Dead: Siege & Survival (25 page)

“Since you let your baby die?” Heather prompted.

In a surprising flash, Erin’s fist lashed out, catching Heather on the nose with an audible crunch. There was a snarl of anger and then the younger girl tackled the older one, sending them both to the floor in a heap.

Kevin and Matt waded in to pull the two apart—Matt ending up with Erin and Kevin with Heather. The tent flap opened and a soldier stuck his head inside. He only seemed to take a casual glance before ducking back out.

“You two need to knock it off,” Kevin hissed. Heather went to pull away and he jerked her back hard. “I mean it. If we are going to survive, we will all need each other before this is done and over.”

“It won’t ever be over!” Erin spat. “Those dead things aren’t ever going to go away. Nothing is ever going to be like it was!”

“No,” Kevin agreed, “it’s not. And I won’t lie to you and say otherwise. However, we are still very much alive, and I intend to do everything in my power to keep us that way. What I won’t do is victimize others in the process. I can’t accept this major and her people as anything more than raiders and bad guys. They rolled in and
took
our place. And I’m not asking you to trust Willa and her group either. However, if it weren’t for her…I might very well be dead. She actually left her group to come find me, and then helped me get back here.”

“She sounds pretty amazing,” Aleah whispered.

“And she also knows that I have an unwavering crush on a beautiful woman.” Kevin wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected something weird coming from Aleah. Having never really had a serous girlfriend—much less one that would display anything remotely resembling jealousy—he was on some uncharted ground.

“So what is it that you would have us do?” Matt asked, still keeping a grip on Erin; tightening it any time she struggled to get free.

11

Vignettes XXVIII

Aaheru gazed out at the sea. The surface was as smooth as glass; a delicate veil of mist swirled across the water in spots. The sun was still below the horizon, but its orange glow already gave the sky a lovely tinge of blood red that could easily be seen as an omen for what lay ahead.

“Pharaoh?” a soft voice spoke from behind him.

“Yes, Ahmes?”

“I have news.”

Aaheru turned to face the girl. Her dark caramel skin was made even more radiant by the light of the breaking dawn. She stared at the ground, waiting for his acknowledgement. Her beauty made him pleased with his decision to do away with those cursed burqas. Women were truly a gift from God to be enjoyed by all the senses.

“Then do not have me wait, Child of the Moon.”

“Your seed is strong and I am with child.” Ahmes glanced up, her dark eyes betraying her. The pride was etched clearly on her face.

“Are you certain?”

“I have not had any tests by a doctor…but a woman knows her body.”

Woman
, Aaheru tried to conceal his smile at her use of that word. By most standards, Ahmes was still a girl. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d imagined her to at least be sixteen. The night in his bed that she revealed herself to be a mere thirteen, he’d almost sent her away…almost.

Who could fault him? The girl was a true Egyptian beauty. Besides, the ideals of the Old World had considered her of a suitable age after her first bleeding. Those ideals were being revived as he assumed the title of pharaoh. If they were to give rise to a New Egypt, then they would have to bring children into the world in abundance.

“Are you pleased, my Pharaoh?” Ahmes whispered, a tinge of uncertainty clouding her eyes and forcing the glow of pride to hide like a sun behind scudding clouds.

“I am, my beautiful child,” Aaheru said, scooping her up in his arms. When he brought her up to his lips for an embrace, he only briefly considered the difference in their size as he felt her feet brush his knees.

Eventually he set her on the deck and they stood in silence as the sun lit up the sky. Despite its radiance, there was still a chill in the air and Ahmes shivered slightly against Aaheru.

“So, where are we going?” Ahmes finally broke the perfect stillness, her voice barely audible above the deep—more felt than heard—resonance of the ship’s engines.

“Off the shores of Greece there are hundreds if not thousands of islands. My vision is that we will claim one and make it our home. Over time, we will grow in strength and claim them one by one as ours. Eventually, we will be ready to claim the mainland.”

“So do you aspire to be Pharaoh or Caesar?” the girl said with a tinge of laughter.

“You surprise me yet again, Ahmes,” Aaheru said, turning the girl to face him.

“My name has more meaning than the one you chose,” she said with that pride returning to blaze in her eyes. “It was also the name of a famous scribe.”

“Still,” Aaheru countered, “it is uncommon for a daughter to be so well educated except in the most wealthy of families where the thinking has a more…Western leaning than is the norm.”

“My father was the Ambassador to Great Britain,” Ahmes said with a sigh. “We were only supposed to be visiting for a dignitary’s wedding. We were in the airport when they came in great numbers and overwhelmed the security force. I watched my entire family fall under a wave of those repulsive creatures. I managed to climb up on top of a statue. I sat on its cold marble shoulders for two days trying to be silent as those things stumbled over each other. Every time I thought I would be able to crawl down and run, somebody would appear and stir things up again.

“Sometimes one of them would spot me and begin to paw at the statue and make noise. This would bring others. Then, somebody in hiding would try to run and draw them away. Finally, I decided that I had no choice…hungry, thirsty, and covered in my own filth, I made a run for it.”

Aaheru had a new appraisal of this girl. She was not so different from him. She would fight to survive at all costs. Her will to live matched his own.

“You are indeed the choice of the gods to be my queen and the first Mother of New Egypt.” Aaheru felt a stirring deep down below his belly.

Scooping the tiny figure into his arms he carried her to the stateroom that he had claimed as his own. The soft moans of passion wafted from beyond the closed door a few moments later.

Ahi stood in the corridor for a moment. He’d come to speak with Aaheru about a disturbing discovery. The engineer had come to him moments ago to report that an attempt had been made to sabotage the engines. The perpetrator had escaped before being identified or apprehended.

The sounds of passion were rising in intensity and volume. Ahi shrugged. He’d been outside Aaheru’s tent before during such instances. He could wait another minute or two.

***

Mackenzie felt the air swirl across the back of her hand as the mouth closed with a snap, missing her by a hair’s breadth. She staggered back a step as the dog rolled over and landed awkwardly on the floor at her feet. Something struck her in the side knocking her over. Her head bounced hard off the floor causing a bright flash and then the sensation of the room tipping and spinning like the old Tilt-a-Whirl at the county fairs she had loved so much as a child.

There was a commotion and an odd gurgle, followed by a dull thud and sickly crunch. Mackenzie struggled to remain conscious and found herself looking up into a face that took her a moment to recognize.

“Juan?” Her hands went to his cheeks and she could feel the moisture of tears coating them.

“Are you okay?” Juan’s voice was frantic.

“I’m fine,” she moaned, “and if you would get your huge body off mine, I might even be able to catch my breath.”

Juan rolled away and got to his knees. He glanced over his shoulder just as Frank was yanking his machete from the skull of the dog. The two shared a look and Frank quickly glanced around. His eyes came to rest on an old blanket thrown over the back of the couch in the living room. As he went about the task of wrapping the remains of the dog and dragging it outside, Juan helped Mackenzie to her feet. Twice he tried to lift her up, and twice his hands were slapped away.

“I hit my head, Juan,” she said softly, wincing with each word. “I didn’t break my legs.”

“Maybe you should lie down for a while,” he suggested.

“Actually, you get to stay up and be my alarm clock all night.”

Mackenzie patted Juan’s arm as she made her way to the bathroom where she used a make-up mirror and the one on the medicine cabinet to get a look at her head. She fumbled around in the cabinet until she found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Pour some of this on my bath towel and dab at the wound. It is going to bubble up, so don’t worry.”

“I know what hydrogen peroxide does,” Juan grumbled as he did as she asked.

A few minutes later, they returned into the living room to find Frank on his knees with a bucket, rubber gloves, and scrub brush, cleaning up the mess from the dog. Juan cleared the table, suddenly no longer hungry. He didn’t think it had anything to do with the dog turning to a deader; he’d seen them before and it was only slightly less unpleasant than seeing a child, but not enough to put him off his dinner. No, he knew damn well what it was. He glanced at Mackenzie who was making small talk with Frank as he continued to clean.

He’d almost lost her.

Not wanting to wait another second, he pulled one of his field belts from the pegs in the hallway and strapped it on his waist.

“So you’re heading out to go find those children?” Mackenzie asked.

“Not tonight,” Juan replied with a shake of his head.

“But—” she began to protest.

“Going out at night in this weather is asking for trouble. We will end up with more people dead and nothing good to show for it,” Juan cut off Mackenzie’s protest. Frank opened his mouth and Juan held up a hand. “And I can’t tell you what to do, but if we are going to have a chance at finding your friends and making it back alive, then we do it my way.”

“So what does that mean?” Frank asked as he carried the bucket to the front door, stepped outside and tossed it. Almost on cue, a flash of lightning lit up the darkness to reveal a pouring rain.

“That means I will get a couple of others to come, and we will let you direct us as to where we search…but I have my conditions.”

“I’m listening.” Frank set the bucket down and closed the door on the storm outside.

“We go out there for three days. If we don’t find anything in that time…I come home and bring my people with me. You aren’t under my orders in
that
decision
only
. You want to stay out there and keep looking, then you go right ahead. But I am not going to risk a bunch of my people for some kid who wants to be an idiot.” Juan paused for a moment before adding, “And I am bringing
all
my boats back with me.”

“That’s fair,” Frank agreed.

“Juan,” Mackenzie whispered.

“Yeah,” he turned with a look of concern on his face. There had been something in her voice that he didn’t like.

What he saw when he turned around brought a lump to his throat. His mind tried so hard to process what he was seeing, but nothing made any sense.

Mackenzie was standing in the arch between the kitchen and the dining room. She was paler than anything Juan could ever remember seeing in his life. She was holding out her hands, both were slick with fresh blood. Her jeans had a visibly growing dark stain at her crotch. She took a step forward and collapsed. Juan was just able to catch her before her head hit the floor.

“Go get somebody!” Juan screamed.

He was only vaguely aware of Frank’s response. He didn’t hear the door open and slam as the man left. He was focused with his entire being on the woman he held clutched to his chest.

***

“Why can’t we just send out hunting parties?” a voice asked from the back of the room.

Chad had called a meeting of everybody in Yosemite Village in the large, open dining room of the hotel that was going to serve as their home for the foreseeable future. With the threat of rebellion and in-fighting seemingly over, now they had to focus on the task at hand of surviving the winter.

“The temperature has been hovering around zero for the past few days.” Michael stepped up beside Chad after a nod. “We just do not have the gear to withstand being out overnight in that sort of weather.”

“But I thought we had foul weather gear…and some of the shops had some pretty nice sub-zero rated clothing,” another voice shouted back to be heard over the grumbles of the crowd.

“Clothing we have,” Michael agreed. “What we are lacking is tents, sleeping gear, that sort of thing.”

“So why can’t we just hunt in this area?” another voice argued.

“Because all the fighting, fires, and zombies have probably run off every single animal for miles around,” Michael answered with just a slight edge to his voice.

“We are going to have to cut back,” Chad said. His statement was immediately met with a chorus of angry complaints. He let them go for a few seconds before raising his hands to try and settle the crowd.

“We are already practically starving,” a woman cried. “My children can’t keep going hungry!”

Another angry chorus rose. Michael stepped forward again. He clasped his hands behind his back and waited for everybody to notice him and quiet down.

“If I have three volunteers, I will take a small group down into the valley. Be aware that, if you come, you do what I say, when I say it. It is not a democracy. We will make a supply run and try to return within a month. We will be on skis going down, so if you can’t ski, don’t bother raising your hand. I don’t have time to teach you. Once we come down out of the snow, we will be on foot. There will probably be someplace down there where we can find a snowplow or something that we can use to make the return trip. We will bring as much food as we can back with us.”

A lot of heads dropped, eyes searching the floor rather than make contact with anybody and reveal the fear. Chad glanced at Scott who nodded. Brett nodded as well, but Chad gave him a slight shake of the head. Brett scowled, but stayed put when Chad and Scott raised their hands.