Forget The Zombies (Book 2): Forget Texas (2 page)

I broke away from Joni and Martin as Mack and I walked away to get some privacy. Well, there’s only so much privacy you can get in a tent city. There were literally thousands of tents surrounding us for miles. A makeshift barrier of barbed and razor wire encased the perimeter, protecting us from zombie incursions, but it didn’t prevent the undead from getting tangled in the wire. These bloody incursions seemed to be occurring with greater frequency. Just this morning, I awoke to see a zombie nearly completely coiled in razor wire being sliced to pieces with each wriggle and shake.

What a way to start your day, right?

Once we got a safe distance between the tents, I asked, “What’s up?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, things are breaking down around here,” he said, trying to keep his voice down, not really pulling it off. It seemed as if his volume was set at ten. I would say he was in the eight range as he spoke at that point, but it was an improvement.

“Yeah,” I said. “Things are unsettled, but there is an invasion of zombies to the south.”

“Wake up, man,” he said, “the troops are getting ready to pull out of here.”

“That’s crazy,” I said, but there was a slow dawning of recognition in me that there were a lot less guards around us. Maybe that’s why we had gotten away with the fight earlier?

“Did you hear the shooting last night?”

“There’s shooting every night. Those things are wandering in and the guards are taking them out.”

“They weren’t shooting zombies last night,” he said, leaning in and getting the volume level down to six, “they were shooting refugees.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

Randell walked over along with Sammy, a young Hispanic kid who had been along on our nightmare ride out of San Antonio. Bill, a disgruntled and generally sullen guy who hitched a ride with us joined them, but stood his arms crossed off to the side of the tent.

“What do you mean, they’re shooting refugees?” Sammy asked.

“I heard they were trying to escape and the soldiers shot them,” Mack said.

“Oh come on,” I said waving a dismissive hand at him. “Who’s your source? It’s just another case of someone hearing something from someone else who said something about something someone else said. These things get all blown out proportion along the rumor mill.”

“No, Grant,” Randell said stepping up closer and speaking in a low conspiratorial tone, “I think there may be some truth in what Mack is saying. I heard a couple soldiers talking this morning, all hush-hush about some refugees dying last night. Things are getting a little out of hand. We may want to consider our options.”

“I say we’re safe here and we should stay put,” Bill said.

Bill and his family came with us on our harrowing trip of San Antonio. When we picked them up, there had been four people in his family. By the time we got to the camp, they had lost their son. It turned out that he had been bitten and they had tried to hide it. When we got to a military checkpoint, they caught it. Despite Bill and Freda’s efforts, their boy was killed. It was a bad scene. They, along with their teenage daughter, Carla, had witnessed the whole incident. To complicate the aftermath, Bill seemed to have blamed me.

“I don’t think we are safe,” Mack said. “In fact, I know it.”

“What are we going to do? Make a run for it?” Bill asked. “That worked so well for us last time, didn’t it Grant?”

Their son Eric was shot down by the guards at the checkpoint when he tried to make an escape.

“It wasn’t Grant’s fault that Eric was shot,” Joni said coming into our small group discussion. Freda, Bill’s wife, tagged along. I guess it was a party line conversation now. Soon, we’d be live on CNN.

“Yeah, right. If Mr. Hero had been a better at convincing the Colonel that Eric wasn’t a threat, then maybe Eric would still be alive.”

“But he was a threat,” I said.

“Shut your damn mouth,” Bill shouted and made a step towards me, but, Freda grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Bill shook her off and walked to the edge of the tent.

Rosalita, an older Hispanic woman, took that moment to come to our little party and genuflect. She did it, so much so, it must have been second nature. She said, “Grant, you must look into this.”

“Why me?” I said.

“Because you are our leader,” she said in a matter of fact way.

“No one elected me,” I said. “Hell, I didn’t even run for the office.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said leaning into my face, her skin smelling like dried parchment. “You will go to the Colonel and see what is happening and report back. Si?”

I started to object, but every face including Joni’s now was looking to me. I threw my hands in the air and walked out of tent in a huff.

A half hour later, I found myself waiting outside the command headquarters for the north end quadrant of the camp. Colonel Watson was in charge of our happy little band of survivors and he and I had a history. He was also in command of the first military personnel we had encountered after our escape from the south. It all went well except he killed one of our group and threatened to kill us all. We had moved on since then.

“What the hell do you want now, Grant?” Came the shout from inside the cinderblock building that looked to have the same designer as the Guantanamo camps used to house terrorists. While it had all the charm of a prison, it did have air conditioning and maybe that’s why I came back so many times.

An armed guard waved me inside. There was no small amount of protests from the rest of the people waiting to get inside for an audience, but the soldiers had the guns which trumped any of their complaints.

Watson, who was always crisp in his demeanor and dress, looked disheveled, his uniform wrinkled. Plus he sported a three day growth of whiskers. That, in and of itself, should have been enough of a warning sign for me, but I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

I fell into a folding metal chair in front of his desk and basked in the air conditioning until he interrupted me.

“You here for a reason, Grant?” he asked. “Or are you just enjoying the cool air?”

“The cool air is nice, but I wanted to bring some shared concerns from the refugees in our tent.”

“And they are?” he asked, gesturing with an open hand for me to continue.

“We’ve heard that some of refugees were shot last night.”

“That’s a load of horse hockey.”

“Really? My sources are pretty good.”

“And they would be?”

“Some of your soldiers.”

His face colored some and I could see he was holding back some internal combustion that was about to happen. “Who were these soldiers?”

“So, you’re not denying what they said?”

“Don’t go putting words in my mouth,” he said, sputtering some, but recovered. “No soldiers in my command would ever shoot a refugee. Period.”

“But what about the ones outside your command?”

Angry storm clouds filled his expression, but he brought out his own forces of sunshine to drive them away as his face cooled some and his pallor returned to normal. I guess he was slowly counting to ten inside.

“Jensen, would you leave the room please?”

The soldier standing just inside the door turned and asked, “Sir, are you sure?”

“Yes, soldier, I’m sure. I can handle any trouble Mr. Grant here wants to throw my way.”

“It’s just Grant,” I said.

“Whatever,” Watson said.

“I’ll be just outside the door, sir.” I’m not so sure he was resistant to leave because of the air conditioning, but orders were orders and soldiers were usually good at following them.

Watson waited a few seconds, leaned forward, and spoke in a quiet voice, “I don’t have any direct knowledge of refugees being shot, but it could have happened. We have strict orders that no one is allowed to leave the camp. There can be no spread of the virus.”

“So, you’re saying that if we wanted to leave, we couldn’t?”

“Yes,” he said, looking me in the eye but then dropped his glance to his desk which was awash with paperwork.

“We’re prisoners here is what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying that, but things are not good. We are seeing a much greater presence of the undead to the south. Larger than we had expected. We fully thought the fire bombings would have eradicated them, but there seems to more and more of them.”

“You mean like the fire bombings of San Antonio that nearly killed me and all my friends?”

For the second time, he failed to meet my stare.

“We are under incredible and unprecedented pressure here, Mr. Grant. We have our orders that come directly out of Washington.” He stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose while he closed his eyes. “But I’m not sure what we’re doing is working.” There it was. As close to a confession as I could probably ever get out him and it was chilling me to my core. The whole thing was unraveling and the rest of the refugees were clueless.

“Okay, since we’re having frank words here, what can you tell me about the reduction in soldiers here?” I asked.

“There has been some re-distribution of troops.”

“But are we safe?”

He took a moment to answer. “I know the troops under my command will fight to the last man to keep the refugees safe.”

“But you can’t speak for the other commanders?”

This time he didn’t answer me at all. What was a chill earlier was now arctic and it wasn’t the air conditioning.

“Okay, hypothetically, if some of the refugees, say my friends and I, wanted to leave, would you allow us?”

“There’s nothing but back country scrub around here for miles. You wouldn’t get very far on foot. Plus there are the zombies.”

“Would you provide us with transport?”

“No, I can’t do that. Supplies and equipment are already spread dangerously thin. Also, we have our orders.”

“So, as the world goes to shit around us, we can’t go anywhere and, most likely, we’ll either run out of food or, someday soon, we’ll be overrun by zombies. Is that just about it?”

Once again, he wouldn’t answer, but there was something in his eyes. Maybe, I was reading too much into his expression, but it looked as if he were pleading with me to do something — to save myself because he was honor bound to obey his orders, right or wrong.

I didn’t really know what to do, but numbness spread across me as I stood and walked out. My body and soul seemed to be in two different universes as I stumbled out the door.

The sound of gunfire filtered on the late afternoon air from the south. On most days, there was some shooting, but this seemed heavier than usual.

I walked along in a haze barely knowing where my feet were taking me. At some point, a twenty-something guy wearing a rainbow colored beanie cap strolled up beside me as I walked, watching me with a sideways glance, a glint of recognition in his eyes. For my part, I could only wonder how or why the hell someone would wear a knit cap in 100 degree heat, but logic seemed out the window in a world full of zombies.

Then it came to him. “Hey man, you’re the ‘Fuck the Alamo’ guy. Super cool, man,” he said and put up a hand for me to high five him, but I didn’t have the strength or inclination to do so. I always knew that phrase would come back to haunt me.

Note to self:
never talk to reporters or any media for that matter.

“Hey, you just saw the big Kahuna?” he asked as he continued to walk along with me.

“What?”

“You know, Herr Commandant Watson. You saw him. Talked to him.”

“Yes,” I said. “And what’s your point?”

“What did he say? What’s the lowdown? We bugging out or what?”

“Why would we bug out?”

“You know, man. Because the soldiers are disappearing. Because there’s a shit ton of zombies coming up from the south to munch down on us.”

So, more than just a few people were noticing what was going on at the camp while I seemed oblivious.

“Listen,” I started, but stopped. “What’s your name?”

“Jay.”

“Listen, Jay, I’ve got a lot on my mind. I think I’ll just head back to my tent and I hope you have a great evening.”

“Me and my lady and my buddy Huck, we’re thinking about busting out of here.”

I stopped in my tracks. “The guards will shoot you.”

“Nah man, I’ve got the inside track.”

I must have looked puzzled. “Oh yeah, man. I’ve got a soldier friend, we’re really tight. He’d probably look the other way if we decided to, you know, exit stage right.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Because I’m supplying him. You know,” he said and pinched his index finger and thumb together and brought them up to his mouth and made a sucking sound. He squinted as he did it, savoring the mock sensation and drifting away in his reverie.