by Josh Hilden
“Who?” She asked and for the life of her, she had no idea what he was talking about.
“You know: the bitch, the whore, the fucking cunt, the doctor who plays soldier, where is she going Estelle?” He sounded far from amused.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” But she did know, and she knew that she must not tell this beast that looked like a man.
“Oh yes you do, I can see it on your face. And more importantly I can smell her stink here, she was here and you met her.” He grinned at her, and his smile made her wince like she’d been burnt. “I know she is heading North Estelle, now you are going to tell me where.” He stepped toward her, and the mark on his forehead radiated light like a nightmare sun.
Estelle began to walk toward the man in black. She felt enchanted and she wanted to tell him what he wanted to know. It was only right, after all he served God. God needed to know where Lisa and her people were going. But in the back of her mind a small voice that sounded a lot like Lisa Sutton’s except maybe younger yelled at her.
“If you keep looking at him you will betray her, and the world will be lost!”
She saw the man glance around as if he heard the same voice. In that instant Estelle had control of herself. She knew that she only had a moment where he would be distracted, and then he would turn that gaze on her again and all would be lost. She didn’t have time to be scared and she didn’t have time to think about what she was going to do.
“Fuck you!” She yelled and then drove the point of the machete directly through her right eye socket and into her brain.
“NO!” Rudy Clarke screamed as Estelle fell forward and the blade was plunged further into her skull upon impact.
7
North of the Hession Compound
4:05am EST
The glow of the fire that was consuming Hession could be clearly seen from the back of the old school bus. There were three school buses and half a dozen four wheel drive vehicles in the group Father Jordan and Ken were leading north. They hoped to hook up with other survivors along the way, but the evacuation was so last minute that they had no real idea where anyone else was going. The children finally calmed down and most of them were sleeping.
“What do you think we should do?” Father Jordan asked, sitting down next to Ken. He handed the young man a cup of instant coffee.
“Why are you asking me?” Ken asked with a sharp note in his voice. He took the coffee from the priest and sipped at the tepid liquid.
“This is your show Ken, those are your troops out there.” He gestured to the other vehicles in the ragtag group.
Ken sighed and leaned his head against the window. The countryside flew by at 35 miles per hour. Every so often, a lone figure or a pair could be seen shambling down the road. There were car wrecks and small burned out towns scattered all over. Ken felt tired and sick to his stomach. For a full five minutes he said nothing. Then his face hardened and he spoke.
“That mass is pretty slow and we already have a hell of a lead on them. We need to hit a few towns and salvage some supplies.” He took another drink of his coffee, it was awful, and then continued. ”We head north father, all the way to White Harbor.”
The older man nodded, and Ken was a little frightened to see that he looked relieved.
Chapter Four
1
West of Findley, Ohio
October 28, 2012 (Day Eleven)
8:15pm EST
Gun fire could be heard in the distance. It was making Liam and Kyle jumpy. They rode together in the Hummer and they were not talking. The fight had started out as a disagreement about using the Interstate as soon as they linked up at Wright Patt. Liam thought it should be avoided at all costs, and Kyle countered that as long as they swung around major cities it would cut a lot of time off their journey.
Liam prevailed and they crept along the west side of Interstate 75, shadowing but never setting tire upon the river of concrete. Kyle was irritated. It’d taken them days to go maybe a 100 miles.
“If we’d used the highway we would be there by now.” Kyle said from the back seat. Liam and Clay Sanford were in the front of the vehicle.
“Everyone had the same idea when it all started. You’ve seen the traffic snarls, Kyle.” Liam was getting tired of the argument.
“And you have seen all of the trucks that we could get supplies from, and there seem to be very few of those pus bags on the highways.” Kyle countered. It was the same argument they’d been having the entire trip thus far.
“Look,” Clay said, speaking up for the first time in an hour, “I don’t want to keep listening to the same goddamn conversation the entire way.” Then he added “Sir,” but it was impossible to determine who he meant.
In the time the convoy had been together, the two people who were looked to for leadership were Liam and Kyle. Most of the people that fled Wright Patt considered Liam the go to guy. Most of the people who’d joined them since looked to Kyle. Clay couldn’t blame them, the kid was tough and he was damn smart. He was also brave, although he didn’t seem to think so. Clay had seen young officers like him all the time in the Army. They thought because they were afraid it meant they weren’t brave. He’d had to teach more than a few that fear was a tool that you needed to harness.
He thought Kyle was like the minority, young men and women who knew how to do that instinctively. Add in the presence of his sister who was deadly as a gator, and the Carson’s had become a force to be reckoned with in their group.
“Sorry Clay,” Kyle said and he sounded like he meant it but he still wouldn’t back down. “I’m not saying that this is a bad plan, I’m just saying I think my way would be better.”
“Fair enough,” Clay said and then looked over at Liam, although Clay always thought of him as the General.
“Alright,” Liam growled, “Your plan is good too, but I just think this is the safer way to go. We can’t call for back up if we get surrounded out here.”
The older man and the younger man both looked in each other’s eyes. They’d both experienced more in their lives than God had perhaps intended another human being to experience and had come out stronger because of it. They’d also come out harder. The force of their personalities was a little overpowering, and Clay actually fought the urge to roll down the window and let in some cold smoky air in an effort to purge the atmosphere.
Finally Kyle grinned. It was a grin that made him look 15 and held out his hand. “Truce, old man?” He asked and the grin looked as if it would split his young thin face.
Liam tried to maintain a stern expression. Then he started to laugh and took the offered hand. “All right kid, maybe we will try things your way after Findlay.”
Clay let out a breath in relief. The last thing that they needed was a mini civil war between the group’s nominal leaders. Just as he was feeling a little better, they all turned their heads towards the wide band radio mounted under the dash. It’d been scanning up and down the dial as they drove, the volume turned down to a whisper so the static hiss didn’t drive any of them insane.
But now someone was talking.
“Can anyone hear me? This is Professor Kate Hodges at the University of Findlay. We are trapped in the engineering building and we need help. Please, I am broadcasting on several frequencies there are 31 of us and we are surrounded by more than a hundred of the Dead. We have no weapons, and we are almost out of food, please respond on this frequency. We are going to die here if you don’t help us.”
“They are going to attract trouble with that transmission.” Kyle said.
“Bandits are going to hear them and head there looking for supplies and maybe something to fuck.” Clay added. They’d already seen that society had almost completely unraveled in the short time since the Dead began to rise. There’d been that little town north of Minster, a group of “Good Old Boys” had been keeping a small harem of women and girls penned in a barn for their amusement. Clay and the General freed the prisoners while the rest of
the group mounted a diversion. The effort stretched their abilities to the breaking point, but they had managed to free 17 people destined to a fate worse than death. The women joined them and were now part of their group. Clay and Kyle both looked at Liam. This was a decision that needed to be made soon.
Liam looked at his driving companions and reached over to grab the microphone. “This is a bad idea.” He said before keying the mic.
“Professor Hodges, can you hear me? Over.”
“Yes I can here you. Who is this? Over.”
“My name is Liam Harrison. I am part of a convoy of survivors heading north. We are willing to attempt to break you and your people out of the University but I am going to need details. Over.”
“Oh thank God!”
The next ten minutes were spent exchanging information. The Associate Professor of mechanical engineering led a group of students and their families to the engineering building as the dead rose around them. They’d sealed off the stairwells and then shut off the elevators. The Dead occupied the ground floor, but it allowed the living to have free reign over the remaining four floors. All three men admired the ingenuity and the resourcefulness of the woman and her people. They made tentative plans with her on the radio, and then Liam signaled the convoy vehicles to pull over so they could discuss the mission.
2
Outside the Engineering Building, University of Findlay
Findley, Ohio
October 28, 2012 (Day Eleven)
11:30pm EST
Jennifer Carson crouched in the bushes nearest the building. Her mission was simple, when the group led by her brother drew the dead away from the building. She and the 10 people with her were to clear out the ground floor. Then Liam and the remainder of the group secured the area. The hope was that if they could erect some barricades, then they could take a day or two and rest up before heading out again.
“Boss, is it time yet?” The kid to her right, she thought his name was Nathan, asked. The kid had imprinted on her like a baby duck after the meeting at the gates of Wright Patt, apparently he’d been impressed with the way she killed the Dead.
“Not yet, do you see the mass of them over there? When my brother and his people come by, then we move.” She sounded gruff and she knew it. But that was far from how she felt. She wanted to yell, run back to the police cruiser, and lock herself inside. She wanted Benny to hold her and to never let her go. But that was not in the cards, and if they weren’t careful they would all end up as a bunch of stumbling, drooling idiots.
She looked back at the place where Kyle and the others were waiting. They were going to run out and make as much noise as they could. When her brother volunteered to be the bait, she’d nearly fainted. She loved Kyle and she knew that when push came to shove he’d always done the right thing, but years of their mother telling him that he was a colossal fuck up had really done a number on his self-confidence. The strategy was his, and the “General” thought that it was sound plan. Jennifer worried that they might be biting off more than they could safely chew. There were too few of them in the group for them to be able to absorb any real losses to their numbers.
When the Dead were sufficiently aroused, they would lead them away and then it would be show time. She was worried for her brother. This had been hard on him, but he was doing the best that he could to not let the effects show. She’d known that there was a streak of steel in him that never had the chance to shine. The heel of their mother had been planted too firmly on his back for him to show what he was made of.
She missed her mom but sometimes she hated the bitch as well.
But now, here was her Kye, standing up and helping to make decisions for the entire group. In the conference when they’d stopped, the idea of using human bait to lead the Dead away had been his. He’d been the first to volunteer for the job. Jennifer was so proud of him, but she’d also seen the look on Scarlet’s face when Kyle volunteered, but her friend had said nothing about it.
The same could not be said of Benjamin’s reaction when she volunteered, along with Sergeant Sanford, to lead the assault on the first floor of the building. He yelled and hollered about it until Kyle told him that if he didn’t shut up he was liable to lead more of the Dead right to them. This had shut him up at the meeting. But right before the start of the operation, Benny would be part of Liam’s group, he’d cornered her. His pleading almost made her step down from the job. But Jennifer was her mother’s daughter in many ways and she refused to back down no matter how much she wanted to.
When she’d been younger, she’d really disliked Ben Millette. He’d always been Kyle’s friend. She had though the slightly overweight skateboarder was one of the dumbest people she’d ever met. In a way she’d had a juvenile version of her mother’s feelings about him.
This continued until about a year ago. During Thanksgiving break she’d broken down on her way home from the mall. When she tried to call home Jennifer realized that she’d left her phone back at the house. She’d been sitting in her car, trying to decide if she was going to walk to the gas station or the drug store, when there was a knocking on the window. Jennifer almost had a heart attack, but when she looked up she saw the goofy face of Ben Millette looking at her. She’d never even heard his old pickup truck pull up behind her.
He pushed the car into a church parking lot and then got the tool box out of his truck. Two hours and one used alternator later her car was running again. She’d been so grateful that she hugged him and took him for a burger. That started it. Over the next two weeks they’d “accidently” run into each other all over town, and then on Christmas he kissed her and they’d been together ever since.
Jennifer loved him, it was that simple.
“Here they come,” Clay said and Jennifer tensed. They were using hand to hand weapons so as not to draw the Dead back to them. Jennifer had her two batons out and ready. Clay was hefting a four foot crowbar and Nathan had a baseball bat. The others carried a similar mixture of weapons. They really needed something uniform that they could all train with, she thought, but that was a worry for later. They had a job to do now.
The sounds of screaming could be heard as a loose web of running humans came darting through the busted gate and into the walled area around the engineering building. Kyle was in the lead and he was loudest of all of them, calling the dead every name in the book as they circled so the ones inside could also come out. Once the Dead hornets’ nest had been sufficiently stirred up, Kyle yelled for everyone to follow him, and they took off back out the gate with the dead trailing behind them.
Everyone counted to 60, and then almost as one they stood and ran through the same gate that the Dead had just emerged from. They’d never tried something like this before. In the past few days, they’d done things in ones and twos. This was the first time they’d attempted to accomplish a complicated task as a combined unit. Nobody was sure what the results would be.
It stank inside the walled area despite the frigid cold, and there were half a dozen of the dead crawling for the gate, their legs were either gone or horribly mangled. She and Clay made quick work of these Dead, and then the group entered the ground floor of the engineering building.
The stench was worse than outside, and they didn’t even have the illumination provided by the moon. Every one of them was issued one of the flashlight headbands they salvaged from a Super Wal-Mart in Sidney. The emergency lights in the building’s corridors were still working, giving the fetid darkness an otherworldly feel that was quasi nightmarish.
Clay was the first to encounter one of the dead. He’d been a janitor before dying judging by the coveralls and the giant ring of keys on his belt. Apparently he’d been stuck behind the reception counter when he died, and been unable to unlatch the waist high door that had him trapped. Clay approached and as the thing began to emit its demonic moan, he brought his massive pry bar down on its skull, silencing if forever. He moved on, taking half the group with him.
Jennifer led the
other half of the group and they began clearing operations. Fear pounded in her brain and she expected every door that they opened, and every corner that they turned, to be concealing hundreds if not thousands of the Dead. Outside she could hear the General and the others begin the job of securing the courtyard area. It was no wonder the survivors held up here, it was almost a mini fortress.
