by Jack Hunt
“What are you afraid of, Johnny?”
“Nothing,” I spat back.
He let out a stifled laugh.
“Come on.”
“Nah.”
“Losing your girl, Jess?”
I didn’t answer.
“Letting down your friends?”
I remained silent.
“You know it’s okay to be afraid, right?”
I glanced at him and shrugged.
“I’m not.”
“No?” He shot me a sideways glance.
“What are you afraid of, Johnny?”
“I just told you I’m not.”
He turned to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Everyone is afraid even if they won’t admit it. For some it’s the loss of reputation, for others the loss of family, and others they are just afraid and they don’t know why.”
“Well… I’m not.”
“That’s right because you’re an adult now. Nearly nineteen, right?”
I nodded.
“Listen, it’s not your fault. You didn’t expect this. You, them, all of us have been through more than we should have to deal with.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
I didn’t know what was coming over me. In that moment I felt all the pain, all the loss, all the hate, anger, frustration, and despair well up inside.
He began again to ask the same question. “What are you afraid –”
“Everything,” I shot back. “I’m scared of everything. You satisfied?”
There was a moment of silence as my words sank in. I thought he was going to lecture me, give me some speech, or tell me something profound. He didn’t do that. He nodded, tossed out another stone.
“I’ll see you back at the tower.”
And like that he walked away. The truth was, I hadn’t slowed down since Castle Rock long enough to take a hold of what I was feeling inside. It wasn’t teenage angst but something far greater. The loss of my friend, my father, and the expectation of losing those that remained bore into me daily. It quietly ate away. Every day seemed like we were at another crossroad trying to figure out which way to go. None of us knew. And no matter what decision was made someone would pay.
No, it wasn’t just about knowing how to survive in this world. How to get from A to B. That part was simple. Search and find food and water. Run or fight. Keep moving.
No, the silent threat that could kill you was giving up on those you loved, giving up on humanity, and ultimately giving up on yourself. It was a war that could destroy even the strongest. They didn’t teach you how to deal with this. No prepper course, camp, or bullshit video could show you how to win the battle of the mind. There were no rules. No pat answers. Every person approached what they felt inside differently. Some soldiered on, others medicated, but most gritted their teeth and buried that shit deep down. But for how long before you broke?
I turned and walked back to the tower.
I knew what we had to do. I just needed time to think. We gathered our things together that morning. Despite numerous attempts to discourage Alec, Spike, and Damian from coming they wouldn’t listen. I wasn’t sure if they were looking for a moment of glory, a group they could annoy the hell out of, or a suicide mission but if they stuck with us they were liable to at least find one of those.
As daylight chased away what remained of the night we headed out. I looked back momentarily.
“I’m coming, Jess, I promise,” I muttered under my breath.
We had a long fourteen-hour trip to cover. We aimed to keep rest to a minimum and yet we knew that we would need energy to fight if they were even there. The journey was long and only felt longer by the surge of dead that seemed to have made their way into the forest. Had the sound of gunfire brought them? We conserved ammo and used knives, hammers, and machetes to hack into the heads of Z’s. I watched the Zombie Squad take the lead. These kids had no idea what they were getting involved in. Despite their bravado they hadn’t faced those who could fight back and kill from a distance. Humans were even more dangerous than Z’s.
We stopped at a stream to collect water and wash the grime of the day from our faces. Meanwhile, Alec found a tire swing and he and Spike were taking turns swinging out across the water and jumping in backwards. They had no idea the gravity of the situation. For a brief moment I found myself shaking my head. The sound of a guns going off in the distance snapped me back into the present moment. We pressed on getting closer by the hour.
When we finally arrived, the devastation was far beyond what we could have imagined. If the military were here earlier they were gone now. All that remained were dead bodies, military and Theo’s men. The trees around were burnt to a crisp as though someone had attempted to burn their way in, or burn them out. A flamethrower maybe? A section of wall from the fortress was down on one side. It was nothing more than rubble and smoldering wood. We moved slowly, keeping an eye out for any survivors or Z’s. How long had these people been dead? The thought of them rising again made my pulse race.
We made our way into the camp. Grey smoke rose high into the air. The smell burned our nostrils. It was putrid and left an acidic taste on my tongue.
“I’ve found it.”
Elijah found the location of the bunker. They had hidden it beneath a large, thick piece of wood. The same kind they used to line the makeshift streets. No one would have spotted it. Unless you had known it was there, you would have walked straight over it as though it was another section of the streets.
We pulled it back and I used the radio to tell Specs we were here.
A moment later we heard the clunk of metal and the lid popped open.
It was Theo.
UNDERWORLD
The atmosphere below ground was one of fear. Only thirty-four of them had survived. The others lay dead outside. The fight had been long and brutal. While they had trained for surviving, they were not fighters. We soon learned that only a handful of them were military. We were under the impression that a large segment of their community had a military background. That wasn’t the case.
Theo didn’t linger long at the surface. The moment the last of us were underground he sealed the opening shut. Below, most of those that had escaped were women, children, and a few key members who knew how to run the comms unit as well as rebuild the community in the event that it was overtaken. None of them had imagined it would have occurred this soon.
The screens below were lit up with images of the outside. All that could be seen were dead bodies, fire, and smoke. Just charcoal remains smoldering in the early morning sun. It had taken us the better part of a day to get there. Far longer than the fourteen hours we anticipated due to Z’s.
Specs looked relieved to see us.
“When did they leave?”
“Several hours ago. They must have thought they had killed us all.”
“Lucky you had this place.”
“Damn, this is a sweet setup,” Damian said, looking around in amazement.
Specs gestured to the three guys. “Who are they?”
“The Zombie Squad,” Spike said, leaning against the side with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
“What is that, some retarded WWF tag team?” Specs replied.
Spike bristled. “Careful, maybe we’ll leave your ass here to die.”
“You’re kids,” Theo said.
Spike turned to Damian. “You want to cap him in the ass or should I?”
“Shut the hell up,” Dax chimed in, taking control of the situation. “What happened?”
“They didn’t all roll up here. Two of them came to the wall, one of them was pretending the he’d been shot.”
“You let them in after we told you that military might be coming your way? Are you out of your friggin’ mind?”
Theo folded his arms. I could tell he didn’t like people challenging his authority.
“There was no military besides them. That was it,” Garrod replied on be
half of his silent leader.
“Then what?”
“Once in, they killed two of the people watching the gate. From then on in everything just fell into chaos. I was down in the comms unit at the time. I’m not sure what happened beyond that.”
“And Danielle?”
“They took her along with about ten others, male and female.”
“Where’s Liam?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Have you even been out there yet?” Dax asked.
Theo sat in a chair, a look of shock spread across his face. This man who had being bellowing out orders and directing this community had no clue what to do in this moment. He was overrun with emotion. All he knew was his daughter was gone and lying outside were two- thirds of his community.
“We need to get out there and make sure they don’t rise.”
His eyes flicked up to us. He knew what that meant. Elijah, Benjamin, and the others went up and began going body to body. This wasn’t about checking vitals. It was ensuring they didn’t turn, otherwise we would have an even bigger problem on our hands.
We each had to do it. I stumbled over a woman who had served me food. A gunshot wound to the chest had torn her open. I jammed my knife into the side of her temple and moved on to the next. Among their dead were military guys. As I was leaning over one, its eyes flicked open. A milky white gaze fixed on me. Like a patient who had just been jabbed with an adrenaline shot, it shot upright straight into the end of my knife. I pulled, blood splattered, and I kept on going. It took a while for my heart to stop racing. Once we were done we piled the bodies together and set them on fire. If we had longer, we may have buried them but there was no time.
We were covered in blood by the time we returned to the bunker.
“I don’t get it. You have more than enough room in this bunker for your entire community. Did the others choose to fight?” Benjamin asked
A few of the men looked at Theo. His chin dropped as Specs told us what happened.
“He closed the lid and prevented them from getting in.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You did what?”
“Tell them, Theo,” a man going by the name of David chimed in.
“I couldn’t risk it.”
“That was my family out there,” David said, barely able to hold himself together. In the moment when fear had overtaken them, Theo had tried to gather only those who could rebuild the community, those who knew more than others. The rest he closed the door to. That included his daughter.
“For all your survival skills and talk of leadership and you let your people die. Why?” I asked him.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that your daughter is out there, possibly Liam, and others. The rest are dead. Oh, I understand very well. And you tossed us out for one person dying?” I scoffed. “You’re a fucking joke. All this prepper shit is bullshit. No offense, Specs.”
“None taken,” he replied.
I walked away shaking my head.
“Look, it’s not going to do anyone any good us fighting. We need to figure out how we can get them back,” Ben replied.
“How do we know they’re even alive?” Baja asked.
“We don’t,” David said. “But they were alive when they loaded them onto the back of the trucks and rolled out of here.”
“How can you see that? The forest is too dense.”
He spun around in his seat and tapped a few buttons. The images on the screen changed from directly outside to the nearest dirt road.
“You set up cameras all over the place?”
“We had to.”
“Then you must have seen them coming?”
“We did. Didn’t we, Theo?” he said with an accusing voice.
I turned around, unable to contain my anger. “You had plenty of time to get them underneath. Their blood is on your hands.”
Theo turned and disappeared through a doorway.
“If we knew where they took them we could follow.”
“I know where they’ve gone,” I said. “Get your shit together, we’re going to Snowy Range Ski and Recreation Area.”
Outside we gathered together what weapons remained. We had plenty of ammo, assault rifles, and handguns but still, it was an insane mission. We were going to have to sneak into the place. Storming in there with guns blazing wasn’t going to work. They were better trained and had high-powered weaponry that could easily blow us out of the forest.
So that was it. Elijah, Benjamin, myself, and anyone who wanted to head out got ready. No one sat around telling anyone who should come or stay. There was no point. It was all hands on deck for this one. We originally saw thirty-five military guys; there were at least ten of them dead at the fortress. There was no telling if there had been more inside the building. But right now we were going on the idea that we were up against at least twenty-five.
Outside we immediately shifted into combat mode. If we saw any Z’s on the way, there was only one rule. Don’t use your gun, only knives, machetes, or anything except a bullet. We didn’t want to announce our presence. As far as they knew no one else had survived. We were planning to use that to our advantage. There were fifteen of us that moved out, far more than we had before. Theo was among us, though I could tell that everyone was keeping him at a distance. If we did manage to get the others back, things were bound to change. Trust had been broken. Whatever leadership he had before this was gone.
Leadership wasn’t easy. It was a two-edged sword that few could wield.
We immediately encountered Z’s. No doubt they had been drawn to the area by the noise of gunfire. Whether they were the slow suckers or the fast-moving ape kind we downed them and kept moving. It would take us several hours to get there. We had arrived at the fortress in the morning, so we anticipated reaching Snowy Range Ski and Recreation Area by noon at the latest.
“How you holding up?” Dax asked.
“Alright, brother. Just getting tired of having to fight.”
“Now you understand why people desert.”
“You think these guys are deserters?” Baja asked.
“Looks that way. I can’t see them just randomly attacking a group. It’s to be expected. Can you imagine the shit the military had to deal with when this kicked off? When everyone was running for safety and trying to find their family members? They were the ones who would have been sent in to try and stop this outbreak. Who knows what shit they saw. War of any kind changes a man. The constant killing. Seeing your friends die. By the time you get back you’re just a shell of a man.”
Benjamin walked in silence.
“Ay, Benjamin, what do you say?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Dax pulled alongside him. “So how did it go down for you? You mentioned about being overrun, chased, and being the only survivor.”
When anyone prompted Benjamin to talk about what he had been through he would go quiet and then change the subject. While he had shared a little about his experience in Salt Lake City, there was something he wasn’t telling us. We were pretty sure about that. What it was, who knew. No one was going to press him over it. Especially not us. But Elijah, he was another kettle of fish.
“I heard you left your men behind,” Elijah said, almost finding delight in saying it.
Benjamin swung him a dirty look but didn’t say anything.
“Well, is it true?”
That was it. It was like he snapped. Benjamin turned, grabbed a hold of Elijah, and pinned him up against a tree trunk.
“Hit a sore point, did I?”
“You better shut the hell up.”
“Whoa, Ben.” Both Dax and myself jumped in trying to get between them. The look of death in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen before.
Elijah broke into a laugh. “You see, that’s why you never reached me, man. You might wear that uniform but you still have the gang instinct.”
“Fuck you.”
Elijah picked up his assault rifl
ed and moved on. “Well, maybe in time you will tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Baja asked.
“Drop it, dude,” I said as we picked our stuff back up and continued to trudge on. I looked at Benjamin. Whatever reasons he had for not telling us what really happened were between him and his maker. We had all made mistakes and done things out of fear. There was no one who was immune to failing when pushed into a corner. Theo was the same. No doubt he thought he would have reacted better. Everyone thinks they would do this or that when the shit hits the fan but the truth is no one knows. Grown men in the military, those who were the most vocal about being badasses, were often the ones who curled into a ball and screamed for their mothers. Fantasy and reality were two different things.
Were the military men we were about to go up against any different? Did they bail because they wanted to ignore orders? Or had they abandoned their platoon out of fear? I couldn’t begin to imagine what they saw in the cities as parents turned on their kids, co-workers killed each other. It would have been pure anarchy. In among it all you would have had people breaking into stores and stealing, thinking that eventually it would all blow over only to discover that it didn’t get better, only worse.
* * *
The hike out to the ski resort which was miles away wasn’t without its fair share of Z’s. The forest was full of them. We spent a lot of time changing our route which added another hour to our journey. The smell of pine lingered in the air after a heavy rainfall. Between the trees you could see the mountains surrounding us. The landscape was a rich green with shades of brown. The thought of dying today was the closest thing on my mind. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like we hadn’t faced our fair share of nutters since leaving Castle Rock. But this time it felt different. Going up against our own military? There was just something wrong about that.
As the ski lodge came into view through the trees we slowed up. We crouched down peering through the bushes at a group of six men outside. All of them were fully armed with assault rifles. The trucks were parked up but there was no one from the community.
“Why do you think they took them?” Baja asked. “I mean they killed women, and guys. Why them? Do you think it’s for sex?”
