Dead Man's Party

by Nathan Robert Brown

  None of the guards on the wall noticed anything until the body detail sprinted toward the main gate.

  “Gate team! Get the driver on the bus!” Staff Sergeant Walter Kenmyre, Erik's platoon sergeant, yelled. One of the two men on the ground in front of the wall ran to the bus; the other man backed inside of the perimeter, yelling and waving for the others to move faster. Buddy pairs started reaching the safety of the gate. They immediately unslung their weapons.

  Eric and the others on the wall at seven meter intervals dropped to a knee and scanned for targets. The burn pile lay directly in Eric's line of sight; the thick black smoke blocked much of his view.

  “Vehicle front!” the Marine three positions to his left sounded off. Marines echoed the call down both sides of the wall. Before the call made it to the gate, the reporting Marine sounded off again, “Convoy front!”

  “Runner!” SSG Kenmyre, yelled. Erik saw one of the handful of young adolescents jump and move to the squad leader. A second later the youth was sprinting to the command post.

  The first car finally cleared the greasy smoke and entered Erik's line of sight. Drying blood smeared the hood and front bumper of the white sedan. The spider-webbed windshield obscured the driver. Steadily, deliberately even, the white car and those behind it, gained on the crew running for the safety of the wall.

  SSG Kenmyre ordered the gate closed with two buddy-teams still beyond it's safety. The guards on the wall shouted for the remaining men to take cover near the bus's cab and be ready. Winded and scared, the four men dropped to a knee and shouldered their weapons. The others on the ground piled aboard the bus and took up positions in the windows.

  Six vehicles idled in the field when Gunny Thorn mounted the wall near the gate. The lead vehicle rolled closer to the wall. Up and down the wall, Marines called targets. If anything went down, it would be short, violent—and ultimately one-sided. A short, thickly built man stepped out of the passenger-side. He was older, wearing faded, blood-splattered BDU bottoms, a brown T-shirt that showed he was still in reasonable shape, combat boots and a long-barreled revolver strapped to his chest. The man scanned the Marines on the wall with a practiced look. It was clear that he wouldn't win if it came to shooting. Still there was something about the way the man paused that made several of the Marines uneasy.

  “We aren't looking for trouble,” the man said, keeping his hand away from his pistol. “We saw the smoke.”

  “Are you looking for protection? How many are with you?” Gunny Thorn asked.

  “They'll surround you soon.” the man said, looking over his shoulder.

  “We're Marines with a plan. How many were following you?”

  “Enough. What's on the other side of your little wall?

  “Housing. If you want in, all you have to do is ask and pull your own weight,” Gunny Thorn said.

  None of the Marines relaxed during the exchange, but the ones with a view beyond the burn pile shifted their aim to look for the group of zombies that would inevitably trail the small convoy, like a hungry fox after a rabbit. Erik kept his sights on the man talking to Gunny Thorn. He didn't like the way the man paused, as if he was at a poker table and considering the odds of his hand winning.

  “There's about two dozen of us, including some kids,” the man said after a moment's contemplation. “We'd like to come in, at least for a little while.”

  “You will be searched by my security team before you will be allowed to go in. Any one who is bitten will be quarantined. Failure to accept the search or quarantine or attempting to get through without being searched will be answered with deadly force.”

  The man nodded. “I'd do the same thing.”

  Gunny Thorn studied the man for a moment. Perhaps sharing the feeling that the man was planning a move. The pause was equal to the man's pause before asking to come in. In the field, the man looked over his shoulder then returned Gunny Thorn's gaze.

  Maybe they are playing a kind of poker.

  “Staff Sergeant Kenmyre, open the gate and search these people. Once they're clear, bring them to HQ for initial brief and assignment.” Gunny Thorn took one last look at the man leading the convoy before climbing down and headed back.

  “Body detail, form a search pit sixty meters inside the wall. Even numbers on the wall face in.” Along the wall, Marines counted off and turned to face the search area, Erik among them.

  Several people refused to move away from their vehicles until the search party brought their weapons up. Tempers flared when the Marines ordered the men and women to separate and strip. Erik didn't think the request was unreasonable: you couldn't take a person's word for not being bitten; the only sure way was to see for yourself. Captain Shea ordered and Gunny Thorn agreed with a strip search as standard post-operation protocol. More than a few girls cried, thinking the male soldiers were just looking for a free show; most of the men yelled and cursed for the same reason. Erik slipped his finger into the trigger guard and braced himself for what he feared was coming.

  One of the louder men tried to push one of the Marines and received a rifle butt to the face for it. Erik didn't have to be there to know the man's nose was broken. Two more of the men looked like they wanted to throw down with the Marines like Grecian wrestlers. Finally, as the Marines were about to gun them down, the older man in the lead vehicle brought his people under control.

  The twenty-two survivors grumbled and fumed as they removed their clothes and presented themselves for inspection. Bite searches were quick and painless: feet shoulder-width apart, arms out to your sides, turn around when the searcher tells you to, put your clothes back on and go about your day. What Erik and the Marines couldn't understand is why this group of people was vehement about privacy violations.

  Unless some of them were bitten. In which case—

  One of the search team ordered a young man out of line and onto his knees. The Marines on the wall picked targets that might threaten their brethren. One of the women jumped out of line, clawing at the nearest Marine. He slammed his knee in her belly and smashed his rifle into the back of her head. She dropped to a heap at his feet as he back peddled. The teen that was flagged as bitten lunged for another Marine; two others shot him before he took his third step.

  Discipline kept the Marines from shooting the entire group. It was bad enough that one was dead and two were injured with concussions. The shots shocked the group into a momentary silence. Erik and the rest of the Marines knew the young man was doomed to die any way. It should have been obvious to everyone. Yet, here they were weapons up, about to have to defend themselves from retaliation.

  For a moment no one moved. With slow, measured motion, the leader stepped to the young man's body and knelt down. He said a silent prayer and closed the boy's eyes.

  Toward the rear of the line, a woman clutched her chest and dropped face first to the ground. Another woman yelled at the same time as several of the Marines. Two men closest to the woman ran to her side and immediately started CPR.

  Erik's stomach dropped.

  The Marines closest to the the men tried to pull the rescuers off the woman. It took three Marines to drag one of the men away. “What're you doing?” the other man raged without stopping his compressions. Fists and elbows flew as the Marines dragged the first man away. He yelled to be let go as he struggled. Somehow the man caught one of the Marines across the jaw with his elbow. Quickly a second man jumped on the back of the struck Marine, dragging two more Marines into the brawl.

  Schoolyard mentality took over as the group circled around the fighters. Marines and naked civilians traded blows; neither showed restraint in their punches or kicks. From Erik's vantage point, he was pretty sure everyone in the fight was going to nurse some deep bruises and possibly cracked ribs.

  No one noticed the collapsed woman's legs twitching, not even the man still working CPR.

  It was impossible not to hear the man scream as the woman sat up and bit a chunk from the his face. The fight didn't stop immediately a
s now the Marines planned to subdue their attackers. The schoolyard circle broke and a second circle formed around the man being bitten. Several people grabbed the bitten man, causing him to panic. He flailed and struggled to shake off everyone, zombie and human alike. The circle of people kept the Marines from being able to take a clear shot at the zombie and gave the zombie plenty of hands and legs to bite at.

  “Take the shot if you have it!” SSG Kenmyre yelled.

  As the crowd pulled the bitten man away from their former friend, the zombie stood up. It wasn't the cleanest shot, but Erik fired anyway. Possibly wounding a survivor was better than letting more people get bitten. His rifle barked once. A teenage girl grabbed her side and fell within arm's reach of the zombie. Erik shot again, catching the zombie in the shoulder as it reached for the wounded teen. He corrected and fired a third time; this time hitting the thing at the base of the skull. Gore sprayed the injured girl in the face as she screamed. The body landed in the dirt, twitched once and was still.

  The bark of rifle fire and the instinctive need to know where the round went gave the Marines enough time to subdue the two fighters and get some distance from the crowd. Something told Erik if the situation wasn't de-escalated quickly, it would become a massacre as the Marines gunned down the remainder of the group. Not something any of them wanted to have to do, but their safety and that of their charges came first.

  One of the Marines with Combat Life Saver training took several uneasy steps toward the wounded teen while a second Marine covered him. Four of the survivors stood with balled fists to block his approach.

  “I just want to stop the bleeding,” he said.

  The four stood their ground as the Marine took another baby step toward the hysterical and bleeding teen. His buddy grabbed the back of his gear and pulled him away from the survivors.

  Gunny Thorn, Captains Shea and Tobias and their four-man security detail ran up led by three of the young runners. As they ran, Gunny Thorn yelled for the Marines to stand down and tell him what was going on. What he and the commanders really wanted to know is why five shots were fired during a peaceful bite search.

  The crowd roared answers and accusations, drowning each other out. SSG Kenmyre jumped off the wall and ran to meet the leadership along with the sergeant in charge of the search detail, all the while Gunny Thorn tried to quiet the crowd down.

  Disastrous was the only word Erik could use to define the search of the survivors. He had no doubt that Gunny Thorn would have words for him for shooting the girl while trying to kill a zombie and more words for everyone on the detail for how badly it had deteriorated. Lumps he felt they'd earned.

  Chapter 14

  Highway to Hell

  Forty miles and an hour ago, the cadet convoy had headed East toward Carlsbad Caverns and away from Mike and Joseph and their merry crew who kicked West along 380. It came as no real surprise that their bus was the only vehicle traveling on the road. Nor was it news they frequently passed abandoned vehicles, not all of them clean. For the entire forty miles, nothing alive nor undead moved anywhere close to the road. It should have been a relaxing, sigh of relief moment with newly acquired music playing.

  It wasn't.

  Short of having something trying to eat him, it might have been one of the more tense hours Joseph experienced. Mike, having been shot at for six years of his life, found the situation intolerably familiar. The two of them and Walter had grown fairly close in the last three days; constantly risking your lives together and depending on each other for survival tends to have that affect on people. But the three men they picked up on their way out of Roswell they didn't trust. The feeling was mutual. Weapons weren't aimed, but they were ready.

  One of these days, we—I'll learn and quit picking people up.

  During the brief conversation after the bus was no longer in immediate danger of being rolled by a horde of hungry rotters, Sergeant Boyd introduced himself. The sergeant and his soldiers found themselves running and gunning through the streets after the undead overran the rescue station at Roswell High School. A citizen hid a bite and got through the screening; of course he turned inside the fence. He bit six people, two fatally. Panic and chaos ensued, even after soldiers shot the zombie. With a panicking crowd and several infected inside and a good chunk of the city's infected population outside, it didn't take much for the station to fall, just a few more hours. Boyd started his escape with a squad of fifteen. They dropped gear to cut weight and several soldiers still fell out. By the time they'd run into the huge horde on the south side of town, they didn't have the ammo to shoot their way through. Of the ten who made it that far, only five survived long enough to see the cadets' convoy. And only the three of them: Boyd, Templeton and Hammersmith made it aboard the bus.

  Mike didn't and wouldn't trust Templeton. He struck Mike as the kind of guy that was like a half wolf—keep a tight leash on him and he might never turn on you, relax just a fraction, get comfortable, make one misstep and the wolf would go for blood. Hammersmith seemed shocked and timid for the moment. Boyd had a head on his shoulders. He called Templeton to heel and kept his men alive on a nearly suicidal trek through a city out to eat them.

  “Damn. Mike, you'll want to see this,” Joseph said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  A mile up the road, he could just make out a rest area, packed with vehicles. People moved around several of the vehicles nearest to the entry ramp. Someone had erected a large “NEED INFO” banner a few hundred yards from the exit ramp. As they approached the rest stop, they could clearly see brightly colored tents set up near the picnic pavilions. A line of RV's extended their canopies over tables. From the number of people gathered around each, Mike suspected the owners of the table ran some sort of bartering market or information service.

  Four armed guards materialized on each side of the road, signaling Joseph to stop.

  “Won't hurt to stop for a moment, Joe, but be ready to punch it if we don't like how things are going,” Mike said, shifting his hold on the shotgun.

  A man carrying an AR-15 knocked on the bus door. Joseph calmly opened it.

  “Trade or passing through?”

  “What is this?”

  “This?” the guard said, pointing at the rest stop, “This is a small piece of safety on this nasty bit of road. We have some things for trade if you got anything worth having.”

  “Anyone willing to take on passengers?” Mike asked.

  The guard looked back toward the market.

  “Maybe. Depends.”

  “Sergeant Boyd, you want out here or on the side of the road somewhere?” Mike said looking at the weary sergeant.

  “Hammersmith, Templeton, off the bus. Go find a ride.” Hammersmith stepped down with both hands firmly on his rifle so he could bring it into play immediately. Templeton started to argue. “I said off the bus, Templeton. NOW.”

  Templeton made a show of snatching his weapon from the seat and into the low ready. He growled at Joseph, clearly not forgiving him for leaving behind the other two men in Roswell. Joseph shook his head as the man descended the stairs and past the guard.

  Boyd turned to Mike as he picked up his rifle and checked the magazine. “Thank you for saving us. I wish you'd reconsider taking us with you; all our chances would be better that way.”

  Mike thought for a moment. “You I could take, not those other two. I hate to say it that way, but it's the truth. I have to look out for my crew and the guys we're on our way to meet. Those other two, especially Templeton, will get someone killed.”

  Boyd look out the door after his two troops. “I brought them this far. I don't know that I can just cut them off and leave them to their own devices.”

  Mike nodded. He'd have said something similar if someone had asked him to abandon Joseph or Hansel Hanse. It just wasn't something he would or even could do at this point. He wasn't sure he was fully ready to admit it, but Joseph was all he had until he reached Hanse's place. Two people were all he had left in the world.
<
br />   Amazing. Only known the kid two weeks, and I can't even consider leaving Joe.

  “Tell you what. We're gonna drive down the road a couple miles. We'll wait there for two hours. If you get your boys taken care of and can't find anything for yourself, look for us there.” Mike said. He didn't honestly think the sergeant would try to meet them at the rally point.

  Boyd held out his hand. “If nothing else, maybe we'll run into each other on the road somewhere.”

  ***

  Landing on the roof of the train hurt. A lot.

  “Damnit. Isaac, if we live through the day, I'm going to beat you to death with a cheap, plastic curtain rod.” Her tone told Isaac she wasn't quite serious, but if he had any more truly Isaac ideas, she might. Isaac wasn't sure he wouldn't stab his brain with a Q-tip if he had anymore of his ideas.

  “It worked didn't it,” Isaac groaned. He stood up slowly, regretting it. By tomorrow morning, he'd be lucky if he could move. No, he was lucky if no one broke or sprained anything. A two-story drop is more than enough to break bones. Limited mobility translated to a death sentence in this nightmare world. “Anyone hurt?”

  “Yeah. All over.” Sam said. Eddy emphatically agreed.

  “I meant seriously. Injured. Not able to walk kinda thing.”

  Eddy slowly moved each limb, wincing from minor aches and gritting his teeth against the possibility of major pain. Gently he pushed himself to his feet. His legs took his weight without too much protest. “One of these days, I'm going to learn not to follow your lead.”

  With help from her boys, Sam got to her feet. “Thanks. Nothing feels broke.” She punched Isaac in the arm. “What the hell is wrong with you? We could have died, or broken a lot of bones and died slowly. We should have made a rope or something.” Tears flowed unbidden from her eyes. It shocked Isaac into forgetting his pithy comeback. He'd never, in nearly six years, seen her cry.