by Brown, TW
“I did not think—”
“You place is not to think,” Aaheru roared. “Your place is to do and to tell.”
“I humbly apologize, my Pharaoh.”
Aaheru took a deep breath and loosened his grip on the much more diminutive man. He brushed away the wrinkles and placed his arms firmly on Ahi’s shoulders.
“The last broadcasts before the city went dark had reports of rumors that there were those who did not succumb to this plague. Since I can already assume that the two who did not return were Jaakan and Faakhir, I want you to bring me the boy. Bring Nabeh to me immediately and tell no one.”
Ahi had no idea what Aaheru was talking about when it came to Nabeh. He had only heard that the boy was bitten. He had never seen the injury, but when it was reported to him, he had done what Aaheru had ordered long ago; he had given the order that the boy be left to die. He was given no provisions, but simply left beside the road with the warning that if he pursued the convoy, he would be shot. When he caught up with the group five days later, Ahi had to assume that the boy was not bitten. Nobody lasted five days after a bite. Also, the wounds do not heal; rather, they begin to fester and stink despite any treatment given. Nabeh’s wound was now an ugly scab. In other words, it was healing. A bite from one of the returned never heals.
As for Jaakan and Faakhir, he had never told Aaheru who he sent. When he asked for volunteers, these were the men who stepped forward. Obviously Nabeh wanted to prove his worth and redeem himself after having been cast aside. As for the others, Ahi just assumed that they wanted to gain favor with him, and by proxy, the pharaoh.
Aaheru watched Ahi’s face as his friend and advisor tried to process the information. It was time to reveal a small kernel of knowledge.
“The two who have not returned are loyal to Markata.”
Ahi’s eyes went wide. The implications were quite frightening. It was against his own advice that Aaheru had given Markata the honor of driving the bus that would hold all of the women. If Markata had men working for him, then the situation was even more serious than he first realized. His belief was simply that the snake of a man wanted his job. However, if things were as they seemed…he had even grander aspirations.
“I do not mean disrespect, my Pharaoh, but I warned you that I believed Markata to be treacherous.”
“Yes, my son…” Aaheru let that hang in the air for a moment. Up until this moment, he had allowed this man certain familiarities; the time had come to fully embrace his role as the man who would return Egypt to her glory…and with it…the power of a true pharaoh. That meant it was time to make a subtle assertion of the role. He would hope the man proved to be as smart as he portrayed himself to be and catch the hint. It would actually pain Aaheru to order a disciplinary action against his friend. “You are right to distrust Markata. And I value your judgement, but I had to see for myself the depths that the ibn il-Homar, son of a donkey, was prepared to sink.”
“So now you will remove him from the bus?”
“No.”
Ahi was confused, but he had heard the tone Aaheru used when he addressed him as ‘my son’ and knew that much was changing in the dynamics of the relationship he had with this man who laid claim to the title of pharaoh.
“And the two men who have not returned?” Ahi decided that was probably the safest question.
“They are of no consequence. The possible supply problems are a concern, but no one man can survive out in this world alone any longer. They will perish in time.” Aaheru glanced at his bag and headed for the door.
Ahi did not like this new relationship. Still, it would be to his benefit to maintain it as is for the time being. He still had his own agenda. It would simply need to have its approach altered slightly.
***
“You…lady,” Juan barked causing the young woman to almost trip over her feet. “What’s your name?”
“April Cable,” she replied after choking on the words a few times.
“Okay, April, here is what I need you to do…”
Juan paused and looked back towards the hill. The brush was shaking violently, and even many of the more slender, young pines were bending and disappearing as the mob poured down the ravine. At this point, none of them would remember what they were chasing or why; they simply continued after the last visible food source.
He snapped his head back to the young man and woman who had made it with him this far. “I want you to climb up on one of those trailer rigs and look for any signs of the others. If Thad beat us here, he wouldn’t have taken all the boats. That means they are somewhere close if they made it across. Also, if you see anything out in the water, track it with your eyes and look for a landmark if they beach.”
“Okay.” April licked her dry lips and tried to swallow back the fear that had threatened to overwhelm her the past several minutes. Without another word, she ran to the rear of the trailer and began climbing up.
Juan turned to the guy and his eyes froze on what looked like a nasty bite just above the left wrist. “And what’s your name?”
“Al Kincaid,” the young man replied. He followed Juan’s gaze and his eyes froze on his wound. He looked back up with tears already brimming.
“Al, I want you to head down the beach here and see if you can spot anything that looks like it might possibly float. That bend in the river is as far as I want you to go. If you get there and see anything, you haul ass back and let April up there know about it.”
“What about—”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Juan cut him off. “You might be immune.”
“But what if I’m not?”
“We can worry about that later.”
“Later!” Al’s voice cracked and was almost a shout.
“Listen…you want me to put this blade in your head right this minute? Or do you want to see about getting us the hell out of here and letting us deal with your problem when it is for sure that you are gonna be one of them deaders?”
Al seemed to consider his options for a second, so Juan drew his weighted machete blade. That seemed to prompt a response in a hurry.
“I’ll go see if there is anything,” Al said in a rush as he backed away from the well-used and heavily stained blade.
Juan took another look back to that steep hill they had bounded down in an attempt to escape the hundreds of undead that had followed them across that narrow bridge. The ploy hadn’t worked, and now they were trapped between a seemingly never-ending wall of deaders and the Willamette River. This entire mission had been an utter failure, and if a miracle didn’t happen, he might never see Mackenzie again.
Juan started heading in the opposite direction that he’d sent Al. They probably had ten minutes at the most before they would have to bug out and start running again. That would lead to another decision—which way would they run?
He hadn’t gotten too far when the girl up on the trailer, April or Amber, Juan really had to work on remembering names, hollered. “I see the boats!”
Juan spun around and then tried to track the direction that she was pointing. It was towards him! Juan spun back around and caught a glimpse of something just before it slipped behind a severely listing tug boat and a partially submerged barge.
“Can you still see it?” Juan jogged back and began to climb up onto the top of the trailer.
“Yeah, but I don’t think those are our people,” she said as she stepped aside and made room for him next to her. She pointed, and Juan quickly located the four boats they had arrived in running parallel to the uneven shore.
“How old you think they are?” Juan asked.
“So I’m not crazy?” April sighed with audible relief. “Maybe early teens?”
“What the hell are they doing?”
“I may be wrong…but it looks like they are chasing a dog.”
Juan shielded his eyes to try and get a better look. Sure enough, he saw the head of a dog jutting up from the dark water of the river. The kids looked like t
hey were trying to cut it off from heading out to the middle of the Willamette and force it back towards the shore. That was where the next problem arose.
Juan looked back towards where he expected the zombies to appear, and sure enough, the first couple were stumbling from the bushes and tall grass. They would move towards the first sight or sound that caught their attention. Right now, the first handful were already turning towards the kids in the boats.
“You think those kids know what is coming?” April asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
“I doubt it,” Juan replied. He took a look towards where Al had gone in search of boats. The man was jogging back, and as soon as he saw that Juan was looking his way, he started waving his arms wildly. It was only a few seconds later when the first figures came around the distant bend in the river.
“Damn,” Juan sighed and hung his head. There didn’t seem like any way out of this particular situation.
“Oh no.” April actually staggered back and ended up in Juan’s arms; it was either that, or she would have fallen off the trailer.
“Wha—” Juan started to ask, but the words died in his throat. Thad and at least one of his group had arrived. Unfortunately, they were covered in blood…all of it obviously their own. Juan could only watch helplessly as Thad stumbled and fell. Three nearby zombies got to him before he could reach his feet. The familiar scream pierced the air.
The one thing that came from that scream was the fact that the kids out on the river all turned towards the source of the noise. One of them stood up in the boat and seemed to scan the area. Eventually they spotted Juan and April atop the trailer. Juan breathed an inner sigh of relief when all four boats gave up chasing the dog and began to speed towards them.
As he reached the ground, Al arrived. Juan managed to keep his cool, but April let the cat out of the bag with a gasp. “Your eyes,” she breathed.
Al looked to Juan for confirmation and received a curt nod. He slumped to the ground and buried his head in his hands. Before Juan could say anything, the four motor boats came roaring into the little inlet where they had originally been tied off.
“Hey, you guys might want to hop in,” a young boy called as the engines dropped to an idle.
“You make it a habit to offer rides to strangers?” Juan asked as he stepped habitually in between these new arrivals and April.
In unison, the dozen occupants of the four boats drew an assortment of weapons that would make an action hero blush.
“Huh,” Juan snorted for lack of anything else to say.
“What?” April peeked her head around Juan’s large frame. “Oh.”
***
“So what is the plan?” Chad stepped out into the hall with Scott. It had taken a few hours and a lot of crying, but finally, Ronni drifted off to sleep. He was only mildly surprised that several of the people who had been there when he first returned to his room from the mockery of a trial remained just outside of his door.
“This place is splitting into factions faster than we anticipated.” Brett stepped out from between a pair of older men who reminded Chad of the men from the balcony on The Muppet Show. “Word is that we hold this hotel and the other group is in the lodge where the trial was held. If you can believe even half of what is flying around, folks are killing each other in the street.”
“What in the hell triggered all of this madness?” Chad asked. Surely, he thought, this can’t all be over me killing the men who were trying to rape my daughter.
“Somebody let it slip that we are almost out of the dry stores in the hotels,” a man Chad had never seen before stepped out from the bunched up crowd. His light caramel skin tone was only enhanced by the well-kept goatee and pencil-thin mustache. “The fight at the trial was just the match that was needed to blow this powder keg straight to the moon.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Chad said as he shook his head. “Why would everybody go all Hatfield and McCoy like this when we obviously need to come together and pool our talents and resources?”
“Because those guys you went after had managed to gain access to the store rooms. They were setting themselves up with a sweet little black market operation. They would have had all the food, which would have meant that they would have had all the power. When the folks went to their rooms during the investigation, some of the supplies were found. That guy you killed in you room was the ringleader.”
“Still not following you…” Chad paused. “I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to know your name, and you have an awful lot of information.”
“Clark,” the man said with a warm smile. “Michael Clark.”
“Okay, Mike—”
“My dad was Mike…I go by Michael.”
Chad felt himself bristle a bit. He chalked it up to the events of the past few days. “Okay…Michael…how come you know so much?”
“Because I was in on the deal.”
All heads whipped around his direction at once. None of the expressions were all that friendly.
“You want to run that by me again?” Scott stepped up next to Chad, his hand on the handle of the blade strapped to his leg.
“Look, folks,” Michael held up his hands, “it ain’t like it sounds.”
“Really?” Chad snapped. “Because right now it sounds pretty messed up.”
“I didn’t sign up for what these guys were pulling.” Michael kept his voice calm despite the fact that the crowd had closed in around him. “They came to me and said that they were going to force a rationing plan…that food was being wasted, and that we wouldn’t make it through the winter at the rate we were going. They wanted me for security.”
“Security?” a few voices said in unison.
“I am a former Marine, and I was a cop when this whole thing went off. I am the only person to make it out of the Chico police department alive as far as I know. I wasn’t about to get this far and die of starvation. I honestly didn’t know that these guys were gonna flip.”
“So when did you find out what they were up to, and why didn’t you let anybody know?” Scott asked with a sneer.
“I was trying to figure out exactly who I could tell and get any support. With Sarge dead, there really isn’t any authority figure here, and I wasn’t ready to go heads up with these guys on my own. I was already starting to discover that they had all kinds of folks working for them in some capacity or another. That was also when I started eavesdropping on a few conversations and discovered that a whole bunch of these guys were on a prison transport bus that crashed. They were talking about a stockpile of weapons and all sorts of crap. Then…you went and killed most of the top guys in this little organization. You left a void in the power structure, and all the underlings made a grab. On the good side, they are just as set on taking each other down as they are you…the bad news…they don’t care what it takes for them to reach their objective.”
“Objective?” Chad sputtered. “Why can’t we just work as a cohesive unit for a common cause…survival? Why does anybody have to be in charge?”
“I don’t have any answers for you on that one, man.” Michael gave a shrug, and then swept his gaze across the group. “But what I do know is that we need to prepare for one of two scenarios.”
“And what might those be?” Chad asked.
“Battle…or siege.”
***
Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK—Victoria Kirkpatrick, Vix to her mates, set the shovel down and stared out across the lightly snow-covered grounds. A few months ago, there had been thirty-seven of them hiding out in the Audleys Wood Hotel. Now there were seven, and she didn’t think any of them would make it through the next few weeks.
She blamed Nigel Longstreet and that vile little rat-faced woman, Claudia Jones. Kneeling beside the mound of dirt she had been working at busily since just before dawn, Victoria fought back the tears that had been threatening to spill all night and into the morning.
“You stupid, wonderful man,” she whispered.
Her husban
d was underneath all of the cold earth she knelt beside now. And it was all Nigel’s fault. He had been the one to insist that they venture in to town for supplies. She had argued, saying that the city was thick with the walking dead and their best bet was to search the outlying areas. They would not find a concentrated amount of food and such going house to house, but nobody had listened.
When volunteers were asked for, Ivor, her husband and the one thing she had known she could rely upon, had stepped forward. He and seven others set out with empty packs and three rolling carts that they pulled along using a shoulder harness. Ivor was the only one to return. He was empty handed…and covered in blood.
Nigel had flown into a fury about how “careless and foolish” Ivor had been in returning to their sanctuary. “Those monsters could be following you! You may have brought death to us all!”
Weak from blood loss and obviously in the final stages of the infection before he turned and became one of the undead, Ivor had enough energy and spirit left to land a punch with enough behind it to knock Nigel out cold.
The handful of survivors that remained all stood in silence for a moment, and then erupted in a very un-British display of emotion. The cheers and yells were a sign that Nigel’s reign as the self-proclaimed leader of the group had come to an end.
Claudia had stepped forward and looked as if she were going to strike Ivor from behind, but Victoria had moved in between the two. The women locked eyes for just a second. Obviously Claudia saw something that made her step back.
“If you touch him…I will kill you.” That was all Victoria said.
She had no idea that two more members of the group had stepped up behind her in support. Nobody could be sure if that had been what caused Claudia to backpedal and then flee the room, but the fact remained that she had, and Nigel had followed behind once he finally came to.
By that time, Ivor had succumbed to the infection and closed his eyes as a living person for the last time. Victoria had been at his side in their room when a long exhale rattled his once sturdy frame.
