White Flag of the Dead (20 page)

“Do me a favor?” Steve suddenly said.

“What’s that?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

“I can’t kill myself. Thought I could but a while ago knew I couldn’t. Guess that’s what made me such a badass with the Z’s. I wasn’t fighting so hard to kill them, I was fighting so hard so I wouldn’t have to kill myself.”

I understood where he was coming from. Steve was my friend, and I had to kill him before he got sick and turned. My heart was heavy as I answered him. “I’d be honored.”

Steve locked eyes with me. “Thanks. I’m glad I found a friend like you in this mess.” He put his guns down and made a pile of the gear he took off. His guns would go to another shooter, his clothes would be burned, and his body would be buried on the hill overlooking the creek. He would join the 27 others up there, killed in a battle that some, even myself, were wondering why we bothered.

Steve walked away from his gear and stood facing the field. I could see the other corpse out there, the one that Steve killed; the one that killed him.

I walked a little to the right until I was about fifteen feet behind him. I had a hard time with my sights, because something got into my eyes. But I knew what he wanted and as a friend I could not do less. I would want someone to end me the same way should I get bitten. I said a quick prayer for Steve and quick request for forgiveness, and pulled the trigger.

The high powered round took Steve in the back of the head, killing him instantly. His body fell straight over, not bending or crumpling in any way. I smiled slightly to myself. That was just like Steve. No compromise. I looked skyward, raging inside at what I had become, what I was forced to do. But nothing was going to change what had happened that day. I lowered my rifle and walked back to the groups waiting for me. I picked up Steve’s weapons and slung them over my shoulder. My mind went back to the days when I had to kill another person, when the all the killing began.

16

Cleanup went fairly smoothly, although there was a definite pall in the air. People were angry that three of their number were down, and more than once I had to stop people from going “hunting” on their own, looking for some kind of revenge. When you were angry, you didn’t focus, and when you lost your focus, especially against this kind of enemy, you were killed. It didn’t get any simpler than that. Screw up and die, there were no second chances.

A large pile of corpses was dragged to the baseball diamond, where we had dug a hole in the pitcher’s mound a while ago. Bodies were unceremoniously dumped, covered with gasoline siphoned from cars, and set on fire. We have a pastor who once wanted to say a prayer for the dead, but after a particularly scary moment where his wife was nearly bitten, his prayers usually consisted of “Fuck you and burn.” I didn’t think that helped morale any, so we stopped the practice.

Frank was the consummate complainer. He whined about how heavy the bodies were, how bad they smelled, how much his back hurt, are we sure they were completely dead, why can’t he be a pinner, why can’t he be a shooter. Nate Coles was about ready to shoot the little bastard. Can’t say as I blamed him. I fully expected Frank to go completely childish and ask “Are we there yet?” each time he dragged a body over the bridge.

I was busy myself, hunting a lurker that had managed to avoid the eradication crews by falling into the wooded area on the north side of the creek. Two of the groups had indicated that they were sure something was in there. I hated the woods, because it was hard to see. The leaves hadn’t fallen yet, but there were enough on the ground to make silence impossible. What made it worse was the trees were small and close together, so rifles were hard to use. Yippee for me. I positioned two other shooters to cover the woods on the north and south, and I was going to enter through the west side along the creek. Why the thing hadn’t come out yet was a mystery. Did it catch a stray round that had luckily put it down? Who knew? All I knew was I had to go get it. Part of being a leader, I guess. Never ask someone else to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.

I edged along the creek with my gun out, held low. My senses were on hyper alert, and I strained to hear anything that might give me a clue as to where he or she was. I stopped at the edge of the woods and called out, “Here, Stinky, Stinky, Stinky!” No response except a snicker from one of my shooters. I tried again. “Come on out, you cute little pus-bag, you!”

No luck. I started to think there was nothing here. But I still needed to check the woods to be sure. I went in slowly, stepping along the creek. The bank of the creek was steep, and footing was difficult. The water was noisy, covering any sound Stinky might make. I walked a little bit further, and still saw nothing. What the hell? I could see the end of the woods a little further ahead, and no sign of any zombie. If they knew I was here they’d be out already, so my guess was nothing was here.

I turned to head out and the creek exploded upwards behind me. The ghoul had apparently fallen in the creek and was lying on its back. The rushing water must have masked any sound, causing it to go quiet. My shadow on the water had made it react and lunge.

I spun around and took a step back as a dripping zombie rose up out of the water with arms outstretched and mouth open with a gurgling groan. Talk about your B-movie moments. Water flew everywhere as it fought to get out of the water, and I nearly shot it then and there, I was that surprised. But figuring that dragging that sucker, who looked to weigh two hundred pounds, out of the water would be a little much to ask of anybody, I decided to bait the bastard to drier ground.

I walked backwards out of the woods, trying to keep Slimey in sight. He was a big guy, pretty much my size, except he was completely bald with an eye and ear missing. His shirt looked to be a security uniform, and his belt was a police issue. I noticed he had a couple of magazine holders, so I made a note to have the draggers check his belt for ammo once he was down. Every round counted in this war.

He stumbled after me, moving slow, but steady. Water dripped off him in little streams, and even more water came out of his mouth as he tried to groan, keeping his eye locked on me.

I led him out to a small lawn, and when he came close enough, I put a round through the hole he already had in his head, just making it deeper. He dropped immediately, slumping into a ball on the grass. I holstered my weapon and signaled my shooters to draw back, keeping an eye on the houses and bushes. You never knew when one action will lead to a reaction. Most of the areas around the school were cleared out, but drifters were everywhere. In all seriousness, I probably should have saved the bullet, but hugging a wet zombie while sticking a knife in its ear didn’t rank high on my list of things I enjoyed on a regular basis.

I went back to the building, waving to a cleanup squad that there was another one to pick up. By the way one of their number’s shoulders sagged, I knew it was Frank Stearns.
Poor baby
, I thought.
It’s tough making a living in a dead world.

I went inside and got cleaned up. Things were always busy on cleanup days. I passed through the gym and waved to the kids who were playing basketball. In all, choosing this place as a safe haven wasn’t so bad. There was enough room for all of us, we had a water supply, food was still plentiful, and we could feasibly grow food out on the grounds if needed. We hadn’t been through a winter yet, but it was coming. I personally was curious about what cold weather did to zombies, and whether or not it killed the virus. If so, there was going to be a lot of cleanup in spring, and people could actually go home.

Home. Hadn’t thought about that place in a while. Wouldn’t mind going back and seeing if anything was left. Especially some of the ammunition I had to leave behind. We were getting short on a lot of it, and I was down to five boxes of ammo with my M1 carbine. Something to think about. I couldn’t go now, but it correlated with another idea I had, which I wanted to run by Nate before we made any decisions. It was going to take agreement from the group, because there was going to be some serious changes. We’ll see.

I stopped by my room and looked in on Jakey. He was working on a bottle with his sitter, and she shook the bottle at me to remind me that we were running low. I nodded.

“I’m going shopping today.” I said, as I put on another pair of pants and shirt. “Anything you and the girls looking for?” I asked.

“If you could find magazines, we would appreciate anything.” Holly said, giving Jake a pat on the back. He rewarded her efforts with a huge belch, which made all of us grin. She handed him to me and went out, and I rolled on the floor with him for a while. After about an hour, I saw his eyes starting to drift, so I put him down to sleep. He nodded off slowly, and I stayed with him until he slept. I tried to stay with him as much as I could before he went to sleep. Some strange part of me wanted to make sure he knew I was protecting him even in his sleep.

I went out and watched the rest of the crews come back in. They streamed in by twos and fours, and the shooters never let down their guard until they were inside. Even though there was no threat nearby, they were trained to never assume anything. The equipment went into racks, and people got cleaned off. I waved at Nate, and he strolled over, glaring daggers into the back of Frank Stearns’ head. I figured Nate would have happily killed Frank several times over, and I was beginning to wonder why not? But everything in its place and I am sure there was a reason he survived long enough for us to find him.

Nate strolled up. “What’s up?”

“Not much. We need supplies, and I need a crew to go and get some.” I told him.

Nate nodded. “I can get you Tommy Carter, Charlie James, and Sarah Greer. They should be ready to go in an hour.”

I thought about the choices. “I need to add Kristen to the group.” Nate’s eyebrows shot up. I countered his look with reason. “She’s been a solid member, and she wants to prove her worth. Sarah will look out for her.” Nate still looked skeptical. “Look, I gave her a weapon and I think she’s ready.” Nate didn’t say anything. I tried guilt as a last resort. “Okay, if you think she should stay behind, then you tell her. I guess since you trained her, you would know if she’s ready or not. Not saying anything about your training, of course.”

That did it. Nate scowled at me and said “If I knew my mother in law was going to live here I’d join the zombies.”

I laughed. “That bad?”

Nate snorted. “She’d scare off these zombies with one withering screech, followed by a round of phlegm-filled coughing.”

“Ew.” I said. “Must have made Christmas fun.”

Nate eyes darkened. “Don’t go there. I still have waking nightmares.”

I nodded. Who didn’t these days? “One hour. Ready to roll.”

“Taking the truck?” Nate asked over his shoulder as he walked away.

“Have to.” I replied.

“One hour.”

“Thanks.” I went back to my room and looked over at Jakey, who was still sleeping. He was usually good for an hour or so in the afternoon, so with any luck, I’d be out and back before he woke up. I put on a long sleeve shirt, grabbed my extra gloves, and put on my denim jacket. I opted not to wear my boots, figuring if I needed to be stealthy, my sneakers would do the trick. I belted on my knife, holster for my SIG, and my Gerber multi-tool. You never knew what you might need. I opted to bring my carbine, even though I was getting low on ammo. It worked for me, and it was a comfort to have that kind of firepower in close combat. As power went, it hit as hard at one hundred yards as a .357 magnum did at ten yards.

I grabbed my spare balaclava and headed to the garage. We had one vehicle that we used for supply runs, and it wasn’t anything fancy, just a full size pickup with a crew cab. It sat four comfortably, five not so comfortably, and five with weapons and gear rather uncomfortably. We found it on one of our runs through the neighborhoods, and since the owner was not going to use it anymore, it went to the cause. Finding gas wasn’t a problem, since there were lots of vehicles to siphon gas from. Luckily, one of our people was a gear-head, so he kept things running pretty well.

As I turned to the door, our pastor stopped me and reminded me about burying our dead. I told him to go ahead, get it done as soon as possible, I wasn’t going to be there since I was on a run.

Inside the garage my fellow scavengers were checking each others gear and loads. Tommy was wearing his assault vest, complete with a cross draw holster and a small loop which held a two-foot crowbar. Useful in many ways, not the least of which was crushing a zombie skull or two.

Charlie James was wearing clothing similar to mine, but his weapon of choice was different. He had two tomahawks that he had found somewhere, and had fashioned a harness that allowed him to keep them on his back until needed. It worked pretty well, considering he was already swinging them pretty hard just when he drew them out. At 6 feet and two hundred pounds, Charlie was a good man to have on a raid. He was absolutely fearless, and even-tempered even when things got bad. His backup was a 9mm Glock, useful for all domestic disputes involving the undead.

Sarah Greer was a veteran of many zombie battles, and her favorite weapon was a little semi-automatic Ruger MkIII. She was deadly accurate with it, and liked to get the zombies in the eye when she could, in the ear when she couldn’t. When the Upheaval started, her husband had gotten sick, turned, and killed her two children before she could put him down. We had found her in a long-range recon going house to house, killing any zombies she could find. Looking at her slim five-foot-five frame, auburn hair and fierce green eyes, one would never suspect she was a Public Relations Director in her former life. Strapped to her belt was her backup weapon, a hand pickaxe which was amazingly effective.

Sarah was helping our last member, Kristen, settle her gear and was giving her a lot of advice on zombies. Kristen was taking it all in and nodding. I figured there was no better mentor than Sarah for Kristen. Sarah was like the older sister to all the “orphaned” girls we found, a tough but fair mother hen. Kristen had her Glock, and a three foot spiked pole as a primary weapon.