I Dream of Zombies, page 11
Sure, there were zombies. We could see them through the perimeter fence, some with fingers curled into the wire, their faces slack, the moans low and at times even blood-curdling. Now and then one would push against the fence and the guards would deal with it, but for the most part we ignored them, safe within the enclave.
I tried to shove aside the situation with Julia, but my brain kept returning to it. Not my emotional attachment, because I’d already come to terms with that, but the problem of how she’d deal with the task we’d been set. Tonight we’d sit down and plan the mission, but I couldn’t help but consider the emotional cost to her.
As dusk neared, we collected our equipment and made our way back to the buildings, passing the fresh guards who’d remain out there until around midnight. I scanned their faces, but for all the banter as they passed, they were just like the rest of us, folks doing a job. One that was distasteful, and from time to time exacting, but nonetheless, it was a part of the daily routine now.
I headed into my tiny apartment, showered, and returned to the downstairs communal kitchen area, and there she was, assisting with the preparation. Sidling up beside her, I sniffed the air. “What’s cooking? Smells great.”
“It’s a lamb hot pot. We’re going to try dehydrating the leftover ingredients so we can make meals on the road. We’re almost out of the cache of MREs that were acquired last year, so I’m told.”
Her answer had an odd, remote sound, and I looked at her, gazed into her eyes. She’d retreated back to the distanced J I’d met in Queanbeyan.
“Julia?”
“J,” she corrected me absently while stirring the pot.
“Dammit, Julia,” I began, but she cut me off.
“Planning is taking place here at eight. I’ve got the maps from Liam, the team lists I’ve managed to cobble together, and a resources list drawn up. It could be a long night.” She peered into the pot. “This is done.” She hauled the big pot up and over to the sink as I turned off the gas.
I sat beside her as we ate, stewing over the emotional distance she’d put between us. After the clearing up was finished she grabbed a box from the corner of the room and began setting up.
Every time I moved near her, hoping to talk privately, she’d stiffen up, so I waited, hoping for another opportunity. Liam, Ramon, and Dove trailed into the room and laid waste to any chance I had of sorting out the mess between us.
“You’ve been busy,” Liam said as he looked over the piles of paper and maps.
“Better to have a good idea early on than make a huge mistake. I asked Dove along too, as I think he’s got a better idea of the area than most of us. He was a local, as I understand it. Liam, I know you and Ramon weren’t from around here. I was only here on holiday, so my knowledge is not so great and mainly of the Queanbeyan area, and Leroy is the same being fairly recent to the area.”
Watching as she took control, it hit me that she was a natural leader. Her attention to detail, formulation of contingency plans, and so on reinforced this to me.
“This area here seems to be the biggest known congregation point of the evolving zombies according to your sources, Liam. We’re best to avoid it and get to where it tapers off.” Her finger pointed to an area, and Liam simply grunted. “We’re going to have to take the long way around, but we can check out housing and structures. See if there is anything useful, and stockpile as we go. If it works to our advantage, we can return and collect the items at a later date.”
“That’ll slow you down,” Liam said.
She glanced up at him. “Yes, but it’s going to be slow anyway. I’d say at least a week or two, given we don’t know what we’re going to find and we’re going to need to stay out of sight. However, it will give us valuable intel, and even better, we can look at increasing our supplies.”
“All right. But we still need to decide on when.”
Dove cleared his throat. “The weather is cooling. We don’t want to leave it too long, otherwise we’re going to be butting up against June and the really cold weather. It’s bad enough now, but only going to get worse. While it rarely snows, the weather will drop to about two to four degrees Celsius overnight, making it close to freezing. We can’t afford to be caught in that.”
Liam scowled. “What are the chances that will kill off some of the zombies, Ramon?”
His brother shrugged. “We haven’t done a lot of work on cold weather effects and the shufflers. I’ll be able to gather anecdotal info though as it may assist in dealing with the ongoing issue, but we don’t know the situation from last year because…”
Julia finished the thought, “Because we were all still in survival mode. You’re right of course. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to get an up close and personal look and to gauge if it has any appreciable effect on their numbers. We just don’t want to be so up close they can get to us.”
No one laughed.
“I’m with Dove though,” she continued. “We need to get out earlier rather than later. I think we could be ready to leave in say about forty-eight hours if we all pull together. Liam, I’ve taken the liberty of chatting with Elaine and drawing up a list of useful people. The team should be smaller, leaving less of a trail, so we need experienced personnel only. You want Ramon included, and we need Dove as a guide. Four guards for the team and Ramon’s personal guard and Leroy as my offsider should be more than enough. Ramon, will you require cooling facilities for the specimens?”
“Yes, otherwise within a short period of time they won’t be useable.”
I watched as Julia gnawed on her thumbnail. “Do we have any of the snap-ice packs, Liam?”
He stared at her. “Snap-ice packs? What are they?”
Ramon started to laugh. “I like the way she thinks. Seriously though, the samples will have a limited life span at any temp we can carry them at. Even with those instant gel packs, we’ll have to watch to make sure we keep them at between two and four degrees Celsius, and they’ll only be good for about seven days. That means we’ll need to get any medical researchers who may be alive here by the time we arrive back.”
“You can’t freeze them when you get back here?” Liam scratched his head.
The look Ramon speared at Liam almost made me laugh. But it wasn’t really a laughing matter, so I smothered the sound before it escaped.
“No, brother. We’ll have already compromised the samples. We’ll need to get back here fast. Can we manage to do that within forty-eight hours, Julia?”
“Maybe. Depends on what we find, how much we can ditch in terms of weight, and the team,” she answered.
“What about just using a vehicle?” asked Ramon.
Liam sighed. “There’s more than one factor there. We’re running low on fuel. We’re going to send one vehicle out to collect the immunologists. It will speed up the process of getting them here to work on the samples, but we know that the zombies in that area scatter when they hear a vehicle. We’d have to chase the zombies into their lair to get what we need, and it’s just too dangerous, so it makes more sense to send you further into the field.”
I frowned. There were holes in that explanation I could drive a truck through, but I was also aware that now wasn’t the time to mention them to Liam. I’d have to wait and see if there was more to this later on.
Chapter 10
Julia
In the weeks since I’d last pulled on a pack, I’d relaxed. Allowed life’s pace to change for the better and had felt free and almost normal again. Today though, that sense of peace was tipped upside down. The weight of the bag on my back settled heavily on my shoulders, and the pistol in the holster at my side was bumped by the rifle slung carefully over my shoulder.
I surveyed the team we were heading out with. Ramon, with a pistol at his side, Dove, with a large stick in hand for fending off attacks, and Leroy, whose larger pack bulged with the necessary items Ramon had insisted upon. The rest of us carried only what was needed. Ammunition, a small hand-held radio to contact base in the case of a catastrophe, and food. We’d be seeking shelter along the way.
The gate opened wide, and we stepped out onto the asphalt as dawn came upon the neighborhood. Across the way lay the remains of the old shopping center. Liam and his men had reinforced it and now used the buildings to store food, clothing, and other essentials.
The nip in the air reminded me winter would soon be upon us, and I shivered. A second winter and the ravages of the apocalypse were more noticeable with the passage of time. It was obvious in the refuse strewn on the roads from offices that sat empty, abandoned buildings, and the wrecks of vehicles.
We plodded onward, Dove taking the lead while the guards in our group kept a watchful eye. We’d decided for the first day to keep as far from the main roads as possible, agreeing that we didn’t want to arouse interest from those zombies wandering around aimlessly.
“You know, if it weren’t for the zombies, we’d have a fair idea what the first settlers went through,” commented Mick, a thirty-something man of indeterminate heritage.
Dove laughed. “You have a strange sense of history. There weren’t roads and houses.”
Mick colored up. “No, I mean we could be on our own, the first explorers into an area that’s unknown and largely uninhabited by European settlement.”
I cocked my head. “Good analogy. Mick, what did you do before all this?”
He sighed. “I was a butcher. Had a shop in Wanniassa. Did a roaring trade online until this all went down.”
I wouldn’t have pegged him as that. Maybe a philosopher or teacher given what he’d just said. I let the thought float away and concentrated on where I stepped and what lay around me.
We trudged on for what seemed like hours through the knee-high grass, threading between overgrown shrubs until we heard the noise we really wanted to avoid. The low moan of a calling zombie. It was met with the twin sound of a second, and I rubbed my brow.
As a group, we stilled and waited to see where it came from.
The dubious safety of a tree beckoned us, and we sheltered beneath the skeleton branches as Dove, Leroy, and I peered beyond our hiding place.
“Can you see anything?” I whispered, and Leroy shook his head.
“No. I need the binoculars.”
I pulled the small pair from the pocket on the side of my pack and handed them to him. Waiting silently, more than a little tense, until he exhaled was difficult. The sounds didn’t bode well.
“Two. In a bad way, though, so should be easy to pick off. We clear them, then let Ramon take a look at what we find.”
I hated this part, but I waited until Dove stepped back, then raised my rifle. A glance to my left told me Leroy had done the same. “I’ll take the right,” I muttered and found my mark, centered her in the eyepiece, and gently squeezed the trigger as I exhaled. The boom was joined by a second loud noise echo, and I watched as the zombie fell to the ground.
I lowered the firearm, nausea welling up. I controlled it. Barely.
“We should move,” said Leroy as I noted the way his gaze settled on me.
“Yes. I need to take a look.” Ramon strode forward, and we trailed along behind him.
I watched from a distance as he knelt on the ground, slid on a set of disposable gloves, then poked and prodded at the corpses. He opened the eyes, and as always, the pale milky-ness of the orbs left me shuddering. When he opened the mouth, the stench was alarming, and we all moved back swiftly. Or at least, all but Ramon.
“Hmm. Looks like malnutrition, and it makes them no good for our purposes,” he said.
I frowned. “Malnutrition? How can that be?”
Ramon stood, stripped off the latex covering his hands, and surveyed the surroundings. We stepped away and allowed Dove to do his thing as we discussed Ramon’s musings.
“There’s not many bodies here. She possibly starved from lack of flesh as did her male counterpart. While they’re technically dead, the body reanimates almost fully and is capable of both weight loss and gain, as we’ve ascertained over the last year. There is just a lack of high-level thought processes, verbal communication, and so on. Their actions tend to be limited to life sustaining.”
I wasn’t even game to ask how they’d come by that information. “What else are they capable of?”
He smiled. “Not reproduction at least.”
One of the other guards gave a muffled kind of laugh, as if they were both horrified and fascinated by the answer.
I was thankful for the no-reproduction thing, but the concept left my brain whirring madly. “We should get moving, in case the shots alerted any more of these creatures that we’re around.”
On that we all agreed, and for the next little while we moved faster than we had all day.
* * * *
Leroy
We camped the first night in an abandoned house. J found clean sheets and blankets, and locked and barred the doors and windows, then set about checking what in the house was worth salvaging. Clothing was packed into suitcases we found, toys discovered in one bedroom we shoved into rubbish bags, and canned goods plus dried foods were emptied into baskets we’d discovered in the laundry.
“We should mark the location on a map, so we know to come back here,” Dove said, and I agreed with his comment.
“We’ll grab the keys hanging on the rack. There may even be a car in the garage. We can check that in the morning and load it up if there is. Depending on if it’s got petrol, we could drive it back to the compound.”
For now, we all settled on the lounge floor, the small portable stove set up, and a couple of the men cooked the stew mix they’d brought with them.
Together, the group dragged bedding and cushions in the lounge, and we created makeshift pallets on the floor. “I never did slumber parties as a kid,” said Julia, and the others simply shrugged. I wondered what else she hadn’t done or experienced, but I remained silent.
“You know, when I first went on the road, I would have killed for this setup. But now that I’m used to a proper bed again, this is going to be hell on my back,” I muttered.
Dove snickered and slid down on the cushions he’d found. He closed his eyes, even though his lips moved as if deep in prayer. I wondered what he could possibly find to thank God for, but I kept my own counsel on that.
In the corner, on the mound of cushions we’d set up as a sentry post was Julia. I wondered if she’d welcome my company, but then, given we were surrounded by others in the party, I felt it wise to keep a distance.
When she glanced my way, I did smile slightly, then noted how her eyes widened, the shy corner turn-up that was almost a smile, and it settled the nerves that had taken up residence in my gut.
I burrowed down, well aware I’d be standing duty in the midnight hours and rest was imperative. I willed my breathing to slow and drifted off to be woken some time later by shoving at my arm.
“Wake up,” whispered Julia in rattled tones.
“Wha—”
“Shh… I think there’s something outside.”
That blew the rest of the fog from my thoughts, and I climbed out of the makeshift bed, reaching for my pistol and shotgun and crawling across the room to the window.
I half-stood, peered through the grimy windows, and watched the play of artificial light bobbing outside. “Shit! Wake the others, but make sure they’re silent.”
As she did, I remained by the window, my gaze locked on the tableau. Ten or eleven people in armed service uniforms moved in the darkness, the lights bobbing up and down. I could feel the weight of the gazes of our team on my back, and I turned toward them, placed my hand over my mouth, indicating for silence, and then mimed for them to stay down.
The lights flickered in our direction, and we moved out of sight, me ensuring the curtains didn’t move. We didn’t want to be detected.
“Nothing there,” I heard someone call, and the breath I’d held onto whooshed out.
The sound of feet pounding through dirt echoed as they retreated, while I kept my watch.
“Who the fuck was that?” demanded Julia.
“I’d guess they were military, given the uniforms and the way they moved. I’d like to get the specimens and get out of here,” I added, wishing I knew more about what was going on.
With all of us roused, we gathered again around the small stove as Dove heated water for coffee. Those still needing the addition of milk added a little of the powdered item to their drinks.
No one spoke, which meant it was pretty eerie, then we took up a vigil until the first spearing fingers of dawn painted the sky.
Julia motioned me over. “We should go see if we can determine where they went.”
I nodded, aware she needed a few minutes of privacy.
Once we’d donned our coats and packs, she slid around the door into the bracing air. “Okay, so you clearly think they’re military, Leroy. Or is there more?”
A sigh slipped out. “The guy in charge? He was in my group for the inoculation drop. Name of Hastings, Corporal Samuel. Straight as an arrow when it came to crawling up someone’s ass. Some called him a brown noser, but I just called him dipshit. He was in everything for the glory. Not unintelligent, just uncreative.”
When Julia frowned, I wondered what was going through her mind. “So, when you say group, you mean what exactly?”
“We were all sent to main cities. Those with reticulated water systems, because the smaller locations were too difficult to inoculate. We were initially told that those smaller places would be dealt with in the second wave. He was the first to take the vial. Said he’d been chosen because they already knew of him and his work ethic. At the time I had no clue, until it all made sense, then it was too late.”
Her blank look made me pause.
“Clearly he was involved from the beginning. How he got chosen I can only speculate on.” I scratched my head, looking out over the abandoned houses nearby. “He used to talk about his family connections…” And fool that I’d been, I hadn’t considered he might actually be talking anything other than smack.
