PRINT IS DEAD SAMPLER

Transcription

PRINT IS DEAD SAMPLER
this free pdf contains extensive samples from the following new novels:
Print Is Dead Sampler copyright © 2011 by Creeping Hemlock Press
Cover artwork and interior layout by Julia Sevin
A Print Is Dead book
Print Is Dead is a zombie-themed imprint of Creeping Hemlock Press
Editors: R.J. & Julia Sevin
Creeping Hemlock Productions, LLC
www.printisdead.com
www.creepinghemlock.com
THANKS FOR DOWNLOADING THIS BOOK. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.
FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS.
PRAY
to
stay
dead
mason james cole
N E W
O R L E A N S
2 0 1 1
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed within are fictitious,
and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Pray to Stay Dead
Second printing by Creeping Hemlock Press, June 2011
ISBN-10: 0-9769217-1-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769217-1-4
Pray to Stay Dead copyright © 2010 by Mason James Cole
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof,
in any form.
Cover artwork by Zach McCain (www.zachmccain.com)
Cover design & book design by Julia Sevin
www.printisdead.com
This book is lovingly dedicated to George A. Romero,
Tobe Hooper, Jack Ketchum, and Richard Milhous Nixon;
and to those wise few who know the truth:
The world ended in 1974.
PRAY
to
stay
dead
MASON JAMES COLE
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1
O n e
Her mother had been dead for three days, but Colleen couldn’t quite get a grip
on the idea. It was slick and slippery and it didn’t seem real at all, even as
it churned her stomach and wore her down with bureaucratic busywork and
morbid decision-making. It was smoke and razor blades: she could not touch
it, but it could open her flesh to the bone.
“I’m glad she’s dead,” said her brother.
She sneered but said nothing. In truth, Colleen had thought the same thing
at several points over the past few days: shortly after someone from the hospital called to inform her that her mother was dead; while she made arrangements with the gaunt-faced funeral home director; while she stared at her
mother lying in the casket, waxen and unreal. And again, moments ago, while
sitting in the hush of the living room with her brother and waiting for Guy and
the others to arrive. She had thought it more times than she knew, but she
hadn’t been able to say it. Daniel had no such reservations.
He sat on the edge of the sofa, hands hanging between his knees, head low.
Staring at the floor. She didn’t say anything until he looked up at her. His eyes
were dry.
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P R AY T O S TAY D E A D
“How can you say that?” The expected response. It popped out like a cuckoo
clock bird. It was bullshit.
“Come on,” he said, throwing himself back against the cushions, sandy hair
in his eyes. “You haven’t thought it?”
“I just think that—”
“Of course you have.”
“I just—”
“And you are glad, right?”
Her eyes were dry too. She could cry only so much.
She nodded, but that wasn’t enough for him: “Then say it.”
“I don’t think—”
“Say it,” he said, whipping his hair from his face with a snap of the neck—a
well-practiced move. “She isn’t listening.”
Colleen didn’t bother fighting him on this. Daniel declared himself an atheist three years ago, at the age of fifteen, shortly after he read an interview in
which one of his idols—she couldn’t remember if it was Bowie or Lennon—
mentioned Nietzsche. The next day, Daniel had returned from the library
with a small stack of philosophy texts, and that was it. And he hadn’t let them
forget—not even as Dorine Brockenbraugh lay on her deathbed asking for her
children to pray with her. A derisive sigh, a roll of the eyes, a flip of the hair, and
he was out of the room.
“Well?”
“What?”
He was still on it.
“Okay,” she said, thinking of her mother, not long before her death, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed following another invasive and humiliating round of tests, her brow shining with sweat, her needle-punctured arms
dotted with small round band-aids. She’d looked her daughter in the eyes and
exhaled once—whoo—her cheeks puffing, a marathon runner pausing a few
miles from the finish line. The blasted look in her eyes: she was ready for the
race to end.
“Okay, what?”
Colleen picked at a shredding cuticle. “I’m glad she’s dead.”
“I know you are,” he said, smiling, his teeth a jumble. “But why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah. Why are you glad she’s dead?”
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3
“Because...” Colleen groped around for the right response. All that came to
mind, however, all that seemed safe and right to speak, was the canned one,
and Daniel knew it. Cuckoo on deck.
“Don’t you dare say ‘because she’s in a better place.’ I swear to God if you
do I’ll come across this coffee table and give you a fat lip.”
“Because she’s in a better place?” she said, half smiling and shrugging.
“Yeah.” He shook his head and then whipped his hair into place again. He
fished a joint and a lighter out of his shirt pocket and lit up.
“Jesus, Dan, here?” she said. He filled his lungs and blew smoke toward her.
She waved it away. “You’re such a child.”
“Yeah, I really am.” He held up his joint. “This right here is why I’m glad. I’m
glad because I can sit in my own damned living room and smoke grass if I want
to. I’m glad because I don’t ever have to help bathe her and wipe her ass again.
I’m glad because I don’t have to listen to her scream because the morphine isn’t
doing shit.”
She looked down. He blew more smoke at her. She didn’t bother waving it
away. Inhaled a little.
“And yeah, I’m glad she’s not in pain anymore. She’s not up in the sky, playing harps and bowling with Moses, but ceasing to exist is better than screaming yourself to sleep and shitting your pants.
“Most of all? I’m glad my life starts now. I’m glad that yours starts now.
You’re twenty-three, Colleen. What if she’d lived another three years? Or maybe
five? Jesus. Can you imagine that?”
“You wouldn’t have hung around.”
“But you, see, you think that’s a virtue. You’d have stayed by her side, holding her hand and talking to Jesus, all because she refused to allow anyone but
her babies to care for her. And what about us? What if she had lived another
five years and if both of us had stayed right here with her? Did she even think
about that? Did she think about us, about what that would do to us—what it
was doing to us? No, she didn’t.”
Colleen remembered the disappointment in her high school advisor’s
eyes when she’d told him that she would not be starting college the following
year. Her line about no longer having enough money wasn’t entirely true—her
mom’s medical bills had taken a bloody chunk out of her college savings, yes,
but she’d been awarded a healthy scholarship, and there simply had been no
financial reason to postpone college. It was only for one year, she’d assured
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him and herself and her friends, thinking in the shadows of her head that her
mother would surely be gone by then. One year had turned to four, and now
she was where she was. Her brother was right. He was an asshole, but he was
right.
They sat without speaking for a few minutes. Daniel offered her what was
left of his joint. She shook her head. He shrugged, tossed his hair back, and
finished it himself, pressing it out on the bottom of his shoe. She watched the
ashes fall to the carpet and wondered who would pass the vacuum cleaner.
Daniel leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Colleen got up and went into her
bedroom, pausing for a moment outside of her mother’s bedroom. The door
was closed and she had to beat back the habit to lean in and listen for the
rhythmic and labored sound of her mother’s breathing. She made herself grab
hold of the slippery idea: there was only silence in there. She walked on.
In her bedroom, she gave her dresser a once-over, making sure she hadn’t
forgotten anything, then went into her bathroom and grabbed a few more
pads, just in case. She was beginning to cramp up, and she was grateful that
their plans for the coming week involved skis and not bathing suits.
She returned to the living room and stuffed the pads deep into her duffel
bag, beneath the light blue slip and panties that she probably wouldn’t be modeling for Guy, hoping Daniel didn’t see, still private about feminine stuff around
her brother. She sat across from him. His eyes were closed.
“You really still believe all of that shit?” he asked, sounding less like an
asshole and more like someone who was genuinely interested in what she
thought. “Life after death?”
“Sure,” she said, and followed her words with a shrug. “I guess.”
He leaned forward, eyes on her. She saw from the look in his eyes that he
wanted to say something, that he was having a hard time holding back. “What?”
she asked.
“Nothing.” His coiled, about-to-strike energy dissipated, and he sank back
against the couch.
“Nothing my ass, man. And since when do you not speak your mind.”
“I’m tired of the conversation, is all. We’re running in circles, and that’s just
a waste of time.” He smiled. “Besides, you’re a smart girl. You know the truth,
even if you pretend not to.”
“All right, already.”
“That mom’s in the ground. That you’ll never see her again.”
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5
Colleen looked away, stared at the front door. Where the hell were the
others already?
“That dead is dead.”
It was more than he had spoken to her in months, and it was there that the
conversation dropped and didn’t get up. A few minutes later Daniel heard the
rumble of an engine outside. The doorbell rang, and Colleen hopped up and
opened the front door. There Kimberly, Colleen’s best friend since childhood,
grabbed Colleen and squeezed.
“You okay, Brock?” Kimberly asked, touching Colleen’s cheek. Daniel wasn’t
sure he’d ever heard Kim call Colleen by her first name.
“Yes,” Colleen said. “I just want to get out of here. Are we all set up?”
“Mm-hm! You ready to have a good time?”
“I’ve been ready.”
“Good.” Shifting into hushed tones, his sister and her best friend stepped
from sight. Outside, someone said something. It sounded like Guy.
“Come on, idiot,” she shouted back at her brother, showing off just a bit.
Daniel shoved himself up from the couch, picked up his bag, and shuffled
toward the front. Colleen’s bag was where she left it, either on purpose or accidentally, just inside the door by his mother’s godawful wrought iron umbrella
stand. Wishing he were higher, he dropped to his knees and unzipped her
bag and rummaged around until he found Colleen’s pads. He pulled them out,
chuckled once, and stood up. He tossed the pads behind the couch and, picking
up their bags, left the house.
Outside, Colleen was greeting Guy. Adjusting his shoulder strap, Daniel
stepped toward Kimberly.
“Hey, Kim,” he said, and wanted to punch himself in the nuts. He wondered
if he sounded as puppy-dog wistful to Kimberly as he did to himself.
“Hello, Daniel,” she said, and his face grew hot. The dismissive tone of her
voice said it all, and as he stepped past her and toward the back of the van, he
wondered if she’d rolled her eyes. He was used to it. The manner with which
she treated him was dependent on how many of her friends were around. If it
was just the two of them, she treated him like a person, an equal. If the whole
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gang was in tow, well, he merited only condescension and distance or outright
indifference.
He’d known Kimberly since he was five, when she’d sleep over along with
Colleen’s other friends. Most of them came and went, but she remained, year
after year. She was only a year older than he, and their bodies had begun to
mature at roughly the same time. He’d watched her fill out her pajamas over
the course of countless sleepovers, and on two flushed occasions he’d seen her
naked.
When he was eleven, he’d awakened in the middle of the night to go to
the bathroom. His business complete, he’d opened the bathroom door and
stepped into the hall, and there she was, wearing only her cotton undies and a
sleepy-eyed look of surprise, her hair a mess. She’d covered her small breasts,
and eased past him into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it. Three
years later, déjà vu: middle of the night, same hall, same bathroom. Only her
breasts were larger, and she wore nothing at all. She didn’t cover herself that
time. A Mona Lisa smile on her lips, she had allowed his eyes to take in every
inch.
Though both incidents had seemed accidental, he came to believe otherwise. For whatever reason, either to throw him a bone or simply to tease and
torment or possibly to stroke her own ego, she’d elected to provide him with
years of masturbatory fuel.
Making matters worse, they’d kissed once, not even a year ago. The party
had been dim and loud, and they’d been drunk and high and rubbing against
one another while, on the stereo, Arthur Brown bade them to burn. He was
sure that the kiss had meant nothing to her, that it had been no different from
the time she’d allowed him to stare at her tits, just as serendipitous, just as
empty, but that was fine. When it came to Kimberly, he’d apparently take what
he could get.
“How’s Sunny?” Kimberly asked him as he pressed his duffel bag into the
back of the van, atop everyone else’s luggage.
“She’s doing fine.” It was a load. His girlfriend for the past seven months
was drinking too much, and when she wasn’t drinking she was dropping acid
and screaming at the spiders on her arms or some shit, and the wall that had
always existed between them was growing a little thicker each day.
He saw no reason to tell Kimberly any of that.
“She still coming?”
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7
“She’s meeting us sometime tomorrow, I think.”
“All right.”
“Yeah.”
“Listen,” she began, and he knew what was coming. It had to, they both
knew it, but it was fine—at least she was talking to him with the spurs off. “You
doing okay?”
“What, you mean because of my mom?”
“Yeah, you know...”
“Yeah, I’m doing just fine, thanks.”
“Okay, that’s good.” She shuffled her feet, looking down, to the left, to the
right—pretty much anywhere if it meant she didn’t have to hold his gaze for
more than three seconds.
“What?” he asked.
“What?” she answered.
“You want to tell me something,” Daniel said. “So tell me.”
“You smell like grass.”
“I know,” he said.
“You got any more?”
“A little, but it’s shit. I got it from Greg.”
“Shit.”
“That’s all he sells. Doesn’t matter. We can get some more. You were
saying?”
She looked over at Guy and Colleen, who stood talking, their faces close.
Guy’s hand was on Colleen’s ass, pressing her to him.
“Richard is coming,” she said. “We’re going to pick him up.”
“I know.”
“I know you know, it’s just that…”
“What?”
“I don’t, you know…?”
“No,” he said. His face was still hot, though for different reasons. “I don’t
think I do.”
“Richard and I are pretty serious, okay?”
“That’s great. Sunny and I are pretty serious, too. It happens sometimes
when you put boys and girls together.”
“I just didn’t want you to get jealous. I know how you feel and—”
“I don’t think you do, Kim, but everything’s fine,” he said. “Okay?”
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“Okay.”
He left her standing at the rear of the van and slid himself across the back
seat. Shit or not, he was feeling Greg’s cheap grass. He leaned back and closed
his eyes. The van rocked as the others climbed into it.
“Look at this,” Guy said. “You didn’t save any for me, you dickhead?”
“I got a little more,” Daniel said, indicating the back of the van with his
thumb.
“But it’s shit,” Kimberly said. Daniel didn’t open his eyes, but he could tell
from the sound of her voice that she was sitting on the seat in front of him.
“He get it from Greg?” Guy asked.
“You know it,” Kimberly said.
By the time they picked up Richard, Daniel was having trouble staying awake.
He nodded off, opened his eyes. Guy drove, laughing about something with
Colleen. Bowie was on the radio, and Kimberly was making out with Richard.
“Diamond Dogs” gave way to “Sweet Thing”—one of Guy’s 8-track tapes, then,
not the radio, and when the tape was over, Colleen popped it out and pressed
in Alice Cooper.
They drove north, exchanging civilization for dense redwood forest, laughing and talking and listening to one tape after another, never tuning in to the
radio to hear the weather or to listen to the Top 40 or to check in on the general
state of world affairs.
Daniel woke up at some point and rolled a fat one from the dwindling
stash of Greg’s shitty grass in his bag, which they passed around. Only the
front seat—Colleen and Guy—didn’t partake, until the joint was mostly spent,
anyway. Colleen took it from Kimberly and, closing her eyes, filled her lungs.
She coughed, of course, and everyone laughed.
Less than an hour later they arrived at their first stop on the road to three
snow- and sex-filled days in Tahoe, a campsite in Sutter Creek, not far from
Sacramento. Kimberly had talked it up, and it was as nice as she’d promised,
and empty. Not a soul in sight.
They cooked hot dogs over an open fire, tried to skinny dip in the river but
quit at about ankle level due to the cold (Daniel sat it out, opting to remain at
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the campsite and read a dog-eared Frederik Pohl paperback), and when the
sky darkened they fed the fire, hastily pitched three small tents, and retired.
Mercifully, Colleen had not yet started her period, so there was love, slow
and steady and ever so quiet. Kimberly and Richard went at it like animals,
grunting and panting and, in the end, laughing like maniacs. Daniel popped a
few downers, even though he didn’t really need them, and passed out.
They slept in and spent the next day lazing about. Kimberly and Richard
walked into the woods and did not return for several hours. Colleen and Daniel
argued while Guy silently watched, opening and closing his mouth at certain
intervals, as if he’d had something to add but figured it just wasn’t worth it.
Daniel stomped away before long, and Colleen lay in Guy’s arms staring up at
the sky through the trees.
That night, they laughed around the campfire, and when the sound of gunfire popped in the distance, Kimberly asked when deer season opened. None of
them knew. Later, pressed close to one another in their tent, Colleen and Guy
tried to have sex.
“What?” Guy asked, his cock hard, pressed to her stomach.
“I can’t sop thinking about her tonight,” Colleen said, feeling around for the
flashlight.
“Oh, jeeze,” Guy said, and Colleen wasn’t sure if he sounded sympathetic or
annoyed. His dick certainly felt pissed off.
“I was fine last night,” she said, finding the flashlight and clicking it on, illuminating the red interior of the tent. “Tonight I just keep seeing her face.”
“Oh, hon,” he said, holding her close, any trace of annoyance gone from his
voice, his cock softening between them.
They talked for a little while and she fell asleep with the flashlight on.
The following morning, they were on the road by nine. Daniel was in a
groggy daze, and by nine-thirty he was asleep again. They didn’t tune in to the
radio for several hours, by which point the world was already falling apart.
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T w o
They came upon a half-red heap on the roadside. Colleen realized it was a deer,
saw the glistening red knot bulging from its mouth, and looked away.
“Oh, God!” Kimberly said.
“Poor thing,” Colleen replied.
“It’s alive,” Kimberly said, twisting in her seat. Still asleep, Daniel slumped
against the window, his head tipped forward, his face entirely obscured by his
hair.
“That’s not possible,” Richard said.
“He’s right,” Colleen said. “Its guts were hanging out of its mouth.”
“Uh, not its guts,” Daniel said, looking up and clearing his throat. He
sounded amused. “That’s not really possible. Maybe its stomach or something,
but not its guts.”
“Oh, who cares?” Colleen said. “You know what I mean.”
“Guts are probably hanging out of its ass,” he added, as if he hadn’t heard
her. He looked at Kimberly. She covered her mouth with her hand and watched
as the deer disappeared from sight. “Kim, forget about it.”
“I saw its legs moving. I’m telling you, I did,” Kimberly said, looking at Colleen. “Come on, Brock, we have to do something.”
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Daniel shrugged. “Whatever.”
Richard put his arm around her. “It looked dead to me,” he said.
Kimberly looked like she was about to cry.
Guy moved the van onto the side of the road and brought it to a halt. “It was
pretty messed up,” he said, looking back at Kimberly. “I think it’s dead, too, but
if you think you saw it moving, I’ll check it out, okay?”
Kimberly nodded.
Guy hopped out of the van. He went to the back, opened the doors, and,
after a few seconds of rummaging, removed the tire iron from the spare tire
well. They watched him walk in the direction of the fallen deer. Daniel grunted
something, stirred, and went right back to sleeping.
“Damn.” The deer was alive. God help him, he had no idea how the hell it could
be, but it was.
The large doe had surely been struck, and by something big; its midsection
was crushed and twisted almost entirely around, its hindquarters mashed flat.
A dozen angles of pink ribs splayed open its torso. Its guts were indeed hanging
from its ass. They were strewn across the ground behind the animal’s broken
hind legs, speckled with dirt. Pine needles clung to them, flies buzzed, and the
air reeked of scat. The creature’s front legs worked, the hooves digging into the
dirt. Its head lolled. Its jaw worked as if it were trying to swallow whatever it
was that bulged from its mouth. Its eyes slowly rolled in their sockets.
“Ugh,” he said, slamming the tire-iron into its skull until its forelegs stopped
moving.
Back at the van’s open rear, he wiped the tire-iron clean with an oil-stained
rag.
“It was alive?” Kimberly asked.
He nodded once and tossed the rag into the ditch. “Poor thing was damned
tough.”
Kimberly watched him put the tire iron away. “Thank you,” she said.
Guy closed the doors.
As he slid into the van, Richard opened the side door and hopped out. “I
gotta go,” he said, and walked toward the edge of the road.
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Daniel sat up, jerked his hair from his face, and blinked. “Piss break?” he
asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Sure,” Guy said. They got out.
Richard peed onto the crumbling base of a fallen redwood, making a paste of
the red dust. He wanted to be someplace else. He didn’t like Kimberly’s friends
and they didn’t like him. They thought he was an idiot and he guessed they
weren’t totally unjustified in this opinion. They talked politics and literature
and movies, things about which he knew little and cared less, so there Richard
sat like a sack of potatoes waiting for it to break.
Sometimes when they were all around, Kim would ask him for his two
cents, trying to make him a part of things, and if he was lucky he’d be able to
parrot something she’d said to him earlier. It always seemed like they could
tell. They made him feel dumb. And things weren’t much different when it was
just the two of them. He tried to keep up, tried to pretend to care about the
things that turned Kimberly on, statistics and movements, but he couldn’t—he
just wasn’t wired that way.
It was all made more rough by the recent realization that he didn’t love
her. He loved fucking her, for sure, and he liked her company when they were
just hanging out, getting high or talking small. He didn’t like having to fake it,
having to play the quiet type, but he did it if he had to, and he didn’t want to
do it anymore.
If only for the sex, he could have gone on this way for God knew how long.
His general apathy toward all things carried over into his own life, and though
he didn’t care for the way things had gone whenever they all got together, he
could deal with feeling like an idiot around Kim and her friends if he could still
go to bed with her and have those pressure-free moments together.
He’d met Tatum Morrish nearly two months ago while at a party he and
Kimberly were attending, and all that had changed. He felt at ease with Tatum,
never in danger of being judged or evaluated. He didn’t feel stupid when he
was with her, and the sex was as good as it was with Kimberly.
Richard didn’t care about much but he had no interest in hurting anyone,
least of all someone as goodhearted as Kimberly. So he had avoided the
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13
breakup, juggling both girls for as long as he could. He clued Tatum in just last
week, promised her that he’d return from the trip to Tahoe free of Kimberly.
He would tell her. He would tell her soon. It would hurt, he knew, wishing
there was some other way around it.
He zipped up and walked back toward the van.
“Hey,” Kimberly said when she saw him.
“Hey,” he said, and she leaned forward and kissed him. They were the
same height, which was nice. He looked into her eyes and wondered if maybe
it would be easier to just let her find out.
“I can’t believe you threw out my pads.”
“I didn’t,” Daniel said, looking down, hair in his face, trying and failing to
suppress an idiot grin.
They stood at the back of the van, which was parked on the side of the
road at the base of a densely forested hill. The van’s doors were open, revealing
their heaped luggage. Colleen’s bag was opened, its contents strewn across the
other bags: clothes, a hair dryer, a brush, a small zipper bag containing makeup. No pads.
Guy was a few yards away, pissing onto pine needles, his back to them.
Kimberly and Richard had taken a walk, down a slope and out of sight.
“You lying asshole,” Colleen said, pushing him with both hands. She didn’t
know why he bothered trying to lie to her. He wasn’t very good at it—always
shuffling his feet and looking around—but even at his best, his most bald-faced,
she could see through him. She could see the lie in his unblinking eyes when
he finally stopped looking around and decided to make eye contact, and she
could hear it in his voice, which became stripped of emotion and oddly tremulous, the voice of the seven-year-old who’d broken her porcelain ballerina and
blamed it on a non-existent earthquake.
“Hey,” he said, stepping backward and rubbing his chest. “I said I was
sorry.”
Colleen laughed. “What the hell are you talking about? You didn’t say you
were sorry.”
“I was going to, okay?” He looked around. Kimberly and Richard emerged a
few hundred feet behind them, gazing up into the redwoods and walking close.
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Kimberly looked back at them. Daniel’s voice fell to a whisper. “And then you
started screaming and shit, and I just—”
“Enough,” she said, and took a quick step toward him. He stepped back,
flinching. He had a good five inches on her, but she was still his Big Sister. As
a child, she hadn’t been above petty cruelty; she’d enjoyed making him cry on
more than a handful of occasions. She wasn’t proud of this, not necessarily, but
she’d established herself as the boss then, and it was sometimes easy to slip
back into the role. Daniel enjoyed battering people with his words, but when
he thought he was maybe going to get posted, he was all nervous twitches and
apologies.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He shrugged, whipping the hair from his face, and she
really wanted to punch his crooked teeth in.
“You’re such a child,” she said, and walked away, toward Guy, who was all
zipped up and standing near the front of the van. He raised his eyebrows and
opened his arms. She diplomatically sidestepped the embrace.
“You really think he did it on purpose? Maybe they fell out.”
She looked back at Daniel, who shuffled away in search of a tree to piss
on.
“They didn’t fall out.”
“You gotta go?” Guy asked, nodding toward the woods.
“Yeah.”
“You need a hand?” He smiled.
“I’ll manage.”
She let him kiss the corner of her mouth and turned away, crossed the street
and crab-walked down the slope. Twigs snapped beneath her feet. Somewhere
nearby, in the direction from which they’d come, by the sound of it, an engine
rumbled. Twenty or so feet down, the ground leveled out. She stopped there,
dropped her pants and squatted, relieved to see that her disposable pad was
spot free. They were about ninety minutes south of the nearest gas station/five
and dime. They’d make it before she got messy.
Her urine pattered the ground. It smelled like her morning coffee. She
stood, pulled up her pants, and took her time working her way up the incline,
steadying herself, leaning forward and touching the ground before her. Some
seemingly sturdy bumps in the terrain turned out to be thick rifts of gathered
pine needles that fell apart under the barest pressure, sliding in a scatter down
the hillside.
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15
She reached the road and stood, wiped her hands on her jeans. The van’s
driver side door was open. Guy was half in, half out, as if he’d paused on his
way out or in. Completely still.
He listened to the radio. Colleen could barely hear it, the drone of news. He
looked at her and slid entirely from the seat, crossing over to where she stood.
He was pale. He looked frightened. She wasn’t used to seeing him that way.
“Come here,” he said, looking around. He took her by the arm and led her
to the van. Daniel approached them, a paltry joint hanging from his lips. Guy
looked in the direction Kimberly and Richard had gone. “Hey, you two,” he
yelled. “Get up here. Now.” He reached out and pulled the joint from Daniel’s
mouth, brought it to his own, inhaled.
“Hey,” Daniel said. “What are you—”
“Shut up,” Guy said. Daniel shut up and took his diminished joint when Guy
passed it back to him.
Colleen said: “What’s wr—”
He cut her off with a look, leaned in and turned up the volume. “Listen.”
She listened, pressing herself closer to him. He held her. A moment later,
Daniel leaned closer. He looked at Colleen, frowned, started to say something
but didn’t. Eventually Kimberly and Richard joined them.
“What the hell,” Richard said, and no one responded.
“Oh, God,” Kimberly said, looking at Colleen with tear-filled eyes. “The
deer.”
“It can’t be,” Daniel said, after the grim-voiced man reading the news
looped around to the beginning of his report and began to repeat himself for
the benefit of those just tuning in. “That’s not possible.”
They huddled around the driver side door and listened as the man on the
radio once more announced that the CDC in Atlanta had confirmed countless
reports over the last forty-eight hours that the recently dead were returning to
life and attacking the living. 16
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T h r e e
Reggie Turner slept through the first twelve hours of the end of the world.
He’d been in Houston, taking it easy after a sixteen-hour haul from Tucson,
Arizona when the job offer came: deliver a load of industrial chillers to Sacramento within forty hours. It was a thirty-hour run with no trouble and no
sleep. He slept for five hours and got to Sacramento in a little over twenty-eight
hours, popping black mollies all the way.
Reggie didn’t like the way speed made him feel—like a big rodent or a
small monkey was trapped behind his ribs and was panicking, trying to tear its
way out—but he did what he had to, and he got to Sacramento not long after
sundown. This was a good thing, too—he hated walking around in the daylight
after a long haul. Too damned bright.
He dumped his load and picked up another for a short run down to Fresno
that didn’t need to be there for twenty-four hours. Still flying from the mollies,
he tried to cool his heels in Frank’s, a small, smoky bar and grill not far from
the rest stop where he’d get the last good night’s sleep of his life.
Frank, whoever he was, was nowhere to be seen, but the blinds and the
smoke made the waitress—her name was Maxine—look at least thirty-five.
MASON JAMES COLE
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17
He smiled and she smiled. He ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a beer, and he
decided he needed to fuck. First things first, though.
Sliding away from the bar and letting his eyes linger over Maxine’s ass
(nice for a white woman who’d already given forty a healthy push), he went to
the pay phone, which was located between the bathroom doors. The combined
smell of piss and urinal cakes and crap lingered here, as it did outside the bathrooms in every truck-stop bar and grill in America. No one looked at him as if
he should get his black ass the fuck out the door and on the road. If they felt
that way, and he was sure some of them did, then they did a better job of hiding
it than the assholes in Houston.
He fed the payphone and dialed home. His mother answered on the third
ring. They talked small for a few minutes and then he asked to talk to Nef.
Nefertiti’s mother had been on an Africa kick when she’d gotten pregnant and
she’d insisted on giving their child a name that evoked the majesty of Ancient
Egypt. When he’d asked her why they couldn’t give their kid a normal name
that wouldn’t get its ass kicked at school, she’d called him an Uncle Tom and
then tried to gouge out his eyes. Her Africa kick came around the same time as
her cheap hard liquor kick, and she was a mean-ass drunk.
He didn’t miss her.
“Hey, daddy,” Nef said.
“Hey, baby. You have a good birthday?” She’d just turned seven.
“Yeah,” she said, and it was such a short word, he didn’t have time to decide
whether he could hear sadness in her voice.
“You coming home soon?”
“Soon, honey.”
“When?”
“I got one more job to do tomorrow, a little one, and then I’m on my way
home. How’s day after tomorrow sound?”
“Great!”
They talked and laughed. He asked her how school was, and if she’d gotten
the present he’d mailed from Texas, and then she asked him how long he was
going to stay home. As long as he could afford to, he told her. They wrapped it
up and then he said a few more words to his mother. Yes, she’d picked up the
check he’d wired her; yes, Nef was going to bed early and doing her homework
and eating good. He said goodnight and when he returned to the bar his food
was waiting for him.
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He downed the food along with three more beers, eyeing Maxine and talking to her whenever she came by. Both of them knew the game well enough to
tell that the other was playing it. He asked her what time she was getting off,
and she spun it into a joke.
“I clock out at eight.” It was fifteen after seven. “So I’m thinking maybe
twenty minutes after eight?”
“And again at eight thirty.”
She smiled, and they walked out to his truck a few minutes after eight. In
the cramped sleeping quarters behind the seats, they undressed separately
and got to work. She hadn’t been off in her estimation, nor had he. They went
at it with something like tired desperation, and when they were done no one
said anything. The smell of cigarette smoke and charred meat clung to her hair;
the smell of their bodies filled the small space in which they lay, side by side,
like relations.
She sat up to light a cigarette and spied his dog tags, and he readied himself.
“You were over there?”
“Yes, I was.”
“What was it like?”
“Like you heard it is.”
“Something you don’t like to talk about?” She’d never come right out and
ask, not without an opening (they never did), but it was pretty damned obvious:
she wanted to know if he’d killed anyone, and if so, how many; and what did it
look like, smell like, feel like? He saw her eyes crawl over his body, scavenging
for overlooked scars. Everyone was a ghoul, eager to wrench the bones from
the dirt and see if there was anything wet left to suck out. Everyone wanted to
hear about the bad stuff, about the brains popping and the blood flying. This
had once surprised and disappointed him.
“No,” he said. “Bad dreams.” This was bullshit, the kind she wanted to hear
and enough to make her uncomfortable. He didn’t dream of Vietnam. He never
dreamed of Vietnam, not of the good moments, the quiet moments in which it
was possible to believe that you were not a second away from eating a bullet or
being obliterated by a landmine; nor did he dream of the screams of the dying
or of the asshole reckless superior he and a few of his fellows had gotten away
with fragging. He hadn’t had nightmares before combat, and he did not have
MASON JAMES COLE
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them now. Combat, he believed, did not change a man: it magnified him. He
came out a bigger, truer version of himself, for better or worse.
No nightmares, but sometimes the images from 1965 would come to him
when he was awake, and with total clarity: the sight of a cluster of VC coming
apart in spurts and chunks as his M14 spat fire and tried to shake itself from his
grip; the heaps of bodies, the crying children; the old man laughing and telling
unintelligible yet obviously raunchy jokes on a Monday and lying waxen and
still the following Wednesday, a mangy wild dog lapping clean the hollowedout ruin of his skull.
Reggie yawned. The mollies were out of his system, the animal that was his
heart had calmed, and the long haul was catching up with him. He sat up.
“You heading out?”
“I’m exhausted,” he said, his eyelids heavy. “I need sleep.”
“You can stay parked right here,” she said. He could see the hope in her
eyes, or thought he could. Maybe she wanted more dick; maybe she wanted
to press him for more about the war. Maybe she just wanted to be held, but he
wanted her out of his truck.
“I know, but I need real sleep, and I bet this parking lot gets noisy.”
“Yeah.” She gazed at his chest, and the look of hope in her eyes had turned
to a look of disappointment. “You going to the rest stop?” She nodded in its
direction.
“Yeah. Nice and quiet.”
“Coming through town again?”
“Probably one day.” He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Okay.” She touched his chest and leaned in for a kiss. They dressed, and it
was as awkward as it ever was.
“See you around,” she said as she walked away from his truck and toward
her car. A Mac tractor rumbled through the parking lot. Good old boys with too
little sense in their heads and too much beer in their bellies leaned against a
pickup truck and hooted at Maxine as she got into her car.
Reggie got behind the wheel of his Kenworth, locked the doors, and fired
her up. He drove to the rest stop, left the air running, and crawled into the back.
He fell asleep to the sound of the truck’s idling diesel engine.
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F o u r
The ride up the hill was long, made longer by hairpin curves. Daniel’s threat
to upchuck was the only thing spoken since they started listening to the radio.
Guy clutched the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his forehead creased.
Kimberly looked dazed. Richard held her close. He looked confused. The radio
buzzed with static, and Colleen adjusted the dial until the hiss broke.
A few minutes into a report on the looting going on in Detroit, Daniel said,
“I want to see the deer.”
Guy said, “Why? It’s dead. I took care of it.”
“Right,” Daniel said, amused. “I know, but don’t you see what you’re saying?
It’s dead now. So… let’s see if it’s come back.”
“They’re not saying anything about animals,” Richard said.
“It was already dead,” Kimberly said, glancing at Richard and then looking
at the back of Guy’s head. “Right?”
“I think so,” he said. “It was in bad shape.”
“So it was dead, and it came back, and you killed it again?” Daniel said,
sneering.
“Yeah,” said Guy. “I think so.”
“So it’s dead again.”
MASON JAMES COLE
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21
No one said anything.
“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.” He laughed, his tone derisive and
devoid of humor. “What’s going to stop it from coming back again? This is
bullshit.” He threw himself back against the seat and allowed his hair to obscure his face. He pulled out more of Greg’s shitty pot and lit up without offering to share. The van filled with the filthy smell of shake and the radio’s lone
hiss.
Kimberly squeezed Colleen’s shoulder. Richard spaced out.
The man on the radio continued. There were more reports of attacks from
assorted cities across the US, and Colleen felt her head grow light. Daniel was
right about one thing: nothing made sense. They’d left home not even fortyeight hours ago. How could the world get turned inside out within two days?
Following a wrap-up of events, the other side had their say: a noted biologist from London disputed the reports that the dead were returning to life.
Such a notion was preposterous, he said, and he promptly went on to blame
the explosion of misinformation on the U.S. media.
“See?” Daniel said, looking hopeful. “I told you.”
A little over ten minutes later, he didn’t look quite as hopeful. The radio
host played an interview with a doctor in Austin, Texas. The doctor confirmed
that he’d been on hand for at least four revivals over the past two hours, and
no, what he’d witnessed could not have been a living person reacting to the effects of an as-yet-unidentified viral or chemical agent that lowered vital signs
and created the illusion of death, because in one of the three revivals the revived had been eviscerated in a construction site accident. The good doctor in
London needed to get out of his office and go into the field.
Daniel grunted, finished his joint and mashed what was left of it against his
sole. He coughed once and resumed his slump.
The interview ended, and the man on the radio actually broke for commercials.
“I knew it,” Kimberly said. “I knew the bastard was going to pull something
like this.”
No one had to ask who the bastard was. For several months now, Kimberly
has assured them that Tricky Dick would not be leaving office, no matter what
truths came to light, and no matter how ready Americans were to get the hell
out of Vietnam. He was here to stay, and he’d manufacture a disaster in order
to permanently lodge himself in office.
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Colleen had no love for Nixon, unlike her mother, who’d thought the man a
saint—if they did something illegal at the Watergate, they probably had a very
good reason for doing so—but she didn’t think Kimberly was right about this.
Whatever this was.
The commercials ended. The man on the radio cleared his throat. After
a short lead-in for those just tuning in, he described video footage that was
aired, only minutes ago, on CBS television affiliates across the country. The announcer didn’t sound composed anymore. His voice was lower and softer and
getting a little ragged.
In the footage, he said, that he had watched himself just now, a naked
woman stumbled around an unidentified morgue in Gainesville, the Y-incision
running down her torso, just flapping, her internal organs sitting in a heap on
the stainless steel table beside the gurney, her stomach cavity clearly empty.
Just an empty black hole.
“Oh, God,” someone said. Daniel stomped his foot once.
A large blue pickup truck appeared behind them, quickly closing the distance. Its grille was dented, its headlights smashed. The driver blasted the
horn, and Colleen swallowed down a shriek. He would run them off the road,
and the last thing she’d see would be the face of the driver, slack and dead
above the steering wheel.
Guy slowed the van and hugged the side of the road. When the stretch
ahead was fairly straight, the truck shot past them, blowing its horn once more.
In no time, it was gone from sight, and they were alone on the road.
The man on the radio interrupted himself once more, this time to read a
report confirming that the walking dead were eating the flesh of the living.
“Fuck,” Guy said, and nobody added to it.
The report was quickly followed by another. Countless law enforcement
officials (not to mention armed citizens) had confirmed that the revived dead
could be put down with a blow to the head or a bullet to the brain. It was, the
newsman said with more than a touch of sarcasm, a morning of revelations.
Guy shot a glance back at Daniel, who continued to sulk. Colleen looked out
at the world around them—just trees and blue sky, and damn it, it looked like it
was supposed to look, there was nothing wrong with the world—and suddenly
she never wanted to leave the van. It was safe here, and it always would be, as
long as they didn’t budge. Guy’s right hand was on her shoulder, and she was
crying, and she could see her mother’s heavily made-up corpse at the wake,
MASON JAMES COLE
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23
plastic and unreal in the dim light of the funeral parlor viewing room, the smell
of flowers barely concealing the stale and antiseptic reek of the place.
Her thoughts advanced one more step and overtook her.
“Oh, God,” she said, her chest heaving.
“What?” Guy pulled his hand away. “Are you going to throw up?”
“No,” she said, turning in her seat. “Daniel.”
He didn’t respond. He was asleep again.
“Daniel, oh my god.” She was going to pass out. Guy pulled over and the
jerk was enough to shake Richard from his vacancy long enough to turn in his
seat and push Daniel once, hard.
Daniel’s eyes sprang open. He jerked away, frightened.
“Daniel,” Colleen said once more and wondered if maybe she was going to
throw up after all.
“What?”
“Mom,” she said.
Kimberly gasped.
“Damn,” Richard said.
“Lord,” said Guy.
And then it just hung there for a moment.
“I know,” was all Daniel said, slumping into himself once more.
Colleen wept. Guy snapped off the radio and held her. After a few minutes,
she pulled away, palming tears from her face. “We should keep going,” she said,
turning on the radio. She felt everyone else’s gaze on them, on her.
“I know.”
“So let’s keep going.”
He checked his side view mirror and took off.
“Where?” Daniel asked.
“There’s a little town at the bottom of this hill,” Guy said. “And a bigger one
about twenty miles east.”
“Do we really want to go where people are?” Colleen asked.
“What else can we do?” Guy said, giving her a reassuring smile. “We need
to get to a phone. I need to talk to Chris.”
“Oh, God,” Colleen said, punching her thigh. How had she not thought of
Chris? Guy adored his little brother, a charming and hilarious six-year-old who
was the spitting image of his big brother, right down to the ridiculous dimples,
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and she was too busy assembling fears about her dead mother for the boy to
even cross her mind. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even—”
“He’s going to be okay,” Guy said, more to himself than to anyone in the
van with him, and Colleen lost it. Her tears came fast and hard, her shoulders
rocked.
“Brock,” Kimberly said, reaching for her friend. “Come here, honey.” Colleen crawled into the back seat, sat beside Kimberly, who peeled away from
Richard’s embrace and settled into hers. They held each other until they got
to town.
MASON JAMES COLE
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F i v e
Harlow was little more than a mostly-straight stretch of road bounded on both
sides by redwood forest and located in the dip between two large hills. There
were no houses visible through the trees, though several dirt roads broke off
from the main road, marked by mailboxes perched atop leaning posts.
There was an old Baptist church that seemed to have been abandoned at
some point, a small garage whose fading sign proclaimed it to be the location
of Mr. Kim’s Mechanic and Towing Services, and nothing else. Nothing else and
no sign of life until they drew near the end of the mostly-straight stretch of
road.
“Here,” Guy said. “Good. They’re open.”
The parking lot was empty. A pale blue rust-spotted Crown Victoria sat on
the side of the two-story building. The sign in the door was turned to OPEN.
An old man of forty or eighty (his wild beard, unkempt hair, and densely
wrinkled face made it difficult to tell) sat on a bench next to the door leading
into MISTY’S FOOD AND GAS. A large brown dog of no particular breed slept
near his feet. In the shade of a tin overhang, the old man watched their approach from beneath bushy eyebrows. As they crunched into the gravel parking lot and past the two pumps (they were probably older than the Crown Vic),
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he raised his right hand, held it there, beside his head, for just a second before
allowing it to drift down to his lap.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” Daniel said, and Richard gave a chuckle that
started as a grunt and died as a sigh.
“You see what I see?” Guy asked.
“No,” Kimberly said. “What?”
“He’s got a gun,” Colleen said. A rifle rested behind him on the bench, its
butt and barrel visible to the left and right of the old man’s narrow hips.
“Oh,” Daniel said.
“Should we just keep going?” Kimberly asked.
“We need gas,” Guy said.
“Food and gas,” Richard said, as if it were a punch line meant to revive the
chuckle.
“I need pads,” Colleen said, and shot a hateful glance back at her brother,
who looked away, his veil of hair dropping.
“Nobody do anything,” Guy said.
“It’s a good thing you said that,” Daniel said. “Because I was about to rush
out there and beat his face in with my bare hands.”
“Your brother’s an asshole,” Guy said to Colleen, opening the door and getting out of the van. He stood with the door between him and the man on the
bench, returned the old man’s wave. “Hey, man.”
“Hey, man.” To the old man’s right, barely seen in the gloom, something
moved on the other side of the glass door leading into the place.
“Guy,” Colleen said, her voice an inch above a whisper.
“Everything cool?” Guy asked the old man. Either he hadn’t heard her or he
was choosing to ignore her.
The old man sat up and leaned forward, his bushy brow knotted. His fifties,
Colleen thought. He was maybe in his early fifties. “Everything sure as hell ain’t
cool, my man. You haven’t heard?”
“We’ve heard,” Guy said, stepping from behind the door, his hands held at
chest height. “I mean between us, is all.”
The big dog lifted its head and surveyed the visitors. Finding them of little
to no interest, it seemed, it settled its snout onto its paws and closed its eyes.
“Is everything cool between us, you mean?” The man laughed, and Colleen
realized that he was older than fifty. “I guess so. You’re not dead and you don’t
look like you want to eat me, so, yeah. We’re cool.”
MASON JAMES COLE
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27
“Okay, good.”
“You see any of them yet?” the old man asked.
“Just a deer,” Guy said. “A few miles back. But no people. You?”
“Nothing, except on the news.” The old man sounded disappointed. He
nodded toward the door. “Food inside. Misty cooked it a few hours ago, but it’s
good.”
“Sounds good,” Guy said. He looked at Colleen. “Let’s go in.”
They filed out of the van. Colleen looked from the road to the store and
back again, expecting to simultaneously be assaulted by walking corpses from
the road and gunfire from within the shadowy confines of Misty’s Food and
Gas. Guy walked over to her, placed a hand on each of her shoulders.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Not really.”
Nearby, Richard and Kimberly went through a similar ritual, their words
hushed. Daniel shuffled along behind them, head low, hair in his face.
A bell jangled as they entered the store. The smell of food greeted them.
The woman behind the counter—sixty-ish with a head of thick, closely-cropped
silver hair—regarded them with an expressionless face and unblinking eyes.
She looked like the guy on the radio had sounded: completely shaken. Behind
her, a small black and white TV droned and flickered, the antenna atop it a mad
jumble of tin foil and coat hangers.
“Hello,” Guy said, and the woman gave a curt little nod, the corners of her
mouth barely twitching into the shadow of a smile. A short, portly man with
a neatly-trimmed beard, a receding hairline, and thick glasses stood near the
counter, hands perched on his round hips. He’d been watching the television,
and Colleen suspected he was the form she’d seen moving around within the
store.
“Can I use your phone?” Guy asked.
The woman gave him a disappointed little head shake and pushed the phone
across the counter him. “You can, but you won’t be able to reach anyone.”
Guy took the phone, dialed, waited. He looked hopeful for a second, his
eyes wide, and then his hope was washed away by disappointment. He went
through the ritual once more before placing the phone onto the cradle.
“The lines are busy,” he said, facing them.
“Damn it,” Richard said. Kimberly lowered her head. They all had loved ones
somewhere, all but Colleen. There were relatives, yes—her uncle and cousins
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in San Diego, her Aunt in Vermont—but relatives weren’t always family, and
everyone who mattered was right here beside her.
This was calming. This was devastating.
“Can I use it?” Kimberly asked, giving a little shrug. “You never know.”
While Kimberly sought out her own private disappointment, Colleen
looked around, took the place in: three aisles of groceries, a cooler, red-andwhite-checked tablecloths draped across three tables located on the other end
of the small room, just before the glass case filled with deli meats and cheeses.
Behind the deli case, a small kitchen. Aside from the woman behind the counter and the short man looking at them like they were a stain on his best shirt,
there did not appear to be anyone else there.
Kimberly placed the phone in the cradle, thanked the lady, and drifted over
to Richard.
“Where you all from?” the woman behind the counter asked. Behind her, a
wall of cigarette packs and a colorful quilt, neatly folded within a clear plastic
baggie and covered in a kaleidoscope of geometric designs. The handwritten
sign taped to the baggie said, LOCALLY MADE HAND MADE ANGEL BLANKET.
“Fresno,” Colleen said, her eyes moving from the woman’s grim face to the
television behind her. It sat atop a file cabinet covered in magnets that held
various faded and curled papers in place. A fluttering cramp closed a painful
fist in her stomach.
“Fresno,” said the portly guy, shaking his head. “You won’t be going back
there any time soon. Why the hell are you way up here?”
“Charles,” the woman behind the counter said, and Colleen heard the warning in her voice, a warning laced with tired familiarity.
“Now, now, Misty,” Charles said, waving a shushing hand at the stone-faced
woman behind the counter. “Just let me talk to the kids, all right?” This, Colleen
had no doubt, was a routine in Misty’s Food and Gas: Charles hung around and
annoyed the customers, and Misty tolerated it while tossing out idle threats.
“What are you doing up here?” Misty asked, overriding Charles, who got as
far as opening his mouth.
“Well,” Guy said, and Colleen pressed close to his side and gave the woman
a weak smile and a nod. “We were on the way to Tahoe. Now?” He shook his
head.
Seen through an undulating haze of static, the newscaster on the small
MASON JAMES COLE
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29
television had the same look on his face as everyone else. A map of Africa was
superimposed over his left shoulder.
“It’s everywhere,” Guy said.
“Seems like it.”
“They say what’s causing it?” Daniel asked, sliding up to the counter.
“Not yet,” she said. “Someone said it might be germ warfare.”
“Who’s saying?” Daniel asked.
“This guy on TV,” the woman said. “But someone else that there wasn’t any
proof of that. Falwell was on earlier, talking about Revelations.”
“Revelation,” Charles said.
Misty shot him another look. “What?”
“It’s Revelation. The Revelation of Saint John. Not Revelations.” He adjusted
his glasses, looked at each of them, and nodded once. “No s.”
“Whatever,” Misty said. “Falwell’s a windbag, and you’re an idiot if you buy
his shit.”
Daniel laughed once.
“It apparently started all at once, at the same time everywhere, so it’s not a
germ,” Misty shrugged. “At least they think it’s not. I’m Misty, by the way.”
Colleen gave a half-hearted smile and introduced herself. Nobody followed
suit.
The newscaster droned on:
“…from South Africa and the Middle East confirm earlier reports that th—”
Static obscured his face and dissolved his words, and Misty leaned back and
slapped the side of the television. The image came back, and the man’s voice
came through: “…of China is denying that the phenomenon is occurring there,
despite the fact that one of the earliest confirmations the World Health Organization received came from a doctor in Beijing…”
“I don’t think he did this,” Kimberly said, sidling up to Colleen pressing
close to her. Colleen was talking about Nixon again.
“No,” Colleen said. “I don’t think he did.”
Pressed between the man she loved and her best friend, Colleen felt safe;
she felt as safe as she had earlier, when she was certain that all they had to do
was stay in the van.
“What about here in town?” Guy asked.
“What about it?” Charles said, sounding a little too suspicious.
“Anyone see anything?”
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“No, hon,” Misty said. “Connie Willits had a heart attack about three hours
ago. Her husband and kids drove her out to Beistle. About twenty miles from
here. There’s a police station and a hospital.”
“And more people,” Charles.
“Yeah,” Misty said, casting a tired glance at the television. “More people.
And more people means more trouble, so we’re in a good place.”
“How many people live here?”
“I don’t know,” Misty said. “People around here stick to themselves, for the
most part. Maybe two hundred?” She looked at Charles, eyebrows raised.
“Less than that,” Charles said, shaking his head. “About a hundred.”
“Jackass says about a hundred,” Misty said, shrugging. Richard laughed.
“God,” Charles said, disgusted. “This again.” He turned away from the television and stomped toward the tables, where he pulled out a chair and sat
down, his back to them.
Following a stern warning from the network anchor, a reel showing various shots of walking corpses was played.
“Oh,” Guy said.
“My god,” Colleen said. Beside her, Kimberly gasped.
“Jesus,” Richard said. “No way, man.”
Slack jaws, dead eyes. Skin like wax. Impossible wounds dry and gaping
and roiling black with flies. There was the elderly woman they’d heard about
on the radio, shambling naked through a morgue with her chest and stomach
laid open in a clean Y-incision. There was a well-dressed man whose jaw and
throat had either been ripped or blown away; the tip of his tongue rested atop
the blood-soaked knot in his necktie. A man with no arms walking between
stalled traffic on an interstate somewhere. A woman who held the stump of a
severed arm to her eager and gnashing mouth. And so on, until the images of
walking death were replaced by the grim face of the news anchor.
Colleen felt something churn in her stomach. Kimberly pulled away at some
point and now wept in Richard’s embrace. Guy held Colleen’s hand too damn
tight. Daniel left the store without a word, the bell jingling above his head.
“Do you have—” she began, making eye contact with the woman behind
the counter.
“Bathroom’s right there, hon,” Misty said, nodding toward the back of the
store, toward the kitchen. “To the left.”
That’s not what she was going to ask—not yet, anyway, that was going to
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be her next question, after she found out where the pads were, but suddenly
she had to be someplace else, someplace away from the television, someplace
away from the woman behind the counter and the round man who clearly
didn’t want them there. Someplace away from her friends, even. She needed
to be alone.
“Be right back,” she said, stepping away from Guy and Kimberly, shouldering past Richard, and walking toward the deli. Through the entrance, she could
see her brother loafing toward the road, his hands in his pockets, head down,
dealing with things however he dealt with them. She walked down a short
aisle, her eyes drifting across boxes of cereal, bags of rice, canned soup, canned
fruit, and so on. She held out her right forefinger and left a trail through the
road dust atop a box of Raisin Bran, and the menstrual cramps in her abdomen
got together with the shocked nausea in her stomach and threatened to light
fireworks.
The bathroom was small and neat. There were no obscenities scrawled on
the walls and the scent of the air freshener wasn’t struggling to conceal smells
of human waste. She stared at herself in the mirror, suddenly seeing her mother’s features—her mother’s face—embedded within her own. She’d heard it
all of her life, “Oh, you look just like your mother,” but it had never really meant
much to her, and she wasn’t sure she ever really saw what they were talking
about, anyway, or if they were just saying the kind of obligatory shit people say
when they don’t really have anything of value to say.
But she did. She looked like her mother. Not just like her, of course—her
jaw was not as wide as her mother’s jaw, and her nose wasn’t quite so long,
but she was as close to a dead ringer as one could be, and now she was all that
was left of the woman. The rest, the sad, dead thing she’d watched her mother
wither into, was—
What was her mother doing right now? Was she lying dead, her arms
crossed on her wasted breast, as she had been when the funeral parlor attendant had gently closed the casket? Had her mother’s overpowered body been
spared the effects of whatever the hell was going on, or was she now awake
somehow? Colleen hoped the cancer might stop it, as it had stopped her life,
but perhaps the alien tissue would twitch to life and follow the same commands as the natural tissue, finally working in concert and giving her mother
increasing strength and vitality.
Colleen splashed water on her face and when she was certain that her
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breakfast wasn’t going to come jetting up from her throat in an acidic gout,
she turned from the mirror and lifted the toilet lid. The seat was clean, but she
wiped it down anyway before sitting.
“Damn it,” she said. There was a small red spot on her pad. A drop of blood
tinked into the toilet bowl, and through the V of her thighs she could see the
water in the toilet bowl turning pink.
The door was within reach. She opened it, just a crack, called for Guy, and
shut the door again, locking it. A few seconds later, she heard him brush against
the door. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“I forgot to get pads,” she said.
“Have you asked Kim?”
“She didn’t say anything when I said I needed them, so I figure she doesn’t
have any on her.”
“Okay,” he said. “You think they’ll have some?”
“It’s a store, right?” she snapped back, immediately sorry. She opened her
mouth to apologize but he was already gone.
She sat there, feeling the world twist and coil into something unrecognizable beneath her feet, wondering how long it would be until she saw one of
the dead things with her own eyes, wondering what the hell tomorrow would
bring. Wondering what it would be like to be pulled down by a group of them
and eaten alive, as was apparently happening across the globe, if the horrors
being coughed up by the news were to be believed.
“Hon?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s out of stock.”
“Aggh.”
“Yeah. She says most of the woman in town use cloth.”
“Agh,” she said, suddenly enraged. She roared: “Fuck you, Daniel.”
“He probably heard you,” Guy said, a few seconds later, sounding both light
and worried.
“Yeah,” she said. “I hope he did.” She wanted to punch her brother more
than she ever had in her entire life, and that was saying something.
“Sorry,” Guy said. Empty words—he had nothing to be sorry for—but she
let them slide.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll manage.”
“You sure?”
MASON JAMES COLE
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“Do I have a choice?”
“I guess not,” he said. “We’ll find you something.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, her tone telling him to get the hell away from the
door. He did.
The pad in her panties had some life left. She pulled up her pants, flushed
the toilet, and, washing her hands, stared at her face in the mirror until the
flesh looked too white and her pores looked too large and she felt like maybe
she was going crazy. Her stomach churned, at last giving up its contents, which
arced out of her mouth and into the sink, spattering her hands.
“God,” she said, crying.
Daniel stood where the gravel parking lot met the road, his back to the store.
He could feel the old man’s eyes on him, wanted to turn around and tell the old
bastard to find something else to look at.
No weed left. He needed to get drunk. If ever he needed to get smashed and
spread to the four corners of the earth, it was now.
He looked back at the store, wondering if maybe they had vodka. He hadn’t
gotten a decent look around. They probably did, but you never knew with middle-of-nowhere dives like this. Maybe they were into Jesus, and would tell you
to look elsewhere if you came looking for booze.
Some part of him was holding out hope that someone on the television
would start making sense, hope that someone would figure out they’d been
wrong and dead people could not get up and walk because they were fucking
dead. But he’d seen the footage, and he didn’t want to see it again, and he could
do without seeing Richard pawing all over Kimberly, without their glances and
their hushed whispers. It was more off-putting even than seeing his sister get
felt up.
He rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, pinching the soft flesh between his eyebrows. Hard, with his fingernails. It was a
stupid thing to do—he was awake, damn it; this was no dream—but he did it
anyway. He shook his head, turned to face the store, and saw a lone form walking down the street and toward him.
“Fuck,” he said, taking three steps backward, and the form lifted its arm
and waved.
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S i x
Reggie opened his eyes and sat up, blinking into the gloom and looking around.
Had he actually been dreaming about Vietnam? About trudging beneath the
dense jungle canopy and through the mud while insects buzzed and stung and
bullets tore the foliage into green confetti?
He rubbed his face, tried to wipe away the remnants of the dream with
hands that had taken many lives over the course of twelve fevered months in
Vietnam. A stutter of distant gunfire opened his eyes. It sounded like a machine gun.
What the hell?
Another volley of gunfire sounded somewhere nearby. Suddenly alive, he
shook off clinging exhaustion and pulled his sawed-off shotgun from beside his
mattress. It was a double barrel, and it was always loaded.
He parted the thick curtains separating his sleeping hovel from the tractor’s cab.
“Shit,” he said, squinting, sunlight pouring in. He rubbed his eyes and
looked at his watch. A little after ten in the morning. He pulled on his boots and
moved up to the front, keeping his head low. He pulled his sunglasses from the
divider and put them on, looked around. There wasn’t much to see. The rest
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35
stop looked like any other. There was one other truck nearby—a monstrous
new dark red Peterbilt emblazoned with blue flame patterns. The driver side
door was open, though he saw no sign of the driver.
He waited for more gunfire. When none came, he exchanged his shotgun
for his pistol, a Colt Combat Commander that had been at his side throughout
his tour in ’Nam. He tucked it into his pants, covered it with his shirt before
sliding out of the truck. The last thing he needed was for a cop to drive by and
see him stalking around a rest stop with a sawed-off double-barrel clutched to
his chest.
A car shot by on the interstate. It was going seventy or higher. Not long
after, another car passed, weaving dangerously between lanes. More gunfire
somewhere, though not nearly as close as before. Now a caravan of cars and
trucks shot by, all of them heading northeast, the same as the others. Away
from Sacramento.
He walked toward the interstate and looked in the direction of the Capital
city.
“What the fuck,” he whispered. The sky above Sacramento was thick with
smoke and studded with helicopters. Gunfire popped, closer this time. He returned to his rig and reached for the wheel when movement at the other end
of the rest stop parking lot caught his eye. Near the bathrooms, a man walked,
head hung low. His shirt was in tatters. With his right arm he clutched his left
bicep, and his shirt and arm were stained with blood; it was unnaturally bright
against his bone-white flesh. He was bleeding bad, and would die without
help.
“Hey,” Reggie said, peeling away his shirt and walking toward the man,
whose head moved in his direction, bobbing upward. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”
It was a stupid thing to say—the man clearly was not okay—but what else
could he say? The bleeding man said nothing.
“Come on.” Reggie looked the man in the face, and something black took
root in his soul. Shadows like snakes coiled in the corners of his vision, and his
heart did something nasty. He felt cold, cold and afraid like a child.
The man walking toward him was dead.
Once, in ’66, he’d come upon a South Vietnamese girl sleeping against a
tree, her chin resting on her chest. Only she hadn’t been sleeping. There had
been no blood, none that he could see, anyway, and he never found out how she
had died. To the casual eye she was just a girl sleeping against a tree, but there
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were no casual eyes in Vietnam, and that girl had not been sleeping. She’d been
dead for not even an hour, but there was no mistaking the lifelessness of her
face.
And there was no mistaking the lifelessness of the bloody man walking
toward him. The dead man walking toward him like something out of a nightmare, the dead man walking like some abomination, some blasphemy so great
that to look at it was to go a little crazy.
A noise like a frightened yelp escaped Reggie’s mouth, and he took a step
backward, away from the dead man, and the ground threatened to hop up and
slam into his face.
“Urrn,” the dead man said, peeling his hand away from an arm covered
in bite marks and reaching for Reggie, who stepped backward until his back
bumped into his truck. He didn’t think to pull his Colt and shoot the dead man,
and he later realized that he was lucky to have backed into the truck. If he
hadn’t, panic might have driven him to leave behind reason and any chance of
survival and run screaming into the woods behind the rest stop bathrooms.
The walking dead man didn’t move correctly. It didn’t move like a man.
Life was movement; movement was born of life, came from within, damn it all,
and this thing was not alive. Its lurches and jerks came from elsewhere, from
outside, surely they did. For one deranged moment Reggie looked into the sky
in search of the glimmer of strings that would lead up, through the clouds, and
to the hands of some leering and godless puppeteer.
The thing tripped on its own feet and crashed to the ground. It made no
effort to raise its hands and prevent its face from bouncing off the cement. A
sound like a dry belch escaped its throat, and why not? Dead bodies belched
all the time, especially when you hefted them onto more dead bodies, heaps
of them stacked six or seven deep, bloating and changing in the heat and the
moisture.
Reggie reached through the cold and smothering panic and got a hold on
himself. By the time he slid behind the wheel and closed the door, the dead
body was struggling to its feet. It stood, tottering, spinning in place, and it occurred to Reggie that the dead man was looking for him. It hadn’t seen him
crawl up and into the truck. He looked at the shirt balled up in his fist and then
slipped it on.
Reggie watched the thing until he thought it would creep away and into
someone else’s nervous breakdown. He watched it until its eyes found his—
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37
there was nothing there, of course: a corpse does not look back, even when its
eyes are wide and looking right at you. A labored and obscene imitation of an
expression moved across the thing’s face. Having found what it was looking
for, the dead body threw itself against the side of the truck and scratched at the
door like a cat looking to come inside for the night.
Reggie turned on the radio and sat there for nearly thirty minutes, listening and watching. It was happening everywhere, whatever it was. The thing
outside pawed at the door, weak and ineffectual. Before Reggie threw his truck
into gear and rolled out of the rest stop, four other dead bodies had joined the
first. He watched their steady advance with mute and detached horror. One of
them was missing a good portion of its face and all of its left hand. Reggie heard
the splintered edges of its radius and ulna scraping across his paint job. Two
of them were unmarred, just like the long-ago dead girl sitting against the tree
in that far away jungle. On the radio, news of a massive power outage on the
East Coast broke. As evening approached, the newscaster reported, panic and
violence were overtaking the citizens of New York City.
President Nixon had issued an Executive Order: all military personnel,
either Active or Inactive, were to report to their nearest base. All Military Service Obligations, whether expired or not, had been indefinitely extended.
It wasn’t happening, no way. Not a chance. Uncle Sam had gotten all he was
gonna get from Reggie. Getting to Nef was the only thing that mattered now. To
hell with everything else.
Again the senselessness, the madness, hit him. The dead did not walk, and,
by virtue of the fact that they were, indeed, walking, one could only assume
that somehow reality had been fractured. Soon the earth would boil blood and
the sky would be sick with dragons.
A convoy of National Guard trucks rolled southwest, toward Sacramento,
and Reggie knew that no matter what was true, what was really happening: he
had to dump his load and get his ass home.
He rolled away from the dead people, out of the rest stop, and onto I-80,
eastbound, away from whatever hell was happening in Sacramento. Half a mile
down the road, he pulled over and got out, looked around. A speck shuffled
across the interstate in the direction from which he’d come. There was no
sign of anyone or anything else. No cars, no military convoys, no dead people.
Sounds from somewhere: a dog barking, gunfire, sirens, the deep-bass thump
of an explosion.
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It didn’t take him long to drop the straight-legs, detach the pneumatic
brakes, ditch the trailer, and get a move on. He passed the aftermath of a threevehicle accident, choking back the urge to stop and help. A man leaned against
the trunk of the least-damaged car, a hand pressed to his bloodied face, a crowbar hanging from his other hand. A dead woman struggled to free herself from
the wreckage.
He passed several slow-moving vehicles, sedans and station wagons and
pickup trucks loaded down with personal belongings. He passed a stalled car.
Its hood was open, steam billowed. A large collie watched from the backseat,
and the car’s driver waved to him. Please help me, the wave said, and Reggie
kept moving. He couldn’t afford to act a fool.
Further along, traffic bottlenecked. Folks drove their vehicles around a
five-car pile-up.
It would be this way from here to home, if not worse. By nightfall, the interstate could be a stalled bumper-to-bumper hell, and people would leave
behind their belongings and go on foot.
Laying into his horn, Reggie eased his truck across the grass median separating the eastbound and westbound lanes and onto I-80 West. The westbound
lanes were all but deserted, and he wondered how long it was before those
driving east decided to claim them. He pulled over and opened his road map.
He’d have no trouble getting off of the interstate near Citrus Heights. From
there he’d go south to 50, the El Dorado Freeway, which he’d take most of the
way home to Nevada.
Nef must be scared—surely both of them were, but Reggie’s mother was
strong. She would be able to comfort Nef. He took solace in the fact that he was
currently in a hell of a lot more danger than they were. Carlin was a small town,
and that had to count for something, if the news on the radio was to be trusted.
A small town contained only so many dead bodies at any given time.
“They’re safe,” he said, hoping he was right.
From the eastbound side of the interstate, the man with the overheated car
and the collie watched him pass.
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39
S e v e n
Kimberly sat at one of the tables, her face pressed into her palms, shuddering. She stared at the greasily polished wood grain. Richard sat beside her and
hung his arm around her neck.
Colleen looked at Kimberly rocking, looked at Guy, looked at the television,
which didn’t really have anything new to report: things were still falling apart,
increasing rate, colorful variety. Just like in the poem she’d read in high school.
The center had not held. It had spun, disintegrating, into oblivion, and now
they were all left standing around, blasted and waiting to be eaten.
Guy pulled his eyes from the television long enough to meet her eyes. His
lips were a thin tight line, his brow creased. He shook his head once and went
back to the TV.
“Something to eat, honey?” Misty asked.
“I don’t know,” Colleen said, ill. “Maybe in a little while.”
“Anybody?”
There were a few shrugs. After no one answered, Guy spoke. “Probably
later. Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Richard said, barely a mumble.
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“Just let me know,” the old gal said, and when the portly guy sighed, she
shot him an ugly look. “Why don’t you go home?”
“You’re making a mistake,” he said, with an exaggerated gesture.
“What the hell are you going on about, Charlie?” Misty asked, clearly tired
of his bullshit. Unmindful of this exchange, Richard got up and went to the
phone. He picked it up and dialed.
“You need to send them on their way and lock up,” he said, nodding toward
the television. On the screen, a haggard-looking scientist was pointing to a diagram of the human brain and saying something about the limbic system, whatever the hell that was. “This isn’t blowing over, and you shouldn’t be giving
your food to outsiders.”
“Shut the hell up and sit down, Charles,” Misty said, and rolled her eyes at
Colleen. She turned a murderous look back to Charles. “Before I shoot you.”
“You don’t believe in guns,” Charles said.
“I’ll go outside and tell Crate to shoot you,” she said. “He’d be happy to.
Now get out or shut up.”
Charles walked over to one of the tables, grabbed a chair, dragged it close
enough to the counter to get a view of the television, and sat down.
The news cut from the scientist to a live shot of a reporter in the streets of
Brooklyn. He was flanked by armed soldiers and behind him, a car burned. He
said something about civil unrest, and then the soldier to his left opened fire.
The soldier to his right followed suit, and the reporter crumpled to the ground,
yelping. The camera shook. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read that
President Nixon would be addressing the nation at six p.m., Atlantic time.
“This can’t be real,” Kimberly said, on the edge of hysteria. “It can’t be.”
Richard hung up the phone and returned to Kimberly’s side, stroked her
back a bit, but wasn’t good for shit, really.
“Oh, hon,” Colleen said, sitting across from Kimberly and taking her hand.
Richard looked dazed and stupid, and Colleen wanted to punch him in the
nose. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“You mean it,” Kimberly said, and she was a little girl again, all wide-eyed
and hopeful.
“Yes, Kim. I promise,” Colleen said, realizing that her words were just as
empty as Richard’s, she was just a better liar, as the best liars are those who
are convinced they’re being truthful. What the hell could she say? What could
any of them say?
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41
The bell above the entrance jingled. Daniel stepped in, reeking of pot and
followed by someone else, a boy of roughly his age. He was sort of handsome,
this new arrival, his features even and well-placed but a little droopy, as if he
were made of wax and had been left by some careless god to sit in the sun for
a little too long. His close-cropped hair was nearly black. His dark brown eyes
took in the place. He gave them a little smile and a little nod as he shuffled in
behind Daniel.
“Hey,” he said to Misty. A massive revolver hung from his hip, an old cowboy
number, by the looks of it. Just like that, it was the wild, wild west.
Misty said. “Crazy shit, huh, Samson?”
“Unbelievable.”
“How’s Huff?”
“You know him. Nothing gets him down.”
“Yeah,” Misty said, and for just a second there it seemed to Colleen that the
world had been righted. They were on their road trip up to Tahoe, and they’d
stopped at this rustic little dive for some Food and Gas and they were listening
to two rubes talk about some third rube and how nothing ever got him down.
Rube Number Three would keep on truckin’, and so would they.
“Hungry?”
“Maybe in a little,” Samson said, turning to face Colleen. He smiled, less
handsome now. His teeth were worse than Daniel’s. Tombstones. “Hey, there.”
“Hey,” Colleen said.
“Hey, man,” Guy said, moving forward and putting himself between Colleen
and the new guy. It was an unnecessary move, but a cute one. She made a note
to tease him about it later. If she got the chance.
“Samson Niebolt,” the new kid said, a little embarrassed. “After the guy
in the Bible, if you were about to ask. My mom was weird. Just call me Sam,
okay?”
“Sure,” Colleen said, a little uneasy. This Sam guy allowed his gaze to pass
over all of them, but Colleen felt as if he were only really looking at her.
Another round of introductions later, they settled down and compared
notes and watched television. Aside from a few radio reports, Sam wasn’t up to
date on what was happening.
“…discuss your findings?” asked an exhausted looking black man who Colleen remembered seeing in a report on the Watergate break-in.
“Yes, well,” said a man identified by the text on the screen as Doctor Robert
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Fuller, via satellite from New Orleans. He wore a crisp white lab coat above
a suit and tie and thick glasses that reduced his eyes to small shiny points of
light. He looked as exhausted and dazed as everyone else. He scratched his
mustache, unmindful of the camera. “The revival window seems to be five to
seven days.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Revivals worldwide happened at precisely the same time,” the doctor
said, looking at his watch. “I don’t remember the time of occurrence off hand
because I haven’t slept since then and I really could use some coffee.” He looked
off screen, annoyed, holding an invisible cup to his mouth and making drinking
motions.
“Doctor Fuller?”
Fuller shot a give-me-a-second glance into the camera. A disembodied
hand passed him a cup of coffee. He sipped it, winced. “Fuckin’ hot. Jesus.”
“Doctor Fuller.”
“Yes,” the doctor said, facing the camera, shaking his head and rolling his
eyes. “You were saying?”
“You were explaining what you meant by this window of reviv—”
“Yes, the window of revival. The first corpses to revive, two days ago, had
been dead for no longer than a week. The specimens we’ve seen thus far bear
this out, and we’ve examined several corpses whose time of death—that is to
say, o-original death—goes back a week and a half, two weeks, three weeks
from the point of revival, and so on, and, well... well, there you go.”
“Are we any closer to—”
“That’s not to say that there isn’t some marginal brain activity in older
corpses. There may very well be, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find out that there is,
but this won’t matter for most people’s purposes. For whatever reason, these
older intact corpses simply aren’t getting up and biting people.”
The camera held on Doctor Fuller while the newsman spoke: “Are we any
closer to knowing what’s making this happen?” The doctor tried to sip his
coffee again. Shaking his head, he tossed aside the cup, stood up, and walked
away, trailing his microphone wire.
The image cut back to the frazzled newsman, who recapped what Fuller
had said. Then, following yet another warning, they again rolled the montage
of walking corpses, and everyone looked away. Everyone but Sam, who got up
MASON JAMES COLE
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43
from the table and walked over to the counter for a closer look at the television.
“Wow,” Sam said, looking back at them, mouth open. “That’s just… man.
Daniel told me about it when we were out there, but Jesus, there’s nothing like
seeing it with your own eyes.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Misty said.
“Oh, get real, Mis,” Charles said. “It won’t be long before one of them comes
walking down the road.”
“You should talk less,” Misty said.
“Ah, jeeze,” Guy said. “Can you turn it up?”
Misty turned up the volume. Standing in a deserted press chamber complete with empty chairs and a podium bearing the presidential seal, a harried
reporter elaborated on an earlier report that the Soviet Union had declared the
use of nuclear weapons an “option” that was “on the table.”
“Use them on who?” Richard asked, looking around at them. “What the
hell, man? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Daniel said, turning on the condescension.
“A good time to live up in the hills,” said Charles, laughing and shaking his
head.
Outside, the dog barked.
Daniel leaned close to his sister.
“What are we doing?” he asked, his voice low, his stale breath on her ear.
“I don’t know,” she said, picking at the tablecloth. “Waiting here?”
“Waiting here for what? If any more people show up, this place is going to
get out of hand. You know it.”
“Yeah,” Colleen said. “But where can we—”
“Sam said we could stay at his place. He lives right up the hill.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He lives with his dad and brother. He says they got a few acres, and
there’s only one road leading to the house. He says we could ride out the whole
thing there.”
“What’s up?” Guy asked, leaning in close on her other side. She told him.
“I don’t know,” Guy said. He sounded unconvinced. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
Colleen glanced over at Sam, who looked down at his hands, as if they
were the most interesting things ever, curled as they were before the salt and
pepper shakers. He’d been watching her. She opened her mouth to tell Daniel
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that they’d find some other way, and her words were interrupted by the sound
of the bell above the entrance. The dog was frenzied.
“Hey, there,” Crate said, standing in the doorway, holding the rifle close to
his chest, the barrel pointing at the ceiling. Colleen saw that she’d been right
from the start: he was old. His early seventies, easy.
“What’s going on, Crate?” Misty asked.
“I just—hush, Bilbo!” The dog quieted down, and Crate faced them once
more. “Any of you want to come take a look at Mark Willits before I shoot
him?”
The walking remains of Mark Willits were in bad shape. The dead man’s hair—
oily black going to gray at the temples—was matted to its forehead with dirt
and blood. Its face was slack, the skin pale and bluish. Its throat was ragged
and bloody, as were its lips. The front of its shirt was smeared dark with blood
and gristly little chunks of something. Some of the blood was its own, Daniel
knew, and some was far too fresh to rightly be on such a dead man.
The thing’s right arm had been picked clean from the bicep down. Its left
arm was in slightly better shape. A few bloody crescents were stamped into the
meat of its forearm, and its fingers were intact. They slowly kneaded the air.
The corpse’s pants and underwear, also heavily bloodstained, were pooled
around its right ankle. Its left shoe was gone, and the flesh above its rumpled
sock was bulging and discolored with settling blood. Its genitals were gone.
In a few seconds, Crate’s words had sunk in, and then they all leapt up
and made for the door. All except for Kimberly and Colleen, who’d held hands
across the table. Kimberly, with tears in her eyes and a bubble of snot on her
upper lip had said, quite simply: “I don’t want to.”
“Neither do I,” Colleen said, looking back at Daniel and Guy, who’d lingered
near the door. Richard was long gone.
“I,” Guy had said, looking down for a second and then lifting his face to
meet Colleen’s eyes. “I have to.”
A brisk nod had sufficed as Colleen’s blessing.
“Okay,” Crate said, looking back at them. Pacing near his master’s feet, the
dog barked again, and dead Mark Willits reacted, its jaw dropping, its eyes
shifting left and right with reptilian slowness. Though its mouth worked, it was
MASON JAMES COLE
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silent. Save for the sound of its feet dragging through the gravel, the dead man
made no noise.
“Bilbo Baggins,” Crate hissed, made a face at the dog. “You shut the hell up
right now.” Bilbo whined and sat on his haunches and piped down, and Crate
looked at them again. “Stay put. All of you.”
Samson took a few steps forward, his right hand resting atop the large
pistol hanging from his belt.
“You, too, Lash LaRue,” the old man said. “You’ll get your shot before this
is over.”
“Okay, Crate,” Misty said, worried. Dead Willits was no more than three
feet away from the old man, its good arm extended.
“Humph,” Crate said. He lifted the rifle, pressed the barrel to Willits’s chest,
just above the heart, and gave him a push. The dead man ambled backward,
nearly losing its balance. “Nothing to worry about,” Crate yelled back, over his
shoulder.
“I never really liked you,” Crate said to Willits, nudging it once more with
the rifle, nudging and poking, hard. He pressed the dead man’s stomach, and a
lifeless belch rattled in the thing’s throat. “Always talking bullshit.”
“Stop having fun and do it,” Misty said.
“I like having fun, woman,” Crate said. He pressed the barrel to the dead
man’s heart once more and pulled the trigger. The report was muffled. Nothing
happened. He stepped back a few feet, steadied the rifle, and squeezed off a
round into its left knee-cap.
“Woo,” Crate said as Willits tottered and toppled and hit the ground face
first, struggling like an infant to right itself. He stepped up to the fallen dead
man, placed his left foot onto its back, pressed the barrel to its head, and pulled
the trigger. Willits stopped moving even as everyone else jumped from the
gun’s shout.
Crate looked back at them.
“Christ,” Richard said.
Guy gasped, like he’d been holding his breath. He looked a little pale.
Daniel understood how Guy felt. His head spun. He wasn’t ill. He didn’t
think he was going to throw up. But he felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
“Nope,” Crate said, stepping away from his kill. “I don’t think the news is
making this up.”
“Ah, crap,” Misty said. “Is that Nelly?”
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Another dead person shambled up the road.
“Looks like it,” Crate said. “Damn.”
“Mark’s daughter,” Samson said. “Nice girl.”
Nelly was in pretty much the same shape as her father: bluish white, covered in blood and bites and moving with slow, clumsy deliberation. The dead
girl’s clothes had been ripped away—all that remained were the tattered collar
and sleeves of its dress, its panties. Its shoes were gone, its socks were filthy. Its
bare chest was a baby’s food-crusted bib.
Crate walked toward it, taking his time. He looked back at them, yelled to
Misty: “I don’t see Mark Junior anywhere.”
Misty looked down at her feet, and Daniel wondered if maybe the chunks
of meat clinging to Nelly’s bloodied chest were all they’d see of Junior.
“Okay,” Guy said beside him, his voice a dry croak. “I’ve seen enough.”
He went inside. The bell jingled. Crate leveled the rifle at the dead girl’s
face, and Daniel looked away. The shot seemed louder than the others.
“We need to get out of here,” Guy said.
Colleen looked up at him and wiped tears from her face. Kimberly wept,
her head lying atop her arms, which were folded atop the table. She looked like
a kid taking a nap in class. “Where will we go?”
“I think maybe we should take that guy up on his offer.” He shrugged,
shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He rubbed the fingers and thumb
of his right hand and thumb together, fast—something he only did when he
was nervous. “I don’t know.”
“He’s weird.”
“He may be,” Guy said. “But what choice do—” The door jingled, and Daniel
crept in. Before the door could fully close, Samson eased it open and stepped in
behind him. Guy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “We don’t have much of a choice.
We need to lay low someplace for a little while, before we…”
“You want to go home, too,” she said.
“I do,” Guy said. “I have to.”
“Aw, look at that,” Crate said from outside. He somehow sounded both disappointed and satisfied. “Here comes junior.”
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E i g h t
Sam—he really didn’t like to be called Samson; Colleen could see it in his face
whenever Misty called him by his complete first name—looked happy when
they agreed to come back to his place.
“Far out,” he said, smiling at them. “We’ll have a good time. My dad sells
doors and windows that he pulls out of old houses set for demolition. Refinishes them and sells ’em way marked up. He and my little brother are down in
Elk Grove right now, on a salvage run, but they should be back soon.”
“Is your dad going to mind us being there?” Colleen asked.
“Oh, no way,” Sam said, shaking his head and looking solemn. “He’s cool,
man. We bring friends home all the time. Dad likes to party.”
No one said anything, and Sam’s smile relaxed. It really wasn’t party time.
Colleen glanced at Guy, hoping to silently communicate what she’d told him
not long ago: she didn’t like this kid. He was weird. Guy’s barely perceptible
shrug was a reiteration of his previously-stated response to the matter: what
choice did they have? Any port in a storm, and the dead were only going to
keep coming to Misty’s.
The group talked idly, their conversation shifting back and forth from what
was happening in the world to what they’d do once they got to Sam’s house, and
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Colleen tried to tune them out. Daniel mostly listened and watched. Kimberly,
no longer crying but still watery-eyed and pale, sat close to Richard, whose
eyes shifted over to the front door as if he expected a dead body to come stumbling through it at any second, and he wasn’t exactly crazy to suspect that.
Crate was outside cleaning his mess and keeping watch, Charles sat behind
the counter, watching television, and Misty was in the kitchen, making a bit of
a racket and filling the air with the scent of flame-broiled beef. Lunch was on
her.
They ate their burgers and chips with little comment, aside from the obligatory restrained moans of satisfaction.
“Thank you,” Colleen said, despite the fact that her burger was too greasy,
the chips were stale, the bun was dry, and she was trying to be a vegetarian.
“You didn’t have to do this for us.”
“She’s right,” Charles said from behind the counter, and Misty’s gentle
expression crumbled into one of annoyance bordering on rage. “Get your ass
from behind my counter and get out.”
“All I’m trying to say is—”
“Out,” Misty snapped. Charles winced, and Colleen realized that he and
Misty were in some way involved with one another. Or had been. The casual
hostility with which Misty spoke to him could come only from familiarity, from
intimacy.
Charles took his time leaving. They finished their food, gathered and threw
away their trash, and thanked Misty for her hospitality.
“It was nothing,” she said. “But I think I’m going to close up after you
leave.”
“Yep, you should,” Sam said.
“I’ll be here if you need anything, though.” She spoke to all of them, flipping
a thumb toward the back of the room. “Just go around back and knock.” She
looked at Colleen, lowered her voice and leaned close. “Sorry about not having
the napkins, honey.”
“It’s okay. I’ll make it,” Colleen said, glancing at the television screen. A live
shot showed the Tel Aviv skyline. Fire churned, spitting black smoke into the
night.
Outside, Crate had piled what was left of the Willits family into an ugly
heap and was dousing them with gasoline. Colleen got the briefest glimpse of
Junior before looking away, and her impression was of an armless flayed thing,
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its face frozen in an expression of wide-eyed surprise, and of a madly grinning
blood-shiny mouth, the lips either pulled back in a startled death-throe-rictus
or simply chewed away.
Bilbo Baggins sniffed at a small pile of what must have been brain-matter,
and Crate threatened to shoot him on the spot if he did a stupid fuck thing like
eating that dead thing’s diseased brains. His tail between his legs, Bilbo padded
into the shade beneath the awning and threw himself onto the weather-worn
boards.
“Take it easy, Crate,” Sam said, crawling into the van behind Daniel.
“You, too.” He squinted at them, fluffing his beard with one bony hand. He
lifted his rifle and gave it a little shake. “First line of defense right here. They’ll
come from that way, if they come. You all should be safe up the hill. I’ll hold
them off.”
“How many bullets you got,” Richard asked, walking past Crate, leading
Kimberly along as if she were blind.
“Enough for every man, woman, and child in town.” He smiled. “About three
or four times over.”
“Jesus,” Richard said.
“Him too.”
Daniel was the last of them to climb into the van. He slid the door shut and
sank into the seat next to Sam. Crate returned to his kills, tossing on a little
more fuel.
Guy backed the van into the road and looked into his rearview mirror. There
were no dead people. A gush of fire engulfed the Willits heap, and Harlow fell
behind them. The trees pressed in, and the road twisted, angling upward.
“How far up?” Guy asked.
“About two miles, I think,” Sam said. “Not far. I’ll let you know.”
Colleen turned on the radio. A weary-sounding black man with the vocal
affectations of an evangelical preacher was urging people to work together,
to stop fighting, and to face the crisis at hand with faith and solidarity. She
pressed a tape into the deck, listened to about five seconds of Black Sabbath
before turning off the player.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Sam said, sounding a little too happy. Colleen turned around to face him, and she wondered if she was able to conceal
her dislike for their new friend. His smile faltered, and she knew she had not
been successful.
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She did not care.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“I just do,” he said, shrugging. “Because I feel it. We’re going to be okay.
You’re going to relax, and we’re going to be okay. And that—” he wagged a
hand in the direction of the radio “—is all going to pass us by, just like every
other horrible thing in the world has come and gone.”
“You really think so?” Kimberly asked.
“I do,” he said, holding his gaze on Colleen a little longer than he needed to
before turning to face Kimberly. “We have the advantage. We’re up here, away
from the cities and the hatred and the desperation.”
There was a joyous calm to his voice, the kind she imagined she’d hear in
the confident tones of the pussy-hunting campus guru, or in the hushed proclamations of a religious zealot. Is that where they were going? To some oddball
religious commune? Was Samson Niebolt going to try and woo them onto his
dick with nonsense whispers of the hills and the trees sheltering them from
the storm?
Kimberly looked at Sam with hope. Colleen faced forward. She looked at
Guy and didn’t bother to whisper.
“We’re not staying long.”
She shifted her weight, uncomfortable. She could feel her flow pulse, feel
her pad, her one last pad, god damn it, growing heavy with menstrual blood.
“Right up here,” Sam said.
The small handmade sign said NIEBOLT DOORS AND WINDOWS, and the
narrow road was unpaved, just two well-worn wheel-ruts matted with pine
needles. The van rocked and swayed up the hill. A dilapidated shed eased by
on their right, and then the ground leveled out and the house came into view,
a sprawling ranch-style brick structure that was maybe fifteen or twenty years
old. It looked completely out of place, as if it some giant had plucked it up from
suburb on the outskirts of L.A. and Frisbee-tossed it up into the redwoods.
“It’s kind of funny,” Sam said. “My mom’s idea. She wanted a house that
looked like a real house, is what my dad said she told him. I’m not quite sure
what that means, but…”
“Is your mother…” Kimberly said, leaving her query unfinished.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “She died when I was five. In childbirth.”
“Oh, God,” Kimberly said, and Colleen knew that her friend was all but in
Sam’s bed. “That’s horrible. Did the baby live?”
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“Yeah,” Sam said, looking pleased and proud. “Connor. You’ll meet him.
He’s, like, totally crazy, but I love the little bastard.”
Kimberly laughed for the first time in what seemed like forever, and Colleen looked at Richard in an effort to find some understanding in his eyes,
some knowledge of what was happening. If such knowledge existed, she could
not find it.
Guy brought the van to a halt beside the house and looked back at Sam,
eyebrows raised. Sam nodded.
They filed out of the van. The road they were on continued, past the house,
past several well-kept sheds, arcing right, vanishing into the trees.
“Where are the windows and doors?” Daniel asked, doing his patented
head-whip.
“Back there,” Sam said, lifting a hand toward the sheds. “His workshop is
further up the road. He makes cabinets and tables, and my mom had him build
his shop way up the hill so she wouldn’t have to hear him sawing and hammering.”
There was a light breeze and the air smelled of smoke. Colleen looked in
the direction from which they’d come, at the trail sloping away until the woods
swallowed it, and for the third time in less than twenty-four hours she was
overcome with the certainty that she was safe. She was safe and they were safe,
and they would remain safe for as long as they stayed put. This time, however,
her certainty did not seem desperate or irrational.
For reasons that she or anyone else may never know, the dead were getting up and society was falling apart. By providence or blind and meaningless
coincidence, they were in the middle of nowhere when the shit hit the fan,
miles away from any major population center, not home in Fresno. And they
were safe.
They’d heard no news regarding their home town, but she knew it would
vary only in small, inconsequential details from the news coming out of every
major city on the face of the earth. She wondered if she would ever see her
house, and again came the thought of her mother, not really dead and not really
alive, lying in darkness six feet beneath freshly churned dirt.
Sam helped unload their luggage, which he placed in the dim entry room of the
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squat brick house he apparently shared with his father and brother. The place
looked nicer on the outside than it did inside. The tile floor was dirty. To the
left, just inside the front door, an old umbrella leaned in the corner, a heap of
dirt-crusted boots lying before it, their laces splayed and entangled. The walls
were bare. An empty vase sat atop a featureless little table. It was one of those
quiet houses with a loud clock. A bead curtain obscured the dimly lit room
beyond the vestibule.
They followed Sam through the beads and into a large living room that
smelled stale like the inside of the confessional at St. Anthony’s. Sam clicked
on a lamp. The place hadn’t been redecorated since the fifties. With its boxy art
deco cabinet and nearly round screen, the television sitting atop four skinny
legs across from the stained and sprung couch looked to Colleen like it may
have been older than the house.
“That thing work?” Daniel asked, reading her mind.
Sam made a face. “Not so great, man, but we never watch it all that much,
anyway.”
There was a low coffee table between the couch and the television, its surface furry with dust.
“You can all crash here, I guess,” Samson said. “No one really stays here
anymore, not since mom died. Dad lives in his workshop, mostly, but he still
comes down here when he misses her. It’s pretty sad.”
“Where do you and your brother stay?”
“My dad built us all a little place further up the road. I’ll show you later.”
The place felt like a frozen moment, a fading memory grown soft around
the edges and losing definition.
“I think I’d just as soon set up our tents and enjoy the fresh air,” Guy said,
and Daniel murmured his agreement. “We really don’t want to impose.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “I don’t blame you. The place is a mess. You can’t camp out
forever, though, so maybe we can clean up a bit later on, right?”
“Maybe so,” Guy said. “Is there a phone here?”
“There is, in the kitchen, but it’s disconnected.”
“Okay,” Guy said, after a moment. “Is there a phone that isn’t disconnected?”
“Up at my dad’s workshop, yeah, but I don’t think you’ll reach anyone. I
think they’re all dead now.”
“I’d still like to try.”
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“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “We’ll head up that way in a bit. Last stop of the tour.
Come on.”
“Wait,” Colleen said. “Can I use the bathroom?”
Sam looked uncertain for a second, uncertain and maybe a little worried,
and then he brightened. “Of course.” He indicated the hallway at the other end
of the living room. “First door on the right.”
Three of the four bulbs were dead, and the remaining one burned weakly
behind frosted glass. A dingy shower curtain concealed a claw-foot bathtub
that seemed out of place even in such a bizarre, unthemed hovel, and the toilet
bowl was dry, the water having long since evaporated, leaving behind a brown
ring as the only evidence that it had been there at all.
Colleen pressed the plunger and watched as the bowl filled with the stagnant contents of the toilet tank. Pipes gurgled and knocked. She waited for the
tank to refill completely and then flushed again.
In the cabinet beneath the sink, she found a roll of toilet paper and a stack
of neatly folded facecloths. She placed the toilet paper on the counter and
took one of the towels from the middle of the stack. She thought about it for
a second, took four more, and pressed them into her pockets. She removed a
fifth towel and wiped down the toilet seat with it.
A few minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom, having disposed of
her bloated and leaking pad and replaced it with one of the facecloths.
In the living room, Sam tried to get the television to work. The screen
displayed only a dim haze of snow. He battered the side of the old beast and
tussled with the rabbit ears, and a voice and face emerged from the snow, another grim network newscaster.
“…dent Nixon is urging Americans to cooperate with local and state law enforcement. Sources close to the President say that tonight’s speech will outline
his administration’s ‘plan of attack’ regarding the current situation, in addition
to addressing concerns over recent statements by Russian President Nikolai
Podgorny that—”
The rabbit ears tipped backward and rattled to the floor behind the television, and the blizzard returned.
“Eh,” Sam said, turning off the television. The circle of snow shrank to a
small wavering point of light. “We’ll get it working later, come on.”
They followed him out of the house and up the trail.
“He’s got a few hundred unfinished doors in there,” Sam said, indicating
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one of the sheds. “Some of them are good, but most of them are no good for
anything but a nice big bonfire. We do that sometimes.”
They passed another shed, and Sam went on about his father’s doors and
windows, but Colleen tuned him out. Daniel moved close and tugged her shirt
once.
“What?”
“How are you?” he asked, giving her his best puppy dog face.
“I’m fine.”
“Still mad at me?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m sorry, okay,” he said, and she rolled his words over in her mind a few
times. Not the words themselves, but the tone in which they were uttered. He
sounded like he meant it.
“Okay,” she said.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I already did it.”
“Did what?”
She nodded toward Sam. “Stole a few facecloths from his bathroom.”
Daniel laughed, and things were okay between them again. Maybe things
wouldn’t stay okay between them for long, but they were okay between them
for now, and that made her happy. Guy looked back with confusion on his face,
and she stepped away from her brother.
“What’s funny?”
“Just patching things up with my idiot brother, is all.”
“He is an idiot,” Guy said. “But that’s good.”
They walked a bit more, and Colleen’s thighs and calves burned. The incline was gradual, but it was taking its toll on her underused leg muscles.
“Where the hell are we going?” Richard asked, stopping to reach down and
massage his right calf. Colleen wasn’t the only one feeling it.
“Just a little more. I want to show you something.”
A little further along, they came across the first of the doors: thick metal
beasts with small glass windows inlaid with wire mesh, rust-spotted and
stacked three or four thick and leaning against several of the young redwoods
that made up this part of the forest.
“What’s this about?” Daniel said, stepping up to one of the doors and touching the small window placed into the door at head height. Beneath the window,
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the number 17, now faded from exposure to the elements, had been painted.
“These come from a prison or something?”
“You’d think so,” Sam said. “I thought the same thing, too, but they’re just
from a school. Dad got them cheap, but now they’re rotting out here.”
“This what you wanted to show us, man?” Daniel said. “Some doors leaning
against trees?”
“No, no,” Sam said. “I mean, yeah, I wanted to show you this, but I really
want to show you where I live.”
“How far is it?”
“Not much. And when we get there, we’ll tighten our wigs, okay? All of
us.”
“Okay,” Daniel said, sounding less annoyed.
Kimberly looked back at Colleen and, eyebrows raised, mouthed the words:
“Tighten our wigs?”
Colleen pinched her thumb and forefinger together before her lips, sucking in her cheeks.
“Oh, yeah,” Kimberly said. “Good.”
The ground leveled out again, and three small cabins came into view, one
in the center, at the end of the road, and one on either side of the path. There
was a pickup truck parked next to the cabin on the left.
Colleen took Guy’s hand and stopped. Kimberly looked back at them, and
Colleen waved them on.
“We’ll catch up.”
“What’s on your mind?” Guy asked, stroking her cheek.
“I miss you,” she said, trying to gather together everything that was on her
mind and say it in some way that made sense.
“You want to rest here a little while and then hit the road?” Guy said.
Colleen was momentarily confused, unsure if he meant here, in the middle
of the road, or here, at Sam’s father’s place.
“I don’t know,” she said, after realizing he’d meant the latter. “I don’t think
so. I don’t like Sam, but I think we’re safe here for now.”
“And then we’ll go home.”
“Home,” she said, and just like that, she needed him. She needed his mouth
on hers, his arms around her. She needed to touch him and to be touched by
him, and she cursed her body for betraying her with its poorly-timed reliability. She had friends who didn’t let their periods stop them—they’d fuck while
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lying naked on the grass somewhere or they’d spread a beach towel on the bed,
or something, but that wasn’t for her and it wasn’t for him. It hadn’t been for
her before, anyhow, but now?
In the face of what was happening, did it make sense that she was suddenly
horny? That she wanted to find a clearing somewhere and bloody fuck like
her nasty friends or, if Guy refused, simply pin him against a tree and suck his
cock? She needed him inside her, one way or another, needed the comfort of
that wet and awkward act to confirm that some things were as they should be
and there was happiness to be found.
“I can’t stop thinking of Chris, and I want to scream,” he said, and unknowingly shamed her. “He must be so scared. And my mom, God.”
“Your dad will take care of them.”
“I know,” he said, his eyes losing focus. He blinked several times, and she
saw that he was crying. They pulled each other close and stayed that way until
Guy told her that they should catch up.
Daniel and the others were in the clearing, laughing over something. Richard rubbed his calves, and Kimberly was doing squats.
“Damn good workout,” Guy said.
“I’m used to it,” Sam said, putting his fists on his hips like Superman.
“I’m not,” Richard said, sitting down in the dirt.
The curtains in the window of the cabin to their right fluttered. Colleen
opened her mouth to say something, and her words became a scream. The door
leading into the center cabin burst open, and a man with a shotgun rushed at
them.
“Get down,” he screamed, sweeping the shotgun left and right and kicking
Richard in the face. Head low, Sam walked over to the man and stood behind
him, pulling the cowboy revolver from his belt. “Get the fuck down, all of you.”
Colleen screamed and Kimberly screamed, and though she held onto Guy,
strong hands pried her away and pressed her to the ground. Richard rolled in
the dirt, his hands pressed to his face, blood flowing between his fingers.
More men appeared, each brandishing a shotgun, and Colleen screamed
and screamed, and someone punched her in the stomach. She tasted dirt and
rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.
“God,” someone screamed. It might have been Guy or it might have been
Richard, but it wasn’t Daniel, she knew that much, because she heard him
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crying. Kimberly’s squeals became pained and inhuman, and their attackers
laughed and taunted and roared with animal pleasure.
“Hold him down,” someone said, and Colleen heard what sounded like the
hollow metal thud.
“No, no, please—” It sounded like Guy.
“Why the hell are you—” Daniel.
“…going to fucking kill you, you son—” It was Guy.
“Going to what, man?”
“Whose is he?”
“Right there.” This sounded like Samson.
Kimberly’s screams crumbled into sharp, muffled gasps, and now someone’s fist balled into Colleen’s hair and wrenched her head back.
“Open your eyes.” A growl.
“You’re going to kill me?”
The whoof of exhalation that could only come from a blow to the stomach,
and still Daniel wept somewhere, between blows.
“He said open your eyes.” Hot breath in her ears and large hands on her
face, fingers prying open her eyes. She jerked her head left and right, thrashing, slamming it backward in the hopes of busting a lip or smashing a nose.
No luck, and through the tear-streaked flicker of her eyelids she saw two men
pinning Guy to the side of the truck while another knelt before him, a shotgun
resting in the dirt beside him.
“Come on,” someone said, and: “Wow, man, I’m impressed.” And: “God, no,
please no, please God…” And: “No, no. Please, no. No, no, no.”
Colleen squeezed her eyes shut and screamed until her screams became
one with the screams of those around her. The fist in her hair tightened, and
she was lifted and dragged forward.
“Open your eyes,” someone said.
“Open them, you cunt.”
She did. Shriveled and pale, Guy’s genitals were inches from her face. She
could smell him. She looked up, and through her tears found his face, his eyes.
He tried to say something, but it was little more than a growl. Tears
streamed down his face. The cords stood out in his neck. He struggled. He was
strong. They were stronger.
“Put it in your mouth.”
She screamed, and her face was thrust into Guy’s crotch.
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“Do it.”
She opened her mouth, took him in, sobbing around Guy’s limp penis.
“Do it,” the voice screamed, the fist at the back of her head a knot of pain.
She closed her lips around Guy, gasping. Unseen, those around her yelped
and hooted. Someone screamed, raw and incoherent and insane.
“Why?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s it.”
“Stop stop stop.”
“Open your fucking eyes.” Again her eyelids were pried open. Guy’s penis
was small and pitiful, his testicles tight and close to his body. A large hand
reached in and seized Guy’s penis, tugging it forward. A blade flashed, and Guy
roared in pain and someone laughed and Colleen screamed and screamed, her
eyes clenched, her mind collapsing.
One of them smeared something warm and wet across her face, tried to
press it into her mouth, but she locked her jaw and wrenched her head away.
Another blow to the stomach, and she gasped and one of their attackers
crammed something—god, oh god it can’t be it can’t be—into her mouth. She
wretched and gagged and it fell from her mouth and onto the ground between
her splayed fingers.
A heavy boot pushed her to the ground. Colleen rolled, her head lolling, the
stink of blood in her nose, her mouth filled with its taste. Guy’s dick lay curled
and bloody and dirt-speckled on the ground. She frantically smeared blood
from her lips.
And then thunder. Thunder and blood, and one of their attackers crumpled
to the ground, a ragged hole in his chest. She rolled and clambered to her feet,
and then someone was on her, hammering her back and neck and face and
head. She struggled, but not for long.
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N i n e
He rolled through the small business district of Citrus Heights, eyes forward,
trying to ignore what he saw. There were dead bodies in the streets, both walking and strewn across the road in tatters. Eyes forward, on the road, and a dead
woman with a bloody smear for a face lifted its mouth from the open belly of
a large dog to watch him pass. A bearded man clutching a small pistol walked
toward her. Reggie rolled on, barely heard the pop of the gun behind him.
A heap of bodies burned in the parking lot of an In-n-Out, and a group of
armed men clustered around a pickup truck, stuffing their faces with burgers
and fries, knocking them down with sodas. They tried to flag him down. Maybe
they just wanted to ask him something—to see if he’d passed through Sacramento, perhaps, or if he knew how bad things were on the interstate. Maybe
they wanted to know what he was doing in their town. Maybe they wanted to
pull a nigger from his truck and add him to the pyre.
He wasn’t taking any chances. He kept on keeping on, and no one followed
him. He wondered if maybe he should have taken a chance and stopped. He
was getting hungry.
A line of abandoned cars and trucks blocked his path to the highway,
stopped him in his tracks and cranked his heartbeat up a notch or two. His
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sideview mirrors were empty for now. If this were a trap, it had been abandoned. He contemplated pushing through, but the blockade was two cars deep,
and he did not want to get stuck. He had no choice but to leave the main road.
He consulted his map, and when he looked up, he saw three dead bodies walking toward his truck. One of them, an older man with a sunken stomach and
a black and bulging post-mortem erection, was naked. One, a child still wearing a baseball hat, dragged its twisted right foot behind. Its small right arm
dangled and spun from a thin strand of gristle. The third, trundling up the rear,
was an obese man wearing only a pair of shorts. His enormous belly had been
ripped open. Yellow fat and purple innards bulged.
Reggie turned left, slowly passing the dead bodies, which lifted their arms
in an unintentional display of supplication, slack-jawed peasants begging for
even a scrap of moldy bread. The small business district fell behind him. He
passed an abandoned gas station. A hand-lettered sign taped to the pumps
declared:
He consulted his map once more.
“Shit and fuck,” he said, tracing a finger along Hazel Avenue. He was approaching the American River. There were two small bridges between him and
Highway 50. If one of them was closed or cut off, he just might be fucked.
“Oh, well,” he said “Cross ’em when I get to ’em.” He turned right into a
neighborhood comprised of small ranch style houses. Barring any unexpected
obstructions, this was the quickest route to Hazel Avenue, which would take
him south to a place called Nimbus, where he’d get onto 50.
Half the neighborhood had flown the coop, if the empty driveways were
any indication. Aside from a few smashed windows, there was no sign of the
wholesale looting and pillaging mentioned on the radio. Curtains parted and
frightened faces watched his passage. A few folks had been smart enough to
nudge their cars or trucks right up against their houses, barricading their front
doors while making a quick escape easy.
He turned on the radio, caught the tail end of a report from the Middle
East. Over the past twelve hours, the powder keg of Israel had erupted. Within
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days, someone from within the PLO was reported to have said, Israel would be
no more, and her people would be killing themselves upon the sands where
the land met the sea. Gerald Ford said that Israel’s allies would not forsake
her in this time of trouble. When asked about Vietnam, he was terse: complete
withdrawal from Vietnam was possible within weeks. American troops were
needed right here, in the cities and streets of the United States of America. No
one challenged the contradiction inherent in his words.
“Mother fuckers,” Reggie said, not entirely sure who he was cursing, and
that’s when he saw the kid. Just a chubby white kid riding a yellow bicycle with
blue wheels up and down the deserted street. It was a girl’s bike with a banana
seat. Sparkly tassels hung from the handlebars.
As Reggie passed him, the kid looked up and flashed a listless smile. Ignoring the guy and his dog on the interstate had been one thing, but this?
“Damn it,” he said, bringing the truck to a halt. He looked around. The coast
was clear. He watched the kid approach the truck in his side view mirror.
Beneath Reggie’s window, the kid brought the bike to a halt in style, braking hard with his right foot and planting his left foot on the ground, his back
wheel skidding a blue half-circle across the concrete.
“Nice move, kid,” Reggie said, rolling down his window. “Now what the hell
are you doing?”
“Riding my bike.”
“I can see that, but what the hell are you doing? Don’t you know what’s
going on?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, and Reggie could see from the look in his eyes that he
wasn’t very smart. He looked dull and stupid, like the kind of kid who would
grow up to kick his dog and punch his wife, and Reggie cursed himself for stopping. To hell with this dumb white boy. He had a daughter to get home to. “Dead
people are coming back to life.”
“Right,” Reggie said, opening the door and getting out. “So why are you out
here on your bike?”
“I don’t know.” The kid shrugged. His eyes fell to the pistol at Reggie’s hip.
“I guess I wanted to see one for myself.”
“Have you?”
“Yeah,” the kid said. “There’s one down at the end of the road and it’s trying
to get up but I think a car hit it ’cause its guts are all smooshed out.” He made
a face.
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“There are more back that way,” Reggie said, tossing a thumb over his
shoulder.
“You use that yet?” The kid’s eyes were still on Reggie’s Colt.
“No,” Reggie said, looking around. “You should be home right now.”
“I guess so,” the kid said. “Do you think you will?”
“Will what?”
“Use your gun.”
“Jesus, kid, I don’t know.” Now it was his turn to shrug. Why the hell was he
wasting his time like this? “Probably.”
“You should go down the road,” the kid said, turning in place, looking back
toward the end of the road. “Thataway and shoot the thing. It’s pretty sad.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Can I come see?”
“That something you want to see?”
“I dunno.” The kid scrunched up his face. “I guess so.”
“You don’t,” Reggie said. “It’s nothing you ever want to see. Where’s your
house?”
“Back there,” the kid said, tossing his thumb over his shoulder in obvious
imitation of Reggie.
“Are your parents home?”
“My dad moved out last year,” the kid said. Somewhere far away, a machine
gun ripped through someone or something. The kid winced, crouching.
“Where’s your mother?”
“She left.” The kid stared into space, his eyes going distant. More gunfire.
The kid snapped back, looked Reggie in the eye. “She drinks a lot. She ran out
of Blue Nun so she went to the store to get more.”
“Jesus,” Reggie said. “How long ago?”
“You shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain, mister.”
“How long ago?”
“I dunno. This morning. She told me to stay inside, but…” He shrugged.
“Damn it,” Reggie said.
“You think she’s dead?”
“I’m going to take you home, okay?”
“You think she’s dead?”
“I don’t know, kid. I’m just going—you got a name?”
“Steven.”
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“I’m just going to take you home, Steven, and then I’m going to go. My little
girl is waiting for me.”
“How old is she?”
“Seven,” Reggie said, remembering the last time he spoke to her. The radio
said that the phones were out across most of the country, but suddenly he had
to try. At the very least he had to try. “How old are you?”
“Eleven. What’s her name?”
“Nefertiti.”
“Weird name,” the kid said, and looked instantly sorry. “I mean, it’s kind of
pretty.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you home.”
“I just live a few blocks that way,” the kid said, flapping his hand in the
direction of his house. “I can get there.”
“I’m sure you can,” Reggie said. “But I’m going to take you, anyway. And
you’re gonna stay inside. Give me this.” Reggie put his hands on the bike’s
handlebars.
“What do you want with my bike?”
“I’m just going to strap it to the back of the truck. Do you know if your
phone is wor—”
“Hey,” someone shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
Reggie turned, and it was too late to go for his Colt. The guy standing in the
door of one of the houses that Reggie had taken to be abandoned had him in
the sights of his hunting rifle.
“I’m helping the kid, man,” Reggie said, freezing, raising his hands. “Just put
the gun down and—”
“You fucking sick bastard,” the guy said. His voice was slurred, and he was
having trouble holding the rifle steady. Jesus, is that how people everywhere
were reacting to this? By getting shitfaced?
“Listen, man, I was just—”
“You were just trying to get your dirty black hands on a little white boy, is
what you were doing, you sick faggot. Get on your bike and go home, kid.”
“Do it,” Reggie said, glancing at the kid.
“Is that what you were…” the kid began, letting his words trail off. He
looked at Reggie, fear and confusion warping his face.
“Jesus Christ, no, kid, now would you—”
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The guy opened fire, squeezed off five frenzied shots. At least two of them
struck Reggie’s truck.
It was over quickly: Reggie leapt to his left, dropping and rolling and pulling his gun. His first two shots went wild, turning brick into powder and shattering a window. The last one caught the asshole in the stomach. The rifle hit
the ground and the guy followed, wailing, his hands pressed to his belly.
Reggie got to his feet, looked around. The kid lay on his side in a spreading
pool of blood, gasping. Reggie dropped to his knees and inspected the damage.
The bullet had missed the kid’s heart, but judging by the sound of his breathing it had punctured one of his lungs. Reggie could not find an exit wound. The
bullet had bounced around inside the kid’s ribcage.
“Hey, Steven.” Reggie took his hand. The kid was going to be dead within
minutes. “Just close your eyes and take a nap, okay? You’re going to be fine.”
The kid’s eyes found him, and his body jerked. He tried to get away from
Reggie.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Reggie said. “You got to know that.”
The kid coughed, his lips glistening red. A line of blood ran from his right
nostril. There was fear in his eyes, and then the fear was gone and there was
nothing there at all. His chest heaved and rattled. There was a rush of blood
and bile from his mouth, and then it was over.
“Damn it,” Reggie said, standing up. Behind him, the asshole was on his
knees, trying to grasp his rifle with blood-slicked fingers.
“Aggh,” he said, dropping the gun and falling back onto his ass. Reggie
stomped toward him.
“You no good piece of shit,” Reggie said, seizing the man by the shirt, pulling him to his feet, and slamming him into the doorframe—once, twice, again,
again. The man reeked of blood and shit.
“I was just helping him,” Reggie screamed, nose to nose with the man, who
sputtered and yelped and clutched Reggie’s wrists. Reggie tossed him to the
ground, glowering. He paced back and forth on the lawn and, deciding, grabbed
a handful of the man’s hair and dragged him over to where the dead boy lay.
“What are you—” the man said, and Reggie kicked him in the ribs. He
thought about kicking him in the stomach but didn’t want a foot covered in
shit and blood.
“You deserve this,” he said, and crouched beside the man. He closed his
right hand around the asshole’s throat. “You fucking deserve this.”
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He let go, stood, and walked back toward the man’s house. He stopped to
pick up the hunting rifle, a well-kept pre-’64 Winchester. A good gun.
“Help me,” the man said, weeping. “I’m sorry.”
Pistol raised, Reggie entered the man’s house and closed the door behind
him. He stepped into the dimly lit living room. Against the wall, a large color
television displayed the image of a burning building. Reggie glanced at the
television and stepped into the kitchen. Placing the Winchester onto the couch,
he walked to the sink and threw up.
Outside, the asshole screamed.
Reggie checked every one of the rooms, yelling out that any bastards hiding in
here better throw their guns down and come out or he’d murder them on the
spot. The place was empty. There were no family photos on the walls. A stack of
magazines with names like DUDE and SWANK sat atop the toilet tank.
Back in the living room, Reggie sat down on the chair before the television
and buried his face in his hands, tried to steady his breathing, to get his hands
to stop shaking.
Why the hell had he stopped? The kid would be alive now, and the lonely
son of a bitch outside would maybe be rubbing one out into the toilet right now
instead of getting ripped apart.
Reggie lifted his face. There was a small table next to the chair. On it sat a
lamp, a TV Guide, a half-empty bottle of Jack, and a telephone.
The lamp was off, the TV Guide was of no use, and the Jack lit a fire in his
belly. Knowing what he’d hear, he picked up the receiver and brought it to his
ear.
There was a dial tone.
He dialed home, cursing the slowness of the rotary dialer, pushing each
number along. There was a distant click followed by the faint ghost chatter of
someone else’s frenzied conversation, and then the phone rang. And rang. On
the eighth ring, someone picked up. Reggie’s heart sank as quickly as his hopes
had risen: a pre-recorded message informed him that all circuits were busy.
He hung up.
In the kitchen, he found paper bags in the pantry and filled four of them
with provisions: canned goods—beans and soup and, God help him, Spam—
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and dry cereal and potato chips. Bottled soda and a half-eaten loaf of bread. A
jar of pickles from the fridge. A can opener from the drawer next to the sink. A
fork, a spoon, and a knife from the drawer next to that one.
He arranged the grocery bags beside the front door, walked into the living
room, and tried the phone once more. Same story.
Outside, the asshole was still alive, lying on his side and curled into a ball,
whimpering, quivering in shock, his arms shielding his face and head. Steven
gnawed on a deflated length of intestine trailing from his stomach. The dead
kid with the baseball cap sat beside him, tugging something from the asshole’s
stomach with his one good hand. They looked like best buddies sitting there
like that, and Reggie wondered if they’d known each other.
The naked dead man was fifteen or so feet away. The fat one wearing shorts
trundled along behind it. Steven looked up at him with stupid awareness, a knot
of gut-rope hanging down across his chin. The other kid dropped the glistening
thing it had pulled from the asshole’s stomach, picked it up. Dropped it.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he told Steven, and blew the top of the dead
kid’s head off. He put another bullet between the eyes of the one-armed kid,
and then pointed the barrel of the gun at the asshole’s head.
“Puh-puh-puh.”
“You don’t deserve this,” Reggie said, and shot him.
Reggie walked toward the naked dead man, put a bullet between its eyes.
He climbed into this truck, started it up, and backed it into the dead man’s yard.
He loaded most of the supplies he’d stolen from the man’s house into his truck
and then went back inside. He rummaged around until he found the rounds for
the rifle. He inspected the window he’d shattered when returning the asshole’s
fire, and then he realized that the guy probably wasn’t an asshole—just scared
and stupid. What was he supposed to have thought, seeing Reggie taking the
kid’s bike?
“Damn it,” Reggie said. Wanting to hit the road, to get to his daughter as
quickly as possible, he instead sank into the chair before the television and
brought the bottle of Jack to his lips. For now, it might be best to just lie low.
Reggie watched television and drank himself into a stupor but he never
fell asleep. He tried to—he closed his eyes and tried to push everything out of
his mind, but sleep would not come. At some point during the night he got up
from the chair and went to the window, watched dead bodies shuffle by in the
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buzzing glow of the streetlight. Then he watched more television, tried and
failed to fall asleep.
He rose from the chair in the quiet hour before dawn, ate food from the
fridge, freshened up in the dead man’s bathroom, and was on the road by sunrise.
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T e n
“I’m locking up,” Misty said, and Crate looked up at her from his place on the
bench. His rifle rested across his scrawny legs. Bilbo Baggins slept at his feet,
snoring.
“Yeah?” Crate said, looking away, squinting.
“Yeah,” she said, lifting the neck of her shirt and covering her nose and
mouth. “God. How can you stand it?”
The air reeked of cooked meat. When she was a kid growing up in Mississippi, her grandfather roasted whole hogs on the spit after church on Sundays.
Folks would come from all around town, and the smell in the air brought her
back. She need only close her eyes, and it was like she was there. But the smell
on the air was the smell of what was left of the Willits family, and that was
wrong.
“Eh,” Crate said, sounding a little confused. “It’s really not all that bad a
smell, I’m sorry to say.” He looked at her. “Don’t you think?”
“I’m gonna lock up now, okay?”
“I still remember how to let myself in, woman,” the old man said, scratching his beard. “That piece of shit staying?”
“I think so,” she said. Crate was right. Charlie was a piece of shit, but he was
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a well-meaning piece of shit. And he was better company than her husband
had been in years. “He isn’t admitting it, but I think he’s scared.”
“No shit,” Crate said, tapping his long fingernails on the stock of his rifle.
“We’re all scared, honey. But being scared ain’t no reason to be a fucking
coward, and that’s all he ever was.”
“I’ll be in the back, Crate.”
“I’ll try to remember to knock,” he said, looking up at her with that look in
his eyes, the one that said he was about to say something hurtful. “Don’t really
want to walk in on you sucking his little yellow dick.”
“That’s nice,” she said, deciding that defending herself wasn’t worth a
whole hell of a lot. She messed around with Charlie sometimes, when both
of them couldn’t really take messing around by themselves any longer; she
couldn’t remember the last time Crate was interested in sex. None of them
were very happy about the whole thing, but beggars could not be choosers,
and sometimes you just needed to sleep beside someone other than yourself.
“Try not to fall asleep out here, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m serious,” she said. He slept out here all the time, sometimes so deeply
that, upon discovering him, several of her customers had come into her store
to inform her that the old dude on the porch had died. “It’s dangerous.”
“Really now,” he said, and the look in his eyes was the look she used to
see just before he would hit her. She saw the look at least five times a week
now, but Creighton Mumsford hadn’t raised a hand to her in anger in nearly
two decades, long before they’d stopped fucking. “How damned stupid do you
think I am? Get your ass inside before I shoot you and burn you for one of those
things. No one would know, Misty.”
“Maybe you should just lie down and take a nap,” she said. With her shirt
over her nose, she could still smell the burnt-hog aroma of Mark Willits and
family, only mingled with the scent of her own body. Sweat and armpits and the
burgeoning stench of old age. “You want me to get you a pillow?”
“Run along,” he said, pursing his thin lips and miming fellatio with his
knotty right hand. He belched into his mouth, his sunken cheeks puffing. He
blew it out and made a face. “Whoo,” he said, waving at the air in front of his
face. “That’s rotten.”
She closed the door and locked it, wondering how long it would be before
things got worse. On the television, things were getting worse everywhere, and
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she’d lived long enough to know that things never really got better. The bad
shit merely took time off, every so often, giving you a chance to feel like things
were looking up. But they weren’t. They never were. And now, well—there
would probably be no more time off for the bad shit.
She turned the sign around, letting the world know that Misty’s Food and
Gas was CLOSED, by God. Not that the sign would do any good. Locals knew
to come around back and bother her, and, given the current state of things,
newcomers looking to stock up in preparation for the end of the world would
simply let themselves in. If Crate didn’t shoot them, of course. And judging by
the look in his eyes after he’d taken out the pitiful things that had, only this
morning, been the Willitses, he’d almost certainly enjoy it.
After the kids from Fresno had driven away with Samson Niebolt, there
had been no more dead visitors from Beistle. “Why would there?” Crate had
said, an hour later, after she’d wondered aloud why that might be. “Mark and
his kids were coming home. Whatever it was that they’d become, they still
knew where home was, honey.”
“That’s…” she’d said, unable to finish.
“That’s goddamn awful is what it is,” Crate had said, his eyes haunted. He’d
placed a hand on her knee.
It had been three hours since Junior had shown up and the kids from
Fresno had gone up to the Niebolt property to smoke dope and mess around.
The television said the same shit, only worse, worse and worse by the hour.
She stepped behind the counter and retrieved the bottle of Jamaican rum she
kept on the bottom shelf. She fished around for her glass, couldn’t find it, and
opted to take her poison straight from the source.
“…can’t stress this enough, people.” An angry-looking man with a shiny
bald head, thick glasses that seemed to catch and hold the studio lights, and
a ratty salt-and-pepper beard yelled on the television screen. “These are dead
people. How and why the dead are returning to some reduced form of life is
something we haven’t figured out yet, but it’s a fact, despite what this godforsaken imbecile sitting across from me is saying. I know it—”
The godforsaken imbecile tried to cut in, but the bald guy ran him down
with words.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard for some of you to believe this,” he said,
looking into the camera. “I mean, how many people in this country believe
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that a Jew who died two thousand years ago is still alive and planning his big
comeback special. Come on, people, let’s just look at the facts—”
Misty turned off the television. Bottle in hand, she went into the back.
Charlie lay across the bed. He’d taken off his shoes, and the bottoms of his
socks were dirty. His shirt was tight against his large belly. The fingers of his
right hand were closed around the neck of a bottle of gin. On the television, the
guy she’d silenced out front continued his personal crusade against stupidity.
“...I am calm, you brick-headed son of a bitch,” he said, his upper lip curled
back in disgust. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing. With all you’ve seen, with
all each and every one of us has seen, you’re going to tell me that—”
“I’m just saying that we don’t have the facts yet, is all,” his opponent said,
leaning forward. “There’s no reason to be so damned belligerent. And there’s
no reason to start blaming this on the supernatural. We can—”
“The supernatural,” the hothead screamed. “The supernatural? Who the
hell said anything about the supernatural?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fallows, but the dead only come back to life in ghost stories,
and there must be some other explan—”
Misty silenced the discussion once again.
“I was watching that,” Charlie said.
“And you can go out front if you want to keep watching it,” she said, walking
over to the bed. He was lying on her side. She slept alone most of the time, but
she still had her side of the bed. Charlie scooted over.
“I was waiting for the crazy one to punch the other guy,” he said, and
knocked back some gin.
“There’s the door.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, drank deeply of
her own bottle. When she’d had enough, she capped it, set it on the nightstand,
and lay back, kicking up her feet.
“No,” Charlie said. He set his bottle on the other nightstand and, grunting with the effort, scooted over to her side and pressed himself close. She
tensed.
“Not right now,” she said, closing her eyes and resting her forearm across
her face. “Are you nuts?”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said, rolling onto his side and placing an arm
around her. “I just need to be held.”
“Yeah,” she said, relaxing.
They were asleep within ten minutes.
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Less than an hour later, they were both awake.
“Jesus,” Misty said, sitting upright, her heart hammering. Crate stood in the
bedroom doorway, rifle in hand. She blinked, realizing that the sound that had
awakened her had been that of Crate hammering his fist against the bedroom
door.
“Damn, Crate,” Charlie said, rubbing his chest.
“Sorry, you two,” Crate said, not looking particularly sorry about anything.
“But you really need to wake up.”
“What is it?” Misty asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Officer Tasgal is here.”
“He—who?” she said. Her mind felt like it was made of mud. She’d been
dreaming, just seconds ago, though she could not remember of what. Images
and sensations faded and were lost, and now there was only the bedroom and
Crate and Charlie and dim evening light sifted through the curtains and the
liquor on the nightstands. “Tasgal?”
“Yeah,” Crate said, nodding, talking to her as if she were a child. “Officer
Tasgal. From Beistle. The one who looks like he’s sixteen. Ringing any bells?”
“Yeah,” she said, and of course she knew who he was talking about. She’d
closed her eyes and thought of Eric Tasgal more than once while with Charlie.
“I’m a little fuzzy. I was asleep.”
“He’s in trouble,” Crate said.
“Mnn?” she said, standing. Her head spun. The rum had put her down, and
it wasn’t through with her.
“I think he’s been bitten.”
“Hey, Eric,” she said, stepping from the back and into her store. Eric sat at one
of the tables, picking at the frayed and stained red and white checked tablecloth with his right hand. His left rested on his .357 Magnum, which lay on the
table between the salt and the pepper.
“Miss Misty,” he said, looking up at her. Crate was wrong. Tasgal didn’t look
sixteen. Typically more like eighteen, she thought, but today he looked a hard
thirty. His skin, usually a healthy pink, was pasty. The flesh around his eyes was
dark and puffy. The gauze bandage around his right forearm oozed blood.
“You okay?”
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“I need a drink,” he said.
“Some coffee?”
“A drink.”
“Okay,” she said. “Rum or gin?”
“Rum,” he said. He picked at the blood-soaked bandage and winced.
“Be right back,” she said.
She stepped past Crate, who stood watching Eric Tasgal with weary eyes.
As she left the room, Tasgal said something to Crate. She wasn’t sure what it
was.
In the bedroom, Charlie sat rooted to the edge of the bed with booze in his
hand and fear in his eyes. She grabbed her rum from the nightstand.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked, his eyes wide beneath a creased brow.
“He needs a drink,” she said, and left. As she walked down the hall, Charlie
turned on the television. From the sound of it, the screaming lunatic with the
giant glasses was no longer on. The bell above the door rocked back and forth.
Crate was gone, no doubt hunkering down on the bench with Bilbo Baggins at
his feet.
“Thanks,” Tasgal said, grasping the bottle of rum by the neck with his left
hand. His right hand rested on the table. Misty twisted off the bottle cap and
set it on the table. “Double thanks.”
He took a hit from the bottle, just a little one. He made a hissing sound.
“My pleasure, Eric,” she said, touching the back of the chair before her,
steadying herself. She wondered if he could tell how drunk she was. “What
happened?”
“Beistle is a madhouse,” he said, looking up at her and shaking his head,
slack-jawed. “It’s just… it’s just gone.” He extended his left hand toward the
chair. “Sit down.”
She pulled out the chair, sat down, and watched as he gathered his thoughts.
He stared down at table, and she allowed her gaze to drop to the seeping bandage. There was blood on the tablecloth. Tasgal sighed, and the mother inside
of her, the mother she never got to be, wanted to place her hand on his. The
wound on his arm—the very fact that he’d probably been bitten by one of those
things—dictated otherwise. She would not touch him.
She looked at her bottle of Jamaican rum with a sense of loss, wishing she’d
grabbed a glass on the way into the store.
“They’re all dead,” Tasgal said. She looked up from his arm, worried that he
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noticed her staring at it. He hadn’t. His eyes were on the bottle of rum, which
he knocked back once more.
“Everybody in town?”
“God, no,” he said, looking her in the eye. “Jim, Clark, fucking Cardo. Sheriff
Kosana. Every cop in Beistle.”
“My god,” she said. She brought her hand to her mouth, mostly because it
was what she was probably supposed to do. In truth, the news did not shock
her. It saddened her, yes, but shocked? No. She’d watched the news for the past
two days. She’d seen the mutilated dead bodies of three people who bought
from her several times a week staggering through her parking lot. She was
officially through being shocked.
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E l e v e n
“We got the first call, God, was that just yesterday?” Tasgal stared at her, eyes
wide, not waiting for an answer. She saw the gears of realization grinding
behind his eyes. “No, yeah. Two days ago. I’d just come into the station. Was
expecting another day of doing nothing, you know?”
“I know,” she said, suddenly wanting to hear what he had to say. Needing
to hear it.
“It started at the hospital. It came through the switchboard as an assault,
but by the time I got there, there was more than one report, and…”
He drank a little more rum, and then held the bottle out to her. She shook
her head.
“No. You should pace yourself.”
“Gah,” he said, looking at the bottle as if it were a bee that had just stung
him. “You’re probably right.”
“I drink a lot of water when I drink,” she said, and just like that they were
talking casual. Just shooting the shit.
“Huh?”
“Yeah. No hangover the next day.”
“Huh,” he said, looking around. “There anything to eat?”
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“Of course. Cold cut sandwich okay?”
“Perfect.”
“Coming right up,” she said, wishing he’d said a candy bar or a bag of chips
would do. Her eyes felt like they each wanted to do their own thing, and she
wasn’t convinced that she could make it to the deli.
She managed to get there, taking her time, laughing once when she knocked
over some canned soup. She downed a cup of water and made Tasgal a hearty
sandwich, piling ham and roast beef and three different cheeses high between
slices of home-baked bread. She grabbed a bag of chips from the rack, and
served it all up with a cup of ice water.
He downed the first half of the sandwich in silence then looked up at her.
“Mm,” he said, pulling a napkin from the fingerprint-stained silver dispenser and wiping his mouth. A drop of blood fell from his bandage and onto
the table. He wiped it up. “God, this hurts.”
“Oh, damn,” she said, hopping up and returning to the table with a bottle of
aspirin. She shook two into his hand, and when he asked for more she tapped
out three more. He downed them with ice water. He was done with the rum
for now.
“I was listening to the radio on the way over here, and let me tell you, I
don’t give a shit what some of those jokers are saying. These are dead people.”
“I know,” she said. “You probably saw the…” she nodded toward the front
door.
“Yeah.”
“Mark Willits and his two kids.”
“God,” he said. “I saw Connie at the hospital. She was dead. I saw Mark and
Junior a little later, I think it was.” He frowned, looking around the room and
blinking his eyes. He looked like he was about to pass out. She wondered if it
was booze or blood loss that was taking hold.
“Did you lose a lot of blood?” she said, nodding toward his arm.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and looking hard at the rum. “It hurts like a
bastard, but it’s not that bad. Still, you know, what the hell does this mean?”
She didn’t say anything.
“I think it’s starting to get infected,” he said, eyeing his right hand curled
atop the table like some dead thing. Were the fingertips a little bluish? “Think
maybe you can cut it off for me? I’m sure you got something in the deli that
could do the job fast and clean.”
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She opened her mouth, and that was all. No words came. Tasgal’s smile
surprised her. “Kidding,” he said. He frowned again. “I think. And look at this,”
he indicated the bottle of rum. “I contaminated your rum.”
“No,” she said, trying to sound as if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind.
“It’s—”
“I understand,” he said. “I should have asked for a glass.”
She waited for him to resume his fractured tale, and suddenly she wanted
another hit from her rum. She was grateful for the other bottle in her kitchen.
“I watched Mark and Junior pull Nelly to the ground,” he said, and his chest
heaved once. She thought he was going to cry. He didn’t. “I wanted to shoot
them, both of them. Nelly too, because by then there was no helping her. She
was still alive, but, you know?”
Misty nodded once, trying to remember what the news had said about
bites. She’d heard so much over the past forty-eight hours, so many conflicting
reports, so much confusion.
“By then, I’d already gotten this,” he shook his head. “We were at Proust’s.
You know Proust’s, right?”
“Yeah,” Misty said. Proust’s was a large supermarket owned and operated
by Eddie Proust and his family. Proust was a loudmouth and an asshole, and
Misty wouldn’t lose any sleep if Tasgal’s tale ended with Proust getting his
windpipe eaten out.
“We answered a call there,” he said. “Clark and me. This was after the hospital, I think.” He looked confused. “Wait, yeah, of course it was after the hospital. After the hospital and the funeral home. By then the National Guard was in
town. Not a lot of them, and I got the idea that they were just as confused and
messed up as the rest of us. Things weren’t holding together all that much.”
The bell above the door rang. Misty jumped, and Tasgal’s hand twitched
toward his gun. Crate shuffled in. He saw the looks on their faces and raised his
eyebrows, amused.
“More of them?” Misty said.
Crate shook his head, looked at her as if she were stupid. “You should drink
a little more,” he said. “Me? I’m gonna smoke. Want some?”
Misty blinked at him.
“What?” Crate asked, half grinning. “You afraid the Beaver here is going to
slap on the cuffs if we break out the grass?”
Tasgal laughed once.
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“See?” Crate said, and vanished into the back.
Tasgal looked at her, his face scrunched up, trying to remember where he
was.
“Proust’s,” she said.
“Yeah, Eddie Proust had a line of about fifty people outside of his store, and
he called us out to make sure nobody went nuts and looted the place. There
were two of us. Kosana was dead by that point, so things were already falling
apart.”
“How?” she asked. She’d had a short fling with Mac Kosana, back when she
was young and he was a deputy.
“Some drunk from up in the hills blew his chest out with a shotgun.”
Misty gasped. Despite her earlier feelings, real shock was setting in. Tasgal
wasn’t telling a complete story, but he made sense, what he was saying was
real, it had all happened to him. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his
voice. It was in the air, and she suddenly found herself quite afraid. It was just
outside her door, and before long it would be inside, looking for something to
eat.
“Eddie had the doors locked, and he was standing behind the glass all
horse-faced and stupid, hollering for everyone to get back. His brothers were
in there with him, and they all had shotguns. Hell, I think Ella had one, too.
Cardo was in there with him, trying to keep the peace. Talk some sense into
the idiot, or something.”
Crate walked back into the room with a joint hanging from his lip, nesting
in the fibers of his beard.
“Here,” he said, and handed another joint to Tasgal along with a pack of
matches. “On the house. It ain’t shit, too.”
“Thanks,” Tasgal said. He lit up and sucked in, eyes closed. “That’s nice. I
don’t do this so much lately.” Crate left and the bell jingled. When Tasgal offered
the joint to Misty, she shook her head and waited for him to go on.
“Oh, yeah—sorry.” He shrugged. “Clark and I got separated, and when
Eddie opened the doors, everyone rushed in, and then it was just me and Clark,
looking at each other. I remember looking around, making sure there weren’t
any of those things around, and that’s when the yelling started inside.
“We went in, and Proust was standing there with Keith, um, I’m not sure
what his last name is, the little red-headed guy.”
Misty nodded even though she didn’t know who he was talking about.
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“That Keith guy was screaming in his face, and everyone else was yelling,
and that’s when I realized what was going on. Eddie had hiked prices.”
“Oh, jeeze,” she said.
“Yeah. Through the roof,” Tasgal said. He grabbed the rum and took a shot,
followed it with water. “Ah.”
“How’s your arm? Aspirin kicking in yet?”
“I think so,” he said, and held the joint up to his face, crossing his eyes a bit
to look at it. “The idiot was asking something like five bucks for a dozen eggs.
Two dollars for a can of beans. Like he was in his right mind.” Tasgal shook his
head, fell silent.
“What happened?”
“That Keith guy shot him is what happened. Just reached up with a little
pea-shooter and popped him right in the face. He dropped, and then everyone
with a gun started shooting. I saw Cardo on the other side of the crowd, falling
back, and then they charged the exit. I did the only thing I could do. I ran like
hell, out of the store and around back.
“Things quieted down eventually, and then they came back and started
cleaning the place out. There were a few gunshots inside, but I think they were
just shooting the dead ones who were coming back, you know?
“I got back to my car. Clark was sitting in the passenger seat, holding his leg
and leaning against the door. He was bleeding real bad. I should have thought,
but I didn’t, I just wanted to get the hell out of town. I drove this way for about
ten minutes, I guess, passing up those things, passing up people who waved for
me to stop and help them. They looked confused, like ‘Where the hell is the cop
going?’ and I just kept going, talking to Clark, telling him that he was going to
be okay. He’d grunt, and when he stopped grunting, I guess I just figured he’d
passed out.”
He shook his head, laughed once. He looked at the bottle of rum as if were
someone he didn’t trust.
“Then he sat up and, well, there it is.” He indicated the blood-soaked bandage with his left hand, which shook. “I screamed and emptied my gun into his
head.” Tasgal crinkled his nose. He looked like a little boy who’d just stepped
on a caterpillar. “He’s still in the car.”
He placed the joint in the ashtray. He considered the forgotten remnant of
his sandwich, picked it up, and took a bite.
“You should probably lie down,” Charlie said from behind Misty. She looked
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back at him. He stood near the door leading into the back, the bottle of gin in
his right hand.
“Oh, hey, Charles,” Tasgal said.
“Hey,” Charlie said, walking over to them. He placed a hand on Misty’s
shoulder. “Misty has a first aid kit in the bathroom. You want me to take a look
at that?”
Misty looked up at Charlie, surprised. Sitting on his ass and running his
mouth was Charlie’s speed. Actually offering to chip in and help? She thought
maybe a call to the Vatican was in order, for surely she’d been on hand for a
bona fide miracle. Then again, Charlie was scared, and Eric was an authority
figure, an honest-to-God police officer charged with serving and protecting.
Charlie felt safer with him around.
“No,” Tasgal said. “Not now, anyway. I have a kit, too, in the car. I pulled over
and took care of it. Burns like a bastard. I don’t know why I didn’t pull him out
back there.”
“We can take care of that,” Misty said. “Crate will be happy to light him
up.”
“No,” Tasgal said. “Just wait. Things might, you don’t know… things might
be better tomorrow. His wife will want to bury him. His head is mostly gone.”
Misty felt Charlie looking at her. She kept her eyes on Tasgal. He looked up
at her, and then to Charlie. “Yes,” Tasgal said. “I need to lie down.” He looked at
Misty, heavy-lidded, face pale, eyes dark. “Would that be okay, Miss Misty?”
“Of course,” Misty said. She didn’t think she sounded very enthusiastic.
“Okay,” Tasgal said, standing up a little too quickly, tipping over his chair.
“Sorry. I just, I’ve been awake for, shit, how long?”
“A long time,” Misty said. She picked up the joint, careful not to touch the
end that had been in his mouth. She mashed it into the ashtray.
“A long time, yeah,” he said, looking down at his arm. “Let me take care of
this first. Don’t wanna leak all over your sofa.”
Forgetting his gun at the table, he left, dragged himself along like a dead
thing. The bell jingled. Misty walked over to the television and turned it on.
Tasgal returned with his first aid kit and disappeared into the bathroom. The
news bounced from one disaster to another, and it wasn’t long before Misty
realized that five minutes had gone by without a single mention of the walking
dead. Riots, looting, open war in the Middle East, Soviet saber-rattling, and
cities going up in flames. The dead may have triggered these events, but they
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sure as hell weren’t doing the looting or firing the guns or threatening to fill
the sky with nukes.
“Okay,” Tasgal said, holding up his arm. He’d replaced the bandages. “Good
as new.”
Misty nodded toward Charlie.
“Follow him,” she said. “Get some rest, Eric. We’re good for now. We’ll wake
you if we need you.”
“Thanks,” Tasgal said, and took a step toward Charlie. “Oh,” he said, and
grabbed his gun from the table before disappearing into the back.
She watched the news for a few more minutes, turning the dial from channel to channel, hoping to hear more on what to do about bites. No luck. They
then showed dimly lit footage of a severed human head trying to bite the hand
of a man who, laughing, waved his fingers inches from its mouth. She sighed
and turned the damned thing off.
“Nothing we can do for him,” Crate said. The sun had gone down, and the
street lamp painted the parking lot a sickly piss yellow. Bilbo Baggins sat on
his haunches, watching the road. Misty could smell the blackened heap on the
gravel, but it no longer bothered her. It could be the lingering aroma of a cookout—hot dogs and ribs and half-pound burgers. The charred bodies were far
enough away from her to look like dirt or compost or something in the gloom.
“No,” she said, and that wasn’t really true. Admitting to herself, much less
to Crate, what she knew they should do was about as easy as admitting that
the smell of the Willits going up in flames had actually made her mouth water
a little. “Well, there is but it’s ugly.”
“You think I should shoot him,” Crate said, leaning forward and scratching
Bilbo Baggins on the back of his head. The dog looked back at them, exhaled. It
sounded a lot like a sigh.
Misty looked at Crate. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she said nothing.
Crate could take that however he wanted to.
“I’m not going to do that,” he said. “Make too much of a mess in there.”
He shrugged. “And I’m not really all that comfortable with shooting a sleeping
police officer, particularly a nice boy like Eric.”
“I know, Crate, and I feel the same way. What if we—” She stopped, tensing
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as the distant sound of an engine reached them. The sound swelled, headlights
illuminated the road, and a truck passed, braking before it left their view, backing up, and turning into the parking lot.
“Hm,” Crate said, stood up, cocked his rifle.
“I think it’s Huff,” Misty said, squinting into the headlights, which were
promptly extinguished.
“Oh,” Crate said, letting his aim go limp.
The truck stopped and Huffington Niebolt got out, all six feet and six inches
of him. Strong thick arms and skinny legs and a gut that stretched the fabric of
his blood-stained sleeveless t-shirt. The yellow light gleamed on his bald head,
and his beard hung in a single braid, rested on the bulge of his belly.
“Hey, Huff,” Crate said.
“Hello.” Huff looked tired and lost. He sniffed the air and shot a glance at
the remains of the Willits family. “Everybody okay here?”
“Not everybody,” Misty said. “But we are. Where’s Connor?” Three days
ago, Huff’s youngest son had been with him when they stopped in for Cokes
on the way south.
Huff shook his head. He looked down at the bloodstained fabric of his shirt
for just a hair of a second and then resolutely looked elsewhere.
“Oh, God,” Misty said, walking to him, wrapping her arms around him. “Oh,
Huff.” He was stiff. He didn’t return her embrace. She pulled away and looked
up into his pock-marked face.
“How many have you seen in town?” he asked, and his breath stank of
whisky.
“Just those three,” Misty said, stepping back and indicating the blackened
heap. “The Willitses.”
“Huh,” Huff said. “Three?”
“Not sure where Connie is.”
“Any of my boys come through here?”
“Samson was here earlier. He met up with some kids from Fresno. Took
them up to your place.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Safe. How’re you, Crate?”
“Been better, been worse,” the old man said, shrugging. “I’m sorry about
your boy.”
“Me, too,” Huff said. “He didn’t really suffer, so I guess we should be grateful
for the little things.”
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“We should,” Crate said. “It’s really bad out there?”
“Worse than bad,” Huff said, knotting his brow. “It’s the end.”
“You need anything, Huff?” Misty asked, attempting derail one of Huff’s
end-of-the-world spiels before it really got rolling. What was happening was
worse than anything Huff could prattle on about; she didn’t care to hear him
tack any of his insane ideas onto it. “Something to eat?”
“Nah,” the big man said. “I got everything I need at home. I just saw you two
sitting here and figured I’d check in.” He looked back at the road. “I can’t see
why there would be many of them out this way, but if you feel safer, you’re both
welcome up at our place, okay?”
“Thanks, Huff,” Misty said. “I think we’re gonna stay here for now. Charlie is
inside, drunk off his ass, and Eric Tasgal is asleep on the couch in the back.”
“He’s bit,” Crate added.
“Oh,” Huff said, drawing back his head. “That’s not good.”
“No,” Misty said.
They exchanged a few more words, and then Huff left. Misty and Crate sat
down. Bilbo Baggins farted and whined.
“That bite,” Misty said.
“We really don’t know anything about it.”
“The television says the bites get infected.”
“I haven’t watched a lot of TV since this started, but I watched a little, and
here’s what I heard: someone talking about UFOs and aliens, someone else
blaming it on Tricky Dick and voodoo at the same damn time, and Pat Robertson saying that Jesus was getting back at us for of Roe v. Wade. You’ll understand if I don’t put a lot of stock in what I hear on that television in there,
honey,” he said, scratching his beard. “Now, infection? Bites do that. I could bite
you right now, and if you didn’t take care of it, it would get infected.”
“We’re talking about a bite from a dead man.”
“I know,” he said, knotting his brow. “I know. But we have to wait.”
“For?”
“Wait to see how he is in a few hours.”
“Wait for him to die,” she said.
“Yeah,” Crate said, eyes wide. “Maybe so, yeah.”
“We could try to get him some antibiotics.”
“In town? In Beistle?” He looked at her until he was sure she would not
answer. “No, we can’t.”
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No one said anything for a few minutes. The night air was cool. Not too cool
but Misty shivered anyway. She drew close to Crate, resting her head on his
bony shoulder and closing her eyes.
“Hup,” Crate said, nudging her. She sat up and blinked at him.
“I fell asleep?”
“For a few minutes. Look.” He nodded toward the road. A dead body shuffled through the parking lot. Crate nudged Bilbo Baggins with his foot, but the
dog was out cold.
“Dumb dog,” Crate said, standing up and stepping from the deck and onto
the gravel. He cocked his rifle.
At first glance, she thought maybe Tasgal had died in his sleep. He was sprawled
across her couch on his back, his left arm hanging to the floor, his mouth open.
His gun lay on the floor, beneath his hand. He seemed even paler than before
but that could just have been a trick of the dim light cast from the standing
lamp next to the couch. His wounded forearm rested on his chest. A quartersized circle of blood had seeped up through the fresh bandages. His bleeding
had all but stopped.
Misty took a step backward, into Crate, and then Tasgal snorted and
changed positions. His eyes drifted open, fluttered, and for a second her heart
turned to ice. Then he mumbled something, closed his eyes, and was asleep
once more.
“He got a fever?” Crate said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Check him.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“Jesus, woman,” Crate said. He leaned his rifle against the wall and walked
over to where Tasgal lay, blocking her view of him.
“Nnn.”
“Hey, Eric,” Crate said. “It’s just me, okay?”
“Mm.”
“Just checkin’ to see if you got a fever.”
Misty waited, heart racing, waiting for Tasgal to take a bite out of Crate’s
hand, wondering if she’d be able to use the rifle on both of them.
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“Okay, you’re good,” Crate said, picking up Tasgal’s gun. “Here’s your iron,
cowboy.”
He stepped away from the couch, picked up his rifle, and looked at Misty.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Mild fever,” Crate said, nudging past her. “We should keep an eye on it.
Poor kid.”
Misty stood there for a while, watching the steady rise and fall of Tasgal’s
chest until Charlie spoke up behind her, making her jump.
“What’s going on?” His words were slurred. She wondered how hard he’d
hit the gin. She wondered how much was left, and how the hell she was going
to get more, once the bottle was dry. “He okay?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at Charlie. He leaned against the wall, eyelids
heavy. “You’re messed up.”
“You look worried.”
She sighed. Tasgal stirred again. She held her breath, stared at his chest
until she was certain that he was still alive. “Do you have any rope?”
“Now, don’t let your head...”
“I have an extension cord somewhere, I think.”
“You ought to come to bed.”
Charlie didn’t drink much, but when he did he got as horny as a teenager.
He thought he did, anyway. His dick was about as useful as a banana slug.
“You ought to go to bed, you useless turd,” she said, and left. Behind the
counter, she turned on the television and watched the end of Nixon’s address
to the nation. The criminal bastard looked frightened, far more so than he had
while getting publicly grilled over the Watergate fiasco. This pleased her.
Outside, Crate’s stupid dog barked. The door opened and Crate came
through and strode toward the back, noticed her behind the counter and skidded to a halt.
“Oh. Four more coming. I think the party’s starting.”
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T w e l v e
The men burst from within the small buildings at the end of the road, pointing
their shotguns and screaming at them to get down, get the fuck down, right
now, and Richard did the only thing that made any sense. He got down, and just
like that his face met with a gritty boot. He hit the ground with blood erupting
from his nose.
One of them was on his back, knee pressed into his spine, prying his bloodied hands from his face, binding his wrists and ankles. He screamed and he
tasted dirt and blood, but he did not fight. They had shotguns, and you did not
fight shotguns.
There were four of them, including the one they’d picked up in town, and
they moved with awful speed and precision. To Richard’s left, Kimberly rolled
and shrieked, her ankles and wrists also bound. Samson was on Colleen’s back,
clutching her hair in his fists, breathing into her ear in a very ugly way, and the
man who had broken Richard’s nose and bound his wrists had now planted his
foot firmly in the middle of Richard’s back, pinning him to the ground.
Also bound, Daniel screamed and struggled, rolled away from his own attacker, who pumped a foot into his stomach. Guy was big and it took two of
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them to slam him against the pickup truck—Daniel’s attacker joined in, ramming the stock of his shotgun into Guy’s stomach.
“Guh,” Guy said, buckling forward. They slammed him against the truck
once more. Richard closed his eyes and waited for it all to end, and when it
didn’t he opened his eyes and watched as Colleen was dragged toward Guy.
Samson and his friends sounded happy, and Richard screamed, and Kimberly
screamed, and Daniel writhed in the dirt. The pressure on Richard’s back went
away, and his attacker stepped away.
Now all four of them clustered around Colleen and Guy, and a shotgun
leaned against the truck. Guy screamed and Colleen screamed. A shotgun
leaned against the truck, and Daniel sat up, his hands free and working the
rope binding his ankles.
A shotgun leaned against the truck and Daniel crawled toward it.
Guy saw the knife descending toward his genitals. He thought: Oh, God, please let
me die right now, please let my heart stop. And: Please let the blade be sharp.
God met him halfway: his heart did not stop, but the knife separated his
penis from his body as easily as a cruel child plucks the wings from a dragonfly.
The pain was pretty much everything that ever was, all at once, and everywhere. Later, while lying in the dark and waiting to die and trying to navigate
the minefield of his confused and fevered thoughts, he thought that the pain
had been divine, if such a thing was possible.
Something exploded. His ears rang. Wet chunks of something pattered his
bare legs.
They let go of him and he slid down the truck and onto his bare ass, blood
jetting from the hole between his legs. Screaming, screaming—everyone was
screaming—he raked his hands through the dirt, brought up handfuls, and
pressed them into his wound. His pants and underwear were pooled between
his thighs. He seized them and pressed them to his mud-packed wound. He
was knocked to the ground, and the black spots throbbing at the corners of the
world got bigger. Guy went away.
He spent most of the night swimming in and out of consciousness, and
when clarity came, it brought one simple and terrible realization, an unwel-
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come and searing thing that he turned over again and again, tried to make
sense of: They’d cut off his dick. They’d cut off his dick.
And: he’d slowed the bleeding. Somehow he had. He was still bleeding, he
could feel it, but it was a stinging trickle. He could last a long time like this.
He spoke occasionally to Daniel and Richard, who were nearby, but mostly
he slept and quivered and cried out in pain, and when the birds sang and the
world around him emerged in shades of darkest blue, he swam up from the
haze of shock and delirium long enough to ask God to let him kill at least one
of the bastards before they killed him.
The idiot, the fucking idiot, he didn’t knot the rope tight enough. Now it slipped
away and Daniel’s hands were free, and he had a chance, damn it, they all had
a chance now, because the idiots were crowded around Colleen and Guy, they
were watching her, and he could see her between their shifting bodies. He
could see what they forced her to do. The ropes came away from his ankles
with ease. Guy screamed threats and Colleen wept and Daniel crawled. His fingers touched polished wood, and the shotgun felt heavy in his hands.
He roared like some animal and rose and pressed both barrels to the upper
back of the one with the knife, the one who didn’t know how to tie a knot, the
one who’d been stupid enough to set down his shotgun. He pulled the trigger.
They were on him, screaming and cursing and kicking and punching. His
head lolled, and the world went black, and at some point he realized that he
was lying in the back of a pickup truck, bouncing and jostling and no doubt
being driven to his death. He screamed around the rag packed into his mouth.
It reeked of oil and gasoline. His tongue burned.
Richard, similarly muffled and screaming, stared into his eyes. Guy lay next
to Richard, quivering. The truck bounced and rocked, and eventually it came
to a stop.
They dragged Daniel from the back of the truck, took off his clothes and
tied him to a tree. Two of them. Just two. The other was someplace else. The
other was with Colleen and Kimberly. He’d never see either of them again.
Samson and the other one pulled Guy from the truck first. He was as limp
as a rag doll, a corpse before rigor mortis sets in. His wrists and ankles were
bound, the bloodied wad of his pants and underwear clamped between his
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thighs. He still wore his shoes and socks. Richard came easier, helping himself
along. Both were thrown onto the ground facing Daniel.
“You’re so dead, man,” the other said, holding a knife to Daniel’s stomach.
He looked a lot like Samson, only older and shorter. His nose was crooked, a
bad break that had never been properly set. “I ought to open you up right here,
you motherfucker. Watch your guts pop right out.”
“Stop, Max,” Samson said, walking over to them and putting a hand on the
other one’s shoulder. “I want to do it as badly as you do, but we gotta wait for
Dad.”
“With all the shit that’s happening, do we even know he’s gonna be back?”
He pressed the tip of the blade into Daniel’s chest, etched a short line across
his breastbone. Samson pulled him away, and Daniel allowed his head to hang
forward. He closed his eyes.
“We’re waiting.” Samson said again, and Daniel heard the threat in his
voice. “Okay?”
“Faggot,” Max whispered, punching Daniel in the stomach.
“Hoo,” Daniel said. A thick rope of blood and spit spun to the ground.
“Get in the truck,” Samson said. Daniel opened his eyes and lifted his head
in time to see Max stomping away toward the truck. He stopped and kicked
Richard in the lower back. Richard writhed, his face red, the veins standing out
in his forehead.
Daniel started making blubbering sounds under his breath.
“What’s that shit,” Samson said. “You praying? You believe in God?”
Daniel felt a warm slick of saliva fall out of his mouth and separate from
him. He breathed twice. “No.”
“No? Huh.” Samson seemed a little surprised. “You looked to me like maybe
you did. Oh, well, I was just gonna let you know that he probably wasn’t gonna
help you. Guess you know that already though, huh?”
Samson walked away, got into the truck, backed out, and drove away, the
truck rocking along the path, moving downhill and away from them.
There the three of them sat in the falling dark for a long time, under the
bats and breezes.
“How tight are your ropes?” Richard asked at last.
“Tight,” Daniel said, wriggling in place, the bark of the tree grinding into
the flesh of his back. He was bound across the chest, beneath the armpits. The
rope was looped around, circled his arms at the elbows, looped around again
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and again, above and below his knees. His feet and hands tingled, sensation
fading.
“God,” Richard said, and gave himself over to panic. He thrashed and
screamed through clenched teeth. After a while, he fell quiet.
Guy grunted, his hands twitching behind his back. He fell silent, grew
still. He said something, little more than a mumble. Something about Colleen,
maybe. It was hard to tell.
Colleen. And Kimberly. God.
Daniel let panic take him, as well, screaming and crying and struggling
against the ropes binding him to the tree. The cut in his chest burned, and his
face felt like a toothache. The rope and the bark dug in, and yet somehow he
eventually nodded off.
“Gah,” someone said, and Daniel opened his eyes. Night had fallen. The
forest floor was awash in moonlight and shadow.
“Wuzzat?” Daniel said, and tried to move. His feet and hands were no longer
tingling, they were simply dead. Something moved on the ground before him.
“Get,” Richard said, growling. “Get away.”
Daniel blinked into the black and silver gloom, and the form before him
suddenly made sense. The coyote tugged at the blood-stained bundle of denim
and cotton pressed between Guy’s legs.
“Go,” he tried to say, his voice ragged, like his throat. He coughed, and the
coyote twitched, its plume of a tail dropping between its legs, its head low. It
growled, tugged the cloth once more. An engine hummed, light played across
the trees, and the coyote vanished.
Daniel raised his head. The pickup truck crunched to a halt, pretty much
in the same place as before, and the doors popped opened. The headlights
blinked out and were replaced by the single bobbing beam of a flashlight. It
drew close, its circle of light gliding over Richard’s body, pausing for a moment
on his glowering face before leaping over to Guy’s curled and still form, and
then moving toward Daniel and filling his eyes.
He squinted, and the person holding the flashlight stepped up to him.
“You killed my boy,” the man said, dropping the hand holding the flashlight
to his side. Turning it off and pocketing it. He stared at Daniel in the scattered
moonlight. Blinded by the flashlight’s beam, it took a minute for Daniel to take
in the full shape of man. He was tall and bald, and his gray beard hung in what
looked like a triple braid down his chest and across his fat gut.
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“Eh,” Daniel said. He cleared his throat, said the only thing that came to
mind. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, stop that,” the man said. His voice was soothing, calm. “I’ll bet you’re
smarter than that, son.”
“Huh-huh-huh,” Daniel said, and realized that he was shaking. Samson
stood close behind the man who Daniel assumed was his father. Daniel let his
head hang forward.
“You killed Marcus,” the man said. Stepping closer. His breath reeked.
“Marcus wasn’t very smart, but he was my son, and you killed him. He’s the
second child I lost since all of this started.”
“Good,” Daniel said. His mouth was dry. This was a shame. He wanted to
spit in the creep’s face.
The man seized Daniel’s hair in his left hand and slammed the back of his
head against the tree. With his right he pressed the barrel of a small revolver
to Daniel’s cheek.
“Do it,” Daniel said.
“Not a chance, little boy,” the man said. He stepped back and holstered his
gun. “You’re gonna die tomorrow morning, badly, and I just want you to spend
the next few hours thinking about that, okay?”
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T h i r t e e n
“Brock?” Kimberly said, staring into Colleen’s face. They were somewhere; she
didn’t know where. Maybe in one of the three small cabins, impossible to be
sure.
Her friend stared back, but her eyes were empty. There was blood on Colleen’s face, a thick crimson stipple and a small drying coil of something on her
right cheek.
“Come on, Brock,” but Brock had nothing to say. She just stared and stared,
and sometimes her eyes fluttered shut, but mostly she just stared, silent and
unmoving except for her bottom lip—it quivered once or twice.
At some point, a semblance of clarity returned to her eyes, and Kim thought
that she’d gotten through. That was important, getting through to her friend. If
she got through, they could figure out how to get out of this.
She never got through. They came and took Colleen, who mumbled and
screeched and slapped her own face, and Kim lay alone, her hands and ankles
bound, but she was not alone for long.
“You’re not good enough for my daddy,” one of them said, and soon she
learned that he was Daniel’s brother, Jacob.
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“You’re good enough for me, though,” he said, grinning, and Kim screamed
and struggled against the ropes binding her ankles and wrists. “Oh, yeah.”
She cried and she screamed some more, and Jacob freed her hands and her
ankles and wrists and waved a gun in her face. She stared into the barrel and
knew it would be better if the bastard pulled the trigger but she wasn’t brave
enough to wish for it.
He didn’t. Instead, he led her into the forest and to a house of doors, where
he bound her to a stinking and stained cot. She wept and she screamed and she
wanted to sink her fingernails into his eyes, but the gun was in her face and
that was really all it took. She let it happen, God help her—she allowed him to
bind her to the cot, and that was it, at least she was still alive. She had a chance
yet, she just had to take it. If she fought, she’d be dead.
There were two dead bodies in the house of doors. They hung writhing
from chains and Jacob bragged that it was so easy, driving down to Santa Cruz
and picking up homosexual men and taking them back here. No one cared
about them; no one ever looked for missing fairies.
And no, he wasn’t one, he told her, slamming the handle of his gun into her
face, breaking her nose, and that’s when she realized that she probably should
have fought back or simply refused to lie on the cot. At the very least, she’d be
dead.
They carried Colleen through the forest. She kicked and she screamed, and
the trees spun and jerked and marched by in a blur. There was pain, distant
and dull, and there were faces, enraged and scowling and cursing. Samson was
no longer among them, she knew that much. There were four or five or six of
them, she did not know how many, but she knew that one of them was dead.
His blood was cool and tacky on her face. She’d looked into the open ruin of
his chest, her ears ringing, the air heavy with the reek of gunpowder and blood
and shit.
“That bastard,” one of them said, and it sounded to Colleen as if he were
crying.
“Fucking bastard,” someone else said. “Fuck.”
Her head jerked to the right, hard.
“Don’t hit her again,” someone said, but the words didn’t really make sense
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to her. She slept for a while, and for a time Kimberly was there and then she
wasn’t, and when Colleen opened her eyes there was no night and no day, only
darkness. She lay in darkness, seemingly alone, a soft mattress beneath her.
There was a pillow beneath her head. She rolled onto her side, pressed her face
into the pillow and inhaled. Fresh. It smelled so fresh, like home, and soon she
would be slaughtered. The world and hell had switched places, they were all
going to die like animals, and she was lying in a freshly made bed that smelled
like fabric softener.
Forms churned in the dark, not-really-there after-images like birthday
party flash-burns taking shape, and with them the ghosts of sensations. The
feel of Guy in her mouth, and his smell, his unwashed smell in her nose, the
little soft mound of flesh below his navel pressed to her face, the hairs tickling
her nostrils, and then the knife and the screams, the thunder and the blood.
What the hell had happened?
Colleen closed her eyes, for what it was worth, which was nothing: she
could still see Guy’s penis lying in the dirt, see a workboot-clad foot coming
down onto it. She slapped at her face and screamed until screaming wasn’t
really possible anymore. She didn’t fall asleep so much as shut down, and, mercifully, she did not dream.
She opened her eyes. Her left arm was extended, her hand resting on what
could only be a bedside table, the small room in which she lay cast in the cool
hues of early morning. Thin curtains covered the small room’s only window.
They fluttered. The air was fresh. She smelled dew and grass and dirt.
She sat up, looked around. There was a lamp on the bedside table. She
turned it on. There was a door leading outside and a door leading to what she
assumed was a bathroom. There was a chair in the corner and a glass of water
beside the lamp. She brought it to her lips, and only after it was half gone did
she consider that it may have been spiked with something. She considered it,
and decided it didn’t matter. Things could not get worse, she reasoned, and
finished the rest of the water.
She looked down at herself. She still wore her jeans. They were filthy, the
crotch dark with menstrual blood. She remembered Guy, the knife, and the
flash of red blossoming just before she’d squeezed shut her eyes. Her stomach
hitched, and the water she’d just swallowed arced out of her mouth and onto
the floor. The strength to stand left her and she collapsed onto the bed, moaning.
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Time passed. She went away again, and when she came back, it was
brighter. There was a new smell in the room—cheap cologne. She sat up. Two
people stood, watching her. A man of maybe sixty-five, tall and bald and built
like a fortress, a fluffy gray beard hanging down to his stomach. A woman, early
fifties, her dark hair pulled back from her face, her body concealed in a shapeless red dress that looked homemade.
“How are you feeling?” the man said, pulling up the chair from the corner.
It creaked beneath his weight. The woman remained behind him.
Colleen’s head swam. Her gaze drifted from the man and the woman to the
lamp. She lay on her side, staring at it. Guy’s screams seemed to have gotten
trapped in her head, bounced around, kicked up echoes of echoes. The smell of
blood was in her nose.
The woman stepped toward Colleen, sat down beside her, reached for her
hand. She didn’t pull away, let her hand be held, but regarded the new hands
holding her own like the jaws of a pit bull playing nice.
“I’m Huffington Niebolt, Sam’s dad,” said the man with the craggy face and
the ridiculous beard. “But they all just call me Huff, so you can, too, okay?”
Colleen’s body rattled. She was shaking now. When had that begun, and
when would it stop? The woman scooted closer, put an arm around her. “Shhh,”
she whispered. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“This is my wife, Embeth,” the man said, and Colleen allowed her eyes to
drift from the lamp and to his face. He smiled. His perfect teeth seemed out of
place in the weathered, wrinkled bed of his face. “She’s going to take care of
you, okay? Get you all cleaned up. What’s your name?”
Colleen closed her eyes, pressed her face into her hands. Her chest heaved
once, twice, and the tears came.
“You’re upset, I understand,” the man said. “I’m upset, too. This is hard
enough for you, I know, without everything else that’s going on. But we have to
work together here, okay? What’s your name, honey?”
Colleen allowed the woman to guide her into a sitting position. She touched
Colleen’s chin, gave it a little nudge upward. “Tell him.”
“Cuh,” Colleen said through her tears, snot bubbling from her nose. She
tried again, her words barely a mumble.
“Colleen? A pretty name for a pretty girl,” he said. “Am I right, Beth?”
“Yes,” the woman said. She stroked Colleen’s hair from her face, wiped her
eyes and nose with a soft cloth.
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“And the other girl? Kimberly, is it?”
Colleen looked up, met his gaze for the first time.
“Fu-fu-fuh,” she said, her eyes losing focus.
Huffington Niebolt smiled, shook his head. “What is it with you kids and
your potty mouths? My boys are all the same way. It’s all fuck this and fuck
that, man. Fuck you and fuck me.” He laughed, and it was the warm and welcoming laugh of a favorite uncle.
Colleen crushed her eyes shut and started keening, crushed her hands into
each other and used them joined to beat her chest as she howled and the howl
turned into a long, strained gasp.
“Okay, listen here,” he clapped his hands once, rubbed them together. “This
isn’t going anywhere, but that’s okay. You’re a little messed up right now, and
who can blame you? I don’t know what the hell is going on out there in the
world, but I can promise you this. It will not reach us here. We’re safe.”
She heard the chair creak, heard his footfalls moving toward her, felt his
fingers beneath her chin. He smelled of soap and cologne and mouthwash. Colleen looked up at him. She tensed, and the woman, her right arm around Colleen, pinned Colleen’s hands to her lap with her left hand.
“I got someplace to be this morning. Work to do. Gotta bury my boy. The
one your brother killed.”
Colleen gasped. The man’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t know?” he asked, genuinely surprised. He seemed to think
about it for a second, then shrugged. “Makes sense, I guess. From the sound of
it, things were out of hand.” His face darkened. “You were not supposed to see
what you saw. You weren’t supposed to be forced to do what they forced you to
do, darling, and I want you to know that I’m sorry.
“My boys can get a little crazy when I’m not around.” He took a deep breath.
“They don’t always listen to me, and one of them paid for it with his life because
of this.”
He stood up, scooted his chair back into the corner and stepped toward
the door.
“I lost another son, too, you know? My youngest,” he said, looking back.
“Him I don’t get to bury. Now clean yourself up and take a look around afterwards. We’ve got a nice place here.”
Huffington Niebolt left, closing the door behind him. Colleen wept until no
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tears would come, and the woman remained at her side, holding her hand. She
stopped crying, drifting away once more, the world retreating.
“Come on, honey,” the woman said, startling her.
“Huh?”
“You really need to get cleaned up. Down there especially,” the woman said,
once more easing Colleen into a sitting position. “Don’t want to get an infection.”
She stood, allowed herself to be led from the bed and to the bathroom,
where the woman turned on the shower and peeled away Colleen’s clothes,
balling them up and putting them on the floor next to the toilet.
The water was warm. Colleen allowed her face and her hair and her body
to be washed, and when a voice in her mind told her to attack this strange
bitch whose hands were lathering her hair, she ignored it. It was so distant, this
voice, and she could barely tell what it said.
The woman dressed her—clean panties with a thick cloth pad, a bra that
did not quite fit, and a red dress not unlike the one the woman wore. She saw
that her own filthy clothes had gone from the bathroom, surely out with the
rubbish. She sat her on the edge of the bed, and when the woman tried to slide
socks onto her feet, Colleen took them away and did it herself. The woman,
Embeth, handed Colleen a pair of slippers. They were comfortable.
Somewhere, a child laughed, and that wasn’t possible. Colleen shook her
head once, sharply, like a horse trying to shoo a fly.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked the woman.
Colleen blinked. No more tears. She was all cried out. She didn’t have to
close her eyes to see Guy’s dick lying in the dirt, but she could nudge the image
away and to the side, and when she did that the voice urging her to lash out
was louder. She’d listen to the voice. It was her only choice.
“No,” she said. She searched for something else to say, felt that other words
were in order, but her mind was buzzing and empty at the same time. She
choked down the urge to scream.
“Okay,” Embeth said. “Would you like to take a walk? The fresh air will be
good for you, Colleen, and there’s really something you should see.”
“Sure,” Colleen said, wondering where Guy’s dick actually was now. Still in
the dirt, in the same spot, drawing ants and flies? Where was Guy? Could you
die from blood loss that way?
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More laughter, more than one child, and she stood up, wondering if she’d
gone insane.
“Good,” Embeth said. She opened the door and stepped into the morning
light, and Colleen saw that her hair was pulled into a braid. It hung down past
her waist. Squinting, she trailed Embeth into a fenced-in yard roughly the size
of a basketball court. The façade of the building behind her was part of the
enclosure. Across from her, a door led into a building that ran the entire length
of the courtyard. There were picnic tables and scattered toys and a flowerbed
exploding with color. A see-saw, a swing set, a slide. The voice urging her to
attack this woman was choked into silence.
Three women sat on a bench, each of them wearing the same damned
amorphous red dress, their hair pulled back tight. One of them, clearly the
youngest of the three, was very pregnant. They watched four laughing children
chase one another around the courtyard. Embeth walked over to the other
women. She looked back at Colleen, smiling.
One of the children, a plain-faced little girl no older than six, ran up to her.
“Are you Miss Colleen?” she asked. Her front teeth were missing. She
grinned. “Wanna play with me?”
Colleen’s legs gave out, and she crumpled to the ground.
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F o u r t e e n
Scott Ardo, known to everyone in Beistle as Cardo since he was nine or ten, was
the first police officer to arrive at Proust’s. Ignoring the cries and the taunts of
those gathered outside of the store, he shouldered his way to the entrance and
rapped on the glass until Eddie Proust stopped ignoring him and came over.
“What?” Proust yelled, red-faced.
“You need to open up.”
“What for? We’re closed. Come back later.”
Proust stomped away and Cardo was left staring at the ghost of himself in
the glass door. He rubbed a hand over his stubbly head, leaned in close, looking
over the top of his sunglasses. Proust reappeared, eyebrows raised.
“You see what’s going on out here?” Cardo said. As if to accentuate his
point, someone bumped into him. His nose bent against the glass, left a greasy
smear.
Proust scowled. One of his meathead sons came over. He also scowled.
Looked just like his dear old dad, too. If he looked around, Cardo was sure he’d
see Proust’s meathead grandsons lurking about, as well, each of them scowling.
“Looks to me like the problem is out there,” Proust said, pressing his forefinger to the glass once for out and again for there.
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“You’re right,” Cardo said. “And you’re making it worse. These people are
coming through, one way or another. The longer you keep these doors locked,
the worse it’s gonna be when they come through.”
“I’ll shoot them if they break through these doors,” Proust said. “We’ve got
guns.”
“I’m sure you do, now,” Cardo said, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the cool glass. He opened them and looked at Proust. “When are
you gonna open for business?”
“When we’re ready,” Proust said. He looked at his watch. “Maybe an hour.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.”
From what he could tell, Proust and family had moved things around. Bags
of rice and beans and canned goods stood in heaps near the front of the store,
and some of the aisles had been roped off. A handwritten sign declared:
Someone bumped into Cardo again, and this time it felt intentional. He
looked back, and everyone looked everywhere but at him. He asked those
nearest him to back away. They did. He didn’t expect that level of courtesy to
last. He pointed to his ear and then to the door, cupped his hands around his
mouth and pressed them to the glass. It took Proust a few seconds to catch his
drift. He pressed his ear to the glass.
“Listen,” Cardo said. “I understand where you’re coming from, Eddie, but
you gotta help buy us some time, okay? Tasgal and Clark just radioed. They’re
on the way. They’ll help control the crowd, but you at least have to let me in,
make it look like we’re negotiating, buy ourselves some time.”
He pulled away from the glass. Proust regarded him with mistrust.
“Okay?” Cardo asked, not bothering to raise his voice.
Proust looked back at his son, who stepped away and vanished from
sight.
“You leave your gun outside.”
“No, I don’t,” Cardo said.
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Proust glowered at him.
“Open it.”
“Okay,” Proust said, jabbing a finger at the crowd. “Make them get back.”
Cardo told everyone to step back and quiet down for a second, and they
listened, though there were many taunts, and more than a few of the people in
the crowd cried bullshit.
“I’m going in,” Cardo yelled, palms held before him. “Just, please, everyone
calm down—he’s opening the doors soon, okay? We’re going to figure this out.
I can’t stop all of you from smashing these doors, but I’m asking you not to.
Proust and his sons are looking for a reason to start shooting their guns. Don’t
give them one, okay?”
Cardo turned away from the crowd and stared at Proust through the glass,
raised his eyebrows. Proust unlocked the door and Cardo slipped into the store
without incident.
“Jesus,” he said, leaning across the counter and looking Eddie Proust in the eye.
“This is a bad idea, man. You’re messing up big time.”
“This is America is what it is,” Proust said, sliding his holstered gun onto
his belt. “A lot might be changing out there, but that hasn’t.”
“Damn,” Cardo said, putting the customer service desk between himself
and the entrance. Proust’s boys carried shotguns in plain sight of the people
pressed against the glass storefront. They’d paraded them around for the last
five minutes, after Proust let them know the doors were opening in ten. He’d
given the crowd time to spread the word.
“Open up,” Proust said a few minutes later, and his son did. They filed in,
giving the shotgun a wide berth, looking around, eyes wide. There was a Proust
family member stationed the head of every aisle, each carrying a gun.
“Hey, Troy,” Eddie Proust said as Troy Matthews walked by and picked up
a can of kerosene. Proust smiled as if it were any old day. Matthews looked
dazed. There was a spot of blood on his cheek.
Bodies pressed in, and Cardo backed away. Tasgal and Clark were outside.
He saw flashes of them between the jostled forms pouring into the store. They
wouldn’t be able to do a damned thing. Cardo looked behind him, down the
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empty aisle and toward the back of the store. Wouldn’t be long now before
someone noticed the prices.
“Oh, come on, Eddie,” a short man with close-cropped red hair and a nose
that seemed too small for his face yelled, indignant. “This is ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry, Keith, it’s just business,” Proust said, speaking to the short man
in the same tough-luck tone he probably used on folks who tried to get a refund
on an open box of detergent. “You know as well as I do that the trucks aren’t
coming anytime soon. This is—”
Everyone yelled at once, and then the little redhead lifted his arm. There
was a muffled pop, and the back of Eddie Proust’s head flapped open as if on
a spring-loaded hinge. The crowd surged. By the time the air filled with the
thundering chorus of gunfire, Cardo was halfway to the back of the store.
He pushed through the swinging doors and into the back hallway, his gun
out and ready. He put his back to the wall and looked left, right—there was no
one around. At the end of the hall, a door led to the alley behind the store. It
was chained and padlocked shut. He could shoot the lock, but that might draw
unwanted attention.
The door to his left was labeled WOMEN. He wasn’t sure where MEN was,
considered lying low in the ladies’ room but then decided that he needed to be
higher. There was a two-way mirror located at the center of the store, between
the meat display and the bank of coolers containing milk and juice.
A door at the end of the hall led right. He pushed it open, revealed a staircase—eight steps leading up, a right turn, eight more steps.
He opened the door at the top of the stairs, and one of Proust’s meathead
grandsons turned and lifted the large gun in his small hands. Cardo looked
right town the barrel. It bobbed and weaved. There was a puff of smoke, and in
the close quarters the sound was like cannon fire. The bullet thrummed past
Cardo’s right ear and slammed into the wall behind him. His hands took over,
squeezed three rounds into the kid’s surprised face, pummeling it into some
kind of spurting cubist mess. The kid’s body hit the ground, the misshapen
sack that had been his head flopping forward onto his chest.
“Gah,” Cardo said, backing out of the small office and sliding down the wall,
watching a sticky wad of what must have been brain matter roll slowly down
the fabric of the boy’s Superman t-shirt. The dead boy’s hands twitched in his
lap, and he pissed his pants.
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Cardo leaned sideways and vomited onto the top step, and continued to
stare into the ruin of the kid’s head until the sight of it ceased to make sense.
“Stupid bastard,” Cardo screamed, looking at the gun in his hand and
throwing it onto the floor as if it were something hot. He wasn’t sure who he
was cursing—Proust, Proust’s dumb grandson, or himself.
Downstairs, there were more gunshots. Someone screamed in pain, and
the place sounded as if it were being ransacked. It quieted down eventually. He
waited for the sound of people—alive or dead—finding their way into the hall
and onto the stairs, but it never came.
Cardo stood up, took off his uniform shirt, stepped into the small office,
and used the shirt to cover the dead boy’s obliterated head. He picked up his
gun, holstered it. The massive gun that Proust had left in the care of his twelveyear-old grandson lay on the floor between the boy’s splayed legs. Crouching,
Cardo lifted it, wiped a spot of blood from the barrel onto his pants, and set the
gun atop the desk placed before the window that looked down on the interior
of the store.
He dragged the kid’s remains into the hall, careful to not upset the placement of the shirt that concealed the damage that he’d done. He stepped into
the small office, shut and locked the door.
For two hours, he watched as a steady stream of Beistle residents filed into
Proust’s Supermarket and picked the shelves clean. There were dead bodies
everywhere, and not the walking kind. As far as he could tell, all of them were
in about the same shape as the kid out on the landing.
He reached for his radio and found that he had lost it somewhere along
the way. He picked up the phone to confirm it was dead, and it was. There was
a small television on the floor beneath the desk. He picked it up, set it atop
the blotter, and plugged it in. The picture was a fuzzy mess, and no amount of
adjusting the antenna made a difference, so he turned it off and sat staring into
the store.
By the third hour, the place was empty. A dead body wandered in, seemed
to take the place in, and then backed out and dragged itself someplace else.
There were bullets for Proust’s gun in one of the desk drawers. He stood
up, replaced the bullet the kid had fired, pocketed the others. Sliding his new
gun into his belt, Cardo opened the door and left.
Downstairs, a dead man stood before the bathroom door, tugging at the
knob. A large piece of broken glass jutted from its throat. Smaller shards glis-
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tened like jewels across its forehead. Its cheeks hung in tatters revealing the
musculature of its jaw. Cardo was past the dead thing before it realized he was
even there.
His shoes crunched across broken glass. The acrid reek of blood and pine
oil and bleach hung in the air. He nearly slipped on blood. It pooled on the
tile, mingled with soft drinks and beer. Behind him, someone gasped—a raspy
exhalation that could have come from either the living or the dead. Unseen
feet shuffled across something that crinkled and crunched, and Cardo was
certain—absolutely certain—that it was a bag of Lay’s potato chips.
There was life in the parking lot, actual living life. People rummaged
through the products strewn across the ground. They stopped what they were
doing long enough to give him a once-over and promptly got back to their
work.
Not far from his cruiser, a dead woman lay near an overturned shopping
cart. The cart, no doubt once brimming with looted goods, was empty. A plastic
gallon jug lay empty in a puddle of milk mixed with the blood surrounding the
woman’s diminished head.
“You okay, Cardo?”
“Not really,” Cardo said, looking back at the person addressing him. Jerry
Smith, a long-haired stone-freak who’d never gotten the news that the Summer
of Love had actually ended. They’d shared a few grades in high school, but
nothing more. Sometimes it seems like no one in Beistle was going anywhere.
If this were so, then Jerry Smith was getting there a little faster than the rest
of them. “You?”
“Not really, man.” Smith had a case of beer under each arm. “I’m sorry
about this,” he said, indicating the beer.
“It’s no big deal,” Cardo said, walking over to his cruiser and cursing. The
front left fender of the car was crumpled in. The headlight was smashed and
half of the grille lay on the ground. The front wheel was both flat and twisted
in such a way that told him the axle was screwed.
Good thing home was a ten minute walk.
“I saw that happen,” Smith said. He sounded proud, eager to talk.
“Yeah?”
“You wanna know who did it?”
“Not really,” Cardo said, shrugging.
“It was Carl Perkins, from over in Harlow?”
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“This is a damn mess. Could still use the radio.”
“He got bit,” Smith said. “He was in bad shape.”
“You see any more pork around?”
“Pork?” Smith asked, and the confusion in his eyes cleared. He laughed, obviously surprised to hear Cardo using a word typically reserved for folks who
didn’t like the police. He shook his head. “No. Oh, yeah, wait. Tasgal. He got into
his car. I was still in there, but I saw him through the window. I think Clark was
with him. Clark got shot.”
“Oh,” Cardo said. “Damn it. Where did they go?”
“Away,” Smith said.
“Okay. How’s your mom?”
“She died yesterday.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cardo said, sliding behind the wheel of his cruiser
and checking the closed band radio. Dead air, distant voices muttering, and no
more.
“I got no place to go, really.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Smith opened his mouth to say something, but Cardo silenced him with an
upheld hand.
“Go home and drink your beer, Jerry,” he said, walking past the man and
toward Main Street. “Try not to get eaten.”
Cardo walked toward his house. Before he got there, he’d have to pass
through the heart of town. From the looks of it, that’s where all of the action
was.
He walked, and in his mind he saw the kid’s head open up and deflate. Eyes
open or closed, it didn’t matter: the kid was right there.
What else was he supposed to have done? Well, he didn’t want to think too
hard on that. He could have kicked the gun out of the kid’s hand. He was close
enough to do that. Kick the gun or kick the kid in the chest. Step to the side and
just pluck the gun out of his little hands.
The way the kid’s arms had quivered, it was obvious that he was having
a hard time holding up the hand cannon. Did he really think the kid had been
strong enough to cock the gun once more before Cardo could take two steps
and close the distance between them?
After firing, did the kid even have a decent grip on the thing? Had the gun
already left his small hands before Cardo opened fire?
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Three shots?
“God,” he said.
There was a large crowd gathered before the fire station. He walked
through them, head low, making eye contact sparingly. Bodies parted around
him. Familiar faces turned to watch him pass, eyes wide and eyes weary. And
guns; lots of guns. Rifles and shotguns; pistols hanging from hips like it was
Dodge City. The folks who didn’t have guns had baseball bats and pitchforks.
“Hey, Cardo,” someone said, and he just walked. It sounded like Mike
Hanson, and this was good. He liked Mike, and was happy to know that Mike
was alive, but that’s where it ended. He had no desire to hang around and swap
war stories and speculate about what tomorrow would bring. He needed to
be home and drunk and in his chair, and he needed the Proust kid out of his
head.
They didn’t really need him around anyway. If he stopped walking and
joined this band of survivors, it would be as one of them, not as the law. They
were the law now. Out there, he’d just be another gun, and they had more than
enough of those.
Across the street, bodies were lined up three rows deep in the BEISTLE
BAKE parking lot. Their faces were covered in sheets or blankets or shirts.
Sheets of paper and cardboard bearing handwritten names were pinned or
taped to their chests, identifying the corpses for any relatives who wished to
claim them. People sat weeping beside a few of them. A woman knelt, the ragdoll body of a toddler across her lap. The baby moved, but its movements were
all wrong. A man knelt behind the woman, his face pressed into her shoulder.
Further down, a tangled and charred heap of limbs and torsos smoldered
in the evening light. Not everyone had friends or family. He wondered if anyone
would find the Proust kid, and what his name had been, anyway.
It wasn’t until he got past the throng that he realized what was wrong—he
hadn’t seen any soldiers. The National Guard had pulled out.
Cardo lived in a two-room hovel at the end of Main Street. Despite its size,
the place was not an embarrassment. It was relatively new, and in very nice
shape. Cardo kept it nice and neat, inside and out, and he was happy to bring
women here on the rare Saturday night that found him knocking back beers at
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the Redwood Tavern and looking for a little love. Better than all of that, it was
paid for.
The dead body standing in Cardo’s yard looked as if it had been dragged
through fire and broken glass. The parts of its body that were not charred were
stripped to the muscle. The corpse had a hard time walking, and he wondered
who it was and where it had come from. So much was missing that he could not
tell if he were looking at the remains of a man or a woman.
He stepped into his yard and looked around, pulling his gun and leveling it
at the side of the thing’s head. Like the corpse trying to get into the bathroom
at Proust’s, this one had not yet noticed him. It tried to turn in place and stumbled on its own twisted ankles, collapsing to the ground and lying facedown
on the grass. A belch rattled through the dead thing’s throat, and Cardo felt his
stomach tighten.
He shot the thing through the back of the head. This close, he noticed an
ornate jade earring nearly lost in the blackened remains of the thing’s left ear.
“Oh.” It was Cora Wareheim. She lived three blocks down the road, worked
at the bowling alley on weekdays, told fortunes on the weekend, and was the
single mother of two small girls.
He went inside and looked around for a sheet of paper. Not finding one,
he ripped the front from a Raisin Bran box and, using a black marker that he
found in a cluttered drawer to the right of the kitchen sink, scrawled her name
on it.
Outside, he placed it on the dead woman’s back. He looked around, frowned
at the stone frog that sat in the flower-free flowerbed to the right of the front
door. It had belonged to the previous owner, and he’d seen no reason to get rid
of it. He placed it atop the placard on the dead woman’s back and went inside,
locking the door.
Five minutes later, Cardo sat in his recliner, two guns resting on the tray
next to his chair and a fifth of good whisky tipped bottoms up. For some reason,
the local CBS affiliate was playing an episode of The Honeymooners. He didn’t
bother changing the channel. There was news on the other channels, but the
news made him remember the sight of the stupid, scared Proust kid’s face
turning inside out. Ralph and Ed Norton and the whisky burning its way down
his throat helped him to forget.
The events of the last two days caught up to him. He closed his eyes and
slept for nearly eight hours. The news was on when he opened his eyes, and
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he’d spilled half of the whisky between his legs. The sun was down. It was
nearly nine.
He got up and went to the bathroom, returned to the living room and ate
stale Rice Krispies dry from the box. On the television, an obviously tired and
annoyed doctor was explaining that life had simply been redefined, that these
things could not be considered dead because dead bodies could not possibly
walk or see or do any of the things that these creatures were doing.
Cardo nodded off again, opened his eyes four hours later to the whupping
sound of a helicopter. He stood up, legs tingly and stiff, and stumbled toward
the door, opened it. Cora’s body made him jump. He’d forgotten about it. He’d
forgotten his guns, too, but that was okay—aside from Cora, there were no
dead bodies within sight, walking or otherwise.
A large low-flying helicopter circled the town. It was military, he knew that
much. Beyond that, he had no idea what he was looking at. It had two rotors,
and it looked a lot like the choppers he’d seen in news footage from ’Nam,
dropping down from the sky and extracting injured soldiers, dumping off fresh
ones.
He watched, expected the chopper to set down across town, on the Beistle
High football field, or to maybe fill the night sky with parachutes. Neither happened. Instead, the chopper looped around, away from where he stood, toward
the highway. It spun around once more and headed back toward Beistle. At
first he thought something was wrong, that the helicopter had caught fire: a
dirty white plume trailed from the underbelly of the helicopter, billowing out
and descending upon the town.
“Oh, God,” he said. He ran into his house, grabbed his guns, and was out the
door. He didn’t bother closing it behind him.
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F i ft e e n
The bridges were not a problem. On the first one there was a burning car. A
black thing stumbled in the middle of the road, clutching at the air with hands
that had no fingers. Reggie ran it down, wincing at the sound it made coming
apart beneath his truck, but that was it. No Army blockade, no blown-out
bridge, no road choked bumper to bumper with abandoned vehicles.
On an empty stretch of Highway 50 some fifteen miles east of Nimbus, he
pulled over to the side of the road, threw together a sandwich, and found himself thinking about Erma, his ex-wife.
They’d met in line at the bank. Six months out of ’Nam and he had already
purchased his truck. It was his, almost fully paid for. He’d been depositing a
check, and she’d been trying to get a small loan so that she could prevent her
father’s house from going into foreclosure. They’d hit it off as well as one could
expect: she spent the night at his place, and they didn’t waste any time. He was
impressed with her body, and she was impressed with the fact that he was selfemployed. “I never met a self-employed man who wasn’t a pimp,” she’d said,
adding that all of her other men had been freeloaders and bums.
Reggie had no idea how he stacked up as a parent, but if he had one ounce
of wisdom to one day impart to Nef, it was this: never marry someone simply
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because the two of you were good at fucking. At the end of the day, that’s all he
and Erma had. Before and after, they talked, sure, but if they made the mistake
of talking too much, it became plain: aside from their ability to make the other
one’s head explode in bed (or in the kitchen or on the living room floor or in
the back yard), there was just nothing else there at all, nothing but bullshit.
By the time he admitted this to himself, it was too late. She was pregnant,
and drinking, and her claws had come out. He tried to get her to stop drinking
while pregnant and she threatened to have an abortion.
His mother asked why he didn’t tell her to go ahead, do him a damned
favor. Cut his losses and move on, but no, absolutely not. People could do what
they wanted to do, he really didn’t care, and what he wanted to do was be
a father. He wanted to raise the child growing in Erma’s stomach, and didn’t
think it should be denied a chance at life simply because he’d fucked up and
married the wrong woman. Besides, he’d told himself, they’d figure out a way
to make things work. Once the baby came, things would be better.
No such luck. She put up a fight, but the judge had no trouble deciding
where Nef belonged. By then, Erma had been arrested for assault and battery
after mopping the floor with another woman at a pool hall, and Reggie had
established himself as someone who was taking care of business. He thought
maybe it had hurt the beady-eyed white judge to have to side with a highwaybound black man, but what else was he going to do? Rule in favor of an abusive
alcoholic who got into bar fights and actually referred to him as slave master
and cracker while on the stand?
The last time he saw her was at his mother’s house. It was Nef’s fourth
birthday. She called ahead, asked if she could come see her baby girl. She
sounded sincere, so he said yes. Did it count as violating her restraining order
if he told her that she could come?
She came with her new man in tow, a real jive turkey who wore a threadbare suit and who reeked of grass. Erma was visibly drunk, and neither of them
left when he told them to. Reggie ruined the party, called the police. By the time
they arrived, he’d already punched out Erma’s new man, and was two inches
away from popping her one in the lip, as well.
He wondered where she was now. Not now, really, because she was either
dead or huddled somewhere, afraid and waiting to die. But three days ago,
before all of this—what had she been up to? She wasn’t with the joker who’d
taken her to the party, her knew that much. Beyond that, he knew nothing. She
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could’ve been six months in the ground or selling herself on street corners,
or maybe she’d pulled herself together and had been singing in her cousin’s
church every Sunday morning and looking for a real man and a second shot at
being a mother.
Not likely, but he sincerely hoped it were so. He never wanted to see her
again, but he didn’t wish her any pain or harm. He’d done his best to protect
her from both, and she’d rewarded his dedication with abuse—of herself, of
Reggie, and of Nef. Amazingly, she had never struck their daughter—lucky for
Erma—but drinking yourself stupid and passing out facedown in your vomit
while under the same roof as your child is abuse enough, and it was heading
in that direction, anyway. She would have put her hands on Nef, and Reggie
would have put his hands on her, and where would any of them be now?
Erma was either alive or dead or neither, and that did not matter. Nef was
the only thing that mattered, and he would get to her. He had to get to her.
Beyond that, who knew?
He did too much last night and it was catching up with him. A hangover
was taking root behind his heavy eyes. He finished off his sandwich and moved
on to a bag of potato chips. Against his better judgment, he washed it all down
with Coke quickly followed by a long hit from the bottle of Jack.
He ate a few more chips and knocked back a little more whisky, and soon
regretted it. His movements were already slower, his eyes feeling as if they
were moving around in syrup. He was warm all over, and in spite of everything
that was going on, he had to sleep. Not one to mix poisons, he didn’t spend
much time contemplating the bottle of black mollies in his kit. Maybe later, but
not now.
He got out of the truck and walked to the edge of the road, where he pissed
onto a smashed Budweiser can. The road was empty in both directions. A few
miles back, development had given way to trees, which now rose up on either
side of the road for as far as he could see. Sacramento could be an inferno and
he wouldn’t know it, not from here. From here, everything looked and sounded
right. It was nice out.
Ten minutes later he rumbled past the exit to 49. A few hundred feet away,
someone walked down the center of the road. As he drew closer, he saw that it
was a woman covered in blood pretty much from head to toe. Closer still, and
he could tell that she was dead. She moved in the same lifeless and unnatural
manner as the others he’d seen. He sped up, inching the truck to the right so
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as to avoid her, and she lifted her head and seemed to look directly at him. Her
face was a blank. Her eyes were empty.
Further along, he brought the truck to a halt, just outside of Placerville.
Positioned diagonally, a trailer bed blocked both lanes. The front of the trailer
was on the side facing away from him, otherwise he could have backed up,
hitched it, and pulled it out of the way. Pushing it out of the way would have
been an option, were it not for the cars parked ten deep on the other side of
the trailer.
Placerville had pulled up the Welcome mat and locked its doors. He could
see no one, but he didn’t rule out that he was being watched from the trees.
In fact, his face could at that very moment be in the crosshairs of some sharpshooter’s thirty-ought-six.
He backed up and turned around, and once more found himself facing the
blood-smeared woman. Where the hell had she come from, anyway? Pulling
up alongside her, he rolled down his window and waited for her to get close
enough to guarantee that he would not miss. She scratched at his door and he
put a bullet between her eyes, blowing away the silence and rousing a churning cloud of birds into the air.
Reggie rolled up the window, placed the gun on the passenger seat, and
unfolded his map. 49 would take him north, back to I-80. So far, he’d encountered two roadblocks. How many similar obstacles dotted the map between
here and home?
He threw his truck into gear and headed toward the 49 North exit, feeling
it happen with each passing mile marker: he was shutting down. His mind and
his body were going under, fast. It had happened to him in Vietnam, not long
after his first real action. He’d been in a few firefights before, yeah, but those
had amounted to little more than spraying lead into the foliage and watching
trees come apart in chunks. This had been real:
Murdock had been making some kind of joke about the size and lean of his
own prick—it was tailor made for the small and slanted poon he’d be slamming, come leave this weekend, and then the air was thrumming with lead,
and Murdock’s face had vanished in a pink burst of skull bits, brain matter, and
blossomed scalp. Bullets buzzed and buzzed and Kaufmann had taken one in
the thigh and Reggie had spun and whirled and crashed through the foliage,
screaming and tripping, and there, right there, not even ten feet from where he
stood, the little yellow bastard who’d done this to them, frowning and fidgeting
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with his smoking machine gun, which had jammed up, or something. His gun
was caked in dried dirt, just like him.
“Motherfucker,” Reggie had said, raising his machine gun and opening fire,
keeping his eyes open no matter how badly he wanted to squeeze them shut,
needing to see the way the little man simply unzipped.
Somehow they all made it back to base alive, all save Murdock, of course,
who had been reduced from an animated, mule-faced wiseass to a lifeless
tangle of limbs with no face. That night, lying on his cot and staring up into the
darkness of the tent that served as their sleeping quarters, Reggie wondered
just how the fuck he was going to get to sleep. How could he, when to close his
eyes was to see Murdock’s face coming apart, to see it lying there, unrecognizable as human, save for the single brown eye glistening from the pulp in a
glued state of surprise?
And then he’d shut down, just like that, and slept through into the following afternoon.
It was happening now, and the Jack Daniels was not helping. To make matters work, compulsively, awfully, he downed even more. His hands were a blur
on the steering wheel. His eyelids felt swollen.
He drove until he encountered a flat brick building that had once been
a bakery of some sort. The sign above the boarded shut front entrance was
faded, and Reggie could not tell if it said BUNNY BREAD or SUNNY BREAD.
He wasn’t sure if it was the sign’s fault or the fault of his eyes. He pulled the
truck to the side of the road, checked the road for walking corpses, and, seeing
that the coast was clear, maneuvered the large vehicle across the broken paved
parking lot and around the back of the building, where four rust-colored loading doors thrust over a trash-strewn loading bay.
Parking the truck and killing the engine, he crawled into the back of the
truck with his shotgun and his pistol and his newly-acquired Winchester. Pushing aside the supplies he’d taken from the asshole’s home, he spread himself
across his bed and, taking one final draft from the bottle of Jack, closed his eyes
and checked out.
When he opened his eyes, it was full dark outside, and nearly thirteen
hours had passed. Thirteen hours during which, by the grace of God or by sheer
godless chance, no one had stopped and broken into his truck while he slept.
Thirteen hours during which his daughter could have died a thousand times.
“I’m coming, baby,” he said, not liking the sound of his voice in the silence.
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The darkness outside of the truck was complete. There was no starlight, no
moon. No ambient spillover from a nearby town. Just pure, primal night—an
utter and perfect darkness in which anything could move, unseen, and wait.
He sat, awake and wide-eyed, pressed toward the back of his sleeping
quarters, staring out though the windshield and into the blackness, the sound
of his breath and the wet sounds of his mouth the only sounds in the universe,
both unnaturally loud within his head.
Slowly the sky distinguished itself from the black obelisk of the bakery,
and soon after the world emerged in shades of dark blue.
There were no dead around. He ate breakfast—a Spam sandwich on sliced
bread, chips, and dry cereal chased with orange juice—and then took a leak
and a dump in the weeds at the place where the concrete met an overgrown
field littered with trash and scrawny trees.
As he crawled into his truck, the early-morning silence was undone with
the unmistakable staccato burst of machine-gun fire. Silence followed by more
bullets, and had that been the sound of someone screaming in the hushed and
breathless moments between bursts of gunfire?
“Shit,” he said, looking around, dipping his head down a few inches, shoulders raised, old habits taking over. He retrieved his Colt and his shotgun and
got low, waited in silence.
Not ten minutes later, the sound of engines—lots of them—grumbled
in the silence. As he waited, the growl grew louder, and soon a large convoy
rumbled by. His heart raced; fear twisted and squirmed, tried to take hold, but
logic won: he couldn’t see them. The bakery blocked them from his view and
him from theirs. They’d be gone in a minute—he just had to wait.
“Damn it,” he whispered, his curiosity getting the better of him. He peered
around the edge of the bakery, knowing full well what he was about to see yet
unable to resist. It was an Army convoy. Four Sheridans trundled by, one after
another, followed by several Jeeps. He was about to ease himself out of sight
when a civilian truck rolled into view, trailing the Jeeps: a panel truck followed
by a pickup truck pulling a trailer used for transporting livestock. He could not
see what the livestock trailer had carried, but he had no trouble making out
the huddled human forms packed into the back of the panel truck. Men and
woman pressed shoulder to shoulder, and he had no idea if they were alive or
dead.
Another panel truck came into view, and Reggie moved out of sight, put the
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building between himself and his brothers in arms. He grabbed his tags and
tossed them into his collar. The metal was cold against his bare skin.
He sighed. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He had no idea what
the Army was up to with their commandeered civilian trucks and their strange
cargo, and he did not care. All that mattered now was that they were in his
road, and that they be permitted to get a good lead on him before he struck
out.
One more night. He had to stay put one more night.
“God damn it,” he said, kicking dust and pebbles into the air.
In the truck, Reggie listened to the radio for a while, learned that there was
nothing new to learn. The hours passed slowly. He read a three-week-old issue
of Time for a little while, found that he could not focus, and swapped Time
for Penthouse and tried to jerk off and failed. Ready to bust out of his skin, he
downed some more Jack and passed out for a little while, opening his eyes a
little before three in the morning.
Just before dawn, he opened the kit in his divider and fished out a single
white-capped amber pill bottle. Twisted off the cap and poured the little red
and black bitches into his large palm. Twelve left. He returned the pills to the
bottle and twisted the cap until it clicked several times. Placed the bottle in the
divider. There were a lot of miles between himself and his daughter, and his ass
was done with sleep.
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S i x t e e n
Guy died just after dawn. Following hours of unresponsive silence interspersed
with incoherent mumbles, his breathing had become labored and thick. Phlegm
rattled in his throat, a weak quiver passed through his body, and that was it.
“Guy,” Richard said, jabbing his right elbow into Guy’s back. “Hey, man, you
okay?”
Daniel hung from the tree, his legs rigid beneath the thick ropes that had
scoured his flesh raw in the night. His head hung forward, his hair stubbornly
shrouding his face, and for a moment Richard was certain that he was utterly
alone in the swelling light of morning. Daniel had died, as well, suffocated by
the ropes encircling his naked chest.
No: his chest rose and fell beneath the ropes.
“Daniel.” Barely a croak. He cleared his throat and managed to yell this
time.
“Hn,” Daniel said, lifting his head.
“He’s dead,” Richard said.
Daniel made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a dismissive
grunt, allowed his head to drop forward once again.
“We need…” Richard said, allowing his words to wither in his mouth. We
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need to do something is what he’d meant to say, and no words had ever tasted
more false crossing his tongue. If they were lucky, they’d die quickly today.
There was little hope for much else.
Less than five minutes after dying, Guy tugged at the ropes binding his
hands behind his back and to Richard’s wrists. For a small and fleeting and
pitiful moment, Richard assumed that he was wrong, that Guy had not died,
that he’d merely passed out once more. Maybe he was going down for the
count, but he was not out yet.
Then the other half of the nightmare asserted itself. Its warmth rapidly
fading, the dead body to his back struggled against its restraints.
“God,” Daniel said, his voice little more than a whisper. He made a halfhearted attempt against the ropes, gave up.
Richard screamed and struggled and the ropes holding him to the writhing
corpse gave nothing; seemed, in fact, to tighten.
“Guh,” Guy said. The sound was little more than air passing over vocal
chords grown taut in death. There was nothing behind it; it was as devoid of
intent and intelligence as the sound made by the wind howling through the
attic of a crumbling and abandoned house.
The ropes did their job. None of them slipped free. Night and shadow retreated. The dead man to his back repeated the same listless motions, gently
rocking against Richard’s back. By the time the sunlight touched his face, he
had slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.
“Wake up.” Someone slapped his cheek.
Richard opened his eyes, blinking. It was so much brighter now. The sun
was nearly directly above them. Samson stood over him, looking down, his face
blank.
“How long’s he been dead?”
Richard stared. He wasn’t sure who Samson was talking to, nor did he
care.
“Hey,” Sam said, nudging him with his foot and pointing at Guy, eyebrows
raised.
“Don’t know,” Richard said. “A few hours.”
Sam had the same look of fascination Richard had seen on his face back at
Misty’s, a million years ago. They were all there, Sam and Max and the other
one, who was pale, taller and older than the brothers. If he were related to
them, he didn’t look it.
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The old man with the braided beard was there, too, his muscular arms
folded above his gut. He was in incredible shape for a man his age. Even his
round gut looked hard. He was leather and stone.
Max stood before Daniel, his arms at his side. The old man walked over to
Sam, looked down at Richard. “Morning,” he said, smiling. His teeth looked too
straight and too white to be anything but fake.
“Why?” It was all Richard could manage.
“Why?” Huffington Niebolt said, crouching. His knees popped, though he
did not seem to notice. His braided beard hung between his legs. He tilted
his head sideways. “I’ve seen a lot of people die, son, and the one thing they
always ask in the end—the ones who get to see death coming, of course—is
why. Why?”
He smiled again, his face beaming, and looked at each of them, in turn,
except for Daniel, who was awake and alert and watching. To Richard’s back,
Guy writhed, agitated.
“Why, why, why?” Huffington Niebolt shook his head and laughed, garrulous and genuine. Once more he met Richard’s eye. The old man’s smile vanished. The humor bled from his eyes. “Why is all there is. Why is all there ever
was.”
He stood up. “Jacob,” he said, his voice as devoid of humor as his face. The
taller one, Jacob, stepped over to him, looking like a child in need of instruction.
“Cut them loose,” Huffington Niebolt said, indicating Richard. “Put him over
there. And don’t let that one bite off your fingers, Jacob, because I will blow
your head off before the damned thing has a chance to swallow your pinky.”
“Come on, Huff,” Jacob said. “I’m not—”
“You’re not talking back to me, son, is what you’re not,” Niebolt said, showing Jacob the back of his hand. “I’ve seen these things at work with my own
eyes. You haven’t. I watched them rip your little brother’s belly open and fight
over his insides while he screamed for me to help him. So shut the fuck up and
be careful, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jacob, related to the others after all, leaned over, reached into the hollow
between Richard’s and Guy’s lower backs, where their bound hands touched,
and seized the ropes. They gave with little effort.
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Large hands seized Richard beneath his armpits and lifted, dragged him
over to a nearby tree.
“Sit,” Jacob said, leaning Richard’s back against the tree trunk. Richard’s
lower spine seemed to have fused in the night. A barbed spike of pain twisted
between his shoulder blades. He stared down at his bound ankles, wriggling
his toes within his shoes. They tingled.
Richard looked up. Jacob glowered, the muscles in his thick neck standing
out, his jaw clamped tight, his small dark eyes fixed on Richard. Behind him,
the other two looked from Daniel to Richard to Guy’s writhing corpse. Each of
them held a shotgun.
“This is not something that I ever anticipated,” Huffington Niebolt said,
looming over Guy’s writhing corpse. Using one booted foot, he rolled the dead
man onto its back, pinning it with a well-worn heel to the breastbone. Guy’s
corpse opened its mouth and gnawed on air. Niebolt smiled once more. Like
his voice, his smile was warm and inviting. “Unanticipated and terrible, but
much deserved.
“Yes,” he said, took his foot off of the living corpse, and turned to face
Daniel. “Terrible, but much deserved.” He brushed a square fingertip across
the scabbed cut on Daniel’s breastbone. “Who did this?”
“Me,” Max said.
“Hunh,” Niebolt said, picking at the cut until it glistened with fresh blood.
Daniel jerked left and right, as if maybe he could wiggle all the way around to
the other side of the tree. “Impatient.”
“Whu,” Daniel said.
Niebolt looked back at Richard. “I think he was trying to ask why,” he said.
Richard held his gaze until he looked away, faced Daniel. “Okay. Let’s make this
happen.”
Richard sat at the base of the tree and did the only thing he could do: he
watched.
Daniel kept his eyes on the ground. Somewhere inside, the child he once was,
the one who believed his mother’s words to be nothing less than the gospel,
the truth, cowered and prayed. Begged the God who was not there to save him,
to take this cup from his lips. There or not, God’s response was as it had been
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when His own Son had wept for a way out of pain and torment: He didn’t do
shit.
“Why? I’ll tell you why, son,” Huffington Niebolt said, once more clutching
Daniel’s hair in one large fist and pressing his head to the tree. “Open your
eyes. Good.
“Because I can, that’s why. And because it is what you deserve.” He released
Daniel’s hair. Eyes closed, Daniel did not have the strength to hold up his head.
It hung forward, and he became aware for the first time of the stench. He’d
soiled himself in the night.
“Let me tell you something, all of you,” Niebolt said, his voice swelling with
pride. Daniel would not set eyes on the man ever again, not if he could help it,
but he saw him nonetheless, leering and prideful, his chest puffed out. “Most of
you know this story. At least two of you don’t, so.
“I was twenty-two years old,” Niebolt said, “Not much older than you, I
think,” tapping a finger against Daniel’s bare chest, “I killed a man with these
hands.”
Daniel did not lift his head, did not open his eyes, yet he knew: the old
man’s tight fists hovered in the air between them.
“Nineteen-thirty-one, if I’m not mistaken. I killed him in the ring in a
smoke-filled joint outside of New Orleans while the rabble screamed for more.
Harry Cordeaux. The poor bastard called himself Harry ‘The Hammer,’ and I
humiliated him in the third and took his life in the fourth.”
A hand closed around Daniel’s throat.
“I beat a man to death with my hands, boy,” Niebolt said, his voice shot
through with awe and fascination, the voice of a convert. “I beat him until he
was nothing, no more. Just an empty body with a stupid look on its face.
“I’m sixty-five years old, and I don’t feel a day over thirty, son, and I want
to beat you to death against this tree. I want to snap your ribs and tear your
organs. With these hands.”
Niebolt drove his fists into Daniel’s stomach three times, maybe four.
Daniel gasped.
“I want to, but I’m not. You remember me telling you about Charlie, Max?”
“Yeah,” one of the others said. Shotgun in hand, he took a step forward. He
was built like the old man, but his skin was darker, olive-skinned. His dark eyes
were set wide in a round and unpleasant face.
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“His name was something Gui, but we all called him Charlie, just like our
boys call the gooks over there in that useless war. Charlie Gui.”
“Gah,” Daniel said, coughing. His stomach muscles were loose and hot.
Colors swirled behind his eyes. God continued to do nothing.
“He was a Chinaman,” Niebolt said, and Daniel could tell that he was talking
directly to him once more. “An old yellow thing made of wrinkles and bones. He
lived in the same building as me and my mom in San Francisco. This was a few
years before I hit the road and saw the country and figured out just what it was
I was supposed to be doing while the planet grinded its way toward death.
“God, I guess I was fourteen. Charlie used to sit out in front of the building
on this little folding chair, just looking off at whatever, and he and I got to talking one day.” Niebolt laughed. “He got to talking, I should say. I just listened. His
English was pretty good. I understood just about everything he said, except for
the times he’d launch into some lightning-fast Chinese, of course. He told me
all sorts of things I really didn’t hold onto. Things about his time spent working on the train tracks or logging out near Mendocino. Things about his time
in China.
“But there’s one thing I never forgot: When he was a child, I think he said
ten or twelve, he attended a public execution. His father made him do it, told
him that he had to know what happened to those who spoke out against the
dynasty. You know anything about Ling Chi?”
Daniel lifted his head, opened his eyes, looked at the old man despite his
vow to himself. His eyes were dry, and his vision was blurred. He found the old
man’s face and held it.
“Just kill me,” he gasped.
“Oh, look at you, educated boy,” Niebolt said. His cruelty notwithstanding,
Huffington Niebolt was an honest man. He was impressed.
The last of his strength depleted, Daniel could no longer hold his head up.
It swung forward. He licked his lips with a tongue that seemed to have been
fashioned from sand. His mind turned away from those two words, Jesus, God,
Ling Chi, the Death of a Thousand Cuts, the Slow Slicing, and retreated into the
darkness, far, far into the darkness, but not so far that the old man’s words did
not reach him. And not so far that he could escape the pain that would soon
define his final moments alive.
“Charlie told me he kept his eyes closed for most of the execution. He said
it was bad. I saw some pictures of the act, once. From just before I was born,
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actually. Right before it was banned. Charlie was right—it was bad. And I saw it
again, with my own eyes, in a Chicago basement in 1942. That was worse than
those black and white photos. You can see the pain in the photos, but you can’t
hear it—the sound of blade slicing through flesh. The whimper coming from
the poor bastard’s throat. Like a baby.”
“Jesus,” someone shouted. “Stop this!”
It took Daniel a moment to realize it was Richard, the asshole who was
fucking Kimberly.
“Shut up,” someone else yelled. Richard gasped, the wind crushed from his
lungs.
“So last night,” Niebolt said, “after I came out here and introduced myself
to you, I went back to my home and fell asleep wondering how I was going to
kill you. On the one hand, I’ve got these.”
Another volley of fists to Daniel’s stomach. He gagged and felt his bowels
empty down his thighs in a hot liquid rush.
“And I’ve got this.”
Cold steel pressed to the flesh above Daniel’s right nipple, just beneath
the rope. Daniel tensed, preparing himself for the pain, struggling to retreat
deeper into the darkness. He’d reached the wall—he could go no further. He
waited, eyes clenched, lips drawn back from his teeth, far too weak to struggle.
There was no pain. The blade withdrew.
“The world you and your friends come from is not the real world, and you
are not human beings. Not as history defines them, anyway. Humanity, like life,
is cruel. Nothing is true but pain and blood, and your flowers and your happenings and your protests and peace marches flail in opposition to that truth. And
one does not oppose truth.”
For an immeasurable moment, Daniel thought that maybe Niebolt had
splashed ice water onto his chest. Then the pain hit and he opened his mouth
and screamed.
Samson Niebolt’s words washed over Richard. In one ear and out the other,
as his and everyone else’s mom used to say. His words did not matter. What
did was the fillet knife in his hand, and the way he waved it so close to Daniel’s bare chest, brandished it inches from his face. The way he punctuated his
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sentences with it and described arcs in the air while speaking to Daniel, slicing
deeply into nothing, inching closer and closer to Daniel until—
The strip of flesh curled away from Daniel’s chest with shocking ease. It
hung from his stomach like an elongated and bleeding tongue. Daniel screamed.
Richard screamed, too, and Samson muttered something while the one named
Max laughed.
Richard closed his eyes, squeezed them shut and begged for death, just a
quick death, please God, a heart attack or a stroke, and Daniel’s screams soon
disintegrated into wet, choking gasps.
“Come here, you,” the old man said. “Hold his head.”
Daniel no longer sounded human.
Richard opened his eyes. He didn’t want to but he did. He opened his
eyes and he screamed and he screamed and Daniel wheezed and gurgled and
choked on his own blood.
Niebolt stepped back, admired his work. Max stood beside him, wiping his
bloody hands on his shirt. Daniel’s nose was gone, just two bloody skeletal slits
now bubbling blood. His lips were gone. So too was one of his ears, maybe both
of them—Richard could not tell. So were his eyelids.
“Wait,” Niebolt said, stepping once more toward Daniel. Richard stared at
the ground while the old man scalped Colleen’s brother, wincing at the wettowel sound of Daniel’s flesh being peeled away from his skull. He looked up
when he knew it was over, unable to do otherwise.
Daniel shook, gasped and bubbled, his face raw and glistening, a surprised
and grinning skull pouring blood down his naked body. His scalp was draped
over his shoulder. The old man wiped the knife clean on one denim clad thigh,
slid it into its sheath, and pumped another left hook into Daniel’s abdomen.
The tongue-like flap of meat hanging from Daniel’s chest waggled. Richard
leaned forward, his stomach twisting itself into an acid tangle.
“Get back,” Niebolt said, waving his sons away. Plucking the scalp from
Daniel’s shoulder, he strode over to Guy’s corpse, rolled it onto its stomach,
and untied the ropes securing its arms and legs.
“Here, here, you filth,” Niebolt said, waving Daniel’s dripping scalp above
Guy’s mouth. The bound corpse clamped its teeth onto the offered treat. The
dead thing tugged on the scalp like a dog trying to pry a saliva-soggy scrap of
rawhide from its master’s hand, and the old man wrenched it away. A hairy
scrap of flesh hung from between Guy’s lips.
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The old man circled Guy’s corpse, cut the ropes binding its wrists. He
placed Daniel’s scalp onto its head, an oozing and bloodied wig, Daniel’s bangs
hanging into its eyes like a parody.
Daniel whimpered and gurgled and wheezed. Blood flowed from his head
and from the long wound on his chest, and the flap of flesh glistened in the
morning light and rocked gently back and forth, slapping against his stomach.
No one said anything. All eyes were on Guy’s corpse, which struggled to its feet.
It fell three times, right onto its face.
“Holy shit,” one of them said. Another laughed.
At last, Guy’s body found its feet. It tottered, Daniel’s scalp dripping blood
into its eyes, the bloody pants falling to the ground and revealing the wadded
underwear dangling from its crotch, glued in place with caked-on blood.
“Ur,” it seemed to say, stomach gases passing over its vocal cords. Its head
wavered. Its fingers worked the air. It seemed confused.
“Hey,” Samson said, loud, and Guy’s corpse looked in his direction. Its eyes
widened, and it took a step toward him, its bare ass toward Richard.
Huffington Niebolt stepped behind the thing that was Guy and seized the
back of its shirt in one fist. “This way.” He guided Guy’s corpse toward Daniel,
who had slipped beyond the realm of screams. His shiny butcher-shop head
hung low, and if not for Daniel’s heaving chest, Richard would have thought
him dead.
“This way, you piece of shit,” Niebolt said.
“Don’t touch it,” Jacob said. “Who knows what kind of diseases it has.”
“Shut up,” the old man said, pushing the dead thing closer to Daniel, closer,
closer still. It swayed from left to right, and for a moment Richard thought it
was going to pitch sideways and sprawl once more on the ground. It steadied
itself, its wavering head growing still, its groping hands descending toward the
crimson swath dangling across Daniel’s stomach, seizing it in both hands and
tugging.
The meat came away with little more than a moist whisper. Daniel did not
respond. He quivered and gasped and wheezed, but there would be no more
screams. Stumbling backward, Guy’s corpse pressed the dripping strip of meat
to its mouth. It took a few drunken sideways steps, its jaw working. Smacking
like a child, it sank to its knees.
Niebolt took one tentative step toward the dead thing and its meal. Daniel
mewled once.
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“Stay back,” Samson said.
Richard struggled with his ropes, falling at last onto his side, where he
grew still and hopeless.
“Shut the hell up,” the old man said, easing himself toward the feasting
corpse, standing at last within its reach.
“It’s got food,” he said. “It doesn’t care about me.” He clenched his thick
right hand into a fist and drove it into the side of the dead thing’s head. It toppled, the remains of its meal trailing from its mouth.
Niebolt stepped back, watched as it struggled onto its knees and pawed at
its bloody mouth. The remains of the strip of flesh sliced from Daniel’s chest lay
on the ground. The dead thing grabbed it, brought it to its mouth once more.
Nibbled once, and then tossed it away. Its eyes settled on Niebolt, who stepped
to the side, revealing Daniel, bloody and naked and warm.
“God,” Richard said. “Enough. Kill him, at least, you bastard.”
“Shut up,” one of the shotgunners said, waving his weapon toward Richard.
Guy’s corpse stood, stumbled up to Daniel, and threw itself on him like a
lover, its eager mouth exploring his throat. Daniel’s breath came and went in
blood-choked whistles through the ragged hole in his windpipe.
Guy’s corpse slowly spun in place, face and hands slick with blood and little
wads of flesh. Richard did not close his eyes. He did not look away, could not
shut out the horror simply because he did not want to open his eyes and find
it moving toward him, inches away, its lips peeled back from blood-streaked
teeth. Because of this simple fear, he watched Daniel die.
There were no final screams. Daniel went slack, utterly and completely
slack, a rattle working its way from within his chest. A watery surge of vomit
issued forth from his mouth and onto the ground, and he was done.
Guy’s corpse didn’t bother returning to its meal. It took a few steps away
from Daniel, probed its mouth once more, and looked down at the length of its
body. It grabbed the blood-stiff briefs clinging to its crotch and peeled them
away, revealed the circle of open flesh where its penis had been. It dropped
the underwear and looked around once more, its heavy-lidded gaze finding
Richard.
“Uur,” it said, the left side of its mouth twitching into something that would
have looked like a half-smile on someone alive.
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“No,” Richard said, turning a pleading face to the old man. “Don’t let this
happen, man, I’m begging you.”
Huffington Niebolt stared at Richard with unblinking eyes. He folded his
arms across his chest, tight, like he was trying to contain himself. His muscled forearms rested atop the shelf of his gut, pinning his braided beard to his
shirt.
Guy’s corpse tripped on its own feet and stumbled once again to the ground.
It struggled for a few seconds, gained its bearings, limited as they were, and
once more settled its eyes onto Richard. Like it knew he was helpless, and that
to make a play for the others would be pointless. They had guns and fists. They
could fight back.
Not bothering to stand, the dead thing dug its fingers into the dirt and the
grass and crawled like a baby toward him.
“I’m serious,” Richard said, panic unraveling his heart. Soon he would be
braying like a madman. “I’ll do anything, okay? Just don’t let this happen. Don’t
let this happen.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. Guy’s fingers found the soles of Richard’s
shoes. Samson and his brothers watched with grim anticipation. Max smiled.
Richard writhed and kicked and fell onto his side. Guy’s corpse stopped fumbling with Richard’s feet and, reorienting itself, crawled toward his face. Heart
hammering, he lashed out with his bound feet, sunk his heels into the ground,
and pushed himself away. He opened his mouth to beg Niebolt for mercy. Instead, he screamed. To his own ears, he sounded like an animal.
“Enough of this,” Niebolt said, pointing at Max. “Pull it away.”
Scowling, Max stomped over, seized Guy’s corpse by the ankles, and
dragged it facedown away from Richard.
“That’s far enough,” Niebolt said.
Max let go of the thing’s sock-clad ankles. He rubbed his hands on his jeans,
cursing under his breath, stepping forward and pressing his right foot onto the
back of the dead thing’s head. It flailed, pawing Max’s shoe.
“Tie it up,” Niebolt said, walking over to where Richard lay. He stopped, his
large hands on his hips, looking down at Richard. “You got a name, boy?”
Richard opened his mouth, and Niebolt pressed the worn sole of his right
boot to Richard’s lips, mashing them against his teeth.
“Just so you know: if you tell me ‘fuck you,’ I’m gonna kick your face in
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right here. And that’s not just some figure of speech bullshit, or anything. I’ll
goddamn kick it in, you hear?”
Richard blinked up at the old man.
“You hear?” Niebolt said, his leathery forehead creasing over his raised
eyebrows. He gave Richard’s face a painful nudge.
“Yes,” Richard said against the bottom of the man’s boot, his words muffled.
Dirt crunched between his teeth.
“Mm?” Niebolt pulled his foot away from Richard’s face.
“Okay.”
“So?”
“What?” Richard asked, his mind not letting go of the image of the old
man’s boot kicking his face until it was a ragged and bloody hole.
Niebolt laughed, looked around at his sons. Settled his gaze once more on
Richard. “Your name.”
“Richard.”
“Richard?” Niebolt asked, nodding. “Richard. Just like the good man in the
White House. You vote for him, Richard?”
“Nuh,” Richard said, spitting. “No.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Niebolt said, scratching his chin. “A young man
like you. Of course you didn’t.”
Behind Niebolt, Daniel’s corpse lifted his head and looked around. Niebolt
followed Richard’s gaze, looked back at him.
“Happens fast, doesn’t it, Dick?” Niebolt said, shaking his head. “Amazing.”
Max sat on Guy’s back, straddling him. He placed his left hand in the dead
thing’s head and forced its facedown into the dirt.
“You probably get called Dick all the time, huh, Richard?”
“Sometimes,” Richard said. “When I was younger.”
“Probably didn’t like it.”
“No.”
“I don’t blame you, Rich. Can I call you Rich?”
“Sure.”
“Good,” Niebolt said, reaching down and pulling Richard to his feet and
slamming him against the tree to his back. Richard’s knees buckled.
“Stay on your feet, now, Rich. Be a man.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Not that again. You should know better.”
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Niebolt punched him in the stomach. Gasping, Richard sank to the ground,
a white-hot knot of pain spreading through his guts.
“I got better things to do, Rich,” Niebolt said. “Big things happening out
there, as you know. Jacob?”
“Yeah?” Jacob asked, stepping up beside his father.
“You take care of Rich here, okay?”
Jacob regarded Richard, his face a heavy-lidded blank. “Okay,” he said.
“But—” Sam said, appearing at Niebolt’s other shoulder.
“But nothing,” the old man said. “Don’t make me knock your teeth out,
Samson.” The old man looked down at Richard, one last time. He smiled. “Have
fun.”
A few minutes later, Richard was alone with Jacob. Guy’s corpse tried to roll
onto its back. Daniel’s scalp slid from its head and lay rumpled on the ground.
Tied to the tree, Daniel’s corpse looked left and right, left and right, as if it were
still trying to shake the hair from its eyes.
“My dad’s old,” Jacob said, dropping to his knees beside Richard. “He does
things his way. We don’t always agree, but he’s old, and I think he may be a little
crazy, because I really don’t believe most of the things he tells us. Most of it is
just nuts, man.” Jacob shrugged. “Sometimes, though, he lets us do things our
way.”
Jacob slid a large serrated knife from the sheath at his hip. He held it up
between them, looking past the blade and into Richard’s eyes.
“Like now,” Jacob said, pushing Richard down and onto his chest. His fingers moved up Richard’s back and into his hair, and he pressed Richard’s face
to the ground. Richard screamed.
Jacob moved down. Richard squeezed his eyes shut, his scream dissolving
into an incoherent prayer. He tasted dirt. He begged God and cursed God, and
he waited for pain that did not come. There was a tugging at his ankles, his
wrists. Steel touched his flesh but did not open it. The ropes fell away. Jacob
stood, rolling Richard onto his back with his right foot.
Richard held his hands before his face, wiggled his fingers, stared at the
rope marks on his wrists, felt blood tingling back into his limbs.
Jacob smiled, took a few steps back.
“I’m not the kind of guy who likes things handed to me, all nice and
wrapped up,” he said, looking Richard up and down. “I like to earn what’s mine.
I’m gonna give you five minutes.”
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“What?” Richard asked, sitting up and massaging his calf muscles.
“Five minutes,” Jacob said, producing a cigarette from a box in his shirt
pocket and lighting up. “Then I’m coming after your ass. Or you can sit there
and rub your leg for five minutes, and I’ll just kill you right here, but I’d really
like you to run.”
Using the nearest tree, Richard pulled himself to his feet. He flexed his leg
muscles, wiggled his toes. Looked at Jacob.
“Don’t think about it,” Jacob said, sheathing the knife and pulling the pistol
from his hip.
“You’re all insane,” Richard said, taking a step away from the tree. His feet
had not stopped tingling.
Jacob tapped his bare wrist. “Four minutes,” he said. “You should really
go.”
“I’ll kill you,” Richard said.
“I’m sure you will,” Jacob said, bringing the cigarette to his lips with his left
hand and shooing Richard with his right.
Richard took three uneasy steps away from Jacob and, bumping into a tree
and stumbling once, ran into the forest.
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S e v e n t e e n
Tricky Dick was on the tube, urging Americans to be vigilant in this time of
trouble, to do what needed to be done and to cooperate with local law enforcement.
At Misty’s, local law enforcement was unconscious on the couch in the
living room behind the store, an infected bite on its arm. Crate was outside.
Charlie sat at the middle table, drinking his fourth beer since Tasgal had passed
out. Misty sat across from him, looking down at the table and listening to the
television while working over her own beer and wondering just what the hell
they were going to do with Eric Tasgal.
Not long after Crate had taken out the four corpses loafing their way across
the parking lot and toward Misty’s place, Stacy Knox had bicycled in on a cloud
of self-importance and body odor. She’d given the burning heap of bodies a
wide berth, muttered under her breath, and asked Misty if she could come
inside for a bit—she was feeling lonely, her equanimity was crumbling, and she
needed to be around other people.
“Sure,” Misty had said, wanting to kick herself in the ass. Stacy rarely came
by, and when she did, it was merely to gossip, to speak in hushed tones about
which planet was in retrograde that month, and to speculate on the where-
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abouts of her husband’s spirit, which was, she assured all who would listen,
moving onward and upward through the astral planes. He still managed to
send messages back to her, messages that filtered down through higher realms
and entered their own in the form of a single leaf resting on a windowsill or
the bird calling out in the silence of evening. Or the patterns made by whisky
spilled across the kitchen table, or maybe even the shape of her crap, for all
Misty knew, all curled and flakey at the bottom of the toilet bowl. If, that was,
Stacy Knox didn’t do her business in the woods behind her house, and Misty
wouldn’t have placed money on it.
As for Stacy’s husband, Misty marveled over the fact that he was the first
man to sail into the astral plane via a self-imposed mouthful of buckshot. Stacy
had been hard enough to swallow before, but now?
Misty’s nastier side was sorry that Stacy hadn’t come stumbling up to the
store dead and hungry. At least Crate could have shot her then…
On the television, Nixon said that they were doing everything within
their power to confront the crisis at hand, as well as the other crises that had
arisen in the hours since the dead began to rise. When asked to comment on
the rumors that the phenomenon was the result of a Department of Defensefunded biological warfare experiment gone terribly wrong, Nixon denied it
without hesitation.
“That is patently ridiculous,” he said. “Reports from around the globe have
confirmed that this event began taking place everywhere at the same time.
That’s not how germ warfare works, Ted, and you know it.”
“Lying snake,” Stacy Knox said, sitting alone at one of the tables and holding the crystal that hung from a length of twine around her neck, gazing into
its multifaceted depths. She wasn’t even forty, though she could easily pass
for thirty. She had that much going for her, even though she told folks to call
her Starshine. Most everyone in town obliged, of course, even if they thought
it was bullshit, but Misty had little tolerance for such nonsense. Not then, and
especially not now. The time for nonsense was over.
“Shut it,” Misty said, what little patience she had going up in flames.
“I’m sorry,” Stacy said, dropping the crystal against her chest, where it
found peace in the valley. “You don’t have to be so negative, though.”
“She’s not, Starshine,” Charlie said, continuing to pile beer atop hard liquor.
Misty had taken away the gin bottle, and Charlie had simply gone to the cooler.
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He looked at Stacy’s face, which was pretty enough, before staring at her large
chest. “Jesus, you’re annoying.”
“Okay, Charlie,” Misty said. “You should probably go into the back and lie
down. I’m not in the mood to hear your voice any more.”
“I’m not tired,” Charlie said, his words slurring together. “I’m wide awake
and listening to the President and he’s telling us what to do.”
“You’re shitfaced and you’re going to pass out at that table.”
“He’s telling us how to get out of this mess and I’ll be damned...”
“And I’m not gonna help your ass to bed.”
“...damned if I’m gonna miss it, this is the broadcast of the decade,” but he
was already facing away from the screen, rolling his eyeballs in search of his
bottle.
“Go lay down, Charlie,” Misty growled.
Charlie wavered like an out-of-use marionette before turning slightly and
saying, deliberately, with the authority of a man who has just won the argument, “Tasgal is on the couch.”
“The bed,” Misty said through clenched teeth. “Now please let me listen to
this, damn it.”
“Who’s Tasgal?” Stacy asked. Misty didn’t even bother looking at her—just
rolled her eyes and shook her head and continued to stare down Charlie. He
weathered it for a few seconds then gave in, got to his feet, and took his time
getting to the back.
“If Crate were in here, he’d take you for one of them and shoot your ass.”
“Urm,” Charles said, reaching the door that lead to the living quarters
behind the store. He looked back and shook his head, eyelids heavy. “We should
tie him up.” He shrugged and belched. “I guess.” He turned and left.
“What’s he talking about?” Stacy asked.
“He’s drunk,” she said, downing her beer and getting up from the table,
walking to the counter, where she paced, her eyes on the television. “Now just
be quiet a second, okay? Get yourself something to drink from the cooler.”
“Oh,” Stacy said, eyes wide, acting surprised, like she hadn’t been waiting
for the invitation. “You sure?”
“Please.”
“Okay, then,” Stacy said. She pushed away from the table and went over to
the cooler. Glass tinked against glass, and she returned with a bottle of Miller
Lite. “Thanks.”
MASON JAMES COLE
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13 3
“Mnn,” Misty said, staring through the television. Richard Nixon attempted
to field questions from a gang of reporters all trying to out-shout the others.
The President lifted his hands and begged for silence. The Secret Service guys
to his left and right were getting shifty, looking nervous. To Misty, it looked as if
they were about to drag their boss out of the room, or maybe put a few rounds
into the ceiling to quiet down the commoners.
Neither happened. The room got itself under control long enough for
someone from CBS to ask Nixon to confirm the report that Soviet submarines
had been detected just off the coast of Alaska.
“To hell with that,” another reporter shouted. “What about the Gulf of
Mexico? They’re in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. President, or are you unable to comment on that at this point?”
“I’ll be back,” Misty said. “Stay right here.” Stacy looked at Misty down the
length of the bottle held to her lips. She raised her eyebrows. Misty stepped
outside. The bell did its thing.
“Yeah,” Crate said, drinking from an old liquor jug filled with water. Misty could
not remember the last time he’d gotten drunk, and the joint he’d smoked earlier was, as far as she knew, the first he’d had in months. He was on the ball, the
old bastard, and if they survived this, it would probably be because of him.
“When do you want to do it?”
“Sooner the better, I guess,” he said, frowning up at the light illuminating
the parking lot. “Think I ought to shoot it?”
She read his gaze. “Why?”
“This place stands out at night. We could use a little darkness.”
“We won’t be able to see them.”
“My eyes are just fine, woman. I’ll see them when I need to see them. Better
than theirs, leastways. With the lights out, maybe they’ll just keep on walking
by,” he said, leaning forward and looking toward the door leading into the store.
“Gotta turn out the lights in the store, too. Move everyone into the back.”
“You sure about this?”
“I’m sure I don’t want to know what it feels like to be eaten alive. I’m tired,
Mis. I need some sleep.”
“But I think we—”
13 4
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Crate waved an annoyed hand at her face. “I didn’t say now, damn it. I know
what we need to do right now, so let’s do it.”
They stepped into the store. Stacy opened her second beer. She looked up
at Crate, let her eyes drop down to the rifle in his hands for a second, and
smiled. “You coming in here to shoot me, Crate?”
“You should be so lucky,” he said.
Misty locked the door.
“What’s going on,” Stacy asked. “Are there more?”
“Not yet, there aren’t,” Crate said, leaning his rifle against the waist-high
ice cream cooler. He stepped over to the counter, his eyes on the television.
An anchorwoman with her face cinched up like a purse spoke of Soviet troop
buildup along the border of someplace she’d never heard of.
“Nothing’s looking good,” Misty said.
“Huh,” Crate said, and shrugged. “No real surprise there.”
Misty kept her eyes on the screen. Crate watched television a little longer,
before grabbing his rifle and stepping toward back of the store.
“Where you off to,” Stacy asked.
“We got a little business to take care of, Starshine,” he said, frowning at her.
“You stay put. Come on, Mis.”
“I hope I’m as frisky as the two of you when I’m your age,” Stacy said. She
smiled and knocked back her Miller Lite.
“Yeah,” Crate said, and left. Misty followed.
Tasgal lay with his injured forearm across his face. His gun lay on his stomach,
his left hand resting atop it. His mouth was open. He’d kicked off his boots.
“Eric,” Misty said, nudging him. “Wake up, kiddo.”
Eric Tasgal mumbled, shifted. Misty stared at the gun on the young policeman’s chest, hoping his fingers would draw away from it. They didn’t.
“Eric.” Louder this time, with a little more force. He jerked his right arm
away from his face. His left hand seized the gun and his eyes opened. He
blinked up at her, his eyes devoid of comprehension, and she yelped, backing
away, nearly stumbling. Certain that he would open fire.
He didn’t raise the gun. The confused look on his face gave way to awareness, and he licked his lips, blinking.
MASON JAMES COLE
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13 5
“Sorry I startled you,” she said, stepping toward him. Behind her, unseen
in the darkened hallway, Crate sighed. She wanted to punch his teeth down his
throat.
Tasgal looked down at the gun in his left hand. “I... I startled you,” he said,
sitting up. He placed the gun beside him on the couch and moaned softly, working the fingers of his right hand.
“You okay?” Misty asked.
He made a fist and winced, looked up at her. His face was too pale.
“No,” he said. “This hurts like hell.”
“All I have is aspirin,” she said. “Aspirin and grass.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning back and staring down at his right forearm, which
rested on his lap like a dead fish. Above the place where he’d been bitten, the
gauze was stained deep red bordering on brown. Gingerly, he poked at the bandage with his left forefinger. He sucked air between his clenched teeth, looked
up at Misty. “Now would be good.”
“Okay,” Misty said. “You should stand up. Come for a walk.”
“What?” Tasgal asked, leaning forward.
“On the television, they were saying, they said that people who had been
bitten should keep as active as possible.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
She shook inside but held to it. “Something about blood flow. I’m... I’m just
telling you what they said.”
He sighed, “Yeah, I know. Bastards’ll say anything to try and keep you in
line and not asking questions,” but got up anyway. “Well, I do have to take a
piss,” he said. His voice was slurred. He was groggy and weak, and maybe still
a little drunk, and if they were careful they’d get through this. “Got to change
this.”
He rose, arms outstretched, and Misty stepped close, offered to steady
him.
“I’m okay,” he said, seeming to get his bearings. “Thanks.”
He took a step away from the couch, leaving his gun behind. Misty held her
breath. This was going to work. Tasgal took another step toward the hall, and
stopped, looking back at his gun. Damn it.
“Okay,” Misty said, stepping into the hall, away from Tasgal. Crate emerged
from the shadows and leveled his rifle at Tasgal’s face.
“Leave the gun where it is,” he said.
13 6
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Tasgal froze, mouth open. He wavered in place, blinked his eyes. “Whu,” he
said.
“Get on your knees,” Crate said. Misty lingered behind him, biting her lip,
her heart hammering. “I’m serious, Eric. Get down on your knees and don’t go
for the gun, or I’ll kill you.”
Something clarified slightly in Tasgal and he went into officer mode. “Let’s
be calm, sure we can talk about—”
“You’re bit, Eric,” Misty said.
“TV says you’re going to become one of those things,” Crate said. That also
wasn’t entirely true. Different people had said different things, but who could
be trusted? “There’s no helping it. I’d probably be doing you a favor, shooting
you, but you never know. They might find a cure.”
“I’m a police officer, Crate,” Tasgal said, holding his hands at chest level,
palms outward. His fingers shook. He took two small steps toward Crate, who
backed into Misty. “You’re breaking the law.”
“I’m protecting myself,” Crate said. “You might be dangerous.”
“Then why don’t you let me get in my car and leave?” Tasgal said, starting
to sway from side to side. “I’ll drive on out of here. Just… jus…”
“Get on your knees, boy,” Crate said. “I’m about to shoot you.”
“Hurts,” Tasgal said. “I really need to use the bathroom.”
“Let him,” Misty said, moving past Crate and toward the couch. “Don’t
move.”
“Don’t move,” Crate said. “I will shoot you.”
Misty seized the gun from the couch and stepped backward, away from
Tasgal. She looked down at the gun and found that she hated the feel of it in
her hands. Not knowing what to do with it, she slid it into her waistband and
stepped into the hall.
“Bathroom is that way,” she said, looking to her left. “Come on, Crate.”
Crate backed out of the living room, gave Tasgal enough room to creep by
and work his way to the bathroom.
“Three minutes,” Crate said.
Tasgal closed the door behind him.
Crate turned to Misty, his bushy eyebrows drawn together. “You think he
can get out the window?”
“Not without making a racket,” she said. The window was behind the toilet,
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137
and was covered by a rack of shelves cluttered with shampoo bottles, lotions,
shaving cream, Gold Bond, deodorant spray, more. “Tape’s in the washroom.”
Misty stepped into the store. Stacy was on her third beer. Nixon was no
longer on the television. Yet again, the news was showing footage of reanimated corpses. A head connected to a horribly mutilated torso by little more
than a strand of gristle looked around, its jaw silently working.
“This is horrible,” Stacy said. “Goddess must be angry.”
“She’s fucking furious,” Misty said, picking up one of the chairs.
“What are you doing?” Stacy asked, her words running together like sand.
“Changing a light bulb,” Misty said, opening the door and stepping into the
back. She heard the toilet running. Crate was gone. She brought the chair into
the living room, placed it before the television.
Tasgal stood just outside the bathroom, leaning against the wall, and for a
second Misty thought that he was dead. “Hurts,” he said, peeled himself from
the wall, and took a step toward her.
“Now,” she said, touching the gun awkwardly jutting from the waistband
of her pants.
“Now, now.” Crate appeared at her side, handed her a thick roll of duct
tape. “You’ll shoot your stupid self in the twat,” he said, sliding the gun from her
waistband and into one of his baggy front pockets.
“On your knees,” Crate said, pointing the rifle at Tasgal’s chest. When the
young cop didn’t react, Crate cocked the rifle and raised his eyebrows.
Tasgal knelt, assuming the position. He placed his hands behind his head,
wincing.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Crate said. “I promise, Eric. This is just for
our safety. You understand, right?”
Tasgal stared at them.
“Here,” Crate said, passing a clean facecloth to Misty. She looked at it, looked
up at him, confused. Crate pointed to his own mouth. “Gag.”
“Oh,” Misty said, eyeing Crate.
“What?”
“Why the hell are you making him get down on his knees, Crate?” She threw
a thumb over her shoulder. “I can tape him to that chair from here.”
“Aw, fine,” Crate snapped, making a face.
“I’m sorry,” Misty said, looking at Tasgal. He leaned against the wall. “We
need you to stand up, okay?”
13 8
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“This isn’t right,” Tasgal said. He looked tired and confused, but there was
something else, now, just underneath the pain and exhaustion: anger. “You
shouldn’t do this.”
“We have to,” Misty said, giving Eric Tasgal a smile that felt like dirt on her
lips. The kid was dying, and they were treating him like an enemy. She looked
at Crate. “Do we?”
“What?”
“Do we have to do this?”
“Oh, come on, Misty.” Crate rolled his eyes. “You said it yourself. We can’t
watch him twenty-four hours a day. We have to sleep and we have to watch the
place.”
“And we can’t throw him out,” she said, looking back and forth between
Crate and Eric, who climbed to his feet.
“Right,” Crate said, looking at Tasgal. “So for now we tie you up. If help
shows up, or something, we’ll let you go, okay?”
“Enough talk,” Misty said, wanting to be done with it.
“Yeah,” Crate said. “Enough talk. Let’s go.”
Outside, Bilbo Baggins piped up.
“Ah, hell,” Crate said. “More of them.”
“Nothing we can do about it now,” she said.
Tasgal leaned against the wall. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Come on,” Misty said, and Tasgal’s legs curled beneath him. He slid down
the wall. His head lolled toward Misty and Crate. He glowered at them, shivering.
“Get up,” Crate added, poking at the air with his rifle.
“Not going anywhere,” Tasgal said, and closed his eyes.
“Okay,” Crate said. “What are we going to do now?”
Misty pushed the barrel of the rifle toward the floor. She opened her mouth
to speak. Out front, someone hammered on the glass door leading into the
store. Misty heard Stacy yelp once, and then the hammering resumed.
“Shit,” Misty said, looking at Crate. “Let’s go.”
“What abou—”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
She stepped into the store and almost slammed into Stacy, who was walking toward the back door. Her eyes were bulging out of her sockets, her mouth
MASON JAMES COLE
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13 9
was open, working like a fish sucking air, and Misty thought she looked like a
person whose equanimity was definitely shot all to hell.
“There’s someone outside,” Stacy said. “I think it could be them.”
“Them who?” Crate asked, stepping toward the door.
“The dead.”
“I don’t think they knock,” Misty said, following Crate. She looked back at
Stacy, who inched toward the door leading into the back. “Stay out here.”
“Misty?” someone said from the other side of the door—a man, by the
sound of it, though Misty could not tell who. “You in there?”
“Yeah,” Misty shouted back. “Wait a second.”
Crate unlocked the door and then stepped back, raising the rifle. By now,
Misty realized, his wiry old arms must be tired. “It’s open,” he said. “Come in.”
The door opened and Jeff Karlatos popped his head in. He saw the gun and
fell to his knees on the threshold, his hands held up before him.
“God,” he said. “It’s me, Jeff, I—”
“Okay,” Misty said, once more pushing the barrel of Crate’s rifle toward the
ground. “I’m sorry, Jeff.” She helped him up, though he didn’t need it. “We’re all
a little jumpy.”
Crate grunted something and shuffled over to the table, where Stacy had
returned to her beer.
“God, yeah,” Jeff said. He was in his early thirties, skinny except for a soft
pot-belly, and half bald. Toss in the Coke-bottle glasses, and you had yourself a
perpetually single guy. He worked for the phone company in Beistle, but came
by at least once a month for a roast beef sandwich with sour cream and onion
potato chips. This summed up Misty’s knowledge of him. “Have you heard
yet?”
“Heard?” Misty said. She looked back at Crate, who was sitting across from
Stacy and staring at her tits. “What happened?”
Before he could answer, the sound of a rattling muffler zipped by, moving
northward. Another car followed it.
“They gassed Beistle.”
“What?” Misty said, cold with fear. Crate pushed away from the table. His
eyes were bloodshot, and Misty noticed for the first time that he was pale. He
was crashing. “Who?”
“The Army, I guess. About thirty minutes ago. A helicopter.”
“I heard the chopper,” Crate said.
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“It passed over town. Circled it. We went out into the street and watched,
thinking maybe they were dropping supplies, but no. It was a gas of some kind.
Looked yellow, but it was hard to tell.”
“Jesus,” Crate said.
“You know what it is?” Misty asked.
“No,” Crate said, shaking his head. “But I’m sure it isn’t good.”
“I saw something on TV about that,” Stacy said. Her eyes were still saucers, and she no longer sounded drunk. “Just before coming over here. Reports
about a gas being tested on the dead in some places.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, jittery and impatient. “Right here.”
“What did it do?”
“Look, man, I got in my car and peeled out. I wasn’t the only one.” As if to
prove his point, more vehicles raced past the store. “Hey, I’m getting the hell
out of here. The wind’s blowing east, mostly, so you should be all right. I just
wanted to let you know and see if you could sell me some food.”
Misty looked over at the deli case, and for the first time Charlie’s earlier
complaints made sense. “Of course,” she said, and made her way to the deli.
“Thanks. Just a little something to tide me over until I get where I’m
going.”
“Where is that?” Crate asked, rising from the table and walking toward
them.
“North?” Jeff shrugged.
“I’ll make you a sandwich,” she said.
“Thanks,” Jeff said.
Crate peeked through the blinds and then stepped out of the store. Jingle
jangle.
Jeff stood before the counter and watched television. Cronkite was pressing
a Defense Department official for confirmation on reports that Soviet nuclear
subs were in place along both coasts as well as in the Gulf of Mexico, that one
of them had actually made it nearly one hundred miles up the Mississippi River
before being intercepted and escorted back into international waters.
The sliced meat would not last, so she made two heaping roast beef sandwiches, as well as a turkey and Swiss on French bread.
“Insane, huh?” Stacy said. Misty looked up in time to see Jeff look from
the TV and toward Stacy, who sat holding her fourth beer, if Misty’s tally was
good.
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141
“Yeah,” Jeff said, sounding as stiff and awkward as he looked. “Insane.”
They fell silent. Finishing the sandwiches, Misty saw Jeff shoot a few
glances back at Stacy, and she hoped that he’d get over his shyness and keep
talking, if only so she could see his face when Stacy opened her mouth and
told him about her husband’s spirit speaking to her from within her crystal or
some shit.
There would be no small favors: even in the face of the collapse of civilization, Jeff was too ill-equipped to talk to a pretty girl. And Stacy was too lost
in her beer to care. More so, she was clearly terrified. It took a lot to keep her
quiet.
Misty bagged the sandwiches, grabbed a second bag, and on the way to the
counter tossed in a can of baked beans and a can of Vienna sausage, as well as
a large sack of chips.
“Oh,” Jeff said, taking the bags. “I can’t buy all of this.”
“Take it, Jeff.”
Either he was slow or he was faking it. He made a show of realizing what
she meant, and then thanked her. He shot another glance at Stacy, and Misty
wondered if he’d ever been with a woman. On the television, the Manhattan
skyline spit flames into the night sky. Misty figured that if Jeff hadn’t gotten any
yet, he probably wasn’t going to.
“You got an ice chest?” she asked.
“In the trunk,” Jeff said, holding the bags of food to his chest. “It’s empty.”
“Get a bag of ice and get moving.”
He did.
“I think I can smell something on the air,” Crate said, locking the door. Tongue
lolling and tail wagging, Bilbo Baggins seemed to be trying to trip him. “Taste it
maybe. Could just be my imagination.”
“There’s no saying it would even have a smell,” Misty said. “Don’t they add
something to propane to make it smell like that?”
“If it’s one of Uncle Sam’s home brews, it could probably smell like a burger
and fries if they wanted it to.”
“We should stay in for a while.”
“Wind’s still blowing east,” Crate said.
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“We should move his car,” Misty said.
Crate scratched his cheek and grunted.
“Someone could come looking for him.”
“Well, then, he was here for a little while today, and then he went out into
the woods because someone was yelling for help.” Crate looked pleased. “Never
came back.”
“Yeah, okay,” Misty said. “That’s fine, but people see a cop car and they see
help.”
Crate laughed: a brief, low rattle. “You and me, we know different people.”
It made her smile. Sometimes the old man wasn’t half bad. She stretched
with a yawn. “You know what I mean. It’s like a beacon.”
“Oh,” Crate said. “So now you want to start turning folks away.”
Her smile broke. She allowed herself to look at the TV, which showed a
throng of corpses stumbling around the parking lot of what appeared to be a
hospital, then back to Crate, who seemed to be expecting an answer.
She squeezed her hands together. “I don’t think we have much of a
choice.”
“Yep,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “We need to get the lights off in here, and I
should go out and shoot out the big light.”
“Fuck, Crate.”
“What?”
“Shoot out the big light?”
“Yeah.”
“You can turn it off at the breaker box, you lunatic.”
“Oh,” he said, grinning. “Yeah. But first, we have to finish things up.”
In the bedroom, Charlie snored. Tasgal was fast asleep when they’d left him, his
face pressed to the carpet. No longer clammy and cold, he burned with fever.
“He should be shot,” Crate said.
“We’re not going to shoot him.”
“We wouldn’t be shooting him, Mis. I would.”
“You’re not shooting him,” she said. “Not now you’re not. If you have to later,
then you have to, but not now. Maybe there will be a vaccine or something.”
“You never know,” Crate said. There was not an ounce of hope in his voice.
MASON JAMES COLE
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14 3
“Right,” Misty said.
She dropped to her knees and bound Tasgal’s ankles with tape.
“We should move him,” Crate said. “Get him out of here. God, we could be
infected already, keeping him in here.”
“Then there isn’t much point in moving him, is there?”
“You know what I mean, woman,” Crate said, looking down at her, frowning. “We can’t keep untying him every time he has to take a piss, and eventually
he’s gonna shit his pants. You want to deal with that?”
Misty stared at Crate.
“I’m not wiping his ass,” he said.
“Damn it, Crate, what do you want me to do?”
“He’s gonna die, and then he’s going to wake up or whatever it is they do.
He’s already dead. He needs to be put out of his misery.”
“We’ll move him.”
Crate stared at her, frowning deeply, his bushy eyebrows drawing together.
He clutched his rifle, the forefinger of his right hand less than an inch from
the trigger, the skin over his knuckles taut. She thought he was going to do it,
anyway, just pump a round into the back of Tasgal’s head and be done with
it—and what could she possibly do then?
But he didn’t shoot Tasgal. He listened to her, as he always did, head down,
like an old dog long broken.
“Okay,” he said, the tension going out of his withered old frame. He seemed
to melt a little. “My place?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Your place.”
Crate’s place was a small one-room apartment out back—little more than
four walls, a roof, a bed, a fridge, and a window with a rattling A/C unit. It had
started as a shed, and Crate had gradually converted it to a more livable environment, a place where, he said, he could go when they weren’t getting along,
where he could read in peace while she watched her soap operas and her game
shows. Eventually the place became his place, and she slept alone.
“Okay,” he said, following a few strained and silent moments. “How?”
“The wheelbarrow.”
“That’ll do it,” he said. “When?”
“Right now.”
Sprawled on the floor with his hands bound behind his back, Tasgal
grunted.
14 4
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E i g h t e e n
“Are you okay?” the girl asked. Colleen opened her mouth and tried to speak,
and if any words came out, she did not hear them. She looked down at the
amorphous red dress spread around her like blood in a crime scene photo, and
felt the soft moist blades of grass beneath her knees and between her fingers,
like gravel and broken glass. She tried and failed to make sense of the scene
before her.
It was a playground. There was grass and a concrete path and a swing set
and some monkey bars. A bench and a picnic table and a barbecue pit and
trees and potted plants and a sandbox, and she was being held captive by the
very same people who had forced her to suck her boyfriend’s cock before they
sliced it off inches away from her face.
And now there were children. A smiling girl of maybe six, cherubic twin
boys with yellow hair and eyes blue like the impossible sky, and a toddler
banging together two from a vast array of brightly colored blocks.
She opened her mouth again, and nothing came out.
“I think she’s sick,” said the girl, looking back at the women seated side
by side on the bench, and they all stood, their dresses fluttering like ghosts,
it seemed to Colleen, but her eyes, sticky with tears and imbalanced with de-
MASON JAMES COLE
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14 5
lirium, had invented the flutter. The air was still. Still because of the high wall
encircling the courtyard. The wind sighed through the tress around her, around
the enclosure in which she found herself, failing again and again to blink away
the image of her boyfriend’s dick lying in the dirt, but it barely reached her—
was little more than a whisper against her scalp.
The women approached and encircled and settled around her, their dresses
pooling and mingling with her own, a crime scene photo of a massacre.
Guy screamed defiance and she took him into her mouth and the blade
came down and the blood was so damned bright and hot. It spilled in a hot
gush across her hands, where it cooled in a heartbeat and dried and flaked
away.
She blinked, and it wasn’t all of the women before her, just the girl and the
first woman, the one the man had called… what had he called her? The other
women watched. So too did the twins, who approached Colleen. One of the
women on the bench called to them, told them to step back, and they did.
The girl said her name was Lissa. Colleen tried to hold onto that, saying
the name over and over in her head, like a mantra, holding it to her heart like
a talisman. Lissa, Lissa, Lissa, and the dead are coming to life and eating the
living and the last time she saw Guy he was sitting with his back to the truck
and packing his groin with dirt and dead oak leaves. Blood pumped through
his fingers like water from a hose on a hot summer day.
Lissa said something and then Beth or Embeth or whatever her name was
spoke and Colleen looked from one to the other, one to the other. She struggled to make sense of their faces and words. Lissa was six years old, and she
spoke with the intelligence and maturity of someone much older. She found
her brothers to be terribly annoying, and was thrilled to have Colleen around.
Lissa took her by the hand, and Embeth asked the girl if she’d keep an eye on
Colleen for a second.
“Sure,” Lissa said, and Colleen wondered how many times her mind could
cave in upon itself before she was screaming at the sky and ripping out her
own eyes. She wondered if her mom was blinking into the darkness of her
casket, and if the old man with the gun, Crate, was still enjoying himself. She
thought of Daniel and Kimberly and Richard and the corpses heaped on the
gravel outside of MISTY’S FOOD AND GAS. Or had it been GAS AND FOOD? She
couldn’t remember, just as she couldn’t remember when the last time things
had been normal.
14 6
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Her mouth was open. She had no idea how long it had been open, and she
closed it. The woman—Embeth, her name was Embeth, though the old guy
with the beard had called her Beth—floated away on her dress like a ghost,
and the girl talked and talked and talked. She must have been six, with her
sexless body and her little boy’s face and her missing teeth. Her hair was in a
braid down her back. Smiling, she asked if Colleen wanted to play Pat-a-Cake.
Colleen said nothing and lifted her hands. She barely felt the girl’s little palms
on hers.
The boys watched.
“You’re my new best friend,” Lissa said, nearly whispering. “I like Sally but
she’s quiet and doesn’t like to play. Do you know some games?”
Colleen blinked, her head spinning. She tried to focus on the girl’s face,
but she just kept seeing the shot they were playing on the TV at Misty’s. The
woman stumbling around the morgue with her chest splayed open, her breasts
peeled away in symmetrical folds from her ribcage.
“It’s going to be okay,” the girl said, and Colleen tried to smile. It felt like a
wound on her face and she choked back the impulse to throttle the girl, to sink
her thumbs into her windpipe. To listen to it crunch beneath her hand. “You’re
safe here. We’re all safe here.”
Safe here. Safe here. Did the girl know what was going on outside? Colleen
closed her eyes, and there was Guy’s dick again. Guy’s dick, and Daniel’s face
framed against the fabric of the couch in her mother’s house, head jerking, hair
dancing. Pot churning in the air. And Kimberly.
She tried to remember the last time she’d seen Kimberly, Kimberly who
had been coming apart since the deer; her best friend since childhood, a sweet
and honest girl, a friend, was not here in this strange place of women and children. Why was this, and where was Kimberly right now?
Was she alive? Were any of them alive?
Her heart hurt, her stomach tore at itself, and still the girl talked and
talked, holding Colleen’s hand and stroking it and assuring her that she was
just a little sick and that she’d be better in no time.
Colleen stared at the girl, trying not to want to kill her. Her mother was
dead and her friends were gone and the dead were walking around, but this
girl, this not-very-pretty girl had done nothing wrong. Colleen put her hands
on the girl’s shoulders, a gesture of intimacy, and stared harder. Colleen stared
and told herself not to hurt the girl, she was innocent, even as she felt the tips
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of her thumbs come to rest on the girl’s collarbones and then give a slight crush
like testing a pear for ripeness. She intended for it to be harder but couldn’t get
her fingers to obey.
The girl seemed surprised and Colleen let her separate and back away.
The twins were running in circles and babbling. The women on the bench
went on sitting, kept on watching her. There was a second bench nearby, totally
empty, but they were packed together on the other bench. Embeth loomed over
them, watching Colleen. The little boy with the blocks could not be bothered
to do anything other than bang them together upon his colorful blanket. Colleen wasn’t sure, but she thought Sally was the youngest one, the pregnant one
who looked like she was about to burst. And there was something about the
blanket, damn it, with its candy-colored geometric patterns.
Lissa prattled on, talking about her brothers and the time her father took
her down to the river to fish and she fell in and almost drowned. Colleen tried
not to vomit, tried to keep the image of the heap of corpses in the parking lot.
She waited and waited for the next horror, and all that came was the girl’s
smile and the laughter of the twins. The thok thok thok of the toddler banging
his blocks together.
“Papa Huff made those for him,” Lissa said.
Colleen stared at her.
“The blocks. He makes the neatest things.”
The twins raced by, screaming laughter. They looked no older than four,
straddling the line between toddler and big boy, their faces big-cheeked and
baby-like, their bodies beginning to elongate. Identically dressed and chasing
one another in endless figure-eights, they looked like some kind of optical illusion.
They ran up to Colleen and stood watching her, panting. One of them had
his small hands splayed on his knees. Their eyebrows were so blond they were
nearly invisible, standing out only because their faces were nearly purple with
exertion.
“Hey,” one of them said.
“Hey,” said the other, smiling.
“Are you Miss Colleen?” the first one said.
“You’re our new mommy,” the second one said.
Colleen felt her face go numb and wanted to ask what they meant but her
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tongue was made of… she couldn’t really tell, but it wasn’t made of tongue, that
much was certain. “No,” she finally made the non-tongue say.
“You’re not?” they both asked, just out of sync with one another.
“Sure she is, you dummies,” Lissa said, beaming.
“I’m Jack,” the first one said, jabbing a small thumb into his chest.
“I’m David,” said the other, showing her a mouth full of little white baby
teeth. “We kill giants.”
Colleen moved her eyes away from the twins and across the courtyard,
expecting actual giants to lumber from the trees and into view. Why not? It
made as much sense and anything else. When she was certain that no goliaths
would appear, she looked at the kids.
“Giants are real,” Jack said, looking grim.
“I’m the giant,” David yelled, shoving Jack, who plopped onto his bottom.
Laughing, David ran away. Laughing, Jack hopped to his feet and took chase.
Colleen watched them dumbly and then realized that her feet had gone
to sleep. She was on her knees in the dirt, and shifted her weight onto her
rear. She looked at the small boy who sat on a colorful blanket before the four
women on the bench.
“That’s Huff Junior,” the girl next to her said. “He’s almost two. He’s pretty
nice. He—oh, what’s wrong?”
The little girl’s small warm fingers on her face and on her shoulders.
“You’re frowning. You look sad.”
Colleen kept on frowning and looking sad. She opened her mouth again to
say something, but all that came out was a scratchy little yelp that reminded
her of the sound of dying puppies.
“You should talk,” the girl said, and already Colleen found herself wondering what the girl’s name was, damn it. She’d held onto it and held onto it, but
there it was, gone.
Embeth and the other three women sat watching the child and speaking
to one another in hushed tones that barely reached Colleen’s ears. She let her
eyes drift into the grass before the pool of her dress, and when she looked up,
Embeth stood directly over her. She smiled with her eyes.
“Can you give us a few minutes, Lissa,” Embeth said, and there it was—
Lissa. Yes, Lissa. She was a nice girl, and Colleen was wrong to imagine her
thumbs crumpling the girl’s windpipe.
“Okay, Mama Beth,” Lissa said, hopping up, planting a quick kiss onto Col-
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leen’s forehead, and running over to Jack, who’d pinned David to the ground,
tickling him. David’s laughter sounded a second or two away from becoming
screams of terror.
“How are you?” Embeth asked, looking down at Colleen. The sound of her
voice sliced through the fog churning around Colleen’s head. Like the man
whose sons had violently taken them captive, this woman seemed sincere. It
made as much sense as the dead walking.
When Colleen didn’t answer, Embeth reached out to her. “Help you up?”
She took the woman’s hand. It was warm and comforting, like Lissa’s,
and that didn’t make sense, either. And it was alive and vital, so much more
alive and vital than her mother’s hand in the weeks before her death—bones
sheathed in papery flesh. Holding this living and vital and senseless hand, Colleen allowed herself to be lifted to her feet.
Embeth guided her toward the women seated on the bench. One of them
now held the small boy, Huff Junior, on her knee, bouncing him. Blood flashed
in her mind, and Colleen saw herself seizing the child by his small ankles and
slamming him against the top of the picnic table until he came apart in her
hands like a broken doll.
Lissa chased Jack and David, who laughed and ran a few times around Colleen and Embeth before racing to the other side of the courtyard.
“They’re something else, aren’t they?” Embeth said.
Hanging above the television in the living room of her mother’s house,
there was a photograph of her and Daniel playing in a heap of fallen red leaves
at the base of a slide. She didn’t remember where or when the photo was taken,
but she remembered the way she’d felt then, the way she felt whenever she
looked at the photo.
Watching Lissa and the Giant Killers tumble across the grass, she thought
of that photo, and reminded her once more that these children had done no
wrong.
The three women stood. “Whoo,” Sally said, holding her right hand to her
lower back, legs bowed beneath her formless dress, stomach bulging.
“This is Colleen,” Embeth said.
“Hello, Colleen,” the pregnant woman said, bowing her head once.
“This is Sally,” Embeth said.
“Sally has been with us for, how long is it now, Sally?”
“Almost seven months now.”
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Been with them. Been with them. Sally had been with them for seven
months. Colleen held Sally’s gaze, unsure just what it was she saw in the
woman’s eyes, and try as she might, she could not focus on the moment. The
realization—what’s she’d been forced to do, what she’d seen, what they’d done
to her and to her brother and to her friends—hit her once again. The fiery knot
in her stomach tightened, and her head plunged into fog.
The other women rose, and Embeth introduced them.
The woman holding the child was Mathilda. She was thirty-five, with sandy
hair and thin lips. Her plain face was deeply lined and tanned from years spent
in the sun. Unlike Sally, Mathilda shook Colleen’s hand. Her hands were rough.
She’d been there since she was twenty-four.
Evie didn’t nod or shake hands. She held Colleen’s gaze for a few seconds
before looking down. She was a few years older than Mathilda and had been
with them since she was sixteen. Her black hair was going gray at the temples,
and she was the prettiest of the four women. Her naturally olive skin did not
appear to have been toughened by the sun, and Colleen knew that if she shook
her hand, she’d find it soft.
“It’s nice to meet you, Colleen,” Sally said. She took one of Colleen’s hands
in both of hers. “Be strong, girl.”
“Oh, honey,” Embeth said, stroking Colleen’s cheek. “Sit down.”
The bench was warm. Sally sat beside her, leaving a person’s width between them. Embeth said something about her and the other women having
things to do, and that Sally would take care of her for now. Mathilda rocked the
child, and Lissa and the twins laughed and played, and Colleen tried to hold
on to what they said to her, tried to make sense of their words, but she could
not—the words came apart at the seams, the letters rearranging themselves
into pidgin.
Colleen stared at her hands, folded together as if in prayer on her lap, and
when next her awareness expanded enough to encompass her surroundings,
the shadows were a little longer, and she was alone with Sally.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Sally said.
Colleen’s head took a thousand years to turn on her neck. Sally’s face was
unreadable.
“You’re drugged,” Sally said. “You will be for some time, until they’re sure
you’re not going to freak out and try to get away. No, no—don’t try to talk. Just
listen, okay?”
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Colleen nodded once.
“Mathilda was a nurse before Huff got a hold of her. Huff knows people in
town. Gets all the medical supplies we could ever need.”
No one said anything for a little while or for longer—Colleen could not
tell.
“Anyway, yeah. I’ve been waiting for you,” Sally said, sliding closer to Colleen and speaking quietly. “Not you specifically, but someone like you. Someone
new. I’m not one of those brainwashed bitches, so don’t let the act fool you.”
There was hope, just like that. The fog around her mind still held sway, but
it had thinned enough to allow Colleen to find her tongue. “Oh, God,” she said,
and bit her tongue, hanging on Sally’s next words.
“I’ll make this quick, because one of them could come back at any moment,
and you never know where one of the boys is creeping around. Huff steals
women. He steals women and he knocks them up and he raises the kids to
think he’s some kind of wise man, and he takes the women as his brides.”
Colleen opened her mouth. Closed it. Sally took her hand and gave it a
squeeze.
“We were on vacation, my husband and me and our son. William. They
were both named William,” Sally said. Her eyes were on Colleen, but Colleen
could tell that she was looking someplace else. “Driving down to San Francisco
for the week. Huff and one of his youngest boy, the one who got killed yesterday, were on the side of the road. Huff said his truck was broken, and asked for
a ride up the hill. We said sure, an old guy and his son, why not? It was just up
the hill.”
Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, and she wiped them away. “Oh,” she
said, sitting back. Using both hands, she smoothed the cloth of her dress tight
across the bulge of her stomach.
“What is it?” Colleen asked, finding her voice.
Sally raised her eyebrows, smiling. “Watch,” she said, biting her lower lip.
A single tear inched down her left cheek. The child inside of her kicked. Something—an elbow or a knee or its small butt—traced a path across the tight
dome of her belly.
“That’s…” Colleen said, not bothering to finish. She wasn’t sure what it was.
It was either beautiful or terrible, depending on how she looked at it. It made
as little sense as anything else, and, like the sight of Lissa playing with the
twins, somehow made things so much worse.
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“My son isn’t going to grow up here,” she said, placing both of her hands
atop the swell of her stomach, fingers interlaced. She chuckled bitterly. “Listen
to me. My son, as if I have any idea what it is.”
“Same thing that happened to you,” Sally said, staring forward, lips tight.
“They attacked us as soon as we got up here. They dragged my husband and
my son away, screaming and crying, and I never saw them again.
“They took me here, and I went through what you’re going through right
now. I met Huff and Embeth and then the others. The kids.”
Sally looked at Colleen, her brow creased, tight like her lips. There was
strength in her eyes. Fury.
“Embeth has been here for over thirty years. She believes everything he
says. She’s no different from him. Mathilda buys it and eats it too, and so does
Evie, for the most part, but she’s starting to see holes in the wall he’s built.
She’s noticed…” Sally paused, thinking. She smiled. “Evie has noticed inconsistencies in the bastard’s stories. Maybe she’s starting to see the big picture.” She
shrugged. “Maybe she isn’t.”
Sally sighed. Colleen could not tell that Sally had been wound tight until
she saw and felt the tension go out of the woman’s form.
“I don’t dare tell her what I’m planning. She’d hear me, and she’d know I
was right, but his fingers are in her like she was a wad of dough. She’d run to
him, and I’d be dead.”
Sally’s stomach bounced. She smiled, and looked over at Colleen, who
pulled her hand away.
“No,” Sally said. “You can touch it. Here.” She took Colleen’s hand and placed
it onto her stomach. Within seconds, the little life within moved beneath her
fingers.
“Wow,” Colleen said.
“Yeah, really, huh?” Sally said, nodding. “All of the kids here belong to Huff.
All but this one.” A gentle tap upon her stomach, and the child within leapt. “I
was pregnant before I got here. I was going to tell William as soon as we got
to San Francisco.” She smiled at Colleen, blinking away tears. “Huff’s good, the
bastard. He has a way about him. You met him, right?”
“Yes,” Colleen said. “Once. This morning.”
“Then you know what I mean. He soothes and he comforts, and you believe
everything he says, because it’s so damn smooth, right?”
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“I guess so,” Colleen said, and she wanted to close her eyes. Her mind was
still made of soup. “He seemed sincere. So sorry that—” She couldn’t finish,
and Sally didn’t seem to notice.
“You’ll see just what I mean tonight.” Her words were coming quicker now,
tighter, as if she wanted to get it all out and was running out of time. “And if
you’re here long enough, you’ll start to buy it. Sometimes I do. And sometimes
I think it would be easier if I gave in.” She shrugged. “They seem happy.”
She stroked her belly and gazed into it, her eyes someplace else. Her voice
was jagged with anger. “He lies, and his lies are getting more and more ridiculous. I mean, they’ve been far out from the start—you’ll hear the one about the
angel, I’m sure—but he’s slipping. He’s pushing it.”
“What,” Colleen said, struggling over her words. Sally watched her, waited.
“What do you mean?”
“The whole point of this place is so that a family, his family, can survive the
end of the world. He likes to say sometimes that he’s like Noah, which is funny
because he doesn’t believe in God.”
“But you said something—”
“The angel?” Sally shook her head. “Crazy never really makes sense, does
it? But that’s just it—when Evie was taken, back then? He told the angel story,
only it was just about a woman who helped him when he was hurt, not an
actual angel from Heaven. At least, that’s how she remembers it, and that’s
why she’s having her doubts.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, my point is, since I got here, he told us that the end would come
in our lifetimes. Not the end of the world, but of civilization.”
Colleen stared at the woman’s face, a chill moving through her body.
“Since I’ve been here, he’s told us that nuclear war was around the corner.
But just this morning, he changed his tune. His kid got killed somehow, I have
no idea how, and maybe that pushed him over the edge. But he spews the crap
and they lap it up. They all believe him, Jesus, probably even Evie.”
“About what?” Colleen asked, knowing what would come next.
“He told us this morning that the dead were coming back to life. Can you
believe that?” Sally’s eyes were wide. “Coming back to life and eating people.”
“Unbelievable,” Colleen said, deciding instantly, without consideration,
that she would let this woman go on believing that up was still up. “What did
you mean earlier?”
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“What?” Sally said. She sounded a little disappointed, as if she expected
Colleen to comment further on Huff’s mad claims.
“When you said you were waiting for me.”
“Oh,” she said, looking around, rubbing her stomach with her right hand,
fingers splayed. “I’m getting out of here, and I need help. I can’t trust anyone.
You’re the only one whose eyes aren’t glazed over.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” Sally said. “But I do know this: I’m having my child,
I’m healing. We’re going to lie low for a little while, and then we’re gone.” She
looked at Colleen, eyebrows raised.
“Okay,” Colleen said, dropping her gaze. Sally’s stomach jumped three
times. They sat in silence until the sun reached the top of the sky and the clouds
parted and the heat became too much to bear.
“Come on,” Sally said, rising to her feet, bowlegged and grunting. She
held each of Colleen’s hands in her own and helped her to her feet. “Let’s go
inside.”
“Jailbreak,” Colleen said.
“Yeah,” Sally said. “Jailbreak.”
SCAVENGERS
NATE SOUTHARD
NEW ORLEANS
2011
Scavengers
First printing by Creeping Hemlock Press, April 2011
ISBN-10: 0-9769217-8-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769217-8-3
Scavengers copyright © 2010 by Nate Southard
in any form.
All photos used with permission of the copyright-holders. Available credits: First row U.S. Navy; Roosewelt Pinheiro, Agencia
Brasil; Jonathan McIntosh; Enriquillonyc second row Daniel Battiston; Win Henderson, FEMA; Guérin Nicolas; U.S. Navy;
U.S. Navy third row Russianname; Tau‘olunga; uncredited public domain Fourth row Leona Lim; U.S. Navy; Mikael Marguerie
Fifth row Jordogbeton, Mauricio Peñaloza; Jim Gordon; George Crux sixth row Andrew Braithwaite; Magharebia; U.S. Navy
www.printisdead.com
AcKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first two drafts of this novel were written in just over a week. Without the
incredible help of Shawna Blount and Lee Thomas, those days would have driven
me mad. Thank you so much for making it better.
I owe additional thanks to those who have supported me through the years.
Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am. Brian Keene, Norman Partridge, Chris
Golden, Tim Lebbon, Kelli Owen, Jim Moore, Rhodi Hawk, Bob Ford, Laird
Barron, Paul Tremblay, Joe McKinney, Wrath James White, Paul Goblirsch,
Monica Kuebler, Larry Roberts, Tony and Kim at Camelot, and RJ Sevin.
Thank you all.
For Danny and Zan Blount and Shawn Richter.
Thanks for taking the trip with me the first time.
SCAVENGERS
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ONE
“Are we ready? If everybody’ll settle down, I’ll go ahead and start. Just… Everybody calm down so we can all hear, okay?”
Blake Ellis took a deep breath and tried to do as Eric Ross asked. The nervous flutter in his stomach refused to disappear. Even when Holly slipped her
hand into his and gave it a gentle squeeze, he felt the mounting electric tension
surge through his body. He took another breath and detected the spoiled meat
smell that was now always present. After so much time, he thought he’d grown
used to it, but every now and then his nostrils felt the need to correct him.
He tried to steady his breathing, hoping it would calm him. His pulse
throbbed in his ears, and he felt a bead of sweat trace a path behind his ear
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to his neck. He fought to convince himself this was all necessary. Millwood
needed food, and Rundberg had a supermarket. Necessity didn’t ease his nerves,
though.
He watched Eric look out over the assembled crowd. Everybody in town
had crammed themselves into The First Baptist Church of Millwood. Now, just
about all of them sat quietly in the pews or leaned against the walls, waiting for
Eric to dip his hand into the stockpot and decide their fates. The man appeared
uncomfortable, and Blake could understand why. A year ago, Eric Ross had
been owner of a diner just outside of town. Now he was in charge of drawing
names for a suicide mission that just might free Millwood from the awful grip of
starvation. Who could handle that kind of pressure?
A man Blake didn’t know rubbed up against his left shoulder and then
mouthed an apology.
“We ready?” Eric asked.
“This is bullshit!” somebody said. Blake didn’t have to look to know it
was Chris Stevenson. He’d know the prick’s voice anywhere. Stevenson was a
refugee, one of nearly thirty survivors Millwood had taken in over the previous months. Far as Blake knew, nobody liked the guy. He’d been a problem
since day one, refusing to work and constantly demanding more food and better
accommodations. Blake knew the jerk used to live in some big city or another,
had wound up stranded in Southeast Indiana when the end came. Nobody
knew much else, though.
“I’m not even from this shithole. Why the hell does my name go in the
pot?”
“We’ve covered this,” Eric said.
“Well, maybe I don’t give a shit. I’m not from here. Why should I die for you
people?”
Morris Dawes stepped forward to take a position at Eric’s side. The man
looked like a giant, standing at least six inches over the man who would draw
names. His place on the pulpit only added to the image. He crossed his thick
arms over his barrel chest and gave Chris a look that promised violence if
ignored.
“You live here now,” the big man said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Easy for you to say. You volunteered for this shit. Fucking psycho.”
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“You live here now.” The entire sentence sounded like a period, ending the
discussion.
Blake heard a grumble from the back of the church. If he wasn’t so frightened, he might have smiled.
Eric gripped the stockpot’s lip and gave Morris a nod. The man returned to
his previous spot at the rear of the pulpit.
“Okay. Anything else? Last call.”
Blake felt Holly’s body jerk as her hand shot into the air. He turned to look
at her, and he could guess her question just by seeing the mixture of determination and annoyance on her face.
“Yes?”
“I want my name in the pot,” she said.
“We’ve gone over this. It was decided-”
“Not by me, it wasn’t. I know I’m not the only one who wants in, either.”
Blake looked around as several other women nodded. A few stood, and still
others clapped.
“We can help,” Holly said. “Hell, I’ve nabbed more deer than most of the
men in town. Gonna say I’m not a good enough shot?”
“Nobody’s saying that.”
“Because everybody knows better.”
Holly’s best friend, Marisa, stood abruptly. “She’s right. It’s ridiculous that
we’re not in the drawing. You’re treating us like we’re second class.”
“Shut up and sit down!”
Blake didn’t recognize the voice, and when he jumped to his feet and whirled
toward the sound he saw nobody who looked guilty. He glared at everybody
who met his eyes, determined to find the offending party.
Holly’s hand touched his shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
“Like hell,” he replied.
“It is. I don’t give a damn.”
“Anybody has a problem can talk to me,” he said to the entire town. “I’m
not hard to find.”
A few murmurs floated out of the crowd, but no real offers.
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“Thanks for the thought, baby,” Holly whispered in his ear. “You’re kind of
undermining my whole point, though.”
“All right.” He sat down and stared up at Eric. The man didn’t appear to
notice. Instead he was motioning for everybody to sit down.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “We voted on this, though. Everybody did.”
“Most of everybody is male,” Holly said.
“That’s more reason we shouldn’t have any women going.”
“What?”
Blake smiled. He sensed Holly’s anger, and he couldn’t wait to watch her
tear Eric apart. Sure, the guy was friendly and everything, but he was in over his
head. You didn’t even insinuate something like that to Holly unless you wanted
to carry your dick home in a basket.
“Um… I don’t think-”
“We’re not brood mares, asshole. Sorry if anybody thought otherwise.”
“Nobody’s saying that.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
“Majority rules!” a male voice said.
“He’s right,” Eric said. He looked tired. “I’m sorry. Seriously. I’d be glad to
have you on the trip. We’ve had a vote, though. We’ve got to stick to that.”
“Fucking chauvinists,” Holly said as she sat down.
“Sorry,” Blake whispered.
“They’ll wish they had a shot like me.”
“I know.”
She gave him a smile. “So how embarrassing was that?”
“I’m sure we’ll all live.”
“We can hope.”
He returned her smile, but the fluttering anxiety had leapt back into his
stomach and started tap-dancing there. Shame strutted in on its heels. Holly
ached to go to Rundberg, and here he sat, scared to death, hoping against hope
they didn’t pull his name.
Eric held up his hands for quiet, and the last few whispering voices gave it
to him. Blake thought the guy looked worried, and he could understand it. Eric
and Morris were going to Rundberg no matter what, and drawing three bad
names would only hurt their chances of survival. The odds said at least one draw
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would be a stinker. The town had decided to throw in every male thirteen and
up, and that meant more than fifty kids were in the stockpot, as well as eighteen
men over the age of sixty. With five hundred or so names to draw from, it didn’t
look too great.
“I’m pulling the first name,” Eric said.
Blake felt Holly squeeze his hand again, and he sucked in a great breath. He
held it as Eric reached into the metal container and churned its contents. The
man drew out a single slip of paper. It was folded in half. Eric opened it, and
Blake saw him cock an eyebrow before he spoke.
“Chris Stevenson.”
“Bullshit!”
Blake released his breath as Chris stormed down the church’s aisle. A few
hints of laughter lifted from the pews, but most of the town remained silent.
Even an asshole like Stevenson deserved a little compassion now and then.
“This is bullshit and you know it, Eric!” Chris pointed at the man who
would lead the expedition into Rundberg. “You’re pissed off at me, so you’re
making me go.”
Eric waved the paper at him. “I’m not making it up. It’s the name I drew.”
“I want to see it.” Chris stormed the pulpit, the black leather jacket he always
wore creaking with each movement. Morris moved to intercept him, but Eric
held out a hand, telling him to back off.
“Here.” He handed Chris the paper.
“Bullshit,” Chris said as he glanced at the slip. “You had it up your sleeve or
something. Don’t even try to convince me otherwise, you skinny shit.”
Blake felt the thrum of potential violence move through the church. It
picked up speed as it neared the pulpit, only adding to his fear as it rushed past
his seat.
“Luck of the draw,” Eric said.
Chris turned to address the crowd. His index finger moved over most of the
congregation.
“Fuck you. Hear that? Fuck every last one of you rednecks. You’re crazy if
you think I’m doing this for you. Three thousand of those things? Is that what
you all said? Fuck you. I wouldn’t face a single walking corpse for any of you. No
way am I doing three thousand.”
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Blake shook his head. Other than Morris, nobody wanted to make the trip
to Rundberg. No reason for Chris to feel so special. As terrifying as the idea of
the trip was, it had to be done before Millwood starved.
Morris placed a meaty hand on Chris’s shoulder. The big man leaned down
and whispered something into his ear. Chris gave no reaction but a sudden
shrugging away of the paw.
“Fine. I’ll be at my place. See you assholes tomorrow.” Chris stepped down
from the pulpit and started toward the back of the church. He froze when a
quartet of men fell in around him. “What the fuck?”
“Watch,” Eric said. “Everybody drawn gets one. You know that.”
“Right. Hope you boys like watching me piss on your shoes.” He stomped
up the aisle, and the population sat in silence until they heard the church doors
bang open and slam shut again.
Blake worked on his breathing again. Two names left. That much closer to
relative safety. He turned to Holly and gave her a weak smile.
“You’ll be fine,” she whispered.
“Next name,” Eric said. His arm went back into the pot, swirling the papers.
He shook his hand as he drew out another folded slip of paper.
Blake ground his teeth together. He must have been doing it awhile without
realizing it, because his jaw ached.
“Jeremy Motts.”
Blake felt the tiniest wave of relief before fear came bounding back into his
gut and his heart. One name left. The chance Eric might pull his name still
existed, but it was a small chance.
The question evaporated as a new one took its place. Who was Jeremy
Motts?
A wail from the third row told him Jeremy was a child. Only a mother could
scream like that. He followed the cry with his eyes and saw a woman holding a
boy tight against her chest. Tears had already washed her cheeks. All he could
see of the boy was a beat up Cincinnati Reds ballcap.
“No! You can’t take my son! He’s only thirteen! For God’s sake, he’s just a
boy. He won’t stand a chance!”
Blake looked to Eric and Morris, and he wasn’t surprised to see a deep sad6
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ness on their faces. They didn’t want to do these things, separate children from
their mothers. In a better time, they would have made terrible Army recruiters.
“Sorry,” Eric said.
“Mom?” The Motts kid looked up to meet his mother’s eyes, and Blake saw
pure terror in the boy’s expression. He wondered if the boy felt more frightened
than he did, decided that was probably the case.
Another quartet of men approached the end of the pew. They waited while
the woman stood, still holding Jeremy Motts close against her body. The boy
stiffened in her grip, but Blake could tell it was a reflex, that all he wanted in that
world was to be held by his mother.
“You’re murdering my son. You bastards are murdering him!”
“I’ll be okay, Mom. I promise!” Jeremy’s voice came close to telling a different story.
Blake didn’t watch as the men followed Jeremy and his mother out of the
church. He didn’t think anybody else did, either. Most likely, nobody wanted to
admit the woman had probably been right.
The church door banged shut again. Blake squeezed Holly’s hand, feeling
the frightened sweat in his palm. He placed his other hand on his belly and tried
to calm the fluttering inside him. He looked to the pulpit, where Eric stared into
the stockpot and Morris shook his head.
Eric looked up. “Um… I’m just going to draw the last name. I’m sure everybody wants to get this over with.”
Blake closed his eyes and held his breath again. He bit back a nervous
scream he felt rocketing toward his lips. Moment of truth. He’d know his fate in
a matter of seconds.
He thought of the past year, remembering the first news reports and what
he’d been doing when he saw them. When that memory passed, he remembered
how Holly had saved his life, how they’d saved each other’s sanity. He looked
back on how he’d helped build the barricades that surrounded Millwood, how
the town had defended itself from the few dead that found it. He remembered a
form of stability and happiness returning, slowly but surely. Finally, he thought
about Eric standing before the town, telling them their food supplies had dwindled and their crops had died, how game was scarce and they needed to raid
Rundberg’s grocery if they wanted to survive.
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He opened his eyes and looked at Holly. She was so beautiful. He wanted to
marry this girl.
“Blake Ellis.”
He released his breath.
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TWO
“Zombie!”
Blake raised his eyes from his open backpack and looked over the pickup
truck’s cab. The cold April wind lashed at his face, blowing his dark hair every
which way.
“Where?”
“Ten o’clock,” Morris answered. The burly man placed the butt of his shotgun against his shoulder. “Still a ways off.”
Blake shifted his gaze and found it. The zombie was still nearly four hundred
yards away, but it was closing fast. It charged them in a way that was both running and stumbling. All the zombies moved that way, like they couldn’t quite
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remember how their muscles worked. The rotting thing lacked most of its left
arm, and it dragged its intestines in ropey loops.
“Must have heard us moving the cars,” Eric said. The thin man’s face didn’t
register the concern Blake had seen the previous night. Now he was all business.
His jaw tightened with disgust. “You’d think it would trip or something.”
“How close is it?” Jeremy Motts spoke in a shaking voice high enough to
almost be keening. He stood next to the truck, the wall of wrecked cars blocking
his vision. He bounced on the balls of his feet and clapped his hands together.
Something close to a grin covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes told a
different story.
Blake hopped out of the old Dodge and gave the kid’s shoulder a squeeze.
“It’s just one. I got it.” He stepped past the boy and around the barricade, drawing the pistol from his waistband.
“Blake?” Morris said.
He waved the big man off. “Just one. I can handle it.” He stood in the opening they’d created in Millwood’s outer wall, squaring his feet and raising the
gun in both hands. The .45 had a lot of kick, but it rarely affected his aim. The
way his hands shook was a different matter.
The zombie closed to within two hundred yards, coming fast. Its staggering gait churned up dust and dead grass. Arms flailing, it almost looked like
a kid chasing butterflies. Blake could make out the rotten texture of its skin,
the ragged opening of its belly. The world went quiet save the creature’s hissing
growl.
He sighted down the pistol’s barrel, took a deep breath and held it. Slowly,
his hands steadied and the trembling fear in his belly settled to a dull throb. His
finger tightened on the trigger, ready to pull. He counted one, twoAn explosion roared just behind his right ear. He cried out and ducked to
the side as something whipped past his temple, buzzing like an angry hornet.
He hit the pavement in a heap and slapped a palm to the side of his head. The
revolver clattered to the road and went off, sending a round skittering across the
blacktop.
Blake looked up in time to see the zombie collapse, its head ruptured like a
bag of wet garbage. He lay still for a second, breathing and watching the felled
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corpse. He didn’t look over his shoulder until he heard laughter, and then he
knew exactly what had happened.
Chris stood over him, the hunting rifle now slung over his shoulder. A
wicked smile creased the asshole’s face.
“That’s one killbilly down and one redneck on his ass.”
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“Keeping you from playing your little hero game. Stop showing your balls
like you want to prove they exist.”
“Fuck you. Seriously.”
“Whatever.” Chris held out a hand. Blake shoved it to the side and stood on
his own.
“You’re in a better mood today.”
“Sure. What’s the point in dying with a frown on your face, right?”
“You don’t-”
“Stop kidding yourself, Corn-Fed. Three thousand zombies against me and
four white trash in a pickup. We don’t stand a goddamn chance.”
Chris’s grin widened. His blond hair framed his face in a way that made
Blake want to punch him square in the mush. The guy must have noticed,
because he said, “Ease off, tiger,” and walked away, chuckling.
Blake breathed deep, willing himself calm. Of course, calm was still scared
as hell, but it felt a little better. He shrugged his denim jacket back into position
and returned to the pickup. Morris gave him a pat on the back.
“Shake it off.”
“Guy’s a dick.”
“We all know that. Bet he knows it, too.”
“Hooray for him.”
The big man shrugged, scratched at his beard. “Let’s just finish up and get
on the road. I want to get this over with.”
“Right.” Blake jumped into the truck’s bed and returned to his backpack.
He wanted to fill another magazine with rounds before they left. Busy work, but
it helped. It kept his mind off his coming death.
————————————
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Morris let out his breath in a low grumble. He glared at Stevenson’s back. He
hoped the guy wouldn’t be trouble, but he had his doubts. Hell, Stevenson had
been nothing but for close to six months now. He’d have to keep an eye on the
guy, make sure he didn’t decide to fuck over everybody first chance he got.
Casting Chris Stevenson from his mind, he fixed his eyes on the zombie’s
splayed form. Even from so far away, he could smell the thing. Of course, their
smell was everywhere now. It reminded him of a job he’d worked in Hamilton,
Ohio, years before, trying to make environmental improvements on a landfill.
At first the stink of garbage had been overpowering. A few weeks in, however,
he’d grown used to it. When he’d finished the job five months later, he almost
missed the smell. He hoped for a day he might miss the smell of rotting corpses,
but he didn’t think it would ever arrive.
It might help if anybody had the slightest idea what had caused the dead
to get up and start eating in the first place. During the first few days, when the
news stations managed to keep broadcasting, they’d said it was a plague, some
mutated form of rabies driving people apeshit. Those bitten were quarantined
and then eliminated. Footage had showed soldiers putting rounds in the heads
of civilians. When ammunition ran low, the stations had aired footage of soldiers using hammers to bash in skulls.
Just before CNN had gone off the air for the last time, an intern who’d
found herself behind the newsdesk claimed chemical weapons were at fault. By
that point the media had noticed even those who’d died of natural causes were
getting back up pissed and hungry. The intern had switched her story in midsentence, deciding the zombies were God’s Wrath. Then she’d slit her wrists.
Watching the tangled corpse, Morris still wondered what made the dead
return. He didn’t know if he believed any of the theories he’d heard, though the
chemical one made a certain amount of sense. Maybe it was just another cycle
of life. Maybe it was the planet striking back at them. Whatever it might be, he
knew humanity didn’t deserve it. They may have fucked up their share of things
along the way, but nothing could earn them this reward.
“You cool?” Eric asked.
He shrugged.
“You don’t want to back out, do you?”
“No.”
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“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
Eric stood there for a moment, looking like he couldn’t quite figure out what
he was supposed to say. Finally, he whispered, “Fine,” and walked to the flatbed
trailer they’d hooked to the truck, hands checking the connection. “Not like
there’s a choice, anyway.”
No, Morris thought. Guess I’m in it until the end.
————————————
Eric looked up at Chris. The man just sat there with angry shadows swirling
around his eyes. Guy probably still thought he’d drawn his name on purpose.
He almost wished that were the case, though he had to admit the initial surprise
had been the week’s lone bright spot.
“Hey, Chris.”
“What?”
“You go through your prep list?”
“Prep list? That what you’re calling it?”
“Yeah. You run it?”
“Yes.”
“Want to run through it again?”
“No.”
“Well, how about you go ahead and do it again so I can feel a little better
having you at my back?”
Chris let out a sigh that carried more than a little annoyance. Too bad. Eric
thought back on his years running kitchens and all the prep lists he’d worked
through before starting a shift. It was a part of doing any job the right way, and
Chris could like it or hate so long as he did what was expected of him.
He watched as Chris lifted a backpack into his lap and reached inside. The
man pulled out three loaded magazines for his hunting rifle.
“Spare clips or whatever you call them.”
A box of ammunition followed.
“More bullets.”
A different box.
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“For the pistol.”
A large, steel flashlight.
“Maglite.”
He drew more items from the pack, ticking each one off as he did so.
“Rope, one box of matches, walkie-talkie. I can’t seem to find my sippy cup,
though. You seen it, Dad?”
“Thanks,” Eric said. “You almost did that without making me want to put
five across your eyes.”
“I’m so honored.”
Eric turned away before he said something he might actually regret.
————————————
Jeremy couldn’t feel his hands. He didn’t know when he’d lost his sense of touch,
but he knew he’d had it last night. Now he looked down at his hands, curled
them into fists, and wondered where the feeling had gone.
They’d dragged his mother away fifteen minutes ago, when she threatened
to kill everybody in town if they made him go to Rundberg. He closed his eyes,
and he could still see her spit in one man’s face, scratch deep furrows in the cheek
of another. She’d looked crazy, but he knew it was just because she loved him.
He loved her, too. He hoped he’d get to see her again. Thinking about his
chances made him start crying.
Hot shame burned up his face. Jesus, he was acting like a fucking baby.
He checked to make sure nobody was looking at him. They weren’t. Everybody
appeared to be busy with something else. Mr. Dawes had opened up the truck’s
hood and looked to be checking the oil. Eric from the old diner was cleaning
a revolver, scrubbing the barrel with a wire brush. Chris Stevenson sat in the
pickup’s bed, either angry or sad by the look on his face.
Blake had moved to the side, where he talked with his girlfriend. Jeremy
knew her name was Holly Jenkins, and he knew she was hotter than hot. She’d
been a substitute teacher at Dearborn Middle a year back, and he’d spent a lot
of time in his home’s upstairs bathroom thinking about her and figuring out a
little about himself. Even now, when just about the only thing he could think
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about was zombies, the sight of her gave him a funny feeling down below. Man,
Blake had to be the luckiest guy on earth.
Well, maybe this was his chance to be that lucky. When they made it back,
he’d be a hero, not just some kid. Girls wanted to do things with heroes. Things
kids didn’t do.
Morris slammed the pickup’s hood shut and brushed his hands off on his
jeans. The funny feeling disappeared as fright replaced it once again. They’d be
leaving soon.
Jeremy wished he could see his mom.
————————————
“You better come back to me.”
“I will. Promise.” Blake held Holly tight and breathed deep through her
auburn hair. She hadn’t washed it for close to a week because of the rationing, but it smelled wonderful to him, natural and primal. He pressed his hand
against the small of her back and was struck by how thin she’d grown. Had she
always been this small, or was she starving a day at a time? Urgency churned in
his belly. They needed to get on the road and find out how much food was left in
Tandy’s, Rundberg’s supermarket.
“Don’t promise,” she said. Her voice barely rose above a whisper. “Just make
it back.”
“I will.”
She kissed him, a desperate, hungry pressure he didn’t want to end. He felt
a sudden and powerful need to not leave, to stay in the circle of her arms. He’d
moved in with Holly a year before the world ended. Together, they’d turned
the apartment above Millwood Hardware into a home. More than anything,
he wished they were in that tiny one-bedroom. He wished they could stay there
forever.
The kiss ended, and her lips found his ear. “I’ve got a treat for you when you
get back.”
“Yeah?”
“You bet. I found some black fishnets.”
He smiled. “Oh, really? You plan to wear them?”
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“I figured for a week or so I could wear nothing but.”
He had to hand it to her, she had a way with motivation. “We could maybe
be back in a few hours or so.”
“Just remember what you’re coming back to.” Her voice hitched, and he felt
her tears touch his cheek.
“I couldn’t forget if I tried.” He kissed her again, tenderly this time. He slid
his hands up and down over her back, and she shivered within his embrace. “I
love you, Holly.”
“I love you, too,” she replied. Her eyes were red and watering freely now.
“Goddammit, you come back to me. Remember to shoot smart, okay? Not
scared. Line up your damn sights. Don’t go popping off rounds like an asshole.”
“Right.” He tried to give her another smile, but it faltered on his lips. Instead
he kissed her forehead and then her hands. He didn’t want to let her go, but he
knew the others were waiting. Whether he liked it or not, it was time to leave.
“I love you,” he said again. It felt so important that she know it. “I really
do.”
“Me too.”
He turned and jumped into the back of the Dodge before he could change
his mind. He slapped the top of the cab, and Eric hit the gas. He sat down on
the wheel well as the truck rolled through the gate.
He looked back and saw Holly wave. He returned the gesture, and tears
filled his eyes.
I love you, Holly, he thought. I love you so fucking much.
“Don’t worry,” Chris said. “She probably won’t shuck any cobs before we get
back.”
He looked murder at the bastard and received a laugh for his effort. More
than ever, he found himself hoping something terrible would happen to Chris.
He hoped he’d get to watch.
A noise reached his ears, and Blake realized it was Jeremy Motts. The kid
was trying not to cry. His jaw was a firm line, his eyes cold, but tears welled up
in those eyes, preparing to fall. Jeremy sniffled once and then turned away, his
mouth twisting into an angry knot.
Blake knew how he felt. He wanted to say something, tell Jeremy it would
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be all right. The words wouldn’t come, though. They felt like lies, and Blake
didn’t have it in him to hide the truth from the boy.
He wrapped his arms around himself and hunkered down. He saw Eric and
Morris in the cab, looking straight ahead and not saying a word. Chris sat on
the opposite wheel well, smiling to himself like he didn’t have a care in the entire
fucking world. Probably didn’t, either. He guessed Chris didn’t think about
much of anything that wasn’t right in front of him.
Blake cast a last look at Millwood and watched several men push the
wrecked cars back into place, closing the barricade. That was it. They were outside now. Good luck, gentlemen. Don’t come back without food.
The truck accelerated. The trailer rumbled along the road, and Millwood
faded into the distance. Blake shut his eyes.
“Rundberg, here we come.”
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THREE
Even the woods along Highway 50 smelled dead. They stank like a slaughter
yard or garbage dump, maybe a cheap Chinese restaurant. The pickup couldn’t
outrun the stench. It might have churned Blake’s guts if he hadn’t spent the
last ten months breathing the same air. Besides, his nerves continued to give his
stomach all the action it could handle.
They’d been on the road just over thirty minutes, Eric taking the country
roads easy. Last thing they needed to do was wreck or bottom out the truck.
Something like that would leave them fucked before they even got to the hard
part. He could picture it now, the five of them walking back to Millwood. Hey,
can we grab another truck? We crapped out the last one.
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They’d only seen two zombies so far, a pair of females crouched just inside
the forest, tearing apart something that might have been a squirrel. Their skin
was a bloated green, splitting along the joints. The corpses hissed at them as they
drove by, but made no move to follow or attack. They already had their meal.
Blake knew that was about to change, though. Another mile or two and
they’d hit Rundberg’s outer edge. From there things could get bad real quick.
Three thousand hungry, walking corpses made one hell of a roadblock. Tandy’s
sat near the center of town, too. No back way in. They needed to plow through
a goddamn zombie army to reach the damn thing. Their mission was many
things-crazy, desperate-but easy sure wasn’t one of them.
The truck slowed. Feeling a hot stab of panic, he looked up, wondering what
had gone wrong. He searched the surrounding area for threats or catastrophes,
but found nothing. All along the highway, the woods stood quiet and still,
almost tranquil if you disregarded the stench. He settled in, but he pulled the
Glock 37 from his waistband. Best to be prepared.
Jeremy didn’t take it so well. After fifteen minutes or so of steady driving,
he’d stopped trying to look tough and instead just stared at his knees, but now
he looked every which way, eyes wide and almost vibrating beneath the bill of his
Reds cap. His lips quivered, and when he finally spoke he kept asking, “What’s
happening? What’s happening?”
“Fucking grow a pair,” Chris said.
Blake looked a warning at the man. “Don’t know, but I don’t think it’s anything serious. Just chill.” He gave the kid a pat on the shoulder and felt muscles
stiff as stone. Jeremy was going to lose it if he didn’t relax a little. How could he
tell anybody to do that under the circumstances, though? Might as well ask a
burning man to sit down and have a beer before dropping to the ground and
rolling.
They crawled to a stop on the road’s shoulder. Blake saw Jeremy close his
eyes and breathe deep, and he felt relieved.
Eric and Morris climbed out of the cab. The big man rolled his shoulders
and stretched. He gave the others a grin.
“Almost there. Anybody have to piss or puke, do it now.”
Blake thought he’d never heard such a good idea. He raised his hand like a
school kid. “I’ll accept that offer.”
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Chris laughed. “Hope you didn’t have a chunky breakfast.”
“Go to hell.”
“Hey, that’s what this trip’s all about, right?” The bastard gave a single laugh,
throwing everything he had into one loud syllable.
Blake grunted as he hopped out of the bed. His knees creaked, and his muscles ached. It felt like he’d spent the day breaking rocks or hauling timber. He
hadn’t realized just how big a number the tension had done on his body. If they
made it back, Holly could walk around in her fishnets for a whole month, and
he’d probably sleep through every last minute of it.
He heard Jeremy say something, saw him climb out of the truck, but he was
already at the forest’s edge. Searching for any sign of movement, he saw nothing. Dead, just like the rest of the goddamn world. And he wanted to wait until
it was safe before asking Holly to marry him. Bullshit. Safe was a memory. It
wouldn’t be back in his lifetime.
His gut told him it was ready. He stepped into the forest, made it maybe
ten feet before doubling over and lurching last night’s dinner onto the ground.
Grabbing hold of a nearby spruce, he fought to keep himself from falling into
his own vomit. He managed a breath, and then his gut kicked up another load.
His stomach quieted. He was finished, and probably a pound or two lighter
for his troubles. Groaning, he coughed, spit, and wiped the corners of his mouth
with his fingers. Awful stuff, but he knew he’d see worse before sundown.
“You weren’t kidding, huh?”
He turned without straightening and found Jeremy standing just inside the
trees. The kid looked alive and thinking, an improvement. He had his hands
stuffed in his pockets, and he eyed the ground like he was ashamed to be butting
in on such a private moment.
“Nerves,” Blake said. “Couldn’t be helped. Go ahead if you need to.”
“Nah. I’m not really as scared as I thought I’d be.”
Blake didn’t respond, just watched the kid with amused eyes.
“Okay, I’m more scared than I thought I’d be. I’m scared out of my fucking
mind.”
“Me too. Know what, though? I bet your mom’s more frightened than the
two of us put together.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I know. She embarrassed the crap out of me. You
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know she was saying last night we should just run away? She thought that was
safer than me going to Rundberg. Can you believe that?”
“Doesn’t make a lot of sense, no.”
“I think she’s crazy.”
Blake stepped away from the spruce and his dinner. “Hey, your mom isn’t
crazy. She cares about you, and that can make her less than rational sometimes,
but that doesn’t make her crazy.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Sure, but remember something. You and me are the lucky ones on this little
trip.”
“Maybe you’re crazy.”
“Think about it a minute. Those other three, who do they have to go back
to? The town might want to see them return with food, but those guys don’t
have loved ones. You and me, we have that.”
Jeremy shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Little man, if you heard half the things Holly promised to do to me when
we get back, you’d never sleep again.”
The boy smiled. “What kind of things?”
Blake shook his head, smiling. “Maybe later, okay?”
————————————
Chris leaned against the side of the truck’s bed and stretched his arms skyward.
His muscles creaked, but it felt good. What was this stopping bullshit? If he was
gonna die, he’d rather get it over with than fart around and stall all day. These
white trash wanted to kill themselves over some canned veggies so bad, why
didn’t they just hop to it? Bring on the destiny, man!
He almost laughed. Destiny. What a load of horseshit. Was he supposed to
believe the plague or act of God or whatever the fuck was all part of some karmic
roadmap? No, humanity had found itself balls-deep in a colossal, meaningless
fuck up. Wasn’t his goddamn fault these Millwood shitheads were starving. He
hadn’t created killbillies or stolen food or anything else that had fucked over
those folks. So why on earth was it fair that he had to go on the world’s most
idiotic shopping trip?
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Sneering, he turned the thoughts over and over again. He could just get up
and go, take his guns-well, they were somebody else’s guns, but they’d been
handed to him-and take off, hike into a field or the woods and keep going until
he found some safe place to hole up. He could make a go of it, and he’d make
it work. After all, he was a fair shot. Couldn’t handle three thousand killbillies
by himself, but four or five wouldn’t be a problem. There had to be a cabin or a
secluded house he could claim as his own. He’d probably even find some supplies; maybe grow some crops of his own. Sure, no problem. He’d done it before.
Lasted three months, too.
He thought about it, eyeing the .22 laying across his knees and the .380 in
his waistband. Plenty of ammo, too. The others would try to stop him, though.
Hell, Morris had already threatened him a time or two, swinging that smalltown dick like he was in charge of the world. Giant redneck fucker deserved a
good kick in the balls. Show him he wasn’t so tough.
He eyed Morris and the skinny one, Eric. They stood at the side of the road,
facing away from him and puffing on some smokes. He watched them inhale
and exhale, and he found himself wanting a cigarette. It had been too long since
his last good drag.
But a smoke wasn’t his main concern right now. The two rednecks held that
honor. If he wanted, he could punch a bullet through the back of each of their
skulls right now. It wouldn’t be anything personal, just the cost of freedom.
Blake and the baby were off in the woods. He could probably take out the road
boys and nab the truck before the guys in the woods knew what the hell was
happening.
He smiled. It was a pretty good plan. He felt a small swell of pride that he’d
been the one to think of it. Chris Stevenson, the baddest motherfucker in Indiana. Giving the rednecks exactly what they deserve.
But did he really want to do it? He mulled it over for a second, decided he
didn’t. Sure, he didn’t like these folks, but he was pretty comfortable. He might
take off someday, but he’d need a better plan. Might as well sit tight and see how
their little errand fared. Who knew? It might turn out to be a fun distraction.
Chris shook his head. These idiots would never know how close they’d
come.
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————————————
Eric closed his eyes and did a few deep knee-bends. The muscles in his legs
burned the slightest bit, better than they had the last few days. He mentally ran
through his own prep list. Patting his pocket, he felt the smaller flashlight he’d
tucked there an hour earlier. He visualized Tandy’s floor plan, and he hoped it
hadn’t changed in the past few years.
Once he felt satisfied, he lit a cigarette. He watched Morris and sucked
tobacco smoke deep into his lungs. The hand-rolled cigarettes were rough and
strong and tasted pretty terrible, but he’d grown to like them over the last few
months. Funny that they were running out of food in the land of corn, but
somebody had managed to keep a tobacco crop going. It appeared people were
serious about feeding their addictions.
The big man wasn’t doing anything, just standing there, facing east and
peering into the distance. He looked like a stone column, sturdy and silent.
What was east?
Right.
“You were in Cincinnati when it started, right?”
The big man nodded. He blew two plumes of smoke out his nostrils.
“What was it like?”
“Bad.” No emotion in his voice, like he had hypnotized himself.
“I mean, it’s a big city and all. I saw them trying to pull people out with
copters, and I saw those poor bastards on the Serpentine Wall, in the river. Jesus.
It amazes me you even made it out.”
Morris nodded.
“You okay?”
That seemed to cut through the static. Morris shook his head and blinked,
and suddenly he turned to look at Eric.
“Fine. Just zoning, I guess.” He took another drag off his smoke and coughed
a little. “Jesus, these are worse than pot.”
“Pretty gritty, yeah.”
“I can taste the fucking fertilizer.”
“You noticed that, too?”
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“Yeah. Nothing like a lungful of shit on a nice spring day, huh?”
“Right. Nothing like it in the whole world.”
Eric took another drag, let the taste soak into his mouth. Morris was right,
you could taste every disgusting aspect of the cigarette. No artificial sweeteners
here, just dirt and shit and dried-out plant. It almost made him wonder why
he’d started smoking in the first place, but he already knew the answer. Screw it.
He was addicted, and he’d grown comfortable with the fact. End of story.
————————————
Morris wished Eric would shut up. He understood why the man wanted a conversation. The guy was scared. Hell, he was scared too. The last thing he wanted,
however, was small talk. It was too friendly, too normal, and it brought bad
memories.
————————————
“So, Idol tonight. Who you guys think’s going home?”
Morris rolled his eyes. This shit again? The guys had been annoying enough
when it was just Survivor on Thursdays. This American Idol crap was gonna send
him jumping out a window.
“Can we please go one week without talking about that fucking show?”
Carl Barnes walked past, twirling a drywall knife in his fingers. “You’re still
not watching, Morris?”
“Do I sound like I’m watching?”
“Your wife watches though, right?”
“Jesus Christ, yes. Maybe she just wants me to leave.”
Ben Coolidge unscrewed the top from his thermos and took a belt of coffee.
At least he said it was coffee. Morris wouldn’t put anything past the guy. “You
really should check it out. There’s this one girl on this year got an ass you could
eat a steak off of.”
“Who?” Carl asked. “You don’t mean Leslie.”
“I do.”
“She’s sixteen!”
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“Don’t make her ass any uglier.”
“Just makes it illegal.”
“I’m not gonna meet her, Carl. Shit, I’m not even voting for her. I’m just
thinking about her in the shower once in awhile.”
“Jesus Christ!”
Morris laughed as he walked away from the pair of them. They’d been
working on the University of Cincinnati’s new music building for two months
now, and he knew he had months of Carl and Ben going back and forth ahead
of him. It would be the same deal on the next job, which would probably be a
new building on the UC campus. The University gave them more work than
any other organization in town. Every year a different department wanted new
facilities, so the projects remained plentiful and the contracts profitable. Say
what you wanted about higher learning, it kept him employed.
He clicked on his portable radio as he crouched beside the wall, ready to get
to work on the drywall. An Alice in Chains song played on WEBN, same as it
would every hour on the hour. Some things just didn’t change.
“Well,” Carl said, “Your sweet Leslie’s going home after the way she butchered that Elton John song last night, so you can kiss her tight little dinner plate
ass goodbye.”
Morris turned up the volume. “Them Bones” swelled and almost drowned
out the dynamic duo.
“They can’t send her home! That just leaves Scott and Jacob, and they’re
both queer as the day is long!”
“Least they can sing!”
Jesus Christ, he thought. Two guys with tool belts arguing over American Idol,
and one of them has the nerve to use queer as an insult. He’d have to tell Carol once
she picked him up. She’d never believe it. Probably give him a good line or two
about how hot that Simon guy was, on top of it all.
The song ended abruptly, cutting off in the middle of the second verse. The
DJ’s voice poured out of the speakers, the radio’s tinny sound quality doing little
to disguise the fear in the man’s words.
“Hey, folks. Sorry about that, but I’ve been told there are riots breaking out
in downtown. We hope to have some more information soon. Sorry we don’t
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have more right now. I’ll do my best to give it to you straight, okay? Right now
though, everybody should probably just stay clear of downtown.”
Morris eyed the radio as the music returned. He didn’t notice that Ben and
Carl had fallen silent. Instead he considered what he’d just heard. Downtown?
Where downtown? Cincinnati was a big place, and Carol worked in the Fifth
Third building right off Fountain Square.
As if in answer, his cell phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket and
looked at the display. Carol. He answered as his heart kicked up a few notches.
“You okay?”
“Morris.” She sounded scared, her voice edgy and high-pitched. “Oh my
God. People are going crazy down here. I can see them out my window. I don’t
know what’s going on, but they’re saying it’s riots.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Everybody’s freaking out a little here. They don’t know if the
rioters are going to… oh my God!”
“What? Carol, what?”
No answer. The line had gone dead. He disconnected and tried again, got a
busy signal. A call to his wife’s cell went straight to voicemail.
He slammed his cellphone shut. “Fuck!”
Carl stood over him. “Morris, is everything-”
He didn’t stick around to hear the rest.
————————————
“So here’s a question,” Eric said. “How good do you think our chances are?”
Morris squinted as he chased away his memories. Was Eric really asking
this?
“Well?”
So yeah, the guy really was asking.
“Five of us,” he said without turning to face Eric. “Armed, but three of us are
out in the open. Supermarket’s about eight blocks in. Three thousand zombies
between us and it, give or take a few hundred. That about the size of it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
He took another drag off the cigarette that tasted like a burning twig. He
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considered lying. Morale might get them pretty far. On the other hand, he
trusted Eric, and the only other person who could possibly hear him was an
asshole. Might as well tell the truth.
“I think we’ll make it a block or two.”
Eric stared at him for a long moment. The thin man blinked a few times,
and then a tiny smile appeared on his face. “A block or two?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you serious? You don’t even think we’ll make it to the store?”
“No.”
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“But you volunteered for this.”
“I did.” He took a last, long drag off his smoke and then flicked it into the
middle of Highway 50. The cherry glowed against the hardtop. He considered
walking into the middle of the road to stomp it out, but then decided he didn’t
really care.
“So why?” Eric asked.
“Why what?”
“Why volunteer for something you’re convinced will fail? That’s kind of
ridiculous, right?”
He shrugged.
Eric shuffled in place for a second, looking at his shoes. “Um, volunteering
and all, does it have anything to do with your wife?”
He waited for Eric to raise his eyes, and then he locked him with a gaze. He
didn’t narrow his eyes or frown or snarl, nothing like that, just looked into the
man’s eyes in a calm, plain way that told him to mind his own goddamn business.
Then he turned and approached the truck. “We should go.”
He felt Eric’s eyes on his back. Maybe he felt a little guilty for being so blunt
with the man, but he didn’t know any other way. Could be they’d reach the
grocery store. He certainly planned to do all he could in order to get them there.
Hope felt like a ridiculous notion, though. He didn’t know if such a thing even
existed anymore.
Maybe they’d find out. Stranger things had happened.
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FOUR
“It’s okay,” Blake said. “Just let it come. Don’t try to force it or anything.” He
patted Jeremy’s back again, and it did the trick. The boy lurched forward and
hurled up at least a single meal. He stepped back and let the kid finish it off by
himself.
“Feel better?”
“A little,” Jeremy said as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Still scared,
but it’s a little better.”
“Yeah, about the same here. We can wait a sec if you’ve got more.”
“I’m okay. I think I just want to get-”
Blake shushed the boy with a finger. He’d heard something. It took him
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a second to recognize the sound, but then then realization came, and fear followed close behind it. Something was crunching through fallen leaves, heading
their way. Whatever it might be-and he knew damn well just what it was-it
sounded like it was in a hurry.
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“Shh.” He pulled the boy behind him and watched the woods. He couldn’t
see anything. He wanted to think it was an April wind, but he knew better. He
heard distinct steps, and more than one set.
He pulled his pistol. “Let’s get back to the truck.”
“They’re coming, aren’t they?”
“The truck, Jeremy.”
But Jeremy stood frozen, fingers curled in the back of Blake’s jacket. Blake
couldn’t get his feet working, either. The mad urge to see the things steamrolling
their way had him in a powerful grip. Run, dammit, his brain commanded, but
his body refused to respond.
He sensed movement to his right, and he turned to find four of the dead
cannibals hauling ass through the trees, running like tired spastics. Their arms
flailed and slammed into trunks as they sprinted past. Jesus, he thought. How
did they get to be so fast? They closed to within fifty yards, moving like hell chased
them.
“Run!” Blake screamed, and it got his legs moving. He stumbled backward,
nearly tripping over Jeremy, and squeezed off a shot. It went wide, sending bark
flying off a maple. The zombies never slowed, didn’t even appear to notice the
attack. They kept coming, gaining speed and kicking up leaves.
Blake turned and grabbed Jeremy. He shoved the kid out of the trees and
toward the truck. “Fucking move!” The boy finally did what he was told, throwing a last terrified glance over his shoulder before breaking into a sprint.
He spun and fired another shot. It caught the leader in the shoulder and
punched straight through. His next shot slammed into its kneecap. The rotting
thing twisted and fell, and a corpse right behind it tripped and went crashing.
The last two made it past with ease and closed to within twenty yards. He braced
the pistol with his free hand. Did he have enough time?
No. He turned and ran.
He burst out of the woods and found himself just over ten yards from the
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truck. Jeremy was already halfway there, screaming at the top of his lungs. The
others were just now turning to see what the hell was happening.
“Zombies!” he called. “Heading this way fast!” He heard one of themmaybe Eric-yell, and he saw them all burst into motion. He hoped they were
fast enough to have the Dodge running by the time he reached it.
He heard the sound of mad, staggering feet exit the forest, and he turned to
fire. He realized how bad an idea he’d had a split second before his feet twisted
and he crashed to the ground. His arms flew wide, and his chin slammed into
the gravel and dirt on the side of the road. Stars burned against the back of his
eyes, and air exploded from his lungs. He felt his fingers open and heard the
pistol tumble away.
Blake tried to scream, but he couldn’t draw breath. He scrambled forward
blindly, hoping he was still heading toward the truck and praying the others
wouldn’t leave him behind.
He heard a growl from behind him that was almost a delighted squeal. Jesus,
they were right on top of him now. He clawed at the gravel with his fingers and
fought for breath. His feet kicked at the ground and pushed him along. Stones
scraped at his chest and stomach, his T-shirt providing almost no protection.
He heard the pickup roar to life. In the next instant cold, withered hands
closed around his ankle, and he found the air to scream. He lurched backward
across the ground. His shirt bunched up around his chin, and the gravel cut his
flesh.
The world stopped around him, went silent.
Holly.
The word echoed through his mind, and he knew it would be the last
thing to cross his mind before dying. He started to say goodbye, but then a rifle
cracked from somewhere above and the hands let go. He heard a body collapse
to the ground in the moment before a second shot split the sky. The world sped
up again, and he leaped to his feet, ducking his head in case somebody was still
shooting.
“Move your fucking ass!” Chris screamed.
Blake did his best to obey. He spared a single glance under his arm and saw
two zombies sprawled along the ground, their brains fanned out behind them.
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He started to look for the pistol, but then the remaining cannibals tore out of
the forest and charged toward him. There was no time.
He raised his head and saw he was feet from the pickup. He grabbed the top
of the tailgate and jumped, pushing himself over and into the bed. He hung suspended for a split second and then crashed down hard. His shoulder crunched
against steel, and he managed another scream. The pain was instant and intense.
He pulled his legs in close, making sure they were inside the truck.
“Go!” Chris yelled. The man slapped the cab for emphasis.
The truck’s tires spun, gravel spraying over the approaching zombies, and
then caught. The vehicle fishtailed the slightest bit before straightening out and
charging onto the road. The engine growled, and Blake felt the foul-smelling
wind sweep past his face. They were safe.
He rolled onto his back and winced as he felt his shoulder. It ached like a
son of a bitch, and his touch sent hot stabs of agony all the way to his spine.
He hated how close their little encounter had been, hated how narrowly he’d
escaped death.
And they’d only faced four this time out. Three thousand of the bastards
still waited just a mile or two up the road.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Nice moves,” Chris said. “Picture of fucking grace.”
He ignored the bastard. A single thought filled his brain and shut out everything else. It echoed like a nightmare.
We don’t stand a chance.
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FIVE
Blake checked his weapons. With the Glock gone, he found himself with only
a revolver and a pump-handle shotgun. Between the two, he needed to reload
after every fourteen shots. Not the best odds, and the numbers worried at him.
When things went bad, he’d probably have better luck just worrying about the
shotgun. The pump-handle loaded easier than the revolver, the shells much
easier to grasp.
He hoped he’d last long enough to reload the shotgun. The throbbing pain
in his shoulder and the stinging cuts on his chest and stomach gave him plenty
of doubts.
Chris sat across from him, double-checking his hunting rifle and maybe
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thinking the same thing. Inspecting the scowl on the man’s face, Blake wondered if he was worried or pissed off. He didn’t know Chris well enough to tell,
and he didn’t care to get chummy with the guy. If he’d learned anything about
Chris, it was that he was a first-class asshole. The bastard would probably blow
each one of them away if he thought it would save his own ass.
Blake reminded himself to keep a close eye on Stevenson. He wanted to
believe the guy wouldn’t do anything crazy, but he just couldn’t be sure. Things
could get real messy if Chris got any wild ideas.
Jeremy had taken his position against the back of the cab again. The boy
didn’t hug himself anymore, but now he stared at the pistol in his hand like it
was some lost relic he didn’t understand. Who had decided to give this kid an
automatic?
“Jeremy, you know how that thing works, right?”
The kid stared at the weapon a second longer before blinking and looking
up. “Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“I’m serious. I know you got a lesson before we left, but it’s cool if you want
a refresher. Seriously, if you need help or something, say it. Better now than in a
minute.”
“I’m fine! I’ve shot a gun before!” The wounded note of insult in Jeremy’s
voice told Blake all he needed to know.
“So you know the safety’s on, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you take it off? Almost showtime, anyway.”
Jeremy returned his eyes to the weapon. He turned it over in his hands a few
times, considering. Finally, his shoulders slumped. When he looked up again,
his eyes shined with tears.
“I don’t even remember what the safety is.”
Blake nodded. He didn’t scowl or make any face that wasn’t supportive as he
held out his hand. “Here, I’ll show you.” He accepted the weapon from Jeremy
and showed him the safety, thumbed it off and back on. The boy nodded, his
face serious and concentrating. If nothing else, at least he’d given Jeremy something new to think about.
“You remember how to switch out the magazine?”
Jeremy stared at him like he was teaching advanced calculus. His breathing
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quickened. Blake spotted the approaching panic and placed a hand on Jeremy’s
shoulder.
“Hey, calm down. We’ll get it, okay? Just breathe slow and pay attention.”
Jeremy nodded, and his breathing improved. Blake watched him for a
moment and felt a sadness sweep into his mind. He hadn’t consciously thought
about breathing in a long while.
————————————
Another rasping breath, air moving past his father’s lips with a sound like sandpaper over pine, and Blake counted again. He squeezed Holly’s hand, and she
shuddered. His mind told him to look at her, to give her some kind of smile, but
instead he could only sit there and stare at his father while he counted.
Eleven. Twelve.
The desiccated form of his dad drew in another breath, shoulders jerking
upward, their bones stabbing at the room. His blanket had slipped down again.
Blake had fixed it a dozen times already, but the violent motion of his father’s
ragged breathing always made it fall.
He hoped the man didn’t feel any pain. He’d given him the last dose of
morphine two hours before, and now the empty bottle with its dropper wasn’t
going to do anybody the slightest bit of good. A week ago, he could have called
the hospice nurse and had the prescription refilled. She’d run a full bottle over
an hour later. The phones didn’t work anymore though, and the nurse sure as
hell wasn’t going to stop by anytime soon.
A rifle shot cracked somewhere far away, followed by two more in rapid succession. The sound interrupted his count. He wondered if the shooter had hit his
target or if the dead person attacking him had won in the end.
“You okay?” Holly asked.
He nodded. It wasn’t the worst lie he’d ever told.
His father took another breath. The spittle that had collected on his lips fluttered. Blake stood and picked up the washrag he’d sat next to the hospital bed.
The bed filled most of his father’s living room. He wiped the man’s lips clear and
then returned the rag to its spot next to the set of dentures he’d removed the
previous day. He sat down as the frail man drew another breath.
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Jesus, how long could this go on? A part of him wished he didn’t have to
learn. He wanted to leave, to remember his father the way he’d been back in
February, before he’d ever heard the words oncology or chemotherapy or lung
cancer used in relation to the man. His dad had been jovial back then, a free
spirit and a horny bastard who was quick with a joke and easy with a smile. His
father had all of his hair back then, didn’t sit in a chair with a slack jaw and halfshut eyes, trying to keep his cigarette steady so he didn’t burn himself.
Eighteen. Nineteen.
And his father breathed again, that rasping sound filling the quiet living
room.
Holly rested her head on his shoulder, and he could have kissed her for hours
just as a way of thanking her. She didn’t need to be at his side right now. She had
parents of her own who hadn’t wasted away into things like twigs. Somewhere
beyond Millwood, the world was ending, but Holly was here instead of locked
up tight with her own parents.
“You don’t need to do this alone,” she’d told him. If he’d had any doubts he
was in love, she’d destroyed them with that simple declaration. That had been
two days ago, maybe an hour after his father had last opened his eyes.
He’d checked his father’s pulse that night. It was steady at eighty-the hospice nurse told him the end would be near when it rose over one hundred.
An hour ago, his father’s pulse had reached ninety-seven. It shouldn’t be
long now.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
Breath.
————————————
“Okay, here.” He made sure Jeremy could see what he was doing. “You eject the
mag like this. Slap the new one in hard, and then rack the slide back like this.
That puts one in the chamber. Remember?”
“Think so.”
“Good. Y’know, you don’t have an unlimited amount of bullets or anything, so maybe hang back unless something gets close enough to make the shot
perfect. We’re probably going to need every round we can spare.”
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“Right.” Jeremy nodded slowly, absorbing it all. The desire to do a good job
moved like a shadow through his eyes.
“And don’t fucking hit either of us,” Chris said.
“I won’t.”
“I’m not joking, you little shit. You so much as scuff my jacket, and I’ll toss
you over the side to those things.”
Blake saw Jeremy’s face blanch a new shade of white, and it set off something
inside him. He lunged across the pickup’s bed and grabbed Chris’s collar in both
hands, pulling him in close.
“You asshole! Lay the fuck off him!”
“Screw you, Ellis,” Chris said through a snarl. “Maybe you’re happy to
play wet-nurse to the little bastard, but he’s just gonna get us killed before some
corpse takes a bite out of him!”
Blake cocked back a fist. Something inside him screamed Do it! Something
else clapped its hands and asked what the hell had taken him so long.
“Hey!”
Eric’s voice cut through the road noise and shocked him out of his anger.
He looked away from Chris and saw the cook leaning out the passenger side
window, scowling.
“Cut that shit out! We’re here!”
Blake looked past Eric’s angry face and saw a metal sign approaching on the
right. The sight of it sent a nervous jolt through his entire body.
RUNDBERG
“The Home of Peace and Quiet”
Population 3042
He eased the tension out of his fingers and let go of Chris. The bastard
shoved him away and shrugged his asshole leather jacket back into place.
“Don’t worry yourself there, peaches,” Chris said. “We’ll continue this little
discussion later.” The prick grabbed up his hunting rifle and stood behind the
cab, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the roof.
Blake heard him mutter, “Shithead.”
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Yeah, he thought. We’ ll finish something later. As he snatched up his shotgun,
however, he wondered if he’d get the opportunity.
You better, Holly’s voice told him. You promised you’ d come back to me.
“Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll do my best.”
The truck slowed and turned to the right, the trailer rattled behind them as
if in protest, and then they entered the town of Rundberg, Indiana.
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SIX
Blake stared in shock at what remained of Rundberg. Like most everybody else
in Millwood, he hadn’t seen any destruction up close and in person. He remembered grainy, frenzied footage on the news channels, garbled radio broadcasts
full of panicked voices. He’d heard a few stories from those who’d escaped more
populated areas and made their way to Millwood, but nothing had prepared
him for what he saw on Front Street as they entered Rundberg. Maybe a show
about Beirut he’d watched years before, but that was only an approximation.
Most of the homes along the right hand side of the road were now little more
than blackened shells or skeletons. Almost all of the trees had died, though a few
showed a splash of green leaves amid the branches that were mostly charcoal.
Across the street stood a collection of houses that looked a few hundred years
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older than their actual age. Window frames had lost their glass and roofs had
caved in. Just past Catalpa Street, somebody had driven a Ford Bronco through
the front of a one-story. The driver’s door hung open, but the window had shattered, and Blake made out the reddish-brown streaks of dried blood on what
remained of the glass. More cars had been abandoned up and down the road. A
broken skeleton, the skull shattered and the flesh long picked clean, lay splayed
across the front of a Toyota that had wrapped around a tree. Blake thought the
victim had probably flown face-first through the windshield and into the thick
trunk. Probably lucky in the long run.
“Where the fuck are they?” Chris asked.
“Quiet.”
Chris turned around and raised his voice. “They can hear the fucking truck,
Blake. My voice isn’t gonna make things worse. Shit, who knows if they’re even
going to show?”
He gave Chris the finger, received one in return. He turned away and
scanned the area again. As much as he hated to admit it, the guy did have a
point. Where had all the dead gone? He didn’t guess they would have moved on
in search of food. Some of them might have done just that, but they’d never be
lucky enough for the rest to follow suit. Besides, the stink of rot and death was
stronger here. It clung to the town like a fog.
He wondered why Morris was taking it so slow instead of gunning it for the
grocery store. Looking past the cab, he found the answer. A snarl of twisted,
black metal lay in the middle of the street. Another wreck. Morris piloted
around it. Blake looked down into the wreckage and found no bodies. They’d
either been dragged free or crawled out on their own after the fact.
“Jesus.”
A wheezing cry split the air. Blake jumped before moving to comfort Jeremy,
sure the kid had lost what little of his nerve remained. When he reached out,
however, he found Jeremy’s mouth shut. The boy looked scared, his eyes darting
in all directions, but he remained silent.
Oh, shit, he thought. Here they come.
————————————
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“Got one,” Eric said, excitement sparking his voice like electricity through
ancient wiring.
“I see it,” Morris answered. He didn’t need to follow Eric’s pointing finger.
He’d seen the thing the second it left the half-collapsed home and darted for the
street, arms swinging like overcooked pasta. Its gray, sagging flesh soaked up the
sunlight and made it something sickly. It charged onto the pavement and came
right at them. He met its pale, hungry eyes and zeroed in, taking aim. He caught
a hint of movement somewhere behind the thing, but he shut it out.
This is it. No turning back now.
The street was clear between the truck and the zombie, the distance closing
fast. Morris took a deep breath and held it. Hate rose in him like fire. This monstrosity was everything he despised, and he would destroy it.
He stomped on the gas, and the truck roared.
“What are you doing?” Eric asked.
He didn’t answer. He felt his jaw tighten, but he wasn’t aware of clenching
it. His fingers choked the wheel, and his lips pulled back from his teeth. Somewhere far away, he heard Stevenson yell, “Oh shit!” If he’d checked the rearview,
he would have seen the man duck below the cab and cover his head with both
arms.
He felt the engine rumble with angry life, saw the running corpse rocket
toward them, and then zombie and truck collided.
Visibility disappeared as the dead man burst like a tick, a soupy mix of black
fluids splattering the windshield. The creature’s head bounced off the glass and
went flying. A rope of intestine followed, twisting over the filthy glass like a dead
snake. The smell intensified, and Eric moaned into his hand.
Morris hit the brakes as the thing’s legs powdered beneath the truck’s tires.
The pickup slid to a stop in the middle of Front Street. He realized he was holding his breath, so he let out his air and took in more. He felt a little better, kind
of satisfied.
He turned to look at Eric, found him staring in disgust at the filth-covered
windshield.
“Sorry about that.”
“Can we go, please?”
“Sure.”
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He pulled the wiper lever and gave the windshield some fluid. The wipers
pushed the muck into streaks and finally cleaned it away, leaving him plenty of
visibility.
He didn’t like what he saw.
————————————
“Oh shit! Duck!” Chris said as he followed his own advice.
Blake felt the quick crunch of the truck hitting a body, and in the next
instant a stinking black rain splattered him and the others. His muscles drew
up involuntarily as the sticky wetness and accompanying stench hit him. A head
sailed over them and bounced twice off the flatbed before tumbling into the
street. A moment later, a trail of intestine slid over the cab and fell on Stevenson’s shoulders. The man screamed as his arms jerked, trying to shake off the
blackened entrails. Jeremy cowered, afraid the thing might touch him.
Blake could only watch. He felt the truck stop, but he couldn’t turn away
from Chris and the spastic dance the man did as he tried to get rid of his new
accessory. The horrible absurdity entranced him, and he didn’t even wipe at the
terrible mess that flecked his skin.
Chris wheezed as he grabbed the fleshy rope in both hands and sent it sailing over the side. The man stared at his hands as the truck sat in the middle of
the filthy street.
“Chris?” Blake asked. “You okay?”
The man laughed. It started as chuckles and then became full guffaws as the
pickup got rolling again. He searched for madness in the man’s eyes but didn’t
find any. This was something else.
“Holy shit!” Chris said. “Now, that’s a fucking party, boys!”
Blake looked away, wiped the muck from his skin, careful to keep it away
from his eyes and mouth. He’d need to find water soon. Maybe there was some
in the cab.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Jeremy said. The undulating sound of his voice backed
up the claim.
“Just hang it over the side, little buddy,” Chris said. “We’re having some
fun…”
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Blake turned at the sound on Chris’s dying voice. He saw the man stare out
at the street and ruined homes, his eyes going wide and the color draining from
his face.
“Oh, Jesus Hell,” Chris said.
He followed the man’s gaze and saw them. Zombies charged out of every
home, out of the scattered woods behind houses. Dozens ran from Catalpa and
sprinted down Front Street, predators realizing somebody had put the soup on.
Their rotted forms jumbled in his vision, becoming a wall of gray, green, and
horrible brown.
With numb fingers, he scooped up the shotgun. He scrambled for the trigger and almost pulled it without aiming. Somebody had dropped ice into his
gut, and it sent cold spikes of terror into his brain. He tried to steady his hands,
but they fought him for control. Every stinking breath made him shake harder.
“Oh, shit,” Blake said.
The truck wasn’t accelerating fast enough. The zombies came from all sides
and closed quickly. He gave the road ahead a panicked glance and saw more
undead charging from up the street. Jesus, had all three thousand of the bastards decided to hit them right now?
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to catch Chris
jamming the butt of his rifle into his shoulder. Beyond him, Jeremy curled into a
ball and screamed. He wanted to do the same thing, but something told him he
couldn’t, not yet.
“C’mon, Ellis,” Stevenson said as he sighted down the barrel. “Don’t you
dare leave me alone here.”
The rifle cracked, and the ice in his gut shattered.
The approaching wall of rot separated into individual targets. Blake jacked
the shotgun once and planted it in his shoulder. He swung the weapon to the
right, where the zombies had closed to within twenty feet of the truck and
were stampeding toward the side, and pulled the trigger. The twelve-gauge
bucked hard in his hands, and a head that showed more skull than flesh disintegrated along with the thing’s neck and chest. The monsters on either side of
the destroyed zombie flew backwards and crashed into the throng. More bodies
surged forward to take their place, angry waves at high tide. A few climbed onto
the trailer, only to tumble off when they tried to stand.
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The truck accelerated, and Blake shifted onto one knee, centering his
weight. He pulled the trigger, and another zombie blew apart. Beside him, Chris
snapped off a few more shots before pausing to change out a magazine.
He saw a sagging body tumble past and fall apart as it struck the concrete.
He guessed it had tried to grab onto the side of the pickup. The rest of the dead
whipped past, running but unable to keep up.
Holy shit, he thought. We might actually make it through this.
Then the truck slowed down and one of the zombies leaped into the bed.
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SEVEN
Morris looked past the stampede of living dead and saw the end of Front Street.
The concrete and steel of the fire station loomed directly ahead, only McCormick Avenue offering escape. Five more seconds, and the pickup would cross the
two-lane street and become a permanent part of the station. He realized he’d
never make the turn unless he slowed down.
He pumped the brake, and the Dodge dropped from forty-five to twenty.
The zombies closed in on them. He felt a hot surge of panic as he saw a snarling
face appear on the other side of the window. Thunder boomed from the bed,
and the monster’s head exploded in a red and gray mist. Something banged on
the top of the cab, urgent and angry.
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“Fuck,” he muttered and hit the brake again. The vehicle slowed to fifteen
miles an hour, and the thunder from the rear came more frequently, drowning
out the rumble of the engine and the frenzied sounds of the snarling dead. He
felt the urge to check the rearview and make sure the others were okay. Instead,
he jerked the wheel left, pointing the truck’s nose toward Tandy’s. The zombies
parted, and an overturned van appeared in the middle of the street.
He heard Eric cry out and caught the man grabbing hold of the dash. He
stomped on the brake and spun the wheel to the right. The pickup’s rear swung
wide. He bit down hard on nothing and hoped for the best, but he knew he’d
been too slow. They were going to hit the wreck.
————————————
Blake thought he had three shells left when the rasping woman with arms
draped in tattered flesh jumped into the bed, but he couldn’t be sure. He fired,
and the female’s midsection vanished. Her top half flew backward while her legs
flopped onto the bed’s floor, splattering blood. The lukewarm fluid splashed his
face before he could turn his head.
Stinking hands grabbed at him as the truck continued to slow. He fired
another blast, and the hands fell away for a moment. He heard Chris bang a fist
on the cab and yell, “C’mon, Morris! It’s the one on the fucking right!” but the
big man didn’t appear to pay much mind.
Something slammed against the side of the cab. He looked and saw one of
the zombies slapping at the driver’s side door with broken hands. He fired at the
thing’s temple and put it down.
The truck began to turn left onto McCormick. Blake looked for his backpack and the shells it held, found them at his feet. He reached inside, and the
pickup began to skid. The back end went wide, and the pack slid away, slamming against the tailgate just as another zombie clambered over the side.
He heard Jeremy scream. Jerking his head to the side, he expected to find
the kid under attack. Instead, Jeremy had curled into a tighter ball and looked
to just be screaming for the hell of it. He decided the boy was safe. Besides, he
needed the shells before he could worry about anything else.
Chris’s rifle split the air again, and the bullet punched through their latest
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stowaway’s hand. The thing looked at its own hand, flexing the appendage, and
Blake ducked low and slammed into the thing with his shoulder, sending it over
the side and crashing to the pavement. He continued his trajectory, reaching for
the backpack, when suddenly the side of the Dodge slammed into something.
The impact sent him careening to the side. His head bounced off steel, and
he crumpled to the bed’s floor. Stars bloomed, flooding his vision, and his muscles refused to obey his commands. The world pitched back and forth beneath
him, and he couldn’t find the right way up or down. He felt a desperate need for
sleep, for darkness. Where was he, anyway? It didn’t feel like his bed, not that it
mattered. He could sleep anywhere.
Suddenly, a loud noise boomed into his brain and tore him from sleep. He
shook his head and realized he’d heard a gunshot. The world thundered back
in, and he remembered everything. He opened his eyes just as fingers raked at
his jacket and tangled in his hair. A scream tore free of him as another gunshot
ripped through the air and jerked at his senses. Some of the hands left him, but
the ones in his hair held on, pulling with incredible strength.
He couldn’t see his attacker, but he knew they were trying to drag him out
of the truck. His back arched, and he felt hot, stale breath on his throat. The
thing’s stench was unbearable, a fog that squeezed him. He raised his hands
to defend himself and was shocked to find he still had a grip on the shotgun.
Ramming the weapon upward, he felt it catch beneath a decomposing chin. He
roared as he shoved at the thing, but its strength stunned him as it continued to
inch toward his soft throat. Other hands grabbed at his clothes, and he heard his
jacket tear. The stinking breath grew closer.
————————————
Morris punched the gas, and the engine roared for a second before it sputtered
and died.
“Fuck!”
“What happened?” Eric asked. The man had drawn a .38 special and blasted
a zombie that tried to reach in at him. He now tried to roll up his window, arm
cranking with panic.
“I flooded the damn thing!”
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“You’re joking!”
“Do I fucking look like I’m joking?” He turned the key and received nothing for his troubles.
“Aw, hell. We can’t sit here and wait for it to settle down!”
“I know!” He beat on the steering wheel with his fists, knowing it wouldn’t
do a damn bit of good. Grabbing hold of the key but refusing to turn it, he
counted.
One. Two.
A man with a few tatters of flesh where its jaw should be scraped its hands
down Eric’s window. Gunfire filled the air.
Three. Four.
Eric kicked open his door, shoving away the zombie. Another tried to grab
him, and he shot it in the face.
Five.
Jeremy screamed, his terrified voice pealing through the air like a siren.
Morris almost turned the key again. He grabbed his right hand with his left
and stilled himself. Keep counting.
Six.
A dead woman scrambled onto the truck’s hood and brought both fists
down on the windshield. She screeched, and bile sprayed past her lips to spatter
across the glass.
Seven.
Somebody else started yelling in the bed. Blake? Eric was trying to wrestle
his door shut. One of the dead things had grabbed hold of its edge.
Eight.
The female crashed her fists against the windshield again. The glass starred
and crumpled inward. Morris watched her with steel eyes, and she hissed at
him.
Nine.
A final shot from the bed, and then silence save the hissing screeches of zombies. Eric fired another shot and slammed the door, screamed as four severed
fingers dropped onto his shoulder and then tumbled into his lap.
Ten.
Still nothing from the bed. It didn’t matter. They’d all die if he didn’t get
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them moving. He twisted the key in the ignition and pumped the gas once. The
engine sputtered and then caught, coughed to life.
“Yes!”
He looked through the crumpling windshield and saw the female winding
up for another blow. He jerked the wheel to the right and mashed the accelerator. The pickup bolted forward, and the dead woman tumbled off the hood. The
truck jounced as it chewed zombies beneath its wheels. Morris shifted into low
gear and kept rolling. He wouldn’t let these decomposing fucks slow him down
again.
Then they stopped again. Something was dragging at the back of the truck.
Metal groaned, and panic slashed at him as he realized the wreckage had hooked
their trailer somehow.
“Fuck!”
“Just floor it,” Eric said. “It’ll tear loose.”
“We need that trailer!”
“And Millwood needs us alive so we can bring something back!”
Morris nodded and gave the truck more gas. The groaning grew louder,
almost drowning out the sound of dead limbs pounding at the truck. He rocked
in his seat, trying to help, and then the trailer tore free with a sound like a snapping high-tension line.
The truck tore away from the wreck. Morris sighed both in relief and frustration.
“How are they doing back there?” he asked Eric.
The thin man twisted in his seat and looked through the rear window.
“Oh, shit.”
————————————
Blake saw black teeth lunge toward his face, and he pushed with everything he
had, shoving the shotgun into the thing’s throat. The jaws clacked shut inches
from the bridge of his nose. He heard the thing hiss, and then he realized he
couldn’t hear the truck. Had they stopped?
The thing snapped again, and then the back of its skull exploded. Blake
shoved the zombie away before its brains could shower down on him. He rolled
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toward the center of the bed and looked up to find Stevenson, hunting rifle
smoking in his hands. Chris smiled down at him, the expression full of smug
attitude. He wanted to tell the prick to fuck off, but he doubted they could hear
each other after all the gunfire.
To his right he saw the crumpled top of an overturned van, and he knew
why they’d stopped so suddenly. He listened for the truck’s engine and realized
it had gone dead. He thought about the backpack and decided he didn’t have
time. The dead were right on top of them, swarming the pickup like ants. He
cracked the shotgun’s butt into a corpse’s chin, sending it back over the top, and
then grabbed hold of the gun’s barrel and swung it like he was trying to knock
one into the upper deck at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Stock crashed
against skulls, and bodies sailed back to the concrete. He waited for Chris to
fire off some more shots, but a glance over his shoulder told him Stevenson was
stuck in the melee as well. The man kicked a zombie in the chin and snapped its
neck back at an impossible angle, crushed another’s face with his rifle.
————————————
Chris wanted to feel scared or heroic. He’d settle for a good dose of absolute
terror. Instead, he felt nothing but a stewing anger. These fucking killbillies and
rednecks. They surrounded him, and everywhere he looked he only saw another
target.
He wondered what Ellis must be thinking. Hopefully, the prick had seen his
grin. He wanted the guy to know he’d saved his ass. It was the one little thing
that made him feel better.
He swung the rifle’s barrel to the right and fired another shot. He didn’t
wait to see if he’d hit his mark. Something else had already come closer, made
itself a bigger threat.
He caught a glimpse of the kid. Jeremy wasn’t doing a damn thing but freaking out, and the boy’s inaction pissed him off that much more. He refused to die
trying to pick up the kid’s slack.
A rage-filled squawk dragged his attention away from the Motts boy. He
brought the .22 around and cracked off his next round. Something gray and
stooped tumbled away from the truck.
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“Fucking things,” he muttered.
His anger boiled.
————————————
Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut and refused to open them. His mind screamed,
but it couldn’t drown out the sounds that circled him like angry crows.
He wanted to go home. He wanted his mom, wanted her to hug him and cry
all over his face. He wanted to turn back the clock and run away with her and
wander in the woods and wait in the dark where nothing would ever find them.
He wanted to disappear, to just vanish or shrink away into nothing. Anything
would be better than what was happening all around him.
He couldn’t stop crying, but he didn’t care. He was going to die, and it was
the most horrible feeling in the world. It was so hopeless, impossible to resist,
and there wasn’t a soul with even the slightest interest in saving him.
Or was there?
————————————
“Blake!”
He heard his name but couldn’t tell who was screaming. Too many things
demanded his attention, and every single one of them was trying to swarm the
bed of the truck and have him for lunch. He turned back to the throng of dead
and cocked back the shotgun to take another swing.
Something grabbed the back of his jacket and dragged him down.
The pickup limped back to life in the same instant he landed on Jeremy
Motts. The boy pulled at him, holding him tight.
“Don’t let them get me, Blake! Don’t!”
“Get off!”
“Don’t let them kill me!”
The boy’s arms wrapped around his throat and cut off his air. He clawed
at them, but they refused to budge. Terror had given Jeremy the strength of a
bull, a grip like iron. Blake considered elbowing his way out of the kid’s grasp,
but then a zombie climbed into the bed and lunged for him. The bloated thing
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reached for him with arms marked by lesions and tears. Black fingernails like
claws snatched at the air.
Blake brought his knees to his chest and then pistoned with both legs. His
feet caught the horrible thing in the chest. He heard its ribs snap and winced as
he felt something burst beneath his boots. The zombie flew backward and rolled
across the concrete.
The truck accelerated beneath him, but he needed to break free of Jeremy’s
grip if he wanted to survive the next few moments. He heard Chris fire another
shot and realized he wasn’t available to help. Meanwhile, Jeremy had wrapped
both legs around Blake’s waist and continued to scream right into his ear, deafening him with his pleas for help.
He twisted in the boy’s grip, trying to get some leverage. Something to his
left hissed, but another blast from Chris’s rifle silenced it. The rifle clattered to
the bed, and Chris grabbed Jeremy by the shoulders.
“No! Noooo!” The kid sounded sure Chris meant to toss him to the zombies.
“Let the fuck go of him, you little bastard! You’re choking him!”
Their cries mixed into a chorus, and then Jeremy’s arms were gone and Blake
could breathe. He sucked in a deep breath of stinking air and choked it back out
again. Pushing himself back to his hands and knees, he looked at the surrounding streets and groaned.
The dead, hissing and spitting as their arms flailed, dashed in from every
side. With the truck moving fast now, the zombies weren’t much of a worry, but
they’d have to slow down to turn again before they reached the grocery, and the
engine had already cut out once. Moving quickly, Blake grabbed his backpack
and shotgun. With tingling fingers he pushed shells into the weapon.
He glanced at Chris and Jeremy as he wondered how much time he had
before they needed to make another turn. Chris wrestled the boy for a second
and then shoved him toward the cab. Tears streaked Jeremy’s face, but Chris
didn’t appear to care.
“Goddammit, kid! You get in the fucking fight or get off the ride! We got
a fuck of a lot more to worry about than wiping your ass.” Then Chris turned
away and snatched up the hunting rifle again.
Blake watched Jeremy a second longer. The kid sat with his back to the cab,
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slumped over. His face was a terrible mask of pain and terror. He reached across
the bed and grabbed the Ruger .22 he’d been given.
Something screeched to his right, and Blake turned to blast it to Kingdom
Come. He felt bad for Jeremy, but he couldn’t deny the boy had become a liability. They needed to get the kid in the game before he got one of them killed.
“C’mon, Jeremy—”
He turned and saw Jeremy with his eyes squeezed shut, the barrel of the
Ruger in his mouth.
“Don’t!”
Jeremy pulled the trigger.
————————————
Eric turned away once he saw Chris wrestle the Motts kid off Blake’s back. He
heard Chris shout, and he figured that would be that. He didn’t have to sit in the
bed exposed to God and the dead masses; he couldn’t blame Chris and the rest
for unleashing on each other a little. Besides, he had his own worries to handle,
like how his little prep list hadn’t accounted for a quartet of rotten fingers dropping in his lap.
He looked through the starred windshield and saw McCormick Street disappear beneath the pickup’s front wheels. The zombies had dwindled, only one
or two still in front of them, and the truck blew past them a second later.
Morris showed no sign of slowing.
“Hey, Morris?” he said. “Grocery’s back that way.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“Getting clear so we can circle around.”
“Right.” He took a breath, trying to relax, and then he heard Blake scream
something. The urgency of it turned his head. He heard a gunshot in the split
second before the cab’s rear window went red. The glass cracked in a hundred
directions in the same instant, and suddenly Morris leaned forward and grunted
as something punched at his shoulder.
A fresh round of screams erupted from the back. He heard Blake and Chris,
but Jeremy remained silent. Hot terror burned in his stomach as thoughts
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crashed through his brain. Whose blood was that? What had happened? He
hoped Jeremy might simply be too terrified to sound off, but all that blood gave
him doubts.
Morris’s groans brought him back into the cab. The big man had slumped
toward the wheel, his right arm hanging limp at his side. A hole had appeared
in the back of his shoulder. Blood stained the fabric of the big man’s sweatshirt,
and the red mark spread as Eric watched.
“Fuck,” Morris said through grit teeth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Are you okay?”
“No! I’ve been fucking shot!” Morris winced as he tried to roll his shoulder.
“Jesus. I can feel the bullet in there. What’s going on in the back?”
“I can’t tell.”
The big man let out another grunt and ducked low to peer beneath the
cracks that filled the windshield. “We need to find a place to hide out.”
“What?” Eric asked. “We can’t do that.”
“We have to. I’m losing blood here. We at least need to switch drivers.”
“Aw, hell. Just hell!”
“Right. Just fucking look for a place.”
The truck continued down the road. Two more blocks, and they passed
Millwood’s middle school. A blackened shell remained, a few buses forgotten
nearby. Beyond the school, the town spread out in drips and drabs. Houses grew
farther and farther apart as the country took over again.
“There,” Eric said as they crested a hill. He pointed at a two-story home resting in the shallow valley. It hadn’t been burned, and most of its windows looked
intact in front of boards.
“You think?”
“Keep it running, I’ll try to get the garage open. If we can get inside and get
the door shut, the zombies might think we just disappeared.”
“They don’t think.” Morris spoke in a voice just above a whisper, each syllable electric with pain. “They just have instincts, far as I know.”
“Then maybe this will be a little easier.”
“Right. Like a dry run for later.”
“Yeah.”
His breathing quickened as Morris approached the house, decelerating. As
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the truck’s engine quieted, he could hear Chris and Blake’s angry voices from
the bed.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t-”
“Tell me!”
He wondered what they might mean, but he didn’t have enough time to sort
it out. His muscles tightened with fear as Morris twisted the wheel right, and
the truck turned into the house’s driveway. How close were the zombies? Could
they really pull this off?
He decided the only way to find out was to go for it. He threw open his door
before the truck even came to a stop. The house sported a two car garage with
separate doors for each side. He sprinted to the door on the left and tried the
handle. It refused to budge, locked.
“Hell!” He glanced to the top of the hill, searching for pursuers. Nothing.
The horizon remained clear, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way long.
He leaped to the other door and grabbed the handle. He didn’t waste time
with a silent prayer or desperate hope. Instead, he simply jerked on the handle
and nearly screamed with joy when it moved. He pulled with everything he had,
and the door rattled up. The pickup’s engine growled, and he stepped aside as
Morris charged through the opening.
Eric looked to the top of the hill again. Still clear. He started to duck into
the garage when the truck slammed into the far wall, rocking the entire house.
He jumped inside and slammed the door, felt around in the sudden darkness
until he found the lock and threw it.
He tried to sort the noises that jumbled in his ears. Blake and Chris continued to yell, their angry voices mixing with the hiss of steam escaping into the
air. Dammit, something had happened to the truck’s radiator. He felt a shadow
of despair sweep over his panic. His entire plan was falling apart in record time.
What did you expect? his thoughts asked.
The garage doors sported a row of small windows along the top, and gray
light spilled through to cut at the shadows that filled the garage. It revealed
everything to Eric in bits and pieces. He saw a plume of white vapor spray into
the air. He saw Morris’s door open and the big man lurch out, his left hand
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steadying his right shoulder. He saw Blake’s fist cock back and fly forward, saw
Chris collapse into the pickup’s bed as the blow connected.
He sprang into action, leaping into the bed and grabbing Blake before
he could land another punch. Chris moved forward, preparing to swing, and
Morris reached out with his good arm and grabbed the man’s hair. Chris started
to scream, and Eric slapped a hand over his mouth.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “Everybody quiet.” He felt Blake quake with anger
in his grip, but both men remained silent. Turning, he peered out the row of
windows and saw a zombie charge down the street, too bent on catching the
truck to realize it had disappeared. Another ran past, and that was it. The street
fell silent and empty.
“Okay,” he said. “No loud noise, okay? We should be cool so long as we…
Where’s Jeremy?”
Blake jerked in his arms, lunging for Chris. He wrestled the man still,
but his mind started running, putting pieces together. The blood on the back
window, the bullet that had continued through into Morris’s shoulder.
“No.” He pulled a struggling Blake to the side and let the gray light fill the
pickup’s bed. Something clicked in his throat, and suddenly he couldn’t stop
blinking.
Jeremy’s fingers still gripped the pistol hard enough to pop the knuckles
white. Peace filled his face. His eyes had closed, and his jaw hung slack. Eric
thought the boy could pass for sleeping if not for the hole dripping blood and
brains out the back of his skull.
The strength drained from his arms, and he let go of Blake. He fell back, his
back slamming against the tailgate. He couldn’t feel it. His eyes drooped shut,
and suddenly he only wanted to sleep.
“We’re going to fail,” he whispered. “I know it.”
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EIGHT
“Goddammit!”
“That hurt?”
“Of course it fucking hurts. Just finish it up!”
“Doing my best. Hold your damn horses.”
Chris couldn’t believe his awful luck. As if getting the stink-eye from everybody over the brat offing himself wasn’t bad enough, now he’d been roped into
digging the little bastard’s bullet out of Morris’s shoulder. He stood huddled in
a tiny downstairs bathroom with this guy about the size of a sasquatch, a lighter
in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other. Life was just a bowl of fucking
cherries.
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At least it put him in a different room than Ellis. That asshole was working
on his last nerve. He suspected Morris and Eric wouldn’t take too well to him
beating the living tar out of Blake, so it was best to just stay hell and gone from
the man. He could always settle up with him once they returned to Millwood.
Yeah, that would be a fun little event.
Then again, Blake wasn’t acting any way he himself hadn’t in the past.
Maybe he should give the guy a break. But Ellis really thought he was to blame
for the Motts kid taking himself out. It wasn’t his fault Blake had his head up his
ass. Just appeared to be a symptom of living in this part of the country.
He flicked the lighter and ran the flame over the tweezers. Blood sizzled in
the heat, a thick scent that crawled up his nostrils. He really needed water on top
of all this, but the utilities were long dead, and they hadn’t found any bottled
water in the fridge or under the sink.
“Okay, hold still.”
“Fuck you.”
“Have it your way.” He pushed the tweezers into Morris’s wound and began
probing. The big guy’s muscles tightened around the small tool, and he fought to
keep control. Sweat slicked his fingers and tickled at his forehead. He struggled
through it, continuing to dig into the man’s shoulder.
Morris growled through pain that had to be terrible. Chris saw the man’s
hands grip the sink like a pair of iron clamps, could hear the tendons creak with
strain.
“Almost there,” he whispered.
“Don’t give me a progress report, Stevenson,” Morris said. “Just get it over
with.”
He felt the tweezers touch the bullet, and he almost jumped at the sensation.
Instead, he took a deep breath and steadied himself, worked the slick tool until
he felt it grip the cold metal.
“This part might suck.”
Morris didn’t respond.
He began to pull. He felt the bullet come a centimeter at a time, scraping
past muscle and flesh. Morris’s growl climbed in volume, and the man’s entire
body trembled.
Slow and steady, Chris told himself. He held his breath and grabbed his wrist
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with his free hand. He could do this. Sure, he could pull the bullet out of this
redneck prick and get on with his life. Nothing to it.
He saw the bullet’s flattened edge exit Morris’s shoulder and fought the urge
to give it a final yank. Instead, he kept the pressure steady. The skin tugged at
the round, and he thought for a second he might lose hold of the tweezers, but
then the lump of metal popped free and Morris slumped against the sink.
“Jesus.”
“No,” he said. “Just me.” He dropped the ruined bullet into a nearby wastebasket and then sat down on the toilet. He grabbed a towel that smelled like
mold and used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Some fucked up kinda day,
huh?”
Morris opened the medicine cabinet. He rooted through its contents and
then grumbled as he slapped it shut. “No Band-Aids?”
“Craziness.”
Morris pulled his sweatshirt back on, covering his barrel chest. “What did
you say to the kid?”
“Huh?”
“You heard what I asked.” The big man’s voice was soft but firm.
Great. So the redneck wanted to put him back on this little merry-go-round.
What was it with these hicks? Didn’t he get a moment’s appreciation before the
inquisition? He’d just dug a bullet out of the guy!
“I didn’t say shit.”
“That’s not what Blake seems to think.”
“Did Blake tell you how many times I’ve saved his life today? He tell you the
kid would’ve strangled him if I hadn’t pried the little bastard off?”
Morris leaned against the bathroom door, blocking any path of escape. His
brown hair went well with the shitty wallpaper. “What did you say?”
“Jesus! Will you give me a fucking break, Morris? I just dug a round out of
your shoulder!”
“And it came through Jeremy’s head. Blake thinks it’s because of something
you told him. I’m trying to figure out if that’s true.” The man’s chest rose and
fell, making him look like a sleeping beast just before it wakes up angry.
Chris took a deep breath as he fought to control the anger that percolated
inside him. The nerve of this bastard. The goddamn nerve. If the giant simple58
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ton blocking his path knew half of what he’d been through-what people just
like him had done-he wouldn’t be asking these stupid goddamn questions.
————————————
“Throw it harder, Daddy!”
Chris smiled as he hefted the Frisbee in his hand. Danielle stood maybe
forty feet away, her pigtails bouncing as she hopped up and down, beckoning to
him to just go ahead and throw it already.
The sun had just barely risen above the line of pine trees that surrounded
most of the Shawnee Lake Camp Grounds. The golden light that spilled down
on the grass outside the cabin he’d rented reminded him he should still be asleep.
Danielle wouldn’t hear of it, though. His daughter had jumped on his stomach
as soon as light started filtering through the darkness, demanding he get up so
they could play Frisbee. She was still in her pajamas, but he just couldn’t say
no to the girl, not when he only had three days left before she returned to her
mother’s house.
He always tried to make their two weeks in the summer count as an adventure. He’d taken her to Key West last year, Disneyland the year before that.
He’d been a little surprised when she wanted to go camping this year, but he figured at the very least he’d get to save a little money. Ken Ricks in marketing had
recommended Shawnee Lake, and a month later he was in Southeast Indiana,
tossing a Frisbee to his daughter.
“C’mon, Daddy!”
He whizzed the disk at her, and she caught it with a nimbleness most eightyear-olds didn’t possess. She gave him a mocking frown.
“I told you to throw it harder!”
“I don’t want to take off your hand,” he said. And I’m still mostly asleep, he
thought. Why couldn’t I have had some coffee first? He knew he wouldn’t trade
this moment for anything, though. He’d cherish it the same way he clung to
every second he spent with Danielle, because in three more days he’d have to say
goodbye until his weekend in October.
“You won’t take off my hand. Just go ahead and-”
Her voice disappeared under the rumble of truck tires over gravel. Chris
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looked up as a mobile home appeared on the roadway leading past the cabin.
The vehicle was flying, kicking up dust and rock as it ate up the road. It rocked
from side to side, and he doubted it would make the next corner without rolling.
“Danielle, get away from the road!”
She looked over her shoulder and then did as he asked. Sprinting across the
green grass, she flew into his arms. He held her close as the RV rocketed past,
leaving a choking cloud of dirt billowing toward them.
“Why are they driving so fast?” Danielle asked.
“Couldn’t tell you, honey. Maybe they’re trying to get to McDonald’s for
some sausage biscuits.”
“Daddy!”
“Just saying. I have no idea. Now c’mon, let’s throw some more.” And that’s
just what they did. For the next twenty minutes they passed the Frisbee back
and forth. Chris ran through all the moves he knew, bouncing the disk off the
flat ground and boomeranging it to the side. Danielle ran and giggled and tried
her best pull off the same maneuvers.
More vehicles came down the road, and Chris eyed them warily. During the
past ten days he’d seen plenty of cars, trucks, and motor homes travel the gravel
road, but never so many in a single morning. If it was a Sunday, he could understand. People needed to end their vacations before work on Monday. Today was
a Wednesday, though. As a station wagon raced past like it was trying to outrun
the devil, he found himself growing seriously nervous.
Danielle threw the disk. It sailed to his left and then hooked back, a perfect
boomerang. Danielle cheered.
“Great job, honey! You’re getting better-”
He froze as he saw the woman. She came out of the woods, running like she
was terrified. Her arms flapped every which way, and she almost looked comical.
The red stain on her white tank top destroyed any comedy. The woman stumbled as she crossed the gravel road, but sprang back to her feet and continued a
course for Danielle.
His daughter turned toward the sound and jumped when she saw the
woman. She took a few steps toward him, and he could see the worry on her
face.
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“What’s wrong with her, Daddy?”
He began to jog toward his daughter. The woman wasn’t slowing down. “I
don’t know, honey. Get behind me.”
But Danielle had already conquered her fear and was walking to meet the
woman. Chris knew she wanted to see what was wrong with the stranger, to
help if she could. As he burst into a sprint, he wished his daughter wasn’t so
wonderful.
The running woman closed to within ten feet of Danielle. Chris heard the
woman make a strange hissing noise, and then he heard his daughter ask, “Are
you okay?”
The woman replied by taking Danielle into her arms.
————————————
Chris stood. He held up his hands in surrender. Last thing he wanted was for
Morris to think he expected a fight.
“Look, I told Jeremy to get in the thick of it and help us out. That’s all. I
didn’t think the kid would punch his own ticket like that. He was scared, sure,
but that scared? He shouldn’t have been on this trip, Morris. You know that just
as much as I do.”
The big man let out a rumbling breath. “But he was on the trip, and it was
our job to keep him safe. We’re supposed to look after each other, make sure we
all get back in one piece.”
“So why wasn’t he in the cab with you? He would’ve been a hell of a lot safer
in there.”
Morris breathed harder. Air left his nose in harsh, angry blasts. Chris wondered if he’d pushed the guy a little too far. Not like he had a lot of room to
dodge a punch in the cramped bathroom.
“I’m just saying, Morris. I don’t mean anything by it.”
The big man nodded. He closed his eyes for a second, and Chris saw pain
and anger etched across his skin like a story. Good, as long as Morris was pissed
at himself and nobody else, that worked just fine.
“So can I go now?”
“Yeah,” Morris said. “Just stay away from Blake for a bit.”
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“Yeah. Won’t be a problem, boss.”
He cocked an eyebrow and waited for the lug to step out of the way. When
Morris finally cleared the path he jerked open the door and stomped through
into the hall. He needed to find someplace quiet before he killed one of these
assholes.
————————————
“Oh, thank the Good Lord.”
Blake looked up from the chipped Formica tabletop and found Eric waving
a bottle of Jim Beam at him.
“Want something that’ll hit the spot?”
“We need to be getting drunk right now?”
“I never said we’d be getting drunk. I don’t know about you, but I just need
something to take the edge off a little. Things have been awful a bit too long,
you ask me.”
Blake nodded. He couldn’t find any way to argue with Eric’s statement. The
whole world smelled like old garbage, and the things responsible for that smell
wanted to kill and eat everything else. Tough to see the bright side in that little
scenario. Holly remained his sole reason for sticking around and trying to make
some kind of life for himself. Without her, he would have left town already,
struck out on his own to see what the world had in store for him.
He heard clinking cups. Eric had placed two glasses on the table, poured an
inch of the brown liquor into each. He carried both glasses and the bottle over to
the table and sat down.
“Here we go.”
Blake took the glass that was offered, tapped it against Eric’s, and downed
the contents. He coughed as the whiskey burned his throat. How long had it
been since his last drink? A few months, at the very least.
“Goddamn.”
“Yeah, it’ll cure what ails you,” Eric said, a smile stretched across his face.
“You know this is the first drink I’ve had in fourteen years?”
He shook his head. He tried to speak, but his throat still felt like he’d poured
gasoline down it.
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“Yes, indeed. I used to work in this bistro up in Chicago, back before I
opened the diner. I won’t say it was some five star place, but we did good food,
expensive food.”
Eric lifted the bottle of Beam, admired its contents. “Man, I use to drink
a bottle of bourbon a shift, sometimes two if I was really feeling it. Little for
the sauce, lot for me. Good stuff, too: Knob Creek and Makers, once or twice
even some Bookers. You work six days a week sweating over a stove, you can
afford the good stuff. Didn’t affect the work, either. Whiskey starts making you
drowsy, you go in the walk-in and snort a line or two, pick you right up.
“Aw, hell. You think tough guys and athletes get the pussy? Try being a chef.
Waitresses, runners, and patrons, man. You give them a little flair, a little bit of
extra effort on their food, they’ll give you anything you want. I had a pair of
twins work my johnson like a lollipop just because I cooked the best sea bass
they’d ever tasted.”
Blake stared in wonder as Eric refilled their glasses. This guy did all that?
Eric was a skinny man with black hair the texture of straw and ears that stuck
straight out from his head. He liked the guy, sure, but he couldn’t deny the
man was a dork of the highest order. He could barely believe the man had ever
received a blowjob, let alone one from twins. As if the world hadn’t gone crazy
enough with all the dead people running around.
“You’re joking, right?”
Eric downed a second glass and shook his head. “I kid you not, Blake. You
don’t believe me, let me teach you how to cook up something nice for Holly.
Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You show her you made the effort though,
and you won’t know what hit ya. She’ll blow your mind. Y’know, among other
things.”
He smiled. Maybe he didn’t believe Eric, but he sure liked the way the man
was talking. He held out his glass for a refill, and Eric obliged him.
“So why on earth did you leave Chicago?”
Eric paused, examining his glass like it held an answer. Then he said, “You
don’t think I did the smart thing?”
“Sounds like you had hot and cold running ass surrounding you. I don’t
know about every guy out there, but I can imagine it would be a dream come
true for most.”
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Eric chuckled. “Yeah, it kind of was. I’m not a city guy, though. I figured
that out the hard way. If I hadn’t come back here, got myself cleaned up, I’d
probably be dead by now.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am. They would have found me with a meat cleaver in one hand and coke
all over my nose, maybe a hooker tied up to the bed.”
“Jesus!”
“I never said it was pretty. Chefs are screwed up people, by and large. We
work hard, and we play harder. Thing is, we tend to do them both at the same
time. Sooner or later, it catches up with you. I saw it coming, and somehow I
managed to get out of the way before it ran me over. Lucky me. I might have
missed all this.”
Blake nodded. He downed his second drink, and it was a little easier than
the first. It only felt like kerosene.
“But if you were doing what you loved-”
“I love food,” Eric said. “I love cooking it, and I love eating it. I can do that
anywhere. At least, I could.”
“I wonder if there’s still plenty of food in Chicago.”
“Wouldn’t matter. We’d all be dead by now if we lived up there.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe to it, Blake. You’ve heard how bad Cincinnati was when all
this started. Chicago’s bigger than that, more condensed. The place had to be a
damn sausage mill. Hell, look at what we just went through, and Rundberg’s a
small town. That’s part of the whole reason I moved out this way-to escape big
city problems. Well guess what? Shit always rolls downhill, and the small towns
are at the bottom.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I hope so.”
“No, I do.” Blake felt the whiskey working on him, lightening his head and
loosening his lips. “I remember when I was in high school I thought the hardest
thing anybody ever did was a little skunk weed. Yeah, we were out drinking on
the weekends, but that was it for the most part.
“Then one day the county cops brought in a drug-sniffing dog. They opened
something like forty lockers. I figured they’d maybe find a few of the burnouts
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with pot. No, they found acid, coke, and meth. They even found a little heroin.
This is in small town Indiana, and some asshole’s got heroin!”
Eric gave him a shrug, his face more amused than concerned.
He shook his head. “Fuck, I sound like such a tightass.”
Eric waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. That Republican and Democrat
stuff is all nonsense anyway. It’s all just people and the world, and it was all
going to hell long before hell knocked on the door and said, ‘Howdy.’ Think
political parties exist anymore? You think politics do? The dead people run the
world now. At least they’re honest about what they want.”
“I hear that.” Blake held out his glass for a refill. Eric gave them both a few
fingers.
“How many is this?”
“Not sure,” Blake said. “Don’t think I care.”
“Then that’s enough.” Eric picked up both glasses and stood up from the
table.
“Hey!”
“Hey is for horses, amigo. We don’t need to be getting sloppy.”
“Then let me have it,” a voice said.
Blake turned. Morris stood in the kitchen’s doorway. He looked a little pale,
but at least he was still up and moving.
“You want it?” Eric asked.
“Shoulder hurts like a bitch. Figure that’ll do better than aspirin.”
“You’re probably right.” The cook poured one glass into the other and
handed the entire thing to Morris.
“Cheers, fellas.” The big man took it all in a single drink, gave a little gasp.
“That oughta do it.”
Blake watched in something like awe. He’d thought he was an accomplished
drinker, but now he saw he was little more than a novice. He had no doubts that
Morris or Eric could drink him under the table without breaking a sweat.
“Want to pour some of that over my shoulder?” Morris asked Eric.
“Sure.”
Morris hiked up his shirt and let the cook use the last of the bourbon on his
wound. At least he winced at the pain it had to cause. Blake had begun to think
he was dealing with superhumans.
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“Should we stitch that up?” Eric asked.
“Naw,” Morris said as pulled his shirt back down. “Bleeding’s just about
stopped, and we don’t need to be wasting the time. Anybody looked at the truck
yet?”
Eric shook his head in reply. Blake thought about saying something, but
decided Eric’s gesture summed up all of it.
Morris sighed. He reached up and pinched his sinuses with the fingers of his
left hand. His right hung at his side.
“We should go have a look, see how fucked we are.”
Blake pushed himself up from the table. He felt a little wobbly, but he managed to make it the first ten feet without stumbling. He figured that meant he
could make it the rest of the way.
Morris opened the door to the garage and led them through. Time to find
out how bad things had gotten.
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NINE
Chris climbed the steps slowly. He didn’t want to make a lot of noise, tell the
others where he was headed. It wasn’t their business, and he didn’t particularly
feel like hanging out with any of them at the moment. They could sit downstairs
and talk about stock car racing or whatever the fuck a bunch of hicks discussed.
He’d do fine on his own.
The home’s second story was still, so quiet it reminded him of sleep. Light
flooded into the hallway from two open doors on the left. Two more doors stood
open on the right. Chris watched motes of dust dance in the rays of sunlight.
The musty stink of mildew tickled his nose.
He didn’t know who’d lived here before, but looking at the walls told him
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all he needed to know. Framed photos covered almost every inch of the upstairs
hallway. Those near the steps were weathered black and whites and sepias. Posed
studio shots hung next to pictures that looked like they’d been cut out of the
newspaper. As he walked down the hallway, the faces in the photos grew older.
New faces appeared, no doubt the next generation. They too grew older. Snapshots mixed in with portraits. Pictures of family reunions and school plays told a
story of the owners’ history.
At the end of the hall he found a photo from a high school graduation. Two
parents in their mid-forties wrapped their arms around the shoulders of a chubby
girl in a blue graduation gown and hat. All three smiled as if it were the happiest
day of their lives. The look of pride in the parents’ eyes shined just as bright as
the accomplishment in their daughter’s.
He wondered how long ago the picture had been snapped. A year before the
end of the world? Two? Was their daughter away at college when the killbillies
started jumping up and biting into folks? Had they called each other before the
phone lines went dead? Had they maybe tried to find each other? Maybe they
had watched her get bitten like he had Danielle?
Chris turned away from the picture.
The nearest door led to a study. A long-dormant computer sat under a thick
layer of dust. Stacks of bills and letters cluttered the desk. An instruction book
for some accounting software sat open to page 237.
He searched a row of nearby bookshelves for any good paperbacks, but reference books practically choked the damn things. If these folks had read for
pleasure, they kept those books elsewhere.
He found the home’s owners in the next room.
They must have decided it was hopeless despite the boarded windows below.
They sat side by side on a queen-sized bed, their backs against the headboard.
Their bodies had withered into husks, their memories stains on the wall behind
them. The husband’s desiccated fist remained wrapped around a revolver’s grip.
His other hand held his wife’s.
Chris nodded and leaned against the doorframe. Finally, somebody in
this backwoods trash heap had done something commendable. These two had
decided to go out on their own terms, and they’d made sure they wouldn’t come
back, either.
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He paused. Did he really believe that? He couldn’t decide.
He took a step into the bedroom, feeling a little like an intruder. These
people had come here to die. They hadn’t left the car running in the garage or
poisoned themselves at the breakfast table. They’d decided to sit down in their
bed and blow their brains out beside each other.
“And they say romance is dead,” he whispered. He stepped around the bed
and opened the closet. Again, that feeling that he was intruding reared its head,
but he might find something they needed in the closet. You never knew what
these folks kept in their bedrooms.
Poking around, Chris found clothes and shoes, shoeboxes full of tissue
paper and old photographs. He pulled out a pair of coats: a heavy winter parka
and brown leather aviator jacket with a wool collar. He tossed them into the
doorway and shut the closet.
He turned to face the dead couple on the bed. They looked like somebody’s
strange idea of a human made out of leather and old paper. How long did it
take to dry out like that? He wondered if the killbillies had smelled the couple
decomposing, how long the dead things might have battered at the door and
windows downstairs trying to get at an easy meal. Or maybe they didn’t want
to eat cold meat. There was so much he didn’t know about the killbillies, and
he realized after a second that he didn’t care. He just wanted to stay away from
them.
He eyed the revolver in the man’s hand. He’d be crazy to try to fire the gun.
The damn thing could explode in his hand, for all he knew. They might be able
to use the remaining bullets, though. He pondered the odds of getting into the
revolver’s cylinder without touching the withered flesh of the man’s fingers. It
didn’t matter how long the man had cured; he still didn’t want to come into
contact with him.
So he turned to the nightstand. Two drawers stood shut above a cubby hole
stuffed with old newspapers. He started at the bottom, found a collection of buttons, an ashtray, and a book of matches. No cigarettes, so it was kind of a tease.
“Asshole,” Chris muttered.
He pulled the top drawer open and saw the box of ammunition. The .38
shells wouldn’t do him any good, but maybe somebody else could use them.
God knew they needed all the rounds they could find. He stuffed the box into
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his jacket pocket, making sure it went in deep enough that he didn’t have to
worry about dropping it.
He turned to shut the drawer and saw a leather wallet. He glanced at the
dead man. Empty eye sockets stared at nothing. The jaw sagged without expression. Dust settled on the collar of the man’s Purdue University sweatshirt. Is
that where the daughter had gone to school?
“You mind?” Chris asked, gesturing at the wallet. “I just want to get some
idea.” He decided the man’s silence counted as permission.
He nodded and pulled the billfold from the drawer. He turned it over in his
hands, eyeing the cracked leather. The wallet had seen a lot of miles, no doubt
collected a lot of history. He opened it and found an Indiana driver’s license. The
plastic card belonged to Patrick Kling. The photo was an ugly thing, just like
every other license photo, but it showed a man who was healthy, someone able
to muster a smile despite what had probably been a long line at the DMV. It was
the look of a man who had made it another year passing the eye exam, a man
who could drive home to his family without restrictions.
“Little things,” he whispered.
He returned the license and flipped through the plastic picture windows.
Not much there. Apparently, the man didn’t have any grandkids. He did find a
photo of Patrick and his wife dressed up for some kind of holiday party, another
picture of their daughter in a volleyball uniform, the white ball resting on her
knee. He liked her smile. It was pretty, and it reminded him of Danielle. He
found himself hoping the girl hadn’t suffered, that she’d died peacefully and of
her own will. He didn’t hope she’d survived, though. In many ways, that was
the same as suffering.
Chris snapped the wallet shut. “Sleep tight, Patrick,” he said. “Trust me,
you’re not missing anything.” He tossed the wallet into the nightstand, slid the
drawer shut. The bottom drawer followed the top’s example. He gave Patrick
and his wife a final look and found himself wanting to cry. He fought the urge.
Last thing he needed was one of the local yokels catching him.
The sunlight caught his eye as he turned from the bed, and he approached the
bedroom’s single window. He made his way around the queen and approached
the glass. He wanted to see if the killbillies had found them yet, if they’d started
congregating outside.
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Nope. The dead bastards had all but disappeared. A single corpse moved
through a far off field as if lost, but the rest of the area remained clear. Maybe
their luck had reset itself. In a world where dead people came back as cannibals,
surely anything was possible.
Something caught his eye. He wondered if any of the others had seen it on
the way in, but he figured they’d all been too busy trying not to die. He’d have
to tell them right away. Depending on how things went in the garage, it could
make all the difference.
He stopped in the doorway and scooped up the two coats. Then he jogged
down the stairs to tell the others.
————————————
Blake stood with Morris and Eric, careful to keep his feet out of the puddle of
water and antifreeze. The garage stunk of coolant and oil, and it set his stomach
on edge. Or maybe the whiskey was responsible for that. He didn’t really care.
The scene in front of him only hammered home the fact that they were fucked
in a royal way.
“Guess you didn’t see that,” Eric said.
“I was kind of in a hurry,” Morris replied.
The truck’s grill had been crunched inward by the steel toolbox standing
against the garage’s rear wall. It was one of those tall, industrial jobs found in
body shops and such, and it had won the fight between irresistible force and
immovable object.
“It doesn’t look possible. I mean, the truck isn’t made out of tin foil.”
“One in a thousand shot, I guess.”
“Well, did we have to make it today of all fucking days?” Eric kicked the
truck’s bumper, and the banging noise echoed through the two car garage.
“How fast were we going?” Blake asked.
Morris shrugged, then immediately winced and grabbed at his shoulder.
“We should make you a sling,” Eric said.
“I might still have to drive later.”
“Drive what?”
“What about the owners’ car?” Blake asked. A Chrysler 300 that was prob71
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ably silver under a thick coat of dust sat opposite the truck. It looked to be in
good shape, though out of use.
“No way,” Eric said. “No room for food.”
“There’s the trunk.”
“We’ll need the trunk for Jeremy.”
He felt like somebody had kicked the wind out of him. The image of Jeremy
with the gun in his mouth-fingers tightening around the trigger-flashed
through his memory, and it chilled him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and the
vision just became more intense. He heard the gun go off and saw blood splatter
across the truck’s rear window, felt the vehicle lurch as Morris slumped forward.
The big man’s voice brought him back to reality.
“-should leave him here.”
Eric shook his head. “We can’t do that. We need to take him back to his
mother. It’s just… it’s the right thing.”
“You have any idea what that woman’s going to do if we bring her little boy
back with a hole in his head? I promise you, it won’t be pretty. It won’t even be
close.”
“It won’t be pretty either way,” Blake said. “When she finds out Jeremy’s
dead, she’s going to freak. It takes up room, but Eric’s right. At the very least, she
should have a chance to bury her kid.”
“We can’t think about that right now. Food. Nothing else matters for shit.”
“That’s how the zombies think.”
Morris rolled his eyes. “Fine. So we can’t use the Chrysler.”
“Why not? Right, so there’s no room for groceries, but we can use it to get
back to Millwood, get another truck. We know a little more about the town
now, we can come back prepared.”
“No. That’s no good.”
“What? Why not?” Blake asked.
“I’m shot, for one. I go back, they’ll want to send somebody else. They’ll
want to replace Jeremy, too. That means another drawing, and that means time.
Personally, I don’t think it’s time we can spare.
“We’re here. We’re in town. What we need to do is find a way to get to that
store and grab enough food to keep Millwood going until we can figure out
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something else. We go back now, it’s just going to waste time and break a lot of
spirits.”
“So what do we do? Are we going to walk there and try to take everything
back in shopping carts? You don’t mind my saying, I think that little plan
sucks.”
“How about another truck?”
Blake bristled at the sound of Chris’s voice, but when he turned the man
wasn’t making his usual asshole face. He stood just inside the kitchen, two coats
draped over his arm.
“I think that’s where we were headed,” Morris said.
“Good to know, because I found one if you guys are interested.”
————————————
“It could work,” Morris said. His voice rumbled in the small bedroom.
“It could work?” Eric replied. “It’s twice as big as the Dodge. It’s perfect!”
“You’re welcome,” Chris said. “I look forward to receiving my medal.”
Blake turned to the doorway long enough to shoot the guy a dirty look.
Chris shrugged it off. He was leaning against the doorframe casual as you please,
picking at his nails like he didn’t have a care in the world. Nevermind the two
corpses in the room. Heartless prick.
He looked back out the window. The Ford Super-Duty sat in a driveway
across the road and two houses down. The blue truck looked like the Holy Grail
to his desperate eyes. It was a monster of a vehicle, with a cab big enough for all
four of them and a bed nearly twice the size of the broken pickup in the garage.
If they could get to it and start it up, they could cruise Rundberg without a care
in the world.
But first they needed to reach it. Blake didn’t see any zombies, but their first
experience with Rundberg had told him the monsters could hide. They’d have
to be careful, and they’d have to be quick. With some luck on their side, it might
work out okay.
“I’ll go,” Blake said before he even realized he was thinking it. The words
just spilled out, and then his muscles went rigid with terror. He hadn’t realized
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how much of his nerve had dissipated during their time in the house. The idea of
going back out in the open filled him with dread.
“Is that how we should do this?” Eric asked. “Just send one of us?”
“Makes sense,” Chris said. “One of us goes down, we have the rest of us still
up and moving.”
Blake glared again, temporarily feeling anger replace fear.
“What? I’m just saying. We’re supposed to be thinking of this stuff, right?”
The bastard had a point. Slowly, he nodded. He turned back to the window,
eyed the truck. How long would it take him to reach the vehicle? Shit, what
would he do once he did reach it? He’d have to get inside the house, see if he
could find the keys. The front door hung open. The windows had been busted
out. If the zombies came at him, he’d be a sitting duck.
He wanted to go to sleep. Suddenly, the only thing he wanted in the entire
world was to curl into a ball and sleep for a month or so. It wasn’t the whiskey
making him drowsy, either. He just knew he would die. He’d run across the
street in some fool attempt to get that truck started, and he would die screaming. Forget seeing Holly again. He’d never smell the thick scent of her hair or
hold her terribly thin body in his arms.
You come back to me.
Sorry. I wish I could.
“We’re all going.”
He blinked as Morris’s gruff voice jolted him from his own thoughts. He
looked to the big man, but Morris ignored him. He was looking out the window,
eyes fixed on the truck. His chest rose and fell like a giant bellows.
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “Chris has a point.”
“Doesn’t matter. We all go or nobody goes.”
Chris stomped over from the doorway. “Are you serious? We all go or
nobody goes? Seriously, just what the fuck kind of sense does that make?”
“The only kind. We send one person over there, they might get the truck
started. Bunch of those things come running though, and the rest of us are stuck
here. We won’t have time to load up. We’ll be stranded again.”
“Bullshit. So Blake drives the truck around, loses the rotting fucks, and
comes back to pick us up.”
“And if he wrecks?”
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“I’m not going to wreck,” Blake said. Deep down, he hated that Morris had
now given him a new worry. He’d had enough disaster scenarios buzzing around
in his brain already. Another just pushed his threshold a little too far.
“That’s not the point. I think this day’s proven that anything can happen.
Whatever does happen, I think we all better be there for it.”
“We all better be there for it?” Chris said. “I thought the whole point of this
was to get food back to your precious town! This weird honor shit isn’t going to
help with that.”
Morris grumbled and took a step toward Chris. Eric reached out to grab the
big man’s uninjured shoulder. “He makes a point, Morris. We need to sit down
and decide what’s best for Millwood, right? Let’s none of us go off half-cocked.
That doesn’t help anybody.”
“I got shot,” Morris said. “I had a bullet in my shoulder. I had to disinfect
the fucking thing with Jim Beam because we pulled into the one house in Indiana without peroxide in the medicine cabinet.” He reached into his pocket and
dug something out. When he opened his fingers, a misshapen lump of metal lay
in his palm.
“You kept it?” Chris asked, disgust in his voice.
“Yeah. Took it out of the trash once you left the bathroom. Got a problem
with that?”
Chris shook his head, but his face told a different story.
Morris turned slowly, holding out the ruined bullet for everybody to see.
“This went in my shoulder, and I don’t need to tell anybody what it went through
on its way there. Jeremy Motts was a kid pushed into something he didn’t need
to do, and he couldn’t handle it. We can handle it, though. Goddammit, we can.
And we’re going to.
“We’re going to do it together, though. If we all die, we all die. Millwood
will send another group, and maybe they’ll get farther than we did. Whatever
happens though, we’ll do it together. Does it make a lot of sense? No. Do I care?
Not really. I’m the pissed off guy with the hole in his shoulder, and I’m not going
to stand by and let one person take a risk all of us can take together.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” Chris said.
“And you’re getting on my nerves. Keep pushing, see where it gets you.”
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Chris stuck both his hands in the air, exaggerating his surrender. He backed
off a few steps and returned to cleaning his nails. Anger darkened his face.
Blake gave the truck another glance. A gigantic cattle guard protected its
front end. If they got the big bastard going, they could probably plow straight
through the zombies.
“So we all go,” he said. “How do we want to do that, though? I know I want
some kind of plan besides, ‘Everybody run!’”
Morris nodded. His brow furrowed, and Blake could almost see the gears
turning in the man’s head. “We need something other than guns.”
“Seriously?”
“He’s right,” Eric said. “One shot could bring a whole stampede of those
things. We don’t want that.”
“Right. But now we’ve got to get close to defend ourselves.”
“I found armor,” Chris said. He scooped up the two winter coats that lay at
his feet. “It’s not much, but I can’t see anything that isn’t a dog biting through
these babies. At the very least, it gives you a second to cock back and swing.”
Blake looked down at his own jacket. The denim was pretty thick. It could
keep a bite or two from reaching his skin, but that knowledge didn’t comfort
him any. He imagined the feel of teeth closing around his arm, straining against
the fabric and trying to break through to the skin beneath. Though he didn’t
want to think about it, he couldn’t stop himself. He felt the terrible, hungry
pressure, and it made him want to scream.
“You guys take them,” he said. “I’m good.”
Chris snickered. “Big man.”
Blake shook it off. He didn’t want to dignify the man with a response.
“Okay,” Morris said as Eric handed him one of the coats. “Let’s get to
work.”
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TEN
Morris stared at the claw hammer in his hand-the best weapon he’d found in
the cluttered garage-and wished Jeremy had managed to shoot him in his left
shoulder. He felt crippled and useless without his right hand. He could move it
a little now, could easily curl it into a fist, but he didn’t feel any strength there.
He couldn’t throw a good punch or even a bad one. Swinging a hammer to
defend himself was out of the question. He wouldn’t kid himself, he had some
quickness in his arms, but he relied on brute force more than any sort of finesse.
With his left arm he wouldn’t have either, and the winter coat he now wore took
away a good chunk of his speed. He’d probably be just as well off trying to bash
a zombie to death with his naked arm.
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He turned to the windows that lined the top of the garage door. A coat of
dust obscured his view, but he could make out the Ford. It looked so far away
from down here. He wondered if they’d even reach the vehicle before a herd of
dead cannibals came charging after them. They’d decided to leave the garage
door open in case they needed to retreat, but he knew the chances of making
it back to the house were almost nonexistent. If they got caught outside, they’d
be stuck there. Their flimsy plan would collapse around them, and they’d have
to rely on instinct to keep them breathing. Maybe that would be good enough,
maybe not. He’d find out soon.
Behind him, Blake and Stevenson grunted as they lifted Jeremy’s body out
of the truck. They’d wrapped him in a dusty sheet they found in an upstairs
closet. The fabric was already soaking through at one end. The rest of it was
stained in streaks from the blood in the truck’s bed. He could only imagine the
reaction Jeremy’s mother would have when they returned. Maybe she’d hunt the
rest of them down, try to take some sort of revenge. He shut down the thought.
Just another thing to worry about, and he already had plenty on his plate.
The plan was for Blake and Stevenson to charge across the street and put Jeremy’s body and the rifles in the Super-Duty’s bed. By that point Eric should be
across the street with the Dodge’s battery. He’d place the battery on the ground
and start trying the doors. If a small miracle took place and one of the doors
opened, he’d climb inside and look for a key while Blake got on the ground and
searched underneath for a spare in one of those magnetized cases people sometimes stuck under their vehicles.
And where would he be during all of this? Huffing his ass across the street
with a set of jumper cables slung over his good shoulder, that’s what. If Eric
and Blake didn’t turn up anything, then Blake and Stevenson would enter the
house and start searching. He ran through a mental checklist of all the places
they might find a set of truck keys: kitchen counter or drawer, on a hook by the
garage or front door, dining room table, nightstand, coffee table. If there were
more bodies inside, they could check the pockets. Nobody liked the idea, but
they’d do it if it needed doing. He just hoped the pair found the keys quickly.
He didn’t want to spend more time outside the house than necessary, and once
they found the keys they still might need to jumpstart the truck.
Morris flipped the hammer in his grip as he ran through the plan one more
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time. It all appeared simple enough. All things considered, it should be a piece of
cake. He knew how simple things could blow up in your face, though. He knew
better than most.
————————————
Morris decided the riots that had taken Cincinnati by storm weren’t race related
the instant he saw the first group of psychos.
He spotted them as he charged down Vine Street from the University
campus, driving like hell in a stolen equipment truck. Hurtling past Inwood
Park and weaving around pedestrians running every which way, anything they
could grab in their arms, he saw a dozen figures tear out of the park to his left.
He slowed as he noticed they didn’t run like normal people. Their arms didn’t
pump up and down but instead flailed as if the limbs had been forgotten. He
thought they moved like rabid animals, and when they slammed into the pedestrians like a pack of dogs it confirmed his suspicions.
He slowed the truck a little as he craned his neck to look behind him. The
charging psychos tackled the frightened people and tore into them with hands
and teeth, their savagery almost impossible to believe. He heard shrieks of terror
and pain mix with screeches that sounded like the angry call of hungry pigs.
Shivering, he turned away.
And then he hit somebody.
He screamed as a body crunched onto the hood. The truck fishtailed. He
wrestled the pickup back under control, his heart hammering in his chest, and
the vehicle straightened as the tires grabbed hold of the pavement once more.
Morris looked through the windshield at the psychopath on his hood.
He couldn’t tell how old she was through the thick layer of blood that coated
her face and matted her hair, but he saw the madness burning in her eyes. He
watched her, unable to look away, awed by her insanity.
She hooked her fingers into the lip between the hood and windshield and
dragged herself toward him. She bared her teeth and hissed, and even through
the chaos around him he heard her. Amazingly, she rose to her knees and let go
of the hood. Shrieking at him, she cocked back a fist and punched the windshield.
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The woman’s hand crunched against the glass, and Morris snapped out of
his daze. He realized his foot had drifted off the gas, and now the truck was
crawling down the street. Something snapped to his left, and he turned to see a
bloodied teenage boy wrenching on his door handle. He couldn’t tell if the kid
was crazy or not, but he knew he didn’t care. The woman on the hood reared
back for another blow, and the boy screamed for help. Morris ignored them and
slammed his foot down on the gas. Both bodies tumbled away, and he raced
down Vine into the heart of downtown. He glanced to the passenger seat, where
he’d placed a tire iron he’d pulled from the rear and wondered if he’d have to use
it.
He made it through Over-the-Rhine without too much trouble. The place
was a mess, but there was no order to the chaos. Psychos ran every which way,
taking down civilians and ignoring him. The truck had proven sturdy enough to
plow straight through most of the crazies who did try to swarm him.
A pair of the psychos, each slick with dark blood and one missing most of
his throat, punched their way through the driver’s side window and dragged
him from the cab. He screamed as their hands pulled at him, their fingers like
steel. He managed to grab hold of the tire iron in the second before he disappeared from the cab, and he started swinging as soon as he could cock back his
arm. The men fought viciously, but their skulls didn’t hold up so well.
Morris stared at the men. He saw the ruined throat again, and he wondered
what the hell was happening. Pounding footsteps and angered screams brought
him out of his thoughts. He climbed back into the truck and kept going. The
vehicle carried him within two blocks of his wife’s workplace, the Fifth Third
building, but then he crunched into a Lexus SUV and the truck ground to a
halt. He probably deserved it for driving the wrong way downtown.
He kept the iron tight in his fist as he wrestled the truck’s door open and
dropped onto the pavement. He knew how useful the tool was as a weapon, and
he didn’t plan to give it up anytime soon.
He got to his feet and staggered toward his wife’s office. The world swayed
a little, but he fought through the vertigo and kept moving. All around him the
sounds of terror and murder filled the air. Screams blended with car horns and
sirens and breaking glass. He tried to ignore it all and focus on the Fifth Third
building just over a block down the street. The giant structure loomed above
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Fountain Square, which was now full of panicked individuals and their attackers. He knew he’d die if he tried to brave it.
Instead, he darted into the building that stood on the corner of Vine and
Sixth. One of the crazies charged him just inside the lobby. He swung the tire
iron, and it crashed into the man’s temple, spinning him to the floor. Morris
continued up a broken escalator and ran like the devil was poking him in the
ass. He saw a sign for the Skywalk and raced past it. He realized he might end
up lost in the series of pedestrian bridges, but he didn’t have far to travel. Two
turns brought him out onto the plaza overlooking Fountain Square. He saw the
doors that led into the Fifth Third building and sprinted for them.
He got close to the edge and stumbled to a halt. A scream bubbled out of his
gut and travelled to the top of his throat, where it stuck, robbing him of breath.
The plaza below had turned into a meat grinder. Blood covered everything
and everyone, and its stench punched into his nose like a fleshy fist. He could
only watch as the people below tore into each other. He saw a little boy who
couldn’t have been more than ten leap onto a man’s back and bite into the side
of his neck. Blood sprayed, and the child rode the adult to the ground like a lion
felling its prey. A fat woman whose left leg ended in a mess of gristle and tattered
flesh dragged herself forward and grabbed at a man who looked to still be dying.
She bit into his stomach and pulled out a knot of intestine. The man’s screams
arced over Fountain Square and reverberated off the Carew Tower.
Morris felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as horror took hold of him.
What was happening? What had started this? This went beyond a simple riot.
Even mass hysteria didn’t explain it. Something had turned these people bad,
made them wrong. How was he supposed to get Carol out of this? What chance
did they have? If they didn’t work deep in the city-weren’t surrounded by concrete and steel-they might have a chance, but now it all felt so impossible.
A peal of rage behind him snatched away his questions. He turned to find
an old man charging him, hands outstretched and raking at the air. He saw the
madness in the man’s eyes in the split second before he ducked low and shoved
his shoulder into the psycho’s gut. The impact rocked his body, but he didn’t
fall. He pistoned his legs up and twisted. He felt the old man’s fingers claw at
him, but then he shoved at the body and the madman sailed over the ledge and
into the carnage below.
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Morris backed away from the edge, breathing hard. He stared a second
longer and then ran for the Fifth Third building and Carol.
He took the stairs, not trusting the elevators, and by the time he saw the
sign that read 44 he nearly cried out in triumph. He might have if he didn’t feel
so exhausted. Sweat slicked his body. The tire iron felt like a tree trunk in his
grip. He thought if he took another step his legs might liquefy and drain back
down the stairs.
For a split second he considered collapsing against the fire door. He probably needed a moment’s rest. It would do him good, prepare him for the coming
attempt at escape. He shook his head. No. He needed to keep moving. When he
found Carol, he could rest. Until then, he needed to keep going, keep searching.
He listened at the door, the cool metal chilling his ear. He heard something
banging around in the hallway on the other side. If he didn’t know better, he’d
think it was a battle. Instead, he thought it might be one of the crazies, maybe
two. He hoped it wasn’t more than a couple, and he prayed Carol wasn’t one of
them. He didn’t want to think about what he might do if that was the case.
Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his sweaty palm dry on his pants leg. He
checked his grip on the tire iron and made sure it was good. He felt tired, but his
thoughts of Carol chased away the fatigue, replaced it with a desperate strength.
Cautiously, he opened the door.
He knew the hallways of this floor. More than a few times, he’d stopped
by to either pick up Carol or bring her a lunch. He knew his way around, but
he didn’t recognize the catastrophe he’d walked into. Somebody had smeared
blood all over the door and surrounding area. A hole had been punched in the
wall opposite the stairwell. Papers and tatters of bloody clothing lay scattered up
and down the hall. One of the fluorescent light fixtures had fallen loose and now
dangled from the ceiling. Morris eyed the swaying fixture and wondered just
how the hell it had ended up like that.
He closed the door as quietly as possible, making sure he didn’t touch the
crimson streaks that marked its surface. He still heard what sounded like somebody trying to beat their way through a door. They grunted and snarled with
each impact. The sound electrified his nerves. He prayed whoever it was didn’t
hear the quiet click of the closing stairwell door.
He worked his way down the hall, rolling his feet heel to toe and hoping
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he remained silent. The hallway branched off to the left fifteen feet down. He
needed to pass that corridor and continue on another thirty feet. Then he’d
follow the hallway left. Carol’s office would be the fourth door on the right. He
hoped she was locked up tight, safe from the psycho making all the racket.
He reached the first branching hallway. Holding his breath, he eased himself toward the corner and checked the passage.
It was a woman. Not Carol, but a face he’d seen once or twice in the past.
He’d never learned her name.
It appeared she’d put her hair up before coming to work today, but so much
activity had knocked most of it loose. Now it hovered around her head like a
blond explosion. She wore a black blouse and gray skirt. Both had been torn and
streaked with blood. Great red splotches marked her pantyhose. She’d lost one
of her shoes, but she didn’t appear to notice. She kept leaping at the heavy wood
and raking at it with her fingernails, trying to tear her way through rather knock
it down. Her desire to attack whatever was hiding behind the door robbed her of
any sort of logic. For a second, Morris could only watch her in amazement.
He wondered if he could cross the hallway without drawing her attention.
If she saw him, he could handle her. He figured she had to be the only crazy on
the floor. Everybody else had fled or gone into hiding. If more poured out of the
woodwork though, he’d have a real problem on his hands.
He almost smiled at the thought, because he already had a real problem on
his hands. Anything else would just be gravy on the shit sandwich.
He decided to dart across the hallway. Cocking his swinging arm just in
case, he ducked out from behind the wall. The woman screeched when he was
two steps from being out of sight again. He ran another five steps and then
turned around and squared his stance.
She rounded the corner like an out of control bull, never slowing and careening against the wall instead of making the turn. The impact didn’t even faze her.
She charged, finding Morris with her insane eyes and coming straight for him.
He wanted to swing, but his eyes were drawn to her throat and chest, to
the ragged bites he saw there and the blood that flowed from the wounds. He
regained his senses in the split second before she pounced upon him.
She hit him with the force of a battering ram. He tried to send the woman
over his shoulder as he fell back, but she latched on tight and followed him to
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the floor. He jammed a forearm into her throat, knowing she would try to bite.
Her teeth clacked together again and again, providing sharp punctuation to her
shrieking and hissing.
He jerked his face to the side. If it was a disease driving everybody crazy, he
didn’t want her flinging spit or blood into his eyes. He felt grateful for the long
sleeves of his flannel shirt and the protection they gave his arms. Even through
the sleeves, however, he could feel the wet ruin of her throat. He shoved against
it, swatting at her arms with his free hand and keeping her nails away from his
face.
Her angry cries sounded like a harsh wind, and he realized he could feel the
air wheezing through the wounds in her throat. Jesus, how was she still making
any sound at all?
He grunted and twisted his body to one side, bringing the tire iron around
as he whipped beneath the crazy woman. The weapon only struck a glancing
blow to her temple, but it succeeded in getting her off of him. She slammed
against the wall as he scurried to the opposite side of the hallway, pressing his
back to the wall.
He saw her thrash against the carpet, struggling to make sense of the world
so she could attack again. He planted his foot in her chest before she got the
chance. With his right leg, he shoved her against the wall and held her there. She
squirmed beneath his work boot, but his leg was a tree trunk, and her broken
fingernails couldn’t tear through the thick denim of his jeans.
He swung the tire iron, but it bounced off the floor almost a foot from the
woman’s head. He cursed his lack of reach. The psycho struggled to break free,
and he knew he needed to act.
His first kick rocked her head back, bouncing it off the wall. He shifted his
weight further down the wall, inching closer to her, and kicked out again. His
left foot caught the woman’s open mouth. Her jaw cracked with a sound like a
pistol firing. He reared back and kicked again. Her nose crumbled against the
bottom of his boot.
A piercing noise filled the hallway as he kicked. It sounded like a siren
cycling through the sky in the moments before a storm hits. It washed over the
crunching and cracking sounds of the psychopath’s head between boot and
wall. The terrible noise stabbed at his ear drums and echoed through his skull,
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and it wasn’t until long after the woman’s skull collapsed that he realized he was
screaming through his hands.
He coughed and choked and somehow managed to find his breath again.
It came in thick rasps, his chest pumping up and down. The air tasted stale and
foul, thick with the stink of the bloodied, broken woman under his feet.
Slowly, he pulled his feet away from her still body. He caught a glimpse
of what remained of her head, and that was enough. Swallowing the bile that
rose to the top of his throat, he turned away from her. He’d never thought of
himself as a violent man. An hour ago, he hadn’t thought he was capable of the
things he’d done. Now, he knew better. Love and desperation had driven him to
a whole new place. Worse, he suspected he’d be staying there for a long time.
————————————
“We ready?” Eric asked.
“As we’ll ever be,” Blake answered.
Morris nodded. “Yeah.” He shook the hammer in his fist one more time,
and then Eric threw open the garage door.
The gray light of the overcast day still managed to sting his eyes as he crawled
out from underneath the shadow of his memories. He felt an ache in his jaw and
realized he’d been grinding his teeth.
As he charged out of the garage and into the driveway he tried to ignore
his memories. All that meant a damn right now was the area around him and
his chances of surviving to travel through it. He scanned the street, didn’t see a
single zombie.
Stevenson and Blake charged past, the shrouded body of Jeremy Motts
between them. Morris turned away and looked for trouble. As he crossed the
street and entered the other driveway, he still hadn’t spotted any threats. A tiny
part of him wanted to feel optimistic, but the rest of him said that part was just
an idiot. There were still thousands of ways to die in this town, and the zombies
were only some of them.
He took a position by the truck’s hood. Up close, the giant pickup looked
to be in perfect shape. That didn’t mean the engine wasn’t fucked, of course,
but it was a good sign. He tore his eyes away and made himself watch the street
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and surrounding homes. Everything remained still, quiet. It made him want to
scream. He almost did when the truck moved behind him, but then he realized
it was only Blake and Stevenson depositing Jeremy in the bed.
Eric reached the truck last. He checked the door handles. The two on
the driver’s side snapped uselessly, locked. Eric ran around the hood as Blake
dropped to the pavement and began his search.
Morris tried to shut out the noise around him and focus. He didn’t need to
worry about the sounds the others made nearby, but what sounds lay beyond
them. Closing his eyes, he searched for breaking glass, angry footfalls, or the
hissing and rasping animal sounds the hungry dead made. He heard none of it,
and that frightened him. It reminded him too much of Front Street and of the
lifeless quiet in the stairway of the Fifth Third building. He sensed it was the
quiet before a terrible storm, and that terrified him.
“Fuck.” Blake’s voice. “Looks like we’re going inside.”
Stevenson jumped out of the truck’s bed. “Joy. Let’s get moving.”
“Right.”
He heard the two men walk toward the house, and then he shut them out
again, concentrating on his surroundings. He hoped it stayed quiet, but he
refused to fool himself.
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ELEVEN
“After you, princess.”
Blake shot Chris a hateful look and fought the urge to knock his block off
with the crowbar he’d found. The cocky prick stood to the side of the front door,
bent at the waist and gesturing with a flourish. Blake walked past and made sure
to give the man’s head a good nudge with his forearm.
He couldn’t tell how long it had been since the home’s occupants abandoned
the place, but he guessed it had been a good while. A layer of last fall’s leaves lay
rotting on the living room floor. An old couch that had once been pale blue sat
ripped open, its guts spread about in white and gray tufts. Maybe animals had
gotten to it, or maybe something else. Maybe it had been the thing responsible
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for a hole in the paneling to the left of the couch. Five feet of exposed beams
stood out from behind cracked and splintered compressed wood. Blake shook
his head. Time and nature had really done a number on this place. How long
before everything looked like this?
“Shit,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Chris said, stepping through the door. “Looks like their decorator
was one of the first to go.”
“Looks like.” He almost smiled at the remark, but he kept the expression
below the surface. “We should start looking.”
“Hey, I was just waiting on you.”
Chris slapped him on the back. He shrugged the hand away and moved to
the coffee table. He brushed aside a crumbling drift of leaves and flipped through
what must have been a year’s worth of rumpled home and garden magazines. He
found remotes for the television, DVD player, VCR, and stereo, but no ring, not
even a single key.
“Nope.”
Chris moved past him. “I’ll start in the kitchen. You take upstairs.”
“Right.”
“Try not to get lost, Ellis.”
“Fuck you.”
Chris’s laughter travelled through the empty house like a ghost.
Blake found the staircase just off the living room and pounded up it. He
wanted to find the keys and get the hell out of here. He hated feeling stranded,
feeling vulnerable. Once they started moving again, he’d breathe a little easier.
Not much, just a little.
The second floor branched out in both directions. He decided to try the
right first. Fewer doors on that side told him he’d probably find the master bedroom in that direction. The carpet puffed dust with every step he took, and he
was sneezing by the time he reached the doorway at the end of the hall.
It was a master, all right. A king size bed that had been stripped of all bedclothes dominated the room. A few shredded pillows dotted the floor. The
window had been shattered inward by something, and rain had soaked the
carpet, filling the room with the cloying stench of mildew.
A nightstand stood on either side of the bed. He approached the closest one,
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trying to ignore the way the carpet squished under his feet. How much rain had
the floor absorbed? Was it even stable? He decided not to think about it. He’d
just find the keys and get the fuck out.
The first nightstand sported a paperback that had bloated with moisture.
A reading lamp lay broken on the floor. He wasted no time inspecting either.
Instead, he pulled open drawers and rooted through cubby holes. They contained plenty of junk-reading glasses, a personal organizer, matches, a flashlight-but no keys. He pocketed the matches and checked the other nightstand.
The results proved similar.
“Dammit.” He left the bedroom and walked to the other end of the hall. He
figured there wasn’t much chance of finding the keys in the other rooms, but he
needed to make sure.
Two closed doors stood opposite each other at the hall’s far end. He looked
back and forth between them for a second and then decided to try the one on
the left. Steeling himself, he gripped the knob and turned.
A home office waited on the other side. The window remained intact, so the
room only smelled like dust. He sneezed and then stepped to a nearby computer
desk, started searching.
“C’mon.”
Nothing. Same thing with the bookshelves and the jacket draped over
the back of a chair. Maybe Chris had already found the keys. He grabbed the
walkie-talkie off his belt and thumbed the mic.
“Hey, Chris. You found ’em yet?”
A moment of silence, and then, “Sure thing. We’re already halfway to the
store. Where the fuck did you go?”
“Kiss my ass.”
“And I was gonna bring you back a Snickers bar.”
He snapped the walkie-talkie back onto his belt and stepped to the window.
Morris and Eric stood by the truck, each of them watching different ends of the
road. Neither of them appeared panicked in any way. So far, so good.
He crossed the hall.
He reached for the doorknob and paused only a second, long enough to
whisper something like a prayer, a plea that he might find the keys on the other
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side. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach, telling him he was taking too much
time. He obeyed them and twisted the knob. Locked.
He stared at the fake brass knob in disbelief. Why on earth would somebody
lock this one door and leave the rest of the house wide open?
He wedged the end of the crowbar between the door and the jamb. He’d
never tried something like this before, but he had an idea how it was supposed to
work. Once he positioned the bar just above the doorknob, he yanked back with
both hands. Wood splintered and popped, the doorjamb cracked, and the door
swung open.
The zombie on the other side charged him.
The torn sheet around the female’s rotten and bulging neck told him everything he needed to know. She’d locked herself in the room and then hung
herself. Probably hadn’t remembered how to work the lock once she woke up
hungry.
He brought the crowbar up with both hands and managed to crack its
rounded end against her chin in the instant before she slammed into him and
they crashed through the opposite doorway. He gagged at the woman’s stench,
but he remembered to shove the crowbar up and away from himself, not even
trying to stop his own fall. The impact jarred them both. She snatched at him
with hands that had decayed to little more than bony claws. He pushed again,
and she tumbled off him, landing in a twisting heap of bones and decomposing
meat.
He scrambled to his knees. He wanted to reach his feet, but he feared he
didn’t have enough time. The zombie hissed and shrieked, making animal
sounds almost as awful as its stench. It scrambled to a crouch, and thick folds of
skin sloughed off its arm and fell to the carpet. He sucked in a great breath and
swung the crowbar in a vicious arc.
The zombie’s head exploded. Brittle bone and brain that was almost liquid
flew through the air and peppered the computer desk and wall. The reek of
decomposition doubled, and Blake dropped the crowbar and slapped a hand
over his nose and mouth.
He heard thundering feet on the stairs and had enough time to hope it was
only Chris before a wave of sudden weakness buckled his knees. He collapsed
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to the floor and stared at the ruined corpse in something like awe. How much
worse could this day get?
“Jesus, Ellis. Where was she?” Chris, all right. Under the circumstances, he
found the man’s voice oddly comforting.
He pointed out the door. “Across the hall. Hung herself.”
“You okay?”
“Fine.” He drew in a shuddering breath and then climbed to his feet, ran his
fingers through his hair. Cold sweat left them slick.
Chris looked back and forth from the ruined woman to the room where
she’d killed herself. “Jesus,” he said. “What is it with this place and suicide?
Doesn’t anybody want to fight?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Trying to style your hair and failing.”
“Go fuck yourself, Chris.”
Chris pouted, an exaggerated expression. “C’mon. Is that any way to talk to
the guy who found these?”
The jingle of keys was the best sound he’d ever heard.
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TWELVE
Chris watched Eric give the ignition a turn and receive a series of clicks for his
trouble.
“Good try, though. Was rooting for you the whole time.”
“Goddammit.” the cook said before popping the hood and moving to give
Morris a hand.
Chris watched the big man fumble with the hood, trying to raise it with
one good arm. He thought maybe he should help, but decided he’d rather continue to keep a lookout. That’s what they’d told him to do, so fuck them if they
needed the help. He’d come running once he heard the truck’s engine turn over,
not a second earlier.
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He patted his pockets and realized he still didn’t have any cigarettes, still
couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one. Searching his memory banks for
a Camel or Marlboro, he came up empty. All he knew for certain was that he’d
kill for a fucking cancer stick.
He eyed the pickup. Eric was snapping the last negative clamp to the SuperDuty’s engine. “Should probably let that charge a couple minutes,” the scrawny
guy said.
Chris turned away and looked at the house. Maybe he could find a pack
inside. He had a few minutes to look.
He walked toward the front door.
————————————
“Are we sure this will even work?” Eric asked Morris. “I’ve never tried this with a
battery that wasn’t attached to a running car.”
Morris nodded. “Years back I had a job at the airport. I had to wheel around
a car battery on a cart for folks in long-term parking. All through winter you
had batteries going dead, and my job was to freeze my ass off and give folks a
jumpstart. Paid great for a part time job.”
“You say so. How long should we wait?”
“Few more minutes. We try it too soon, it’ll just drain the good battery.”
“Right.” He leaned against the truck. Every time he came close to relaxing,
his muscles screamed, reminding him just how much frightened tension coursed
through his body. They did it now, and he decided leaning wasn’t the best idea.
The last thing he needed was for his muscles to cramp up on him.
He wished he had some kind of edge, but the only thing his mind turned up
was cocaine. He remembered the way it used to set his nerves on fire, make him
fast and reckless. With a couple of lines he could outrun a freight train right up
to the point he fell across the tracks.
Sometimes he still missed the drug, missed the fun he used to have while
sucking it up. It had caused its fair share of problems, though. Hell, the last time
he’d used, it had changed his entire life.
————————————
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They’d decided to call it a Midnight Party. Maybe it was a silly idea, especially
when it was just the two of them, but whenever the pair of them came together it
felt like a celebration. So a Midnight Party, a full weekend with no lights and all
the cocaine they could inhale. Any fool could have told them it was dangerous
and stupid for a couple to do such a thing. The coke told them different, though.
When thick became thin, they always listened to the coke before listening to
such ridiculous things as reality.
Eric arrived at Renee’s house just after four in the afternoon on an overcast
Friday. His boss had shit-canned him the day before for showing up to work
with a white boulder under his left nostril and an aching need to jerk off on one
of the waitresses. Thinking back on it, he probably shouldn’t have tried to perform such a move in the middle of the dining room during dinner hours.
Fuck it. Other jobs would come along. They always did for the good chefs.
Besides, Renee was a hotter piece of ass than any of the waitresses at Dante’s.
She didn’t make him wait until dinner hours, either. She dropped to her
knees as soon as he walked in the door, leaving him to try and hold on to two
sacks of groceries while he watched her red hairdo bob back and forth in front
of his crotch. Once she got him off, she rinsed with some mouthwash and kissed
him hello. He started working on her belt, and she pushed him away, told him
he had to cook her dinner before he got to stick it in her.
He snickered but decided it was a fair deal. Better than some of his other
girls, at least. Most of them wanted gifts or help making rent. They never could
understand their usefulness was directly proportional to the amount of pussy
they threw his way.
So he worked on dinner while Renee worked the lightbulbs. She unscrewed
the first ten or so, but then she snorted up a couple of lines and got bored. The
remaining bulbs she smashed with one of her shoes. How she made it back to
the kitchen without ripping her feet to shreds was a wonder of God and nature.
She didn’t bother cleaning up the glass, either. When her husband got back from
Boston, he’d be good and pissed.
Eric shrugged as he chopped fresh rosemary. Wasn’t his problem. Once
Monday rolled around, he’d be asleep in his apartment. Let Renee deal with
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her hubby. He’d have to sleep off a hangover and then find a job. Really, he had
enough on his plate.
Dinner took about an hour, rosemary crusted lamb with some vegetables.
Not the most difficult dish, and really nothing too amazing, but Renee groaned
and moaned through the whole thing like she was close to orgasm.
He augmented their traditional place settings by cutting up three lines of
blow to the right of each plate. Renee tooted hers up like they were an appetizer. He finished his last line for dessert. Then he shoved everything to the floor
and laid Renee across the table. She squirmed beneath him, and he pressed her
shoulders to the cold wood.
She’d changed into a black evening gown, really trying to bring some class
to the evening. The garment tore down the front in a series of staccato rips,
exposing the pale breasts and stomach beneath. Her tiny nipples darted toward
the sky, and he gave them all the attention they deserved, his tongue and lips
working them in a coke-fueled frenzy. Their sex continued, any trace of emotion
dissolving into the white noise memories of snow, buzzing like a transmission
through a bad radio.
She tore at his shoulders as he stabbed his cock into her, ripped a scream
out of his chest. Once the pain eased a little he darted forward and shoved his
tongue into her mouth. She sucked on it eagerly, moaning into his mouth.
She rolled him onto his back and moved her knees alongside his waist, rode
him like a bull. Her nails dragged over his chest, his sides. The closer she came
to the end, the rougher she got. What had started as scratches became slaps. The
slaps twisted into punches that rocked his head at the same time they strangely
turned him on. She screamed obscenities at him, her hips bucking in time with
her words. He slapped at her breasts, leaving red welts over her nipples. She shivered with each impact. He grabbed hold of her waist and tried to hang on until
she was finished.
She called him worthless.
He called her a slut.
Her fist popped against his cheekbone, and she called him a faggot.
He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back until she screamed. He said
she was an ugly whore.
Her fingers twisted in his hair. She growled as she lifted his head and banged
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it against the table. Stars boomed in his vision, and he thought about what an
incredible piece of ass he’d found. She brought his head down again, and the
pain sent a shiver of pleasure all the way down his spine to his cock, threatened
to make him explode then and there.
Her growl became a scream, her entire body shuddering like she’d been
strapped into an electric chair.
————————————
He remembered her wrenching his head away from the table and the world spinning beneath him like it was out of control. Then he remembered the look of
pure ecstasy and hate in her eyes before she crashed his skull against the hardwood and everything went black. Before he could remember anything else, he
stepped into the yard and started stretching.
“Good idea,” Morris said.
“I thought so.” He bent at the waist and tried to touch his toes. His thighs
and calves screeched in protest, but he kept reaching.
“When was the last time you ran, anyway?”
“Last night. I started practicing once I came up with the plan.”
“And before you came up with the plan?”
He chuckled. “Ten years or more. Who’s counting?” He grabbed his right
ankle and lifted it until it touched the back of his thigh. The pain it caused
wrenched a gasp out of him. He let the ankle drop and shook out the entire leg,
repeated the procedure for the other.
“You really think you can do it?”
“Time’ll tell, I guess.”
Morris shook his head. “Right. Better you than me, I suppose.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t look at me. Not my plan.”
“Good point.” Eric twisted at the waist and felt the muscles of his torso beg
forgiveness. He denied them, continuing to turn and then stretching the muscles of his arms. As he kept working his muscles and tendons into submission,
dark thoughts crept into his head. Was this crazy idea he called a plan anything
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more than suicide? Nobody had offered a better idea, but that didn’t mean his
wasn’t insane.
Maybe insanity was just what they needed, though. The entire world had
gone crazy, after all. It took the end of just about everything to do it, but the
death and turmoil he’d known in Chicago had finally found him way out here
in the middle of nowhere.
So yeah, his plan was crazy. It was suicidal and stupid, but so was life these
days. Anybody who said different was a liar.
He closed his eyes and continued stretching. When the time came to run,
he’d be good and ready.
————————————
Chris chose to look upstairs because he hadn’t spotted anything even resembling
a cigarette during his search of the kitchen. He knew the odds of finding something on the second floor were pretty goddamn slim, but he’d gone through
enough bullshit already, and if there was any chance he could get some nicotine
in his system, he was going to take it. The day wasn’t even halfway over, and he
didn’t think he could finish it without smoking something. His body craved
tobacco, would settle for nothing else.
He caught the stench of the dead woman halfway up the stairs. Jesus. He
couldn’t think of another time he’d smelled something so bad. Less than an
hour earlier he’d been surrounded by the damn things, and the smell hadn’t
been nearly as horrible. Maybe the closed in area trapped the stink. It made a
certain amount of sense.
When he failed to find a pack in the master bedroom, he felt his temper
flare. What was it with these backwoods bastards? They grew the stuff like you
wouldn’t believe, but nobody had a pack of Camels?
He decided to check the opposite end of the hall. Each step brought a more
potent stink, and by the time he crossed the stairway he’d buried his nose in
the crook of his arm. It didn’t help much, so he just gave the computer room a
glance from the doorway. No smokes sitting out in plain sight. He thought good
and hard about checking out the computer desk, but the smell already had him
reeling. If he didn’t find any in the opposite room, he’d come back.
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————————————
Blake exited the house carrying a gas can. He saw Eric in the yard doing lunges,
Morris watching the street, head turning back and forth.
“Saw the truck only had a quarter tank,” he said. “Found this in the
garage.”
Eric stopped stretching. “Quarter tank should be plenty.”
“You think? That thing’s a monster.”
“Doesn’t matter. We don’t know how old the gas in the can is. Might just be
varnish by now.”
Blake shrugged. “Could be the same deal in the truck.”
“So why push our luck?”
“I just don’t want to walk home.”
Eric smiled. A thin layer of sweat glistened on his face. “We won’t be walking home.”
“Right.” He set the gas down on the lawn. “So, how long until we’re gone?”
“Five minutes, maybe. Just want to give the battery a little more juice.”
“Fine.” He turned away from Eric and approached the truck. He pressed his
hands to its side and looked up and down the length of its frame. “Better get us
home safe,” he whispered. “I promised a girl.”
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THIRTEEN
Chris paused in the guestroom doorway. He wanted to enter, wanted to find
some smokes and maybe a good paperback, but his feet wouldn’t move. Something about the angle, looking down at the unmade bed. It shoved a lump into
his throat, made his heart accelerate within his chest.
“Fuck you,” he said, but the memories roared back anyway.
————————————
“It hurts, Daddy!”
He looked at the bleeding impressions of teeth in Danielle’s arm and tried
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like hell to keep the panic out of his mind. It was a losing battle though, and he
knew that. The sweat that slicked his hands and bit into his eyes told him the
truth. The way his entire body shook only reinforced it. When he looked out the
windshield and saw the car’s front end jitterbug back and forth across the roadway, he knew he was maybe five minutes from cracking up.
Danielle whined as she scratched at the wound.
“Don’t do that, honey.”
“But it itches.”
“I thought it burned.”
“Both!”
“Well, you’re not supposed to scratch something like that. Remember what
I told you about mosquito bites?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“If you can go five minutes without scratching them, they’ll never itch
again.”
“That’s right. Now, the clock says it’s twelve after seven. If you can go until
seventeen after without scratching that bite again, I promise you it will stop itching.”
“But it itches real bad.”
“I know, honey. Just try for me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Sit on your hands.”
“Okay.” She did as he asked, and her little face scrunched up as she tried to
resist the urge to dig her fingernails into the wound.
He looked at the clock again. Five minutes. Once seventeen after rolled
around, she’d know he’d lied to her, that not all of Daddy’s promises came true.
Would she believe anything else after that? Would it even matter?
He’d kicked the woman in the head, slamming his foot into her skull even
as he stared in awe at the blood oozing from her torn throat. She’d held on, so he
kicked again. She growled like a wild animal, and it wasn’t until he’d kicked her
a third and fourth time-until something crunched beneath his foot-that she
let go of Danielle.
So now he had to get his daughter to a hospital. Not that he had the slightest
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idea where the hell he might find the nearest medical center. The ranger station at Shawnee Lake had been abandoned. He’d grabbed some sterile wipes
and bandages, did what he could. That woman had been bitten by something,
though. He hated to think what she’d given Danielle.
He clicked on the radio to the one station he’d found that didn’t play pop
or hillbilly music. He hoped some good old rock and roll might calm his nerves,
but instead an announcer spoke with a nervous voice.
“-thought to be rioting at first, but closer inspection by news networks and
eye witnesses has revealed the attackers to be infected with some sort of disease.
Others reports claim the rioters appear to be-”
Infected. He didn’t like the word. It gave him thoughts he couldn’t stand,
images of Danielle falling prey to some disease he’d never even heard of before.
What the fuck had that bitch given his daughter?
He searched the county road for some kind of sign advertising a hospital or
highway, anything that might help. A growl appeared in his throat. He could
drive around the goddamn roads for days before he even stumbled upon a hint
of the nearest emergency room. Goddammit! Why had he decided camping was
such a great fucking idea? If they’d stayed at his place in Columbus, he could
have Danielle in the emergency room within ten minutes. But no, he’d agreed
on Indiana, all because he wanted to get into the country so his bitch of an ex
couldn’t reach him, couldn’t call every hour saying she was just worried when
she was really trying to keep him from spending time with their daughter.
“How’s that arm feel, honey?”
“It still itches.”
“Hasn’t been five minutes yet.”
“It’s getting worse!”
“Let me see it.”
She shoved the arm toward him. He took his eyes off the road to inspect it.
The area around the bite was pink and inflamed, but he didn’t know if it was
infection or just the result of her scratches. He felt stupid and useless, and that
only angered him.
He looked closer at the bite. A clear fluid wept from the wound. He didn’t
know what that meant, but he didn’t think it was any good. Jesus, what was he
going to do?
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The bellow of a blaring horn snapped his eyes back to the road. An SUV was
charging directly at him. He let out a sharp cry and jerked the wheel hard to the
right. His Honda Accord swerved back into its lane, and the SUV whipped past
a few inches to the left, its horn receding into the distance.
He slumped in his seat, breathing hard. His heart galloped. He could hear
his pulse hammering in his ears. After a few seconds, the sound dissipated. Danielle replaced it.
She was crying.
He found the house a half-mile down the road. A red, white, and blue mailbox stood along the side of County Road 325 West, and he saw the gravel road
beside it. He realized the road must be somebody’s driveway, and he jumped on
the brake. The Accord’s speedometer plunged, and he swung the wheel right.
The driveway traveled two hundred yards under a canopy of interlocked tree
branches. If he’d come this way in late September or early October, he might
find himself dumbstruck by the beauty of the gold and red leaves. But now he
was too frightened to do anything but scan the woods ahead and look for something that might be a house.
He found it when the trees parted to reveal the log home. He had a quick
thought that you couldn’t possibly call such a place a cabin. The thing stood two
stories tall and featured a deck that wrapped around both the upper and lower
stories. Stone chimneys stood at both ends of the structure, and a satellite dish
aimed toward the sky from the corner of the roof.
“Wow, Daddy!” It appeared the home impressed Danielle, as well. He gave
her a look and saw her staring at the house in wonder, the tears on her cheeks
forgotten and drying. “Why are we stopping here?”
“We gotta get something for that arm,” he said.
“But you already cleaned it.”
“We need something better, honey.”
“They’ll have something better?”
“I hope so. I guess we’ll find out.”
He spotted a pickup truck in the drive, a monster of a Toyota that had been
washed and waxed within an inch of its life. Even through the shade it sparkled.
Chris didn’t like that. It gave him pessimistic thoughts. Clean people didn’t generally like others just wandering in and disrupting their lives.
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Then he saw two more vehicles beyond it, a Blazer and a Chrysler from the
eighties. Both of them looked like they’d been through a dust storm. For some
reason, they didn’t comfort him any, either.
Don’t panic, he told himself. People are good. When they see what’s going on,
they’ ll help.
He brought the Accord to a halt, spraying gravel as the car slid. He shut off
the engine and threw open the door.
“C’mon, honey. Let’s go.”
He almost gasped when he felt how warm she’d become. She felt like a hot
water bottle in his grip, and when she pressed her forehead to his cheek it was
sopping wet.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I feel a little dizzy.”
Oh, Jesus Christ!
He ran for the house, holding Danielle as tight as he dared. He didn’t let
go until he’d sprinted up the steps to the front door, and then he only used one
hand to knock, pounding like a psychopath.
“Hello!”
He waited, hopping from one foot to another. Silence descended on the
home. He tried to count to ten, but by the time he reached four he’d started
slamming his fist against the door again.
“Hello! We need help! Hello!”
He reached out again, curling his hand into a fist, and the door opened a
few inches. A man’s face stared out at him.
“What the hell?”
The man wore wire frames and a graying beard. His hair looked like it had
been shaved a week or so back, but was now growing into a nice Bozo the Clown
cut. Chris looked down and saw a good section of an Anthrax shirt covering a
modest paunch.
“Look,” the guy said, “Speak up or get the fuck away from my home.” Chris
heard a click he recognized as the hammer of a pistol being cocked.
“My daughter’s hurt. I don’t know where a hospital is, and she needs attention. Please.”
The man’s eyes flicked to Danielle. Chris tried to read them, but he couldn’t.
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Maybe his panic robbed him of the ability, or maybe this guy was just that good.
The man’s eyes looked flat, uninterested in anything but the most basic facts.
Yes, that was a girl. Yes, she appeared to be hurt. Interesting.
“Please.”
The man’s eyes flicked back to look at him. Sunlight reflected off his glasses,
destroying any chance Chris had of reading his eyes.
“She bit?”
He thought about lying, but how could he hide something like the weeping
teeth marks on his little girl’s arm?
“Yeah. About twenty minutes ago.”
“Shit.”
Yeah, Chris thought. Fucking exactly.
He waited as the man just stood there, unmoving. Danielle wrapped her
arms around his neck and pulled herself in tight. He could feel the heat throbbing off her wound. It pressed against his cheek.
He begged the man with a look.
“Come in,” the man said.
Chris heard another click just before the door opened. It didn’t make him
feel much safer, but he wasn’t exactly swimming in options. He carried his
daughter through the door.
He gave the log home’s interior a glance, enough to realize it was pretty
damn impressive. Two more men sat at a table at the back of the room: a husky
blond with glasses and a white-haired man with a bright red rummy nose. An
arsenal covered the table between them.
“This way,” Bozo said. “I’ve got a guest bed.”
He followed the man through the home’s living room and down a hall, past
a pair of doors and into a bedroom. He looked down at the queen that filled
most of the room. It was unmade, sheets bunched at the foot. Bozo pulled them
up hurriedly, and then Chris laid Danielle down, resting her head on a rumpled
pillow.
“Am I going to be okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, honey. You’ll be fine. We just have to wash your arm again.”
“Daddy?”
“What is it?”
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“My arm hasn’t stopped itching.”
————————————
“Mother of fuck,” Chris said as he stepped into the guestroom. If he’d needed a
cigarette before, he’d slaughter an entire country for one now.
He checked the top of the nightstand. Nothing but a lamp there, but he
tried to tell himself all was not lost. Still a lot of places left to check. He opened
the drawer.
“Yes!”
The pack of Newports still had its cellophane wrapper intact. The brand
aside, it felt like the luckiest day of his life.
A pack of matches sat in the drawer, as well. It was better than Christmas.
“This is what I was fucking talking about!” he said as his fingers scrambled
to get inside the pack. The plastic tore and fell to the carpet. He slapped the pack
into his palm a dozen times and then opened it and withdrew a single cigarette.
“Beautiful.” He ran the smoke under his nose, breathing the leafy smell in
deep. “Where you been all my life? Seriously, where have you been, you dirty
bitches?” He screwed the butt into his lips and struck a match. It took three
tries, his fingers shook so bad. Finally, he held the flame to the cigarette and
breathed deep.
Heaven. He sighed with pleasure once the first drag crept into his lungs.
Bliss washed over him as he took another and another. He enjoyed it so much he
forgot about the match until the flame licked his fingertips.
“Fuck!” He dropped the match to the carpet and started stomping, grinding
it down and down. He caught the scent of smoldering fibers and stomped some
more. Once he was sure the blackened smudge on the carpet wouldn’t ignite and
burn the place to cinders, he returned to enjoying his smoke.
“Fine, I’ll be more careful next time.” The room didn’t respond, and he
didn’t care. The nicotine rushed to his brain, and suddenly the world felt all
right again. He breathed deeply, letting the taste stick to his tongue and throat.
If nothing else, finding the pack of cigarettes made the day a little better. He’d
never thought he could love a goddamn Newport so much.
He wondered how long he’d been up in the room. It felt like a good few
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minutes. He knew he should get back down to the truck. The others probably
wanted to get moving, and he echoed their desire.
He stood from his crouch and stepped past the room’s sole window. Something caught his eye, some flicker of motion, and he turned to look outside.
The cigarette dropped from his suddenly numb lips. He staggered back from
the window, his eyes riveted on the backyard, the field beyond.
“Oh, fucking shit.”
Dozens of them, charging like mad beasts. They raced across the field
toward the house. He could almost see the crazed hunger in their eyes. They’d
round the house in less than a minute.
He turned from the window and ran.
106
NEW ORLEANS
2011
World in Red
First printing by Creeping Hemlock Press, April 2011
ISBN-10: 0-9769217-9-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769217-9-0
World in Red copyright © 2011 by John Sebastian Gorumba
in any form.
www.printisdead.com
To my father who supported every stupid thing I ever dreamt of doing.
To my wife who supports every stupid thing I ever dream of doing.
To my friend who makes me dream stupid things.
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His wife’s water broke in the middle of the night, a month early and a couple thousand
miles away, while he was in San Diego, trying to sell a state-of-the-art digital soundmixing board at a convention filled with state-of-the-art digital sound-mixing boards.
Had Carl, his co-worker, not come along, he’d still be in the convention center, pacing his
small booth while he waited for someone to fly out and relieve him.
Bohdin fidgeted in his seat, sandwiched between men who’d had the luxury of booking their flights in advance.
Neither of them appeared to be talkers. The man with the window view stared out at
the cloud-tops, fingering his nostril for treasure. The older man to Bohdin’s left had made
sure to conquer their joint armrest before pretending to sleep.
Normally, he’d chair an internal brood session over these small hells that seemed so
large during the long hours between airports, but today was different. Today, the passengers fell away with the earth. He watched over the shoulder of the nose-picker as
San Diego widened into California, and the empty spaces between cities became more
important and impressive than the cities themselves.
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Still covered in the lather of a frustrating sprint through the airport, he watched as
the city’s day-to-day bustle became that of toys on a floor map, then ants on concrete. The
further he climbed above humanity the more beautiful everything became. He was happy
just to be in the air and his only real enemy was the clock.
So now the nose-picker, the shared armrests, and the uncomfortable knot in his lower
back didn’t matter much. What mattered was who would land first, his son or himself.
Cassie would remind him—always when he was out of town and could do nothing
about it—about everything they still needed to get for the little guy. It was amazing—
despite all the hand-me-downs from their first child, they still had things to get.
So much to do, but, for the moment, his problems were 38,000 feet below. He checked
the clock on his phone again—his new obsession—knowing the time but wanting something to look at other than everything else.
“You in a hurry to be somewhere?” the armrest thief said, surprising him. Bohdin
hoped to avoid the spiel that he’d had to give so many times already, but talking to a fourhour acquaintance—one perhaps too old for the insular tools of Steve Jobs—would keep
his mind off the possibility that his son might come while he was up here, rushing home.
A nurse would have to hold the baby for Cassie to see because he would not be there.
It’s all right if you don’t make it, she’d told him over the phone. That was a woman’s lie.
Had there really been a tone in her voice or had he imagined a kind of bitter satisfaction
that he might miss it all? He traveled for work as often as he stayed home, which was the
kind of thing that was okay with your wife until it wasn’t.
“Oh, sorry,” The armrest thief said, indicating the shared armrest. “I’m not even
paying attention.”
The old man shifted himself to the other side and relinquished his claim. He raised a
pair of bushy white eyebrows, and Bohdin realized that he had not yet answered him.
“The short version is my wife is in labor.”
“Oh.”
“I know, right? My son is starting his life as a giant cliché.”
“Good luck, son,” the old man said, looking past Bohdin and out the window. “Hurts
to miss something like that, but there’s worse things.”
“This is our second. Logan is our six-year-old,” Bohdin said, and there it was. Soon
he’d be taking out his wallet and showing off family photos.
“Hm. I remember when they were six. You sure you wanna rush back?”
Bohdin smiled. After a moment the old man joined him.
“Yeah. I remember that smile, too. Hate it when they drive you crazy, but you can’t
stand to be away.”
“You said it.”
Bohdin thumbed the outline of his phone through his pocket, eager to make the call,
or to even just check the time again.
“It’s not just my boy,” the old man said. “It’s the grandkids. When they were two and
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five, you come visit with a couple of toys and you were Zeus among mortals. But now, the
only thing teenagers hate more than their parents is an old bastard they have to make
nice with twice a year.”
“Jeezus, tell me some good news.”
“All right. You love your wife?”
“Sure.”
The old man stared at him for a moment.
“Ahh,” he said just as Bohdin was about to speak. “There it is. Not the words, but the
grin afterwards. That’s why it’ll be different for you, I hope.”
“Different?”
“If the Devil hadn’t made sure to move my son to the other side of the damn country,
I wouldn’t have missed all the years where his kids still loved Grandpa.”
“Uh,” Bohdin said, wondering if he’d stepped into a trap and would have to spend the
rest of the flight listening to the old man tell him that the Rapture was coming and he
needed Jesus in his life.
“My ex-wife,” the old man said.
“Oh,” Bohdin said, realization dawning. He smiled.
“Yeah. Now all I can do is wait until my son’s old enough to have his kids ignore him.
Nothin’ reopens lines of dialogue like regret.”
“You live in New Orleans?” Bohdin asked.
“North Shore,” he said. “Covington. You?”
“Yeah,” Bohdin said. “Old Metairie.”
“Ol’ Metry,” the old man said, smiling.
“Yeah.”
“At least you’re doing well.”
“I’m trying.”
“Jared,” the old man said, extending a large square hand.
“Bohdin.”
They shook, and by the time the flight was nearly over, they had trotted out what
tailored life stories they were willing to share with strangers, peppered with a tale or two
that men only shared with other men.
The Devil had done a number on Jared, taking the kids and moving away to force him
to stay in a job he could have otherwise retired from. She was dead now, but he’d stayed in
Louisiana, and his kids and grandkids had grown up on the West Coast.
He had visited his son, a business-oriented, “Cat’s in the Cradle” kind of son, in San
Diego, and was on his way home, where he lived alone with two cats.
After a couple of cocktails and a couple of jokes—some passed through the eyes and
at the expense of the nose-picker’s iPod/laptop/e-reader tech jungle—Bohdin spun a welltold tale of a trip to Thailand as the intercom popped and the Captain’s voice filled the
cabin, informing them that they were about to begin their descent.
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It took a moment for Bohdin to tune in, and by that time the look on the old man’s
face had changed.
“…may be a significant delay after landing for an undetermined amount of time.”
Murmurs filled the cabin. Someone groaned.
“We apologize for not having more information,” the captain said, as if he could hear
the sounds of annoyance filling the plane. “Apparently, this is happening as we speak, but
it is our understanding that Homeland Security is closing airports due to the threat of a
possible viral outbreak.”
New and louder chatter blew through the cabin and people began to theorize.
“They still on that Swine Flu garbage?” Jared asked. Passengers pressed their call
buttons, demanding any secret tidbits the airline might know, and they seemed more
concerned with the inconvenience than with any kind of danger. The nose-picker had
roused himself but was still unwilling to join their conversation.
“It figures,” Bohdin said. “I’ve flown around the damn world without incident, until
I absolutely need to get home.”
“Murphy’s Law, son.” The old man said, shaking his head. “Shit hits the fan when you
need a breeze the most.”
The stewardesses took a steady stream of complaints and questions. When they came
back over the intercom to run off a master list of canceled connecting flights, the attitude
within the cabin worsened. There were scattered complaints of “never flying this airline
again.”
Bohdin thanked the patron saint of aviation that this was a straight shot home. Even
the nose-picker’s face reddened a bit as he continued to press the call button. A younger
steward came over.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes. You can tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Excuse me?”
“I need to get to Florida this afternoon. My job fucking depends on it. So I’m asking
you what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
Bohdin felt the social discomfort of eavesdropping on an argument. As much as he
wanted to file this guy in his asshole stack, maybe his job did depend on it, though he
doubted it.
“Sir, we have no control—”
“I don’t care. I know you have an excuse, the airline—”
“Sir, this comes from the airport d—”
“I don’t care if it’s you, or the airport, or the fucking FDA, what am I supposed to
do?”
“Look, son,” Jared chimed in as Bohdin fidgeted with the button on his armrest, “He’s
got no control over any of it.”
“Yeah, but they always know more than they tell you,” the nose-picker said. Someone
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mumbled in assent.
“Sir, I assure you I don’t know anything.”
“Finally, something we both agree on.”
The steward’s face turned a little red, and as much as Bohdin felt for the guy, he
couldn’t help but snicker. Neither could Jared. At least nose-picker seemed satisfied for
the moment, though he was probably waiting until he could yell at someone with more
authority, or at least with a stack of flight vouchers and drink tickets.
“Beat feet while you can,” Jared said. The steward made it about four steps before
being waylaid by an angry couple with an infant.
“You know the best part of this?” the nose-picker said, looking from Bohdin to Jared.
“Every person who had a hand in the decision to close entire public airports, every one of
them, flies on a private jet.”
He popped his ear-buds back in and fiddled with his iPod. For now, it seemed like he
was done with his nose.
Their plane landed on time.
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2
By the time Bohdin filed out of the plane and into the terminal, the irritation of the passengers had blossomed into anger. There was a charge in the air, and everywhere Bohdin
saw angry faces, confused faces. A young girl with a blue streak in her black hair cried,
and a shiny-faced man wearing a Saints cap and jersey laughed and shook his head. The
airport’s few restaurants were already filling up with those forward-thinkers trying to
secure their spot in case this dragged out.
A mother struggling with an overstuffed suitcase and an equally overstuffed child
knocked Bohdin’s cell phone from his hand. She grunted as she pushed past an older
gentleman standing in the middle of the walkway and studying the simple signage overhead as if dumbstruck at the Tower of Babel.
Bohdin bent to catch his phone before the heel of another man’s shoe did. No apology
came from the mother, but the child looked back and pointed pudgy finger.
“No, Mommy. No,” he said, trying to wrest his hand back from his mother. She
dragged him along, frustration carved into her face.
Bohdin dialed his wife. As the call tried to connect, he wondered if Cassie ever felt
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that way, like their kid was just luggage sometimes. He pictured her hefting Logan around
a grocery store while he was out of town, the same exhausted look on her face.
His cell phone blinked back—call failed. He looked into the crowd. Everyone had their
cell phones out. Hundreds of colorful little gadgets in hundreds of sweaty palms, and
none of them worked, just like after Katrina.
When she’d blown over the city and no one could get back home, everybody tried to
use their cell phones at once, with the obvious result. What Bohdin found out some time
later was that text messages worked just fine. He’d never understood why you could do
one and not the other, and he still didn’t care.
He texted Cassie, despite the fact that she probably wasn’t anywhere near her phone.
Her parents would be with her, but to them text messaging was alien.
Maurice, his oldest friend, his only real friend, the kind of friend he could impose
upon for such things, was coming to pick him up. Bohdin texted him: U here yet?
Bohdin considering asking someone what was happening, but every desk, kiosk, and
worker was encircled with annoyed and confused passengers.
“Christ, you can’t even get near anyone.”
Bohdin turned and saw Jared.
“You want to pull up to a crowd and listen in?”
“I’m going to get as close to a television as I can,” Bohdin said.
“Lead on, Kemosabe.”
They weaved through the crowd. In a forest of anxious strangers, having a compatriot, even a short-term one, was comforting. The middle-aged woman working the
counter at their terminal seemed shaken by the crowd around her, each of them talking
over the other. “Well, how long do we have to stay here?” a red-faced businessman asked.
“This is handed down from Homeland Security, sir. We’re still getting updates as we
speak, so please—”
“This girl don’t know shit,” an older man told his wife, making sure it was loud
enough for everyone to hear. He made a show of leaving the crowd.
The irate man stomped past. His wife struggled to keep pace in her heeled shoes,
and Bohdin fumbled with the phone, watched it dance as he tried to make a cage with his
fingers. He clasped the damnable thing in his hand. No responses yet.
He walked with Jared, trying not to worry about Cassie. They’d already done this
once before. Cassie would be on a hospital bed with her mother hovering over her. Her
phone would be in her purse. Maurice was on his way to the airport. His music was turned
too loud and he couldn’t hear the text alert. They’d all be fine. He just had to get his ass
outside.
Bohdin moved in and around people, mostly on instinct. His universe was a cell
phone that no one was calling. Someone tugged his sleeve.
“Bohdin,” Jared said. “You might want to look at this.” The terminal they were passing had a large TV hanging overhead. There was already a shuddering crowd thickening
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around it. People tried to hush those around them. Bohdin moved closer.
There was no anger or irritation in this crowd. This frightened him a little. CNN was
not just talking about closed airports, but closed schools, public buildings, even streets.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK?’ was emblazoned at the bottom of the screen. Bohdin tuned his
ears to it.
“Homeland Security has raised the threat level to red, its highest level, in what they
are calling ‘a threat of a possible widespread viral outbreak,’” a reporter standing in front
of the White House said with obvious eagerness.
She’s already in the hospital. That’s the safest place for her. He was glad she wasn’t at work
today. Driving through downtown New Orleans with this going on was going to be madness.
“This is a nationwide lockdown, and there appear to be no specific targets. They—”
“Is there any statement from the White House?” The female anchor in the studio
asked.
“Nothing yet. We are expecting an address from President Obama later today, but
inside sources say that they aren’t willing, at this time, to call any of the incidents terrorist attacks.”
“Incidents?” Jared asked no one in particular.
Incidents.
Still no incoming text message. A gray-haired man threw up his hands. “Goddamn
Obama. Too scared to call anything what it is.” A woman in the crowd shushed him.
“You’re not going to learn anything from that bum.”
“Shut up, you teabagging fuck,” a taller man shouted. “I’m trying to listen!”
The gray-haired guy was going to mouth off again, but his wife stifled him with her
eyes and a bony clasp around the meaty part of his arm. Bohdin tried to focus on the
television. His cell phone was slippery in his hands.
“I have to cut you off, Andrea. We’ve just gotten another video. We’ve been trying to
sort through the various incidents being reported but—”
The screen went black.
For a moment everyone simply blinked. When the television didn’t come back on,
the anger returned. This was too much for the tall man. “C’mon,” he shouted. “What the
fuck?”
The crowd parted for him as he took up their cause and moved to the television. He
tried to turn it back on.
“Whose bright idea was this?” Jared asked. Police officers made their way down
the terminal, accompanied by airport staff. They stopped at various clusters of people.
Bohdin pointed.
“Theirs. This is going to get ugly real quick.”
The tall man smacked the television, and a few of the more vocal men cheered him
on. When he hit it hard enough to rattle it on its wall-mount, someone actually pounded
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him on the back.
“Stop that right now.” A police officer had made his way over with two guys in dress
shirts with little name tags. They were overweight, all of them, and the guys flanking the
officer had a special air of middle management about them. They tried to puff their chests
out, emboldened by the badge in front of them.
The tall man’s cheerleaders quieted and tried to disappear into the crowd, but he was
too far gone. The officer placed a hand onto the tall man’s shoulder. He slapped it away
and screamed into the cop’s face.
“You need to tell these airport fucks to turn the TV back on right goddamn now!”
The officer blinked and took a step back. “I’m not going to tell you again. Step away
from the TV and calm down.”
The crowd churned, separated the cop from the two airport guys, who exchanged
nervous glances. The cop’s hand was on his pepper spray. He got on his radio and called
for backup.
“So, what? Now they’re going to keep us in the dark? Turn the TV on, goddammit!”
“Yeah!” someone shouted.
The two airport guys looked sweaty and scared all of a sudden. They had lost control
of the situation before they ever had it. This was supposed to be their big chance to prove
themselves. They would control the crowd. They would keep the peace.
A skinny woman pressed herself right up to one of them. He flushed as she yelled in
his face.
“You turn that TV on this instant. This isn’t the Middle East,” she said, adding, with
great importance, “My son is a soldier.”
There was a look on the officer’s face that Bohdin didn’t like: excitement. The one
airport guy stammered a response to the woman whose son was a soldier, while the other
one vanished into the crowd. The cop warned the tall guy to calm the fuck down for the
last time. Someone bumped into Bohdin, and a kid cried somewhere nearby. The tall guy
threw a punch.
The officer strode directly into the tall man’s swing, taking an inexperienced hit in
his ear. He drove the tall man backward, tripping him over an overweight black woman
standing too close. A shocked murmur passed through the crowd.
“Police brutality,” someone said, and the television sprang to life.
Even the tall man stopped yelling as the officer snapped the second cuff shut. Everyone turned their heads and looked up.
“…coming out of Israel,” the anchorwoman said, looking pale and grim. “As reported
earlier, a car bomb went off at a security checkpoint in Haifa, killing two Israeli citizens
and injuring four. I have to warn you, if you have small children, you will want to change
the channel or have them leave the room. This video is—it’s disturbing and unbelievable.”
A spreading cone of silence radiated from the television. Bohdin saw other groups
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clustering around televisions at other terminals, and he didn’t realize just how loud the
whole place had been until it fell nearly silent. His ears hummed, like they did following
a concert, back before he traded in his rock star dreams for mixing-boards and wireless
speakers.
The footage was from the aftermath of the bombing. Looking a little lost, Israeli soldiers milled around the smoldering wreck of a car. Medics tended to the injured out of a
pair of ambulances. A woman’s head was bandaged. Pink bloomed around her temples.
Bystanders yelled and pointed, and the camera found a young Israeli man who screamed
as his face filled the screen. There was movement behind him, in the rubble. A woman
sat up, and the camera whipped away from the man’s face and pulled back to fully take
her in.
The woman’s entire right side was blackened, her right arm missing, and only a wisp
of hair was left on her head. She vomited muddy, brown syrup.
Someone behind Bohdin gasped. Shocked murmurs filled the terminal.
On screen, the young Israeli stepped toward the woman. One of the medics reached
her at the same time. She spat another stream of bile into her lap. A scream bubbled up
from her throat. The medic tried to examine her. She muttered something unintelligible,
smiled, and grabbed the back of his head with her remaining arm. The camera jerked
once, and the woman sunk her teeth into the medic’s nose.
The medic shrieked, and the young Israeli waved his hands, yelled for the soldiers.
“This doesn’t appear to be the attacker,” the anchor said, “but one of the victims of
the blast, assumed dead.”
Bohdin was aware of a woman to his right sobbing quietly.
“Jesus, this can’t be real,” someone said.
Bohdin looked at Jared. The old man looked terrified.
Overhead, the intercom popped and hissed and drowned out the sound of the television:
“WE ARE ASKING ALL PASSENGERS TO PLEASE STAY AT THE GATE THROUGH WHICH
THEY ENTERED THE AIRPORT. DO NOT GO TO BAGGAGE CLAIM. WE ARE—”
The officer turned to the one remaining airport employee. “Can’t you do something
about that?” the officer asked, yelling over the sound of the intercom.
The red-faced airport employee wiped at the growing oil slick on his forehead. He
looked around for his partner as the crowd took up the officer’s cause.
On the television, the young Israeli man scrambled over debris to grab the woman
from behind in some kind of bear hug. An Israeli soldier ran towards them.
“THE QUICKER WE START THIS PROCESS THE QUICKER WE CAN BRING THIS SITUATION TO A RESOLUTION. OFFICERS AND AIRPORT STAFF WILL BEGIN TAKING A CENSUS
OF EVERYONE—” the intercom droned, drowning out everything.
Three twenty-somethings chanted “turn that down!” The airport employee clicked
his radio, tried to get his turn over the radio chatter.
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“Greg to Sharon,” He said. “Turn the intercom off. Turn it off.” He was practically
pleading. The other employee reappeared, moved gingerly toward the television. He managed to reach the volume button on the side of the television.
Bohdin heard a little of what the anchor said. The tall man was standing again, still
cuffed. The fight had gone out of him. The officer wasn’t even holding him.
The burned woman craned her neck back and bit into the side of the young man’s
face, locking onto the bottom of his jaw. He thrashed, punching her.
More gasps, and Bohdin could swear he heard someone laugh.
“I don’t get it,” a woman next to Jared said. “What does this have to do with the airports here?” No one answered her.
Bohdin had picked up a little information from the scattered noise around him.
There were other videos, other incidents, not just in the Middle East, but all over.
The young Israeli couldn’t free himself. He had grabbed the burnt woman’s face and
one finger dug into the mush where her right eye had been. The Israeli soldier kicked her
hard in the shoulder and she lost her bite, raking her teeth across the young Israeli’s neck
as she jerked back into the rubble. The medic without a nose scrambled out of frame, hid
hands pressed to his face.
“This is strikingly similar to other reports coming in from across the globe,” the
anchor said. “There is no pattern, and the widespread nature of these violent outbreaks
has world governments at a loss for answers.”
The young Israeli staggered a couple of steps, red flooding down the front of his shirt.
He crumpled. Another medic rushed over to him, but as quickly as the burnt woman was
knocked down, she rose to her feet and charged at the young Israeli.
The medic stopped, afraid to get close. He motioned to the Israeli soldier. The soldier
raised his gun at the burnt woman, but hesitated. She stumbled atop the young Israeli and
bit into his arm, shaking it between her teeth.
“ONCE EVERY PASSENGER HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR, WE WILL COORDINATE WITH
HOMELAND SECURITY TO BEGIN PROCESSING EACH PASSE—”
The intercom voice stopped.
“Finally,” someone said. “Jesus.”
The Israeli soldier fired a dozen rounds into her chest and faint red blossoms of mist
popped around her as the bullets did their work. Without pause, she spun and ran towards
the Israeli soldier. He stepped backward, spraying round after round into the burned
woman. She was unfazed, even as a couple of rounds tore off a thick flap of shoulder.
“Bullshit,” someone muttered.
The other medic made it to the young Israeli and tried to drag him out of the line of
fire. One of the rifle rounds shredded the burnt woman’s neck. Blood sputtered from the
gaping hole. The back of her head cracked like an egg.
She stopped running but did not fall, babbling and staggering, veering to the left
but still coming at the soldier. The fingers on her remaining hand fluttered without pur-
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pose.
The camera zoomed out, took it all in, and it was hard to keep up with what was happening. Bohdin didn’t know where to look.
Dragging the young man away from the woman, the medic lost his footing and stumbled backward onto his ass. The young Israeli opened his mouth and convulsed, sprayed
brown vomit into the medic’s face.
“The grisly scene you are witnessing is but one of hundreds of reported incidents
from over thirty countries,” the anchor said. “For an up-to-the-minute list of incidents,
visit CNN.com.”
The burnt woman reached her twitching fingers for the soldier. In one swift motion
he rammed the butt of his rifle into her jaw. She pirouetted and fell to the ground. The
soldier rammed his boot into her skull repeatedly. The young Israeli leaned in and the
medic tried to paw him away and simultaneously scramble backward. The young Israeli
met the medic’s hands with his mouth, and three of the medic’s fingers slid in. He bit
down. The medic screamed at the camera.
The scene flipped in a vertigo spin. The camera hit the ground. Feet stomped towards
the medic. Someone, the cameraman maybe, kicked the young Israeli.
“While there is no consensus on whether these incidents indeed represent a single
phenomenon, the undeniable thread linking them is that the attackers appear at first to
be dead, but clearly are not.”
“Oh, come on,” someone said.
“Shut up.”
“We will be joined by Dr. Sanjay Gupta who will explain how a living person can
appear deceased, and we will—”
Bohdin tuned her out. His phone vibrated within his pocket. A few jealous faces
stared out of the crowd at the guy who appeared to have a working phone.
The text was Maurice. The knot of worry over his wife was still there, but he breathed
relief that he had gotten through to anyone. He wanted to type a hundred questions at
once.
I am here. Are u still in airprt?
“I’m going downstairs,” Bohdin told Jared.
“I’ll stick with you, son, if that’s all right by you.” Bohdin nodded and they broke off
from the crowd.
Bohdin cut a trail through the crowd, following the arrows overhead to Baggage
Claim. He texted as he walked, boiling a thousand questions into the most pressing: Yes.
Where are you?
As he passed another television he caught a glimpse of video from another scene.
News channels played one after another. Bohdin’s phone buzzed again.
Outside get the fuck out now.
He ran.
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3
Baggage Claim was a mess. Hundreds of passengers ebbed and flowed around the motionless luggage conveyors. More than a few people stood on the conveyors, either assessing
the growing crowd around them or yelling at anyone who looked like they might be in
charge of something. An elderly couple sat in a row of metal chairs, too afraid to move
through the sea of younger, red faces. An old black woman in an airport wheelchair—
abandoned by the airport employee who had pushed her down here—was bumped by
three teenagers, who laughed at one another.
Bohdin paused—there was no clear path to freedom. A pair of cops guarded each
door. Flashing blue and red danced on the concrete walls outside.
“Look at this mess,” Bohdin said.
A woman lugging an infant carrier tripped as a thick-necked man backed into her.
She fell hard on one knee and had to react fast to keep the carrier and the cargo from
tipping over.
“Watch it,” she cried. “I have a baby here, asshole.”
The man looked down at her, made a pfft sound, and shrugged. Before the man could
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turn to leave and before he could stop himself, Bohdin stepped forward and shoved him
hard. The thick-necked man stumbled backward, swinging his arms for balance, yelping
as his tailbone hit the ground.
Bohdin stood looking down at the man, waiting to see what would happen next. A
hand on his arm tugged him away. The crowd churned, and he lost sight of the thicknecked man.
“That’s not going to get you out of here,” Jared said, leaning in close. “The opposite.”
He nodded to the two nearest cops, one of whom eyed Bohdin. The altercation wasn’t
enough to draw him away from the doors.
“I know. I don’t know why I did that,” Bohdin said. “I have to leave.” He stepped
toward the doors. Again Jared tried to stall him.
“All that’s going to get you is handcuffs. Don’t give them an excuse.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Bohdin said, moving toward the doors. His hands were
clenched into sweaty fists, nails digging into his palms. He was pushed aside from behind,
and bounced into a man who shouted and nudged him back. It was the nose-picker—he
walked right to the door, ignoring the officer who ordered him to stop and reached for the
silver door lock keeping the large glass doors closed.
People cheered him when one of the officers clasped his wrist. The nose-picker yelped
when the officer gave the hold a little torque.
“One time,” the cop said, “That’s all you get is one time,” and pushed the nose-picker
away. Tears rolled out of the nose-picker. Someone in the crowd called him a pussy. The
nose-picker’s face was beet red.
“My wife. My wife called me,” he told the officer. “My son was attacked by one of
those sick people. My son, my fucking son!”
Everyone within earshot feel silent. The crowd farther out continued their own private tirades, but anyone near the nose-picker let him be the figurehead of the moment.
“Sorry, sir, but no one gets out. Period,” the other officer said. “You have to step
back.”
The nose-picker sobbed, unabashed, like a child. Bohdin regretted ever thinking the
man an asshole.
“Step back? That’s it? Step back? My son is dying in the hospital and I’m supposed to
sit here and wait for fucking Obama to tell me I can leave? No sir.”
The passengers around the nose-picker cheered. One of the officers spoke into his
radio.
“Don’t make this go bad for you,” the other officer said. The nose-picker laughed.
“My son could be dead right now. What have you got on that belt that’s worse than
that?”
“Sir, I’m really sorry, but you—”
“If you don’t get out of my way I’m going to step thorough you.” More cheers.
The man lunged forward, but the officer grabbed him and threw him to the ground.
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A chorus of “NO” erupted around them and the other officer jumped to action.
“Step back now,” he yelled, pressing his baton to the chest of one of the laughing
teens.
The nose-picker yelped as the officer pressed a knee into his back. He screamed, and
his scream soon gave way to begging.
A woman in her forties wagged a finger in the face of the officer who was kneeling
with a knee in the nose-picker’s back.
“It’s his child,” she said. “What is wrong with you? Good Lord, what are you people
doing?”
Another officer cut through the crowd and stepped to the shoulder of the standing
officer. The crowd spat curses. Four officers lined up outside the glass doors.
“You’re not getting through us,” the officer said. “And you sure as hell aren’t getting
past them.”
The crowd’s sentiment wavered. No one wanted to be the first to step forward. No
one wanted to stand out from the safety of the group. From the back tier of the crowd, a
large Styrofoam cup sailed over the heads of the crowd and hit the officer on top of the
nose-picker, dousing them both in dark brown cola.
The crowd surged forward and slammed into the glass doors. The officers were
pushed against the door as a hundred hands pressed and scraped the glass. The officer
with his knee in the nose-picker’s back was pushed down as people tripped and stepped
on him.
A woman screamed as her forehead was pressed against the glass, leaving a grease
streak and a white roll of skin. One of the officers begged for the crowd to stop, all the
authority gone from his voice.
Someone, an airport bag checker, yelled from the sidelines. “The lock! Turn the lock!”
It was a simple directive, dummied up by a forest of clumsy arms reaching for the same
tiny, silver piece of metal.
Bohdin rocked forward, nearly stumbled. Legs planted, he fought to stay on his feet.
He looked around, could see the top of Jared’s head just past the shoulder of an angry
black man who screamed about getting home to his babies.
The police officers clustered on the other side of the glass stared in with confused
faces. Bohdin was jostled once more, and when he looked back at the doors there was one
less cop than there had been before.
“Who has the damned key?” someone screamed.
Several exits down, glass shattered. There was a swirl of commotion. Someone
squeezed off three gunshots, and then the crowd shifted. Bohdin was rocked to the side
once more, and then the pressure around him lessened. The crowd spilled into the breach.
Someone howled in pain, someone smashed another door.
“Go on,” Jared yelled into his ear. A line of blood ran from the old man’s nose, which
was swollen and discolored.
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“I’ve got a ride waiting,” Bohdin said. “You come with me.”
“Nah, I need to be with my kids,” the old man said. “I’m going to try and get a flight
back when this mess clears up. I got nothing here.”
Bohdin paused, looked into the old man’s eyes.
“Okay,” he said, and ran for one of the smashed doors, pressed through a clot of
people, pushed along by the flow of the mob.
Gasping, he squeezed through the crowd and out of the baggage claim and into the
reek of exhaust, onto the top of the arrivals ramp, now a smash of cars, a bottleneck pulsing with idle or creeping traffic.
The police units had blocked off a small area right at the middle, but they were far
undermanned.
Bohdin looked around, tried to find Maurice’s car in the chaos. People threaded between and around and over cars. The cops had fallen back, but one of them stood his
ground, swinging his baton at those who ran by, and Bohdin wondered when the cop
would toss it aside in favor of his gun. If Maurice was here—he had to be here—Bohdin did
not see him.
He was bumped to the side as bodies spilled past him. He was paralyzed not by fear
but indecision.
From behind him the nose-picker appeared, free of the police and clutching his
broken right arm to his chest. A deep gash in his cheek oozed blood. He blinked at Bohdin,
another man without direction.
Bohdin reached for his phone and as he typed a message—on instinct, with no real
idea of the letters pressed—he saw it. Hands waving in the distance. The figure yelled, but
the words were hopeless against the fury of the crowd. Maurice waved.
Bohdin forgot about Jared, he forgot about the nose-picker, he forgot about the world
and he ran. He pushed through the crowd, through mothers and old people and children,
through a hundred different stories, to the only thing that mattered: an answer. It wasn’t
until he got closer, a lot closer, right on top of Maurice, in fact, before he got one.
His friend was covered in blood and clutched a pistol. Bohdin saw the crease in his
brow and the flecks of blood on his face, the punch-drunk stupor in his eyes. A woman he
didn’t recognize got out of the backseat. She cradled a tiny bundle of cloth.
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4
“Bastards,” Maurice said, punching the steering wheel of his beat-to-hell Saturn.
It was a few hours past the morning rush, but a battery of cars choked the speed out
of West Esplanade Avenue. The news told people to stay off the roads, but here they were,
creeping along bumper to bumper, and his car was inching closer and closer to overheating.
There was no music on the radio. Smaller stations without their own news department provided a network feed, but the news was pretty much the same everywhere. WWL
rolled off a list of schools that were closed. Parents were to pick up their children as soon
as possible. Governor Jindal was asking people to go straight home and stay off the roads
unless absolutely necessary. He might as well have asked every licensed motorist to please
drive their cars, right away and for as long as possible.
Maurice inched along, and several drivers ahead of him laid into their horns. He
leaned to the left, tried to get a better look at what was going on. Worried, tight-lipped
faces hovered within the cars around him. They worked their radio dials and punched
numbers into their cell phones.
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Cars crept back into motion. Maurice settled on a local news station, but the information had been the same for a while. Everything was closed or closing.
He’d been on his way to pick up Bohdin when the guy on the radio announced unconfirmed reports that airports across the nation would soon be closing, and that those
within the terminal would not be permitted to leave until further notice.
He didn’t know what that meant for Bohdin. Would they really keep locals locked in
the damn airport? Seemed unlikely, but when it came to government, budgets might be
finite but stupidity was boundless. Traffic opened up a little, and he got the car up to forty.
The temperature gauge eased toward the C. He turned up the volume.
“Hospitals are only taking emergency patients,” the radio announcer said. “Unless it
is a life-threatening injury, you will not be allowed into the hospital.”
Thank God Cassie was already there, and thank God he didn’t have a life of his own
to tend to. He wasn’t jealous, that wasn’t it at all, but his friend’s growing life shined an
ugly light upon the failures of his own. The voice on the radio faded into white noise, and
he thought of Sharon. If she was on a street corner somewhere being attacked by one of
those maniacs on the news, then this terrorist attack or whatever the fuck it was had a
silver lining.
“Karen, we’re getting multiple reports that the police are having trouble answering
every call. Is that right?”
Maurice came out of his funk to retune his ears. Someone in the car ahead of him,
tracking about a dozen miles over the speed limit, slammed the brakes. Maurice did the
same, missing the other car’s tail lights by a couple of inches.
“Fuck,” he said, blasting his horn. The car blew back and weaved into the next lane.
“Well, that is what Governor Jindal is worried about, Donna,” another reporter answered. “There’s a growing number of complaints that when the New Orleans Police are
called, they aren’t always coming.”
Maurice wondered if Bohdin would want him to swing by the hospital and check in
on Cassie. He’d pass East Jefferson Hospital on his way to the airport, but he might miss
an opportunity to get Bohdin before they locked down the airports.
She’d made it to the hospital last night, before any of this had started. If they locked
the place up, then that would only make her safer.
“So is there anything we can tell about this reaction in people, even if we don’t know
what the cause is?” Donna asked.
“That seems to be the main reason we haven’t heard from the White House yet,”
Karen said. “They don’t know. Most calls to the police and most videos that we’ve seen
so far seem to start the same way, the infected person appears to be deceased but they
aren’t.”
Infection. They were using that word a lot today. If this were some kind of viral
attack, as some were suggesting, a hospital was probably the last place anyone wanted to
be. He tried to push the thought away.
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The stop and go traffic jerked forward. West Esplanade was split by a wide, open
canal of opaque brown water. The grass on either side sloped down fifteen or so feet into
the muck and Maurice watched a mottled black duck hobble down into the water. The way
it waddled, shifting its weight back and forth, slow and deliberate, made him think of the
way those supposedly infected people on the news had walked.
They made it seem like it was happening everywhere, but he’d been out for over an
hour and it was pretty much business as usual, except for the traffic.
Maybe he was getting worked up over media hype. New York had already enacted
martial law, but, hell, that was New York.
He’d wanted to call his mom, check on her in the middle of all this. She loved to call
him anytime something interesting ticked across the bottom third of the screen on the
news. He was sure she’d have a lot to report to him today. The sound of her voice might
calm unbridled thoughts while the traffic sorted itself.
Sliding his phone from his pocket, he scrolled to her name, glancing back and forth
between the screen and the road, and touched the call button.
CALL FAILED. RETRY?
On the third try he gave up.
“Of course.” Looking around at the other drivers, he’d been mistaken. They weren’t
on the phone, they were trying to get on the phone. Misery, frustration, and anger danced
from lane to lane as drivers took out their ire, told people what they really thought of
them, and took no shit whatsoever, all from behind lockable doors and tempered glass.
“Frankly I don’t know what to make of this latest video making the rounds,” one of
the women said. “The woman attacks her own child after an auto accident. She appears to
be biting him. I’m sorry, I just, she killed her own son. I’ve never seen anything like that.
There was no recognition at all in her eyes. How is that possible?”
Maurice glared at the radio. Sharon was right on the tip of his mind, about to come
punching her way back in, when he saw lights up ahead. The open ditch separated the
east—and westbound lanes of West Esplanade. A couple of police cars were steadily muscling their way down the other side of the street.
There were a myriad of businesses and neighborhoods along West Esplanade, but
Maurice knew exactly where they were going. East Jefferson Hospital was on the eastbound side of the avenue—he could see the multi-storied parking garage blocks away,
looming larger than the hospital itself.
Maurice had a feeling. That feeling you get when driving home, turning onto your
street and seeing an ambulance in the distance. Sure, there were a few dozen houses on
the same street, but you just knew the thing would be parked in front of your house.
The police cars turned into the hospital drive. Maurice’s heart sped up a few beats.
He couldn’t help it—the imagination loved to play in the dark. What if something had
happened in the hospital? What if? Of course something had happened in the hospital—
something was happening everywhere.
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He drove closer, almost parallel to the hospital now, hoping to catch a glimpse, an
idea of what was happening. The hospital emerged from behind the parking garage. It
looked like it always did, a cluster of brown, unassuming buildings.
A large crowd had gathered at the hospital’s main entrance. Red and blue traded
beats atop police cars, and he spotted a news van’s antenna ensemble spiking into the air.
A blue van had crashed into the front of the building, and in spite of the police presence
people scrambled through the broken doorway.
Without debate, or even any other real thought, he made a move. He was in the wrong
lane for the U-turn, and as his blinker flashed and the turn approached, drivers touched
bumpers, eyes straight ahead, pretending to see no one.
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ,” Maurice said. He rolled down his window and tried to get
the attention of the young couple in the white car pacing alongside him. The girl in the
passenger’s seat flicked her eyes toward him once, her head forward. Her boyfriend or
whatever, he was much better at it, never looking anywhere but right ahead, on his own
road by his own damn self.
Maurice’s face felt hot. He had to check on Cassie. Bohdin would want him to. She was
safe—she had to be. Maternity was a ward all its own, separate from the ER and all the sick
and the dying. Even if something had happened—although it hardly seemed a matter of if
anymore—she would still be fine. How many people were in a hospital at one time?
Still, he would check on her. At least then he could tell Bohdin, and himself, that
everything was fine.
A pickup truck in front of the white car hit the gas pedal a little too hard, lurching
forward. Maurice stabbed his own gas pedal, and swerved up and in front of the white car.
Looking in his rearview, Maurice could tell that the man in the white car saw him now.
Unlike the White House, which still seemed to be pruning their response, governors
were getting out and ahead of the situation. As Maurice moved toward the U-turn, the
news feed switched to a live speech from Governor Jindal, already in progress.
“…have issued a curfew of 7 p.m. Now, I understand that you all are still leaving
work, picking up children, getting home, but once you get home you need to stay there.
This is as serious as it can possibly get. We have an unknown threat that is frighteningly
indiscriminate in where it chooses to strike.”
The man in the white car scowled. He pulled into the other lane, trying to move
alongside Maurice. Someone had dared to cut him off and he was apparently going to
make sure Maurice got a taste of traffic justice. Maurice looked back, saw the guy’s girlfriend or wife tugging at his arm.
The man in the white car turned his head to Maurice, window rolled down, mouth
open in an almost comical O, mid tirade, when he snapped his jaw shut. The man in the
white car slowed, losing interest in the whole confrontation.
Maurice had seen that before. He called it “White Surprise.” The second a red-faced
white guy realized the person he was about to tell to fuck off was a young black male, he
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suddenly lost his nerve. Maurice turned into the U, forcing his way over and to the right,
his car once more threatening to overheat. He could smell the radiator.
By the time he made it to the right lane, he’d watched half a dozen cars turn into
the hospital. Some went into the parking garage, others found less legitimate places to
park. Maurice thought that if EJ was in some kind of lockdown, then all those doors in
the parking garage would be locked, which was probably why someone had reopened the
front entrance.
As it was, it looked hopeless. Not only for him but for his friend, as well. Maybe they
had a policy for family members. Maurice felt silly, like he was wasting his time. The
crowd milled around the front entrance, filling the circular drive. The cops were useless—
whatever had happened, this was the end, and it had taken the fight right out of them.
Maurice found a spot along the drive, which was a Tetris of cars and trucks. The No
Parking sign didn’t mean a damned thing—no one would be towing or booting cars. Inexplicably, there was an empty city bus taking up several parking spaces.
“As of this moment we have no confirmed source of these infections,” Jindal said. “If
that is even what they are. We don’t know what causes it, but we are getting a sense of
what happens to those who have it.”
Maurice cracked the door and the radio was drowned out by screaming, yelling and
arguing. The local news was there, using the dwindling crowd as a backdrop for their
reporter. Maurice walked toward the noise.
The gabble grew louder, and some of the most feral voices stood out. Four police officers formed a blockade around the broken door and van. They had pulled their cars up
in front of the door to make the whole thing look more imposing.
Maurice was most surprised at how brave everyone appeared. He’d never seen people
mouth off to police like that before. As he got closer, Maurice could make out what the
reporter was saying.
“Police find themselves helpless after a van crashed into the entrance of East Jefferson Hospital not fifteen minutes ago. The crowd outside forced their way in almost
immediately.”
Maurice attached himself to the back of the mob, dumbstuck, as his father used to call
it. What the hell did he think he was going to do, run his black ass past the cops and tell
the nearest nurse that he was looking for a white baby? He hung back, watched the mob
vanish into the building.
Many in the crowd refused the entrance, still not brave enough to openly defy the
police. The reporter had moved over to the helpless police officers, one of whom held a
megaphone.
“PLEASE DO NOT BREAK THE BARRICADE. YOU ARE ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF
EVERYONE INSIDE INCLUDING YOURSELVES.”
“Officer,” the reporter asked one of the other cops. “Are you going to abandon the
lockdown of the hospital?” The officer flashed the reporter a look of contempt and let that
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stand as his comment.
“They said they won’t let me in to see my daughter,” a forty-something black lady
said beside him, drawing his attention away from the cops and the reporter. “This morning they told me she wouldn’t live to see the end of the day. I drove four hours to get here
and now they won’t let me in.”
“I don’t think they’ll stop you now.” He felt stupid, stating the obvious. She seemed
to consider.
“I’m afraid,” she said. “Afraid I’ll be the one they get brave on. I don’t think I have a
choice, though.”
Maurice had been thinking the same thing. Before he could speak, the woman waded
into the crowd. Maurice felt almost shamed by the woman’s bravery.
The news reporter didn’t seem to care if the police officer responded or not. Just
having him in the foreground seemed to be enough.
“You’ve lost total control of the scene,” he said. “Have you given up, officer?”
“THERE ARE INFECTED IN THE HOSPITAL, BUT THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL,”
megaphone cop said. “YOU ARE RISKING INFECTION BY ENTERING THE BUILDING. YOU
ARE ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF EVERYONE.”
The sweat on Maurice’s face flashed cold. The cops were trying to frighten them,
make them think of themselves and not just the excitement of defying the police. It
worked on some. Maurice could see them question whether or not they really had to get
into the hospital that badly. It changed things. They didn’t close the hospital to keep those
infected people out—they were already inside.
He took a few thoughtless steps forward, wondered if Bohdin would still be standing
here or if he’d have walked right in had it been Maurice and Sharon in there.
The police officer’s radios squawked unintelligible cop code, and the looks on their
faces changed. The officer with the megaphone tossed it onto the hood of one of the police
cruisers and ran inside the hospital. Two officers followed him. The former megaphone
cop yelled some kind of response into the radio.
The reporter flashed shock, but didn’t miss a beat. She turned on the one officer who
hadn’t followed the others into the hospital. “Officer, what’s happening?”
The officer ignored the reporter, turning and yelling to his fellow officers. “Harris!
What about the barricade?”
Maurice could barely hear the other cop’s response: “Fuck ’em.”
The reporter’s eyes sparkled. Maurice pushed through the crowd and toward the
shattered entrance. When he wanted to, he could really move his ass.
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5
The hospital swallowed him. Maurice almost stumbled and had to perform an awkward
skip-hop to avoid trampling a man who’d slipped on broken glass. The entryway was littered with it. Confused feet crunched it into finer bits, dusting the floor. The crowd parted
around the van, bumping it, rocking it on its shocks. Passing it, Maurice glanced back—
the windshield was cracked and bloody.
He thought about stopping, but the crowd demanded advance. The doorway was a
jam of bodies. Trying to stop would only get him trampled. He needed a moment to think,
to figure out where to go.
Whipping his head left and right, he looked everywhere at once. Signs were mad hieroglyphics, people faceless blurs, and every hall or doorway led to nothing. There was a
desk for help or admission. A swarm of people leaned against and over the counter, shouting questions at the haggard, overweight black woman behind it. She had lost whatever
helpful spirit she may have had this morning and was barking at the mob like they were
her children.
As much as he needed the woman to tell him where the hell to go, he held back, deter-
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mined not to be drawn into that nest. Bohdin had sent him a text before he left California,
informing him what room Cassie was in. He pulled phone from pocket and tried to pick
through the menu. Someone nudged him, and he almost dropped it.
Clutching his phone in both hands, Maurice worked his way to the far wall and put it
to his back. As much as constant motion appealed to his jittered mind, it was impossible
to do what he had to do while bouncing from shoulder to shoulder.
“I don’t care who you came to see, you cannot be here, so I will not tell you where you
can find anyone,” the old nurse behind the counter yelled over the crowd.
“My son is in surgery, you stupid bitch!” a thirty-something blonde woman barked,
using her three-inch heels to press herself over the counter. She was dressed for business
and wagged a bony finger at the old nurse. A few in the crowd cheered her on. A young
woman in her early twenties laughed.
Maurice found Bohdin’s excited message, but there was no mention of a room number.
He could have sworn the text had contained the room number, but now he thought that
maybe he’d just misremembered. He’d talked to Bohdin for a few minutes after the initial
text stating that Cassie had gone into labor—Bohdin had probably mentioned the room
then. If so, Maurice had forgotten it.
It might not matter, anyway—from what he remembered, they only kept you there
until you were ready to give birth, then it was off to an operating room. Hell, he seemed
to remember there being a third room for after you’d given birth.
They were still arguing at the front desk. Others pushed away from the desk, looking
around and trying to figure out where to go. Maurice wondered where the police officers
had gone. A Mexican-looking woman brushed his shoulder, leading her husband by the
arm. Whenever he tried to pause, she tugged harder. She pointed at the signs as they
argued. They momentarily fought with the receptionist for Maurice’s focus.
“Y’all need to back up,” the receptionist said. “I’m not about to be intimidated by
you.”
“You’re heartless,” someone yelled from inside the faceless mob. Everyone was talking to her at once, their voices blended into babble.
“You call me whatever you want. You are risking the lives of yourselves and your
loved ones.”
A roar rose up from the crowd. A middle-aged man yelled, “Bullshit!”
A woman in a lab coat appeared next to the receptionist. She held herself with some
authority. “This is bullshit,” she said, motioning her hands at them. “The infection is inside
the hospital. Just by being here, you are exposing yourselves. You could bring it right into
your son’s room. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Some of them paused. Most kept up their caterwauling. A few pled with her while
others went in search on their own. The new arrival wore her disgust openly.
“Fine. Go where you want,” the woman in the lab coat said, throwing up her arms.
“We can’t stop you, but we sure as hell aren’t going to help you kill everyone.”
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Maurice scanned the signs, trying to remember a few years back, when he’d visited
Bohdin and Cassie for their first boy. He’d visited after hours and had come in the front
entrance, but time had erased all details.
Maurice moved with purpose: he’d make a round through the first floor, scan the
signs and see if anything would lead him to the maternity ward.
He pushed past the Mexican couple—they were stalled and still arguing—and others
who stutter-stepped while they chose a path. He stopped, causing a man behind him to
bump into his back. The man gave him a death stare as he sidled past. Apparently White
Surprise didn’t work on everyone.
The Mexican woman won out, and her husband followed her. The hospital opened up
past the main entrance, and she led her husband to the right. She clutched a small stuffed
animal, the kind of thing you’d give to the parents of a newborn. He’d had something
similar in his hand when Cassie gave birth to Logan. It might not mean what he thought
it did, but he followed them anyway.
The noise fell behind him, and Maurice tried to stay a few steps behind the couple as
they became the only other people in the hallway. He didn’t want to feel like a stalker.
The husband glanced back at him, and Maurice half-smiled and looked away. Everyone was already on edge—staring a hole into a stranger’s back wasn’t a good idea. He
stepped back a little more.
The hallway curved. He saw a sign ahead for one of the parking garages and thought
that he’d made a mistake, following these two. Then the couple stopped at a set of elevators that at once looked familiar. Maurice wasn’t sure if it was an honest recollection or
wishful thinking. The couple continued to argue at the elevator door, Maurice keeping
his distance.
For a while, nothing happened, and Maurice wondered if they’d locked all the elevators. Seconds passed, stretched into what seemed like minutes. Again the husband tried
to pull her away, but she insisted. They were probably like him, checking on a friend. He
didn’t think the husband would fight so much over a family member.
Maurice looked around for a stairwell. Even if he had to check every damn floor, he
was going to find her. He wondered if Bohdin’s flight had landed, looked at his watch, and
saw that it wasn’t due for another twenty minutes.
There was a familiar ding, and the elevator opened. Maurice followed the couple in.
The woman pressed the button for 7 and then looked at Maurice.
“Maternity?” Maurice asked. At first, she didn’t react. He’d probably followed this
poor couple to radiology or something. She nodded and pointed to 7 again.
“Thanks,” he said. It felt odd and a little silly, simple courtesy after running through
a smashed-in door and a mob. The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Maurice stepped
ahead of the couple, eager. When they didn’t follow he stopped at the mouth of the elevator. He looked up and saw that he was only on floor 5. Off-white walls stretched in either
direction. Whoever had called the elevator had lost patience and taken off.
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Afraid, he stepped back into the elevator and let the door close.
“You are have baby?” the woman asked in careful English.
“No. No,” he said. “A friend. My amigo.”
She nodded, apparently having run out of English small talk. Maurice felt caged; he
wanted space, motion, a sense of action. Standing still felt wrong, like he should be doing
something, planning something. Maybe deciding what the hell he was going to do when
the elevator opened and he had to convince an angry nurse to tell him where to go.
The elevator dinged past the sixth floor. He’d forgotten about the couple whispering
behind him. The woman rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, this day apparently
being a long one for them. Maurice felt a moment’s envy.
Another ding and the elevator reached seven. The woman tensed with excitement,
stepping closer to Maurice.
The doors slid open. The woman hissed and backed her husband farther into the
elevator, a string of excited Spanish running out of her. The gray carpeted floor outside
the elevator was thick with blood. Somewhere nearby, someone shouted.
Maurice stared at the dark smears, which trailed down the hall and out of sight. He’d
never seen this much blood up close before, and he wondered what kind of injury could
produce so much, and he knew—no one could survive that much blood loss. On the heels
of that thought: where was the body?
The Mexican woman had seen enough. Her husband held her, yet she was no longer
moved forward. They were of the same mind again. Maurice had been tensed, but the
unwelcome sight of blood and the sounds of yelling, of arguing, of complaints and orders
coming from down the hall, uncoiled him.
Stepping on the red carpet felt wrong, like stepping on someone. The elevator started
to close. Maurice imagined Bohdin, sitting on a plane, wringing his hands under anxious
eyes, and before the door clicked shut, he turned his shoulders sideways and slipped out.
The wet carpet sucked at his feet. The trail of blood ran the length of the hallway
and he couldn’t tell which end was the start. He had stepped out into a waiting area free
of people. A snack and drink machine lined the far wall next to a small television. The
sound was off, and even though it showed worried anchors on Fox News above a graphic
in the lower third of the screen that screamed “PANDEMIC” in red letters, he couldn’t
stop to watch.
Yells echoed from down the hall to the right, and he knew where he had to go. He left
red shoe-prints for the first few steps, hugging the wall to avoid the long red smear. He
glanced up and saw a nurse speed-walking towards him. There was blood on her clothes,
and large tears rolled down her face.
Before Maurice could consider trying to ask her anything, another woman screamed
from further down the hall. “Karen, get your ass back here!”
Karen didn’t come back. Maurice looked at her, unsure if he should ask a question or
offer help. She seemed to sense his interest as she moved past him. She turned her head
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away and held her hand up as if to answer him.
“Shit on this,” she whispered. She fished her keys out of her purse and vanished
around a corner.
Maurice continued down the hall to the main desk. People moved in all directions at
once. He felt a bit jealous; they all moved with purpose.
An overweight nurse sat behind the desk, a phone pressed to the side of her face,
sweat sticking to her forehead. Another nurse stood over her shoulder, talking into her
open ear.
“Jesus!” the fat nurse said. “I can’t hear you both.” The standing nurse shook her
clenched hands at the fat nurse in mock strangulation.
“I said Karen left.”
The sitting nurse finally took notice, looking after the invisible trail Karen had left in
the hallway. She focused her attention back on the other end of the phone.
For a moment, Maurice was frozen in place. A woman limped down the hallway, and
from the corner of his eye she looked like Cassie. She got closer, and he realized his mistake. She looked exhausted but her eyes were charged. The standing nurse finally noticed
Maurice. She scowled.
“How’d you get up here?”
He couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. This was not what he’d expected to
hear.
The nurse on the phone saw him.
“Dammit,” she said into the phone, turning her shoulder to him as if to hide her conversation. “There are people still coming up here. What the hell’s going on down there?”
“Sir?”
“Took the elevator,” Maurice said.
“There’s an emergency lockdown in effect,” the standing nurse said. “For your own
safety, you can’t—”
“The lockdown is over,” Maurice said. This time she was the one who didn’t know
how to respond. Perhaps she thought it was some kind of threat. “The barricade is broken.
There’s people everywhere.”
The exhausted woman made it over to them; she didn’t seem interested in waiting
her turn. “I want my baby, now.” She said.
“Mrs. Danvers, I told you, you can’t just walk out with your son. We have to finish all
the discharge—” the standing nurse tried to answer.
Maurice was angry that this woman had butted in front of him, but when he realized
she was a mother, the knot in his stomach dared to loosen just a bit. She was a mother; she
had given birth here and she was okay.
“Please, spare me the spiel. After what just happened, you can’t make me stay here.”
“What happened?” Maurice asked.
“Ma’am. It just can’t happen like that.”
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“You can’t force me to stay here. If you want a scene, I can make one.”
“I need to find Cassie Robichaux,” Maurice said.
“My son isn’t safe here and I want him out now,” the mother demanded. The standing nurse opened her mouth and was about to go on with her canned response when
the mother touched her hand. “Please, just let me take my baby out of here.” She was
crying.
Maurice leaned closer to the sitting nurse, forcing his way into her line of sight.
“I need to see Cassie Robichaux.”
She froze, eyes wide. Suddenly the standing nurse was aware of him. Maurice’s stomach had tightened into a black hole.
“Sir,” the standing nurse said, “barricade or not, this whole wing is locked down, and
if you weren’t here before then you can’t be here now.”
“I’m her husband, Bohdin,” Maurice lied.
The sitting nurse looked away from him, put a hand to her mouth. The phone slipped
from her hand and clattered sharply upon the desktop. All eyes were on Maurice, and he
wanted to be overlooked again, to hide behind that irate mother and live a few seconds in
the past, when everything was still all right. The world clenched around him.
“All right, Mrs. Danvers,” the standing nurse said. “We’ll get you out of here.” She led
Mrs. Danvers away from the nurses’ station around the counter.
As the black hole in his stomach twisted into something cold, he couldn’t help but
think he’d just helped Mrs. Danvers get her baby.
“What room is she in?” Maurice asked, more loudly than he intended. Part of him
didn’t want an answer. He knew, but it wasn’t final yet—the question still hung in the
air.
“I have to get someone,” the nurse said. “Just wait here a moment, okay?”
She stepped over to the other nurse, leaning over, whispering too loudly. Maurice
stepped with her.
“Where’s those cops?” she asked the other nurse.
“Oh, my God, is he—” the irate mother began, quickly falling silent.
Maurice looked around for anything, any sign of where to put his feet. The former
phone-holding nurse spoke, but Maurice didn’t hear a word of it. Her voice had dropped
out behind the blood pulsing in his ears. Signs led nowhere, door placards held nothing
of note, and faces were angry and distracted.
“Sir,” the other nurse said, “just sit down a minute and we’ll get someone to help
you.”
Yes, Maurice thought. Cops. Cops already here and on this floor.
He focused on the large flat-screen monitor hanging behind the nurse’s station, surprised he’d missed it. It was displaying the mothers’ vital signs, but a significant number
of them were flat-line.
Cassie was up there with them in room 743 and with a straight line for a heartbeat.
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He ran around the desk and down the hall. “Wait,” the nurse called after him, “you
can’t go in there alone!”
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6
He bolted down the hall, and the numbers on the doors made just enough sense. He wasn’t
close. He heard the nurse somewhere behind him. She didn’t care enough to follow.
The hallway branched left and right. He knew he was running blind, but he didn’t
know what else to do. It felt good to move, felt like purpose, but he was afraid of what he’d
find. Part of him wanted to run forever. He went right, for no reason at all.
Maurice cried out when he saw it, far down the hallway, but unmistakable—another
small explosion of redness decorating the floor in front of one of the rooms. He’d left the
short carpet behind some time ago. The dark blood gleamed upon white linoleum.
As he stumbled closer to it, he didn’t look at the room numbers. Sometimes you just
knew. Sometimes the morbid daydreams of loved ones dying and the world crashing
down around your ears came true.
He forgot his shyness about stepping on blood. It covered the entrance. Police tape
stretched across the door to 743. He stopped his run too late, looking for tread on the slick
red floor. He did a half pirouette, landed on his side, and his T-shirt drank up the tacky
blood. He wanted to scream, to cry, to call for help, but first and foremost he wanted to
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get the fuck off of this blood.
He found no resistance on the slick floor. The blood felt like honey on his fingers,
and the handful-of-pennies stink of it caught in his throat. Before he could clamp down
or even brace himself, bile and the hastily-swallowed bits of Taco Bell gurgled out of his
mouth and nose. He remembered eating the burrito, but he didn’t remember there being
so damned much of it.
Maurice tried to jump up, away from the blood and the soup that pooled atop it, but
the smell of vomit clung to his face. His throat burned. He heaved out another copious
amount of partially digested food. It stared back at him, fast food beaten with a sledgehammer, for some inexplicable reason reminding him of fish. He squeezed his eyes shut
for the third and final heave. He spit away the last bits that clung to his teeth. He thought
he heard a gunshot beneath the sound of his heaving.
He made his way back up, fighting not to splay right back into the whole mess. He
put a red hand on the door latch, wanting to kick it open or something. Instead, he gently
pushed it. Cassie wasn’t there, but so much of her still was. He saw white bed sheets washed
in blood, and a floor covered in bloody shoe treads. He let go, the energy and desire to go
farther had drained away.
Everything sped up in his head, a thousand thoughts and scenarios playing out in a
single moment. Everything but the sight before him was ethereal, unimportant. Everything but the blood. He thought about Bohdin, landing soon, into a world of shit.
He stepped back from the door, leaving it ajar, careful not to slip, and stared down
at the blood, looked away, coughing on leftover bile. He took a moment to focus on the
footprint. Small and barefoot, atop the other treads, drying out ten steps or so farther
down the hall. Maurice thought that—
“Stop!” someone screamed from behind him. Maurice spun and saw a young white
police officer, sweaty, panicky, but with a voice that hadn’t forgotten its authority. Maurice was still dazed, and couldn’t figure out the words to tell the cop—who he was and why
he was doused in blood.
“On the ground!” the young cop bellowed, his hands shaking a bit, betraying his
booming voice. He was ready to shoot, to kill.
“I know this person,” Maurice said, holding his hands out as if he could deflect bullets. “She was my friend’s—”
“I said down on the ground now, or I will fucking kill your black ass.”
Now Maurice was shaking. Despite all the clichés of young black men and police officers, he’d never had one threaten him. He’d never seen the wrong end of a gun before.
Maurice dropped to one knee, hands still held out. He felt the blood again, almost like
it was hungry to be absorbed, to rub against him. His nausea returned.
“I can’t, officer. She was my friend’s wife.” Tears caused his vision to waver.
“Shut up and get down,” the cop yelled. “I’m not fucking asking!” He steadied his arm,
focused. Maurice could almost feel the gun as if the barrel had reached out and pressed
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into his chest. Maurice dropped a hand back into the muck and jerked back up. The
thought of lying down in that, in her—he couldn’t.
“I can’t do that. I know her.” Maurice pointed to the door. “She was my friend. She
was my fucking friend.”
“I will kill you if you don’t get your ass on the floor right fucking now.”
“Please, man. I can’t. I just can’t.” Maurice had lost control. Tears rolled down his
face. He started to stand, to get his knee out of the cold muck.
“It’s not him,” another voice called out. A second police officer had come up behind
the first, gun also drawn, but pointing to the floor.
“Jesus, Ronnie, he’s covered in blood.”
“He’s not one of them,” Ronnie said, looking at Maurice. “Was she your wife?”
“No. My friend,” Maurice said, standing. It was difficult to hear with the blood pulsing in his ears.
“I’m sorry,” the cop said. “But if you’re not family, you need to get the hell off this
floor.”
“Where’s her baby?” Maurice asked.
“Shit, you see what I mean,” Ronnie said. “You can’t be fucking nice. We’re not asking
you.”
“And I’m not asking for permission,” Maurice said. He was surprised at the tone in
his voice. All he could think of was Bohdin. What would he tell him, that he left without
knowing where his newborn son was, or even the rest of his family?
He was only just beginning to grasp how little of an answer all that blood was.
Officer Ronnie took a step forward, his hand going to the Taser at his belt. Maurice
lifted his hands before his chest, palms outward.
“I know,” he said. “All hell is loose, you’re just doing your job. But I can’t leave until I
know if her baby is alive, and if he is, don’t try and tell me that he’s safe here.”
“Jack?” Ronnie asked, looking to his fellow officer for the lead.
“We never saw you,” Jack said. “If that thing bites your damn face off, we never saw
you.”
“The baby?” Maurice asked.
“Hell, I don’t know, you can tr—”
A scream came from the end of the hall. Without another word, the officers ran
toward it. Maurice was a little jealous of how quickly they were to react. He wondered if
they second-guessed themselves as many times as he had in the last few minutes.
He looked back at the small barefoot prints leading down the other end of the hall.
He walked past the slick of blood. Once past the red footprints, he stumbled into a run,
fueled by nothing but panic. He couldn’t focus on anything, the hallway swirled. What
had happened to Cassie’s parents? Where was Logan? He turned a corner, lost in what-ifs,
when he reached the nursery. The curtains had been pulled shut, but the door was open.
He heard talking. The words didn’t make sense, but his mind told him talking was good.
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It was better than screaming.
He almost crashed into the alcove, forgetting to stop. His mind was in overdrive,
trying to keep up with his fluttering heart. Maurice saw so much in an instant. Another
sticky spatter of blood drenched the doorway. The opened door was covered in bloody
handprints. Framed within the doorway, a nurse hunched over a body crumpled on the
floor. The nurse, a young black woman, tried to push the curled body through the doorway. She seemed desperate. A voice from within the room spoke to her.
The curled body, face hidden in a pugilist stance and sticky matted hair, was unmistakably Cassie. No amount of kidding himself that it could be someone else was going to
make it untrue.
When Maurice hit the doorway, the woman, so engrossed in her task, shrieked, becoming a kaleidoscope of sounds and waving hands. Maurice didn’t know how to calm
her, or where to start.
“Leslie!” the nurse cried out.
A white woman appeared from inside the room. She was sweaty, angry, and held a
syringe in her hand like a dagger.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Maurice raised his hand up in the most basic signal of harmlessness, as Leslie stepped
in front of the other nurse and over Cassie’s body, swinging the syringe in wide, wild arcs.
“Get back!” She yelled. “Get the fuck back!”
“Wait,” Maurice said, jerking backward, slamming into the wall. Leslie advanced,
black pony tail swinging behind her.
“That’s Cassie,” he said. “Cassie Robichaux.”
Leslie paused in the middle of the hallway, and that was answer enough. What did you
think, the voice in his head asked, that you were going to be one of the lucky ones?
“She dead?” He felt stupid for the question. The nurse behind Leslie was frozen in
place. She had grabbed hold of a scalpel and held it against her chest like a crucifix.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said. “One of those sick people attacked her. Bit her.”
“She was banging on the door,” the other nurse said, staring down at Cassie. “Covered in blood. We tried to call someone, but nobody came.”
“Stop,” Leslie said.
“She died in front of me. I’m so sorry.”
“Just stop. Get her out of the doorway.”
“What about the baby?” Maurice asked. Oh, you forgot to ask about Logan, about her
parents. But you don’t really want to ask that, do you? Not with your luck. You know what she’s going
to say already. His heart felt like it was trying to punch its way out of his rib cage. He didn’t
want an answer. He wanted to run.
“Who are you?” Leslie asked. The other nurse tried to move Cassie again. She seemed
afraid to touch the body.
“Bohdin. Her husband.”
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“Wrong,” Leslie said, grimacing. “I saw a picture of him, and it’s not you.” She raised
the syringe again.
“Wait,” Maurice asked, cursing himself.
“All I have to do is prick you and you are dead.” The other nurse tried again to push
Cassie out the door.
“Look,” Maurice said. He reached into his pocket and fumbled with his cell phone. He
left a big red thumbprint on the touch screen.
Leslie backed into the room. Once they got Cassie through the door they would shut
it, and Maurice doubted if anything would make them open it again.
He found what he was looking for and held the phone out to her. “Just look,” he
said.
He had pulled up a picture of the three of them taken a couple of months ago, Cassie
in the center, cradling her pregnant belly with both hands, and Bohdin on her other side,
smiling like a fool. That photo felt a hundred years old.
“He’s my friend and he can’t get here,” Maurice said. “So I have to be. I need help.
I need to know if his baby is alive. Shit, I need to know what I’m supposed to tell him,
or—”
He gasped. The other nurse had pushed Cassie’s body hard enough to rock the dead
woman’s face toward him. Glassy eyes stared at the ceiling, bite marks ran along her arms
and neck.
“I don’t even know if his other boy is still alive,” he said, wiping tears away from his
face and trying not to look into his dead friend’s face. “He was here with her.”
“We don’t know,” Leslie said. “Everything went wrong so fast. I know there were
other victims in the room, but I don’t know how many.”
That was it. With a couple of words, she’d closed the book on Bohdin’s entire family.
Maurice coughed up another groan, resting his hands on his knees and hunching
over. He missed what Leslie said to the other nurse. Muffled gunshots rang out somewhere. Part of him—a selfish part he liked to pretend didn’t exist—wished he’d just gone
to the airport. Or stayed home.
“The baby’s alive.”
Maurice choked up a laugh. He felt his knees loosen.
“I can’t let you see him.”
Maurice expected that. He was forming an argument in his head, perhaps convincing himself first that the baby needed to get out of here. This place was death and chaos,
and something told him that if he had driven by, gone to the airport, and driven back with
his friend, the child would be among the dead.
Cassie stared through him, a bloody and matted lock of hair glued to her face. Her
hands had balled into fists.
Maurice moved forward, startling Leslie. She held out the syringe again.
“Shit,” the other nurse said.
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Cassie rolled over, belched, and vomited what looked like black mud onto the other
nurse’s shoes. She tried to talk, to scream, both at the same time. She convulsed, slammed
her forehead against the floor, and rolled onto her back, puking another torrent of fresh
mush.
The other nurse shrieked no over and over.
“She’s alive,” Maurice said.
“She’s infected,” Leslie said. “Get her out the doorway.” She leaned forward and
grabbed Cassie’s leg with her free hand, not ready to relinquish her weapon. The other
nurse tried to grab Cassie under the arms.
“Jesus Christ,” Maurice said. “Help her.”
“If you give a shit about her baby, you’ll help me get her away from him.”
Away from him—the baby was behind them, inside the nursery.
”Are you crazy?” Maurice yelled. Without thinking he stepped forward and tried to
push Leslie out of his way. She lashed out at him, and he had to jerk back to avoid the arc
of the syringe. Somewhere nearby, a baby cried.
“Shawnda, please, get her out of there,” Leslie begged, her voice finally cracking.
Shawnda grabbed tighter, clasping Cassie by her armpit.
Cassie’s grimace twisted up into a sticky grin, and she gurgled laughter. Shawnda
groaned and dropped her, and Cassie’s skull thocked against the floor. Giggling—wet bubbles popping on her lips—Cassie reached up and took two handfuls of Shawnda’s hair,
pulled the black woman’s face down, and bit into her nose and upper lip.
Shawnda screamed. Blood erupted fresh and red from her face. Next to the black
bile and cooling blood on the floor, it looked practically iridescent. She reared back, and
Cassie rose with her. Maurice saw Cassie’s throat working, swallowing. She lost her grip on
the nurse and fell back down.
Screaming through a faceful of blood, Shawnda fell to the floor and kicked away from
her attacker. She stumbled to her feet, almost slipping on congealed blood, and disappeared into the nursery, blood pattering the ground between her feet. Cassie crawled
behind her on all fours.
“Tasty num-nums,” Cassie said. “Come back, you fucking num-num!”
Leslie followed, plunging the syringe into Cassie’s lower back.
“Wait!” Maurice yelled, far too late. Enraged and confused, he followed Leslie into the
nursery and lashed out, pushing her aside. She hit a rolling chair and fell to her knees. The
syringe in Cassie’s back bobbed.
“Oh God, oh Jesus, I need to sterilize,” Shawnda mumbled, the word coming out
sturlide. She stepped over to a small industrial sink and smeared blue antibacterial soap
across her bleeding face.
“I can’t get sick like those things!” she said to her reflection, pinkish soapsuds sliding
down her forearms.
Cassie staggered to her knees and lunged toward Leslie, grabbing onto her pant legs
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and pulling. Leslie stumbled. The double-knotted drawstring wasn’t enough and Leslie’s
pants slipped down to her knees. She stumbled onto her ass, yelping. Cassie raked her
fingernails across Leslie’s bare legs.
Maurice stared, dumbfounded. The baby was still crying, and it was close, from the
sound of it. He was dimly aware of the small rolling beds on the other side of the room.
He didn’t know who to help. Cassie was out of control. Shawnda stopped rubbing her
face and stared at the soapy, bloody mess, crying. He moved toward Cassie and Leslie, who
kicked away her pants and shoes, crawled from her attacker on her hands and knees.
“Cassie,” he said. “Cassie?”
Shawnda stepped away from the sink, looking around wildly, as if taking everything
in for the first time. She bolted for the door, jumped over Cassie, and almost made it.
Cassie’s flailing arms tripped her. She hit the ground, and Cassie slid up her body like
a snake, laughing and murmuring.
“Chocolate nummies!” she said.
Shawnda lashed out, crawled away, legs thrashing. Her white sneakers struck Cassie
in the face and shoulder.
Cassie rolled, reached for Leslie, who looked around, eyes wide. Shawnda pumped a
series of kicks into the back of Cassie’s head.
“You’re going to kill her!” Maurice said. He knelt down behind Shawnda, reached out
and tried to grab her before she broke Cassie’s neck. She lashed out at him, scalpel still in
hand. He caught her arm before she could open his face.
She kicked and kicked, and Cassie’s head rocked backward with each blow. One wellplaced kick caught Cassie in the jaw, and Maurice could see a pair of teeth fall out of her
mouth and stick to her cheek.
“Let go of me,” Shawnda shrieked, trying to twist free. On the other side of the room,
the child’s cries intensified.
Leslie reached out and pulled the syringe from Cassie’s back.
“She was dead,” she yelled. “Dead. Let her go, you idiot.”
She thrust the syringe into Cassie’s gurgling mouth, plunging it into her tongue.
Cassie bit down, snapping the needle, holding the syringe between her teeth like a cigar.
Shawnda almost wriggled free of Maurice’s grasp, and the scalpel swung dangerously close to his eyes again. He slapped her across the cheek. She screamed and her wrist
slipped out of his grip. She arched back to stab at him again, and Maurice didn’t think he
could catch her arm a second time.
Almost as if in response to Shawnda’s scream, Cassie sat up and grabbed Shawnda’s
forearm, sunk her teeth into the meat there.
Maurice realized his mistake at once—he kept seeing Cassie, but the thing writhing
on the floor was not his friend’s wife. Whatever was happening to people had happened
to her. She didn’t seem to know him at all, and she felt no pain.
Maurice let go of Shawnda. Crying and panting, she scrambled up and pushed past
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him and out into the hall. Leslie screamed for her to stay, to help her, but Shawnda was
gone.
Cassie crawled toward Leslie, trying to clamber to her hands and knees, spitting out
the broken syringe. She slipped, falling face-first into the dark pool of blood. She rolled
onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Goddamn piano,” she said, whipping her head to the left, as if she’d been slapped.
She laughed, peeled her lips back from her teeth in an animal snarl.
Moving quickly, Leslie took hold of the scalpel that Shawnda had left on the floor. In
one quick motion she moved her hand across Cassie’s throat, which opened pink and wet.
Blood oozed and dribbled but did not flow, did not pump as it would had she been alive.
“God,” Maurice said.
“Look at her!” Leslie yelled. She sank the small blade into Cassie’s chest. Cassie grabbed
Leslie’s hand, pressed it between her breasts, tried to bite it. “Look at her, dammit!”
Maurice grabbed Cassie’s hospital gown and pulled. The flimsy thing tore free, hanging loose from one shoulder. Her bare flesh was caked in dried blood. He grabbed her by
her shoulders and yanked her to the side.
Cassie tumbled once and hit one of the rolling beds containing a sleeping newborn.
A colorful card above the tiny child said “Brandon” in blue marker. He mewed. The other
child cried and cried, and he wondered if it was Bohdin’s.
Cassie got to one knee, seeing the babies.
“Baybeeee,” she grumbled through broken teeth and blood. She didn’t sound like
the person he knew. She sounded alien, like someone impersonating her. She stood up,
reached for the infant, and Maurice lunged forward, grabbed her by her filthy hair and
yanked her head back. The gash across her throat opened with a moist sigh. Her belly,
plump with pregnancy weight, shook unflatteringly. His eyes dropped to the Caesarean
stitches above the tuft of her pubic hair. He looked away.
Cassie grabbed at him. Her gown tore free from her shoulder and fell at her feet. She
pressed her body against Maurice, and seeing his friend’s wife laid bare felt sinister. He
became angry at her for being sick, for being one of those things, for forcing him to do
this.
He punched her. Her head jerked back. She reached for him, tried to bite his hands
when he swung, tried to bite anything that came near her face. He punched her again and
again, screaming her name, begging her to stop, and he realized that Leslie was behind
her, sinking the scalpel into her back again and again.
He wrapped his hands around Cassie’s throat and squeezed. His fingers sank into
her wound. Blood drooled over his fingers, and he pushed her backward, towards the
door. She staggered back a few steps before her bare feet slid through the black slop on
the floor.
Maurice shoved harder, flinging her toward the door. Her shoulder slammed into
the door frame, and Maurice heard the thump of bone and wood. Cassie grunted. Black
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bile spattered onto her breast, and the infant wailed and wailed. Cassie screamed, low
pitched, uninhibited and animal. She charged forward awkwardly.
Maurice screamed back, and it sounded frail next to her throaty growl. Before Cassie
could reach him, Leslie pushed past him, holding a stainless steel pole like a lance. A small
blue monitor clattered at the end of the pole, and she almost tripped on the dangling
cords that arched down and trailed between her socked feet.
The pole hit Cassie in the stomach, and she pawed at the monitor. Her Ceasarean
incision bulged, the stitches popping. Leslie tried to follow through with her thrust, push
Cassie out of the doorway, but Cassie’s shoulder once more hit the door frame. Cassie was
braced against the door, and she jerked at the pole, nearly ripping it from Leslie’s hands.
Leslie slipped in the muck, her feet finding no traction. Before Leslie could fall backward, Maurice grabbed the pole and helped her heave Cassie backward. The top of the
pole tore into Cassie’s incision, tearing it wide. She spun and hit the floor in a tangle of
blood and limbs. The newborn cried, Cassie gasped and grunted, and someone down the
hall screamed.
Maurice took control of the pole, lifting it over his head and flinging it at Cassie. He
wanted to drive the thing through her. With surprising speed, Cassie jerked left before the
pole hit her face. She crab-walked a couple of steps before clambering to her feet, losing
interest in them and stumbling down the hall, toward the screams.
Maurice leaned into the door, pressed it shut, and locked it. He looked up from his
blood-streaked hands to Leslie. Her scrubs and white panties had sopped up the blood
from the floor. Black muck streaked her legs. If someone came and saw them together, it
would be hard to tell whether they weren’t both sick.
The baby screamed and screamed, its voice a high-pitched warble. There were twelve
small rolling beds behind Leslie, five of which contained newborns.
He trembled. He tried to grab one shivering hand with the other, which accomplished
nothing. He could feel it in his teeth. The sweat on his body flashed cool.
Leslie stared at him. Also shivering, she stepped toward him, looked as if she might
collapse into his arms. If she did, he would welcome it.
She slapped him and he stopped shaking immediately. For a moment he thought he’d
imagined it, because he felt nothing. A second later, heat flushed his face and the sting
took hold.
“You killed her, you asshole,” she said. The emotion had drained from her voice. She
wasn’t talking about Cassie. She limped over to the sink and ran water, splashed it over
her bare legs. The black muck washed away to reveal red scratches. When they wouldn’t
wash away, Leslie began to cry. “Killed me, too.”
Maurice looked down. The scalpel lay near his feet. He picked it up, placed it on the
counter to his left.
Leslie turned around, looked down at herself, suddenly aware of her semi-nakedness. She found her pants, filthy and balled up on the floor. She shook them out and put
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them back on with a grimace, found her shoes and stepped into them. Maurice felt like he
should look away, knowing that it didn’t matter. Was she right—was it his fault?
“What was wrong with her?” Maurice asked. Leslie snorted an angry chuckle.
She looked in the direction of the wailing infant, stepped to the sink and lathered her
hands. Steam rose around her forearms.
“Where do I start?” she said, pulling a few paper towels from the dispenser to the
right of the sink and patting her hands dry. “Nobody knows what’s wrong with any of
them. But I know that every one of them was pronounced dead before they got up and
went batshit.”
She balled the paper towels and dropped them into the sink, plucked a pair of rubber
gloves from a dispenser next to the paper towel dispenser, and sheathed her hands.
“That’s ridiculous.”
She laughed again, plucking the wailing infant from its clear plastic bed and stepping toward the mini-fridge on the counter. She removed a bottle and dropped it into
a bottle warmer. “I know. I cut her throat and she just kept looking at me like nothing
happened.”
“You okay?”
“Are you seriously asking me that?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yeah.” The infant was settling down, even without its bottle. “She was attacked by
one of those people. Then she shows up and dies right there in the doorway, and then…”
“Is that…?” He nodded toward the child.
“No.”
“I need to see her baby.”
“I can’t just let you walk off with an infant.”
“Are you going to tell me that these babies are safe here? Now who’s being ridiculous?”
“What you’re asking me to do, I can’t do,” she said.
“I never said I was asking.”
Leslie looked around, and Maurice knew she’d realized that she didn’t have her scalpel anymore. Maurice had picked it up and now held it toward her. She clutched the child
to her chest and shrank back against one of the sleeping infants.
“Oh, you asshole,” she said. “You fucking asshole.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to attack you,” he said. “I’m not insane. But I need you
to know that I am absolutely serious about one thing: leaving with Cassie and Bohdin’s
baby.”
“When the police ask me what happened, I’m telling them you kidnapped him.” The
newborn held to her chest had fallen silent. She adjusted its knit- ap, placed it into its bed,
and walked over to the far isolette and removed another swaddled newborn.
Maurice saw his name card: Alexander. Cassie and Bohdin hadn’t told anyone what
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they were going to name him. Leslie brought Alexander—amazingly still asleep—over to
him. She unceremoniously placed him in Maurice’s arms.
“You have any idea what to do with one of those?”
“I know some.”
She shook her head.
“Look,” he said, “I watched them go through this with their first, I know enough to
get him to his father.”
“I hope so, for his sake.” She rummaged through the nursery, grabbed a black handbag and filled it with cans of formula, diapers, swaddling cloths, and anything else she
thought Alexander might need. She brought the bag over to him.
“I’m sorry,” Maurice said. “This is the only thing I can do.”
“I know. If I was you, I’d take him out of this shithole, too.” She looked on the verge of
tears again. “You know, I was supposed to be relieved an hour ago? I don’t think anyone’s
going to come. And now Shawnda’s gone, but not me. I don’t get to be the one that runs
out of here.”
He wanted to tell her different, but he kept silent. There was nothing to say. He cradled Alexander in the crook of his arm. The infant’s eyelids were puffy and squeezed shut,
slick and oily.
“What’s wrong with his eyes?”
“Nothing,” she said. “We put a cream on there. Helps prevent eye infections.”
It made him look sick. Infected. Maurice bristled at the thought, had to remind himself that the kid’s eyes were normal. Leslie nodded approval.
“I don’t want to run into one of those things with just one free hand,” he said. She
walked over to a cabinet, dug around, and after a moment she came back with a colorful
length of cloth.
“Someone left this in NICU. Have you seen a sling before?”
“Yeah, Cassie used to—”
“Sorry,” she said. Maurice wondered if he sounded as foolish when he said that.
“I just—what am I going to tell Bohdin? He’s flying in. What if he doesn’t even know
what’s going on?”
“He’ll find out soon enough.”
She helped him into the sling and strapped it around his body like a bandolier. Alexander stirred a bit and immediately resumed sleeping. Logan was gone, and Cassie’s
parents were gone. He doubted they would have left without Alexander, but maybe they
had because of Logan.
There were other victims in the room.
Not knowing what had happened chewed at his gut.
Leslie gently took Alexander from his arm. At first, he couldn’t let go. He looked at
her; she was calm now, back to doing what was familiar, helping a confused man with a
newborn.
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“You need to be extremely careful he doesn’t shift around in there,” she said. “He
has no neck strength. If his head turns against the cloth or gets pushed down toward his
chest, he can suffocate.” She told him how much of the pre-made formula to feed him,
that a bottle had to be thrown away if he didn’t finish it. It wouldn’t last long at all.
Alexander felt fragile, like a pouch of light bulbs clinking against one another. He
weighed nothing, but the sling felt heavy, choking.
She motioned him to the door. His heart was high in his throat.
“I don’t hear anything out there,” he said. He clutched the scalpel in his hand. It felt
pathetic, small.
“If she’s there, come back inside.” She clasped the knob. “But if she’s too close, if it’s
not safe, I won’t open the door.”
Maurice was charged, ready to jog over to the stairwell he’d passed in the hallway.
Before he saw it, he felt the shadow of a person at the doorway. Maurice lurched backward, his eyes instinctively fluttering. The scalpel was out and in front of him.
“It’s me,” a woman said.
“What the hell, Shawnda?” Leslie said. Shawnda clasped a hand to her face. The
double crescents in her forearm oozed blood.
“I’m sorry,” Shawnda said, sliding past Maurice and back into the nursery. “I freaked
out, okay? I’m sorry.”
“All right,” Leslie said. “Now stand back and let this guy out. I want this door shut.”
Shawnda stood next to Leslie, small and shivering. Leslie put a hand on her shoulder.
“There’s some more gauze in the back cabinet.”
Maurice stepped out into the hallway, knowing that if he waited another second, he
wouldn’t regain the nerve to leave.
The hallway was empty. Maurice cupped one hand under Alexander to reassure himself
that the newborn was still there. He walked a few steps down the hall before realizing that
he was going the wrong way.
He turned back in time to see a figure lumber around the corner at the other end of
the hall. The man was naked and doused in blood. Leads dangled from his chest, having
pulled free of a monitor. The chords trailed behind him like tails. His chest was sprinkled
with bullet holes and what only a few minutes earlier Maurice wouldn’t have recognized
as bite marks.
He spotted Maurice and staggered slowly down the hall. His mouth worked. He
groaned gibberish. Maurice moved back to the door.
“Open the door,” he said. The man couldn’t walk straight. He staggered, stamping
red impressionist marks wherever he hit the wall. Maurice wondered if this was the guy
the cops had been chasing.
He panicked when he heard nothing behind the door. Leslie wasn’t going to let him
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in. It hit him that the first request might have sounded louder in his head, that he might
have just whispered it. He tried again, much louder.
The thing grew excited. It plodded toward him in a shaky toddler-stomp. Its head was
misshapen; the left side seemed dented, sunken. Its arms reached out for Maurice even
though it was too far away to touch him. He heard the nursery door begin to open and he
reached his hand out to help it, unable to look away from the naked man. He saw Leslie in
the corner of his eye and then something slammed into his back.
“Maauuriiiice.”
He spun, his back striking the wall, and he crashed onto his ass. Cassie stomped
toward him, arms outstretched, heavy breasts swaying. She leapt onto him, and he threw
his arms up to protect Alexander, scrambled backward, driving his foot into her face.
He heard an excited groan from the naked man, much closer now. He was almost
free when Cassie frog-hopped forward, tangling his legs with her body. He felt her breasts
against his legs, and again felt embarrassed by her.
She buried her face into his crotch and bit his inner thigh. He shrieked. The scalpel
was on the ground again, completely out of reach. Alexander was motionless against his
chest.
He thought about Shawnda, about how Leslie had said that he had killed her, how
Shawnda said a bite got you sick. He thrashed, his knee connected with Cassie’s jaw, and
her head rocked backward. There was a muffled squeal from the sling.
His hand went to Alexander—the child felt wrong. He was twisted in the sling, and
Maurice could feel the tiny bump of Alexander’s nose pressed hard against the fabric.
The shadow of the naked man fell across Maurice’s body. It let out a growl that
sounded like delight without the words to express it.
Maurice’s pants were whole. Cassie hadn’t broken through his jeans. His shoe found
her jaw. She kept clawing, unaffected by pain or reason. Her jaw looked off somehow, and
he was sure he’d broken it.
“Baybeeeee,” she gurgled, eyeing the sling. She came at him and he cocked back his
leg for another kick when the man descended upon him, smiling. He was engulfed in
naked flesh.
The naked man had fallen too far forward, its head near Maurice’s cocked leg, which
prevented it from lying flat upon him. Its flaccid penis mashed into Maurice’s cheek.
Blood had congealed in its black pubic hair, which choked Maurice’s nostrils with a sour,
coppery musk.
“Baybeeeee.”
Cassie was on his legs once more, breasts and belly wriggling across him. Somewhere
in the shuffle Alexander’s face twisted free and he let out a full-throated cry. Cassie, eyes
widening, reached up, batting at the sling. The man reached back, attracted to the new
sound.
Maurice punched the naked man repeatedly in the torso, with weak rabbit punches
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lacking any real momentum. His knuckles rapped against ribs. The man and Cassie got in
each others’ way, suddenly struggling with one another instead of him.
He punched the man in the gut once more and it emptied its bowels. Wet, clumpy shit
ran down the back of Maurice’s head and neck. The smell was immediate. He struggled,
gagging, hampered by the need to keep one hand on Alexander.
Cassie and the man fought more like dogs than people, shaking, biting, barking. Maurice felt a new set of hands pulling at his shoulder. If something else had trundled down
the hallway it would be over. They would tear the baby from his arms.
Leslie grunted. She had come out. She tugged his free arm. Cassie and the man hadn’t
taken notice. Maurice struggled back towards Leslie, and he managed to pull most of the
way free before the naked man whipped his arm around and clasped Leslie’s wrist. She
cried out, and man jabbered nonsense, tried to pull her hand to his mouth.
Cassie climbed atop Maurice, straddling one leg. Leslie’s other hand glinted; she had
found the scalpel. She ran it along the man’s wrist, slicing deep into flesh and tendon.
The dead thing’s grip loosened. It stood awkwardly, Maurice between its legs, half
turned toward Leslie. She pushed it, and the man fell over without resistance, became
tangled with Cassie and again they clawed and bit at one another.
Coughing phlegm from stuffy nostrils, Maurice got to his feet.
“Move,” Leslie said. He did. He stumbled down the hall. He thought Leslie would
remain next to him, and felt guilt for the coward’s hope. She pulled at the nursery door,
demanding to be let in, trying to strike a balance to be heard and not be heard at all.
“Let me in, you stupid cunt.”
He could barely hear Shawnda. Leslie banged on the door, too hard. The dead man
turned to her, one moment raking a red gash into Cassie’s cheek, the next staggering
toward Leslie.
Maurice stepped back and away.
Leslie saw him, and she saw the others. She ran to him, past him and he followed.
His legs and rapid breath brought life back into his chest. He felt sick and exhilarated. He
wanted to vomit but his stomach was empty. He could sense Cassie and the dead lumbering behind them. As he and Leslie were about to round a corner, he dared a glance back.
They were far behind. He only glanced, but their faces were clear. Later he would
think about the look Cassie had given him—disappointment.
“Allllleex,” she screamed in her new, odd pitch.
They turned down another hall. The hair on his arms bristled when he thought he
heard her scream again.
“I left her,” Leslie cried. “Like a goddamned coward!”
They rounded a corner. A gunshot exploded, the bullet crunching into the wall
beside Maurice.
“Stop,” he yelled, waving his arms. The cop blinked, his arms shaking, his eyes wild.
“Where did he go?” the cop asked. Maurice didn’t know how to answer. He couldn’t
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stop staring at the smoking black hole at the end of the cop’s pistol.
“Behind us,” Leslie answered.
The cop looked down the hall. His face was pale and now that he’d stopped the chase,
he didn’t seem eager to start again.
“I shot him seven times. I shot him in the head for chrissakes but he just wouldn’t
stop.” He turned and ran. There was silence.
“Please tell me you have a car,” Leslie said. She grabbed his sleeve. “Shawnda drove
me in today.”
“I parked near the front entrance.”
“Good. Come on.”
The door clacked open, echoing in the concrete stairwell. It swung all the way open,
banging against the wall and easing shut behind them. Alexander wailed, loud and constant, the sound filling the echo-chamber.
“Someone’s going to hear us,” he said, half expecting Cassie to materialize, arms
reaching.
“Don’t stop,” she said, took two of steps and then did just that. “Goddammit,” she
whispered.
Maurice stepped next to her and saw a cop lying in a tangled lump at the first landing. He looked chewed. His arm covered his face. There was no movement, no breathing.
Maurice tried to remember if Cassie or the naked man had breathed. Alexander’s cries
bounced around and seemed to shake the damn walls and bore into his ears.
“I’ll go first,” Leslie said.
“Wait, no.”
“Welcome to parenthood. Now shut up and wait. If he moves and you come rushing
to save me, you’ve killed him,” she said, looking at Alexander.
Maurice watched her descend the stairs, feeling impotent. At first she moved slowly,
but the closer she got the more she sped up. When she hit the landing, she stepped past
the crumpled cop and hop-stepped down the next row of stairs before looking back. The
cop stayed dead.
She looked up at Maurice. For a moment he didn’t move, didn’t think he could, but
Alexander’s cries propelled reluctant feet. Hell, even if that poor soul stayed immobile,
the child would be heard. Something would come.
Maurice walked slow, picturing the look on the naked man’s leering face when
he’d heard yelling: a child’s excitement. As he got closer he saw the damage the cop had
taken.
There seemed to be no unmarked flesh. His neck almost looked peeled, vast clumps
of hair were missing. How long had it taken something to do that?
His feet stopped at the last stair. Alexander howled and the sound swelled in Maurice’s ears, bounced back and forth through the stairwell. He could hear a faint echo on
the upper floors when Alexander sucked in a new breath. He stepped onto the landing,
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knowing he should move faster, lighter, like Leslie, but every footfall felt like a Frankenstein stomp. He scooted around the cop, his ass bumping the railing, causing his heart to
jump up past his lungs and beat in his throat. His ears felt hot.
Stopping let the smell of the dead man’s shit creep around him. The cop clutched a
pistol in one hand. A thin skin flap on the back of his hand had been pulled away like a
banana skin.
Maurice was no gun nut. He knew it was a Beretta, had heard or read that somewhere, and so ended his knowledge of guns. He stopped. Leslie mouthed “what the fuck
are you doing?”
Amazingly, she stepped back onto the stairs. He held out his had to tell her to stop
then turned his fingers into a gun, using the thumb to simulate firing. She nodded, and
hope washed over her face.
He bent down, Alexander’s renewed cries somehow louder. He patted the child’s butt
through the sling, remembering how Bohdin used to wear a groove into the floor pacing
and patting Logan’s butt.
Maurice was suddenly aware of the sweat pouring out of him, tickling his brow, itching his legs, and slicking his palms. He begged God for the cop to stay dead. His fingers
touched the gun. It was tacky with blood. He clasped the barrel, trying to wriggle the
weapon from the cop’s grip. He’d pulled it hard enough to lift the cop’s arm before he lost
his timid grip on the wetness.
Still in the cop’s hand, the gun clacked against the floor. The sound was louder than
Alexander’s screams. He jerked back, again bumping the back rail.
The cop moaned.
Maurice scrambled away, stumbling over the cop and hopping onto the second flight
of stairs, he couldn’t help but look back, imagining the cop sitting up and reaching. The
cop hadn’t moved. Maurice blinked. Had he imagined it?
“Did you—”
“Move, you idiot!” Leslie hissed through clenched teeth.
“You heard him?”
“Yes. Jesus Christ, are you insane or something?”
Maurice looked back at the cop. Leslie started to walk, to leave them.
“Wait. He might still be alive,” he said.
She stopped. She looked at him, looked down the next flight of stairs. She wanted out
of there. Maurice wanted the same thing. He wasn’t sure if he was being smart or incredibly stupid, but the cop wasn’t coming after him.
“Shit,” Leslie said. She walked back up the steps.
“Put your knee on his back?”
She always seemed to be thinking one step ahead of him. He may have killed her and
she’d already saved his life once.
He knelt on the cop, hoping he wasn’t pushing the life out of a dying man. She felt
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his wrist for a pulse. The moments drug out. He felt confined. Something banged against
the door one or two floors up. Leslie jumped back. Maurice tensed, his heart thundering
in his chest.
“This was a mistake,” he said.
“You think?”
“Well?”
“I’m not fucking sure.” She stuck her hand against his neck for a few seconds and
then stood up. “He’s dead.” Maurice reached down and took hold of the gun. With one
hard yank it came free of the cop’s hand. He stood up.
“I heard him,” he said, starting down the stairs after her.
“I did, too. If he’s not one of them, he will be.”
The cop moaned again. They didn’t stop. Maurice didn’t look back. They passed the
fourth floor.
“They’re all different,” he said. “Cassie was so much faster than the other one.”
“I’ve been listening to this crap on the radio for hours. Nobody knows anything. I’ve
heard twenty different explanations for what’s happening and as many theories for how
the sick behave. Only a fool would think that a virus or a poison or whatever the fuck it is
would affect everyone exactly the same way.”
They passed the third floor in silence. Alexander had stopped crying and was breathing rhythmically. When they passed the second floor they hear a door high above them
bang open. They froze. The door clacked shut and nothing followed. Maurice leaned forward and craned his head up the stairwell, not sure of what he was expecting to be able
to see.
Several floors up, a figure peered down at them. For a moment Maurice just stood
there. The person was too far away to tell if they were alive or one of them.
Leslie stood beside him, looking up. The other person didn’t say anything, didn’t
ask for help, didn’t moan like an animal. The form dipped out of sight, and the stairwell
echoed with the sound of footfalls hammering toward them.
Maurice and Leslie broke into a run, their pursuer closing the distance between
them. Maurice wanted to believe that it wasn’t one of them, but a regular person would
say something. A regular person wouldn’t run full speed down flights of stairs towards
strangers.
He heard the footsteps stop, and then he heard a crash, as if the person had jumped
the last few stairs on a landing and hit the wall. Leslie reached for the door to the first
floor. For a terrifying second Maurice imagined the door not opening, the thing above
them descending, getting closer and closer, and when the door popped open, there would
be five of them, ten of them, and they would all reach for Alexander.
Nothing came in. They ran into the hallway.
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7
“Dead,” Leslie said.
She reached to the front seat and handed Maurice his phone. She’d made a few dozen
attempts and all of them failed. Maurice wanted to call his mother, see if she was all right.
She’d moved to Atlanta to live with her sister after his parents separated. He hoped to God
that they had stayed inside today.
Leslie stared out the window, fresh tears cleaning her filthy cheeks.
“Is there someone you need to get to?” he asked.
“Would it make a difference if I said yes?”
He wanted to say yes, but he knew that would be a lie. He couldn’t exactly turn the
car around and drive to the West Bank to pick up her cousin.
“Look,” he said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. “You saved my life. You’re
right, I have to do this right now, but afterward I’ll try to get you to wherever you need
to go.”
“The only person I care anything for is my mother, who I can’t fucking call anyway.”
She said, rubbing her face with both hands. She hadn’t removed the rubber gloves. “She
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has glaucoma so bad she can only see shapes. She’ll be home. God, what if one of those
people knocks on her door?”
They drove in silence for a bit, the radio cutting up any awkwardness, giving them
a reason not to speak. He’d been in the hospital for less than an hour. During that time,
most of the nation had been placed under martial law.
The local stations were peppering their latest attack story with snippets of Governor
Jindal’s speech.
“We are asking everyone to return to their homes immediately. If you are home,
we are asking that you do not leave for any other reason than to bring your loved ones
home.”
Maurice was aware of how close the airport was. Even with the added traffic for
midday, they would be there too soon. He ate up every second, terrified of looking Bohdin
in the eye, of what he would have to say to him.
Leslie laughed from the backseat. A few seconds later, her laughter broke into sobs.
Alexander slept soundlessly in her arms. She caught Maurice looking at her through the
rear view mirror.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not losing it. It’s just this.” She motioned her head towards Alexander. “I remember my mother telling me stories of how she used to ride in the
car with me in her arms, or in a clothes basket in the floor of the backseat. We won’t even
let parents leave with a baby until we test their car seat. On any other day, right?”
“I know that this will be difficult,” Governor Jindal said. “Please understand that this
crisis is unlike anything the country has ever faced. We still have no idea what caused
this, and the only thing we are sure of is that whatever this is, it appears that it can be
transmitted from even brief physical contact.”
Their gazes locked for a second in the mirror.
“Brief physical contact,” Leslie said.
“Yeah.”
They fell silent for a few seconds. Traffic hadn’t changed much over the past hour.
“I’m going to assume you don’t have any kids,” Leslie said.
Maurice was going to say something, but began to sob. He rubbed at his eyes, embarrassed.
“Oh, my God, I’m sorry, do you have kids somewhere?”
“No. It’s just—” He chuckled, sucking back snot. “Sharon would be giving me a big
told-ya-so right now.”
“Simply being outside and coming into contact with another person is putting your
life in danger, and, again, because of that we are following the suggestion of the CDC and
issuing a statewide curfew of 7 p.m.,” Jindal said.
Everything outside had a stain on it. People were no longer bobbing their heads
to music or dicking with their cell phones. Scared faces stared out of the cars Maurice
passed, with a thousand personal nightmares drawn on their faces. He wondered where
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Sharon was now. Last he heard, she still worked downtown. She’d have to fight her way
through New Orleans traffic in the middle of all this shit.
“We got pregnant,” he said. “She did. She used to hate when I said that. It wasn’t
planned. I was walking around like a damned fool, scared but happy, you know?”
She nodded. They heard sirens in the distance. Maurice couldn’t tell if it was a fire
truck or an ambulance.
“She was just scared. She had her next five years planned out, and there was no room
for a baby. No room to wind up like her mama.”
Maurice jammed the brakes as a truck cut them off.
“Goddammit!”
“Nobody’s paying attention to the road,” she said.
“Anyone out after curfew will be arrested,” Jindal continued. “I know there will be
extenuating circumstances, and police will take that into account, but as governor I have
to do everything I can to protect the citizens of Louisiana.”
“Shut the hell up,” Maurice said, and Leslie looked surprised. “No. Jindal. His voice
is driving me crazy. I swear these guys always sound like they’re running for office. Even
during shit like this.”
Maurice turned the volume down a bit, enough to keep listening for anything new.
He stayed quiet.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“It’s not important. I’m just avoiding what I’m going to have to do.”
“It’s all important,” she said but he kept quiet. He hadn’t spoken to another person
about Sharon since he broken down at Bohdin’s kitchen table in the middle of joking
about being single again.
He’d never seen his father cry and he’d been ashamed at not being able to hold it
together. The world could have fallen around that man’s ears and his eyes would have
stayed dry. He’d felt as inadequate then as he felt now.
“I guess she didn’t keep it.”
“She didn’t,” he said. “I’ve always been big on women’s rights, but when I realized
that I had no say in my son’s birth, that nothing I could say to her would change anything,
well, that was it for us.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I think it was watching Bohdin’s other boy grow up, watching them go through
the birth. When she started to show, I couldn’t let go of the idea of him being real.” He
shrugged. “Once she made up her mind, everything I tried to say to her only pissed her
off.” He wiped his leaking eyes again.
“At least I know why you’re out saving someone else’s family.” She snapped her mouth
shut. “Shit. I meant that in a good way but it just sounded crass and ugly.”
“As far as the incidents of looting and rioting,” Jindal droned, “the president has
issued a national state of emergency, and local authorities will use any means necessary
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to regain control. I will not let Louisiana fall into lawlessness on the eve of the greatest
crisis we’ve ever faced.”
“Looting already?” Leslie said. “It’s only been a few hours.”
When Maurice turned onto Williams Boulevard, he saw a fire truck parked in front
of a Shell Station engulfed in flames. A pickup truck had crashed into one of the pumps,
setting the whole thing ablaze. The wind pushed thick black plumes of smoke into the
street.
Leslie stared out, eyes wide. A few people had their cell phones out, recording. After
they passed it, she kept peeking at him through the rearview mirror. He knew she wanted
him to say something, to distract them from what was going on outside, but now that he’d
stirred the pot of Sharon, he didn’t want to share anymore. But his mind wouldn’t let go.
He’d told Sharon that he would raise the child himself—she didn’t have to do anything.
He was stupid enough to believe she’d find it noble, or would at least rethink her
decision. Wasn’t that the kind of man women say they want all the time? She had become
enraged, and told him to get his ass as far away from her as possible.
Sharon didn’t want to be her mother any more than Maurice wanted to be his father.
The man that didn’t cry had forced his mother to abort what would have been his younger
brother.
Leslie didn’t need to know that. And she sure as fuck didn’t need to know that when
he’d found out at eight years old, he’d begun having nightmares about his aborted brother
rolling into his room on bloody hands and knees, demanding to play.
He let Bobby Jindal fill the dead space, and left some things unsaid. When he turned
onto the airport service road, he began to sweat. He hadn’t heard much more about the
status of the airports after leaving the hospital. There was too much chaos for harried
radio hosts to keep track of. There seemed to be only one hospital in the city that was still
taking patients, emergency only, and he feared it would play out much the same as it had
at the one he’d just left.
He hadn’t had a moment to think about it before—he’d assumed a hospital, with all
its security, locked doors, and doctors, would be a safe place. But it was also where people
went when they were sick. It’s where people die everyday. A reporter had called hospitals
“dozens of ground zeroes scattered across the state” even as most of the parish presidents
were telling their constituents to go to the hospital immediately if they felt ill.
His leg started to vibrate and he bounced up in his seat, swatting at his jeans.
“What is it? What?” Leslie asked, tightening her grip on Alexander.
Maurice heard her but didn’t. All he could think of was that Cassie had bit his leg and
it was twitching. He would get sick, if he already wasn’t. He would become one of those
things. He heard a familiar chime and laughed.
He yanked his phone out, tried to drive and press buttons. He didn’t know why he
hadn’t thought about it before. The lines were jammed but the texting was wide open. He
looked at Leslie’s frightened eyes in the rear view mirror.
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“It’s Bohdin,” he said. “Texted me. He landed.”
Three yellow roadblocks stretched across the road leading into the airport. He
swerved around the roadblock without slowing, wishing he could turn around and drive
away from everything.
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8
Bohdin looked wrecked and confused. He stared at Maurice, who had trouble holding his
friend’s gaze. Shaking, Leslie wordlessly handed Alexander over to Bohdin and he crumbled like a paper cup. He wailed, rousing Alexander from sleep. They cried together.
Maurice stood near, hunched over, afraid to touch Bohdin. He looked around, shaming the looky-loos into finding something else to gawk at. He felt exposed again. Even in
the chaos of fenders, honking horns and people spilling out of the airport, they attracted
attention. Feeling the black police uniforms peppering the mob, he stuck the pistol in his
waistband, flipped his shirt over it.
“Cassie,” Bohdin said, looking around, his eyebrows raised, hope crumbling in his
eyes.
“She’s gone,” Maurice said.
“We need to get out of here,” Leslie said, close to Maurice.
Bohdin blinked at Maurice and then looked down, stared at the child in his arms. He
reached out, touched the boy’s scrunched red face and then jerked his fingers away, as if
the child were hot to the touch.
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“Gone. She’s just gone, man.”
“Have you told—does Logan know?”
“I don’t… listen, he’s—”
“No,” Bohdin said, his face jerking and twitching in so many places that it looked like
it would tear itself apart.
“We gotta get out of here, Bo,” Maurice said, watching his friend crumble.
People looked. Far away, a cop eyed them, seeming to wonder if he should bother,
then lost interest when he was nearly knocked over by a man jogging by. Maurice wasn’t
the only person who had run the barricade. He’d be surprised if it was still standing.
There was a mash of cars with people wriggling like bugs through the spaces between. Caught in the flood of people pushing through the opened doors, the crowd didn’t
know how to stop. Frenzied, they ran, scared but not deterred by the police yelling orders
at them.
Maurice found the courage to touch Bohdin on the shoulder. He tried to rouse him,
to get him to move. He wanted to be back in the car. This was chaos and he didn’t want to
be here when the police tried to regain control. Leslie hugged herself, crying along with
the baby and his father. “Help me,” he told her.
She blinked through tears, not comprehending until she saw him grab Bohdin under
the arm and try to drag him up.
Maurice eased father and son through the passenger door that Leslie had left open.
Two cars behind them, a woman writhed on the ground, screaming and clutching her
foot, which was twisted at an odd angle. A cop pulled the driver from the car. People yelled
and cursed and tried to wave down loved ones. He heard a man screaming for help.
Someone spoke over the outside intercom, but Maurice couldn’t make out a word
over the racket. He sat back in his car, closing the door, replacing the sound of the panicked crowd with Bohdin’s weeping. Alexander wailed along with him.
Maurice weaved through the cars and the crowd an inch at a time.
“Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Yes,” Maurice said. “I saw her. The hospital was just like this.” He stomped the brakes
when a couple stepped in front of his car, dragging their luggage behind them, neither of
them watching where they went.
Maurice saw the police at the end of the loading zone trying their best to untangle
the traffic. They had long given up trying to stop cars, and were now just guiding them
out of the way before people started to die.
“Where’s Logan?”
Maurice swerved around a large suitcase that had been crushed open. There was
an older Asian woman digging through the mess while her husband pulled at her arm.
“Logan and Cassie’s parents were gone when I got there. Cassie was already dead and they
were gone.”
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Bohdin choked up fresh tears. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything.”
“When things first started to go bad,” Leslie said, “I’d heard about Cassie being attacked. They mentioned an elderly couple as well, no names.”
Bohdin screamed again and Leslie shrank back against the side window.
“I didn’t hear anything about a boy. It was a mess.” She lost herself in tears.
The car in front of them stopped and Maurice bumped it before he caught himself.
The driver got out and ran around the front of his car. Someone screamed. The driver had
run over a man’s leg, crushing it under his wheel. A couple of good Samaritans joined the
driver to help. Another person managed to pull one of the cops over to the accident.
Maurice threw his car into reverse and managed to back up a few inches before the
car behind him closed the gap. He didn’t have enough room to swing around the car in
front.
The front passenger door opened and a man in his twenties stuck his head into the
car. He was panting, his short cropped hair slick with sweat. At the end of his other arm
was a terrified little girl who looked to be seven or eight. Maurice hadn’t thought to lock
the door.
“We need help,” the man said. He started to slide into the passenger seat.
“Whoa, wait a minute!” Maurice said.
The man paused, locking eyes with Maurice before settling in the seat.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” the father told his daughter, trying to pull her into the seat
with him. Maurice put the car in park and reached over, pushing the man’s shoulder.
“I said stop, goddammit,” Maurice said. The father stopped. Maurice could see his
eyes were puffy and red. The daughter pulled at her father’s arm.
“Daddy, let’s just go,” she said. “They don’t want us.”
“Be still, honey,” the father said without looking at her. The police officer was trying
to pull the screaming man out from under the car in front of them. One of the good Samaritans was trying to wrap his bloody leg in a t-shirt he’d taken off of himself.
“Look, I’m sorry I jumped in the car, but I’ve got a little girl. You have to help me.”
Maurice felt like he was drowning. Many of the other cars around him were being
assailed by people wanting help, wanting rides, needing a way out. A woman came up
behind the father, but moved on to the next car when she saw this one was full.
Maurice looked back at Bohdin, who had retreated into himself, focusing on nothing
but Alexander, mumbling things he couldn’t make out. Then there was Leslie, giving him
an expectant look. He couldn’t move forward.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“My sister’s place in Harahan.”
“I’m sorry,” Maurice said. “We’re not going out that way.” He didn’t know where he
was going, but Harahan would not be it. He didn’t know if he was relieved that he wouldn’t
have to take on another set of people.
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The father frowned. “Look, man, I got a message from my wife, she and her sister
were attacked by one of those crazy people.”
“But we aren’t going anywhere near there. The traffic is so crazy it might take you
half the day.”
The young man’s face reddened, his breathing sped up. Again his daughter tried to
tug him out of the car. She said something to him, her voice a small whisper. A string of
car horns blared behind them. The cop outside was having trouble moving the injured
man out of the road. The man shrieked every time they tried.
The father’s lip quivered and he bit it hard, turning away from his daughter’s eyes.
Maurice felt like an asshole, but what else was he supposed to do?
“She’s afraid to leave the house and go to a hospital. She was bitten up. I have to
get her to a hospital. Please. Please, I’m begging, man. We can’t stay here in the damn
airport.”
Maurice wished he had locked the door. It would be so much easier to tell him no
from behind something. He kept thinking about Alexander, about how Leslie had fed him
a bottle of the formula she’d brought. How he’d drunk about an ounce of six and the rest
would go to waste once opened. They were going to run out fast.
“If you were going to Kenner, I would, but I can’t help you.”
The father looked at him as if he had sprouted horns, then shook his head and laughed
a laugh void of levity. “Fucking asshole,” he said. “What do you expect me to do, huh? Sit
in the airport for God knows how long?”
“We have a newborn here,” Leslie said. “We can’t just drive you—”
“And I have a daughter. It doesn’t matter if they’re eight hours or eight years, it
doesn’t make him more important.” He tried to calm himself, closing his eyes and panting. He hastily wiped a tear that ran down his cheek.
Maurice could feel his own face getting hot. His pulse thumped in his neck, his right
hand shook in his lap. The humid heat from outside had sucked out the cool air when the
father opened the door. That, along with what suddenly felt like far too many people in
the tiny car, made breathing difficult. He could smell shit in his hair.
“I’m just a dad,” the father said. “What do you expect me to do, man?”
Outside, the cop yelled into his radio, desperate for help. The man with the crushed
leg had turned pale, a widening pool of red pouring from him. He was crying for someone.
As Maurice moved his hand, he knew two things: what he was going to tell the father
and that he felt like an asshole.
“I don’t know what you can do. But I know what we’re doing,” Maurice said, pulling
the pistol from his waistband and holding it there in his lap. He couldn’t bring himself
to point it at the father, couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d felt when the cop had
leveled a gun in his face.
The father stared at it blankly for a second, as if he’d never laid eyes on such a thing.
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Maurice didn’t want the man’s daughter to see it. Maurice had been running the scenario
through his head, figuring out a slew of pseudo-badass things to say if the father continued to press him. Without another word, the father leapt out of the car, almost trampling
his daughter, dragging her into a stumbling run.
Leslie looked at him, saying nothing. The father had left the door open. To Maurice,
it suddenly felt like a neon sign flashing “NOTICE US.” He leaned over, reaching for the
open door, desperate to shut out the world. He had to put the car in park, and let his foot
off the brake to lean over enough to reach the door.
“Maurice, hurry,” Leslie said from the backseat. Maurice looked up and caught sight
of the father, who’d run to the police officer helping the injured man. The father pointed
at Maurice’s car.
The cop looked at them. Maurice leaned over and pulled the door shut. He could
imagine the father’s desperate plea, the two important words being black and gun.
He still had no room to swing around the accident. A sour ball dissolved in his stomach when he saw the cop walk toward them. He threw the car into reverse, trying to find
another couple of inches, and heard his bumper scrape the car behind him. The other car
blared its horn, and Maurice could see the angry driver from the rear view mirror.
The cop saw the handgun in the passenger seat where Maurice had left it. He didn’t
bother knocking on the glass. He drew his gun and pointed it at Maurice’s face, his voice
rising above the other noise outside the car. “Get out of the car now!”
“Just tell him what happened,” Leslie said. “He’ll understand.”
“He’s not going to listen,” Maurice said.
The cop yelled again. People were watching. The father stared at them, arms wrapped
around his daughter. Maurice saw satisfaction on his face. The cop yelled a third time,
added expletives suggesting that there wouldn’t be a fourth. He saw the gun and that had
been enough for him.
“No,” Maurice said, making sure to keep his hands in sight and on the steering
wheel.
“Open the door and step out of the car!” the cop yelled, seemed to loosen once he got
a reaction. The cop was used to this. Maurice would protest a few times, but he would get
out of the car. On any other day, Maurice thought.
“Jesus, Maurice, what are you doing?” Leslie said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No,” Maurice said. “If we get out of this car, they’ll never let us leave.”
Leslie’s hand was on the door handle. She didn’t look like she believed him, but she
stayed.
He looked out at the tight-lipped cop, trying to look calm, failing miserably. “We’re
leaving.”
Moving carefully—trying to make the foot or so distance from his hand to his gun
seem like miles—he put the car in drive. The cop banged on the glass with his hand.
“Open the damn door!” He called for help over his radio again, and Maurice saw
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another officer trying to push through the crowd. He couldn’t be sure if the other cop was
coming for them or for the thousand other crises around them, but it felt as if everyone
was focused on his small green Saturn.
“Officer,” Bohdin said from the back seat. The cop didn’t respond, afraid to take his
eyes of Maurice and the gun in the passenger seat.
“OFF-I-CER!” Bohdin banged on the glass to punctuate each syllable.
The cop shifted his gaze over, keeping his gun aimed at Maurice. “My wife died at EJ.
My son died at EJ.”
“Shut the fuck up!” the cop yelled. “Driver, you have one second to step out of this
car before I kill you.”
“Look at me! If you shoot, try not to kill my newborn son!”
“We just want to leave,” Maurice said. “We’re going to leave.” Maurice slowly drove
forward. With the traffic and the people, there would be no high-speed getaway. If the cop
wanted to stop them he could walk alongside the car and fill it with bullets.
Maurice drove away, scraping the bumper of the car in front of him. The driver
screamed at him. He rolled over the spreading pool of blood that the victim’s leg had left
in the street. One of the good Samaritans had used his belt as a tourniquet. He tightened
it, trying to slow the bleeding, but by now it was obviously hopeless.
As Maurice drove past the accident, the other cop who had been walking towards
them peered through the window. His hand rested on the butt of his holstered gun.
“Drive,” he mouthed, pointing at the street ahead. Maurice followed orders. It was
slow and every inch felt like a mile. Someone tried to open his passenger door once, but
he’d locked it. He kept moving, never seeing the person’s face. He got no protests from
anyone in the car.
They drove by another car that was blocked by a woman, waving her arms, begging for a ride. Another woman patted the driver’s side window. Maurice saw her mouth
moving and could imagine what was being said. The driver ignored her, honking his horn,
tapping the brakes to make the car stutter forward.
A young black woman, hardly out of her teens, clutched a swaddled baby, with no one
to find and nowhere to go. Maurice thought that those who didn’t have rides here now
probably wouldn’t be getting out any time soon. Sooner or later, the police would regain
control and lock everything down. They had to.
Two couples argued, waving their hands, pointing at each other. One woman slapped
the other woman. There were hundreds of people choking the lanes, waiting for rides that
would never come.
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9
Gone. She’s just gone, man.
That didn’t make sense. He’d spoken with Cassie just last night, after her water had
broken. She couldn’t be gone. She’d sounded afraid but happy, and she’d been alive and
she’d told him that she couldn’t wait to see him. He couldn’t remember if there had been
an I love you from her, but she was like that sometimes, especially after an argument.
Before he’d left, they had a bullshit argument about Alexander’s bedroom—what color it
would be and when he’d find time to paint it. She wanted butter yellow for some ungodly
reason.
She’d just been alive, and God, Jesus—Logan. Logan and his Pokemons and his Mighty
Beanz and his damned Star Wars Lego Playstation game. Logan and all the times he’d asked
Bohdin to play with him only to walk away disappointed because Bohdin was too busy
with some shit—paging through an audio/visual magazine or checking his goddamned
Facebook page for the hundredth time.
He screamed, and nothing around him mattered. Not the sleeping kid or his best
friend for so fucking long, not the bloodied woman or the madness around them or what-
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ever the fuck he’d seen on the news in the terminal. His world had blown away, his mind
with it, and he had the distinct impression that he was falling apart, melting, just pooling
in the seat and around his shoes.
He held the kid, stared into its face, and that was weird—his hands were intact. He
wasn’t melting. The fucking kid slept and slept, and he wanted his son and his wife, not
this shiny-faced fucking stranger.
“God,” he said, and someone said something. The woman. She was trying to comfort
him.
“Alexander,” he said, choking down images of Cassie and Logan, Cassie in the kitchen
washing the dishes that he’d allowed to pile up in the sink, Logan running red-faced
through the back yard on one of the rare occasions that Bohdin had decided to get off his
ass and play with his son. He pushed it all away, and he melted in reverse. The world was
still coming apart at the seams, spinning and flying off into nothing, but his mind pulled
itself together.
Alexander was beautiful. He examined the lines of his sleeping son’s face, seeing bits
of himself, bits of his wife. He looked so much like Logan did at that age, yet held aspects
uniquely his. Cassie was all over this child. He remembered studying the ultrasound, pretending to be able make out facial features of what looked more like some crab creature.
There had been a danger of her losing Logan before he’d ever been born. Everyday
she’d had to insert progesterone pills into her vagina. She said they’d felt like little burning rocks. It had been a hard time for them. One night, while crying in his arms, she’d
looked up at him and told him that she couldn’t have made it that far without him. She
couldn’t imagine doing this without him. Exactly what he would have to do now.
She wouldn’t be there to help him bounce colic out of Alexander, or to breast-feed
him back to sleep at 4:30 in the morning. And he couldn’t just throw himself out into traffic and hope that he might find peace. He couldn’t think about himself, or Cassie, or even
Logan. He had to keep a piece of himself here, holding Alexander. The worst part was that
he’d thought about opening the door and simply allowing himself and his child to tumble
into the street more than a dozen times since they’d gotten back onto the road, and, awfully, each time, the only immediate consideration to sway him against it was not ethical
but merely practical: that it might work best a little later when they had gotten up more
speed. The door handle was wet with sweat from his palms.
He forced himself to let go of the handle, shifting Alexander in the crook of his arm.
He tried to touch Alexander’s cheek, but was afraid his jittering hands would poke a hole
in the child. Alexander felt weightless in his arms. It was all he was aware of.
He cradled Alexander close, feeling his hot face against his neck, ashamed that he’d
ever felt anything other than adoration for the child in his arms. His skin tingled from
Alexander’s breath. His son suddenly felt real and alive. He closed his eyes and saw Cassie
and Logan. He heard things around him, Maurice, the woman, strangers passing, but it
was tuned down. He wept.
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He felt the hard plastic lump of his cell phone pressing against his leg. Without thinking, he tugged it out of his pocket and stared at his haggard reflection on the black screen.
He activated the screen and opened his text messaging. He scrolled to a text chain between his wife and himself. They were talking about groceries. He smiled at where she
called him “honey bear.”
The nurse—he thought he’d heard Maurice call her Leslie—compulsively scanned
the radio stations for something new. The radio voices were all pushing the same stories,
replaying the same clips, same speeches. Every ten minutes some new horror story would
enter the echo chamber. The evening curfew had been moved up immediately. Wherever
you were, they wanted you to stay. Being on the road for anything other than an emergency was foolish and you would be taking your life into your own hands. The police were
overwhelmed, and though the official statement was that they hadn’t lost control, all
reports stated, almost gleefully, that if you called the police, they would not come.
As far as what the epidemic was, no one knew. Nothing could be agreed on, except
that those who were sick were mad. They would attack indiscriminately, without sense,
and those who were attacked would in turn get sick.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there, love, Bohdin typed into his phone. He clicked send.
“Wait, go back to that,” Maurice asked Leslie. She jumped back on station.
“—from neighbors, who say they saw a person who looked injured, looked dead, crash
through the window of the home and attack an elderly couple inside.”
“What are we supposed to do if we can’t even go home?” Maurice asked.
“I kept thinking my mom would be okay,” Leslie said, crying. “She doesn’t get out
much anymore. I thought if she just stayed inside she’d be fine.”
Maurice put a free hand on her shoulder, a weak gesture against the relentless and
slippery red news.
Someone had started referring to the epidemic as “the madness,” which over-eager
mouths rattled off as often as they could. People seemed hungry to give it a name and a
face.
Bohdin looked at his son, tried to tune out the sound of the radio. They talked about
what was happening, and where to go, how long this would last, and other stupid bullshit.
Like there was anything else happening outside of this car.
I just want to see you again, Bohdin typed, clicking send.
“There is no further word coming out of the Governor’s office,” the announcer said.
“What about police,” another voice asked. “Are they saying anything?”
“Police are no longer issuing statements. We haven’t been able to contact them in
over an hour.”
Leslie changed the station again.
“Where the hell are we going?” Leslie asked.
“I live Uptown. Bohdin’s in Old Metairie. With what they’re saying about traffic, we
could spend all day on the road.”
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“My mother’s in Jefferson,” she said, keeping her eyes pointed at her lap.
Bohdin knew what she wanted. His mother had stayed in Houston after Katrina
forced her there, and Maurice’s mother lived in Atlanta. There was no one for them to race
home to. She was afraid to ask, afraid of the answer and probably very suddenly aware of
being in a car full of strangers.
“Let’s go get your mom,” Bohdin said. Leslie jumped in her seat. She turned in her
seat to face him.
“Are you sure you want to do that? The baby?” she asked. Maurice watched him
through the rear view mirror.
“If those people are pulling people out of their homes, then maybe staying on the
road, staying moving, isn’t such a bad thing.”
Leslie looked over at Maurice, eyes expectant.
“I guess. We can head north. Up to Hammond, maybe. Less people, less of those
things.”
Goodbye, Cassie. Love you. Bohdin clicked send.
I love you. Send.
I love you. Send.
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10
“How are we going to do this?” Maurice asked.
Bohdin tried to listen to them, tried to stay focused on anything else but Cassie. They
had jumped off the rapidly-filling interstate to stop at Zuppardo’s Supermarket on Veteran’s Boulevard. They need only drive a few miles east and jump onto Causeway South,
which would take them down toward Jefferson.
Cars flooded into the parking lot, each one filled with other people sharing their
idea of getting a jump on everyone else. Two SUVs traded paint and kept on going. People
were scared, angry, hurried. Bohdin could read their faces. They were like Maurice and
Leslie—they hadn’t just heard about it on TV but had felt death up close.
They would be able to get some food and supplies from Leslie’s mother, but she would
have nothing for Alexander. The meager items they’d gotten at the hospital wouldn’t last
over a prolonged trip. Maurice had seemed reluctant, but there was no choice. They had
to stop and he couldn’t go home.
Bohdin could feel their eyes on him. What are we going to do with him?
“We can stay,” Leslie said. “There’s no need for all of us to go in.”
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Maurice stood in the open door of the car. Bohdin couldn’t tell if he was afraid to
leave them or afraid to be alone. “Get in the driver’s seat,” he told Leslie. “If those things
come, you drive away. Circle if you can. If you can’t…”
Leslie nodded. She walked around the front of the car and Maurice handed her the
pistol. He didn’t blame Maurice. If he’d been given that gun, he might eat a bullet before
someone talked him off it.
She slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door, locking it as Maurice walked towards the store. She set the pistol in the cup-holder, wiping the congealed blood from the
handle onto her pants.
They didn’t speak, and while Alexander slept, Bohdin watched the world collapse. It
was like the mad rush for supplies in the days and hours before a hurricane made landfall.
He saw people leaving the store with shopping carts overflowing with stuff. How long
before the cartloads got smaller and smaller?
The doors and idling engine kept the world quiet; it was television at night, turned
down almost to mute. He saw other people with red smears on their shirts or pants.
Leslie scanned through the radio, and he watched a young Vietnamese guy run into
the store with a young boy. The kid was crying and holding his arm, a round gash on his
forearm spitting blood onto the concrete.
When his phone vibrated in his pocket he nearly threw Alexander into the air. He
took the phone from his pocket once more, and read the text message sent to him.
I luv yu com get me it hurts.
Fire surged up past his throat, into his face and ears. His heart pounded out a black
song against his ribs. He looked at the blood on the handle of the pistol, thick and tacky.
Alexander meeped in his sleep and Bohdin realized he was squeezing the boy too firmly.
Leslie was preoccupied with the radio.
“My wife,” Bohdin said, clearing his throat. “Did you see her body?”
Leslie stiffened. She looked back at him through the rear view mirror.
“Yes.”
“She was attacked.”
“Yeah.” She looked out the window, hoping for Maurice maybe.
“By those things. And she was dead, you saw her dead?”
She didn’t answer.
“Whose blood is on your shirt?”
“Wait for Maurice, please.” She turned to face him, but he was already leaning forward. He reached with his free hand and grabbed the bloody pistol and stuck it in her
face. Her eyes widened.
“Don’t point that at me!”
“Get out of the car.”
She remained frozen, hands half raised to the sides of her head.
“Out of the goddamned car!” he screamed, tapping the tip of the gun against her fore-
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head. He shook. The gun wavered, the barrel drawing little misshapen circles in the air
before her forehead.
She opened the door and they exited the car at the same time. Her eyes fluttered
around. She was thinking about running.
“If you run from me, I’m going to empty this gun in your back.”
She kept her hands in the air. People started to notice them. Some stared with big
eyes, others pointed, and others looked away. All of them kept walking into the store or
back to their cars. On any other day there might be frantic calls to the police, or camera
phones recording.
“Bohdin, she’s dead. She was attacked and she’s dead. Please put the gun down.”
Bohdin laughed without humor. “Yeah, you said that.” He walked closer to her, gun
raised. “She was attacked, you were attacked, Maurice was attacked. And you both ran,
right?”
“Yes,” she cried.
“You left her there. She was alive and you were scared and you left her there.”
“No. Jesus, no. You think your friend—”
“Reach into my pocket.”
“What?”
He came forward, she tried to baby-step backward but he closed the gap and pressed
the gun hard into her sternum. She yelped. He stared at her.
A middle-aged man shoveled groceries into the back of his car with his wife, both of
them staring holes into Bohdin. They left a third of their supplies in the cart and sped
away, not wanting to see what would happen. Someone else saw them, grabbed the abandoned shopping cart and pushed it away.
Leslie reached into his pocket, tears in her eyes. She felt for his phone, their faces
close enough to kiss.
“Take it.”
She pulled the phone free.
“Read it.”
“Just don’t shoot me.”
“Read. Then explain to me why I don’t shoot you in the face.”
Her eyes scanned over the text message. At first she didn’t comprehend. She had to
reread it a few times. Bohdin saw knowing in her eyes.
She gasped, pressing her free hand to her mouth. Tears came fresh.
“Oh, you worthless bitch,” Bohdin groaned. He retrained the gun on her face. Her
legs buckled and she smacked the ground with her knees, dropping the phone.
“You don’t understand—she’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.”
“Dead people don’t fucking beg for you to come get them!”
Her head rolled around on her neck, scanning the strangers for Maurice. People gave
them a wide berth but they kept their heads down, pretending not to see. Leslie spun on
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her hands and tried to scramble away.
Bohdin squeezed, and the gunshot rocked his ears. Alexander exploded into cries. He
missed, the bullet burrowing into the ground in front of her. A fleck of concrete hit her
cheek. She rolled onto her back, screaming for help.
Bohdin saw people running away. A skinny woman sprinted with overflowing plastic
grocery bags bouncing against her hips. A can of something broke one of the bags and
rolled to freedom; a wake of foodstuff followed after it. Bohdin heard a scream closer to
the front of the store. From the corner of his eye, he saw other people running, but not
from him.
Tires screeched. A woman hung onto the back of a blue car. When the tires finally
stopped spinning in place and bit road, the car bounced hard over a speed bump. The
woman left the ground and lost her grip; she rolled a few times and came up in a run.
People had scattered and she limped for the closest person she could see. Bohdin’s eyes
stayed on Leslie.
“She was dead and she came back.”
“She was sick,” he said, crying. Alexander wailed. “She was sick and you hurt her
because you were too scared or just too dumb.”
“She was dead! She attacked us. She attacked Alexander.”
His expression went slack. “You’re a pathetic fucking liar. You know that.”
She screamed for help again. She screamed for Maurice, which made him angrier.
What had she told him? How had she convinced him to leave Cassie there? The scream
grabbed the attention of the other woman, who began an awkward jog toward them.
Bohdin saw that her shirt was flooded with red. She looked like she had been run
over, one elbow bent unnaturally backward, as if she were trying to scratch her own back.
As she got closer, he could tell that she seemed to be running sideways; she couldn’t turn
her head straight.
“Look at her, for chrissakes,” she yelled, staring at the approaching woman.
“She’s sick. Sick isn’t dead,” he screamed. “Sick people can get better. You don’t abandon sick people!”
He could barely hear himself over Alexander’s red-faced wails. “She’s dead. I swear.
Ask Maurice.”
Bohdin snorted. “How about we all ask her,” he motioned to the jogging woman with
the gun. Leslie wept on the ground. The jogging woman stumbled closer. Part of her face
had been scraped away, her tongue wagged out from between exposed teeth. She babbled
something Bohdin couldn’t make out. Leslie begged and wriggled on the ground as the
jogging woman drew closer.
Leslie again tried to scramble away and another shot rang out. Alexander started to
gag on his cries, coughing.
“Bohdin, please.”
“Move again and we’ll see firsthand if you come back. Now tell me the truth.”
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A hand flashed in the corner of Bohdin’s eye. The side of his face sparked, red hot and
stinging, as Maurice backhanded him. Bohdin rocked back on his heels, almost dropping
his shrieking son. Maurice placed his hand on the gun. For a moment they only stared at
one another, then Bohdin’s face scrunched up and he cried like a lost child.
Maurice tried to pull the gun away, to move the aim away from Leslie, but Bohdin
refused to bend. The jogging woman was almost on them. One of her shoes was missing, a
bare foot smacking the concrete. Leslie had curled up fetal, eyes squeezed shut. Maurice
tried again to pull the gun away and Bohdin’s finger twitched on the trigger. The jogging
woman reached for Leslie.
Maurice kept his hand on the gun, but swung around, standing next to Bohdin, his
hand over Bohdin’s. He slowly moved the gun, taking aim, and for the third time the gun
rang out. A red blossom appeared on the jogging woman’s throat. She collapsed next to
Leslie, who was still afraid to move.
“Look at her,” Maurice whispered in Bohdin’s ear. The jogging woman sat up, her
throat shredded ribbons of meat, air bubbles gurgling out of the red hole. Maurice made
Bohdin squeeze the trigger again and the jogging woman’s hair fluffed out, spattering
blood.
She fell and began to twitch, screaming as loud as she could, thick veins running the
length of her neck. Her good hand began to randomly pull thick clumps of hair from her
own head.
Leslie finally scrambled away, backing up against their car.
“That was Cassie. She grabbed at Alexander that way. She attacked another nurse,
she attacked me. I’m so fucking sorry, man.”
Bohdin stared at the screaming thing. She hardly looked like a person anymore.
Her throat was a torn, sputtering mess, and the blood just kept coming, pasting over
the remaining parts of her humanity, coloring her red as the Devil himself. Maurice was
saying something no doubt firm and comforting, but it was lost on him. He imagined
Cassie as the screaming red woman, imagined her reaching for Alexander with death
on her fingertips and he knew if he had been there, he would have stared helpless as she
ripped her son apart.
He felt very top heavy. He stumbled forward, Maurice trying to steady him, to steady
Alexander, and Bohdin’s knees buckled. He collapsed hard onto his ass, and again came
the sensation that his mind was flying apart, flying into nothing, his body melting into
itself. Leslie yelled and it rose over the steady drum of Alexander’s lungs, and the chunky,
wet shrieks of the red woman. Bohdin didn’t even realize that he had stuck the hot end of
the gun into his mouth. It tasted hot and stunk of acrid metal.
“Look at me, man,” Maurice said. He sounded strong and calm and a million miles
away. His friend’s face swam in a murky ocean of smeared colors, but of course it did—
Bohdin’s eyes were melting too. Leslie stood next to Maurice, holding out her arms.
“Just give me the baby,” she asked. “I know you don’t want to hurt him.”
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“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Bohdin said, speaking around the barrel. He didn’t
know if Maurice could understand what he was saying. He didn’t care. “I can’t do this
without her.”
Maurice knelt beside him, placing his hands on Bohdin’s shoulders. “No one is going
to care about your kid like you. No one else is going to protect him like you will. If you have
to do this, then at least give me Alexander or do you have to kill him, too?”
Bohdin’s jaw hurt from biting the barrel so hard. He saw Alexander’s beet-red face
going purple. He dragged the barrel along his tongue. Eventually his teeth clacked on the
sight at the tip. He held the gun there.
He felt Leslie slowly pry Alexander from his other hand.
“Take this goddamn gun out of my hand. I can’t let it go.”
Maurice pried the gun free one white-knuckled finger at a time.
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11
The Zuppardo’s parking lot was boiling into fever when Maurice stomped the brakes,
bringing the car to a jerking halt in front of a middle-aged white woman who had stumbled into their path.
Maurice was about to swerve around her, tired of helpless strangers and their stories,
when she staggered to one knee. She carried a young girl of nine or ten in her arms. The
girl was injured, crying.
“Dammit. What do I do?” He asked no one. “What the hell am I supposed do? I don’t
know what to do.”
The woman noticed them. She yelled. Maurice couldn’t hear the words, but he got the
gist: help me. The little girl looked like she had been attacked.
Maurice unlocked the car door.
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12
It took a long time to convince the crying woman—who managed between sobs to tell
them her name was Sil and the little girl was Gabrielle—that she couldn’t go to a hospital.
Taking her home was out of the question—she lived an hour away on a normal day.
But her job was close; there were still people there, friends she could trust. Maurice could
drop her off without going out of their way more than a few blocks.
He couldn’t find an excuse to tell her no and it made him angry somewhere in the
thick of his chest. If anyone else in the car felt the same, they weren’t saying. The father
and daughter at the airport may already be dead. He’d turned them away, so why the fuck
was he doing this?
Leslie helped convince her about the hospital, even though she was still shaken from
the parking lot. The little bleeding girl gave her something to focus on other than her
own shock. She examined Gabrielle, who was sweating, half delirious, curled up in Sil’s
arms, mumbling something about homework. Leslie had to do everything with one hand,
Alexander resting in her arms.
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A diaper change had put him at ease, the parking lot already gone from his mind.
Eyes wide, Bohdin had retreated into himself.
When Leslie insisted on holding Alexander, after the parking lot, Bohdin hadn’t resisted. Neither of them spoke about what had happened. Maurice couldn’t stop thinking
about that text message. Cassie had been dead when he arrived, kicking and screaming
when he’d left and just as dead. That message took thought.
The new passengers made it easy not to think about the impossible. Sil had been
outside for a while and stank of a cloying Louisiana summer; her thin blonde hair was
pasted to the sides of her face. Gabrielle had been attacked and deep bite marks covered
her back and shoulders.
“Oh, God,” Leslie asked. “How long has she been like this?”
“I don’t know,” Sil said, combing the girl’s hair with her fingers. “An hour maybe. The
school called me early, I was busy. I don’t even know what time it was.” Sil wept openly,
peppering tears into the girl’s hair.
“It’s okay, honey,” Leslie said, leaning into the back seat and stroking the girl’s hair,
touching her cheek. “It doesn’t look infected, but she’s really hot. She’s going to need
antibiotics, stitches.”
Maurice felt his teeth grind. Every stop led to another person and every person led
to another stop. And when they stopped at some drug store being raided by a few dozen
panicked customers, would there be yet another lost soul banging on his car door?
“If I can’t get her to the hospital, where do I go? I can’t get through to my husband.
He could be anywhere.”
“My mom has some antibiotics.” Leslie said. “I can do the rest with a needle and
thread. It won’t be pretty but it will stop the bleeding.” She glanced at Maurice, and her
eyes said something else.
She leaned over to him, whispering into his ear. “That girl’s fucked. Her fever is nasty
and I don’t have anything to help her.”
Maurice tried to whisper back, ask her if there was something they could get, feeling
like a pile of guilty shit for his feelings a moment ago, but Leslie wasn’t paying attention.
She mouthed something, more to herself than any of them, and then she cried silent tears,
squeezing her hands together.
Alexander didn’t seem to mind. They hadn’t been on the road more than an hour
and they were already falling apart. Leslie went back to the radio, using it to hide more
than anything. She rubbed the place where the chunk of concrete had struck her. Her left
cheek was red and swollen, crusted with a sliver of dried blood. A little higher and she’d
have lost an eye.
“He lost everything,” Maurice said.
“That’s dandy, but he almost shot me in the face. I saw people like that in my residency. Yeah, he lost everything, and he’s your friend, and he’s gonna kill himself.”
Sil started to fidget. Worry carved itself into her forehead. Maurice knew almost
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nothing about this woman they’d opened their lives to. He didn’t really know a thing
about Leslie, either. He needed to keep her calm, keep them all calm.
“How’d you wind up in the street like that?” Maurice said. If I can ask.”
“They should be dead,” a voice on the radio said. “More than anything, people keep
telling us that the victims of this madness or whatever we’re calling it now should be
dead.”
Leslie gave a nasty chuckle. “They figure that out all by themselves?”
“I hit one of those sick people,” Sil said. “It was a busy street and people were flying
past me, but I’m the one she walked in front of.” She pressed her palm against her eyes,
trying to rub out the world. “I blinked and she was in the road. I tried to swerve but I hit
her full on. Why would she do that?”
“They don’t act sane,” Leslie said. “Maybe they are dead, not just crazy.”
“Yeah. I got out of the car. So stupid, but I thought I’d hit a regular person, so I got
out.” She shook her head. “She didn’t just bite. She swallowed.” She stopped, having her
fill of storytelling.
“Wait a minute,” another voice on the radio said. “We’ve been getting those reports,
as well, and haven’t confirmed them yet. We don’t want to panic people.”
“I get it. You don’t have to say anything else.”
“When she attacked, she was screaming at me, just random words. Even when she had
a mouthful of… of my daughter, she kept screaming. I lost her in traffic. No one stopped.
They thought I was one of them.”
Leslie clacked her seatbelt tight. She tried sliding Alexander into the shoulder strap,
but decided against it. “This is so dangerous,” she said. “Put your belt on, Maurice. We
don’t need you flying through the windshield.”
Maurice was pulling the strap across his chest when a white pickup blew a red light
and slammed into the driver’s side, crumpling the front of the Saturn like foil. Maurice
caught a glimpse of it before the windshield shattered into a thousand sparkling cubes.
His only thought was of Alexander. When the air bags materialized in front of them, his
mind, racing a thousand times faster than the world, saw movement to his right and read
it as the infant flying toward the windshield.
When the airbag bumped his chest, Bohdin’s head crashed into the radio. He’d come
off his ass when the truck hit and launched him from the backseat. Maurice felt gravity
revolt as the car flipped up on its passenger side, concrete peeling sparks from steel. It
rolled onto its roof when God hit the light switch and the world went black.
Maurice was asleep. He couldn’t remember what time it was or when he’d decided to lie
down, but he felt groggy and disoriented, which usually happened when he fell asleep in
the middle of the day. His legs tingled. The alarm was going off. Was it morning already?
Something else. Shrill. Screaming.
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His neck hurt; it was bent, and something jabbed it. He blinked away the dark.
He’d never clicked his seatbelt shut. The car was upside down and he was twisted
in a clump on the ceiling. His airbag was inflated above him. The ceiling, now the floor,
was strewn with all the crap from his cluttered car—wadded napkins and fast-food bags,
empty bottles and junk mail. Bohdin was next to him, his forehead dribbling blood down
his face. He wasn’t awake, and Maurice wasn’t sure if he was alive.
Leslie was still in her seat, suspended by her seatbelt. Maurice felt like he’d swallowed
ice cubes. He didn’t see Alexander, but he could hear his cries. Leslie’s airbag had gone off
as well and his mind danced with images of the infant crushed up in a ball somewhere,
gurgling out his last breath. His cries were loud, throaty, full-lunged rage. That was good.
That said life.
Leslie was unconscious. Her arms hung down, her fingers resting on the inverted
ceiling. The airbag bobbed once, and Maurice realized that the infant lay on the ceiling—
one of his small feet was visible beneath the sagging airbag.
Maurice didn’t know if he could speak yet. His head was cotton-filled and ringing, his
tongue a swollen lump. He’d bitten down on it at some point and the dribbling blood was
like a penny under his tongue.
Sil wept in the backseat. She yelled for someone to wake up, to help. Maurice couldn’t
turn his head to see what condition they were in. He tried to gurgle out an answer, to tell
her he’d get free and get them out. All he did was moan.
“Oh, Jesus, they’re dead!” Sil screamed. She yelled for help over and over. It took a
moment for words to form; it felt like minutes.
“I’m alive,” Maurice said.
“Thank God. Help us, Gabby won’t open her eyes.”
“Stop screaming please. We need to get out of this car.”
“I can’t open the door,” she yelled. “She won’t open her eyes!” Her words dissolved
into unintelligible wails. Maurice couldn’t hear Alexander over the noise.
“Shut the fuck up!”
She stopped, sort of, choking back sobs. Maurice could kind of see her in the rearview
mirror. She was also suspended from her seatbelt, reaching her arms down, pulling at her
daughter’s arm. The wounded girl was sprawled upon the ceiling.
Maurice pushed at the door. The automatic locks didn’t respond. The door was
warped, bent, and firmly shut. The glass was a cracked spiderweb. It looked like they were
on the side of the road, overturned in some stranger’s front yard. He could see other cars
weaving their way around the accident. They weren’t stopping. A white cat sauntered by,
as if everything was normal.
Maurice saw the truck that hit them. It was right-side-up on the other side of the
street, one side pressed against a light pole, the front curled up like a crushed can. There
was someone in the driver’s seat. Maurice thought he saw the man moving.
He reached for Bohdin, who was motionless but breathing. Leslie stirred. He couldn’t
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get to her. The newborn stirred, obscured by the airbag. Maurice heard a car door open.
He looked through the windshield.
Someone had stopped. A young man had gotten out of his car and approached the
truck. A woman tugged his arm, trying to pull him back. At once Maurice hated her, but
didn’t blame her. The young man was motioning, trying to get the woman to check on
them. She refused. The young man pushed her away and tried to open the truck door,
which seemed stuck like theirs.
Maurice watched as the woman walked toward them, fear sculpted over her youthful
features like a fright mask. She bent over a little, peering in, but not too close.
“I think I hear a baby,” she said.
“Open the door,” Maurice asked her, afraid that he was whispering, mumbling.
“I think this man’s dead,” the man outside yelled to the woman. He peered into the
driver’s side window of the pickup truck. The woman inched closer, drawn by Alexander’s
cries.
“Who’s out there?” Sil yelled. “Get us out, please!” She thrashed against her door, her
words running together into nonsense. The woman stopped. Maurice could see something in her face change and he knew what she was thinking. He tried to yell over Sil, over
Alexander, but he could barely hear himself.
“Gerald, they’re crazy like the others,” she yelled.
She spun her head, charging back to the man, away from them. Maurice watched
helpless as her blonde hair fanned out.
“Stop screaming,” he said. “You’re scaring them away!” But she was too far gone.
Outside, the woman reached Gerald. She pointed to them, spoke, and Maurice couldn’t
make out the words. He imagined what she was saying.
Gerald didn’t seem to believe her at first, and Maurice felt his heart lock up in his
throat. But Gerald heard Sil’s and Alexander’s screams, too, and from out there they probably did sound like the crazy dead things.
Maurice’s vision blurred as Gerald and the bitch hurried back to their cars. He was
crying, suddenly screaming, lending his voice to the mad chorus of helpless fury. He
looked about for the handgun, not knowing what he intended to do with it, not admitting
to himself he wanted to plant a bullet in the back of the bitch who led the man away. He
didn’t see it and if he had, he didn’t think he’d have stopped with her.
He stopped crying out, but Sil went right along, unaware that they were gone. Cars
rolled by. It was cramped in the car, screaming rung in his ears, and the humid air thickened in his lungs. He tried to crawl through the hole in the windshield—he needed to get
outside, clear his head, pry them all out. He caught the blur of a couple of cars speeding
through the residential neighborhood. He heard something and turned, hoping maybe
another good Samaritan had stopped.
The man inside the pickup was vomiting heave after heave of dark paste onto the
steering wheel. Maurice wanted to be unsure, but he knew right away. Cassie had done the
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same thing. Maurice could only stare, panting like a yard dog, watching the man come to
life. The man looked well past middle age, bald and overweight, short gray hair receding
around an island of skin on his head. Black fluid covered his beard.
Maurice knew he was going to have to move, have to make a decision soon. The man
screamed, louder than all of them, off-key and guttural with the abandon of an animal.
He clawed at the air and the inside of the truck as if fighting a swarm of wasps.
Maurice forced himself to move. He shook Bohdin, who only breathed steadily. He
thought he heard Leslie grunt under Alexander’s continued rant, and the dead man
screamed, thrashing. Maurice felt around for the pistol; it could be anywhere. He felt
around Bohdin, reached up towards the seats, under the driver’s seat, but the airbag
seemed to dominate what to him was the roof. A thud made him jump. He bumped his
head on the cup holders above his head. Sil had unclicked her seatbelt and fallen from her
seat. She’d landed on Gabrielle.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Sil moaned, rolling off the little girl. “I’m sorry.” She cradled Gabrielle, trying to rouse her. When the girl didn’t wake, Sil returned to howling.
“I need you to stop,” Maurice begged. “I need you to help me, dammit.”
She didn’t seem to hear. Maurice couldn’t find the pistol, the car felt like a maze of
nooks. There were a hundred places that it could have fallen. There was too much to do
all at once.
He wanted to shake Bohdin awake, get hold of Alexander, get Leslie out of the seatbelt, run like Hell was burning his footsteps. Sil’s caterwauling jumbled his thoughts. He
just needed a moment to stop, to think of what to do.
“Shut up,” he screamed, over and over, but she refused to hear or simply couldn’t
stop. Sweat prickled Maurice’s skin, and he lashed out, kicking at her. He hit her shoulder
hard, rocking her in place and she yelped, flailing wildly, yelling incoherent words.
“Maurice,” Leslie whispered. She hadn’t moved, and he still couldn’t see her face, but
she was coming to. Maurice realized the dead man in the truck wasn’t screaming anymore. His face and hands were pressed up against the driver’s side window of the truck.
Eyes wide, he stared back at them. Maurice could swear he saw excitement twitching
across the dead man’s face.
His legs itched, wanting to stretch, to run. The dead man began to fumble with the
door handle. There was no way to get them all out of the car in time and even if he did,
in their condition, he’d only be offering them up. Bohdin was still unconscious and the
goddamned gun was hidden with the half-drunk water bottles, candy wrappers and loose
papers from the footwell graveyard of his car.
The dead man pushed his truck door open and lunged off the seat before it had fully
opened. A cry forced itself out of Maurice’s mouth. The dead man snapped back into his
seat, his seatbelt still engaged. The dead man growled, ripping at the seatbelt, attacking
it, face twisting up in pain and confusion.
Maurice gave one more frantic look around, hoping the gun would somehow appear
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in his hands. He had nothing to fight with. He was surrounded by people. He was alone.
When he looked back, the dead man was sprinting across the road towards them,
hands pumping back and forth, gaze locked on them. He almost looked human.
A hot splash of adrenaline roiled up Maurice’s neck, setting his ears aflame, new
sweat itching out of his skin. The dead man had closed half the distance in what felt like
an instant when a speeding car collided with him. The dead man spun in the air and hit
the ground face first, rolled along the street, coming to a halt in a twisted heap. The car
never slowed. It was gone as quickly as it had come.
The dead man never stopped, either. Even as the inertia of the impact had sent him
sprawling, spinning, he continued to thrash and try to stand. The dead man was up and
stumbling immediately. He ran again, slower, staggering in the wrong direction.
“Where the fuck did you hide?”
Maurice recoiled from the dead man’s voice. He remembered Cassie moaning out
words to him, black sick running down her chin, and how it had brushed the hairs on his
arm to standing. This was different. The dead man was loud, crisp, and clear of purpose.
Maurice saw that the dead man’s cheek had been peeled down to what looked like
ground beef. When he screamed, random bits of teeth flew out of his mouth, riding tendrils
of blood spinning like flung molasses. There was a gash across his face. He was blind.
The dead man turned its ruined face back towards them, hearing the cries from
their car. Maurice shrank back into the car, his will to climb free wilting. He backed into
Bohdin, who snored. The dead man charged into the car, hitting the driver’s side door,
rocking it a bit before falling back onto his ass.
“Get out of the fucking car,” the dead man screamed.
Sil saw him and renewed her shrieks, loud and high, like fingernails raking the skin
under Maurice’s hair. Leslie moaned his name, tickling him with hope. He needed her,
needed someone else. Anyone.
Dead fingers found the door handle. The dead man thrashed against the door, shaking
the car. It hadn’t noticed the hole in the windshield, which had felt small to Maurice as he
tried to climb through it. It seemed huge now, wide enough to drive an army through.
“Help me down,” Leslie whispered.
“Alexander?” Maurice asked, never taking his eyes off the dead man.
“I have him,” she said.
Maurice moved toward her, trying to reach up to her and keep his eyes on the dead
man at the same time.
“Take him first,” she said. Maurice started to climb over Bohdin when he heard metal
squawk. The broken driver’s side door was opening. Maurice lunged back, locking his
hands on the inside handle and yanking back on the door. It pushed against the car but
wouldn’t click shut. The dead man pulled back and he had the leverage. Maurice swung
his feet around, bracing them on the door frame, holding the door shut.
“Fucking canned fruit,” the dead man yelled. “Open wide for me, pig.”
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The dead man threw his weight into each yank. The door would open for a moment
and then snap shut again. Maurice could already feel his arms getting tired. The air
burned his lungs, his sweaty fingers sliding along the handle. He was holding on by fingertips when he saw a figure behind the dead man. Maurice cried out when he saw the
black police uniform. He couldn’t believe it.
“Help us! He’s one of them!”
The cop moved beside the dead man. Maurice was afraid he didn’t hear, that he
would try to talk to the dead man, that he would get bitten. The cop pushed past the dead
man, coming up alongside him and banging on the car. Maurice saw dark splotches blood
drenching the cop’s pants.
The cop kneeled down and peered into the driver’s window. His chest was riddled
with bullet holes. His right arm was chewed down to ragged tatters of flesh, the hand
gone. Maurice was amazed the arm still moved at all. The dead cop saw Maurice and
groaned. He looked past Maurice and saw the hole in the windshield. It stood again and
stumbled toward the front of the car.
Maurice would have to run. He’d have to leave them behind. If he stayed in the car he
would die and he had nothing to fight them off with. He looked at his best friend, slumped
over on himself, snoring; he heard the cries of the newborn, Leslie moaning his name, and
he knew he would run. He would leave them all to die.
The dead man threw itself onto the cop, screaming. The cop stumbled to the ground
and dead man fell atop him, swinging and clawing. Every punch banged the cop’s skull
back onto the pavement. Some swings missed and Maurice heard the dead man’s fists
smack against concrete. His hands had to be broken, but he made no show that he felt it.
“This is mine,” the dead man yelled. The dead cop wailed, scrambling backwards. He
backpedaled and sat up on his knees. The dead man stood again, seeming to guard the
car as if it was a downed gazelle. Maurice saw something else in the dead cop’s eyes that
he recognized. Helplessness.
The cop cried, deep wet sobs, coughing out wet globs of red phlegm.
“This is my car, faggot!” the blind dead man screamed, swinging at air.
In one smooth motion, the cop drew his pistol from its holster and tucked the barrel
under his own chin and fired. A red blossom burst above his head as his skull opened.
Blood poured into his hair and down his face.
Maurice saw the light, any sense of thought, leave the cop’s face. He stared at the
dead man then at the gun in his hands. He tried to put the gun under his chin again, but
his arm was shaky, refusing to respond. It waved helpless in the air. The gun bounced off
his cheek, brushed his ear or missed completely. He was not able to squeeze the trigger.
The cop continued to sob, stumbling to his feet and shambling away, gun hanging loosely
in his hand.
The dead man seemed to sense the cop’s departure. He turned back toward the car,
pawed the air until he found it, worked his way hand over hand toward the door.
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Maurice grabbed the handle and held fast. His arms felt like rubber, and in a flash the
door was free of his hands, swinging open. Maurice didn’t think, pushing himself through
the hole in the windshield. He was on his feet and running as the dead man climbed into
the car. The air felt cool on his skin. Pent-up energy rushed into rubbery legs. He felt like
he could run forever.
He saw the cop in front of him, shambling down the road. He ran right up to it and
pulled the gun from its hand. It turned towards him, eyes blank. Maurice ran back to the
car. Hard courage sat heavy in his right hand.
The dead man’s hands were on Bohdin. It leaned toward him, mouth wide. Maurice
grabbed it by the collar and yanked as hard as he could. He flung the dead man backward
and stood in front of the car, watched the dead man get to its feet.
“Goddamn you,” Maurice said.
“I can smell you. Saw your fear before it all went dark. Fucking nigger. Canned
fruit.”
Maurice burst out laughing, tears on his cheeks. He couldn’t control himself. The
dead man ran towards him and he just kept laughing. He had found the world’s first racist
corpse.
This is what going insane feels like.
Maurice heard the click of an empty chamber as the dead man collided with him.
They fell to the ground, the dead man atop him. Maurice heard another car whizz by and
his world became gnashing red teeth. He tried to grab the dead man’s neck, which slid like
an eel under his palms. The dead man whipped its head back and forth, trying to bite his
arms. Its hands punched and clawed, latched onto Maurice’s forearms. It tried to force its
head down, get teeth to skin.
“Nigger fruit,” the dead man said. “Starving. Why won’t you fucking lie down already?”
Maurice swung the pistol, hitting the dead man in the cheek. It didn’t stop. Maurice
got his foot in between them and pushed the dead man back. Its feet left the ground, but
it held fast to Maurice’s arm and was back on top of him a second later, almost getting its
teeth around Maurice’s arm before he could push it off again. This time it lost its grip and
teetered backward, onto its back.
Maurice sat on the dead man’s chest, pinning one arm under his leg and smashing
the pistol, now gripped handle out, into its face. It screamed even as he shattered its front
teeth, but it refused to stop. Maybe it couldn’t. Maurice was out of breath, panting; his
arm felt like a noodle, each hit with less behind it than the first.
The dead man reached up with both hands and locked its fingers behind Maurice’s
neck, putting all its strength behind it. Maurice pressed his own hands on the dead man’s
chest, trying to push back, but where his arms had weakened, his attacker had not. Maurice managed to pull back but the dead man came with him, lifting off the ground. It
flexed its arms and Maurice watched its face loom closer to his own.
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Maurice’s arms buckled, and the dead man’s teeth moved closer. He slid his forearms
under the dead man’s chin to brace himself against its neck. The dead man’s screams
became choked gurgles, but it didn’t try to move his arms away. It just pulled him down,
putting more pressure on its own throat.
“Smell you,” the dead man croaked. Maurice’s sweat dripped onto its face, into its
mouth. “Sweet Jesus, you taste like cake.”
Maurice’s bicep softened. The burn was unbearable.
“What the fuck are you!” Maurice yelled.
The dead man’s face was inches from his. Maurice tucked his head down, unable to
look at it anymore. The dead man’s teeth raked across his hair.
“Candy nigger,” the dead man said. “So damned beautiful.”
“Shut up!” He found the energy to heave back, bring up the pistol and slam it into the
dead man’s face again and again. It laughed. Something moved behind him.
“Bohdin?” he asked. “Leslie, help me.”
He felt hands on his shirt and he tumbled to the side, rolling onto his back. The cop
had returned, gurgling and stupid, falling onto him, mouth hanging open. Maurice tried
to push it away but he had nothing left. The dead man lunged and Maurice was engulfed
by dead flesh.
The dead man’s beet-red face descended toward his. A shoe collided with its jaw and
the red face was gone. Bohdin stood over them. He’d found the missing gun. He stuck it to
the cop’s temple and fired. The shot rang in Maurice’s ears, erasing everything else. The
cop rolled over onto the street and lay still.
Hiding behind the green Saturn, Leslie cradled Alexander. The dead man climbed
back to its feet and stumbled toward them. Bohdin fired and the bullet punched into the
dead man’s hairline. The dead man dropped to his knees, wavering for a moment before
steadying itself.
“Can’t smell,” it said, punching itself in the side of the head. “I can’t smell anything,
you asshole.” It stood again and staggered sideways. “Can‘t smell.”
“Can you hear, you fucking monster?” Bohdin said. “Come near us and I’ll unload this
into your face.”
The dead man stopped, hunched over and hugging itself like a junkie. “Fucking
canned fruit. Gimme my candy nigger.”
“Come get him,” Bohdin said.
The dead man took a step forward and hesitated. It turned and ran down the street,
crashing into the side of a house before disappearing around it. Maurice lay on the ground,
exhausted. Bohdin knelt next to him.
“I’m sorry,” Maurice cried. Bohdin put a hand on his chest. Leslie walked closer. Alexander’s cries were less frantic than they had been.
“Are you bitten?” she asked.
“Don’t know.”
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13
Bohdin and Sil dragged Gabrielle along, each of them under one of her arms with Leslie in
front, Alexander sleeping in her arms. He had downed another couple ounces of formula
before filling his diaper and passing out.
Alexander had stared back at his caregivers for a few minutes with the wide terrified
eyes of a newborn, waking from months of warm darkness into what could only seem like
a clanging mash of madness.
Maurice was in the front, tired and tripping over his own feet. They were in Metairie,
not far from Bohdin’s house. The neighborhood was empty of people. This was a main
road, cutting through the subdivision to the highway. They had almost made it. In truth,
Maurice didn’t know if making it to the I-10 would be some great victory. Being away from
buildings, away from mobs of people, away from the city… it still seemed like—not a good
idea, but something.
“We can’t stay out here,” Maurice said, turning on them. “This is insane. Those things
are all over the place.”
“We can try one of the houses,” Leslie said.
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Maurice scanned the nearby houses, all still, no movement inside, no signs of life.
Some had cars in front, some didn’t.
“Fuck this,” Maurice muttered and walked into the street. A minivan sped down the
road. He waved his hands high above his head.
The van slowed and stopped a few feet away from Maurice, who stumbled to the passenger door and patted the glass.
“Please,” he said. “We need help.”
“Oh, my God, that little girl is sick!” yelled an old woman form the backseat. She
looked at Gabrielle and the poor girl looked dead.
“No. It was a car accident. You probably passed it back there. She’s fine, she’s—
alive.”
The driver was a middle-aged man, pasty-faced and terrified, sweaty hair pressed
to his scalp. His dress shirt was torn. His expression was blank. “We can’t help you,” the
man said.
“Please, man. We have an infant with us.” Maurice nodded toward Bohdin, and all
he could think of was the father and daughter at the airport. He could still smell the
dead man’s shit in his hair. “He lost his wife today. It’s up to you, don’t help us and we’re
dead.”
The man shifted his gaze to the rest of them, and his expression didn’t change. The
only hint of emotion was aggravation at having stopped at all, at having his humanity
tested, at having to say—
“No.”
“We have a baby,” Bohdin whispered.
“We all have kids,” the driver said. “Mine’s at home and that’s where I’m going. I’m
sorry.”
Maurice clasped the passenger door and tried to open it. It was locked. He smashed
his fist on the window, making it vibrate in its frame, leaving a grimy smudge. He wondered if the father and daughter at the airport had found a ride, wondered how many
other people had turned them away after he had.
“Come on!”
“Drive away,” the old woman ordered. “I told you not to stop.” The van’s tires
screeched for a second as it fled. Maurice screamed for them to come back. They didn’t.
Pleas gave way to cursing, loud and full of spittle. His tendons flexed in his neck. Sweat
and grit dribbled off his face.
Two houses up the street, a large concrete fountain in the yard of a small, Pepto-pink
house. He stumbled toward the fountain. Bohdin called his name. Maurice ignored him.
Hell, if he’d had his strength, he may have just kept on running as far away from them as
possible. In that moment, he hated every one of them.
The fountain was two tiered, the first tier at waist height. Exhausted, his legs feeling
blasted and rubbery, he stumbled and almost cracked his head on the lip of the fountain.
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Steadying himself, he plunged his face into the water. It was warm, a little moldy, wonderful and delicious. It was a slap in the face and he no longer had to smell the stink of
blood, sweat, and shit clogging his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his face in
the water.
There was a hand on his shoulder, and it took a moment to realize that it was trying
to pull him up. Took a moment more to realize he was fighting it. He lifted his head and
gasped, coughing up water and phlegm. The water was ruined for anyone else but he
couldn’t care less. Bohdin stood next to him.
“You trying to drown yourself,” Bohdin said. It didn’t sound like a question. Maurice
slid down, resting on his knees, hands still grasping the fountain. Bohdin was clutching
the pistol in his hand, tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Maurice said. He hadn’t stopped crying, and had begun to
shake. The others waited in the street, afraid to come too close.
“Neither can I. But there’s no choice, really.”
“No, man, I can’t do it, shit—I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Maurice stared at the gun. It wavered through his tears, a flickering mirage filling his
vision, his head. Bohdin followed his eyes. Maurice couldn’t remember when they decided
to give the gun to the suicidal father. He started to chuckle again.
“You’re losing it,” Bohdin said.
“Yeah. I’m losing it.”
Bohdin motioned with his eyes to the gun.
“You want it?” he said. “Really? Like you are right now?”
Maurice smiled. “Would you even give it to me if I asked?”
“Ah, hell. I don’t think I could even force my hand to let it go right now,” he said, running his free hand through his hair.
“I don’t know what to do,” Maurice said.
“We need to get off the street. Try one of these houses. I want to sit down a while and
hold my son.”
“I don’t know. What do we do if they try to get in? I mean, how many windows does
a house have?”
“Guys?” Leslie called from the street. Sil dragged Gabrielle along by herself. The girl
managed a couple of stumbling steps, head cocked to the side, half asleep.
“We could board them up,” Bohdin said.
“With what? Do you just have piles of wood in your house? I’d be lucky to find a dozen
nails in my house.”
“We have to.”
“One of those things decides to run through the window and then what? And what
if three show up? Or ten?”
Bohdin shrugged. He wasn’t going to decide, maybe he couldn’t.
Maurice couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring at rows and rows of three- and
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four-bedroom tombs. He stood, wiping water from the back of his neck. He looked at all
the houses. They all seemed so open, so exposed—full of windows, and fragile. Even the
ugly, squat ranch-style homes with their high privacy windows around most of the structure still had at least a few large windows showcasing their front rooms.
Maurice was staring at a picture window across the street, thinking how under the
circumstances it seemed strikingly like the glass of a deli meat case, when he saw something through the glass. A face.
He took a step forward, on instinct. He couldn’t see the figure well, but the thought
he saw a man’s face scowl at being spotted before disappearing behind a green curtain.
He also thought he saw the barrel of a shotgun or rifle.
They could get killed knocking on a door. Who in their right mind would let the six of
them in? He walked up to the door of the pink bricked house, listening to the fountain—it
sounded a bit too much like pissing.
Suddenly he wanted to take a shit right there in the grass. Bohdin stayed a few steps
behind Leslie, and Sil slowly walked Gabrielle, mumbling, up the driveway. A large blue
Yukon zipped down the street behind them.
Maurice walked up to the front door and tried to knob in vain. He knocked on the
door. All of the windows were curtained or covered with blinds. He knocked harder, and
when no answer came he banged on the door as hard as he could.
There was a large bay window on the right side of the house, above a raised garden,
cordoned off from the yard with thick gray stones. He’d have to smash a window, and
thinking about how easy the brick was going to sail through the glass made him ill. There
would be no real safety here. Maybe there was a car in the garage. Maybe there were keys,
or, at the very least, food. They might not stay long, but they could eat.
He didn’t want to break the bay window. It was far too large and would leave them too
exposed. There was probably a smaller bathroom window around back. He pried a large
stone from the garden and stood up. He froze.
There was a bloody handprint on the bay window. The inside of the window. The thick
yellow curtains were pulled back, but a thinner transparent white curtain was pulled
across the window. A figure stood behind it, in the dark, rocking from foot to foot. Maurice couldn’t make out anything but the shape, tall and thin. Naked.
He took a step back, dropping the rock into the garden. Bohdin stepped next to him.
“Need me to do it?”
Maurice waved his hand, his gaze fused to the swaying figure. “Step back.”
Bohdin saw the handprint and his eyes widened almost comically. He raised the gun
at the figure, and Maurice grabbed his wrist, almost causing him to fire. “Don’t do anything.” They backed down off the porch.
“What’s wrong?” Leslie asked, anger in her voice.
“There’s something inside,” Maurice said.
“What did he say?” Sil asked.
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“Nothing, honey, we just can’t go in this one, okay?”
“Shit,” Bohdin said. The figure had moved away from the window. They were back in
the grass when the doorknob rattled.
Bohdin raised the gun. Maurice didn’t stop him this time. But the door knob just
rattled, the thing behind it too dumb, too broken, to open it. They regrouped in the street.
Maurice was afraid to turn away from the house, afraid the second he did the door would
fly open and some dead thing with boundless energy would run them down one by one.
“What are we doing?” Leslie asked.
Maurice couldn’t answer. He looked at the other homes, caught the man across the
street looking at them again. He definitely made out the barrel of a shotgun this time.
The man seemed to sense what Maurice was thinking and shook his head back and forth
before closing the curtain again. The doorknob rattled. Maurice considered taking the
gun from Bohdin and shoving it in his own mouth.
“We should try another house maybe?” Sil said. “I really need to lay her down.”
“C’mon,” Bohdin said.
“I don’t know,” Maurice whispered.
Leslie shifted on her feet, hand patting Alexander’s butt. “Need to find a TV, see
what’s going on out there—oh.”
She pointed. About two blocks from where they stood, a hunched figure shambled
down the middle of the road. It was laughing, giggling at some secret joke or from some
misfiring neuron in its dead brain.
An old blue pickup truck slowed to a stop a few feet from them. It idled there for a
moment before moving slowly towards them.
A white haired-man leaned out of the passenger window, double barreled shotgun
resting on the rim. Truck brakes whined to a stop. Without a hello, the old man leveled
the barrel at Bohdin’s chest.
“Whoa, we’re okay,” Bohdin said, raising his hands above his head. “We’re not sick.”
The old man didn’t respond. Maurice staggered over to Bohdin, Trying to stay focused, dim spots flexing around the corners of his vision. He reached out and flicked the
back of Bohdin’s shirt over the hilt of the pistol.
The old man’s skin was sun-darkened, and age had cut deep lines into his face, making
it hard to gage what he might be thinking. There was a woman, even older than the man,
driving. An overweight woman sat in the truck bed, hunting rifle resting across her chest.
They were, all of them, well past retirement.
“We need help,” Leslie said. The old man glanced at her, keeping the shotgun pointed
at Bohdin. Maurice wanted to laugh again, but he bit down hard. These three grizzled old
fucks were doing better than they were. Maurice waited for the sound of the front door of
the house to open and the thing inside to spill out.
The fat woman in the truck bed said something to the old woman behind the wheel.
“We might have to do something ugly,” Bohdin whispered, and Maurice didn’t like
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the sound of his friend’s voice.
“Wait. I don’t think they speak English.”
As if to answer, the old man said something to them—obviously a question, its meaning lost.
“Tell me someone took Spanish in high school,” Maurice asked. Since Katrina, the
Mexican population in New Orleans had exploded. He’d picked up a few words here and
there, on paper, but was hopelessly incapable of doing much more than telling them that
the burrito was very, very hot, friend.
The old man asked again, punctuating his words with a shake of the shotgun.
“English,” Bohdin answered.
The old man sighed. “You bitten? Bite is bad.” He motioned the barrel over to Gabrielle. “You bitten?”
Again, Maurice felt an intense urge to shit. He shivered from the adrenaline rocketing through his blood, which at least gave him to strength to keep standing. He blinked
away black spots and glanced at Bohdin, who had lowered his hands, trying to be nonchalant. His hand inched toward the gun.
“No,” Maurice said. “Accident.” He pointed down the road a few blocks, where they
could still see the wreck.
The old woman tapped the old man on the shoulder, and they began to argue. The
man was aware enough not to drop his eyes or lose his aim. His was the first calm face
Maurice had seen since the hospital. Perhaps they hadn’t witnessed anything yet, their
journey still fresh.
While the old couple argued in the truck, the fat woman in the back waved them over,
motioning for them to get in. From behind, Maurice heard the door of the pink house
creak open. He spun, not caring about the old man’s shotgun, not sure if he’d imagined
the sound.
The door was open and the naked figure rocked back and forth in the archway, nothing more than a silhouette. A black iris closed in around Maurice’s vision—it was like
looking up from the bottom of a drain. He felt his head hit the grass and slept.
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14
Bohdin surveyed the horde of vehicles choking the southbound lanes of Causeway Boulevard—cars and trucks overflowing with people trying to get home, get to loved ones, get
food, get gas, get the hell out of the city. He remembered the nineteen hours they’d spent
in crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic while getting out of Katrina’s way, only now there
was no place to run—the hurricane was happening everywhere at once.
“No, no,” he said, tapping Leslie on the shoulder. “We get on Causeway, we’re fucking
stuck.”
Leslie and Rosa spoke, and Rosa imparted the message to Julio—they had to get off
at the next exit, Causeway was a clusterfuck. Julio crept along, and eventually they found
themselves on I-10, heading west—toward the airport and Baton Rouge beyond it. They
would not be able to reach Leslie’s mother in Jefferson.
They had made it a couple of miles before traffic ground to a halt. The pleas of the
police and Governor Jindal to stay inside had been wholly ignored.
Sil sat cross-legged with Alexander curled in her arms. The fat woman managed
enough English to tell them her name was Rosa—the two white-hairs in the truck cabin
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were Belén and Julio—and they were heading south, perfectly enough—they’d pass Jefferson, where they’d been heading before the accident.
Bohdin thought some of the others might have figured they were lucky to have picked
up a ride, but he knew it was the three old people who were lucky. If Belén had tried to
drive away, Bohdin would have shot her in the face.
All he had left was lying in the arms of the stranger sitting next to him. Nothing else
mattered. No one else mattered.
Rosa had torn a strip of cloth from her green skirt for Leslie to dress Gabrielle’s
wound. The bleeding had slowed but an ugly red trim had spread around the wound.
Bohdin wanted to ask for his son, the urge to hold him stirring in his chest whenever
he saw the boy squirm. Alexander was awake for the moment, sucking down a couple
ounces of formula from a new bottle.
Maurice had managed to get enough diapers and formula to last a month. After the
accident, they were back to what they could fit in the bag from the hospital—maybe a
week’s worth, if they were lucky.
Maurice was passed out next to him, lying flat on the truck bed, head turned to the
sky, snoring. Bohdin saw no reason to wake him just to stare at cars and worry. It also
gave Bohdin time to breath. He was still trying to grasp the events of the hospital, to get
his head around the fact that Logan was dead and that he’d never see Cassie again. He was
trying make it all make sense.
He had occasional flash-bulb urges to smash the handle of the Beretta into Maurice’s
teeth. It helped not to look at him.
He watched his son stare up at Sil and didn’t ask to hold him. He wanted to, more than
anything he wanted to hold the child to his chest and stare into his eyes, but he was afraid
that if he did, he’d lose it. Alexander would never know Cassie. He’d never miss her. He’d
never get a wedgie from his older brother.
From where he sat, Bohdin could refuse to think about the text message his wife had
sent. He could refuse to think about her being dead, being one of those stumbling mad
dead things. He couldn’t imagine her that way, insane, reaching for her baby. His hand
was behind his back, squeezing the gun in his waistband with tingling fingers. No, he’d
ask for his son later.
Sil smiled weakly, her eyes on Leslie. “He’s gorgeous.”
“He’s not mine, hon,” Leslie said. “But yeah.”
“Oh.”
Sil seemed to wait for more, but Leslie didn’t elaborate.
“He’s mine,” Bohdin said, looking at Sil and looking away, down at his feet, choking
back the urge to pull the gun and shoot someone.
“Oh,” Sil said. “Do you want to—” She motioned with her head toward Alexander.
“It’s okay,” Bohdin said. He didn’t think he could look into his son’s eyes without
screaming.
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“Oh.”
When Leslie was finished, they exchanged children. “Goodbye, sweetie,” Sil said as
she handed Alexander over. She took Gabrielle into her lap and stroked her hair. The girl
mumbled something and Sil whispered into her ear, kissing her forehead.
“Thanks for holding him. She should be okay for a while now. The bleeding has
stopped.”
“Thanks for saving us. I think we’d be dead without you.”
Leslie’s eyes betrayed her. Sil seemed willing to ignore it just as she ignored the implications of Julio’s questions about whether or not they were bitten. She’d followed their
lead and concealed that little fact. The news reports had dutifully terrified everyone that
even close contact with the things might be all it would take to infect you. Bohdin didn’t
know.
They could all be sick and dying right now just from breathing the same air as her, or
maybe Gabrielle would be just fine after a shot of antibiotics. Part of him hoped she did
change. He needed to see it up close, understand what Maurice had seen. He didn’t know
what he’d do if such a change wasn’t as spectacular as they’d described it to him. Or maybe
the real problem was he knew exactly what he’d do.
They were stop-and-go on I-10, moving west toward the airport, the goddamned airport. It felt like they were going in circles.
If they hadn’t tried for Leslie’s mother, they could have jumped right onto the I-10
sooner, not far from Zuppardo’s. They could already be on the way to Baton Rouge. The
bitch—he saw himself pulling the gun and unloading it into her fat face, and he squeezed
his eyes shut, opened them, tried to keep his eyes on his son, tried not to think about any
of it.
Did he thank her for saving his son or feed her a bullet for leaving his wife wandering
the halls of East Jefferson hospital? Did she save Alexander only to cause his death now,
trying to cut into the suburbs south of Airline to rescue someone who was just another
stranger to him?
“Fuck,” he growled, unsure of how loud he’d been. Leslie looked at him, looked away,
and the truck crept down the interstate. Gunfire popped, sirens wailed. Music boomed.
Someone somewhere screamed.
Mostly they rode in silence. The old folks up front had their windows down. The little
sliding window in the rear windshield was open, and he listened to them trade rapid-fire
bursts of Spanish. He caught a word here and there, and the name Reynaldo kept popping up, but none of it meant anything to him, except maybe that Reynaldo had been the
fourth member of their little group.
Bohdin assumed that something had happened to the three of them, from the way
Rosa stared off into space. She didn’t seem interested in telling their tale and Bohdin
didn’t want to hear it. Up front, the old folks listened to news reports—a Spanish station.
He couldn’t make out the details, but some things crossed language barriers: everything
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was getting worse much faster than anyone would have imagined.
“The fuck you think this is, nigga, afternoon siesta? Wake up!”
Maurice shot up out of bed, flailing against his sheets, a stifled, groggy yelp escaping
through clenched teeth. He’d been out cold, dreaming hard, but he opened his eyes the
second he heard that high-pitched, gurgling voice. It always cut through to the heart of
whatever dream or thick blanket of sleep he was wrapped up in. He backpedaled along his
bed, placed his back to the headboard.
A tiny figure stood in the middle of his bedroom, cloaked in shadow. It was night and
Maurice was in his over-worn green pajamas. He was eight and he was dreaming of his
aborted brother again. It had taken a year of therapy—which his father had called queer
talk—and a handful of prescription drugs—which his father had called too goddamned
expensive—to make him stop seeing his aborted brother.
If his mother had named him, Maurice was not aware. But he had given him the name
Paul during the first week of nasty nightmares, after hearing his parents argue about it
when they thought he was asleep. His mother had been genuinely shocked that the abortion hadn’t actually solved their problems, like his father had promised it would. He’d
been eight the last time he’d seen Paul.
“Good. Holy shit, nigga, you still fuckin’ eight?”
“I’m thirty-two,” Maurice said.
Paul took a step forward, into the faint glow of the streetlight through the blinds
on his bedroom window. Paul was about the size of a two year old, dressed in a filthy
green and orange striped t-shirt, distended belly hanging out of the bottom. Maurice
thought his skin looked waxy and wrinkled, the meat beneath withered and rotted down
to bone.
His flesh had darkened past its natural brown to a purplish black. His diaper was gray
and bloated, hanging like a tumor, making him walk bow-legged. Paul’s eyes sunk back
into his skull and his teeth seemed permanently exposed, his lips having pulled back into
something between a smile and a grimace. He scratched at his raggedy, unkempt afro
with one bony hand.
“Nah, nigga, you eight. You still a fuckin’ baby.” Paul stepped toward the bed, a black
skeleton wrapped in skin.
Maurice’s heart hammered; he wanted to scream for his mother but didn’t. At first,
after Paul’s initial visits, she had come running, but as the months went on she became
frustrated, then angry. He’d stopped calling for her, spending the nights terrified as Paul
paced his floor till dawn. Paul grasped the sheets at the foot of the bed.
“What did you do to me?” Maurice asked, not recognizing his own high-pitched
voice.
“I ain’t got nothing to do with this. This your dream, muthafucka. Matter fact…” Paul
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pulled himself up onto the bed. Maurice felt the cold radiating from the dead child.
“No,” Maurice whimpered.
“Why don’t you just come with me right now? You not cut out for this shit.” He dragged
himself the rest of the way onto the bed, leaving behind filthy red hand prints, standing
once more, seeming much taller now. “You look like a turd in a bag of marshmallows with
all those white folk. They will turn on your black ass the first chance they get.”
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15
Maurice opened his eyes. He stared at an evening sky, a sherbet-orange streetlight polluting his view of the blackish blue clouds. There was light—the sun must’ve only just set.
He didn’t remember getting into the truck, but they were all here. Leslie stared down at
him, Alexander asleep in her arms. She slapped a mosquito on her forearm and he heard
one hum past his ear.
“You need to see this,” she said, eyes big circles. She helped him sit up. Rosa silently
watched, rifle gripped firmly in both hands like a permanent attachment. Bohdin stared
out at the skyline.
Maurice rubbed the last of his nightmare out of his eyes and realized the orange
wasn’t just the streetlights. In the direction of New Orleans, something burned. A black
plume of smoke belched and roiled into the sky.
“It started an hour ago,” Leslie said.
“How long was I out?” Maurice asked.
“A little over an hour, maybe.”
“Welcome back,” Bohdin said.
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“We’re still here,” Maurice said, not really a question. He looked around, trying to
place where here was—I-10, atop the overpass that straddled Veterans.
“Gridlock. We haven’t moved a foot in forty minutes.”
Bohdin was right. People milled around nearby cars, stretching their legs, sharing
info with a neighbor, trying to get a better look. He saw one teenager recording the fire
with the camera on his phone. Others stayed in their cars, shadows clutching steering
wheels. “H—how bad is it?” Maurice asked.
“Oh, Maurice,” Leslie said. “It’s all falling apart. Police, fire departments, no one’s
responding anymore.”
“You were right about the houses,” Bohdin said. “Those things are ripping people
right out of their homes.”
Maurice remembered the dead thing in the pink house. Would some other group
have kicked open the door to one of those houses and found one of them stumbling
around inside?
“The National Guard had a shootout this afternoon in Baton Rouge around the capital.”
Government had contracted around itself. Protect the head, let the body rot. Maurice kept looking at the people in the road around him. One of them, an older Asian man
with a receding hairline, actually smiled over something funny. He wanted to punch the
bastard.
“We haven’t seen one of those things since we got on the highway,” Leslie said. “It
almost feels normal out here.”
She was right. For the first time today he wasn’t running, rushing, or struggling his
way out of a problem. A dull ache had burrowed along the length of his back; his temples
pulsed pain behind his eyes, but he also felt charged up. There was an occasional siren—he
couldn’t tell if it was fire or police—and occasional distant gunshots echoing like tiny pop
caps. They stared at the fire for a while, with the biggest nuisance being the mosquitoes
buzzing around them in the thick night air.
“It all looks fake from here,” Bohdin said. “Like watching the end of the world in a
movie theater.”
Maurice grunted his agreement, though he didn’t think it looked fake at all. The
street below was relatively quiet, as well, vehicles stringing out from the highway like
veins, brimming with people eager to get on the interstate, off the street, wherever they
were going. Cars hopped the median, drove against traffic, looking for another way to
where they needed to go. Horns blared, and people milled between cars, having abandoned their own.
He didn’t see any dead people walking around. Sooner or later, he knew, he would.
They all would. It was a terrible thought. The dead would get to those people first, the ones
down at the base of the overpass. He didn’t know which was better: to have death burst
out like a jack-in-the-box, or creep toward you like swarming ants?
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“Has Gabrielle woken up yet?” Maurice whispered, leaning in. Sil had started to doze,
sitting upright with the girl in her lap.
“No,” Bohdin said. “I think Leslie said she was in shock. You’d be better off asking
her.”
“I need to ask you,” Maurice said. “In case she… in case she doesn’t make it, I might
need help—” He didn’t know how to put it. Saying it out loud felt mad.
“If it comes to that, I’ll take care of it.”
Maurice stared at Bohdin, unsure if he was comfortable with the ease of his friend’s
answer. “Or we can always talk about dealing with it now.”
Bohdin shushed him, looking around to see if anyone had heard. The back window of
the truck’s cab was open. Leslie tried to converse with Belén, trying to decipher the latest
in Spanish news coverage.
“Don’t get nuts on me, man,” Maurice said with a weak smile.
Bohdin leaned in. “I’m not getting nuts, man. I’m choosing to believe you when you
tell me that my wife died and went crazy, that Logan is dead, and that she tried to kill her
newborn son. That’s what happened, right?”
“Jesus—we still talking about this?”
“That’s what happened, right?”
“What do you want me to say? I already told you—”
“So, if that’s what happened, if this is all real, then I’m going to do what I have to do
to protect my son.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Maurice saw Leslie glance at them before
returning her attention to Belén.
“I’m sorry,” Bohdin said.
“You got nothing to be sorry for,” Maurice said. Bohdin went back to watching the
distant fire glow. He hadn’t touched Alexander since the grocery store parking lot.
Maurice looked at the bitten girl. He knew they’d have to deal with it soon, but the
night, the peace, the distance of the streets below—he breathed it in.
Sil touched chin to chest, dozing upright over Gabrielle, who looked jaundiced,
pale even for a white girl. She might become a problem later, but later wasn’t now. Time
thinned out like pulled taffy, things got slow, and Maurice found himself compulsively
looking at the clock on his phone. The battery was dying.
Damned smart phones drank up their batteries like an alcoholic hitting the gin.
He didn’t think it would last long into tomorrow. He tried once to get online, but nothing would load, the spinning “processing” icon never stopping. He felt as useless as his
phone.
It didn’t matter. The radio was spewing enough hellfire updates. There was no one to
call, anyway, yet for some reason he still cared. He lived life with his phone permanently
affixed to his hand, feeling lost and naked whenever he accidentally left it at home. It was
a small comfort.
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Their little group talked in patches, piping up when the silence closed in, but mostly
they just listened. The Spanish station went off the air, and the old man let loose a string
of words that could only be curses.
The station had been recycling the same news reports over and over, some with English sound bites that only added to the confusion, when it went dark. Stations had gone
down all afternoon as fearful staff abandoned their soundboards and studios, but losing
the last Spanish station scared them.
Belén told Leslie that the woman who’d been broadcasting for the last two hours had
said that she was alone—everyone else had left the station. Before signing off, she said
that she would try to reach her family.
Leslie was able to get them to switch to an English station, promising to work with
Rosa to keep everyone informed. She had found her way to cope, Alexander and the radio
keeping hand and mind active enough, even when sitting still.
They were so damned close, but he was nervous. Traffic was at a standstill, and it
would not be long before they’d abandon the truck where it sat. He felt somewhat safe
here, but an overpass could be walked up as easily as driven. There were so many cars on
the road, so many people, giving them all the illusion of safety. He tried not to question
it too hard.
“What are we going to do,” Leslie said, leaning in close to Maurice, whispering.
“I wish I knew. I don’t think this truck is going anywhere.”
“I’m talking about this.” She touched her legs, and he remembered the scratches
she’d received. “Close contact.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he could still smell the naked man’s crap, could still feel the
thing’s stinking flaccid dick pressed to his face as they struggled.
“Maybe they’re wrong,” she said, hopeful. “The news. Maybe they don’t know what
they’re talking about.”
He shrugged, and Leslie eased away. Bohdin had fallen asleep. He twitched and
grunted.
Static consumed most of the radio stations; many that remained simply cycled
through the same news clips over and over. Even the big national broadcasts started to
dwindle, the intrepid or attention-hungry staying on, hoping for a Pulitzer or just not
knowing what else to do. Many stations looped the final address President Obama gave
before leaving the White House for an undisclosed location. Once he’d told America goodbye the local governments followed suit, vanishing like thieves in the night.
“We’re going to have to decide where we want to wind up,” Bohdin said, opening his
eyes.
“Has anyone ever really been into Northern Louisiana?” Maurice said. “I don’t think
I’ve ever been out past Baton Rouge.”
“I’ve never had to make a more difficult decision in my life, much less my Presidency,” the tinny voice of Obama said through rattling speakers. Julio and Belén hugged
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one another in the cab, their hands clasped together. Julio whispered in her ear as she
cried. He punctuated each sentence with a kiss on her ear.
“How old is this?” Maurice said, motioning with his head to the cab of the truck, to
the radio.
“I would like to say I made this decision after much debate, after much prayer and
soul searching, but this crisis has unfolded abruptly and unraveled the very fabric of our
nation with a terrifying speed I would have never thought possible.”
“A few hours, I think.” Leslie said. “The sun was still up.”
“The government is closed,” Bohdin smiled. “They rolled up the carpet to the White
House, to be reopened from an undisclosed location—a safe location—later in the week.
It must be nice.”
“I’ve been as far north as Independence, a few miles above Hammond, up 55,” Leslie
said, ignoring Bohdin. “More isolated than here, still lots of stuff, grocery and whatnot.”
“Too many people?” Maurice asked.
“How many is too many?” She shrugged.
“In a single day,” the pre-recorded voice of the President said, “We’ve witnessed cities
burning. Police, fire departments, hospitals—those essential services on which we rely
in moments of crisis, themselves in peril, unable to respond to a nation crying out for
salvation.”
“I guess this first part is decided for us. We’re getting out of here,” Maurice said.
“There’s no going back, no staying. Maybe we can find someplace isolated along the
way.”
“That’s the problem, “Bohdin said. “We’re bringing the city with us. There’s not going
to be an isolated anything by the time we get to it.”
Sil bobbed her head, waking for a second, her exhaustion winning out.
“Worst of all, even our homes, the places to which we flee to when we have nowhere
else to go, are no longer safe. Those infected with what some are calling the Madness are
coming into our homes and attacking us. I am a President with no answer, no place to tell
you to go and be safe.”
“There’s another issue,” Leslie said. “Gas. Look at all these cars. What the hell are we
going to do when we run out of gas? We might just wind up stuck out on the highway.”
Maurice hadn’t considered that until now. Even if the gas stations hadn’t been wiped
clean yet, they would be soon. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen when a few
thousand drivers began fighting over the last few gallons of gas.
“It is for these reasons that I have issued an executive order to kill on sight any individual who is infected, to kill on sight anyone who has been bitten by someone infected.
If you are bitten, you will die. You will come back. You will kill.”
Leslie stopped, glancing over at Sil, who was asleep. Maurice looked at Gabrielle. It
was nothing they hadn’t all been thinking, but hearing it out loud gave it weight. There
would be no miracle. They would have to deal with Gabrielle. He didn’t know what Julio
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would do when he found out they were carrying an infected person with them.
“We’ll go as far as they will take us,” Maurice said, looking at Leslie. She looked east,
her eyes red with the promise of more tears, and he cursed himself. He’d forgotten about
her mother.
“Listen,” he said, because he had to say something. “I’m—”
“Forget it. We tried.”
He stared at her, and the look in her eyes said it all: the subject had been changed.
“We might find ourselves walking again,” Leslie said. “And soon.”
“We’ll do what we have to.”
“With the nation calling out to the government, to the President, ‘help us,’ all I can
do is ask you, the people of the United States, to help me. Be good to one another. When
you call 911, no one will come. When you are attacked, no one will come. When you are
trapped, lost, or helpless, no one will come. Be good to one another. All you have now is
each other.”
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16
They took turns sleeping, always leaving one awake to keep vigil, to watch Gabrielle. In
the night they even took turns behind the wheel, for those fits and starts when traffic
inched forward, giving Julio and Belén a chance to sleep. The truck cab became a respite
from mosquitoes that took to the hunt on the stagnant night air.
They had managed some forward movement through the night, creeping past an
off-ramp. They tensed up as they drew close. There had been gunfire in the early night
and the car-to-car chatter was that the dead were starting to come up the exits and entrances. Some people cried, some prayed, others added that fear to the hundred pound
nightmares pressing down upon their thoughts.
One of the few radio stations playing current reports had mentioned nationwide
gridlock. In the bigger cities—Houston, Los Angeles, Orlando, there were riots on the
highways, people stealing food and supplies from one another. Bohdin hadn’t seen anything of the sort, but didn’t doubt it was happening, or soon would be.
There were few broadcasts coming out of New Orleans or Louisiana as a whole. Some
tried to stay on air without a crew, but with fewer and fewer people reporting from the
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street and no further words from most of the government, there was little left to say.
Bohdin was amazed at how quickly the system had failed. It had only been a single
day, and not even a whole one. He was sure there were people in their cars with laptops
and satellite cards scouring the internet, but they weren’t advertising the fact. Probably
best. He’d tried to get online with his phone again during a couple of quiet moments, and
succeeded for about forty-five seconds before it simply stopped responding. He didn’t
have a satellite card and didn’t know if they had the same congestion problems.
Many kept trying to make calls on their phones. Even Maurice made an occasional
attempt, lending his phone to Leslie as well, her having the same lack of any kind of
luck.
Somewhere along the way, people had stopped following the yellow and white lines in
the road. At points along the three-lane stretch of I-10, cars were packed in five across.
There were armed men outside of their cars, milling around the nearest exit.
Bohdin shot Maurice a glance. “This is it,” he said. He watched Julio, wondering if he’d
be able to wrestle the shotgun out of his sun-blackened hands. The shotgun and the old
man’s hands looked like old friends.
“Wait,” Maurice said. “They’re pointing away from the road.”
He was right. Their backs were to the Interstate. There were too many shadows to
make out any details, aside from the fact that they were three men, all with handguns.
One of them fired off a couple of rounds.
Rosa crept the truck past the Williams Boulevard exit lane. The gridlock continued
down the exit lanes in a snake two cars wide. Bohdin stood in the truck bed to get a better
vantage. Headlights strung out like Christmas lights along the road ahead. A body lay on
the side of the road, cars almost scraping against it. It wasn’t moving.
“God,” Maurice said. Ahead of them, black smoke billowed from the airport. Flames licked
at the night sky. The scattered and twisted remains of a large passenger plane burned
upon one of the runways. The air reeked of smoke.
They got past the airport, and traffic once more came to a halt. They approached the
Loyola exit. Beyond it, several miles of I-10 stretched across the marshlands to the south
of Lake Pontchartrain.
Sometime around 2 a.m., an hour or so after coming to a halt atop the Loyola Drive
overpass, Julio rested his shotgun in his lap, barrel poking out of the open window, and
pulled an old harmonica out of his shirt pocket. He played. Those who were awake stopped
talking to listen to a folksy tune Bohdin didn’t recognize.
After a while, people nearby rolled down their windows. One father got out of his
car and held his daughter in his arms. She’d been crying, eyelids pink and puffy. She kept
pointing to the blue truck, to Julio. It would be easy now, Bohdin thought, eyeing the old man
in the truck. I could touch the barrel to the window and paint his dashboard.
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Even Sil seemed a little more alive, swaying to the tune, gently rocking Gabrielle back
and forth in her lap.
A few of the restless or brave or lonely left their cars and stood near the truck. A
young man with black, greased-flat hair passed out water in Styrofoam cups from a gallon
jug, passing one to Bohdin. It was warm, unfiltered—the Kentwood jug having been replaced with tap water—and delicious.
Five Latino men came to the truck and chatted in Spanish to Rosa and Belén while
Julio played. They pointed to their van a dozen or so cars ahead. The men were all younger,
around Bohdin’s age. He tried to tell himself not to worry about it, that they weren’t planning to overthrow the truck. Julio played for almost an hour, closing his eyes, falling into a
rhythm. One of the men, Bohdin thought he’d heard him called Dimás, joined in, singing.
Belén seemed delighted by this. He’d wished Leslie would ask her what the song was, a
familiar tune Dimás’s mother had used to sing away the sting of a skinned knee, perhaps,
but she seemed content to just listen.
One song flowed into the next, and when he finally stopped there was a smattering
of applause. Bohdin saw a young couple share a chaste kiss in the dark. A child’s laugh
carried in the night from somewhere. He heard a few people playing music in other cars,
from their radios, giving the news a rest.
Bohdin put his face in his hands and sobbed, body heaving out long cries.
Maurice slid closer to Bohdin, put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. In the corner of his
eye, Paul sat on the rim of the truck bed, his eyes black marbles reflecting the burn of the
cigarette clenched between his exposed teeth. His dead brother laughed once.
“Faggots.”
15 5
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Thanks for reading this preview of the newest novels from Print Is Dead.
We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please feel free to share this PDF with
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