by Tony Urban
“Fuck this.”
I didn’t need this shit. I bounced into the driver’s seat, threw the Jeep in reverse and knocked the zombie to the ground. I rolled all the way over him and didn’t stop until I could see him through the windshield.
He was sprawled on the road, face up. I couldn’t tell if he was dead for sure, but he wasn’t moving. And the axe - my axe - had been knocked loose. It laid on the road between me and the zombie.
I should have driven away. I knew that, but I’m not perfect and it was a matter of principle. I again left the Wrangler.
It was only five feet to the axe but felt like fifty. I didn’t take my eyes off the man as I crouched down and retrieved the weapon. As I stood back up, the zombie groaned.
This bastard has already caused me a week’s worth of grief and I was more than happy to put an end to the day’s drama. I aimed more carefully this time and struck with the spear.
It hit just below his eyeball, sinking deep into the socket. In the process his eye was pushed free, popping out like a champagne cork. It rolled down his cheek, dangling off the side of his face.
“Take that, shit face.”
The spear was in so deep I had to put my foot on his chest for leverage to free it. But it was over. Or so I thought. I grabbed the axe and moved toward the Wrangler.
“Drop that axe, cracker.”
The voice was behind me. It was tight and either excited or angry, or both.
“Stay calm,” I said and turned slowly toward the sound of this new arrival, not knowing who awaited me. Again, I cursed myself for ending up in Baltimore.
When I made it 180 degrees, the first thing I saw was a gun barrel aimed at my face.
“I told you to drop that axe, yo,” the man with the pistol repeated. “And whatever that thing is you just used to kill O’Dell.”
The man was in his mid-twenties with thick gold chains dangling from his neck. So many that he conjured up an image of a skinny version of Mr. T. He was so lean that I suspected I might be able to take him in a hand to hand fight, but even armed with an axe and spear, I wasn’t about to tangle with a man with a gun, so I dropped both to the roadway and took a step away from my weapons.
“There you go. I’ve got no beef with you, so don’t shoot me.”
“Take off that helmet.”
I did as ordered and the man with the pistol lowered it a few inches. Now it wasn’t aimed at my face, but more in the general direction of my gut. Better, but not much.
The man looked at the carnage around me, eyes twitching. “Why’d you go and kill O’Dell?”
I tried to follow his gaze. In the sea of corpses, it was hard to discern which of the zombies the man was talking about. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans as he strode toward me and the bodies.
“He was my homeboy.” He knelt beside the huge, deadlock sporting zombie that had caused me so many headaches and rested his palm on top of the dead man’s bloody forehead, careful to avoid the expelled eyeball.
I watched in uncomfortable silence. I wanted to extricate myself from this situation as quick and safe as possible.
When the gunman removed his attention from the zombie he turned it my way. “Why the fuck you gotta come to the city and kill my zombies? Don’t you got enough zombies in whatever cracker ass Podunk hick town you rolled in from? Where the fuck you from anyway? Cumberland?”
“Western PA actually.”
“Shit, yo, that’s even worse. So, what’s your deal? You some kinda KKK motherfucker think it’ll be fun to go the hood and kill some niggas? Kill O’Dell?”
That was the last thing I wanted. “I got lost. I didn’t even mean to drive in to the city. I was trying to avoid it. Really.”
“Well you did a sorry ass job of that.”
“No shit.” I gave a nervous, twitchy smile and hoped the man would reciprocate. He did not.
“Fucking crazy white people.” The man stood, shaking his head. “Who the fuck are you anyway? Denim Dan?”
“My name’s Mead.”
“Now that’s a cracker name is I ever heard one.”
“What’s yours?”
“LaRon.”
His anger seemed to have faded. I took a chance and pushed my hand LaRon’s way. I was more than a little surprised when he accepted. “I’m still pissed at you for killing O’Dell.”
“He was going to eat me.”
LaRon took sad look at his fallen friend. “Yeah, he do that now.” He turned back to me. “What’s with the Canadian tuxedo?”
Again I was confused and he must have seen it on my face.
“Your clothes, fool. You look like you just robbed the Levi’s factory or some shit.”
“Oh.” I smiled, relieved to understand the question and a little excited to be able to share my ideology. “It’s for protection. They can’t bite through the denim. And the tape, that’s to keep everything tight together so they can’t pull up my sleeve or pant leg and get me.”
LaRon stared for a moment, then nodded. “You a clever motherfucker, ain’t you?”
I nodded. I was indeed a clever motherfucker.
“Where you headed?”
I thought about lying since the truth was so lame, but couldn’t think up an alternative quick enough. “I guess it’ll sound kind of stupid, but I wanted to see the ocean. I’ve never been there, so I was heading to Jersey.”
LaRon grinned and revealed gold-capped teeth. “Shit, yo. You want to get the ocean experience, you gotta go to Ocean City.”
“Oh. All right.” I would have agreed with almost anything to keep the man with the gun in a good mood.
“You drive, I’ll lead the way.”
I was shocked and a little alarmed over the idea of taking this stranger, this gangster, along for the ride. “You want to go with me?”
“Why not? I got nothing to do here. And besides, you’re the first living motherfucker I’ve seen since shit got real.”
That last part surprised me. I would have expected more survivors in a city the size of Baltimore. Adding that to my own anecdotal experiences of seeing no one alive since I left Wim’s group and I had to wonder how lethal the plague had been. Before I could make a comment along those lines, LaRon hopped into the Jeep and any idea I had to leaving him behind were put to an end.
“Drive me back to my crib first. Let’s load this bitch up if we’re gonna take a road trip.”
“Where do you live?”
“Over on Lexington by the po house.”
I decided there was no sense protesting and resumed my spot behind the wheel. “You tell me where to turn.”
“You got it.”
The sign on the red brick building read, ‘Home of Edgar Allen Poe’ and then it made sense. I almost laughed. “Oh, you really meant the Poe House.”
“What the fuck you think I mean?”
I chewed on my lip, not wanting to say what I’d thought.
“You think I meant poor? Shit yo, if that the case, everywhere around here be the po house.”
That was exactly what I thought he meant. The buildings all appeared decrepit and unkempt. The sidewalks were broken and crumbling. The area looked like it had been uninhabited not for weeks, but years. Like the apocalypse had come to this part of Baltimore a decade earlier than the rest of the country.
LaRon unlocked the front door to one of the crumbling rowhouses and pushed it open. He took a step inside then looked back to me. “What you waiting for? I ain’t a zombie. I don’t bite.”
He disappeared inside, and I followed. If he was going to murder me, I assumed he’d have done it on the street, not in his home. After all, there was no one around to arrest him if he’d have shot me in broad daylight.
The apartment smelled like someone had unloaded an entire canister of marijuana-scented air freshener and I thought I might get a contact high just from breathing. After weeks of energy drinks and junk food roller coasters, that might not be a bad thing.
When I looked a
round the apartment I saw stacks of cash and a smorgasbord of drugs. Most of it looked untouched, still wrapped tight in plastic, but a three-foot by three-foot cube of marijuana had been cut open and a sizable chunk was missing. That made sense considering the aroma. And it also made sense that the armed man with the gold grills was a drug dealer.
LaRon tossed his pistol onto a leather couch and I instinctively flinched.
“You sure are a jumpy motherfucker.”
“I’ve never been around guns. Guess they make me a little nervous.”
“Shit man, you said you’re from Pennsylvania. I thought they gave you a gun as soon as you came outta yo momma’s womb. Besides, I ain’t had ammo for that since the day after all this zombie shit went down. Only way it’s gonna hurt you is if I pistol whip your ass.”
The realization that I’d been cowed by a man with an empty gun annoyed me, but I supposed it was only fair. After all, I did have an axe and I had killed O’Dell.
“Chill out, yo. Sit down and stop acting all twitchy. You’re making me nervous.”
I might have been twitchy, but I was also exhausted from that earlier battle. I took his advice and flopped down in a recliner as LaRon disappeared into a bedroom. I spied an unsmoked joint on the table and wondered if the man would mind if I borrowed it. He had told me to chill out after all. I leaned toward it, reaching, when LaRon reentered the room.
“You stealing my shit now? That how this is gonna work? I invite you into my home and you steal my weed?”
“I—“ Fuck! Why did I even come here?
LaRon grinned. “Shit yo, it’s aight. I’m just bustin your balls. If anyone ever needed some weed it was you.” He fished through the pockets of his baggy jeans, pulled out a lighter, and tossed it my way.
I needed a joint now more than ever, so I grabbed it and fired up. LaRon nodded approvingly. “My man.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smoked pot, but it was a year or more. My meager wages at the buffet had barely been enough to pay my rent and bills. Every dime I made went toward necessities. There wasn’t any left over for such recreational activities.
It amused me to realize that money was now useless. Hundred-dollar bills? May as well use them to wipe your ass.
LaRon reached over and I passed him the joint. He took a hit and blew smoke rings into the air. “Good shit, huh?”
I nodded. It was indeed good shit. Much stronger than anything I’d previously tried, and it loosened my lips. “So, you were what, a drug dealer? What was that like? Fun?”
LaRon glanced at the drugs that filled the corner of the apartment and shrugged his shoulders. He returned to the bedroom where I could see him filling a duffle bag with clothing. “Always thought of myself more as an entrepreneur. Business is all about supply and demand. Ain’t no different on the streets. My merchandise just happened to be drugs. And I kept my customers happy.”
He glanced at me through the open doorway. “What about you? What’d you do before all this shit?”
“I was a line cook. For a couple months anyway. Before that I worked on an assembly line in a warehouse. And before that I mowed lawns part time.”
“You a regular jack of all trades.”
“I wasn’t career oriented, I guess you’d say.”
LaRon returned to the room, took another puff on the joint and handed it back to me. “I got you. I got you. All them stupid fuckers wasting their life away on nine to fives, where’d it get em? Out there wandering around, dead as shit. Trying to find someone to eat, but there ain’t hardly no one left. Jokes on them.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. The dead outnumbered the living ten thousand to one, if not more. That didn’t leave much food to go around. It was a wonder anyone had survived those odds. “How’d you stay alive?”
“Stayed in here for the most part. Night it started, some little nerdy fucker came running at me, said his kid needed to get to the hospital. So, I rounded up O’Dell and we motored that way. Next thing you know the kid’s biting on O’Dell like he got rabies. After that, it all went to hell you know?”
I knew all too well.
“The first night was the worst cause I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Had soldier types setting building on fire and shit. Riots where the po po were shooting people for no reason, even shooting the white folk. Then dead people coming back to life. I figured it out fast enough then. Came back here, bolted the door, and decided to put some of my inventory to use. If I was gonna die, I may as well be high, right yo?
“Only morning came, and I was still alive. I went out a couple times to load up on food. And try not to be food. But I’ve been in here 99 percent of the time.”
LaRon grabbed a few framed photographs off a coffee table. Most depicted him as a younger man, photographed standing beside or embracing a woman I assumed to be his mother. One was of him and the man I now knew to be O’Dell. LaRon added them to the duffle bag and zipped it closed. “Got all I need. Ready to bounce?”
I was.
6
July 29
The boardwalk at Ocean City was almost empty and that surprised me. It was the middle of summer and, in my mind, it seemed like there should be tourists everywhere. It took me a few moments to remember the plague had hit in early May, before the summer travel season. Before school was out and families ventured to places like this for their once a year reprieve from their boring, work-filled lives.
As I drove the Jeep onto the wooden planks that separated the roads and parking lots from the beach, I ran down a middle-aged woman in a sundress. Ahead of us, five zombies shuffled and stumbled through the dense sand.
“Think you can handle them?” LaRon asked as he opened his door and hopped down from the Jeep. He grabbed an aluminum baseball bat he’d brought along.
I nodded. I’d certainly taken on and taken out groups much larger than this. “Sure thing.”
“Good. I’m going shopping.” With that, LaRon was gone, bounding onto the boardwalk where he disappeared among the bodegas and kiosks.
The closest zombie was only a few yards away. I floored the gas and the Wrangler bounced down from the boardwalk and onto the beach. The tires sprayed sand from behind in a way that made me think of snow from a snow blower.
The Jeep smashed into the zombie, an older woman with dyed black hair, and sent her careening into the sand. The tires rolled into her and the pop as her body exploded underneath drowned out all other sound. If you’ve ever seen roadkill where they’re all burst apart and there’s blood everywhere and their guts have burst out their asshole and wondered if that happened with people too - it does. And it did.
A burst of wet, black blood splattered the driver’s side door and window and some even rained down on me through the open roof. I was glad I had the whole ocean to wash off in.
I continued along the beach, running down the other zombies as I came to them. By the time it was finished, the Jeep was dripping gore. That was fine. It was never going to win any beauty contests anyway.
I returned to the approximate area where I’d dropped LaRon, but the man was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t too worried though. If LaRon had survived weeks in Baltimore, he should be able to handle a few minutes in nearly deserted Ocean City.
I took my axe as I exited the Wrangler - can’t be too careful. As soon as my feet hit the beach, my shoes filled with sand. I could feel it working its way underfoot, the hard grains between my toes. It was uncomfortable, but at the same time, I enjoyed it because it was so different and unique than anything I’d experienced before.
That made me realize just how little I’d lived in my almost thirty years. Shit, most of my life I was barely five hours away from the ocean and I’d never so much as felt sand on my feet until that day. How many other things had I been missing out on?
By the time I got to the water, even its gray coloring appearance couldn’t have dampened my excitement. In the movies and on the travel TV shows, the water was clear and blue and s
parkling. This looked like a never-ending seascape of dirty dishwater.
Nonetheless, it was amazing. I loved all of it. The damp breeze blowing against my cheeks. The soft but steady splashing of the incoming waves. And especially the smell which was free of death.
“What’s wrong yo?
I turned and saw LaRon just a few feet away. The man had two large plastic bags filled with unseen merchandise and he stared at me with curiosity.
I hadn’t realized I was crying until that very moment and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Nothing.”
LaRon grinned. “It’s alright, man. For all we know we’re the last two people in all of Maryland left alive. It’s ninety degrees. The sun’s shining. Life’s pretty fucking grand ain’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
LaRon set the bags in the sand and crouched down beside them as he sifted through the contents. Soon enough he came away with a small, silver camera. He raised it to his face.
“Say cheese, motherfucker.”
I barely had time to react before the man snapped my photo. LaRon looked at the display screen and cackled.
“Let me see.” I reached for it but LaRon held it over his head, easily keeping it away from me.
“Not yet. One more where you don’t look so damn goofy.”
“Alright.” I crossed his arms and gave an awkward smile that came off more as a sneer.
LaRon laughed again. “Guess that’s as good as it gets.”
He handed over the camera and I checked the images. Jesus, do I really look like that? I’d gotten so fat over the last few weeks. Better cut down on the Twinkies and Ding Dongs. Despite that, seeing my image and the never-ending ocean in the background made me grin.
“Your turn.” I pointed the camera at LaRon who held his hand up.
“Gimme a sec.” LaRon stripped off his shoes, socks, shirt and jeans, leaving behind just his striped boxers and gold chains. His lean body was covered in black tattoos. He flexed his right arm and aimed his left toward the sky like some sort of Greek God. I took his picture then handed the camera to him.
