by Brant, Jason
That and the fact that he’d put a bun in her oven.
Her over-the-top hair was still damp and smelled of flowers as it brushed against his cheek. He wished he’d made it back sooner so they could have showered together.
“We need to talk,” Lance said to her. As curious as he was about the broadcast, he had to tell them about what he and Adam had found.
“Yes, we do. They’ll be here soon, and we have to decide what we’re going to do about it.”
“Who is going to be what now?”
Adam came in the room, followed by Eifort and Brown.
The doc’s shoulders were more rounded than usual, the bags under his eyes somehow darker than they’d appeared the night before. Lance made a mental note to force the man to take some time off.
They stood around the table, facing one another. Only Nathaniel stayed seated.
“Nate,” Brown said. “I’m assuming you came because of what the man on the radio said.”
“Yah.”
“What’s your take on it?”
Lance held up a hand. “Hold on. I have something we need to discuss before we get into—”
Cass turned to him. “There is a small group of military men heading our way. Remember a few weeks ago when we heard about them moving up the East coast? Well, they’re almost here.”
“In fact, they appear to be headed straight for us,” Eifort said. “The Wildman said they’re slowly working their way up 70 from Baltimore right now.”
Lance pressed his palms against his temples, cursing. “These are the guys who blew up half of Annapolis, right?”
A week ago, the crazy man on the radio had talked about a series of devastating detonations in Annapolis, Maryland. A lot of survivors had drifted there because of the docks, using the water and boats to stay safe.
There weren’t many anymore.
The Army, or whatever these men were calling themselves, had rolled in, shooting up the Vladdie nests. Not long after that, they’d apparently decided that the city was beyond saving and blew it to hell.
How many innocent lives had been lost? They’d killed a lot of the infected, but at what cost? There weren’t many humans left—they couldn’t afford to lose any more.
No one was really sure what had happened. The reports coming in were all over the map. Some said that the army had slaughtered innocents. Others said that the military force had sustained heavy losses and had to blow up the city just to survive.
“Correct.” Brown stared at the map. “And they’re coming here.”
“How do you know?” Lance asked. “Maybe they’re heading to Pittsburgh.”
“It seems they’ve expressed their intent to the Wildman during radio conversations. He said that they claim to have access to working satellites and other forms of communication.”
“So, what do they want with us? We’re safe here—we don’t need them blowing us up in order to give us some form of fucked-up help.”
Nathaniel grunted. “Even at the end of the world, the government shows up to kick you in the teeth.”
Eifort put her hands on the table and leaned over it. “This isn’t the Army of old. We lost contact with almost everyone when we were at Heinz field. Whatever these guys are, they’re operating outside of the old ways. The chain of command was broken long ago. Whoever is running them is just making it up as they go.”
“Maybe they aren’t as bad as we’re thinking,” Cass said. “We’re assuming that they’re up to no good, but that might not be the case.”
“They blew up Annapolis,” Lance said.
“Yes, but we don’t know why.”
Brown said, “I think it would be prudent of us to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Nate, can your men take them on, if necessary?”
“No.”
“Well, you said that rather quickly.” Brown smirked. “Why do you say that?”
“They have at least two tanks and a helicopter.” Nathaniel held his hands out in a give-me-a-break gesture. “We would be nothing more than monkeys throwing rocks.”
Eifort shook her head. “We have an entire stash of RPGs and mortars from Ralph. We could put up a hell of a fight.”
“At what cost? Are yinz willing to lose three quarters of the people here?” Nathaniel frowned. “We aren’t going to charge head first into a buncha bullets.”
Brown turned to Eifort. “You think we could repel them?”
“Probably, but Nathaniel is right. We would lose a lot of people. The helicopter would be the worst. If we surprised the tanks, we might be able to destroy their tracks with the RPGs, but the helicopter is a whole other problem. Besides, we don’t even know how many men they have. If they’re two hundred strong, it’s game, set, and match.”
Cass puffed her cheeks out with a breath. “And if we attack them first, they’re going to be pissed.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, each staring at the maps.
“Yinz best bet is to arm everyone here and wait. See what they have to say. If they get hostile, then at least everyone has a fighting chance. Maybe they just want a roof over their heads for a few days.” Nathaniel stood. “I best be going, Doc. You mind if I bring the kid around later this week? Assuming there aren’t bullets zipping around, anyway.”
Brown walked around the table and shook Nathaniel’s hand. “Of course. We’ll be in touch as they get closer.”
Nathaniel gave everyone a curt nod before leaving through the front.
“Damn,” Adam said when they heard the door slam shut. “And I thought we had bad news to deliver.”
Lance looked over at him. He had forgotten that Adam was even in the room. He hadn’t said a word the entire time.
“What do you mean?” Cass asked. “What happened out there?”
They recounted the holes they’d found in Latrobe.
Brown leaned against the doorjamb, his head low, eyes studying the floor. He listened without speaking until the story was finished. “And you heard a sound coming from both of the holes?”
“Yeah,” Lance said.
“And you believe that you were sitting atop some sort of constructed maze? A way for them to travel, like a subway or sewer system?”
“I don’t know what else it could have been.”
Cass cradled her head in her hands for a few seconds before looking at Lance. “So you were right about last night then.”
Lance nodded, but said nothing.
“If they’re digging giant ass holes, then they’re probably organized somehow,” Cass continued. “There is no way that one Vladdie is digging through Latrobe like that.”
“Could it be some kind of instinct? Like ants or bees?” Eifort asked Brown. “Maybe the nesting and digging is just a part of whatever it is they’ve become.”
Brown said, “This doesn’t appear to be instinct to me.”
“Why do you think that?” Adam asked.
“Because of the trap they made for Lance last night. That’s not instinct.” Brown peered through the window. “If their attacks on our compound are going to get more advanced, then we might have to go on the offensive, as Cass did in Pittsburgh.”
Lance frowned. “I don’t like—”
A scream came from outside.
“What was that?” Lance asked.
“I don’t know,” Cass said. “My x-ray vision isn’t working right now.”
“Douche.”
They ran outside, taking the back door. A small crowd stood by the rear shed, circling around something Lance couldn’t see.
A woman screamed again.
Brown shoved his way through the people. “What’s going on?”
No one answered him.
The doc stopped by the building, staring into the woods.
Cass and Lance stepped beside him, following his gaze.
“Son of a bitch,” Cass said.
The decapitated head of a woman rested atop a stump just beyond the tree line.
Chapter 6
&nbs
p; Flies buzzed around the flayed flesh of the neck.
The tongue, swollen and discolored, canted out of the mouth at a grotesque angle. The hair was straggly and blood soaked.
Lance grimaced as he stared into the rolled eyes, their whites exposed. He didn’t recognize the face.
“Does anyone know who this woman was?” Brown asked. “Is anyone missing from the camp?”
Murmurs filled the crowd, but most people shook their heads.
Cass stepped closer. “Jesus.”
Brown stood in front of Lance, leaning in so the others couldn’t hear him. “If this is the work of those things...”
The sentence, unfinished, hung between them. Lance got the meaning. This wasn’t the act of a hungry animal.
It was a warning, a shot across their bow.
A sign of things to come.
“That is fucking disgusting, bro.” Greg stood two-people deep in the crowd, pinching his nose shut. “Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know.” Lance didn’t want to say yet that he didn’t believe a person had done it.
Brown waved his arms over his head. “Everyone needs to fan out. We’re going to search the woods for the rest of the body. Shout if you see it.”
Lance worked to position people a few feet apart before meeting Cass, Brown, and Eifort in the middle. He took Cass’ hand in his own and squeezed, needing the comfort of her touch. Too many things had piled on in the past day.
Eifort covered the head with a tarp she’d taken from a woodpile.
“Yo... bro!” Greg shouted from the end of the line. Lance had positioned him there to be as far away from the irritating moron as possible. “What if someone in this line is the person who killed her? What if they kill one of us?”
“You have one of these, don’t you?” Lance pulled the pistol free from its spot on his hip and held it up, twisting it back and forth.
“Oh yeah. Sure, OK.”
“Jackass,” Lance mumbled.
“Of all the people to survive the apocalypse, how did that guy make it?” Cass asked. “How does he even remember to feed himself?”
“No idea.” Lance followed Brown into the trees. The entire line moved forward. “I hear he’s been shacking up with several women lately. With our luck, there will be ten little Gregs running around next year.”
Cass shuddered beside him. “What’s going on here, dumbass? All of this stuff with the Vladdies is happening all at once.”
“I don’t know. It has me sick to my stomach, to be honest.”
Their eyes roamed over the forest floor, searching for blood or any other sign of where the severed head had come from. The search party continued to whisper amongst themselves, throwing around scandalous rumors about rifts in the camp or heated arguments that had recently taken place.
Lance thought about the dire warnings Cass had given whenever they were in the safe zone in Pittsburgh. She thought that big groups of people would be unsustainable in the new world. That someone would eventually screw up and get everyone else killed.
Were they seeing the first threads of the inevitable unwinding of the compound?
He brushed the thoughts away. There were too many pregnant women living with them to entertain the idea of their little pocket of the world collapsing. They had to persevere.
They searched the area for over an hour before Brown called a halt to it. They hadn’t found so much as a drop of blood. The head hadn’t originated from that part of the woods.
It had been carried there. Left as a horrid warning for those who would find it.
Cass led Lance further into the woods as the rest retreated.
“Where are we going?” Lance asked.
“For a walk. We haven’t had much alone time lately.”
They didn’t speak for a while, walking hand in hand, trying to enjoy the moment of peace and quiet. Lance struggled to keep his mind from straying to the barrage of ill tidings hitting them from all directions. When they came upon a shallow, clear stream, they sat on a rock at the shoreline, watching the water go by.
Lance related what Adam had told him about his position as the unelected sheriff. Cass only nodded her head when it was over.
“What? You think what he was saying is right? People are looking to me for answers?”
“Yes.” Cass shrugged. “You killed the boogeyman. That anointed you as a king in their eyes.”
“But I’m a fuck up. No one should take advice from me. To be honest, I shouldn’t even listen to myself. I’ve rarely made the right decisions in my entire life.”
“I think you’ve done better than you give yourself credit for. We’re alive. We’re together. There isn’t much more I could ask for, all things considered.”
Lance held her gaze for several seconds. He was shocked by the moment of unadulterated softness coming from her. “I think the pregnancy has affected your brain.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Ass.”
“I do what I can.”
They watched the water some more, tossing pebbles into its flowing surface.
“I don’t like where things are heading,” Cass said a few minutes later. “We should come up with some kind of backup plan.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe we should consider going further east and finding a boat. We could float off the coast and go on shore for supplies during the day.”
“What about everyone else here? You were the one who said you didn’t want to abandon the pregnant women.”
“I’m not saying we leave now, but we need to be prepared for the worst. We just found a severed head. Those vampire bastards are moving around underground. An army of assholes is marching toward us right now. The forecast is calling for a big shit storm.”
Lance pulled her closer. He’d thought they were building a new life there. Creating a place of safety for those willing to work hard and contribute. To watch it all begin to crumble brought an unexpected fury to the surface.
He set his jaw and prepared himself for the tough slog ahead. He would be damned if he would let everything fall apart now. Not when he had a child on the way.
“Let’s start small—tackle one problem at a time. First, we need to do a better job securing the perimeter tonight. We don’t need to lose any more people.”
Cass grinned. “Look at the sheriff, solving problems.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“So, what, we need more lights and more guards? That’s easy enough.”
Lance figured that would suffice, but it felt too simple, too basic. “We need to give out more guns. I know some people, like Brown, don’t want to carry, but at this point, I’m not sure how much of a choice they have. When the military gets here, we need to be able to defend ourselves.”
“Good luck getting Brown to carry.” Cass shook her head. “I love the man, but he’s an idealist. He hates the brutishness of firearms. That’s a deadly position to hold nowadays.”
“He hates guns, but he’s banging a woman who hasn’t let go of hers in months.”
“I wonder if she’s still holding onto that M4 while they’re doing it?”
Lance snorted. It felt good to laugh again. “What about the head?”
“I don’t know. You think the Vladdies did that?”
“I guess. If so, why wouldn’t they have done the same thing with Billy?”
“Maybe it’s someone in the camp doing crazy shit. Just because they have survived the end of the world doesn’t mean they’re good people. If an IT guy and a failed artist can survive, why not a murderer? A serial killer?”
Lance blew out his breath. That was all they needed to deal with—another murdering sociopath. As if they weren’t already surrounded by thousands of beasts who wanted nothing more than to eat them.
Another quiet moment followed. The sun peeked through the tree canopy above as it worked its way across the sky.
The longer they sat there, the more their problems washed away. The stream carried their concerns
with it, letting them enjoy the moment together. These were the times Lance lived for. The feel of Cass beside him, the soft wind through the trees.
The mounting pressure to keep the compound running was left behind them, as if the churning water protected them, however temporarily.
Cass stood then and pulled her torn, white shirt over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Her smallish breasts had only recently begun to swell from the pregnancy. She stood before him, hands held out. “Let’s relax for a bit. We need to get in as much of this as we can before I get all fat, and you don’t want me anymore.”
Lance stood and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her from the ground and carrying her to the water’s edge. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’ve got me addicted to your weird self.”
“Never thought you’d do it with a girl sporting a mohawk, did you?” She ran her hands through his hair as he lowered her to the ground.
“Um, sir?”
Lance had been fumbling with his fly when he heard the voice from behind him. He spun around on his knees and saw a woman standing thirty yards behind them, shielding her eyes so she couldn’t see what they were doing.
“Christ, what is it?” Lance fought to keep the annoyance from his voice. He failed. “Does it look like we’re a little busy? And don’t call me sir.”
“Sorry, sir... I mean... sorry. They told me to come get you because they found the woman’s body.”
Cass sat up, covering her breasts. “Where?”
The woman’s voice wavered. “On the other side of the field, behind the portable toilets.”
Chapter 7
Brown stood before the bank of bathrooms, his eyes narrowed to little more than slits. He shook his head as Lance and Cass approached, but didn’t speak.
“Goddamn, bro. This is so nasty.” Greg waited beside the bank of toilets, cursing and gagging.
Lance stopped beside Brown. “Who found her?”
“Greg. He discovered an arm while pumping the sewage out.”
Eifort had found a sewage tanker at the compound when they’d taken it over. They used it to pump out the contents of the portable toilets and then drove several miles away, dumping it somewhere in the woods.
