by Lahey, Tyler
Adira waved distractedly to a team of workers pushing wheelbarrows of stone to the new dam. “We fight a few infected every week. Maybe five times, we’ve dealt with twenty at once. We’ve heard the whispers. There could be thousands traveling together, looking for another food source.”
“We’re organized. We’re armed. There are hundreds of us now. Ten different settlements all linked back to here, to this high school. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be, Adira.”
Adira forced a smile, but her gut was churning with fear.
North East of the Valley, The Church
“They’re not real. The Hordes aren’t nothin’ but a rumor. Groups of infected in the thousands? Why would they even stick together like that?” Leeroy demanded, his pasty face stretching into a sneer.
Bennett rose from his sleeping bag between the pews, and sniffed the foul air. They needed to scrub the blood from the wood. He kicked a flap of deerskin in disgust. “Why do you keep cutting the deer up inside the church? This is where we sleep,” he muttered to no one in particular. He took a look around the sagging church with dusty pews. This was a sad place for his exile.
A rail thin man with wispy grey hair raised his finger in the dark church and began to speak. “They’re real. I’ve seen them. My wife and I, as I’ve said-“ Leeroy guffawed, interrupting the man, and wiped the sweat from his peach fuzz in the torchlight.
“Leeroy, shut the fuck up,” Bennett demanded. “Go on, friend.”
The old man resumed, wheezing for breath. Some of the others in the church stopped playing their board games and paused to listen. “We took a sailboat down from Nova Scotia. And you could see them, moving on the shorelines. Thousands and thousands. Lord above… the stench was so terrible, even miles offshore. The Hordes aren’t some fantasy, boy.”
Leeroy cackled, obviously drunk. “So who’s our line of defense right now? We’ve got two middle schoolers at the top of the steeple with a wooden bow and arrow.”
A short, squat woman wearing a thick denim dress adjusted the long torch in the middle of the wooden church. “God did not bring us here to die in this here valley. Everyone is here to rebuild in the name of the Lord, in His fashion, in the way He has envisioned.”
Leeroy toppled from his perch atop the pew and fell backwards onto a board game, scattering the pieces and sending the children scrambling. Rising, he finished the last of the moonshine in a single gulp. “That’s right. We’re all here to rebuild this church, except two. Not me, and not him,” his pudgy finger wagged at Bennett’s crouched form.
Bennett rose from his sleeping bag, furious Leeroy was so foolish after a few drinks.
Leeroy either didn’t notice, or pretended not to. His face flush red, he sauntered around the room, till all twelve people there were watching him in horror. Only then did he continue. “See y’all don’t know, being spring arrivals…but Bennett has been here since the beginning. For four hundred forty days, right Bennett? You can see him getting nervous now! I love it. Bennett has been exiled, that’s right. None of the factions will have him.”
The old man stepped forward, his wispy white hair frazzled in the night’s humidity. “Is that true, Bennett?”
Bennett groaned inside, but knew he had to seize this opportunity. “I had some disagreements with the faction leaders, before they were faction leaders. So no, I was not invited to join any of their precious factions.”
The squat woman shooed two children away at her feet to step within a foot of Bennett. She raised her hands to explore his face. He recoiled at first, but then relented, bereft of other options.
“You’ve made some bad decisions, have you not?”
Bennett nodded, unable to withdraw himself.
The woman cooed knowingly. “I know. We all have. But all is forgiven in the light of the Lord. He only asks you give yourself to his mercy, ask for his forgiveness and let Him into your life. We accept you, Bennett.”
Was it really that easy? Bennett nodded his head emphatically. “It wasn’t chance that led me to this Church. It was something greater.”
The old man took a step closer in the torchlight, and Bennett could hear the others inside the church rising to their feet. Leeroy was dumbfounded in the corner. “The Lord has led you to us. Once a sinner, and now you are reborn in his Light.”
A murmur of amen’s from the present crowd. Bennett closed his eyes, and nodded. “I don’t want to be a part of their schemes and their worldly divisions.”
The old man nodded. “You won’t be. Will they protect us while we are on our mission here? Should we prepare to defend ourselves against the infected?”
“The factions will protect us. They may not want me,” Bennett assured them, “but they will protect us. In their egotistical way they still think we’re their citizens. We’re on Main Street. The Wolf covers all the ridges surrounding the Valley. The Lion plugs any breaches in the ravines. The Bear protects the settlements, and the Destrier moves everyone around.”
The sturdy woman added another oil soaked rag to the torch. “You know a lot about them. Should we worry about the Eagle?”
Bennett’s mouth hung open. “You know about the Eagle?”
They laughed at him in the church. “We’re religious boy, but we’re not stupid. We’ve heard the rumors. Tell us.”
Bennett saw Leeroy’s fiendish grin resume in the corner. He ignored it. “The Eagle is the only faction the Council uses to deal with other survivors. They have the best equipment, all the military gear still left, and they’re the most elite. If the Council runs out of food, they send the Eagle to raid other settlements of survivors outside of the valley. If there are rebellious settlements that try to hide their own supplies, they send the Eagle.”
A silence hung in the smoky room. The matron spoke first. “Will they bother us?”
Bennett shook his head, “As long as Jaxton is alive and in overall command, they will never hurt us, or me.”
The matron nodded. “I appreciate the half hearted conversion a minute ago. Time will tell if that was real or not. But till then, you could prove useful to us. You know these people. With all that in mind, welcome.”
Chapter Three
South Ravine
“There it is.” Jaxton closed his eyes as the corners of his mouth turned up. The soft breeze rustled his hair slightly, and he welcomed its warmth.
The trees sighed gratefully around the cold metal fire tower. The darkness was crowding him as he stood at the base of the ladder. There was no moon tonight. He heard voices above, and ascended happily to meet them.
“He thinks he has a shot with Dinah. Wishful thinking, bru. I mean, by all means, dream on. You do you, you know?”
Liam regarded Duke coolly, his eyes icy in the humid August air. “She asked me how comfortable my cot is.”
Duke rose to lean on one arm. “Wait, she brought up your cot?”
“She said it looks comfortable, and she asked if we could share it sometime. Hers is moldy, I think,” Liam replied casually, his eyes scanning the forests that stretched out below them in darkness.
Duke jabbed Jaxton as he laid down once more in his sleeping bag. “Did you hear this? This guy has been making moves under the radar?”
Jaxton grunted, “I heard it. Tomorrow we finish sweeping the ridge. If we’re lucky there won’t be any more ravines.”
Duke lay back down, grumbling and groaning dramatically. “If they exist at all, they should have hit us by now. Summer’s almost over.”
Liam kicked his double-barreled shotgun and helmet nosily while attempting to squeeze into a sleeping bag. “Troy didn’t make it up. The Hordes are coming sooner or later.”
Duke stared at the stars. “We should have left, should have left at first sign of spring.”
Jaxton groaned, feeling his eyelids fluttering. “There’s no better place to be. The walls of the valley protect us on all sides. We only have to cover four entrances.”
“Five. That river we found today is practi
cally a dry bed. Easily passable.”
“Five, then. We have the men to plug them,” Jaxton assented.
“What are you going to do with Bennett? He’s still living with those nuts in the Church on Main Street.”
Jaxton murmured, wishing they would shut up. He still had not decided what to do with his old friend.
...
The following dawn, they rose cheerfully. After a quick meal of salted venison and diced potatoes, the trio set off along the rocky ridge, five hundred feet above the valley floor. They had been out in the wild two days, and their task had been clear; find out exactly how many points of entry the infected could swarm through. Five ravines had already been marked and mapped.
The mosquitoes were breeding and eager; they swarmed the muscled hikers as the group moved quietly beneath the trees. Jaxton lingered for a moment, transfixed by a single leaf. He sighed at its brown color; summer was leaving them.
After three hours of hiking, the trio grew somber. Another ravine cut across their path. “Last stop,” Jaxton said gravelly.
“What did they do with those bodies?” Liam asked, craning his neck down to the passageway nature had cut through the ridge’s hard granite.
Duke steadied him from behind. “Troy had them burned.”
“Come. This is as far as we go.” Jaxton led them down the rocky defile, to where the slaughter of Troy’s soldiers had taken place a season ago. As they moved through the ravine below, figures came to life in the valley beyond.
“STOP!” A voice ran shrill and clear.
Jaxton did not stop. He held up his rifle, in greeting to the four men and women staring at him from behind taut bowstrings. Wolves outlined in silver thread shone on their camouflage. They alone dispatched the infected with hunting bows.
“Put your bows down, for fuck’s sake,” Duke muttered.
Jaxton extended his arm in greeting, and it was clasped firmly. Billy nodded.
“Good to see you boys.” His bushy black beard vibrated as he talked. “We took down three yesterday, all coming through the ravine. Real lean-looking. Lean and mean, I might add.”
“So they’re getting hungrier, and weaker. That’s good, they’ll be easier to kill.” Jaxton nodded to himself, pleased. Billy had been a good choice to command the Wolf. The others under his command gathered around sheepishly, feeling ashamed to have drawn their bows on a Councilman. Jaxton reached out and ran his fingers over the Wolf patch on one of their breasts. “They turned out nicely.”
Billy grinned. He was a much more energetic man after the death of Lieutenant Agis. “It’s a two hour hike back to the Citadel. You’ll be hungry. Camp’s this a ways.”
He turned on his heel and led a path through the fallen boulders. The three others under his command, Billy left guarding the ravine.
In a little dell beyond the ravine, there was a small camp. One lonely woman tended a pathetic fire surrounded by a half dozen two-man tents. As they approached, she jumped to her feet.
“Where’s your weapon Layla?”
The girl scrambled, reaching into one of the tents red faced and shaking. “Here, Billy. Got it right here.” Like the others, she held a compound bow and wore army camouflage. The Wolf’s mark in silver thread shone on her breast.
Billy shook his head as he approached. “If the infected had taken me and them other boys down, they would be rollin’ through this here camp, with you in their bellies by the time they cleared the treeline.”
Layla looked at the little pile of embers burning slowly below her. “Sorry Billy. It gets boring, watching the camp.”
Liam strolled in between them and took the ladle from a steaming bowl. “Potatoes. I don’t know why I guessed any different,” he muttered, before noisily easing down on a stump. “Weren’t you one of the Lieutenant’s whores?” Liam asked loudly.
Layla opened her mouth and stopped.
“Misguided, is all.” Billy said. “Which is why she’s out here, to prove her worth. Ain’t that right?”
Layla nodded nervously, to Liam’s bemusement. He yawned elaborately. “Why don’t you make yourself useful right now, pick a tent.”
Jaxton chuckled. “No, no, no. Pardon our manners. Layla, get to the ravine, your friends up there looked hungry.”
The girl snatched the pot of hissing potatoes and scampered off out of the valley.
Jaxton seated himself heavily, with the weight of the last six months balanced on his shoulders. “We have bad news Billy. There’s a final entrance. A final ravine. Dry riverbed. Must have been flowing in the winter and someone figured it was impassable. Well now that river is dry it leads right into the fields where they’re planting all that corn.”
Billy sighed, without looking up. “Spose I know what that means. I don’t have any more people to send. I’ve got twenty five stretched out over the four ravines as is. We get a few infected that try to come thru a week. Can’t risk lightening those defenses.”
Jaxton sighed. “No, we can’t. I’m giving you another five men. Pulling them from the Bear.”
Billy stiffened visibly. “Settlement defense?”
Jaxton’s eyes gleamed with the joy of command. “Liam is going to handpick some of his people from the Bear. The best candidates.”
Liam grinned at the dirt. “Handpick. You’ll get the best. Scout’s honor.”
Billy leaned in, sweat dripping down his face in the summer haze. “Knock it the hell off, Liam.”
Liam rose, and Jaxton barked. Duke stood immediately and pushed Liam back. “Liam, go take a walk,” Jaxton ordered sternly. Liam looked like he would argue, but then spat on the dirt and sulked away into the foliage.
Billy shook his head and kicked a stone from the firepit. “I think it’s about time he stopped getting a pass for being a damned asshole.”
Jaxton sighed, with bags under his steely eyes. “He lost a good friend and a girl he used to love in one day, right in front of him.”
Billy raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I get it. And that was seven months ago. How many times have I heard you use that excuse?”
“He hates the Bear,” Duke ventured, quietly.
Jaxton turned to him in disbelief. “He hates it? What do you mean? It’s a proud faction.”
“You made him take the weakest faction. The faction with the least importance. He gets the laziest survivors because the infected never make it in the valley anymore. He gets the worst weapons while Troy gets the M4s, Billy gets the compound bows and sniper rifles, you get the shields, axes and armor. Adira has command of a fleet of ATVs and horses. Liam’s guys don’t really do much of anything, except break up household fights between drunk couples.”
Jaxton shook his head to clear it. He needed to rest. “I thought he would want something easier. Since when are people competing for dangerous factions?”
Duke picked the bark off his stool. “They have the most prestige. People look up to them.”
Billy exhaled, “Liam’s too proud to complain to you. He looks up to you, still.”
Jaxton ground his teeth, annoyed only with himself. “’I’ll deal with that later. I’m going to review his selections for you. I want you to put together a team that shuttles back and forth between all ravines, to replenish supplies and rotate men. The doc will come with, some days.”
Billy felt his pace quicken. “The doc huh, uhh Annabelle?” His mouth worked excitedly.
The men grinned, seeing the change come over the hillbilly. “Her.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Billy managed.
Jaxton smiled, and clasped him on his shoulder. “The hunting teams bring in more meat every day. That was your doing, if I’m not mistaken.”
Billy blushed easily. “Well- It was nothing’, I-“
Jaxton cut him off. “Is there a Destrier unit near?”
“Matter of fact there is. Half a mile back by the general store. They service two ravines.”
“Who’s the driver?”
“Tiny fella named Roy.
And some gal with a shaved head is on the guard duty. She carries a mean lookin’ revolver.”
Jaxton smiled knowingly, “Kylie. We need to get back to the Citadel. I’ll send you more food, I know you’re running low.”
Billy rose, and nodded in subservience to a man half his age. But he didn’t mind. Jaxton was good, and he was strong.
Chapter Four
The Citadel
“The Wolf has been in the field for eighteen days, with no rotation back to the Citadel or any of the other settlements.”
Jaxton thumbed the crinkly corner of his map with rough hands in the firelight. “We can’t pull them. I visited yesterday, with Duke and Liam. More infected are finding the ravines daily. All teams combined killed thirty-three last week. Thirty-three. That’s far more than we were seeing a week in July, June, or May.” He looked to an empty oaken stool, where Billy should have been sitting. The man had insisted on remaining in the field with his camouflaged, bow-wielding survivalists. They alone held the ridges against the infected.
“And yet some slip through,” Troy growled. He had shed a traditional army uniform long ago, preferring to don a dark forest camouflage outfit with a red eagle sewn onto the shoulder. “My team gets called to do cleanups at the outlier settlements weekly. That’s not why the Eagle was created. We aren’t here to do the Bear’s work. Settlement defense is a waste for our firepower.” He shot a glance at Liam, standing across the oak.
Liam coughed quietly; the air was thick with smoke in the tiny annex. Then he raised his bloodshot eyes. “Don’t leave anything unsaid.”
Troy stiffened, but Jaxton cut him off before he could speak. “We need more food. Duke. What’s our current outlook?”
“The hunting teams can keep us fed till the end of fall, I’d estimate. Obviously we ran out of canned food in the spring. We’ll need to store the meat for winter, or fish…I don’t know, we’ve never had this many people to care for.”
