by catt dahman
Another man darted over and leaned close to Len. Bending over, Alan held Len’s stomach. Blood slimed his hands as fire seemed to fill his middle section, but he nodded encouragement. “Good shot.”
“Thanks…Ummm, Sir.”
“Hell…I’m just plain Alan. Not a Sir anymore.”
“Gotcha.”
“This is gonna hurt, ” said Alan leaning down, using the hammer to pull the spike out of Len’s hand: blood pouring and flesh tearing and leaving pieces behind as he did. Len never dreamed the removal could hurt more than the nail did going in, and he screamed this time, throwing his head back and fighting the black dots filling his vision. Len stopped to tear off and then wrap part of his shirt around his hand as Alan began helping Kim, telling them Colonel Davis fought back and was killed.
All over, the rest of Davis’s army turned on the RA and began to methodically kill each of them, finally unafraid of the men. Pascal couldn’t help them, now.
As Kim got to his feet, shaking with the pain, a zombie lunged at them, and Kim could shake only injured fists at the ghoul. Len fought with another on the ground and wasn’t close enough to be able to help, so Kim waited to get a kick at the thing.
With pain burning his insides, Alan turned to the creature, slamming the hammer into its head as hard as he could. When the ghoul latched onto his arm with its filthy teeth, Alan tore loose, leaving his flesh behind to be swallowed and him yelling with pain.
Taking over and slamming the hammer down again into its head, Kim then kicked the ghoul back and shot it in the head. It was a recently turned man with injuries everywhere which wept blood as he fell on the tarmac, dead again.
Alan smiled at Kim and gave him a nod. Alan wasn’t going to get out of this alive, but this was the kind of man he once was, and he felt proud of himself again.
“Alan….” Nick had seen and felt gut-kicked, knowing that his brother had been infected.
Nick saw that Pascal and Lucas were still surrounded by flames and had been inched to the other side so the zombies weren’t on them yet, but they weren’t close to the rest, either. He wanted them to be eaten alive. If he could hang on a cross, his enemies could be cannibalized. It was fair.
On the tarmac were zombies and fleeing men, few doing more than trying to avoid being bitten by the massive horde.
Soon, Nick expected that a Z would be climbing on him: up his feet and on his legs: to feed and turn him. He would then moan and hiss for all time from a cross set into the ground. At least, it was original. He was kind of okay with that, he decided, hoping it would be faster than suffocating but scared it would be horribly painful.
He really hated seeing Alan infected. Nick sang louder about the ring of fire that burns, burns, burns.
Len, Kim, and Alan tipped the cross backwards, making Nick cry out as they quickly got him to the ground. Nick fell unconscious for a few seconds. Alan and Len went to work on the spikes, unfortunately, bringing Nick back to consciousness with the pain of removing the metal. Nick swore at them for not letting him die as he watched the ring of fire do its job in keeping Pascal and Lucas away from the rest.
Kim, using a gun he picked up, tried to shoot at a zombie who came too close, but his hands were too torn up to hold the gun: swollen and bleeding with hand bones broken, muscles torn, and fingers useless. Neither Nick nor Kim was in good enough shape to fight back.
Kim held his hands out, which looked like big, swollen, blood-caked claws that refused to bend or move or maintain a grip. To him, his hands became painful, useless mounds of flesh that did nothing but cause him grief. He stared at them.
“Come on, let’s get you back,” Juan said as he leaned into Kim’s face. Kim realized he sat on the pavement and stared blankly. “Get up.”
“Huh?” Kim realized where he was, while Juan and Matt stood him up again. How had they appeared? Was he imagining things? Why was Juan there at all?
“Move that way; there’s Carl.” Juan pushed Kim forward toward Carl who was waving while Pak and John dropped zombies, using the scopes for better sight. Juan groaned in frustration as Kim slid back to the ground. “What the hell?”
He realized that Kim was bleeding from a shot to his leg; in fact, he seemed to be bleeding out. Where Kim stood, the ground was soaked, and if he lived another minute, it would be a miracle.
Juan squatted a little and boosted Kim across his back in a fireman carry, trying to find the strength to run with the man across the pavement to behind where the Humvee sat. “Help, I need help; Kim is wounded; he’s not gonna make it.”
John took Kim’s place so that he and Len were able to yank Nick to his feet, but Nick was wavering, unable to stand without John’s hand on his shoulder to keep him steady. Nick muttered, “Alan, my brother….”
“He’s bitten, Nick, but he was already shot; someone got him. I think it was Frank’s gun; he’s gut shot,” Len said. “He saved us, Nicky; don’t let it be for nothing. Get moving.”
Len saw Pascal and Lucas, but the flames were dying down, and they would be on them within seconds. Before he could shoot, he heard his name called.
Time stood still for Len.
Three men stood before Len. One was a soldier who bled badly from a shot to his shoulder. The second man was John Ponce. The third was Dr. Henry Diamond, the man who might find a cure for the plague and who understood this infection better than anyone else, the same one who may have designed the infection, and the one who did release false protocols. Len glared at him.
Hesitating, Len looked back to where the rest were waiting for him, turned, and fired once.
Dr. Diamond had a second to lock eyes with Len before he fell to the ground. John Ponce didn’t raise his own sidearm but simply looked at Len expectantly, eyes mild and curious.
“He’s done enough damage for one lifetime,” Len said.
“I have, too,” Ponce said as he cocked his head.
Len made a motion for Ponce and the other soldier to get out of there, but Ponce looked a little confused: Why was he being allowed to go; he was a hybrid that they hated.
“Ponce, debt paid,” Len said, as he turned his back and began walking to join his friends. With a sharp glance at Ponce, Matt took Len’s arm and rushed him along.
At the edge of the airport and near the woods, the rest of Len and Kim’s friends were helping quickly with first aid for the men. Nick stopped most of his bleeding, but he was staring blankly, his mind closing down rapidly. He had thick bandages on his hands and was wrapped in a blanket with his legs elevated. He sipped water.
Zane concentrated as hard as he could about causing ‘his mischief’. He didn’t know immediately what he would do to help. When he heard Carl singing about a ring of fire as they pulled up outside the airport close to the tarmac, he was tickled. Zane liked to hear Carl sing about the ring of fire.
He found out that years before some man dressed in all black, which he assumed was an outfit and not mud, had sung that.
As soon as Zane got to a place where he could see, he was able to do a simple trick of the ring of fire that again held Pascal and Lucas in place while the others were rescued. The trick didn’t use too much energy, and it was fun to see Pascal glare and throw his fit; he and his father couldn’t get past the fire.
Then he heard Nick sing the same song! It must be a popular song.
Zane was sad to see his friends injured, but he didn’t feel the fury he felt when his Mommy and Daddy were killed; he couldn’t pull enough energy to do anything more to the bad people.
Right now, he was concentrating on Kim, hoping he was sharing enough energy to help the man with his injured leg; otherwise, Kim was going to die. It was taking a lot out of Zane to concentrate on stopping the blood running and on mending Kim’s hands a little to give him some relief.
“I think I have the bleeding stopped,” Carl, amazed, said about Kim. “It just slowed and then stopped. His hands are bad, but they’re not as bad as I thought they’d be, good deal.” He cocked a
look towards Zane and saw the child was frowning while he was concentrating.
“I took care of Dr. Diamond,” Len said simply.
“Good,” Juan said.
“Frank is gone, dead; did anyone see Roy?”
Matt huffed out a sigh, “I did. He’s…well…not one of us anymore. Karma is a bitch; I think he got what he was supposed to, and we didn’t do it; a Z got him; no doubt we’ll see him again, walking around.”
Juan clenched his jaw. “That’s some bad-ass karma.”
“I’m just sorry about Lucas and Pascal getting away with this.”
“I know, Matt. Unfair,” Len agreed. “They are getting away with this and will come back to hurt more people.”
Zane muffled a laugh. “I don’t think so.” He was through helping Kim and had a little energy left, using it to call for some help. He couldn’t do this alone; he was way too little.
“Holy shit.” Carl threw himself back as a shape darted close to them but kept going without noticing them. “That’s the biggest wolf….”
A white wolf jumped a fallen tree and shimmered by in the moonlight, alongside three more enormous wolves. Four more poured from the trees to run by them. Len stared back at the tarmac, thinking he was having some serious hallucinations as he thought he saw a woman looking back at them. She was aglow, wispy in the light as if she were mist; no woman would be calmly standing amid zombies with Pascal and Lucas right there.
Len blinked but still saw her. Matt and the rest were also staring at Len’s hallucination. From the other sides, wolves bolted forward to rip into zombies and men alike, hunting down each as he tried to hide. They went inside the building where screams pealed.
“There are captive women, ” Kim said, half conscious.
Zane laid his hand on the man’s arm. “It’s not me.”
Len looked at Zane and shivered.
A huge wolf braved the last of the flames and avoided looking at Pascal but snapped at Lucas. The man angrily kicked at the wolf but paused as he heard a growl behind him. “Get to safety, Pascal. Can you make them go away? Call the dragon.”
“I can’t,” the boy whined. “I can’t; I don’t know how yet; I can’t feel it.”
Lucas knew it was too soon; the child wasn’t old enough to harness that large amount of power. Before Lucas could think about the problem any more and could offer to help his son, the wolf behind him sprang. Lucas turned just enough so that the jaws closed on his throat.
Pascal screamed and tried to do something but just held his hands out before him to keep the animals off of him. He cried for his father, but the big wolf gnawed as blood poured from Lucas’s throat. The other wolf jumped forward to rip at the man’s belly.
The area lit up, and thunder cracked, but Pascal panicked too much to be focused. A wolf’s fur was singed, smelling vile, but the animal just growled, and Pascal tried something else. Lightning shot harmlessly across the sky.
Len shook his head since he didn’t quite understand what that meant, only knowing that the wolves were tearing everyone apart. The white wolf lunged at Pascal, dancing about the child. Len thought it was about to rip him apart but felt no pity. Seeing the woman turn her back to them, Len shivered, imagining she had long blonde hair and shiny, loving blue eyes.
Just like Zane.
“Are you finished, Buddy?” Len asked Zane.
“I have finished. Mommy can finish the rest. She loves me.”
"Yes, she does,” Len said. “She has a lot of love. What about the rest? What should we do?”
“We can go, now. We can’t do any more. I can’t…I’m tired and wanna sleep, wanna see Momma Misty,” Zane talked more like a baby. “They’ll clean up all they can, and what they can’t…well…that’s okay; we have them all back.” He looked at Len, Kim, and Nick.
“Thank you, Zane,” Len said softly.
“I was supposed to help, but now, I wanna go to sleep; did I do good?”
“You did fantastic. You saved our lives,” Len told him.
Zane smiled and watched the wolves and then looked out the window as he was falling asleep. Zane let a tear fall. “Bye, bye, Mommy.”
6
Hopetown
While the teams got Len, Kim, and Nick free of the Reconstruction Army and worked on that situation, the residents of Hopetown had their own work. George sat under a big oak tree in the shade, watching the gate sometimes, looking at the cats chasing one another as they ran among the trees, and watching everyone else working on projects all over the place.
Men and women on foot and on horses patrolled with AK-47s on their backs, and if not for the guns, they would have looked as if they were just out for horseback rides. It was serene under the trees, a cool wind blew, and everything within the fence was coming along beautifully as gardens and orchards were stripped and winter seed was planted; greenhouses were filled again for a more varied harvest.
He enjoyed the scents of the trees, the horses, freshly tilled soil, and wood smoke, but George was sobered by the knowledge that the ground was dug up for a grave and then closed, the horses carried people who watched for approaching threats, and that the smoke from items still burned after having being pulled out of the scene of a massacre. Reality intruded from all sides.
Nothing was as it seemed once George got a good look. Someone, coming up to the fence to be let in, could be secretly infected and waiting to spread the infection and to consume the victim. It could be a small child, a family, an older couple, or anyone else who carried the disease. Smiles could be hiding infected saliva.
The twinkle of light in the sunshine might be a truck full of a paramilitary, known as the Reconstruction Army that sought torture, pain, and chaos.
George wasn’t ready to surrender to it, not yet because he wasn’t ready to set his terms. Six months had passed in which he had faced the worst: an infection that caused half of the population to succumb to a hemorrhagic virus, fall into comas, and awake as cannibals, biting and eating other humans to spread the prion-based infection. Other perfectly healthy evil people committed atrocities for amusement. He faced the deaths of good, brave people he cared about and a rain of bombs from the sky sent by deluded, remaining people who were sworn to uphold the government.
It was horrific to see people having to shoot friends in the head because they were infected or watch someone drink a lethal cocktail so he could go to sleep before being shot in the head. Watching someone being torn and bitten to shreds while screaming throughout the torture was another thing George saw.
But he also saw some good things: he saw brave people risk or give their own lives to save friends, heroic rescues, unwavering loyalty and caring, and love. He saw regular people become warriors, trained and always ready, and those who became teachers and nurses because they were needed, and leaders emerge from fragile shells.
Where this was once a fenced compound for a religious zealot, it was now a safe home for people who enjoyed community spirit and hard work so that they had plenty of food, sanitation, a medical bay, a library, a school, comfortable living quarters, and sustainability. They had horses and livestock, chickens, gardens, a river of clean water, and plenty of room, but it wasn’t quite right.
George sighed.
“Why are you sighing? I brought you a sitrep?” Alex asked as he joined George on the bench.
“Just thinking about what went wrong and right.” Days before, the infection was inside the compound, and only heavy checks, some logical deductions, good medical work, and good team work saved them from becoming drooling zombies.
They were secure again, the scenes of the bloodshed cleaned and trash burned, the dead buried, and projects worked on all over the area. But the good things hardly made a dent in the bad ones.
Seven men and a woman, eight of the best fighters, went to exact vengeance on the woman and child who knowingly killed and set the infection loose in the compound. Then only five returned, along with prisoners they took and a report that was chilling. Then,
they left again, intent on getting out the three men who were left before they were crucified.
The thought of their being crucified made George want to cry.
“Andie is better,” Steve said, “a millimeter more, and she would have died. She’s up and around,” Alex said.
“I’m glad to know that it was a close one. She’s a fighter.”
“Julia is gung-ho over the patches. She has people working on that. I admit I laughed at first; it was as if they were getting Boy Scout badges, but then, I saw why it made sense,” Alex said. He showed George a piece of fabric. “This goes first on the sleeve, and Hannah says it is easily stamped, so people can have them on all of their shirts. It’s easy to add them and later to add stamps.”
“Hmmm. That makes sense, I suppose. Three?”
“Three stamps across it. First is the rank. See? This is Julia’s, and it has the symbol that she is an attendant or second to the king.”
“King?”
“Governor. Sorry, it’s originally from the sign for king. We’re doing what we can, trying to make them fit; four will wear that. Len, Beth, and Julia, since they advise you, and you five decide things at the top.”
“That’s three. I appointed Kim as fourth.”
“He’s considering it,” Alex said. “I think he’ll take the spot since he’s out with Len right now hunting Carla and Robbie. That shows he is involved and that he always has been Len’s second, He and Mark. Anyway, all others will have that spot empty. Second spot: Hannah says that is the area of service. She has stamps for skills: teachers, medical, defense, and law as you said you wanted. Not a ton to remember, and they look kind of like what they symbolize.”
“And the third?”
“Service symbol: to show unity. Hannah says we can stamp a small symbol in the center of that one for Supreme Being to show God or Allah or whatever people want or whatever Julia and the rest think; it’s just being figured out.”
