In The Ruins

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Now, it was downright creepy. The billboard, unlit, was missing two Fs and a couple Es, and the plywood Uncle Sam was a glaring, beetle-browed, stories-high clown with a misshapen nose. New RVs stood at attention in serried ranks, some with soaped prices on their windshields, all dripping with cold water. The service building with its huge hangar doors and heavy jacks was dark and deserted; so was the cavernous showroom despite its acres of glass. Juju and Mark went off to look for a canopy that would fit Lee’s truck.

  Lee was going to take a look at the RVs and see if there was one he thought would sleep them all. It was a better idea than snoozing in the truck bed, even with a canopy, but the thought of everyone packed into one vehicle, day in and day out, gave Ginny the shivers.

  At least Lee didn’t require her to pay attention to him before he felt like he existed. Brandon, on the other hand, was full of the look-at-me’s. “Don’t you think?” His voice bounced off the showroom walls, rocketed between huge, glossy vehicles arranged on smooth concrete ovals fringed with thick blue carpet. All the offices were closed, their gold nameplates neat and set at perfect angles. Sales. Financing. Marketing. Customer Service. “I mean, everyone says Wordsworth’s overrated, but I like him.”

  You would. Ginny made a soft noncommittal noise. Two bigscreen televisions sprouted from the walls on metal arms in the wine-carpeted customer lounge, much nicer than the employee breakroom with its bulletin board full of yellowing paper notices and reminders to CHIN UP AND GRIN UP and CLOSE THAT SALE!

  Then there was Jefferson B. Fudder’s palatial, carpeted office, the desk placed so he could look out over his domain with his fingers laced over his big, satisfied belly. Where was he now, that big ol’ good ol’ boy, with his cowboy hats and his hate of anything resembling education and fairness?

  Ginny suspected she didn’t want to know, and shivered each time she glanced at that particular door, thank you very much.

  “Of course, getting a kid to read Wordsworth is like getting a dog to quote Kierkegaard.” Brandon grinned, spreading his beefy arms. Football, he said. It figured. “But I try! I had this student, she was bright for her age, she just wouldn’t do the work. Nose ring, dyed hair, the whole nine.”

  Lee, eyeing a pegboard full of neatly labeled ignition keys, had already tuned the man out. Steph, her thin fine hair in two spindly braids and her coat zipped to her chin, gave Ginny an agonized look.

  I agree, kid. Ginny sighed, spread her hands as Brandon went on telling his story, and headed for the customer lounge, where weak bars of sunlight struggled past slat blinds. At least in there she couldn’t hear him. The cabinets were full of the usual—granola bars, powdered creamer, shelf-stable little tubs of half-n-half, cleaning supplies. Working retail in college had given her an appreciation for the spaces behind smooth corporate facades. Behind cabinet doors and employee entrances was where all the real work—and the real dramas—took place.

  When she came out through the swinging glass door again, carrying a stack of bulk-bought granola boxes, it was quiet. Steph stood near the door, peering into the glare of the parking lot. Patches of grey pavement had begun to surface through the vanishing snow, rising like humpbacks.

  “I found granola,” Ginny said, quietly. “You want some?”

  Steph peered back at her, one of her thin braids swinging. “Mr Quartine said to stay in here. Took some keys and Mr French and went lookin at RVs.”

  “Good.” Ginny tried not to sound sneakingly grateful they didn’t have to listen to Brandon anymore. He seemed nice enough, but he just had to fill up the airwaves. Then, of course, there was the question of whether it had been him rattling the doorknob last night. “There’s chocolate chips in some of these.”

  “Yum.” A tremulous smile, but the girl turned back to the glass door and stared across the lot. The part down the back of her head was very pale, hair pulled tightly away on either side. Braids suited her. “My mama always wanted a big old RV. Vacations, she said. Like we ever gonna go anywhere, my daddy would say.” Her voice dropped and broadened, a pretty fair imitation—Ginny could almost see her father. Probably a big, blunt man, with surprisingly gentle hands.

  Like Lee’s. Callused, scraped, grimed with engine muck, but capable of…what? Softness? Was that the right word?

  “Then Mama would say we never went anywhere because he was cheap, and he would just…” Steph sniffed, wiped at her nose. “He’d make this noise like a cough, sort of. Then they wouldn’t talk to each other.”

  Oh, God. What could she say? Ginny settled for stepping next to her, and leaning slightly to her right. Her shoulder, under her thick coat, touched Steph’s. “My parents did that too.”

  “Did they fight?” Steph’s interest was palpable. She probably thought it exotic that someone as old as Ginny had parents, too.

  God, had Ginny ever been that young? She could barely remember. “They didn’t yell.” But her mother’s silences could be Arctic, and when her father decided he wasn’t going to discuss something anymore, he just stayed at work. “Sometimes I wished they would.”

  “Yeah, well, mine yelled. I used to think I could run away just to get some peace an’ quiet.” Steph sniffed again. “Now I wish they was still yelling. Steada makin that awful grindin noise.”

  “Yeah.” Ginny swallowed, hard. Was Mom staggering barefoot, circling in the cold? Had Dad started to cough, or run a fever? What about Flo?

  Would knowing be better than the awful uncertainty? Whatever Ginny would have said was lost when a flicker of motion blurred in her peripheral vision. Steph gasped, stiffening, and grabbed Ginny’s arm.

  It was a once-hefty, hatless man in the frayed remains of a business suit and overcoat, his jaw working as he dropped to all fours. No, not a man.

  One of the infected. Maybe he had once been Jeff Fudder, because a mustache caked with filth and dried blood crawled over the lower half of his face. His pants were in tatters and a fringe of hair around a bald spot stuck up in patches, glopped with mud and wet and blood. His skin had greyed out, and despite the queer caving-in of the ribs on his right side, he scuttled blur-quick across an empty lane between two lines of RVs.

  Just as he did, though, Mark and Juju strolled into view from another empty lane, the teenager with his hand cupped near his mouth, laughing at something the older man had said. The infected thing stopped, clearly visible from this angle, but hidden from the guys. It turned its head, a queer creaking lizardlike motion. Its skinny fingers worked spasmodically, and its chewing of empty air intensified.

  “Fuck,” Ginny breathed, and Steph, gone paper-white, let out a thin unsteady shocked sound. The stack of boxes fell out of Ginny’s nerveless hands, and when they hit the floor she jumped at the sound. “Oh, God. God.”

  “What do we do?” Steph whispered. “Miss Ginny, what do we do?”

  Oh, God, Ginny realized. I don’t have a damn clue.

  See Who Dies

  There were nervous talkers, smooth talkers, and stupid talkers. Then there were the combinations, and the most irritating of all: the people who were simply, merely, and totally in love with their own damn voices. Lee, looking over the RVs, wasn’t sure if he should categorize French just yet, but he was leaning towards putting him in the love-your-own-voice group. The blond, manicured sonofabitch nattered on about teaching and about how he wasn’t surprised about the zombies because most people were asleep all the time anyway, and surely the government would have everything under control soon.

  “So what do you do?” Brandon asked after a while, and Lee had a longing vision of getting out his duct tape. Or a staple-gun, and fixing the idiot’s lips up permanent-like.

  Either would be satisfying. “This an’ that,” he said, finally, since the man seemed to be waiting on an answer. There really was no point in getting a huge RV, but one that could sleep six was pretty goddamn big by definition. Then there was the problem of fuel. The more he thought about it—

  “Oh, unemployed? That’s okay.” Like he was
conferring a big favor. Brandon toed the tire of a nearby road-schooner, then did it again. His hair, dark and unwashed, was still combed neatly, and that expensively useless diver’s watch on his thick wrist glittered. “I mean, sometimes you can’t help it, right?”

  Jesus Christ. Lee set his jaw, glancing up and down the row of RV noses. There was an intersection about twenty feet ahead, and maybe he could send the bastard off one way and take the other. That idea had a certain appeal, too. Maybe French would get lost, and they could leave quiet-like.

  Wouldn’t Ginny shake her head at that. Lee’s smile faded; he cocked his own head, straining to hear.

  “No!” A high, wild cry. “Goddammit, look out!”

  Lee’s heart dropped and his hand did too, closing around his gun. He cleared leather, locked his finger outside the trigger guard, and pushed past French, who was still babbling about the economy.

  “Over here!” It was Ginny, and she was yelling. “No, over here, you sonofabitch!”

  The girl had a mouth on her, and Lee might have been amused, except his skin had shrunk two sizes and the world was too goddamn bright, tunnel vision threatening to close him down and render him useless. Training took over, keeping him to one side, wishing he had Juju behind him instead of the teacher asshole, who had finally figured out something was wrong. Lee picked up the pace, his boots hitting hard, each step jolting hips and shoulders, pounding up his neck and threatening to shatter his teeth.

  When he burst out of the walkway, gun low and ready, the thing was already committed to its jump. It was a mustachioed man in a business suit and a string tie, or at least, it had been at one time or another. Now it was just a critter, making that deep grinding noise in its chest as it landed and staggered for Ginny. She danced nimbly aside, those orange-laced boots too clumsy for her grace. Juju had a knee taken, but she was right in his line of fire, and from the way his mouth moved, he was swearing and trying to get a clear shot. Mark Kasprak sprawled on the pavement, sickly pale, one side of his old anorak torn open and all of it sopping wet from being rolled in melt. The soles of his new boots, already gray from dirt and slush, scrabbled.

  “Come on!” Ginny yelled, and the thing darted for her again. She dodged, and it ran into an RV with a sick crunching sound mixed with that deep, terrible grinding. She was keeping it away from Mark, but Juju ran the risk of hitting her if he pulled the trigger. “Come on, you cheap lemon-selling bastard!”

  Lemon bastard? Everything inside Lee stilled. He brought the gun up, smoothly, tracking the thing as it staggered. The sun dimmed, clouds racing across a cold, pale sky, and every inch of the terrain stood out hard and clear. Ginny backed up, a ballerina’s light shuffle, Lee’s finger tightened, almost there, just keep moving, darlin, just keep moving the way you’ve been…

  Then Brandon French, all however-many pounds of proud football-playing idjit, ran smack into Lee, almost knocking him over. The shot went wide, digging a furrow in the pavement and zinging off, ricocheting down a lane of RVs. Glass shattered, and the thing stopped, confused for a crucial moment.

  Fury boiled up Lee’s throat. He tracked again, exhaling smoothly, and the second shot was a good solid hit. Ginny screamed, and for a ludicrous, terrifying moment he thought he’d hit her.

  The critter’s head evaporated, and Juju’s gun barked too. Lee glanced out from cover; his guts turned over again before changing to ice, the clear cold freeze of an adrenaline rush and the old familiar feeling of well, this is interesting, let’s see who dies.

  There was another critter, this one also in the remains of a polyester business suit. Its potbelly sagged, a slice of pale black-furred skin poking obscenely from the ruins of loud blue checks, its wine-red polyester tie flapping, and its wingtips—probably once polished to a fare-thee-well—scraping through slush. Juju’s shot had sank into its chest, but wasn’t slowing it down. It was bearing down on Ginny’s back, and the door to the showroom was opening too slowly, Steph Meacham’s ghostly face behind it a picture of horror.

  Lee’s lungs filled. Ginny stopped, her sides heaving, staring at the mess of the critter in front of her. She was back in Juju’s line of fire, again, because the second zombie critter had staggered sideways a few critical steps.

  “Get down!” Juju yelled, the words stretching through syrup because everything had slowed.

  This wasn’t the range or the training field. It wasn’t the desert or the jungle, heat and sweat and grit and blood. Still, it felt just the same, except for the sickening chance of something happening to—

  Lee exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The gun barked again. Ginny let out a soft, hurt little sound, flinching to her left.

  The critter behind her folded down with a splashing thump, dark blood and spongy brain flying. The hole in its left temple seeped a thin trickle of blackish blood, a good clean hit, and the other side of its head splattered wide. Lee’s aim was only off by a quarter of an inch.

  Ginny whirled, sharply. Stared at him, at the thing spilled on the ground.

  He lowered the gun, and his gaze locked with Ginny’s. Big, dark, clear, clean eyes, and for a moment, she could see right down into the bottom of him. He was a pond, silt at the bottom stirred by something cold and scaled and awful, and she was a girl on the shore, peering into the depths.

  Ginny folded, her knees hitting concrete with a thump he felt all the way across the space between them. The hideous sinking thought that he’d hit her tiptoed through his head on padded, painful little feet. But no, she just turned on her knees to look at the critter that had almost leapt on her back and bent over, retching.

  Time resumed its regular march. Lee swept the area again, stuffed his gun back into its small dark home, and turned on his heel. Brandon French was standing beside him, uselessly, mouth hanging open instead of flapping for once.

  Lee punched him. It was a good solid hit, and blood flew.

  That's Really Unfortunate

  Weak sunlight fell through the small window in the employee break room, casting watery squares and rectangles on cream-colored linoleum. Her heart was still pounding and Ginny’s teeth kept wanting to chatter, but she folded her arms and enunciated clearly. “That wasn’t a very reasonable response to the situation.”

  “The shootin, or the punchin?” Juju shook his head, mashing his pompom hat in both hands. He wasn’t greyish anymore, and some of the wildness had left his dark eyes. His rifle's snout poked up over his shoulder, and at least he wasn't keeping his right hand near his pistol. “What kind of idiot runs up on a man with a gun?”

  “I said I was sorry.” Brandon clapped a Ziploc bag of compressed snow to his face; his bloodshot left eye was already puffing shut. “Jesus fucking Christ, what is wrong with you people?”

  “Watch your mouth,” Lee said, quietly, but with a great deal of force. He stood near the door, his arms folded and his shearling buttoned; Ginny got the idea it wasn’t because he was cold. No, Lee’s chin had dropped, and his gaze had grown piercing and almost-yellow once more. He glared at Brandon like he was a hairsbreadth away from punching him again, and Ginny cleared her throat, nervously.

  Mark had his arm around Steph. He was damp all over, and paper-pale. He also needed a new coat. The thing had gotten its fingers in and yanked, ripping the side-seam of his anorak. “I didn’t even see it,” he muttered. “God damn, I didn’t even see it.”

  “You watch your mouth too.” Lee tipped back on his heels a little, leaning on the wall. That was deceptive, the tension his stance told her he was close to exploding.

  And that was a scary thought. Ginny took a deep breath, searching for the right words. “Let’s all calm down, all right?” At least, let’s all be a little calmer than we were ten minutes ago. “That was surprising, but it worked out, everyone’s okay.”

  “No thanks to him.” Juju was not going to be graceful about this. He didn't even point at Brandon, but he didn't have to. The disdain was palpable.

  “Mr Thurgood.” Ginny suppressed the urge
to pinch the bridge of her nose, or start screaming. Neither would help. Besides, her hands were shaking. “We weren’t all in the Army, okay? We’re not all going to know exactly what to do when…when dead people are chasing us.” Good Lord, I never thought I would ever use that particular sentence.

  “Zombies,” Steph corrected, playing with the ends of one of her thin braids. “Might as well call ’em what they are.”

  Oh, for God’s sake. “Okay. Zombies.” Ginny’s fingers sank into her upper arms, hard. At least nobody could see her trembling. “Can we at least all agree that when the infected are chasing us, naturally we’re going to make mistakes?”

  “Mistakes can kill.” Juju, unmollified, looked to Lee for backup. He unrolled his hat, and lifted it with the expression of a man who had his opponent wriggling in the crushing grip of logic. “Ain’t that right?”

  Not helping, sir. Not helping at all. She didn’t want to give Lee a chance to get started again. “But it didn’t this time. It worked out just fine, so let’s just all take a deep breath and chill the fuck out, all right?”

  A sullen silence filled the room. At least Lee didn’t tell her to watch her mouth.

  Small mercies. “Good,” Ginny said. “Great. Okay, let’s keep our eyes on the prize here.” Christ, the clichés posted on the walls were infecting her. Her knees were suspiciously noodle-floppy and she really, really wanted to lock herself in a restroom stall for a little while. The physiological responses to fear were fine to read about, but uncomfortable as fuck in real life. “Lee?” Come on, cowboy. Help me out. “Do you think we should, um, steal an RV?”