look he was criticizing my combat readiness. True I wasn’t dressed for it nor had I been through any real situations or training in months. Outside of the need to know members of the council, my injuries had been explained away as a horrible fall when I scaled the wall for guard duty one day. No one outside of Ben, Cole and Adam knew the whole truth. I could imagine Rylie worried that I would have a relapse or terror when faced with the same situation that landed me in a hospital bed. Yet, in my heart I knew the same as he did, none of these reasons measured up enough to cast me aside.
That was the thing about life and death situations. Those that are trained for that little slice of hell, for the real rough times, no matter how much temporal distance you place between them and those memories, those skills, those fight not flight reactions, are never forgotten.
“Give me a bow I’ll kill anything you put in my path.” I declared, crossing my arms. To which Rylie actually smiled at me. Maybe I had misjudged his perception. I had figured someone who had been so loyal in the defense of Junction would absolutely hate me for my reputation as an obstinate lone wolf.
“Then go get one and make it happen.”
Everyone worked fast. We had reinforcements at the wall, guns being unloaded from storage crates and ammo being distributed before the deadheads hit the first marker. Ben was giving a quick firing tutorial to everyone who had gathered around. I watched unsteady hands work on loading clips and stuffing duffels. No matter how confident I had fronted to Rylie, my palms sweated as much as the next man despite the cold. None of us really knew how this was going to pan out. Death had come knocking and we very well could all be leaving with it.
Shive showed up along with my Dad. Graham, both big and little, had apparently started rounding folks up making sure everyone was indoors and secure. No surprise to me that they would want to be as far away from the front lines as possible.
Just in case things went south. Not that it would.
Positioning was the hard part. The wall was not designed for many to transverse it at once. We shoved as many people who would fit without shooting each other into the watch tower, then one by one climbed up the pegs and straddled the edge of the barrier. As many clips as we could carry shoved into every pocket and duffels thrown over backs. Not a round was spared in prep for this. Long term this could be problematic for us. Not that anyone cared, if we didn’t live to tomorrow who gave a shit about a month from now?
If my limbs were hurting before climbing that wall a second time should have been agony. Yet as I pulled and stepped up those pegs I felt nothing.
Adrenaline, life’s original painkiller.
We were fifty percent in position when the deadheads noticed us. It started with the closest one, obviously female, her once brightly colored sundress which now hung loosely off of her emaciated limbs. Milky white eyes tilted up, to where we were shouting and moving along, arms rose while the shuffling speed of her feet increased. Perhaps it was my own ego, but it looked like she was staring right at me. The deadhead’s jaw opened, I could only assume a hungry moan worked its way out of those cracked and withered lips. It was not a sound I could hear over the noise the guys next to me were making with their guns, checking clips and arranging their supplies.
That changed in an instant.
One sound became many, other feet increasing their pace.
It was starting.
“Everybody ready!” Rylie shouted from the center of our spread. His booming voice carrying over the howls of the impatient dead.
When I brought my .45 up, the forehead of that summer songstress was the first to go.
I did not get her in the center of the forehead, rather the upper top of her skull, it imploded down the center like a spoiled cantaloupe. The body crumpling