DEAD: Confrontation (18 page)

“Long story short, things were fine until the explosion. Two days later we saw the first of those things. It was like moths to a flame…best way I can think to describe it. And at first, they were all sorta heading for the fertilizer place
. At least until they got their first glimpses of us.”

“So you fought them off, but took some casualties,” Jody f
inally decided to speak when it looked like George was having difficulty.

“Yeah, but by then all the television and radio was gone. We hadn’t gotten that part about the bite being a problem. It didn’t help that the first person who actually got bit was Mister Wing. He got a little sick, but other than that he was okay. Brittany didn’t fare as well.”

Jody had a feeling that he knew how the rest of the story played out. It also gave him an idea of how George’s face had been savaged. He decided that the man didn’t need to continue the story; he had heard enough.

“I am really sorry,” Jody said. “And I want to thank you for
bringing me and my friends in. You have it nice here. I don’t think any of us has had a real good meal or night’s sleep in a while.”

“You sound like you aren’t staying.” George cast a look over his shoulder at Selina and Kat who still seemed to be ha
ving a great time with some of the women and children of Cash.

“Sort of got it in our minds to head north,” Jody replied. “We are hoping that the cold will freeze them and maybe we can settle down without the constant fear.”

“You seen any of them freeze?” George asked plainly. “I mean, I realize that we don’t see anything like up north when it comes to the weather, but we have had a few dustings of snow, and there was that freeze a few weeks back. Didn’t seem to so much as slow them down from we saw.”

Jody sat back and drank
his coffee. To his credit, George didn’t say anything else. He sat back and sipped quietly, leaving Jody to his thoughts.

Jody’s attention kept turning to
Selina and Kat. They both looked so happy. In fact, he couldn’t recall having seen Selina laugh so much in all the time he’d known her…even when Danny’s jokes were funny.

Maybe they could settle in here. He would have to consider it, but first…just a little nap. He was so tired. His eyes closed and the empty coffee cup tumbled to the floor.

***

Major Beers handed Suzi the knife.

“Well?” the major said with an amused tone. “You found her…so you get the honors.”

Suzi looked down at the woman sprawled at their feet. She had been the first deserter that Suzi had tracked down. The thing was, it really wasn’t all that hard. Snow made finding somebody relatively easy; especially if that person was just running like a fool with no plan or effort to conceal their trail like this woman.

“P-p-please,” the woman begged. “I only wanted to get away from Sonny Lipski.”

“Who?” The major placed a hand on Suzi’s arm, stopping her just before she cut the woman’s throat. She was going through her memory, but the name didn’t mean anything to her.

“Sonny Lipski…we were with the group that came in two days ago.”

The major was always on hand to greet any new arrivals to her camp. She made sure to give them the rundown and to make sure that they understood this was not a free ride. Every person here was expected to carry their weight when it came to the workload.

“And did you not hear my speech that you were allowed to come here of your free will, but once you joined…desertion would be dealt with harshly?”

“Yes,” the woman sobbed, “but there was nothing that I could do at the time…Sonny said that if I opened my mouth he would…” The woman’s voice turned to more sobs.

“Go fetch me this Sonny Lipski,” Major Beers said to Suzi.

The woman’s head popped up and a look of fear washed over her face. She began shaking her head, but her crying was such that neither Wanda nor Suzi could decipher her garbled a
ttempt. Still, they got the general idea.

“Were there any other women in your group being held against their will?” Wanda asked after Suzi stepped out of the tent. The woman shook her head slowly.

“You don’t have to protect anybody,” the major said in as soothing of a voice as she could manage. To put it bluntly, the tender approach was never really her thing.

“Two others,” the woman whispered.

It took almost ten minutes, but finally, Major Beers had the information she wanted. She stepped to the entrance of her tent and summoned over a pair of soldiers who were busy constructing what would eventually become a water filtration and storage system.

When Suzi arrived, she had a man with her. The man was surprisingly non-descript. She had painted an image in her mind of what she expected Sonny Lipski to look like. He
would be a big guy, probably with a bit of a gut on him. He would have a perpetual sneer on his face that would intensify when he spoke to women because, in his mind, they were second-class citizens.

What she got was a man of average height with hair so blonde that
it almost looked white. He had a bulbous nose and if he ducked his head at all, what little chin he possessed would vanish. And as for his expression…it was more apprehensive than disdainful.

“You Sonny Lipski?” Major Beers tugged on her military ball cap with the embossed golden oak leaf insignia of her rank.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man answered. His voice had a thick drawl that reminded her of Foghorn Leghorn.

The major let the flap of her tent close behind her as she walked up to the man. She gave Suzi a
curt nod. The sound of her steel baton connecting with the back of Sonny’s legs was quickly drowned out by his yelp of pain.

“You like to treat women like something you own?” Major Beers leaned in close and grabbed the man’s face in her gloved hand, squeezing his cheeks hard enough that she could feel the ridges of his teeth through the flesh. She
glanced up at Suzi and nodded once more.

The tiny woman brought her arm back high. The baton flashed and came down with a bit of a whistle. This time she struck the man in the small of his back. There was an audible crack as at least one rib gave way.

“I’m a woman…why don’t you try that tactic with me?” Major Beers said with a leer. She glanced up at Suzi and nodded again.

After only three more strikes, the man was begging and cr
ying. Wanda kicked his hands away and went to her tent. “When the other two arrive, make them stand out there for a few minutes to get a look at their friend. Then send one in.”

“W
hich one?” Suzi asked.

“
Whichever one looks like he is closest to pissing himself.”

Letting the tent flap fall, Wanda gave the woman a brief smile. “You are free to go. If you choose to stay, then you will be expected to work. I think you heard the long version of that speech yesterday. And if Sonny or any other man gives you any trouble…come see me. However, if you stay
…you will work and work hard. If you are not able to pull your weight, you will either work the brothel or be exiled. Do you have any questions?”

The woman shook her head vigorously.

“Then get out.”

Once she was gone, Major Beers took a seat behind her desk. She checked her gloves and placed her pistol in front of her.
The fact that it only contained two rounds—one of which Major Beers had reserved in the event that she was about to die at the hands and mouths of the undead—was unimportant. One thing that she had learned in these first few months was the importance of appearance.

“Major,” a voice called from outside the tent.

“Enter.”

“We have a problem,” the soldier said as he stepped inside the tent and habitually removed his hat and came to attention, eyes staring at an imaginary spot a foot above the major’s head.

“At ease, Sergeant Barrie. What is the problem?”

“We have a large herd of walkers coming from the west.”

“So put the defenses on alert.”

“
Major…it may not be that simple.” The soldier broke protocol and looked directly into Major Beers’ eyes. “Estimates have the numbers at over five hundred thousand.”

Major Beers felt a queasy feeling in her stomach. She glanced at the pistol that she had just placed on her desk. With a tired sigh, she holstered the weapon and rose to her feet. As she exited the tent, Suzi was arriving with the two men she’d been sent for.

Without breaking stride, Major Beers drew her weapon and shot the closer of the two men in the forehead.  She’d be damned if she would give up her last bullet on a day like this.

8

Geek Reality

“Kevin!” a voice called. “This way…run!”

Grabbing Valarie’s hand firmly, Kevin pushed himself as hard as he could towards the automotive barrier. He risked a glance over his shoulder. There were at least fifty zombies within twenty yards of them. He had no idea how they’d gained so much ground, but as he tried to push himself the last bit to what looked like sanctuary, his legs simply refused to give him any more.

He could hardly walk another step. In fact, he began to wonder if he would make it or if he would die within an arm’s length of possible safety. Tears actually began to fill his eyes as the frustration over how his body was now starting to betray him just as it looked like he might finally be able to rest.

“Hit the ground!” a voice yelled.

Kevin continued on, ignoring the call. He could see a line of dark images just ahead, but what he could not see
through those tears were the assorted bows and crossbows being brought up by a dozen soldiers. He feared that if he stopped moving, if he threw himself to the ground, that he might lack the strength to get back up.

One of the dark figures broke away from the line and came bounding at Kevin and Valarie. Voices called out and shouted warnings, but the figure continued.

“You made it!” the shadowy form shouted.

Kevin knew the voice, but all of a sudden he was just so e
xhausted that he could not make any connections. Something was pulling at the tail of his coat. Turning, Kevin did not have to time to react. Valarie fell into him and sent them both tumbling to the ground.

The sounds of hissing and whistling registered in Kevin’s consciousness just before the world went black.

***

Kevin blinked and looked around. A jumble of
memories swirled in his mind, but he could no more grasp any of them and make sense of one as he could a single mote of dust swirling in the air. Looking around, he saw that he was in what looked like an RV.

“Welcome back,” a sweet voice whispered in his ear.

Kevin turned to find Aleah looking down at him with a smile. His relief at seeing her lasted only as long as it took for him to see the hollow look of exhaustion in her eyes. Coupled with being bloodshot and dark smudges under each one that were so prominent that they could be mistaken for serious bruising.

“Where are we?” Kevin tried to sit up, but a woozy feeling came in a rush and threatened to
turn to some rather intense vomiting if he did not lie back down.

“We found Willa’s group. We are just east of Newark in the weirdest fortification I think has ever been created.” Aleah grabbed a plastic cup and held it up to Kevin’s lips. “Here, drink this. It’s warm water. The doc was pretty concerned about if you would make it for a while. She says that she has never seen somebody with a core temperature as low as yours.”

“Valarie,” Kevin gasped after a sip of the lukewarm liquid.

“She is in another RV. They have her pretty heavily seda
ted.” Kevin was still struggling to get his brain back online, but he heard something in Aleah’s voice that caused a few warning bells to jingle.

“How is she?”

“Let’s worry about getting you back to good before you start diving in to save the world again, shall we?” a voice said from the other side of an accordion-like divider that was shoved aside.

“Hey, Doctor Thompson,” Aleah said, standing up and moving back to allow the new arrival a place beside Kevin’s bed.

The woman opened a small notebook and jotted something down. She went through several standard routines like looking into his eyes and checking his pulse. Every time that Kevin tried to speak, she shushed him. Kevin took the time to give this stranger a closer look.

Doctor Thompson was very short, he doubted she could o
fficially claim five feet as her height. She had short blonde hair that was showing streaks of white. Her eyes were an ice blue that did not seem to miss a thing and unless he was mistaken, he saw the hint of a tattoo peeking out from under her short-sleeved scrub top.

“So, Mister Dreon, you are the person that I have heard so much about
these past few weeks.”

“Weeks?” Kevin managed. It suddenly felt as if his throat had dried up and sealed itself shut.

“I take it you have not been awake for very long?”

“He actually just opened
his eyes less than five minutes before you showed up, Doc,” Aleah said from the doorway.

A frown creased the doctor’s face. Kevin caught the briefest of glimpses down at his feet. He was about to ask a question when the doctor spoke.

“Mister Dreon, you did a remarkable job getting here. Quite honestly, I have no idea how you survived. However, the human body has its limitations.” Kevin immediately heard the voice of Clint Eastwood. “You suffered some pretty severe frostbite. I did all that I could, but I am afraid that you lost a few toes.”

How many is a few?” Kevin felt silly asking, but at the moment, it was the only question that came to mind.

“Seven.” The doctor glanced at Aleah with a raised eyebrow. She shook her head. “And most of your left foot.”

Kevin felt the world swim for a moment. He felt a tangled mess of emotions that he could not unravel. Almost on cue, he felt a tickle from his left foot.

“Who put you up to this?” Kevin grabbed the blankets and pulled them off. With a ‘Ta-da’ gesture he swept his hand down at his feet and lifted his left leg in order to demonstrate that his foot was just fine thank you. Only, what he saw was a massive white blob and a lot of Ace bandages.

His face fell as the realization of the doctor’s words sunk in. He glanced over at Aleah and saw the tears.
Great
, he thought,
pity…just what I need
.

“Actually,” Doctor Thompson placed a hand on
Kevin’s chest to coax him back to lying down, “you are not the only person who had to go under my knife.”

“What?” Kevin tried to sit up again, but the doctor, for as small as she appeared, was incredibly strong—at least in co
mparison to Kevin in his current state.

“
Heather lost two fingers on her left hand and Matt…” Aleah’s voice faded. Tears filled her eyes. Kevin tasted bile building in the back of his throat.

“Miss Godwin is fine,” Doctor Thompson spoke up. “She lost a few
fingers and seems to be recovering fine.”

Aleah shot the look and the doctor seemed to weigh it for a moment. Kevin felt
dread seizing his heart. Had they done something to her because she is immune? And what about Matt?

“Matt had to be put down,” Aleah finally said after a nod from the doctor.

“Was he bit?” Kevin knew it had to be more than that. As harsh as it seemed, this was a part of the new reality. The shock of losing people had been numbed by the inundation that each and every one of them experienced. At least that is how Kevin saw things.

“Actually, no…” Doctor Thompson placed a hand on Al
eah’s arm now and indicated that she would be the bearer of bad news. “It seems that Heather and the young man were engaged in a sexual relationship. Miss Godwin was pregnant unbeknownst to us when we operated and lost the baby the same evening. However, the young man slipped into a coma and turned the next day while in isolation. I examined him myself prior and know for a fact that he displayed no evidence of being bitten or scratched. The best guess we have is that the zombie virus, or whatever the hell it became classified as by the folks at CDC, is transmittable by blood.”

“We already figured that out…sorta,” Kevin whispered.

He felt a wave of dread hit him hard. That whole situation with Mike turning despite not being bit replayed in his head. How could he have not thought that whole situation through?

You always think you know it all and have all the answers, don’t you?
the voice in his head said with obvious derision.

“Heather is really broken up about this,” Aleah said from behind the doctor. “She kept saying something abo
ut she should have known after Mike? Does that make any sense?”

Kevin winced. Is that what he sounded like? Thinking that he should have known? How could they have known anything? The reality of this new world was coming fast and hard.

“I think we should let you get some rest.” The doctor stood and produced a syringe out of thin air like a magician—at least that was what Kevin was thinking as she administered the medication via piggyback at the junction of the tube running from his hand to the bag suspended overhead.

Just that quick, Kevin felt the room begin to spin and his eyelids were suddenly much more sensitive to gravity.
His final thoughts were that he still had not received a very complete update on Valarie. That brought on troubled dreams.

***

“Kevin?” a voice whispered in the darkness.

“Yeah?” For just a moment, his mind kept him blissfully i
gnorant. For that single instance, the zombie apocalypse did not exist. He took a deep cleansing breath and yawned.

Then it slammed into his br
ain with the ferocity of a head-on collision. The pain, the screams, the misery…the death and loss. Just that quick, the icy grip of reality clutched his heart.

“How are you feeling?” the voice whispered in the darkness.

“Woozy…and my foot itches…only…” His voice began a strangled sob. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then a head lay on his chest.

Together in the darkness, Kevin and Heather wept. Neither tried to tell the other that things would “be okay” or any other hollow words that people seemed compelled to say when they really had no words that could offer comfort of any substance.

“It is all my fault,” Heather finally said, sitting up and scrubbing at her face.

“You could not have possibly known.” Kevin reached around until he found her hands. He squeezed them tight. “This is not like anything we ever saw in movies
or on television. Nothing in any of the books that I read concocted any scenarios like this.”

“This ain’t the movies,” Heather said with a sniff as she r
ecited Kevin’s mantra.

“I am just glad that you are okay.” Kevin sat up a little and moved over so that Heather could sit beside him more comfort
ably. “So what happened after we split? I take it this is Willa’s group?”

“We got lucky…at least that is what we keep being told. It seems that
there are four herds moving east…big ones. The scout teams say that it is just a matter of time before those groups converge. I guess we moved right down an alley of sorts. A mile north or south would have put us directly in their path. Considering the number of close calls we had I guess they are right.

“That night was crazy. We found a trailer park and managed to scrounge up some clothes. A lot of it was moldy and gross, but it beat the alternative. Matt kept pushing us, saying that we had to hurry. I guess he knew that he was sick. When morning came, he
was wearing dark sunglasses, so none of us knew a thing.

“Believe it or not, Erin was quiet the whole time. She didn’t gripe or complain. Of course she is also the one who came out of this the best. She was bundled up pretty good and other than some ugly sores and parts that will never probably recover their feeling, she came out unscathed. The rest of us lost at least a couple of digits.”

Kevin realized that he had not given Aleah a good examination. He had been too foggy and as soon as the doctor arrived, she had moved into the background.

“So I hear you can only count to eight now,” Kevin said in a weak attempt at humor. He was actually surprised when Heather chuckled.

She held up her hands.  His eyes had slowly become accustomed to the darkness, but he was confused. He counted ten fingers. Then she reached over and grabbed the middle and index finger of her right hand and twisted. She was wearing gloves.

“Aleah told me that you…” Heather’s voice faded when she felt Kevin’s body tense.

“Yeah. I lost a foot, plus a couple of toes on my other foot. It is weird, because I keep feeling things where the foot should be. In fact, the worst is when it starts to itch.”

“That’s kind of spooky,” Heather said.

There was a long silence. Both had things swirling in their heads. But neither knew what to say or where to begin. Finally, Kevin broke.

“I’m sorry about your…baby.”

“To be honest, I felt sad, but the more terrible part was when I felt relieved. I can’t imagine trying to worry about a baby right now. That thing would be a living zombie dinner bell. It’s not like you can just tell a baby to be quiet until the zombies are gone.”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “That would be a definite problem, but we would deal with it. We have with everything else, right.”

Heather was silent for a few minutes. When she spoke, her voice sounded strained and almost afraid.

“We need to talk about Valarie.”

“What about her?” Kevin could feel the apprehension coming off Heather.