Dead: Winter (22 page)

“Come,” he said, gesturing for them to lead the way back to the front of the convoy.

They reached the lead truck. Aaheru was waiting beside his vehicle. In his hands he had a bottle of water and a wax coated bag full of dates.

“Greetings,
HaDritaks
,” Aaheru said with a smile and a r
e
spectful bow.

“Greetings,” the two elderly men mumbled, each one having trouble not staring at the bottle of water.

There had been none given to those on the bus since they had left Cairo behind. After all, what was the purpose in using such precious resources on those who were slated to die?

“You have been called to serve your countrymen,” Aaheru announced.

“You mean we will be sacrificed like the others,” one of the men found his courage and his voice.

“I guess that will depend on you,” Aaheru replied, handing the bottle of water to the man. “Up ahead is an obstacle that I require your help in getting past. Ahi will take you in his truck to that small cluster of buildings to the east. The horde will follow, and when they have moved away from the road an acceptable distance, you will be set free. I give you this bottle of water and this bag of dates to send you on your way. Perhaps you will be faster and more clever than the dead. If that is so, then you will live and be free.”

“You would leave an old man to die in the desert so that you can live?” the one who had spoken before asked as he snatched the bottle of water and the bag of dates.

“No,” Aaheru said with a laugh. “I would leave two old men so that we
all
may live.”

“You disgrace your fathers,” the old man spat at Aaheru’s feet. The other remained silent, tre
m
bling.

“Take them up the road and draw the attention of the horde,” Aaheru ordered. “This one you shall set a good distance away, I believe he may actually try to run.”

“And the other?” Ahi asked.

“Drop him in front of the pack once the tail end has cleared the road,” Aaheru said with a di
s
missive wave. “Perhaps it will give this fiery
HaDritak
a good start.”

Thirty minutes later, the last vehicle in the convoy was past where the horde had left the road. Ahi was in that final vehicle. In his rearview mirror, he could see clearly two clusters of the horrid cre
a
tures. It seemed the other man was not as nimble of foot as Aaheru gave him credit.



“So there is an entire settlement over there?” Mackenzie asked as Juan climbed up into the newly built observation tower.

They’d constructed two so far and the plan was to have one every half mile or so.

“
Was
, more than likely by now,” Juan replied.

A tendril of black smoke rose into the cloudy sky from the general direction Juan figured the se
t
tlement to be. Of course there were two others that they knew of for certain. Of the two, he was concerned about one; it sat up on the bluff. At night, the glow from fires could be seen very clearly. As far away as that community had to be, they had to be decent sized as far as pop
u
lation.

“That must be horrible,” she said as Juan scanned the wes
t
ern horizon.

“I imagine so,” Juan said with a shrug of his broad shou
l
ders.

“I mean to have your children turn,” Mackenzie clarified.

“Ain’t nothing good about it whether it is your kid, your parents, or a person down the street,” Juan said as he dropped the binoculars and turned to face Mackenzie. “Sure, having it be your own kid has to be rough, but by now it’s…how do I say this?” Juan thought hard. He knew what he wanted to say, he just didn’t always find the right words.

“When this first started, it was everywhere. People on the street…strangers getting up and eating other people by the tho
u
sands. But now, there ain’t many of us left, so when one of them deaders gets their teeth into somebody, it’s like a bunch of pe
o
ple dying.”

“You mean by comparison?” Mackenzie asked. She thought she understood what he was trying to say.

“Sure,” Juan agreed. “Because now, when one person dies, whoever it is, it’s a big deal because there don’t seem to be that many of us left.”

“And what if we start adding to that number?”

Juan froze. His mouth moved, but nothing came out. Finally he managed to sputter the magic question. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, you big dummy.” Mackenzie smacked him on the arm. “But if we keep things up like we have, one of your little swi
m
mers is gonna cross the finish line.”

“You want me to find some protection next time I go out?”

“Only if you are dead set against having a child…pardon the pun.”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t like to at some point…” Juan’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Juan,” Mackenzie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, “you don’t have to worry, this isn’t some sort of test, and if you absolutely do not want children, then that’s okay. We haven’t ever really talked about it, and we probably should is all I’m sa
y
ing.”

“I just worry because of all the things I’ve seen out there,” Juan admitted.

“But we’re here on the island.” Mackenzie opened her arms as if showing Juan where they lived in case he’d forgotten.

“And how many others are here with us?” Juan asked.

“Thirty-seven,” Mackenzie replied.

“And how did we go from three to thirty-seven?”

“What do you mean?”

“All these new people came from somewhere. So where do you think they came from?”

“All over I guess?”

“And we have some pretty good people here.”

“Of course.”

“But I’ve been out there,” Juan reminded her. “And there are a lot of
not
good people.”

“So that is what you are worried about?” Mackenzie asked.

“The deaders I can handle,” Juan said. “I know what to do about them and there ain’t no guessing. But when the living show up…I have to check ‘em out, I have to make sure that they ain’t gonna hurt you or steal from us. I have to make sure they will do what needs to be done and help take care of things around here.”

“And how do you do all that?” Mackenzie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s my point,” Juan said, pointing to Mackenzie like he’d just proved his thesis.

“I don’t follow.”

“We don’t know and can’t know until they do something shady,” Juan explained. “I get a gut feeling about some folks, but I can’t go just on that because if I did, your friend Keith wouldn’t be here. I have to keep my eyes on people when they don’t know I’m watching. One of these days som
e
body is gonna show up, and they’re gonna be like Travis and Gary.”

Juan had encountered Travis a few days after the dead b
e
gan walking. During his short few days with Travis, he’d seen more raping and killing than he’d encountered in all his days living on the streets.

“And when that happens, you will take care of it.”

Juan stared out at the hills across the river. If he could see a couple of obvious signs of settl
e
ments, then he wondered how many could see his. The weather was changing and folks were probably starting to get desperate. Anybody who has survived up to this point has had to do a lot of killing. All the rules were gone, which meant that it was survival of the fittest…or the strongest.

“Hey, big guy!” Juan turned to see JoJo coming down the beach with a full assortment of blades and a pair of spiked bats dangling off of him.

“What’s the word, JoJo?”

“We have a number of deaders starting to gather on the far side of the bridge,” JoJo reported. “Thad and I wanted to take them down before dark so they don’t start shoving each other into the w
a
ter. As many as there are, they could knock over our fence if enough end up in the river.”

“That many?” Juan asked, genuinely concerned. They hadn’t seen any significant numbers near their island in quite a while.

“Thad says that he thinks they are the remnants of a larger group that passed through a few days ago. He said that a herd of well over a thousand came up that winding road that runs along the south side headed west.”

“Well get a few of the others then,” Juan called down. He turned to Mackenzie, “And I better go, too.”

“You are our fearless leader,” Mackenzie said in mock adoration. Juan’s face scrunched up in embarrassment exactly as she knew it would.

“It’s not that,” Juan protested. “I’m not trying to lead or be anybody’s boss. My only concern is that you are safe. So that means when something like this happens, I have to go.”

“I know, now get moving before they start without you.”

After a quick kiss, Juan was leading a band of seven to the ruins of the bridge. A cold wind blew in their faces and a steady rain began to fall. Juan didn’t like it. He was becoming very s
u
perstitious lately. Things like bad feelings and omens were starting to feel much more real than they had before.

Almost on cue, a pair of ravens cawed and launched the
m
selves into the sky ahead of the group.



Chad stepped back from the blaze. While the heat felt great, the stench of burning bodies severely hampered the enjoyment of the experience. He couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder at the wi
n
dow he knew to be his.

Ronni’s fever had finally broken some time in the middle of the night. He hadn’t left her side since that day last week until this afternoon. She was in and out of consciousness during that time, but hadn’t said so much as a single word the first two or three days.

For the third day in the last six, they’d had small groups of zombies stumbling into Yosemite Vi
l
lage. There was talk that perhaps they’d been followed up the mountain by the zo
m
bies from down below. Chad didn’t think that likely, but he rea
l
ly didn’t care. Until he was confident that his daughter was better, all that mattered was being with her.

Now that she was past the worst part, some of her attitude was returning. Already she was co
m
plaining about eating not
h
ing but broth; she wanted something she had to chew, or at least take a bite from.

Chad turned back to the fire. It hadn’t burned so long that he couldn’t still make out a few of the faces. Among the recently dead, Col. Leonard Morris was the biggest casualty. He’d been pretty much running the show since they’d set up at Yosemite Village. He was a good man and a good leader who listened to everybody. Penny Doucet, the heavyset blonde with a bad att
i
tude and a wonderful heart. She’d been his go-to person lately in matters regarding his daughter.

There were others, but those two were irreplaceable as far as Chad was concerned. Then there were the bodies they had been fighting. One stuck out in particular. She couldn’t have been any older than six. Her dark hair was still in braided pig tails. She was missing an arm. He couldn’t begin to i
m
agine the horror the child felt the moments when she was being torn apart. Had it been strangers? Would it be worse if it had been loved ones? Family? Her mother or father?