The cityscape of Atlanta loomed in the distance. The sun’s rays reflected off the buildings, giving the city a pink and golden glow. In the distance beyond it, the night sky was still inky black. Only a handful of the brightest stars could be seen. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Jo could see the pearly haze of false dawn. He was forced to keep his focus on the road, though, which was full of cars. Obviously many had been unable to flee the city before they were overcome either by zombies or by the same attack that marred the Interstates. Large holes surrounded by black marks and buildings reduced to rubble showed signs of the attack. Already, Rob and Taylor had been forced to get out of their car and move cars blocking the road so Josiah could drive through them. Jo felt bad about not being able to get out and help them but he was still fairly wobbly from whatever illness had delayed their departure. He wondered if it was a hold-over from whatever he’d caught in Quantico and prayed that he was over it now. The last thing he needed was to get sick and wind up as zombie-chow.
“I hope that’s the last of them,” Rob muttered as he climbed back in the car. “We’re close enough to the CDC now that if we get hung up again, I say we abandon the car and leg it. I’d rather be able to run than get swooped down on by slavers or worse.”
“How can you tell if the people are the bad sort?” Josiah asked curiously. “So far, you’re the first living people I’ve seen since I woke up.”
“At this point, it’s best to assume that anyone you run into and don’t know is bad,” Rob sighed. “I wish to God it weren’t so but that’s how it is. Sometimes you can slip up on a group, scope them out a bit, and then make your presence known if they’re good. If you see someone alone or a small group you think you could take down or run from, you can risk it — just don’t get separated from your weapons. That’s how we met Shy. She spotted us and we had a long chat while she sat on her horse with a pistol trained on us. Of course, we each were drawn on her so it was fair enough. We’ve come across a few others we were sure of — families with young kids. For the most part, though, we avoid people unless we know them or someone we know can vouch for them like with Shy. The only reason we didn’t kill you outright was because you were alone and my gut told me that you were innocent enough.”
“I see,” Jo muttered. “I wonder how Shy has avoided trouble if she ranges out on her own so much.”
“Shy is a special case,” Rob chuckled. “I almost pity the idiot who tries to take her anywhere she doesn’t want to go. She’s better armed than most infantry divisions and she’s smart as a whip. And, she trusts no one.”
“She trusts you.”
“After we proved we weren’t going to give her any trouble. Before that, she was wary but she’s got a way of reading folks, sizing them up. That’s kept her safe so far. She claims that she sent her childhood around all the kinds of people to avoid now so she can smell them the way her horse can smell a snake.”
“Do you think we’ll run across any slavers in Atlanta?”
“Shy says they avoid the cities for now — too many people-eaters around. Too much risk to their cargo,” Rob snorted and rolled his eyes. “The closest they’ll come is a half-day away and then they’ll send out scouts to see if anyone in the city wants to come trade. She also suspects they’re avoiding Atlanta entirely for now. Too large, too dangerous, no real chance for profit.”
“I still can’t believe that there are people who are selling others,” Jo sighed. “How could anyone go along with that?”
“I don’t know,” Rob whispered. “And I’d really rather not think about it. Also, let’s keep the noise to a minimum. Apparently, there are some pretty dangerous folks in Atlanta other than the dead ones walking about.”
Jo fell silent in agreement with Rob. Atlanta hadn’t been the safest city in America before the Outbreak. It wasn’t New Orleans where corruption among petty officials and the police kept the criminal element at a constant slow boil or New York where muggings, rapes, and murders were a matter of course in certain boroughs. However, it was a fact of life that whenever large groups of people gathered, bad things inevitably followed. The three of them moved quietly down the streets, keeping to the shadows. Their eyes scanned for any signs of trouble. Twice they had to take detours to avoid other people. Once they even had to hide in an overturned garbage dumpster while a gang of police officers sped by several times. Jo wondered why Rob insisted that they hide from uniformed police officers but the panic-stricken look in the black man’s eyes told him to hold his questions until they were somewhere safer.
By the time the sun was half-way down from its zenith, they were exhausted and still at least an hour away from the CDC. Jo wondered if they were going to be forced to risk entering one of the many abandoned buildings and spending the night with someone standing watch in case a group of unfriendly faces — dead or living — came upon them. He was debating internally whether to ask Rob for a reprieve or to insist on pressing on towards the CDC. He knew that Taylor was nearly out of gas from the way the boy was panting and dragging his feet and Jo himself wasn’t much better. His legs felt like they were made out of rubber, jelly, and had water flowing through them instead of blood. Even Rob seemed winded from the amount of sweat pouring off his face and the way his shirt had changed color from brown to almost black as it clung to his chest and back. Jo reached for his water bottle and groaned softly when he found it was empty.
“You need to watch it with the noise and conserve your water,” Rob chided him, his tone soft but stern. “There aren’t exactly any water fountains we can rely on out here.” The black man passed Jo a bottle of his own water and the sheriff whispered his thanks as he drank, struggling not to guzzle it down all at once. “I think if we press on hard enough, we can get to the CDC before full dark.”
“I dunno,” Jo sighed. “I’m worn out and your boy isn’t much better.”
“I just don’t want to risk sleeping in the city until we’re somewhere we know is safe,” Rob replied. “Bad enough dealing with the dead but, according to Shy, there’s at least three or four different factions fighting for control of the city itself.”
“How does she know this?”
“I told you, Shy gets around and she’s smart. She said that there are two rival gangs who seem to think that they can be the kings of the mountain by stealing all the money and valuables they can grab and stocking them up in their warehouses. There’s another group — cops, mostly — who are trying to impose order and all that rot but Shy thinks they’re not really helping people all that much. They go after the weak ones the way a wolf goes after the lame sheep. The fourth group is only a rumor she picked up from listening in to a group of the gangbangers. She’s not even sure if that group is in Atlanta or has moved on but she does know that their leader scares the shit out of the most hardened ex-cons. So, fair warning is to stay away from the area around Little Five Points. The gangs have claimed Lindridge-Martin and Garden Hills with most of the squabbling happening in Lindbergh. The cops are running out of Piedmont but may have control of Grady, too. She wasn’t certain beyond seeing them patrol between those two points fairly frequently. She says that the group at the CDC has a bunch of scavenged police scanners and CB radios that they use to keep tabs on things. I wish I’d been able to find a walkie-talkie so that I could get in touch with them and let them know we’re coming.”
“Maybe we should try to talk to the cops. I had some friends in the Atlanta PD…”
“I don’t want to risk it, Jo. Shy said she didn’t think they were the good kind of cops. She saw them meet with a group of slavers and they took back half a dozen women. The men were talking about how these women would service them and Shy didn’t think it was a front. The few people who’ve escaped from Piedmont keep running.”
“I…it’s only been six months…” Jo protested. “Not even a year…”
“There were bad cops and bad people before the Outbreak,” Rob said softly. “Looks like they’re coming out on top for now. Maybe the good ones will turn up but, for now, we stick to those we know and avoid all the others.”
“I guess,” the sheriff said uncertainly. “Let’s try to make it to the CDC today, then.”
The sun was just beginning to brush the horizon when Jo and Rob heard the shouting. They were two city blocks away from the CDC and very hopeful of reaching it before the sun’s light vanished entirely. The nearness of their goal had given them all fresh wind. But the cries for help had Jo running after them, leaving Rob and Taylor behind. The part of him that had chosen to go into public service would not allow Jo to ignore those kinds of cries. He could hear his footsteps pounding and slapping against the warm pavement, the footfalls echoing through the narrow alleyway he’d run into that led to the sounds of the shouts. Behind him, he heard Rob running after him, both of them panting and wheezing as they pushed themselves just beyond their limits to try to reach those who needed help. When they got to the end of the alley, Josiah staggered to a halt and Rob nearly bowled him over. The scene before them was one of nightmares.
The street was clogged with the undead who were swarming around an overturned trailer. Two men stood on top of it. They wore pistols tucked into the front of their waistbands and had the slightly paunchy, well-manicured and coiffed look of managers more accustomed to haranguing employees and sitting inside behind a desk than working outside. Their shirts hung on them showing that they’d lost weight in the months since the Outbreak and they wielded their weapons — a golf club and a crowbar — with a surety that spoke of experience. The body of a freshly-killed horse lay just a few dozen feet away where it had been messily eviscerated by the hungry mob of mindless zombies. Rob’s breath hitched in his throat as he saw the horse and Jo prayed that this hadn’t been the end of Shy. Jo plucked his knife from its scabbard on his belt and moved towards the mob, grabbing the nearest one and using it as a shield as he worked his way through them, slashing, stabbing, and slicing at their heads to take them down. Nearby, he could hear Rob doing much the same. Their sudden attack from the rear gave the two men on the truck a chance to make better headway. When a bolt flew in front of Jo’s face, its blue and red fletching sticking out from one of the undead’s skulls while the deadly steel head pinned the now-truly-dead thing to the trailer, the sheriff turned and saw a ratty-looking man drawing back the string on a crossbow and loading another bolt. Taylor stood just behind the man and seemed to be watching him with a mixture of awe and apprehension. The five men managed to put down the entire mob which, once it was down, no longer seemed as large as it had when it was swarming the overturned eighteen wheeler.
“Thanks for the help there,” one of the men said after Jo and Rob helped him down from his perch. “I’m Greg and that’s Larry.”
“Where’n the hell’s m’brother?” the crossbowman demanded angrily as he continued to wade through the disgusting ooze collecting his bolts. “’N where’s Seth? That li’l Tonto d‘cide ta pitch his tee-pee somewhere else now?” His voice was gravelly and gruff with the slightly nasally accent of someone from Appalachia. “’N who’n hell’re y’all?” he demanded, glaring mistrustfully at Josiah and Rob.
“And that’s Daryl,” Larry muttered.
“I’m Josiah Denton and this is Rob Myerson. That’s his son Taylor back there,” Jo indicated with a wave. “We were headed for the CDC when we heard y’all hollering.”
“Denton? Are you a sheriff from over in Athens?” Larry asked. “Then you’re Caitlin’s husband!”
“Who cares who ‘e’s married ta?” Daryl spat. “Where’s my brother at?!”
“Daryl, just calm down,” Larry said in a placating tone. “We got jumped by some gangbangers. They grabbed Seth and threw him in a car. Merle went after them. It looked like they were headed this direction so we decided to come back and get the rest of you to try to search for them. Then this Lone Ranger type comes galloping up with a herd on her heels. She managed to jump up and grab that streetlight,” he pointed, “and then pulled out a rope and got on the roof of the store next to it. She hollered at us asking about your brother and then took off.”
“So she’s alive?” Rob asked, sounding both worried and relieved at the same time. “I recognize the saddle. That’s Shy.”
“What’n hell she want with Merle?” Daryl asked. “She say?”
“Naw,” Rob shook his head. “She said she was looking for the man she was gonna marry.”
“Ain’t Merle, then,” Daryl muttered sourly. “Dunno who she is but if she’s lookin’ for him, she ain’t all bad. Wha’ kinda car?” he said, turning back to face Larry and Greg.
“A pinto. White with blue racing stripes,” Greg answered. “There were four of them. Worst part is, they got the goods,” he grimaced.
“Y’all ain’t worth a shit,” Daryl spat. “Cain’ non’a’ya forage worth a damn nor fight. Fuckin’ lef’ m’brother for dead, I bet. Assholes.”
“Well, if that little Indiana Jones is trailing him, he’s got better company than you right now, Darlene,” Greg taunted. “She was a good-lookin’ little thing from what I saw.”
“Then she definitely ain’ after Merle like that,” Daryl snorted. “He likes his women painted up and boozey. Which way did she go off in? Might be able ta track her and then find Merle.”
“Dunno,” Larry shrugged. “We were a bit busy trying not to be eaten ourselves.”
“It’s too late in the day to try tracking anyone,” Josiah said gently. “Besides, they may be on their way back to the place y’all are staying at. Tell you what,” he offered, “if you take us back with you and they haven’t turned up by morning, I’ll come out with you myself. I’m not bad at tracking and if you have a compound bow, I can shoot it almost as well as I can a pistol.”
“A’righ’,” the man agreed as he looked Josiah over from head to toe as if measuring him up. Josiah took the chance to study the other man as well. Daryl had close-cropped dark blond hair and mistrustful blue eyes that gave little away about what he was thinking. He sported a goatee that covered thin lips habitually turned down at the corners in a frown. His face had a slightly weathered look to it for all that the man couldn’t be more than a few years old than Jo was. He was well-muscled but lean with it through the arms and chest which were both well-tanned as if he spent most of his time outdoors. He wore a stained tank top that had seen better days under a flannel shirt that was missing most of its buttons and its sleeves and canvas pants that were worn through in the knees and had ragged hems at the ankles. Well-broken in work boots completed the look along with several long-bladed knives on his belt. Jo felt that his first assessment was right — Daryl was a man used to living close to the bone in the mountains and forests, not one who was comfortable in the city. His brother Merle, on the other hand…
At length, Daryl completed his own study of Josiah. Whatever he found seemed to be sufficient since he sniffed and then nodded. “Ya got a point. Ain’ no sense in gettin’ ourselves killed lookin’ for Merle if he and this girl gonna jus’ turn up on their own. We’ll head out at first light, though.”
“Agreed,” Jo said, sticking his hand out for the other man to shake. Daryl stared at him again and then snorted with a wry grin before taking his hand and giving it a good squeeze.
“Ain’ never had your kind shake my hand,” he explained.
“My kind?” Josiah replied, somewhat taken aback by the comment.
“Yeah,” Daryl grinned, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “A cop. C’mon, Officer Friendly. Let’s see if you are Caitlin’s husband after all.”