His mind slams with thoughts. Levin could have night vision goggles. Hell, he could have a fifty caliber with a heat sensitive power scope and kryptonite bullets, but nothing’s going to prevent Danziger from saving those girls. He doubts Levin has night vision or many supplies with him. To escape the herd, he would have had to abandon much of his gear, and he left useful items at the campsite.
Other than survivalist nuts, most people didn’t have an arsenal at their disposal when the deceased manifested. No one believed the dead walked and killed. Even the diehard of the apocalypse whackos weren’t home locked away in their bomb shelters when it started. No matter how prepared people thought they were, the end of the world doesn’t happen while one sits at home and waits for it.
He grabs the branch of a tree he thinks will support his weight. He climbs about seven feet where a forked branch works as a seat. It’s not comfortable, but sleep exhaustion doesn’t require comfort. He slips his belt off, loops it around himself and the branch before cinching it again. It should stop him from rolling. A seven-foot fall wouldn’t kill him, but he won’t save anyone with a broken leg and a rolled ankle.
Sleep hits him like a brick. He should plan his attack better while he watches the barn in the light, but it’s been two, maybe three, days since he slept, and who knows how long before he only caught a catnap, and those didn’t last long enough for REM sleep.
Life is full up with stuff making people question why they weren’t taught it in school. Telling time with moonlight seems so antiquated based on the lack of need. Who needs that with watches and cell phones, televisions, DVRs, auto alarms? Nope. No need for any such skills with all those working devices at arm’s reach. Map reading with GPS. Cooking by campfire. Hell, even beating your clothes on a rock to wash them.
Bathing.
A shower would be nice. He smells worse than the dead. No way, no matter how much education or training he had, nothing prepared him for this.
TWO...ONLY TWO.
Hollywood gunfights at high noon in the middle of the street actually occurred in the American West. He is unable to imagine Wild Bill or Wyatt Earp ever going through anything like this. He looks up. He knows his round went through Diesel. There was the rapid fire of a machine gun, and the impact of two more slugs into his vest.
He reaches up and fingers the two holes in his t-shirt. He feels the twisted metal slugs embedded there. He unzips the Kevlar vest.
“Ellsberg!” He coughs. The pain of what feels like three trucks running over him ripples through his chest. He should get up. He should force himself to at least get to a sitting position and make sure all the bikers are dead. He knows Diesel needs a head shot to make sure he stays dead. He listens to Karley’s sobs and wonders how many biters will be attracted by the thunder the machine guns made. So much noise. He has left poor Olivia alone in the woods with a gun in her untrained hand. He has to protect her. He won’t be the reason another little girl is discovered by a walking corpse.
Ellsberg offers him a hand. Emily’s savior locks his hand around the major’s wrist and lets himself be jerked up. The pain digs. He loses his breath and relaxes his grip. It hurts too much to move, so he uses all his strength to just lay there. He wheezes, “I…I left…Olivia…in the woods.” Ellsberg vanishes from his view. “Wait!” He hears the major’s boots scuff the pavement. “Gave her a gun,” he warns.
“I’ll use caution.”
He just breathes.
Slow breaths.
Not too fast so as not to inflate too much lung.
He tries to make each one longer than the last, but still takes in the air slowly. His brain wants him to poke around the impact sights to examine the damage, but the pain won’t let him. He can’t stay like this. He has to lead these people. He keeps a grip on his M&P. Not all the dead bikers suffered head trauma. They will walk again. He has witnessed it happen. Whatever reanimates the dead brings them all back to life unless they have brain damage. No matter how much it hurts he has to at least get to his elbows.
He remembers the physical therapy to walk again after his incident. The struggle to walk wasn’t impaired by lack of oxygen, or at least the inability to breathe without lung pain. He pushes off his elbows to a sitting position, finally brave enough to depress the bruising at the impact sight.
He pushes harder. Water clouds his vision. He forces his fingers to dig into the purple flesh. Nothing feels broken or cracked—grateful. Now if his legs work. Through watery eyes he spots Ellsberg carrying Olivia still wrapped in his duster coat. Leah comforts Sarah. Brock holds a sobbing Karley. Poor Bobbi has no one to attend to her. He gets to his feet to go comfort the handless woman.
“You gonna be okay?”
“What happened to the world? I never hurt anyone. I was always kind, and dropped all my change in the red bucket. I donated my old shoes. Why? Why do the ills of the world rain down upon me?” She holds out her stumps as she begs for answers.
“I don’t have those kinds of answers.”
“I love God and my mom. I never hurt anyone.”
He has no choice but to plop down next to her. He wishes he had controlled his tumble better as the jarring to the ground reverberates through his bruises. He grabs escaping breath.
“The world has left little space for comfort, but you’ve survived, and are still a strong woman. There has to be a reason.” He hopes he sounds sincere. He doesn’t buy into a universal plan for anything. In reality, if there is a plan then all the doom visited upon people is deserved, and no baby born with cancer could deserves that. With the rise of the undead if any supreme being did exist he’s long forsaken this rock.
Still, when faith is important to someone, it helps get them through the rough patches. If anything he needs to find a headshrinker. Leah, Bobbi, Sarah, and even Karley all need someone to help them with the violations they’ve been put through.
“I’ve nothing to offer anyone except be a burden someone has to feed and clean. Those bikers didn’t even want to use me for the one thing I’m still able to do.” Bobbi’s eyes glaze into a distant place only she sees.
He searches long and hard for correct words to comfort this fragile woman. Before he finds them, she turns from him.
Steele’s leg twitches behind her. Attracted by the noise, Bobbi crawls to the dead biker. He realizes Bobbi has a solution to her pain. He raises his gun with a lackluster nowhere near his normal speed, but she’s between him and Steele’s skull. Huffing, he struggles to get to his hunches.
“Ellsberg,” he calls.
The major bolts from the roadside park, but he won’t make it. Ellsberg unslings his rifle at the sight of the rising corpse.
He gets to his feet, staggers back, but Bobbi, still in his line of fire, jabs her forearm into Steele’s gaping mouth. The fresh corpse clamps down. She doesn’t scream as the skin shreds.
Blood drips, exciting the undead.
He knocks her off the dead body finishing off Steele with a round to the head. Ellsberg halts before another dead biker and fires into his skull. He does the same to Diesel, before aiming at Bobbi’s face.
“Just end it for me,” she pleads. “There’s nothing else for me now.”
Ending for her quickly would be a mercy, no question. But no matter how many undead or vile humans he’s had to end, somehow mercifully killing a helpless woman tears at him. He’s not quite the cold-hearted bastard everyone seems to think him.
“The bikers have been eliminated,” Ellsberg says, then offers, “You need me to?”
“Please just end it. I don’t want to be one of those things.”
“You turning into a biter would make this easier,” he explains, “I’ve never killed anyone innocent. It’s not the same.”
“But I’ll become one.”
Bam.
Leah grips a smoking gun. “I’ve taken care of her for months, it’s only right I…” She buries her face into Ellsberg’s chest.
He holsters his M&P. Some part of him will for
ever be grateful he didn’t have to kill the woman.
Brock asks, “Can we ride these motorcycles?”
“You ride?”
“No, but it’s got to beat walking,” Brock says.
“It’s not so easy, and too dangerous to teach with someone riding pillion.”
“But it’s so far to walk, and the women…”
“First, we gather the bodies and start a pyre, make sure you check every pocket for anything useful. I’ve got a syphon pump in my pack. We drain all the bikes of gas, use some of it to burn the bodies.”
“Look, I agreed to follow you, but I see no point in walking when we could at least ride these bikes until the gas runs out,” Major Ellsberg argues.
“I brought us to this location because I’ve a vehicle stashed in those trees. I was interrupted in retrieving it. We fill the gas tank and burn the bodies.
He pulls back on the camouflaged tarp revealing a Cadillac Escalade.
“The apocalypse hasn’t diminished your style,” Brock about creams himself from the shiny luxury vehicle.
“This thing’s built like a tank and gets great gas mileage. In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t going to be any more oil tankers from the Middle East. Plus we’ll all fit inside because when it says it seats eight comfortably I bet this one car actually means it.”
He loads pilfered supplies into the back. Brock wheels one of the bikes immediately behind the SUV. “You park here a lot?” He kicks at several dried tire tracks.
“Yeah. It’s a good spot. No one has found it so far, and the gimps don’t seem to come up here.” He wheels a second bike next to Brock’s. “I don’t always get to leave vehicles, when I take one I’ve stashed.” He checks for dry gas tanks before covering the Harleys with the tarp.
“How long have you been doing this?” Brock asks.
“Like a lot of people after the rise of the dead, I wandered and hid. I didn’t want to be in a refugee facility, but there was no place else secure enough to get a good night’s sleep.”
“I understand,” Sarah whimpers. She brings more equipment to haul with them.
“I found this place. I learned why it still had working lights, and ever since then I’ve figured out how to keep them turned on. See, I enjoy hot showers.” Sarah almost smiles at what she figures is his attempt at humor.
“You need a pipe welder,” Brock deduces.
“So everyone you stop and help you only help in order to make sure you have a hot shower?” Karley gives him the same look she had for the bikers.
“I keep my camp small. I do collect people to keep it secure.” He won’t bring himself to say ‘safe.’ He doesn’t believe in safe anymore. “We’ve limited researches and, yeah, I am selective in who I rescue.”
“I don’t know if I can agree,” Karley says.
“We saw what allowing everyone into the military base did,” Brock adds.
“One day maybe we can afford to admit anyone. But not this week.”
“You’ve turned people away from your sanctuary?” Ellsberg asks.
“Not so much. It’s a little out of the way. People aren’t rushing in the direction of a national forest for protection.”
Wanikiya takes the gun belt through the metal window. “Glad you’re back,” he whispers. “We had an incident.”
“I got banged up. People getting desperate out there.”
“We’d a few try and get in here, and they spoke for God.”
He slips his coat off. “Bring up a few female guards or some of the nurses. These women have been violated enough.” He shoves his coat through the hole before explaining. “No one gets into our camp without being inspected and turning over everything on your person. I sent for some female guards for the women.”
“Inspected for what?” Brock asks.
“Bites,” Ellsberg answers. “All the way?” He asks, unbuckling his belt.
“Socks and underwear. No one infected gets in. Anything looking like a bite and the doctor inspects you while you stay in this cage.” He pulls off his shirt.
Karley gasps at the three circular nearly black bruises on his chest. “My god that has to hurt.” Karley knows her own backside is bruised from the jerking, but her discoloration won’t be as dark as his.
“I’d say I’ve had worse, but this might actually be the worst.” He hikes his leg onto the bench to unzip the side of his boot.
Wanikiya scratches on a clipboard getting back to the business of the camp. “What are the skill set of our new arrivals?”
“Major Ellsberg’s an engineer. Brock is a welder.”
“Good, I’ll get Brock stowed away and show him where he’ll start tomorrow.”
“You got any more rules in this place we should know about before we commit to entering?” Ellsberg asks.
“Everyone works or they don’t eat. We’ve been developing rules as situations arise. After you strip down, we’ll tour the fence and get your expert opinion. The ladies can wait for female guards.”
“I want to stay with my wife,” Brock announces.
“What’s his wife do?”
“What does she do?” Besides be a tremendous nag? He wants to say out loud, but thinks better of it.
“I was a stylist, and have been a waitress.”
“Can you cook?” Wanikiya inquires.
“Some,” she flounders.
“I’ll try you out in the kitchen and we could set her up a shop in the common building. Some of the men would like a hairstyle more than a buzz cut.”
“Sarah, what did you do?”
“I was a tax preparer.”
“Not much call for that now. We’ll find you something suitable.” He leans toward Wanikiya and whispers, “Keep her inside the fence.”
“Don’t talk about me behind my back!” Sarah screeches. “I got enough of that at the military base. It was humiliating.”
He turns, unclasping his belt the way an angry drunken father would right before nightly beating his children. “I told him to give you a job inside the fence.”
“Leah, what was your career choice?”
“I worked in a daycare.”
“We’ll find them something.” Wanikiya scribbles on the clipboard. “I’ve got trucks or horses ready.”
He slips from his jeans. “I doubt I can handle the jarring canter of those quarter mares. We’ll take the truck.” He drops his underwear, before raising his arms and twirling. Plenty of bruises decorate his body but no bite marks.
“Along the main gate we have a dog run. I want to reinforce the inner fence.”
“You’re building twin fencing along your entire camp?” Ellsberg inquires.
“Along the front of the fence adjacent to the road.”
“We patrol a few times an hour but at different intervals,” Wanikiya adds, “preventing anyone from cutting their way in.”
A cargo trailer interrupts the dog run with the ends cut open for access and the door side able to close and be locked. Two men stand guard on the top with high-powered rifles.
“They’re certified crack shots.”
“Certified?” Ellsberg inquires.
“Travis sent me a weapons expert, Chief Petty Officer Simon.”
“I met him. He’s a fine master of arms.”
“Our biggest concern is fence security. I may have too many people assigned boundary patrol, but if a herd of those biters waltzes through, their combined weight could bring down the fence.”
“You want me to reinforce the barriers. How much metal cable do you have access to?” Ellsberg asks.
“We’ll make a run, get whatever we need. People did not pick over the hardware stores.”
The dog run ends with an exit outside the chain link fences, keeping the two-story farmhouse completely isolated from the compound once the gate is secure.
“You keep all your homes fenced in like that? You’re going to run out of chain link fast,” Ellsberg points out.
“This was our original residence
. I put up most of the fence, and since this place was up high on a hill it was a good place to start branching out to create this colony. Consider it my headquarters or executive offices.” He leaves out that down the hill outside the fence is a growing collection of cargo trailers.
A young boy races from the house to greet the truck. Excited, Dartagnan babbles about too many cattle and the lack of grass land to feed them.
He slides from the backseat. “Dartagnan, settle. Sunday we’ll expand the camp and you’ll refigure the grass needed.” He hands the young man a leather pouch. Excited, the kid unzips it. “Dartagnan, this is Major Ellsberg. He builds on a larger scale than your model.”
“It’s the wrong color. He holds up a yellow vial of model paint.”
“All they had. Make it work.”
Agitated, Dartagnan demands, “It’s the wrong color.”
“I know. Deal.”
Dartagnan pouts.
“Calculate feeding the six new additions.”
“Six. You said there would be two new.”
“Things change. We have to learn to accept change.”
“Takes care of some of the extra cattle. Lots to recalculate, but you need to expand more into grassland. More acres,” Dartagnan insists.
“I’ll make a run for more food.”
“Find the correct yellow. Can’t mix this. Wrong color. Calculate the new people. Wrong.”
“I know, Dar, go finish your model.”
Dartagnan races back to the house. The major waits until the truck travels again. “Boy’s not firing on all thrusters,” he observes. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Asperger’s, I think. It wasn’t a well-known syndrome when I studied. I found him cooking in a camper. Mom was dead and he kept scrambling eggs for her. Must have been fifty uneaten plates. He’s able to prepare great eggs. She never taught him how to cook anything else.”
No Room In Hell (Book 1): The Good, The Bad and The Undead Page 22
