I was looking into my future. At what I might become. My hand gripped my sidearm, seconds away from pulling it and putting myself down, when Mia spoke up.
“Someone has to do it,” she said.
She was the first one to break the silence. I didn’t know how long we’d all been standing there staring down. Her words reminded me that it was time to go. Time to find the ones we’d come looking for, that I had work to do in whatever amount of time I still had.
“I’ll do it,” Jake answered.
“No.” Michael reached over and pressed his hand against the barrel of Jake’s rifle, lowering it just as the younger man raised it. “We’ll all do it.”
This seemed to resonate with everyone. If we all fired, then we’d all share the guilt. No one would ever know for sure who’d made the kill shot.
“On three. Pie formation.”
Michael raised his rifle and pulled the butt against his shoulder. This seemed to signal the rest of us to do the same, no arguments, no complaining. Five more barrels aiming down into the hole.
Two on each head.
“One.”
Safeties were clicked off.
“Two.”
There was a wispy hiss as everyone slowly exhaled.
“Three.”
Six fingers squeezed six triggers, and three runners were put down.
November 24th: midafternoon
“I think the batteries have enough juice for one more call,” Rabbit said. He tucked the big hand-held radio back into one of his vest pockets.
“Good. Save it for when we need it.” Michael walked next to him, the pair leading the group down the highway into Pency.
Before finding a way around the washout, Jonah and Jake had tied the rope off to the front end of a Humvee, allowing the entire group to climb down into the pit. Since they didn’t really have time for grave-digging, they’d covered John and the other two with rocks and pieces of pavement. That act nearly broke the group. Jake cussed with each clatter of rock and asphalt, Mia held her breath intermittently to keep from breaking down into a screaming fit, and the rest simply moved as though they’d suddenly become the things that had set out to kill them a year ago.
Beaten, weary, meek.
What none of them knew was that each held a burning rage inside them, a ravenous beast waiting to pounce on those they thought were responsible for all their pain and sorrow. The resignation they felt stemmed from the assumption that they would never know, or never find the perpetrators.
“I can’t do this anymore, dude. Swear to God, feels like my skull’s about to blow the fuck up,” Jake mumbled to Jonah.
Those two brought up the rear, weapons at the ready, keeping Kasey and Mia in the middle of the group. Gus padded along wherever he liked, trotting and sniffing the air, occasionally zigzagging to the ditch and peeing on the grass. The group envied his freedom and lack of concern.
“We’re almost done. Hang in there,” Jonah answered. Neither looked at the other as they spoke; their bodies were tense and their eyes constantly scanned the surrounding area.
Jake snorted. “Bullshit. We’ll never be done.”
Jonah chanced a glance at the younger man. “Just hang in there. Don’t lose your shit yet. Might need your sorry ass later.” He returned to his survey of the first set of houses they’d come upon since leaving the Humvees.
The two houses on his right had gone to hell. Their owners were most likely dead, not that it mattered anymore. To Jonah’s left was an old abandoned motel, the kind with exterior doors. The windows were cracked and shattered, dirty and ripped curtains flapping in the light breeze. Doors were broken in, shutters fallen off or hanging askew, weeds growing up through cracks in the concrete sidewalks.
“Don’t lose my shit,” Jake muttered. “Look around, cowboy. Whole world’s lost its shit.” He snarled and adjusted the rifle against his shoulder, face set with a look that usually preceded a swearing fit. “You wanna explain what the fuck happened back there at the washout?”
Jonah visibly twitched and actually turned his head to focus on Jake. “What do you mean?”
Jake’s eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t know…maybe the goddamn deadhead
death
squad that saved our fuzzy butts back there?”
Jonah relaxed a bit. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m sure we’ll find our answers at the Command Center.”
“Sure as hell hope so. This shit’s gettin’ real old, real fast.” Jake shook his head and turned back to guarding their flanks. Jonah swallowed hard and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.
* * *
Mia and I walked in silence, Gus trotting this way and that all over the road. Pency was quickly coming into view, and from what I could see, it was a ghost town. There were vehicles and garbage all over the place, no people, and absolutely zero zombies. Fast
or
slow. At first glance it didn’t make any sense. But after what we’d seen on the way there? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Whatever those things were, the Terminators, the people that weren’t people, they were killing the dead. It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume that they left the living alone. They’d left us alone back at the washout. Saved our asses, as a matter of fact. They’d had plenty of opportunity to eat us, but had left us untouched.
Mia and I had finally settled back into our comfortable rhythm again, after so many months of fighting and tension. She’d finally realized that I was going to be okay. Might be crazy as a shithouse rat, but I was okay. After realizing this, her mood and attitude had relaxed; knowing she could once again lean on me when she needed went a long way in easing her mind.
“Stay sharp,” Michael said over his shoulder.
We were entering what I suppose you’d call the suburbs of Pency, though the town wasn’t much bigger than any of the others we’d traveled through during the past year. We could see the downtown area already, so it couldn’t have been that big. Hopefully our path would take us
around
what used to be the busiest part of town, and not
through
it. On the heels of that thought, I overheard Michael asking Rabbit which way we needed to go. I chuckled to myself, and Mia elbowed me. It was reassuring to have the old Mia back. She jerked her chin with a serious, knit-eyebrow look, telling me to keep my head in the game. I cleared my throat and went back to inspecting each car and house we walked by.
Everything was empty, quiet. There was nothing there. However, I did understand her thinking: don’t assume, don’t get lazy. A few seconds after passing a dingy motel on our left, I overheard Jake and Jonah talking about the washout. The last thing I heard gripped my heart and there was a
click
behind my eyes.
The goddamn deadhead death squad that
saved
us...
My boots crunched to a halt. Mia almost fell in her haste to turn and see what was wrong. I barely heard her snap her fingers to get Michael’s attention. I whirled to face Jake, who had already come to an abrupt stop to keep from barreling into my back.
“What did you just say?”
He glanced at Jonah, then back at me. “Uh…this shit’s gettin’ old?” Jake darted his eyes to Michael, Mia, and Rabbit. They appeared to be watching our perimeter, but really they were interested in just what exactly had jumped up my butt.
I waved off his reply. “No, no, before that. About the washout?”
“Oh, yeah.” Jake smiled, then instantly frowned. “Wait, you mean the deadhead death squad thing, or the fuzzy butt thing? Cause I’ve seen your butt and I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.” He started gesturing with his hands, attempting to create an air-butt, which was funny considering he had a rifle in them. “Nice and smooth. Seriously…don’t kill me.”
I ignored his joke and stared at the pavement. “I’ll be damned.”
“C’mon now, it wasn’t that bad!” Jake took a few steps away from me.
“What is it, Kasey?” Mia asked. Michael repeated her question. After a moment I raised my head and met their eyes.
“The deadhead death squad is an
army
.”
* * *
Caleb fought like an animal, months spent in a holding cell seeming to have no effect on his strength and speed. The preparation room into which he’d been dragged had one large observation window, and that morning he’d watched a group of his fellow prisoners being herded out of the laboratory next to him. Except something had been wrong with them. Looking out that window, he’d seen his son, Ryan, in the middle of the group. From that point on he screamed and yelled, punching at the door and the walls, throwing himself against the window, lost in a complete fury over what they’d done to his son, what he feared they’d done to his wife, Liz.
“Let me out!” he screamed, not for the first time. He repeated his order while beating his fists against the window. Over and over he yelled, until his voice began to crack and his punches became weak.
“Think.”
Turning his back to the window, he rubbed his bloody knuckles and paced the room. Caleb had been kept in isolation almost his entire time at the facility. He had no idea how many survivors were still there, no idea what the scientists were doing to them. He now knew the fate of his son, but what of his wife?
They’ve been splitting them up into small groups.
He whirled around to face the window. He didn’t have any evidence to support it, yet he knew in his gut it was true. Which meant that whatever the scientists were doing, they were doing it a little at a time. If he saw Ryan in this last group but not Liz, there was a chance she was still…
Still what? Alive?
He rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed with deep creases. The group he’d just seen looked alive. Something had been off about them, but they definitely seemed to be flesh and blood humans. Not like the dead he’d seen a year ago. He knew those had been dead, or the undead, zombies, whatever. Ryan—no, Ryan had been alive. Those bastards had done something to him, but he wasn’t dead.
Why not me?
It didn’t make any sense to him why he’d been kept separate from the others. Had there been others like him? The wing he’d been kept prisoner had several rooms.
He flexed his hands, noticing the bleeding had already stopped. The muscles of his forearms tensed and relaxed as he curled and uncurled his fists, and it was then something odd occurred to him. He extended his arms, turning and rotating them around, tightening all the muscles in his biceps and triceps.
I’ve always stayed in shape, what’s the big deal?
At age fifty, Caleb was in excellent physical condition. He wasn’t vain by any means, he was disciplined when it came to staying healthy. He studied his contracted muscles, then his eyes fell again to his hands, which had actually clotted less than forty-five seconds after they’d started bleeding.
So what? I heal fast. What the hell does that have to do with─
His pacing stopped. Caleb stared at his hands. His face fell slack, his eyes widening slightly, his brow smoothing.
They culled the herd.
At that moment he was very certain the neighboring rooms in the detention wing of the Command Center were not vacant.
* * *
David looked on as Evelyn directed the three guards. They had the last batch of subjects restrained in the lab, which was little more than an old cafeteria-turned-assembly line. Rows of metal tables lined the room on both sides. Down the center was an island, also metal, where the two scientists did most of their work. Once the subjects were restrained on their metallic beds, they’d be hooked up to three separate IVs, each pumping a different solution into their bloodstreams. Solutions that David and his counterparts across the country had slowly perfected over the course of thirteen months. A “cure” to stem the tide of death.
It probably wasn’t ethical, what they had done. But surely it had been necessary. The world was no longer black and white. Now they lived in shades of gray. Admittedly, he wouldn’t be living much longer. The first thing he would do, once this last group was released, would be to send Evelyn and the three men still working at the Center on their way—services no longer required, have a nice day. The second thing he would do would be to walk back to his office, kiss the only picture he had of his wife and three sons, then eat the barrel of his 40 S&W.
The only thing that might stop him would be the men in the isolation cells. Once Evelyn and the guards were gone, there would be no one to care for them, and the six subjects would waste away and die. They had served their purpose well, now they were of little practical use. If it hadn’t been for them and others like them all across the country, the work and progress made by David and his colleagues never would have been possible. That fact, however, did nothing to stem the guilt he felt growing inside him.
“Dr. McAlister?” His assistant was walking toward him, wringing her hands.
“Yes, Evelyn?”
“The subjects have been prepped.”
Also known as restrained against their will,
he thought. Aloud he said, “Thank you. I’ll prepare the therapy bags.”