by mike Evans
Ellie was watching, and could see that the dead were on their way. She hit her radio whispering to the kids in the bunker below the medic facility. “You guys stay there, the immediate threat is done but the Turned are coming and we’re going to have another fight on our hands. You make sure that you don’t open that for anything. They’ll smell that blood from a mile away so don’t mess around. You guys stay there, Aslin and everyone will be back and we’ll take them out…again.”
The man tried to crawl away from Clary but he held tight to the wound. The man screamed clenching at Clary’s hand and finally caved. He said, “Fine, fine…we’re at a private townhome community.”
When the man stopped speaking Clary inserted his finger deeper, prodding at what he was confident was the bullet lodged in his leg and just below his knee cap. Clary as calmly as he could be said, “And specifically, like town and directions…where is it. There’s a lot of townhomes that I have seen around here when we’ve been out gathering.”
“It is only a few minutes away from here. If you wouldn’t have attacked our men and killed them, then you never would have seen us. We have enough and we know how to get more. We didn’t have any issues until our boys didn’t come back. What the hell did you expect us to think?”
“Are you talking about those dumb asses in the pickup a few months back?”
“Well, that dumbass was second in command and you guys shot the shit out of that truck and left them for dead.”
“Yeah, because he tried to take one of our kids that we have here and the weapons that he had on him.”
“The two men that came to us that you kicked out said you attacked them and that you were out for blood, all kinds of crazy shit. If that isn’t true good luck trying to get Cade to believe it. It won’t matter anyway because he’s going to be out for blood now after his daughter got killed in this. I don’t have anything else that I can tell you so get your fucking fingers out of my leg!”
Clary pulled out his fingers as quickly as he’d put them in, and wiped them on the man’s shirt. “You know what? You are right. There’s nothing else that you can tell me.”
Ellie said, “Hey, Clary, you find out what you needed to know?”
He nodded slowly feeling up the man’s chest and when he could feel his shoulder grabbed it pulling him in close. He grunted as he began to squeeze. He said, “Ellie, you might not want to watch what’s next.”
Ellie began to say something but the man yelled cutting her off. “What do you mean, next? What is next? I told you what you wanted to know, I told you everything you son of-”
Clary gripped hard with his left arm and pulled his right hand as quick as he could and snapped his neck. The man went silent and limp in his arms. Clary, breathing heavily, said, “Ellie, how far until they’re here, how long do we have?”
Ellie used the scope on the rifle looking into the distance and said, “They’re just now making it to the gates entrance. We probably have minutes if we are lucky. So probably less, honestly.”
She pulled him to his feet and ran with his hand in hers towards the entrance to the bunkhouse. When they got close to Lou she gripped him by the arm and said, “We need to get inside, the dead are on their way. Is Bryan going to make it, Lou?”
He felt the kids pulse one more time. It was always the hardest giving up on the young. “There isn’t a chance, sorry.”
There were plenty of screams still coming from inside of the building. Ellie said, “Lou, Lou, snap out of it we need your help, please. The dead are going to be here and we need to be inside when it happens.”
He got to his feet and the three of them ran for the door. When Kya saw them coming she swung it open and slammed it tight behind them. The echo rang through the bunkhouse when she did. Ellie gave her a hug, “Kya, I’m so happy that you are alive.”
Kya hugged her back. “What do you mean you are happy I’m alive? Who didn’t make it? We’ve lost so many in here I can’t imagine losing anyone else.”
She thought of how she would feel if someone had to break bad news about Shaun. Ellie knew that for the greater good of the others that she couldn’t tell her until they got back and had someone else to help her. A cry like she had never heard broke out behind her and diverted Kya’s attention away from what Ellie had brought up. When Ellie turned to see what was wrong, she saw Lou on the ground kneeling before his daughters on his knees with his hands on his face and his forehead on the ground. He was shaking uncontrollably and the words that came out were impossible to understand.
Clary stood there in his own personal darkness thinking that the only time he had heard a man sound like that was from the loss of a loved one. He said, “Ellie, Ellie where are you?”
She gripped his elbow and he leaned in saying, “Was it both of his daughters?”
She nodded forgetting he was currently blind and then said, “Yeah, yeah they are.”
Clary let out a breath that sounded like someone had sucker punched him in the gut. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, Lou. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Lou heard this and snapped. “What are you talking about loss? They didn’t have cancer, they didn’t have leukemia, they were ripped from my life on your base. Did you forget that it was your base that we came to because we were going to be safe here? My daughters were going to have a place to survive, to thrive and learn how to make it in this world. Excuse me for being a bit fucking bitter about this but Jesus Christ, what do you expect? What the fuck happened, Clary? Who were those men? What did you do to deserve this and bring pain upon us all because of it?”
Clary started to speak realizing that the screams of pain coming from the inside when they had been on the outside were no longer. With Lou losing his mind and cool he knew that it wasn’t because they had been saved but that they didn’t make it. Clary said, “I don’t know what happened for sure, but I have a feeling that Bella was a spy.”
“She’s sixteen years old at best. What the hell are you talking about?”
“It wouldn’t take long for someone that is new here to figure out the routines and who does what, and where things are kept, would it? I saw a man come through a hole in the gates they had cut, and carry her off. From what I could tell it looked a lot like she was family, probably his daughter or as close of a relation as one could get.”
“How the fuck did she get in and why isn’t there a vetting process?”
Clary was trying to stay calm and keep his shit together. He didn’t want Lou to do anything stupid and he knew that there probably wasn’t going to be a lot that he could do if that was what it came down to in his current condition. “You realize that most of the time when we were picking people up that there were impending circumstances like fighting off the dead, right? If we had to go through a fifty question process before we brought anyone here we would never have brought you either. I’m sorry about your daughters, Lou, but there isn’t anything that can be done now. We do the best that we can here but we have limited resources, and there is absolutely no way that we could have known that she was up to no good.”
Lou said, “When this shit gets cleared out, I’m taking my daughters to bury and taking enough supplies to try and start somewhere on my own. I’d rather leave, and I have a feeling most people that were in my group are going to feel the same way. If you guys want to stay here and continue to try and fight off every piece of shit that wants to take what you have then be my fucking guest. Life is precious and I’m not going to waste mine pretending to be a soldier. I intend to coexist. I’m more than capable enough of staying off these things radar.”
“We are going to get revenge, Lou. This isn’t going to happen again, at least not by them. Christ, if they’d have just come here to try and talk first I’m sure we could have worked something out with them. I can’t promise that there is not going to be some other lunatic that will try and come after us.”
“You think that this was the only fight we’re going to have. Unless you kill every one of them then I do
n’t think you have heard the last of this. I can't imagine that you truly feel the same way considering you aren’t new to this game.”
“Once my eyes are working again, Lou, considering that they do work again, then I’m going to make sure they don’t come at us. Aslin will regardless of if I’m forever like this I can assure you. You don’t have to leave, Lou, you can stay.”
Lou laughed and said, “The only reasons that I had to be here are both lying on the ground with bullet holes in them. Clary, maybe you don’t know this but a father should never bury his children; it isn’t how it is done. They didn’t deserve this, not that any of these youths or adults did.”
Lou looked around for the first time feeling even worse when he saw that Ricky, Kya, Ellie, and themselves were the only ones still alive. He tried to count but couldn’t keep going once he’d hit twenty. Clary said, “Lou, we can talk about this later but people need you.”
Lou laughed walking around and said, “No one needs me, Clary, they’re all dead. Every single one of them but Ricky and Kya because they were in here. Those men were relentless and thorough.”
Clary said, “We can talk about this again after you’ve had some time to think about things. Maybe you’ll come to terms with this and decide that you can stay for a while, like forever. You realize what our chances of finding another doctor is going to be, right?”
“I’m a nurse, given it is better than anything else you have but I don’t want to keep watching these babies brought to me dead, Clary.”
Lou went into a world of his own walking to each of his daughters and picking them up. He didn’t see a maturing teenager in his arms, he saw babies that he’d gotten up with at two in the morning to feed, and little toddlers walking slow and unsteady around the living room while he and his wife, who’d he’d lost to the dead already, watched as they walked around the living room with wobbly legs. He covered them with sheets and then went to the rest of the dead and began to do the same.
Ellie was trying to be considerate of him and knew that she might not have lived if it had not been for his knowledge. She watched out the windows thanking God that they were equipped with bars. One of the first things that they had begun to do when they took the base over was make sure that there was going to be a safe place that they could hide in. Clary and Aslin had both said that they needed somewhere to seek refuge if that fateful day ever came when the guns clicked empty and the dead were trying to take over the base.
Ellie leaned into Kya, “How many magazines do you have left?”
Kya patted her pockets feeling three and then remembered that she had a bag under her bed for the absolute worst emergencies when the shit hit the fan in a bad way. She had forgotten about it because of the fact that they had not had any issues since they had arrived on the base. She ran to it thankful that with the exception of the extra rifle that Patrick and Shaun carried they all had the same rounds to use in their rifles.
Ellie dropped her magazine sliding in a fresh one and that was when the death tried to make its way inside of the bunkhouse. Ellie watched Kya trying not to think of how hard the time to come would be on her heart and the healing she was going to have to go through.
The thuds were strong against the walls and door. The window shattered immediately when the dead came up to it. The Turned struck it with everything they had. The bars that went across the windows also went four feet into the ground. The strength that they possessed wasn’t anything anyone at the base had overlooked for even a second.
They reached blood covered arms in through the holes in the bars. Ellie brought out a machete to bring it down one after another until they had a small pile of arms. The blood was blackened and sluggish coming from their bodies. Kya kicked the arms out of the way as Ellie chopped at them. If any of them got close enough she would use the machete to stab them through the skull.
Kya said, “I can’t believe this is working, pretty soon they’ll be on their own and unable to grip anything, won’t they?”
Ellie never stopped bringing down the blade. She could feel a fire that was slowly materializing within her arms and hoped that she would have enough energy and strength to make it through until reinforcements came, no matter how few they would be.
Kya and Ellie both had plans to live through the day. When Ellie couldn’t bring down the machete any longer Ricky came over tapping her on the shoulder quickly and then backing away. He said, “Would you like me to take care of those things for a while? I haven’t had to burn up any energy and weren’t you, like, getting out of the hospital today or something?”
Ellie nodded, the sweat was soaking her and her shirt was starting to stick to her back. The words of Lou telling her to take it easy rattled through her head and she knew she had epically failed. She was aware that it was not in her best interests to keep going at this point, or she would find herself looking up from the ground when she passed out. “Yeah, happy release day, right? I finally get out and the world goes to shit…again. Can you take care of this for a while? If you get tired maybe let Kya give it a shot for a while. I’ll head back and see if there’s anyone else back there.”
Ricky took the blade, weighing it in his hand and liking the weight of it. He said, “There isn’t anything that you are going to be able to do back there but stack the dead. Is there a reason you two aren’t using machine guns to take care of these freaks?”
Kya cut in before Ellie could speak. “Yeah, there is a reason, there’s always a reason. We don’t have the support to be able to use the guns.”
“Could you say that in English by chance?”
“The guns are loud, Ricky. If we go boom, boom with the gun then we don’t know how far this shit will echo, but do you want to see how many more of the Turned that we can bring here?”
He thought about it and motioned them to the side. The answer was so obvious that it wasn’t warranted to be spoken aloud. Ricky brought the blade up and chopped down with all the force he was capable of mustering.
With every chop he thought of his friend Bryan, his parents and siblings. Every time there was someone that made him feel like there was a reason to go on in this place they were taken away from him and he hated the things for it with a passion. When the arms stopped coming they climbed up on the bunks to look out and see where they had gone. The dead, mostly all of them at this point, were without arms and the three teens felt like kings momentarily, knowing they’d bought themselves that much more time.
Ellie hit her radio trying to call to Shaun but it just went straight to dead air. Kya said, “Did you see Patrick, Ellie? Did he and Bella make it safe to the hospital? He was supposed to meet me later but we never made it to that point in time. Do you know if he is okay? It makes me sick thinking about the things that could have happened to him.”
Ellie opened her mouth to say something and then shut it shaking her head. There was no way to say anything that wouldn’t break the girl’s heart. Lou who had already been through enough for a lifetime today walked forward gripping her by the shoulder and said, “They took him out, Kya. He held on as long as he could but there wasn’t anything that could be done. Bella did it. She took out Patrick and then Joey took her out. Clary said that he is sure she was some type of spy or whatever you would call it. I don’t think she needs a label but she ruined everything good that we had going for us.”
Kya looked at Ellie and said, “You…you let me think that he was alive. You knew he was dead this entire time didn’t you? Why would you keep something like that from me, Ellie?”
“There isn’t a good answer, Kya, but honestly we needed you to be able and ready to fight if that was what it came to. I didn’t know if those bars would hold or the door, or if they’d just rip a hole into the damn building. I know I’ve seen some crazy shit those things can do when they want to. The last thing I wanted to have happen was for us to be a meal after surviving so much. I'm going to see this thing to the end, and if the worst thing I do is save your heartache a few minutes of pai
n then I don’t think that is as bad as it could be.”
“That’s easy for you to say, when you still have Shaun coming back to you. You aren’t going to be alone. I love him, damn it!”
“We all loved him, not like that but you know what I mean. We’re family and we are going to continue going on being one as well, regardless of how dysfunctional we are. You can be mad at me but I was thinking of you and the others when I did that. I'm sorry but I think it is what was for the best. If that ever happens to me you feel free, if it is going to save you, to do that.”
That was when the tears that Kya had been holding back poured out. She wanted more than anything for Patrick or someone that she didn’t hate now to hug and hold. She walked slowly, handing her rifle and bag to Ricky, and went to her cot climbing up to the top where she lay in the fetal position trying to hold herself together and feeling like the building had dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds.
Clary felt his way over to her, gripping her shoulder. “It isn’t ever easy. The spoils of war never are. If we want to keep this place we’re going to have to fight and I know that it sucks and we’re going to lose people but there isn’t anything else we can do about it until we get rid of those pieces of shit. I promise the moment that I’m able bodied I’m going to do absolutely anything that we can to try and exterminate them from this world.”
Chapter 17
Aslin sat staring through binoculars shaking his head. “Fuck me, we were only gone for an hour or two. How the fuck did everything go so horribly wrong in such a short time?”
