New Title 1

by Cole, Nick

  Dying.

  She’d saved the kid’s life and when it was all done she’d slapped Holiday straight across the face and walked away.

  And Frank...

  The bottle was still where Frank had set it that night. At the bottom of the steps that led up to Holiday’s townhome.

  “I can take it,” Holiday said to no one in the garden quiet. “And just go off and...”

  He felt his body tense. Tense to bend down and touch the bottle. And to touch the bottle was to pick it up.

  “... to pick it up... and if you pick it up,” he told himself. Well, you know what happens next. The cap with the paper seal... comes off... and the fumes inside hit and...

  ... game on.

  He tore his eyes away from the bottle and watched the night. He remembered the thing that had walked through the fog on that last night when it had just been he and Ash and Frank enjoying port and cigars. Whatever it was, that thing that moved through the fog above them, it had been gigantic. The footprint alone, the one that made a deep impression in the burnt-out remains of the avocado orchard, had been enough for Holiday to lie down in, crossways. Frank had said the footprint was like something from the “outer dark” and that had struck Holiday as odd... and even somehow, true.

  Holiday’s eyes had fallen again to the bottle Frank had left for him.

  He had a problem.

  Maybe, he told himself.

  Or maybe other people had a problem with his drinking. Frank said they were counting him out. Had counted him out and then he’d left the bottle for Holiday to destroy himself with.

  It was still there. Waiting.

  The fog swirled across the silence of the night.

  And maybe it was something about that swirling fog and Frank’s “outer dark” comment and the feeling of a deep without a bottom that caused Holiday to turn back toward the front door and step within his townhome. He quickly shut the door behind himself, feeling that the fog had suddenly come closer and nearer in that instant and that it wanted to... touch him.

  He told himself he’d gone inside because he didn’t want to drink. He even believed it once he’d said it. But in truth, as he lay in bed and listened to the night, watching the light make shadows along the wall, it was more about the fog and the “outer dark” than the bottle waiting on the front steps.

  By early morning the fog began to disappear, withering in the blinding sunlight. One by one, all but Skully came out onto the street again.

  Frank had set up a folding table near the kiddie park. He had several thermos’ full of coffee and a few rolls set out. Mugs of different stamp and color completed the snack selection on the table. There were also yellow legal pads and pens.

  Holiday took a mug that had San Giorgio written across its face and poured some coffee into it, getting a blond version of the black he usually preferred.

  “I made both,” said Frank watching him. Frank was clean shaven, dressed in light work clothes and smiling. He turned to some notes he was making, saying nothing else to Holiday, greeting each newcomer as they arrived in the kiddie park.

  Dante.

  Candace.

  Ritter.

  He handed out the yellow legal pads and told each it was theirs to keep and to make any notes they might need. He also gave them a pen.

  Within an hour, they’d all assembled save Ash and Skully. Ash had made a brief appearance, pouring coffee and speaking in hushed tones with Frank. Then she turned and went back to Frank’s townhome. If she’d noticed Holiday, it didn’t show.

  “Welcome everybody. First, I’d like to start fresh. I imagine the medical emergency that was occurring when we all first met, and then not being able to see there for a little while yesterday, might have made introductions difficult so... I’m Frank,” He looked at Candace, Ritter, and Dante.

  “Woah, this like AA or somethin’?,” asked Ritter. “Cause I ain’t got no problems. It’s medicinal. I gotta scrip.”

  Frank smiled patiently.

  “Jes’ kiddin’, hoss.” Ritter laughed. His laugh was dry and tired, almost soundless. No one else joined in.

  “In a way, you’re right, son,” said Frank. Ritter’s eyes went momentarily wide at the word “son”. But Frank continued. “We’re all here because we have a problem.”

  Frank paused. He looked at each of them, making eye contact. Checking for some quality. Examining what he found within. Withholding judgment.

  “Our problem is that it looks like, for all intents and purposes, civilization may have just folded and gotten up from the table in light of... well, in light of the zombies. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what those things are. Maybe they’re just really sick people. Some virus. A terrorist attack even, I don’t know, we’ll let Stephen King figure it out. Whatever it is, they are antithetical to life.”

  He paused and took a drink from his mug.

  “I for one would like to go on living and my guess is, if you’re here, you made that same choice once everything went to hell in a handbasket last week. Yeah, that’s how long it’s been. A little over a week and no emergency services, national guard, army or marines.”

  No one said anything. Candace, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt shifted uncomfortably. Her power suit was gone.

  “So that means we’ll need to take care of ourselves for the foreseeable future,” continued Frank after setting his mug down. “And that’s why we’re here. All of us, together, are going to decide how to take care of each other. So that’s the first of many votes we’re going to take. If you want to take care of each other and try to make it through whatever this is... then raise your hand. If you don’t, don’t. You can take a day to get some supplies and we’ll do our best to help you, then head on out of here and go wherever it is you think is better. Sound fair? So let’s vote. Right now. Everybody in favor of taking care of each other, raise your hand.”

  At first no one did. Everyone looked at nothing. The ground. The sky. A few sidelong glances, seeing if anyone else’s hand had gone up. Everyone avoided Frank’s smile.

  Candace raised her hand.

  Then Dante, watching her, raised his massive paw.

  Holiday next.

  And finally, with a mumbled, “whatever,” Ritter stuck his spindly twig in the air.

  “Good,” said Frank, acknowledging everyone except Holiday. Then, “Good. Okay, the next vote we need to take is on how we’re going to survive. If you’ve got an idea, then now’s the time to raise it. So let’s hear it, people, whaddya got?”

  No one said anything.

  “What about the Marine Base at Pendleton?” asked Candace.

  “I thought about that,” said Frank. “I was a marine back in ‘Nam. Seventy-three. But that means we’d have to fight our way down to the 5 south and through the rest of Southern Orange County and then on down to the base at the tip of San Diego. That’s a lot of road, through hostile country, I might add. And we don’t have a lot of weapons.”

  “How do you know it’s hostile?” shot Dante, his bark breaking the morning calm. “How do you know that, man?”

  “I don’t, son,” said Frank.

  “The marines aren’t controlling anything,” interrupted Ritter. “They got lotsa helicopters. But they ain’t flying patrols or looking for survivors. That means they aren’t even interested in getting all up into Southern Orange County. Now, the OC is nothing but neighborhood after neighborhood of housing tracts. It’s a bedroom community. People down here tend to have medium to large families or, down in the barrio, you might have several families to a house. Last time I checked, the local population was pushing two million. If that infection is running wild, and it looks like it is, we have to assume a high percentage of that two million are now infected zekes... I mean zombies. Those bedroom communities are perfect breeding grounds for the infection. The initial infection probably pro
gressed relatively fast. Still, there may have been some holdouts. Other survivors barricading themselves in secure locations like hospitals and malls. Stuff like that. As those locations fall, which they will, that means the infection will increase and we’ll see more zekes out and about.”

  Everyone stared at Ritter. His ghetto-speak had disappeared for a moment. Then it returned.

  “Jes’ sayin’ and all,” Ritter said with a shrug, then looked off and waved his long hand at nothing.

  “So there’s nowhere we can run?” asked Dante to no one as he threw up his massive hands. “Nowhere?” His eyes were wide and his face twisted into a snarl. “Man, I can’t believe this!”

  “Until we hear something from someone, no,” said Frank after a small pause. “There’s nowhere to run to.”

  “So then, what are we s’posed to do?” shouted Dante.

  Silence.

  “Vote on a plan,” replied Frank softly.

  “There ain’t no plan!” yelled Dante even louder.

  “Not yet, son. But we’re making one, together. Right now.”

  Silence.

  “So,” began Ritter. “I got a feeling you gots to have a plan and all, chief. So rather than asking us a bunch of stupid questions... why don’t you jes’ tell us what you got in mind. Then we all vote on it.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Alright,” he picked up his yellow legal pad. He cleared his throat again. “I suggest we build a castle.”

  He stopped. No one said anything. What do you say when someone asks you to build a castle? Unless you’re with a four year old and it’s a day at the beach, it isn’t something often discussed in adult world.

  “We build a castle to defend ourselves from whatever has happened out there,” continued Frank.

  Then again, the world had ended. So maybe it was time for adults to talk about building castles again.

  “Like medieval knights and stuff,” said Ritter, his voice blunt and less sarcastic than usual.

  Frank smiled.

  “A castle was used for defensive purposes. To wait out a siege by an opposing army. To gather your resources. To have some place safe to rest and train. It’s still something that’s employed by modern armies when they build an observation post in enemy territory, or what we used to call back in ‘Nam, a forward base. Basically it’s a fortified position inside enemy territory. That’s how we need to think of everything.” He waved a knife-edged hand to encompass the world beyond their circle. “Out there, until we find someplace safe to run to, for now, kids, everything out there is enemy territory. You go outside that front gate, expect trouble.”

  “You got my word on that,” said Ritter. “It’s cray cray out there.” Ritter slouched down in his folding chair and extended his legs while folding his arms.

  “Right,” continued Frank, warming to his argument. “And you try to hold out in enemy territory with no safe place to rest, or resupply, and you might make it a few days, three at the most. But if you’ve got some walls to get behind, and some people you can trust and depend on to watch your back, then you can catch your breath, rest and keep the enemy at bay.”

  Dante shot up out of his chair and began to storm off toward the slide. A few steps across the green grass and he turned like a bull. Like he was going to charge back at Frank.

  “You wanna build a damn castle, like at Disneyland?” shouted Dante. Candace walked over to the big man and rested her hand on his bulging shoulder. Dante shook it off and walked farther away. “You ain’t the boss anymore!” he shouted at her.

  He sat down at the edge of the park, on a tiny bench, lowered his massive head into the catcher’s mitts that were his hands and screamed behind them. Candace turned away.

  For a long moment they listened to Dante sob.

  “Yes, Dante,” said Frank softly, kneeling in front of the black giant. “That’s exactly what I want to do. Except... a real castle, not a make-believe one.”

  “And how do we do that?” sobbed Dante from behind his fingers.

  “Well, a lot of it’s already done for us. This place has four almost complete walls.”

  “It does?” said Dante still hiding behind his fingers.

  “Sort of. But there are some holes in those walls. All we need to do is patch those holes and these things can’t get in here, once we shut the gate.”

  Dante wiped tears and snot from his eyes and nose.

  “What kinda holes?” he asked, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Frank.

  “Oh...” Frank stood with a groan. They heard his knees pop. “Bedroom windows. Front windows. Spaces between the buildings and the main entrance. The doors facing outward are all dead bolted and locked. But once we fill in those gaps we’ll be pretty safe. I promise.”

  “You can’t promise that,” mumbled Dante.

  “No. I can’t. But it’s the best we can do for right now. And... it’s all we got.”

  After a moment, head down, Dante lifted his massive arm, the bicep and shoulder muscles stretching the business shirt he’d worn all week back at Green Front Technology.

  “Alright, then I vote for that.”

  So did everyone else.

  Chapter Three

  Ash stood over Skully. She’d just used the last of her morphine and now she watched the scrawny, shaven-headed boy’s chest slowly rise and fall.

  “That’s it buddy,” she whispered. “After this, you’re going to have to get by on Anacin, or whatever it is they have here.”

  She put two fingers on Skully’s wrist and raised her silvery watch into a morning sunbeam. She stared at the watch, finding the heartbeat. Watching the red Hammer and Sickle on the watch’s face. It helped her focus on the slow rhythmic pulse.

  Low.

  She stood back, watching him.

  His eyes fluttered.

  He was thin. Too thin. Bony. Small. Hollow cheeks and a shaved scalp. A small, strange tattoo on his wrist.

  The bullet had nicked the bottom of the rib cage and she’d had to chase down bone fragments to clean the wound. But the bullet had missed the liver. The round was practically pushing through the small of the kid’s back and she’d toyed with the idea of just making a cut and popping it out. But she couldn’t risk another incision site. It would increase the likelihood of infection. So she’d moved the liver aside, gently, and gone in after the bullet with Frank holding a flashlight over her shoulder and someone else holding the retractors.

  Now the recovery room that was once the dining area was quiet. The townhome, Frank’s, was empty save her and the boy. Distantly she could hear hammers pounding nails into plywood on the other side of the neighborhood.

  “More painkillers and antibiotics,” she mumbled to herself. “An autoclave... if it’s possible,” she added in a whisper. Frank had found her an empty townhome they could set up as an “aid station”. That’s what guys from ‘Nam called a Casualty Collection Point. She’d known old Sergeant Majors that still used the term.

  She watched the boy and listened to the distant sound of construction, echoing out across the quiet neighborhood and the dead silence of the world beyond.

  Frank, Dante, and Ritter carried another sheet of plywood into the third house they’d fortify before lunch. Two stories above, Candace watched from a rooftop, holding the sniper rifle and Frank’s binoculars. If she saw any of them, any zombies coming, she was to use the whistle Frank had given her. But she wasn’t to shoot unless it was absolutely necessary. They only had three bullets left for the large caliber rifle Holiday had taken from the downed helicopter.

  She scanned the surrounding hills, homes, and empty spaces of field and road. It was dry and quiet across the suburban wasteland withering under another day’s blanket of sun and heat. The sky was hazy, but any of the distant fires they’d seen down in the valley below had burned themselves out.

  The surrounding
quiet was unreal. Thick. Like a blanket, or even a living animal that smothered its victims with its heavy weight. Or like something waiting out beyond the perimeter, something waiting where it couldn’t be seen.

  “When we gonna make a run up to the store for more food and y’know... stuff. I need some smokes, bad.” Ritter was shirtless, his body muscled yet pasty, slick with sweat and grimy with dirt.

  “Let’s get this finished up,” grunted Frank as he pushed the plywood board up into place, covering a window, with Dante matching his movements on the other side of the board. “And then we’ll make a run. There’s a store nearby called the Market Faire.”

  Holiday maneuvered in through the tight doorway with three heavy two by eights on his shoulder. He set them down on someone’s faux leather couch underneath a picture of a family posed in matching khaki pants and white button down shirts, as waves and a Southern California sunset completed the portrait.

  “Find the studs and anchor to that,” said Frank, breathing heavily.

  “Yes sir, boss man,” said Ritter and dragged a hammer off a belt loop while reaching into his pants for more of the long iron nails. Dante was already placing one into the two by eights.

  Holiday waited for Frank to tell him what to do next. But Frank hadn’t. Wouldn’t. For every job that needed someone to do something, Frank had just picked someone else. At times he would even look at Holiday, but he wouldn’t see him, or at least that’s how it felt to everyone.

  Holiday wondered if they were all in on it. If everyone else was counting him out too.

  They were sealing up the front wall, or what Frank had called “the Southern Wall of the Castle”. The defenses he’d put up with Ash and Frank seemed almost flimsy to Holiday compared with Frank’s new plans. But the work was slower. Right now they were just trying to seal the ground level outward-facing windows in the townhome units. Eventually they’d have to seal the gaps between the building with more than just wire and fencing. Flimsy wire mesh wouldn’t hold up against a crowd of zombies like the ones that had surrounded the Green Front Headquarters, or so Ritter declared and Candace and Dante silently agreed.