Welcome to the End

Chapter 16: Convergence

Adam would have liked to run in the opposite direction before being spotted, but the undead were already headed down the road in his direction, so he'd been detected immediately. Grunts and moans erupted from the corpses as their decayed organs and barely functioning minds tried to sound out words and alert the others to having found food.

Adjusting his pack to a better position, Adam turned around and sprinted away from the slow moving zombies. He was grateful he hadn't used up his energy earlier in the day when he'd left the military base as he'd have none left for the return.

His strong boots thudded against the old and untended asphalt of the street while his mind considered different options.

Going around a zombie group of such massive size would be impossible. Narrowed by the four lane road, the zombies had been compressed down into a roughly rectangular formation. Some of them had spilled over the edges of the road into the tangled trees and shrubs of the adjacent woods, but most stayed contained.

Even if Adam managed to get around the leading elements, the length of the zombie horde was so great, the tail end could swing around and trap him. He'd be cornered with no chance to escape, no matter how fast he ran.

East and west were available, but Adam's thoughts kept turning back to what the cop had told him. Walton, a fortified city in the east had been overrun, so a mass zombie force was coming from that direction as well. If these mass hordes were coming in from the north and east at about the same time, it stood to reason the south and west zombies were probably not too far behind.

The cop had said the undead would join together and converge on the last remnants of the living. It looked as though Adam was going to get to see it firsthand. He smiled humorlessly. The death he'd been expecting had arrived.

Adam knew running back to the military base with the zombies in tow would surely lead to a conflict between the horde and survivors. Considering the numbers of undead he'd witnessed a moment ago, it was unlikely the small band would survive such an assault. Going back to the base might mean the deaths of everyone there, but his other options didn't look any better.

Maintaining his speed and long stride, Adam raced back with his message of impending disaster.

***

Kevin, George, and Isabella worked furiously to gather whatever they could from the abandoned military base. Adam had taken the last of the medical supplies, but enough remained of the other essentials for them to make a start on their treetop colony.

"How are we going to sleep up in the trees?" a civilian woman asked. Her loose, white shirt with pearl buttons and black skirt was simple and on the formal side. Because of her glasses and pinned back brown hair, she looked like a librarian or a college professor.

"We've got people pulling sleeping bags from supply," George answered her. "We'll weave a cargo net around it to form a cocoon of sorts. Don't worry about it. We'll work on it when we get where we're going."

George dropped the supplies he was carrying and headed back for more.

"I'm not used to this," the woman lamented. "I taught school in Walton. It was peaceful and safe. All that's gone, and we're left with this."

Kevin could see how she was in danger of falling apart, and quickly reached out and took hold of her by each arm, offer her some much needed support.

After the horror of Walton's fall, he was surprised any of the refugees still had their sanity intact. Their concepts of safe and secure had been severely undermined, if not shattered completely. Kevin wanted to restore that sense of security, but for the current moment, he needed them focused on the task at hand.