by Morris, Jacy
"Help me test this," Allen said to Brown. He was confident in his work, but his conscience wouldn't let him pronounce the rope ready until it had been tested. He supposed he would have to be the first one down, just in case the knots came undone. At least then, he'd have only himself to blame for his death.
Together, Brown and Allen pulled on the rope testing its strength. It wouldn't replicate the reality of supporting a soldier's full weight, but it would give him a little more confidence.
"You guys gonna jump rope or what?" Epps asked.
"Show us some of that double-dutch shit like you got in the hood," Whiteside said.
Brown shot him the finger.
"Is it good?" Brown asked as they checked the last length of rope.
"Good enough for now, but we'll see." Allen wrapped the length of rope around one of the posts of the metal guardrail that paralleled the highway. He tied it tight, pulling the rope this way and that. He flinched as behind him he heard the little girl cough. The sound of it hurt him; he could only imagine how it felt to Hope.
"How are Mommy and Daddy supposed to find us down there?" D.J. asked in his always curious but quiet voice.
"We'll leave a note," Rudy said reassuringly. "We'll let them know that we're going to hike back up to the highway on the other side. Then they can just follow us along the road."
"They're not coming, dumb-dumb," Hope said. Her face was pale, and dark circles ringed her eyes. She punctuated her words with a wet cough.
"Mommy said…"
"Mommy's dead," Hope interrupted.
"No, she's not," D.J. said defiantly. "Tell her!" he commanded of Rudy.
Allen turned his back on the scene. He didn't want any part of that jazz. He took the coil of rope and threw it over the side of the cliff. He watched it unfurl in the air. He was lucky. It fell straight and true without getting caught on anything. He watched where it fell, peering between the fanning branches of the fur trees that grew tall at the base of the cliff.
Behind him, the boy started crying, a squawking, hitching wail that seemed to echo and reverberate off the rock walls. Allen guessed that Rudy had told them the truth.
"Goddammit," Tejada hissed. "Keep those kids quiet."
"What do you want me to do?" Rudy snapped.
Allen hitched a leg over the guardrail and quickly said, "I'm going down." He couldn't get down the cliff fast enough. He inched over the edge, his feet dangling into nowhere, then he grabbed hold of the rope. It held his weight, and though his brain had known that it would, he still felt good that reality matched up with his brain's analysis.
He slid down the rope, away from the arguing above. Everyone was tense. The road being out was just another complication at the end of another shitty day. The snow, the cold, the girl being sick, and now the boy crying about his dead parents. Fuck, he should just hit the ground and run off on his own and never look back. He'd toyed with the idea a few times over the last few months.
He knew he was not a social person. Sometimes, he figured he would be just fine living in a house all by himself with no one else to talk to. Oh, it would have to be a beautiful location, a place with good sightlines for killing any Annies that reared their ugly faces, but he could get down with a situation like that.
Knot by knot, he descended, toying with the idea of disappearing into the woods when he hit the ground. He was halfway down the rope when the crying stopped. He looked up to see Epps peering over the side, looking down at him, and he knew he would never leave this group. He would never run off to be the old man in the cabin, writing poetry and living of what he killed and gathered in the woods… not until he was the only soldier left.
He was a quarter of the way down when the crying began again. The cliff acted like an amplifier, and the crying echoed over the valley. Damn, that boy had a set of lungs on him. You wouldn't know it to be around him. Most of the time, he was so quiet you'd think he was a mute. Even when he did talk, he did so in hushed tones, like he was always trying to tell you a secret. He wondered if that's how all people would talk in the future, quiet, so they wouldn't attract the dead.
As Allen reached the ground, he noticed the smokestack of a semi-truck off to the west, poking up through a drift of snow. It must have fallen when the road went. When he touched the ground, he heard the tell-tale signs of Annies in the woods, clumsy steps crunching through snow, too loud to be human beings. He wanted to yell up at the soldiers above to not come down, but if he did that, he would be sentencing himself to a cold, lonely death. He laughed a small, almost silent laugh. And you thought you would be fine just going off on your own. Dumbass.
He pulled Amanda's from his backpack and buried it in the trunk of a tree. She had given it to him after he lost his on the night the kids' mother had died. His arms were too tired at the moment for hand to hand combat, but in another couple of minutes, he should be good to start cracking skulls, splitting them open like ripe melons. He pulled his rifle free, the last of the M4s. He was thankful for the silencer on the end. It would keep him from drawing every Annie within a one-mile radius. Even with the silencer, he would draw every Annie within a hundred feet.
He stood below the rope, waiting patiently for the first of the Annies to appear. He looked up above to see Brown slowly descending. And then the first Annie showed up, broken and frozen. It sent fear through his body. He didn't know how something so damaged could still be moving. For the first time in a while, he didn't feel bad killing one of the Annies. Hell, he was putting it out of its misery.
He took aim, squeezed, and then watched the twisted, broken thing crumple to the ground. At his one o'clock and eleven o'clock, two more appeared. Thank God they move slow.
He dropped them both and then looked upward. Brown was three-quarters of the way down. All the faces were looking over the edge now. They had heard him firing. Brown was flying down the rope now, skipping knots in the rope along the way.
When Brown landed in the snow next to him, shadows were lumbering throughout the trees. Allen couldn't figure out if the boy's crying or his own rifle shots had been responsible for calling them, but right now, it didn't matter.
"You makin' friends down here?" Brown asked, trying to catch his breath.
"Don't I always?" Allen responded as he lined up another kill shot.
"Yeah, well, these ones aren't as nice to look at as the one back at Nike," Brown said.
"Ain't that the fuckin' truth."
"You miss her?"
Allen fired his shot, and one of the dead dropped.
"I never miss."
Brown tapped him on the shoulder good-naturedly, a big smile plastered across his face. He began to unsling his rifle, but Allen said, "Save it. Catch your breath, and then use the hatchet. There are a hell of a lot more of these things down here than there should be. They're all broken up."
Brown nodded and pulled his hatchet from his backpack. "Shoulda sharpened this damn thing last night, but it's been so quiet," he said.
"A dull hatchet will work just as well as a sharp one. Your hands aren't gonna thank you for it, though."
The circle of Annies grew. Allen emptied his magazine and then re-slung his rifle. He pulled Amanda's hatchet from the tree trunk and said, "You ready to chop some wood?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," Brown said.
The Annies closed around them, and they swung their hatchets and pushed the Annies to the ground. They stood with their backs against the cliff, as above, another soldier descended the rope.
****
Whiteside heard the muffled shots of Allen's rifle stop. It was a shame. He loved that sound. He wished he was a good enough shot to be the one to carry the M4, but Allen was better than him. Not by much, but enough to merit letting Allen keep the rifle for when it counted.
He went as fast as he could down the rope. He heard their grunts down below, and he knew that he was in for a scrape. He didn't mind. He loved killing them damn dead things.
He went fast, hand under hand, low
ering himself so fast that the skin of his hand burned from the friction. When he reached the bottom, he had no time to waste. He pulled his hatchet free and waded into the dead, screaming a savage battle cry.
Satisfaction flooded his body as the first Annie dropped under his assault, then he spun and attacked the next. Shoot. And I thought today was going to be boring.
****
Rudy had to admit. Tejada was right. His upper body was not strong enough to support his own mass and that of the little girl. He felt like he was failing the kids. Maybe he wasn't fit to be taking care of the two kids, after all. At Tejada's insistence, he let Masterson carry Hope on his back. Gregg would come down with D.J. They were both physically fitter than he was.
Amanda touched him lightly on the arm. "They're going to be ok," she said.
But he knew she was just saying that. He could hear the sounds of battle below, though he couldn't see exactly what was going on due to the obstruction of the treetops. Panic welled in him, and he was more afraid than he had ever been, even since the time he had been left on the Burnside Bridge with a horde of the dead bearing down on him. This was somehow worse than that. Those kids… they had been through so much, and he knew he was projecting his own youth onto them, his own feelings of needing to be cared for, but it didn't change how he felt. His heart lurched in his chest, as Masterson disappeared over the side of the cliff, Hope strapped to his back.
That only left him, Tejada, Amanda, Gregg, and D.J. up top. Everyone else was down below, fighting to keep the bottom of the rope clear.
"You ready to go for a ride, little man?" Gregg asked D.J.
D.J. nodded, his eyes still red from crying.
"Now when we go over, don't look down. Just look all around and see what you can see. I want a full report when we hit the bottom. You got that?"
"I got it," D.J. said.
Rudy wished the man hadn't used the words "hit the bottom." They brought up terrible images in his mind.
****
Masterson crawled down the rope, mindful of the girl on his back. She weighed next to nothing to him. He was tall and strong, and though he didn't look it, he had grown stronger over the last few months as his weight had dropped. His back worked better now, and his arms had burned away all softness, leaving behind bony things laced with tendons and veins that stood out as he lowered himself.
The girl coughed once on his back, a strangled and pathetic sound.
"It's gonna be alright," he said.
She didn't respond.
Below him, he could hear his friends fighting for their lives. He had to get down there and fast. When he was ten feet from the ground, he felt pressure on the back of his neck. He tried to ignore it and focus on descending the rope, his mind spinning as to what the pressure could be. He gripped the rope tighter, and then he felt the pain as the skin of his neck was ripped away by the tiny teeth of Hope.
He released his grip to smack at the child on his back. And then he was falling. His scream was short, and then Masterson hit the ground, the impact lessened by the child on his back and the snow at the base of the cliff.
He rolled to his feet, panic welling up in him. He unstrapped the child from his body, and she slid off of him, her hands and arms still grasping at his clothing. He spun around to look at her, hoping that he wouldn't see what he was expecting. But the smell of blood in his nostrils let him know that he would be disappointed.
The girl got to her feet, pawing up at him, trying to rip through his winter clothing. He pushed her back with an unsteady arm. Blood. On her face. His blood. A wet sob escaped his throat, and with tears in his eyes, he pulled his hatchet free. He swung it hard as his own blood streamed down the back of his thermal undershirt.
She fell into the snow, gone forever, and Masterson waded through the snow to fight next to his brothers one last time.
****
When the man carrying D.J. hit the ground, he said, "Oh, shit." D.J. had heard worse over the last week with the soldiers, but it still got his attention. The man unstrapped D.J. and told him to stand against the cliff so he'd be safe. Then he was off and running to fight the dead. The soldiers called them Annies, which D.J. still found funny.
He turned and saw his sister lying on the ground behind the protective ring of soldiers. He walked over to her and looked down at Hope. He squatted down next to her. She looked awful. He held her hand, ignorant of the battle around him.
****
Tejada hit the ground last. He paused a moment to see the boy squeezing his dead sister's hand. There was no doubt that she was dead, and he promised to not let the boy end up the same way. He spun and watched his people fight for their lives, taking note of the blood on the back of Masterson's neck. He had seen something strange happen from up above, but he had held out hope all the way down the side of the cliff. With his fears confirmed, Tejada held his hatchet before him and joined the semi-circle of survivors, for they all fought now, including Rudy and Amanda.
They came in waves, and Allen and Brown dropped back to take a breath and let the strength in their arms come back. Tejada stepped forward, putting everything he had into each chop. He didn't pay attention to the Annies. They were nothing to him, dead things that needed to be put down like rabid dogs.
His men had done a good job of thinning out their numbers, but he could see more coming at them through the trees.
Then he heard something else… the sound of gunshots in the distance. He finished his swing, felling another Annie. Then he heard the sound again. Definitely a gunshot. He didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse. The gunshot would draw more of the Annies in that direction, but it would also bring more to the forest if there were more about.
He silently thanked whoever was firing the rifle in the distance, and then he chopped down a three-hundred-pound man in motorcycle gear, thankful that he wasn't wearing a motorcycle helmet.
Chapter 20: Open House
Katie stood watching Tammy on the bed. All around her, she heard the thumps and scrapes of the dead outside as they brushed up against the dry, ancient wood of the ranger station. They were all armed now. Spears were readied, sharpened to points by Dez and her knife. Their tips were hardened in the fire. The rifles were loaded and distributed throughout the ranger station. Their petty differences, the murderous past that they all shared and held each other in contempt for, those things were gone now.
They knew the only way they would survive would be to kill enough of those things to escape. According to Mort, there was a three-foot gap in their defenses. Without a tractor or a working truck, they had no chance of getting the trailer back into place, not without the dead crawling all over them. Their only hope was to make a break for it, and flee into the woods, hoping to keep a step ahead of the dead.
She tried to count the number of dead outside by the noises they made. One, two, three… the baby cried, shrill and loud. The noise penetrated her ears, and she suppressed a wince. The baby… as long as the baby was here, the dead would stay around, confident that there was food inside the ranger station.
A dark thought flit across her mind, a thought necessitated by Katie's need to survive, by her need for her own baby inside her to live. It was an invention borne of dire straits. One might die, so another might live. The thought began to coalesce in her mind. She knew it was wrong, just as she knew that the things she had done in the past were wrong as well. Her mind was clearer these days, not so clouded with the judgment and self-loathing she had worn as a mantle since she had killed her husband and son.
She blamed herself still, but she had also forgiven herself. Grace… she called it grace, and she allowed herself a spoonful of it every day. The dark thoughts had gone, replaced by sorrow and grief, but she was still there. She was human again… but this thought made her question that. One might die, so the rest might live.
She felt the smooth wood of the spear. It had begun its life as a shovel handle or some other such thing. The spear was large, heavy, cumbersome ind
oors. If it came down to it, and the dead broke in, the rifles would be the best way to go. But for now, she could take care of their problem, give them a fighting chance. She looked at the baby in Dez's arms. She could make it quick.
****
Dez saw Katie glance at the wailing child every now and then. She didn't much care for the look, but she knew what was behind it. The child's incessant whining was getting on Dez's nerves. Was there a worse sound in the world than a baby crying? It was a sound that compelled you to do something. If she had some food, some milk, anything, she would give it to the baby. She would do anything to get it to stop crying, but the only things she could do were not things that she was willing to do.
She looked over at Tammy on the bed. Her face was ashen, and Dez wondered if she was losing her fight. Antibiotics, an I.V. drip, Joan said these were the things that would have helped her fight to live. But they didn't have any of those things, and Dez was sure that Tammy was going to die.
Dez's own spear lay propped up in the corner next to her, within easy reach should she need it.
She looked down at the baby in her arms, and she felt the pain of its existence. This was not how a baby should come into the world, alone, without a mother or father, with no one present that actually cared for it. Maybe it would be better off if… no, she couldn't go there. The baby had refused to latch on to Tammy's unconscious form. Despite Dez holding the little bugger up to Tammy's unconscious breast for hours, nothing had happened. The baby just sat there, wailing, its face turning red. It was so frustrating. At one point, Dez had thought about sucking on Tammy's breast herself, and spitting the milk into the infant's mouth, mama-bird style… but there was just so much about that idea that was bizarre. If the baby started to fade, she would do it. It would be a short-term solution anyway if Tammy didn't make it.
She looked up from the baby's squalling face, and she saw Katie looking at the baby again. She saw something in Katie's eyes, or maybe she just recognized the look from her own brief glances into the mirror in the ranger station's non-functioning bathroom. That was the look she had had on her face ever since she had decided to kill Chad. That was the look of someone that saw a hopeless situation and only knew one thing to do about it. Dez chewed the inside of her lip and came to a decision. She would not do anything if it came down to it. But she certainly wouldn't be the one to do the deed.
