“I don’t know,” she said, rubbing her forehead, “forbidden fruit and all that maybe. He’s been through so much more than any of the guys here, except maybe you. He’s been out there in the middle of it all this time, not hiding behind stone walls. Something about that just appeals to me.”
“Maybe I’m still the new girl,” Susan said, “but from what I’ve seen, you’re too much of a loner. You don’t open yourself up to anyone. You like spending too much time up in that guard tower by yourself.”
“I’m the best shot in the complex,” she came back, defiantly. “I can take an infected down from two hundred yards farther out than anyone else here. It makes sense for me to be up in the tower.”
“That sounds like an excuse. So one or two get taken down within three hundred yards instead of five hundred; does it make that big a difference?”
“My best shot was over eight hundred yards,” she retorted. “And it’s not just infected we have to worry about. You know yourself there are some very nasty people out there who have guns and can shoot back. I can stop them before they get close enough to be a threat.”
“Well, I see there’s no point in arguing with you right now. Look, just don’t play the sniper all the time, okay? Sometimes, try just being a woman; an ordinary, normal human being.”
Brooke grunted, but nodded her head and agreed to give the matter some thought.
Chapter 4: Making Plans
“How many times are you going to walk the perimeter, Jake?” Pete asked as he watched him checking the obstacles, barriers and traps laid out to disorient the infected and channel them into firing lanes.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I guess I’ve got too much nervous energy to relax. We know they’re back, so it’s only a matter of time before more of them find us here.”
“Look, if we had miles of barbed wire and hundreds of landmines, I’d be out there helping you set it all up. With the tools and material we have on hand, I just don’t see how much more we could do.”
“You’re right,” Jake had to admit. He sat on porch steps and lit up a smoke. “I’ve been driven out of so many places; my own home, Camp Bravo, an apartment house in the city, that old garage, the island, our other farm… I just don’t want to go through that again.”
“I know, Jake, but there’s only so much that can be done. We have a strong position here and could probably beat off a major attack, but if they come at us again with the same kind of numbers as last time, we’ll have to abandon this place too when all is said and done anyway.”
“What we need is a backup position, another house, another place we can fortify. We really should be scouting for one now that the weather is good again.”
“Well, you’re the boss. We’ll look for one, if that’s what you think is best.”
“I do think so,” Jake looked at his friend. “I’m not sure you should automatically consider me the boss, though. We all have a stake in this, after all. Decisions like this shouldn’t be mine to make alone.”
“You’ve done well by us, so far. I think we all consider you to be the leader here.”
“Not something I ever imagined being,” Jake shook his head slowly and took another drag from his cigarette. “I always saw myself as working at the mill, raising a family, retiring and, one day, enjoying my grandkids. I turned down the chance at a foreman’s job more than once because I couldn’t see myself as the one handing out orders. I never wanted that kind of responsibility. I was always happy just being one of the guys, having a few beers with them after work now and again, collecting a paycheck every two weeks; that’s all I ever really wanted”
“Yeah, I guess life turned out different for everyone after the infection. Like it or not, we’ve all come to look to you to make the big decisions. I guess you’re stuck with that foreman’s job after all.”
“Is everyone else comfortable with that?” he wondered.
“We are, Jake,” Tom said as he walked up from the road to join them. “Liz, Eve and I certainly wouldn’t want it any other way. You’re good at planning things out, good at organizing. I doubt any of us would have survived this long without you to lead us.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Jake was a little more than embarrassed at the flattery, no matter how sincere. “In that case, as foreman, I say we all sit down and have a beer. Any objections?”
There were, of course, no objections and the three men headed to the back yard where a dozen bottles of home-brew were sitting in a washtub of cool well water in the shade of a big willow tree.
“Is this a private party?” Carolyn called from the door to the back porch.
“No, hon. Come on and grab yourself a bottle and join us,” Pete invited.
“Jake thinks we should look for another place, somewhere we can move to if the need arises,” Tom informed her after she settled on a bench and popped the cap.
“That’s a good idea,” Carolyn agreed. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, though. I think we’ve all gotten comfortable here. This is a good house, comfortable and roomy enough, not to mention all the work that we’ve put into this place.”
“No neighbors either,” Jake added, “good ones or bad. I’ve thought about what it would be like to find something nearer to Hollington. New faces, mutual support, that’s something to think about. If it wasn’t so far away, I wouldn’t mind scouting out the area to see if we could find a suitable spot. We’d have to be away for too long at a time, though. I’d hate to leave this place undermanned for so long.”
“What about just moving in with Phil and his group?” Pete wondered.
“It looked like they were pretty close to their limit with the people they already have. Adding ten more mouths to house and to feed might be pushing it,” Tom put in.
“You just don’t want me that close to Owen,” Eve chided as she and Kate approached, drawn by the gathering group.
“No, Owen actually seems like a good kid,” Tom admitted. “I know it’s not easy on you, honey, not having anyone your own age around. I just don’t know if there’s room enough there to squeeze all of us in.”
“I wouldn’t want to move in with them,” Kate said flatly. “I’m happy with Jake being our leader. He’s done all right by us and I think Hollington has a lot more structure, a lot more rules than we do here. I wouldn’t like that and Kim sure as hell wouldn’t either.”
“We have rules here?” Jake laughed. “Say, where is your better half anyway? It’s not often that we see you two apart.”
“Kim is taking archery lessons from Vickie. Since we have four bows, she thought it was a waste not to put at least one more of them to use.”
“That makes sense. If I was a betting man, I’d lay odds she’ll be pretty good with a bow,” Jake said.
“Who says you’re not a betting man?” Carolyn came back. “The chances you’ve taken with your own life seem to prove that you are.”
“Anything we do in this life now is always a chancy proposition,” he responded. “You just have to weigh the odds and take the chances that are necessary and avoid the ones that aren’t.”
“So, when do we start looking for a backup place?” Kate changed the subject. “The most promising farm Kim and I have seen is out there off Wells Road, maybe eight miles from here. The house is about the same size as this one, I think, it’s in good shape and there’s a well, barn, a silo and some other outbuildings.”
“I see I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this,” Jake noted.
“Kim and I have walked or driven a good ways in most every direction,” Kate shrugged. “It’s only natural we’ve kept our eyes open.”
“The two of you make a good team, in more ways than one,” Jake agreed. “Okay. If things stay quiet here, we’ll head over there in a day or two and check it out.”
“Vickie will be glad we’re not moving to Hollington, too,” Carolyn smiled knowingly.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“She wants to keep you as far away from Brooke a
s possible.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Jake laughed. “The last thing in the world she has to worry about is me wanting to get involved with Brooke. Or any other woman, for that matter.”
“I don’t think it’s you she’s worried about,” Carolyn added coyly. “Brooke wasn’t exactly subtle about the way she acted around you.”
“You are quite the stud,” Kate teased.
“Can we change the subject, please?” Jake said in annoyance.
“Well, not to bring everyone down, but I was just out checking the pit where we dumped those bodies from the other day,” Tom told the group. “We didn’t bury them deep enough. Infected dug them up and fed on them.”
“That’s just great,” Jake groaned. “They’ll most likely be coming around more now, searching for more food. Sooner or later they’re going to find this house.”
“We’ve cleared out any cover for a couple hundred yards around the house,” Kate responded. “There’s no way they’re getting close without us spotting them.”
“You’re right. Still, I don’t want anyone going off alone. And Kate, I want you and Kim to quit going out so often to check on that private garden you planted.”
“How long have you known?” Kate stared at him.
“Tom and I stumbled across it about a week ago. Those plants will grow just fine without you risking your necks going out to admire them every few days. And, since you brought up the subject of rules, I think a good one would be that if you’re going to smoke that stuff, you only do it here and not go off somewhere where you don’t have anyone to watch your backs.”
“We aren’t that stupid,” Kate countered in irritation. “Anyway, I think it’s easier to cope when you’ve been smoking than when you’ve been drinking!”
“It’s pretty rare these days that we have more than one or two beers,” Pete gently responded. “And we’ve never taken any alcohol off the farm or not had anyone sober to keep watch when we do drink.”
Kate reared up, lips forming a thin, tight line, but she knew Jake was right and what Pete said was true and she relaxed her stance with a sigh and nodded her head in agreement.
“All right. We’ll obey the rules. But what Kim and I do when we’re off the clock is our own business!” And she whirled around and walked back toward the house.
“This is exactly why I kept turning down that foreman’s job,” Jake sighed.
Chapter 5: Beginning to Organize
Tad snarled at one of his recruits. The woman had been getting on his nerves, surreptitiously challenging his authority and testing her own influence on some of the others. She was something more than a drone, but not quite an alpha, and he just didn’t know what to make of her. His clan had grown to eighteen and she seemed to have some sway over at least three or four of them, the smaller section even tending to follow her lead at times in not quite open defiance of his, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He briefly considered killing her and letting the clan feed on her corpse, but something stopped him, made him wary that the ones who showed loyalty to her might make trouble over her death. They’d found little food in the last several days, a few small animals and a lone hunter they took by surprise while he was concentrating on tracking down a wounded deer and the band was restless, hungry and bad-tempered. It was all he could do to hold them together and killing the troublesome woman might just be the push that drove them to open rebellion.
Tad continued to lead the unruly band in their never-ending search for prey and was soon picking up new recruits almost daily as many of those who’d survived the winter began drifting north again. In little more than a week, their numbers swelled to more than forty drones and he grudgingly found he had to depend on the female to help keep them in line. The fact was not lost on him that the further north they traveled the more uninfected they encountered. Luckily for Tad, the survivors of the first year of the infection had let their guard down. After a winter free of attacks, free of even sighting any infected, many people assumed they had all died off and were trying to return to a normal, pre-infection way of life. Tad capitalized on their unpreparedness. An assault on an isolated neighborhood of half a dozen families overwhelmed the lax guard, and the clan finally fed well on fresh meat, though losing eleven of their number in the process.
He didn’t care about the individual drones killed in the attack, only the fact that each such attack reduced their numbers and diminished their capability. None of the drones, of themselves, possessed any natural ability to develop and organize a raid on any human establishment, but they did learn to follow his orders to at least some extent. Replacement drones were an unruly lot and not all of them easily submitted to his authority, which made it difficult to carry out anything but the most basic plans. Tad had already begun to understand the need for coordinated, timed assaults, but this concept was all but lost on most of his followers.
The neighborhood they’d devastated was near a secondary highway leading north and some part of Tad’s mind compelled him to more or less follow that artery, which allowed him to gather more wandering drones moving away from the depleted feeding grounds further to the south. Two more small communes fell to their onslaught as the group continued to grow until they at last happened upon a smaller clan led by two other alphas. Tad immediately moved to intimidate the other leaders, posturing, baring his teeth, brazenly charging to within inches of their faces, making them back down and coercing them into accepting his authority. Even the troublesome female finally came to acknowledge his rule as absolute and, without quite realizing how it happened, they’d set up a hierarchy with Tad as clan leader, the alpha prime, the two other alphas as his direct subordinates and the female as a sort of facilitator, helping to communicate his dictates to the drones. With the addition of the smaller clan, and two lesser alphas to help keep them in line, he now led a seething herd of nearly eighty ravenous, vicious infected creatures that existed only to feed on whatever prey happened in their path.
Having learned from a year of hard experience, Tad worked to impress upon all the appreciation that nightfall was the time to cease their movements and allow their wretched bodies a chance to recuperate. Some few were still too restless, too rebellious or just plain too stupid to follow this directive and continued to roam aimlessly until exhaustion invariably caused them to collapse, which usually resulted in the other drones feeding upon them. Tad did nothing to discourage this practice as a way to thin out those who were weaker, more dim-witted, or more inclined to resist his influence. More slowly than he’d have liked, the surviving drones mostly learned to obey him or the other alphas unconditionally, though the excitement of the attack and the anticipation of fresh meat could still sometimes drive them into an uncontrollable frenzy.
One afternoon they attacked an elderly duplex that turned out to be better defended than it at first appeared to him. Over a dozen drones fell to gunfire and to bottles hurled from windows, which exploded into flames when they hit the ground. He and the other alphas were trying to call off the failing attack when one of the people in the house boldly came out on the porch carrying a bottle with a flaming rag stuffed into the neck. Exercising more audacity than common sense, the man charged forward and stumbled and fell, dropping the bottle, which shattered on the wooden porch, engulfing him in flames. He screamed and began running blindly, into the arms of several infected who pounced on him and began to devour him even as he burned. The gunfire from the house immediately slackened as more people came to the front door to throw a few small cans of water, which did little to stem the fire. Soon, the ancient, dried wood of the porch and the old clapboard siding began to burn and it was only minutes before the whole front of the house was ablaze. Desperate people began running out the side and rear doors, screaming, stumbling, firing their weapons frantically in their hopeless flight. Though they killed seven more drones, none of the people managed to make good their escape.
Tad claimed one of the younger boys for himself and, while feeding, stood back
and watched as the blaze consumed the rest of the house. He saw the seared flesh on the hands and faces of the drones who’d fed on the burning man from the porch, noting the way the flames had charred their hair and beards and blackened their clothing. The sound of the porch roof collapsing drew his attention back to the house. Every window and doorway spouted fire and smoke and the few infected that approached the house too closely for whatever reason began to smolder, their skin singeing, clothes and hair bursting into flames on one of the more mindless, one too far gone to even realize the peril, without the sense to back away from it. Seeing the fate of the hapless defenders, the way the fire had driven them from the security of their house into the grip of his drones, he realized that here was the promise of a potentially decisive weapon to drive their prey out of defensive positions. He only had to figure out how to employ it.
Chapter 6: Visitors
Brooke was disappointed, but not surprised, when Phil refused to include her in the party travelling to visit the farm house to talk with Jake’s group about the possibility of moving. Ted and Susan rode together in the Tahoe while Joaquin and Owen followed in a blue Taurus. They ran into no serious trouble along the way, a loner here and there and two groups of three and four, though there were definite signs that the infected had started to return in numbers: an overrun home and the remains of the ill-fated victims, hastily erected barricades that had been overwhelmed. They stopped briefly to retrieve weapons that their former owners would never need again and to siphon gas from abandoned vehicles. Near noon on the second day, they found the farmhouse, Ted nodding in approval at the barriers and traps, the way the occupants had already moved into position even as they approached the outer defenses. He came out of the vehicle, hands empty, and waved, receiving a return wave from Jake, who came down to lead the cars through the barriers into the farmhouse yard proper.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 32
