[DeadCave]

CHAPTER 11
Battle & Sudden Appearances
Working my way back up to Maggie and the others, I tried to take a mental inventory of our ammo. It was just a way to occupy my mind and not think about the days ahead of us, or where we would go and how long it would take for us to get there. Vehicles wrecked, train wrecked, hell, our whole lives were wrecked. Only positive thing was that we were still alive and we had each other. We would have enough to take care of the zombies that still remained in the area, but the noise might attract others while we were building a travois that I had in mind to carry James and our gear.
I had my sword and bowie knife of course, but Maggie just had the knives she and James carried with them. With James out of action it would be just the two of us and if we weren't careful we could be swarmed. By my count there were at least half a dozen zombies till milling around the area. I counted it a small miracle that they hadn't seen me as food, since I still moved in a shambling awkward gait, carrying all the gear off one shoulder so that the weight threw my balance off enough to pull the effect off. Again I was thankful that the dead were dumb as rocks and going off of pure instinct. Instinct that had been dulled by video/computer games, fast foods, time spent on the internet, dumb television shows, mindless jobs and humdrum lives in between. The survival instincts that made man prevail over the centuries, had been dulled to a pencil point badly in need of sharpening.
Sure there were extremist out there among the surviving population. I don't mean the survivalist nuts like Drew and his gang of miscreants, but the extreme sports/adventure nuts. Honing the reflexes and braving self-imposed dangers and hardships. Rock and ice climbing, sky diving, skiing and snowboarding off of helicopters hovering over mountain tops, big game hunting, free-running or parkor, mountain biking & hiking, cliff-diving, scuba-diving and of course my personal favorite, caving. These and so many more that regular people who watch the You Tube videos and say “that's crazy.” I'm quite sure that a number of those people are among the survivors of this apocalypse. If they haven't survived it was likely that they were caught off guard, or done something foolish, which, by itself covers a myriad of things that could be considered stupid or foolish.
But how were we to know? Who would've even suspected that dead people would rise up and eat the living. The horror and the madness of it. Hell, even I was knocked off my ass by all of it. My own first encounter with a zombie nearly got me killed because my mind refused to believe what my eyes were telling me. I stop refusing and started fighting and have kept on fighting. Since then, the dead and the living were expected to get no quarter from me if my life was on the line.
I was nearly half way up our hill when I heard a muffled gunshot. I turned around to see if any of the dead below us were attracted to it. Thankfully no, I barely heard it but knew what it was. When I reached the top Maggie was already beside her son and had managed to convert the canteen so that the blood would flow into the tube connected to the needle in James' arm. Drew lay where she shot him.
A wad of clothing, likely from one of the other guys was against his chin, a small hole gaped from the top of his head. Apparently she used the wadded shirt to help muffle the noise of the gunshot as she put him down permanently.
I set the pack down and went over to her. “You okay here? How's the transfusion going?”
She wiped her brow with her arm and nodded. “He'll be alright. Hopefully this one will be all he needs. I don't know how much he lost but it couldn't been much since he was alert and coherent,” she sighed aloud and shrugged her shoulders, “I just honestly don't know. My training only takes me so far. He needs a doctor, a hospital or even an aid station. Since we're woefully short on all of that, we can only hope that this works enough until I can figure something out.”
I nodded and sat down next to her. “Well okay. We got something else we're going to need to do.”
She looked up at me and waited calmly for me to continue, as if the stress of doing battle with the dead, still paled to the horrors of the battle between the living. “I figured out that we can transport James and the supplies on a Native American type of travois. An A-frame with a tarp wrapped over it. Between the two of us we can drag it along to get to where-ever we're going. It might not be as hard as one might think considering the terrain. If we do it right and the poles long enough we can put one leg on a track and just pull it along, following the rails. This way at least he'll be spared any bumps or jarring that the ground would do to the rig. We follow the tracks until we come across a crossing or a town and maybe find a working vehicle. What do you think?”
Maggie bit her lip and then grinned at me. “I think that's bloody brilliant. We can load a couple of these jerks on board as well.”
She had me there. “Huh? Para-que?” A line from a movie way back when came to me suddenly. “Even to a guy like me, that's cold.” though I didn't say that out loud.
Her reply was one of playful exasperation. “These guys are still relatively fresh; and they're not going to reanimate. But if we're going to be chased then we can dump the bodies and hopefully they'll be fresh enough for the zombies to want to stop and feed on them, giving us time to get away.” she paused for a brief moment; then her smile faded like a fog growing at dusk; slowly growing darker as she spoke. “Frankly, I couldn't be happier with that because,” she nodded over to the dead Drew, “he woke up partially in fever and was talking, rambling really, talking about what a good lay I would be and how” she jerked her head to the dead leader of that group “he would've liked having fun with James since that was more aligned with his personal tastes. This is of course after they killed you. He was talking to me as if I was one of his buddies and then he looked right at me, knowing it's me,” she shuddered “how when they got done with me, they would have nailed me to one of the train cars and watched the zombies eviscerate me alive.”
Her eyes widened as if suddenly realizing the full horror of it. They were going to nail me just high enough for the zombies only be able to reach up to my waist. He ... he said” suddenly her fist slammed down on his shoulder, hard, there was a faint, dull crack. Damn she was strong. Her voice was rising and I let it, this had to be let out or she'd go nuts carrying it around with her. I needed her clear as a bell if we were to reach the place given by Frank. Her volume increased “he said that my t-tits were probably too perfect to be r-ru-ruined” she was sobbing now openly. She grabbed at her t-shirt and yanked it up to her neck, revealing her breasts, her scars, old and fresh wounds, the bruising inside and out. Virtually seeing her soul, as it was, at this moment. “What would you think they would do once they saw me?” Her fist slammed down on the dead shoulder once more even harder. There was a definite crack loud enough to be heard on it's own. I doubted that it was her hand. She opened her mouth to speak and couldn't get her vocal cords to work anymore. The crap she had inside her just over-ridden her ability to utter any more aloud.
She held her hands up to me, eyes pleading. I went to her and hugged her hard. Her arms at first, rigid, grew limp and wrapped themselves around my neck. Burying her face in my shoulder she sighed deeply and the rest of her body grew limp and pressed against mine. I held her, saying nothing, listening.
In a zen like moment, I just listened. To everything; the wind, her heart beat, the faint moans and low growls of the dead below us, the chirping of a cricket disturbed from it's daytime nap. I held on to her, expecting to remain this way for some time. But then she shrugged and lifted her face, kissing my cheek, making it wet from still fresh tears, now stopped as if shut off like a spiritual dam slamming shut on her emotions. She pushed herself away from me, breaking our hug. Then began pulling her shirt back down. “Ok, so what's next?” she, matter of fact and in a soldier's frame of mind. The frame that's built when expecting a skirmish.
I took a breath and began, “We gotta clear out the rest of the dead. There's about half a dozen left, and there's severed heads, likewise whomever wasn't completely devoured might still reanimate. I want all of us to get clear of this place clean and without fuss. To do that we're going to have to clear the way. We're going to be held up and going slow until we get past the wreckage. At least we'll see what actually caused it. It can't be that easy to derail a train. Can it?” Suddenly not sure. She shrugged and her familiar grin was back on her face. “We'll find out soon enough.” She unholstered her gun, checked if the safety was on, then chambered a round. “Ready when you are ... sir.”
My eyes narrowed for a moment. Decided to file that little pause away until there was time to mull it over. “No.” I said, “no guns. Don't want to run the risk of more of them being called from a few miles out and we're just getting done with getting the loaded travois down to the wreck-site. Nope, not happening. I said clear and I mean it. You'll have to use a blade of some kind. I'm hoping one of these bastards might have a machete or something.” I started looking them over again, and moved to the leader to toss him, when Maggie spoke. “He does.” I saw she was pointing to the third member of the party.
I changed direction in my movement and in another step was standing over the dead guy. He was face up, eyes still wide open in shock, mouth agape, the face revealing total surprise. I reached down and grabbed the far shoulder and pulled. In the stage of rigor, he flipped right over like a board. Sure enough there was a machete in a belt hook located in the middle of his back. I took out my folding knife and cut the belt loose then pulled the sheath and blade up and held it out straight armed at Maggie. “here ya go babe.” She stood and was grinning that sexy grin she had at me, undoing her belt as she moved towards me. I caught it and nodded in her direction. “We ain't got time for it right now, maybe a quickie after the travois gets built.”
She giggled as she reached out for the sheath and took it as she had gotten the tail end of the belt off a quarter of the way around her waist. She began threading the end through the belt loop at the top of the sheath. “You wish mister... as you wish.” Again that little pause. She grew serious again, “take the bootlaces off of one of his boots please.”
I didn't need to ask, and bent down and started tugging on both boot laces with both hands. We could use them for the making of the travois. In about a minute I had both in each hand. Tossing one to her, “we're going to need to collect as many of these as we can. They can be used to tie the tarp through the grommets to the poles. I've got cord large enough to wrap the poles together. Maggie nodded to the leader. “Boy, are you sure that you're observant enough? Check his wrist.” I look and there was a dark band that I recognized as braided paracord. “The others have one too,” I turned my head to see her holding up another one with one finger pointing down at the dead Drew. Before going to the leader I checked the third guy, couldn't remember his name and I didn't care to. Sure enough he had one in white striped black cordage braided neatly around his wrist. When undone they could stretch up to eight feet. Those along with the boot laces we can pick up along the way, we'd have enough for the tarp's grommets. If necessary we can poke small holes along the edge where needed and hope that it'll hold up until we get to a vehicle.
Getting what I could in about thirty seconds, stuffing the cords and lace in my pocket, I stood back up being in a formal stance and slowly drew out my sword, I swung it out until the tip of the blade was directly off to my right side, my free arm moving behind my back I gave a short bow while speaking like an Irish Lord, “Well lass, I'd wonder if you're ready, because I would love to dance with you down the hill, and to battle.” Maggie had just finished buckling her belt when she stiffened and then fell to her knees and bowed low. In Japanese she spoke fluently that I understood clearly from my own personal studies. “That would honor me... my lord.” She drew out the machete from it's sheath and held it out, straight arm, holding the handle correctly while laying the flat of the blade against her palm her head bowed. Then she brazenly looked up, waiting for my word.
I was at first, half-heartedly playing, trying to lighten the mood because we would have ghastly work ahead of us, very dangerous in more ways than one. But she was dead serious from the look in her eyes and set of her mouth. She was ready to kill. Alright then, to business. I got out of my own Irish lord pose of inviting some one to dance and stood upright then without a word, nodded once. She stood up and stepped to my side, and looked down the hill. Together we went on down and went to work.
When we reached the spot where the ground started leveling off I spied a long branch lying on the ground and had an idea, “Wait,” she stopped in her tracks I caught a glimpse of her scanning the ground as if I had spotted a mine or something, I had to suppress a grin, dammit I needed to get as serious as she was at the moment. “We got some time, if you want I can make you a sort of spear so you'd have some reach, won't take me about a minute.” She turned to me and hefted the machete in her hand and gave a small smile of self-satisfaction. “Nooo, that's okay, though it's been a while, I liked h2h.” I didn't have to ask what that was, hand to hand combat. Her voice was confident, assured. I needn't worry about her.
“Alright, lets go.” Maggie spoke in a low tone now, “I spot 9 of them, scattered out, two are together.” I grunted agreement, not really wanting to say anything, but then added, “when we're ready make sure you stay out of range of my sword, at least four feet away, if you have to get close just let me know. I might not answer but I'll be listening for you.” She nodded quietly. Her voice, still low, already focused on the nearest one. “I think you got this one.”
And why not? It was the biggest one of the bunch. In life he must've been an intimidating figure. Heavily muscled and standing at least six and a half feet tall. He reminded me of the tall boy back at the store where Maggie and I first met, only just a bit shorter. Twenty yards away and he looks up from the ground he was walking on, obviously scrounging for scraps. Scraps of Nasif perhaps, I shuddered at the memory of that man's self-sacrifice. I doubted that I could have done the same thing.
The big zombie turned towards us and I moved closer to him. My mind suddenly envisioned a chess board laid out before us and there were invisible squares at our feet. The guy in front of me was probably the equivalent of a rook or a knight. Powerful pieces to be sure, but none the less, they could be killed by the pawns. When he got in range I swung the sword up and over my head and waited til he stepped into my killing zone. The zombie raised his arms as to make a grab for me and that was what I was waiting for. I struck down hard, catching it a tad off center than I would've liked but it worked. The blade sunk in through the skull, down to the upper lip, the leading edge sticking out the back of the head. It went down, pole axed and I stepped back and let the heavy body pull my arms down with the sword still embedded until it landed face first on the ground, it's forehead smacking into a large rock with a sickening crunch. Giving it a twist I was able to quickly widen the gap and pull my sword out before it became stuck.
I began looking for my next target. This was a female and she rose up off her knees and dropped whatever it was that she was gnawing on. Her face and hands smeared with blood, which also stained the front of the once brightly colored blouse she wore. The woman wore only panties below the shirt and was barefoot from what I could see. It growled and started moving towards me. Maggie was already engaging her nearest target and swiftly dispatched it much the same way that I did my first. Her results were a bit messier as the blade sheared the head clean in half vertically and at an angle, exposing the brain and sinus cavities. There was no spurt of blood from the cranial artery since the heart had long stopped beating. The cut however, was as clean as my own blade could make. The zombie folded at the knees and likewise fell face-first to the ground. She held her arm out to me and then let it drop. Measuring the distance between us and knowing how far to keep us apart, but still staying together. It would be dangerous to get separated at this point. If one of us got in trouble then the other would have to pitch in and in a hurry.
But at the moment, I wasn't feeling rushed, and allowed the zombie woman to come towards me instead. I had good footing where I stood already and I readied myself for her approach. Behind her I could see that several others had noticed “fresh-meat” and began working their way towards the two of us. As my target approached I relaxed and saw the movements that I could make based on her speed and angle of attack, relative to my position. In a growl that was almost a hiss coming out of her torn throat she lunged. With a step to the side, I swung and lopped off the closest arm. The blow served to throw the creature off balance and it began falling away from me. Pivoting on one foot I swung and caught it in the back of the neck, instantly severing the spinal cord but not decapitating it, though it did tilt forward on it's own as the body continued it's forward momentum to the ground.
I glanced up in time to see Maggie swinging her machete and spilling the guts of the zombie she was engaging. The thing stopped and then reached for her again, but too late as she swung again and cut into the head at the side. With a grunt she yanked the blade out and moved back as the creature fell. She turned to me and there was a grin on her face and a fire in her eyes. Damned if she wasn't enjoying herself now. Mother, daughter, widow, lover and warrior woman, she stood proud as she readied herself for the next attack. My heart went out to her again and I suppressed it quickly. No time to get la-la eyes.
Clearing my head and my heart I focused on the task again. Remembering not to get stupid... but just caught myself once more. I felt a growl tremble in my throat that was more directed at me and then my own mouth turned up into a grin. My next fight would be with two at the same time as they approached together. I stood in a sideway horse-stance and had my blade pointed back and away from me the tip barely touching the ground. The two were only a foot or so apart, but I still swung upwards at the nearest one and slicing through it's torso. The effect caused it to spin away leaving me room for the next one to catch my down stroke which this time, decapitated it. The first one had time to recover but not enough as I swung back again and sliced through it's face. Thankfully there was enough damage to the brain to shut it down and it crashed on top of a partially devoured body that was already laying there. Three more to go.
The one closest to me was shambling towards Maggie, ignoring me. Maggie was focused on another straight in front of her. There was movement behind her and what was supposed to be a body rose up and was getting to it's feet. She didn't see it. I was torn between shouting out a warning and taking care of the one nearest to me. Dammit! I moved quickly around the bodies at my feet and positioned my sword back over my shoulder. A sound caught my attention momentarily, hoof beats?
Ignoring it and swinging my blade as I stepped, I slipped and my blade caught the zombie at the shoulder rather the neck where I was aiming for. Well I got it's attention now. Only I was trying to recover my balance when it landed on me and we stood grappling together for a moment. It had one hand on my wrist and the other holding my sword arm near the elbow, it was awkward getting my feet under me.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Maggie closing the distance to the one in front of her. The one behind was just ten feet away. By the time she finished off the first one she might not have time to catch the second. She swung and the machete sliced through the jaw, nearly severing it, she pulled at it but the blade was stuck. She twisted her body and the zombie was now against her back with her arms back over her head behind her, pulling at the blade. The one I was tied up with snarled and gnashed it's teeth at me. I suddenly grew irritated and spat in it's face, “ahh shut up will ya?” raising my knee and catching it hard in the groin. Though they don't feel pain, the effect was still the same, the blow from my knee was hard enough to lift it off it's feet and I took the opportunity to throw it to the ground. It let go of me and hit hard. It seemed dazed enough where I could tilt the tip of my blade down and pierce it through an eye and into the brain. Stepping on the face I pulled my sword out and glanced up in time to see two things happen.
The first was Maggie pulling her machete out of the zombie's face and standing up quickly to throw the now dead weight off her back and her sudden realization that another was about to crash into her at the same instant. The second was a horse and rider coming up behind the zombie reaching for Maggie; the rider using both hands to thrust a long spear through it's head, stopping it literally dead in it's tracks, the point jutting out six inches and pointed right at Maggie's face. With a jerk the rider pulled the spear out and watched the body fall backwards. Maggie and I stood by and watched, as the rider, a young woman, turned her face to the sky, thrust her spear into the air and gave a shout of victory.

[Florida Walker]

As always DC...worth the wait!!!

[the Walkin Dude]

Ditto here excellent.

[DeadCave]

Wished who ever neg-rep me would also leave a comment. So at least I know what I did to deserve it. I can take both positive and negative comments. Geez.

[the Walkin Dude]

Wow DC, just saw that, that is pure chicken sh!t for whoever did that without leaving a comment. JMHO

[selene]

awesome as always!! can't wait for the next one... i wish it was already a book so i could read it all at once... that whole waiting for the next chapter thing drives me crazy!!

[DeadCave]

awesome as always!! can't wait for the next one... i wish it was already a book so i could read it all at once... that whole waiting for the next chapter thing drives me crazy!!

Guess here is as good a place as any for an update. A brother from another mother says he may help out on financing my first volume. So hold on to your butts (or can I if you're a cute girl??), it could happen before summer time.

Edit: LOL just noticed that I got now 2 neg reps on this chapter...