Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand (31 page)

She feels nothing now as she rises to her
feet. Not the discomfort that plagued her belly, nor the shoulder
that had been gnawed on by the zombie. The motes in the air don’t
offend her anymore, nor the bacteria and germs she had been
protected from her entire life. Her first steps are unsteady on the
uneven terrain of twigs and rocks.

“How?” she asks her hands, extending the
question higher, to her forearms. She continues up to the shoulder
the corpse had sunken its teeth into. The cloth of her dress is
mangled and stained with her blood, but the skin below that should
be ravaged is unbroken. The only evidence of the attack is a large
pink star of scar tissue; the bite wound has already healed. She is
bewildered by the fact she is alive, but knows she can’t waste this
second chance. She needs to get to town and out of the woods.

“We have visual,” Carla reports to Dan, the
update hardly necessary since the shooters on the wall have opened
fire.

“Are all our patrols back yet?”

“Everyone but Oz and Becka.” She sounds
worried.

“Did you get him on radio?”

“Yeah, he’s heading for the mountain pass
since all the gates are sealed.”

##

The mountain pass is an old service road that
leads to Parson’s Dam and continues all the way to the Williamson
ranch. The dam had been walled up on the far end to prevent
trespassers, living or dead.

“Any farther north we’d be in Canada,” Oz
tells Becka.

The dead she had warned him about had been
far enough away he was able to exit the trailer and return to her.
The mob was too deep to risk traveling south. They just started
pouring from the woods, heading straight for New Castle.

The rusty old wrecker’s horn sounds at the
barrier. Soldiers are already working to bring the structure down
for his entry, and perhaps everyone’s retreat since so many dead
are converging.

“What now?” Becka asks softly as they pass
over the dam. She looks down the sheer wall of concrete, tracing
the blue line of the Charles River below them all the way to the
tiny town that looks even smaller in the distance.

“I’m going to drop you off at the ranch…”

“I want to help.” Her full attention snaps to
the man.

Oz lets out an audible breath, “It might get
bad down there. Sit tight at the…”

“No!” She crosses her arms over her chest and
resumes her vigil at her window.

“I really think…”

“No,” she repeats, cutting him off.

They don’t speak again during the rough ride
to the ranch, or while taking the hill that leads them down into
the community.

“Honey, I’m home,” Oz announces as he exits
his truck.

The sheriff’s eyes light up when she sees the
man she’s been so worried about, but her eyebrow raises at the
sight of Becka also hopping out of the tow truck. “Weren’t you
dropping her…?”

“No,” he imitates the cheerleader’s obstinate
tone.

“What can I do?” Becka asks eagerly.

“Schoolyard,” Carla says. “Receive the people
we send you, get ‘em loaded, do a headcount, and keep ‘em
calm.”

“Gotcha!” She dashes away.

“And me?” Oz asks, but already has an inkling
as to what his duties will entail.

“Wrecking crew. I have a present for you on
the back of that truck. I know you’ve had your eye on it… Don’t get
dead.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” he retorts, leaning
down to give the petite woman a kiss.

On the flatbed truck, he finds his present--a
simple crate made of unfinished wood. The lid of the long box is
stenciled in black:
M249
. The man peels back the lid like a
kid on Christmas.

Oz lifts a belt-fed machine gun from the
packing material, brushing away dust from its black finish so he
can admire the weapon. It weighs about twenty two pounds, but he
wields the beautifully destructive gift with ease. His girlfriend
has given him a SAW, a Squad Automatic Weapon, and he can’t wait to
use it.

Oz can’t get fully acquainted with his new
toy, though. He has to make sure his kids are all right and on
their way to the school. The fact that David’s car is now parked by
Nails
by
Mee
has him worried.

##

Mee-Yon and her family are the only Koreans
in New Castle. Before the plague, the town hadn’t been able to
attract much diversity. The family has owned and operated the only
nail salon for twenty years. The matriarch sits filing the nails of
a customer, getting an earful of his woes.

“He even yelled at me for not filling the ice
cube trays correctly,” David complains. “How the hell do you fill
‘em wrong?”

“Aw, sweetie,” the woman empathizes. “You
better off. You find a new man.”

“Oz and I aren’t…” His face flushes. “…we
weren’t…”

“David!” Oz pops into the shop. “Where are
the kids?”

“See how demanding he is?”

“Hey, you brute!” Mee-Yon points an expertly
manicured finger at the large man. “You no yell at her, she a nice
boy!”

“What?” Oz scrunches his brow for an instant
then dismisses her order. “Where are the kids?”

David can see his ex-roommate is serious; he
can’t take his eyes off of the enormous weapon hanging across his
chest. “They’re at Lindsey’s… She’s showing them how to make ice
cream. What’s going on?”

“Just get to the school! Both of you!”

##

Dan Williamson is hauling a pile of K-rails
with a fork truck when he sees Oz sprinting past. “Oz!”

“Busy!” the man responds without slowing.

“’Kay. We’ll talk later.” The concrete
barriers are to be a stopgap measure should the dead penetrate the
walls. He has his people cruising the residential streets to pick
up citizens. The first, and only, evacuation drill they ran using
the tornado siren resulted in what Dan referred to as a ‘cluster
fuck.’ Only half of the people responded, and those that did
created a disorganized mosh of bottlenecked traffic. The taxi
service idea is a slower process, but will keep them from trampling
one another.

“We’re laying them down but more keep
coming.” Carla suddenly appears as Dan drops his load off by the
wall.

“As the buses fill, get them to the dam,” he
sadly instructs. “Have them hold there.”

“Not the ranch?”

“No. If we decide to blow town entirely that
mountain pass is far too long a trek. Better safe than sorry.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Make sure the drivers know to
head for Raleigh.”

“Rally in Raleigh, got it!”

During Dustin’s questing for supplies he had
traveled north, and he remembers seeing a sign indicating a road
that leads to Parson’s Dam. The dam and New Castle are synonymous,
and everyone in these parts knows it was conceived and built by a
guy from the town, but in actuality the place was founded after the
Charles River receded.

The pudgy soldier Dustin had spent a brief
amount of time with in Waterloo had told him that people bitten
only have less than two hours before they turn. He can’t remember
how long ago he was bit, but he doesn’t care as long as he gets
there in time to tell them where to find Eve. He is trying to think
of something he can ask them to tell the girl, because he hates the
idea of her thinking poorly about him since he almost ran away. The
rescuers have to tell Eve that he only did it to get her help.
Perhaps they can relay to her how he feels, that he loves her.

Dustin’s vision blurs as sweat invades his
eyes after it pours down his forehead. He can’t wipe it away fast
enough. If his vision was clear, he’d see his speedometer exceeding
100 miles per hour, and he’d also see the thick throng of walking
corpses on the road. The Camaro barrels through them as if they are
nothing. The bodies are cleared from his path like snowdrifts in
the wake of a plow, and they limply sail over the swift moving car
that pays them no mind.

Dustin tries to watch the road with one eye,
while the other is closed tightly due to irritation. No sooner did
he regain visual clarity and the road kill slaps fresh smears upon
his windshield. The wipers are making it worse, though doused
liberally with blue fluid. One effective pass on his passenger side
gives him a glimpse of Eve’s home, left like a forgotten toy.
Dustin can’t stop though he’d like to, but he has to get her help.
He must do this one last thing for his love.

“Pull back the archers, break out the fine
china,” Dan commands. “I want the wrecking crew at the first
barrier.”

The dead have made it to the gates. The
bowmen are taken off duty since they are ineffective at this range
and angle. The structure is becoming unstable, and the collective
exertion of the dead is shaking the wall. The living had once
deemed the blockade to be solid, but that was before the enemy
became so starved and so plentiful.

“Archers, go to the base of the hill!” Carla
redirects them, putting them where they can do the most good for
the cause. “Wrecking crew, two lines! Your fallback position will
be the ammo dump.”

The sheriff listens to the town gossip
through an ear piece; the radio chatter keeps her apprised of all
communications. “They’re in the woods all around town… Heavy
numbers on the west side near the river.”

The barriers that protect them along the
woods are far weaker than those along the roads and fields.
Stretches of the river had been left open for access to fishing and
wildlife. They always thought they’d be safe with the breaches
since the dead won’t enter the water.

“How are the door-to-doors going?” she
asks.

“Almost complete,” someone answers. “We have
three vehicles out in the boonies still.”

Housing assignments were issued
concentrically, starting from the heart of town to keep folks
close. Some residents of the town, those who lived here long before
the wall, chose to remain in their out of the way dwellings.

“Where’s Oz?” Carla asks Dan.

“He said he was busy,” he reports.

He is happy to see a line of blue buses
starting to head up the hill.

##

“Oz,” Lindsey Thompson smiles, relieved to
see the man.

“Hey, Linds. Kids been behaving?” he
asks.

“They’re always such angels,” she
replies.

The scene behind the large man with the
massive rifle is a peculiar one; the buses that have been parked at
the school are beginning to wind through town, and at the wall
soldiers are positioned behind concrete blocks.

“What’s the commotion?”

“Barbarians at the gates, so to speak.” He
plays off the true weight of it then whispers to her. “Can you get
the kids loaded up onto one of the remaining buses? Watch them a
bit longer?”

“Of course.”

One of the children, a little girl named
Desiree, tugs Oz’s shirttail. Like the others, her face is
plastered with the ice cream they had made themselves.

Oz scares most adults upon sight, due to his
stature and constant grave expression, but he looks down into the
girl’s eyes and softens, dropping to a knee. “Hey, Dez. What’s
wrong?”

Though unable to know the full extent of what
is going on, she is perceptive enough to feel the tension in the
air. Obviously fearing for the man’s safety, her eyes water. “Stay
with us, Ozzie.”

“I gotta help out here. You all need to stick
with Lindsey. She’s taking you to the dam.”

“The dam’s boring!” she whines. “Can I stay
with you?”

“Afraid not,” he breaks the news gently.
“I’ll be there as soon as we’re done here. Promise.”

The girl surrenders, returning to the
others.

Oz returns to his feet. “I should get down
there. Kids, be good.”

They watch him depart fearlessly back to the
frontlines. Lindsey tells the children to leave their dishes where
they are and that she’ll take care of them later. Twenty four
sticky sets of hands form a chain that she leads to the schoolyard.
The woman keeps constant alert over the flock, not wanting to
misplace a single precious one. The act fills her with anxiety,
being responsible for so many little lives, keeping them safe from
an enemy she can’t even see. But she trusts the many figures
standing bravely at the wall, those who have volunteered to protect
her, the children, and all the other souls that inhabit the town.
Once she has them all within the chain link enclosure, she can
breathe a bit easier, and she’ll feel even better once they are on
a bus.

“The wipers on the bus go…” Becka stops
singing to another group of kids when she sees her old friend from
Waterloo enter the yard with a fresh audience. She runs to the
woman, who had practically adopted her and Barbara as her own the
day the dead began to walk. The women hug each other tightly.

“Kids, over here!” David calls from one of
the last transports out of town. The tiny ones dash to where their
other ‘legal’ guardian beckons.

“Where’s Barb?” Lindsey asks.

“Up the hill, helping Heather get the Raleigh
girls ready,” she must excuse herself briefly to speak into a
radio. “Carla, by my count we have almost everyone except for the
soldiers and a few stragglers.”

“There’s some folks refusing to leave. Hold
up a bit. We’re going to blow the siren to light a fire under
them.”

##

“Burt?” Carla’s voice squawks out of a radio
on the west side of town. She had to repeat the name a second time,
and loudly, to be heard over the siren’s whine. “Any luck?”

“One of the hold outs is coming, but McCleary
says the lord will protect her.”

“Yeah he hasn’t met her yet,” the sheriff
quips. “Give her one last chance then bring it in. No sense getting
others killed for her bullshit. ‘Kay?”