by Dhar, Mainak
Six adults ran to the back and began shooting on full automatic. The Biters at the wall were spun around like rag dolls and fell back into the moat on top of the others trapped there. The adults kept firing, and Alice watched the Biters get torn apart by the bullets. One Biter, a woman with her arm and jaw shot off, tried to get back out of the moat, only to be finished by a shot to the head. Another, an old man with a gaping hole in his chest, looked right at Alice and roared in fury, before a bullet took him in the face, sending him down into the moat.
The men began cheering in triumph, and Alice had to shake one of them and scream to be heard.
'Who's at the gate?'
The man looked down at her, and his look told her all she needed to know.
She ran back to the gate, and when she got there, she saw their settlement's worst nightmare come true. The gate had begun to give way under the hammering and weight of the Biters outside. It was a solid wooden gate, but the whole point had been to prevent a mass of Biters from getting to it with the moat, a constant watch and the ability to bring withering fire down the narrow passage leading to the gate. Now with everyone panicked and scattered, nobody had picked the Biters off, and six of them were now pounding at the gate, and slowly but surely, it began to creak open. Alice wanted to run back and ask the others to hurry up, to get everyone at the gate, but then she saw Dakota.
The little girl was standing no more than a few feet inside the gate, sobbing in terror, apparently paralyzed with fear by the sounds of the Biters so close to her. The gate flung open, and the first Biter stepped in. He had been a large man with a huge belly, and was wearing some strange red and white costume that Alice had never seen before. His face was streaked with blood, and he pushed his way in and shuffled towards Dakota. Alice screamed at Dakota.
'Run away! Come to me! Come on!'
Unfortunately, her words didn't seem to register on the terrified child, who was now staring in horror at the apparition bearing down on her. Alice had to act, and fast.
Alice was about ten feet away, and took her handgun into a two-handed grip just as she had been taught, and spread her feet to get a better balance. She tried to remember everything she had been taught—keep breathing steadily, stabilize your grip, sight down the barrel—but all of that eluded her as she saw the Biter get closer to Dakota.
Alice fired twice in quick succession, but she shouted in despair as both bullets missed. For all her training and supposed marksmanship, Alice was learning that there was a world of difference between shooting during target practice and facing down a real Biter in battle when he was within seconds of tearing apart a child. The Biter looked at her, his vacant, yellowed eyes narrowing in hate and anger, and then turned his attention back towards Dakota. Every single instinct told Alice to run, to get help, that there were too many Biters for her to handle, but she knew she could not leave Dakota there.
Instead of running away, she ran towards the Biter.
'Hey, fatso!'
The Biter stopped and glared at her and began to walk towards her, his jaws bared, revealing blood-stained teeth. The fury of having his kill interrupted was quickly replaced by the anticipation of a new prey. Alice raised her gun again, and aimed at his head.
Please don't let me miss. Please don't let me miss. Please don't let me miss.
She was repeating her muttered prayer again and again when she fired. A hole opened up in the Biter's forehead and he seemed to stand there for an eternity, making Alice wonder if he was actually finished or not. Then, he crumpled to the ground in a heap and didn't get back up. Two of the Biters coming in through the gate behind him tripped on his body and went sprawling to the ground in a heap. Before they could get up, Alice walked closer to them, aimed at them from no more than four or five feet away and fired twice. Two shots, two heads shattering from the impact of her bullets.
The remaining three Biters were now coming in through the gate when more shots rang out. The adults had rallied to the gate and were now all firing. Within a few seconds of shooting, all three Biters were down. Some of the men rushed to close the gate and pull heavy boxes around it, while others got up to the wall to watch for any more Biters coming in.
But almost everyone else left in the settlement was now staring at Alice, holding Dakota in her arms, standing over the bodies of the three Biters she had shot. Dakota was sobbing and Alice stroked her hair, telling her things were okay now.
Someone said, 'She shot Santa Claus.'
A few of the adults laughed, their laughter helping to dissipate some of the tension and terror that had gripped them. Alice didn't know who or what Santa Claus was, but she felt the solidity of the gun in her hand, she remembered what it felt like to see her shots strike home. She remembered Dakota clutching her and crying, and then Alice joined in the laughter, even though her body was shaking and tears were flowing down her cheeks. Tears of relief, and of terror. But for all that, Alice knew one thing with absolute certainty.
She had not let her Daddy down.
***
That night, they all gathered in the community center. Pyres lit to burn the bodies of Biters dotted the land around the settlement. Within ten minutes of the battle at the gate, the first patrols had returned and begun the job of finishing off the remaining Biters outside the walls and those trapped in the moat. The main force had come back a little while later, and while they had carried with them a treasure trove of goods from the crash site, there was no celebration. There were hundreds of cans of food, flashlights, brand-new automatic rifles of the sort Zeus troopers had, night vision scopes, medical supplies—things that made their settlement more secure and self-sufficient than ever before. Yet they all keenly felt just how close they had come to being wiped out today.
As everyone quietly sipped their soup, Gladwell spoke.
'I'm sorry. I failed all of you. We got greedy, and we got careless. We went after the stash at the crash site, and it was a real find, but we took for granted the one thing we should know never to take for granted. Our security.'
Many people nodded, but Alice knew that while her dad was taking the blame, nobody really blamed him. They had all made the choice together, and nobody had imagined that so many Biters would materialize so close to their settlement without warning.
Their excitement for the day had not ended when the Biters had been defeated. All day they had heard Zeus choppers buzzing overhead like angry hornets. No doubt they had found the crash site and discovered that their supplies had been taken. For a few hours, some people at the settlement had been worried that Zeus would come calling, but on this count, Gladwell's judgement was proven right—Zeus was not in a mood to seek out a fight.
Then Gladwell said that with all that had happened, they might as well enjoy what they had recovered, and people excitedly gathered around to see what had been collected. Cans of food were passed around and several people talked about stocks of medicines, antibiotics and bandages that they had found. Alice was more keen to see the rifles that they had captured, but before she could move in for a closer look, she felt an arm around her shoulder. It was Junior. As long as Alice could remember, he had never ever really been nice to her, so it was a visible struggle for him to say the words.
'Thanks, Alice. I heard about Dakota. I owe you big time. Do you want to sit and have dinner with me and my pals?'
As he walked by, Alice smiled and was about to join him when her Dad came to her.
'Come here.'
She hugged him tight. She wanted to tell him how scared she had been, how she had missed with her first two bullets, how she had come so close to losing Dakota, but none of that seemed to matter now.
'I'm so proud of you, Alice.'
***
The next morning, Alice went over to their classroom, where Sheila was supposed to hold her classes. They waited for Sheila for more than ten minutes. Sheila was never late, so Alice was beginning to wonder if she was sick when she showed up. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked vis
ibly tired. Sheila went through the motions, but Alice could see that she was troubled and more than once she faltered.
Alice was herself not in much of a mind to pay attention. She had always found these classes a bore, and after the events of the previous day, she was convinced that all the kids should be learning how to shoot instead of solving riddles on the board. When Sheila asked Alice to read something out on the board, she said aloud, 'It must all be a riddle.'
The other kids laughed, and Sheila sent the kids home early. As Alice was about to leave, Sheila asked her to stop.
'Alice, wait.'
Alice wondered if she was in trouble, and decided that she might as well apologize before being made to do so.
'I'm sorry I said that thing about the riddle.'
Sheila sat down next to Alice, and she could see a sad smile on her face.
'No, Alice, no more riddles.'
She took out the handgun at her belt and looked at Alice.
'I never paid much attention when I was being taught to shoot, and I regret it. I was there a few feet behind you, but I was too scared to do anything. I barely slept all night, as I kept thinking of how scared I was and how I was unable to help despite being right there behind you.'
Alice didn't know what to say and Sheila continued.
'I just froze. I could see the Biters right there in front of me. I could see Dakota standing there, and I knew that she was seconds from being bitten. I knew all that, yet it was as if my hands wouldn't move. I had the gun with me, but I hesitated, and I felt so terrible that because of me, that little girl could have died. If I ask for you for something, will do it for me?'
Alice nodded, though a bit uncertainly. It was unusual for her teacher to ask something of her, and Alice wondered what Sheila wanted of her.
'Alice, I don't want to be afraid again. I don't want to freeze again like that. I've seen you practice more than any other kid, hell, more than anyone else around here. Can I join you when you practice? Can you teach me how to shoot like you do?'
***
MY VALENTINE
'Jane, what is a valentine?'
Her older sister blushed as Alice asked the question out aloud in the middle of the dining room, where they were surrounded by dozens of others. Jane whispered to Alice.
'I'll tell you later, okay?'
Alice didn't know why Jane was being so secretive about it all.
'I heard Ravi ask you to be his valentine when he came around the back of the garden last night. What does that mean?'
Jane gritted her teeth and got up and left the dining room. Alice had no idea what she had said that would make her sister so mad, and when she looked up she saw bemused expressions on her parents' faces and of most of the adults around who had heard the exchange.
Gladwell leaned over towards Joanne.
'Jo, Alice is now eleven years old. Maybe it's time you had a little chat about the birds and the bees.'
Jo looked like she was choking on her food.
'Bob, she's a baby.'
'A baby who's shot more Biters than you have. She's grown up in a messed-up world, but in some ways, a pretty sheltered one as she's only been around people she can trust. With all the new people joining us over the last few months, it's inevitable that our girls will come into contact with new young men. Jane is old and mature enough to know how to deal with things. The more Alice knows of how men work and think, the better it is for her.'
'If you want her to learn about men, perhaps you should do the talking.'
With that parting shot, Jo got up and left the dining room, leaving Gladwell to contemplate what he had gotten himself into.
That evening, Gladwell and Alice walked around the garden. The walls were down as the settlement was being expanded, and men with rifles nervously stood watch as people worked round the clock to fill the moat and expand the boundary walls.
'Alice, you asked Jane a question this afternoon so I thought I'd answer it for her. Valentine's Day was something people celebrated before The Rising when young men and women would give each other gifts and be friends. A valentine is a special friend you made on Valentine's Day.'
'What kind of gifts?'
'Flowers, chocolates and so on.'
'What's chocolate, Dad?'
Gladwell looked down at his daughter, her seemingly innocuous question breaking his heart, making him realize just what kind of world she was growing up in and how she was missing out on so many things that kids before The Rising had taken for granted.
'It's sweet.'
'Sweeter than a strawberry?'
'Yeah, sometimes.'
Alice thought that over.
'I'd like to have a chocolate sometime. Why did boys and girls become special friends?'
'When young men and women reach a certain age, they begin to have feelings for each other.'
'Feelings? Like when I find Junior stupid for showing off?'
Gladwell laughed.
'Not quite. You'll know it when you feel it. It's when you find someone special, like your Mom and me.'
'Like Jane and Ravi?'
Gladwell thought about that one, weighing his words before answering.
'Ravi seems like a nice young man, but let Jane decide how she feels about him.'
'Dad, what if someone gives me flowers or gifts and asks me to be a valentine?'
'You need to then decide just how you feel about that young man. Is he really someone special to you or not?'
Alice mulled it over, and then shook her head.
'That is all so silly. I'll go and practice with Uncle Jones.'
As Alice ran off to do her evening unarmed combat practice, Gladwell followed her. He needed to talk to Jones as well.
***
They had a fresh batch of six kids aged between eight and ten among the recent arrivals, and Junior, Alice and a couple of the older kids were training them. While the new arrivals had survived in the Deadland for close to a dozen years, most of them had never enjoyed the kind of stability and security Alice's settlement had. Living on the run, with rudimentary weapons, most of them were totally lacking in the kind of training that Gladwell had taken for granted among his people, who were trained by experts like Jones. As more and more newcomers came, to make them active contributors to the settlement, they were getting crash courses in agriculture and self-defence.
Gladwell had sent for Rajiv as well, and he arrived carrying a small diary where he kept stock of their numbers and supplies.
'Bob, in the last three months, we've had thirty-two newcomers. Now there are almost two hundred of us. We're expanding the walls to fit people, but we also need to expand the gardens to grow more food.'
When Gladwell had taken the newcomers in, he had been under no illusion of the practical difficulties they would pose, but there was no way he could leave them to die in the Deadland, not when they had been shunted out in part because they had chosen to follow the example Gladwell himself had set by not going with the rest of their settlements to Zeus safe zones and farms.
'Jones, any more news about what's happening out there?'
'Not good, Sir. Not good at all. Zeus has the airport operational and has at least two bases outside the old city. They're sweeping the Biters out through air strikes—I was shocked to see they have Apaches flying. I have no idea who's behind them, but they have a lot of kit that the US forces had before The Rising.'
Rajiv spat in disgust.
'They say they're fighting back against the Biters, but all they're doing is driving them out into the Deadland, right towards the settlements, to force them to sign up. Latest I hear three more settlements signed up last week and they were sent up in trucks to the farms. I also hear from some newcomers that settlers are being sent off in planes.'
'Planes? Where to?'
'Rumors say Zeus' masters have got slave farms somewhere up north.'
Gladwell had made his rejection of Zeus clear, and some other settlements had taken up his call. The problem
was that most of them did not have the firepower or training to resist the Biters swarming the Deadland as Zeus struck their hiding places. Many settlements had fallen to the Biters, others had given into Zeus, and a few refugees had made their way to Gladwell's settlement—a steady stream of arrivals whom they had taken in over the last few months.
As they talked, the kids finished their drills and Alice went to get her kit. She was still too young to be sent out on offensive patrols, something she resented, but she knew she had to play her part. As the adults got to work setting up perimeter defences, Alice and three older kids were to work on a defensive patrol near the open walls at the rear of the settlement.
The wall would be finished the next day, but for one night there would be nearly a six-foot gap where the settlement had been expanded to accommodate the newcomers. Working on it at night might get the job done faster, but the light and sound would attract Biters, so the decision had been taken to finish it at first light. People had already dug a shallow moat that would slow any Biters down, but they all knew it would not be enough if a large horde of Biters passed through, something that was becoming a common occurrence.
They would take turns, watching the back of the settlement in pairs all night. Alice and Junior were up first. Alice reckoned nobody would get much sleep tonight, since everyone was on edge about the exposed wall. But at least they could lie down on their cots and sheets, while Alice and Junior would be out here in the cold.
Alice had her assault rifle lying on the ground by her side and her handgun and knife were tucked into her belt. She was wearing a coat and gloves, but still found herself shivering a bit in the cold. The adults said that the land they lived in, which in the Old Days was called Northern India, had always had cold winters, but after The Rising, the winters had gotten much worse. Some said it was because of the nuclear blasts that had shaken the world at the time of The Rising. Alice didn't know how all that worked, all she knew was that the tips of her fingers felt a bit numb despite being inside gloves.
