by T. W. Brown
“Then why in the fuck are we going in to Island City?” Antoine Clement blurted the question that seemed to be on pretty much everybody’s mind. A chorus of agreements sounded, and I habitually did a scan for any zombies that might have been drawn by the noise.
Antoine was short for a guy. In fact, I was pretty sure that I was almost an inch taller, so he could not be more than an inch over five feet tall. He was from some small town in Canada called Asquith which was outside of Saskatoon. I have to admit, when he’d told me where he was from, I’d thought that he was making a joke. Seriously, who named these places? Antoine was also perhaps one of the skinniest human beings that I’d ever seen that was not a zombie.
“For one, we don’t know if the reports are true—” Cynthia began, only to be cut off by Shay Fesseden.
“So we just walk in and take a few deep breaths of possibly contaminated air?” Shay’s voice was hard and angry. There was a hint of a laugh when she spoke, but it was not a happy sound…more like breaking glass.
Shay had hair the color of honey. It was more than a few inches past regulation if she let that coiled braid out. I’d only seen her with her hair down once…at her wedding. Her eyes were perfectly shaped and the color of a new leaf—just the slightest shade of green.
“You should know better than that,” Cynthia scolded. The growing rumble of anger went quiet just that fast. “First, the only people at this point who will be stepping foot inside the walls of Island City is me and one other. However, I have three additional filtered respirators. Unfortunately, they have only had limited testing, and so I can’t vouch for what degree of protection they will provide. I can say that I have confidence in the design enough so that I have been given permission by the council to take the personal risk.”
That was actually a pretty big deal. After all, like Dr. Zahn always says, “Doctors don’t grow on trees.” If they were allowing Cynthia to take a risk like this, then obviously any amount of testing that had been done on these filtration masks were impressive.
“Paula Yin will be one of the people joining me. The other individuals, if there are any, will be strictly voluntary. The rest of the team will be expected to make a thorough search and inspection of the surrounding area as well as catalog the breaches in the perimeter wall.” Cynthia made it a point to let her gaze go from face to face as she spoke. When she made eye contact with me, I thought that I saw just the slightest arch in one eyebrow. I might have been imagining, but I didn’t care and I was not going to wait and miss out.
“I’m in!” I raised a hand and stepped forward.
“And me,” Jackson rumbled.
“Geez, kid,” Jim Sagar said around a mouthful of some sort of rolled oat-and-honey trail bar. “Warn a fella before you just volunteer for things.” He looked up to see Paula giving him a tight-lipped glare, her eyes barely slits. “Oh…yeah, I’m in.”
It looked like we had our team. And then it sunk in…I was going on an actual mission. This was something that you only heard about back at the homestead around the community dinner tables. I could not wait to rub Kayla Brockhouse’s nose in it.
“Okay, we go in at first light. You two get your things in order and then go ahead and start the exterior inspection. We meet back here in two days…no exceptions,” Paula said as she hopped down and headed towards me and Jim. For some reason, she looked annoyed.
I watched the others re-shoulder their gear and start off. I was a little surprised that nobody grumbled or complained. I guess if you make a choice (or make no choice), then you don’t get to complain about the outcome.
“Get your tree hammock set up, Thalia,” Jim said as he went to work on a hole for our fire.
Out in the field, if you made a fire, you did it in what was called a Dakota Hole. I have no idea why, but that is what they call it. The hole is a couple of feet deep and maybe a foot across, and then an air flow hole is bored out at an angle.
It has been determined that zombies can see heat signatures or something, so a fire is like ringing the dinner bell. For whatever reason, the smoke is not enough to act as the same sort of lure; thus, the Dakota Hole.
Paula and Cynthia had gone down to the creek that was just at the bottom of the hill we were going to camp on for the night. I waited until I was certain that they were out of earshot before I spoke, and even then, I kept my voice to a whisper.
“Why is Paula so mad?” I asked.
Jim was silent for a while, and I actually thought that he would ignore or refuse to answer my question. Finally, he looked up from his digging and, after a quick glance over his shoulder to ensure that Paula was not yet on her way back, he answered.
“You were not supposed to be on the team to go inside,” Jim said. “I was supposed to keep you quiet and we were to make the perimeter search.”
“What’s the big deal?”
Once more, Jim was quiet. I could tell that he was really bothered. That all by itself was enough to make me more than a little nervous. Jim was one of those guys who always seemed to be smiling and generally happy with life. Melissa said that, if this were the old days, she would be almost certain that he was on drugs.
“Look, I am in enough hot water with Knives of Death…maybe you should ask her.”
I stifled a smile. “Knives of Death” was an old nickname for Paula. That is why I’d gone to her to learn blade fighting as well as some machete work. I still remember when she had called me a natural during one of our sessions; that had been one of the greatest compliments that I could ever remember receiving from anybody.
“Well then maybe I will,” I said with a frown. I stuck my tongue out, but Jim was already back to digging his stupid hole.
It seemed to take forever, and by the time Paula and Cynthia had returned from gathering water, I had almost lost my nerve. However, as soon as I saw that sideways glance from Jim and his smug little smile telling me that he was fairly certain that I did not have the guts to question Paula, much less risk her annoyance, I hung from my hammock for a second to ensure that it was secure, and then I walked right up to Paula and planted myself in front of her.
“Did I do something wrong?” That was a good start.
“You are not the right person for this job,” Paula replied.
Paula was not much on mincing words or trying to tell people what they wanted to hear. She scared a lot of people with her direct approach to things. However, I was not scared of her one little bit. It wasn’t like she was going to pull a knife on me or something. And if she got mad…big deal. She would get over it.
“Then why did you say that I was ready for this field run?”
“You are ready for the field. I just do not think that you are the right person to send inside the walls. It might be ugly, and it might go bad really fast. You are good in a fight, I will grant you that. However, taking down a few zombies is one thing…there may be living people in there that mean to do us harm. Killing a living person is different than killing a zombie.”
Well, at least now I knew her reasons. I could even see her point, but if nobody else was willing to volunteer, then was she really just going to go in there with only her and Cynthia? That seemed reckless in my opinion.
“Then you were lying,” I finally said with a shrug, and turned to my hammock.
I heard somebody let out a low whistle. I am pretty sure that it was Jim. A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
“Why would you say that?” Paula’s nose was just an inch or so away from mine.
“If I am ready for a field run, then I am ready for all parts of it. Not just the easy stuff or the tasks that you can handpick.”
I folded my arms across my body. That could have been seen as a defensive gesture, and maybe it was considering the fact that one of the most dangerous hand-to-hand fighters in our small community of Platypus Creek was in my face. Oh…and obviously pissed. I had to fight every instinct in my body that was telling me to take a step back. I would not show weakness, and I would
not back down.
“And you think you are ready to kill a living person?” I know that she was speaking in a tone just above a whisper, but it was hammering in my ears.
“I think that I am ready for the field. I think that I will do whatever the situation requires. Would I want to kill another living being? No. Would I do what I have to when the time comes…I like to think that I will.”
“And that is why you are not ready,” Paula replied.
I stared at her with what must have been a questioning look on my face. I know I had a questioning feeling in my gut.
“You can’t simply think you will do something.” Paula took a step back. “You have to know it.”
She walked away and suddenly nobody would make eye contact with me. Not even Jim.
Well…I would just have to show them.
***
We climbed through the jagged remnants of what I had to say was perhaps the most impressive barricade that I’d ever seen. Okay, so I haven’t seen that many, but still, this thing was amazing. There was an outer wall that was ten feet high. Next, there was the next space, but instead of it being just a huge sort of open area, it was compartmentalized. I would guess there had to be a new wall that ran between the inner and outer-most barricade walls set every twenty or so feet apart.
Up above, I could see the crisscrossing of catwalks where the residents here could just move around and pick off zombies at their leisure. Also, about every fifty feet or so was a watch tower. This place sort of made home feel vulnerable and exposed by comparison.
“What could do this?” I whispered. It was not meant as an actual question to be answered.
“Somebody packing some nasty ordinance,” Jim muttered as he climbed over the charred remains of a bracing beam that was as wide as me and easily weighed a few hundred pounds. Yet, it had been snapped in half and burnt beyond belief.
We emerged on the other side and I had to stifle the urge to be just a little bit sick. There, not more than ten feet away, was a massive pile of bodies. They were all stripped naked. That made it easy to see the ravaging that their bodies had taken. Out of some sort of nervous response, I gave my mask a slight adjustment. I sure hoped that this thing worked like they said it did. I did not want whatever sickness had killed these people. Something was just not right, though. Unfortunately, I was too overwhelmed to figure out what I was missing. I only knew that it was something important.
But, back to the pile of corpses. The bodies had fist-sized boils all over them. Many had popped, leaving a dried coating of this dark, gloopy fluid that reminded me of spoiled goat’s milk. There was a swelling around every single one of these people’s throats. It was almost like somebody had tried to inflate a balloon just under the chin of each of these poor souls. You could see furrows in the flesh where they had clawed at their own necks, probably as they were suffocating.
“That had to suck,” Jackson whispered with a mix of disgust and reverence.
Cynthia had moved in for a closer look. She had a pole with a set of pincers at the end and she was grabbing and tugging on one body or the other to move it and get a look from some other angle.
“So how does this tie in to the idea of that?” I asked, pointing to the closest pile of corpses and then the ruins of the wall where we had come through.
“Medieval warfare,” Jim answered.
“Umm…what?” I had no clue what he was talking about.
“Way back when man was little more than nomadic bands hiding behind walls and such for protection from each other…” His voice trailed off, and he smiled his goofy grin. “Think of it as being just like now, except they get the bonus of no zombies back then.”
He chuckled at his observation and continued. “Anyway…man was learning that illness could actually be used as a weapon. It was not uncommon for the enemy laying siege outside of a castle to chop up some infected soul and hurl the carcass over the walls with a catapult. The more virulent the sickness, the more effective it was as a weapon.”
“That’s disgusting,” I gasped, unable to believe that such cruelty could truly exist. I think I heard Paula make a snort or cough as she moved down the alley that would open up to a large street.
I followed Paula. I was more curious than anything else. This alley ran between two long, squat buildings with doors set ever few feet.
“Holding cells,” Paula answered my unasked question.
We reached the corner and that is where it just changed. If you didn’t know any better, you would simply think that perhaps everybody was away at a town meeting or something.
“It looks normal,” I whispered.
I had no idea why I was whispering. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I mean, it wasn’t like zombies would be coming any time soon.
Of course, no sooner had I thought that when a pair came into view about three blocks away. Paula had her binoculars up and was taking a closer look. She handed her glasses to me.
“Tell me what you see.”
I brought the binocs up to my eyes. In an instant, the distant walkers suddenly looked close enough to reach out and touch. I studied them. There was something odd, but I could not place it. The harder I tried to focus and figure out exactly what it was Paula expected me to see, the more my mind seemed to go blank. Then it hit me!
“They have the same swelling around the necks…the same evidence of those boils.” That last bit was made clear by the dark stains on their clothes.
“They were Immunes,” Paula said, approval seeping into her voice.
“So if we encounter any zombies in here, it should be minimal,” I offered.
The Immunes were a mixed blessing. I guess there was a time when people believed that the bite was an automatic death sentence. No telling how many poor people were killed out of mercy by their friends just because they had been bitten. However, even if a person is one of The Immune, they still come back as a zombie if they have been infected.
That was apparently another problem early on. I guess we lost some people because they had sex with somebody who was infected but immune. That meant anybody who is bitten and immune is still carrying the zombie virus or germ (I always get the two mixed up…I never really paid much attention in health and biology beyond the basic first aid that I knew I would need in the field). I knew one thing for sure, I did not want to find out the hard way if I was immune or not.
As it turned out, according to Dr. Zahn, the potential for immunity was much higher than many could believe. She put the chances at around twenty-five percent. Our little community of around three hundred sports thirty-five of The Immunes.
Even better, so far, there have been four children born to Immune couples. Of course we can’t actually be certain, but the doc says that this whole thing has some of the same tendencies as any other illness. And if the immunity to zombies has something to do with antibodies a person possesses, then she says it is highly probable that the children of Immunes will be immune to the bite as well.
We moved in and took down the walkers and then made our way down the street. Paula seemed to know exactly where she wanted to go. After turning down a few streets, we came to one that was much wider. Up ahead was a huge building. In front of it was one of the largest open, paved areas that I had ever seen. I’d heard of parking lots, but I had no idea that they were so huge.
This large open space had been kept open, and there was a large stage-like platform in the middle. Hanging from the front of the base of the stage were the remnants of some blue and white banners that fluttered in the gentle breeze.
I felt strange being so out in the open. Can a person be afraid of wide open spaces? If so, I think I might be just a bit. I was used to my community of Platypus Creek. We were surrounded by trees and the only open spaces we had were the farm plots and a baseball field.
“Hear that?” Cynthia whispered, her voice sounding alien in that filtered mask.
I listened, but all I heard was my own heartbeat thudding in my ears. I
was becoming more certain by the second that I did not like being out in the open like this. Then…I heard it.
“I hate crybaby-zombies,” Jackson muttered.
The sound was coming from that great big building; and there was more than one. I actually preferred the crybabies. At least you could hear them. In my opinion, it beat the heck out of being surprised.
We crossed the lot and I lagged just a little when I saw a shadow move over by that stage. Or…at least I thought I saw something move.
The closer we got to that huge building, the more I was craning my neck, until, eventually, I was walking backwards. I did not want to say anything in case it was just my jitters from being out in the open. Then I saw another little bit of movement.
“Hold!” I hissed.
Just like that, Paula, Jim, Jackson and Cynthia came to a stop and turned my way. I had my crossbow ready, and so I jabbed it in the direction of the stage.
“I keep seeing something move over there…like maybe just under that platform? Whatever or whoever it is might be all the way in the back. I wasn’t sure, and I might be wrong, but I think we need to check it out,” I said.
“I will break wide left, Cynthia go right. Jim, you and Jackson stay put and try to keep an eye on each of us. Thalia, you move in and hold about twenty yards out directly in front,” Paula instructed.
I felt a surge of adrenaline. If this turned out to be nothing more than a squirrel or something, I was going to look like an idiot.
There was a support post in the front of the stage that looked to be the middle. I lined up on that and crouched low as I began to make my approach. My finger kept tightening, and I had to take a breath a few times as I advanced in order to relax just a bit so that I did not accidentally shoot my weapon.
I reached my point and stopped, my eyes darting left and right to find Paula and Cynthia. Both women had their own crossbows drawn and were now moving so that they were actually just past the rear of the stage.
“Come out slowly,” Paula called. “We are not here to hurt anybody.”
