Books of the Dead (Book 3): Dead Man's Land (9 page)

That’s where I came in.  Brandon’s aim was completely blocked by the door.  His only choice was to shoot wildly, hoping not to hit Russell, but knowing that was probably impossible.  Besides, the door would take the impact of most of his shots. 

My aim had never been that great.  With a rifle, I’d made it to ‘good’ with great being a long way off.  With a handgun, I’d rate as fair: a five on a scale of ten, maybe a six on my good days.  It didn’t matter because I was the only hope for Russell.

I leaned my body to the right, bracing myself against the far wall.  I tried to remember all of the training drilled into me by Greg and Mike; their instructions coming from beyond the grave.  ‘Breathe,’ Mike had always said. 
Stay calm and focused
was Greg’s motto.

I took a breath and exhaled.  Paige was ten feet from Russell, who was frozen in place like a statue. All the tension flowed out of me, I focused on Paige’s forehead and nothing else.  She was down to five feet and her blood-soaked hands were out in front of her, clutching the air, ready to tear into Russell.  Then I said a single word of prayer, “Help” and pulled the trigger.

The painting changed a split second later as Paige’s head exploded, sending chunks of her skull and brain matter back down the hall as her head snapped back and she collapsed. 

I took another breath a century later, letting the air come back into my lungs.  Russell stood looking down at the ground, his back to me, but his body language told me everything I needed to know.  His shoulders slumped as he staggered to a nearby wall and slid down it; putting his head in his hands, he started to weep.  I felt for him.  I felt for all of us.

Brandon moved past me, his rifle still up.  A door slammed open down the hall past Paige’s body, and Jo stepped into the hall, her rifle at the ready.  Her hair looked on the wild side and her face was puffy from sleep.

“What the hell happened?” she asked as she looked over the bodies in the hall and then to me.

“Is Jason safe?” I asked as I came up to her.

“Sure,” she said, “he’s inside.”

“What about Doc Wilson?”
              A door on the other side of the hall opened, and Doc stuck his head out.  He looked just as confused as Jo.

“What’s going on out here?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

Jason came out of the door, bewilderment and fear on his face.  Jo moved down the hallway past me, her aim held on Paige’s body. 

I ducked into the infirmary and saw Devin’s body on the floor and a whole lot of blood.  I didn’t want to see anymore and left to check on Jason.

“You okay?” I asked when I got to him

He nodded his head.  He brought up his small dry erase board and wrote, “What happened?”

I recapped the sad story for both him and Jo as best as I knew it.  His face, already somber, seemed to fall more.  He rallied a little and wrote something on the board, but worked to block anyone else from viewing.  His writing said, “What we talked about. It’s going to happen soon.”

I surveyed the scene once again.  Doc Wilson tended to Russell, who seemed inconsolable, and Brandon barked orders into a walkie-talkie, asking for some back-up help.

I gently ushered Jason inside his room and said, “I know.”  I sensed he wanted to write more. “What is it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure we’re safe here,” he wrote, and his face twisted as if he were in pain.

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

He held up a hand to interrupt me and wrote some more.  “It’s something else, too.  I get the feeling that I should leave.”

“No, no,” I said, “you need to stay with us.” 

“I have a vision,” he wrote quickly and emphatically.  “I see myself in a hospital.”

“I’m not seeing that,” I said.

He erased and wrote again, “You believe me, don’t you?”

That was the hell of it, I did.  I nodded my head but said, “We’ll keep you safe.”

He erased and wrote again, “You may not be able to.”

“We’ll do our damndest then,” I said.  “Please trust me.”

“I do,” he wrote and then withdrew the board and wrote, “But.”

I didn’t know how to answer.  There were no promises that were ironclad anymore.  No guarantees. 

“All I know is that we’ll do our best.”

The long and the short of it was that we had just lost three of our people, and we had no idea how.  That couldn’t instill Jason with a lot of confidence.  Paige had taken out Phil and infected Devin.  It was a small miracle that Russell had been able to defend himself against Devin’s attack, and we were grateful of that.  Still, the incident sent a ripple of panic and outrage through our little community.  We thought we were safe, but now all bets were off, and nothing was more unsettling than that.

Brandon went over it again in his head, he never saw Paige get scratched or bitten. On the trip back to the Manor, he grilled her on what had happened, and she said they had barely made it to town when the truck was disabled. They were attacked, but she had gotten by the zombies, and that’s why he didn’t follow the protocols. 

To make matters worse, we had one victim of the attack who was still alive, but infected.  Sally knew that there was no hope and probably accepted that, but that didn’t make it any easier. That it happened on my watch didn’t work in my favor, either. The wolves were circling and smelling the blood.

“How did this happen?” Brother Ed shouted while holding his arms in the air for dramatic effect.

It seemed that few in our group were tired of these impromptu emergency gatherings as they filled the dining area. Most of the people stood, but a few sat, their expressions a mix of concern and fear. Maybe they were bored. Maybe they didn’t have anything better to do.  Surviving the zombie apocalypse was a lot like how some soldiers described their experience at war -- long moments of tedium and boredom broken up with savage moments of stark terror.  I felt like that summed it up.

“It happened because we became lax,” Brother Ed said. 

His face pinched and red, Brandon stood up and said, “She was not bitten.”

“Then how did she turn?” Brother Ed challenged.

A murmur went through the crowd. 

“You weren’t there,” Brandon said.  “While we had an encounter with the undead, she
was
not bitten.  She said she didn’t even get close to the zombies until after we arrived.”

“Maybe she lied,” Mrs. Hatcher said from the crowd.

“She didn’t lie!” Russell stood and yelled. 

Mrs. Hatcher shrank back in her seat, feeling the heat of Russell’s outburst.

“Russell, calm down,” I said, “we’ll get this sorted out.”

“What if the virus has gone airborne?” Steve Hampton asked.

“Hey, don’t go there,” I said.  “We don’t know anything yet.”

“What
do
you know?” he asked, not hiding the direct challenge of his question.

Doc Wilson weighed in, “Listen, there is no reason to think the virus has gone airborne.  Even considering that is wildly speculative and has no scientific basis. Even going there does nothing but cause baseless fear.”  He stopped and held Steve Hampton in his gaze until Hampton looked away. “I’m going to exam the girl’s body and do an autopsy today. As soon as I know anything, I will let all of you know.”

An older lady with glasses put her hand up. I acknowledged her with a nod of my head.

“What are you going to do with Sally?”  Her voice quavered when she spoke, and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “She’s my friend.”

It was as if someone had sucked the air out of the room.  Any anger and any political agendas went out the door. While life hadn’t been easy at the Manor, many there hadn’t faced death head on in quite a while.  Yes, zombies wandered onto the compound somewhat regularly, but our system of safeguards worked so well that maybe we had become complacent. Only a small percentage of the residents ever went out on foraging missions, so they didn’t face the dangers face-to-face. Maybe they had fooled themselves into thinking they were immune to death.

To be truthful, I hated taking away that sense of security, but getting too complacent could be very dangerous. Death had come back into our walls, and it rocked many of them, me included.

“We’re...we’re assessing Sally now,” Doc said.

“But she…she’s been bitten,” the woman said, and I could see her working her way around the weight of what she had just said, almost as if she were walking into a room full of venomous snakes in the dark.

“Can’t you give her the transfusions like you did with Hub?” the woman asked.

“That is not a viable long term solution,” Doc said.  “I’ve explored some options, but I simply do not have the equipment or the experience to say I’m anywhere with coming up with something that works permanently.”  He looked down at his hands and kept his attention there.

The room was quiet for several seconds, and I felt all the focus come back to me, so I dug deep, trying to think what Greg would say at a time like this. A part of me knew what he would say: the hard thing, but he’d do it with compassion and understanding. The more I thought about what he would say, the more I felt unfit to walk in his shoes, but there I was.

I cleared my throat and spoke, “We’ve discussed this, and we’re going to leave it up to Sally.”

“But what if she wants to stay with us?” Steve Hampton said.

Yeah, leave it to Steve Hampton to be so bluntly crass. 

“Sally knows the rules,” I said, “she has some choices, and none of them are good, but we’ll let her make them.”

Chapter 14

The Devil’s Choice

She didn’t look good.  Even though Doc Wilson had treated her, the spider web of black veins were spreading out from her underneath the bandages and up her neck.  Her face was flushed with fever, and sweat dotted her forehead and upper lip.

“It’s nice out here today,” Sally said as she looked across the gentle slope of the rolling hills just beyond the golf course behind the Manor.  White fluffy clouds floated above us, and birds sang their happy little songs in stark contrast to the mood of our little group. 

She had her arms wrapped tightly across her chest as if she were cold.  A breeze blew the scent of freshly bloomed flowers our way.  In any other circumstance, I could call it a beautiful day, but there was nothing beautiful about what we were going to have to do.

Not one of us wanted to be there. Not even Brandon. Brother Ed, despite all his bluster, was uncharacteristically quiet.  Kara’s eyes were red, but she held back the tears. Travis didn’t look much better. I could tell he was barely holding it together. Doc stayed back at the Manor because he knew whatever we came up with would not be anywhere in the vicinity of “First, do no harm.”

I didn’t know Sally well, but what little I did know of her, I liked. She had come to the Manor a few months ago with a couple of other survivors.  Despite being half-starved, she had pitched in immediately anywhere she could and had become a regular face at the Manor, always helpful and never complaining. We needed more like her, but we took what we could get.

No one wanted to start the conversation, and it seemed as if Sally knew this, so being the no nonsense type she was, she eased us into it.  “Just so all of you know, I’m Catholic.  I was raised in it and I lived it.  So, suicide is out.”  She paused as a shudder went through her body.  “Also, know that I’m not going the transfusion route. That’s only putting off the inevitable.”

That didn’t make it any easier, though.

Being the leader, I felt it was my responsibility to take charge. “What do you want to do, Sally?” I asked, moving a step closer to her. 

“What are my choices?” she asked, turning to me. Her eyes were rimmed with tears, but they still had life in them. 

“Bad ones,” I said.

She laughed, and that let a little tension out of the air.

“I know this isn’t protocol, and I don’t want to act on my own, but I’m going to ask for something unprecedented.  We have five of the leadership team here,” I said, looking at the others there.  “I know we generally only go with two options in cases like this.  We either take care of the infected individual or they take care of themselves. I’m wondering if we could consider a third option in this case?”

Brandon raised an eyebrow that seemed to say, “
Like what?
”

While Brandon stared at me with a challenge, Kara looked to me with hope.

“Could we consider just letting nature takes it course and let Sally walk away?  Would that even work for you, Sally?”

She dropped her head, and I could see she was considering it.

“Okay,” Brother Ed said, clearing his throat. “That would mean that she’d be one of those things out there walking around.”

“Then let me make this easy for you,” she said.  “I don’t want to be one of those things.”

There it was, decision made.  Case closed.  No appeals to the Supreme Court.  Do not pass go, and do not collect $200. 

Onto the next question.  Who was going to do it? Once again, that phrase popped into my head again,
What would Greg do?

For all intents and purposes, the duty fell to me. Greg did it.  I should do it, but it was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do. Then again, who did? 

My body and spirit seemed disconnected.  My arms and legs felt like foreign objects, a million miles away.  I willed them to move, but they stubbornly resisted. My throat felt parched, as if I hadn’t had a drink in a week.  Still, I reached down and did what I had to do.

“Where do you want it done?”  That was as brave as I could be. 

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Sally said. “We can do it over by the pit.”

The pit was a large trench that had been cut out of the ground by the bulldozers.  It sat just beyond the third hole of the golf course behind the Manor.  It was dug for one specific purpose: to provide us a place to dispose of zombie bodies. There was nothing nice or particularly pleasant about it.  It was just a field of decomposed and desiccated bodies.  With winter over, it even smelled bad again. 

“You sure about that?” I asked.

“If you do it anywhere else, somebody will just have to move me there.  Right?”

I didn’t answer.  Her logic was inescapable, but it seemed so cold.

“Listen,” she said. “I won’t be here after you’ve done it.  I’ll be flying skyward to heaven.  So, while we can get all sentimental about it, it doesn’t matter in the end.”

“Okay,” was the best I could muster, and I started toward the pit, taking each step with some effort.  She moved in beside me, and we walked toward the pit together. 

To their credit, the rest of the group came along, although Brother Ed was the last to move.  None of them spoke. The birds, oblivious to the drama going on with us, continued their joyous spring singing.

It was a short walk of less than a couple hundred yards.  As advertised, the bodies of the zombie corpses were still there, in all of their splendor on display.  The winter and the subsequent thaw had done a job on them. They seemed less like individual bodies, but more of a singular mass of parts.  Arms, legs, heads, and torsos.  They still stank to high heavens, though.

We stopped at the edge and paused for a moment.  There was one last choice to make, and I hoped, in this case, she’d make it easy on me.  The choice was whether she’d face me or turn away.

She anticipated this and said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll face the hills.”  She started to turn away from us, but stopped.  “If any of you’d like to pray with me, I’d appreciate it.”

Kara moved to Sally’s side and took one of Sally’s hands, holding back her tears. Travis moved up as silent tears streamed down his face. Brother Ed, as soberly quiet as I had ever seen him, stepped up, too.  Brandon held his position, a few feet back. 

I put a hand on Sally’s shoulder and said, “Does someone want to get us started?  I’m not the best at this.”

“I will,” Kara said, her voice thick and moist.

I don’t remember the specifics of what was said, but it was beautiful without being showy or overly pious.  To his credit, Brother Ed didn’t fly into any chest beating or clothes rending, but he spoke directly, avoiding any normally florid or overblown proselytizing. Brandon decided not to say anything at all.  Travis tried to say something, but his emotions got the best of him. Even
I
found the courage and clear-headedness to say something. Not one of us made it through what we had to say without tears, but we held ourselves together. Kara led us in the Lord’s Prayer to end it.

Brandon kept his back turned and his head down the entire time.

“Thanks to all of you,” Sally said, taking each one of our hands and giving it a squeeze.  After she released a hand, each person stepped back, leaving only Sally and me there.

Strangely, I felt a peace come over me.  My arms no longer felt heavy and numb. I wasn’t ready for dancing, but I was ready for what I had to do. 

Sally closed her eyes and turned away from me for the final time.  I brought my rifle up, but the strength I felt just moments ago started to retreat from me as my hands shook.  Aiming became somewhat difficult.

I felt someone move up behind me and heard a voice whisper in my ear, “You don’t have to do this. I can do it.”  It was Brandon.

“No,” I said, “I have to.”

“You sure?”  His tone wasn’t challenging.  I could tell he just wanted to take the burden for me. 

I nodded my head, and a moment later, I felt his hand on my shoulder. He gave me a gentle squeeze and stepped away.

I prayed again, a single word SOS, and the peace that had left me, charged back in full.  I knew it wouldn’t last, so I brought my rifle up in one fluid motion and pulled the trigger. The report of the gun was like an atomic blast, feeling as if it would shatter my eardrums, as it echoed across the hills for what seemed like hours. The birds stopped their songs and let us have a moment of complete silence. There was nothing peaceful about it as Sally’s body slumped forward and fell onto the pile of the dead below.

We walked backed to the Manor in silence.  I felt as if I left a part of my soul on that hill.