Dead Man's Land

by R. J. Spears

  This commander eyed Russell, Jo, and Tommy as if he were looking at livestock. He nodded and the extra-large soldier gave Aaron and Maggie a shove. The two them stumbled forward and Russell bought his hands out to prevent them from falling. It was then he noticed that Aaron and Maggie had their hands tie-wrapped together tightly.

  While the ring of soldiers maintained their aim on the group, the big soldier seemed relaxed and at ease with what looked like a small smile. His face was broad, with a blocked off chin covered with dark stubble.

  The commander, on the other hand, remained controlled. His face was shaved neatly with a healthy, fresh glow. He moved to within inches of Russell’s face, but then stepped back and looked to the circle of soldiers.

  “Weapons down,” he snapped off in a voice of command.

  The soldiers slowly dropped their aim and Russell felt a slight sense of relief.

  The commander brought his attention back to Russell and the others. “My name is Colonel Kilgore. I am in command of these men, both of the Air Force and the Army. I need to ask if there are any more of your people inside?”

  Jo shook her head.

  He continued, “Okay. Thanks for that information. Please give me a moment.”

  He took off his sunglasses, pocketed them, and turned to the over-sized soldier. “Sergeant Jones, would you please disburse the men to strategic positions around this complex.”

  “Yes, sir,” the big soldier said. He then turned to the troops and shouted a series of orders, his voice booming like a megaphone. Some of the soldiers jumped back on vehicles and drove off, while others jogged to the front of the complex and another group went to the back. A dozen soldiers stuck with the Colonel and sergeant.

  “Are there any deaders inside?” the big soldier asked.

  Jo stayed quiet and Russell hesitated for a moment, then said, “There could be some in the front building, but we think most of that building burned.

  The big soldier shouted another set of orders and six of the remaining men streamed by Russell and the others and made their way into the building, weapons up and ready.

  Colonel Kilgore spoke again, “Before we continue, Sergeant, can we release these two people’s hands?” He pointed at Aaron and Maggie.

  Sergeant Jones looked hesitant at first, but then complied when the Colonel nodded his head again. There was nothing spoken, but the nod was definitely a command.

  Jones moved forward and used a small set of wire clippers he produced from a pocket in his fatigues and snipped away the tie-wraps on their wrists. Aaron rubbed his wrists for a moment and glared at Jones as he stepped back next to Kilgore.

  “I’m truly sorry about having to have confined you earlier,” Kilgore said to Aaron and Maggie. “These are dangerous times and not everyone is behaving in the most pro-social ways. We have encountered many who don’t think the rules apply any more. I’m sure you may have, also.” He paused for a response, but no one offered up any further information. “There are some preliminary items that must be dispensed with. What is happening in our country, and our world, is unprecedented. Because of the virus, much of our social order has broken down. We, meaning the military, are working to re-establish what we can, but with our communication networks not operating all that well and the virus still running rampant, it is a quite challenging. Despite our best efforts, we have found it slow going.”

  “Is there more of you around?” Jo asked.

  “There are pockets, yes,” Kilgore said. “In Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. I’m sorry to say that with the exception of Kansas, there’s nothing to speak of in the west. We have communicated with unstructured forces in Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.”

  “What about D.C.?” Jo asked.

  The Colonel shook his head, his expression pained. “We heard some chatter early on, but none recently.”

  “Why are you here?” Aaron said, his tone sharp.

  Kilgore held up a hand in a stop gesture and said, “In a moment. I’ll get to that. We have reason to believe that there were many more people here. Where is the rest of your group?”

  “When the zombie horde came, we sent out as many as we could to get them to safety,” Jo said. “There was a man controlling the zombies and he was hell-bent on killing all of us.”

  Kilgore and Jones exchanged curious glances and Kilgore turned his attention back to Jo. “What do you mean, controlling?”

  “Through some sort of electronic remote control,” Jo said.

  “Where is this man now?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “And what about his control of the zombies?”

  “We destroyed the broadcasting capabilities of his system.”

  Kilgore paused for a moment. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this man?”

  “She was with him.” Jo pointed at Maggie and Maggie shrank back, but there was no place to go.

  “He made me do it,” Maggie said, her hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “He said he’d kill me.”

  “Shhh, shhh,” Kilgore said, trying to calm Maggie down. “I’m sure he did. Does that contraption you have on have anything to do with controlling the zombies? Including the collar?”

  “This fucking collar is used to shock us,” Maggie spat out. “I saw him shock one woman to death. This fucking thing’s going to go off tomorrow morning and it’s going to kill me.”

  “Why don’t you just cut it off?” Kilgore asked.

  “Because he said messing with it would set it off.”

  “I think we might be able to help you, but I’m getting side-tracked here,” Kilgore said. “Where exactly are the rest your people?”

  Aaron leaned close to Jo and whispered, “Don’t trust these assholes.”

  “What was that?” Kilgore asked.

  Aaron didn’t respond, but simply stared at the Colonel.

  “They went east,” Jo said.

  “But don’t you have a rendezvous point?”

  Jo hesitated, then responded with a prepared lie. “Jackson. It’s a town not too far east of here.” They never knew if some of their own might be captured by enemy forces and forced to divulge the destination. It was better to give up something than hold out. Withholding looked like you had something to hide. Lying, on the other hand, was a time honored way to keep people guessing.

  “Can you call them back?” Kilgore asked.

  “Yes,” Jo said. “If they are in range.”

  “Do you think they are?”

  “I have no idea, but they were to leave and just keep on going.”

  He paused for a moment. “Can you try to call them now?”

  Jo hesitated for a moment, not knowing why she didn’t trust this man. The soldiers had come and taken out all the zombies. Yes, they had treated Aaron and Maggie roughly, but she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t have been as careful as the soldiers had been in a case like this. Yes, Aaron had said that they shouldn’t trust these guys, but this was an emotionally charged situation and Aaron had just lost Brandon.

  She mulled all this over in a matter of seconds, but knew that there was no getting around it. She’d make the call or he eventually would. But they had plans for this eventuality, too. Before he died, Greg had put forth a series of code words to tip off remote teams that something was up.

  “Sure,” she said as she reached into a pocket on her tactical vest and retrieved the walkie-talkie. “I’m fairly sure they’re out of range, but I’ll give it a try.” She took a breath and pushed the talk button. “Escape convoy, this is Home Base Alpha.” And there was the code phrase, ‘Home Base Alpha.’ That meant that the remote teams should remain cautious if they returned. She only hoped that the escape convoy got the message or was long gone.

  She repeated the call. “Escape convoy, this is Home Base Alpha, please come in.” She released the talk button and waited. Nothing but static came back. The seconds clicked by and she watched a slight tick appear in the Colonel’s face. It was an almost unnoticeab
le muscle spasm at the back of his jaw. The muscle would twitch and then it would twitch again a few seconds later. Something about this twitch bothered Jo. It was as if the Colonel had some sort of energy bottled up inside that was ready to get out like a volcano about to erupt.

  “I’m guessing they’re gone,” Jo said.

  “That’s too bad,” Kilgore said. “That’s too bad, indeed.” He paused for a moment and reached into his jacket and retrieved a small piece of paper which he palmed in his hand. He looked up into the blue sky, taking it all in as if he didn’t have a care in the world. After about five seconds, he brought his attention back to Jo and retrieved the piece of paper and held it out to her. It was a photo of Jason.

  “Have you seen this man?”

  This was the moment of truth and Jo knew it. So did Russell and Aaron. With exception of their rough treatment of Aaron and Maggie, the soldiers had been a force of good, ridding them of the zombies in an awe inspiring fashion, but there was a gnawing doubt at the back of Jo’s mind. Joel had warned them that the soldiers would kill Jason if they got their hands on him. But how did Joel really know this? Could he have been wrong? And where was he when they were having to take the heat?

  Jo stalled with a question, “Who is he?” She knew it took her in a certain direction, though, and it would be hard to walk back from it.

  “His name is Jason Carter and, as far as we know, he is immune to the virus. He was at our medical facility, but he took off. We believe that he could be a key to creating a serum or vaccine.”

  “So, you can make a vaccine?” Russell asked.

  “We think we can, son,” Kilgore answered, “but not without Jason Carter.”

  “Why did he leave your facility?” Aaron asked.

  “I can’t tell you that, exactly. We think he might be mentally unstable. Listen, I don’t have time for all these questions. Have you seen him or not?”

  Aaron took the next step and said, “No. We haven’t seen him.”

  Kilgore moved the photo in front of Russell’s face. “How about you?”

  “No,” Russell answered as confidently as he could.

  Kilgore slowly moved the photo in front of Jo’s face. “Can you take a closer look? Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

  In for an inch, in for a mile, Jo thought. “No.”

  Kilgore skipped Tommy and displayed the photo to Maggie. “How about you? Have you seen this man?” Of the adults, she was the only one to answer honestly. “Nope. I’ve never seen him.”

  Kilgore skipped Tommy and withdrew the photo while slowly shaking his head as he pushed the photo back into his jacket pocket. He turned around and put his hands behind his back, knitting his fingers together.

  Despite the warmth from the sun, Jo felt a chill flow through her body, bringing out rows of goose bumps on her arms. She had grown up in the ‘70s and the term “bad vibes’ seemed to be emanating off this soldier in waves.

  Without warning, Kilgore swung back around, pivoting on his heels, while also whipping out his pistol, and slapped the barrel across Jo’s head in a vicious arc. The impact reminded Russell of a baseball bat hitting a worn out softball. Jo went weak at the knees and started to collapse in on herself. Russell jerked out a hand and caught her by the arm just as Aaron reached out to grab Jo from behind. They stopped her descent, but the light left her eyes as she fell into unconsciousness.

  “What the fuck?” Aaron shouted at the Colonel.

  “I don’t think you people are telling me the truth!” Kilgore shouted back. “Don’t you people care about this country? Don’t you see how this Jason Carter might be the salvation for us all?”

  Sergeant Jones made a cautious step towards the Colonel, but held back.

  “I think Jason Carter was here,” Kilgore said, his voice dropping back to a normal intensity. “I think you know where he is.”

  “We told you we don’t know him,” Russell said. “And even if he had been here, he would be gone now.”

  “Gone, yes,” Kilgore said, nodding his head. “East, I think you said. Jackson, you said. I doubt that. It doesn’t really matter. We’ll get them back.” He turned from them to Sergeant Jones. “Jones, send the choppers out to escort,” he put air quotes up with the word escort,“ these bastards back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jones said and started to pull out a walkie-talkie, but stopped. “What do you want me to do about these people?”

  “Get them inside and lock them up somewhere,” Kilgore said. “And get any weapons and communication gear off them.”

  Chapter 41

  Into the Deadlands

  I listened intently for a few seconds and, just to be sure, stuck the upper half of my torso out the window to get a better take on what might be happening.

  The helicopter’s blades beat their regular and loud rhythm, but sounded distant, maintaining a consistent volume. I could only take it that they hadn’t spot us and had returned to the complex.

  I pulled myself back into the truck and said, “I think they’re back at The Manor.”

  Where Brother Ed had shown little restraint when it came to blustering away in town meetings, he seemed strangely tight-lipped. This certainly wasn’t a talk show, and I didn’t really want to draw him out.

  I pressed the gas and went forward, toward the mass of zombies heading our way.

  “Do you think this truck will make it through them?” Brother Ed asked.

  “She’ll do it,” I said. “We cut through a whole mess of them in the field. She’ll do it again.” But there was a whole new mess of them on the road by now.

  The truck rumbled along, scraping by trees encroaching on either side of the road, picking up momentum. The zombies seemed unfazed by the approaching truck. In fact, they seemed the exact opposite of being worried or concerned and looked expectant. Even eager.

  I turned out to be right. The old beast of a truck cut through them like a large dull knife through a mass of cold, dead, and mushy flesh. The first few were literally bludgeoned off their feet with a couple having their torsos ripped free of their legs with their upper halves being tossed into the waiting zombies behind them, while their legs went under the truck. The mass of undead bodies did slow us down some after smashing through the first three to four rows, but we kept on truckin’, as they say. The worst of it was how the tires sometimes lost traction as we drove over the compacted and pulped bodies. It took a few minutes, but we left a trail of broken and mangled bodies behind us.

  We were about halfway through the woods when the sound of the helicopters changed again. Their volume increased, as if they were on the move and getting closer to us. The canopy of trees that had once concealed us thinned out. I saw a thicker covering ahead of us and goosed the gas pedal to get us under it in a hurry and stopped there, waiting to see if we had been discovered or not.

  It didn’t take long to find out. Three seconds after I brought the truck to a halt, both of the helicopters rushed overhead and shot eastward like missiles. Those things were fast, and I sensed an urgency in their flight. Maybe I was just anxious, though.

  I waited for just over a minute, listening intently, waiting for the two choppers to return and blast us to pieces, but the sound of their rotors disappeared in the distance. There was nothing to do, but continue on.

  As I approached a break in the woods, I slowed the truck down to a crawl. The old farm house lay at the top of a hill that overlooked fallow farm fields on the west and the south. My eyes scanned around the house and the barn, but I saw nothing and that’s when I started to worry.

  Why wasn’t Kara there? Had something happened? Had the helicopter discovered and taken them out? But there hadn’t been any sounds of gunfire, so that was out.

  I edged out of the woods and started across the farm fields through waist high weeds. The ground was rough and we bounced along until we left the untended field and into a grassy meadow. I searched the house for any signs of life, but saw none as we closed on it and this only increased my c
oncern.

  I navigated the truck out of the grass and over to a long gravel road that led up the hill to the house. I resisted the urge to gun the truck up the hill and watched the house as we climbed the road, slow and steady. About halfway up I caught some movement, and I edged my foot off the gas pedal. A lone figure came around the corner of the house and started towards us at a halting shamble.

  It was another damned zombie. A tall thin male in what looked like overalls.

  That didn’t help my nervousness. It made it about four steps from the house when its head exploded in a corona of blood and gore as it toppled forward, sliding face first down the hill until it came to a stop. I brought the truck to a quick stop and reached for my pistol. In my peripheral vision, I saw Brother Ed bring up his rifle.

  Another dark figure came around the corner of the house, silhouetted by the sun and stood in place. It was as if time stood still for the next few seconds. A bird tweeted away somewhere in the field. The tall grass swayed back and forth, wafting on the breeze.

  The figure moved out of the shadows and came into full view. It was Kara. She had her rifle at her side and looked down the hill at us. Something swelled within me and I was nearly overcome with emotion, but I pushed it back down. No use getting all mushy with Brother Ed in the cab with me. He would certainly frown on our pre-marital relations and would freak if he knew Kara was with child. Hell, I even freaked thinking about it.

  She beckoned us forward, swinging her arm in a frantic pin wheeling motion. I started us forward again and was quickly up at the top of the hill and next to the house.

  I brought the truck to a stop and started to open the door when Kara said, “Get the truck around the back of the house and to the barn as quickly as you can.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Please, Joel, just do it.” Her face was pinched with worry.