by Mike Staton
She scanned her surroundings once more before waving Krista forward. Together they leap frogged down the street and to a T intersection. The travel remained quiet without opposition.
“To the east of us is a steeple of some sort. The continued waves of corpses, lying in the street, continues to the west. I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find Bonnibel Actual.” Krista motioned with her hand in the corresponding directions.
Kat nodded in agreement. “Find the steeple, see what vantage point I can get there, then continue west.”
“Precisely what I was thinking,” Krista answered. She moved away, carbine at the ready.
Kat brought her .22 up and watched in the opposite direction, occasionally checking over her shoulder to track Krista’s progress up the street. It didn’t take long for the other woman to stop and motion Kat forward. With the smoothness of a stalking bobcat, Kat took over being on point.
Together they leapfrogged down the street before taking another turn at an intersection indicated by Krista. The signs of a fighting retreat dwindled, but bullet holes in the wrong direction increased. She came across more corpses without signs of advanced decay, but had been chewed on. The survivors of Valentine hadn’t had the chance to collect their dead and zombies had treated them as chew toys. It added to Kat’s disgusted air with the Army unit terrorizing this group of people.
She’d always believed in the military’s, no matter the branch, duty to protect the citizenry it served. The people operating here were doing the exact opposite of that, regardless of the reason. They had a group of survivors besieged with zombies. They should be helping to rescue them, not shooting them in the street.
It didn’t take long to navigate through Valentine to the steeple that Krista had seen. It was attached to a small two story church crafted of plain red brick. The steeple rose twice as high above the church and was likely the tallest building in the town. If this wasn’t a good spot for her to hole up, it’d be tall enough to let them figure out the better position.
Krista hopped the low, grey stone wall and moved swiftly across the green grass. She swept up the steps to the broad, black double doors. Kat followed after her friend. The front yard was littered with undead corpses that had been peppered with gunfire at some point. She moved past the rotting, redead corpses and up next to Krista.
“Breach in…” Krista held up one hand with three fingers as she slid her other hand through the pull handle of the door.
Kat backed up and to the side and brought her .22 up. Krista counted down on her hand and yanked the door open as she closed her fist. Darkness pervaded the interior and Kat didn’t immediately see anything within. Half a second passed and she nodded to Krista who swept in through the open door. She whipped her carbine up as she moved inside.
Kat moved immediately after her, her .22 up and ready. Within the foyer of the church had been emptied and one door boarded up and braced with a pew. The notice board held notes of a lifetime before the dead rose, though someone had vandalized it with a stereotypical spray-painting of “The End Is Nigh!”
Krista shook her head at the spray-paint as she moved past the bulletin board and onto a set of glass double doors. The glass had long ago been shattered, cleaned up, and removed. Krista stepped through the doors and clicked the light on her carbine on. She swept the room as Kat stepped through the door and dug out her flashlight as well.
They moved into the sanctuary. All the pews had been moved away from the center and stacked against the sides of the church. Each of the windows had been boarded up and a pew braced it. Several long tables had been set up in the middle of the empty sanctuary. Around it were enough folding chairs to seat a dozen people. Kat swept her flashlight over the interior, illuminating everything in a pale, red hue.
“Think this might’ve been an outpost for Bonnibel Actual. I haven’t seen anything looking militaristic. A couple unpoliced bodies out front, and spent casings scattered around.” Kat moved across the room and to a door on the opposite end of the room. “It’s sloppy, with civilian garbage too. Last stand situation?”
She passed the pulpit and choir reservoir and twisted the handle on the door.
“Maybe. We still need to clear this place.” Krista moved up behind her, carbine at the ready. Kat pulled the door open, ducked to the side and waited for Krista’s “Clear” before moving back to her prior position. The door opened to a hallway which led to an office and a stairwell leading both up and down. The placard on the wall next to the office declared it the office of Pastor McGoyle.
“Clear the basement before heading up?” Kat looked at Krista.
The senior woman’s helmeted head nodded once before she slid in front of Kat and stalked down the hallway. Together they moved through the church. The basement held a couple of classrooms, a room for private prayer, and an empty storeroom. It hadn’t seen use for long enough that a layer of dust had fallen over the entirety of everything. The second floor was comprised of a secretary’s desk and another office.
Kat came back to the stairwell and peered up its spiral length. “I have one problem with this place.”
“What’s that?” Krista cradled her carbine, her gaze bouncing between the stairwell and the empty hallway leading to the main portion of the church.
“Every door we’ve come across with a lock on it has had that lock broken in some fashion. It reduces my security.” Kat didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t hide behind a locked door and moving a pew by herself wasn’t really an option. This church had astoundingly heavy and solid pews. Great for barricading a door or reinforcing a boarded up window, but far less useful for moving around by herself.
“Locks wouldn’t last for good anyways.”
“They’d buy me enough time to prepare an ambush.” Kat rested her hands near her pelvis, cradling her .22. She was lucky in that the only way into the sanctuary was through the empty double doors. It also meant that it was the only way back out though.
Krista nodded. “Might be a moot point if this spot isn’t any good.”
Kat shrugged, turned, and climbed the stairs heading upward into the steeple. She felt as though the stairs might go on forever until they spread out and eased onto a balcony floor that held a central lantern to backlight four crosses. The floor was protected by glass on four sides and a small door led outside onto a narrow walkway that swept all the way around the steeple’s top.
Looking up, Kat could see a bell in the very top of the steeple. If nothing else, up here she’d be dry and out of the wind.
She looked out through the dingy glass, it likely hadn’t been cleaned since the end of the world as they knew it, but still afforded her a good bird’s eye view of Valentine. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out over the town. She recognized the streets she and Krista had traversed, and could see the area the others would be scouting at the moment. Despite the issues with security, this was a really good vantage point for seeing the town. And where she stood now was the tallest point.
She moved to the door and pushed it open with some effort. She moved along the walkway, looking at the town without the impediment of the grungy glass. Looking East, she stopped, swept her paintball mask off and swapped her rifles around and peered through the scope.
“Think I’ve spotted where we’re, you’re, going,” Kat said. Through the eyepiece of Gloria’s scope she could make out the edge of a massive horde of zombies. She swept her gaze along the street until she found street signs to confirm. “Yup. 5th and Haney’s half a dozen blocks from here.”
“Think I see another problem.” Krista beckoned her over. She passed a pair of binoculars and pointed. “What do you see there?”
Kat accepted the binoculars and lifted them to her eyes. A Humvee sat in the middle of a street. She licked her lips. “Military Humvee. Similar to the one Percival brought back with him from his excursion, ‘cept this one has a hardier armament. And… what looks like some sort of spraying apparatus attached to it.” She swept her fie
ld of vision along the street as far as she could see until buildings blocked her view. She didn’t see any people though.
“I think we’ve spotted our troublemakers down there. And given the size of the horde around Bonnibel Actual, it might be best to acquire their hardware for our own, just uses.” Krista took the binoculars back. “Wish we had personal radios. Keeping your eyes up here in the sky would be a massive boon.”
Kat nodded. “I can certainly agree with that sentiment.”
She shrugged the radio off and offered it to Krista. “Want me to hang back or meet up with you and the others?”
Krista took the radio and looked back toward the Humvee as she thought in silence. She looked back to Kat and set to getting something out of her pack. “Stay, keep an eye on things down there. If some shit hits the fan, get out of here and pop this.”
Krista pressed a small, black flare gun into Kat’s hand. “I’d get a better arc from up here.”
“That’s true, but it’ll also announce your presence to the whole town and those who’d do harm to you don’t know you’re here. I’d rather you be on your way out before telling them where to find you. Do you get me, Katherine?” Krista’s voice became tight with concern.
“Yeah. I get you and I won’t do nothin’ stupid. I promise you, Ma’am.” She tucked the flare gun into her drop pouch. “Go get the others, we’ve got planning to do.”
Krista clapped Kat on the shoulder, then snapped a crisp salute. “Stay safe, Cadet Corporal. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Kat returned the salute and settled in to watch the unpredictable party.
* * *
Percival walked along the street behind Judith. Their scouting hadn’t revealed anything terribly interesting. To be honest, it’d felt like a waste of time and effort, even if the more logical part of him knew that ensuring the team’s safety by scouting the edges of the town was the best course of action. It was just so different from how they’d operated when searching for survivors and supplies.
The most in depth they’d gone had been to peer into plate glass windows around barricades. There’d been tire tracks at the campsite and so it removed the necessity of actively searching every building. In truth, he knew they were waiting to bump into the same assholes who’d killed the majority of his previous team and part of him was glad they hadn’t.
A smaller part, the furious beast that resided in the pit of his stomach, regretted not bumping into them. It was the same portion of him that’d swept his sledgehammer out and ruined the chances of an open casket for Bloku.
Judith rounded a corner ahead of him. Together they walked down a street, stopped in front of a convenience store, the pumps were long dry, on the edge of town. Judith checked her watch as Samuel turned to look back the way they’d come.
“We’re a little late.” She reached out and pulled the store’s door open.
Percival shrugged without adding anything else to the conversation. It’d been his initiative to stop off at the visitor center when they’d stumbled upon it. Entering the building had been against Lieutenant Adams’s orders, but had yielded a map of the town.
He considered it a win. He moved up, caught the door before it finished closing and waved Samuel through.
“Thanks,” the ball player muttered as he passed Percival.
Percival nodded, glanced over his shoulder one last time. The town seemed so quiet and peaceful, yet he knew somewhere in it were murderers and a massive horde. A horde, if Bonnibel Actual were to be believed, would present its own magical problems to handle.
He moved through the door and let it slide closed behind him. He moved deeper into the convenience store and clicked on his flashlight as the light from the storefront faded. He moved past toppled, empty shelves, and debris scattered on the linoleum floor. They’d searched the place before deciding to use it as a base of operations. It’d been empty of both zombies and any potential supplies.
He moved through the store to the back room. He ignored the red and white ‘Employees Only’ sign and walked into the employee breakroom. Lieutenant Adams looked up from a notebook she’d been scribbling shorthand notes in.
“You’re late.”
“You’re missing someone.” Percival pulled his helmet off and inspected the room with uninhibited eyes. Kat wasn’t hiding in a corner.
“Katherine is safely nestled in a sniper’s hide watching the rogue military unit in town.” Lieutenant Adams’s gaze dropped back to the page before her.
Judith shifted uneasily at the news. Samuel’s fists clenched tight around his bat.
“You left her alone out there?” Percival did his best to inject calm into his voice. He didn’t need to explode with Judith and Samuel’s tensions rising.
“You haven’t explained your tardiness. Is everyone in your squad whole? Were you delayed by the undead or a group of the military?” Lieutenant Adams put her pen down and closed the notebook.
Percival opened his jacket, pulled out the map he’d acquired and tossed it onto the table in front of her. “Figured this would help our planning. Now why the fuck did you leave her out there alone?”
“Because she is a competent operator and well-hidden with eyes on both the backside of the horde and, as I said before, the rogue military unit in the area. She’s safe and I’m done explaining myself.” Lieutenant Adams picked up the map and opened it.
“Did you leave her with a way to signal us if the… when the shit hits the fan?” Percival thumped his fist down onto the table as he spoke.
It drew her ice-cold murderous gaze up to him. “She has a flare gun.”
Percival rolled his eyes. “Where is she?”
Lieutenant Adams drove her finger into the map atop The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene. “Happy?”
“No.” Percival looked from her. “Judith, orient yourself, hit the roof, and watch for a flare. No one with eyes on her means a call for help will go unanswered.”
Judith looked at the map for a quick second, nodded, and dashed out of the room.
Lieutenant Adams let out a sigh. “She’s safe, and I’d not have left her behind there if I didn’t think she’d be fine. We’ll pick her up in the morning.”
* * *
Kat bit off a chunk of her protein bar. It’d be good for calories, but didn’t do much for her otherwise. At least it’d keep her fed through the chill of the oncoming night. She gripped the bar between her teeth as she lifted Gloria and peered through her scope. The Humvee remained the same place as before.
She’d secured the stairwell as best she could (chair propped under the handle), and retreated up to the top of the steeple. She looked out over the town as the sun sank into the horizon. With a sigh, she rose from the sitting position she’d assumed and repositioned herself to the opposite side of the steeple and checked the horde. It’d bulged and swelled with a few new members having joined since she last looked. A few on the outside edge were even meandering away from the cluster.
Kat shoved the rest of the bar into her mouth and chewed. The change in the horde might mean something catastrophic had happened with Bonnibel Actual. The fact that so many remained clustered likely just meant that the outside edge of the horde had simply lost the scent or whatever.
She shook her head. Before long, the sun would dip too low for her to see much more than outlines. It’d mark a time to retreat down from the steeple and try to get some rest. It’d been near a month since she’d slept without someone else nearby.
It was something she could do, she’d done it plenty of times before the fall of her home, but it still left a soft, disquiet spot in her stomach. She relocated once more and brought the Humvee into view again. Not seeing anything in the failing light, she swept the closer streets. Not a moving thing announced itself.
As the red-orange ball of light and life sank below the horizon and cast the town in the shades of a deepening bruise, Kat decided it was time to retreat into the depths of the church as well. As much as she enjoyed
the view from the top of the steeple, it was far too exposed for her to enjoy sleeping there.
She took one last lap around the top of the steeple. As she moved she periodically lifted Gloria to check the surrounding buildings and streets, though in the darkening gloom, she could see less and less. She came back to the door leading in off the external walkway and returned inside. She swapped her rifles and descended the stairs.
Despite the lack of physical effort she’d put forward today, she felt exhausted by the effort of watching essentially nothing.
Kat cradled her .22 in the nook of her elbow as she rounded the soft corners of the spiraling staircase.
As she neared the door leading to the hallway, the sound of muffled voices coasted to her ears. The abrupt sound she hadn’t been expecting snapped her out of her exhaustion as adrenaline flooded into her system. She dropped into a low crouch and moved up to the door.
Krista and the rest of her team weren’t supposed to meet up with her again until the following morning. If something had gone wrong, they may have arrived early. Maybe the convenience store was compromised. She pressed her ear to the door and listened.
“—ting less effective the longer we’re here. And it’s been a week now,” some deep, male voice said.
“Think the help that we heard on the horn is actually coming?” a second baritone asked.
The voices were getting louder.
“Don’t know. But do know that I don’t like the silence from Sergeant Bloku. Ain’t like him,” the first responded.
Kat mouthed an expletive to herself. On the far side of the door were, at minimum, two of the men they were looking for. They didn’t seem to know she was there, though, but that could change in the blink of an eye. A beam of light lit up the crack at the bottom of the door.
“Was that door closed last time we were here?” baritone asked. The footfalls abruptly ceased.
“Go get Corporal Simon.” The tone of deep changed from casual to cautious. “Tell him Wolt’s nest is blocked off.”
