by TW Brown
Aaheru had noticed a few of the undead, the young ones mostly, hanging back in the shadows. It struck him as peculiar that they did not stumble forward like the others of their brethren that littered the ground. Still, he would be thankful for the time being that they had a quiet place to rest one final time before going into the city and making a run for the ships.
“You are all going to be needed tomorrow, my brothers,” Aaheru announced. “Go now and rest. Let the last of the wine we consumed here this evening bring you a peaceful night of dreams. You are all welcome to invite one of the women from those who can bear children to spend the evening in your bed. If this is to be the last night for any of us, let us enjoy the feel of a woman and hope that she is fertile to carry on your name for all time.”
One by one the men clasped forearms with Aaheru and pledged that they would not fail him in the morning. Aaheru wished them peaceful slumber and safe passage come the dawn. As each one departed, Ahi made a note in his mind as to who would be best suited as that individual’s replacement should his passage not be safe.
The last to leave, besides Ahi, was Markata. He bowed to Aaheru and then kissed him on each cheek. “You must show the people that the pharaohs have returned to Egypt. They will draw strength from you, my glorious king.”
Ahi bristled at the normally simpering man’s attempt to appear humble. It would be a pleasure to select his replacement should he somehow fail to make the journey in safety.
“I understand that you have a place already chosen for me. I ask you this one favor so that I may prove my loyalty to my new pharaoh.” Markata spoke softly and Ahi almost believed him to be sincere.
“And what would this one favor be?” Aaheru folded his arms across his broad chest and stared down at the men. He wanted to look in this one’s eyes. There was something about him that made Ahi absolutely furious. He needed to see if he could discern what that might be.
“Let me drive the bus and transport the Mothers of New Egypt to the docks. Surely if I can accomplish that, I will have proved my value and worth to my new king.”
Aaheru glanced at Ahi who showed absolutely no emotion. There would be no help there. He looked back at Markata and stared deep into the man’s eyes with his hardest gaze, the one he wore when he was about to kill. Markata met that gaze and continued to stand and await the edict.
“Very well,” Aaheru agreed. “You will drive that vehicle. But know this, for every woman that you lose, I will extract a pound of your flesh.”
“I shall not fail in my mission,” Markata bowed once more and left the room.
Once he was gone, Ahi turned to Aaheru. “I do not mean to question—”
“Then do not, my brother.”
Aaheru smiled. There would be three of his soldiers on that bus. If Markata thought to try and turn away and take the women as Aaheru believed was his plan, then he would be gunned down in his seat.
“Now get some rest, my brother. We leave just before first light.”
There were only ten now. Juan looked at the men and women and tried to force himself to forget the faces of those who’d bought it back at the store. He had never been the leader of anything, and now people were expecting him to be a president and a soldier and everything in between.
“Next block up is the bridge,” Chad whispered. “We need to get across it. The hill leads down to the water, but if we don’t get across here, we have to try and make our way through that train yard.”
None of them wanted to see that train yard again. That is where they lost the first of the group of fifteen. Who would have thought that zombies would be so thick in the train yard?
“Okay,” Juan looked back at all the faces staring expectantly back at him, “I hate to do this, but we have to split up.”
There were some grumbles from a few, but most everybody was too disheartened to say anything. Troy’s death was still fresh in everybody’s mind. He had gone down fighting and probably saved the group in the process. Juan could only speak for himself, but he really didn’t know how he would ever be able to do that man proper justice.
“Thad, you take those four.” Juan pointed to the group clustered against the crumbling brick wall of the small service station. “I will take these four.” Of the group standing beside him, three had big splatters of fresh blood. Juan would never forget the feel or the smell of all that blood and who knows what else as it had sprayed in a geyser.
Shaking that image from his mind for the moment, he returned to the task at hand. “We will be going down the left side of the bridge, you will take the right. That big wreck in the middle is where we will lose sight of each other until we reach the other side. First one across just keeps running until you make it to the boats. Get them untied and ready because there is no doubt in my mind we will be bringing a whole bunch of deaders on our heels.”
“Good luck, buddy.” Thad patted the man on the shoulder and turned to face his group. “You heard the man, let’s move.”
He took off and headed up the on ramp of the bridge that spanned a deep ravine. At the bottom of that ravine were four sets of train tracks. The bridge was a little less than a quarter mile long, but it seemed to stretch for an eternity.
“Okay,” Juan faced the group he’d been charged with, “I know everybody is wasted. You feel like crap and there might be a voice in your head telling you to give up. We can’t. You all saw what happened to Troy, but he did what he did to ensure that we got away.”
“There were so many,” the one woman in his group sniffed. “How could he do that?”
“I only knew him for a few days,” Juan said. “But he was just one of those people who really believed in helping. He knew there was no way we would have gotten past that bunch. I think, in his mind, it was the only choice.”
“You think he felt that way when he started screaming?” one of the guys asked.
“Let’s debate this later,” Juan said.
He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to close his eyes again and not see Troy give him that little salute just before he turned and ran full speed off the edge of that loading platform. It was like watching somebody jump off a dock and into a lake. He disappeared for a second under the bodies. When he came up, his eyes locked with Juan’s for just a moment. Then that deader sunk its teeth into the side of his neck. That first scream had been more of a roar as the man began thrashing and driving his blade into the face of the nearest eye or temple he could. Then, they had his arm. When it tore free, that roar had definitely become a scream. That was enough to get all the other deaders nearby to turn and move towards that sound. That was also when those closest were sprayed with the hot liquid that pumped from the stump of his shoulder
“So we going or what?” somebody asked.
Juan shook his head to try and knock that memory loose. “Yeah, let’s go.”
They started down their side of the bridge. About nine or ten deaders were already moving their way. Without being told, everybody spread out and drew whatever weapon they felt most comfortable with. For Juan, it was a Cold Steel heavy machete. It had enough weight behind it to practically obliterate a skull if he swung hard.
The first to cross his path had been a policeman. Juan automatically scanned him for anything useful. There was a pouch still on the belt and he was pleased to discover a pair of magazines fully loaded and only in moderate need of cleaning. He had no idea what type of handgun they might belong to, but somebody would be able to figure it out.
He heard somebody scream behind him and looked just in time to see the person who’d hollered on his back kicking at something that had reached out from under a small truck and most likely caught his leg and tripped him while he had put down the two sprawled on the ground nearby. Juan hoped the guy made it. He kept running.
At last he reached the other side of the bridge. He looked to see the girl and one guy both skirting the last set of vehicles. Behind them came the reason they’d had to hurry.
The leading edge of the herd was just reaching the apex of the bridge. You could hear the rumble and screech of the cars on the bridge being forced aside by the wall of undead flesh.
That mob had been loud enough that Juan and the group had heard them from inside the store they’d been raiding. At first, they thought a group of the things had gotten in the store because it had been so loud. Juan and Troy had gone to the front of the store to look and been overwhelmed; first by the stench, and then by the sight. The mob was about six bocks away! The folks supposedly out to create the distraction were no place to be seen.
They’d run back to the group to relay what they’d witnessed. The best choice was to head out the back and escape via the loading docks. Apparently the leading edge had already filtered through because over a hundred had been milling about out there.
The run back to where they’d beached the boats had been nothing like the mostly uneventful trip inland to where they’d hoped to empty the big Fred Meyer’s of anything useful. It seemed that the herd was on their trail and wouldn’t be evaded. Every time they’d looked over their shoulders, the mob would be there.
“Everybody through that park and down the hill,” Juan called. He looked over to see if there might be any signs of Thad and his group. He didn’t see any. That would mean that either he had beaten them across or they were already headed down the hill.
Juan waited for the woman to pass and took a position in the rear. There would be no hope for the two members of his group that he’d lost sight of. That moaning sea of zombies would leave nothing standing in its wake. Even the possibility of getting under a car was pointless as he watched a fairly large truck skidding sideways until it eventually lodged up against the steel barrier that, for now, prevented it from being forced over the edge and into the ravine below.
They made their way down the steep incline, using trees and bushes to slow themselves and keep from falling. Finally, they reached bottom and cut across a mostly empty parking lot. Behind them, they could hear those same trees they’d used as emergency brakes snapping like twigs as the enormous herd continued its slow but dogged pursuit.
They only had one last little ridge to climb and they would be at the beach. Juan strained his ears to hear any sounds of a motor. Nothing. If he and the others were first to arrive, that meant Thad and his group were still behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a tall, slender pine tree lean and then vanish. That hill was being mowed of all vegetation. If Thad was there…
Juan didn’t want to think about it, he just kept running. They reached the top and all three skidded to a halt.
“Are we in the wrong spot?” the woman asked.
Juan turned in a circle. He recognized all the landmarks. This was the place. The only problem: the boats were gone.
“Since when is it okay for somebody to start killing people just because they suspect there may be something bad happening?” the man yelled from the crowd gathered in the lobby of the largest hotel in Yosemite Village.
Chad had been led into the lobby and was more than a little surprised when he saw so many people. For one, he wasn’t aware that the population had risen to such numbers. There had to be at least two hundred people packed into the space.
Somebody had taken the time to open up the area by removing a false wall that revealed a banquet room. All the tables had been shoved aside to allow everybody who wanted to attend to do so.
“Nobody is saying it is okay to just go around killing each other,” Scott yelled over the noise of the crowd.
Chad glanced to the left and could barely see Mitch Rose. The man was slouched down in his chair and the person tasked to defending him was in the way. Still, the few times he had been able to see the man, he hadn’t looked the least bit nervous, despite the black eye and busted nose he was sporting. From all the noise right now as the debate was going on as to whether to charge Chad with murder, it was hard to tell which way the audience was leaning.
“Well then I say we set an example right here with that one.” An older lady in the front of the crowd pointed at Chad.
“He actually caught the man attempting to rape his daughter,” Scott reminded.
“So then we just call it good?” another voice shouted to be heard over the racket.
“Nobody is just calling it good,” Scott insisted. “But we certainly can’t be okay with the fact that these men were assaulting a young girl.”
“One of them,” the man standing by Mitch finally spoke up. “Mr. Rose was not involved in that assault.”
“Not involved?” Chad snapped; he’d heard enough. “That guy was basically keeping watch and waiting his turn.”
“And you can prove this how?” The supposed defender turned to face Chad who now had an unobstructed view of Mitch Rose. “Are you able to read his mind? He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time…as were apparently Jonas Lynch and Frank Olson.”
Chad shook his head and glared. Scott had come to stand beside him and placed his hand on Chad’s shoulder. He couldn’t figure out how this had become about him; he was simply defending his daughter.
“If we are going to be allowed to murder people who may have done something—” the defender resumed his speech, but Scott cut him off.
“This is a joke. You know it and he,” Scott pointed to Mitch, “knows it. They were raping that little girl. The old ways are as dead as those pieces of meat that keep showing up and trying to eat us. Chad did what many of us with children would have done…or if we lost them in all this madness, what we would have wanted to do had it been done to one of ours.
“How many of us were sick of turning on the television and seeing some sick bastard being treated with kid gloves because of his so-called rights? When did the system start caring more about the victimizer and to Hell with the victim?”
A few heads began to nod. For the first time, Chad began to notice an expression on Mitch’s face. Up to this point, he’d sat back like he was simply an onlooker. Now, as it looked like the tide was indeed beginning to turn, he was starting to squirm.
Scott must have sensed it as well and moved in for the kill. “Can we just excuse murder? No. But can we allow a man to defend his own from the monsters? Of course. Well anybody who preys on a defenseless child is just exactly that…a monster.”
The crowd began to get louder now. In the midst, a few pushing and shoving skirmishes began. Somebody started a chant of “Justice! Justice!” Chad really didn’t know if it was for him or against him, but he was starting to see more glares cast at the man, Mitch Rose, than in his direction.
“I call for a vote.” Scott had to cup his hands around his mouth and yell to be heard, but slowly the crowd returned its attention to him. “I will call for a show of hands. If it seems too close to call, we will take an actual count. Who finds the accused, Mitch Rose, guilty?”
“Wait just a minute,” the defender protested, but he was quickly shouted down by the owners of an overwhelming majority of the population who now had their hands in the air.
“And who feels that Chad Meyers was acting in defense of his daughter?”
Not as many hands remained, but the vote was obviously in his favor. Scott motioned for one of the men who had been standing in front of the check-in counter that had been serving as a stage.
“So he just gets away with murder?” For the first time, as the security team was hoisting his chair off the stage, but leaving him tied to it, Mitch Rose spoke out.
Something large hurtled through the air and caught the man in the face, causing him to cry out in pain. That was like the ringing of the bell in a boxing match. There was an eruption of shouts as fights broke out everywhere at once.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Scott had to put his mouth almost against Chad’s ear to be heard.
“Where is Ronni?”
“Brett and a couple of the others are getting her to your room.” Scott snatched the keys to the cuffs from one of the now-useless securi
ty guards.
Moments later they were hurrying through the deep, untouched snow behind the hotel. By the time they reached Chad’s room, a group was already gathered at the door awaiting their arrival.
“There he is!” somebody shouted.
Chad froze, certain that he was going to have to fight his way past all of them to reach his daughter, and he was prepared to do just exactly that until another person yelled, “Make a hole so he can get in and see his little girl.”
Scott ushered him through the crowd and then acted as a barrier for anybody who thought to try and follow him into his room. Chad closed the door after mouthing his thanks to the man as he took up a position outside.
Ronni rushed into his arms and they just stood hugging each other. Chad thought that this might very well be the single best moment in his life.
“Everybody needs to just settle down!” Samantha said. It was hard to hear because she was talking so quietly to keep from aggravating her throbbing headache.
“Agreed.” Darlene spat out a mouthful of red saliva and then tilted her head back and pinched her nostrils to try and stop the blood flow.
“You,” Lena spun on Samantha, “performed a test on yourself that could have cost you your life. And you,” she turned back to Darlene, “were going to treat her like one of the test subjects before she even died.”
“Going to?” Samantha quipped. “I have a notch in my skull that says it went past the ‘going to’ stage.”
“We were under the assumption that you were about to die,” Darlene rebutted with a nasal twang. “You have no idea how awful you looked. I had you pegged at dying within the hour, so I took drastic measures.”
“You activated the Containment Breach alarm!” Lena was shouting. She could care less if it hurt Samantha’s head.