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  Upset, but she knew they could use some help, “I’m pretty unique,” she stated with a half smile. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was joking or playing, so she decided she would maintain her temper until she found out if this person could help them. She was hot headed, but for the sake of feeding her daughter she was able to with stand some ignorance.

  “I mean pretty ladies,” The guard said smiling as if to court her where she stood.

  “We were looking for a place to stay and maybe get some food.” Eric butted in before this conversation could continue. “Just for a little while; we just need a place to get a decent night’s sleep.”

  “Yeah sure we can accommodate you.” He looked at Naomi as he slowly pronounced every syllable in the word accommodate, followed by a grin that would scare a hoard of undead, but was meant to be more than friendly toward Naomi. “Let me run go get the Doc and see what he has to say bout ya’ll.” With that he walked between some make shift lean-tos and some old tents.

  From their side of the fence the village looked to have multiple structures to house many residents. What Eric guessed was the main road was lined with various size tents of all kinds and colors. Behind the tents were small houses that were raised about ten feet or so. The houses were supported by planks of wood and pieces of construction staging. They looked as if they were thrown up with whatever pieces of wood they could find and nailed, screwed or glued together just to make them stand. As Eric examined the village and its houses, they took him back to a memory when his friends and he would make forts out of whatever they could lash together and make a huge mess of his father’s back yard. Thinking back on it now the bases he used to make looked like they were constructed better than these shelters, but he would be happy with just about anything right now. Just the thought of talking to more people and hearing their stories and telling his excited him immensely.

  Eric and Naomi stepped back a few steps and looked at the fence that appeared to surround the entire camp. Just as they started to take in the entire scene the hillbilly came strolling back with a man that wore a beat up white jacket that hung down to his knees and an orange hooded sweat shirt under it. The hood covered his face and the man’s head was angled to the ground. The four travelers lost track of time, but the way the doctor hung his head and rubbed his face gave them the impression he was awakened by the guard and it must have been very late or early in the morning.

  The overweight guard smiled at Naomi presenting his rotten front teeth almost as if he were proud of them and opened the gate. He pushed the gate open and it swung freely till it crashed against itself making half of the front wall shake and the metal fence played a loud tune against each link.

  “Good Lord help us all!” The sleepy Doc shouted in a whisper. His head was straight and his once tired eyes now pierced the guard’s soul. “You’re going to lead them right to us or did you forget they can hear just the way we can.” The Doc looked at Sam and Drew, “I’m going to lead them right to you, so they get their full and they won’t bother with the rest of us. You fat….” He glanced back Sam and Drew and held his tongue. His words came out in a stern whisper strong enough to let the guard know he had messed up.

  Now with his ego bruised he started to hold up his chest and argue back and just as soon as he opened his mouth.

  “So help me God if you wake up any of these kids,” he waved his hands to the tents, “next time you come in for a headache, I’ll give you something to make your dick fall off.” Looking at the four guests, he tilted his head in gesture to follow him before the guard could think of a reply. They trailed behind Doc passing under some of the houses ducking and stepping over the support beams of the staging and passed quite a few tents. As they passed one of them they could make out the silhouette of, what they thought was, a child readjusting a sleeping bag.

  Doc pushed back a white flap to a large white canopy and lit a lantern that sat on a wooden desk on the left side of them. The lantern lit the entire tent revealing a massive dark oak desk engraved with deep carvings of flowers. It was one of the desks Eric imagined a high class lawyer would put in his personal office. Someone spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for this desk and now it supported a Coleman lantern in a large tent. Straight ahead of them was another desk, but this one was plain and bare. To the right of them against the nylon wall were eight cots covered by a thin white sheet.

  Clearing her throat Naomi asked, “Are you really a doctor?”

  Doc pulled the plain metal folding chair from behind the expensive desk and sat down fumbling with the lower drawer. Not looking up from the drawer Doc answered with a snicker. “No I showed up in this coat and got the name. It seemed to fit, though. I wouldn’t want any of these people looking over me if I got ill, so I just played along.”

  “Do they know about this?” She asked with some concern.

  Looking up from the drawer, he revealed a pad of paper with a few pens. He looked directly at Naomi, “Yeah, I told them I wasn’t a doctor, but that’s what they kept calling me, so I just once again, played along. I could be out there hunting.” He snarled his lip. “I could be building houses up on stilts.” He snarled his lip and crinkled his forehead. “I could be digging holes, burying shit out in the fields.” Doc grimaced, “Yeah I’ll play Doctor for a while.” Flipping over the first page of the pad of paper, “Ya’ll have to undress, down to your skivvies.” Feeling the evil look of Naomi, he immediately followed that statement with, “I have to look for any type of bites or signs of infection.”

  Sam looked up at Naomi for guidance. “It’s alright he’s looking out for his people.” She said as she unsnapped her pants.

  “I’m not wearing anything under my shirt.” Sam told her with a scared look on her face.

  Doc stepped toward her and bent down in front of her to get to her eye level. “Let me see your belly and your arms.”

  She pulled her shirt up then held her arms out to her sides. “I’ve never been bitten, I promise.”

  “You know what? I believe you.” He said with a smile. He got up and examined the rest of them. “Have you had any encounters with them in the past twenty four hours?”

  “No we saw a few on the beach, but we avoided them.” Eric said as he was being inspected.

  “Were going to set you up in a tent; it’s going to be tight in there, but it’s all we have right now for people who just get here.” He sat back behind the Oak desk and started writing on the pad of paper. “What did you do before Z day?” He pointed his pen to Erik.

  “I was a Machinery Mechanic for the Coast Guard.”

  Doc shook his head and shrugged in a nonverbal and that is what?

  Eric recognized the look and explained. “I worked on engines, hydraulics, and pretty much everything mechanical.”

  Looking down at his paper he scribbled something on his pad. He scrolled down his paper as if he were looking for something, “Naomi?”

  “I worked at a bank.”

  Not responding to her occupation, he stood up, “So you’re good with math, I assume?”

  Naomi nodded in agreement.

  “Ok follow me.” Doc led them to a small grey tent that was directly next to the large tent they were in. “I won’t be far from here and if you need anything…. You know, just wait till morning. You’ll be safe. Dan is on duty tonight, he’s an idiot, but the one thing he takes seriously is standing watch. We don’t really trust him to do much else.” Showing a small smile followed by a yawn, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The tent was small like Doc warned, but they all slept well that night.

  **********

  Eric was awoken by the sound of a child crying. As he rolled over and opened his eyes he saw that he was the last to wake up. The others were sitting close together in the cramped tent and talking quietly amongst themselves. Eric realized he was taking up half of the tent by lying sprawled out and quickly moved to the far side of the tent. “Sorry.”

  He sat u
p and opened the tent flap. The morning breeze was crisp and he felt good being able to sleep through the night, not having to worry about a door being broken down or glass shattering. They all needed this night to sleep soundly. For the first time in months they all closed their eyes and were able to get a few hours of sleep without the fear of being attacked in their sleep.

  He poked his head out from the tent. “Good morning.” Eric heard a familiar voice and shielded his eyes from the sun while he looked up to the voice. “Hope everything went well last night.” Doc said. He wore the same clothes from just a few hours earlier.

  Stepping out of the tent, “Yeah everything was great. For the first time in a long time I actually managed to sleep.” He let out a big stretch standing on his toes and extending his arms.

  “Sorry for the,” He pointed to the tent across from them referring to the crying baby. “When you guys are ready come see me in the canopy.” He turned and walked away.

  The four of them walked into the large tent. Doc sat behind the oversized elaborate desk and across from him sat a large man with a huge white beard that came down to his chest. He wore a brown sports jacket and a pair of black corduroy pants.

  “Good morning, did you sleep well?” The large man said as he stood up and reached his right hand to shake Eric’s. “My Name’s Elijah,”

  Eric reached out and felt his hand crack under the strength of Elijah’s. “Eric,” introducing himself, “nice to meet you,” He pulled his hand away. “Thanks for your hospitality.”

  “Oh not a problem, we’re just happy to see new faces and especially those that can possibly help our lil town grow.” He took one step back and the smile on his face never left. “I’m the sheriff of the town and if you have any problems I have an open door policy, so please come see me and we will find away to settle any and all of your problems. Eric I hear you are a mechanic.”

  “Well that’s what I did in the Coast Guard.”

  “Great we need some good hands.” He turned to Samantha and Drew, “We actually have a school set up for you two as well.” The smile on his face was uncanny and never faded. He turned to Naomi, “We have jobs for you as well. We would love for you to teach the math department in our school. Doc tells me you’re real good at math. Playing with numbers has never suited me.”

  The self appointed sheriff created this town. Originally, it was him, his wife and daughter, living out of an old RV. Over time another couple showed up asking for food and Elijah welcomed them into their camper with open arms. They hunted and made the best of what they had. Then another small family appeared, father, mother, and two boys, looking for shelter. The camper was only big enough for the sheriff and his family, but he gave them his tent to use, just for the night and they pitched it right next to the RV. It seemed people just started to flock to Elijah’s because it was so deserted and once people got here they wanted to stay, so the tent that was on loan turned into the family’s permanent residence until new developments were made and it still stands today. Now it houses any new traveler that needs a place to stay for the night.

  More and more travelers began to show up and wanted to stay, so as the population grew so did the need for security. They began traveling to the local cities to pick up supplies and hardware stores to begin working on a fence. At first the fence was just an early warning system for the occasional ghoul and over time it turned into the structure it is today. With even more people showing up the tents began to be replaced by wooden shanties and structures made from construction staging.

  “I. We were actually going to head off.” Eric said. “I have to get to Maryland and find my parents.”

  Running his hand over his white beard, “Well why not stay for a little while. I imagine WoJo probably has some breakfast still, so why don’t you go eat and we’ll discuss this later.”

  For the first time since the beginning of the walking dead and these are the first living people Eric has seen in two months (Eric guessed, time has escaped him), he felt compelled to ask, “How did all this happen?”

  “The zombies you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well that depends on what story you want to believe.” The sheriff spread his fingers and ran them through his thick frost colored beard again. “How do you think it started?”

  “I have no idea? I was watching a movie when all this went down.” Eric shrugged.

  “Every person that has come to this village has a different story. I have heard that a meteor struck and started this. I was told that some kids found a barrel of military grade toxic waste and when they opened it some smoke came out and infected them, but I’m pretty sure I saw that on a movie. One paranoid family that left rather quickly told me the CDC was doing experiments on monkeys and one got out, and just started biting people.”

  “CDC?” Naomi asked.

  “Something disease something. Some government agency that studies diseases and virus.” Elijah responded quizzically.

  Drew spoke out, “Center for disease Control and prevention.”

  They all turned to the young boy and were impressed by his knowledge.

  “Very good little buddy.” Elijah put his large hand on his head and gave a little shake ruffling his short black hair. “I personally believe a story that was told to me by some military guys that passed through a long while back, but let us go eat first. You have to be hungry and I don’t want WoJo to start putting everything away for dinner.”

  “There is no lunch?” Samantha asked.

  Elijah started passed them and opened the flap to the village and waved them out. He held the flap open for them as they walked passed and started guiding them to the dining area. “We really fend for ourselves when it comes to lunch. Food supplies are running low and if we get lucky enough to find some flour or some meat, we do have lunch, but lately we’ve had little luck.”

  When they arrived at the dining area the sound of a generator was just silenced. The dining area consisted of four picnic tables lined in a row and a classic looking meals on wheels vehicle was adjacent to the benches. The vehicle was made of stainless steel, but was covered with dark colored sheets to prevent the sun from reflecting off of it and giving away their location. Also the morning sun reflected off of the roach coach and blinded all of the villagers.

  Elijah walked up to the window on the side of the covered food coach and put his head inside looking back and forth. Finding his target, “Hey WoJo, good morning.”

  A very peaceful voice came from the window, “Good morning to you. I noticed you didn’t eat, so I put a plate off to the side for you.” A plate of food was placed on the window sill and a head appeared out.

  A man with a very skinny neck and an over sized head came out like a giraffe. He wore a blue hat and a very dirty white apron was tied tightly around his thin neck and hugged his body. “Ah some new visitors.” He said cheerfully. Wiry, short, peppered colored hairs covered his face and as he talked they stuck out coarsely.

  Elijah introduced WoJo to them and then WoJo greeted them all with a plate of food. The plate consisted of what looked like canned yams and some form of white meat substance. They carried their breakfast to the closest bench and began to eat.

  “So anyway, the story I believe is.” Elijah said with a mouth full of bitter yams. These two army guys came down headed south. They told me after they gave me some MREs and I gave them a solid shelter for the night. That Darpa was doing experiments on how to make the soldiers not need as much oxygen to function and without dying of course.”

  Eric looked at him curiously.

  “Yeah I did the same thing,” Responding to his look, “but over in Iraq or Afghanistan if they were to be hit by some toxic or poisonous gas and did not have their gas masks on they would all be succumbed by the gas and die, so I could see the point of it.”

  “Who’s Darpa?” Sam asked not touching her food.

  “I asked the same question. Darpa is the company that makes up all the crazy stuff that you would see
in the sci fi movies that you think could never happen, but they make it work. You know like eye scanners, laser guns, teleportation beams, all the crazy stuff in Star Wars.” He let out a little laugh that made a piece of white meat stuck in his beard swing back and forth. “Well so for them to make a chemical or a pill that would limit the need for the human body to need oxygen, to me is not farfetched.”

  Elijah continued, “The scientist that started this study was named Thomas Wielder. He started with rats, dogs, cats, monkeys and he could not get the formula right. He started this during Desert Storm and really got into it when Bush Junior took office, anyway that’s not important. The first side effects were extreme cramping, loss of hair, tightness of skin, crazy mood swings, and the pigment of their skin turned to a dull grey. Years and years passed until he finally got it right.”

  “How did he know he got it right?” Sam asked again.

  “You know I asked the same question; great minds think alike. They told me they tied a monkey up and threw it into a pool of water.” Elijah said very quickly.

  Sam gasped and scowled at him, “That’s so cruel.”

  “Can we PG 13 this.” Naomi said as a statement not a question.

  “Sure, sorry, but it did survive. The next time they did it they used electrodes to monitor its vital signs. The heart still pumped and there were no negative brain wave readings or anything like that. So it was a good thing.” He half smiled at Sam to make it better. “The brain did not need nearly as much oxygen that it needed before and it still functioned normally. They monitored the monkey; I think they said it was a chimp, and it acted normally. It ate normally, breathed normally, when it wasn’t in the water, and still flung poo at the scientist as they walked by.” He looked to Drew and Sam and laughed. “The next step was to test this on some volunteers and they had some side effects initially with the human specimens, like the tight skin, cramping and mood swings, but wouldn’t you have mood swings if your skin all of a sudden got tight and gave you cramps.” He laughed at that statement. “but ultimately it worked. The human test subjects no longer needed to breathe oxygen on a regular basis. They could stay submerged for ridiculous amounts of time. I think they told me they could stay under water for almost an entire day. After they fixed the side effects they started with a few military members. They gave it to a squadron or platoon or whatever they called it that was going to Afghanistan. Then they gave it to a few others that were going to some more hostile places and then he gave it to himself. Life was good for a while, but Mr. Thomas Wielder started noticing some changes in his daughter and son. He started running some tests on them and he started noticing they were acting the same way his initial test subjects acted. Then they started getting reports of the families of military members acting the same way.”