The First Days: As the World Dies (26 page)

1. When Truths Are Revealed No One Is Safe

    

    The low hum of the gate opening was joined in harmony by a steady squeal. Huge lights had been rigged up over the new area of the fort and a team was diligently working into the night on resolving the issues with the gate. The new area was still cut off from the rest of the fort and only accessible by long ladders placed up on the wall and a small platform that bridged the two walls.

    As Katie walked across the site, she could hear Juan's voice rising over the din. She knew he was working long hours to get the first gate working properly before the second gate went up. It was dangerous work and stress levels were high. Occasionally, a zombie would try to attack the construction workers. The sharp-eyed former hunters on sentry duty would take them down. As more and more people flooded into their tiny fort, it was evident that space was fast becoming an issue and the taking of the hotel was the talk of everyone at dinner. Things were moving forward because they had to.

    Travis was on watch at the far side of the fort, far away from the construction of the gate. Shrouded in the darkness on his tiny watch platform, he was gazing out at the now empty main street where so many zombies had met brutal deaths in their first real victory against the undead.

    Since that first big battle with the zombie horde, the main street had been eerily empty. The moans were fast becoming a distant memory and a thick layer of dirt had covered the smell of death and decay. As spring took a firmer hold, grass and wildflowers had taken root out on the main street and Katie suspected it would soon look like a little field in the country.

    But the terror of that crowd of zombies moaning and screeching in their desperation to reach the living had burned deeply into the psyche of those in the fort. It had been decided that they had to keep the zombies from forming in a horde outside the fort. Ideas were running rampant in the fort on how to keep this from happening, but after the almost disaster of the mass slaughter when the zombies had breached the perimeter, every idea was being heavily scrutinized.

    Katie strode up the stairs to Travis' side and he gave her a small smile.

    Spring was in the air and the nights were cool. Spring in Texas meant cold nights and warm days. She was in the Reverend's jacket tonight and its fragrant tobacco smell and its comforting warmth was a gentle reminder of the man who had died for her.

    The sheer luck of the draw that enabled so many in the fort to survive that first hellish day still wore on Katie. Call it survivor's guilt, but it was not easy to deal with. She knew for sure that Travis dealt with it as well. Perhaps maybe all of the survivors suffered from it. At times it was hard to talk of their life before and the people they had lost. At other times there was relief in their conversations as they spoke of their future plans. But it was like being caught between heaven and hell: both happy and sad to be alive.

    Travis glanced over her as she stepped onto the platform and joined him. Again, he gave her a slight smile, then glanced back down the street.

    "I think I saw a few flashes down the road," he said. "They looked almost like headlights."

    "Seriously? Think other survivors are coming this way?"

    "Maybe. Though at times I'm afraid those things have learned to drive.

    Or remembered how to drive,” Travis answered, his brow furrowing.

    Katie shivered at the thought. "Well, since Laura's remains tried to open that truck door, we haven't seen anymore of them appearing to think."

    "Yeah, I know. I keep hoping that what she did was some sort of memory, not her reasoning out her actions." Travis continued to stare down the street intently. "The last thing we need is thinking zombies."

    Katie leaned against the railing, rubbing her hands together. Travis was obviously deep in thought. They were both ill at ease with each other in this moment, which was not the norm for them.

    "About earlier," Katie started.

    Travis sighed, but didn't look at her. He double-checked the spotlightpresently turned off- to make sure it was properly hooked up. "Probably just my imagination. It probably wasn't headlights."

    Katie rested her hand on his shoulder. "No, not that."

    Travis stood up and looked down at her. "It's okay. I shouldn't have tried to say anything. I realized that during supper."

    Katie shook her head. "No, no, it's okay. I'm partially to blame. I was rather pushy about it then chickened out."

    Travis gave her a sheepish look. "I've been kinda obvious, huh?"

    Katie smiled warmly. "Yeah, kinda."

    Travis blushed and shook his head. "Juan says I'm a sucker for the unattainable girl."

    Katie laughed. "Yeah, me, too. For a long time. Then I found Lydia."

    Travis sighed. "You're so lucky to have had her. My ex-fiancee and I never had what you did. I was always trying to please her and make her happy and in the end, I guess I failed and she left. I guess I'm not good at this whole girl thing."

    The thought of Lydia made her heart literally hurt and she sighed.

    "Travis…"

    "I know, I know, Katie. I know how this goes down. Yeah, I've tried to pretend, but I knew even during moments of hope it was not going to happen." Travis looked down at the rifle in his hands, then over at the street.

    "In this new world you've been one of the good things in it. Everything has changed and gone to hell, but you help make it tolerable."

    She couldn't help but smile at his words. She reached out and hugged him gently. "You and Jenni and Jason are very special to me. My new family.

    I want you to understand that."

    Travis looked down into her eyes, sad and resigned. "But?"

    Katie rested her hand on his cheek and found the words harder to say than she had imagined. She opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, then closed it. What was there to say? Instead, she kissed his cheek softly. It was rough and slightly scraggly against her lips. He clung to her and it was a comforting expression between them and the world felt far away.

    Travis turned slightly and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Friends only?"

    Katie nodded, mutely.

    Travis nodded back then kissed her lightly again, but the platonic veneer quickly faded. Forgetting all her reservations, Katie kissed him back, softly and sweetly. The kiss turned into something both of them had not expected and that energy pulsated between them. They clung together, wrapped in each other's embrace, their kiss real and intense.

    Sharply, overwhelmingly, Lydia's image filled her mind. Images of her lovely face, sweet kisses, gentle hugs and then her screaming reanimated corpse.

    Pulling away abruptly, but more reluctantly than she would have ever imagined before, she said softly, "I can't."

    "I know," Travis said with a sigh. "I know."

    "Jenni adores you," Katie said lamely.

    "Let's not go there," Travis answered almost bitterly.

    "Okay," she said helplessly. She wanted to comfort him, but the energy of their kiss still tingled over her skin and she couldn't risk it. She had to stay true to Lydia. To what they had shared. She had to mourn her and remember her. How could she let herself care for someone else when Lydia was still out there?

    "I'm sorry, Katie. I really am. But you can't just deflect my emotions onto Jenni. Don't get me wrong. She's gorgeous and makes me laugh. I really like her a lot, but please, just don't do that."

    "I guess it’s stupid of me to think I just cleared the way for you two."

    Travis gave her a small smile. "I would never call you stupid."

    Suddenly, a bright light blinded them both. The roar of an engine broke through the sound of the gates' construction.

    "What the hell?"

    "It's a motorbike," Travis answered.

    He flipped on the searchlight that had been rigged upon the platform and aimed it down the main street.

    An old battered motorbike darted into the light. A scraggly looking young man and his equally scruffy girlfriend looked up at them with desperate, terrified expressions.

    "Let us in! They're right behind us!"

    Travis flashed the light up the road to reveal a crowd of zombies running toward the fort, obviously following those on the motorbike. Katie noted immediately that most were in doctor's coats or nurse's uniforms.

    "The clinic. They went to the clinic," she said.

    "Shit!"

    "Let us in!" The boy was yelling loudly, stirring up the pursuing zombies even more.

    Katie and Travis were so stunned at this quick turn of events they both seemed incapable of figuring out what to do.

    The boy noticed the open gate and gunned the engine. He swerved around the corner and headed up the road toward the next unblocked intersection to loop around the block and to the gate.

    "He's heading for the gate," Katie said in a trembling voice.

    "Shit! Shit!" Travis grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Juan! Close the gate!

    Close the gate!"

    There was a cackling noise, then, "We're working on it, dude. Chill out."

    "Zombies coming, Juan!"

    "What? Shit? From where," Juan's voice demanded over the static.

    "The clinic. There is a kid on a motorbike heading around the block to get into the gate."

    "Gawddammit!" It was obvious that Juan's voice was terrified.

    Katie headed down the stairs, running as fast as she could. Even from across the great distance between Travis' post and the new entrance, Katie could hear Juan shouting.

    "Shut the gate! Shut the gate!"

    Travis caught up with Katie and they both sprinted to the post that would overlook the approach to the gate. More people came running, grabbing up their guns and spears. The squeal of the gears as the gate started to close filled the night air. Already some of the construction workers were trying to scramble up the ladders out of the new area to safety.

    "What's going on?" Jenni caught up to them at the platform and looked down the road.

    The guard at this post already had aimed his spotlight down the road and it illuminated the two teenagers on the motorbike just turning around the corner. Soon after them, the zombies followed.

    "The idiot's leading them right toward the open gate," Travis growled.

    Katie glanced over into the new area and saw the gate was still closing.

    Juan and two other men were trying to oil the gears and watch the mechanism controlling the gate as it slowly closed.

    "We didn't have enough fucking time," Juan shouted up toward them.

    "Not enough fucking time!"

    More of the construction workers made it over into the fort, breathing heavily, terrified.

    The continuous loud screeching noise of the gate drawing closed ripped at her ears and Katie lifted her rifle to try to get a clear shot of the zombies. It was hard to get a bead on any of them with the kids on the sputtering motorbike swerving back and forth, both obviously panicking.

    The gate seemed to be taking forever to close. The motorbike scooted through the now narrow gap in the gates and a few people cheered. The zombies hit the gate and began to push through the gap that was only wide enough for one person to squeeze through at a time. Shots began to fill the air as people on the walls opened fire on the zombies still rushing down the road.

    "Juan!" Jenni ran across the bridge between the two walls.

    Katie followed, trying to avoid some of the men scrambling into the fort.

    Jenni reached the top of the other wall and knelt. The first zombie was pushing his way into the new area and the last two men with Juan were now climbing the ladders. Jenni aimed and fired and the first zombie's head split open. It was lodged between the two gates that were still trying to close.

    Juan ran toward the opening, a shovel in one hand.

    Meanwhile, the two kids were trying to climb up a ladder, both of them trying to use the same one, jostling each other in their haste. Katie ignored them and moved down the top of the wall to a better position to fire at anything coming through the gate. Jenni almost slid down the empty ladder in her desperation to help Juan.

    Juan began to shove the dead corpse back out from between the gates with the shovel as the desperate hands of the zombies behind the corpse tried to reach out and grab him. Katie watched in horror as Jenni ran straight up to Juan.

    "Loca, what are you doing here?"

    "Saving your ass," Jenni answered and swung her rifle upwards. She stood right next to Juan and started sighting the heads of those behind the dead zombie and fired through the narrow gap in the gates.

    "Jenni is fucking nuts," Travis said from beside Katie, then started down one of the ladders.

    Juan's only advantage in the shoving match he was engaged in with the zombies was that the dead body was well lodged between the gates. It was slowly being pushed forward and soon the "living" zombies would be able to try to squeeze through. Travis landed in the new area and ran to help as Katie stood ready to fire at anything that broke in. Behind her, she could hear the shots of those trying to thin out the crowd of zombies at the back at the pack.

    The dead zombie body shuddered and to their horror a hand burst through his ribcage. A grotesquely gnawed face shoved itself past the other zombies ruined head. It was literally ripping apart the corpse to get to the living.

    "Fuck you," Jenni said, and blew its head off.