Cade said, “Well, my men stripped off two AR-15’s from you and some nice high capacity pistols as well. Do your guns not work, or do you not know how to use them? We aren’t looking for charity cases, boy. If you can’t hold your own then you can stand on the other side of that fence with your dick in your hand, for all I care. Government is gone. If it isn’t they aren’t doing anything to help and are on their own.”
Doug said, “We have lots of skills, sir, we’re good guys to have around.”
Cade stopped leaning against a car waiting for the men to talk. “You look real useful. What do you two do, act as bait?”
Joe said, “We got skills man, I mean, sir. We are good to have around.”
“Yeah, you said that already. What the hell can you do?”
Doug said, “Before all this shit started we were in construction. We could probably build just about anything you need. Hell, the only reason we’re still alive is good luck and the fact we were on a job when all this shit happened. I had a nail gun handy and we hadn’t even heard a news report before the shit hit the fan. We had a horde come through and we peppered them with a few thousand nails. Seemed like a good idea at the time, come to think of it…still does today.”
Cade was nodding his head slowly, ready for the man to shut up and quit talking. Cade said, “You know you seem to like to hear your own voice a lot, bud.”
“My name’s Doug and this is Joe.”
Cade said, “Oh, names aren’t too important right now, especially when I don't know if I’m talking to a dead man yet.”
Joe said, “Didn’t ya’ll hear him? We can build shit, man.”
Cade nodded slowly, looking around and giving them a second to do the same. He said, “You boys see any unfinished houses around here? You see anything that needs to be fixed, off hand? No right, kinda looks we’ve been doing just fine keeping this place nice and tight, keeping our number of assholes on hand pretty low too, right?”
Doug took a minute thinking about this and said, “Can I ask you a question, sir?”
Cade motioned with his hand to talk. “Can I ask have you guys been here from before this whole thing started, or did you come here after it started?”
Cade smiled, “Oh, we had houses already but they sure as hell weren’t in this uptight community. No, these people weren’t real keen on us coming here.”
“You guys put them to work or something when you came in looking for refuge?” Doug asked.
“Nope.” Cade shook his head.
Joe looked around not really sure what to say. “So what happened to them?”
“Those that were smart left peacefully with what they could fit in their Mercedes.”
Doug already knew the answer but couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “What about those that didn’t?”
Cade held up his pistol. “They were confident that they’d have the police on their sides. When no one came after a few hours they started telling us about property rights and how it was a private property because when the shit hit the fan those laws and regulations were something we or anyone for that matter was worried about.”
Doug said, “So that was when you…”
He waved the pistol not putting it out there verbally. Doug and Joe both nodded looking around the property and thinking how there was a more than fair chance that there had been executions up and down the street. Joe said, “You just shot the poor bastards? Didn’t you feel a bit guilty about that?”
Cade said, “Not as guilty as I would have felt telling my daughter that she didn’t have somewhere safe to be and that she didn’t have a meal to be had. You do a lot of things you don’t want to when you have kids. Not to say that I wouldn’t have done this anyways, but I tell ya I love that damn girl and the last thing I would ever let happen to her is to turn into one of those…one of those things. I don’t care how bad it got; I still wouldn’t let it happen. I just love her too much. You boys got anyone that you need to worry about, or are you going through this thing as a couple of loners?”
Doug said, “We’re on our own. You guys have any issues this close to the city?’
“No, not until you dipshits came flying down dressed like militia and driving a Prius. You guys think you are survivalists or something?”
Joe said, “Well, to tell you the truth the place we were staying at only had these clothes. We couldn’t find any civilian clothes that fit us so we were pretty much forced to shop at the store on the base.”
“The base?”
“Yeah, over at Camp Dodge, we’ve been there for the last few months but things went sour and, well, we kinda decided that it was best that we leave.”
Cade said, “It seems like you boys are looking for somewhere new to live. Let me ask you a question though. You tell me one thing, and we can go from there. Do you know anything about a truck getting all shot to shit on the outside and a horde of those zombies ripping the hell out of it and its occupants?”
Doug had already started speaking before Joe could urge him to just shut up. Doug said, “Yeah we know who did that. There’s a couple Navy Seals that think they’re God's gift to survivors of the apocalypse. I don’t think that they’re anything all that damn special though. They had a group of kids that almost got themselves killed a few months back. They found us in a business building and we went back with them. We had pretty different thoughts on things and we decided to leave. But a few weeks back one of the kids, rumor has it that his dad had been the one who started this entire fucking thing had gotten a bug up his ass to leave on his own. Well, when he did he took out more dead than anyone has yet in one sitting. Something about the blood and taunting them with it. From there he ran into a group of guys. I'm sure they weren’t doing anything bad but from what I hear they wanted to bring him back or at the least bring back his gear that he had. He’s been training with these two assholes since day two of this thing. He decided that he would rather not go with them and from what I heard sprayed them with a full magazine of two-two-three. He called back for help and then those Seals and a few others came up and tricked them somehow and whoever didn’t get hit by their bullets got taken out by the dead.”
“Well, that’s pretty damn informative, boys. Let me ask you just one more thing since you all seem to know so damn much.”
Joe said, “Yeah, what is that, sir?”
“Are they still letting people on the base or are they just kicking assholes off of it? Weeding out the dead weight, if you know what I mean?”
Doug said, “Uh, well I don’t know it’s been a bit since they’ve let anyone on but I got a recollection that they had been talking about doing a few runs out to see if they can’t try and find a few additional people. I don’t know when they were going to do it, but I know that they were keeping close. Rumor has it that they’d be hitting Merle Hay Mall the next timeout.”
“Any reason why they don’t try and go further?”
Joe said, “They’re busy training other kids. They don’t want to go any further until they have more backup. They pretty much leave that place naked when they go out to collect. They always make sure to keep a few walking perimeter and one of the Seals stay. They think they’re God’s gift to-”
Bam, Joe fell to the ground a trickle of blood coming from the new hole in his head. His brains were scattered behind him on what had been a very clean sidewalk. Doug said, “Why would you just fucking shoot him. You can’t kill me, you can’t kill me.”
Cade pulled the hammer back on his pistol. “Why is that?”
“I got a kid, I got a kid!”
“Well, let's hope that kid didn’t make it, your DNA don’t seem like it is worth a whole hell of a lot.”
Doug not getting it looked at him questioningly. Cade said, “You can ask the Devil to explain it to you.” He leveled the pistol pulling the trigger and knocking him back and off his feet lying dead where he landed.
Owen yelled down from the rafters. “Looks like we don’t have new recruits after all, Cade, I mean, sir?”
He gave thumbs up. “Get a couple boys and see if you can’t get this sidewalk cleaned up. New people just hate seeing fresh blood stains when they stop by.”
Owen looked around seeing no one and grabbed a wagon and used all his muscle to wrestle the two limp bodies up onto it. Cade watched for a moment opening the cylinder to his pistol and pulling out the two spent casings to save for reloading later. He hit his radio and said, “Bella, I got a little job for you, honey, why don’t you stop by when you get a moment.”
Chapter 8
Current day
Joey sat next to one of the last teens that was still giving blood. He knelt down on the bed with a look of bewilderment spread across his face. He got up close to the boy on the bed and said, “Hey, Scott, you feeling okay?”
Scott looked down at his arm and watched the stream of red that disappeared beneath the bed. “Yeah, you know I haven’t given too much blood before but I think that I’m doing alright. It’s nice of you to help Lou out with all this going on. I don’t think that I could be around this much blood for the entire day.”
“Oh, I don’t got any problems with it at all. It looks like jelly to me, Scott.”
“Whatever you say that gets you through it.”
Joey said, “Oh, you just aren’t looking at it right. Look, if you hold it up like this and squeeze it back and forth you can really see how it is squishy. Do you see what I’m talking about?”
Joey looked up to Scott and his head was to the side. He had a very small thin line of saliva that had escaped his mouth. Joey nudged at him with a finger before realizing that he had passed out and that he needed help.
Joey yelled down to Lou, “Hey, Lou, we got another one that passed out. You need to figure out some other way to do this so they don’t keep passing out. I don't’ know what is wrong with them, they just keep on passing out.”
Lou gave him a thumbs up and looked to Ellie who was day dreaming out the side window. He gripped her shoulder and said, “Ellie, hey, Ellie, are you okay, sweetheart?”
She came back to the moment, nodded her head and said, “Hey, what’s up, Lou?”
“You tell me, Ellie.
“I don’t know. I just feel tired. I probably need a nap. You’ve had me so lazy since I have been in here that I probably need to get back to where I can make it a day without one.”
“Those wasted naps, as you think of them, are golden when it comes to getting better. I know you think they aren’t necessary but you need all the rest that you can get. You tell Shaun that you need your nights and day naps to try and finish healing sooner than we had figured. I figure that you would be okay with getting better earlier, right?”
“Yeah, I’d like to be back up and running just as soon as we can be. Is there anything you want me to do besides running blood bags back?”
“No, you are okay. If you need to go eat a couple of cookies and drink some juice, then you be my guest and you can take a break if you need it.”
She shook her head and said, “So, you have all these kids still here and there isn’t anything I can do? You know that if you taught some of us how to do some of these things that we would be able to help you more, right?”
Lou laughed and said, “If you want to try and get Joey to do anything but help with the blood bags then you be my guest. I’ve tried asking him if he was going to do something all day besides that and he refuses to do so. Watch and see how he shoots me down. Hey, Joey, you think you have time to -”
Lou never had a chance to finish his sentence. Joey dropped the blood bag and ran for the door like a man on a mission. Lou said, “Joey, what are you doing, I thought you were helping me?”
Joey never slowed down as he ran out of the room. He turned around halfway down and ran back to give Ellie a hug. Lou cleared his throat letting him know that he needed to get his attention. Joey smiled running over and picking up Lou who looked like a grizzly bear in Joey’s arms. He said, “Sorry, Lou, you are on your own. I got to go and find Patrick. He’s off his shift soon and he's going to be looking for me. I don’t want him to get worried.”
Lou opened his mouth to say something about how he might want to stay with his girlfriend and not hang out with anyone else. Ellie placed a hand on his arm, “You couldn’t be wasting your breath more, Lou. Just let it go, and be happy he’s leaving if you don’t want anyone else to complain about not being able to see their blood and passing out, then maybe leave well enough alone.”
Lou nodded seeing Scott’s head hanging to the side and Ellie pulled out Lou’s smelling salts. She snapped them under the boy’s nose and took a step back as he came around. Scott wasn’t fully back yet and whispered more to himself, “I hate those bastards, it’s like the moment I try to rest they’re just waiting for me to sleep.”
“Hey, it is okay, at least it’s just a dream. Trust me, I have had some wild ones over the last year.”
Scott realized what was going on and smiled, happy as hell that it was a dream. He said, “It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, it is just like yesterday.”
“We all have them, Scott, some of us are just better about hiding it. Pretty soon I think that we’re going to start taking things back again. Every drop of that blood you have is going to be like sweet nectar to those things. And when they come for it, because we know that they will, that is when we will take them down. Hell, even getting one city back would be amazing.”
Scott was thinking of the freedom to be off base. “There’s going to be a lot of empty homes.”
“I can’t wait to have a bed to myself not in something that looks more like a warehouse than a place to sleep. You rest here for a few and I’ll grab you some cookies and juice,” Ellie said.
As Ellie walked past Lou he gripped her arm lightly to get her attention. “Hey, you rock, you start stopping by here once a day if you want for a few hours. If I can’t put you to work and I’m not busy then I will start showing you a few things. You have a gift with people and that is rare, I assure you. I’ve been doing this for years and not everyone can deal with the patients, but you are good to go.