EPISODE 1
"The Archer"
The
arrow struck the black spray-painted dot in the hay bale—dead center. Impact from the sleek shaft was accented by a
solid thud. A slight vibration moved the
fletching at the end of the arrow. Had
it been a chest or an eyeball, death would have been swift.
Less
than an inch away, the next arrow struck solidly in the hay. It was followed by a third, also dead center
in a black dot.
Four bales stood lengthwise on a fallen
refrigerator. The targets had only been
missed eight times, and even they were close.
But there were still nineteen more arrows for redemption.
Abandoned
apartment doors were open allowing drab light to flow into the interior hallway
of the empty complex. A few other doors
were closed with broken off doorknobs.
Dull, gray walls were striped with shadows, obscuring detail and
distorting depth. Grampa loved this area
for practice. He believed archery should
always be done in bad lighting, so when conditions were good skill would
elevate. For the last two years, Alex
had shot fifty arrows a day. His father
and Grampa made it part of his daily chore routine. Sometimes they showed up to watch, but since
Grampa had become bedbound with his cough, Alex had practiced alone.
The
silhouette of the teenager took his stance and pulled his tenth and final arrow
from his quiver. He made a slow draw of
the short bow, and brought the fletching close to his cheek. He found the sweet spot with his strong
eyesight. His fingers moved an almost
undetectable amount. The feathers gave a
soft tickle across his cheek as the arrow raced to its mark.
From
the corner of his vision, he saw a figure climbing through a window in the open
apartment next to him. There was no
doubt, no question, no hesitation. Alex turned
and released a whizzing shaft of death.
Since a very early age, he had been taught to assume that anyone who did
not identify themselves before approaching was a cutthroat or a zombie. The town laws demanded the killing of them
both.
Instead
of finding an intruder’s throat, the razor-tipped arrow vanished through a
waving tatter of former curtains.
Mentally, he scolded himself for wasting an arrow, but he was really
bothered for being distracted. The
practice area was more quiet than usual.
No collectors had come by to rummage for supplies. It always surprised him when they did though
because the oldsters said the place had been picked clean of useful items
decades ago. No one showed up today, not
even the local kids that came to drink homebrew and make out. There was nothing to blame but his unfocused
mind
Alex
had developed his skill with the bow as a result of patience. He had loved every part of the process from
making the string, finding the wood for the bow and arrows, as well as the
hours of stance training and arm strengthening his Grampa insisted that he do
before releasing his first shaft. This
patience had filtered back into his life and given him great confidence, but
today his nerves challenged his strongest attribute. The boy had to dig deep to concentrate.
On
his way to the targets to retrieve his arrows, Alex passed several open
windows. He could tell afternoon was
hurrying to dusk. He had to get the last
shots off. Grampa would ask, and he
wouldn’t lie to him. His heart fluttered
a little as he felt the pressure of time, but he did not rush. Alex was well aware that the choosing of
champions was approaching, and if he wasn’t at his best, receiving a token was
unlikely.
The
young man had decided when he woke up this morning that today was the day to
talk to Mr. Teeblum, but his practice was running longer than he expected,
primarily because he kept running over the conversation in his mind.
Sir…I’ve known you for
a long time, and you…No, that’s not it.
Sir, we’ve known each other since I was a small boy. None of his thoughts
found the right words.
He
released the next ten arrows in sloppy succession, but half of them struck
true. Torn between his duty and his
heart, the final six arrows might as well not have been released. They were embarrassing considering the skill
Alex had amassed. He was glad his Grampa
wasn’t there watching. His teacher would
have chastised him for the obvious distraction.
Mr. Teeblum, Sir, I
have proven myself in the skills of men.
I have learned the trade of my family.
He felt he was getting closer. Alex just let the words keep flowing in his
mind. I can provide for…
Alex
was about to become a man. The first
sixteen years of his life, all the time his father and his Grampa put into
teaching him, his dreams for his true love, his confidence all burned inside of
him. He was so proud. He was going to be a champion.
Finally,
he released the last arrow. It missed
the bale entirely.
Deflated
and dejected, that single arrow, that solitary awful shot, suddenly became the
omen for his dreams. His head sank, and
he was glad he was alone. Tears pushed
at his closed eyes. Alex knew how
serious the competition was. Less than
perfection meant failure and waiting another year, but in another year it
wouldn’t be worth competing.
His
meditation on self doubt was broken by a sudden scream that reeled him
instantly back to the harsh reality of survival, of killing for supplies, and
of the ever present danger of the cannibalistic undead.
Alex’s
cool was a little shaken by the certainty of terror he heard in the voice. A final trip to the targets allowed him to
gather his arrows. A tinge of confidence
settled within him as he slid the shafts into position.
The
scream came again. It was above him, but
close enough that he was sure it was on the second floor. Alex cocked his head and managed to extract a
word out of the muffling walls and the anxiety pounding inside him.
“Help!”
His
doubts about himself gave way to his adolescent drive for adventure. Deftly he
flipped one of his trio of shafts into position and applied a little tension to
the string. Alex moved at a cautious
pace to one of the open doors.
“Stephanie,
Come Back! I’ve got to finish it!”
Alex
turned into an empty stairwell. The
concrete steps had been picked of anything useful, burnable, or salvageable
long ago leaving them probably as clean as they had ever been.
Moving
his gaze from behind him to in front him constantly, he made sure his path was
safe or that a killing shot would be his for the taking. Once on the landing
between the floors, Alex looked up to the next floor. There was no door at all, just an empty
frame.
“Stephanie!”
It was a man, and he was filled with desperation. Something was off about his voice, maybe he
was hoarse. Alex could tell for sure
that he was on the second floor.
At
the upper landing, Alex paused. A
wordless scream made him realize he was only a few doors away at most and
brought to his attention that he was afraid.
The excitement had buried the primal feeling, but now it coursed through
his body like a drumbeat. He fought
pulling back the string of his bow even further. His Grampa had drilled into a long time ago
that a forearm kept tense for too long was apt to misfire, but the novice
archer wanted to be ready to release at a breath’s notice.
The
screams continued, but whoever it was wasn’t moving. The voice begged and pleaded that Stephanie
come feed him. Alex listened motionless
as the caller cried out to be fed. The
boy had never heard anything like it. It
was cruel. The unknown suffered
whimpered and called out to God to be saved from the torment of hunger.
Alex
wanted his legs to move, to carry him to do what he knew needed to be done, but
the desperation in the man’s voice scared the teenager. He wished his father were with him. He always knew what to do.
He
gave in and pulled his bow to a full draw.
“Hello?”
The
voice replied with a fresh charge of hope.
“Hey! Hey! Help!
I need help!”
Alex
moved out into the hallway. It was
dark. Most of the doors were
closed. The failing light of dusk
reached halfway down the corridor from an open door at the end of the stretch
of apartments. The door to the outside
was open enough that he could see out.
The
screams started again with an unpleasant urgency. Alex felt even more frightened. He was afraid to see what sad human could
make such heart wrenching pleas. “You
can’t leave me! When the dead come
they’ll eat me alive!”
Such
things happened and Alex didn’t like to think about them. The stories of undead swarming a helpless man
were gruesome. Even though Alex had
never heard of a sighting in this building, he lifted his bow. Just talk of the cannibal, killing machines
made him feel like he needed to defend himself.
“Please!”
the unseen man begged. “Don’t let me
die.” At the end lonely sobs of doom
spilled into the hall.
Alex
stood in front of a closed door. The
number 217 was on it. He was torn
between keeping his bow ready and turning the knob.
“I
hear you out there,” the man spoke in a weakening voice. “I won’t hurt you. I can’t move.”
Slowly,
he pushed the door open. The smell of
death was thick in the air. Alex gagged
and fought down a wave of stomach acid with a hard swallow. The sound of raspy breathing mingled with the
buzzing of flies.
A
dirty mattress dominated the center of the room. It stunk of feces and urine and was smeared
with blood. The gaunt man on it was
equally stained by filth, and a trail of dried vomit extended from his face
down to his sleeveless shirt. His eyes
were sunk deep in a face that was as much skull as Alex had ever seen on a
living person. The skin was pulled tight
revealing a labyrinth of dark veins.
Clumps of hair, like the fallen fruit of a dying tree, stuck in the
smears of blood. All that remained were
nightmarish, gossamer wisps of hair plastered to his face and waving like flags
surrendering to the most powerful enemy.
The
man barely managed to wave before his slightly lifted elbow dropped back to the
bed. “I’m too weak to move.” His voice labored through dry mucus and gore.
Alex
stared in horror at the debris of life before him. Dark flies landed on the man and ate from
graying patches of rotted flesh with no more bother than a breeze to a man
working the fields. He didn’t even
attempt to swat them away. The boy’s
revulsion was the result of a hundred years of societal teaching. It triggered his muscle to draw his bow to
capacity and aim for the man’s left eye.
Something
leaned against the wall behind the mattress, and a bowl of black paste sat on
the floor close enough to the man’s right hand that had he had normal strength
he could have eaten.
Alex’s
eyes were drawn to the two side by side, connected metal tubes about two feet
long. They climbed up the wall from a
curved piece of wood that the teenager knew was supposed to fit against a
shoulder. The little lever caught his
attention, the trigger. His Grampa had
told him about guns, but this was the first time he had ever seen one. Apparently when the dead first rose mankind
had had many guns, but the fight had consumed most of them. They were much rarer now.
Hurriedly,
the man’s eyes went to the bowl. He had
the energy to lift his head for speech only, then it dropped back to the pile
of death-stained bedding “You have to
feed me that medicine.”
Alex
stared in sickening disbelief.
“Old
woman Carter gave it to me.”
He
had heard the name of the witch before.
She lived near the forbidden zone.
The adults talked about her medicines when people were gravely ill.
In
anticipation the near corpse started flapping his mouth and probing outward
with his tongue. “Hurry, kid,” he
rasped. “I’ve been bit.”
The
words shut Alex down completely with a nauseating fright. When someone said they had been bit it only
meant one thing. Not a dog scavenging or
a rabbit being hunted. When someone said
they’d “been bit”, it meant they were dead.
It meant they had to be killed so no one else got infected. It meant they had been bitten by an undead.
Alex’s
fingers tightened on his arrow. The
conscious part of his brain screamed for him to release this poor soul from his
misery and protect everyone he loved.
But the boy who had never even defended himself against an attacker
could not dispatch a helpless innocent.
The man mustered energy and shook his head in protest. “You gotta believe me. My wife got the medicine. The old woman said it would cure the bite.”
For
a long moment Alex said nothing. His
unresponsiveness angered the man. He
tried to lunge forward off the mattress, but little movement occurred. “Come on kid!”
Conflict,
panic shut down his ability to act. Alex started backing out of the room.
“You
can’t leave me like this,” the man whimpered, “You know what’ll happen!”
And
Alex knew exactly what would happen. The
years of hard work by the town’s folk would be ruined. They had cleared out most of the dead,
driving them to the woods and caves in the outlands. But if Alex did not perform his duty of
disposing of the living dead, the scent of the rotten flesh would call to its
brethren in the dark, in shadows, in the ruins of the old world, and bring them
in numbers. The war could easily begin
again.
The
boy shook his head.
The
grounded man flashed with animal rage, snapping his teeth viscously, shaking
head. Gurgling moans pushed squirts of
dark blood out of his nose and mouth.
His head lulled, and the man regained a fraction of consciousness
accented by the rolling whites of the man’s eyes. His muscles convulsed, and the final flood of
waste emptied his body leaving the room in the fresh stench of rot.
Alex
had heard about the fading of life in a diseased person, but he never expected
to witness it himself. The man ceased
movement. The terrified boy waited, bow
still trained on the left eye. The
building was silent. The man didn’t move
again, but Alex knew soon that would change.
There
was no longer a choice. The boy put down
his weapon and grabbed a corner of the bloody sheet. Scared to be so close to the dead man, he
forced himself to drag the remains of the man out to the concrete, stair
landing.
He
reached into his pocket. Alex wanted to
believe it was right. He had been taught
it his entire life, but now, that it was his turn. It felt completely wrong.
EPISODE 2
"A maiden in distress"
Dusk
rapidly moved toward evening as Alex pedaled his bicycle down Oliver Street at
full speed. In the old times the
crisscross of streets lined with houses was called a neighborhood, but no one
used that word anymore. It would have been viewed as a safe place where
children could sit in the grass of their yards waiting for their parents to
call them in for supper. But in the Age
of the Dead nowhere was safe after dark.
In
the back of his mind, common sense nagged Alex for not waiting until tomorrow,
but he could not quell the feelings within him.
Cora had been the love of his life since he was eight. His words had never been sufficient to
describe the incredible elation he felt for her or the lighter than air feeling
that overwhelmed him when they held hands.
It was time to come forth with his intentions. He knew she had the fire of God in her, the
whole town did, and he was aware there would be many other boys besides himself
seeking her hand in marriage.
Alex
had been delaying this important matter for too long. Black Friday was in a month, so he had to
speak with Mr. Teeblum. God willing, the
recent massacre at the hospital had made his competition pause just long enough
to be too late.
The
teenager didn’t expect to see him outside.
He felt his courage dry up like the river in last summer’s drought. Alex
slowed his pedal as he neared the man.
Black
lace up boots ended just before the man’s thick calves began to rise toward his
heavy tunic fastened by a leather belt.
His head was shaved, and his face dark with stubble. Sweat of labor streaked his fit body like war
paint.
Mr.
Teeblum moved through the sea of weeds in his front yard. Adeptly he cut the waist high grass with his
scythe. The majority of the work had
been done, and in a few minutes, his two-story, house would return to the glory
of a suburban lawn from any era.
The
bouncing metal of the bicycle caught his attention. Every man who was still alive had heightened
senses to his surroundings, especially as dark neared. He turned to see the bike skid in his
driveway.
“Good
evening, Mr. Teeblum, sir.” The boy’s voice shook despite his efforts to
appear calm.
“Son,
ain’t it late for you to be this far from home?” The man shook his head in
disappointment. Young folk didn’t take
the dead serious anymore. “I don’t think
your father would approve, Alex.”
Alex
got off his bike and laid it on the ground.
He felt so stupid, but it was too late.
There was no backing down, only silent enduring of the
chastisement. “Yes sir, but I got to
talk to you about something.”
Mr.
Teeblum wiped his forehead and approached with his scythe in hand. “I’m sure this can wait til daylight when
it’s safer out.”
The
boy’s confidence was shaken. Maybe he
should have waited until tomorrow. He
was worried his disregard for the fears of the older generation put him at risk
for being declined. Alex tried to
correct the situation with a quick response.
“I
won’t keep you long, sir. I have a very
quick clear route home.”
“Alex,
part of growing up is knowing these things.
One day you’re going to be the man of a household, and you can’t be
doing stupid stuff like this.”
If
the mess he had created for himself could be salvaged, he had to take
responsibility for his dumb idea. “I
know sir, but I’m afraid I’ve waited too long.”
“What
is it Alex?”
“I
want to marry Cora, and I’m here to ask your permission to go on the suitor’s
quest.”
The
gathering gloom concealed the man’s features, but Alex felt Mr. Teeblum’s hard
gaze sizing him up. “I love your
daughter, sir. I want to marry her.”
His
answer had an edge almost as sharp as a hunting knife, and cut Alex’s
heart. “I ain’t worried about love,
Alex. I want a man who can take care of
my girl. I don’t think I need to remind
you how special she is?”
“No
sir, you don’t. I’ve known it since I
was a kid.”
“That’s
not what I mean,” he tossed the scythe to the ground and brushed the grime off
his hands, “you know what I’m talking about.”
Alex
nodded. He knew his love held the power
of God within her.
“Does
she know you’re asking?”
“Yes
sir.”
Anger
flashed in the man. “Dam, son, she’s not
supposed to know! It’ll break her heart
if I reject your offer!” The man
released a loud exasperated breath.
“You’re not impressing me with your disregard for the rules.”
Alex
shook his head. He was very aware of the
rules. “Mr. Teeblum, we’ve been talking about this for
seven years before I knew the chivalry rules.”
The
man kept his eyes on the boy like he was waiting for a gunfighter to draw. “What makes you think you can survive on the
other side of the wall?”
“I
got four brothers who’ve successfully gotten wives. I know everything I can know without actually
having been there. I’ll be in and out
with the best stuff. I swear to you.”
His
response seemed satisfactory, but the man continued his interrogation. “How are
you going to support my daughter?”
“I’m
good at raising crops, and some of my brothers moved to Nashville. We are going to start bringing fuel and
supplies up here, to Bowling Green.”
Mr.
Teeblum approved. “There’s good money in
that since the government is loosening the rules.”
“Can
I have your permission, sir?”
“Alex,
you know the rules. Only one suitor at a
time.”
The
boy’s heart sank. “Yes, sir.”
“Then
be here at sun up in three days. You’re
going to have to prove yourself. Now you
better be getting home before night comes.”
#
# #
The
window was open a crack, and a breeze whispered to the opaque curtain on its
way to flicker the candle sitting on the table next to the neatly made
bed. Cora turned away from the
discussion going on outside and eyed the arsenal she had spread across her
blanket. Her long red hair was gathered
in a single braid hanging down the middle of her back. Her pink dress with a lace border at the neck
and hem was in stark contrast to the 50 caliber Beowulf assault rifle that her
fingertips glided across. Five, ten
round magazines rested beside it with a black boot knife crowning the pile.
Hearing
her father talk about her to Alex like she were helpless pissed her off. Cora didn’t need a husband to provide for
her, and her father knew that. He
trained her in secret weapons that the rest of the world had never seen. She could walk quieter than the dead at night
to slice a man’s throat, and he wouldn’t be the wiser until his own blood rain
down his chest.
In
defiance, she lifted the gun, snapped the folding stock open, nestled it to her
shoulder, and followed the red dot across the wall. Her frustration grew into a disgruntled,
adolescent moan, and she dropped the weapon to the bed. She loved Alex and wanted to be his wife, but
not like this. Cora never saw herself as
a prissy princess in a tower. She was a
warrior. Her dad knew that, and that was
why her heart ached. She couldn’t
contain her hurt feeling any longer, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
The
girl flopped on the end of her bed letting her head sink. Her shoulders shook as Cora quietly
sobbed. She didn’t look up when her
bedroom door opened. Cora was in no mood
to argue with her mother.
The
bed moved beside her, and she was aware of her mother’s presence even though
she didn’t speak. Cora wiped her face
and quieted her sobs not knowing if this was going to be a conversation of
support or another scolding.
“You
think you’re a woman,” Shar’s voice spoke low but stern. “You think you know what’s best?”
Cora
turned to her mother and stabbed a look of defiance with cold eyes. “I know what’s best for me!”
“I
should slap that foolishness right off your face, little missy. God knows, we’ve ruined you by being too
permissive.”
Cora’s
expression stayed defiant and her eyes didn’t move.
“Do
you know why your father trained you so well?
Have you ever stopped to think about anyone but yourself? Do you know why he gave up his life to make
you as fierce a warrior as you are?”
Cora
looked away in shame. She knew her
father loved her. Suddenly, she felt
ungrateful. “No.” The intensity of her mother’s stare did not
relent, and she was embarrassed to look up.
“Men
will kill to own you, Cora. They believe
you will give them children immune to the Dead Sickness. No man will be able to keep you safe.”
She
looked up with disbelief in her eyes.
“That’s not true. No one is
immune to the Dead Sickness!”
Shar’s
face softened, but her voice held its grave tone. “It doesn’t matter. The hordes of the stupid are as dangerous as
the hordes of the dead.”
Some
of it must have sunk in, for Cora struck a cautious tone. “I can cut my hair or color it with berries
and bark.”
Her
mother changed. All of the hardness
drained away and worry covered her features.
“You can for a while, Cora, if you take to the roads. All the men here already know.” She brushed a stray hair from her face. “But you’re beautiful beyond any girl I have
ever seen. The men will flock to
you. They will come for you.”
Cora’s
eyes stared off into the room in front of her.
The lessons of killing and wilderness survival meant something that she
had missed. Her father had been
preparing her to be a free woman. “Then
I will fight.”
Her
mother grabbed her hand. “Your father
has a plan to get you away from here, so you can start over.”
“I
love Alex, Mom,” Cora said trembling.
“He wants us to have a family and be like you and Daddy, but it wouldn’t
be that way.”
Shar
squeezed her daughter’s hand lovingly.
For the first time, she felt like she was glimpsing the woman she and
Daniel raised. Her heart ached for
Cora’s stolen innocence. Her daughter
might never know the joy of being a mother or of running a good home for a
family. She would have given anything to
go back to sewing lessons and playing dolls.
Maybe if Shar would have started earlier, she could have come up with
real plan to allow Cora to have a normal life.
There was no fighting the tears, but she let them flow in silence. “Put your gun away. You know you’re father doesn’t like them
out.”
“So
why are we pretending? If it’s dangerous
for me to marry because the other men will want me, I can’t marry Alex.”
“It
is the custom. When you are of age, you
marry. Women are fewer than men. If our fragile world is to continue, we must
pair.”
“I
won’t put him in danger,” Cora said firmly, grabbing her Beowulf off the bed.
As
if to remind her daughter of her place in the family, Shar snapped one last
thing. “It is your father who will
choose your champion, and if he survives, you will marry him.”
#
# #
Daniel
watched the boy pedal down the street and turn the corner. Alex was weak and didn’t have what a man
needed to survive in the Dead Age.
Hopefully he wouldn’t be back.
Cora’s life was going to be hard enough.
He didn’t want her starting it weeping over a dead pup.
Alex’s
ride home was not how he thought it was going to be. He wished he never would have gone to Mr.
Teeblum so late. It just made him look
like an immature kid. Even though he had
gone on corpse hunts with the men in the neighborhood, he had to show Mr.
Teeblum that he was a man who could keep his daughter safe. He had to present a strong image to the other
suitors or they would try and kill him.
He
pedaled furiously down Cave Mill Road toward the abandoned Kroger. The last light of day would be coming
soon. He could see headlights coming up
behind him, so he pulled over. The
lights followed him.
It
was a dark pickup, but he couldn’t make out the color. He also couldn’t get a good look at whoever
was driving.
“Get
in, kid,” a woman’s voice said. “You act
like you don’t know corpses come out at night.”
Alex
picked up his bike and lifted it into the bad of the truck. He wasn’t stupid. Of course he knew the dead came out at dark,
but people acted liked they were all over the place. There hadn’t been a corpse on this side of
town in years.
“Where
to?”
“Shive
Lane. The old elder house.”
