by Rachel Aukes
“We’re good. We’re not bit,” I replied before rolling off Eddy and leaning back.
"Zeds take the whole ‘you are what you eat’ thing way too seriously," Eddy chuckled then dropped his head back. “Jesus, that was close.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and eyed Clutch. “The information those two Dogs have better be worth it.”
****
“…The militias are struggling, but they’re still fighting the good fight. Keep them in your prayers.
In further news, I’ve yet to verify the rumors circulating that a centralized government is being organized and that new ‘super’ cities are being architected. I’ve asked Lt. Col. Lendt at Camp Fox for confirmation, but I’ve gotten no response. Same story, different day. But I’m going to keep asking. You hear me, Lendt? I’m going to keep asking until you give me an answer or send in your troops and shut me up.
Here’s my thought for the day: The zeds are the enemy, so why is Lendt withholding information that could save lives? My advice? Trust no one, my friends, whether they have a pulse or not.
This is Hawkeye broadcasting on AM 1340. Be safe and know that you’re not alone.”
“That radio jockey is a splinter in my sphincter,” Lendt said as he sat down at the table where Clutch, Jase, Eddy, and I were eating leftovers from dinner. Mutt was tearing into our scraps on the floor.
“Have you met with Hawkeye before?” I asked, twirling more spaghetti around my fork.
“He hasn’t even tried to contact me,” Lendt replied. “And I’m not exactly a hard person to find.”
Hawkeye’s transmission was a recorded broadcast, one that I’d heard earlier, but they replayed his daily transmissions every four hours at the request of the civilians on base. His voice had something familiar about it, yet I couldn’t quite place him.
Not yet, anyway.
“Well, are you withholding information?” I asked.
“What goddamn information do I have to withhold?” Lendt countered, then cracked his neck. “Folks think that just because I’m a colonel that I have some super secret handshake. I know as much as anyone else. NORAD hasn’t made contact yet. Everything I hear is from other bases in the same boat as we are.”
“Have you thought about tracking down Hawkeye to set the record straight? Maybe offer to have him interview you on the air?” I asked. “It sounds like he’s trying to rile up the civvies against you.” Then it hit me. Hawkeye disliked Lendt, just like Doyle had. Yet, Lendt had done all right by me so far.
Lendt chuckled. “He’s definitely trying to rile folks up, but he’s a conspiracy theorist, and that’s what conspiracy theorists do. He’s one of those people who’s suspicious of anyone in authority. It doesn’t matter what I say, he’d find a way to make me out to be the asshole.”
Tyler set his tray on the table and saluted.
“At ease, Captain,” Lendt said.
Tyler took a seat and started cutting his spaghetti. “The two men are being kept in the brig tonight for both their and our safety, per your orders, sir.”
“They should be executed for treason,” Clutch said.
“Agreed,” I added quickly, especially when I discovered Weasel was the second Dog. I’d had the heebie-jeebies since.
“They will stand trial.” Lendt smirked. “Then they’ll be executed.”
Tyler frowned and put down his fork. “They surrendered. They deserve a fair trial. Doyle put a militia together as quickly as Camp Fox moved into action at the outbreak. A lot of good men joined up to help, and a lot of the people here now owe their lives to the militia. Now, we’re going to kill them for signing up to help and then going AWOL when they realized Doyle was no longer out for the greater good?”
“They’d had no problems obeying Doyle until now,” I countered. “Why the sudden change?”
Tyler held up a hand. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate, but maybe they did want out, but they couldn’t get out until now. Have you thought of that?”
“Have you thought that they may be here under Doyle’s direction?” Clutch asked, raising the same argument we’d been having ever since the Dogs contacted Lendt. “We should be thinking of what Doyle would want in this camp.”
Chapter XXVIII
Three days later
My aim was off. The machete slit the zed’s windpipe wide open instead of cleaving its skull. The near-severed head swayed, and my next swing scalped it, sending half of its brain and what had been long blonde hair to the ground.
Clutch had brought Jase and me back out to the apple orchard to win back the apple tree and for some much-needed close-up fighting. I didn’t realize how badly I’d needed the exercise. I had become so dependent on my rifle that I’d let myself get rusty in hand-to-hand combat.
I swung the machete I’d grabbed from Jase’s stash and took off the arm of the zed reaching for me. It hissed and reached out with the other. I swung again. This time, the machete snagged on bone and didn’t go all the way through. I kicked the zed back and yanked my weapon free. When it came at me again, I quit playing with it and finished it with a slanted blow down its face. Half of its head and face slid off, and I looked to see how many zeds remained.
Five.
Clutch demolished one.
Four.
I went for the ugliest zed next. Its nose had rotted off and only one ear remained. I made my way around it, careful to keep plenty of space around me. It had been one of Clutch’s first rules he’d taught me: never back yourself into a corner.
The zed followed my movements.
I let it come to me. Get ’em where I want ’em.
I raised the machete and brought it down in a straight line and shredded the zed from its chin down to its privates. “Oh, God.” I stepped back, trying not to breathe, but the stench caused bile to rise in my throat.
The zed’s organs tumbled out, jiggling with each step it took toward me. Clutch finished it off since I was too busy puking.
“Let’s not do that again,” Clutch advised, holding his arm over his nose.
“Yeah,” I said, now dealing with the foul aftertaste in my mouth.
“Hey, guys. Check this one out,” Jase said from behind us.
I wiped my mouth and turned to find Jase grinning. In front of him was the last standing zed missing its hands and the lower part of its jaw.
“Finish it,” Clutch said. “This isn’t a game.”
Jase shot an adolescent glare before taking his axe and bringing it down on the zed’s skull. We double checked every zed before I grabbed an apple off the tree and took a bite.
Jase turned to the shed. “C’mon, Mutt. It’s all clear.”
Mutt peeked from the shadows, and then trotted over to brush against her master. He handed her an apple.
“She’s quite the fighter,” I said.
Jase shrugged. “She’s more of a lover than a fighter.”
The coyote preferred to keep her distance from zeds. I remembered that feeling. While I still hated zeds, I no longer froze in terror when I saw one. Maybe I was numb to the violence, but I could kill without feeling a single pang of guilt. Sometimes, when I spent too much time thinking, I wondered if we hadn’t reached the end of the world but that we’d reached the end of humanity.
Something hit my head, and I jerked around to find Jase pulling back to throw another apple at me.
“Nice. Real nice,” I muttered and picked up the apple and stepped out of the way as Clutch backed the truck up to the tree. I hopped onto the bed and started plucking ripe apples from the tree.
Jase joined me and we plucked several bushels of fresh apples while Clutch stood watch. Jase said Mutt was on guard duty, too, though with the way the coyote was sprawled out in the sunshine, I found that hard to believe.
On our way to the park, our work at the Camp done for now, we stopped at the gas station to grab more supplies. Several more zeds had meandered onto the lot, but they were easily dispatched. I’d forgotten how much easier looting was with three of us, rather th
an just two.
When Jase went to open the glass doors to the restaurant, I stopped. “Not there.”
The two kid zeds were nowhere in sight, but it still didn’t feel right. I’d never seen zeds retain any semblance of humanity, but this pair had seemed different. Maybe I’d let them get to me and my mind played tricks on me. They haunted my dreams. But that day, when we’d seen them, they’d showed no aggression. It had seriously freaked me out.
I didn’t tell Jase about them, and Clutch had simply nodded in agreement as he walked into the store and started clearing shelves.
I looked across the shelves, and hopelessness wrenched my heart. This gas station was an easy place to loot yet many of the shelves were still full, aside from what we’d taken the last time. Were there really so few people left?
Listless, I helped Clutch fill the large bags we’d brought. The only other sound was the zed still thumping against the bathroom door. We’d cleared out much of the store before I realized there were only two of us. “Where’s Jase?” I asked.
Clutch nodded toward the liquor section.
I rolled my eyes, and we headed into the section to find Jase with a nearly full cart.
“Not that,” Clutch said, grabbing the wine coolers from Jase’s hands. “If you’re going to drink, do it right.” He handed the kid a bottle of whiskey. I grabbed the remaining bottles of Everclear and vodka, but didn’t have any intention to drink it. Alcohol worked great for disinfecting wounds, starting fires, and especially cleaning zed goo off things.
I grabbed an armful of wine bottles. “We should get going,” I said. “I want to get unloaded before dark.”
Jase hurriedly grabbed a couple more bottles before heading out with us. Mutt waited in the back of the truck, chewing on an apple.
“Save some for us,” I called out.
The coyote raised her ears and then bit into another apple.
Clutch took a draw of whiskey before climbing in behind the wheel. Jase watched, grabbed a bottle, and took a drink. He coughed and bent over.
I patted his shoulder. “You’re in the big leagues now.” I hopped into the truck and Jase climbed in the back several seconds later.
Clutch smirked. “You look a little green around the gills.”
“I’m. Fine,” he choked out.
“Give it time,” Clutch said. “It’ll get easier.”
And it did.
By sunset, Jase was drunk for the first time in his life, and we discovered he was a happy drunk, finding pretty much anything and everything funny. We sat in the park office, and the booze helped the MREs from Camp Fox taste better. And I had long since noticed that apples and wine paired beautifully together for dessert. Clutch was quiet, though he’d already put a hurting on his bottle of whiskey.
Still, it had been a nice night. The three of us together again and not running for our lives.
A couple hours later, we’d all passed out, though I awoke to the sounds of Clutch’s nightmares. They were even worse when he drank, and he drank often.
“He still has them,” Jase said quietly.
I found Jase propped up on an elbow.
“Yeah.”
“He should get help,” he said. “There’s someone at Camp Fox he can talk to.”
“Get some sleep,” I replied.
Jase collapsed with a thud, and I figured he was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.
I wrapped myself tighter around Clutch, and he quieted somewhat, but I could never break through his pain. Sometimes I wondered if he thought he deserved the nightmares and depression because of the things he’d done. He’d never said anything to that effect, because if he had, I would’ve firmly reminded him that everything he’d done was to save lives and that he was a hero. But, those kinds of words would fall on deaf ears. Clutch was the hardest on himself.
In the months that I’d known him, Clutch had opened only a tiniest sliver of himself to me. He kept things bottled up inside, acting impervious all day. But a mind was a pressure cooker. It could only take so much before it must let off steam or else explode. Clutch’s nightmares and killing zeds were his steam.
I was afraid of what would happen if he ever exploded.
Chapter XXIX
“Wake up! Wake up!”
I bolted awake and then grabbed my throbbing head. “Shh,” I ordered Jase as I reached for a bottle of water.
Clutch pulled himself to his feet, and I grimaced at him before taking a long swig. How could he drink three times as much as me yet wake up ready to take on the world?
“What happened?” Clutch asked, stretching his shoulders.
“Captain Masden just called on the radio. Colonel Lendt was killed, and both Dogs have gone missing.”
I got to my feet and stood, in stunned paralysis, as his words cut through my cotton-filled brain. While we’d been drinking and enjoying ourselves, the Dogs had escaped, killed Lendt, and did God only knew what else at the Camp.
We should’ve been there.
Clutch scrambled into his clothes, and I kicked it into gear and hurried as fast I could in a hangover haze. We were loaded into the truck in less than five minutes. Clutch drove while I finished dressing and we all took turns with the Tylenol, food, and water. Twenty-two miles later, I started to feel semi-human again.
When we reached Camp Fox, the gate opened and the guards motioned us through. Clutch sped down the winding roads until we stopped at a familiar brick building. I grabbed my rifle.
We jogged up the steps and through the doors of HQ, which had now become town hall, to find at least half of the Camp’s population milling around. Some looked like they were in shock, others looked downright pissed.
“Tell us what’s going on!” someone shouted.
“We have a traitor!” someone else shouted back.
“String them up!”
The shouting and finger pointing continued. I gave Clutch the look, the one that insinuated we were mice about to step into a mousetrap.
Tack motioned to us from across the crowd, and we weaved toward where he was blocking people from entering the hallway. He looked like he was about to be overrun. “Captain Masden needs every hand on deck. He’s in the Colonel’s office,” he said, moving aside to let us through.
Clutch nodded, and Jase and I followed him down the hall. We stepped inside to find the walls riddled with bullets. Five body bags littered the floor, making dark heaps across the wood.
“Crap,” Jase said breathlessly.
When Tyler saw us, he patted the injured man’s shoulder and headed our way. “Glad you can make it. We’ve got a Charlie Foxtrot on our hands.”
“The two Dogs,” I said.
Tyler nodded tightly. “Likely, since they went missing late last night.”
“How’d they escape?” Clutch asked, the tone inferring he knew they’d escaped all along.
“Someone killed the guard and let them out.” Tyler rubbed his neck. “Damn it, I should’ve known better.”
“Who carries the keys?” Clutch asked, ignoring Tyler’s self-criticism.
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, shaking his head. “The guard on duty always carries a set. They could’ve gotten the keys off the guard.”
Clutch walked over to one of the five body bags and unzipped it, frowned, then rezipped it.
Tyler rubbed his temples. “Lendt had coffee every morning with the civilian leadership council. These guys knew exactly when and where to hit.”
“What’s the status on the Dogs, Captain?” Clutch asked, all business.
“Unaccounted for,” Tyler replied. “I need every troop out there looking for who did this. I can’t trust the civilians. They’d turn this hunt into a lynch mob.”
“You can count on us,” I said.
Tyler smiled weakly. “I know. Griz is on point. Go see him at the chow hall for your assigned sectors. You’re relieved.”
He turned and walked off, leaving the three of us standing alone.
�
�I guess Tyler’s in charge now,” I said quietly.
“C’mon,” Clutch said and he led the way back down the hall and through the agitated crowd, several of whom threw us distrusting glares. When we reached the cafeteria, Griz was standing with Smitty. Both looked exhausted, though Smitty looked more tense than usual.
“Perfect timing,” Griz said. “Jase, you’re with Smitty. He’ll fill you in.”
“Yes, sir,” Jase said and jogged to catch up with the slender, clean-cut soldier heading outside.
“Where do you need us?” Clutch asked before I could.
Griz turned and pointed at a spot on the map laid out across the table. “I’ve broken the Camp into sectors. We’re too short-staffed, so every pair gets two sectors. You guys have sectors thirty-one and thirty-two, but stay together. Whatever you do, don’t split up. Since everyone’s been accounted for, the traitor is still walking around. If you find the Dogs, we need them alive to interrogate them.”
“Understood,” Clutch said. “That it?”
He handed Clutch a radio. “Let’s find those fuckers.”
Clutch and I headed out. Sectors thirty-one and thirty-two were on the far edge of the base so we drove there. We silently walked through buildings and examined every shadow, finding nothing. The Dogs should’ve been on their way back to Doyle by now. It made no sense for them to stick around after their job was done.
I smelled a familiar stench and stopped cold. I narrowed my eyes at the shadows near the outer fence. “What’s that?”
Clutch took slow steps closer while I held my rifle at the ready.
I lingered until he got down on a knee and I came closer.
I kicked at the two zeds—one male, one female—tied together. They watched us, their mouths taped shut and their hands cut off. Each zed was cut wide open, with entrails oozing out. The stench was horrible, though they’d been open for long enough for some of the horrendous odor to dissipate. “What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“No fucking clue.” Clutch stood, raised his rifle, and finished the two zeds.
These zeds were connected to Dogs, somehow. “Why would someone order a zed delivery here?” I thought aloud. “And why the hell would someone cut them open?”
