by catt dahman
If Pascal is alive, he could be with the doctor, but no matter what, Cal, be wary of that evil child…well...teenager by now,” Matt warned.
“He sounds like a demon, and around here, my people are just nervous enough to toss him in a bonfire and be done with him,” Cal admitted, “don’t think I am kidding. I’m not saying they are crude or chasing witches, nothing like that. We learned long ago not to abide any evil-doers with us.”
“Sounds like a good plan, to be honest. Pascal is pure evil. I doubt we know the depths of what he could do. We do know he and more were responsible for some of what the Reconstruction Army did.”
“I get the strong feeling that if he’s alive, he is biding his time and building up…some…not power…but like…an electrical charge. And when he lets it loose, it’ll
be as bad as the infection or the bombs.”
Cal’s jaw dropped. “We heard about them…the Reconstruction Army…about nine years ago?” He groaned and rubbed his face. “The stories I heard were horrible. If
half were true, then anyone with them needs to be put down like a rabid dog.”
“I was held captive by them,” Kim said, “what if I told you that the stories you have heard were probably a tenth as bad as they really were? The captivity had
messed me up so badly that months passed before I could be around people again.”
“That gives me chills,” Cal said.
Kim leaned forward, “You believe in demons and angels? I can tell you I felt evil running wild in the camp where I was held. And Pascal? I swear I saw with my own
eyes that he made bones dance for entertainment while he giggled.”
Cal shivered again. “Too bad that whole group wasn’t wiped out with lightning bolts.”
“We tried. Zombies, men with guns, and a little boy who is Pascal’s opposite did their best.”
“His opposite?”
“Zane. The RA had wanted Zane something fierce because he could do what he had called his tricks; they were amazing. He was a very good kid, and he had helped
out, but he was just a little boy and didn’t know what really to do.”
“So Zane made a ring of fire as one of our men sang the old song about it, and that kept Pascal off us. When we bugged out, wolves and wild dogs came for the scraps and to clean up, and we all had sworn we saw a lady smiling, Zane telling goodbye to her, and Zane saying the lady was his mama who was dead.”
“I see.”
Len continued. “I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but Zane is the balance for Pascal. He is the good. They had fought before, but neither had destroyed the other, I guess.”
Cal nodded. “In religion and nature, there is a balance; I think that is true.But the balance must be maintained; nature seeks to set itself right. Matter and black holes….” he chuckled. “If you dig a hole, you have a pile of dirt. All about balance.
I think you better find this bad doctor before he hurts more people, and you have to find this Pascal before he makes everything worse for the living.”
The door to the big office slammed open, and a teen girl tried to catch her breath. “Brother Cal….”
Julia jumped up to let the girl sit in her seat and handed her water.
“What is it, Anthea? Slow down and take your time….”
Tears ran down the young woman’s face. She was about twenty, but her terrified eyes made her seem younger.
“There is a problem at the garage on the far north wall. One of the bulls got loose and hit the wall full on and broke some boards, and the zombies must be working the wood from inside.
I could see hands and faces through the splintered boards, and the zombies were all moaning. A few were through, and we had one guy down and one bitten.”
Cal stood. “Jesus, have mercy. Anthea, go tell the boys to hitch some wagons and be ready to go. We can’t fight that many in here. Get the women and children in the wagons, and have the men load what they can. Move quickly.”
“But….”
“We knew this might happen at any time. Go. We have to get out now.”
The young woman flew from the room, and Cal rubbed his head.
“What’s happening, Cal?”
“It was the next big project: to wall off that garage which sits there as one of our walls, and the Zs have been in there for years. We don’t go near the garage, and they don’t get through the doors.
But if a bull damaged the doors, then the Zs are coming through. We knew it was our weak point, but we have spent time just trying to survive and have food….”
“Zs?” Teeg asked, and Cal nodded.
“So we kill them,” Matt said. It didn’t seem that big of a deal to him.
“Len, when you came here, I told you we buried our dead in the big garage; that wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t full disclosure.”
“We locked them in there, but they weren’t dead, as in the way we all once defined dead,” said Cal with a sigh, “we locked them behind the big doors so we were safe, but there’s a bunch there, always waiting…mostly quiet…at the north garage. I think more have come along in all this time.”
“You have zoms locked inside with you in the garage?”
“We are locked out. We didn’t think they could get out of there and past the doors, and they don’t eat. They’re family members of people here; we couldn’t stand to kill them, in case a cure comes up.”
Carl growled, “How many you reckon? Ten? Twenty?” They wouldn’t bug out, but kill those, and make it safe again. He was ready to fight.
“Nears I know…three…four hundred.”
“Dios, Mia,” Julia said.
“Three or four hundred?” Carl sputtered.
“You have enough ammo to take out twenty if you got all head shots,” Len said. “That was what I was teaching them: alternate means of protection and use of weapons. We have ammo…but enough for that many?
Maybe a grenade, I dunno, with an entire wall gone, they may be pouring in, and a thousand or more may be out there.”
“Go on, and get out. My people will follow you if you will abide that? The rest…we’ll do what we can,” Cal said to them, “we’ll run and start over.”
Matt shook his head. “Change of plans, Padre. You have us here, and we’re gonna fight; your settlement may be done for, but we’re not gonna have three or four
hundred starved ghouls chasing off everywhere.”
“What shall I do?”
Matt held back, suggesting that it was a little too late to take some basic precautions such as wearing good boots, having a bug out plan, and not depending on wooden doors to hold off a few hundred Zs. He coughed, letting Len resume his role as security and fighting expert.
“Go lead those people, and keep them calm. Get children and women in wagons; have the strongest women and men load supplies: linens, medical items, food, water, anything vital; and have your best shooters if you have any helping us,” ordered Len.
“We’ll hold them back so you can get your people to safety. Jules, I want you close to Cal, and get them to the gates and ready to move fast.We’ll head to Hopetown,” Len barked orders, “we can take you all in with us.”
“They sure can’t stay here with that much area being that weak,” Matt agreed.
Outside, Anthea had people line up wagons two by two and hitch them to oxen and horses. Mothers corralled children and put them into the wagons.
One wagon was filled with sacks of food, bedding, a large portable chicken coop full of hens and a rooster that squawked and sent feathers flying everywhere, a tired-looking coon dog, a lazy cat, containers of kitchen supplies, tarps, ropes, and several butter churns. Except for their clothing, they could have looked like old-fashioned families packing to cross the Wild West over a hundred years previously.
At another wagon, a family loaded small piglets, a dozen of them, while the pig parents watched closely.
“Don’t break ‘em,” a woman warned as they loaded boxes into the next wagon, �
�those are candles.”
As the chaotic packing continued, parents looked for supplies and tried to get their children stowed, and seven or eight men stood by with an assortment of guns at the ready for when the creatures came at them.
The next wagon was filled with worn sheets, blankets, sleeping bags, and quilts in the front section, and then women and men came running with heaping baskets of fruits and vegetables they had just harvested from the gardens to carry along. Huge as they were, the baskets had to be roped in tightly since they were stacked so high with food. Filled boxes also rose high from the wagon floor.
Three border collies had a herd of sheep in line and ready to move, taking their jobs just as seriously which made a few people smile.
Splintering wood cracked at the huge garage, and the moans were loud, allowing more than a trickle of walkers to get through the broken doors.
A man ran from the back of the building, but it was hard to tell if he were human or a zombie since his eyes were black and shiny with shock, half of his right hand was broken, splintered, and tattered from being bitten, and he moaned loudly and hissed.
He was in a hopeless state, bleeding and infected, so Len aimed and landed a head shot to put him down, causing the man’s wife or whomever she was to scream.
Carl lifted the woman, dodged her slaps, and told her the man was infected and gone. He told her that she should get back to care for the children. Carl felt bad for the hysterical woman, but he had other things to do now. ‘Care for them, and say their father died a hero…tell…fib a little.”
Cal continued encouraging his flock, urging them to move quickly, to stay away from the infected, and to listen to the people from Hopetown who were trying to help them.
Rae and Julia moved to the gates to watch for any walkers who might try to come inside as the wagons began to move out; they would guard those moving out against any creatures that came at them.
“We’re here. Don’t worry; we can shoot,” Julia told the people in the wagons.
Several medical tubs went into the next wagon, along with clothing, another coop of chickens and one of ducks, plus more baskets of fresh food.
From somewhere they looted raincoats, which were lashed onto the top. Another wagon was filled with all kind of tools. Large buckets were stacked into towers, and boxes of chains with pad locks and keys and a box of day-old pups and their mother were settled in the wagon.
Cal asked them, “What else?”
“Anything precious and personal…weapons, tools…medical items, food would be great…canned if you have it…tack for the horses and oxen; we have hay. Salt or spices, important books…good boots…back packs….”
Len motioned for Rae, Julia, and Anthea to begin the long trek. Pigs and sheep followed the wagons, and two pseudo cowboys waited on horseback to begin herding the few cattle along after the wagons moved.
Kim looked in one wagon to see boxes of Bibles, warm coats, bags of fertilizer and soil, tomato stakes, at least three dozen huge seedling trees growing in tin cans, and enormous cast iron pots filled with boxed matches and lighters.
“Cal, you take this one, and lead the people onward so they don’t become afraid,” Kim said. These people had great supplies but no sense of security; how did they survive this long?
A lone walker lurched towards them from the hole in the garage, face lipless, and his hands partially fingerless but still gripping the ball-peen hammer he used to keep the zombies in the big garage; someone groaned as he recognized the man.
Behind him lurched a handful of the emaciated, starving zombies who climbed out of the garage.
“Let them get closer, and we’ll see what we have; then, we’ll make every shot count.” Another half dozen rounded the corner, one of which was freshly mauled.
“Mama.” A small child ran by the militia, dodging desperately grasping hands
and futile tackles so he could hug his mother, despite the stench she gave off from her tattered clothing and ripped flesh.
The mother showed no recognition in her milky white eyes, only a glimmer of hunger for the child. She had been locked away a long time.
As a group of forty or fifty came around the corner, moaning, everyone was distracted enough to almost miss when the mother sank her filthy teeth into the child’s shoulder; they didn’t miss his screams. It all happened too fast to stop the carnage.
“Take ‘em down, and make ‘em fall,” Len instructed.
Half his team shot the knees, causing the creatures to tumble to the ground and have to crawl. The other half lined up headshots and dropped one after another, but the things kept coming.
They couldn’t do anything for the child but shoot him as well.
“That’s my daughter, Marcie,” a man called out as he stepped forwards. Carl tripped him, and they scuffled in the dirt as Carl tried to keep the man from reaching his daughter and his being bitten. It was difficult to understand that loved ones were gone when they saw the bodies still move.
“Those are shells; those aren’t your family now,” Kim yelled.
How they could have kept them locked away all this time was bewildering, but they had clung to the hope of a cure.
One of the wagons, its team spooked by the moaning, headed the wrong way, back towards the shamblers. The side of the wagon slammed into an old, rusted tractor, and several people were tossed to the ground.
Reaching for a woman who weakly struggled, two ghouls went right for her stomach to feed, pulling flesh away in crimson sprays and digging their filthy hands into the cavity to rip away organs they stuffed into their mouths. She was too injured by the fall to fight back or to get up and get away.
Teeg and Carl were fast, killing both Zs with head shots and then mercifully shooting the woman who was shivering and jerking as if she were being electrocuted as she writhed in pain and fear.
A boy landed close by on the ground, and he might have been saved except that he was barefoot. Although he kicked angrily, a Z crawling on the ground, nipped at his heel, cutting into the flesh with a grinding, slashing bite.
Without a second’s thought, Rae swung her sword loose and slammed it across the boy’s ankle, making him scream in agony. It took a few more hits; Rae felt nauseated as she cut the boy’s foot off, but it was either that or put a bullet into his skull.
While Len covered her, Rae yanked the boy’s shirt off, ripped it deftly, and tied on a tourniquet before pulling him away from the fight. A man standing with his gun lowered, watched in horror.
“Make a fire. Fast. Use a knife blade, get it red hot, and use it to cauterize the bleeding. Move fast. He won’t last long if you don’t and may not anyway, but he was about to be infected from that bite,” ordered Rae.
Len did as she said, not especially fast, but as ordered. He glanced at her to indicate he thought this wouldn’t work.
An old man fell as well. He threw punches at the zombies to help, but every time he hit the jagged teeth, the cracked enamel cut his hand, and the infected saliva ran into the wounds.
Rae didn’t have time to explain his mistake, and it was too late anyway. The moment was lost in which she could hack off a limb without thought and still have faith it might work.
Julia, Ponce, and Matt used farm tools to smash the skulls of the ones who had their knees shot out, careful to avoid sudden lunges, the deadly teeth, and sharp claws. In this way, the others were able to take head or knee shots and keep them away while the rest administered the coup de grace.
One of the men, following Len’s orders, had splashed kerosene around the building while watching for attacks, and set it on fire.
Fire, per se, didn’t kill the creatures, but when they did burn, their brains would boil, and they would finally die. When the garage fell, the timbers would crush their skulls, at least in theory.
A young woman slapped at a ghoul, and Rae blew its head off. The woman scrambled to her feet, grabbed her small baby who cried healthily, and clutched it to her breast.
One of the other men brought a mostly empty wagon so he could pick up the young mother, baby, the elderly man, and the boy who had lost his foot at the ankle.
Zombies moaned and walked aimlessly, burned fat and clothing, and made a furious stench. The dry garage, helped to burn by the fuel, went up with a hot whoosh, and crackled loudly.
Fifty or more lay dead on the ground, another twenty-five torched, another twenty-five or thirty moved in closer to the team, but several hundred were still in the burning garage. More were coming, drawn by the moaning.
Len and Kim, with Ponce on point, moved out to meet the Zs, making each shot count while others used melee weapons to put more down.
Teeg and Carl shot each of the Zs who were on fire because they didn’t want anyone getting close to the melting fat and hungry blaze.
“Fire in the hole,” Matt called out as he lobbed a grenade into the blazing garage. One more followed, bringing heavy timbers and concrete down into the fiery visage. Immediately, they could see inside the building, and the movement was significantly lowered.
“That’s family,” one of the men lamented.
“No. Those are nothing…puppets used by the infection; your loved ones are long gone and have been for years,” Ponce said, “now their bodies can rest.”
“This should have never been done,” Len mumbled.
“We couldn’t kill them.”
“And now you have caused some of your people to be killed because of your actions. Your home is ruined,” Len added, “there’s no good keeping them.”
“We need to finish up and get out of the area. All this moaning will draw zeds here from all over.” It took time, but finally there was nothing moving except the few twitches from the inferno, but they were in no condition to be a threat and would likely die or wither away.
Quickly adding the few things left behind, the men got into wagons or on horses and rode with Len and his friends out of the area. Len felt a little let-down since he spent time teaching these people to reinforce security and fight better to keep zeds out of their compound, but the garage was full of the enemy the whole time. What a joke that seemed to be.
