by catt dahman
Taking a deep breath, Cory went on, “Randy took fire in his chest and was gone before he hit the ground.” He didn’t add that Randy had stood and defended women and children before being brought down.
“Those cowardly bastards caught Walt and Ali in bed and shot them like dogs when Walt went for his pistol. They just slaughtered them, Ponce.”
Ponce cursed quietly.
“I have Natalie: wounded.” He shook his head. “It’s mortal,” he mouthed.
When Ponce nodded, Cory finished, “Pak: leg wound. Serious.”
Cox shrugged, “You have injuries.”
“And you expect us to be cooperative?” Ponce demanded.
“I asked for surrender, not a battle,” Cox snapped.
Cory glared and said, “Make that another deceased: Natalie.” He glanced at the others of his group, Stevie, Lexie, Bella, Mad Max, and Pak. He was reeling from his fistfight with two soldiers: his lips bleeding, head aching, and eye bruised. The only consolation was that the other two soldiers had taken a worse beating than Cory had taken.
“Got your ass beat, huh, boy?” Cox asked.
“Ain’t your boy, and nah, I beat two of your boys down; you should have sent three or four if you wanted them to win.”
Cox laughed, “Such a tough boy.”
“They go free. They need a med kit and can go free,” Hannah said. She kept her voice calm, but she was so worried about Stevie that she was about to pass out; she couldn’t think what these men might do to her sister and Lexie. Ponce quietly whispered the names of those they had lost.
“Hold your horses,” Cox said. He looked over the other group of twenty-five, who sat angrily watching him, several wounded and bleeding. “Which are hybrids?”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Me and Ponce. There were three others, but you and your dumb ass crew killed them.” She felt a little better as Cox looked dejected. Why was he so interested in hybrids?
“We’ll take you and Ponce. And her,” he pointed to Bella. “Any trouble you cause will result in her being hurt.”
Hannah walked to Colonel Cox and presented her hands. When one of his men came close to cuff her, she lunged forward and with a smile, she nipped his hand.
The bite hardly bled at all, and Hannah licked the blood off her lips, never breaking her eye contact with Cox. The Colonel didn’t hurt Bella as promised, and Hannah took it as a win.
Bella spit on the soldier who handcuffed her, but she was pushed into a vehicle with Hannah and Ponce. She shook her head, screaming as Cory tried to fight back, taking a rifle stock to the face for his efforts; he slumped back onto the porch, his cheekbone cracked. They trained their rifles on his head.
Colonel Cox made the men and women of the compound lie in the dirt, face down and with their hands out to the side. They were lined up, glancing at one another, scared.
When everyone was still again, he asked the man to show him his hand, which Hannah had bitten. The man held out a finger that was swollen and purple. “It isn’t bad, just a tiny bite.”
“Awe, Hannah, you’re a joy to be around aren’t you?” Cox glared at Hannah, but instead of shooting her, Cox shrugged. “I have a boss who really wants you alive; be glad.”
Without a word of warning, Cox turned on the man who was bitten and put a bullet into his head. When the man dropped, Cox met Hannah’s eyes. “Good try, Hybrid.”
Stevie held Lexie’s hand, wondering what their parents would do to make this a better situation. She knew they would have fought back, but Stevie had no idea what to do to save them.
“I love you, Sister,” Hannah mouthed the words.
A line of soldiers finished checking the buildings and made sure that they had everyone, while dragging out the last child to throw her with the others. The little girl ran to her mother who held her tightly.
Cox motioned to his men, and they opened fire on the people sitting in the dirt and lying prone on the ground. As they screamed, dirt and grass kicked up all around the people; the soldiers killed every one of the people from the compound.
Stevie hugged Lexie and cried, screaming into her shoulder as she wailed.
As blood soaked the dirt crimson, Ponce went to his knees, his hands slamming onto the ground.
“This wasn’t our deal,” Hannah screamed, “stop it.”
“Settle her down,” Cox ordered.
Hannah lunged at Cox, deciding to try to kill him even if he killed her for trying. Around her, gunshots exploded as her friends moved as well, hoping to catch the men off guard.
Soldiers stepped forward, and although Hannah fought, snapping at them and kicking, she was quickly held down. The medic slid a needle into her arm.
Chapter 2
Hannah
Hannah awoke a little at a time. “I need to pee,” she announced.
She felt dizzy and weak, but the men allowed two female soldiers to help her get out of the truck to use the restroom behind a tree on the side of the road. “Do you have to watch?”
“With you, yes, we do.”
When she had gotten up, Ponce and Bella were quietly sleeping. She had pulled her arm from the floor of the truck as thick syrup tried to hold her fast. As she peed, she looked at her arm, confused that it was reddish brown.
Maybe it had happened back at the farm. Her heart tightened, remembering her friends dying in the dirt, all shot, and treated like trash.
She wondered about her sister and the rest and planned to check on Ponce and Bella to see if they knew what had happened to everyone else.
Back in the truck, she saw that Bella and Ponce were gone. Maybe they had been taken to relieve themselves as well.
A strange, cleanish grey patch was in about the same spot as her arm had been. Curious and still trying to clear her mind, she set her arm down in the clean patch, and it matched perfectly. Interesting.
With her finger, she poked at the sticky stuff on the truck’s floor, unable in the gloom to be sure what it was. It was almost-dried blood, still tacky. Following the shape past her clean arm mark, she found the thick stain to be a familiar shape she recognized. Hannah got back out of truck and stared at a female guard.
“Where are Ponce and Bella?”
She didn’t answer but looked at Cox as he came to look at Hannah.
Hannah repeated her question.
“Hannah, Ponce was injured when we loaded up.”
“You mean you shot him?”
“He was shot when you tried to resist. Believe me, I wanted him alive and well, almost as much as I wanted you. That is the truth,” Cox said.
“Alive?”
“ I’m sure he didn’t want to worry you, but my team tells me his gunshot wound opened up, and an artery was involved. He bled out.”
“No. Did you try to help him?”
“As much as we could. Remember, we have a fear of your blood and saliva.”
“But let’s talk about someone else. Let’s talk about you: the little girl who survived on her own and helped settle Hopetown and the little girl who grew up and led a raiding party on a farmhouse against a family who had sick children in the basement….”
Hannah bit her lip. “They were feeding live people to zombies,” she recalled the event easily. It was a hard, terrifying mission she had gone on.
“They didn’t know any better. They didn’t really understand the infection,” Cox said.
“None of us understood it.”
Ponce had been one of the people kept in the basement and would have been fed to the zombie children if Hannah and her friends had not rescued him.
The last they saw of the family was when the mother had walked out into the yard and faced the shamblers.
They had left the father in the house with one of the rescued women who wanted revenge. Three of the children from the house, the human ones, had been let go; she had always wondered if she shouldn’t have just shot them as well.
“The three of them were so lost and scared. They didn’t understand anything
, ” Cox was explaining.
“You knew them?” Hannah asked. “How do you know that story?”
“I found them and helped them. I explained what they didn’t understand, and they gave me hope. I am sorry your man, Ponce died. I really did want him to return with us. Bella, was that her name? Yes? She wasn’t important anyway.”
“I wanna see him.”
“I can’t allow that, Hannah. But he and the girl are taken care of, and we’ll be going now. I have my orders.”
“I will behave better.”
“First, we know that you will never behave. Second, really, you don’t want to see him. That would be upsetting. But you will behave as well as you can because if you don’t, I will have you sedated solid.”
“Whatever,” she pretended she didn’t care.
He smiled. “Do you know who gives orders to a Colonel of the US Army?”
“No.”
“His wife,” the man laughed. “My wife, Elizabeth, whom I found running from you and your team eight years ago, along with her sister and brother, wants you at our base, Hannah. I’ve looked for you for a very long time.”
3
Cory and Stevie
Cory wound gauze around his arm, trying to stop the bleeding. For whatever reason, the soldiers hadn’t wasted a second bullet on him but had kicked him almost to death; this was his payback for the beating he had given the two he had faced in a fair fight.
While he couldn’t see himself, he was willing to bet he was beaten up badly enough to look dead.
Pak was dead of a bullet to his brain, and Cory shook his head, wondering how the tough Asian man had ended up being left to rot on this porch. After all the man’s adventures and ass kicking, he was just a dead body.
On his feet, one on one, Pak could have taken any of the military men, probably three or four of them at a time. Julia and the rest would have been heart sick if they had seen him left this way.
Mad Max, designer of all the great vehicles Port A used, was slumped half-off the porch, blood dried in splatters down his head and face.
He had been given no respect either and had been shot repeatedly as he went after the enemy with a big Bowie knife. He had actually gotten the better of one, and despite the man’s gun, he had gutted the man.
Pretty, sweet Lexie lay on her stomach, hiding her torn-open belly wound with her back a mess of gore. Cory felt for a pulse, despite himself.
He couldn’t imagine what Misty and Mark would do if they had seen their baby girl left on a porch dead. What would they do without her bird-chirp conversation?
“Cory?” Stevie cried from the pain of a shot to her leg and a head injury. She had been left for dead as well but was still fighting. She was confused and had already called for him several times, scared out of her mind.
When Hannah and the rest fought back at the last second, Stevie had gone down with a bullet to her shin, and when she kept clawing at a man’s face, she had taken a hard blow with the rifle stock to her head. They thought she was dead, or they would have shot her again.
Cory had done what he could for her and then for himself.
“Get up, Honey; we have to get out of here. I have you bandaged.”
“Hurts,” she said.
“I know it does. We have to get up, get to the SUV, and drive out of here. Then, we can get new bandages and pain pills and rest. You have to help me, Stevie, ‘cause I can’t leave you, and I can’t do it all alone; I’m hurt pretty bad.”
“Don’t leave me, Cory.”
“Baby girl, why would I leave you? Don’t be silly. You’re going with me. Get up now.”
“I can’t.”
“I said, “Get up.” Cory grimaced as he pulled her to her feet, trying to be tough and strong to help her; if they didn’t go, both would die, but he wouldn’t leave her.
Stevie had asked him if he would kill and eat people. He knew the answer would be ‘yes’ if that would save her life. He would do anything.
She screamed when she put weight on her leg, slumping against him. “Oh, God, Cory, it hurts so much.” She tried to take a step, and as her vision went dizzy with the pain and blood-loss, she slumped towards the ground.
Cory had to drag her off the porch, holding one arm and yanking her over the rough ground, knowing he was skinning parts of her, but afraid to stop his momentum.
He pulled Stevie down the hill. Once in a while, she rallied enough to crawl a little and pulled herself along the ground to give Cory a little break. He wanted to ditch his backpack but knew they needed the supplies, so he cursed at her, pulled, pushed, and finally got her to the SUV.
It had taken both of them screaming and sweating to get her into the SUV, but finally, she was there. He got to the driver’s side, thinking it was a miracle that they had made it.
He was only able to drive a few miles before he had to pull off behind trees, rebandage them both, and share painkillers and water with Stevie.
He wanted to go on, but the pills made him a little sleepy, and the pain was off the charts. They slept all that day, and when Cory awoke at midnight, he drove north again. If it were the last thing he did, he would get Stevie to Hopetown and save her life.
He had to pull over again as the pain got too bad, and he swerved.
“Lexie?”
“Shhhh. Rest, Stevie.”
“Where’s Lexie? Cory?”
“She didn’t make it. Remember? She was trying to fight back. She was brave. I want you to eat and drink for me. We’ll take some pills and sleep a while, and then we’ll be to Hopetown. We’ll be fine then, okay?”
Stevie did as he asked but didn’t respond.
When the sun arose, Cory started the SUV, and they drove again. It was halfway through the morning; he had slept more than he expected.
The bullet wound, bruises, and scrapes hurt horribly. If someone had told him that, in addition to those, a terrible soreness would set in and that the nerves that were in shock would also awaken and begin screaming, he wouldn’t have believed that either. He wouldn’t have thought he could be in any more pain or have guessed he could have stood such intense pain.
“This is where you and your brothers and sister were born: in Hopetown. Many people were infected, but your parents waited it out at a hospital that partially caved in from the bombings, and then they settled Hopetown. Your mother, Beth, came up with the plan. I had my own group and joined later, and they all took me in.”
Cory kept talking even if she didn’t respond.
“Hopetown is great. Well, it was, but we had way too many people and way too much area to protect, and that’s why we went south: to expand and get a trade route for salt and fish and citrus. You and the other little ones were born here and swam in the river and went to school.
There were fruit trees and fields of food, clean water, livestock, and horse barns, kittens and dogs; it’s secure. They had medical personnel.”
“Did Zs come?”
“We fought them. They periodically massed, but people fought them back. Like at Port A, when we had to thin them out. We’re about there.”
“Where? Are we there?”
“At the end of this road,” Cory said with a weak grin.
The road seemed exactly the same. He drove into a fenced area with gates, but the gates were on the ground. “Something is wrong.”
Stevie looked out her window. “Why are there zeds? Did you go to the wrong place?” She watched a half-naked man shambling around; he was fat and not like the ones she normally saw that were weathered badly and partially decomposed. “They look pretty fat and new to me.”
“To me, too,” Cory admitted. He realized this was the first fenced-in area, but it had been breached. The ground, now dry, had been marked with tracks and made muddy with blood. Here and there were piles of rags that were really dead bodies, left to rot.
“Cory?” Stevie asked.
“Just a second,” he said. Driving through the wide-opened second gated area, Cory noted that no
one was on guard and that there were hundreds of bodies: some chewed up and older looking with bullet wounds to their heads and some curled up in the dirt. Zombies shambled about the area and moaned as they saw the people in the SUV.
He felt as if he needed to vomit, but he drove on.
There was the mansion, its front door thrown open and windows cracked and streaked with blood. No one sat in the little park. The dining hall wasn’t a hive of activity, and the medical bay was torn apart. More bodies and zombies were along the road to the apartments. Everywhere Cory looked was a wasteland of bodies and downed fences.
He felt sick all over.
“Where is everyone?” Stevie asked him.
Cory let Stevie scream as he impulsively jumped out and grabbed a box of food that was partially over turned on the road. Boxes and packs lay everywhere, left beside bodies and tossed aside. Guns had been smashed into the bloody mud and grass, and trash blew across the compound. He grabbed all he could before jumping back into the SUV.
“Shhh, Stevie. I’m okay. You’re okay. Stop screaming.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I just got us more food and water. I’m driving, see?”
“What happened here?” Stevie asked. “You said….”
“I know what I said, Stevie. I don’t know what happened. I just don’t know.” He stopped the SUV because his vision seemed blurred.
“Cory, don’t cry; I’m sorry that I screamed. I won’t scream anymore, but please don’t cry.”
He wiped his eyes, not realizing he had been leaking from the eyes. “No, I’m okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you, Baby Girl. I guess everything just hit me at once: Jefferson and now Hopetown. This was my home.”
“Something bad happened here.”
“Yep. That was a main housing unit there, that tall building; it’s smoldering, been burning for a week or more. Apartments. Juan and a team took them so that we could house more people here; it was a nice place.” He stopped talking as a man ran from the rubble toward them, shooting over his shoulder.
