It was safe to say that Cartwright got tagged. From the way they went down and with Lenik now in the mix to further fuck up the situation, this was not going to end well. The last image Cleese could recall of the scene had a lot of crimson in it, and that was never good.
Not in this game.
The two men made their way rapidly along the gangway, rounded the stairwell and burst through the door to the pit. As they came running through the hatch, they saw Mr. Shirt-and-Tie bent over Lenik happily chomping away on a chunk of the man’s exposed stomach. A wet, smacking sound echoed hopelessly within the emptiness of the pit.
Monk, who’d forgotten his shotgun in his haste, came up behind the zombie and deftly slid his protected right arm under the thing’s gnawing mouth, just across its throat and under the jaw. He braced his left arm behind the thing’s head and clamped down like a vice.
He quickly glanced downward and found himself staring into Lenik’s eyes. Despite the fact that the guy was an asshole, Monk was saddened as he watched the fighter’s life drain out of his gaze and his breathing stutter to a stop. As he died, his mouth quivered and one eye drifted closed.
Monk wrenched his gaze away and torqued down on the UDs neck, making sure he felt the cervical vertebrae tighten and bind up. Then, he bore down with all of his strength.
The crunch of the thing’s neck breaking was almost silent. Cleese had cracked his knuckles and made more noise. It sounded almost like it would have been a relief, like when a dislocated shoulder popped and the bone fell back into place.
Mr. Shirt-and-Tie made a small sharp snort and then his body just sort of deflated into itself. Monk threw his body aside like it was a sack of shit and quickly bent over to check on Lenik. It was pretty obvious from the extent of the wound and the amount of blood splashed about that the man was truly dead.
Monk’s shoulders sagged and his head dropped in frustration. No matter how many times he’d seen fighters die, it always broke his heart, even an asshole like Lenik. He suddenly jerked his head to the side as remembered Cartwright. He swiftly looked up at Cleese.
"Check him," Monk commanded and he pointed at Cartwright.
"Check him?" Cleese asked dumb-founded. "Check him for what?"
"To see if he’s still alive."
"Are you fuckin’ crazy? His throat’s torn out!"
"What…?" Monk’s face screwed up and he squinted. He looked over at Cartwright and, as if seeing him for the first time, noticed how badly the man had been hurt.
"Ah, fuck…"
Chivalry
Before…
A murky haze hovered over the campground that had been set up high in the hills of the Golden State National Recreation Area. The dense fog blanketed the assorted tents, trailers, and mobile homes in a thick, swirling miasma and gave the place an ethereal, dream-like quality. The mist carried with it the sweet smell of the dew-moistened foliage as well as the throat-clogging scent of burnt wood. The odor left everything smelling like a campfire doused by a sudden rain. Groups of people milled about the compound, some in search of food or water while others scoped out places to get medical attention or some much needed sleep.
Everyone in the camp went about their business, but they all had that wide-eyed look of someone who’d survived something dark and terrible. With eyebrows perpetually raised and the whites of their eyes visible around an open-irised glare, their gazes flitted about nervously, as if expecting whatever it was that had spooked them before might return to wreak havoc again. The more resilient and well-grounded of them had been able to quickly adapt to their new lives here in the camp over the last few weeks. A few had even managed to rediscover laughter and the easy manner in which people were able to become friends. Others though… They would forever wear the emotional and, in some cases, physical scars of what had been carved into them by seeing and doing things they were still only barely able to articulate.
Off to one side of the main area sat a couple of large tents where several husky men cleaned and repaired the vast array of guns which had been found or brought to the camp. Boxes of ammunition scavenged from a nearby National Guard base lay stacked on large wooden pallets toward the back of the tent. The ordnance had been liberated by a few of the foraging crews routinely sent out on midday runs into the once bustling metropolis at the base of the foothills. These teams had even been able to pick up a few Guardsmen found barricaded in one of the rooms on the base. The soldiers had come in real handy, acquainting the gunsmiths with some of the more exotic weaponry found in their armory. Hastily nailed together wooden racks of Rugers, Berettas, Colts, Brownings, Mossbergs and even a few compound bows were lined up inside the tent while the hardware being worked was spread out on tables in the early morning light.
The gunsmiths talked and laughed, but mostly just bullshitted with one another as they adeptly refurbished and reassembled the guns before them without giving them much of a verifying glance. If they hadn’t already had a comprehensive knowledge of the armaments when they came here they did now, if only through the sheer repetition of constant maintenance and repair. The ability to field strip, oil and reassemble a weapon—or quickly learn how—was an essential skill here. It was the only thing keeping them from being drafted into doing the "snatch and grabs" that the other—less knowledgeable—men were doing. These excursions into the highly dangerous surrounding areas were not something anyone wanted to be a part of. Out there, it wasn’t a matter of if you’d get hurt, it was a simple matter of when.
In the center of the camp, around which most of the activity took place, two "roach coaches" were parked back to back. Plumes of greasy smoke billowed from the exhaust vents on their roofs. In the cramped space between them was a makeshift larder where vegetables and assorted dry goods were prepped for cooking. Off to one side, a gas powered generator hummed as it fed a series of freezers, where the meat was kept, and refrigerators which were used to store dairy, eggs, and some medicines. Teams of men and women in oil-spattered clothing worked diligently, making sandwiches, hamburgers, hot dogs and lots of hot coffee. This was an army now and, as any soldier knew, a successful army ran on a full belly. It was these folks’ job to keep the group fed and it was one that they took pretty seriously. Even though they were forced to play things a little bit on the frugal side when it came to rationing their stores, there was still enough in the larder to keep them all sufficiently nourished.
Around the armory and food supply, a dozen mobile homes were arranged in a loose circle. Around them, various styles of tents clustered like newborn pups around their mother. Along the outer edge of the perimeter—on hunting stands mounted in the trees—sharpshooters sat silently whiling away the time with Sudoku puzzle books or water-damaged porn magazines. Each guard made sure to keep his eyes moving in a vigilant triangle: left side, right side, magazine. If anyone or anything was so unfortunate as to venture into his eye-line and did not move with the stride or purpose of a living person, it would soon be greeted by some very precise bullet placement. The men in the trees were put there for a very good reason. Life-long hunters, they’d proven themselves time and again and could shoot the balls off of a flea at a hundred yards.
All in all, these folks had become an efficient and well-honed survival organism. They’d had no choice but to do so. After experiencing some of the things they had recently, they’d needed to come together quickly and luckily their cohesion had met remarkably few speed bumps. Yes, there were a few of your garden variety personality conflicts and even fewer vain attempts at "power grabs," but for the most part things were going smoothly. Cataclysm had a way of doing that—of forging alliances between the most unlikely of parties. Whether a person was young or old, rich or poor, Democrat or Republican, these folks instinctively knew that they would need to put their differences aside if they were to all survive. They’d been given a role and a purpose and each was imminently aware of the fact that survival depended on them doing exactly what they’d been asked to do. If one of them was lax in his duties, then all of them potentially would suffer. And now that the world was getting spun on its collective ass, suffering meant a hell of a lot more than some hurt feelings or a few skinned knees.
As the group went about its business, a sudden shout erupted from the tree-line on the south side of the encampment. Talk of the alarm and what it might mean rippled quickly through the crowd. This isolated place had been chosen on purpose and any encroachment from the outside was news. As a result, any word of what was happening in the real world was both welcomed… and feared.
A teenage girl who’d been delivering food and thermoses of coffee to the sharpshooters out on the perimeter came sprinting through the tents and RVs and into the center of camp. She wore a pair of faded denim overalls, a cream-colored thermal shirt and had her hair pulled up in high pigtails which accentuated her face. She was barely eighteen, but there was a beautiful woman blossoming there and more than a few of the men in camp were beginning to notice. The girl ran—sidestepping people and jumping over obstacles—without stopping until she reached the armory tents. Her gait stumbled to a stop and she fought to catch her breath before trying to speak.
Bob Wolf, head gunsmith and the unofficial leader of this militia, set the Browning BAR Safari he was working on aside and walked from around his worktable. He approached the panting girl and held his hand out to offer her some stability. Wolf was a big man with long graying hair and a full salt-and-pepper beard. Even though he was a little thick in the middle he still looked like one tough customer. He was the kind of man who, due to his past as both a decorated veteran and an ex-biker, led naturally. His history and level of experience gave him an unquestioned air of authority. When he talked, people listened. It was a large part of the reason why they’d turned to him when the rules of the world got abruptly changed. He was younger than one might expect, given the responsibility he now shouldered, but he wore the mantle of leadership well. The red in his eyes, however showed he was also a bit overwhelmed by the present situation.
"Jenny?" he said paternally, putting his hand on her shoulder and steadying her. "Catch your breath, honey and tell us… what’s the matter?"
Jenny Maguire panted and drew heaving lungfuls of air into her chest. She looked up at Wolf excitedly. When she tried to speak, her voice came out in asthmatic gasps.
"Take it easy, child," Wolf said, his voice sounded grizzled but still holding a sense of reassurance. The gathered crowd leaned in as one to listen to what the girl had to say.
"A…a…a…" Jenny barked, "a man."
"Where?"
"At… at the northwest tree-line."
"They found some people?" someone in the crowd asked.
She shook her head back and forth, tossing her hair about like kite tails swirling in the wind.
"No… just… one… one man."
~ * ~
Cleese sat at the end of a long picnic table, aggressively wiping slices of bread across the plate in front of him. His eyes roamed over his surroundings warily as he stuffed fingers full of food into his mouth. It had been a while since he’d eaten actual cooked food and the fare these people were serving up warmed his stomach and stuck to his ribs.
With every mouthful, his head became clearer and thinking back, the last memory he had of a full meal was the one at the bar, before everything went to shit. He’d just finished eating and was about to settle down to spend the evening indulging in his favorite sport—competitive drinking—when things got hazy. He had a dim recollection of some commotion that had started after something had been broadcast on the television, a foggy memory of people talking excitedly about some crazy shit. The bits of conversation he was able to pull from the sludge of his memory seemed like something out of a horror movie more than anything else. Then there’d been the sound of wood splintering and his memory of the night blurred into visions of pale faces with gnashing teeth, punches being thrown, and the sticky sensation of blood on his hands.
The next thing he knew, he was walking in the early morning sunshine and nursing one hell of a hangover. After that, it had been what seemed like days and days of running and fighting and the constant struggle to make his way through the city and across the bridge. The memories of that time were not anything he wanted to hold onto. He preferred to let them lurk at the furthest periphery of his thoughts, for they offered him little solace. Once across the bridge, he’d decided the best plan was to put some distance between him and where he knew the dead lurked by heading into the woods. He could figure things out once he had some time to rest and get an idea of exactly what the fuck had happened—and how bad it all was. That little plan was interrupted when he was stopped by Wolf’s heavily armed men.
Flash forward to the present and Cleese finding himself here.
After a quick but welcomed shower, change of clothes, and food, he was ready to have some of his questions answered. Unfortunately, the things he was hearing didn’t make any more sense than his memories did.
Wolf sat across from him and was just finishing his explanation of what was now what. Cleese listened carefully as he polished off a heel of bread coated with the last remnant of his meal. On any other day, he would have called the man a "bullshitter" if he was being nice or a "fucking liar" if he wasn’t and then sent him packing. Today though, some core of his intellect, some small shard of his drunken memory, was able to vouch for the veracity of the man’s story; no matter how far-fetched.
"So," Wolf concluded and sat back in his seat, "that’s where we are. The dead aren’t exactly obliged to stay dead any longer, and as you well know it’s pretty dangerous out there."
The young girl in ponytails suddenly appeared at Wolf’s side and set two cups of steaming coffee before them. She cast a quick, yet surreptitious glance at Cleese.