In the Dead: Volume 1
Page 5
She would have glared at him over her shoulder, she really wanted to, but safety was more important than letting him know how annoying he was being, so she kept her eyes on the overgrown wheat in her path.
She was almost instantly glad she did, because one more sweep of her machete revealed the torso of a zombie hidden in the brush. A living torso, of course. A woman wearing what was left of a flowery dress. She had been injured at some point, her legs were gone, but that didn’t stop her. She dragged herself forward with the bloody stumps of her arms and growled at Carl and Robin in hungry bloodlust.
Robin sighed and then smacked her machete into the woman’s skull with a wet thunk. The zombie whined softly, then the light went out of her hungry, red eyes and she was still.
“It’s weird,” Carl said as he watched Robin step on the woman’s rotting back to yank the machete from her skull. She wiped it on the wheat next to her.
“What’s weird?” Robin asked. “There’s so much to pick from, you’ll have to be more specific.”
“Like six months ago, if I had seen half the body of a woman inching toward me, I would have freaked out,” Carl explained as he stepped over the fresh corpse. “But now, it hardly registers.”
“It’s called desensitization,” Robin sighed. “We’re just becoming better killing machines, less distracted by our… um… enemy?”
It was hard for her to think of the zombies as an enemy. The word implied some kind of animosity and the zombies didn’t really have any. They didn’t feel anything except for a primal drive to attack and devour. Robin couldn’t really hate them, though she knew plenty of people who did.
Like Carl. But then Carl had watched his entire family, including a baby sister, get destroyed by the Outbreak. Robin hadn’t.
She swiped away the last bit of brush in her way and crested the little hill where the big tree rose up over the field below. With a sigh, she looked at Carl.
“I know you don’t want to do this, but can you just keep an eye out for the zombies while I’m looking up in the tree.”
Carl gave a put-upon groan, like she was asking him to do something so hard, but he nodded. “Sure. I’ve got your back. And once you’ve realized the kid is a zombie and we’ve put him down, then you can apologize for wasting my time.”
“Wasting your time?” Robin laughed. “What, do you have a meeting to get to or something?”
Carl rolled his eyes, but Robin trusted him to have her back. They might not always see eye-to-eye, but in the short time since they met, he’d proven he was a good protector. And that he trusted her to be one, too.
Sort of.
Robin looked up in the tree. They weren’t directly below the boy, that would be suicide if he did turn out to be a zombie, but even from the angle, she had a good look at him.
He was naked except for a dirty pair of what had once been white underwear. His skin was dark from the sun and peeled around his shoulders like he’d had a sunburn that was fading. His hair was long, dark and dirty and she could sometimes smell the child when the wind turned just the right direction.
But he didn’t smell like death to her. Just like he needed a dunk in the river and a bit of soap and shampoo. They had plenty of that in the duffle bag attached to the motorcycle and sidecar they’d been using to tour the good old U.S. of A. Or what was left of it anyway.
“Hey,” Robin called up to the kid.
He was curled up in a ball, and he clung to one of the big branches of the tree with scabby hands. He stared down at them. From the distance, she couldn’t tell if his eyes were red-rimmed from infection or not. She’d ask Carl to use his rifle site to get a better look, but she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t just “accidentally” kill the boy and be done with it.
“You know zombies don’t talk, right?” Carl asked from beside her.
She shot him a look. “If he was a zombie, why wouldn’t he have attacked us by now?”
He opened his mouth and then hesitated. She smiled. Once again she had halted him with post-apocalyptic logic. Yeah, she kind of rocked that way. Maybe it came from being a teacher in the Before Zombie world.
“Hey, honey?” she repeated.
The little boy hunched up tighter, like he was trying to disappear and made a little dissatisfied grunt.
“See, he’s making those weird zombie sounds,” Carl snapped. “We should just shoot him.”
“That wasn’t a damn zombie sound and you know it!” Robin said as she shot him a dark glare. “Now stop thinking shooting is going to solve everything and shut up while I try to get this kid down so we can check him out.
“What’s your name?” she asked, reverting to her teacher tone. Nice teacher, not mean teacher. Caring teacher who hadn’t been jaded by years of working in the system. What? She could fake it.
The little boy just stared at her. But he seemed like he understood she was a person, not a walking Happy Meal.
“He’s not a zombie,” she said softly. “He’s just a scared kid.”
Carl craned his neck to look up the tree. “How do you know?”
“Well, for starters, if I can smell him, he can smell me. And he hasn’t gone all ‘bloodlust’ on our asses. Second, he’s looking at me. I can’t see if his eyes are red, but zombies never really look. Finally, he’s holding on to that tree branch for dear life. And zombies don’t protect themselves from falling or getting shot or anything else. Hurting doesn’t hurt them.”
Carl scanned the immediate area for zombies another time and then leaned back to look at the kid again. “Okay, maybe you’re right. So what do we do? I mean, we just can’t leave him up there.”
She stared at him briefly. So Carl had a heart after all. Good.
“Well, he’s scared, that much is clear. Probably traumatized, though he should get in line. I’m a little traumatized, too.”
“Maybe you should climb a tree,” Carl said with a wink.
She stuck her tongue out at him and then wondered how she’d gotten to the point where she was acting like one of her fifth graders.
“I remember talking to a child psychologist for a seminar and she suggested that sometimes music can reach a child.” Robin said. “Maybe I could sing him something. What was popular before the apocalypse?”
She scanned her brain. One of the nicest things about a zombie outbreak was that she no longer had to listen to the shit that passed for music to her students anymore.
But it all flooded back when she stopped blocking it out.
“I guess there was Bieber,” she said with a heavy sigh.
Carl stared at her. “If you sing a Justin Bieber song, I will shoot that kid. And then I’ll assume you are turning into a zombie and I’ll shoot you.”
Robin smiled, despite herself. “Ok, ok. I’m sorry, I won’t sing that crap. How about the Beatles?”
Carl sighed. “Thank God, you know a good band. If you hadn’t, I might have had to shoot you anyway.”
Robin wrinkled her brow. “You’re talking an awful lot about shooting me. It makes a girl nervous.”
Carl rolled his eyes. “Just sing a song. How about Hey Jude?”
Robin smiled. “One of my favorites.”
She glanced back up the tree and smiled at the boy before she started a soft rendition of the song. The boy stared at her, mesmerized as the melody moved through the quiet and filled the air. He inched forward on the branch and leaned down like he was trying to hear better.
“It’s working,” she said as she finished the song.
“God knows why,” Carl laughed. “You would never make it on Idol.”
“Haha.” She stepped back. “Come on, I think if we move away and I sing something else, he’ll come down.”
Carl shrugged and they both moved back toward the path they’d made in the wheat.
“I think I’ll try U2,” Robin said and then started in on a new song. Just as she’d hoped, the little boy grunted in displeasure and clamored down a few branches to get closer to the sound.
“Stay back and watch for zombies,” she whispered. “I’m going to see if I can get closer.”
She started humming, a low meaningless sound that was still musical, but not specific to any song. The boy tilted his head, but not in the “zombie dog” way, just in curiosity and interest. He tensed as Robin got close, but didn’t run or bolt back into the tree.
She crouched down when she was within a few feet and stopped humming.
“I’m Robin,” she said softly. “What’s your name?”
He drew in a short breath and then stared. Now that he was closer, Robin could see there was no redness to his eyes. He was filthy, though. Skinny, too.
“How long have you been out here?” she murmured, more to herself than to him, since she knew he wouldn’t answer. “Where did you come from?”
“What’s up with him?” Carl asked as he stepped up behind her.
The boy cowered against the tree trunk and Robin reached back to swat Carl on the legs. “Shhh, keep your voice down. I think he’s…. he’s sort of feral.”
Carl stared. “Feral, you mean like a cat?”
She nodded. “The trauma and probably being out here alone for… well, God knows how long has made him wild. I’m not even sure he knows what we’re saying or if he can speak.”
“That’s fucked up,” Carl muttered.
Robin stood up and turned to look at him. “Shit, dude, did you get that diagnosis from your years of school?”
“It is fucked up, Robin,” he argued with another glance at the kid. “So what do you propose we do with the wild child?”
“We take him with us,” she said with a shrug. “I can’t leave him out here on his own.”
She pulled her backpack from her shoulders and set it down. From it, she withdrew a cereal bar. She unwrapped it and pulled the stale bar out.
“Hungry?” she asked.
The boy stepped forward and sniffed at the bar, but didn’t take it. He stared at Robin with his wide, sad eyes. Then he looked at Carl. He moved a little closer and examined him carefully. Robin glanced around for zombies and then watched as the boy stepped up and touched Carl’s hoodie.
“Cold?” Carl asked. “Are you cold, er,… Jude?”
“Jude, that’s what we’re going with?” Robin asked.
Carl shrugged. “He liked the song, we have to call him something more than ‘Hey you’.”
The boy… Jude, touched the jacket again. Carl unzipped it and slipped it from his shoulders, then held it out. The boy looked at it, touched it, but didn’t take it. Carl sighed, then stepped forward and put the jacket around the kid’s shoulders.
“Put your arms through,” he encouraged Jude, taking one hand and putting it through the arm hole. Jude smiled and then stuffed his other arm through.
The jacket was three sizes too big and hung down almost to Jude’s knees, but he seemed happy enough. Without warning, he grabbed for the cereal bar Robin still held out and sat down under the tree to eat it in three big bites.
“What do you know,” Carl said as he sat down next to the boy. “He’s trainable. Want to try fetch?”
“Hush,” Robin scolded. She smiled at Jude. “I wonder what happened to him.”
“The same thing that happened to everyone,” Carl said.
Robin was quiet for a moment, just watching the boy. She didn’t know what to say. Her training as a teacher could only take her so far. She wasn’t equipped to deal with a feral child.
“What if we-” Carl started, but before he could finish, Jude jumped to his feet and made a little squeal in his throat.
“What?” Robin said, getting up and looking at him. “What is it?”
He grunted and moaned, his eyes wide and wild. Finally, he lifted up his hand and started motioning off into the distance.
Carl looked, then lifted to his tiptoes to see better. Finally, he let out an exasperated sigh and jumped onto the trunk of the oak where Jude had been hiding earlier. He climbed up onto one of the lower branches and lifted his rifle so he could site in on a further distance.
“Fuck!” he cried, then jumped back down. Jude stared at him in wonder and made an approving grunt in his throat.
“What?” Robin asked.
“What do you think?” Carl snapped. “Zombies. Like ten zombies. Coming this way.”
“Shit!” Robin said.
She grabbed for the boy, but he jerked out of her hand and backed up against the tree. He made whimpering growls, warning sounds as he lifted his hands up to ward her away.
“Jude,” she pleaded. “There are zombies coming. Bad guys. We have to go. Please!”
She reached for him again, but this time the boy swatted at her hands with a grunt.
Behind her, the field was rustling and the faint moan of zombies floated over on the breeze. She stared at Carl.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Carl stared at the little boy. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out the keys to the motorcycle. Robin couldn’t help but smile. When they’d found the bike, both of them had commented on the key ring. Bugs Bunny in a leather jacket with a carrot hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette. Rebel Without a Paws, Carl had joked at the time and it was the first time Robin had really liked him.
Jude’s eyes lit up and he moved toward Carl with a grunt. Carl jangled the keys.
“Come on…” he urged. “Come on.”
Jude inched forward. When he reached out to grab for the key ring, Carl caught him, slung him over his shoulder and started to run.
“Run, Robin!” he called.
Robin blinked and started to jog behind them. Jude was facing her and was wailing and pounding on Carl’s back as they ran. Behind her, the sound of the zombies got louder. She peeked over her shoulder. They had burst from the field in a mass of drool and arms and gnashing teeth. There were at least ten, and some of them were doing the zombie sprint and gaining on them.
She yanked the handgun from her holster and tuned slightly to fire. Her shot rang true and the zombie in the lead dropped in a heap. That gave her enough space that she faced forward again. Jude was smiling now and clapping.
“Shooting zombies is like TV for him.”
Carl glanced up at the boy over his shoulder. “Good, now we know how to keep him entertained. Run faster, a few of them are starting to catch up.”
Robin fired back toward the zombies and from Jude’s giggling reaction, she hit at least one. She could see the bikes in the distance and there was something else in the side car storage area that she knew would take care of their zombie problem.
“Here,” Carl said, handing her the little boy as they reached the motorcycle.
She took him, and to her surprise, he didn’t struggle against her as he had when she tried to take him in the first place. Carl wrenched open the storage area and pulled out…
The grenade.
They’d found it a few weeks before on the corpse of an army private rotting along the side of the road. Carl yanked the pin and threw the grenade toward the crowd of zombies. Then he grabbed Robin’s hand and pulled her behind the motorcycle.
They all peeked over the bike seat as the grenade exploded with an ear-ringing concussion that rocked the earth. It also blew the zombies back in a wave of shattered limbs, busted heads and bloody stumps.
Jude squealed in utter delight and clapped like he had when Robin shot the first zombie. Slowly, Carl stood and surveyed the damage. Most of the zombies lay dead (really dead, not undead-dead). A few were still making an attempt to get back up.
“Got it,” Carl said, yanking the rifle from the sling on his back. He lined up one shot after another and took down the last few zombies who might still be a threat.
And once again, Jude chuckled and smiled up at Robin. She couldn’t really blame hi
m. If she had been abandoned alone for who knew how many months in a zombie wasteland, she’d probably enjoy watching them get shot, too.
“Are we good?” she asked as she swung Jude to balance him against her hip and stood up.
“For the moment,” Carl said. “But all the shooting and exploding is going to bring more. You know that.”
She nodded. Yeah, she knew that.
“I’ll put Jude in,” she said and turned to the sidecar. She set the little boy into the protected shell of the sidecar. She pulled her own helmet from the floor of the car and set it on his head. It was huge and half covered his eyes, which made him giggle.
“Yeah, I know,” she said with a smile as she pushed it back from his face. “We’ll pick up a kid’s one as soon as we can.”
He stared up at her, examining her face and then he cleared his throat.
“Robin,” the little boy said, his voice hoarse from months of not using it.
Robin smiled as she climbed onto the motorcycle behind Carl. As she wrapped her arms around his waist, she asked, “See, aren’t you glad you didn’t just shoot him?”
He glanced at their new companion. When the little boy gave a small smile back, he shrugged.
“Yeah. I guess there’s hope after all. Now come on, let’s go.”
He gunned the motorcycle’s engine and they headed off down the deserted highway.
Property Lines
Bobby Madison pushed off the wall near the front doors of the Clawson County Courthouse as Rex Ryan walked out.
“Are you happy now?” Bobby called out.
Rex smirked. “You ain’t building that fence on my property, so yeah. I’m pretty fucking happy.”
Bobby clenched a fist at his side. “You think one ruling is going to change anything. This isn’t over.”
Rex chuckled and flipped him off before he strolled down the staircase and over to his beat up truck parked across the street.
“Bobby!”
He turned. Maggie, his wife, was hanging out the window of their own car, which was parked on the side street next to the courthouse. She shook her head. “Come on, baby. I’ve got to get to the airport and you beating yourself up over this isn’t going to change anything.”