by Brown, TW
I brought up my binoculars and took a better look. On the open fields were a row of war machines: catapults. There were twelve of them, and there was a team at each that had obviously drilled this evolution until it ran with clock-like precision.
Whump!
Whump!
Whump!
They fired in groups of four. The second time around, I counted. Five seconds between each group.
“That is a freakin’ army!” Cynthia breathed.
I had to agree. That lady had made it seem like maybe just a few people might have been involved, but what we saw made me beg to differ. Granted…perhaps our idea of a lot of people, compared to that of the residents of Island City were likely to be at odds. For me, a few hundred people was a big number. There were easily a few hundred people in this so-called army.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We hook up with Paula and the others and get back to the rally point,” Cynthia replied. I had to admire how calm she sounded.
“But the Bat Signal,” I reminded.
“It was just south of here, scan the area and see if you can locate them.” Cynthia started down the hill. “If you can’t find them in the next ten minutes or so, you make for the rally point. If nobody arrives within an hour, you start back for home.”
“Wait!”
“Do what I said, Thalia.” Cynthia’s voice was firm, ending any questions or discussion on whatever concerns that I might have. Oh, and there were a few.
I watched as she made her way down the hill, having to hop every so often when it got really steep. She reached the bottom and looked back once. I had the strangest feeling that I would not ever see her again.
I brought my glasses up and started to scan the general area where we had noticed the Bat Signal coming from. It was difficult, because the entire time that I was doing that, the bombardment of that distant settlement continued.
I knew there were a few other settlements in the area, but other than Island City, I had been led to believe that they were all very small. Most were nowhere near the size of Platypus Creek. This one looked to actually be a bit larger than ours. Maybe it was because it was so spread out. These people had obviously taken the time to fence off a good amount of farmland and even a pasture where I’d seen horses and cows. Of course all of those animals had bolted to the farthest corner away from the bombardment.
I was feeling my anxiety start to spike. I was not seeing any signs of movement.
Time is a funny thing. When you are having fun, it zooms past and you wonder where it went. When you are scared or things are going bad, it just stops so that every single second is a spike of agony sent to force the body to burn through all of its adrenaline stores.
I waited for what could have been ten minutes, an hour, or twenty seconds. Honestly, I had no idea. A watch is a standard item on a patrol. My problem is that I hate wearing them. I don’t like any type of jewelry, and that includes watches. Nobody had bothered to check since it is a relatively minor and unimportant part of gear. It’s not like it is a spike or a blade.
I took one more look at the distant massing of people that were laying siege to that poor town. I have heard people say that perhaps we did not deserve to survive the zombie apocalypse as a species. It was times like this that I thought they might have a valid point.
I was about to turn and make my way to the rally point when something grabbed my attention. A detachment had broken off from the main body. It was coming our way!
“Crap!” I whispered.
“You got that right,” a voice said from behind me, making me jump.
I spun to see a man standing about thirty feet away. He had a crossbow in his hands and it was leveled at me. I had binoculars in my hand; that gave him a distinct advantage. I shoved down my desire to say anything. One of the things Paula taught me about an encounter with a stranger while out in the field was to let them talk first. They would usually tip their hand as to whether they were hostile or friendly.
“And what would a little girl like you be doing out here all by herself?” the man asked. When he smiled, I could see that he was missing several teeth, and the ones that remained did not look like they would be hanging around much longer.
I let my binoculars fall, making it a point to keep my hands out from my body so he would not think that I was going for a weapon. I also kept my mouth shut. It was not looking like this guy was going to be of the friendly sort.
“And how about that other gal that was with you,” the man pressed. “Where did she go and run off to?”
That was good and bad. The bad being that he obviously knew about Cynthia, the good was that he did not know about Paula or any of the others.
“You deaf, girly?” the man barked, jabbing my direction with his crossbow for emphasis.
“Nope.” Just giving him that one word answer might buy me some time while I tried to figure out what to do about either escaping, or at least not getting shot. My hopes that this guy was not bad had evaporated.
“Then maybe you start answering some questions.”
“I thought they were rhetorical.”
“Ret…ree…what the hell are you talking about?”
Oh good. The dumb ones were always the most fun. “I did not realize you were actually wanting an answer. I just sort of figured you already knew and were just toying with me.”
“Toying with you?” the man barked with an ugly laugh. “Why would I want to do something like that?”
I was almost certain that did not require an answer, so I just folded my arms across my stomach and stared at the guy. His face went a little bit slack for a second, and then his eyes grew wide.
“You think I’m one of them damn rapers!” the man gasped, taking a step back and actually lowering his weapon. “Then I reckon you ain’t one of them cursed raiders.” The man took a moment to shift his weapon in order to let it hang from the shoulder strap, and then wiped his right hand on his pants; not that it made much difference since his clothes were filthy. “My name is Ken Ross. Folks call me Cricket.”
I guess the look on my face invited him to explain. He pursed his lips and made a chirping sound that was spot on as far as cricket impersonations go.
“My name is Thalia,” I answered, deciding that we were possibly fighting for the same team if not exactly wearing the same uniform. (That was a saying that Billy used all the time when he referred to encountering friendlies out in the field.) “And I am not with that…army.” I hiked my thumb over my shoulder.
“Talleeya?” Cricket squinted his eyes as he butchered the pronunciation of my name. “Can I just call ya Girly?”
I shrugged my shoulders. What did it matter?
“Just here to skim through the pickings, Girly?” Cricket made a distasteful grimace, but his eyes drifted over my shoulder at the distant thumping from another volley from the row of catapults. “Then give it a few days and you can sift through whatever is left of Rendezvous.”
“Rendezvous? Is that the name of that little town?” I asked, keeping my eyes on this guy. Just as it was possible that I had judged this book by its cover and been wrong, he could still turn out to be trouble.
“Yeah…folks had themselves a really nice thing going, too. I guess it was a whole bunch of college kids from Oregon State University. They arrived about two years ago and set up camp. In less than a year, they had the best farms you ever did see.” Cricket shook his head and whistled through his few remaining teeth. “Come out here to escape the Valley Strip. I guess it is still a war zone from Seattle all the way down the I-5 corridor, clear to the California Border. Seems kind of sad when you think about it.”
I caught a hint of movement in the shadows of the trees just behind and to the left of Cricket. Give the man credit; for being so raggedy looking, he was very observant.
“If’n you are with Girly here…I would not be hasty to do anything foolish.” The crossbow had swung up and into the man’s hands in a flash. Then he gave me a nod i
ndicating my own weapon. When I reached slowly, he gave the slightest of nods and I brought my crossbow up and to the ready. “And if’n you ain’t, you got trouble since I don’t think the little girl is likely to be an easy target.”
Paula stepped from the shadows, her hands raised, but a blade in each. The man might have believed that he had the advantage, but I’d seen her throw those knives before. He was well within her range. And Jackson was nowhere to be seen, so odds had definitely shifted to favor me and mine.
“Did some tavern have a ladies’ night?” Cricket grumbled.
“Are you kidding me?” Paula said in that way that is supposed to seem like she said it under her breath, but was obviously loud enough for me and Cricket to hear very clearly.
“I think he was a resident of Island City,” I said, craning my neck just a bit so that Paula could see me more clearly.
“Was?” Cricket scrunched up his face in a way that would be funny if not for the seriousness of the situation. “Girly, I still live here no matter what them yay-hoos done to my home. And before you go askin’ some fool question, I don’t intend on leavin’ this place. I was born and raised here…reckon I’ll die here if it comes to it.”
“Maybe you could fill us in on exactly what happened. We got a bit of a rundown from a poor couple, but I do not know how much accuracy can be given to what was said considering how sick they both were when we spoke.” Paula made a show of bringing her arms wide and then tucking her blades away in their sheathes.
“Not much to tell.” Cricket sighed and shrugged his shoulders, lowering his own weapon as he did. “Damn snake oil salesmen is what they were…and I told everybody just exactly that when they come here.”
The man went on to relate pretty much the same story that we had already heard. There were a few more colorful details and descriptions, but mostly the same.
“Never did trust ‘em, nope, surely did not. If I’m lyin’ then I’ma dyin’.” Cricket had fallen in with Paula and me as we walked back towards the rally point. “And soon as the whole community got sick, you just knew something even worse was around the corner. Ain’t bad enough that we had to survive a damned zombie apocalypse…gangs of idiot raiders and ne’er-do-well soldiers that thunk we was easy pickin’s just ‘cuz we ain’t city folk. Heard it said in a movie once…Country don’t mean dumb.”
“So you didn’t get the shot?” Paula asked.
“Hell no!” Cricket made almost a crowing sound. “Never had one when I was growin’ up. Damn skippy I wouldn’t just let somebody stick a needle in me and pump God knows what in my body.”
“But I heard it was mandatory,” I spoke up.
“Sure…but it don’t take much to get somebody to cross your name off’n a list. A few jars of this or that…some knives always need sharpening, and lots of folks don’t want to take the time anymore. Folks is slippin’ back to the old ways where laziness just kind of takes hold. If you can get somebody else to do it for ya…why bother doin’ it your damn self. So, zip-zip, pretty as you please, and old Cricket is marked as having done took his place in line.”
“So you aren’t immune?” I asked.
“Don’t know…ain’t never been bit.” Cricket shrugged his shoulders, but a frown put a dent in his smile. “Seen it happen too many times to count. And once folks knew that immunity might be possible, I think it made things even worse. That disappointment when the eyes changed and told the world you was gonna be one of them nasty creatures.”
“A zombie,” I said with a sigh.
“Ha!” Cricket laughed. “I got news for ya, Girly…a zombie is what them voodoo folks made poor people into down in the Caribbean islands. What we got here ain’t zombies. They are flesh eaters…and the young’uns…well…they are something else altogether. But I won’t never call ‘em zombies no matter what other folks say.”
“Can we argue semantics later?” Paula hissed.
We had come to the rally point. I was not surprised to see that we were the only ones to make it so far. The problem was that whoever fired that flare should definitely be here by now since we’d had to go all the way to the other side of Island City and then back.
“You waitin’ on them other folks who come with you?” Cricket asked as he hopped up onto a barrel that sat in front of what looked like some sort of garden shop. There were flowers—all wilted by now since nobody had tended them in a while—as well as rows of empty box planters. From the smell, I had to guess that the barrels were all full of compost.
“Just how long have you been following us?” Paula asked.
“I weren’t really following y’all. I saw you arrive and went to someplace where I could keep a good eye on you. When you split up, that was when I thought you might be a group sent by the folks that raided us. Seein’ as how they had emptied out the warehouses but left all the homes and shops, I figured they was comin’ back to finish the job.”
“And you were just going to watch?” I asked.
“The odds were against me. But when you all split up, it gave me a chance to move in. Only…you went into a few houses and didn’t take nothin’ when you come out. That made me think you might just be from one of the smaller communities in the area. I know of at least ten smaller groups that come in and do business with us. You can bet your bippy that if I showed up and the place was empty, I sure as heck would have to take a look.”
I shook my head. This guy was too weird.
“Paula!” It was Jackson, and he had the rest of the folks who had gone on perimeter search hot on his heels.
They came at a sprint, and that meant trouble. It was like, the closer they got, the drier my mouth became.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” Jackson said, his massive chest heaving as he tried to get his air back. The others pulled up as well, but they were all bent at the waist, hands on knees as they tried to catch their breath.
“Tell me.” It was amazing how calm Paula sounded. I had to fight to keep from dancing from one foot to the other.
“You saw the flare?” Shay asked.
“Yes, and we made for it immediately, but we missed you along the way somehow.” Paula was curt and to the point.
“We had to retreat down to the river and follow it back,” Shay explained. “That group laying siege to the town—”
“Rendezvous,” I blurted. Everybody looked at me and I felt my face get warm. I swallowed and then explained. “The name of that settlement is Rendezvous. Apparently it is some group from the valley that came over to get away from all the violence on the I-5 strip.” I hated how sheepish I suddenly sounded.
“Yeah…well they probably regret that choice,” Jackson said with a shake of his head. “They are being pounded. But this group is not like anything we have ever seen. I have done a lot of ranging and been to damn near every community in the Northwest. I have seen towns that were almost like the old days in how normal they were. Heck, Island City was heading that way…”
My mind was trying to process what was being said. Could there really be places bigger than Island City? It just did not seem possible.
“That group surrounding Rendezvous is only a small part of the main body,” Jackson continued. “I am being conservative when I say that they have to number over ten thousand. They have a camp set up at the old airfield.”
“How do you know all of this?” Paula asked.
“Because they left behind one of their wounded.”
Jackson did not need to say anything else. Obviously he had made the person talk. The idea of what that had to entail made me shiver.
“We need to go,” a familiar voice said. I looked over to see Jim Sagar jogging up. His backpack looked a lot fuller than when he’d left us. “There is movement in the valley to the south by the airfield. I think these people are flushing rabbits from the hole.”
That was something I understood. Jim was basically saying that this group, for whatever reason, was stirring things up. Then, when people came to investigate, they
were hunting them down.
“You sure you want to stay, Cricket?” I asked. I don’t know why, but I just liked the weird old guy for some reason.
“Like I said, Girly,” the man patted me on the shoulder and smiled, showing off the gaps where teeth should be, “this is my home. I didn’t leave way back when things started. I sure ain’t goin’ anywhere now.”
We started off and I felt something grip my arm. I turned to see Cricket holding out his left hand. When he opened it, I looked up at him and shook my head.
“I can’t,” I insisted.
“You can return it to me next time we see each other if’n you don’t fancy it,” the man said in a gentle voice that was at odds with his ragged appearance.
I accepted the token and then started to go. I paused and turned back to give the man a hug…but he was gone.
We headed for the foothills. Unlike our trip here, we left a guard on our trail. Jackson and Jim found a spot that they could see most of the valley from while the rest of us continued home. We were within a few hours of home when they caught up to us. I already knew part of what they would report.
“They put La Grande to the torch,” Jim said. I could see a tightness in his face that was so very out of place. And if Jim was upset, Jackson was much worse.
“They made sure the fires were burning way out of control…then they retreated to the airfield. They were halfway out of the valley by the next sunrise. By my count, they put five other smaller communities besides La Grande to the torch as well.” With each word, Jackson was like a stone rolling downhill. By the time he finished, his voice broke off in a sob that was as out of place on him as a frown on Jim Sagar.
“But they were definitely not headed our way,” Jim concluded. “They were headed south.”
The rest of the journey home was in silence. Everybody was lost in thought. I had to wonder if this was the state of shock that I had heard so much about when people described how society handled the first days and weeks of the zombies. No wonder everybody got wiped out. I was numb.
