“We need to get out of here. If that works, then this whole town will be crawling with Zombies in no time.” Kelly said. Her shaking voice revealing her fear at being trapped to starve to death in a basement while Zombies took over the land above them. They could always wait a few days then try to sneak out at night but that was hit or miss depending on where the Zombies decided to nest and how many of them actually showed up. None of them really wanted to try sneaking through a Zombie infested town wearing bright white robes with no weapons. No matter how comfortable and fluffy the robes were.
As if on cue the door to the basement was thrown open. One of the deputies stomped down the stairs in full riot gear. He stopped about halfway down.
“The Sherriff asked me to come let you guys out. You’re free to go. Just don’t come back. We only let people leave this town alive once. Assuming there’s a town to come back to. I guess you were right about the Brotherhood after all. Come on and I’ll show you where your gear is then you’re on your own.” The deputy turned and stomped back up the stairs.
“Let’s go. Kyler you go ahead and follow him. Make sure you know where our stuff is. We’ll be up right behind you.” Randy said. Kyler nodded and took the stairs two at a time after the deputy. Kelly and Randy spent a minute getting Doreen calmed down and everyone together. There was nothing to take with them, so they were moving up the stairs moments after Kyler disappeared through the door above.
At the top of the stairs they followed Kyler into a back room where all their confiscated gear had been shoved in large clear plastic bins. The deputy told know they were expected to be out of the town by the end of the day then left them alone with their gear. He’d looked like he was going to warn them against using their weapons within city limits. They already knew the town ordinance on making noise, but the rocket attack had pretty much negated that worry for the day. Any noise they added after all that would be negligible. They threw their clothes on and then strapped on their weapons.
Less than ten minutes after the deputy had opened the door to the basement they were armed and ready to roll out. They just needed to figure out where they were rolling out too.
“We should hit the woods and head north. The Zombies will be coming in on the roads.” Kyler said. He was feeling much more confident now that he had the comfortable weight of his weapons hanging off him again.
“Works for me.” Said Randy. “Let’s get the hell out of here before the Zombies start showing up.”
They rushed out the front door in a single file line. Kyler led the way with Randy serving as rear guard. They needed to get off the streets fast, so Kelly was carrying Zoey, Myriah had Doreen. Caitlyn was carrying Ali. Kyler began jogging down the house-lined street they were on. He was headed away from the big plume of smoke going up in the air where a bomb had hit the textile mill. Kelly was good with that since there was no telling what kind of chemicals were mixed into the smoke from that place. They had enough problems without inhaling whatever chemical soup was being blasted into the air from that massive EPA violation.
The houses got more and more spread apart as they ran. The manicured lawns and rows of homes gradually giving way to thick green forest on both sides of the road. At the sound of screeches drifting towards them on the brisk wind Kyler led the way up the incline into the woods beside the road. Progress slowed considerably as they hiked through the dense forest across the hilly landscape. They took turns carrying Doreen. Kelly had Zoey and Ali start walking on their own. They could see Zombies streaking past them on the road below. They were the adrenalized ones tearing down the road in search of whatever had caused the loud noise they’d heard. Driven by an insatiable desire to rend uninfected human flesh they ran at full speed psychotically singing out their excitement at the anticipated feast of flesh.
Hidden in the woods a good hundred feet above the road they kept moving. It was tough going. They had no food or water with them. The plastic tins of supplies with all their gear in them hadn’t contained any food or water. That’d pissed Kelly off since they’d accumulated a good deal of supplies in the van, but it wasn’t like there was anyone she could complain to. They all had to be happy with the fact that the guards on the edge of town hadn’t shot them then left their looted dead bodies to rot on the side of the road. That scenario seemed a lot more realistic than the thick robes and decent food they’d received before being set loose to continue on their journey.
They may be missing their vehicle and short on supplies but at least they were alive. Alive and armed which meant they had a chance. It felt like heaven to Kelly to be able to walk along without her hands bound in front of her in a pair of handcuffs. Looking down at her wrists, she could make out the red marks that’d been burned in by wearing the cuffs for several days. At some point she knew she was going to have to find a medical book to dig through to try and understand why her fingers still felt numb after the cuffs had been off for a few hours. That probably wasn’t a good thing.
She wanted to ask the others if they were having the same issues with their fingers and wrists, but Kyler had told them all about the Zombies with the hypersensitive hearing. The last thing Kelly wanted to do was risk attracting a bunch of Zombies to come looking for them just to find out if everyone else’s fingers felt as screwed up as hers did. Not able to do anything about the numbness besides rub her wrists and hands together she continued to trudge along behind Kyler. She kept her eyes busy roaming the surrounding woods searching for any signs of the infected.
Randy watched Kelly rubbing her wrists and wanted to ask her if she knew how long it’d take before feeling came back to all his fingers. He was occasionally getting some tingles, but it worried him how dead his hands and fingers felt. He was especially scared about how numb his trigger finger felt. If there was one finger that he needed to have working correctly it was that one. He continued to squeeze his hands open and shut as he walked. He was wondering now if the girls were better off than him because they had skinnier wrists. That made sense and seemed to be corroborated by the fact that he had yet to see Myriah fuss with her wrists. She definitely had the skinniest wrists out of all of them.
Leading the pack Kyler flexed his hands as he walked as well. He shifted his machete from one hand to the other. He was using the dulled blade to help clear a path through the underbrush. He was hoping that if they kept quiet then they’d be able to avoid the attention of the mess of Zombies streaming along the highway below. He was wondering if he needed to call a break for the little kids to rest when he saw an opening in the woods up ahead. He stopped to check it out a little better. He shifted around some until he was able to make out the small road running through the woods in front of them.
He stood there staring at the opening ahead while the rest of the group caught up to him. All the kids immediately sank to the ground and went into break mode. The only one of them not exhausted was Doreen since she’d been carried everywhere the majority of the day. None of the kids complained about the lack of water or snacks once they’d received negative headshakes after they pantomimed being hungry and thirsty. They looked like they were pretty serious about taking a nice long break though. None of them were trying to make eye contact with the adults now that they’d validated no snacks were going to be passed out. They were obviously trying to avoid the inevitable signal to get back on their feet.
Kyler pointed out the road to Kelly and Randy who came up beside him and stared at it as well. After a few minutes of trying to guess where the road may lead Kelly shrugged and motioned for the two men to stay behind while she went up ahead to check it out. Both men felt like they should’ve been the ones to offer to go scout it out, but Kelly was already hunched over and moving quickly through the brush leaving them without the option to argue. Randy started to follow Kelly and Kyler shook his head. As far as sneaking around in the woods went two was definitely a crowd.
Randy stood and stared after Kelly fretting about his wife while Kyler, Caitlyn and Myriah joined the kids in
taking a break. Caitlyn wasn’t looking forward to getting back up. As soon as she’d sat down all three of the littles had slid over to use her like a shared bean bag. She was more than content to snuggle with them while they waited to find out what was going on up ahead. Kyler sat down to rest his legs while staring hard in the direction Kelly had gone off in. He was assuming the opening up ahead was a driveway going up to a cabin or a service road for a cell tower or something like that.
Randy and Kyler both felt an enormous sense of relief when Kelly showed back up about fifteen minutes later. Using a pen and a small spiral notebook she’d taken from the house they’d been held prisoner in she quickly wrote that the opening up ahead was a small road going deeper into the woods. She hadn’t been able to see anything in either direction since the small road turned sharply before joining the main road down below them. Kelly wrote she thought they should just just cross the road and continue in the direction they’d been headed. Kyler wanted to push for seeing what was down the road but when Randy sided with Kelly, he decided to let the majority rule. He wasn’t keen on disobeying the order to hurry up and get out of this town any more than they were.
Kyler cocked his head to the side and signaled for Kelly and Randy to listen. While they’d been silently debating whether to follow the road or cross it some background noise had set off Kyler’s internal alarm system. The three adults got Myriah to get down near Caitlyn while they spread out around the area and tried to melt into the forest. They sat like that for long enough that Kyler was starting to wonder if he’d imagined the sounds. Even as he began to consider standing back up to take another look around, he noticed Kelly had transitioned from laying in the weeds with her rifle to looking like she was auditioning for a sniper movie.
He followed the angle of her barrel without seeing anything at first. A few minutes later two men came walking stealthily through the woods. The Brotherhood didn’t have a required uniform. The two men walking through the woods up ahead of them weren’t carrying a big flag with the Brotherhood symbol on it. Nevertheless, it was obvious to all of them that the two men who’d just disappeared into the woods walking away from them had been Brotherhood soldiers. It was something about their attitude and the way they walked that marked them. People who’ve been in the military have something they like to call military bearing and it sticks with people the rest of their lives. The New American armies were mostly made up of men with military backgrounds which is why Kyler supposed you could spot one of them from a distance. Add in a touch of the arrogance the Brotherhood soldiers tended to accumulate and it was distinctive enough they’d been able to tell just from the brief glimpse they’d gotten of the men.
Paralyzed with fear at the close encounter with the representatives of evil they thought they’d escaped from by crossing the North Carolina state line they stayed in that spot in the woods for another thirty minutes after the two men had disappeared. Not knowing if the two men had been part of a larger party or just a couple of scouts, they did know that they needed to get moving. Randy borrowed Kelly’s notebook to share his thoughts on the subject. He saw them both nod in agreement as his thoughts boiled down to them needing to hurry up and get a lot further north.
Kyler took the lead and they headed out again. This time moving in a much tighter formation. They didn’t want to spread out too much in case they ran into more Brotherhood soldiers. Shaken by the encounter they’d just had they marched on in somber silence. The plan now was to get outside of the city limits and find a new vehicle so they could head north again. Kyler was hoping once they made it further into North Carolina they could make contact with the people who’d sent him down to spy on the south in the first place. Once he’d done that, he could in good faith turn this family over to them to deal with and he could go back to just being a simple soldier.
Chapter 3: Comply or Die
Krantz stared down at the massive herd of Zombies surging up I-85. He was sitting in the co-pilot seat of one of the national guard helicopters that’d been pressed into service by Roberts on behalf of the Senator. Krantz had half-expected to be executed on the spot when he’d reported back to Roberts on the disastrous search for the fugitives. Not only hadn’t he been able to capture them he’d also been betrayed by his two most trusted men. Both of whom were branded Brotherhood soldiers.
He still couldn’t believe Rodriguez would’ve gone off like that. In hindsight he realized he should’ve seen the signs with Kyler. The young man had obviously been grappling with some serious moral issues. Ordering him to hunt for a family that included a handful of little kids must’ve pushed him over the edge. It hadn’t felt right to Krantz either, but he’d been able to compartmentalize those feelings. He was able to rationalize away the family component by focusing on the fact that the father of the fugitive family had murdered several Brotherhood soldiers on top of killing the Senator’s sister.
There was no rule saying that evil men couldn’t get married and have kids. It didn’t change the fact that the father was a criminal who deserved to be put on his knees and shot in the face. Krantz imagined Kyler had just gotten fixated on the fact that the man was a father trying to hold his family together and not really considered the murderer part of the equation. He recognized it was at least partially his own fault for being so cavalier about orders to shoot at the fugitives and not really giving enough thought to what to do about the kids.
Regardless of the massive mess the hunt for the fugitives had turned into Roberts had taken a liking to Krantz for some reason. Roberts was the military mastermind behind the Senator’s ability to rise to power. On top of helping him come into power he was also critical to keeping him in power and expanding that power. They’d already made their move on Tennessee. The Brotherhood was well on the way to controlling that entire state. It’d been a nice target since the local warlords there had made consolidating power fairly straightforward. The standard process of overwhelming military strength followed by seizing the families of the leaders to be brought back to live in the camps in Georgia continued to work well for them.
Roberts and the Senator were both of the opinion that the faster they consolidated power in their target territories the easier it’d be. If they gave everyone time to get organized and realize that the Brotherhood was an actual threat, then it’d be a lot more difficult to accomplish their goals. The Senator saw the apocalypse as an opportunity to rebuild society in a more sustainable and ordered fashion. Roberts was fascinated with the strategy behind it all. Roberts saw the New American expansion as a good thing that’d be bringing the rule of law back to everyone. He was definitely a means to an end kind of guy.
Krantz saw the similarities between the strategy of the Senator and the strategies of Hitler. The Blitzkrieg approach to taking out the states closest to Georgia and gradually expanding. The labor camps that’d been setup and the way families were split apart. He didn’t know if Hitler had used drugs to pacify his people but that may have just been because the drugs weren’t as readily available back then. Krantz saw all of this, but he also strongly believed that the Senator was right in trying to bring order to this mess. The apocalypse was chaos and death and disease. Someone needed to seize the reigns and right the course before society completely collapsed. The Senator was the only one Krantz knew of who was doing that.
When Krantz had finally caught up with Roberts at the outpost he’d been expecting the worst. He hadn’t expected to be promoted and put in charge of all the ground forces they were using to take South Carolina. Roberts had listened to Krantz as he gave a full and honest report of everything that’d happened chasing down the fugitives. Krantz had briefly considered glossing over some of the details but in the end had just gone with the unvarnished truth. Roberts had listened attentively to the entire story interrupting a few times to ask for clarification. Once Krantz had finished his report, Roberts had taken a couple of minutes to digest the information then immediately launched into the new assignment he was giving to Krantz.
“I’m putting you in charge of the ground forces we’re sending into South Carolina. Your mission will be to secure the territory after we soften up their defenses with air raids. I’m going to need you to setup the supply depots and figure out how to move our men to where they need to be without stirring up a ton of the infected.” Roberts had ordered him. That’d started a five-hour brainstorming and planning session. At the end of which Roberts had left to get the air raids rolling and Krantz had left to put the ground force piece of the puzzle into play.
All of which led to him sitting in a helicopter flying towards the South Carolina border staring down at a road overflowing with the infected. From above it looked like the road itself was undulating as the massed infected moved along it.
“How many infected do you think are in that group down there?” Krantz asked the chopper pilot over the secure comm link.
“Maybe fifty thousand?” The pilot answered. He’d answered almost immediately so he must’ve been trying to work it out for himself as well.
“Where do you think they’re headed?” Krantz asked.
“I’m guessing they’re sensing the booms from the rocket attacks the air cavalry is pulling off on the targets in South Carolina. Or, whoever is the leader of that herd down there may have just thought he heard something and started running and the rest of them started following him. Flying missions around here I’ve seen herds that make that one look tiny.” The pilot said.
Zombies! (Book 6): Hold The Line Page 2