Revelations - 02 (6 page)

Mike was wiping off his long blade and coming across the yard after taking down the one that had headed back towards the house. Heather was now standing on the porch with a fireplace poker in her hand.
Hmmm
, Kevin thought
, that’s a good sign.
Just as Mike reached Kevin, a large explosion from the direction of Heath made everybody wince and duck reflexively.

“What the—?” Mike turned towards the sound.

Heather took a few steps off the porch, craning her neck. All three saw a huge cloud of black smoke with flames that had to be a couple hundred feet high roiling skyward. A few minor secondary explosions sounded for the next several seconds, along with a renewal of prolonged bursts of automatic weapons’ fire.

“Exactly.” Kevin gave an approving nod, failing to notice her instant blush. “I think they blew something up to kill a bunch of zombies, leave it unusable for anybody who comes along, or eradicate a rival group of survivors.”

“What?” Mike asked. “What rival group of survivors are you talking about?”

“We didn’t exactly search the town, Mike,” Kevin said. “I’m not convinced our Heather was Heath’s sole survivor.”

Mike nodded. That was not something he’d given much thought to. Just because Shaw said that this was “their territory” didn’t mean it was absolutely undisputed. So why hadn’t they looked for anybody else? Enlisted help to take out Shaw and his men?

“Of course there’s no telling if the other folks who might be holed up would be any better than Shaw and his men,” Kevin said as if he’d read Mike’s mind.

“I hadn’t heard any shooting for almost a week before you guys came,” Heather said.

“Well in any case, we don’t know if what we’re hearing is a good thing or a bad thing for Mr. Shaw and his gang,” Kevin sighed. “Let’s get inside and wait it out. See if that convoy rolls out heading north anytime soon.”

“So what were you doing in the barn?” Mike asked as the three headed back into the house.

“A little surprise,” Kevin said cryptically. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

3

Francis?

“I don’t like saying this,” Barry’s eyes locked on mine, “but it just doesn’t seem likely that we will find Ian or Billy…or anybody. Whatever rolled through this town—”

“And the camp!” Dave blurted.

“And the camp,” Barry agreed, flashing an annoyed look at Dave who appeared absolutely clueless as to how his comments—while fairly accurate of what all of us except for Aaron felt—were dashing the remnants of hope any of us had of finding our friends. Dead, alive, or undead.

“But we’ve accounted for everybody else on that patrol
except
for Billy and Ian,” Aaron insisted.

“That’s because they made sure to put every single soldier from that foraging team on display,” Barry said.

“They wanted to send a message to the United States Army,” I added. “If you ask me, I think that this is the work of one of those nutjob military types. Those groups have waited for some sort of apocalypse for years. They have some misguided fantasy that the Constitution allows them to avoid getting a driver’s license, paying taxes…all sorts of wingnut crap under some mythical sovereign declaration.”

“What in the hell are you going on about?” Dave asked.

“Remember Oklahoma City and that federal building that got blown up?” Barry piped in. Dave nodded. “Well, there’s groups all over the country that are like those assholes. Everything is a conspiracy; Waco, Ruby Ridge, 9-11…I imagine that they’ve pinned this nightmare on the government as well. Most of ‘em are closet KKK members.”

And there it was. I was wondering why Barry had jumped into this so suddenly.

“I’m just saying that, whoever attacked our foragers and our camp were well organized, but they have an obvious dislike for the boys in uniform. My guess is a local militia. That means they are very structured. Our best bet is to put this place behind us.” I slung my M4 over my shoulder.

“And just abandon Billy?” Aaron’s voice trembled.

“And Ian?” Barry added. “We aren’t just abandoning them, Aaron. But we have a responsibility to ourselves…each other…like Thalia.” That made Aaron’s head snap up. “We looked, now we pray for them. If they’re alive, we hope and pray for their peace.”

Neither Dave nor I had anything to add. I was more than a little surprised when Dave went over and put his arms around Aaron in a comforting hug. Aaron’s shoulders slumped, and his muffled sobs were barely audible.

Footsteps approached and I turned to see Jamie and Teresa coming up the grassy hill. They’d insisted on making one last trip down to Kamela. I didn’t see the reason…we’d been on this hill for ten days and not seen one single sign of anything living. We’d gone so far as to torch a pile of zombies that we’d dragged to where the party’s burned out vehicles sat. At night, we’d scanned the area with the pair of night-vision equipped binoculars that Paul Wimmer had given us.

The only thing we’d truly accomplished in the week-and-a-half that we’d been here was a drastic thinning of the zombie population. Every day we’d gone down to the outskirts of Kamela and picked off the stragglers. There was absolutely no bunching up here. That was another clue that our friends weren’t holed up anyplace in town.

Today had been agreed upon as the last day that we would try to make contact. It had been just as fruitless as the previous nine. The look of resignation on Jamie’s and Teresa’s faces was simply more finality.

“Aaron?” Jamie placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s time to go.”

The young man took a deep breath, stepped out of Dave’s awkward hug, and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked at Teresa, then back to Jamie who both nodded. The three teenagers came together in a little huddle for a moment, sharing something exclusive amongst themselves.



We’ve picked up a transmission. We’ll move in with caution because there is just no way to tell anymore. I would’ve never expected that a scenario like this could happen. I certainly would not have thought that humanity would crumble so quickly. I was no optimist…but I certainly didn’t anticipate such barbarism and wickedness.



I can see La Grande. The town is a nightmare. Fires have done spectacular damage. The undead are all over the place. Looking at my tattered
AAA Road Atlas
, this is the largest concentration of population for miles.

“Think that’s them?” Teresa moved up beside me, peering through her own set of binoculars. She pointed at a tan warehouse sitting beside a big railyard.

“Mm-hmmm,” I grunted. All that open space was a mixed blessing. It made it tough to cross without drawing considerable attention. But it also cut down on possible hiding places for zombies or ill-intentioned survivors.

The warehouse had one large roll-top door in the center of the east and west facing walls. The building runs lengthwise north and south. I’m guessing it to be about fifty feet wide and at least a football field long. It’s probably thirty feet tall and, fortunately for those inside, the windows are in the upper third.

The walking dead are ten or twenty deep in places and have the building completely surrounded. I could see hundreds more laying scattered about. The folks trapped inside have certainly tried to shoot their way out. Judging by the hundreds if not thousands I see just wandering around the town from where we sit parked on a ridge in relative safety, for every one they dropped, they probably attracted two more. And they weren’t alone. I could make out at least a dozen more clusters around everything from what looked like a church, to an apartment complex that appears to be a big open square with iron gates at the two courtyard entrances.

“You aren’t seriously thinking about going down there?” Dave said.

“Of course he isn’t,” Barry scoffed. “Right, Steve?”

“The people on the radio said they are in a warehouse on the outskirts of the town.” I pointed to where Teresa and I had been looking, not that I needed to…it was fairly obvious.

“But you aren’t considering even for a second about going down there into,” Barry paused and looked again at the swarm around the warehouse, then back to me as if he had confirmed something, “into that!”

“I’m not sure what I plan on doing or not doing,” I shrugged. “There is a group of people down there pleading for help. They are out of food…low on water…”

“We can’t save everybody,” Barry said, pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping his forehead.

Here we go again
, I thought. I like Barry as a person, but when it comes to helping anybody other than himself, he just seems uninterested. We’d been in verbal spats before. Once was due to him seeming to have a problem with Thalia. She’d been suffering from some bad nightmares. On a few occasions, it compromised our hideout and brought the zombies pawing at our door or bursting through our windows.

“My conscience won’t let me simply abandon those people to certain death if I can find a way to help.” I kept my voice calm. Points for me.

“You can’t—” Dave began, but was interrupted.

“Oh no!” Randi wailed.

At some point, everybody with the exception of Thalia and Emily had gathered around. For whatever reason, we couldn’t hear it, but we watched as the big roll-top door buckled. The barricade those survivors had constructed gave way to the sheer weight of all those bodies pressing against it. Teresa was instantly on the radio trying to make contact.

Nothing.

A moment later people were pouring out onto the roof of the warehouse through some—unseen by us—hatch access. I trained my binoculars and was not encouraged by what I saw. There was no telling how long those folks had been trapped in that building. They looked terrible. Like human skeletons in most cases. Of the baker’s dozen, a few were bloody.

One of the folks, who looked to be a rather large man even after going hungry, had blood all down his chest and still round belly. There was a lot of pointing, pushing, and shoving. Those not bitten clearly wanted to dispose with those who were. Friends or loved ones of the newly bitten were trying to defend from, or in some cases, plead with the ones who were intent on survival. Nobody was paying attention to the fat man. He wandered away from the ruckus and came to a swaying halt. Then…he fell face down. Still nobody paid attention. I watched, helpless, waiting for him to stir.

It had grown silent around me. The sounds of yelling and screaming carried with the moans of—what was now growing in numbers exponentially—the swarm of walking dead. I glanced around. Everybody who had a pair of binoculars was watching. The others had eyes shielded with hands. But everybody was watching.

Then the fat man got up.

“Shit,” Teresa breathed.

There was nothing we could do but watch helplessly as fat-zombie trudged across the roof. The nearest survivor was a long-haired woman. She held what looked like little more than a sharpened stick. I felt like I was watching a scary movie. Even if I screamed, the figures on the screen couldn’t hear me. I could, however, hear her. The only good thing to come from it was the sudden mobilization of survivors.

Fat-zombie and his victim tumbled to the roof. My mind amplified the jet of blood from where the woman’s throat was ripped open. The whole mood of the survivors on the roof changed before my eyes. One of those bitten took their fate into their own hands and took a running dive off the roof. Another was more dramatic. An elderly woman with gray hair. She sat the butt of her sharpened stick on the roof, bracing it in a corner, then she lined the sharp end up—probably on an eye-socket—and thrust her head down. She twitched a few times as she slumped out of sight behind the two- or three-foot lip that ran along the roof’s edge.

Some of those already bitten simply submitted to their death. Others fought, kicked, and screamed. Still, in less than two minutes, there were nine left standing.

I was still trying to figure out a plan where we could rescue those remaining when Jamie tapped me on the shoulder. “Look over at the church and that apartment complex.”

I did, and took a moment to be sure I wasn’t imagining things. Both of those sites were on the edge of town, closer to the warehouse. Each had seen a lessening of the zombies surrounding their location as they’d headed towards all the excitement at the warehouse. It was a zombie low-tide, and with apparent practiced ease and purpose, the occupants of both the church and apartment were on the move. In singles and teams of two or three they fanned out to the buildings in their surrounding vicinity. Some had packs, a couple had wheelbarrows.

“So they wait until it gets so bad,” Barry’s voice was growing louder and more angry with each word, “that they are near death from starvation or lack of water and send out a distress call that will get others killed?”

“Dude!” It was Jamie. “Maybe they don’t want to simply surrender their town to these fucks?”

“Or maybe they have children,” Teresa piled on. “Maybe they are trying to take care of their little ones and don’t want to expose themselves to the uncertainty of the wide open wilderness.”