Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland (Alice, No. 5) (10 page)

Moaning noises came from beyond the walls. Noises that could
mean only one thing.

Biters.

***

Alice ran to the wall and jumped onto a box to get a better
view of what was happening outside. What she saw took her breath away.

There were several dozen Biters roaming just outside the
walls. Somehow they had made it through the patrols that had been sent out.
Alice could not understand how that might have happened. The only way so many
Biters could have broken through the large number of patrols they had out in
the Deadland would have been after a major battle. Yet there had been no sounds
of gunfire or any other sign of a battle.

Maybe all the stories of the Biters going under the ground
and emerging from secret bases were true after all. When Alice had first heard
the grown-ups talking about it, she had been terrified. Biters were bad enough
as is, but to imagine that they could disappear and appear at will from these
hidden bases was a really scary thought. Now, it looked like it was all too
real.

At least they were safe behind the walls and closed gate of
the settlement. A couple of the Biters fell into the moat and she could see
them writhing and roaring down there. They would have to be put down
eventually, but right now it was unthinkable to go out. The screams and moans
of the trapped Biters did nothing to soothe the already frayed nerves in the
settlement, and a couple of the younger kids were crying.

'Mommy!'

She looked down to see Dakota, standing there, bawling.

'Come on, kid. Just stay close to me and you'll be okay.'

She actually had little idea of how to keep Dakota safe if
the Biters did attack, but her words seemed to comfort Dakota. She led Dakota
away from the wall so that hopefully she would not hear the sounds of the
trapped Biters.

The few adults left at the settlement were now all carrying
guns, and Alice was surprised to see Sheila walking with a pistol in her hand.
In theory, everyone had to learn how to use weapons, and Alice had heard
stories of how in the early days, everyone, including her Mom, had had to fight
pitched battles with looters and Biters. However, even at this age, Alice
recognized that just having a gun did not make a person a fighter. Some people
would fight, even if they were outgunned and outnumbered, but others would lose
their nerve, no matter how well armed they were. Sheila had always seemed
nervous around guns, and now she had a vacant look in her eyes as she walked
around, trying to figure out what to do.

There were several people with guns, all milling around, all
hoping that someone else would take charge and tell them what to do, and Alice
knew now that her father had been right to be worried. The ones they had left
behind in the settlement were not the fighters, and now they were looking for
Gladwell, Jones, Sunil, or one of the others who had been the leaders. Except
they were all now outside, on patrol or at the crash site. A settlement that
was normally a well-drilled army able to fight as a unit was now just a group
of individuals with guns with no clear plan or direction.

Alice climbed back onto a box and looked out. What she saw
made her almost freeze with fear. The Biters were now coming in straight
towards the gate. They were supposed to be stupid, mindless monsters, and she
had seen so many of them fall into the moat as if they didn't even understand
what it meant, something she and other kids had sometimes laughed about. Now,
there was nothing funny about it at all. A group of six Biters had avoided the
moat, and were now on the narrow path leading to the gate, even as several
other Biters fell into the moat around them. She looked around and realized
none of the adults had yet spotted them.

'They're coming to the gate!'

Her shout galvanized them into action, and three men took
position at the gate, rifles at the ready. One of the men took aim and fired,
hitting one of the Biters who was trapped in the moat.

'That was a direct hit!'

Another man cut short his celebration.

'Forget the ones in the moat. Let's take down the ones
coming to the gate first.'

As the men took aim, another scream rang out.

'Holy shit! At the back! We need help here! They're coming
at us from the back!'

She didn't know who had cried out, but she ran to the back
of the settlement as fast as she could. Sheila was there, gaping at the wall
and still screaming, and Alice could hear the thumping of several hands beating
against the wall. She climbed on a box to get a look and saw that a large group
of Biters had come towards the settlement, and several had fallen into the
moat. Somehow, perhaps just by scrambling over the fallen Biters in the moat,
two Biters had made it across to the wall, and were now beating their fists and
heads against it.

It looked terrifying, and they would need to probably dig a
deeper moat to prevent such a thing from happening again, but the reality was
that there was no imminent danger. Two Biters would never break down the wall,
and it would be easy to shoot them. Of course, that did nothing to quell the
panic that suddenly swept the settlement. Word spread like wildfire—Biters at
the gate, Biters crossing the moat to get to the wall at the back. Someone
screamed that they were surrounded and that people should run to the community
center to make a last stand.

Six adults ran to the back and began shooting on full
automatic. The Biters at the wall were spun around like rag dolls and fell back
into the moat on top of the others trapped there. The adults kept firing, and
Alice watched the Biters get torn apart by the bullets. One Biter, a woman with
her arm and jaw shot off, tried to get back out of the moat, only to be
finished by a shot to the head. Another, an old man with a gaping hole in his
chest, looked right at Alice and roared in fury, before a bullet took him in
the face, sending him down into the moat.

The men began cheering in triumph, and Alice had to shake
one of them and scream to be heard.

'Who's at the gate?'

The man looked down at her, and his look told her all she
needed to know.

She ran back to the gate, and when she got there, she saw
their settlement's worst nightmare come true. The gate had begun to give way
under the hammering and weight of the Biters outside. It was a solid wooden
gate, but the whole point had been to prevent a mass of Biters from getting to
it with the moat, a constant watch and the ability to bring withering fire down
the narrow passage leading to the gate. Now with everyone panicked and
scattered, nobody had picked the Biters off, and six of them were now pounding
at the gate, and slowly but surely, it began to creak open. Alice wanted to run
back and ask the others to hurry up, to get everyone at the gate, but then she
saw Dakota.

The little girl was standing no more than a few feet inside
the gate, sobbing in terror, apparently paralyzed with fear by the sounds of
the Biters so close to her. The gate flung open, and the first Biter stepped
in. He had been a large man with a huge belly, and was wearing some strange red
and white costume that Alice had never seen before. His face was streaked with
blood, and he pushed his way in and shuffled towards Dakota. Alice screamed at
Dakota.

'Run away! Come to me! Come on!'

Unfortunately, her words didn't seem to register on the
terrified child, who was now staring in horror at the apparition bearing down
on her. Alice had to act, and fast.

Alice was about ten feet away, and took her handgun into a
two-handed grip just as she had been taught, and spread her feet to get a
better balance. She tried to remember everything she had been taught—keep
breathing steadily, stabilize your grip, sight down the barrel—but all of that
eluded her as she saw the Biter get closer to Dakota.

Alice fired twice in quick succession, but she shouted in
despair as both bullets missed. For all her training and supposed marksmanship,
Alice was learning that there was a world of difference between shooting during
target practice and facing down a real Biter in battle when he was within
seconds of tearing apart a child. The Biter looked at her, his vacant, yellowed
eyes narrowing in hate and anger, and then turned his attention back towards
Dakota. Every single instinct told Alice to run, to get help, that there were
too many Biters for her to handle, but she knew she could not leave Dakota
there.

Instead of running away, she ran towards the Biter.

'Hey, fatso!'

The Biter stopped and glared at her and began to walk
towards her, his jaws bared, revealing blood-stained teeth. The fury of having
his kill interrupted was quickly replaced by the anticipation of a new prey.
Alice raised her gun again, and aimed at his head.

Please don't let me miss. Please don't let me miss.
Please don't let me miss.

She was repeating her muttered prayer again and again when
she fired. A hole opened up in the Biter's forehead and he seemed to stand
there for an eternity, making Alice wonder if he was actually finished or not.
Then, he crumpled to the ground in a heap and didn't get back up. Two of the
Biters coming in through the gate behind him tripped on his body and went
sprawling to the ground in a heap. Before they could get up, Alice walked
closer to them, aimed at them from no more than four or five feet away and
fired twice. Two shots, two heads shattering from the impact of her bullets.

The remaining three Biters were now coming in through the
gate when more shots rang out. The adults had rallied to the gate and were now
all firing. Within a few seconds of shooting, all three Biters were down. Some
of the men rushed to close the gate and pull heavy boxes around it, while
others got up to the wall to watch for any more Biters coming in.

But almost everyone else left in the settlement was now
staring at Alice, holding Dakota in her arms, standing over the bodies of the
three Biters she had shot. Dakota was sobbing and Alice stroked her hair,
telling her things were okay now.

Someone said, 'She shot Santa Claus.'

A few of the adults laughed, their laughter helping to
dissipate some of the tension and terror that had gripped them. Alice didn't
know who or what Santa Claus was, but she felt the solidity of the gun in her
hand, she remembered what it felt like to see her shots strike home. She
remembered Dakota clutching her and crying, and then Alice joined in the
laughter, even though her body was shaking and tears were flowing down her
cheeks. Tears of relief, and of terror. But for all that, Alice knew one thing
with absolute certainty.

She had not let her Daddy down.

***

That night, they all gathered in the community center. Pyres
lit to burn the bodies of Biters dotted the land around the settlement. Within
ten minutes of the battle at the gate, the first patrols had returned and begun
the job of finishing off the remaining Biters outside the walls and those
trapped in the moat. The main force had come back a little while later, and
while they had carried with them a treasure trove of goods from the crash site,
there was no celebration. There were hundreds of cans of food, flashlights,
brand-new automatic rifles of the sort Zeus troopers had, night vision scopes,
medical supplies—things that made their settlement more secure and
self-sufficient than ever before. Yet they all keenly felt just how close they
had come to being wiped out today.

As everyone quietly sipped their soup, Gladwell spoke.

'I'm sorry. I failed all of you. We got greedy, and we got
careless. We went after the stash at the crash site, and it was a real find,
but we took for granted the one thing we should know never to take for granted.
Our security.'

Many people nodded, but Alice knew that while her dad was
taking the blame, nobody really blamed him. They had all made the choice
together, and nobody had imagined that so many Biters would materialize so
close to their settlement without warning.

Their excitement for the day had not ended when the Biters
had been defeated. All day they had heard Zeus choppers buzzing overhead like
angry hornets. No doubt they had found the crash site and discovered that their
supplies had been taken. For a few hours, some people at the settlement had
been worried that Zeus would come calling, but on this count, Gladwell's
judgement was proven right—Zeus was not in a mood to seek out a fight.

Then Gladwell said that with all that had happened, they
might as well enjoy what they had recovered, and people excitedly gathered
around to see what had been collected. Cans of food were passed around and
several people talked about stocks of medicines, antibiotics and bandages that
they had found. Alice was more keen to see the rifles that they had captured,
but before she could move in for a closer look, she felt an arm around her
shoulder. It was Junior. As long as Alice could remember, he had never ever
really been nice to her, so it was a visible struggle for him to say the words.

'Thanks, Alice. I heard about Dakota. I owe you big time. Do
you want to sit and have dinner with me and my pals?'

As he walked by, Alice smiled and was about to join him when
her Dad came to her.

'Come here.'

She hugged him tight. She wanted to tell him how scared she
had been, how she had missed with her first two bullets, how she had come so
close to losing Dakota, but none of that seemed to matter now.

'I'm so proud of you, Alice.'

***

The next morning, Alice went over to their classroom, where
Sheila was supposed to hold her classes. They waited for Sheila for more than
ten minutes. Sheila was never late, so Alice was beginning to wonder if she was
sick when she showed up. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked visibly
tired. Sheila went through the motions, but Alice could see that she was
troubled and more than once she faltered.