by Joshua Guess
“I'm giving you this one chance to surrender,” a voice called to me. “Your buddy is already dead. You don't want to join him. You throw down your weapon and you're a prisoner. Come at us and you're gonna end up in the dirt.”
Normally I wouldn't give away my position, but they already had a good idea where I was. “Partner, you just shot my friend. I'd make you the same offer, but it'd be a lie. Every one of you is going to die today.”
And I stepped away from the tree, pivoted slightly, and lowered my torso down as I popped an arm and the top of my head around the trunk to get a look. That single glance came with the whine of a bullet slapping into and then off of the bark about a foot over my head. I returned the favor by reaching my hand around and firing semi-blindly.
Then I was off again as I moved toward another tree. I didn't see much movement from the group in my small glimpses through the woods. And why would they? The spot those fuckers staked out was a good one, a solid position. Coming at me through a field of obstructions would force them into smaller groups or even individually.
Thirty yards doesn't seem like a lot of space, but it was plenty of distance for me. Time to stop running.
Instead I turned in the general direction of the enemy and started moving laterally. They were surely watching for me as well, but they were stationary while I could move any damn way I wanted. I kept my pistol raised and my eye locked down the sights as I slowly cut slices around one tree after another looking for a sliver of a view.
Pistols are next to worthless beyond ninety feet. They're just not accurate enough. But then, I didn't plan to stay far away for long.
I got the slimmest view of a moving body—and it wasn't a zombie. I froze in place and took very, very careful aim through the thin corridor between the trees. I compensated for the limited view by leaning the back of one hand against a trunk to steady my aim. It took about five seconds for me to decide, yeah, this was fine.
I fired three times in rapid succession before lurching away.
Then I moved up about ten feet and did it again. And again. I watched my step, making sure to cause as little noise as possible. I didn't let myself fall into patterns Fifteen seconds between shots here, thirty there, always moving after pulling the trigger. Once I'd done this a few times I was within sixty feet. I readied myself to move again but froze when I heard the unmistakable whistling bird call Jo used to warn me of incoming danger.
That was when someone else started shooting, and shooting a lot.
Kipling said the female of the species is deadlier than the male, and in those woods at that moment, it was the gospel truth. Jo and Tabby had brought their rifles I must have given them enough time to get in good positions. Three-round bursts echoed through the woods in time with the screams of dying men.
Do you know what happens when a trained zombie is suddenly confronted with the bleeding body of its master, who is now an easy snack?
I bet you can guess.
I jumped over that concrete block intending to go on what could charitably be termed a killing spree, and I didn't even hurt anyone. Jo and Tabby racked up a hell of a body count, however. I met them at the puddle of bodies who used to be Relentless Sons. The ladies had taken out the zombies last.
To my surprise, one of the Sons was still alive. He was partially buried beneath the bodies of his friends, which kept the dead away from major arteries long enough to save him from immediate death. Which isn't to say he looked good by any stretch of the imagination. His face was raked with furrows left by zombie claws, most of the meat on his upper chest was gone, torn through the open neck of his coat. I almost stumbled over him and saw great chunks of his left leg missing as well. He bled freely.
“Kill me,” he begged. I thought about it for a few seconds, then crouched down next to him. Tabby and Jo approached cautiously as I did.
“I should break your wrists so you can't draw a weapon and let you fucking rot,” I said. “You people are all the same. You might not act like other marauders, but it's what you are. You take and take. It's all you can do. Difference between us is that I actually have a little mercy left in me. If your people had any decency at all, none of this would have ever been necessary.”
The words changed nothing. This guy wasn't going back to his people to change any minds. We knew from our captives that the Sons had limited, crude medical care that was reserved for the higher-ranked among them. Even if we patched him up, they would let him die unheard.
It was a depressing thought. One person can make a difference, but the hard truth is that those people are fewer and farther between now than at any point in history.
I pulled my knife and shifted aside some corpses, then jammed it into his upper ribs and right through the heart.
I stood and faced the music. I knew Jo and Tabby would be pissed, and deservedly so.
Tabby stared at the bodies with a species of satisfaction on her face. She always looked that way when some of the worthless shits who held her son prisoner were killed. She glanced at Jo with a small shrug as if to say, I'm not going to feel bad about this.
“Sorry we didn't save any for you,” Jo said. “Sorry about Greg.”
I pushed down the tide of grief again and put one arm out. Sometimes it was easy to forget how young Jo was. She was so put together. Smart, responsible, and every molecule of her was a survivor. But the years hadn't yet given her the tools to shove away the overwhelming emotions that came with losing one of your oldest friends, and Greg had been that to her.
“You knew him longer than me,” I said softly as she hugged me. “He was family.”
Jo pulled away. “Oh, god. Allen. Where is he?”
“He ran down to the van to call the next shift in,” I said. “Shit. He'd have run back at the first shot. In the rush I didn't even think about it.”
When we got back to the base of the tower, Allen was sitting not far from his brother's cooling body. His head was down, elbows on his knees and hands clutched against his hair. He twitched when he heard the sound of our footsteps but didn't look up. Maybe it was because he knew it was us somehow. Possibly he just didn't care. Hard to blame him for that.
Jo went over to Allen and knelt beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. She murmured something to him, the soft words lost in the distance between us. When she looked up again she motioned for me to come over.
“We'll take him back,” Jo said. “All the way to Haven. We'll give him a proper funeral.”
Allen shook his head. “Not...not what he wanted. A pyre. I'll do the rest.”
I looked around. We were still dangerously close to the compound, and there would surely be people looking into the gunfire sooner rather than later. “Not here, though. We have to move. I'll carry him.”
Allen nodded again, weakly. Then, as gently as I could manage, I slid my arms beneath my dead friend and lifted him. His body was heavy—don't let anyone ever tell you a corpse is somehow lighter when the soul leaves, if such a thing exists. But he wasn't too heavy. It would have taken broken limbs for me to fail in this last duty to Greg. He was one of mine.
Once we were back at the van, I took one of the shrouds we kept in stock just for moments like this and carefully wrapped Greg up before the others got here. They moved slowly to stay with Allen and to give me time to prepare.
Practicality ended up winning the day. The others hopped in the van and we took off to safer country. I stayed in back with Greg's body and sat with Allen. I wanted to comfort him. I didn't. I'd gotten his brother killed. I wanted to apologize. I didn't. It would have been empty. Both of them knew what they'd signed up for—an apology would have been an insult.
Instead I grabbed the encrypted radio and switched it on. I sent out the series of clicks signifying a command-level message for this day of the week and waited thirty seconds. The range on these things was really good, but nowhere near enough to reach all our people. That was okay. Haven supplemented our strike force with our own squad of scouts and another of m
essengers. One of them was bound to hear it and spread the word.
“This is the commander,” I said in what I hoped was a calm, authoritative voice. The tone that came out was probably far from my usual one; it certainly didn't match the storm building up inside my head. “As of dawn tomorrow, we kick the doorstop. Full prejudice. That is all.”
I tossed the radio onto the bench seat without turning it off. If anyone had a problem with the order, they didn't reply. Instead I heard a series of clicks from acknowledging parties. We weren't scheduled for phase two for several days yet at the earliest. I didn't give a fuck.
“You shouldn't have done that,” Allen said quietly. “It's too soon. You can't let this...”
He trailed off. I knew what he meant, though. He was right. The fury was pushing me in ways it shouldn't have. I was supposed to be past this kind of thing. It had been a while since I lost a friend, and the hot edge of the loss was shocking.
“We're close enough,” I said.
And we were. I had no doubt about it. Though phase one was always going to be the easiest aspect of our overall plan, the extra months gave us more information and insight than we ever expected. We used that to efficiently and surgically cut off every supply route the Sons used. We left a few to let them think we'd missed them, but even that trickle ended in the morning.
Then we'd make sure they knew there was no help coming and no more supplies on their way. Phase two required the Relentless Sons to stay in their compound and under siege. The war was about to go from cool to hot.
Hopefully we could keep it from bursting into flames before phase three was ready.
12
Greg didn't really get a funeral. Not in the way people used to have them. The social niceties and forms surrounding death had been abandoned with the end of civilization—there were just too many dead for them to survive the transition. Instead we drove a few miles east of our base and set up a pyre in the overgrown parking lot of a Bass Pro Shop. For the brothers, that place was as close to church as it got, and that didn't even seem a little funny to me. It was hard thinking about all that shared experience, years of hunting and fishing together and learning to be woodsmen, suddenly cut short by a single bullet. You'd think we would be used to it by now, but no. It always hurts.
Greg made it through most of a decade of hell, surviving the unimaginable time and again. You can only spin that wheel so many times before you lose. I knew that better than just about anyone.
The fire itself was fast and intense. We used some regular thermite to get the ball rolling. Everything, even our death rites, had to change fast when the dead began to rise. The pyre was soaked in accelerant to speed along the process, and the shroud itself was doused in some of the petroleum jelly we'd stolen from the warehouse. About a gallon of it, all told.
As Greg burned, Allen stared at the flames with an empty expression that slowly turned to a variety of rage I knew all too well. It was cold and dangerous, and it wasn't pointed at me. Jo stood by his side, her arm twined in his, head on his shoulder and tears running down her face unashamedly.
Tabby, to my great surprise, began to sing softly as Greg's body went up. It was 'Edge of Night' from The Lord of the Rings. Maybe not the most appropriate tune given its lyrics, but then maybe it did fit somewhat. The song was hauntingly beautiful, close to a dirge.
We stood there for a while as the fire burned, but after about ten minutes an unspoken agreement seemed to pass between us. It was survivor's instinct; we were all used to moving out of open spaces quickly. Even with the help we'd given the process, it would take a while for the pyre to reduce itself to embers and even longer to cool. It was up to Allen to decide if he wanted to come back here for his brother's bones. The ash would cover them, leaving nothing for predators to take.
As we walked toward the van, Allen gave the ladies a meaningful look. Jo and Tabby walked off, leaving us alone.
Whatever had built up inside Allen was probably not good, and twenty feet from the blazing remains of his only blood was definitely not the best place for it. After I joined the service, my dad told me that there's no such thing as picking your battles. All you can do is take what you're given and do the best you can with it.
This was one of those moments where the best course is to say nothing. Let the other person guide the conversation. You never know what will trigger a grieving person.
Allen waited until he was sure we were alone and met my eyes. I saw much there, none of it surprising. Anger, of course. Pain. Lots of that. And hate, though again, not for me. Over the years we'd bullshitted with each other over too many campfires, him sharing stories about dumb things he and his brother had gotten into in their youth, and me talking about the job. All I had was the job. Allen knew damned well that I'd taken the offer to do paramilitary work at the CIA because I hated losing people. He knew I didn't take the life of any person under my command lightly.
“I want to be reassigned,” he said, voice far more calm than I expected. It was a little eerie. His brown eyes shone with moisture.
“I can send you home if you want,” I said, knowing that wasn't what he meant. “You've lost enough out here. We've lost enough. I don't want to lose you, too.”
Allen nodded sharply, letting out a bitter bark of a laugh. “You know, that's the messed up thing. He talked about how we had to do this to watch out for you and Jo. The boys are gone after you sent 'em away. The others moved into Haven with them. Half our group, our family, gone. Greg and I stayed with you and Jo because more than anyone else, the four of us kept each other safe.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, breathing out the words unintentionally. And I was. I wanted him to get angry with me, to lash out at me. Something.
“Yeah,” Allen said, suddenly sounding deeply tired. “I know you are. This isn't about how you feel. I know it isn't your fault, but...”
I sighed. “But you blame me anyway. You have to blame someone. I get it.”
Allen actually laughed, a short and bitter sound. “Man, you talk about psychology a lot but you don't know people. I don't blame you. I'm mad at you the way I am at the rest of the world, but this wasn't your fault. You've jumped in front of a lot of bullets for us. I just need to be away. I want to be on one of the front line teams. Keep my eyes on these sons of bitches. I know you won't let me do phase three when it comes, but I need this. Please.”
I should have said no at once. The last thing the squads tasked with keeping watch on the Sons needed was a man half-crazy with grief. Instead I considered it.
“I'll make you a deal,” I said. “I'm a little worried about your state of mind. You go with Ron and his flying company for a week. If he thinks you're good to go, then you get your wish. But I apprise whatever team you end up on about the situation. You're as solid as they come, Allen. I have nothing but respect for you. You know that. But I can't let you jeopardize the mission.”
Because then your brother would have died for nothing, I didn't say even though we both heard it in my words anyway.
He frowned thoughtfully, and then bobbed his head in a single nod. “Yeah, okay. That's a fair deal.”
And like that, my team was down to three. Not a state of affairs I could allow to continue.
Allen left as soon as we got back to base, which seemed fitting since the place was about to be abandoned anyway. Phase one forced us to work at a distance, disparate teams ghosting around the countryside picking off caravans of supplies and forcing the remaining shipping routes in directions we wanted them to go. The next bit required a more obvious presence on our part, and focused on keeping the Sons contained. I sent Allen off to join the flying company with my blessing, then set to the fairly easy job of packing up.
It took all of half an hour. Another habit most survivors develop is keeping their gear in a small area and quick to pack up. The table where I worked was the worst bit, and even that would have been nothing more than a swipe of everything on it into the big canvas duffle I left resting against on
e of its legs.
The radio, yeah, that was not something I could have easily grabbed in a hurry, but we had backups. And since I wasn't in a rush, that went too.
There was a silence between the three of us as we shut the doors and opened the garage. The few zombies around were just smart enough to recognize the rotting bodies of their pals as a sign to keep at a distance. They were always there, just at the edge of the woods. Watching for a mistake, like lions prowling a watering hole for the slowest antelope.
We drove past them in the silence that had the feeling of becoming normal. When you spend enough time with people, especially when tragedy strikes, that happens.
No one said a word all the way to our forward base less than three miles from the compound where the Relentless Sons were now contained. The new teammates I requested would be there in the morning, fresh from Haven. They weren't anyone I knew, but Will had selected them personally once I made the request over the long-range radio. It might be intercepted, but the information content of the message was pretty slim and worth the risk. I'd need Tabby and Jo for more delicate work. A couple of trained fighters with decent skills in tracking and woodcraft would do for watching our backs.
This close to the distribution center was slim pickings for defensible permanent structures. Our new digs had once been a convenience store which had been converted into an office space long before the Fall. The place was fortified by the advance teams, its plate glass windows silvered somehow to prevent anyone outside from getting a look at us. They were reinforced inside with two layers of steel mesh tough enough to stop a charging horse, or so the guy who installed the barrier promised me. It'd keep zombies from getting through if the glass broke. That was all I cared about.
God, I was tired. I needed sleep in the worst way. Instead I did all the things I was supposed to.
