Chapter 3 On the Devil's Time-Table
Cooke Dam Pond, Huron National Forest
Dean crouched in the thick undergrowth next to the tree trunk, the cool dampness of the ground mist rising up around him. Twenty feet to his right, Boze was likewise frozen in the cover of a clump of bracken fern, barely visible in the mottled greys and greens of the camouflage shirt, waiting patiently.
The white-tail buck had a wide, six-point rack, and the foraging had been good over the summer, all the abandoned farms filled with rich crops. The deer population had exploded as the wild animals had spread out from the forest territories and into the cultivated lands, not just deer either. Nature didn't like a vacuum.
He raised the barrel of the rifle he held, drawing a bead on the buck's side, behind the shoulder, and squeezed gently on the trigger. He heard the flat crack of Boze's shot a fraction of a second after his and the buck dropped to the ground, a clean kill.
Dean stood up, head cocked to one side as he heard the truck start up from down the trail.
"How many are we taking?" Boze got to his feet, stretching his back as he looked over at him.
"Enough to fill the freezers," Dean said, walking to the buck and pulling out his knife.
A pale blue truck came up the trail and stopped nearby. Rona leaned out the window as she stopped the engine.
"That the last one?"
"For the moment," Dean said.
The back held four other animals, this one would fill it. They could hang the animals and dress and butcher the carcases back at camp, but the meat was much better if it was mostly bled out straight after death.
Boze tied the rope around the buck's hindlegs, throwing the free end over a branch and hauling it up off the ground. Dean cut the throat and they watched and waited, talking quietly as the dark, rich blood flowed onto the ground.
Highway 23, Tawas, Michigan
Alex stopped her truck in the farm yard, looking around the deserted buildings carefully. She picked up the shotgun lying on the seat next to her and nodded her readiness to Rufus, both slipping out from their respective sides and closing the doors. In the tray, Ben and Duncan and Alanna stood up, looking around as they jumped out, each carrying a gun.
The barn was huge, and they walked in warily, Alex and Rufus holding their weapons ready as they passed from the bright, sunshine-filled yard into the shadowy gloom of the building. Nothing moved, not even the rustles and scratchings of vermin sounded in the cavernous interior. Behind them, Duncan watched their rear.
She felt a wash of relief as she saw the sacks of feed, stacked up against the walls, and glanced at Rufus with a grin as they both saw the old Dodge flatbed parked at the end of the aisle.
"Take the hay this time?" Rufus walked down to the truck, opening the door and peering in.
"Yeah, Maurice and Risa brought another three cows from a farm down on the 23," Alex said, peering around at the work area to one side of the barn. "We'll need it for the winter."
The scavenging runs had continued and stepped up since the extra hunters and survivors had arrived. Slowly, the network of rooms in the cool basement of the camp were being filled, with staples like flour and sugar, with the carefully picked and wrapped fruits and root vegetables that would last them well into the winter, with dried and preserved and pickled fruit and vegetables that would keep their stomachs full and their bodies healthy until the spring brought fresh food again.
The truck started up, and Rufus leaned out the driver's side window, his teeth a white flash in the dim light. Alex, Ben, Duncan and Alanna moved to the side as he backed and stopped under the trap in the loft floor.
"Duncan, can you back the pickup in next to the feed sacks?" Alex looked over at the teenager, hiding a smile as the boy tried to mask his delight with a serious nod. These children, all of them, would grow up faster now, she thought suddenly. Become men and women at a much earlier age than if things had gone on as they had before the devil rose. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. They seemed happy enough to take on the responsibilities they were given, their days spent in working with the adults, a lot of physical labour and practical examples of problem-solving.
"You want to take a look in the house, Alex?" Rufus broke through her thoughts, and she looked at him, nodding quickly and following him as he walked out of the barn.
At Chitaqua, the cabins had all been cleaned out, furniture scrounged for them, beds and tables and chairs mostly. Father Michael had completed the alterations to the cabin he'd claimed. The larger main room had a low dais at one end, opposite the front door, and from the elementary school in Tawas, Maurice and Tim had brought up a dozen single desks that were pushed against the walls when the priest held his small service on Sunday mornings.
She hadn't been surprised to see the turnout at the little makeshift church. People needed some sense of a greater good, a greater purpose, in time of severe adversity, and Father Michael was a good orator, a caring and compassionate man who thought carefully about the lessons he was teaching them. She had been surprised to see Bobby there, in clean clothes with his grizzled ginger hair slicked back with water and combed smooth. But perhaps the hunter had his own reasons for needing comforting words.
Boze, Maurice, Tim, Rufus and Franklin each had a cabin to themselves. Rona and Risa had decided to stay out of the main house and share one. Chuck and Castiel, the sad-faced man that Rufus had told her was actually an angel, had cabins of their own. She wasn't sure if she believed Rufus' assertion about the man, but she hadn't been able to come up with a solid reason for him to lie about it either.
Debbie had moved from the house with her daughter, Mary, when she and Tim became involved, the first overt relationship in the camp, other than Dean and Lisa. It wasn't so surprising, she thought to herself, walking up the stairs of the farmhouse, her eyes scanning the shadows, watching for danger as well as searching for the things they needed. Debbie was less than a month from her due date, and the instinctive need for a protector had probably speeded the relationship along. Tim was a good man, and a loyal one, and he would take care of them.
Her mouth lifted in a slight smile as she thought of the conversation with Dean about the possible repercussions of relationships within the camp structure. It was working alright, leaving the responsibility with the people themselves. She'd known it would. Rules were necessary for some things, but she'd found mostly that people were sensible if they were left to themselves to work out the consequences. Arbitrary enforcement wouldn't have worked.
The linen closet was full. They would take all of it, Alex thought, moving onto the bathroom. She was pleased to see that the cupboards in there were also well stocked, with soap and shampoo and cleaners, toilet paper, towels and a good range of standard, off-the-shelf medicinal supplies, as well as a couple of bottles of prescription medication – one bottle of codeine-heavy painkillers, and a bottle of nitroglycerine tablets for angina. She put both in the pocket of her jacket.
The main bedroom's closet held a good collection of luggage and she pulled out the empty cases, filling them with the linen, bathroom supplies and towels, dragging them down the stairs and leaving them on the wide porch to be collected before they left. Each bedroom was stripped, and she looked at the beds carefully, mentally earmarking the place for a return trip if they needed more. They were well-made and the mattresses all looked pretty new and in good shape.
Walking down the stairs, she nodded to Rufus as she passed him in the hallway. He was lugging a boxful of books down to the porch. While they needed books on the practical side of surviving, she'd been glad to get the support of Bobby, Father Michael and Rufus on the benefits of having a good collection of fiction as well. With little else in the way of simple entertainment, and the historical value of revealing a world that had been and was now gone, the imperative to collect as many works of fiction as they could find was a given now on every scrounge trip, and the big house in camp was slowly being filled with a range of novels and plays and poetry, of every genre and for every age group. Children's books and the school texts they found from time to time had helped Debbie with her teaching and most of the adults didn't mind taking a turn at story-time, reading from the selection to a circle of wide-eyed children in the evenings.
In the kitchen, the cupboards and pantry had, of course, been stripped. Alex opened the door to the basement, switching on her flashlight and shifting the shotgun to the other hand as she walked down the wooden steps.
Later, she thought that the smell should have alerted her. A dryish, sweetish smell that shouldn't have been there, in the cool, slightly moist air of the cellar. But at the time, she'd been thinking of croaties, not even knowing about the other monsters that might have found the end of the world to their liking.
At the bottom of the steps she stopped, swinging the beam of light around, seeing the big wooden barrels lined up along one stone-built wall. She walked to them, lifting the tight-fitting wooden lids, and seeing fine sand filled to the top, and she put her gun down to dig through the sand, feeling the smooth, round shapes of apples, buried deeper.
There was a scuff behind her, and she turned, expecting to see Rufus, or one of the kids. The red-rimmed eyes that stared into hers, from a pouched and wrinkled grey-tinged face shocked her into a frozen stillness, taking her breath from her lungs.
The thing's arm swung toward her and it was blind reflex that brought her own arm up, taking the impact of the blow as she thrust the flashlight towards its face. It staggered back a little and Alex heard another sound, her head snapping around to see a second shadowy creature moving out from under the stairs.
"RUFUS!" she screamed, and there was a low chuckle in front of her.
"Mine," the thing said softly, lunging at her. Alex didn't feel the blow from the other side, her vision blacking out when the length of timber hit the back of her skull.
Camp Chitaqua, Lake Solitude, Michigan
Nodding to the guards at the gate as they drove in, Dean looked along both sides of the perimeter fence automatically. The reinforcements they'd made were significant, the twelve-foot boundary now fixed into place over a six-foot bank, the fence leaning out slightly, a pit dug along the inner line of the fence that was filled with salt and pitch, able to be lit as a secondary wall of flame in the case of more determined attackers.
After talking to Bobby, Alex had suggested that the railway line that was stockpiled at the freight docks on Lake Huron might be a useful boundary. He wasn't sure why he hadn't thought of that himself, or why Rufus or Bobby or Boze hadn't either. Fresh viewpoint Bobby'd said dryly and he guessed that was true. They'd never really defended a place before, and the nearest comparison was Samuel Colt's pentacle in Wyoming, a project that never would've entered his mind to emulate.
The iron tracks were laid and buried in a rough circle around the compound now, though, the truck lifting slightly as it ran over them, giving him a sense of security about the safety of the people inside. There were a lot of things that could cross that boundary, but at least some would be unable to, and anything that helped his odds was welcome.
Rona pulled up in front of the barn and they got out, stepping to one side as she backed up to the chain haul that had been hung from the centre rafter. When she stopped, Boze climbed into the tray, hooking the first of the deer onto the chain and lifting it out of the truck. Maurice and Franklin walked up, looking over the carcasses and pulling out their skinning knives and Dean grinned at them, turning away and leaving them to it.
He looked down the track, seeing the white pickup and a much larger flatbed, both parked down by the main house, both loaded heavily with another load scavenged from the local farms. They'd been moving out lately, but were still able to get what they needed within a conservative twenty mile radius. He started walking down to the house.
As he came up to the truck, Rufus came down the porch steps, giving him a wide grin. "Bobby bet me you wouldn't actually kill a deer," the older man said, looking up toward the barn. "Hope you proved him wrong."
Dean's mouth lifted at one side. "Hope you weren't betting paper money, Rufus, 'cos he lost that bet."
"Nah, stakes are whiskey now." Rufus slid a couple of cases from the top of the pile on the truck and turned to carry them into the house. "He loses any more bets and I'll have enough to last a couple of years, at the least."
Dean reached up, taking another two cases from the back and followed him in. "What'd you get on this run?"
"Hay, feed, linen, books, about the usual," Rufus grunted as he hauled the luggage up the stairs.
"You take the kids?"
"Yeah, handled themselves pretty well," Rufus allowed, dumping the cases by the walk-in linen closet on the second floor and leaning against the wall as he watched Dean do the same.
"Where's Alex?" Dean dropped the bags and turned back for the stairs.
"Not sure, kitchen, I think," Rufus said, following him. "She said she found a load of apples and root vegetables in the cellar, but we didn't have room for 'em on this trip, so she was going to organise another trip for tomorrow."
Dean nodded and turned to the right at the bottom of the stairs, leaving Rufus in the hall and walking into the kitchen. Renee and Lisa were at the sink and counter respectively, Lisa looking up as he came in, smiling at him.
"Hey, how'd the hunting go?"
"Got a load of venison for the freezers," he said. "Hope you know how to cook it."
"We'll figure it out," she said dryly, hearing Renee's chuckle behind her.
"Alex come in here?" he asked, looking around the kitchen. Lisa nodded, gesturing to the basement door.
"She's down there," she said, watching him go to the door and open it. "What were you after?"
He paused at the door, looking back at her. "Just an update."
She looked down at the vegetables she was cutting up and he went down the stairs, following the trail of lights to the big store-rooms.
Alex was looking at the shelves when he walked in. She glanced at him and nodded, looking back at the sacks of flour and sugar, corn and oats and barley.
"Good haul today," he said, walking to her. She nodded again, keeping her gaze on the shelves.
"We got five buck. Maurice and Frank are dressing them now."
"Good," she said, turning her head to look up at him, and he felt a faint jolt of unease at the cool distance in her eyes. "Was there something you wanted?"
He hesitated slightly at the dismissive tone in her voice. "Anything wrong?"
"No, of course not," she said, turning and walking out of the room. "Just busy."
"Right." He followed her out and down the hall to the stairs, wondering if that's what it was. "Rufus said you wanted to make another run out to that farm?"
"Yes, there's quite a lot of food still there, in the basement," she said, stopping at the foot of the stairs, her gaze cutting away from him again to look up the staircase. "It would be a waste to leave it."
"Alright," he agreed readily. "Tomorrow morning?"
"That would be fine."
He watched her turn away and walk up the stairs ahead of him, the back of his neck prickling slightly as he slowly walked up after her. Coming into the kitchen, he closed the door to the basement behind him.
"Anything wrong with Alex?" he asked Lisa, walking to lean on the end of the counter.
"Not that I noticed," Lisa said, looking at him curiously. "Why?"
He shook his head. It wasn't anything he could put his finger on, a coldness, a lack of expression that hadn't seemed like her at all.
Renee turned around to look at him, her face showing the same unease he felt. "I thought there was something wrong too, but she said she was fine," she said. "I mean, we all tend to go through patches where it kind of hits home what's really happened, you know?"
He nodded, a little reluctantly. "Yeah."
Walking out of the kitchen, he headed for Bobby's room. Something about the explanation didn't ring true to him. He hadn't noticed any moodiness in her, in the time they'd been here, but he thought, he didn't know her that well, and it was possible.
Six hours later
"You want a hand?" Dean looked at Ben as he staggered up the stairs with a load of firewood. Ben peered around the logs in his arms and nodded eagerly. "Just another load and I'm done."
Picking up an armful from the stack along the stone wall under the porch, Dean followed him inside and dumped the logs into the big boxes that sat on either side of the fireplace in the living room.
Ben looked up at him. "Thanks."
"No problem," Dean said, smiling slightly. The kid was easy to please. "How'd you go with the target practice today?"
"Good – I think," Ben said, looking around the room. "I beat Duncan's score!"
"That's not too shabby."
"And I was the fastest at field-stripping and reloading," Ben stated, grinning at him. "But I've had more practice than the others."
"Yeah, well, never hurts to be as fast as you can be with that," he remarked, sitting in the armchair next to the fire as Ben dropped to the floor in front of him. "Who'd you have for sparring today?"
Ben's face screwed up slightly. "Frank."
Dean smothered a laugh. "What's the face for? He's a good teacher."
"Yeah, but he hits hard," Ben said, reflexively rubbing his ribs. "And I'm not getting it right. Not like with the guns. I can't move the right way."
Looking at him, Dean was suddenly reminded of Sam, at that age. All arms and legs and not much idea of how they went together. "How 'bout we do a little one-on-one tomorrow, see if it helps?"
Ben's eyes lit up. "That'd be great!"
"Yeah, well, depending on the supply runs and everything else, sometime in the afternoon."
The boy nodded. They both looked up as Alex walked past them, not even glancing at them. Dean saw Ben's face fall slightly.
"What?"
Ben shook his head. "I think I did something wrong, today, when we went to the farm, but I don't know what," he confided in a low voice, his gaze dropping.
"Why would you think that?" Dean frowned, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he looked down at Ben.
"Alex wasn't – she seemed mad when we'd finished, and she didn't talk to anyone on the way home," Ben said slowly. "Usually – I mean, most times, if we deserve it, she tells everyone what a good job they've done, and how much it helps and she's nice, you know?"
Dean nodded, lifting his head to look at the woman as she stopped by the long windows, twitching the curtain aside to look out.
"But today, she didn't, so I guess I did something that wasn't right," Ben continued.
"Maybe not, Ben," Dean said, looking back at him. "I don't think you did anything wrong. Maybe she's just –," he closed his mouth on what he'd been about to say, hunting for a substitute. "- uh, just in a bad mood today, for some reason?"
Ben looked up at him, brow wrinkling up a little. "She's never in a bad mood, Dean."
"Huh."
He ran his hand over his jaw, wondering about that. Everyone had an off day from time to time. He hadn't noticed himself, but he wasn't around that much. He thought back to the way she'd been in the store-room.
In the last couple of months, since Boze had brought his survivors in, he'd been talking to her a lot. She kept the records for the camp, along with Chuck and Father Michael, how much they had, how much they needed, and he'd begun rely on her objective practicality when he needed to make decisions that involved everyone. Talking to her was – had always been –easy. She wasn't emotional, didn't take things personally, had a kind of a long-range view of things, like getting the pharmaceuticals they would need somewhere down the line. And she seemed to enjoy it, had seemed to enjoy talking about it with him. But not today.
He looked back to the window, brows drawing together when he saw that she'd disappeared again.
"You got homework?" Dean looked at Ben again. The boy nodded reluctantly.
"Every night," he admitted.
"Better get on with it if you want to go out with us tomorrow then," Dean said, hiding a smile at the brightening of Ben's expression. He watched him get up and join the other kids, and stood up, looking around the long room.
Had something happened? Something he should probably know about? He wasn't sure who to ask. So far as he'd been able to tell, Renee was about the closest person to Alex and she had no idea. He could try talking to her again, see if something was wrong. The last thing he needed now was a problem between the people here.
He went out through the dining room and into the kitchen, nodding at the teenagers as they finished the washing up and drying. They hadn't seen her since before dinner and he nodded impatiently, turning around and heading for the stairs. As he walked along the hall to her bedroom, he wondered at his persistence, dismissing the thought almost immediately as he knocked on the closed door. There was no response and he pushed it open. The room was empty.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stood indecisively, looking around. Maybe she'd gone to see Father Michael, if she did have a problem, he thought. He walked to the front door and out onto the porch. A faint movement in the shadows along the driveway caught his eye and turned to look, focussing as he saw it again.
Alex was forgotten as he walked silently down the porch steps and along the drive, following the movement from shadow to shadow. It had to be someone from here, he thought uneasily, but the behaviour was slightly too furtive for an evening stroll through the woods. He cut through the trees and behind the cabins when the drive curved to follow the contour of the hill and saw the figure clearly as she came out of the darkness under the trees near the gate.
Alex.
Doing what, he wondered? He looked up the slope to the guard tower that sat by the gate. Tim and Ty were on duty there and after a moment, he saw the big spotlight come on and swing around to pin her in the circle of light.
"Just me, you guys!" she called out, waving.
"What's up?" Tim leaned over the high platform edge and looked down at her.
"Just found something that you guys need to see," she said, reaching the ladder and starting to climb.
Bullshit, Dean thought, and he rocketed down the slope toward the tower, gun in his hand.
"Freeze!" he yelled as he crossed the gravel drive, the gun aimed at her. "Tim, keep the light on her!"
"What?"
Alex stopped half-way up the ladder, hooking one hand through the thick timber rung and holding both up to show they were empty.
"Dean, it's Alex," she said, looking down at him.
"Come down, slow," he said as he reached the bottom of the ladder. She turned away from him, both hands on the rung and moved her foot, then she was scurrying higher, and the first shot he fired went slightly low, splintering the rung below her as she scrambled onto the flat floor. He jumped back as Tim came cartwheeling off the edge of the platform, landing in a sprawled heap beside him.
"Ty, it's not Alex!" he shouted, his warning almost drowned by Alex's scream.
"NOW!"
On the platform, Ty struggled to keep her hand from hitting the entry button on the remote motor that controlled the gate, her fingernails slashing across his face and down his neck.
Dean spun around and saw a number of figures running toward the gate, indistinct in the darkness, clothing fluttering around them. His eyes narrowed, then the spotlight swung around, pushed as Ty's back hit it. The road on the other side of the gate was lit up completely and the figures running for the gate were all too obvious.
"Fuck- GHOULS!" Dean shouted, running for the ladder as he realised what must have happened. "Ty, she's a ghoul!"
He shoved the gun in his jacket pocket and climbed fast, ducking as he reached the top and Alex turned to him, her arm swinging out and the long nails tearing across his cheekbone. The gun was in his hand and he fired, four shots in quick succession into her head.
Not enough to kill, but it had slowed her down, he thought as he heaved himself over the edge of the platform and pulled out his knife. Ty was on his hands and knees, crouching over the controls to the gate, his face and neck a bloodied mess. Dean grabbed the ghoul, swinging her around and driving the knife-tip into her neck, pushing out to sever arteries and windpipe and dragging it back again as he thumped a knee onto her back and forced her to the floor of the platform. The knife was slick with blood as he hacked his way through the spinal column. Her head fell to the ground, bouncing several times before it came to rest against the gate, and he dropped the blade, pushing the body off the platform with his foot, and reached out for the big machine gun that was placed on the outside of the platform.
The staccato roar of the gun filled the night. Distantly he heard shouts from the camp. Closer, he saw the ghouls hesitating and turning to run back into the darkness as the bullets stitched across their backs, two of them losing their heads with the force of the shots.
When they'd disappeared in the darkness, he released the trigger, turning to look at Ty as the road was filled with bootsteps and calls.
"What the fuck?" Rufus said from the ground and Dean looked down, his face drawn in the backwash of the spotlight.
"Rufus! Get a car, right fucking now!"
Rufus nodded, turning from Tim and leaving him to Renee and Boze and Rona, racing down the hill again.
Dean looked at Ty. "You okay?"
"All just scratches, man," Ty said tiredly, the adrenalin that had flooded his system beginning to leech out. "Stings like hell but nothing worse."
"Rona, Ty's up here, needs some attention," Dean said as he swung over the edge of the platform and started down the ladder. "Boze, you armed?"
"Yes, boss," Boze said, looking up at him. "What was it?"
"Ghouls," Dean snapped, looking around at the people standing at the base of the platform. "One of them must've gotten Alex at that farm, because that wasn't her that came back with everyone else."
"Shit," Boze said, his stomach turning slightly at what it meant.
"Maurice, you and Rona take tower duty now," Dean said abruptly, seeing the headlights of the four-wheel drive coming up from the camp. "Everyone else, get Ty and Tim back to base, patched up and everyone stays inside unless the alarm goes. Locked and loaded until we're back, got it?"
The group nodded and murmured assent, drawing back off the road as Rufus hit the brakes in front of the gate.
"Boze, you, me and Rufus," Dean said going to the driver's side as Rufus shifted across inside the car. Boze nodded, opening the rear door and getting in.
As his door shut, the gate rumbled open, the spotlight showing both sides and down the track, Maurice closing it again as soon as the rear bumper had gone through.
Highway 23, Tawas, Michigan
The farm was dark and Dean wondered if the ghouls had gotten back, or were still on their way. He turned off the headlights and engine and coasted down the long, mild slope of the driveway, touching the brake as the ground flattened out between the house and the massive barn.
He turned to look at Rufus. "House or barn?"
"She was only alone in the house, in the basement," Rufus said shortly, pulling out his machete and easing his door open. Behind him, Boze also held a long machete blade, the bare edge glinting slightly as he slipped from the car. Dean looked at the house for a moment, then gestured to Rufus to take the front, turning and hearing Boze following him as they ran around to the back.
The back door was unlocked and he pushed it gently open, keeping to the walls of the kitchen to limit the chance of a floorboard creaking as he crossed the room to the basement door. He felt a single tap on his shoulder and opened the door, moving out of the light from the bare bulb over the stairs and hurrying down the thick wooden steps, his flashlight on and lined up along the barrel of his gun.
The long, deep room seemed to be empty at first; it wasn't until they'd started looking hard at the walls that they found the handle-less door, set under the staircase. He pulled it open and gagged, huffing out the foul air as it hit him from the dark interior.
The flashlight beam showed a couple of tables in the centre of the room, gleaming a little from the edges of the tools and knives that were embedded in piles of offal and rank, decomposing meat. Dean's mouth thinned and he walked deeper into the room, playing the beam over every square inch of wall and floor, feeling Boze behind him, his flashlight covering the opposite wall.
The attack was still a surprise.
He heard Boze's grunt and spun around, his flashlight lighting up a small, grey-skinned, red-eyed creature in torn garments, one hand still gripping the long carving knife it'd shoved into Boze's back, lips peeling back to reveal blackened, rotted teeth and fresh blood dripping from its chin.
The gun shots were deafening in the closed space, and he kept firing as the creature hit the ground, stopping only when the magazine ran out. Dropping the gun, his fingers curled tight around the hilt of the machete and he swung it in a short downward arc across the ghoul's neck, felt it bite deeply into the packed earth of the room's floor, watching the head separate cleanly and roll aside.
"You okay?" he asked Boze, turning and pulling the knife out, the big man lying on his side, sweat beading on his face and neck.
"Think so, glanced off the ribs and went in over them, not into my guts," Boze said shakily. "Can you see?"
Dean turned him over a little, lifting his jacket and shirt and nodding. "Yeah."
"Is Alex here?"
"I don't know," Dean said, looking at the slow-spreading blood stain on the man's back.
"Dean?" Rufus' voice called out faintly.
"In here," Dean called out, hearing him come down the stairs, his flashlight flicking over them.
"Get Boze up to the car, he got knifed," he said, getting to his feet and driving the machete blade into the surface of one of the tables. He leaned over, pulling Boze's arm around his neck.
"Where's Alex?" Rufus hurried over, gripping the hunter's other arm and helping to heave him upright.
"I don't know. Get him out of here." Dean turned away from them, picking up his flashlight and jerking the machete from the table top. He played the light slowly over the rest of the room as he heard them walk out. What he'd thought was a wall, wasn't, he realised, his eyes differentiating the line of the corner as he got closer. He shifted to the other side, machete held up as he hurried around it.
Two more tables took up the space, one covered in a grey heap of meat, the noxious fumes from it almost impossible to breathe through. He pulled up the collar of his t-shirt in an attempt to shut it out as he shone the light on the other table.
The ghoul impersonating her had taken her clothes, and her skin was covered in what seemed like hundreds of small cuts, each one bleeding, trickles and threads and pools of blood, dripping down onto the table and the earth below.
One arm hung over the edge of the table, the inside of the forearm cut deeply, and blood ran down over the wrist and palm to fall into a bowl that had been set beneath it.
The bowl was almost half-full and he closed his eyes, dragging in a deep breath. Not more than a couple of quarts then, he thought, lifting the arm up as he put the machete down on the table, and struggled out of his jacket and shirt, an involuntary shiver rippling through him as the cold air hit him through his tee shirt. He pressed his fingertips against the side of her neck, feeling a thready beat there after a moment, his expression hardening as he took his shirt and ripped the sleeves from it.
He wadded up one sleeve tightly, pressing the edges of the cut close together and holding them closed with the padded material as he wound the other sleeve around her forearm and knotted off. Lifting one eyelid, he shone the flashlight beam across her eye, seeing the pupil enlarged and non-responsive. Unconscious, and just as well, he decided, sliding an arm around her back to hold her up as he manoeuvred his jacket around her, pushing her limp arms through the sleeves and zipping up the front impatiently. He had to get her out of here.
There was a thud outside the room and Dean glanced over his shoulder.
"Rufus, get the car close to the back door."
Silence answered him and he turned around, lowering Alex to the table top again as the three ghouls came around the corner. Larry, Curly and Mo, he thought irreverently.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered, looking at them tiredly, his hand finding and curling the hilt of the machete and lifting it from the table.
The ghouls came at him together and he stepped to one side, both hands around the hilt as he swept the blade in a long, whickering curve that sent Larry's head flying out to hit the wall. Mo slammed into his side, knocking him against the second table, his arm disappearing to the elbow in the putrid flesh that covered it, the feel and smell bringing the contents of his stomach up to the back of his throat.
He twisted hard against the sharp fingernails that were digging through his tee shirt into his side, elbowing the creature in the face, a faint surge of satisfaction accompanying the feel of the bones breaking under the blow, and he dropped to the floor as its grip slid loose, rolling under the table and slashing at the legs of Curly, who'd come around the end. As it fell to the floor beside him, he lifted the blade and brought it down hard, the edge severing the neck and the head rolling away.
Mo leapt onto his back as he tried to stand, hooked fingers driving into his throat. Ducking sharply down, Dean tried to tip the tenacious ghoul off, spinning on one knee and slamming it into the edge of the table when he saw a pair of blood-spattered boots come into his field of vision and heard the distinctive whistle of Rufus' serrated machete above him. The ghoul dropped off and he shuddered as he straightened up, fingertips reaching gingerly for the stinging, bleeding cuts at the side of his neck.
"Nice timing," he said, coughing.
"Couldn't let you have all the fun," Rufus quipped sourly, looking around. His expression hardened as he saw Alex lying on the table.
"Let's get out of here," Dean wiped the blade on the remains of his shirt and sheathed it, going back to the table.
"She alright?" Rufus asked softly beside him. Dean slid his arm under her back again, lifting her off the table and nodding.
"I think so," he said, jerking his head toward the stairs. He hoped so anyway, he amended silently to himself.
He followed Rufus out of the room, and up the stairs, looking at Boze who was sitting up in the backseat, his head tipped back.
"Boze, front seat, man," he said, as Rufus opened the rear door. The hunter opened his eyes and looked them, nodding wearily as he pushed the door open and climbed out. Getting awkwardly into the rear, Dean shifted along the seat until Rufus could close the door behind him. He grabbed the blanket from the floor and unfolded it, wrapping it around Alex as much as possible.
Rufus got in the driver's side and started the car, flicking a glance at the man beside him as he pulled out. Boze was leaning back in the seat, his eyes closed.
"You had the three kids and Alex, Rufus?" Dean asked quietly from the back as they pulled out the farm gate.
"Yeah," Rufus answered, running his hand over his head. "I couldn't be with all of them at the same time."
Dean nodded. "Yeah, well, from now on, two hunters go with the teams."
"Dean, we're stretched thin as it is –"
"Two hunters, Rufus," Dean repeated harshly, his voice deepening. "We've been thinking of croaties and demons but they're not the only things out there, and none of these people know anything about the rest."
Rufus let out his breath softly. "Alright."
Dean looked out the window for a moment, the muscle twitching at the point of his jaw. They were stretched thin, not enough of them to do the jobs that needed to be done. It didn't matter. The people who were with them were civilians. They had no idea. He looked down at the woman he was holding. He'd never even mentioned the fucking monsters to her. Hadn't even thought of it. And the hunters needed these people as much as the people needed them, more maybe. He couldn't go do his job, go find his brother, if he had no base, no food, no stockpile of ammunition.
Her head had turned to one side, and he saw the dark, sticky matting of her hair at the back, lifting his hand to touch there lightly. His fingers came away red, and he closed his eyes, leaning against the glass of the window beside him.
Camp Chitaqua, Lake Solitude, Michigan
The gate rolled open and Rufus drove through and down to the house. Father Michael, Bobby, Lisa and Renee were waiting at the top of the porch steps for them, clearing a path when Dean carried Alex in, Rufus, supporting Boze, following him.
"What've we got?" Bobby asked as he walked past him.
"Boze caught a blade in the back, along the outside of the ribs, we think," Dean said tersely, over his shoulder. "Alex's got a head wound, a deep cut in the forearm, a lot of superficial cuts and she lost somewhere between two and three quarts of blood, I think."
Renee nodded. "Rufus, take Boze to the kitchen. Lisa, get Debbie to help you dress his back . Dean, bring Alex upstairs. Father, can you make up a saline solution? We'll use the bags we got from the Frenech place?"
"Is it safe to bring her in here?" Lisa asked worriedly as she watched Dean walk to the stairs. "I mean, if she was bitten or whatever?"
Bobby glanced at her expressionlessly. "Ghouls eat people, they don't turn 'em."
As he followed Renee up the stairs, Dean was aware that his shirt was sticky and wet. He couldn't see if the makeshift bandage he'd put on was coming loose or was soaked through, but he knew the wetness against his skin was blood. He waited as Renee pulled back the covers of Alex's bed and laid down two thicknesses of towels over the sheet and mattress, then laid Alex on top of them. Stepping back, he looked down at himself, his tee shirt red from collarbone to waist and the inside of his arms smeared with blood.
Renee glanced at him, her brows shooting up. "Is that yours or hers?"
"Hers, mostly," he said. "I think the bandage worked loose."
"Well, you're still on your feet, so just help me get the blanket and jacket off and then you can go clean up, alright?" she said shortly and he nodded, moving around to the other side of the bed and lifting Alex as Renee pulled the edge of the blanket out, drawing it away. She unzipped the jacket, and Dean caught a glimpse of her mouth compressing into a thin line as she pulled the lapels away and saw the cuts and blood.
"I don't want to know anything about what did this, do I?" she asked him, her voice tight as she lifted Alex's arm free of the sleeve. Dean looked at her as he did the same on the other side.
"No." He took the collar of the jacket and eased it away, lowering her back to the towels. "But I think you're going to have to learn, about a few things, anyway."
Father Michael came in, two hospital bags of saline solution, a makeshift pole to hang them from and a coil of plastic hose with a cannula at the end in his hands, Lisa following him into the room, carrying a bowl of warm, salted water, a pile of gauze pads and a stack of sterile dressings.
Renee nodded to them, moving out of the way so that the priest could hang the bag, and taking in Lisa's expression as she stared at Dean. She gestured to Dean.
"Go and make sure you're not bleeding out anywhere either."
She undid the bandage as he backed to the door, taking the gauze and wiping the blood from around the cut.
"Do we have butterfly closures or do we need to stitch this?"
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he winced slightly as Lisa dabbed alcohol over the scrapes and puncture wounds in his neck and shoulders, covering the wounds in antibiotic powder and taping on dressings over the worst of them.
"How's Boze?" he asked her as she gathered up the packets and cotton balls she'd used.
"Bobby cleaned it up and dressed the cut," she said quietly, putting them in the trash can near the door. "He said it skated over the ribs."
"Yeah," Dean straightened up a little, carefully stretching the muscles and waiting for the pain to tell him the story. There wasn't much and he picked up the clean shirt from the bed beside him and pulled it on. The shower had done most of the work, he thought. He shunted aside the memory of the pale red water running down the drain at his feet. "He'll still be out of action for a while."
"I guess so," Lisa said, walking back to sit beside him. "But we're not badly off, we can relax for a week, can't we?"
He rubbed a finger over his eye, feeling a slight crust on his lashes. "No. We can't."
"Why?" She moved closer, slipping her arm around him.
"Because nothing else is taking time off, Lise," he said, curbing the irritation he could feel growing. "We have to make sure that we have enough food for these people, that we can protect them, that we can find out what's going on in the rest of the country –" He cut himself off and got off the bed, walking aimlessly across the room.
"But I thought we had plenty of everything?"
"Yeah, well we don't," he said, turning around. "And with Alex …"
Lisa frowned as he trailed off. "What?"
He shrugged. "She lost a lot of blood, maybe too much."
"We'll manage, Dean, until she's recovered," she said. "I can take over checking our supplies –"
"And you're gonna milk the cows? Feed them? Doctor them?" he asked, aware that his tone had an edge to it.
"No, but she's been teaching Duncan and Michelle as well. And Alice and Mary to milk the goats, I'm sure we'll manage to survive," she said defensively.
"Yeah," he said, giving up. He didn't want to articulate all the things he was worried about anyway. Not to her.
"You should rest, get some sleep," she said, immediately conciliatory as she saw his shoulders drop. He nodded but picked up a clean plaid shirt and pulled it over his tee shirt.
"Yeah, in a little while," he told her, turning for the door. "I need to, uh, see about clearing out the rest of the ghouls with Rufus first."
He felt her gaze on him as he left. He was very tired and talking to Rufus could've easily waited until morning, but he admitted reluctantly to himself, he didn't want to stay. Didn't want to have to make the effort to be reassuring or feel her need pressed up against him.
One week later.
Alex winced as she pulled off her clothes, feeling the scabs catch and tug as she moved. Most of them would soften up in the shower and drop off and start growing again but she wasn't going another day without a shower and she'd just have to live with the discomfort.
Renee had told she'd been unconscious for three days, what the ex-nurse thought was probably a hairline fracture at the back of her skull, and they hadn't been sure she was even going to make it, between the head wound and the loss of blood. She could have told her that she had a tough constitution and her body had handled worse in the past. But that would have invited questions that she didn't want to answer so she'd smiled instead.
The hot water beat down with sufficient pressure to actually massage her as she stood under it, just letting it flow over her for a few minutes. Everything stung in the water but it was a minor pain and she ignored it as her muscles warmed and relaxed beneath the steady spray. Picking up the soap, she luxuriated in the process of getting clean again, scrubbing the thin line of blood and dirt that had been beneath her fingernails since she'd been attacked, and washing the faint but pervasive scent of blood and decomposition finally from her hair.
Aside from the recurring nightmares, she thought she was healing up pretty fast.
Getting dressed in clean clothes, she waited patiently as Renee changed the dressing on her arm and parted her hair, looking at the crusting scab that had formed over the split in her scalp, nodding in relief as she was an okay to get up. She walked slowly downstairs, feeling faintly disoriented, as if she'd been away from home for a long time. It was a peculiar feeling because she hadn't realised that the camp felt like home for one thing; and she'd really only been out of it for a few days for another.
Her gaze took in the state of the house, still reasonably clean, logs stacked beside the fire which was blazing in the hearth in the living room, warming the air right through the house. The kitchen and dining room were tidy after the morning meals, bowls of vegetables sat ready for preparation later, Michelle standing at the counter, grinning at her with a smudge of flour across her nose.
"Glad to see you on your feet," the voluptuous blonde said cheerfully.
"Glad to be on my feet," Alex agreed, looking around distractedly. "Isn't Alanna supposed to be helping you?"
"Yeah, but Dean roped her into another scavenging run this morning."
"Another –? How many has he done?" Alex asked. They'd been on a schedule, to give the hunters time to do other things.
"Three a day," Michelle said, adding another handful of flour to the dough she was kneading. "He was worried about the supplies."
"But Lisa or Renee could've told him –"
"Oh yeah, they did, at least I heard Renee going over the situation with him yesterday." She looked up from the board as the heels of her hands pressed out the mix. "He changed a few things around."
"Like what?"
"Everyone gets tested now, when they come back in from a run or a job," Michelle said, frowning slightly as she thought back over the hunter's pronouncements of the last few days. "Two hunters go with the teams. Um … he did a run down to Saginaw, picked up a load of medical stuff …"
"Oh." Alex looked away, wondering what had happened that he'd decided to put supplies at the top of his priorities. "Do you know where all that stuff went?"
"It's in the first supply room, in the basement," Michelle confirmed, adding another swipe of flour to her cheek inadvertently.
"Okay, thanks," Alex said, turning for the basement.
The trucks pulled up at the gate and everyone got out, standing in a loose line as Maurice walked along them, and Rona stood on the platform behind the M60. Holy water, salt, silver and iron. The tests were simple and fast and after three days of them, becoming normal. Dean got back into the pickup, glancing at Rufus as he got in the other side.
"Where did Bobby say those warehouses were?"
"Brighton, Lansing, Romeo and Chelsea," Rufus said, looking at him. "Why?"
"Just wondering if it's worth taking a shot at them," Dean said, thumb tapping against the wheel as they drove slowly through the gate and down the drive. "If they were locked up, there might still be a lot of food there."
Rufus shook his head. "And that close to Detroit, a hell of a lot of demons and croaties and god knows what else, Dean."
"Yeah."
"We're stockpiling," Rufus added, frowning as he looked at the younger man's profile. "This load just about fills the store-rooms under the house and the barn is full – we'll have seed enough to replant in the spring."
Dean tipped his head back, stretching out the tense muscles of shoulder and neck. "Yeah, I guess."
"You've kept these people fed and safe, man," Rufus added, pressing the point as the truck bounced over the iron under the ground. "And they're learning how to do it for themselves. We got other things we need to be getting on with, you know."
"I know."
Pulling up in front of the house, Dean turned off the engine and pulled on the brake. Rufus was right, mostly, he thought. What was here now was a big improvement on what they'd started with and he was pretty sure he'd covered everything, thought of everything important anyway. In the back of his mind, the sense of time ticking away continued, every second, but they couldn't go any faster than they were.
He got out and grabbed the topmost box from the tray, lifting it clear and resettling it against his chest as he walked around the truck and up the stairs. The list Alex had given Bobby was just about cleared. The trip to Saginaw had netted them at least some of what she'd thought of, although they hadn't been able to find some things. There was time for another fast trip, maybe over to Grand Rapids, before December.
Carrying the box down the basement stairs, he turned into the store-room he'd temporarily designated for all the stuff he didn't know where to store and stopped as he saw Alex crouched beside a pile of boxes against the wall.
"Didn't think you'd be up for a couple more days," he said, forcing a casual tone as he set the box on the long table against the wall.
Alex turned around and straightened up, a slight smile lifting one side of her mouth wryly as she looked at him. "Moving around helps the stiffness more than rest."
He was relieved to see the smile, hear the wry tone. That's what the ghoul hadn't had, he thought vaguely, that self-deprecating air. She looked directly at him, and her gaze was open and friendly again.
"Yeah it does," he agreed, glancing at the boxes filling the room. "We did a few more runs and I, uh, didn't know where you wanted these to go," he added, by way of explanation for the unpacked stores.
"What did you manage to get?" Alex turned back to the box she'd been looking through. "Michelle said you went down to Saginaw?"
He nodded, walking over to her. "Didn't get everything you wanted, but we got a few things. The drugs, most of them anyway. Some text books from the college. The, uh, sewing stuff …" He gestured around the boxes. "There's time for another shot at it, maybe Grand Rapids."
Looking down at the boxes, Alex thought about the timing, the weather, their requirements. "That's pretty tight, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it will be," he said, watching the expressions flicker across her face. "But just a couple of us going, we can move a lot faster."
"You need someone who knows what what's needed," she said slowly. "I can give you a list, of course, but I can't list out every possible substitute if you can't find the exact same thing."
"How is it you know this stuff, exactly?" he asked her curiously, leaning against the side of the shelf beside him.
"Oh, I spent a fair amount of time in hospitals," she said evasively. "Got a good working knowledge of a few things."
He waited for her to elaborate on that, but she didn't.
"Dean!"
Renee's voice drifted down the basement stairs.
"Yeah?" he called back, going to the door.
"Bobby says get up here," Renee yelled and he glanced back at Alex, shrugging as he walked out and back up the stairs, heading for Bobby's office.
"What?"
"Got company, coming from town," Bobby said brusquely, turning from the radio. "About eight vehicles, heading here."
Dean nodded and turned on his heel, walking fast out through the hall and down the porch steps. "Rufus, Frank, Risa, c'mon, got company coming."
They dropped their loads and ran to the cars, getting their weapons and following him up the curving drive to the gates.
Maurice lowered the binoculars, looking down as he saw Dean climbing the ladder toward him.
"I don't think it's an attack," he said, passing the glasses to Dean as he reached the platform.
Holding the binoculars, Dean adjusted the focus slightly and the lead truck leapt into view. The flatbed bounced over the washouts and potholes as it came around the last bend on the road, slowing to make the turn down to the camp and he saw the driver clearly.
"Okay," he said softly. "It's okay, I know the driver of that truck."
"But we still test them?" Maurice asked worriedly, taking the binoculars as Dean handed them back.
"Hell, yeah," Dean said, going to the ladder and climbing down as Rufus, Risa and Frank split to cover both sides of the gates. "We test everyone."
"Who is it?" Rufus looked at him as he jumped down the last six feet, and walked to the gate.
Dean lifted a hand as the truck came to stop in front of the gate. "It's Ellen."
He walked through as the gate rolled open, hearing Maurice behind him but his attention fixed on the maple-haired woman who climbed down from the truck cab.
"God, boy, you are hard to find," Ellen said as he walked up to her. He wasn't expecting the ferocious bear hug he got, holding his rifle out and wrapping his free arm around her as it became apparent she wasn't going to let go until he did.
"Tried to stay inconspicuous," he said, ducking his head self-consciously as she released him and stepped back. "It's good to see you."
The passenger door clunked shut and Dean turned to see Jo walk around the front of the truck.
"Hey, Jo," he said, glancing at Maurice as she walked around the truck front to stand beside Ellen. "This is Maurice."
Ellen smiled warmly at the hunter and Dean realised that introductions to most of the hunters here would be unnecessary. Jo smiled tightly at the man as she shook his head. Not familiar with him, he realised belatedly.
"You tell your people to get out of the cars?" He gestured down the line. "We're testing for everything before anyone gets in."
Ellen nodded and opened the driver's door, grabbing the mike from the radio in the dash and giving the order.
As the line of vehicles disgorged their passengers, Dean looked at the two women, seeing that both had had it hard. Never fat, both were skinny now, their bones jutting against their skin, their clothing threadbare and filthy, shadows like bruises around their eyes.
"You had a hard trip?" he asked Jo, looking down at her as Ellen walked down the line with Maurice, talking to her people. The girl he'd seen last in Colorado had gone, he realised as she looked up at him. Her eyes were hard and wary, all the teenage sass burned out of her.
"Yeah, it wasn't fun," she said, her voice holding an edge. She'd folded her arms across her chest, and he thought the gesture looked defensive.
"You look like you've got a good set up here?"
He nodded as Risa came up to them, her hands full. Jo glanced at her, taking in the items she was carrying.
"Alright, what do we have to do?"
"Holy water, salt, silver and iron, just the usual," Dean said, glancing at Risa who passed Jo the bottle of holy water. "We had a problem with ghouls and we're not taking that chance again."
Jo swigged from the bottle and passed it back, licked the salt Dean spilled on her hand and held out her arm as Risa laid the blades of the silver and iron knives across her skin. There was no reaction to the elements, and Dean didn't expect any but he felt a small thread of relief anyway. He watched Maurice coming back up the line of vehicles, those who'd been tested getting back into them.
Lifting a brow at Ellen as she stopped next to them, he said, "Lot of people."
She nodded, her face tightening slightly. "There were more, we got hit by demons in Nebraska and lost a lot."
"Sorry," he said, glancing at Jo as she dropped her gaze to the ground. "These survivors?"
"A few are," Ellen said, turning to check that everyone was back in their cars and trucks. "Most of them were slaves."
"Slaves?" Dean frowned at her.
"I'll explain it when we're in, Dean," Ellen said, looking back to him. "It's a hell of a world out there now."
He nodded and turned away as Maurice gave a short blast on a whistle. Ellen looked quizzically at Dean as she opened her driver's door and put a foot onto the step of the cab.
"Follow the drive down to the main building, you'll see it. Stop there," he told her, his gaze flicking up to Rona. The gate rolled open and he walked through, stopping beside the tower to watch the vehicles pass by one by one.
All of the people they'd brought were thin to the point of emaciation, he thought grimly. All looked like they'd been through hell. Counting them roughly as they passed, he realised he'd have to talk to Alex about the supplies for winter again.
Ellen and Jo had brought another twenty people with them.
