"That's not good. The storm set you back much?"
"No, not too bad. We were pretty battened down, and it did help clear a few of the abandonments... sped up the demolition process."
"Okay, so now my brave soldier, take me back to your tent. There is ravaging to be done."
"Don't worry, I'm going to ravish you right. Right and all night long."
They started walking back to the camp, hands clasped together.
Tamra and Chad make it to Meat Cove
Following the captors took over a week. By the end of it both Chad and Tamra were on the edge of collapse. The truck never went very fast, but it did stick to roads, while they had to shadow from the cover of the forest. The major saving grace was the vehicle kept getting stuck in mud, and often the captors had to clear trees or large branches that had fallen in the storm. Eventually the truck made it to a ramshackle town on the edge of a cliff. There was still a sign that said Meat Cove, a pre-zombie relic that somehow was still standing.
Chad felt like the name was a bad omen. There was a sense about the place, a spiritual weight that he couldn't easily put into words. It felt wrong, deeply, deeply wrong. The view didn't help much. The town consisted of a few remaining pre-zombie homes, all in disrepair, and a bunch more shacks that looked like they were slapped together in haste by people who had no clue what a house was supposed to look like. Nothing about the place was okay, nothing felt like human civilization. Chad had heard about places like this, small communities that made it without contacting the larger world, leaving themselves open to hordes, surviving by a combination of luck and determination. Most of them were bad places, isolated largely because they didn't play well with others. Most ended up turning to cannibalism or piracy at some point - some to both.
They found a vantage point that let them see at least a part of the town without being obviously visible. It was risky; however, they didn't want to take the larger risk of not knowing what happened to Michelle and Tim. The truck pulled into an empty area in the center of town and all the captors got out. Several people from the town were already milling around. One very large older man seemed to be the leader. He was at least six-foot-five and broad. He was barking orders to people, pointing out where they should go, etc. Eventually he walked over to the truck and grabbed Tim from where he had fallen to the ground. The big man picked Tim up as if he was a doll, throwing him over one shoulder after unchaining him. He headed to a small hut, dumped Tim inside and came back for Michelle.
"At least we know where they are. Probably going to be well guarded though. I'm not sure if we should try to get them out of head for base and come back in force."
"I'm guessing they get eaten before too long. I don't want to leave them alone. You don't know what it's like, these people are animals, not even human."
"Okay. We'll try to get them out. We need a plan though, we can't just go running in, and I doubt we'll get another hurricane to help us out."
"No. We need a plan, you're right. It might take a few days though."
"Yeah, we need to figure out shelter as soon as possible. I'll scout around. You keep an eye on the town, see if anything changes. Don't stray though, I don't know if I'd be able to find you if you did."
"I'll be here. Hurry back though, I don't like being this close to them without cover."
Chad headed into the woods, looking for potential shelter. He wasn't certain he agreed with Tamra, but he wasn't ready to fight her on it yet either. Better to try and come up with something that accomplished her goal, and to leave if that failed.
The woods were dense, filled with fallen branches and thick undergrowth. Despite the sunny day it was dark on the forest floor, although there were sun dappled patches wherever the canopy broke. The air was still tropical, drawn north by the hurricane. He was sweating in minutes. Visibility was terrible, opening up every once in a while, but for the most part it was limited to a few feet in any direction. Sound was muffled as well. It felt claustrophobic.
He was on edge, nerves firing rapidly. Every sound made him jump. He was starting to get used to the feeling, it had been going on for so long. At first, he thought he was hallucinating when the figure stepped out from the trees, one arm held high in the air, the other one also held up, but pressed close to his side, not very high. He had matted hair and beard, dried blood over much of his clothing. What little of his skin could be seen under the dirt looked pale. He was obviously a big guy but seemed shrunken in on himself. Chad leveled his bow at the man. "Don't move"
"Thank god. I thought I was dead, but here you are. I need help"
"Alright friend. Slowly now, turn around, let me make sure you have no weapons."
The man turned, he was unarmed, and looked like he could barely stand. His feet were the worst of it, bloody and black. He moved with kind of a hunched shuffle, never lifting his feet far from the ground.
"Who are you friend?"
"Tyson. Was one of the members of the salvage team in Sydney."
"Shit... I can't believe we found you. We'd given up hope completely."
"Here I am, at least mostly."
"Put your hands down. Look, my unit got taken by the psychos in Meat Cove. We're trying to figure out how to get them out right now."
"How many of you?"
"Just two of us, me and Tamra Duchene believe it or not. I'm Chad."
"Fuck. Look, I'm in bad shape. Got beaten pretty bad. I don't know if I'm going to last a lot longer."
"Where have you been hiding?"
"I managed to find a small shelter, underneath a few fallen trees. It's just over there. I saw you and headed your way. The uniform you know? Let me know you were from home."
"Okay, show me. Then we should grab Tamra. I've got basic battlefield training, I'll do what I can to patch you up."
Tyson led him a few hundred feet deeper into the woods. The shelter was rough, crude. It was using an overturned tree as the main structure. It was also well hidden, Chad didn't think he would have noticed it had he not been guided. It was just a bit of shelter, and the smell was horrible. "No latrine then?"
"Nope. Until today I probably couldn't have walked to it. Believe it or not I'm in much better shape than I was. They fucked me up."
"Yeah. Okay, we probably can't stay here for long, but I'll bring Tamra back and we'll work something out. Sit down, before you collapse. I think we still have a bit food too."
Chad headed back to where he had left Tamra. He realized he hadn't asked about the rest of the salvage team. Tamra was waiting where he left her, he didn't think she'd moved a single muscle. He let out a soft whistle to make sure she knew he was there. When she turned he beckoned her to come over. He whispered to her "I found one of the salvage crew. He's in rough shape, not far from here. We need to look after him. We'll come back as soon as possible."
"Alive? Okay, of course."
Minutes later they were at Tyson's side. He was in terrible shape, near death in Chad's opinion. Chad started checking him over, while Tamra gave him some water. They decided that food had to wait for a little bit, at least long enough to make sure he could keep down the water. Poking around Chad found a broken rib. The feet weren't as bad as they had looked. It wasn't gangrene setting in but was severe bruising and masses of dirt. His arm on the other hand was bad, possibly bad enough that it would need to come off... not something Chad was remotely trained to do.
Chad was pretty sure they needed to make the shelter a bit more secure if Tyson was going to survive. He left Tamra to get Tyson cleaned up and started scouting for materials he could use. As much as he wanted to focus on the town this couldn't be ignored. He didn't have the first clue how to save Tim and Michelle, but Tyson was very much in his power to help. The shelter needed to be water tight, or at least as close to it as could be, and they needed something to keep them off the ground. Maybe enough space to move around a little so they could treat Tyson as needed. All of that without making it visible from the outside. Chad started gathering fall
en branches, focusing on pine boughs as much as he could. His gloves kept the sharp needles from being a problem. After a couple of hours, he had a bunch, and started to weave them into each other, creating a new roof above the one they started with. It was a good day’s work, and at the end of it he had something that was well hidden but gave them ample space inside. Next came a platform. Most of that he built out of the original shelter, with a few additions. It was a lot of labor, he worked well into the night, using the night vision built into his helmet to allow him to keep going long after anyone else would have been forced to abandon the project.
Part of the urgency Chad was feeling came from Tyson's weakening condition. He had taken a turn for the worse and was feverish. They didn't have appropriate medicine, all of it was in the medical kit, which was in the survival pack, so in the possession of the Meat Cove people. The best they could do was to make sure Tyson's body was as capable of healing itself as possible. Keep him sheltered, dry, hydrated, provide food as he could eat it. That meant work, a lot of work. Fire was another concern. The shelter itself was a wigwam style, decent for fire but they needed the fire to be smokeless, stealth was critical. Chad had used a log-based rocket stove in the past, but that wasn't going to work here - the log tended to get consumed by the process. Instead he decided to build a simple rocket stove out of mud. That meant digging, and lots of water. He kept going, his eyes starting to fill with grit, exhaustion setting in. He wished Tamra could help out, another pair of hands for the work would make it much faster, but she was needed at Tyson's side, monitoring his condition. Her bush medical knowledge was comparable to his, although a little folksier in origin, but he had a larger frame and more strength, making him the better choice for the hard slog of cutting, digging, shaping, carrying, all the things needed for building this basic shelter. Normally he would have created something far cruder, a simple a-frame they could use to reflect body heat, with a fire outside the open end. The wigwam was really meant for a long-term solution, something you would build as a hunting lodge and leave in place for example. Still, if Tyson survived because of it then the effort was a very small price to pay.
The rocket stove was hard, demanding work. After he had the stove itself built he created a chimney for it, mostly a heat flow system. It was a long mud bench, cured in phases by burning brush in the stove itself. Eventually though, shortly after daybreak, the damn thing was finally complete. They had a source of heat that they could use for cooking and for water purification. The shell of the reclaimers helmets was created with the idea that all the contents could be removed, and it would double as a pot - so that's exactly what Chad did. He grabbed water from a nearby stream and boiled it, then he cut open the wound in Tyson's arm, a small cut to relieve some of the pressure. The wigwam quickly filled with a sickly-sweet smell and pus began to drain out. Tamra boiled some bits of cloth pulled from their clothing and added some mint leaves to create a poultice. She dried the strips and then used them to pack the wound. Tyson was coherent enough not to scream, although they did have him bite down on a stick as they made the cut. All of his wounds were worrisome, but his arm was by far the worst of it. "You're going to make it. You survived this long. Just stay strong. We'll pull you through it." Tamra was talking softly the whole time. Finally, Chad gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep, leaving Tamra to take care of Tyson by herself for a while.
When Chad finally woke it was late afternoon. Tyson was sitting up, still looking green, but alive. Tamra wasn't there. "You're alive!"
"Yeah... not feeling great, damn my arm hurts. Tamra thinks I'm going to get to keep it though. Better than I could have hoped for. If you two hadn't come along when you did..."
"You are the mission, you and your team. New Hope sent a hundred and twenty of us, plus support staff, just to find you guys."
"Makes a guy feel loved. Tamra stepped out to gather some food once she saw I was conscious. Man, that woman is something isn't she?"
"Yeah. She wasn't supposed to be here. She just came over on her own. She's tough as hell."
"Damned right. Easy to look at too. Something between you two?"
"No."
"Then you're an idiot, no offense. She looks at you like she wants something to happen. You don't take advantage of that, I'm going to." Tyson said, there was a smile in his eyes as he said it though.
"She's a freaking celebrity. I'm a nothing, why would she go for someone like me?"
"Well, let's see... you just worked around the clock until you literally collapsed to save a random stranger. Seems to me like you might just a decent person. Who knows, maybe she likes decent people?"
"Seems unlikely. Who likes decent people?"
"Fair enough. Guess I'm going to have to go for it then. I'm a complete asshole."
"Now, now. I didn't say that. Mostly I just have to work up to it. Honestly, I'm not that experienced with the ladies. I know, I know... it's shocking with my rugged good looks, but I've only really had one girlfriend."
"Nothing wrong with that. This woman though, she's something else. Anyway, how the hell are we gonna get your people and get back home? No offense, but you don't strike me as the Rambo type."
"Who the hell's Rambo?"
"Sorry, I have a thing for pre-zombie cinema. Rambo was a character in one good movie and a bunch of crappy ones. Sort of a super soldier who takes on armies by himself. Not that you aren't good at your job, but you seem kind of like you might be a normal human."
"Oh, yeah. No, I'm not taking on a redneck cannibal horde solo."
"You forgot religious fanatic."
"What?"
"Religious fanatics. They believe they are gods chosen, some shit like that. Tried to convert me in between the beatings. Odds are good they give your people time before they kill them. Last I checked Jack was still alive too. I hope he still is. We kind of need to find that out, by the way, he's my best friend."
"Alright. Anything you can tell me would help, I need to know how they do things, how the village is laid out, where they keep prisoners, all of it. The more I know the better my odds of not getting us all killed."
"The big guy, Clyde, he's the leader. Prophet figure. Nasty guy, seems to be a true believer from what I can tell. Most of the higher ups seem to be his kids. One really nasty bastard they kept calling Junie. That guy gave me the creeps. Had to be the sleaziest motherfucker I've ever met. They like to torture people, really make em suffer. I spent a few days in a hot box, because I didn't want to find God, and I wouldn't tell them shit about our people. They didn't even bother asking me much after they took me out, I think the questions are more a game than anything else. Also, they keep a bunch of zombies in a pen in town. They have some sort of weird religious thing with them. Not sure the details. I don't know a whole lot though, I was mostly kept chained up in a hut. Only escaped because of the storm."
"Yeah, they had Tamra for a bit. I managed to get her out because of the storm too. It threw enough chaos into the mix to make a bunch of stuff possible."
"Yeah, maybe something in that idea might help us," Tamra said, entering the shelter. "Also, you guys really suck at keeping a lookout."
"How long you been outside?" Chad asked.
"Long enough... I got some berries. Also, if we get out of this alive you and I are going on a date. If we die first though I'll let you off the hook."
They kept talking for a while. Chad got over his discomfort quickly when he got into the details of trying to rescue their people. There were a lot of factors to work with, and a lot of unknowns. In the end, they decided to sleep on it, give Tyson another day to recover his strength before they risked having to run for their lives. The shelter was cozy, dry, and warm. Chad couldn't help looking at Tamra, the whole conversation was lodged in his mind. He knew it was stupid, he was fighting for his life and the life of his team, and he was obsessing about a girl. Also, he hadn't taken any action. That was a bit disappointing, she had removed any and all doubt, and he was still paralyzed with self-dou
bt. What exactly would it take for him to make a move? Did she have to perform a strip tease and then jump on him? What was wrong with him?
Where Did Everybody Go?
The villagers were beating the bushes looking for them, Tamra, Chad, and Tyson could hear them, but they were snug and secure in their shelter. It wasn't perfect, and they knew it was going to be days before Tyson could really move on his own, so they kept shoring it up. Tamra and Chad flirted more, a lot more. Chad was sure she'd heard his conversation with Tyson, that she knew he was into her. He kept finding excuses to touch her as they worked. Both of them were filthy, sweaty, they didn't smell very good. Bathing was a thing for more civilized humans, but he didn't care. He still wanted her, every glimpse of her pale skin, it set him on fire, filled him with need.
Other than that, those few days were physically hard. Chad spent almost every hour cutting down branches or pulling off deadfall, making sure to take only things that were concealed, that wouldn't be easily noticed. He knew that if their shelter was going to work for what he had planned it needed to be solid, the best shelter he had ever built in his life. It needed to be hidden, deeply hidden, and it needed to be secure. It was going to be his base of operations as he tried to create enough chaos in Meat Cove to keep the villagers on edge, to create an opportunity for him to rescue the rest of his team. Right off the bat that meant it had to be zombie proof, hard to achieve with what he was working with. It would also need to have other escape options because no good to be able to weather the zombie storm and at the same time not be able to leave until they starved to death.
Tamra was a trooper, working as long and hard as Chad did. He looked at her with new admiration. Calories were low, very low, and that was taking a toll on the two of them. Not to mention what they did have, they gave to Tyson.
Conversation was also at a low. While the villagers had thinned out, they were still present, which meant everything had to be done quietly. It was something Chad had trained for, working in silence. The ever-present zombie threat meant noise was often the enemy. Complete silence was impossible, but the woods were never completely silent anyway. What mattered was ensuring that none of the noise sounded like human activity, that noises happened once, and were only repeated at irregular intervals.
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