by Brown, TW
“On your feet,” Debra snarled as she yanked hard to bring her charge up from his knees.
Will stepped in and hooked an arm under the man’s other arm pit and began helping to haul him towards the edge of the dam. Each step now became a fierce struggle and, despite the yelps and cries of pain from the prisoner, the man put up an incredible fight.
It took even more work to get him up and on the edge. By now the man was bawling. Will let go and stepped back. He seemed perfectly confident that Debra had the situation under control. And Joel agreed.
Shifting slightly, she pushed the man back until only the toes of his boots were on the edge. His heels dangled over hundreds of feet of empty space.
In a flash, Leanne lunged forward and shoved. Debra let go and stepped away as Shaun Simpson flew backwards into the air. In the split second that it took for gravity to take control and jerk him from view, there was a single moment when everybody close enough could see his face. For days, people would talk about the fear etched on it, and how many swore that he tried to clutch at his chest in that single moment before his body tumbled end over end, bouncing a few times off the sloped surface of the dam on its way down.
The first time, it’d just been enough to accelerate his pinwheeling. The second time, he must have struck at an odd angle because his body bounced far away from the sloping face of the dam where it plummeted for quite a ways until it finally slammed into it again and appeared to slide the rest of the way. When it struck the water, there was a white dot that marked where his body had entered…and then nothing.
The departure of the crowd was slow at first, but eventually everybody returned to their routine. The only people remaining were Joel, Debra, Will, and Leanne. The woman had not left the railing and continued to stare down to where Shaun Simpson had disappeared.
Eventually, Joel returned to his quarters. As he walked, he considered the possibility that some people might decide in the heat of the moment that they no longer wanted to stay. Of course, he couldn’t have anybody leaving. While he was confident that they had few weaknesses, that did not mean he was perfect, or that the right information in the wrong hands could lead to a well-organized attack. He sent word to double up on the perimeter security. Before the night was done, three individuals were apprehended trying to leave.
The next day, a very brief gathering was called and all three heard the judgement.
“I sentence you to the darkness.”
After a few days, things seemed to settle. Five days after the execution of Shaun Simpson, the power grid had been isolated and the water had been reduced to a trickle since the need for power was so greatly concentrated. Phase One was complete. The next thing they would do would be to completely sweep Boulder City. This would be the eventual home for Joel and all who would be accepted into the group.
That meant there would be a need for more citizens. The radio operators were handed a script, and every ten minutes, the broadcast was put out on as many channels as possible.
“Attention, if you are able, make your way to Hoover Dam. We have electricity, food, and the ability to sustain ourselves. Come to the main gate and present yourself to the watch for processing and take a chance at not just surviving…but living.”
8
The First Outpost
Joel pointed to the left and waved the five-person team ahead. The block-by-block assault on Boulder City had seemed simple on the map. The little town wasn’t some thriving metropolis. When they’d passed through on the way to Las Vegas, the zombie activity hadn’t been anything overwhelming.
What they hadn’t counted on was how many people had gotten trapped inside their homes. And they were staying clear of the schools since it was apparent they were hives of activity. The schools had been designated rescue centers and were almost as bad as the hospitals.
After a sweep through to get an idea on the ground of how they would assault the area, it had been Will Barnes who came up with the clever idea of parking a few fire engines at the western edge of their first neighborhood. Also, while there was some good, open land on the other side of Buchanan Boulevard, it was agreed that they would use that road as a pre-made boundary along with Highway 93 to the north. They would begin with clearing the community where they’d had that showdown with the biker gang that once laid claim to the area.
As a fairly secluded community, it was decided that it would be the perfect place to begin. Once that neighborhood was clear, they could push outward. It was this neighborhood that Joel and his team currently worked to clear of all undead. Two days prior, the team responsible for building the barricade that circled the entire community had announced that they were finished. Now it was time for the cleaning teams to move in and do their part.
Continuing with his belief that a true leader should be willing to do anything that he asked of others, Joel chose to be on the first team out for clean-up detail. Once he’d made a few of these excursions, he felt it would be acceptable to turn it over to others, but for now, he needed to share in the risks.
A lone zombie stumbled out from the bushes of the house that his team were about to enter. Without a word, one of the team members walked over and dispatched it with a spike club to the side of its head. The elderly woman crumbled from the hit and the person wielding the bat jogged back to the door of the house his three-person team would clear while Joel and the other two members of the team stayed outside and kept their eyes peeled. The teams would alternate at every house.
The job was not to gather any sort of supplies, but rather to simply ensure that the house was clear of zombies. As sections were cleared, teams would eventually be sent in to start gathering the supplies. That edict had brought questions.
“Why would we empty out the houses that we are going to be moving in to? One of the people in the crowd had asked during the community meeting.
“Not every house is going to have the same amount of supplies. Everybody here will be on the same footing.” Joel’s answer had been brief, but in the end, it seemed to satisfy everybody.
Eventually, the team exited from the house Joel had been stationed in front of. They dragged two bodies out to the front yard and then painted a red circle on the front door. A truck would be coming through later to collect all the corpses and take them to a burn pile that had been built in the open field across from the target community.
Now it was time for Joel and his two people to enter the next house. They reached the front door after a quick check of the back yard. Joel turned the knob and scowled to discover it was locked. He had the young woman step forward with the lock picking tools and open the door. The stench of the dead and the undead came rolling out on a hot breeze that had everybody in the group bringing up their bandanas that were slathered with Vick’s.
A soft moan from the darkness of the home followed the fetid breeze and Joel stepped across the threshold with his machete in front of him, his arm cocked just enough so that he could strike without hesitation. The others followed, forming a line with a few feet between each member.
The house had been opulent once-upon-a-time. The walls were adorned with tasteful art that broke from the normal Southwestern theme, and instead, held a nautical motif. The entry hall broke off with stairs going up, a room to the left, and a continuation into what appeared to be a dining room with a pass-through to the kitchen with wooden shutters that had been splintered. There was also a door separating the kitchen, but it had been busted down as well. Long-since-dried smears of blood caked the side where the door knob would’ve been on what remained of the door. A large axe was buried in the wall right beside the doorway.
Another moan drifted from ahead, and it was clear that it came from the kitchen. Even in the gloom, the tiled floor of the kitchen was smeared with an abundance of blood that almost gave the appearance that the floor was actually black. Joel held up a hand, signaling the other two people to stop. Once he was certain that they’d complied, he continued forward the last few steps.
; The smell of undeath was growing thicker, but then again, so was the familiar smell of old death. Peering into the shadows of the kitchen, something stirred to his left. Joel tightened his grip on the machete he held and slowly took another step into the vile smelling room. The sickly sweet stench of rotting food, decaying flesh, and feces mixed with something heavy in its ammonia-like bitterness.
At first he wasn’t certain of what he thought he might be hearing, but then a soft rumble of a cat’s purr made itself known when a black feline sauntered into the open, pausing in a clean section of floor to lick its paws.
“Hey, puss,” Joel whispered, suddenly missing his own beloved cat, Peanut, who was, no doubt, stretched out on the windowsill of Joel’s room, soaking in every bit of the sun possible.
Another sound like the softest scuff of a shoe on the linoleum was instantly followed by what sounded like a baby’s cry. Joel felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d only heard about these particular zombies up to this point. Some of the folks on scavenging runs reported the occasional encounter with a zombie that made a sound eerily similar to the cry of an infant. That is why Joel wasn’t surprised when the young man stepped out from what looked like it had been a pantry. No older than ten, the little boy was young, but certainly not an infant. It opened its mouth again, and this time, Joel stared at the creature as it let loose with that awful sound once more.
He waited for the zombie to approach, but instead, it stood fast, cocking its head first one way then the other as it appeared to study him. Joel couldn’t help but stare into its filmed over, tracer riddled eyes. He wondered why it didn’t come any closer. Zombies never hesitated when they spotted a living person. He wasn’t sure how they could tell; whether it was by smell or some other manner. What he did know for certain was that zombies did not attack each other; and they did not hesitate if they located a living being. Yet, this child did not advance. This was the second time he’d seen this behavior.
Curious, Joel took a step forward. The zombie child retreated! That was absolutely something new and different. He was wondering if this might make the child versions easier to kill, and brought his machete up as he cocked his arm and prepared to strike when the child lurched forward. Just that fast, it was the same as any of a million other undead. It came for him, hands clutching at the air, mouth opening and closing with an audible click as tiny teeth snapped together.
Joel struck fast, bringing his heavy-duty blade down on the crown of the zombie child’s head. There was a crunch, and the child crumbled to the floor—again, just like any other zombie. A moment later, what had once been a rather rotund African-American woman stumbled out into the room from the same pantry closet. She had small bites up and down her arms that were probably defensive wounds, and one side of her face looked like it had been savaged. Bare skull peeked through in places, adding to the zombie’s sinister appearance. He stepped in and finished her off as well and then ensured there were no other surprises lurking in the pantry before returning to the team.
He related what he’d witnessed in the child zombie and did not miss the raised eyebrows of his two much younger team members. The only thing they seemed to take as gospel was his explanation of the baby cry sound. That was a story that was already making the rounds through the community.
They finished the check of the house, exited, and marked it. This continued through the morning as they went through the process of going house to house, ensuring each one was empty. Best estimates had this single job taking as much as three days before the entire Lake Mead View community complex was secure.
A barricade had been erected where Quartz Road exited the main community at the southeast corner as Red Rock Road made its wide, lazy bend. A wall of sorts had been erected on that hill that made up a natural barrier to the south with lookout towers every hundred feet to allow them to look towards the rest of Boulder City. The hills that made the eastern border had a similar setup with the towers a bit more widely spaced. Cars and trucks had been brought in and used to create a barricade along Highway 93 and the western border. The northern border was marked with a ten-foot-deep and six-feet-across trench that was butted by a berm made by the excavated earth and then a fence topped with razor wire.
As far as the perimeter, Joel was happy with the measures taken to ensure their security. With the engineering team assuring him that they would have power on within the next seventy-two hours, he was anxious to get the place clear. While there had not been any complaints yet about the accommodations at the dam, he knew that it was simply human nature to become accustomed to a certain level of comfort and then long for better. This should keep the masses placated for the foreseeable future.
The clearing was going well as the day wore on. His team was outside a residence while the other team cleared when he heard the scream that could only mean somebody had been bitten.
“Keep alert and stay put,” Joel ordered as he approached the house.
The closer he got, the louder the sounds of some sort of scuffle could be heard. He took off at a jog as he reached the stairs leading up to the open front door.
“Get her off, get her off!” a strained sounding man’s voice begged.
Joel stepped into the entry hall and paused just long enough for his vision to acclimate before hurrying up the stairs to where the sounds of his team locked in what sounded like a horrific battle drifted down to his ears. When he reached the top of the landing, he paused. Part of him understood what he was seeing, but another part of him struggled to make sense of it.
Two of the team were on the floor struggling to fend off a dozen zombie children. The third member of the team was in a corner with his back against the walls, slashing out at another four of the tiny terrors that were hissing, moaning, and snapping their teeth as they sought to get hold of him. One child was sprawled on the floor, a massive divot in the middle of its forehead where the hand axe the man wielded had obviously connected.
Rushing in, Joel grabbed the first child by the collar of her shirt and threw her to one side, hardly noticing as it crashed into the wall hard enough to knock a collection of mounted photographs to the floor in a crash of breaking glass. He kicked the next one’s feet from under it and stomped down hard on the back of its neck before chopping into the back of its head with his machete.
Three of the child zombies turned toward this new distraction and came for him with none of the hesitation he’d seen earlier. Wasting no time, Joel moved in and shoved the closest one aside, chopped on the next one, and kicked out at the third; all in a span of a few heartbeats. The one he pushed started for him again, but he was able to end the one he’d knocked down before exterminating the third.
The closest team member on the floor was holding a single zombie child at bay with each hand. He held one by the throat, and the other by the hair. The one he held by the hair was a little girl of perhaps six or seven. She had long, blonde hair in a matted and filthy ponytail which the man on the floor had wrapped around one fist. The left side of her face—which was the side Joel approached from—had been torn and she was missing her eye. The nose had been ripped away, leaving nothing but a dark crater in the center of her face where it had once been.
Joel was stepping in to help when the girl jerked hard. A small rip on her forehead began to part. Joel froze. He couldn’t help but watch in fascination as that tiny part in the skin began to widen. The skull beneath was a dull gray, and thick dark blood oozed across its surface making it seem even darker. The rip widened, and then a huge piece of the girl’s scalp peeled back.
A split-second later, the man started to scream as the zombie child’s mouth clamped onto his lower lip and chin. Thankfully, those screams were quickly muted as blood filled the man’s mouth and then went down his throat, choking him and signaling his end. Booted feet thrummed on the floor as the man initially began to kick and thrash. Joel shook his head, stepped in, and ended the poor man’s struggles with a swift chop that severed the man’s head from h
is body as well as cutting through the girl who’d bitten him, effectively and figuratively killing two birds with one stone. He moved onto the other zombie child that had gotten free from the man’s grip after the girl had bitten him, and then ended the one trying to reach its feet and come for him now that Joel was the most active living thing in its view.
By the time he finished, the person in the corner had cut down two more attackers, but the other person on the floor was a goner. That had obviously been the one whose scream Joel had first heard. There were a few bites on the person’s arms, face, and hands, and a good-sized pool of blood had spread around the body to stain the hardwood floors in a crimson sheen. Joel didn’t wait for what he knew would be coming and stepped in to end the person’s chances of returning with a machete chop to the head. Once he finished off the children that had been feasting on the body and practically ignoring his presence except to hiss up at him when he moved in to end each one, he took down what proved to be the last zombie that had been trying to get to the person in the corner.
As the last zombie child fell to the floor, the man in the corner dropped to his knees and began to sob. His body shook and his eyes seemed to be trying desperately to avoid looking at the scene that lay out before him.
“What in God’s name happened?” Joel finally asked after the person, whose name he realized he could not recall, did nothing but continue sobbing in great hitching fits.
“There was just one,” the young man sobbed. He looked up at Joel, and then again his eyes scanned the carnage scattered about. “We thought it would be a simple in-and-out job. One zombie kid couldn’t be much of a problem…right?”
Joel looked around the room. He counted seventeen bodies sprawled about. That didn’t count his two people that he’d had no choice but to kill.
