by J. W. Vohs
Once Jack realized that the situation had stabilized, he moved back to the center of the circle and asked Bobby and Todd for updates from the rooftops. Both snipers reported that every zombie that could still move was now on the slope and struggling to reach the top, and Bobby estimated that they still faced at least a thousand of the monsters. He explained, “You guys are looking good up there, Jack. Still a hell of a lot of zombies surrounding your circle, but you’re holding your ground now. Both of us are down to a few hundred rounds so we’re gonna stop firing at anything but fast-movers, and we haven’t seen one of those in over ten minutes. We’ll keep our ammo in case something goes wrong up there and you need us to cover a retreat. Both buildings safe and sound, and Ted Simmons is running security down here.”
Jack nodded to himself as he responded, “Good copy on all that, Bobby. Keep an eye on things and buzz me if you see anything unexpected. I’ll try to check in with you every ten minutes or so.”
Jack turned off the radio and quickly walked around the inside of the circle, shouting, “We’re winning this thing! Bobby says we’re thinning them out—hang in there guys, we’ve got ‘em beat!”
Many of the Rangers in the circle actually shouted, “Hooah!” as Jack yelled encouragement, and everyone seemed to perk up a bit as they heard the news. Jack finally found John and pulled him from the circle after quickly shooting every nearby zombie to gain a moment’s respite from the attacking horde. Jack told his former lieutenant, “I’m taking your place. I want you to shrink this circle a bit so the soldiers can rotate out to catch their breath and rehydrate. As long as we have the strength to fight we’re going to win this thing, but we need to be careful with all this gear on. So get yourself rehydrated and organize a system. Copy that?”
John nodded as he stepped back a few paces from the fighting and began chugging water from his Camelback. Jack stepped into the circle and hefted John’s halberd as more zombies climbed over the mound of corpses surrounding the fighters, and he began methodically stabbing and chopping the steady stream of monsters that continued to make it over all obstacles to reach for the flesh that they instinctively pursued with no consideration of any danger to themselves.
Every minute or so a shooter would step up beside Jack and begin putting down the attacking zombies so he could take a slight break, and after several of these breaks in the action he finally noticed that the circle had shrunk a few feet and six or seven soldiers were kneeling in the center and guzzling fluids. Satisfied that the plan was working, he turned his gaze back to the front and heard Andi shout through her helmet, “Told you I could shoot, tough guy!”
Jack speared a particularly gruesome looking zombie that had only one arm and no chin before yelling back, “About time you did some work around here.”
She stepped back and retorted, “Reloading, don’t die on me.”
Jack had no time to respond, as another group of zombies crawled over the corpses to his front and his halberd smashed all the way through a mushy skull so that the hook at the base of the spear-tip got stuck. First time for everything, he thought, as he used his mace to put down the remaining three creatures before Andi could return to her firing. Jack used the cover to work his halberd free and take a long drink, at the end of which a soldier patted him on the back and shouted, “Get to the center for a break.”
Jack didn’t need a break, but he did want to check with John and see how the battle was going. He didn’t find his old commander though, as John had set the rotation in motion and gone back into the fighting line. Jack shrugged and took a knee, then called for Bobby on the radio.
“Yeah, Jack, this is Bobby.”
“What’s the situation from your view?”
The veteran sniper explained, “Less than seven hundred zombies still standing, Jack, and all of the strong ones seem to be down. How are you guys holding up?”
“Shooters have to be running out of ammo by now, so we’ll all be on halberds and maces before long. Everyone’s been rotating out for water and a breather so we’re doing about as well as we could expect up here.”
“Good deal,” Bobby replied. “You want us to start shooting again?”
“You guys do an ammo count since our last chat?”
“Yep, we’ve got exactly one hundred and twenty rounds apiece.”
“Well,” Jack thought for a moment, “Continue to hold your fire unless you see us in trouble. You copy?”
“I got it Jack. Give’em hell!”
Jack turned off the radio and stood up to survey conditions on the fighting line where several situations were rapidly developing. First, most of the shooters were now standing in the circle with halberds, obviously out of ammo. Second, the mound of zombie corpses along the side of the circle facing The Castle was now so deep that the remaining creatures were sliding, jumping, and sometimes falling off of the edge onto the heads of the fighters. On the west side of the circle the pile of corpses wasn’t nearly as high, so the soldiers there were still holding up well. Suddenly he heard screaming above the moans of the zombies and the shouts of the humans, and he turned back toward the eastern side of the circle to see that one of the soldiers there was down, covered by frantic zombies thrashing and clawing to reach the flesh they now had trapped. Human nature held sway once again, and the fighters near the fallen soldier turned their attention to rescuing their comrade rather than defending their part of the line. Even as Jack watched the scene unfolding, zombies began rushing through the openings left by the would-be rescuers and suddenly the entire battle was in danger of being lost.
Jack leapt to his feet and shouted at the four people taking a water break with him, “C’mon, we’ve got a breakthrough!”
The soldiers all lowered their visors and picked up their weapons, rushing to follow Jack as he ran toward the zombies now turning to attack the fighters on the edge of the breach. Jack and his men were on the scene in seconds, but three more soldiers were down and mobbed by the time they arrived to plug the gap. Even as he fought, Jack was shouting instructions to the men beside him, forming a wedge in which he was the tip of the formation. They pushed into the hole in the fighting line and soldiers at the breach joined up with them to close the gap. At least ten zombies were inside the circle and every one of them leapt upon an unsuspecting fighter already engaged with the monster in front.
Jack had no time to worry about how those encounters turned out; he seemed to be fighting five zombies at once regardless of how many he put down. As the men forming the wedge gradually pushed their flanks out to link up with the rest of the circle they killed all of the zombies mobbing the three soldiers who had fallen when the creatures rushed through the opening created by the rescue attempt. Unfortunately the two rescuers and the first man down were now covered with growing numbers of the monsters on the outside of the circle. Nobody broke ranks to go after the three, and the breach was finally closed. Luckily, the zombies on the loose inside the circle each attacked a different soldier instead of ganging up on just one or two, and as Jack had hoped, his warriors all proved capable of fighting off the attacks from their rear without panicking and leaving their positions.
Once again the line stabilized, and after several minutes of frenzied fighting, Jack realized that there was a noticeable decline in the numbers of zombies making their way over the mounds of corpses and dropping in front of him. Then he saw that one of the creatures tumbling from the pile had a bullet exit-wound in its face, and he realized that Todd and Bobby must have seen the break in the line and were shooting as many zombies in that area as they could. Jack took a step back and made sure that the man on each side of him moved to cover his place, then he walked quickly to the center of the circle to assess the situation once again.
He was certain that the intensity of the fighting was slowing around the entire circle, so he called Bobby on the radio and asked for an update.
“Glad to hear your voice, Jack, thought you were a goner there for a second.”
“We lost
three, Bobby, but I don’t know who they were yet. What can you tell me from up there?”
“Well buddy, the bad news is that every zombie still capable of moving is surrounding you as we speak. The good news is that there’s only about a hundred of them left.”
Jack was silent for a moment as the reality of what he’d just heard sank in. “So it’s over?”
“Yep,” Bobby replied, “looks like we did it.”
A half hour later the rest of the zombies had been eliminated and most of the soldiers were back in The Castle, eating, drinking, and having their wounds attended to. Tina had organized a team to locate and dispatch zombies down but still moving and ensure that any recently fallen soldiers would be unable to reanimate. Her grisly job was made easier as Bobby and Todd scanned the entire area with their field glasses and fed her constant information until all was completely still. By nightfall the inhabitants of The Castle had removed all corpses from inside the wall, reestablished a guard rotation, and manned communication radios at specified locations throughout the domain of The Castle. Tarps had been hung and tents set up all over the grounds, leaving the buildings still crowded but comfortable. Eight more soldiers had fallen during the last fight, including Zach’s best friend, a boy named Tommy Waters who Jack didn’t know. Andi, Maddy, and Zach’s girlfriend were comforting him as best as they could, but Jack had to keep moving about the compound and attending to the needs of the people.
Jack finally found Carter up on the east wall, laying out a tarp next to what was left of Barry Stergen. Without a word Jack stepped in to help with the grisly task of wrapping their friend’s remains for burial. A few minutes later they were solemnly sitting next to the bundle, staring out across the deceptively peaceful countryside. Carter broke the silence by whispering, “Got any water?”
Jack handed him a recently filled Camelback and watched Carter take long pulls of the cold well-water before he trusted himself to speak. “Sometimes it seems like who lives and who dies is just the luck of the draw—we think that being smart and prepared makes a difference, but we still lose the best of us.”
Carter shook his head as he continued to gaze into the horizon, “Bein’ smart and prepared saved a helluva lot of folks over the past few days, and ya can’t deny it. I don’t begin to understand what’s happenin’ in this world, but I’m proud of what we done here, and honored to fight beside the likes of Barry—and you.”
Flashlights approaching from The Castle caused both soldiers to turn toward the path. Andi and Deb were looking for their men. As a flashlight scanned the scene, Deb’s voice gently called out, “How’re you guys doin’?”
They both mumbled exhausted replies as the women sat down next to them. Andi put her hand on Jack’s shoulder and asked, “What happens now?”
He cocked his head as if listening to the sounds of a far-away battle, then finally replied, “We lick our wounds and then take the fight to the enemy. We did some things wrong here, and lives were lost because of it. I’ll have to live with that.” He glanced at Carter before continuing, “But we’re going to learn from what we did wrong, and what we did right, and then we’re going to plan our next move. I believe we’ve just secured enough space to set up an in-depth defense for miles in every direction, with protected fields for crops and animals. We have a group of warriors as hard and tough as any I’ve ever known. We’ve found leaders, and everyone has found the courage and determination to keep fighting for life in this world of the dead.”
Jack grew silent, and Carter added his thoughts, “When y’all write new history books in the future, ya can call this the Battle of The Castle. A hundred years from now it’ll be considered one of the first great battles of The Resistance, ‘cause that’s what this is. The world has been conquered by the greatest enemy mankind has ever known, and now we’re gonna build a resistance to the monsters and take it back.”
If any of them had anything to add to Carter’s epilogue they kept their thoughts to themselves. Carter pulled Deb close as Jack and Andi held hands and leaned against one another’s shoulders. They looked down on their friends and neighbors and family members as they began bedding down for the night, laughter and other happy sounds rising to their ears. They were a new people now, brought together by circumstances few of them could have foreseen in their worst nightmares. But they had faced the monsters and defeated them. They were strong, mentally and physically. They were brave; everyone had faced their fears and fought on in spite of them. They were determined to live in a world filled with creatures equally determined to kill them. But here they were tonight, alive and enjoying life. More than anything they were the beginning, the core of what would become known as The Resistance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.W. Vohs is a former soldier, student, and teacher of history and English. He believes that nature or human error will eventually hit the reset button on mankind. The big question is whether our society will experience a slow decline or a rapid collapse, as well as what type of culture the survivors will create in the new world that will emerge. Many of his writing efforts focus on presenting some of the possible futures facing humanity. J.W. also writes historical fiction, and his novel, Tours, is a story built around the famous battle of 732AD. The author lives in Indiana with his wife and children, where he hunts, fishes, reads, and awaits the return of his sons in the military.
