gagging and turning blue by the time the patrol got there.
Jasper emerged from his quarters, still buttoning his shirt.
Aaron and Barnes were standing off to one side. The three men Barnes had caught breaking into the supply room were on their knees, their hands secured behind their backs with plastic flex ties. The patrol stood behind them, rifles at the ready.
“What in the hell is going on here?” Jasper said, storming across the lawn.
Aaron wasn’t surprised at Jasper’s anger. Jasper could handle government agents and criticism in the press with barely restrained contempt and maybe a temper tantrum or two. But betrayal from within, by those he considered his children, his people, was enough to send him into a paroxysm of rage that might take days to die down. And he was definitely in a rage now.
“I asked, what in the hell was going on?” he said.
One of the patrol guards looked at Aaron for help, but Aaron simply nodded at the man.
Jasper was breathing hard, opening and closing his fists.
“Answer me,” he screamed.
The guard who had looked to Aaron for help blurted out an explanation, glossing over in a few words what Barnes had done to capture the men.
“Is that true?” Jasper asked Barnes.
Barnes nodded.
Jasper stared at the prisoners. “You’re Tom Wilder,” he said to the first man, the one who had tried to attack Barnes with the screwdriver.
The man looked away.
“And you,” Jasper said to the second man. “Your name is Reggie Waites, from Norman, Oklahoma.”
Jasper went to the next man and said, “Harold Morrison. You work in the kitchen.”
None of the men spoke.
Jasper motioned for the two-man patrol to get back to their route. When they were gone, he pulled a .45 pistol from his waistband and handed it to Barnes.
“This is yours,” he said. Barnes took the gun with a smile. “I cannot abide a traitor,” he said to Barnes. “When you first came here, I told you to trust me.”
“Yes.”
“I told you that you would grow strong if you did.”
“Yes.”
“These men have betrayed that trust I extended to them.” Jasper paused. “Do you know what I want you to do?”
Barnes adjusted his grip on the pistol and nodded.
As Barnes stepped behind the prisoners, raised his pistol to the back of the first man’s head, and fired, Aaron heard Jasper begin to laugh. It was a high-pitched tattoo that Aaron had heard many times over the years. But this was the first time it ever made him sick to his stomach to hear.
CHAPTER 48
Ed had warned him not to do this in the daylight, but Billy Kline needed a better look at that door to the supply room. After their last midnight raid on the supply room, the Yale lock had been bolstered with two additional locks, one of them a dead bolt. It was going to be much harder to get in there now. Not impossible, but certainly harder.
He scanned the communal area. A cold front had rolled in during the early-morning hours and an icy sleet had started to fall. Already, the ground was slushy and the air bitingly cold. Most of the people moving through the communal area were more interested in getting inside as fast as they could than in milling around and talking, and that was a good thing.
With his hands in his pockets, walking as slowly and as casually as he could, Billy approached the supply room door. He stopped in front of it and glanced around. Aaron, Jasper’s number-one guy, was coming out of the radio room off to Billy’s right, not sixty feet away. Billy knelt down and started pretending to tie his bootlaces as Aaron walked by.
But Aaron seemed preoccupied, maybe even troubled. He didn’t look up at Billy as he walked by. He was muttering to himself, the words indistinct, and a moment later, he was gone.
Billy looked around, didn’t see anybody else, and went back to examining the locks. He would need tools, he realized. He could get in and out without making it look like the locks had been tampered with, but it would take time.
A few days earlier, he’d met a guy named Tom Wilder from Bowling Green, Ohio. The guy had done some time for burglary and forgery before the outbreak, and like Billy and Ed, he’d also been on edge about some of the things that were happening around the Grasslands. He’d become part of their growing group at the midnight meetings and, the night before, he’d volunteered to go get additional radios and maybe a TV if he could from the supply shed.
Now, looking at the added security, the freshly installed locks, Billy wondered if Wilder’s group hadn’t screwed up somehow. They must have done something to tip off Jasper’s people, something careless.
They both had the early dinner. He’d ask him then.
“Hello? Is somebody there?”
Billy nearly jumped out of his boots. He spun around, half ready to fight, half ready to run away, and saw Kyra Talbot standing there.
He let out a sigh of relief.
Then he smiled. Kyra was wearing a white heavy coat over blue jeans and brown snow boots with blond fur around the tops. Her brown hair was tied back with a black velvet band and it hung between her shoulder blades in a ponytail. She was smiling, her sightless eyes looking in his general direction, but not at him.
He said, “Kyra, here. It’s me, Billy Kline.”
She straightened. The smile wavered a bit.
“Oh,” she said. “Hello, Billy.”
He stepped away from the door and walked over to her. “You delivering a message?” he asked.
She nodded. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I just stopped to tie my shoes. I’m on my way down to the laundry.”
She nodded again. For a moment, he thought she was about to turn away and head off to the o
ffice without saying anything else, but then she surprised him.
“Is that what you’re doing, working in the laundry?”
He smiled, thinking of something Jeff Stavers had told him. What have they got you working at? was the question on everyone’s lips around the camp. It was a conversation starter.
“In the mornings, I work in the kitchen. After lunch, I work in the laundry.”
“Oh,” she said, brightening a little more. “Do you know how to cook?”
“Sort of,” he said. “Not like you’re thinking of, though.” He hesitated here, because he hadn’t really wanted to admit this, not to her. “I was in jail for a while before the outbreak. That’s where I learned to work in a big kitchen. That first day, while we were in quarantine, Jasper came up to me and asked me if I’d ever been in jail. The way he looked at me, I couldn’t lie to him. He asked me if I’d ever worked in the kitchen or the laundry and I told him yeah, I’d done both. He just clapped his hands and said he had a job for me.”
“He’s pretty good at reading people that way.”
He’d frightened her with his talk of jail, and he mentally kicked himself. Her lips were pressed tightly together and she looked nervous, like she wanted to leave.
“Look,” he said. “Don’t let the whole jail thing frighten you about me. I mean, yeah, I’ve been in jail. Several times, actually. Oh, man, that sounds bad. But I’m not a bad guy. That sounds stupid, I know, but I’m really not a bad guy.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” she said.
“You don’t?” The way she said it, he wasn’t sure if she was being honest with him, or merely appeasing him so that he wouldn’t hurt her.
And then she smiled, and it was a beautiful smile. An honest smile. “I believe you because of Ed Moore.”
“Because of Ed?” He shook his head. “Why Ed?”
“Ed likes you. He’s taken you under his wing. Billy, I grew up around men like Ed Moore. Cowboys like him, I know the importance they place on a man’s character. If he thought you were bad news, he would have dropped you already.”
Billy liked that. He liked talking to this girl, too. There was something about her, the twang in her voice, the mixture of vulnerability and solid, inner strength, that turned him on.
She said, “Billy, what’s prison like?”
He was caught off guard. “Uh,” he said. “Well, I was never in prison. I was in the county jail. Prison is for state or federal prisoners. Those are the guys who go in for the big-time felonies. Me, I was strictly small-time.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s reassuring, I guess.”
He chuckled. “One jail is pretty much like another. There’s a lot of waiting around for nothing to happen. There’s this feeling that your life is slipping away, like you’re stuck in the weeds in the side of a river while the rest of the world floats on by you, and you’re powerless to stop it. It drives some men crazy.”
“I’ve heard stories from the guys in the town where I grew up. A few of them have been in prison. Or jail. Actually, I don’t really know which they were in. But none of them described it like you did. They were just angry, you know? Kind of mean about it. You, though, you don’t sound angry.”
“Jail will make you angry,” he said. “It’s easy to be that way. You can’t help it when you’re locked up like that. Part of you resents the system for controlling everything you do, but another part of you kind of likes not having to take responsibility for yourself. I think those guys who let the anger eat them up are aware of that, at least on some level. They can’t decide who they hate more, the system or themselves. That’s a hard nut to crack. But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve never been in jail, Billy.”
“No, I know that. But you’ve been blind most of your life. You’re asking me about jail because you’re wondering if feels the same way as being blind. That’s it, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t look away, either. That’s it, he thought. I put my finger on it.
Neither of them spoke. A gust of wind shook the awning roof over their heads and Billy felt a chill across his skin. He’d already felt several wet, icy raindrops fall on his face.
He said, “Are you cold? I’m cold.”
“A little.”
“Would you like me to walk you to the office? It’s on my way.”
Colin watched them slip into the office.
He felt so incredibly angry. He’d been betrayed by a skinny, blind, dark-haired fashion victim. What in the hell was she thinking being with him? He’d heard only the end of their conversation, but that was enough. That piece of shit was trying to use his time in jail to hit on his girlfriend. And the disgusting little whore had bought it, hook, line, and sinker.
Jeff’s words echoed in his mind. You’ve lost more than anybody. You lost all that, and it left a vacuum inside you.
“Yeah, well, fuck that,” he said aloud. “Fuck that.”
Sure, he’d lost a lot, but fuck it all. Fuck them. Yeah, that was it. Fuck all of them. Jeff had thought he’d lost it all. Well, he was wrong. He hadn’t lost it all. He still had Kyra, no matter what that piece of shit Billy Kline thought. He had her, and he wasn’t going to lose her. She was his, damn it. She was his right now, his alone, and nobody was going to take her away from him.
Nobody.
CHAPTER 49
Ed Moore woke to a siren blaring.
He sat up in bed quickly and tried to focus in the dark. The other men he shared this section of the dormitory with were sitting up as well, all of them looking around for an explanation.
Ed and Billy traded looks from across the aisle.
Ed got out of his cot and forced his feet into his boots. His toes were numb with the cold, and pressing them down into the leather sent pulses of pain through his feet.
“What’s going on?” Billy asked.
“Perimeter alarm,” Ed said. “Get your coat. Come on.”
A moment later, the two of them ran out into the biting cold of the North Dakota predawn morning. The ground glittered with a fine crystalline layer of ice. Everywhere they looked, the Grasslands seemed empty, almost pristine. Only the insistent blaring of the siren and the distant sound of men yelling broke the calm.
“Ed?”
“Sounds like it’s coming from the north gate.” He let out a frustrated breath that misted before his eyes. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t given up my guns.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
The community had drilled for fires, and most of the folks in the Grasslands had taken basic CPR, but they had no public zombie contingency plans. Jasper’s only public statement on the matter was that the perimeter fence would protect them from the small number of zombies likely to make it this far north. When pressed why non-Family members weren’t allowed to keep their weapons, he said only that the Family would protect them from any zombie danger. Now, Ed was kicking himself for not squirreling away one of his guns.
Floodlights came on to their right. Ed and Billy both turned that way and saw bright white light spreading across the icy ground.
Behind them, and to their left, more and more people were coming out of their dormitories. They looked confused and frightened. Ed could hear the low murmur of their confused voices.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing Billy by the sleeve.
“Where are we going?”
“Weapons,” Ed said.
He guided Billy over to the still-unfinished dormitory number six building and the two of them chose cast-off pieces of lumber to use as cudgels. Then they were sprinting toward the main gate, the ice crunching beneath their feet. The siren continued to blare. Others were following them.
As they got close to the dirt road where the community’s trucks were parked, they could see some of the armed patrols forming skirmish lines. Up ahead, in the bright glow of the floodlights, they saw the main gate hanging open and folded over at the top as though the supports that h
eld it upright had been shattered. And beyond the gate, moving with agonizing slowness, were the infected.
Ed saw several hundred ruined faces, more than he had seen in one place since coming to the Grasslands. They were funneling toward the open gate. Several bodies already lay within.
As the patrols formed their lines, the sounds of yelling gradually died off, replaced by the rattle of sporadic gunfire.
One man was trying to yell orders to the patrols. Ed saw him waving wildly to somebody, but his features were lost in shadow and his voice drowned out by the roll of rifle fire.
Ed turned again toward the approaching zombies, but his gaze lingered on three of the corpses just inside the gate. There clothes were different from the other infected, newer, not soiled.
And then Ed was able to make out the face from the shadows, and he recognized Tom Wilder.
“Billy,” Ed said.
Billy was staring at the zombies pouring through the gate, but at the sound of Ed’s voice, he looked where Ed was pointing.
“What?” he said. And then he saw it. “Oh, shit.”
The gunfire was growing steadier.
Billy turned to Ed. “Ed, that’s Tom. What’s going on?”
Ed didn’t get to answer him.
The man who had been yelling and waving at them suddenly appeared in front of them. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “You think you can do anything with sticks? Get back!”
And before Ed could protest, the man was pushing him back behind a makeshift cordon with the other members of the Grasslands.
Amid the sound of gunfire and people shouting and the constant, low vibrating moan of the infected came the sound of a truck approaching. Ed turned as the crowd of people around him zippered apart to let one of Jasper’s black Chevy Tahoes glide past.
The Tahoe stopped, and Jasper and Michael Barnes got out.
Barnes had an AR-15 slung over his shoulder. He wore a light black jacket and jeans over brown work boots, and he moved casually, like one accustomed to this sort of thing.
Immediately, Barnes took charge. He took up a point position and motioned for six other members of the patrol to form up in a V behind him.