by Mike Staton
Sarah closed her eyes mid speech as she relived the tense moment in the backyard. Percival slid his arms up and around her and found that she was suffering from the slightest of tremors.
“And all that…” Her voice cracked and she drifted off to take several deep breaths before continuing. “All that just seconds after we heard a gunshot and you came back covered in blood? You did your best and… and…” She trailed off again.
“I got people killed,” he said quietly. Her words were comforting, but it didn’t change the fact that it was his decision that had brought them into the neighborhood to begin with. It was his decision to ignore Roy Joy’s warnings; his decision to not make Andrina remain behind; his decision to not speed back to the campus. They’d already set out to do what they intended: find supplies, find survivors, and survey the land before winter truly settled over Tennessee.
“Yeah… but that doesn’t sit entirely on your shoulders,” Sarah whispered. “Could have been you who took that bullet to the head. You didn’t know other survivors were here. Given the zombie presence, it’s surprising they were there at all.”
Something about that clicked in Percival’s head as though it flipped a switch. The zombies hadn’t been there the night before and he’d assumed it had something to do with the stalkers; which it still probably did, but a horde that size likely didn’t move in on its own. Had the unseen survivors drawn the massive horde down on them somehow? He frowned. This new idea shoved the grief and guilt he was feeling into a small corner of his mind.
“I’m not a mind reader, hon,” Sarah said.
“I just had a disturbing thought,” Percival said. His voice sounded gruff and strained in his ears.
“That must be unique,” Carlos said from the driver’s seat. “If you two are done making out back there, I need to know what the fuck is going on.”
Carlos sounded stressed and Percival couldn’t blame him. They didn’t know each other very well, having met only a couple of days before, and Percival hadn’t been the most civil of people since then. Had their roles been reversed, Percival couldn’t say that he would have stuck with Carlos.
“I think whoever shot Andrina might have brought the horde down on us.” Percival gently moved Sarah off his lap and moved forward to climb over the center console and into the passenger seat. They were traveling through the forest heading away from the suburb they’d just had the disastrous encounter in.
“And how would they have done that?” Carlos asked. He sounded skeptical and the tone of his voice dripped with sarcasm.
“We’ve seen two types of zombie beyond the standard walker,” Sarah said from the backseat. Her voice had regained its strength, so she must have latched onto the idea as an outlet for the other painful emotions raging within her. Percival knew he was doing that.
“Stalkers, the creeps with fingers gnawed into claws and have something about them that even the other zombies choose to avoid. And spitters who seem to exist to spread the zombie plague rather than feast on the living,” Percival thought aloud. “It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination that there’s some sort of zombie leader that draws zombies to it.”
“And that’s being imaginative,” Sarah said. “They might simply have had someone running in front of the horde like a carrot on a stick.”
“You two realize how… farfetched that all sounds?” Carlos’s voice had dropped a tenor, coming back to something resembling calm. “You’re grasping at straws, I think.”
“Maybe, but…” Percival said, and cut himself off. They were free of a horde of zombies and crazy survivors and all the other nastiness of the past few days. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, suggest trying to figure out if Andrina’s murderers were capable of directing a horde when they could make tracks to the campus and safety. Truer safety than he and Sarah’d known for longer than he cared to think about.
“But what?” Carlos glanced his way, then planted his eyes back on the road.
Percival shook his head, settling his eyes on the road ahead.
“If they’re capable of moving zombie hordes around, they might use ‘em for a weapon,” Sarah said. She leaned forward, resting against the center console. “Sounds like some stupid plot for a B movie.”
“And not our problem.” Percival crossed his arms over his chest. “We have a responsibility to get back to campus…”
He had meant to put steel into his voice and a finality to the statement that said there wasn’t to be any other discussion of the matter. Apparently he failed.
“How is it not our problem?” Sarah asked quietly. “If they can control zombies, even in just a directing a horde fashion, they threaten any compound or group of survivors that isn’t them.”
Percival glanced at Carlos. “Next you’ll tell me you’re ready to find these guys and see if the horde was intentional or convenient happenstance.”
“I’m more interested in getting back to this utopia at your college that you’ve talked up,” Carlos grunted. “But it doesn’t sound like it might stay a utopia terribly long if a giant horde of zombies from the rest of the country comes down on it.”
Percival turned to stare out the side window. He kept his mind focused on the now rather than drifting back to the gaping wound of the losses he’d accumulated recently. “I don’t doubt it. However, they’re not a threat to us right now. Especially with winter on its way.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Sarah said.
“And we’re into circular logic if we keep having this particular argument,” Percival replied.
Sarah launched herself rearward into the backseat with a ‘hrmph’ sound. “Andrina and Karl will’ve died for nothing if we don’t make sure campus is safe from these guys.”
Percival closed his eyes again, raising a hand to his temple. “They’ll have died for nothing if we don’t make it back to campus with what we’ve gathered and seen.”
“And if these guys can control zombies and attack campus?” Sarah shot back.
“It is a threat that’ll be out there regardless,” Percival muttered. If they could, and he regretted even starting this line of conversation at this point, the likelihood was that others could as well. The world hadn’t ended all that long ago and people were still assholes. One might hope that the apocalypse, and a thoroughly common enemy, would unite man. But that hadn’t been the case.
And Percival’s hands were far from clean in that aspect. Morrbid’s face flashed before him. It was followed by the faux-soldiers from the depot. People he’d shot because they were shooting at him or threatening people he was close to. He’d not been the outright aggressor, but it hardly made it right.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“It’s a threat we can lessen.” Sarah’s voice echoed from the backseat.
“And people’re dangerous. I’m not proud of some of the things I did with those gung-ho guys at the depot, but it does give me a bit of perspective on things.” Carlos gently swerved around a handful of cars that had been reduced to inconvenient roadblocks.
“What perspective is that?” Percival hoped he wouldn’t regret taking the bait Carlos had laid out there.
“Just how dangerous people can be, is all. And how they can be surprised. I mean, did you notice just how quickly the guys at the depot fell apart when y’all shot back? We didn’t expect you guys to have a backbone like that, or the ingenuity to get out of our holding cell.”
Percival sighed. “We can’t go back. We’re just three people and this isn’t going to be a discussion we’re having now.”
“Fine,” Sarah said.
“If Brown College is where Sarah was saying it’ll take us longer to get there than we’ve daylight left. Likely a few days,” Carlos said.
“What’s your point?” Percival said. He felt exhausted and thoroughly tired. As though the fatigue of the day were settling into the very marrow of his bones, if not deeper, and holding on for the long haul. He wondered if after today he’d ever be
able to feel rested again.
“Just that we could find a spot to stop nearby discuss this in a better capacity before we’re too far to turn back,” Carlos said. He pitched his voice lower, barely above a whisper, and continued, “And it’ll give you a chance to square things with Sarah. It wouldn’t be good to keep her pissed with you. Love’s hard to find in this new world.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Percival said. “I won’t promise anything beyond that. But we will talk about it.”
“Whatever,” Sarah muttered from the backseat.
Percival turned in his seat, twisting to look at her in all of her grimy, blood-spattered, and survivor glory. He took in the soft lines of her face, and slender frame that somehow seemed to present itself beneath her bulky attire. “We’ll talk about it. I know this much, Sarah, I can’t stand to lose you. And undertaking this challenge is too dangerous to do lightly.”
She looked up at him. “Like I said. ‘Whatever.’”
Chapter 15
“You’re mad at me,” Percival said. He sat in the backroom of the gas station, his pistol completely disassembled in front of him. At some point he’d intended to clean the weapon, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.
The gas station wasn’t ideal, but they had lucked out on being able to siphon four large, red, gas canisters of diesel out of the underground tank. They’d only stopped because they hadn’t had more storage tanks to transport the additional fuel. This would be an ideal place to return in the future.
The fuel combined with two packages of bottled water had turned the sleeping spot into a gold mine. There had even been a couple packages of Twinkies left over that he, Sarah, and Carlos had split as a dessert. After spending an hour searching and fortifying the backroom, Carlos had set to reorganizing the Humvee and packing away the new acquisitions.
He’d also done it so that Percival would have a few quiet and private minutes alone with Sarah. The downside to staying in a gas station meant everyone sleeping in the same room.
“I’m not mad at you,” she said in clipped tones. “I don’t agree with you. And don’t think you’re thinking this through though.”
“Then what’s with the silent treatment?” Percival asked. Sarah had said hardly a word since he’d declared they were only going to talk about finding the other group of survivors in the suburbs of Knoxville.
Sarah turned around to face him. She planted her hands on her hips and stared down at him. “I needed time to think. Something, I imagine, you needed as well. And I didn’t think that yammering at each other during the in between time would suit us terribly well.”
“Uh huh,” Percival stared at her for a long moment. He admired her curves from his position on the floor and whipped his gaze away and down to his pistol, which he hurriedly began cleaning once more. “How’d that go for you?”
“These guys, regardless of whether or not they can control zombies, pose a threat to us. They shot Andrina on sight, without provocation, and it’s not like they mistook her for a zombie. She was sneaking around, just like the rest of us, and zombies don’t sneak.” Sarah sauntered over to him and crouched down in front of him.
“Stalkers sneak.”
“Stalkers are an abnormal zombie. The horde we saw weren’t stalkers. Hell, it doesn’t seem like stalkers even gather into hordes.” Sarah reached out and gently lifted his chin. “They’re the most aggressive survivors we’ve met yet. There’s something not right about it and you know it.”
“Do I sense a ‘but’ coming in sometime soon?” Percival asked. “I agree with you, by the way. Others we’ve met, and admittedly they’ve been few and somewhat far between, haven’t shot first and never asked questions.”
“I know, which makes these guys extra dangerous.” Sarah slid her hand to his shoulder. “Imagine if they came to the college. Even if only by accident. Would they shoot our watchmen? If they have the ability to control zombies, would they throw a horde against our defenses? I mean, I know we’ve got the fences, but they haven’t been tested against a massive horde yet. I don’t know that they’d withstand even a horde of a few hundred. And unless the watchmen have become far better marksmen in the short time we’ve been gone, Lord knows we don’t have the bullets to fend a massive attack off.”
“Those’re all good points, hon… What would you have me do?”
“Take us back into Knoxville to scout these guys out,” Sarah said quietly. “We’re still close and it wouldn’t hurt to know more about these guys. Or even lay down a little bit of hurt on them.”
“Is this more about revenge?” Percival asked quietly. “I miss Andrina as well. Her death left a hole in our ranks and hearts. But is it worth the risk, risking you and Carlos, just to hunt these guys down?”
Sarah looked at the floor for a moment. “I think the benefits of learning more outweigh the risks.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Percival said. “Is this more about revenge than information?”
“It’s more about prevention,” Sarah answered after a long pause. “If it results in a revenge type scenario cropping up, then so be it.”
Percival sighed. “You’ve not killed anyone yet… It’s not as easy as you’re making it sound.”
“I don’t mean to make it light,” Sarah said quietly. Her delicate fingers drifted down to his hand. “And it isn’t a weight you should carry alone.” She skirted the space he’d claimed to clean his pistol on and sat beside him, arms drifting around his shoulders.
Percival turned into her and nestled his forehead against her shoulder. “I’m hoping you never have to share it with me.”
Sarah fell silent at his words. The sound of the front doors opening and closing didn’t disturb their embrace. Carlos’s footsteps echoed through the gas station and back into the room they occupied. Percival looked up as Carlos threaded a chain through the handles of the door.
“Humvee’s loaded up and ready to go tomorrow,” Carlos said. He moved over next to Percival and Sarah, sitting down opposite Percival’s impromptu gun cleaning station.
Percival nodded. “Thanks, Carlos.”
Carlos waved the thanks away. “What’s the plan?”
“Haven’t settled on one.” Percival released Sarah and turned back to cleaning his pistol, carefully brushing and oiling each piece before settling it back together.
“I can say this much: if you wanna come back here, it’d be smart not to leave this place in any sort of state that looks like it’s been untouched.” Carlos moved to a cardboard box they’d flattened out. He stretched out and folded his arms beneath his head.
“What do you mean?” Percival asked. “It looked pretty looted when we got here.”
“I mean we should leave it in a worse state to dissuade anyone, especially since we know there’s unfriendly folk really close by, from bothering to look at it.” Carlos rolled onto his side so his back was to Percival and Sarah.
“The diesel is excessively valuable in this day,” Sarah said. “If the assholes in town know about this place, they may trap it or loot it for themselves, or both.”
Percival started reloading magazines. The idea of coming back to the gas station and gathering the remaining diesel for their use was certainly appealing. The campus’s generators ran on the stuff after all. And the prospect of returning to find it empty, or worse, bothered him.
“Might be just some singular asshat in town too,” Sarah said quietly. “A true loner out there.”
Percival shrugged. “You should lay down and get some sleep. I’ll settle on which direction we’re going by morning.”
Sarah leaned in and kissed him softly before shuffling back to the flattened cardboard boxes they’d call a bed. She tucked her arms into her jacket, rolled onto her side, her injured ear up, and closed her eyes.
Percival watched her for a moment longer before sliding a loaded magazine into his pistol. The last thing he did before turning the flashlight off was chamber a round.
*
&nbs
p; Percival eased his arm from around Sarah’s middle and disengaged himself gently. He’d woken on his own a few minutes earlier. The room was still dark, and he could hear Carlos’s quiet breathing from nearby. He lifted himself gently from the floor and moved through the darkness toward the shadowy silhouette he assumed was Carlos. The shadow tipped its head toward Percival.
“Not time to get up just yet,” Carlos said quietly.
“Couldn’t sleep any longer,” Percival answered. While sleep wasn’t exactly a fleeting thing for him, it hadn’t ever been something that had eluded him. Last night, however, had been plagued by the faces of friends he’d lost and people he’d shot.
Remorse and guilt was, annoyingly, holding on and not staying in the dark corners of his psyche where he wanted them to stay. He was resolved not to let the feelings get in the way of what he had to do to keep others safe with him, but it did make his recent downtime less pleasant.
“I get that,” Carlos whispered. “Need to talk?”
“No,” Percival said. “I just…”
“I get it, dude. Morrbid was out of line. I was close to shooting him,” Carlos said. “Dunno if it’s the right decision. Sure as hell ain’t an easy one. But it sure is comforting to see you strugglin’ with this.”
Percival stared at the shadowy outline that was Carlos. “How do you mean?”
“You shot him, cold and dead without hesitation. That I get. If’n he’d had someone I cared for all wrapped up and gun to their face, I prolly wouldn’t have hesitated longer than it took to line up the shot.” Carlos shifted in the dark. “But shooting Jessica? Cold. I almost split right then and there, to be honest. But I, if I’m continuing to be honest, I don’t think you’re a bad person, people. And I don’t wanna go it alone. And from what I’ve heard of your campus, it’s quite the nice place to hole up.”
