Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland (Alice, No. 5)

by Dhar, Mainak

  Her dad called out.

  'Are there any more? Does anyone see any more Biters?'

  When it was clear that there was only one Biter coming, the gate opened and Jones ran out, an axe in hand. Jones sprinted towards the Biter, and even without breaking his stride, brought him down with a kick that swept the Biter's feet from under him. Even before the Biter had fallen down to the ground, Jones' axe crashed into the Biter's skull.

  It was one thing to watch people at practice but seeing Jones demonstrate his deadly skills for real both shocked and excited Alice. Jones walked back, and a team of boys headed out to carry the Biter out back and burn the body. As Jones passed her, he caught her looking at him.

  'Hey, Alice. All well?'

  'Uncle Jones, please teach me to fight like that. I promise not to tell Dad.'

  He laughed as he answered.

  'Sweetheart, believe me, you'll see your share of killing and fighting, but why hurry? You'll start learning soon, when your dad and I agree that it's time. Okay?'

  It wasn't okay, but Alice knew that arguing wouldn't get her anywhere. As she trundled towards the garden where she had morning duties, she kept replaying the scene in her head. The explosive speed with which Jones had moved, the way he had brought the Biter down effortlessly. If she could fight like that, nobody, least of all that snot-nosed Junior, would pick on her. And then she could be the one protecting everyone, not a little kid who was never allowed to do anything. Wouldn't that be something?

  The morning went by in a blur of daydreaming and scarcely completed chores, but by mid-day, Alice realized that something was amiss. She heard from Jane that three more Biters had stumbled upon the settlement and had to be put down.

  That afternoon, all the adults met in the community center, which was basically the same as their dining room, but with the benches pulled to one side. As always, Alice didn't listen to their instructions for the kids to stay home and she stood by the window, listening in.

  'Sir, it could be a coincidence that we've had so many stragglers in one morning.'

  Her dad looked at Jones, and she could tell that he was worried. 'It could be, but I can't trust everyone's safety here to coincidence. We've not had so many stragglers in one day in some time, and if there's a chance that a larger horde is passing our way, we need to be ready. Let's get some patrols out there so we can get an idea of what's happening. Remember, no heroics. If you see Biters, no need to engage. Get a fix on numbers, bearing and distance and get back.'

  As everyone disbanded to prepare for the patrols, Jones caught up with Gladwell near the window where Alice was hiding.

  'Sir, I'll take out one of the patrols, and if all's clear, I was thinking of taking out some of the older kids later in the day. They've had enough classroom training and it's about time they got out there and learned some fieldcraft. I'll get them back before dark.'

  Gladwell considered it for a second.

  'You know your job best. If you think they're ready and it's safe enough out there, go ahead.'

  A rush of excitement coursed through Alice. The kids in Jones' class would be taken out on a real patrol! Of course, she would be told to stay at home. There was no chance of a kid her age without formal training going out into the Deadland on a patrol.

  Of course, when Alice had set her mind on something, what she was told to do counted for little.

  ***

  By mid-afternoon, the patrols had all reported back. Two of them had encountered single Biters whom they had despatched without much effort, but there was no sign of any larger horde anywhere.

  The adults met again in the community center and Jones outlined what they had found. There was an almost audible sigh of relief in the room. While peace was too much to expect in any settlement in the Deadland, even one as well protected as this, they had it much better than the others. They hadn't faced a large Biter horde in many months, and bandits who still roamed the Deadland had long learned that attacking this particular settlement was a bad business decision. That was why the appearance of so many Biters in one morning had been unusual and the thought that had been weighing on everyone's mind was that they would once again have to defend against a large Biter horde like their early days.

  Finally, Jones addressed the parents of the five kids he was planning to take out. Four actually, since one of them was Junior, and he had already had that chat with his wife.

  A year earlier, Junior had been out on a hunting trip with Jones and they had stumbled upon a Biter, whom Jones had told Junior to shoot. He hadn't quite managed to finish the job, but being part of a patrol that had killed a Biter explained a lot of his bravado around the settlement, and the fact that he thought he had a God-given right to bully other kids.

  All the parents agreed to Jones taking their kids out. Before The Rising, it would have been absurd for any sane parent to consider sending eleven and twelve-year-old kids out into a wasteland teeming with undead monsters, but the rules of parenting, and of survival, had changed a lot.

  Jones asked the kids to get their kits—a backpack filled with a water bottle and some fruit, a small knife at the belt, and a handgun with a loaded clip. Jones was carrying an assault rifle, but he thought it would be enough for the kids to carry a handgun out. They were still small, and they still needed some growing up to march with an assault rifle for any extended period. Also, he figured that he had no intention of venturing far, and if they did bump into a Biter, they had more than enough firepower.

  Unknown to her parents, Alice was doing her own packing. She had a small bag slung around her shoulder, carrying her own bottle of water and an apple that she had plucked from the tree in the garden. She had no firearms of her own, of course, but that didn't mean she would go out totally unarmed. She took a knife from Jane's things and stuck it in her belt.

  As Jones began to leave with the group, she was thinking of a good excuse for her to not be around her parents, but then she was presented with a golden opportunity. Everybody was so relieved at not having to face a large Biter horde and happy at the big stash of weapons and ammunition that Rajiv had brought with him that Gladwell had decided to host a small party when Jones and the kids got back to properly welcome the newcomers. Everyone was busy preparing, gathering vegetables and fruits from the garden for the feast, some of the men pulling out the drink they brewed in the shed out back, and everyone else busy in laying out the community center for the party. A couple of men were at the gate, keeping watch, and Alice decided a small lie couldn't hurt. She walked up to one of them.

  'Uncle, Dad's calling both of you. He said it's urgent and he wants to see you for a second right now.'

  They looked at each other for a second and then jogged over to the community center. The gate was locked and they'd be back in a matter of minutes, so they didn't think much of it. Alice pushed her bag out the small opening at the bottom of the gate, and squeezed through. When she had been a four-year-old chasing her puppy through the same hole, it had been much easier, but she was still very thin, and after some wiggling and pushing, she was out. She could see Jones and the kids in the distance, and she ran after them.

  Her heart thumped with excitement. She was going on a patrol! That would wipe the smile off Junior's face for sure. Once he knew she had been out on a patrol, her Dad would definitely think that she was old enough to be trained.

  Jones and his group walked at high speed, and she began running after them, both to catch up with them and also to get away from the walls before one of the sentries saw her and hauled her back. She loved the feel of the wind in her face as she ran, feeling her hair flow behind her. She loved the feeling of being out in the open. She had envied the adults and older kids for being able to explore what lay beyond the settlement. She had never been out alone so long outside the settlement and while she knew it provided safety, she longed to be out in the open, to run at full speed, to explore what lay outside. She was faster than any other kid in the settlement, a fact that had been proven in r
ace after race, and she was fast gaining on Jones when the group disappeared behind a collection of broken-down huts that had long been abandoned.

  She ran up to the nearest hut and stood next to it, her back flat against the wall.

  'Kids, the first lesson is on how to set up a perimeter out in the open. We've practiced in the settlement, but this is for real—unfamiliar terrain, and places Biters could come from unless you know how to watch for them.'

  Alice listened, fascinated, as Jones put the kids through their paces. She longed to go out there, to tell him that while she might not be as strong as the older kids, she was faster and had great eyesight. She would make a great scout, if only he would agree to train her and send her out on patrols.

  Movement came from her left and she turned and almost screamed in surprise. There was a Biter coming towards her.

  He must have been a very old man when he had turned, for he had little wisps of grey on his largely bald head and very wrinkled skin, which had started yellowing. He was limping slightly, as he was missing a large part of his right calf which seemed to have been chewed off, leaving a mess of dried blood and gore. That was probably where he had been bitten when he turned.

  Alice's hand went to the knife at her belt, and she realized it was useless. The only way to put a Biter down was a blow to the head, and she wasn't tall enough or strong enough to try it on her own. The Biter had not yet spotted her and was coming along at a leisurely pace, dragging his damaged leg along.

  Alice peeked around the corner and saw that Jones had deployed the kids facing all the potential approaches. Unfortunately, Junior was the one assigned to her side, and he was sitting on the ground, facing away from her, eating some fruit he had brought with him. Jones was in a far corner, saying something to another kid, and he had no idea that his worthless son was not exactly doing a stellar job at the guard duties assigned to him.

  Part of her was tempted to slink away and let the Biter feast on Junior, but she knew that wouldn't be right. The Biter swung his head towards her and she saw a gleam in his eyes. Not the gleam of any intelligence that you would expect from a human, but more like the look of a predator that has spotted its prey. The Biter emitted a low-pitched moan and began to close in on Alice. If she chose to run, there was no way the Biter would be able to catch up with her, but that would mean leaving Junior and the others exposed. She closed her eyes and decided on what to do, and then turned the corner.

  'Junior!'

  The boy whirled to face her, shock in his eyes.

  'What the hell are you doing here?'

  Alice ran to him, grabbing his hand and pulling him up.

  'There's a Biter coming this way, just a few feet away. Stop daydreaming and do something!'

  Jones had heard their voices and turned towards them. His eyes were blazing with anger as he strode towards Alice.

  'Don't tell me you were stupid and bull-headed enough to follow us out here alone!'

  Alice shrank back, as if she had been physically struck, and managed to blurt out.

  'There's a Biter there.'

  Jones now turned to Junior, who also looked away, not willing to face his father's fury.

  'I thought I had put you on guard duty. Alice snuck up on you, and a Biter's on its way and you're cluelessly sitting there having a snack. Looks like my training has been of no use.'

  Without saying a word more, Jones took out the curved knife from his belt and walked around the hut. Alice peeked out to see him take down and kill the Biter in a second. When he came back, he was wiping the blood off his blade with a leaf.

  'Come on, kids. We've picked up a passenger we don't want to carry around and as much as I don't like it, our mission is now over. I don't want to risk a little kid, even though she's too clever for her own good. Let's get back to the settlement.'

  Junior hissed at Alice, whose face was burning red with embarrassment.

  'You jerk! You made me look bad on purpose.'

  Alice shot back.

  'You don't need any help to look bad. You're plenty ugly to begin with.'

  They had just begun their trip back, Jones holding onto Alice's hand tight, when the first bullet slammed into the wall inches from his head.

  ***

  'Take cover!'

  Everyone scrambled behind the huts on Jones' command as more bullets poured in towards them. A bullet hit the wall above Junior's head, sending pieces of brick flying in all directions. Two of the kids were cut on their arms and faces, and they began howling in pain.

  'Shh...'

  Jones was trying to calm them as he unslung his rifle and tried to get a bearing on their attackers, but this was the first time the kids had come under fire, and several of them looked to be on the verge of tears. Jones crawled towards the treeline and peered through his scope. He muttered some bad words that Alice’s Mom would have given her a good spanking for if she had said them in front of her. All she picked up was the word 'Zeus'.

  'Kids, keep your heads down. I don't think they can get us from there. Perhaps they just wanted to mess around and will go away.'

  Alice was hardly reassured.

  'Uncle Jones, what if they come here to kill us?'

  The look on Jones' face told her that he already regarded that as more than a mere possibility.

  'I can see only two men. Now, there are more of us and we have more guns, but none of you has ever been in a firefight, and these are trained killers with automatic rifles. If they come in towards us, I need you kids to distract them a bit. That'll allow me to take them down. Can you do that?'

  There was stony silence, and Jones turned specifically towards Junior.

  'Junior, you're the most experienced one here. Can you handle this?'

  He nodded towards his father, but his face was deathly pale and Alice could see his hands shaking. Another bullet whizzed overhead and Junior flinched. Jones held the boy's shoulder.

  'All you need to do is hide behind this hut with the others and if those guys come towards us, then unload on them. Just shoot away—don't worry about whether you hit anything or not. I just need them to be distracted and I'll come at them from that other hut on the far side. Got it? Look at me, son. I need to know you can do this.'

  Junior nodded again and gripped his handgun tight, his knuckles turning white as he did so. Jones ran over to the other side of the small collection of huts and took cover behind another hut as several bullets slammed into the wall. Alice heard a voice in the distance.

  'Not so tough now, are we?'

  That was followed by laughter from the other man. The slurred voices told her that the men had been drinking something funny, like some of the men on the settlement when they were unwinding after a battle. Her Dad never touched the stuff and told her that it just made your thinking foggy, and she certainly hoped that was the case with their attackers.

  The other kids were flattened against the wall, and two of them were now crying openly. Junior was putting on a brave face, but his hands were shaking badly. Alice's own heart was hammering so fast and so loudly that it nearly drowned out the sound of gunfire. Their attackers were now firing single shots—seemingly more for sport than with the hope of actually hitting anyone. The problem was that they seemed to be getting closer. She looked over at Jones, and he was crouched on the ground, his rifle at his shoulder, scanning for targets and the opportunity to fire. Their attackers would be coming through the thin clump of trees that lay between them, and Alice was now also scanning the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the men.

  She saw a movement behind some branches. At first she thought it was just the leaves blowing in the wind, but soon it was clear that it was a man's arm, holding an assault rifle.

  'Junior. Look there!'

  Junior also saw the man but he was in no shape to act. He was breathing heavily and seemed to have frozen. The man now came into view, holding his rifle up to his shoulder. Alice looked across. Jones was fixated on another target, tracking it with his rifle. Thei
r two attackers had split up, and while Jones had one of them covered, the other one was now almost upon them.

  'Do something!'

  Alice's whispered plea galvanized Junior into action, and he thumbed the safety off on his handgun and brought it up, holding it in a two-handed grip as he aimed at the man. But before he could fire the man pulled the trigger, sending a three-round burst at him. The bullets missed Junior by just a few inches and he froze, unable or unwilling to shoot back.

  Alice was focused on the man coming at them, now no more than twenty meters away. She heard automatic fire coming from her right, and the sound of a man screaming. It did not sound like Jones, so perhaps he had got his target. However, she had no idea if he would be able to come to their rescue on time.

  A second burst stitched the wall above Junior's head and he screamed, dropping his gun to the ground. The man was now moving closer, in the open, confident that he was up against kids who could not fight back or hurt him. Now Alice saw that he was indeed a Zeus trooper, and was the man who had passed the comment about Jane back at the settlement.

  Alice looked to her right as Jones doubled back from among the trees. He had seen their predicament, but did not have a clean shot at their attacker, as there were several trees between them.

  'Junior, shoot, shoot, shoot...'

  Alice was prodding him but he seemed to be paralyzed and was shaking. The trooper had a smirk on his face and was bringing his rifle up, when almost without conscious thought, Alice picked up Junior's gun, held it in front of her just as she had seen Jones teach kids in his classes and fired.

  Her first shot went wide, well to the trooper's right, but the shock of realizing that one of the kids was firing back made him hesitate and look for cover. Alice's second shot landed a couple of feet away from his right leg, kicking up dust and grass, and the third bullet was even closer. The trooper dove behind a tree and fired as Alice lay flat on the ground and bullets raked the dust around her. Even without looking, she kept pulling the trigger again and again till the gun clicked empty.