by Tony Urban
Their movements, which weren't theirs at all of course, ceased when her head came to a stop in the dirt. It was mostly upside down but still faced toward the men and she watched Saw grab her decapitated head by the hair and lift it up, looking her in the eyes.
"Promised you I'd never hurt you, love. Shame you didn't do the same."
The men turned and walked back toward town, Mina's head swinging in Saw's hand. She watched it all as her life drained away and the night went from dim, to black, to winking out entirely.
Chapter Forty
Mead spotted the log cabin before the others. It was the old-fashioned kind with thick, white layers of chinking between the wood, and it looked like it had been empty for maybe fifty years.
The roof was partially caved in and no actual windows filled the holes where glass had once been, but it was the first structure they'd seen in hours and he thought it would suffice even if it was a piece of shit.
He was ready to claim it for the night when a man stepped through the doorway. He was tall, dark, and anything but handsome. "Help you?"
Mead gave him a quick up and down and saw he had a pistol holstered on his hip. "Maybe. We've been riding for a while. Just looking for a place to flop for the night."
"I could go along with that. If you can answer me something."
Mead tended to expect the worst from people and although he was suited up for fighting zombies, he knew none of his gear would help him if the man decided to draw and shoot. "It's your rodeo. Ask away."
"Why the fuck are you dressed up like some kind of crash test dummy."
From behind his helmet, Mead grinned.
The man's name was Fernando Mejias and over the course of the evening and night, they told him their stories and he shared his. What he lacked in looks, he made up for in personality. He was raw, and crude and, while Wim visibly cringed at his language, Mead liked him despite that. Shit, maybe because of it.
Fernando told them about the town he'd called home for the last two years, a place called Shard End on the Texas/Mexico border. He was out on a supply run but hadn't found much luck. They told him about Brimley, about the army of zombies, and suggested that reinforcements would be an asset for any coming fight. At times, Mead thought Fernando wavered between shock and disbelief, but he never outright questioned their tale and, when the talking was finished, he agreed to take them to his home.
Sleep had been hard coming for Mead since he found Brimley destroyed, and the woman he loved dead. The rough wood floor of the cabin didn’t help, and he spent much of the night tossing from one side to the other, tormented by memories and regrets. Going in to that summer, he'd thought he had the world at his feet. That he'd taken on the apocalypse head on and come out victorious. But he'd been humbled,
Despite all the horrible things he'd seen, what happened in Brimley shocked him. He couldn’t comprehend that type of cruelty. The thought of new people, a new fight, energized him. He thought it could be a chance to redeem himself. To test himself once more and get his revenge.
Chapter Forty-One
Juli woke, terrified and on the verge of screaming, but by some miracle she was able to keep quiet. She forced her eyes to stay open, to stare at the dawn sky which was full of pinks and reds and a fingernail of the moon. She thought staring at that might keep the horrors of her dreams at bay, but that didn't work.
Every night since the massacre in Arkansas, she'd had similar dreams. People running and screaming and fighting and dying. In the daylight she could push those memories away, to convince herself that it was all a necessary part of God's plan, just like when he killed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, but at night, the visions that filled her dreams were too real.
She knew going back to sleep would be a wasted effort, so she climbed off the rollup mattress and stretched out her aches and pains as she came fully awake. This land was cool in the mornings, not like it had been further East, and she grabbed her blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl.
As she left the small encampment where the few dozen men and women of Grady's congregation - the ones who were still human - slept, she tiptoed so as not to wake them. She'd grown increasingly uncomfortable around them since Arkansas, with their fervor and devotion. She'd been with Grady the longest by a good spell, but these people, they didn't simply follow him, they worshipped him. Even after all this time, Juli wasn't extremely familiar with the bible but she was relatively certain it talked about false idols or prophets or something like that. One of these days I'll have to actually read that book, she thought. But she knew she never would.
Watching Grady get bit by zombies was something she could handle. Could even believe in. And watching him round up zombies, lassoing them like runaway cattle and forcing them into a herd was bizarre, but harmless enough. Grady had a way with them and, in the year plus he'd been growing his zombie horde, no one had been bitten. Aside from him, of course. It was like they were under his spell - docile and subservient. She thought them harmless.
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 Forty-Two
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 seemed to realize too and quickly stood and composed himself. He wiped dog slobber and tears from his face with his shirt sleeve, then pushed his mop of hair off his forehead. He looked to the others, Aben to Wim, then back again. Aben was closer and Mitch went to him.
"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 ha
d 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."
