by R. J. Spears
I gave the man a visual inspection as I made my way toward the gate. He looked to be around six feet and was in good shape. He had a black watch cap on. His face had strong features with a square jaw covered with a few days of stubble. He was wearing well-worn blue jeans and a dark green barn coat. A large black backpack and his rifle lay on the driveway just five feet in front of him although he still had on a holster with a pistol. The holster’s leather strap was still buttoned tightly over the pistol, though. The most striking thing about him was his quiet but confident demeanor. He was as comfortable as a house cat lounging in the sun as he waited for our next move. It was almost unnerving.
I let Greg take the lead. “So, what’s your business here?” Greg asked.
The man took his time responding; he looked from Greg to me, and then back to Greg. “I’m looking for some sanctuary. Only for a night or two. I lived in Columbus, but everything up there is a mess. Zombies are everywhere. I have family in Tennessee that I’m trying to make my way to.”
“How did you end up here?” Greg asked.
“My car broke down on 23. I was in that town there,” he said, pointing southward
“Lucasville?”
“Yeah. I tried to find a car I could drive, but there was no gas in any of them. At least in the ones, I could consider starting.”
“That’s our doing. We drained every car there.”
I looked up to the guard tower and saw Jo leaning out the window, her red hair blowing in the wind, as she kept the man in the sights of her rifle. You didn’t want to mess with Jo. She could shoot the wings off a fly — while it was in flight.
“Listen,” Greg said, “I’ll be straight with you. We had some trouble with a group that came here asking for help, and then they tried to take more than we were willing to give. So we’re not in the trusting mood we once were.”
“I can tell you that I’m alone and mean no trouble,” the man said putting his hands up in a gesture of supplication.
“Now really, if you meant us harm, would you tell us?” I said.
“Point taken,” the man said, shaking his head and smiling.
“How’d you end up here?” Greg asked. “We’re a decent distance off 23, and north of the direction you were heading.”
“I considered staying in the town, but I wanted to get off the road. While I was coming down 23, I saw a billboard down on the road, and this place was advertised on it. I thought it might be a good place for me to spend the night.”
“What assurances do we have that you won’t cause any problems?”
“Okay, what if I give you all of my gear, including my weapons and you keep me under lock and key if you want. Let me be honest. I don’t want to spend a night alone with all the zombies out there. You look like you have a good setup here: safe and controlled. I’m good with my hands; maybe I could work in exchange for safety?”
“How do you know we’re safe?” Greg asked.
This gave the man some pause. Something in the set of his face told me that he hadn’t considered this.
Some distant sense of warning went off inside my head. If I were Spider-Man, I’d say it was my spider sense. It wasn’t a blaring klaxon, but more of a nagging bit of concern like a scratch that didn’t heal. I looked to Greg, and he glanced my way quickly and back to the stranger.
The man took a moment to reply. “Well, I guess if you had wanted me dead, then someone would have shot me when I came up the driveway. Besides, you have guard towers and observation rooms on the front corners of your building. I would imagine you have them on the back.”
“What’s your name?” Greg asked.
“Nate. Nate Billings.”
“Well, Nate, I’m Greg, and my friend here is Joel. We’ll give this a try,” Greg said. “I need you to take off your holster and gun stay where you are. Our guards will come out and escort you in. We’ll give you a hot meal and a warm bed. You’ll be confined to a locked room and under guard. Our leadership will discuss any extended arrangements and let you know. For now, you have a one-night pass. Does that work for you?”
The man smiled broadly. “Yes, it does. I’m just glad to have a safe haven. At least for the night.”
Greg stepped beside me as Jo, and another guard went out of the gate, collected the man’s gear, and escorted him inside.
“You feeling something’s off here, too?” I asked.
“Keep an eye on him, Joel. His story doesn’t fit together all that well.”
“Then, why are we letting him stay at all?”
“Let’s not discuss it out here. We’ll talk later.”
We had planned to have our little talk sooner rather than later, but events unfolded just after we got our guest buttoned down in a locked basement room that postponed our discussion.
I was coming up from the basement when I heard a commotion from the dining area. Shouting carried my way, drifting down the hallway leading into The Manor. I felt my adrenaline pumping, but as I made my way there, I could tell there was no alarm or fear in the tone of the yelling, just anger. Maybe even outrage. I could also tell that it was the voice of Brother Ed, and my concern turned to dread. I wondered what kind of shit storm he was stirring up now?
“People, we are being kept in the dark by our benevolent leaders,” Brother Ed’s shout echoed down the hallway towards me, as I half-jogged in the direction of the dining hall.
I entered the room to see him standing, his arms spread, taking in the group. “They say that they have our best interest at heart, but they are keeping secrets from us,” he said, as he milked the drama from each word.
Brother Ed spotted me, and I felt as if I had just entered the lion’s den. More than thirty people were in the room. Some sat in bewilderment. Some looked more than a little annoyed while others were just plain pissed off. A part of me wanted to do an about-face and head back in the direction I had come, but I knew that there’d be no running away. Not this time. This storm had been brewing for weeks, and it was time to get wet.
“And this man,” he said, pointing at me, “might just be one of the biggest problems. Joel, why don’t you tell everyone about your so-called visions.”
I second guessed my original impulse to run then. Like a high-powered spotlight, all eyes went to me. There’s attention that’s good, like the warm, adoring look of fans, and there’s attention that’s bad. This wasn’t the good type.
Running wasn’t a real option, so I came into the room cautiously trying to portray confidence and poise, but not sure if I were pulling it off. I looked over my shoulder and wondered where the hell Greg was? Of the leadership team, only Kara and Brandon were in the room.
“What’s the issue here, Ed?” I asked in a calm, reassuring tone but really knowing it annoyed him when he wasn’t called ‘Brother Ed.’ Oh well, walking into the room was a sign of maturity, wasn’t it?
“You’ve been keeping the good people here in the dark,” he said.
“Brother Ed,” Kara said, taking the high road, “we’ve already discussed this. The leadership team deeply considers all issues, and sometimes we decide it’s best to work behind the scenes.”
“Like not telling us about his visions?” Mrs. Hatcher said as she stood and pointed at me. She drew out the word his as if she were stepping in a pile of shit.
Another one of Brother Ed’s clan, an older man with gray hair and a hawk-like nose, stood and asked, “What about these visions?”
“It’s not a big thing,” I said, raising my hands and patting the air in a gesture that I hoped calmed the crowd. Hope was all I had because the audience was definitely not turning in our favor. “I had some strange dreams. Some might call them visions. I don’t put all that much credence into them.”
Mrs. Hatcher entered the fray again, “This is rich. He’s the one claiming to have visions from God. That’s a laugh.”
“Like I said, let’s not make a big deal out of them,” I said.
“Then what what’s the story with the guy do
wn in the infirmary?” Steve Hampton asked.
That was a show stopper. People started whispering and looking in my direction. We should have known there was no way to keep Jason’s presence a secret. I was hoping that Greg would take that moment to enter the scene, but he didn’t. It was the three of us left holding the bag, and there was a lot of anger in that bag.
“And what about the guy you just locked in the basement?” someone asked from behind me.
“No one asked us if we should allow more people in,” Mrs. Hatcher shouted.
The floodgates opened, and it was all over but the shouting. And that’s all that was happening. It seemed nearly every person in the place started yelling at once. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to shout above the din. I watched as a couple of guys got in each other’s faces, and I could tell that fisticuffs were close to follow. Kara tried to get to me, but two women got between us and started shouting questions at her.
One of the two ‘in-your-face’ men stumbled backward into my field of view, obviously shoved by the other one. The offended party drew back a fist and started toward the shovee, and that’s when the shooting started.
Well, I should just say, two shots were fired. Everybody went quiet, and all heads turned to the back of the room where Brandon stood, his assault rifle aimed at the ceiling where two neat bullet holes now appeared.
“That’s enough of that, isn’t it?” he asked.
I think my mouth hung open, and I looked to Kara, and she was just as stunned as I was. A group of people backed away from Brandon, and I started towards him.
“You people just need to calm down,” he said. “We’re all on the same team.”
Yes, we were, but we had one of our own terrorizing all the rest of us with his gun and not realizing it.
I got in front of Brandon and whispered, “Lower your weapon.”
“What?” he asked, not fully comprehending the situation.
“You’ve just scared the shit out of everyone,” I said, my voice pitched low. “You need to stand down.”
It took him a few seconds, but he got it. It didn’t keep him from storming out of the room, embarrassed after I had just dressed him down. At that point, his hurt feelings were the worst of my worries.
“Listen, folks,” I said, “Brandon may not have started out with the right tactics, but he is right. We’re all on the same team, but it’s late, and some people here have had long days. What I can promise you is that we will talk to you tomorrow and will tell you everything we know.” (Well, almost everything.) “Can we do that?”
Most of the people nodded and started towards the exits, but a few people still had their mad on. Especially Mrs. Hatcher. It took every bit of my limited restraint not to stick my tongue out at her.
When she saw that she and Brother Ed were the only angry people left in the room, she must have understood she had lost the argument. At least, for tonight.
Chapter 22
The Fall
They were on the move by 4:00 AM. The air was crisp and moist. It reminded Anthony of the mornings when he would get up with his family to get a jumpstart on vacation. His father, Troy, would get him and his brother up, rousting them still in their pajamas into the back of the station wagon. They would then head to the mountains for a week of roughing it. Roughing it meant that they would hunt in the early morning, and his dad would be drunk by nightfall. If his dad took down a deer, things were right with the world. If dad didn’t, there was a distinct possibility that he would knock Mom around, and if she put up too much of a fight, he’d decide one of the boys would be his target.
Because Anthony was smart, his dad would start with him. Troy wasn’t much of a thinking man and never cared for all that fancy book learning. In fact, he had nothing but contempt for the men who went on to college. They were nothing but weak, soft-handed eggheads who didn’t know shit about an honest day’s work.
Anthony had always been bookish. It was something his mother had cultivated in him but always behind the back of his old man. If the old man caught him with his nose in a book, more than often than not, that meant a smack in the back of the head or a swift kick in the ass. It was no light smack or kick, either. The old man meant business. Most times, Anthony ended up on the floor, crying. The old man hated crying more than anything. He always called Anthony his little princess whenever he started crying.
If the physical abuse wasn’t enough, his father was equally skilled in verbal combat, but was never clever barbs. More like blunt hammers. Besides the crying, his dad knew where to drive the knife home. Anthony had been born an albino. The old man nearly crapped his pants, and for some time, he claimed his wife must have stepped out on him because no son of his would turn out to be a freak. Over time, his father accepted that this wasn’t the case. Still, he was none too happy about having a genetic freak for a son and used it against Anthony any chance he could get. There were no clever puns or witty words, though. Pussy, little faggot, or his little white princess was as clever as Troy ever got. For a precocious little boy, it was hurtful enough.
Fancy book learning was bad enough, but crying sent the old man into a real shit fit. That’s what the old man called them. His eyes would narrow, and his fists would clinch. The only thing that saved little Tony from an old fashioned ass whipping was his mother who usually ended up taking the beating instead.
God, how Anthony missed that woman. She had been the one bright spot in a torturous childhood. She was the one that nurtured him while his father did everything he could to tear him down. But as soon as little Tony left the house, she was gone, leaving the old man alone with his drinking and his anger.
A brain aneurysm took her from the world years before the zombies came on the scene. He was thankful and disappointed at the same time that she was no longer around. She would be proud of the man he had become. When the old man had nothing but brazen contempt for him and his career, she was proud.
A college professor was the epitome of everything the old man despised in the world. Maybe that’s why Anthony strived so hard to become a professor – to spite the old man.
He had always been gifted with electrical things. As a young kid, he took apart the toaster and put it back together. While his mother thought it was a fantastic feat for a nine-year-old, when the old man found out, Tony ended up with a black eye and three bruised ribs.
Despite the abuse and lack of encouragement from his father, Anthony aced every science class and graduated from the local high school with honors. With limited support from his mother, and none from his father, he went off to college, majoring in electrical engineering. He was so gifted that he received multiple offers for graduate assistantships. Since his albinism made him an outcast, he had none of the distractions that other male students had with women. He could focus on his studies almost completely, sailing through his master’s degree and right onto his doctorate. He felt primed for either a place in a Top Level research lab for a Fortune 500 company, or, at least, a teaching position somewhere, but that’s where the wheels came off his future. After sending out literally hundreds of applications and applying for multiple teaching positions, his search came up dry. The only place that would take him was the local college where he taught their general science courses.
Bitterness and resentment simmered under his controlled veneer as he wondered how the hell he had ended up back where he started. Back in the town and with the people he had desperately tried to get away from. What he didn’t know was that while he was an excellent student, his anti-social tendencies worked against him. His professors didn’t outright blackball him; there were things they didn’t say that really doomed him. When asked about how Tony fit in, they were largely silent although one of the faculty members on his committee called him an odd duck, but he asked that it not be made public.
The job at the college was a thankless one. He took on all the basic level crap courses so that the senior faculty could be free from the hassles of teaching entry-level idiots. He was
able to keep his contempt for most of the dolts to himself, but it came out with the egregiously stupid ones. These were the ones that called him Professor “Whitey” behind his back.
He went from day-to-day teaching his courses to retreating into himself. His only solace was found in his pet electrical projects. Experiments with control systems. It was his long-term goal to invent something revolutionary that he could sell off for a blue million dollars and then say adios to this backwoods asshole of a town. But he never seemed to be able to pull off that one breakthrough he needed, and this frustrated him even more.
The zombie apocalypse changed everything. There’d be no revolutionary invention making his rich beyond his dreams. But there was a chance to own the town that treated him like a freak.
“Excuse me,” a voice broke Anthony from his trip down memory lane.
He looked blankly at the woman’s face. Her expression was both fearful and timid.
“Didn’t you want to turn back there,” she said, pointing backward. “The plan…your plan had us turning a block back.”
Anthony drove one bus, and his new second in command, Rex, drove the second one. It was time to put all the practice into performance. He would learn just how good his recruits were, and this could be his next step in taking the city.
The trip across town was a short one under the moonless sky. The darkness acted like a veil for their operation, masking much of the details of their movements.
His troops would come at the church from the west, and the other group would come from the east. The west had the weakest defenses after the battle with the soldiers. In fact, they were so weak that he felt he could blow hard and the walls would come tumbling down. But to be safe, he brought his grenade launcher and left Rex with some other interesting toys.
They unloaded their zombies quietly and efficiently. The woman named Wendy was with him, and she went about the task of herding the zombies into a group on the side street away from the church without his having to say a word. All that training was paying off.
Anthony scanned the church through his night vision goggles and saw little or no movement. He expected one or two guards, but not much more.
