by Carl Meadows
“Humvee tracks,” said Nate, after we’d cleared the area to make sure there were no bad guys around. “Judging by the space between the wheels and the tread I can see. It’s virtually identical to our vehicle. Looks like they just drove through the gate and ripped it off. There are other vehicle tracks as well, maybe a pickup or two.”
“So, what, they just assaulted?”
Nate shook his head. “The bodies in the houses were ready for them, behind cover. There’s some blood over here, so I think they must have winged one or two of them. None of the dead seem to be like the four assholes we found. They just look like normal folk. I think the attackers came to talk first and when they didn’t get the answer they wanted, they came back with reinforcements, blasted through the gates and massacred everyone here.”
Check out Sherlock Carter over there. He’s probably right. There were eleven bodies in total, but here’s the kicker.
Three of them were kids not even in their teens. The youngest victim was about eight or nine.
I am sick to my hind teeth of finding dead kids. The sight of each one takes away another little piece of my soul, but the living purposefully attacking and killing them? No. Just fucking no. That is not on. It’s bad enough that starvation, dehydration, disease, the dropping climate conditions, and the god damn undead are killing our children.
For the living to be doing it on top of all that? I’m not having that shit on my watch.
“I really want to dick punch these fuckers,” I declared with feeling.
“Amen sister,” muttered Alicia. “How long ago do you think, sir?”
Sir. Honestly, I have to stop myself from laughing out loud and taking the piss when she says it. We’re not there yet with Alicia in terms of snappy piss-taking banter, and she’s taking this soldier shit really seriously, but I think if I start ripping on her for that it’ll be a step back in her progress. Instead, I have to settle for sighing quietly to myself and rolling my eyes where she can’t see.
“Yeah, how long, sir?”
I know. I know what I just said. Look, I’m not fucking perfect, but it’s like a physical compulsion. If I don’t release it in some way, it’s like physical pain for me. Just know that I said it in a really serious way, so she didn’t cotton on I was piss-taking. I did it on the sly, rather than pointing and laughing at her and making childish, “Oh please sir, can I have some more sir, how long ago do you think sir?” statements in a high-pitched mocking voice while dramatically fluttering my eyelids.
I’m such a bad person. Alicia was so focused on waiting for Nate’s answer she didn’t realise my childish amusement, but Nate did. He answered immediately to help disguise my sarcasm, but not before he shot me a warning glance that said, “Pack it in, you bell end.”
I packed it in.
“Probably late this morning,” he said. It was a little after 2pm by this time. “That vehicle’s mostly just smouldering now.”
“They don’t fuck about do they?” I observed. “A few civilians with a couple of guns between them, and they come blasting in here with three vehicles and probably ten guns. Talk about overkill,” I added, sifting my foot through the pile of 9mm and 5.56 brass lying about. “This time they came with automatic rifles.”
“Why kill them though? They were going to take Dean and Sarah off to their sanctuary before we intervened. Why just kill a bunch of civilians?”
“Maybe they insulted their First Disciple or beliefs,” I shrugged. “You can’t reason with that kind of zealous crazy. You’ve only got to say one thing that they decide is offensive to their glorious leader and bang bang, you’re a heretic of their crazy religion and must be purged.”
“One man is delusional, and they call it insanity,” muttered Nate. “Yet when the delusional are many, they call it religion.”
Detective and philosopher. Nate’s peeling back all the layers today.
“It’s a bit out of the way don’t you think?” I mused. “You know, to just come here. If you’re right in what you say and they came first, talked, then went off to get reinforcements to assault, then they can’t be that far away.”
Nate raised an eyebrow at that. “You might be on to something.”
And then, as if solely to validate my statement, we heard the radio crackle into life in the Humvee for the first time.
Like we’d had rockets shoved up our butts, we all shared an excited, “Holy shit!” glance with each other, then all cheesed it to the Humvee and leaped in, crowding close to the radio to hear what was said.
It wasn’t overly exciting at first, just a standard call-out from a patrol saying they were returning and were about five minutes out. But then they said something really odd.
“We’ll need one of the Triumvirate to open the Dead Gate before we arrive.”
The Triumvirate? As in three leaders? Do they have three disciples, and it’s just the first that gets the glory? And what the hell is the Dead Gate? I capitalised that as it sounded special.
A voice came back with confirmation and that someone called Tyler would “see the dead were parted.”
Freya, I do not like the sound of that shit at all. These people give me the ass clamps. Though we do have one name now. Tyler seems to be one of the ominously named Triumvirate, but I’ve no idea if that’s a first or last name.
“Well, I’d say we’re getting closer,” said Nate. “This area feels a bit too hot for the moment though. Let’s head back home and regroup. Now we know what area we’re working in we can plan a bit more.”
“I have no fucking clue where we are,” I admitted.
Nate sighed, started up the Humvee and drove us back here. He still didn’t tell me where we were. I think he did it just to teach me a lesson as punishment for my sly sarcasm on the whole “sir” thing.
Well, it’s taken the best part of a week of crawling around, sleeping rough, and seeing yet more dead children, but we’re edging closer to them. I’d call it a win, but I’m thoroughly sick of seeing more humans that could have allied with us get killed for fuck all by a bunch of selfish asshole pricks.
These Resurrectionists need an atomic wedgie filled with razor blades, then salt poured into those butt-slicing underpants. Colourful? Yes.
But I really don’t like them.
NOVEMBER 23rd, 2010
ASCENSION
We found them. Turns out this place they call Ascension was only about three miles from the gated community they butchered.
And it’s massive.
By massive, I mean it’s like a proper settlement. The central part of it is basically a small village of about thirty custom-built houses, all constructed around what looks like a renovated late nineteenth century mansion, but there are other buildings like look like prefab residential homes all over the place in little clusters. They have working farms all around it with cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs, tilled fields that I imagine were full of crops before they were harvested, fruit orchards for things like apples, plums, peaches, and pears, silos for storing milled grain, and even a working windmill to grind those crops.
They have a security force that must reach into a hundred, as we saw armed guards everywhere around their main centre, patrolling the walls – yes, they have walls that have actual bloody ramparts and towers dotted along it – and even a guard or two at each of the farms we could see. The whole settlement must cover miles if you count the size of the fields on the outlying farmsteads. The centre though is like a fortress, with that community protected by more custom walls, which we could tell were custom as the brick was very new and matched the newly fabricated homes. They had properly laid asphalt roads within the compound, an industrial area for cutting and treating lumber, a machine shop with lathes and mills for working metal, and we’re pretty sure they have a building which looks like a small hospital or infirmary.
Basically, it’s a perfect place to restart humanity in a post-apocalyptic world, apart from one minor detail. We found out what the Dead Gate and “parting the dead�
�� meant.
Freya, outside their front gate is an immobile wall of docile undead, around three hundred in number. Just standing there, facing outwards, and not pushing against the big wood and iron gate. No aimless shamble, just a legion of inert undead sentries with vacant eyes facing out at anyone who might approach the gate, which sits at the end of a road about four hundred yards in length.
We don’t even know how to process this. I’m reminded of the wall of undead across the town centre carriageway that seemed to be waiting for yours truly. It’s that same kind of dense mass just waiting for something to happen. There’s so much activity within the walls of the compound, the undead should all be pressed against that massively thick gate, mindlessly pushing against it, desperate for the living flesh inside.
We watched from a hillside overlooking a chunk of the compound, a good quarter mile away from their outer wall in a little copse of trees, the three of us looking through scopes or binoculars trying to take in the sheer scale of the settlement. All three of us swore aloud when we witnessed the “parting of the dead” as a convoy of two SUV’s and a commercial box truck stopped before the undead sentries. The massive gate opened, and a man stepped through, appearing to issue a verbal command and then the undead blocking the road parted.
Like some fucking evil Moses parting the undead sea, the security guy’s command was obeyed, and they split to either side of the road, letting the vehicles drive by them and into the compound. Once they were in, the man shouted a command again, and they closed together once more.
“What in all Hell’s name is going on?” breathed Nate.
“Evil Jesus seems to have an Evil Moses on his security detail,” I said aloud.
Um, yeah, I haven’t told Nate and Alicia about my ‘Evil Jesus’ name I used for their First Disciple in my journal, so they both gave me one of those looks.
“So,” I started, clearing my throat. “Captain Evil has an Evil Jesus, who seems to have his own Evil Moses who can part the undead sea.”
“Captain Evil?” they queried together.
“This… force… driving the undead. I had to give it a name. I can’t keep using different words, so I gave the shithead a name. Anyway, this First Disciple of theirs is Evil Jesus – obviously – and we’ve just witnessed Evil Moses do his thing.” I turned thoughtful for a moment, one finger on my lips. “You know, we could do with finding an Evil Judas.”
“Erin,” chided Nate, stopping me going off on a ramble.
“Look, this is undeniable proof.”
“Proof of what?” asked Alicia.
“I’ve always said from the off that this wasn’t natural. The undead are hateful, and not as mindless as they seem. They’re pretty vacant until they get up close, but that look when they do has purpose, and that purpose is killing. They stop biting and eating as soon as their victim is dead so they’re not feeding, just killing. Also, have you noticed that no matter how long they might have been a zombie, they don’t rot? It’s like they’re trapped in a frozen bubble of time from the moment they die, and they only start to decompose again once you pop their melon? We had all the weirdness downtown, and at the builder’s yard, and now this? End of the world cultists who can use the undead as sentries?” I threw up my hands. “This isn’t just an apocalyptic event we’re stuck in. There is something more going on, something bigger than we can get our heads round, and there is a player moving pieces on a board we can’t see, playing a game we don’t know the rules to.”
“That’s a big stretch,” said Nate. “It’s weird as hell, I’ll grant you. But you’re talking about us being moved around a board like the old Greek gods are playing with our lives.”
“Call it God, call it the Devil, call it what you want.” I put on my ‘serious’ face, as I do actually possess one of those. “I choose to call it Captain Evil, because… well… everything it’s done is basically evil. We’re being wiped out, except for this particular bunch of bell ends, who seem to be given a pass. Why?”
“By your logic, that does make them the chosen of humanity then, as that Tucker guy claimed to Dean.”
Nate still wasn’t convinced by my argument. He’s a practical guy, and here I was, sitting on a hillside, talking about cosmic forces fucking with us. Even with all the Lockey-hating zombies he’d seen when that weirdness started and the obvious influence of something on those zombies guarding Ascension’s gate, I still think he’s struggling with the concept of this being… I don’t know… celestial or divine in some way.
“No, it doesn’t, Nate” I said with a firm shake of my head. “The chosen of humanity are killing innocent civilians and kids, like at that little gated community near the church? I’m not having it. Nuh uh. I have to hope that if Captain Evil is one player on the board, then there’s also one batting for our team. If there isn’t, then it means it’s just up to us.”
“Hardly sounds fair,” commented Alicia.
“Life is neither fair nor unfair,” I said. “At best it is impartial. We make of it what we will.”
Nate raised his eyebrow. “Which book have you quoted that from?”
I snorted ruefully. Busted again.
“David Gemmell’s Lion of Macedon,” I admitted. “Doesn’t make it any less true though. One day, I’m going to hit you with a true Lockey mic drop of philosophical wisdom and boom.” I mimicked an explosion around my head. “I’ll blow your tiny minds.”
“Stay on target,” chided Nate.
My mouth dropped open. “Was that a Star Wars reference, Nate? You said you’d never seen it!”
“Erin.” His voice was flat and cautioning.
I sighed. “Look, I know you’ll both think I’m crazy, but you haven’t had the undead get a rotting hard on for you like they have me. I’ve been thinking about this shit a lot because I’ve had no choice but to face it. You lot might be able to shrug and say ‘yeah, that is a bit weird’ and then move on with your day, but I can’t. Something else is going on, and that down there is just the final piece of proof I needed. That, down there, is visible control over the undead. That’s no virus, or side effect of a chemical weapon, or parasite. There is a force behind the undead, and it’s dark.”
They both stared at me in silence for some time, my eyes jumping between them. Alicia looked unconvinced but, like teacher’s pet, her eyes drifted to Nate and waited for his reaction. She’d just agree with whatever he said. I felt like climbing over the asylum wall to steal into the apple orchards, just so I could grab one for her to give Nate.
Hmm. I’m starting to sound a little jealous because she’s now a star pupil too and defers to him so much. I really should wind it back a bit.
Still doesn’t change that she’s a kiss ass though.
“I see where you’re coming from,” he said eventually, though his tone suggested he wasn’t convinced. “We’ll have to have a think on this.”
“What are we going to do about this bunch of cock rots then? They’re just going to keep pillaging the area.”
Nate sighed. “I know you want to do something, Erin, but this isn’t the Bancrofts. This isn’t a small-time operation where most of their combative force were just dumb thugs. Down there are real veterans most likely, or people with more of an affectation for weapons. They’re also organised with those numbers, and I could see on one of the fields they were putting trainees through physical paces. This is an entirely different prospect, almost paramilitary in its organisation. We need to listen and learn.”
“Fuck that, Nate,” I said. Alicia nearly fainted with my ‘insubordination’ as she probably saw it. “We could sit here for days or weeks on end and learn absolutely nothing by radio traffic alone. They seem to keep it to a minimum.”
“I need to learn names, ranks, structure, and watch how much they come in and out to see if there is any regularity or patterns we can anticipate. We have no knowledge at all to work with, and we can’t just blindly take on a force of this size. That’s just stupid. Truthfully, we might never cl
ash with these people again. We’re far enough away.”
I shook my head again. “No way, Nate. No way. We can’t just do nothing and allow them to range out and kill innocents.”
“We’re not the guardians of this world, Erin. We’re not responsible for every life.” Nate gave me a look that pleaded with me to be reasonable. “We can’t save everyone,” he added in a conciliatory tone. “Sometimes, it’s just not possible, no matter how much we want to.”
“I know, I’m not thick.” I looked the old marine dead in the eye. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fucking try.”
Again, he was quiet for a time. Alicia just bounced her head between us as we batted this back and forth. She’d just follow Nate’s lead no matter what, but I won’t. If I think he’s wrong, I’ll bloody well tell him.
Personally, I think it’s what makes us a good team. I’m impulsive, emotive, and idealistic. I’m not dumb, I realise I have these as flaws, and they can lead me astray into making some bad decisions. Too often I’m driven around by my heart, while my head is stoned in the passenger seat grinning like an idiot, tongue lolling out the window shouting, “Road trip! Woooooo!”
I’ve always worked on the premise that as long as I survive and I’m only putting myself at risk, bad decisions make the best stories.
Nate is a thinker. Practical, considered, logical, and rational. I tell him what I want to do, and he usually comes up with a way to do it that doesn’t get us killed. I think it’s a great partnership. Head and heart. Order and chaos. Yin and yang.
This time though, he stood his ground and played the veto card.
