“They are having a meeting,” said Spinnelli. He nodded at a door at the end of the corridor. “I think they want to know what we saw out in the desert.”

Sunday shrugged. They didn't have a lot of ammunition for an extended expedition across the desert. If they had to fight more zombies, they would quickly be reduced to their knives and teeth.

He doubted the villagers had any normal weapons. They seem to specialize in the killer plants they had come across reaching the river.

He thought that either they would be asked to find where the river started so a better water supply was secured for the town, or find out what was causing the husks and stop that. Those were the only two possibilities he could see in his future. And he didn't like either one of them.

One battle with the ones they had encountered had used up most of their ammo. If the town wanted them to find the source of the monsters, they had no way of doing anything without bullets and explosives.

He kept an eye on the street. Maybe they could flee through the plants without being seriously hurt in their attempt to escape.

“Dave would like to talk to you now,” said Sheva. She gestured for the mercenaries to follow her.

Billy fell in the drag spot and let the others go in the office in front of him. He thought maybe he could pull and shoot his pistol fast enough if it was required. He took a spot near the door of the office and leaned against the wall. Whatever was coming was not a command decision that he would have to make.

A group of villagers stood on the other side of a map table. The line of the river and the town stood in relief on the top. No other furniture decorated the room. There were plenty of vases with flowers in them. They stood in the corners of the room, and under the two giant windows to the outside.

Billy figured if some kind of ruckus broke out, all of those flowers would start spitting seeds at them like bullets. He approved of the precaution. It would be too much to be trusted on the first day in the village.

“My name is Dave,” said the widest man there. “I have been growing Garden for a long time, but it looks like it will fail unless we do something about it. Can you help us?”

“What do you expect us to do?,” asked Spinnelli. He looked at the carved map.

“We need a more reliable source of water, and we need to know where those husks are coming from,” said Dave. “If they keep attacking, eventually they will be able to make it here into the village and destroy it.”

“We don't know anything about either one of those problems,” said Spinnelli. “We came from the desert up river from the floats your people had put out. We came from the west. The husks we saw came from beyond our arrival point.”

Espy examined the map. He placed his finger on it.

“This is about where we arrived,” said Espy. “This is where we fought the husks with the wild flowers.”

“This is about where they broke into the river,” said Sheva. She pointed out the spot on the map. “Sunday and I already repaired the line as much as we could. The new shoot will need more water to grow to heal the crack in our defenses.”

“Has anybody ever gone up the riverbed and seen what's up there?,” asked Spinnelli.

“We have lost two groups looking for the head of the river,” said Dave. “We don't know what happened to them.”

“So it is potentially dangerous,” said Spinnelli.

“If we don't do something, we will lose Garden,” said Dave. “That means any assistance we might be able to give you will dry up when we have to move on and lose our support base.”

“There's also the zombies,” said Hanson. “We might as well let them have us if we can't secure permanent food and water, Cap.”

“I know,” said Spinnelli. He examined the map from all sides. “We could go up there and see if there is something blocking the water.”

“What about finding out where the zombies are coming from?,” said Eckles. “If we cut them off at their source, that will buy time to get water for the town.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“There's no way to cross that on foot,” said Spinnelli. “Anybody we sent would die of thirst and starvation long before he saw where they were coming from.”

“I could do it if I had enough water and food,” said Billy. He frowned. He hadn't meant to volunteer. “I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it can be done.”

“And then what,” said Spinnelli. “We don't have enough ammo to give you to fight a horde of those monsters by yourself.”

“They might be drying up the river somehow,” said Billy. “If they are, maybe I can figure out a way to clear a spot for the village plants to bloom up there.”

“You are talking about growing a garden in the middle of our enemies,” said Sheva. “I don't think that can be done, even with the fastest things we grow.”

“If I were to take a couple of seeds, how much water and plant food would they need to grow into some of those shooters you have planted along the river?,” asked Billy.

“You would need a quart of water a day, potting soil, and sunlight,” said Sheva. “If you could grow two shooters, that would be enough to give you a small defense as more plants grew in the soil. It would be impossible in the middle of a surge.”

“What if he strung a line?,” said Spinnelli.

“I don't understand,” said Sheva.

“What if he was able to plant around where we held out the first night we were here and expanded from that?,” asked Spinnelli. He pointed at where he thought the columns had been.

“He would still need a few gallons of water to build a better defensive wall around the site,” said Sheva.

“We should try to find the source of the water,” said Hanson. “Billy can do that in his sleep. Then we can build better defenses with the plants as our shooters.”

“We would have to dig irrigation trenches to grow the plants into walls away from the river bed,” said Spinnelli.

“Walls would require scaffolding,” said Dave. “I think we can put something together once we have enough water.”

“We can put the scaffold together before we get the water,” said Spinnelli. “That way we can plant and start trying to grow the plants into a wall as soon as the water gets here.”

“All right,” said Dave. “Can you find the headwater, Mister Sunday?”

“I don't know,” said Billy. “Maybe. How far do your plants stretch along the banks?”

“Miles,” said Dave. He traced a line along the river until he reached a rock sticking out of the ground. “We have a fortification here.”

“If you were dealing with monsters with brains, they would come down the river and overwhelm the plants on the banks from that fort,” said Spinnelli.

“It would take many to do that,” said Dave. “But you're right. The husks always attack along natural paths in the desert and always try to pierce the plant line to get to the river bed itself from the side. They are running into a continued broadside of fire when they do that.”

“Can you do this, Mister Sunday?,” asked Sheva. “It is a lot to ask of you.”

“I just need a nap and something to eat,” said Billy. “Then I can start up the riverbed and try to find out what is going on. If I can flood the river, it might be enough to change the face of your problem.”

“Do you think we can dig a trench out to where those columns were?,” asked Spinnelli. “If the husks are coming from that direction, we might be able to use the area as a hard point to blunt their charge if we can build up enough in time.”

“Then we can expand to similar forts from there,” said Sheva.

“If we can keep a steady supply of water coming down the river,” said Dave. “The plants might grow wild on their own with a big enough supply of water.”

“They might go feral?,” asked Eckles.

“It's a possibility,” said Dave. “We will have to watch our plants to see that they do what we expect they will do.”

Billy didn't know a lot about gardening but he could see that you didn't necessarily want a ton of daisies in your rose bush.

“We're going to need a break,” said Spinnelli. “Then we'll send Billy and Espy up to look for this water source. Then we'll work on the scaffold.”

“Do those things attack every night?,” asked Hanson.

“No,” said Dave. “And they don't always attack at night. I want to say they randomly charge the plants when they come on, but the times of their arrivals mean nothing.”

“It might mean something if they are being released to attack every few hours, and their arrival is a set time from their source,” said Spinnelli. “And that means that something is pointing them this way to attack the town.”

“And that means something with a brain is doing all this,” said Dave. “I would love to meet them. The husks have caused a lot of damage, and would be still doing that if we hadn't discovered the plants and used them to fight back.”

“Do you have a place you can put us up for a bit?,” asked Spinnelli. “I will send out Billy and Espy as soon as we get some rest. They are our best scouts and should be able to find out what's going on.”

“If the ground was a little better, we could dig pits to stop some of the charge,” said Eckles. “The problem is their numbers would fill a trap up in a few minutes.”

“We'll worry about that while we're trying to fortify everything,” said Spinnelli. “We might be here for a long time before we find a way home.”

“I'll take you over to our housing,” said Sheva. “We lost some of our people, so you might as well stay in their place until you are ready to leave.”

“Thanks,” said Spinnelli. “We need something after what we have already done getting here.”

Sheva smiled as she waved for them to follow her.