Chapter 26
The tires skid to a stop, kicking up brown dust. We pile out of the vehicle, running toward the unfamiliar truck parked up against the gate.
A large rug has been thrown on top of the barbed wire, crushing it down to provide safe passage over.
My eyes go to the body. It’s not anyone we recognize, and it’s not a biter either.
It’s a man. He’s filthy. Maybe in his forties, with a scraggly, dark beard and a buzzed haircut.
There’s a gunshot wound right through the center of his head.
He was dead in an instant, his eyes left propped open, staring up at the sky.
JJ unlocks the property gate and pushes it open. Behind the truck, strewn across the grass, is a more alarming and disturbing scene than the blazing pyre of metal.
“Oh my God,” I yell, running past the fire.
Three bodies are splayed out in the grass, their blood staining the lawn for yards in every direction. Some is even caked onto the side of the blue paint of their cover position, boiling over and baking in the heat of the fire.
We inspect the bodies, checking to see whether we can aid anyone who’s been hurt, not knowing immediately who it could be or how this happened.
“Who is it!?” Greg yells frantically.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say, flipping one of them over so I can see their face.
They’re riddled with bullet holes, small circles of red that blemish the front of their clothes in more places than they could probably feel.
Their mouths are slack, making their final screams permanent.
I don’t recognize a single one of them. But I do recognize the way they dress and, even more so, the way they smell.
The mixture of body odor, decay, and fluids from unspeakable activities, mixed into a cocktail of filth and evil that gags the lungs. They’re burners.
A blur of motion catches in my periphery.
Uncle Jimmy sprints down the lawn with a fire extinguisher in hand.
He pulls the pin and sprays a dense white foam onto the flames consuming my truck.
In a few seconds, the fire’s out, replaced by light wisps of steam from the frothy retardant.
It’s like the spirit of the fire is vacating this plane, off to create destruction elsewhere.
My father treks down the driveway with a gun in hand, scanning from side to side as though he’s unsure the area is safe yet.
“Is everyone all right?” I ask as he approaches.
“Oh, we’re just fine. Can’t say the same for these fellas.” My dad gestures to the men on the ground with his gun, like he’s more than ready to fire a few more rounds into them.
“What the hell happened?” JJ asks, a look of concern on his face.
“They showed up about forty-five minutes after y’all left. Parked their truck at the gate and tried sneaking in by throwin’ that rug over the barbwire. Luckily, Jimmy spotted them, and we armed ourselves and unloaded on them before they could even make it to the dummy house.”
Greg looks down at the bodies. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know who they were, but they’re dead now.” Dad spits at them.
“They’re burners,” I say.
“What?” they all respond at once.
“Burners. Piece-of-shit humans who were pieces of shit before the world ended, but now they get to be bigger pieces of shit because there’s no one to stop them. Ya know, burners?” I look back and forth between their faces.
“Why not just call them pieces of shit?” Greg tilts his head.
“It doesn’t really have a nice ring to it,” I say.
“We’ve never seen anyone like these guys before.” JJ pulls his lips in.
“Well, they were all over Chicago, and they’re a hundred times more dangerous than any biter.
For a while there, I actually thought they were infected too, like a crazed biter that just wanted to cause violence but still had somewhat of a functioning brain.
But I realized it was even worse than I had imagined.
There’s nothing wrong with these people—not medically, anyway. They’re just evil.”
“The good news is, that was Chicago. I think we’re pretty safe way out here since no one lives near your dad for miles,” Greg chimes in.
“He’s right,” Blake says, finally joining the conversation. He holds his arm down low at his side. “We haven’t run into anyone like that on our scavenges,” he adds.
“Maybe that was true, but it’s not anymore.”
“But then why are they here now?” JJ asks.
“The big cities are picked over, so—”
“They’ll be searching,” Blake says, finishing my sentence.
“Exactly, and with winter coming, they’ll be desperate.
There are tons of summer homes all over rural Wisconsin that are likely just sitting there, wide open for the taking.
There’s also freshwater lakes, and most people probably went south because of the weather.
That makes this a prime area for the worst of them. ”
“They must have been watching the place,” Dad says, looking out beyond the road, searching the horizon. “It can’t be a coincidence that they hit not long after four of our people left.”
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” Uncle Jimmy stands alongside my dad.
“We need to fortify the perimeter even more then. Our fences were meant to keep out biters, not a bunch of determined humans with weapons.” Dad exhales sharply through his nose.
“I’ll get started on adding the electric current to the fence along the road,” Uncle Jimmy says.
“Good.” My dad nods. “And I’ve got plenty of barbed wire and sheet metal. We should be able to build the fence up a bit higher as well as add a few traps. It’s gonna be a lot of work but—”
“We don’t have a choice,” I interject.
“No . . . we don’t.” Dad shakes his head and stares at the ground. I’m sure he’s losing himself in thought. Playing out all the awful scenarios that could befall each and every one of us, given the attack and the new threat. But now isn’t the time for him to worry. It’s time for us to act.
“Hey,” Dad says, looking at the four of us. “How’d the run go? Find any insulin?” His face is excited; he’s hoping to hear the only good answer that we could possibly give.
We exchange uncomfortable glances, a somber silence filling the space between us as we decide who will be the first to speak, unsure of how to deliver the mixture of news we need to share.
In the time this takes to play out, my dad’s and uncle’s faces have already turned to disappointment, assuming the worst when we aren’t quick to answer.
“We did,” I finally say, watching as the two men in front of me light back up with joy.
“That’s amazing! How much?”
“Not sure exactly, as I don’t know Elaine’s prescribed dosage, but I would say at least eight months’ worth.”
“That buys us a lot of time to find her more,” Uncle Jimmy says, nodding as he proudly pats his boys on the shoulder. “You did a good thing.”
Dad studies our faces, realizing there’s more to our story. “Then why do you all look like someone took a piss in your cereal this morning?”
We can’t hide the reality of what happened to Blake. I step forward to tell them the bad news, but Blake steps around me, pushing past my shoulder. He pulls his sleeve up over his wound and holds it out for them to see. “This is why.”
Their faces run through a gauntlet of emotions, from surprise to horror, to worry.
“What happened?” Dad asks. His eyes swim with tears, and his lip trembles slightly, as though Blake’s fate has already been sealed.
“I got bit,” he says, stating the obvious.
“How?” Dad pries, needing to know the circumstances that led to it.
“There was a biter in one of the rooms I missed. Casey and I were making our exit, and it lunged at her. There was no time to react, so I pushed her out of the way, and then this happened.” He flicks his head at the wound and gives me a fleeting look.
I squint but quickly relax my eyes so no one notices. Blake’s lying about what happened, and I don’t know why, but I decide not to say anything . . . for now.
“Blake,” my father says in a strained whisper, his voice cracking as he looks at his second-in-command like a wounded puppy.
“Dale.” Blake grabs the back of my dad’s neck and tugs at him slightly, jarring him from the sudden force.
“I’m gonna be fine. Casey says I have a sixty-six percent chance of not turning into a biter.
The odds are in my favor, so there’s no need to get ahead of ourselves.
” He lets go of him and walks away from all of us, stopping to turn back once.
He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something profound or kind, but at the last second, he changes his mind and continues walking.
“Where’re you going?” I call out.
“Down to the holding cells.”
“You don’t need to do that yet,” Dad says. He looks to me, double-checking his instructions. “Right, Casey?”
“Blake, you still have twenty-plus hours before there’s even a possibility of turning into a Nome, so you don’t have to rush down there. Not yet, anyway,” I yell.
“Get yourself cleaned up, have a nice warm meal, and then you can head down there tonight, buddy.” Dad nods.
Blake seems to be debating whether it’s even worth the bother. It’s almost like being in limbo, knowing he has to go down there eventually. He finally seems to agree, walking back toward us. “Fine, I’ll help you guys clean up this mess, then I’ll do all that.”
Given that his fate is the one hanging in the balance, no one argues with his plan for the evening.
“I’m gonna run this insulin up to Elaine,” I say, already heading to the house as a murmur of encouragement swirls around me, sending me off for the immediate medical need.
I glance back and watch Blake. My heart skips a beat at what he’s going through.
I know it all too well. He’ll start feeling sick at the twelve-hour mark, and then hopefully, he’ll share the same fate I did.
Blake leans down, grabs the legs of a burner, and starts dragging it through the grass.
JJ joins him, picking up the other half by its arms—the two of them hoisting the body into the air as it hangs like a slack tightrope.
“Where should we bury them?” JJ asks, looking to either my dad or his.
“We’re not,” my dad says without missing a beat. “They don’t deserve a burial.”
Uncle Jimmy and Dad jointly pick up another body, lifting it.
“They wanted to see the world burn . . . well, they can be the kindling.” Dad punctuates his hatred for them by spitting at the corpse.