A week went by with only a few minor attacks on Doraville, the three scouting groups had gone out all of them went east, two towards the north east, one almost directly east. Two groups had returned, they had been instructed to go to the edges of Kansas City and come back with any information they had found, both came back telling stories of empty battlefields, where there were plenty of true dead corpses and military equipment just lying around on the ground. Neither of the groups had any trouble foraging or living off the land. Nor had either of them contacted anyone with their walkie-talkies or short range radios. They had not seen any living humans and had killed very few zombies, the scouts had been instructed to avoid killing and being seen by zombies at all costs. It was Steve's position that the smarter zombies could sense when the slow zombies were killed. The third scouting group was supposed to make their way up into Iowa before coming back with news. Nothing had been heard from them since.
Now the council members were all out on the street in front of Dora's house at about nine in the morning. They were looking towards a military supply truck where four soldiers were climbing out of the cab, Sargent Waller was nowhere to be seen.
Dora led the way, confident in her acting ability, "Where is Waller at?" She arched her eyebrow and looked over the Sargent's replacement, the man was tall and broad shouldered. The man had on the rank designation that Waller used to wear, but Dora had never seen him before.
"Ma'am? I am Sargent Jim Tiller. Were you a friend of his?"
"Friend? No, more like an acquaintance really, something happened to the man? My name is Dora, supposedly I run this place."
"Some supers jumped this squad last week, Waller got shot, believe it or not."
Dora stopped and brought her hand to her mouth, then swore, "Fuck. I knew it. I knew sooner or later they would start using guns. Fucking bastards. Waller going to be okay?" She let her eyes mist up.
"He didn't make it. But the zombies didn't eat him either."
"Sargent Tiller do you have time to come in and have a sit down conversation with us?"
The man looked over his shoulder at his three men still standing by the truck and said, "You guys get the supplies unloaded. I am going to talk with Dora. The guys have told me there the town is run by council, is this everyone I need to speak with?"
"Yeah come on in and I will introduce you around and tell you about our problem."
The group moved inside while the three other soldiers unloaded the truck with the help of some of the older children. Sitting down Dora introduced Nash to the council, Mary, Paige, Alex, Leon, Steven and Freddie who were all there for this meeting. All of them were following roles they had discussed beforehand; Freddie and Steve seemed to be the worst of the actors, looking ill at ease.
"Sargent, we have some problems."
"Yeah, go on."
"We are getting worn down by the zombies, did you bring anyone for us today?"
"No we haven't spotted any humans today."
"See this is part of the problem we have. About a week ago the zombies attacked us again, there is a bombed out section to the north west of town and the zombies came through there, they killed fourteen of our people, most of them adults, this includes four people who went out on patrol and never came back. We have another twelve people who are walking wounded and honestly we cannot cope with the loss of manpower. The zombies are winning and we need to evacuate."
"What?"
"We need to leave, we don't have enough fuel, we rely more and more on the National Guard to get us food, we have almost no gasoline to power the generators for the winter, in short, we're screwed. The council and I have decided to ask the army to send enough trucks to get the hundred and thirty some of us out of here. Could you pass that along to your superiors and see if they will help? We will do our part, we will try and find gas and scavenge a bus or two to make the trip less resource intensive for you, but we need to leave before winter sets in."
Sargent Tiller sat looking at them for a moment, "Maybe we could get you more supplies? Stretch things out a bit?"
"It is not a matter of supplies so much as manpower, we can't hold them back anymore. Every time there is an attack, well, people have to defend against it, if they stay up all night defending against the attack, they can't be expected to go out the next day to scavenge food and fuel. Plus our ammo is low, these people are not trained soldiers, we fired off almost all of the ammo we had in the big fight on Friday night."
"Ammunition is in short supply. How bad is your situation?"
"We are down to maybe twenty shots per gun, we do have a boat load of the common.22 ammo, but we all know that stuff is just about useless for taking a zombie out." Steve said.
Tiller grinned, and said, "Yeah, you would practically have to press your gun against the things head to make that work. Better than a club, but just barely. Okay I will pass this along to my lieutenant and see what he comes up with. Today though, well does anyone know where the closest gun store was? I will go that way as a personal favor and me and the boys will gather up all the bullets we can and bring them back here before we high tail it back to the east side. We should have time if we can find the place. Anyone have a phone book to get the address?"
Paige rose up and went to get the phone book, while Dora said, "Thanks Sargent, you have no idea what this means to us. I don't suppose the guard could run a few more patrols around us to keep some of the zombies away? If we could only get a few night's sleep I think we could catch up…there is, well, no never mind."
"What?" Tiller asked.
"Well the decision to leave was not unanimous; if we can catch a break we might consider trying to tough it out. We thought maybe with the nights getting colder maybe the zombie activity would die down. So far we have not noticed a change, if anything it is worse because the nights are longer."
Tiller nodded, "I bet they will keep coming. There should be less of them around here though, so many have followed us East and North as we retreated, and we just keep killing more and more every day. I thought that would have drawn them away from you. "
Dora shook her head from side to side, tilting her chin down, "No, they are still around us, it is like they can sense us or something."
"That is too bad. Okay let's look and see where we can get ammo. You have shotguns right? So a Wal-mart or Sam's club would be good for shotgun shells."
The group of them looked in the phone book then brought up a mapping program Paige had on her computer to show the Sargent the best way to get to the stores where he thought he would find ammunition. After that Tiller went back outside and the council members saw him off before coming back into Dora's house to talk again. Paige waited by the window until she could no longer see their truck, then came and sat down at the table again.
"Do you think he bought it?" she asked Dora.
"Hook, line and sinker. I am a good actress." said Dora beaming.
"You were laying it on a little thick I thought, kind of suspicious, tears? For Fuller? You were supposed to have barely known the man!" Mary said.
"Hey! Steven said to get emotional, what does 'emotional' mean to you? To me it means tears. What does everyone else think? Did we sell this? Did it sound reasonable?"
The council nodded their agreement.
"Well good, now we wait, if he comes back we see what he brings. Over the next week we see how the 'attacks' go, if Steve is right they will die off down to nothing, which will let us send out scouts to get the school buses and diesel so we can make a break for Des Moines."
"Even if our last long range scouts don't come back?" asked Alex.
Dora nodded, "Yeah, even if we don't hear from them. I would rather start over somewhere that I knew we weren't just the local zombie's next meal, there has to be someplace safer than this."
"True enough, so now we wait."
They did not have to wait long, Sargent Tiller and his crew returned in about three hours. They had brought seventy boxes of shotgun shells and three new shotguns. They had also stopped by a coffee store and cleaned it out of coffee and filters. The last thing they brought out was a heavy card board box, it was lined with a blanket and the Sargent himself presented it to Dora. She looked inside and said, "What are we supposed to do with these?"
The Sargent set the box down and brought up a squirming puppy by the scruff of its neck, "Well, raise them. Use them to help guard the perimeter, they can bark and alert you to any danger that is coming your way."
"That will take months!"
"People like dogs, right?" Tiller asked as several loitering kids came over to the box to get to the puppies. He stepped away from the box and brought Dora with him. "See the kids love them already, they are good for morale and will turn into guard dogs, eventually."
"Maybe, it still won't solve our manpower problem. You bring food for them?"
Turning Tiller called to one of his men, "Scott, they will keep them, unload the puppy chow!"
The man grinned and hopped back into the truck, they unloaded eight bags of puppy chow and four bags filled with raw hide other chew toys for the dogs. Scott said, "I knew you would take them! I put in plenty of chew toys, these guys are going to want them soon and you aren't going to want them chewing up your shoes and stuff. Here is some medicine for them too, don't you got a doctor here?"
"Yes, Mary, she isn't a vet."
"No but she can give them shots." Scott pressed a brown bag into Dora's hands, "This should be enough for rabies and heart worm for the first year, she can figure out the doses and get them taken care of." The man grinned again then went back to the truck.
"He like dogs or what?"
"Yeah he wouldn't let me put these down, the mother was nowhere around, most of the time we kill the dogs when we see them, so they don't go feral. He thought you could use them and convinced me of it."
"Well I guess it is too late to refuse them now, if we end up staying here we can always eat them this winter." said Dora looking as the kids of the town started playing with their new acquisitions.
"I don't think it will that bad. The Guard will help keep the zombies off of your back, I will push hard for that, and if they don't we will unofficially be doing some heavier patrols around the town."
"That is good to hear. Now we just need manpower to complete the hall and scavenge, plus larger vehicles to do it. Maybe a semi or a bus…yeah a bus would be good, we could take out a bunch of seats. I will get the scouts looking for one."
Tiller shrugged, "There are a few schools around, it shouldn't be too much trouble to find one. I would get a truck if I were you, maybe a U-haul style with a box on the back."
Dora thought about this for a moment and said, "Maybe, but the problem is getting the manpower to the area we need to loot too. With a bus we could hold ten people to act as guards and laborers once we got to where we were going."
"That makes sense. Well I gotta get these grunts back to base before they start worrying about us. Good luck, Dora! It was a pleasure to meet you. We will try and stop by sooner than in a week if we can."
"Good, thanks Sargent. Keep your heads down out there!" Dora said with a smile.
After the military truck took off Dora adopted one of the puppies for Mike and let the kids distribute the others, when they started to bicker over who would get the puppies Dora stepped in. She thought Mary would not like to have more than one in her house so the kids staying with her only got to choose one for the residence, then she split the others up more or less by area. Finally to all the kids who were crestfallen about not getting a dog, she said they could come by and play with hers anytime they wanted, in fact she told them to set up a walking schedule among themselves, leaving it to the older kids to be fair.
"You work well with them." Paige said.
"They aren't mine. I can just send them home when they start to bug the piss out of me." The nine kids who would be watching Mike's dog were in the front yard with the puppy arguing about the walking order. Dora stepped up to say the dog could probably use more than one walking a day, and maybe up to three and anyone not holding the leash could go along for the walk. After that the debate among them got down to brass tacks and Dora stepped back to stand with Paige on her porch.
"So, what do you think about our super zombie soldier friends?" she asked Paige.
"Think? I think they are using us for a breeding ground like you think. I think they may have protected us from the worst of the horde that came through here a month ago. I think those two little girls are at the head of it."
"Pure speculation, but why not? They have to have a reason to keep us, why not as cattle, they just cull the herd as they need to and protect us like any good shepherds would from predators. We could live like that you know."
"Survive like that, are you serious? Knowing that we are cattle?" Paige shook her head, "No, not us. Maybe somewhere someday, but not here, not now. We would know that at some point someone was just going to disappear and we couldn't live with that. How many do they need a month to live? God knows we can't produce enough babies to make this work. Do you think this is why they are giving us all the kids they find and no adults?"
"Honestly?" Dora asked, Paige nodded, "Honestly I think that kids can survive this better than adults. How many of these kids have stories of watching zombies eat their parents and siblings?"
"Pretty much all of them." It was one thing most of the children had in common, other than Peter not a single child here had their real mother or father with them.
"Okay, now, of the few adults we have here, how many of them watched their children eaten alive by zombies?"
"Well no one…" Paige's voice trailed off.
"See? A mother or father would not stand by to watch their kid devoured, but a kid? No, kids are a different kind of creature altogether aren't they? I hope you were not wondering what they would do if the zombies were coming for you and they were standing around. I know I wasn't. Hell I am not even related to any of them, I know where I stand and what would happen in that situation."
"Damn. You think of the strangest things."
"You didn't say I was wrong, or that you disagreed with me."
"What? Haven't I been telling you that you are right enough lately? Do you really need me to say it more often?" Paige asked.
Dora laughed and said, "No three or four times a day is enough."
"Dora, do you think your baby would fight for you?"
"No. No I don't. And I wouldn't want him to. I would want him to run and live, to make my sacrifice worthwhile. See? Kids suck; they will get you killed." Dora patted her belly, which was not showing her pregnancy at all. "Well on that positive note we better gather up the rest of the council and have our little talk early today, so we can plan what to do." Dora called out to the kids in the yard and sent one after each of the council members.
The council convened for their afternoon discussion in Dora's house, about three hours earlier than normal.
"We may have a problem." Steve said as soon as everyone had sat down.
"Gee, no call to order or anything, no 'Howdee do'?" said Dora, she waved at Steve disgruntled look, "Oh fine, go on then, what is the problem?"
"What may be the problem." Steve said, emphasizing 'may', "Is the scouting parties that got back. They know something is up. They went beyond where our visitors have been telling us the front lines are and discovered there are no front lines. We should have told them not to talk about it sooner. This is my mistake, I didn't have a sit down with them until after those zombies left this morning. And by now they have all mentioned it to the others, the whole town has got to know at this point. Well the adults anyway."
"Shit. That is not good Steve. I thought I told you to keep it on the down low?" Dora said.
"You did. It was my mistake. What do we do about it?"
"Are the people talking?"
A chorus of 'no' went around the room, except for Leon, who raised his hand. "Yes. Tim came to me and asked me directly."
"Fuck, we haven't moved him out to the water tower yet?"
"It was just two days ago, Dora. After we got hit so hard we didn't move him out there."
"So what did you tell him?"
"That I would ask the council. I am not a good liar, but that was not much of a lie. I need to ask you what we are going to tell everyone." Leon said.
"Well I think we are fucked now. All it will take is for the zombies to catch one of us who knows and beat it out of us, or kill us and bring us back and beat it out of us."
"Or maybe not even that." Steve said.
"What do you mean?" asked Mary.
"Well when I spoke with Peter…"
"Peter is awake?" asked Dora.
"Yes he woke up around noon, hungry, I am pretty sure he has a concussion, a small skull fracture, but his eyes are normal and his vital signs are good. Steve wanted to talk to him, so when Peter said he felt up to it, they chatted for a few minutes."
"I debriefed Peter and he told me that when the scouts went out yesterday Jeff told them to not kill any zombies, to try and sneak by them. He told me there were, well, what I can only describe as pickets, guards, out in the wasteland where everything was bombed out. There were pairs of them, one slow zombie with one slinker. They were not moving, just watching, with the slow zombie up and visible and the slinker under cover. What does that sound like to you?"
"Guards." admitted Dora.
"Slow, mindless zombies as guards. And remember the tape, they brought that poor man in from the dumpster and when they pushed him out, the told him he was going the wrong way. Like they expected the slow zombie to do what they said. And the zombie started to do it too."
"Until it noticed Jeff." said Paige.
"So they have control over them somehow. What if that control is some sort of mental control? What if they can read the minds of those that they kill?"
No one in the council said anything, Dora broke the silence by laughing, "Sorry, but that is pretty far-fetched. We can't prove it. But what you are saying is they wouldn't torture us, but would just kill us and read our minds if they caught us?"
Steve's face had flushed a little, in anger or embarrassment, "That's my theory, yes. Look I know it sounds strange, but just keep it in the realm of possibility okay?"
"My mind is open. What you're saying is they don't need a spy in Doraville, they just grab one of us whenever they want to know what is going on. If what you say is true, and I am not buying into it, but you handle security, right? So if what you say is true, how do we go about getting stage two ready without letting them know?"
"Here is what I thought of, first we call all the adults together, just the over twenty year olds, tell them what is going on and of the need for secrecy."
"Wait, wait, when we lose people the over twenties are the first to go!" protested Dora, "Telling them is like telling the zombies, if what you say it true."
"Just let me continue. If what I suspect is true, the zombies will find out anyway. So we tell the adults, we wait a day or two, see if the attacks lessen like we all think they are going to. In two days, we get the buses, day three we gather the fuel and four days from now we get the fuck out of Doraville. Four days to evacuate. Two buses should be enough if we only pack fuel and food."
"And dogs. Do we have enough bus drivers? Can we get fuel?"
"No certified bus drivers, but how hard can it be to get one moving forward and drive? They take diesel, we don't have a lot of diesel, but that is good, because we have not been scavenging it from the nearby areas, so it should be easy to top off the tanks and get another fifty or so gallons for each bus."
"What else do we need to do if we leave in four days?"
"We'll get the buses, take out a few seats in back, load up the supplies and that's it. If we can meet that goal and keep anyone from being taken for four days, we can get out of here before even Sargent Tiller comes back."
"Okay I like this. I agree with it. I think we will need a few extra vehicles too, we can take my Suburban and another larger vehicle to go ahead and behind the buses as guards and maybe a motorcycle or a couple smaller cars to roam ahead and scout the roads. What about a wrecker to move vehicles out of the road if we need to?"
"Good idea. That would be good. So let's say, three motorcycles, two Suburbans, a wrecker and two buses. That should give us even more room in the buses, if we have four to each suburban and three in the wrecker."
"Jesus, do we have that many drivers?"
"Some of the older kids can fire rifles or shotguns from the Suburbans, and we can take one in the wrecker, the third man in the wrecker will just be there as a lookout for the other two when they are hooking up the truck."
"Do we have anyone who knows how to use a tow truck?"
Steve looked at Dora, "Yeah, me."
"I have been on a few hook ups too." said Alex, "Maybe if Peter is up to it, he can be the scout with us?"
Mary did not look pleased with this, but merely said, "We'll see." She knew Peter would have to be somewhere and if not with her then with his dad was the next safest place.
"Any of the kids ride motorcycles?"
"What?" asked Mary, "Dora you can't think about putting them on a motorcycle, they would be alone!"
"I can think it and I am. Just check around. A guy on a motorcycle is going to be vulnerable, he can't steer with one hand and shoot with the other, so we want people riding them that will run away if they hit trouble. The kids are ideal for it."
"I just can't…that is too much risk." said Mary.
"Just ask, let's see what we get. Try the fourteen and over crowd first, okay?"
"Okay. I will, if Mary will not. I can see your logic." said Alex.
"Is everyone agreed that we follow Steve's plan?" The council nodded, "Then it is unanimous, let's get the word out that there is a town meeting tonight, and we need to speak to the adults first at a pre-town meeting, say it is about drinking alcohol or vaccinations or something that no one would want to attend. Make it boring. Can you handle that Paige?"
"Sure, no problem. Sterilizing wounds."
"Good! I knew I kept you around for a reason. Other than the good loving, of course."
The other council members scoffed at this, but said nothing.
"So, Steve you get with everyone about what we need to gather up. I think putting it in my garage until we leave would be best, out of sight, out of mind and if the 'National Guard' finds out we just tell them we are making a supply storage area for the winter."
The meeting was not adjourned right away, they all stayed and worked out what they thought they would need for the journey and there was a brief debate on whether to send another group out scouting to the north east where the Iowan's hopefully were still fighting.