by David Rogers
She waited as Happy took another drink. “Then, then one day, it all changed.”
“Zombies.” Candice said reluctantly.
“Damn right zombies.” he insisted with a vigorous nod. “His wife, his l-l-lov … fuck it, hot wife, she turned into one. Damn near ate him, damn if she wasn’t trying to. Set the house on fire fucking trying, the hell she didn’t. Knocked that damn jar over on the stove, fucking flames went up, and so did the fucking house.”
“Happy—”
“Shush.” he said, wagging a finger at her. “Story time. Listen.”
Candice pressed her lips together. She wasn’t sure how any of this was relevant, but she needed his help. And she wasn’t supposed to interrupt adults. Though, she thought as Happy worked to regather his thoughts to continue, maybe that rule didn’t apply to adults like Happy.
“The guy went next door, but the asshole over there was a damn zombie too. So he took the asshole’s truck and went off with his fucking dog, looking for his best friend. Dead, you hear me? Dead. Got eaten by a zombie. Eaten right the fuck up.
“Thought, the guy thought, maybe … maybe it was time to see about maybe getting out of Dodge, you know.” Happy said, then he paused. “Even though the damn truck was a Ford. But anyway, he thought that with fucking zombies, fucking eating people, it was time to leave.
“So he did. He went on down to his shop. But there was fucking zombies all around it. Fuckers were everywhere. Eating people, sure as shit they were. When he saw that, that’s when … when … when he almost got eaten again. And when he got out, when he got back … back … back to the truck, his dog was gone.”
Happy looked down at the deck between his legs and shook his head. “Beautiful dog. They even took him. Great dog. Gone. So he said fuck it. Fuck it, you hear me!” he said, banging the bottle on the boards. Liquor slopped out, some of it on his pants. “That’s when he fucking figured it out.” He looked up at her and nodded, his expression clearly triumphantly pleased.
“Zombies, they’re everywhere. Everywhere. Fucking everywhere! So he loaded that asshole’s truck full at the store, got all the good stuff before the zombies did, and just rolled his ass right out here.”
Silence stretched out. Candice eventually spoke, hesitantly. “And?”
“And? The end, that’s and.” he said. “The. End. You get it?”
“No.”
“Candy Candy Candy.” Happy said, shaking his head. “Don’t fucking worry about it. Just go back home … wait, there aren’t any zombies over there is there?”
“No.”
“Then go home. Have some cake or something. Or something stronger if you want. That’s all you gotta fucking do.”
Candice shook her head. “No. No, that’s not all I can do. I can find them, and we can be together again.”
“Were there fucking zombies where they went?”
“Probably. Yes.”
“There you got it.” he said with a shrug, a gesture that took him several seconds to perform as his shoulders and torso seemed to slow down and go through it out of sequence. “Zombies. Case … case closed.”
“Mr. Happy, I really need your help. Could you … could you just come with me?”
“Why?”
“To help me find them.”
“Who?”
“My mom.” Candice said quickly. “And Austin. You like them, right?”
“They’re okay I guess.” Happy said, producing another mixed up shrug. “Fr … frin … friendly enough.”
“They went down to Belle Glade, and that’s like thirty—”
“Wait, Belle Glade?”
“Yes.” Candice said, surprised.
“I used to … to live next to there.” Happy said, shaking his head. “Fucking zombies for sure.”
“Maybe … maybe we could look for something you left over there.” Candice said. “Maybe your dog’s still around?”
Happy shook his head. “Zombies.”
“They’ve been out a bunch of times, and always came back.” Candice said. “There’s places where there aren’t zombies.”
“Yeah, but wherever they went, there are.” Happy insisted.
“Not here.”
“Which is why it’s the place, the place, to be.”
“Mr. Happy, you can’t just stay here forever.”
“Forever is a long fucking time Candy Candy.” he said. “And I’ve still got a lot of booze left.”
Candice glanced involuntarily in the direction of the bedrooms. “How much?”
“Well, less than I fucking did.” Happy admitted. “But still—”
“Don’t you need some more?”
“Not yet.”
“But eventually, right?” she said, an idea forming in her head.
“Well sure. It’s part of the plan.”
“So if you run out of booze, your plan fails?”
“Exactly.” he said with a vigorous nod.
“So why not come with me, and we can look for mom and Austin, and get more booze before coming back.”
“No, no, no, that won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because I ain’t out yet.”
“And when you’re out, you’ll get some more, right?”
“Yup.”
“So why not get some more now and help me too?”
Happy blinked at her, then blinked some more. “You sound like your mom.” he finally said. “She tries to talk me into things too.”
“But I only want to do something you want to do anyway.” Candice told him innocently. “You just said you’ll need more.”
“Yup.”
“So let’s go. We’ve got a car, it still works. You can drive, right?”
“Hah! Hah hah. Oh man, hah!” he said before descending into a fit of gibbering giggling.
“What?”
“Zombies!” he chortled.
Now it was Candice’s turn to blink, but only once. “What?”
“All the fucking cops.” he wheezed. “They’re zombies! Don’t you get it?”
“No.”
“Zombie cops means no DUI.” he said. “You’re a fucking ge … gen … fuck it, you’re fucking smart. Fucking smart, that’s what … what … you are Candy Candy.”
“So let’s go then.” she urged. “We’ll get in the car, and go to Belle Glade. When we find mom and Austin, we’ll get booze, and come back here, and your plan will keep working.”
Happy fell over on his back laughing. The bottle he’d been alternately drinking and spilling fell to the side, the contents gurgling out across the deck boards. Candice watched as the man rolled his head back and forth, as he carried on laughing hysterically. She wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad sign, but he wasn’t saying no anymore.
Finally the drunk sat up. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she asked with a surge of hope.
“But if I’m gonna drive, even with zombie cops, I’ll need some damn coffee.”
Chapter Twelve - Breaking the law
“Are you sure that’s coffee?” Candice asked. There was coffee in her house. Mom and Austin had some in the mornings. She’d offered to go get some, but Happy had said he already had some.
“Sure is. Says it right on the label.”
“It doesn’t look like coffee.”
“Here, see for yourself.” Happy said, reaching across himself with his left hand to proffer the bottle to her. The car swerved out of the middle of the road, and the ride went bumpy as the wheels on her side of the car left the road and went into the grass. This was because Happy’s right hand stayed on the steering wheel, and bent along with his body as he handed the bottle over.
“On the road!” she said quickly, taking the bottle. “Please Mr. Happy.”
“I got it, I got it.” he said, jerking the car back onto the pavement so sharply that she had to catch herself — even with the seatbelt tightened snugly around her — from swaying into the door.
“I’ve been driving sinc
e I was your age.” he said. Then he glanced at her, and the car started veering again, and he looked back in time to bring it once more to the center line. “Well … well … maybe a little older. And I told you, stop fucking calling me Mr. Happy. It’s not right. Sounds fucking rid … ridic … fucking gay.”
Candice hid her frown and looked at the bottle he’d given her. Brown, with a red lettered yellow label. “Kah-lua?” she said slowly. “What’s—”
“Kahlua.” he said triumphantly.
“Coffee expresso liqueur.” she read silently. “Made with fresh roasted coffee beans.”
“See?” he said, and she looked up. He was watching her again. And the car was veering again. But as soon as he saw she’d seen his cheerful and self-congratulatory expression, he looked back to the road ahead and brought the car weaving yet again to the road’s middle.
“I’m not sure this is the right kind of coffee.” she said. The vapors rising from the open bottle did sort of smell like coffee, but they also smelled like his house. Not as sour and foul, but similar.
“It’s the right kind. Trust me.” he said, reaching for the bottle. Candice hastened to hand it back, stretching out so he didn’t have to extend so far and lose control of the car again. “Oh yeah, here we go.”
Candice looked forward and saw a zombie in the oncoming lane. It was sort of ambling along, swaying back and forth almost as much as it was actually walking as it angled itself across the road. She could tell when it heard the car’s approach, by the way the head came around. Then it nearly fell as it brought itself around to face what it was now drawn to.
“Alright, hold it, hold it.” Happy said.
“Wait—” Candice started to say, just as the car surged forward. Happy adjusted his course with surprising delicateness and his voice rose in a cheerful yell as the front bumper smashed into the zombie at knee level. The walking corpse folded down into the hood with a thump that came simultaneously with the bumper’s impact, then it was sliding down out of view. The car bumped and rocked heavily twice as Happy drove over the zombie, leaving it behind.
Twisting and craning her head to peer out the rear window, Candice saw the zombie sort of flopping and jerking around on the pavement. It was falling away too fast for her to get a good look, as the car sped away. But to her it looked as if it was having a seizure or fit or something. The car continued down the road, and the flailing zombie stayed down.
“Yeah!” Happy said. “Yeah. Fuck you fucker! Now that’s awesome.”
“Can we keep doing that?” she asked cautiously when his volume dropped enough for her to get some words in.
“Sure, why the hell not?”
“Won’t it break the car if we keep doing that?”
“Naw, cars are tough. Tougher than them fucking zombies.” Happy said, patting the dashboard possessively. “And anyway, the fucking airbags are turned off.”
“You turned the airbags off?”
“Yeah, just pulled the fuse. Ain’t hard. I used to do it when I went off-roading. See, if you don’t, then the sen … sens …fuck it, the damn car thinks you’re having a wreck when all you’re doing is havin’ some fun.”
“But the hood’s dented now.” Candice said, peering at it. There was a crumpled crease right where the zombie had hit.
“We’ll be fine.”
“We’ve got to get all the way to Belle Glade.” Candice said, trying to find a tactic that would penetrate the man’s obvious insistence on making the trip ‘fun.’ To her, fun would be finding mom and Austin, and getting back to the house; but Happy was just in it for the ride. That much was starting to become clear.
“We ain’t but an hour off, even driving this slow.” he said. “Stop nagging, you ain’t old enough to be fucking picking away at a man like this.”
“I’m sorry.” she said automatically. “I just … we don’t want to walk do we?”
“We ain’t gonna be walking. A few zombies is just part of the deal.”
“Oh.”
The one concession, other than his participation, Candice had managed to wring out of Happy was to drive slow. So they were making the trip at about thirty miles per hour, though that could swing some in either direction as Happy’s attention to the dashboard indicator wasn’t exactly studious.
Initially, she’d insisted on it because that’s what Austin had ordered when everyone from Doctor Morris’ house had convoyed down to Knoxville when they left Atlanta. He’d said it was so there was less of a chance of anyone having an accident, because the roads were so unpredictable with problems and debris. And zombies. But it had only taken Happy nearly hitting a tree while leaving the stilt houses’ road for her to realize the man’s ability to drive was not what she normally saw from an adult.
For a few minutes, early in the trip, she’d sat buckled into the passenger seat wondering if she should demand they turn around. If she should stop this and go back to the house. Mom was already going to be mad, but if Happy’s sloppy driving got Candice into a wreck … mad wouldn’t even begin to approach a fair description of how mom was going to react.
The most angry Candice had ever seen mom had been when a friend of dad’s had given her and Sandra a lift home from the movies, when dad got held up at work. He’d arrived early and waited for them in one of the restaurants at the mall. He’d only had one beer, but mom had hit the roof when she’d found out.
“Zombies change the rules.” she told herself. “They change all the rules.” All that mattered was finding mom and Austin. She could weather everything else, no matter how mad mom got, as long as mom got to be there to yell at her.
The car passed a sign, two actually; one atop the other on the same pole. One was a familiar format, indicating the road they were on was number 27. The other read “Clewiston, one mile.” Candice picked up the map from the seat next to her and opened it to the section she’d already pre-folded it to.
“Clewiston.” she said, tracing her finger carefully across the paper. “Austin and mom say it’s not supposed to have too many zombies in it.”
“Well that’ll good.” Happy grunted. “Suppose they’ve been killing them off?”
“Yes. And Byron and the others too. They’ve been in Clewiston a lot. We can take this road straight through, all the way over to near—”
“Candy Candy, I grew up around here. Lived here my whole fuckin’ life. I know where I’m going.”
“Okay.” she said. But she didn’t fold the map up. She also, however, very quietly pulled the snap on the strap that held the Shield into the holster off. Just in case Happy’s ‘coffee’ got them into trouble as they drove through the small town. Happy’s gun was a big rifle, he said it was all he needed, and it was in the back seat along with a small green cloth bag he said was ammo. And, in any event, he was having enough trouble just driving the car.
As they entered the town, which she could tell by how the endless flat fields and overgrown vegetation that was all Florida ever seemed to be changed to buildings amid tall grass and untrimmed bushes, there weren’t too many zombies. More than a few zombie bodies, but not too many that were still dangerous.
Candice kept a sharp eye out, just as she always had before getting to the stilt house and staying there where it was safe. She’d always helped mom keep watch on what was happening around them before, checking for zombies or anything else that could be dangerous. While she was doing it, she got her first good look at what was left of the world since she and mom had arrived at the lake.
The 27 road, on the map, ran right through the town from this side to the other, before following the lake around to the south and east until reaching where mom and Austin had gone. That made it a main road, and that meant there were a lot of businesses all around it. Now they were just buildings that might hold something useful. But Candice knew people, both mom and Austin, and Byron and his group, and even other survivors, had been taking things as the months went by.
Zombies had also done a lot of damage. Windows were
broken out everywhere, and some places had damaged walls or doors. Twice she saw cars — well, one was a truck — had crashed into them. Several others looked like they’d been burned, one nearly to the ground so only little pieces of blackened wall somehow stayed upright without the others helping it. There were also more cars abandoned or wrecked along the road, and a few times in it.
Happy had to weave around these, which he managed by slowing down and muttering as he drove. She was grateful he seemed to recognize the cars, unlike the zombies he kept gleefully running down, were to be avoided.
They drove through zombies, past wrecks, and past the buildings. A lot of strange buildings with signs that proclaimed them to be little stores; but there were familiar ones mixed in too. She recognized several fast food places, a rental truck lot, a Mobil gas station, and a Publix supermarket she knew both mom and Austin had visited. They were all the same now though, unified by how they’d been beaten and battered by wind and weather. And zombies.
Nothing bothered the car as they drove through, but Candice was still glad when they got to the other end of town and left it behind. She didn’t like the sound — a sickening thud and thump and sometimes a crack or squishy-smashing — when Happy rammed a zombie. They’d spin away or fall beneath the car and jostle her around as the car ran over it. She knew, unless they ran into some sort of big horde of zombies wandering around, that there’d be fewer for Happy to run over once they were out of town.
* * * * *
“No change?”
Jessica had heard him coming; not even Austin could climb up the shelves and pull himself onto the second floor quietly. Especially not when she was alert and paying attention. “They’re still out there.”
She felt the desk that had been pulled out of one of the two offices up here creak as he stepped up on it, and finally took her eyes off the mirror above her. Byron’s scheme of rigging a pole for the mirror had actually mutated into a sort of T-shaped contraption that spanned the width of the hatch opening so the mirror could just hang rather than being held. The vertical pole was used to turn it around to look in different directions, and hold it steady at the right angle.
