Into the Dealands

by R. J. Spears

“How much food do you have down here?” Kara asked.

  “Enough,” Lou replied.

  “How many people do you have?”

  “Enough,” Donovan answered and paused for a moment. “Let’s keep moving,” Donovan said. “I want you to meet someone.”

  We moved single file through the shelves, taking it slowly. The cans of food taunted me as we passed by, but I showed some discipline by not drooling.

  Donovan opened the door to the next chamber and led the way in. Unlike the last two rooms, this one was quite expansive. In fact, it was a bit of an engineering marvel as it looked like they had welded four shipping containers together, cutting out the inside walls, creating one large room. Steel poles stood solidly throughout the room, holding up the ceiling and tons of dirt above it.

  Four long dining tables sat in the center of the room. Tall-backed wooden chairs lined the sides of the tables. As I took in the scene, I found myself bowled over by a wall of odor. This wasn’t a bad odor. This was a delicious smell, the aroma of freshly cooked turkey, combined with what I could only guess was dressing mixed with mashed potatoes and, Saints be praised, gravy. Maybe there was even a hint of pumpkin pie in there.

  If I had been considering drooling before, I was sure that saliva was about to start freely flowing down my chin.

  Lou and one of the other men pushed by Kara and me, and Lou said, “Just in time for dinner.” They moved toward the tables as Donovan started to shed his ghillie suit, but I barely noticed as a line of women moved into the room carrying trays stacked with food. The aroma thickened and I remembered just how hungry I was.

  More people came into the room, some carrying food or plates and silverware. These people moved quietly, setting the table and filling it with food with a practiced ease. As they took care of these everyday tasks, they flicked glances our way, and their eyes lingered on me, sending a tingling down my spine. I saw two of the women stop and one of them pointed my way, while the other one gaped at me. If I had felt uncomfortable before, then I was doubly so.

  I wasn’t sure if this wasn’t going turn out like a Twilight Zone episode, and instead of serving us dinner, they would soon be pulling out knives and saws and would be having us for dinner -- al fresco. The vibe was unsettling, but some inner voice told me to maintain my calm.

  The slogan, “Keep Calm and Don’t Get Eaten by Zombies” flashed into my head. Oh, morbid sense of humor, when will you ever shut up?

  A woman came toward us. She looked to be in her sixties with salt and pepper gray hair and crow’s feet around her eyes. Some might say she was striking, but I would have said handsome. She had a strong jawline, and there was a bright intensity in her eyes that seemed to captivate me and concern me at the same time. She held those eyes on me as she got closer, a small grin on her face.

  Donovan moved forward and cut her off. They leaned their heads close together and shared a whispered conversation for a moment as her eyes stayed locked on me.

  The people stood expectantly around the tables, inspecting us. I sort of felt like an animal at the zoo. Not a dangerous one, but one that amused and delighted audiences.

  Donovan and the women broke from their private huddle and walked directly to me.

  “This is Billie Sue,” Donovan said.

  Billie Sue enthusiastically stuck out a hand for me to shake, but I hesitated for a moment. The hand stayed in the air between us like an obligation, so I felt no other choice but to shake it. No sooner did my hand touch hers, than she pulled me into her body and embraced me fully in her arms, hugging me tightly.

  The embrace went on an uncomfortably long time, but I was worried the sign it would it send if I broke it off. After a few more seconds, I felt her relax, and she broke the hug. As she pulled away, I could see her eyes were moist with tears.

  She half whispered to me, “I’m so glad that you are finally here.”

  I opened my mouth and silently formed the word, “What?” I’m sure my expression was dumbfounded.

  She turned back toward the people gathering around and spoke in a loud voice, “I think the prophet Joel has finally arrived.” Her body seemed to vibrate with an anxious excitement as she stretched up onto tiptoes as she said it.

  This was getting weird.

  Chapter 13

  Family Gathering

  “This can’t be good,” Aaron said as they shuffled down the hall in a scrum of people headed down toward the dining area.

  “They’ve brought us together before and nothing’s happened,” Jo said.

  A soldier yelled for the group to keep moving. Jo noticed that the soldier held his rifle tightly in his hands as his eyes darted over the crowd nervously. She had seen him before. He seemed younger than the other soldiers, and something about him reminded her of her own son, a fresh-faced teenager lost in the apocalypse.

  She had no idea where her son was. He was visiting relatives in Texas when the world spiraled and went down the drain. They spoke once on the phone during the initial chaos of the outbreak, and that was it. It was like he was teleported away to another dimension. She didn’t like to think about him.

  “But there’s a different vibe today,” Aaron said. “Like we’re going to an execution.”

  She shot him a look that seemed to say, “Don’t say that.”

  But he didn’t care. That he showed the restraint to even walk among the crowds without flipping off and cursing the soldiers was astonishing considering the rage that swirled inside him. When his roommate, Brandon, had been killed in the attack by the Lord of the Dead, something snapped inside Aaron. Brandon had been the brash one, unafraid to say what was on his mind, while Aaron had been more reserved, pulling Brandon back from the edge. Now, he seemed openly defiant of anyone, and the only thing that held him in check was that fact that his actions might get someone else harmed. If not for that, he might just burn the whole place down around the soldiers and laugh while he did it. Maybe even dance a little jig, too.

  Russell edged his way in-between them and asked, “Does anyone know what this is about?”

  Maggie tagged along behind Russell, keeping her head down, but also seemed to be watching for any threat or chance to run from it.

  Jo was quiet for a moment, moved along by the tide of the crowd and then said, “Kilgore has some pronouncement or something. It can’t be good.”

  They turned the corner and moved into the dining hall. The soldiers had moved all the tables out of the center of the room, leaving it looking strikingly open, like a stage ready for the play to begin. The lights were dim, and soldiers took positions at all the exits as the people filtered into the room. Whatever negative vibes Aaron felt before just amplified.

  Aaron thought that the people looked like sheep, subdued and nervous. He even chuckled to himself, Brandon’s dark sense of humor popping through, waiting for them to go “Baaaa,” but they remained quiet. The soldiers, on the other hand, reminded him of wolves, ready to take out the weak ones. He didn’t want to hear them growl, but he wasn’t afraid. A part of him was more than ready. What did he have to lose with Brandon already gone?

  The crowd tacitly knew where they were supposed to be, reading the body language of the soldiers and ended up collecting near the center of the open space. They faced the south side of the room where a single table sat with three chairs behind it. As soon as the soldiers escorted in a couple of the slow-moving older folks, the crowd stood waiting, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, gazing around the room uncomfortably.

  Jo watched the soldiers, paying special attention to the way their hands played on their assault rifles. She didn’t think Kilgore would have them massacred, but she didn’t put it past him. The soldier’s hands seemed more at rest, even relaxed, and not poised for a command, but she knew she was just fooling herself. If she knew it was folly to think she could really tell what was going to happen by the way the soldiers held their weapons, but it beat standing without trying to know. Knowing was always better. What she would
do if she knew they were about to be slaughter was the question. As she saw it then, there was very little she could do if Kilgore ordered them shot, but at least she would know it was coming.

  Her inspection ended when Kilgore came through a door on the south side of the room, followed by the hulking Jones and the toady, Lodwick. Kilgore wasn’t in his customary Colonel’s dress blues, but instead was wearing the olive drab uniform of a field soldier complete with spit-shined boots, looking shiny and almost new. He moved across the floor with all the frightening grace of a jungle cat.

  Jo followed him with her eyes as he walked, trying to glean anything from his face, but Kilgore’s expression was unreadable, flat and emotionless. Jones, on the other hand, looked upset as if something wasn’t going his way. Lodwick wore a wry smile as if he had eaten the canary -- bones, feathers, and all, and liked it. It was no different than he always looked, though.

  Predictably, they headed for the table and chairs. Kilgore came to the middle chair, but instead of sitting, stood behind it. Jones and Lodwick took the chairs on each side. The metal folding chair groaned in protest to Jones bulk but held. Lodwick sat without noise or incident.

  Kilgore stood, taking in the people, glancing from face-to-face, waiting for some unspoken cue. He stopped and lingered his gaze on Jo, and she felt a ripple of goosebumps run down her arms, but she couldn’t tell if it was his creep-factor or the chill of the room.

  His pause lasted a few more seconds, and then he cleared his throat and started his lecture. “I guess you’re wondering why I gathered you all here?” He let the question settled in, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a grin, but it looked plastic and fake in Jo’s estimation.

  “We here, are part of a family,” he continued. “The human family. It used to be a big, all-encompassing, and overwhelming family. Now, it is not so big and overwhelming. In fact, it is quite small. From our reconnaissance and probing, in this area and surrounding areas, there can’t be more than five percent of humanity left standing. Or, I should say, walking, and running. Running scared and rightfully so. The dead rule most of the earth. Small towns are overrun, moderately sized cities are swamped, and large cities are wastelands of the dead.”

  He paused again, looking past the people, his mind reviewing the aerial shots of his planes and circulating through the data for a moment. “What’s worse is that the few remaining living and breathing people seem to be fighting for what is left. Fighting each other. It seems so pointless and self-defeating because we, the family of man, have a common enemy -- the dead. I would guess that everyone in this room has lost someone...to the dead or human enemies.”

  Again, he paused for dramatic emphasis, and Jo could tell that this man oozed charisma. It was evidently clear how he got his men to follow him. She would have to admit that she felt the sway of his words at that moment.

  “We need to pull together,” he started up again. “All of us. It is the only way to survive. Don’t you agree?” He took in the people in the room and while most remained non-committal, a few nodded their heads ever so slightly.

  “Yes, you see it,” Kilgore said, smiling more broadly now, but there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. “If we, as a family, are going to survive, and I mean in the long-term, we need to pull together. I want to survive. I want my men to survive. And I want all you to survive, too.”

  He let that settle into the crowd. Giving the people what they wanted was a time-tested way to succeed in politics. So, was lying and most politicians did it effortlessly. For Kilgore, it took some effort as some deep down part of him wanted to leave the room and this complex and these people. It was why he had joined the Air Force all those years ago, to serve his nation and protect his people. That part of him wanted to honestly save these people, but some new creation within him didn’t give two shits about them. It wanted what it wanted, and if these people stood in the way, then it was too bad for them.

  A scent filled his nostril. It was caustic and smelled like sulfur and burnt hair. He felt the back of his throat became scratchy, making him want to cough, and he turned away from the crowd as the fear slipped up his spine, sending prickly tinglings all over his body.

  With his back turned, he looked like a man trying to stifle a cough or a sneeze, but when he whipped around, it was clear it wasn’t either of those things. He went from collected and composed in a millisecond to something that looked wild and out of control. He scanned the crowd for any sign of the man, or thing, that had visited him in the night, but all he saw was confused and frightened faces.

  “What are you looking at?!” he screamed.

  The crowd, which had almost been willing to buy what he was selling just a moment ago, eased back away from him without taking a step, feeling a psychic slap. They all moved in one singled sliding movement away in an unconscious retreat with exception of one person.

  Aaron held his ground without moving. Jo slowly reached out a hand and put it on his bicep, gently tugging him backward with the subtle retreat of the rest of the crowd. He resisted, and her hand slid free as he stayed rooted in place.

  Kilgore whipped his eyes back and forth, looking for something, anything. He was being too indirect. These people didn’t understand subtlety, they understood action.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, his voice quavering slightly. “You people need to know that I want you to survive because we are all one family. One family of man” He spoke quickly, as if what he said was imperative. “And, I have to tell you that the best way to long-term survival is getting Jason Carter back to me.”

  “There it is,” Aaron said, under his breath.

  “I know some of you must know where he is, and I need you to start talking here and now. The time we waste could mean that Carter is lost. He could just disappear, or maybe the dead will take him.”

  Kilgore stopped and scanned the crowd for any low hanging fruit -- anyone who looked willing to talk and his eyes fell on Aaron, standing defiantly with his arms crossed.

  “What about you, big man?” Kilgore asked, locking on Aaron. “What do you have to say?”

  “I’m not telling you jack shit,” Aaron said.

  A dark storm cloud of expressions passed over Kilgore’s face. He took a step toward Aaron, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, then stepped back.

  “That means you must know something, and you’re thinking I can’t make you tell it,” Kilgore said. “But I can.”

  “Bring it on,” Aaron said, smiling broadly.

  They faced off for several seconds, Kilgore glanced to his soldiers, and all of them looked tense. He knew they would follow his orders as long as he kept things in check, but he didn’t feel like doing that. He swiveled around and looked back at Lodwick who was leaning forward in his chair, expectantly. Kilgore gave him a slight nod, and Lodwick stood and headed out of the room. On the way out, he pointed at two of the soldiers and those soldiers split off from their positions and followed him out. There was something pre-planned about these actions that gave Jones some pause. Something ominous. Something that the Colonel and Lodwick were keeping from him and he feared nothing good would come of it.

  The exit reduced the number of soldiers in the room, but while the people of the Manor outnumbered them, the soldiers had the weapons with the numerical advantage of bullets. That cold hard fact held the people in place.

  Kilgore returned his attention to Aaron but looked past him and at the crowd of onlookers, each one of them having an unsettling feeling that something bad was about to happen. Sergeant Jones sensed it, too, but felt helpless to prevent it. It was like watching the inevitable flow of lava from a volcano as it burned everything in its path.

  Aaron clearly and openly challenged Kilgore’s authority. From his years of command experience, Kilgore knew he couldn’t let this stand. Any chink in the armor of command could start with a leak and lead to a flood. Holding his men together throughout the breakdown of civilization had been challenging, but, lately, he was begi
nning to feel more tension among them. It was best to staunch any leakage.

  “I’ll give you ten seconds to rethink your position, big man,” Kilgore said, crossing his arms and locking his stare onto Aaron.

  Jones leaned forward in his seat and said, “Sir, we can always detain this man and speak to him in private.”

  Kilgore held up his open hand for Jones to be quiet. Jones started to speak again, but Kilgore clenched the hand into a fist, and Jones remained quiet.

  Everyone in the room seemed to be caught in the moment, held there in some dreadful expectation. The people of the Manor felt the dread more palpably because the soldiers held all the cards, but even the soldiers seemed anxious. None of them wanted anything to happen but felt the eventuality of it like an impending earthquake or some other unavoidable disaster.

  “Aaron, step back,” Jo hissed out a whisper, unconsciously leaning in toward Aaron.

  Aaron waved a dismissive hand in her direction and said, “I’ve got this.”

  But he really didn’t.

  Chapter 14

  Revelations

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I said, feeling an out of body wave of disorientation wash over me.

  Billie Sue looked back at me with a face full of zealous delight. It almost looked like someone had flicked a light on inside her, making her almost luminescent, and I felt bathed in its glow.

  “Joel, there’s nothing to wait for, you’re here,” Billie Sue said. The people crowded around the tables moved forward, exaggerated smiles pasted on their faces. It was like we had fallen into some sort of cult. I half expected them to start handing out poison-laced cups of Koolaid at any moment.

  “Joel, what is she talking about?” Kara whispered in my ear.

  The best I could do was shrug.

  A scene from the movie Ghostbusters came to mind. Ernie Hudson’s character gave Dan Aykroyd's character some sage advice, “When someone asks if you are a god, you say YES!”