The Dead Survive Read online

  “Princess, meet Melissa. She needs a place to stay tonight, and I knew you’d appreciate the company.” He slung the girl, who couldn’t have been a day over fifteen, toward the bed and called for someone out in the hall. Freddie came in, pulling a folding cot, which he set up near the window. He was gone in less than a minute.

  Mason ordered me to sit on the cot, while he stalked toward the quivering girl on my bed. I could barely stand to think about the things I knew he’d do to her. I tried to close my eyes and look away, to will myself not to hear her screams, but Mason wouldn’t have it.

  “Turn over here and open your eyes, girlie,” he said. “Every time I catch you not watching, I’ll cut her again.”

  I believed him. I watched. I wished I could command my brain not to record the brutal images. But it did.

  Time ceased to have any relevance as the horrifying night unfolded. My eyes were soon hot and dry, my silent tears exhausted, but I didn’t dare close them to gain a moment’s relief. He kept the butterfly knife in one hand, and I wished I had a prayer of wresting it away from him, but I didn’t. I was a coward.

  Mason left before dawn, and Melissa didn’t say a word. I got a rag from the bathroom to clean her up the best I could, but it was obvious her mind had gone somewhere far, far away. I longed to go there with her, but knew it would leave her even more alone. I wasn’t much, but I was all she had. I couldn’t be her savior, but at least I could…be.

  “Melissa, honey, I’m Ellen.” I didn’t make eye contact, as if trying to gain the trust of a skittish animal. “I know you hurt. I won’t hurt you, though. I’m just going to clean you up, okay?”

  She flinched at the touch of the cloth on her cheek, but allowed me to wash the worst of her injuries. Mason had left a half-full water bottle behind, and I encouraged her to take a few sips before she curled into a tight ball on the bed. I talked to her for a while, murmuring nonsense in what I hoped was a soothing manner, until she finally fell asleep.

  An hour or two after sunrise, though, everything changed. At first I thought it was another zombie attack, but I heard shots coming from farther away, as if someone were firing at the hotel. I had no idea if that was good news, then decided anything was better than the hell I’d endured for the past few weeks. Even death.

  Melissa jolted awake at the sound of a particularly loud gunshot, her eyes wild with panic. I clutched her to me, and in her fear, she allowed the contact, trembling in my arms.

  Booted feet thundered down the halls, men shouting about defensive positions and points of attack. I pulled Melissa down against the wall beside the bed, and we waited.

  It might have been an hour later, maybe two, when I realized I was hearing shots inside the hotel, not just in the streets. I heard doors crashing open, screams, softer cries. When our door flew open, I clung to Melissa. If these men wanted to kill us, I couldn’t stop them.

  They didn’t kill us. They saved us.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next few days were a whirlwind. We were transported in a rattletrap van along with other freed captives to a fortified neighborhood several miles away. I guessed the subdivision had been built in the 1950s or 60s, with small, primarily single-story houses, though a handful of larger houses were scattered up and down the streets.

  I heard it referred to as the Compound, which seemed appropriate. A number of the houses had boards or even metal plates over all the first floor windows, lookout platforms had been erected on roofs, and a good portion of the subdivision was surrounded by a makeshift wall made of whatever materials were at hand. Additional stacks of wood, metal sheeting, logs, and even tires were piled at intervals along the wall, intended to further strengthen the defenses.

  Once we were inside, we were met by a small group who seemed to be in charge of the community. They took us to have our injuries treated, and made arrangements to find us somewhere to sleep.

  None of us spoke much. These people seemed kind, but how could we be sure? I certainly never would have expected a nondescript warehouse worker like Mason to do what he did. Who knew what these people’s agenda really was? They all spoke gently to us, telling us their names and assuring us we were safe, but I wasn’t convinced. I didn’t care who they were. I was grateful we were out of immediate danger, but remained on edge, afraid at any moment we’d once again be at someone’s mercy. I kept Melissa firmly by my side, determined that whatever happened, she wouldn’t be left alone to deal with it.

  The looters who were left alive after the Compound’s attack on the hotel, or who converged from other locations, attacked repeatedly, as did the zombies. So much human activity drew the undead in growing numbers. Some of the women from the hotel fought them alongside the Compound’s defenders, eager to release some of the rage they’d bottled up while being held prisoner, but I stayed hidden in our assigned bedroom in one of the fortified houses, trying to get Melissa to talk.

  Then I started drinking.

  Everyone wanted to help us. They knew some of what we’d endured, but nobody who hadn’t gone through it could ever really know. There was still plenty of stockpiled liquor around, and some people thought maybe it would calm us, help us sleep, whatever. I didn’t care. If I drank enough, I forgot about things for a while. And any second I wasn’t reliving Mason’s atrocities, and hoping someone had blown his head off during the rescue, was precious.

  During my lucid moments, I learned one thing. We all had lives before this pandemic—because it was beginning to look like this was some sort of disease—but none of it mattered. The only parts of our past lives which were relevant were the experiences and skills we had that might contribute to the survival of the community.

  I was a librarian-in-training. I could research and catalog with the best of them, but I didn’t have any particularly useful skills. I’d have to figure out a way to fit in here, eventually. But for now I was busy being depressed. And terribly, terribly angry.

  It was strange meeting the women who had shared my captivity. They’d suffered the same abuse, from the same men, but we couldn’t talk about it. In fact, we tended to avoid each other’s company. Even among the other residents of the Compound, most people didn’t talk much about their lives before. It was too painful, because the majority of the people in that life were lost to us. So some of us worked, some raged, some cried alone in the dark, and I drank.

  A few of the women attached themselves to men in the community. I guessed they needed to be reminded what it was like to be touched without violence. I couldn’t. If bland, inconspicuous Mason could turn out to be such a monster, how could any man I saw here be any better, any safer? I knew it didn’t make sense even as I thought it, but it was how I felt.

  Several weeks after I came to the Compound, some looters tried to burn us out, and were captured in the attempt. When I heard this, I hoped Mason was one of them, because I was certain they’d be executed. I wanted to see him beg for his life. I wanted to pull the trigger or drop the noose. I was disappointed when he wasn’t among them, though I recognized them all.

  The residents debated how to punish these men, and weren’t even close to a consensus. Some wanted to send them away, while others thought they should be imprisoned and forced to perform hard labor. Others wanted them executed. I knew how I’d cast my vote.

  I couldn’t understand how anyone could show these abominations any sort of mercy. They hadn’t shown any to me, or Melissa, or any of the other captives. And the fact that some of the women here wanted to put them out of the Compound, where they could torture even more women, infuriated me. They could call it banishment if they wanted, but the fact remained these men would be free to continue their violent ways.

  Courtney and Amelia were the worst. They were part of the group who would ultimately decide, and I considered them the lowest sort of traitors. I’d heard rumors that Amelia had briefly been held captive herself, and the idea she would not want rapists dead was beyond my comprehension. If I were able to bring myself to speak to any
one but Melissa, who still wasn’t speaking back, I’d have told them what I thought in language caustic enough to make their ears bleed.

  When the men were sent packing with orders to be across the river and into Ohio by nightfall, I drank for two straight days. I missed my shifts clearing debris from the recent attacks, and my mood didn’t improve once I sobered up. Not that I was sober for long at that point. We were all assigned jobs to help support and protect the community, and up until then I’d managed to fulfill my obligations between bottles, but in the immediate aftermath of what I saw as gross betrayal, I couldn’t find the will to care.

  A little more than a week later, the biggest swarm of zombies so far attacked the Compound. The residents suffered their first loss of life that day—three men caught trying to get back inside the wall after a scouting mission—and it hit everybody hard. It was decided to have a day of mourning and reflection to try to reconnect with the tattered remains of our own humanity.

  Amelia thought it would be a good time to resolve the animosity between us. It would have been better to wait till I wasn’t drinking, but those times were few and far between. She approached me near the spot we were using to sort and allocate building materials as I was unloading some debris from a rusty wheelbarrow, a little unsteady on my feet from lingering intoxication.

  The sight of her put me immediately on my guard. Her honey-colored hair was tied back haphazardly, and her dark jeans bore powdery hand prints and miscellaneous stains, suggesting she was coming from a shift in the communal kitchen. But it was her shirt that really sent my attitude into overdrive. Disney? Really? The insipid rodent stretched across her breasts seemed to mock me with memories of a past I could never regain.

  She halted several feet away, safely outside my over-sized personal space, shuffling her feet and rubbing her hands on her dirty jeans.

  “Hey, Ellen…can we talk for a minute?”

  Great. My conversations, other than Melissa, were kept as close to monosyllabic replies to unavoidable questions as possible. The last semi-normal conversation I’d had was with Matt the fateful day we decided to try to keep the wholesale store running in the midst of the panic. If I had to talk, why did it have to be with Amelia?

  I shrugged, bracing one hand on the wheelbarrow in an attempt to disguise my blood alcohol level. “Sure, I guess.”

  She tilted her head and squinted a little, either at my sullen reluctance, or at my unsteady posture. “Do you want to go sit?”

  “No, this is fine.” I didn’t want to prolong the impending discussion, whatever it might be. I also didn’t want her to see me try to walk without weaving or stumbling.

  The corners of her mouth tightened and turned down as she continued to study me. “Okay, fine. I’ve been talking with some of the women who were rescued with you. I want to make sure you’re all comfortable here, that you feel welcome.” She hesitated, glancing down and brushing ineffectively and a floury hand print. “Look, I know it can be hard to readjust in a new place, to feel safe again, after what you experienced. I wanted to let you know if you have any questions about things here, or if you need to talk about what happened, you can come to me, any time.”

  I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up. Instead, I looked up at the warm spring sky, watching for a moment as a bold white cumulus cloud began to pass over the sun, giving a promise of a few minutes’ shade.

  She started to speak again, but I didn’t want to hear it, so I took a deep breath and stared into her startled eyes. “Why the ever-loving fuck would I ever want to talk about what happened?” Profanity was new to me since the apocalypse. I was getting rather good at it, at least in my head, though it still shocked me a bit to hear it coming out of my mouth.

  Amelia held her palms out toward me, raised in a calm-the-hell-down posture. “I know, I know,” she said, “I know you don’t want to think about it, but holding it all in will make it harder for you to heal, to get past it. When you’re ready to talk, you can come to me. I understand.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin slightly. “I’ve been through the same thing.”

  Yes, from what I’d heard, she’d fallen into the hands of a gang in Georgetown, about twenty miles away, a few days into the apocalypse. But I’d also heard she’d been held only a couple of days before escaping and encountering a group of people headed for the Compound. I didn’t doubt she’d suffered, but she hadn’t—I was pretty sure—endured weeks of imprisonment and multiple daily sexual assaults. And that’s exactly what I told her.

  “Nobody’s experiences are exactly the same, Ellen. They never were, and they sure aren’t now.” She took a step toward me, her voice taking on a pleading tone. Why did she care so much whether I talked about what happened, or if I healed? I didn’t even care. “I’m not saying you’ll get over it like it never happened, but you can get past it, at least enough to move forward. I did. It wasn’t easy, and I’m not the same, but in a lot of ways I’m stronger now. You can be too.”

  The sheer impossibility that I’d ever feel strong again, in any way, slammed into me, and all I could do for a few minutes was laugh. It was a laughter full of bitterness and regret, and it tasted vile in my mouth. Or maybe that was stale bourbon. Either way, I’d had enough. “You have no fucking idea what I feel, or what I can or can’t do, Amelia, and it’s none of your business.” I put my other hand on the opposite wheelbarrow handle and started to lift it, but my feet didn’t get the message, and I stumbled, catching myself just short of falling to one knee. Close call. Maybe she’d think I simply turned an ankle.

  No such luck. “Ellen, please. We can help you if you let us.” She seemed so sincere, but I no longer trusted people. I always suspected they were hiding something ugly behind a friendly mask.

  I snorted. “Help? I didn’t ask for any, and I won’t. I’ll be fine if you all just leave me alone.”

  Looking significantly at my feet, which didn’t seem to want to stay still and weren’t pointed in precisely the same direction, she said, “What about Melissa? Who’s going to look out for her if you’re eyeball deep in that bottle you hide in the box spring of your bed, huh? You can’t go on like this, drunk four days out of five…”

  Suddenly, I’d had enough. Deep down, I was ashamed of how I was handling things—or not handling them. I knew better, but what right did this bitch have to point it out? Before I could think it through, an adrenaline surge gave me the strength and coordination to launch myself at her like a slightly drunken bull after a waving red cape.

  After that, things were a confusing jumble of images. I punched, kicked, clawed, bit…I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to remember what it was like to be at someone’s mercy, when that person didn’t have any mercy left.

  Others finally pulled me off her, and I found myself locked in my bedroom. When the whiskey wore off and the hangover set in, I was deeply disgusted with myself. I was afraid I would have killed her if I could. I had been dangerously close to becoming one of the monsters myself.

  Several of the community’s leaders came to talk to me, including Amelia, who had gouges on her neck and hands, and her left arm in a sling due to a dislocated shoulder. The full impact of my remorse was crushing. I think they saw it, and that they had some sympathy for what had driven me to such a terrible act.

  I was still uncomfortable talking to men, though, so Liz helped me the most. She was married to the de facto community leader, and was a very soft-spoken woman with a gentle but matter-of-fact approach. She persisted in urging me to interact and take an interest in my new life, without prodding me to “talk things out.” She just treated me like she treated everyone else.

  When I completed my sentence, a week of hard labor digging up garden plots, and confinement when not working, Liz asked me to help her organize and catalog the many books she was collecting. The knowledge of how to build and repair things, treat injuries, and grow and store food, for example, had to be preserved if we hoped to survive. Her thoughtful gesture made m
ore of a difference than anything else. For the first time, I felt useful, and gained some hope I might find a place in this new world.

  Her only condition was I stop drinking. That was hard at first, but got easier with each passing day. The lure of finding myself once again surrounded by books, engaged in the meticulous but satisfying process of sorting and cataloging them, was a small taste of familiarity and comfort I wanted badly enough to fight my cravings and try to push away my apathy.

  A lot of new people started arriving as word spread of a sheltered community with a cooperative—rather than murderous—lifestyle. Sometimes it was a caravan with a few dozen people, and other times small groups of survivors arriving on foot.

  One day, I was taking a basket of food to the people guarding the southeast portion of the wall. I’d just delivered their meal and was trying to form intelligent replies to the casual chit-chat of the crew, when I noticed a group of six men crossing the cleared area outside the wall. One of the guards raised a hand, and the man nearest the wall raised his in reply and then motioned for the rest of the group to proceed toward the Compound. They had almost made it to the gates when a dozen zombies appeared from behind a cluster of shipping containers the builders were preparing to incorporate into the wall and cut them off. I was retrieving my empty basket from Joseph, a slight man who was an expert shot with a bow and arrow, when the men shouted and broke into a run. As they neared the wall, what I saw terrified me.

  No, it wasn’t the ragged, mutilated zombies that sent flaming daggers of fear into my gut. It was the man.

  He was about twenty yards outside the gate when I saw him. He looked exactly like I’d have expected Mason to look, if I’d only heard about the sadistic, sanity-breaking things he’d done, rather than experiencing them up close and personal.