by Mark Tufo
I walked around to the side of the pool enclosure to the small shed. It wasn’t locked, and inside was everything I’d need. There was a tarp, but I didn’t want to wrap her body in that. I grabbed a spade shovel and took note of the empty space that I believed once accommodated the small axe that was now inside the house – or more specifically, embedded in Jack’s flesh.
I walked back out and tested the earth in several spots. It had rained earlier, so the ground was moist, to my relief. I started digging the grave for my darling Jesse directly behind the shed. The rear fence blocked sight of me from anybody who might still be alive, or anyone who might want to come at me for whatever reason – I still wasn’t completely sure, at least at that point, what was happening. I would love to be as blind to the new dangers of the world as I was at that particular moment in time, but I’m no fool. The saying used to go ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you,’ but it’s changed in this world. Now it’s ‘what you don’t know can eat you.’
From my vantage point, I could look around the corner and see the cab of my truck, so that made me feel better about leaving Jamie so close to Trina.
The grave was not too big. Just about four and a half feet long by two feet wide. I wanted to make it about another foot deep, but I didn’t have the time or, as it turned out, the energy. The adrenaline had started to dissipate, after all. Using the shovel as a support, I propped it outside the hole and leaned on it as I stepped up and out.
“Flex?”
The unexpected voice made me draw back, and I almost fell back into the small grave.
She stood barely five feet in front of me. It was Gem.
“Jesus Christ, Flex! It is you!” She ran to me and I threw the shovel down and took her into my arms. I wrapped them around her and squeezed her so tight to me that I almost couldn’t breathe. We didn’t say a word for the longest time, and when she pulled away from me, I looked into her face, her eyes.
She kissed me gently on the mouth, then pulled back, her eyes meeting mine, a question in them.
I broke the silence, but there was nothing awkward about it. “Gem, I’ve been thinking about you. And here you are. God I missed you.”
“Me, too,” she said. Then: “Flex, I’m scared. Uncle Rogelio is . . . one of them, and there were so many of them in Miami that I had to get out of there. He killed my Aunt Ana, Flex! I can’t tell you how. . . You do know what’s happening to people, right?” She searched my eyes, waiting for my answer.
I nodded. “Gem, I know. This is the only firsthand experience I’ve had so far. It’s fucking bad here.”
Gem shook her head. “I know, Flex. You were on my mind for weeks before this all happened, but once I realized something bizarre was going on, I knew I had to find you.”
“Gem, I’m glad you’re here, and there’s a lot I need to tell you – none of it good. Jamie’s one of them. She killed Jack, near as I can tell, and Jesse . . . well, Jess is dead. She drowned in the pool trying to escape her mom.”
Gem’s face fell, and tears immediately formed in her eyes. “Oh, Flex. Oh, my God. Not little Jess.” Her expression became more distressed. “Where’s Trina? Is she okay?”
I nodded and pulled her against me again. She put her head on my chest and I breathed her in. “Trina’s in my truck, locked in, lying on the floor. She’s a good little hider, and she’s been really good, listening to what I’ve told her to do.”
Gem held onto me for another long moment, then pulled back. “So this . . . grave. It’s for Jess?”
I nodded. “She’s still in the pool. I didn’t want to get her until . . . you know.” I looked at the grave. “I think it’s good enough now.”
“Give me your keys,” she said. “I need to go to Trina.”
I fished them out of my pocket and handed them to her. “I’m glad you’re here, Gem. You are the one person I needed to see now. I think the only person.”
She shrugged. “It was the same with me. Go get her, and I’ll sit with Trina for a bit. But don’t finish this without me. I want to see her.”
I nodded and headed toward the pool, turning back to watch her walk to the Suburban. The one that got away was back. I must not have done everything wrong.
I reached the edge of the pool again and scanned the water. The zombie I’d killed was caught in the side ladder. He’d floated into it and his arm was caught, so he was not sinking down to where Jesse’s body lay. I entered at the steps and just walked in. When I was chest deep, I dove down and found her again.
Back at the Suburban, I tapped on the window. Trina sat beside Gem, another of her favorite big people in the world, and was talking animatedly. I noticed a machine gun of some type on the dashboard, and noted to myself that this was not my weapon. Gem rolled down the window.
“Is that an Uzi?” I asked, shaking my head. “I’m ready. Bring that other comforter with you.”
She nodded. No words were necessary. Gem pulled the twin comforter from the floorboard, and turned to Trina. “On the floor, door locked, not a peep, right?”
“Like I’m playing hide and seek,” Trina said, smiling.
“Just like that,” Gem responded. “Shhh.”
“Shhh,” repeated Trina, crawling onto the floor. Gem dropped the other comforter on top of her and rolled the driver’s side window back up. She got out of the truck, clicked the lock and closed the door.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Back at the gravesite Gem knelt down over Jesse’s body. I had rested her on her back and had done my best to straighten her clothes and hair. Despite her condition, her hair and clothes soaking wet, she still looked beautiful.
“I never should have had to see you like this, Jesse,” Gem said. She stroked the child’s face and hair, then lowered her face to Jesse’s and kissed her cheek, then her forehead. “Rest in peace, little rabbit, you.”
It was what she’d always called Jesse. Jesse loved it, because she loved rabbits. In fact, against her mother’s better judgment, Gem had convinced Jamie to let her read Watership Down to Jesse, who from the beginning, adored the tale of Fiver, Hazel and their warren of rabbits.
When Gem was done with her goodbyes, I knelt down beside Jesse and touched her face. I dropped down and put her cheek against mine. “I love you, little one. And I want you to know that wasn’t your mama you were running from. She loves you. Your mama would never do anything to hurt you.”
I stared down at her for a long time, kissed her cheek and stood. “Let’s wrap her.”
Gem spread out the comforter and I picked Jesse up and placed her on it. Gem carefully folded the blanket over and around her, tucking it in tightly on all sides. Together, we lifted her and placed her inside the grave.
In silence, we covered her body with soil until only a mound of earth was visible before us.
“Jamie’s in the equipment hauler hooked up to the Suburban.”
“How?” asked Gem.
“Wrapped in a big bubble wrap sheet. A piece of the pool cover. Like a mummy.”
Gem stared at me. I knew the question in her eyes before she vocalized it.
“Because, Gem, I can’t leave her. I have to see if she can be cured . . . something. I can’t just shoot her, and I won’t leave her to do what she did to – well, I just can’t.”
“I get that, babe. If you’re comfortable she’s secure, that’s good enough for me.”
She had the sub machine gun slung over her shoulder and with her crazy long locks, she reminded me of a female Rambo.
“I miss hearing you call me babe, Gem,” I said. “I’ve missed it for a long time.”
“Well, you won’t miss it anymore, babe. Because I’ve felt exactly the same since the last time I saw you. Now let’s get out of here. I smell fire.”
Chapter 218
With Trina out cold between us, I drove. I turned toward Georgia. There were two reasons. Gem had said Miami was a mess, and it was also a dead end. Without a boat you couldn’t get anywhere from south Flor
ida – but I suppose hiding out in the Everglades wasn’t the worst of ideas. Who knows? Maybe the Seminole tribe had some ideas of how to deal with this crap.
The Center for Disease Control was on Clifton Road in Atlanta, and I knew exactly how to get there, even without the GPS. Plus, it was my stomping grounds, and the location of my house seemed like a benefit right about now.
Gem had been right about fire. The air was thick with smoke and the horizon glowed with the light of several of them burning all around us. Perhaps some people were trying to dispatch the zombies by burning down the buildings that contained them. I knew we needed more firepower to deal with this. At least I did. Gem’s gun was perfection.
“We need to get off at one of the downtown exits and hit a pawn shop,” I said. We’ll find some guns there, I’d imagine.”
“You really should think bigger,” Gem said, smiling at me. I couldn’t help but return it.
“Bigger?”
“Police station. Evidence locker. Big city. Lots of confiscated automatic weapons in evidence lockers.”
“What have you been up to since I last saw you?” I asked.
“This and that,” she said. “I’ve got some friends on the force, and the best guns and the best weed comes from the evidence lockers.”
“So we’re kind of counting on this epidemic having taken out these police stations so we can get in and get the weapons, right?”
Gem shrugged. “You should have seen Miami, Flex. I’m lucky to be here now. Uncle Rogelio was gone – gone. I should have killed him – I really should have, I loved that bastard, and I couldn’t. I had stayed overnight at his place, and when I woke up in the morning, he . . . it was . . .”
I put a hand over hers. “Later, Gem. You don’t need to go over it now. Let’s worry about staying alive first.”
We decided to stay on the semi-deserted side roads as much as possible, which wasn’t that difficult from Gainesville. I75, the main highway through Florida, was packed to the gills – all four lanes. I wasn’t keen on stopping the car at all, much less sitting in traffic. And I knew I’d need gas a couple of times before reaching home again. We’d have to look for either somewhere entirely unaffected by the zombie problem – as best we could judge, or a place where the devastation was complete and everybody was already dead. We clearly preferred the former.
Either way, I had zero intention of sitting on the freeway for days on end, as if a Category 5 hurricane was bearing down on the state and every soul was leaving. The satellites were still orbiting around the planet Earth, and Gem had brought her GPS with her, so it got us quite effectively off the main grid and onto State Route 24 to State Route 26, eventually dumping us out onto US-19, where we would hit Tallahassee. And with 181,000 people, there might be a decent cache of lethal street weapons in the main downtown police station.
But again, we were counting on some easy way in and out, and if it proved to be a mess, we would not risk little Trina. We’d make do with the guns we had to get us to Atlanta. The CDC seemed like a logical place to start.
It was impossible to stay completely off the grid, and as we encountered people, everyone was either freaked out and fleeing, or freaking someone else out, causing them to flee. Or causing them to die. We had talked a bit when we first left Jamie’s house and had decided not to be heroes. The world had changed today, and people were pretty much on their own. We’d just have to worry about us for now.
If we saw a child being pursued by one of them, or if one was in immediate danger, we’d play it by ear. We knew that. But around us, right here just in the state of Florida, there were thousands of children in danger right now. Logically, we knew we’d better just worry about the little girl sitting between us at the moment.
When we hit the city limits it became obvious that we were going to have trouble shielding Trina from what was happening around us. A child could only take so much horror, and this one had seen enough from her own mother to carry her for the rest of her life.
I pulled the car over in a secluded spot. Jamming the gear lever into park, I looked at Gem and mouthed the words, “We need something for her.” I put the palms of my hands together and put them to my cheek with my eyes closed. I quickly looked down at Trina, who was staring blankly through the front windshield. We needed to put this kid to sleep. Even on the floorboard of the truck she could hear what was happening, and at this point I don’t know what exactly I expected would happen. I just had a feeling that stuff would be happening.
Gem nodded and punched the GPS a few times, pulling up Points of Interest. She entered Pharmacy and got several. There was one just five minutes away. A Walgreens.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get there first. Then after we’re done getting what we need – or trying a second pharmacy, you use that trick to pull up a police or FBI building in this area.”
The GPS worked flawlessly. We pulled up to the Walgreens in the exact time it estimated.
Gem looked around, scanning the parking lot and beyond. I did the same. There were seven cars in the lot, so it had to be a 24-hour location. I guessed at least three or four of the cars belonged to employees.
I looked at my watch and saw it was 1:30 in the morning.
“You go inside, Flex. Take my gun. I’ll take your .38 and stay here with Trini.”
“If the employees know what’s happening with these things, I might be able to convince them to help.”
“And if not?”
“You’re my secret weapon. If I can’t convince them with charm and good looks, then I’ll show them your gun and tell them that for fucking sure they’d rather deal with me than you. Of course, that would carry more weight if they actually knew you.”
“Good cop, bad cop. Got it. Go get the stuff, but don’t be stupid. There are lots of pharmacies.”
“Here.” I handed her the .38 and she passed me the Uzi. “There are only three rounds left in it, but I’ve got a box of fifty in the glove compartment.”
“Check. Reloading now.” Gem popped open the glove compartment.
After closing the door, I banged on the glass with the heel of my hand and said in a loud enough voice to penetrate the glass, “If everything goes to shit, I want you to take off. The keys are in the ignition. Just go if you see trouble. I won’t say not to check on me later if you can, but don’t wait, Gem. Go.”
Gem nodded, and I didn’t believe her for one second.
Walking to the entrance of the store, I looked back at the truck and scanned the parking lot again. I pulled on the door handle, but it was locked. Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I put my cupped hands to the door, and peered in. The fluorescent lights blazed, lighting up every aisle like daytime, but nobody was visible inside.
At first glance, that is. Then I saw it. Near the entrance to aisle 5. A foot on the floor sticking out of the row of merchandise. I’m sure it was connected to a body, but I could only see the foot from outside. I could see some blood by the foot, but not much. I imagined there was much more near the source of the deadly wound – if the owner of the foot was indeed dead. It didn’t move, so it was my conclusion that it was so.
Now I scanned the rest of the store more carefully. On the same wall as the entrance door, to my extreme right, was a middle-aged woman who had apparently been pouring coins into the machine that tallies how much change you saved in your peanut butter jar over the last year, and gives you a receipt to convert that change into paper money. She never got her receipt. Her throat was ripped open, and she lay on her back. Had it been just her throat, I might have been able to lie to myself and make up some other reason she was dead, but her eyes were . . . gone. The two sockets had been torn at and – what? hammered on? – until the skull beneath cracked and pushed inward, and the two individual sockets joined together.
I turned and headed back to the Suburban and motioned to Gem to roll down the window fast. She did.
“Dead people inside. I’m not comfortable leaving you out here. This is getting sk
etchier by the minute.”
“Babe, it got sketchy for me in Miami, but I know you’re just getting used to all of it. Did you see anyone alive . . . or, well, moving?”
I shook my head.
“Then get what you need and hurry. We’ll be fine. Just do me a favor and check on your trailer cargo before you go back inside. And if they have an electronics department, pick up some of those two-way radios. They come in pairs, and tourists like to buy them.”
“Are you sure you’ll be –“
“Go,” she said, sternly.
She rolled up the window again and showed me the Smith & Wesson. She’d already put Trina back on the floor beneath the comforter again.
I went to the trailer and reached down to check the tie-downs holding Jamie. She-It was moaning now, a steady, low hum almost, seemingly vibrating the bundle. If she was starving before, now she had to be near insatiable with hunger. I felt like a kid who had found a turtle. I had no idea how to feed it or what it would eat.
The truth was, subconsciously I knew what it would eat, but if that was how it was going to be, then my sister would die. I would not be feeding her that. Ever.
Satisfied she was secure and harmless to the occupants of my truck, I ran back to the store entrance again. I saw two flashlight beams in the distance about a quarter mile away, but they bobbed off in the opposite direction. I had no idea what percentage of the population had succumbed to this sickness or whatever it was, but if it was just ten percent, it was still a huge problem.
I reached the door, held Gem’s Uzi out in front of me and kicked it hard. The latch snapped and I pulled it outward, swinging it open easily. In Florida, all doors, either commercial or residential, pulled outward. Hurricane force winds could easily blow doors in if not, so this was an ordinance. From the outside, they’re all pulls.
I stepped inside the store and swung the barrel of the rifle from side to side, moving toward the front of the store. I went to the cashier’s counter which ran the entire length of that wall, from the side where the registers were located to the photo processing department on the far end. Leaning over the counter and scanning the length, I saw nobody back there, either crouching there hiding, or dead. I almost instinctively called out, but I checked myself. No sense in alerting any of the . . . I just didn’t know how to think of them yet. The infected.
