by JE Gurley
A sound, hauntingly sad, arose from the Children village below. It was primitive, simple, but the rhythmic cadence was unmistakable, a mournful song. He wasn’t sure if the song even had real words or just guttural repetitions conveying emotion, but it welled from the gathered throats as an offering to a god, to the night sky, or to nature itself. He wasn’t sure which, but it was a plaintive cry from those offering it. The Children stood beside the fires, surrounding an object on the ground, swaying like reeds in a soft breeze.
Movement at the edge of the woods caught his attention. He knew immediately it was no animal, for what animal would dare come so close to the Children. It was too small for one of them unless one of their children had wandered away. A trick of the light as the moon passed from behind a cloud revealed the visitor just as it turned its face toward him. His heart fluttered in his chest.
“Karen,” he muttered.
Almost as quickly as she had appeared, she vanished back into the woods. Had she come here often to observe the zombies, the creatures she hated more than she did him? He was disturbed by how her attention had been focused so intently on the ring of young children around the fire. Had he seen the flash of a knife just before she vanished into the woods? Of that, he could not be certain, but even the thought frightened him. He retraced the dark path back to the New Apostle village hoping to catch up with her, but saw no sign of her.
He sensed the change in the mood of the village as he entered. New Apostles were standing in quiet groups, the normal evening chores forgotten. His companions huddled around a large fire on their small rise at the edge of the village. A chill raced through him when he saw that they were armed. Brother Ezekiel saw him coming and raced to intercept him.
“One of the children is dead,” he said in a rush.
“There are no children here.”
“No, one of their children.”
Jeb went cold. That explained the mournful song. They were lamenting the dead. “An accident?”
A look of anger crossed Brother Ezekiel’s face. “No. The child was murdered, its heart cut out.” He pointed at those gathered around the blazing fire. “One of them did it,” he accused.
Jeb noticed the guarded tension in his group and knew that Brother Ezekiel had made his accusation against them earlier. “How do you know?”
Brother Ezekiel drew himself to his full imposing height and replied, “None of us would do such a thing.”
He ignored Brother Ezekiel’s protest of innocence. “Do you have proof?”
“Proof? No, but who else …?”
Jeb cut him off. “Where’s Brother Malachi?”
“He’s gone to speak with the Children.”
“Alone?”
“He insisted.”
“If what you say is true, they’ll tear him apart. We need to go find him.”
“That will not be necessary,” Brother Malachi called from the edge of the village.
Jeb was glad to see the group’s spiritual leader was unharmed, but his happiness ended when several of the Children stepped into the light behind him. Each carried a large cudgel.
Brother Malachi spoke loudly so all could hear him. His voice carried across the village. “I’m not sure I understand all they have tried to tell me, but this much I know. Someone murdered one of their children. The Alphas are trying to restore calm, but the Children are crying out for vengeance. They know it was one of us. They followed the murderer’s scent here. If we do not produce the killer, they will slaughter us all. I cannot stop them.” He turned to Jeb. “They saw you at their village.”
“I didn’t …”
“They know you did not do this foul thing. Did you see who did?”
He hesitated. “I … I don’t know.”
Brother Malachi stared at his reluctant response. “If you did, you must tell us, for the sake of us all.”
He knew he could not reveal Karen’s presence there. They would condemn her without proof. She had angered too many people for anyone to offer to defend her. Even he had his doubts. Was she capable of such a heinous act? Then, he remembered that he had killed scores of zombies without blinking an eye, coldly and without mercy. Why would she, who hated them with such vehemence, consider killing them wrong? A loud grunt from one of the creatures surrounding them startled him. He looked up to see Karen emerging from one of the cabins, her shirt smeared with dried blood, her face twisted into a manic smile. In one hand, she held a knife. In the other reposed a bloody object. She held it in her open palm. A loud moan went up as someone recognized it as a severed heart.
“Karen,” he gasped.
“A child for a child,” she said, and then laughed as she threw the heart into the blazing fire. Sparks exploded as the flames greedily licked up the bloody object like an offering. The Children of God began wailing and stamping their feet. One repeatedly slammed his club into the bole of a tree.
“The guilty must be punished!” Brother Malachi cried. Several of the New Apostles stepped forward.
Jeb growled, “No!” and raced toward Karen to protect her. To his astonishment, she thrust the knife out toward him.
“Stay away from me,” she screamed, stabbing the knife in the air at him. “You’re one of them, one of the undead.” Her eyes were wild. He didn’t think she recognized him. Her tortured mind had finally snapped.
Arms grabbed him from behind. He struggled but could not break free.
“Take her,” Brother Ezekiel called to those around him.
Karen, unhinged by her deed, raced in a circle, jabbing the knife at attackers real and imagined. The Biosphere2 survivors backed up to give her room, while New Apostles surrounded her, waiting for a chance to grab her. Jeb knew he could not allow them to harm her. Her deeds were his responsibility, her lack of guilt, his. He sagged in his captor’s arms; then stiffened and lunged backward, throwing them from him. Ignoring them, he faced Karen.
“Karen,” he called.
She stopped and stared at him. Spittle ran from the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were unfocused, unblinking. He took a step toward her and reached out his left hand. She stared at it. With his right hand, he slowly drew his pistol. Her eyes went from his outstretched hand to his pistol. Instead of running or lunging at him with the knife, she smiled at him. For a brief moment, he saw a glimpse of the old Karen behind her cold green eyes. He raised the pistol and fired one round into the center of her forehead. She embraced the bullet as she had once embraced their son, as she had embraced him. She fell in slow motion, her knees giving away first. She landed kneeling and smiling. A single drop of blood ran down her forehead and marred her cheek. She remained in that position for several seconds as her heart stopped pumping blood. Then she slumped to the ground and lay on her side, dead. The woods erupted into a cacophony of hoots, growls and grunts, as dozens of zombies displayed their approval. Spent, Jeb fell to his knees in front of her, wanting to touch her, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“It’s over,” Brother Malachi intoned like a benediction.
Jeb did not see, but could feel the forest emptying as the Children, satisfied by Karen’s execution, returned to their village. The New Apostles did the same. The tension left as if blown away by a cleansing wind. He did not know how his mad wife’s deeds would affect the Children’s relationship with the New Apostles, or the New Apostles’ relationship with his group, but he did know that everything had changed suddenly and irrevocably. Another thread had been plucked. He would never be the same again. He could never heal anyone again. He had lost that right when he had pulled the trigger and murdered his wife, the same crime with which his wife had accused him in the death of their son. The circle was now complete.
He remained on his knees for a long while until hands helped him to his feet and marched him to the cabin he had so recently shared with his wife. He looked up to see Craig Tyndale and Mikal Antonov holding him. Tyndale refused to meet his eyes, but a look of profound sorrow crossed Antonov’s face as if he knew what Jeb
’s action had cost him. He collapsed onto the cot, ignoring all attempts to draw him into conversation or to drink some of the foul smelling alcoholic concoction his people had produced from rotten vegetables, a drink they playfully called ‘squeeze.’
He had failed. He had failed his son, his wife, and his friends. He had failed in his promise to keep them safe and to guide them to safety. He could no longer lead them. They deserved better. He could no longer remain among them. Each face, each pitying expression would only remind him of the magnitude of his manifest failures. He would have to leave before dawn, while everyone was sleeping. He packed his few belongings, a small bag of food, his weapons and ammunition and donned a pair of snowshoes. In silence, he left the village. He did not look back. If any Children observed his leaving, they did not announce their presence. If his people decided that they needed a new leader, he hoped they chose Tyndale. Antonov was too old and too caring to lead. Such a burden would surely kill him.
He journeyed the ten miles back to the hunting cabin as a condemned man marching to the gallows. He eyed the ATVs but knew he could never maneuver one through the deep snow. He went to the shed and broke off the lock with the butt of his rifle. Inside, he found skis, an old Arctic Cat snowmobile in good condition, and a small tent. A carefully sealed five-gallon can of gas rested on a shelf. Loading his equipment into the snowmobile, he coaxed its frozen engine into life with the electric starter, and shot out the shed into the waist-deep snow. He didn’t bother closing the doors. He didn’t know how far he could go on a tank of gas, but he wanted to place as much distance between himself and the others as possible. He did not want anyone coming after him out of misplaced loyalty. He chose no particular direction, driving where the terrain looked less steep and the snow packed, but when dawn came, he saw he was facing east toward the rising sun. How appropriate, he thought wryly.
“As good a direction as any,” he said aloud. A sudden thought hit him as he recalled the date, eliciting a round of dark laughter that caught in his throat. “Merry Frickin’ Christmas, Jeb.”
14
San Diego, California
Guy Ferguson had been a railroad engineer for thirty-five years, most of that time running Amtrak’s Sunset Limited between New Orleans and Los Angeles three times per week. At sixty-five, forced into what he considered an early retirement and a boring life of fishing and daydreaming, he had often stood on the side of the tracks watching trains pass by, remembering his glory days of driving two, one-hundred-ton locomotives and twenty passenger cars through the southwestern countryside at seventy miles per hour. Twice, after a few too many shots of Ronrico rum, he had considered stepping onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train and embracing it one last time, but his resolve had abandoned him at the last minute.
If not for the zombie plague, he would still be sitting in his comfortable recliner in his one-bedroom condo in San Diego drinking himself to death. He didn’t know why he of all those tens of thousands around him, had not caught the Avian flu, or why he had not died and arisen as a zombie, but it had been the turning point in his pointless life, a catharsis of monumental proportions. When the military had discovered that he was an engineer, he was spared the trip to the army barracks from which no one immune ever left. He knew what went on in those cold, sterile rooms, but forced such images from his mind. The only thing that mattered to him was that he would once more be behind the controls of a locomotive.
He had driven crews from San Diego to various points along the line making repairs and clearing the tracks, but not long trips. Now, the new train they were making up destined for Phoenix would be a big one, two engines and twenty cars. He would once again be carrying passengers, but none of them would be watching the scenery. His customers would be more freight than passengers, four-hundred and eighty-four comatose munies. The thought of so many silent bodies riding behind him gave him the creeps, but he would be an engineer and that was all that counted. He personally oversaw the coupling of the flatcars and the loading and securing of the medical trailers onto each one. Two cars would carry freight and two more guards, as if anyone would want to steal comatose patients.
He was eager to go, but delay after delay postponed the scheduled departure. First, someone filled the diesel engines with the wrong kind of oil and the tanks had to be drained and the crankcase cleaned. Next, an intoxicated crane operator dropped a trailer onto the tracks, forcing hasty repairs to both the trailer and the tracks. Now, word from Phoenix was that a rebel army was on the way there. Ferguson wondered what army in its right mind would take on the US Military, even one so depleted by the plague. Such concerns were not his. His job was to deliver a train and he was eager to get on with it. It was to be his Christmas present to himself.
As he climbed aboard the bright yellow Union Pacific lead diesel engine, he patted its smooth metal sides lovingly. In the ‘cow-calf’ arrangement, he could control the second engine from the lead engine, utilizing its 3000 horsepower to augment the lead engine and its generator to power the cars. Alone in the cab, he was God Almighty. No one could command him and he brooked no counsel on how to do his job. He longed to push forward the throttle and roll the mighty behemoth in which he sat, down the twin steel rails and away from man and his works. He eyed the battered old railroad lantern hanging from a peg above the controls, a reminder of times when railroading was man and machine, no electronic switchers and no computers.
With the collapse of the country, railroading had almost returned to such a simple system. Along with the soldiers who would accompany him, he would carry two men whose job was to hop off the train and move the switches. He had refused to allow them into his cabin. It was sacrosanct, holy ground. Instead, they had been assigned places in the calf engine. The King did not tolerate peasants.
15
Agua Caliente, Arizona
Believing in something does not make it true. Belief is an opinion, a conviction, a state of mind. A hope. Truth is an accord with reality. Truth supersedes belief. When reality blurs into the realm of dreams and nightmares, truth becomes suspect, and belief becomes as tenuous as a wisp of smoke. Renda clung to that wisp as tightly as she could, as she had done for the last fourteen days. Mace was alive and unharmed. His occasional brief radio messages slowly built up a picture in her mind of a community under siege, of people fearful for their lives, their belief in their security as tenuous as hers.
Mace had described the zombies surrounding the warehouse that the Tucson Survivors Society called home as determined and cunning, much cleverer than any zombies any of them had previously encountered. After being repulsed in the first attack, the zombies had settled into a series of probing raids designed to test the weaknesses of the defenses. Twice, they had managed to gain entrance into the fenced parking lot but died before reaching the warehouse. For now, Mace and the others were safe, but from his short, terse messages, she knew that he believed it was only a matter of time. She feared for his safety.
Agua Caliente felt empty with so many people missing, like summer camp on the last day of summer when all the kids are leaving for home. Life was on hold. They were all still reeling from the death of Seth Brisbane. They ate, they slept and they worried. After Krell’s conversion to zombie, those dependent on Blue Juice watched nervously for any telltale sign of zombie infection. It was winter and people caught colds. Each sneeze, every runny nose created panic. Renda alternately cursed Trish Moon and Bob Krell for crashing so near to their new home and cursed Elliot for noticing their presence and rescuing them.
Renda worried for Mace. They had not been apart for more than a few hours in the past year. Now, it was going on two weeks. Alone, he took too many chances. Since splitting up into two groups after Biosphere2, he had taken on the role of sole protector and leader, a responsibility that he had so often accused Jeb of needlessly shouldering. Doubtless, he would assume responsibility for this new group as well. Mace missed Jeb with whom he could share the task of leadership. She did too, but unlike her hus
band, she knew the real reason Jeb had left with the other group – Karen.
Karen’s dementia had been increasing steadily toward the end. Her misplaced hatred of Jeb seemed to be her sole reason for living, to serve as a constant reminder of his failings, at least in her eyes. Jeb, faithful and devoted, didn’t have the balls to cut her loose as a lost cause. He thought he could cure her as he had done with so many other patients, but she wasn’t a patient and she didn’t want his cure. He had left with her so that the others, Erin and her researchers, could find a vaccine. Renda was so thankful for Mace. He was hard when he needed to be, so thoughtful that he often surprised her, and so devoted it frightened her. How could she tell him that she was dying?
Some days she imagined that she could feel the cancer eating its way up her leg like some parasitic worm, writhing and twisting just beneath the skin. It evoked memories of her early days with breast cancer, fearing she would lose her breast. With drugs and a strong determination to live, she had beaten it for several years, sent it into remission. When she discovered that she was pregnant, she decided that the cancer drugs were too strong to expose the growing fetus inside her to them. It was a conscious decision to put the health of her unborn child above her own. Now, it seemed she would pay the price. She only hoped she lived long enough to watch her child take its first steps. She knew she would not live to see it grow up.
She irked at inactivity. She wanted to grab her rifle and her guan dao and wade through the zombies keeping her husband trapped, slashing and killing to see her man. Instead, she clenched her fist, opened it, laid it on her belly to feel the new life growing inside her, and sighed.
“We’ll wait, little one. Daddy will be home soon.”
Erin was ecstatic. A sample of Trish’s blood to monitor her health had proved unique. Besides the normal immunity from the airborne virus that many of the others exhibited, Erin had discovered a second immunological property in Trish’s blood. Certain B-cell lymphocytes, plasma cells, acted as antigens to the airborne virus in those with normal immunity. In Trish’s case, the cytokine messenger proteins the plasma cells secreted activated other T-cell lymphocytes that attacked blood-borne Avian flu virus cells, making her immune not only to the airborne virus, but also to infection through zombie bites. Her blood contained a permanent vaccine, but she and her team could do little about it until the new equipment was operational and the Level 4 lab up and running. She drove the workmen and her team ruthlessly and herself even harder.
