DEAD: Confrontation (32 page)

“But weren’t you headed for someplace like South Dakota or something?” Heather asked.

“Yeah…so?”

“Isn’t that place like…all rock or something?”

“Not at all. The state has plenty of farmland. Even better, it has a population of less than a million. It is somewhere around eight or nine hundred thousand. We find a nice valley near a river and we will have everything that we need. Someplace along the Missouri River would be ideal as long as we are very far south of the dam. And there are plenty of other locations. Actually, my biggest concern is dealing with the locals. I have a feeling that we will find more survivors in a place like that simply because it is so spread out population-wise. The few big cities that exist probably fell just like any other, but you are talking about hundreds of thousands of acres of land with very few people inhabiting it. Most of them armed…most of them hunters or fishers.”

Heather was silent for a moment. She considered what Ke
vin said, however, there were a few problems. First, he had not really addressed what his plans were for Valarie. And second, like it or not, he was in no condition to make a long journey. Just as Valarie’s condition was a hindrance, so too was his. If Aleah returned and the run proved to be a failure, then Kevin would find himself hard pressed to travel. She did not know how far away it was, but travelling just a few miles was an entirely different monster these days. Heather patted herself on the back for her off-the-cuff pun.

“And what does any of this have to do with Valarie?” He
ather was hoping that she could get Kevin back on the track he seemed inclined to stray from so deftly.

Kevin lay back in his bed and closed his eyes for a few minutes. Heather began to believe that he had dismissed her e
ntirely and just drifted off to sleep. She stood and was about to leave when he finally spoke.

“We are going to leave her the way we found her.”

15

Scared S**tless

“How far?” I guess I hadn’t really given it any thought when they told me we were hiking to the valley, La Grande in particular.

“About sixty or seventy miles,” Jake said.

The problem was, he was saying it like it was just around the corner. We had been on the move for two days. From what I could see, the only thing around the corner was more godforsaken snow.

“And how far have we gone?” I didn’t actually want the a
nswer. I just knew it was going to be bad.

“Maybe thirty,” Jake said with a shrug.

Half way? He was saying that we were
maybe
only half the way to our destination? The only thing that I could see that was worth getting excited about was the fact that the snow was only patchy in spots. It still felt cold, but not nearly like it did up at the cabin.

We’d had very few encounters with the undead. The ones that we did encounter were more hampered by the snow than we were. I thought there were a few times that we could have just left them behind. When I asked Jon about it after three of us got sent up into the woods in order to take down a dozen of them, Jon said he didn’t want them on our tail. Never knew if we would need to retreat in a hurry. I guess that made sense.

“Up ahead!” Marty Gibbs spoke in that whisper that is almost louder than real conversational levels.

Our line was stretched about fifty yards, with each of us in twos or threes. Marty
Gibbs and Stacy Nelson were currently on point. I saw Stacy hunched down and creeping forward to get a look at whatever it was they saw. From my position almost in the rear of the line, she was already vanishing around the corner and out of my line of sight.

I hated being in the rear. For one, you spend so much time looking backwards that your neck starts to hurt. For another, you are always the last to know just how bad a problem is. I brought my crossbow up and stepped farther away from Jake. One of the things that you wanted to be sure of was that you had plenty of room to maneuver when a fight came.

“Billy, you and Gino come with me,” Gabe called over his shoulder.

He bounded off into the woods on our left. I shot a look at Jon, but he was focused on whatever lay ahead, so I headed after the big man. I swear, even crouching, that guy is bigger than most people who are standing upright.

As we entered the trees, Gabe motioned for me to circle wide to the right. That put me farthest away from the road. Something in my head said to be careful. This would be a perfect time to take me out if these guys were intent on doing so.

The problem that I had with those feelings was that they had given no signs that they wanted to do anything of the sort. I think I was starting to absorb some of Dr. Zahn’s general di
strust. Jon and Jake have always been great to me—Jesus too, when he was still alive. I always fit in better around the soldiers than I did the other people; especially after Jamie killed himself.

I moved up this small hill so that I would be at the top of the ridge. As soon as I made it to the crest, I could actually see part of the road. Coming up were about two or three hundred wal
kers. Already, Stacy and Marty were on opposite sides of the road drawing some of the ones in the front away and taking them down.

From my position, I saw a clear path that would allow me to move along the length of this column. I gave a quick look down where Gabe and Gino were moving through the trees. Their job, and mine supposedly, was to move along and look for any of the “elements” of the herd that might be straggling through the woods. It was always a bad deal to be in the middle of a fight and have yourself surrounded.

I decided that it looked pretty clear as far as I could see. Those two didn’t really need my help. Plus, I would just be scouting ahead of them a ways. No big deal. I picked up my pace. If I could get in behind the herd, I could pick them off with ease. Zombies are pretty stupid. Once they get it in their head to move one way, they will just keep going. Picking the ones off in the rear wouldn’t even register to them.

As I moved, I kept checking on Gabe and Gino. There were only a couple that had actually strayed off the road, so they were really not having any problems. I came to the part of my little ridge that started down. I took one last look and made sure that everything was okay.

Moving between a pair of really big boulders, I felt a little bit of adrenaline start to surge. I was making my own move here. It was not exactly the way that we had planned, but I really was starting to feel like maybe they were keeping me out of the main fighting.

As I reached the edge of the trees, I saw that I had gone all the way around the big sweeping bend in the road. I was out of sight of everybody. The tail end of the herd was trudging on t
owards the others. I could hear the occasional call for somebody to cover a certain area. Yep, everything sounded just fine.

I stepped out of the trees and took a look to my right. It was really just reflex; after all, the zombies were to my left. The rear of this herd was pretty well spread across the entire highway. Some were in the eastbound, some were in the westbound lane, and some were in the median.

I froze in my tracks. Then, I jumped back into the trees and hoped that I had not been spotted. When I saw the dark figure move from behind a semi that was on its side covering a lane and a half with the angle it was sitting, and then three more followed, I was confident that they had not spotted me.

Brin
ging up my binoculars, I was able to get a good look at one of them. He was carrying an impressive assortment of weaponry. I saw a particularly nasty spiked club in his hand, an array of blades, but nothing with any range. As the others made themselves visible, it was more of the same. I was curious as to why anybody would go around without a bow or something.

It was obvious that they could hear my group. They were doing a lot of pointing and gesturing. I kept scanning from one to the other, taking in as much information as I could. This would all be stuff that Jon would want to know. Gabe too, I’m sure, but I would report to Jon and let him pass the news on.

I could not see any faces. Everybody was wearing masks, visors, or something along those lines. That wasn’t really that peculiar considering that you needed to stay protected from the cold. Also, with the thick clothing, it was impossible to tell gender. I mean, if one of them happened to be wearing a bright pink snowsuit, I might conclude that was a female, but no such luck.

I turned to head back and found myself face-to-face with Gino. He did not look happy.

I motioned for him to be quiet, and then I pointed. He looked past me and scowled. It took him longer than I would have thought to actually see what I was pointing at. Once he did, he crouched down lower beside me.

“Go tell the others, kid.”

Just like that I was back to being shuttled away from anything that might resemble danger. I guess I didn’t hide the expression too well.

“You wanna stay here? You up to the
possibility of having to kill a living, breathing human being?” The tone in Gino’s voice let me know that he was pretty sure I wasn’t “up to the possibility” of shooting anybody.

I started back the way I’d come. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Gino laying out a variety of weapons beside him as well as propping his crossbow up beside the tree.

I scrambled back up the hill and was not surprised to see that there were only a few stragglers left from that herd. For just a moment, I flashed back to something Steve had said about us becoming too comfortable with the zombies. From where I stood, I could see members of the team just walking from one to the next and jamming something in its head. He would really hate this.

I was mak
ing my way through the trees back to the road when Gabe stepped out from behind one. He scared me so bad that I did a few things at the exact same time: I swung wildly with the machete I was carrying—nothing but air—which probably helped with me falling over and banging my head on an exposed root which made me see stars. The last part could be the result of any combination of everything else that happened in that split second. I messed my pants. Not just the liquid kind either.

“What the hell are you doing running off like that?” Gabe snapped, not even bothering to offer me a hand up.

I wanted to explain myself, but I couldn’t make my mouth work just yet. I was still seeing double and my head felt like it had been used as a gong.

“I don’t know what sort of crap you were able to pull b
efore, but when you are out on a mission with me or my people, you do what you are assigned!”

“We have company just around the corner,” I snapped.

I don’t know if it was a combination of having the crap literally scared out of me, or just the fact that I was sick of being treated like a damn child. I climbed to my feet and glared up at this giant.

“You know…we did just fine before you and your people showed up. And for your information, I made sure that you guys were okay before I scouted ahead. And as I just said, there are people around the corner. No distance weapons that I could see, but they were definitely armed with plenty of close-in weapons. They were sneaking and trying to stay hidden, and they definit
ely heard us.”

Gabe glared down at me for a second, and then his expre
ssion changed just a bit. A huge grin split his face and I was ready to accept his apology.

“Messed your drawers, huh?” the man said with a laugh. “That’s gonna be mighty uncomfortable in a bit. Hope you can get cleaned up before long.”

Was this guy intentionally ignoring the fact that there were people just down the road? Or…I felt my stomach turn just a little.

“Thos
e wouldn’t happen to be friends of yours would they?” I asked.

Hell, if I was going out, at least it wasn’t being eaten alive. Maybe I would get shot in the head or something. My mouth was suddenly dry and I felt a little bit foolish. We had let our guard down. Unless…but surely Jon couldn’t be in with these people.

“Hey, Winters!” Jon’s voice called, almost on cue.

“Over here!” The big man looked down at me and smiled, shaking his head.

“That scout team of yours is already here,” Jon said as he came through the trees.

Damn
, I thought.
I should have known better
.

“Talk to your boy here,” Gabe said as he turned and walked away. “Damn fool took off on his own and tried to pull some sort of hero crap.”

I looked up at Jon with confusion. I was so very lost right now. Maybe I wasn’t nearly as smart as I thought…or as ready for this as they had assumed.

“What is he talking about?” Jon asked.

I explained it all to him. Naturally I left out the part where I thought that they were all in some sort of secret alliance together bent on killing everybody or taking over.

Jon sat silently through my rambling. At some point I heard Gino arrive. He started talking, and I could tell by the tone that I was the subject and that he was not happy. When I finished with my explanation, Jon remained quiet for a few minutes. Finally, he spoke.

“We give everybody an assignment, Billy. We do this for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest is knowing where each other is so that nobody gets dinged by friendly fire. Sometimes you get the crappy job…” he paused for a second and I could tell that he was struggling on whether or not to say something sarcastic about my current situation. “And sometimes, you are the one out on point. Believe me when I say, you will learn to relish those times when the boring assignment is yours.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

I was feeling terrible. Not only was I sitting in messy pants that were now really cold from where I was still sprawled on the frigid, wet ground, but to make it worse, I had all but decided that even one of the people I had come to trust and respect more than anybody in my life had turned into a ‘bad’ guy.

“Now go get cleaned up. Gabe might give you a little grief here and there, but the others will be merciless if they find out about your little…accident.”

I got up and looked for someplace that I could basically hide while I cleaned up and changed my clothes. There were some thick clusters of trees not too far away. As much as a person needed privacy at moments like this, being anywhere out in the open by yourself could be dangerous.

As I headed toward the trees that were about to become a combination latrine (I would bury everything I was wearing from the waist down) and changing room, Jon called out, “And don’t let it get to you…more soldiers have done the exact same thing then you might believe.”

It didn’t really instill me with any confidence or sense of feeling better. I slipped in amongst the green pine tree branches and started stripping. When voices came close, I froze. Partially because I was still only halfway done with the clean-up portion, but also because the voice I heard was a female. If one of the female soldiers found me, I think I might just walk into the next horde and be done.

“…one kid, and three men in the place
,” the one was saying. She had a bit of an accent, so I was guessing it was the Hispanic female. “And then there is that one gal who is very pregnant, there are three little ones, two girls and a boy, an old lady that reminds me of somebody’s mean grandmother. I swear, that lady never smiles and she watches everything.”