When tragedy and terror struck, it usually did so without warning.
Two days after his interactions with the sheriff and those at the Grange, a call suddenly came out just after sunset. Marcus was hanging out in the watchtower with Maya, sitting in a pair of foldout chairs and staring out over the darkness of Marshall.
"Maya..." he began, then hesitated. They'd been talking for a good half an hour before and had finally lapsed into comfortable, companionable silence.
"Yeah?" she replied.
"I've been thinking..." He hesitated again, sighed.
"Something's been bugging you," she said. "What is it?"
"It's just that...I don't know. I've been getting this feeling, you know? This feeling like...maybe we should really start thinking about moving out of the valley."
Maya seemed to consider it for a moment, but as she opened her mouth to respond, she was cut off by a squeal of static over both their radios. "This is Sheriff Parsons at the courthouse! We're under attack by a huge horde of undead bastards! We need help from anyone willing! Please-"
He was cut off at about the same time a large plume of flame suddenly appeared from across the river.
"Holy shit," Maya whispered. "We've got to help them."
"Yep," Marcus replied, already scrambling over to the ladder. He slid down it and Maya was right behind him. They scrambled across the courtyard and into the main building, making for the supply area. As they did, others came into the room in varying states of confusion. Marcus and Maya immediately took control of the situation.
"Lily, see if you can get them back," Marcus said.
"Ed, Logan, Evelyn, you're coming with me and Marcus. The courthouse is under massive attack by the zombies. We're helping, so grab whatever guns and supplies you think you'll need," Maya said as she grabbed her own arsenal.
"Everyone else, gear up and secure the entrances along the chainlink. Make sure nothing attacks us while we're away," Marcus added.
There was a general sense of motion, of furious activity, as everyone scrambled to comply. Five minutes later, Marcus, Maya, Ed, Logan and Evelyn were driving towards the courthouse in a pair of SUVs, weapons in hand. Lily kept trying to raise someone over there but by the time they'd hit the bridge, there was no one.
An idea struck Marcus and he brought his radio out. "Lily, get hold of Doc Hanson, get him over here, we're going to have wounded."
"Got it," Lily replied and set to work on that task.
It was clear that the courthouse was burning. They raced across the bridges and up the street, slamming on the brakes and piling out of the two vehicles. There was a horde of creatures massing outside of the courthouse, having made it around and over the concrete barricades and funneling in through the alcove created by the stacked shipping containers. All five of them lined up in front of the twin SUVs, guns in hand, and opened fire on the zombie horde. For a solid minute, there was nothing but the sound of overlapping gunfire.
Maya had found a twelve-shot rifle in her travels and was putting that to use. Marcus, Evelyn and Ed all had their pistols out and were putting down zombies left and right. Logan had found a pump-action shotgun in the supply area and was banging through shell after shell. A dozen zombies fell, then two dozen, then three, and suddenly it was quiet.
"Let's go!" Marcus called, nearly deafened from the concentrated gunfire as he slapped a fresh magazine into the pistol.
Once it became clear that there were no more zombies coming from the street, the five of them hurried in between the concrete barriers and into the shipping container alcove. Smoke was billowing from several of the windows in the courthouse and there was movement obvious just inside the main room where, not all that long ago, Marcus had told Judge Lawton that she was nuts. The five of them burst into the room, falling on another handful of zombies that had made it inside and survived the initial slaughter.
They were trying to rip apart a handful of survivors. Marcus spied a pair of cops and some civilians. One of the survivors suddenly screamed as they were overwhelmed and two zombies started digging into their intestines. Marcus scrambled to rescue the man, but by the time he had bashed the two zombies' heads in, the man had already bled to death. Cursing, Marcus turned his attention to the rest of the zombies, but they had been taken down by the survivors and his own crew. He hurried over to one of the cops.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked.
The man, who looked pale and stricken, shook his head. "I-I don't..." he trailed off, clearly shell-shocked.
The other cop came over. "Judge Lawton and Sheriff Carl are dead," he said flatly.
"What the hell happened?!" Marcus cried.
"Zombies just swarmed us. One of the big ones broke through the door in the back, someone panicked, threw a grenade, it torched a stash of propane we had back there, blew a goddamned hole in the back, took them both out and some of the others," he replied.
"Fuck! Look, get these people outside, we're going in to try and find other survivors," Marcus said.
The man nodded. "Good luck."
"Logan, Evelyn, head through that door there, to the left, see what you can find. Maya, Ed, with me," Marcus said.
They split up and hurried off.
It was a miserable half hour. The building was coming down around them and there was smoke everywhere. They managed to clear a few rooms, but most of the ways were blocked, either by fire or structural damage. They did all they could, but they didn't find anyone else alive in the courthouse and were soon forced to abandon their efforts by the flames. As Marcus stumbled back outside, coughing and hacking with the others, he felt something wet hit his cheek, then the back of his arm and his neck. He glanced up.
It was raining.
At least that would keep the fire from spreading...hopefully.
He found Doc Hanson and the cop he had spoken to who was still with it tending to the others. They were the only ones standing. A small collection of people had been laid out on the street, a little ways down from the courthouse. Marcus and the others moved to join and help them. Doc Hanson moved with a grim proficiency, checking on the wounded and doing what he could for them. After ten minutes, he finally came up to Marcus.
"I've done all I can for them here," he said. "We need to get them back to your place. But we've got to be careful when we move them."
"Okay, it looks like we've got three vehicles between us. Will that be enough?" Marcus asked.
Hanson frowned, studying them, then finally nodded. "Yeah, should be fine. I've got the back of my truck cleared out for just such an occasion. Come on."
The rain picked up as they picked up the survivors. There were six of them altogether, seven if you included the single unwounded cop. He helped, silent and stern, clearly miserable. Marcus was silently extremely grateful that none of his people had been damaged in the fire. Once they had loaded everyone up, they drove them back across the bridge and through their half of Marshall, coming up to the truck stop.
Once it became apparent what was happening, some of the others came out to help, either to watch over them and provide protection or to help them carry the wounded. They brought them to the infirmary and when they ran out of room in there, (there were only three beds), they brought them to the third bedroom they had set up in the main room, the truck repair bay. Once it was clear that there was nothing more he could directly do, Marcus went to gather the others and make sure their perimeter remained secure.
Time passed. Minutes dragged into hours.
Before long, Marcus, in the watchtower, nodded off.
When he opened his eyes, the sun was rising.
He sat up and looked around, terrified that something had gone wrong while he'd fallen asleep and angry at himself for nodding off. He stood up and looked around, feeling the panic subside as he saw that there were no zombies, nothing was on fire, no one was shooting at anything. With a sigh, he scanned the area and spied Ed making his way towards him. He climbed up the watchtower and joined Marcus atop it.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah...tired," Marcus replied. "Nodded off for a while there."
"I had a nap myself. I thought I'd come take over."
"Thanks."
Marcus headed carefully down the ladder and moved towards the truck stop. He came inside and made for the main repair bay, where the survivors were. As he did, he spied Maya and Jacob standing with Doc Hanson in the infirmary.
He joined them. "How's everyone doing?" he asked.
Doc Hanson sighed. "Besides Dan, the police officer who managed to get out without any wounds, only two of them survived. All the others succumbed to their wounds. I've already got them wrapped up in tarp...going to bury them up at the cemetery."
"You want any help with that?" Marcus asked.
Hanson shook his head. "No. Burying the dead is more of a solitary duty. Thanks though, I appreciate it. I'm going to check your people out, then stop by the Grange for a check-up there, too. If you need me after that, when I'm done at the graveyard, well, I've finally settled down and I'm living with Alice Miller at her farm."
"How's it going out there?" Marcus asked.
He sighed and shook his head. "Not good. We've got supplies but we keep getting hit. We've lost that younger couple, Ryan and Izabella. She got killed in an attack by a feral and he got bitten...succumbed to infection just yesterday. Buried them last night at the cemetery, too. It seems like it's getting bad all over."
"Yeah, it does seem that way," Marcus muttered.
Doc Hanson did as he'd said and checked them over. He lingered on Jacob a bit, making sure that his back wound was healing up properly, then gave his farewells and headed out, hauling a grim cargo in his truck.
Marcus joined Maya in the infirmary, where their three new residents were.
They were all at least awake and largely functional. The cop's name was Dan Hammond. He seemed reserved and a bit grim, but very much in control of himself. He was tanned, tall and fit, looking like he took himself and his job seriously. One of the other survivors was a dark skinned woman in her mid thirties named Laura Jackson. Even in spite of everything that had happened, she was very polite and kind when Marcus spoke with her. There was a peace to her, a serenity that seemed natural and had probably been with her for most of her life. The final survivor was a younger man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was a college student named Dennis Walker. Probably the main reason he was still alive was because he'd been a fitness nut and one of his primary hobbies, besides working out, had been shooting guns at the local range.
"Well, unless you have somewhere else you'd rather be, you're welcome here," Marcus said after meeting with them.
They all wanted to stay.
He began to help them get sorted.
He couldn't help but think about Doc's words about how it was getting bad all over. Something had to be done.
A decision had to be made.