There was only one Kayla, though.
31
* * *
On a cool but bright late morning in early March, with four days left until their deadline to fight or flee, Will and Danny toured the quarry bottom. Military bases and spies played on Will’s mind.
The sun dazzled high in a cloudless sky, its rays only now beating back the chill left by the night air. Early that morning, Will had pulled his overalls on over a checkered work shirt and put on a jacket, too. Five hours later, his thick hair was damp with sweat under his John Deere cap and rivulets of it ran down his neck and the insides of his thighs.
Beside him, Danny was dressed as if had summer had arrived. He wore a pair of cargo shorts with a plain white T-shirt and a ridiculous-looking pair of flip-flops. Will took in his outfit and shook his head. "You need to learn to be better prepared, boy."
The younger man's tone was disinterested. "How's that?"
"What would you do if one thousand enemy fighters came screaming down that hill right now? Or a herd of creepers found its way in here? You better not need to wrestle around on the ground. The limestone would tear hell out of your knees and elbows. And what if you needed to run but couldn't because you don't have a grown man's shoes on your feet?"
Danny didn't answer, he just shrugged his shoulders. His normal patter — a cocksure mixture of stories, jokes, lies, taunts, and braggadocio — had been missing the last few days. He looked worn and haggard with a tight jaw and pinched features. Like everybody except Will, Jiri, and Terrence, Danny didn't know the complete battle plan, only his role in it. The trio of generals decided to keep the number of people who knew the entire plan as small as possible. "In this case, limited access to knowledge equals the guaranteed security of that knowledge," is how Jiri had put it.
A cloud of limestone dust enveloped them and they both bandannas over their mouths and noses to shield against the gritty powder. Dust filled the air because the bottom resembled a military base preparing for full-scale battle. All over the quarry crews practiced with their team leads. Trucks zipped back and forth, hauling items here and picking up supplies there. Bulldozers rumbled and roared as Clark and his team of mechanics repaired and reconditioned them. The throaty brattle of chainsaws biting into wood echoed across the pit as a work crew felled pine trees on the rim.
The noise and commotion caused Will to think about spies. One person from the other side getting close enough to the rim to see the activity below was all it would take to change the entire trajectory of the upcoming battle is. Someone like Coy, with the woodcraft and skill to cross the picket line silence and peek over the edge of the bluff.
If the enemy got a glimpse of the quarry floor and made it back to give a report they would lose their element of surprise and ensure the attackers came prepared for a serious battle. Then they would have a straight-up shooting war with one hundred trying to fend off one thousand. He didn't like those odds.
He stopped walking and fixed Danny with a stare. It took the boy a few seconds to realize it.
When he did, he eyed Will with suspicion. "What?"
"I haven’t made you many promises."
Danny gave him a sideways look. "Okay… "
"That's because I never make a promise I can’t keep. Most people, they promise you this and they promise you that. Except the promises are meaningless words, because they break them all the time. Now I, on the other hand, if I make a promise, you can take it to the bank."
Danny looked at him with puzzled eyes. "That's good to know, boss, but I still don't know-"
"That said," Will interrupted, "I promise we will win this thing."
"Man, you can't promise something like that-"
"With some caveats," he interrupted again. "Me, Jiri, and Terrence- we've gamed it out a hundred times. If nothing unexpected happens, and everybody on our side does their jobs, we will win. If it's her thousand-strong army coming at us with the weapons Coy said they have, and our people perform the jobs we’ve given them- we win."
Danny still looked at him with suspicion, but he’d broken out in a faint smile, too. "That's good news, boss." His smile faltered and his eyes flashed with anger. "If I'd been on the inside, I'd have known this all along. You never shut me out before."
"We had to keep it to three people. If I let you in I have to let Coy in, Coy means Becky, and on and on. We want each fighter compartmentalized into their responsibility and nothing else. Keeping it between the three of us was the only way to do that. You are knowledgeable about a lot of things, but military tactics ain’t one of them. In this instance you didn’t have anything to offer, so we didn’t include you.â€
“If I offended or upset you it was not my intention. I apologize. But we can only overcome the odds against us if every single person focuses like a laser beam on their job. We won’t get that focus if everybody knows everything.â€
"Yeah, okay. I can see that. There’s no need to apologize. Like I said, you’ve never shut me out before and I didn’t understand why. Now that you’ve explained it…"
“We’re good, then?â€
Danny beamed the patented Danny Wilson Smile. “We’re good.â€
Will looped an arm around his neck. "Good. Now, will you quit walking around here like a guy whose dog just died?"
32
* * *
The busiest person in the quarry during the run-up to the deadline may have been Justin. As the community's official keeper of the maps and unofficial navigator, note runner, and errand boy, he put miles on his boots crisscrossing the quarry. Run a message from Will to Jiri, find out the answer to a question for Terrence, check the items brought back from a supply run for Doc Samuel, run and get beef jerky for Danny, and myriad other errands kept him busy from dawn until dusk.
He didn't mind the busywork; in fact, he enjoyed it. It helped the day go by fast and he stayed up on all the good gossip. He could fight if need be. But he wasn't the fighter that some of the others were. He was grateful that men and women of their capability took him in and accepted him. And it pleased him that he had found a way to pitch in and make himself a vital part of the community.
Will and Jiri were bent over one of the table-sized limestone blocks that littered the quarry bottom. They had a note he brought them from Terrence, a pad, and a pen, and were busy discussing their answer. They were so focused on their response that they didn't notice when the noise level dropped off, then fell to zero. But Justin did, and turned to see why.
Becky stomped across the quarry wearing a spotty layer of soap suds and nothing else. Her dark red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her blue eyes flashed with anger, and her mouth was fixed in a furious frown. Justin's eyes zeroed in on her breasts; he couldn't help himself. They jiggled with each step she took and the cool morning air had swelled her nipples into a pair of red raspberries.
Around seventy people were engaged in various activities in the pit bottom, and each of them stopped what they were doing as Becky walked across it naked as a jaybird. Danny was busy at the other end of the pit. He caught sight of her and sprinted in her direction; Tara exited a tunnel and hurried to catch up with her. Everyone else stared along with Justin.
Unable to peel his eyes away from her, Justin reached behind his back and tapped her husband on the shoulder. "Umm, Will? I think you have a problem here.â€
Will answered without turning around. "What's that, buddy? Did you lose one of your maps?"
"No, I think you'd better-"
Becky interrupted him with a shrill, angry shout. "WILLIAM DAVID CRANDALL!"
"Oh, shit. That's not her happy voice," Will muttered as he turned.
If seeing his wife buck naked on the quarry bottom on a cool March morning surprised him he didn't show it. His hands were in his pockets and a faint smile played on his lips as she approached.
Becky began shouting when she was stil
l fifteen feet away. "TWO WEEKS! People have complained about the water pressure around here for two weeks! I stood under that stupid bucket for fifteen minutes, waiting for to fill so I could rinse. Do you know what soap does to my skin if it sits on it for fifteen minutes?"
"I imagine it's nothing good."
"It's bad, Will- very, very bad! And I'm not the only one that's complained. Nobody is happy with the showers, it takes the girls in the kitchen three times longer to wash dishes- Elizabeth Sanders said she waited ten minutes the other day for a cook pot to fill up. Ten minutes, Will!" She glared at him, her hands on her hips, breathing hard with exertion and anger. Her chest heaved and her boobs bounced with each breath.
Will raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "I am sorry about that, honey. I am sorry that happened. I’m sure it was upsetting, and I-"
"Oh, stuff it, you asshole. Quit showing off for your friends. You've never empathized with me once in the twenty-five years we've been together, so quit acting like the world's most understanding husband. I tell you my problem and you fix it. That's how we work. I've told you my problem. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to fix it! I will fix it right now." He shucked his jacket and placed it over her shoulders. He pulled it tight in the front, put an arm around her waist, and turned her back in the direction she came from. "But first, let's get you back inside and get the soap off you. It can’t be good for you to covered in soap and out in the sun for this long." As he led her away he looked back over his shoulder and caught Justin's attention. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, twirling a finger around his ear.
Danny and Tara converged on the couple at the same time but Will waved them away. Tara trailed after them anyway, but Danny bounded over to Jiri and Justin, his eyes dancing with joy. Activity renewed around the pit.
Juri grinned at Justin. “Now that's something you don't see every day.â€
Danny laughed. "Would you believe I worked for them for four years and this is the fifth time I've seen her titties?"
The other two gaped at him.
"Yeah, they tend to come out when she gets really drunk." He shot them a wink. "Where’s Coy? I can't wait to tell him his mom lost her shit. I'm going to go find that little bastard before someone else has a chance to tell him first." With that he scampered off, leaving Jiri and Justin to gape at one another and shake their heads.
33
* * *
Per Will's instruction, they met thirty minutes later at the entrance to tunnel seven, the shaft containing the underground lake that supplied the quarry’s water- Will, Coy, Danny, Jiri, and Justin. "I want to keep it in the family in case I have to throw a beating into that lazy piece of shit," Will said. Justin had looked absurdly pleased to be referred to as part of the family when Danny passed along the message.
The lazy piece of shit in question was Alex Minton, a friendly but unreliable layabout who was allergic to work. They couldn’t put him on the scavenging or scouting crews because his sloth put others in danger. They pulled him off watch duty because of his propensity for falling asleep a half-hour into his shift. The kitchen staff nearly gutted him after a week with him. He stretched fifteen-minute jobs into an hour, fifteen-minute breaks into half a day, and ruined a batch of chicken soup big enough to feed the community for two days when he added baking soda to the pot instead of flour.
Will knew banishing him was the same as sentencing the man to die; he didn’t possess the skills to step out alone into the zombie apocalypse. He was at his wit’s end and unable to come up with a solution when an idea struck like a bolt from the blue. After a thirty minute search, he found Alex in his favorite spot, fast asleep in an empty warehouse in tunnel four. He shook the man awake and appointed him water supervisor while he was still blinking the sleep from his eyes.
It was a simple job; Jiri called it one a smarter-than-average billy goat could handle. Make sure the intake pipes that carried the water to the pumps were submerged, keep the pipe connections tight and the hoses free from kinks, and clear any blockages that impeded the flow of water. Twice a week, though, Alex failed at one of the duties and the water pressure in the tunnels decreased precipitously. On these occasions, Will or Jiri sent someone to the lake to boot him in the ass and help him fix the problem.
Justin and Coy retrieved the nightlight and pushed it through the shaft. The nightlight was a four-by-four-foot wooden frame affixed with two rows of three 1500-watt stadium lights. Hand trucks on each side made for easy rolling and the lights ran off a car battery that sat on a platform underneath the frame. When the tunnel grew dark, Coy switched the device on and it illuminated their surroundings for a hundred yards.
Twenty minutes later they stood in a rough circle, looking down at Alex’s remains under the glare of the stadium lights. They were quiet, each lost in his own thoughts.
Danny broke the silence. "I never liked the guy, but I wouldn't wish that on anybody." He thought a moment. "Well, almost anybody."
The creeper that had been Alex laid in a trampoline-sized pool of dried blood. It moved its head back and forth and up and down. Its right arm raised at the elbow and fell back down, raised and fell, like a metronome. It emitted a muffled and wet gurgle from the ragged and ropey tendrils of flesh that were all that remained of its mouth and jaw. That was all the animation it could produce. The dead feasted on everything else.
Even Will felt a little peaked as he surveyed the destruction. "It only seems fair if the ungrateful bastards eat this much of a guy they go ahead and eat his brain, too, and keep him from turning."
Coy spoke in a mournful tone of voice. "What if we hadn't come looking for him? Can you imagine spending a decade like this?"
Jiri scratched his neck. "Ah, you wouldn't last that long. With what little tissue is left to decay, I'd say three to four months tops before its brain turns to jelly."
Coy gave him a pointed look. "Thanks, Mister Science."
"You're welcome. I'm here to help."
Danny looked to their left, at three creepers laid in a row; blood and gore covered them, and each had a knife wound above its ear. They heard the trio of dead reacting with hunger when they were still fifty yards from the secondary shaft that took them to the lake. They put the threesome down, scanned the anteroom for more dead, and discovered the creepers had eaten at Alex until he was essentially a head with a neck and one half of an arm. "He took on three of them with no light except two of those stupid lanterns."
"Don't forget the Maglite," said Coy.
Danny snorted. "Yeah, because it's easy to put down the dead with a flashlight in your hand." He prodded the nightlight with the toe of his boot. "Why didn't he use this? Did he ever bring it with him?"
Will shook his head. "No, he was too lazy. Jiri and I talked to him about it not too long after we gave him the job. He said rolling it around was too much work, and the lanterns worked just fine."
"He forgot the first rule," Jiri said.
"Bullshit," Danny said, his tone scornful. "This guy never learned it."
Will explained the first rule to each of them in the early days on the road- You can't make one mistake when you engage the dead. Baseball players got three strikes, basketball players two foul shots. But when battle the dead, one miscue meant death.
Danny bent close knifed the creeper through its ear, putting an end to its head-turning. That done, he stood and spoke to Will. "What do we do now?"
Jiri wore a playful smile. "We could cut off his head and take it to The Judge as a warning."
"He doesn’t have much of a head left," Danny chortled.
"Knock it off," Will said, his tone stern. "Be respectful. I didn't have much use for the guy either, but nobody deserves this." He nodded toward Alex's grisly remains. "Jiri, you and Danny pile the creepers over here with his body and burn them." He gave a resigned sigh. "Coy, I guess you and me need to find the blockage in these pipes before your Mama shows the whole community her
titties again."
34
* * *
Kayla stood on an outdoor platform built specially for the occasion and looked out at sea of over 1300 faces. The church's lighting board and altar lights illuminated the stage, bathing her in hues of soft white, amber, and rose; a spotlight glowed, highlighting her every movement. A wireless microphone attached to her collar picked up her modulated and honeyed voice, sending it via the receiver at the small of her back to speakers placed around the crowd.
The man in charge of keeping the power on at GCORE and on its grounds balked when she told him she wanted the lights and sound system moved outside.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but our fuel tanks are too low to power the number of generators it takes to do what you want. Everything is hardwired to one big generator in the sanctuary, so running the lights and the sound at Sunday services don't require an outlandish amount of fuel. But the stage lights, the sound system, a spotlight- that's different. To run all that outdoors would mean five, maybe six mobile generators, each of them sucking fuel. And we will need all the fuel we have for the move across town."
Kayla sat behind her desk wearing a pleasant smile and listening attentively. She rose when he finished and walked across her office, beckoning him to follow. They stopped at the window that overlooked her stage and she gestured at it. "Do you see that pretty stage I had built, the black lacquered one with the blood red trim?"
He peered through the window and nodded his head.
She pulled a small knife with a bright, shiny blade from a sheath on the inside of her thigh, stepped behind him, and held it against his throat. "If you don't have everything ready as directed when directed, I’ll have them build your casket with the same wood and bury you alive. And if you ever speak to me as my peer again, or say anything to me but yes ma'am and no ma'am, I'll feed you to the demons dick first.â€
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