by Jacy Morris
"Get her! Help her!" a voice yelled as Katie's blood spilled down the front of her shirt. Her world tilted and then she was on the ground, fire erupting in her shoulder. She looked at the world sideways, an army of the dead flooding from the trees as Clara used her hands to push against the ground to try and lift herself out of the hole those bastards had buried her in.
She blinked a couple of times, and then she felt a couple of strong hands lift her up off the ground. Katie, now on her feet, tried to go back for Clara, but the hands propelled her backwards, towards the compound away from the woman buried in the ground. She saw more women rush past her, and she caught a glimpse of Joan standing above her on the watchtower, lit by the morning sun, the rifle in her hands and a grave look on her face. Her hair blew in the morning wind, and she looked like one of those action heroes in the movies her husband and son used to love watching.
Then she was through the gate, and they dumped her on the ground. She watched as the red stain on her shirt grew bigger and bigger. The pain wasn't there yet. She didn't know if that was a good thing or not.
"Did they get Clara?" she managed to ask before everything went dark.
****
Joan had her work cut out for her. Katie had a gunshot wound and Clara was dehydrated and bleeding profusely from her scalp. She could see her skull where the dead man had ripped off a chunk of skin. It sent chills up her spine every time she saw it.
The first order of business was to stop the bleeding of Katie. She lay on a blanket they had spread on the ground, blood jetting from the wound. The gunshot wound was the only way Joan could have saved her. When she saw the dead woman clamp her hands around Katie, she had been left with two options, shoot or let her get bitten. She had taken the shot. Had she saved her life or killed her? She didn't know yet.
There was something else on her mind as Katie drifted in and out of consciousness. The bullet. It had gone through a dead woman's head and then into Katie's shoulder. Was there enough infectious material on the bullet to turn Katie? She could worry about that later though. If she didn't manage to stop the bleeding, it was a moot point.
With help from Theresa and the other women of the compound, she was able to staunch the flow of blood through both the exit wound and the entrance wound. It would need packing, and she had no idea about the state of the bones underneath.
She turned to Clara. The wound was large, and it was going to be impossible to close. It had to be cleaned, but first they need to clean all the crap out of Clara's hair. The amount of screaming she was about to create was sure to bring more of the dead their way.
"I need some people on the walls," she said. "This is about to get loud." The women brought Joan a bucket, and she slowly and carefully washed what was left of Clara's soiled hair, hoping that whatever sort of slime had been in the helmet was not still infectious. She was working with a lot of "ifs" here, and she hoped that she wasn't just prolonging the inevitable.
Clara screamed as they washed her hair, the soap making its way to the ragged edge of her wound. Clara gripped Joan's wrist, squeezing impossibly hard. Once it was clean, it was time for the hard part.
"This is going to hurt," she said to her friend. Clara looked her in the eye and nodded. She was tough as nails, but Joan knew this would be more than most people could handle. She hooked her suture needles through the ends of the wound and then she pulled making the stitches as tight as she could.
Clara kicked and screamed. Joan called Theresa over to hold her still, but it was like fighting a bucking bronco. She was only able to get two stitches in before Clara passed out. She wondered how it hadn't happened before. Her friend was dehydrated, had lost a lot of blood, and experienced more fear and terror in the last day than many of them had experienced in their entire life.
Clara's unconsciousness was a blessing. She was able to pull and kneed the scalp wound securing the raw edges of flesh in place. She could still see a large portion of skull, but it was the best she could do, and all that was left was to wrap it in a clean bandage.
With that done, she turned to Katie. Her skin was pale, and she lay unconscious on the blanket. She double-checked the wound and packed it with more gauze. She couldn't close it up yet. It needed time to heal. Her wound would heal though. She just had to make it through the day.
When she was done, she looked like one of the dead herself. Her clothes were covered in their blood. Her leg hurt, and she realized just how much pain she was in. She had hopped her way to the watchtower, cursing at the passive women who were standing there and watching. Climbing one-legged up a ladder had also ruined her back and her shoulders. She felt like she could pass right out herself.
She looked around her and saw the women on top of the trailers, stabbing downward with spears. She wiped an arm across her brow, trying not to get blood on her face. She looked at her two patients, one was a friend and one was not, but she valued them both equally. She hoped she had done enough, but most of all she hoped that neither were infected. They would know in the next day.
Joan reclined in the dirt, too tired and too hurt to make her way back to her trailer. She noticed gray clouds in the sky, and then a drop of rain hit her face.
"Where's Mort?" a voice asked. It was Katie, stirring from her unconsciousness. Her voice was weaker than a wind produced by the buffeting of bee's wings.
"I don't know," she replied, pained that none of them were in well enough to go looking for him.
****
He was cold and shaky. He didn't think he could stay in the tree anymore. His energy was low, and he had strained all night to stay in the tree, getting next to no sleep. He heard the gunshots, and he hoped that this would draw away the crowd of dead that huddled underneath the tree. It worked for a couple of them, but there were two that stayed there, looking up at him with their dead eyes.
He tried to stand. His muscles were stiff, but he flexed them as well as he could. Despite his battered ribs and the knotted bruise of his hip, this was the best chance he was going to have. When he had gotten his blood going, he began his descent, which was tough, as he refused to let go of his hammer. He held it in his right hand as he searched out branches that would hold his weight.
As he reached the lowest branch, out of range of the dead, he paused to regain the strength in his arms. He took a couple of deep breaths, and then the rains came.
"I don't know who you guys are, and I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to you, but I can't stay here no more." He spoke to the dead, but they didn't speak back. When he was ready, he jumped from the tree and rolled to his feet. He grunted in pain, but forced himself to get to his feet to meet the first of the dead. He was too tired and too hurt to run. Running would be a last resort, but he knew he could still swing his hammer. The first approached him with its arms out in the classic monster movie pose. He swiped its hands to the side with his free hand and then stepped into hammering range. He swung the hammer hard, popping the creature on the side of the skull. The creature tumbled to the ground.
Then the next was upon him, pawing at his face with clawed hands. He backed up, trying to keep his balance, his hip flaring in pain. The dead man was shorter than him, and he swung overhand, the head of the hammer pounding the top of the skull. It made a pop sound that echoed through the dead man's mouth, but it kept coming. It ripped at his jacket, his trusty military surplus jacket that had been with him since the beginning.
He brought the hammer up under its chin, knocking it backwards. It's jaw slammed shut and two of the teeth shattered, but the dead man didn't notice. Mort cocked his arm back for another swing, and then he let loose. It hit the side of his head with a dull ping, and it fell over on its side. It did not get up again.
Mort's breathing was heavy, and he looked around frantically, ready to fight the next wave of the dead. But there were none. He was free, for now. He moved in the direction of the compound, limping and clutching his ribs with his free hand. At least, he thought it was the direction of the compound. In
his flight through the trees, he had become turned around, which was why he hadn't tried to escape earlier when the sun had come up. But then he heard the gunshots through the rain, and he strained his ears to hear where they were coming from.
Mort readied himself for the possibility that what he would find would be a slaughterhouse. He readied himself for the fact that his friends might already be dead. But if that were the case, he would try to make them pay for it. He would die in the process most likely, but he would rather do that than be alone.
For the thousandth time, he wished that his buddy Blake was still alive. He could have killed all those people from the trees. I shouldn't want to kill people. But he felt that it was the only way to bring peace to the situation. People had to die so that others might live.
The rain covered the approach of the dead, thousands of rain drops bouncing off of leaves, turning the forest into a symphony of dripping and splatting. He remained relatively dry underneath the forest's canopy, but it seemed that for every twenty feet he went, another of the dead appeared out of nowhere.
He was able to sneak up on them most of the time. They couldn't hear him coming with all of the noise from the rain, and he scored several single shot kills with his hammer, driving the dead home the way a carpenter would drive home a nail.
Suddenly, the forest opened up, and he found himself looking at a sight that would burn in his memory forevermore. Women wet and dripping, their shirts clinging to their swollen bellies, drove spears downward into the dead. No men were in sight. The bodies lay ten deep around the trailer compound. Wet rivers of blood trailed their way across the muddy ground outside the circle of trailers. He had come out to the backside of the compound, and his heart lifted for a second upon seeing the women.
It fell as he got closer and realized he didn't recognize any of the women atop the trailers. He ran forward, not caring about himself any longer. He pushed forward until the woman atop the nearest trailer saw him.
"Stay back!" she shouted as he skidded to a stop in the mud around the compound. She brandished her spear at him, and he stood there, out of her range and clueless as to what do next. The dead spotted him and marked him as easier prey than the women atop the trailers. They turned towards Mort.
"Just tell me! Are my friends ok?" he shouted. The woman looked at him. She had a big brown mole on her cheek. It looked like a glob of shit.
She had no sympathy for his situation, and she said, "We're all dead. One way or another." Mort didn't know what to make of that, so he backed up as the dead came closer. He knew that if he stayed, he would die. So he turned around and headed into the woods, alone and frightened. He didn't know where he would go now or what he would do. He thought of the house in the woods, and it seemed like the best option. He circled the compound until he came to the front, then he began looking for his markings.
More than once, as he dodged the dead, he thought of just giving himself up, but he knew that he couldn't. Blake wouldn't want him to. Clara, Katie, Lou, Joan, none of them would want him to give up. Besides, if he died, then the memory of Blake died, and he would cease to exist altogether. He owed the man his life, and he wouldn't throw Blake's gift away.
He carried his old friend in his heart, and it wasn't just himself he was living for anymore. He pushed through the woods, the dead groaning as they pursued him.
Chapter 19: The Deal
Izzy Allen watched them come and go from the roof. The Ken Griffey Jr. building had turned into his own personal ant farm. The Nike campus residents were in a busy state. The lines had hardened once Nike was gone. The soldiers weren't as welcome as they had once been, and everyone knew they were sitting in an untenable situation. He had tried to talk to Diana and see what was going on, but so far, she had rebuffed him at every opportunity.
But now there was this flurry of activity in the Ken Griffey Jr. building. The people moved quickly through the building in pairs or threes, talking furtively with each other.
Eventually, it got to the point where Allen figured he ought to tell Tejada. He stepped back into the security building, pounding down some metal stairs until he was on the top floor. Brown and Gregg looked up at him as he entered the barracks. They had drawn the dubious honor of scrubbing away the carnage that still marred the floor and the bunk beds.
They could clean it all they wanted; Izzy would never sleep there. That was too much bad energy. He had found a nice clean office in which to set up his bedroll.
"Is he in there?" he asked the men.
They nodded at him, and he stepped inside the armory. Tejada stood at a table breaking down and cleaning the supply of weapons that had gone without maintenance for a couple of months. They would still fire as there was nothing wrong with them, but Tejada was having them all stripped down anyway. Allen bet that Tejada had just gotten bored watching his men sit around doing nothing.
Tejada looked up from his work and asked, "Aren't you supposed to be on the roof?"
"Yes, sir, but I thought you might want to know that something is going on in the Griffey building."
"Something like what?" he asked.
"I don't know. The people seem real animated. It just seems like they're up to something.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about them. It's just a bunch of bees buzzing around cuz their queen left. They'll find a new queen, and then they'll settle down."
"Respectfully, sir, I disagree."
Tejada finished reassembling an assault rifle, and then he set it upon the counter the way a father might set their baby down when they needed a changing. "Alright. I've never had reason not to trust your judgment. Why don't we go and check out what's going on? Grab Brown and Gregg. I'll be there in a second."
Allen stepped into the hallway and told Brown and Gregg the great news. They rose to their feet and tossed their towels and spray bottles on the ground, glad to be freed from the drudgery of cleaning. It was something that every soldier got used to, but no one ever learned to like the mundane responsibilities of being a soldier.
Tejada came out of the armory holding a locked and loaded M4 assault rifle. Allen and the others checked their own weapons, and then without a word or a signal, they followed Tejada out of the barracks. They went down the stairs and out onto the campus.
The people had gathered, and Allen felt his shoulders tense. He hoped this whole situation didn't go sideways. The people looked at them the way one might look at someone who had kidnapped their dog. They weren't happy, and it was obvious on their faces. At the front of the group was Diana. Off to the side, standing like a whipped dog was a bruised and battered man. It was the man with the glasses that had spoken out against Nike.
"Who are you here to kick out now?" Diana asked.
"No one," Tejada said through a tight smile. He held out the rifle as they approached, but he presented it as if it were a gift. "I brought you something."
Diana stepped forward to accept the weapon. "What's this for?" she asked. Her fire all but gone, doused by Tejada's actions. As she reached out for it, Tejada pulled it away.
"I thought you ought to have the means to defend yourselves. Are you the leader now?" Tejada asked.
"I'm the leader for now," Diana said. "What good is one gun going to do when there are hundreds of those things in the buildings and outside the wall?"
"Well, we have plenty of guns to give you, but I'll be damned if I'm going to hand them over to a bunch of untrained, ignorant civilians and get my ass shot off the next time someone sneezes."
"So you're going to keep all the guns?" Diana said sounding unsurprised.
"Now I didn't say that. You ought to be careful about assuming things. You know what they say." Tejada looked at the group of people around Diana and said, "Are you sure this is who you want leading you? She doesn't seem like a very good leader."
Some people murmured, but no one stood up to defend Diana. She looked over her shoulder, suddenly self-conscious about the lack of support. "The guns?" she prompted.
"Oh,
yes. The guns. The guns are all yours, but you have to prove you can use them. So I'm proposing a deal." Tejada stopped talking to Diana and spoke to the assembled people. They listened to him like they never would Diana. "The way I see it, you guys have a problem, and we have a problem. For us, we don't want to be here anymore than you want us here. But we're low on ammunition, and to survive out there, we're going to need a shitload of it."
Allen winced at the swear words, but if the people of the Nike campus got their panties in a wad over such things, then they had bigger things to worry about.
Tejada continued, "Your problem is that you're all fucking useless, and you got a thousand zombies around you right now at this very moment."
"And your proposal?" Diana prompted, not willing to cede any authority to Tejada.
"My proposal is that we stay here, train you until we feel like you can handle yourselves, and then we'll leave when you're good and ready, taking with us enough ammunition and rifles to get us to our destination. We'll leave the rest for you."
Diana nodded. She turned to the people of the Nike campus and asked, "Does anyone object to this proposal?" No one spoke. "Then it's done." Diana held out her hand to shake Tejada's, but he simply placed the rifle in her hands.
"This is the safety," he said, pointing to the latch on the side of the rifle.
Some people crowded in closer as Tejada went through the functions and different features of the rifle.
In the end, the deal was struck, and the people and the soldiers drifted away. Allen stood on the field, trying to catch Diana's eye, but she still refused to look at him.
The man in the glasses eventually walked up to him, his eyes black and bruised, but he seemed un-cowed. "She's a snake. You guys must know that. She's not any better than her father was," the man said.
