Apocalypse Atlanta (86 page)

“Shit, that a person.” He heard EZ say.  Darryl glanced over after a moment’s thought, weighing his desire to see what the others on the roof were doing against the chore it was going to be for him to find the target in his scope again.  The roof won out, and he saw EZ standing beside his chair and doing the same thing Darryl had been.  Darryl saw the others were looking curiously in the same direction.  Mad and Psycho both had shotguns, not rifles; but Tiny, who also had a rifle, wasn’t trying to use his scope.

“Y’all supposed to be helping watch everything, not just whatever this is.” Darryl said a little sharply.

“There ain’t nothing else out here.” Mad said.

“Don’t matter.  We up here watching to make sure.  You better keep an eye on your part of the fence or I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself if some damn zombie get in here cause you ain’t paying attention.”

There was some muttering, especially from Mad, but they turned back to their sections.  They did, however, glance over occasionally.  Just for a few seconds, then they’d look back where they were supposed to.  Darryl decided he could live with that.  Hopefully.

Darryl returned his attention to the issue at hand.  The paperwork that had come with this rifle was floating in his mind as he tried to remember the crucial details.  He was pretty sure he remembered this scope was variable power, but he wasn’t sure how to adjust it.  Turning so his own shadow wasn’t occluding the weapon in his hands, he studied the scope and spotted a ring of markings near the knobs that did something to the elevation and alignment of the scope.

He lay down on the roof and got the rifle into position, then peered through the scope with his hand on the ring.  When he was looking through it, he twisted the little in-line dial with all the markings experimentally.  The image in the scope seemed to sort of slide closer, and he nodded unconsciously.  Okay then.

Shifting around to look at the light, he realized as he got realigned on it that whoever was over there had veered off the road and to the house right there at the lake road’s curve.  It took Darryl longer to get the scope back onto the ‘target’ this time; it was a lot harder for him to get it centered with the magnification dialed up.  By the time he managed it find the person they were retreating from the house.

No, not retreating.  The person was moving to the next house on the shore.  There were three houses on this side of the lake, all between the lake road and the lake shore.  They were smaller and less ‘vacation home’ than the ones on the eastern side, and had only a few trees and bushes that were clearly planted for landscaping purposes, rather than the thick pine stands on the far side.

As Darryl pondered this, he realized he was looking at a woman.  The moonlight was still not enough to really see well, but the increased magnification on the scope was enough to let him make out the figure much better.  She had long blonde hair and wore a robe over what looked like a nightgown or maybe a long shirt.  Both flapped behind her, streaming back with the speed of her passage along with her hair, as she ran toward the next house.

She looked like she was maybe pretty, for a white girl.  He wasn’t sure.  But what really caught his eye were the streaks of color that were visible on the hems of her clothing.  Both were white, so the difference was readily apparent.  As he studied her through the scope, he was abruptly sure it wasn’t some sort of style thing that was a normal part of her clothing.  They were uneven, irregular.

And they were dark.  Maybe red, maybe brown.  He wasn’t sure.  But they could be blood.

“So what happening over there?” Psycho asked.

“It’s a girl.” EZ said.  “Maybe a teenager, but she ain’t no older than maybe sixteen or so.”

Darryl watched as the – woman, girl, whatever – reached the second house.  She ran up to the front door and pounded on it with her fists.  Darryl swept his view along the front of the house briefly before returning it to her.  The house was dark, and there was no vehicle in the driveway.  And there wasn’t a garage either.  He couldn’t honestly say he’d been paying attention to what the neighbors had been doing over the weekend so far, but he was reasonably sure that house was empty at the moment.

The girl was glancing to her right, in the direction she’d come from.  She hammered on the door again.  Darryl frowned and held the scope centered on her as he reached up and found the magnification adjuster by touch.  Slowly he dialed it back until he was far enough back to see the whole house without moving his scope, then swept carefully to the right.

His view was best on the road, where the surface was even and didn’t create any odd shadows as the nearly constant little rolls and dips in the Georgia landscape played tricks on his ability to see clearly in the moonlight.  He scanned along the road until the trees picked back up, which wasn’t that far on the southern portion of the road.  Near as Darryl could tell it was clear.

“Fuck, she upset about something.” EZ said.

Darryl swung the rifle back to the second house, then tracked left.  He picked the girl back up just as she was nearing the third and final house.  Well, final except for the Dogz clubhouse.  That last house was about half a mile from where Darryl lay, maybe a bit less.  And less still if the girl ran straight for him, avoiding the road and running right across the landscaping company’s field.

After he managed to get the magnification pushed back up again, which was tricky as hell to do while still tracking her in the scope’s field of view, he decided EZ was definitely right.  As she ran towards the last house he saw she appeared to be crying.  And she was barefoot, he realized as she ran up to the door of the house and slammed her fists into it wildly.

He almost asked himself the question, reflexively, but then realized there almost surely was only one answer.  Why would a girl be roaming around the Georgia countryside, barefoot, in her bed clothes, crying?

“EZ, you feel pretty good looking for shit through that scope?” Darryl asked instead, watching as the girl screamed something as she hammered on the door.  She was just far enough away that he only heard a faint sound, something he wasn’t sure he’d even notice if he weren’t watching the person who was making it.

“Huh?”

“The scope.” Darryl said again.  “You picked her up pretty fast.  Faster than me.  You comfortable using it?”

“Uh, yeah.  I guess.” EZ said, his voice a little amused.  “It ain’t that hard, you know?”

“Good.  I think she probably running from something.  Maybe.” Darryl said, watching as she continued beating upon the front door of the house.  There was a vehicle in the driveway of this one, a pretty old four door that looked like it was on its last legs.  But the house itself was dark, and he was beginning to think it was vacant too.  She’d been screaming and attacking the door for about a minute, and surely that would have woken up someone inside by now.

“Yeah, that what I think too.” EZ said.

“So look back along the way she come.” Darryl said.  “See if you spot anything she running from.”

“Yeah, okay.” EZ said after a few moments, his voice now thoughtful.

Darryl didn’t lift his eye from the scope.  The girl was moving.  Turning, she ran out to the driveway and tugged on the door handles on the car.  When they didn’t open she stood next to the driver’s side door for a few moments, her head turning back and forth.  A few moments later she started running again, this time directly at the clubhouse.

He didn’t stop to ponder why she was coming this way.  It didn’t matter.  Darryl watched her for maybe fifteen seconds, making sure of where she seemed to be headed, then leaned back from the scope and scowled.  “Mad.” he said as he started to get up.

“Yeah?”

“Trade guns with me.” Darryl said.

“What?  Why?” Mad seemed surprised by the request.

“Because I going down to the fence line to intercept her, and I don’t need no damn scoped rifle down there on the ground.”

“Well I don’t know how to use no damn rifle.” Mad whined, clutching the shotgun against his chest protectively.

“Bro, hand the man the fucking shotgun.” Tiny said without turning.

Mad’s eyes flickered to the big biker, then he held the shotgun out to Darryl.  He took it from Mad, then gave him the rifle.  “There the safety.  When you fire, you gotta work the bolt up and back, then forward and down.  But don’t fucking fire unless I do, or unless you see some damn zombie or something about to eat someone.”

“DJ, what you gonna do?” Mad said more than a bit sullenly, holding the rifle in his hands like it was radioactive.

“See what she want.”

“What if she wants in?” EZ asked.  Darryl looked over at him, but the biker was still standing with his own rifle to his shoulder, looking southeast through the scope.

“She ain’t fucking getting in here.” Darryl said decisively.

“But y’all said she in trouble.” Psycho said, turning to look at him.

“So?” Darryl shrugged, moving to the ladder leaning against the back wall of the clubhouse.

“Well, she might need help or something.”

“Bro . . .” Darryl trailed off momentarily, then shrugged again.  “Look.  What Bobo say yesterday?”  Psycho and Madman looked blankly at him for a moment, and Darryl sighed.  “Look, just watch your areas.  EZ, you watch me when you hear me start talking to her, okay?”

“I gotcha DJ.” EZ said.

Darryl went down the ladder as quickly as he could one handed, holding the shotgun out to the side with his right hand.  When he got back on the ground, he jogged around the south side of the house and headed for the front corner of the fence.  The ground sloped gently up from the lake, but even so it took him a few moments to find her again now that he was down on the ground.

He started to drape the shotgun up across his shoulder, then stopped when he realized where that would leave the barrel pointing.  He was pretty sure he wouldn’t fire the gun by accident, but he still wasn’t comfortable having the barrel pointed back towards the clubhouse.  Instead he settled for gripping the stock, finger next to the trigger, and let the pump slide rest against the crook of his left arm, like he was crossing his arms with the gun in them.  He left the safety on the gun off, so it was ready to fire without delay.

The girl was audible well before she got near the fence.  Her breath was coming in great gasps, and she was somehow managing to cry despite the exertion of her running.  Her sobs were like choking gulps that competed for equal time against her need to breathe.  Darryl couldn’t believe she hadn’t collapsed already; she seemed like she was about to hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness.

“That far enough.” he called when she was maybe twenty-five feet from the fence.  She’d clearly spotted him about twenty seconds prior, and as she drew closer Darryl had been able to resolve more detail about her.  EZ was right, she couldn’t be any older than sixteen.  Maybe younger; girls seemed to look a lot older these days for some reason, even though this one didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup or anything.

He was also able to see with much greater certainty, almost total as far as he was concerned, that the stains on her clothing were blood.  In addition to being on the trailing hem of her robe and long shirt, he saw more spots of red color across the lower front of her shirt, and down her left side and sleeve.

As far as Darryl was concerned, that settled his last bit of doubt.  He’d been reasonably sure of what he was going to do while he waited for her, but there had been a tiny voice in the back of his head that kept telling him it was wrong.  That he needed to do the decent thing and help her.  The blood settled it.  There was no way.

“Thank God!” she blurted, stumbling down from a run into a fast walk.  Her head swiveled to look behind her, and when she faced him again she was crying twice as hard.  The tears were starkly visible on her face, glistening in the moonlight.  “Help me.  Please, help me!”

“I said stop.” Darryl called back.  When she continued walking toward him, he lifted the shotgun and put it to his shoulder, but kept it canted down some.  Not quite aiming at her, but ready to complete the motion and draw a bead on her very quickly.

“What – help me!” the girl said faintly, slowing but not fully stopping.  She was still sort of wandering toward him, like a slow walk that wove back and forth as her fatigue or maybe her emotional state left her struggling to walk normally.

“Fucking stop.” Darryl said.  He was jacking the slide before it occurred to him that was a fucking silly as hell thing to do.  Sure enough, an unfired round ejected out of the port on the side of the weapon.  But as it hit the ground next to him, he realized maybe it wasn’t an entirely silly thing to have done.  The sound was distinctive.  Almost everyone, certainly anyone who watched movies or television, knew what a shotgun’s slide being operated sounded like.  And knew what it meant.

She gave a little scream, almost squeaking in terror, but she finally stopped.  She was now maybe fifteen feet from the fence.  “Please . . . I’m Ann Newell.  I live on the other side of the lake.  I need help.”

“There’s blood on you.” Darryl said.  “What you running from?”

Her face seemed to crumble into tears in an instant.  He’d only thought she was crying before.  Now the waterworks were really going.  Darryl had to remind himself what was going on to avoid the automatic reaction her crying threatened to elicit within him.