Dead Fall

by Joseph Xand

  At the end of his speech, he urged calm.

  His request was ignored. Quarantined cities experienced widespread rioting and acts of violence. The videos shown could have been war zones in the Middle East. Beyond the quarantine zones, all across the country, desperate mobs were looting stores in search of supplies.

  And amid the chaos, someone had given the plague a name. They were calling it the Zero Day Plague, or ZD for short.

  Thad turned off the T.V. and started for the bathroom, figuring on a quick shower. Along the way he stopped and looked in on Karen and Allison. As he watched his daughter cuddling her favorite plush toy, a small rabbit she called Bun-bun, he thought about oaths. But not the solemn oaths all doctors make before venturing off into their careers, but a rather different one. The oath every new father makes the moment he holds his child for the first time.

  Was it more sacred? Purer? Was it a million times so? A billion?

  Thad wasn't sure. But as he showered, he knew that she was here and she was safe, and he was here with her. And that would have to be enough.

  Chapter 12

  I N WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, JUST north of Interstate 80 (what was referred to there as the Z. H. Confair Memorial Highway, named after a famed U. S. Congressman), is the small town of Emlenton. The first signs anyone traveling 80 would have seen of Emlenton would have been the Stonewood Mall, which the convoy, on Beechum's orders, exited the interstate to investigate for supplies and to look for a place to lay low for the night.

  From the outside, the Stonewood Mall looked promising, with only the occasional rambling zombie stumbling around in the parking lot. But a closer inspection revealed the inside of the mall was infested with the dead on both the upper and lower levels. Their presence meant that the stores within were either packed with supplies as no other scavengers would ever risk going in to take what was there, or the zombies represented a large group of once-survivors who eventually succumbed to the infection, which suggested any supplies were likely already used up. The safest bet, by Beechum's estimation, was to assume the latter, and move on.

  Even if scavenging the mall was off the table, Beechum and his men still needed a place to rest for the night, and Emlenton, according to Beechum's Rand-McNally, appeared a viable candidate from that standpoint. Using the road atlas, Beechum guided them over the Allegheny River via the 5th Street Bridge and right onto River Avenue.

  They stopped at Emlenton Outdoors and Canoe Rentals because it looked and sounded like a scavenger's paradise, but apparently the establishment had not sold guns and appeared to have made its money primarily selling fishing equipment, hunting and fishing licenses, and renting canoes to tourists.

  Cadagon and Fuller helped themselves to a couple of fishing rods and bait, thinking they would try their luck at catching dinner for the evening. Beechum let them. The men could use some R and R.

  Just up and across the street was Dottie's Tavern, a biker bar which seemed to have specialized in domestic draft beer, tacos, and rowdiness. And it had been a scavenger's paradise. Beechum and his men had hoped to find liquor stashed somewhere. In a town of just over 600, they had thought it was possible foragers might have missed Emlenton (and missed Dottie's, as well) when they passed through on Interstate 80.

  But Dottie's had been picked clean. They checked every cabinet, every drawer, every nook and cranny in every room and didn't find a drop of anything.

  From Dottie's, they continued west on River Avenue until it curved sharply right and eventually back east and became Main Street. Main offered nothing of value. Banks, delis, lumber stores. A liquor store (The Beverage Barn) had also been emptied of its contents. Ditto for Litman's Drugs, which Phillips had insisted they check.

  Directing from his passenger seat in the Humvee, Beechum had Phillips take the convoy north on Fifth Street, then, watching the map in his lap more than the road, had him take a right on Myrtle. It was mainly a residential road with a few businesses mixed in.

  The road dead ended in a sort of warehouse district and Beechum stopped the convoy there. He had the men go from building-to-building in search of anything of use. Beechum waited outside the five-ton and smoked.

  Occasionally, he'd hear Meyers's chains drag on the bed of the truck. They kept her there nearly all the time, and made her as uncomfortable as possible.

  She hadn't eaten in two days. She'd been refusing to.

  Beechum resisted the urge to go around the back of the vehicle and look in. He didn't want her to think he gave a fuck.

  The men came back one at a time to report their findings, which was jack-shit. One business had apparently sold boat parts. Another had supplied oil rigs. Phillips turned up a building with lots of individual offices. Murphy found one warehouse that had boxes and boxes of plastic pellets arranged on pallets and separated by color.

  Nothing.

  Beechum dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his big toe. He'd learned not to toss his butts into random weeds.

  "Pass out some MREs," he told Murphy.

  Murphy took off his hat and scratched his head while he watched Cadagon and Fuller investigating their new fishing equipment. "They're gonna try and catch something for us to eat."

  Beechum looked over at Fuller just in time to see him stab his thumb with the hook. Cadagon perused a guide on how to string a reel. He turned back to Murphy. "Let's not hold our breaths."

  Then Beechum tapped lightly on the canvas tarp of the five-ton with his fist. "See that she eats something." He moved towards Cadagon and Fuller.

  "She won't," Murphy said, watching him walk away.

  Beechum didn't turn around. "Either you get her to eat, or I will," he said over his shoulder as he walked.

  Fuller was sucking on his sore thumb. Cadagon, apparently bored with the instruction guide, had moved on to bait, sticking a fist into a can of purple rubber worms.

  "Man, this shit feels gross," Cadagon said as Beechum approached.

  Beechum grunted. He pointed east towards a dense thicket of brush beyond the furthest building.

  "About two hundred feet through those trees is a small river that feeds into the Allegheny. Richey River. Richey Run. Something like that. Once we get settled in, we'll head that way. I think we could all use a bath. You can fish there."

  "But you'll scare away the fish," Fuller mumbled with his thumb still in his mouth.

  Beechum grunted again. He walked over to Phillips, who sat on the hood of the Humvee, his rifle across his knees.

  "This is a shitty little town," Phillips said. "Probably was before, too. We should keep moving."

  The sun had already fallen behind the tree line. It would be full dark soon, and they never traveled at night. Too dangerous. Phillips knew that.

  And Beechum knew this had nothing to do with Emlenton and what little it offered.

  "Hate to break it to you, but shitty little towns are all that's left. Thought you'd have figured that out by now."

  Phillips spat off the side of the Humvee. He missed Beechum's boot by inches.

  "And this place we're goin'? Where you're takin' us? It's better, somehow?"

  Phillips was bored. And when he was bored he got antsy, wanting to drive and keep looking until he found something to hold his attention or until his mood changed.

  Beechum had no idea what they would do once they reached the prison. When Phillips inevitably got bored and there was nowhere else to go. No more miles to travel. No hope of appeasing him.

  Beechum decided to change the subject.

  "You said you found a building with offices?"

  * * * * *

  The office building would serve as shelter for the night. Through the front door, passed the reception area, was an L-shaped hallway with small offices on either side, about eight of them in all.

  The last office after turning the corner in the hall was the largest and had its own private, full-sized bathroom. It likely had belonged to the owner of the company. Beechum claimed that one. There was a couch alo
ng one wall, and Beechum planned to stretch out on it.

  Two doors up from where Beechum would be sleeping was the only other office with a couch, albeit a small one, which Phillips quickly discovered folded out into a twin-sized bed. He left it unfolded and laid his rifle across it, staking his claim.

  The other men, Murphy, Cadagon, and Fuller, each claimed offices of their own around the corner that led into reception. Beechum didn't know exactly who took which and didn't really care.

  They unloaded only the essentials from the trucks (their individual rifles and some food) and left the rest. The warehouses and businesses in this part of Emlenton were far enough from the main part of town that Beechum doubted there was little danger of scavengers finding their trucks. Still, he had Murphy pull them behind one of the more remote buildings out of sight just to be sure, and Beechum would assign a watch shift to each of the men once they were ready to turn in for the night.

  Well, all the men save for Phillips. Phillips seldom pulled any watch shifts anymore.

  The company itself, as far as they could gather from paperwork and literature on the walls, manufactured an all-purpose cleaning agent called Green Clean that could have been bought pre-mixed or in its concentrated form. The company had been big enough to ship nationally, but small enough that it had still been a mom-and-pop organization, relatively speaking.

  Past Beechum's sleeping quarters was a door that must have led to the manufacturing plant where Green Clean had been produced. A sign on the door said "Personal Protective Equipment Required Beyond This Point" and showed emblems of a hard hat, a pair of safety goggles, a respirator, and ear plugs. Another sign below it read, "CAUTION: TOXIC FUMES."

  Beechum started to open the door, but Phillips stopped him, putting his palm high on the door and holding it closed.

  Beechum tugged on the knob anyway, but it didn't budge. He felt his blood pressure rising.

  "You wanna move your fuckin'—"

  "Listen."

  Beechum stared into Phillips's eyes, expected Phillips to look away as the other men always did. When he didn't, Beechum broke eye contact himself. He sighed deeply and put his ear to the door.

  It was faint, but he could hear movement. A shuffling of feet. Maybe several pairs of feet. Moaning. Somewhere beyond the door, the dead were waiting.

  * * * * *

  Once the sleeping quarters were divvied up, Beechum had Murphy pull Meyers from the back of the five-ton, and all of them trudged through the woods. The vegetation was dense. If people had ever carved routes through the trees while moving back and forth to the river, those trails had long since grown over. Which was a good sign, in a way, because the dead carve routes, too.

  Phillips led the way, hacking at vines and bushes and small limbs with his large hunting knife. Cadagon and Fuller walked behind him, carrying only their rifles. The fishing gear was long forgotten, tossed in the weeds next to the five-ton. The two of them weren't walking quietly enough to suit Beechum, but he didn't say anything. Murphy and Meyers were behind them, Meyers's hands cuffed in front of her. Beechum said nothing about that either. Ever since her escape attempt, she'd been cuffed from behind anytime they moved her. A trend started by Phillips that everyone else picked up.

  Beechum watched her walk. She still had a bad limp from the crash in the police transport. Occasionally, he'd hear her take a sharp intake of breath if she had to make an upward stride. On cue, Murphy would reach out and grab her under her armpit to support her. It made Beechum grit his teeth every time.

  She was also still covered in cuts and bruises, including an especially bad one just above her forehead that no one had tried too hard to patch up. They'd taken nothing from the busted deuce-and-a-half carrying their medical supplies, and they had little else save for a first aid kit in the glove box of the five-ton. In it Murphy had found a few Band-aids and some antiseptic cream, and with those, did the best he could. The couple of times they'd looked in a drug store, Murphy had tried to find something better for Meyers's wounds, but the stores were always cleared out.

  Beechum tried not to appear concerned.

  Because of the density of the forest, the 200 feet felt more like a mile. Since military fatigues were nothing but a distant memory and everyone in the group opted for comfort over convention, they wore t-shirts (and Cadagon and Fuller wore shorts), so by the time they reached Richey Run, thorns and limbs had left no man unscratched and itch-less.

  Richey Run itself was less of a river and more of a ditch. Traditional wisdom prior to the end of the world was that were humans wiped off the planet and not around to muddy the waters, so to speak, then the lakes and rivers and oceans would become crystal clear and decontaminated, practically overnight.

  Not so.

  When the human race was all but erased, they left behind all the useless shit they created. One bit of traditional wisdom people did get right was that shit rolls downhill. And anything that rolls downhill eventually finds a water source to roll into. The water was brown and brackish and all but clogged with trash and debris.

  In one particular pool of swirling garbage, a pair of gray, water-logged arms reached and swayed, its fingers flexing on a bony hand.

  No one was willing to wade into the water, much less bathe in it.

  Phillips scratched five days of growth on his cheek and looked down the river to where it turned a bend.

  "How far's the Allegheny from here?" he asked Beechum.

  Beechum closed his eyes and tried to picture the map in his head. He'd left the Rand-McNally in his quarters. "Can't be more than a few hundred yards," he said. "But I don't imagine it'll be any better. Anyone get a look at it when we crossed the bridge earlier?"

  He turned to the others. Murphy stood next to Meyers, both of them staring up at a circling hawk. Murphy shrugged a response. Cadagon and Fuller were busy at the edge of the water, using a tree limb to taunt the grasping fingers of the zombie under the water. They tapped the palm of its hand and then pulled the stick away before the hand could wrap around it.

  Beechum shook his head. He turned back to Phillips.

  "Plus it'll be dark soon," Beechum said. But he was talking to Phillips's back, as Phillips was already walking south, skirting the river's edge.

  * * * * *

  They stayed close to Richey Run, and the traveling was easier. From here they could see the perimeter of a road or highway. Not the interstate, but some main thoroughfare. Once a pair of the dead shambled down it, and Beechum had his men stoop and stay quiet until they had passed.

  Up ahead, they heard the tone of the flowing water change. Echoing somehow.

  "It can't be a waterfall," Beechum said. "A tunnel or culvert, may—"

  Phillips held up a palm. Quiet.

  Beechum narrowed his eyes, but saw nothing ahead of them. Then Phillips pointed east towards the road. Beechum squinted more, but still couldn't understand why Phillips had stopped them.

  Then, among a thick tangle of limbs and brush, he saw a tire. He looked closer and made out the outline of a truck, camouflaged with paint that was probably slopped on by hand. Limbs had also been broken from trees and placed around the truck to hide it.

  "It's probably been there a while," Beechum whispered. But he knew immediately that wasn't so. The limbs, though sagging, were still green. The tire tracks leading from the road to the truck were fresh, not yet overgrown.

  Phillips put a finger to his lips and held it there. He looked from person to person to make sure they'd each gotten the message. When he got to Meyers, he saw her eyes were wide. Phillips caught Murphy's eye and shook his head. Murphy clamped a hand over Meyers's mouth, then leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

  Turning back to Beechum, Phillips pointed south and then started walking gingerly that way.

  The river eased towards the southwest, and when they made the turn, they saw a man crouched over a naked spot next to the river where he'd cleared away dead leaves and brush. Twenty feet down river, the water disapp
eared into a culvert.

  The man was placing river rocks, smoothed by the flowing water, in a rough circle. Beside the man was a pile of dead branches he'd collected and broken for the fire he was preparing.

  "Freeze," Phillips said.

  The man did just that, holding a rock inches above where he was about to place it.

  "Put down the rock," Phillips ordered.

  The man did so slowly. He faced the river. Phillips circled around behind him. Beechum followed. When they came around, they saw two cans on the ground next to him, one of baked beans and another of vienna sausages. Probably tonight's dinner.

  They also spotted the man's rifle leaning against a tree some ten feet away. Beechum snapped a finger and pointed to it. Cadagon emerged from the brush and retrieved it.

  "That's my only gun," the man said. "I'm not armed."

  "Shut up," Beechum said. Cadagon brought the rifle to him and handed it over. Beechum pulled up the bolt handle, slid back the bolt, and checked the chamber. It was loaded and the safety was off. He handed it back to Cadagon. "Who else is with you?"

  "No one. I'm alone."

  Fuller walked past the man and picked up both cans of food.

  "Take 'em. There's a backpack on the other side of the tree where you found the gun. There's a few more cans in it. Take those, too. I'm not that hungry, anyway."

  Fuller turned to Beechum and Beechum nodded. Fuller walked to the tree and found the pack.

  "You have everything, okay?" the man said. "Please, just go. Don't hurt me."

  Beechum pushed dirt around with the toe of his boot, then spat. "Man, if we wanted to hurt you—"