DEAD: Reclamation: Book 10 of the DEAD series (16 page)

Seriously, that bothered me all night. I could not figure out where they had been keeping the crybabies. But it also shows me that this Darwin Goodkind has been at this for a while. He has contingencies that I would never have thought of when it comes to security.

I will need to be careful.

9

A Place A Geek Would Call Home

“Who sent you?” Kevin asked, his eyes locked on Darlene’s. “You get one chance to answer, and then I am going to cut you just enough.”

He did not need to explain the rest. Anybody alive today knew full well that the blood of a living infected person was just as capable of transmitting the zombie condition as a bite. Perhaps that was the reason behind these people’s hatred for those who showed immunity.

However, that sword cut both ways, as was obviously the case with the people of Rock Ridge. If the rumors were true, they were about to embark on the modern day version of biological terrorism. They were going to contaminate the food or water supply of the other two settlements, and then gather all those who survived and try to create some sort of all-immune society. In that way, they were no better than these people that had come to exterminate those who did not turn.

All of this was simply the surface of the issue as far as Kevin was concerned. He wanted to know who was spreading the rumors; and who had found these extremists and notified them of the folks at Rock Ridge. This could all be a propaganda war. People had stopped being afraid of the zombies. Nowadays, it was actually more common to be afraid of the living.

If there was ever going to be any chance for humanity to survive, then they would have to start coming together. It really was that simple.

Darlene’s lip trembled and she looked up at Kevin, her eyes glistening with tears. “We were sent by our commander…our leader.”

“Okay, and where did you come from? Where is your camp.”

Darlene’s eyes hardened. “Go ahead…kill me. I ain’t lettin’ you folks go and wipe out my friends. So if you’re gonna do this, then let’s just get it done.”

Kevin was at a loss. He had no idea what could have turned her so quickly. He felt her slipping away and needed to try and pull her back. “I don’t want to kill anybody. In fact, here is a deal for you to consider.”

He took a deep breath, not sure if this was the right way to go about things, but for some reason, somewhere along the way, he had decided that he wanted to call this place home. He and Catie could start their life here. If that was going to happen, he needed to pave a safe road for them. He knew there was no such thing as perfect these days; hell, there was no such thing
before
the zombies.

But if he was going to call this home, then he needed to eliminate what he considered to be the biggest threat. The plan was still forming in his head, and he knew that those sorts of on-the-fly things often went haywire, but he had to act if he was going to stay here and try to start a family.

“You and I will go to your people alone. Let me talk to them under a banner of peace.” He knew that it was a half-cocked idea, but he was confident in his ability to reason with whoever these people might be.

“Your friends will just follow, and then they will poison us or do something else that turns everybody who ain’t like you freaks into one of them dang zombies.” Darlene shook her head.

Just then, the door flew open. “Kevin Dreon, you will do no such thing!” Catie was dragging Clint and another man behind her.

Clint made the mistake of getting behind Catie and trying to wrap his arms around her waist. She threw an elbow that caught the man in the face. A crunch and yelp of pain sounded and Clint fell back holding his hands to his nose as blood trickled through his fingers.

“Catie, calm down,” Kevin said, turning and grabbing her by the shoulders.

“You aren’t just going to hand yourself over to some group of whackos that are bent on killing anybody who is immune. Have you learned nothing over the years or from your stupid books and movies?” Catie was sobbing now, and her voice was strangled as she tried to make her point. “Religious fanatics are not ever going to listen to you as you attempt to reason with them. Their brains are fried.”

“Let me ask you something,” Kevin said, his voice calm and relaxed in stark contrast to Catie’s. “You felt it the moment that we got here, didn’t you? This is the place for us. This is where we can make our home and start our life.”

“We can find someplace else,” Catie insisted.

“And what will we find? Worse? This is it. You know it and you feel it. I need you to trust me.”

“I trust you with my life, you idiot.” Catie scrubbed at her face and then glared. “It is everybody else in the world that I don’t trust any farther than I can throw.”

“But if I can do this…” Kevin felt the wind leaving his sails. He could not explain why he was so suddenly enamored with this place. The truth was, he just felt it inside where it counted.

“Then I go with you.” Catie folded her arms across her body and fixed Kevin with a stare that made it clear there would be no bargaining, discussion, or debate.

Kevin turned back to Darlene. “Take us to your people. Let me talk to them. I give you my word that I will release you to them no matter what. I simply want to speak to whoever is in charge. There must be a way that we can all coexist.”

“I have to speak up,” Clint bristled, barging farther into the already crowded room. “I really appreciate what you are trying to do—”

“If we do this, it is best for everybody.” Kevin did not want to get into a long discussion; mostly because he had no idea why he felt so strongly about this place. For whatever reason, this was home.

“Y’all are crazy,” Darlene said in a voice just loud enough to be heard.

“Maybe so, but there comes a time when a person has to choose to draw a line. I went through this once before. I won’t do it again,” Kevin insisted.

“But what is to stop another group and then another and another?” Cap had walked into the small room now, making it even more crowded and uncomfortable. “Wouldn’t it be less dangerous to just find someplace safe…make a new home?”

“Until they find you again?” Catie scoffed.

Kevin turned to Darlene. “I only ask that you at least give me an idea of what I am walking into. How many of you are there?”

The woman chewed her bottom lip in thought for a moment. Eventually she looked up at Kevin. “Five…maybe six hundred.”

An audible gasp escaped somebody, but Kevin remained calm. He turned to everybody and asked them to please leave once again. Catie crossed her arms and made a point of leaning against the wall. She returned his questioning look with a gesture of locking her lips, the rest filed out reluctantly. After the room was empty except for him, Catie, and Darlene, he sat back down.

“Can you tell me why?” Kevin asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Why what?”

“Why are you people so set on wiping out those who are immune?”

The woman sat for a moment, and after a long silence where Kevin was almost certain that she would not answer, Darlene spoke.

“It started a few years ago for us. We had a nice place just north of what used to be Parkersburg. We had the Ohio River on one side giving us all the water and fish we could ever want. It was really something to see. We even had lights after these really smart ladies came and helped build some sort of solar thing with all these panels and stuff. It was all going so nice.”

Darlene closed her eyes and smiled. For the first time, Kevin could see a regular person sitting across from him, not an ignorant being that sought to kill what she did not understand.

“Folks started getting back to normal. Yeah, sometimes we lost somebody, but that was rare. Then this group of folks showed up. We let them in, they all seemed okay, and we didn’t mind. The more the merrier. Plus, when you have a lot of people, some of the roving raiders tend to leave you alone.”

Kevin almost laughed at the irony of her sentiment. However, she was starting to get on a roll, so he kept quiet, nodding for her to continue.

“One day, a few of our people got sick. They hadn’t been out, and they was all in relations with folks who weren’t infected. Everybody knew that you had to keep to your own, infected and not infected. That was why it was so strange. They turned and we had to put ‘em down. Folks was really upset, then the kids got sick.”

“The kids?” Kevin asked, unsure of what she meant exactly.

“Every single kid in the community…well, most of ‘em. Of course a few turned out to be immune, or at least that was what we figured eventually.”

“You are saying that these people came in and basically started poisoning you all for no reason?” Kevin asked with a hint of skepticism.

“That is what happened whether you believe me or not,” Darlene shot back. “They would have gotten away with it to…”

“If not for those meddling kids,” Catie quipped just loud enough for Kevin to hear. He shot her a dirty look and then returned his focus to Darlene.

“They didn’t give any reason?” He leaned forward, his hands firmly planted on the table.

“They said that we was the weak link in humanity’s chain or some such nonsense. They said that, for humans to have any chance of survival, the ones who could not withstand the sickness and then change into the walking dead needed to be eliminated.” Darlene stared up defiantly, a tear welling up and then leaking from the corner of her eye. “I went through hell that first year…but I saved my boy. He was only three when his own daddy come in the door and tried to eat us. I beat him down with a frying pan and then ran. That year was…” Her voice trailed off and sobs began to wrack her body.

Kevin reached across the table to take the woman’s hand with his but she threw herself back, eyes wide in terror. Kevin flushed as he realized he was still sporting an open and bleeding wound. Making a show of pulling the offending arm back, he patted her hand with the other.

“So you people basically flipped their idea and started hunting down those who were immune.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Darlene shook her head, but Kevin could see the look of doubt in her expression.

“How is it any different?” Catie blurted. “You people are hunting and killing folks. In what world is that not exactly the same thing? If anything, you are worse.”

“How so?” Darlene’s voice changed to angry in an instant.

“You are taking the bible and perverting it so that you can give your cause some sort of holiness that it does not deserve. You are destroying the image of Christianity by becoming some sort of twisted stereotype. You all are no better than those old television evangelists that always seemed to be getting caught in seedy hotels with hookers that ended up in
Playboy
or
Penthouse
once the story broke.”

Catie stalked around the table and stood over the woman. Kevin noticed that, even sitting, Darlene was almost as tall as Catie was standing, yet Catie seemed to tower above the woman at the moment, her anger seemingly adding to her appearance.

“Go ahead, mock our beliefs,” Darlene shot back.

“Your beliefs!” Catie exploded. “Did you have these before? Or did they get instilled in you
after
that tragedy. Yes, I feel sorry for you and your people. What those others did was wrong, but for you to turn around and do the exact same thing? Where does it end? When there are none left among the living?”

There was a long silence. Finally, Darlene looked up at Catie. She made no effort to brush the tears that were now flowing freely from her eyes.

“My boy died…became one of those…those things. Not because he got bit, but because some people decided that he was not fit to survive. Do you have children?” Catie shook her head. “Then you wouldn’t…no, you
couldn’t
understand. They stole a part of me that will never be replaced. They did it based on no belief other than some sort of natural selection mumbo jumbo. Go ahead and see how you feel after that baby you are carrying comes into this world and relies on you to protect it.”

“So you do it based on twisting the words in the bible to fit a belief that you know in your heart not to be true,” Catie whispered. “I could actually respect you a lot more if you were just doing this for revenge.
That
I could understand.”

“How far to your people?” Kevin asked, breaking the conversation up. “I would like to get you there as soon as possible.”

“They will probably kill you.” Darlene looked up at Kevin, and he could see that she was not trying to threaten, she was being perfectly honest.

“Well, maybe you can talk them out of it. Either way, this has to end. We can’t keep doing this or there won’t be anybody left.” Kevin turned to the door, not surprised to find Clint and Cap waiting on the other side.

“You sure about this?” Cap asked.

Kevin looked at the man. Things had happened so quick that he really hadn’t had the time to get a reading on the guy. It only took him a moment to realize that the man looked like a young John Travolta. He suddenly had the urge to ask the man to say, “I’m so confuuuuused.”

“I want to stay here,” Kevin admitted. “Something about this place makes me feel like I am home. That can’t happen if we are at war.”

“But you do realize there will always be another group,” Clint spoke up. “That has been the way of things since we settled here. Fortunately, we have taken in enough folks that we are still here. Add in the other two…err…I guess one now. But add in the other communities and some of the outlying ones, and we have been able to fend for ourselves pretty well.”