The Living and the Dead

by R. J. Spears

  Kilgore was gone and Lodwick had acted like he wasn’t coming back. Or, at least, his chances of coming back were slim.

  Calming down some, Kepler took a quick inventory of the other men and saw that they were just as nervous and freaked out as he was. Help was on its way, but there was no way they were going to make it here in time before something bad happened and a lot of people ended up dead. He didn’t want to be one of the dead ones. He couldn’t care less about the Manor people, but he did have his men (they were his men now that Lodwick and Mays were dead), but more than anything, he wanted to save his own ass.

  “What do you want, Jones?” Kepler shouted across the dining hall, his voice boomed a little too loudly.

  Jones responded quickly, “I need you and your men to throw down your weapons and to stand up with your hands laced together behind your heads.”

  “That’s not happening,” Kepler said. “We do that and we’re sitting ducks.”

  The only sound in the room was the shuffling of the Manor people’s feet as they shifted in place, pawns watching their fate being decided by two soldiers they didn’t know and didn’t trust. Half of the group seemed resigned that they were dead people standing while the other half looked like they were ready to make a run for it.

  “What do you propose?” Jones asked.

  “Let me and the rest of the men get out of here. We walk and you can have these people.”

  Jones looked to Del for a confirmation that this was an acceptable deal and Del nodded back. Jones would have liked to have had Jo’s input, but he didn’t want to screw the deal by bringing her into it. She could want more than to just let them walk away. She could want revenge. He didn’t want to go near that.

  Despite the fact that he was siding with the Manor folks, these soldiers used to be his men. He didn’t know which side he would be on if this deal went through. He knew there was a good possibility that he would be adrift and on his own. The soldiers would never trust him again, and he wasn’t sure if the Manor people ever would. He was the frontman of their oppressor despite his recent actions. That would be hard to forgive and forget.

  “You have a deal,” Jones said, and a weight lifted off the shoulders of everyone in the room. Jones knew it to be a momentary relief because the tide could come back in at any moment. “Lodwick did call Wright-Patt, right?”

  Kepler considered Jones’ question for a moment and decided it was better to let Jones know the truth. “Yes. They have more men on their way.”

  Having that fact out there was leverage. It meant that Jones knew there was a time limit on what he could do. If he tried to trick Kepler and decided to attack, a protracted firefight would not only get a lot of the Manor people killed. It could allow time for reinforcements to arrive. Of course, Kepler didn’t have any idea of when they were arriving and he had no details on how many men and what kind of resources they would be bringing. He knew that Kilgore had badly strained his relationship with the forces still on the ground at the Wright-Patterson Air Base with his irrational actions. Maybe they were sending a couple trucks with men and that was it. He doubted it, but Lodwick was the only one who knew the details and he was dead, face down in a puddle of his own blood.

  Something struck Kepler, and he felt he had to ask, “Do you really have a way to control the zombies?”

  “That’s for us to know and for you to find out,” Jones responded.

  Kepler thought it was all bullshit, but he didn’t want to find out.

  “Okay,” Kepler said as he stood up, but didn’t drop his aim from the shadowy entryway where Jones hid. “We’re moving out.” He motioned with his free arm for his men to stand down and move out. A few of the men seemed reluctant to leave their defensive postures, possibly wanting to fight, but the majority of them were more than ready to get out of harm's way. This forced the reluctant ones to follow in suit, but he could tell a couple of them were itching for a fight.

  “What door is the best way out?” Kepler asked.

  Jones answered, “We don’t have anyone at the southwest exit. You can use that.”

  The soldiers walked toward that exit, their backs turned to it and their weapons trained back towards where their opponents were positioned. No, you never turned your back on the enemy. Kepler settled into the entryway, letting the men move out in a single line as he watched their backs, his weapon up and ready, as he watched three entryways where Jones and his friends were.

  The last man exited the room, but Kepler stayed poised in position for several more seconds, staring across the room at the entryway where Jones hid in the shadows.

  “Jonsey, you don’t have long,” he said. “They’re coming and we’ll take this place back. I sure hope you find these people worth it.” With that, he turned and left the room.

  While it took a few seconds for everyone still in the dining room area to trust it fully, the tension levels dropped. Still, Jones knew it was prudent to wait for a few seconds because he knew they weren’t the only ones able to pull off dirty tricks.

  The hostages had had enough, though, and within fifteen seconds of the soldier’s exit, they broke and ran for the closest of the three exits where their liberators were positioned. The siege was over.

  Chapter 46

  A Way Out

  Kara was nearly dead weight as I half-carried her along in the dark. Her head lolled against my shoulder as we made our way back down the hallway towards the principal’s office.

  “Kara, you still with me?” I asked.

  She murmured something, and I took that as a good sign, but it really wasn’t. She had wavered between near unconsciousness and semi-alertness since we have left Marlow’s body in the entryway, but now she was closer to the unconscious side of the equation. I had no idea what was wrong with her, whether it was totally physical or emotional shock or a combination. Marlow had beaten her badly. I didn’t want to go there. How bad of a beating it was, I had no idea. Her face was puffy with signs of bruising starting to appear. I knew there were more bruises on her body. There was also a stab wound in her abdomen but I really had no idea of how bad that was. She could have had serious internal injuries for all I knew.

  And then there was the baby.

  I couldn’t go there.

  There was no time to triage or treat any of her injuries. There was only time to run.

  The shooting occurring behind us had lessened and muffled voices echoed down the hallway. I couldn’t tell if they were coming from outside the building in the parking lot with all the carnage or whether they were in the hallway. If they were in the hallway in pursuit of whoever had shot and killed Marlow, we were in trouble. My fastest pace with Kara at my side wasn’t much faster than a geriatric moving along with a walker. Maybe the geriatric would have passed us. I wouldn’t have placed a bet on us.

  I continued to monitor the voices and sounds behind us as we came back upon Scruffy and Mephisto, their bodies unchanged in the hallway. I didn’t know if I expected them to suddenly reanimate or maybe they’d sit up and say hello. My head wasn’t in the best of places. In a world where the dead walked, you began to think that anything was possible.

  Neither sat up or talked, so I just kept us moving along past the principal’s office and deeper into the darkness and uncharted territory.

  “Kara, do you have any idea of how long this corridor runs until we find a door out the back?” I asked.

  She didn’t respond for a few seconds but then said, “No. Keep going. Think Marlow went this way once.” I could tell each word came with great effort.

  At least this time her response was in intelligible words and I took heart in that. It’s funny how the small things can encourage you, like not having your face eaten off by a zombie can really make your day.

  I pushed ahead, taking a big stride with my left leg, then nearly lifting and pulling Kara along. My muscles shouted protests at me, “We give up,” but I ignored them, knowing that giving up meant we were most likely dead. I had little doubts
that Kilgore would tear this entire compound apart to find us.

  Our progress was slow and steady, with my stride and pull method. My left foot was out as a guide. I would stick it out, waiting to hit something solid like a wall, then I would correct our course and set up a new course based on the sensory feedback. We came to a wall, and I made a ninety-degree turn and we headed down another hall, completely in the dark. If any debris hung down from the ceiling, we were going to take it head on, but as it turned out, there was none.

  We nearly went over once when my foot caught on a fallen piece of debris, but Kara must have felt our equilibrium slip. Snapping out of her stupor, she put down her right leg with full force to prevent it. It only cost her a hellish amount of agony. Her scream tore into me, rending my soul, but there was nothing I could do, but get us out of there to safety.

  I’m not sure how long we continued on like that as I fell into an almost trance-like state, striding, pulling, striding, pulling, my mind on autopilot. It wasn’t completely dead because it did keep track of the sounds behind us. I wasn’t sure because I felt like death from the exhaustion, but the voices seemed to be more distinct, filtering along in the dark hallway behind us. It was like they were searching for us and knew we were in that specific hallway. The mind plays funny tricks on you when you’re ready to collapse from exhaustion.

  My eyes searched in the darkness for any sense of light, wanting it as badly as a thirsty man lost in the desert wanted water. Again, my mind taunted me, trying to tell me that this was an endless corridor of obsidian darkness and we would never find our way out and this was our own new version of hell. Stupid mind.

  My eyes got in on the game as the deep shadows morphed from just being shadows to zombies moving our way. Or a soldier readying his weapon to mow us down. The mind doesn’t like a dark void. It likes to fill it in with things. Ergo, the tricks with what I was thinking I was seeing. Stupid eyes.

  My body wanted a vote too. It wanted to throw in the towel and give up. It had done all it could, but I made it keep going despite its protests. Stupid me.

  I kept going, almost dragging Kara along now. In the dark, I had no visual cues that she was still alive. The only signs were the grunts she made with each step and the fact that she didn’t crumple at my side. I hated myself for not letting her rest, but resting wasn’t in the game plan. Not with Kilgore and his men searching for us.

  We bounced into a wall and I made another ninety-degree turn. The dimmest of light appeared in the distance. A rim of dim flickering light, like a rectangle against the darkness. It was if someone had used a giant knife to cut a pattern out of the black tapestry of darkness, allowing light in along the edges.

  There was no doubt in my mind that it was a door. The question was what was behind it.

  I had only a few minutes to study the complex before we were thrown into our little room. And that inspection was through the arms, legs, and shoulders of the other men in the truck with us. An idea of the school complex came only in glimpses, through our captors in the back of the pickup trucks we rode in on.

  There was the main school building, three stories tall, made of brick. There was the storage and the support building we had been stowed in and then there was this administration building beside the school. It was a one-story affair. I would have guessed it wouldn’t be very deep, but it seemed like miles as we had made our way through the dark.

  Now we were approaching a door and a possible way to freedom. Or, at least, I hoped it was freedom. My best guess was that Kilgore and his men had come into the complex via the large parking lot and playground behind the school. The door, if my dim recollections were correct, would put us either in front of the school or on a side street.

  There was only one way to find out. I maintained our current course, but with a little more pace as we headed for the door. By then, the exertion of moving two grown adults with one doing ninety percent of the work was taking its toll on me. Add that to the fact that I had taken a blow to my chest and a kick to my head and I wasn’t anywhere close to one hundred percent from the get-go.

  Like Kara, I was grunting with each step. Her grunts came from the pain while mine was from the exertion. It made me think of a tennis player I once saw who grunted with each stroke towards the end of a match as he was totally spent.

  Grunt, step, grunt, step and the door got closer.

  My focus was totally on reaching the door. I heard no shouts, shots, or sounds behind us. A brass band could have come marching up our asses and I’m not sure I would have heard it.

  The light around the door got brighter with every step, the dim flickering beams growing in width and intensity.

  Ten feet to go and I thought I heard something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. There were a lot of things I wasn’t certain of in those moments like even if I were still alive. Maybe I was dead and lying back in the corridor and this was a projection of my will, refusing to give up. Maybe it was like in the story, the Ox Bow Incident, where the convict fantasized his escape when he was really being hanged. Maybe I really was already dead.

  But I knew better. Death wouldn’t hurt this much.

  Five feet to go and my hand was out to feel for a doorknob or push handle. Any way to open the door. Two feet and my hand struck the cold metal of a push bar. A heavy metallic click sounded, and the door swung open wide, clanging against the side of the building.

  What I saw, I should have expected. There actually were two things.

  It was still dark outside, so where could the light have come from since the place had no electricity? Well, from something that makes light -- like a fire.

  The first thing I saw was a large metal drum, fire wafting out of its open top, licking at the darkness. That was mostly benign.

  The second thing was not benign.

  It was a group of a dozen or more zombies. Probably drawn in by the sounds of gunfire. That was their way. Gunshots were like love taps. Love taps for their insatiable hunger.

  They might have been benign, but the door clanging against the building really drew their attention to the two of us, standing shakily in the doorway.

  No, they drew a keen interest in us, all of their heads and hungry mouths turned our way. The firelight twinkled in their dark eyes, making them seem expectant and excited. The only reason they weren’t closer to the door was out of respect for the fire coming out of the burning drum just in front of the door. Had they been closer, they might have taken us right then and there. Still, it wasn’t going to stop them. Hell, they might have thought the fire added an ambiance to their upcoming meal.

  I didn’t know what I could do. I had almost no fight left in me and Kara had none. She was spent. Turning back didn’t seem to be an option, but going forward wasn’t one, either.

  On my own, I might have been able to navigate back into the building to find another way out, but that would mean leaving Kara to her own devices, and she had no devices left.

  No, that wasn’t an option. It was fight or die.

  I checked the clip, and I had seven bullets left. That was just another time I was coming up short.

  The truth of the matter was that it would be fight and die.

  Chapter 47

  Bug Out

  Ellen pushed Madison ahead of her as a small group of hostages headed down the hallway, wanting to get out of harm's way. While it wasn’t an orderly evacuation, neither were the people running in total panic. Few words were spoken as they moved along, some of them looking shell-shocked, while others were still trying to figure out what had happened.

  Ellen nearly missed Russell and Maggie but caught a glimpse of them against the wall in the hallway. It was Russell’s face that stopped her. Tears streamed silently down his face as he held Maggie’s body against his. She wasn’t moving and Ellen expected the worst. A part of her didn’t want to ask. It seemed that their world was nothing but an endless line of bad news, but there was no denying Russell’s pain. While the other streamed by, Ellen navigat
ed through the small crowd with Madison in tow over to Russell. When she got beside him, she knelt down, looked into his eyes.

  At first, it seemed as if Russell didn’t even register her, his gaze staring off into nothingness, but he came out of it after a few more seconds and blinked his eyes, still looking dazed.

  “What happened?” Ellen asked.

  Russell was quiet for a few more seconds, then said, “She had been nearly shocked to death.” He looked down at Maggie’s lifeless body. “We took a big gamble, and it paid off. But when they fired on our zombie, a bullet must have hit her. It caught her in the stomach, I think. It must have hit a main artery or something because she went quickly and without a word, moan, or whimper.” He stopped and stroked Maggie’s hair. “I don’t think she felt much pain.”

  Ellen didn’t want to say anything, but she knew time was working against them. If what that soldier has said was true, then reinforcements were on the way. They had to mobilize whatever transportation they could, and get out of the complex. That is if the soldiers still present didn’t mount some kind of counter attack. No, there was no time to waste.

  “Russell, we need to get moving,” she said. “The soldiers said they called for reinforcements from Dayton. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

  Russell’s expression was still blank. Tears streaked through the grime on his cheeks. Ellen could only imagine that he felt he couldn’t leave his fallen comrade, but she knew the world had become a pitiless place. There was no place for sentiment anymore.