by Mark Clodi
“You stuck around. I ain't mad. You have the camera?”
“Can we go now?”
“We better... Oh you left it on.”
A loud bang sounded and the camera came up in a blur to focus on the back door again. The light silhouetted a shadowy form making a bee line towards the camera holder and someone from the doorway called out, “Where the fuck are you going? I told you to go the other way, towards the town idiot!” The male super zombie caught up with the slow zombie and spun it around, pointing it towards the wasteland.
“What?” The super said, “C'me here!” The slow zombie was jerked around until it was face to face with the super now recognizable as Sargent Waller. The camera was still zoomed in, so it was hard to tell how far away from the zombies the person filming them was. The view was good, even if the faces were cast in shadows by the light from the doorway.
The super zombie was staring intently into the other's eyes, like it was reading something.
“Some sort of mind reading.” They heard Jeff whisper, “Get this to Dora. Nadine, take it, get it to Dora!”
“Jeff, no! Jeff!” the small voice trailed off, the view of the camera was shadowed out for the briefest of seconds as it struggled to auto focus on what was going on. Jeff sprinted forward, his shotgun aimed out in front of him. Waller was not facing towards Jeff, he was looking more towards the bombed out ruins. Jeff took advantage of this and came in behind the man, in full view of the slow zombie. As Jeff ran up the super zombie lifted the slow zombie completely off the ground and spun him around in an arc designed to hit anyone approaching him from behind. Jeff was quicker. He slid under the swinging body and to the base of Waller's feet, where he pushed his shotgun up towards the zombies head and fired with both barrels. The camera jumped at the noise and when it returned to survey the scene only the slow zombie and Jeff were moving. Fuller was on his back sideways to the camera angle, it was hard to tell, but it looked like his head was missing. The doorway immediately filled with shadowy shapes and dull pistol shots rang out. The duct taped barrel was visible in the upper corner of the camera and bucked each time the small hand holding it fired. The noise was surprisingly faint.
“Fuck!” Jeff screamed drawing his own pistol, he didn't bother to reload the shotgun, but transferred it to his off hand as he charged forward towards the door. “Go! Go! Go!”
The pistol fired until Jeff got in the way of the shots, then the camera was stuffed into a pocket. It was not turned off, however and recorded the frantic flight of Nadine running from the gas station.
“I have not shifted through the rest of this so far.” Paige said, “I fast forwarded until I got to some video again, this is the last of it on the camera.” She fast forwarded it until she came to a point where the camera was pulled out of the pocket, the starlight provided only a slightly less dark blur on the screen. The camera angle twisted and spun as it sailed through the air, before it passed over something the watchers actually recognized, the sand bags around the trench by the wasteland.
It landed hard and the screen went to static before it was picked up and a familiar voice said, “What is this?” The camera showed Peter's face in the darkness, beside him a flashlight turned on and then everyone in the trench was visible, Peter, Willy, Jack and an older woman named Sharon.
“It’s Jeff's camera! Something threw his camera in!” Jack said.
“Turn off the fucking light!” Sharon said, the boy did that immediately, “I am calling Dora. You guys get your guns, keep an eye out.”
“I think it is still on. How do I turn it off?” asked Peter
“Press this.” answered one of the other boys and the video stopped.
The council sat in silence for a moment. Leon lifted his mug towards his mouth, stopped partway, his jaw moved, his lips started to form words, then he shook his head slightly and took a drink instead.
“Speechless? Me too.” Dora said, “How long since we heard from anyone in the military who was not Fuller?”
“Since after the horde broke over us.” Alex answered.
“Never a fly by or a helicopter evacuation for our severely wounded. Just load them onto the truck and send them away with Fuller and the crew. I guess we know where they went now, huh?”
“No. This can't be.” Mary whispered, “Why?”
“Farming has always been popular in Kansas. I guess they just want to continue the tradition. Face it Mary, we are the next crop.” Dora said, “We need to get out of here. Do we have enough vehicles to carry everyone?”
“Dora, where will we go?” asked Alex.
“East, to the front lines. We break through and we join the Iowans.”
“But Dora, we have been getting news from Fuller, he lied about who they were, he could have lied about the front lines too, for all we know he lied about everything. We could be it.” Alex said.
“It?”
“It. As in, the only people left. We haven't had a television signal for weeks, no radio signals, nothing, everyone else could be dead.”
The group thought about this in silence for some time before Dora said, “So we better send a scouting group out to find and make contact with the Iowans, if they are still around. If not...then what do we do?”
The council members tossed around a few ideas before agreeing to send out three scouting groups to try and find the front lines and get more information. They also agreed it would be best not to tell the rest of the town about what was going on, if they were in a more traditional war, Steve had argued, what their soldiers didn't know could not be tortured out of them. Steve also had more plans for when the 'National Guard' came by the next time and the council readily agreed to do things his way.
Finally just as everyone got up to leave Steve stopped them and said, “Well isn't anyone going to address the elephant in the room?”
“What elephant?” asked Leon.
Dora let out one of her classic snorts, as everyone else looked confused, she stared at Steven and spoke to everyone else, “Him.”
One by one the others stopped and stared at Steven too.
“He came from the guard, he could be one of them, this was before we strip searched everyone, Steve, good ole Steve-O, he might be a zombie too. An agent in our midst to sow discord among us. So how about it Steve, you a zombie?”
Steve smiled, “So you were thinking about it. What was your plan? Were you just going to watch me for a while, then jump me if I did something you thought was suspect?”
“Me? Now I am not that deceptive, am I?” Dora nodded and conceded the point, Leon and Mary slowly edged away from Steve, causing Dora to laugh, “Please people! Do you think he would even bring the subject up if he were a zombie?”
“I might, to dissuade suspicion.”
“So what do we do? Strip search? Normally I could totally get into that, but you are married and I have been under the weather lately. So it wouldn't do anything for me. I doubt your wife would appreciate it either. So how do we tell you are who you appear to be?”
Steve rolled back the long sleeve over his left hand, “Cut me. Every one of them we killed bled that foul black shit; my blood will be red and alive, I promise you that.”
“No. Stop.” Mary said, holding up a hand to forestall Dora from coming around the table with a knife that had magically appeared in her hand. “For Pete's sake Dora! I have needles! I can just get a blood sample, the microscope is right over there.” She waved at the microscope which was sitting on a bench against the far wall where she kept her medical supplies. “We can check him and know inside of two minutes.”
“Mary you are no fun at all!” Dora said with a frown. Still she put away the knife and they all waited while Mary went to get a needle. She looked for a vein in Steve's arm and followed a procedure for drawing blood, in a few seconds she had the sample, which she brought over to the microscope to examine.
“It is alive. Anyone else want to have a look?”
“We should all give a sample. It is only fair and we need to
be sure we can trust each other. If we only test Steve it could breed distrust.” said Leon, rolling up his sleeve.
Dora pouted, “But I shouldn't have to go! Or Paige, I can vouch for her and who needs to check Mary, she’s the only doctor.”
“You go first, that is what a good leader does, and I am sure even a layman can see enough in the blood to tell the difference, right Mary?” said Leon.
Mary nodded and Leon continued, “See? Go on girl, get your little prick so we can all rest easier.”
Dora put her hand over her mouth and laughed softly, “Oh Leon! You say the naughtiest things!”
The old man waved her on, “Have you’re fun if you have to. You just caught me too tired to watch my tongue.”
Everyone could see Dora struggle to not respond to this obvious opening, finally she just clamped her mouth shut, giggled and turned to where Mary was waiting with a fresh needle. The council members were all checked out one by one and it turned out they all were alive.
Chapter 32
A week went by with only a few minor attacks on Doraville, the three scouting groups had gone out all of them went east, two towards the north east, one almost directly east. Two groups had returned, they had been instructed to go to the edges of Kansas City and come back with any information they had found, both came back telling stories of empty battlefields, where there were plenty of true dead corpses and military equipment just lying around on the ground. Neither of the groups had any trouble foraging or living off the land. Nor had either of them contacted anyone with their walkie-talkies or short range radios. They had not seen any living humans and had killed very few zombies, the scouts had been instructed to avoid killing and being seen by zombies at all costs. It was Steve's position that the smarter zombies could sense when the slow zombies were killed. The third scouting group was supposed to make their way up into Iowa before coming back with news. Nothing had been heard from them since.
Now the council members were all out on the street in front of Dora's house at about nine in the morning. They were looking towards a military supply truck where four soldiers were climbing out of the cab, Sargent Waller was nowhere to be seen.
Dora led the way, confident in her acting ability, “Where is Waller at?” She arched her eyebrow and looked over the Sargent's replacement, the man was tall and broad shouldered. The man had on the rank designation that Waller used to wear, but Dora had never seen him before.
“Ma'am? I am Sargent Jim Tiller. Were you a friend of his?”
“Friend? No, more like an acquaintance really, something happened to the man? My name is Dora, supposedly I run this place.”
“Some supers jumped this squad last week, Waller got shot, believe it or not.”
Dora stopped and brought her hand to her mouth, then swore, “Fuck. I knew it. I knew sooner or later they would start using guns. Fucking bastards. Waller going to be okay?” She let her eyes mist up.
“He didn't make it. But the zombies didn't eat him either.”
“Sargent Tiller do you have time to come in and have a sit down conversation with us?”
The man looked over his shoulder at his three men still standing by the truck and said, “You guys get the supplies unloaded. I am going to talk with Dora. The guys have told me there the town is run by council, is this everyone I need to speak with?”
“Yeah come on in and I will introduce you around and tell you about our problem.”
The group moved inside while the three other soldiers unloaded the truck with the help of some of the older children. Sitting down Dora introduced Nash to the council, Mary, Paige, Alex, Leon, Steven and Freddie who were all there for this meeting. All of them were following roles they had discussed beforehand; Freddie and Steve seemed to be the worst of the actors, looking ill at ease.
“Sargent, we have some problems.”
“Yeah, go on.”
“We are getting worn down by the zombies, did you bring anyone for us today?”
“No we haven't spotted any humans today.”
“See this is part of the problem we have. About a week ago the zombies attacked us again, there is a bombed out section to the north west of town and the zombies came through there, they killed fourteen of our people, most of them adults, this includes four people who went out on patrol and never came back. We have another twelve people who are walking wounded and honestly we cannot cope with the loss of manpower. The zombies are winning and we need to evacuate.”
“What?”
“We need to leave, we don't have enough fuel, we rely more and more on the National Guard to get us food, we have almost no gasoline to power the generators for the winter, in short, we’re screwed. The council and I have decided to ask the army to send enough trucks to get the hundred and thirty some of us out of here. Could you pass that along to your superiors and see if they will help? We will do our part, we will try and find gas and scavenge a bus or two to make the trip less resource intensive for you, but we need to leave before winter sets in.”
Sargent Tiller sat looking at them for a moment, “Maybe we could get you more supplies? Stretch things out a bit?”
“It is not a matter of supplies so much as manpower, we can't hold them back anymore. Every time there is an attack, well, people have to defend against it, if they stay up all night defending against the attack, they can't be expected to go out the next day to scavenge food and fuel. Plus our ammo is low, these people are not trained soldiers, we fired off almost all of the ammo we had in the big fight on Friday night.”
“Ammunition is in short supply. How bad is your situation?”
“We are down to maybe twenty shots per gun, we do have a boat load of the common .22 ammo, but we all know that stuff is just about useless for taking a zombie out.” Steve said.
Tiller grinned, and said, “Yeah, you would practically have to press your gun against the things head to make that work. Better than a club, but just barely. Okay I will pass this along to my lieutenant and see what he comes up with. Today though, well does anyone know where the closest gun store was? I will go that way as a personal favor and me and the boys will gather up all the bullets we can and bring them back here before we high tail it back to the east side. We should have time if we can find the place. Anyone have a phone book to get the address?”
Paige rose up and went to get the phone book, while Dora said, “Thanks Sargent, you have no idea what this means to us. I don't suppose the guard could run a few more patrols around us to keep some of the zombies away? If we could only get a few night's sleep I think we could catch up...there is, well, no never mind.”
“What?” Tiller asked.
“Well the decision to leave was not unanimous; if we can catch a break we might consider trying to tough it out. We thought maybe with the nights getting colder maybe the zombie activity would die down. So far we have not noticed a change, if anything it is worse because the nights are longer.”
Tiller nodded, “I bet they will keep coming. There should be less of them around here though, so many have followed us East and North as we retreated, and we just keep killing more and more every day. I thought that would have drawn them away from you. “
Dora shook her head from side to side, tilting her chin down, “No, they are still around us, it is like they can sense us or something.”
“That is too bad. Okay let’s look and see where we can get ammo. You have shotguns right? So a Wal-mart or Sam's club would be good for shotgun shells.”
The group of them looked in the phone book then brought up a mapping program Paige had on her computer to show the Sargent the best way to get to the stores where he thought he would find ammunition. After that Tiller went back outside and the council members saw him off before coming back into Dora's house to talk again. Paige waited by the window until she could no longer see their truck, then came and sat down at the table again.
“Do you think he bought it?” she asked Dora.
“Hook, line and sinker. I am a good
actress.” said Dora beaming.
“You were laying it on a little thick I thought, kind of suspicious, tears? For Fuller? You were supposed to have barely known the man!” Mary said.
“Hey! Steven said to get emotional, what does 'emotional' mean to you? To me it means tears. What does everyone else think? Did we sell this? Did it sound reasonable?”
The council nodded their agreement.
“Well good, now we wait, if he comes back we see what he brings. Over the next week we see how the 'attacks' go, if Steve is right they will die off down to nothing, which will let us send out scouts to get the school buses and diesel so we can make a break for Des Moines.”
“Even if our last long range scouts don't come back?” asked Alex.
Dora nodded, “Yeah, even if we don't hear from them. I would rather start over somewhere that I knew we weren't just the local zombie's next meal, there has to be someplace safer than this.”
“True enough, so now we wait.”
They did not have to wait long, Sargent Tiller and his crew returned in about three hours. They had brought seventy boxes of shotgun shells and three new shotguns. They had also stopped by a coffee store and cleaned it out of coffee and filters. The last thing they brought out was a heavy card board box, it was lined with a blanket and the Sargent himself presented it to Dora. She looked inside and said, “What are we supposed to do with these?”
The Sargent set the box down and brought up a squirming puppy by the scruff of its neck, “Well, raise them. Use them to help guard the perimeter, they can bark and alert you to any danger that is coming your way.”
“That will take months!”
“People like dogs, right?” Tiller asked as several loitering kids came over to the box to get to the puppies. He stepped away from the box and brought Dora with him. “See the kids love them already, they are good for morale and will turn into guard dogs, eventually.”
“Maybe, it still won't solve our manpower problem. You bring food for them?”
Turning Tiller called to one of his men, “Scott, they will keep them, unload the puppy chow!”
