Zombies! (Book 3): Violence Solves Everything

by Merritt, R. S.

  “That’ll happen, but not quite yet. We have them in training, and we need to get you enrolled as well. We’re going to get you both set on a path to become full-fledged members of the brotherhood. Once you’re officially in then you’ll get certain perks and benefits which include things like access to your family. Until you’ve been confirmed as members though you’ll be considered candidates which basically puts you at the level of a plebe in college. You can think of the candidate process as kind of an informal boot camp.”

  “How long does that typically take sir? Becoming a full member?” Tony asked curiously. He was wondering how long the captain was going to continue letting them sit there and ask questions before turning them over to whoever was going to be in charge of training them.

  “It varies. There’s some testing requirements and some skills you need to learn but the most important task is committing an ‘act of valor’. Once you’ve done that, you’re in. An ‘act of valor’ is showing the brotherhood that you’re dedicated to the safety of our land and people. Once your act is communicated up the chain a decision will be made on you to either fully enroll you or wash you out of the program. You can be washed out ahead of that as well, but we normally like to give people a chance if we think they can cut it.”

  Randy and Tony were lost by the direction the conversation had gone. They nodded along with the captain and tried to follow what he was talking about. They were wondering what some examples of those acts of valor might be. Before either of them could ask that question, another uniformed man showed up in the office and had a brief conversation with the captain. It sounded like a herd might be migrating through the area and coming up the road that went by the facility they were in. Not a big deal as long as the Zombies kept on moving.

  “I need to go check on this herd and make sure all’s good there. We’ll probably be going into a lockdown to avoid them noticing us so be prepared to sit around and stare at the walls for a few days. Stay here. A man will be coming for you soon.” With that the captain and the other men left the room leaving Tony and Randy sitting there unguarded and unchained.

  They might as well be chained to the radiator naked still though. Randy wasn’t about to leave now that he knew his kids were there. Tony wasn’t planning on deserting Randy. He also really wanted to reunite the family. He’d traveled down the whole east coast to do that and he wasn’t the type to let a mission like that go uncompleted. They were also unfamiliar with the building they were in and it sounded like a mess of Zombies were headed their way. Probably not the best time to try and find the kids and make a break for it.

  “Sit here?” Tony asked Randy quietly.

  “Yep.” Randy agreed.

  They didn’t have to wait too long. Mr. Abrams showed up about fifteen minutes later. He was a stout man with dark hair and an accent that sounded like he was from everywhere all at once. Tony was thinking the guy must have been a military brat. One of the kids who got dragged all over the world with their dads or moms being in different branches of the military. That’d explain why he grew up and joined the military too. The sons and daughters of most military men feel compelled to serve out at least one tour to feel like they’ve met their family military obligation.

  Randy could care less about anyone’s military legacy. All he wanted to do was get his kids and get the hell out of this freakshow. A place where the military was referred to as the brotherhood and you only got freedom by joining them was not a place he wanted to be. The act of valor stuff seemed a bit like gangland material to Randy. Was he going to have to participate in a drive by then get ‘jumped in’ to the brotherhood? He was starting to freak out about how his daughters may be getting treated here.

  “You can both call me Mr. Abrams. When I walk into the room you should both stop what you are doing and come to attention. You should do the same thing for anyone else as long as you are candidates.” Mr. Abrams stood there staring at the two of them. Tony popped to his feet and stood at attention. Randy belatedly got to his feet as well.

  “Mr. Abrams I was – “ Randy started speaking but was cut off by a harsh look from Mr. Abrams.

  “You will not speak unless asked to speak. If you have a question you will raise your hand and wait to be addressed. If no one cares to call on you then save your question for later. Is that understood?”

  “Yes sir.” Tony and Randy barked out.

  “The candidate phase ends in one of three ways. You perform well and perform an act of valor that meets everyone’s approval at which point you’ll be confirmed as a full member of the brotherhood. You don’t perform an act of valor or claim something considered unworthy or wash out of the training and become one of the people. Being one of the people you don’t have the freedoms the members of the brotherhood enjoy but it’s still better than the third option. The third way it ends is you die during training. Is that understood?”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Do you both still want to follow this path? You can opt out at any time and become one of the people. Not everyone is cutout for the brotherhood. Are you both in?”

  “Yes sir!” Randy and Tony echoed again.

  Mr. Abrams turned around and told them to follow him. They left the room. Randy awkwardly trying to march along behind Tony until Abrams gave him a weird look. Randy gave up trying to emulate what he’d seen on TV about being in the military. Instead he focused on checking out the interior of the building they were passing through. It was a standard government building. It seemed to be falling apart a little more than most of them, but it was basically a huge expanse of cheap cubicles and long hallways with doors going off in every direction. The main difference between this and most of the buildings he’d been in recently was the fact that there was electricity.

  Electricity in Florida made a huge difference. Every house or building they’d been in smelled like mold and rot. Without air conditioning all of the buildings were slowly rotting away. Randy figured a few more years with a couple of decent hurricanes and you’d barely be able to tell people had ever occupied most of the state. The building they were in now didn’t smell great either, but it smelled a lot better than most. Based on the areas where the lights weren’t working in the building it looked there were some issues with using solar to try and power everything. They must have it hooked up to the most critical areas.

  Abrams led them down a long hallway then up a staircase at the end. At the top of the staircase was yet another long hallway with a bunch of doors leading off in either direction. This hallway was lit up like a horror movie as well. Enough light to see by but not enough to feel comfortable in. Randy felt like there could a be a couple of Zombies hanging out on this floor and he might not see them until it was too late. Abrams led them to a door about halfway down the hall and pushed it open. They followed him in.

  It was a small room with two bunkbeds in it. None of the beds looked like they’d been used recently. The beds were made. The spartanly furnished space looked like it’d been very well maintained. There was a flat screen TV wall-mounted on one side of the room with a cheap DVD player sitting on a shelf underneath it. There was a small stack of DVDs sitting beside it.

  “Ok. I’m going to leave you two here to make your way through that stack of DVDs. It’s mostly a high-level overview of how we’ve structured the brotherhood and the people. I don’t know if you guys were religious before but as of now you are. The brotherhood is all kinds of religious tolerant as long as you’re Christian. You’ll learn more about it in the DVDs. The senator is running everything out of a fortress up in Georgia and he’s a very religious man. You’ll find that most of what we do is aimed at taming the areas of Florida and Georgia that we’re working on rebuilding and repopulating. We’re trying to do it better this time. Any questions?” Abrams finished his speech and stood in the doorway looking at them expectantly.

  “Do we need to fill out a test or take notes or anything?” Tony asked. He asked mostly to fill up the awkward silence that had descended
on them.

  “No. No formal written test but you will be asked what you thought of the videos and there may be specific questions as we go through the training. If it’s obvious you didn’t pay attention or grasp the concepts, then you could get washed out. If you don’t have any more questions, go ahead and get settled in and start knocking out the videos. I’ll be back or send someone back to take you to the mess for dinner.”

  Abrams left the room leaving Randy and Tony standing there in their new clothes wondering what to do next. They’d already discussed that there could be listening devices in the rooms. Especially since this place had actual electricity. They didn’t think anyone would spend a ton of time listening to them talk but there was no reason to put their plans out there for the world to hear. It wasn’t like anything had changed anyway. The plan was actually working out way better than either of them had ever thought it would. This place was oddly accepting of them. As weird as everyone here was and as odd as the experience had been so far it looked like they were on track to blend in soon.

  Hoping Kelly and Zoey were doing fine in the house he’d left them in Randy settled back into the bottom bunk as Tony fumbled around with the DVD player trying to figure it out. A distinguished looking man sitting in front of a desk with some flags behind him started talking. Randy steeled himself to sit through endless hours of the indoctrination speeches. Tony mimed putting toothpicks in his eyes then climbed into the top bunk after telling Randy he was up for figuring out what the next DVD in the series was supposed to be.

  They’d gotten about an hour into the first DVD when there was a rapping on their door. The rapping was immediately followed by the door being thrown open. A flustered looking man with a beet red face stood in the doorway trying to catch his breath.

  “Hey. The commander wants every able body to head over to operations. It looks like we may get swarmed. Grab your junk and let’s roll.”

  Chapter 28: Swarmed

  Myriah looked up from the book she was reading on her bunk when the door to the room was flung open. All the other girls had left to go to one of the more advanced classes earlier that morning. Myriah was still considered a newbie. She was currently waiting for the introduction classes to start being taught again. They still had her watching videos and doing workbooks but so far had not moved on to the practical training. From what she could gather the practical training centered around how to establish and run a house hold post-apocalypse. The feminist movement had been put on the back burner for the time being.

  One of the girls from her class came into the room and told her to get up and get her stuff ready to go. Myriah started quickly and quietly gathering the few items that could be called hers. Shoving her toiletry items and a change of clothes into her pillowcase then helping gather everyone else’s belongings into their pillowcases as well. When they were done, they consolidated everything down to a big pillowcase each then left out the door to go down the hallway towards the auditorium.

  All around them other people were quietly making their way down the hallway. No one was talking and whenever Myriah looked up at her guide the girl just put her finger to her lips and kept on moving. When they were halfway down the hall all the regular lights went out and the red emergency lights blinked on. No one was talking but Myriah felt the people in the hallway grow more tense as the lights changed color. Everyone also started moving a little bit faster.

  In the auditorium Myriah was told to sit down and keep quiet. She looked around and spotted Caitlyn so went and sat beside her. Caitlyn gave her a half hug then continued scanning the room trying to spot Doreen or Ali. Myriah began looking around as well but didn’t spot anyone until a group of kids was brought in by a harried looking grey-haired lady. The apocalypse diet didn’t seem to have done her figure any damage as she swept into the room. Her face looked open and kind but there was something about her eyes that had Myriah wondering what the woman was so terrified of. The expression disappeared so quickly from the woman’s face that it left Myriah wondering if it’d maybe just been a trick of the light.

  Myriah lost track of the woman’s face when Caitlyn’s hand tightened on her shoulder. Looking at the group of kids being led in she spotted Doreen with Ali. Ali was holding Doreen’s hand and looking around the room furtively. She had the look of a dog that’d been recently beaten. Like she was scared to engage fully with the people around her out of fear of being struck. Myriah felt Caitlyn’s grip tighten on her shoulder even more and took that to mean Caitlyn had noticed the air of fear surrounding Doreen and Ali as well. A quick glance over her shoulder at the expression on Caitlyn’s face confirmed she’d noticed it too. Caitlyn was grinding her teeth together in frustration and anger.

  Not knowing or caring if it was allowed Myriah hopped out of her seat and walked quickly towards Doreen and Ali. She remembered what’d happened the last time she tried to talk to the kids so instead of continuing towards them she angled towards the lady leading them instead. She felt Caitlyn’s eyes burning into the back of her neck. She knew Caitlyn was thinking of what’d happened to the kids last time as well. A cane pole whipping for Doreen hard enough the marks were still on the little girls’ legs. Myriah felt a white-hot flash of anger through her body at the memory.

  “Hi. I’m Myriah. Doreen and Ali are my sisters if you’d like me to watch them.” Myriah offered. She was smiling and trying to make the offer as casually as she could. She had no idea if what she was asking was the norm or not. The room was starting to get crowded, but it was still quiet as everyone practice the noise discipline so critical to survival in this new normal.

  “Oh. Thank you. Yes, that’ll be fine. I wasn’t even aware Doreen and Ali had sisters here. Please just have them sit over with you and make sure they keep quiet. We’re liable to be sitting in here for a while.”

  Doreen and Ali finally noticed Myriah. They both lit up with excitement and rushed over to join her. Myriah hugged them both and led them back over to where Caitlyn was sitting. As excited as they all were, the habits they’d gotten in staying quiet out in the open held up here and Myriah didn’t even have to remind the two young girls to keep quiet. They went over to where Caitlyn was busy finding four chairs all together. She might as well have only gotten three as it was pretty obvious Doreen wasn’t planning on getting off Caitlyn’s lap anytime soon. Myriah was smiling at the pure love shining from Doreen’s face as she wrapped herself around Caitlyn.

  “We’ll be here awhile.” Hissed the principal. She’d wandered up on them from out of nowhere. All of them cringed back a little from the harsh woman. “Be sure you all stay right here unless ordered to leave and not a word out of any of you. You’ll be told what to do. When told what to do you need to do it immediately and without a sound. Understand?”

  They all nodded at the principal. Happy to be avoiding a beating or any punishment for the crime of being together as a family. Evidently when it was advantageous and convenient for the principal that they all be together then it was ok. They weren’t allowed to talk so they sat there in silence. Doreen fell into an exhausted slumber on top of Caitlyn. Ali and Myriah both fidgeted. Neither of them took to sitting idly by for long periods of time. Caitlyn absently combed Doreen’s hair with her fingers while her left leg slowly fell asleep from the weight of the young girl awkwardly lying across her lap.

  She sat there trying to figure out a way she could get them out of this auditorium and back into the field. She’d had a lot of internal debates on whether they were all better off under the protection of the brotherhood. The terrified demeanor of Doreen and Ali on entering the auditorium had wiped away all of her doubt. Better for them to live alone in a world full of death and Zombies than spend another day in this fake refuge. She didn’t want to live a life of servitude. She had more self-respect, more hopes and dreams for her sisters than to allow for that. The videos they’d been watching were all about indoctrinating them into someone else’s vision of the future. A vision she didn’t want any part of.
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br />   It sucked that it took a giant herd of Zombies bearing down on them to get them all back together again. It sucked but they couldn’t have tried to escape otherwise because no way would Caitlyn leave anyone behind. Unfortunately, the big mass of Zombies outside didn’t lend themselves to an easy escape. Not only would they have to get out of the auditorium where the principal was keeping an eye on them, but the outer guards would all be on high alert too. Of course, those guards would be looking outside the compound, not inside. If they managed to get past the hyper alert guards on the perimeter of the building, then they’d be in the position of having to get past the mob of ravenous Zombies.

  Once they made it around the bloodthirsty Zombie mob then they’d still need to find a vehicle to get the hell out of dodge before the brotherhood recaptured them. The brotherhood had drones and outposts and could coordinate a search even in the midst of the Zombie attack if they so desired. The brotherhood had resources. Caitlyn and the girls would have nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever they could steal from the compound on their way out. It was mission impossible. Caitlyn didn’t care. They beat the odds everyday just by being a group of young girls who’d survived this long into the Zombie apocalypse. They just needed to beat the odds a little longer and they’d be free of this prison.