by Beth Hersant
“Listen, boss,” Roger said, “I know you’re almost out of oxy, but shouldn’t we get guns first and drugs second?”
Shaw wasn’t listening. Holliger’s would have everything he needed to keep steady: OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin and … he stopped abruptly and stared in surprise. There were people in there, waving at him as they pulled away a large shelf unit that had been used to block the door.
“Thank God!” Old man Holliger said as he ushered them inside. “We didn’t think anybody else was left!”
Leon answered this statement by shooting the old man in the face. A woman screamed and another man opened fire. He managed to squeeze off a few badly aimed rounds before Silsbee took him down with a bullet to the gut. The woman ran to his aid and Wilford Bishop said in an eerily calm voice: “Hello, Catherine.” He nodded to the wounded man, “Jeff.”
The Tombstone bar was a squat brick building with a leaky roof. On the front, on either side of the heavy wooden door, there was a small window. In the time when zombies weren’t taking over the world, those windows had held neon signs: one for Budweiser and one for Miller High Life (“the champagne of beers”). But zombies were taking over the world and so the gang had boarded them up. Now, however, Turner was given a claw-hammer and told to pry the boards away to reveal the scene outside. There, in the parking lot, tied up between the Dead End sign and a telephone pole, stood Jeff Burgess. And night was coming on.
A road flare had been lit to help guide the infected to him and indeed they came in droves. They hated the light; it hurt their eyes, but here was prey served up on a platter and they could not resist. And so they’d clamp their eyes shut and dive in for a quick claw and bite and then retreat from the hateful glare of the light. The way they did that, circling around him to bite and then backing away, reminded Leon of a documentary he’d seen on Shark Week. It was all about a feeding frenzy. And with each strike, Jeff screamed and cried and strained against the ropes. For thirty minutes that flare burned and smoked. And all the while Catherine, who had to be held up by Turner, sobbed and gasped because her gag was making it hard for her to breathe. But then the flare flickered unsteadily. Cat moaned as it finally guttered out. The infected rushed in then, coming at Burgess from all directions. The people inside the Tombstone could no longer see him amid the crush of bodies. But they could hear him, his screams high and frantic as they ripped him to pieces.
When Jeff had fallen silent, Leon nodded at Roger. “Go on, seal it up again.”
Shaw took a long pull of Old Crow and offered the bottle to Catherine. “Want some?”
The sobbing woman gathered herself so she could enunciate as clearly as possible around her gag: “Go fuck yourself.”
“Not quite what we had in mind,” Bishop said. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the pool table.
That was in the beginning, before they were able to clear a path out of Midwood and relocate to the Mohawk Motel. They had just moved into their new digs and were planning to hit Sage Foods when the North Star convoy pulled up and Leon sent his men to follow them home.
“It’s the Bernhard farm,” Wilford reported.
“Where the hell’s that?” Shaw asked.
“We’ll show you. It’s a good location, fairly remote. They’ve got crops in the ground (I think), and the place is heavily fortified.”
Roger nodded. “It does look pretty impressive.”
“I bet,” Leon said quietly and then seemed to reach a decision. “Let’s see just how impressive they are.”
And so they went to the high school. The infected, when they weren’t milling around looking for prey, tended to retreat to the High School gymnasium. They slept there, huddled together, and waited for night. But as dusk fell they found a pickup truck idling in the parking lot. And in the back, hanging over the tailgate and waving, was fresh meat. With a screech they darted forward. Every time they got near, however, the truck would drive off a ways and then stop again just a little further down the road. In this way, the Shaw gang led Midwood’s infected out of town, over the bridge and out into the countryside.
They reached the farm by daybreak, just in time to hear Louella’s rooster crow. And as the truck drove away, the husks spotted people up on the scaffolding and heard a dog bark.
Before the guards could even see the horde, the people of Camp North Star were up and out of bed. Bailey — a laid-back Labrador — was going absolutely nuts and that could only mean one thing.
Still in her pajamas, Louella slipped her bare feet into her boots and climbed up onto the ramparts. Arnold handed her a pair of binoculars and together they watched the horde approach.
“Patience!”
“I’m here,” came a voice beside her.
“Get everybody ready.”
“What can we do?” Louella turned around to see Peter and the other new children, each holding a weapon.
Lou called out again: “Emma!”
The child was there in a heartbeat. “Here!”
“Patience has got you on reload?”
“Yes.”
“Now you’ve got helpers. Show them what to do.”
As the girl led the kids away, Peg (who was checking her own weapon) called, “Hey Peter!”
“Yeah?” He was walking backwards now in the direction his group had gone.
“You said you were afraid the farm wasn’t safe?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” she smiled at him, “watch this.”
It is a little known fact that war is a mixture of boredom and hell. For all of its violence and horror, there seems to be an inordinate amount of waiting around. So it was on the farm that day. Sure enough, the husks came charging at them with all the speed they could muster. But before they could reach the compound, before even one shot needed to be fired, the infected got hung up on the traps. First there was the barbed wire. This slowed them down a bit, but was not enough to deter an army oblivious to its own injuries. They simply ripped themselves free and carried on. Next they came to a series of obstacles — a couple of 18 wheelers and an old RV — staggered in front of the farm.
Watching, hidden, from a nearby ridge, Roger commented, “The trucks aren’t even slowing them down. Why did they bother?”
“The trucks aren’t meant for them,” Wilford said quietly, “they’re there to keep us from crashing through the fences. Now those are zombie traps.”
The infected had reached the pitfalls. As they raced across the open lawn between the road and the farmhouse, they would suddenly lurch and fall to one side. In each case the zombie had a foot stuck in what seemed to be a deep hole. They cried out. They had been pretty vocal all morning, but this sound was different. These were cries of pain and, when one of them yanked himself free, Wilford saw blood pouring out of his ruined foot. More and more of them got loose and hobbled toward the compound. In some cases the damage was so great, the zombies fell forward and crawled, pulling themselves across the wet grass.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, the husks were within range and the people of Camp North Star got a good look at them. Pastor Kulp, Katie Boehler, Clara Jung (although, where her baby was was too horrible to contemplate), Barbara Yeakle, and dozens more.
“They’re empty shells, guys,” Peg reminded them. “They…”
But a strangled cry interrupted her. Peter Eckert stood, clutching a scaffolding bar for support. His face was a ghastly white and tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Oh God it’s Billy,” Thomas, who’d stepped up beside him, whispered.
Curtis clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. Do you want me to … to deal with this?”
“No,” Peter shook his head. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what, Peter?” Isabella Rhyne looked up at him with big innocent eyes.
Before Peter could answer, Pigpen said, “Let’s g
o help Emma, ok?” He crouched down so she could hop up on him for a piggyback ride and he carried her away.
Louella watched this unfold, saw how the little group pulled together to look after each other. She was impressed. Peter must have led them well to forge a bunch of traumatized kids into something that solid.
She went to him. “The little one in the snowsuit — that’s your brother?”
Peter nodded.
“That’s not Billy, sweetheart.”
“I know.” He cocked his shotgun.
Louella gently rested a hand on the barrel. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s my responsibility.”
“No, it isn’t. Look at me.” She nudged the gun down so that it pointed at the ground. “The minute he came to the farm, he became my responsibility. Wasn’t that one of the reasons you came here? So you wouldn’t have to be responsible for everything?”
Peter nodded and swayed a little on his feet. Then Emma was there, leading him away. In the midst of his passive retreat, he stopped. His eyes were those of an old man and his voice a dry rasp as he said, “Don’t let him suffer.”
“It’ll be quick. I promise.”
Peter was not the only one who’d been rattled by the horde. Every person on that wall saw a friend or neighbor in the crowd below. And the ravages of the disease were grotesque. None of their injuries had healed well. Gangrenous arms and hands had turned black and looked more like horror movie props than actual human limbs. They were pitifully thin and their skin stretched taut over jutting bones. They were filthy and the stench that rose from them was enough to make your eyes water. But then Patience hit the play button on a portable tape player. The familiar discordant notes signaled for everyone to make ready. Then Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Run Through the Jungle resolved into a steady beat, the order came and they opened fire.
Watching from the ridge, Leon noticed that they did not just blast away. Instead they seemed to shoot in time with the music, pulling the trigger on every fourth beat or so. This was staggered along the line; one person would shoot, while his neighbor took aim and vice versa. It was a calm, controlled and very efficient way of killing. Leon didn’t know it, but Patience had gotten the idea from World War Z. In the book, the soldiers had actually practiced firing in time with a metronome and Patience had seized on the idea. If she could use a steady rhythm and a song to bolster their confidence, then she could keep them from blasting away in a panic, wasting time and ammunition in the process.
There was another idea the security chief borrowed from the novel. Every time someone ran out of ammo, they’d holler ‘Out!’ and a child would be there to hand them a fully loaded weapon and take the empty one away for reloading.
Within a fairly short period of time, the guns and music fell silent. The lawn in front of the farmhouse was littered with bodies.
“Can we go now?” Blake asked. Riding in the back of the pickup truck had been fun and all the shooting had been exciting, but he was tired now and getting bored.
“In a minute,” Leon muttered. “They’re not finished yet.”
Sure enough, with guards covering them from an elevated position, a heavily armed contingent emerged from the compound. They were all wearing protective clothing as they walked among the bodies double tapping each one in the head. They swept the area and, once it was secure, the cleanup operation began.
As the Shaw gang crept back to their truck, Wilford asked, “Thoughts?”
“I don’t know,” Leon answered. “Let’s think on it a while.”
Chapter Thirteen
Another Brief Interlude
Bugs Bunny: “Wait a minute, Dracula. Did you ever have the feeling you’re being watched? That the eyes of strange, eerie things are upon you? Look, out there in the audience.
Gossamer: “PEEEE-PLE! Aieeeeeeee!”
Looney Tunes, “Hair-Raising Hare”
Mornings were busy times on the farm. Louella would take coffee up to the guards, get a status report and then head off to the barn. She separated the calves from the cows so there’d be milk by evening and filled their troughs with alfalfa hay and grain supplements. She let the chickens out to run, put mash in the feeders and collected the eggs. She placed fresh bedding in the nest boxes and then turned her attention to her garden. It was May and she had broccoli, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes to pick. She had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year and so, after breakfast, she planned to make a big vat of spaghetti sauce to freeze for the winter months.
While performing these tasks, she could almost fool herself into thinking that nothing had changed. If she drove into Midwood, she could pop into Kacee’s Kitchen for a patty melt or nip into Holliger’s for a jar of Oil of Olay. And she would see Doc Rhoads on his lunchtime run, jogging along with his shuffling little-old-man gait. This time of year Main Street would be decked out in flowers: hanging baskets of lilac impatiens and planters full of daisies and petunias. The red maple and white oak trees that lined the road would be greening up nicely, while birds sang from their branches and the mild air kissed the bare skin of your arms.
But then they’d need her up on the scaffolding as an extra spotter while a team inspected the perimeter fences. And she’d stand there with a gun in her hand and the illusion would shatter. This was usually the point when she took her first headache tablets of the day. From her vantage point, she could see the trailers parked out behind the barn. One would serve as a lab where Wyn and Niamh could develop the vaccine. They were still gathering the needed equipment for this. The second trailer was already stocked with rows and rows of cages. That’s where they’d house the sick animals and they’d have to drill holes in their skulls to harvest infected brain tissue and do all manner of terrible things. Yes, Louella had lived on a farm her whole adult life and she knew how it all worked. Things lived and things died. And sometimes you’d kill an animal to feed your family and sometimes you’d put a sick animal down so it wouldn’t suffer needlessly. But this procedure to get the vaccine, that was going to be a whole different ball game. It was tantamount to torture for the animals and she ached for the days when she was not called upon to do that. She missed who she used to be. She’d come to think of this new life as a hammer and chisel, chipping away at who she was, at the person she liked being. But she was still going to see that the job got done. That vaccine was their best shot at survival and she would stick at nothing to get it for them.
With the inspection done, it was time for breakfast and then everyone would see to their chores. Alec would pick his crew for the building projects; Lou and Bib would get busy making that spaghetti sauce, and the children, with their hands and faces scrubbed clean, would head up to the attic for school. At first there were vehement protests against this. And you can see the kids’ point of view: it’s the apocalypse and you want us to sit through class? But then they saw the curriculum. Yes, there was reading, writing, and arithmetic. But there would also be self-defense and weapons training, first aid, drills on defending the compound, and time spent working with the animals. They came to realize that a day at school was frankly awesome.
At first Peg was tempted to focus purely on learning and on the future and try to move the children on from the trauma of their pasts. But her reading on PTSD quickly convinced her otherwise. They had to deal with the emotions now: acknowledge them and be guided through them before the trauma became a mental and physical part, not only of who they are, but also of who they will be. And so part of each school day was devoted to dealing with the past. Sometimes, they just told stories about the time before — like the time Peter Eckert’s mom went down with the flu over Christmas and his dad had to make the big holiday meal by himself.
They could all picture Michael Eckert in his hideous Christmas sweater; it depicted a brick fireplace with stockings, wreath and raging fire — all knitted in the brightest wool known to man. He dragged that monstrosity out
every year and the year of mom’s flu was no exception. Peter told them how Mike had pots boiling on every burner of the gas stove and he leaned over them to check the carrots at the back. Then Michael turned to his son and said, “I know you hate this jersey, but it is so nice and warm.” Peter gaped at him, “Dad, you’re on fire!” The hideous sweater had caught the edge of the gas flame and now burned fitfully as Mike hopped around the kitchen trying desperately to take it off. Peter hopped after him, smacking him with a pair of oven gloves which only seemed to fan the flames. Finally, in desperation, his father sprinted up the stairs, past his wife (who lay in bed, vomiting into a bucket), and into the shower, where he stood under the frigid water, cussing.
As he emerged, cold and dripping, the smoke detector started to beep shrilly. “Let me guess,” Melanie Eckert croaked, “dinner’s ready?”
They all laughed at that story and Peter laughed the hardest of all. He laughed until tears spilled down his cheeks. “Dad held three of them off. It was pretty amazing.”
“The husks?” Peg asked.
“Yeah. I always used to think he was kind of goofy, you know. Kind of a nerd because he didn’t like football and he wasn’t good with cars and stuff. But when he told us to run, I looked back and it was like something out of a movie — the way he fought.”
“He sounds amazing,” Peg smiled at him.
“And I left him there.”
“He told you to.”
“I should have gone back and helped.”
“Peter, you’d be dead too and if you had died, we never would have heard that story. No one would ever know how brave your dad was that day.”
“I guess.”
“There’s no guesswork in this. You are the only physical evidence left that he existed. Without you there is no one left to remember him. His blood runs through you. You have his eyes and I can see his face in yours. He lives on through you. If you had gone back, we would have nothing of him now.”