Those Who Remain (Book 2) (2 page)

“The bastard didn’t exactly tell me his plans.” Tigh takes my hand in his and we shake them. “But I enjoy walking anyway. Good for the soul.”

“I don’t know about souls, but it’s no good for shoes. And for gunshot patients in recovery.”

He nods. “I’ll get you some boots. You’re in the Army now, and recovery is for civilians. Grit your teeth and keep moving, soldier.”

I laugh, but I’m half-afraid he’s serious. We’ll make a strange team, Tigh and I.

The Geek VII

December 17th, Thursday, 3 pm

Margaret waits for us inside the car; arms crossed. I knew it was a bad idea to bring her with us.
You should’ve drawn us a map, like I told you, lady!

Margaret and Jacob bickered, Roger tried appealing to his better side, but, unsurprisingly, nothing worked. There isn’t anyone as stubborn as Jacob. As usual, Lily didn’t disagree with her father. I’ll never understand the hold he has on her.

Poor Roger can’t stop staring at the cabin. He whispered to me his suspicion this trip would turn out a failure, but being proven right wasn't the type of thing he drew comfort from—unlike me.

Snow covers our shoulders. Ma's knitted scarf protects me from the cold, but I'm more afraid of what's going to happen in a few days. Professor Spencer's warnings turned out to be sadly accurate. We spotted the military-grade trucks parked over by the community college, and about thirty armed bastards are now two hours from our little unsecured town.

I'm not sure if this is my fault or not. Maybe if I hadn’t asked for more guns these idiots would never know about us and we wouldn’t actually need more guns. Or maybe if I planned this whole protect-the-town thing better, I could have predicted guerrilla attacks. I don't know. What I know is that our last chance of surviving just slammed the door on us.

“Let's just rob them, Roger,” I say with a smile, but half-serious. “They will never miss most of the stuff, anyway.”

Roger shakes his head, to my disappointment. “We can't do that.”

At my lack of enthusiastic agreement, Roger widens his eyes. “Danny, we are not doing that,” he insists.

The ‘why not’ dies down in my throat. I have to ignore Rule Number Ten of the Zombie Apocalypse: laws don’t exist anymore, and morality is subjective. Cold reason and logic are everything every Zombie fan wants to follow during an outbreak. How many times did I scream at the TV for that dumb guy to just shoot the obvious crazy psychopath soon-to-be murderer? Or groan when people took ages to discuss what they should do with poor bitten Mary while she turns and eats the little kid?

Sadly, it's not as easy when you are the one in the same situation. The pull of normalcy, the moral safety of following the good Sheriff's decision, is just too tempting.

Do I want to rob Lily? No. Was it a good idea? Yes. One-hundred percent. Should I do it? Taking the guns to save the town was a minor evil for the greater good, but that slippery slope is very slippery.

I don't want to toss and turn on my own bed, unable to sleep. The whole point of saving Redwood was, and is, to have a place Ma and I would never need to turn into monsters or lose hope for a better society emerging from the chaos. Keep everything the same as always. Why else do all of this? Yes, being practical about a bite is imperative for survival, denying a poor father a decent burial for his son is hard, but not evil. Robbing two people we know of their guns? Kinda dick-ish.

“Hey, I wasn't being serious.”

For a minute I was, and he knows it too.

We go back to the car. Roger gives the cabin a frown, before turning the car on, and taking the dirt road back home. It takes us double the time to reach the town, since the snow blocked most of our path. The three of us have to stop twice to clean the way. Fortunately Ma told us to bring shovels—if nothing else, she said we would use them to knock some sense into Jacob.

I'm actually relieved to see Redwood remains quiet as ever. Part of me thought we would find the whole town burning by now. For once, I'm pretty happy to be wrong.

The council gathers inside the same classroom as always. Other people were also invited, the ones with more experience in combat, and who had zombie kills. I figure they are the most likely not to shit their pants over the news of an oncoming conquering army. Panic never solves anything; we need people capable of clear thinking.

Professor Spencer is also here, and to my annoyance, he's sitting next to Ma. I have no idea what she sees in him. Dad was handsome in his younger days, and his hair, before the cancer, was lustrous and fluffy. This guy is bald and looks like a newborn sloth.

“So, that went horribly,” I comment after Roger finishes explaining our failure. “I told you that guy wouldn't lift a finger to help us.”

“Did you offer our supplies?” Ma asks, with a frown. “Said please, at least?”

“Yeah, we did, Ma. Jacob still hates us.”

“He doesn't hate us,” Roger says. “He's careful and focused on protecting Lily.”

I close my eyes, so as not to roll them instead. One day I would like to know why Roger is so determined to defend the bastard.

“Great for him, but we are still screwed.” I cross my arms. “Now what?”

We all look at each other, expecting a magical solution to arrive any second. When it becomes clear magic doesn't exist, I raise my hand. Time to tell them my bad idea.

“Well, I have a backup plan: Zombies!” I get up again with a crazy smile on my lips. “I mean: duh! We have zombies.”

“You want to use the zombies against them?” Roger always manages to interpret my crazy ramblings. “How?”

I turn to the professor. “You said they were bad at killing them, right? Too confident? Wasting bullets and all that?”

The professor nods. “Indeed, they were incredibly arrogant.”

I walk around the circle of chairs, mind racing. “So we grab some zombies, and use them to do the damage for us. A sneak attack while they sleep.”

Roger is not happy; he has a hand on his crossed leg, a frown in place. Maybe he thinks I'm being too dishonorable by using a cowardly tactic, or maybe he just doesn't like the idea of infecting someone on purpose. Understandable, but it's not like we have any other option. He needs to realize that.

“But after they all turn into zombies, we’ll still have to fight them.” He shakes his head. “That’s going to be dangerous.”

He’s right.

“Yeah, but we fought against them before,” Margaret says. “Better an enemy we can predict, than one that can actually think.”

People nod. Roger sighs.

“Anyone else have an idea?” Ma asks, scanning the room. “It's good to have options, and Danny's plan isn't guaranteed to work.”

“Can we negotiate?” Felicity says, for the first time ever suggesting anything during a meeting. I was almost sure she was daydreaming the whole time. “Maybe give them food?”

“This is not about food.” The professor places his hand over the briefcase. Does he have clean underwear inside? He clings to it like his life depends on it. “He wants control over the territory and recruits to enlarge his forces.”

Ma puts my plan to a vote, and it wins by a large margin. Of course, it does; it requires minimum effort from them. They enjoy plans other people will need to carry out, far away from them.

Margaret, Roger and I are left with the task of catching zombies to send them against the militia. Since Red Star's already camped inside the community college, and may attack at any moment, we pass along an emergency backup plan. The rest of the town will be relocated inside the school, with the few guns we have, in case our sneak attack fails. Roger tells the wonder team to stay behind and help organize people, to place barbed wire on the doors and wood planks over the windows, and to gather lots of water and food. I have other plans for Ma.

Before I leave, I take her to the side, away from prying ears. “If they do show up, and we don't come back in time. Ma… You take as many people you can in our van. The good people. The ones with zombie kills and who are smart. No zombie baits or redshirts. And you leave, okay?” I’m rambling madly, but it needs to be said. “Don't stay inside the school. Don't look back. Just leave. Go to the west coast, I don't know. Or head for the ocean, grab a boat and sail to the Caribbean. Like Dad wanted us to do. Zombies, beautiful beaches and sun? Come on, it doesn't fit. Maybe people are okay there.”

She shakes her head with a smile. “You'll be fine, honey.”

“Ma, please. Just promise me.”

“Okay. I promise.”

Her answer is too quick, too easily given. She's lying. I sigh. “And don't trust that professor, okay? He's fishy. He's hiding something inside that briefcase. I think it's probably a decapitated head or something. Maybe a zombie head, even. Which is way nastier.”

She laughs, and I manage to crack a smile. It’s her turn to give me advice. “Oh, Danny. Please be safe. Don't try to be a hero, all right? Just come back home.”

Ma gives me a long hug, and my grip is tighter than hers for the first time ever. I'm not even ashamed of it; I'm a mama's boy one-hundred percent.

The four of us leave with little fanfare. Our uniform consists of duct tape around our lower arms, masks and plastic gloves. We bring pieces of raw meat, climbing rope, plastic bags, knives, hammers and one gun, which Roger carries. We can't afford to leave the town unprotected, and if our plan works we won't need more than one.

We start our search by the woods. Margaret finds human tracks and leads us between the trees and bushes. Roger and I follow her, talking with low voices.

“You don't like my plan,” I start, figuring it's better to let him come clean sooner, rather than later. “We can still try something else.”

“It's not that, the plan… Well, we don't have much of a choice, I'll give you that.”

“So? Why the long face?”

“I don't know. Guess I don't like leaving the town. I feel like…” He sighs. “Well, I feel like this is my fault.”

It kind of is, but I can't exactly say that to his face. He doesn’t deserve me pouring salt over the wound. My mind searches for an argument to make him feel better.

“Hey… Shit happens.”

Roger lets out a small laugh, shaking his head at me. “Yeah. I figured that. But thanks, Danny.”

“If the plan works, they won't even set foot in Redwood. No harm done. I promise to forget the whole thing.”

I’m aware of my flaws as much as he is, so the promise is more like a joke. We know the first second I’m pissed off, I'll throw his mistake back in his face. Although I try really hard not to, I’m kind of petty.

“It doesn't feel right to have a zombie do my job.” He’s back to frowning. “Feels like I'm avoiding the problem.”

“That's the point. You know facing them with a frontal assault is crazy, right?”

He nods. Margaret finds a half-eaten deer carcass next to a ditch. No sign of zombies around, so we move on, which is good too, the smell alone almost had me gagging.

The tracks take us deeper into the woods. I don’t like it. The more distance, the less time we have to head back. It’s going to be tight, and our chances are already slim as it is.

I’m about to criticize Margaret’s slow pace, when she signals us to get down. A few bushes ahead, we spot our soon-to-be Trojan Horse. A group of four badly damaged zombies. One girl, three men. Limping around, their hands and faces are covered with guts and blood.

We don’t need to talk to know what to do. After our big wave of zombies, everyone here realized the key was keeping the monsters separated. Roger takes the raw meat to the left; Margaret yells to the right. I take the ropes and the plastic bags. We know how to kill them with brutal efficiency, but problem is that here we need to catch them alive. I mean undead, or whatever.

The little girl follows Margaret, but the three grown men are more interested in the meat. I pull a bag over the kid’s head, sealing it off with rope around her neck. I also bind her hands. One down, three to go.

Roger manages to avoid being eaten by throwing the raw meat on the ground. I’m glad the zombies want to feed more than they want to bite us. Hooray for plain old animal hunger, instead of the classic brain-eating zombie.