“But if we had more explosives,” Brain
asked, “do you think that might do the trick?”
Steve brought up a mental picture of the dead pressed up against the house as they tried to find a way in
. It would be hairy, but it might work. Keying his speech to Brain’s, he said, “It would be dangerous since the Zs are so close to the walls, but if we keep the blast radius far enough away to take out the dead without compromising the mansion’s integrity, more explosives might work. We could exterminate as many of them as we can and then use firearms on the rest. The main problem is, we don’t have any more explosives.”
A wicked smile crossed Brain’s face as he said, “But we can make some if I have the right materials.”
This almost floored Steve. He’d heard of the anarchist’s cookbook and websites that taught you how to make plastic explosives from common household materials, but he’d never thought to ask if anyone in the group knew how to do it. What with the dynamite that Delightfully Grimm had supplied, there had been no need to.
U
ntil now.
Wanting to grab Brain in a bear hug, but holding off on any premature celebration since the tech had said ‘if’ he had the right materials, Steve
kept the excitement out of his voice as he asked, “What do you need?”
“I need Grimm,” Brain replied. “She’ll know if
we have all the ingredients.”
The sound of Grimm’s voice asking, “
Ingredients? Are we baking a cake?” made them all spin to where she was standing in the doorway. “A soufflé would be nice,” she said with a thoughtful tilt of her head, “but I fear with all the banging going on that it would fall in the oven.”
With the cowl from her cloak covering her face and scythe in hand, she made an imposing figure.
Not intimidated by her look anymore, Brain took two steps toward her and said, “I need Styrofoam. Lots of it. And gas and oil. And I also need nails, nuts and bolts. Anything I can use for shrapnel.”
She thought for a moment before saying, “Gas and oil we have,
and I know we have a bunch of nails in the maintenance closet, but I’m not sure on the Styrofoam.” Turning, she called down the hall, “Come here, Thing two and Thing one.”
Grimm entered the radio room to be followed by the former Raggedy Anne and Andy. Now wearing orange body suits
with Thing one and Thing two stenciled on their chest and with blue fright wigs framing their white painted faces, they had transformed themselves into the Dr. Seuss characters from The Cat in the Hat. They had even gone as far as to don orange mittens and slippers to complete their costumes.
Grimm smiled
at Brain and said in introduction, “This is Thing one and Thing two, Thing two and Thing one, they can find anything, anything, anything under the sun.”
Steve let out a short bark of laughter as Brain
asked Thing one, “Do you know where I can find some Styrofoam?”
Thing one snapped to attention
before spinning on his heel. Followed by Thing two, he marched out the door.
Perplexed,
Brain stood for a moment until Grimm said, “They are Thing one and Thing two, so they do not speak. You might want to follow them, though, for they will show you what you seek.”
Taking Connie’s hand, Brain hurried out the door.
When they were gone, Grimm turned to Steve and said, “By what you search for, I can only assume that you are making explosives.”
Steve nodded and said, “If we can, we’re going to
use them to blow a hole in the dead and try to make for the vehicles.”
Grimm looked thoughtful for
a moment before saying, “You might find that a little difficult.”
“You saw what the dynamite did
to the Zs when we set it off,” Steve said. “A few good blasts, and we can take out what’s left of them with rifle fire.”
“When was the last time you were on the roof?” Grimm asked.
Not liking the sound of her question, Steve headed for the ladder as he asked, “Why, what’s happening?”
“Hundreds more of my children have arrived,” Grimm told him as he started to climb. “They are now clustered deep around the vehicles you want to use. If you use your explosives too close to them
when you reap, you will destroy your transport.”
As Steve emerged onto the roof, the high
-pitched keening sound of the dead seemed to drill into the center of his brain. Trying to ignore it, he climbed over the peak and saw Heather and Tick-Tock standing at the edge of the roof as they looked down at something. He called out to them, but the noise of the Zs drowned out his voice. Making his way cautiously down to them in a backward crabwalk, since if he lost his footing, slid, and went over the edge, the fall would be the least of his worries, he finally stood up when he was next to Heather but found himself tilting his body backwards to keep his balance. He didn’t have vertigo, but it still took him a few seconds before he felt comfortable enough to lean out carefully and follow her gaze.
Dead, snarling faces looked up at him as the Zs tried to push each other out of the way to get near the building. At first glance, Steve could see that at least five to six hundred more of the dead had
entered the compound since he’d last looked only twenty minutes ago. The flood of walking corpses coming through the smashed gate had slowed somewhat, but he knew this was only temporary. Leaning further over the edge, he looked down. What Grimm told him was readily apparent; the dead were now so deep around the house that they completely enveloped the trucks and remaining minivan. Speech was impossible with all the noise, so he waved to get Heather and Tick-Tock’s attention before pointing toward the other side of the roof. When they reached the peak, he let them go ahead and took a few minutes to study his surroundings.
The dust cloud was still there
to the east, hanging ominously in the sky. He could see that it had moved closer, but this wasn’t the reason for stopping. Turning to the north, he considered the fence and woods beyond. When he was satisfied, he made his way to the hatch and climbed through it.
Once all three of them were back in the radio room
, where they found Grimm laid out on the bed while she lazily poked holes in the wall beside her with the point of her scythe, Steve asked Heather, “How long ago did this happen?”
“
A huge surge of them came in about ten or fifteen minutes ago,” she explained. “There were so many trying to get through the gate at one time that we thought they were going to bust down the fence on both sides of it.”
“And these uglies didn’t come down the road either,” Tick-Tock said. “They came from the west. I think we’re attracting Zs like an
all-night Dunkin’ Donuts attracts cops. As soon as we saw them, we sent Denise to find you.”
Just
then, Denise came through the door. Slightly out of breath, she said to Steve, “There you are. I’ve been all over the place looking for you. I ran into Brain, Connie and the Thing twins, and they said you were up here.” Looking at Tick-Tock, she asked, “You told him?”
“He saw,” Tick-Tock replied. “We were just filling him in
on the details.”
“Not a lot to
fill in,” Denise said. “We’re screwed unless we can grow wings.”
“We still
might have a chance,” Steve told them. This got their attention, and they listened intently as he continued, “If Brain can find the right materials, he told me that he can make explosives. My first thought was to clear the front of the mansion and drive out of here, but there’s no way we can do that now. There’s too many of them around the vehicles, and we can’t throw the bombs too close to them or we wreck our ride. And even with all of us and the others shooting, we’d never be able to clear enough Zs to get into the vehicles, get them started and haul ass.”
“What do you mean by the others shooting
?” Tick-Tock asked.
“Yeah,” Denise chimed in. “I ran into them
, and they were all standing around at the top of the stairs. They were all quiet for once, too. It was kind of creepy.”
“
They offered to help, so I told them to wait there for me,” Steve said. “I don’t know how much help they’ll be until we teach them to shoot, but they’re with us now, for better or worse.”
Denise nodded and said, “I knew they weren’t all completely worthless. When Linda came over to our group, I could see a lot of them
wanting to do the same. Sean was the only reason they didn’t all step forward that day. He was a strong man to them. Their leader. The problem was, he kept them living and thinking in the past, so they didn’t take a good look at the present.”
“Can we
really trust the others?” Heather asked her.
“They’re not the kind of people to shoot us in the back
, if that’s what you mean,” Denise said. “They might shoot themselves in the foot, though.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Steve said to Heather.
“You want me to shoot them in the foot?” she asked.
They all burst into laughter.
With the tension eased somewhat, Steve said, “No, honey, I want you to give them a crash course in firearms. You and Tick-Tock team up and get them all up to speed. We’ve got to move out of here soon, and we’ll need them to be ready. Denise can help you get their packs together.”
“I thought you said it was useless to try and get to the trucks?” Tick-Tock asked.
“We’re not heading for the trucks,” Steve told them. “We’re going north through the woods.”
From where she was stretched out on the bed
with her scythe laying along her body and the blade pointing straight up toward the ceiling, Grimm said, “If you go through the woods, make sure you stay off the psycho path.”
***
Brain looked at the bags of packing peanuts with undisguised glee. He counted five on the first shelf, with even more stacked against a wall at the far side of the room. A thought occurred to him, so he asked, “Why do you have all these?”
Thing one and Thing two looked at him for a minute before having a quick whispered conversation. Thing one then said, “We
are Thing one and Thing two. We can’t talk to them or you.”
Connie laughed and said, “But you just did.”
This confused Thing one for a second. He thought about it and finally said, “Okay, this time I’ll tell you, but no more questions from here on out. We are Thing one and Thing two, and we don’t talk or shout.”
“Agreed,” Brain said.
Thing one took a deep breath and said in a somber voice, “Sometimes, the people who stayed here didn’t go home when they got better. They got worse and went to the State mental institution. When that happened, the staff packed up their belongings and sent them to their family. That’s why we have all of these.”
Brain nodded at this
as he said, “Must have been pretty rough living here with the possibility of that hanging over your head.” Getting no answer, he turned his attention to the peanuts and added, “If we each grab two bags, we should have plenty. I already know that you keep the gas in the room next to the generator, but what about oil?”
Thing one and
Thing two ignored his question by grabbing two bags and starting out of the storeroom. Brain looked at Connie, shrugged and slung his own bags over his shoulders before following them.
***
Linda was startled out of her thoughts at their predicament when Cindy asked, “Are we going to die?”
Forcing a smile, she replied in a reassuring voice, “No
, pumpkin, we’re going to be just fine.”
“Mary and
Sheila died,” Cindy said as tears started to roll down her cheeks. “And so did Susan. And I know that so did Jonny-G and Marcia and a whole lot of other people, too. I didn’t know Marcia for long, but I liked her.”
Pep had been lying next to Cindy, and she lifted her head and laid it on the young girl’s leg when she saw one of her humans was in pain.
Crossing the small room to sit next to the little girl on her bed, Linda took her in her arms. She stroked her hair and murmured reassurances until she heard her say, “And it’s all because of me.” Looking up suddenly at Linda, Cindy added in a small voice, “Don’t you die, too. Everyone who helps me ends up dead, and I can’t stand it anymore.”
Linda took a deep breath and said, “No
has one died because of you, Cindy.”
“They d
id so,” she said defiantly. “They’re trying to get me to some G.I. Joe base or something. They all think I’m special because I didn’t turn into one of those things after I got bit.”
“And you are special,” Linda said. “You might hold the cure for all of this crazy stuff that’s going on.
And on top of that, we all need to get somewhere that’s safe. I was talking to -” at this, Linda stopped before saying Mary and Sheila’s names. This was a raw, open wound that needed time to heal. “- some of the people in your group,” she continued, “and they told me a lot of what you’ve been through.”
Cindy nodded and said, “It feels like we’ve been around the world twice. I try to forget most of it
, but I can’t.”
Raising one eyebrow, Linda said, “Then do you blame yourself for when the building in Clearwater got overrun by those things?”