“You could have gotten killed,” snapped Dez.
Lindsey ignored her. “I saw the wheelbarrow. I think it’s big enough.” She looked down at Baskerville. “Will he be okay?”
Ledger saw the fragile smile on the girl’s trembling mouth, and he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, and hoped it wasn’t another lie.
The girl’s gaze drifted around, alighting on each of the fallen, bloody men. She abruptly jerked back. “Oh, God!”
Ledger and Dez turned to see one of the killers tremble and then sit up. Another was beginning to twitch as well. Ledger began to rise, but Dez pushed him back down.
“I got this,” she said as she picked up the big double-headed axe. She cut a look at Lindsey. “Don’t look, honey.”
But Lindsey did look, her eyes filling with strange lights as Dez brought the gleaming blade up and down, up and down, up and down. The field became unnaturally still until Baskerville broke the silence with a soft whimper.
“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” said the girl.
“Not alone,” said Dez.
Lindsey led Dez to the barn and they hurried back with a big Jescraft wheelbarrow of the kind called a Georgia buggy. Sturdy, with a big tray and thick wheels. It took all three of them to lift the whining, struggling, uncooperative dog into it. Dez collected the weapons from the dead men.
They did this all in silence and walked back to the farmhouse without a word, without a comment about the living or the dead.
Inside, Ledger and the others moved Baskerville onto one of the sleeping bags and placed a pillow under his head. They worked together to clean the wound and Ledger held the big dog’s head while Dez used needle and thread to stitch it closed. Thirteen stitches. Baskerville shrieked at first and it was all Ledger could do to hold the animal still, but it was Lindsey who kept the dog from going completely wild. She knelt beside Ledger and began stroking his neck and shoulder, speaking slowly and softly in crooning sing-song voice. It calmed Baskerville by slow degrees, but there was a slightly disjointed quality in the girl’s voice that chilled Ledger.
Kid’s way out on the edge, he thought. Holding on by her fingernails.
He couldn’t blame her. He was pretty ragged himself. And he wondered if anyone was—or could possibly be—sane anymore. He doubted it. Not in this world. Not anymore. Sanity seemed to have been consumed by the hungry dead along with security, faith and hope. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hang a label on what was left. ‘Survival’ was too clinical a word for it, and he was afraid that the motivation they all had left was closer to ‘delusional’.
When she was done sewing and the dog was resting, Dez turned to Ledger and poked him hard on the chest. “Tell me about Billy,” she demanded.
He did. He and Baskerville had working their way from one National Guard rescue station to another, trying to find one that hadn’t already been overrun. At each point, though, they found only evidence of disaster. One camp had high walls and stout locks, but everyone inside was already turned. In another they found only blood and a few corpses with head wounds. He found no survivors at all, and every day was a running battle against the zombies.
Then one morning while he and Baskerville were moving along a stretch of highway he saw smoke rising behind a distant stand of trees. They went to investigate and found four big yellow busses sitting dead on a side road, victims of the EMPs. A rough stockade had been built around the vehicles, though, made from branches torn down from the lush trees and tired together with vines, belts and strips of cloth. Sharpened branches were thrust outward from the dense walls of green and it made a formidable and intimidating barrier. However Ledger could see a dozen ways to get through it, over it or past it. It was the kind of protection that would be made by someone who had a good imagination, some common sense, but no real understanding of military tactics. Fair enough.
He called out to announce his approach and after quite a lot of time when nothing seemed to happen but during which Ledger figured he was being watched and assessed, a section of the wall was lifted out of place and a man stepped out. Like Ledger he was tall and blond, but he was younger and of a different physical type. And though the man showed some of the necessary hardening that any survivor in this world had to have, he was clearly not a soldier.
The man introduced himself as Billy Trout, a reporter for a cable news service up in Pennsylvania. Ledger, as it happened, knew the man’s name. During the outbreak in Stebbins Trout had filed stories with the tagline, “This is Billy Trout reporting live from the apocalypse.”
Ledger figured that Trout had been somewhat ironic at the start but that reality had caught up with the story. The man had, in fact, been reporting live from the apocalypse. It was one of the things no one ever wanted to be right about.
Trout told him about the floods, the storms, the traffic, the waves of zombies and the EMPs. He spoke about the kids they lost, and the other bus that had been overrun or lost in the madness. He spoke, with tears running down his face, about the woman who had saved them all. A fierce, cranky, gorgeous, aggravating, violent, wonderful woman named Dez Fox. He said that she was the love of his life and that if it wasn’t for the job of keeping the kids safe, Trout doubted he would have wanted to go on living without her.
As Ledger told this story Dez sat in stunned silence, her own tears running in unbroken lines, fists balled. Lindsey huddled next to her, caught up in the story.
Ledger wrapped his account by saying that a band of seven National Guardsmen, along with nineteen refugees from the overrun camps, had appeared on the road. Ledger checked them out, vetting them for safety and sanity. Together they used better tools to cut down trees and turn the five busses into a real fort.
During their talks, Trout told Ledger something that rocked the ranger. He said that a small team of military contractors operating under the nickname ‘the Boy Scouts’, had helped Dez, Billy and the others escape the school. Ledger knew that team very well and he asked about the team leader, a former sniper named Samuel Imura. The look on Billy’s face told Ledger what he didn’t want to hear. Although Imura had helped to save all those kids, he was lost during a raid on a food distribution warehouse.
“You saw him fall?” demanded Ledger. “You saw Sam die?”
Billy Trout said, “I saw him fall, but…no, I didn’t see them eat him. We, um, were spared that part of it.”
Ledger grilled him on it, but that was all Billy knew. Sam Imura was missing, presumed dead. It was a hard and brutal fact, but it wasn’t one Ledger was willing to buy outright. Sam had run with Ledger’s Echo Team for years and had faced monsters before. He was a very hard man to kill. If the man had survived, he might have tried to make it all the way to California, where he had parents and a much younger brother, Tom, who was a police cadet. Billy could add nothing else of use, though.
The last two surviving members of the Boy Scouts, who Billy knew only as Boxer and Gypsy, had helped set up this camp but then moved on, searching for some branch of the military or government that was still functioning. Billy never saw them again.
Ledger stayed for a bit and then he, too, went on his way, looking for answers, for survivors, and for a purpose. He told all of this to Dez Fox.
Her response was to punch him in the chest. Very fast and very hard.
“You miserable cocksucker,” she snarled. “You left Billy there?”
“First…ouch. Second, don’t do that again,” Ledger warned, rubbing a sore spot on his chest. “And…as for leaving Billy, sure, why not? He had all the muscle he needed to keep those kids safe. I’ve even sent a few families in his directions, some of them with a lot of supplies and some useful skills. Trout had it in mind to send raiding parties out to find wagons they could pull so they could take weapons and supplies with them.”
“With them…where?”
“He told me that the plan was always to make it to Asheville, North Carolina,” said Ledger. “That’s where all the rumors say a community is formin
g. Maybe even a new government, if they can get their act together. Not really sure about that, but I’ll probably wander down that way eventually. Not yet, though. I have some things I want to do out here first.”
“Like what?” asked Lindsey.
Ledger shrugged. “Some of the guys from my old unit may be around. I’ve run into some stragglers who said they met a couple of fighters who might be people I know. The kind of people who would still be sucking air even with all this going on. Maybe you ran into them?” he asked. “Big surfer-looking guy everyone calls Bunny? Black guy with a goatee and an attitude named Top Sims? Top and Bunny have Baskerville’s brother, Boggart, with them. And there’s a woman out here, too. Tall brunette gal with a foreign accent who sometimes calls herself Violin? Any of that sound familiar?”
Lindsey and Dez shook their heads.
“Where was Billy when you saw him last?” asked Dez. She pawed the tears from her eyes. “Can you show me? Can you take me there?”
Ledger considered. “When I saw him he was six days walk from here.”
“That close?” she murmured. “God.”
“But that was weeks ago, Dez,” said Ledger. “If he stuck to his plan then they’re probably already on their way to Asheville.”
“Maybe,” said Dez, “but that many people, with carts and kids and all that…they’d have to leave a trail a blind moron could follow.”
“Okay, fair enough.”
Dez got up and walked over to the door and peered through the blinds at the night. Then she turned and told Ledger her part of the story. Everything from the point where she’d become separate until she’d left Biel at the bus to find a place to settle.
“Jesus Christ,” said Ledger, getting quickly to his feet. “You left a bunch of kids in one of those busses?”
“It’s okay,” said Dez. “For the night, anyway. The kids know how to be quiet and we have corpses around the bus to keep them from smelling anyone inside.”
Ledge shook his head. “Shit. That’s not the problem. Didn’t Lindsey tell you about the NKK dickheads?”
“NKK?”
“Nu Klux Klan,” explained Ledger. “Those assholes we just danced with out there are probably part of their party. That’s who grabbed Lindsey. I’ve been tracking a big party of them. I think they’re going to try and take the Appomattox Rescue Station back from the biters and turn it into their fort, or something like that. They’ve been raiding survivor groups all through the area, taking women and kids, stealing supplies. They’re worse than the frigging dead.”
“Worse?” asked Lindsey. “How are they worse than things that want to eat you?”
He turned to her. “Because, little darlin’ there are worse things than dying. Think about it. How would like to be owned by those assholes? How would you like to spend every day cooking and cleaning for them and every night getting raped by as many of them as wants you?”
“Stop it, Ledger,” said Dez, putting a hard hand on his arm. “She’s been through enough and she’s scared enough already.”
“No,” said Ledger, “she’s not. She’s nowhere near scared enough if she thinks zombies are the worst thing out here.”
They looked at each other for a long, tense moment. Ledger watched her eyes as she processed the implications.
She said, “It’s a long way back to the bus.”
“Okay,” he said.
“It’s dark out there.”
“Yes it is,” agreed Ledger.
She chewed her lip for a moment. “Which means that if the NKK jackasses are anywhere near the bus…”
“…then they won’t see us coming,” said Ledger.
“Wait,” said Lindsey, alarmed, “you’re not seriously going to do this.”
“Kind of have to, sweetie,” said Ledger.
“No you don’t. Go in the morning, when it’s safer.”
“Safer for whom?” asked Ledger. “Right now they have numbers and all we have is surprise.”
“Besides,” said Dez, “we can’t risk it. I’d never have left the kids behind if I knew these guys were out there. Never. Now I have to go back. I just hope to God it’s not too late.”
“Gets later every second,” said Ledger. He glanced around. “Duct tape, electrical tape…anything like that?”
Lindsey ran to the kitchen and returned with a roll of gray duct tape. Ledger took out his rapid-release knife and began cutting strips out of a runner carpet. He wrapped them around his arms and legs and secured them with the tape, then helped Dez do the same.
“Carpet,” she said, grunting. “Smart.”
“Can’t bite through it worth a damn,” said Ledger. When he was well protected, he walked over to the weapons Dez had stacked on a chair, tore open a box of 9mm rounds and very quickly and professionally reloaded his magazines. He picked up the shotgun, shook his head, and handed it to Lindsey. “Keep this with you.”
“I…I…”
“You’re staying here,” he said. “Lock the place up. Baskerville should be coming out of it pretty soon.”
At the mention of his name the big dog opened his eyes and flopped his tail a few times. No whines now. His big, dark eyes were filled with dark magic. Ledger knelt by him and touched his forehead to the dog’s, mindful of the injury. He spoke to Baskerville for several moments, his voice pitched too low for the others to hear. When he stood up, so did Baskerville. The dog looked wobbly, but a lot less than before.
“Give him some food and water, and stay alert,” said Ledger. “Is there a basement or attic?”
“Both,” said Lindsey, still clearly not liking the plan.
“Pick the one you think you can defend. If you have to, go there when we leave and wait it out. You don’t have to protect the house, just yourself. Baskerville will help.”
“Shouldn’t she go with us?” asked Dez, then immediately shook her head. “No, honey, Joe’s right. We’ll be back as fast as we can. All of us.”
She said this last to Ledger.
He grinned at her. It was not a nice grin, and he knew it. He knew the feel of that kind of smile on his face.
“All of us,” he said.
Moments later they were a pair of shadowy phantoms who ran across the field beneath the moonlight and then vanished into the blackness beneath the trees.
~26~
Rachael Elle
The swarm came so suddenly Rachael almost didn’t see them. She was having trouble judging the length of time it was taking for them to find the farm, though she didn’t think it could be much further, when suddenly the movement caught the corner of her eyes, the large lumbering figures coming through the trees towards the back of the group.
Rachael reacted quickly, drawing her sword and dagger and racing back along the path.
“Run! Heroes, with me!” she said. Her heroes turned to look at what was coming. A few of them moved to follow her, pushing the small children into the arms of one of her other heroes who ushered the younger children down the path faster, holding his knife up and ready in case anything attacked them from the sides.
She instructed her heroes, keeping her sword out in front. “We need to keep moving forward, just keep them back if they get too close.”
They were all moving quickly, just out of reach of the Orcs, and Rachael wanted to keep it that way. As long as they could reach the farmhouse in time, then they’d be safe. She didn’t want to risk any of the children in close combat with the dead.
The trees were thinning, and the moonlight was shining through, and Rachael could see the farm through the edges of the trees. Her heart soared. They were almost there, they could make it.
“Run! Get to the farm,” she yelled out to the children over her shoulder as she swung her sword through the head of one of the Orcs that moved faster than the rest, bracing her foot against its body to pull the blade out and kick the limp form away.
They were almost there. They were going to make it.
Pulling one of her heroes away from an Orc
that lunged at it, she pushed all of them along the path, trying to keep the rear, to keep them from being overtaken by the dead.
There was a cry of fear from up the children far up ahead on the path, but it died out quickly, and Rachael hoped one of the heroes had resolved whatever the issue was.
She was the last one to burst through the edge of the woods, only to find the rest of the children standing, frozen in fear along the edge of the field.
“What are you—?” she started to ask, before looking up and across.
The farmhouse was up ahead, only a quick walk up the path and across the field. It looked dark and secure, comforting almost under the milky light of the moon.
So close.
What looked far less comforting were the dozen Orcs in the field before them that reacted to the cry of the children, and were now turning their way.
So close, and yet… so far
~27~
The Ranger and the Cop
Joe and Dez moved through the woods. He led the way and she followed, both of them letting their senses adjust to moonlight and darkness. There was a farm road, but it wound around too far south, so Ledger took them along a straight path and they found the highway in less than an hour.
There were a few of the dead in the woods, standing like silent trees until the scent of living flesh triggered them into movement. Ledger used the carpet gauntlet on his forearm to stall the biting mouths and his knife to puncture the top of the skull or brain stem of each zombie. He moved with a silent and deadly efficiency, not asking for help and not needing any.
“Christ,” said Dez after Ledger killed another of the dead, “you’re fast as shit.”
“Fear is a wonderful incentive program,” he said.
“You look like you’ve been doing that your whole life.”
He paused and looked at her for a long moment, and he felt the weight of all his years and all those battles. “You have no idea,” he told her.