TAGGED: THE APOCALYPSE (12 page)

Sven walked over to Jeb, Mack and Tiny and shook each
of their hands in turn. “They’re in a better place,” Sven said. Jackie followed behind. Behind them formed a cue of the survivors to offer their condolences.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Jeb had tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Nobody meant for that… to happen to your parents,” Sven approached Eve, who was flanked by Brit and Candy. Candy looked at him encouragingly, while Brit maintained a poker face at his approach.

“I know,”
she said. “Stuff…just happened.”

To Sven’s surprise
, Eve threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

Everyone brought something to share, and for the first time all the survivors as a group shared a meal. Most brought canned goods, since they were non-perishable. Frank from Portland generously killed five of his chickens and roasted them up. Nothing went to waste. When the guards heard the commotion, they came out of the guardhouse, and lined up with everyone else to get a plate. Eve was sure she was not the only one to notice they didn’t bring anything to share, even though they stacked their plates high and returned for seconds without asking.

It wasn’t just a funeral for her parents and Zeb’s sons. Everyone there had lost someone. In fact, everyone there had lost everything. All they had were the clothes on their backs
, and no one knew if they would even live another day. Eve felt really touched that people cared enough to honor her parents death. She genuinely shared the pain of every person present.

“
Dixon jumped up and grabbed the beast by the throat and shook it. I could hear the neck breaking!” Candy was recounting the story to Sven, who smiled at her, as Eve joined them.

“Yea
h,” Eve said. “We would probably be coming to feed on you tonight if not for Dixon. He saved us.”

“So
, is Candy watching out for you?” Sven asked, in a half joking manner.

“Yea
h, she’s taking good care of me,” Eve smiled.

“I’m gonna take a little smoke break.” Sven arched his eyebrows. “You want to come
? Might cheer you up.”

It wasn’t Sven’s fault that her parents were dead
. In fact, he tried to stop them from being shot. Without Dixon guarding her last night and taking out that beast that lunged at them, she probably would be infected right now. “Okay,” she said.

It was electric
, when Sven took her hand, to lead her off around the side of the building. Dixon didn’t follow, preferring to stay near the food. Sven was always so cool: never flustered, never raised his voice. She really liked that about him. Also, his friends were all so dangerous, but he was so cool, so seemingly unaffected. She watched as he lit up the fragrant weed and took a long drag, holding it in his lungs before passing it to her. She had smoked pot before but this time she was nervous because of him. She started to inhale, but ended up in a nervous coughing fit. Sven smiled with his mouth and lungs still full of smoke. He leaned toward her slowly, gently taking her head in his hands, then pressed his lips to hers and exhaled into her mouth until her lungs were filled with the smoke that had been in his. He smiled at her and said, “Hold it in.”

She coughed a little before putting her hand to her mouth to keep it in. She kept her eyes locked to his. Finally he exhaled
, giving her the signal and she let out a long exhale of smoky air. Her head felt very light and she found herself giggling as he took another drag. He seemed calm and unaffected. Sven gave her another very mellow smile and handed her the blunt. This time she was able to take a drag and hold it in. Sven nodded his approval and squeezed her hand. Afterward, she noticed that he didn’t let her hand go. It felt good, and she liked it. She released the smoke in a flurry of uncontrollable giggles. She didn’t even know what she was laughing about. Her mind was racing from topic to topic. Sven was laughing with her. She was laughing so hard, she found herself doubled over, her head pressed against his long torso, her hands resting against his chest.

Then
she found herself looking up into his face. They kissed. It happened so fast, and the kiss was so brief, she wondered if she had only dreamed it. Her heart pounded in her ears. She could hear that his heart had sped up too. She buried her head into his chest not wanting to pull away but afraid of what might happen is she met his eyes again.

Someone cleared their throat loudly behind Sven. Eve and Sven jumped apart as though they had not been touching. “She’s only
sixteen, you know,” Rusty said, fingering the butt of his pistol. Next to him were Thompson and the other guard. Behind them was Brit, looking like he had just been sucking on a lemon.

“We were just talking,” Sven said.

“Looked to me like you were rounding second base,” Thompson chimed in, looking to Rusty for support and finding it.

“What’s going on here?” Jackie and Candy appeared behind Rusty and Thompson.

“That one there,” Rusty pointed at Sven, “was
kissing a sixteen year old girl.”

“I’m not
sixteen,” Eve said. “I’m eighteen, and we weren’t doing anything. We were just talking.”

“Well
then, I’m going to need to see a driver’s license for proof.”

“I must have left that in my other purse,” Eve countered sarcastically.

“What’s that in your hand there?” Rusty demanded.

“That’s pot
,” Thompson said. “I can smell it.”

“So?” Sven said.

“Yeah, so what?” Candy pushed forward to defend Sven. Dixon powered through the crowd to come stand beside Sven. He looked at Sven and then looked at Rusty and Thompson and the other guard. A low rumbling growl began sounding from him.

“You better hang onto that dog or I might have to shoot it,” Rusty
stepped back.

Sven jumped to his feet, “
Then you would be a dead man.”

“Did you just threaten me?” Rusty drew his pistol.
Instantly, Jackie, Candy, Sven, Jeb and Mack had guns pointed at all the guards.

“Whoaa! Whoaa!” Dennis lumbered to the front, “What’s going on here? Everyone just calm down now. Nobody’s going to get shot today. Hasn’t there been enough killing?”

“This is a federal installation and we are duly appointed federal officers sworn to protect this installation.” Rusty was red in the face. “You’re under arrest for possession of a controlled substance. We’ll put him in the holding cell until the government shows up.” Rusty nodded to Thompson and the other guard, who began to move toward Sven with hand cuffs. Dixon let out a snarl and lunged at Thompson, knocking both he and the other guard on their backs like ten pins with his massive chest. Candy jumped in and stopped Dixon from going for Thompson’s neck with his massive jaws. Sven grabbed Rusty’s pistol and wrestled it up to prevent Dixon from being shot, then head butted Rusty on the bridge of his nose until Rusty’s knees wobbled and his nose was bleeding pretty badly.

Jackie
and Zeb stepped in, knocking Rusty, Thompson and the third guard out cold with the butts of their rifles. “Get their weapons. Cuff them,” Jackie ordered.

“This is a federal facility. You’re all trespassing,” Rusty screamed from the ground, where he was cuffed and his feet were tied and then all of that was tied to his hand cuffs behind his back to complete a very tight, very uncomfortable-looking hog tie. “As federal officers, we are in charge of this facility. We are ordering you to leave now or risk being shot.” Thompson and the other guard were tied the same way.

Sven laughed, lit up a blunt, took a long drag and blew the smoke into
Rusty’s face. “The government went underground to their bunkers. They’re hiding. They left us all up here to die.”

“There’s nowhere to go. If we left we would be eaten by the
beasts,” an older matronly female survivor said.

“I say we kill them
.” Jackie spoke quietly to Zeb and Mack, who nodded. “Save us a lot of trouble later.”

“No. No. No.” Dennis was everywhere now
, dancing around like a ninety-pound ballerina, fighting for their lives. “They’re just following orders. They didn’t mean anything by it. Just let them go. They’ll stay in the guardhouse.”

“I don’t know…”

“You can’t go killing everybody who knows how to run this plant,” Dennis argued. “These guys have been here for years. They know how everything works. You need to keep them around.”

“You can’t kill them!”
The older matronly female survivor pleaded, while several others in the crowd grumbled agreement and nodded vigorously, “They’re not infected.”

Th
e crowd was clearly against killing the men. “Okay, but we’re taking their weapons as punishment, and they need to stay out in the guardhouse,” Jackie said.

“No more food for them
,” Sven said.

“They have to provide their own food
.” Dennis was agreeing to anything at this point.

“Ok
ay, take all their weapons.” Next, Jackie ordered a search of the guardhouse, and all remaining firearms and ammunition were confiscated and put upstairs in the tower. A small armory with nine new M-16s, bullet-proof vests, lots of ammunition, and more handcuffs and hobbles was found in the tower. Two more spotlights were found and moved to the upper tower.

“This is a death sentence. How will we defend ourselves against the beasts?” Rusty complained
, as he and the other guards were released.

Jackie pointed to his head, “Use this for starters.”

“Fight with an axe, metal bar, whatever,” Zeb said. Sven just smiled. Dixon stood close by, occasionally emitting a low grumbling growl.

“I don’t like this,” Jackie spoke quietly to Sven. “But the remaining survivors have seen too much death and I don’t think they would stand for us killing any living people at this point.”

“It’s not over,” Sven said. Eve stood close beside him.

Sven was keeping his distance from Eve, since their brief encounter. He glanced around the room uncomfortably. Everyone seemed to be doing something else, but he knew all eyes in the tower were focused on Eve and him. Wherever he stood, he could feel eyes on the back of his neck. Every time he would glance back to see, she would look away. Only Brit stared openly. He sat on a table watching Sven, while a nurse examined and changed the bandage on his wound. “It’s healing well. No infection…” She stopped as she realized others’ ears would perk up at the word infection.

“Sven, I need you over here on this light. It’s getting dark,” Jackie barked from the catwalk.

Glancing back again
, Sven saw that Candy now had an arm around Eve’s shoulder. Eve and Candy watched him as he walked away. Brit stared at him with malignant hatred.

“Aren’t we a little thin up here?” Sven asked
, looking around at the few men manning the lights. “Where are the new arrivals?”

“Down below,” Jackie pointed. “They’re all on the first floor with a steel door between us and them. They’re the first line of defense.”

“If the infected get in they’ll tear through them like a hot knife through butter.”

“They’re down there and we’re up here in case some of them are infected and change. That way they won’t get all of us.”

“Smart.”

“If we keep taking big losses like the past few days,” Jackie shook his head, “God help us. We’re not going to make it.”

Both men were silent as they realized that tonight’s battle would probably decide whether they would make it or not. Sven unconsciously turned to look toward Eve, to find her watching him. He looked away.

“There’s one. You see it?” Jackie pointed to a lone wolfish figure emerging from the next building
, where it had been waiting out the murky daylight. It was just after 4:30 p.m..

“Hit the lights!” Jackie barked
, loud enough to wake the dead. Zeb was standing by to immediately flick a bank of switches flooding the base of the tower with light. Immediately, the beast disappeared back through the door to avoid the light. Several more times over the next few minutes the same door cracked open only to close with nothing emerging. Finally, a small group of beasts could be seen standing in the shadows over to the left. Sven could see a few of them raising their noses to sniff the air. Then from another direction, another group of infected began throwing dirt, sand, rocks and sticks at the lights. A single light broke, hit by one of the rocks. Gunfire erupted from below, as the defenders in the bottom of the tower began shooting at the infected.

“Hit them with the spots!” Jackie ordered. Sven flicked on the powerful spotlight and lit up the shadows like the
noon day sun. The infected hiding there from the gunfire scattered instantly.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Jackie yelled into the radio clipped at his waist. The firing finally stopped. “Save your ammo. Only fire if one of them gets close. One shot one kill. Got it? One shot one kill.”