by Lowry, Chris
“Hannah?” Harriet asked from where she stood beside her.
“It's okay Mom.”
“Hannah tells me you're keen on building a fort,” Byron looked at Brian. “She's told me a lot about each of you. We practically stayed up all night talking. But I especially liked what she had to say about you.”
Shoot him, a little voice inside me was screaming. The kid was a genius, sure, but most likely insane. I could get off two or three shots before the others reacted, which might buy us enough time to get the rest, especially if Brian and Anna jumped in to back me up.
I saw how it would go down in my head. A shot at Byron's head the next time he paused to turn. Swing around to the kid across the room and get him. Drop to my knees and hope the one behind me was still fumbling with his rifle and nail him. The noise would startle the kids into screaming, creating more chaos and confusion.
That might buy me one or two more shots.
“We want to go with you,” Byron said and I stopped planning to kill him. “So I propose an alliance.”
Hannah beamed at me, Byron smiled and stepped down beside her. Their hands fumbled for each other and grasped together.
“Will you ally with us?” asked Byron.
The rest of the kids turned to look at me, and I could feel Brian, Peg and the rest watching me as well.
“You want to come with us?”
“We're almost out of food here,” the kid explained. “The cafeteria was set up for short term, not long and we've cleaned out the town. It wasn't very big to begin with, and we're all growing kids after all. In my planning, I didn't account for rationing.”
He bowed his head.
“We're safe from the zombies but we're trapped in here and would starve unless we can find more food.”
“But you destroyed my house,” said Brian.
“I didn't,” said Byron. “They did.”
He nodded into the audience but we couldn't tell who he had singled out.
“Sometimes kids are hard to control, and all it takes is one action to start the ball rolling. I tell you that in warning so you know what to expect and how to handle it.”
“An alliance.” I rolled it over in my mouth and let it sit there for a minute.
“Everybody wins,” Hannah piped in. “Nobody dies.”
I could see that’s what she really wanted, what she was doing to protect the younger kids. Someone she had ferreted out their problem and talked their little dictator into a solution.
I knew from history not many people survived an alliance with a dictator, but we could cross the gorge when we got there. I still planned to race off to Arkansas once this was over, but maybe I would have to delay to get them settled in a new place.
“You did a good job selecting your location,” said Byron. “You've got an eye for forts.”
Brian nodded thanks.
“Aren't all your plans made for here?”
Byron nodded.
“The majority of them, which is why I need your help.”
I could still shoot him. Still take the kids. Probably have none of my group get shot. It meant I wouldn't have to worry about watching my back or keeping my throat covered at night.
But nobody dies.
There had been a lot of death so far. And they were just kids.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he grinned.
I nodded.
“Alright!” he did a fist pump. The others joined in with small claps and cheers. “When do we get started?”
“It's dark outside, so first light.”
“But we're out of food,” one of the six years old said in a nasally voice.
That's what Hannah knew that I didn't. They had used all of their supplies and they were hungry. The kids weren't quiet because they were disciplined, they were low energy for lack of food.
I nodded and gave her a wink. Harriet pulled her close and hugged her, then shook Byron's hand as Hannah introduced them.
“This a good decision?” Brian stepped to my shoulder.
I watched Jamal who worked hard to keep his face expressionless. I wouldn't want to be playing poker against him at that exact moment cause I couldn't read what he was thinking. I made a note to pull him aside and get his take on it.
Was that why they kicked out older kids? To make the food supply last longer? And what adults did they kill. I was going to find out more.
For now, we had an alliance. And over two dozen hungry children.
I slipped the knapsack off my shoulder and parceled out the last of our soup supplies.
“We'll have to share this tonight,” I told them. “But we know where a big supply is tomorrow.”
They almost cheered again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Trouble,” a voice on walkie talkie interrupted their meal, if you could call it that. One of the kids next to Byron unclipped a yellow sports radio from his belt and pressed the button.
“Go.”
“Out front, a lot of trucks, Jeeps. I can't make out any details.”
Byron glanced at me.
“Are you expecting trouble?”
“I was expecting it in here,” I told him.
“Your call.”
I stood up and checked my rifle, then glanced at Brian and Anna.
“Stay here till we find out what it is.”
“I'm coming with you,” said Jamal.
Byron directed LaRon and Donald to back him up.
Anna did the math in her head and didn't like the way the odds stacked up.
“I'll come too.”
If they planned to take me out, drawing me away from the group with a ruse was a good way to do it. Get me outside, three on one and work a little magic to the back of my head. I nodded to Anna and she fell in step behind Byron's two men, shotgun at the ready.
I still didn't like the too long barrel, no good for close quarters work, but I couldn't do much about it at the moment. I listened to their footsteps as they followed me down the hall and out through the arch and could see blinding headlights washing across the gate.
There was still enough light to see by, not quite dark, but not bright sunshine. The glowing orb had slid below the horizon and this was what remained, the perfect time to hunt lightening bugs.
They flickered in the pasture as if summoned by my thoughts and I stopped in the archway to study the scene in front of us. Jamal stood to my right, one step behind, LaRon and Donald a step behind him. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Anna in the shadows of the archway, half illuminated in the shadows, the tip of her shotgun gleaming as it aimed roughly at the back of the two boys. Good positioning.
In front of us were two trucks, Troop transports painted beige, perhaps back from Iraq or never sent and just painted to match what had been the current war until the Z showed up. Three Humvees flanked the trucks, and standing in the back of one was the General.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Is it him?” I heard Anna gasp.
She recognized him too.
“Who?” asked Jamal.
“We've run into this guy before,” I said out of the side of my mouth.
“He followed you here?”
He held a megaphone to his mouth and shouted over a loudspeaker.
“You are a hard man to find.”
“Looks like.”
“What does he want?”
“Me.”
“Whoever set those tripwires was smart,” the General continued. “Took us a bit to figure it out but once we did it was like tracking a shot deer.”
He pointed to two heads on poles, young faces slack in death.
“These belong to you?”
Jamal gasped and gagged behind me.
“Steady,” I whispered.
I couldn't make out his craggy features. In the fading twilight, he was mostly shadow, like a wraith summoned from the underworld.
“What do you got in there?” the General asked. “Looks like a good place to spend the night. Wh
y don't you invite us in?”
“Not my place,” I shouted. “We're still cleaning it up. Why don't you come back tomorrow and I'll have it ready for you.”
“I bet you will,” he laughed, mirthless, a flat sound that fit his demon image. “Like you had your kamikaze ready for us at the church.”
Julie had been a part of our group and inconsolable after her husband was shot by the General's men. She got her revenge with a grenade pick pocketed off a private and dropped at the feet of a squad. Her sacrifice bought us time and a chance to escape, and didn't leave the General's militia in good shape.
He had a couple of squads in the back of each truck, each facing out, weapons drawn and aimed at the woods.
“No one out there,” I told him. “No one in here but a bunch of kids.”
“Just like a terrorist,” he screamed. “Hiding among children. Getting women to do your dirty work. You won't fight like a real soldier.”
“I'm not a soldier.”
But he wasn't listening. I couldn't see his eyes, but I suspected there was a glint in them, a little bit of madness far beyond what the rest of us had.
“I want my knife.”
“Come and get it,” I pulled it out in my left hand so he could see it.
His Humvee jolted forward. Jamal stepped beside me.
“I've got your back,” he said.
His head exploded in pink mist and splattered gore and blood across the side of my face and across my chest as he fell like a puppet with cut strings.
I fell backwards and heard a second sniper's' bullet buzz past my the end of my nose.
“Back!” Anna shouted and sent a shotgun blast toward the gate as the Humvee shifted into lower gear and began to plow through.
I crab-crawled backwards, watched as a geysers of chipped concrete exploded where I had just been. Donald ran past Anna shouting a warning, LaRon turned and his chest erupted as the sniper hit him in the back. He fell at her feet. I made the safety of the arch and grabbed his weapon.
It was a hunter's rifle, a .3030 Winchester. I sank into the shadows against the side of the archway and aimed at the Humvee. The driver's window was a dark splotch of glass, it's headlights blinding as it bounced up the sidewalk toward the arch.
I could hear the other trucks rumbling in behind it.
“Get to the others, see if there's a back way.”
I sent a shot into the window and watched it spider web, cranked the lever and sent another. The third sent the vehicle off course and rammed it into the corner of one of the other buildings. Soldiers spilled out and that's all I got to see as bullets shredded the archway.
I ran bent over until I hit the back building and jerked open the auditorium door. It was empty.
“Damn it.”
“Back here,” Brian called as he leaned through the cafeteria door.
Bullets pinged off the entrance doors, some punching through the metal as the soldiers advanced. The sound of broken glass showered through the courtyard as they peppered the windows for imagined snipers.
I ran through the cafeteria doors and found the kids lined up in an orderly fashion, Byron standing in front of Donald and five other boys, all armed with hunting rifles.
“We waited on you,” Byron told me and led us through the door in the back of the room.
“Down there,” he pointed.
Hannah led the kids through the door and Byron grabbed a wire that tilted a cabinet over and blocked it after we went through.
“It won't buy us much time,” he said and jogged down a flight of stairs.
It led to a concrete underground tunnel.
We got the kids moving and after a couple of hundred meters met a flight of stairs up. Bootsteps pounding up the tunnel sounded behind us.
“They're coming.”
“This is the bus terminal,” said Byron. “They can't bring their trucks through here, so we'll be on wheels but they'll have to go back and get theirs.”
He smiled at the brilliance of his own planning and I spared a tight grin for him. He had madness in his eyes too, but it was my kind of crazy and right now on our side.
“Get everyone loaded,” I squatted at the bottom of the stairs and lifted the Winchester. I still had my rifle on my back, but the gun that won the West felt pretty good in my hands. They hold seven rounds, and one in the chamber so I'd have to switch pretty quick, but four shots could slow their advance enough and I was in the time buying business.
Byron moved to the top of the stairs and sat down so he could peer down the ceiling of the tunnel. He sighted with his rifle.
Brian and Hannah took the kids through the metal door at the top of the stairs.
I saw the first set of boots pound up the concrete flanked by two others. I lined up and shot at knee level across the breadth.
Screams followed, along with automatic fire that chewed up the concrete around me.
At the bottom of the steps wasn't the safest place to be.
The advantage I had of shooting down a straight line into oncoming soldiers was shared by them, and amplified by the number of guns they used.
I cracked out the forth shot, a little higher this time aiming for heads or Kevlar or whatever I could hit. Cordite smoke tinged the air and filled the tight space with a fog.
Then Byron shot.
He was deliberate and careful, another Southern boy raised around rifles and taught to shoot at a young age. There's a big difference between a man and a deer, but the boy had said he'd killed before and when someone is trying to kill you, it's easier to kill them back, and better if you do it first.
The bullets at their heads sent them scrambling back up the tunnel, still in range for both of us, but they didn't expect resistance or had a different plan than once more into the breech.
It was a different plan.
Byron shot again.
A man screamed.
Then we heard a pin drop. A literal pin. Followed by another, and two rolling tumbling sounds.
Tiny pineapple looking balls made awkward rolls up the tunnel for us.
“Out! Out!” I screamed and ran up the stairs.
It felt like running in slow motion, running through oatmeal. Time slowed down and I could hear the tumbling of metal on concrete as the grenades turned over and over.
Byron scrambled up. I grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and shoved him through the door.
The grenades went off twice, the concussive force of the explosion picking me up and tossing me through the open doorway on a cloud of smoke and fire. The rifle across my back caught the edge of the door, flipped me over and broke the stock as I sailed across the maintenance bay of the garage.
I couldn't hear anything but a loud roaring sound in my ear. Everything hurt. I could move my head enough to roll it over and someone drove an icepick through my earlobe, or at least that's what it felt like.
Byron stumbled up and grabbed a blue metal barrel by the door. He twisted off the top, planted his legs and tipped it down the stairs.
Donald ran over and helped him with a second barrel, opening it and rocking down the stairs after the other.
“Good plan,” I muttered and tasted blood.
The barrels would take out anyone coming up the stairs and would slow them down as they had to climb over it at the bottom.
Byron slammed the door, and Donald set a third barrel in front of it to block it.
Anna and Brian helped me to my feet and dragged me toward the bus. I could smell chlorine and another smell from the spilled liquid.
Feelings other than hurt came back as I moved. Nausea. Headache.
Brian tried to talk to me, but it sounded like he was talking through the other end of the tunnel, trying to shout over the roar.
They dragged me into the bus, followed by Byron and Donald. Peg didn't bother to shut the doors, just dropped it in drive and tore out through the open garage.
We watched the door to the maintenance tunnel open and a man in a gas mask stepped ou
t. The General raised his pistol and sent shots after the truck. The bullets punched through the thin sheet metal, punched through Donald's shoulder and sent him reeling. The second hit one of the six year old's next to Hannah and the third cracked the rear window and exited through the roof.
Hannah screamed and held the little child while it died in her arms. Peg jolted the bus across the road, hitting bumps or Z and my back bounced off the vinyl seat. The pain was too much and I passed out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I came to in waves, flashes and pieces of the drive. We stopped at a crossroads and waited a moment as a teenage boy climbed on to the bus, Byron's watcher. Anna stood next to Peg and directed her down a zig zag series of roads. We stopped somewhere and off loaded Donald and the little dead boy.
Then we parked next to a giant yellow brick church to wait for daylight. We slept on the bus or tried to. There were sniffles, and tiny wails. Hannah's voice making noises to comfort.
They moved me to the rear seat and I lay on my stomach on the bench, my knees in the floor. Anna came to me and did an examination by flashlight. She checked my eyes, wiped dried blood that had leaked out of my ears. I felt pressure when she touched my back, but no pain. Nothing.
“You're burned,” she said.
I couldn't hear her and tried to shake my head to tell her. That hurt too much so I tried to tell her with my eyes. We needed to work on that communication though, because Brian walked up behind her and saw what she saw in the flashlight beam.
“Ouch,” he said. “You're gonna live but you won't be wearing tank tops.”
I did the eye thing with him and he nodded.
Some people just get you.
“You still can't hear?”
Eyes up and down.
“You probably blew your ear drums.”
“You saved my life,” Byron peered over the back of the back of the seat in front of me. I couldn't move my head to see much of him, but gave a quick glance out of the corner of my eye.
“I owe you,” he said.
“He can't hear you,” Brian told him.
