“That‘s unlikely. These men had sworn an oath. And apart from that, they hardly know what the world out here has become since the outbreak of the virus. They would exchange the safety of the aircraft carrier for this chaos,” Nika replied.
Ray nodded. “I thought about that, too. This also goes along with my explanation they must have died. According to Dixon, none of the soldiers had ever had in contact with the undead. When we were in the air, you saw the enormous forest ahead of us. Sanctuary is located somewhere in there. Even on satellite photos it’s apparent to see there‘s no place for a helicopter to land. I‘m sure the rescue troops landed near those coordinates and continued their search on foot. I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened to them afterwards.”
“You mentioned yourself that they all were trained soldiers,” Scott replied.
“That’s true. But for instance, if they used their guns and in doing so attracted a large zombie horde, that would not have helped them much. As I said, this is just my personal opinion. What‘s much more important is the question how we are to proceed.”
“And how will we do that?” Nika asked.
“Tomorrow we‘re going to start in the direction of these coordinates. Before that, we will search the buildings along Main Street for anything that might be useful for us. We will kill zombies, as before, by stabbing them. Silenced firearms will only be used when absolutely necessary. This will minimize the risk of attracting too many of these beasts.” All of them nodded in agreement.
“As soon as we reach our destination, we‘ll claim to be survivors of the apocalypse. We‘ll say we‘re refugees who heard of Sanctuary and met on the way there. No mention of Dr. Abbadon or any connections to the military. That helps us in case Sanctuary really does dislike the Army.”
“Perfect camouflage—two white guys, a Latina, an African-American and a dog. Nobody would believe that such a mixed crew would travel together under normal circumstances,” Screw said and shook his head. “In that sense the plague was the great equalizer.”
“Don’t get sentimental on us, big boy,” Nika said. “We’ve got a job to do here. When are we going to start out tomorrow?”
“Shortly after sunrise,” Ray answered.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Nika said and got off the sofa.
34 A Grotesque Irony
Duke was packing his gear. He was about to go on his first mission as a new member of the outside team. Danny and Pam were with him and followed his example. All three of them had been assigned to the security troop that was supposed to detect attackers and protect other members of the outside team. Duke had already given Danny and Pam sufficient instructions and had told them about his talk with Fuller. When he had asked them their opinions about Fuller’s intentions, the two of them had disagreed. Pam had been against the idea of deceiving Krueger. She had even tried to talk him out of this plan because she could not see any long-term advantage in it. She had asked why Duke wanted to take part in destroying this functioning system. Now she sat there in sullen silence and was rubbing her reddened cheek. She deserved that slap, Duke thought. It was her own damned fault–she shouldn’t have riled him up. Danny had tried to calm things down and assured Duke that both of them would support this plan, just to get Pam out of Duke’s line of fire. Still, Duke thought Pam had recently grown too uppity for her own good, and he had no choice but to put her in her place–no doubt about it.
“Come on. I still want to talk to Fuller before we go,” Duke said and glared at Pam. She managed to put on a fake smile and nodded. Danny gave her another look full of pity. Duke hoisted his backpack and marched off toward the arranged rallying point. When Pam wanted to follow him right away, Danny held her back for a moment.
“Don’t get him so upset–you know him well enough by now,” he whispered.
“I know him, all right, but he’s neither my dad nor the fucking President of the fucking United States. If I disagree with something, I’ll let him know.” Pam cautiously looked ahead to be sure Duke would not be able to hear them.
“Of all the people we’ve met so far, he’s is our best option for survival, Pam.”
“That’s the whole point–so far. We’ve arrived, Danny. We’ve reached our goal. He can stop acting like a fucking dictator now...”
“Not so loud–he’s going to hear you! Please calm down and come along. I don’t want to fight with you.” Danny put on a playful pout and winked at Pam. This time, her smile was sincere, and she nodded.
“If it weren’t for you, I would’ve left ages ago, Danny.” She picked up her equipment and followed Duke. Danny was lucky that she could not see him blush and taking a deep breath, he sighed in contentment. Duke had already reached the rallying point and was talking to Fuller. He had placed a large map on the hood of a jeep and showed Valeria Martinez, Duke and some other troop leaders significant points in the vicinity they were supposed to reach today. Valeria and her team were already getting into a vehicle, and she briefly nodded at them. Then they all took off for Crossdale, a small town south of Sanctuary.
Richard explained the procedure for outside trips to some of the newcomers, among them Duke, Danny and Pam.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to Reefe, a tiny settlement about twenty miles north of here. We are mainly looking for gasoline, medicine, food and weapons. All of you will get lists with the most important items to bring back. We can use almost anything, but we should concentrate on these four categories.” He looked around to see whether everyone had understood him. Then he continued.
“Basically, you are divided into foraging teams and security teams. All of you should know your tasks. Is anyone unsure about what is expected of him or her?” Nobody was. He looked at determined faces.
“Great, then we can get going.” Fuller handed walkie-talkies to some of the new members of the group.
“These two-way radios only work in direct mode. You won’t receive anything from afar. Reception range is two to three hundred yards, at best. Anything beyond that might not give you a good connection. Keep that in mind.”
The troops got into their seven vehicles and formed a convoy. One off-road vehicle at the front and one of the end of the column were armed with a machine gun at the rear. After the first off-road vehicle came two 3.5-ton trucks which were meant to transport whatever they could find. In the middle was a large vehicle with a container on the truck bed. It looked like a firetruck with a large tank. At the rear was a man who obviously had to handle the water cannon. Duke was wondering why they brought a fire truck along, but he decided that Fuller must have had his reasons. Maybe they did not leave any scorched earth behind when they looted places. After recent events he no longer wanted to question the man’s competence. All participants had to read through a guide Fuller himself had written. It contained everything one needed to know: Why they avoided large cities, which books were needed for the library, or how they were to proceed in small groups. Fuller had really provided an extensive tactics handbook.
Duke sat at the steering wheel next to him, and the whole convoy rumbled out of Sanctuary and through the long canyon, until it entered the wide plains and drove on in the direction of the small town of Reefe. Fuller appeared focused, but not stressed. Duke was impressed by his new partner. When he mentioned something, it was usually unbiased and well thought out. The man had enough charisma to be a leader and enough ambition to do anything to get there. When he did reach his goal, Duke wanted to be on the side of the winner.
During the drive, he looked at the road and the surrounding landscape. It had only been a short time since the virus broke out, but it had significantly changed the face of the world. The convoy drove across deserted roads through the areas around the White Mountain National Forest. Where farmers and lumberjacks had plied their trade, the land lay empty and desolate. It was remarkable how quickly Mother Nature had reclaimed the land that belonged to her. The fields on the slopes were already becoming overgrown. The plants on the shoulder of
the road were crawling onto the asphalt, since they were not being cut back regularly. Many people, Duke mused, had become indifferent to all these daily events–him included. For him, friendships were only a means to an end. He wanted to survive, and his chances increased, if he surrounded himself with useful fellow travelers. He realized, though, that he might lose some of them on any day, so he did not build up any sentimental illusions. If someone died, then he was gone—it was that simple. Duke liked to divide people into two classes: Sheep and wolves. A sheep followed the herd, grazed and obeyed orders. In a dangerous situation a sheep ran, until it escaped or died. A sheep needed leadership, otherwise it was rather useless.
Then there were wolves. Wolves, by their very nature, could defend themselves. In case of danger their fur stood on end and they attacked. Wolves would do anything to survive. They were predators who hunted in a pack and did not put up with anything. Duke saw himself as a wolf, just like Richard Fuller. Then he thought about Walter Krueger, with his endless talks about Native Americans and historical events. A farmer and a pacifist, who totally misread the signs of the times. He belonged to the worst category of all: An old, toothless wolf.
On the horizon they gradually saw the outlines of Reefe, once they reached the top of a hill. Before the catastrophe hit, this must have been just a one-horse town. A place where the people felt comfortable, laid-back and peaceful. The road they were on was the only one, and it became the main street leading through Reefe.
Fuller informed them that they had also initially driven into larger cities, considering those as lucrative targets promising lots of loot. The down side to this practice was that these excursions always led to high casualty rates. Urban areas where many people used to live were now crawling with hordes of zombies, and where there was enough to eat, these undead became very territorial. Their “lives” –if you could call it that–had a structure similar to those of the inhabitants of Sanctuary. They ate to survive.
The convoy drove a few yards into the town until it reached a convenient spot where the vehicles formed a defensive ring. On the outside were off-road vehicles with machine guns, and within the ring, they parked the fire truck that faced the town. A few zombies were lurching about through the streets, but they were still several hundred yards away. When they saw the convoy arrive, they all started to simultaneously stumble toward it. With weapon in hand, Fuller got out and stood in the ring of vehicles and signaled the rest of the group to follow him. Richard had trained his people well, as the well-rehearsed procedure demonstrated.
After assembling his troop, he gave some short, precise instructions. “Everyone knows what to do. We wait until the walking corpses get here and eliminate them as quietly as possible. Firearms are to be used only in an emergency. Let us start our work. The sooner we are done, the quicker we get back home.”
His people began their duties. A few undead were still shuffling toward the vehicles. Fuller had developed a remarkable method to eliminate undead creatures without getting in much danger. Some members of the security team were equipped with pitchforks or long spears. They rammed these weapons into the zombies’ necks or bodies and pushed with all their weight. Other team members then ran directly to these monsters and finished them off. Then, they would either smash the zombies’ skulls with a blunt instrument, beheaded the attackers with blades or stabbed them through the eye socket into the brain. After a short time, the street was mostly cleared. There were still a few undead around, but Fuller did not want to wait longer.
“So far, so good. Let’s split up and start working. If something unexpected happens, radio your team leader and return to the vehicles.”
The teams spread out in a star-shaped pattern. Duke, Danny and Pam stayed with Fuller, together with Jenna. They had another looter with them, a man named Ted who carried a sledgehammer and a crowbar. Fuller immediately noticed a larger house that must have once belonged to wealthy people. The window panes were still intact but dirty, as if many grimy hands had smeared them. When they reached the house, he tried the door knob. The door was locked. He glanced at Duke, who understood what needed to be done. He examined the door and decided that his shoulder would not be effective enough in this instance. Ted handed the hammer to Duke, who held it tentatively at the height of the lock.
“This won’t be possible without making some noise, Mr. Fuller,” Duke remarked.
“This can hardly be avoided with some doors, Mr. Powell. Just get going and do it with as few tries as possible.”
Duke actually needed only one powerful blow and the door swung open. The force of it had knocked the locking mechanism completely out of the door. Now the lock lay on the wooden floor inside the house. The members of the team readied their weapons and formed groups of two to search the house from top to bottom. Fuller insisted on securing the entire dwelling before searching for valuable loot. Upstairs they found a room behind whose doors something seemed to move, and they heard suspicious creaking and squeaking sounds. Richard put his right index finger up to his lips and tip-toed next to the door. Duke and Danny exchanged a quick glance to signal each other that they were ready. Then Duke tried the door knob, but this door was also locked. Probably locked from the inside, Duke thought. He did not want to run any risks and therefore lifted the heavy hammer again. As this door was less sturdy than the entrance door, he had an easy time with it and knocked it almost off the hinges with one heavy blow. A second one let the door fall backward.
The room was remarkably large and had distinctive wooden struts on the ceiling. The wood was varnished and looked very elegant. Light streamed into the room through French windows, one of which was slightly open, and this caused a light breeze to move the curtains. Most items here were dusky pink, and the wall was decorated with posters of horses, some of which were covered by cobwebs. The horrendous stench that assailed them stood in sharp contrast to this childlike decor. When they further entered the child’s room, they immediately discovered the source of the squeaking sound and the terrible smell: Below the third ceiling strut, a wooden chair lay on the floor. Above that, they saw gnawed, blackened feet, and a murky liquid that dripped from them to the floor. A woman was hanging from a sturdy rope slung around the wooden strut, and in the slight breeze she gently swayed to and fro. Her feet were covered with small bite-marks. The angle of her head was much too slanted, which meant she probably broke her neck when she fell into the noose. Her whole body had turned black, and her lips were very swollen, and it also looked like she had voided her bowels in her death struggle. The scene would have already been grotesque enough, but Fuller noticed a further detail. In the corner of the room, half hidden next to a dresser, an undead girl huddled. She could not have been older than seven or eight when she transformed into a zombie. She still had colorful ribbons in her matted hair, but she uttered inhuman noises expressing hunger and rage when she saw the group. On the night stand next to her little bed was a small bottle of sleeping pills.
“Looks like her mother wanted her to sleep forever and then hung herself. That obviously didn’t work.” Duke shrugged his shoulders.
Jemma crinkled her nose. “How disgusting–the little girl ate pieces of her mother’s feet. I’m gonna barf.”
Richard Fuller stood there dumbfounded. He seemed paralyzed and stared spellbound at the horrible scene in this room. “How can a merciful God allow this?” he whispered and gripped his sword tightly. Without another word he went further into the room. Standing in front of the mother, he jumped and cleanly chopped the head off her shoulders, and her corpse fell to the ground near him, splashing like a wet sack. Then he struck the undead girl in the skull with a fluid motion of his sword. Afterward he turned around and left the room. As he stood by the stairs, he saw the other standing nearby with gaping mouths.
“Close the door. There is nothing of value left in that room. You can start looking for food.” Then he walked down the stairs and disappeared into an adjacent room.
When Fuller had left, Jenna looked
at the others. “What the hell was that?” she asked in surprise.
“With a guy like him, nothing amazes me anymore. Let’s just start searching,” Pam replied. She could imagine what this was all about, but she would never mention this to Fuller.
The house turned out to be a veritable gold mine. They found food, antibiotics, and even a jerry can with some diesel fuel in the garage. Richard Fuller leaned on the patio, pensively smoking a carved pipe, when Duke cleared his throat and stepped next to him.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Occasionally, Mr. Powell. It calms my nerves.”
“Do I need to know anything about what just happened upstairs?”
Fuller glared at Duke. “I think you already know the answer to that.” Duke raised an eyebrow and went back to the others. And I thought the man had a block of ice instead of a heart.
35The March
After spending the night in the church, they had the last of their provisions for breakfast and set out shortly after sunrise. The night had been cold, and even though there had been no further incidents, they all seemed exhausted and were chilled to the bone. First they searched some of the houses and stores along Main Street. There they found some canned food and bottled water, which they stored in their backpacks. Screw made the greatest discovery in a souvenir shop, where he found a hiking map of the surrounding area. Ray’s heart beat faster when he discovered a place called Sanctuary on it.
“That must be it,” Scott said, while they were all looking at the map.
Ray already studied the information about various towns and sights.
“It says here that Sanctuary used to be an Indian reservation. During the last few years it became mainly a tourist attraction.”
“Fits the area,” Nika remarked. “Turns out that Redstone is a tourist trap, rather than a major industrial metropolis.”
Evolution Z (Book 3): Stage Three Page 14
