by catt dahman
“Without power tools,” Kim added, sighing.
“How can we have shelter and gather food when things hunt us?”
“Misty, cavemen did it; we can if we relearn.” Mark promised her, but she didn’t look convinced as she looked at Alex.
“Maybe this is why the Red happened; we all got too dependent on technology and science and forgot the old ways.”
“Like God did this?” Misty frowned at Bob who said it wasn’t God that had sent Red.
Benny thought, “Not God…but nature. Nature corrects itself. Man is part of nature in a way. We got too dependent, and man or nature or both corrected it. We made a real mess of the world with red and the bombs but think of the messes before…over population…extinct animals and plants. We had used up most of the fuel sources and had been polluting water. As bad as what we did, maybe we rescued the planet from ourselves.”
It was a lot to think about.
“Survival of the fittest,” Beth said, “Bryan and Len talked about this: how the strongest pairs would survive and reproduce.”
“Ah, the lottery,” Len chuckled.
“I won you.” Johnny poked him in the arm.
“Here we go again,” Beth said.
“How are we supposed to rebuild and reproduce with those monsters chasing us and biting us?” Alex demanded.
“There lies the big question.” Benny admitted. “I guess we also have to be smart and clever to survive this.”
“Dumb people will die out? Good, there goes ignorant Roy and his camp then,” Alex said.
“Drunks and the dumb always have some side luck going,” Len reminded him.
Bryan said he was curious to go out.
Most said they weren’t going until they had to.
“I’m thinking a big RV and a few SUVs for the road,” Bryan said. “We could modify an RV if we had one; shoot from the top like a fort.”
“That didn’t work well in movies.”
“We’re smarter than the people in movies.”
“I wanna look for my brother; Maryanne says he is alive and he’s a doctor,” Beth stated. No one argued now with anything that Maryanne said.
“I miss Sally,” Misty said.
“Maybe two teams out and two staying here for guard duty, just a short look around to get an RV to modify, two nights out or so.”
“Makes sense, Len,” Kim said. “Maybe the women should stay here where it’s safer.”
“You so want an ass whoopin’.” Julia threw an empty can at him. With a chuckle, he ducked.
“If Mark goes, I go. If he stays, I stay,” Misty said.
Beth gave Kim a look that said the same; she could tell he would argue the issue with her later when she didn’t have Julia to back her.
“We can’t leave this place unguarded. I doubt Roy or Frank’s group forgot us,” Hagan said. Several glanced at Donna. She had tried to fit in now, but some still distrusted her.
In restlessness, people drifted around the area.
Misty drew Beth to the side, “I still haven’t gotten my period. You don’t think…” She pointed to her stomach.
“Sally and I talked about it; none of us have. It could be the stress, maybe the radiation, or like Benny said, nature correcting things.”
“Oh.”
“You might want Doc to look at you,” Beth told her. “I guess some of us aren’t using birth control; I didn’t even think about it much.”
“You love Kim?”
“Yes. I think I have since I first met him, just took me a while to realize it. He knew all along.” She laughed. “But we don’t need pregnancy adding to the problems. I think we all need to get with Doc.”
“The other girls, are they not having periods?”
“Not Maryanne or Johnny.”
“What if we’re, ya no…”
“Sterile? Then Benny is both right and wrong in his theories.”
“Is Maryanne magic?”
“Well, she’s as close as we have to magic now. She didn’t foresee what happened to Sally; she said she only sees a few things. When she gets those feelings, then those are things she can somehow, change, I guess. Like she did when she shot the gun.”
“That was unreal. I get a weird feeling sometime…not like her...but…” Misty looked for the words, “as if some are bad…Roy’s group and Frank…maybe we are good or trying to be good, and we have Maryanne.”
“George and Benny said something like that.” They said that if the theories were right, then maybe the world was re-set to good and bad, evil and honorable, and magic would be magic again.”
Misty giggled, “I heard…I thought they meant like King Arthur and the Holy Grail and knights, the magic sword.”
Beth looked at her in a strange way.
“What? I sound stupid, huh?”
Beth shook her head, “No, that suddenly made sense in a weird way. It fits in with what they said. Why not magic again, when we need it the most. I have read the Bible and a lot of that was magic. Noah used magic when he built the ark; maybe we use different words, but it all means powers of nature and our minds and maybe God or the devil.”
“So we’re all magic, maybe?”
“Maybe. I do know we’re way too lucky most of the time, and that makes me feel we have a bit of the good magic or God on our side. Bob says we do, anyway.”
“That’s deep.”
“Way too deep.”
“Come in here.” Misty found Alex and got him to join them with Johnny. “I have saved this all this time.” She pulled out a home-rolled marijuana cigarette.
“No way!” Alex hooted. “Misty, you are so bad.”
They shared it, giggling.
“Beth?” Kim knocked and came in seconds after the four had finished. They looked at him guiltily. “Umm…wow, I like the air freshener you guys have.”
Johnny fell to the floor, laughing with Alex.
“I did it,” Misty said.
“You did? Well, next time, why don’t you selfish pigs share with Mark and Julia and Len and me?”
“I didn’t think you would all approve.”
“As if we would judge. When Julia comes in here, she’s gonna be furious you left her out,” he said.
“Next time,” Misty said with a grin, patting her back pocket.
“Bryan thinks we will have to clear out Roy and Frank and not wait ‘til they come back here trying to kill us for food. Several agreed.”
“They killed friends of ours. Mike and Diana, Angie, and I liked Chauncey a lot,” Johnny said.
“But zeds don’t shoot back, or will they?” Alex pointed out.
They rejoined the others for the discussion.
“I know a way in to where they are; we go in, take them out, and then come back; if we don’t, they’ll come here for us,” Bryan said.
“If we do this, we do it my way. I take a special team, and no one bitches. The rest stay and guard, and if we don’t come back, well, Kim will be in charge.”
“Guess that means I’m not going,” Kim said. Beth relaxed a little.
“I go, Bryan, Conner, Juan, Earl, and Rae,” Len said.
“That’s it? You’re crazy; I don’t care if you did say not to bitch,” Julia said angrily.
“We can move faster and more quietly this way. I’m leaving some who can defend well, if we don’t make it back; it’s what I feel is best.”
“We can ask Maryanne,” Misty said.
“No. She’ll worry and not want any of us to go. This is my choice. If any doesn’t want to go, tell me now.”
No one said a word.
They gathered close to the radio that Benny manned and helped double check packs and weapons. Len wanted everything they might need, but still wanted to travel light. Julia gave Len a big kiss on his mouth that made everyone laugh.
“‘Len’s terms’. No prisoners,” George whispered to Len.
“Damned right,” Len said, “All of the time, I feel as if they’re biding their time until th
ey come over here to kill us.”
“Nope, they won’t let it go; they’re bad men,” George said simply.
Len said it was time to go.
The route Bryan had planned for them took some crawling through tight places and scrambling up and down rubble, but it didn’t take very long. They were finally right outside the lobby which they had once used on supply runs for the radio and intake, where they had looted vending machines, and where the zeds had crashed through the glass, back what seemed years ago.
The weeks had gone by slowly and yet fast as well. They took a second to recall how well the operations from here had worked. In places, the above floors had fallen in with the rainwater.
The second lobby was still filled with broken zed bodies; they had to pull bandanas over their noses against the reek of decomposition. This was the place that had given them several nightmares since the battle.
More debris had settled in with water, making it more horrific to view. Skirting it, they went down the hall, then into the hole in the floor where the rest had fallen that day. Bobby’s body was still there but covered. The smell of it and the zed that had been in the cracked wall, made a miasma of stench.
Next, they climbed upwards to where Len had faced the raiders the first time. The blood trail from those injured led there. He felt a wave of hatred for the men they had killed there and wished the situation had gone better for Warren, whom they also had left, covered.
“This is where you faced those nuts the other time?”
“Yeah, Chauncey was a hero then.” Len missed the funny guy who had been so brave and loyal.
“They need to pay,” Juan grumbled, “they had more chances than they deserved.”
Bodies, wet from seeping rainwater, reeked, causing all of the team to shiver and wish they could be free of the smell; nothing smelled as bad as a decomposing human.
They went down the mostly cleared hallway, dodging debris and listening for the raiders as they went.
“What the hell?” Conner sniffed. There was a sickly scent of roasted meat that made their stomachs growl. Empty cans from food and the remains of the raiders and Warren made the stench bad, but the smells of cooked meat were strong. Bryan motioned them to follow him as he went down a hallway.
“How do they have fresh meat?” Juan complained, “A deer or something? Are they hunting?”
Eyes darting into every corner, they didn’t see anyone or anything.
“Smells like pork,” Conner agreed.
Len grabbed Bryan’s shoulder and stopped, sinking to his haunches a moment, thinking. They looked at him quizzically as he sat there a second, his face greenish white. “It isn’t pork unless you count long pork,” he muttered sickly.
“Huh?” Earl asked.
“They may have cooked a person.” Bryan gulped, giving Len a hand up. “Maybe it was a pig; maybe it wasn’t a human.”
“That’s bad.” Earl rubbed his mouth.
They came around the corner, and Juan vomited as he saw, thrown into a corner, a skeleton stripped to the bone. It was not disjointed, and the flaying tools were thrown behind, so they knew a zed had not done this to whoever it had been.
A second skeleton was close by. Both had been carefully stripped on the legs, arms, and buttocks, its chest and stomach opened, most likely the liver and other choice parts had been eaten, as well. They looked at each other with pale, furious faces. This was butchery.
“Shhhh,” Bryan whispered as he darted to the side.
A blur flashed forwards, and Len slammed his gunstock neatly into the man’s head. He took a few seconds to keep hitting until the head split open.
Paul vaulted at them with a snarl, looking more animal now than human as he was covered in dried blood, grease, and soot around feral eyes. He was human. Rae fired once, dropping him to the ground, but in anger, Juan added a second and third bullet to the man’s head.
From a dark spot in the room, Wanda screeched at them, drawing an unsteady gun upwards, spinning wildly to scream at him as she tried to stead the gun.
Earl behind her, stepped in, pulled her back to his chest as he snaked his arm across her and neatly dragged his big knife across her throat, cutting her open and tossing her to the side so her blood didn’t pollute him. With a frown, he wiped his knife on her pants. Len took shots and dropped targets as Bryan searched for more movement.
Finally it was quiet and still. The team hadn’t even broken a sweat and was still looking for blood, so furious were they over the cannibalism.
Chad, on his back in dirty rags, lay watching them, his arm swollen like a tight black sausage, the skin splitting to leak pus. The skin was mottled yellow, black, green, and purple as it rotted. “Hi,” he said cheerfully, eyes bright with fever.
“Anyone else hiding here?” Bryan nudged him with his gun barrel, wincing at the smell when Chad shifted, his arm gushing vile fluids.
“Naw. They were waiting for me to die. You seem to have gotten them all.” There was no concern for his fallen partners.
“Doesn’t look like that’ll take long for you to die and find those flames waiting for you.” Len glared. “I hear burning for eternity is a real bitch.”
Chad grinned manically, “Can’t be much worse than this.”
“Oh, it can be,” Juan promised.
Len looked around, “Pretty stupid for them to attack us like that.”
“They were hungry again,” Chad said, “I was next and taking too long to die, but when they got close, I chomped at them.”
“You infected?”
“Naw, but they scare pretty easy.”
“Where’s Roy? And the others?”
“Out looking for food.” He grinned grotesquely, “I guess you saw Steve and what’s her name. His wife, Patty.”
Juan heaved, “That’s sick, Dude. I knew them. We hid together a few days.”
“They were a bit out of their minds, but that is just wrong,” Conner added. “Didn’t have to be this way if they hadn’t gotten in with you sick sons of bitches.”
“You will find some more bones back down there if you look enough,” he said. “We had to eat. They found survivors and brought them back here for food.” He laughed hysterically for a few seconds. “I was starving, you try being that hungry and smelling roasted pork.”
“It wasn’t pork.” Bryan spat on Chad in fury. “There’s plenty of food out there, cans and cans of it for the taking.”
“But not fresh meat.”
Rae kicked his injured arm, sending him into screams of pain. It was a bit before he stopped howling and just cried quietly.
“Frank made us do it anyway; he’s one bad mother fucker. If you had seen what Frank and Paul did to that girl first, you’d be glad they killed her finally, if you have any pity for anyone. It was enough to scare us all shitless; she was begging to die there at the end. Wanda was worried she was next, but I think Frank likes ‘em pretty.”
“You all should have stopped him.”
“Well, should have, could have, too late now. Roy, and even Richie are scared of Frank. We all fear the bad-ass dude.”
“Who’s left?”
“Frank, Roy, Richie, and a girl. And hey, I got what I deserved, hurts bad. You should all be glad.” He coughed wetly, “I bet they don’t come back; they just left us here.”
“Nothing here,” Bryan reported to Len. “Looks like they did cut out and leave them. Why’d they leave Paul?”
“Check his hand; he got bit this morning, tip of a finger, and didn’t cut it off; he was gonna turn, or maybe he turned when you got here. I don’t know, don’t care. They didn’t leave us anything but that empty gun Wanda was toting.” He laughed at the thought. “You got water?”
“I have my water; don’t want your germs in it.” Juan took a drink from his own canteen, showing off as he savored it, “That’s good, cold water.”
“You have no regrets, huh? For what you did?” Len asked him, curiously.
“Not so much. I regr
et I’m in pain.”
“Not that you were part of killing some good, innocent people? You had it a lot better with us.”
“Yes, I did, but I didn’t have that good barbecued pork roast.” Chad winked. “So, you wanna finish me off? Put me out of this pain?”
“I’m more prone to feeding you to a zed. Alive,” Len sneered.
“You wouldn’t do that.”
Bryan snickered and gave Chad a wink. “Bet?”
“Awe, no, hey.”
“We can hamstring him so he doesn’t decide to follow us,” Earl said, waving his knife happily at Chad.
“I have a sure-fire way,” Bryan promised.
“Give the rest of the raiders our best when you get to hell, Chad,” Bryan told him. Chad whined and begged them to finish him off, but they moved back down the hall, without looking back at him.
As they left the chamber of horrors, Bryan showed them what he had gotten from Billy and Bobby a while back. They had only a few, but these would seal that area and solve many problems.
“Good plan. Let them all be buried together so no one ever finds that place again,” Len said.
Bryan tossed the grenade and yelled, “Fire in the hole,” as they ducked.
They barely got through the little room that had fallen in, where Bobby still lay, before that too collapsed into a tomb. Bryan spared a second grenade to destroy most of the lobby where they had fought so bitterly. The entire area had felt dark with evil. They had let Bennie know before they did it, and now they radioed that it was finished.
“Base Actual says thank you,” Benny said, “come on home. Out.”
29
Changes
By the time the team members got back to the safe zone, everyone had heard the thunder of the explosion; the team members told everyone what was used to seal off the area. Conner told the others what they had seen, looking sick as he told parts of the story.
“Cannibals?” Hagan gagged. “What the hell?”
“I knew they were evil,” Johnny said, “good riddance, but too bad all of you didn’t get the other four of them.”
Donna looked shocked, and tears filled her eyes; she ran from the room.
“I forgot Paul was her husband,” Conner said.
