by Lowry, Chris
“I said I owe you!” he shouted.
A couple of kids complained about the noise and he cowered closer.
“Will he be able to hear again?”
Brian shrugged. I hoped I would because this damn roaring was getting annoying. Only now it was turning into a ringing sound, and I could hear voices. Barely, like coming in on an old television, static thick and too low to make out words, but noise and ringing.
It was something to sleep on.
“Set up guard,” I mumbled to Brian.
“He can still talk?” Byron sounded surprised.
Brian nodded.
“He just can't hear. It's going to make him impossible to reason with. Not that we ever were able to do much of that before.”
“I put two men on the roof,” Byron told me. “She parked us beside the church so we've only got to watch three sides.”
“I brought us back to Cuthbert,” she said. “I didn't know where to go.”
“Cuthbert,” I told her. “Take us tomorrow.”
She nodded and smoothed the hair back from my head.
“Rest,” she whispered.
“I need to rest.”
Brian very carefully selected a part of my shoulder and patted it and he walked back to the front of the bus to join Peg.
Anna settled beside me and jacked a shell into her shotgun. I didn't think she would sleep much tonight, but I felt better knowing she was watching me.
I closed my eyes and tried breathing through the pain, trying to focus on sending blood to the wounds on my back, my legs, healing blood that would take the pain and wash it down my veins. The ringing in my ears took on the rhythm of the blood, pounding in time with my breath and if it couldn't quite be called sleep, exhaustion dragged me down into something close to the oblivion of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I woke up full at first light and for a moment, I didn't feel anything, didn't know where we were. The bus was silent, or at least I couldn't hear anything and that made me concerned. For a moment I wondered if everyone died while I was passed out and I was in a corridor of corpses.
I had a craving for a strong cup of coffee so powerful that it nearly knocked me off the seat, and I realized I hadn't eaten anything since one sip of soup, making sure Anna had the rest. Truth be told one sip was all I could stand.
I pushed up off the seat and fought down the urge to scream as fire lashed across my back, my legs. I wanted a mirror to look at the damage and then was glad I didn't have one. Seeing it would somehow make it worse.
Burned.
Was I a mass of scarred flesh and raw oozing wounds?
We needed to get some antibacterial cream or bactine on it quick. Burns were notorious breeders of rot, and I didn't want to survive so far only to get taken out by a microscopic bug.
First I needed to know where we were.
The gray light of the morning showed a building beside one window. I stepped over Anna and held onto the back of each seat to keep my balance. Stars exploded, waves of feeling sick washed up and down each time I planted a foot, made sure it was solid and stepped over another kid or set of extended legs.
I made the front of the bus and smiled.
Brian was sitting in the driver's seat, his back to the wall by the building, cradling Peg in his lap. They were guarding the door.
I almost didn't open it, because the sound would wake everyone up, but the movement down the aisle had been painful, but I could feel the blood flow starting to loosen up my limbs. I didn't quite feel better so much as I didn't feel as I did laying down.
That was a start.
I reached for the handle and tried to pull the door. It wouldn't move and the ripping tearing feeling across my shoulders made me gasp.
That woke up Brian and he jumped a little, startling Peg. They both eyed me for the moment it took them to remember, to push past the confusion and then Peg reached forward and took the handle from my hand. She cranked the door open with a small hiss.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
My mouth still felt mushy, tasted salty and my tongue was swollen. I bit it either during the explosion or the landing.
I stepped outside and remembered I forgot my rifle, then remembered the stock was cracked. I wondered if it would work again, or was a wash.
Brian climbed down beside me and we took several steps out toward the road. I recognized the white cottage across the street, the yellow giant church beside us.
“Cuthbert,” I told him.
He nodded.
“I'm not going to ask how you feel because you look like crap.”
“I feel like crap.”
“It's an improvement I think.”
“I can always rely on you for a confidence boost.”
“Is your hearing back.”
“You're talking through a tin can and it's a whisper, but I can make out what you're saying at least.”
“You want to hear how bad it is?”
“Bad? We're alive, aren't we? That's the second time we escaped from that militia. If I'd known they were going to hunt for us, we would have been more careful.”
“They probably would have burned our fort down too.”
“Alright Doc, give me my diagnosis.”
“You've got bad burns on your back. Barbecue bad.”
I could feel those, or rather couldn't feel the burns but the empty spaces of white hot pain that lanced across the muscles there when I breathed.
“I figured. We need to get some anti-bacteria on it.”
“That's what I thought too. You've got two big cuts where something got you. Concrete I guess. They're gonna need stitches. Anna packed one with cloth, but you could see the muscle.”
“Ouch,” I sighed.
“That's an understatement.”
“Anyone else hurt?”
“I've got a headache,” said Byron as he stepped out to join us. “The blast rang my bell. Some of the kids got sick from the gas.”
“Gas?”
“I shoved a barrel of chlorine and a barrel of ammonia down into the tunnel. It makes a toxic combination.”
“You probably saved our lives,” I told him.
He might have blushed. It was hard to tell in the half light. But he shrugged and ducked his head, a kid not used to much praise. I wondered what had made him the way he was. So close to my son's age too, but I didn't think he had ever made plans to defend his school from attack.
“You saved mine too,” he said. “We probably shouldn't keep score on something like that.”
“You're right,” said Brian.
Byron watched the two of us for a moment.
“He lived though. That guy who said he was after you. Is he going to quit?”
I tried to shake my head, but it sent my balance on vacation somewhere and I stumbled. Brian shoved his shoulder under mine and held me up.
“You need to rest.”
“I need to eat. We all need to eat, something besides soup. We ran into an old guy here, the pastor of that church,” I pointed to the white clapboard across the street. “He's set up in the store downtown. Rows of food and medicine too.”
“We'll go get it,” said Byron.
I held up a hand and he waited for me to catch my breath as the stars stopped spinning.
“Might be better to roll up in the bus with a bunch of little kids. Jamal killed a couple of Z on the street when he picked us up and the pastor wasn't too happy about it.”
“Z?” Byron rolled it across his tongue for a taste. “I call them Zombies, but I like Z better.”
“It's a Z world now,” I told him. “A Z battlefield.”
He nodded.
“I wish I would have thought a little farther ahead than just locking down in the school.”
“You lived this long.”
“Most of us,” he sighed. “I just want to protect my people. My kids.”
“We're in it together now,” Brian told him.
Byron's eyes flashed a little at t
hat. I was going to ask him about it, but he turned back toward the bus as kids began to stir inside. I put it on my list of things to talk to him about later. Byron was used to being in charge, Brian was the leader of our group most of the time. I didn't need them in a power struggle if we were going to survive.
Anna took Byron's place as she wiped sleep from her eyes.
She faked a smile.
“Kind of look like Frankenstein now?” I asked.
“You look a little like hamburger,” she said.
“Frankenstein was the doctor,” said Brian. “Not the monster.”
A Z lumbered up out of the woods, noticed us and changed trajectory to come at us.
“I left my pike on the bus,” Brian sighed.
“Take my knife,” I said without thinking, reaching for it.
Stars exploded as something lashed me across the back with a whip made of fire. I tumbled to a knee and barely held myself up. Anna grabbed my arm and lifted me on one side, Brian on the other.
“You lost your knife,” she told me. “And your rifle is broken.”
“Dang,” I grunted. “That hurt.”
She led me back toward the bus, Brian hopped in, got his pike and took care of the Z with a quick poke to the head. He wiped the blade on the grime encrusted clothes it was wearing.
“Doc Harper,” Anna said.
She was right. The pastor had pointed him out to us.
Byron called his guards down from the roof and Anna helped me on the bus, Peg started it up and we drove slowly up the street toward the downtown.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
There was a fog that drifted around town like a thick pall of blue gray smoke. It smashed against the windshield and parted, hiding the sides of the road as they slowly cruised up the street.
I silently hoped we wouldn't hit a Z and piss of the pastor, wondered if he would understand how difficult it was to see the road.
But we didn't see a Z after the first one, not until we passed the cemetery and could see downtown.
The fog was less thick here, and I could see it was smoke not fog curling out of the embers of the burned down block of main street. The discount store was gone, soot and smoldering rubble now, the buildings around it burned as well.
Dead Z littered the street, dozens of them and one body that didn't quite look like the rest sprawled across from where the store had once stood.
The pastor.
He had an extra hole above his eyes, staring lifeless at the lingering smoke and up into the sky as dawn broke full and orange sunlight raced past us.
Peg stopped the bus in the street.
“Was that it?” she asked.
Anna nodded.
“Do we keep going?” Brian asked.
Peg shook her head no.
“We're running low on fuel.”
“And the kids need to eat,” Hannah added.
“So do you,” Anna turned her eyes toward me. “Where are we going to get medicine?”
I looked at Byron. He looked back at me. His plans were landlocked behind the fence at his school. This was new territory for him and it showed in his eyes, his stance. He stood next to Hannah, her hand seeking his as if by instinct and the two of them gripped tight and stared at me together.
Peg stopped the bus, but when I lifted out of the seat where Anna planted me I stumbled. It felt like we were still moving.
“Bring your men,” I told Byron and his chest puffed up. His men. His squad.
I turned to Hannah.
“Get the kids off the bus and keep them in the green space in front of the courthouse,” I breathed through a lash of white hot fire. “Keep them close, use the older ones to stand guard. No one runs off.”
She nodded.
Brian, Anna, and Peg followed me off the bus. We stood to one side while Byron assembled his squad of six teenage boys in a ragged line and Hannah escorted the twenty or so others off the bus. They were quiet, and orderly, scared wide eyes staring at the fallen Z corpses scattered in the street.
“Take this one back to the car and get the supplies,” I told her.
Her eyes lit up. She had forgotten about our stash of SPAM and food pilfered from the pastor's residence. Anna stood on her toes and kissed me on the cheek, then motioned for the one they called Tyler to follow her. He was the scout Byron had used, and I thought that a good choice.
I reached out and put a hand on Brian's shoulder to steady myself.
“It's a small town, but there's got to be a gas station. Go find it, and get fuel for the bus. Check the garage for cans for extra, in case we need it.”
I turned to Byron.
“Can you trade her the pike for a weapon.”
Byron grinned like a hero playing war.
“Pike. Z. You come up with the greatest names.”
He nodded to the kid beside him to trade, then sent him to guard Hannah and the children along with one other teen.
“You going to be okay here?” Brian asked.
“I'm just sitting on the steps waiting,” I told him. “Watch for Z. This may be all, but I don't want you to be surprised.”
He nodded goodbye and climbed back in the bus after Peg.
Byron waited until they had driven away.
“What about us?”
“Anna went to get food for all of us,” I explained. “Just one meal though, maybe too. I need you and your men to hunt. Go house to house and grab everything we can eat, use. Take bags and packs from the house to carry it.”
“Skip the details,” he told me. “We cleaned out all the houses around the school so we know what to do.”
He flinched a little under my look. It may have been harsher than I meant, but I was hurting.
“I just meant save your energy,” he sulked.
“No,” I sighed. “Just caught me in a pain wave. You know what you're doing. Knock for Z first, and lure them out. Raid the medicine cabinets and take it all.”
He nodded, the smile back on his face. Pain he could understand, and it salved his fragile pride.
He blew a kiss to Hannah who returned it, and broke his group into three sets of two. They took off at a run that made me envious of youth and suddenly I was in the middle of the street alone.
I looked at Hannah watching the kids like a brooding hen, Harriet hovering behind her with eyes only toward her daughter. Two teens stood on either end of the green space, half their attention out, half their attention on the children, tiny smiles on their smooth cheeked faces.
The kids were laughing, running in the grass, playing in the morning sun.
It could have been lifted from a story book, except for the stench of Z, the smell of burnt wood, and food and maybe even sadness hanging over the dead town like a pall.
I shuffled around and faced the road we had ridden in on. I was watching for Anna to return, but then remembered I had the keys in my pocket. And I forgot to tell them to check the locks on the church doors.
I took two painful steps forward and realized I didn't have a gun. I didn't have a rifle, or knife or pistol. Nothing to fight with if a Z showed up.
Or the General.
I glared at the eastern horizon and stood there, transfixed. I didn't notice Hannah move next to me, but I felt her hands on my wrist. She lifted it to her shoulder and placed it there to hold me steady.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she said.
It might have been a whisper but I was till hard of hearing.
“You've got to stop getting kidnapped,” I tried for a joke. She gave a tiny laugh, more of a charity than anything.
“He's coming for us isn't he?”
“He's coming for me.” I told her.
I didn't say if he got me, he might let them go. I didn't let on that I was thinking of standing in the middle of that road until the General showed up and tried to buy the others time to get away. I wasn't sure how bad off I was, but I felt pretty broken. I might be too much of a burden, especially as fever hit. I could feel the aches
and chills starting.
She put her hand over mine.
“I want you to kill them,” she said. “Kill them all. Nobody lives. Everybody dies.”
I shivered then, and she felt it, but whether it was the fever or her words neither of us could tell.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Anna came back almost at a dead run. For a moment adrenaline surged as I thought she was being chased, but she wasn't. She was only worried about me, about putting food into the my stomach that turned to knots and did flips at the thought of it.
“Feed a fever,” I muttered.
“What?” said Hannah as she lifted away her hand.
But I didn't answer. I watched Anna slide a stop followed shortly by the boy and she led me over to the courtyard where she played the role of cook and nursemaid.
She made the boy, whose name was Jacob, build a small fire from a flame in the smoldering store and a game she made the children play called pick up sticks. She sharpened some sticks into spears and cut the SPAM into chunks that could fit on the end like hot dogs roasted over a campfire.
Hannah made cooking a game, watching close as the children dipped their meat speared sticks into and over the tiny flame. The smell of cooking filled the courtyard and my stomach decided the rumble tumble roll it had been playing was done and my mouth was filled with saliva.
“Feed a fever,” I muttered again.
Anna smoothed back the hair from my head.
“Fever,” she confirmed.
She cooked for me and broke off little pieces and when I didn't lift my hands to feed myself, she put them in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed, never tasting anything so good as that except for the last time we cooked Spam together.
It reminded me of my grandfather and how he used to take my brother and I to some land he owned in the woods growing up.
Our job was to clear it, playing another game of pick up sticks, and he would build a fire to roast a can of Spam. We would eat it with yellow mustard and store brand root beer.
It was one of my favorite memories and one I hoped to share with my kids, then I remembered that I never had, and maybe now I never would.
Maybe the food made me feel stronger.
