Dead Living (28 page)

“You don't know me at all, do you?”

Allister did not. He looked at the young man
through narrowed eyes.

“You have no idea how personal this is.”

He had enough. “Kill him!”

The men pulled the rope with all their
strength. Aaron surprised everyone by turning around and running
directly at the walkers. They made no move for him as he passed by.
He grabbed the first person in the crowd he saw and tossed him back
into the hungry undead. The slavers let go of the rope.

Aaron heard screams of pain as he ran through
the crowd toward the fence. He dragged the rope tied to his waist
behind him, slowing him down. He was almost to the fence, but he
could hear the confusion behind him disappearing as Allister
shouted at everyone to grab their weapons.

They never had the chance to fire.

Aaron heard the explosion and felt the heat
at his back as he raced for the crates near the fence. Men behind
him shouted and jumped behind any cover they could find as the
first drum of gas exploded. He was halfway over the fence when the
second larger drum near the front gate went up in flames.

Men dove for cover while others caught on
fire. They rolled on the ground to try to put out the flames.

He shed the rope from his waist and stayed
low in the trees. He tried to head in the direction he thought the
light came from. He could see the slavers gathering more weapons
when he heard a voice above him.

“Aaron! Up here!”

He looked up to the treetops and saw the
light signaling him. He slowly pulled himself up using the sturdy
limbs. Every movement brought pain. He could feel the blood still
oozing out of his nose.

As he neared the top a hand reached out and
clutched his wrist, helping him the rest of the way. He straddled
the limb and leaned back against the tree. Squatting on the limb
just a foot away was Sam.

He didn't know what was happening until he
felt her hugging him. She kept one hand on a higher limb for
balance, and the other around his neck. He could feel her breath in
his ear.

The world stopped for a moment as he wrapped
a free arm around her. He was conscious of keeping balance, and how
high up in the tree they were, but it felt great to hold onto
Sam.

She pulled back to look him in the eye. She
saw the blood and bruises, and her face went cold with anger. She
nimbly jumped to a nearby limb, where her bag of weapons hung. She
grabbed her rifle and took careful aim at another barrel of
gas.

Aaron stopped her with a frantic wave of his
hand. “Not yet.”

Sam shouldered the rifle while he took
another look at camp. They'd recovered from his escape and were
searching the woods. Every walker in the yard was dead. He had
trouble seeing, but he could see the rest of the slaves talking in
the four trucks.

He looked beneath them. He wouldn't have seen
Sam in the trees at all if she hadn't signaled him with an old
mirror she'd found. They were as high as they could go and were
surrounded by plenty of green. They were safe.

Aaron and Sam stayed silent for over an hour.
Allister's men searched all around them. They cursed and yelled at
each other. He noticed that despite all the noise, no walkers
showed up. Allister definitely picked a good spot for his camp.

In the early afternoon the slavers finally
gave up their search. He watched as Allister paced around camp.
Aaron knew he'd gotten under the skin of the slave camp leader when
he murdered Keller in cold blood in front of everyone.

He looked at Sam. He wasn't surprised at all
with her preparation. Multiple weapons, thick, tight clothes, and
bottles of water she constantly handed to him.

“At nightfall, we'll head out of here,” she
whispered. “This place is buried in trees, but there's actually
houses not too far away. I parked there and snuck over here.”

“No walkers?”

“Very light. About four streets over is the
main road. Plenty of them there.”

“How did you find me?”

She smiled. “Scott did. He ran into some
slavers trying to make a deal.”

“How's Travis?”

She gave him a confused look. Despite
everything, Aaron was worried about someone else. “He's fine.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“Are you okay? You have enough strength to
leave?”

“Yeah. But we can't leave yet.”

“Why not?”

“There's people in there that need our help.
You see them in the trucks?”

“Aaron, listen, I'll be honest. I don't care
about them. I came here to get you. And now I have you. That's all
I care about.”

His face took on an expression Sam hadn't
seen before. He was angry.

“There's another reason. The man running the
camp, he killed my family.”

Sam was quiet. She could see Aaron's
determination. She wanted to go home. She wanted to eat dinner with
Aaron, listen to him read, watch a talking picture, hold his hand,
sleep next to him. Maybe even kiss him.

But he wasn't ready to leave yet. So she
would stay with him. She knew she would always stay with him.

“What do you have in mind?”

Aaron smiled. Sam felt her heart beat harder.
She had missed his smile.

But this smile had something else in it.

It was sinister.

He thought back to Allister leaving his
family as bait for the undead. The sounds of the horrific rape, not
even a night ago, flashed through his mind.

A very simple plan formed in his mind.

“They don't know who they've pissed off.”

“Well, whatever you got in mind, you'll need
this. Sorry, couldn't find a bow and arrow.”

She tried to hand him a gun, one of her
Berettas. He waved her off.

“I've got better weapons. I'm gonna be gone a
couple of hours.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Listen. When the shit starts, I need
you to cover the trucks. Don't let anything happen to anybody in
there. Okay? And there's one slaver that's alright.” He used her
binoculars to point out Gibbons. “Try to cover him.”

He made a move to scale down the tree. She
grabbed his arm before he could leave. “What are you gonna do?
There's a lot of people with guns down there.”

“They don't have a chance.”

“Don't
get yourself killed. We have a lot to talk about.”

He nodded, then slowly worked his way down
the tree.

*****

Sam sat in the tree the rest of the
afternoon, into the early evening hours. She watched the camp as
they prepared for night. They sat around tables, ate dinner, played
cards by candlelight. While they feasted and enjoyed the night,
someone gave the slaves in the trucks a single bottle of water to
share. Her anger started to rise again, thinking of what Aaron had
to endure.

Where the hell are you?

She started to worry as she stretched her
legs. It was completely dark. The only light came from the candles
and torches in the camp below. The wind blew through the trees,
giving Sam goosebumps. What was Aaron doing? He should have been
back by now. Why was she foolish enough to let him run off by
himself?

She knew the answer to the last question. She
believed in him.

She wondered how he was alive in the first
place. He seemed to have a talent for avoiding death by undead.

She had a lot of questions for him when they
made it back to Lexington.

“Allister!”

The voice cut through the quiet night. It was
Aaron. Sam stopped breathing for a moment, trying to listen for
where he was at.

The men in the camp started mobilizing. They
grabbed weapons and ammunition. Sam looked at the man giving the
orders. She guessed he was Allister, the man who killed Aaron's
family.

“Allister!” Aaron called again. “I wake you
up in there?”

His voice came from Sam's left, deep in the
trees. He sounded like he was out of breath. He didn't sound
elevated, like she was. She grabbed her binoculars to get a better
look at the trucks, and the slaver named Gibbons. He didn't grab a
gun like everyone else. He stayed back near the slaves.

Allister checked his gun and slipped on a
bulletproof vest. He kept his distance from the fence and yelled
into the woods. “We didn't think we'd see you again. Coming back to
be a hero, free your friends? Not a good idea.”

“I told myself I would kill you. But I'll
give you a chance to surrender. Run away, now, as fast as you can.
Leave all your supplies behind, and the slaves. You don't have much
time.”

Allister looked at his men around him. Sam
could see him laughing.

“Fuck you.”

She was quiet as she waited to hear Aaron
again.

“That's what I was hoping you'd say.”

Silence. There was only the wind, some
crickets, and movement in the camp below. Sam thought she heard a
moan, just over the rustling of the trees. Then there was another,
just below her.

In a matter of seconds, the sounds of nature
were pushed aside by the song of the undead.

She watched the slavers start to panic.

“Walkers! They're everywhere!”

Sam's jaw dropped as the undead assaulted the
fence. It stood its ground for a few seconds, then the old metal
started to give and the walkers poured in. The slavers fired
wildly, getting a few lucky head shots, but more took their place.
She didn't know how many there were, but judging by the sound, the
slavers were far outnumbered.

She grabbed her rifle and did exactly what
Aaron told her to. She kept an eye on the slaves, occasionally
taking a second to kill a slaver that wandered in her sight.
Ironically, the trucks that were modified to be a prison were the
only things separating the slaves from a gruesome death from the
undead.

Damn, Aaron, what have you done?

*****

Aaron kept low to the ground and stayed in
between the corpses as they pushed their way into camp. A few
maggots and a worm fell on his head that he quickly brushed off.
With the darkness and mass of undead around him, he had no idea
where he was going, but he didn't need to. Once the undead he
gathered had the scent of fresh meat in their noses, there was no
stopping them. All he had to do was go with the crowd.

It had taken him longer than he thought to
find a thinker, a corpse the others would follow. The thinker was
an auto mechanic in the old world. There was blood instead of
grease on his uniform. Aaron recognized the glimmer of intelligence
in his eye, and dragged him by the bony hand through the streets,
gathering corpses as they went.

Aaron guessed there were at least two hundred
undead.

He heard slavers dying all around him. They
fought with guns, knives, their bare hands, but in the end, it was
useless. The undead started to scatter as they attacked and
feasted, leaving Aaron more exposed than he would have liked.

He just dropped to the ground and laid still.
The corpses would ignore him, and the slavers would think he was
already dead.

He looked around the camp. The attack was
quick and brutal. He saw five undead slowly rip apart a slaver.
Another managed to kill four or five corpses before he was
overwhelmed. Someone headed for the trucks, either to hide with the
slaves, or kill them. Before he could undo the chain, Aaron heard a
gunshot, and saw his corpse fall to the ground.

Sam was still covering the slaves from the
treetop. He smiled in her direction, knowing she couldn't see him.
There was no one else he wanted watching his back.

His eyes fell on Charlie, Amanda, and Derek.
They were huddled together near the front of the truck, away from
the gate. He needed to get everyone away and safe.

Then he would deal with Allister, if he was
even still alive.

A familiar figure ran across camp, not too
far away. Aaron jumped to his feet and ran toward Gibbons, tackling
the man. They fell a short distance away from some corpses ripping
at the chest of a dying slaver. Gibbons fought for a moment until
Aaron slapped him across the face.

“Shut up, Gibbons! It's me.”

“Aaron? What the hell?”

“Be quiet! It's dark. The undead can smell,
but not see great. Just keep still for a few minutes.”

“You
led
them here?”

He smiled. “Every last one of them.”

They were quiet as the chaos unfolded around
them. Gibbons tried to fight back tears as he heard the men being
eaten alive. He didn't like any of them, but it was still horrible
to hear them die. Any moment, he knew the corpses would stumble
over them, and they would be next.

Gibbons heard a moan. He looked up to see an
old corpse hovering over them. There were just as many bones
exposed as rotting flesh. Gibbons raised his hands to shield
himself, but Aaron was already moving. He jumped to his feet and
held the corpse by its ribcage.

Aaron held the corpse back as easily as
holding a small child.

Gibbons watched, stunned, as he climbed to
his feet. The walker made no attempt to bite Aaron. It tried to
reach for Gibbons.

Aaron looked at the fighting and corpses
shuffling around them. They could wait out the battle, but the
longer the trucks were around, the longer the slaves were in
danger. He knew Sam was a good shot, but he didn't know if the
truck prisons could hold out against a mass of undead.

“It's time to go,” he told Gibbons, still
holding onto the corpse. “Those trucks can move, right?”

Gibbons nodded. “Yeah. The keys are inside.
Makes it easier to move camp fast.”

“Perfect. Talk to the slaves. Find anyone
that can drive, and help them get behind the wheel. And damn, man,
get a gun.”

“You
don't have a gun.”

“Well I'm different. I'll help out Charlie.
You get moving.”

Gibbons ran to the last truck. Aaron tossed
the corpse to the ground and headed for Charlie. He peered into the
darkness, barely seeing movement near the front.