Dead: Siege & Survival (35 page)

“So why not just hike out of that place?” I asked.

“We had everything we needed except for food. We had a little…just not enough to last very long. Plus…” His voice trailed off. After a few deep breaths, he continued. “We were afraid. And we’d already lost so many of our community. Plus, the snow started. Then we were truly trapped. Honestly, we believed that we could hunt. Only, it just seemed like the game had left. Sometimes we would go days without even hearing birds. That was when it started to sink in that there might be problems. And then we realized something that, looking back, is kind of embarrassing.”

“What’s that?” Jon prompted after another of Mr. Patton’s long pauses.

“The sky,” he said with a shrug. “Not one single contrail. And none of us could recall when it was that we’d last seen one. And then there was that night when a few of the…” Once again Mr. Patton grew silent. Finally, he spoke, and that first word came out like he was trying to spit a foul taste from his mouth. “
Zombies
came…they attacked a few of us. That was when we decided to build a fence around part of the commune.”

“So who decided that it was time to start eating each other?” Jake blurted. He looked around the room at us and seemed embarrassed for a second. “You know that you were thinking it,” he finally said to me and Jon.

Mr. Patton sighed again. This one was different, though. He closed his eyes and you could see him wince and flinch. It was almost like he’d developed some sort of facial tick. Tears started to roll down his cheeks, and I honestly did not think that he was going to answer Jake’s question.

“We got so hungry.” His voice was barely above a whisper and he kept this eyes squeezed shut. “We’d actually buried some of our dead. But then some of the others began to fall. Not from being bitten—we’d secured all of them. The ground became too hard to be able to dig graves. Since it was so cold, we just decided to put them in one of the unused yurts. We would take care of them come the spring.

“But eventually our food was gone. Twice we sent a few volunteers out to try and find something…anything. None of them ever came back.”

I tried to imagine what that little bit of Hell must have felt like for those poor people. After all, it was hard enough those first days…weeks. What must it have been like for them to walk out into the world several months into it and discover everything was gone? Couple it with their obvious denial, and they were like zombie room service.

“…when Gail mentioned something about that soccer team that had crashed in the mountains back in the Seventies or something,” Mr. Patton said.

I snapped my attention back to him. I was actually curious about how that whole thing had come about. I guess you can’t judge somebody unless you have walked a mile in their shoes, but I could not even remotely imagine where things would have to go where I would be able to rationalize eating Melissa…or Thalia. My mind immediately flashed the image of that little girl we’d found frozen to the fence outside their compound.
Great
.

“She tried to laugh it off, but nobody else was laughing. We were all so hungry. And we didn’t have anything left for the few children that were still alive. That night, after the little ones were asleep, we went into the yurt and pulled out the first body. After some discussion, we agreed to wrap the heads in burlap so that we didn’t have to look at the faces. We removed the clothing and wrapped all of them that night. Then we moved them all around. We went so far as to have each of us go in after the others and move the bodies so that we would hopefully not know who we were choosing…it didn’t work.”

I looked around the room and saw a lot of expressions. Some were horrified, others simply fascinated. But everybody was paying attention.

“Once we started…it is hard to explain,” Mr. Patton finally opened his eyes. “That first day that nobody was hungry…the children weren’t crying…”

I’d heard enough. I looked at Mr. Patton and felt something even more profound than pity. It wasn’t embarrassment. Whatever it was, I couldn’t put a word to it, but this man had seen the bottom.

“I think we’ve heard enough,” I announced. Heads turned my way, some with very visible expressions of relief. “Look, you’re welcome to stay. However, you need to understand that things work a little bit differently here than what you might be used to. We have watches, patrols. If you are going to stay, then you will be expected to pull your weight. We have a school program for the children…and also train them how to deal with this new world. That means going outside and learning how to deal with the zombies.”

I noticed a few eyebrows raise at that last statement. It was a reality that I could not ignore. Yes, Thalia was better equipped to deal with what was happening than say, Misty. But there was more that she needed to know if she was going to have a chance at a future.

I looked around the room and gave a nod that this was over. It was time to eat and then tend to the daily tasks. One of those tasks would undoubtedly be Emily.

After breakfast, I went in and checked on her. She was drenched in sweat and the smell had actually gotten worse. Sunshine had her heavily sedated. Billy was sitting in a chair a few feet away. Thalia had already taken her spot beside the bed. I was a little surprised to discover the other two children that we’d “inherited” from that group of Muslims that had been here just a short time ago before deciding to just walk out into the woods with several members of their group infected and on the verge of turning.

“Can we sit here, Mister Steve?” Levent asked.

“Of course,” I said with a nod. I noticed that Rabia had remained silent and kept her gaze at the floor while waiting for my answer. De-programming wasn’t the word, but I hoped that, eventually, she would shed some of that “second-class citizen” mentality that seemed to be imprinted in her head.

“She been awake at all?” I asked Billy as I walked over to stand beside him for a minute and take in the scene. I can’t lie, I guess I keep hoping that she would shake this off like a bad case of the flu and be okay.

“She was sorta awake about an hour ago, but she started crying almost immediately and I had Sunshine come in and give her some more stuff for the pain,” Billy replied.

I could hear it in his voice. He was possibly even closer to crying than I was at the moment. There was never going to be an easy way to handle this situation no matter who happened to be lying on that bed.

“How long you been in here on watch?” I asked Billy.

“Just a while,” he said with a shrug.

“Go ahead and take a break, I’ll stay.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. I imagine nobody wants to be sitting in this room when Emily turns.

I took a seat and watched the kids as they sat beside Emily’s bed. There was a lot of whispering, and I would normally have been very curious about what was being said. However, at the moment, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about taking care of that little girl in the end.

The door opened and Dr. Zahn stepped inside. There was something about her expression that told me I was not going to like what she was about to say.

“Potter and the ones that are conscious are leaving.” Her voice was thick with a tone that I almost swore was relief. That was puzzling.

“Leaving where?” I asked. Truthfully, I didn’t have a better question.

“Don’t know. He just said that he couldn’t stay here. Misty refuses to accept that you didn’t kill her mother and all the others.”

“I guess we can’t make them stay.”

Now I understood her tone. I was not sure how I really felt about this situation. Sure, we had gone through an ordeal to go get them, but there was just something
off
about them and their whole set up. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but these were the type of people like that one guy in
Day of the Dead
, the one who gets bit and has his arm chopped off. This was the type of guy who would open the door and let the zombie horde in if he felt he was on his way out. I couldn’t say exactly why I felt that way; it was just a vibe.

“A few people are trying to talk them out of it,” Dr. Zahn added.

“What about the members of their group that aren’t conscious?” I asked.

“Patton refused to talk about them, but he and the ones that were mobile had a little meeting as soon as you left the room.”

“The only thing I don’t like about this is the child.”

“Misty?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t know any better.”

The door flew open and Jon stormed in. He glanced at the doctor, and then turned to me. “You okay with this?”

“We can’t hold anybody against their will,” I said.

“But that child has no business being taken out there by these idiots!”

It seemed that we were all on the same page. I considered the situation for a moment and came to a decision. This could backfire in a hurry. Still, it was time to do something and act like the leader of this group.

“Doc, can you stay in here with Emily for a few minutes?” I asked. She gave me a nod after a brief pause.

I headed out into the entry area to find all of my people standing in little clusters. Everybody was talking quietly, but I saw a lot of the same expressions on people’s faces.

I considered for a moment what I was about to do. If things went off with the best case scenario as a result, I might only piss off and alienate a few of my group. And that was when it came down on top of my head. These were
my
people. For some reason that I will never understand, this group of survivors had decided that I was their leader. None of us probably anticipated days like this or decisions along the lines of the one I was about to make. Still, good or bad, I was the one that they were waiting on.

I caught DeAngelo’s eye. He had a very grim look about him. Considering how he had stepped in when it came to Levent and Rabia, I was confident that he would support me. Jesus and Jake were on either side of Jon. I could tell that they were agitated. Jesus saw me and I guess read something in my expression. He gave me a curt nod and elbowed the other two.

“Mr. Patton,” I called across the room.

He jumped, obviously startled. He had been in the process of stuffing the few things we could spare him and his group into a pack. The two adults and Misty were clustered around looking more lost than anything else.

“What is it, Mr. Hobart?” he said, clutching a hand to his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. If I already had him this spooked, he was in for a world of trouble.

“I will only make this offer one last time.” I let my gaze drift across the other two adults that were leaving. “Stay here…at least until things thaw out. It is gonna be tight, and food is a concern, but we have a pretty good set up here. I think we will make it through the winter.”

Mr. Patton didn’t even wait to see if the others were willing to discuss it. “That is just not possible, Mr. Hobart. You can’t possibly understand—”

“You’re right,” I cut him off. “I think there is something about your little story that you aren’t telling. It doesn’t seem to connect at all the dots. But I can put that aside and offer you a much better chance at survival than you will get if you leave now. What you are doing does not make any sense.”

“Let’s just say that our beliefs are not the same and leave it at that. We appreciate all that you have done…you and your people. But I really think this is best,” Mr. Patton said. He glanced at the other two adults, a man and woman, who looked as if they would fall over at the first heavy breeze. Still, they nodded!

“And what about the ones that are still unconscious?” I asked. “What do I tell them when they awake?”

“They won’t,” Mr. Patton said with a sigh.

I was reminded of that television program,
Meerkat Manor
. Several heads around the room popped up at that last statement. Jesus pushed himself away from the wall and headed into the back.

“Let me save you the trip,” Mr. Patton called. “They are dead.”

Jesus took off at a run. I was about to lay into this lunatic, but something that Jesus said over his shoulder changed everything.

“One of them was bit!”

Everybody scrambled. Whoever wasn’t carrying a weapon moved away from the arch that led to the back rooms. All those who were able, drew whatever they had. It seemed like overkill for just one zombie, but it showed a lot about how ingrained our reactions had become.

None of us needed to assist Jesus. There was a wet chopping sound, and a moment later, Jesus emerged wiping off his blade. He gave me a nod. This most recent turn of events made at least part of what I was about to do feel a little easier.

“Then I guess you are free to go…with one exception,” I said.

Sensing where I was headed, Jake and Jon both began to drift towards Mr. Patton and his tiny group. Everybody else just drifted back, creating this huge open space between the four huddled figures and my people.

“The little one stays here,” I said. “If you are still alive in the spring, you are welcome to come back. If she wishes to leave with you then, you may take her.”

I had no expectation that he was going to accept my offer. And even if he did, I knew that the little girl was going to be a bit of a problem. But that was a problem I was willing to deal with.

“I don’t believe that I heard you correctly,” Mr. Patton said. He placed his hands on the little girl’s shoulders and I knew right then that this was going to end up way past the worst-case scenario.

“I said that you and the other two can leave. The girl stays here with us until the weather changes. You have my word that if you come back, we will let the child decide if she wants to leave with you at that time.”

“Mr. Patton?” Misty looked up at the man. She was old enough to get the idea. “You won’t make me stay here with that man, will you?”

I was going to have to keep my distance for quite a while with this one when this was over. If she hated me before, then what I was about to do would probably make her fear and lack of trust in me about as entrenched as it could possibly be.

“I won’t, Misty,” Mr. Patton said.