by White, A. L.
When the meeting had finally ended, Charlie looked over at Boo and said, “I think I will take the first eight-hour watch in the eagles’ nest.”
“I wasn’t starting that until tomorrow, after we meet with all of the new members, Charlie.”
“No time like the present; I can use some time alone, Boo,” Charlie stated as he rose from the table.
“Charlie, there is an open barrel and some firewood up there in the center of the roof. Light that so you have someplace to get some warmth when you need it,” Boo said. “Also, grab that old hunting rifle of yours, and some shells. Might as well do some good if the need arises and you see something that needs to be dropped.”
Charlie nodded his head in agreement and made his way through the crowd of survivors. People that had known him his whole life, and a few that had not, reached out and shook his hand vigorously. Doc was right, he said to himself again. This is exactly what this place needed to get on its feet again.
The hallway and the narrow stairs leading up to the roof were a welcome respite from it all. It was empty and Charlie welcomed the loneliness of it. At the top of the stairs he could hear a set of footsteps coming up behind him. One was heavier than the other and moving fast while the quieter set was slow and steady. Ignoring them, he went out into the heavy wind, straight over to the barrel. Boo had left everything he needed to get the fire going, which made Charlie wonder if Boo had planned on being up there tonight. That was fine by him, he liked being around Boo. The door behind him swung back open and the largest man Charlie had ever seen burst forward, running to the edge, barely even noticing the fire or Charlie. Instinctively, Charlie reached for the rifle that he had left just inside the doorway. Noticing that he didn’t have it, Charlie moved toward the door quietly when the second person came through. It was Tressa, from the council meeting. Giving a quick embarrassed wave she moved on to the large man at the edge.
“Not so fast, Todd! It is slippery up here,” Tressa stated.
“It’s not so bad, Tressa. I have on those good running shoes that you gave me, and they don’t slide at all!”
“Ok, Todd, just be careful or we will have to go back downstairs where it is a little safer.”
“I will behave, Tressa, you don’t have to worry. We can see more up here than we can downstairs,” the large man replied.
Tressa turned back toward a completely bewildered Charlie and said, “Sorry about barging in on you. Todd can see patterns like no one I have ever met before. His favorite is the stars, so we have been coming up here just to look up at the night sky when it has been clear enough. To be honest, even on the overcast nights we come up here. He can find patterns to amaze himself in just about anything.”
“That’s fine, I just didn’t expect anyone else to come up here,” Charlie replied. “I am afraid you’re not going to see very many stars tonight with this snowstorm coming in.”
Tressa shrugged her shoulders, “Then we will just end up looking at the zombies again. Yay us.”
“Why does he look at the creatures?” Charlie asked.
Again, Tressa shrugged her shoulders and patted Todd on the back, “Todd, why do we look at the zombies?”
“I don’t look at the nasty creatures, Tressa!” Todd replied with a snort as he rolled his eyes and did a little eye shift toward Tressa so that Charlie could see. It was as if he was saying to Charlie, can you believe this? Charlie thought.
“What do you look at then, err… uh, Todd is it?” Charlie asked.
Todd pointed out toward the old Miller farm and said, “They are all in patterns or groups, you see? They always stay together no matter where they are. Some move in, to the bigger group, making a larger pattern, but they always stay together. Except that group, you see them in the middle. They are the biggest group here; they go all over without the others.”
“So you think that this mass of creatures is a bunch of smaller masses?” Charlie asked.
Todd whirled around on him excitedly causing Charlie to jump back, almost losing his footing in the snow. “Careful there or Tressa will not let us come up here, Mister,” Todd stated as a matter of fact with a frown on his face. “Maybe we need someone to shovel all this snow off so it would be safe? Maybe that someone could be me, Mister?”
“Sure, you can shovel all you want up here, if it is ok with Tressa. First, tell me about the big group,” Charlie replied.
“Okay, it’s like this Mister,” Todd stated as he got down on his hands and knees and started drawing a large shape with smaller ones inside of it surrounding another large shape in the middle. Then he put an “X” in all of the shapes except the one in the middle and said, “All of these move in tight every night with the others. The group is always larger at night than day, you follow me Mister? But this group moves around at night instead of during the day. They come right outside of this building every night and look at the fence down there.”
“You’re saying that a large group comes here to the school?”
Todd rolled his eyes yet again, only this time at Charlie, “Not all of them Mister. Only a few come here by us, the rest wait just at the end of the streets.”
“Have you seen them Todd?” Charlie asked impatiently.
“Yes Sir, I have seen them when Tressa is quiet enough so as not to spook them off. They go all along the fence, playing with it.”
Tressa thought that this had been enough excitement for Todd. She would never get him to go to sleep tonight if this kept up. All night long she would have to hear about patterns within patterns. “Todd, we should be going back downstairs if you want to have that pudding before we go to bed tonight,” Tressa stated.
“Mister, I have to go so that I can get my night-time snack. Can I come up here with you again sometime, if Tressa says it’s okay?”
“Yes Todd, I would like that,” Charlie replied smiling at the small child trapped in a large man’s body.
Todd lifted himself up and started to dust the snow off and said, “Race you downstairs, Tressa! Last one there doesn’t get a snack before bed!” He was off in the same mad dash that had brought him onto the roof.
“Thank you for listening to him, Charlie. It means a lot to him when people talk to him like he knows what he is talking about.”
“My pleasure; I think I may have learned something from Todd that we needed to know,” Charlie replied.
After watching Tressa and Todd go through the door to the stairs and warming up a few minutes by the fire barrel, Charlie walked over to where Todd had been standing. The snow was starting to come down pretty heavily now, so the pattern was all but covered up. Ominously, the center group was still visible, and Charlie wondered what it was that made that group behave differently than the other groups that made up the herd.
Looking back out at the herd at Millers farm, Charlie thought for a minute that he too could see the patterns that Todd spoke of; he closed his eyes in amusement at the thought. All he could see in front of him was a bunch of smelly dead creatures that didn’t get the memo telling them that they were dead. Still, Todd did see something, or thought he saw something. Wouldn’t hurt to look into it a little more or keep an eye out for any of them coming up to the fence at night. That was unsettling in so many ways that Charlie couldn’t even pick which one would be at the top of his list. All it would take would be for one person to not secure the gates leading into the school and that would be it. Caught sleeping, the survivors would be an easy meal for the creatures. They would wake up to either the reek of the zombies upon them or the pain from a chunk of flesh being ripped away. Then Charlie remembered that the school was built up so they would have to climb stairs. Even though he could swear that the one he shot was coming down the stairs just fine, unlike his beloved Annie. Boo had told him that in times like that the mind fills in the gaps that it couldn’t account for. He had shot the creature as it was falling down the stairs, but his mind told him that it was walking down them.
The door creaked open behind Charlie
and slammed shut, giving him a start. It was Boo, coming up to join him on watch for a few hours. Part of Charlie was glad to have the company, the other part knew that this was Boo’s way of making sure the job got done the way he would do it. Either way, Charlie was glad to have him up there.
“It is cold up here, Charlie. Maybe we should have two barrels,” Boo stated.
Charlie shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Maybe a warming hut would be better than having two barrels. Put two guys up here so one can watch while the other warms up.”
“Next thing you know you will be asking for a coffee pot and a recliner, Charlie.”
“I was going to wait until you got settled in as the Commander of the guard before I started asking for the luxury items,” Charlie replied laughing.
“That’s you, Charlie, always looking out for me.”
Something had caught Boo’s eye as he scanned the horizon, pulling his attention away from Charlie. “Look, out there along the highway, Charlie. Do you see what I see?”
Focusing on where Boo had pointed, Charlie couldn’t see anything at first, but then it was there plain as day. “Headlights! There are headlights just south of the Miller place.”
“Look a little further west. There are three more sets, too.”
Charlie followed the road to where it just rose up on top of a little hill and there were three more sets of headlights coming down the road. “Should we go down to the bridge and meet them?” Charlie asked.
“Let’s wait until they are almost to the bridge; too damn cold to stand out there tonight.”
Charlie wanted to go now and make sure that they got into town safely. For all of his talk about leaving in the spring and being out in the world on his own for the first time in his life, Charlie liked to have people in large numbers around him since the apocalypse had happened. There was something about knowing that others were feeling like he was that made him feel better about the situation. If asked a few days ago, he might have felt differently. Today he had met Tressa and Todd, was part of the assembly in the cafeteria, and now he too felt like he was a part of something. He had to give it to Doc and Boo when it came to that; this place was alive for the first time today, and Charlie was getting caught up in it too.
“Charlie, does it look to you like that first set of headlights are coming to a stop?” Boo asked.
Charlie squinted to see better then replied. “It sure does, Boo. And why in the hell would they be stopping there? They have nothing but open space from there all the way to the bridge?”
“Not sure, Charlie. Unless they are having motor, troubles or ran out of gas. We will keep an eye on them. If it looks like they are stuck there we will head out and bring ‘em in.”
Charlie nodded his head in agreement, then remembered that there were binoculars down in their sleeping quarters. “I will be right back, Boo,” he stated as he ran off to get them.
Chapter 14
The going had been at a slow, but steady, pace so far. Lori thought that they were possibly closing the gap between themselves and the headlights ahead. Then it dawned on her that the headlights were stopped in the middle of the road. It even looked like the little car had backed up so that the rear hatchback was facing off to the farm. That was when Lori realized that two people had gotten out of the car and were running toward the herd. Not wanting to believe that she was seeing two more suicides by zombie, Lori strained her eyes to see what they were running to. Nothing jumped out in an obvious way, so she began to worry if the bus and RV would be able to navigate around the car. From where she was now it didn’t look like it, but they were still a little way off. Her first thought had been to slow down and give the car time to do whatever the two outside of it were planning to do. If they were committing suicide, she could nudge it from the road and the problem was solved. Then Lori saw what they were doing—rather she heard it first. A shot rang out and a dog sized creature fell to the ground. Lori knew that would bring the herd closer to the farm, and down on them quickly.
The two were trying desperately to drag whatever they had shot back to the car. A third person exited the car and opened the rear hatch, waving them on. As they grew closer, Lori could see that it was a small woman no older than herself. The two dragging what she could now see was a pig, were not making much headway at all. The herd was closing in fast, and Lori knew soon it would be too late for them. Pulling up behind the car she yelled out her window to the woman, “They don’t have time to drag that thing back here. Get them out of there before it’s too late!”
The woman waved Lori off as if she was meddling in their business and needed to go on her way; Lori would gladly have done so, if it wasn’t for the beat up old Chevette blocking the path. Closing the final distance between them, Lori could see that there were children in the back seat staring blankly at her and the truck. Slamming the truck into park, she grabbed her bow and climbed out. Taking aim at the zombies closest to the two figures, Lori began dropping them to the ground. Virginia and a few of the others joined her, dropping as many zombies as they could. Soon the futility of it began to become apparent as the two figures were surrounded and disappeared from their view. The woman at the back of the car pulled out a handgun and began firing wildly at the herd. Lori wasn’t sure if she was actually doing any damage to the zombies. It was more likely that she was calling the zombies to them. This was not a place that Lori or the others wanted to be. There were just too many zombies in this herd to fight off with any chance of walking away. Lori grabbed the woman’s arm with one hand while taking the gun away from her with the other.
“If you don’t want you or your children to die here, you need to get in that car and drive as fast as you can!”
There was no answer from her, just a cold blank stare with tears running down her face. Lori began to tell the others to grab the kids from the car, but it was too late. The herd had converged around all but the back of the Chevette now. Had it not been for Virginia and the others, Lori might have been pulled into the herd as well. The woman broke free of Lori’s grasp and ran to help her children, which was the last Lori saw of her as she went down.
“There are too many, Lori! We have to go now!” Virginia yelled.
Lori looked around and could see that even while using nearly everything they had, they were unable to hold the encroaching herd back. “Get in the cars; we’ll make a run for it!”
The others fell back to the bus and RV, fighting their way through the beginnings of the herd. While they were taking care of the wave coming from the farm, another group moved in on their flank from the field on the opposite side of the road. For the first time, it seemed like their luck had run out; today would be the day that they all bought the farm.
In the safety of the truck, Lori could see just how desperate the whole situation had become. It looked like the bus was loaded up again, but Virginia and Jermaine were standing outside of the RV still fighting. A broadside, fired out the windows of the RV, sent the herd sprawling backward a little as the zombies in front were knocked to the ground. Lori watched as Virginia scampered back into the RV with Jermaine close behind.
Now that everyone was safely in a vehicle, Lori started the truck back up and tried to move forward. Giving it a little gas, then some more, the truck groaned against the mass of animated dead bodies until it reached the Chevette. For a moment, Lori could see the pieces of flesh that had been tossed about in the initial feeding frenzy. Trying to force that from her mind, she pushed the gas pedal a little harder. The herd had grown so large that it was like shoving a mountain out of the way. The little car moved a little then settled into a stubborn rest. The snowy road offered no traction for the truck’s rear wheels, and it started to look like they might have to back their way out of there. Trying to look behind her, Lori couldn’t see if the bus was boxed in as well. Even if it wasn’t, there would be no way to tell them what she wanted them to do now.
Chapter 15
By the time Charlie returned with the binocu
lars he could see without them that the situation had become dire. The tops of the bus, RV, and the pickup truck were still visible, but the small car seemed to have vanished under a sea of zombies. Every now and then a burst of gunshots would ring out. The herd would shift a little then close back in, filling the gap.
“It looks like we don’t have to worry about meeting them at the bridge,” Boo stated.
“I agree. Maybe we should head out there and offer some help getting through there.”
“Charlie, you barely held it together with a few coming at you in the preacher’s house! That is a whole different ball game out there right now. They are coming from everywhere!” Boo yelled at him.
“So we just let them die out there?”
“Charlie, I feel for them too. Do you want to add two more bodies to the body count?” Boo asked, trying to defuse the situation a little.
“No, I do not!” Charlie exclaimed. “Boo, you do what you want, but I am going out there and bringing them in!”
Charlie grabbed his old hunting rifle and headed to the door as fast as he could without losing his footing in the fresh snow cover. “Charlie, hold on a second. I think I have a plan that just might work!” Boo yelled at him, causing Charlie to slide in the snow as he stopped and turned around. Charlie stood there staring blankly, waiting for Boo to reveal the plan.
“Meet me down at the dump truck. You know the old village one with the plow on the front?”
Charlie nodded his head yes, even though he was somewhat bewildered by Boo’s choice to use that old thing.
“On your way down there, grab the AR-15s that I taught you to shoot, and enough ammo to last us. If you ain’t struggling from the weight of it, you don’t have enough. Now get moving, Charlie, if you want to save those people!”
