by David Peters
“You actually thought I was just stopping by? Daniel, I’m here to stay, Niccole and I agreed on that when we left Colfax, we wanted to live here, safety in numbers, easier to defend. I think the question for me is will you have us?” asked Dylan.
“How could you think we wouldn’t want you here? Between your engine knowledge and Niccole’s work with electrical and electronics you both would be a huge gain for the community” Daniel said excitedly.
“I need to introduce you to some people who will be working for you.”
“Wait, what? Working for me, I just got here, why would someone be working for me?” Dylan asked.
“The one fault with being a tree hugger is no one knows shit about anything mechanical. We all swore it off in one way or another. We had a mechanic we could get hold of down in Sumter, but we aren’t holding out any hope that he will show up on our door step. Once the shit hit the fan, and folks realized that maybe we should have someone who can fix a simple pump, people got concerned,” Daniel said.
Dylan thought about the irony of it all, “Alright, but I want the option to step down and be a lackey if I think something doesn’t feel right. I know if I had a little seniority around here I wouldn’t be real happy when someone’s brother showed up and took my job.”
Daniel smiled, “Done. But you have to stop thinking that way. This isn’t about climbing the ladder. This is about surviving day to day.”
“I get it. I just feel weird.”
“Let’s hit the pump house first,” Daniel said as the brothers cut across the town square and headed uphill on a small dirt path. “John should be in there. He has been nursing our primary diesel generator for some time now. The guy is a wonder with small engines and appliances but he will be the first to admit he doesn’t know big engines well.”
Daniel walked towards a small shed with a double door that had what appeared to be an old semi-truck exhaust pipe sticking out of the roof.
Daniel looked into the open door and tapped John on the shoulder. John stepped out wiping his greasy hands on a rag.
“Dylan, this is John. He is one of the few people around here that ever lifted the hood of a car. He keeps the pump running. We get the bulk of our potable water from a spring a few hundred feet straight down.” Daniel said with pride.
“Good to meet you, John. How is everything working?” Dylan said shaking his hand.
“It runs well. Depending on the day and how badly people want water. The pump usually only has to run once or twice a day to fill the cistern. We have a large tank up on top of the hell behind us that we use for backup if I need to take this thing offline for any length of time.” said John.
The small talk continued for some time. Dylan was fairly confident he could cope with anything this old truck engine could throw at him.
“So Daniel, I’d really like to see how Niccole is settling in if that is possible” said Dylan anxiously.
“Why of course. Let’s head on over and try to figure out our sleeping arrangements” Daniel said with excitement.
As they walked across the town square to the cabin with the blue door Dylan could see their horses in a small field not too far away. “Will the horses be ok there?” asked Dylan.
“Oh ya, we have had various farm animals in there. A few of our migrant folks have goats for the milk. They love it in there,” Daniel said casually.
Inside Daniels cabin, Niccole and Erica were laughing about something while sitting on the couch in the small living room.
“Don’t let us interrupt, just came to check how things were going,” said Dylan.
“Nice place, cozy, I like it,” said Niccole. “I’m thinking the back bedroom has room for the three of us, Erica may move out here to the couch at some point, but right now she wants to be near people,” Niccole said as she put her arm around Erica. “We were talking about how odd it was that everyone’s cabin is known by the door color. We are going to get up early one day and paint yours like an old hippy bus just to mess everyone up.”
“The town would eat it up, trust me, might start a new trend.”
“Anyway, glad to see you have settled in and that the cat has survived. I’ve been giving Dylan a run down on the town, trying to, well, begging him to stay,” said Daniel.
“And the answer was?” Niccole asked Dylan.
“Welcome home Coco, Erica,” Dylan said smiling.
“As anti-feminist as it sounds, I would really like to get to work on some dinner,” Niccole said. “I’m looking forward to our first regular meal in over a week. Protein bars, peanut butter and military powdered food just weren’t cutting it. I would really like to eat something that I need to chew.”
“You and me both,” said Dylan. “Strange as it sounds, I am looking forward to helping with the dishes.”
Dylan and Niccole prepared a nice dinner for the four of them. Dylan was happy to see there was meat in the freezer. Actually he was happy to see a freezer. “So how much electricity to you guys generate, or do you have a hidden nuclear reactor too?”
“We have several methods of gathering energy. You have no doubt noticed all the solar panels. We had most of those when you were here last time Dylan. We also have a small water turbine on the river that generates quite a bit. Each cabin has battery storage, although they are nearly always fully charged, we just don’t use much energy here. Any appliance you see is going to be the most efficient there is. Most are in the cellars of the cabins but you saw how little room I had in mine.”
Dylan and Niccole were in heaven cooking. There were home grown spices and the vegetables couldn’t have been fresher. Dylan treated each steak like it was royalty. Hand rubbing his mixture of herbs and spices and placing it on the grill like it might break.
The four sat down to a nice dinner and light conversation. Even Erica was laughing at times, though the weight of the week was still visible in her eyes. Dylan and Daniel got caught up on the important things; things Dylan had done in the past few years, how Daniel had changed and in so doing changed the community. Both had come to find an old level of respect neither had felt since their childhood together.
With the table cleared and dishes done for the most part the four sat down around the table with some evening tea. Dylan was telling a story about their childhood when a large bell began ringing out in the courtyard.
“Crap! Grab your rifle and let’s head to the barricade!” Daniel was out the door in a flash with Dylan close behind him.
Niccole had her weapon also but stayed on the porch. She was feeling the need to provide protection for Erica who was standing behind her attempting to appear extremely small.
Dylan had his lever action 444. He was really starting to value the years he had spent growing accustomed to the gun. As they reached the top of the wall, they could see four figures coming up the long drive.
“Sappers, again, that’s three nights in a row. They don’t give up,” said Daniel.
Dylan was looking through the scope of his rifle, “Why are they so slow? I’ve seen these Corrupted move faster than most men can sprint. These are moving at a snail’s pace,” Dylan observed.
“Good question, we usually don’t have this kind of warning either,” said Daniel.
“Something isn’t right here.” Dylan said. He rested his rifle on the railing and sited in on the first Sapper.
“Let them get another hundred or so yards closer. You aren’t going to hit them that far out,” Daniel was interrupted by the boom of Dylan’s rifle and the nearly simultaneous explosion of the first Sapper.
“Holy crap Dylan, I had forgotten how good you were with that old thing. You always could shoot circles around me. But that was cans, these are a walking target at, what, four or five hundred feet?” Daniel said in amazement.
“I’ve had some practice this week,” he said, blowing up the second Sapper.
The last two stopped their approach a good one hundred and fifty yards out, “This is wrong Daniel, this feels wrong,” Dylan sai
d as he turned his back on the Sappers and looked around the town square. He could make out Niccole standing on the porch, watching the barricade. There, movement on the Docs roofline! Dylan brought the scope up to his eye and waited. There it was again, looking over and down, smelling. A damn Hunter was on the roofline. Dylan waited for the head to come out a third time.
“Dylan man, watch where you point that thing, there are people in the-” Boom! Daniel was interrupted again and watched as a now headless Hunter tumbled off of Docs roof and crashed down onto the wooden walkway that rings the square.
“What the hell!” Daniel exclaimed.
“Keep two men on the wall, they need to start shooting. Those Sappers won’t be getting any closer. Everyone else to the square! Move it Daniel!” Dylan yelled as he ran off to the town square.
The two remaining on the wall began firing on the two remaining Sappers. Dylan tried to make a mental count of how many shots they took but he rapidly fell behind in the count. After what seemed like far too many shots there was finally a double explosion beyond the barricade.
As Dylan ran into the middle of the square he made eye contact with Niccole. They nodded to each other as if to say they both understood what was happening. The real threat had never been from the front gate. That had only been a distraction for the real attack from inside the compound.
Dylan kept his eyes moving along the ground, letting his peripheral vision find the movement. Again, he thought he saw movement on top of Docs building. This time Niccole was the first to shoot. A three round burst sent the Hunter crashing onto the front porch roof, then onto to the dusty ground. He didn’t move for a few seconds, but then rolled onto all fours and pushed itself up shaking its’ head as it rose up. As it began moving towards Niccole, Dylan let loose another deafening boom and sent the Hunter rolling several feet. It clutched briefly at the air then lay still. Niccole and Dylan stayed in position for another few minutes before deciding it was safe to move about.
Daniel was speechless, “Dylan, I had no idea that fighter was hidden in the two of you.”
“It’s been a rough week, what can I say,” Dylan stated flatly as he walked over to the last Hunter to verify it was dead. “We need to address what happens during those alerts. People should have command stations instead of everyone charging to the barricade. We need assigned places for folks to be. In the morning I want to walk the perimeter too.”
Dylan could see the surprise in Daniel’s eyes, the unknowingness of it all. The man Daniel had walked away from nearly two decades ago had come an extremely long ways in the last week, he found himself starting to understand how the Corrupted thought, see things through their eyes, learning his enemy.
“We can’t underestimate these things, they are intelligent,” said Dylan. “This was a probing attack. They were simply gathering intelligence and hoping to get a few of us as a bonus. Those Hunters could have taken several people and we wouldn’t have known. They were simply observing from the roofline, the Sappers were the distraction to get them in place. They planned this out Daniel.”
Dylan was prodding the dead Hunter with the end of his rifle when the two heard someone approach them from behind.
“I couldn’t agree more with Dylan,” said Doc, walking up to the dead Hunter. “These things have a mission. We don’t know what that is yet but I have a feeling we will be seeing more, and better, attacks. Based on what we just saw I think we can expect to see more coordination and larger numbers in future attacks. They also have started switching to evening attacks. Frankly, we are in deep shit.”
“I agree, but I still can’t figure out why they are attacking? Is it simply to get at us?” questioned Dylan.
“I’m as clueless as you but I’m with Dylan on the defense aspect. We need to be better defended if we want to survive longer than a week. We can’t underestimate these things, they are getting smarter,” said Doc.
“We need to work up a better guard detail. Let’s get working on that sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, what do we do with these two?” asked Daniel.
Doc knelt down and examined the two decimated Hunters, “Burn that one. The two of you wrecked him pretty bad. Wrap that first one in some plastic, or a tarp, or something that won’t leak. No one touch it directly. Let’s get one of those picnic tables down into my cellar; I want to do a necropsy on this thing. Take him apart and see how he ticks. I’m guessing a scented candle isn’t going to keep that smell down though.”
Daniel looked at the gathering crowd “Ok folks, let’s quiet down please. We knew this was coming. We are going to start standard armed watches. That means walking the grounds and looking for anything out of the ordinary. I want eight volunteers for the night watch. We will do four hour shifts starting tonight.”
Dylan was glad to see so many hands go into the air. This was one tight community, everyone wanted to make sure they were contributing something. Either that or a large portion of them realized they wouldn’t sleep tonight anyway.
Daniel sorted through the hands. He wanted experienced people only. The last thing they needed right now was someone tired and nervous walking around with an automatic weapon they didn’t know. “Ok, tomorrow we are going to set up a small shooting range up the hillside on one of the farm terraces.” Daniel looked at Dylan, “I’d like you to teach some of the lesser skilled folks how to kill these things and just as importantly how not to shoot their own foot off.”
Dylan looked surprised, “I don’t think I’m quite qualified for that.”
Daniel looked at him “You know why they chose me as mayor when all this crap came down? They chose me because I didn’t want it. They knew I could do it, but I didn’t want to bear that kind of responsibility. It was for that reason they wanted me, because I understood the importance, the responsibility for others lives. Welcome to the club, Dylan. People will look up to you. Get used to it. You already have the responsibility now you just have to own up to it. You are a natural born leader.”
Dylan looked at Daniel. It occurred to him that they had both changed. Maybe that wasn’t the right way to look at it. What they were now, they had always been though it just hadn’t been given cause to rise to the surface. When Daniel and Dylan last parted it was with harsh words. Personal attacks when the argument had nothing to do with anything but opinions. They had opinions of things that didn’t matter at all now and had no bearing on their lives in the past. He saw the changes in Daniel and felt the change in himself also.
Someone had scrounged up a large blue tarp and a couple pair of oversized rubber dishwashing gloves. They slid the tarp as close as they could and the three of them rolled the Hunter’s corpse onto the tarp and then proceeded to roll it up.
“Good lord these things stink, what the hell causes that?” asked Daniel.
“Hopefully that is one of the many things I will find out,” answered Doc. He seemed almost excited to start the examination.
With Dylan on one end, Daniel in the middle and Doc on the other end they carried it into the cellar and laid it on top of the picnic table.
“These things are solid. I didn’t expect it to weigh this much,” observed Daniel.
The brothers had opened the tarp from around the Hunter and let it drape over the table underneath. Doc came back down with a painter’s mask, hospital scrubs and rubber gloves.
“All right gentlemen, no one in here until I say so,” said Doc sternly.
“With the smell, I don’t think it will be a problem Doc,” laughed Dylan.
Daniel called over to one of the watchmen “Mayberry, keep an eye on the Doc’s cellar here. Make sure no one snoops around or heads down there.” Daniel thought for a second, “And make sure it’s the Doc that comes out.”
Mayberry looked a little confused, “How do I know if it’s him Boss? He already smells like one of ‘em.”
Daniel thought about it, “Use your own judgment. Just try not to kill him before you talk to me about it first.”
Dylan quickly ad
ded “Just look at his fingernails. Make sure the ends of his fingers don’t look bruised or discolored in any way.”
Doc yelled out from the cellar “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Doc mumbled a few more unintelligible words then laughed quietly to himself as he closed the double door.
Daniel and Dylan smiled at each other and started walking back towards the cabin. Niccole and Erica met him half way there and walked together arm in arm.
“All right folks! Let’s get back to our homes, dinner, what have you. Get a good rest if you can. We have quite a bit of work over the next few days,” said Daniel as he addressed the crowd that had grown. “I want the eight volunteers with me. Dylan and I will hand out assignments and schedules and we will work up something more concrete early tomorrow morning.”
