by Lowry, Chris
“Were you supposed to signal?” I asked Jamal. “Hang that sock on the door or something?”
He sniffed.
“They said just be here.”
“They?”
“Brian and his wife.”
I was way too paranoid. Brian and Peg. Harriet too, if she was with them. The three of them qualified as a they.
“Should we hide?” Anna asked.
I looked at her pixie frame standing on the bottom step, sunlight glinting off her brown hair turning strands an auburn shade. She had the shotgun cocked on her hip and I thought to saw off the barrel so she could balance it better in her smaller grip.
I would have never had that thought five weeks ago.
“Unless they're doing loops or passing patrols, they're watching,” I said.
I didn't have much confidence in that, but it's what I would have done. And if they were watching I hoped they would hurry up so we could find out what's going on and get back on the road.
Driving with Jamal had given me confidence to drive faster too. I'd just have to rely on luck and reflexes to make the six hundred plus miles remaining. But if I could keep it at seventy, I was only eight hours away from an answer.
Eight hours.
That made me shudder.
“What is it?” Anna shifted the shotgun, ready.
Brian saved me. I nodded as he stepped onto the road across from the bank and gave a tiny wave with one hand.
We hurried across to join him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Brian looked rough. Like he spent a night in the woods, which he had. Peg didn't look much better and the only thing that set Harriet apart were the lines down her cheeks that tears had carved through the soot and dirt.
We followed him through the woods to a small clearing lined with three strands of wire to make an enclosure. A bird on the top wire twittered at us and flew off in a huff.
He led us past their campsite and we kept walking several hundred meters through the trees to the pasture. I could see a smoldering pile of ash next to a pond in the distance.
“What happened?”
“They came last night right after Harriet showed up with him and two others,” Brian indicated Jamal with a point of his chin. “Gave us an ultimatum. A kid. Can you believe that?”
“The youth of today,” I answered. “No respect for their elders.”
“I blame their parents.”
“They killed them. Said the Z were their fault.”
“I can believe it with this little bastard. Tiny little Napoleon looking tween.”
“He's sixteen.”
“He looks twelve. Wait until you see him.”
“Why did Hannah go with him?”
Harriet sobbed behind me, carving new streaks.
“We don't know,” Brian answered. “He told us to get out. I said no. They tossed the fireballs at the porch.”
“Not much on negotiation, huh?”
“Pretty powerful tactic I think. He gave us his demands, we said no.”
“You said no,” Peg interjected.
“I said no.”
“And he burned our house down.”
“Technically you had only been there a couple of days so I don't know if it's your house yet,” I said.
“Squatters rights,” said Brian. “Now it's burned to squat. The boats were a good idea.”
“Glad you're okay.”
“Yeah, good to see you. I didn't know if you'd come back.”
I didn't tell him how close it was.
“Alright,” I said turning from the wreckage and putting a hand on Harriet's shoulder. “Let's go get Hannah.”
I led them back to the campsite first. Brian stoked the tiny embers in the fire, feeding little branches and sticks into the fire until it was a small blaze. Anna opened the knapsack and opened a can of soup for each of us, passing them to Peg who rested them in the coals to warm.
The clearing was soon filled with the warm tang of bubbling soup, and it smelled delicious. I watched Jamal lick his lips and he grinned when he saw he was caught.
“We been eating cafeteria food,” he said. “No soup. My momma used to make us grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch on the weekends. It smells like home.”
“I used to make it for my kids,” I told him and passed him the first can. “Tell us about where they are.”
The others took their cans in hand, wrapped in gloves or shirtsleeves so the hot tin didn't burn their fingers, and slurped it down. I took long slow sips. Tomato soup wasn't my favorite thing, in fact, this was my first can in twenty years. My kids liked it, but I preferred a chicken broth instead of a tomato base.
But this soup was one of the best things I ever tasted. Chalk it up to the campfire, or being back in familiar company despite the task before us. Anna flashing her eyes at me across the fire, Brian falling into an easy familiarity by my side, Peg pressed against him, and Harriet next to her.
I had two families now, and as much as I wanted to skip out on this one to save the other, I knew I couldn't. Someone had threatened my new family, burned their safe haven down and kidnapped our youngest member.
I could feel the warm rumble in my stomach that threatened to boil over and I was glad for a moment I could blame it on the soup.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The kids were holed up in a school building in the town that once served as a county seat. There were four buildings behind a tall fence installed back when school shooters were one of our fears. The ten foot metal fence was black and circled the school, pointed faux spear designs on top to give it an elegant look.
“Those would be good to kill Z,” said Brian from my shoulder.
We were hidden behind a building corner watching three Z press against the fence. The four school buildings bordered a central courtyard and we caught occasional flashes of children darting around. Their laughter and squeals carried and I suspected that's what drew the Z.
I was surprised there weren't more.
“We cleared them,” Jamal said when I asked.
“All of them?”
He nodded.
“A lot of people left during the evacuation, but Byron said if we wanted to be safe we had to eliminate the zombies from town. It's what the patrol guards did.”
If the little punk hadn't kidnapped Hannah, I'd have to admire the prick. He sounded smart, and capable if he could rein in two dozen plus children, which was akin to herding cats. And he eliminated all the threats to his little kingdom by running off or running down potential risks.
“Are you taking notes on this?” I asked Brian.
“On what?”
“What this kid did. When you find Fort Deux, you're going to need to do the same thing.”
“Kidnap kids and kill adults?”
He had a point. I didn't expect him to be as ruthless as Byron, but maybe that's the kind of leader this new world called for. I wondered for a moment if Brian was capable of becoming that type of leader. Ruthless. Heartless. Remorseless.
“What?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“If you want to keep the people in your fort safe, you're going to defend it.”
“Got it,” he pretended to write in a notebook on his hand using his other finger as a pen. “Rules of negotiation. Don't.”
Maybe Brian wanted to be a leader, but he couldn't. Or maybe this kids style of leadership had just worked here, and Brian's would work someplace else, a more utopian type environment.
But I did make note myself of how Byron negotiated.
Ask.
Once.
Then respond in force to enforce your will.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“This is going to sound like a weird question,” I told Brian. “But did you tell him about me?”
“I expect nothing but weird questions from you, and no, you did not come up in the course of conversation. Of course the conversation went something like, “Get out.” “No.” Fireball, so I didn't get the chanc
e to mention you.”
“Good,” I said and turned my look on Jamal. “What about it kid? Do they know about me? That you went to get reinforcements?”
He squirmed then. I could see it in a tightening of the skin around his eyes, the shift from foot to foot.
“What is it?” I pushed.
“I've been wondering why the two other boys ain't been back yet?” he licked his lips and looked away. “I found you, but they would have made the tripwires by now and seen you didn't go any of those ways.”
“Spies?” Brian asked.
“Byron didn't do that before,” he shrugged.
“Then what?”
“Just funny. The timing you know. Like they was safe in the cars so the zombies couldn't get in at them, but they ain't back yet. Funny.”
“Not ha ha funny,” sighed Brian.
“Not at all,” I added. “But do they know you went to get reinforcements?”
The eighteen year old shook his head then and made eye contact. No squirreliness there to make me wonder, and if it was a poker face a damn good one.
“You thinking distraction?” Brian whispered.
I looked over his shoulder at the school grounds. The four buildings were set back from the fence line. by a good hundred feet and the land around the school was open and clear. It had been built in what once was a pasture, probably. Cleared land that was easy to access through a long drive, no woods or other buildings to use for cover to sneak up to it.
A full frontal assault, direct and decisive wasn't going to work on this place.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe more than one.”
Brian settled down on his haunches and I joined him. The others followed until we were all huddled around a square Brian scrawled in the dirt.
I pointed to the front gate.
“Harriet, Peg, Jamal, here. Talk to them.”
“They're going to freak out when they see I come back,” the boy stuttered.
“That's the idea. Get them freaking out.”
“Byron usually tells them to shoot when they freaking. Says it calms the nerves and solves the problem.”
Damn I kind of liked this Byron kid. I mean I was probably going to have to kill him if he didn't give up Hannah without a fight, but I liked the way he thought. If I wasn't afraid he'd slit our throats while we slept, I'd invite him to join us.
Looking at the school and the defense around it, I thought maybe he was better off not joining.
“Do they have rifles?”
“A couple.”
“Are they good shots?”
“It's Georgia man. We get guns put in one hand and a bottle in the other in the crib.”
“But they'll wonder why you're back?”
Those shoulders bounced up and down again.
“Yeah, they'll wonder.”
“So get them to come out and ask. Without freaking out.”
“How?”
“I'll think of something,” Harriet sniffed.
It was her first words since before lunch. Mother's grief.
“Just get them focused on you,” I said. “Brian, you and Anna are gonna come in on this side.”
I pointed to the side of the square that was not quite hidden by the buildings. Brian nodded, getting it.
“It looks like a sneak attack.”
“The idea is they're going to focus on Peg and Hannah, and think you and Anna are trying to sneak in. All eyes up front.”
“You're going in the back door.”
“Where would they keep her?” I asked Jamal.
“We're really only staying in the one building,” he bent down and sketched the four buildings in the dirt, rough childlike scrawls and squiggly lines.
“This one,” he pointed to the one in the rear. “It's got the cafeteria, an assembly hall, and class rooms on the second floor we turned into dorm rooms.”
“Byron sounds pretty organized,” I was thinking.
“He is. He says he's been thinking about something like this for a long time. Planned it even, what he would do just in case of. He's got notebooks of stuff he wrote down and drew.”
Smart kid with a plan.
I was starting to not like this idea.
Hannah sniffed.
It reminded me there was a kid involved. A kid who needed my help. Family. So I took all the second guessing and doubts and shoved them down deep to fuel the rage and tried to think of one thing.
How dare he.
How dare this little punk try to hurt my family.
How dare this little twerp burn down our house.
How dare he tell us to leave.
How dare he kidnap my charge, my responsibility.
I reached down, erased the drawing in the dirt and sent the others to their positions.
I was going to show him what daring was really about.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first distraction worked. As soon as Jamal, Peg and Harriet stepped onto the road and started walking toward the gate, children streamed out of the buildings and walked down to meet them.
Jamal had said close to thirty kids, so I counted twelve in the committee to greet them, with four more back by the building watching five smaller kids.
That left roughly ten somewhere inside counting Hannah.
I had no doubt some of those were watching now. Maybe with rifles, just like me, peering through scopes or sights and moving from potential target to potential target. I hoped they wouldn't take a shot at Brian and Anna. I scanned the windows searching for glare or flash, but I didn't see any, nor did I see any shadows or open panes.
I saw Brian move out of the tree line on the far side of the campus and that was my cue. I shouldered my rifle and began running.
I gave Brian and Peg the pikes Anna and I made to replace the ones they lost in the fire, and gave up my pistol to Brian so he would be armed as well. They had left everything behind in the house burning down, which pissed me off because we had found good weapons, and a ton of food that literally went up in smoke.
I blamed Byron for that.
Someone needed to give that kid a spanking. Burning up good food after the end of the world. What was he thinking?
I wished for the pike now as two of the Z on the fence line. saw me moving and began to follow. I'd be able to avoid one, but the other was going to be where I needed to cross over, a junction of brick column that served to support the long uninterrupted back fence.
I pulled the nine inch buck knife I had lifted off a mad General in Florida and held it ready. I hated letting the Z get this close because one bite and I'd have to eat a bullet, but I still had on long sleeves, thick heavy fabric that should resist biting. My hands were exposed so I was going to have to be careful.
I let it get closer and started to gag.
It smelled like dead rotting flesh, wrapped in a methane sulfur cloud and wearing a skunk ass as a necklace.
I suddenly wasn't afraid it was going to bite me, I was afraid I would pass out from the stench. I gagged, held back vomit and tried to stay in focus despite my watering eyes.
It came into reach and I jabbed with the blade, the tip going through the eyeball with a wet plop and releasing a stench ten times worse than the funk around it's body. I did throw up then, the tomato soup mixing with the black blood and gore on the fallen Z.
I just tried to do it quietly.
After a moment, I wiped my mouth and crawled up the back of the fence, dropping down on the other side.
So far so good.
If they had snipers, this is when they would take their shot. I jogged across the grounds to the back of the building and made my way to the side door. It was locked. I thought about bashing it open, but the school had built the doors for the same reason the fence existed. To keep the uninvited out.
Byron made a good choice.
I crept around the side of the building and watched the backs of two young kids looking through the archway at the activity beyond. They were smiling and pointing, and I
knew Brian and Anna had been spotted.
I wished we had radios so I could tell them to turn back, but the plan was for them to reach the fence line. and seeing that there was no way in, go join Peg's group up front.
If no one shot them.
The kids were distracted.
I slipped past them and in through one open door to a school hallway lined with lockers. They were blue against the white walls, and I noticed this was home of the Panthers. I wondered if that's what the group called themselves, or if they used some other more militaristic name, something Byron scribbled down after a wet dream or something.
There were four doors off the hall, two to either side and a set of double doors on the far end. I peeked through the windows as I passed the doors into empty rooms on one side, and an assembly hall on the other that stretched to a dark stage.
The double doors in back opened into the cafeteria.
Hannah huddled with a group of small children, holding them close. She looked up and burst into tears.
There was no guard, no one to stop me from taking her.
“You came,” she sobbed.
“Let's get out of here,” I reached for her arm.
She fell into mine and hugged me. The children watched her, and on seeing her tears welled up themselves. Hannah extracted herself from my arms and began to comfort and quiet them.
“I can't go,” she whispered. “You have to get out of here.”
“Of course you can go,” I answered and glanced over my shoulder. If a couple of older kids came through the door it was a turkey shoot. They had straight lines of sight right to me and I didn't think they would care about the innocent lives behind the doors.
“Do you know what's going on here?” she whispered again and nodded her head toward the far end of the cafeteria. “This guy is a maniac.”
“That's why I'm getting you out.”
“I can't. We have to save these kids.”
I lifted the rifle and began to move toward the room she had indicated. I had hoped to just sneak her out of the back door, but if we were going to turn it into a full on rescue mission it looked like Byron and a few of his boys were going to have to go.
