“Probably a lot quieter than if you have to shoot one of the Turned that are sitting in the tent comatose, huh?” Shaun said.
Aslin whispered to himself that this was exactly why I don’t have them, don’t need them, and sure as hell don’t want kids. He shone his flashlight back and forth on the tent not seeing anything come from it. A constant screaming growl not like one they’d heard before continued to come from inside. Greg said, “You want to hit it on a count, or what?”
Aslin got close thinking about it and climbed off hitting the emergency release on the lift to send Greg back down before he knew what had happened. “What the hell are you doing, Aslin?”
Aslin put up a finger knowing that taking a kid with him was irresponsible regardless of what he knew how to do. Aslin with a gun in one hand and machete in the other gripped the blade hard slicing it through the tent. It of course did not go as he wanted it to and got stuck on a rod halfway down. Aslin held his breath as he took a second swing at it. When he pulled it back the rest of the way he realized that he had only thought that he had seen the worst of the dead and the things that they were capable of. He thought about what he was seeing and wanted to kill every last one of them regardless of how long it took to complete the act.
A baby that was Turned, lay in a small basket kicking wildly with chubby legs that ended at its knees. He had to back out and catch his breath. The stink from the rotting flesh and soiled diapers that had been stewing for what he could only assume had been months was unbearable. When he was sure that he was not going to puke he pulled the slit tent to the side staring in. He pulled out his knife and entered the tent saying a small prayer to God as he did that he would be forgiven for this one. When Aslin came back down Greg saw his face and could only remember one time he’d ever seen an adult look like that and it was when one of his dad's deputies had not finished a shift alive. Greg said, “What was it?”
“They need to die,” Aslin said. “I mean it…all of them need to fucking die. People shouldn’t have to see shit like that, it isn’t fucking right. We get this shit back to the base, figure out the others in that group and from there I want to spend as much time behind this rifle as possible. The more of those fuckers we put down the better we all will be.”
Greg said, “So, what you are saying is you aren’t going to tell us what you saw?”
Aslin looked at him void of color in his face. “You’re welcome for that. You don’t want to know what I saw. But I assure you that I can’t handle seeing too many more of those visuals.”
“Let’s finish going through this place so we can get back. It seems like we’re going to be doing some good, finally,” McQuaig said.
“We have been keeping people safe, so we’re doing good,” Aslin said. “It’s just not as easy to keep track of as it is when you are taking out the Turned.”
Greg looked over at Shaun and saw a mixture of emotions running across his young face. He could tell that he was curious what was in that tent and the idea there were dead and that he was going to get to go after them was something he’d been secretly craving. Greg whispered, “Looks like we’re finally going to start making a dent in those things. You think you’re going to be up for it?”
Shaun shook his head no. He already knew that Greg didn’t need to have that answer but nodded ever so lightly. He said, “I hope that we can get more of these silencers attached to the rifles. If we can go in like ghosts they don’t stand a chance. I’ll sit at two hundred yards all day long and they’ll never see me coming.”
“Don’t you mean us, Shaun?”
“Yeah, you know what I mean, Greg. Just a little excited that we might be able to take things back again. It has been a long year waiting to get some serious time out there. Other than the day of your little white lie we haven’t had a hell of a lot of trigger time where the target was something that wasn’t going to get back up again.”
Aslin motioned to Greg and the two disappeared around a row. Hammond and McQuaig were waiting for Shaun. He nodded and they started making their way through the aisles. When they were halfway through their portion of the store they found a lift with a platform but no gates for keeping it enclosed. Shaun said, “Who wants to go up?”
Hammond and McQuaig were both shaking their heads. “That crap up there is probably heavy. One of you is going up there with me, the other gets to sit down here and be first meal if any of the Turned show up.”
Hammond said, “Well, you know I’m pretty strong, maybe I should go up there.”
“Who says that chivalry is dead, ass. You go on up, maybe we get lucky and you fall off and break your neck. We need to repopulate but I’m not sure you are made of the right stuff.”
Hammond held his heart. He said, “Ouch, that was just a bit vicious. You keep talking like that and I’m not going to ask you out, McQuaig.”
She pulled herself up on to the platform, laughing. “Come on, Fox, you better stay with me, my lucks getting better and better by the moment.”
Shaun didn’t say anything and pulled himself up. He got McQuaig a strap hooked through a harness and one for himself. She said, “You sure we need all this crap on?”
“Last thing we need to worry about is falling off from up there. You fall and we aren’t anywhere near Lou and you don’t stand a chance. Being around Lou is only going to help if we can get back and he knows what to do. He is a nurse and he isn’t going to be able to handle everything.”
“But hasn’t he been reading all the medical texts that he can get his hands on?” McQuaig asked.
Shaun hit the up button on the small platform; it shook as they began to rise because it had not been used in a very long time. “Right, he has been pulling double or hell, triple duty between blood drives, taking care of Ellie, and then working on learning. But remember the best way to learn how to drive is what?”
“To actually do it?” McQuaig said unconfidently.
“Exactly, unfortunately and fortunately he hasn’t had anyone to practice on. That is good for everyone and not. When the time comes that he needs to actually do something it is going to be his first time doing it. So let's just hope that he has put enough time into that text to be able to make sense of what it was saying to do.”
McQuaig said, “Well, then let’s hope that nobody get-”
Hammond screamed from below and his voice echoed. There wasn’t any question that he needed help and now. Shaun hit the light on his rifle taking aim at nothing. Shaun yelled, “I don’t see anything, what is wrong?”
Hammond looked up fear and sweat on his face. He said, “I heard something. I heard something over there.”
Shaun stood steady at the edge of the platform they were standing on and waited patiently.
“He’s just being paranoid, Fox, come on, let's get this crap onto the platform so we can get it down. I want off this thing.”
Shaun held up a hand and shook his head slowly no. He ran the lights back and forth across the floor. He started to see shadows crossing in the distance and they were not animals. He pointed his flashlight where he thought it was and tried to remember where Greg and Aslin were in the building. McQuaig said, “What, what do you see?”
“Shadows that don’t belong there. Something is up and moving, I just don’t know what in the hell it is.”
“What do you want to do, Fox?”
“Shoot them in the head if they’re the Turned.”
Hammond practically yelled from below. He said, “Aren’t you guys coming down here? You aren’t going to leave me down here by myself, are you?”
Shaun looked down at him feeling guilty but refused to risk McQuaig’s life to go down and pick him up. He said, “You can climb up here Hammond, or hope that you make it through this, man. We don’t have time to come down and back up, I don’t think.”
“I don’t like either of those options.”
Shaun shrugged, “Those are the only ones you have. If you don't like it then you can run, but we know what happens when they’re running on their own and you don’t have anyone to take them out for you.”
“You aren’t making me feel real good about all this, Fox!”
Shaun clicked off his safety and peered down his rifle sight. He whispered more to himself than anyone else. “I wasn’t trying to, Hammond.”
The boxes, a hundred yards away, exploded off the second shelf. The mowers that had been neatly stacked unassembled in them fell to the floor. The Turned tripped themselves up in them picking the hundred pound boxes up and throwing them as far and as hard as they could, screaming at them as they did.
The Turned came out of the hole in the shelving. They were hungry and currently running straight for Hammond whose gun was shaking in his hands. When Shaun had the first one in his sights he began pulling the trigger and peppering the ground below with brass. The dead were falling but there were too many of them to stop before they made it to Hammond.
Hammond turned to run knowing his machine gun could be on full auto and the twenty that were coming would still catch him. He sprinted, dropping his travel pack, climbing a ladder up against the wall. One of the Turned ran to within reaching distance of the ladder and just as Shaun aimed to fire on it climbing the rungs it leapt into the air skipping the first fifteen steps and clung to Hammond’s shoulder with both hands. Hammond screamed and the Turned used its weight to rip him off the ladder, throwing him into a row of dusty, never before used riding lawnmowers. The sound of Hammond’s spine breaking when it hit echoed through the distance.
Shaun winced watching the act in horror, unable to do anything about it. He aimed down to put Hammond out of his pending pain but the Turned that had not gone for the teen had been running straight for the lift that they were currently standing on. It weighed a ton and when the Turned hit it with everything that they had, Shaun, who was sitting on top of the platform, dropped his rifle turning around as quickly as he could and held on for dear life. He had plenty of safety straps but had no interest in being a bloody piñata for the dead.
Chapter 4
Patrick and Bella walked the perimeter of the fence. He sat watching as the two trucks pulled out. He hit his radio saying, “Be safe out there, guys. Try not to do anything stupid.”
Shaun came back over a second later saying, “Sorry, Patrick, we took Greg, we’ll try not to do anything else stupid though, I promise.”
Greg came over unable to not contribute. “I’ll miss you the most, Patrick, wait for me, I promise that it will be worth it.”
Bella stared at Patrick unsure how to take that and smiled mischievously. Patrick said, “You probably don’t know Greg that well yet, but he’s all kinds of special. He is also pure trouble so I can only imagine that you, like all the other girls here, will absolutely love him.”
She smiled shaking her head no. “I’ve had plenty of trouble maker boyfriends in my life, Patrick. I'm perfectly fine spending my time hanging out with guys who aren’t going to get me in a shit ton of trouble, if you know what I mean. You make a mistake now-a-days and you are dead. I’m honestly just thankful that you guys were still out doing pickups of groups that were trying to make a go of it on the other side of that fence.”
“You are really lucky, after those asses tried to take Shaun, we weren’t sure that it was a good idea that we try to bring anyone back with us for a while. We had decided that area where you were hiding out was a good place to try and pick up people as it was a straight shot to and from the base. You got something going for you though, not many of the others have adapted to the base life as quickly as you.”
Bella shrugged, “I heard the rumors that those that don’t help can see the other side of the fence if they don’t watch what they’re doing. Let me say that is absolutely the very last thing I want to happen. You guys got a good thing going here. I hope that it can stay that way for a long time to come.”
“We have a good thing going. You don’t have to worry about getting the boot out of here. They’ve only done that once, and it was because they couldn’t stay sober long enough to be useful and they were taking rations and hoarding them for absolutely no reason. We can’t have people on base that we can’t trust. There are too many dangers the way it is around here with all the heavy-duty weapons. The citizens of the base have lost so many already the last thing they need to do is lose more because of stupid accidents.”
Patrick turned to start walking the perimeter but saw Kya. “Hey, hang on a minute, I need to go say hi real quick.”
Bella checked her watch nodding her head and said, “Yeah, just hurry up, okay?”
Patrick was smiling and running backwards. He said, “What, really, you already checking the time. How long you have been on guard duty? Try doing it for as long as we have, and see if you think it gets any better.”
Patrick started to trip and righted himself spinning around. Bella watched as he ran scooping Kya up in his arms and spinning the two of them around.
Kya said, “Wow, someone's enthusiastic.”
Patrick leaned in kissing her neck and making her scream aloud at the unexpected chill. He said, “Wow, and I’ll be deaf too. You know I love to see you. I thought you were going to help out at the blood drive today while I was on shift?”
Kya shook her head no. “Lou already has people helping him out. Joey was in there, but I don’t know how much good he was doing. I swear the second that blood bag hits the marker for where he is supposed to be at he runs over holds it up and the kid goes out for the count. If it wasn’t for having to worry about them falling off the table I think that it would be funny as hell. Lou is still running around like his head is chopped off. I think Ellie is a natural though, getting the needle out, and taking the blood bags to storage. I think she could be a hell of a nurse if she sticks by Lou.”
Patrick was shaking her head no. “No way, that girl is going to stick by Shaun’s side until the end of this. They’re inseparable.”
“Inseparable? Oh my god, I’m in love with a nerd, a complete nerd.”
Patrick kissed her neck again. “A nerd that can shoot at the very least. I think I'm getting better the longer we date. I mean I can’t hold it up against any data but-“
She gripped onto his camo hoody and when he looked down she pulled him in close giving him an embarrassingly long and wet kiss. She said, “I love nerds, don’t worry about it. I don’t want Bella thinking that you are on the market. You are all mine, and I’m keeping it that way, Patrick.”
Patrick’s cheeks started to get red. “Keep that up, Kya, and I'm not going to be able to walk around on guard duty without looking a little awkward.”
Kya kissed him again bumping her hips into his on purpose. She laughed as she walked away. “You have fun on guard duty. You catch up with me in a couple hours…see if you can find me.”
Bella was shaking her head as Patrick awkwardly walked back. “You guys married already?”
“No, not quite that serious, but we definitely love the hell out of each other.”
“You got it bad for each other, huh?”
Patrick nodded and the two of them began to make their way around the fence, checking the perimeter. He kept pointing out different areas saying where he’d seen the dead from time to time. Bella said, “So, you know something weird about this place?”
“You mean besides having a bunch of teenagers training to be full blown military?”
“Yes, besides that. You know that no one and I mean no one, talks about the past. I haven’t heard one person’s story about what happened to them, like, isn’t that strange. Did you guys just show up here one day and say no more talking about the past?”
Patrick shook his head no and contemplated saying anything about it. “Well, to tell you the truth we have all lost somebody, and it's pretty apparent I think from the fact that we’re all alone, or almost all of us are. There are what, twenty adults and maybe sixty kids? Most of them don’t know how to shoot yet; they don’t know how to do anything really, so they’re lucky to even still be alive after almost a year. The stories are there and we could tell them. God knows that no one has forgotten what has happened to them and who they have lost. However, tearing old wounds open does nothing for us. If you think you need to get something off your chest then be my guest, but I wouldn’t ask the others. You aren’t going to get responses you want. If you do want to hear about the gore then I think you are going to get an earful that your mind might not forget anytime soon.”
Bella was nodding slowly. “So, don’t ask, don’t tell, and keep busy, got it. I don’t have a horror story. I left my dad when we had to split up. We never got along all that great anyway and coming here when the opportunity came up was all that I needed to make up my mind. He never would have fit in here. He is a rebel, and always in trouble. You guys would have, or sorry we would have kicked him out eventually.”
As they made it as far away from the camp as possible a noise was rattling the fence up ahead. Patrick ran up to check it out but by the time he got there, he saw nothing.