DEAD: Confrontation
Page 34
Looking at the sky, I could see that it was a while past sunrise. So, my guess was that Jake left right around dawn. That was great…I still had no idea where he went…or why.
I dug through my own pack and pulled out some hardtack and nibbled on that with some dried meat of unknown origin. By the time I finished my meal, such as it was, I had polished off the last of my canteen. The good thing was that there would be plenty of streams to grab a refill.
I started off back home. I could feel the temperature dropping as the day progressed and I got up farther into the mountains. Being all alone, I didn’t have to worry about keeping anybody’s pace.
Late that day, the snowline came into view. At first it was just patches here and there in the shade. After a while, I made the decision to move off road. It would be slower going, but I did not want to leave an obvious trail just in case things had not resolved themselves back down at the compound.
That got me to thinking about Gabe. I was having trouble with everything. And right in the center of it all was Gabe Winters. He had seemed so helpful when we first met him that day just over a week ago. He could have taken out Jon and Jake with the people he had with him. So…why join up and then want to overthrow everything? And if he was coming from Idaho, then what was his connection with that specific group in La Grande?
The more I pondered it, the less sense it all made. And what was the deal with wanting Melissa and her baby? Something was just not adding up for me.
I made camp for the night, and when it came time to climb into my hammock up in the trees, I guess I just expected Jake or Jon…or both, to come walking up like nothing happened. They didn’t.
And that is how each night went as I made my way back to the others. I did waste one whole day two days after Jake vanished. I found a big tower and climbed to the top. From there I had a pretty good view of the surrounding area. I spotted a few zombies wandering around, even saw what I was pretty certain had to be some survivors as they made their way along a partially washed out logging road that wound through the woods. Each time they passed through a clearing in the trees, I saw them.
It was funny; they were obviously keeping their eyes peeled for zombies. If they knew that a living person was watching them, I wonder if they would have tried to make contact…or if they would have run away. As it was, they were heading back the way I’d come—towards La Grande.
I had to wonder if maybe the word was starting to get out that there were communities starting to form up. Also, from what little I had observed, it looked like they were not working together. Was this the start of rebuilding? And if it was, were we just going to go back to the old ways? Hating anybody who might be different?
I stayed up in that tower all day and into the night. When darkness came, I was surprised to see as many little dots of light as I did. There had to be at least fifty! And those were just the ones that I could see. That meant there were people out there. More living than perhaps we might have realized.
That got me to thinking. Why couldn’t we all come together? Why couldn’t we all fight to secure someplace? Why did we have to immediately take sides…draw lines…pick and choose who we would include or exclude?
When morning came, it was bright and sunny. Looking around, I tried to pinpoint some of the places where I had seen light from fires. It was all just green pines frosted with the vestiges of the snow that fought to hold on to the world just a while longer. However, I was seeing more bare patches. Winter might still have a bit of life left in it, but spring was coming.
I resumed my journey, and two days later, I arrived at the road leading to the place I called home. I could not help but feel a sense of disappointment and sadness over the apparent loss of Jon and Jake. Every single day, I kept expecting them to appear. They would come up on either side of me as I walked and act like nothing had happened.
As I headed down the road that led down and would eventually deposit me at the entrance of Death Alley, I passed a few zombies scattered and sprawled in the snow. I paused and was only a little surprised to discover that these had to be fairly recent kills. They had no accumulation of snow on them and the bits of brain splattered around their heads still glistened with a trace of moisture.
As I continued down the road, I started to pass more and more of the downed creatures. I felt my heart speed up. Then I smelled smoke.
Breaking into a run, I flashed a quick glance at the stand right as the road empties into the grounds. It was empty. Looking up at the cabin, things looked peaceful. That was a problem. It was midday and nobody was out and about. Shielding my eyes, I looked up at the crow’s nest but it was too shadowy. I grabbed my binoculars and felt a lump in my throat when I confirmed that it was empty.
When I heard the shriek, I drew my weapon and took off at a run. I had no idea if what I was charging into was living or undead, but there was no disputing the sound of Thalia screaming. I would do what I had to to save her…or die trying.
The snow was slush and like running in quicksand. It was worse than those dreams you have sometimes where the faster you run, the slower you seem to go. As I crossed the drawbridge, I saw at least a hundred zombies wandering around in the moat.
The last bit was all uphill and I slipped twice. The second time, I shrugged out of my pack and scrambled to my feet. As I reached the parking lot, I found at least fifty dead zombies scattered about. The door to the cabin was open and I felt dread start to squeeze my heart.
Why did I ever leave? I wondered. What was supposed to be a supply run had turned into mass murder and the loss of the best fighters we had. I just could not believe that it was going to end like this. In my heart, I was certain that I would find the last of my friends and people I loved either dead or walking dead inside that cabin.
My feet skidded when I reached the porch and I didn’t need to look down to know I was standing in a puddle of blood. As I looked inside, I saw what I was almost sure was one of the soldiers that Gabe had left behind. He was torn in half and the upper part of him was trying to crawl towards me. Since it was unlikely that he would be catching up to me, I ignored him as I headed down the length of the porch and peeked around the corner. That was the direction that I had heard Thalia.
I hopped the rail and moved down the side of the cabin. When I got to the back, I had a perfect view down to the picnic grounds and the creek…and my friends gathered around an eighteen-wheeler.
It looked like everybody was down there…including Thalia who was standing on the bumper of the truck and pointing up at me. She screamed again, but this time I knew why. I broke into a run, and that is why I never saw the person that lunged out from between two big mounds of snow and knocked me to the ground. We rolled twice and I ended up on top. I already had my machete drawn and had somehow managed the miracle of not only keeping it in my grasp, but also not cutting me or my assailant. That last part was about to be remedied. I put the blade to the person’s throat and froze when I realized it was a girl.
That pause was only for a second though and I pressed the sharpened steel to the exposed, slender throat. The eyes that stared back at me went through a whole bunch of emotions until they finally settled on recognition.
“Billy?”
“Shelly.” I hissed. “I see you have returned. And with zombies again?”
“It’s not what you think,” she tried to explain. The problem was that I had heard it all before.
“Billy Haynes,” a familiar voice snapped from behind me. “Get off that girl this instant.”
“But—” I started to protest.
“I said get off that girl,” Dr. Zahn repeated.
I looked down at her and felt my eyes narrow. This wasn’t over. She stuck her tongue out at me!
“Well, look who decided to show up.”
“Jake?” I spun around. “But…but…”
“Heard a commotion just before sunrise—” he started to explain.
“You never woke me for my watch!” I interrupted.
“But I watched…I waited…what happened?”
Jake explained that the “commotion” ended up being Jon—sort of anyways. He had been on our trail when he ran into scouts from some group that had come down to see what all the commotion was about in La Grande. According to these people, that particular compound was suspected in the kidnappings of people from several of the smaller groups in the area. Jon had managed to free a handful of people before he left. One of them was the daughter of a member of the group he had encountered. They demanded that he stay so they could thank him proper with a little celebration. It seems they had an untapped keg of beer…their last one that they had liberated from some small pub and were saving for a special occasion.
Jake insists that they came back for me, but he doesn’t seem to be able to remember exactly when that took place and admits to have consumed a few mugs of the brew before it dawned on him that he had left me alone.
As for why we didn’t meet up or cross paths on my trip home, the forest is a big place. We could have been a hundred yards from each other and not known it. There was a compliment somewhere in the story about how they had been so impressed with not being able to find my trail.
But there were still lots of questions. Why was Shelly here? What had brought all the zombies? And then there was Thalia’s scream.
It turns out that Shelly brought a few friends with her and came asking permission to join the group. The two friends are men. Greg and Dave Carrigan. They are in their thirties, and they are identical twins. They also had a run in with Gabe Winters’ people a month or so ago. Apparently, Winters and his troop were only being partially truthful. Nobody could actually dispute that they were from a base in Utah, however, they were a foraging team for that compound in La Grande. The Carrigan’s had escaped when their small camp was hit just about twenty miles east of here.
Fortunately, the five who had been left behind had not gotten a good look at them and so did not recognize them when they arrived with Shelly. After letting everybody know what the deal was, Dr. Zahn had drugged the five and tied them up.
Which led to the story of the zombies. The Carrigans knew where there was a huge cache of supplies that Winters and his people had stashed. They had gone out for it and drove it back. And that explained the big rig parked down on the backside of the hill. There was no way to get it across the drawbridge, much less up the hill. A large herd had followed them and had to be handled.
The fight had been a rough one by the looks. And I had missed it. Shelly had been on watch at the stand and gone up when she heard the truck arriving. She had started to kill what she thought were just a few stragglers, then the herd came around the corner to the east and she had run to warn everybody.
They had to fall back when over five hundred had made it across the drawbridge. They were actually preparing to try and escape into the woods and make for the fallback location when Jake and Jon arrived a few hours ago and waded into the fight with the people from the group that they had met outside of La Grande.
As we start the clean-up, there are now fifty-seven men, women, and children living here. We don’t have enough room as it stands. The talk is to see about moving down into La Grande. Jon and Jake believe that they might be able to unify other groups and that, within the year, if everybody works together, we could take back the entire city.
It seems that spring might be a very busy season.
Keep going for the original short, “That Ghoul Ava: Her First Adventures*”
*Book one of a new Horror/Comedy by TW Brown
PLUS!!!
a sneak peek at “That Ghoul Ava
& The Queen of the Zombies”
That Ghoul Ava
It’s Sunday. I hate Sundays. If cornered, I’d say I hate Tuesdays, too. They’re just such Nothing days. Oh…and it’s snowing; but I love the snow, so it makes today a bit of a wash.
Wait! I’m being so rude. My name is Ava Birch. It’s pronounced Ay-va. I’m not some shiny, white robot in a Disney flick in love with a trash compactor, so do not call me Eee-va. Oh yeah, and I’m a ghoul.
Now before you get all weirded out, I’m not a zombie and I’m not a deranged vampire. I don’t lie in wait for innocent men, women, and children and feast on them. I eat the already dead. And no, I don’t hang out in graveyards and dine on those about to be buried. Do you know what sorts of things they pump into dead bodies? Then I suggest you read Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain by Jessica Mitford.
Ewwwwww!
Ghouls, for those of you in utter confusion or sucked into the strange alternate realities that besmirch a ghoul’s good name, eat the dead. We aren’t contagious. We can’t bite or scratch you and turn you—a good thing for those who have found themselves in my bed—into one of us. (Poor, unwitting necros.) From what I understand—I’ve only met one other ghoul and he wasn’t very helpful—our condition is genetic. Then, we have to die in such a way that enough remains to come back.
I’m sure there are a thousand things I could tell you, but I’m equally sure that, if it’s important, it will come up over the course of events. What you do need to know is that I’m no Betsy Sinclair or Amanda Feral! I’m pretty sure my love of blue eye shadow, 80s fashion sense, and adoration of Poison—the group, not the substance—would prevent me from ever being confused with the likes of them.
Did I just mention Poison? I’ve got to admit, if Brett Michaels ever succumbs to his illness, I may have to rethink my dietary rules. If I could manage to sneak his cold, blue body from whatever morgue he ended up in? Mmmmmm…Brett Michaels.
I had a thing for C.C. DeVille, but he got all clean and sober. That skinny little bastard will probably live to be ninety. That’s a bit too stringy for me.
Anyways, I’ve digressed enough. Back to me. How did it all start? And what were those first few weeks like? Chances are, if you’re reading this, you know tons about zombies, vampires, and maybe werewolves. Unless of course, your exposure to the undead consists of that silly Twilight crap…yuck! Well, I’m here to tell you that the undead aren’t all sexy twenty-somethings or pretty boys with six-pack abs.
I was thirty-two when I went through The Change. It was 1999, and I was not—in fact—partying like the song suggests. That year was terrible. My husband left me for a girl he was having a not-so-subtle affair with from his office. I can’t be too mad; I’d had a fling of my own with a bartender at the restaurant where I was a waitress. Still…I wasn’t gonna run away with him or anything. It was casual flirting that lead to sitting in a car after work passing a bottle and a joint back and forth. One thing led to another, and pretty soon we were doing the ‘back seat mambo’ while Every Rose Has Its Thorn played on the car stereo.
The autopsy on my marriage went something like this: we were married for six years; stopped having regular sex after two; and were down to birthday and anniversary sex after four. Last I heard, Edgar was still married to that sl—. Excuse me, to that sweet girl. They even had twin girls. Good for him…them.
The worst part about the divorce was that I was a waitress. He was/is a rising executive in an advertising firm. I ended up in a rundown apartment complex in Southeast Portland. He has a gorgeous colonial in Tualatin. I didn’t ask for alimony, and since we didn’t have any children…I was pretty much back to square one.
I never cared much for school. I met Edgar at a party thrown by twice-removed mutual friends. Honestly, I wasn’t gold-digger. We met. We hit it off. The freaky sex was fun. Marriage just sorta happened. I wish it was more exciting than that, but real life seldom is.
After we split, I tried to reinvent myself about a dozen times. Somehow, I always ended up waitressing in places with party atmosphere bars, going home—or at least to the parking lot—with too many co-workers or big tippers, and waking up with that gnawing sense of self-loathing.
When I look
ed in the mirror, I saw a used car. Sure, my Elvira-length, jet-black hair, gray eyes, and, oh yeah, thirty-eight DDs looked good. The time hadn’t run out yet on my hourglass figure, but I could see a few cracks here and there. Crows were definitely perching on the edges of my eyes, and my once-flat belly was developing a bit of a speed bump. Hey! I did say I was thirty-two.
One morning I just fell off my mental ledge. I’d woke to a phone call from my most recent boyfriend who decided that he needed to “at least try and give an honest go” at being a good husband to his wife. That meant those plans we’d made for my thirty-third birthday the next week were probably scratched. Somehow, I ended up standing in front of my medicine cabinet. A moment later, all my prescription bottles were empty…along with the half a bottle of white zin I had left over from the previous day’s lunch.
Now, I don’t know all the mojo and hocus pocus that went on. What I do know is that I woke up two days later on my bathroom floor. I admit I sat there wanting to cry, but nothing happened. That should’ve been my first clue. I mean, it was like my brain was telling me I was sad, but the voice in my head trying to pass on that message was two doors down and had a rag stuffed in its mouth.
When I stood up and looked in the mirror, I did one of those “Eek! I saw a mouse!” squeals. My eyes were (are) black. I don’t just mean the pretty part. I had two shiny black orbs staring back at me. Then I did something a bit silly…I blinked a few times like that might help.
After I got over trying to fake out my reflection by jumping out from, and back in front of the mirror a dozen or so times, I huffed a stand of hair out of my face and ventured into my apartment. That was when I got surprise number two: it was the middle of the night. My place was shrouded in darkness. Of course that had me dashing back into the bathroom. Nope, the light was definitely out. I could see in the dark! Weird. Right?