Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 15 - The Strength to Go On

"I'm sorry, what?"

This time, it was Eli's turn to be surprised. He leaned forward on the arms of the wheelchair and gaped open-mouthed at the tall man.

Cassius gave a single, slow, solemn nod of his head. "As I was out this time, I saw a mass of zombies on the move. An entire herd. I guess now it seems clear they had to have been moving from the cave system where Eli was found. I watched them from a distance, following them to their new destination, which turned out to be a giant camp. It was fenced in, though the fence looked somewhat hastily constructed, around what must have been a number of warehouses at some point. It looked like old pictures of concentration camps from World War II. It was difficult to see much from my position, but there were definitely people walking around inside. Human beings. Living ones."

"But the zombies are all there?" someone from the crowd asked. "What are they doing? Are they trying to get inside to eat the people?"

Cass cupped his hands into "C" shapes and then used them to draw two squares in the air, his fingers drawing a big square and his thumbs drawing a smaller one. "There's two fences," Cass explained as he made the motion, "an inner one and an outer one. The zombies, for the most part, have been funneled into the space between. Some are left outside and seem to mostly be wandering absently, but most are almost like an extra protective wall in that in-between area."

"Like a moat made of zombies," said Eli, his voice distant and his eyes staring at nothing. He didn't say anything else, but in his head he was thinking that this sounded exactly like the base where they had found the first vampire and the army of Frankenstein monsters.

"Precisely," agreed Cass.

"Whatever the hell for?" asked another of the group.

Cassius only shrugged in response.

"Well, if Eli's right," said Joe thoughtfully, scratching his chin, "then it sounds like the zombies are there as extra incentive not to try to break out of the camp."

"Or have anyone break in," muttered Eli, who was only half aware he was even speaking out loud.

"Right," agreed Joe.

"But those people," protested the one Joe had called Tony. "Cass, how many would you say it was?"

Cassius shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't stay long enough to do a head count. Probably close to as many people as are currently living here. There could've been more in areas I didn't see, though. And more could have come."

"That's a lot of people," said Tony. "A lot that could be of use here, with us. We can't just leave them to their horrible fate."

"I don't know," said Joe, "it sounds risky."

"Eli, what about the people you were with?" asked Claire. "Didn't you say they were taken by the vampires? Couldn't they have been taken to this camp?"

"I suppose it's possible," Eli replied. In fact, that had been his exact first thought the moment Cassius said he knew where one of the camps was. But he felt like keeping that to himself.

"Cass, that means this Gabriel fella might be there!" exclaimed Joe.

Cass gave another curt nod. "Exactly my thinking," he said.

"Who's Gabriel?" asked a person from the crowd.

"Another one of my order," Cass explained.

That set everyone to whispering.

"Then we have to do this," announced Claire. "If those things, those vampires, are going to come hunting for us, our best bet is to bolster our own numbers. And to have a second one like Cassius on our side? We could stand against anything!"