by Mike Staton
The young woman’d taken a face full of blood. That was one of the reasons everyone outside of the safe areas tended to wear full facemasks.
Heidi rose from the midst of them. The gore on her face made her appear more ghoul than human, even if a fair amount of it had been wiped off. She was pale, her normally dark skin taken on an almost ashen quality; not quite the ashen nature of the zombie, just someone in shock.
“Anyone else?”
“Are we going to talk about me?” Heidi asked.
“You’re infected. You get the option. Did anyone else get blood in their mouth, eye—“ Kat cut off as Cooper stepped in front of her.
“Are you alright?” His voice was quiet, pitched for just her. “You nearly died there.”
“Now’s not the time.”
“Sure it is. And now you sound totally disconnected and… psychotic.”
She planted a finger in the middle of his muscular chest. “I am a little bit. I don’t like having to take on the ‘tough’ stances. But someone has to because we need to deal with it and move and move quickly.”
“Gerry’s dead.” The voice cut through her brief argument with the pretty man standing in front of her.
Cooper stepped aside.
“Fucking ghoul ripped his throat out.” Tony stood up from the dead survivor’s side.
“He bought us the time to fight off the rest of them. Was anyone else infected in the fight?”
A soft murmur of ‘no’ or ‘negative’ spread through the remaining survivors. Kat relaxed slightly. She shoved her hand-axe back into its sheath and snapped the button. She closed her eyes a moment. She didn’t want to lead, but everyone stared at her and she’d already given directions.
“He’ll be missed and we’ll grieve for him once we’re safe. He bought us time. Heidi, can you walk?”
She nodded.
“Good. You’ll get the option that everyone gets when we’re safe. For now, we need to move. We’re only a couple hours from the farm if we make good time and I know you all can do it.” She pulled her paintball mask back into place over her face. “Let’s not let Gerry’s sacrifice be in vain.”
“Yuh need to work on your motivational speeches,” Cooper muttered quietly to her.
He seemed a little less pretty after that statement, but everyone fell into place behind her as she led the way away from the carnage.
*
The sun kissed the horizon as they crossed a bare field. The last hour passed without incident and they stopped for a breather at the top of a small terrace. Kat moved along the group of survivors. She passed out a couple of bottles of water or an energy bar to those who seemed to need it most. When she came to Heidi, she crouched down in front of the young woman.
Her complexion had returned in the hour of walking, and she’d even wiped all the gore from her face, though she still reeked of the residue and her shirt was splattered with red.
“Do you want to talk?” Kat asked.
“I don’t want to make that decision. Maybe I’m not… I mean, I didn’t swallow.” Heidi glanced up at Kat, then dropped her gaze back to the ground.
In that brief look Kat caught a glimpse of burst blood vessels in one eye. Blood from an infected into any orifice or open wound was as good as a death sentence. The glob of vomited material had smacked right into Heidi’s face. Right into her eyes.
“I dunno.” Kat glanced at the next nearest survivor, Jacob, and back to Heidi. “Let’s take a quick walk?”
Heidi nodded. She looked as though she might cry, but rose to her feet and moved away from the group with Kat. The rest of the survivors politely pretended not to notice.
“It’s not my place to choose for you,” Kat said once they were out of earshot. They’d moved toward some tall grass. “I can’t even say for certain that you are infected. It’s just…”
“I am.” Heidi wiped her nose. She shook her head. “I want to deny it, but… I can feel it. The flashes of anger, the aches. I… since when do fucking zombies throw regurgitated blood at people?”
Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she stood straighter and clenched her fists at her side. She struggled with the outburst of emotion for a moment, and suddenly sagged. Her face took on a look of infinite sadness. “I’m dangerous. Can’t even kiss Joe without infecting him. And even worse when I turn.”
Kat nodded mutely. She’d never even kissed a guy, or girl for that matter, but could still sympathize with the young woman before her. She reached out and touched Heidi’s shoulder. “I know what I would do, but…”
“You can’t decide for me.” Heidi nodded once, then shook her head. “I…”
“Take your time.”
“Time ain’t somethin’ y’all have. I can see the sun’s nearly set.” Heidi pursed her lips. “The sun’s already set for me. Can I… Can I write a letter? For my folks. For Joe if you find him.”
“Of course.” Kat dug through her drop pouch for a moment for her logbook and pencil. She held them out for Heidi.
“Will you do it?”
Kat wished people would stop asking her that. She nodded anyways. “I’ll do my best to make it painless too.”
Heidi let out a soft sob, nodded, and sat down.
Kat turned her back as Heidi wrote her letter. She watched the cluster of survivors nearby. Not a one looked their way. Each politely ignored them. A few minutes later she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.
“Get these to them. Please?” Heidi wiped her nose. And pressed the logbook back into Kat’s hand.
“I’ll do my best.” She put the logbook back into her drop pouch. “We should go a little further. Into the tall grass. Privacy.”
Heidi nodded. She moved ahead of Kat. Her footsteps dragged slightly. “Sorry for poking fun at you… it’s just a nervous defense…”
“It’s alright.” Kat wasn’t about to condemn her for something so trivial, even if it still riled her up slightly.
“How do you do it?” Heidi moved into the grass.
“Huh? I, uh… I dunno, never have before. I guess, get down, please. Sit or kneel.”
Heidi sank to her knees, suddenly shorter than the grass. She let out a soft sob, collected herself. “I… No, how do you stay so… so calm?”
Kat shrugged. She didn’t feel calm. She felt like throwing up. Everything in her being told her to break and run for the trees. Abandon everyone here and just disappear.
“I dunno. I… I guess I just do it.” Kat unslung her rifle. “Do you have anything else you want to say?”
Heidi shook her head. “Sun’s beautiful. Could you… without your mask on?”
Kat hesitated for half a second, then pulled her mask off. She raised her rifle and brought it to almost touching the rear crown of Heidi’s head. “On three.”
Heidi took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It came out in fits between near silent sobs. “One… oh God…”
“Two.” They said together.
Kat squeezed her trigger before three. Her rifle spat a hot hunk of metal into the back of Heidi’s head. The girl stiffened for a fraction of a second and slumped forward until her forehead pressed into the dirt. Kat shifted her aim and squeezed the trigger twice more.
Two steps away from the girl’s corpse, Kat fell to her knees. She threw her rifle away and emptied her stomach into the tall grass until she did nothing but dry heave. She wrapped her arms tight around herself and rocked in place as the sun set and cried. And she hadn’t even really liked Heidi.
The reds and oranges of the sunset faded to soft blue, black, and purples of twilight. She forced herself to get up and find her rifle. She somberly walked back to the others.
Tony looked up at her. “Everything okay?”
She shook her head once, watched worry bloom on every face in front of her, and licked her lips.
“Everything’ll be fine. We’ll get through this. We should make the farm within an hour.” Kat had to suck it up and march on. She could cry over the life she had to
take later.
Acceptance bloomed on every face, and Cooper joined her side as she led them out of the field.
Chapter 7
Percival sat on the front porch. Playing the waiting game was the worst part of leadership. He watched the sunset. The scene was almost normal, beautiful, back to something before the apocalypse. It reminded him of his grandfather’s farm in west Texas. He closed his eyes and sank forward as dread settled over him. He rested his forehead against his hands.
He’d never get back down there to see if any of his family’d survived. He lived on borrowed time as it was. He’d never get to introduce them to Sarah, or tell them of Brown College. Tell them of the community he’d helped to create.
The flipside was that he’d not get to tell them of the community he’d possibly destroyed either. He growled at himself. If he’d been faster. If he’d taken a more direct route. If he’d not talked about the college. Or if he’d taken the time to bash each of those army brat’s heads in.
If.
If.
If.
Someone dropped onto the swing next to him. “You alright?”
Percival lifted his head and glanced at Hope. He took a quick look around. A Watchmen lookout stood at the corner of the porch, but no one else was near.
“No.” Percival sat up straight. Exhaustion and aches swarmed over him and he leaned back on the swing. He studied the wooden boards above him that composed the second porch.
“Want to talk about it?” Hope asked. “Whatever ‘it’ is?”
“No.” Percival snapped. He regretted it immediately. “I failed y’all. And now people are dead because of me. Lots of people. And a handful more thanks to my letting Kat go off on her own.”
“You didn’t kill anyone.” Hope started the swing rocking gently. “You didn’t fail us either. Just so you know.”
“What would you call this cluster then?” He squeezed his eyes closed once more. He’d killed people before. Plenty of people; more than he was proud of admitting and he didn’t feel the need to tell her about them.
“A bad situation. A shitty situation. We got nailed by an aggressive force and that’s that. It doesn’t tie into you.” Hope didn’t sound as though she believed the words coming out of her mouth.
Percival gave a noncommittal grunt.
“What do you think of the radio?” Hope changed the subject.
He lifted his head and looked her way. “Huh?”
“I said, what do you think of the radio?” She repeated without looking his way as twilight settled over them. “The ham radio that the old prepper had set up here.”
“It’s a dangerous piece of equipment that can bring false hope.”
“Is that truly what you think?”
He was silent for a moment. It was the angry response that channeled from the pain and infection he felt. “No.”
“Want to try again then?”
“Did you teach kids in another life?”
“Kindergarten and first-grade at Prosperity Elementary.” Hope’s voice dripped with patience. “You’re avoiding the question, Percival.”
“I prefer to think of it as practicing verbal judo or verbal wrestling. Slipping holds and weaseling out of things.” Both skills had served him well in the recent excursion. Both skills should never have been necessary and remained in the athletic and sportsmanship realms.
He lifted his head and sighed. “The radio’s a good thing. The fact they’ve managed to catch some signals is a better thing. It means that someone’s out there to listen and talk to. It means we’re not the only ones alive.”
Hope nodded slowly.
“If they can find someone else to talk with, maybe we can truly rebuild things. I mean, I ran into some pretty shitty people out there. Rapists and murderers.” He’d killed his fair share of them as well. “But I bumped into more awesome folk. Roy Joy and Evan. Morrbid was an ass, but Jessica wasn’t a bad person. If we can find more like them. More friendly people, we might just make it through this. You know?”
Hope nodded. “Yeah. I know. It’s why Ian gave the order to turn it back on tonight.”
Percival fell silent for a long time.
“He boosted the power to it as well. There won’t be any electrical lights or anything else draining the batteries, just the radio going.”
* * *
Kat climbed up to the road and lifted her paintball mask. It was full on dark, and she’d expected to see the light of the farmhouse. It bothered her that she didn’t. Had she taken a wrong turn overnight in the darkness?
She chewed her lip and looked both ways on the gravel and dirt road. She pulled her compass out, checked north, confirmed with the stars and looked back and forth once more. The farm lay east of town, but if they’d gotten off track far enough to have traveled past the farm taking the road further east would just take them away from their destination.
“What’s up?” Cooper came up beside her and whispered.
“Deciding on a direction.”
“Lost?”
“No. Only men get lost.” Kat turned east. “This way.”
“No… Men just refuse to ask for directions.” Cooper fell in beside her.
She shrugged, and guessed he didn’t see it in the darkness when silence was the response. “I guess so. But, no. I’m not lost. Just needed to get oriented. We oughta be on the farm in just a few turns.”
“You okay?”
Kat nodded without looking at him. Why wouldn’t she be? It wasn’t like she’d just killed someone an hour ago.
It felt like longer.
“You can talk about it, you know. Don’t need to bottle it up and keep the ice queen façade going,” Cooper pressed.
“Tell you what, when I want to talk about it, I’ll come to you.”
He gave her a toothy smile that made his face glow in the dark.
“For now, be quiet,” she grumped.
“Yes, ma’am.” Cooper quieted and moved along the road at her side. His noisy footsteps, cavernous and echoing loud in comparison to her own, annoyed her.
But in a good way, as it let her know just where he was without having to look at him. She led the group of survivors around the bend in the road. They almost immediately caught sight of the abandoned Humvee in front of the roadblock set up by the Watchmen.
“Hey, that’s a good sign.” Cooper pointed to the Humvee.
Kat nodded mutely. She couldn’t see the farmhouse beyond the roadblock and wondered why it was dark. While they didn’t light up everything, it was unusual for it to be entirely dark like this. Having a light on made it a beacon for the Watchmen and other survivors.
Or the force that’d assaulted them. But it had been a risk that Ian had deemed worthwhile. Either something had happened, something bad, or the situation at the farmhouse had changed. The other survivors had clearly made it to the farm. That was good. Kat considered the farm to be a safe haven.
But something nagging and worrisome about the lack of light bothered her. She took a deep breath, took out her red-cellophane covered flashlight and hung it on the front of her BDUs. She kicked on the light and strode forward.
“Light up flashlights everyone,” she called over her shoulder. She didn’t want to get shot by the sentry just because in the dark they looked like an approaching horde.
The walk in the dark felt as though it was three miles instead of a quarter mile. Thankfully, it was also uneventful. At a couple hundred feet, someone on the porch of the farmhouse spotlighted them.
It caused a quiet ruckus and resulted in a handful of Watchmen escorting them the remainder of the distance to the farmhouse. More than one clapped Kat on the shoulder or back with a congratulations.
She couldn’t deny that it felt good. Even if she didn’t think she deserved it. She smiled at her comrades and muttered thanks anyways.
“Hey everyone, let the Watchmen get you all settled in for the night. There’ll be more to do tomorrow.” Kat climbed the short stairs onto the po
rch.
“Where’re you goin’?” Cooper called after her.
“I gotta check in with Colonel Pull.”
“Ian?”
Kat nodded.
“Come chat with me afterward?” Cooper asked.
Kat shrugged.
“I look forward to it.” He walked away after the rest of the Community Center survivors.
Kat let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She pulled her paintball mask off entirely and hung it on her belt as she rubbed her forehead.
“What happened?”
She hadn’t noticed Hope sitting in the dark on the swing. “Hmm?”
“What happened? I counted 13 of you instead of 15.”
“I… Uhm. I’d prefer not to go over it twice. Where’s Colonel Pull?” Kat took a quick glance up and down the porch. “Is Percival with the other survivors?”
Hope shook her head. “Passed out in quarantine with Dan. Can’t run the risk, you know?”
Kat sighed softly, pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her pocket. The loss of more people hit her with the force of an atom-bomb and it took everything she had not to begin leaking from her eyes. She pulled the screen door open and pushed through the front door of the farmhouse. “Where’s Ian?”
“Down in the control center. Listening to the ham radio spit static.” Hope followed her.
Kat wished she hadn’t. She didn’t want an audience. In silence she stalked to the secret door, pressed on it, and slid it open. She didn’t wait to see if Hope was surprised or not at her knowledge. It didn’t matter.
She strode down the stairs with far more vigor than she actually felt. Hope noisily followed her.
Kat moved through the living area. The lights were already on. She gave a passing glance at the battle map; it’d been updated to reflect the status of Prosperity Wells and Brown College, and ducked into a side corridor. She entered a small electronics room. The place had been built specifically for the radio that old man Glover had been so fond of. A wooden desk housed a blocky metal square of buttons, lights, dials, and LED displays. A small computer sat next to it. A boy, Zack, sat in front of it in a black jacket and jeans. His dark hair was matted down underneath a set of headphones complete with a drop mic. He occasionally depressed the spacebar on the computer and spoke.
