SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

51

RUPERT

He couldn't speak for the captive soldier locked away in his cage, but Rupert Emerson didn't get much sleep last night. His head spiraled with doubts and concerns.

He knew it was only a matter of time before everything they built here would catch the envious eyes of others. He tried his best to surround himself with people able to defend this place, but finding strong, capable individuals willing to do their part for the community and not usurp control for themselves was a tightrope walk. Sooner or later, it was all bound to come crashing down.

That's why he poured all of his efforts into fortifying Castle Island. Now that spies had learned how to breach their defenses, it was only a matter of time before their enemy launched their attack.

The one thing he hadn't counted on was fighting off invaders with military training and weaponry. No matter how prepared they were, they weren't ready to withstand a siege of that magnitude.

He and Ed had poured over the map of Donna and Jake's territory, but they had far too much ground to cover and not enough scouts to check them out safely. The military could be positioned anywhere in Cambridge. Harvard, MIT, Fresh Pond, or at any of a half dozen shopping centers in the area. Rupert couldn't begin to guess where they were hiding or how big a force they could muster against them.

Shortly after midnight, he entertained the notion of freeing his captive and using him to deliver a message to his people. He shot down that plan by 12:30. The group might have been military once, but if they were responsible for Jake and Donna's deaths, they were no better than armed thugs now. He couldn't trust them not to kill everyone here and toss them in the pen for firewood.

As the hands on the clock passed 2 am, his only recourse seemed obvious. He had a duty to protect his people. They had stocked the Castle with enough supplies to last them the winter. First thing this morning, he'd give the order to start ferrying personnel there as quickly as possible.

He lay in bed for another three hours, contemplating the logistics of who needed to remain behind to maintain the minimal operation of the plant. He figured he could ship out most of their security teams, scouts, engineers, plus anyone working on their expansion plans. Though it pained him to admit it, their grand design for liberating much of the territory to the east wasn't going to happen now.

He'd also stay behind, as he always intended. The Castle didn't need visionaries. Mystic's failure was a sad reminder that his time had passed. This was a world of conquerors now.

Giving up any pretense of sleep, Rupert rose, dressed, and went for a walk instead. He hoped the crisp night air might jog his senses and inspire a plan to save his home. He strolled until the eastern skyline showed the first blush of morning, but his mind remained unchanged. The only route he could see before him was the one that filled him with dread.

He wandered past the zombie pens. Sergeant Crispin appeared to be putting in as miserable a night as his. The captive was slumped forward in his chair, half-asleep, while the restless dead kept trying to grab him through the bars.

Rupert hated putting anyone through that, but he had no choice. Mystic needed answers. Preferably, before their two groups came to loggerheads.

A trio of sharp blares from a car horn echoed from the lookout post on the Alford Street Bridge. Two hits was the agreed upon alarm for a herd of zombies venturing across. Three meant a living visitor. Rupert sprinted for the bridge, his heart thumping due to more than just the exertion of his early morning run.

Winded and sweating, he arrived to find his men training their guns on a lone individual standing on the opposite side of the span, near a military Humvee. The figure was clad in camouflage and waving a smoking, red flare to catch their attention. The fact that the soldier knew better than to approach the electrified metal deck of the drawbridge suggested that their prisoner wasn't lying about his army background. His people already knew everything they needed to pose a significant threat to Mystic.