by Urban, Tony
Until Arkansas.
That had changed everything. And the fact that she was the only person in the whole bunch of them who seemed to see the horror in what happened scared her even more. Would God really support sending in zombies to eat women and children? Grady said they were purging them of their sins, but what sins did little boys not even old enough for Little League have that were worth dying over?
She spotted Grady sitting cross-legged and motionless in the middle of nothing. She knew he was praying. Or listening, maybe. Getting his orders from God.
It's funny, she thought. Before the plague, if people passed a dirty, homeless man on the street corner, one who was shouting about how God told him this and God told him that, everyone thought he was insane or ignored him entirely. But now, that same type of character wasn't only listened to, but believed. Was there a good reason for that change?
Although she'd been quiet as a mouse, Grady turned to her as if he knew he was being watched. He smiled, that pinched-lipped, barely there smirk that used to seem boyish but now seemed somehow malevolent. "Come. Sit with me, Juli."
She didn't want to, but she did, of course.
There was nothing but silence between them for the first minute. Nothing but sitting and staring into the desert where the cacti were being backlit by the rising sun. She wondered if he expected her to speak, but while she tried to come up with something worth saying, he broke the silence.
"It's close now."
Juli looked at him, but he didn't meet her gaze. "What’s close?"
"The end. The rapture, some might call it."
"That's where we all turn into spirits and float up to Heaven?" She hoped that didn't come out as sarcastic as she thought it did.
"In a way. It won't happen just like that, but the final result will be the same. We'll get our rewards for doing God's work."
"Reward?" Juli thought it an odd comment. Grady cared about nothing. Certainly not rewards.
He finally looked her way, that same small smirk on his face. "You'll see. I promise."
It wasn't unusual for Grady to be vague on the details and Juli was never sure if that was because he didn’t want to share everything God supposedly showed him, or because he was making everything up as he went along. She thought the truth was a coin flip. "I hope I do see it, Grady. Because lately, I'm... I'm struggling."
"I know this has been a long and difficult journey. I don't tell you enough but thank you for everything you've done. Everything you continue to do. You believed in me when no one else did and I'll never be able to repay you for that."
"I don't want repaid. I just need to know that this has been worth something."
Grady laid his hand on her knee. His eyes were almost painfully earnest. "It has! Of course it has! We're doing what God demanded when no one else had the courage to stand up and say, 'Yes, Father, I will do as you command!' When everything else was running or trying to restart that damned, forsaken world, we were the ones who said, 'No, we know there's something better. We believe our Lord has a plan!' That's not something. That's everything. You have to believe that."
Juli wanted to believe. She wanted that more than anything and inside she prayed that God would speak to her the way he'd supposedly spoken to Grady. Because, if there was ever a time in her life that she needed to know the truth, it was now.
Chapter 42
The night prior, Fernando had told the men about the people who ran Shard End. Saw and Mitch. From their descriptions, Wim had been relatively certain he knew them from the attack on the Ark and when Fernando gave their names, Aben confirmed this.
As a result, the men knew the town they were now approaching was not only hard, but quite possibly deadly. Fernando had promised to vouch for them and Wim believed he would, but he knew he'd never fully trust Mitch after his double-agent stunt on the Ark. And, if Saw was as insane as Aben had described him to be, they very well may be riding to their executions.
To say the plan was risky was an understatement.
The first thing Wim saw when they entered Shard End was Mina Costell's head impaled on a spike. It was not a good omen.
"Holy hell!" Mead yelled behind him. "Is that Mina?"
Wim hadn't seen her in a few years, but he was certain it was. He didn't even need to double check it against the wedding photo he kept tucked into his back pocket. The woman he'd considered a friend stared at him with gray, glazed over eyes. Her mouth opened and shut with low rumbles escaping through her dried out, blackened lips.
Wim spun toward Fernando, hand on his revolver. "What's going on here?"
Fernando, who sat behind Aben, sharing his horse, thrust his hands in the air and the look on his face showed he was almost as surprised about this as Wim. "I don't know. That's Saw's wife. Or, she was when I left."
"Then what's her head doing on a stick?" Wim asked.
"I have no idea. Honest to God."
"Fucking shit!" Mead hopped off the donkey. "If those zombie cult motherfuckers beat us here and killed everyone, I'm going to have an aneurysm."
"There's no sign of that."
Mead turned and saw Wim had also dismounted. "Another severed head isn't a sign?"
Wim pointed to the ground. "Down there, I mean. All the scrubby little weeds are still perked up, not flat on the ground. When that lot rolls through, everything in its way gets trampled. Besides, there's no way they could have beat us here."
"Then what happened to her?"
Wim stepped to Mina's undead head. He held his hand toward it and flinched when her jaws snapped shut. He looked to the other men. "Let's go in town and find out."
They all elected to walk in, leading the horses and donkey by their ropes. Prince trotted along with them like he was part of the gang and Wim supposed he'd earned that right.
Along the way they passed several more zombies impaled on metal shafts and still as alive as zombies could be, but Fernando provided an explanation for those. Wim thought it a gruesome one, but the Mexican had already forewarned them that this was a hard place. And Wim knew he would need hard men to fight beside him if they had any real chance of coming out victorious.
He was still shaken up about Mina as they entered town, wondering how she'd come to such an end. All the while though, he remembered how she left the Ark, running off with their attackers. He supposed it shouldn't surprise him that such a path wouldn't lead anywhere good.
Ahead of them, they saw a few dozen house trailers, motor homes, and RVs parked haphazardly. As far as towns went, it wasn't much. Men and women stared at them from the stoops and alleys, and as the men passed by, Wim felt like he was some sort of zoo exhibit, on display for all these people to gawk at. He felt like things could take a bad turn at any moment.
Fernando made a slight detour to a large motorhome, the kind that Wim thought Emory would have enjoyed if he was still alive, and tapped on the door. It opened, and a face Wim could never forget, came into view.
The man Wim had known as Wayne, the man whose life he'd saved when he found him with a face full of infection back in West Virginia, didn't see him initially. He was too busy speaking to Fernando, but as they talked, he looked toward the other men.
Mitch pushed past Fernando and came toward them. The boy he'd been on the Ark was gone, replaced with several inches in height and a man's gravity in his eyes. Wim thought he was coming to him or maybe Aben, but instead he crouched down and smacked his hips.
"Prince!" He called, and the dog's ears perked up. The dog stared at him a moment, then took a halting step forward. "Hey, Prince"!
Prince looked from Mitch, then up at Aben who nodded. "Go ahead." The dog broke into a run and launched himself at Mitch, his front paws landing on his shoulders as he licked Mitch's scarred face.
Mitch ruffled the dog's fur, then put his arms around him and pulled him in even closer. "I missed you, buddy." The dog kept licking, his tail going back and forth rapid fire. Wim realized, with considerable surprise, that Mitch was crying.
"Mitch," Aben said with a slight nod.
Mitch extended his hand, but the look on his face said he didn't expect the gesture to be returned. "I've got to admit, I never expected to see you here."
"I'd suspect not since you and Saw sent me off, pretty near naked, to turn into a popsicle." Aben didn't take his hand and Mitch eventually shoved it in his pocket.
"Yeah," Mitch said. "I know this doesn't mean shit, but I'm real glad you made it."
"As am I."
Leading up to this, Wim had thought the men might come to blows, but that didn't happen. They weren't more than cordial, but it fell far short of the anger and violence he'd fretted about.
Then Mitch came to him.
"Hey, Wim. How have you been."
"Around," Wim said. "You?"
Mitch shrugged his shoulders. "We've got a nice set up here. Rough, but everyone's out in the open about that. Not like on the Ark."
"I wouldn't use comparisons to the Ark if you're trying to say anything good."
"I'm not. I just mean..."
"I know." Wim could feel the man's nerves and wanted to get past this awkward phase as fast as possible. "You healed up nice."
Mitch subconsciously tucked his chin and tilted his face down, an angle that made the scars less noticeable. "Thanks."
Mead stepped into the mix. "I heard you were a real son of a bitch. But the past is the past and we've got some crazy important shit to deal with. I'm Mead."
Mitch looked his way and took Mead's outstretched hand. "Mitch, but I guess you know that."
"I do. Now take us to your buddy Saw so we can have ourselves a serious discussion."
Wim admired Mead's candor and, apparently, Mitch did too because he smiled and nodded. "Follow me."
Saw listened to the men's story but found it hard to focus. He'd been missing Mina something fierce. Even if she was a lying, murderous bint, he loved her. Missed her too. Occasionally he'd venture to the outskirts of town and stare at her head and talk to her. She'd hiss and growl and snap her jaws and even though that wasn't that far off from their conversations when she was alive, it simply wasn't the same.
He was thinking about her when he realized the room had gone silent and all eyes were on him. He didn't know if they'd asked him a question or were waiting for his general opinion on matters but knew he needed to say something.
"Well, one things for damned sure, I ain't gonna sit here playing tiddlywinks while some religious loony bird sets off to conquer the world."
He watched them, examined them to see if his answer would belie his daydreaming, but it seemed to work.
"Then you'll join us?" Wim asked.
Saw grinned, part from relief that no one had caught on, but also because the notion of a war seemed like the perfect thing to take his mind off his lost lover. "Of course. I never did like that mousy, little bastard and his pity me attitude."
The plans came together quickly after that. Saw thought the odds of it succeeding were slim, but he was never one to let common sense get in the way of violence. Besides, what good was living if you were going to behave like a cowed dog and run away from opposition. Better to take it head on and deal with the consequences.
After everything was settled, Saw pulled Aben aside while the others left his house. "A word, Aben? If you don't mind."
"It's never a word with you, Saw, but I'll listen nonetheless."
They sat on the front porch, something Saw could actually enjoy now that the days weren't a hundred degrees. It wasn't cool, damp Birmingham, but it was bearable. He offered Aben a stale beer and Aben accepted.
They each drank for a spell before the conversation got started.
"I got to say, I don't think much of this plan, "Saw said, breaking the silence. "You really think you got a chance with the little weirdo?" That was the first part of the plan. Mitch and Aben, who had spent a few months Grady at the outset of the plague were to go to him and try the diplomatic tact before all hell broke loose.
"Not particularly."
"So why bother?"
"Because it's the only chance of avoiding a whole lot of people dying." Aben looked out toward the end of town were Saw's growing display of impaled dead stood out of sight. "Not that you'd concern yourself with such moral quandaries."
Saw chuckled. "Everyone dies sooner or later. Don't see why the date matters so much."
"Probably because most people want to live as long as possible."
"Most people never live in the first place. They're too fooking scared of everything. Of everyone. They exist and nothing more." Saw finished off his beer and chucked the bottle into the yard. It collided with a rock and shattered. "You think I give a fook when I die? I don't. Because I've really lived. I do it every day."
"That's a unique perspective."
"Words to live by," Saw said.
"Or die by."
"Either or."
Aben took a small sip and Saw watched him swish the beer around in his mouth before spitting it onto the porch.
"I'm glad you're alive, you know."
"I rather doubt that," Aben said.
"It's true. When you walked in here I about shat myself. I knew you were one tough bastard, but I didn't expect that."
"Oh, I'd cashed in my chips and was waiting to die when Mead came along. Another half hour, I'd have been an icy speed bump, all courtesy of you."
"I always liked you and still do. If I didn't, I wouldn't a given you no chance at all."
"It wasn't much of a chance."
"But you're still here, aren't you? If you need reminding what happens to people I'm really upset with, stop by the head of my most recently betrothed and introduce yourself."
Aben set his half empty beer to the side and stood. "I'd like to say it's been good chatting with you, Saw, but..." He stepped off the porch and started toward town.
"Aben?"
The big man turned back, reluctant.
"Be careful, when you go to Grady. It's easy to underestimate a crazy man. Especially one who believes his own bullshit."
"You'd know."
"I'm not crazy. Just mean's all."
"I won't disagree with the latter."
Saw smiled, one so sincere it would have been charming if not for his decayed, broken teeth.
"And, take care of Mitchy for me if ya will. Don't let nuffin bad happen to him, aw right?"
Aben nodded, slow. "I'll try."
"He's a good lad."
"Let's agree to disagree on that. At least for now."
Saw thought that was fair enough. He watched Aben leave the property and head toward town, knowing in the morning he and Mitch would be gone. He hoped he hadn't seen the last of the both of them.
Chapter 43
"I can't believe you've been riding that horse for all this time and you never bothered to give her a name. It's like Prince all over again," Mitch said. "What is it with you and names anyway?"
They'd set off at dawn and were making good time, but conversation had been limited to the bare necessities until Mitch had asked about his horse. Aben glanced sideways, taking in Mitch who was riding Mead's donkey, and shrugged his shoulders, telling him the horse had no name. That reminded him of some old song lyrics and he smiled. Apparently, Mitch took that smile as an invitation to strike up a conversation and, while Aben wasn't overly interested in such trivialities, especially with Mitch, there was no sense being rude.
"She knows 'whoa' and 'go'. Expanding her vocabulary further might be apt to confuse her," Aben said. "And to save you from asking, that donkey remains nameless too."
"Maybe I'll name it."
"I see no one standing in your way."
Mitch managed to keep his mouth shut for almost a whol
e minute before barking out, "Jack!"
Aben only shook his head. "That's a little on the nose, don't you think?"
"Better than not having a name at all."
"I can't recall one single time in my life when having a name made a bit of difference. And I'm a man, not an animal."
Mitch laughed.
"I didn't realize I was being humorous."
"That's from that old black and white movie. The Elephant Man." He gave his voice a lower tenor and a bad British accent. "I am not an animal! I am a human being!"
Aben stared at him blank-faced. "Never saw it." He lied. He didn't want to be Mitch's friend. Mitch almost got him and his dog killed years earlier and he had few doubts the boy would do the same again if it meant saving his own skin.
"It was good. A little sad though."
Aben thought that was about as much empathy as the boy possessed. Then he needed to remind himself that Mitch wasn't a boy any more. He was twenty-one years old, older than Aben had been the first time he was shipped overseas with a gun and a uniform to fight in a war he still didn't understand.
They rode the next five hours in silence. Aben preferred that but it didn't last.
"If it makes any difference, I'm sorry" Mitch said.
"Why? Did you pass gas?"
Mitch smirked. "You know."
"I suppose."
Mitch broke eye contact, staring into the desert ahead. Aben could almost see the wheels turning inside the boy's head.
"I was scared, I guess. About leaving Saw."
"He's just a man," Aben said.
"I know. But he's... He believed in me. That's more than my parents ever did."
Aben saw genuine emotion on the boy's face, and as much as he'd have enjoyed dragging Saw's name through the mud for the rest of the day, he knew that would serve no purpose other than making himself feel good. Mitch and Saw were two sides of the same coin. And maybe that coin was a wooden nickel, but nevertheless, they were inseparable.
