by Jacy Morris
She picked out the strongest and heaviest zombies first, plunging the spear into their upturned faces. They wanted her. They wanted everyone inside the compound. She heard the strained grunts from the other women. Dust kicked up and hung over the compound along with the smell of blood and decomposing flesh. The country music came to a stop as the generator lapsed into silence. All Katie heard were the groans of the dead, the grunts of the other women, and the crunch of wooden spears as they penetrated the skulls of the dead.
Every ten dead or so, she had to climb off the watchtower and trade her spear in for a new one as the point became blunted. Her hands were worn ragged, and blisters and bleeding cuts crisscrossed her palms. Sweat covered her entire body, and her clothes were turned a muddy brown as the dust mixed with the sweat.
The sun traced a slow arc over the sky, and more and more dead came to join the fray. After a while, she stopped seeing faces. She stopped seeing them as people and only as something that needed to be put down. The bodies piled up outside the walls, stacking up quickly. The dead stepped over their fallen brethren, gaining height with each body that Katie speared. The rotten corpses underneath squelched under the weight of the dead, the liquids pressed out of them until a river of red blood ran from underneath.
The smell was nauseating. The dead had made it through a summer of heat, rotting in the sunshine. Katie found herself retching as she continued spearing the dead. The whole time, she kept her eyes on the motorcycle helmet, hoping that the person they found in there would still be alive. She had no love for Clara, but she respected her. She had always been the most honest about their relationship, and she appreciated that... even if they did hate each other.
While the others had given her crooked looks and pretended as if everything was alright with her, Clara had always called her out for her perceived madness. As she wiped the sweat from her brow, she wondered at the change that had come over her. Was this survival? Or was this something more? Was she simply insane? Was that what had driven her to make an all-out assault on the compound, or was there something more there?
Was the old Katie peeking through? She jammed the spear into the face of a housewife with tiny bites on her arms. She knew what had made those bites, someone small, someone fragile, someone the woman had probably sacrificed her life for over and over again. The woman fell dead, and Katie wondered if there was something after death. Would that mother find her children again on the other side? Would she be able to face the end with a clear conscience?
As the sun turned yellow, she continued slaying the dead. She called out to Clara, "Just hold on. We just have to clear out the dead, and then we'll dig you out." She didn't know if Clara heard her; the helmet didn't move.
****
Mort spent a harrowing night in the trees. It was pitch-black out, the clouds obscuring the small sliver of moon enough to make the forest floor murky and dark. He could see the glow of the compound's campfire in the distance, and he longed to be near it. He longed to be there and discover if their plan had been successful or not.
The wind rushed through the trees, but the sound of branches brushing against each other couldn't hide the sound of once-human hands pawing at tree bark. He was very thankful that the damned couldn't climb. He was in for a long night.
Mort tried not to think about the exploits of the day. He tried not to replay the scenes of carnage that he had seen, but they wouldn't stop coming. He huddled against the trunk of the spruce tree, trying to keep from freezing to death as the scene played out before his eyes once again.
After they had fired off their first shots, Mort had climbed down from his perch. ducking his head as shot after shot was fired into the woods, as if ducking would protect him if any of the bullets actually struck him. Once he hit the ground, he had run through the forest, dodging in and out of the dead, the underbrush clinging to him as he ran.
He had almost screamed out loud as he lurched directly into the path of a stringy old lady who shambled around a tree just as he was passing. He pushed at her and struggled to free his hammer, as two more of the dead approached through the trees. He knew he was wasting precious time, but his hands didn't seem to want to work correctly. His movements felt awkward and clumsy.
He felt the hands of another dead thing on his back as he finally pulled his hammer free. He clonked the old lady on the head and shoved her away. She fell into a tangle of blackberries, and he only barely had time to spin around and hit his second attacker under the chin with the head of his hammer. Its teeth shattered, and Mort pushed this one away as well. Time was running short. He should be in the second tree already, but the dead were out in full force.
He dodged the remaining dead man, and he ran to the next tree, the one he had marked earlier as being the easiest to climb with the strongest branches. Up he went, fear chasing him quicker than any of the dead could. As he pulled himself up on the first branch, he felt hands grasp his ankles. He kicked his legs, struggling to pull himself higher.
For a second, he thought he was going to be pulled down, but then he landed a lucky kick on his attacker's face, and it stumbled away, giving him the freedom he needed to climb higher. He sat on the lowest branch of the tree, sweating and looking down at the crowd of the dead that had gathered around him. Despite the fact that the compound was still blasting country music and firing off the occasional shot into the forest, these dead didn't care. They saw him. They probably smelled him at this point, and they were going to wait for him.
Once his arms recovered enough strength to carry him upwards, he began his ascent, careful to test each branch as he went. The last thing he wanted was to fall from the tree into the clutches of the dead below. He pushed upward, fear still bouncing around in his body. He didn't stop until he came to a spot that allowed him a view of the compound while still providing plenty of cover. He looked down at the unruly mob below him, and they looked up at him. They were partially obscured from his line of sight, as he was to them, but they knew he was there, and they showed no sign of giving up, even though he was out of their reach by a good forty feet.
He took a deep breath and forced the sounds of the dead out of his mind, and then he fired his shot. One shot, one blessed shot. It tore through the man's chest and he toppled to the ground. He said a little prayer, thankful that he was able to do his part.
Mort scrambled then, moving around to the backside of the tree as more shots came his way. He hoped he had caused a good enough distraction for Katie to do what she needed to do, but right then, with bullets whizzing past his head, all he could think about was escaping.
He used the trees to escape, creeping along the thickest branches he could find to move from one tree to the next. The dead still followed him, but with each tree he reached, there were less. They had difficulty tracking him through the trees, which worked to his advantage. He came to a spot in the forest where it became dangerous to move on. The only option he had was to jump. A few feet away, there was a branch that looked like it was thick enough to take his weight. He inched out across the branch, holding onto some weaker branches above him to steady himself. He was almost there when a bullet hit the branch that he was on. The bullet didn't break the branch in half, but it did enough damage to weaken it. He felt himself slowly sagging, and, having no other option, he made a leap for it. The branch came at him quickly, and he wrapped his arms around it. For a second, he thought he was safe, but then there was a great snap, and he was plummeting downwards, his back to the ground, his arms flailing for anything to break his fall.
Mort's back slapped off another branch, and his world was sent tumbling. The ground was coming up fast, and he had no chance to brace himself. With a great thump, he impacted the ground. Panic rushed through him, and he had no time to think. He rose up on his feet, shaky and unsteady as the dead that had been trailing him closed in. The rifle on his back was useless. The barrel was clogged with dirt from the fall, so he pulled it over his head and left it on the ground as he fumbled for his hammer
. He knew the hammer was still there because he had a fiery pain in his hip where he had landed upon it.
He pulled it free and took a clumsy swing at the nearest dead thing, his hip cramping in pain at even that weak attempt. He wound up smacking the creature in the side of the head with his forearm instead of the hammer, but it was enough to knock the creature off-balance. He turned to run, but all he could manage was a brisk, stumbling walk. Stars still danced in his eyes, and his breath came in great ragged gasps.
Mort had no thoughts left. He moved like a cornered animal, dodging the dead and lashing out at them as they pawed at him. For all he knew, he ran in a great circle, and then a single thought crossed his mind. Get off the ground, Mort. He cast his eyes upwards, examining the trunks of the trees around him, but none of them were suitable. He had lost all sense of direction during his fall, and for all he knew he was running right into the hundred or so dead that were surrounding the compound.
He made his hammer sing as it rang off the side of a dead man's skull, and then he was clambering up the side of a young, healthy tree, his hip screaming at him. His head spun as he climbed. He felt as if the entire world were rocking side to side, as if someone had picked up the earth and set it afloat in gently rolling water. With his hammer tucked into his belt, he pushed upward, groaning in pain as he flexed his bruised hip. The dead pawed at his boots and calves, squeezing and trying to bring him to the ground, but with the great strength and desperation of one who knows they are about to die, he was able to pull himself out of their reach.
Now he sat in the dark, listening to the dead below trample on dried leaves and shuffle through mounds of old pine needles. He could hear their bony digits scrabbling at the tree bark, and all he wanted to do was see another living face. It didn't matter who it was, Katie, Clara, Joan, anyone would do.
He leaned back against the tree, trying not to breathe deep as his aching ribs burned with each deep breath. His hip felt like it was locking up, and he knew that if no one ever found him in this tree, he might well die there. His body was too wrecked to be any good for the next day and perhaps even the day after that. By the time his body would be healed enough to move, he would be dehydrated and starving... not the best way to try and survive. But he still had hope. Somehow, Mort, the man who had lived his life as a homeless runaway scared of others, had found an unending source of hope in this world. He still had friends, and they still cared for him. They would find him. They had to. He shut out the sounds of the dead and tried to keep his eyes from closing, for if they did, it might be for the very last time.
Chapter 17: The Trial
Epps felt nervous, as if things were coming to a head. The soldiers had holed up in the security building with Nike in their possession. All night long, the other residents of the campus had pelted the building with rocks. Fires burned in the night, and the shadows of the dead in the other buildings were restless.
He was afraid, not for his own life, but for the fact that he was going to have to kill people, actual living people who had, so far, done nothing wrong. While he had formed no friendships with the people of the campus, he recognized their normality. It felt like something that should be protected. But it wasn't his place to make decisions. It was Tejada's burden, and he was thankful that he wouldn't have to make such a choice.
"You ok?" Day asked him.
He and Day had never known each other before this all began. Even on the bridge, he had stuck mostly with Brown, Beacham, and Allen. "Yeah, I'm alright," he said. But he wasn't. He was tired, as tired as tired could be. He wanted to turn to Day and tell him all the things he was feeling, but Day wasn't like that. Day was a normal man, about as average a man as you could find. Without even having to ask, he knew the man liked football, barbecuing, and drinking beer. He liked his women plastic and fake. He liked his food plain and unseasoned. He was a cardboard cutout of a human.
No, he couldn't discuss his misgiving with a man like that. A man like that would hear his complaints and think him weak. It was a man's lot to look on a situation with grim impassivity and emotionless fatalism. He shook his head. Allen and his stupid vocabulary must be rubbing off on me.
As he thought this, a woman parted from the mob. It was the one that Allen had been banging. He corrected himself in his own mind. It was the woman he had been sleeping with. That seemed more... proper. Never one for political correctness, Epps had grown to miss the trappings of civilization. While before, it might have been fine for him to say that Allen and this woman were banging, now he found it base. He found it to be yet another of those things that men had devised to hide the fact that there were these things called emotions and feelings, and that they all had them. That his friend Allen had emotions and feelings did not bother him anymore. In fact, he was pleased to partake of them and be witness to them. For there were precious few men among them that could show these things now. The world, the way it was now, had all but killed these things in the other soldiers, but in Allen, the death of the world had refined them and brought them to the forefront. He wasn't afraid to show emotion anymore. For that reason, Epps vowed not be afraid to show his own emotions, but on a man like Day, they would be wasted.
The woman calmly walked up the stairs, and for an instant, Epps had a vision of a queen climbing the steps to her throne. She had the look on her face of one who was not used to being trifled with, and he didn't relish answering the door. But she knocked, and it was such a civil gesture during a time of rampant uncivility that he pulled the door open for her.
Day stood ready with his rifle, his sights dancing over the skull of the woman.
"What is it?" Epps asked.
"I want to see my father," Diana said.
"No one sees the prisoner," Day spat at her.
She looked at him the way a teacher might look at an unruly pupil. Day shrank a little bit. "This is our place. We decide who is a prisoner and who isn't," she said.
"That may be so, but right now, this is our place, our building," Epps said. "Sergeant Tejada is talking with him right now. If you have a message, we'll pass it along, but other than that, no one is getting in here."
Diana looked at him and smiled. It was a plastic smile, and he knew she was furious at being rebuked. "Tell my father that I came to talk to him, and that you wouldn't let me see him. Tell him that's the best I could do."
With her message given, she turned and left the way she came. The people outside seemed impatient for her return. Epps wondered how many of them thought that they were going to kill her. He saw Diana shake her head once, and the faces of many in the crowd changed, morphing from obvious outrage to one of grim determination. It was not the change he wanted to see, and Epps knew that things were about to go from bad to worse.
"Stay here. I have to talk to Tejada," Epps said to Day. "Brown!" he shouted. "Get down here and watch the door."
Brown rushed down the stairs, sensing the urgency in his friend's voice.
Epps patted Brown on the shoulder as he passed him on the stairs. "Make sure no one gets in."
****
Tejada sat across from Nike, their eyes boring into each other's souls. Tejada wondered if Nike saw something as empty as what he was seeing in the man sitting across from him. "What do you want, Nike?"
Nike tented his hands in front of him, looking as smug as the day they had been introduced in the meeting room. "I don't want anything."
"Oh, come on. Cut the shit. You must want something." Tejada slid the journal across the table. "A man who wants nothing doesn't spend his time making sure that every guard in his employ is murdered in the dead of night."
"You call it murder. I call it compartmentalizing. I saved this place," Nike said, leaning forward, ignoring the journal in front of him.
"Saved it? By killing everyone inside except for a hundred or so individuals? You murdered those people."
Nike nodded, hearing what Tejada said as if for the first time. "It wasn't murder." There was a silence, and then Nike began again
. "What would you have me do? There wasn't enough food. The trucks we had ordered, the refrigeration units we had ordered, never showed. There were too many mouths and not enough food. I could have told everyone. I could have done that, but in the end, the result would have been the same. We would have lost people. They would have turned on each other, started fighting over resources. I could have sent people out to find food, but some of those people would have come back infected, and people still would have died. Nothing would be different."
"And that makes it ok?"
Nike leaned back in his chair, turning his head away from Tejada's steely gaze. "Oh, fuck you."
They sat in silence for some time until there was a knock on the door. Tejada got up and opened it. Epps stood at the door, and right away Tejada could tell that something was wrong.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I think we have a problem, sir."
"Go on."
"Nike's daughter came to the door, and she said some real cryptic shit. I told her that she couldn't come in to see her father, and when she left..."
"Spit it out, son."
"Sir, I think the people out there are planning something."
Nike just laughed in the corner. Tejada ignored his bullshit for the moment. "I'll put a stop to this right now." He turned and grabbed the journal from the table, and Nike stopped laughing.
"What are you doing?" he asked, suddenly worried.
"If this turns to shit, it'll be because they know the truth," he said back. "Epps, stand here and guard this bastard. If he tries to escape, give him a beating."
Epps smiled at the older gentleman. Tejada had told them what had become of the security force that had risked their lives to secure the Nike campus, and he relished the thought of putting his knuckles through that smug mouth.
