DEAD: Confrontation (20 page)

***

“Everybody pulls their load here,” Colonel Shipley had said with
a voice that was far too gentle-sounding for the person it came from.

Colonel Dawn Shipley had been in a Humvee driving down some side street in Bagdad when the IED blew. It snapped the armored Humvee in half like it was made of balsa wood. A piece of hot, twisted steel drove into her
face just above the left eye. The corpsman that arrived first had her written off for dead.

Several months later, the colonel was being touted as a me
dical miracle. Copies of her x-ray with the piece of metal piercing her skull had been passed around like a nudie picture in a frat house. It had cost her the eye and pieces of her memory—including any and all recollection of the man she was about to marry.

He arrived at the hospital when she came stateside. He spoke with her, but Dawn Shipley was no longer his “ray of su
nshine” that he remembered. This woman was harsh, cold, and suffered from horrible facial disfigurement. He could almost endure the first two, but that final one was the nail in the coffin of their relationship.

Then Major Shipley poured herself into her job and rose through the ranks after fighting the Army and its attempt to send her into retirement. She had been at a seminar in Cleveland when all hell broke loose.

With no unit, she had fought and worked her way south to Columbus solely because she knew that to be the location of the president’s daughter. She would hook up with any military unit she found once she arrived. It had proved more difficult that imagined. The roads were living enactments of the movie
Death Race
as chaos took a firm toehold.

Eventually she found her way to Columbus. But by then, the city was in flames that would never see a fire crew, the undead outnumbered the living by thousands to one, and the president’s daughter was gone. Luck had shone on the colonel a few days later when she heard the sounds of heavy machinery rolling through.

She caught up with the caravan just in time to see it blow through a barricade. She watched in horror as the soldiers swarmed the helpless civilians, shooting some, tossing others to the horde of undead that gathered in their wake.

She was watching this nightmare unfold when her eyes caught movement on the rooftop of a building just down from the one she was hiding in.
That was how she found the all-female camp consisting of soldiers, some civilians, and much to her surprise, the president’s daughter, Shelly Bransen.

Since that time, she had instilled order into the ragtag group. While many of the women had suffered some horrible ordeals in the months after the dead began to walk and wipe out the living, there was a fighting spirit that would have gone a long way to dispel the myth that women could not be effective combat so
ldiers. Even Shelly Bransen had taken to the training and proved to be not only an excellent shot, but very cool under duress.

Everything was shaping up nicely until Willa Nelson had taken off after that
damn fool Kevin Dreon. Had she known that the man accompanying him was an actual doctor, she would have ‘detained’ the pair and convinced them that joining her group would be beneficial to all concerned.

Here it was almost two months later and Kevin Dreon was now in her camp. She had heard all sorts of wondrous things about his ability to devise plans when dealing with the undead. It seemed that he was one of those ‘zombie geeks’ before the real world event. Not one to turn away a valuable resource, she had taken in the group when they arrived and explained who they were. It had been unfortunate that Sergeant Nelson would not be returning. However, it was good to have some intel on the ren
egade Major Beers and her band of looting marauders.

When the man known as Kevin Dreon had arrived, it was on the verge of too late. The initial reports were that the best they could hope for was that he lost a foot. However, death was still sitting at the table for the first few days. Doctor Thompson had done her miracle and kept the man alive. In addition, the man had arrived with a young African-American woman who su
ffered from, among other things, Down’s syndrome. It also turned out that she was hallucinatory and prone to fits.

When the doctor initially suggested making a hospital run for prosthetics and the materials needed to provide them to Ke
vin as well as a few of the other survivors that had joined them over the harsh winter months, her initial reaction had been to say no. However, it was eventually argued that the benefits of this outweighed the dangers. Besides, making a run on the hospital now might actually be feasible. The undead did not just remain stationary. It was almost a certainty that there would be plenty inside the hospital to deal with, but it would be a great benefit for them to acquire as much of the medical supplies as they could before they were all rendered useless.

***

“I mean what I say, ladies,” Colonel Shipley fixed the group with her one good eye. It burned a crystal blue and held more power than if she’d had both at her disposal.

“Yes, ma’am,” Angel Henderson snapped to attention and saluted.

“I mean it, Henderson. If Miss Brock here steps out of line and endangers the mission, you either put her down or leave her ass behind.” The colonel gave Aleah a hard stare. “I don’t want you bringing back the undead population of the city of Newark, Ohio on your heels because she wants to make life better for her lover boy.”

“Excuse me,” Aleah snapped. “But in case you missed out on the whole plan, we aren’t just doing this for Kevin. A lot of
your
people will benefit.”

Colonel Shipley had no trouble suppressing her smile. She had done exactly what she wanted with her words. She had put the group on notice and she had gotten under this girl’s skin. If she could insert that splinter
of doubt into the Brock girl, then hopefully she would not venture too far out on the limb.

She certainly expected the young lady to do everything in her power to make this mission a success. That was actually her reason for including her in the first place. She had a vested inte
rest in seeing it through. However, she did not want her so blinded by her desire to help her boyfriend that she took unnecessary risks.

“Be that as it may,” the colonel said without the slightest pause, “I will not
jeopardize my people or this location. We cannot move out until this frozen slice of hell thaws out a bit. In case you haven’t noticed, almost half of my people have suffered from frostbite to some degree. We did not plan this little run until you insisted that you had enough background on the area for it to be a possibility. Going into cities may not be as dangerous as they were a few months ago, but rest assured that there are still plenty of the dead walking those streets to make it a considerable risk.”

“We will be back within the week as ordered,” Jan Seiber spoke up. She shot a look at Aleah that basically told her to be quiet. “I am sure that Miss Brock is aware of the importance of the mission while still realizing that we have to operate within certain safety parameters.”

Jan Seiber was a seven-year veteran besides growing up an Army brat. She knew full well that there was absolutely no sense in arguing with an officer. They always felt like they were right…no matter what reality might say to the contrary. The best way to deal with the brass was to smile and nod. Once you got in the field, the “real” soldiers did their job.

“I will hold you to those words, Sergeant Seiber.” With that, the colonel turned and headed back to the tent complex.

Seven figures dressed out in full exposure gear, each armed with a variety of ranged and close-in weapons, headed to the ladder that would allow them to exit this nameless camp. As they climbed down, a cold wind blew, whipping up any of the snow that had not frozen over. None of them remarked or even really noticed the dazzling prismatic display as the sunlight refracted when it struck the crystals of ice and created a rainbow swirl of color all around them.

9

Billy

“…and as we gather here together, let us try not to think o
nly of the loss each of us feels, but to remember all the wonderful moments that we shared with our dear and beloved friends, Steve Hobart, Jesus Sanchez, DeAngelo Cribbs…”

I hear the words, but I still can’t believe that he is gone. Looking around at what is left of our group, I don’t see a single dry eye. When Teresa and Jamie died, everybody felt it. But this…this is different.

“Billy?”

I snap my head up and see the doctor looking at me expec
tantly. Oh yeah…I have the torch. With a nod, I lean forward and allow the flames to lick at the pyre. I hear a wail behind me and don’t need to look to know that it is Melissa. She has been a basket case since she heard. In fact, it is almost a contest between her, Cheryl, and Melinda to see who can cry the longest. I can’t blame them, but I seriously cannot take much more of it.

As the fire burns, I watch everybody peel off and head back up to the cabin. I can’t help but notice that Thalia falls behind. Eventually she stops. Nobody seems to notice. She watches them all file through the door and then I see her head down the hill towards Death Alley.

I give the fire a cursory glance and head after her. The last thing we need is a missing child. I try not to be mad at the so-called adults. I mean, how do they not notice a little girl missing?

“Thalia!” I call as I round the corner. I see her standing at the drawbridge. Good thing she isn’t strong enough to hoist it herself. Who knows what she has on her mind. “Wait up!”

“Oh…hello, Billy,” she says quietly.

“Where you headed?” I ask.

“Will you help me get Buster?” I am ready to tell her that right now might not be the best time when she turns and looks up at me with tear-filled eyes.

Crap.

I nod and lower the bridge so that we can cross. I start trying to sort through the events from almost two weeks ago. I recall our group making a run for the rendezvous location. If it wasn’t for Jake, we might not have made it.

Man, if there is anybody that I want to be more like…it’s that guy. He waded into that cluster of zombies like they were nothing. I never saw anybody use knives like that. I gotta have him show me how the heck he does
it. He was like a human blender. The thing is, a lot of times when you use a blade on a zombie, you can get it stuck. Not Jake. The guy is a machine!

By the time we got down the hill, it was almost dark. All three of the children were too tired to keep walking. Me, Brad, and Christina were carrying them while
Jake and Cheryl led the way. I remember Buster being with us up to a point. I guess I never paid attention. At some point, the dog just wasn’t there.

To be honest, I was tired and we’d had to fight through more zombies than I care to remember. Not once did we see one of the raiders. Raiders…what a joke they turned out to be.

I paused when Thalia started to enter the woods. We were already too far away from the cabin if something were to happen considering that everybody was inside and we didn’t even have anybody in the crow’s nest yet.

“Thalia?” I called. She looked back at me, but then she just kept going! I knew better than to go wandering the woods wit
hout my knife, so I pulled it out and continued to follow.

I kept searching my memories for the last time I saw that li
ttle dog. Nothing was coming to mind. Things had gotten so crazy. Between hearing the sporadic gunfire and hoping that our people were on the winning side, then add in dodging zombies and hoping to God that you didn’t step on one that might be buried in the snow like with what happened to Emily, and noticing details seemed to go right out the window. Seriously, I don’t know how guys like Jon and Jake do what they do. Nothing seems to rattle them.

I remember Jake leading us through the worst of the herd. From then on out, i
t was mostly stragglers or ones that came out when they heard us since there really wasn’t any way we could make this trip in silence.

Once we reached our
fallback location, Jake put me and Brad up on the roof to keep watch. At some point, the doctor came up with some hot water and a complete change of clothes for me. I honestly don’t know which was better. I didn’t much care for her standing there while I changed even though she is a doctor and all. It felt like being naked in front of my grandma.

When I went down after Cheryl relieved me
, I just sort of collapsed. That was it until morning and Jake was waking me up. I must have missed the initial report, because everybody was standing around with shocked looks on their faces and Jon was in the room with some girl tied up and gagged. She looked a bit like an MMA fighter at the end of a nasty ground-and-pound match.

It took me a few minutes to pick up on the fact that we had suffered some casualties, but it wasn’t until I saw the look in Melissa’s face that I realized that Steve was one of them. I get that we lost some others, but Steve and Jesus were the biggest losses as far as I was concerned—Steve, because he just always seemed to know how to keep us together as a group, and Jesus because he was a bad ass like Jake and Jon.

Plus, to be honest, I didn’t really know Doug Coates, DeAngelo kept to himself and the women, Nickie and Fiona, well…they were women. I never hung out or spoke to either of them unless it was to pass something at the table during a meal or to share any information during watch turn over.

A weird sort of growl snapped me back to reality. I had to shake my head a few times to clear it
and totally focus on what was happening. Thalia had this blade that was almost as big as she was. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but it was easily as long as her arms. She held it in both hands and was circling to the left, away from me. About ten feet away was the ragged remains of Buster the Border Collie. She was missing one of her hind legs, but she could still move well enough on three.

“Thalia!” I snapped. She may just be a little kid, but give her credit, she didn’t even glance my way for a second. Her eyes were locked on that dog. Or rather, what was left.

I started forward and raised my own weapon.

“No!” Thalia said. I could not see her face, but I knew cr
ying when I heard it. “Buster was mine and Emily’s dog. I do this.”

Then she started saying something in Spanish. Again, I couldn’t understand a word, but I know praying when I hear it.

The problem I faced was that if I stood here like an idiot and let this little girl handle her business…and she got nipped…I was gonna catch every kind of hell imaginable…and probably some new varieties as well. The best I could hope for was that they would not throw my ass out in the snow.

I edged just a bit closer. I guess Thalia knew that I couldn’t just stand there. She rushed that dog with her blade raised and came down hard with it on the furry little head.

I’ll be honest, I was having my doubts about my own ability to hack that little dog. She might have been Thalia’s and Emily’s, but everybody spent their fair amount of time scratching her belly or rubbing her ears. More than once she and I had played a little fetch.

“I’m sorry, Buster,” she said with a sniff as she pulled her
weapon free.

For just five years old, she had just pulled a pretty wicked move. I was impressed. Still, we needed to get back to the cabin. We walked in silence for most of the way. When we reached the blazing funeral pyre, Thalia stopped. She stared up at the bodies, and even though they were all sort of lined up together, I knew which one she was looking at
, so I just stood quiet and let her have her moment.

“Do you think there is a Heaven?” Thalia asked, breaking the relative silence. I mean, it wasn’t perfectly quiet. I had never really noticed how loud a fire was until all of this.

I stalled for a moment.
Hell, Thalia, I’m only seventeen. I don’t have any idea what I believe
. That was what I thought; what I said was, “Maybe.” Seriously, that was the best I could do.

“I think there is.” With those words, she turned and walked up to the cabin.

I followed and expected to be greeted by a flurry of questions. Instead, it was just more sad looks and quiet. Thalia went over to the bench where Misty was sitting by herself. I could not see or hear anything, but Misty looked at Thalia for a second and then got up and moved to a chair on the opposite side of the room. Melissa, Cheryl, and Melinda had obviously gone back to their beds. Dr. Zahn was sitting in a chair by the fireplace beside Jake and Christina. Jon and Sunshine were over in a corner whispering, and Brad was suiting up to head for the crow’s nest. Levent and Rabia were at the table, both seemed to be praying. They each had their eyes shut tight and were rocking forward and back just a bit. From where I stood I could see their lips moving but couldn’t hear anything.

That is it. That is all that is left of our group. One way or another, we had lost everybody else.
It had been a nasty several days. I was headed to the back to look for something to eat when Jon waved me over.

“I want you to come with me,” he said barely above a whi
sper. I glanced at Sunshine and could tell that she wasn’t too happy.

“Where we headed?”

He didn’t answer and just walked to the big bathroom that we had been converting into more sleeping quarters; we wouldn’t need those for a while now. At least I knew where he was taking me. The question was why.

We en
tered the room and Jon walked right over to the figure tied up in the corner. He pulled off the gag and crouched down in front of her. He had captured her the day we lost everybody. She was one of the would-be raiders. So far, only Jon had been in the room during her interrogations as far as I knew. Heck, I didn’t even know the lady’s name.

“This is the last chance,” he said with no emotion at all.

Honestly, I did not see how this lady had held out as long as she did. Just hearing Jon’s voice like that was enough to make me have to pee. She just stared up at him with what was almost a smile on her face.

“Then what? You beat me up again? Big deal.” Her voice sounded kinda sexy
to me even though she was talking through swollen lips and her nose was obviously busted. Well, that or pretty much every girl was starting to sound sexy.

“Actually…we have a nice big fire outside. You see, you and your people are responsible for a lot of my friends d
ying…so maybe I will just take you outside and let you join them.”

It took me a minute, but then I figured out what Jon was saying. I guess it took her a few seconds as well. I saw the look on her face the
moment she realized what Jon was getting at.

“You wouldn’t do that…the doctor lady said that there wouldn’t be any more torture. She promised—”

“She isn’t in charge!” Jon cut her off. As mean and aggressive as that statement felt, he still was managing to have absolutely no emotion in his voice. Yep, I would have totally wet my pants by now. “And I am not going to torture you…I will simply toss you on that fire and let you die.”

“How is that not torture?”

I could not believe she was still arguing.

“Because…I am talking about execution.”

“You mean murder!”

“Call it what you will,” Jon said with a shrug.

He leaned down and shoved the gag back in her mouth. Then he looked over at me. I was confused. I had absolutely no clue what help he thought that I would be at this point…or any point for that matter.

“Grab her feet, Billy,” Jon said.

I don’t know where it came from, but somehow I found my body moving forward. With about as much coordination as the damn zombies, I leaned over and grabbed her feet. We had gone about three steps toward the door when she really began to thrash about. She was trying to say something.

“Drop her,” Jon said, and let her upper half go. She hit the ground with a nasty thud before I could get my hands to do as they were told. I let go of her feet

He knelt beside her and pulled the gag down again. The only problem was that she had gotten the air knocked out of her a bit when her upper body hit the floor. She made a few weak croaking noises while she kept shaking her head. Finally, she seemed to get back her ability to breathe, and then eventually to speak.

“What! What do you want me to tell you?” the woman wheezed.

“I want to know your numbers, the location of your camp, and how you brought that herd to us,” Jon hissed. “The same questions that I have asked you time and time again.”

The woman closed her eyes. After taking a few deep breaths, she finally started talking.

“Our group sort of came together over the past few months. We are what is left of probably six or seven other groups, and if you think we are something…then you have no idea. Down in the valley around La Grande, there are probably three major groups and a dozen or so little ones all within about twenty miles of each other fighting over every scrap.

“Some of us got together after our groups were either wiped out or sent running and we decided to head up into the mou
ntains. Didn’t seem that any of the others were too excited about heading up into this frozen bit of hell.”