A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  “Do you have any idea of what that may be?” I asked

  “For starters there’s the desire for power, to be godlike over a group. Take any cult leader as an example. They continuously recruit knowing that eventually it will be their undoing, but the more people they have the more power they have and the more like God they feel. Much like drug addiction, it is a feeling that they have to keep feeding or withdraws will begin to occur. This will lead to them making more and more ill advised decisions causing their actions, and reactions, to get more and more erratic.” Amanda paused to let us take that in and respond, if we wanted. After neither of us made a sound she continued. “There are also sexual or monetary desires which will cause people to overlook their own safety. However, I am fairly sure that currency is a dead concept.”

  “So, you’re saying the guy leading this group of people either wants to lord over everyone or have sex with them.” I said.

  “Or he’s just a good guy.” Sass said giving me an evil look.

  “Or he’s just a good guy.” I added, looking towards Sass. “Better?”

  “Better.”

  “There are even more avenues to this discussion, but in my time in the field I have found that it almost always involves money, power, or sex.”

  Sass let his eyebrows rise at this comment and I gave Amanda a wide smile.

  “Well Miss Asare, I do believe you can tell me a good night story any time you want.”

  “You should be so lucky.”

  The group had stopped and we caught up to them just as Amanda made her remark. The scouts from Gray had a walkie talkie with them and Randy was speaking to someone named Le'Brio.

  “There was nothing salvageable at the gas station?” The voice of Le'Brio asked.

  “No but we did find some survivors.”

  “Sweet, how many?”

  “Group is seven strong.”

  “Whoa! Good find. They coming back with you?”

  “Yes, we’re headed back now.”

  “Okay. I’ll inform the king. There is one more thing.”

  Randy rolled his eyes at the little black box he held in his hand.

  “What?”

  “I really hate to ask you, but you’re right there at it.”

  “What do you need Le'Brio?” The frustration was not well hidden in Randy’s voice. “I really hate to ask you, but…there is a new column of black smoke in the sky. It’s right there where you are. It may be a signal fire for help.”

  “Le, I just told you I have a group of seven coming in with me. You really want me to take that many people into a potentially hostile area?”

  There was a pause on the other end.

  “Are any of them warriors?”

  Randy looked to Amanda and then to me, “Yes a couple are warriors.”

  “Then you can take the warriors with you and check it out. Have Charles bring the others back with him.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I can’t think of any other options. Can you?”

  Randy looked down at the ground then up to where we stood and nodded.

  “We’ll get it done.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get everything ready for our new recruits by the time they get here.”

  “Appreciated. See you soon.”

  Randy put the radio back in his pocket. “So, who is going and who is staying?”

  Amanda and I exchanged a look.

  “Amanda, Sass and I will go with you and the rest will go to your safe house.”

  Randy began talking to Charles and I took the opportunity to speak to Shawn about what I needed done in my absence. Shawn didn’t question a thing I said, he just nodded and said, “no problem”. When I turned around I saw that Charles was already leading his group away. I walked over to the others and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “According to Le'Brio, there is a farm house just up the road from us. We will be turning right while the rest will head on into Gray.” Amanda answered.

  Less than three hundred yards later I saw the hint of asphalt shooting off to the right and down a hill.

  Where Cox road left the main road into Gray there were two diamond shaped signs stacked one on top of the other. The top sign said, “Road impassable during high water.” The bottom sign said, “Travel at your own risk.”

  After reading the bottom sign I started laughing and smacked Sass on the arm pointing at the sign. “That is most likely the truest sign on the planet now.”

  Sass looked to where I pointed and gave a short whisper of a laugh before adding the standard, “You’re not right,” comment.

  As we both turned around I could see Amanda looking at me disapprovingly and Randy already heading down the road. Amanda’s look broke as a hint of a smile passed across her lips, “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “I do. Would you like to know what?”

  Sass began walking down the hill behind Randy. Amanda shook her head in the “no” gesture. She let Randy and Sass get a good lead on us before she began down the hill beside me.

  “We need to examine a rather important question.”

  “What’s on your mind, Miss Asare?”

  “My question is this, why are we here?”

  I nodded at Amanda. “Well, Plato believed that learning was our reason for being alive. He said that the meaning of life is to attain the highest degree of knowledge. Cyrene disagreed saying that pleasure was the reason to live adding that physical pleasure was hands down better than mental pleasure. I’m not positive here, but I can place a good bet that Cyrene could throw one hell of a party back in the day. And then of course Douglas Adams told us that the reason we were here, the meaning of life if you will, is answered by the number FortyTwo. A strange answer indeed, but he insisted that if we truly knew what the question was then the answer would make perfect sense.”

  Amanda was looking at me. There was no expression at all, just a blank stare.

  “As much as I enjoyed this little hint of Jeopardy trivia that you have hidden away in your brain I meant why are we at this farm house. There is nobody here to save. Why are we here?”

  “I imagine that you have a thought or two about this.”

  “One or two.” Amanda said. “I believe that this whole thing has been staged. That they wanted to split us off from the others.”

  “What would there be to gain from separating us from the others?”

  “Just think about it, Charlie. They took the weaker members of the group back to their base and kept the stronger ones, the warriors as they put it, out here where we can’t protect them.”

  I started to see her point.

  “They can bring them in and turn on the smiles and the give them something to drink and something to eat and make what most people would simply take as chit chat. But what they are doing is not chit chat. Once they get them talking it will take very little to turn the subjects around and start pumping them for information. By the time we get there the people at Gray will be completely briefed on the ‘Warriors’ of the group and will have a good idea what they are getting themselves into with us.”

  “And the person leading this little tell all party on us…”

  “…will be Daniel.” Amanda finished for me.

  “But Judy, Veronica and Shawn wouldn’t let Daniel tell a bunch of lies on us,” I said, more to myself than to Amanda.

  “I’m sure they would set the record straight. That is if they are there with him. After the initial meet and greet where they feed them and get the general idea of who is who inside the group they will most likely talk to each of them one on one in the guise of anything from getting what clothing sizes they wear to how their particular skills will best be suited in the community. The point is, they will talk to each one for a bit getting the full story about us, the warriors. The dangerous part of the group.”

  “What makes you so sure of this?”

  “It’s what I would do. It’s what anyone with any military training would do. You use any reso
urce available to get intel on a potential threat.”

  “And that’s what we are? A potential threat?”

  “Like you said, in this situation, most people who find themselves in a leadership position are not rational. Most are raving lunatics on a power trip and are paranoid that somebody will eventually try to take their power away from them.”

  “Yeah, but like Judy said, we aren’t in a movie.”

  “Charlie, I hate to break this to you, but in situations like this, real life is going to be a lot closer to what we’ve all seen in the movies.”

  I looked at Amanda for a moment. She was dead serious.

  A quiet fell over us as we made our way to the house Where Randy and Sass had already stopped. Across the road from where they stood the signal fire blazed away. Randy stood watching it while Sass was returning from the side yard. I could feel that Amanda had something else she wanted to say but was being cautious about it. Finally, she pulled in closer to me and spoke in an even softer voice.

  “I think you need to find a way to speak to Sass alone. Find out what he and Randy talked about.”

  “You think Randy is chit chatting Sass?”

  “I’m not sure, but they have been walking together this whole time and if the opportunity presented itself…” she broke off not needing to finish her thought.

  “Surely Sass wouldn’t tell him anything.” I said.

  “I’m fairly sure Sass would tell him everything.”

  “How can you say that? Sass wouldn’t betray us.”

  “He wouldn’t see it as betraying us. He would only see it as some guy talking about the day.”

  “Yeah.” I said. “He sees too much good in people.”

  “Just be prepared for some bad news when you ask him what they talked about.”

  As these words dug into my brain Sass walked over to me and handed me a baseball bat that he had retrieved from the side yard. He smiled at me and said, “Try it out.” As I swung the bat one fact became very clear. This was SO much better than my hammer.

  “This is sweet! It’s so light.”

  “I know, right?” Sass said, smiling.

  “It’s gonna be a whole lot easier than fighting with this hammer.” I said.

  Sass nodded, “Be better than this tire iron I’ve been lugging around as well.”

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s here. At least not outside.” Randy said and alarm bells started going off in my head.

  “I know you’re not about to suggest that we go search that house.”

  “Actually, that is exactly what I was about to suggest.”

  “Are you trying to get us killed?”

  Randy seemed a bit taken back by my comment.

  “No, I just want to know that there isn’t anyone in there that needs our help.”

  There are two phrases I hate. “I have to see. I have to know.” Seeing and knowing will lead to screaming and running. That should be rule number one in the survival guide.

  “Going in that house puts every one of us at

  considerable risk. It’s a risk I don’t feel is worth it.” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Randy asked.

  I looked at the man, how on earth was he a scout? How on earth had he been made to be responsible for the safety of others?

  “In that house our weapons will be worthless. Most rooms will be too small for Sass or myself to use our bats and your rifle will do nothing but get in your way as you try to run back outside. In there you’re going to find nothing but bottlenecks and choke points. Houses are one of the most dangerous places to go exploring unless you’re geared for it and the only one that’s geared for it is Amanda.”

  “That may be your opinion, but...” Randy said.

  “It is more than an opinion.” Amanda said, “He is telling you the truth. Your rifle is a weapon designed to be used at range. By going inside you turn it into something that it was never designed to be. You may get two shots off before you are over run. You’ll be using that rifle to push the zombies off you as you try to back peddle your way out of the house.”

  Randy wasn’t buying it. He was going into that house come hell or high water. He was right; we were wrong, end of story. Watching his eyes, I knew that I was, once again, about to do something completely stupid in the name of…what? Getting along? Playing nice?

  “Fine, we’ll do what you want, but we’re going to do it my way.” I said.

  Randy, who had already started walking towards the front porch of the house, stopped and turned around.

  “What exactly is your way?”

  “When we get in there you and Amanda will go upstairs and check those rooms. The upstairs will most likely be the bed rooms and will be much smaller than the downstairs rooms. Your guns will be much better suited to take out any opposition you may find up there. Sass and I will check out the downstairs. The downstairs usually consists of the bigger rooms where we can swing our bats in those nice homerun arcs that put zombie heads over the center field wall. Sound okay to you?”

  Randy looked at me for a moment. “Yes, actually that does sound good. Amanda and I will meet the two of you at the front door once we are done.”

  “Deal…pickle.” I said. I had gotten Sass and myself some alone time and hopefully earned a point or two with Randy by giving in and doing what he wanted. We walked up the stairs, across the porch, and into the farm house. Sass gave me a sigh as Amanda and Randy went up the stairs. His expression said, “Here we go again.”

  “Ready Sass?”

  “I was born ready Cracky.”

  I stopped and shot him a look.

  “You’re so touchy.”

  I could hear his soft laughter as I turned around and started down the short hall towards the living room.

  The layout of the house seemed simple. The entrance area had a set of stairs going up the right wall. Just past the stairs a short hallway emptied out into the living room. There was another hallway to the left and that would take us to the kitchen and another short hallway that I was sure led to a bathroom and maybe a ground floor bedroom or two.

  As we stood in the living room it was very apparent that we were in a zombie free area. There were no blood stains on the floors or walls. All the little collectible things that a family discovers they just have to bring home over the years were all still in their assigned places. It looked like somebody could come walking down the hall at any moment and ask us if we’d like something to drink.

  “Big room.” Sass said from behind me.

  “Yeah, let’s check out the rest of it.”

  Sass followed as I walked to the doorway of the kitchen. The kitchen was huge as well. The doorway opened up into an area that had a table and a china cabinet and even a little bench against one of the walls with a row of hangers for jackets or coats above it. Dividing the eating area from the cooking area was a wide bar that came off from the left wall and ran three-fourths the way across the room. This created a small walkway to get into the cooking part of the kitchen.

  “Check this out.” Sass said from behind me. He had wandered over to the far left wall and was looking at the pictures that had been hung there. The image he was calling my attention to was a picture of a man holding up a fish that had to be about six feet long. I’m no fisherman. Sass, however, was the kind of guy that would leave out at midnight so he could sit in a boat all night trying to catch the elusive Fishzilla which was fifty feet long and had a shock of hair on its belly as red as the fires of hell itself. So, you can guess how much of a wow factor this picture had for Sass while I was more like, “Cool, big fish. What else we got over here?”

  “Dude!”

  “What?”

  “That’s not just a big fish. That thing is mammoth.” Sass said.

  “Okay. Haven’t you ever caught a fish that was as big as you?”

  “Yes, but that was deep sea fishing. You can do it easier deep sea fishing. This guy caught this thing here locally. It has to be a record.”


  The respect that was in his voice was almost comical.

  “Well then, I hope we don’t find your fishing hero somewhere in here all zombified forcing us to put a bullet in his brain. However, if we do, we can hang him upside down and you can take your picture with him. I’ll even find you a frame that says, ‘Catch of the Day!’ to put your picture in so we can always look back and remember.”

  “Sometimes you’re not funny at all Charlie.”

  “Yeah, but this isn’t one of those times, is it?”

  Sass smiled, “No, that picture would be funny as hell.”

  Sass put the picture back and, leaving the kitchen, we checked the rest of the downstairs. The hallway that led to the right past the kitchen had a bathroom which turned out to be empty and a washroom which was also empty.

  “Looks like we finished before the goon squad upstairs.” I said as I leaned against the wall by the bathroom. “While we have a minute, I need to talk to you about something.”

  Sass leaned against the wall opposite me and raised his eyebrows as if to say fire away.

  “Exactly what did you and Randy talk about while walking down here?”

  Sass gave me a weird look that suggested he wanted to know where I was going with this.

  “Just normal stuff I guess.” He said.

  “What normal stuff?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It just does. What did you all talk about?”

  Sass gave me another look. I held my gaze on his, but it was hard to do. I could feel the air taking on a heavier texture. There was a tension forming between the two of us and this had the potential to turn into something big. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Sass was making such a big deal out of my question. He was acting like I was the bad guy here.

  “He asked where we were when all this happened. We talked about the jobs you and I had before today and what all we had been through since it all hit the fan. He asked how we had met Amanda and the others and I told him the story about the bridge and about how we rescued the Craigs and how we met Shawn and Veronica. He asked why we had went to the strip club and I had told him the story about what had happened in there. That’s it, normal everyday getting to know each other stuff.”