This is Billy Trout, reporting live from the apocalypse.
It had almost been a joke except that no one thought it was funny.
Where was Billy? He was the real thinker. He was the one who had always been in touch with his emotions. More so than Dez, who’d always mocked him for it.
She would give so much to have him back here right now. To hear his voice, even if he was saying something that made her mad. She’d even sit through a whole day of his liberal politics if it meant having him back. If it meant knowing he was alive.
Damn.
Outside a last zombie staggered out of the woods, a fat woman walking on a shattered foot, limping slower than the others, straggling behind.
“Come on you stupid cow,” muttered Dez, too quiet even for the huddled kids to hear.
The dead woman fell to her knees, took an excruciating time getting back to her feet, walked five steps, fell, got up. Rinse repeat.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the crippled corpse to walk to the crest of the hill.
Dez relaxed by very slow degrees. She went to the back of the bus to watch the lame zombie vanish over the hill, then to the front again to make sure that one really was the last.
It was.
For now, at least.
The children sat in silence, none of them visibly reacting the end of the immediate threat. They were becoming too weary to even show their fear. More than half of them had fallen asleep. A naïve person, Dez knew, would look at those sleeping bodies and think that it was a sign of the resilience of youth. Dez would want to smack that person for being an idiot. These kids were so deep into habitual shock that they were retreating into exhausted sleep, and that sleep was in no way refreshing.
Dez moved past the small bodies and tapped Biel on the shoulder and nodded to the door. He followed her outside and they walked a few paces away from the bus.
“Look,” she said, “there were a bunch of farmers in that last batch, and I saw some yesterday, too.”
“So what?” asked Biel.
“So this is farm country, or near enough to it.”
“Again…so what? If you’re thinking about holing up inside a farmhouse then you’re nuts. It didn’t keep the farmers from getting killed.”
“Maybe,” she said, “and maybe they tried to make a fight of it. Or went running to help neighbors and got bit. Whatever. This bus is getting rank and we’re nearly out of food. Most farmers have stores of stuff, and they have rain barrels. And a barn could be reinforced pretty easily. They’re stronger than houses and don’t have as many windows.”
“So, you’re suggesting what? That we take the kids on a class trip to some hypothetical farm somewhere? Those woods are full of the dead.”
“No, Einstein, that’s not what I’m saying,” she snapped. “I’m saying I go looking for a farm. Me. I can move faster alone. I can scout around and come back.”
“What if you don’t find anything?”
“Then I’ll try a different direction tomorrow morning, and somewhere else tomorrow afternoon. And I’ll keep trying until I find something better than a rusting tin box on an open road.”
Biel looked badly shaken at the thought. “You’d leave us alone?”
“Not for long. I’d be out a couple hours at a time. You stay here and keep the bus buttoned up. You can do that, can’t you?”
“I--.”
“You can do that,” she repeated, putting a more encouraging stress on her words. “C’mon, man, you’ve done this a lot of times. You’re a pro. And I won’t be far away. If the shit really hits the fan fire a shot and I’ll hear it. But…only do that if things are going totally south. Don’t do it just because you get spooked, you hear me?”
He nodded. It was a quick, nervous, uncertain nod, though.
Dez flashed him her very best smile and patted him on the shoulder. “That’s my man.”
Biel actually blushed.
Dez went back to the bus, stuffed the last two full magazines for her Glock into a pocket, slung a water bottle over her shoulder, and left without saying a word. The kids didn’t even seem to notice. Or care.
Or anything.
At the edge of the forest she turned and waved to Biel, who stood in the doorway of the bus. He lifted one uncertain hand and then fled inside and closed the door.
“Jesus,” Dez breathed, “what am I doing?”
She turned and ran into the woods.
Dez wasn’t sure what to expect, or if there would be anything worth finding. Most of this area was state forest. But there had been farmers. A lot of farmers.
There had to be farms.
The sun scorched a hot line across the afternoon sky as she put mile after mile between her and her kids.
~9~
Rachael Elle
After a few long hours spent walking off of the exit, Rachael stopped to rest. She shrugged off the backpack and let it fall and then slumped down with her back to a burned out shell of a state police cruiser. The woods and road were quiet except for insect and bird sounds. That was good, that was safe.
Her rest period lasted less than a minute. The quiet was suddenly shattered by the frantic sound of whinnying, which was nearly a scream in the silence. A horse?
“God,” she cried as she jumped to her feet, grabbed her bag, and instantly took off running after the sound. There was something else alive in this area besides her, and she was going to find it.
It didn’t take her long to track the sound. It was close and it was in trouble. Rachael knew that she was running into danger, but the cry of that horse mattered more. It touched something deep inside her.
Not far beyond the trees were acres of fenced fields, the long grass rustling in the wind. Ducking under the posts, Rachael moved swiftly towards the barn in the center, scanning around nervously for possible threats. She could see movement along the side of the barn, and pulled one of her daggers, creeping closer silently. There were Orcs, though she couldn’t tell if the smell was from them or from the barn, a handful of them that were trying reach through the open barn windows. There was no way they could get into the barn—the fields were fenced and gates locked, and the big barn door led directly into the fields. There was at least one horse in the barn though, Rachael could hear it, though why it didn’t just leave the barn she wasn’t sure.
Using the pommel of her dagger she banged it against the metal gate, the hollow clanging unnervingly loud.
“Over here, you ugly lumps!!” Rachael yelled, continuing to hit metal on metal. The Orcs, distracted by the sudden and new sound, turned to stumble towards her, lunging with moldy hands reached out for her, flesh and sinew hanging from bone. Pulling her elven dagger out of her belt, she waited until the first one was within arm’s reach, then drove the dagger into the back of its skull. It crumpled to the ground as the second and third one reached the gate. She cleared the group without any problems, holding her breath as the rancid smell washed over her, breathing out her mouth and fighting to keep down the power bar she’d eaten earlier. Wiping the thick black blood on the grass, she kept it in hand, just in case, and moved over to the barn cautiously. The frantic cries of the horse had stopped, though she could still hear the hooves against the hard floor and deep snorting.
Could a horse become infected? Rachael hadn’t come across many animals since New York, and a mental image of a half decomposed horse carrying an Orc across a field as if it were riding into battle flashed across her eyes. It was almost comical, something absurd from a corny movie, but she shook that off quickly. This wasn’t a movie, and if animals could become infected there was a whole lot of new problems they were going to run into. Dead humans were bad enough; dead wolves were terrifying.
She peeked around the corner hesitantly, worried about what she might find. The horse was halfway down the barn, watching her with wild eyes. Living eyes.
Tucking her knife into her belt, she put her hands up in front of her, trying to calm the horse. It tried to back away, but
the lead kept it in place. Rachael didn’t need to imagine the horrors that this horse had seen in the last year. It probably thought she was going to try to hurt it.
“Shhhhh…it’s okay.” Rachael slowly inched her bag off her back and reached in, scouting for an apple. Taking a bite out of it and putting it in her hand, she moved closer to the horse, hand out, trying to tempt it with the treat. Its nostrils were flaring, watching her with panic, but it let her come closer.
“Look… look… it’s an apple. You remember apples?” she asked in a calming voice, standing still with her hand out. The horse’s ears flicked forward at the word apple. Rachael didn’t move, letting the horse come to her. Its brown hair was matted and fur caked with mud and dried blood, but it looked to be in one piece—no gashes, cuts or bites.
Pablo—she already mentally named him Pablo after a horse she’d rode when she was a kid—shifted back and forth nervously, ears flicking, watching her every move, but let her approach, taking the bit of apple and munching on it eagerly.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said to him quietly. “It’s going to be scary and dangerous. It’s not a good place out there anymore. But I’m going to find survivors, and I’m going to find a safe place for everyone, okay? And we’re going to make it a good world again.”
Pablo nickered softly and she stroked his neck. Gently, calming him.
Rachael was relieved. Luck was on her side today. On horseback she could move faster, cover more ground. She could find survivors, and get back to Brett and their group easily.
“It’s okay. See, we can stop the world from ending. We’ll make it all okay.”
~10~
The Ranger and the Dog
They moved through the wood with practiced ease, the dog leading and the man following. They went as fast as caution would allow, and not one step faster. There were no screams in the forest, which was encouraging.
But Baskerville suddenly stopped and looked off to his left. Not in the direction they’d been following. The ranger drew his fighting knife and crouched beside the dog, touching the animal’s side in order to read the degree of tension. Baskerville was trembling. The dog did not fear the living. Not at all. But when there were zombies around the animal shivered like this. Even Baskerville feared the dead, and the ranger could understand why. Unlike human enemies, the dog could not use its fearsome fangs against the zombies. Canine instincts—or maybe it was some kind of prescience, the ranger didn’t really know—made the dog fear the blood of the zombies. There were parasites in that black blood; tiny threadlike white worms, and they were the true monsters of this apocalypse. Genetically-modified larva that carried a chemical witch’s brew cooked up in a Cold War bioweapons lab long ago. Lucifer 113. Conceived by Soviet scientists and then remodeled by a deranged prison doctor here in the U.S. Madness on all sides, and when the devil had slipped its chain the world was consumed.
Baskerville could not know or understand any of that, but it had a strong reaction to the presence of the dead. It would smash into them, knock them down, but it wouldn’t bite. And the dog was even careful not to walk in spilled black blood. It’s why Baskerville was still alive.
It’s why the ranger was still alive. They were a team.
Baskerville was the best weapon against living human foes or against the packs of feral dogs that roved these woods. But it was the ranger who fought and killed the zombies.
The ranger tapped the dog’s shoulder once. A question. Close?
Baskerville did not react, which was the answer. No.
Or at least not close enough to be an immediate threat. Nearby, though. The dog shivered, wanting to get away, so the ranger rose and used his knee to gently nudge the animal back toward the path they were following. Baskerville lingered a moment longer, giving an uncertain look to the dense forest, and then turned, sniffed to recapture the girl’s scent, and took off.
The ranger slid his knife back into its sheath and followed.
The forest was a series of densely wooded hills with a few small streams cutting through it. The slopes and gullies were nothing to the dog, but the man felt his leg muscles begin to burn as he moved. He was fifty, not twenty, and this kind of thing was a young man’s game. Once upon a time he would have run twenty miles of this for fun, but as he saw it that ship sailed, hit an iceberg, caught fire and sank. Now he felt every one of his years, every inch of scar tissue, every bit of calcification on broken bones. The kid they chased, though, must have been a marathon runner before the damned apocalypse. She was well ahead and seemed able to go through holes in the shrubbery where a rabbit wouldn’t have tried.
Great natural athleticism will do that. So will stark terror.
Baskerville suddenly shot forward faster as the ground leveled out into an overgrown farm cornfield. As the ranger raced to catch up he saw the clear marks of small sneakered feet in the dirt. Ahead there was a rustling of something moving fast through the tall weeds and
“Circle,” he called out and Baskerville cut suddenly left and really poured it on. He vanished into the corn but went wide to try and get in front of the fleeing girl. The girl was fast but the dog was faster. The ranger heard her voice rise in a sudden shriek. The girl had encountered the dog.
The ranger moved into the cornfield but he slowed his pace, then paused to call out.
“Girl,” he said, pitching his voice to be heard but keeping urgency out of it. “Hey, kid…don’t be afraid. My dog won’t hurt you and neither will I.”
There was no sound, no answer.
“Those guys back there…they can’t hurt you anymore.”
Nothing.
“I’m a soldier,” he called. “My name is Captain Joe Ledger. My dog’s name is Baskerville and he will not hurt you. We just want to help.”
There was silence in the cornfield but the ranger—Ledger—thought it was different. A listening stillness.
“Please,” he called. “I know you’re scared. You’re smart to be scared. I’m scared, too. But I’m a soldier and a father and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
More silence except for the soft rustle of the corn.
Then a voice spoke. Young, trembling, frightened. Female.
“Leave me alone.”
Ledger inched forward. “I can’t, sweetheart. You’re alone out here and there are more of those NKK freaks out there. You’re safer with Baskerville and me.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, and there was some iron mixed in with the fear.
“Not alone, kid. Heck, I don’t even travel alone and I used to be with Special Forces.” He had her exact location pegged now. Forty feet in and slightly to his right.
“Go away!” she yelled.
“Can’t do it, darlin’,” he said. “We good guys have to stick together.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah, you do. There’s some shamblers in the woods and they’re coming this way. And when the rest of the NKK nutbags see what happened to their boys they’re going to come hunting.”
“I didn’t do that. You did.”
He moved closer, but he lowered his voice a little to disguise the fact. “Sure, I did that. But they won’t know that. They’re going to come looking for someone to hurt.”
She sobbed. “Please…why can’t you people just leave us alone?”
Us.
Did she mean the innocent? Or women in general? Or was she with a party? Ledger guessed that it was a bit of all three.
“Look, kid, I’m coming to you. I won’t hurt you.”
“Don’t!”
“I have to, like I said. It’s not safe out here.”
“You’re one of them.”
He sighed. “No, I’m really not.”
Ledger moved through the corn, doing it slow and making noise. So she heard, so she knew.
“Please…,” she whimpered.
He found her in a small clearing. Baskerville sat watching her from ten feet away. The girl was a year or so o
lder than he’d first thought. Maybe fourteen, but slim and undernourished. Her clothes were in rags and she had bruises on her face and arms. There were broken pieces of leaves and twigs in her filthy hair, and she sat huddled, shivering with exhaustion and terror. But there was fire in her eyes, though, and she clutched a sharp stone in one hand, ready to fight. Expecting to have to. Ledger knelt at the edge of the clearing.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly, “I understand that you’re terrified, and I know you don’t know me from a can of paint, but I won’t hurt you.”
“That’s what they said.”
“And they lied. I bet a lot of people have lied to you. Your parents probably told you there were no monsters, but there are. The boogeyman is real and sometimes he’s cold and dead and sometimes he’s alive, like those freaks back there. But I’m not one of them.”
She eyed him with enormous suspicion, the rock ready to strike.
Ledger crossed his legs and sat. He removed his knife from its sheath and tossed it lightly to land in front of her. “It’s better than a rock.”
The girl dropped the rock and snatched up the knife, raised it, held it ready to stab. Baskerville went whuff, but did not move.
“Where are you from, kid?” asked the ranger.
“I’m not a kid,” she snapped.
“Okay. Sorry. Where are you from, miss?”
She said, “Richmond.”
“Your family got out before they dropped the bombs?”
The girl said nothing, but after a moment she nodded.
“Are they still around? Your folks?”
The girl shook her head. A single bright tear fell down her dirty cheek.
“How?” he asked. “The walkers or…?”
She sniffed back her tears. “Them. The dead ones.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Another family took me in. We were together until…until…”
She stopped and Ledger didn’t ask for details. They’d both heard enough horror stories. Retelling them only did harm.