DEAD: Reclamation: Book 10 of the DEAD series (24 page)

“I don’t get it?” I handed the glasses back to Jim.

“Tribal dispute,” Jim said. When my expression made it clear that he had not helped any with his two word answer, he continued. “There are probably fifty or more small communities in the area. Tribes. For whatever reason, it looks like two of them are at odds.”

“Which will be the downfall of both,” Jackson added.

He was still looking to the south. A constellation of campfires gave away the location of what could only be the same army that had wiped out La Grande for whatever reason.

“Who are these people, and why are they doing this?” I could not hide my confusion and frustration.

I had heard all about Island City and some of the crazy stuff from way back when all of this started. Honestly, none of it made sense. Humanity was facing extinction and people were fighting and killing one another. If anything, I would have thought that this was the time to come together.

“Man is a selfish and greedy animal,” Jackson said with a sigh. “It is a sad truth, but history has shown time and again that we will leave a path of destruction wherever we go.”

“Whoever these people are, I think they are trying to take the entire valley and want to ensure there are none left to dispute their claim.” Jim rolled onto his back and opened his pack. He handed me and Jackson a hunk of dried meat.

“Why?” I asked. That was simply not a good enough answer.

“Why not?” Jim shrugged. “This valley is excellent for farming. It has a multitude of streams, creeks, and small rivers. The mountains surround it and act as a natural barricade. This place is a paradise.”

“But there was plenty of it that was not claimed or settled,” I insisted. “They didn’t need to come in and wipe people out. They don’t need all of it.”

Neither man spoke. I don’t think they really had any answers. And who knows, maybe there wasn’t one beyond Jackson’s claim that man is selfish and greedy.

“So what do we do now?” I asked. Neither man had a chance to answer.

“Chelsea!” a voice called from a mound of rocks to our right.

I stiffened. Whoever this person was, they had managed to get within a hundred or so yards of our position without us seeing anything. That meant they were probably trying to stay hidden.

“Blake?” a female voice replied from the shadows of a clump of trees that were just below the lip of the ridge we were on. “Stay put, I heard somebody just a few seconds ago.”

“How ‘bout you come out and make this easier on all of us,” there was a slight pause before the oily-sounding voice wheezed and finished, “Chelsea is it?”

There were the sounds of a struggle and then a meaty smack followed by a yelp. All of that came from the direction of the voice I had to assume to be Blake. Only, it was obvious that he had some company.

“Don’t do it, Chel—” Blake’s voice yelped, but was quickly muffled.

“That’s right, Chelsea. You just stay put and let old Blakey here take some pain on your behalf.” There was an evil laugh and then the sounds of violence.

“You can’t just sit here while all of this is happening,” I whispered into Jackson’s ear.

“And what would you have us do? We don’t know how many or what the hell we stumbled into the middle of. Ain’t that right, Jim?” Jackson peeked over me. “Jim?”

I turned my head and was stunned to find Jim Sagar gone. How he had managed to slip away without me having felt or sensed it was astounding. We’d actually been touching at one point we were so close. I guess I had been distracted to the point where I had lost track of him.

“Dammit,” Jackson swore, peeking up and over our little ledge towards the rocky area where Blake had been. “C’mon, Thalia, we better move.”

At first I thought that he meant to abandon Jim, but when he eased back down our little bluff and then started off in a crouch towards some cover that would get us close to those rocks where the beating was still taking place in between taunting calls from whoever it was that wanted Chelsea to “just stay put, Blake won’t miss them pretty teeth of his one bit!”, I felt a ripple of excitement course through me. This was way more than I had bargained for, but somehow, I was more excited than I was scared.

We ducked into some tall grass that cut into my exposed skin better than any razor sharp knife when I just haphazardly went to push it aside. From that point, I was more careful and made my way up beside Jackson who had caught up with Jim.

“Sheesh, what kept you guys?” Jim mouthed.

From our new vantage, we did not even dare whisper. We could see the man I had to figure to be Blake. He was on his knees. The man standing over him wore an oversized burlap glove that actually looked heavy like it was weighted with something. The two other men standing around were scanning the area in the direction we’d last heard the mysterious Chelsea.

“C’mon, Skins, give me a turn,” one of the men practically begged.

The man doing the beating up to this point—presumably Skins—stepped back and let this Blake person fall flat on his face. He began to unlace the glove; quickly confirming my suspicion that the bulbous fist portion was indeed weighted.

I didn’t need that much prompting to know this was our time to act. With as much stealth as I could manage in the tall, dry grass, I brought my crossbow around and slid the stock against my shoulder with a degree of comfort that was like hugging an old friend.

I felt Jim tap me and glanced his way. He gave me a stern look that I was not sure about. Since I did not know what he was trying to say, I just smiled and then sighted in on the one who was currently putting on the glove.

I felt Jim inhale and hold it. I did the same, and as soon as I felt him exhale, I pulled the trigger. My bolt zoomed through the air, nearly invisible as the shadows of dusk all met to bring darkness to the world as evening fell.

There was a yelp from my target as my shot was off by just a fraction and caught the man in the gut instead of the center of his chest. Before I could ask what we should do next, Jim and Jackson were on their feet, rushing in to meet the one man who was uninjured. That just happened to be the one we knew as “Skins.”

I scrambled up and hurried in as well, drawing the long knife at my belt. I rushed in just as Jackson tackled Skins and the two went tumbling into some of the nearby blackberry bushes. Jim had stopped over his guy and toed him with his boot. My guy was on his side.

I hurried over and put my boot in his side to flip him flat onto his back. He looked up at me and I took a step back. He could not be any older than I was, but he looked like hell. He had scars on his face and his nose had been busted so many times that it sort of  laid on his face because it had no place else to go.

“P-p-please,” he begged, throwing his hands up.

“Finish him off.” Jim had stepped over beside me and was standing there with his hands on his hips.

“What?” I spun, but he grabbed my shoulders and turned me right back to the boy on the ground.

“Don’t ever take your eyes off of an enemy!” Jim barked. There was not an ounce of the mirth and humor I knew so well.

“He’s not—” I started.

“You shot him. That makes him an enemy. And since we don’t have the resources to take care of his injuries, you need to kill him. He will suffer horribly if you don’t.”

In a rush, I recalled our little conversation about killing a living person. He, Billy, and Paula had told me that it was not the same as killing a zombie.

I turned and looked down at this person. Everything else in the world seemed to fall away. I knew that Jackson and Jim were dealing with the situation around me. I thought that I heard crying and wondered when they had brought the mysterious Chelsea out of hiding.

Then I realized that it was me!

The man was staring up at me with a gaze that saw nothing. There was a bolt through his left eye that I did not remember firing. Feeling strangely numb, I reached down and pulled the bolt free. When I did, there was a gout of dark red blood.

I turned as quick as I could so that my vomit would not douse the corpse of the man that I had killed. That would have been extremely rude. When I finished being sick, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stood up despite my legs feeling like they were going to refuse to support my weight.

“You okay, cupcake?” Jim put an arm around my shoulders.

“Not really,” I admitted.

Jackson was over with the strangers, Chelsea and Blake. I could not hear what they were saying, but the stern expression on Jackson’s face told me that it was probably not good.

“There’s no going back,” Jim whispered. At first I thought that I might have imagined it. But then he continued. “I wish I could take it all away, but once you have killed a living person, justified or not, it changes you forever.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I asked weakly. In truth, I was actually hoping that he had an answer I could cling to that would pull me out of the aching feeling that I felt in my heart and soul unlike anything I had ever experienced.

I knew what sadness and depression felt like. They are natural and normal. This was something of its own ilk; there was really nothing that I could compare it to in my limited experience. It was sort of like I had lost something that was a vital part of me.

“The only thing that you could have done is to never step foot outside the walls of home,” Jim answered.

At first, I thought that he might have been making a poorly timed wise-crack, but his eyes were so cold, his lips so tightly pressed together.

“We have to go!” Jackson announced as he walked up, breaking the momentary spell of guilt and pain that I feared might never diminish.

“What’s up?” Jim instinctively flipped open the cover to his pack where he kept his array of improvised explosives.

“That army is in fact moving in to settle the area. I guess they sent advance teams to Island City as well as the larger tribes in the valley. It seems they were down in Oklahoma or something. A massive drought wiped out their crops and put them on the verge of starvation. Apparently, they had some active trade with the folks in Island City. Since it was apparently the largest settled area in a location that was sustainable, they simply decided to take it for their own.”

As I listened to Jackson explain things, I was at first confused, then I was angry. Was that actually their only option? To take what other people had worked hard to create and just claim it as theirs?

“If the people in Island City couldn’t defend against these monsters, then how can we hope to keep them from taking us out?” I asked what I considered to be an obvious question.

“For one,” Jim smiled, “the people of Island City did not have me.”

“Plus,” Jackson was much more serious, “they might not even know that we exist, and even if they do, there is really no reason for them to come up into the hills and try to root us out.”

“They only want the valley,” a man’s voice rasped. At first, I thought that it was the man Blake that we had just rescued. “They don’t know anything about you, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. We had plenty of smaller communities in Oklahoma that we traded with before the drought.”

It was the man called “Skins.” I peered around Jackson to where the man was lying on the ground, his wrists and ankles bound securely. I could not really make out his features that clearly considering that it was now almost completely dark.

“How could you even think to do something like this?” I pushed past Jackson and stood over the dark figure on the ground.

“When it comes to survival, it is you or them.”

His answer was so simple, said with no malice, anger, or any real sort of emotion. It was simply said as a statement of fact. This man saw nothing wrong with wiping out an entire community in order to further his own survival.

At first, I just stood there staring down at Skins. I could not see his face. I guess that is why it was so easy. Yanking my knife free, I plunged it into the center of where I guessed to be the man’s chest. I think I heard Jackson and Jim both yell at me, but it was really nothing more than background noise.

“How’s that working out for you?” I hissed as I leaned down and put my face right in the man’s.

I could smell his sour breath as it came out in a final rattle. A hand grabbed my shoulder and jerked me back roughly, tossing me to the ground.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jackson bellowed.

I didn’t know. That was the problem. So much was swirling around inside me that I wanted to scream, cry…

“Well, so much for being able to question him,” Jim said.

At some point, camp was made. Blake and Chelsea would return to their people in the morning. I was told that I would not be standing watch. Any time that I approached Jim or Jackson, they got quiet.

When I finally fell asleep, the nightmares came fast and vivid. Maybe it was that reason that the screams did not wake me right away. There were plenty of screams in my nightmare, so all I could figure was that they masked the real ones; that is, until somebody grabbed me.

14

Vignettes LIX

Juan sat quietly. Both the girls were in with their mother. This would be goodbye. Mackenzie had managed to hang on for two days. Over the years, the infection had slowed in its ability to turn, but it had not stopped being lethal. It was horrible watching her change from the vibrant, beautiful, energetic woman that he loved into this frail and sick shell of her former self.

They had spoken just moments before, and she had asked to see her daughters one last time. Juan could hear the harsh rattle of each cough as Mackenzie struggled to speak. He felt his heart turning to frozen stone, and he was helpless to stop it. He knew he had to be present for Della and Denita, but he could not find the strength.

“Daddy,” Della called as she came out of the tent, “I think you need to go in there now. Mama is done talking.”

Climbing to his feet, he entered the tent. The smell was a physical presence that coated his throat and nostrils in such a way that he almost believed that he would never be clean of it.

Mackenzie was on her cot. The bindings that secured her in place acted as a stinging but unnecessary reminder that the woman he loved would turn into a mindless eating monster, and therefore, she must be bound like the dangerous thing she could become at any moment.

“C-c-come sit beside me,” Mackenzie coughed.

Juan took one of the small folding chairs and moved next to the bed. He saw Mackenzie’s fingers wiggle slightly and he reached down to hold her hand. He winced at the coldness of her grip. He knew he should probably be wearing his gloves, but he would not miss the feel of her skin against his no matter how it felt.

“I just want you to know that I love you with all my heart, Juan Hoya.”

Each word came with obvious pain. It almost sounded like the words were being ripped from her throat. He half expected to see blood start to trickle from her lips.

“I need you to look at me,” Mackenzie rasped.

Juan brought his eyes up to hers. It was a struggle not to let the horror of what he was seeing show through in his expression. Her eyes were a nightmare and her skin was a waxy greenish-gray that looked like it would slough off her body. Her cheeks had gone hollow and her lips were nothing more that afterthoughts.

“I need you to promise that you will make it quick…as soon as I have taken my last breath.” That entire sentence took what seemed like forever as Mackenzie had to stop more than once when she was wracked with harsh, hacking fits of coughing that were almost painful to hear. “I would ask you to just end it now, but I know that you won’t.”

“You can’t be serious.” Juan struggled to maintain his last shreds of humanity. If he did not snap out of this, his daughters would basically be orphans. He had to pull himself together.

Not for the first time, he wished that he could go back in time—hit a rewind button. He knew deep down that he should have done away with Rufus when the dog showed signs that he was reaching a point where he could die. In the past, hadn’t people simply taken their pets to the vet and had them put down? Why had he allowed this risk to exist?

“Stop it!” Mackenzie managed through shallow, rapid breaths. “This is not your fault. If it is anybody’s…it is mine. I told you we could handle Rufus when the time came.”

Juan gripped Mackenzie’s hand tighter. In his imagination, she squeezed back, but the truth was that she was simply too weak. He sat there with her in relative silence. The only sound was that of her ragged breathing. Sometimes it was in rapid pants, other times there were long pauses that made him sit up straight.

“I’m sorry.”

Juan jumped and looked down to see Mackenzie staring at him, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes. They were wide but unfocused. He doubted that she was seeing him, and when he leaned down and her gaze continued to stare past him, he knew. He kissed the top of her forehead and looked over his shoulder. The tent flap was closed.

A tremor rippled through Mackenzie’s body and her legs began to twitch. Juan stood, his eyes unable to tear away as the woman he loved with all his being began to go into the throes of death. Reaching down, he pulled the pillow out from under her head and placed it over her face that was now an unrecognizable rictus of pain.

“God, if you exist, you know that I have been a screw-up my whole life. I doubt you got a place for me up there, but please, if you are real…forgive me.”

Drawing his knife from his belt, Juan placed the tip where he figured Mackenzie’s forehead to be and shoved down hard. There was initial resistance, and then the blade slid down.

Turning, Juan felt his heart leap to his throat. Denita was standing in the entrance to the tent, her mouth in a perfect tiny “O.” In her hand were a few straggly-looking wildflowers.

“Sweetie…” Juan’s mouth tried to work, but he found that there were no words forthcoming. His brain had locked up.

“Has mama gone to be with Antonio?” Denita asked, stepping forward and trying to peer around Juan.

Juan shifted his body to block her view as he reached back and felt around for the hilt of his knife. Pulling it free, he kept his hand behind his back as he knelt before his daughter.

“You’re talking,” Juan blurted, unable to come up with anything better to say to his daughter.

“Mama said you would need me and Della after she went to Heaven to be with Antonio.” Denita walked up to Juan and held up the wilting flowers. “Can I put these on her bed?”

Juan could only nod. He watched with tears in his eyes as his daughter who had not spoken in years stepped past him and stopped at her mother’s bedside.

“Give Antonio a hug and kiss for me, Mama. Tell him I am sorry. If I was watching out like I was s’pposed to and not playing with my doll by the water, he wouldn’t have had to fight that dirty deader. He wouldn’t have slipped in the mud and got bit and then had to go to Heaven and wait for us.”

Juan felt his throat tighten. He wanted to cry openly, but he knew that at this very moment, his daughter needed him. It had never been known how the zombie that bit his and Mackenzie’s son managed to fall prey. His throat torn open, he had died from blood loss before Juan and Mackenzie had even managed to get to him.

Kneeling beside his daughter, he bowed his head as Denita recited the only prayer she knew.

“Now I lay me, down to sleep…”

***

“Gemma,” the dark-skinned woman said softly, not rising from her seat.

“What…h-h-how?” the other woman stammered.

“I came here like you said,” Chaaya replied with a slight bow of her head. “They took me in without hesitation. I have married, he shares my immunity, and we have a beautiful son.”

“So you two really were together…” Vix stepped back from Gemma suddenly. “Then I need you to answer a question.”

Gemma sighed, her shoulders slumping. With tired eyes she looked up at Vix. “Yes, I am the Black Widow. I have killed over thirty men in the past several years…however many it has been. So I guess my invitation has been rescinded.”

Gemma turned to leave, but a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned to see an odd expression of her former travelling companion’s face.

“I was going to ask you if you might be willing to share the story of how you survived this long on your own, and if there would be any hard feelings between you and Chaaya. Considering that she deserted you, a point she admits and has made public knowledge practically since she arrived.” Vix gently steered the woman back to the boat.

Now Gemma was totally confused. Had Vix missed the part where she said that she had killed over thirty men? Not only that, but Chaaya had told people about her. So, at the very least, they knew about those first men that she killed. Yet, she was not only being welcomed, she was being asked if she had any problems with Chaaya in such a way that she honestly believed that the woman would incur some sort of imposed restriction or some such nonsense.

“I can share. Not much of a storyteller, but I can at least remember most of the details.”

“Then it is off to New England!”

And just like that, they were rowing back across the channel. Gemma actually took a moment to enjoy the light mist on her face as they cut through the water. She could not believe her fortune. After all that she had done, she was being accepted into this society with open arms. If she was able, Gemma might have cried. As it was, her throat was threatening to seize up.

They were less than halfway across when Gemma noticed the first people starting to gather at the dock in anticipation as to her arrival. Her anxiety was building once more.

She glanced back at Vix and saw that the woman was all seriousness as she watched the land get closer and closer. As for Chaaya, she had her eyes on her feet. Gemma would have to talk to her later. She had not done anything wrong, they would be able to clear the slate and start fresh.

Yet, as she looked from Vix to Chaaya to the crowd gathering on the shore, she could not shake the feeling in her gut that something was wrong. When a hand touched her arm, Gemma just about tipped the boat.

“Are you okay?” Vix asked with a furrow creasing her brow.

“Something is wrong,” Gemma whispered. Actually, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She looked plaintively at Vix. Her hands began to twitch and she could not stop her feet from bouncing.

“You have been away for a long time.” Vix took the younger woman’s hands in hers. “I know it seems like everything is tilted on its hind end, but you are safe now, Gemma. You can come here, clean up, and make a go at living a normal life.”

“Normal.” The word sounded bitter and dirty coming from Gemma mouth. Her lips curled in a nasty sneer and her eyes narrowed to slits. “There is no normal.”

“That’s what I thought,” Chaaya eased up on her rowing just enough to speak. “After what we went through at the fort, I thought I would never be clean…never close my eyes and not be haunted by the horrors we were forced to endure. But you can make it to the other side, Gemma. You have a strong heart. It is obvious that you are strong and brave. Look how long you lasted all alone out in the wilderness.”

Gemma looked from one woman’s face to the other. A very tiny part of her was screaming for her to listen, but a larger part, the broken Gemma, that part was screaming for her to end this pain once and for all.

She had heard that voice before. Yet, she had always been able to suppress that voice. Over time, she learned to blank everything from her mind. She did not discriminate. She purged herself of anger, sorrow, and fear. Unfortunately, she also did away with happiness, peace, and joy.

In the days before zombies, she would have been hospitalized and heavily medicated. But now, now the voices had free reign. Gemma listened to the ministrations of that single loud voice that dominated. She even cocked her head as if the voice might be coming in on a breeze.

Before Vix could react, Gemma grabbed the large concrete-filled bucket that was tied to a single fifty foot piece of line. In a lunge that once again almost threatened to tip the boat, Gemma threw herself backwards. She landed flat on her back in the water hard enough to drive most of the air from her lungs.

With the extra weight from the bucket, she sunk fast. Her last vision was that of a pair of faces peering over the side of the boat at her. Their expressions were wavy and distorted by the water. The sound was muffled and quickly faded from her ears.

As she sunk to the bottom of the river, her body convulsed with the first big intake of water that poured into her lungs. That only made Gemma’s hands clutch the barrel tighter.

A sense of peace came in the final seconds. Gemma would have let loose with a heavy sigh if she’d been able.

***

The girl they had saved was coming at him at a sprint. Out of reflex more than anything else, he swung a haymaking left hook that connected hard with Melody’s jaw. There was a loud crunch and her feet shot out from under her as the force of the blow knocked her back. She landed awkwardly; out cold.

“Crap!” Chad shook his hand.

Ronni and Caroline rushed in, both trying to get a grip on his left arm and help get off his glove, but he pulled away. Using just the fingertips, he tugged the glove off. Already, the hand was swelling.

He glanced down at the unconscious form of Melody and mused briefly at the idea that the punch seemed to have done more actual physical damage to him than it had to her. At least one of his knuckles was busted and/or jammed back much farther than it should be.

“Well?” Chad turned to Caroline and his daughter. “I say we tie them both up. Something is wrong here, that’s for certain.”

Ronni and Caroline moved in, binding and gagging both Butch and Melody as securely as possible. They carried Butch into the underground meat storage dugout that they had made. Chad’s hope was for the half of a deer hanging from the log rafter might unsettle the man when he regained consciousness. As for Melody, she was taken back inside the cabin and secured to one of the chairs, and then turned to face the wall.

Chad turned to his daughter. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Ronni was still looking past Chad, glaring at the back of the head of the girl tied to the chair.