Zomblog: Snoe's Journey Read online

  What they did see were (their estimate) well over a hundred people on the roof of the buildings on either side. They were waiting, and as soon as the portcullis dropped, they let loose with four flamethrowers. Men and horses went up in flames. The scream of a man is awful, but if you have never heard it from a horse, then consider yourself lucky.

  One of our groups that was on a slight bluff and responsible for firing volley after volley of flaming arrows said that they fired over a thousand. Perhaps it was the sheer quantity that gave us any results. I only wish we had a couple thousand more. I don’t think we really and truly realized the logistics of what we were undertaking.

  Seriously, when you look at a thousand arrows, you really do believe that is a lot…until you run completely out. And it is not like you can just hack off a tree limb and whittle one real quick. From what I have heard around camp, we were completely out of arrows within the first hour. There is not a single one to be found here.

  One of our groups made a run for a bunch of the general’s men who charged out from an opening that seemed to just appear. And that was when we discovered that they had these little escape tunnels, or whatever you want to call them, located all over the place.

  I don’t know how many other of these tunnels there are, but within minutes all of our people who were close to the walls and preparing to climb them were suddenly cut off. The slaughter was on a massive scale, but I was told that a lot of prisoners were taken as well. Nothing good can come from that.

  So, here is the more personal news on the day. I can’t find Selina. It is rumored that Jimmy Stonekiller was with the group caught on the other side of the portcullis on the south wall, and Brian was seen falling under about fifty of the undead when one of those explosive-tipped arrows caught him in the thigh. Supposedly it practically blew his leg off just below the hip, so he would not have survived if anybody would have been able to get to him.

  His second in command was also lost in the battle. While the Natives suffered about thirty percent casualties, the Freetown Army lost close to ninety percent. They are now being led by a man named Michael Rouse, a nerdy looking fellow who looks like he would be more comfortable anywhere but here at the moment. I have been told that his biggest asset is the fact that he has an amazingly analytical mind and will be vital in the planning of our attack.

  You read that correctly. We will attack again just before dawn. This is one of those times where it will be better for us to die to the last man trying and hoping for that one stroke of luck than to simply give up.

  On the plus side, we still have three functional flamethrowers and will be using them on the eastern wall. That is about the only part of the plan that I know so far. Angel had me with her when the meeting began, but a messenger came and said that Betty had arrived, otherwise I would have had to mention her AND Selina just a few paragraphs ago.

  She looks like hell and took a few nasty cuts. She has one slice that starts on her left cheek (it could not have missed the eye by more than a half inch) and comes down to the corner of her mouth. It almost looks like she is smiling on one side of her face in a very creepy and over exaggerated way.

  When I saw her, I felt like I was going to cry, but the strangest thing happened: nothing. I could not manufacture one single tear. I might be in shock, or maybe I am just to haggard to cry. I feel like I have been awake for about a month straight.

  When I told Betty about the fact that Selina’s group was missing and presumed lost, she wanted to turn right around and go out looking for her. She said that she last saw her in a skirmish over on the west side of the town.

  Once I got her to see the reasoning in how it would not be a good idea to go down there at night, in this thickening fog, with zombies milling about and goodness knows what else, she demanded that her group be sent that direction tomorrow. I don’t see any harm in that.

  So, the two of us have been sitting on this ridge, blankets wrapped around our shoulders, hot fermented cider to sip. The landscape below us is a mix of blobs of orange and yellow light that ebb and pulse. Some eventually die, but others remain and even grow stronger.

  Tuesday, September 20th

  I am camped in a small grove. There are probably a few thousand others here. We have been blessed with torrential rain, fog so thick that you cannot see your hand if you extend your arm fully, and wind that seems to sap every ounce of strength from you the moment it whips up and begins to buffet your tired, wet body.

  I have no idea where Angel, Ethan, Betty, Selena—or anybody familiar for that matter—may be holding up as this new band of storms rage and pelt us without mercy. What I do know is that we have at least been successful on one front.

  The Anomalies will no longer be a threat…unless they can reproduce their work and rebuild their numbers someplace else. And for that to happen, they (General Carson and his ilk) need to escape here alive. While that still remains a possibility, it is at least much less of a certainty after yesterday and today.

  Yesterday morning came, and with it, some of the worst of the fog. We used that to our advantage. Actually, I need to be more specific; the Native forces used it to their advantage. Most of the damage dealt yesterday was their doing. Ethan and the tribal army were not even able to enter into the picture until well after midday because the fog stuck around so long.

  Well before dawn would come and provide a very soft glow to the fog, Angel and over two-thirds of the Natives slipped away and into the dark. That would be the last time that I saw Angel, but whatever she did, an hour later, there were a series of huge explosions. Angry orange exclamation points flashed in the grayness, and within twenty minutes, a large stretch of the horizon to the west of our main camp was providing a beacon. That was apparently the signal, because ALL of the remaining Natives—including the group that I was part of—climbed on horses and went galloping off making these loud, undulating whoops that gave me chills.

  Fog does strange things to sound. One moment, you hear what sound like distant and muffled cries, the next instant, it is almost as if it is right on top of you.

  I was with a group that had drawn the task of making an assault on that south gate. I have to admit that part of me almost hoped that the Natives had not been able to get that gate open. However, when we arrived, it was wide open and the rooftops were clear of any threats.

  We rushed in and went right to work. Our task was to start as many fires as we could. I was just about to enter one building when I noticed something; there was a flamethrower still up on the roof to our left. I went that way with a couple of others, climbing quickly. The large barrel was at least half full!

  I pushed it to the other side of the roof which gave me a shot at lighting up what looked like a large apartment complex. It was shrouded, but I could see small squares of light from a few dozen windows. The jet of flame cut through the swirling mists. Within seconds, a good fire was blazing on one section of the building.

  People came pouring out…and I felt my stomach turn. I am just thankful that I could not really see. However, I could hear very clearly. The sounds of women and children shrieking in pain were added to the unfolding chaos as our people went on a rampage.

  I could hear the sounds of what had to be fighting coming from much further in and had to attribute that to the Natives who had gone in earlier. It sounded terrible, but nothing compared to what I was hearing at that exact moment.

  When a battle is fought, you are prepared (as much as you can be) to take the life or lives of others. I have already struggled with what had been done up to this point. I guess I just never considered the fact that I might be taking the lives of women and children, but then, if this place is a walled city, why wouldn’t it be full of them?

  Had I dehumanized the enemy so much that I never took into account that these people I would be fighting might have families? But the bigger question is what difference could that make with what we know about the plans of General Carson and his people? The Anomalies have been men and wom
en, so that distinction has already been wiped from the table of consideration. Also, my army has both men and women.

  I guess I had kept my enemy as generalized as possible to help myself deal with what needed to be done to achieve our objective. The screams that came from below tore something inside me that will probably never be able to mend.

  It was also in that moment that I realized fully what I had committed to doing. It is one thing to say that you will do something, but it is quite another when it comes to actually doing it. God help me, but I aimed that nozzle at another section of that building and lit it up. I swept the area until the nozzle sputtered and went cold.

  From there, I was part of moving from building to building. We knew what we were looking for. Our number one priority was to seek out the Anomalies; if nothing else, we wanted to be sure that not one of them made it out of here alive.

  The one thing that was going in our favor up to this point was the lack of any zombies. Then we found the warehouse—for lack of anything better to call it. This long, windowless building sat all by itself in the middle of a large muddy field. I guess that is what drew me to it.

  And that is where we discovered the “zombie storage” facility. (I would discover later that four more identical buildings would be located by other groups.) That is the best way to describe that place. The warehouse-style building was about thirty feet tall with a flat roof. The roof was corrugated metal and had openings spaced all the way down the middle. I would guess the building to be about a hundred yards long and about fifty yards wide. It had huge double doors at either end.

  We had an idea what we would find inside well before we looked. There was a nasty funk in the air that was made worse by the fog. It seemed like that stench coated your skin, your nostrils, your mouth.

  Yep…nasty.

  I still do not know why we actually opened one of those doors. I guess we thought that the zombies would be secured, penned behind a fence or something. We just did not think it through. With having the Anomalies here, why would they need to worry about such things?

  Fortunately, they must have depleted their reserves. I imagine that there had to be close to a few thousand undead still inside this particular location. I would also guess that it could hold close to ten thousand or more if stuffed full.

  In any case, we were able to close the door before the occupants were drawn to it. Somebody came up with the idea of climbing up on top, which is when we discovered all the hatches on the roof. From there, we tossed in a few Molotov cocktails and then left the building to burn.

  We reached what somebody told me was a golf course. I knew what one was, but I had never seen one. They mostly look like a park. I don’t really see the point. However, it was what was on the other side of the park that offered the payoff.

  We discovered the lab.

  Of course that is not an accurate statement. The building was a raging inferno. Obviously it had already been discovered. However, we did arrive in time to help mop up the last of the Anomalies that were trying to escape. I have one particular moment that I want to relate from that event. It will probably make me seem like a monster, but I have learned something in my time with the Natives.

  These past days, I have learned a great deal about the culture and heritage of the Native American. I still struggle with identifying myself with them because I have spent my entire life in ignorance; yet, the fact remains, I carry that blood in me.

  One of the things that I learned—mostly from listening to Brian—is that our people have been sort of ignored in society. I guess there was a time toward the end where they were known mostly for casinos. Not sure how those two relate, and he did not elaborate. Anyway, one of the things about history is that those who write it often tend to leave out any culpability that their ancestors may have had in any wrongdoings.

  I guess a lot of people grew up with very minimal understandings of the Native Americans. Brian admits that his people…our people…have some blame in this problem. The Native community really sort of isolated itself from mainstream society. They grew up with a deep mistrust of the “white” man and did not attempt to ever bridge that gap.

  It is for that reason that I am sharing this moment. As I have said, if this mission fails, it is unlikely that anybody will ever read these words anyway, so I am really not risking that much. And considering how polarizing Meredith was when compared to my dad, I figure it probably won’t do me any real serious harm in the forum of public opinion.

  We were in this large, paved lot, several of the engineered freaks had poured from a single steel door and were huddled close together. The building was burning so hot that it was quite uncomfortable to be as close as we were, but it seemed that the Anomalies were having trouble deciding whether they wanted to die at our hands or go up in flames. We made the choice for them and charged.

  It was not really much of a fight. None of them had any weapons and most seemed very disoriented. Some of them actually tried to go back inside the burning building.

  I waded in to a group of three and quickly cut the first two down. The third dropped to her knees and threw her hands up in the air. I looked at her, momentarily transfixed by her black eyes. She looked like she was crying, but nothing resembling tears could be seen. That only made her seem even creepier.

  “Please!” she begged. “I never wanted this…my father made me become…this!” She indicated to herself with both hands.

  I believed her. That is the part that hurts. I really do believe that she was telling me the truth. Only, I had already made up my mind. I raised the dripping blade that I held in my gloved hand. She was still screaming “Please, no!” when the blade came down with a dull thud and a jarring crack on the top of her skull. Her eyes never changed from their horrified expression, even as she slumped over on her side, shuddered twice, and was still.

  The slaughter continued for quite a while. When the roof collapsed and it was obvious after several minutes that nothing else would be coming out, my group and several other individuals that had gathered to help with the executions moved across a wide avenue and into what looked like a small housing section of the compound.

  We used anything we could to set fire to, anything that would burn as we moved towards the wall. From there, we would just follow the wall until we reached a gate. That was the plan…until we discovered an open trap door.

  It was easily as wide as the double-doored entry gates set in the walls. A set of stairs led down into the ground with torches set into sconces on the wet, dripping cement walls. We figured this to be one of the passages that would lead to one of the openings that they had used on us the other day.

  Nope.

  And it was down those stairs that we discovered this community’s version of a fallout shelter. This is where I am sure that I damned my soul for eternity if such things are possible. If there is a God, I am certain that he washed his hands of me at that moment.

  We discovered a set of wooden doors and kicked them in, thinking that we would just find more of the same corridor that we had been traveling down. Instead, we discovered a large auditorium-sized room. It was full of more women and children, as well as the elderly…probably a few thousand total would be my guess.

  They looked at us and there was fear on the faces of many, but more were simply indifferent. It was like they knew what was going to happen and did not care. We pulled the door shut and tied it off to keep those who actually tried from escaping—that number was frighteningly low—and then poured out all the rest of our flammable oil, making sure to coat the door heavily.

  We backed all the way to the stairs and grabbed one of the torches from the wall and tossed it. The flames started slow, but just as we made it back to the surface, there was a ‘WHUMP’ sound and a blast of heat, smoke and fire exploded from that opening.

  A few minutes later, we saw three places where smoke was rising from a pipe in the ground. We shoved anything we could think of into those vents. By then, the screaming had sta
rted.

  We were almost to the gate when a contingent of the general’s men found us. They were probably coming because of the black smoke rising from those vents. I imagine that those soldiers were very aware of where their families were kept—supposedly safe.

  That would certainly explain why they fought so fiercely, but, for a change, the numbers were on our side. We took them down and moved on. Now that we were out of flammables, we were just trying to escape with our lives.

  What I can’t adequately describe here is the degree of death and destruction that was happening all around me…us. Screams came from everywhere, fires burned out of control and unchecked. The sights, sounds, and smells will haunt me forever.

  Eventually, we made it out an open gate and back out to the marsh plain that surrounds this settlement. Of course there were skirmishes everywhere. I wanted to help more, but you sort of found them by accident in the fog. Seriously, you would be moving along and then fall over two, three or a dozen people fighting it out.

  I have no idea how many people got separated from us as we moved towards the direction of where we figured our camp to be. And no…I was not leading. A few of the Natives acted as tentacles, feeling the way out for us. That led to at least one small chuckle for the day.

  When we reached the crest of one of the foothills, we actually came up out of the fog. We could turn and look back at what looked like a sea of clouds as the fog was sort of smashed up against the base of the Oregon Coast mountain range. I turned and realized that we had come out very close to what we had determined to be our rally point and base camp. So I asked the young man who had led us here if this was some sort of special skill inherent to the Native Americans, and he looked at me for a moment with a very stern face, and then, in an equally stern voice he said, “No, this is a special skill inherent in a person with a compass.”