Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory

by Cotton, Daniel

  He is about to open the door and is startled when he doesn’t have to. If his safety wasn’t on, he would have accidentally shot Big Mike in the face.

  “Gabe?”

  A whiff of displaced air, like a large busy bee, whizzes by Gabe’s ear when Gar draws his gun a little too quick. Thankfully he only hits the doorjamb and not Big Mike.

  “Mike, you scared me,” Gabe says with relief. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too,” he says with a friendly smile and shakes hands with his longtime neighbor.

  Keeping as true to his word as Gabe, Big Mike continued to look after the property even after the world fell apart. Fearing the chickens would be lost should a thief try to steal them, and since lugging the heavy coops and bags of feed would be a nightmare, he decided to stay at Gabe’s, bringing his wife Jen and their son Jake. He loaded his heads of cattle onto his trailer, and what possessions and provisions they needed. He didn’t want to risk losing these by leaving them back on their land unattended.

  The three have been waiting here for word that the emergency is over. They haven’t seen a soul since the first reports disrupted the regularly scheduled programming, not even the very monsters being reported about.

  Mike and Jen had begun to suspect it was all a hoax, until the weary travelers arrived with their tales of adventure. Even the smelly but nice stranger tells wild stories that dispel their theory about some studio orchestrating the broadcasts to drum up ticket sales to an upcoming horror flick.

  4

  The next morning, Gar was gone. He told them he wouldn’t be staying long since he still had so much work to do and love to spread. He left behind only his lingering musk and a small note on a rolling paper containing three words: Thank you! Goodbye.

  Inside the curved slip, Gabe found five seeds, so he too could spread the love should the mood strike him. The stoner took only a couple jars of preserved peaches as his reward, and a new story to tell.

  The survivors live day by day, reaching milestones of weeks that add up to months. Vida has been enjoying the simple life, helping with the animal tending and keeping watch. She also tends to Gabe’s peach trees. He taught her to thin and prune the branches during the winter months to optimize sunlight. In February, they fertilized and thinned the blossoms until harvest in August. She spends her nights strumming Gabe’s old guitar for the enjoyment of the others, playing board games, and reading.

  They’ve spotted only a few lone zombies from the safety of their farmhouse, across the vast acreage of fruit trees. The dead just shuffled along the dusty roads in search of food.

  The survivors cover their windows and dim their lanterns at night, and they stay indoors as much as possible. The group has become a family, considered themselves to be very fortunate, until tonight.

  ###

  In the early dusk, a red sunset lies to the group. What sailors once considered to be a sign of smooth sailing ahead foretells they are in trouble. An untold number of shapes have been spotted, heading their way from the west. An army of zombies that is spread wide and deep across the fields and roads.

  Over the past eight months, since she saw her first zombie, Vida noted that the dead seem to be getting faster. The individual corpses that had wandered too close and had to be put down by Gabe and Mike have become more vicious, as if the insatiable hunger is driving them mad.

  The five frightened souls have plenty of time to run, but they have no idea where they can run to. All they can do is sit and wait, douse the lights and keep silent, listening to the dead that will be upon them by nightfall.

  “I told you to stay upstairs with the others,” Gabe whispers to Vida, who startles him in the dark. He felt compelled to double check all the locks and make sure all the shutters were closed. It is actually the second double check he has performed.

  “I want to help,” she says softly, following him through the almost complete darkness of the house. Their intimate knowledge of the home negates the need for light as Vida and Gabe take positions near the front of the home in a ray of diminishing daylight.

  Unsteady figures approach over the rutted field, casting long shadows under the sanguine sky as they limp past the peach trees. Vida holds Gabe’s pistol with its muzzle to the floor as he taught her.

  “What if they get in?” she says.

  “We run upstairs, lock ourselves in the attic, and hope for the best.”

  The plan rings tragically familiar for the girl, but she knows they have little recourse. The world outside is becoming swallowed by the night, and they can no longer see the dead, but they can hear them. Moans fill the air and filter into the home. The sound tightens their chests. The two wait at the ready, trying to breathe, for what may be their last stand.

  Gabe’s hands sweat where he tightly grips his old shotgun. He knows they should be heading upstairs, but it’s like an impending storm. He wants to see it coming. Instead of counting the seconds between flashes of lightning and claps of thunder, he judges the space between them and the wails of the dead in hopes of somehow gauging their distance or numbers.

  A noise sounds farther down the dusty drive. A rumble that draws Vida to the door to peer out through its small window. She ignores Gabe’s warning to get back. The rumble builds, accompanied by the slow crunch of wheels on gravel and a sudden blinding light.

  Bright headlights facing the house and closing at a leisurely pace enable her to see the sheer magnitude of the zombie horde in the fields and on the front lawn. The unorganized formation of walking corpses turn toward the incoming food. Impossibly loud music shatters the stillness of the evening.

  African war drums with a techno beat that Vida recognizes as a little known overseas band she’s heard of. The zombies eagerly move towards the noise and the light.

  There are six vehicles, assorted in size. They leave the road and circle the house along the farthest edges of the lawn. The dead follow, guided by the rapid fire lyrics that keep them enthralled.

  The lead vehicle is twice as tall as the others and has spotlights along its long roof. Between the slow orbiting lights and the thick mob of dead, Gabe sees someone walking confidently towards the porch. It’s a living, breathing person by the steady strides it takes. Once at the house, the mystery person fires two rounds, putting down a zombie that made it onto the porch. Gabe hadn’t even noticed the corpse before, but he doesn’t know whether to be thankful or frightened of the effective militia.

  The circling vehicles have managed to trap the dead on the flat plane of frontage. These dimwitted corpses stand, their heads darting back and forth, trying to focus on what to attack, but they can’t. The spotlights of the tight caravan have them confused as the music builds to an overwhelming crescendo that shakes the farm house.

  Like naval battleships preforming a broadside, the vehicles come to a halt in a semi-circle. This caravan opens fire with an incredible staccato that drowns out the vocals and drums. Corpses fall to the superior force as Gabe and Vida watch in awe.

  The window to their right cracks. A bullet has entered, leaving a perfect tiny hole and a fracture that runs the length of the pane from one corner to another. This projectile wasn’t stopped by the shutters.

  “Vida, get upstairs,” Gabe orders. He is very fond of her and the folks already hiding up there. His plan is to convince these people that he is all alone, should they enter.

  The gunfire ceases as the last zombie falls, though there are still more coming in from the darkness. Gabe gently pushes Vida towards the stairs, but his eyes never leave the silhouette of the man on his porch, who now signals the vehicles to widen their formation. The illuminated line spreads out, taking positions at the corners. Some of the vehicles travel around to the back of the house, closing the perimeter.

  Silence overtakes the night once more, and all Gabe can hear is the man on the porch. Old boards creak as this visitor walks to the front door.

  Paused halfway to the stairs, Vida halts and returns to Gabe. The silence scares her even
more than the gunfire had. She wants to beg him to come with her. Too curious not to look, Vida sees the man in relief against the floodlights, between the slates in the shutters. He doesn’t look very tall, and for a brief instant she thinks it’s a child.

  The knob jiggles.

  Vida joins her self-sacrificing friend. Whatever is about to happen, she wishes to face it at his side. Instead of the door being forced open with a violent kick, after a second rattle of the knob, the man knocks. It seems out of place. Too courteous a gesture for the world they live in.

  A handful of reports ring out from the lawn. The stranger moves away from the door and gestures his people to cease fire.

  Another gentle rap at the door, like a neighbor stopping by for a visit, and then comes a louder more insistent series. The caller knocks as if he wishes to be heard by a resident anywhere in the dwelling, be they in the basement or the bathroom.

  The third set of raps goes understandably denied by the timid survivors that cling to one another. Footsteps signal the man moving to the recently cracked window. Gabe and Vida scurry to the shadows when they hear him forcing open the shutters.

  The stranger peers in, craning his unusually large head to view everything the wide shaft of light he has let in touches. He lifts himself to the fresh hole in the glass and says, “Trick or treat.”

  The huddled pair cringe as more footsteps sound on the porch. The new arrival asks, “No one home?”

  “I guess not,” the first man says, sounding disappointed. “Get this door open, will you, please?” Apparently he is the leader of this group.

  “There’s another wave inbound,” the second man says, but the distance he stands from the window muffles his words.

  Creaking boards cause Vida to panic, and she holds Gabe even tighter. They’re coming in, she thinks. Gabe pats her back to reassure everything is going to be all right.

  “Tell the group to go hand-to-hand until I’ve checked this place out,” the leader says, while his partner fiddles with the lock.

  The door opens, and a widening ray of light cuts through the shadows with ease. “Want me to go in with you?”

  “No thanks, Abby.” The leader steps into the house. “Have everyone ready to move out. This won’t take long.”

  Before the other man can run off, the leader says, “Get me some more light, will you?”

  The leader ventures deeper into the home before spotlights are redirected at the house, robbing the crouching duo of their hiding place. Vida and Gabe slide away from him, like roaches, when the lights come on. With so much candle power filtering through every crack, reflecting off of every surface, there’s nowhere to hide.

  They’ve been discovered. Gabe stands, leaving a heavy hand on Vida’s shoulder to keep her down behind the dining table. His shotgun is aimed at the intruder.

  The three involved in this tense standoff know he won’t fire. The army outside currently combating the dead would surely pounce on the house in an instant.

  “Happy Halloween!” the stranger says cheerfully.

  Gabe thought the man was crouching at first, his vision thrown by the glare from outside, but the stranger is in fact a little person, no more than four and a half feet tall. The diminutive man wears crudely constructed leather armor with padding. A mask obscures his helmeted head and his face. But the mask doesn’t look like it would protect him much. A thin white elastic holds the cheap yellow smiley-face on.

  “What do you want?” Gabe asks.

  “Well, first off, ‘Hi.’” The man’s voice is deceptively deeper than his size would suggest. “We were in the neighborhood, chasing a migrating horde. Since this is where we finally took them, I figured I’d have a looksee.”

  “A ‘looksee?’”

  The leader holsters his pistol and slowly raises his hands to the yellow paper-plate mask. He reveals his face. “I figured there was a good chance people would be in here.” His voice carries a slight southern accent, regionally different than Gabe’s. “Between the cars out front and the peach trees. Typically where there’s food there’s survivors, or a failed attempt at survival… Plus we saw a curtain upstairs move.”

  “So you found life. Now what?” Gabe doesn’t lower his weapon yet.

  “We make a deal.”

  Heavy feet slowly descend from upstairs, and Big Mike looms on the landing, looking unsure over what’s going on.

  The small stranger looks up and smiles. “Hiya.”

  Mike nods before casting Gabe a puzzled glance. Gabe doesn’t catch the look from his friend because his focus never wavers from the intruder. “What do you mean ‘a deal?’”

  “Do you always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Take what someone says and make a question out of it?”

  “When the mood strikes.”

  “This is the farthest we’ve ventured south. Our town is north of here and we have outposts all over,” the man says, then quickly adds before Gabe can ask him, “by ‘outpost’ I mean places where our people go to watch over things. By ‘things’ I mean movements of the dead and other threats. By ‘other threats’ I mean the brand of survivor that preys upon the weak.”

  Another man enters the house. He’s taller than the leader, but only by a foot. He cuts through the room, straight to his leader’s location, despite the fact Mike raises a lever action rifle at his appearance. The newcomer carries his helmet under his arm as he brings his red, stubbled face close to give the smaller man an update. “It’s getting pretty thick out there, Brass.”

  “Thank you, Abby.” The one called Brass doesn’t sound the least bit concerned. “Hold positions.”

  With a disgruntled muttering, Abby dons his headgear before returning to the frontlines. The four are left in awkward silence, broken only by the sound of those fighting the dead out on the lawn.

  “We’ll be taking off,” Brass says. “Like I was about to say, we followed this migration well out of our comfort zone. The dead are all riled up out there. Probably more on the way, drawn by our lights and gunfire, not to mention the music. Did you guys like our selection?”

  The sudden question is jarring. No one knows exactly how to answer it. Vida actually likes the obscure band they played. She thought she was the only person in North America who owned the CD.

  “It was Abby’s turn to choose our soundtrack. I don’t know … He always picks the weird stuff, or metal, or hair bands. I like to play something more upbeat. Some Kelly Peel, or that one about the girl’s milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard.”

  The occupants of the house give him a confused look.

  “I’d hate to leave you guys with such a dangerous mess, so you’re all welcome to join us until things die down, no pun intended. And, if you like our settlement you can… settle there.”

  Vida’s witnessed enough inhumanity to be skeptical, and she mutters, “Then the raping begins.”

  “No, absolutely not!” Brass says. “We don’t stand for such business. You know, I actually read once that rape fantasies are quite common. What two consenting adults want to do is their own affair. So, the only raping going on is consensual. If that’s what you’re into, I’m sure there’s some nice fellow that’ll be glad to...”

  “No, thank you,” Vida says.

  “Oh well. To each their own, I guess.” Another awkward silence passes before Brass continues, “So, who wants to come with us to Rubicon, Georgia?”

  “That’s over two hundred miles away,” Gabe says.

  “Yeah, sounds about right. I did say that we travelled out of our comfort zone. Besides, the distance doesn’t really matter when you consider how fast we can drive, since we’ve personally cleared the route.”

  Mike, Vida, and Gabe hardly need to look to one another before they come to a consensus. Gabe tells the man, “Sorry, Mister Brass, I think we’re…”

  “I want to go,” Jen says from the top of the stairs. She escorts her five year old son down. Though wrapped in a warm blanket, Jake lo
oks scared. “If the dead had gotten in…”

  “Are you sure?” Big Mike asks, taking her into his arms.

  “Absolutely.”

  Mike looks Gabe in the eyes, as if seeking understanding.

  “It’s fine, Mike,” Gabe says, but what Jen had said shakes his confidence in himself.

  “All righty.” Brass nods.

  “Our cows!” Jen says. “What if the zombies get into the barn. We have twelve heads of cattle in there.”

  “Ma’am, don’t worry about your… Wait, just their heads? Why are you saving their heads?”

  “She means twelve cows,” Mike explains.

  “Oh! That makes much more sense,” Brass says.

  Abby enters the doorway again, but Brass holds a finger up. “Like I was saying, have no fear. The dead are only interested in eating humans. So that’s good news, right?” Brass turns to his right-hand man. “Abby, send a team to the barn. These people have twelve, fully-intact, actual cows in there. Go check on them please, and then bring the bus around.”

  Brass looks at Vida and Gabe. “So are we all in?”

  “I’m not about to--” Gabe says.

  “Oh, don’t be that guy.”

  “That guy?”

  “The ‘I’m-not-leaving-my-home’ guy. There’s one in every group.”

  “I went through hell to get here, and I’m including my life before the zombies,” Gabe says.

  “Say no more.” Brass shifts his focus to Vida. “How about you, sweetheart?”

  “She’s going too,” Gabe answers for her.

  “I’m not leaving without you,” she says.

  Though Brass is an odd man, Gabriel trusts him. When he was a salesman, he learned to read people--to know whose checks were good and whose weren’t, to know who he needed to get cash up front from and whose IOUs were as good as gold. Brass may make light of dark times, but Gabe can tell he’s more than capable of protecting Vida. He knows that if the zombies had come crashing in through the doors and windows, he wouldn’t have been able to do the same. It pains him to do so, but he must make this choice for her. “Yes you are.”