“Let’s take a look around.” Chad bent down and plucked the bracelet, stuffing it into his pocket.
“Dad!” Ronni snapped, disapproval obvious in her voice.
He looked up and then realized what she was visibly upset about. “If we find the people that knew these men, I think somebody there should have the bracelet,” he explained.
“But not the wedding ring?” Her voice held a certain dubious quality that Chad had come to know well over the years.
“Fine.” He knelt and tugged the plain gold band from the man’s finger and put it with the bracelet. “Happy?”
Ronni nodded and the two began to follow the tracks in the snow. As they hiked deeper into the woods, Chad began to wonder if these men were hunting or looking for something. Often, the sets of tracks divided into three different trails. After splitting up twice, he and Ronni agreed that the men who had become zombies had split and each checked the surrounding area before converging on a location and traveling together again for a while.
They were discussing the possibility of perhaps giving up on this little quest when Ronni held up a hand and silenced her dad. She stepped back and lifted her nose to the air, giving a few good sniffs. Chad had often been impressed by his daughter’s sense of smell. He used to tease her that she was part Bloodhound due to her ability to seemingly detect certain smells that told her that there were living people close by
“Smoke,” Ronni whispered, her eyes drifting slowly as she turned in a complete circle before determining the direction she believed that it was coming from and then pointing. “That way.”
Chad knew better than to dismiss his daughter’s olfactory insight. He took the lead, heading up a fairly steep hill that crested on the edge of some very dense woods. When they reached the top, they could see the hints of smoke curling skyward from just a short distance inside the tree line; an orange glow was visible in the relative darkness.
“Well?” Ronni said to her dad.
“Well what?”
“Do we go check this out?”
“What is the deal with you?” Chad turned to his daughter and folded his arms across his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“When did you get into adventuring and all this? You always liked the peaceful times and got agitated whenever it got too hairy.”
Ronni looked away from her dad. She even went so far as to take a step forward so that he could not even really see her profile. That settled it; she was hiding something. He knew his daughter well enough that he forced himself to back off. The more you pressed Ronni, the less she offered.
“Can we not talk about it right now?” she finally whispered.
Chad didn’t want to talk about it later; he wanted to talk about it right this minute. Whatever it was, it was obviously weighing heavily on his daughter. Still, he wanted this trip to be enjoyable, getting Ronni all riled up would not help make that happen.
“So, what do you think?” she turned back to her dad after a few seconds of lingering silence that was only broken by the distant snaps and pops of the fire that he could hear now that he was paying closer attention.
Chad considered it for a moment and decided that if he was going to have any peace this week, he would have to capitulate to his daughter’s sudden and unusual desire for adventure.
“Let’s go.”
She actually clapped her hands and squealed with excitement. Together, they tromped into the woods. Less than a couple hundred yards in, they came upon something that had Chad scratching his head. Smoke was seeping up seemingly from the ground itself. There was no sign of snow in a large circular area that extended well into the woods. Just to the left was an open hole in the ground that contributed a good majority of the smoke to the scene. Also, orange flames licked up from the rectangular opening.
“What is this, Dad?” Ronni turned to Chad, the confusion he felt mirrored perfectly in her expression.
“I am gonna go out on a limb and say this is some sort of underground bunker,” he finally offered with a weak shrug.
“Thanks for that observation, Mister Obvious,” Ronni quipped.
Chad started forward, veering towards the opening. Ronni hurried to move in beside him and both of them had their crossbows drawn, loaded, and ready. They got to within about twenty or thirty feet when the smoke became too thick for them to go any closer.
“What do we do?” Ronni pulled the collar of her shirt up over her face to try and filter some of the smoke.
“Well…we can walk the perimeter, see if there is another way in.” Chad mentally slapped his forehead. What on earth was he doing?
He was actually relieved when she accepted that idea as a good one. Of course, his hope was that they would find no other viable entry. They could abandon this place and report it when they returned to the camping area. His daughter would be happy that he let her have this foray into the woods, and he would be able to enjoy this little vacation.
“Is that an entrance?” Ronni grabbed Chad by the arm and pointed.
Sure enough, just ahead was a hollowed out tree. If they would have come from any other angle, it is unlikely that they would have seen it. Instead, they were looking directly into the trunk of what had once been a massive tree. Somebody had gone to considerable effort to make this look like any other tree that had been hit by lightning. The top was jagged and well weathered. It did not stand out at all other than the crease right where it looked like the tree sort of folded in on itself just a little.
“You watch my back, I will take a peek,” Chad finally said. Ronni opened her mouth, but he held up a finger to silence her. “This is not up for debate.”
“Fine,” she agreed with only the slightest stomp of her foot actually giving away her displeasure.
Chad knew that a bow of any sort would likely be useless at this point. He drew his belt knife and pulled out a cloth-wrapped torch. Just before he reached the tree, he lit the torch. It gave off just enough flame to see ten or so feet, but he wasn’t planning on needing much more than that.
He could smell it before he even reached the tree entrance—the undead. It had been a long time since he smelled them in such a heavy concentration. He glanced over his shoulder at his daughter and saw her watching him with a curious fascination.
“Let’s go,” Ronni hissed suddenly. Her expression had changed from curious and excited to a look of uncertainty and concern.
Chad stopped. He was less than six paces from that tree. He agreed whole-heartedly with her choice of action, however, now that he was this close, he could not help it; he had to know what was here. If anything, this definitely merited being reported to the people in charge of the security of the campground. If there were zombies in the area in any real numbers, they should be made aware.
He took another step closer, and now it was his daughter insisting that he not do this. Chad almost laughed at the situation. He was at the tree and thrusting the torch inside the hollowed out entrance. There was a narrow passage carved into the ground that sloped downwards. This had to be some sort of underground bunker or perhaps a tunnel complex. He could not see far, and the fact that the passage was eventually consumed by the darkness let him know that it went back a ways.
He was just pulling his arm back when a scream echoed from that darkness. There was a flash of light deep down the incredibly long passage. The image that was almost burned into Chad’s eyes was horrifying.
***
“You can’t be serious,” Selina gasped.
“Afraid so,” Jody said as he went through his checklist.
It had been a while since he had gone out into the wasteland beyond their little community and its safety corridor. He had forgotten how much crap a person had to carry for even the shortest trips. Things were markedly different from the old days when you could count on slipping into an abandoned house or two to re-supply. These days, you had to live off what you carried, be able to hunt, fish, or trap, as well as know what sorts of wild plants were safe to eat.
“Why can’t we just let them come to us? Or, if we do have to go after these people, why not let somebody else do it?” Selina almost pleaded. “Why does it always have to be you?”
“That’s just it,” Jody sighed. “It hasn’t been me for a while. I was just slipping into the background and letting others deal with everything.”
“So?” It was obvious that Selina did not see a problem with things the way they had been.
“Look how everything has sort of fallen off?” Jody slid his pack onto his shoulders and faced Selina. “We are not in the clear yet. The world is just now starting to settle. The problem with that is the same as it has been throughout history. There are always going to be those who want what others have, and unless you are the biggest, the baddest, and the strongest, you will fall under the heel of those who seek to reside at the top of the food chain.”
“But that still doesn’t explain why you have to be the one to lead this raid or whatever you want to call it.” Selina actually shoved him back and away from the door, planting herself firmly in his path.
“Because I want to ensure that it is done right. I want to ensure that our children have a world to grow up in that is at least marginally safe.” He placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “And this is not a raid. It is an extermination. I won’t pussyfoot around it. I don’t plan on us returning with anybody left in our wake that might be a danger.”
Selina’s mouth opened, and then snapped shut. She grabbed Jody and pulled him close, smashing his lips with hers and allowing that kiss to be an expression of not only her love, but also her anger and frustration. When he walked out the front door, Jody was still reeling just a bit, but he quickly brushed aside the sensations from that peculiar kiss that was lingering with a physical presence.
Standing in a loose formation were the eighty people from the community that would be joining him on this mission. He had no false pretense when it came to what they were about to do. His people were going to war. They were not even giving the option of diplomacy the slightest consideration.
He related all of that to the group. Despite the fact that it had been made very clear at the mandatory town meeting two nights prior, he wanted to hammer that fact home with absolute certainty. Everybody assembled answered with grim nods to the affirmative.
Satisfied, he turned to go. Glancing back, he looked up into the window of his house. Selina was standing there with his children. Alana was beside her mother and Jenna was cradled in Selina’s arms. He gave a wave and was surprised at how relieved he was when it was answered; not just by Alana who blew him a kiss as well, but also by Selina. He had been worried that her anger at his being the one to lead this mission might result in no response. If something bad were to happen to him, he did not want her to regret how they had parted ways.
Always the realist, aren’t you, Jody?
he chided himself as he led his group out the main gates of the community.
They had two days of long hard travel ahead. While he had certainly doubted what the man had said about the number of inhabitants in his community, he actually believed the location that had been given. After looking at a map, he had found what was once the town of Delaplaine, Arkansas.
The location was not much more than a speck on the map; much like Cash, Arkansas where Jody now called home. It stood to reason that small communities would have been the best possible locations for any potential of survival. There were even reports from wandering travelers that passed through on occasion of entire towns that had managed to come through the zombie apocalypse without losing hardly one person. These oddities were sometimes spoken of with awe, but most often with fear. To have survived intact—which included not only keeping the undead at bay, but also being able to repel the human raiders that were a plague to the landscape—these communities had to be something incredible and led by very strong people who had to most likely make some very difficult decisions in those early years.
By the time darkness fell and they made camp inside a series of abandoned grain silos, Jody was feeling every bit like the old man of the bunch. His shoulders were chafed from the straps of the pack and his feet had blisters on their blisters. He made a point to do his best to conceal his discomfort as he sat around the fire and ate dried meat, fruit, and a hunk of bread with the rest of the team.
Once he was finally able to crawl into his bedroll after the sentries were posted, he was wondering if maybe Selina had been right about his not needing to be along for this little expedition. Of course he knew that was just the fatigue and discomfort talking, but still…
***
Entry Eight—
I almost want to burn this journal. I make it a practice to make notes of my results regarding the various methods that I use when attempting to extract information. The things I have done the past few days have me wondering if I have actually lost the last shreds of my humanity.
The bloody figure in the corner is a visible accusation that I have become as bad as those I hunt. Through those first few days, this girl would not speak; she barely cried, opting instead to scream into the branch that I had jammed in between her teeth as a sort of gag. When she did finally break, she broke hard. The sobbing and the begging for me to please kill her came in between the answers to my questions.