“We return to London and take Buckingham,” Vix said plainly.
“Why Buckingham?” one of the women posed. “The country is rife with castles and such. Why would we want to venture into London?”
“The fool did the hard work for us of clearing out the city of the undead,” Vix explained. “If we mass our forces there, we can bring in survivors from all over and give them someplace they know. Who gives a rat’s arse about some generic castle in the countryside? But tell people to come to Buckingham? Well I bet they know where that is, right?”
The welcoming committee asked Vix, Gable, and Randi to wait for a few moments. They moved aside and huddled close; the debate was whispered, but it was clear there were voices from both sides making the case both for and against.
At last, a man and woman stepped away from the group. The woman shot the man a look with a raised eyebrow and he nodded.
“We will put this before our people,” the woman said. Vix opened her mouth, but the woman raised a hand to silence her. “We will not force anybody to do this. While we certainly see the threat you describe, we have managed to rebuff all comers for many years.”
“The problem is that you are not realizing the scope of this man’s delusions…or his ingenuity. And by the time you change your minds and realize he is too much for you to withstand with those walls made from stripped down trees, it will be too late.” Vix saw the dubious expression on the woman’s face. The man could have been an excellent poker player in the times before as he showed absolutely no emotion at all. “Just make me this one…assurance.” Vix felt that asking for a promise might be too much and chose her word carefully.
“If it is possible,” the woman replied.
“Tell the people everything that I have told you. Do not give them an abridged version of this, it is too important.”
“For what it is worth,” the woman said in a soft whisper, although it was unlikely that the man standing just beside her could not hear, and so was mostly for effect, “I think your information is viable and that the threat is very real. I will do my best to convince any who will listen. And you can be assured that I will be coming just as soon as I can get my cart loaded.”
The pair stepped back and Vix sighed. This had not gone at all like she hoped. If she was being honest, she had expected the news to be received with some urgency and for the residents of this place to be appreciative, promising to follow behind as soon as humanly possible. If anything, they had been greeted with apathy.
Vix returned with Gable and Randi to the group. They walked in silence, allowing her to stew over what she considered to be a huge failure on her part and a fatal mistake on the part of the people in that little community.
They arrived at camp and Vix gave the report. Mike seemed unconcerned and called for everybody to move on. In minutes, everybody had packs slung over their shoulders and they resumed their trek west. They stuck to what had once been the A13 and made amazingly good time.
As their band made camp that night, Paddy found a spot next to Vix and sat down. She could tell he had something on his mind, and after she’d given her face a good washing with her clean cloth and some water from her canteen, she turned to the man, fixed him with her stare, and folded her arms across her chest.
“You think this is going to fail, lassie?” Paddy finally asked.
“It will if we don’t get some people to join us. We can’t hold someplace like Buckingham with thirty or forty people. Not against Dolph and his army,” Vix said with a groan as she unlaced her boots.
She slipped them off and cleaned her feet before slipping into fresh, clean socks. On the road, it did not matter that there had been a lack of zombies; she would never feel comfortable sleeping without her boots on. She poured water in her metal cleaning bowl and then looked back up at Paddy. He had remained silent.
She had to blink to be certain she was seeing his expression correctly. He was smiling!
“Did you nip some of the hard cider?” Vix grumbled.
“No,” Paddy said with a hearty belly-laugh that made a few people in camp glance his way for a moment before returning to their assorted tasks. “I’ve just been waiting and hoping that something might arise that would give us something to place a wager on.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vix knew good and well that this little band had a thing for making odd bets. Actually, it was more the payoff that usually ended up being so odd. When she’d met Paddy, he’d been dressed like a storybook leprechaun. Since joining, she’d heard some real doozies.
“I am talking about placing a wager with you as it pertains to the success of this little mission we find ourselves on,” Paddy said with a hint of a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth.
The fire had just been lit, and the orange of the flames made his hair look like a fiery halo and his eyes sparkled. His skin had an orange hue to it, and now he looked more the part of some mythological creature than when he’d been dressed as one.
“Why would I involve myself in one of your ridiculous wagers?” Vix grunted as she pulled the first boot back on.
“You are one of us now. Am I correct?”
“Of course, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“We have a rule against taking ourselves too seriously. Most of us think that is part of what led to our demise. So now, we make these ridiculous wagers as you so eloquently put it.”
Paddy’s smile was ear-to-ear by this time, and a few of the others had gathered around, making Vix suddenly wary. Even Chaaya seemed to be paying attention.
“And what would be the conditions of this wager?” Vix finally asked.
“If we fail in taking the palace, recruiting an army, and rebuffing Dolph and his twisted minions, then you have to wrap yourself in an Irish flag and sing
A Soldier’s Song
.” He paused and glanced around at the crowd, and gave a salacious wink. “That would be the Irish National Anthem, for those of you who did not know.”
“Didn’t know the Irish had an anthem,” Gable said with a snort. “Thought it was more of a slogan…something like, ‘Pour me another pint’ or something like that.”
“And what would you Americans know about anthems. You have that screechy abomination that not even your own citizens seemed to be able to sing properly,” Seamus piped up.
This started off a barrage of jibes and ribbing from everybody. However, Vix was still sitting there silent. She had not spoken a word either to accept or rebuff the offer. In reality, she was still fixated on something that Paddy had said a moment ago.
“You are one of us now. Am I correct?”
She had lived in the community of New England for several years. She had done her part, helped when and where she was needed, and taken part in everything from births, to weddings, to funerals. Yet, through it all, she had remained pretty much to herself. She never let anybody in too close and did not allow herself to form deep bonds or attachments with her fellow citizens.
And now, here she was with a band of what amounted to little more than a bunch of hooligans and she had found something she was not even aware that she’d been lacking: peace. These were her people, and, for reasons that she could not put into words, she was one of them.
She locked eyes with Paddy, her expression stone cold serious. She felt giddiness in her belly when the smile he’d been sporting slowly melted from his face.
“What?” the little man finally asked.
That single word was like a stone thrown into a mill pond. It sent a ripple across the camp and silenced all of the laughing and joking that had kicked up as it usually did every night. Seamus released Gable from the headlock he’d placed the man in and even went so far as to brush at the man’s heavy tunic as if to wipe away the wrinkles.
“You have yourself a bet,
little
man,” Vix said flatly. She emphasized the word ‘little’ as she tugged on her other boot and stood up. “But if I win…then you have to sing
God Save the Queen
.” She cupped a hand to her mouth and turned towards, Gable to direct her next statement. “That is a proper anthem, yank.”
Paddy bellowed with laughter, but Vix spun on him and raised a finger. “Not so fast. One more thing, you gold hording little gnome, you said that I have to wrap myself in the Irish flag. Well, I won’t desecrate the British flag with your grimy little body. No, you will sing
God Save the Queen
…naked and saluting the Union Jack with a proper salute.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Paddy stood and extended a hand to Vix. “You have yourself a wager, lassie.”
The camp erupted in a chorus of hoots, cheers, and jeers. Vix smiled; she’d found herself a home.
***
“I see three,” Ronni whispered.
She and Chad had set out for the general direction of what they hoped would be a camp of undeclared merchants. Not for the first time, Chad marveled at how the few communities in the area had managed to band together. That had certainly been a welcome change. And not only did these separate communities have each other’s back, but they also made it a point to set up a well-patrolled perimeter. No merchants entered the region without clearance. Sure, that had caused some of the peddlers to refuse to come in with their wares, but the bountiful game and excellent farming ensured that more were willing to submit to such petty trivialities. They usually went on their way with traded goods that could fatten their purses enough to make it well worth the trouble.
“Me too,” Chad agreed. “That is what I find so strange. I can’t recall the last time I only saw a group numbering less than a hundred.”
“Maybe a leading edge?” Ronni said.
“No herds within sight of even the most remote patrols.”
Ronni knew that, but she was just as thrown off by this discovery as her dad. And there was one other thing that made these zombies different.
“I don’t figure those walkers to be any older than six months to a year, might even be more recent than that judging by the fact that the one man still has stuff dangling from that abdominal wound.” Chad handed his binoculars to Ronni.
That was one thing about zombies that had their insides torn out to any degree; over time, the insides finally broke free or eventually pulled out when the zombie moved around. That caused the ultimate creation of the zombies that Chad referred to as “humps” since they all ended up walking sort of stooped over.
“You want to take them down?” Ronni nudged her dad in the side.
“Shouldn’t be much trouble, besides, I would hate to just leave them out here wandering around. This close to the lodge, it would just take one curious kid wandering away from the safe zone to cause a tragedy.”
Ronni stood up and drew her blade. “C’mon, there are only three. It should be a piece of cake.” Chad grabbed her arm and shook his head.
“I don’t care, the rule is that you use the crossbow at all times for any target unless they happen to surprise you and are too close.” Chad was reciting one of the community rules. He had asked about it one day, and the answer had made him actually feel sort of silly.
“Why would you take even the slightest risk that you might get backsplash, much less the bite or scratch potential? You have zero chance of any of those things if you use the bow.”
He had not used his blade since then. Ronni had a job inside the fence and Chad was willing to guess that neither of them had likely seen a zombie since they’d settled in. That might explain her desire to “live dangerously” during this little vacation.
Chad loaded his own weapon, but he had no plans on actually using it. The targets were far enough away that his daughter should be able to dispatch them all long before they even covered a quarter of the ground between them.
Her first shot went wide and he heard her curse under her breath. Her second shot hit the lead zombie in the chest. The creature rocked a little, but otherwise continued on towards them now that they had finally seemed to locate their living prey.
“Do you even know where the range is back home?” Chad quipped.
“Oh shut up,” Ronni hissed as she fired her third shot. This one flew true and hit the zombie just to the right of the nose. The creature stumbled and fell into the snow without a sound. She turned and glanced over her shoulder just long enough to stick out her tongue and cross her eyes at her dad before setting up for the next shot.
She did not miss again as she took down the other two zombies. Once that was done, Chad and Ronni started over towards the downed corpses.
“These are way too fresh, Dad,” Ronni said as she toed one of the corpses. “I mean like within the past day or two.”
Chad had to admit that he was strangely proud of his daughter for making that observation. It was perhaps a bizarre thing to be proud of, but it told him that, while her shooting may be suspect, she still held on to some of the important things that they had learned during those first several years together.
“Maybe there was a small camp nearby,” Chad guessed.
He moved around the three bodies and saw a few things that had him wondering. For one, all three zombies were men. One of them was wearing a wedding ring which could be no big deal; however, he also wore a bracelet that had been made from wooden beads. There was a single word strung together: DADDY. This was obviously fairly well worn, but there was no way it was over a decade old.