Rocky Mountain Die

by Jake Bible

  “Ya think?” she replies. “HEY!”

  Three cannies skid to a halt as they hurry by.

  “What the hell is up?” Greta asks.

  “Lights at the base gates,” one of the cannies says. “Looks like a few vehicles just pulled up. Your guy Stuart is calling everyone to get armed and ready. Could be those Atlanta fuckers.”

  “Thanks,” Greta says and nods at the guy.

  He’s relieved to get running again. Most of the cannies don’t like being around us Stanfords. They’re afraid they’ll do or say the wrong thing and Elsbeth will gut them. Not a bad fear for them to have, really.

  “Get me up into my chair,” I say.

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” Greta responds. “Jimmy says you have to stay put and rest.”

  “Jimmy?” I glare. “He’s Jimmy now?”

  “That is his name,” Greta says.

  “I have a couple other names he could use,” I say and point to my wheelchair. “Up. In. Chair. Now.”

  Greta folds her arms across her chest, cocks out her hip, and smirks down at me.

  “Please?” I say. “Pretty please?”

  “No,” Greta replies. “If you keep moving around, you will die. Jimmy can’t believe you haven’t died already.”

  “No one can believe I haven’t died already,” I reply. “Statistically speaking, I should never have made it out of Whispering Pines. Vance should have wiped my ass out. But he didn’t. Neither did Mondello or Foster or any of those sorority psychos or cannies or Barfly or Lizard Jesus or—”

  “I get it, Daddy,” Greta says. “You are hard to kill.”

  “No, sweetie, I’m God,” I say. “I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.”

  “You are so fucking weird,” she sighs.

  “Weird on wheels?” I ask.

  “No,” she says.

  “Long Pork!” Critter calls from the hangar doors. “Get your lazy ass up and get the hell out here! You think we’re gonna do all the talkin’? No way! This is your mess, you clean it up!”

  “My mess?” I ask and look at Greta. “My mess? What mess?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Greta shrugs. “It’s your mess.”

  “Get Daddy into his chair of wheels,” I say. “I have been summoned.”

  Greta sighs again. Oh, the teenage girl sighs. A language all their own.

  She helps me struggle into my wheelchair. I’m pretty much a weak little baby. The sleep was good, but it left my muscles useless. I’m all flippy floppy, noodle limp.

  I get settled in the wheelchair and Greta hustles me out into the night air. Cold as fuck, but kind of refreshing. The hangar wasn’t exactly a cozy bundle of blankets, but it felt stuffy. I know, that doesn’t make sense, but when do half the things I say?

  “Good, you’re here,” Stella says as she hurries up to me and Greta. “Apparently, our son had a mission given to him by Elsbeth. Of course, the little shit didn’t tell us anything about it.”

  “Little shit?” I ask. “Uh-oh. This is bad.”

  “It’s not bad now,” Melissa says, joining us. She looks at Stella. “Stop being mad at him for stepping up and doing his part. He’s not that little boy shooting hoops in front of your house anymore.”

  “He needs to stop hiding things from us,” Stella says. “It’s going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

  “I’d say there are a million other things you’ll die from first,” I respond. Yeah, that gets a nice glare.

  Greta keeps wheeling me along. I ask a few more questions, but Stella and Melissa just keep telling me, “You’ll see.”

  It’s a few minutes before we’re close enough for me to see the vehicles that have shown up. I know those vehicles. They aren’t from the Consortium. No, sir, not at all.

  They’re ours.

  “What the fuck?” I ask. “Did Charlie go get the RVs? And the Humvees? I know he’s a good driver, but he’s not a transdimensional driver, able to split himself into a dozen different Charlies. No way he could have gotten all of those here on his own.”

  “I didn’t,” Charlie says as he comes jogging up to us. “I didn’t even get to drive one of them.”

  “Then who did?” I ask.

  The lights from the vehicles are pointed right at us and I quickly see six silhouettes walking my way. Six female silhouettes. Very confident silhouettes.

  “Oh,” I say. “That’s some good help.”

  Elsbeth’s sisters walk up and give me wide smiles.

  “Hey there, Long Pork,” Antoinette says, her long blond curls wrapped up and tucked inside a hat. “Heard you folks could use a hand or two.”

  “Hey!” I yell. “That’s my fucking hat!”

  It is. It’s my Stetson I lost when we crashed back in Illinois.

  “Where’d you get my hat?” I ask.

  “Found it,” Antoinette smirks. “I guess you dropped it. You don’t mind if I keep it, do you? Looks better on me.”

  It does. She’s totally right there. I mumble something about how she can keep it. She smiles at me and gives the brim a flick.

  I do a quick headcount. Antoinette plus Brittany and Lacy. Marcie, Steph and Belinda.

  “Where’s Audrey?” I ask. “She okay?”

  “She’s coming,” Lacy says. “She’s bringing the last vehicle.”

  “Last vehicle?” I ask. “I see all the RVs and Humvees. The canny trucks are great, but we don’t really need one of those. Everyone will fit in the RVs.”

  “Oh, she’s getting a truck,” Antoinette says. “Should be here any second.”

  “Oh...okay,” I say. “So, uh, how’s it going?”

  “Been going great,” Antoinette replies. She taps her head and gives me a wink. “Especially since El helped us get things clear up top.”

  “El? Don’t you mean Carly?” I ask.

  “Not her name anymore,” Belinda says. “Her name is Elsbeth. Carly is long gone. No need to bring up the dead.”

  “Huh. Cool,” I say. “Glad to know y’all are embracing the El we know.”

  There’s a loud honking, the sound of a semi horn, out past the vehicles, and people start rushing forward.

  “We should go help,” Antoinette says, her happy-go-lucky face replaced by one serious, down to business look. “The truck will have brought the Zs to the gates.”

  “Always Zs at the gates,” Marcie sighs. Then she looks right at Charlie. “Hey, Chuck. Good to see ya.”

  “Uh, hey. Yeah, you too,” Charlie replies.

  Marcie gives him a wink and hurries off with her sisters.

  “Chuck?” Stella and I ask at the same time.

  “It’s what they call me,” Charlie says.

  “They? All of them call you Chuck?” I ask.

  “Well, mostly Marcie does,” Charlie grins.

  “We’ll talk later,” Stella says as she pushes me up closer to the vehicles and the front of the base.

  We hear the front gates being opened then people start shouting and yelling. The distinct sounds of whacks and thwacks of blunt objects hitting Z skulls reaches us before we’re even a few feet along. No gunshots. That’s good. That sound will bring more Zs. The dark lets us fight semi-hidden, but gunshots are a direct call for the undead to come party.

  A semi-truck comes rolling into the base and parks right next to the RVs. There’s a huge tanker attached to the rear of the truck and I can see the logo of a long-gone gasoline company on the side. The driver’s side door opens and Audrey comes jumping out.

  “Hey, Long Pork,” she calls out as she waves to me. “What do you think? Took me a while to find one that held diesel. Didn’t want to mix the fuel.”

  “Diesel? For what?” I ask.

  She’s about to run off and join her sisters, but she stops and cocks her head.

  “What do you mean for what?” she asks. “For the war. We’re gonna need fuel for the fight. The RVs and Humvees will be empty by the time we get them up the mountain to the Stronghold. T
hen what? We just ditch them? That’d be stupid.”

  “Right, yeah, of course, it would,” I say, not following at all. “Wouldn’t want to be stupid.”

  Audrey smirks and shakes her head. “Netty will explain once we clear the gates. See ya in a sec!”

  She trots off and is lost in the throng of shadows and silhouettes that are rushing around kicking some Z ass.

  “Netty?” I ask Charlie.

  “Antoinette,” Charlie says.

  “Right,” I say.

  The thwacks and whacks get fewer and farther between. Soon the sounds die out completely and all we hear are the pants of exhausted people. Stuart comes walking up to us, a collapsible baton in his hand and Z blood and brains splattered all over his clothes.

  “We may not need your plan after all, Jace,” he says.

  “Looks like it,” I say.

  “What plan?” Antoinette asks as she comes jogging up. I look past her and around for her sisters. “They’re helping clean up the corpses. Gotta do our part if we’re going to join up officially.”

  Stuart gives me a look and I give it right back.

  “What?” Antoinette asks. “You guys didn’t know we were joining? Has El said anything to you?”

  “Oh, you know El,” I say. “She keeps things close to her vest.”

  “Oh, well,” Antoinette replies. “You know now. We’re here to stay. No more watching you from the shadows.”

  “Or shooting Zs from cranes?” I respond.

  “That too,” Antoinette says. “That was Steph and Marcie. They are the best shots. Been working with Charlie.”

  “You mean Chuck?” Stella asks.

  “What? Oh, that’s what Marcie calls him. We do too, but mostly Marcie,” Antoinette says. Then she sees the look on Stella’s face. “Yeah. I’ll let you guys work that one out. Not my place. No way I’m getting in the middle of that.” She claps her hands together. “So? El got off safe? Flew to the Stronghold as their guest?”

  “Their guest? More like their prisoner,” Stuart says. “I’m guessing you brought us the vehicles so we could stage an assault on the Stronghold and get her back?”

  “Get her back?” Antoinette frowns. “We’re going to join her.”

  “Excuse me?” Stella asks. “Join her?”

  “Yeah,” Antoinette says. “Join her. Up at the Stronghold. We know what the outside looks like, now we’ll know what the inside looks like. It’s pretty spread out, so hard to see everything from the perimeter. Crappy fortifications. We could have slipped in and out without a hitch, but El said to wait. She didn’t want to risk raising an alarm.”

  “You’re talking like she’s in charge,” I say.

  “None of us are in charge,” Antoinette says. “But some of us are better at certain things. El knows how to infiltrate and find weaknesses. You all should know that. She found you.”

  “Me? How the hell am I weak?” I snap.

  Antoinette laughs and holds up her hands. “Calm down, Long Pork. I said you were a weakness, not that you were weak.”

  “How is he a weakness?” Stuart asks.

  “Well, shit, look at you all,” she replies. “You’re all standing around him while he’s missing an arm and has his head and shoulder bandaged up. The guy is in a wheelchair, for God’s sake. Would you ditch him if you got surrounded by Zs?” No one replies. “Didn’t think so. Long Pork is this group’s weakness. Half of you would die saving his ass. Which doesn’t exactly make sense from a numbers perspective, does it?”

  “I have worth,” I say. “I get shit planned.”

  “I know,” Antoinette says. “That’s what we’re counting on.” She claps me on the shoulder that isn’t hurt. “Buck up, Long Pork. Being a weakness isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it’s what keeps us human.”

  ***

  Our hangar turns from a refugee flop house and into a machine shop in about three seconds. We can fit a couple of RVs in there at a time and the folks that can weld get to work. Once the supports and reinforcements are added on then the RVs are replaced by the Humvees and the welders get to work on those.

  You see, my idea of having the fence go with us, isn’t totally dead.

  Like anything is really dead in this world anymore. Ha!

  The sun is coming up in the East as Charlie rolls me outside to watch as the chain link is secured to the frames that are ready. One of the RVs is close to us and several men and women lift up the framed fencing and walk it over to the vehicle where it is bolted to the supports sticking out from the sides. It takes a good half an hour, but they finally get the whole vehicle framed in. Then the wheels are added onto the fence frames and we are set to go.

  “I get to drive!” Charlie yells as he ditches me and hurries to the RV.

  “Dude! You can’t just bail on me!” I shout after him as he gets to the first layer of fencing and climbs up and over.

  It takes him a second to stretch and reach the second layer before he can hook a leg over and jump down inside. He runs up to the driver’s door and pounds his fist against it. Marcie is inside and she grins at him, shaking her head the whole time. The looks on both their faces tell me that there might be more than just flirting going on.

  “I am going to hand Elsbeth her ass when we find her,” Stella growls as she walks up to me.

  We watch as our son negotiates the driver’s door open. Marcie grabs him and yanks him up inside. Their faces get close, but they stop short of kissing as Marcie looks past him and sees us watching. Charlie turns and glances over his shoulder. His broad grin becomes a frown and he rolls his eyes before Marcie pulls him inside and slams the door closed.

  “Oh, yeah, El is dead,” Stella says.

  “Lighten up,” I say. “Who else do you want him with?”

  “Not a trained killer that used to be brainwashed,” Stella snaps.

  “Really?” I reply. “You think he’d be safer with someone else? Because, and this is just me talking, knowing our son’s new girlfriend could probably kill half of us before we could bat an eyelash is sort of comforting. At least he’ll always be safe when he’s with her.”

  “Shut up,” Stella says. I open my mouth and she glares. “I said to shut up.”

  “I was going to ask how you like my design,” I say. “Ignore our son’s new love life and tell me what you think about the rolling cage.”

  Stella sighs and looks out at the newly outfitted RV.

  My original idea, back when I didn’t think we’d have our vehicles, was to build a double-fenced cage out of chain link and use that to push our way through the Z herd. Basically, we were going to have a series of big dog pens on wheels that we could use to keep the Zs from getting to us. Eventually they would have overwhelmed us, but it gave us a better chance than being exposed and out in the open.

  Now my design is being put on all the vehicles. There’re plenty of materials on this base, so we don’t have to worry about upping the size of the design. We just have to worry if the RVs can drive with supports welded to their frames and surrounded by rolling chain-link cages.

  Charlie starts up the RV and yanks on the horn. Half the crowd around us jump, freaking out over his foolish use of a noise like that. Noise brings Zs.

  But we all see him wince and then roll down the window.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Got carried away.”

  Marcie leans past him.

  “I’ll punch him harder if he does it again,” she says.

  He starts to roll it up, but not before we hear, “Harder? Jesus, M. You punch me harder and you’ll break my arm.”

  “Pussy,” she replies.

  Then the RV lurches forward.

  Everyone stops what they are doing as Charlie takes the RV out onto one of the tarmacs and gets it up to a decent speed. He turns quickly to the left and the right side of the cage dips and bows, but the airplane wheels welded to the corners keep it from crumpling and scraping the ground. He does a couple of figure eights then turns it back to us. By the time h
e stops and hops out, everyone is cheering, congratulating him on the successful test drive.

  “Now we just have to finish doing that to all the vehicles,” Stella says, looking up at the sky. “That’s going to mean another day here. We won’t be able to leave until tomorrow morning.”

  “Or we leave in the middle of the night,” I say. “Use the cover of darkness so the Zs don’t see us coming.”

  “Then we can’t see them coming,” Stella counters. “I’d rather see them coming.”

  “Let’s ask the professionals,” I say. “Wheel me to Lourdes, woman!”

  My chair doesn’t move.

  “Will you please take me to Lourdes with you?” I ask.

  “Wheel yourself,man,” Stella says and walks off.

  “Ah, come on!” I call out. “I was just kidding!”

  I get both of her middle fingers. Which is even more insulting since she knows I can’t give them back because I only have the one middle finger. Damn, that shit’s cold.

  “Mom’s wound tight,” Charlie says as he comes up to me, done being the test pilot.

  “She’s a little put off by your new squeeze,” I say.

  “My new squeeze?” Charlie laughs.

  “Yep.Chuck,” I say.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he laughs as he starts wheeling me after the one in charge.

  ***

  “As much as we like the idea of using the dark as cover, we need to let people get some rest,” Lourdes says as we stand around a fire barrel set close to the front of the hangar.

  Okay, I sit by the fire barrel. It’s still toasty, though, as the heat radiates out from the sides. The night is clear and I can make out a ton of stars even with the firelight close by.

  You have no idea what night is until electric lights are gone and you’re a mile above sea level.

  Antoinette, Audrey, and Marcie watch Lourdes closely then each nod their heads.

  “Thanks for the approval,” Lourdes says. “But I wasn’t really looking for it.”

  “Sometimes you find what you aren’t looking for,” Marcie says, her arm wrapped around Charlie’s as the two of them lean in towards the fire.

  “Cute,” Lourdes says.

  “The vehicles are ready,” I say, trying to break the tension.