Taking It Back Page 9

  The sheriff told his deputies to see to our group and the rest of the crew headed down a ramp that went down the side of the container. I could see many of these ramps and realized they were better than ladders because there was less chance of tripping either up or down.

  Sheriff Tom and I started walking along the top of the containers and I could see several spots where zombies had been killed and disposed of along the perimeter. “Looks like you managed to weather the storm better than most, Sheriff,” I said.

  The Sheriff grunted. “We got damn lucky. Our high school kids were the first ones to let us know something was happening and for once us adults actually listened to them. We had meetings about what to do and how to save our town. Several of our ‘ol boys were survival nuts of a sort and they had some pretty good notions. We figured we needed a quick fence, something we could put up and take down if it turned out the plague was not as bad as everyone expected.”

  “Where’d you get all the containers?” I asked as we walked close to the reservoir.

  “One of our guys is a train driver for the depot north of here and he told us about all the containers that were sitting there, doing nothing. I guess the companies that made them found it cheaper to make new ones than pay to have the old ones shipped back. Anyway, he started bringing them down and here we are.”

  “Are they attached?” I asked, remembering that we had a group of zombies that nearly managed to get past our fence early on until we welded them together.

  “Most of them are,” said the sheriff, “but I can’t remember which ones aren’t. We had a breach a little while back with a group of fifty zombies who pushed one out of the way and got inside.” The sheriff stepped over a rise in the containers and stopped at the corner of the fence. “We lost several people before we got the better of them. That’s when we got in contact with your pal, Nate. He told me if there was anyone who might be able to get us situated to where we don’t have to worry about that again, it was you.”

  I shrugged off the compliment. “I just try to do what makes sense and try to stay alive while I do it.”

  “Well, I would appreciate the help,” said Sheriff Tom. “Although I kinda figured you would have brought more people.”

  I nodded. “I wish I had too,” I said, looking at the horizon.

  Sheriff Harlan looked puzzled. “Why’s that?”

  I pointed at the advancing grey line. “Because that swarm of dead people will be here by tomorrow.”

  Sheriff Tom looked to where I was pointing, then said something both religious and sacrilegious at the same time. I have to admit, even for a reluctant Catholic such as myself, I was impressed.

  We stepped down the first ramp we came to and hurried to the town hall. We had planning to do and lots of it. As we walked towards the center of town, Sheriff Tom grabbed his radio and called his deputies to the hall, instructing them to get the Mayor and as many of the people as they could to the hall immediately. The sun was setting, casting long shadows and as I walked through the little town, I hoped it wouldn’t be the last one these people got to see.

  A deputy came zooming up in a golf cart and the Sheriff motioned me to get in. We made much better time and as we drove on I could see people starting to stream out of their homes and head towards the town hall. If I had to guess, there was a lot more than one thousand people here. I figured closer to two thousand. Too many to evacuate. We had to stand and fight.

  10

  The Sheriff pulled up to the town hall and jumped out, surprising me with his agility. I imagined in his youth Tom Harlan was a man to step around. I walked up behind him, working my way through the people who were standing in the hallways and outside. More than one of them gave me strange looks, likely in response to my being a stranger to the town and the fact that I was armed to the hilt. Zombie Killer. That’s me. Certified.

  I moved into a large atrium that was doing double duty as a meeting room and the area was packed. I spotted my crew up on a landing of one of the four stairwells that led to the second floor. The mayor was talking animatedly to the Sheriff and the Sheriff was gesturing wildly. The two deputies squeezed themselves through the throng and positioned themselves on the stairs, blocking anyone from approaching the mayor.

  I reached the stairs and the deputies waved me up. I moved up to where Sarah, Tommy, and Charlie were talking.

  “Hey all,” I said. “Everybody okay?”

  Charlie spoke up. “Sure enough. They gave us food and drink and asked a ton of questions. How was your walk with the local constabulary?”

  I blinked at Charlie’s vocabulary, then shook it off. “Fine. He knows the horde is coming and we’re going to try to do something about it.”

  “Do we have a plan?” Sarah asked, taking my hand.

  I looked into her beautiful eyes. “Not a clue. But I’ll think of something.” I grinned at her and she squeezed my hand.

  The noise in the room increased as the Mayor and the Sheriff tried to quiet everyone down. But everyone was shouting questions and not listening to answers. The Mayor threw up his hands and walked away from the table while Sheriff Tom continued trying to quiet the masses with no success.

  I grew impatient and shrugged off the warning look I got from Sarah. I motioned for Charlie and Tommy to follow me. I released the magazine in my rifle and ejected the round in the chamber. I put it back in the magazine, then I moved to the table and tapped the Sheriff on the shoulder. His flushed face stared at me for a second, then he stepped aside. I stood on the table and held my M1A out in front of me. Behind me, Charlie and Tommy were doing the same with their AR’s. I stared at the crowd, which began to quiet down at my appearance, then I deliberately charged the rifle, the bolt sounding unusually loud in the diminishing noise.

  “Who wants to die right here, right now?” I boomed across the assembled town. I was greeted with shocked silence. “Who?” I yelled at them, receiving no answer. I stared for a minute. “You’d better be sure. Because if you don’t start listening and don’t start preparing for the shit storm coming your way right at this minute, then you will wish you had spoken up and taken a bullet when you had the chance.”

  I stared at the stunned audience. “My name is John Talon. I have led a group of survivors from Leport down here to lend you a hand. What I didn’t know, what no one could have known, was a large horde of living dead is headed your way right now. If I had to guess, they are what is left of State Center Bravo. If I had to guess again, I would say there is about two or three thousand of them headed this way.” There was a collective gasp. “You have made a good stand here and if I had to estimate your chances of survival, I’d say they were better than average. If you don’t work together, your chances are none. Are you ready to listen?” A lot of heads nodded.

  I jumped down from the table and rejoined my group. The Mayor looked nervous as he stepped to the table and Sheriff Tom nodded his thanks.

  The Mayor spoke to the group and outlined what was expected of the townsfolk while the sheriff, his deputies, and my crew discussed plans and defenses. When the Mayor finished extolling the virtues of the town and its people and the willingness to fight for their homes and lives, he called upon the Sheriff to outline the plan.

  Sheriff Tom Harlan adjusted his jacket, hitched his belt a little higher, ran a tired hand through thinning hair, then spoke to the people.

  “Most of you know me as Tom since most of you grew up with me here in Coal City. I’ve tried to do the best I could by you and when this mess hit the world, I tried to save my town as best as I knew how.” There was scattered applause. “We worked together to get the fence up and we fought together when we had that breach. We welcomed those who came to us for shelter and we never asked anything from anyone.” Sheriff Tom paused to collect his thoughts. “When we had that breach, I realized we needed some help; someone who could steer us in the right direction. When I got on the ham radio I prayed I would find someone who could help save our town and ensure our survival. What
I found was John Talon.” Sheriff Tom motioned me over. “John has been in survival mode since the Upheaval and he has managed to save hundreds of people. I figured if anyone could do it, he could. Trouble is, I called him here just as the worst is about to hit us. I don’t know if we’re going to survive this, but we certainly are going to try. John here will tell you what the plan is. John?”

  I didn’t expect to speak, but since I was no stranger to it, I stepped up to the table. “You have a secure fence, but it has its weaknesses. Against the lone zombie or ten, it will do just fine. But against a thousand or two thousand it will eventually fail. What we need to do is engage the enemy much sooner and try to thin the ranks as much as possible. We don’t have enough bullets for all of them, but we have enough to thin the herd a good deal. Me and my men will be setting up firing positions and anyone who has any long range guns and ammo will need to step up. Second, we need to make sure we have enough weapons for everyone to use in hand to hand combat. Check your homes and see what you have. Charlie here will be available to check weapons for suitable purposes. Third, we need to have fallback points in case there is a breach. All cars need to be requisitioned to form choke points and kill zones. Our final fallback position will be here, in this building. The windows are high enough off the ground that they cannot be breached and there are only two doors to block. All the people of the town not engaged in the fighting will stay here until the danger is passed.” I looked around the assembled town. “I will do my best for all of you and I will fight as hard as I can for you. I expect to survive and so should you. I have a son waiting for me in Leport and I promised to come back to him. Anyone who knows me knows I never break my promises.”

  I stepped away from the table and Sheriff Tom stepped back up. “Get back home and get prepared. The men who live on Fourth Street, you are in charge of getting the cars to form barricades and kill zones. The men on Third Street, you get your families ready then get to the school to get the tables and such for barricades as well. Second Street, you are in charge of weapons. Everyone bring what they have and they will check them for you. First Street, you all get situated then go with Mr. Carter here. He’ll get you set up along the fence. Miss Greer, Miss Steele, and Miss Maxwell will see to the children and the defenses here in the Town Hall. Let’s move, people.”

  The hall emptied quickly and my crew members went to help where they could. I stood outside with Sheriff Tom and we watched the town spread out and get to work.

  “What do you think our chances are?” he asked.

  I thought about it for a minute. “Probably better than I think, but I’d say ninety percent if the fence holds.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “A lot less.” I was never one to sugar-coat things, especially when it came to survival.

  Sheriff Harlan looked at me, then grunted. “Well, nobody lives forever.”

  I slapped him on the back. “No, but we’re going to do our best to make sure these people live a bit longer than tomorrow.”

  The sheriff smiled, then moved off into the dusk, bellowing at his deputies to get moving and quit slacking. I watched him for a minute, then felt a small hand slide around my waist. I looked down and smiled at Sarah.

  “Hey you,” I said, putting my arm around her waist.

  “Hey back,” she said. “Where are you going to be? You didn’t say in the speech.”

  “Didn’t I? Hmm. That is odd,” I said. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll have Charlie with me.”

  Sarah took my face with both her hands and looked me square in the eyes. “You don’t have to tell me, just promise me you’ll live.”

  I held her hands. “I promise. Now let me go. I need to get things prepared before tomorrow.” I kissed her gently and she returned it with an almost desperate intensity, wrapping her arms around my neck. I held her for a minute, oblivious to the looks of the lingering townsfolk, then broke away and put her down. “I will come back. I promise.”

  Sarah smiled and went back into the building to get things prepared. I walked around to the side of the building and found Charlie waiting for me.

  “Did you tell her?” he asked

  “No. Did you tell Rebecca?” I retorted.

  “Are you kidding? She’d flip,” Charlie responded.

  “Right. Well, we’d better get moving if we want to have even the slightest chance of living through tomorrow,” I said, adjusting the rifle strap.

  “We’re crazy, you know that?” Charlie fell in step next to me.

  “Can’t be sane in this world.”

  “Amen.”

  11

  I woke up smelling like laundry detergent and completely surrounded by the dead. Ordinarily, this would be cause for some concern, especially the part about the laundry detergent, but since I had planned for this to happen, I wasn’t too upset about it.

  Last night, Charlie and I had met with Sheriff Harlan and went over an idea I had about dealing with the dead. I figured they were going to hit the wall no matter what since the zombies could easily smell the humans inside the perimeter. But that didn’t mean we had to just let them hammer away until they eventually weakened the barrier and made their way in. What I proposed was to hit them from behind and keep the horde occupied on two fronts, thinning their attack line and keeping them from seriously concentrating their efforts.

  I was under no illusions. We had a thin chance at best and if we managed to get through this, I personally would be amazed.

  I idly wondered what Charlie was thinking about the plan as he waited for the signal in his container. We were holed up about a quarter mile to the north of the fence and we decided to split up in case the Z’s figured out that there was a snack in one of the containers. Charlie was about fifty yards to the west in a light blue container. Mine was red and we had to flip a coin to see who would be getting the blue one. I lost. We both had carried bags of laundry detergent to mask our scents as we waited for the horde to pass. I had wet down the door of the container with water from my bottle and tossed handfuls of the detergent on the door.

  As far as I knew, the detergent had worked. No one had come pounding on the door in the night and I had awakened a couple of times to the sound of many shuffling feet sliding by, but as long as the door held, I was actually quite safe. Of course when I opened the door to get into my firing position I could be given a hearty good morning chomp by a lingering ghoul, but those were chances I was willing to take.

  I had a lot of time to think and found my thoughts drifting to those things that I usually thought about in quiet times. I thought about Jake and idly wondered how he was doing, knowing he was safe with Nate. I worried about his future and mentally started his training and how he would deal with the world he was going to inherit. I thought about his mother and felt a pang of guilt that quickly passed. Ellie would not want me to sit around and mope no more than I would want her to if I had been the one to go. These thoughts naturally led to Sarah and the hope I would see her again. I figured she would be okay and I winced in the darkness about what she was going to do when she found out what I was up to this morning. I gave Sheriff Tom that job and I know he was not looking forward to talking to both Sarah and Rebecca.

  I thought about where we were going to go to from here, what the overall plan was. In a way I felt like I needed to move quickly, that if I didn’t have something set up soon everything I had worked for and people had died for would unravel. I could just hang it all up and disappear with Jake and take our chances with the dead world, but that would be selfish. Jake didn’t ask to be born into this mess and it was my duty as a father to do what I could to make sure he survived. I made a mental promise to him that I was not going to roam for a long time and just spend my time making the community we lived in as good as it could be. For the moment, it was the best I could do.

  The radio on my belt crackled and Charlie’s voice came softly over the airwave.

  “Hey, John?”

  I fumbled with the radio in the dark,
having a hard time getting it off my belt, and bumping my elbow on the side of the container. I cringed at the sound and hoped like hell no zombies heard it. “Hey, Charlie.” I replied just as softly, my words echoing slightly in the dark container. “Good morning.”

  “Has the Sheriff called you yet?” Charlie seemed anxious.

  “Not yet, why?”

  “I think the Z’s know I’m in here.”

  “Really? How do you know?” I thought it illogical for Charlie to be talking to me if he thought zombies were within earshot of his hidey-hole.

  “Something keeps moving back and forth outside the container and I keep hearing sounds like digging.” Charlie’s voice seemed strained and I could only imagine what he was thinking. Being trapped inside a metal box while the dead waited for you was like already being buried. You had nowhere to go and death was outside the door. Better to put a bullet in your own head than starve to death or be eaten by zombies.

  “Hang tight.” I tried to sound reassuring. “I’ll let you know when I get the signal to come out and start the festivities, whether or not you have anything to worry about.”

  “Okay. Make it soon, alright? The digging started again and it’s driving me nuts.”

  “Done,” I said, replacing the radio on my belt. If my watch was right, we should have some information soon.

  Ten minutes later, the radio crackled again. “Talon?” Sheriff Harlan’s voice came through. “You still there, you crazy bastard?”

  I brought the radio up, more careful not to make noise this time. “Yep. Ready when you are.” I adjusted my gear in the dark. “How’s it look out there?”

  “Well, I guess we have ourselves a regular dust up, no question about it. We got the people laying low like you said and nobody is shooting until I give the signal.”

  That was part of the plan. The zombies could smell the living, but if they didn’t see them they would not attack in earnest. If we could keep them from massing at a single point, the fence stood a better chance of holding them off. But we needed to keep them away from the fence. Eventually they were going to try and force their way in, but not right now if I could help it.