Shore Haven (Short Story 4): Welcome To Edge Burrow

by Reynolds, Jennifer

  “I can’t give you a weapon, but you can join me on guard watch if you like,” Jasmine said, opening the main doors for me to join her out on the walkway that ran in front of the school.

  “Oh, thank God,” I said, following her out of the building. “You won’t get into trouble letting me out, will you? Charlotte said we weren’t allowed outside.”

  “No. No one here will tell Dominic, especially, if you don’t get hurt.”

  “Good. I couldn’t spend another day in there.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve met who didn’t seem to enjoy the rest,” the woman told me as we took our seats in two metal chairs that faced the parking lot and road beyond it.

  “I’ve been on the run almost since day one, looking for my son. I haven’t done anything more than sleep inside buildings. The rest of the time, I’ve been on the road. Being inside was nice for a day or so. Now I feel the urge to be on the move again.”

  “Do you want to leave us? You can, you know. No one is making you stay.”

  “I know, and I don’t want to go. I just don’t want to be cooped up inside.”

  And I didn’t want to leave, not yet anyway. Curiosity more than anything had me sticking around. I wanted to know what was going on in Edge Burrow. By the sounds of it, the town was where Carl would’ve brought Jeremiah to if he had no other choice.

  “Edge Burrow will be a change of pace from your usual to some degree.”

  “I think I’ll be all right as long as I can be out doing something. I’m not saying fixing this place up for the people who’ll be coming here isn’t a good idea. It is. I’m just not the person for the job,” I told the woman.

  “You’re the person we go to if we need to kill a zombie?” she asked.

  “I guess. I’m not a warrior by any means. Before the world fell for the second time, I was a housewife. I babysat my best friends’ children for a living. The search for my son in the aftermath has changed me. I haven’t made it my goal to kill as many zombies as I can before I die or anything, but I have killed more than a few of them.”

  “The zombies changed us, and I don’t think in a good way,” Jasmine said, looking north.

  “We’ve all had to do things to survive, that’s for sure. Most of it not pleasant. We fight nearly every day to keep our humanity and our sanity. It’ll only get worse the fewer of us there are,” I said in return, hoping that she would open up to me more about what she’d gone through and, more importantly, about life in Edge Burrow, but she didn’t.

  She might have if she’d had the chance, but a group of five zombies found their way into the schoolyard. The sound of our voices had most likely drawn their attention. Jasmine radioed for back up while handing me a sword. The weapon was dull from use. That didn’t matter. The creatures had started to decay from lack of food, so I was able to assist in the kill without any trouble.

  Charlotte and two other women came running around the building to help, but Jasmine and I were able to dispatch the zombies quickly enough on our own. Instead, the three women dragged the bodies off to burn them while the two of us went back to our seats. Both of us were out of breath and tired from the short fight. However, the exertion gave us much-needed exercise.

  “They come around often?” I asked, nodding my head toward the disappearing zombies.

  “A couple of times a day. Mostly stragglers. Occasionally, we get a group like that. Usually, they seem to smell the decay of the town and pass us by.”

  I sniffed the air. I hadn’t noticed the smell until Jasmine mentioned it. Dust, gravel, and dirt saturated my nose, and nothing more.

  “We moved the bodies to the east side of town to lure the zombies away from us. For the most part, it’s worked,” Jasmine said. “You handled yourself well.”

  “I’ve had a great deal of practice these last few weeks. I don’t have professional training, though, the way you appear to have.”

  “That’ll come once you’re in Edge Burrow. One of Dominic’s first orders was to have those who had initially survived with him read books on how to throw knives, shoot bows and arrows, and shoot a firearm. Not many in our world knew how to do those things. Not up here anyway. Dominic claims to have had some training, but I’ve never seen him fight.

  “I’ve heard that the Alabama territories made it through unscathed with all their survivalist training, but that they aren’t letting anyone cross the border.”

  Jasmine’s abrupt change in subject made me suspect she hadn’t meant to say what she had about Dominic. I got the feeling he didn’t want people to see him as weak in any way. Her words and tone also suggested that she wasn’t a fan of his, another thing Dominic most likely didn’t tolerate.

  “I don’t know about now,” I said, going with her shift and not letting on that I noticed anything odd in her behavior. “But in the beginning, they were taking in survivors. I went there looking for my son a few days after the outbreak hit my hometown. They were holding strong then, but I don’t know if they still are. I haven’t tried to go back.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because Jeremiah wasn’t there then, I don’t think he’s down there now. If he’s still alive, which my gut and heart are telling me isn’t so, he’ll be up here somewhere.”

  “I see,” was all she said.

  We talked about those first days, our first kills, and the family we’d lost throughout the rest of our conversation. I tried to ask more about life inside Edge Burrow, but Jasmine would always steer the subject to something else after giving me a vague answer.

  The next day a few of the women staying in the school approached me to ask about the zombies. Most were terrified that the creatures were able to get so close, but two were intrigued that Jasmine had allowed me to sit on watch and fight alongside her.

  I did my best to reassure those who were scared that the zombies wouldn’t get inside the school. I explained that the numbers that came through town were low and that Jasmine and the other guards were able to take them down without trouble. The women who were fascinated by the idea of fighting I told to talk to Charlotte if they thought they were ready to go on rotation.

  Charlotte was worried about their sanity and safety but agreed to put us all on shifts with one of the other women for the remainder of our stay if we wanted.

  We wanted.

  We wanted something else to do other than to sit around the cafeteria, watching the other women slip further and further into their minds to escape reality.

  To an extent, I envied those other women. A large part of me wished I could mentally go away, especially once I had others to care for me, but I also knew I couldn’t be that sort of burden on anyone in our current world.

  The school was safe for the time being, and we lied to the women every day about how secure it was, but in reality, at any moment, a horde of zombies could come swarming down on us or on Edge Burrow for that matter. Nowhere was going to be truly safe until every last one of those creatures was dead.

  We had a few more scares throughout the week, but all in all, no groups bigger than about five or six ever stumbled our way at any given time, and with the round the clock watches, they didn’t get close enough to the school for anyone inside to know they were there.

  I didn’t mind the guard duty, but eventually, that too got boring, as we couldn’t leave the school grounds. The others went to the warehouse to bring back food, but that was as far as they went.

  I asked why they didn’t keep the supplies inside the school’s large cafeteria, and Charlotte said that Dominic didn’t want anyone exceeding their ration quota for the day.

  “Food isn’t scarce at the moment, but it will be within the next year or so if we aren’t careful,” she told me.

  The people of Edge Burrow had started gardens inside the city limits but didn’t expect them to rear enough food for the populace that Dominic hoped the city would have for a while. They didn’t want to cultivate the land outside of town until they had the population to safeg
uard it from zombies and other starving animals adequately.

  6.

  The following Thursday, when Charlotte announced that myself, the two other women who had started patrolling with me, and a couple of others were going to Edge Burrow, I couldn’t help but let out a long sigh of relief. I hoped to God that the city was what I hoped it was and that I’d be doing something more productive with my time there.

  The look on Jasmine’s face killed my joy, though. She wasn’t at all pleased by the announcement. To be honest, none of the women guarding us appeared to be. One would think they’d like having fewer people to watch over, but they seemed nervous and wouldn’t look any of us in the eye for the rest of the night.

  I tried justifying their behavior by hoping that the women merely liked having us around or, at the least, having extra help with guarding the school. The zombie population around town wasn’t high, and the few people on shift were plenty, but I had to be positive. If I weren’t, I’d run, and my gut told me that I needed to go to Edge Burrow.

  The next morning Charlotte woke those of us who were leaving before daybreak. She and a few of the other women on staff fed us a hearty breakfast before escorting us into two separate cars. The two women who’d begun patrolling with me, Eleanor and Dakota, along with myself, got in the backseat of one with Charlotte behind the wheel. The other women got into another vehicle. The driver was a woman I didn’t recognize.

  The heavy meal sat firmly in my stomach as dread filled me. Something wasn’t right about the situation, but Charlotte wouldn’t answer any of my questions. Dakota sat stonily beside me during the drive, but Eleanor looked anxious and a bit pale. She hadn’t eaten much during breakfast, despite our caretakers’ persistence, and she kept falling asleep. She’d taken a watch duty the night before, and I assumed that the group must have had a run-in or two with a pack of zombies.

  At some point during our short drive, the second car with the other group of women in it had veered off, but when, I didn’t know. Again, when I asked, Charlotte wouldn’t give me much information. She simply told me that those women were assigned a different sector and job inside the town.

  The words didn’t ring false, but a voice in the back of my head told me to jump from the moving vehicle and run for it. The logical side of my brain couldn’t figure out why I should do something so risky. Charlotte wasn’t speeding, but I could hurt myself if I tried to escape. I could attempt to leave when we arrived at our destination, but why? The group hadn’t done anything since finding me but take care of me. I genuinely hoped my fear was unwarranted and was merely there because of our terrifying new world.

  Eventually, we stopped ata row of trailers in front of a metal wall that spread wide in both directions. The moans of the undead assailed our ears the second we exited the car.

  “What the hell,” I said, looking around frantically for the horde that was about to ascend on us.

  “You’re fine. The creatures are locked up close by,” Charlotte said.

  “You keep zombies near the town? Why?” I asked.

  “For training purposes,” she answered.

  I didn’t like the answer. Taking that kind of chance with the turned wasn’t wise, but I could see the benefits of teaching the unskilled how to kill them first hand. But wouldn’t you only need a few? That sounded like hundreds of them.

  As Charlotte led us into one of the trailers, I kept an eye out for the creatures. They were close, but I couldn’t see them. I understood why one of our first stops on our tour through the town would be the training area, where I figured we were. The three of us had proven ourselves as capable fighters. The group not bringing the others there also made sense. They would have freaked out.

  A little warning and an explanation on our drive down would have been helpful, though.

  Someone had furnished and stocked the trailer.

  “Anyone thirsty?” Charlotte asked, grabbing a bottle of water.

  We each took one as we looked around the small home, wondering what we were supposed to do next.

  “We won’t be here long,” Charlotte said.

  When she didn’t elaborate, I asked, “What’s the plan?”

  The woman opened her mouth to speak, but I don’t think she knew what she was going to say. Luckily for her, someone knocked on the door. Charlotte rushed to it.

  “We’re ready for them,” a man said.

  “Okay,” Charlotte answered. “Let’s go, ladies.”

  She motioned for us to exit.

  Four armed men and women stood outside our trailer.

  Once we were all in the yard, one of the women called Eleanor’s name and led her away. The second woman did the same with Dakota.

  “Tera, you’re with me,” Charlotte said, leading me around the trailer. One of the men followed us.

  My hand twitched to go for my weapon. However, I still didn’t have a clue as to what the hell was happening.

  Ahead of us was a tall chain length fence with an equally tall metal one encircling it that spanned out as far as I could see to either side of me. The moans of the turned got louder as we drew near. I guessed inside was the training yard.

  We approached a door in the chain fencing and entered into a short corridor with metal sheeting on either side. The place was odd and creepy. I also marveled at how quickly the community had erected it. I guess the structure or something similar to it might have already existed before the outbreak, and Dominic had repurposed it, but what it had been, I couldn’t fathom.

  I wondered if Dominic had been one of those people who’d spent their entire life—if only mentally—planning for the end of the world. He had to have been. Day one hadn’t been that long ago, and he already had a community going with supply runs, safe houses, training areas, and God only knew what else.

  At the other end of the corridor, we stopped, and Charlotte said, “Okay. When the bell rings, you’ll go through the door…”

  “And then what?” I asked when she didn’t continue with more instructions.

  “And kill as many of those creatures as you can,” the man said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. King Dominic wants to see you in action,” he said.

  King. There was that word again. I’d heard Dominic’s people say it a few days before arriving at the school. Chills ran up my spine at the title. Kings weren’t always bad. I had a feeling, though, that I wasn’t going to like this one.

  The second the bell rang, Charlotte opened the door, and the man pushed me through. He quickly closed it behind me. More than two dozen people watched from behind layers of fencing as Eleanor and Dakota came out of two other doors. Nearly twenty zombies were trying to get through the fencing to the people until they smelled us.

  We didn’t have time to think or ask questions before the creatures were charging at us. I had my swords out and was rushing to them seconds later. I wasn’t going to stand around, waiting for one of them to eat me.

  A part of me understood. In a world full of zombies, you only wanted the strong on your side, but setting us up like that was bullshit. I fought more out of anger at that fact than fear.

  Despite the numbers, the confrontation was over quickly. Eleanor, Dakota, and I stood scattered throughout the arena among the dead undead, breathing heavily and dripping with sweat and bodily fluids. I was too angry and too winded from what had just happened to say anything, but Eleanor was not.

  “What’s next,” she asked, though she sounded defeated and as if she knew.

  “Well, since all three of you still stand, then you fight each other until only one or none are alive,” a tall, tanned man said from behind the cage.

  “Fuck you,” I said, looking up and around in defiance.

  I was going to argue, going to fight against the command, but in the second it took me to stand up straight and gather my strength to do so, Eleanor had thrown a blade across the arena and into Dakota’s neck.

  “Son of a…” I started to say, but Eleanor was chargi
ng me.

  I dodged her rampage, saying, “I’m not doing this.” I was looking at the man I assumed was King Dominic as I said the words.

  Eleanor took advantage of my distraction and slammed into me from the side, sending us both to the ground.

  “Kill me,” she said into my ear.

  “No.”

  “Yes. I was bit. I’m dying anyway. Just do it.”

  We rolled around on the bodies on the ground. Eleanor was trying to get to my blade on my hip.

  “Then why did you kill Dakota,” I asked.

  “Because she wasn’t going to become a fighter if she won. One of Dominic’s men claimed her, and he abuses the shit out of his women.”

  “How do you know all of this?” I asked, ducking a blow.

  “Jasmine told me last night.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Because you react. You’d have done something then and never made it into Edge Burrow. You can’t stop Dominic from the outside.”

  “Stop him from what?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s something bad,” she said, finally getting the knife and working it into my hands. “Now kill me.”

  I did with a little help from Eleanor. Once she was gone, I sat on the pile of bodies that littered the ground with Eleanor in my arms. I glared at Dominic. He smiled at me, not at all fazed by my ire.

  7.

  Dominic—I was not calling him King—and his people left me sitting on top of the dead for over an hour. Those people that came to the arena only did so to remove the bodies. To say they were a bit surprised to find me there was an understatement.