by C.G. Banks
last shots had been fired hours ago. I can definitely tell you the proportion of screams to moans had turned almost completely to moans by now. The compound would be Deader Heaven in another couple of hours.
The Red Eyes had gone through the survivors like shit through a goose, and now even the dumber mudheads had enough sense to push through the fence to all the goods on the other side. It looked like ants pouring through a hole in the concrete.
And it was a bloody mess over there. The Dead had been hungry as hell because the Live-ers that I could see were a complete mess. Intestines pulled out and lying in the bloody dirt. And all along the line mudheads ripping and tearing. Some walking around with legs or arms like pieces of Thanksgiving turkeys. And then of course there was always the Live-ers coming back to life. But as I’ve said, the bunch had been hungry. This wasn’t just a bite here and there. From where I was I could see severed heads lying in the dirt with blinking eyes. Half a person pulling what was left of its naked self off around the side of a building over there. Another dimwit walking around with no arms.
But all these things I’d seen in some fashion before. Hell that’s really all Deaders do is walk around looking for Live-ers. Except for me of course. I’d gotten pretty damn used to the chicken bone lodged in my throat, and as I’ve also said before, for some reason I just ain’t got the stomach for it. What I saw next was something new. A Deader had somehow made it to the top of one of the buildings back there and had something in its hand. Then it held the thing to its mouth and started making a God-awful amount of noise. It musta been a megaphone because I could hear that sonofabitch from where I was in the tree line. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was saying but I could damn sure get the message.
It was pointing and jerking like the one was that brought its bunch looking for me at the cave, and though it was a different one, I had a hard time believing that that one had just happened to end up here too, the intention was the same. It was directing traffic. Organizing. Or from the looks of it, trying to organize.
There were still a helluva lot more mudheads than Red Eyes and since the mudheads for the most part didn’t have sense enough to pour water out of a boot, the Head Honcho wasn’t making a whole lot of progress on em. But the Red Eyes were another ball of wax altogether. They were forming up in little knots and bands, and they did seem to be involved in something approaching intent. What kind, I had no idea, so me being me, I decided to hang around a little bit. Get a feel for the action, for this new twist.
I sat down near the tree and decided to wait for nightfall.
By the time I was ready to move the moon was full and bright directly overhead. And all during the day while I had lain in wait, the mudheads had poured on through the woods. All heading toward what I now thought of as Headquarters. It was an old word that had popped into my head as I’d watched them work over the course of the day and it seemed the right one. And still the Dead kept pouring in. I tell you, it was amazing that there could be that many of em this close around. It didn’t give much hope to whatever Live-ers were still around either. Especially now that some of us had figured out how to use bolt-cutters and shotguns. This still sent an eerie little thread of nervousness down my spine.
And that, I have to admit, was mostly what kept me around, instead of heading out through the trees and the hell away from there. I had to find out what was in the making.
Also at some point during the day a team of Red Eyes had come out and busted the gate wide. Even though I couldn’t see their eyes in the daylight there was no way I believed a regular Deader would have had the sense to open it. They’d a been pressed up against it moaning for a hundred years before one of em mighta had the sense to try the locks. And even then it woulda been fumbling madness. But not with the Red Eyes. A group of five or so shambled out with the bolt-cutters and it didn’t take two shakes before that fence was wide open.
Like they were staging some sorta reunion.
I picked a small throng of Deaders and joined in with them, keeping my head down, shuffling my feet. Moaning and groaning to beat the band. I didn’t want any Red Eye getting ideas about what sorta Deader I might be, since in reality I didn’t now myself. I just knew I wasn’t like either one of the two groups I’d been seeing. Fucking odd man out, just like in the old days.
We crossed over the expanse of tree stumps and come up to the gate. There were a buncha us waiting around for our chance to pass through and I took a little time to look around. Most of the Deaders had that dull, blank look that only got ramped up when a Live-er showed itself, but here and there I did get that glint of red from a scattered few. And these, of course, were the ones who were moving with more purpose. I tried to stay the hell away from them on something not far from religious purposes.
Pretty soon I’d managed to press up close and then through the fence and then I found myself in the compound. It was like a concert was fixing to ramp up. Almost, if you could say it, a festive air in the crowd. Deaders moving here and there, some carrying shit, others just wandering around, drooling. I tried to place myself in this group. Like a spy, really. Eyes and ears open for whatever there was to learn.
I made my way over to where the hole in the fence was and saw all the blood and pieces of people laying around. Found an eyeball in the dirt and couldn’t resist the urge to pick it up and pop it in my mouth without even dusting it off. Man it was delicious. I couldn’t even fight the urge as that eyeball went down and found myself on the ground like a dog, licking at the bloody mud, fucking up my new duds in the process. All bells and whistles in my head as whatever thoughts I could manage passed away.
Not long after, as I was laying there in the dirt and blood with the last echoes of paradise ringing in my head, I started hearing the voice over the megaphone again. At first I couldn’t place it but then I remembered the Honcho on top of the building and everything came home to me again. I guess the eyeball and blood had somewhat clouded my senses. Anyway, I scrabbled to my feet and looked around.
There seemed to be a focus to all the confusion somewhere over to my left so I started in that direction. I pushed and shoved through the crowd to its perimeter and when I got there I was in for another surprise. Right in front of me was a stage of sorts, nothing really that organized, but not too bad really considering what we are. A couple of big pieces of plywood had been set on 55-gallon drums and there were about ten Live-ers, all buck naked, standing or crouching on top, staring with the same wild eyes I remembered from the cave at all us Deaders grouped around them.
They knew they didn’t have a chance and I did too.
Head Honcho was standing in front of the stage, the megaphone in his hand, blaring on about something. From the looks of the faces around me nobody had a mind as to what the hell it was talking about but again, the intention was clear. These were captives and their futures did not look bright. All around me were a buncha Deaders like dogs straining at the leash. Only the sound of the Head Honcho was keeping this bunch from tearing into the ones up on stage with relish. Hell, I even almost wanted to myself.
I felt the weight of the crowd pushing up from behind, again like the rock concerts I used to attend when I was something else. Suddenly, I felt a little sick seeing the faces of the people up there on stage and knowing what was fixing to go down. It was a mixture of homesickness and just plain disgust, but unknowingly I’d gotten myself in a position that was just about inescapable. These dogs behind me were panting for the kill and wasn’t nothing in this world or the next that was gonna keep em from it.
Right about then the Head Honcho stopped all his bullshit and everything got real quiet. I looked around at the dead faces in the crowd and felt that sickness at the pit of my stomach again. They were about fit to be tied. Even then, I had no idea what was holding this crowd back. Hell, in the first few weeks of the Change just the suggestion of a Live-er was enough to send hordes of these dead motherfuckers into a frenzy and here they were now like greyhounds before the pistol shot. And me rig
ht up there in the front row. Well, curiosity wasn’t gonna kill this cat but I was damn sure fixing to get a lot of blood on my new clothes. But looking down at myself I’d already fucked them up anyway. Us Deaders are shit for presentation.
But enough of that.
The Head Honcho had walked away from the stage now and made his way back to where the crowd was bunched up. For a minute there I thought that sonofabitch was gonna come over my way but he shouldered into the crowd about ten, fifteen feet away and it was like everything in the world just stopped for a second. Then it was almost like slow-motion as it brought that goddamn megaphone up to its blue lips.
I knew it was curtains right then and the Live-ers up on stage knew it too. They began fighting at the chains that had them anchored to the plywood but it was like nothing. Honcho yelled something that sounded like a cat getting strangled and then it was hell for sure.
The whole crowd, me included, surged forward and hit that make-shift stage without batting an eye. From where I was being pushed and shoved I saw the barrels go over with the plywood and the Live-ers started screaming but it was like a wave swallowing a beach.
It was like all the Deaders