Whatever It Takes To Survive

by Mike Staton

  “You don—“

  “I want to exercise my option.” Samuel cut Percival off.

  “With whatever was drawing the horde to Bonnibel Actual having faded, we’ll want to do it quietly,” Lieutenant Adams said quietly at Percival’s side.

  “You need…” Samuel coughed once, took a deep breath, and continued. “You need to move quick. I’m not… the virus’s ripping me ‘part. I ain’t gonna slow you down or split you up leaving someone to watch me.”

  “I’ll do it quick.” Percival swallowed. This part never got easier. He’d killed nearly a dozen people now, but this was a friend.

  “I know you will.” Samuel lifted an arm and clamped his hand on the edge of the desk and slowly pulled himself to his feet. He left his pack and sleeping bag where they lay. “Let’s not make a mess.”

  Lieutenant Adams’s hand rested on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “You don’t need to do this. I’ll take the burden.”

  Percival shook his head and lightly slipped Lieutenant Adams’s hand. He appreciated the sentiment, but this was his duty, his group, his teammate that he’d not see home. “It’s my responsibility. Thank you though. Get everything ready and if you can think of something else to ask Bonnibel Actual, call them.”

  Lieutenant Adams nodded in the darkness.

  Percival stepped forward and slipped under Samuel’s arm. He looped his arm around the man’s waist and supported him. “Do you care where?”

  “I’ve always liked the outdoors. Under the open sky.” Samuel coughed a couple times and sank onto Percival’s shoulder.

  “I think that can be managed.” Percival helped Samuel out of the office. “Judith, could you help Lieutenant Adams prepare to leave?”

  Judith remained frozen for a moment, then snapped out of her stupor. She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Before she turned to follow Lieutenant Adams, she stepped in and gave Samuel a hug. “I’ll tell your folks what happened. Proper hero’s story and everything.”

  Samuel smiled, his teeth smudged with red, and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Judith released him and quickly turned away, her receding footsteps a quick series of taps and squeaks on the linoleum floor. The first time Percival could remember hearing her move.

  “Ready?” Percival asked quietly.

  “No. But every minute we waste is a minute they could be fucking with Kat.” Samuel’s voice was a bar of steel and laced with rage.

  Percival nodded. He couldn’t disagree with the man and helped him through the main room of the convenience store and out through the back.

  The lot, in the time they’d spent inside, had become lightly white with heavy, thick snowflakes. If the scene had occurred under different circumstances, Percival might’ve described it as quietly beautiful with the snow falling heavily in his flashlight’s beam.

  “Got to see the first snow of the season.” Samuel chuckled, which turned into a coughing fit. He spat red into the white snow. “Pity it’s also my last.”

  Percival nodded. He didn’t have any words for his friend.

  “Help me over there.” Samuel indicated a corner of the store, sheltered from most of the elements and out of the way.

  Percival did so and let the ball player down. Samuel sank to his knees, took a deep breath, and relaxed. He closed his eyes and let his head sink forward.

  “Anything you want to say?” Percival slid his sledgehammer from his improvised scabbard on his back and brought it forward.

  “He deserves the pistol. Just like you did to me. Just so we know exactly where you are. We’re coming no matter what.” Evan’s voice drifted to him on a breeze.

  “You tell my folks I lived good. Right? Strong and brave?” Samuel didn’t lift his head.

  “I’ll make sure Judith properly embellishes your deeds.” Percival cradled his sledgehammer as though it were a newborn.

  “This isn’t your fault. Don’t you carry this with you. Alright?” Samuel coughed and nearly lost his balance with the vigor of the motion.

  “I carry every death with me. Especially those who don’t deserve it.”

  “You’re a good man, Percival.” Samuel nodded. He steadied himself with a deep breath and leaned forward to better expose his head. “I’m ready.”

  Percival widened his stance and hefted his sledgehammer up. He focused on the back of Samuel’s head. He swallowed and brought his sledgehammer down in one smooth motion. The heavy metal head connected with the back of Samuel’s head with a muted thud and crunch of bone as metal sank into brain matter. Percival carried through with his swing, driving the hammer down to the pavement.

  He paused for a moment before he wrenched the hammer back up, decorating the snow with his friend’s fresh, red blood. Percival propped his sledgehammer against the wall, bent and pulled Samuel back to a sitting position and propped him against the wall. The blow had demolished his features as well. Samuel’s strong nose had been broken and teeth shattered into his face. With a heavy sigh at the destruction of his friend’s visage, Percival pulled the man’s hoodie up and set his hands in his lap.

  “Swift travels, my friend.” Percival hefted his dripping sledgehammer from the ground and returned inside. He snatched a cloth from a shelf and cleaned his sledgehammer head as he walked through the darkness to the convenience store’s main section.

  Lieutenant Adams looked up at him as he entered. Judith remained steadfast in her duty: repacking Samuel’s gear among their packs.

  “It’s done?” Lieutenant Adams asked. Her voice seemed strangely muted.

  “It is. We ready to go?” Percival carefully slid his sledgehammer back into its scabbard.

  “Yeah.” Judith zipped the last pack closed. “Let’s go get our girl back.”

  Chapter 26

  Kat gasped. The knife cut deeper than Hall’s measured nick he’d inflicted earlier, but not deep enough to end her. She didn’t feel immediately woozy, and could still draw painful breaths.

  Hall fell backward from her triple assault. His hands whipped away from her as he toppled. She drew several quick breaths to steady her pounding heart and focus herself.

  He’d not be down for long.

  A commotion of footsteps rose outside. Someone pounded down the stairs, heedless of keeping their presence unknown. Had someone heard her screams? She twisted in her restraints. What could she use to get herself free and capable of fighting back? She didn’t trust that whoever was coming, was doing so to help her.

  She looked up at the chain looped through an exposed beam and anchored well out of her reach. She drew another quick breath and ignored the screams of protest from her battered ribs. In the echoing silence that followed, Kat became aware that Hall’s pained groans behind her had ceased.

  Kat squeezed her eyes closed and forced herself to calm, despite the aches of her body. She’d earned the nickname ‘Ice Queen’ by not letting anything fluster her and it was time to embrace her quiet, cold fury. She opened her eyes and directed her gaze to the drop ceiling once more. There had to be something up there that would aid her in escape. Escape and revenge.

  The drop ceiling was skeletal in nature, the tiles ripped from the metal and wire supports. If she could reach one of the metal struts, perhaps she could use it to—

  Her thoughts were interrupted as a hand closed on her shoulder and painfully spun her to face Hall. He drove his knuckles hard across her cheek in a vicious backhand that spun her back toward the door. She immediately tasted metal laced with salt. He followed the backhand with a swift punch to her already aching ribs.

  The door crashed open as she spun past facing it. Someone, a man in military garb, stood in the door. No one she recognized.

  “What th—“ The man stopped himself. He studied her, likely taking in her blood spattered personage.

  She spat a stream of bloody saliva onto the carpet in front of her as her senses returned. “Get a good look now asshole. You bunk with the fucking asshat who did this.”

  Hall steppe
d around Kat and cut off the view of the other man. She resisted the temptation to drive a kick into the back of his head, since he was well within range of her legs.

  “What do you want, Rodney.” Hall’s shoulders flexed as he crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t hide that he still had his knife out. “I ain’t done yet an’ ain’t s’posed to be interrupted no matter what.”

  So the others had endorsed Hall’s actions. Or at least agreed to let him do whatever he wanted with her. Kat gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus. She’d make each one pay for her assault. And that was atop the debt owed each of them for the desecration of Prosperity Wells.

  “You’re needed upstairs.” Rodney hooked his thumb over his shoulder.

  “She ain’t broken and I ain’t done yet.” Hall squared his stance, getting stubborn.

  “We’re moving out and everyone’s on call packing up.” Rodney stepped back into the room beyond the entertainment space turned prison. “Major’s orders.”

  Hall’s shoulders sank slightly, the wind taken out of his sails. He dropped his arms and slipped his knife back into the sheath at his hip. “Why? And what of her? We ain’t gotten anything out of her yet.”

  “Apparently we’ve been too noisy here,” Rodney said. “We’re to take her with us.”

  “I’ll be up in a sec.”

  “Not long. No time to finish right now.” Rodney’s tone held a hint of warning.

  Kat didn’t get the impression that the warning was meant to protect her.

  “No more than a minute.” Hall swiped his hand across his face and flung blood down.

  “I don’t care that she shot you and broke your nose. Twice. Simon and the Major need you upstairs. Get your lick in and report up there.” Rodney turned and left.

  “Brownnosing dick-wad,” Hall muttered. He turned around to face Kat once more. “Won’t get him a promotion an’ we ain’t done. Are we, sweetie?”

  “Plenty done.” Kat twisted her head away from him. “Or hadn’t you noticed? You can’t break me.”

  “I’ve not yet begun to even try breaking you, little girl,” Hall growled. He stepped closer and lifted his hand to tap one bloody finger against her forehead. “There are things I can do to you that would push your little—“

  Kat answered with a growl of her own and a swift whip kick right to his groin.

  Hall responded with a high-pitched whine. It lasted only a second before he whipped his hand back and drove a long, haymaker hook into her short ribs. The wind rushed out of Kat’s lungs at an alarming rate an instant before pain boomed in a beautifully blossoming, and explosive radius around the impact of his punch. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on breathing. She gasped for air, trying in vain to slow her body’s reaction to having the life necessary oxygen driven out of her again. Maybe he’d actually broken ribs this time.

  He patted her cheek as she gasped for breath.

  “Love leavin’ the ladies breathless.” Hall turned with a chortle and marched out of the room. He pulled the door closed with a slam behind him.

  * * *

  Percival slammed the door to the car. Bonnibel Actual had either been wrong, or the vehicle had had the fuel siphoned since the siege began. The trip, meant to save them time by getting a working vehicle for them, had cost them near an hour. In the dark, heavily falling snow, the trek had taken longer than necessary just to find an empty vehicle. He resisted the temptation to shout to the sky a series of vulgarities. The soft patter of snowfall dampened the sound, and would help hide their smell, but it didn’t mean he could be careless. Especially with a gigantic horde nearby.

  A horde that had lost its interest in the survivors of Bonnibel Actual and taken to wandering back out into Valentine. Under normal circumstances, that’d be a wonderful touch of news. In this instance, it meant an added danger to his roving band of would-be rescuers. He looked at Lieutenant Adams and looped his M16’s sling back into place.

  “Empty.”

  “Might be the wrong car.” Judith took a step toward another in the parking lot.

  “We’re wasting time.” Percival rolled his shoulders and brushed some snow from the top of his helmet in frustration. His anger and irritation with the situation, and Lieutenant Adams, mounted.

  “Let her check one more. Help me keep the perimeter secure. Worse comes to worse, we lose a couple minutes. Best? We gain a functional vehicle.”

  Percival grunted and moved toward the opposite corner of the lot from Lieutenant Adams. A couple minutes could spell the difference between finding Kat and finding pieces of her in an empty field base.

  * * *

  Kat opened her eyes and continued to gasp for breath as his footsteps receded. She shook with a silent fury that had everything to do with the feeling of helplessness. Sure she’d bloodied him, but he’d been able to treat her like a rack of meat. A boxer’s training toy to wail on.

  She growled at herself, and let herself calm down a measure before doing a self-assessment. He’d cracked her hard in the ribs, several times, but once she’d caught her breath, she’d been able to keep it. They hurt as she breathed, but she didn’t think it was bad enough to assume he’d broken a rib- likely just bruised a couple.

  He’d been holding back on her in his first round of swings. The cuts he’d inflicted on her had long since stopped bleeding, but it didn’t mean she could be reckless about her movements. She didn’t think she was in danger of bleeding out, they were controlled nicks after all, but it wouldn’t do any good to dribble blood everywhere.

  Zombies were like sharks, a drop of blood always brought them running.

  Her cheek burned but she’d cleared most of the blood out of her mouth. Her arms ached and she dangled from them without a way of relieving them, but at least her hands hadn’t gone numb once more.

  She wiggled her fingers to emphasize that to herself, settling to close them around the chain. Years of P.T. and pushing herself to keep up with her male friends and compatriots paid off as she bucked herself back and forth. Time was of the essence and climbing up to the drop ceiling seemed her best bet.

  Kat swept her legs backward and let her momentum carry her forward, swinging on the chain that served as her anchor to the prison room. A couple of more pumps, that set her core and ribs further on fire, and she whipped herself toward the ceiling. Her toes brushed the metal and knocked a couple of the drop panels loose before she dropped back down with a screech of pain in protest from her shoulders.

  She closed her eyes. She let her failed attempt at reaching the panel sway her on the chain. She’d gotten close, but close only counted in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear warfare. A couple of deep breaths later and she set herself to swinging once more. She opened her eyes and locked her gaze on the scrap of metal she’d been aiming for to begin with.

  Kat worked herself into a long arc that set the chain to softly rattling in the beam above. She willed the worst of her bodily aches away and wrenched herself upward with her arms at the peak of her arc. Years of climbing to nooks and crannies well off the ground served her well as she hoisted herself up. She swept her legs up and cleared the framework of the drop ceiling.

  Her body as a whole protested the strain she put on it, but the groan of agony quickly turned to a brief, and soft, cry of success as she hooked her legs around the metal of the drop ceiling. Her Achilles added its protests as the metal cut into her, but she ignored it. The metal hadn’t drawn blood and she’d gotten into the position she’d been shooting for.

  She closed her eyes and caught her breath. With tremendous protest from her ribs, she lifted herself the rest of the way up in an inverted sit-up. Kat jerked up the last few inches and wrapped her hands around the framework. She listened to it groan and strain with holding her.

  Her momentary triumph lasted barely a second before the framework that supported more weight than it was designed for wrenched painfully and noisily away from the ceiling. Quickly she clenched onto the bit of metal frame
work already in her hands as she toppled toward the floor. The abrupt halting of her fall by the chain ripped the bit of metal and wire from her grasp.

  In slow motion it flew away from her.

  * * *

  Percival brought his sledgehammer around in an arc and sent the zombie crashing to the ground. He gritted his teeth and ignored the ache in his forearm. He could bleed a little to expedite their trek. He wrenched his weapon up and turned to face Lieutenant Adams and Judith.

  Lieutenant Adams’d just finished with her third zombie. She planted a boot on its neck and pried her knife back out of its temple. She looked up at him and called out, “Status?”

  “Dead. Quiet and redead.” Judith bent over her zombie and started to wrench her arrow from its eye socket. It snapped off close to the head and she tossed the destroyed bit of ammunition aside.

  “We’re still coming, Percival. Right up the road. Fresh meat outside of the concrete box that’s denied us for so long,” Evan whispered on the cold, black, night wind.

  “The nearby ones are gone.” Percival flipped his sledgehammer to his shoulder. “We need to move on. More are coming for us right now.”

  Lieutenant Adams nodded. She wiped her blade off and sheathed it once more. “We’re making good time.”

  “We’re not even to the right side of town.”

  Lieutenant Adams shook her head. “We’re inadvertently drawing a horde down on them by cutting around and partially through the town like this.”

  “Part of your plan?” Percival adjusted his sledgehammer and pushed it back into his scabbard. His mind drifted to an idle wonder of if he’d get to teach someone else how to use the hammer properly; if he’d be able to pass the knowledge and skill onto Kat.

  Lieutenant Adams answered him with a nod and moved ahead of him. She swung wide of a street corner and moved at just under a jog.

  * * *

  Kat panicked and kicked her legs for the falling bit of metal as it toppled out of her grasp. She swung counter to her efforts and the metal framework struck the carpet. She twisted, time slowing for her as the piece of metal hung there in limbo as she reached for it with her outstretched toes. For the first time since her capture, she was glad to be barefoot.