Sarah - Winchester Rd off the 27
Sweat beaded down the face of Sarah Ziegler and she blinked uncomfortably behind her large, almost comical, round sunglasses. She took one delicate hand off the steering wheel of the bus and swiped it across her forehead, using the other to turn the bus narrowly through the remains of a four-car pile up. It was one of those unseasonable heat waves she would read about from like the 1980s, smack dab in the middle of March, as if the Earth itself was trying to imitate the level of Hell they had all found themselves in.
Winchester Road had done Sarah and her hopeful passengers well, especially after the setbacks she had found trying to go North on the 27. There were less abandoned vehicles scattered about and it seemed apparent she was not the first traveler to come this way. The narrow passageways between vehicles seemed almost too miraculous to have occurred naturally and the amount of corpses seemed to imply a couple of gunslingers had swept down the road.
Regardless of their good fortune, Sarah had to temper her optimism, especially after seeing the disasters further down South. She had remembered rumors of Indianapolis burning in the early days and it hardly took even going near the city to see the proof. People had fled the city in droves, creating horrible vehicle pile ups along major highways like the 70. Many of the smaller cities and towns toward the center of Indiana seemed overrun with the dead, leaving one to hope nothing would ever incentivize them to spread out from their graveyards. It was only now that she was coming up toward Fort Wayne that the land seemed relatively calm by comparison.
Sarah had just passed through a small town called Poe. Quaint, but eerily quiet. A total dead zone that reminded her of home. Might have been a good place to settle down, if that had been Sarah’s intention. She was more interested in finding an established community, having spent the last year in isolation and finding it terribly abysmal. Sarah had never spent a day alone before everything ended and now… well, now all her old friends were gone. This little bus venture, the pilgrimage of one lonely girl, had a very clear goal in mind. Everyone on board, the poor stragglers Sarah had picked up along the way, knew this goal clearly.
There had never really been any intention to pick up people along the way. Some abandoned green school bus had just happened to be the one vehicle available to Sarah at the time and she figured it would provide her some level of protection that her old, beaten up VW could not. One person there, another here… Every time, Sarah told each one that she was looking for a community and they all agreed to come along for the ride. It occurred to her in the few weeks she had been driving that she probably already had what she was looking for now, but she simply wanted more.
Now Sarah was the ferryman, bringing people to the land beyond the end of the world.
“Hold up, Sarah,” said Carl as he leaned forward in the seat behind Sarah to get her attention. She was about to switch over to a side road, so she slowed to a stop to give the man her attention.
When Sarah turned around, she caught Carl’s gaze in the sunlight. His green eyes seemed to shine and his light brown hair turned almost to gold. He was a bit older than Sarah but somehow looked younger and boyish. He was one of the first she had picked up, a poor lonely man on the side of the road, who seemed to love his mobile radio as if it was his child.
Carl was pouring over that radio right now. Sarah was happy he was so on top of it, in case it was the breakthrough they needed. Something in Carl’s voice made him seem excited and he was practically bouncing in his seat now.
“I picked up something,” he continued, a grin lighting up his face. “They gotta be close. A community called Faith. They gave yesterday’s date too, so it’s not an old broadcast.”
Sarah let out something between a laugh and an exhale of breath. Finally, after so long, was this the community Sarah longed for?
“Oh, my god,” she said, excitedly reaching out to squeeze Carl’s shoulder. “What should we do?”
“Keep driving,” he said, nodding toward the road ahead. “I missed their directions but I think if you keep going North, we can keep catching the signal.”
“Right!” Sarah gave Carl another squeeze and turned back to the road. She was no longer tempering her hope.
A community called Faith. It sounded beautiful.
***
Danny - Taco Bell on Jefferson Blvd
“Why is it seriously so fucking hot today?” Danny asked, a frustrated tone to his voice. He let out a small groan, one hand on his stomach and the other holding him up against the take-out counter. Something about the heat was making the cramped building smell rancid and Danny could absolutely not believe they chose to wait out the next few minutes in a goddamn Taco Bell.
Sean shot him a withering look, which was definitely a step up from Sean’s usual practice of pretending Danny didn’t exist. It didn’t last long though, as the man then turned away to take a peek at the parking lot outside. Danny could see the guy was starting to get antsy, which really meant he could start being an asshole any minute now. Danny could hardly stand the guy. Sean was always so no-nonsense, but in a nonsensical and less-than-endearing way. He just seemed to pick out people to dislike and Danny happened to be one of them as far as he could tell.
Not that Sean was doing anything right now but giving him the cold shoulder. Danny was just feeling restless himself and starting to feel pretty sick. He let out a heavy sigh and made his way for the front entrance.
“Gonna be just as hot out there,” Sean said as Danny was leaving. Danny just ignored him.
Sean was right though, the sun was beating just as harshly outside. Not a single brush of wind for any kind of relief. At least it smelled better.
Danny caught sight of Brooke and Paul coming up from behind Harrison Square, a group of the dead, about fifteen or so, fumbling along behind them. Considering their numbers, it looked like the plan went well. Danny gestured for Sean to leave the restaurant and the pair of them moved to attend Brooke’s little party.
Danny unhooked his hammer from his belt and met the first biter with a furious blow to the head. The creature dropped almost immediately and Danny had to step out of its way. Blood had splattered down his arm and a smell that reminded him of Taco Bell hit his senses.
Brooke and Paul turned and began to get into the fray as well, with Sean following after. Sean had this huge machete that Danny always felt was excessive. Paul and Brooke had knives to combat the dead, able to dance around the creatures with finesse and stab them in just the right spots to dispatch them quickly. To Danny, it felt like these people had been doing this for a lot longer than he had, when really they hadn’t.
One biter got in close to Danny, performing a quick lunge he hadn’t expected and reaching out with a gnarled hand to grab his shirt. “Ah, fuck!” Danny exclaimed as the creature pulled them together, mouth snapping in anticipation. Danny managed to get his hammer in between him and the monster, his other hand reaching at the back of its head to pull on it. There was not much to grab on to considering the creature was bald. Its cold, lifeless eyes stared into Danny’s as its jaw gnawed at the hammer.
The pair stumbled like drunken lovers for a moment before Brooke stepped in and stabbed the biter in the back of the head. It collapsed lifelessly into Danny and he threw it off him, feeling disgusted. He was gonna smell like shit for a while, huh?
Whenever anyone left Faith, the general rule of practice was to avoid guns. They tended to just attract more of the dead than they disposed of and ammunition was tight enough as it was. Melee combat was always risky though, no matter who you were. All it took was one stray bite for you to get sick and die.
Not everyone agreed with the practice necessarily, but whenever a group left the community’s walls with Brooke or Ray within their ranks, they respected the pair enough to do things their way. At least, for the most part.
Paul let out a relieved sigh once the final biter had fallen. He seemed like a tough guy, with dark eyes and darker hair. He was older and seemed to have had a career as a boxer when he was younger. Danny had been wary of him at first, though the man had turned out to be quite the sweetheart. He cared about others a lot and was now giving Brooke a pretty genuine smile when she touched his arm as a sign of asking if he was okay.
Sean gave the all-clear on his condition, as did Danny. Brooke nodded and signaled for them to follow her, back behind the square in the direction she had come from earlier.
Back there was a baseball diamond that once looked pretty beautiful, according to people like Ray. Faith had one of its supply caches hidden under one of the stadium seats. It was a system they had set up for a couple of the areas surrounding the community. If someone was doing a supply run and found the way back to Faith too dangerous, they would drop off their supplies in the meantime. They even had a safe house in the nearby farmer’s market in order to wait for situations to blow over.
A large group of biters had been hanging around the diamond, forcing Brooke and Paul to bait a few to separate. That had been the plan earlier, with Danny and Sean waiting to help them ambush the dead. Now, the remaining biters had wandered over to the other end of the diamond, giving Danny and the others quick access to the supply cache.
“Shit,” Brooke said, having climbed behind the seat to pull out a black box. It was rather uncharacteristic of her, but once Danny saw the box, he let out a swear himself.
The box’s lock was broken and its contents cleaned out. Danny knew there had been medical supplies in there, considering he had been part of the last group who stashed the stuff.
“That’s the second one now,” Sean said, his gaze wandering to look suspiciously around the diamond. “Someone’s messing with us.”
Brooke gripped the box tightly and shut her eyes. She appeared very earnestly devastated. Missing supplies meant a few things, none of them were good. Danny shared her sadness, for this was not the first community he’d been a part of to face such a dilemma. It tended to spell out a troubled future for them all.
“We can’t stand around for long,” Danny reminded Brooke, catching the nearby biters out of the corner of his eye. It took a moment, but eventually Brooke nodded. She put the box back where it was and stood to her feet.
“Ray’s gonna be so disappointed,” she said, before briskly leaving.
***
Ray - Faith Church Building
“... walk with Christ as you leave today. Take in the sun and know that today is beautiful. You are loved.”
A couple murmurs and whispers of “Amen” followed and those around Ray stood to their feet. Ray stood with them, leaning over the pew to shake hands with Elyse and Ben. There were not many of them here. There usually never was.
“Thank you for coming today,” said Craig, the self-styled priest. He was just a kid, barely an adult, but had a staggering amount of religious faith that Ray could only describe as earnest. He took pride in being a part of a community named after a church, even though most of the residents now were not particularly religious.
Ray himself had not been particularly fond of religious establishments before everything came to an end, much to the chagrin of his late mother. He had always been uncomfortable with it all, whether it was the crowd at Sunday service or just the way the people acted. Recently though, Ray had found comfort in the few services that Craig did. Perhaps the small turnout helped.
Craig met Ray as he was leaving and gave the man a smile. “It’s really great that you show up for these,” Craig said. “Not many care, but those that do are emboldened by the fact that their leader shares their faith.”
There seemed to be some implication there, something accusatory toward Brooke’s usual absence from these services. Ray chose to not let it get to him and gave Craig a comforting squeeze on his shoulder. It surprised him all over again how small and frail the boy was. He looked younger than even eighteen with that short-cropped blond hair and youthful green eyes.
“My pleasure,” Ray said, giving the boy a nod. He then excused himself and left the building, going out the usual back entrance that led to the parking lot outside.
The sun hit Ray as soon as he stepped outside and he found he had to shield his eyes from it. As Craig had said, the day really was beautiful. He saw Elyse and Ben chatting nearby and gave them a quick wave, though they did not respond to him quite so warmly.
“Do you know what’s happening at the gate?” Ben asked, sounding worried. He gestured over to the front gate next to the security office, where Ray finally noticed a school bus sitting idle. The gate was closing behind it, evidently having just let the vehicle in. Ray had never seen that bus before.
“One second,” he said to the elderly pair, jogging over toward the scene. He passed a few of the other residents chatting about it, looking just as confused as he was. When he finally reached the bus, a girl was stepping out of it.
“Ray!” came a male voice and Ray looked up to find Derek gesturing at him from the outlook point at the gate.
“What is going on?” Ray called back, an edge of concern in his voice. He turned to find the girl who had gotten off the bus staring at him and giving a polite smile. She couldn’t have been very old. With braids in her hair and sporting red-tinted glasses, the girl looked like she was on some kind of Spring Break trip.
“I’m sorry,” Derek said, jogging up to them. He looked apologetic. “The girl said they had been driving for weeks and wanted to stay and like, I didn’t feel like we could just leave them outside the gates…”
He trailed off as Ray shook his head. Derek was supposed to be head of security, but making that kind of call without telling anyone was quite clearly a boneheaded move. There was no time to really deal with him though, considering this new development.
The girl was still waiting politely, smiling away.
“... What’s your name?” Ray asked.
“Sarah Ziegler,” the girl said, holding out her hand. Ray acquiesced and shook her hand. Once he let go, the girl turned to look at the bus. “We’ve been out there for weeks, just driving. Some of us haven't even bathed in a while. All we wanted was to find a community, and, well…” The girl turned back to Ray with a smile. “When we heard your radio broadcast, we were so… so happy. I’m so happy to be here.”
Ray’s first thought was that the girl at least seemed honest. That they heard the broadcast explained how they knew where to find Faith. Still--
“What is this?” came the sharp tone of Samuel Barlow, who was jogging up to the scene himself now. He was the last person Ray would have liked to weigh in on this right now.
“They heard the broadcast,” Ray explained, but Samuel did not look any less upset.
“Why the hell did we build these walls if you just let anyone in, huh?”
Ray found that Samuel loved to bring up the walls, considering he had been the biggest manpower behind that operation.
“It’s still being discussed,” Ray explained. Samuel leaned in to whisper forcefully into Ray’s ear.
“We haven’t seen a soul in a month and then these people show up? Are you out of your mind even considering this?”
When Samuel leaned away, Ray had to admit he had a point. Still, he was not inclined to take the cold approach. Sarah looked a bit less happy now, though she was still waiting politely. Ray looked behind her to see a young man standing in the bus’ doorway, looking concerned.
“Sam, can you just give me a minute to think?” Ray finally said, letting out a deep sigh.
Just his luck. Today was supposed to be a beautiful day.
