by Joe McKinney
That left only Jake, the coyote.
He was reaching for his own holstered pistol when Jessica stepped right in front of him and deliberately lowered her pistol to his groin before firing.
The man collapsed to his knees, his face stricken, mouth open in a scream that never quite left his throat.
It took me a moment to recover. Jessica stood over Jake, watching him writhe in agony. The two brothers were dead or dying. And the zombies were closing in.
“Jessica,” I said, snapping back into the moment. “Get in the truck.”
She didn’t answer me. She looked back over her shoulder to where the zombies were already entering the parking lot. They were seconds away now.
“You bastard,” she muttered to Jake.
I watched as she scooped up the dog collar from the pavement and clamped it around Jake’s neck. He tried to push her away, but he was in too much pain to do anything beyond a few feeble gestures. Next she took one of the leashes and clipped it onto Jake’s collar, pulled the free end to a light pole, and tied it off.
Jake groaned, trying to regain his feet. The zombies were close. Jessica turned away from him without another word and motioned me to get in the truck.
“Will you drive?” she said. “I don’t know if I remember how.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I jumped behind the wheel, slammed my door, and rolled up the window.
Jessica got in beside me.
I turned the ignition, and the sounds of a big block V8 roared to life just as Jake let out a terrified scream. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw him wrestling with the collar around his neck, his fingers shaking too badly to work the clasp. The next moment, half a dozen zombies fell upon him and his screams choked off.
“Go!”
“Where?” I asked. “They’re all around us.”
“Run them down. Hurry!”
I dropped the truck into reverse and punched it. We took off with a lurch. Tires barked on pavement. Several zombies were right behind us, and the truck shuddered as we ran them down. I kept my foot on the gas as we bounced over the curb and spun out in the middle of the road.
We paused there for a moment. The zombies in the parking lot were confused. Some were getting up from the three dead bodies of our abductors and starting after us.
I looked from them to Jessica.
“When did you take my gun?” I asked.
She kept her gaze forward, eyes hard flints of rage. “I’ve been raped before,” she said. “I made myself a promise no one would ever rape me again.”
I wasn’t mad. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t.
She took a deep breath, then put the Glock on the seat between us. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Stealing from someone is the most serious crime we’ve got out here.”
I left the gun where it was. “I’m lucky you were there.”
“Thanks,” she said. She pointed east. “Weimar’s that way.”
§
Before the Outbreak, Weimar was a town of some 2000 people. It had a Wal-Mart, a movie theater, a couple of motels, and a string of fast-food restaurants and gas stations clustered around an exit ramp off IH-10. Its survival depended on the traffic flowing between San Antonio and Houston, so the town had grown up in pretty much equal measure on both sides of the highway.
“You don’t think it’s strange, crossing here?”
“No. Why?”
“Well, I’d kind of thought we’d cross somewhere...I don’t know...a little less developed. Why do you suppose this is the place?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve asked you that already, haven’t I?”
“Yeah.”
I looked around, trying to see what made this place such a favorite crossing spot. But I still didn’t get it. I didn’t see anything that popped out at me. We’d made the trip to Weimar in no time in our newly acquired pickup, and we’d even managed to find a good campsite that afforded a view of the town and the wall. I saw a blasted war zone on our side, with at least a hundred zombies wandering the streets, and on the other side of the wall, a gently decaying, abandoned ghost town. The difference between the two parts of the town was striking.
“You done eating?” Jessica asked.
She sat by our camp fire, picking the meat off a rabbit’s leg bone.
We’d figured out how to use the assault rifle our former abductors had been kind enough to leave us, and a small, but quite delicious spit-roasted rabbit was the result. I stood there, watching her eat the first good meal we’d had in days, examining the town, and for a second it was easy to trust her. She had gotten me this far, after all.
But the feeling we were in way over our heads just wouldn’t go away. “You can have it,” I said, and went back to examining the town.
In the few hours since we’d made camp, I’d seen dozens of Quarantine Authority trucks racing up and down the length of the wall. I even saw a few helicopters wheeling overhead. Now, with dusk settling around us, the trucks were playing zombie moans over loudspeakers, and it was driving the zombies crazy.
“Why do they keep playing those sounds?” I asked.
“Augment their numbers, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s the term, a force-multiplier? With the zombies wandering around, it’s a lot harder for people to cross.”
I thought about that. “So that means they must know about this place? Do you think that’s true?”
“How should I know?”
“I can’t believe I haven’t heard anything about this. I mean, I researched the Quarantine Authority for months before coming on this trip.”
“I’m sure they don’t want to make it public knowledge.”
“I should think not.”
Jessica went back to her rabbit. She wasn’t letting any of it go to waste. I watched her work the meat from the bone with a thoroughness that only someone well acquainted with hunger could manage. By contrast, my own small pile of bones on the flat rock by my feet contained a fortune of meat. Not for the first time I realized that I was a long way from walking a mile in her shoes.
“Hey, I’ve got to pee,” I said.
“There’s a good place over there by the fence.” She pointed to the remnants of a white split-rail fence along the ridgeline where we’d camped. “Better take the pistol, though. Rattlesnakes are apt to come out at night.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
I didn’t see any rattlesnakes, which is good, because I don’t do well with snakes. Even still, I took my time doing my business, my butt down in the tall grass, my head full of at least a million reasons why crossing the wall in this place was a bad idea. But despite all my studying and all my knowledge of the technology the Quarantine Authority had at its disposal, something about Jessica’s simple faith in crossing at Weimar kept quieting my fears. She seemed so sure of herself. Maybe this was doable, I thought. Maybe all the people Jessica had heard of actually did find a way to the other side, and maybe all the rumors back in Free America were true. Maybe we really could do this.
By the time I was ready to start back, I’d made up my mind to follow her the whole way.
I rounded the old live oak that sheltered our campsite and was about to step into the circle of fading firelight when I heard voices. Jessica’s and someone else’s. A man’s voice.
I froze, my hand dropping to the pistol tucked into the front of my jeans.
I could only make out snippets of their conversation, but from the little I could hear I realized that I’d made a mistake. That wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a boy’s. A teenager. He sounded like he was fifteen or sixteen, a kid, but still close enough to a man to be dangerous. I had my hand on the pistol when I heard something behind me.
I spun around to see an older man and a dog staring at me.
“There’s no need for your gun, miss,” the man said. “I’m sure you ladies have seen your fair share, but my grandson and I are harmless. We’re not ar
med.”
“That doesn’t seem very smart.”
“Why in the world would I need a gun?”
The question caught me by surprise. I didn’t quite know what to say. I looked from him to the dog and back to the old man. I had nothing.
“What’s your dog’s name?” I finally said.
“Guthrie,” he said.
“Named for Arlo or Woodie?” It was the first thing that came to mind, but evidently, it was the right thing, for his smile grew wide.
“Both, actually. Nice to meet somebody who remembers the joys of good music.”
“My dad,” I said. “He was kind of an old hippie.”
“Sounds like someone I would have liked,” the man said. “My name is Frank. That’s my grandson over there talking to your friend. His name is Will.”
I nodded. I was starting to like this man, though my hand hadn’t gone far from the pistol tucked into my pants. It didn’t matter how nice his smile was. And certainly not after what had happened earlier.
“You mind if we go over to the campfire there?” he asked. “I’m a bit chilly.”
“Sure,” I said, turning to allow him a path to the fire. “Lead the way.”
We entered the campsite and I took up a position next to Jessica. I could tell from her body language that this was a good thing, that she wasn’t afraid of these men. It wasn’t like before, when she spent long stretches of silence trying to shrink into herself, contemplating whatever lay beyond her death. This was different. There actually seemed to be mirth in her eyes as she listened to the old man tell of what had led them here.
They were coyotes. That they admitted from the start. In fact, they told us they had just come from a successful trip across the wall, for they knew of a good spot to cross.
Frank liked to talk, and as he was the first coyote I’d met who wasn’t a drunken rapist with bad teeth, I started asking him questions. I was worried he’d be offended, but I think he was actually kind of amused by the whole interview process.
“Wasn’t much of a stretch for us,” he said. “Will here was living with me on my ranch about twenty miles from here. I’ve had a flag flying off my doorstep since I came back from Vietnam, and when the government started building the wall, Will and I, we did our part. We even helped those sons a bitches put up some of it. The way I saw it, it was my patriotic duty.
“Course then everything went to hell. I figured even an officer coulda told we wasn’t infected, but they locked us up anyway. I couldn’t believe it. I stood there on the Zone side of the wall and carried on a twenty-minute conversation with a major, and all I got was fucked.”
He looked at us then and actually blushed.
“Er, I’m sorry about my language, ladies. I don’t usually talk that way in front of women. But it gets a fella awful mad thinking about it.”
After what Jessica and I had just been through, I wanted to laugh.
But instead I said, “So you two became coyotes. How many people have you helped across?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at his grandson, as if he might know, but the boy just shrugged. “I guess we’ve taken, what, a couple hundred?”
“A couple hundred?” I said. “No.”
“About that,” Frank agreed. “We don’t work cheap, though.” He said it almost as an afterthought. “We’re in this for the greater good and all, but we still gotta live, you know?”
“How about a truck?” Jessica said.
The directness of her offer surprised me. I gave her a questioning look, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She was looking right at Frank.
“We have a Ford pickup, with a quarter tank of gas. Get us across and it’s yours.”
Frank seemed as stunned as I was. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. He looked to his grandson, then back to Jessica. “Where is this pickup of yours?”
“About a hundred yards down the rise there, behind a clump of hackberry.”
Frank smiled. He didn’t believe us. “That might be okay. You mind if we see it?”
§
Frank’s expression changed as we pulled the vegetation away from the truck. He recognized it. That much was obvious right from the start.
“Where did you get this?” he said. The good-natured friendliness was gone from his voice now. He was suddenly alert, scanning the dark landscape all around us for signs of trouble.
“They won’t come looking for it,” Jessica said. She reached inside the cab and pulled out one of the assault rifles Tommy and Jake had left behind. “I can guarantee you that.”
“You took this from them?” Frank asked.
“Like I said, they won’t come looking for it,” Jessica said.
She let that one sit for a moment. The two looked uncertain, maybe even a little frightened. Clearly the men Jessica had dealt with so handily had had reputations. But eventually, their uncertainty was replaced by a grudgingly offered respect and renewed curiosity. We had changed in their eyes.
“You’ll give us this?”
“You’ll get us across?” Jessica countered.
Frank paused for a long moment, then smiled. “We can do that.”
“Then the truck is yours.”
“Okay then.” He nodded at his grandson. “I guess we have a deal.”
§
I got frightened by how quickly things happened after that.
I’ve always been the kind who plans ahead. When I go on trips, I have a schedule laid out. I’ve done my research. I know what to see and how to get there and how much I’m supposed to pay.
But now, as Will explained to us how this was going to work, I felt panicky. My heart raced. Where were the details? I had tons of questions, and none of them were getting answered.
Jessica, meanwhile, seemed to take it all in stride. She listened to Will with a detached air I found unnerving. I couldn’t believe she was so calm about it, like we were discussing plans for dinner or something.
I finally found my voice when he started putting bells on the dog.
“Why are you doing that?”
“This?” he asked. He had taken a harness, a lot like the kind they put on service animals for blind people, and strung bells down its length. He slid the harness into place and scratched Guthrie behind the ears. The dog seemed to love the attention. He wagged his tail eagerly, sending a wave of music through the bells lining his flanks. “Guthrie here runs diversion for us.”
A few minutes later I saw what he meant.
Weimar had a greenbelt that ran north to south through town, underneath the highway. Judging from the old-growth vegetation around its banks, I figured it must have doubled as some sort of drainage system. It was the kind of thing a small town that relied on through-traffic for its livelihood would have kept hidden behind a screen of tall trees.
This was apparently Will and Frank’s secret, for Will led us to a cross street close to the greenbelt. It was dark, and the streets were lit only by starlight. I could see very little, but I could hear the zombies moaning, and they were getting closer every minute.
Will leaned down and whispered into Guthrie’s ear.
For the dog this was clearly some kind of game. It began to bark and spin around in a circle, like it was chasing its own tail, sending the music of bells into the night.
The bells were answered by a chorus of moans that seemed to come from all around us at once.
“What in the world are you—?”
But I didn’t get to finish my objection. Will put up a hand and motioned at the dog. Guthrie sprinted forty yards or so down the street, right into the face of a growing crowd of zombies, and began to bark.
“What’s he—?”
“Shhh,” Will said. “Don’t make a sound.”
Zombies poured out of the buildings, so many that for a moment I lost sight of Guthrie. But he reappeared, still barking furiously, the bells on his harness like Christmas music in the cold night air, and he sprinted away.
My pulse quickened. The zombies w
ere actually following him. This just might work.
But then he stopped. He turned and watched the zombies, almost like he was waiting for them to catch up.
“Go,” I whispered. “Come on you stupid dog. Run!”
“No,” Will said. He turned his palm toward me without moving his arms. “No sudden movements. They key on movement and noise. Just wait. Guthrie knows what to do.”
And he was right.
The dog was good at what he did, and I began to see how Weimar had earned its reputation. Within a few minutes, Guthrie had managed to lead all the zombies away from our position with an air of practiced efficiency that would have been the envy of any Border collie. I heard him barking in the distance, apparently happy as a clam.
“He’ll be okay?” I asked.
“He’s a dog,” Will said. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
I couldn’t deny the sense in that.
When the zombies were gone, Will led us to the bottom of the greenbelt and began pulling away vegetation. I looked at Jessica, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going through her mind. She had grown quiet since we left the campsite, and that bothered me. But she neither returned my glance nor gave any indication that she was anxious about Will’s next move. She just stood there, patient as a saint, a strange, almost vacant acceptance on her face. She seemed to have gone robotic, much as she had been in the truck with Jake and the two brothers.
“This is it.” Will stepped back to reveal an open standpipe, a gigantic maw, like the entrance to a cave. “Go through here. When you come up on the other side, you’ll be in Free America.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Yep. Pretty much.”
Again I looked at Jessica. I wanted some indication that she was okay with this, but all I got was a blank stare. She turned away from me, ducked her head, and slipped into the standpipe.
“Jessica, wait,” I said.
Only then did she turn to look at me.
“What?”
“You’re okay with this?”
She shrugged. I’ll never forget that. There was no expression, just a vacant shrug. She turned into the darkness of the tunnel and started walking. Will gave me an encouraging nod, and the next instant I entered the tunnel, trying to catch Jessica.
