The Human Spring

by Hollingsworth, David

  Until now.

  When he reached the door, he saw Fatima across the street, nervously twirling her hair with her fingers. He gave a thumbs up. They exchanged glances, and Ehsan could see in her eyes that she felt at least the same level of terror he did. Perhaps, with her analytical mind that needed a category and reason for everything, her terror went even deeper.

  It didn’t take long for Deon and Sarah to finish their search. Nothing. Ehsan went to go check in with Fatima while Deon and Sarah checked the backyard of the house.

  “No one emerged from the house,” Fatima informed Ehsan after he updated her, trying her best to keep her composure. “Unless they had some sort of secret escape route, I should have seen them at least hop a fence or something.”

  “Weird.” Ehsan stared rubbing his thumb. “Guess we’ll have to see what Deon and Sarah find.”

  Fatima nodded. “I’m going to get the kids.” She walked into the house and brought the kids out. Both Juan and Andrea looked like they’d been crying. Lucero held Andrea and tried her best to comfort her.

  “Are all of you alright?” Fatima asked them as soothingly as she could as she walked them outside.

  “Yeah,” Lucero answered, though her voice quivered. “That sure was scary, though.”

  “No kidding.” Ehsan suddenly felt very tired, his adrenaline finally dissipating. “At least we were able to take care of it, though.”

  Lucero smiled weakly. “Yeah.”

  Deon and Sarah soon returned with nothing to report. No holes dug beneath the fence, no gaps in the fence to crawl through, no tunnel connecting the houses, nothing. Behind the houses were more houses, but the walls separating them seemed too high to climb without help. Still, they also acknowledged they had no other plausible explanation.

  “So what do we do now?” Deon wondered. “We gotta get these kids back, but we also gotta make sure the school is safe.”

  “You two get the kids back,” Fatima decided. “Full stealth, avoid getting even a single zombie’s attention if you can help it.” Deon and Sarah nodded. “Ehsan and I will run back to let everyone know what happened.”

  “Cool,” Sarah replied. Deon nodded.

  Fatima went to hug Lucero and Andrea while Ehsan did the same for Juan. Ehsan could barely move without shaking, but he wanted to do whatever he could to comfort the kids.

  “Take care of Andrea,” Fatima told Lucero. “I’ll see you in a couple days, okay?”

  “Okay,” Lucero responded with a determined nod.

  “You’re all being very brave,” Ehsan commented, genuinely impressed with the kids. “You’ll all be very strong someday.”

  “Thanks,” Lucero replied with a smile, some of her normal personality back. “When I’m a grown up, even the fastest zombie alive won’t be able to keep up with me.” She looked over to Andrea. Ehsan got the impression that she was posturing to make Andrea feel better.

  “I believe it,” Ehsan replied, forcing a grin to try to comfort the kids. He gave Lucero a pat on the back.

  Ehsan and Fatima broke off from the group and made their way back to the school. No longer distracted by plans and appearances, Ehsan’s heart felt like a machine gun with how fast and hard it thumped in his chest. He walked with his sister, reluctant to depart from Deon and Sarah for his own personal safety. Even when his Costco had fallen, he at least understood the force that had taken it down, and when he had charged the disguised boxers the day before without knowing who they were, he at least knew what they were. What if Ryan and Josue had encountered these sprinting zombies and not known to take them seriously until it was too late? The two of them decided to rush back without using the walkways.

  Two streets before the school, however, they saw three zombies standing in front of one of the houses. Ehsan froze. He looked to his sister, who also looked terrified. “What do we do?”

  Fatima cleared her throat. “I’m not sure.”

  The two stood in silence, unmoving, staring impotently at the three zombies before them. Half an hour before, the two would’ve walked right past them without a second thought. Now Ehsan could barely stand to look at them.

  “We should take the walkways,” Fatima eventually decided. “There is simply no way we can risk it after what just happened.”

  “Yeah.” Ehsan felt a deep sense of shame. Every moment that passed meant a greater risk for the school. His faced burned with embarrassment as they quietly entered the nearest house. Ehsan wished that he wanted to run outside and get past the zombies. Deep down, though, no such desires for heroics emerged as they crossed the first walkway.

  As they got to the next house, Ehsan looked around for something to throw to get the zombies’ attention. He found a stapler. He held it in his left hand, his Dragon Hair clutched firmly in his right. As they crossed the walkway to the house which had the zombies in front, Ehsan told his sister to go to a window overlooking the street. She agreed while he stayed on the walkway. He placed Dragon Hair down and stood up, grabbing onto the rail of the walkway with one hand while he threw the stapler as far as he could with the other. He nervously rubbed his thumb as he waited for a sound. As soon as he heard the clank of the stapler hitting the ground, he grabbed Dragon Hair and rushed inside.

  “They’re normal,” Fatima informed him with a sigh of relief as he approached the window.

  Ehsan looked outside. Sure enough, the zombies trudged slowly toward the source of the noise. Ehsan felt so relieved he almost collapsed to the ground, but he kept his footing and turned to his sister. “Let’s hurry.”

  The rest of the way back presented no problems. Though they saw Ryan and Josue on the roof when they turned the final corner, they sprinted up the street anyway. Ehsan, still unhappy with how they’d decided to take the long way around the zombies before, wanted to get to the school as soon as possible. As they drew closer, Josue saw them first. He saw their urgency and rushed off the roof to meet them, his crowbar ready.

  “What the hell happened? Where the hell are Deon and Sarah?” he demanded.

  “Dropping… off… the kids,” Ehsan gasped, hunched over as he tried to catch his breath. “But, something happened. Sprinting. Zombie.”

  Josue blinked in disbelief. “What?” Ehsan heard Ryan’s boots hit the ground as he walked over to join the rest of them with his bat raised.

  “Yes, a sprinting zombie,” Fatima confirmed, also trying to recover from their sprint down the street. She wasn’t hunched over like Ehsan, but she drew deep breaths that prevented her from speaking more than a few words at a time. “Near the clinic.”

  “You’re fucking with us,” Josue replied flatly. He looked at Ryan, who shrugged.

  “I wish,” Ehsan responded, struggling to regain his composure. “We saw it in the street, through the window. Just standing there, like any other zombie. Deon went out to lead it away. When it saw him, it started chasing him.”

  Josue blinked again. “No fucking way.”

  “So what the hell happened after it started chasing Deon?” Ryan asked, his eyes wide.

  “We saw someone in the window across the street again,” Fatima answered. “One of the kids spotted them first. So Sarah and Ehsan went to help take out the sprinter while I kept an eye on the house. After they took it out, they went to check the house. Nothing.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Ryan looked at the ground, his eyes still wide, then back to Ehsan and Fatima. “Y’all get a good look at whoever was there?”

  Fatima shook her heard. “They stood behind a curtain, just like last time.”

  “So, we’ve definitely got someone fucking with us, then,” Josue concluded. “Shit, I better go tell Cecilia.”

  Josue ran to the gate and jumped over the table. Fatima turned to Ryan. “Ryan, I have an awkward question.”

  He looked to her and raised his eyebrows, inviting her to ask.

  “Well….” She struck her usual thinking pose. “Yesterday you and everyone else were suspicious of us. I know we passed the test yeste
rday, but how are you not suspicious of the fact that we came back without Deon or Sarah?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Nah. Yer eyes when y’all came back…” He shook his head once more, slowly this time, and a bitter smile came across his face. “Haven’t seen that look since I was in Iraq. Ain’t no way you can fake that.”

  Cecilia jogged out to join Ehsan, Fatima, Ryan, and Mateo for a brief emergency meeting by the school entrance while Josue waited on the roof for Deon and Sarah, leaving her students with Julie. While Cecilia seemed composed as she spoke, Ehsan could’ve sworn he sensed a hint of anxiety in her voice. Every word was just a little bit sharper and the space between every word a little shorter than usual.

  “We need to figure out who was in that window,” she declared. “There is simply no way they were there by coincidence. Not when we encounter a zombie who can do things that no other zombie can.”

  “What about Deon and Sarah?” Ehsan asked. “They’ve been gone for a while now.”

  “Yes, they have.” She turned to Ehsan and Fatima, and her look softened. “Ehsan, Fatima… I apologize, because I believe everything you just told us, and Ryan believes you two were telling the truth just now, but I would like to separate you for this mission. The fact you two came back alone means there is still slight cause for concern.”

  Ehsan and Fatima exchanged glances. He felt the defensiveness well up inside him, but he pushed it back. “That’s fine.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. “Ehsan and Josue shall go find Deon and Sarah. Ryan and Fatima, you two are the center team. Go with Ehsan and Josue to the end of the first row of houses, then wait there. Ehsan and Josue, whistle if you need them. Mateo, since you are still recovering, you shall be on lookout duty.”

  Ehsan looked to Mateo, whom he expected to plead to go. Instead, he merely nodded.

  “Excellent.” She looked toward the street. “Now go. Time is of the utmost importance.”

  Ehsan, Fatima, Ryan, and Josue jogged up the street, anxiously keeping an eye out for zombies. Ehsan’s legs already felt sore. After everything that’d happened, it felt like a chore to move. Still, he couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to Deon or Sarah. When they got to the end of the street, he and Josue gave a quick goodbye to Ryan and Fatima as they continued their journey through the houses beyond.

  Ehsan didn’t like being without his sister. He had yet to be in a dangerous situation without her since the outbreak. He didn’t like being with Josue, either, though Josue seemed too focused on the task at hand to say anything stupid. The two moved in silence. When they got to the street that Ehsan and Fatima had encountered the three zombies on before, Ehsan saw that a fourth one had joined them.

  “So,” Josue started, still adjusting to what Ehsan and Fatima had told him, “any of these things could just charge at any second?”

  “Yeah, in theory. We saw three of the ones in front of us before and none of them could run, but we didn’t see that fourth one before, so I dunno.”

  “Shit.” To Ehsan’s confusion, Josue scanned the ground around them. He found an empty beer bottle and picked it up. “Welp, we’re about to find out.”

  “What do you-” Before Ehsan could finish, Josue threw the bottle down the street. The four zombies turned around. They spotted Ehsan and Josue. Ehsan froze. He wanted to run. The thought of facing another sprinting zombie again, after it had taken three people to kill it, was too much for him in his current state. Hell, it was too much for him in any state. Still, he held his ground. He stared intently at the fourth zombie, reluctantly prepared to deal with whatever it did.

  It stumbled forward slowly, just like the other three.

  “Thank goodness,” Ehsan remarked with a sign.

  Josue grinned. “I was kinda looking forward to the exercise. Too bad.”

  The two of them ran up the street, deciding to take out the zombies. Ehsan suggested taking out the knees of each zombie before anything else, but Josue rushed in without waiting. Ehsan used the push kick that Mateo had taught him the day he had first joined. He also tried to be mindful of his footwork. He ended up taking out one zombie while Josue took out two. They finished the final one together. On the next street over they made it halfway up before they saw Deon and Sarah turn the corner. Sarah waved when she saw Ehsan and Josue. Sarah and Deon ran toward them. Relief swept over Ehsan. He waved back as they approached.

  “What took you two so long?” Josue demanded.

  “Andrea had a panic attack and started throwing a fit,” Sarah revealed. “We had to calm her down before we could finish taking them home.”

  Josue nodded. “The sprinters spooked her?”

  “The man watching us, actually. She thought he’d pop up in every window we passed.”

  “Poor thing,” Ehsan said with a sympathetic head shake.

  “Well, we can talk about children’s’ feelings later,” Josue commented, looking back in the direction of the school. “We gotta get back and plan.”

  Fatima and Ryan watched as Ehsan and Josue kept going up the street to find Sarah and Deon. Fatima shifted about nervously as she waited. She felt uncomfortable with Ehsan being paired with Josue of all people. Yes, he had been in the military, but his recklessness worried her.

  She paused. Did Josue worry Fatima, or did her not being with Ehsan worry her? She spun the end of her hair with her fingertips.

  Ryan saw Fatima playing with her hair. “Nervous?” Fatima was unsure how to respond. She didn’t want to make her distrust of Josue too obvious. After Fatima didn’t say anything, Ryan continued to speak. “I used to do the same thing when I got nervous too, y’know.”

  “Twirl your hair?” Fatima asked, tilting her head as she glanced at his closely shaven head.

  Ryan chuckled. “Yeah. When I was a kid, I mean. I used to have long hair. Also played with Barbies and shit. I was a weird kid.”

  “It just sounds like you had your own interests. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Ryan shrugged. “I dunno, my old man never liked it. Told me it ain’t manly to have long hair. I still kept it anyway, or ‘least till I started doing football. It just wasn’t practical, so I cut it.”

  “Did you like it?” Fatima asked.

  “Yeah, I s’pose. My old man seemed proud, and I had a lotta friends. I was pretty good at it, too.”

  “I meant your hair. Do you miss it?”

  “Not really.” His face reddened slightly. “I mean, sometimes I guess I do. I liked it long. But it ain’t really a big deal.” He turned in the direction Ehsan and Josue ran. “Anyway, I hope them boys get back here soon.”

  “As long as they don’t do anything stupid,” Fatima commented absent-mindedly. She wanted to push further into this hidden part of Ryan that she knew nothing about, and that he himself knew very little about, but knew this was not the time.

  Ryan chuckled. “Ain’t a safe bet with them two. Still, I think they’ll be okay.”

  The run back to Fatima and Ryan took little time. Fatima, unable to contain herself upon seeing Sarah and Deon safe, gave Sarah a hug and beamed at Deon. The display of affection surprised Ehsan. The six of them jogged up the street, Ehsan glancing into every window and scanning the street for stray zombies. He felt safer surrounded by so many people capable of dealing with zombies, but he still didn’t want to get ambushed.

  Cecilia held another meeting upon their return to the school. “We are not alone,” she declared as Ehsan, Fatima, Mateo, Ryan, Sarah, and Deon sat down for the meeting at the lunch tables. “And they are not friendly.”

  “You got a plan?” Deon asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” Cecilia revealed. Everyone perked up. “I have a proposal: we send out a group of people on a scouting mission, both to actually scout and to draw the attention of whoever is out there. Meanwhile, we have Sarah hide nearby. If whoever is out there shows up, Sarah will stick to the shadows and follow them to their base. In fact, even if they attack, Sarah will only make herself known
if the decoys need her help.”

  “Sounds risky,” Sarah commented. She grinned. “Not for me, I’m basically a ninja. But who would be the decoys?”

  “I propose Ehsan, Fatima, and Mateo. If they have been watching us, they know Mateo got bit outside the school. I doubt they know how fast he was able to recover, or even if he was able to recover at all. We will give him a cast and tell him to act sick. They have to know he is the best fighter here. Any weakness from him would be too valuable an opportunity not to capitalize on.” She turned to Ehsan and Fatima. “I know it might be a bit much to ask after yesterday, but would you two be okay with that?”

  “Yes,” agreed Fatima without hesitation. Ehsan nodded, eager to help uncover answers, even if he still felt the sting of Cecilia separating him and Fatima when she sent him to retrieve Sarah and Deon.

  “What would I do, though?” Deon asked.

  “That brings me to the next part of the plan. After half an hour or so after everyone leaves, Julie will leave the school alone with some sort of package to give to the decoys, perhaps some food. If whoever is out there saw the decoys and figured they would still be too much trouble, they might be tempted by seeing her by herself. Deon, you will be watching from nearby the whole time.”

  “What about me and Josue?” Ryan asked. “I don’t mean what’ll we do, I get that we gotta stand guard. But how’re we gonna make it look like Julie is slipping out unnoticed when we always stand guard by the front of the school?”

  “I thought about that, and admittedly, I do not like the answer,” Cecilia said. “Julie shall sneak out by the chicken coop and stay on the road that parallels the train tracks, rather than leave through the front of the school. She needs to stay on that road until she gets another street up, where she can turn right and walk up to the second row of houses.”