DEAD: Reborn (23 page)

“He brought a lot of them…over a thousand is my guess. They are making their way through the fields. That big ass explosion didn’t help. It actually turned them right for us. I see five main groups. Lucky for us, the smallest one is the only one that should hit the cemetery.”

“Everybody grab anything that is of any importance!” Kevin called as he turned to face the kids. “We need to make a run for it.”

“But it’s only zombies,” one of the kids argued. “They’re slow and stupid. We see them every once in a while at the fence. We just go up and poke them. What’s the big deal?”

“Because a few of them is no big deal, but this many, they will fold that fence over like it is made out of aluminum foil.
We won’t stand a chance,” Doug spoke up, pulling himself to his feet.

“We?” several voices asked in chorus.

“Look, kids, I get it. Those guys were creeps…bad guys. But you can’t just assume that every single man left alive is going to be a monster like those guys,” Doug explained. “I am here, and I’ll be damned if I would be able to just walk away and leave you kids to…that.” He gestured with his arm the way that Catie said the zombies were coming from. That caused him to wince and double over just a bit.

“There
is an airport to the northwest. If we can get to the highway, we can probably hide out there for a day or two until things settle down around here,” Kevin said as he offered a shoulder for the other man to lean on.

“That is
not going to work.” Catie shook her head. “There is a mob on a direct path for that area. I climbed a water tower and got a good look around. Our best bet is to move due south to a set of railroad tracks. If we follow them, they will eventually get us back up to the southern end of Valparaiso.”

“Then I guess that is where we head.” Kevin raised his hands in the air as several of the children started asking what seemed like a million questions at once. “You can’t stay here. Trust me when I tell you that these things are bad news when they are in large groups like this. They don’t feel pain and if they want to get at something, they don’t care what is done to them in the process. Like Doug here says, they will fold that fence over like nothing.”

“Why can’t we just go down below until they pass?” a voice called out from the midst of the group.

“You can, but there is no telling how long that mob could end up hanging around, and if they find a way in…then you would be trapped,” Kevin answered. “Now, we don’t have a lot of time—”

“Maybe thirty minutes,” Catie interrupted and then nodded for Kevin to continue.

“So if you are coming with us, then grab what you can ca
rry. Remember, things get heavier after a while. You should only bring what you absolutely need. We can replace just about anything else once we get on the road.”

The children stood around for a few seconds. Sean seemed unsure and was not offering any help as the majority looked to him for answers.

“You heard them,” Deanna stepped forward. “We don’t have forever. Get your butts moving!”

For the first time, Kevin actually took a look at the young girl. Her hair was a light brown and looked like she had sawed it off with a knife just above the shoulders; her eyes were a shade of hazel that almost looked green. She had freckles across the bridge of her nose and a dimple on each cheek that remained even when she wasn’t smiling. She had long legs that looked a bit awkward and reminded him of a foal
; how they almost seemed too spindly to support her frame even though the girl was extremely skinny. Yet, under that was somebody with that natural ability to take charge of a situation.

Kevin was a real believer that people were born with their abilities. All it took was the right nurturing and set of experien
ces to bring them out. Something told him that this girl could actually thrive in this new world. He would do his best to keep an eye on her.

The children all scrambled at her command and took off for the crypt where their belongings were stored for the most part. That left Kevin, Catie, Aleah, Heather, and Doug alone.

“I can’t begin to thank you,” Doug began as he patted Kevin on the arm and eased down to sit with his back up against one of the headstones.

“You don’t need to, but I want to make something
very clear,” Kevin turned to face the man after watching Deanna heard a group of the youngest children—ages looked to be between nine and ten years old—down below to gather their things. “I don’t know you, and until I have reason, I don’t trust you. I will be watching you…and the moment I even think you might be trying to pull something…I’ll kill you. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Doug said with a nod.

“So, how did you end up letting pieces of trash like this Derek and his crew into your group?” Kevin asked as he began checking his weapons one last time before they headed out. He pulled out a canteen and took a long drink, then offered it to Doug who accepted it with a grateful nod.

“Safety in numbers.
We have been taking in any who came. We figured the bad guys wouldn’t try to join us as much as they would probably try to just openly attack,” Doug explained.

It seemed a fairly reasonable assumption to Kevin.
But you know what they say about when you assume anything
, a voice mocked in his head. He had made a few of his own over the past several months.

“But as soon as we heard what
they did, a group of us decided that we had to take them out. We grabbed the one we figured would squeal the fastest and got him to spill everything…what they did to that poor girl…that young man…and where they last saw the group of kids. Our plan was that we would find the kids and try to get them to join us…some even suggested that we publically display the bodies of the men who had hurt them, so that the kids could see for themselves that we meant no harm.”

“Sounds kind of extreme.” Kevin accepted his canteen back and saw the first of the children emerging from the crypt. Some carried a small knapsack like the kind they would have used on the first day of school.

“These are extreme times,” Doug said with a laugh.

In less than ten minutes, everybody was standing in a loose semi-circle around where Kevin had remained with Doug. Kevin did a quick head count and was surprised that there were fifty-three children. He’d known that there were quite a few, but had no idea that there were so many. By the same token, as he looked at all of these faces—frightened, tired, and in some cases shocked into total apathy—he saw people that waited for him to d
irect them on this new path. He struggled to see the criminal element, but merely saw children.

Well, whatever crimes they committed, I think they have been absolved
, he thought.
Time to move forward with a clean slate.

“We have a long day ahead of us,” Kevin began. “We will be putting as much distance between ourselves and this hornet’s nest of undead that are buzzing about. You are going to get tired, but I need you to just keep going. I will find us a place to camp around dark, but we will not stop until then. We eat on the move. Does everybody understand?”

“What if you have to go to the bathroom?” a boy asked.

“Go quick and don’t get left behind. Bring a bathroom bu
ddy,” Kevin replied.

“What if you have to go number two?” a girl asked. “I don’t want somebody standing over me while I do that.”

“Would you rather be dead?” Deanna spun to face the crowd. Kevin hid a smirk, he was starting to like this kid.

Like the Hebrews fleeing the pharaoh, the group left the cemetery in one mass exodus. Kevin positioned himself in the front with Catie beside him. She knew the way to the railroad track. Also, her recon was what the
y were relying on to begin with. It only made sense that he turn over the reins of leadership.

Heather travelled in the middle of the group, and Aleah had agreed to bring up the rear. Doug was just mixed in, but Kevin noted that all of the children still gave him a wide berth, none seeming that anxious to extend even the slightest hint of we
lcome.

As the morning passed into midday, some of the children began to forget that they were travelling through a world overrun by the undead and reverted to that behavior so typical to bored kids on a long trip. At one point, a group actually began to sing-song “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Kevin finally put it to rest…sort of. He spun suddenly. “I will pull over, turn this parade around, and take you all right back to that graveyard if you ask one more time!”

The group all looked at him, some with open mouths. Slo
wly, the faces changed to grins that matched the one he was unable to keep off his face. As one, the entire group—Heather, Aleah, and even Catie—yelled back, “Are we there yet?” a final time. After that, the mood gradually lightened and people milled forward and back within the confines of their loose formation to engage in all manner of conversations.

Kevin had expected there to be more problems, but was amazed at how well the group stayed together
; even those who had to slip back or to the side for a bathroom break looked to be taking the journey-starting admonition to heart. Everybody brought along a bathroom buddy. Of course the boys made a much bigger show of it, many going so far as to share the degree of the stink being emitted by the individual they had paired with for such occasions.

On a few
instances, Catie or Kevin separated from the group to deal with the odd straggler who picked up on their trail. Twice, Kevin had enlisted Sean, Deanna, and a few of the older kids to assist in taking down small packs that were drawn to them along the way.

Kevin continued to keep one eye on their new adult me
mber. Doug seemed content in the fact that none of the youngsters wanted anything to do with him and just walked along quietly. Once or twice Kevin caught him trying to offer a polite hello; each time, the child would scurry away like he was the boogeyman come to life before their eyes. It was as if they had come to simply ignore his presence, but the moment that he tried to make an attempt to cross into their space, he was a venomous snake, hairy-legged spider…or scary clown. He almost felt sorry for the guy.

Not too long into their journey, they actually came close to the still-burning fairgrounds. That had been the
roughest part of the journey. He’d told the children to stay low and keep absolutely quiet. He’d made sure to add that it was okay to say something if zombies were closing in; after that whole deal with the bathroom issue, Kevin was worried that some of the children might stay silent all the way up to the point when somebody got attacked. The zombie traffic had been fairly thick, but most of them were still moving around the inferno that had been the fairgrounds. Kevin looked back to check on the children at one point and saw something that he quickly dismissed as paranoia, but he still kept it in his mental file.

Doug was smiling.

To be fair, Kevin thought that it could just as easily been a grimace. Still it would be something to keep an eye on…like he didn’t have enough already on his mind.

As night began to fall, Kevin remained vigilant for a place that they could make camp for the night. They came upon what looked to be some sort of industrial plumbing facility. There were stacks of all sorts of pipes, some large enough to walk i
nside; upright for the youngest, hunched over for the adults and older kids.

There were a handful of buildings. A couple actually looked to still be intact. That was a rarity anymore despite what the building had once housed. Kevin believed that some people broke into buildings just for the simple fact that they could. Ot
hers, he guessed, got some sort of perverse thrill in busting out windows.
To each his own
, he thought as he pointed the place out to Catie and then the remainder of the group.

They trudged through the partially standing fence that su
rrounded the place and made their way to the largest building in the lot. It was two stories tall and a light shade of tan. Huge windows in the front gave view to what looked to be an empty office building.

Kevin took care of the locked front door and ushered ever
ybody inside. Since they were pretty much out of food and everybody had eaten on the road as he’d said they would, he did not do anything to dissuade the children from just finding a spot on the floor and crashing. He wanted to join them, but all of the “grown-ups” would have a quick meeting first. They would still do a full walkthrough of the building and make sure that the place was in fact empty.

It was decided that Kevin and Catie would start upstairs and work their way down. Aleah, Heather, and Doug would stay with the children and just keep an eye open.

Kevin was looking out the window, and fate seemed to finally be sending him some good luck. He saw two men move behind one of the stacks of huge concrete sewage pipes just inside the main gate. One of the men looked hurt pretty bad. The other was having to help him. The injured man had one arm slung over the shoulders of the other. A dark stain was visible on his side even in the failing light of dusk.

“We got company, Catie,” Kevin said as he dashed for the stairs.

The pair hurried down. Kevin gave her all the details he’d seen on the way. They reached the doors and took position on either side. Kevin raised an eyebrow to Catie who gave a smile and a nod. Together they stepped out into the night air, weapons drawn—Kevin with his long sword and Catie with a pair of throwing knives.