“Jim says to start without him, he will be here in a bit,” Paula announced.
Jeez, was this a planned ass-chewing? How much trouble was I in exactly?
“Tell them what you saw,” Billy said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.
I looked at Dr. Zahn and Paula who both simply stared back at me like I might have something important to share. I started in on relating everything that I could remember seeing and hearing. I mentioned how both Billy’s and Dr. Zahn’s name had come out specifically. As I shared this, I tried to see if maybe there might be a spark of recognition when I talked about Commander Suzi McFarlane. If she knew the woman, there was no sign of it on her face.
During my recounting, Jim walked in. He gave me a smile and a nod and then slipped into a chair beside Paula. His smile vanished when I told about Jackson’s fate. I thought it might return when I shared how Suzi had died, but he just sat there with no expression. Finally, I finished with my report or whatever this was supposed to be.
“So we now apparently only have one faction to worry about,” Billy said, clapping his hands together as he stood up. I think that was my cue in regards to the fact that my part in this was all over. I waited for the inevitable dismissal. “I think sitting here and just waiting for this group to come for us is a mistake. While I don’t think it wise for us to venture out far from our walls, I do believe that we need to get people out on the perimeter in some of the old defensive positions.”
I continued to wait for my dismissal as Billy laid out plans for the defense of Platypus Creek. I listened as Paula and Jim each added to the plan and also as Dr. Zahn would explain some of the finer details when it came to dealing with people who had actual military background.
At last, I finally grew bold enough to talk. “What about Kayla?”
They all turned and looked at me with an assortment of expressions. Paula was pretty much blank, Jim looked confused, Dr. Zahn…well, she just looked like Dr. Zahn; but it was the look on Billy’s face that told me the answer.
“So we just leave her to perhaps the same or a worse fate than Jackson?” I directed my question to Billy since he was the only one who seemed like he would respond.
“We have gone over that. I hope we get her back when this is done. Hell, we may even be able to work a prisoner exchange if this battle goes on for a while.”
“When did we decide that a life is no longer worth saving?” This question was tossed back at the entire group.
“Since the days that risking two or more lives for the purpose of maybe saving one became a case of bad math.” Dr. Zahn stood up and folded her arms across her chest as she fixed me with her gaze. “You had best start learning that little hard nugget of truth. You may be required to make choices someday. Those choices might result in the death of one or many. You may be forced to choose one life over another…or the entire community.”
“Why would I need to make a choice like that?” I asked.
“We are not going to live forever, Thalia,” Paula said with almost no emotion. “The day will come when you and the younger people here will be asked to step forward and take the reins. The days of allowing you and the other youngsters to sit back and coast are a thing of the past. Maybe the next generation will have an easier go of it if we can secure this place, but right now we live in a world where the next in line has to be ready…whether they think they are or not.”
I sat back and continued to listen to the plans. Only, as I listened, I found myself paying attention in a way that I never had done before. In the past, I was content to just be pointed in a direction and told what to do; now, I saw things in a different light.
The meeting went on for another couple of hours. By the time it was over, it seemed like we had a solid defense against Randy and his people if they chose to attack.
***
“Thanks for letting Stevie stay with you,” I said to Cynthia as I set the bag down inside the door.
“I seem to be the flop house for the kids of all the people heading out tonight,” Cynthia said with a pleasant laugh. “It’s actually kind of nice.”
I looked to see Jenna Haynes sitting at a table with Cynthia’s son Xander and a few other kids that I didn’t recall the names of off the top of my head. They were playing some sort of handmade board game with a bunch of little carved figures. Jenna turned as we walked in and smiled big. She waved at Stevie and patted the empty seat next to her.
I looked down at him and gave his hand a squeeze. He returned the gesture and then started across the room. He was not halfway when he spun suddenly and sprinted back, throwing his arms around my waist.
“Please come back,” he whispered.
“You know I will do my best,” I said honestly. Part of me wanted to promise and tell him that everything would be fine, but we made it a point not to lie to each other for any reason.
He went over to join the others and I had to fight back my tears as I watched him. He’d been so brave these past few days. What made it worse was that apparently Melissa had been slipping for quite a while but he had not told anybody. The little boy had believed for the longest time that Melissa would be fine. At some point, he finally decided that she was acting strange and maybe a doctor needed to be called. He’d gone for Dr. Zahn the night he’d walked out to the living room to find Melissa sitting in the middle of the floor. No matter what he said, she had not responded. His fear was that she had somehow become a zombie. I think that might have been merciful.
“Melissa is staying with Sunshine,” I said to Cynthia. “If all goes well, I hope to see you in a few days.”
“I wish I was going,” the woman muttered.
I looked at her with what felt a bit like a frown or a grimace. I was going out to fight and kill; how could she possibly wish that she was going to take part in this?
“Being stuck back here just waiting to hear what happens is horrible. Also, because I am part of the medical team, they won’t even let me take up tower or wall duty.”
I guess I understood. I imagine that I would have hated it as well if I’d been told I could not be part of this. The thing was, I wasn’t the only so-called kid taking part in this excursion. Billy had called almost the entire population to a meeting just hours after our little gathering in the cabin. He’d given a synopsis of what I had reported and then said that the choice to run was off the table. This was a fight we could win, and we would not be giving up our homes so easily to these people.
Of course I still wondered if they were coming, but Billy seemed to be certain that was the case. With the exception of the very young, the very old, and the doctors and the students enrolled in their courses, every other person in Platypus Creek was involved. (Even the bookish types that never seemed to have any problem sending other people out to risk their butts…they all looked so sad with their little crossbows and belt knives.)
I am the second line of defenders and my job will be to cover the retreat of the front line if that becomes necessary. Also, anybody that is not one of us is to be shot on sight. One of the people in attendance at the big meeting (pretty sure it was one of the Nerd Herd) shouted out, “What if it is just some random passer-by who doesn’t have anything to do with any of this?”
Billy answered that question very directly and shut down the possibility of a follow-up when he replied, “Then they picked a bad day to come through.”
I had a little semi-circular barricade of sandbags in place as well as six bottles of this nasty stuff that burns hot and mean once it is ignited. All you have to do is light this strip of oil-soaked cloth that is at the top and then throw the clay bottle. When it hits, the stuff inside the explosive device splatters everything around it, catches fire, and burns basically until it runs out of things for the fire to feed on.
It was not quite yet sunrise when I took my post. Less than an hour later, the word came back from the scouts that we’d sent down the hill to spy on Randy’s little band; they were on the move and headed for us. Ten minutes later, Jim came to where I was posted. He waved at me in the signal to let me know he was okay and not under duress.
I was confused. Jim was supposed to be down with the people on the front line. He had his usual array of explosives in place. I actually thought that it might be possible that we never ended up fighting these people. Jim had enough little explosive devices to blow up half of La Grande.
He reached the old bus and climbed up. The whole time, he did not say a word. For Jim, that is not normal. Not even a “Hey, Cupcake” or anything.
“What’s wrong?” I asked once he was almost all the way up.
“I talked to one of the scouts who came back from keeping tabs on that guy’s little gang.” I just stared at him. This really wasn’t news, but I could also tell he had more to say. “Kayla is gone.”
It was only three words, but I felt a punch to the gut with every single one. Still, I had to be sure that I was understanding exactly what he was saying.
“By gone…you mean…”
“Dead. Kayla is dead.”
I let that sink in a bit as I tried to come to grips with my feelings. I’d grown up seeing her as a rival; in the end, she was the one who admitted to being jealous of me. It had given me a new perspective on how I tended to judge people unfairly. While I had not considered the idea that Kayla and I would become close friends or anything of that sort, I still had come to feel a sort of affinity towards her. She had proven that she was more than just some pretty girl with no heart. She’d stuck by my side to the end. And in the end…I had abandoned her for my own selfish reasons.
I felt like I was going to be sick.
“I wanted to be the one to let you know,” Jim said softly. He put an arm around my shoulder.
“How?” I managed to croak.
“I didn’t ask, and do you really want the details?”
He had a point. What mattered was that Kayla had died. I left her and now she was dead. It was my fault and it would be on my conscience forever.
“I have to get back,” Jim finally said. “You gonna be okay?”
“Sure,” I replied with a shrug. “This is the world we live in now. Isn’t that what you guys keep telling me?”
Jim opened his mouth and then shut it. He didn’t say another word as he climbed down and headed off to take his position. That left me alone with my new worst enemy: my own mind.
I churned over all the details from my time with Kayla. I considered all the things that she and I had gone through and if my decision to leave her behind with Cricket and the others was a good one. I wondered what Steve would think of me now.
I was still pondering those things when I heard a scream. That sound snapped me back to the situation. I would have the rest of my life to stew in my guilt, but right now, I was part of the defense of Platypus Creek. It was up to me and the others to make sure that Randy and his people never hurt another person. I still had no idea what drove him, and at the moment, I didn’t care. I wanted him to pay for Kayla. Pay for Jackson. For Rodrigo. Hell, I even wanted him to pay for Suzi.
This man represented the evil that had managed to remain in this world after the zombies had purged it of almost everything else. We couldn’t leave one single member of his group alive. And after we put these guys down, then just maybe there could be a sort of peace. La Grande was gone. Island City was no more. That would make us the largest community for possibly hundreds of miles in any direction.
Maybe now there could be peace.
But first…death.
7
“Can’t a guy catch a freakin’ break,” Juan spat as the sounds of moans came from nearby.
Having dragged Gerald out into the closest clearing that was not slick with zombie filth, Juan had finally managed to stop most of the bleeding. The concern was that it might be too little, too late. The wounds to the face were more seeping blood than gushing it like the missing digits. And then he found the nasty rip in the man’s side. Parts of the man’s insides were pressing at the ugly tear as they tried to escape the body cavity. Juan knew that keeping that from happening was at least as important as the blood loss issue.
If Gerald’s guts began to come out of that crease in the flesh of the man’s incredibly hairy body (that hair being the big reason Juan had not spotted the injury sooner), then the man was no doubt a goner.
“Not that you have that good of a chance now, big fella,” Juan managed as he climbed to his feet and oriented on the direction the moans were coming from.
The greenery began to move and shift as several zombies emerged. That was one of the problems with herds. They always had little pockets that followed, no doubt drawn at some point by the noise a herd created. He had actually been able to hear one herd on an open plain from what had to be a good three miles or so once. The problem with this latest herd was that they were coming through some murky land with a lot of woodland that masked or absorbed the sound. In the open, a group like that would most likely have been picked up at least a good hour or so before their arrival.
“C’mon, you walking bags of stupid!” Juan barked as the zombies seemed to momentarily be disoriented after emerging from the woods.
One of them turned its head and black slime began to seep from an ancient wound in the neck. This one was definitely from the early days. It had an uncountable number of holes peppering its abdomen. The fact that it had once been a woman was now only barely discernable as both breasts had been hit with shotgun blasts by the looks of it.
Then there was the zombie dragging some sort of trap that had fused into its leg over the years. Juan did not even want to think about that story. Bringing up the rear was a pair of zombie wolves that were missing legs. While the wolf version of a zombie was not anywhere near as fast as its living counterpart, they were often known to be a bit faster than the human version, and thus, usually considered a bigger threat.
Juan prioritized his targets and then limped in to take them down. He had managed to eliminate all but two when he felt a pinch on the back of his right leg. He jerked away and immediately lost his balance, falling hard on his side. His eyes quickly discovered the source of the pain that had shot up his leg. He had somehow backed into a jagged piece of timber that had stabbed into his flesh.
He only had a second to enjoy the relief as the last zombie wolf and the frighteningly recently turned young man who could barely be in his teens converged. Any other time, Juan would have been able to kick out and sweep the human off its feet and then dispatch the wolf and finish the young man before he regained his feet.
This was not one of those times.
The wolf was on him, its jaws snapping shut just a hair’s breadth from the tip of his nose. Juan grabbed it by the throat at the last moment and pushed its head back so that it missed his face. He used his free hand to jerk the knife free from his belt and shove it up under the jaw of the wolf.
Shoving the carcass aside as it went limp, he was only a shade more agile than the zombie as it fell on him. Using the same knife, Juan twisted his head to the side just in time to avoid a strand of dark drool that slipped from the boy’s mouth before jamming the point of the blade into its temple.
Pushing the last body away, Juan struggled to roll over and get back to his feet. He was having such a rough time of it, but he was finally on his feet and making certain that nothing else was moving when he spied the woman standing just inside the cabin’s clearing where the herd had mowed down everything when it passed.
“Impressive,” the woman said with a slow clap of her hands.
“Who the hell are you?” Juan was right back to being on guard. The problem was that he actually doubted his ability to take this woman if it came to a fight.
Equally as tall as Juan at over six feet, the woman looked like a female version of Gerald minus the beard. Her arms were bulging against the leather top she had squeezed into and her legs were tree trunks jutting down from her barrel-shaped torso. She had dark brown hair kept up in a wild topknot and her eyes looked almost black they were so dark.
“My name is Dee. Short for Doreen, but I hate that name, so I go by Dee.”
Juan was not about to argue with her. He would call her whatever she asked at the moment.
“Juan Hoya.”
“Wow…been a while since I heard somebody use a last name. Hell, most folks don’t bother even using real or normal names anymore. Everybody is Hawk, or Tiny…the fat guys always get called Tiny for some reason.”
“Dee?” Juan interrupted. The woman stopped her ramblings and fixed on Juan again.
“That was either gutsy or desperate…or just plain stupid, by the way.” Doreen walked over to Juan, her eyes taking in all the destruction. “Sending them two little girls? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that Gerald is going to die, and we sort of owe him our lives. You wouldn’t happen to be the source of that plume of smoke, would you?”
“Just getting the debris cleared around from the home. Heard rumor that there were some roamers in the area.” She did a full turn around as she examined the carnage and damage that the herd had left in its wake. “Looks like they undersold this one.”
“Can you help?” Juan gestured to the man on the ground.
“I got a sled coming. The team was just waiting for my signal. Them little ones coulda been just part of an elaborate trap to lure us in.”
Juan tilted his head in confusion. “A trap, using my daughters as bait.”
“Strange world we live in,” Dee said as she sidled up beside Juan and looked down at Gerald. “Seen this fella around before at the outposts. Good guy. Helluva a hunter, but a lousy fisherman. And didn’t he have a bear or something?”
Juan did not feel like explaining or trying to catch this woman up on current events. “I just want to know if you can help him. Any sorts of supplies that he had, anything I might have been able to use to clean him up is obviously gone.”
“Like I said,” Dee removed a slingshot from her vest and produced a round ball with a fuse, “I had to be sure this was on the up and up.”
She lit the ball and shot it skywards where it erupted in a bright flash and a puff of green smoke. A moment later, there was a rustling in the trees and a shriek that chilled Juan to the core. A large sled emerged being drawn by six massive dogs. Seated on the sled were Della and Denita.
“Papi! Look, we brought help and got to go on a ride!” Denita threw her arms up in the air and laughed like Juan had not heard perhaps ever in her young life.
There were three others trotting along with the sled and one person guiding the team. The sled was on some sort of frame with large, knobby tires that reminded Juan of a dune buggy. The driver called for the dogs to halt and the team obeyed. As soon as the sled came to a complete stop, the man barked something in a language Juan did not understand, and the entire team lay down on the spot.
Both girls scrambled off the sled and rushed to their dad, each trying to tell her version of the story. Juan tried to listen and watch everything that was going on around him. A man rummaged through some bundles and produced an array of bandages and bottles of liquids that ranged from clear to amber in hue.
An hour later, Gerald was bundled up, loaded onto the sled, and taken away. Juan was about to follow when Dee held up her hand. “I know this is gonna sound bad, but we don’t know you or your kids. Gerald is a familiar face. We take care of our own here, but you three are strangers. You gotta find your own way.”
Juan nodded. Actually, he understood completely. He had made the observation on more than one instance about how this was not the world he grew up in. And with the people he had met in his travels, this sort of reaction was not unreasonable.
“Your daughters said something about how you were headed for Anchorage. We got a caravan leaving tomorrow. It is our last run for supplies and to trade before the winter season starts to set in. You and your daughters can barter your way.”
“Barter? I hate to point out the blatantly obvious, but we ain’t got anything worth trading.”
The woman’s eyes flicked to the girls who were both poking at an area of the wreckage with sticks. Every so often one of them would stab at the ground and both girls would squeal in delight.
Juan looked back to the woman who had no expression on her face as she waited Juan’s reply. The realization of what she had just suggested hit him in the gut and he clamped his teeth together to keep from lashing out in rage.
Once he took a deep breath and was certain that he had himself under control, Juan spoke. “I got no idea if I am misunderstanding you, so I am gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend that maybe we just got our wires crossed. But if you suggest anything like that again, I may be beat up and ragged, but I will do my best to mop you all over this clearing…and that goes for any of your pals. I see one of you even glance at my girls…I’ll kill you.” That last part was whispered so low that it was barely audible.
The woman beamed at Juan, her face erupting into a smile as if she had just been handed a diamond ring with a rock the size of that smoke bomb that she had launched earlier. Juan’s hand drifted to his hip. At the moment, the clearing was empty with the exception of him, his daughters, and Dee. Even if she had people in the weeds waiting to spring, he was betting he could take her head clean off before anybody arrived.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Dee crowed.
Juan steeled himself for what was to come. All he knew for certain was that he would not go down without a fight and allow anybody to harm his little girls.
***
“I bet this place didn’t look this bad during the Blitz,” Vix whispered.
The group stood in the middle of the precarious looking Tower Bridge approach having just crossed the Thames and now looking at the ruins of the Tower of London. From where they stood, they could see the jagged remnants of The Gherkin. It no longer resembled its namesake and stood as an accusation to humanity and how it had failed.
“Maybe the palace is in no better shape,” Seamus grumbled.
The trailing edge of their band was now catching up. The numbers had swollen to over two hundred as they had managed to pick up a few of the smaller groups and add them to the numbers. Of course, that had put a strain on everything from supplies to the everyday order of things.
Some of the new additions had leaders that felt they should now be part of the inner circle and make decisions for the group. It had been Paddy that silenced such talk. He’d climbed up on a stump one evening and had the camp assemble. He laid it out very clearly that none of them were being forced to join the group. They could just as easily return to their former residences and await Dolph’s arrival. Then, he called up Bradford Chance.
Bradford was a survivor from a settlement near what had once been Vanbrugh Park. He told of the waves of undead and the awful whirring sound that had preceded them. He told in great detail about how armored rolling spheres had come up and then another zombie wearing a pack would be shoved out and then a person would actually walk in front of the zombie to get it to follow. Whatever pack-wearing zombie that had once been leading the approaching herd would then have its pack shut off somehow (everybody simply assumed via some sort of remote trigger) and then the herd would re-center its course on the new sound stimulus until it was coming right for the walls of their community.
They came like the tide, and as the bodies built up, those following would simply tromp over the fallen bodies of their brethren. Eventually, they were too much for the walls. And where the walls did not fail, the bodies simply piled up high enough to ultimately flow over the top. It was a nightmare that Bradford swore he would never forget. He’d seen women and children fall to the zombies and be torn apart so completely that there was nothing left to come back and join the ranks of the living dead.
One scene in particular was shared relating how a mother became involved in a gruesome tug-of-war with a handful of the undead over her three-year-old daughter. Bradford insisted that he could still hear the screams in his head.
It was likely that the man’s recital of events had swayed the group. However, for those still on the fence, discovering the man hanging from his neck with a note pinned to his shirt saying that he simply could take no more had forced the rest to face this new reality of living hell.
“Tell everybody to keep in line,” Mike called to those who were in the front of the caravan of survivors as he climbed up on the safety barrier. “Vix, Paddy, Seamus, come look at this.”
Vix reached the edge and looked over. She hadn’t really paid it much mind as they’d crossed the river, but the grounds in front of the Tower had become a jungle of sorts. Only, there was obviously something moving down there. The stalks of tall grass could be seen swishing and swaying; also, the occasional low moan drifted up.