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Still laughing, Gonzalez and McFarland bore down on him.
"I'm sorry for what I've done, and I'm ready to face the consequences."
They fired at the same time, and the last thing Baker saw before the
beautiful orange flower bloomed was the look of disbelief on both
Gonzalez's and McFarland's faces.
The pain in his stomach ceased, and Baker closed his eyes. The explosion
felt warm on his skin, and he relished it.
Something was screaming at him from far away, and a second later, he
found out what it was.
306 Carrion birds hovered over the site in a thick, dark cloud. Jim
remained beneath the shelter of the trees, staring in disbelief. He'd
found a pair of binoculars on one of the zombies he had killed, and
though he wanted to look away, he found that he couldn't. Instead, he
watched in dreadful fascination as the horrors were magnified before him.
Schow's forces were decimated. The burned out husks of tanks and
vehicles still smoked, their inhabitants smoldering with them. Zombies
littered the landscape, each one brought down by some form of head
trauma. Dozens more thrashed in the mud; appendages severed, bodies cut
in half, but still moving. Hordes of them swarmed about the lawn,
feasting on the fallen.
Jim shuddered, noting that many of the creatures partaking in the
massacre were once Schow's men. Even worse were the once captive
civilians, now freed from bondage but their dead bodies a prisoner of
something even worse.
Not all of the humans were being killed. Several dozen had been rounded
up, stripped of their weapons, and were now being herded inside the
complex. Jim could only imagine what the creatures would do with them.
Would they be used for food? Livestock? Or perhaps, something even more
sinister?
His shoulders slumped. Martin was nowhere in sight, and Jim could only
hope that the old man had not suffered. There was nothing more he could
do here.
He started to turn away, and then froze, staring through the binoculars.
Baker walked toward the captives, talking to the group of zombies that
guarded them. His flesh was burned black in places, and his mid-section
was an empty cavity.
Jim lowered the binoculars, gathered as much weapons and ammunition that
he could carry, and turned away.
307 Martin was dead. Baker was a zombie. Nothing else now stood between
him and Danny.
Ob looked out at his kingdom through Baker's eyes, and he saw that it
was good. He gave orders regarding the captives, and then traversed the
battlefield, welcoming the newly risen and joining in the feast. He had
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no stomach but it didn't matter to him. He was enjoying this new body.
From somewhere far away, Baker screamed.
Ob's laughter drowned out the sound of it in his head, and soon, the
screams faded away to nothingness.
308
Jim hobbled along the side of the road, sticking close enough to the
edge so that he could seek cover in the treeline if he needed to. As
near as he could tell, most of the undead in this area, both two-legged
and otherwise, were concentrated around Havenbrook. He hoped to travel
as far as he could while they were occupied at the site.
He readjusted the M-16, shifting its weight in his hands. An identical
weapon was slung across his back, and he wore a pistol holstered at his
side. The straps on the second machine gun chafed his skin as he walked.
He tried to ignore the protests from his aching muscles, but his
blistered feet were balls of flame, and the reopened wound in his
shoulder trickled blood and pus. His upper arm felt warm where the
infection burned in him, and the flesh around the bullet hole was red
and puffy.
He had never felt so exhausted. He shuffled northward and swirling
clouds of dust, kicked up by his boots, marked his passage. All around
him, the land was silent, as if nature were holding her breath. The
cornfields did not hum with the buzzing of insects or the chorus of
birds. The houses sat like stones, dour and mournful. The sounds of the
battle's terrible aftermath faded with every step he took, until they
vanished completely.
309 Jim wiped the sweat from his eyes and listened to the silence,
losing himself in the strange beauty of the moment. He wished he was
more articulate, wished he could define what he felt. He found himself
wondering if Martin would have appreciated the serenity, and thought
that he would have.
Thoughts of the old man brought a smile to his haggard face, and he
began to replay the journey in his mind; Carrie and the baby, Martin,
Delmas and Jason Clendenan and the other scattered survivors they'd
encountered, Schow and his men, Haringa, Baker-it all flashed before
him, leading him to now. This road. This final road. If he could find a
car, he'd reach his destination within an hour. If not, he could still
be there before nightfall, as long as he kept this pace.
He patted his pocket and felt the letter he had written to Danny after
Jason had killed his father and then himself. Knowing that the letter
was safe brought him a strange sense of reassurance. Things would turn
out all right yet.
As he plodded along however, his body began to rebel against him. The
pain began in his feet and rocketed up his legs; great stabbing spasms
that threatened to drop him in his tracks. Refusing to stop, Jim halted
only long enough to drain the last few mouthfuls of tepid water from his
bottle. Then he cast it aside with the rest of the litter along the road
and stumbled on.
He didn't hear the motor until it was almost upon him. The HumVee crept
purring up behind him, and Jim whirled, twisting his ankle as he did so.
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He tumbled to the ground, and lay there sprawled out while the vehicle
pulled alongside him.
"No! You're not going to stop me now!" He raised the M-16 and pointed it
at the HumVee.
"Jim! Is that really you? Thank the Lord!"
Martin leaned out the passenger window, hands triumphantly upraised in
thanks.
"Martin?" Jim exclaimed, and despite the exhaustion
310 in his bones and the pain in his ankle, he sprang to his feet and
ran toward the old man. "Martin! I thought you were dead!"
They clasped hands, and both of them were crying.
"It would seem that the Lord still wants me to help you, Jim."
They laughed, and Martin stepped out of the vehicle and hugged him.
"Come on, let's go find your boy."
"Amen, my friend. Amen."
Jim ducked inside the HumVee and a beautiful but tired looking black
woman smiled curtly at him from behind the wheel. Jim nodded at her,
puzzled.
"This is Frankie," Martin introduced her. "She was kind enough to give
me a ride."
"Give you a ride, hell. I saved your sorry ass and you know it."
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