Taking It Back wfotd-2

by Joseph Talluto

  “Stop here,” I said to Charlie as we pulled closer. Put your rifle down and sit in the back of the bed,” I called over my shoulder to Tommy.

  “What’s going on?” Tommy asked.

  “Protocol.” “We have to wait for them to notice us and decide if they want to talk to us. If we stand around holding weapons, they might decide to shoot first. I’m not willing to get into a firefight without better cover than the windshield of this truck.”

  Tommy grunted, but put his gun down and sat back where he could be seen. Charlie and I waited in the cab and after about ten minutes, two men with rifles crested the hill and waved us towards the gate. We pulled forward slowly and the gate opened as we passed through. On the other side, another man with a shotgun signaled us to stop. I could feel Charlie tensing beside me and I shook my hand at him, trying to calm him down. The gate closed behind us and I hoped everything was going to go well.

  We were surrounded by at least ten men, all armed in some fashion. I tried to remain pokerfaced, but after a minute of silence, I was starting to inch my own hand towards my SIG, with my other hand getting ready to open the door. Beyond the armed men, I began to see a growing crowd of onlookers, curious as to who the newcomers were. No one was smiling and I was getting curious as to what the deal was.

  A heavyset man in a brown jacket made his way through the crowd and stood in front of the truck. He stared at Charlie and me for a second then gestured for me to step outside.

  I got out of the truck and stood a couple of feet from it. I was already calculating who I was going to shoot first if things went south and it was going to be the sorry looking bastard to my right who was standing too close pointing a rifle at my head. I glanced up at Tommy who gave me a slight nod. His rifle was likely near his hands and would be in action at the first sign of trouble.

  The man in the brown jacket spoke. “Howdy. I’m Bob Larkin. Who might you fellas be?”

  “I’m John Talon and these are my companions Charlie James and Tommy Carter. We’ve come from Coal City to see if any towns on this line were still alive. Obviously, you are,” I said, looking pointedly at the man holding his gun on me.

  Bob nodded. “How’s Coal City doing? I haven’t heard from the sheriff in a while?”

  “It lives, and Tom Harlan is fine.” I still didn’t take my eyes off the man next to me.

  “Good enough. Put your gun up, Ed, these men are fine. Sheriff Harlan and I spoke over the radio this morning and he said to expect you three. He told me you three were bonified deader killers and we should be glad to know you. Just by appearances, I figured he ain’t too far off the mark.” Tensions suddenly erased and trigger fingers eased up.

  I had to smile. ‘Deader’ was a new one to me, but it fit. Didn’t really matter what we called them, they were the enemy and that was it.

  Bob Larkin and I spoke while the rest of the town was dismissed. The town basically had barricaded themselves when the first wave of ‘deaders’ came over the horizon and started attacking people. Bob, who was the head of the town council as well as being an insurance salesman, decided the best thing to do was to build a wall around the town, using what they had in abundance, which was dirt. The wall and ditch were very effective and I had to agree, since we were using the same approach in Leport.

  Bob told me that essentially people here had gotten on with their lives. They were used to the fact that electricity might not be coming back for a while and if they wanted to make a life they are pretty much going to have to work together. Bob was happy to hear about Coal City making it through the invasion and after about an hour, I was ready to get moving.

  I climbed aboard the truck and Charlie, Tommy and myself were rolling through Verona. We waved to the people we saw and they smiled and waved back, the news about us having traveled through the small town faster than modern communication could ever have hoped to achieve. Bob and I set up a communication network, using the rail line as the means of transporting news and items of trade. Bob said one of his friends was putting the finishing touches on a pedal-powered rail car, which would be used for the trade effort. I had some serious doubts about that, but kept them to myself.

  For my part, I warned Bob about Mazon, and he shook his head at the waste. He was going to have to let the town know, since several people had relatives there and would want to bury them. My suggestion was to burn the whole lot, but Bob just shrugged.

  We passed through the town and out the other doors. It wasn’t until we were about a mile away that Tommy poked his head through the back window.

  “I have a question,” Tommy said. “If they knew we were coming, why the chilly reception? I thought you were going to kill that guy holding the rifle on you.”

  Charlie nodded. “Seems a little out of place, given their defenses.”

  “I asked Bob about that and he said it was because they’ve been having trouble lately,” I said.

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Charlie

  “Apparently there’s some sort of rogue group terrorizing Kinsman, Ransom, and Kernan. They’re demanding ‘protection goods’ and such. They originally came in showing themselves as capable of handling the zombie problem, but they disarmed the populace and now are essentially running things. They tried to run a fast one on Verona, but got knocked back. The people of Verona are wary of strangers, which is why we got that reception. If we hadn’t known Harlan or been from Coal City it might have gone down differently.”

  “So what you’re saying is we’re heading to a fight we may not want, against a group we have no knowledge of, supported by a bunch of weaklings too afraid to fight for themselves?” Tommy asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “I’ll be in the bed, cleaning my guns, if anyone needs me.” Tommy said, withdrawing to the back of the truck and pulling out his cleaning kit.

  I chuckled and looked over at Charlie. “We could pull out, head back to Coal City on the roads.”

  Charlie just looked at me.

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “This is what we do.”

  “At least it’s not boring.”

  “True.”

  We moved down the rails as the sun was getting to its highest point. The landscape sloped gently in various places and I could see homes here and there in the distance. We were coming up to a farm that had the house relatively close, so I told Charlie to pull up so we could take a look.

  We stepped out of the vehicle and crossed the field to the growing grass of the farmhouse lawn. The house was typical of the area, two stories, whitewashed, with a few outbuildings. There was a barn, a garage, some sort of long building I couldn’t identify, and something that appeared to be a chicken coop. They were all in need of repair, but that was something I suspected was necessary before the world died.

  Tommy wandered over to the barn while Charlie and I checked the house and other buildings. Charlie moved around to the windows and looked in while I stepped up onto the expansive front porch. I guessed the farm had to be somewhere between fifty and one hundred years old. I looked in the front window and saw a family room with several pieces of furniture and old antiques. All that wasn’t as interesting as the legs I saw sticking out from behind the lounge chair.

  Great, I thought, here we go again. I pulled my pickaxe and held it ready as Charlie stepped onto the porch. He saw me arm myself and pulled one of his tomahawks as well. I tried the door and found it open, so I pushed it slowly in, stepping back to allow anything in there an opportunity to come out and play.

  Nothing happened, so Charlie and I stepped into the room. I went over to the legs and saw they belonged to what I assumed was the owner of the farm. He was a fairly big man, dressed simply and would be mistaken for sleeping except for the large, gaping wound in his chest. I figured he had been shot close range with a shotgun and judging by the looks of him, this had happened a while ago. The blood around him on the floor had turned black, as well as the mess on the wall behind him.

  I turned to Charlie. “Murd
ered. I’d bet if anyone else was home they’re dead too.”

  Charlie pointed to the family photo on the mantle. “It’s a family of six,” he said.

  “Shit, not again.” I remembered the last time we came across something like this. A rogue group had killed a family and very nearly killed us, but we burned their world down around their ears.

  Charlie and I split up, Charlie taking the upstairs and I took the downstairs and cellar. I opened the door to the cellar while Charlie headed to the stairs at the back of the kitchen. The kitchen had been completely ransacked and I did not expect to find anything useful in the basement, but the opportunity was there.

  Down in the basement, I looked over several workbenches and found a few road flares, which I added to my pack. Tools and such were of no use right now, but I did find a small refrigerator. Looking inside I found four beer cans. I placed them on the stairs to take later. It’d been a long time since I had a beer, and I thought I’d earned one. Normally I didn’t drink, but I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  As I turned to head back up the stairs, I noticed something odd. The back wall wasn’t made of flagstone like the rest of the walls. It was made of cinderblocks, painted the same color as the stones. Looking closely, the wall seemed a lot closer than the wall upstairs in the kitchen. Walking over to the bench that lined the wall, I looked over a bookshelf that seemed oddly out of place. I looked at the floor and could see scuff marks where the bookshelf had been moved.

  Intrigued, I wrestled the bookshelf away from the wall and flashed my light in the revealed opening.

  I was pleasantly surprised. The area behind the wall was a secret storage place, with canned goods piled high. I found stacks of batteries, emergency radios with a crank handle, and several boxes of MREs. There were backpacks hung on pegs by the opening and several stacks of bottled water. In addition, there was a shotgun, a. 22 rifle, and boxes of ammo for all, including ammo for a. 38, which I didn’t see and for a. 45, which I didn’t see, either.

  I grabbed a duffle bag from the corner and filled it with canned goods and water. I took one of the backpacks and emptied it, filling it with MREs. I emptied another backpack and filled it with ammo for the shotgun, the. 38, and the. 45.

  I hauled all the bounty back upstairs and met Charlie in the kitchen. His eyes widened at the haul, but then turned cold.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Come upstairs and see.”

  Puzzled, I followed him back upstairs. At the back of the hall was the master bedroom and inside was a nightmare. A body was on the floor, a single gunshot wound to the chest indicating how he died. He was dressed in jeans and a leather coat and appeared to be young, maybe twenty years old. That wasn’t the nightmare. The woman on the bed was the nightmare. She had been stripped and presumably raped, then methodically mutilated until she bled to death from hundreds of cuts and stab wounds. Whoever killed her, wanted her to suffer. If I had to guess, the body on the floor was some sort of relation to whoever had savaged the woman. This was a revenge killing if I had ever seen one.

  Charlie reached into his pack and retrieved a Smith amp; Wesson Model 66 and a Springfield Armory Mil-Spec 1911. Both were stainless steel and in good shape. “Found the revolver on the bedside table, probably left there to taunt the woman as she suffered. The. 45 was in the dresser.”

  I didn’t say a word. I was too angry at a world that allowed this to happen. I pulled my knife and cut the woman loose, wrapping her up in the bed sheets and carrying her downstairs. I barely noticed her weight as I walked outside, Charlie stopping to pick up the bags I brought up from the basement.

  Outside, Tommy was working at the ground, digging a shallow trench. I walked over to where he was and placed the woman on the ground. I looked over to the side and dropped my head.

  “Oh no.”

  Tommy stopped what he was doing and looked off into the distance. He didn’t look at the two small bodies lying side by side in the sun. “They hung them.” Tommy’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Two little boys who probably never hurt a thing in their lives. They hung them like they were useless pieces of meat. I mean, what kind of animal…” Tommy’s voice cracked and he looked down, resuming his digging.

  I had nothing to say. I had seen a lot of things since the world went upside down and I had thought I had seen the depths of depravity humans were capable of. But every time I thought I had seen the bottom, another layer got exposed. Was the line of lawlessness that close? Was the beast of man that close to the surface, waiting to be loosed? I didn’t know. But the cold fire had started burning and I did know one thing and I said it aloud, more to myself than anyone else, although perhaps it was to the dead family.

  “Men will die for this. I promise.”

  Charlie nodded, then went to the garage for more shovels. I headed back to the house to bring the father out to be buried with his family.

  It took an hour, but we buried the family together, hoping that wherever they were, they would appreciate the effort. I found a couple of boards and fashioned a crude cross to place at the head of the grave. We stood silently for a moment, each of us reaching out to the deceased family with our prayers.

  We gathered our supplies and as we were putting them in the truck, Tommy said, “Hold up.” He walked off into the field on the other side of the tracks and looking around, I saw what had attracted his attention. A lone zombie was wandering through the field at a snail’s pace, tripping over vegetation and the uneven ground. Tommy walked straight to the zombie, which raised a groan at his approach and lifted its hands to the oncoming meal.

  Tommy never slowed his advance, never took his eyes off his target. He unslung his melee weapon, a length of gas pipe that had a t-junction on the end, hammered into killing points. Just as the grasping hands nearly had him, Tommy hit the zombie in the head with the makeshift mace. The power of the swing smashed the zombie’s head off the body. Charlie and I watched as Tommy followed the head into the brush and repeatedly smashed it.

  I understood how he felt. I wanted to crush something, make it suffer for what had happened here, and the frustration of not being able to strike out made it worse. There would be a reckoning.

  Tommy walked back, dragging his weapon through the grass to get the worst of the ghoul gore off it. He wiped the rest off with a bit of cloth taken from the dead body, then climbed back into the truck.

  None of us said a word. We had things to do. The sun was high and we had to hit three more towns before the end of the day.

  We drove on, sighting Kinsman relatively shortly. I didn’t see the landscape pass by, didn’t pay attention to anything, really. My mind was wrapped around the family that had been brutally murdered. What kind of monster could hang little children? What monster lurked out there that had just waited for the veneer of civilization to erode away? I had killed and based on the way I was feeling, I was going to kill again if I had the chance to even the score. Was I any better? I liked to think so, but some might argue not. I never killed anyone who did not wish to harm me and I liked to think I was protecting a larger ideal. Just because the trappings of civilization had fallen away did not mean we had become uncivilized.

  We pulled into Kinsman and immediately I could see something wasn’t right. There were people about, but they didn’t look at us, or if they did, they tried not to notice us. That was weird. I could see several people out working in a field, most of them older men, women, and children. This wasn’t adding up at all.

  Charlie and I got out of the truck and walked over to what looked like an old fashioned feed store. There were three men standing outside the store and they looked down as we approached.

  “Excuse me. Is this Kinsman?” I asked, knowing full well it was, but I had to start the conversation somewhere.

  The man in the middle looked up at me. He was about fifty or sixty years old, wearing a faded flannel shirt and stained work coat. His tired blue eyes looked into mine.

  “Yes, sir, it is
. Can I help you in some way?” His voice was full of fear and I couldn’t figure out why.

  “Just glad to see I’m headed in the right direction. My name is John and this is Charlie. We’ve come from Coal City to let anyone still alive know they’re welcome to come live there if they want to. But you all seem to have a decent town here, people working to grow food and such. We’ll let you get back to what you’re doing.” I turned to walk away when the man grabbed my arm.

  “You ain’t with them, then?” His voice was a hushed whisper and the other men with him quickly looked around.

  “With who? You saw me and my friend come down the rails. Who do you think we are?” I was more than curious as I disengaged my arm.

  The men looked around again. “A group of about twenty came in at the end of the winter, looking for supplies and a place to rest. We obliged, them being the first people we’d seen for a while. Well, they had another notion, and we were overwhelmed in short order. They took our food, took our young women, shot a few who resisted, and made the rest of us work to keep them in food and supplies. They threaten to kill the kids unless we help them.” The man’s voice shook with anger as the other men nodded their agreement.

  The man continued. “They say they have a horde of zombies at their place that they’ll let loose on the kids if we don’t do things their way and then tie up the parents for the kids to eat.” The man hung his head. “We don’t have any weapons and we can’t leave. We’re trapped.”

  I thought about this for a second. Rock and a hard place, for these people. I made a decision. “Where is their base?”