by Jacy Morris
****
They had tracked Joan for miles. At first it had been somewhat difficult, but then they saw the blood. Joan was being dragged. Of that, they were certain. They found bits of her hair caught on downed tree limbs. When the blood had showed up, they had picked up their pace, and now they squatted in the trees, examining the compound before them.
It was a ramshackle thing. The outside wall appeared to be made of double-wide trailers, the spaces between reinforced with wooden barricades. They didn't look like they had been made with any sort of craftsmanship, but they looked like they would keep the dead out. The spaces underneath the trailers had been packed in with dirt so that nothing could crawl underneath.
In the middle of the circle of trailers, an old house rose up. It was wooden and dilapidated. Part of the roof had caved in at one point. A blue tarp covered the opening, held in place by river rocks. It was a two story affair. Its wood was gray and had seen better days.
At the front of the compound was a gate, a rickety length of chain-link fence covered by a tarp. Above the gate were two wooden platforms that served as watchtowers, and two armed men sat talking, their voices inaudible to the survivors.
"Look at that," Mort said. "Looks like a pretty nice set-up."
Lou didn't say anything.
They sat in silence, their thoughts rattling around in their brains. It were as if they were waiting for something, some sort of sign to give them some clue as to what their next move should be.
"We should just shoot them all," Katie said finally. She was tired of waiting. She was also exhausted. The pregnancy was progressing, and it was taking a toll on her stamina. She just wanted this whole thing to be over. Katie couldn't wait for the baby to get out of her. At night, while trying to sleep, she sometimes fantasized about carving it out with a knife.
"We can't just shoot them all. We don't even know where Joan is. Hell, we don't even know if she's alive," Lou said.
"What if she's dead?" Mort asked.
Lou thought about it and said, "Then we go around. No reason to get caught up in something that's likely to get us killed."
The men on the guard towers laughed. Clearly, life was easy for them. They didn't look like killers, but to survive this long, they had to be.
"Can we just wait until night? Sneak in and take a peek around?" Clara asked.
Lou just shrugged. It wasn't a terrible idea, but the thought of sitting in the woods until it was dark enough gave him the creeps. It would be hard to see, and you never knew when one of the dead was going to pop up. They had heard quite a few tumble down the side of the canyon after they had left it behind. He bet more would follow. "I don't like the idea of sitting out in the dark, but if that's the best way, then that's what we have to do."
Atop the watchtowers, there was a commotion. The men on top suddenly had their rifles in their hands, and they began scanning the forest around them.
Lou waved the others back, and they hid among the trees. There was a rattling as the chain link gate slid along a track in the dirt. Lou poked his head out from behind a tree.
A plain looking man with a brown beard stepped into the clearing in front of the gate. He scanned the forest, looking into the shadows. Lou didn't like the man. There was something smug about him. He reminded Lou of the drug dealers that had ruled his neighborhood as a kid. He had that old drug dealer swagger, the sort of walk that said, "I'm intoxicated by the small amount of power I have, and I'm loving every minute of it." Those were the most dangerous of men because they believed themselves to be gods... and they wanted to be treated accordingly, and when you didn't bow down to them, they would fuck you up.
"If you're out there, we've got your friend," he called. His voice was inviting. It spoke of safety and welcome. He paused, looking this way and that, waiting to see if there was going to be a response. "Come on out. We've got plenty of food and space. I'm sure Joan would love to see you. She's busted up pretty bad."
Upon hearing Joan's name, Clara began to stand. Lou, without looking, placed a hand on Clara's shoulder. She paused halfway to standing, and then she settled down. Lou knew she would do anything for her friend, but Lou also knew that the man at the gate was dangerous.
The bearded man smiled at the trees, rocking back on his heels and looking at the sky as if he were the most put-upon man in the universe. "What can you do?" that look said. He looked like an old man stuck giving sage advice to someone who wasn't willing to listen, no matter how much sense his advice made. "Alright. If you change your minds, all you have to do is one thing. Just knock." The bearded man smiled again, and then he turned and walked inside. "Close it up," they heard him say, and the chain-link gate rattled closed.
Lou wiped the sweat from his brow and took a deep steadying breath. He felt it again, the mantle of leadership settling on his shoulders like a pair of shoulder pads fashioned out of responsibility. He leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree.
"Should we go introduce ourselves?" Mort asked.
Lou just shook his head. "I don't like it."
"They've got Joan. They said her name. That means she's alive!" Clara said.
A pang of guilt washed over Lou as he wished that Joan had not survived the fall. But she had, and she was one of them. They couldn't leave her behind, even though it would be easier for all involved. Zeke had come back for him in the police station. He wouldn't abandon Joan. But he wasn't going to walk into a trap either. "We stick to the plan. We wait until night, check it out. This man seems a little too inviting to me."
"Me too," Katie said.
Clara shook her head in frustration. "But what if we're all making this more difficult than it has to be? What if we're creating the problem?"
"You wanna take that chance? What if I'm right? We all die." Or worse, he thought. "We'll wait until night, then I'll go up there and take a look. If nothing looks out of the ordinary, we can introduce ourselves in the morning." Lou could see that Clara didn't like the plan, but she nodded her head anyway. Katie and Mort were with him. "Let's move back a little bit, eat some food, and get some rest. We'll take turns sleeping, two at a time. I want us rested for tonight. If things go bad, we may be doing a lot of running... maybe even some killing."
They crouch-walked to a clearing and began eating their meager supplies. Lou took the first watch, his mind filled with worst-case scenarios. It was definitely going to be a long night.
Chapter 9: A Bowling Ball
They moved swiftly down the street, the ever-pressing threat of the dead trailing them. They were on a four-lane road that threaded through the suburb of Beaverton. Functional, if unimpressive, houses lined the sides of the road, and it seemed as if everyone was home.
They had tried for the highway, but hundreds, if not thousands, of the dead lined the westbound Highway 26, shambling amid hundreds of stalled cars. It was a meat grinder if ever Tejada had seen one, and he had seen plenty in his day. This trip was going to take longer than expected.
Tejada and his men headed south on Cedar Hills Boulevard. The road would connect them with a street called Walker Road, which, according to his map, seemed to parallel the highway for some ways. They would follow that and then after a couple of miles, they would cut over and see what they could see of the highway. There were only a couple of ways from Portland to the coast due to the fact that the city sat in a valley surrounded by rugged terrain on all sides.
Cedar Hills Boulevard was passable and wide enough that they could bolt in any direction if they needed to. The side streets, while infinitely less populated, offered less routes of escape. The last thing they wanted was to be trapped on a street with houses and fences blocking off any chance of escape. If the dead filled the streets, they would have to break sideways, and that was much easier to do on a larger street.
Other than the steadily following trail of the dead, it was a pretty nice day. The weather was cool, and they had made good progress. The men, still haunted by the loss of Ramirez and Kazinsky seem
ed to be in good spirits, or as good as could be expected. Being on the move allowed them to forget the sorrow of their lost squadmates for the time being. For Tejada, the only thing that allowed him to forget about their deaths were the men he still had to keep alive.
His mind wandered to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and he wondered how these men would manage if they ever found someplace safe. Would they be able to return to normal, or would they constantly be haunted by nightmares of the dead and those they'd lost? First thing's first, get 'em to that pot of gold.
In no time at all, they made it to the intersection of Walker Road and Cedar Hills Boulevard. Tejada spared a glance behind him, and his stomach dropped a little bit. It's like they were leading a damn parade.
Shopping centers stretched out before them, and Gregg said, "You think that Five Guys is open? I could go for a burger right about now."
"Shut up, dumbass," Brown shot back.
They turned west on Walker Road, and Tejada saw something that interested him. It was a bowling alley. Large, defensible, and relatively free of windows. If they didn't have a thousand dead people following them, they could have holed up there and bowled a few rounds if the electricity hadn't disappeared forever ago.
"Let's head through there," Tejada said. "I wanna shake this tail."
He jogged forward, and everyone followed suit. Based upon the ragged gasps coming from behind him, he assumed even Rudy was quickening his pace. That was good. It was the only way he was going to survive in this world.
"Break it open," he commanded. "Flashlights on. Looks pretty dark in there."
Epps and Day rushed up to a small glass door, and they took turns bashing at it with the butt of their rifles. The glass shattered, and then they were through.
****
They stepped into the cool darkness of a small bar. Andy eyed the bottles behind the gleaming counter with a wary eye. A drink would be good right about now. He followed the soldiers closely, hoping to be of use. They looked at him askance, as if he didn't belong there, but they didn't tell him to back off. That was good. That was a sign of respect. They were starting to realize he wasn't like Rudy and Amanda. He was actually worth something.
Light filtered in from the broken door, but it didn't go very far. They pushed their way through the bowling alley bar and into the main floor of the building. Flashlights reflected off shining lanes that still shone, though they hadn't been waxed in months. Their beams illuminated bowling balls and puddles of blood. This place hadn't been immune from the end of the world either it seemed.
As they passed a rack of bowling balls, Andy grabbed an orange one off the shelf. It was an eight-pounder according to the number stamped on the side. It glittered in his flashlight, and he hefted it with ease.
"We ain't got time for bowling, kid," Beacham said.
Kid. Good one. He doubted Beacham was much older than he was. "I'm not going bowling. This thing is perfect for bashing in Annies."
"You're going to tire yourself out in two swings," Allen said.
The conversation would have continued, but they heard a low groan from somewhere in the darkness. Then they heard the squeak of shoes shuffling. Andy looked around frantically with his flashlight, trying to see the source of the noise, then he spotted them at the end of one of the lanes. They were crawling underneath the pin-setters.
"They're coming up behind us!" Rudy yelled from the back of the line. He was closest to the bar they had entered through.
"Let's push through, people!" Tejada yelled.
Andy followed after the others. Confusion reigned in the darkness with flashlight beams shining this way and that. It's like an Abrams movie with all these lens flares, he thought, just before a crawling Annie lurched forward and took his legs out from under him. He fell to the ground, his flashlight skittering to the side, its beam of light spinning in the darkness. Rather than call out for help, which might come too late, he did the only thing he could think to do, he swung the eight pound bowling ball downward and smashed the head of the thing wrapped around his legs. He heard the crunch, and then Beacham shined his light at what he had done.
The Annie's head was caved in, and blood and brains slid from the fractured skull, staining Andy's pants.
"If that ain't a strike, I don't know what is," Beacham said. With his good arm, he pulled Andy to his knees, and they continued through the bowling alley to the far end. There were a couple of flashes of light, followed by deafening thunder, and then they reached a set of glass doors at the west end of the building.
Andy stood with his back to the glass as the dead honed in on them. Rudy and Amanda ran past him, glancing at the blood-covered bowling ball in his hands. He sneered at them and readied himself as Tejada fiddled with the door.
"You want me to break it?" he heard Allen ask.
"No, I want to be able to close the damned thing behind us," he said.
Andy couldn't see what they were doing, but with his flashlight, he could see the dead getting closer and closer. He licked sweat off of the thin mustache growing on his upper lip, and as a dead man in a bowling shirt approached him, he swung the ball as hard as he could. It cracked the man in the face, and the Annie tumbled backwards. Andy enjoyed hearing the satisfying crunch of bones.
"We got it!" Allen yelled, and they all filed out backwards of the bowling alley. The dead pressed against the glass door as they pulled it shut behind them. "Find something to hold this damn thing closed," Tejada commanded. Rudy and Amanda sprinted over to a dumpster and began pushing it towards the door. The soldiers stepped in to help them out.
With the dumpster in place, Tejada turned to Andy and said, "Who the hell do you think you are? Walter Ray Williams?"
"Who the fuck is Walter Ray Williams?" Brown asked.
"The greatest bowler of all-time?" Tejada looked around at his men, hoping for someone to back him up, but everyone just looked at him like he was crazy.
"Who knows that type of shit?" Brown asked
Tejada just waved them away and said, "Come on. Let's get out of here."
"Yeah, come on, Walt," Beacham said.
Andy just smiled. A nickname. It was a start. All the greatest people in the world had nicknames. It just sucked a little bit that his was going to be Walt.
"Hey, Walt! I like it," Quigs said, and the men all smiled and repeated his name. He even saw Amanda and Rudy smiling.
They walked away, hundreds of dead locked inside a bowling alley, trapped by a dumpster and a door that opened inwards.
****
Amanda was happy for Andy. He seemed to glow under the appreciation and praise of the other soldiers. That was good. He had spent far too much time brooding. Ever since Chloe had tried to kill Rudy, he had become a completely different person. When they had been stuck in the movie theater, he had seemed a fairly regular guy, maybe a little awkward, but normal. After the incident with Chloe, he had become withdrawn. It was as if up until that moment, none of it had been real to him. Then, overnight, he had become an entirely different person, and not the type of person that anyone would actually want to know.
He talked to no one. When everyone else was sitting around talking, he would be off in the corner just watching, a dark look on his face. Over the last week or so, she had begun to wonder if he hadn't gone crazy at some point. But to see the smile on his face was to see the real Andy. She hoped he stuck around because this version of Andy didn't seem like such a bad guy... just a little lost. And this wasn't the world to try and find yourself in.
They had no time to celebrate. The dead were always present, and the dumpster wouldn't hold them for long. Without a word of warning, Tejada broke into a light jog, and everyone followed, even Rudy. His baggy trousers swished back and forth with each movement, but Rudy moved as quick as he could. The loose ends of his rope belt jiggled back and forth, as did his chin. Sweat poured down his face, but when she looked at him, he smiled back at her.
The sun shone on them, and there was a nice
breeze. It carried on it the stench of rot, but it felt good on her skin. They moved west up Walker Road, leaving the bowling alley and the potential horde of the dead behind them and out of sight. Andy cradled his bowling ball in his arms for a block before he stuffed it into his backpack. How long was he going to keep that thing? It was dead weight, but she had a feeling it was more than a bowling ball to him.
When they were three blocks away, having jogged for a few minutes, they slowed to a walk, and Amanda could see that Rudy was grateful. She worried about him. He was pushing himself hard, much harder than she thought him capable of. There was a strength inside of him, and though she hadn't noticed it when he had first appeared at her apartment door, it became more and more obvious every day. This was why she was attracted to him. My God, did I just think that?
She stopped in the middle of the road, her thoughts running through her head at a million-miles-per hour.
Rudy, out of breath and covered in sweat, asked her if she was ok. She smiled at him and nodded, and they moved forward. She couldn't look at him now, for fear that he would see her staring at him and somehow read her mind. Rudy, poor pathetic Rudy. That's how she had thought of him at first, but he was more than that now.
But how much more was he?
They swerved around an upended beer truck. It sat canted, its rear end in a ditch. Hundreds of bottles of beer, most of them broken, lay in the ditch as well. She had never quite gotten the taste for beer, but she was so thirsty that she could go for one now.
"Sergeant? Can we?" Beacham asked.
Tejada looked at the spilled bounty, pursed his lips as if fighting the word no, and then said, "We got time for one a piece, no more. Drink 'em as we walk. Whiteside, the skinniest of the soldiers, climbed down into the ditch, careful to avoid the broken shards of brown and green glass. He picked among the bottles, tossing unbroken ones up to the waiting survivors above.
