by catt dahman
Kim watched, thinking about that particular man; he would start with his face that he thought so handsome; Kim would slice off the cheeks and nose and then maybe salt the flesh.
One more day.
One day at time. Kim’s chance would surely come. And he would peel the skin away so tenderly, so thin; the pain would be lovely, almost ecstasy.
Kim waved the flies away, but they settled on his raw back again: he rolled into the mud, coating the infected whip marks, soothing their itch and burn, and making the flies less interested in him. He rolled and moved against the mud so the pus broke free, giving him intense relief from the pressure as the wounds were covered by the muck.
Slice.
He imagined slicing flesh and fell asleep with a smile.
12
Mission
The compound inhabitants stayed busy as new security was added and as more people trickled in to join them.
Len was teased unmercifully about his lists, the teams and his constant erasing to ensure better fits for every person. He was felt good to add another doctor and a nurse to their group, a certified teacher, a real chef who was ready to show off his skills, a security guard from a mall, and a former misguided gang-banger who was now excited to use his skills on zombies instead of the streets where he feared for his life every day.
A cowboy, some women, a few children, and some men with excellent building skills rounded out the intake. With the Mexican people and the ones from Arkansas, Len finally had his teams built back.
“One team, either mine or Julia’s will always be here for intake and security. One team will always be on horses or in the Jeep patrolling, and one team will be on night duty. We revolve the duties. One can always be out gathering supplies. When we get a fifth team, it can provide security to the builders or whatever we have going on that day. Or change up nights….” Len told them. “Two vehicles when you are outside.”
“We’re outside today,” Beth said.
“Target?”
She grinned with a look of evil because her day came before Len’s team would be outside; she had a place in mind to hit up for supplies: National Guard Armory.
Julia, Len, and several others groaned.
“I have more trained people on my team,” Len argued.
“I’m…was active duty; it should be us,” Conner protested and earned a high five from Julia.
“I have the smartest people on my team,” Pan joined in, getting cheers from his team members.
Beth shrugged, “But it’s my day.”Her team laughed, and everyone jeered good-naturedly.
“Just don’t take your usual ten shots to drop one zed,” Len grumbled as he and the rest filed out of their meeting.
“Very funny,” Beth said.
“Let’s roll,” Hannah said, eager to be off. Some of the new team members looked at her strangely. “I’m part of the team, not just here as a mascot.”
“Ummm…really?” John asked.
Teeg nodded. “Odd as it may be, she likes to chop zombies into little pieces.”
“Ah, the girl who likes using an axe,” John remembered.
“Isn’t shooting them safer?” Carl asked.
“Safer, yes, but not as stealthy,” Hannah told him, “can we please go in the
big truck?”
Carl grinned, “You like it?”
“I love it; we can smash zombies flat,” Hannah said, winning him over at once. She climbed in with him. Two SUVs followed them.
“Look at that,” Beth said to John, who was driving.
“I saw; they ran down that Z,” he said, driving around the crushed body.
“No,” Beth said, “I meant Hannah; I swear when they ran it over, she was bouncing excitedly in her seat. Maybe the kids don’t always see them as former people the way we do….”
“It still bothers me to put one down,” John said.
“Not me,” Jet shrugged.
“’Cause you’re young, too,” Beth laughed, “and Hannah has a crush on you; she’s a kid, so don’t encourage it.”
Jet looked suddenly serious, “Because of my tats and piercing?”
“No. Because she’s too young.”
“Well, I know that, but I thought….”
“Stop thinking. Holes in your body don’t matter to most of us unless they are bites. But I bet you’d look more handsome in something beside black, just saying,” Beth covered her smile. “Kim would tell you the same.”
“Who?”
“My husband, Kim. He and three others vanished from the hospital parking lot.”
John remembered now he had heard that story and many others. “I understand he was quite the hero.”
“Is.”
“Huh?”
“He is. Present tense. No reason to think he isn’t somewhere, trying to get back to us,” Beth said, her lips going tight.
“Oh, of course. I just mean I heard the stories of things he did and how impressive he was.”
“I think that guy behind us, Teeg? Yeah, Teeg, he ran over the leg of the zombie Carl smashed,” Jet said.
“He’s a crazy driver,” Beth said, “Lord, how he can make me laugh though?”
Carl cut through the lock on the National Guard Armory, letting the chain fall.Several zombies shambled over the parking lot, moaning and coming towards the team as soon as they saw them. A few were civilian men, women, and children who turned, bites and torn flesh showing.
For some reason, the Guardsmen obviously allowed civilians to come in. Maybe they were families or they gathered after the virus wiped out so many, but some came, and they turned after the gate was locked down.
They stood outside the fence and shot the walking dead.
No doubt the RA would come and be unhappy to find they were hours or days too late.
Juan was with Beth now, as well as Trip, John’s friend, and a Korean man named Pak who was very athletic and good with a firearm.
Juan patiently let Hannah have some practice with his rifle, amused by her excitement at killing the creatures. A man in an Army uniform moaned and drooled as he walked, fumbling at his belt for his sidearm. It unnerved them, and they were glad to put him down.
“It would be nice if that truck were full of weapons.” Carl pointed to the five-ton truck that was parked sideways in the parking lot, close to the door.
“Take a look.”
Carl dropped the tailgate, looked inside and walked back with a perplexed look on his face.
“What? Is it bad?”
“Carl?”
“Naw, I’m just slack jawed at our fortune so far; the thing is plumb full of guns and ammo, just filled with stuff.”
“No way.” Beth broke from the rest and checked it out, coming back with a huge grin and slapping Carl on his back. “He’s not pulling our legs; it is full of stuff.”
“Hot damn,” John whistled.
“Okay, then we’ll take it all back when we go,” Beth said. “Let’s check inside, please be careful, and keep your eyes open as there could be one or a dozen in there waiting to chomp. I’d rather not lose a person today, ‘k?”
Her team agreed, and she took a second to remember that only two others trained with Len. She would drill them when they got back and before any new missions.
Beth took point, leading them into the building. An office was on the right, and John shot the man who stumbled out, moaning and salivating.
The team went into action as a half dozen more Zs shambled out of the hallways; the shamblers’ uniforms were torn, and their flesh was ripped.
Teeg took three team members and went down the hall to open doors and clear out rooms, and Beth took her three and moved deeper into the building. Now, she was the only one left who trained with Len.
In all, they found a dozen that had to be put down; Beth was impressed with the efficiency of her team.Teeg barked instructions to his team the whole time, and Juan acted accordingly, so the other two received a good lesson on team protocol.
John and Carl, both with her, were calm and steady, never showing anxiety in the worst of situations. Jet was more hyperactive, but he watched his fellow team members like a hawk and was brave, helping them at all times.
All they needed was to learn the simple tactics Len wanted used. She kicked herself, despite her pride in the team, for not drilling them before this.
Pak was meticulous in his skills, kicking them down and then dispatching them with an easy shot. Beth made a mental note to have him show the rest how to do this easier; she wasn’t being prejudicial, but the man was Asian, so she knew he trained in some Asian martial arts that they could add to their skills. Trip was the anchor and never hesitated to wade in at his own risk, dispensing smart ideas as they went.
Hannah had a sword that she liberated from a Marine Corp display, and while it needed sharpening, she was already using it to bash the Zs that she could reach. Beth could think of nothing to say to Hannah about her sword.
Double doors opened into an enormous mess hall with more metal doors that opened to the outside. The doors were closed. Beth bolted through with John on her heels and stopped, her jaw dropping for a second.
Portable dividers were set up for the rows of cots: some cots were bloodied, some tipped over, and some dusty, and others unused, were as neat as a pin. Zombies moved all over the room and moaned.
“Close the doors,” Hannah said.
“Can’t. Across this is where we want to be…the vault where we will find more weapons,” Beth said. She jangled keys. We have to either fly there and back with supplies or take them all out. Ideas?”
They dropped several who were too close.
“Come on.” Pak grinned, shaking a lock of blue-black hair from his forehead. He kicked and spun, sending walking corpses flying into one another, and Juan mimicked his kicks, his size sending them in all directions. Teeg and Trip fell into line and shot those who fell, getting easy targets.
“I don’t kick so well,” John said.
Carl laughed and jumped up on a table. “Lookit this, chains from the ceiling…how easy is this?” He swung over to the next one, grabbed it, and swung again.
“Jet, you and Hannah get back to the office, and stay there, ” Beth ordered sternly before they could argue.
Once they were safe, she and John looked at the chains, and Beth shook her head; she didn’t have the upper body strength. There would no swinging like a monkey and no kicking; what could they do that made sense?
A woman, her face shredded, wore sweat pants and a tee shirt and grabbed for Beth. Beth sidestepped right into the clutches of a man who moaned in her face, showing bloodied teeth and skeletal arms. John slammed his gun, knocking the man’s claws away and pushing Beth to the side. He shot the woman and man Zs.
One wrong move, an inch the other way, and one of those would have bitten her and John, but he acted without fear, placing him in danger to save her. It made a deep impression.
Making a quick decision, they decided they would run on the left of the room while Pak led the others on the right.
They spared two shots for those too close and then three more for children. Beth shivered as she killed the kids. One was little more than a toddler. All the zeds were too close now and trying to over-run them.
Carl still swung, calling down to the zeds, taunting them so they watched him more and not the others. “Come get me, dumb ass,” Carl yelled.
They reached up for him and followed.
“I hope we have a plan,” Beth said as they dodged the creatures. Unfortunately, they surrounded faster than the team could shoot. Carl called them.
“Here, help me,” John called as he grabbed a long table and with Beth’s help, got it up onto two of the other tables lining the wall. “Up.” He pushed her to climb and was right behind, pushing another table up to her. “Get it….”
The table was way too heavy. But Beth pulled and sat back, yanking it up on its back. John helped her get it in place, and they climbed the third tier. They were above the zeds now and were able to shoot down at them. The force of the undead bodies wobbled them only a little; luckily, the undead couldn’t climb.
Carl fell right in the middle of a crowd of zombies but was up and running to meet Juan, Pak, Trip, and Teeg.
Pak and Juan kicked the zombies while the men made a tower like Beth and John did so they could shoot from above. Carl grabbed a divider and dove beneath the tables with the divider covering and hiding him. The zeds seemed to forget him as soon as they no longer could see him.
“He’s good,” Beth called over to the rest, “Carl is hidden from them.”
It seemed to take forever to shoot all of them. They picked targets, fired, and put them down with one or two shots each. Men, women, teens, and children were shot. A woman holding a baby: two shots.
The room must have been full of people in there, and at least one or more were infected. How had they missed that? And the others were attacked. It must have spread within seconds, and the ones who got out were infected, as well. Over a hundred survivors were dead.
“We’ll finish the crawlers,” Juan called to Beth as he and Pak walked among the corpses. This was dangerous because they could be lying there and could rise up just enough to grab a calf or an ankle and bite.
Beth and John ran over to the back as Carl crawled out. They laughed at him for his tactics but admitted they learned from watching the zeds forget him when they could no longer hear or see him.
Beth opened the vault, and they cheered. It was full of weapons and ammo. With the supplies in the truck, this was an enormous haul that would shock Len. Trip found four trolleys, and they began loading.
Beth looked at one of the tables and walked over, curious. Crates of medical supplies and first aid supplies were on shelves behind the table, papers, and reports she didn’t quite understand.
She looked over the room with its cots and tumbled IV stands with spilled bags of saline.Sick people had been here. The dead were everywhere: torn apart nurses and doctors among the civilians and men and women in uniform. What was the story here, and why did it matter? She even began to act like Len, always pondering why and how things happened.
John joined her, breathing hard, trying to get a second wind. “What?”
“Medical supplies. They could treat injuries, but look at this: topical meds and an injection for those bitten. This paper is protocol, this booklet rather. It’s how to treat a bite and what kind to treat and what kind not to bother with. ”
“There’s a cure?”
Beth looked at all of the bodies thankful none of her team were infected or killed. “I don’t think there’s a cure, but there was something they were doing here.” She skimmed everything she saw, trying to find answers.
“If they had a cure, then this wouldn’t have happened, right?”
Beth shrugged, looking around again, trying to figure it out. “Not one of them is a Red, so they had immunity to the first infection that got everyone else. They came here. They had experimental treatments and used them for some who were infected, I guess. They didn’t lock them away or shoot them; they tried the treatment.”
“Didn’t work too well, did it?” John asked. Bodies were everywhere, torn, bitten, and clawed, but none were badly eaten.
“Why would they try?”
“Maybe they were just trying to find a cure or testing the injections and topical, last ditch effort. Maybe there’s more information.”
“Could there be?” she asked as she dug through the papers. “OK, simply, you give injections and use this cream on the wound. Look at this folder. They were trying this treatment on the infected. See the number and name? They have bracelets on, so we need to find this patient.”
“In all that?” John stared at her as if she were insane.A hundred or more bodies were there.
“The patient was female, twenty. That narrows it down. Come on,” Beth began looking over the corpses.
“Here she is. Alice, number 0034.” John called when he wa
s only at his third check. It was good luck to find her so fast.
“Bitten on the arm,” Beth said, squatting. She put on the gloves she had found with the supplies and rolled Alice over.
“She turned, so it didn’t work.”
Beth removed the bandage on the girl’s arm and surveyed the wound. “How bad does this look?”
“Not good, she’s infected, looks like it had just started, but she turned; I guess she turned fast?”
“She was at least twelve hours in. This bite looks bad, and yes, it’s infected, but what would it have looked like after twelve hours? It would be more swollen with pus and would be leaking; red and tight, purple and black would be all the way to her shoulder, but there’s little of the discoloring. She wouldn’t have turned yet by the looks of this bite.” Beth thought about it. The bite wasn’t as bad as it should look after that much time, and she wouldn’t have turned with that mild-looking bite, would she?
“Was she injected with the stuff?”
“It says she was twice, directly into the bite. And this salve was smeared over the wound that was bandaged.” Beth began to look the girl over again, stripping her while John watched her, not getting this at all. Beth kept searching the girl and finally sat back with a satisfied, “There it is.”
“Guys?” John called, “come here.” He caught the rest up about what they had found.
“Now, look there. She has another bite on her scalp. See the infection and pus?” Beth showed them.
“It’s bad there.”
“So she was treated and didn’t turn; who knows if she would have, but this wound was not the one that got her. She was bitten a second time, and it wasn’t treated because maybe everyone was turning and the fight was on or she didn’t tell them, no way to know, and then she turned.”
“What does that mean?” Juan asked.
“I think it means if someone is bitten and if the salve and injection are used, he doesn’t turn as fast anyway. I don’t believe it’s a cure…really; that would be too great, but it may help a person keep from going as quickly. If she had been treated for the second bite, we’d know more. Maybe.”
“Other patients….” Teeg looked back at the folders.
