'Fuck!' Jeff screamed drawing his own pistol, he didn't bother to reload the shotgun, but transferred it to his off hand as he charged forward towards the door. 'Go! Go! Go!'
The pistol fired until Jeff got in the way of the shots, then the camera was stuffed into a pocket. It was not turned off, however and recorded the frantic flight of Nadine running from the gas station.
'I have not shifted through the rest of this so far.' Paige said, 'I fast forwarded until I got to some video again, this is the last of it on the camera.' She fast forwarded it until she came to a point where the camera was pulled out of the pocket, the starlight provided only a slightly less dark blur on the screen. The camera angle twisted and spun as it sailed through the air, before it passed over something the watchers actually recognized, the sand bags around the trench by the wasteland.
It landed hard and the screen went to static before it was picked up and a familiar voice said, 'What is this?' The camera showed Peter's face in the darkness, beside him a flashlight turned on and then everyone in the trench was visible, Peter, Willy, Jack and an older woman named Sharon.
'It's Jeff's camera! Something threw his camera in!' Jack said.
'Turn off the fucking light!' Sharon said, the boy did that immediately, 'I am calling Dora. You guys get your guns, keep an eye out.'
'I think it is still on. How do I turn it off?' asked Peter
'Press this.' answered one of the other boys and the video stopped.
The council sat in silence for a moment. Leon lifted his mug towards his mouth, stopped partway, his jaw moved, his lips started to form words, then he shook his head slightly and took a drink instead.
'Speechless? Me too.' Dora said, 'How long since we heard from anyone in the military who was not Fuller?'
'Since after the horde broke over us.' Alex answered.
'Never a fly by or a helicopter evacuation for our severely wounded. Just load them onto the truck and send them away with Fuller and the crew. I guess we know where they went now, huh?'
'No. This can't be.' Mary whispered, 'Why?'
'Farming has always been popular in Kansas. I guess they just want to continue the tradition. Face it Mary, we are the next crop.' Dora said, 'We need to get out of here. Do we have enough vehicles to carry everyone?'
'Dora, where will we go?' asked Alex.
'East, to the front lines. We break through and we join the Iowans.'
'But Dora, we have been getting news from Fuller, he lied about who they were, he could have lied about the front lines too, for all we know he lied about everything. We could be it.' Alex said.
'It?'
'It. As in, the only people left. We haven't had a television signal for weeks, no radio signals, nothing, everyone else could be dead.'
The group thought about this in silence for some time before Dora said, 'So we better send a scouting group out to find and make contact with the Iowans, if they are still around. If not…then what do we do?'
The council members tossed around a few ideas before agreeing to send out three scouting groups to try and find the front lines and get more information. They also agreed it would be best not to tell the rest of the town about what was going on, if they were in a more traditional war, Steve had argued, what their soldiers didn't know could not be tortured out of them. Steve also had more plans for when the 'National Guard' came by the next time and the council readily agreed to do things his way.
Finally just as everyone got up to leave Steve stopped them and said, 'Well isn't anyone going to address the elephant in the room?'
'What elephant?' asked Leon.
Dora let out one of her classic snorts, as everyone else looked confused, she stared at Steven and spoke to everyone else, 'Him.'
One by one the others stopped and stared at Steven too.
'He came from the guard, he could be one of them, this was before we strip searched everyone, Steve, good ole Steve-O, he might be a zombie too. An agent in our midst to sow discord among us. So how about it Steve, you a zombie?'
Steve smiled, 'So you were thinking about it. What was your plan? Were you just going to watch me for a while, then jump me if I did something you thought was suspect?'
'Me? Now I am not that deceptive, am I?' Dora nodded and conceded the point, Leon and Mary slowly edged away from Steve, causing Dora to laugh, 'Please people! Do you think he would even bring the subject up if he were a zombie?'
'I might, to dissuade suspicion.'
'So what do we do? Strip search? Normally I could totally get into that, but you are married and I have been under the weather lately. So it wouldn't do anything for me. I doubt your wife would appreciate it either. So how do we tell you are who you appear to be?'
Steve rolled back the long sleeve over his left hand, 'Cut me. Every one of them we killed bled that foul black shit; my blood will be red and alive, I promise you that.'
'No. Stop.' Mary said, holding up a hand to forestall Dora from coming around the table with a knife that had magically appeared in her hand. 'For Pete's sake Dora! I have needles! I can just get a blood sample, the microscope is right over there.' She waved at the microscope which was sitting on a bench against the far wall where she kept her medical supplies. 'We can check him and know inside of two minutes.'
'Mary you are no fun at all!' Dora said with a frown. Still she put away the knife and they all waited while Mary went to get a needle. She looked for a vein in Steve's arm and followed a procedure for drawing blood, in a few seconds she had the sample, which she brought over to the microscope to examine.
'It is alive. Anyone else want to have a look?'
'We should all give a sample. It is only fair and we need to be sure we can trust each other. If we only test Steve it could breed distrust.' said Leon, rolling up his sleeve.
Dora pouted, 'But I shouldn't have to go! Or Paige, I can vouch for her and who needs to check Mary, she's the only doctor.'
'You go first, that is what a good leader does, and I am sure even a layman can see enough in the blood to tell the difference, right Mary?' said Leon.
Mary nodded and Leon continued, 'See? Go on girl, get your little prick so we can all rest easier.'
Dora put her hand over her mouth and laughed softly, 'Oh Leon! You say the naughtiest things!'
The old man waved her on, 'Have you're fun if you have to. You just caught me too tired to watch my tongue.'
Everyone could see Dora struggle to not respond to this obvious opening, finally she just clamped her mouth shut, giggled and turned to where Mary was waiting with a fresh needle. The council members were all checked out one by one and it turned out they all were alive.
Chapter 32
A week went by with only a few minor attacks on Doraville, the three scouting groups had gone out all of them went east, two towards the north east, one almost directly east. Two groups had returned, they had been instructed to go to the edges of Kansas City and come back with any information they had found, both came back telling stories of empty battlefields, where there were plenty of true dead corpses and military equipment just lying around on the ground. Neither of the groups had any trouble foraging or living off the land. Nor had either of them contacted anyone with their walkie-talkies or short range radios. They had not seen any living humans and had killed very few zombies, the scouts had been instructed to avoid killing and being seen by zombies at all costs. It was Steve's position that the smarter zombies could sense when the slow zombies were killed. The third scouting group was supposed to make their way up into Iowa before coming back with news. Nothing had been heard from
