Tammy’s guesses about the current state of the safe zone weren’t far off from the truth. This morning’s population at the safe zone included eighteen hundred uninfected people and a mere skeleton crew of fifty-two soldiers. A more ominous statistic was the one nobody was aware of. There were also several hundred zombies inside the fence. Almost all of them were stuck inside the buildings that they had died in.
If Tammy could look down on the camp, she would also see that over five thousand zombies were encroaching upon the fences from all directions, and another twenty thousand zombies were in the vicinity, drawn by the noises of both the living and the dead. Nearly every soldier was posted along the fence line, taking shots at the seemingly unending masses of undead.
Tammy was oblivious to all this as she ate her breakfast. As she was sipping her coffee, the chain of events that would result in the downfall of their safe zone was set in motion.
It started innocently enough.
Chapter Thirty-one
October 28, 10:30AM
“Come on man, let’s go!” Mark was impatient to get going. The fifteen-year-old was the self-appointed leader and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to boss another boy around.
“Ok!” Steve finished tying his shoelace as the other two boys stood over him. “Jeez!”
The boys had snuck out that morning to explore the empty portion of the camp. They figured that they would be able to find some good stuff. Maybe even some weapons! They had explored a couple of huts so far but had found nothing useful.
As Steve stood up, he noted the third boy, Alex. Alex was looking around nervously. Following Steve’s gaze, Mark saw Alex’s nervousness as something to exploit.
“What are you afraid of dude. We haven’t seen anybody at all.” He stared down at the smaller boy with a disdainful look.
The twelve-year-old was scared and could not hide it. His eyes kept darting around.
Mark grabbed the younger boy by the front of his jacket. “Hey! You hearing me?”
“Lay off him, Mark.” Steve said without much conviction. He was also fifteen, but a full head shorter and only slightly less intimidated by Mark than Alex was.
Mark kept a hold of Alex’s jacket. “You afraid? You wanna run home, little boy?”
Alex raised the pipe in his hand. Mark flinched and released the younger boy. “Whoa man, what do you think you’re doing?” Alex realized what he had done and quickly lowered the weapon. The boys had found short lengths of steel pipe yesterday and felt all but invincible with them.
“S–Sorry.” Was all he said.
For a second it looked like Mark was going to get aggressive. But with another look at the pipe in Alex’s hand he changed his mind.
“Never mind. Fuck! ... Let’s go.” And he turned to walk down the row of huts.
Steve patted Alex on the shoulder, and the two boys followed their leader.
“I wasn’t afraid...” Alex muttered in the direction of Mark’s back.
They had not ventured this deep into quadrant four before. Their goal was the offices and buildings near the outer edge. They hoped that there was good loot left behind there.
The three boys walked for a few minutes. The camp around them was silent. Apparently, none of these buildings had ever been used. The camp, which had originally been set up to receive over fifty thousand refugees, never did count more than about a quarter of that. The silence was oppressive. It was enough to make the bravest soul waver, and subsequently the three boys clustered together subconsciously.
Steve wondered why he had agreed to come along on this scavenger hunt in the first place. He had heard rumors of zombies out here. He gripped his pipe a little harder, imagining zombies stepping around the next building. Fear crept up his spine as they walked past the building’s edge and through the next intersection. He didn’t want to die out here.
Not that his father would notice. Dad was little more than a ghost himself, since they took mom away...
The boys walked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound coming from the occasional gun shot in the distance. All three boys knew what that was. The soldiers posted as sentries around the perimeter of the fence had to take out any zombie that encroached. And since every shot attracted more zombies, there was a lot of shooting going on. It was an out-of-control spiral.
The boys held a morbid fascination with it all. They had snuck up several times to the edge of their camp, so they could see the soldiers at work. It really was nothing more than target practice. The boys would pick one of the soldiers each, and count the number of head shots they made, wagering on which soldier would bag more zombies. So far, Mark had had an uncanny ability to pick the winner. The boys were totally desensitized to exploding skulls and red mist.
The piles of undead were mounting all around the safe zone and the stench was getting nasty. This started to keep the boys away from watching the soldiers at work. Steve wondered what the army would do once the smell got too bad.
Mark stopped walking and looked at a squat building.
“What about this place?” He asked the other boys.
“Ok.” His followers replied. They walked to the door and stood there for a second, listening for any noises. Nothing seemed to be stirring inside. Despite this, the boys were nervous.
“You know there could be zombies in there, right?” Mark said, voicing their concerns. “So, who is going in first?” He turned to Steve and Alex, barely restraining his malevolent smile.
The boys looked at each other. Mark turned to Alex. “Still scared?” He asked.
“No.” Alex frowned. His body language betrayed how he truly felt, though.
“Ok. You take the lead. I’ll open the door, you poke your head in. It will be dark in there, but the doorway should light up the place.” He stood beside
