The Kid and Apocalypse Girl took Farmer's Wife out of the room. I glowered at Farmer for a minute more, then followed them out. We've been through too much shit with the Dead to have to deal with this. Apocalypse Girl and The Kid were already downstairs making Farmers Wife a cup of tea, and to my amusement she was once more toking on the dessert joint. As I had not myself gotten around to indulging, I headed on down as well. Farmers Wife had just offered the next toke to The Kid, and was being told about the last time he shared a joint with someone. She asked him to show her the bite, and he lifted his pants leg. Indeed, it was hardly more than a scratch, yet there seemed something sinister about it nonetheless. Of course, that might have been my imagination, as that tiny little scratch was responsible for six deaths already.
After an hour or so, Farmer came back downstairs, and publicly apologised for his, as he put it, “disgraceful” behaviour. He even came up to me and thanked me for pulling him back in line, suggesting that the stress of the whole world ending was somehow responsible for his errant behaviour. I let him think that, but realistically, everyone else here treats each other with respect, and as a group we have been through some fucked up situations, yet we never once resorted to punching a loved one in the face, as he had done. Nor do any of us dictate terms as to how another person should live. The world has ended already, time to do away with all of that outdated bullshit too.
January 10th Year 1 A.Z.
dawn
On patrol again in the morning, passing by the wall-builders, we saw a pair of people off in the distance, just standing, staring at us. I told The Twin to keep her eyes open, and her bow handy, as Junior and I walked out to see who they were, and why they were just standing around.
One of the couple spotted us, pointing us out for the other man. They discussed something among themselves, then the first man walked off a short way, keeping watch all around as the second came towards us. I walked out alone to meet him, trusting Junior to watch my back. And trusting The Twin to watch over both of us.
“Nice wall you guys are building there...” He began by saying. “Good to keep the Dead out, at least. Looks pretty easy to just jump on over though...”
“As you said, it's good for keeping the Dead out.” I replied. “The Living shouldn't be a problem for each other should they?”
“Well, that all depends, doesn't it?” He chuckled. “How many people you got in there? What are your defences like? How much food have you got?”
“We have plenty of people, don't you worry about that. As far as defences go, we took out a fair sized mob of Dead ones a couple of days ago. Forty of them or so.” They had been taken over the other side of the river and, as we had not come up with another viable alternative, incinerated. “We have food, too. You're welcome to join us, if you want. Can always use another couple of pairs of hands to help out.” I offered. I didn't like offering, as I had a really bad feeling about it, but I offered anyway.
“Oh there's more of us than just us two...quite a few more. What about women? You got any women?” He spotted The Twin off in the distance behind me. “Oh yeah, you guys got women alright. Tell you what. You give us your food, your weapons and your women, and we might just let the rest of you out alive. That's the only time you get this offer, and I strongly advise you take it.”
“How did you find this place?” I asked him. He just smiled in a gruesome way. He was missing several of his front teeth.
“This place is a fucking myth man! The prison we came from was full of stories about some old hippy commune nearby, out in the woods. Heh, most of those morons are looking in completely the wrong direction for this place. Lucky we found you first!” I briefly considered my options.
“So you two came across this place this morning then?” He answered in the affirmative. I raised my bow, knocking an arrow as I did so, and fired at the bandit's sentry, taking him in the throat. A bare instant later a second shaft flew into the bandit's face. I walked carefully up to the sentry, and looked down at him, writhing around in the mud. He gasped for a breath that kept escaping out from the gaping wound left where his adam's apple had been moments before. He tried to hold his hand out to me, mouthing 'help', but all I could do, all I wanted to do, was to watch this fucker die before caving in his skull. These sons of bitches could be trouble. We had no way of knowing that these two had been the only members of their scouting party. It could be that somebody watching from afar with a pair of binoculars was at this very moment running full pelt towards the bandits base. This could get fucking nasty very quickly. We searched their bodies, but they had nothing on them, save for a water bottle each and a pair of cricket bats. These were immediately added to our arsenal. After a quick re-con of the local area, we headed back to the barn to let people know all about our new neighbours, and their idea of coming over to borrow a cup of sugar.
noon
Fat Dealer had known that there was a prison nearby, but he had figured the inmates would be no real problem, expected in fact that they had perished in the initial few days of the outbreak. Knowing that they had a large, armed force nearby and that they were already sending out scouts had us all worried. Apocalypse Girl suggested that maybe they wouldn't bother sending anybody else out this way, but by the tone of her voice even she didn't believe that much. The Twin rightly said that we needed to make sure the wall is guarded full time, but with the losses of the last few days we didn't have the personnel for multiple shifts of guards, even just in daylight hours. With the new arrivals we were nearly back up to twenty people living here, but Fat Dealer said that the prison had easily several hundred inmates, perhaps even a couple of thousand.
Farmer simply suggested giving them what they want to the great disgust of everybody else, and Apocalypse Girl pointed out that meant giving them his wife too. The way she hesitated just long enough to question whether she had hesitated or not saying the word wife implied that she too had heard what I had heard. Butcher had a better idea, give them one of the sheep, loaded up with a slow acting poison, but that left the problem of us not having any thing of the sort.
The Kid had the best idea of all. He wanted to find and infiltrate their camp, and use his unique 'gift' to spread a little bit of chaos in their ranks. He pointed out that he was almost exactly the same size as one of the bandits that had shown up today, so fitting into his mostly prison issue clothing should be no issue. Archer told him, that if he was going, to take a bow and some arrows. The Kid shook his head. The bandits had cricket bats, he would have to take one of those. With that, he grabbed a bat and left to scavenge a prison uniform. He definitely looked the part when he returned, save for the fact that a large amount of the original owner of that uniform's blood was soaked into it. As there was little we could do about it, he decided that if questioned, he would claim it was his partner's blood and that he had done all he could, but once bitten, it's all over. As far as they knew.
evening
The Kid left a few hours ago. Farmers Wife went with Farmer to their room after dinner, after she smoked from the dessert joint without him bitching about it this time, and so far not a peep had been heard from either one of them. Apocalypse Girl told me that she didn't much like the looks Farmer had been directing her way. The Twin said she too felt distinctly uncomfortable around him. Fat Dealer mentioned that Farmer had words with him about me, and that he had told Fat Dealer that I was a menace and should be thrown out to feed the Dead. He went further to say that he wouldn't wish that even on someone like Farmer and that since Apocalypse Girl and I had contributed so much to the overall welfare of the group that he was thinking about officially declaring us the new leaders of the community just to avoid any of this kind of bullshit in the future.
I told him that this was his place, not mine, but that if The Kid didn't return tomorrow or the day after that, at the latest, then we might have to consider moving on. Initially he thought I just meant Apocalypse Girl and myself, and was heavily resistant to the idea when he realised I meant the en
tire group. After a while, however, and the odd remark about how nice the place would look with bits of us all strewn over the place while the girls are being raped by a thousand former prisoners he relented and said that if it came to that he and the older guys would stay back and buy us some time to get the fuck out of here. He also showed me where he kept the keys to the Ute He also showed me where he keeps his stash, saying “I'll be fucked if those bastards get anything good from this place.”
We discussed quite a few other plans and ideas, but other than The Kid's suggestion only Archer had anything useful to say. He threw in the potential for carnage and pain amongst the prisoners ranks should we send the cows stampeding towards them. Other than a timely arrival of a horde of Dead, that would have to do. Anyway, a horde of Dead would have a host of its own problems.
Apocalypse Girl and I decided to reinstate our personal watch system, just in case some of the bandits try getting into the barn late at night thinking everyone is asleep. As it turned out I was nearly dozing off on my own watch when I heard an odd noise in the night. I silently woke Apocalypse Girl with a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. Together we listened to somebody wandering around upstairs. The noises began getting closer to our room, and soon somebody began gently turning the handle to get in.
I hid directly behind the door, Apocalypse Girl taking position flat against the wall on the other side as it swung open to admit someone. I saw a shadow go over to the bed before I quietly shut the door and coughed. The shadow spun around in fright. It was The Twin, looking scared shitless. Turned out she had overheard Farmer talking with his 'wife' about how he planned to go over to the bandits camp and basically turn over the other women in our camp for immunity for himself and his 'wife'. Farmer still didn't know where they were, exactly, but once The Kid comes back he can get the location from him and make the deal. We all had trouble sleeping after that.
January 11th Year 1 A.Z.
dawn
Patrolling with Junior and The Twin, while Apocalypse Girl kept an eye on Farmer, I spotted The Kid running full pelt towards us once we arrived at the clay pits. The workers were just now finishing up gathering the last of the clay needed for our Dead wall, under minimal guard. Huffing and puffing, The Kid slowed down once he reached us, and walked alongside us as we patrolled, giving a full report on his activities in the bandit camp.
He found it easily enough, anybody would considering the amount of noise they are making. Several hundred men at least, most armed with various types of blunt weapons, drinking heavily and partying loudly, celebrating their freedom with the end of the world. This made it ridiculously easy for The Kid to insinuate himself into their ranks, and as bottles were being handed around by all and sundry, spreading his infection was a much simpler task. All he had to do was just keep moving, taking a swig from any bottle offered him. In the end he was so afraid of actually getting too drunk from it that he just touched his lips to each bottle, but that was more than enough. He entered the camp from one side, passed through the middle, and left out the other. Then he made a beeline straight for the commune as the screams began from the far side of the camp. Straight into a horde of Dead heading in the direction of the bandit camp. This is where things got really interesting, because the Dead showed absolutely no interest in The Kid whatsoever. Other than tracking his movements, and lurching towards him any time he moved overly swiftly they totally ignored him. It seemed, in fact, that to the Dead, The Kid was simply one of the crowd. Once he realised this, his journey back became a little slower than he had hoped but a damn sight safer.
We, in turn, told The Kid about everything The Twin had overheard Farmer saying last night. He was furious. Archer came by on his patrol, coming from the other direction, and we took the opportunity to tell him about Farmer's little plan, too. He was all for taking the fucker out right then and there, but at that moment I spotted a scout from the bandit camp in the distance. I raised my bow, arrow knocked, but he was way too far out of range. He saw me, and ran. “Fuck.” was the unanimous sentiment shared by us all.
noon
We decided it would be a good idea to hid The Kid's return from Farmer for as long as we could manage, at least until evening, to give us as much time to prepare as we could. Fat Dealer was told in private, naturally, and he and Archer formulated a plan while Junior, The Twin and I went about our usual routine of archery practice after lunch. Apocalypse Girl joined us, as always, and we told her about The Kid's adventures and the scout we had seen. She in turn informed us that Farmer had been trying to kick up a stink about how if most of us survive isn't that good enough? After being shouted at by everyone else in the group he went up to his room to sulk, not even bothering to order his 'wife' to accompany him. Probably because she was one of the more vocal of those opposing his plan. She was now wandering around outside, moving in the general direction of Archer's shed. We estimated that at the very latest the bandits would probably attack the day after tomorrow, if they wait even that long.
mid-afternoon
Fat Dealer asked me to accompany him on an inspection of the wall, as the builders had finally finished their toil. As we walked, we discussed the situation. His take on it was that we needed to defend ourselves, and the women, our food and our home. I agreed, but also told him that no matter what, our lives were of paramount importance. He nodded, and we began talking about exit strategies. It was decided that if it looked as though the bandits were going to get in, we would have a few sheep ready to be loaded up into the Ute, which was already filled with fuel, as was Farmer's battered old Valiant. Archer had taken the idea for armour that I had given him and not only had he, with the skin of a slaughtered cow, created armour that was reasonably light and flexible, but it would also protect from the bite of the Dead, he had also been rather busy welding bits of metal to the vehicles. Butcher's cattle truck had been taken apart carefully, and the pieces scavenged had been quite effectively attached to the Valiant and the Ute, turning them into sharp pointy instruments of Dead destruction. The Valiant had what was essentially a miniature cow-catcher bolted onto the front, though it was lower to the ground and almost horizontal, spreading outwards to almost double the width of the car itself. It had been sharpened so finely that it gleamed in the dying sunlight.
From inside Archer's shed I could hear The Kid telling someone that he wouldn't do it before he came storming outside. Farmer's Wife was inside, I could see as the door opened to allow his egress, and she was crying. He headed in the direction of the barn, and from the expression on his face whatever she had asked him to do was not giving him happy thoughts. Archer came out next, Farmer's Wife following The Kid outside and to the barn. The hippy bowyer/mechanical genius told us that Farmer's wife had asked The Kid to infect her husband. Fat Dealer said that if she had known how we found out about his gruesomely handy little ability she wouldn't have asked.
We continued our inspection, and Fat Dealer mentioned, while we passed the cattle, that though they might have to be left behind we could perhaps induce a stampede in the general direction the bandits attack from. As the two encounters we have had with them both came from the opposite end of the property from the dirt track we were able to easily hide our vehicles from view by simply parking them on the far side of the barn from the archery range. Butcher had slaughtered a couple of cows, butchering them expertly and packing the fresh flesh away in barrels of salt that had been loaded up into the boot of the Valiant. The rest of the fresh meat had been taken into the kitchens.
As we began our return journey to the barn, Junior came running up to us shouting that they were here. We followed him to the wall, and saw several men, most covered in blood, one of whom waved a stick with a white sock tied to it high in the air. They stood within bow range, but far enough away so that none but The Twin could be certain of hitting them effectively.
“Who's in charge here?” The largest of the bandits barked. Fat Dealer and I looked at one another. He nodded to me to take charge of the situatio
n.
“That would be me.” I said.
“Right. I don't know how the fuck you managed to infect so many of my fucking men, or lure those fucking rotting things to us, but now we know where you are. You're time is up. Surrender now, let us have your bitches and we will allow some of you to leave alive. None of us want any more deaths on our hands, do we?” He shouted.
“Nice try dickhead. I doubt there's any more of you that that pathetic bunch here. Go fuck yourself!” I yelled back, punctuating my words with an arrow that, to my credit, sailed past his face, taking a chunk out of his ear. He yelped in pain.
Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 1): January Page 4
