DEAD: Reborn (3 page)

That really had me curious. I had been in more than a few nasty situations with Jon and Jake. I had yet to see anything that gave either of them reason for concern.

“And no sign of any other survivors?” Dr. Zahn spoke up from the top of the stairs.

I was never confused with the really smart kids in class. A
ctually, that was Jamie…he was always the smart one. Still, I knew a power play when I saw one. The doctor was not coming off those stairs. She wanted to be over Jon. I sure hoped that whatever differences that these two had were ironed out soon. If we were in fact going to make a move to come down and try to take over that encampment that we had destroyed in La Grande, then everybody needed to be on the same page.

“I promise you,” Jon said with just an edge of what I was pretty sure was sarcasm, “that if we find any survivors,
you
will be the first to know.”

“So what did you bring besides all that ammo?” Sunshine scooted out from under Jon
’s arm and headed for the open back end of the truck.

The next couple of hours were spent unloading everything. I was a little surprised when
we got everything out and started storing it in the kitchen. It was actually a lot more than I had initially figured. The best surprise of all were the five cases of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti O’s.

As we finished, I noticed Shelly at the door leading outside motioning for me to join her. I shot a glance at the ladder up to the crow
’s nest. Funny how all these sick people suddenly felt better with Jon’s arrival; that would be something worth keeping my eye on.

“What
’s up?” I asked as I joined Shelly at the rail of the long porch that ran the length of the cabin and wrapped around both sides.

“Make sure I get to make this run,” she said in a voice bar
ely above a whisper.

It was no secret that Jon still did not care for her. She had been with the raiders who hit us when Steve and the others died. He had some crazy notion that she was still one of the bad guys despite her having done more than her share to prove otherwise.

“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. I had no idea how much pull she thought that I had, but I knew for a fact it was not enough to tell Jon what to do.

“Look, I
’ve been hearing some stuff from these new arrivals—”

“Which ones?” I interrupted.

For some reason, we had been seeing a large number of people coming in to our camp and joining us. That had me much more nervous than Shelly had ever made me. I mean, why now? We’d been here for quite a while and busted our asses to get this place as secure as possible. Of course, we were talking about abandoning it for a piece of La Grande, but still…where had all the people been when we were getting this place ready?

“That group that arrived the day after you,” Shelly clarified.

And that was another thing, when I had been coming back from that ordeal in La Grande, I had spent a night camped in a fire watch tower. That night, I had seen a lot of little points of light from what had to be campfires. Until that moment, I had almost given up hope that there were very many survivors. Still, we numbered close to a hundred now, and it had happened in a matter of just a few weeks.

“What sort of stuff?”

“They say that there is a man who can test people for immunity down in La Grande, that he is with some group that hangs on the fringe. Anyways, they are offering tests to see if you possess whatever it is that makes the zombie bite not turn you. If you pass, they offer you a place with them. They are trying to build an entire community of immunes.”

“So?” I didn
’t see what the big deal was, in fact, it sounded shady.

“Look, I am never going to be accepted as part of this group. Plus…” She untucked her shirt and pulled the top of her pants down just enough to expose the skin on her hip at the pe
lvic bone; right in the middle of her otherwise perfect skin was an obviously healed bite mark.

“When did that happen?” I asked. I hadn
’t realized it, but I had involuntarily moved back a step or two like whatever it was that zombies had might still be on her and decide to jump over and infect me. Pretty stupid, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I want to be around people who don
’t do that,” she said as a flush of red crept across her face. Hastily, she tucked her shirt back in and turned away from me. “If there really is a group like that, maybe I will have a chance to start over.”

2

Vignettes XXXVII

Vix adjusted the strap and cinched it through the buckle. The padded suit that she would be wearing under the actual armor almost seemed sufficient in itself. She glanced over at Harold who was already half done with donning his set of chainmail. He seemed to know what he was doing and was actually helping Gemma with hers as she suited up.

She smiled as she watched. Gemma was absolutely clueless to the way that Harold gawked at her every time she was not paying attention. He was developing a strong crush on the girl. That would need to be watched. Nothing could make a bloke act the fool quite like the desire to impress a girl.

It took a while, but at last, all three of them were in their new armor. Vix stepped in front of the mirror and flipped up her visor. She blinked her eyes at what she saw.

“This is not a fashion that would have caught on before,” she said with a snicker.

“Not very flattering to the figure,” Gemma added as she came up beside Vix and took a look at her own reflection.

“The comics and video
games always had the women looking so…hot.” Harold joined them and put a hand on each woman’s shoulder. It took him a moment to register the glares staring back at him. “I-I-I didn’t mean…umm…what I was trying to say…oh bloody hell!”

“Shut up, Harold,” the pair said in unison, shrugging his hands off their shoulders.

Vix walked over to the busted open wooden crate and looked through the possibilities. Her eyes locked onto a curved blade that looked like it might come from
Aladdin
or some similar movie. She picked it up and was delighted that it was not too heavy to wield. She took a few practice slashes at the air and nodded in satisfaction.

Gemma settled on a pair of blades that were little more than daggers and a slender iron mace with a knobbed head. She fa
stened the blades to her waist and held the mace at her side. Harold had chosen an enormous sword. It was the dazzling weapon he had first laid eyes on when they first broke in to the room. While certainly not the actual fabled Excalibur, the weapon was impressive in its size as well as its beauty. The blade had intricate scroll work done and the pommel was made to look like the crenelated turret of a castle chess piece.

Vix had picked it up when nobody seemed to be paying any attention. Just lifting it was a
chore. She could not imagine actually swinging the weapon. He carried that monstrosity on his back, the pommel sticking up over his left shoulder. On his hip he carried a shorter sword. By shorter, that meant that the blade was only about three feet long.

“So, not that I am anxious to do anything crazy,” Gemma
spoke once they were all done suiting up in their gear, “but what now?”

“I would guess that there are two dozen sets of assorted suits of armor,” Vix said. “Also, there
are all of these weapons that are ready to use. Now we see if we can find any other survivors and build our own stronghold.”

“And where will we be doing that?” Harold asked, hearing something in Vix
’s voice that made him just a bit nervous.

“Where else?” Vix said with a shrug.

“You can’t be serious,” Gemma scoffed.

“That is lunacy!” Harold added. “And what makes you think that somebody else has not already thought of that…or that it might even be some place that we could get inside?”

Vix relayed what she had seen when they were running from a particular zombie horde. The looks on Harold and Gemma’s faces did not change from the obvious doubt they both expressed verbally.

“So you saw a few of the bearskins and a couple of dogs,” Harold finally spoke after a moment of silence. “That hardly means that the palace is vacant. Besides, I have been in London this entire time. You don
’t think I looked? That place was hell on earth. The zoms were meters deep all the way around the walls. The noise and the stench was enough to tell me that it would be folly to even consider trying to get inside that place.”

“When was the last time that you went to the palace?” Vix asked.

Harold counted on his fingers as he mumbled to himself. At last he seemed satisfied. “About seventeen weeks…so just over four months ago if I remember correctly.”

“You don
’t think that things could have changed since then?” Vix asked.

“Of course, but still—” he began.

“Then we go,” Vix snapped. “If the area is still a shambles, then we make our way out of town. It is not like we can’t find another castle in all of England.”

“And you propose that we simply walk about in these bloody suits through the streets of London, and perhaps to the countryside?” Harold argued.

“Not at all. But I do say that we go out and clear this place. We are in the heart of the city. If I remember proper, then we just have a jog over to St. Paul’s and then follow A4 until it leads to the palace gates.”

“I could not jog down the hallway in this,” Gemma moaned. Vix shot her a withering look.

“We cannot be the only souls left alive in all of London!” Vix insisted. “If we can clear this place and block off at least one section and start finding others, I think we can make this work.”

“I have an idea,” Harold offered. “I understand what you are saying, but what if we could find a lorry and I could get it wor
king? We load up all of these suits and make a run for the Thames. We could hop a boat and make for the sea.”

Vix thought it over. She had not really thought beyond ge
tting here and finding the suits of armor. She had hoped that, perhaps along the way, she and Gemma might find a few kindred souls to share in the adventure. So far, it had been one young man, still a boy really. She looked over at Gemma who continued to fuss and fidget with her gear; obviously thinking that she might somehow find a way to make all this metal somewhat comfortable.

“Perhaps—” Vix began,
but Harold cut her off, his voice heavy with excitement.

“I saw a white panel number as we came in. It was parked in the loading dock. All we need to do is fight our way up and to the rear and I bet I can get her running. The biggest question will be the petrol. It goes bad over time and that might be a pro
blem.”

“We can worry about that when the time comes,” Vix said.

“So…I take it we are leaving again?” Gemma huffed.

***

The dream was the same as he’d had the past several nights. He had reached the back yard of the house he’d left Frank and Donna. It was clear, but he could see plenty of activity in the front. Through the open curtains, he could see dark shadows moving through the house.

He climbed the fence with April and the others on his heels. Opening the sliding glass door, he was immediately assaulted with the smells and the sounds of the dea
ders that had come through the busted plate glass window in the living room.

He dropped the first couple and then moved for the front door. If they were going to have any chance at all, the gate had to be shut. To her credit, April stuck to his side, killing just as quickl
y and efficiently as he did.

Closing the gate was easy once they moved the bodies out of the way. April produced a length of chain and they secured the gate as best they could. Once that was finished, it was a ma
tter of finishing off the rest of the zombies that were milling about.

When they moved down the stairs, Juan froze. Still a
ttached to the posts where he’d left them were the squirming corpses of Frank and Donna. They both strained uselessly to get at the living souls that had come into view.

“Jesus,” Kip breathed. “Who the hell did this to Frank and Donna?”

He turned back to Juan with wide eyes. The other young man did not seem as concerned with that at the moment. He went to each and plunged his blade into their eye socket. His eyes began to scan the boxes of supplies. Eventually, his gaze came back to Juan.

“Does not make sense,” he said in his thick accent. “If somebody came here and did this, why did they not take all of these supplies?”

Juan noticed that April had moved over behind the one talking. She gave the appearance of just peeking in the boxes, but her eyes continued to dart back and forth between him and the two young men.

“Why tie them up and then leave all of this stuff?” Kip said as he flipped open box after box. “Even if whoever did this got spooked by the incoming zombies, they would have grabbed at least a couple of things.”

He picked up a pristine looking Springfield .30-06 with a scope. There was a band around the stock with several cartridges at the ready, their brass casings glittering in the light of the lantern.

“Nobody would have just left this here…” Kip
’s voice trailed off and he turned to face Juan. His back was now completely to April. “When you left them…is there something—”

A solid crack to the back of the skull ended his question a
bruptly. Kip collapsed and a pool of blood was already beginning to spread around his head like a liquid halo.

“April!” Juan gasped.

The young man whose name Juan still did not recall had amazing reflexes and was already running for the door. April’s thrown axe caught him behind the left knee with a nasty crunch. The head had not embedded itself, but the weight and the force of the throw had been enough to buckle the man’s leg.

“Don
’t just stand there, Juan!” April barked.

Juan jumped into action on reflex. Before he even had the chance to weigh his options, he had scooped up the axe and brought it down with a crunch on the back of the man
’s head.

He spun to confront the woman, his chest heaving, the sur
ging adrenaline causing his hands to start to tremble. She was staring at him in the light of the lantern, but the shadows hid her eyes from view. Instead, all he saw were two black and soulless orbs. (In the nightmare, they swirled with a malevolent fire.)

“What did you do?” Juan gasped.

“Protecting our interest,” April retorted. “Like it or not, you are the person leading our little community. For some reason that I cannot begin to understand…folks
like
you.”

“But not you,” Juan said it as a statement of fact.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

Juan always woke right around then in the nightmare. This time was no different. He sat bolt upright and looked around in the darkness. Mackenzie stirred briefly beside him but continued to sleep peacefully.

Easing out of the bed, Juan walked into the living room and sat in the rocking chair that faced the huge picture window. The curtains were open and the night was clear. The world was bathed in a silvery glow that should have felt calm and peaceful. It did nothing to ease the turmoil swirling inside Juan. He would be leaving tomorrow and expected to return with the three people that were supposedly still back at Donna’s house.

A snuffling noise brought him back to the moment. A large dark shape was padding over to him. Juan reached down and ran his hands through the thick, soft fur.

“Hey, Tigah,” he whispered.

A wet tongue slopped his hand in response.
The Newfoundland puppy forced his head onto Juan’s lap and rested it there. Juan scratched the dog behind the ears and smiled despite all the stress and strain that was roiling within him as the dull thud of a foot tapping the floor started slow and then picked up its tempo.

“Found the right spot, huh?” Juan whispered.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Mackenzie’s voice made Juan jump.

Tigah pushed away and waddled over to the doorway where Mackenzie stood.
The silver light of the moon hit her face perfectly. To Juan, she was an angel. That was part of the problem. She was wonderful…and he was a street thug and petty criminal with a history that she knew very little about. She hadn’t asked any questions, and he had not offered any information.

For the longest time, he had believed that perhaps the end of civilization was his chance to remake himself into the man he
’d always wished he could be. Recent events told him very clearly that he could not.

“Well?” Mackenzie prompted after Juan
’s silence had stretched on for too long. “You should be getting your rest. You have another trip to make and you need to be alert.”

“I couldn
’t sleep,” Juan admitted. She didn’t need to know why.

“I am sure that they are fine.
” Mackenzie came and placed a hand on Juan’s shoulder. Tigah followed and put his head back in Juan’s lap. “April seems pretty smart. She won’t do anything foolish or risky until you arrive.”

Juan felt his insides twist.
You have no idea
, he thought. Once he was certain that he had control of his voice, he spoke. “Just so many things that can go wrong out there. All it takes is one screw up.”

“And yet you keep returning.” Mackenzie knelt in front of Juan and took both his hands in hers. “You need to listen to your own words. We have plenty now. Also, there are other people who can make these trips.”