DEAD: Reborn (9 page)

Try as she might, April could not divorce herself of the animosity she felt for the man. And when she started hearing all the talk about establishing Juan as the
de facto
leader by consensus, she had to find out for herself once and for all.

The revelation of the deaths of Donna and Frank had been a tough one, but she could also see the bigger picture. The fly in the ointment had been the appearance of Kip and Vin. They had started to figure out that something was not right about how their friends had died. She had taken the first step crushing Kip’s skull. In that single act, something had changed in her. There was so much power in that single act.

Juan had finished off Vin and then turned on her in a fury. She told him all about what she remembered about that night. At first, the big man had seemed confused. As she continued, she saw a change in the man. The face she was now seeing was more like that hard-edged pimp and less the soft, kind-hearted leader that all the rest of the people saw.

He had asked what she wanted and she told him it was si
mple. When the community named his as their leader, he would refuse. He could stay, but he would not be the mayor or governor or president…or whatever the people were clamoring for. She never saw his fist coming.

She’d come to in the warehouse tied to a wooden pillar. Juan was sitting there watching her.
She had tried to talk her way out of the situation. Juan explained that he would never be able to trust her. He said that he simply was not sure what he was going to do. This had surprised her.

“You haven’t just killed me…why?” April asked.

“I don’t know what you think you know about me…but you have your wires crossed,” Juan said as he looked into her eyes. “I really don’t know what to do about you.”

“I don’t know what came over me,” April sniffed. “I just got so hung up—”

“On the past,” Juan cut her off. “Do you really think that people can’t come around? You met a kid five years ago who was living on the streets and doing the only thing he knew to survive.”

“You were making a living off of other girls selling their bodies!” April snarled. “People like you are animals. You are abusers who make excuses for your actions!”

Juan sat quietly and regarded the angry woman. He did not and could not dispute what she was saying. And the fact that he had flipped over on Frank and Donna so quick only seemed to back up her appraisal of his character. Was he simply fooling himself?

He got up and walked over to April, staring down at her. She glared back defiantly. He had to admit, she was a pretty tough little woman. Here she was, tied up and helpless with a man she considered to be a horrible criminal. Yet she was def
iant and unafraid.

As much as it hurt him…as tough as it was to do, he knew what his choice would be. He had known the day he tied her up and left her. He had known the whole way over.

Juan drew the blade at his hip with a sigh.

***

The questions came in a jumble and Cynthia Frey held her hands up to silence them. She glanced down at the gathering pack of zombies that had ignored her gesture and continued to moan and cry. They still made her shudder and feel just a bit sick every time she looked at them.

“No, I did not get a look at who…or how many. I was ru
nning down Easy Street when it happened.”

This received nods from everybody. It had been something that each of them had seen as ironic and humorous when they had first ventured out to get an idea of the surroundings. From the looks of things, it had been anything but easy for the res
idents of this area. Most of the houses were burned to some extent; many were little more than black skeletal husks hinting at their former grandeur.

From what they had seen from an overlooking hill as they arrived, there was a small town just northwest of where they were currently holding up. It appeared to have suffered from a catastrophic fire and held little promise that there would be an
ything worth scavenging.

“I had just passed Playboy Mansion…” she referred to one of the residences by the nickname Mel gave it when they had
first spotted the expansive abode with its gated entrance, “…and was cutting down between that rock wall and the trees when I heard a popping sound. I think I took a handful of steps before my leg buckled and I felt pain. I had to ditch my pack because I could barely move…much less run.”

“I’m going back there,” Glenn growled and moved for the rope ladder. Kyle grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“And what do you intend to do? First you have to get past those.” He pointed to the gathered cluster of zombies below. “Then what? We haven’t had bullets for how long?”

Glenn jerked away and moved over to squat next his wife. She leaned into him and patted him on the arm.

“I need the kit,” she announced.

The one thing they had in their favor was the fact that Cy
nthia was a veterinarian…at least she had been before the dead began to walk. Her medical skills were better than most doctors who worked on humans. One thing she had stressed any chance they got, was the need to gather medical supplies. Sometimes those came at the expense of food.

“We can skip a meal…but if somebody gets an infection, they can die quick,” was her
credo anytime they approached civilization.

Mel fetched the black backpack with the hand
-painted red cross on it and set it down beside her sister-in-law. She had become one of the first converts to Cynthia’s way of thinking after Xander became horribly ill one day. She watched helplessly as Cynthia hovered over the child, checking him hourly and administering a variety of antibiotics.

Of course, while the women were caring for the child, the men had to fend off countless zombies who were drawn by the noise of Xander’s crying. Mel had found an entirely new version of love for her family that week. Not once had anybody co
mplained. There were a few times when it looked as if they might all die, but nobody flinched. Cynthia continued to stay at Xander’s side and the men fought like fierce animals.

“
Okay, Glenn…sweetie, I need you to go be with the baby,” Cynthia said through a wince of pain. He started to protest and she hushed him with a finger over his lips. “I know you could and would help, but this is going to be ugly and it is really gonna hurt. You need to be out of the room.”

With visible reluctance, he stood and ran his hands through his shaggy dark hair. Gone were the days of his clean, close-cropped and perfectly styled hair. She found his new look strangely appealing and had let him know one day when he was contemplating on how he might just try and shave it all off.

Once he had gone inside the treehouse, she looked up at her brother; Kyle was doing his best not to look upset. “I need you to get your knife as hot as possible. Mel, rip something into strips for me that are about an inch or so wide. Also, bring me something that we can use to elevate my leg.”

Once everybody had run off on their assigned tasks, she took another glance down at the pack of thirty or so undead gathered below. She could not accept them for what they were despite the evidence to the contrary. As somebody with medical training, they were simply a biological impossibility. Then she saw the thing that she had even more trouble accepting.
Dragging itself along, worming in between the legs of the gathering mob was a Saint Bernard. His fur was missing over most of his body, but there was enough in his appearance for her to identify the breed. One ear was torn away and there was a section of rib exposed, although it was so crusted with filth, you could barely make anything out. The muzzle was what had her transfixed. It was dripping blood…fresh blood.

At last Mel and Kyle returned.
Cynthia snatched a few more things from the first aid bag and had Mel make a tourniquet just above mid-thigh. She tore back her pant leg, exposing a nasty, puckered hole.

“Okay, Kyle, I need you to make a slice here,” she indicated with one finger, “and acro
ss here. Then grab those needle-nose pliers and get the bullet. But you also need to make sure you get any of the denim from my jeans that might have gone in so it does not lead to infection. For that you will need the alcohol. Pour it in to clean the wound, clean your hands, the tools, and wash away the blood. Use the Maglite to help you see. We can just hope for the best” She looked up at Mel. “I need you to hold me…this is gonna hurt and I will probably kick and thrash around a bit. As soon as you are as sure as you can be, soak one of the strips in alcohol and pack it in the wound. Squeeze a hefty amount of that anti-bacterial ointment on the wound and dress it”

Kyle knelt beside his sister. It was one of those very rare times when he looked unsure. She gave him a nod and put a half inch dowel between her teeth. By the time he finished,
Cynthia had passed out. Twice he’d been forced to stop because he could not see through his tears.

Oblivious to the moans and cries
below, Kyle scooped his sister into his arms and carried her inside. Mel followed and was just about to shut the door when a scream sounded from close by.

***

“The road forks just ahead. We are supposed to take the left fork.” One of the people who had come along was from the new arrivals who had told Dustin about the place. His name was Gary or Jerry, Chad couldn’t remember which. Quite honestly he didn’t care. The man was an ass.

“I realize that,” Chad said with a nod as he continued to veer to the right.

“Then why are you going the wrong way?” The man darted ahead of Chad and began to walk backward when Chad seemed inclined to ignore the man’s instructions.

“Because, I know this area.”

Chad didn’t feel the need to let them know that there was a prison nearby. If they went right instead of left, they would bypass the prison and be able to hook back and come in from the opposite end. It was not that far out of the way and he just as soon not see that place again.

He had heard some rumors back when he was living at the FEMA camp that the prisons had turned into some of the most horrible war zones. Stories
leaked out about inmates seizing the facilities in at least two of the larger prisons in the state. There might not be anybody left, and obviously the group that arrived at the compound had gone right by the place without an issue, but Chad did not believe in tempting the fates.

Gary or Jerry fell back in line with the others, leaving Chad to his thoughts. He won
dered, now that he’d been gone a few hours, whether or not Ronni noticed his absence. Even more, he wondered if she cared. He snapped his head back to the here-and-now. This was not the time or the place to be daydreaming.

The group continued down a long, empty stretch of hig
hway. As they walked, occasionally they passed a farm house. A few lone zombies stumbled and staggered along in the fields that bordered the road, but already the landscape was changing; Mother Nature was reclaiming what was hers. The grasses were waist high in most places and by next year, Chad doubted that the fences that ran along the road would be visible. He wondered how long it would take for the roads to disappear.

Eventually, they came to a turnoff that led west. Chad star
ted up the on ramp, passing a few dried out corpses. It was impossible to tell if they were zombies that had been gunned down…or just regular people. Once he was closer, he was able to see that none of the bodies sported any sort of head wound.

In the past year, he had seen some crazy stuff. He was act
ually a bit disappointed in humanity. It had taken no time for the worst sorts of behavior to come out. If what he had encountered was any indication of what happened to so-called normal people in the absence of law and order, he shuddered to think about what happened in the jails and prisons. That environment was the worst when it came to the strong preying on the weak.

By the time evening arrive
d, they reached the intersecting highway that they would now double back on to come in and search for those supplies. Chad had noticed that nobody in his group was particularly talkative. It wasn’t that he minded, he enjoyed the quiet, but any time he glanced over his shoulder, he felt like he was leading a funeral procession.

From the overpass, Chad took a few moments to scout the surroundings. If his guess was correct, the truck stop would be five or six miles up the road. He checked the sun again, not that he could actually tell time by it or any
thing, but he could at least gauge the approximate amount of daylight remaining. He didn’t figure there to be more than a couple of hours. It was very possible that they could reach the truck stop before dark. However, once they arrived, there would be little that they could do until, morning.

“We make camp here,” Chad announced. “Everybody get something to eat. We will set up a watch rotation with somebody at each end of this overpass.”

The sighs of relief at the announcement of camp being made and meals being eaten were quickly replaced with groans over the prospect of standing watch. Chad already decided that he would take the last watch; he wanted to be awake when it came time to get everybody up and on the move. Once the watch order was decided (all by random draw except for Chad taking the final watch) everybody just sort of moved into small groups and enjoyed the evening meal of thick-crusted bread that had baked that morning before they left, some dried meat, and tepid water.