Dead: Winter (33 page)

“Well, my name is Doug Coates and this is my wife Cheryl and we want to thank you so much. Those things have been on our tail for the better part of two hours and my gas gauge is on empty. We had gotten desperate and veered into the woods in the hopes that we could shake them…but it didn’t work. My last ditch effort was having Cheryl put on her skis. I was towing her up the hill and once we reached a spot with a decent slope, she would’ve gone down and I was going to circle back and try to draw them off.”

I watched the woman’s face change during that last bit. Apparently she wasn’t clued in on the
e
n
tire
plan. As for the man, he looked pretty haggard. The more I observed, the more I started to n
o
tice other little things. For one, his belt had those jagged holes that a person made when they were losing weight and needed to go in a few inches. Also, while I saw two canteens around his neck, the little saddle bag on that snowmobile couldn’t hold much food if it even had any in it. As for the woman, her cheeks were sunken, her lips were cracked and raw looking and she had a faded bruise on her cheek that was an u
g
ly shade of greenish brown.

“We are staying in the main forestry department cabin at a camp ground not too far away,” I said. “You two are welcome to join us.”

Immediately their expressions changed. His became guarded and showed absolutely no emotion. Hers was obvious: fear.

“Okay.” I held up my hands. “I can see that maybe you two have run into some bad luck, so here is what I’m gonna do…the two of you can go with this young man.” I pulled Billy forward and nudged him towards the couple. “Billy is going to hand you guys his weapons. If you see something fishy…kill him and be on your way.”

“Hey!” Billy exclaimed, turning to me with his mouth open in surprise.

“Just relax,” I said. “As soon as these two see Thalia and Emily, they’ll probably feel better. Call out to whoever is on watch in the tower and tell them I asked for the girls to meet our ne
w
comers on the porch as a show of good faith. Tell them to let Jake or J
e
sus come outside, too. That way nobody inside will freak.”

Billy didn’t look happy, but he removed all of his weapons and handed them to Doug and Cheryl. The couple still seemed nervous, but they appeared to visibly relax a little bit after I’d put our cards on the t
a
ble so to speak.

“You two don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I spoke as Billy removed his arsenal. “But judging by your appearance, I’d say you haven’t eaten very well in quite some time. If not
h
ing else, come inside for a while, grab a bite to eat and dry out your clothes.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Doug did his best to sound apol
o
getic through the obvious suspicion, “it’s just that there are some really bad folks out there. The change in weather has made things even worse than it was before. I don’t know how long you have been up here…sounds like you got a nice set up, but it is bad out there.”

“Well you two go with Billy,” I urged. We will only follow in part way; then we will wait for you to come back and tell us what you want to do. I hope you will come in for a while at least.”

“I’d sure like to believe you, mister,” Doug said. “We’ll go with the youngster here and if it looks good, we’ll apologize for all this inconvenience.”

“No need,” I assured the man.

“I’ll leave my snowmobile here if you don’t mind,” Doug said. “It’s damn near dry anyways. It won’t go much more than a mile at the most. I’d just as soon not use what little gas I got left for this trip.”

“Tell ya what,” I offered, “you decide you really want to leave, we can get you a little from our truck.”

With that we all started hiking back. Around what I figured to be halfway, I pulled up and m
o
tioned for Jon and Jamie to stop. Things had gotten so crazy that I’d forgotten my initial re
a
son for being out in this terrible weather. My eyes met Jamie’s and I saw something like his old self hidden amidst the pain. He still had a ways to go to get his feet back under him…but it was a start.

14

Vignettes XXIII

“My Pharaoh, I have returned,” Ahi stood outside the tent of the man who would lead Egypt to a new glory. It had taken nine days and come at the expense of the lives of six men, but a way to the water had indeed been discovered.

“Enter, my brother,” Aaheru called.

Ahi did as he was told. He stepped inside the tent, but he stopped after only taking two steps and went to his knees. He knew all of this would feed the ego of the man who sat in a bed with three women naked at his feet and the young girl, Ahmes beside him.

He’d seen the lengths Aaheru had gone in securing this camp atop the overpass of the cloverleaf of the intersection of the Cairo-Alexandria Highway Agricultural Road and the Inte
r
national Coastal Road. The on-ramps had been demolished or blocked.

The land around it was already cleared, and the only structure looked like an industrial site that had suffered a terrible fire. There was nothing but open farm land surrounding the area which made it easy to defend. There was even a small tributary that gave them an ample supply of water.

This location was far enough away from Alexandria so that there were few walking dead to deal with; and now, Ahi returned with a way to the water. It seemed that providence was indeed smiling on the new reign of the new King of all Egypt. They would head east along the Coastal Road.

The city of Alexandria was nightmarish. It seemed that everybody had run for the coastal city in an attempt to escape the walking dead. There had been huge fires and it looked as if a last stand had occurred at the port itself by the whole of the Egyptian Army. The bodies of the dead littered the streets in numbers to rival the undead that walked them.

As he’d drawn closer to the city, he’d heard a noise he hoped never to hear again—the buzzing of a million, million flies. The smell was also still so thick that he did not believe that he would ever cleanse it from the back of his throat.

“Please rise, Ahi,” Aaheru bid. “There is no need for you to kneel.”

“You are Pharaoh,” Ahi insisted. He saw the look in the large man’s face and knew very well that the man was enjoying this beyond measure. Also, the young females sprawled about his bed seemed very impressed.
Yes
, Ahi thought,
I do have to do this if all that I want is to be mine.
“I have come with word that there is a way to the water, but we must travel around Ale
x
andria.”

“And you have found a vessel that is suitable?” Aaheru asked while pouring a glass of water from the pitcher beside his bed and offering it to Ahi.

“It will be two vessels, my Pharaoh.” This would be where he had a few concerns. Aaheru had said that he wanted all of his “subjects” on one ship. However, after counting the people, Ahi was ce
r
tain that they would not find a ship of that size that any of them could operate. As it was, the two ships that he’d found were complex enough that three of the men had stayed behind to learn all they could about the operation of the propulsion systems. “We have found two passenger liners that were obv
i
ously abandoned in a hurry. One of them was not even tied up and has run aground. We should have no trouble pulling it free. The ot
h
er is at anchor.”

“And to whom would you have me entrust half of my people?” Aaheru asked after several u
n
comfortable seconds of silence.

“I would not presume to make such decisions, my Pharaoh.”

Aaheru’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed as he stared into Ahi’s eyes. Ahi felt the chill as a bead of sweat formed on his neck and ran down his spine. Perhaps he had made a mistake. He had b
e
lieved that a bit of simpering reverence would ingratiate him to this man. He felt that if he earned such favor, then there would be a certain degree of trust given to him.

A smile split the big man’s face and he laughed loudly making not only Ahi, but the four women jump. After a few seconds, Ahi risked a smile and eventually joined in the laughter, albeit a tad forced.

“I would not have a man as my second who has no ambition,” Aaheru said with a deep chuckle still dancing in his voice. “Just be sure that you temper your ambition. I would truly be sad to have to replace you with one of those mindless sheep. I rely on you for your mind and your council.”

“And I will serve you until death, my Pharaoh.”

“Now go and clean yourself up, my brother. The stench of the undead is thick on you.”

Ahi turned to leave, but Aaheru called him just as he was ducking out of the tent and into the night air. “My brother?”

He turned to find that the large man had climbed from his bed and was only a few feet away. That somebody so big and powerful was also so silent and stealthy was truly distressing.

“Yes?”

“When you have bathed and eaten, please return to my tent and take this little flower with you for the night to warm your bones,” Aaheru said, nudging one of the females at the foot of his bed. “I would see you taken care of for all that you have done these past days.”

“My thanks to you.” Ahi bowed deeply and appraised the naked female. He would be surprised if she were much older than fourteen. She had the look of one of the daughters from the tribes from the City of the Dead. Her one redeeming fe
a
ture…other than having all of her teeth, was that she had a long, black braid that went to the small of her back. Ahi supposed that she would have some sort of worth to him.

Perhaps she had a brother.



“So what we need to do is make one more trip when we get the first break in the weather and then go into a lockdown mode here on the island,” Juan said to the crowd gathered in his front yard.

He hated these little meetings that Mackenzie insisted he hold every two weeks. To say that he was uncomfortable talking in front of groups was a big understatement. Her argument was that he needed to keep people informed so that everybody felt like they were a part of something. Already they had suffered three suicides, and she believed that by making every member of the community seem like there was a purpose, it would help cut down on such things.

“I want volunteers to meet me after,” Juan scanned the blank faces. He figured it would be the same folks who always volunteered to go on these things. That’s when it struck him. “Actually…I want a show of hands right now.”

As predicted, Thad’s hand went up…then Keith…then those Asian twin boys who couldn’t be older than fifteen. There was a pause, then the guy who everybody called “Buck” shrugged and raised his hand.

“Okay, so the six of us will meet after and I want each of you to pick a guest, I have some stuff brought back from the last run that we didn’t have enough of for everybody so I’ll let you pick what you like.”

He waited for a few seconds as that piece on information sunk in. Exactly as he predicted, voices started rising in pr
o
test. Mackenzie came up beside him.

“Umm…you think that is something to tell the group? You have everybody getting all pissy now,” she whispered.

“Yep.”

Juan folded his arms across his chest and continued to let people yell questions at him. He stood there for a good couple of minutes until he finally raised his hands to signal the folks to quiet down.

“So I take it some of you got a problem with the situation?” Juan leaned forward on the railing of the porch and stared down some of the louder protesters. “Then here is the way things are gonna be; I will be posting a list of the jobs that need doing. I will post it on the side of the old produce stand just across the street. You need to sign up for something. The only way you get to take stuff from our sto
r
age barns is to have your name on the list. The only way to have your name on the list is to have been signed up for one of the jobs.”

Another outburst came from the group, but this one was smaller. Juan glanced over at Thad who was nodding in approval. Next he found Keith and saw the same thing. He shot a look over to Ma
c
kenzie who was now nodding her approval as well.

“Who gave you the right to decide what is given to—”

“You don’t like it?” A large man Juan had seen—as big as he was, you couldn’t miss him—recently on the island. Juan hadn’t really pinned down when the man arrived, but that was nothing new. Still, he stepped aside as the big man stepped up onto the bo
t
tom stair and faced the crowd. “The way I see it, this fella and his people have let everybody who shows up join this little comm
u
nity. I been out there by myself and seen some bad shit. I bet many of you have as well.

“Living here, we got the chance to start our own society. Money don’t mean a thing no more…but a hard day’s work is a currency I can understand. You wanna bitch about having to help? Pack your shit and leave. He ain’t sayin’ everybody has to go out and risk their lives fighting zombies or raiders, but there is plenty of work around here to keep us all busy twelve hours a day seven days a week…year round.”

The man planted his huge fists on his hips and just stood there for a few seconds. Nobody seemed inclined to dispute him on any of his points. Finally, he turned to Juan and winked. “My name is Troy Delaney. Been meaning to meet up with you, but it seems that every time there is a job needs doing, you are off d
o
ing it. Didn’t think it appropriate to call on your missus with you absent.”

“My what?” Juan asked. “Oh…you mean Mackenzie? We ain’t married. Just a couple is all.”

“I see.” The man nodded in understanding.

“Not that we wouldn’t maybe some day,” Mackenzie stepped forward and put her hand out in greeting. “My name is Mackenzie, and this bit of an oaf is Juan.”

“Well now that we’ve met, I’d be happy to volunteer for your upcoming trip out into the wilde
r
ness,” Troy offered. “You going out for anything in particular?”

“I want to move inland and see if we can hit any of the stores. Places like Freddy’s might have been sacked, but there should still be some good stuff. I doubt they were totally cleaned out. I’d like to hit the garden department and the pharmacy.”

Juan saw a look flash across Mackenzie’s face and knew she was thinking about her mother. Margaret had been bi-polar and had serious paranoia issues. She’d shot Keith the day he’d a
r
rived on the island with Thad and JoJo. Not too much later, she’d shot at some new arrivals who had found the house while Juan and the others were down on the beach. They’d killed her. When Juan arrived on the scene and discovered the woman dead, he’d killed those responsible. That hadn’t made Mackenzie feel any better; or Juan for that matter.

It was afterwards that Mackenzie revealed that her mother struggled with a mental illness. She’d been out of her medication since just after the deaders had taken over. Juan wanted to grab everything he could find. He didn’t know much about medical stuff, but most folks had an idea what sorts of medications they’d been taking. At least that was the plan.

“Seems like a good plan,” Troy agreed. “If we can locate a few trucks, I bet we could fill ‘em. The zombies aren’t very bright. If we have a team that creates a distraction, we could get the vehicles in place and clear out the inside of a store in a day…two tops.”

Juan liked this guy. He thought big and seemed pretty smart. Juan had just meant fighting his way in, grabbing all they could, then making a run for it. This guy was talking about cleaning out an entire store.

“How many people you think we need for something like this?” Juan asked. He didn’t mind le
t
ting other people come up with the ideas and plans.

“At least a dozen,” Troy said scratching his stubbly chin. He made sure to say it loud enough for the crowd that still gat
h
ered in subdued silence. “Need a few for the distraction team, and the rest to be ready to work their asses off for about a dozen or so hours until we finish loading up.”