Dead 09: Spring

by T. W. Brown

  “We will make it,” she whispered. “And then you, me, and Baby Xander are going to head north to Oregon and live in the mountains. I will teach you to fish and you can show me how to get a plant to grow.” That last bit had always been a joke between the two of them. It just seemed that Glenn could get any plant to not just survive, but to thrive and become something amazing.

  Cynthia shimmied along the branch until she was over the blackened husk of one of the four school buses that looked as if they had been torched from the outside. Dropping as quietly as possible to the roof, she tested with her foot and froze when she felt the metal buckle just a bit.

  “Screw it,” she muttered. She took three steps and jumped, landing in a crouch on the overhang that covered the entrance to the high school.

  “Now it gets hairy.”

  ***

  “Daddy!” Ronni practically screamed. The man winced and she repeated her cry with much less volume.

  “Where am I?” Chad asked, his eyes barely able to open to slits.

  “We are back at the Miller place,” Ronni answered. A scream and sudden commotion in the hall made her jump.

  She was torn between going to see what was happening in the hall and staying here beside her dad. The deciding factor was the growing commotion just outside their room and down the hall.

  “I’ll be right back, Daddy,” she said, gently peeling her fingers from his and rushing to the open door.

  They were in a room in a large house. The hallway ran either direction from where they had brought Chad. To the left would be a door on either side of the hall that opened to bedrooms larger than the living room of the apartment that she had grown up in. To the right were two more doors on each side and it opened up to a huge living room. This had been Dustin’s main house and he had helped build it himself. He had made the rooms so large because he had expected each one to be occupied by a family back when this was a religious-based compound.

  Ronni looked to the right and had to take a few seconds to really figure out what she was seeing. Once she realized, she was unable to fight back the tears. It was that woman that had just come to see her.

  “Kaja’s mother,” Ronni whispered.

  The woman had apparently slashed her own throat. As the people in the hall moved this way and that, Ronni was able to make out the box cutter still clutched in the woman’s hand. However, she could not take her eyes off of the woman’s left foot. It kept twitching and flexing for several seconds.

  People were bending down over the woman and trying to stop the blood that was still seeping from the clean, deep wound on her throat. Ronni noticed an arc of dark liquid dripping down the wall of the hallway across from where the woman now sat on the floor.

  “You better put a spike in her head,” somebody said. Ronni was surprised when she realized that it had been her speaking. “If she was infected in any way and happened to be immune…” She let that sentence die on her lips.

  A couple of the people gathered were looking at her like she was saying something heinous; but one of the women nodded her agreement and produced a knife from a fold in her heavy skirt. Before anybody could stop her, she stuck it in the temple of the dead woman. Ronni was surprised by the few people that had truly acted like this was some terrible thing. It was obvious that they had probably been in this compound since the beginning and had no idea how bad things were, or some of the unpleasant things you had to do to survive.

  Her dad had known almost from the start.

  “Daddy,” she gasped, and ran back to the bedside where Chad was just now starting to be able to open his eyes.

  “Hey there, princess,” Chad rasped. “It’s so good to see you.”

  For the first time that she could recall, she saw tears in her father’s eyes. She had seen him endure terrible physical pain, she had seen him forced to do things that so many would have been unable to do; and now, here he was, lying in a bed, holding his daughter’s hands and crying.

  “A lot of people will want to know that you are awake,” Ronni said, hoping that it sounded cheerful.

  “How did we get here? I was certain that both of us were done for.”

  Ronni filled him in. She tried to make sure that she did not leave anything out. She also showed him her stitched and bandaged arms, saying that the doctor kept telling her that she would have died from blood loss if she had not thought so quickly.

  “You did really well, sweetie,” Chad said. He closed his eyes and Ronni felt a flash of fear.

  “Dad?” she said, giving his arm a little shake.

  “Yeah?” Chad answered, but he kept his eyes shut.

  “I don’t want you to leave me.”

  “Leave you? I’m not gonna leave you. Where would I be going?”

  “I mean ever.”

  Chad opened his eyes and considered his daughter. She had a look on her face that he couldn’t read. There was more being said than he was hearing.

  “Sweetie, I’m not—” he started, but she squeezed his hand and cut him off.

  “No! What I mean is that from now on, if you go out there…I go out there. We need to stick together. We are all that each other have, and we need to take care of each other.”

  “Well, well,” a voice called from the doorway. “Glad to see you among the living.” Dustin Miller walked in and moved to the other side of Chad’s bed. “We thought we had lost you there, fella.”

  “You and me both,” Chad said, turning his attention to the man. “So…did you get the kids back okay?”

  “Thanks to you and your daughter…we were able to bring some happiness to this place.”

  “Kaja’s mom,” Ronni said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes…that was…unfortunate.”

  “What happened?” Chad looked between Dustin and his daughter. Ronni opened her mouth, but Dustin cut her off.

  “Nothing that you need to concern yourself with right now. You just get some rest, take your time and get healthy.”

  Chad could tell by the look on his daughter’s face that it most certainly was not “nothing” as Dustin claimed. He would have to ask her later.

  “Nice to see you looking better,” another voice called. Scott Colson entered and took a spot beside Ronni.

  “Yeah…well I wish I felt as good as I apparently look to everybody,” Chad huffed, causing Scott to laugh.

  “Man, I was just trying to be nice…you look like crap.”

  The conversation was upbeat and pleasant, but Chad was noticing a few things. His daughter was obviously bothered by something. Dustin kept watching her, and Scott had trouble keeping eye contact.

  At last, Chad began to flag. He could barely keep his eyes open. At some point they simply closed and he fell into the steady breathing pattern of sleep.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Dustin whispered.

  The trio slipped out of the room as quietly as possible. As soon as they reached the hallway, Scott spun on Dustin.

  “Three suicides in one day! What the hell is going on?”

  “That last one claimed to be Kaja’s mother also,” Ronni said.

  “I don’t know what is going on,” Dustin ran a hand through his curly blond hair and shoved his ball cap back on. “All I know is that Brett has been gone since we got back with your dad. Nobody has seen…or admits to seeing him. The search parties have come back empty and that big camp that we had been keeping an eye on is gone.”

  “When it rains it pours,” Scott said. “Okay, well I am going to take the next group out. Ronni, you just get back in there with your dad and keep your eyes open. I have a feeling things are going to be a bit sketchy for a while and you should be there.”

  “But I thought the doctor said that if he came out of the coma he would be okay.”

  Had it been three weeks? Ronni had lost track of time. Her days had revolved around the care of her father. When they had first returned, there was doubt that Chad would pull through. Between the infection, the loss of blood, dehydrat
ion, and whatever else, it was just too much for a person to endure. But her dad had proved the doctor wrong.

  Today, he had opened his eyes. Only, so much had happened in that few weeks. It had started with a fever that went through the camp. Several people died in a short time and nothing seemed to help. After that was the fire. There was still suspicion that the fire had been set intentionally.

  However, none of that held a candle to the sudden and peculiar division that had unexpectedly ripped the place almost in half. Apparently there were a lot of people that were angry that Dustin had allowed the religious aspect of the place to stop being the focus.

  It was right around then that the first hanging occurred. Ronni had not seen it for herself, but she had heard. What was odd was that the person hanging had been one of the people known to be immune to the bite, and that was something that the radical religious group had seized upon. They said that those who were immune had been chosen by God.

  Up to now, Ronni had kept her having been bitten a secret. At least…she thought it was a secret.

  ***

  “Jody!” a voice called from out on the porch to the apartment that he shared with Selina.

  “I’m gonna change my name to Butch,” Jody grumbled as he sat up, swung his legs over, and climbed out of bed.

  Selina made a soft snoring sound, reached out and grabbed his pillow, pulled it in and continued to sleep. Jody envied the woman. Sure, she had all of the bad things that went along with being pregnant: morning sickness, a sore back, a body that was openly betraying her, and then there was the need to pee almost every fifteen minutes…or so it seemed sometimes. He made a conscious effort not to think about the sudden mood swings; those were deserving of their very own category.

  “What is it?” Jody opened the front door to discover George standing on his porch.

  The man looked pale. It was no wonder; rumor had it that Margarita was very determined to get pregnant, and when the other women achieved that goal one by one until only she remained, she had turned her Latina passion as well as a bit of the fury on poor George Rosamilia. It got to the point where people would not even walk past the house because of the ruckus. If it wasn’t sex, it was screaming.

  “You need to get to Tower One right away,” George said through labored breathing. Jody wondered briefly how a man exposed to so much physical activity could still be so obviously lacking in cardio endurance.

  “What’s up?” Jody asked, sensing the concern in the normally stoic man.

  “Just get to the tower,” George repeated. “I think you need to see and decide for yourself.”

  Jody followed on the big man’s heels, a feeling in his gut that things had obviously been too calm these past several weeks. And now here it was…Murphy’s Law in action. As he approached the tower, he was already able to see what had George so upset.

  “How long?” Jody asked as he walked beside the man.

  “The watch came and woke me up about four this morning and said that something big was going down. As soon as it was light enough to see…well…” George made a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  Jody reached the tower and climbed up quickly. He accepted the binoculars from the watch and peered through them. It was not that he expected to really see what the situation might be, but he still needed to have a look.

  He handed the glasses back and leaned on the rail. At least five plumes of black smoke were rising in the direction of where Pitts and his people should be.

  Early on, when this whole thing had begun, he remembered seeing what looked like the whole of Little Rock burning from the distance. There had been stories of refineries blowing up, entire neighborhoods swallowed by fire. The tales from survivors had been horrific. Burning zombies still pursuing the living, people trapped in buildings and having no better choice than to fling themselves from several stories above the ground. No matter how hard he tried, he just could not picture a scenario where he could willingly throw himself from a window and fall to what had to be a terrible death.

  “Get Danny and a team of at least ten,” Jody said, turning to George.

  “You sure? I mean, if something bad happened there…and it was maybe another group that was even bigger…do we really want to tangle with that?” George asked.

  “We have some of our own over there,” Jody said like that was all that needed saying.

  Climbing down the ladder, his thoughts were on Kat and their last exchange. He would already carry the guilt of this situation for as long as he lived. If she had somehow ended up dead…he did not know if he would be able to bear the pain.

  It took less than twenty minutes for the team to assemble. Other than George and Jody, he was not all that familiar with the others. Two were women…one of them being Margarita.

  Jody pulled George aside when the woman arrived in full gear that she had obviously taken from the local supply since she had not arrived with anything of the sort.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” Jody whispered; although apparently not soft enough.

  “That is my home, and those are my people,” the woman said simply.

  He could not argue a word against her point. He immediately thought of Kat and Selina and knew they would respond in much the same way. To make his decision just a bit easier—if he even had one in this instance—she seemed to know what she was doing with the shotgun and pistol she was carrying. Plus, he had definitely never seen that nasty curved blade that she wore on her hip. She had to have brought that in with her own gear.

  “Okay, listen up,” Jody called once the last person had jogged up to join the crowd and George gave him the nod. “Something bad has obviously occurred over at Swifton where Pitts and his people are set up. From the looks of it, things are very bad. This mission is simply to go and see what is up. As of now, we are not on the offensive. We may not like what we find, but if something hit Pitts and did that kind of damage, then we need to assume that whatever or whoever it is could wipe us out with no effort. Does anybody have any problem with keeping their safety on?”

  “You saying we won’t even try something?” the other woman spoke up, a rifle slung across her body. It looked like she was very comfortable carrying that weapon.

  “I’m sorry, Miss…” Jody left that as a question.

  “Jess Gandley,” the woman answered. “My daughter Chelsie went over with the others.”

  Jody sighed inwardly. He was having a real problem trusting that one or many of those with him that might be coming because they thought that this would be a chance to get in a few quick kills.

  “We have to think of the community as a whole,” Jody said calmly.

  He wanted to get moving, and he knew that if he dared to kick anybody off this team, nothing would stop that person from slipping out on their own. It would be better if he could keep his eyes on a few of them.

  Turning and starting out towards the rising black clouds, Jody set a quick pace. They had a few miles to cross through relatively open ground. And while the numerous fields and swamps had grown wild in the year they’d had without humanity’s interference, they would still be heavily exposed at least for the first good portion of their trip as they stuck to the highway.

  It was almost two hours into their trip when they came upon a small herd of the undead. It was clear that they were being drawn in the direction of Sergeant Pitts’ compound. Jody sent George and Margarita to take them down. However, he could also see what looked like a much larger concentration up ahead. That had been the greatest advantage of being able to stick to the road for so long. They had made great time and had an excellent view of what was in front of them for a good distance. However, now it was time to move off the road and take to the high grass.

  Things were fine until they reached a wide creek. The area around it was dense swampland. None of them were quite prepared for this sort of terrain, and the team got bogged down fast. When the first zombie rose up out of the murk, Jody thought that they had just signed their death c
ertificates. Fortunately, this lone zombie seemed to be an anomaly. Danny took it down and no others came.

  That part of the trip took a lot of the energy from the group, and even Jess Gandley, who had complained on more than one occasion that they were not moving fast enough, had grown very quiet. As they emerged from the marshy terrain, it looked as if the fires had died down considerably. There were only wisps of smoke still rising, and they had lost that rich black hue, fading to a pale gray.

  They found themselves on a back road that one slightly bullet riddled sign proclaimed to be “Jackson 75”. Just ahead was a massive farmhouse with a large, fire-blackened shell of an RV trailer.

  “Let’s use this location as a base of operation,” Jody announced. “Danny, take two people and make sure the house is secure. George you and I will inspect the trailer and that barn. Jess, pair up with somebody and search those storage sheds. Everybody else maintain a watch here in the entry of the driveway. Sound off if you hear or see anything.”

  There was a sudden chatter of safeties being released and a team of men in full camo gear emerged from the high grass of the front yard.

  “Or…” one of the men who had emerged called out, “you can all just stay right where you are and keep your hands clear of your weapons.”

  ***

  “They’re inside!” Deanna wailed.

  Sean sprinted for the door that led to the staircase and started pulling away the furniture. The sounds of hands clawing at several of the doors along the corridor had started. A few of the doors at the end of the hall flew open with a clatter. Others were starting to give and it would only be a matter of time before this hallway would be filled with the living dead.

  With only his belt knife remaining, he was in no shape to fight off a bunch of zombies. He would have enough trouble with one or two.

  Now he knew why this place had been abandoned. The only problem was that they could not go down. That massive herd was still milling about. The only choice was to go up.