“And for God’s sake, be careful!”
The words chased the young man up the slender tower. John needn’t have worried. Jack was as surefooted and surehanded as he claimed to be and got to his goal in less than a minute. He crawled onto the small platform, trying not to think of the fifty-foot drop below him, and pulled the binoculars out from his jacket.
It took him a few moments to orient himself, but eventually he found the location of the gate. To his dismay, he saw that the gate was fractionally open. BB’s jacket held, but there was just enough room for a skinny zombie to squeeze through the gap.
At least they’re only getting in one at a time.
He started scanning the rest of the perimeter. Jack was nearly a third of the way around the complex when he spotted a much more serious problem. An entire section of the wall — Jack guessed it was at least ten feet wide — had collapsed. It must have just happened, as there were many zombies hanging around or starting to enter the community. He counted dozens. Easily. Maybe even a hundred. He noted the apartment complex on the far side of the wall and feared there were many zombies in those large buildings. The sight of them pouring through the breach was mesmerizing, and Jack had to force himself to look away.
He could not see the full perimeter. In some cases, houses or trees blocked the view. But he saw no zombies near those places, so figured that there were no other breaches.
Satisfied, he swung his view back once more to the large breach in the wall and the apartment complex beyond it. He followed the movement of the zombies through the gap. They had traveled a block into their community already. Alarmingly, he swung his binoculars to the left and into the central area of the community, and he could clearly see the Ren.
Their home. Their safe haven was about to be under assault.
Jack climbed down as quickly as he dared, almost slipping once in his rush, and eliciting a bunch of yelling and expletives from below. He was about to get an earful as his feet touched solid ground, but his expression told his companions that it wasn’t the time for a telling off.
BB, who seemed to have a penchant for stating the obvious, said it as Jack walked up to the team, “Guys, something is wrong.”
THE TWO-VEHICLE CONVOY made it to the school in record time. Even so, the drivers were still disciplined enough to slow down the vehicles when they got within five blocks, trying to keep the noise to a minimum.
The team was met with hugs and laughter once they were safely on Ren property. Sarah cried tears of joy and wouldn’t let go of Jack. They didn’t have much time for a reunion, though.
“I need everybody in the cafeteria in five,” John told Joe as he walked up to the school. “We’ve got problems.”
John carried his bag in and dropped it near the front door of the school. He looked at the bag with a bit of regret. He’d spent an hour packing it with everything he figured he would need and never even cracked the thing open.
He rushed over to check up on Mel, while Joe herded the rest of the population of the Ren towards the cafeteria.
John arrived back at the cafeteria to the sounds of mayhem. Mel had already warned him about Ben, but the rest of his team hadn’t had that luxury. He spotted Mike, BB and Abi first. They stuck close together. Mike’s expression seemed neutral, and the other two followed his lead.
Tammy seemed excited, her skin flushed, and John figured that she wanted to dig deeper into Ben’s story. Breanne stood beside the former news anchor and had filled her in. She looked angry. But then again, she always looked angry.
“Why the FUCK is this fucking guy here?” Nat asked the group in general, stirring up multiple replies, from answers to the question to opinions about her use of language. John shook his head as the crowd erupted into chaos once more.
“SILENCE!” John yelled, using his best imitation of all the drill sergeants from his past.
It stunned the crowd into the desired effect.
“We’ve got a much bigger problem!” He looked around him angrily, defying anybody to interrupt him. “We’ve got a horde of zombies headed this way. Maybe hundreds of them.”
Shocked gasps met his statement.
“Look, I have no time to explain. One of the walls around this community has been breached, as has the gate itself. They’re pouring through those gaps right now!” He slapped the table with his prosthetic hand with a metallic clang. “We’ve got maybe an hour before they get here. We need to come up with a plan. Right now.”
Q piped up. “We should get the fuck out of here — that’s what we should do.”
“And go where, exactly? We are in a walled community and fucking surrounded on all sides,” John replied angrily. The teenager blanched and physically leaned away in his chair. John noticed and softened his approach. “We’re like an island in the sea right now. We’ve got no place to go. At least no place more secure than here... The only way to survive is to take out the threat.”
“What about if we lock down the school and hide?” somebody asked.
John just shook his head. “It looks like they knew where they are heading.” He looked around at his audience. “Look, I don’t know how, but they seem to know we are here. I’m telling you; those zombies are headed this way.”
The usually quiet and reserved Bill took a step forward. “What do you need?”
John thought for a second. “What’s our weapons situation? Do we have enough to get everybody armed?”
Bill knew the answer to this. He’d taken responsibility of the armory. He quickly ran off to the armory and came back with his list. “John,
