DEAD: Darkness Before Dawn (7 page)

“Grady Jones,” she called as we got within about fifty yards or so.

A tall, skinny, African-American fellow stepped away from the group. He slung his crossbow over his shoulder and actually jogged over to meet us instead of just waiting for us to reach him. As he got close, I could swear that I recognized the man, but for the life of me, I could not say from where.

“Hey there, Doc,” the man said with a polite nod of his head. He glanced at me with a question in his eyes.

“This is Billy Haynes, he will be assisting me,” Dr. Zahn a
ssured.

That seemed to do the trick, because Grady Jones turned to me and stuck out his right hand. I shook it and noticed that he was one of those guys with a grip that you just knew could crush walnuts if he gave a good enough squeeze. However, he also did not try and get into a hand squeezing contest with you either. There was a brief but firm squeeze and then he let go.

“Nice to meet you, Billy.”

“And you,” I said.

“Since it is obvious that neither of you can remember, perhaps I can shed some light on the question I see on both of your faces,” Dr. Zahn said after a few seconds of silence where I felt Grady was inspecting me much the same as I was doing to him. “Billy was with that group that Sergeant Wimmer sent me with.” The doc was staring at Grady as she spoke. Once she saw the dawning light of realization spread across his face, she turned to me. “Grady was part of the team that was working on the power grid back at Serenity Base.”

And then it hit me. When we had arrived, the place had power and everything, but there was no rumble and cough of big diesel generators. Instead, the place had been patched in to a mainline
from the Bonneville Power Plant. However, a group of engineer types were all holed up in this building. They did not go out on missions or anything; they had been designated (like Dr. Zahn and all of the base’s medical staff at the time) as too important to risk. They were putting together supply lists for solar and wind power facilities.

I had been surprised to discover that converting solar and wind power to electricity
was more than just sticking out one of those reflective glass things or building a windmill. There was this whole process where the power had to be converted. Well, Grady and his team knew how this all worked.

But Serenity Base had been overrun. We had listened that night on the radio, and then there had been the runs back to search for any possible medical supplies that might not have been grabbed.

“Grady and his team were another group that Paul sent out ahead of the…incident,” Dr. Zahn explained.

“Wow,” Grady breathed, “hard to believe it has been almost a year.”

He was right. It was hard to believe. Someday, I would try and sit down to process all of this madness. I bet if I wrote some of it down, I probably would have a difficult time believing it…and I was there!

“So, any more sightings?” Apparently Dr. Zahn was fi
nished with the small talk.

“We saw two more this morning…same general location, and now that you got me lookin’ for it, I did notice that the damn things seemed like they were scared of us.”

While Grady and Dr. Zahn started looking at some map that Grady pulled from inside his flak jacket, I started taking a look around. I had not been to this part of the city before. In fact, it didn’t look like anybody had, so why did we have this particular bridge being watched. I guessed it to be at least a half mile or so from the compound proper.

“Let’s go!” Dr. Zahn called, snapping me out of my thoughts.

We crossed the bridge in silence. I gave a polite nod to the group of strangers who were standing this watch. However, as soon as we were clear and I felt my voice would not carry, I stopped walking. Doctor Zahn must have expected it, because she stopped cold and turned to face me.

“No, Grady and his group have not joined with ours…yet. I was not even aware they had made it until I was out with Su
nshine. We had discovered a small veterinary clinic and checked for any sort of medical supplies they might have.

“I searched the second floor while she searched the main floor. I swear…I damn near killed that man.” Dr. Zahn actually had a slight smile on her face; I guess you had to be there. “When I first saw him, he was standing there, absolutely frozen in place. We did not talk long, and he made me promise not to tell my group about his. I guess they have had some pretty nasty exper
iences. Grady is actually the only member of his Serenity team that is still alive. Anyway, we set a time and place to meet again…alone.

“It seems that Grady’s new group is one of the factions ba
ttling for control of La Grande. When I told him that we were the ones to knock out Winters and his people, Grady said that had effectively made us the new Public Enemy Number One in town. He and I have been meeting on the side, and both of us will try to soften up our own leadership a bit before bringing each side to the table for negotiations.”

My head was spinning. This was sounding way more co
mplicated than I figured it needed to be. Why were folks so hung up on who got to wear the boss’ hat? If we could all just work together, then maybe securing this city and some of the surrounding farmland would not be such a big deal.

“…had a daughter that was bitten. I guess she was only six or seven.” Oops, I should probably pay attention, this sounded important. “A
nyways, I guess this Marco was insistent that his daughter was not one of the undead. They had a few people who had shown immunity, so his thinking was that she was immune, but just still really sick. Long story short, she wasn’t. She bit her dad and killed him. The new leader had the daughter disposed of, but the group as a whole could not deny that the zombie child had not demonstrated some odd behavior from what they were used to.

“And that brings me up to the run with Jon and Steve. Steve had insisted that this child zombie that we encountered had acted in a very odd way.
Then you had your encounter, so that is why I want to capture one. It is my hope that I might be able to discover if there is a fundamental difference in these child zombies versus their adult counterparts.”

I must have been standing there with my most obvious “Are you out of your mind!?” face on, because Dr. Zahn
actually started to babble. If there is one thing that I did not ever think I would witness from the doc, it was babbling.

“I just want to grab a couple, but I can start with one, Billy,” she said in a rush, her words running together. “I need to know what this is. Maybe if I do, I can try to attack this virus or wha
tever it is at the source. Also, if these behavior patterns are so out of the ordinary, it might help us to know why.”

Honestly, I thought she was being crazy. A zombie is a zombie, but I could see real desperation in he
r face and it got to me. Besides, she had certainly earned the right to ask for any help that she wanted after all she had done. My only thing was Carol; I had really learned to like that lady. I had a hard time justifying going off on this crazy quest while she was still a prisoner; to make it worse, tonight her captors were going to start cutting bits of her off.

I was standing in the middle of the road; both physically, and mentally as I pondered my dilemma. I have no idea what I would have said to Dr. Zahn. Thank God I didn’t have to give her an answer at that exact moment.

A scream came from the woods just to our north.

4

Vignettes XLIV

“
Looks like somebody beat us here.” Harold put what he hoped was a comforting arm around Vix’s shoulders. She shrugged it away and took a few steps toward the lip of the hill.

“
We can’t go down there,” Gemma said more to herself than anybody. She was shaking her head and backing away.

“
But whoever is in there—” Vix started, only to have Harold cut her off.

“
Is trapped…or already dead.”

“
There has to be a way,” Vix mumbled to herself.

“
Why bother?” Harold asked. “After all, if whoever it is that has secured that place and built the fence is even still alive, what makes you think they want anything to do with us?”

Vix was quiet for a few moments. Then her eyes brightened. She looked at Harold with a smile.

“Because they are waving a flag that says so.” She placed her hands on either side of Harold’s head and turned it.

On the roof of the cottage was a woman with a bed sheet on a stick. In big red letters, the word
“Help!” was painted. She was waving the flag back and forth, jumping up and down.

“
She may as well be on the bloody moon,” Gemma grumped.

As the trio watched, five more people emerged from the small house. Even from this distance it was obvious that there was an animated discussion. It was also obvious that every si
ngle one of the people down there were women.

“
Well,” Harold said with a sheepish shrug, “I guess we could try to figure
something
out. After all, we have come all this way.”

Vix did not miss the narrowing of Gemma’s eyes. Still, she would worry about that later. As she continued to scan the area inside the fence, she saw what she was pretty sure had to be a garden. These women had done a very good job making that place secure, and it was obvious that they were thinking long term.

There was a huge, covered fire pit and a large cauldron was hanging over it. She could see where a small creek wound through, which would supply them with plenty of water. They had three separate garden areas and what looked like at least two burn pile areas.

The barricade that surrounded the area that they had secured was probably twenty feet high. The bottom portion took her a moment to figure out.

“That’s interesting,” Vix said as she studied the fence through her binoculars. “It looks like they stacked baled hay or something about ten feet wide and around ten feet high for the base of that barrier.”

“
That doesn’t seem like a very good idea,” Harold muttered as he studied the scene below as well. “Any attack by raiders during the summer and it would be an inferno if they don’t keep it soaked.”

“
They do have a creek running through that back pasture,” Vix pointed out.

“
Still take a lot of water.” Harold shook his head, but continued to survey the area.

“
Maybe they aren’t worried about raiders,” Vix finally said.

“
Then they are daft,” Harold retorted, but he was obviously zeroing in on something, because his voice had a distant and distracted quality. “Or bloody brilliant.”

“
What?” Vix asked, trying to take a closer look and see what might have drawn his attention.

“
They have metal bracing throughout, though I have no idea where they came by so much, or how they welded it into place. They could actually set fire to the hay bales themselves and create a wall of fire. I guess that would be some sort of last resort, but the structure would likely hold. And they have a trench dug all the way around on the inside. It is unconventional…but it would be effective.”

“
I think we just found our new home,” Vix announced.

“
Great,” Gemma whispered to herself.

***

Juan opened the door for Mackenzie when they arrived home. Partially he did this because she made such a big deal about what a “gentleman” he was when he did such things. The other reason presented itself a few seconds later when Tigah bounded up and bowled into the woman, covering her face with amazingly slobbery doggy kisses.

Still just a puppy at maybe ten or so months old, Tigah was already big enough that he could look Mackenzie in the eye when he planted his massive Newfoundland paws on her shou
lders.

“
Okay, boy,” Mackenzie said with a muffled laugh as she was rewarded with another round of enthusiastic doggy kisses.

Juan closed the door and turned up the Coleman lantern. He was not looking forward to the day when they ran out of batte
ries. Lately, the darkness was starting to unnerve him. He constantly felt a certain degree of uneasiness and discomfort.

“
Okay, spill it,” Mackenzie said as she moved to the couch and sat down, patting the spot beside her.

Juan only briefly thought about trying to pretend that ever
ything was fine, but he knew better. He would never sit down across from her at a card table; she could read him like a book.

“
I know that you predicted I would be a nominee, but to go from nominee to president or whatever the hell they are calling this job in a matter of twenty minutes…it wasn’t supposed to go down like that. Nobody else even got nominated.”

“
Sweetie, like it or not, you are the leader of this community. It is you who has gone out time and again to bring people back. Now, we are populated with a bunch of folks that you, for lack of any other way to look at it, saved.”

“
I just invited them to come stay here with us,” Juan protested. “Most of those people were doing fine when we would stumble upon them. I didn’t save anybody…except maybe that one group.”

“
Like it or not, Juan Hoya…you are the first Latino president.” Mackenzie fixed him with her most serious expression until she could not help herself and burst into a chuckle.

Tigah looked from her to Juan and decided that no further scratches behind the ear were immediately forthcoming, so, with a huff, he plopped down on the floor with a heavy thud.

“First ex-felon too,” Juan quipped.

“
You need to get over that junk,” Mackenzie scolded. “It is a new world and you are living a new life. The only person that still remembers that crap is you.”

That was not entirely true
, Juan thought. That brought him to his next point.

“
Did you tell April to make that nomination?”

“
Nope.”

“
And then she just ducks out after.”

“
Yeah,” Mackenzie said as she leaned into Juan and let him wrap one of his arms around her. “I admit…that was kind of weird, but then, she has not really been the same since you guys got back.”

They stayed on the couch for a while until things began to turn a bit more intimate. Later that night, Juan lay awake in bed, Mackenzie beside him snoring softly. Tigah had managed to worm his way
onto the bed and was doing a great job of cutting the circulation off in Juan’s legs. As seemed to be the norm lately, he was having trouble falling asleep. If it was not the bad dreams, then it was his mind going at a million miles an hour. Tonight it was the latter.

Juan had replayed the events of the evening in his mind. He was coming to grips as best he could with this role. All his life he had been on the fringe. And now, here he was…the elected leader of a community of a few hundred survivors. Well, the first thing he needed to do is act like a leader and surround himself with people who actually knew what they were doing.

Maybe it would not be terrible
, he thought. In fact, this would definitely keep him from having to go out on supply runs. Surely the community would not want him putting himself at risk any more.

At first, Juan thought he was imagining things. His eyes flicked down to Tigah who slept in peaceful oblivion. Surely if there were somebody trying to get into the house, the dog would react. Juan laughed to himself at the thought.

Who would break in these days?
he
thought. That is something from the old world.

The sudden and distinct creak of a floorboard in the hallway was enough to dispel the sense of calm that he had been working to instill in himself. Juan sat up in bed. Tigah d
id not respond in the slightest, other than to snuggle in closer to Mackenzie when he extricated his legs from under the huge canine.

His feet hit the floor without a sound. His mind instantly gave him a reminder of where every single creaky board in the flooring
was located as he very quietly drew his machete from its sheath where it hung beside his bed.

Realizing that he was buck naked, Juan briefly considered tugging on the sweatpants that still lay in a heap on the floor b
eside the bed. Another creak changed his mind. Since zombies don’t creep, this had to be a person of the living, breathing variety. Maybe being confronted by a large, angry, naked man would give him just the slightest edge as the person was hopefully caught just a little off guard.

Pausing long enough to tighten his grip on the machete, Juan took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway. A dark figure stood silhouetted at the far end of the hall where it opened out to the living room. Juan did not need to see the face, he could recognize the outline.

“April?”

There was a sound, like she was sucking in her breath to hold it. And then…something stuck him right in the throat. Se
veral things tried to fight for position in Juan’s mind at once. Above them all was the simple thought:
Protect Mackenzie!

Juan took a few steps forward, but already he was feeling like the world was slipping away. His body was not paying any attention to the commands that his brain was sending.

The darkness seemed to be deepening and the floor was tilting first one way, and then another. His feet were becoming too heavy to lift and he suddenly found himself on his knees.

Sliding down with his back against the wall, Juan now tried to yell a warning, but his voice betrayed him and nothing above a pitiful squeak came out. He felt his grip release on the m
achete. His last thought as darkness came to claim him was that he had failed.

***

“There is absolutely nothing for miles in any direction,” Glenn said, tapping the map. “So she has to be here someplace.”

“
I think she is hiding out in one of the mansions,” Cynthia said. “In fact, I would start our search over by where we initially found her.”

“
If she has even a lick of sense, she would put some distance between herself and that area. She has to know that is the first place we will look.” Kyle was pacing, continuously flexing his fingers and then balling them into fists.

“
And that is exactly why we still need to search that area,” Cynthia pressed. “It is that whole thing about out-thinking and second-guessing. If we are certain she is not there…what better place to hide.”

“
I hate to say this,” Glenn started, but paused when everybody looked at him. He knew it was the right thing, but it didn’t make it feel any better. “We are going to need to split up.”

“
Absolutely not!” Cynthia snapped.

“
He’s right,” Mel’s voice said from the bed she had been laid in when they got her back and after Cynthia had assured them that she was going to be okay. “We need to get bicycles and get out there right now.”

The petite blonde was sitting up and already slipping her shoes back on. She only staggered a little bit the first time that she tried to stand. Kyle rushed to help her
, but she slapped him away.

“
I can do it!” Mel closed her eyes for a second, but quickly resumed gathering up her gear.

“
Then we need to do this right,” Glenn stated, tapping the map he had laid out on the table. “We section off the area and each of us searches that section. If we leapfrog each other, it will allow us to check in with one another so we don’t completely lose track.”

It took some convincing, but
eventually even Mel saw the logic. She hated the idea of having to stop her search to check in, but Kyle had insisted, saying that he did not care to lose his son and his wife in a twenty-four hour period.

As they each geared up, their lack of technology was not g
oing unnoticed. It was Cynthia who said that they should take the flare guns.

Less than thirty minutes later, Glenn, Kyle, and Mel were climbing down the rope ladder and venturing out into the world of the undead. Cynthia had managed to hobble to the balcony railing to see them all off, cursing her injury the entire time.

She watched them all until they vanished from sight.