Haven Chapter 3

Book 2: Haven

Chapter 3

They had been ripped apart, there was no way they would reanimate. The sight was gruesome and it made my stomach turn, the marauders may have been our enemies but I would never wish this upon them. Brooke moved away retching and Daniel followed her, his face pale. Connor was the first to speak, ‘is this all of them?’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘at least not all the ones we saw, there could be more than we know of. And at least one escaped to shoot that guy at the front, the dead probably followed him’

‘I guess we’re lucky then,’ Steven said, and Connor and I turned to look at him. He was right I thought, but it’s still distasteful to say it. ‘What I mean is,’ he started again, ‘that if we had got here first this would have been us, I didn’t mean it was lucky they died.’ That’s slightly better I guess, I thought again.

We covered the corpses with a sheet of plastic from the warehouse, and moved the corpse at the entrance to join the others. Steven was right though we are lucky, the marauders drew the dead away from the warehouse, and now we could take our time gathering supplies. The warehouse had lots of fuel that we could use, as well as some spare parts, I didn’t know much about cars but I knew enough to know they’d be useful. ‘Todd!’ Will called out from another part of the warehouse, ‘come and see this!’ worried that he had found another corpse Connor, Brooke and I ran in the direction of his voice.

There was no corpse, but Will had pried open a large crate and was staring at the contents. As he noticed our presence he beckoned us over. I peered inside and was greeted with a very pleasant sight, the crate was packed with boxes of dehydrate food, enough to last at least a year. It wouldn’t be a healthy diet but in lieu of other food sources this would sustain us. We quickly packed up everything we could fit into the cars and left the warehouse, heading back to the station.

This time it was me and Connor in the front seat of his car, with Will and many boxes of food in the back seats. ‘I was thinking,’ Connor started, ‘we should organise this…,’ he searched for the right word, ‘group better, have teams for specific purposes and a proper chain of command’

‘Yeah that’s a good idea,’ I said, but in my head I was very worried, we had just met this guy and now he was trying to take control? Set up a “chain of command”? Who would be at the top? Will had originally brought us together because he thought he could only trust people he knew before to stick together and back each other up. How did we know we could trust this guy, and we had to trust him if he was going to be the leader.

‘That’s all very well and good,’ Will interrupted my thoughts, ‘but so far we’ve done pretty well making decisions as a group, “chain of command” might simply cause more conflict’

‘Maybe “chain of command” was the wrong term,’ Connor replied, unaware of the distress that term had caused me, ‘what I mean is that there should be groups with different responsibilities based around those peoples talents, the “leaders” of this group are more “representatives” to help with communication.’ That settled my fears slightly, he at least wasn’t trying to be a dictator, but he was still trying to take control. I had to say something, if nothing else it might remind him that up until now the others trusted my decisions, ‘we should discuss back at the station with the others,’ I decided that would have to do.

We stopped suddenly when a man stumbled in front of the car. From behind us I heard the Ute stop suddenly too. The man was older and was holding a rifle, I recognised him as one of the marauders from the clinic. Behind him were five of the dead, these were the most decayed I’d ever seen and one was missing an arm, I felt nauseous, but the adrenalin won over and I got out of the car. ‘Get in!’ I yelled at the man who limped over and got in the front passenger seat. I fired at the dead, hitting one in the chest so it fell over and another in the head and it collapsed. They were moving slowly, the marauder probably could have escaped if it weren’t for his leg.

Connor drove off after the man got in and the Ute moved closer. Daniel hopped off the back and began firing with me, but he was untrained and missed most of his shoots. I stopped him and yelled at him to get back on the Ute and I followed. When we were both on Brooke hit the accelerator and we left quickly, the dead remaining half-heartedly trying to follow. ‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said, looking at is gun, ‘I was trying to hit them but’-

‘It’s okay,’ I stopped him, ‘its more difficult when it looks, when we get back we’ll start some shooting lessons.’ I felt slightly smug that I had that idea, now who’s a leader Connor?

…

When we arrived at the station, Connor’s car was already there and Will and Nicole were talking over the food. When we stopped they turned to us ‘is everyone alright?’ Nicole asked concerned

‘We’re fine,’ I assured her, ‘and the dead didn’t follow us,’ I continued, pre-empting Will’s question

‘Monica’s working on the power thing, she’ll need the fuel soon,’ Will said. Daniel nodded, picked up a large bottle and headed into the station, followed by Brooke and Steven. ‘What’s going on with that marauder?’ I asked quietly

‘Connor locked him up in one of the cells,’ Nicole answered

Nicole, Will and I headed in and found Connor and Andria talking to him. ‘He says his name’s Kyle,’ Connor said

‘Are you the only one left?’ I asked Kyle

‘No,’ we replied, ‘well maybe, but when I ran from the warehouse there was someone else with me, our leader, Anthony’ I remembered the leader with little compassion

‘What about where you’ve been staying? How many of you are left there?’ Connor asked, sounding much like a policeman

‘None, we had to leave the house when a group of dead broke down the fence, we were planning to use the warehouse as a home’

‘Why would you use a warehouse?’ Andria asked confused

‘Anthony said the supplies would last us for ages and we could move the shelving for barricades. But when we got there and started to explore Jason opened the office door the was locked,’ Kyle was sounding more and more distressed, ‘ there were 15 of those dead things locked in there, they ripped most of us apart before we could react, only Anthony and I escaped. Then’- he paused and looked at the floor-‘then he told me to ran the other way, split the dead chasing us.’

Something was wrong here, I thought, he was lying to us. I looked closely at how he was sitting, crumpled on the floor, his hand on his ankle where his pants were torn and I could see some blood. The pieces clicked together and I realised the real reason for his friend abandoning him, ‘Open the cage!’ I yelled at Connor

‘What?’ he asked shocked

‘Open the cage! Now!’ He complied and before Kyle could act I pulled his arm away and rolled up his pants revealing a bloody and gruesome bite mark. Kyle was infected.