Life Among The Dead (53 page)

Who the fuck’s that?
Dan wonders. He can’t remember who they had given the other device to, but he is going to get an earful if they make it out alive. Bruce answers the communication device by throwing it down the hall they had come.

“
We could have used it to call for back up.” Dan tells him.

“
Yeah, that would have worked too.” Bruce responds. Moaning is filling the halls. The sound is different than what the larger, adult sized counterparts make, higher in pitch and lower to the ground. The sad pleas echo off the walls of the narrow hall.

The fun sized dead come out of the rooms they have not yet closed. Zombie tots round the corners of the hall, converging on Dan and Bruce.

“
Do you still feel bad for them?” Bruce asks.

“
Yeah, just not as much.”

The dead fall one at a time under their fire. This school accepts kids from nearby towns; it becomes clear to the men that they are outnumbered. There are just too many of them to deal with like this, getting too close, too fast.

Emotionless cherub faces close in around them with vacant eyes that see flesh to satisfy their ceaseless hunger. The bites that had infected them are grotesquely noticeable, Dan’s heart go out to them as he puts bullets into their heads.

“
Got a plan?” Dan asks over the gunfire that offends their ears in the confining corridor.

“
Let’s not die.” Bruce answers.

“
Good one. You should patent that shit.” Dan slides a fresh clip into his gun. He is afraid he might not have enough. Bruce points to a fire extinguisher on the wall. Dan fires a round into it. A cold burst of compressed air knocks down the lightweight dead around the blast zone. This creates an opening for them. The men sprint over the small bodies before they can get up.

They run through the hall, hoping to find a room that isn’t occupied, but aren’t faring too well. The zombies from Sesame Street keep exiting from the rooms ahead of them. All they have managed to do is buy a little time.

“
Your turn.” Bruce tells Dan. “Make a plan.”

“
Build a time machine and bring more people next time around.” Dan says. He sees they are standing outside of the school nurse’s office. The door is closed. He kicks it inward.

The nurse is in a white uniform, covered by a gray sweater. She is very old and it is hard to tell if she is alive or dead, she just stares at them. She isn’t advancing.

“
Are you alive?” Bruce asks her, stepping into the room. Dan had almost shot her without finding out first. He wishes he had just fired when she steps towards Bruce trying to grab him. Dan’s uncle fires his large weapon under her chin. Her head disappears, reappearing all over the ceiling.

The men shut themselves in the small medical unit along with the headless corpse. Dan locks the door by a small button on the knob. It turns out to be a divided door like at Bruce’s. The top and bottom halves open independently. He leaves the top open since the dead that plague them are so short.

The two Williamsons are sorely in need of back-up. There are no windows in this room, and no way out other than the door the Children of the Damned are behind. They can see the tops of the little demons’ heads. Behind them, teachers and parents are leaning over the kids, gripping the top of the door trying to pull themselves closer.

“
How many shots do you have left?” Dan asks.

“
Not many. You?”

“
Same. We should radio for help.” Dan sarcastically suggests to his uncle. “Oh, wait…”

“
I was agitated.” He excuses himself. “Someone will come for us. It isn’t like we’re alone in the world anymore.”

As if answering his psychic plea they hear gunfire. It sounds like a rather large weapon. Its discharge takes two chunks out of the crowd at the door.

“
That’s my double barrel.” Bruce says. The men can hear a gun being dropped to the floor followed by the sound of a smaller weapon being fired. Dan recognizes the telltale rat-tat-tat.

“
My M-16.” Dan smiles. “It’s Heather.” Dan means this in two ways. He had named his rifle Heather in boot camp. His uncle said it was bad luck to name a gun after your girl. At the time, Heather was just the name of a girl who was way out of his league, and not yet his wife. Dan sees his bride appear in the doorway.

“
Come on guys. I can’t do it all myself.” She says to the two men hunkered on the floor, waiting to be saved.

“
See.” Bruce says as they join Heather in the hall. “Woman with assault rifles are just plain sexy.”

They clear the passage and the rooms. The school looks like a massacre just took place. Sad bodies are strewn everywhere. Outside the nurses office the walls are coated with blood and brains.

“
What a mess.” Heather says. “We have to clean it, don’t we?” She doesn’t seem excited about the prospect.

“
Not exactly,” Bruce consoles her. “Becka’s always looking for work.”

35

Operation: Cleanup/Rebuild

People carry the corpses out to the streets like yesterday’s garbage. Snow plows and four wheelers equipped with small blades clear the sidewalks and driveways. All the inactive dead are piled in the middle of the park and doused with gasoline. The fire spit a foul smoke into the air as it consumes the fallen creatures of nightmares.

As the units secured homes and buildings, they had spray painted green ‘X’s on the front doors to indicate the space is safe. It had taken them well into the night until every door adorned the mark of the living.

The entire operation yields 37 survivors who had hidden from the dead. This is a thing to celebrate. On their way to the center of town to claim victory Hector stops Dan, Heather and Bruce. He has been searching everywhere for them. The deaf young man hands Dan a note before sprinting away.

“
We have two men bitten.” Dan summarizes for them. He crumples the note in a tight fist
. Will it ever end,
he asks himself. Heather casts her head down in sadness. Bruce grabs Dan’s arm and pulls him away from his wife for a private conversation.

Heather looks up to see Dan and his uncle, speaking in whispers. Bruce is doing most of the talking while Dan looks at the ground, nodding in understanding. Her husband responds in brief words she can’t quite hear. She knows it is about the people who have been infected.

The covert meeting ends and Dan heads toward the center of town. Heather starts after him, but Bruce catches her arm.

“
Hey, Heather.” He says. “I need some help with something.”

Dan walks down the street not looking forward to this at all. Most people would say the worst part of any war is the casualties. Dan knows this war is different; the worst part is the triage.

In a combat situation, a medic has to decide who lives, and who dies. Who is more valuable to the cause and worth saving? Who is too far gone? They don’t have such luxuries. Anyone bitten is going to become the very thing they fight against. Zombies are the perfect foe. For every soldier you lose, they gain one. There is only one option.

Since Dan’s incident at the old farmhouse, when he met nice old Frank, a precedence had been set. Along with being King Bruce’s second in command, Dan now holds the title of New Castle’s executioner. It isn’t something he relishes. It isn’t a promotion for a job well done. It’s a mantle he will bear, however, just so nobody else needs to be burdened with it. How he handles this situation tonight will set the bar for the future.

On the scene two men are seated on the curb outside of the town hall. Carla is standing watch over them with her AK-47. She seems to really like Dan’s gift. Hector is with her. In the kind man’s hands is a pump shotgun with a pistol grip and a collapsible stock. The mood is tense.

“
Nice gun, Heck.” Dan tries to lighten the air. “It looks good on you.”

Hector only nods. Dan knows these two are here in case the men run. The guys look up at Dan as if he is the angel of death. Dan hates being looked at that way, but he knows why.

The small town rumor mill has churned Dan’s tale of survival into a farce of epic proportions; his adventures have been misinterpreted and exaggerated. As the yarns progressed Dan became a member of the Special Forces secret zombie squad, dropped into the city as a one man army to quell the plague. They all know what he had done outside of Carla’s place. People respected and feared Dan for all the wrong reasons.

“
I hear you two got bit?” Dan speaks to the condemned men he vaguely recognizes. One man nods in affirmation. The other’s eyes get wide, he stands up in defiance.

“
He was.” The man denies. “I haven’t.”

“
Sit down, sir.” Dan tells the man calmly. Carla raises her semi-automatic rifle in his direction. The man complies. The loyalty impresses Dan. He feels like the Godfather. “Where?”

The man pulls back his sleeve and shows off a circle of ruined flesh the size of a human mouth. Dan looks into his eyes.

“
All right!” The infirmed gentleman confesses. “I was bit, but I think I might be immune, like you.”

The rumor mill at work again.
People think I am immune?
The self-inflicted bite on Dan’s hand must have caused a stir
.
He can’t believe it,
fuck me.

#

“
As King I’m going to declare today a national holiday.” Bruce tells Heather as he leads her to the liquor store to acquire libations for the celebration. He gives orders to people that they pass. “We’ll still have all the old ones of course. Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Arbor Day. That reminds me.”

Bruce points to a group of men standing by the large zombie bonfire.

“
Guys, I want you to cut down a bunch of trees for the wall we’re going to build.” He tells them and they all nod. “Where was I?”

“
Arbor Day.” Heather responds. She walks, but keeps looking back trying to find Dan. She is worried. “Bruce, what the hell is going on?”

The old man stops and runs his hands through his thick gray hair. He was hoping to keep her busy until his nephew had things taken care of.

“
Dan said he’s going to have a talk with you about it as soon as he’s done.”

#

“
Why the fuck would you bite yourself?” The man asks Dan with disbelief.

“
Fuck it.” Dan gives in and lies. “I am immune. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but it’s true. The problem is, as far as I know, I am the only one. There is no test to prove you’re immune except to be bitten, and not turn. So here’s the deal.”

Dan points their attention over to the Sheriff’s station next to the town hall.

“
I’m going to have you guys spend the night in a holding cell. If you are still breathing come morning, you are free to leave.” He lets his decision hang in the air for a second. “You know what the alternative is, what do you say?”

They both nod. Hector and Carla get them on their feet and they are escorted to the police station. Dan follows behind them. The survivors of New Castle are starting to celebrate their victory over the dead.

The office reminds Dan of the small town Sheriff’s stations he’s seen on old sitcoms. Desks are surrounded by small dividers to give the illusion of offices. Along the back wall there are three jail cells.

Each man occupies one of the two end cells to keep them apart. Dan has Carla and Hector collect all the firearms from the station to be delivered to the gun shop. He keeps a pair of police issue .38 revolvers, and two bullets.

“
After you drop those off,” He tells his deputies. “You two can join the festivities.”

Dan leaves the station after giving each man one of the pistols. Loaded in the chambers is a single shot each, in case they decide they’d rather finish themselves before changing. He grabs a cowboy style police hat off the rack and puts it on as he shuts the door behind him.

#

“
I can’t wait until next year.” Bruce brims with excitement. He and Heather carry bottles of booze to the assembled mass of revelers. “I see piñatas in the shape of zombies. The kids can whack at them in effigy. I see snow cones with red syrup. I see… my nephew in a stupid hat.”

“
There’s a new Sheriff in town.” Dan says in a deep voice. He is relieved he didn’t have to kill those men, he had come up with a simple way to deal with the condemned by using the misinformation that floats around about him. He kisses his wife and helps her with the load she carries.

“
Take that thing off.” Heather laughs at Dan’s headwear.

“
Yeah, take that thing off.” Bruce also says, only he isn’t laughing. “You take care of things?”

“
I have them locked in holding cells. They had the option, it’s what they decided on.” Dan tells him while removing his hat. It’s over; he now has to tell Heather everything.

“
Great.” Bruce takes all the bottles from the woman. “You guys talk. I need to make a proclamation.”

“
Your majesty.” Heather and Dan say in unison as they bow and curtsy.

“
Smart asses.” The king grumbles as he heads to the party.

The married couple sits upon a curb. Dan tells her everything. He had told her of his time among the dead before, but he had left out some details that plague him.