by Urban, Tony
It seemed to happen in slow motion. A spray of black liquid. White shards of skull soaring like pieces of a shattered dinner plate. Clumps of dull, gray brain raining down.
The little boy's body stood there for a moment, his tiny fists opened and closed. Opened and closed. Grasping at nothingness. And then it collapsed.
Grady suddenly had spit in his mouth and all he could do was scream. "No!"
"Oh, Christ on a pony, what the fuck is going on?" Dash said as he watched the man he'd thought was a zombie run to the dead boy. The man scooped up pieces of his brain and shoved it into what remained of his head.
"My God..." was all Bolivar could get out.
The man gathered together bits of bone and hair and tried to sculpt it into some semblance of a head, but everything from the boy's nose up was gone.
"Oh, fuck." Dash ran his hands through his buzz cut and rocked back and forth on his feet. "Oh, fuck; oh, fuck. Make him stop that, Bol. He's gotta stop doing that."
The man unleashed a scream so mournful that it sent goosebumps racing across Bolivar's flesh. "No!"
"Should I shoot him?" Dash asked.
Bolivar turned to him, angry at first, but when he saw Dash's face had lost all its color and that his eyes were brimming with tears, the anger vanished. "No. Just sit down and wait."
Dash did so without another word. Bolivar and Aben exchanged a pained look.
"You saw him, right?" Bolivar asked.
Aben nodded. "The kid was dead. Had to be."
They looked back to the carnage and saw the man clutching the headless boy in his arms, his entire body convulsing in sobs.
"Will you come with me? I don't think I can do this alone?"
Aben nodded again. "Of course."
The two of them went to Grady, who had yet to see them. Bolivar knelt at his side. "Sir. Sir, can you look at me?"
Grady stared at his twice dead son until Bolivar put his hand on his shoulder. When he met his gaze, Bolivar immediately regretted that. The man's eyes were bulging and full of pain. His face was contorted into a mask of agony.
"Josiah." He didn't say anything else, but his arms squeezed the boy's body even harder than before and Bolivar realized that was the boy's name.
"Was he your son?"
Grady gave one small nod and fell silent, aside from the weeping.
Bolivar couldn't stand looking at him or the dead boy any longer. He turned to Aben. "What are we going to do with him?"
Aben too looked away from the broken man. "What a mess."
Bolivar didn't say anything. That summed it up perfectly.
After several minutes, Grady had either exhausted himself from crying or gone catatonic. The men couldn't determine which.
Aben pried him away from Josiah's corpse and led him to the car. Along the way, he noticed the bite on Grady's arm and pointed it out to Bolivar.
"You think his kid did that?"
Bolivar saw the wound was large, but dotted around the edges with small teeth marks. He nodded. "I'd say so."
"Then why hasn't he turned?"
It was a good question, but Bolivar couldn't answer it. Everyone he'd seen bitten thus far became a zombie in short order. He wished he could talk to the man, but his eyes were as vacant as a zombie. Maybe it was a delayed reaction.
"It would probably be wise to bind his hands and feet. Just in case."
Aben nodded in agreement. After doing that, they deposited Grady into the back-seat of the car. Dash turned his head so he didn't need to look at the man whose son he'd just murdered.
They headed south.
Chapter 30
Ungrateful assholes, Mead thought as he sped along the road. He was tempted to keep driving and never return. Just let that bastard and his new girlfriend fend for themselves. Bundy was probably down to a handful of bullets. When he ran out, where would they be without Mead to save the day? Fucked, that's where.
As tempted as he was to drive solo into the sunset, the warehouse was a good location. One he found. Why should they get to reap the benefits of his hard work? After he'd spent an hour checking every square inch of the warehouse, he returned to the lobby to see Bundy and Mina practically making out on the couch.
In the morning, they were both still asleep when Mead woke, ready to hit the road and scavenge. He was fine with his hockey stick, but they needed weapons. He also knew they needed more food since the night prior, Bundy and Mina treated their meager supplies like a smorgasbord. Mead felt like he was back at the restaurant.
That morning, he'd given Bundy a hard poke in the chest and the big man's eyes fluttered. Mead asked him if he wanted to come along, but Bund only grunted and said, "Maybe later." Mead didn't bother talking to the woman as she'd looked at him like he had a full body herpes outbreak the whole night prior.
Mead was fine being on his own. At least, that's what he told himself. As the speedometer crept over a hundred miles-per-hour, he saw the zombies.
There were dozens of them all crowded around a dinky, six-room roadside motel with a blindingly bright yellow roof. He didn't know why they were all so eager to chill at the yellow roof inn, but that didn't matter. He needed to take out his frustration on something.
The Pirelli tires shrieked as Mead skidded to the stop at the outer edges of the pothole ridden parking lot. He was out of the vehicle and armed with his stick before the engine could stop purring.
The zombies hadn't missed his grand entrance and the mass of them shuffled in his direction. Bring it, fuckers.
The leader of the pack was a bald man in mechanic's overalls. Mead trotted toward him, twirling the stick end for end like a cheerleader in a halftime show, and as soon as it was close enough, he sliced the zombie's head off.
Next up was a woman with a yellow name tag reading, "Beth - Asst. Manager," and with the knife end of the stick he punched a ticket through her forehead. After that, he did a sweet spinning move and killed two zombies, one on each end of his weapon.
After Mead mowed through twenty of the creatures, he saw two men vacate a motel room. They ran toward an old Bronco and the younger of the two dove into the cab.
They're going to run off after I did all the hard work? Is everyone who survived this plague an asshole? He was starting to believe so.
Another zombie moved close enough to kill. This one was a teenage boy with a messy quiff of hair and ridiculously good looks. The kind of guy who made Mead's life miserable in school. Probably rich, too. The prick.
Mead slammed the shaft of the stick into the zombie's face and took great pleasure in feeling the reverberations of the breaking bones. It felt so damned good.
He stood over the teenage zombie, raised the stick above his head like a spear and slammed the knife end through the kid's nose. Not such a pretty boy any more.
Mead glanced up and saw seven more zombies moving toward him but, just as he moved in to keep fighting, a gunshot rang out and one fell. Then another. And another. And another. In less than ten seconds, they were all dead.
Mead saw the younger of the two men leaning against the Bronco. He set aside his rifle and gave Mead a big smile and wave as he jogged toward him.
The other man, who Mead thought looked almost old enough to get a "Happy Birthday" on the Today Show, followed, albeit much more slowly.
The white man looked like a country bumpkin, with his flannel shirt and generic blue jeans, but when he reached Mead, he gave him an embrace strong enough to make his ribs hurt.
"We thought it was time to say our goodbyes!" the man he would come to know as Wim said. "You saved our lives. No fooling."
When he released Mead, the other man had joined them. He didn't hug Mead, and for that Mead was grateful. They did shake hands. "I'm Emory, and this is Wim. Thank you."
"Mead. And you're welcome." Their gratitude was obvious. It felt good. And deserved. "How'd you get trapped in there?"
Wim shook his head, a sheepish look clouding his otherwise happy face. "My stupidity. We holed up f
or the night and I let all the guns in the truck. We didn't see any zombies when we got here. I don't know where they all came from."
Mead thought back to the fiasco at the town where he almost cashed in his own chips. "They have a way of doing that."
Wim looked at Mead's weapon with admiration. "That's pretty incredible. I never would have thought of that."
I should be with men like this, Mead thought. Smart people. Not thankless shitheads. "I've got a lot of mileage out of it."
"I bet," Wim said. "You were downright amazing."
Amazing was an adjective which wasn't typically associated with Mead unless it was followed up with something like "failure" or "fuck up" or "loser." He grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
That smile faltered when the old man spoke up.
"Are you alone or have you met others?"
Lie. Tell them you haven't seen anyone else. Say you've been on your own. The others don't want you anyway. You know it's true.
But as angry as he felt over their treatment of him, he couldn't bring himself to abandon them. "I met a guy a few days ago. Bundy. And then we came across a woman in an ambulance. They're a little helpless, though."
Wim's eyes grew wide as saucers. "The woman, is she about eighteen?"
That's a weird question, Mead thought, but didn't say. "No. She's older. Around forty, I'd guess."
"Oh."
Mead thought the man looked disappointed, but he recovered quickly.
"Well, it's great there are more people out there. Me and Emory were starting to wonder."
"Yeah, they're the only two people I've found alive since this shit started." Aside from Wang Jie, of course, but he preferred not to think about him. "They're holed up in a warehouse maybe twenty miles from here. I've been out scouting the area, gathering food and supplies."
"You're a good man," Emory said.
Don't I know it. "Thanks, but I'm just doing what needs done. Do you guys have a plan? A place to go? Anything like that?"
Wim gazed down the road and Mead could tell he had a mission of some sort. "We're heading further south. Down through central West Virginia. After that, we'll see."
Mead thought he was holding back, but that was okay. It was smart. They'd just met and didn't know if they could fully trust each other yet. But Mead's gut told him to give them a chance. Shit, they were better than the two buffoons he was stuck with, that was for damn sure.
"Why don't you follow me back to the warehouse. It's a good place to get prepared and rest up."
Wim and Emory exchanged a look and nod.
"We'll take you up on that, Mead. Thank you," Wim said.
"Anytime. People need to watch out for each other."
The men climbed into the Bronco and fired it up while Mead returned to the BMW. He did a u-turn and lead the way.
Chapter 31
"Stop the car, Bol. I'm so damn hungry I could eat a horse and chase the jockey," Dash said from the passenger seat.
The sign ahead read, "Save-A-Bunch Grocery," and it appeared abandoned.
"Can't you wait a while? At least, until we need gas?" The tank was three quarters full and Bolivar thought they had a good chance of reaching the Greenbrier without needing a refill. The longer they drove, the more anxious he became to discover what or who they might uncover there.
"I'll be quick. But I gotta get something in my gut."
Bolivar was still angry at him for shooting the boy. He knew the anger was irrational. The boy was already dead. But the aftermath made it all so terrible. He blamed it on Dash for being trigger-happy. That was easier than blaming himself.
Aben leaned forward, poking his head between the seats.
"Go ahead and stop, Bol. All I've been able to feed this mutt for the last couple days is junk. It could use some actual dog food."
When Bolivar stopped the car, Dash bounded out and found the door unlocked.
"It's open, boys!"
"Obviously," Bol said.
Dash disappeared inside and Bol looked to Aben in the back-seat.
"You go on. I'll wait here and keep watch."
While they disappeared into the store, Bol checked on Grady. The little man sat still as a scarecrow. They'd removed the ties that bound him a few hours ago, content in the belief that his window for turning into a zombie had closed.
The man allowed his limbs to be manipulated like a doll and didn't respond in any way. He only stared ahead, vacant. The man had carried no wallet or identification, so Bol had no way of knowing his name was Grady O'Baker. All he knew was that the man's catatonic state was both tragic and unnerving.
Bol had little in the way of mental health training. All of his education was of the 'patch up their body so they can get back to fighting' variety. He wondered if it was possible for a person to become so distraught in grief and shock they simply went blank or whether that was a fabrication of the movies. He leaned toward the latter, but this man was changing his opinion.
While the others shopped, Jorge flopped into the backseat. The dog laid between them, its head on Grady's lap. Bol reached down and petted it. It looked up at him with big, worried eyes.
"Looks like you've got a buddy here."
Grady remained silent and motionless.
"Are you thirsty?"
No response.
Bol held the bottle to Grady's lips and tilted it slightly. Water leaked into his open mouth. He instinctively swallowed, but more fluid dribbled out his mouth than went down his throat. Bol gently wiped away what spilled.
"Sorry about that."
He noticed there were still smears of blood on Grady, so he took a cloth from his pocket, whetted it and cleaned him up. As he did, he rambled.
"I can't imagine the pain you're feeling. That was the most horrible thing a parent could see happen. I don't know if there's a way to recover from that, but if there is, we'll be here for you. We won't let anything happen to you. I promise you that."
He checked the bite wound on Grady's arm. It had stopped bleeding and a dark clot filled the ragged crevasse. He wrapped it back up.
"I'd say you're going to be just fine," he said. "Physically, anyway." The last part rushed out in a whisper.
He stared into those blank eyes. They weren't the dead eyes of a zombie — the pupils dilated and constricted — but they were every bit as blank. Bol waved his hand in front of Grady's face. Nothing. He snapped his fingers. Nada. He sighed and patted the man on the shoulder.
"If you're still in there, then I want to ask you to hang on. Things will get better."
Bolivar left the back-seat, closing the door behind him. He looked into the market and saw Dash and Aben through the big floor to ceiling glass windows that lined the storefront.
Dash had a shopping cart filled to the brim and he was still browsing. Aben had a fifty pound bag of dog food slung over his shoulder, and in his remaining hand, he carried an extra large dog bowl with rainbow colored paw prints all over it.
Bol popped the trunk of the car and took the bag from Aben when he exited the store. He slit the top open with his knife, then held his hand out for the bowl with a raised eyebrow.
Aben smirked. "Don't judge me. It was this or pink."
"If you say so."
Bol poured some food into the bowl and the noise of it drew the dog's attention. It popped its head out the window and both men heard its tail thumping against the seats. Bol handed the half full bowl to Aben.
"It's your dog. You do the honors."
Aben did and the dog gobbled it up. "Guess he likes this more than snack cakes."
Aben leaned his back against the car while the dog ate. Bol joined him and both waited for Dash.
"He say anything?" Aben asked with a slight nod toward the backseat.
Bolivar shook his head. "I think he might be gone."
Aben remained silent for a while, then spoke again. "It surprises you sometimes what people can come back from. Don't write him off just yet."
"I hope you're right."
"I don't know," Aben said as he stared toward the clouds in the sky. "Hell of a thing to live with. Don't know if I'd want to."
He had a point, but being a breathing shell was pretty awful, too.
"Your buddy there," Aben nodded toward the market, "This is gonna be real bad for him."
"I know."
Aben looked at him and Bolivar felt he was being examined. Because he was. "No, you don't."
Aben turned his body so he could look at Bolivar without having to strain his neck. "I know that makes me sound like an asshole, and I might be. Hell, almost certainly am. But you don't know. And I don't want you to take it like I'm judging you because I'd give my right hand to have been a medic like you and keep my gun in its holster all the time. Unless you're some fuckwit like Charlie Manson or John Wayne Gacy, killing is almost as hard on you as it is on the person you killed."
Bolivar thought of poor tormented Gwen Peduto who went to her grave distraught over a good deed gone horribly wrong.
"I'm just saying, Dash is a kooky son of a bitch and I know he can get on your last nerve because he gets on mine, too, but we need to cut him some slack."
"Okay. I will."
"Good." Aben suddenly grinned and the expression completely transformed his face. "You didn't even crack a smile when I said I'd give my right hand. That's a pretty big deal, considering it's the only one I got." He tapped Bolivar's shoulder with his stump.
Just as Bolivar smiled back, Dash vacated the store, pushing his overloaded shopping cart like it was a racecar. He almost crashed into them before pulling it back under control.
"I stocked us up good, boys!" He started tossing food into the open trunk. Canned goods mostly, but also cereals, various drinks and a box of something in small jars.
"What's that?" Bol asked.
"Oh." Dash popped open the box and pulled out a jar. "Baby food."
Bolivar looked at him like he was crazy and even Aben had trouble masking his confusion.
"It's for him." Dash pointed to Grady inside the car. "I know it sounds goofy, but I don't want him to go hungry, so I thought this might work. Least until he gets better."
