by Frank Tayell
He leaned on the counter, while they rushed into the library to grab what they could.
They had books in Crossfields Landing, of course. Not many kids’ books, sure, but there were enough. What money Jimmy hadn’t spent on his bar had gone into board games, so they’d be able to keep distracted over the next month. That was their plan: to hide behind their barricades until the zombies were dead. It might take a month. It might even take two. What had become obvious even before Tom Clemens had left was that they couldn’t defend a large perimeter. Most people in town were throwing up barriers across the streets. They were pulling back to the harbour, to a few dozen buildings, and the jetty where their boats were moored. They had enough vessels, and enough fuel, to flee, but they knew of nowhere to go.
They would stay put for as long as they could. And in a month, maybe two, the zombies would be gone. Of course, that would be in May, and the beginning of summer, when it would be too late to plant a crop. Too late here in Maine. Martha had sailed up from Florida. She had nothing good to say about the coast she’d seen along the way, but could it be any worse than anywhere else? It was a possibility, though first they had to get through the next few weeks.
“Who needs maps?” Luke asked, his voice loud with irritation.
Jonas sighed, and walked into the reference room. There were only eight books on the cart. “You need to pick up the pace.”
“Jonas, we need maps, don’t we?” Soanna said. “They’d be useful, right?”
“Stick them on, and we’ll work it out later,” Jonas said. “Time’s marching fast, and we don’t want it to leave us behind.” He grabbed a handful of tomes, adding them without reading the titles. “Fill her up.”
Tentatively at first, but with increasing haste, the cart was loaded.
“Good job,” Jonas said. “I’ll take these out to the truck. You can start on non-fiction. Just put the books on a table until I’m back with the cart. We want books on farming, on plants, on medicine, on engineering. We don’t need to learn a new language, or learn about how old battles were won. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Outside, company had arrived. The figure was mostly jacket. A grey long-coat stretched down to its mud-coated boots, while, hunched over the truck’s hood, its head was completely hidden. Jonas whistled. The figure twitched, jerked, spasmed, and twisted around, moving like a puppet on a string. But it was no puppet. It was no person, either. Not any more. It was a zombie. One with only half a face. The other half looked near melted off, leaving patches of exposed bone visible beneath the flayed muscle darkly oozing brown pus.
Jonas flipped the clip on the bowie knife’s sheath, drawing the long blade. It had belonged to Martha’s husband, the man he’d hunted down and locked up. And it had been a gift from him to Jonas. An ironic gift, sure, but that hadn’t kept Jonas from accepting it. He’d kept it as a reminder of how there could be loss in victory, and victory in loss, and sometimes both in the same event. All of which had been upended when Martha had sailed north to look for him.
Banishing thoughts of the past, he raised the knife as the zombie raised its arms. Ignoring its eyes, watching its shoulders, he waited until it was within three yards; waited until its hands had begun clawing, its mouth had begun snapping; waiting until it lurched forward. He skipped sideways, turning as he swung the heavy blade around. Even as the zombie twisted, the knife slammed into its par-boiled head, spraying skin, pus, bone, and brain over the rain-fed lawn.
The creature fell as Jonas pivoted a quick three-sixty, then a slower one, confirming he was, once again, alone. Almost as quickly, with his boot, he pushed the corpse beneath the thin bushes separating the library’s grounds from the church’s, where he hoped the kids wouldn’t see it.
He loaded the books into the back of the truck and took the cart back inside.
“Was that a zombie?” Soanna asked.
“You were watching? You should have been working,” he said. He gave the books on the table barely a glance. “Good. You’ve done well. Load these onto the cart, then you can begin on children’s books.”
“I thought you said it was adult’s fiction next,” Luke said.
“I’ve a large enough collection of those,” Jonas said, and he went to the door to keep watch.
On their own, the undead were easy enough to deal with. In daylight. Outside. It was when there was more than one that danger rose exponentially. When you had to resort to a gun. When the sound of a shot summoned others. And there always seemed to be others. Despite how long it’d been since the outbreak, despite the nuclear war, despite how many wars, battles, skirmishes, and one-sided shoot-outs surely had been fought across the entire continent, there were always more. So, as the kids loaded the books onto the cart, he watched, waiting for them to arrive.
But it wasn’t the undead who arrived. He heard the engine first. He assumed it was Martha, but A.K.C.: Assumptions Kill Cops. He’d had that drummed into him his first day on patrol, so he stayed in cover, watching.
The vehicle wasn’t a pick-up. It was a black SUV of a style he’d seen before, and seen recently. Very recently. That morning, in fact. Parked outside Jimmy’s restaurant.
His suspicions flared, then exploded when the SUV stopped just beyond his own truck. Three people got out. Driver, front-seat passenger, and one from the rear. That the driver got out strongly suggested there was no one left inside, not that it mattered because they were armed for war. Each carried an M4 carbine, with a sidearm strapped to their hips. On their chests, each wore many-pocketed body-armour that was black, professional, and though not military, and not marked, it was very definitely government-issue. Their clothing wasn’t. That was a mix of what they’d scavenged when their last set became too filthy to wear.
The driver was a man in jeans, wrap-around shades, and a t-shirt so short in the sleeves it exposed a set of tattoos that Jonas couldn’t make out. The front-seat passenger was a woman wearing a tan-coloured shirt and pants. Hiking gear, he’d guess. The passenger in the back wore army-green camouflage, but it was more likely to be surplus than a recent issue.
The muscled driver stopped by the SUV’s hood, leaning against it, tucking his hands into his vest. The rear-passenger walked over to Jonas’s truck, while the woman walked towards the library. Their rifles were slung, their hands were off their weapons, but Jonas knew exactly how much danger he and the kids were in. Hiding wouldn’t help, so he stepped forward.
“Afternoon,” he said.
“Isn’t it a good one?” the woman said. “I’m Captain Hoyle. Denise Hoyle.”
“Jonas,” he said. Unlike the woman, he saw no reason to lie, and he was certain she was lying. “Where do you come from?”
“Out west,” she said.
“Books, boss,” the camo-wearing man said, having lifted the tarp covering the rear of Jonas’s truck.
“You’re a reader?” Hoyle asked.
“You can learn a lot from books,” Jonas said. He had the measure of them now. What he didn’t have was a plan.
The driver whistled, and pointed back the way they’d come. “Zombie.”
“Deal with it, Rick,” Hoyle said.
The man in camouflage walked out into the road, raised his M4, and fired. The shot echoed.
“Sound brings more,” Jonas said, talking simply to buy more time. Behind him, he could hear breathing.
“Who is it?” Luke whispered.
Jonas didn’t answer, but motioned Luke back inside.
“We’re from the provisional government,” Hoyle said. “We’re in pursuit of someone. A man. His name is Tom Clemens.”
“Last I heard, the government was gone,” Jonas said.
“It’s still here,” she said. “It’s always here. Do you know a man called Tom Clemens?”
Lying would buy time, but not enough. That left only one course of action. Jonas sighed, and let his shoulders slump. “Sure.”
“You tell us what you know, and we’ll—”
Jonas drew
and fired. His mistake was letting his training take over. His first shot went for the centre-mass, right into camouflaged man’s body armour. The man staggered back a step, doubling over. Jonas had already corrected his aim, but for where the man’s head had been and so the shot went high. His third slammed into the man’s skull, but by then, Hoyle and the driver had both taken cover. Jonas did the same, just before his enemy found their triggers.
“Get down!” he yelled at the children as bullets tore into and through the library’s thin walls. Soanna ran behind the counter, while Luke ducked around a wooden pillar. Jonas pushed him down to the floor, waiting until the gunfire had stopped before pushing him after Soanna.
“Stay down. Stay quiet,” he said.
“We just want to know where Clemens went,” Hoyle called out. “Tell us that, and the children will live.”
Jonas didn’t reply. He knew it was a lie. He crawled back to the door. “Soanna,” he hissed. “Is there a mirror behind that counter?”
“A… a mirror? Hang on. Here.” She threw a small plastic case over to him. A makeup bag she must have grabbed during their morning’s near fruitless looting. Inside was a compact mirror, and with that, he was able to see outside, and see the two shooters were still there.
“You don’t have forever!” the woman called out.
Jonas wasn’t so sure. The windows were barred. The other doors to the library were secure. If one of the two went around back, he’d be able to get the drop on the remaining shooter. In the meantime, Martha would soon be on her way back.
“Who are they?” Soanna whispered.
“Bad people,” Jonas said.
“Why do they want Tom?” Luke asked.
“Good question,” Jonas said. He raised his voice. “Why do you want Tom Clemens?”
“Ah, so you do know him,” Hoyle called with malicious glee.
Jonas shook his head. The woman was an idiot. Of course he knew Tom. And well she knew it. That SUV she was driving was the exact same make as the vehicle Tom had driven to Crossfields Landing. A vehicle Tom had taken from the First Lady’s house in Vermont. There was little doubt these people’s weapons and body armour came from there, too. But that wasn’t what had kept his hand close to his gun. It was that they had driven straight to the library. They’d been watching them, following them. This trio probably hadn’t followed Tom, but they’d known where his cabin was. These killers had followed Jonas’s convoy all the way from Crossfields Landing, waiting for an opportunity to spring a trap. They wanted information before they made the final assault, because the last time some of their people had launched an attack on Crossfields Landing, it had ended disastrously.
A cog whirred, slamming into place. He raised the mirror, checking outside. They were both outside. They weren’t shooting. They weren’t talking. They weren’t attacking. They were waiting. Implying there were more than three of them. A vehicle like that, there’d be room for four or five. Call the other a sniper or a spotter, but that’s how they’d been keeping tabs on the group. How they’d kept their distance until the other two cars had driven off. Precisely which tools and technology they were using, he’d find out when they were dead, and that was the only way this could end. The only way he’d allow it to end.
“Why are you looking for Tom?” he called out, speaking to buy some thinking time.
“He’s a fugitive,” Hoyle said.
“He left,” Jonas said truthfully. “Took a boat, and sailed across the Atlantic.”
Hoyle laughed, but said nothing.
She didn’t want to talk, and she’d not mentioned the man he’d just killed. They knew there’d been three trucks in the convoy. Whether it was a sniper or spotter watching, they’d be able to set up an ambush for when Martha and the others returned. He ran through his choices, and they weren’t good.
“Jonas, what do we do?” Soanna asked.
“I’m just working it out,” Jonas said. “Go check the back door, the one to the north. It’s got a padlock on a chain, I think, but are there any other locks? Luke, look in that desk, the drawers. Are there any keys? Quick now.”
The longer this went on, the longer Hoyle would have time to think of burning the library down, blowing it up, or…
He’d been watching them in the mirror, and he’d seen the driver move, but not towards the library. He’d crossed to the rear of the vehicle with his carbine raised but aimed along the road. Jonas listened, but he couldn’t hear a vehicle. He knew what was coming, but it took another minute for the first of the undead to come into sight.
“I’ve found the key,” Luke said.
“Are we going to run?” Soanna said.
“Not yet, but soon,” Jonas said. He raised the mirror, checking the road first. There were eight zombies out there now, but he couldn’t see much of the road from behind the pillar.
Gunfire erupted. He turned the mirror back to the car. The driver was firing, but his carbine was aimed up in the air. Jonas swung to his feet, firing three shots before he dived back behind the cover of the pillar on the other side of the door. The shooting outside had stopped. He waited for it to begin again. It didn’t. He raised the mirror. He couldn’t see anyone by the truck, and he couldn’t see whether there was a body, either. He changed the angle. He could see the undead. Dozens of them. And his gunshots had had the same effect as that carbine. The zombies were heading to the library.
“What’s happening?” Soanna asked.
“Zombies. They lured the zombies here,” Jonas said.
“So what do we do?”
“Hold our nerve,” Jonas said. “Panic never helps.”
In a half crouch, he ran to his left and to a set of comfortable chairs around a low table covered in magazines. As he reached for the table, the glass window shattered. He dropped as bullets flew through the open window. With a throw and a kick, he shoved the table close to the door, and retreated back to the pillar. So much for barricading the entrance. At least one of them was still alive, and what they wanted was clear. They wanted one person, alive, to answer questions. One person here, or at Crossfields Landing, and they’d decided that person wasn’t going to be him.
From cover, with the mirror, he checked the window. The reinforced bars looked thin. The cheap kind an insurance company insists on, rather than anything that would keep out a determined thief. But who’d rob a library out here?
A loud thump came from outside. He swivelled, repositioning the mirror. The first of the undead had reached the path leading up to the library, and it had tripped. The others were close behind.
He swung up, firing. One shot. A second. Ducking down before he’d seen the zombies fall, but he was certain he’d hit them. Had he killed them? It didn’t matter. He had a new plan. The only plan possible. Lure the zombies to this door. Escape through one of the other two doors, and hope he didn’t pick the one at which the sniper was aiming their rifle.
He checked in the mirror. The zombies were getting closer. He spun out of cover again, firing three shots this time, and almost a fourth. A crescendo of crashing glass made him dive for cover. But the bullets had smashed through the window on the left side of the building, far from the door. That gave him a line on where the shooter now was. He frowned. He’d heard the glass break, the bullets stitch a tattoo on the ceiling, but not the shots. Did they have suppressors? No matter.
“You two okay?” he called.
“Yeah,” Soanna said.
“We’re fine,” Luke said, his voice breaking with the strain.
“You get ready now,” Jonas said. He checked with the mirror. The zombies were right outside, at least a dozen. The door was open. The table was no real barrier. He backed into the room, staying in a half-kneeling crouch, and fired. One shot, one zombie, one kill. A bald-headed man with a missing jaw; a black-haired woman with a seeping gouge where her right ear had been; a pot-bellied giant with a knife embedded in his throat. Jonas fired until his gun clicked empty.
“Get ready,” he said,
ejecting the magazine and loading a fresh, quickly checking he had a spare. “Next time I reload, run to the door.” He took aim, but there were plenty of targets. Eight. He fired, the bullet smashing through the glasses that had, somehow, remained on the zombie’s face. Another, into the temple of a bobble-hatted zombie who was turning its head. Only five left.
Five?
Then there were four. Three, and he saw it fall, saw the gore spray from the side of its head, splattering the creature next to it before it, in turn, collapsed. Then there was one, and this zombie was already inside, beyond the door, pushing at the table. Jonas fired. It slumped forwards, onto the furniture.
“Don’t move,” he said. “But stay ready to run.”
He couldn’t see any zombies through the open front door, not that were moving. He checked the bullet-broken window to the left. He could see none through there, but he could see his truck. There were a couple of dead creatures nearby, but the vehicle didn’t look damaged.
“Change of plans, kids. When I say run, we’re dashing to the truck. Got that? You get inside. Soanna, you remember how to start the engine?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“I think so,” Luke said.
“I’ll be five seconds behind you,” Jonas said. “Get her started, but you keep your heads down. And don’t run until I say.”
With his foot, he pushed the table aside. The zombie sprawled on top fell, loudly, to the ground, and prevented the table from moving any further. Squeezing by, he leaned against the door, looking outside. There were at least thirty undead. Far more than he’d shot. Far, far more than he’d realised were out there. So who’d killed them? Kaitlin? Or Hoyle?
“Okay. On three,” he called.
He swung outside, gun raised, and saw more corpses splayed, dead, along the road. At least fifty in total. It was the work of someone who was a very good shot. Or some ones, plural.
