Fortunes & Failures - 03 (28 page)

Peter darted past and up the stairs, leaving the trio alone in the kitchen. Kevin drifted over to the stack of canned food and pulled out peaches which he held up for Aleah to see. She nodded and he grabbed the can opener.

“What’s with Peter?” Aleah whispered.

“He’s been grouchy all day.” Heather shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. “So dish up, girl. Did you two have fuu-u-un?” Aleah cast a quick glance Kevin’s way and a smile tugged at her lips. “Oh wow.”

“What?” The older girl’s head snapped back to Heather.

“You are
so
into him.” She shot a look past Aleah and watched Kevin go about opening the can of peaches.
He was whistling!
She’d never heard him whistle. She returned her attentions to the elder female with a single raised eyebrow. “So, when are you gonna dish?”

“Later. So what gives with the good doctor?”

“He’s been edgy all day. He was pissed
before
he found out you guys were gone,” Heather explained.

“Problems with the Pop-Tart?” Aleah snorted.

“Who knows?” Heather shrugged. “I haven’t seen or heard a peep from either of them since…” She thought it over. It’d been a couple of days since they’d gotten back and in all the fuss over Matt, she just now realized she hadn’t seen them since then. “Umm…have you seen them since we got back?”

“Well…” Aleah gave it serious thought. Her gaze met Heather’s and could see the same idea flitting in those hazel eyes. Heather shifted her look towards the front of the house and Aleah nodded.

“Back in a minute, hon.” Aleah kissed Kevin on the cheek and followed Heather out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

They paused at the top, able to hear Peter talking in low tones to Matt. On tiptoe, they crept past the room and down the hall. The door to the bedroom shared by Peter and Shari was shut; so was Erin’s.

Heather drew her knife and Aleah followed suit. The pair stood for a moment. Neither of them seemed anxious to actually enter either of the rooms. Finally, Aleah motioned to Erin’s door. They moved up to either side and Heather wrapped her hand around the knob. She mouthed
one…two…three!
The door swung open and they both stepped in with weapons raised.

Empty.

The pair went in and nosed around. Dirty clothes littered the floor. The bed was a mess, but otherwise, nothing. They made eye contact and exited, setting up to do the same thing at the other door.

Same thing,
Heather mouthed.

They repeated the ritual and threw open the door. Two heads popped up from the king-sized bed.

“Knock much?” Shari snapped.



“…other than feeling like a sick kitten could kick my ass, I’m feeling better,” Matt said as he watched the doctor pull back the bandage.

“Well, Just-Plain-Matt, pleased to meet you as it were. My name is Peter King.” As he introduced himself, he unwrapped a new bandage and taped it over the raw wound after slathering on a thick coating of anti-bacterial ointment. “And now I am going to ask you to try and climb out of that bed very slowly. I want you to get up on your good leg and gently try to shift some weight onto the bad one.”

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Both men started as the door flew open with a clatter revealing Heather—knife still in hand—and Aleah. Peter jumped to his feet, his face initially showing aggravation. As his eyes shifted to the blade, it changed to one of concern.

“I asked you a question!” Heather stormed into the room and straight up to Peter. Aleah remained in the doorway nervously glancing back up the hallway.

“Fuck,” Peter sighed, his shoulders slumping.

“How could you tell that girl that her baby might come out as one of those
things
!” Heather’s voice grew louder with each word.

“We were discussing the possibilities of complications that may arise during delivery,” Peter explained. “All I said was that we didn’t have any idea what vectors might cause the zombie mutation. I said I would want to examine the baby closely for the first few days. I didn’t say that—”

“You scared that little girl to death!” Heather cut him off. “All she heard was that she might give birth to a gee-dee zombie baby!”

“I tried to explain, but they both became so unreasonable.”

“You scared Erin to death!” Heather reiterated. “Then, when Shari kicked you out of the bedroom…” For a moment, Peter thought that the angry teen was going to run him through with the knife.

“
Good luck delivering that baby
?” Aleah had finally stepped into the room, her gaze narrowed. “What sort of bullshit is that to say to a girl in her condition?”

“I wouldn’t have—”

“What’s going on?” Kevin strolled in carrying two bowls heaped with canned peaches. “Hey! Matt’s awake!”

“This bastard scared the crap out of Erin.” Heather spun around to Kevin. “Then, when Shari booted him from their bedroom for being a jerk, he basically said he wasn’t going to help deliver the baby.”

Kevin stood in the entrance to the room with a confused look on his face. He’d heard everything that was said, but still didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, or what to say. He glanced from a furious Heather to an equally angry Aleah then to a nervous and embarrassed Peter, and finally…a confused Matt. He set down the two bowls and walked over to the doctor, whose eyes had not left the knife in Heather’s hand.

A chorus of “What?” came from everybody’s lips, including Matt’s. Peter’s head whipped around, his eyes practically bulging from the sockets.

“You can’t do that,” Heather insisted.

“Why not?” Kevin asked, nodding to the knife she still clutched.

“Huh?” She glanced down at the wicked blade, then quickly jammed it into the sheath. “No! We thought that Shari and Erin might be zombies and that Peter was hiding them.”

“Excuse me?” Peter sputtered.

“You’ve been acting weird ever since we got back,” Aleah explained. “And when we realized that we hadn’t seen them since coming back from the run…Well, we just assumed—”

“Look,” Kevin shifted so that he could be sure everybody could see his face, “I wasn’t going to shoot Peter. And I’m a little surprised that the two of you could think I’m capable of such a thing.” His eyes locked on to Heather’s and lingered for a moment before continuing. “I’ve been through the whole deal where nobody gets along, and it doesn’t end well for anybody. So Peter said something stupid in the heat of the moment…” His eyes locked on the doctor’s for a few seconds. “Something very, very stupid. All of us are under an inexplicable amount of stress. Tiny things get blown out of proportion.

“We have a lot to do in a short period of time. If you haven’t noticed, summer is almost gone. We’ve actually had it easy so far. We almost never go hungry or thirsty.” He pointed at Matt. “This guy was almost skin and bones when we found him and you all should look to him as a warning of what could be.

“We need to get our asses moving. We’ve been slogging around the house and nobody seems in a hurry to go anywhere. And sure, we’re off the beaten path, but if one of those herds comes this way, we are truly fucked. So,” he clapped his hands together startling everybody and turned to Matt, “can you walk?”

“We were just about to find out,” Matt replied.

“Good.” He turned to Peter, “Get your ass in that room and don’t come out until you’ve apologized to Erin and patched things up with Shari.”

“Errr…okay,” Peter mumbled and ducked out of the room.

“And you two,” he turned to Heather and Aleah, “start putting together a list of essentials. We want to leave this place as a stocked waypoint when we leave, but we also want to be sure we have plenty of tools, blankets, food, and medical supplies.”

“Okay.” Both girls nodded; Heather a bit meekly. Together they turned and scurried out of the room.

“Wow,” Matt said, breaking the silence. Kevin turned around. “I just had flashbacks of my family’s last Thanksgiving.”

* * * * *

11

Win some…lose some…

“I’m out!” I yelled over the sounds of gunfire and the moans of the undead. Dr. Zahn handed me another rifle. “Thanks, now set as many loaded ones as you have, then take Thalia and Emily up to the tower with Teresa.” She opened her mouth as if to protest, then quickly nodded.

I returned my attention to the horde’s leading edge that had figured out that following the road would make it easier for them to make progress toward their goal: us. At least fifty were limping up the slope. I sighted one in my scope and pulled the trigger. The back of its skull exploded, splattering the ones behind it. When it fell, it took the legs out from under a few of its bretheren. I didn’t have time to enjoy the effects of my shot, I simply moved to the next.

“Jamie, no!” I heard from above.

Looking in the general direction I had last seen him and Jon, I saw why Teresa screamed. Jamie had lost his footing and slid down the back side of the berm. The good news was that he hadn’t slipped into the space between the two berms which was packed with those things standing shoulder to shoulder. The bad news was that there were plenty of walking dead coming from the fields.

Both Jon and Jamie had run out of bullets long ago, and were using handheld weapons. Jamie was on his back, holding one of those things at bay by the throat. Then, suddenly, its head rocked and it collapsed. I couldn’t clearly see his expression, but I could see that Jamie was looking this way. Teresa had taken the shot. He pushed the body aside and scrambled up the berm. Twice more, zombies that tried in vain to crawl up and get ahold of Jamie’s legs, fell to Teresa’s sniper fire.

“The barricade isn’t working!” Sunshine pointed.

Of course it wasn’t,
I thought. It was designed to keep out a few, maybe even twenty or so of those things. When we’d started digging the trench, I’d given the instructions to leave the narrow roadway intact. My thinking was that it would allow us to drive a vehicle up to the house if we ever had the need. In saving us a few minutes of walking, I’d provided the only way that those things could make it all the way up.

Almost on cue, the large metal gate from up the road where the actual entrance to this campground existed and had been relocated to our encampment, folded over. The way was still narrow, but far too many of those things were trudging up the path. Jon and Jamie yelled needless warnings. Actually, from my vantage point, they were now the safest of all of us.

“Fire into the front!” I yelled. “If we can stack ‘em, it’ll slow down their advance.”

I watched as the leading element that had been condensed betweent the berms stepped out onto that little piece of road; the piece I’d suggested we keep intact. Of course, plenty of them tumbled off either side and into the trench. Also, many of those that had trudged across the open fields had reached our trench and as more of their numbers came up from behind, tumbled in.

I emptied my rifle, but it felt like trying to stem the flow of a busted dam with a roll of paper towels. The only thing positive that I could see at this point, was that it looked like the main body was fully upon us. Only a few stragglers were coming up the road where it emptied into the campground and plunged between the berms. Singles and small clusters continued to emerge from the trees, but it looked like the majority of this herd was currently gathered around us. Of course, the problem now was how we would deal with what we were facing.

“What the hell are Jamie and Jon doing?” Melissa yelled.

Both men had run down the length of their berm and were back by the entrance. Each one was moving into the open field. All of the zombies near them had turned and followed the closer prey. However, it just wasn’t enough to matter. Maybe a couple of dozen had taken the bait, but those were from the number that would eventually reach the trench. It was the few
hundred
coming up the narrow roadway that was the concern.

“Don’t worry about them!” I yelled back. “I want you to get inside. Tell Dr. Zahn and Teresa to transfer food, water, and ammo up to the tower.”

“And put it where?” Melissa argued as she swapped out magazines in the pair of M4s at her feet.

“I don’t care if you stack it on the roof,” I replied. “If those things get inside, maybe they’ll get bored and leave if you guys stay quiet.”

“But nothing,” I snapped. “We don’t have time for this! Keep shooting; every one of those things you don’t take out is one more I’ll have to deal with.”

“I’ll stay with Steve,” Billy said grimly. “But he’s right…more shooting, less talking.”

I resumed firing, and eventually everybody else joined in. The bridge—that’s what I now called the section of road that remained intact and allowed those cursed monsters to continue their march to our bastion—was littered with corpses that would walk no more. Still, far too many continued in their steady approach with the certainty of the tide.