Eric scanned the table at the face seated before him. Charles was there as were two of the guys from the farm and seed store mission that Eric felt sure were completely loyal to Charles and would go along with any idea the retired Airman suggested. Spread around the table were just as many people that Eric was just as confident would be on Sanchez’s side. Dan was there as was Kirk. Sanchez would obviously be in his own corner and Eric’s arrival meant the balance of power had been tipped in Sanchez’s favor.
Eric spotted a small thermos sitting like a silent soldier on the white linen table cloth and he reached for it hoping against hope that it was coffee. He grabbed a small white porcelain cup as his fingers wrapped around the thermos and stared dragging the scalding hot contain towards him. As his arm stretched across the table Eric’s arm wrinkled a large sheet of paper spread out along the center of the table.
Pouring himself a small cup of black coffee Eric’s eyes scanned across the paper on the table. Held down with an empty flower vase a saucer and two discarded cups was a small map of what Eric assumed was a town. The map itself looked like one of those area maps that a person could grab at a little roadside gas station. It had main roads in red lines with microscopic print along them indicating their names. There were a few specifically marked buildings on the maps such as a hospital a gas station, and two schools. The name of the town was buried under the rim of the saucer so Eric contented himself with looking over the parts of the map he could see.
Wherever the town was it was clear that highway 2 ran straight through it cutting the town in two. Highway 2’s name changed as it passed through the town but as soon as it broke through the western boundary of the town it was again Highway 2. The hospital was located at the northeastern edge of the town a good half mile away from the main road which made Eric breath a little easier. If the little group assembled around the table had gone to the trouble of finding the map it was clear that they were going to be heading into town. What town were they about to assault and why?
As if hearing Eric’s mental question Charles speared the map with a finger gnarled like tree roots jabbing his finger into the center of the town. “Davenport is the closes town that we can manage to drive to and back before the sun sets that we know is not completely overrun with zombies. Spokane is not an option and Reardan doesn’t have all the supplies that we are hoping to find today.”
“You forgot about Airway Heights. They’ve got a Wal-Mart.” One of the two nameless men sitting across from Eric said as he adjusted his camo hat on his head. He was a burly guy with a few days beard and small piggy eyes.
Charles turned on him with those granite hard eyes. His voice was blunt but not sharp, “that’s the first thing you thought of didn’t you? That’s the exact same idea anyone who’s survived this long is going to think. Usually the first idea you have is also the first idea most everyone else will have. If that Wal-Mart hasn’t been stripped bar then it’s got a few hundred zombies milling around the parking lot and inside.”
“Not just that we aren’t entirely sure how fast these things are moving or in what direction,” Sanchez butted in trying to wrestle control of the mission planning from Charles. “Airway Heights has a decent sized population and they’ve got the Air Force base just a few miles up the road. It’s possible the base has already gone in and taken everything we’d want from the Wal-Mart.”
Charles shot daggers at Sanchez from across the table before continuing. “Davenport gives us the best of both worlds. It’s far enough away that it’s unlikely that anyone has gone scavenging for supplies there yet, not even the military. It’s big enough that it’s going to have things we need like a hardware store, a pharmacy, and a hospital. We should be able to go back and forth for the rest of the week getting the things we need before we’ve cleared it out of anything useful.”
“How many people are we taking with us?” Dan was looking at the map the thoughts about what to do flying behind his eyes. What he was trying to figure out was anyone’s guess but Eric was desperate to know what it was about this idea that had unsettled the man. It could easily be the zombies but they were a constant threat now no matter where a person went they’d have to worry about the dead.
“Eight is all,” Charles looked around the room fixing each man with his hard eyes for a few short breathes before moving on to the next. He’s singling us all out of this mission Eric thought. Charles could have asked for volunteers, Eric would have gone and he was sure most of these men would have too. “Gather up some food and water, get guns and ammo and be ready to go in ten minutes.”
The banshee’s wail of a scream broke the silence of the group and shattered the tranquil din of comforting sounds of the small community waking up. Chairs were pushed back and toppled over as the men around the table jumped up from the table and ran to the front door. Charles was the first to the door and yanked the handle throwing the door open which bounced off the wall with enough force to shake the windows in their frames. The Eric was the last man through the door. The scene unfolded like the twisted chaotic fantasies of an acid trip. The few women and children who had been milling around were now franticly running towards the farmhouse. A few moms clutched small children and even some earlier teens to their chests or hips as they ushered the kids to the small semblance of safety that the house provided.
A wave of zombies blanketed Eric’s vision from one edge of his peripheral vision to the other. They were drifting like fog through the trees and brush some barely ghostly outlines and other forming into distinct shapes as they drew closer. A rasped growl escaped the nearest zombie barely a dozen feet to Eric’s right as he jerked and lurched around the corner of the porch towards the cluster of men. The zombie had been a woman once, her hair was oily and caked with dirt and mud from a week spent outside exposed to the elements. Fading white bone could be seen above her right eye throw two tears in her skin. A deep gash ran along the left side of her nose to the corner of her lip where the flesh had been chewed away leaving three teeth exposed in a macabre sneer. The skin around her neckline and visible through the rips in her sweater across her collarbone was a sallow greenish yellow color. Her eyes were clouded with reddish black hemorrhaged veins.
His body completely frozen as Eric stared at the creature his eyes consuming every gruesome detail he watched Armando and the few men would have been with him earlier round the corner coming around behind the zombie and fanning out. A few of the men with Armando turned outward setting a defensive line against the zombies staggering through the trees while Armando and two of the other men turned their attention towards the zombie. Armando crammed his fingers into his mouth and let out a piercing whistle and as the zombie slowly turned like a rusty hinge towards the sound of the noise Armando swung a crowbar towards her head. The sound of the iron cracking against the zombies skulls was sharp as bone gave way under the powerful blow. As the arc of the crowbar continued through the dead thing’s skull flesh and blood and black gooey castoff splattered the ground and the railing of the porch like a soggy piñata.
As the zombie dropped to the ground dead Armando and his men turned around to face the oncoming zombies swaying towards them. Eric released from the grip of paralysis ran towards the right edge of Armando’s defensive line. He jerked his gun out of the holster at his hip and sighted up on the closes zombie to his left and fired. The shot took the zombie in the center of its forehead and it fell to the ground its limbs splaying out in whole unnatural angles. Eric couldn’t help but see the week black spray exit through the bullet hole in the zombie’s head as the bullet exited its skull. A fraction of a second later he was looking down the iron sights at the next target.
The intermittent bursts of gunfire and the heaves and grunts of primitive men killing with simple tools shook and reverberated off the walls of the woods in a destructive animalistic symphony of man’s eternal war against death. The smell of small wood fires was callously swept away but the stench of decay and rot as the bodies began to pile up. Eric fired a third shot and a hole bloomed in the neck of a zombie eight feet away before he could pull up his sight and fire a bullet through the creatures left eye. Fred came up around on Eric’s left and caught a zombie across the right temple with a heavy machinery wrench before it could sink its diseased teeth into Eric’s arm. Eric would thank him later but his attention as pulled to the left as an anger fueled growl rose above the frenzied sounds of battle. Eric couldn’t see what was going on farther down the line so he turned his attention back to the few zombies who still remained standing. He fired as a zombie broke through the ring of trees encircling the farmhouse and watched as the thing pitched forward landing face down in the dirt.
A few sporadic shots echoed through the trees before the guns fell silence and then all that could be heard was the ragged breathes of men who’d clubbed and stabbed their way through the battle. Eric surveyed the area around him and found that far more zombies had gotten within arm’s reach of their side of the line then he could remember seeing. As he glanced down the line he saw that all the men who’d come with Armando were holding hand tools coated and dripping with sticky black blood and the scraps of gore from their victims. Theirs had been a far more dangerous and brutal fight but they had won out. Men were smiling laughing and clapping each other on the back. Most of them hadn’t been forced to fight the zombies until his moment and the fact that they had conquered the dead was a relief.
In the relative silence Eric caught the angry bark again and turned his attention to his left. Sanchez and Kirk were huddled around a figure kneeling in the middle of a small circle of men. Their little ground hadn’t survived unscathed. Sure that the threat was taken care of for now Eric walked towards the small cluster of men. Kirk caught sight of him first and stepped back a foot to let Eric into the small circle. At the center on his knees trying to wrap one hand around a seeping wound to his wrist was Charles. The man still held his gun the injured hand. Unlike a few other people Eric had seen mauled by the zombies Charles wasn’t out of his mind with worry. He was taking deep controlled breathes, his eyes closed. He was calm and collected and that might have been the most disturbing part. He had to know he was going to die, going to come back as one of the dead but he was maintaining his composure through the iron will built and nurtured by the military. Forgoing any attempt to staunch the bleeding he pushed himself to his feet. Everyone took a few steps back.
Charles looked around the circle quickly and spotting Sanchez he pointed with his good hand at the Hispanic officer. His voice wavered slightly belaying his confidence. He fixed Sanchez with an arctic stare, “you save as many as you can and keep the one’s you have safe. That’s the only way we make it out of this.” Before anyone could say anything He jammed the muzzle of his gun under his chin and fired. A red spray erupted around the circle like a volcano as the Airman’s body crashed to earth. The men around the circle stood stunned as the echo of the gunshot drifted through the trees.