by Jack Hunt
“By killing people? That’s not finding a cure,” Rowan said.
“You are not seeing the full picture here. Every day you go out those gates and seek out food. There is a chance you aren’t going to come back. If you don’t, people get over it pretty quick. Take the fire for instance. Is anyone mourning the loss of the sixty-odd people who were burned alive? Or the fifteen that died the next day? No. Why? Because people understand that in this new world, one bad decision, one wrong turn can lead to death.” He paused. “You’re probably wondering what the purpose of those deaths were? Why did I ask my men to do that? Why not just sweep in and take this place the way we have now, without any casualties?”
“Because you’re an asshole?” I asked. My reply garnered another sharp hit to my face. “Next time can you hit the other side? I have a bit of an itch.”
“What do you want?” Rowan asked.
“That’s the question. What do I want? What do any of us want?” he said sweeping his arms around at his men who were looking on.
“We want the cure. That’s what we want and it’s pretty simple. We had five immunes but our track record for successful operations was kind of low. So it’s important that we find Johnny. Now I’m pretty sure he’s still around here.”
“I told you he left.”
“Ah, I know you did but that’s not what these two told me. Bring them out, Steadman.”
A door opened on a trailer and two people were shoved to the ground. It was Elijah and Ben. Both of them were covered in blood.
“You bastard,” I said hopping to my feet about to plow into him when I was knocked on my ass.
“Now I know he came back here. So where is he?”
“Fuck you,” Rowan said.
Fritz shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “I was really hoping we could have this sorted out fast. In my old age I just don’t have the patience for this crap.”
He walked up to Steadman, removed his sidearm and in one fast sweeping motion he wheeled around and fired a bullet into Rowan’s skull. The sound of the gun going off echoed. Jess screamed and fell on top of Rowan. Blood gushed from the side of his head. With my hands bound, I looked on in complete horror. Fritz handed back the gun to Steadman and turned back to us.
“I really didn’t want it to come to this but we don’t have a lot of time and my patience is running thin. So this is how it’s going to be.”
He walked back to a trailer and returned with the megaphone that was usually used at the large meetings. He held it up to his mouth.
“Johnny. I know you can hear me. I know you are out there. Every day I am going to kill one of your friends until you hand yourself in. Do you understand? This is not personal. All I want is you. This is about the cure. The future of humanity rests in the hands of the immune. You can bring an end to this virus.” He paused as if hoping to hear Johnny respond. My eyes scanned the tree line and road looking for him. Was he out there? Did Wren see her brother get killed?
“You have until tomorrow to hand yourself in or I will kill another one.”
I cast a glance over at Ben and Elijah. Their faces were badly beaten. We had been in some tough situations before but nothing like this.
“You bastard,” Jess said getting to her feet and charging at Fritz. She didn’t make it even a foot from him when Steadman slammed the butt of his gun into the side of her head and knocked her out cold.
“You have less than twenty-four hours. Do you hear me?” Fritz yelled at the top of his voice before returning to his trailer.
“Put them in one of the trailers until tomorrow,” Steadman said.
Several men came at us and grabbed us up. Jess was carried and tossed into an empty trailer. I say it was empty but there were two chairs with rope attached to them. Below on the floor was blood and several teeth. They had put us back in where they had tortured Ben and Elijah.
As the door slammed closed I breathed out a heavy sigh. Wherever Johnny was, I hope he knew how to get us out of this.
CHAPTER 18
I HELD my hand tight over her mouth.
Wren struggled beneath it as warm tears rolled over my fingers. Between trying to keep her quiet and keep us out of sight, my mind was churning over what to do. Never had the odds been stacked this high against us. The thought of any one of them being harmed in my place was too much to dwell on.
“Shh, you have to stay quiet, Wren.”
She mumbled beneath my hand.
Minutes earlier we had watched as a bullet exited Rowan’s skull. If Wren had been by herself, she would have joined her brother. I had to tackle her to the ground and force her to remain still. As much as I wanted to kill Fritz and his men, it would have been impossible to stop them.
The sight of our group on their knees made my stomach sink. We were in way over our heads. Wren was sobbing uncontrollably as we went further back into the forest.
“What are we going to do?”
She looked at me as if I held answers. I had none.
“We need help.”
“H-help?” she stammered. “From who? Everyone that we know is either without a weapon or locked up.”
“Not everyone.”
The walk back to the truck was quiet. Occasionally I would hear Wren begin to sob again. Nothing could prepare you for the loss of family, especially your brother.
“How did you do it?”
“Do what?” My eyes drifted across the tree line looking for any sign of Fritz’s men.
“Get up every day after you lost Dax.”
I stopped for a few seconds. “I didn’t have a choice. We either moved on or we would die. As hard as it is… It—”
She cut me off. “Don’t say it gets better or easier in time.”
I allowed her to vent. The pain was fresh and no amount of words would bring her comfort.
“I was going to say, it isn’t something that you get used to. I miss my brother every day. But what can I do? I can’t change what has happened.”
She met my gaze. I marched on, leaving her to contemplate it for a few seconds before she caught up. The drive back to the beach seemed longer than it was. The thought of being captured was at the forefront of my mind.
“You are just going to leave them?”
“Of course not. But you and I can’t do this alone. We need help.”
“We don’t have the time.”
“We have twenty-four hours.”
I got in the boat and extended my hand to her. She took it and stepped inside. Within minutes we were away and moving across the water. Whoever the people were that I’d met, I had to hope they would help. As I rowed across the water my mind drifted back to better days, before the infection had made its way to Castle Rock. To think that I wanted to get out of that small town seemed absurd now. It held everything that was important to me — family, familiarity and friendship.
What I would have given to go back in time and appreciate those days leading up to the virus outbreak. Everything was always so much clearer in hindsight. Why was that? Why did we have to wait until we were stripped of all we had to appreciate life and those around us?
In the face of death, all our bickering and problems seemed so trivial.
When we arrived on the other side, we began the arduous task of walking to Orient. It would take us over two hours. The thought of Jess and the others troubled my mind. Wren stayed silent the whole way. I knew she was reflecting on Rowan. No matter how much of a dick he was, he was still her brother and that meant something, if only to her and Jess. Eventually we reached the breakwater that separated East Marion from Orient. It was a road that passed across the Peconic River. Up ahead a large wall had been created out of steel. Their access point was much like ours, a structure that was held up by large steel and wooden posts and a gate that could slide open.
As we got closer a vehicle approached us. Two men were inside. They pulled up about sixty feet from where we were, got out of the truck and pointed assault rifles at us.
“That’s as far as you come.”
“We’re not here to make trouble.”
“Then what do you want?” they shouted.
“I need to speak to Rayne, or Brolin.”
They looked at each other and one of them lifted a radio to his mouth. A sharp coastal wind whipped at our clothes and the harsh reality of what lay ahead of us sunk in.
“What’s your name?”
I gave it.
A few more seconds of waiting and they waved us forward. When we reached the truck they took our weapons. I expected that. Both men were average-looking, non-military and suspicious of us. One of them zip tied us.
“Precaution. I’m sure you understand.”
I nodded.
As we drove back through the gates, four more men on the other side took over their post. We traveled through two more gates before we made it into their community. All around us the land was flat. We could see the bay either side of us. Large posts that once were used for power and phone lines had been taken down and propped up against a steel wall that sealed them in. For the most part the land was expansive, with clapboard homes dotted around. We passed by a store called the Candyman.
“Any undead still here?”
“No, we cleared it all.”
We stayed on 25 until we reached a business called the Orient by the Sea Restaurant and Marina. Unlike Paradise community it appeared as if most lived on boats.
“Does everyone have a boat?”
“No. But if push comes to shove we have a way out.”
As the truck parked, the four people I had met along the way were already waiting. All of them were sprawled out in various positions on a large yacht. Brolin motioned with his head towards us.
They cut our ties and told us we would receive our weapons on the way out.
“Thanks,” I said before hopping out. Wren took a hold of my hand and I led her over to them.
“Change your mind?” Axel said with a grin on his face. He was eating a piece of apple off the end of a knife while lying on his side. Lincoln stepped off the boat and made his way up. I could see Wren had the same expression on her face as I did when I first saw them. Brolin fell in step.
“So what brings you back?”
I cast a glance around. There were lots of people working on boats. Some were reeling in nets full of fish.
“We need your help.”
Brolin raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t everyone.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but if their community was anything like ours, they would have had their fair share of people showing up at the gate seeking shelter, food and safety. It was what drove everyone now. No one wanted to live alone. Human contact not only made you feel less alone, it kept you from losing your mind.
“You hungry?” Lincoln asked.
“What?”
Hungry? I couldn’t think of food at a time like this.
“You know, chow,” Brolin said with a smirk on his face.
“No, we don’t have time for that.”
Lincoln turned around and started walking away. Brolin joined him.
“Where are you going?”
“To eat. I don’t think well on an empty stomach. If you don’t want a plate of food, fine. But I am famished.”
Wren and I shot each other a sideways glance. I shrugged. We had twenty-four hours. Lincoln cast a glance over his shoulder. “Well? Are you coming or not? I’m guessing whatever it is you need help with isn’t urgent or you wouldn’t have come all this way.”
Urgent? Of course it was. I blew my cheeks out and followed after them.
CHAPTER 19
BROLIN PUSHED his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin on his face. “Gotta love fish. That’s one thing this apocalypse hasn’t fucked up. As long as there is fish in the ocean, we won’t go hungry.”
Fishing had become a large part of our community. Besides food runs into Brooklyn for canned goods, most of what we ate came from the ocean. It was the reason why our community had grown so fast. Anyone living inland would have headed for the ocean, as most wildlife would have been attacked by Z’s.
I sat thinking about what Specs said. I kind of wished I had asked him to join us here but with all this kicking off, I was glad I hadn’t. It would have just become another one of the many decisions I had made that had caused the death of others. No matter what anyone said, I still held myself responsible for Dax’s death. If we hadn’t gone looking for Jess, we would have never ended up at NORAD. If we hadn’t tried to help those guys back at the Fortress, perhaps Danielle would have lived. Then there was Izzy, and now Rowan. It just didn’t seem to end. No matter how good our intentions were, people died when we tried to help others. It was a catch twenty-two. We needed help to save the others but in asking for it, I knew we were going to place more lives in jeopardy. At what point did it just make sense to turn the other cheek? To look the other way? To move on? Or in this case… hand myself in so no one else got hurt?
They stared at me as if I was an oddity.
“So you are telling us, you are immune to bites?”
I tilted my head from side to side. “I can still be ripped apart. But yeah, I won’t die from the infection.”
Lincoln leaned back and rubbed the side of his chin. “Then wouldn’t it make sense to hand yourself in? This Fritz guy. By the sounds of it, he’s trying to do a solid thing and create a permanent cure.”
“He has five immunes in the community. Think about it. Why does he need me?”
“Maybe he has a sweet tooth for good-looking guys,” Axel said before taking a swig of his beer.
I shifted in my seat starting to become a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I had any issue with folks who batted for the other team. Heck, a lot of them were cool folks but nevertheless it would take some getting used to. Castle Rock had a very small-town, closed-minded mentality. That only became smaller when you were raised by an army guy who believed men were men and women were women… and whatnot.
“Give it a rest, Axel,” Rayne said. “So you are saying they have taken over the armory?”
“It will be heavily guarded,” Wren answered.
All four of them looked confused. “You confiscated everyone’s weapons?”
“Kind of, sort of, well not exactly,” I muttered. “Up until the ninth month inside everyone carried. But some started to feel that maybe it was time to try and provide some sense of normality and not carry inside the walls, unless you were a guard.”
“I bet that pissed off all the ex-NRA members.” Brolin chuckled to himself. “What is it with people and guns? They immediately associate guns as being harmful. It’s the idiots that use them, not the weapon.”
I nodded. “Anyway, the founders decided to give people the option of relinquishing their weapons and housing them in an armory. Of course they could collect them at any time but unless they were on the wall, a police officer or going on a run, the guns would remain inside.”
“I can’t imagine many would want to give up their gun. I sure as hell wouldn’t have. I would have told them where to go stick it.”
Rayne rolled her eyes. “You have to forgive our demented friend here, he has a love affair with his rifle.”
“No I don’t.”
“Dude, you sleep with the bloody thing,” Axel said.
“Yeah, I’m sure I caught him humping it a few times,” Lincoln chuckled before Brolin punched him on the shoulder.
“How did you all end up here?” Wren asked.
“Probably the same way you did. We assumed that people would take to the water. You went one way, we went the other.”
Basically, Long Island split at the far end into a lizard tongue or jaw, whichever way you looked at it. The top half ended at Orient, the bottom at Montauk.
“Seems we got the better deal by the looks of it,” Axel said, putting his feet up on the table and picking food from his teeth with the tip of his knife.
“But where did you c
ome from? Before this place?” I asked.
“The city. New York.”
“You all knew each other?”
Lincoln thumbed to Rayne. “That’s my sister, and the other two are friends.”
“I’ve gotta ask you. What’s the deal with the gear you wear?”
They smirked. “We were at a steampunk convention when this whole thing started.”
“I kind of figured.”
I looked around at the full restaurant. For a second I almost forgot that the world had gone to hell. Everyone seemed to be relaxed, enjoying food, drinking and laughing. There was no sense of impending doom.
“Anyone ever attacked here?”
“A few groups have made their way here and tried their luck. They haven’t made it past the second gate,” Lincoln said. “The folks here are very protective of what they have. Unless something drastic happens, I can see this place existing for a long time. We have what we need here. Anything we don’t, we go and get from the city at night. We know the areas to avoid and so forth.”
“How long have you been here?” Wren asked.
“Eight months.”
“And you never once thought to head down to where we are?”
“We saw the access point. We figured if you were anything like us, you would be protective and cautious with strangers. And anyway, have you ever thought of coming up here?”
“I guess not.”
“There is a lot of land and people are just content to find a piece that isn’t overrun by Z’s.”
“Do you think you can help us?” I asked, switching the conversation back to the problem at hand.
Brolin pulled out a small metal cigar box. It was thin and contained small Cohibas. He offered us one and I declined. “Suit yourself.”
As he lit one he was the first to answer. “Us, sure, we’ll help but I can’t speak for the others here on the island.”
I sighed. “It’s going to take more than six people.”
Brolin blew out a puff of grey smoke. “I’m sure we can wrestle a few more Samaritans but don’t expect much.”
Wren frowned.
