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?”
