THEM (Season 1): Episode 2 (5 page)

So, I was just going avoid it altogether. Based on past experience, I should be able to get under the fence at a weak point, if I could pull up the bottom of the chain link enough to sneak through. The easiest way to facilitate such an entry was to remove the wires that connected the chain link on two adjacent posts at the bottom, but that took time to do. I hoped I’d have enough time to get through before the patrol came back around, and before any deaders showed up to party.
What I wouldn’t do for a full squad at my back right now, but as they say, shit in one hand and wish in the other...

I decided to use the terrain and OPFOR to my advantage. There was a window of about three minutes during every patrol when the punters pulling perimeter security completely lost line of sight with the front gate. It was a rookie mistake, since they should have been running staggered patrols, and on a less predictable schedule; lucky for me they didn’t know their shit. Time to turn that to my advantage.

Once the patrol was out of sight of the front gate, I ran directly to the fence line and used my multi-tool to bend the wire stays free and loosen the fence enough to slip under. I’d chosen an area of fence that was free of strays, so I should have plenty of time to get under the fence before they caught wind of me. Once I had it loose, I yanked the fence up and squeezed under. And without a moment to spare, because as I stood up I there were three deadheads right behind me and moaning up a storm.

I quickly found some cover before the patrol caught wind of the ruckus the deaders were making, and waited for them to pass my position before I moved on to my ambush point. Hopefully they’d assume it was just a small animal that had riled the deaders up, and then continue their patrol. I took up a concealed observation position behind some equipment, and waited for the patrol to respond to the commotion. Just as I suspected, they rationalized it away as nothing to be concerned with.
Amateurs.

I pulled out one of my .45-caliber Glocks and attached my silencer to the barrel, and then I proceeded on to the designated ambush point. Contrary to popular belief, a sound-suppressed weapon does not make the
pfft
sound of a pellet gun. No matter the quality of the silencer or the caliber of the round being fired, a so-called “silenced” weapon still makes a noticeable report. However, with the noise that the deadheads were making, it was unlikely that the two guards inside the building would take notice. I’d also chosen an ambush point far in the back corner of the lot in order to reduce the noise of the pistol as much as humanly possible.
Time to get this show on the road,
I thought as I hid behind a dumpster and waited for the patrol to pass so I could take them out.

- - -

[5
]

D
espite my careful planning, as usual Murphy was in full effect on this mission. No sooner had I taken up my position behind the dumpster than a deader caught wind of me from the other side of the gate. I heard him before I saw him, moaning up loudly in order to call his buddies to come share a meal. As he got up to the fence, I could see that he must’ve been employed here; he was wearing blue work pants, work boots, a light-grey short-sleeved work shirt with
Gus
embroidered on the chest, and a reflective safety vest that had seen better days. Gus’s left eye was gone, and most of the skin on that side of his face as well. Gus was obviously not coping well with the zombie apocalypse.

Well, piss on an electric fence,
I thought,
this deadhead’s going to give me away.

I couldn’t change position, because the damned thing would just follow me. So, I did the only thing I could do. I glanced around to see if any other deadheads had heard Gus sound the alarm. Not seeing any of Gus’s buddies around, I put one in his empty eye socket and hoped that the patrol wouldn’t hear.

Hope was apparently all I had on this mission, because Gus had hardly hit the dirt when I heard those two punters coming up on us from no more than fifty feet away.

“What the hell was that?”

“Probably that damn raccoon that came through here a minute ago. Chill out, Ren.”

“Screw you, Charlie. That sounded like a gunshot.” Ren was obviously the brighter of the two. I might actually feel bad about taking him out. “You know what happened the last time we messed up on patrol. Hambone took away our whorehouse privileges. I had blue balls for a week.”

“Ren, you cain’t never get it on with those girls anyways. Every one of them says so.”

“Eat shit, Charlie. I’m still going to check it out.”

“Suit yourself.”

Well, maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad about killing Ren after all. I waited until they were almost on top of me, then snuck around the back of the dumpster and came up behind them. Two shots in quick succession, and the post-War gene pool had improved tremendously. Who says guns don’t save lives?

I quickly took Ren’s coat and hat, as he wouldn’t be needing either in his current condition, and dumped the bodies inside the trash receptacle. Ren’s hat was a little messy, and his jacket smelled like he’d just pulled it out of the dumpster. But despite the blood and Ren’s hygiene habits, this was no time to be squeamish; I’d need the disguise to confuse the folks inside if things went south.

As I put the jacket on I heard the jingle of a keyring and wondered if I could be so lucky. I ran to the front gate and checked the padlock; sure enough I now had a matching key, and there were more than two dozen deaders milling around by this point.
What do you know, every once in a while a blind squirrel can find a nut after all.

I unlocked the chain, but left it loosely keeping the gate closed to give me time to get inside the building. I jogged over to the front entrance and cracked the door open, and then I ran to the side entrance and ducked inside, dropping into a squat next to the door with my Glock at the ready. I let my breathing slow and listened for any sign that someone had noticed my shenanigans. Nothing yet, but I knew based on my earlier surveillance that the interior guards patrolled roughly every ten minutes, so one was sure to come by soon. I ducked into an office with the door cracked, and waited stock-still for all hell to break loose.

Within minutes I could hear the chains break loose of the front gate, followed by the moaning of two dozen deadheads coming at us like the crowd at AT&T Stadium rushing to take a halftime piss. It wouldn’t be long until they found the front door, which meant I needed to get that kid loose and get out of here pronto. I figured the guards must’ve heard the deaders too, so I took the hallway toward the back on the odd chance it’d let me come out in the work bays closer to the rear of the building.

As predicted, I exited the hallway via a cheap hollow-core door that opened into the rear portion of the work bays. There were still several work trucks parked inside, a testament to the fact that technology was useless in the post-War world. Without fuel, they were as good as scrap. I noticed that the horses were tied up back here as well, but it appeared that borrowing Ren’s coat was masking my scent enough to prevent spooking them. I took cover under one of the trucks and crawled forward to survey the situation.

My boy Fido was some forty feet in front of me, chained to the steel columns that supported the roof of the building. There were about ten cots spread in a circle around a fifty-gallon drum that was being used as a fire pit, and there were at least five bodies on the cots. Beyond that, I could see light coming in through the partially open front entrance, and shadows playing back and forth beyond that. Once the SHTF occurred, I’d need to be quick if I was to get my target out without getting eaten or shot.

Within seconds the guards came bursting out of the other door to the offices, making a beeline for the front door. Too late though; when the first guard was less than a few meters away, a line of deaders came bursting through the front entrance.

“Shit—we got Zs in here! Everybody up!”

Then, freaking hellified chaos erupted, with guards shooting deaders, deaders eating punters, and plenty of people running around in a confused state, trying to avoid becoming zombie meat.
Time to move.
I rolled out from under the truck and ran straight to the kid, who was barely able to hold himself up. Not a good sign. If he couldn’t move fast once I freed him, we were both going to be screwed.

I ran up on him and glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. The seven or eight remaining punters were fairly occupied with trying to avoid becoming a Lunchable at the moment. Thank God for small favors. I started fumbling with the kid’s chains, and noticed that the shackles on his wrists were cuffs, and the collar had a padlock. Great.

“I saw you earlier, and heard you take out the guards outside.” The kid was looking up at me from one bloodied eye. The other was swollen shut, and one side of his face looked like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to it. He had blood running down his face, and he looked like he wouldn’t make it thirty feet, much less five miles in the dark.

“Kid, can you make it out of here?”

He grinned, and I saw a few missing teeth that I was sure had been recently knocked out. “Just give me the keys and go. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“Look, I can carry you—”

He cut me off. “You won’t make it if you don’t leave now.” He nodded toward the front of the work bay, and I could see it didn’t look good for the punters. They were being overrun, and we’d be next. “Give me the keys, and get somewhere safe—I’ll be right behind you.”

I nodded, as I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. I put the keys in his hands, and he immediately began working at the lock on his neck.

“Good luck, kid,” I said over my shoulder as I sprinted back to the rear office entrance with my Glock at the ready. I ducked behind the trucks and darted into the hallway, only to be bowled over by a deader and one of the guards, who were currently tangled in a somewhat romantic-looking embrace. I was pretty sure the deadhead was enjoying it more than the guard, but it was hard to tell from underneath the poor bastard. I heaved them off of me and made eye contact with the guard as I rolled up to my feet.

He had a forearm under the deadhead’s chin, while the Z had a death grip on his shirt with both hands. The guard was fumbling for a knife at his belt with his other hand, and he looked at me with fear in his eyes. “Ren, help me, you cowardly shit!”

I pulled off the hat and tossed it at him. “Sorry—Ren’s not here, I’m just the sub. But, the benefits suck and the job security is for shit, so tell your boss he can take this job and shove it.” At that, I took off down the hall with him cursing me from behind. About halfway down the hall, I heard his rant turn into a gurgled cry, and then all I heard was the wet sounds of teeth rending flesh.
Better him than me.

Once I hit the side entrance, I stopped and nudged the door open with my toe. I took a quick peek around the corner and saw that most of the activity was at the front of the building. So I made a beeline for the dumpster where I’d left my friends, Gus, Charlie, and Ren. Along the way, I grabbed an old tarp in my free hand, and vaulted up on the dumpster with it. I took off Ren’s coat and folded it up inside the tarp, then threw them over the razor wire above the dumpster. I also paused to remove the suppressor from my Glock, tucking it away and holstering my weapon before climbing over the fence. No sense risking shooting myself during my clean getaway.

I managed to make it over the razor wire without shredding my clothes and skin to pieces, and decided to head back to my observation point to watch out for the kid and see if he made it out okay. I snuck over to the building and climbed up using a wooden pallet and the old roof-access ladder, and crawled up to the roofline to see what was what. I sat there for about five minutes listening to gunshots and the cries of the punters, waiting to see some sign of him as the sounds of fighting slowly died off to nothing.

Then, I saw something that chilled me to the bone. A dark shape burst through a window at the rear of the building, and as it rolled to its feet I could see it was carrying another figure with it. I assumed it was the leader of the punter crew, that Hambone character Ren had referred to earlier. The figure held Hambone up by the throat with one hand, and I could hear the punter begging for his life as he gasped for air.

With a growl and a swipe of a muscular clawed arm the dark figure opened the punter up from one side of his gut to the other, and I could see his entrails plop out in a stringy mass to hit the grass underneath him. Then the thing dropped him there, half alive still, moaning and begging for the kid to finish him off. Even though I couldn’t recognize a single feature that I could match between the nightmare below and the kid I rescued, I knew it had to be him. The wolf-thing took one look at the quivering mass of bleeding flesh and entrails he’d created, and then looked up at me, briefly making eye contact with a single greenish-gold eye. Then, he actually waved at me before bounding off into the trees to disappear into the darkness.

Well, that was weird and creepy,
I thought to myself. I waited a few minutes to see if it would come back, but it was gone, and to be honest I hoped for good. With nothing better to do, I ducked back down into concealment in an overhang where the roofs of two connected buildings met. Within minutes the night was pierced by screams, and I could hear the deaders feasting on Hambone’s guts while he whimpered and wailed. Moments later, however, the only sound was that of zombies eating their fill of human flesh, and the cicadas droning in the trees. I sat quietly on my perch and waited for dawn, wondering if I’d just gained an ally or freed an enemy; to be truthful, I wasn’t entirely certain I didn’t do a bit of both.

- - -

[6
]

M
orning came with me still hiding in the lee of the building’s roof next door to where I’d rescued the ’thrope the night before. That he was a lycanthrope, I now had little doubt. The creature I’d seen just a few hours prior was like nothing I’d ever laid eyes on previously, but it matched every description of a werewolf that I’d ever heard. Besides that, it knew I was watching it kill that punter, and made a point to let me know. It could have just as easily attacked me, but it didn’t. I could only surmise that it was the kid I’d helped out in the warehouse.