Page 82 of Redemption
One glimpse at Betty and it should’ve been obvious. With that number of modifications, there was no doubt; we were headed right into the center of it all.
Straight to the zombie horde.
Tank even alluded to the task at hand, stating there were “growlers to tame.” I knew what that meant in a logical sense: danger, and a shit ton of it. With the rate at which people were turning, I assumed we were probably going to thin the herd to keep the numbers from growing. That this was how they kept Phoenix Rising safe from being overrun by the undead army.
But this? What we were actually going to be doing? No one could’ve prepared me for.
Sweat drips off every inch of my body and falls to the blacktop as I crane my neck to look at the sky and the scorching heat beating down on us from the unforgiving sun.
We’ve been out here for hours.
Doing what, you ask?
Fixing redirection walls. The very samewallswe came up against in Jacksonville. Apparently, it’s all part of one giant network of piled vehicles and debris meant to deter and redirect the large horde that currently runs from Jacksonville all the way across eastern North Carolina.
It's the whole reason why the town didn’t need a fence. The vehicle pileups did the job for them, acting as a convenient, already partially placed security perimeter. The idea is genius. The undead wouldn’t deliberately climb over the barricade. Not while the area directly in front of them was wide open. Which meant that unless someone came through and damaged part of it, a storm blew through and wrecked a section, or wildlife did something to disturb it, it was secure. A formidable Plan A.
And then there was us, the linemen—Plan B—who were tasked with repairing any breaks in the chain.
I don’t blame them at all for erecting and wanting to maintain this enormous piece of defensive engineering. Shit, I did the same thing back at my house—walking the perimeter each morning, making sure things were good to go—but this is on a whole other level.
Working with Casper, I put the little coupe into neutral and guide the wheel while he pushes it into place against the current barricade. The others in our group are doing the same: taking abandoned vehicles from up the road and fortifying the already established wall with additional layers. One duo is even using a forklift to add height to some areas. Somehow, theyfigured out how to rig the equipment to run off solar power, and, on days like today, the machines can run for hours. I hate to say it, but the whole operation is pretty impressive.
Once our vehicle is in position, I exit and meet up with Casper to find the next car we need to move. It’s strange; I didn’t think I’d find anyone here that I’d consider a decent person. But Casper?... He’s not like the others. Where violence shines unreservedly in the eyes of those around us, his are kind and almost... sad. While we were working, he told me that he’s been a part of the community for over six months and that he was happy here, but he did so with a wide smile that was obviously forced. Anyone looking close enough could see the pain sitting just behind his eyes—the truth of his real experience within Phoenix Rising.
Despite my eager curiosity to know that truth, I don’t press him for answers. Especially in response to questions I shouldn’t be asking of someone I’m not sure I can fully trust yet.
Especially not in the presence of—
“HURRY UP, YOU FILTHY CUMRAGS! WE STILL HAVE TO GO TO THE BURN PITS BEFORE SUNDOWN!” Tank yells impatiently as he leans out from Betty’s driver-side window. It’s where he’s been this entire time, supervising the lot of us from a comfortable seated position while we sweated our asses off doing all the work.
I’ve had my eye on the bastard ever since we started this work trip. You know when you can just look at somebody and see the evil in their soul? Well, this guy radiates it.
A few minutes later, we finish up with this area and pile back into the truck. Tank cranks the engine and takes off in a direction that takes us even farther from the town. It doesn’ttake long, however, before I see our next destination rising in the distance.
The plume of smoke we spotted when we first came through Jacksonville still billows to the heavens, a towering beacon guiding us to where we’re headed. It takes about a half hour to reach the new worksite, but when we do, my jaw drops at the sheer enormity of the bonfire they created in the middle of a four-way intersection. An eternal flame, at least three stories tall.
We stop about a block away, the heat from the flames already burning my skin before I even exit the vehicle. Together, we line up in front of Tank as he issues our assignments and designated work quadrants, along with gloves and shovels.
Back together with Casper, we walk over to the far-right side of the fire, scanning the tree line for any fallen branches we can add to the blaze before we rejoin the others to discard yesterday’s garbage. “Gotta make sure the fire keeps going throughout the night, so we need to pile it high with everything we can find,” he says, chucking a log over a small pile of tires and into the flames. I noticed some of the others removing them from the vehicles we relocated earlier but didn’t realize why they did so until just now.
Casper and I—using my one good arm—grab a fallen sapling from the side of the road and haul it to the fire, throwing it in when the flames become too much. But before we can turn around to collect another, Casper steps up to the very edge of the blaze, where only embers remain, and looks down at the ground. He freezes there, stuck in time for a moment before suddenly stumbling back, almost losing his footing, as his hands come up to his face.
“Casper?” I call to him, but he remains there, motionless as he stares into the flames. I step over to him, concerned about his reaction. “What is it?”
Without a word, he lifts a single finger and points to a darkened lump on the ground. I step closer to get a better look but instantly regret it as the form of a body starts to take shape.
While the man’s lower half is sufficiently scorched, the upper portion remains unburned. I stare down into the unseeing eyes of the man before me—wide open and with brown irises. With his upper body relatively unmarked, he obviously wasn’t the victim of a deadhead mutilation, nor was he found mid-transition, if his clear eyes are any indication.
But the single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead...?
Holy fuck. Did they kill him?
“That was Brown,” Casper says with a shaky voice, “Or, to some of us, Rico. He was in charge of acquisitions—finding supplies or survivors to bring back here—among other... duties. But he wasn’t a bad guy, not like some of the others you’d meet around here. The man was pretty much a pacifist, wouldn’t even kill a bug if it crept up on him, and he was terrified of bugs.” He shakes his head at the gruesome scene, his body trembling uncontrollably. “Fuck, man, what did you do?!” he asks the half-charred body lying on the ground. “What did you do?!” he says louder, causing a few heads to turn our way.
When I notice the attention he’s beginning to draw, I pull Casper from the corpse and turn him away, focusing his gaze and thoughts on me for the moment. “Hey. Focus, man. Look at me.” He doesn’t answer, just keeps trying to look behind him to the depths of the raging inferno. I snap my fingers and finally grab his attention. “Breathe,Casper.” I capture his gaze with mine and mimic what I’m asking. “In and out, man. In and out.”After a few minutes, his trembling diminishes. With watery eyes, he gives me a single nod of acceptance, and without another word, we return to our work, shoveling debris while also silently burying the man known as Rico beneath.
Although my shoulder is killing me, I lift the shovel and push some more of the debris, aiming to cover the man’s body, but my foot lands on something with a sickeningcrunch. Up until now, it’s been tree limbs, garbage, pieces of wood, car parts, everything and anything you can think of. But, when I lift my foot, I realize Rico’s not the only one who’s been laid to rest here.
