The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel by James N. Cook

himself. His father’s words came back to him, always compelling despite the passage of years:
    Never let anyone know what you can do, Caleb. People will try to make a tool out of you. Bend you to their will. If they can’t win you over with charm, they’ll find some leverage, some way to hurt you. They will try to own you. Believe me, son. I know.
    In the early days after joining the Army, he had shown off a few times. Couldn’t help himself. He had used his tracking and marksmanship skills to hunt game and supplement his platoon’s meager rations with fresh meat. It had won him many friends, but had also attracted the attention of Lieutenant Jonas.
    While standing watch one night, eyes searching the forest around him for walkers, ears straining for footsteps, he heard the old soldier approaching. The lieutenant was trying to be stealthy, but he was as loud as thunder compared to Caleb’s father.
    Caleb knew who it was by the tread, but because the night was pitch dark, he was expected to call out a challenge to anyone approaching the camp. When Jonas was close enough to hear him, he whispered, “Mockingbird.”
    Jonas answered with the appropriate pre-arranged response. “Fireball.”
    “Approach and be recognized.”
    Caleb kept his rifle at the low ready as his CO stepped into sight. “Nicely done. You’ve got good ears.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    The lieutenant stopped beside him and peered out into the forest. “Everything quiet?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Any sign of walkers?”
    “No sir.”
    Jonas was silent a moment, then said, “Mind if I ask you a personal question, Private Hicks?”
    “Sir?”
    “Where did you learn how to track and shoot?”
    Never let anyone know what you can do, Caleb. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why do you want to know?”
    “You stalked a deer on foot today and brought it down with one shot from a 5.56. Any man can shoot like that is wasting himself as a regular infantry grunt. Might be we can find something else for you to do, if you’re up to it.”
    Caleb looked down and shuffled his feet. “I don’t know, sir. I feel like I still have a lot to learn.”
    The lieutenant nodded. “No pressure, son. Just thought I’d bring it up. Give you something to think about.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “Now you still haven’t answered my question.”
    “Oh, right. My dad used to take me hunting a lot. Taught me how to recognize tracks, read terrain, find breaks in foliage, that sort of thing.”
    “Hm. Your old man must have been a hell of a hunter.”
    “Yes sir. He was.”
    Jonas hadn’t bothered him about it since, but if Ashman’s prediction of his forthcoming promotion was correct, Caleb figured it was only a matter of time.
    Nothing I can do about it right now. Worry about it when it happens, not before.
    Caleb kept firing until his magazine ran out, reloaded, and began firing again. Despite the toll his squad’s rifles were taking, the bulk of the horde was still making progress up the hill. The walkers had bunched into a single mass, attracted by the cacophony of noise echoing above them—exactly what Delta Squad wanted them to do. The ones with fewer mechanical injuries outpaced their more tattered brethren, causing the horde to coalesce into the now-familiar teardrop shape. Caleb aimed his fire along their left flank, causing ripples in the horde where ghouls stepped over the bodies of their fellow undead. In his peripheral vision, he saw Thompson had stopped firing and was squinting into the eyepiece of a handheld rangefinder.
    “All right,” he shouted over the noise. “They reached standoff range. Start piling ‘em up.” He then said a few quick words into his radio, stashed the rangefinder on his vest, and began firing again.
    The first step in forming a shitpile, as they termed a large mound of permanently dead ghouls, was to drop the ones closest to the center of the horde until they formed a stack. As the flanks slowly caught up, Holland and