"Well, looks like the cliff took care of this one. He's one of the blessed now."
"Should we purify him?"
"No need, it's just one. Snap a collar on him, take him along with us. He might even be useful if we can get him on their trail."
One of the men snapped a leather lead and a gag onto the newly risen blessed. The blessed needed to be revered, but that didn't mean you had to be stupid about it. No sense getting bit if you could avoid it. They started into the forest, following the trail the group had left. They had a bit more of a lead now, but that wasn't a big deal. They'd lose their lead quick enough.
Things Get Hard
As soon as they were able to stand again Chad got the group moving. They were in shock about Tim but couldn't spend the time to find him.
The thick woods had a trail leading through them, mostly overgrown, but still remnants, it was clearly a leftover from the old days, small bits of asphalt showing between the weeds. Chad started moving as fast as possible.
Michelle was having trouble walking. Her feet were shredded, almost hamburger. She kept stumbling. Chad realized that he either had to deal with this or leave her behind. He stopped, grabbed some of the cordage he had and some smooth bark from one of the nearby trees. "Michelle, I'm going to make you some sandals. They won't be great, but they will be better than trying to keep going barefoot."
"Okay, yeah... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I can't keep going like this."
"Not your fault, I should have taken care of this hours ago. I'm sorry."
They got Michelle outfitted with very primitive sandals and were able to keep going. Evie was inexhaustible. The rest of them weren't. After several more hours they were all about to collapse, there was no way they could keep going.
"Time to find a spot to hide in."
Tamra said, "I saw an overturned tree back a few minutes. Lots of space under the trunk. I think that's the best I've seen so far."
"Okay, take me, we'll check it out."
The two of them walked back the way they had come for a couple of minutes until they found the tree. There was a large hollow, big enough for the group. It was dirty, and the smell of earth and mold filled the air around it, but it was sheltered, hidden, it was the best they were going to get. While Tamra got the group and brought them to the spot Chad cut soft pine boughs and covered them with whatever material he could find, something to keep them off the ground. Then he cut more to cover them with, making the entrance almost invisible. As he was working the rest came back to him. "This is what we've got folks. Time to take a rest."
They curled up, out of the sun, out of sight, and hoped. Day slowly faded into night, the sunsets were earlier, but still late these days. A stillness settled over the woods, the night creatures making their silent, stealthy way out into the world. Chad woke some time later, after darkness had fallen. He put on his helmet and powered up the night vision goggles, they lasted less than a minute. The batteries were finally done. Well, one advantage they no longer had. The air had a sweet smell, honeysuckle maybe. It was mixed with the dark, decaying scent of the hole.
The moon was barely a crescent, new and faint. Where there were gaps in the dark forest canopy the stars filled the skies, intense and bright. Chad thought for a moment about once, before his birth, humans had gone up there, off the planet. According to his father even set foot on the moon. There were plans to go to Mars. Now, he was sitting in a hole, hiding from ragged men who ate other humans, trying to make it back to what passed for civilization. It was unfair, beyond unfair. He should have been born while humanity was still exploring the sky, slipping the bonds of gravity.
A few minutes of letting self-pity wash over him and he stood up, time to get moving. "Alright cats and kittens, let's get a move on."
The rest got up with him, leaving the shelter behind. It was so dark they could only see a foot or two in front of them. Slow going, at least they weren't any worse off than their pursuers. Darkness treated everyone the same.
The biggest surprise was Evie. They had gotten used to her being fearless, inexhaustible. Now she was hanging onto Tamra's hand and almost hiding behind her. Chad figured it out quickly. Poor kid was afraid of the dark. He wished he could pick her up and carry her. Actually, he wished he could throw her in a truck and drive her back, but this was what they had.
They picked their way along remnants of trails, not worrying about erasing their track, not because they didn't want to but because it was impossible in these conditions. Chad was exhausted, near the end of his stamina by this point. He'd been going so hard for so long that there wasn't a lot left inside, but there was also no choice, so he kept going, kept pushing the group to move forward, as fast as they could. At some point he tripped on a rock, invisible in the darkness, and couldn't get up. His face smashed into something hard, again. It wasn't quite exactly on his bruise from earlier, but almost, and it was an even harder hit. He lay there, face down, and started to sob. It wasn't anything in particular, just the cumulative effect of weeks now spent exhausted, terrified, having to make the decisions for everyone, he had no mental reserves left, and damnit, his face hurt!
Tamra came over to him, talking softly, "Come on, I know, I know. It's too much. But you can do this, it's just a tiny bit longer. You can hold it together for a tiny bit more."
"I... I don't think I can."
"You can, because you have to... so you will. Now, stand up. Just get your feet under you and stand up."
"Okay. Okay. Just, give me a minute."
"One. Sixty seconds. I'm counting."
And she did, counting down from sixty. When she hit one Chad had himself under control. He stood up, his breathing still ragged. "Okay, we keep going. I don't know how much I have left, but I swear, I will give every single moment of it to you."
The group walked on, barely more than a crawl. Sometime later the sky ahead of them begin to lighten, just a slight mellowing of the blackness, not really light, but the stars were harder to see on the horizon when they could see the sky at all. Soon after that, the sky began to take on a blush, a dark red stain over the world. There were clouds on the horizon, dark and massive, lending an eerie quality to the light, everything was cast in tones of blood and fire. The clouds were closing.
"Oh, good, another storm. That's exactly what we needed right now," Chad said, a deep sigh in his voice.
"Maybe it is. Remember, the people chasing us have to contend with it too."
Evie tugged on Tamra's sleeve. "Clyde likes the storms. Says they are God punishing the land, and he likes it every time God punishes something. Also, they will have runners to bring them resupply and gear. It's the standard protocol whenever we have someone run. It doesn't happen often, but it happens enough that we have routines and procedures."
"Okay, so, the storm isn't our friend then. Let's get as far as we can before it hits, hopefully, find someplace to set up before the full brunt of it is on us," Chad said, "We will shelter as best we can once it hits, and move as soon as we can after."
They kept going through a morning heavy with humidity, through air that was more like soup. All of them were dripping with sweat, near collapse, since they had continued through the dark of the night. When the wind picked up it was almost a blessing, for a moment. Suddenly there was a crack of thunder, and the humidity coalesced into a torrential rain. Chad was soaked through in an instant. That moment it felt wonderful, sluicing the humidity and sweat away from his skin, leaving him feeling refreshed and invigorated. Five minutes later it was dragging the warmth from him, pulling it down to the forest floor, leaving him unable to stop his limbs from quivering. "We have to make it to shelter," he said, his voice rising to a shout to be heard over the rain.
The group started looking around them, unable to see much further than they could when they were walking through the darkness.
Tyson was the one who spotted the cave. Well, a cave was a stretch, but it was an overhang, rock with a shelter below it. Narrow, but maybe wide eno
ugh that if they stayed close they could stay warm. They made their way through a curtain of water into the scant shelter. Making a fire was impossible, so instead, they stripped down to underwear and huddled close together, their wet clothing lying on the driest ground they could find other than where they were.
The storm raged, and raged, and raged. They were all shivering, cold skin against cold skin. Slowly they started to warm, the rock face protecting them from the worst of the wind and rain. It wasn't much, barely anything, but it wasn't nothing. Chad just prayed it was enough to keep them alive until the storm ended.
By nightfall nothing had changed, so they tried to find a way to lie down, still cuddled together. Chad found himself almost naked, skin pressed up against Tamra. She was cuddled up in his arms, facing away from him, her bum pushed close into his crotch. He realized that he was starting to get hard, despite everything. "No, damnit, not now. Not now!" he kept thinking to himself, but there was nothing he could do about it. Finally, he fell asleep, praying that Tamra hadn't noticed.
Morning came, with no change in the weather. Chad didn't think they could move yet, it was too much, they were too cold and too low on energy. Michelle was warm, too warm. "Hey, let me see your back."
Michelle turned around to give Chad a clear view. Her wounds were red, inflamed, infected. Her feet too once he checked them. Starting to leak pus. He checked his portable med kit. They had a couple of antibiotics left, they'd used almost all of their store, including all the powder, on Tyson. "Michelle, here, take this."
"What is it?"
"Antibiotics. Seems like you have a little bit of infection. Nothing we can't deal with, but we have to get on it sooner than later."
"Okay."
An hour later Michelle was complaining of stomach pain. Not a surprise. These were strong, hard on the stomach. They were supposed to be taken with food, but food wasn't something they had. They had finished the dried fish the day before.
They spent a miserable day and night under the rock. Chad made sure Michelle got the last antibiotic that evening. Finally, around midnight, the rain stopped.
Their clothes were still damp. Not soaked, but not dry either. The rainfall had been enough to keep them from ever completely shedding the moisture in them. Chad thought it might be worse for him. The armour, it had kept him alive so many times now that there was no way he would leave it behind, but at the same time the metal transferred heat away from his skin at an amazing pace. Still, he was still better off than Michelle. She was feverish, eyes glassy and empty. He didn't think she had a whole lot longer left. Her back was oozing pus from each whip mark, and her feet were starting to turn dark, he knew that if the smelled them they would smell of rot. There was nothing they could do, no way to even let her rest.
After a few hours of walking, Michelle sat down on the ground. "Leave me here. If I live long enough I'll try to take one of them with me when they get here. If I don't maybe I can take even more."
Chad looked at her, took in her condition. "Okay."
"What? You aren't supposed to say okay just like that, you should be trying to convince me to fight through the pain."
"Michelle, you have hours left. I have no medicine to give you. Even if we got you home in the next hour you would probably have to lose both legs, and there's no way in hell I can amputate without killing you. I hate it, but I've been weighing the options. So long as you could keep walking I was going to keep you going, even if you had to lean on us, even if you slowed us down... but the math doesn't work at this point. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, I know. I knew it when I signed up. It was always a possibility. Well, looks like it's just you. Funny. The new meat isn't supposed to be the last one standing. One more thing. I want a kiss."
"Didn't think you thought of me like that."
"What? Oh, sorry, not from you. I mean, you're cute and all... but you knew I was a lesbian right?"
Tamra came over and kissed Michelle, deep and long, and then turned away. "Alright, let's move."
"Thanks, I always wanted to kiss a TV star."
"My pleasure and thank you. Your sacrifice won't go unnoticed. I'll make sure everyone knows about you guys."
"Hey, what else could a girl ask for?"
They left Michelle behind, sitting on the ground. She had a large stick, they had to keep all the other weapons on hand.
The dawn came, a softer dawn than they had had. The air had the first trace of autumn chill, setting deep into Chad's bones. It seemed that with Michelle's fate he had lost his reason for doing any of it. He could have left with Tyson and Tamra days ago, nothing would be different except that they wouldn't be fleeing pursuit like they were. "I don't suppose this Clyde guy will give up, will he?" Chad asked Evie.
"No, he doesn't give up. Not ever. If he decides you need to be punished he will keep going no matter what the cost."
"Way to make me feel better."
Still, they had to keep going, no matter what.
Days went by, until one day they discovered they were looking at the ocean. The autumn sun glinted off blue waves, crashing surf pounded, distant and far, far below them. They had made it to the eastern shore of that little section of Cape Breton. An almost trivial distance. It had only cost them two lives so far.
Playing Catchup
Junie saw that the camp was still running, the strangers still had power, people, fences, and one of his men. He had a couple of others with him, just a small group, loyal and long-term guys, but also guys who wouldn't be missed too much at home. With everything going on Dad hadn't wanted Junie to compromise the work force too much. Figured his son could handle things mostly on his own, the guys he did have were old, had been with his dad since the early days. Not necessarily the strongest, or the fastest, but all of them were smart enough, and hard workers to the limit of their ability. Junie went and found Earl, his second in command. "Bastards captured Norm, they have him inside now."
"How'd they manage that then?"
"Bunch were outside, just dumb luck. They happened on him as he was crossing to another location."
"Shit luck. Well, guess that's that then."
"Yeah, he'll give them an accounting, I bet."
"Don't know. Earl's in pretty bad shape. Shakes started a while back. Figure he'll go Wendigo on them soon enough. Bet they don't see that coming."
"Yeah, that's true. Bet they don't have Wendigo where they from."
The two of them gathered up the rest and headed back to where they were making camp, an old warehouse that had an elevated interior office that was still intact. They had packed two or three hundred zombies into the ground floor leaving the catwalk the only way to reach their sleeping quarters. It was as secure as they could get and reasonably warm. It was also dry, something Junie had come to truly appreciate in hundreds of hunting trips with his father.
If you knew the routes it was about a week’s walk home, but you had to know the way to go. if you lost the old roads it could take a really long time. Junie was pretty set up, a change of clothes, enough food, especially pemmican, they had a water jug set up, comfortable bedrolls. It was almost as good as home. Junie wanted to be back there some bad though. Evie was waiting on him. Evie and his wedding night. He'd finally get to stick it in her, he knew she was a virgin, he'd be the first one to plow that field.
He lay back, drinking some of the shine they'd brought down with them. Sure, the camp hadn't been wiped out, but they'd been hurt, pushed to the brink. Every day they were pushed like that was another day they couldn't get established, and that meant it was a success for him.
He enjoyed the simple comfort. He blankets made the hard floor seem less hard, they were piled three thick, made of sheep skin, much of the wool still attached. The shine caught his throat, rough and harsh, but it left a warm glow in his chest, and then in his head. This was good, doing God's work and getting to lay back at the end of the day. The bunch of them lit a couple of candles and Earl got out his mandolin. Junie didn't have much
musical talent, but he could play the spoons, so he did, as Rich started singing, his deep voice melodic in the night. They weren't worried about anyone hearing them, the only ears in listening range belonged to the dead down below.
After a few drinks and some companionable conversation, they drifted off to sleep, content with their place in the world.
The next morning Junie had a slight headache, nothing serious, just a bit of pain around his eyes and the back of his head. He drank as much water as he could stomach and then grabbed some jerky. The jerky was fatty and salty, delicious.
They took the catwalk to the exterior staircase. It was rickety and old, creaked and groaned worse than a woman, but it had held so far, and if it didn't, well, that's what God willed.
Today Junie had a special mission. The interlopers had captured one of his, he intended to return the favor. He wandered the town, near the base. These days there were so many tracks it was hard to tell where the strangers might be, but eventually, he found a track. It was five of them. Too many to take at once, but if he could separate one out. He gestured to Rich to take the left and Earl to take the right. Too bad about Norm, the old timer was a wizard at tracking.
They followed the tracks until they found the patrol, the small group ensconced in an old corner store, long since looted. They were deep in conversation, ignoring the world around them, a fatal mistake in an environment like this Junie thought. He decided that he had a better way to deal with them than his original plan. He said, "Earl, wait there, Rich, over there. I'm setting the store on fire." using hand talk.
Creeping near the store Junie took out a small strip of magnesium, he'd snagged it from a wilderness outfitter a while back and put it against some dry boards. A quick flick of a lighter and the place started to burn.
It took a minute, but it caught. The soldiers, for it was clear that was what they were, kept talking inside. They were lost to the threat around them, focusing on their pointless words. When they did notice the flames were high and partially blocking the exit. Junie heard on of them say, "Oh fuck, fire!" and then they bolted for the flames.
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