by Brant, Jason
“I know it sounds crazy, but saving that boy’s life is one of the few things that has kept me going.”
McCall kept his face still, not betraying his thoughts. “How would we find him? Sheol ain’t exactly small.
“I think I saw the boy’s father in the window across the street. He came in here while I was locked up and wanted to kill me, thinking I’d murdered the rest of his family. At the time I hadn’t considered that he might have lived close to the jail, because it didn’t seem important. But I swear I just saw him in the window. If he’s there, then Stephen is probably in there with him.”
“If we can get over there and get him, what then? How can we get out of town? My leg isn’t going to take me anywhere.”
“After all of the booze and black powder were taken to the field, I told the men to lock the horses and wagons back in the barn at the edge of town, just in case we would need them again. If we can get to the barn, then we might have a chance.”
McCall’s head bobbed in agreement as she spoke. “You’ll have to go and get the wagon by yourself. I can’t make it anywhere further than crossing the street.”
“I’ll get the horses and you’ll get the boy.” Karen felt a rush of excitement as they worked on yet another scheme. The thought of saving the small, innocent boy gave her a renewed purpose. The more she considered McCall’s plan of heading north and hoping the cold would slow the dead, the more she thought it feasible. If the desert had killed many of them off, then perhaps the cold could do the same.
“Can you fight off those men with a bum shoulder and leg?” Karen asked. “They might not like our plan.” She knew how tough McCall was, but his eyes looked hollowed out and his skin had taken on a nasty color. The blood he’d lost must have wreaked havoc on his strength and stamina.
“Of course,” McCall said. He pushed off the desk with his good hand, and tried to hide the obvious pain he was in. “Well, it might be a little bit of a problem, but I’ll figure it out.”
“The barn isn’t too far away from here,” Karen said, pointing toward the wall on her left. “Assuming I can run past most of the infected, I can probably get back here in a couple of minutes. We won’t have any time to waste when I arrive, or those things will eat the horses.”
“We’ll be ready,” McCall said plainly. “The other men in that building may want to come along rather than fight, so be ready for some extra bodies.”
Karen understood that their best chance of survival would entail leaving the rest behind, though she didn’t have the heart to say it. Too many had died already. She knew that they would be abandoning other survivors in Sheol, but that felt different than actively kicking people away from a mode of escape. They would have to make do with what little room they had and hope for the best.
“We’re going to need as many guns and—”
“I know,” McCall said, interrupting her. “Move fast and pay attention to where you’re running. Just because some of those things are on the ground doesn’t mean they’re dead. Get back here in one piece and I’ll take care of the rest.”
She looked out the window again. The street had cleared a bit more, though there were still quite a few moaners climbing over the bodies of their dead. The sidewalk right in front of the jailhouse had fewer corpses covering it and Karen hoped that McCall could use that to his advantage.
McCall handed her a spare pistol that sat on his desk. “Don’t fire unless you have no other choice.”
“Got it. I’ll have to bring the wagon around to the backside of the jail. The bodies out there,” she said, pointing into the street, “won’t allow me to come out front.”
“We’ll be ready.”
She started toward the back of the room, when she stopped and turned back to McCall. He stood by the front door, shirtless and bloody, his weight shifted to one leg. She gave him a small kiss without saying anything, trying to keep her emotions in check. “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry about me,” McCall said. “Watch your back out there.”
The two of them walked to the back of the room and McCall moved the chair wedged against the door to the side. Karen opened it a crack and peered outside. A lone corpse walked in the back alley, shambling toward the fire on the other side of town. She looked back at McCall one more time, hoping that leaving him here alone wasn’t a huge mistake.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, giving him a weary smile.
Without waiting for a response, she slipped through the door, sneaking along on the balls of her feet. McCall closed the door behind her and she heard the chair slide back into place. She turned right and ran down the planks that connected the buildings together, trying to find a pace that balanced speed and stealth.
Several of the infected spotted her and teetered around, trying to pursue her, but she went past them without issue, pleased at how few there were. McCall had been right, their numbers were lower than expected – perhaps the desert had killed many of them off. If that was the case, then the cold of the north could be their last chance. The snow would slow them down if nothing else.
She ran for two blocks, seeing a dozen or so moaners, before she encountered a fire that ran across the street, blocking her path. An alley to her right also had flames shooting across it. The fires looked to be deliberately set as they didn’t extend to the buildings on either side of the roads and burned along a straight line on the ground.
“Hey, you!” a voice whispered from somewhere nearby.
Karen looked around, trying to see who spoke to her. She didn’t like standing in the open like this, unable to defend herself if any of the dead walked her way.
“Up here!”
A head poked out of an open window on the second floor of the house on Karen’s right.
“Gary?” Karen asked. Though the face was covered in soot and dotted with blood, Karen recognized the deputy.
“Karen? What are you doing out in the open? Get in here!” His head retracted into the window and disappeared.
Karen looked around the street, frowning, anxious to keep moving. She didn’t want to burn what precious few minutes she had. McCall, and hopefully Stephen, would be waiting on her. If she didn’t get back to the jail soon, who knows what would happen to them.
The front door of the house opened a few seconds later and Gary motioned her inside. She walked past him in a hurry and he closed the door behind her. Ten or more people were scattered around the inside of the house, all sharing the same exhausted and frightened expressions. Most of them were armed, though Karen figured that the majority of them had never fired a gun more than a handful of times. Just the way they clutched the firearms to their chest told Karen all she needed to know.
They all looked at Karen in anticipation, expecting her to help them survive the hell they now found themselves in. Two children were among them, a small boy and girl, huddled in the corner. Though a few women were sprinkled around, none of them consoled the children the way a parent would. Karen assumed they were dead.
“How did you get so many people in here?” Karen asked.
“Mike and I are signaling anyone that goes by. If none of those things are around anyway,” Gary said. “We’ve got some food and ammunition, but we’re low on water.”
“I’m guessing that you started the fires outside? Are you trying to corner people here so you can get their attention?”
“Right. Anyone that wanders into the fire is obviously one of them, so we know right away and take them out. They’re awfully stupid,” Gary said.
“Your plan wasn’t worth a damn,” a deep voice said from the top of the steps at the end of the hall.
Karen looked at the staircase to see Mike’s large body lumbering down it. His clothing had tears but she couldn’t make out any noticeable wounds or blotches of blood. He looked even more hulking than she remembered as he walked down the hall, taking up most of the space between the walls. His incredible size reminded her of Ellis.
> “I know this looks like absolute chaos to you, and it is, but you’re still alive. Gehenna went down before any of us even understood what we were up against.” Karen said.
“You got almost everyone killed.” Mike leaned forward as he stalked in Karen’s direction, his hands balling into fists. “I oughtta throw you outside and watch them tear you apart.”
Gary stepped between them holding a hand up. Karen expected Mike to throw his smaller friend aside like a feather, but the large man surprisingly stopped. His eyes never left Karen’s, but Gary appeared to have some semblance of control over the big galoot.
“Calm down,” Gary said. “We talked about this already. Karen’s plan took out hundreds of those damned things. We’d be dead if they hadn’t gotten here first and warned us. It’s not her fault that barely anyone came out and met the damned head on.”
Mike didn’t look convinced, but he kept quiet and unfurled his hands. He stomped over to the closest window and glared outside. No one else said anything, though they continued to gawk at Karen.
“Where are you going?” Gary asked. “We’ve heard a lot of gunshots, but not many people are moving around on the streets.”
“We’re getting out of Sheol,” Karen said, addressing everyone in the house. “You might be able to stay in the city and slowly kill these things off, but I doubt it.”
“Where will you go though? You said you came from the east, and we’re the furthest city to the west.” Gary stood in front of her, hanging on her every word.
“North. We think the desert killed off a lot of the moaners.”
“Moaners?”
Karen nodded. “You just called them the damned. McCall calls them moaners, and I guess he has me doing it too.”
“That’s a stupid name,” Gary said.
“It’s growing on me,” Karen said. “We think the desert cooked their brains, for lack of a better explanation. If we go far enough north, into the cold, we think the winter will put a stop to them. The mountains will at least slow them down, no matter what.”
“Why ain’t McCall with you?”
Karen glanced outside. She grew tired of answering all of these questions when she should have been at the barn by now. “He’s shot and he can’t really walk,” she said quickly. “I have to go – he’s waiting on me. Were the horses and wagons put back in the barn?”
“I think so,” Gary said. “I told the men to take them back, but I didn’t do it myself.”
Karen turned back to the door and reached for the handle.
“Wait! Take us with you,” Gary said from behind her.
She stopped with her hand by the door and looked over her shoulder. “Gather every piece of food, ammunition, and water you can find. As soon as I can get a wagon back to McCall, we’re leaving. We won’t have time to wait on anyone. If you want to come with us, you have to be ready to go in a couple of minutes.”
Gary looked at Mike, who still fumed out the window. “Get everyone ready! I’m going with Karen to get some horses. The fastest way back from the barn is the street we set on fire. Get it put out and have everyone waiting by the door!”
His ability to take command pleased her. He operated well under pressure and didn’t argue when it wasn’t necessary. Those were qualities that Karen thought would prove valuable if they survived the next couple of minutes.
She couldn’t help but wonder how a man of such decisiveness ever fell in line behind a monster like Evans. Then again, she couldn’t understand how anyone in all of Sheol would stand by and let Evans and his father rule them with an iron fist.
“Lead the way,” Gary said as he stepped behind Karen.
“Don’t shoot at anything unless you have to,” Karen said. “If we can sneak out of here, rather than shoot our way out, it’ll improve our odds.”
She opened the door without waiting for him to respond and ran through it, turning right. The flames in the street before her were about five feet high and appeared to come from a small ditch full of kerosene or oil on the ground. She accelerated toward it and shielded her face as she jumped through the fire.
A moaner stood just on the other side and Karen ran into it, moving too fast to stop. They tumbled over with Karen landing on top, its arms wrapped around her back. It was one of the older, decaying infected. Black flies encircled its head, crawling over its oozing skin and laying eggs in its straggly hair.
The smell hit Karen’s nostrils like an unexpected slap. She struggled against the moaner’s grip, but her strength waned as her stomach twisted, threatening to make her vomit. The stench that came from its mouth when it snapped at her face raised her nausea level to new heights. It must have had a belly full of meat by the smell of it.
Gary jumped through the fire behind them and fell over their entangled legs. He sprawled in the dirt, dropping his rifle. “What the hell?” he asked as he looked back to see what he’d tripped over.
“Help me, damn it!” Karen put her forearm under the chin of the moaner and pushed its head away, feeling the rotting skin around its throat give way. She stumbled to her feet and backed away just as Gary came over and gave the corpse a kick.
“Don’t shoot it!” Karen left it squirming on the ground and kept moving down the street. She could see the barn ahead and didn’t want to alert every cannibal in the area to their whereabouts.
He hesitated a moment before grabbing his rifle and following her. They ran the last hundred yards, only seeing another handful of the dead as they went, and arrived at the large double doors of the barn. They were far enough on the outskirts of the city that most of the dead hadn’t worked their way through the streets and alleys yet.
A large plank, like the one they’d used at the jailhouse, sat across the doorway, locking the building. Together they lifted the board and threw it aside. They could hear the horses fussing inside as they pushed the doors open. One of the animals burst out of the barn, nearly knocking Karen over as it sped down the street. Three wagons sat in the center of the building with two horses still attached to each.
“Goddamn idiots didn’t even put them back in their stables,” Gary said.
Karen ran to the first wagon and climbed onto the wood bench just behind the horses. “When you get everyone loaded up, bring them back here and get the third wagon and any of the other horses you can. We’ll need all of the resources we can if we’re going to survive. Don’t wait for us! Head straight north and keep going until you get to the mountains. If we don’t meet again... good luck to you. We might be all that’s left.”
Gary stood on the ground beside her and extended his hand. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what I allowed to happen around here.” He stared at the wagon as he spoke, unable to meet her eyes. “You’ve given—”
“We don’t have time for confession right now,” she said, taking his hand and giving it a firm pump. She thought this might have been the first time a man had ever shaken hands with her. Other than McCall, Gary could have been the only male that saw her as an equal. “Getting these people out of town is your penance. Now go!”
She grabbed the reins that had been tied around a knob on the front of the wagon and snapped them. The horses sprang forward, breaking into a full run before they were even out of the barn. They sprinted through a half dozen moaners as they stormed down the street, running them down rather than avoiding them. The horses trampled them under their hooves and the wagon wheels bounced over them, tossing Karen around on the seat.
McCall had been in bad shape when she’d left, and he was heading into a house full of armed, irrational men. She’d spent too much time getting the wagon and now she hoped that she wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 15
McCall looked at the shotgun on the desk in dismay, knowing that he couldn’t use it with one arm.
He had his trusty Peacemaker in its holster, but that was the only gun he could operate in his current condition. Through the window he could see one of the moaners had a large knife sticking out of it
s chest and he figured he would need that to get across the street. He wanted to have as many bullets in his pistol as possible when he went into the house where Stephen’s father was.
The men in the other building stood in the second story window and looked down at the street, eyeing the creatures below. They hadn’t shot at any in awhile, but McCall figured it would only be a matter of time before they started up again. Going over there most likely was going to cause a lot of problems for him.
He stuck his head close to the window and whistled. The men had waved at McCall earlier, but he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge them as they’d been acting like jackasses. Now they waved again, and this time he gave them one of his solemn nods in return. He didn’t want to yell into the street and bring more moaners down on his head, so he pantomimed his intent to them.
After three exaggerated attempts, they finally seemed understand what he meant and gave him another wave. One of them disappeared from the window while the other aimed his rifle through the opening and signaled to McCall that he would cover him. Though Mad Dog appreciated the gesture, the last thing he needed was more attention being called on him while he tried to limp out in the open. He shook his head back and forth in quick movements until the man gave him a thumbs up.
His leg hurt like hell any time he put even the smallest amount of pressure on it. He took short, quick steps with it as he moved to the door and grimaced with every single one of them. Even though Karen had to run partway across the city, she would be back and waiting on him before he could get to the other side of the street at his current pace.
“Hell with it,” he mumbled to himself and put more weight on his shot leg. It gave out before he could even get a quarter of the way through his step and he fell into the back of the door. He caught the plank holding the door shut with his good hand, stopping his fall. “Karen’s right – I’m an idiot.”
He struggled with the wood barricading the entrance for a moment before he finally lifted it free. Everything he tried to do took longer than it should have and he cursed constantly at his handicaps. When he eased the door open he was greeted by the moaner with the large knife in its chest.