Here We Stand (Book 2): Divided (Surviving The Evacuation) (24 page)

He grabbed the rifle from Gregor’s shaking hands. “Go back to the village. Get more people. More ammo. More guns. Go.”

He took aim. There was no shortage of targets. He fired, reached for a cartridge, and properly took in the horde. In truth, there was no way of knowing how many there were. The long column stretched to where the road bent out of sight, but the creatures weren’t sticking to the path. A low wall ran from the bridge to fifty yards beyond the edge of the razor wire. Beyond that was a metal crash-barrier. The zombies spilled around and over those low impediments. He fired, hastily reloaded, and fired again. The razor wire was thick on the road, but stretched thin across the ground to either side. He fired. Reloaded. Fired, barely aiming. He had to get them to head toward him, toward the barricade, toward the razor wire that might slow their progress. He aimed. Reloaded. Fired. An undead woman in a red coat reached the razor wire. Tom fired at a zombie behind. The red-coated creature’s legs caught in the wire. It fell, face first, into the mass of razor-sharp blades. He fired, not looking where he hit. Another creature reached the wire. This one tripped on the squirming, living corpse. He fired. Hats, bare heads, coated and bare-armed, freshly dead and others with skin ripped away; their features blurred into one as he aimed and fired, aimed and fired. He ignored the zombies, focusing instead on the growing pain in his shoulder as the rifle bucked with each shot.

There was a roar of sound to his left, and again to his right. Jonas, Kaitlin, and the dark-haired woman he’d met at the bed-and-breakfast were there, firing into the seething mass. He aimed, fired, and tried to remember her name.

“Do we aim at the ones on the razor wire, or the ones behind?” the woman called out.

“Just shoot them,” Jonas yelled back. The zombies fell as bullets hit. Some were dead, but some rose back up. Tom reached for another round. The box was nearly empty.

“We need more ammo,” he said, but his voice was drowned out by the tramping feet and snapping mouths, ripping cloth and tearing flesh, and hammer’s hitting percussion caps at far too infrequent a rate. “Ammo!” he yelled. “We need ammo!”

“Naomi,” Jonas said, grabbing the woman’s arm. “Go back to the village. Tell Martha to get the children onto the boats. I want a couple of people on the other barricades to the west and south, but everyone else is to come here. Bring all the ammo. Go. Run!”

Tom fired, picked up the last cartridge from the box, reloaded, and aimed just below the brim of a red baseball cap. He fired. The cap flew off as the zombie collapsed.

“I’m out. We’re out.”

“One magazine left,” Kaitlin said, firing a round. She ejected the magazine and inserted her last.

“Can we blow the bridge?” Tom asked.

“That wouldn’t slow them for long,” Jonas said. “Not nearly long enough. We need to hold them here until Martha’s had time to load the boats.”

“Here we stand,” Tom said, grabbing a boathook and jumping down onto the far side of the barricade.

“You have to stand somewhere,” Jonas said, following him down. Above and behind them, Kaitlin fired one measured shot after another. The razor wire was slowing the zombies. Tom raised the boathook, but there was no close target. Despite their furious thrashing of limbs and snapping of mouths, they still didn’t move quickly.

“Here we stand,” he murmured again. “This is not what I thought when we came up with that slogan.”

The zombies tripped on the wire and fell. The creatures following lost their footing as they tried to walk over an undulating sea of corpses. On hands and knees, they crawled forward until the mass of death behind pushed them down onto the wire where they, too, became ensnared.

Jonas raised his .45, braced his left hand on the butt, took careful aim, and fired. Tom waited, feeling worse than useless. This was a fate that he had brought on the village. Albeit unwittingly, he was nonetheless responsible.

The nearest creature was caught in the wire fifteen feet from them. Funneled by the barrier and the low brick wall, the rest were getting closer. The front rank of that column fell, but there were always more behind. A wall of snapping, snarling, hissing death, a twisted mockery of the people they’d once been. Jonas fired, slowly emptying his gun.

“I’m out,” he called, holstering it and drawing his bowie knife. “That was Powell, was it?”

“Powell? Yeah.”

“He was the guy who came looking for you in January,” Jonas said. “Said he was FBI. Had brown hair, and didn’t have the scar, but I recognized him.”

“The zombies followed him here, and he followed me. I’m sorry,” Tom yelled back.

“If you want to apologize for something, it’s for buying a house here in the village. But if it wasn’t here, you’d have bought one somewhere else, and that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be here now. Even if you weren’t, who’s to say Powell wouldn’t have turned up. Where does it begin? Where does it end? Someone once told me that a life well lived is a life full of regrets.” He said something else, but Tom didn’t hear it over the noise of the undead. They were getting closer, a great heaving mass of death that the two of them stood no chance of stopping. Tom raised the boathook. The firing had stopped. Kaitlin must be out of ammo. He didn’t turn to look. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see her there, or see that she’d gone back to the village to help the children escape.

The nearest zombie was less than five feet away, crawling over the wire on wrecked legs and shredded hands. As it looked up, opening its mouth in a snarl, Tom stabbed the boathook forward, spearing the point neatly through its eye. With a tug, it came free. The zombie collapsed, but there was another behind it, and one on either side. He stabbed forward again and again at the heaving carpet of death. The zombies were four feet from him now. Three feet, and being pushed from behind more than pulling themselves along. He stabbed down again.

“Go,” Tom yelled at Jonas. “Get out of here.”

“Yep. Any second now,” Jonas said, raising his knife.

It was stupid. Futile. Once the zombies were past the wire, he and Jonas would be killed in seconds.

“Go!” Tom yelled. “Get out of here. Go and—”

And his words were drowned out by gunfire. One shot, then a dozen, then a fusillade. Jonas grabbed his arm, dragging him back to the barricade. There were ten people standing on the low rampart, firing shot after shot into the undead ahead and those to either side.

A zombie reached the end of the wire. It pulled itself forward onto the asphalt. Its legs shredded to the bone, it was unable to stand. Tom darted forward, stabbed down, then moved back to the barricade. The fusillade continued. Another zombie reached the end of the wire. Jonas ran forward, slashing his knife at its skull. Tom went to meet the next, and a pattern was established. They dealt with the creatures that reached the barricade while the shooters aimed at those further away. For the first ten minutes, Tom was sure they would be victorious. After half an hour, as his strength ebbed, so did his confidence. The boathook broke. He drew the bowie knife. He slashed. He hacked. After another hour, he was exhausted. One more zombie, he decided, and then someone else would have to take over. He cleaved the knife down on a scabbed scalp absent of hair. One more zombie. After the next he’d take a rest, but the next came, and he hacked down and stood his ground.

The firing slackened. It didn’t stop, but the aim had shifted toward the left and right. He blinked, focusing on the road beyond the immediate few feet in front. It was littered with bodies. Some were still, but others moved, twitched, and thrashed. The wire trapped some. Others were immobile due to broken limbs and shredded muscles. At the end of the wire, the zombie in the red coat, now torn and tattered and stained a far darker crimson than the dye, staggered to its feet. A shot rang out. It collapsed.

“Is it over?” Naomi called out from behind the barricade.

“Not yet,” Jonas said. “Not today. But someday, maybe.”

“There’s more coming,” Kaitlin called. “I count eight. No, ten.”

Tom wiped his hands on his coat. He had stood his ground, waiting for them to come once before, at the motel. If he survived the day, he doubted that this time would be the last.

Epilogue - Departure

March 18
th
, Crossfields Landing, Maine

“Tell me about her,” Kaitlin said.

They stood by Helena’s grave. Tom made a final adjustment to the pieces of wood that he’d tied together. He’d burned her name onto them, but it seemed a pitiful marker, especially since there was no chance of anything more formal ever being erected.

“She was a teacher,” Tom said.

“I know that. I meant something else.”

Tom thought of their escape from New York, and their journey through Pennsylvania. There hadn’t been many happy moments. Not that he hadn’t been glad for Helena’s company, but their time together had been spent fighting for their lives. “She wanted to help other people,” he said.

“That’s a good epitaph,” Kaitlin said. “A better one than most people get.”

It was a little over forty-eight hours since the helicopter had landed and Helena had died. After the initial wave of zombies had been killed, the undead kept coming, just not in such great numbers. It was fifty in the first hour, twenty in the next, and then a handful every hour for the rest of the day and through the night. They’d used lights rigged to car batteries to illuminate the road, and killed the last zombie just before dawn. Of course, they’d not known that at the time, and no one had felt confident saying it until an entire day and night had gone by, and another sunrise arrived, with no more shambling creatures appearing on the road to the north.

When they’d counted the undead, they’d discovered fewer than three hundred had been in that first wave. Tom still couldn’t believe it was so few. He was sure he’d killed at least that number himself.

“I think he lured them here,” Tom said.

“Who lured what?” Kaitlin asked.

“Powell and the zombies,” Tom said. “He did it before, at the motel, the first time he nearly caught us. Nearly caught me. Helena saved me, then.”

“I don’t want to talk about him here,” Kaitlin said. “To be honest, I don’t want to talk about him at all. He’s dead, and from what he told you, no one else is going to come.”

“No. Not here, at least,” Tom said.

“Then I don’t want to talk about him, I don’t want to think about him. Not here. Not now. I just want a few moments to remember a friend before the work of the day truly begins.”

Tom stood in silence by the grave, looking at the dirt he’d helped shovel over Helena’s wrapped body. Hers wasn’t the only new addition to the old cemetery. Eight other markers had joined the moss-covered stones of the graveyard, all victims of the brief gunfight that had followed Powell’s arrival. There was a ninth grave, this one in the far corner. It had been dug a little deeper, and it would never be marked. There had been a fiery debate about what to do regarding the bodies of Powell and his cronies. Burying them was more efficient than burning them, and less problematic than dumping the corpses with those of the undead. Nevertheless, their presence in the cemetery was a source of resentment for those who’d lost someone when Powell’s men had opened fire. And that resentment was focused on Tom. He didn’t care.

Yesterday, after an hour had gone by with no more zombies seen on the road, he’d gone to collect the remaining M16s and ammunition from his cottage. They were sorely needed. The defense of the village had depleted their stores of ammo. He’d found eight zombies lingering along the track between the road and the cottage. He’d killed them, hacking them to pieces with the bowie knife. When they were dead, he stalked the perimeter of the house, looking for more. Finding none, he’d started walking north. It was five miles before he’d found one.

The zombie was crawling along the road on broken legs, managing less than a hundred yards an hour. He’d stood twenty feet away, watching its mouth gape open, its teeth snap against each other, its hand curl and flex, and then he’d shot it. He’d stood there as its blood congealed, uncertain whether he wanted another horde to appear. It wasn’t that he wished for death, not exactly. He wanted an end to his quest, but Powell’s last words had robbed him of that. The man might have been speaking simply to distract Tom, but there might have been some truth hidden in the words. In which case the new life he’d thought he might have in Crossfields Landing would have to wait, as his old one wasn’t yet done with him. He’d walked back to the cottage he would never call home, more weary than before.

He’d taken the rifles and ammo back to the village, and then returned for the server. Not wanting to face the grim messages of farewell in the videos, he’d given it to Jimmy to do with as he would.

Kaitlin turned away from the grave. Tom followed her out of the cemetery.

“I’m going to Jimmy’s,” Kaitlin said. “And then I’ve got to check on the sentries. What about you?”

“I’m still not sure,” Tom said, though he was answering a very different question than the one she’d asked. He followed her to the restaurant.

In one corner, the tables had been pushed aside. The server sat atop one, a trio of computers were plugged into it. Jimmy stared at the screens, headphones balanced over one ear, a strangely serene expression on his face. He glanced up as they entered.

“There’s some good ideas here,” he said. Each of the three displays showed different people in different videos, though there was a commonality to their resolute expressions. “Homemade napalm, for one.”

“We tried setting fire to the zombies at the motel,” Tom said. “I’m not sure whether it harmed them, but the building burned down.”

“No, I meant for destroying the bodies,” Jimmy said. “We’ll have to take care of those before we can think of farming.”

“Right. Sure,” Tom muttered. Kaitlin headed into the kitchen. He walked over to the table and picked up the tablet he’d found in Powell’s pocket. It hadn’t been damaged, but it was locked.

“Any luck with the code?” he asked.

“There’s a password,” Jimmy said, glancing briefly up before returning his attention to the screens. “Not just a number, but an actual word. Any ideas what it could be?”

“Not a clue,” Tom said.

“Then no, there’s no way of getting it open,” Jimmy said. “So forget about it. It won’t help, but this might. This is the third video I’ve found where someone says they were bitten but haven’t turned.”

“Does she show you the bite marks?” Tom asked. “Does she say how long ago she was infected?”

“No.”

“Then don’t believe it,” Tom said. “You don’t want to bet your life on someone else’s desperate hopes.” He walked over to the window from where he could see the bay. His own boat was down there, but Martha’s large schooner was gone. She’d taken it north, scouting for a location to which they could flee should more zombies come. She’d asked if he wanted to go with her. He wished he’d said yes, but he had a decision to make. He could easily see himself taking on one task and then another, putting it off until so much time had passed that the decision was made by default.

“If you’re not busy, you should make yourself useful,” Jimmy said.

“Sure. Of course. How can I help?”

“There’s always the washing up,” Jimmy said.

He went into the kitchen and began attacking the pans, but soon stopped with one only half scrubbed. He stared at the water, trying to discern some clue as to which path he should now take.

“I’ve found it!” Jimmy yelled.

“He found it,” Andy said, carefully placing the pot he’d been drying on the shelf. Tom followed the hulking young man out into the restaurant.

“Found what?” Tom asked.

“How it began,” Jimmy said, excited. “The zombies! The outbreak!”

“Let me see,” Tom said.

Jimmy pressed play. Tom watched. He froze. He understood. “Play it again.” But he didn’t need to watch it all. “There. Stop it.”

“You said there was a woman with Addison when you were captured,” Jimmy said. “Is that her?”

“No. No, it’s not,” Tom said. “I don’t know her, but I know that man. Where did you find this video?”

“It was in an email. Here.” He showed Tom.

“That was sent to Farley on the day of the outbreak. I completely forgot about it,” Tom said. “It came from an NSA account. It doesn’t say who sent it.”

“It has to be whoever went into the room and found the camera,” Jimmy said. “Who’s the man?”

Tom didn’t reply. He went back through the files, looking at one, then the next, then moving onto others that he’d found, copied, and stolen long ago. Everything made sense now.

“What’s going on?” Kaitlin asked, coming back into the restaurant.

“I’ve found how it began,” Jimmy said. “There’s a video.”

“Show me,” Kaitlin said.

“Yeah. Sure. It’s here.” Tom set it to play. “Jimmy, those satellite images you were playing around with, I need to see them. I need to see if a place still exists.”

“Why? Where?”

“Just get the thing set up.”

It took three hours during which the restaurant filled up as people came in to watch, and then stayed to watch the video again and again.

“There,” Jimmy said. “That’s it.”

“Are you sure?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, those are the co-ordinates you gave me. It looks like an airfield. What’s there?”

“I think, no, I’m sure, I’m absolutely certain that is the facility where the virus was created,” Tom said.

“You are? How do you know?”

“There’s another file. Another video. Not a recent one. In it there’s a scientist. The guy who created it.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” Tom walked over to the laptop where the footage of patient zero was being replayed for the sixtieth time. When he reached over to press pause, there was an instant uproar. He backed away. It didn’t matter. He knew what was on that video. He knew it was the same man, the same scientist in both. He left the restaurant. He wasn’t walking anywhere in particular, but found himself heading toward the barricade. Jonas and Naomi were on sentry duty.

“What’s wrong?” Jonas asked.

“There’s a video,” Tom said. “From my server. It shows how it began. Literally. The first zombie. Patient zero. Everything. The people who were there and why. Go and see.”

“No, I’ll stay. Naomi, you go and have a look if you want. Tom can take over your shift on guard. And pass the word around. I guess everyone should see it.”

“I think they already have,” Tom said. “Everyone’s in the restaurant watching.”

Naomi headed toward the village, leaving Tom and the detective alone.

“It explains it?” Jonas asked. “The outbreak?”

“I think so,” Tom said. “If you take it with a few other files I’ve got on there, it forms a pretty complete picture. A few of the fine details are missing, but it gives enough of the broad strokes that I can work out the rest.”

“And does it say how we can stop it?” Jonas asked.

“No. I don’t think it can be stopped. Not now.”

“Pity. So what’s wrong? You look like death warmed up.”

“It’s the person who’s behind it,” Tom said. “He’s not dead. Powell said something. I thought he was stalling, speaking just to keep me off guard, but Addison said something similar. It was a threat. At the time, I thought I was about to die, so gave little thought to his meaning. Then there was the mushroom cloud and I forgot but… but it’s not over. Not yet. Not for me. It isn’t just that video of the first zombie. There are other files, ones I collected a long time ago. In that video of patient zero, there’s a scientist. That same man appears in another. He’s in the lab, giving a tour of it. It’s the lab where the virus was created. It’s still there. I have to go to the lab. I have to destroy it.”

“Why?”

“Because Helena’s dead,” Tom said. “Max is dead. Claire is dead. Their children are dead. Murdered. It’s not just them, but everyone in the entire country and across the world. Everyone who died because of the outbreak, and everyone who died trying to stop it. Someone has to make sure that every vial is destroyed and every scrap of paper that details how it was made is burned. Who else is left but me? No. I have to leave. I have to do this.”

“You sure it’s still there?” Jonas asked.

“I am.”

Jonas sighed. “I’d like you to stay. I know that there’s a lot of anger directed toward you at the moment, but we could do with your help.”

“This is important,” Tom said.

“Important to you, maybe. To anyone else? I don’t know. But go if you have to, if that’s where you feel your destiny lies.”

It did. The people here in Crossfields Landing were safe. They had a place to stand and the ability to retreat if they had to make that stand elsewhere. He would make sure that scientist who created it was dead and that the facility where it was made was destroyed. But first, there was something else he would do, somewhere else he would go. It was the words Helena had spoken before she died. There was a chance for him to make amends for the greatest regret of his life. So he would cross the ocean, go to the lab, and then, if he didn’t die along the way, he would return.

“If I can, when it’s all done, and I’m certain that this world is as safe as it ever can be now that the dead walk the Earth, I’ll come back,” he said.