Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 4): In Shadows

by DeGordick, Jeff

  The four of them sat down on the ground, drawing in deep breaths of the clear morning air and being eternally grateful that they were still alive.

  Sarah looked at the hole with a mix of relief and great pain. It symbolized so much failure and heartbreak to her, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel so alive in that moment. For someone who for a long time had flirted with the idea of how nice it would be to join the dead, she found it strange that there was a sense of utter invigoration coursing through her body now. She thought about this feeling and she came to the conclusion that it was telling her no matter what she had been through, it was always worth it to move on and go forward. Her resolve was so fresh and powerful to her now that it was like she'd just dunked herself in an ice bath and came out feeling like nothing could stop her.

  "Did you get those coordinates?" she asked Wayne.

  He looked over at her and smiled. He didn't know why he found the whole situation amusing after all they'd been through, but maybe it was just her undying determination that impressed him. "It's all up here," he said, tapping the side of his head.

  "Good," she replied. "Who's coming with me?"

  Wayne couldn't help his smile from getting even bigger. "I'm with you," he said.

  Ron nodded. "I want to see this."

  Sarah looked over at Carly, waiting for a third yes. If they all agreed, she was ready to go right now.

  "No," Carly said. "I can't do this anymore."

  "Don't worry about it," Sarah replied. "We're just going to check it out, that's all. If you want to wait back at the—"

  "No, you don't get it," Carly said. "I mean I'm done. Completely. I started hanging out with you in the first place because it seemed like you had your head on straight and you knew what to do to survive. But this is crazy. You're just looking for ways to get yourself killed now, and I don't want any part of it. If this is what you want to keep doing, then it's time I went my own way."

  She stood up. "Goodbye, Sarah." She walked down the road as the three of them watched her go, surprised. She paused and looked back. "I won't be there to get you out of a jam anymore." Then she turned and she was gone down the road.

  The three of them remaining looked at each other without a word, and they all got up and started moving in the opposite direction to try to find a map to see where the coordinates would lead them.

  Sarah was sad to see Carly go, but just like she had done with Amanda, she tried to push her emotional pain out of her mind and focus on what had to be done. Because the more things they discovered about what was going on, the more it started to become very clear to her that getting to the bottom of this whole thing was absolutely vital.

  19

  Reconnaissance

  They found a map of Raleigh and surrounding areas in an auto parts store and pinpointed the coordinates to a location to the east, not far from Eagle Rock. The terrain was difficult for them to navigate since they had chased after Sarah out of the church late the night before and hadn't had a moment to sleep. The journey was long too, but they stopped halfway to rest and eat, finding some old jars of preserves on a farm. They also patched up the bullet wound Sarah had given Wayne, and thankfully she didn't hit anything important. When they finished they continued on for the base. They didn't know what to expect to find, nor did they quite know what their intentions would be once they got there. But curiosity drove all of them and they all felt the inexorable pull leading them to the very heart of this mystery.

  They traveled along the road as Wayne periodically pulled out the map and made sure they were still going in the right direction. A random collection of thoughts passed through Sarah's mind as the three of them journeyed in relative silence. She thought a lot about Carly and what she had said. She thought about if she was right or not. There was no doubt that she was being drawn further and further from her original intentions, and if she had the ability to look at herself from an outside perspective she might even see the same troubling path that Carly did. But she didn't have the luxury of that view. All she could see and experience was on the inside where all of her other emotions and experiences were, and she found herself continually hardened to the reality around her. Thoughts of Amanda and Barry passed through her head... thoughts of Curt... and the unnecessary death that had come to all of them. But as she thought about it, she realized that she was reaching a point mentally and emotionally that she couldn't come back from; she found herself transforming, becoming someone that would have been completely alien to her a year ago. She wondered with an uneasy curiosity if David would even recognize her anymore.

  But now more than ever she knew where she was going and why she was doing it. The amount of courage she felt was scary to her, but she knew she was on the precipice of something and that for the first time in maybe ever she had the ability to affect the outcome of what was happening. If something was going on in this base, possibly even the very genesis of the zombie apocalypse, and she was the only one with the will or the power to do anything about it, she would do it. But she didn't know what she was up against, and as they came closer and closer to their destination, a great fear crept up inside of her, whispering terrible things in her ear. But still she marched on. Having Ron and especially Wayne with her were a great help with putting her mind at ease, but she knew even if she were alone, still her feet would march on.

  "We should be getting close," Wayne said, holding out the map in front of him. "This doesn't show any kind of base or facilities on it, but it is an eight-year-old map."

  "What's that?" Ron asked suddenly. Before either of them could ask what he meant, he pointed down the road.

  Very small in the distance was something green in the middle of the road. It grew larger the longer they watched until they all realized exactly what it was.

  "Get off the road!" Sarah said.

  The three of them ran across the left shoulder and down the small, weedy slope leading into the woods. They stopped behind the edge of the tree line and peered out as a green army truck sped by in front of them. The two soldiers sitting in the cab didn't notice them and continued on. Before the truck went out of their view they could see a big metal cage standing in the bed of the truck housing half a dozen scratchers inside that were being tripped and jostled by the ride. One of them spotted Sarah hiding behind a tree and growled and shot its arm out of the cage at her for the two seconds it took for the truck to disappear from view.

  When they were sure the truck was far enough away, they made their way back up to the road and looked in both directions to see that the coast was clear. They continued on, Wayne quickly checking the map again.

  "We must be going the right way," Ron mused.

  "What were they doing with those things in the back?" Sarah asked aloud.

  Wayne and Ron both shook their heads, having no idea.

  They traveled for another quarter of a mile when Wayne stopped and checked the map. "That's about all there is to this," he said, folding it up and stuffing it in his pocket. "It should be coming up at any time. Let's be on guard from now on."

  "Right," Sarah said. "Let's stay off the main road and travel down by the tree line from now on."

  The others agreed and they followed along the side of the road toward a bend up ahead. When they got around it, they saw a tiny outpost sitting on the shoulder of the road. It was a small box of a building, maybe five feet by five feet, concrete walls, with a little slanted aluminum roof on the top. There were windows in the sides and they could see someone's head poking up inside. Music played quietly in the building, some old Skynyrd.

  Sarah held up a hand to the others when she spotted the person and she directed them into the trees.

  "Who is that?" Ron whispered.

  "Just a guard," Wayne replied. "We must be right on the edge of the base."

  "Should we go around him?" Ron asked.

  "No," Wayne said, "why don't we ask him a few questions?"

  Sarah nodded and the three of them continued through t
he trees, coming up behind the outpost where there were no windows. Sarah and Ron silently made their way up to the road against the building and kept an eye out in either direction for anyone coming while Wayne crept down low underneath one of the windows and skirted around toward the door of the outpost on the road. He peeked in the window and saw a soldier sitting inside on a flimsy plastic chair, facing the other direction and drumming his fingers on a metal table as he listened to "Simple Man" coming out of an old iPhone. He was dressed in the same gear as the other soldiers, but his helmet was off and sitting on the table next to him, revealing his short blond hair and youthful face. It was hard to tell looking at the back of it, but he seemed real young.

  Wayne made his way onto the road and stopped just next to the door. The soldier's body was half-facing the entrance, and Wayne knew he would have to be fast. His Marine training kicked in and he sprung out and had his forearm squeezing the life out of the soldier's neck before he could even figure out what was going on. As Wayne dragged him out of the building he kicked the chair and knocked it into the table, creating a loud clatter. He dragged him around the corner past Sarah as she kept her eyes peeled on the road leading toward the base and he pulled him down the slope toward the woods. When Wayne was clear, the other two followed him until they were a good ways in.

  Wayne slammed him on the ground and Sarah drew her pistol on him. The soldier had a ratty little face with a narrow chin and sparse, wiry whiskers for a beard. His brow immediately furrowed as he looked at them, and despite his youth, there was a coldness to his gray eyes that Wayne knew matched every other bastard that guarded this place.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the soldier asked in a sniveling voice.

  "That's up to you," Sarah said.

  "What the hell are you talking about, lady?"

  Wayne knelt down next to him. "Where's the base?"

  "I ain't tellin' you shit!" the soldier cried.

  "Okay, then," Wayne said. He shifted his weight and slugged the soldier in the face, cutting a nice gash on his cheek.

  Ron recoiled from the blow, shocked and not used to the violence.

  "I didn't catch that," Wayne said. "Where did you say it was?"

  "I said I ain't tellin' you—"

  Wayne hit him again and he scrunched up his face in pain as the blood ran down to his mouth.

  "Okay! Okay! It's just up the road, about a quarter-mile, around a bend."

  "Good," Wayne said, "that wasn't so hard, was it? See, we're practically friends already."

  "I don't wanna be your friend, man," the soldier said as his eyes shifted between the three of them. "Maybe the blond, though. Hey, why don't you shake your ass for me baby?"

  Anger washed over Sarah and she wound up her leg and kicked him in the balls as hard as she could.

  The soldier writhed on the ground. "Oh! Uuugh... Fuck you lady! Fuck yooou."

  Wayne put his hand on the soldier's chest to steady him and make him focus. "And you thought I was going to be the mean one," he said. "That wasn't even the worst she's got."

  The soldier started to settle down, his body still working through the aftershocks of the terrible pain Sarah inflicted.

  "Say, I haven't heard any Skynyrd in a long time," Wayne continued. "Fact, I haven't heard any music at all in a long time. Where do you get a nifty little gizmo like that these days? What other kinds of toys do you have around here?"

  "I found it in your mom's pussy," the soldier said with a bloody scowl on his face.

  Wayne wound up and struck him again.

  The soldier's head rocked to the side and rebounded back like a tennis ball hitting a wall. "Aw man, shit! I think you broke my cheek!" He slowly worked his jaw around in a circle, wincing in pain and trying to see if he could feel anything out of place.

  "Hey, look at me," Wayne told him. "I wanted to help you out and do this the easy way, but now we've come to the final round. You see that gun?" he asked, pointing to Sarah.

  The soldier nodded, tears starting to come out of the corners of his eyes from the pain.

  "If you give me the wrong answer, she's going to shoot you, and then there's not going to be any more questions after that. You get me?"

  The soldier nodded like a beaten dog.

  "Tell me where the sentries are," Wayne said.

  Before the soldier could open his mouth, something squawked. They all looked around in confusion as a garbled voice appeared out of nowhere.

  "Echo-Seven, check in."

  "It's just my radio, man," the soldier said. "I have to check in or they're gonna come lookin' for me."

  Wayne reached down and pulled a walkie-talkie off his hip.

  "Echo-Seven, turn off that shitty music and check in!"

  Wayne held the walkie up to his mouth. "Don't blow it." When the soldier nodded, he held his thumb down on the call button.

  "Fuck you, man!" the soldier cried suddenly. "There's three of 'em! They got guns! They're comin' for the base!"

  Wayne tossed the walkie-talkie away as the garbled voice became agitated on the other end. "We've got to get out of here," he said.

  "Yeah, you better get out of here before my friends come and fuck you up," the soldier said defiantly, holding his thin chin up to them.

  "Can't we let him live?" Ron asked nervously. "Tie him up or something?"

  "No," Sarah said. "We have to go now."

  Ron and Wayne moved past Sarah into the woods and waited for her.

  "You ain't gonna shoot me!" the soldier said. "You ain't got the balls, la—"

  Sarah shot him in the head. His eyes crossed and his head slumped against the grass as a trail of blood poured out of the hole in his forehead. "Let's go!" she said.

  They saw that the next bend in the road up ahead that the soldier was talking about went to the left, so they knew they were on the correct side. They hurried over the bumpy terrain between the tall oak trees. Ron started to get winded quickly, being the only one of the three of them that somehow managed to get a few extra pounds around the midsection, even in this day and age when food was sparse. But Sarah kept him moving, urging him, physically pulling on him, or sometimes even worse to get him to keep up. The ground started to slope up gradually toward a ridge far in the distance, which made things even worse.

  As they got closer to the base, they started to hear things echoing from far away. They heard the far-off rumblings of engines as trucks were started and moved. There was some gunfire too, and at first they thought that they were under attack, but then realized that it must have been just training in the base. But they were paranoid now, knowing that someone would be searching the outpost where the soldier had been stationed, and once they found the body, all bets were off.

  They weaved through the trees, slowing down now. Even Sarah and Wayne were tired and had to pause to catch their breath. But they thought they were far enough away from the outpost that they wouldn't be found, at least not yet.

  "It can't be much further," Wayne said. "Those gunshots sound pretty close."

  "It looks like we're coming to a ridge up there," Sarah said, looking off in the distance. "Hopefully we'll get a good vantage point into the base. The trees should give us enough cover to not be seen, too."

  Wayne nodded, and when they were just about to start moving again, Ron cried out.

  "Look out!"

  Sarah spun around and saw the zombie approaching them just in time. It had been a female, maybe mid-fifties when it turned. It wore tattered civilian clothing and must have wandered over from somewhere nearby.

  "Shoot it!" Ron cried.

  "No!" Sarah shot back. "They'll hear us." She backed away from the zombie as it worked itself up and started to jog after her. She searched around on the ground and spotted a rock butted up against a tree. Sarah quickly dug in the dirt and plucked it out just as the zombie came up behind her. She turned around and used the centrifugal force of the rock's weight as she swung her arms out in an arc. The heavy rock clubbed the zombie in the side o
f the face and twisted its head violently to the other side. Its neck popped and cracked and the zombie wobbled until it fell to the ground. It wormed around on the ground, trying to get back to its feet, but its neck was clearly injured and it was having a hard time. Sarah stood over it and held the rock up. She paused and looked down at it, suddenly struck with the realization for the first time that this creature in front of her was more human than she had realized. In fact, it still was a human. One who was sickly and wasted away from the same terrible disease that had taken her aunt. This one had a disease far more advanced than her aunt had, one that damaged its brain into complete and irreversible retardation, cutting off every function except moving and eating to fulfill its endless hunger. But it was still a person. A woman. Sarah began to wonder if she still had a family somewhere; a sister, a father, a son... As she looked at her, holding the rock above her head, she imagined what it would be like to stand at her aunt's bedside as she lay in the hospital, ready to strike her with a rock.

  "Sarah! Do it!" Wayne said.

  Sarah looked over at him and came back to reality. The zombie started to push itself off the ground and it twisted its shoulders, looking up at her. Sarah threw the rock down and clobbered it, cracking its skull. It fell back down again, flat on its face, as Sarah continued to hit it in the back of the skull until it stopped moving. She let go of the rock and stood up, backing away from the zombie but never taking her eyes off of it.

  "Come on, we need to keep moving. We're not far," Wayne said.

  Wayne and Ron hurried on as Sarah was still stuck in her trance for another few seconds, then she finally turned and carried on after them.