Fortunes & Failures - 03 (40 page)

Taking a deep breath, Reginald turned the handle and spun the dogging wheel.  The door opened and he felt his ears pop. The corridor was empty and he stepped out. So far, nothing. He shut the door and the sound of the automated locking mechanisms buzzed and clicked.

He made his way down the well-lit corridor, almost dreading to have contact with the woman he’d liked much better as Jane Doe.  He reached their door and listened.  He didn’t hear a sound.

Opening the door, Reginald peeked in.  The front area was dark…and seemingly empty.  Through the doorway that led to his sleeping area he could see what looked like the fluorescent light that would be over his bathroom sink flickering.  He stepped in, creeping quietly. 
 
Had she gone crazy and left?
 
he wondered. It was possible for her to leave through the escape hatch.  Only, if she made it up to the bunker, would she have climbed up through the top hatch and just dove into that sea of bodies? It didn’t seem likely.

He set the basket down and moved towards the bedroom.  He could see the bed, a tangled mess of sheets and blankets.  It was empty.  He crept in and got down on his knees. Maybe she—

He never saw Lucy step out from behind the door.  Reginald wasn’t familiar with some of the common side-effects of meth.  All he knew was about how it kept a person awake.  Had he given it some thought, he might’ve deduced that the extreme lack of sleep produces a number of psychological issues; one of those being paranoia.

Lucy had convinced herself through a montage of fractured memories that Dr. Reggie was coming for her, and that he intended to turn her into one of those things…or perhaps feed her to one of the ones in those creepy glass-fronted chambers.

Lucy brought the metal chair leg down on the back of his balding head as the doctor crawled around, looking under the bed.  She swung a second and third time until he collapsed flat on the floor.  She saw the blood and realized that there was no way in the world that she would be able to talk or fuck her way out of it now. Lucy brought the bludgeon down again and again.  At some point, the bloody head burst open and spilled its contents.  Lucy dropped the weapon and retreated to the front room.  She backed out the door and into the brightly lit corridor.  Then she heard a noise.
 
Damn
! Maybe the doctor had turned into one of those terrible creatures.  She remembered him saying something about the dead coming to life.  She ran to the adjacent room and ducked inside.  Shutting and locking the door she stood with her ear pressed to it, listening.

Waiting.



Juan looked up the beach.  It’d been just over two weeks. Mackenzie was doing better.  She’d been on the verge of tears almost constantly those first few days.  And on the day they’d buried Margaret she’d cried herself silly.  As usual, he didn’t have any idea what to say or do, so he just kept quiet and let her cry into his chest.

That boat had shown up on a crazy day.  The three men, two women, and two children had been confused by all the insanity.  And of course, being greeted by himself, JoJo, and Thad—each carrying a loaded shotgun and a brace of pistols on their hips.

Finally, things were settling down.  Everybody was now working hard on the beach project.  The posts were going in and strands of barbed wire were being secured.  They’d been working in the rain the past few days, but today, it was sunny.  Not exactly warm…but sunny.

Juan paused to wipe his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.  He watched the two children chasing each other up the beach.  Mackenzie, Sandra and the two new women were watching from a blanket they’d spread out on the sand.  He wished that he had a better memory when it came to people’s names.  He only remembered one of the little girls’ names: Mindy.  She was the one with the long blonde ponytail almost down to her waist.

“Hey, Big Man!” Thad called, carrying down three more posts. “Has JoJo brought the next batch of cement?” They’d found several bags of quick-drying cement and were anchoring all the posts with it.

“Nope,” Juan turned back to his task and plunged the post-hole digger into ground.  Thad dropped the new posts and reached into the big pockets of his coveralls.

“Got a surprise for ya.” Thad grinned as he produced a Mason jar.

“Jeez,” Juan snorted, “you could fit a small child in those pockets.”

“Yeah,” Thad nodded as he twisted the lid off, “but instead…I bring beer.”

Keith and Thad had begun brewing a batch the same night the new people arrived. They’d said something about wanting a proper way to celebrate good times…or…in the case of Margaret—and even the travelling companions of LaVon and Sandra—mourn the bad ones.

“The guys wanted you to have the first jar.” Thad held it out for Juan.

Setting aside his tool, Juan took the jar and sniffed.  It smelled pretty good. And …the jar felt cool.  He took a sip.

“Well?” Thad asked expectantly.

“Tight!” Juan grinned, taking another much larger gulp. He covered his mouth as a belch rumbled from it.  “Tight like a Tigah.”

“Well, don’t be a pig, man,” Thad held out a hand.  “Share the goodness.”

Juan handed it over and Thad took a long drink.  He nodded and passed it back.  The two men made short work of the jar of beer.

“So,” Thad gestured to the row of posts running off in the distance behind them, “how much longer you think we got until this little project is done?”

“At least a couple weeks.”

“Then what?”

Juan thought it over for a second, only a little distracted by his beer buzz.  “Then we think about how to defend ourselves from the living.”

“You really think that’s gonna be a problem?”

“I don’t think…I know.” Juan’s mind drifted back to Travis Reynolds, Gary Messer, and the others.  If there was one Travis Reynolds…there would be others. 
Perhaps even worse
, he shuddered inwardly at the thought. Then he considered the people here on Sauvie’s Island.  Of the dozen adults, at least a third had done time.

“So, do we go out and look for others, or do we wait and let them come to us?” Thad asked.

“I think that, at some point, we’re gonna have to go out there.” Juan jammed one of the posts into the freshly dug hole, then began shoveling the coarse, gray concrete in to fill it and stabilize the post. “Maybe not actually looking for people as much as for stuff, but we’ll need to go out there.”

“Ya know,” Thad chuckled, “you got a lot of people here fooled…but I’m on to you.”

“Huh?” Juan patted the concrete with a shovel and began tying the lines from four stakes already in place to keep the post stable while the concrete dried.

“You ain’t no dummy.”

Juan thought that statement over, deciding if he was offended, then determined that he wasn’t.  “Didn’t know I was tryin’ to fool anybody.”

“Exactly.”

“Look,” Juan picked up the tools and began moving down to where he would position the next post, “I ain’t tryin’ to do anything but survive.  It’d be nice if there were others.  I ain’t runnin’ shit, ain’t tryin’ to run shit.  I just want to have a place and be safe as we can. Other than that, I ain’t got no plans or big ideas.”

“And that, my friend,” Thad clapped him on the shoulders, “is precisely what makes you so smart.”

Juan squinted his eyes against the sun and looked up the beach at the children playing under the women’s watchful eyes, then back to Thad.  “Okay, if you say so.” He shrugged and picked up the post-hole digger.

“I better go get some more posts,” Thad said and headed to the stairs that exited the beach.

Juan looked around again.  He hadn’t even realized that this was where he’d first stopped.  He’d dropped his anchor right off of this beach.  He didn’t even really know how long it’d been.  Across the river and to his left he could see Mount St. Helens in the distance
.  Directly across the river, scattered houses amidst a wall of green.  Those houses scattered across the river would be first
, he decided.

He plunged the post-hole digger into the ground, smiling at the sounds of children’s laughter.



“Kill ‘em now, or deal with ‘em later,” Chad repeated.

Colonel Morris knelt next to the driver, staring out the front window of the bus.  Staggering down the road, directly for them, were at least fifty zombies.  Only, it looked like a macabre spoof on school field trip. All but a handful of this horde were children, most not even in their teens.

“I don’t think I can do it,” Derrick Foster breathed from the driver’s seat of the bus.

A murmur of similar sentiment rippled through some of the men bunched in the aisle beside Chad’s seat.  A few of those that had initially come to look actually retreated to their own seats as if not seeing what was out there would make it go away

“Those aren’t children anymore,” Chad implored.  “They’re zombies just like the rest. And if we don’t put them all down, they’ll follow us to Yosemite and there’s no tellin’ how many they’ll bring with ‘em.”

There was a long and uncomfortable silence.  Chad could feel eyes on him, glaring.  He knew that feeling well from prison.  As soon as the general population got wind of his charges, he got similar looks anytime he walked into the chow hall, medical, or the yard.

“He’s got a point,” the colonel finally broke the silence.  “But I won’t ask anybody to go out there who don’t think they can do the job.  If you’ve got an iota of doubt in your ability to perform, then stay inside. It’ll be hairy enough without having to worry about someone freezing up and addin’ to the mess.”

“We usin’ hand-to-hands only?” somebody asked.

“Guns would defeat our purpose at this point,” Colonel Morris replied.

“I’m out,” the voice announced.

“Well anybody who’s in, let’s go,” the colonel barked.  He patted Derrick on the shoulder, “Open the door, son.”

Chad stood, following the colonel out.  When Derrick shut the door after the last volunteer had exited, there were fourteen men and two women standing in the chilly morning air.  The sky overhead was gloomy, and wisps of fog slithered along the ground in places.

“Sorta brisk out,” one of the guys said, rubbing his hands together.

“My grandpa always said that brisk was a polite way of sayin’ fuckin’ freezin’,” Scott muttered.  There was a smattering of laughter.

“Keep spread out,” the colonel put an end to the nervous banter.  Volunteers or not, it was clear that everybody was bothered by the task ahead. “We got lucky with an even number. I want each of you in pairs. 
Do not
 
abandon your partner unless you’ve had to drop ‘em.  I don’t have to remind anybody that these things are
 
not
 
children, they are monsters, and they
 
will
 
kill you.”

With those final words, they waded into battle.  Chad had one of the women at my side. She’d introduced herself as Michelle as they closed the distance between the zombies and the parked and still-idling bus.

As they closed, somebody else noticed about the same time as Chad did.  A barking laugh that was as much amusement as it was relief caused a few people to jump.  These weren’t children at all.  The little person closest to Chad was a man in his fifties at the very least.  That revelation spread quickly through the group.  From there, it was a vicious slaughter.

With Michelle at his back, Chad moved along the left side of the road, dispatching one zombie after another.  It took him a moment to connect the fact that most of the little people were wearing paraphernalia with the Los Angeles basketball logo emblazoned somewhere.  A few had jerseys with the number twenty-four in royal purple.  They’d obviously been a group attending a game.  As he brought his axe down on another skull, he tried to imagine what horrific event occurred that turned each of these poor souls.

It didn’t take long for them to put each of the zombies down for the last time.  After wiping off their weapons, the group made it back to the bus.

“
Night of the Little Dead
,” somebody quipped.

A chorus of chuckles and outright laughter followed.  Chad glanced up and saw the collage of horrified faces staring out the front window of the bus as they walked back, everybody laughing and joking.

“Hey,” he called out, cutting off the mirthful noises. “I don’t think the others know what’s up.  They’re lookin’ at us like we’ve lost our minds.”

Colonel Morris moved to the front of the group and raised his arms, “Alright, people,” he called, “let me go ahead and explain.  When that bus door opens and we board it, there’s gonna be some hackles raised.  Let me shut this down before it gets too spicy.” He went to the bus and actually had to knock on the door before Derrick would open it.  When he boarded it, people scrambled back from him like he was a monster…or a zombie.

Chad caught a glimpse of Ronni’s face in the crowd.  It felt like a punch in the stomach  when he saw the same look of revulsion and horror on her face that was plastered on everybody else’s.  Some of those looks softened, but others seemed less than amused by the strange twist of events.