Dead: Winter (39 page)

“Why?”

“She thinks she should have had it figured out sooner.”

“How should she have known?”

“Because she is a doctor; hell, I don’t know.”

The door opened and Jamie came out. His head was down and he didn’t look at anybody. He made his way past the tables and was about duck into the sleeping quarters when Jon called out. “Hey, Jamie!”

He didn’t turn around, but at least he stopped.

“You haven’t been up in the tower recently. Could we get you to take a shift in about an hour?”

“Sure.” And with that he left.

Just as dinner was being served, Jamie emerged dressed in full gear. He stopped at the table and grabbed a few things to take up with him. As he disappeared up the ladder, I realized that everybody had stopped talking.

“Folks,” Nickie spoke up from her seat next to Brad, “we need to stop clamming up every single time that boy makes an a
p
pearance.” She had said exactly what I was thinking.

“Jeez,” Christina sighed, “I thought it was just me.”

And just like that, everybody began talking about how we needed to work at not making the young man feel self-conscious. By the time dinner was over, we had a plan ready to set into m
o
tion.

Eventually it was time to go to bed. I was exhausted. It had been an insane couple of days. I hoped that it wasn’t going to be like this all winter.

Melissa and I went to tuck in the girls. Thalia was sitting on her bed. It was the very one that T
e
resa had died in. I was su
r
prised when she had asked specifically for that bed.

“You know that was the bed where Teresa—”

“Went to be with my mama and Emily’s daddy in Heaven,” Thalia had blurted. She obviously had very strong feelings about it and I could not argue with her logic.

I peeled back her blankets and she squealed. My male-chauvinist brain immediately assumed that she’d seen a mouse.

“Look, Daddy!” Thalia spun around and was holding a red flannel shirt. I was still puzzling over it when she announced, “This was Teresa’s
zombie killin’
shirt!” She even said it in a passable impe
r
sonation of when Teresa tried to talk in a deep, gruff voice.

“Wow,” I said. She had the shirt clutched under her chin. I knew better than to even try and ask for it.

Sure enough, she climbed into bed holding the shirt like other children might clutch a teddy bear. Emily climbed up to the top bunk and I was again treated to a shrill yelp that I am a
l
most certain only young girl’s can produce.

She waved something that looked like a headband at me. I guess Jamie knew what each girl would like.

“In the morning, you girls need to tell Jamie thank you,” I said.

“We will,” they sing-songed in unison.

With that, I told them the story
Jack and the Beanstalk
for the hundredth time. After prayers and a kiss goodnight, I headed to where Melissa and I slept. When I got there, Melissa was di
g
ging through a basket of things.

“What’s all that?” I asked as I began peeling out of a few layers of clothing. It might be cold ou
t
side, but our sleeping bags got downright toasty when we slept together.

“I guess Jamie didn’t want to see this stuff.” Melissa held up an assortment of baby things we’d been accumulating. Of course we’d been dividing it between the two pregnant women. Now there was only one and she was loaded.

I peeled back the sleeping bag and found an envelope on my pillow. I sat down and opened it up. Inside were three photos of Teresa along with her driver’s license. I looked at the face of the young girl who was obviously very excited about getting her picture taken at the DMV. She looked so fresh-faced and innocent. I saw the date of issue: February 22nd of this year. She’d barley had the thing three months when the world had done a huge face-plant.

The other two pictures were ones she must’ve carried in her wallet. I guess she’d taken them out at some time. Not much use for wallets these days. So I could understand the shirt and hair band doo-hickey; I could understand the baby stuff. These pi
c
tures made no sense—

“Dammit!” I jumped up and ran for the door.

“What?” Melissa called after me.

“Just go get Dr. Zahn!” I yelled as I limped for the ladder that would take me up to the crow’s nest.

I hoped to God that I was wrong. Flipping open the hatch, a booted foot caught me on the side of the head. I looked up and felt like I would be sick. Dangling from one of the crossbeams by his belt was Jamie. His eyes were milky with black tracers.

I had to scoot against the wall on my butt to get away from the thrashing legs. He’d thought enough to gag himself and had even managed a set of handcuffs that he’d fastened over the cuffs of the thick leather gloves.

“Damn you, Jamie.”

17

Vignettes XXIV

“I do not
wish to over step my place, mighty leader—” Markata leaned closer to Aaheru. He was almost in Ahi’s lap as the men who had been summoned to this council sat and ate at a large table in the lobby of what had once been a rundown hotel.

The table they used had been in the center of the lobby and once held racks of pamphlets for the tourists to pick through and decide where they might go to see “the wonders of Egypt.” It was now spread with an assortment of dried or pickled fruits and vegetables. A female stood behind each man with a bottle of water.

“Yet you will do so, won’t you?” Ahi barked, shoving the man back. “And you will only be warned once more; he is Pharaoh Aaheru, Chief of all Terrors and Master of the Dead.”

“Please forgive me,” Markata bowed his head. “I do not mean disrespect. It has been a long time…the age of Cleopatra would be the last true pharaoh of Egypt…until now.”

“We now have a leader worthy to bring Egypt back to her glory. No longer will she be a puppet for the West or a bargaining chip for the Bear in the north.” Ahi spoke with such reverence that it made Aaheru smile.

I have chosen well my right hand
, he thought as he scanned the faces at the table. Markata would serve adequately if it came to negotiating with any other band that might equal theirs in strength. He was shrewd in nature, but not trustworthy. However, Aaheru did not hold out much hope that such a band would be found; that made Markata expendable. He would serve a purpose when the time came.

“I have done as you commanded and separated all of the women from the men,” the stern-faced man that many had taken to calling
Dakarai
—happy—as a joke, addressed Aaheru. “The ones who can bear children have been set aside from the others as you have bid.”

“Excellent,” Aaheru commended. “Now, as for tomorrow when we move for the ships, you are to place our best men as their escort. They are the mothers of our New Egypt. We can not let them fall. Understand that the men are expendable and while I will grieve the loss of capable fighters, there will be no future without those women.”

“And a few men falling by the wayside means more wives for the survivors,” one of the other men at the table said with a cheerless laugh.

Ahi bristled and he went for the blade at his side, but Aaheru placed a firm hand on the man’s arm and gave a slight shake of the head. The men who would fight often used morose humor to lighten their mood when their chances of survival were low.

Aaheru was no fool. He’d climbed up to the roof of this hotel with Ahi to see the route they would take. The first few miles would be easy. It seemed that the walking dead had chosen to stay close to the central part of the city for some unknown reason. Very few wandered the outskirts. In fact, they’d not had to kill more than a dozen to take the hotel and secure the area.

Aaheru had noticed a few of the undead, the young ones mostly, hanging back in the shadows. It struck him as peculiar that they did not stumble forward like the others of their brethren that littered the ground. Still, he would be thankful for the time being that they had a quiet place to rest one final time before going into the city and making a run for the ships.

“You are all going to be needed tomorrow, my brothers,” Aaheru announced. “Go now and rest. Let the last of the wine we consumed here this evening bring you a peaceful night of dreams. You are all welcome to invite one of the women from those who can bear children to spend the evening in your bed. If this is to be the last night for any of us, let us enjoy the feel of a woman and hope that she is fertile to carry on your name for all time.”

One by one the men clasped forearms with Aaheru and pledged that they would not fail him in the morning. Aaheru wished them peaceful slumber and safe passage come the dawn. As each one departed, Ahi made a note in his mind as to who would be best suited as that individual’s replacement should his passage
not
be safe.

The last to leave, besides Ahi, was Markata. He bowed to Aaheru and then kissed him on each cheek. “You must show the people that the pharaohs have returned to Egypt. They will draw strength from you, my glorious king.”

Ahi bristled at the normally simpering man’s attempt to appear humble. It would be a pleasure to select his replacement should he somehow fail to make the journey in safety.

“I understand that you have a place already chosen for me. I ask you this one favor so that I may prove my loyalty to my new pharaoh.” Markata spoke softly and Ahi almost believed him to be sincere.

“And what would this one favor be?” Aaheru folded his arms across his broad chest and stared down at the men. He wanted to look in this one’s eyes. There was something about him that made Ahi absolutely furious. He needed to see if he could discern what that might be.

“Let me drive the bus and transport the Mothers of New Egypt to the docks. Surely if I can accomplish that, I will have proved my value and worth to my new king.”

Aaheru glanced at Ahi who showed absolutely no emotion. There would be no help there. He looked back at Markata and stared deep into the man’s eyes with his hardest gaze, the one he wore when he was about to kill. Markata met that gaze and continued to stand and await the edict.

“Very well,” Aaheru agreed. “You will drive that vehicle. But know this, for every woman that you lose, I will extract a pound of your flesh.”

“I shall not fail in my mission,” Markata bowed once more and left the room.

Once he was gone, Ahi turned to Aaheru. “I do not mean to question—”

“Then do not, my brother.”

Aaheru smiled. There would be three of his soldiers on that bus. If Markata thought to try and turn away and take the women as Aaheru believed was his plan, then he would be gunned down in his seat.

“Now get some rest, my brother. We leave just before first light.”



There were only ten now. Juan
looked at the men and women and tried to force himself to forget the faces of those who’d bought it back at the store. He had never been the leader of anything, and now people were expecting him to be a president and a soldier and everything in between.

“Next block up is the bridge,” Chad whispered. “We need to get across it. The hill leads down to the water, but if we don’t get across here, we have to try and make our way through that train yard.”

None of them wanted to see that train yard again. That is where they lost the first of the group of fifteen. Who would have thought that zombies would be so thick in the train yard?

“Okay,” Juan looked back at all the faces staring expectantly back at him, “I hate to do this, but we have to split up.”

There were some grumbles from a few, but most everybody was too disheartened to say anything. Troy’s death was still fresh in everybody’s mind. He had gone down fighting and probably saved the group in the process. Juan could only speak for himself, but he really didn’t know how he would ever be able to do that man proper justice.

“Thad, you take those four.” Juan pointed to the group clustered against the crumbling brick wall of the small service station. “I will take these four.” Of the group standing beside him, three had big splatters of fresh blood. Juan would never forget the feel or the smell of all that blood and who knows what else as it had sprayed in a geyser.

Shaking that image from his mind for the moment, he returned to the task at hand. “We will be going down the left side of the bridge, you will take the right. That big wreck in the middle is where we will lose sight of each other until we reach the other side. First one across just keeps running until you make it to the boats. Get them untied and ready because there is no doubt in my mind we will be bringing a whole bunch of deaders on our heels.”

“Good luck, buddy.” Thad patted the man on the shoulder and turned to face his group. “You heard the man, let’s move.”

He took off and headed up the on ramp of the bridge that spanned a deep ravine. At the bottom of that ravine were four sets of train tracks. The bridge was a little less than a quarter mile long, but it seemed to stretch for an eternity.

“Okay,” Juan faced the group he’d been charged with, “I know everybody is wasted. You feel like crap and there might be a voice in your head telling you to give up. We can’t. You all saw what happened to Troy, but he did what he did to ensure that we got away.”

“There were so many,” the one woman in his group sniffed. “How could he do that?”

“I only knew him for a few days,” Juan said. “But he was just one of those people who really believed in helping. He knew there was no way we would have gotten past that bunch. I think, in his mind, it was the only choice.”

“You think he felt that way when he started screaming?” one of the guys asked.

“Let’s debate this later,” Juan said.

He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to close his eyes again and not see Troy give him that little salute just before he turned and ran full speed off the edge of that loading platform. It was like watching somebody jump off a dock and into a lake. He disappeared for a second under the bodies. When he came up, his eyes locked with Juan’s for just a moment. Then that deader sunk its teeth into the side of his neck. That first scream had been more of a roar as the man began thrashing and driving his blade into the face of the nearest eye or temple he could. Then, they had his arm. When it tore free, that roar had definitely become a scream. That was enough to get all the other deaders nearby to turn and move towards that sound. That was also when those closest were sprayed with the hot liquid that pumped from the stump of his shoulder

“So we going or what?” somebody asked.

Juan shook his head to try and knock that memory loose. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They started down their side of the bridge. About nine or ten deaders were already moving their way. Without being told, everybody spread out and drew whatever weapon they felt most comfortable with. For Juan, it was a Cold Steel heavy machete. It had enough weight behind it to practically obliterate a skull if he swung hard.

The first to cross his path had been a policeman. Juan automatically scanned him for anything useful. There was a pouch still on the belt and he was pleased to discover a pair of magazines fully loaded and only in moderate need of cleaning. He had no idea what type of handgun they might belong to, but somebody would be able to figure it out.

He heard somebody scream behind him and looked just in time to see the person who’d hollered on his back kicking at something that had reached out from under a small truck and most likely caught his leg and tripped him while he had put down the two sprawled on the ground nearby. Juan hoped the guy made it. He kept running.

At last he reached the other side of the bridge. He looked to see the girl and one guy both skirting the last set of vehicles. Behind them came the reason they’d had to hurry.

The leading edge of the herd was just reaching the apex of the bridge. You could hear the rumble and screech of the cars on the bridge being forced aside by the wall of undead flesh.

That mob had been loud enough that Juan and the group had heard them from inside the store they’d been raiding. At first, they thought a group of the things had gotten in the store because it had been so loud. Juan and Troy had gone to the front of the store to look and been overwhelmed; first by the stench, and then by the sight. The mob was about six bocks away! The folks supposedly out to create the distraction were no place to be seen.

They’d run back to the group to relay what they’d witnessed. The best choice was to head out the back and escape via the loading docks. Apparently the leading edge had already filtered through because over a hundred had been milling about out there.

The run back to where they’d beached the boats had been nothing like the mostly uneventful trip inland to where they’d hoped to empty the big Fred Meyer’s of anything useful. It seemed that the herd was on their trail and wouldn’t be evaded. Every time they’d looked over their shoulders, the mob would be there.

“Everybody through that park and down the hill,” Juan called. He looked over to see if there might be any signs of Thad and his group. He didn’t see any. That would mean that either he had beaten them across or they were already headed down the hill.

Juan waited for the woman to pass and took a position in the rear. There would be no hope for the two members of his group that he’d lost sight of. That moaning sea of zombies would leave nothing standing in its wake. Even the possibility of getting under a car was pointless as he watched a fairly large truck skidding sideways until it eventually lodged up against the steel barrier that, for now, prevented it from being forced over the edge and into the ravine below.