White Flag of the Dead wfotd-1

by Joseph Talluto

  “Would you mind if I borrow a chair? Jake needs his bottle and he’s getting too heavy to carry while he eats.” I asked.

  Dot smiled again. “Help yourself. The green one is a good feeding chair.”

  We went inside and I saw the house was neat and tidy. Mementos lined the fireplace, which crackled with a warm fire. One wall of the small living room was lined with shelves overflowing with books, and a quick glance showed a variety of interests. The kitchen was lit by hurricane lamps, and the whole house just exuded warmth. If it wasn’t for the need to move on, this would be a nice place to stay for a while.

  Dot sat down to watch Jakey eat. “Been a while since I saw a baby. He’s a beautiful boy.” She said.

  “Takes after his mother.” I said, smiling at my son.

  “You’re a good man for remembering her like that.” Dot said, reading me like a book.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “What I mean is anyone with a good eye can see he looks like you, but you carry a good memory of your dead wife with you, so you see her in him. Nothing wrong with that, just shows you loved your wife and miss her. But it will pass. All things do.” Dot said, reaching out and stroking Jake’s hair, casting a knowing eye at Sarah, who looked away.

  I didn’t say anything, just committing every part of the scene to memory. Jake feeding quietly, the fire popping occasionally, my close friends relaxing nearby. I nearly jumped when Dot spoke again.

  “Eventually I will have to kill George, but for now it’s just too hard.” She said.

  I burst out of my reflections. “Wh-what?” I stammered.

  “George. My husband. He’s out back. He took the sickness that killed everyone else. When he turned I moved him outside.” Dot said this as calmly as if she had said it was Tuesday.

  Duncan spoke up. “No kidding. There’s a zombie chained to the shed out back. He’s pretty secured. Tommy got close enough to see his bridgework, and there was no danger.”

  Dot smiled at my reaction. “No, I ain’t crazy. George and I had been married since I was seventeen, and it’s hard to let go after so long. I’ve dug his grave and made his marker, but I just can’t finish him.”

  As nutty as it sounds, I was actually sympathetic. I could see how someone would be hesitant to kill a family member, and in all likelihood, that reluctance got a lot of people killed or infected.

  I finished with Jake, and gently burped him. He wiggled a bit and then leaned towards Dot. She smiled and asked to hold him. I didn’t see a problem so I let him go. He immediately started playing with her hair, and her smile made him laugh. It was good to see Jake happy, and it was good to see him making someone else happy.

  After a little while, I figured it was time to go. We had been here long enough, and if we had attracted the attention of local zombies, I didn’t want to put Dot at risk.

  I rallied the group and they headed out to the cars. Charlie asked me a question with his eyes and I put the question to Dot.

  “Dot? I can’t thank you enough for letting us remember what hospitality is like. Would you like to come with us? We’re going to the office condos on 131 ^ st street.” I asked, taking Jake back from her.

  Dot smiled wistfully as Jake went back to is daddy. “No, I’ve lived in this house for thirty years, I’m not going anywhere soon.”

  “Is there anything we can do for you, before we go?” I hinted heavily in my question, and Dot picked it up immediately.

  “If you’re asking if you want me to let you finish off George, the answer…,” Dot sighed, “…is yes. But, please, you can’t shoot him. I don’t want a gunshot to be my last memory of my husband.”

  “Will do. Thanks for everything, Dot.” I said, heading for the door.

  “John?”

  “Yes, Dot?”

  “Finish what you started.” Dot looked at me seriously.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, shifting Jake to my other arm.

  Dot pointed to Jake and then to the window. “You got two things to do before you’re done. Finish them both.”

  I only half understood what she meant. “Will do.” I said, closing the door behind me.

  Charlie stood before me and I nodded. He headed off to the back shed, and returned a minute later, wiping off one of his tomahawks with a bit of rag. I put Jakey back into his car seat and he promptly fell asleep.

  We moved the cars out of the driveway and I waved a hand at the house. Dot did not come out to see us off, and I didn’t blame her. I could see a still form lying out in the yard in the back, and another kneeling nearby, and I just shook my head. I thought about what she had said to me and slowly began to realize what she had meant. I did have things to do.

  22

  We headed out again, stopping when the road finally ran out of North. Charlie looked at me and I told him to head West. We were nearly there, and I was getting anxious. I did not want to have to do anything in the dark. We passed another subdivision. God, there was enough of the stupid things. This one had huge homes, any of them could pass for a fortress if the people had sense enough to barricade the first floorwindows. As I looked, I saw the inevitable white flags decorating several expensive mailboxes. We would have passed by if it hadn’t been for a person standing on a second floor porch waving a pillowcase at us. Here we go.

  “Are we stopping?” Charlie asked, slowing down the car. He had seen the pillowcase, too.

  “Have to.” I said.

  “Why?” Kristen asked, making a teenage face.

  “You never know who lives in these places. Maybe that’s a surgeon or even better, an electrician. Be nice to have someone around to patch holes up or rig up some power.” I said, trying to put the best face on what could become a difficult situation.

  “Yeah, right.” said Charlie. “You’re just hoping to score some points to make up for that fall you took.”

  “There is that. But I am first a humanitarian.” I said loftily. It was a good thing I couldn’t see how much Kristen was probably rolling her eyes.

  Charlie just snorted and pulled into the gated community. I could see we were not going to get out without a fight, as we had attracted the attention of about ten zombies loitering around two of the houses.

  Charlie waved to Tommy and Sarah, and they pulled up alongside the car. “We got people who need help. Turn your cars around in case we need to get lost fast.” Charlie said to the other vehicles. As they hurried to comply, I took a look at the situation. We actually were in a decent spot. The community was gated, and had a fence running along the outside of the subdivision. We were blocking the only access road, and there was a large pond to our right. The houses were up on a hill, and we had a clear field of fire across the fairway of the golf course that was on our left. Could be worse.

  I hopped out of the car and got us set up. “Jason and Lisa, you watch the road and protect our exit. Chelsea and Kristen, you watch their backs and keep an eye on the cars. Kristen, Jake’s your responsibility unless I say otherwise. Tommy and Duncan, you’re to clear a path to the house. Charlie and Sarah, we’re cleaning up and going in. Any questions?” All heads shook negative. “Let’s go.”

  I headed towards the house while Tommy and Duncan lit up the zombies headed towards us. It would have been scary to have bullets whipping past your head to take out a zombie in front of you if you hadn’t been through it before. I never slowed and reached the house in short order. The door had been caved in and I imagined there were several little sweeties waiting for us. Tommy and Duncan stayed out on the lawn, dropping the zombies that were coming from the other houses and covering our backs.

  I moved in and aimed my gun left while Charlie slid in and went right. Sarah went in the middle and we all had targets. Eleven zombies of all shapes and sizes came shuffling from their various hiding places, and we had our hands full. I dropped the two closest ones to me, and Charlie’s rifle cracked loudly in the small space. Sarah’s rifle boomed once, and then again. We could hear loud moaning comin
g from all angles, so this was a heavily infested house. Great. The garden level of the house consisted of a central room, with hallways to the left and right. We were going to have to be careful, as more zombies started to come from the other rooms. We could wait for them to come to us, but there was a stairwell in the middle which made coverage difficult.

  I motioned Sarah to the stairs and she took up a position to nail anything coming down. Charlie went right and I went left. I went to a bedroom door and checked the knob. It was locked. Good. No worries about something hitting me in the back. I moved down the hallway, the light fading as I moved away from the windows of the central room. It was quiet, and I could hear my own breathing as I moved slowly down the hall. God, I hated this. Give me a stand up battle every time. Hunting these bastards sucked. I moved down the hall and checked the last room. The door was open, and I pushed it further with my rifle barrel. It was empty.

  I turned around and was confronted with the biggest zombie I had ever seen. He was six foot six if he was an inch, and was headed my way. His huge frame was dressed in torn sweats, and his face bore the marks of several confrontations. Dried blood covered his chin, and his lips curled back in a grimace as he moved towards me. I backed up and raised my rifle, but he brought up his hands to grab and knocked the barrel out of the way. I brought up the butt of the rifle as a barrier and shoved as hard as I could. I barely managed to slow him down, and he bore me backwards to the wall. His hands grabbed my shoulders and tried to bring me within biting range of his gaping maw. I pushed back and managed to keep myself from being bit, but I couldn’t let go of the rifle, as it was the only thing keeping the teeth from me. The zombie’s decaying face moaned into mine, and his graveyard breath made me gag. I pushed off the wall and we began a dance of death around the room. I couldn’t afford to go down, as he was too heavy, and I couldn’t draw my SIG as I needed two hands to keep this thing off me. I pushed it back into the bathroom in the room, and while I had the momentum, shoved it into the bathtub. The edge of the tub tripped the zombie and he fell with me on top. I used the opportunity to shove knee into his chest and rip away from him. I fell back and landed on the floor, with the zombie moving to get out of the tub. I shot it in the head from the ground, and nearly deafened myself from firing in such a small space. The zombie slowly sank into the tub, his big head coming to a rest on his big chest.

  I took a moment to catch my breath and take stock of my injuries. My shoulders were going to be sore for a while, but I was alive, which was the important thing. I got up and headed back down the hallway. The locked door I had passed earlier was broken off its hinges, no surprise where Tiny had come from. I peeked in and didn’t see anyone else, so I went back to Sarah at the stairs. Outside, I could hear an occasional shot as Tommy and Duncan honed their shooting skills.

  “You okay?” Sarah asked, keeping her gun on the stairs.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I said, rolling my head and shaking my shoulders a bit. “Had a big son of a buck give me a moment, there.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I saw him head your way, but I couldn’t help out. Sorry.”

  I understood. Sarah had her job and would do it, which was making sure we didn’t get jumped by anything coming down the stairs. The small pile of corpses at the first landing was evidence of that. “No worries. Just inconvenient.” I tried to make light of the fact that I nearly bought it. If it had been Sarah in there, the big Z would have easily overwhelmed her. Charlie came back from the other hall way, and I could see a zombie half in and half out of a back room.

  “All clear?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Charlie said. “You?”

  “Just a big bugger that gave me a good run.” I took a second look at the corpse in the hall. “Say, Charlie, is that your knife in his chest?” I inquired, smiling a little.

  Charlie looked back at the body. “Uh, yeah, that’s mine. Not sure how it got there.” He wandered back to the zombie and pulled out his knife. Wiping it off, he came back to the stairs. Both Sarah and I were grinning at him. “What?”

  Sarah broke the silence. “Did you miss his head?” she asked, giggling a little.

  Charlie glowered. “He surprised me, okay? Sometimes when they’re fresh you forget they’re zombies.”

  I laughed. “Guess this lets me off the hook for falling on my ass.”

  Charlie refused to dignify me or Sarah with further comment.

  I patted Sarah on the shoulder and brought my gun up to the ready position. I jumped to the landing, sliding a little on a spot of Z-goop, and aimed towards the top of the stairs. Charlie leapfrogged me and went to the top. Sarah jumped past him and I ran up to take a position on their left.

  We had a minute to take in our surroundings before they came for us. The room was massive, with vaulted ceilings and a walkway on the second floor that opened out to the room. I could see some survivors up there, and reminded myself not to shoot too high. The kitchen was a mess, with tables and chairs thrown about the tile floor, and the hallways had blood smeared on the walls. A decomposing body was in the center of the room, and it was interesting that it had no head. I motioned to Sarah and she looked over.

  “Great. Some idiot has a sword.” She was not amused.

  I smiled inwardly. We had run into a guy a while back who insisted he was the greatest zombie killer in existence, and his weapons were two cheap samurai swords. He didn’t last long after he charged a group of five zombies by himself. We buried his swords with what was left of him.

  I didn’t have much time to reminisce. There were about fifteen zombies in various states of decay that were coming for us. A small woman was immediately in front of me and she was almost able to grab my arm when I dropped her. Sarah had slung her rifle and was using her Ruger to drop zombies. Charlie fired three times and took out a set of twins and their grandmother. I moved to my left and killed two more, an old man and young boy. I was moving towards the kitchen, clearing a path. I shot my last one and turned to see Sarah finishing off hers and Charlie using his tomahawk to take out a zombie that was crawling out from under the table where it had been feeding on what looked like a small dog or cat.

  “Clear.” I said.

  “Clear.” said Sarah.

  “Clear.” said Charlie

  I looked around. The place was nice, but useless as a place of defense unless you shored up the windows. I motioned to Sarah. “Check for transportation for these people. We don’t know how many there are or if any of them are infected, so I don’t want them riding with us.”

  Sarah nodded and went off to find the garage. Charlie came over and I motioned to the stairs. “Go see what we have up there. See how they are provisioned for the winter, and see if they have anything of use. I’m going to secure the rest of the house.” I could still hear shots outside from Tommy and Duncan. “We need to be out in ten minutes, max.”

  Charlie nodded and went to the stairs, where he had to navigate over a pile of debris and doors to get to the second floor.

  I shouldered my carbine and unholstered my SIG. There were a couple of rooms to check and the front door to secure. I didn’t need any leftovers ruining my day, or any wandering Z’s coming to call. I went by the dining room and admired the chandelier in there before heading to the front door which was wide open. I checked the lawn and shot a zombie that was dragging itself across the grass, its lower legs having been torn off. I closed the door and locked it, noting that it was steel and could hold off quite a few zombies.

  Oh well. I could hear Charlie talking to the people upstairs and heard more than one raised voice. Great. This should be fun. I headed towards the back rooms and checked the furthest one, finding nothing. The second one nearly drove me over the edge.

  It was a nursery, with a changing table and dresser, and Winnie the Pooh was the theme. In the corner was a crib, and I could see movement under the blanket. I couldn’t stop my feet from walking over to the crib, and my hand gripped my SIG like I was trying to break it. I looked over the sid
e of the crib and saw the Winnie the Pooh blanket covering something alive. It wasn’t crying or making any noises, so I knew what I was going to see. I reached out and pulled the blanket away, and had to turn away, nearly retching in my disgust. A baby was in the crib, roughly four months old, and it apparently had become infected and turned. Its skin was blue grey, and its eyes were milky like the rest. It saw me and reached out with tiny, grasping hands, its face becoming a mask of anger at the meal it couldn’t reach. The mouth opened and closed, and I could see one small tooth coming through the gums.

  I couldn’t leave it there, and I couldn’t ask anyone else to finish it off. I never asked anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I’ve had so called leaders like that in the past, and I swore I would never be like them when I became an administrator. I raised my SIG with both hands, lined up the tiny head, and pulled the trigger. The blast was loud in the room, and my hands dropped to my sides. I closed my eyes and thought of Jake. This will never happen to you, I swore for the thousandth time. Never.

  I holstered my SIG and used the blanket to cover the baby. I turned around and saw Sarah standing in the doorway. Apparently, she had seen me shoot the child. As I walked past, she reached out and touched my arm.

  “You had to, John.” she said softly.

  “I know.” I said. “But that doesn’t make it easy.”

  Reading my mind, Sarah tried to reassure me. “I’m glad its not.” She said. “It won’t happen to Jake, John. I promise it won’t.”

  I shook my head. “I need to get out of here.” I moved past Sarah and stopped in the hallway. “Thank you.” I said over my shoulder.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I headed back to the main area with Sarah behind me. A group of nine people waited by the stairs, in various states of disarray. There were three men, four women, and two teenage boys. One of the teenagers was carrying a sword. A Scottish Claymore reproduction, by the look of it. He glared at me as I walked past, challenging me silently with his hand on the hilt. Moron. A fourth man was engaged in a lively conversation with Charlie, who was not known for his people skills.