by Cedric Nye
Whomever she’s talking to replies with a pistol shot. Splinters of wood explode from the post next to Brenda’s face.
“Where is Stuart?” Brenda hisses. “These bums need to be dealt with!”
Bums are what we call the stragglers that come knocking on our quite impressive (if I do say so myself) gate doors. Survivors that have somehow managed to stay alive while avoiding the Zs and the not so friendly groups of people out there. We’ve been seeing less and less over the months, but they do show up. It isn’t hard for them to spot a beacon of living in the darkness of the world around them.
James, “Don’t Call Me Jimmy”, Stuart, is suddenly at my elbow, looking up at the watchtower with his usual look of pissed off and slightly surprised that everyone else isn’t as pissed off as he is. Five feet and eight inches, late fifties, tight crew cut, wiry and strong, Stuart is a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant. Head of Defenses (not to be confused with Head of Security, God forbid!) he sees anyone without the proper training and understanding of military tactics as a pain in his well-trained and tactical ass. Pretty much that means all of us.
“Gates are holding,” Stuart says without looking at me. “What’s she bitching about then?”
Stuart likes to end questions in “then” sometimes. It’s a strange affectation, but since he can kick the living shit out of me with his perfectly trimmed mustache, I don’t question it.
“Bums,” I say.
“Bums,” Jon echoes.
“Padre,” Stuart nods to Jon.
“Yes, my son?” Jon smiles. Stuart doesn’t smile back. “Right. Hey.”
Stuart sighs with amazing discipline and skill and climbs the ladder into the watchtower. We follow. Once up there, he takes a key ring from his belt and unlocks the steel locker bolted to the watchtower floor.
“How many then?” Stuart asks as his hand hovers over the open locker.
“Eight,” a mousy man answers, looking from Brenda to Stuart to me to Jon and back to Stuart. “Three adults and five kids. Look like they’ve been running nonstop. Didn’t think much of them until they started shooting.”
“Let us in!” a dry voice cries from below. “Please!”
“Kids?” Stuart asks, his eyes finding Brenda’s as he pulls an AR-15 and magazine from the locker. He slaps the magazine home and stares.
Brenda Kelly is our HOA Board Chairperson. Short, fat, ugly as sin, she took control of Whispering Pines in the first few days of the apocalypse, giving some semblance of order in a world that went from normal to “HOLY SHIT I’M GOING TO GET MY FACE EATEN!” in less than twenty-four hours. Despite her lack of everything that makes a human being decent, she does make one damn good administrator. Once you get past that lack of human decency part. That’s a tough one to get past, believe me.
“We don’t have room or resources,” Brenda states, her whisper like the hiss of a hidden viper. “You know that, Stuart. Resolution 856 was very clear on the subject of no new residents allowed. You were there for the vote, Stuart. Do I have to get---”
“Shut up,” Stuart says. “I know the resolution. Just wanted to be clear before I do my job.”
There are two sentries posted to the watchtower at all times, but they defer to Stuart when it comes to discretionary violence. Stuart is very clear on this point: no one kills the living except him, unless they are defending themselves. I have wondered more than a few times how many people Stuart has killed in his years as a Marine. I’ve personally witnessed him kill no less than fourteen souls since the apocalypse started. I can’t even count how many Zs he’s killed.
On that subject, let me explain that the Zs we are talking about are your classic, shuffling, shoot the brain, zombies. The freshly turned ones have some more mobility than the veteran undead, but really can only break out into a half-run at the best. Kind of like a power-walking grandma at the mall. They can be outrun. But, as always, it’s about numbers. And the Zs out number our asses by an easy twenty to one. Okay, okay, I’m being delusional. They outnumber us by fifty to one. I just hate admitting that. What? Fine, fine, 100-200 to one. Sheesh.
“Hello, folks,” Stuart says as he peers over the watchtower. “I am sorry to be rude, but it has been decided that we cannot take on more residents. I am going to ask you to leave. Please comply. Non-compliance is not an option.”
“Fuck you!” a man shouts. “Let us in, old man! We have kids here! We’re fucking starving! Stop being assholes!”
Stuart sighs and puts the rifle to his shoulder. “I am not going to warn you again, sir. I am sorry, but you have to leave now. All that noise you are making is bringing the Zs your way. We try to avoid that.”
I risk a look and see that Stuart is right, as all of us had expected. From both ways of Hwy 251, the undead are shambling their way towards the small group of bums. If Stuart doesn’t take the people out, then the Zs are going to. None look too fresh, which means about a three feet a minute shamble rate. Ten minutes before they’re on the bums.
“Is that our old mailman down there with the Zs?” Jon asks, peeking over with me. “Guess I won’t have to get him a Christmas present this year.”
“For a man of God, you sure are a callous bastard,” I whisper to him. He just shrugs.
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Stuart grumbles.
“Sorry,” I say. Jon just shrugs again.
A gunshot goes off and we all, except for Stuart, hit the floor of the watchtower. I count three shots as Stuart returns fire. Jon and I glance up at him and see he is looking over his shoulder at Brenda. She nods. Five more shots.
“Those were the kids,” Jon says as he gets up and walks to the ladder. “Children.”
He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone as he descends and grabs his own bike, pedaling off up the hill back to his house.
“Brenda,” I say, looking directly at her, “really?”
“How will we feed them?” she asks. “This has already been decided.”
“Gonna need to clear the road,” Stuart says as he hands the rifle to one of the sentries. “Clean that and store it. I’ll be back to check to make sure it’s cleaned properly. One speck of dirt and you’re outside the gate.”
The sentry nods, his hands shaking as he takes the rifle.
Stuart looks to me as he takes his phone from his pocket and starts to send the text for his defensive crew. “You in for some Z killing?”
“I guess,” I shrug. “I’m already down here.”
Back home I have a great baseball bat that I’ve stuck spikes through and wrapped in duct tape. I call it the Silver Slugger. Stupid name, I know. But I left that in my hurry to the gate, so once down on the ground, I arm myself with a crowbar taken from one of the huge racks of melee weapons that line each side of the gate.
Stuart and I wait only a minute before his defensive crew is there, armed with their own weapons of various sizes and styles. Axes, steel pipes, more crowbars, sharpened to a point baseball bats, even a sharpened cricket bat and a couple of hockey sticks. The crew keeps changing, but their objective never does: keep the road and perimeter clear of Zs so they cannot ever overwhelm Whispering Pines. It’s a full time job.
We all silently nod to each other and wait for Stuart’s signal. The man stands by the gate and listens, then, almost imperceptibly, nods. The gate is unlatched, unlocked, unbarred, and unbraced, and the right door is shoved open just enough so we can slip through. As soon as we are out, it closes behind us and will not be opened until we are done clearing the road and have checked for bites. A bite is death, for the bitten and possibly for the entire neighborhood. Can’t have that.
I count at least thirty Zs coming at us. Most heard the gate open (a part of the engineering I’m still working on; the damn thing is so heavy it’s near impossible to keep the hinges quiet) and are shambly shambling their way at us. Stuart points with four fingers at the four members of the crew to his left and they head left, straight at the Zs. He points four fingers at the four members to his right and the
y move out. Just him and me are going at the Zs directly in front of us.
I get in close to the first one so I can shove my crow bar through its eye and into its brain. I place a foot against the Z’s chest and push, freeing the crow bar and sending the now really dead zombie into the group behind it, tangling them up in oozing, undead limbs. Stuart is right with me, using the same move, since he’s the one that taught it to me.
Stuart’s philosophy on killing Zs is to go through the eye whenever you can. It’s an easy and direct route to the brain. If we were using bullets, it would be where we’d aim, so if you have a weapon that can affect the same result, then use it. Plus, cracking skulls not only will tire you out as you raise your arms over your head again and again, but it makes noise. I think we’ve already covered that noise is bad.
Stab, stab, stab we go, making our way through the throng of Zs. But, as is the zombie way, more keep coming from both directions. Luckily, directly in front of us, about twenty yards away, is the bank of the French Broad River. We don’t have to worry about more Zs coming from that way. And Whispering Pines is behind us, so we’re good there. That just means we watch our left and right. Stuart splits left, I split right. More stabby stabby.
A half an hour into the slaughter, Stuart raises a fist over his head and whistles quietly. The gate opens again and a new wave of Z killers comes out as our crew retreats up against the gate. We check each other out, making sure we have no bites, and then are let back inside Whispering Pines as the second crew starts its shift of stabbing.
I collapse on a patch of grass by the watchtower, as Stuart takes a seat next to me. He hands me a canteen and I take a couple of long drinks.
“Thanks,” I say, handing it back.
Stuart just nods and we sit quietly as a third crew assembles and waits for their turn. The gate opens, they stream out, a few minutes go by and the second crew comes in, dripping with sweat and gore. Stuart does a quick count and nods as he sees the whole crew there.
Then a scream goes up.
“Shit,” Stuart says and all eyes fall on him. “Sorry, folks. No more rest. Time to go out in full force.”
We all know what that scream is, someone got careless, or were surprised, and ended up taking some Z teeth to their flesh. We all wear long-sleeves and many have leather on, but even still, a hungry Z is a formidable biter. Their jaw strength seems to increase once they rise from the dead, which makes no physiological sense, but is still a reality in this surreal world.
We all pour from the gate and get to work. We have to be fast because a scream and the smell of fresh blood can carry on the wind for a mile. Did I mention that a Z’s hearing and sense of smell increases too? Yeah, they do. It’s scary as shit. So the key is to wipe out the Zs and get the unfortunate wounded taken care of before we end up with a mob, or a horde, or the dreaded stampeding (a shambling stampede, given) herd of Zs at our gate.
Someone drags the wounded woman inside the gate while crews one, two, and three, move fast through the Zs left. Ten minutes and we’re done, leaving the rotten corpses to the ever efficient Edna Strom and her Z cleanup crews.
“Inside and strip down,” Stuart orders and we all follow, as we catch our breaths and begin to undress once inside the safety of the gate. “Double and triple checks, people.”
We go through the motions of inspecting each other’s naked bodies. No modesty is allowed in the apocalypse. You have to be cleared by three people before you get the okay to grab your clothes and make your way home. It’s a noble walk of shame, but still pretty shameful, as your nether regions are on full display for the neighborhood to see.
“Looking good, Dad,” Charlie says as he comes jogging up to me. “You really should work on your ass tan. No one wants to see those white buns.”
“Thanks, bud,” I smile. “Way to make your old man feel good about himself.”
Charlie leans in. “Mom’s pissed. Just a heads up. She didn’t think you were going outside the gate.”
“The heads up redeems the previous comment,” I say. “We are square.”
“We can never be square as long as you use the word square,” Charlie says, and sprints off towards our house a couple blocks away.
I look and see Greta laughing and pointing at me. Nice kids I have. My wife, however, is not laughing. She is pointing. Pointing daggers at me with her eyes.
I get home, toss the soiled clothes in the “decon” hamper (unless they are really soiled, then it’s incinerator time), and grab a shower. Stella is waiting for me when I step from the shower stall.
“Hey, hon,” I grin, which instantly slips from my face as I see the look on hers.
“We’ve talked about this,” she says.
“I know, but I had no choice,” I reply. “The amount of Zs coming had to be handled. Plus…”
“Plus, what?”
“Plus, I needed to blow off some steam,” I say quietly. “Stuart took out eight bums. Five were children.”
Stella’s hand goes to her mouth and her eyes tear up. “Children?” she chokes. “He did that on his own?”
I shake my head.
“Who gave the order?” she asks when she doesn’t need to. Her eyes narrow and her face goes red with fury. “That woman. That crazy bitch. One day, Jace, I’m going to give her what she deserves. I promise you that.”
“I know, I know,” I say. “She’s evil. Kept throwing the last resolution in Stuart’s face.”
“He didn’t have to kill them!” Stella nearly shouts then quiets down, not wanting our kids to hear. “He could have stood up to her.”
“He could have, but he didn’t. Stuart is a good soldier. He follows the orders of the person in charge. Like it or not, Brenda is in charge. At least until the next election of HOA Board members.”
“Which is months away,” Stella growls.
“Let it go,” I say. “It’ll just eat you up. I’m compartmentalizing today in that little black hole in the back of my brain. I’m not going to think about it again until I’m seventy and senile.”
Even I know this is bullshit, but it’s one of the many lies I tell myself to get through each day.
“How was your day, dear?” I grin as I towel off and get dressed. “Learn them childrens good?”
Stella, having been a schoolteacher for fifteen years pre-Z, has the honor of teaching all eighteen of the school age kids in the neighborhood. She has the dishonor of teaching them in two rooms that we “borrow” from the Church of Jesus of the Light (CJL). Yep, there is a church in our fair neighborhood. But, and this is a huge but, it is not part of Whispering Pines. The first developer for the subdivision actually purchased all the land around this church for a decent price, promising to give right of way to the church in perpetuity. Then the developer went bankrupt. The developer that built all the houses, and truly made Whispering Pines, got the land for a steal, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get rid of the CJL.
That wouldn’t have been so bad if the CJL wasn’t run by an ancient preacher that honestly believed we were all being punished for our sins by God. And, of course, the Zs were the righteous punishment. He was keen on pointing this out to everyone within earshot at least fifty times a day. Poor Stella had to deal with him all day long. She kept him away from the kids, but it was as much work as teaching was.
“I punched Preacher Carrey,” Stella says.
“Shit! You did?”
“No, of course not,” she frowns. “But it did come close. I had his ass backed up against a wall and if your son hadn’t intervened, I think I would have done worse than punch him.”
“And why did you have his ass backed up against a wall?”
“Because he stuck his head in to the younger kids’ room and said, and I am quoting verbatim, that each of them ‘were going to hell for what their parents were doing at the gate. Good luck burning in the pits, you miserable bastards.’ He said that. To kids as young as five, Jace. The man is evil.”
“A lot of peo
ple are evil in your book,” I say. “You may need a new description.”
“There’s a lot of evil around these days,” she glares, “or haven’t you noticed?”
“I have,” I say.
“Dad!” Charlie calls from downstairs. “Someone’s at the door for you!”
“Someone?” I ask. “He knows everyone in the whole neighborhood. He also knows not to yell.”
“Be nice,” Stella says, “he was my hero today.”
“I’ll be nice,” I reply as I hurry downstairs, “don’t worry.”
“I am hardly just someone,” Mindy Sterling says from my front door.
A woman in her mid-thirties, fat, but not all jiggly fat, strong, but not muscular, Mindy is head of Neighborhood Security. This is like neighborhood watch and the police rolled into one dysfunctional unit. She used to be part of Zenith Property Management, which was the company that oversaw all the enforcement of the HOA covenants for the developer and the HOA. Lucky for us, she was in the neighborhood when Z-Day came a calling. We’ve been stuck with her ever since. Needless to say, Mindy answers to the HOA Board, which answers to Brenda, which means Mindy is Brenda’s bitch. And she actually likes it that way. She doesn’t have to think, gets to bully folks around, and pretends she is indispensible. Basically the same job as she had before, but with more death and zombies.
“You left your bike down by the gate,” Mindy says, pointing to my bike in the front lawn. “I brought it up for you. You know it’s against the covenants of the HOA to leave personal items just lying around. I will give you a warning today, Jace, but next time, I confiscate that bike.”
I blink at her a few times and then shake my head. “Uh, thanks?”
“And tell your son to address me as Ms. Sterling when I come to your door,” Mindy says as she walks away. “Calling me, ‘someone’, is disrespectful. I have made note of that.”
