A:N/ Hi everyone. Sorry for the wait. My new teaching job has thrown my life into chaos, but I'm slowly coming out of it.
EDWARD
Seeing Jasper tied up on the floor brought back memories of being tied to a chair and beaten by James and Caius. In a rage, I practically threw myself across the room to get at Tyler who was looming over Jasper.
"No, Edward. Don't!" Emmett said, grabbing my shoulder and holding me back from attacking the bastard.
I tried to shove Emmett off, but he held me firmly.
Jasper was thrashing against his bindings, going from anger to terror over and over again.
Alice was crying which caused Clara to cry and that only upset Jasper more.
"What the fuck are you guys doing?" I snarled, glaring at Aro and Tyler.
Both men stepped back in shock at my vicious reaction.
"You guys are crazy! Jasper didn't do this! Isn't it obvious? It's Victoria and Tanya. They're the ones that were sleeping with James and Caius," Emmett added. "They're probably off to find James right now."
I was about to speak when Aro interrupted.
"You seem to have forgotten that there's evidence of a struggle in Victoria and Tanya's home. I think the large amount of blood proves that they didn't go quietly."
"How do you know about the blood, Aro? You weren't around when Emmett told us about the blood. Were you standing outside listening to us talk and then coming in late for dramatic effect?" Ben asked, sarcastically. His nerves were raw causing there to be a sharpness to his voice that I'd never heard before. It was clear that he wanted to be with Angela, not arguing with Aro. "This is ridiculous. Unlike the rest of us, those two women had pretty cushy lives with James and Caius. They have something to gain by telling James where we all are. And to state the obvious, they're the only ones that disappeared at the same time as the fire and Ruth and Josh…"
Ben got choked up at that moment and had to stop.
"I caught Victoria hanging around the wall," I said, remembering how I'd overheard her talking to someone. "I just thought she was meeting up with some guy. Now, I realize that I should have taken it more seriously."
"It's pretty convenient that you're bringing that up now, isn't it," Tyler said with a sneer.
"He told me about it," Ben snapped. "I didn't realize I had to inform you of every conversation."
Alice had wormed her way past Tyler and was now crouched next to Jasper with her arm around his neck and Clara sandwiched between them.
At first Jasper struggled against her, trying to move himself away from Clara. But eventually, he seemed to give in and rested his forehead against Alice's shoulder.
"You're not keeping our brother locked up," Emmett stated firmly, folding his arms across his chest.
"If you're all afraid of him, we'll keep Jasper at home with us," Bella said.
When Aro opened his mouth to argue, Bella continued.
"Or do you not trust us to keep him. You seem to have forgotten that we're the people who brought you into our home. Something that I'm seriously starting to regret."
Some of the people who seemed to have rallied behind Aro were now shrinking away from him at Bella's words.
"You're all ungrateful pricks," I interrupted, not able to contain my anger any longer. "Jasper's the way he is partly because of all of you. Did you have the courage to fight your way out of James' control? No. You all rolled over like dogs and waited for other people to step in. It was Jasper that killed people to save you. It was Jasper who spent months on the road, encountering god knows what to hunt down James so we'd all be safe. You're all fucking cowards."
The room fell silent after my rant.
Even my family looked stunned. I hadn't always been Jasper's biggest supporter. But after being nearly killed by a herd of zombies and then tortured by Caius and James, I had a small sliver of understanding of what it was like to become unhinged by the madness around us.
I looked around the room at all the faces of people I'd begun to care about, each showing a myriad of emotions, but overall it was simple. They were reacting out of fear and to be blunt- stupidity.
My eyes ended up resting on Jasper and I was startled to find his eyes fixed on me. Jasper never stared anyone in the eye anymore. Usually, he was a nervous ball of energy, his eyes always searching for hidden danger.
Done with all the crap, I strode over to him. The crowd parted as I pushed my way through, the silence lengthening in the room.
"We're taking him home," I stated firmly, but Tyler tried to stop me as I reached out to pull Jasper to his feet.
The minute he touched me, the anger boiled over and I shoved him hard, knocking him off his feet.
"Boys… boys… We've got bigger issues to deal with," Mrs. Cope said, her scratchy voice cutting through the din of anger.
Mrs. Cope looked world-weary. Her usually inquisitive hazel eyes looked more sunken in their sockets and she seemed more hunched than usual.
"If you guys are going to argue over that boy while there are other things to be dealt with, let him stay with someone who's a neutral party. Then, we can get on with the things we really should be dealing with. But that boy's not a criminal and shame on you for treating him like one," she said, glaring around the room.
I noticed that as she spoke she wrung her hands, her gnarled fingers looking inflamed and painful. There was also a quiver running through her body that showed a frailty that I often didn't see. For the first time, she looked her 72 years.
Arnold stepped forward and spoke.
"I'll take him."
While he didn't have the same air of authority as Carl had had, Arnold was still a man that people respected. During the time I'd known him, he'd always had a steady calm demeanor that made people listen to what he had to say.
He was not a handsome man with a wide heavily freckled face and a hook nose, but the intelligence that shone from his eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses made everyone feel that he could be trusted.
"He can stay with me. I don't have any dependents," he said, matter-of-factly. "We can keep each other company."
"Why should he have to stay anywhere but with his family?" I asked, incredulously. "What the fuck are we doing here? We should be out looking for those two women that have caused all of this! James is probably hovering outside our walls right now!"
I was beyond angry, stirred up enough that Emmett stepped to my side and placed a hand on my shoulder again.
"We already have sentries on guard at the wall," Aro said as if he'd issued the order. "There's not much more we can do."
I looked around the room, but all I saw was confusion.
"You're wrong," Peter said, from behind me. "We need to send out a scouting party."
I turned around to look at him.
"We need to see if there's anyone creeping up on the walls, while we're all busy turning on each other," he said, sharply.
Peter was not a large man, only a little taller than Charlotte, but there was a strength in him that I'd seen on the day we'd escaped from the zombie horde and I was seeing it again now.
"Can't you all see that this is a distraction technique? Blood smeared on the outside of the walls, arson, turning some of our own into the undead, it's clear that someone is messing with us," he continued. "We need to get a head of this thing. Victoria and Tanya could have set the buildings on fire as a distraction and then went in search of James to tell him that we were ripe for the picking."
"This place is prime real estate. Walls, gardens, homes, it's everything other survivors want," Emmett said. "Peter's right. Some of us need to go outside the wall and look for any danger and for the girls before they get to James."
Bella grabbed my arm at his words. She knew me well enough to know that I'd want to go on the scouting trip. And I did want to go, but I knew that I'd be a liability. My eyes were still messed up from the ash. They hurt and everything was still blurry.
I reached up and placed my hand over hers and squeezed.
"I'll go," Eleazar said from where he stood leaning against the wall.
"I will too," Embry said.
"Okay," Ben said. "You're just going to scout. If you see anyone or anything suspicious, you come back and tell us. Don't engage."
Embry and Eleazar nodded.
"Let's go, son," Arnold said, walking to Jasper's side.
"Jasper's not staying tied up," I snapped. "Fuck all of you if you think that."
I carefully untied the bindings that had begun to dig into Jasper's wrists. I remembered the pain that my hands had been in after being tied.
I glared around the room as I did it, almost hoping someone else would try to stop me.
The minute he was untied, Jasper pulled me to him as if to hug me but instead he whispered, "The maps…"
I pulled away from him in confusion. However, all he did was nod at me as if I should know what he was talking about.
"What?" I asked, carefully.
"The maps, Edward. The maps," he whispered as if the rest of the room couldn't hear him but they could. You could hear a pin drop in the room as people listened to our conversation.
"What the hell is he talking about?" Tyler asked in confusion.
"I tried, Edward. I tried. They killed them," he said to me, his eyes getting panicked. "Get the maps."
"It's okay, Jasper," Alice said, coming to my side. "It's okay, sweetheart. I'll tell him."
Jasper looked at her for a few moments, his eyes scanning her face as if looking for something. Finally, he nodded.
Then, more easily than I'd expected, Jasper moved to Arnold's side.
I turned towards Arnold and said, "He's not a criminal. Don't treat him like one."
Arnold nodded and beckoned for Jasper to follow him.
Tyler looked at Aro for orders as Arnold and Jasper reached the door, but Aro just nodded. Grudgingly, Tyler stepped out of the way, glaring hatred at me.
Once Arnold and Jasper were gone, things focused on what was really important.
"I need to examine Ruth and Josh's bodies for wounds. That way I can figure out what killed them," Carlisle said grimly.
However, whatever else he was going to say was cut off by the shrill sound of a baby crying and then another.
I looked at Alice, but it wasn't Clara. That was when I remembered Tanya and Victoria's babies.
Emmett was now holding Victoria's redheaded son Nelson while Rose was holding Tanya's daughter Shannon.
"That brings up another point that we need to deal with immediately. We don't have any formula to feed these two babies and they need to nurse soon. Newborns feed every three or four hours, so depending on when Victoria and Tanya disappeared the babies are going to have to be fed soon. I've read that fresh goat's milk can be a substitute. I'm apprehensive about doing it, but we don't have a choice," Carlisle said, grimly.
"I'll milk the goats," Claire Young said. Quil grabbed a hold of Claire' arm, a look of fierce protectiveness taking over his face.
"Thank you, sweetheart," Rose said. "Could you bring the milk here and we'll feed the babies together? The goats are penned up in Carlisle and Esme's backyard."
"Okay," Claire said, slipping out of Quil's grip and heading out of the building. Her cousin Emily followed closely behind her.
Quil stared in her direction, torn with wanting to be a part of what was going on and needing to be with Claire.
"If the babies need to nurse every two or three hours, that means Victoria and Tanya haven't been gone that long," Embry said, turning to Eleazar. "If we leave now, we might have a chance to catch up with them."
Eleazar nodded and the two of them slipped out of the house.
"I know we've checked the community already for other zombies as well as for Victoria and Tanya, but now that it's light out we need do it again. They could still be hiding somewhere," Ben said.
"I'll be on the search crew," Quil said. "I want to get the fuckers that did this."
I looked intently at Quil. I was worried about him. He'd shot Ruth, someone whom he'd cared about. It was a lot for a person to take in even though Ruth had turned into a zombie.
I wondered if he'd also shot Josh. The haunted look in his eyes made me think that he had.
Peter volunteered to go with Quil, which made me feel better. I didn't think we could fully trust Quil's logic right now.
"Seth, Mike, Liam, and Katie are manning the walls now, but I think we need more," Ben said.
I felt Bella move in her seat next to me.
I looked at her and saw that she had a pained look on her face as she looked at me and then away.
It was clear that she wanted to guard the wall, but was afraid to leave me.
"It's okay, babe," I said, reaching out and squeezing her hand.
"I'll do it," Bella said, smiling at me, but there was a tightness around her eyes. We were rarely apart, especially in a situation like this. But it was important for as many people as possible to be patrolling.
Charlotte agreed to join the wall patrol too.
Not able to do much of anything else with my eyes all fucked up, I searched for something to do that could help keep the community safe. Then, I realized that this was the opportunity to figure out what Jasper had been trying to say before he was taken away.
So, I chose to follow Jasper and Arnold.
Jasper, Alice and I were quiet as we followed Arnold to his house. When we reached the door, Arnold turned to us and said. "Jasper is my guest. Nothing is going to happen to him while he's with me."
Just as we began to turn away, Jasper reached out and grabbed me roughly. Jerking me towards him, he hissed the word "attic." I looked in his eyes, trying to read him but they were already nervously looking around for danger.
Once the door was shut firmly behind them, I turned to Alice. Seeing the sadness in Alice's eyes, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.
"He'll be alright. Arnold's a good guy."
She looked up at me with a weak smile and a deep in-drawn breath.
"What did Jasper say to you?" she asked, tentatively.
"He said "attic."
Alice nodded. "He's been spending most of his time up there. There are maps everywhere with stuff written all over them, but none of it makes any sense to me. He tried to get me to understand but just got angry and frustrated when I didn't."
I followed her to her house and up the stairs to the attic. The room looked like a cyclone had hit it with papers everywhere.
On close inspection, I saw that the majority of the papers were maps of cities and surrounding areas.
I looked at them carefully, trying to understand what I was seeing. It was like I had a window into Jasper's mind and what I saw made my heart clench. It was so chaotic and disjointed. I wondered if it even made sense to him.
"Can I take these with me?" I asked.
"Yes. Of course," she said, helping me to gather them up. "I hope that you can make more sense of them than I did."
Once I'd collected the armful of maps, I left the attic.
"Are you coming Alice?" I asked.
She shook her head sadly. "I'm going to take a nap. I'm drained and Clara needs to nurse."
"Okay," I said, gently. "But come on over for supper, okay?"
She nodded as she went into her bedroom with a fussing Clara.
I made my way to my house and laid the maps on the table.
Looking at the maps laid out in front of me, I knew that my priority was to try to figure these out. Jasper had insight into what was happening. The fires, Ruth and Josh, these weren't just vendetta's by two vengeful women, there was something bigger at work. I could tell that he knew it, but didn't have the words anymore to express it.
On the city maps, he had apartment buildings, shopping centres, schools, subdivisions crossed out with numbers and the letters M, W, C, written next to them. There were sketches of transport trucks along the side of the maps, each with a number written on them.
All over the maps were rambling words like, trojan horse, plague carriers, weapons. But in darker letters that had been traced over and over again were the words Company Z.
I rubbed at my eyes because they'd begun to ache again, but that only seemed to make them worse. Getting up from the table, I picked up the bottle of saline that Carlisle had given me and went to the sink to rinse my burning eyes.
Wiping my face with a towel, I heard the front door open behind me.
I turned to find Rose hanging her coat by the door.
"Emmett is keeping an eye on Aro and Tyler," she said, coming to join me as I sat back down at the table.
"What are you looking at?" she asked, leaning over my shoulder and looking at the maps too.
"Jasper has been obsessing over these maps for months," I said, squinting at some of the scratches and sketches that littered the pages.
"Look at the buildings with the Xs through them. Do you think they're places that have been cleared out of zombies or supplies? Maybe Jasper was clearing, just like Bella used to do in Forks," I said.
Rosalie stared at the map for a few minutes in silence.
She then reached out and traced the Xs with her index finger.
"I don't think that's what this is. Look at the way his pen punctured the paper. This seems more desperate than methodical," she said, thoughtfully.
"What's with the M, W, C code? It's written next to every place that has been crossed out," I asked, not exactly asking Rosalie, but thinking out loud.
"The thing we have to be the most concerned about from these is what is Company Z?" Rosalie said with a frown.
"The name sounds like it could be for a group of people. That paired with the fact that Jasper kept saying "They're coming" is a pretty ominous sign," I said with a thread of fear coursing through me.
"Let's go talk to Jasper, then," Rosalie said. "I don't think Arnold will stop us. No one said anything about keeping him away from us."
Together we left the house with the maps rolled up under my arm. I didn't want the other people in the community to see them until we were able to figure out what they meant.
Arnold didn't look shocked when we showed up at his door.
"He's in one of the rooms upstairs. He won't come out, but I can hear him pacing," he said. "That kid really is messed up, isn't he…?"
I nodded as I moved past him and up the stairs.
The minute I opened the door Jasper was pulling the maps out of my arms and laying them out on the bed and desk.
"What's company z?" I asked Jasper, pointing at the words on the map.
"They're coming…" he said. He pointed at the outskirts of the city, where there were several factories. It was actually pretty close to the place where I'd nearly been killed by the zombie herd. It was only about two days away.
"Who are they?" I asked again.
"They kill," he said, pointing at the different locations that had Xs over them. "They consume."
"Three towns between them and us. Each town would take at least a couple of weeks to clear if there is minimal resistance. That means it could be two and a half months, but now it's probably going to be sooner…" he said, pulling at his hair in stress.
"Even if we guard the perimeter, we're outnumbered. They're ruthless. Maybe if we use the dead like them. Use them to create more of a barrier. Keep them hungry. Release them when they approach. It could work. At least for a little while."
"Jasper, you've gotta try harder to talk to me," I said, gently. "Who are they? Are they with James?"
"James is nothing… hanging on their coat tails. Saving his own skin, by giving them ours."
"Company z is a group?" I asked, pulling information out of him.
"They pick over the bones of people they leave behind," he said, before looking up at me with wide fear-filled eyes.
"They don't need weapons… Plague carriers are more effective. Less risk for themselves. And there is enough of them…" he said with a harsh laugh, not seeming to register that I was talking to him.
This went on for days. Eventually, the others gave up in defeat, thinking that Jasper was never going to make sense. I knew some of them were even questioning whether what he'd written was real or not. But I stayed with him, even at night. Bella spent most of her time on the wall. So beyond when she stopped by to share a meal with me and sometimes Alice, we barely crossed paths. But I couldn't leave, I felt like I was just on the edge of understanding.
"This place is just what they're hunting for. We need to leave," he said, one morning.
"We can't leave, Jasper," I said.
"We're easy. We're no match. They'll kill everybody. That's what Company Z does," he said, reaching out and tracing one of the buildings that had been crossed out.
A feeling of dread filled me as I realized what the Xs on the maps meant.
"Were these all communities? Did they kill all the people in these communities?" I asked, sitting up straight from where I'd been slumped against the wall.
Jasper nodded, his face tight with pain.
"I couldn't stop it. I tried to warn them. They hunted me. I came home. Why did I come home?" he began babbling.
Jasper's fear was turning into my own.
"Victoria… climbed over. Tyler grabbed me. She'll tell James. James will tell them!" he practically shouted the last few words.
I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
"We need to explain this to the others," I said.
Hearing my words, Jasper let out a cry and threw his arms around me in a rough hug. His body was shuddering with great racking sobs.
I knew it was relief he was probably feeling about being able to express himself in a way someone else understood.
However, for me, understanding brought with it a feeling of doom.
"Why didn't he just tell us all of this?" Aro demanded. "Clearly he was able to explain it to you."
"The boy's messed up from what he's seen Aro," Arnold said in a calmer voice than I was capable of. "We've all seen shit, but he's seen more."
"I don't know about that…" Aro began, but Arnold cut in.
I watched Jasper during this exchange. Since I'd figured out what his maps meant, he seemed more lucid. He could carry out brief conversations off and on, but for the most part, like now, he stared off into space.
"Enough, Aro. You've lost. The community doesn't and will never belong to you," Arnold admonished. "We need to figure out how to defend ourselves and you're not capable of leading us in that."
"It's been almost a week and neither Embry nor Eleazar have returned," Emmett said with a devastated look. Embry had become one of his closest friends. "We have to assume that they were taken or…"
"So our main priority needs to be defense," Ben took up the conversation when Emmett trailed off.
Arnold walked to the table and stared down at the maps.
"Whoever this group is, they seem to be moving through the nearby towns strategically. I wonder if any of them are military," he said thoughtfully and then with a sad look said, "God, I wish Carl was here. He's the one who had the military background."
"Well, it makes sense that some of the military are still around," Emmett said. "If anyone could survive an apocalypse, it would be soldiers."
"Carl told me that when the dead first began to rise, he reached out to his contacts in the military. They wanted him to come back, but he turned them down. He was told that FEMA and the military were supposed to evacuate as many civilians as possible by ferrying them to safe zones, but they were having difficulty separating the sick from the healthy. They needed more men and wanted Carl to join them. But I think Carl knew what was going to go down and that's why he refused to join them.
There was no way that they could control the spread of the zombie plague. Carl told me that that was when they started bombing and gunning down people in the street. They were trying to do anything to get control of the situation," Arnold explained.
At his words, I remembered the sound of gunfire as my mother and I stood outside of our house.
"The last Carl heard was that soldiers were deserting, either because they were disgusted by their orders or they decided to think of themselves and loot whatever they could."
"Jasper?" I asked, stepping in front of him. "Do you know how many people are in Company Z?"
"Ten… no maybe thirty. Between ten and thirty…" he muttered, not quite meeting my eyes.
I saw Tyler roll his eyes off to the side and I wanted to punch him in the throat.
It was at this point that Carlisle and Esme joined us.
He looked exhausted and for the first time, I was worried about him. In one day, he looked like he'd aged ten years.
Between dealing with Victoria's and Tanya's newborns who weren't handling the goat milk well and figuring out how Ruth and Josh were infected, it was clear that he was putting his needs on the back burner.
"What's the verdict, Doc? Do you know how Ruth and Josh were infected?" Arnold asked.
"I examined Josh first and it's clear that he was infected by a bite. From the measurement of the teeth marks, it was more than likely his mother who bit him," he said, a pained look passing across his face.
The terror the little boy must have felt when his mother attacked him made me shudder in horror.
"Ruth, on the other hand, was infected by a knife wound. From my examination, I believe that someone stabbed her with a zombie coated blade. The wound would have killed her regardless, but the zombie blood sped up the process. And as we all know now, when we die, we all turn."
"So the question remains, was it Tanya or Victoria who attacked Ruth?" I asked.
With most people manning the wall or taking care of their families, it was Ben, Emmett, Rose, Arnold, Peter, Tyler, Quil, and me. I noted with bitterness that Aro had decided not to be in attendance. Now, that his attempt at taking over the community failed, he'd decided that he didn't care what the rest of us did.
I looked out of the community house window at the devastation that one night had caused.
The remains of the infirmary and barn smoldered, still too hot to approach. I wondered whether under the rubble there was any medicine that was salvageable, but we wouldn't be able to check until the fire was completely out. Everything we had gathered to care for the health of the community was gone and there was a good chance that we would never be able to replenish all that we'd lost.
Most of the houses had basic first aid kits that had iodine, bandages, suture kits, Tylenol or Advil, but what we really needed were antibiotics. And if we were attacked, we'd need a lot more than that.
Running my hands over my face, I felt truly overwhelmed. When it was just Bella and me, even with Rose and Emmett, I felt like I had control over our safety. We'd fight when we had to and run when we couldn't fight. But the minute we set up a permanent residence and accepted new people, things weren't so simple anymore. We had to protect not only ourselves, but also the others in the community and our home itself. No more running.
It felt like there was more that we should be doing, but I just couldn't figure out what.
My only thought was that I had to talk things out with Bella. She'd been on guard duty throughout the day, so I hadn't had the chance to talk to her about my discoveries in Jasper's maps. Not only did I want to talk to her because she often had insight into things that I'd never considered, but also I just needed her to ground me. Things were looking pretty hopeless in my mind.
So, I left the community house and made my way to the wall where I knew Bella was on guard.
Climbing up the ladder to the guard platform, I felt the breath leave my lungs in a sigh of relief to find her sitting behind the camouflaged hunting blind made up of branches and leaves, using the scope on her rifle to scan the area.
Faster than I would have imagined, Bella had spun towards the sound of my approach her gun raised.
"It's just me," I said, quietly.
With a sigh, she lowered her rifle.
"Did you bring anything to eat?" she whispered, hopefully.
I shook my head.
"Sorry," I said with chagrin. "We'll eat when we get home. Someone's coming to relieve you in a half an hour."
She smiled at me then and encouraged me to sit down with her before turning back to continue scanning the area.
Instead of sitting at her side, I sat down behind her, wrapping my arms around her middle as I pressed my chest to her back.
"I missed you," I said, burying my nose in her neck. "I've got a lot to tell you."
Bella listened quietly as I told her about what I'd discovered. She didn't speak, but I felt her shudder as I told her about Company Z and what they'd apparently been doing to other communities.
"So, Jasper's pretty sure that they're coming for us," she said, barely a whisper.
I nodded, unable to speak.
"I don't know what to do Bella," I said, my body beginning to shake with the overwhelming emotions that were taking over me.
Letting go of her rifle with one hand, she reached up and caressed the side of my face and then ran her fingers through my hair. In response, I burrowed my face deeper into her neck and kissed her.
Thoughts started circulating in my mind again about how it seemed easier when we were homeless. I felt the overwhelming need to grab my family and run.
"I can't help but feel like we were safer on the road," Bella said, echoing my thoughts. "Is it wrong that all I can think about in this moment is running away from all of this?"
I jerked my head away from hers in surprise.
"I'm not saying-" she began, but I interrupted her.
"I'd been thinking the same thing, but the good outweighs the bad here. We both know that it isn't sustainable to stay on the road for the rest of our lives."
"So, we fight," she said, a note of steel entering her voice.
"Yes," I said as she turned her head and kissed me tenderly, sadly.
"So, have you figured out why Jasper was tying zombies to the outer walls?" she asked.
I was just about to answer when some kind of commotion came out of the woods on the other side of the wall.
Both of us sat up straight and Bella took aim at the source of the noise, cocking her rifle.
I hauled out my own gun as well and took up position next to her.
"Don't shoot!" a person shouted as the bushes broke open.
A bloodied and battered Embry tumbled out of the trees, clutching his left arm against his chest.
"Let me in," he moaned. "Hurry."
I rushed off the platform and ran to the entrance, unhooking the chains and latches to open it enough for Embry to stagger in.
Quickly, I locked the entrance and turned just in time to grab Embry around the waist before he collapsed.
"Whoa, buddy," I said, keeping Embry on his feet. "Let's get you to Carlisle."
"Get more people on the walls," Embry moaned. "There's about a hundred dead following me."
A few of the others came out of their houses at the commotion and were suddenly running in all directions gathering more people to man the walls.
Embry's weight became too much for me and both of us fell to the ground.
Embry was breathing heavily, his breath rattling in his chest.
"I lost Eleazar…" he choked out. "There were just too many of them and we were out of bullets."
I nodded grimly.
"We're in for a real shit storm, Edward," Embry said. "There's a group called Company Z coming."
"I know," I said. "Jasper told us."
Embry winced in pain as he tried to shift to a sitting position. His arm was twisted at an awkward angle and half of his sleeve was torn off.
"Embry, were you bitten?" I asked, pulling his sleeve apart and seeing the gash that covered his bicep.
"No," he said, bitterly. "That's from where I fell off the back of a truck. Eleazar got out of the cab to try to help me and they were just on him. There were so many dead that he was torn apart in seconds."
A sob choked out of him at this point. "I was only able to escape because they were so busy wolfing him down that they were distracted."
I clutched Embry's uninjured shoulder in sympathy.
"What did you learn about Company Z?" I asked him.
"There's about thirty of them. They're organized, some of them seem military, and they're killing any group that they cross for their supplies," he said, grimly.
"Fuck…" I swore, all of my fears confirmed.
"And guess who is trying everything he can to ingratiate himself to the leader. I'll give you one guess," he growled. Without me answering, he continued. "You guessed it. James."
"Any sign of Victoria and Tanya?" I asked, but he shook his head grimly.
Nothing more was said, as I heard running approaching us.
It was Carlisle, Ben, and Emmett.
Carlisle slid to the ground on his knees next to Embry and carefully, ripped away the sleeve and most of the left side of his shirt.
"This needs to be stitched," he said, opening a first aid kit.
Embry nodded, but looked at Emmett and Ben instead.
"There's a group that calls themselves Company Z who are making their way through the area massacring any group they come across."
Swearing, Ben punched the wall in anger.
"Thank fuck, I never saw them massacre a community, but Eleazar and I listened to the soldiers on guard duty at night talking. They send scouts out first to figure out the defenses communities have and then they'll tell the communities that they have a certain amount of time to abandon their sanctuary and leave their supplies. Most groups give in when they see that the people threatening them are military. However, before they have the chance to leave their home, they attack. The fucking animals take no prisoners, not even children."
He stopped speaking for a moment as he winced at Carlisle's first stitch of his ripped skin.
"They're probably about two or three weeks away from reaching this place. Maybe sooner now that James is with them."
"So what the fuck do we do now?" Emmett asked, rubbing his face roughly. "We don't have enough ammunition to take on thirty armed soldiers."
Everyone fell silent.
"I think we should talk to Jasper. I'm not hundred percent sure, but I think he may have some ideas," I said, climbing to my feet.
"Use the dead. Use the dead as weapons," Jasper said, as he paced back and forth in our living room.
"I don't understand," Ben said. "The dead aren't controllable. How do we use them as weapons?"
"Chain them to the walls. Release them when the soldiers are close enough," Jasper responded.
Emmett was already shaking his head.
"That'll take too long," he said. "There's no way they could be released fast enough to do any good."
"Maybe we could set booby traps," Peter said. "Dig pits and put zombies inside."
"Let's make a trench and fill it with hay and gasoline. Then, all we'll have to do is light it," Quil added.
I shook my head.
"They're soldiers. They'll figure out all of these things before they have a chance of working. Plus, we don't have enough gasoline to spare."
"Why don't we pen the dead up, like you do with horses on a racetrack? When, the soldiers are close enough we open the pens and release the dead," Bella said.
"I don't think-" Ben began to say before Embry interrupted him.
"That may be workable. Give me time to think about it," Embry said.
"We don't have much time," Emmett said in frustration.
"Using the dead isn't the only defense we should have. There's got to be other things too," Bella said.
We had a community meeting that afternoon with everyone and from that meeting we had a few other workable ideas that could be used as defense, but none of it was enough.
It was later the next day when Embry asked Peter, Arnold, Ben, Quil, Liam, Katie, and our family to join him at the community house.
"I think I have a workable plan for how to use the dead as defense."
Hauling out a large sheet of paper, Embry spread it across the table.
I didn't understand the plan, but Emmett and Katie looked it over with excitement.
"This could work," Emmett said.
"We take apart some of the unused buildings inside the walls for lumber and we can build pens on each side of the community walls. They can't be flimsy and they need roofs or else the dead will begin stacking up. Each door can be attached to a pulley that could be lifted to release the dead. But we have some things working against us. First, it's going to take time to build them. Katie, Emmett, and I can direct people in the building of the pens, but we need people to tear down the buildings and others to gather the dead," Embry said. "It's going to take us over a week if we all work together, but that doesn't give us much in the way of wiggle room if Company Z speeds up its approach," Embry said.
"How many people do you need?" Ben asked.
After that, our days were filled with preparations. Bella and I volunteered to be on the team who went out to corral the dead. It was dangerous work because we had to lure them and then keep them under control until we could get them into their pens. Quil agreed to help us and so did Seth.
When Jasper volunteered to help teach others how to be snipers, he was met with uncertainty. Even though Jasper was much calmer and in control ever since I figured out what he'd been trying to tell us all along, people were still scared of him. It wasn't until people saw him teaching Chris and Esme and then Mrs. Cope that others cautiously joined his gun training group. Slowly, people were starting to see that Jasper wasn't a liability. He might have saved all of our lives.
Finally, we were as ready as we could be for an attack. We were all on edge and there was a lot of arguing that went on. People were barely spending time in the community house anymore, preferring to be at home with their family.
We kept noise and any other kind of commotion to a minimum, not wanting to attract any attention to our home. The penned up dead were making enough noise themselves.
However, there were a few lighter moments during those days. Jasper seemed to be coming to life again. He was starting to actively engage in conversation. Even once or twice starting a conversation on his own. Also, he and Alice seemed to be growing closer again. Bella told me that Alice had confided in her that they'd even begun sharing a bed again. It was amazing to see Alice's eyes alight again, but it was painful too. I was afraid that soon that happy glow would be gone again with the attack approaching.
Jasper was even showing an interest in Clara. He wouldn't touch her, but there were a few times that I caught him talking to her. He even sort of laughed when before he could pull his head away she reached out and latched on to some of his hair.
I just prayed that in the weeks ahead, we wouldn't lose him again.
Bella and I never left each other's sight. I'd even started signing up for wall duty during her rotations so we wouldn't have to be separated.
Touching her in any capacity helped to keep the feeling of dread away.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was absolutely terrified. None of us were soldiers. I knew how to kill the dead, but they were mindless animals, not trained killers. The only one of our group that had real experience with killing humans was Jasper.
For her part, Bella seemed to feel the need to be close to me as much as possible too.
We made love as much as possible, each time in a kind of desperate passion that left us both exhausted. When we slept, we slept restlessly, wrapped tightly around each other. In our need to always be touching, when one of us moved the other always followed, keeping any kind of deep sleep at bay. I felt every small twitch of her muscles, every movement of her breathing, and she was just aware of me.
In the day time, I would sometimes catch her watching me with a look so desperate that it would freeze the air my lungs.
During those moments, I would sometimes drag her away and make love to her in some hidden alcove, not caring if we were caught. Claiming her seemed more important than modesty.
I couldn't lose her. It would be the end of me.
Our days went on that way in a kind of limbo where we waited for the inevitable. So, on the day when Quil sounded the alarm, for a moment it was almost a relief, but it was soon followed by fear but also resolve to protect the one I loved.