Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary (49 page)

“Why
aren’t our people running?” cried Briana. “They have to get out of the castle!
Can’t they see that?”

We
watched as Simon and a few others tried to move the half destroyed animal
trailer back into place. They were making progress, but it was far too slow.
They would never get the gate blocked. Even if they did, it wouldn’t be enough.

“Mary,
are we still secure? Can we get to the Jeeps if we have to drive out of here?”

“Yes,
Jacob, we’re good.” She came up beside me. “I want to see.”

“I
don’t,” remarked Briana. “I’ll watch our rear.”

I
nodded, unable to take my eyes off the horror unfolding before us. With nowhere
else to go, the last of the raiders headed for the castle, probably for the
open forest behind it. They were gunned down. Our people, our friends, were
taking no chances. Then they shifted their fire to the zombies. I could have
screamed. I might have. Simon, Larry, all of them were making an epic mistake.
They couldn’t defend against this.

“Let’s
scoot back further,” I suggested.

“Yeah,”
agreed Lizzy. “Maybe a whole lot further.”

The
zombies passed the corrals, those still intact. The animals instinctively moved
to the center, trying to avoid the monsters. The zombies, as always, ignored
them. Then they reached the gate. It was too late to run now. A few tried to
jump off the walls, but the dead were flowing around them, encircling as each
tried to get as close as possible. I watched as Dean was torn apart. The gate
created a bottleneck, and people fired round after round into it. The zombies
just clambered over the bodies of their fallen. Finally, they were atop the
walls, and that was the end.

“Some
are heading our way,” said Mary. Like Briana, she was crying.

“Back to
the Jeeps. We’ll leave and come back in the morning to see, whatever.”

*
* *

That
night, by moonlight, we saw a large number of zombies in the distance, moving
south along the highway. We assumed it was the group that wreaked havoc in our
forest and were likely correct. When we returned the next day, shortly after
noon, there hadn’t been any shamblers in sight, not those capable of walking at
least, but the meadow was a mess, strewn with debris and corpses.

Most of
the animals were okay. One of the chicken coops was wrecked, with its former
occupants fluttering about. The horses and goats were mostly fine as well,
though some had run off. It was the same with the cows, except those which had
gotten loose remained in the meadow, calmly eating the last of the fall
grasses.

“There’s
one,” said Briana, “by the trees.”

“I’m
going to shoot it. I never get to.”

“I’ll do
it,” said Lizzy.

Mary
spun to glare at her.

“No,” I
said. “Mary’s turn.”

We
should have allowed her to kill some a long time ago, if only to make sure she
could pull the trigger.

Lizzy
gave a reluctant nod, probably thinking of Lois, and we headed toward the
zombie. It was stuck among some trees. The thing would take a few steps forward
and bang into one. Then it would swing about and strike another.

“Oh,”
whispered Briana, almost too softly to hear, “poor, poor Miranda.”

Blind
during her all too short life, the woman was also blind as a zombie. Unable to
see, she would slam into any obstacle before her, only to turn and try another
direction. If she tripped over a bush or exposed root, Miranda would simply
rise and continue on. She could hear us though, and like all the others she
moved forward with arms outstretched.

“I don’t
know if I can,” said Mary, biting back a sob. “I know I said, but…”

I shot
Miranda in the head and watched her fall before walking toward the castle.

*
* *

“What do
you think we’ll find?” asked Briana, breaking the uneasy silence.

“Nothing
good, I expect.” I took her hand in my own, feeling the engagement ring I’d
given her. “The stores should be intact. We’ll have food, clothes, more than
enough to see us through whatever we decide.”

We had
to scramble over a pile of zombie bodies, which was more than a little
disquieting. There wasn’t a sound inside the courtyard.

“Do you
want to call for them,” asked Lizzy, her voice tired, “or should I do it?”

“Your
choice,” I replied. I probably sounded little better.

“Come
out zombies!” shouted Mary. She looked at us. “I just want it done with.”

“Is
someone there?” came a faint voice.

There
were survivors!

“Where
are you?”

“The
common hall.” The voice was muffled and sounded strained.

I barely
managed to grab Lizzy’s shoulder before she was past me. “Wait. Someone needs
to be on the wall to keep an eye out.”

“I’ll do
it,” Briana hurried up the stairs and positioned herself near the wrecked gate.

With her
maintaining watch, I moved inside with Lizzy beside me. Mary followed a few
feet behind. It was shadowy without the lights – the generator had stopped –
and I paused as my eyes adjusted.

“Where
are you?” I asked.

I heard
rustling and saw Steph peek out from the rafters above. Both arms were wrapped
around a skinny boy. He was filthy and hollow eyed.

“How’d
you get up there?” asked Mary.

They
were twelve feet off the ground, kneeling on an eight inch thick beam. When
Eric designed the hall, he wanted a long, though necessarily narrow room with a
vaulted ceiling. The walls rose twelve feet, incorporating part of the castle’s
outer wall, and then the roof started slanting inward to end in a peak twenty
three feet off the ground. Since we cared more for speed than aesthetics, he
had gone for ease of construction. The result was a series of strange alcoves
where the beams were set or chimneys located. One of these had ended up large
enough for an adult to sit in. Steph had been hiding there.

“The
ladder,” she explained. “I took Johnny up here and kicked it over before the
zombies got in. There were still people, real people, but there wasn’t enough
room.”

“You
saved a child,” I said quickly, as her expression grew more distraught. “You
did right.”

We
retrieved the ladder and helped both down. Steph was correct. The alcove could
hide the two of them, if they stayed still and silent, but no more than that.
If any others had joined in, they would have all been seen, and the zombies
would have waited until they fell or died of dehydration. It was a choice
between leaving friends behind or all dying. No one should have to make those.

“How old
are you Johnny?” asked Mary sweetly.

He held
up four fingers.

“You’re
four?” she asked, to clarify.

“Yes.”
His voice was faint.

“I’m
thirteen. Since I’m older, I’ll help take care of you.” Mary took his hand.
“Why don’t we go sit outside in the sun. The monsters are all gone. I’ll give
you some candy even.”

“Mary’s
good with children,” observed Steph.

I handed
her a canteen. “Let’s pray it helps. The kid didn’t look good.”

“Hey,”
announced Lizzy. “I so wanted to do it myself, but I can live with this too.”

She
pointed at Cherie who was lying in the corner. Her clothes were in tatters, the
little that remained, and her body torn apart. One arm was gone at the elbow.
The other consisted only of a few strands of limp muscle and ligaments. Her
stomach cavity had been ripped open, the internal organs jerked free, and both
legs were hamstrung with deep bite marks all over the thighs and calves.
Cherie’s beautiful face was still intact however, save some damage to the chin,
left cheek, and a single missing ear.

Gray
filmed eyes followed our movements. In her current state, the zombie could do
nothing else.

“What
happened when you left?” asked Steph. “Cherie said you attacked her when she
went to tell you that her and Simon would be in charge, tried to kill her.”

“Lies.”
I shook my head. “Such a waste. I’ll give you the details later, but Cherie was
at fault. She murdered Lois.”

“We saw
that Lois didn’t have a gun,” said Steph. “But… We’ll talk about it later I
guess. Swap stories.”

Lizzy
drew her knife and careful severed Cherie’s head from her body.

“What
are you going to do?”

“Well,
Steph, I’m putting this in a box for now. Later, I’ll show Mary, and we’ll drop
it in the latrine, where it belongs, looking up at all the things it can never
bite into, until something appropriately nasty falls into the open mouth.”

“That’ll
make using the toilet somewhat distressing,” I pointed out, sickened by the
idea.

“I’ll
mark which one she’s under. Don’t worry. There’s going to be a big sign.”

*
* *

We spent
the early afternoon searching the castle from top to bottom. There were no
other zombies inside, but we did discover a few suicides. Larry was the first.
He had killed himself, placing the barrel of a gun beneath his chin. In one of
the townhouses, in the back bedroom, we found two children, also with gunshots
to the head. There was nothing to indicate who was responsible for this act of
mercy. Most of our people were gone, presumably dead and reanimated. We found
no trace of Simon or his son.

The
search complete, we rounded up the loose animals and got them back in their
corrals or coops. They received fresh water from the creek and some feed. We’d
decide later what to do with them.

We used
a second horse trailer to secure the entrance. The iron gate itself wasn’t in
as bad condition as I first thought. The crossbar had been blown apart, and
some of the bars were bent back. Mostly, the blast had shot through it and
slammed into the original trailer instead. With a blow torch and some time, I
could make repairs. For now, we were safe enough.

*
* *

Shortly
after sunset, Lizzy retired to the room she once shared with Lois. She’d talked
briefly, mostly to state over and over that Cherie’s head belonged in the
latrine and was going to stay there, unrotting, forever. Then the woman
announced she was tired and going to bed. Briana and I turned in soon after,
leaving Steph, Mary, and Johnny in the townhouse living room watching cartoons
on my laptop – that was for the four year old’s benefit. The door was barred
and heavily barricaded.

“What do
you think Jacob?”

“About
what?” I pulled her close.

She
snuggled in. “Do we stay here or do we go somewhere else?”

“I don’t
know,” I admitted. “Bad memories here, lots of them, but it is secure and can
be improved even more. Plenty of room now too, unfortunately. The bullets did
some minor damage, but we can patch that with concrete. We have the generator
set up. It’s running again with tons of fuel in our tank. Add that tanker truck
in the meadow, and we have enough for the Jeeps for years to come, probably
until they break down on their own from use. Cleaning up the bodies in the
meadow will be brutal, but that has to be done. Maybe we can pile them up and
burn the lot, then bury what’s left. It’ll take weeks, at best.”

“Plenty
of guns,” added Briana. “That’ll help with defense too.”

The
other semi had been full of weapons, mostly military grade, and ammunition. It
also contained boxes of knives and hatchets, and there was a portable torture
chest, complete with scalpels, pliers, hack saws, and things of that nature,
some of which was stained with blood.

“It’ll
be winter soon,” I continued, “with lots of snow this far north on the Great
Plains. If we move, we probably won’t be able to get anything set up nearly as
good before we have to stop and wait for spring. I suppose we could head into
Wyoming and look for the ranches people were evacuated to, but there’s no
telling where they are or if they’re still functioning. It’s even colder there
too. We really would risk getting stuck in the snow.”

“What
about the military? We know they’re still alive, some of them.”

That was
true. At the very least, we knew of surviving units in Japan, the Middle East,
and plenty in the United States itself. However, we had no clue as to where
they were physically located or how to get in touch with them. We could likely
head for the large bases since they were being used as safe zones from the
start, but considering our situation and the weather that seemed risky.

“Same
problem as Wyoming.”

“So you
want to stay here?” she pressed.

I
sighed. “I think so. I don’t know if the others will want to, but, practically
speaking, it is a good decision.”

Briana
leaned over and kissed me. “Good. I don’t want to be traveling, not now that
I’m pregnant.”