by Mike Staton
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.
“I know it’ll delay our departure, and we burn the dead but it’s im—“ Kat cut herself off. “You didn’t say ‘no.’”
“I think it’s important to do things like this. They deserve rest. Get a couple volunteers. Should still be at least a shovel, maybe two or three, around here. And we bury our own.” His statement wasn’t entirely true, but the sentiment was what mattered. And they didn’t have time to properly burn the bodies anyways.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I can tackle talking about how to better secure this place with Lillard while you’re gone. God, I wish Andrina were still here.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really. Eventually. But not right now.” He sounded unimaginably tired. “Go get your people. You’re burning daylight.”
*
“This is disgusting…” Abe stood beneath Alem as Kat scrabbled up the wall.
She shimmied along until she reached the rope and took out a small hand-axe. She agreed with Abe’s assessment of the situation, but didn’t see the reason to actually add a voice to it.
“We should bury everyone,” Kim muttered.
“Don’t have the time. We will eventually though…” Abe’s voice trailed off into a groping sadness. “I believed Lillard’s theory that it’d been just a giant horde. There’s so few of us left, who’d do this to another person?”
“Psychotic assholes. Ready Abe?” Kat hefted the small axe over her head as she steadied herself with her free hand.
“Mmhm.”
“Fuckers who—” She brought the axe down hard on the rope and lifted once more. “—don’t deserve—” She slammed the axe back down and the rope split, but didn’t snap loose. “—to be among the living—“ She whipped the axe up and back down. Alem fell into Abe’s arms. “—in this sea of the dead.”
Kat let a huff out with a soft growl. “And they’re dangerous too.”
“No doubts there.” Kim turned from watching the entrance to the green. “Think that’s part of why Percival wants us to move?”
“Part of why I want y’all to move.” Kat shimmied to the next rope. She pictured a fictional man’s head in the place of the rope. The manifestation of everything that’d happened to ruin this place for her. It held a few features of her grandfather. “Here ain’t the safest of spaces.”
Abe returned from delivering Alem’s body to a prepared hole. Patrick shoveled dirt into the fresh grave. “You okay?”
“No. Ready?”
“She’s usually this grumpy,” Kim muttered.
Abe ignored him. “Yeah. Want to talk about it?”
“No.” Kat slammed the axe down and through the imaginary cranium and split the rope in a single devastating blow. “This… This was my home, you know?”
“Was all of our homes.” Abe moved away with Rai’s body.
“I think that came out a little harsher than he meant it to.” Kim looked up at her. “You were here for college, right?”
Kat nodded without looking at him as she shimmied to the rope supporting Emera. “Not as prestigious as attending a full military college, but…”
“A proud tradition none-the-less.” Kim raised Kat’s rifle and stared at something she couldn’t see for a moment before lowering it.
“It was recommended… I was recommended here by a close friend. It turned out to be a perfect fit. The home I’d never really had.” Kat wasn’t sure why she was opening up to Kim. Abe stopped beneath Emera’s body and waited for her to drop.
Kat gave the rope a solid whack with her hand-axe. The rope fell away and Abe wordlessly carried the body to the waiting grave.
“Was that before the apocalypse or after?” Kim asked quietly. So quietly that Kat wasn’t sure she’d heard him properly.
“Both.” Kat shimmied above Donald. Quietly, to herself, she added. “Mostly after.”
She dropped the last leader of their community into the arms of Abe.
*
Burying the four bodies took a couple of hours. After Kat had dropped back to the ground and reclaimed her firearm from Kim. She took watch as Abe, Kim, and Patrick finished the shallow graves. The carnage around her begged for attention, but she purposefully ignored it.
Clearing the grounds would take days, if not weeks, of work. Days and weeks they didn’t have at present. They cleared out of the area and only paused long enough to loot ammunition from the gun nest in the dormitory.
The trip to the Humvee took only a scant few minutes, and was impeded by two zombies that both Abe and Patrick handled deftly with their shovels.
The Humvee gave a throaty growl as Kat cranked the key. Within a few seconds she had it rumbling and alive. She backed it up the street and skirted the blocked off, central portion of town that had made up the core of their community. She wove through empty streets, running over a single zombie, along the way back to the Community Center.
She pulled up and parked the vehicle near the doors leading inside. She pulled the keys and hopped out. She readied her rifle. She made her way inside. A handful of candles lined the corridor leading to the gymnasium and lit the way. The defensive point of two tables that served as a way point stood empty.
Voices drifted down the hallway toward them. Some argument must have broken out between a couple people. Kat quickened her step.
She came to the gym’s double doors at half a jog. She yanked one open and the voices surged to her in a tsunami of sound.
“You sent them out to die!”
“Why should we listen to you?”
“The trip to where you said it’d be isn’t that far. They should be back by now.”
Percival stood in his lime green t-shirt. He looked more tired than he’d looked when Kat’d left that morning. His eyes seemed sunken and hollow. He spread his hands.
“Is that why you’re back and no one else is?”
“I’m here because of the sacrifices of our friends. So I could get back and deliver my discoveries to you.” Percival spread his arms wide, palms up.
It reminded Kat of some of the Jesus pictures her grandparents had plastered their home with. “Hey, everyone. We’re fine. No trouble at all.”
A few of the crowd turned toward her. She could see the tension dissipate. A few nodded. A few started to wander away.
“We had an errand to run. But we’re all fine. Sun’s out and shining and it’s perfect weather to go out into the countryside.” Abe stepped up beside her.
Percival turned toward them. “Thank you for your timely arrival.”
Patrick shrugged.
“Think nothin’ of it,” Abe said. He clapped the young man on the shoulder as he walked past.
Percival nodded and rolled his shoulders slightly, he turned and spoke loudly to everyone. “If you’re going, get your stuff and head out to the hall. If you’re not, Lillard should have spoken with you already about where you’re needed to be doing something useful for securing this place.”
His voice echoed slightly in the dim, darkness of the gymnasium. He turned back to Kat and Kim. “I assume it went smoothly?”
Kat nodded. “Yeah. How many do we have going with us?”
“Fewer than I wanted. But it’s alright.” Percival scrubbed a hand over his eyes.
“Susanne?” Kim asked.
“She was a surprise. She’s staying here. Said she’d ‘have the place ready for operations.’” Percival shook his head.
“You look tired. Exhausted even.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I said I wasn’t.”
“Even I’d call you on your shit. I’m going to go catch up with Susanne. “If she’s sticking around, I think I’ll do the same.”
Kat waved him off. “We’re good, Kim. Thanks for listening.”
As soon as the man’d walked off, Kat looked back to Percival. “’Member how I said you should drive the Humvee?”
He nodded.
“I’m chan
ging my mind. Don’t contradict me, it’s my right—“
“As a woman?”
“As a human. Get Hope behind the wheel. I assume she’s still leaving?”
He nodded once more, though it looked like he might topple over from just that gesture. “If she’s willing, have her drive. Get Dan up front.”
“I thought you weren’t a leader?” Percival smiled weakly at her. He punched at her shoulder.
She easily slipped the lazy punch. “I’m not. Just giving you sound advice. Let Dan get strapped in up front. And I mean STRAPPED in. To the point of there not being a chance he can bite or scratch someone if he turns mid-transport. Bring Richard and one other parent and all of the younger folk. I’ll turn over my pistol and I’ve seen the hardware you’ve got in the back. Does it still work?”
“Yeah, but… “ he said.
She cut him off. “Good. Doesn’t matter if it’d be practical in such close quarters. Let them carry something to make them feel secure. And buzz from here to the farm as quick as you can. It’ll be loud and obnoxious and draw zeds to you, but… you’ll get out there faster than idling with the rest of us. And any tails you pick up can be dealt with by the Watchmen out there. It’ll clear the way for the rest us.”
Percival closed his eyes and fell silent for a chunk of time longer than truly made Kat comfortable.
He opened them a moment later. “Yeah. We can do that. It’s a good idea.”
“You don’t need to placate me, you know.”
Percival shook his head. “I’m not. It is a good idea. While I’ve not used it as much, the vehicle can run zombies over. If no one’s riding on top of it, or outside of it, it makes for a safer way of dealing with the undead.”
She nodded. “Thanks. Guess I’d better prepare for going cross country with folk. Faster than trekkin’ the roads.”
Chapter 6
Percival rode atop the Humvee. Beside him was Dan. The man was thin, too thin, like the sort of person you’d see in the advertisements to send food to African villages; except he bore a white complexion. He was almost as pale as the wispy clouds overhead. His head was covered by a ball cap, mostly to hide his waning, blonde hairline.
He’d been infected a few days ago and frequently turned his head to cough. He outright looked sick with a waxy sheen to his pale skin. He’d not quite gone grey, but he certainly looked close to it. Percival couldn’t blame Richard and the other parents for refusing to let the man ride in the cab of the Humvee.
He also couldn’t keep his wandering eyes from straying back to the man. While the infection took slightly different courses through different individuals, this would likely be him within a couple of weeks. If not sooner.
“Yuh can stop.” Dan paused to cough. “Staring at me. We’ve all seen someone infected before.”
The words flowing from the man sounded tired. Drawn out.
“I don’t mean to.” Percival forced his gaze away from Dan. He studied the side of the road nearest him. They’d passed out of the north side of town half an hour ago and wove onto a gravel road shortly after. It narrowed and abandoned vehicles forced them to go slower than he wanted, but it was still faster than the group they’d left to make the trip on foot.
The original plan, before he’d left with his troop of survivors to scout the area and learn more of the world around them, had been to slowly clear the roads come the following spring. For now, the slowly rusting hulks served as minor road blocks. He scrambled to clutch a handhold as the Humvee hit an unseen pothole and clipped a suburban in the process.
He suppressed a flash of anger at Hope and her shoddy driving. He let out a measured breath and spoke to Dan without looking away from the trees on his side of the road. “How’d it happen?”
“I was stupid.”
“I won’t press if you don’t want me to.”
“It was during the attack. I was on the east edge of the campus, horde bumbling down the street. Nothin’ but the stupid slow ones. Not a sprinter among them when I panicked. I wasn’t paying attention, just nearly shit myself and sprinted away from them. Tripped on a crawler two streets over. Bit through my Achilles.” Dan sounded robotic, disconnected. It could have happened to anyone. A tone of sadness melted through him a second later. “Was the first… anything I’ve killed. I kicked her off, smashed her nose back into her face. Broke her teeth in. I don’t remember where I got the rebar, but…”
Percival remembered his first zombie kill. It hadn’t been quite as traumatic as Dan’s had, but apparently he disconnected himself from destroying the undead and seeing them as people. He’d also managed to reconcile killing people –living, breathing people— when it was necessary.
“The first one isn’t ever easy. Don’t you worry about it, you won’t need to do it again.” Percival’d accepted being a leader and doing the dangerous things outside of their wall to protect men like Dan from having to do despicable things. It was part of the burden of responsibility.
“What happened to you?” Dan’s question was quiet, almost lost to the wind and a round of coughing. “What was your first?”
“It was in the early days of the outbreak. Before we knew what was happening exactly.” Percival shook his head as he remembered their blissful ignorance in the early days. “I was out with Sarah. I thought it was some drunk ass-hat that wasn’t listening to her repeated ‘no’s’ and was getting all touchy-feely. He, it, didn’t respond to my shouts at it. Or when I socked him… It in the ear. It just kept trying to get to Sarah, kiss her. I know now that it was trying to bite her.”
“We know a lot more now than we did then.” Dan coughed out and tightened his grip on the top of the vehicle as they bounced over a small dip in the road.
“Sorry guys!” Hope’s voice drifted up from the cab.
Percival thumped the roof twice before continuing his story. “I tried to yank h-it off her and settled a chokehold on him. I yanked and yanked, then the asshole tried to bite me. I reacted by wrenching hard and fast to the side. Felt the bones in his neck pop and separated more than I heard the crunch. Immediately threw up after I dropped it on the sidewalk. It wasn’t quite a clean break though. It thrust one arm out after Sarah with its mouth still gnashing the air. I stomped the head. It was disgusting, horrific. His eye actually popped out on the third stomp. Took three more before it actually stopped moving.”
“That’s rough,” Dan said.
Percival nodded. “Yeah. Was a week or two, kind of a blur now, later that the news of Undead Rabies started circulating. Spent those couple of weeks waiting for the cops to come arrest me for killing someone.”
“’Least I knew what mine was.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier.” Percival watched the trees, bare of their leaves at this point.
“What about…” Dan gestured to Percival’s shoulder.
“Moment of weakness.” Percival refused to look at Dan as he spoke. “Thought I’d seen someone who was already dead. Let the ghoul get too close. Was stupid and not thinking right and didn’t even fight it.”
“Bite snap you out of it?”
Percival shook his head. “Kat put a bullet through her head. Damned fine shot, that woman.”
“Fine woman.” Dan coughed long enough that it drew Percival’s attention back to him and wondered if he’d start seeing chunks of lung come out. Dan wiped his mouth once the coughing fit came to an end. The back of his pale hand came away smeared with red.
“She agreed to put me down when the time came,” Dan said weakly.
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Percival looked away. He’d not asked anyone to do him yet. “You gotta hold on until she catches up with us at the farm then.”
“See what I can do.”
*
Percival slid off of the Humvee. The Watchmen had set up a roadblock a quarter mile from the main house. The Glover Farmstead was quite the complex. It was composed of a central house, large barn, several fenced off areas, and three large silos. The house itself was
two story, plantation style home with white siding, large windows, and a dual story wrap-around porch. A pair of hanging swings drifted almost idly in the breeze on the bottom porch.
Overall, it was in perfect repair. The barn, large and red with a black roof, appeared to be solid as well. The silos were non-descript metal tubes that glinted in the sunlight. Percival could see, even from this distance, someone perched atop the tallest of the silos. He idly wondered if they had a rifle with a scope, or if that was Kat’s preferred position.
He helped Dan down and helped him to hobble to the back of the Humvee and sit down. They’d brought a stretcher just in case. That just in case paid off at this point.
“What do we do now?” Richard asked. He slid himself between his daughter, an eight year old with adorable curls, and Dan.
“We walk. Looks to be less than a mile. Less than half a mile, if I’d guess. They already have eyes on us and nobody’s taken a potshot or anything, so I don’t think we’re in danger. They are, after all, our people.” Percival looked away from Dan and gestured at the silos. “I need someone to volunteer to help with the stretcher.
Hope stepped forward without a word about it. Percival knew the effort would cost him later, but grabbed the opposite end. Dan stretched out on it.
“We’re wasting daylight, people.” Hope’s words spurred everyone, three parents and five children- the Humvee must have looked more like a clown car— started the trek to the farmhouse. The walk was straight forward and silent. Halfway to the house, a boy faded out of the corn beside them. He wore the same modified paintball mask as Kat, but sported a dented aluminum baseball bat. He wore a sweatshirt, dark navy blue almost purple, and jeans that made his combat boots look a little bit out of place.
He didn’t say a word, just thrust his bat into Hope’s hands and took her place in carrying the stretcher.
