The Swamp

by Yates, R

  “You can’t go, this isn’t your fight, I don’t know what we are going to encounter out there.”

  “It is my fight. You already saved me and my brother, now it’s time for me to help save yours.”

  I could see by his demeanor that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so Sam just shook his hand and we loaded up. Together they headed off into the night.

  They had decided on a route that would take them almost all the way there by roads through unpopulated areas. They managed to make it almost twenty miles before they saw any of the dead.

  “There seem to be less and less of them.” Sam commented as he watched the woman who had been about thirty and dressed in a sweat suit recede in the side mirror.

  “We noticed that on the way,” Paul said, “they seem to have all gravitated to the population centers, well the ones that didn’t start out there. Following cars was Ken’s guess. He had a theory that when a car passed, they would follow it until something else caught there attention. He figured that since all roads lead to towns, they would walk until all the buildings and possibly survivors who may be held up there made them forget about what they were doing, so they just kind of stay there.”

  “Mom said she had heard that they would follow vehicles out of town. She said she saw it happen back when she was held captive.” Sam added.

  “If that is true, we figured out that if you drove through a city or town, the Sam was not to stop until you got out of the area. We would do this thing were we would slow up and let them stay right behind us, then swing around a few blocks at the edge of town and exit a different direction. They appeared to keep going in whatever direction they last saw you going.”

  “Makes the swamp all the better, it’s so far away from people, it shouldn’t attract them, and its maze of roads would help them get lost and give you more time to run away or get ready.” Sam said thoughtfully.

  “Basically, if we stay out of populated areas and don’t draw attention to ourselves, we should do just fine. Ken and I actually felt so secure we slept under the stars a few nights. Cities are hell, country is quiet.” Paul explained.

  “I just wonder how long they will last, I mean, will they starve, or rot away?” Sam asked the question he had been wondering since it had all started.

  “Back in Inverness, where I was hold up at the beginning, they had a few scientists looking into those very questions. I talked to an epidemiologist from some government agency at dinner one night. He was very full of himself talking about how I shouldn’t worry because they almost had this thing beat. He went on and on about some vaccine they were days away from that never happened. He says they whatever they have, virus or whatever, slowed down the bacteria that caused rot, but didn’t stop it. He said they decay, but it will take them a lot longer, maybe a couple of years, which is forever in this heat. He talked about how they hadn’t figured out why they eat, because they would keep going even after they had eaten so much they popped. He used a lot of two dollar words and was very proud of himself, but he seemed to know what he was talking about.” Paul recalled “Of course it was his damn test subjects that got loose and took the whole place down. Sad as hell, we had good walls, lots of food and everything we needed for a very long time.”

  “That sucks,” Sam remarked, “Many of you get out?”

  “Well lets see,” Paul thought back, “There were about three thousand of us one day, and the next… well, I know of about ten that got out, There may have been more, but I doubt it. We all traveled together until we hit I-10, and then they went east towards Jacksonville and I went west towards Ken.” Paul paused for a moment and then seemed shaken. “I guess they are all dead now if Jacksonville is as bad as you say, we would be too had you not found us in the church yard and stopped us.”

  “You never know, maybe they also had someone warn them.” Sam said to comfort Paul, but deep down he knew it was true. It was funny the way fate saved some and screwed others.

  They drove until they started seeing signs for a larger town, which they decided to skirt. Mom had taken a county map they had found, and added noted showing the location of the farm as well as notes about the surrounding area. The town they had decided to skirt was the one the ill-fated raiding party had gone to. They selected a small road several miles away and pulled into the lot of an abandoned dairy plant they judged to be only a few miles from the farm. They would be able to hike cross country and come up beside the farm.

  By late afternoon, they were in the tree line watching the compound. It was exactly as Mom had described it. They could see the towers in the corners, but they appeared to be unmanned. In the south fields, they could see groups of men guarded by two other figures dressed in dirty fatigues. The thirteen prisoners had definitely seen better days. They showed signs of weakness and appeared thin even at these distances. One of the workers was very unsteady on his feet, the heat and heavy labor obviously getting the better of him. Twice he fell to his knees before other nearby men rushed over to help him up. The third time he went down, one of the soldiers came over and pointed at the fallen man. At five hundred yards, they could not hear what was being said, but they watched as two of the other men walked over and carried the now unconscious man and put him into onto the flatbed trailer connected to the tractor that sat nearby. The other soldier climbed into the cab and drove the man off towards a stand of trees at the far end of the farm and was quickly lost from view, but returned with an empty trailer a few minutes later.

  Sam watched this with interested. “He didn’t look dead to me. I am going to go check this out.

  “Be careful, do you want me to go with you?” Paul asked, as he continued to watch the activity throw the binoculars.

  “Nah, you stay here and keep an eye on things, I should be back in less than an hour. I just have a feeling that if I don’t go check that out…” Sam shook his hand “It’s probably nothing.”

  “It is a good idea. We need to check out the other side anyway.” Paul agreed.

  Sam gathered his pack and weapon and crawled farther back into the tree line before rising to a crouch and moving off south. He proceeded with caution, stopping every fifty yards to stop and glass the fields. He couldn’t believe security was this lax for a military group, even rogues like these.

  Before long, he had made a wide circle around the farm and started his way back keeping the grove of trees between himself and the farm. He felt silly crawling the way he was, but he had convinced himself to take no chances. It took him longer than he thought just to get to where he could see the trees. His hour estimate to Paul had almost elapsed, so this would have to be a quick look around.

  The grove was only about two square acres. Here and there bushes sprouted around the bottom of the trunks of the pecan trees, and the ground was covered with dried leaves of the past season. It was a pleasant place, peaceful and serene, the kind of place that at one time would just be screaming to be relaxed in. In today’s world it mostly just gave you the creeps. At first, he saw nothing moving except the slight breeze rustling the trees leaves. A few birds flitted amongst the leaves and squirrels had a game of chase going at the far end of the copse.

  To his left side, he heard a weak sound, almost a cough but barely audible. He froze, listening intently, but there was no further sound. His almost decided to back out of the search and head back to Paul, but he slowly turned towards where he thought the sound had come from and slinked forward. Ahead of him, one of the trees had been cut down, its rotted stump showing its long absence. This created a clearing of sorts, a small sunny opening ringed in large trees. As Sam worked closer, he could see that each of these ring of trees had a human body bound tightly to it with thick rope. As he looked at the six figures He almost gasped when one turned its head in his direction and made the same soft sound he had heard earlier, but this time the noise was longer. Sam recovered his composure quickly and realized the dead thing was attempting to groan, but the ropes under its arm were so tight they cut off its a
bility to fill its rotted lungs. Sam turned to look into the trees and could see where the ropes trailed up into the trees from each zombie and running off in the direction of the Farm before dropping back down were it was lashed to another tree. He walked over near the clearing to take a closer look. The dead eyes followed him as he approached. Upon closer examination, each dead person was wearing what was basically a harness made from rope which extended into a loop on the ropes tied to the tree and then heading up. Sam wasn’t sure how he had missed it, but he gave himself credit because the rope was camouflaged.

  It was a big man, dressed in fatigues, and on its collar gleamed two parallel brass bars.

  “Captain Robertson, I presume.” Sam said from just beyond its grasping arms. Its dead eyes stared at him, and yet through him at the same time. The other creatures in the circle, alerted by the first, stretched out their arms and somehow were able to moan. Sam had never been this close to the creatures without being in immediate peril and was fascinated.

  The dead reached lazily for him, almost as if they could sense their inability to reach him, and were only putting in a token effort. The next one in the ring was an elderly woman, most likely the one mom had told of trying to help that poor young girl get away. The next several seemed to be all men in their twenties and thirties, all were wearing heavily soiled clothing and looking emaciated, their skin showing the grey of death but underlined with a redness that indicated heavy sunburns. Sam could only guess that these were the unfortunate men who had died of undernourishment and over work in the days following his mother’s escape. He was relived that none of them appeared to be his brother. When finally he looked at the final figure, he realized that it alone was not moving. It appeared to be the man they had seen hauled off not that long ago, but furthermore, as he watched. He noticed its chest straining for breath against the ropes. He rushed over, careful to stay out of reach of the grasping hands and drew his knife, making quick work of the ropes. He caught the man and dragged him a short distance away. The man was alive, but barely. Sam carefully poured a little water into his mouth and was rewarded by the man swallowing. After a few repetitions, the man opened his eyes, and after a moment of confusion, reached up and took the canteen and tried to gulp it down. Sam felt bad when he took the canteen away, but knew it was for the better.

  "Hold up, you don't want to over do it. Too much, to quickly will only make it worse" Sam cautioned.

  The survivor just nodded, and tried to sit up. Sam helped him lean against a nearby tree.

  "What’s your name?" Sam asked as he handed back the canteen, now confident the guy would take it easy.

  "Mike, Mike Carter." was the wheezed response through heavily peeling lips "Thank you for finding me, but exactly where am I? Last thing I knew I was out in a field digging potatoes..."

  "You collapsed and a soldier brought you here, He tied you to a tree and left."

  The man’s' eyes went wide and he tried to stand. "We have to get out of here! They have more tied up!" He made it to his feet and tried to take a step and went to a knee.

  "It’s ok, I saw the others, and they are all secured over there." Sam indicated with a nod of his head in the direction of the clearing.

  Mike gave a paranoid glance in the direction indicated but seemed to relax, and then took another drink of water. “They brought a couple of us up here one night when we were overheard talking about escaping and tied us to that stump...” he pointed at the clearing with a finger covered in broken blisters and caked with dirt, “The have them rigged so that they can give them some slack, They gave them just enough rope to almost reach us…” his words trailed off.

  Sam could only imagine what that would be like, much less to spend an entire night like that.

  “Can you walk?” Sam asked as he turned.

  “Now that I am free of that mess, I could probably run.”

  “Let’s start with walking and take it from there.” Sam said with a chuckle.

  “Sounds like a plan, I never caught your name.” the man said as Sam helped him to his feet.

  Sam grunted with the effort, the man was heavier than he appeared. When Sam introduced himself, the man held out his hand to shake.

  “Thank you Sam, I don’t think I need to tell you that you saved my life.”

  They took about twice as long to work their way back around to the fallen tree he and Paul had concealed in earlier because Mike needed to take frequent breaks. Paul seemed a little surprised at seeing the man, so Sam gave a quick explanation. Paul pulled of all things a jar of peanut butter out of his pack and tossed it to Mike, who showed a look of pure joy. Soon the contented sounds behind them were almost disturbing as they resumed their sentinel.

  Paul started to update Sam, “Nothing much happened, food was brought out about 45 minutes ago for the soldiers, looked like some kind of canned meat and veggies. The civilians were each given a single potato from the ones they had picked. The old lady that brought the food seemed to try to give something to a man when the soldiers weren’t looking and received a nasty back hand from the soldier on the left.”

  Here mike cut in, restored by his snack. “That would be Sandra. She tries to sneak food out to us whenever she can. After the other two cooks were killed she’s all they have left, so they rough her up a bit, but they won’t do anything major do her. One of them joked about how good her cooking was excellent and none of them could hold a candle to it.”

  Mike got a faraway look as he remembered back, then his eyes cleared and he said. “What are you guys doing here anyway, there’s no way you can steal their stuff, they keep it locked up in that house and even the stuff we have picked is kept in that big army truck by the door. You will find easier pickings elsewhere.”

  A few things he said clicked in Sam’s mind, and judging by Paul’s expression his also.

  “You said both the other cooks were dead?” Paul asked to clarify.

  “Yes, one named Susan is tied to a tree out there,” he flicked a hand in the direction of the grove, “She tried to help one of those poor girls in the house get away. Carol went and tried to escape, killed a guard in the process but the say they got her before she even made the tree line, shot in the head. They seemed real mad about it to, I guess since they couldn’t put her over there also.”

  Sam and Paul almost laughed out loud. “Carol isn’t dead, she forty miles away safe and sound and probably a whole lot more comfortable than we are. She is the one that told us where to find you guys, I am her son.”

  Mikes confused look turned to that big smile again. “Mark is sure going to be happy to hear that, it just about tore him when they told us she was dead. I guess that makes you the little brother he was going on about. He said he was half sure you were dead too.”

  “Only mostly, and only for a little while,” Sam quipped.

  Mikes smile turned serious, “Whatever you guys need to get those bastards, and I know I am weak right now, but I will do everything I can.” A glint of anger flared in his eyes as he spoke.

  “I appreciate it, but I don’t think it’s going to be all that hard, seems their security is nonexistent. They seem to be only concerned with the farmhouse.” Paul put in.

  Mike chuckled at this. “It’s a good thing you found me,” replied mike, “look up there, in the tree beside the house. And over there, look real close at that hay bale.” When we knew what to look for, we could just make out what he was talking about. High in the oak, hidden in the leaves we could just make out the form of a man. The hay bale had an odd shape, and when closer examined, showed to have windows about the size of shoe box lids on each side. “They have people in there that can see the entire perimeter all day long and radio in anything they find to the farm house. At night there is a soldier walking circles around the barn. They even have people walking between the inner and outer fences. These guys are real pros. they really do know what they are doing…”

  “Well this just got a whole lot harder, shit!” Paul exclaimed.
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br />   “We will figure something out.” Was all Sam could say? They continued their watch, and as dark closed, Mike was proven right as the hidden guards showed themselves to head back inside and their night time counterparts started their rounds. The men in the field were ushered back to the barn and locked in. they watched for another hour, and then made their way back to the RV.

  Once they were securely locked in the Fleetwood, they sat down to a meal of canned ravioli. They all ate heartily, but made Mike stop at thirds. His strength was coming back to him. And he seemed able to move a lot better.

  “We have to do this soon.” Mike said between mouthfuls, “Those guys in the barn don’t have very long, they aren’t planning on staying very long after those fields are picked. We had been working as slow as we could, hoping for a miracle, which I guess is you guys. I don’t think they plan on taking any of them with them when they leave. Best they can hope for is to just be locked in the barn when the soldiers run off, but one thing they aren’t short on is bullets so I bet they will just shoot everyone. I don’t think they plan on wasting any more gas than they have to taking extra trucks with them. They are short on gas, that’s why they stopped running the area lights, the generators are almost dry. At most I’d say you have 2 days”

  Sam thought for a moment, “That’s not good news either, do they keep everyone in the barn at night?”

  “Yes sir, the first few nights they kept those girls they had upstairs in the farm house but one of them tried to stab that lieutenant, then they started keeping them locked up in the barn. The one that tried to stab him told me that guy was the worst of the lot. She’d never talked about the things that happened there, but you could tell it was horrible.”

  “Why didn’t they just kill her? They don’t seem to be averse to doing that kind of thing?” wondered Paul out loud.

  Mike sort of chuckled and said, “Like that Sandra lady, the soldiers say they have necessary skills.” and left it at that.

  They let his meaning sink in for a few moments