Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland (Alice, No. 5) (2 page)

After ten minutes, Alice grew restless and decided that she
and Doggie needed a new game. Jane had showed her a game that she had found
quite amusing, so she grabbed a little rock near her and threw it with all the
strength in her little arms.

'Fetch! Doggie, fetch!'

The puppy, with the instinctive desire to play and to please
that all puppies have, chased after the rock and grabbed it before bringing it
back to his new master. Alice petted him.

'Good boy, Doggie. Now, fetch again!'

Alice threw the rock again, and once more Doggie ran after
it, retrieving it for her.

By now, the sun had begun to set and a few small kerosene
lamps had started being lit around the settlement. Perhaps it was getting dark,
or perhaps she was so caught up in the thrill of the game that Alice didn't
notice several things.

First, she was now almost at the front gate, and had come
quite far from where she had assured her sister she would stay put. Second, the
two men at the wall near the gate were now hurrying to the right. A sentry
there had seen something through his binoculars and had called for
reinforcements. For a crucial few seconds, there was nobody watching the front
gate, and that was when Alice threw the stone one last time.

'Oh, no!'

Alice cried out in disappointment as the rock sailed over a
wall and outside the settlement. She would now have to find another rock to
resume their game. However, the puppy wasn't going to give up so easily. He had
sensed his master's disappointment, and he rushed towards the gate, determined
to get the rock, to make her smile again.

The walls surrounding the settlement were short, no higher
than an average man, built on purpose that way so that most defenders could
just lean over and fire if needed, or if they wanted a farther look, then stand
on a few platforms that ringed the wall. An intruder getting over the wall
wasn't much of a concern—the moat surrounding the walls meant that no Biter
would get through, and the human looters in the area had long learnt that this
settlement had too much firepower to be worth the trouble.

The door was solid wood, salvaged from the old temple in the
village and reinforced with layers of metal and wood. There was a single path
that led out the door, a narrow path over the moat that was usually watched by
armed men, where people could only come in single file, creating a killing
field for any attacking looters or Biters. The door had a small hole at the
bottom, one Gladwell had ordered put in, so that snipers could aim at the feet
of attackers, while others poured fire from the top of the walls. It was a
small hole, certainly not one big enough for a Biter to get through.

But it was big enough for a small, malnourished puppy, and
big enough for a small, slightly underweight four-year-old child. Alice cried
out in anguish as her beloved Doggie ran out the hole, and without thinking,
she went after him, crawling on all fours to get out the hole.

For the first time in her short life, Alice was now alone
outside the settlement. Alone in the Deadland.

***

'What do we do, Sir?'

Gladwell looked at Jones, a slight smile breaking through
his worried expression. After four years of living in the Deadland, where none
of the titles or ranks of the past mattered, Jones still insisted on calling
him 'Sir'. Gladwell had tried telling him to call him Bob like everyone else,
but the old Marine hadn't been able to kick the habit.

The men and women around Gladwell all looked to him for
answers. They had survived many tough times, had fought off many attackers, and
for someone who had once thought his life would be spent writing papers and
chairing meetings as a diplomat, Gladwell had become their leader, tested in
battle time and again. That same hope was reflected in Jo's face. He felt a
stab of guilt, as if sure he was going to break that faith and let them all
down. He cleared his throat and spoke.

'Folks, you've heard Sunil. This is different from what
we've seen before. Earlier we'd have a few Biters stumble our way, and we'd
deal with them, but this time it seems like they are moving in a massive horde,
almost as if they are migrating.'

A couple of people laughed, and Gladwell raised his hand to
quiet them.

'I know, I know. It seems impossible for them to act with
any co-ordination, but they are on the move, and thousands of them are headed
our way.'

'What the hell happened? Do we know anything more, Bob?'

Sunil stepped up next to Gladwell and answered.

'Look, we don't know a whole lot, but we passed a couple of
settlements on our way out on patrol, and they had stories.'

'Stories? What kind of stories?'

Sunil paused and looked at Gladwell. The last thing he
wanted to do was to spook everyone even more. Gladwell, who had already heard
the reports from Sunil, nodded.

'Go on, Sunil. It's best if everyone knows what's going on.'

'They say that the guys in the choppers we've been seeing
have been clearing out areas. They brought in some heavy firepower and are
trying to take back the old airport and are setting up other bases around the
old city. They're wiping out the Biters there and driving them into the
Deadland.'

'These guys could be the government, couldn't they, Bob?'

Gladwell addressed the woman who had asked the question.

'We don't know who they are, and we have no way of getting
in touch with them till they choose to contact us. That can come later, but for
now we need to figure out how to last the night with all those Biters headed
our way.'

That shut everyone up, and Gladwell outlined what he hoped
would be a plan that would keep them alive.

'No lights. Let's not forget this a pretty big area, and the
probability of them just stumbling onto us is low unless we attract them
somehow. No sound, either. And Arvind, that includes your snoring.'

That brought a couple of smiles, and people leaned in to
listen, willing themselves to believe that they would make it through one more
night.

'Get every man, woman and child who's old enough to hold a
gun armed. If it does come to a fight, we are well protected, and we can hold
our own, as long as we're disciplined and don't panic. Jones, you get a couple
of guys and rustle up some Molotovs.'

Jones grinned. In a previous encounter in the dark, when the
Biters had almost reached the gates, they had beaten them back with Molotov
cocktails. Yes, Biters only went down with a shot to the head and seemed
oblivious to pain, but while Molotovs didn't necessarily kill them, they lit up
the targets, making it easier to get a bead on them.

Over the next fifteen minutes, they made sure everyone had
weapons. All adults carried at least a sidearm at all times, but their armory
was now opened and their entire stock of assault rifles, all thirty of them,
was handed out to the best shots. Kids were taught to shoot from the age of
ten, and handguns were distributed to them. Gladwell didn't like the idea of
sending kids to the frontlines, but he'd keep them back, protecting the younger
kids and the two newborns. He then shouted out his last orders before they
would lie low.

'Okay, folks, turn off all the lights. I want all the
riflemen on the walls. We don't need lights to know so many Biters are coming,
we'll hear and smell them well enough. And nobody, repeat, nobody opens fire
without me or Jones saying so. If you spot a Biter, pass the word to one of the
kids who're going to be our runners and one of us will be there pronto.'

As everyone scurried to their positions, he saw Jane in the
corner of the room and something struck Gladwell. Jane began to head back
towards their building, and he ran after her.

'Jane,' he hissed, not wanting to shout too loudly.

'Yes, Dad?'

'Where's Alice? I thought I asked you to be with her.'

***

'Doggie, come back!'

Alice had gone over the pathway outside the gate in pursuit
of the puppy. Perhaps unaware that the rock had bounced off the path and fallen
into the moat, the puppy had kept running down the path in search of his
quarry, with Alice in hot pursuit.

'Stop, please.'

The puppy looked back at her, wagging his tail in
anticipation of a new game. Alice began to run towards him, seeing him in the
light of the lamps that were strung up on the settlement walls. To her
exasperation, he thought she was playing and ran further away towards some
trees in front of the settlement.

She was within a couple of feet of him when the lights
suddenly went off. Alice felt a stab of panic as she was engulfed in total
darkness.

'Doggie?'

There was no response and she heard the shuffling of paws as
the puppy, similarly panicked by the sudden darkness, ran away from her and
further away from the settlement.

'Doggie, come back.'

The words came out in a croak, as Alice realized where she
was now. She was alone, far from her Mama and Daddy and in total darkness. Part
of her wanted to run back to the settlement, shouting out for her parents. She
knew that they would be very angry with her, but that was better than being out
there.

Then she heard a whimper. It was Doggie, and he seemed to be
scared or hurt. She started to take a step back towards the settlement, but
then a low growl came from the puppy. Her daddy always told her that one should
help others, that good girls and boys didn't just think of themselves. What
would he say if he knew that she had abandoned her Doggie out here, all alone?
Her heart was pounding, and her feet felt like they were made of stone, but she
forced herself to walk after her Doggie, softly calling out his name as she
approached him in the darkness.

She smelled them before she heard or saw them. To Alice,
they smelled like the filth and human waste that the older kids sometimes
carted away from the settlement to burn nearby. She remembered asking her Daddy
what they were doing and when he told her, she had giggled uncontrollably. Much
to the annoyance of the kids who had carried out the unpleasant task and to the
merriment of everyone else, Alice had insisted on calling them the 'poo-poo
team'.

There was nothing remotely funny about her current
situation, though. She sat down, her back flattened against a tree as she heard
shuffling noises nearby.

Biters.

The very word sent a shiver up her spine. She had never seen
one up close, but like every other kid in the settlement, she had grown up in a
world dominated by one overriding concern—keeping the people of the settlement
safe from Biters. They were the boogeymen of many of a child's nightmare, with
fangs and blood dripping from their jaws. Monsters who couldn't be killed,
monsters who ravaged humans without any motivation or reason. Alice had been
only a few months old when their refuge at the old base had been breached and
it had come down to hand-to-hand combat, but of course she had no memory of
that. When she had been older, she had heard the sounds of gunfire, huddled in
Jane's arms in their hut while the adults beat off their undead attackers. She
had also seen some bodies being carried off in the distance and the flames from
the pyres where fallen Biters were burnt. But she had never seen a Biter up
close and personal, and had never been in a position where that was a likely
possibility.

Till now.

Something brushed against her leg and she had to force
herself to not scream by biting into her hand. It hurt like hell and blood
trickled down her hand, but at least she had not given herself away. When she
felt at her feet, she sighed with relief.

It was not a Biter out to eat her. It was her Doggie.

She scooped the puppy up in her arms and cradled him in her
lap. The puppy perhaps understood the peril they were in and dug his head into
Alice's armpit without making a sound. Alice's eyes, long accustomed to helping
her find her way in the darkened settlement, had adjusted fast to the darkness
and by the moonlight, she now began to see the first of the Biters pass within a
few meters of her.

They did not walk as people did, instead they seemed to
shuffle along, almost as if dragging one foot along behind the other. The
stench was now almost unbearable, and one of them turned to look at her as
Doggie whimpered in fear.

That was when Alice got her first good look at a Biter.

The skin on the left side of his face had almost entirely
peeled off and hung like an open flap, slapping against his neck as he walked.
His eyes were looking at the darkness beyond Alice but there was no trace of
humanity in them. Indeed, his eyes seemed vacant, like Jane when Alice woke her
up in the middle of the night. That thought brought on a nervous giggle and
Alice put a hand over her mouth to try and control it. The Biter came even
closer and she was not sure whether he had seen her or not. He opened his mouth
and made some growling sounds and looked around, snapping his jaws in the air.
Alice pressed herself even tighter against the tree and closed her eyes. If she
couldn't see the Biter, he couldn't see her either, right?

She heard more shuffling noises and now the stench from the
Biters was almost unbearable. She kept wishing they would go away, that they
would leave her alone. She knew she should not speak up, but almost of its own
accord, her mouth began moving, whispering the same word over and over again.

'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy...'

She heard more footsteps near her and more growls. A warm,
wet feeling spread under her, and while she was too terrified to realize it
then, she had wet herself out of sheer terror.

There were several Biters now congregating around the tree
where Alice was hidden. They had heard her, but they were scanning the area in
front of them, and didn't see anything. Perhaps one day someone would figure
out how a Biter's diseased and infected brain worked, but they did not look
down. They had perhaps been so used to hunting, or running from, adult humans
that they looked only straight ahead. They did not think to look down at the
little girl flattened against a tree, with a small puppy pressed against her
chest.