She yelled “follow me, I know how to get past the hordes” and kept going past them. Despite the fear, Chad appreciated the view. No question that she was the best-looking woman he'd ever seen.
The girl led them between buildings, down alleyways, through parking lots, until finally, they found themselves at an old school. She led them inside “We should be alright in here until the horde passes.”
“Holy fuck, you’re Vivian!”
“No, Tamra. I just play Vivian. I’m way, way cooler than she is.”
Chad thought she might be telling the truth. Johnny motioned for silence, they all shut up.
One thing about hordes, you needed to stay out of sight until the horde passed. You also needed a good, strong building, just in case they noticed you anyway. This place was solid, a fortress. They were in the swimming pool building, an empty pool, dark and musty, occupied the center of the building. There was a set of fire doors, still mostly intact, too rusted to open ever again. The building was almost windowless, just a small set of windows around the top of the high walls.
They waited several hours. The sounds of the rain on the roof were so loud they couldn’t have heard a horde if it was right outside. After a while, Chad offered to see if he could spot anything outside.
He headed into the main school building and headed for the upper floor. The stairs were in pretty bad shape, but he stayed next to the wall and headed up. The top floor was a ruin, holes in the concrete, showing right through to the floor below. The roof let in water in hundreds of places. Chad got to a street side window and looked out. The horde was nowhere to be seen, but he spotted a human shape, moving furtively from doorway to doorway. The shape was clearly alive, but not one of theirs. It looked like a large man, but the silhouette wasn’t smooth, like the man was dressed in rags.
Chad headed back to the group to give them the all clear. Finally, they were in a position to question Tamra.
“What the fuck? How did you end up here?”
“Decided you folks might need a hand. Wasn’t doing anything more interesting.”
Chad didn’t question her any further, there didn’t seem to be any point. They left the school, walking in silence. Chad quietly told Johnny about the figure he’d seen, and the direction he had been moving in. They headed that way, looking for signs of other people. They found tracks fairly quickly, large boot prints in the snow. Whoever it was they were making no attempt to conceal their presence.
Production Problems
"Where the fuck is Tamra Duchene?"
Everyone could hear Naomi. People in the next building could hear Naomi. She wasn't angry, she was furious. She had taken on the production of Settlers as a personal project, and it was working. People loved it, people were desperate for drama, for escapism, and Settlers provided it. The men were stronger, braver, better than real men. The women were more beautiful, more patient, sexier. It was everything that they wanted the world to be. The moral decisions were simple, t complex enough that people thought they somehow were important. The whole thing was a propaganda piece, that was obvious to anyone who was paying the least bit of attention - not that anyone was, but it was a well written, well-acted propaganda piece. Even Barbara Miller was on board, and she hated spending resources on anything. Now the female lead was missing. What the hell was the woman thinking?
Maybe it was time for an off-camera collapse, maybe a hospital stay. Vivian was too important a character to just write out, at least until they had confirmation that Tamra was dead. Of course, even if she was alive, Naomi was going to kill her.
Teddy was sitting there, all ready to shoot, makeup on. This was supposed to be a major tear jerker homecoming, with Vivian throwing herself all over Johnathan, who had been presumed dead. Instead they had to deal with shooting without Vivian, and with Teddy the half-wit trying to roll with the punches, something he was chronically bad at doing.
The worst part was now she had to deal with Barbara complaining about the budget. The old battle ax might be on board with the project, but she could find a reason to complain about everything. This meant major script changes, major changes to the shooting schedule. Thank god there were no other shows to compete with Settlers.
Rude Awakening
Tyson was moving again. The small house had been a godsend, a place to get his wits together, a place to figure out a plan, and most importantly, a place with water. The well had been hard, extremely hard, but at least it had turned out the water level was high enough for him to get water without needing a vacuum pump. Now he needed food. He hit the road, making sure he was still alone. He started early in the day, as per training. They used to think traveling by night was the best option, but the zombies didn't necessarily move by sight, sometimes they didn't even have eyes. They shuffled along guided by some combination of smell, hearing, sight, touch, and who knew what else. Humans on the other hand would sometimes walk directly into a zombie if it was dark enough. Better to move when your dominant sense was still in play.
The road was overgrown, to the point where it was barely a suggestion of a road, but it was still less dense than the growth around it. Tyson walked along occasionally stumbling on a bit of asphalt that was still intact. The sun was low in the sky, finally clear and blue after days of rain. It already felt hot, the kind of summer day that make you want to just laze by a river. Tyson was listening intently at first, but as the sun started to get warmer his attention started to wander. He started to think about home, to wonder if he would ever make it back. He saw movement, a sudden blur, that snapped him back into reality. A deer, if it had been a zombie he could have been screwed. He started trying to pay more attention. The land here was beautiful. Heavy forest on either side of the road, places that nature had reclaimed from humanity years ago. The road, once a testament to our power over the world, now reduced to patches of rubble and a narrow path of shorter undergrowth.
The zombies had done a number on the road itself, trampling down the brush - on the one hand it made walking much easier, but on the other hand it made things nerve racking. It also made him miss the human foot prints in the trail, at least until he found their source. Jack was standing there, right in the middle of the path. Emaciated, beat to hell, but alive. As soon as Tyson saw him he started running. They gave each other a big hug, uncharacteristic for their normal gruff manner with each other. "Holy shit, you are still alive. How are you still alive?"
"I ditched the horde, hid in an abandoned house for the rain. Just you left?"
"Yeah, I got to watch the rest of the crew get torn to pieces, barely managed to escape. Believe it or not, I climbed a tree once I got out of sight. Took the horde hours to pass. Though I was going to fall near the end, even though I was wedged decently. I figure another half hour and I would have gone down. Haven't eaten much since... well, you know?"
"Yeah, same here. Did manage to get a well, the drinking water helped a lot - and I know for sure it was clean. We are going to need to get someplace tonight, water and food too. Soon as possible."
The pair kept going, eyes out for anyplace they could use for shelter. It wasn't until late afternoon they spotted a place. A mostly fallen down farm house, but it had an apple orchard in the back. In the decades the orchard had been untended it had overgrown, but there were still apple trees. Most of the apples were too green to be eaten, however a handful of early ripening apples were there, gleaming red and green on their branches. Tyson and Jack set to work, harvesting as many as they could.
The house had a fireplace, still mostly intact - the chimney looked like it was in desperate need of a mason, and the room it was in only had three quarters of a roof, but it was better than anything else they could find. They built a fire and roasted any apples that were close, eating all the truly ripe ones - but slowly. It was hard, almost impossible once the first crisp, juicy, tart yet sweet mouthful hit, but they both knew the consequence of eating fast while this hungry and dehydrated. It had been grilled into them for years in school.
They made sure the firelight couldn't be seen from outside the walls, and then set up a small sleeping area in the limited shelter afforded by the ruined structure. Both of them knew they should set watches, but neither one of them had the energy to do so. Exhaustion overcame them, and they fell asleep.
Tyson woke up to find a man crouching next to him, leaned over him, and poking him in the shoulder. "What? Who the fuck?"
"Wake up shithead. It's morning."
"Sorry - what? Who are you?"
The man was big, broad shouldered and tall. He was dressed in layers of rags, and the smell coming off of him was almost on a level with the zombies. Tyson could barely breathe when confronted with the horrid stench. There was something wrong with this man. He had close cropped blonde hair and angular cheekbones that suggested starvation, despite his overall size. His teeth were rotted nubs, black or grey and foul. He had a large smattering of freckles across wind burned skin. In the end though the smell was the one feature that stood out most about him. From his face he was young, probably late teens or early twenties, despite the horror of his mouth.
"Junie." the man said, with a snarl. There were a dozen other men with him, all dressed similarly. One of them had Jack pushed up against the wall, a blade to his throat.
Mapping
It was a clusterfuck. They had sent out a dozen teams, and only five had made it back by nightfall. Yes, the teams were supposed to be autonomous, yes, they were able to operate on their own for extended periods - hell, they had assumed that at least two or three wouldn't make it back by that night. This though, where were they? The teams that did make it back reported no major zombie sightings. The odd one here or there, but nothing else. Bennett was worried, far more worried than he was letting on. He kept his demeanor cool, business like, relaxed even but inside he was a mess. These people had come here on his orders, and if something catastrophic had happened it was on his head. He had decided that this was worth the risk, partially for the sake of the missing, but mostly because he believed in the reclamation project, that humanity needed to take back as much of the world as they could, and soon.
There had also been no sign of the salvage crew. Nothing at all, which was bizarre. There would normally have been bones, scraps of clothing, something to indicate the dead. The blood made sense, with the heavy rain. Maybe some of the other teams had discovered something, but one of the teams that made it back was the team that had been surveying the location where the salvage team were working when the zombies attacked. None of their gear was there either. The only sign of them was the broken fence.
Bennett updated his map. There was still a lot more city that hadn't been ruled out than that had. The only groups that had made it back had all been north of the camp or straight east, any movement south at all and the group were gone. That was a problem, a major problem in fact. Bennett decided that in the morning he was going to send the remaining groups to the south. Nobody was answering comms either, which was even more concerning. They all had long range radio, and they were all trained to use it even if the official comms officer was disabled. There should be no situation in what the comms people didn't answer at all.
Fun and Games with Clyde
Clyde was proud of Junie. The boy had done well. Two of the outsiders captured, a useful source of information and extra food stores for the winter, if neither of them could be convinced to join the family - truly join the family in their heart and soul. Some folks were just so blinded to the truth that they just couldn't see at all. The darker skinned one was fighting something hard, two of Clyde 's boys had black eyes from keeping him restrained. The other guy though, he was docile as a lamb. Clyde didn't trust that one at all. When the darkie broke he would be broke for good, the ones that fought always were. The red fellow seemed like maybe he was playing a game, pretending to give up but just waiting for a chance. Clyde was going to give him a chance, let him think the opportunity came, then slam it shut in his face. It was his favorite game.
"Alright boy. I can see I ain't gettin' nothin’ from you. Seems like you ain't gonna be useful. Let's see if the oven can loosen you up."
The red guy didn't say anything back. Just sat there, silent as hell. Clyde had two of his boys grab the guy and haul him outside. The dark one started bucking, trying to get free from his bonds. "Fuck you. You fucking touch him, I will kill you motherfucker!"
"Shut up boy. Wait, no. What's your names - both of you. You don't tell me I drop him off the cliff. We got a big cliff."
"Jack. I'm Jack, you sick fuck. My boy, that's Tyson. You let us go you might get to live. Keep fucking with us and my people are going to rape your ass with an assault rifle."
"Yep. Reckon they will. Just soon as they find us, except they probably don't reckon how many of us there are, how good our setup is. I reckon that we end up with good eating this winter."
Jack ,Jack, the dark guy, suddenly went pale, skin turned to ash in an instant. Probably had the old-world thing about eating people. Didn't matter to Clyde. They tasted the same whether they hated him or loved him. Still, always good to get new blood in the family. The more of them the happier Jesus would be when he came down and handed over the earth to Clyde and his.
Outside Tyson was screaming. The oven was an aluminum box made from old roofing material, with a door on it. Now, Tyson hadn't talked when they threatened him, when they beat him, when they threatened Jack, pretty much nothing had scared him - but apparently the box oven was just too much. Maybe he was claustrophobic. Clyde headed out of the prison hut to check things out, put a little more pressure on the boy. It wasn't Tyson screaming. Tyson was standing tall, glaring at the boys, blood streaming down his mouth. Tommy-boy was curled up on the ground, one hand clutched in the other. There was a finger lying on the ground between them. The screams were coming from Tommy-boy. Clyde walked over and smashed Tyson in the stomach. Tyson folded. He wasn't soft, but Clyde was a big, big man. Tyson was making wretching noises as he lay there on the ground, trembling and weak. Clyde had some respect for him, but he was still from off island, not a member of the family. Strong as he might be he was still not part of the family, he still wasn't saved. Clyde kicked him in the ribs. Tommy-boy wouldn't be able to do full work in the next harvest, wouldn't be able to handle a net the same, hell, if he couldn't keep up he might just end up having to go in the pot.
You've Got Me in a Box Here
Tyson got up from the dirt, his ribs felt broken. He coughed up blood, spilling onto the hard-packed dirt. The people around him were dirty, horrible, the smell was unbearable. He didn't think they bathed. Many of them seemed to have birth defects, either physical or mental. The place itself was bizarre. A series of small houses around a giant cliff face, hundreds of meters tall. The houses were poorly constructed and mostly on the edge of falling apart, held together with tar paper and random bits of wood. It was clear that they had once been real houses, poor but decently built. The intervening years had not been kind to them however. There was also a pen full of zombies, crudely built but strong with high rails and a heavy gate.
He was still being held by three people, large men dressed in layered rags despite the heat. They were dragging him to a small box on the ground, rusted corrugated aluminum sides and a wooden door with a small slit in it. They shoved him down while the big one who seemed to be the leader looked down on him. The big man spit on him as he fell to the ground "You fucked up Tommy-boy. He can't work right then we have less hands to make sure all the mouths get fed. You have to pay for that shit. Gonna spend a few days in the oven. If you ain't dead by the end of it maybe we figure out a way, we can use you to make up for the work Tommy-boy can't do. You gonna be so fuckin' sorry you did that to his hand."
In Tyson's mind he told the big man to go fuck himself, that it was all his own fault - in reality he didn't do any of that. Instead he let them push him into the box without a sound.
It was hot, unbearably hot. The floor of the box burned his hands despite his buil
t-up callus. He pulled of his t-shirt and put it under his hands, trying not to let his back touch the top of the box. He curled up as best he could, slowly getting his body used to the temperature. Initially it hurt every time a piece of his bare flesh touched anything, but slowly he got used to it. It reached a point where he could bear it, just. The pain in his ribs wasn't getting any better. There was nothing he could do except endure, so he did. As time went on the thirst became stronger and stronger. He started to feel cramps in his arms and legs, growing stronger and stronger. Every time he thought he might sleep another cramp hit and he was woken.
Night fell, the temperature however didn't go down for a while. The heat had built to the point where it hurt to breathe. Slowly, slowly the temperature started to decrease, but that didn't suddenly replace the water missing from his body. He heard life going on outside the box, people talking, then music came on. Crude music played on simple instruments, someone was calling a square dance. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, never able to fully sleep, but not fully awake either.
The sounds of the party started to ramp down outside, and things got quiet, silent even. The temperature kept dropping, until it was cold. Now the metal was conducting heat away from Tyson 's body. He started to shake at some point during the night and couldn't stop shaking - his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. He heard the insects start to chirp shortly before the slit in the door started to let in light. The heat started to go up almost instantly. At first, he welcomed the change, but soon enough he was starting to be overcome with heat. He was thirsty, incredibly thirsty. Eventually he did black out.
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