by TW Brown
“Probably more than is healthy,” the big man admitted with a shrug. “I was a huge fan of the classic Conan movie. I always wanted to be like Ah-nold. That would be me, only, he was sort of the good guy in that movie. I would be what happened a few years later. That ending image of him on that throne? My brother said that the books were even better, but I enjoyed the version my mind came up with over having somebody ruin it for me with words and stuff.”
“We will have to have a talk someday about how you need to expand your mind, but for now, I have to think on this.” Catie headed for the former Marriott. While she saw activity scattered about in a few of the downtown Chattanooga buildings, this one had more than the others by far. If this was indeed the truest example of the citizens of this community, then she needed to take the pulse.
Marty fell in at her side and Catie stopped him. “I am going on my own little fact finding mission. Having you along would probably taint the results.” The big man cocked his head to the side in obvious confusion. “A woman by herself can get people to talk in ways that somebody like you might not. This place looks like the residential area. It will give me the truest read.”
“So where do you want me to go?”
Catie explained in minimal detail about Clarence and how she wanted his body disposed of. Also, since he was going to be in the area, see what he might be able to find out about the jail. Many of the best revolutions came on the backs of released prisoners who felt that they had nothing else to fight for except their lives. Then he needed to go tell Melvin that the plan was a go.
Once Marty was headed back towards the TVA building that had been converted into a jail (or at least had that as one of the functions), Catie headed to the massive gate that secured the residential building. She was directed to the side where a rope ladder was in place and soon found herself in the stairwell. When she reached the first floor that was actually occupied—the fifth—she was almost run over by two children between the ages of seven and ten (she could not really tell) who exploded from a doorway in a rather spirited game of tag that was more of a tackle version.
“You cheated, Stephanie!” the smaller of the two hollered as he picked himself up from being shouldered rather hard into the left-hand wall.
“Did not, Danny the dummy!” the girl, Stephanie apparently, crowed as she skipped backwards down the hall and darted down the first intersection and disappeared from sight with little Danny doing his best to give chase.
Resuming her journey down the corridor, she glanced into the still open door on her right where the children had burst from to discover a toddler making unsteady steps for the open door without a stitch of clothing. The little girl was almost to the door when a young woman rushed around the corner.
“Sarah Jean, get you—” the woman’s voice choked off abruptly when she saw Catie standing there. “Oh, sorry.”
Without another word, the woman grabbed the child into her arms and shut the door with a slam that reverberated up the now vacant hallway. Catie considered knocking on the door to tell the stranger about the two that had gotten away and then decided against it.
By the time that she had made a full circuit of the floor, she had only encountered one other person. A man who looked to be in his forties exited one room and walked past her in the hall, giving a polite but brief nod of acknowledgement as he passed. She had mostly the same experience on the next three floors minus the two children and their spirited little chase. She had no reason to expect anything different when she opened the door to the ninth floor.
“Can I help you, hun?” an elderly lady said from her doorway—the first door on the right as she entered.
“I’m just sort of taking a tour.” Catie tried to paste on her most harmless and friendly smile.
“You are just sort of scaring the crap out of everybody,” the woman retorted.
“Excuse me?”
“You have prowled each floor below this one, pausing to look into any open door that you pass and generally putting folks in a tizzy.”
Catie made it a point to look at this woman instead of trying to see past her into the room beyond. Easily the oldest woman that Catie had seen in a long while, she honestly would not be surprised if this person claimed to be a hundred years old. Her dark skin was laced with wrinkles that looked more like crevices. She was wearing a simple white frock with short sleeves and her bare arms were showing the effects of a lost battle with gravity as the flesh hung down and actually swayed when the woman made a point of folding her hands in her lap. She was in a wheel chair, her bare feet resting in the foot plates with some of the most hideous yellowed toenails that Catie had ever seen.
“Drink it all in, Tootsie Roll,” the woman cackled. “You might be a pretty thing today, but we all end up like this sooner or later.”
“Sorry,” Catie apologized when she realized that she had gone from observing to openly gawking at this woman.
“Psshah!” the woman made a dismissive wave of her hand. “You part of them folks was brought in late last night?”
“Yes,” Catie admitted.
“How come you are the only one scoping out for a room? The rest not survive the needle?”
“No, there are others. I guess I am just the first one to be interested in where I might be calling home.”
“Don’t normally see newcomers allowed to just mosey about by themselves.” The old woman leaned back in her wheel chair and gave Catie a full up and down appraisal of her own. “And you look like you belong more with the ruffians than you do here in the general housing. But what do I know? I’m just an old woman.” Suddenly, her face lit up in a toothless smile and she smacked her lips together and gave her forehead a light slap with one hand. “Where the blazes are my manners? My name is Abagail Jones.”
The hand that took Catie’s and shook it was cool and the skin was as dry as it looked. Still, despite her age, Abagail’s grip was plenty firm.
“Catie Dreon, pleased to meet you.”
“Yeah…we’ll see about that,” the old woman cackled and pushed back from the door and into her apartment.
Catie looked around. It did not seem that much different than any hotel, although she doubted the Marriott would ever allow the furniture and linens to fall into such disrepair. The window was open and let in a nice breeze as well as plenty of sunlight. There was also a crossbow on the table with a case beside it that she had to imagine contained bolts for the crossbow.
There was a little portable grill on the table as well, and something wrapped in what looked like aluminum foil was on it at the moment. When Catie got closer she could smell something laced with garlic.
“Just sittin’ down for my lunch. It ain’t much, but I seldom eat it all anyways.” The woman rolled over and removed the foil pouch with her bare hands and opened it to reveal some sort of fish.
Catie sat down and allowed the conversation to flow wherever Abagail took it. She heard exactly what she was hoping to hear and thanked the gods that, just this once, Abagail Jones proved to be a movie stereotype: the “town” gossip. It seemed that there was very little that this woman did not know when it came to the personal lives of the tenants of this building. Even better, she enjoyed sitting at her window at all hours of the night to see people coming and going on various errands.
She is right out of the movies, Kevin, Catie thought as she nibbled at the dry, bland fish while sipping tepid water.
“…and those three boys weren’t carrying nothin’ but a few metal garbage can lids, but with the ruckus they was makin’, you’d a thought there were fifty men in armor stomping down the street,” Abagail finished this last tale with her dry cackle and a clap of her hands.
“So you say the last herd came through about three weeks ago and those three re-directed it straight through your own town on the way to one of the other communities nearby?” Catie was pretty sure she had heard it all correctly, but she just wanted to be certain.
“Folks been terrified to set foot in th
e downtown area since this whole thing began. Lotta bad thing happened, not too many folks that was in this area managed to survive. This is hiding in plain sight. None of them other communities send people out to these parts, and we make sure to lead a few hundred of them things through town every so often just to make it look like they are still around. Truth is, ain’t been many of them in these parts since after about the first year or so.” Abagail’s voice grew distant. There was a haunted quality to it now, and Catie knew the woman was reliving some past horrors.
“I got stuck right here. Been in this very room since it all began. Was in town for my grandson’s wedding. He did his grand mama right and put me up in this swanky place. Told them desk folks to feed me good and treat me like I was their own. The boy had just signed his big contract with that pro basketball team and he was one of them good ones they didn’t like to talk about as much. Did good in school, didn’t have no tattoos or police problems. Married his childhood sweetheart…”
Catie sat quietly. It wasn’t that this story was any different than most, it was simply that she had the feeling Abagail didn’t tell the story often. A person who told the old stories from the early days with any regularity could just spit it out like reciting the alphabet.
A single tear carved its way down the old woman’s face, defying the fact that the skin probably wanted to suck that moisture in to salve its parched surface. It reached one saggy jowl and hung in the air, Catie’s eyes transfixed on that tear almost as intently as she was the story.
“…stood outside my door and clawed at it for probably three or four days. The whole time he was making that awful sound like a baby crying for its mama. More than once I wanted to go out and just take the boy in a hug. Finally, he wandered away. Never saw him again.”
Abagail brushed at her face with both hands and smeared the trail of moisture across her cheeks. “Look at me rattling on and on. You most likely want to find a place to settle. I can tell ya that the rooms facing out to this street are mostly taken, but there are still a couple on this floor. I’d be more than tickled if’n you was to stay around, maybe come visit. I see you gonna have a young’un soon enough. Grand mama Abagail makes a good sitter as long as the Good Lord intends to keep me alive and kickin’.”
“I will keep that in mind,” Catie said as she got to her feet. She was just opening the door when Abagail called out from where she still sat at her table.
“Felt good to squeeze some of that poison from my heart. Any time that you are ready to do the same, I promise to listen just as keenly as you just done. Might wanna do it soon. Babies can carry that sort of pain in their being if you keep that blackness swirling around inside ya the whole time you carryin’ it.”
Catie pulled the door shut and resumed her wandering of the once grand hotel. She saw more of the same; frightened people who were probably afraid of their own shadows more than they were zombies. She saw a few folks that had some hideous disfigurement from zombie bites. However, she passed more that seemed to show nothing.
And then there were the children. By the time she had finished her tour, she was estimating the population to be close to five hundred. Over half were below the age of eighteen, and at least a hundred of that two hundred-plus were likely under age ten.
“This isn’t an army,” Catie muttered as she exited the building. “It’s a day care.”
She headed across the street and made her way back to the library. She was just reaching the building when four men came around the corner a block away. Even at this distance, she recognized one of them as being with that group that she had hidden from the day that she met Kalisha. Now that the situation was different, she took the time to really observe these Beastie Boys.
The first thing that came to mind was a bunch of jocks at a frat party out for a night of pulling little pranks. They were pushing and shoving at each other, and one of them was easily identified as the lead instigator and likely leader of this band of miscreants.
Catie was going by the seat of her pants now. An idea had come, and it was sort of like the days when she sat around the barracks playing cards. You reached a point where you either shoved all in, or you could tell yourself after the fact how you “shoulda, woulda, coulda” pulled off something epic.
She changed course to intercept the band of young men who were hooting and hollering like they did not have a care in the world. They were paying her absolutely no mind at all, and she hoped that continued to be the case until she was right on them.
At last they were less than a few strides away. Catie had stopped walking and now stood planted in the very center of the sidewalk. One of them finally noticed and elbowed the others.
The group slowed, but they did not actually show signs that they intended to stop.
“Afternoon, ma’am!” one of the young men finally said, knuckling his forehead and acting as if he might be tipping the hat he was not wearing.
“Who is the leader?” Catie asked. She folded her arms across her chest and widened her stance just a little.
The group of four finally stopped, and the one that had been carrying on the loudest (as well as being the one that she had guessed to be the leader) stepped forward from the bunch. He shot a look of warning over his shoulder to the others and then made a show of wiping the huge grin from his face.
“That would be me, ma’am.” He had a tooth missing in front and a nasty scar that looked like it came from a blade running across his face. She could actually see where the weapon had jumped a bit when it hit his nose.
“And how was that decision made?” Catie made her voice as pleasant as possible. This only seemed to confuse the young men; more specifically, their leader seemed at a total loss.
At last he found his voice. With a slight smile that was actually made all the more charming somehow by his scar causing his left eye to crinkle around the edges, he replied, “I called it and nobody else argued.”
“So you didn’t have to fight the old leader or anything like that?”
“This ain’t The Lion King, lady. We aren’t a bunch of Old World gang bangers or anything like that.”
“So what are you then?”
That seemed to confuse the young man even further and Catie pressed. “Do you choose when to go out, or are you sent?”
“Who the hell are you, lady” one of the young men blurted. “Ain’t no more newspapers, so you ain’t a reporter.”
“You need some help with your grammar, kid,” Catie shot back, taking her eyes off the leader for just a second to address the one who spoke, but then she went right back to her informal stare down of the young man seemingly in charge. “So…how do you guys decide what you are doing?”
“You’re that lady we carried back last night,” the leader said, smacking his forehead. “Hey, we didn’t do nothin’ but what we was told. And nobody in my group had anything to do with dosing your team. We just cuffed them all up. Them two big fellas actually did the injections.”
“Hell, I woulda got the shot a second time if one of them guys would have turned and shoved that needle my way,” another of the men said with obvious awe leaking from his words.
“What if I told you that I wanted you to do something for me?” Catie asked casually.
“We’d have to clear it with the boss,” the leader answered matter-of-factly. “As it is, we gotta at least tell him about this little meeting.”
“And what if I told you that there might be a new boss giving orders soon?” Catie let the silence last for as long as she dared. The longer she gave these guys to process what she was saying, the more likely that one or all of them might do something crazy. “Are you guys happy being the only ones having to go out? The only ones who have to take the risks while everybody else sits here safely in their little homes?”
“We get taken care of,” the leader said stiffly. “And we can even turn down a mission if we think it is too hairy.”
“But you are still the only ones doing all the dirty work.”
<
br /> “And like I said,” the leader began to emphasize his words, “we get taken care of very well for our troubles.”
“I think the lady is trying to say that you guys don’t have to go it alone anymore,” Melvin said as he stepped around the corner.
Catie shot the man a questioning look and he made a sad shake of his head. Catie’s eyes flicked to the large bag on the man’s belt. The stain at the bottom was wet and a drop fell to the sidewalk and left a small red circular splat.
“But…” the leader started. His mouth clicked shut when Marty came around the corner to join his brother.
Catie took in the full vista of her surroundings. So far, nothing was any different than it had been ten minutes ago; at least not outwardly. However, in that span of time while she visited with Grand mama Abagail, a great deal had changed.
“You boys have a choice,” Catie locked down her emotions and affected her best imitation of a drill instructor from boot camp. “You can either climb on board and take choice seats at the new table…or…” She glanced at Melvin who was already reaching inside the bag.
15
Bringer of Death
I could hear those amazingly loud noisemakers in the distance. Glancing up the road a ways, it was obvious that the army of undead on my heels could hear it as well. They were still advancing, with me having long since slipped from sight. This was the first real test and it had passed. The zombies were rounding a corner and now they were orienting on the direction the sound was coming from.
Kayla had sped away on her bike several minutes ago. Her report was that a patrol had spotted Cricket’s mob a little later than expected and that had forced them to react in haste. The patrols were being called back by the use of a series of flags. That might prove to be a small problem.
Nat had spied the three person group moving along a ridge about a half a mile or so away. If they spotted our zombies too soon, then it was possible that both groups could be diverted and our work would prove all for naught. We had made it over a fence and ran through what looked to me like a car graveyard. I recognized the vehicles for what they were, but somebody had actually taken the time to stack them up; several cars on top of each other—and in fairly neat rows. It was actually kind of creepy looking.
