“What are you talking about?” Ron lifted the shot glass again and sipped, enjoying every damned molecule of the whiskey.
“You saved that girl. I heard all about it. You put yourself at risk to save her, and I know it wasn’t for her looks, because from what I’ve been told, she was not the picture of beauty when she came stumbling into Charlotte’s downtown.
“And then you went out and brought Oliver back to your place. I wondered if he would let you, but I didn’t wonder if you’d try. I’ve been watching you for months. I knew it was in you.”
Ron put the glass on the desk and slid it across to Dale. He had decided not to ask for a fourth hit. “Have you had people watching me? And how many of you are there?”
“To answer your first question, I don’t have anyone spying on you. But things are seen. You see people moving about the city and take note of it, don’t you? That’s all the people who told me about your rescue of this Jean said to me. They saw it happening, saw that you were doing what needed to be done, and they didn’t have to take a hand themselves. Even if they were in a position to do anything, which they may not have been. I didn’t ask them that.” He took the now-empty shot glasses and put them away, stoppered that gorgeous bottle of liquid life and put them all back in the drawer.
“As for your second question, there is no you, not in the way you mean it. I don’t command anyone and no one is going around bossing anyone else around, or trying to be the boss. We help one another. People are making an effort to put something back together. That’s all.” He clasped his hands together and waited for Ron to respond.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Cutter said. “How many of you are there? Once you told me there were over a thousand people here. Is that how many of you are here?” He waved his arms to indicate the building.
“The current living population of the city of Charlotte is roughly ten thousand souls,” Dale said, his perfect accent clipped and suddenly turning very efficient and very British.
Ron sat there in stunned silence for several seconds. “There’s no way,” he said.
“Way,” Dale said, with the hint of a mischievous smile on his lips.
“Are they all in this building?”
“Oh, no. Here and there. Sitting in safe places. Bunkers of one type or another. People are bound and determined to reorganize things.”
“Like before? Like when they told us to go about our regular business and that things were going to be fine and dandy? That the problem was going to be handled? That kind of reorganization?” He tried to suppress the edge in his voice, but wasn’t quite successful.
“No,” Dale told him. “Not like that. What we…what they…want to do is to save something of what we had before it’s too late. We’ve already lost so much, and we have to act soon or we’re going to lose everything.” He stood again and moved to the window, peeling the blinds back once more and peering out. Satisfied with what he was seeing, he actually pulled the cord and raised the blinds.
“Come here,” he said. When Cutter was by his side, he pointed down the eight feet or so to street level. The zombies were almost all gone, and what few he could see had turned their backs on the hospital and were shambling away, going elsewhere, to places where their heads would not explode.
“I’ll be goddamned,” Ron said. Then another thought occurred to him. “But that means…that means that they learn. They could…”
“They could become even more dangerous, yes,” Dale said. “Hasn’t happened so far, but one never knows.” He clapped his hands together and the sudden movement and sound startled Cutter. “The bottom line is what I was talking about. We have a small window of opportunity remaining to us to save some things. We’ve lost an awful lot, but there’s still much that we can save.”
“What are you talking about?” Ron asked him.
“I’m talking about everything. I’m talking about our ability to produce things. To manufacture things. To make medicines. To create tools. To grind lenses. Even now, if we could walk out right this second and into any structure we picked, we’re at a point where we’d be at a loss.
“There are thousands of medicines that are lost to us, now. We’ll have to start from scratch to produce all sorts of things. We won’t be making any computer chips for a very long time, even under the best of circumstances. But there are things that we can do.”
“Such as?”
“Mr. Cutter, you’re looking at the tip of the iceberg right here, right now. We can’t treat cancer here, but when the penicillin runs out, we can make it. We have enough men and women here who know how to produce it with the tools we have at hand. But if we’re not careful, then we’re going to lose the knowledge and the ability to do that kind of thing.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Ron nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he admitted finally. “But there is one thing,” he added.
“What’s that?”
“I was a salesman. I sold office supplies. I can’t make medicine. I can’t do surgery. I can’t operate any of a number of machines you might mention. Why the hell have you been spending so much time and effort trying to convince me to help?”
The Colonel reached out and clapped his hand on Ron’s taut, muscled shoulder. “I’ve been watching you for months, son. While many men in your position—alone, no one to help them—have died or just plain gone crazy, you haven’t just survived, but thrived.” He waited, letting that sink in.
“You’re a tough man, Mr. Cutter. What you Americans refer to as a badass. That’s what is needed right here, right now. And frankly, you are about the baddest of the bad. Believe me, I regularly move from one side of this city to the other, from top to bottom, east to west. And if there’s anyone who has done more with less help, then I haven’t found him. And if I haven’t found him, that’s because he doesn’t exist.”
Ron shook his head, and a smile appeared on his lean face despite his best efforts to keep it away. “You’re after something,” he said. “I have to say you butter up a muffin with the best of them. But my dad didn’t raise an idiot and I’m not sure I’m buying what you’re selling.”
“Cutter, I’m not selling anything. All I’m trying to do is to keep us from losing everything we have. Not just our lives. Hell, I’ve seen so many people die that I know we can lose our lives. We just saw a man lose his life today. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got cut down.
“But it could have been worse. His family could have ended their lives with him. His wife. His children. There’s a way to stem the constant loss of life. We have it within our ability to put a halt to the loss of our knowledge and our culture. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not selling anything. But I do admit that we need a man like you.” He let his hand fall from Ron’s shoulder.
“I need you. I could surely use a man like you. To do what needs to be done.”
Silence surrounded the two. Out in the hallway some people moved along, their voices muted as they walked, passing the office. Ron heard a phone ringing somewhere off in the distance. He hadn’t heard a phone ring in almost two years. That simple sound made his heart ache.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
Looking down, he saw that the Colonel had extended his hand. Ron took it.
**
Cutter had turned down the repeated offers of companionship for at least part of the journey back to his place. A couple had even appeared as if by chance, as the Colonel was leading him back to the entrance to the hospital—a young man and woman, about twenty-five years or so in age, both of them quite dark skinned with good southern accents. They were obviously local folk and not recent refugees from the countryside.
“We’ll be happy to escort you. Offer you cover,” each said in turn as he checked his gear and made ready to leave.
And although Ron had been as friendly as he could about it, there was something that was bothering him and he wanted to check it out himself on the way back. Moving down
the broken city streets alone was not something that bothered him and he was certainly no stranger to it. But there was something strange going on in his city, and he wanted to figure it out for himself before he committed one way or the other.
At the front of the hospital, they had unbarred the stout doors and then unlocked it, setting him free. In a way, he was glad to leave the antiseptic smell and sight of it behind him. There was a nagging suspicion, as if the white paint, smiling faces, and alcohol were covering something sinister. But he just wasn’t sure. He needed to know.
Outside, the sun was up. There were almost no clouds in the sky and it was hot, probably past ninety degrees. At one of the concrete barricades, he paused and took in the sights, doing his best to spot any danger he might face as he moved out. He looked up at the sky. One thing about the end of the old ways was that the air was cleaner. Before things fell apart, the heavens he now observed would have appeared gun-metal flat and he would have been hard pressed to tell if the skies were clear or hazy. But now, looking up at the cobalt blue that stretched forever, he could tell that the day was all but without clouds—there were just a few puffy cumulus formations floating gently along behind the city skyline to the north. Other than that, there was nothing but blue sky and the yellow sun to make everything hot and sticky.
Picking his route, he moved out, glancing back once or twice at the hospital to try to see if he could spot the snipers who had nailed the dozen or so zombies who now lay dead and fly-blown on the streets, their brains scattered magically on asphalt and the nagging shrubs that were cropping up in every crack in the otherwise hard surface. He scanned the buildings, looking for some sign of loitering shamblers, but there were none. Ron might have only one good eye, but he was good at finding the damned things where they hid in shadows and doorways and broken windows. But damn, the Colonel had been right. The ones here at least had learned to run when you shot the heads off of their companions.
They could learn. He’d suspected as much. It had been little things that he’d seen and picked up over the months. Some of the zombies seemed different from the others, from time to time. There had been one he’d wanted to pop for months. It was a big, fat fellow wearing a yellow raincoat. Guy must have stood six and a half feet tall. The dead bastard was always hovering around the street below his hangout, as if it was trying to figure out how to get in and up the staircase to Ron. At last, after seeing it for five or six days in a row, he’d decided to take it out and had taken measures to do just that.
But the first time he’d taken a shot at it, the thing had moved at the last possible second and he’d ended up just blowing a hole in his left shoulder. Ron had been trying to hit the thing from his rooftop and had just not taken his time to make the shot a good one.
Five hours had passed before he’d gotten a second chance at it, and by then the deader wouldn’t hold still. It just kept moving along, staying behind one obstacle or another until Ron had almost decided that it was taunting him. The next shot he’d taken had been pretty much wasted, and he’d done nothing but take a small divot of flesh out of its neck. After that, days had passed before he saw it again. But that damned yellow rain slicker had shown up halfway down the block and he’d crouched to get a steady aim, laying the barrel of his .220 Swift along the hood of an old Buick Regal that was rusting away.
Pow. He’d missed as the shambler staggered left when he figured it was going to go right.
Next day, Ron found the raincoat. It was just lying in the middle of the street. He was sure it was the right one, big logo for the Charlotte Panthers football team had been on the front of it. It was also spattered with gore when he’d shot a hole through the wearer’s shoulder and from the time he’d nicked it in the neck. But the zombie was nowhere to be seen.
He’d stood there looking at the raincoat trying to decide what the deader would look like without that baggy coat on its huge and bloated body, when suddenly, it had emerged from the back of a panel van sitting solidly on the street, its four flat tires tacking it inexorably to the asphalt. The damned thing was moving pretty fast as they sometimes do when they think a hot meal is going to be served. Ron only had a couple of seconds to decide what to do and which weapon to use when his .45 was in his right hand and he was firing off a round.
Big and smart’s cranium had gone to smithereens less than a foot from those huge, groping hands getting to Cutter’s face.
Thinking back, Ron now realized that the thing hadn’t just dropped that raincoat. It had left it there as bait, as something bright and colorful and curious to draw the man’s attention for a moment while the deader made his bid.
And now he was living in a world where the zombies were on a learning curve.
What the fuck else was going on?
**
He crept out of the shade, trying to get a feel of what was going on in the area. In the time since he’d fled with the Colonel and the remains of the Lund Family, things had gone quiet.
There was the persistent sound of insects on the breeze that moved through the streets. That was always a good sign. Bugs didn’t know the difference between a living creature walking around and a zombie shambling through the weeds. If anything moved, the chattering insects generally got quiet and that would let Ron know that he was not completely alone. So to hear them whining away at that moment, let him know that he was relatively safe.
Keeping tight to the walls of a looming skyscraper, he peered out into the center of the street where those massive bullets had sheared Lund to pieces. The zombie hoards had done their best to scour away all sign of the man and all that was left was a great smear of red going to black on the asphalt and in the grasses and weeds that were quickly taking over the city. The dead had taken their gory bits with them and had retreated to their hidey holes to consume it. And maybe they went into the dark to meditate in their way. Did they plot?
A dragonfly, green and brilliant blue, hovered past Ron’s head and checked him out, then sped off down the avenue until it was gone. He looked across the way, trying to figure out from where the Colonel had come. It seemed too much of a coincidence that the British officer would appear at precisely the right place at just the time he needed help the most. How had that happened?
Cutter scanned the buildings, looking for places that indicated not only recent activity, but prolonged activity. He was searching for a door, window, or any point of egress that indicated constant use. Reaching to one of the thigh pockets on his right hip, he drew out a small spotting scope and peered through it. It was only a three-power lens, but it helped, especially in places like this where the distances between himself and his targets were not so great. Ron peered through it at the building across the way, where the monster with the .50 caliber fire power resided. What had Dale been doing so close to this bastard? Was he trying to take him out? It was obvious to Ron that things had reached a point where finding and extricating that bastard was something that had to be done.
If that was why Dale had been in the area, why didn’t he just ask Ron for help in doing so? Or why didn’t he bring up some of his crew from the hospital? It was glaringly obvious to Cutter that the Colonel was in charge at that place. Or, if not actually in charge, then holding a position of respect and power. Getting some folk to help him take out one man shouldn’t be a problem.
All of this was getting on Ron’s nerves. This is what he had most feared if someone arrived to try to put things back together. Wherever people congregated in numbers, there was always plotting and subterfuge.
“Shit,” he hissed. Taking the scope from his eye he peered around, looking for any movement, seeking to hear anything that might mean he was being watched or stalked. You never knew, and you could never be too careful. Satisfied that he had at least a few more minutes to look around, he began once more to scan the big bank where the man with the machine guns lived safe and secure.
And he saw it.
There was a metal door set securely into the wall of the bank on the r
ight side almost directly across from where Ron spied. It was all but sunken into the granite façade, the lines of it so tight and gray that the door was all but invisible. It had a key lock mechanism built into the front, but the things that Cutter noticed most was that it looked much like the main door he used to access, and exit his own penthouse retreat, and that a path had been cleared to the door so that nothing could trip you up if you were using it.
That’s what the Colonel had been doing when he’d found Ron doing his best to rescue the Lunds. But had the man been at the door trying to get in, or had he come out of it just in time?
These were good questions.
**
Jean and Oliver were out on the rooftop when he arrived. They were surprised to see him emerge from the doorway at the top of the landing, but did not do so with guns drawn. But he realized he would have to make some exception for each, being able to notify the others of imminent arrival.
They both approached him together, and he could see that they had both noticed that he’d come home empty-handed, having retrieved nothing that he’d set out to find. Peeling his cap from his sweating scalp, Jean was the first to address him.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Have a hard time with the deaders?” Oliver joined in.
Ron dusted himself off with his ball cap and began to unburden himself of the weight of arms and supplies that he always had to carry whenever he ventured outside of his fortress. And for the first time since he’d been living most of his days in that spot, he looked north to notice that the Trust Building was visible from his rooftop perch, and much more disturbingly, anyone up there could easily see him from any number of spots on that great structure.
“I got sidetracked,” he admitted to his new family. Without pausing he continued, not giving either of them the time to get in another question. “I didn’t get three blocks down before I heard someone screaming. A woman. I…uh…I had to check it out.”
“Of course you did,” Jean said, reaching out to take his hand in hers. He looked down at her and their eyes locked. He felt something tug in his guts and knew that it was anxiety—the idea that she might leave.
The Coalition: Part II The Lord Of The Living (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 2) Page 3
