“Me, too,” Jenna says. “Which events?”
“Four-hundred and eight-hundred-meter sprints,” the man replies.
“I did hurdles.” Jenna smiles. “Kate’s workouts aren’t anything like regular track workouts, but they’re fun.”
“I can’t promise it will be easy,” Kate says, “but I will get you strong. We have an ex-military member who teaches us how to shoot. On top of training, there’s the other essential survival chores that have to happen. We work hard and train hard. Everyone pulls their weight.”
“I’m in.” The younger man steps forward. “My name is Christian.”
“Me, too,” says Stacy. She looks closer to Kate’s age, with ash blond hair. “I don’t like running, but I don’t like the idea of being dead, either. Or undead. I’ll work hard and train hard.”
“We’re all in.” Leo extends a hand in an offering.
Kate doesn’t take his outstretched hand. “You haven’t heard it all yet.”
“There’s more?” Leo’s expression wavers.
“We have three zombies locked up for observation. We’re studying the alpha zombies and learning what we can about them.”
The silence to this declaration is absolute.
“We’re a package deal,” Kate says steadily. “We want to help you, but you have to accept the parameters of our community.”
Leo swallows, looking from his people and back to Kate. “I take it the zombies are secure?”
“They’re on the second floor of an abandoned building. The windows of the room they’re in has been boarded up. So has the door. All observations happen through a hole cut into the ceiling on the third floor.”
Leo swallows again. “Okay. We accept your rules.”
This time, when he extends his hand, Kate shakes it with a kind smile.
“Thank you,” Leo says. “I’m not exaggerating when I say you’ve just saved our lives. You won’t regret it.”
36
Check In
KATE
“And that,” I tell Alvarez, “is how we ended up doubling the number of Creekside. We are now sixteen people.” I don’t mention the alarming rate we’re going through food. I prefer to focus on the positive things. “Leo and his nephew Todd both worked in the”—I pause to clear my throat—“cannabis industry. They know a lot about farming. They’re in the process of expanding our indoor gardens.”
“I sure could use their expertise,” Alvarez replies. “We’re having shitty luck with our garden. I think it’s too cold here. Or maybe the soil is bad. Hell if I know. We’re having a hard time growing food.”
“At least you have seagulls to fall back on.”
Alvarez groans. “Don’t remind me, Mama Bear. I know I shouldn’t complain, but I’m sick of eating those filthy things. Can you believe two guys in my camp are trying to domesticate some? I keep telling them we need to focus on chickens. If we can ever find any.”
“We have our first kids,” I tell Alvarez. “Their names are Kristy and Evan. They’re eight and ten. You should see them kill zombies. They scurry in after the adults and bash any downed zombies over the head with rocks to make sure they’re really dead.” I grimace into the ham. “Ben calls them our child soldiers.”
“That’s ... I don’t know what to say to that.”
“I didn’t know what to think at first, either. But now I think it’s a good thing. They can defend themselves. You never know when that might come in handy. They train every day with the adults, too. Their workouts aren’t as intense, but I make sure they get the exercise they need to make them stronger. The lady who looks after them, Margie, is a retired kindergarten teacher. Let me tell you, those kids get an education with her.”
“Oh? What do you mean by that?”
“Math is taught in the supply rooms and usually involves inventorying newly scavenged supplies. Reading involves survival stories. Margie went through every dorm room in Creekside to round up suitable books. Basically, she’s combining survival skills with general education. She was something of a prepper before all this happened.”
“A prepper? Doesn’t sound like that worked out too well for her if she ended up on your doorstep.”
“It started out okay, but she lived in a condo. She had a two-bedroom place stocked full of supplies. She banded with a big group of people. Her supplies were used up pretty quick. The good news is that she knows how to can food and preserve meats. She’s been talking non-stop about finding some chickens.”
“If you guys manage to find any that aren’t dead, save a few for us, will you?” Alvarez asks.
“I’ll FedEx you some eggs. You can hatch them and start your own chicken coop.”
He chuckles. “That’s a deal, Mama Bear. How are the newcomers taking to your running regime?”
I think back to these past two weeks with Leo’s people. I don’t know the details of what they endured before they made it to Creekside, but whatever it was left them desperate enough that no one complained when I took them to the track the first time. They looked at me like I was nuts when I laid out their workouts, but no one complained.
“They’re coming along,” I say. “I’m taking it slow to help them build up their strength.”
“You sound good, Mama Bear. Best I’ve heard you sound since that alpha attack.”
I consider this. Things have lightened up since Leo’s group joined us. “They’re good people. We all have baggage, but we’re working together for a common goal. How are your people doing? Any more sign of those bandits?”
The silence on the other end of the ham is heavy. “None.”
“And the alphas?”
“It’s a good thing you gave me a heads up. It saved us the first time we ran into one.”
“Have you seen a lot of them?”
“Only two. There are no large groups of zoms out here, except maybe in Braggs, but that’s a good ninety miles from here. Speaking of alphas, how’s the science experiment going? Have you guys learned anything useful about alphas yet?”
“Not yet.”
It’s certainly not for lack of effort. Gary and Johnny have thrown themselves into the job with complete dedication. They spend most nights together after dinner going over alpha recordings taken during the day and trying to find patterns in them.
“I’m sure there will be a breakthrough eventually,” Alvarez says.
“Yo. Mama Bear.” Johnny, who sits on the other side of the table, taps his watch. “Time is up. Like, thirty minutes ago.” He grins at me, though he makes it a point to flip open his notebook and uncap his pen.
I chuckle. “Hey, Foot Soldier, I gotta go. Wandering Writer is chomping at the bit. Who’s the girl he’s talking to?”
Johnny makes a face at me.
“Bella. She’s right here tapping her watch at me.”
“Funny, Johnny is doing the same thing to me.”
“Is she really tapping her watch?” Johnny asks.
I roll my eyes and ignore the question. “Check back in three days from now, Foot Soldier?”
“Three days, Mama Bear.”
37
Infrasound
KATE
I climb to the third floor of Fern where Johnny and Gary have set up their observation room. I like to check in on the boys once a day. We’ve had the alpha for a little over two weeks now. While we haven’t had any breakthroughs, they’ve done a remarkable job at breaking down and recording individual sounds made by the alpha.
Our people have cobbled together enough two-by-fours and pieces of plywood that we now have a ramp system for Gary in both Creekside and Juniper. As far as I know, Johnny has only tipped over the wheelchair once. I would have excused Gary from this assignment altogether if he hadn’t been so excited by it. Between cooking for all of us and observing the alpha, Gary has managed to be as busy as the rest of us.
Gary and Johnny’s voices drift down the stairwell to me. It’s clear they’re having a spirited debate about something.
“I’m telling you, there’s something else going on that we can’t replicate with our human vocal cords,” Johhny is saying.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Gary argues. “They have the same vocal cords that we have. We should be able to make any sound they make.”
“They’re not the same. They’re undead, remember?”
“I know, man, but biologically their vocal cords are the same.”
“Maybe they changed. I mean, the rest of their bodies changed. Now they’re blind, mindless cannibals. Have you ever heard of infrasound?”
I enter the room. “Infra what?” I ask.
Both young men turn their attention to me. “Hey, Kate,” they say in unison.
The room looks like a cheap flea market stand. Notebooks, pens, books, VHS tape recorders, and cassette players are all over the floor and furniture. I don’t know how they get from one side to the other without tripping on something.
Without a steady source of electricity, we’ve had to fall back on more primitive recording methods. Luckily the town of Arcata, with its population of outliers and anti-establishment folks, has a fair amount of pre-Internet tech. A string of homes just on the other side of the freeway produced no less than two hand-held recorders, five tape players, and two shoe boxes worth of cassette tapes.
“Gary and I were just talking about infrasound,” Johnny says. “Those are sounds below the human range of hearing. Elephants make them. They use it to communicate over long-range distances. Maybe the alphas are doing something like that.”
“You have the weirdest shit catalogued in your brain.” Gary looks torn between annoyance and admiration.
“It’s the job of a writer to be interested in weird shit.”
I approach the hole we’ve cut into the floor of this room. We’ve covered the two-foot square opening with a section of chain-link fence to make sure no one falls through on accident.
In the room below, the alpha paces back and forth. It grunts and clicks. The two regular zombies we’ve captured follow the alpha. Back and forth, back and forth they go across the room. The oozing wounds on their bodies have seeped onto the carpet, leaving a reddish-brown smear to mark their trail. The smell is akin to ripened road kill on steroids.
“Tell me why you guys are talking about infrasound,” I say.
“Watch this.” Johnny leans over the hole and makes a complex string of clicks and keens with his mouth. It sounds so like the language of the alpha zom that I shiver. But despite the resemblance of sound, the zombies below don’t react.
“Same happens when I do it. Watch.” Gary repeats the same complex string of sound. Again, nothing happens.
“Now, watch this.” Johnny picks up one of the tape recorders. It looks like a boom box from the nineties. We had to scavenge in five houses to find enough batteries to power it, but Johnny insisted on having it due to its size.
He positions the boom box next to the hole, turns up the volume, and hits play.
The exact same series of clicks and keens roll out of the big black speakers.
The reactions below are instantaneous.
The two regular zombies rush to the farthest corner of the room. When they hit the walls, they scratch at the dry wall. They grunt and moan, bumping against the wall as though trying to walk through to the other side.
The alpha, on the other hand, does no such thing. The old woman alpha advances on the opening above, lips peeled back in snarl. It hisses and grunts, the sounds coming out of its mouth in rapid fire.
“We think she’s defending her property,” Gary says. “She thinks another alpha is trying to take her pack out from under her.”
“Notice how neither Gary nor I could replicate this same reaction when we mimicked the sounds,” Johnny says.
“Man, I’m telling you, that’s not it,” Gary argues. “Did you know that in Mandarin, the same word has multiple meanings depending on voice inflection? We must be missing something. We’re not making the sounds the right way.”
“No, man.” Johnny shakes his head. “We’re replicating exactly what we hear. There’s something else at play. I’m telling you, it could be infrasound. We need some sort of machine to help us detect undetectable sounds.” He taps the end of his pen against his temple, grimacing. “Think we can find something like that in one of labs on campus?”
Gary snorts. “Even if we could, none of us would know how to use it.”
“You guys are missing the most important discovery.” I frown at them quizzically. “Did either of you realize this series of sounds drove the regular zombies away?” I point to the two creatures that continue to scratch and dig at the far wall of their prison. “Do you realize what we might be able to do with this?”
They look at me as if I’ve just hit them both over the head with a frying pan.
“Woah.” Johnny goggles at me. “Dude, Kate, I’m sorry for being an idiot.”
“We missed the forest through the trees. We’re fucking idiots, man.” Gary elbows Johnny in the ribs.
“You’re the idiot,” Johnny shoots back with an easy smile. “You’re the one who keeps going on and on about Mandarin inflections.”
“I’m telling you—”
“Guys, shut up for a second.” My mind snaps into overdrive as an idea rushes in. “We need to test this out. We need a megaphone to see if we can use the recording to repel zombies from Creekside.” The idea makes my insides tingle. This could be the very thing we need to protect our home from alphas.
“Megaphones. Yeah, good idea.” Johnny nods. “We should get the ones at the track.”
Gary makes a face. “Dude, those are, like, fifty feet up in the air. How do you propose getting them down?”
38
Security System
KATE
“I think you’re violating every OSHA law ever written.” Ben comes to stand next to me. He shades his eyes as he looks up.
Reed currently hangs from a metal beam in the covered section of the university bleachers, held in place by a rope harness crafted by Todd and Caleb. In his hands are a screwdriver and wire clipper. He works to remove the megaphone mounted to the top of a ceiling support while Todd and Caleb hold him up by the rope.
“What’s OSHA?” I ask.
“Occupational Safety Health Administration. A bureaucracy dedicated to keeping people from dying or getting maimed on the job. I think the entire administration would be apoplectic if they had to keep track of you.”
I frown in surprise. “Did you just ... make another joke?”
He continues to shade his eyes and watch Reed’s operation. “Maybe.”
“That’s two jokes in the six months I’ve known you.”
“Yep.”
“Keep that up and you might be funny four times in an entire year.”
“Yep.”
I can’t help it. A laugh bubbles up. Ben gives me his eye-crinkle smile.
My stomach flutters. Other than our mission to retrieve the alpha zom, we haven’t spent much time together. I haven’t forgotten our shared moment the morning of my hangover. Or that moment in his bedroom when I thought I might end up in the bottom bunk with him.
“How many of those things do you plan to retrieve today?” Ben asks. “The kid might really break his head open, you know.”
This comment is followed by shouting between Reed, Caleb, and Todd.
“Dudes!” Reed calls down. “Hold still, will you?”
“We are holding still,” Todd shoots back. “You keep swinging around.”
“There’s wind up here. Not my fault.”
“Just hurry up and get the damn megaphone,” Caleb shouts. “Your ass is heavy.”
“We’ll start with one megaphone,” I say to Ben. “No reason to risk Reed’s head if my idea doesn’t work.”
Several hours later, everyone except Gary is gathered on the rooftop of Creekside. Johnny holds the megaphone in one hand. With a pair of trimmed headphone wires and a soldering gun, he connected the megapho
ne to the boom box with the alpha recording.
“Good thing I grabbed those electrical wiring books before Mama Bear blew up the library,” Johnny says.
“I hope you guys grabbed an Anarchist’s Cookbook,” Todd says. “We might need one of those someday.”
“Shhh.” I wave a hand at the guys to shut them up. “Everyone, pay attention.”
On the ground below, Carter and Jenn stand on the western side of the compound. They each hold a metal pot and spoon.
“This feels counterintuitive,” Susan says. “Since when do we call zombies to us?”
“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” Gary calls up from the hallway below. He might not be able to get up the ladder, but he still wants to be close to the action. “Don’t worry. This is going to work.”
“I’m just saying,” Susan mutters.
She isn’t wrong. We’ve gone to great lengths to secure our home and keep zombies out of our living space. Banging on metal pots to draw some toward us is counterintuitive. Not to mention dangerous if my plan doesn’t work.
I peer over the edge of the building at Carter and Jenna and wave my arms over my head. At my signal, the two of them beat on the pots with their spoons. Everyone on the rooftop cringes at the noise.
It doesn’t take long for the zombies to arrive. A dozen make their way toward Creekside, shuffling along with their arms outstretched.
I let Jenna and Carter pound away for another sixty seconds. Then I wave my arms again, signaling them to stop.
We wait for the zombies to bump up against our barrier. Then I turn to Johnny.
“You’re on,” I tell him.
Johnny positions himself at the corner of the rooftop, aims the megaphone in the direction of the zoms, and hits play on the boom box.
The recorded sequence of clicks and keens bounds through the quiet. A shiver runs across my skin at the unearthly sound.
The reaction of the zoms below is instantaneous. With a collective moan, they fall back from our perimeter. On the ground below, Carter flashes me a thumbs-up.
“Is it working?” Gary calls. “Is it driving them away? Somebody tell me what’s happening!”
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 79
