by David Rogers
The mirror itself was a small circle of polished steel, but treated with an anti-glare coating that helped reduce any eye-catching reflections that might draw an opponent’s eye when it was used for its intended purpose. Namely, looking around corners that could get one shot trying to do it without the aid of the piece of steel. She still worried a little about how their ‘guards’ would react if they noticed it, but they didn’t seem to really be paying much attention to this roof. They kept most of their attention, when they weren’t chatting amongst themselves idly, on the streets below.
“Not what you wanted to hear?” she said, reading his reaction. It had taken her really getting to know him to tell. But once she’d managed, he wasn’t as impassive as she’d first assumed. Which seemed like forever ago; the days had started to run together. Regardless, knowing him well enough to read was not only useful when it came to interacting with him, it also removed a good portion of his former advantage when they played cards and other games to pass the time.
“If they’d slackened off to a minimal watch, or even left some of the roofs entirely, I wouldn’t complain.” he admitted. “I was even hoping they might do something like that.”
“Well, whatever they’re up to, the lowest the count’s been is nine.”
“And the highest fourteen.” he sighed. “Status quo, when all we need is one break.”
“How low is low enough?” she asked.
“Five.” he said immediately. “Less is better, but if they drop it down to five, especially if at least one of the roofs is abandoned, I think we could consider taking them out.”
“Five would still be some shooting.”
“Yes, but we’d have the element of surprise.”
“I still don’t see how we’d get enough people up fast enough to surprise them.”
“There’s enough materials in here to build steps or even a ramp. Use the two desks as a starting point, add the whatever, and we can run people up and out to engage.”
“With duct tape?” she asked, working mostly successfully to keep her skepticism from showing. “Duct tape some stairs together?”
“Hey, never underestimate duct tape.” he said with a smile.
“Then why don’t you carry any?”
“Because I’m not the smart one. The better question is why you didn’t bring some.”
“Guess I’m not as smart as you think.”
“You’re smart enough.” he said, glancing into the mirror.
“What’s to say, if we do that and take five out, the others aren’t just inside. Cooking or sleeping or something. When they come back out, they just flood the roofs and we’re back in that big dangerous gunfight you’re worried about.”
“Well, the difference in my scenario is we’d have cleared the roofs, and be belly down and aimed. Ready to shoot. We’d have turned the tables on them, and could nail them as they show up. Especially since we can put just about everyone up here to help cover things at that point.”
“And if they charge the building itself? From the street?”
“Then it gets messier, true.” he admitted. “But if they do they’ll be the ones handling the zombies outside. So they’d take out our other problem for starters. Plus we’d have the high ground, from up here.”
“Ben and Phil would need a lot of help to get up here.”
“There’s things they could do from the first floor, like watch over the front door like Phil said. It’s the same kind of bottleneck down there that this one damn hatch is up here.”
“Messy. Like you said.”
“We’re still in recon mode.” he said with a shrug, though she read a shadow of his continued frustration and discontent with the circumstances in his demeanor. “We’re not committed until we start acting.”
“Status quo again.”
“We’ve got the time.”
“We’ve got the time.” she agreed sadly. “Guess it’s your turn to take over.”
“Want to keep me company?”
“What?” she said, pouring a healthy dose of mock indignation into her expression. “After you just left me up here alone for the last hour while you hung out downstairs chatting?”
“Morale boosting.” he said, grinning. “Team building.”
“Please tell me you didn’t have everyone do the falling into each other’s arms thing.”
“No, but if you think it’ll help—”
Jessica swatted at him. “No. I don’t.”
“Good thing I just talked up shooting and some basic tactics. U’s actually really interested. He pays a hell of a lot more attention than his two buddies.”
“He was studying math.” Jessica said. “He’s not on scholarship like the others.”
“Yeah, he told me. But it doesn’t matter much. Everyone’s taking the same test these days, and there’s no curve.”
Jessica made a face. “Don’t remind me.”
“Like you could forget. Anyway, you’ve more than earned a passing grade.”
“Pass, fail, there’s no grade except living. The test isn’t over yet.”
“That’s why I love you.” he grinned.
“Cynicism?”
“Realism.”
“You know what, I will keep you company for a bit.” she said, hopping down from the desk and pulling over the chair they’d rolled out of the office simply because it was in the way in the room when they tried to move the desk. “See if I can’t figure out how much damage you did with your terrible teambuilding so I’ll know what needs fixing.”
“I’m all ears.”
“As long as your eyes are on the mirror.”
Chapter Thirteen — Anger management
“Candy Candy, that’s a whole shitpot of fucking zombies.”
Candice frowned as she stared through the windshield. Frowning was better than starting to cry. Somehow she was sure that crying wasn’t going to help, especially with Happy. He’d already almost turned around upon coming up on South Bay. The sight of his old town had nearly set him off, but she’d managed to calm him down and they kept driving.
Now she was working to calm herself. Road 27 had gone straight into South Bay, which had been a little scarier than Clewiston but not that bad. Happy ran over more zombies than she thought he should’ve, but the car kept moving, nothing got to them inside it, and they’d made the turn onto another road. It was numbered 80 on the map and signs, that Happy — and the map — said ran straight over to neighboring Belle Glade.
There were even more zombies as they entered Belle Glade, or at least the south part of it according to the map. The town was a lot bigger than South Bay, a lot. Not as big as Lawrenceville had been back in Atlanta, but still big enough to be dangerous. Road 80 ran through the very edge, and it wasn’t that bad, then turned north to angle straight up into one edge of the town.
But only a minute or two after making that turn, they’d seen the number of zombies go from “there’s a lot of them” to, as Happy put it, “a shitpot.”
“Told ya.” Happy said as Candice took several deep breaths without saying anything. “My plan’s the best. No zombies. Now—”
“No.” she said quickly. “Wait. What if … what if we drove around the town.”
“We can’t fucking drive through that.” he said, gesturing through the windshield. The car was still moving, though very slowly; slower even than the thirty miles per hour she’d convinced him to make the trip at. Now it was maybe a third of that, which she hoped was fast enough to keep the zombies around them from bothering the vehicle too much. Some of them were pretty close to the car as it passed, but none had managed to get a hand on it yet.
“Not … not through the town.” Candice said. “Could we, like, circle around? Maybe there’s less of them in the other parts?”
“Well, I’d say fuck no, but I happen to know there’s a great place, great fucking place, over on the side nearest the lake.” Happy said. “And since we’re already down here, might as well fucking stop in and r
elieve it of some of the shit that should be there.”
“Okay.” Candice said, just to get him to agree. “So, can we turn right and go around that way?” They were already on the eastern side of the town, so if they circled around she’d get to see at least half the town. If there were fewer zombies anywhere along the way, she’d try to get him to drive closer and maybe she could see something that would tell her where mom and Austin were.
“Alright, we’ll turn around.” Happy said, his voice cheerful and suddenly very enthusiastic. “Hang on.”
“What—” Candice started to say, before the engine roared and the car surged forward. She braced her hands against the dashboard quickly, and then used them to press herself further into the seat than the already tight seatbelt was managing as the man brought the car skidding around in a really fast turn that made the tires screech and tried to tug her sideways.
Several zombies in the way as the vehicle’s rear end snapped around thudded against the bodywork and tumbled away. Candice looked out her window and saw three that were only steps from her side of the car. But Happy still had the gas pedal mashed down, and the car was only still for just a moment before its screeching tires were moving it away from them.
“Love doing that.” Happy said as he straightened out, which involved the usual amount of swerving as he sawed the steering wheel back and forth. He ran over several more zombies in the process, not even on purpose though Candice had about given up trying to convince him not to do it anymore. The hood of the car was quite rumpled and misshapen now, and she knew the front of the car was probably worse. The engine still worked though, and the car continued to drive despite the steady diet of impacts Happy was feeding it.
“Where are we going?”
“Gonna circle around. This fucking street here, we can cut over to the edge of town, then shoot up north and across the top, and it’s the fucking promised land. You ever had thirty year old scotch?”
“No.” Candice said, though she had no idea what that was.
“Neither have I.” Happy admitted. “Couldn’t fucking afford it, had to stick with the cheap stuff. And this place, this place, this place, fucking had some. Kept it on the back shelf, behind the counter. Up high too. Bet it’s still fucking there.”
Candice shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Maybe hell.” Happy said. “Hey, where’s that fucking bottle you mixed up for me?”
“Here.” she said, taking it out of the cup holder between the seats and handing it to him.
“Sure you put the right amount in?”
“I did it right.” Candice said, purposefully misleading him. She’d brought some food and water, and also some sodas too because she knew from mom’s love of coffee that caffeine was good for staying alert. When she’d taken one out, Happy had asked her to mix some of his ‘coffee’ in, said he felt like having some Kahlua and Coke. She’d drank some of the soda, then poured in some of the contents of his bottle; but only some. Enough that it smelled like she figured it was supposed to, but way less than she figured he either wanted or would have poured if he’d done the mixing.
So far he hadn’t seemed to notice. At least his driving wasn’t getting any worse.
“Wish we had some fucking ice. Nothing goes better with a mix than a little fucking ice.”
He took a swig — the cap to the bottle had been tossed out the window somewhere on the road before they reached South Bay — and sighed. “Yeah, might as well get some soda while we’re out here. Scotch and soda’s pretty fucking good. Some fuckers say it’s a crime to put anything in scotch, especially good scotch. Even fucking ice. But damn if I don’t like me a good scotch and soda. Fucking love it.”
Candice was used to his rambling by now. Even his incessant need to use words she wasn’t supposed to; words mom and Austin didn’t use in front of her. He liked to talk; there hadn’t been much silence on the drive over. Fortunately Happy seemed content with only occasional reaction from her. So she provided the occasional “yes” or “no” or “I don’t know” and he kept driving and chatting away like they were best buddies.
She was getting a little better at figuring out where they were on the map, especially with street signs helping. Happy drove down the side street to the big road that went diagonally through the town, and turned away from Belle Glade rather than into it. Candice held her objections when she saw the road, which had a little river in between the two sides; that meant they needed a bridge to drive to the other side. She’d guessed the little blue line on the map was water, but wasn’t sure until she saw it through the windshield.
The bridge showed up before she even had time to get anxious about going in the wrong direction. Happy crossed it going north and drove up a little paved road that was bordered on either side with more overgrown farm fields. Candice looked north on the map and saw they’d definitely be able to get all the way up the side of the city, but it was further away than she liked. This was too far to see anything from.
As she sat trying to think of a way to talk him into veering back toward the city so she could at least see what was going on in it, Happy’s chatter stopped in mid word.
“And that’s wh—”
She glanced at him when the silence stretched on long enough to be noticeable. He was staring intently through the windshield at something ahead, so she looked to see what had distracted him. Nothing else they’d come across, no matter how horrible or dangerous, had phased him even slightly; so she was instantly curious. And nervous.
That was when he jammed on the brakes, throwing her forward against the seatbelt. It hurt some, but she ignored that as she shifted her gaze out her window as the car skidded to a halt.
“What are those people doing?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but their dog sure as hell don’t like it.” Happy said, and his voice was different than it had been the whole way over here.
A very wide path had been trampled through the fields, where all the grass and stuff was flattened down. Just a little ways off in the field on her side of the car, a small group of people were coming this way on foot ahead of a whole lot of zombies. At least as many as she and mom and Austin had fled from in Ocala on the way down to the stilt house.
Except these people didn’t seem to be fleeing. They were just walking. And not even that fast. In fact, as she looked at them, one of them stopped walking and turned to look behind himself at the zombies following. There were four people in the group, and they had a dog on a leash. It was barking and throwing itself at the leash, over and over; pulling on the man’s arms as it lunged this way and that.
“That ain’t no way to treat no dog.” Happy said, and he didn’t just sound not-happy; he sounded mad. Candice looked away from the window at him; she’d never seen or heard him like this before. She knew that Happy was supposed to get mad if you bothered him while he was sleeping, but it had just been a few things she’d heard from mom and Austin, sometimes Byron when he came by.
The man’s eyes were suddenly narrowed, and his mouth beneath the beard was set in a straight line. He didn’t look like Happy anymore.
He looked scary.
“Those sons of bitches.” he said, and just like that he opened his door and lurched from the car.
“Happy!” Candice blurted, but it was too late. He staggered up around the misshapen front of the car, shouting at the approaching group.
“What the hell are you doing?”
They said something she couldn’t hear. Candice looked around, the road was still pretty clear — except for all the zombies following the strangers with the dog — so she rolled her window down some.
“Clearing Palm Beach?” Happy yelled in reply. “How in the hell are you doing that?”
“It’s easy.” one of the men said. “We walk over, wander around, then come back here.”
“Working good too.” another of them said. “Won’t be long now and we can get to the boat.”
“Boat? Boat?” Happy said.
&nbs
p; “Nice big one, plenty of room. Hey, you want to come?”
“Where the fuck would I want to be going on a boat?”
Candice was getting very nervous. The people and their zombies were starting to get close. Not too close, not yet; but it wouldn’t be long before they’d be to the car. And Happy had stopped it right about exactly where they were going to be walking. She didn’t know how to drive. Well, that wasn’t true; she understood the basics. But she could barely see over the dashboard when she tried to reach the pedals. Happy’s ‘driving’ notwithstanding, not being able to see where you were going was a good way to wreck the car.
If they kept coming this way, she was going to have to try though. It was that or get out and run. And while it had only taken an hour or so to get down here in the car, she knew it would be a long walk back. She didn’t like either choice though. It would be better if Happy got back in the car so they could leave.
“The islands man. Zombie free paradise. No trouble, no problems. It’s perfect.” the first man said to Happy.
“Where‘d you’d get that dog.”
“What?”
“He don’t seem too pleased with how you’re treating’im.”
“It’s just here to help us drop the pack off.” the man explained. “Or if we have any problems on the way back.”
“What?” Happy said again. He had been walking forward the entire time, and was now only steps away from the people leading the zombies toward the car, and beyond it the town.
“Stupid zombies, they just want to eat, right?” the man who was hanging onto the animal said. The dog was still jerking and straining at the leash, and Candice could hear a lot of whine and panic in its barking. It couldn’t seem to be able to decide if it wanted to lag back and bark at the zombies behind it or try to run ahead; but in either direction, the leash kept jerking it up short. The leash was looped around the man’s wrist tightly, the same way the other end was looped around the dog’s neck.
