Man Eaters (Book 2): The Horde Read online

  Luke continued. “It’s not just rules and protocols like we have—they have curfews, food rations, mandatory service, and they are constantly under surveillance by the military. This includes strip searches, mandatory bed times—”

  “A veritable martial law state,” Henry offered. “Most of their resources go to the military, which is more concerned at this point in time with growing its own numbers and not saving our civilian population. They’ll go to great lengths to get help for soldiers but not necessarily for the civilians.”

  Luke laid his hand on top of Butcher’s. “This was not their spin, of course, but what we were able to gather from our conversation with them. The United States military is more concerned with the military than the United States. This makes them our enemy and the next time they approach, we need to prepare to fire on them.”

  Wild Bill, who was now in charge of the cattle, raised his hand. “Them coming by land says a bunch.”

  Dallas nodded. “Yes, it does. We need to better prepare ourselves in the event they continue here to take us by force. Luke, you and Wendell see what we need to defend ourselves from any sort of sneak attack. I want a report in my lap before end of tomorrow.”

  Wendell raised his hand. “In the absence of dynamite or bombs, I can construct a catapult to deliver the equivalent of two dozen Molotov cocktails.”

  “Get on that,” Dallas ordered. “I also think it’s time we blockaded all main arteries into Angola. I don’t want anyone to just drive up to our front door again. Henry, I’d like you to take care of that.”

  Henry nodded. “Me and my people can round up a bunch of the dead vehicles and put them in such a way that even a Hummer can’t bust through.”

  “Good. I want to see your plan for that tomorrow as well. How many you need with you, who you want to take. How long you think you’ll be gone. Everything.”

  “You got it.”

  Einstein’s hand rose slowly. “Dallas, all of that is well and good, but if I was the United States military trying to attack this stronghold, I wouldn’t approach it by vehicle at all.” He rose and walked over to an old aerial photo of the prison hanging on the wall. “Where we’re most vulnerable is around the perimeter here, here, here, and here.” He tapped his finger on each part of the map.

  Everyone was silent as he continued. “I would come at night with bolt cutters, cut my way into the yard, and attack us from within…and then wait until we wake up to massacre us and get a foothold to the interior. By then, it would be a bloodbath, with massive losses on both sides.” He paused a moment before sitting down and shrugging. “Just my two cents.”

  The room was very still.

  “How old are you again?” Henry asked, breaking the tension.

  Einstein grinned. “I’ve played Call of Duty for half my life.” He shrugged. “It’s how I would attack us if this were a game.”

  “The kid’s right, as usual,” Luke interjected. “That’s as good a plan as any.”

  “But how can we best fortify against a night time attack?”

  Everyone, including Luke, turned to Einstein.

  “Without electricity, our best early warning system would be dogs. It’ll be easy enough to round up the ones that aren’t so feral and give them run of the yards and the perimeter. A barking dog means the ground security checks it out. Cake. Dogs would also be good for sniffing out zombies. If we are planning on doing this for the long haul, training dogs would be a great idea, especially for around the fencing. Dixie would be awesome at letting us know when anyone was approaching. So would Kat’s dog.”

  Dallas flashed him a smile. He’d grown up so much in their year together, yet every now and then, like when he said cake, she was reminded that he was still just a boy. “Thank you, Einstein. I believe you may have just saved all our lives.”

  “Again,” Butcher muttered, making everyone laugh.

  When the meeting finally concluded, Dallas and Roper stayed back. “Nice work out there, Love.”

  “Four lousy zombies was a test? Come on!”

  Dallas smiled and took her hand. “Show off.”

  “So…do you think they’ll be back?”

  Dallas nodded. “I do. And next time, we’ll be ready for them.”

  ****

  Butcher’s Log

  Einstein nailed it.

  I don’t even know if any of us would be alive without that little Poindexter.

  Two weeks after our first military visit, they tried coming at us in the dead of night. The dogs we’d gathered, twenty in all, were so happy to have food and companionship that they were easily retrainable…or at least tamable. Three barked at anything that moved, but the others seemed to understand their role instinctively. One of the survivors who came with the last group is a dog groomer. She is now their handler, and we got her and the dogs not a moment too soon.

  That night, there were at least fifty of the US soldiers, all dressed in night gear, creeping around the perimeter, trying to get in by cutting the chain link fence. When the first dog went off snarling and sneering, so did the others, and we mowed every last one of those soldiers down in their tracks. Dallas had doubled up on sentry duty, so when the dogs barked, the crow’s nest relayed our intruder alert, and the sentry came through the locked gate and rang a loud bell. We were all up and outside in less than thirty seconds, taking out soldiers who seemed very surprised to die by bow and arrow.

  When we finished off the last one, Dallas ordered all CGIs to the rallying point on the outside of the fence. As we all moved into position, all ZBs were ordered back inside, which they gleefully did.

  It didn’t take long for them to come. Not with the scent of fresh meat piled outside our gates. It might have been clothed and wearing shoes, but it was meat now, plain and simple. Food for the ghouls. At first, I expected a dozen or so, but I was off—way off.

  And that was when we knew they would keep coming.

  And they just kept coming.

  We had to use bolts, arrows, clubs, machetes, bats, and even the dogs to put down the five or six thousand or so who came to the banquet. We were covered in blood as we slashed and hacked our way through the masses, until we’d dropped them all where they stood.

  It was a couple of hours before dawn when we finally beheaded the last of those fucking vultures, though we were tempted to let them gnaw on the bones of the military laying around the perimeter.

  I’d never seen Dallas work so feverishly as she did that night. Back to back, she and Roper must have killed eight or nine hundred or more themselves. They were a killing machine that never slowed, never wavered, never showed signs of tiring. As much as I have seen them taking the heads off of zombies, they’ve never been more impressive than they were that night.

  I have to admit, it might not have happened had Meg not insisted we use the few tubes of Super Glue to glue Dallas’s wound shut. It was brilliant, and once it was glued shut, she never again worried about it tearing open and bleeding.

  Arms slick with man eater blood, hair dripping with a combination of perspiration and goo, they lead us like two people who had been doing this forever. From my vantage point in the crow’s nest, I watched with pride and awe as they took down zombie after zombie.

  It was incredible.

  I remember reading a book once called The Killing Fields. They had nothing on us. The fifty dead soldiers had attracted upwards of five thousand or more zombies (I lost count after fifteen hundred) that just kept pressing forward. That was when I realized for sure that Dallas knew exactly what she was doing here in Angola, and that it was only a matter of time before our lives would change.

  I just hadn’t realized how much.

  It was only a matter of time before she outgrew the work she was doing and the CGIs would leave the ZBs in order to transform yet another prison…or hospital. Dallas had a vision and it didn’t include resting on her laurels. She was out to do something bigger than convert a single prison.

  She was out to rebuild our world
.

  I know that by successfully transforming the prison, she would see the need to do so again. Dallas would establish outposts that would save those unfortunate enough to be straight. She and Roper would do what needed to be done to save those who needed to be saved. I knew it the moment that last head fell. They were too good to keep to ourselves, and that knowledge broke my heart.

  That meant that me and Luke and our unborn child would be left behind, and I don’t have to mince words when I say, oh fuck that! We’ve been together too long to be kicked to the curb even if that is the right thing to do. I belong with Roper, Einstein, and Dallas. I have since day one. I am not going to just sit here in Angola just because I will soon have a kid. Oh no, no, no.

  Luke disagrees with me, of course. He believes Dallas would be wise to keep us here so we can continue leading while she opens another compound from which to fight. He thinks taking a baby on the road is irresponsible and dangerous. He thinks that I am going to stay here to live a life without my new family.

  Did I say fuck that?

  I don’t want to raise my daughter in a prison without the likes of Roper and Dallas. Uh uh. We’re family, right? You don’t leave family behind to help someone else’s family. That’s just wrong. It’s just…

  Oh hell, I’m crying all over the goddamned paper—fucking hormones! Seems like I cry for everything from a paper cut to stepping in dog shit these days. Being pregnant in a normal world is hard enough, but carrying a baby among hordes of undead? Yeah, you try it someday. Some days, I forget she is here. When I reach for something and I feel her moving around in there, I catch my breath. Growing a life is a wonderful experience, but I am so busy being in survival mode, I seldom have time to appreciate life.

  Anyway, where was I?

  Oh, the epic failure of the military to take us over.

  Fifty men? Were they kidding? Hell, Hunter and Fletcher killed half of them before they knew what hit them. Dumb asses. I wonder how long it will take the U.S. Army to figure out they failed. With next to no communication technology, it could be weeks before they figure it out, but Dallas thinks we have a week, maybe more, before they send more soldiers—more than fifty. Luke says it’s personal now. The United States military is not used to anyone pushing back, let alone decimating them. They’ll come at us for sure…with a vengeance. They have to flex their muscles for fear of being replaced. But let me ask you this—what fool would take on a pack of aggressive lesbians, a platoon of well-trained archers, a gaggle of Einsteins, and a pride of crazy ass rednecks fighting for the survival of their country?

  Yeah. That’s what I think.

  Without their tanks, their planes, their smart bombs, their heat-seeking missiles, the United States military is nothing but an over-testosteroned street gang trying to take something that isn’t theirs, and we have no plans on just handing it over to them. Oh hell no. Uh uh.

  So far, rebels-2, U.S. military-0.

  And that’s just the beginning.

  ****

  Dallas’s Log

  After the military’s failed attack, I went against Luke’s admonishment and sent my five best male CGIs across the Mississippi to take out as many soldiers as they could. After carefully weighing the options, I decided I had to go with my old high school basketball coach’s mantra—that the best defense is a good offense. They would not be expecting us to come after them. They would never believe we would have the guts and the weapons to attack their camp and dismantle their vehicles.

  In short, they have severely underestimated us and our determination.

  Yeah, I know, it was backward thinking from everyone else’s, but my team had won the state basketball championships three out of four years running. We had the worst shooting average in the league all four years because the coach believed the more shots you took, the better your odds were that the ball would go in.

  So, we had played a run-and-gun offense.

  It worked.

  And we were playing a run-and gun-offense now. While Luke thought it reckless, I disagreed. You can’t sit around all the time waiting for the class bully to take a swing at you. At some point, you have to take your chances and go up and kick him in the balls. You have to, as the coach used to say, “Show ‘em you got teeth!”

  And so that’s what we had decided to do.

  We were going to put the U.S. military on notice that if they kept coming after us, they were going to feel those teeth.

  All but one of the guys made it back. Louis took three shots in the back so they had to leave him, but not before the five of them had managed to reduce the soldiers’ numbers by dozens.

  Dozens.

  I had hoped for ten or twenty, but they counted seventy-nine before they made their escape, which was easy to do once the hordes started in after the fresh meat. You could always count on the zombies to make an appearance once the blood started pouring.

  After a memorial for Louis, we continued our preparation for retaliation. Not until I can get the military to back off can we head to the next prison we need to clear out. Right now, everyone is making their best guess as to where the next prison is we’ll travel to. Some have thought Texas, others have said Chicago. I’ve not shared that yet. It’s important to focus on where we are now.

  We are doing another flyer drop, only this time in Texas. The last group of survivors we took in were from Dallas, and they said there were pockets of survivors everywhere living off the cattle. I want those cowboys.

  Tomorrow, Colby and I take the plane out and we’ll see if we can’t convince some of those good ole’ boys to come out of hiding and fight for the stars and stripes. Wild Bill thinks all they need is to know that there is someplace to go and they’ll grab a bunch of horses and ride on out. Dallas is about two hundred miles away, so Colby and I will go as deep into Texas as the winds will allow.

  It’s been a while since I updated my journal about significant people, so here goes:

  Roper has managed to fill the barn with a dozen well-trained horses, so now our hunters can travel farther. The truth is, we no longer need to hunt, as she’s also grown our cattle herd to nearly two thousand head, but the fresh meat is good, and the venison makes great jerky. She and I seem to fall deeper in love with every passing day, and I rely on her more than anyone could imagine. At the end of every grueling day, I look forward to lying in her arms and feeling a sense of peace and safety I can find nowhere else. She is the best thing to come out of this and I am a very lucky woman.

  Einstein has a boy crush on Wendell, whom I admire and respect a great deal. I don’t think Einstein ever had anyone understand him in the way Wendell does, and together they’ve created all sorts of gadgets to make our lives easier. Wendell is wonderful with him, which makes me like the tech-head geek even more. He is patient and kind to Einstein and has taught him a great deal.

  While he has a boy crush on Wendell, he has a real crush on Cassie, who, though a few years older, could possibly return his affections some day. It’s hard to tell. I hope she does. Everyone deserves to be loved.

  I’ve really grown to like that girl. She works hard, never complains, and keeps the little ones occupied in the printing room. Cassie uses a formula Wendell gave her for creating ink using the tea of fresh petals, so she has made birthday cards, calendars, and even posters about the upcoming theater events.

  Yeah, theater.

  Go figure.

  Jamie came to me one night and suggested we start a theater group so people have something to do besides just staying alive. She said we would all be more mentally and emotionally sharp if there was some down time. Without entertainment, we’d all either work too hard or be bored out of our minds. Besides, what better way to occupy fifty-two gay guys?

  At first, the straights were unsure about a “theater” program, but the boys put on such an incredible performance that first night, they’ve had a packed house every Saturday night since. The result was a change in morale that reminded me that the more normal we could mak
e Angola, the better off everyone would be. Jamie was right and the change was immediate. Now, everyone wants in on the act, and there’s even a group of mixed gays and straights working on an original play.

  That leads me to Butcher. Hormonal and emotional, she’s on edge a lot. Can’t say I blame her. Having a baby in this mess? That would make anyone crazy. Luke has the patience of Job with her, and gives her a wide berth, never questioning her extreme level of participation around Angola. I get it. Work is her salvation. Maybe it’s ours as well. When that woman gets on a rant, everyone leaps out of the way.

  Then there’s Luke. I don’t know what I’d have done without him. That man is a miracle worker. He has taken a disparate group of men and women and molded them into a well-oiled fighting machine. We all owe him a debt we can never repay. He’ll make a great dad…if he ever has the time to devote to his family.

  I’ve decided to leave Henry in charge when we leave. People respect him and he’s strong enough to command a large group. He and his gang have proven to be outstanding fighters. I trust they will do the right thing here in Angola. He and Wild Bill have become good friends, and they have made a horseshoe pit where they now put on all kinds of tournaments. It’s great to see everyone out there cheering people on and actually laughing together.

  It’s what we need if we are going to get through this.

  Wendell has agreed to come with us so he can get us up and running like he did here, though even he is unaware of where I want to take us. The guy is incredible. He could make a rocket ship out of rubber bands and paste. We’re going to need a lot more Wendells when we get the country back.

  That reminds me—I have to admit to being slightly surprised that the government hasn’t figured the gay piece out yet. How can that be? Are they so short-sighted? Did they just think bitten survivors were lucky? Maybe they ran them through a battery of tests—drew blood, kept them under surveillance—treated them like guinea pigs. Even with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being repealed, the military was still a no-homo zone, and as crazy as life suddenly became, the last thing a soldier would want was to be tossed out of the only safe zone in the country.