Crusade (Eden Book 2) (10 page)

There was gunfire and screams as the zombies marched through the shards of wood that had once held them back. Buddy still couldn’t see into the camp but he could imagine the chaos unleashed within. He tossed the used launcher aside and ran back in the direction he’d come. The gunfire behind him intensified. He wondered how many men, women, and children were in the camp and if they’d survive the onslaught.

He reached his AK-47, scooped it up, and tore ass down the hill. There was no sight of Bear or the others on the tracks so he trusted they’d crossed. He broke from the trees and hustled across open ground, looking over his right shoulder once, satisfied that the zombies—hell bent on the camp and those within—had no idea he sprinted past them a few hundred yards away.

Part of him wanted to wait, concealed around the bend in the tracks, to watch and listen, to hear when the gunfire abated and to know who had won the fight. Part of him considered the fate of the man on the cross and he thought briefly of returning to put the man out of his misery. Instead he reached the tracks and slowed to a walk, the scene behind him disappearing as he followed the railroad, spying the prints of Bear and Buddy and Gwen and Julie in the snow.

“Do we have to spend another night outside?” Gwen asked as they marched through the snow. “It’s cold.” When Bear and Mickey looked at her she nodded towards Julie.

Buddy had noticed he’d been spending more time on point lately. He figured it was some mix of his knowing where they were going and the others maybe being wary of him, after he’d almost strangled Mickey. He really felt bad about that. It was inexcusable.

He’d been walking point most of the day and thought back, wondering if they’d crossed paths with any zombies and if he’d had to kill any of them. He couldn’t remember. He looked down at the hatchet in his gloved hand and noted the dried blood on its blade but couldn’t discern how fresh or stale it was.
Whatever
.

Shit was getting harder to keep in check. Buddy had been hearing the voices more. They’d come and go. Sometimes he’d turn around and look towards the others thinking it was them. They were always back there, trudging along behind him, following, but not speaking. It scared him there were times he forgot why he was out here way ahead of the others.

The way they grouped around Julie, protecting her and the baby. From him? The thought didn’t sit well. But, at times like this, he could understand and accepted it. And he vowed to kill anything in their path that threatened Harris’ woman and child.
Anything
.

Buddy stood and waited for the others to catch up, well aware that the person at the head of the parade was either leading the parade or being pushed out.

Bear was a man of few words and Buddy really didn’t have much to say. While Mickey, Gwen, and Julie discussed names for the baby the two men in the front trudged along stoically.

Gonna come visit him tonight.

Why don’t you leave him alone?

Me and him got a lot in common.

He’s nothing like you, nothing.

Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re so wrong…

They followed the tracks and in time spied a house that was set well back. As a group they approached it. As they got closer they noticed the doors and windows were boarded up and the snow around the home looked untrammeled.

Gwen glanced at Mickey and raised an eyebrow. He stuck his lower lip out and motioned with his palms up. They stood together surveying the house, the surrounding trees and countryside and saw nothing. Though it was still light out the sun had fallen behind the bare tree branches.

Buddy stepped in Bear’s tracks. The snow around the house was up to his knees and he was a tall man. They reached the house and looked it over up close. The doors and windows on the first and second floors had been sealed from the inside with planks of wood. Without a word between them they set off in opposite directions, circling the house, giving it the once around. Vinyl siding had fallen off and lay half buried in the snow. They met up again at the back.

Together they approached the back of the house and Bear opened the screen door. Through glass panes he could see the neatly aligned planks indicating the inner door was sealed shut from inside.

Bear broke the other panes and took a step back. Buddy held the screen door open as Bear swung the mace and splintered the planks. It took them a couple of minutes, and they made a lot of noise, but soon they forced the door open by pressing their weight against it.

Mickey, Julie, and Gwen had joined them in the backyard and stood looking around at the darkening sky.

“We’re going to check the house,” Buddy said. “There’s a chance someone is still in it.”

Mickey walked over to a car caked in a thick layer of snow. He brushed a swath of white from the hood and looked at the paint beneath.

Bear had already gone inside the house. Buddy had to unscrew the head of his flashlight a bit and shake it. After jarring the batteries inside the torch lit, and he screwed the top snug into place.

He stepped into a kitchen. Somewhere in another room the floor creaked under Bear, and the other man’s flashlight and green laser site tracked.

Buddy looked around. Weak light from the ending day leaked in through cracks between the planks secured over the windows. Dust particles flittered through the shafts of light. The kitchen had been left clean. One of the walls was discolored. Upon inspection he saw it was mold. He considered opening the fridge but decided against it. Whatever was in there was probably decomposed beyond the point of stinking, but he had no desire to see it.

“Buddy,” Bear called from somewhere else in the house.

He found the other man in a living room. A couch and two chairs were set around a coffee table low to the ground. The opposite wall was taken up with an entertainment center complete with flat screen television, cable box, DVD/VCR, and stereo.

The remains of four people sat in the living room—one in each chair, two on the couch. The bodies were in varying states of decay and desiccation. They almost didn’t look real to Buddy. He stood next to Bear, panning over them with the beam of their flashlights. A thick layer of dust covered everything. The green laser site mounted on the Glock tracked it from body to body.

Maybe they all took pills?

“Look.”

Bear turned his flashlight beam on the coffee table around which they sat. It was bare except for an old
TV-Guide
and a single sheet of loose-leaf paper.

Buddy walked over and picked up the dusty paper. He blew on it and sneezed, then read what was written and showed it to Bear.

“Who the fuck is Ted?”

Don’t let Ted out of the basement!
Was scrawled across the paper in chicken scratch.

They searched the remainder of the first floor and found a sealed door that led down into a basement. Buddy rapped on it with the butt of his 9mm. He and Bear waited around but there was no commotion or any indication Ted or anything else remained in the cellar. The basement door didn’t open from the other side, so they surveyed the remainder of the home, noting the hardwood on the second floor carpeted with a blanket of dust, undisturbed, thinking no one had been moving in this house for some time. The wall in one of the bedrooms, much like the wall in the kitchen, was covered with mold.

Satisfied it was safe, Buddy went and got the others.

Bear shined the flashlight around the room. Even through the thick dust and strands of cobwebs he could see it was a nursery, with the walls papered in a soft pink. There was a dresser and a changing station with a box of baby wipes and a crib.

He walked over to the crib and looked into it, standing there for some time contemplating what it held.

“That’s a baby Joey,” Buddy said from beside him. Bear had not heard Buddy come into the room and had been unaware the man stood next to him but he was not startled and did not move.

Bear hadn’t seen a doll in a long, long time, and he wouldn’t have known this was a baby Joey doll or whatever if Buddy hadn’t told him. He wondered if the other man knew what he was talking about. Buddy had periods of clarity, and then he had… He wondered how to categorize Buddy’s episodes. Breaks from reality? Dementia?

“We used to watch a lot of re-runs Inside,” Buddy said by way of explanation.

Bear was a hard man, had done time, and could recognize other hard men. He had long suspected Buddy had been a guest of the state at some point or other, but it was never anything he’d chosen to broach with the other man.

He decided to go for broke.

“What were locked up for?”

Buddy did not answer. Bear turned and saw the other had gone as quietly as he had come. He turned back to the crib and pondered the baby boy doll lying inside.