Dead 09: Spring
Page 20
This would either be very good…or very bad.
***
“We have a tail,” Rose whispered as she moved up beside Aleah and peered around the bumper of a UPS truck that had been dumped on its side.
“What?” Aleah started to spin around, but Rose grabbed her and kept her still.
“Not sure for how long, but at least since the last house we checked. It isn’t a zombie, but it is not trying to get any closer and every time I try to casually get a look, there is nothing to see. Whoever…or whatever it is, it is hanging back,” Rose said with her lips almost brushing Aleah’s ears. “I have an idea, but it will split us up for a few minutes.”
Aleah started to protest, but Rose shut her down.
“Just hear me out…I know splitting up is a dangerous idea, but I am talking about just a few minutes. See that brick house across the street with the truck crashed through the fence? I say we make for it and slip inside. Clear it quick and then I will slip out the back and move down to that little blue house with the body hanging from the tree. From there, I should be able to use that bunch of cars crashed into each other in the intersection to hide behind as I get across the street and circle back about a block or two and see if I can’t get behind our tail.”
Aleah wanted to argue. She did not want them to split up; that never went well…
She laughed at the rest of that unfinished thought about how it never went well “in the movies.” That made Kevin’s last words to her echo in her mind: “It’s worse.”
“Just be careful,” Aleah cautioned.
Rose suppressed a laugh. “Yeah…zombies, weird people starting a cult because they are immune to zombies, tornadoes, and we got one scared person following us. I’ll do my best to be really careful.”
The two made the dash to the house they had targeted. Once they reached it, a busted out living room window allowed easy access. The layers of dust and cobwebs gave the indication that the place was likely zombie free, but they still did a quick check.
“I mean it, Rose,” Aleah cautioned as the girl slipped out the gaping rectangle that used to be a sliding glass door. “Be careful. I really don’t like this splitting up thing.”
“I will,” Rose whispered over her shoulder as she waded through the overgrown back yard.
Aleah watched until the girl scaled the fence and vanished. With a sigh, she went about searching the house for anything. Unfortunately, this place yielded no more results than anyplace else they had checked so far. Of course, she had almost guessed that to be the case with all the busted windows.
She flipped open kitchen cabinets, not surprised to discover the contents either gone, rotted beyond recognition, or devoured by any variety of vermin. That last realization got her onto another train of thought. She had never given it much consideration, but she felt there should be a significantly larger rat population. She saw them from time to time and had learned to mostly ignore the nasty little creatures, but shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t they be scurrying about in huge swarms?
Filing that nugget away for when she could bring it up with Kevin, she moved back to the living room so she might get a peek outside and maybe spy their follower. She made sure to stay in the shadows.
She had just stepped into the arch that opened to the living room and could see out the tattered curtains to the street beyond when a figure scurried across the road about a block away. It was definitely a person and, unless they had learned to run crouched over, not a zombie.
A few seconds later, movement just past and to the left of where she had seen something caught her attention. She quickly recognized Rose’s frizzy puff of black hair as it bobbed along behind some bushes. A heartbeat later, the girl dashed across the street and would now be almost directly behind whoever was trailing them. Her best guess put Rose no more than fifty feet behind this person.
Deciding to improvise, Aleah went for the front door. Her mindset was that she would draw the focus and attention of this mystery person. Stepping out onto the porch, she even went so far as to pretend to whisper something over her shoulder, pause, and then shake her head.
There was a sudden flurry of activity. Aleah gasped as Rose actually climbed up onto the husk of a burnt out minivan and launched herself at an unseen target. There was a grunt and a cry of pain. Aleah took off at a run but pulled up short as Rose emerged from behind a hedge with a young man who had an arm wrenched up painfully behind his back.
“Told ya we were being followed!” the young girl hooted triumphantly.
A few nearby creepers pushed their way out of scattered piles of debris and began to pull themselves toward the living intruders that were trespassing in their realm. Aleah gave them a wide berth, seeing no reason to bother with something so pathetic.
“Let me go!” the boy whined.
Aleah took a good look at the young man. He was in his mid to early teens by her best guess. He wore a set of tinted swimmer’s goggles, leather gloves, coveralls, and a heavy denim jacket with a bunch of patches that took her a minute to place. It was the blue police box that finally gave away the Dr. Who theme.
Rose stopped in front of Aleah and shoved the young man to his knees. His dark brown hair was a matted, tangled mess, and a big clump of it fell into the boy’s eyes. He flipped it back and looked up with a mixture of fear and something else that she could not quite place. It was that something else that set her on edge.
“Why were you following us?” Rose asked, poking the kid’s back with her blade just enough to cause a wince.
“I-I-I…” he stammered.
Rose pressed a bit harder with her weapon and Aleah wanted desperately to stop her, but she knew that was just not going to happen. The days had long since passed where mercy could be given; it had to be earned.
“Start talking or start bleeding,” Rose said with a frightening lack of emotion.
“I saw those lunatics drop you guys off at their little dump site. I wanted to try and make contact, but the storm came and then that other lady showed up…she scared me. I saw her take down a dozen walkers like it was just part of her morning stroll.” The young man was babbling now and some of his words ran together due to him talking so fast.
“So you are trying to say that you are out here alone?” Aleah asked with a skeptical shake of the head.
The boy was silent for a moment, but finally looked up at Aleah. His dark brown eyes had filled with tears and they were spilling down his cheeks, leaving trails through the grime. He nodded.
“I am as of ten days ago. My dad cut himself breaking in to a truck that was loaded with canned goods from the Del Monte plant.” His eyes went distant as the memory played out in his mind and was relayed through a misery-tightened throat. “We couldn’t believe our luck. The truck had rolled down into a ravine down by the water. It sat high enough that the storage part was pretty much dry. That nobody had found it before was a miracle. My dad even said it had renewed his faith that there was a God, and that maybe things were going to get better. The cut didn’t even seem like that big of a deal, but by the third day, it was so red and puffy…and it smelled so bad. He got sick…and then…” The boy’s voice trailed off and was choked by a sob.
Aleah looked up at Rose who now had released her grip on the boy’s arm and taken a step back and to the side. Aleah knelt down to the boy and placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Now just put your hands in the air and get on your knees,” a voice said from off to the left. A man stepped out from behind the tree where the dead body swung in the early morning breeze.
“And then we met this couple…they had lots of medicine and even a handful of guns,” the boy said with a sneer as his head popped up. “Dad was fine and healthy in a matter of a few days. And those two nice people fed us for almost a week.”
Rose lunged forward and drove the tip of her machete into the back of the boy. It resisted just slightly before exploding out the front with a nasty crunch as bone gave way. The boy gurgled and
flailed wildly with his arms, wrenching the handle of the weapon away from Rose. However, the blade had pierced his heart on its way through and the boy was dead before he hit the ground.
Aleah stood in stunned horror with no idea what to do. Rose sprung over the corpse of the boy as the man screamed in despair.
“Trent!” the man wailed. His arm dropped as he ran for the sprawled form of the boy who now lay in a spreading pool of blood that looked black on the pavement of the road.
Rose reached Aleah and yanked the older woman’s blade free, spinning on the man as he neared. His eye were so fixated on the downed form that he never even saw the blade as it came down hard. The blade bit into the flesh of his neck, driving almost halfway through before coming to a halt.
The man could only watch helplessly from his knees as the second blow finished the job. All the while, Aleah stood transfixed to where she had been while the entire scene unfolded.
Rose walked over and stood staring at the gun that had landed with a harsh clatter on the street before skidding to a stop beside a clump of weeds that were pushing the pavement back. With a stomp of her boot there was a tremendous crunch.
“Try to take me prisoner with a toy gun…what a bunch of idiots,” the girl snarled before stomping one more time to shatter the gun in a hundred tiny pieces of black plastic.
“How the hell did you know?” Aleah finally managed, unable to take her eyes off the two corpses sprawled in the street.
“Seen enough real guns,” Rose said with a shrug. “Plus…they left a small piece of the orange plastic on the tip.”
“Why would they use a toy? There have to be thousands of abandoned real guns around.”
“No idea. And they won’t be telling us anything, so let’s just get out of here.” Pointing to a dozen or so undead beginning to wander into the area, Rose started jogging down the street.
Aleah hurried to catch up.
***
Catie walked down the aisle of the auditorium. She noticed a few small clusters of people scattered throughout, busy at work. From the looks of things, they were scrubbing. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust, and once they did, she realized that they were cleaning up blood.
Up on the enormous stage was a large table with several people seated around it. She recognized Jordan and Latricia. Standing between them with a folder was the doctor who had stitched her up and drawn blood. The rest of the individuals seated were not familiar, but were all looking at her with an odd scrutiny.
Thinking that she might actually be in deeper than she could handle, Catie decided that her best weapon at the moment was to simply pretend to be what she considered an average woman to be. She would not go so far as to play the lilting rose, but she would certainly not tip her hand as to how capable she was at taking lives; that was going to have to be a surprise they discovered the hard way.
“We hope you slept well,” Latricia spoke first, standing as Catie stepped up onto the stage.
“Pretty good.” That wasn’t a lie, and Catie had actually wondered if the bread had been drugged, but after the piece she had that morning, she was okay with chalking it all up to the fact that she actually felt safe.
“So, we have some good news.” Latricia nudged the doctor.
“Yes…it seems that you have absolutely no signs of any infection. I still suggest a few days of antibiotics, but you should recover perfectly.”
“Sweet,” Catie said with forced relief. Surely they did not convene a council to bring a person in and tell them they were fine. There was something else, and she had an inkling as to what it might be.
“However,” the doctor cleared his throat and shuffled through the file in his hand, “we have some more news that you may find very interesting. Certainly by now you must realize that there are some who do not succumb to the bite of the zombie. We have managed to create a test that can predict with almost total certainty whether or not somebody has that ability or immunity if you will. It seems that you are such a person.”
Catie decided to go with the “Beauty Pageant Winner” emotional response. Hands to her face, she forced tears to fill her eyes—a talent that she had honed and used as her most effective method of coercion against her dad.
“Are you serious?” she said, running over to grab the doctor in a big hug.
“The doctor is quite serious,” Latricia assured. “Which brings us to our next point.” The woman looked up and down the table at the others who remained oddly unemotional and almost apathetic. “We would like to offer you a place here…with us. We sent patrols out to look for any signs of your group and found nothing. I am afraid that you might be all alone at this point. However, you could stay here…become a part of the community.”
Catie looked from one face to the other; in turn they nodded as she made eye contact. That was actually the most response she had seen from any of them since she’d arrived before this odd council.
Catie did not want to sound eager for fear that it would perhaps raise some flags. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and wrung her hands.
“Do you think I could maybe go out and have a look for myself? Maybe they hid from you.”
“We called out and used your name saying that you were safe and that we could offer them safety as well,” another older woman spoke up, leaning forward in her chair. “Our group was eight women and two men to try and show a less threatening display. I am sorry, dear, but I do not believe any of your group remains in the area.”
Catie dropped her head. She would need to show an appropriate amount of emotion, but she actually believed that her plan was now working better than she could have dreamed. If they were offering her the chance to be a resident, perhaps she would be able to have a little more freedom.
There were still some things she wanted to know; like where everybody was; she had been led from one section to another of what had once been a thriving compound with a population that supposedly numbered in the thousands, but she had not seen anything other than security patrols and this little council.
“So…I could live here?” Catie hated how her voice sounded as she added a tremor to it while keeping her eyes on the floor.
“Actually, we have a little more news that you may find very exciting,” Latricia said. “Everybody here shares that same trait…all of us are immune. You would be living around people just like you.”
“And you better believe that is a benefit,” Jordan said with a good old boy laugh that reminded Catie of every cheesy used car salesman stereotype. “There are some folks out there that see that as a bad thing…and they are hunting folks like us down…executing them in cold blood just because they are different.”
Catie feigned shock. Of course Aleah and Rose had related the spiel that these folks were giving and knew all about the war between these immune people and the group calling itself The Guardians. If she had her way, both sides would simply wipe each other out completely and do the world a favor.
“Now, staying here will have some responsibilities, but we can delve into that later,” Latricia said as she moved around the table and draped an arm over Catie’s shoulder. “For today, how would you like to just get a look at your new place, find something that you like from our available rooms and perhaps start setting up your very own home?”
Catie clasped her hands together and smiled her best smile. “That would be wonderful…but are you saying that everybody here is immune to the zombie bite?” She did not want to make it seem like this revelation was no big deal.
“Everybody,” Latricia confirmed.
“What happens when somebody who isn’t immune shows up?” Catie scanned the faces staring back, trying to gauge which one might have a reaction in his or her eyes and she chose Jordan Cranston. Bingo! Just a slight tightening that hinted at disgust.
“We offer help if needed and direct them to someplace that would be safe,” Latricia said after only a slight pause.
“You don’t let them stay?”
“Are you serious?” Catie blurted.
Her mind went back to Kevin and his recently odd and distant behavior. She now had a good idea as to why. Kevin was a smart man; it was very likely that he had figured all of that out on his own…perhaps when they had spoken with those pathetic captives that had escaped The Guardians.
“Very,” Jordan said with a touch of menace. “For somebody who is not immune to remain here, they would be in danger and that would also lead to the residents here being in danger as well. We also confirmed that, even if you are immune, once you have been…infected…whatever…you will still turn when you die. We don’t know why, but an immune person can still become a zombie when they die if they have been exposed.”
“Wow!” Catie breathed.
“So…will you stay?” Latricia asked with a syrupy sweetness.
“I would be an idiot to refuse,” Catie answered truthfully.
“Great,” Latricia guided Catie towards the rear of the stage and to a metal door, “then let’s go show you a few open rooms. You can pick the first one that strikes your fancy.”
***
“This is ridiculous,” Rose huffed as they exited what had to be the hundredth house they had searched. As with all the prior houses, this one had been stripped of absolutely anything useful.
“I think this has to be where that compound has been searching,” Aleah flopped down in a metal chair that sat on the porch of their most recent failure to locate any food.
“You think there was any truck?” Rose asked referring to the spiel that boy had been giving them.