Disclaimer: I do not own the characters to The Office. They are owned by MSNBC. I do own Charles and Jennifer. They are my creations.
People were sprinting as fast as their legs could take them across the open field towards Schrute Farms. Dozens of people; men, women, and children all intermixed together and what was spurring them was the wall of infected behind him, but everything was chaotic since the explosion that had torn about the neighboring Zimmermann Farms. Zombies began to swarm inside as Dwight and the other remaining office workers watched them flee. It was completely unexpected as before Dwight had agreed to trade with the people there and it was peaceful, but now the place seemed to be consumed by fire. The barn was relatively intact, but the household was abalze, there was a sizeable gap inside the makeshift wall surrounding the farm and one of the towers was knocked over.
Looking on from the ramparts of the earthen wall facing the open field and clutching her bible tightly to her chest Angela brushed away a few strands of her bright blonde hair with her jaw slacked. She could not understand anything that was happening and didn't know what to do as she watched people running in every direction. Calmly standing beside her, clutching his rifle in his hanging arms was Dwight looking at the flames behind his slightly chipped glasses but showing no expression despite the excitement around him. "Dwight? Dwight?" Angela was heard calling out, "W-what are we going to do?" but there was no response from the German until the petite accountant reached out with her right hand and her fingers brushed over his left hand that sent a charge of electricity through his body.
"Dwight! What are we going to do?"
"Turn on some lights!" the spectacled owner shouted.
Still in the second floor loft of the barn Toby was looking at the dark figures as they were making their way across the field, but with the darkness and the flames that cast dancing shadows he could not tell whom was whom until the power lights activated and flooded the field and instantly many people halted in their steps holding up their hands up to shield their eyes. Now he could see he went to work picking off shambling figures pursuing them. The distance was not extreme, he just had to give a little bit of lead and he found it easy to pick them off. Now he was getting into being a sharpshooter as he dropped one zombie after the other all the while muttering to himself trying to keep a count. When he had expended five shots he calmly reloaded his rifle, "Alright, let's do it," he said and put the rifle stock back to his shoulder. Correcting his posture and feeling his elbows and hands relax he eye wandered the field looking for targets and that was where he found a man in a shabbily made uniform, swinging a broken rifle left to right in a wide arc fending off several zombies closing on him.
"Uh oh" Toby whispered. He could see the man was screaming, his mouth was moving but with the distance and noises around he could not hear what it was. "What do we got here?" he was wearing a uniform, perhaps he was Militia so he did not care if anything happened to him so he went looking for another target and found a furiously crawling one about halfway across the field and quickly put a round into its head. Toby felt safe up there. Even if the zombies came into the perimeter they couldn't get to him up in the loft so he was smiling as he slayed the zombies, but below Michael was horrified, shouting "Oh my God!" as the fire picked up but he did not panic, instead jogged to the house where he found Dwight, "Okay, Dwight," before pausing for a moment and looking up at the patio, "What do you need me to do?"
Kevin and Hank were firing their rifles, trying to remember their training as the people were rushing towards them. "Hank, do we shoot everyone?" he was becoming confused by the excitement as they had fought a horde before but not with live people mixed in.
"No," Hank replied with a grunt as he looked for himself to see several people clustered below him, pleading to be let over the wall, but the wall was too steep for them to scale. They needed a ladder.
"Hank, should I get a ladder to help them?" Kevin asked looking over the lip himself to see women hugging their children as the zombies continued to shamble towards them. Hank did not know what to do. There was the risk that they were infected and the wall was the barrier that kept them out but he could not let these people out there die.
"Hey, Dwight, should we help them?" Kevin shouted that carried over to Dwight on the patio whom mustered into action by darting across the open ground to the wall and climbed up onto the embattlements as his people banged away. The zombies were coming out of the tree line to the left and from the Zimmermann farms in overwhelming numbers, but the disciplined fire from the defenders was taking down many. Looking over the wall Dwight could see several people huddled below and calling out to be saved.
"Please!" one woman shouted, "For God's sake, help my babies!"
Standing upright back Dwight called out, "Kevin, Madge, Hank!" it took a moment for all three to pull themselves away to join him, "Drop a ladder and get those people in here," pointing down below, "Get them inside and check them and if they're infected, shoot them."
He was gambling but none of them, not even the rigid Dwight, could face the fact of leaving innocent people out there to die despite his façade of 'only the strongest survive'. Watching the show Dwight knew that sooner or later they would run out of ammunition and all of their fire was merely drawing more zombies towards them. Before they had air support that saturated the area with napalm but they did not have that benefit this time and when it comes that they run out of lead and powder then the only thing keeping the zombies out were the earthen walls.
Taking a fifteen foot ladder from the barn Hank and Madge dropped it down the other side of the wall and waved for everyone to come in. They were stretched out along the length of the wall facing Zimmermann Farms but there was only going to be one ladder and they all came converging towards the steel as soon as they saw it pushing and shoving one another out of the way even one man knocking a child off to save his own skin. With the fire still going on the first people began to come over but Madge immediately began pushing and prodding them towards the interior after stripping any visible weapons from their hands with Hank as well. One by one they came over, but the fire did not stop. Toby counted up to thirty-two when he saw people coming over and looked at them for a moment before going back to work.
Ryan and Kellye were in the interior as well when they saw the rescue people being prodded towards them and their faces had a look of confusion. Why were they hear? They could not hear Dwight's orders on the wall, nor could they see them. In fact, Ryan and Kelly were not supposed to be there at all but on the opposite side of the perimeter, but Ryan decided to defy Dwight's orders and went towards where the action was as Kellye was spurring him to perform great acts of bravery with a string of movies that she drew inspiration from.
The same woman that before was pleading for help was holding her two children in each arm was now thanking everyone that she met along the way. Instructed to sit down and be searched she did not like someone touching her children but when two rifles are looking down at her, the woman did not do anything else, but Madge was gentle with them and her children were right back with their mother as more prisoners were brought in. They were mainly civilians with ragged clothes, shoeless, and had a foul stench.
Dwight commanded, "Madge! Check them and see if they're infected."
"I'm already doing that" Madge replied as she went to work. The militia were kept seperate and checked for weapons and had their blouses removed and their heads covered in burlap bags and wrists cuffed to prevent an escape. For the civilians it was different. They were wide eyed and fearful that these people would shoot them out of hand or treat them like the milita, but Madge assured them that they weren't like that.
They managed to save a few but many others that could not make it to the ladder, the zombies fell upon them and tore them apart with surprising fury as the office workers looked upon them with horror as they withdrew the ladder. They fired several times but every zombie they took down, three others would advance and take its place.
One man was dragging himself on his back, using his legs to kick himself towards Shrute Farms as several zombies were approaching at a quicker pace all the while he was pleading for help, bt no help came. Finally the zombies caught up to him and ripped him apart. Dwight looked upon the field of carnage with a stone face though inside he was shaken and disgusted he was trying to keep a stern face and not let those around him become infected by panic. "Cease fire" he called out but with the dozens of reports around him he had to scream "CEASE FIRE!"
The fire petered out but the chorus of the undead was still heard as they were consuming victims at the base of the wall. Turning to Stanley on the wall, Dwight said, "Use the Molotov cocktails and burn these things."
Taking several bottles filled with the oil/gasoline mixture and lighting the wick Stanley and Toby looked down upon the orgy of violence below, there were contorted faces looking up at them as the zombies ripped out their insides and devoured their muscles and flesh. "Holy shit, man" Toby said in amazement as the stench reached his nose. With the wick lit he merely had to drop it and the bottle smashed onto the back of one undead and immediately ignited consuming one and the liquid flame flowed onto the others and the defenders watched in amazement as the zombies continued to eat undeterred to the flames eating them up.
Erin's Diary,
Had a rather usual day. Did some guard duty. Haven't seen a zombie around here for a long time, but I did see some birds and a deer! Inside I could hear Charles, Jennifer, and the soldiers talking about stuff they wanted to do. Charles wanted to go on another patrol into the woods and to check up on Dwight. During the night we heard gunfire and they weren't answering their radio, but we wouldn't go during the night. I slept and woke up with Jennifer telling me I was going with them. Great! I get to stretch my legs and get to see Phyllis again, though I'm worried about Dwight. During the past week or so, I've heard his voice on the radio when he checks in and they've become-weird. He sounds like he's, I don't know how to say it, but he sounds like what happened when he became the temporary manager of the branch, real stern and direct. I heard Charles say he may have reached his breaking point but I don't know. Maybe it's Dwight just being Dwight. I keep my fingers crossed. :)
After several attempts to get Dwight or anyone at Schrute Farms to answer the radio at sunrise the group headed out from their safe house. Oscar and Jim and most of the military personnel they rescued were staying behind to watch over the place as Charles, Darryl, Pam, Erin, Jennifer and McCarthy volunteered to go out. All of them wore tiger-stripe uniforms to break up their outline, for Pam and Erin they wore Jennifer's old ones for Darryl they had to alter one for his size.
The day was bright, the sky blue and the grass soft and green there were even butterflies hovering about. It was certainly spring around now in Pennsylvania. Erin could remember when she was shivering in the cross from her vehicle to the office park front entrance, but in their march to reach Shrute Farms they were under strict noise discipline but that did not stop Erin from looking at the flowers and the birds that were chirping in the trees. It was so peaceful out here but she only had to look forward at the green and black striped uniforms of her comrades to shake her naïve disposition and bring her back to the serious nature that she was in. Approaching Shrute Farms they could see very thin columns of black smoke rising up from what was left of Zimmermann Farms and the field between the two dotted with the bodies of the unfortunate.
Pausing and taking a knee behind a slight rise to conceal their approach Charles was looking through his binoculars as the group hid themselves.
"What happened?" Erin asked in a whisper to Pam.
"I don't know," was the response. Both could see the smoke and when Charles saw familiar faces on the walls he gave the order to rise and approach.
Going towards the front 'gate' which was still the chained together vehicles Madge appeared with her rifle as well as the challenge, but seeing the familiar face of Darryl she immediately welcomed them inside. As they climbed in Madge tells Darryl, "I'm glad you're here. That asshole is getting out of control."
"What do you mean?" Darryl asked.
Pointing with one hand Madge led the way towards the front of the house where the people they took in during the night and being hovered over by Dwight, Kevin, and Hank however it was Dwight that they seemed to be afraid of. Having been stripped of their weapons and having segregated the Militia from the civilians Dwight wanted to take a bunch of them and have them shot immediately, but as it turned out Dwight wanted to have a bunch of the 'weaklings' he considered to be shot and keep the stronger ones alive, meaning the militia. The weapons collected were stacked on the porch. Ryan was looking through them, trying to find anything cool looking that would give him a better image. Those that fell outside the wall were left to rot in the sun. All that mattered was that they were inside and safe and everyone else was out there and dead.
"We need to separate the weak from the strong. Now, only they can survive," Dwight kept saying as his group looked at him confused. For several hours they had been denied food and water and the prisoners were becoming restless having people standing over them with rifles and hearing the threat of being shot. Dwight had waited for dawn so the perimeter could be cleared. The zombies did not breach the walls but they were many, perhaps well over five hundred either cut down in the field or burned up at the base of the wall that took a great amount of their ammunition as well as fuel for the Molotovs, still the stench of burnt flesh was pungent in the air that many took to wearing surgical masks to keep their nostrils clear, it didn't work. Angela and Phyllis tried to give the children water but Dwight immediately snatched it away from them. "Dwight, for God's sake, they're just children!" Phyllis cried.
"They need to learn to adapt," Dwight spat back.
"Dwight, this is nonsense, give the kids some water. They're children," Bob Vance said sternly, but Dwight wouldn't be shaken from his position. The whole group was gathered, except for Toby he decided to stay up in the loft and stay out of the argument but also to keep his eyes open. Even Mose was on the porch watching in silence as Ryan and Kellye were somewhere in the middle twisting their heads left to right when others spoke, but not saying a word in defense or contempt. Dwight was the de facto leader with his office mates being his underlings, however, they wouldn't give in to his threats even though if one was murdered there would be no police to arrest him. He grabbed one frail man from the group and dragged him away.
"Dwight, what's wrong with you?" Phyllis shouted, "These people need food and water. They look like they haven't eaten in days," her voice was straining because her eyes were on the malnourished children the woman was clutching in both arms.
"It's true!" the mother shouted, "We haven't eaten in days," then her blue eyes turned in a wicked glare towards the militia man that were bound and hooded away from them. "They took us, beat us and starved us and did...horrible things. Please, shoot them! Not us!"
Bob Vance looked at the woman and asked for her name.
"Sylvia," she replied, her voice breaking, "I'm Sylvia and this is Bobby and Victoria," still holding tightly to her children. Bobby was five with long, swirled brown hair and Victoria had longer, slightly darker brown hair in a messy ponytail. Bob Vance smiled and stood near them to assure that he and Phyllis would not harm them but the same couldn't be said for Dwight as he placed the man on his knees before the towering German.
"Dwight, don't do it, man. Don't do it," Michael said holding out a hand and taking a step forward, but Dwight put the gun to his head. All eyes were focused on Dwight as he had the weapon pointed right at the back of his head but was hesitating from pulling the trigger. In his mind he knew what he was doing was right, but for some reason he wouldn't do it as he heard the man sob loudly and praying, but did not try to resist. The women were shielding the eyes of the children and no one was moving with their eyes open and their jaws hanging open in amazement. This wasn't like Dwight at all. He was strict, but even this was too much. He had clearly gone off the deep end, but he was only one man in a sea of many and no one was forcing him to stop. The hammer was cock but he couldn't pull the trigger. "S-should we do something?" Kevin whispered to Hank. Even he was too scared to do anything.
"Dwight! Dwight!" Charles barked and pushed his way through the statues until he was right before the German, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Lowering the pistol and looking at the soldier with a leer in his eyes, "Stay out of this. This is my house, my property. You can't tell me what to do here," Dwight replied without breaking an emotion.
"Bullshit!" Charles yelled and slammed the stock of his rifle right against Dwight's jaw and sent him sprawling onto the ground and immediately the soldier pounced upon him slamming his fists against the unconscious man several times until Darryl and Jennifer had to pry him off.
"Charlie, that's enough!" Jennifer shouted. The others looked on in shock as Dwight lay with blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth.
After several silent moments Kevin finally said something, "Is he dead?"
Dwight's eyes finally fluttered open. His glasses were broken and laying at his side and his jaw pained him. Sitting up slowly he couldn't see Charles, his vision was blurred by the blows and by the loss of his glasses, but he remembered what happened. "That's it!" growling, "Shoot him!" stabbing a finger at a blur he believed to be Charles. He was calling for everyone to shoot him. "Shoot that man for assaulting me." Jennifer clutched her rifle tightly and looked at the other faces. No one dared move.
Fumbling around in the dirt and finding his glasses and putting them on, the vision was distorted but it was an improvement, he saw that no one was going through with his order. These were his subjects, he commanded them, he trained them and he expected to have his orders carried out without question. "Shoot him! When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed, instantly!" screeching with his finger stabbing towards the restrained Charles. "Kevin! Shoot him!"
Looking at Dwight and then at Charles with a simple flick of his head Kevin did not obey instead just turned and looked away as if losing interest.
"Stanley! Shoot him," Dwight ordered but the officermate did not instead walked back onto the patio and sat down not wanting any part of this conflict. Dwight looked at him go and then turned to Mose whom had disappeared. His hands empty of weapons and standing before a restrained but still armed Charles Dwight roared that he wanted him dead, but no one dared to move.
Angela finally said something, "Dwight...I don't think they're going to do it." She wasn't carrying a weapon at all, just her bible. Throughout the whole ordeal she had not so much as fired a shot but hung to his bible as though it were a shield. Erin looked at her with wide eyes, her lips trembled as did her hands as she kept looking at everyone wondering if something bad was going to happen. McCarthy whispered to her, "This is bad" and there was a slight 'click' as McCarthy's thumb hit the selector switch to 'semi' on her rifle. She didn't know these people and was expecting a shootout and slowly began to trace round the civilian prisoners and moving towards the militia prisoners as it cleared her line of sight. Not knowing what to do herself Erin watched her go and carefully began to follow as Dwight continued to spew his vial orders.
"This is mutiny!" Dwight screamed, but no one came to his aid. Then he reached for something in his sock and Erin immediately leapt in. Everyone was surprised. The usually frail girl was meek but she knocked Dwight back down onto the ground with a shot to the gut with the butt of her rifle then rolled him onto his stomach and tried to zip cuff him but Dwight struggled and got one hand around Erin's throat and tried to squeeze, but McCarthy came and punched him in the face as hard as she could that made Dwight pass out again.
"Thank you," Erin sighed as they got the cuffs on.
"Don't sweat it," McCarthy smiled back. Her new friend saved her life! She was definately writing this down in her journal later.
Charles kept an eye on Dwight, his hands gripping his rifle tightly. In the scuffle the pistol was knocked from Dwight's grasp and was now in Jennifer's possession as she went to the civilians and asked what they needed with Erin. Both women loved children so their smiles returned to instill confidence in the frightened people.
Finally they were given food, water, and medical attention. The children were also allowed to take a bath using an outdoor tub and warm water boiled on the stove., but the longer they stayed the more Erin sensed that they weren't going to stay.
"I don't want to stay here," Angela replied to Jennifer in the kitchen, "It's-too-it's too crowded."
Their properly built safe house was small to begin with and she doubted that they would be able to take all of these people including the prisoners, but doubted that if they stayed here Dwight would be able to keep himself under control. It was something to ponder as Erin walked about freely and saw Michael on the front porch.
"Hey, Michael, look, you're free!" she said giddy.
At first Michael didn't recognize her, "What's with that...uniform and that?" pointing at the waving black stripes over a field of dark green and light brown.
"Oh, this?" she replied plucking at the collar, "This is so we blend into the surroundings. We're pretty good at it to. We've had a lot of training."
"Oh," Michael nodded, "So, you're becoming a soldier?"
Erin was surprised for a moment, "Oh, no, just to, you know, help protect everyone at our place. See, we have to pull our wait and we need to know how to fight."
Michael calmly nodded alogn with her, "Well, you look, nice," smiling, "I-I just couldn't see you in something like that. It's just surprising, but you're looking good. Glad to see you're safe with Charles and...What's her name?"
"Jennifer"
"Yeah, Jennifer. She's a real hottie. Is she his wife?" Michael asked.
"No, just close friends."
"Oh, just friends," he continued to nod.
With a smirk Erin replied, "Don't think about it, Michael. They're very protective of each other.
Speaking of Jennifer, she was talking to Charles in the living room of the house to try and solve the problem. They couldn't leave the civilians here with Dwight as he might shoot them, but their place was too small to house them, "We can call to have them evacuated to Rhode Island." It certainly was tempting but just getting back to their safe house was dangerous enough, but he decided to do it. Using the farm's radio Jennifer called back to Jim that they were on their way back and to make preparations for more quests.
During that time everyone else in the group, excluding Dwight and Mose were allowed to pack up their belongings and form up in the yard. They would have to march, it would be tough, but they could do it. Sylvia and her children were ready with Jennifer and Erin's help as well as Michael's. The militia would come as well. They were too valuable and too deadly to leave behind. Dwight though was protesting this from the kitchen where McCarthy had had him tied up to the stove. On her way out she saw Mose whom nearly bolted but said sternly, "You don't let him out until we are gone for three hours. Got that?" she said staring coldly at him. She was kicking herself for not shooting Dwight when she had a clear shot before Charles got in the way. Perhaps the world would be better with the German gone, but accepted the decision. After stepping off the porch she joined the group and said to Erin, "I'm already tired of this place."
Giving food and water to them as well as tending to the inured as best they could beforehand Charles said, "Okay, everyone form up. We're moving out," The prisoners were bound and placed with the civilians in the center and the patrol and office workers around with Jennifer at point. There was not a word spoken as the chained vehicles were moved away to make a path. They had been riddled by shot and drained of fuel thus they were useless now. it was going to be a long trek with a bunch of tired and shabbily looking people. They kids had to walk as well. As they were leaving Dwight could only listen as his office mates deserted him but he did not try to stop them. His cousin looked on as well from one of the windows. Not a word was spoken as the group filtered out and disappeared into the countryside.
Jim and Oscar were moving furniture out of the way when the sentry shouted that there was a visual on the patrol. When the gate was opened everyone came inside and looked at how well cared for everything was. the grass was green, the garden in bloom, ready to be plucked, and it was well protected, though small. "Wow, it's is great," Hank replied as he looked at the concrete walls.
Erin and McCarthy went up to their room together where Erin took out her diary. Down below they could hear the voices of many others trying to square everything away. Chances are they would be having a roommate or two soon so they wanted to make room, but Erin wanted to write down some things while it was fresh in her mind,
Erin's Diary,
We went to Dwight's farm and they were attacked by zombies but they're okay. From what I saw those guys that were at the other farm, well, I'm not sure what happened to them but they were inside Dwight's farm as prisoners and when we arrived Dwight was raving and was about to shoot this one guy but Charles stopped him and beat him up. I was so scared. Then Dwight got up and went for something in his pant leg and I rushed in and knocked him down. It was awesome. I felt like Wonder Woman, you know, just knocking him down. I guess the training did come in handy, but then he tried to choke me but McCarthy hit him again. She hits pretty hard. I really like my new friend. She's awesome. I'm glad we're roommates. We got back okay and we have a lot more people now. Phyllis is here, yay, and so is her husband and some new faces. It's going to be pretty cramped her, but Jennifer said that many of them are going to be out of here in a few days. Oh, and they're kids here to. I love kids, but I feel sorry for Dwight. We left him and his cousin by themselves. I feel safe but I feel sorry for Dwight.