by R. J. Spears
He communicated with the other group to the east via walkie-talkie and discovered they were nearly to their set position. He took one last scan of the church and saw the green silhouette of a lone figure moving on the roof. That was to be expected. There might be less of the church people now, and their building may be damaged, but they weren’t idiots. They would have lookouts, and there was no hiding their buses approach. But it didn’t matter. It was game time.
He nodded for Wendy to move the zombies forward, and she obediently complied, propelling the zombies along with a series of electric shocks. Anthony walked just ahead of the herd, carrying the grenade launcher. They had the cover of the houses to block most of their movements for now, but as soon as they hit the parking lot, that advantage would end. By then, though, it wouldn’t matter. The people in the church would be in a world of hurt.
He moved to the corner of the building and knelt down. People moved behind the windows on the second floor. It looked like only a few people. It was probably better to get the attack in motion before the church was fully at battle stations. He checked in with the other team one last time.
“Team 2, are you ready?” he asked.
Rex responded a second later. “We’re locked and loaded.” Anthony thought he could hear some anticipation in Rex’s voice. Anthony was beginning to like this man. Rex was fully with the program. He considered the idea of getting more recruits but brushed it away. There was a battle to be won; then, he could consider expansion.
“Be ready for my cue,” Anthony said then put the walkie-talkie away.
He motioned for Wendy to step back a few paces, then raised the grenade launcher to his shoulder, and sighted on the side doors of the church. A second later, he pressed the fire button and even faster than that, the doors blew away in a fiery explosion.
Chapter 23
Truth and Consequences
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this. People will talk,” I said, trying to cut the tension with a little humor, but it fell flat. We were in some serious shit. The group was splintering. The free-for-all that Brandon had silenced with his gunshots was just more evidence of the fissures forming in our happy little family. Even the hastily arranged town hall meeting that we had just come from did little to calm down the agitators in our midst.
We had someone who claimed to be immune to the zombie virus in our infirmary, and another guy locked in a room in the basement who wasn’t telling us his real story. Worst of all, we had secrets, but they were so thinly veiled that anyone could see through them. We had revealed that we had brought in a seriously ill survivor. We also told the people at the meeting about taking in a prisoner. We didn’t tell them about Jason’s claim to be immune, and we didn’t tell them our suspicions that our prisoner might be a spy or some sort of infiltrator.
All these secrets were tearing at the fabric of our community. That we were meeting in a clandestine manner in a mechanical room in the basement in the middle of the night probably didn’t help.
Greg looked at me for a moment then around at the others, Travis, Kara, Brandon, and Hub. Doc Wilson was noticeably absent.
“We have some decisions to make,” Greg said. “These are not going to be easy, and we need to think them out carefully. First, the man at the gate isn’t telling us the truth about how he got here and why.”
“How do you know that?” Kara asked.
“There are too many holes in his story,” Greg said.
“Like what?” Travis asked.
“He said he was traveling south to his family, but when his car broke down in Lucasville, he came back north, then left the highway to come to us,” Greg replied. “That doesn’t make sense. We’re not that far off the road, but definitely not visible.”
“He said he saw a billboard north of here advertising The Manor and decided to see if it were a safe place to stay,” I said.
“But there are a dozen or more places in town or even south of town,” Greg said.
Brandon cut through all the details and got at the core question, “Then why did we even let him in at all?”
Greg, being the contemplative person that he was, paused and collected his thoughts before he responded. “If we had sent him away, we wouldn’t know why he was here.”
Before he could continue, Travis interrupted, “Do you think he’s with the guys who tried to shoot us up?”
“No,” Greg said, gently shaking his head, “but there’s something about him that doesn’t fit.”
“Well, he’s not as dirty as hell,” I said, “and he doesn’t stink, either.”
“Yes, there’s that,” Greg said. “Plus, he seems to be in great shape. If he had been out there surviving on his own for as long as he says he has, it seems like he would have lost weight like all of us have.”
Everyone, including me, checked themselves as if the pounds had just disappeared overnight. With limited food sources, we had cut back. In our pre-zombie apocalypse days, we would have flaunted our new svelte forms, but now we were just hungry and, while none of us were near starvation like Jason, we were trending towards skinny.
“I checked his weapon, and it was clean as a whistle,” Greg continued. “Now, he could be what he says, a traveler on his way to family, but he said he was from Columbus. I’ve got to think, getting out of there wasn’t easy, and if he had been holed up there for all this time, he certainly would have had to have seen some action.”
“Well, and there’s something else that I wanted to bring up that I think is sort of out there, but I thought I should mention it,” I said.
“You are nothing if not unconventional,” Greg said.
“This could be totally off base, and not all of you were there,” I said, “but we had a drone fly over the church when we were in town just like the one the other day. Not too soon after that, we had a guy show up.”
“You mean Hack?” Greg said.
“Yes,” I said. “How different was Hack from this guy?” I let that sink in for a moment. “He was a lone traveler, heading east in search of family. He was more than competent when it came to weapons.” I looked to Greg. “And do you remember how he used to disappear at times?”
“Now, that you mention it,” Greg said, “I remember that he did miss a couple foraging team missions.”
“What are you trying to say?” Travis asked. “You’re saying someone sent Hack to infiltrate our group for some reason? And this guy, too? What do we have that could be of interest to someone else, and who the hell would do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“It’s got to be military,” Greg said.
“This is just crazy,” Kara said. “Why can’t he be just who he says he is?”
“It’s not fitting together like that,” Greg said. “Who else would be left out there with any soft of organization that could pull this off?”
Kara said, “Or are we just being paranoid?”
Being direct again, Brandon said, “Then, why don’t we go down there and ask him why he is here?” The corners of his mouth turned up, but there was no mirth in his eyes.
“That’s the question, I guess,” Greg said. “If he’s here under a false pretense, I doubt if he would come out and tell us that willingly.”
“And I say we ask him forcefully if we have to,” Brandon said.
“You guys are talking about torture,” Hub said, looking at Greg.
Greg couldn’t meet Hub’s stare.
“I don’t think that’s what we want to be about,” Kara said.
“Earth to Kara, Earth to Kara. You’re going to have to grow up and live in our reality,” Brandon said, shaking his head in annoyance. “Things have changed. You have to do what you have to do to protect the people you care about. We gave those pieces of shit some of our much-needed food, and they shot Aaron. They would have killed Joel if he hadn’t been wearing the vest.”
“There’s got to be some other way,” Kara said.
“Like what
? Stare at him hard and wait for him to blink?” Brandon asked, his face flushing with color. “I think we’re at a place where we get the information we need by any means necessary.”
“What about just letting him go without his weapons?” Hub asked.
“You know,” Brandon said, “for a tough old guy, you’re about as soft as a tub of butter left out in the sun.”
“Letting him go is an option, but I don’t like it,” Greg said. “He’s here for a reason. Letting him go leaves a lot of question unanswered, and those answers could be important.”
“Then, why don’t we just let him out and observe him?” Kara asked.
“Too much risk and it will take too much manpower to do that,” Greg said. “Plus he would probably see through that.”
“Are we voting, then?” Travis asked.
“What are we really voting on?” I asked. “Letting him go or torturing him for answers?”
“Let’s start with the easy one,” Greg said. “Let’s see a show of hands. Who wants to let him go?”
Only two hands went up. Hub and Kara. That ended that question.
“Who thinks we need to get information any way we can?”
“No. You need to say it,” Kara said. “You need to say the word. You need to make it real. Torture. That’s the word. Are we going to torture a possibly innocent man to get information?”
“That’s about it,” Brandon said. “I can say it and do it if I have to.”
“Then say it.” Kara said, locking eyes with Brandon.
“Yes, I can torture the son of a bitch if it comes to that,” Brandon said not backing down.
“Okay, okay, but does it have to be about beating the guy with a whip or some other medieval barbarism?” I asked. “Can’t we start with depriving him of food and water?”
I looked to Kara, and I could tell that any kind of torture was off the table from her by the heat of her stare back at me.
“That could take days,” Brandon said. “What if he has fifty or sixty buddies who are ready to attack us if he doesn’t come back with some intell on us in a day or two? Then we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our ass like sitting ducks?
“Kara, I don’t like this any more than you do, but something is off about this guy. We should start there,” Greg said. “Time for a show of hands on depriving him of food and water if he doesn’t talk.”
The vote was quick, and my hand went up in favor of that with Kara being the lone vote of dissent.
“Aren’t we going to vote on the more direct method?” Brandon asked.
“Let’s give this first method some time,” Greg said, “then we can re-evaluate it. Just in case, we’ll double up guard duty the next couple days. And we’ll have to take turns watching the…the….”
“Prisoner,” Kara practically spat out, “we have a prisoner.”
Before we moved to Plan B, we had to get through Plan A, which was interrogating the man. Since Kara and Hub didn’t want to consider Plan B or C, they opted out of going to see Nate Billings. Greg asked that Travis issue the orders to the perimeter guards so that left Greg, Brandon, and me. Oh joy, I was going to be a part of a good ole Spanish Inquisition.
We had him locked in the same storage room where the one attacker had hanged himself. We withheld that little detail from Billings when we put him inside.
Greg unlocked and opened the door with Brandon and me standing a few feet away with our pistols ready. Our caution turned out to be a bit of overkill since we found Billings lying on the cot we had provided. He rolled over when the door opened, his eyes blinking as he woke from a nap.
“Hey, guys,” he said, “what’s up?”
Greg signaled for us to follow him in. I holstered my pistol as we came into the small room, but Brandon kept his ready.
“It was nice to be able to sleep without having to keep one eye open,” Billings said. “You know what I mean?”
Greg ignored the question and cut to the chase, “Nate, we need to know why you are here?”
“I already told you,” Billings said. “I’m heading south to get to the family. I just happened upon your place.”
“We’re finding that a little hard to swallow,” Greg said.
“Like a big piece of horse shit,” Brandon said.
Greg shot Brandon a look.
“Listen, I don’t want any trouble,” Billings said, putting his hands in the air. “If you give me back my stuff, then I’ll be glad to move on.”
“That’s the problem,” Greg said, “we’re not sure we can let you go without knowing who you really are and why you’re here.”
“I already told you. I’m from Columbus on my way to Tennessee.”
And this is how it went for the next fifteen minutes. Greg would ask questions, Brandon would interject at times a little more bluntly, and I kept my mouth shut. Billings wasn’t giving an inch. We provided him with our suspicions, and he always had an answer, but each answer seemed too prepared and a little thin.
After Greg had had his fill, he said, “Nate, I’m sorry to do this, but we’re going to have to leave you in here until you decide to tell us the truth of why you’re here. And I’m even more sorry to tell you that you’re not getting any food or water until you start telling us the truth.”
That’s when things got interesting. Up until that little fact, Billings had stayed fairly calm, but as soon as Greg laid our cards on the table, he was up and on his feet.
He made it about two steps before Brandon jerked up his gun and aimed it directly at Billings’ head.
“Give me a reason,” Brandon said, his voice tight, and his eyes squeezed to slits. It was a little too much Dirty Harry for me, but Billings saw that Brandon meant business. I had one hand on my pistol and the other hand on Brandon’s shoulder.
“There’s no need for that,” I said, “right, Greg?”
“I don’t think so,” Greg said, “but it’s really up to Nate. You need time to think, right Nate?”
“You’re calling the shots,” Billings said as he backed up to his cot and held us in an intense stare, his eyes burning while his expression was controlled.
That’s how we left him until he escaped two nights later.
Chapter 24
The Fall II
The zombies surged toward the gaping hole where his grenade had exploded. They looked like green wraiths to Anthony as he watched through the night vision goggles. His fingers ran expertly over the keyboard, applying just the right amount of electric stimuli to the zombies’ pain center to urge them on. In no objective measure would he call them intelligent, but they understood pain. He used that pain to condition and control them as a chess master might move his pieces across the board.
The church people had been taken by surprise as he had planned. He imagined their shock and stunned actions inside. They’d be stumbling about in the dark, getting their weapons, and running to find out what was happening, but he knew better than to underestimate them. They were a plucky group. Even though they had been outnumbered in terms of fighters and also outgunned, they had taken the rogue soldiers down. Better to be cautious.
“Wendy,” he shouted, “Get ready to move your group forward.”
She nodded her head, but he could tell that she was scared.
“Don’t be nervous. It will go just as I planned.”
She nodded this time and tried to show him a confident smile, but it came across badly.
He brought the grenade launcher back up and aimed for the back corner of the building. He took a moment to steady his aim and then pulled the trigger. The wall at that area blew inward in a blast so intense that it caused Anthony to close his eyes for a second. When he reopened them, and the smoke cleared, he saw another point of access.
“Wendy, move your soldiers into that hole in the building I just created,” Anthony said.
She hesitated, and he shouted this time. “Do it now!”
Unconsciously, she reached for her neck, awaiting the shock, but
he gave her two seconds, and she went into action. With purpose, her zombie soldiers shuffled forward toward the hole.
He smiled to himself. His conditioning worked as well on the living as it did on the dead.
An explosion sounded from the other side of the building. Anthony checked his wristwatch. They were on time. His plan included a two-sided attack. If they had come in from one side, the church people would have an easier job defending themselves. This way, they’d have to separate their already limited supply of defenders. Soon they’d have to be fighting on the inside of their building as well as the outside.
Unlike human soldiers, who would approach with some sense of caution, the first zombies, unafraid, stumbled over the fallen bricks and inside the hole without any sense of fear or nervousness. The first of his soldiers were inside with only a few shots being fired from the defenders. This was better than he had planned.
Wendy’s group shambled across the parking lot and over the jumble of bricks lying on the ground. A shot rang out, and the lead zombie’s head exploded in a corona of blood and brain as it fell to the ground; its moribund comrades ignored it, continuing on.
Anthony sighed; the lead zombie: the first casualty. If you could call it that since the thing was already dead.
Still, he needed to make sure that whoever had taken that shot didn’t get off too many more. While he had an ample supply of undead soldiers, it wasn’t limitless. So, he scanned the building for a few seconds until he saw a muzzle flash from the roof.
He had watched the church people long enough to know that the roof was one of their strengths. Since it was flat, they could move freely from side-to-side, taking cover behind the brick wall surrounding the perimeter of the roof. It allowed for them to pop-up gopher-style, and pick off anyone or anything coming at the church. It was time to take away that advantage.
Anthony lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “Team two, team two, come in.”
Three seconds later, Rex responded, “Team two, here. Our soldiers are entering the building.”
