DEAD: Confrontation (6 page)

After one final failed attempt to call his mother, he decided that it was time to get moving. For the briefest of seconds, he considered the decision to send his mother and sister their own way. In the end, it came down to his desire to survive. He shut off the voice in his head that called him a coward. He ignored the voice of
Sara asking him when he was going to come join her.

***

“I’m hungry,” Valarie’s voice caused him to jump and hit his head on the top of the little hollowed out room he had fashioned.

He’d managed to drag her into the snow cave
without waking her; not for lack of trying. Once they were in and seated on his coat that he had laid out on the frozen floor, he pulled the comforter that he had liberated from the same house he had discovered the Ambien.

Before long, he was actually convinced that they were warm. He could still see his breath turn to fog, but he felt his fingers and toes—mostly. That was a good sign. He wondered how bad the frostbite would turn out to be.

“We just have to wait a while longer and then we can go. Once we get moving, I will find us some food,” Kevin whispered and patted the girl on the arm.

That seemed to suffice. She snuggled back in close and was snoring again in minutes. On one hand, Kevin was grateful. He was left alone to clear his mind and think. On the other hand, he dreaded it. He was left alone to clear his mind…and think.

3

Blood in the Snow

I am staring up at the sky. A small opening appeared in the clouds revealing just a hint of blue. I wondered if an angel would appear and scoop me up into its arms and rush me off to Heaven. Of course, for that to happen I would need to be all the way dead. I’m pretty sure that I’m not all the way dead…yet.

A dull pain radiated out from
my left shoulder. That was where the first bullet had struck. My vision blurred and I wiped at my eyes with my right hand. I looked at the glove and am not surprised to find it slick with blood. That second bullet had only grazed me.

I
wonder if that was a good thing or a bad thing for the briefest of moments until the dark shadows of what I am certain will be the approaching zombies bathe me in dark coldness.

Today has really sucked and it looks like it is ab
out to get worse. Christ…has it only been one day? Was it really just this morning that Jake and Jesus came back with the news…?

***

“…you sure it was them?” I asked. Hell, I knew they were sure, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t entitled to a stupid question every now and then. Plus, I think it helped keep them aware that I didn’t always have the magic solution. Sometimes…I screwed up.

“We didn’t cut them down,” Jesus said with a shrug. “There wasn’
t time. But yeah…we’re sure.”

A few weeks ago, I had made a decision that I was still struggling to come to grips with. It all started when Jon, Jesus, and Jake went on a search for supplies. They encountered a group of people that were barely hanging on. It had reached the point where they resorted to cannibalism.

Long story short, we brought them all back here. Their numbers included a little girl around Thalia’s age named Misty (who saw me as the devil) and a man who was the apparent leader. Mr. Patton.

At some point, he decided that he would rather try his luck out in the frozen wilds versus stay with us. As a group, we
came to the decision that he was within his rights; but he would not take Misty until the weather changed. We told him that he was welcome to return in the spring to claim her if she wished to go.

Now, I should make it very clear that Misty wanted nothing to do with that plan. She has made it difficult at times, but the past couple of days, she has seemed to settle in. She even helped Thalia set the table
last night.

“And you saw definite signs of survivors?”
I asked.

“Unless
zombies have taken to stringing people up…just that alone would be confirmation, don’tcha think?” Jesus did a poor job of keeping the sarcasm from his voice.

“Considering what we know of Mr. Patton, he could piss off the pope,” Jake offered. “But I still think we are looking at the possibility of some hostiles cruising the area. If they have a good knowledge of this locale, we might be paid a visit. I think we should set an extra watch down at the entrance during the day for a bit. Also, we want to talk to Jon, but I think it is a good idea if you let me and Jesus patrol the perimeter
.”

“You think it is that bad?” I was all for being cautious, but this seemed like perhaps there might be more to the story.

The pair of soldiers looked at each other. I saw something passing back and forth. Yep…there was more to the story. I figured I could wait a few seconds while they decided to pass on what was probably vital information. Why did these two continue to treat me like I was an outsider? Oh yeah…because I was not in the military! Well it wasn’t me who decided that I should be the leader…or mayor…or whatever the hell they were calling me.

“The gal that left with Patton,” Jake finally spoke. “She was gone. They killed the guys
, and I am guessing that they took her.”

“Fine…let Jon know what is up. Tell Billy to post up down on the stand. I will leave it to you guys to set a rotation. As far as the patrol thing…if Jon thinks it is a good idea, obviously I defer to his
judgment.”

The pair walked up to the cabin and went inside leaving me standing here out in the freezing cold to mull over this newest development. Honestly, I should have
known it was coming. Other than a petulant child, we had not had trouble one in the past few weeks.

Well…not since the loss of Emily.

I was mildly surprised that not one single person had said a word to me when I came back inside that evening. Nobody asked if I’d put her down…nothing. I suspect that Dr. Zahn had something to do with that, but it is a can of worms that I did not want to open. Just this instant flash of thinking on how nobody had asked me anything was enough to get my throat tight and my eyes watering.

I was walking up to the huge log cabin welcome center that acted as
our home. Well, walked is not the right word exactly. In the past several weeks, the snow had really piled up. In fact, I now had a better understanding as to why the building was up on a platform supported by tree trunk-sized stilts that were about eight or so feet high.

Even with that much elevation off the ground, the snow had reached the porch. We didn’t have paths through the snow as much as we did troughs. In fact, we had so much snow, even the kids were growing weary of it.

This winter was a real eye opener for us. I don’t think any of us truly realized how much infrastructure used to be in place to deal with this type of weather. But the reality was that the plows were not running anymore. Not only that, the ambient warmth from buildings and just simple population density was gone. There were no cars cruising along, clearing the roads. No heated buildings keeping the snow from building up. It was white for as far as the eye could see. Sure, the trees broke it up, but the landscape was one big white blanket.

Nobody went outside alone. Nobody went outside without sunglasses. You kept as much skin covered as possible to min
imize snowburn. We were still learning.

I reached the porch when a ground shaking boom echoed from what seemed like everywhere. I looked around as snow fell from trees in heavy clumps.

“Fireball to the south,” Cheryl called from the watch tower that we had built on top of the center.

Two more concussive explosions came. I was almost certain that I felt the vibrations in my feet.

“One to the north and one to the east!” Cheryl reported.

In seconds, everybody was on the porch. For just a moment, I felt crowded. The only time all of us were in one place—minus
whoever was on watch of course—was usually dinner.

The chatter was a mix of concern and fear. I caught Jon’s gaze and motioned with my head for him to join me at the far end of the porch
.

“You get the report from Jake and Jesus?” I asked as soon as we were apart from the cluster.

“Yeah.” Jon seemed distracted.

“So should we sit tight, or do you think we should send some of the group to the fall back position?” I asked.

Just outside of the small town of Joseph, Oregon we had a cache of supplies well hidden. In the event that we might need to abandon this place that we called home, we wanted to make sure that any who survived would have something to start over with. It seemed a bit fatalistic, but we had learned over the months that no place was safe from a zombie herd. Also, zombies might not be the only problem out there. Plenty of folks had taken advantage of the full-scale chaos.

“Umm…Steve?” Cheryl called down. “Maybe you should come up here and take a look.”

I hadn’t really gotten to know Doug or Cheryl that well, but she seemed like the level-headed sort. If she was rattled, I had to figure it was for good reason. I left Jon to organize things while I went to see what the matter was up in the crow’s nest.

As soon as I made it through the trap door, she was trying to shove the binoculars into my hand. That is never a good sign. Also, she had fair skin to begin with, but she was noticeably more pale than usual. I put the glasses to my eyes and focused my attention in the direction that she had indicated.

“You have got to be kidding.” That was all I could think to say.

From our location, you could not see the highway directly in front, but from the crow’s nest, you could see glimpses of it to the west as it crested a distant hill. That was one of the selling points for this location. Unless you knew where it was
, you were not going to find it. We had removed the wooden National Forest Campground sign a while back. Finding us in this remote location would be like finding a needle in the proverbial haystack.

However, what I saw sent a shiver of dread up my spine.
At the top of a radio tower I spotted the first one. The upsetting part was when he waved at me. I say he in the generic sense, with all the layers of clothing, goggles, and cap, it was impossible to tell. Now, a simple wave might seem like no big deal, but as I scanned the horizon, I found twelve more sets of eyes on us from various cell towers as well as what looked like a few platforms that had been constructed in some of the trees across the valley.

The only thing that had me confused was the big explosions. Then it struck me. That sound was the world’s loudest dinner bell. My hunch was confirmed before I was even down from the crow’s nest when three more explosions came one on top of the other. They were closer.

Whoever this was, they were bringing any zombie for miles down on us. I thought back to when we had to evacuate Serenity Base. There had been a firefight, and the people who had wiped out that location reportedly used zombies as shock troops. I didn’t recall any explosions, but I was running scared at the time. Also, we got out just ahead of the attack. There were plenty of big booms and gunfire. Maybe I just had not been paying attention.

When I reached the bottom of the ladder, Melissa was wai
ting. I didn’t have enough time to put up any sort of emotional expression filter. She saw it plain on my face.

“It’s that bad?” she whispered.

I looked over her shoulder at Thalia who was sitting in front of the fireplace with her Border collie, Buster. She was teaching the eager pup to hide her eyes to the delight of Misty who, on one of those rare occasions, did not notice that I was in the room. Anytime I came within visual range, that girl would clam up tighter than Fort Knox.

Watching from a few feet away were the two children that DeAngelo Cribbs and his wife had taken as their own: Rabia and Levent. These two had
become our responsibility when a group of Muslim survivors arrived. A few had been bitten. For some reason, they thought it would be better to go out into the woods and die than take care of the ones who were still healthy. Yet, somebody in that group made the decision to leave the two children with us.

It’s been a crazy few months.

“I think so,” I finally answered Melissa. “And some of you will be leaving for the emergency fall back location in a little while.”

I could tell that Melissa wanted to say something in the form of a protest. But her hands went to her swelling belly where our child was growing and she kept her arguments—whatever they might have been—to herself.

“Everybody listen up!” Jon called as he came inside. “It looks like we have a serious band of raiders heading our way. I do not expect any sort of parlay with these folks. From all indications, these people don’t seem to be the talking type. Now, we are not just going to abandon what we have here. However, we will be sending some of you to the emergency shelter.”

“Steve, Nickie, DeAngelo, Fiona and Doug, you will be staying here,” Jesus stepped forward and read from a scrap of paper.

It seemed that Jon was assuming his role of our military leader. Thank God. I might be able to make some decisions, but this was so far outside of my element, I would not know where to begin.

“Jake will lead the rest to our fallback location,” Jesus co
ntinued.

“Perhaps Steve should change places with Brad,” Dr. Zahn offered. “As our appointed leader, I believe it would be best if he were to evacuate with the rest of us.”

“I understand your point, Doc,” Jon said with a curt nod. “However, he is a better shot and we need our best for this.”

“So is it my understanding that you intend on engaging th
ese people?” Dr. Zahn was not finished. “From what I’ve heard and the very little that I’ve seen, it is a possibility that this is the same group that wiped out Serenity Base. No disrespect to you, sergeant, but Serenity had better firepower and equally competent soldiers.”

“And if we were going to stand our ground, you would be absolutely correct,” Jon agreed. “However, that is not my plan.”

I could tell that Dr. Zahn wanted to continue this little debate, but she was also smart enough to know how precious time was at this very moment. She shot me a look that I couldn’t decipher and went to her little closet/office, presumably to grab essentials.

Melissa and Thalia clung to me for a moment. I did my best to say
all those things that you have no power to actually fulfill. Things like “I’ll be fine” and “I will see you just as soon as this is over” sounded hollow in my ears, but seemed to have the desired effect on them.

“I’ll keep ‘em safe,” Jake whispered in my ear before hea
ding in back to hasten everybody along.