DEAD: Reclamation: Book 10 of the DEAD series (17 page)

“That is all fine,” Kevin gave a nod of his head, “but there comes a time for peace. I think that is in the bible also, right?” He turned to Catie for confirmation.

“Ecclesiastes,” Catie confirmed. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

“Wow,” Kevin breathed. Catie blushed.

“I had to memorize a scripture verse each month in school,” she admitted.

He suddenly realized that, with all their conversations and debates, the one thing they had never discussed was religious beliefs. He knew where he stood. He was not a believer in God, and he did not try to scrape his way along by saying that he believed in some “higher power” or some of the other nonsense that people used when they tried to skirt such an awkward conversation. He simply had no belief other than you were born and then died. In between, a bunch of stuff happened based on other stuff that you did or did not do to set things in motion. In a nutshell; life was random.

“I thought that was a song by The Byrds,” Clint said, breaking the spell of the moment with a chuckle that died on his lips when Cap gave him an even darker glare than the one Darlene was shooting his way.

“It sort of was, that is actually why I initially picked that one. However, the teacher wouldn’t let me sing it, so I got marked down.” Catie admitted “Sort of like the alphabet.” When curious glances shot her direction, she raised an eyebrow in return. “How often do you say the alphabet without sort of sing-songing it the way you learned as a child?”

“Ever since that cop that failed me on a field sobriety test. Bastard told me I had to say it and not sing it to pass. Damned if I could do it,” Clint admitted. Now it was everybody else’s turn to laugh.

“Anyways,” Kevin spoke up, trying to steer people back to the situation at hand. “If I am going to stay here, I need to deal with these people. I have a feeling that they will be coming back once their little band of riders does not return.” He glanced at Darlene who nodded in confirmation.

Twenty minutes later, Kevin, Catie, and Darlene departed through the main gates of Falling Run. Once they were about ten minutes away, Kevin came to a halt. Reaching inside his leather coat, he produced a knife in its sheath.

“Here,” he said as he handed Darlene the blade. “If we get separated for any reason, you shouldn’t be without your weapon.”

The woman looked at him with confusion. “What’s to keep me from sticking you the moment that you turn your back?”

“Nothing,” Kevin replied with a shrug. With that, he turned and resumed walking. A few seconds later, he heard Darlene rushing to catch up.

***

“Just beyond that bunch of trees you will probably be able to see it,” Darlene said as the trio hiked up the gentle slope. “It is on the outskirts of what used to be Lexington.”

“Kentucky?” Catie asked.

“West Virginia,” Kevin and Darlene said in unison.

“The Virginia Military Institute was there along with another university that I can’t recall.” Kevin paused for just a moment to wipe his brow with his sleeve. The sun was directly overhead, having burned away much of the early morning clouds.

He didn’t care what anybody else did, he refused to remove his leather jacket when they were out and about. He and Catie used to argue over it—Kevin insisting that she wear hers—but eventually he had given up.

“There is an island that looks like it used to be a big park,” Darlene said. “That is where we have settled in.”

Kevin had been surprised that Darlene’s people were not mere nomads. From what he had learned, they had been happy and content in their last settlement before the incident. They had eventually moved because the painful memories were too great. Also, everybody was afraid to drink any of the water or eat any of the food.

For the past few years, they had tried one spot and then another. He had been surprised to learn that their reason for moving the past few years had stemmed from hostilities between other settlements. These people wanted much the same as he: a life of peace.

Despite Darlene’s warnings, he felt that he had at least a small chance of reasoning with these people. He had also learned that their leader was a woman named Erin Crenshaw.

At last they reached the crest. In the distance, he could see the crumbling remains of Lexington, West Virginia. They would have to cross a lot of overgrown fields to reach their destination. He hated those the most because it was so easy for zombies to be hidden within. Many times over the years he had encountered zombies that had, at some point, wandered out into a field and apparently just stopped. Whatever had driven them obviously long since gone, it was as if they simply went into a sleep mode like a computer, waiting for a living person to come by and jiggle their mental mouse to put them back in motion.

“There is an old road to the south of us,” Darlene offered.

Kevin was tempted, but the reality was that they were still venturing into enemy territory. It was possible that this Erin Crenshaw had a form of picket sentry in place around their position. He did not want to be captured and brought in as a prisoner. He wanted to walk in of his own free will and offer Darlene back as a show of good intention.

“We can cross to the north. See that mound?” Kevin pointed. “From there we should be able to see your camp. We can stop there for the evening and build a good fire. They should see it and hopefully send somebody to investigate.”

“Does your mind always work like this?” Darlene asked.

“Yes,” Catie answered before Kevin could say a word.

Kevin shrugged and they started down the slope. At the bottom was an expanse of high grass; just the sort of place Kevin hated. Fortunately, it was bisected by what had once been a major highway. They would have two such breaks as they made their way for the hill Kevin had pointed out.

It was not long into their journey through the high grass that they encountered the first zombie. Standing naked, its clothing long since deteriorated into nothing or simply ripped away over time, the zombie was as still as a scarecrow until the trio actually got to within a few feet. Its head turned, but the tendons and tissue had tightened to the point of that action being almost impossible. Instead, the zombie actually had to turn its entire body to face them.

It opened its mouth and something fluttered from it and vanished. Spiders scurried across it as webs were torn apart by the creature’s movement. Catie moved in and spiked it in the forehead, ending a pitiful mewling sound; but seconds later, the grassy field was alive with echoes of the responses of other zombies.

“Damn,” Kevin breathed.

“I told ya we coulda gone south to the road,” Darlene whispered, unconsciously moving a step closer to Kevin.

“And be captured? No, that was not how I wanted to meet your people.”

“Better than being eaten,” Darlene quipped.

Kevin nodded agreement to her point, but he had no intention of being eaten. They would simply need to be at the ready from this point on. It was easy to get into a state of mind where you almost forgot about zombies. They were slowly gathering into larger and larger herds. The few singles out there seldom posed a threat…unless you were in a field where the growth was a foot or more above your head and so thick that you couldn’t see more than five or so feet in front of you at any given time.

“Everybody stay close,” Kevin said needlessly.

“I have our back,” Catie announced, turning around and reaching back with one hand to hold on to Kevin for a guide.

Darlene drew her blade after casting a questioning glance at Kevin who simply nodded. They started to make their way through the tall grass. The biggest problem besides the lack of visibility was the fact that it was high summer and the grass was dry and starting to get crunchy. That, coupled with the newly “awakened” undead, and it was almost like back in the early days.

A zombie stumbled through the grass just ahead of them and Kevin drove his blade forward and through its head just as he heard Catie grunt as she swung her machete in a downward chop. With both of them engaged, Darlene had the perfect window of opportunity to make a run for it. She was considering just that when five more zombies emerged through the thick growth that surrounded them on all sides.

In an instant, she made her decision. With a low sweep of her left foot, she took the legs out from under the closest zombie, sending it tumbling into one of its brethren. Stepping forward, she twisted her wrist at the last second, driving the sharpened tip of the hilt of her big knife into the eye socket of the next zombie still standing. Snapping her wrist back, she twisted her arm out like an exaggerated gesture of a hitchhiker to plunge the blade into the temple of another.

She was freeing her weapon as Kevin swept past and dispatched the pair she had sent to the ground. A hand clasped her shoulder and Darlene turned to see a wispy haired zombie that brought to mind the Cryptkeeper from the old
Tales from the Crypt
television show. Its mouth was so close to her face that she wondered only briefly why she could not feel its breath on her cheek. Just then, a blade came down from behind it and split its skull.

“Zombies don’t breathe,” Darlene muttered.

“What?” Catie shot her a quizzical glance.

“Nothing…thanks,” she quickly added.

The trio bunched up once again and picked up the pace. By now, moans and cries could be heard from all sides.

“I don’t understand,” Darlene huffed as they jogged along the uneven ground, each one trying his or her best not to turn an ankle. They had to keep Kevin’s limping pace, but years of practice had made him pretty adept at moving with his prosthetic.

“Probably the remnants of a herd that passed through. They reached this spot and eventually slowed to a stop. With nothing to draw them, it is like they are on pause until something activates them again,” Kevin explained.

“We’ve actually seen an entire herd parked in one spot on a huge open plain,” Catie added. “Where was that again, Kevin?”

“Probably Wyoming,” Kevin replied. “We were…oof!” His sentence was cut off as he tripped and landed hard on his stomach.

A creeper had snagged his foot and tripped him. He only had a second to be grateful that it was his good foot that got snagged. Had he caught on the zombie with his other foot, it might have unseated his prosthetic or even yanked it off. Even at his fastest, it took a few minutes to put it on and secure it, and that was time they did not have at the moment.

The creeper reached out with its claw-like hands, clutching at Kevin’s sleeve and pulling his arm to its mouth for a bite. Darlene kicked it in the temple, causing the teeth to clack as they missed completely. The half-torso flipped over, leaving the thing momentarily helpless as it struggled to flip back onto its stomach. As its arms flailed, Catie moved in and chopped.

“Up ya go,” Darlene grunted as she gave Kevin a hand up.

Once again, they were on the move. After a while, the moans faded behind them. At last, they reached the clearing where a highway had once cut through. While it was crumbling in many places and washed away in others, it was still relatively open ground.

They crossed and Kevin froze. The others were several steps ahead when they realized that he had come to a stop. Catie turned to see what had brought Kevin to a halt and her own eyes went wide.

“Mother of all that is holy,” she breathed.

“What’s the—” Darlene began, but the words stopped as suddenly in her throat as Kevin had in this open clearing.

“That’s one of the big ones,” Kevin breathed.

“I’ve never seen so many,” Darlene involuntarily took a step back. Despite the fact that this herd was a good mile or more away, it was still so large that it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by its sheer size.

“How does that happen?” Darlene asked, moving close to Kevin and Catie.

“Like a cartoon snowball rolling downhill,” Kevin quipped. “But seriously, over time they just seem to have merged. One group joins another which joins another, and so on. Add in the noise they make…” He paused for effect.

The reason they probably hadn’t noticed up to this point was that they were already hearing the moans of the zombies in that field. Couple that with basically running for their lives, and the mind can tune things out as it focuses on the simple act of survival. Now that they were in the clear, the distant low tones of a million moans seemed to vibrate in their skulls.

“They draw more and more of their kind over time until you have these massive super-herds. They are like a force of nature, leveling everything in their path and leaving a trail of destruction,” Kevin finished, starting to walk again, urging his companions to join him.

“We have seen them flatten neighborhoods,” Catie added as they hurried to cross the road and melt into the cover of the next field of high grass. Even if it was laced with zombies like the last one, that would be a blessing in comparison to what was headed in their general direction.