43
Swan
Swan chased after the hunchbacked beast, her fury raging too much for the tears to seep through. Zero ran beside her as they followed the trail though the underbrush. The blackness was thick in the woods where the snow fell heavy and the evergreen trees blotted out the meager moon light. They ran until her lungs burned. They ran until her soot blackened face was whipped and scratched from slapping branches. They ran after the monster, following the tracks when they could and Zeros nose when they couldn’t. The snow fell heavier and muffled their sounds, it blanketed the forest in silence. It was thick and wet and soon she was soaked to her knees. They ran deeper and farther than her and Donny had ever hunted and the woods stretched on. They ran until they found Lucy cooling in the snow. What was left of her. Swan fell to her knees with great anguished sobs she could barely get out from her tortured lungs. She pulled the wolf mother close and buried her face in the fur. She had never known such ache and tears weren’t enough. Crying wasn’t enough. When Zero loosed his pain and howled his sorrow at the moon, she joined him.
44
Cody
Cody leaned heavily on his Warhammer and tried to ignore the pain of his bruised ribs, throbbing eye, rope burned wrists and tender nose. Reminders of the beating Gordon had given him. Now that the fight was over, the adrenaline rush gone, he felt weak and tired and hurt all over. It felt hopeless. They could never catch him, he was miles away by now. The snow would cover any tracks he made before they could chase him down but he had to try. He couldn’t give up if there was a chance, no matter how slim. Maybe she’d managed to get away from him. Maybe she was lying on the side of the road injured and freezing to death.
“We have to go after her.” Cody said.
“You’re not fit to go anywhere.” Harper told him. “You can barely stand.”
“We’ll go.” Tobias said.
Donny shook his head and pointed to himself and Yewan. The three started arguing in the Pidgeon sign language he used and the twins were getting louder in their defense of why they should go too. Cody closed his eyes for a moment. It only made sense, Donny and Yewan could cover more ground faster than anyone else and the Panther was a lot better at following commands than the bears were. They might decide they wanted a swim in the river and there was nothing the twins could do to stop them.
“Enough.” he said. “Donny, you go.”
He nodded and set off at a fast jog, pacing himself. He knew it might be a long night with miles to travel.
Cody stared at the bodies of the undead littering the ground. They’d fought well, despite the odds but it was hard to feel elated at the victory with three of their own missing and most likely dead. They’d have to burn them or drag them down to the river but they would keep for now. They’d be frozen solid and easier to move by tomorrow.
“We need to find out where they came in. Can you guys backtrack the trail and see how bad it is? If you can, just pull the fence back in place, we can repair it properly tomorrow. I’ll check the back gate.” Cody said.
Vanessa and the twins hurried to their animals to mount up and ride.
“I can cover more ground than you on Bert.” Harper said. “You should go to the house and let Murray patch you up. You’re bleeding again.”
“Bert hates the cold.” Cody said. “You need to get him back in the barn before he gets sick.”
He didn’t know if the giraffe would get sick or not but he didn’t want to argue with her. He whistled for Otis and they started the long trek across the fields. He needed some time to himself. He needed to rethink his so-called leadership. He’d learned a lot during his hour of captivity and it changed his whole world view. He couldn’t turn the other cheek anymore.
The boys were apparently the only survivors in a place called the Landing. It was one big nonstop party and most of them hadn’t been sober in months. They had realized they could do whatever they wanted and there was nobody to stop them, there was no reason to follow the rules anymore. They wanted more girls because the few they had weren’t enough and from the armor they wore, he assumed they were hockey players. Unlike the tribes which was a mishmash of all kinds of different things, the teens all had the same gear, almost like a uniform.
He knew the Riders wouldn’t quit. They’d been embarrassed by a group of kids they thought were their inferiors and had loosed a horde on them in retaliation. They’d be back. Gordon was consumed with revenge and he’d dragged all those other boys into his web. He knew they’d keep coming, they were just as bad as him, probably worse. All of them had pointed their rifles at him. All of them had laughed and cheered once he was bound hand and foot and they started throwing the fists to him. All of them had taken pleasure in watching the beating and one boy had put a cigarette out on his chest. They were drunk and stupid and mean and he had no sympathy for them. He knew boys like them before the fall. Bullies who thought giving freshmen swirlies in the toilet or random wedgies walking down the hall was the height of hilarity. They were mostly harmless and sometimes their pranks were even funny as long as they didn’t happen to you. They towed the line, though. They knew not to really hurt anyone, not to take it too far or there would be repercussions. They could get suspended or banned from the team. They could get a record and not be able to get into their college of choice.
It was different now. It had been months and the only law of the land was whatever they said it was. They would have killed him and that thought kept running through his mind. He had been strapped shirtless across a snowmobile in freezing weather. The ropes were so tight on his hands and feet that they had turned purple. It took a long time for the blood to return and they stopped stinging. Another twenty minutes and he probably would have lost them to frostbite, that is, if he even lived that long. They would have killed his people. They turned a horde of the undead loose on them. If Swan was still alive, if she recovered from whatever Gordon had done to her, they would kill her too. She would force them to do it because she would never submit. She would fight them until her last breath and curse them with it.
Cody Wilkes was unable to stop them. He was weak, still bound by the teachings of his old life. He still tried to follow the rules. Still tried to be someone his mom would be proud of. That way of thinking, that life was over. It had to be or they would die. He had been reluctant to accept that things would never be the same again. Everyone he’d ever loved before the tribe was gone, it was all any of them had and his weakness had nearly cost them everything. He was wrong when he thought they could lock those gates and ignore the rest of the world. Wrong when he naively believed in live and let live.
He had no idea where the Riders came from, no way of taking the fight to them. They had gas cans strapped to the machines so it had to be miles away. Twenty? Fifty? He didn’t know.
They had powerful snowmobiles and he understood the genius of using them. They may have been limited to only riding when it snowed but they could go anywhere when it did. The Christmas snow wouldn’t last, it was still getting warm during the days. It would start melting away in the morning. January was when the snows blew in and stayed for the rest of winter. In another few weeks they would come before the hard-cold set in and they would linger until spring thaw. When that happened, the Riders would be unstoppable for the next two or three months. They either had to run away or be ready when they came back and he knew they’d be back. They wanted the girls. Gordon knew the few dozen zombies he let in wouldn’t be able to defeat them, he’d been there for at least part of the battle. He’d seen the Tribe cutting them down.
He would return to the scene of his crime and he wouldn’t like what he found Cody vowed to himself.
He and Otis came to the back gate and he found his buffalo robe nearly buried in the snow. He brushed it off and swung it over his shoulders. The weight felt good and he wrapped it tight, holding in the warmth. He continued along the fence line towards the river, his mind still puzzling things out and coming to grips with the way things we
re. They had been alone and isolated and had tried to be good, to do what was right. Murray had voiced his concerns that they were acting too much like their animal companions, getting too uncivilized, too wild. Murray was wrong, though. He needed to become more like Swan and the twins. He needed to embrace the animal in him and not be concerned with things like mercy or forgiveness. In the animal world, you fought, you killed you moved on. You didn’t dwell on what was right or wrong. You did whatever you had to do to live even if something else had to die.
When Swan wanted to kill Gordon up before they voted to banish him, he was pretty sure it was just an act. She was putting on a front to scare him. She was still a thirteen-year-old girl on the inside. She could have killed him with an arrow tonight but she hadn’t. She wasn’t a cold-blooded killer no matter how hard she tried to convince them she was. Somebody had to be, though. Somebody had to be the executioner.
Things were different now. No one outside the Tribe could be trusted. If he were faced with the same situation again he had to be fearless enough to destroy the threat, not let it loose to come back and attack. He had to become more like Otis, unburdened with complicated thoughts.
He was failing them with his old way of thinking, he understood that now. If he didn’t change, they would be walked on, taken advantage of, imprisoned and enslaved. He had to be just as cold and devious as the enemy and he had to learn to show no mercy. Offer no quarter. Cody Wilkes couldn’t do it though. He had to let go of his old life, embrace the one thrust upon him. This life was hard, dirty and bloody. It could kill you for being decent, for trying to help the wrong people. He would have to be more discerning in the future. Learn to trust his instincts. He’d had qualms about Gordon from the first moment he met him but had pushed them aside to do the right thing. Never again. His mistake had cost them dearly.
He went back to the spot of his first kiss with Harper. Back to the place where Derek talked to him about what it meant to be a man. Where he gave him his first beer and the old Zippo that he’d lost. Back to the spot where his mom said her goodbyes to Derek and floated his body down the river. He knew she was still out there somewhere wandering around, still leading the horde away, but that wasn’t his mom. Not anymore. He believed the undead were soulless. When they died the first death, the spirit departed and left a shell that didn’t know it was dead.
He wished he was strong like Otis, the mighty oversized Kodiak. The word lingered in his mind. Kodiak. Feared. Respected. Nothing in the wild took anything from the big bears. Nothing crossed them. Other animals ran. Ran in fear for their lives. Cody squatted on the riverbank and put his hands in the water. It was cold. It was pure. It rolled on and on, an unstoppable force taking anything that stood in its way with it. If his tribe were going to survive in this ruthless new world, he needed to lead them in a ruthless new way. He needed to do what they couldn’t.
He rose and stripped off his weapons, armor and clothes until he stood naked in the falling snow. The old Cody had to put away childish things, to die and be baptized into something new.
He dove into the cold, slow moving waters of the Mississippi and swam for the bottom as the frigid river worked to force the air from his lungs. Numbness settled into his muscles as he found mud then dug his hands and feet into it. He forced himself downward, let out a little air so he could lay on the bottom and faced the surface. The cloud of muddy water was swept away and he lay there still and silent and felt the mighty river gently tug at him. The clouds slid away from the moon and the world at the bottom of the river brightened. He could see the snow falling and disappearing as it hit the surface. He willed his weakness away, demanded the river to take it and carry it to the ocean. When he came out of the water, he would be a new man he told himself. He wouldn’t surface until he was sure he had the guts to be as hard as he needed to be.
At church, he’d seen the miracle of baptism. He’d seen drunken Willie Hodges finally join his wife after she’d come alone ever since Cody had known her. Willie was a mean drunk and a lay about that liked to smack her around. They lived in a run-down trailer and everyone said he was white trash, and that she deserved better. When he finally got saved and came up out of the water, he was a changed man. He put down the bottle, got a steady job and went to service every Sunday. He had become a good man. Everyone said it was a miracle and Cody needed one now. He would stay on the bottom, in the mud, until he was sure he had it. Until the old Cody was gone and a new one emerged.
They attended a Baptist church and the preacher liked his fire and brimstone sermons. In Sunday school, when he was little, they’d learned about Jesus and love and charity and helping the less fortunate. When he started staying upstairs with his mom for the grown-up sermons, the preacher spoke of an angry God who gave men power to destroy their enemies. Bad men were used to do good things. The icy waters slowed his heart and he knew he needed air, the edges of his vision started turning black, but he waited. He prayed his weakness away and willed himself to become who he needed to be. To have what it took to save his Tribe. To be a bad man so he could do good things. He would wait until he died if he had to before he rose up too soon. He wasn’t cold anymore and the river seemed crystal clear. He saw a face in the moon and the mud wrapped around him felt warm, like an electric blanket. A fish swam lazily by a few feet above his face and there was a sudden explosion on the surface. Otis dipped his head in the water so fast the fish didn’t have time to react. Sharp teeth clamped down and before it could thrash its tail, it was jerked out. Swift, violent death in an instant. Cody was so startled he almost gasped in a lungful of water but held still. In less than a second, even the ripples disappeared and the face in the moon was still smiling down. The fish was gone, as if it never existed. He had his answer. Some things died so others may live. On the verge of passing out, he pushed out of the mud toward the surface and kicked his legs upward.
Cody Wilkes never emerged from those icy cold waters, what remained of the innocent boy was swept away in the current of the mighty Mississippi. Disappeared like the fish. A ruthless warrior that came to be known as Kodiak waded ashore.
45
Tribe
“Cody’s coming.” Murray said from his spot by the window. It had been hours and the twins were already discussing going to look for him. Relief flooded their faces and Harper ran to the door to open it. She threw her arms around him then exclaimed and dragged him over to the fire to warm up. It was roaring in the hearth and Otis nudged the triplets out of his favorite spot.
Cody looked around the room, at the unopened presents under the tree and the table still set for Christmas dinner then asked the obvious. “No word from Donny?”
Murray shook his head and looked at his watch again for the ten thousandth time. It was nearly two in the morning. The snows had finally stopped and the thermometer showed twenty-nine degrees.
“If he found her, he wouldn’t try to bring her back. It’s not ten below zero, it’s not a killing cold but he would get her inside someplace.” Harper said again, same as she told the others before. “A nice, warm bed with plenty of blankets.”
“There’s no use going to look for them, either, Cody.” she added. “We’d never spot them in the dark and the tracks are long covered.”
He nodded, didn’t offer an argument and turned his back to the fire to face them.
“It’s my fault this happened.” he said. “I didn’t want to change. I wanted our old world back and I thought any other survivors would too. I was wrong and I see that now. People like Gordon don’t change. They don’t suddenly turn into nice people; they just get meaner and we have to be as ruthless as them if we’re going to make it. My kindness, us giving him chance after chance to fit in has ended in disaster. I should have let Swan and Donny kill him. I should have killed him myself. If you think I’m still fit to lead, I won’t make the same mistake twice. The Tribe is all we have. It’s what keeps us alive and we can’t let outsiders take us down.”
“Of course, you’re fit
to lead.” Harper said and the others joined in. “It wasn’t just you, we all gave him second and third chances.”
“Not us.” Tobias said. “I wanted to throw him out months ago.”
“Then call me Kodiak from now on.” Cody said. “It’ll be a reminder every time I hear my name of who I have to be.”
“Can I have a warrior name too?” Landon asked “I can fight.”
Murray watched the banter as all of them thought of new names they liked but it was all in fun, something to joke about. He noticed something subtlety different about Cody. Or Kodiak as he wanted to be called. He couldn’t put a finger on it and point out exactly what it was but he wasn’t the same boy who had left to make a perimeter check earlier that afternoon. Maybe it was the way he carried himself as he ignored the cuts and bruises and rope burns. He was a little harder. A little more predatory and his eyes never stopped moving.
46
Richard
They drank heavier than usual and the mood was black once they finally made it back to Smiths Landing. Richard had a celebration planned but it was more like a funeral party. They had returned half frozen, miserable and empty handed after the long, cold ride. They had risked their lives for nothing and had run away from a bunch of little kids like whipped dogs. They had no plundered booty, no animal heads as trophies, and no girls as new play toys. Gordon tried to turn their defeat into a victory, tried to brag about leading the zombies in to teach them a lesson but Richard was scathing with his reply.
“I thought I sent you down there to get girls, Gordy. I wanted you to bring them back, not turn them into more zombies!”
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