Roy, face flushed with anger and probably embarrassment, stepped back and let the shotgun barrel drop to point at the ground. He’d screwed up, not paying attention to the one thing he was supposed to do, which was watch out for me, his partner. With the long, awkward pole in my hands, my ability to defend myself was limited. Roy was charged with providing close cover. That was how this process worked, and he’d failed. He would never get that chance with again, I vowed.
I sighed, suddenly weary. Not just from the sudden adrenalin dump, either. Zombie wrestling might never make it as a mainstream sport in the post-Apocalyptic world, but I felt like I’d been in training for an alternate’s spot on the Olympic team all day. Just horsing that pole around worked muscles I usually didn’t even acknowledge having.
“Let’s fall back,” I finally said. “We’re done for the day.”
The other man nodded sullenly but didn’t say a word as we trudged back to the idling semi. This Peterbilt featured a modified, reinforced frame with skid plates underneath and an all-metal shell replacing the fiberglass body most often seen on these kinds of rigs. The massive tractor was further altered to boast an oversized sleeper compartment with an extra row of seats behind the ones for the driver and copilot, or as Patty called it, the ship’s bridge.
Stalking up to the side of the beast, I stowed my capture pole in an upright “boot” fashioned out of canvas by Ken and made just for the tools. The man was very handy that way, and this was one of many reasons I was glad the older couple inexplicably decided to hang with me once we reached Livingston. He was handy and mechanically inclined, while his wife, Patty, was great in the garden and was also a steady shot. Nice combination, I thought.
Without a word, I gestured for Roy to assume the front passenger seat and I took up position behind him while Patty assumed a similar position behind her husband, Ken.
“Where to, boss?” Ken asked, acting as if he was oblivious to the tension in the cab. Ken Satterwhite possessed a highly sensitive nature that his rough, thick form and square features served to mask. Though he’d missed the details, he knew something had gone wrong out on the road and he was determined not to let it interfere with the mission at hand.
“The mad scientist’s lair,” I replied evenly. I was busy trying to hang that name on the newly liberated and reinforced urgent care clinic in Goodrich. I figured even a dim bulb like Roy would soon discover the purpose of the place. For the moment, I wasn’t broadcasting this latest bit of news beyond the walls of our compound.
“On it,” Ken replied, and he goosed the engine and smoothly shifted gears.
“They got a holding pen set up there yet?” Patty asked, and I gave her one of my crooked smiles. I never thought of them that way, of course, but Roxy warned me that when I smiled these days, I sometimes made people nervous. I guess it just didn’t look quite right.
“Colonel said they did. If not, we’ll dump ’em out on the highway. They can just wander around until needed.”
“He going to pay as we go? I’d like to get my money today for this first group,” Roy said anxiously, and I bit back my first response as Ken asked a question of his own.
“What’s the rush? We’ll get this done in just a few days. Already got a third of them in the truck and we just started.”
Patty looked at me and shook her head. Ken didn’t get it, but then he wasn’t in position to see exactly what happened out there on the road. She was top cover, and Roy was supposed to be close cover, but he booted that job in just a few seconds of inattention. Sure, he’d seen me capture seven zombies already, but that didn’t mean it was Miller Time when I was trying to hook up number eight. I didn’t have to say anything to her. She knew Roy wouldn’t be coming with me. Not ever again.
“Well, I heard they got some new … entertainment just cleared quarantine in town. I want to get some silver so I can go and see about those entertainers before they all get claimed. You know,” Roy said, and I could tell his unease came from having Patty in the cab with us.
“Entertainment? What, they open a new bar?” I asked idly, not really caring what the man had to say. In my mind, he was already off the island. He’d get his silver directly from me today, one third of the agreed amount, and then he was somebody else’s problem.
“No, no,” Roy stammered. “I heard some new girls came to town. And I heard they were, you know, professionals.”
Oh, fuck no, I thought.
“Professional what?” I asked, my voice rising a little. But only someone who knew me, like Ken or Patty, would catch it.
“You know, Brad, professional, ah, escorts. From down south, is all I heard.”
Before I could form a coherent response, Patty spoke up. She knew who they were, of course. I’d briefed my people as soon as I hit the main building back at Pederson.
“Roy, you moron, those aren’t hookers,” she snarled through gritted teeth. “I heard those girls were slaves of the gang claiming to run Beaumont. You can’t go up and offer them silver for sex like they were regular party girls. They’re liable to cut that little nub of a pecker you got right off and feed it to you.”
“Whoa, ma’am. I’m just saying what I heard,” Roy backpedaled, and I could tell he was wishing he’d just kept his mouth shut.
“Well, you spread the word,” I ground out the words. “Tell your friends they are under my protection. I saved them from the horde and that fucking gang already. That was a lot of work for no pay and I was out the cost of ammo. That does not make me happy. I don’t mind sharing my unhappiness with anybody that gives me reason. Hassling those ladies will put you on my bad list. You don’t want to end up there. Not ever. You read me?”
Roy looked back, and whatever he saw in my eyes made him whimper a little bit. Now, I’m not exactly what you’d call a bully, in fact I hated them, but everybody who knew anything in the Safe Zone already figured out I was a serious individual. What the older folks would call a hardcase, maybe. Crazy, too, on top of that. I didn’t make it a habit of killing breathers for pissing me off, but folks knew those bikers weren’t the first real live humans I’d exed out in this new world.
“Yeah, boss, sure thing. So, I’m still getting paid, right?”
“Yes, Roy, you’re still getting paid for today,” I said, and the tight confines of the truck’s cab lapsed into silence as we made for the clinic. I needed to drop off our load of zombies, and then I would go and interview these six ladies. See if any of them might be a fit for a possible job at the Pederson Resort and Marina. Maybe one of them could cook. On top of the promised electrical engineer, we could use some help in the kitchen. Roxy had her hands full with the kids and neither Ken nor Patty was what you’d call domestically inclined, even if they weren’t busy keeping the place running.
Thinking about what all still needed to be done this spring, I grudgingly agreed the colonel was right. We needed more willing hands, but I wasn’t about to sacrifice our security to play nursemaid to a bunch of chipped china dolls. They could be damaged goods all they wanted on their own time. When there was work to do, though, anybody who planned to stay at the compound would by God pull their own weight and do the work assigned.
Feeling better after my self-inflicted pep talk, I looked out the windows at the filthy remains of a once thriving little town and reflected on the changes in everything within sight. Most of the buildings remained, but no one lived here. Not anymore. Wreckers and heavy military vehicles might have cleared the roadways for easier use, but nothing on Earth could erase all the blood splatter, now mostly a series of black scars on cars and buildings, and the lingering stink of death in the streets.
At least the retarded decay of the hungry dead ceased almost as soon as you put one of them down for good. Boom, a bullet to the brain, and suddenly Mother Nature hurries in to reclaim her own. The bacteria would start doing its job and the scavengers come out. We hustle to dispose of the corpses, as they become a feast for the blackbirds that covered the ground like dark snow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dropping the First Wave zeds in the holding pen only took a few minutes. I just walked around to the other side of the enclosure, held up my arms, and waved them at the zombies as Ken unlatched the metal door and dropped the ramp. The First Wavers saw my movement and surged out of one cage and into another. They might be getting smarter, I mused, but they had a long way to go.
The holding pen was a forty-foot by forty-foot square, with one gate and six rows of four-inch-diameter, hollow drilling pipe welded together and a dozen strands of barbed wire running up eight feet. The fence posts were ten feet sticking out of the ground, and I guessed another three or more feet stuck into the ground, anchoring the metal structure.
The cage might be overbuilt to hold King Kong instead of twenty zombies, but I still approved. One of those bastards might wise up tomorrow and remember he is the last son of Krypton. If that happened, then we were all screwed unless the colonel had a line on some kryptonite bullets.
Captain Natushek himself was present at the clinic when we stopped, or so I was told. One of the corporals on guard duty went inside to inform the company commander, while I lured the hungry dead out of the massive cattle trailer and into their new temporary home. Five minutes and I was helping Ken reseal the cargo ramp.
Roy was off by himself, probably taking his shoes off so he would have enough digits to count out all the many ways he managed to screw up today. He would get a lift back to the marina to pick up his truck from the parking lot, silver in hand, and a formal notification that his services were no longer required.
“You getting more?” the captain asked without preamble. He was that kind of a guy. Direct and no bullshit. Another of the reasons I liked the young officer.
“Yes, but not today. Worried about the rain, so we stopped early,” I said, only stretching the truth a bit. After what happened on the road, I wanted to talk to somebody, and fast.
“Back out tomorrow, though, right? Doc can start his standard tests on these guys, I reckon, but we will need more of the leatherfaces pretty quick.”
“Yessir, that’s the plan. Now, do you have time to take a little walk with me?” I asked, lowering my voice so only my team could hear.
Natushek nodded, then popped off, “You’re not planning anything are you, Mr. McCoy? I expect my virtue to remain intact.”
“Not with you, Captain. I just have a few questions.”
So we stepped away from the pen and the big rig and took a few steps to stand on the small patch of grass growing next to the parking lot. I noted Natushek had his M4 unslung and cradled in his arms like a baby. Probably felt pretty close to his rifle by now. I didn’t know if officers usually carried rifles before the First Wave, but they darned sure did now.
“What’s up, Mac?”
Some of the guys called me that. I answered to that, or Brad, or “hey you” most of the time.
I scuffed the ankle-length grass with my heavy boots, studying the green for any signs of a crawler. Or a head. Even the freaking heads could be dangerous if the brain wasn’t damaged in the process of removal. Most of the civvies and even some of the soldiers might not know that, so I always checked.
“You talk to the colonel recently? About why Singh is out here playing House of Horrors in the first place?”
Natushek nodded. “McKinney. And the changes in zed behavior.”
Then it was my turn to nod before continuing. “He told me he thinks they are getting smarter. Remembering longer, beginning to learn how to use tools. Got a report to that effect, anyway.”
Natushek grunted in agreement, and I could tell he was anxious for me to get to the point.
“Well, I think he’s right, Captain. I saw something today, and well, I figured I needed to pass it on to someone up the food chain.”
“You mean chain of command?”
“No, I know what that is, too. I figure food chain is more appropriate given the circumstances.”
Natushek barked a short laugh at the attempted levity. Then he pressed again. “What did you see, Mac? Just give it to me straight.”
“I saw one dodge the capture stick. Like he knew what it was, and he just stepped around it and nearly got me. One of the First Wave I was trying to bring in for you guys. It would have been number eight.”
“He get up close?” Natushek asked in surprise. He knew me and knew my reputation. I didn’t exactly enjoy going out there and mixing it up hand-to-hand with the dead, but he knew I was capable.
“I don’t think he could have chewed through my jacket, but I smoked him before he got the chance. But yeah, he got right up on me awful quick.”
“And you’re sure it was on purpose? Not just a lucky stumble?”
“No, I’m sure. I was looking right at him, Captain. The bastard was watching me with those dead white eyes, and I swear he gave it one hell of a juke at the last second. He gave that noose, and me, a little head fake and stepped away from the capture stick. Then he was all zombie, diving in for the kill.”
I stopped talking then, glancing around the dead parking lot of the small shopping center bordering the clinic. I ticked off the storefronts: drug store, Chinese restaurant, and an auto parts store. I saw piles of dead zeds, likely taken out by Natushek’s men, but I was, as always, on the lookout for more. Like a shark, I had to keep swimming to live.
“That really why you stopped early?”
There was no condemnation in his voice, only a real question. That was his way.
“Not all of it. The rain is coming, and the footing will get slick. But, I also needed to let somebody know. This could be a real problem.”
That was a huge understatement. Since the first days, zombies were predictable in their lack of coordination, insatiable hunger for living flesh, and a mindless devotion to getting that first bite. Problem solving for a zombie had been watching them take three minutes to figure out how to get their body vertical again after taking a stumble over a parking lot curb.
“You think we need to bring everybody in? Circle the wagons?”
I shook my head vigorously, fixing the captain with a grim look as I did so. “Do you think it would work? Go quiet and hope the hungry dead will just pass us by?”
Natushek seemed to think about the questions for a second before answering. “No. Whatever is changing in these fucking pus bags, I don’t have a clue. But, my money is whatever they got going on will make them better predators. If we can’t trick them so easy anymore, then I don’t see how that would work. Plus, we got better than ten thousand folks here and fields of crops growing to feed them. How are we going to do that and stay hidden?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. No, we can’t hide, and I’m not running anymore.”
“Which just leaves fighting them,” Natushek said.
“No, Captain. That just leaves exterminating them. We got to get better, I got to get better, at killing these fucking things and doing it on a wholesale level. If we don’t, they are going to pick our bones clean before you know it.”
“Mac, that’s pretty grim, even from you,” Natushek said. “Maybe you should have another talk to the boss.”
“Yeah, I plan of doing that. And speaking of grim, well, just take a look around.”
Natushek waited and then gave a little nod. “I see your point. Already just about as grim as you can fucking get. Sometimes, you know, you can forget about the old world for just a few minutes. Forget it wasn’t always like this.”
I thought about what the captain was saying. Things were never going back, and there’s not much chance of fixing what’s gone wrong. Then he continued.
“But this new development, if it really is something, well, so what? I mean, they’re still dead things, no matter how much they might learn or remember. My family, your family, ain’t coming back.”
“Well, hell, Captain, I know that. Mine ain’t anyway. Since I had to put them down already. No getting better from that, for fuck’s sake.”
Th
ere. I finally said it aloud. Everybody alive today had a similar story, I’m sure. I killed my wife, shot her in the head, and then put down the thing my son was turning into when I found them.
Natushek whipped his head around to regard me. We all talked about our losses in the abstract from time to time but seldom, if ever, as directly as I just did. The subject wasn’t taboo, not quite, but very few chose to share. I don’t know why I said it. Maybe because I saw a similar pain in the young captain’s eyes. I knew he lived alone in the bachelor quarters, despite the wedding ring on his finger.
“Well, then Mr. Exterminator, you better get your rear in gear and come up with some new tricks, because if we get half a million dead heading this way, we got all kinds of trouble.”
The young captain with the eyes of an old man had quite a gift for understatement.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The whitewashed room was part of an old veterinary clinic the Guard converted into a quarantine center, and outside the interview room the décor was nicer than one might expect in a pet hospital. The idea was to hold people in comfort, after all, not punish them for coming back in to civilization. The site was appropriated simply because it was located adjacent to the front gate and no one had taken up residence yet. Plus, the cinderblock building was pretty secure and already had several lockable rooms.
Technically, every time I entered the Safe Zone, I needed to spend forty-eight hours in the Q, as we called it, but that plan quickly fell apart within the first few weeks of the order going out. Nothing was getting done, as the men doing the heavy lifting, sometimes literally, were stuck sitting in quarantine.
Instead, the colonel came up with a work-around, and now I just stripped down and submitted to a bite check every time I came in for a visit. Quicker and more efficient that way. Whatever modesty I had went out the window after the first few times I had to expose my pale, white ass for inspection. Now, I didn’t even think about it. Given enough time and pressure, humans have the capacity to acclimate to just about anything. Our adaptability was one of the reasons I thought we as a species still had a chance against the dead.
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