Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (22 page)

“He must have cut the outer fence too, if the deadheads are getting in,” I said, mostly thinking out loud. She nodded with vigor and looked like she was waiting for me to tell her what to do. “Okay, Nancy, so you guys were told to get back to the garage, right?”

“Yes, get to the garage and have the vehicles ready to leave at any moment.” Her eyes were wide and pleading with me.

To do what? I was sure everyone able to handle a gun was getting to the roof, preparing to handle the problem. The swarm was probably on the move, heading in the direction of the hole, but they were slow. It would take some time for the majority of the mass to get in, and as long as there were snipers up top picking off the early arrivals, it was time they could use to send some people out to fix the fence until daylight came and it could be properly reinforced. I did what I could to convince Nancy of this, talking in a slow, calm voice, rubbing her arm and nodding in all the right places. Then I reminded her how strong she was, how she had taken care of four “kids” and a dog all winter long, in conditions no one had seen since before the discovery of electricity.

“That is true,” she said, that old cocky smile returning to her face.

“That’s right.” I rested my hands on her shoulders. “Now, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to kick some deadhead ass.”

“And what are we
not
going to do?”

“Roll over and take it up the ass.”

“That’s right. Now, get to the garage with the others. Take Gus with you. I’ll get myself together here and head up to the roof, see what I can do to help. Listen to me, if I think the shit’s getting too deep out there, I’ll come down and tell you, okay? Do you trust me, Nancy?”

“Of course I do, girl. You go do your thing, and I’ll do mine.” She hugged me tightly and turned to leave. “Oh, and watch that mouth,” she said over her shoulder.

I hopped down off the bed after she and Gus disappeared through the doorway, and walked over to the chair in the corner. My rifle was propped behind it, but my ammo box was still on the north wall. I made a mental note to retrieve it first before coming back and going up to the roof. I jerked my flannel shirt on and bent over the sink against the wall to splash a little water on my face. I didn’t hear the door click shut because of the running water. When I lifted my head to check out my nose and mouth in the mirror, I saw Harvel’s bitch flipping the deadbolt.

* * *

Mia dropped two ammo boxes on the graveled roof and looked out at the increasing number of zombies staggering in their direction. Snipers scrambled into position as quickly as they could after arriving, coming from all over the complex after Michael had barked the order over the radio moments earlier. She’d watched Nancy run into the infirmary and assumed the older woman was on her way to fill Kasey in on what was happening. The older people and the children were being herded into the garage by Kelly. There were a handful of other snipers scattered across the other rooftops and back on the wall.

For being such a clusterfuck, they’re sure getting their shit together in a hurry,
she thought.

Jake spotted her and jogged over. “Hey, you ready?”

The rooftop buzzed with organized chaos, and the only thought that kept snaking its way through her mind was,
Get the hell out of here. Get Kasey, Nancy, and Jake, and get the hell out of here.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Mia answered and slipped the rifle sling off her shoulder. Jake jerked his thumb towards the roof’s edge.

“Let’s do this.”

* * *

Oh shit! Where did he come from?
Then:
There was only one horse missing.

“Well, well, well. Didn’t think you’d be seein’ me again, did ya, whore?” the man said with his back to the now shut and locked door.

Gunfire had commenced two stories above my head, so I knew my screams wouldn’t be heard. I was still wearing my pistol, but Harvel’s pet already had his hand on his, so I knew I’d be dead before I could get a shot off.

Shit
.

I didn’t know whether this dude had planned this in advance, or if he’d simply been left behind by the Warden. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter. I noticed his right hand was a crushed, bloody mess, and it was his left hand that was wrapped around the grip of his handgun. Did he intentionally use his off-hand to beat the face off Cal, knowing he would need his gun hand later? Guess it made sense, if he had escaped with the Warden, which I assumed was the original plan, he’d need his gun hand in one piece to fend off the zombies outside the fence. Hell, outside in general.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about, if you don’t mind humoring me a bit before inflicting whatever sort of torment you’ve got in mind for me,” I said, desperately trying to stall until I could think of a way out of this mess.

He smirked and shrugged, then pulled his gun from its holster and let it dangle casually at his side. “Sure, why not. Make it quick though, I got places to be.”

The only thing I could think to ask was his name, since I’d been referring to him as bitch up until this point.
Think, Kasey, think!
I resisted the urge to glance around the room for anything I could use against him, or use to distract him long enough so I could draw my weapon. Instead I pictured the room in my mind, scanning across what I could remember seeing in the short time I’d been there.

I forced the tremor out of my voice and tried to sound conversational. “What’s your name anyway? I don’t think I caught it.”

My nose picked that exact moment to begin itching, the sort that hits you all of a sudden.

I twitched and lifted a hand out of reflex before I could stop myself, which provoked the trigger-happy bastard in front of me to yank his gun up and fire off a shot in my direction. I yelped, dropped to the ground, and rolled to my right towards the bed. It was the only thing in the room that separated us, though it wouldn’t prove to be much of a barrier if he decided to unload his gun on me. He got off two more rounds by the time I came to a stop, and without taking time to think, I drew my pistol, came up on one knee, and fired.

Except he wasn’t standing by the door anymore, so my shots were wasted.

“Drop it.” The sneaky monkey had gotten behind me and was standing about three feet to my left.

Crafty sonofabitch.
My arms were beginning to shake.

He’d used the very short time it took for me to roll towards the bed to scramble behind me, shooting a couple times as a distraction. Both my hands were wrapped tightly around my gun, and for one insane second I thought about swinging around and doing my best to nail him. Lucky for me, it was only a fleeting thought. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, but for the first time since last October, it didn’t work. This guy had me by the balls, so to speak, and I was about to disarm myself. Everyone was on the roof dealing with the larger problem, and no one would hear me scream.

No one will hear me scream
.

“I said, drop it,” he said, spitting out the words.

I admit I was starting to panic. Very badly. The only thing I hoped for at that moment was for this asshole to get close enough so I could fight him hand-to-hand. If he didn’t, if he somehow incapacitated me, knocked me over the head with his pistol, tied me up, and a hundred other terrifying horrors my mind decided to throw at me all at once, then I’d be screwed.

No chance of fighting him off, no chance of living through this. I’d seen what he’d done to Calvin, and I was sure he’d want revenge for that day on the wall. I knew fighting him hand-to-hand was probably suicide, but I’d rather take my chances at that than letting him somehow restrain me, giving him plenty of time to torture, beat, rape, and whatever else his twisted mind wanted him to do.

“Alright, let’s just take it easy. See, I’m dropping it.” I released my grip on the pistol and lowered it to the floor.

He stepped over and kicked it away with his foot, then pressed the barrel of his gun to my temple.
My
gun skidded across the room and slammed against the wall next to the door.

Shit, shit, shit
.

March 25
^th

“Keep them from spreading out!” John shouted, pacing up and down the line of snipers.

The minutes ticked by, and shell after empty shell was ejected onto the gravel roof. It quickly became apparent to Mia why zombies were so dangerous, and it had nothing to do with their speed, or lack thereof. As slow and ridiculous as they might seem, though admittedly horrific at the same time, the one thing they had going for them was numbers. The sheer number of the walking dead had never really occurred to her until now.

That’s how they killed you, that’s what made them dangerous. Overwhelm and consume, that was their game plan. Although Mia and the others were behind stone and concrete, on a roof, peppering the dead crowd below with lead, she was still being slowly eaten alive by fear and a keen understanding that they were outnumbered and nearly surrounded. Those two facts did a number on a person’s logic center. All rational thought seems to take a vacation, short or long, it doesn’t really matter.

John and Michael had been doing their best to keep the “troops” calm, repeating the order to “pick your shots,” or “take your time,” over and over. The folks they were attempting to restrain were only human, and humans tend to panic when a thousand dead bodies lurch closer and closer with no sign of relenting. Closer, and “around.” The damn things were practically surrounding the prison.

The shamblers didn’t seem to be bothering the animals on the south side of the property, apparently that was something only the runners did. The livestock sure as hell weren’t appreciative. Cows and pigs ran wild in their fenced-in areas, the horses were neighing loudly and kicking the walls inside their stalls. The chickens tried to fly away, but kept smacking into the wire roof of their coop.

How long had the deadheads been coming in through the outer fence before finally finding their way through the inner fence? It’d been hours since she remembered Kasey and the others coming back to the wall. Assuming Cal went to see the Warden then, and was killed very soon after, and also assuming the Warden had left as quickly as he could, that had given the zombies about six hours to filter through the hole in the perimeter fence, six hours to spread out and surround the prison, albeit from the other side of the inner fence, before finally finding the hole and streaming though, with nothing else standing between them and the survivors except the walls of the prison.

It wasn’t exactly rocket science when it came to The Question: how did the zombies know where to go?

After close to a day and a half of standing and moaning from behind a wall of their
dead
-dead brothers and sisters, not once making an attempt to go around and try the fence again at an open area, it was obvious that Harvel had led the fuckers to the outer hole. At least to Mia it was. The only thing that gave her comfort was hoping Harvel had been nabbed during his Pied Piper routine.

“Listen up! I want everyone on this side to move to the other roofs and the wall! Split yourselves up evenly, and make damn sure you cover every piece of ground out there! Go, go go!” John ordered, frantically gesturing with his hands, dividing the group of snipers into who stayed and who went.

Mia did the math in her head,
Fifteen snipers, divide that by four. Shit.
That wasn’t counting John and Michael. That put four guns on each roof and the wall, with one leftover. That also meant everyone would be shooting non-stop until the deadheads were, well, dead. Ammunition didn’t look like it was going to be a problem. Michael had made everyone do a hurried count before the firing began. Granted, when all this was said and done, almost everyone would be damned near out of ammo, but the general consensus on that was, “We’ll worry about it later.”

Except Mia was worrying about it now.

“Hey, get your head in the game,” Jake yelled to her over the drowning noise of gunfire.

He had stopped to reload and noticed Mia just sitting at her bench, staring out over the zombies to a point in the darkness he couldn’t see. When she gave no indication that she had heard him, he stood from his chair and rushed over, glancing back at John a couple times to make sure the big man hadn’t noticed he was one gun shy of a firing squad. He grabbed Mia’s shoulder and shook hard, yanking her out of whatever pit she’d fallen into, then leaned close to her ear so he wouldn’t have to keep screaming to be heard.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Go, get back to your seat,” she said and shooed him away.

Jake eyeballed her for a moment, then turned and jogged back to his chair. Instead of retaking his position, he grabbed the back of the seat and dragged it over next to Mia. Then he ran back and grabbed his sand bags. John caught sight of him on the second trip, but said nothing and kept shooting. The fourth sniper on their roof was a kid who couldn’t have been a day over eighteen, but he could use a rifle, and so far hadn’t freaked out and ran screaming off the roof.