“Wait, so if I kill you, everyone else here must kill me?” Duanne asked. “But if you kill me, than you get away with it? No one is supposed to do anything?”
“Correct,” Dad said immediately, answering before others could ponder it more.
“That's unfair man?!” Howie exhaled.
“No,” Dad said, looking on, being quite at peace.
“Why?” Ray asked politely.
Duanne seethed a little in his expression. It was one of his classic anger expressions seen in so many of his movies. Though now, with his grey scruffiness, he looked different.
“What Duanne failed to say in his premise was that I killed him, because… maybe he let in zombies to kill us all. Or maybe, when Howie was driving, Duanne fled, leaving the door open and zombies came in, killing Howie. Or possibly when Duanne was supposed to guard the gate, he instead went off to have sex with Eva, allowing zombies in.”
Eva looked up, offended immediately, scowling once again. Duanne put up his hands perhaps in surrender or more importantly in being offended that he was falsely accused.
“How dare you!” Eva seethed.
“Okay, sex with my wife.” His wife punched his shoulder. Duanne chortled. Eva wasn't sure if the joke was on her or what.
“My point,” Dad suddenly growled, “is that I am in charge of protecting all of you! Not just Duanne's own self-interest, or Eva's, or even my own! We are all sinners. We are all ready to fail this mission, this community. I pray to God every day. I am grateful every day that my family is alive. But I have had to kill others to make it so. Not good others, not helpful others, but those that tried to kill me, for their own drugged out pleasure, or, OR, for their own hide, wanting to save themselves while bringing the zombies to my family!”
“You kill my dad, then you better kill me, cuz I'll put a bullet in your head!” Charlotte said.
Everyone flinched. To hear those words out of a soft girl's voice was jarring.
Lena stood up. “I'll kill you too.” Lisa stood with her. Marcus, a bit shy, stood too next to Lena. Stu stood next to Lisa though he was a head shorter. Cory stood. Randall stood. Steve stood. Tom stood. Jake and Trish stood. Benjamin stood. Amanda stood. Beth stood, leaning on Randall. Robert and Ellie stood. Katrina stood. The kids Maggie, Carl, Sofia, and little Amy stood. Amador, his wife Maria, their kids Julio and Juanita stood.
“Holy,” Duanne sighed, looking around.
Cherry stood. Ray blinked, then was lifted up by Cherry. “We're standing with you," she said with emotional restraint. It was a realization of submission.
Duanne and Howie looked about. They then saw Eva sitting and seething. She then stood. Duanne and Howie looked at each other.
Howie spoke, “Okay, we're in. You're the boss.”
“King, right, you're the king?” Duanne said, standing.
“The king, sort of, yes,” Dad shrugged, with his hands out. “Just call me Ronan till we figure this out,” Dad said.
Dad motioned for them all to sit. He looked at Eva. “Eva, can you be at peace, with humility, and do as my wife, Amanda, Katrina, or Beth say?”
Eva looked to the other women.
“I need you to be humble, to be reliable. And in time, we'll see how you do?” Dad asked gently
Amanda tried to touch Eva gently this time. Eva flinched a little but sat calmly. She nodded.
“I actually stood up to speak about marriage,” Dad said, throwing everyone off. "And Christmas."
13. Christmas
Well, it's Christmas. I cried. I couldn't help it. I cried at it all, at everything. I'm crying now as they all sleep. I'm crying to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. The celebration was nice. The sermon nice, but awful, terrible, I cried. I cried as I spoke. The promise of Christ, the savior. My dear God. Now, with all of this? I didn't have a gift for my Charlotte, for my Lena, for my wife. The kids all held each other as I cried. My wife held me. I didn't mean to cry. I didn't and it made everyone else cry. Devastating.....
What now? Thank God for you Katrina, for Amanda, for Beth and my wife, for their strength as they brought out the cakes and punch. They brought out sodas and candy and candles and they sang songs as I sat there like an idiot.
My dear Charlotte came up, without her rifle at her side. She came up and hugged me. She seemed taller too, growing somehow. She felt a tad bit more like a young lady than a spunky little girl. It had only been a few months now since it all started. Only a few months?? My God.
Lena and Marcus looked happy, hopeful and brave. She came up to hug me and gave me some cake and punch.
Thank God for Steve as he still handed out vitamins, calcium, vitamin C, etc... He had a stash all organized and carried a bunch in his basket. It was pretty big.
Thank God for the others, for Duanne and Howie performing several of his famous roles and movie bits. Thank God for Katrina's goofy laughter, for Sophie knowing old Russian songs, and Maggie and Carl dancing silly jigs.
Thank God for Amy's little read of poems, and Julio and Juanita just serving us all. Will it be like this the next Christmas? Will we last that long? Will horrors and death take us before then? Will all of this be torn from me, one by one as The Impending Doom of The Horde takes us... My God, I see the blood flash of each person ripped from my sight: my wife, my Lena, my Charlotte, and on and on. It drains and exhausts me, my spirit, my soul. Why are we still here, lingering on and on? I, I don't know. I love Christ, my Jesus. But now what?
Merry Christmas.
14. Building
Dad watched from the rooftop as they brought in more salvage. They looked like a bunch of busy ants, going to and fro. It was a vast spectacle. Everyone was helping. Dad had them focus on building the wall along the fence. He wanted to get that done. He didn't even know why. He figured no matter how much they built it up, if The Horde came, they'd breach it. But it would keep out anything smaller. If a horde crowded the wall, then they'd have time to pour gasoline and light the area. It would give them time -- just some time.
They had burning points, some grills and the dual purposed dumpsters. The dumpsters in the school were used as reinforcements for the nearest gates. They kept burning the dead from the massive pile and all the crushed bits from Howie's driving massacres.
On the southern wall, which faced Sunset Boulevard, the fencing was already well covered. A large portion, running along the playground, had commercial buildings right up against the fencing. There was a narrow walkway between, minimizing any threat of a large massing of zombies. In addition, Ray blocked off the narrow walkway with gates and boards. So the whole section was covered by the buildings that filled the lots to Sunset Boulevard.
Another portion, on the southeast corner, was covered in foliage and a green mesh attached to the fencing. There were smaller apartments built there, squeezed together. Their lot and parking structures limited any movement as well. This was just on the other side of the walkway entrance, the smaller one where they parked the motorcycles in the adjacent classroom and it opened to the narrow street of high apartments.
They had not yet worked on the fencing in the corner area but figured it was easier to block off the spaces between the buildings, then do the entire fencing. Cars and dumpsters were part of that.
Stuck past there was a construction site. Before the zombie apocalypse, workers were squeezing in yet another apartment duplex, something smaller and quaint, obviously with barely any alley or walkway. It might hold three or four units. It had stacks of lumber, boards and plywood, extra supplies of cement bags, and a cement mixer. It was a gold mine of materials. The cement bags were covered in tarps and survived the last few months and the rain. Some hardened but some were still in powder form.
Dad watched as they brought those supplies into the school yard. Amador was giddy as he pushed a heavy stack on his janitor cart. “He better not drop that damn it!” Dad thought, looking down from the roof. It would be loud.
Amador was quite able. He parked it and unloaded, wavin
g and smiling up at Dad. More stuff came as the young guys lugged them in. They carried 50lb bags of cement, boxes of screws and nails, a nail gun, power drills, some rebar, hammers and chisels.
Cory and Stu began wheeling the cement mixer over. Dad saw Ray argue with them that it was too noisy, that they could just use buckets. The cement was for posts, not foundations. Cory and Stu pushed it aside with slunk shoulders. Dad was amused.
They kept giving Dad the thumbs up each time they dropped stuff off, which was distracting. It was a ton of usable materials. Dad was glad but he had another concern and was trying to peer beyond them.
Dad chose to stay on the roof. He had Benjamin draw out a map of the area and the closest banners of survivors. Some were waving signs at them. Jake and Charlotte used their rifle scopes, giving Benjamin notations: Starving. Out of water. Trapped. Help us. And even the sign: Sean Is Here.
Benjamin took to writing on a large dry erase board, trying to communicate with them: The Knight was aware and making plans. Please hold on.
Another signage: Sean, are you okay!?
“Ooh, it's Sean. I can see him!” Charlotte said, turning back into a kid and waving as she aimed her scope.
Sean waved back. A person on their side had some fancy apartment telescope they were using to read the signs. They were down near Santa Monica Boulevard Dad reckoned. There was a big Target store there. Maybe the people holed up there were surviving on store supplies.
“He's got crutches,” Jake said, looking through his scope. “They're on a balcony of a high rise with businesses and apartments. He says they're okay. He's training them. He's writing,” Jake paused to read the next signage.
Charlotte looked again. Dad couldn't help but get thrilled at what awesome military style rifles they had. Even Carl and Maggie held two. Sofia had a smaller one. Dad winked at them. They smiled back, somewhat abashed. Dad realized he was king and they were his loyal elite force.
Charlotte spoke before Jake could, “Got food, water. Leg healing.”
“Tell him we're saving others. We'll come to him when we can,” Dad said to Benjamin who was trying to short hand his statement.
After waiting a bit, Charlotte read their response sign, “I'll come to you when leg healed.”
“Whoah,” Jake blurted.
“Well, I'm sure he can,” Dad said.
Some could not get to them. Water was the biggest issue: Dying... Water... Please... Now... were the signs Charlotte and Jake read. Dad decided he'd try to save them. “I'll take water to them. I'll drop it off, somehow, then draw the zombies away.”
Benjamin was writing notes. “There are survivors in that apartment just past our blockade. In the same area, I think there is another apartment. You can drop off water to the group there, as much as you can carry on the bike. Four more in that direction need water, maybe food.”
Dad nodded.
“I'll take notes of the one's who need water and make a list of water drop off points in each direction. But we must be careful not to run out. We still have a lot of bottles but we didn't get much from the rain. The attack destroyed many of the containers,” Benjamin said, scribbling something down.
“You'd think these survivors would have collected water from the rain,” Jake remarked.
“Apparently not,” Benjamin sighed. “City people.”
“I'll get ready. You get me that map,” Dad said, heading out.
“Yes sir,” Benjamin said. Jake mumbled to him. So did Charlotte. He scribbled hurriedly.
“Tom, you good with handling those dumpsters, opening it so I can get out on the bike?” Dad asked, in full armor walking out to the gate.
Tom had become a silent fixture, ready and able. His days of effeminate homosexuality were oddly gone. He had taken on a warrior role, and seemed hermetic. Dad assumed he had become Christian, but Tom had not said anything. Dad did not push it.
Dad couldn't help but glance to see if Steve was there, and how they looked at each other now. Steve had not yet come.
Dad promised that when the school was fortified, he'd go out with Steve and find him his own place, a 'non-Christian' place, or a 'non-judging' place. Whatever and however Steve wanted to identify, Dad wasn't going to debate him. Dad could only assuage Steve of Christ's admonishment to love. But it wasn't a love that surrendered to someone's failings or sin or lusts, it was a love of the Truth. It was also a love that doesn't hate or attack. However, a stand must be made.
Dad would help him. There were many in West Hollywood who Steve could save and build a life with. Perhaps Steve was just holding out for that, helping as best he could here, learning so he could do the same for his own place.
Tom responded, “I'll need one more to help. Randall would be best. If anything goes bad, we can race back on his bike, draw them in, and have Howie run them over in his Hummer.
“Sounds good,” Dad said.
Amador, Ray and Nick were busy erecting more of the post apocalyptic walls with all the new supplies. It was looking junkyard beastly. They were messing around, figuring out how to dig posts through asphalt using hammers and chisels. It would work, but was it going to take some hammering. They realized the big guys were the perfect candidates to do it.
Duanne, Marcus and Steve helped them as Lena and Lisa stood guard. They worked while the kids watched from the roof. The kids were the communication between them, and Tom and Randall if anything went amiss. They had the flags. The red one waved slowly and angled in a specific direction signaled the alarm and where the attack was coming from.
Howie napped in his Hummer. He'd spent most of his time cleaning out the dried up gunk from a previous run through, re-securing the add-ons and filling it up from siphoned gas. He made sure Julio would run to him to wake him up if anything was about to happen.
Dad's wife, Amanda, Maria, and Katrina continued to work on more armor. Not everyone was fully armored yet, at least not well armored. And they knew, with more people, there needed to be more gear.
Dad ordered weapons too. They had acquired plenty of kitchen knives, big and small. They had axes, machetes, shears, and as many wooden broom sticks as they could find. Ellie and Robert once worked on those but were fixing up the garden area. So Amanda began working on them. She made piles of axes, pole arms, and stabbers, finishing up what Ellie and Robert started.
Dad wanted stabbers or shivs. He realized in a tight spot, having some kind of hand held stabber, a shiv, a piercing weapon as a back-up would be helpful. The paring knives were good but with armored hands, he wanted the handles to be larger and for them to have some kind of scabbard.
So Maria used glue and tape with cut plastics to enlarge the handles. She made scabbards out of hard plastic folders. They looked ugly but practical. They had a ton of paring and steak knives, and made enough spikes or shivs for everyone.
The wood broomsticks were stronger and coveted for the larger weapons. Many brought back the cheaper aluminum or metal brooms and mops, but those bent too easily. But Maria, being thrifty, saw their strength in short lengths and sawed those for handles. She hammered the ends which lodged the knives in place, then used other materials to stuff it, glue it, nail it, then cover it. She made shivs from plastic and aluminum. An assortment of them were available for all to grab.
Amanda joked that they were making prison shivs. She jabbed with them and looked insanely fierce.
Dad saw Robert and Ellie in the courtyard. They were working on the garden, on water storage, and some sort of filtration system. It was good to have an old couple just focused on doing what they were doing. For farming, they just needed space and land to set up, to prepare, to know, and to get the water. The mornings were cooler now, so there would also be dew. Dad realized this as Robert setup tarps in areas to get the water to collect and drip down. Nice.
He recalled Jerry, the gardener type, talking to Robert about this. They never found Jerry after the big fight. Dad remembered his failure to save his wife Julianne. Hurry In... is all he remembered h
earing as he closed the door before she could make it. He hoped God would forgive him and them, and save their souls.
God wants everyone to be saved, but so few will be. Dad shuddered.
15. Temporary Save
His wife placed water bottles in plastic bags. She stuffed them onto the back of Dad's bike, tying them down with bungee cords. She kissed him. “Save as many as you can, but be safe.”
Dad looked at everyone who would be involved in dropping off the waters. “Remember, I'm just dropping off water and if zombies come, stay calm, back off. Only engage them if necessary. Stay by the smoke. Got it?"
Everyone nodded agreement.
Benjamin handed him a crudely drawn map. “The squares are the blocks. That arrow faces South and the X's are the banners and people I can see.”
“That's a lot,” Dad said.
“Yes, more than we expected,” Benjamin sighed. “Just follow the line, drop off a few bottles, get to the next, or, whatever you think is best.”
“I'll do what I can, but I am not risking us, or our home,” Dad said.
Benjamin nodded sadly.
Dad came out the small gate in the back. Tom and Stu pushed the dumpster aside and opened the gate. Dad drove out. It was clear. That block was clear because of the cars blocking each end. Nice.
Tom and Stu followed on foot with Randall on his bike. It felt like a team now, being able to work together to do something productive. Each person was well armored, trained, and able. Dad was fully armored with a fancy medieval sword. He had the claymore on his back, and the scabbard more secure in the front. Whenever he stared at the claymore, he was kind of hoping for another siege. Okay, that was wrong.
Knight of the Dead (Book 4): Realm Page 9