by Brown, TW
“Yeah, we saw them,” Simon finally said.
“Were you followed?” Nelson was suddenly back to being gruff and verging on hostile.
“Not that we are aware.” Simon could not keep his hand from gripping the handle of his mace a bit tighter. He moved just a fraction closer to Annie so that he was in a more direct path should these people decide to charge them.
“No,” Mrs. Raye said very bluntly. “We were not followed. I don’t believe they were even aware that we passed by. They are making themselves comfortable at a farmhouse just north of the train tracks.”
Simon shot the woman another look, but she seemed not to notice. Just as well, he was pretty certain that he had a foolish expression on his face.
How could she be so sure? he wondered. But then again, she had been more than just a little surprising during the past few days.
If he was impressed by how calm and suddenly in charge Mrs. Raye seemed, he was even more amazed at how these strangers apparently were ready to accept her word as being good enough on the matter. There was a visible degree of relaxing that came over all of these people.
“I guess our next order of business is really just a technicality,” Melena said with a clap of her hands. “After all, you four have been on the road for a day or two, yeah? So unless you got bit out in the field, in which case we would likely see blood, then I can assume none of you are about to turn any time soon and have not been bitten.”
“As you said…that would be apparent,” Mrs. Raye replied with an easy laugh.
“But Simon got the wind knocked from him when he tripped over one of them,” Annie offered, obviously tired of not being involved in the conversation.
“Tripped over a halvsie,” Cedric chuckled. “Dangerous things, those.”
“Halvsie?” Nelson grumbled.
“What do you call the zoms that are missing their lower bits?” Cedric shrugged his shoulders. “One of my mates called one of them things dragging itself down the street a halvsie. Sort of stuck with me after that.”
“Hmm,” Nelson grunted with a nod of his head. “Halvsie, eh? I like the ring of it. Might catch on with the hunters when I tell ‘em.”
“Hunters?” Mrs. Raye asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The teams we send out along our perimeter to check the barricades and take down any of the zeds in the area.”
Simon was not listening to any of the conversation. His blood had gone cold at the mention of any of them being bitten. He wondered what these people would say or do if he revealed his little secret. Certainly they would not resort to anything sinister, but then again…
And then he heard something that made him want to turn around and just walk away.
“You won’t mind if our doctor gives you all a physical…strictly a formality,” Melena said cheerfully as she gestured with an arm that they were to follow her past the barricade.
8
Through Jaded Eyes
Shadiyah stiffened at the sound of the voice behind her. She was instantly angry with herself for being careless. If she was going to survive, she needed to be on the ball at every instance. She would not be much help to people if she got herself killed the first time out.
Then the person behind her made his first mistake. He stepped right up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She did not pause more than a second before responding with a quick thrust backwards with her scimitar. She drove the blade past her left hip and felt it resist for just a second before plunging deep into the gut of the voice’s owner.
Just as quick as possible, she spun, her only real concern being that this person might not be alone. That fear was quickly allayed and she yanked back, jerking her weapon free from the body of the man who still had a shocked look on his face. That expression never changed as she came across and cleaved his head from his shoulders.
She watched with an amused smile while sidestepping the falling corpse whose hands were making curious swipes up around where the head should be as it took two staggering steps before falling hard to the pavement. She was once again amazed at the sheer volume of blood that pumped from the corpse in a hideous spray that darkened the ground in a fan-like pattern.
Returning her attention to the inn, she was struck with an idea. She was making things up on the fly, but she was not going to be foolish. Rushing in headlong would only end up with her dying at the hands and mouths of that swarm of undead gathered in front or perhaps being taken down by those evil bastards up on the balcony.
She followed the trees that bordered the edge of the parking lot until she was around the corner of the inn. Once she felt certain that she was out of sight, she sprinted for the rear of the facility and was only a little amazed to discover no signs of a sentry.
As she slipped up to the door, she was not surprised to discover it locked, but climbing up onto the gable proved to be a relatively simple task as she pulled herself up onto a brick wall and then onto the slanted roof. From there, she made her way forward. The screams had died down and now there seemed to be mostly a bunch of boisterous laughter and the like. Underneath all that, she could hear what sounded like crying.
Just as she reached a spot that she figured to be almost directly above where these bastards were carrying on, she heard one of them call out, “Angus! Yo, you bloody idiot, stop messing about and get your arse back here!”
Some more laughter followed, and then she heard a door open. The voices below retreated into the building and then the door closed, instantly diminishing the noise to little more than the moans of the undead still out in the front of the building. Peering over the edge of the roof, she was able to see what looked like some sort of large, indoor swimming pool area. For whatever reason, this appeared to be where everybody was collected.
As she studied the interior, she was able to see that the doors had been barricaded with all sorts of furniture and debris. She did not spend much time puzzling over their reasons; she simply gave thanks that her first encounter would be with what appeared to be a great bunch of morons.
Swinging her legs over and lowering to the rail, she only had a moment of fright when her foot slipped just a bit and she almost ended up doing what would have been a spectacular back flop into the sea of undead hands that reached up from below. After steadying herself and swallowing the gigantic lump that had risen in her throat, Shadiyah hopped down to the patio and peered inside once more to get a better idea of what she would face.
She counted five men inside, all of them currently gathered around a stack of boxes. When the first bottles were pulled out and handed around, she almost laughed.
“They’re getting positively ganted,” she said with disbelief.
As she watched, she also felt just a slight tinge of annoyance at the three women who were being held captive by this band of fools. She realized that they were probably just trying to do everything in their power to keep the eight children safe from harm, but between their crying and hand wringing, they were little more than useless. One of them was just sitting by herself looking like she had less life in her than the zombies out front while the other two alternated between tending the children who were all bawling, and rushing over every single time one of the males called out. She briefly wondered if they would even be worth saving.
The one thing that she did realize was that the teen boy was missing from those present. That made her edge back to the rail and peer down at the gathered zombie horde just to be certain; at first, the lad that had been suspended over the rail was no place to be seen. It took her a moment, but eventually she spied a young man’s face peering up from the crowd of zombies. He looked a proper mess and she was almost surprised that there was even enough left of him to return. As it was, from the looks of things, his arms had been ripped free. Also, she could only really see him from the shoulders up, but it appeared as if his torso was stripped bare and that a good many bites had been taken from his upper body.
She moved back to the glass doors and saw a couple of th
e men staggering towards the stairs. That would bring them up to her. Looking around, she really had no proper hiding place. All she could do would be to stand back far enough away from the doors so that they would not see her until they stepped outside.
That would have to be enough. She pressed herself as close to the wall as she could while making sure that she would be able to swing her scimitar. Her mind was set on making her attack as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. She saw no need to wait for any banter. These pieces of filth did not have anything to say that she wanted to hear.
“…should have been back by now. The stupid twat was just supposed to see if that petrol station had any beer left,” one of the men was slurring as the door opened.
“Yeah, well, you better believe you would not get me to go out there just to hopefully scrounge up a few beers. Things have gotten nothing but worse since Leeds started burning,” a second voice chirped.
“True, and I don’t think we can’t stay here much—” the other man was actually looking back over his shoulder as he was speaking.
That made it even easier for Shadiyah as she decided that a thrust would be the better attack at this point. She drove her blade though the side of his neck and had already jerked it free before the second man fully realized his folly. He stumbled over his companion and ended up sprawled at her feet. One chop and she managed to almost sever this man’s head.
Kicking the bodies away, she felt the adrenaline dump into her system, giving her a massive rush. Stepping inside, the overwhelming tang of chlorine burned her nostrils. The voices down by the pool area echoed in the cavernous space, and she was able to peek over the rail and spy her remaining targets as well as the women and children.
Currently, the men were gathered at a table that was littered with wrappers from a snack machine that lay on its back with its front end smashed in. They each had a brown bottle in front of them and one of them was currently shuffling a deck of cards. They were talking, but the acoustics made it almost impossible to understand what was being said.
A small part of her mind was trying to get her to slow down, but she ignored it. That would be too cliché if she were to suddenly act like a weak-kneed femme fatale and back out before she put things in order. Every moment that she delayed might bring those other three men to come looking for their mates. Her best chance of success was in a surprise attack.
After scanning the area, she saw that the stairs at the other end of this vast room would allow her the best chance to approach the men without being discovered. She would have a series of over ended patio furniture and even some indoor shrubbery to move behind that would make it possible to be within just a few feet of the table of men before she had to reveal herself. By then, considering that none of them were holding any weapons that she could see, it would be too late for them to react before she struck.
Sticking to the far wall to make herself even less likely to be discovered, she hurried along. With all the crying and carrying on taking place, she had no concerns of being heard as she padded ever closer. As it was, she could not even hear her own footsteps.
At last, she reached the stairs and the only real tricky part of her approach. The landing where the stairs switched back on themselves would be the only real spot that she might be seen. After one more look to ensure that the men were engrossed in their game of cards, Shadiyah made her move.
When she reached the bottom and no sounds of alarm had happened, she scurried along in a crouch to where she would launch her attack. The men were seemingly engrossed in their card game, and their conversation had dwindled to nothing beyond a few grunts and grumbles.
The women and children were still making noise, but even that had died down to just some whimpers. She reached the end of her cover and braced herself for her attack. She peeked once to get one more look at where each man sat. One of them had his back to her, and the other two were sitting sideways to where she would launch from.
A tingle of excitement coursed through her belly, and she took the scimitar in a two-handed grip. Taking a few slow, deep breaths, she counted down in her head from three and then popped up. With a brisk and deliberate walk, she strode to the man who had his back to her and hacked at the side of his throat. Her weapon hung up for a bit in the vertebrae and the thought that she had not made any attempt to sharpen the weapon after all the use she had put it through filed itself in her mental library, and she vowed to do so as soon as she could possibly manage.
Switching her grip, she drove the tip of the scimitar into the chest of the man to her right and was quickly pulling her other small sword to finish off the third and final target. By now, the one who was not dead or dying had pushed away and was babbling on about something that she could not decipher as a chorus of screams and cries erupted from the women and children at about this time as well.
Raring back, she advanced on her victim as he stumbled over his chair in his effort to flee. Surprisingly, he still did not seem to have a weapon in his hands. She arrived over the man as he tried to roll away. As her sword came down, a single cry cut through her consciousness.
“Daddy!”
***
Simon sat in the small room and waited. He was going to be the last person to see the doctor. The fact that he had found a doctor should have been a thrill considering what he remembered of most zombie stories where the poor buggers seemed to go the way of the dodo in the first days. Yet, he was actually trying not to look like he was absolutely terrified.
The door opened and Mrs. Raye emerged with Annie clutching her hand. The girl had a lollipop in her mouth! Cedric had been the first one seen. That had been an odd series of events all by itself.
The group was being escorted in when another group met them on the road. This new group was apparently a band of hunters—as this place called them—and they were a man short. The leader of the new group asked Nelson if he could join them and Cedric actually stepped forward and volunteered, saying he wanted to earn his way in as soon as possible.
The group had agreed to wait the fifteen minutes it would take for him to see and be cleared by the doctor. Simon had shot Mrs. Raye a curious look, but she had just given a very subtle shrug and that had been it. The man had not even said so much as farewell when he exited the doctor’s office and jogged outside to meet the patrol who greeted him with a good amount of slapping on the back.
“Mr. Wood?” a dark-haired man with graying temples who still looked very fit called as he emerged through the doorway behind Mrs. Raye.
Simon got up and gave his two travelling companions a nervous grin as he followed the doctor into the exam room. He was directed to go behind the screen and undress.
“Not even a box of candy or flowers?” Simon joked, but it lacked any real heart. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Mrs. Raye says that you have a bite on your arm that is several days old, and my name is Dr. Kincaide,” the doctor said as Simon stood on the other side of the screen trying to choose between disrobing and making a run for the door.
Simon actually felt his mouth open in disbelief. He stepped back out from behind the screen, his hand going reflexively to the bite on his forearm.
“H-h-how…b-b-but…” he stammered, unable to string anything resembling a sentence together.
“Is it true?” Dr. Kincaide was seated near a counter that had jars of swabs, cotton balls, and other such things set about it in a neat fashion.
Simon did not trust his mouth to make the words, so he simply nodded. The doctor reached out with gloved hands and Simon rolled up his sleeve without actually being asked. The man examined the bite that looked like little more than a dark bruise with a few small scabbed over bits that were healing just fine.
“And you are sure the person that bit you was infected?” Dr. Kincaide mumbled as he leaned in to take a closer look.
What is it with doctors and stupid questions? Simon wondered. After a brief pause he nodded to the affirmative. “My sister,” he
said when he felt his voice would not betray him.
“And how many days ago?”
Simon made a mental count. He had a rough go of it, and could not believe how everything from the past several days seemed to just swirl and melt into one huge and overwhelming slurry of time.
“Five…I think.”
“That goes well past anything that we have witnessed,” the doctor said around an ink pen that he had jutting from the corner of his mouth.
At last, the man sat back and grabbed a clipboard from the counter. He wrote a few things down and then set everything aside. Pursing his lips, the man seemed to consider what to say for an uncomfortable length of time. When he did finally speak, the sound caused Simon to jump.
“I want you to keep this to yourself. If you feel puckish in any way, I want your word that you will make your way to my office without delay. Day or night…understand?”
Simon nodded and the man once more seemed to consider Simon much like some experiment gone awry for several more seconds. Simon took it upon himself to roll his sleeve back down and was about to ask if he could leave when there was a sharp rap on the door before it opened and Melena stuck her head inside.
“Sorry, Doc, but we have somebody here who insists on seeing this man.” Melena moved aside and a massive man stepped past her, ducking habitually to avoid brushing his head on the frame despite there being a good few inches to spare.
“Simon!” the man rumbled, his arms going out wide.
“Cousin Geoff!” Simon rose to greet the man.
“Your cousin is the vicar?” Mrs. Raye’s voice carried in from the waiting room.
Geoff Shoemaker was often referred to as the family oddity. Just a shade under seven feet tall, the man had been the largest child in school from the time he came out of his growth spurt at age twelve where he sprang up to well over six feet tall before it slowed and eventually leveled off. His immense size was only equaled by his gentle nature, and nobody could ever recall him having struck another person in anger; not that there were many who chose to challenge him.
