Apocalypse Wow, Pt. 10

From what we'd learned from Caroline and what we'd seen in Old Sal and Durden I guess we'd started to feel as if the threat from the red-eyes was at least diminishing but not gone altogether. We'd found a live one in the city only a few days before. So we definitely hadn't started to assume the threat was totally gone, not by a long short.

So I guess you could say I wanted it to be other dogs but I definitely wasn't surprised when we saw the red-eyes.

We saw three at first, and then two more came into view a little after. They were moving slowly towards the house, almost as if they were injured, limping. Dawn was still just breaking but we could see them clearly enough nevertheless. They were spread out, maybe five to ten meters apart, in the long grass right in front of the house, maybe fifty meters away and getting slowly closer.

We stayed on the porch and fanned out a little, each of us getting them in our sights. It felt like it took them a few seconds to register our presence because when they did they seemed to stop altogether.

"I got the two on the left," Caroline said.

"Two on the right," I said.

"I got the middle," Chloe said.

And then they screamed. That same, blood curdling scream we'd come to know, that Simone and I had heard on that first trip to Old Sal which seemed a lifetime ago even then. I thought my hands would start to shake but the view of the right-most red-eye in my scope never wavered.

"Light 'em up," Caroline said. And we did. All five went down. We knew head shots were the only thing that would keep them down but I can't say I was totally confident I'd gotten my two like that. We'd talked about a scenario like this in one of our training sessions with Caroline and we put the plan we'd discussed then in to action now.

"Move," Caroline said, and Chloe and I reacted immediately.

The long grass definitely made it more dangerous in that we wouldn't be able to see them until we were right on top of them but we couldn't just leave them laying there. We had to be sure.

We stuck to our respective targets and kept our pace as close together as we could so that we moved forward into the grass in a line. The red-eyes hadn't been moving in a similar line, so I was still moving forward when I heard another shot, and then another. I didn't dare look to see who it was.

Blood on the top of the grass signalled my first target to me and I was glad to see that its skull was more or less exploded when I looked down at it. The second was a different story. It looked like my shot had penetrated its neck, a little to one side so that its head seemed to be only just about hanging on to its body. It looked like it was trying to get up but its head kept flopping over as if it might drop off. I definitely hesitated for a moment and the thought passed through my head that maybe a live specimen would be a good thing for Caroline's research but it didn't take me long to reason that there was no way keeping a live one of these things around was ever going to be completely safe. So I aimed carefully and blew its head the rest of the way off.

"Clear," I said for Caroline and Chloe to hear and heard them echo it back to me.

I lowered my rifle and looked around for Caroline and Chloe, found them looking for me.

"Everyone OK?" I said.

"Where the fuck did these fuckers come from?" was all Chloe said. It was a good question.

Caroline insisted that I have no involvement in moving the bodies, she still wasn't sure about the possibility of infection. And although we'd taken a good supply of hazmat suits from the hospital we were running a little low, so Chloe backed the truck up to the bodies and Caroline man-handled them onto the back by herself to save on using up a second suit for Simone.

We'd discussed what to do with them obviously. The two bodies Caroline had been studying were pretty ripe by that point. And we had no way of preserving or storing them for future study. Caroline had already decided to burn them and I'd built a sort of pyre way out behind the garage for the purpose so she decided to keep two of new bodies for more study and burn the rest.

I guess we were all pretty fucking shocked for the rest of the day. I mean, fuck. This was our sanctuary. We'd actually called it that more than once. It didn't quite have a capital S yet, but it was getting there. And those fuckers got within fifty meters of us. Thank fuck for Jerry, right?

Chloe's question came up again over dinner that night. Where the fuck had they come from? Chloe figured she had a pretty good handle on most local people but there was nothing about these she recognised, their faces, their clothes, nothing. Obviously, they'd come from somewhere else.

Given how slowly they were moving, how relatively easy it had been to take them out, we figured our theory about them dying still rang true but obviously, some were able to keep going longer than others. Just how long were they going to be a threat? We had a lot of questions, but no answers.

We made some changes to our routine immediately. For a start, it was agreed that someone would have to be on watch each night. Jerry had done a pretty fucking awesome job of warning us but we didn't want to leave anything to chance. We'd take it in shifts, midnight to 4am and 4am till 8. There was a little mirth when Simone suggested that she and Chloe should take the first night's watch seeing as she thought Caroline and I probably hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before. She wasn't wrong I guess.

And thoughts of making the property more secure came up as well. We had discussed it before but I guess other things had been higher priorities. It was a lesson we never needed to be reminded of again. Security first, everything else second.

We made some rough plans but even to secure just the area immediately around the house and the garage with a fence was going to take a huge amount of materials, and a lot of fucking time. With the lumber yard so close, we had ready access to everything we'd need but, still, it was a daunting prospect.

Anyway, the plan for the following day was to split up. Caroline needed some fresh supplies from the hospital, stuff she'd run out of faster than she thought she would and some other equipment she hadn't thought of the first time. And she wanted to take a look at the library we'd planned on visiting before. She felt she was making some progress in her research, but some reference material might be really helpful. I suggested that another trip to the big-box store might not be a bad idea, seeing as we'd be in the area. After our experience that morning, it couldn't hurt to increase our arsenal.

So next morning, Caroline and I set out for Durden in the SUV. It was probably still OK, but it felt like as good a time as any to siphon the gas from Simone's car into it. Chloe and Simone made for the lumber yard to reci the supplies we'd need for the fence. Chloe knew a lot more about construction and whatnot than any of the rest of us, so it made sense.

Now, obviously, given what had happened within a minute of finishing, Caroline and I hadn't really had the chance to talk about our night together.

And really, I didn't think we needed to. Like I said, it was really fucking fun and I never felt for a minute like it was going to be a problem. I still didn't, still felt that there was just no way I could feel awkward around Caroline. So, it wasn't me who brought it up.

"So Jim," she said, just after we'd passed through Old Sal, "you sleep OK last night?"

I looked at her and smiled. She was driving and she wasn't really looking at me. I don't know, I think I felt a bit weird about her expression. I was definitely a little worried anyway.

"Damn right I did," I said. Now, honestly I hadn't given a huge amount of thought to what I said next but even as I said it I was happy with it. I really felt there was no point in beating around the bush with this stuff. It would drive us crazy if we let it. So I said, "I mean, fucking hell Caroline, next time you and I have sex there needs to be a time limit or something. Honestly, I think a few more nights like that might just finish me." Or something like that anyway.

She looked over at me, glanced I guess, she was watching the road, but she had this sort of weird look on her face.

"So, you think there's gonna be a next time?" she said.

Shit. I really didn't like the direction this was headed.

"Well," I said, "I mean... I guess that's up to you. Jesus Caroline, obviously I really had a great time with you but, shit, come on."

"Sorry Jim," she said, a real smirk on her face this time, "just fucking with you. Obviously I'll have to talk about it with Simone and Chloe but, fuck, if everybody's still happy, I definitely want to do that again sometime."

"Fucking hell Caroline," I said, "you really fucking had me going there for a minute."

She apologised again and I guess we laughed a little about it but, honestly, there was no awkwardness. I definitely did note that she'd said 'sometime'. I hadn't given it a huge amount of thought but I did wonder just how regular my trips to Caroline's room were going to be.

Anyway, the hospital was fine. We backed up to the door like before and we were in and out in less than a half hour, Caroline knew exactly what she needed and where to find it. No sign of any red-eyes anywhere, no suspicious sounds either.

Chloe had given us directions to the high school, which had a much better collection than the local public library. Going into a new place was always a little weird and I guess the First Day had been a school day so we were expecting, you know... Yeah, it wasn't pretty. After so long, a lot of the bodies had decomposed quite a lot and there was a lot of them. The smell was still pretty bad.

So we didn't spend any longer than absolutely necessary in there. Caroline was pretty happy and probably a little surprised at the extent and advanced level of the medical textbook collection we found. So rather than pick and choose, we took everything. Just loaded up a cart and took the whole damn lot. While we were there, we took some other stuff too, stuff we'd been thinking about before, books on agriculture, car maintenance, stuff like that.

So I guess we were pretty pleased with ourselves when we headed back towards the big box store. We were in a good mood I mean, just chatting and whatever, so when we pulled up to the intersection right beside the store and Caroline went really silent all of a sudden I knew something serious was wrong.

I looked out the window and I could see instantly what it was. Backed up to the door, right where we'd backed up the last time we'd been there actually, was a beat-up, old looking RV. Like, 70s old.

We looked at each other. There were two options, right? Leave and go straight home. Hope they didn't hear or see us, whoever they were. Or... and I mean, obviously this was the only real choice when you think about it, we had to go over there and... we had to see who they were.

Now, as I've said to you before, the thought had crossed my mind when we'd first met Caroline at the hospital that we should probably be a little more careful with new survivors and after our run in with the red-eyes the previous day I guess we were still pretty conscious of keeping our safety at the front of our minds.

So I had my rifle at the ready and pointed through the window as Caroline pulled us slowly forward, into the parking lot. We couldn't see any movement anywhere and we assumed whoever owned the RV was inside the store.

Caroline pulled up a little short of the RV, making sure to leave a clear and simple route of escape in case we needed to get out of there in a hurry.

"What's the plan?" I said. I guess we all pretty much deferred to Caroline by this point for stuff like this. I know she was a doctor or whatever but she was still a fucking Marine doctor.

We talked about just honking, just calling out. But we were still concerned about attracting red-eyes, so it made most sense to just wait. I didn't need to be a veteran to realise that going into the store was a bad idea. With all the aisles and shelves and everything, it was a security nightmare.

So we waited. We hadn't given ourselves a time limit or anything, we just waited.

Now, I have to say that, yes, the prospect of finding more survivors was pretty fucking exciting, that's for sure but, like I said, events lately had definitely tempered my enthusiasm a little bit. So I was much more focussed on keeping watch than letting my thoughts drift into the possibilities of who it might be.

We'd parked the SUV in such a way as to give us a pretty good view of both entrances, the one with the jammed car in it that we'd walked in ourselves on our last visit and the other one with the RV backed up to it. We had the doors open and we stood there, eyeing the store doors through our scopes, Caroline on the one with the car, me on the one with the RV. I won.

It was just a flicker at first, but enough for me to draw Caroline's attention.

"I've got movement I think," I said.

"What do you see?" she said. I still wasn't sure by that point. I was sure it was movement alright, I just didn't know what. I knew Caroline wouldn't take her eyes of her door to check.

And then there was sound. I guess we were maybe twenty or thirty meters from the door, but I could clearly hear voices just after I'd seen the movement. And then, pretty suddenly I guess, there was no more wondering. Obviously, they didn't know we were there.

They came out together, one after another. Four women, chatting to each other like they hadn't got a care in the world, until they finally saw us.

"Oh my god," I heard one of them say and they turned. Caroline had finally taken her attention away from the other door, and her rifle was pointed at the newcomers now, same as mine.

"Don't hurt us," another one of them said, putting her hands into the air. The others soon followed suit.

"Hi there," I said, pretty convivially I thought, but I didn't take a hand off my rifle to wave. I have to say, these didn't look like the dangerous menaces my mind had tried to prepare myself for.

There were all pretty close in age I would have said, late teens, early twenties maybe. Some of their clothes looked pretty shabby, although some were obviously straight off the rack from the store. Their faces were kind of dirty and I guess they looked a little gaunt and they all looked like they'd very recently cut their hair really short.

I will say at this point that, yes, I had noted that they were all women. As soon as we'd seen the RV, as soon as the prospect of seeing more survivors occurred, I had absolutely thought about whether there'd be another man. I guess, at that point, I was still really trying to grapple with what it meant that I could be the last man alive.

"Um, hi," the first one said again and waved one of the hands she was holding above her head a little.

"Any more of you in there?" Caroline asked.

"N-no... it's... it's just us," a third one said.

"OK ladies," Caroline said, "listen carefully to me and we're all going to be just fine, OK? My name is Caroline and this is my friend Jim. We're good people, OK? We have no intention of hurting you, but we need to make sure that you're not a threat to us. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes... I think," one of them said, and I guess they all kind of muttered a little.

"Good," Caroline said. Her voice was clear and authoritative but I have to say I didn't think it sounded threatening. Actually, the thought occurred to me in that moment that she'd make a pretty good teacher. "OK," she said, "now listen carefully. I want you to step forward away from the RV towards me and lie face down on the ground slowly, keeping your hands straight out in front of you, OK? Then I'm going to come over there and search you while Jim keeps his weapon trained on you for my safety. Is that OK with you?"

"Do we have a fucking choice?" It was the first one again.

"Not really," Caroline said. I mean, everything she was saying sounded like something out of some cop show on TV or something except, like I said, she wasn't shouting. She was totally calm. "OK," she said, "let's go ladies, down on the ground, arms out in front of you please."

Without saying anything further, the four looked at each other a little and then slowly started to move onto the ground.

When they were down, just as instructed, Caroline said my name and I just nodded. I stepped forward a little, clear of the door of the SUV and I saw Caroline lower her rifle and move quickly towards the women.

"Anybody have anything on them I should know about?" she said.

"I have a... a knife in my pocket, my right pocket," one of them said.

"OK," Caroline said, and started with her, "that's good, thank you."

"This might be a little uncomfortable for a minute OK," she said, "but I promise you have nothing to be afraid of. Jim and I are not going to hurt you."

From behind, she knelt between the knife woman's legs and patted her slowly, carefully and thoroughly, relieving her of the knife and then repeated the action with the others.

"We're good," she said, looking up at me. She moved back around towards me and something definitely passed between us. We talked about it after but, honestly, in that moment we didn't need to discuss it to know that these four weren't a threat to us. They couldn't be. What they were was tired and hungry, but definitely not a threat.

So I lowered my rifle.

"Sorry about that ladies," I said, "but you can't be too careful these days, you know."

The four were getting slowly to their feet, looking at each other, looking at us, obviously not feeling all that safe. I knew that Caroline had a pistol in the back of her pants so I thought it might be a good idea to calm the situation if we both got rid of our rifles. I moved back to the car and placed my gun inside and looked over at Caroline. She nodded at me and did the same. I moved back out and put my hands in the air.

"I promise you, we're not gonna hurt you..." I said. There was a little period of silence and I really didn't know what to do next. I mean, it wasn't like we had a play book for this kind of thing, not yet anyway.

"Why don't we start with a proper introduction," I said, "I'm Jim and... and this is Caroline."

The one on the right as I looked responded, the one who'd had the knife.

"I'm Louise," she said, "this is Fiona and Alex and that's Lola," she said, pointing along the line.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you," I said. What else was there to say? And I don't think I really thought about it when I stepped forward. I don't think Caroline was too happy about it but I really did want these women to know we weren't a threat to them.

Lola was the closest one to me, on the far left of the group, so it was her I approached first, my hand outstretched.

I tried to smile as genuinely as I could and honestly, it wasn't hard. I mean, as far as I knew, the remaining population of the world had just doubled. This was fucking awesome, right? I could see Lola looking across to the others but, slowly and tentatively for sure, she reached her hand out too. And at first, as I felt our hands come together, her touch was gentle, nervous even, but then she just jumped me. It was remarkable that Caroline didn't pull the pistol right there and then and after, I was really glad she hadn't.

Lola's arms were wrapped around me and her head was buried in my shoulder and I could feel her sobbing immediately.

"We thought," she said, between sobs I mean, "we thought there was no one else left."

I turned my body to Caroline just in time to see her relax a little from the tense pose she'd taken on and I could see her hand come back empty from behind her back. I smiled at her.