by Tony Urban
The view over the water, the mountains reflecting in the gently lapping waves, ended up being so pretty that we stayed for two days. I much enjoyed the break from the monotony of the road.
The cabin was well stocked, and I used the propane grill to boil some water and make spaghetti. I added some homemade sauce I’d found in the pantry, plenty of parmesan cheese, and tossed in handfuls of dried basil and parsley. I carried two plates of it onto the porch where LaRon had dozed off in a director’s chair.
I cleared my throat and he stirred. “Your dinner is served, Sir.”
He sat up in the chair as I handed him a plate. He smiled as he took a whiff. “Damn boy, you got skills.”
“I try.”
I took a seat beside him and we ate mostly in silence. It felt good to be cooking again, plus this was the first hot meal I’d had since the plague began. It surprised me how much I missed little things like that, but not other people. I suppose I should have felt guilty about that, but I didn’t.
LaRon finished his meal and licked the plate clean. “De-fuckin-licious. Now what’s for dessert?”
He was joking, but I’d thrown together a boxed brownie mix which was baking on the grill. There were no eggs, of course, so I added extra oil and baking powder. I had no idea what the results would be, but it was worth a shot.
The brownies ended up on the flat side, and I probably overdid it with the oil, but they were edible and LaRon had no complaints. Well, almost none.
“Shoulda made these pot brownies.”
“I’ll remember that next time.”
He grabbed a joint from behind his ear and lit it up. “No worries, my man. I always got a backup plan.”
The sun had dipped toward the horizon and the air was chilly. LaRon wrapped himself up in a blanket, but I didn’t mind it.
“So, what’s your end game, man? After we take this pilgrimage to Maine, I mean. What’s next?”
I’d been thinking a lot lately. Now that I realized I had a future, I supposed I should do some planning. Chief on my mind was figuring out where to settle in for the long haul. I wasn’t in any hurry to stop traveling, but knew, eventually it would be the smart move.
I still felt West was the safest choice, but the more of the country I saw, the more I realized there were other options. Good options.
“I’m not sure. Don’t you have an opinion?”
LaRon shrugged his shoulders. “Figured I’d scoot my ass back to Baltimore.”
I was so surprised I think my mouth gaped open and he noticed.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m having fun and all, but this this home on the range shit ain’t for me.”
I was disappointed. More than disappointed. I was hurt. I thought I’d found someone I could team up with for the long haul, but that idea now seemed foolish.
“But, it’s so dangerous there.”
“There’s danger everywhere, man. You don’t get that yet? For all we know that woods is full of bears or wolves or some shit. You could step outside to take a piss, next thing you know, some mountain lion is using your dick for a chew toy.”
“I’d rather take my chances with a random mountain lion than a million zombies.”
“And that’s we’re different. I ain’t scared of the zombies. They slow as shit and long as I don’t do nothing stupid, the ain’t gonna get me. They ain’t hiding behind trees waiting to pounce. They ain’t cunning like that.”
I guess he had a point there, but I fell silent. And unlike the silence over dinner, this one was awkward. Eventually LaRon stood and stretched, yawning.
“Night, Mead. Don’t get eaten out here.”
I nodded as he disappeared into the lodge, but gave no response. I didn’t want to be alone again and now, rather than focusing on keeping us safe, I realized I needed to keep LaRon interested. If he was enjoying himself, maybe he’d forget about Baltimore. About leaving me.
In the morning, we vacated the lodge.
10
August 19
The miles passed slowly, and while I enjoyed the lackadaisical pace, I knew LaRon was bored. It had been five days since we’d killed a single zombie and that was an elderly woman who might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet and was about as dangerous as a kitten. It has been a week since we’d seen a cluster of the creatures large enough to warrant using the Gatling Gun.
To try to reinvigorate my friend’s waning interest, I cut through the middle of Massachusetts and took a course that put us in Manchester, New Hampshire. My atlas and guidebook told me it was the largest city in northern New England and, with a population of under a hundred thousand, it seemed like a place to find some excitement without taking too much of a risk.
It was a good choice. After we crossed the Merrimack River, we came upon a pileup on 293. Around the crashed cars and trucks was also a cluster of zombie fifteen deep. I glanced at LaRon and saw him grinning, a rare sight in recent days.
“You want to get ‘em?”
LaRon jumped up. “Hell yeah!” He squirmed into the back seat and took his place behind the Gatling gun. I threw on the earmuffs and it was just in time because LaRon was raring to go.
A zombie in a three-piece suit was closest to us and I got a good look at him as his head blew apart. Chunks of destroyed skull flew through the air, and a piece that still contained shards of the zombie’s wispy gray hair embedded itself in the face of a chunky, teenage boy in a Manchester Monarchs jersey.
The fan had no chance to react because he was next in the line of fire and his pudgy face imploded. It was less than thirty seconds before LaRon had killed all of them, but the sound made by the gun was like a canon on the otherwise noiseless afternoon and I could see more zombies approaching in the distance. Twenty or more at least, but they were only ants at the far distance. I drove around the crashed vehicles, then decided to wait and watch.
“There’s a few coming in from behind,” LaRon said as he grabbed an AK-47. “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”
He was gone before I could respond. I though leaving the Jeep was unwise. It was like abandoning your castle while under siege, but I wasn’t in charge and had no call to issue orders. Instead, I leaned across the passenger seat and opened the wing on that side, then I did the same on my own. As the AK went off behind me, its rat a tat tat sound filling the air, I drove forward.
I was a good quarter mile from the incoming zombies. By the time he reached them, the Jeep was closing in on forty miles an hour. The zombies crowded the roadway from one side to the other and they were packed in tight. I didn’t even bother trying to get a head count.
The push bar on the front of the Jeep made first contact. A short, female zombie with jet black hair absorbed the brunt of the impact with her face. I winced as he heard her bones break and powered forward. The Wrangler bounced as it rolled over her body and then the wings went to work at the sides of the vehicle.
The creatures growled and gasped, but their sounds were drowned out by the wet, thick noises that resulted from their bodies being sliced and severed. I watched as decapitated heads and severed arms flew, as topless bodies collapsed to the ground.
One beefy arm with a tribal tattoo soared past the driver’s side door. The windshield became so heavily coated with blood that I needed to turn on the wipers and hit the washer fluid to see through the carnage. Black blood rained down on me.
By the time I’d rammed my way through the crowd and emerged on the other side, I was coated with a fine mist of coagulated gore. Almost frantic, I wiped it from my face on the chance that whatever the undead bastards had was catching. My zombie knowledge, gleaned from decades of horror films, told me that was possible. Most times a person could only be infected by a bite, but others bodily fluids did the trick and I wasn’t about to let myself come down with a bad case of zombie-itis. I poured a bottle of water over my face and washed as well as possible.
After cleansing myself, I made a U-turn on the highway, trying to avoid the dismembered bodies that cover
ed the road on the off chance that a shattered bone might puncture one of the Wrangler’s tires, then returned to the approximate spot where LaRon and I had parted ways.
He sat on the concrete median, rifle in hand, and unable to hold back a broad grin.
“What are you so happy about?”
LaRon stood and moved to the Jeep. “I feel like fucking Rambo, man. I ain’t never had this much fun.”
I knew the feeling. The adrenaline rush achieved by wiping out massive amounts of the undead was a high far more intoxicating then weed. Maybe he would grow to love life on the road after all.
11
August 24
We took side roads up the coast, passing through little towns like Ogunquit, Bath, and Rockport on our way to Bangor. As stunned as I was to see the ocean for the first time in Maryland, the Maine coastline almost overwhelmed me with its beauty. The coastline was more rock than sand, more pine trees than boardwalks. I didn’t say anything to LaRon then, but I felt like I could call this place home.
The days were long in the summer and, by nine at night, there was still enough light to see. The golden glow of the setting sun off the ocean was irresistible and we decided to stop in Moose Point State Park and photograph the sunset.
The only downside were the bugs. Why in the hell hadn’t the plague done something about the bugs? They were dining on LaRon like he was a smorgasbord and I wasn’t faring much better.
“We need some of that DEET shit,” LaRon said as he smashed a bloodsucker against his forearm.
“Doesn’t that cause seizures or something?”
“Hell man, I’d welcome a seizure right about now. Better than itching myself to death.” He dug his fingernails into his skin, scratching away. “These are worse than the damn sand flies in the desert.”
“Desert?” Another surprise.
LaRon half-smiled. “Yeah man. I’m a world fuckin traveler. Courtesy of my favorite uncle. Sam.”
The pieces finally came together in my head, albeit a little slower than I care to admit. “You were in the military?”
LaRon gave a barely perceptible nod. “Army. Did my four years active duty. Still had a couple to go in the reserves when this shit when down.”
“I never would have guessed.” Incredulity filled my voice and I immediately wished I could take the remark back.
“Why? Because I’m a gangster?”
“No. I didn’t mean it that way. I just… I thought.”
LaRon grabbed a small rock from the ground beside him and chucked it my way. It bounced off my shoulder. “Like I told you before, I was an entrepreneur. I wasn’t ever in no gang. I guess I was what you’d call, an independent contractor.
“Anyway, the Army was my ma’s idea. Thought it would keep me off the streets. So instead of getting shot at in drive bys, I got to dodge bullets and bombs in Iraq. You know that saying, ‘Mother knows best’? Shit man, not my ma. She almost got my black ass blown to bits.”
“It was that bad?”
“Not always. Not even most of the time. But when it was bad, it was pretty damn terrible. And I wasn’t joking about getting my ass blown up. I meant it in the literal sense.”
He jumped to his feet and without a warning or an ounce of shame dropped his pants and boxers. “See.”
I didn’t want to look, but felt obligated since I’d brought it up. A glistening, black scar snaked its way from his ass cheek, around his pelvis and halfway down his thigh. My eyes must have grown wide when I took it in because LaRon used both his hands to cover his substantial penis which had been swinging free and clear up until that point.
“Now don’t you be looking at my dick and getting no jungle fever. I like you and all, Mead, but you ain’t my type.”
My head snapped away so fast I strained my neck and LaRon burst out laughing. “You’re too fuckin easy.” He pulled up his pants.
I could feel the heat in my face and knew I must be beet red. I wanted to change the subject, or at least bring it back around to where we’d started. “So, what happened?”
“We were out on patrol, just doing a routine sweep. Guy ten yards from me stepped on an IED. I caught some shrapnel.”
“What happened to him.”
LaRon grimaced. “Put it this way, I was the lucky one.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know how you did it. Go over there and put your life on the line for what, twenty grand a year?”
“I didn’t do it for the money, man. I did it for our country.”
“The country?”
“Hell yeah.”
“What did this country ever do for you?”
“It ain’t about that. It’s doing the right thing. Putting other people’s needs first. The greater good and all that shit. Ain’t that the point?”
I wondered if he really believed that. I’d never put anyone ahead of myself. I never saw the point because I’d never met anyone who deserved it.
“I’m not exactly the heroic type.”
“You don’t know that. I got faith in you, Mead.”
For whatever the reason, that made me feel good. And maybe he was right.
LaRon smacked another black fly which had taken up residence on his chest. “That Stephen King house better be goddamn amazing to put up with this shit.” He wrapped his sleeping bag around himself, trying to conceal as much exposed skin as possible. “You wake me up when it’s time to hit the road.”
“I will.” I watched him zipper the bag closed, completely sealing himself off against the biting insects. Despite their annoying presence, I wasn’t ready to go to sleep. I listened to the waves break against the rocky shoreline and imagined myself doing something important, something heroic for once in my life.
12
August 25
We rolled into Bangor around noon. The town had a typical amount of zombies. Not enough to bother breaking out the wings nor the Gatling Gun. I ran down the ones in the roadway and we mostly ignored those roaming the sidewalks or stumbling through lawns.
Every now and then LaRon would line one up in the sights of whatever pistol he’d decided to carry that day and plinked them in a way that reminded me of a sideshow shooting booth only there was no fat, sketchy carny there to hand him a prize when they fell.
I barely noticed the monsters because I was on the lookout for the sprawling, red Victorian mansion I’d gazed at so often on line. I remembered the street name but not the house number and it turned out, that didn’t matter.
The streets were almost too quaint. Every house was old, but immaculate. Trees bursting with lush summer foliage lined the road and crowded the sidewalks. The only clue that something was amiss were the unkept lawns with almost knee-high grass growing wild and out of control.
My head pivoted on my neck like I was watching a tennis match, side to side, back and forth, as I sought out the house of man whose every book I’d devoured ever since reading Salem’s Lot in the fifth grade. And, as we made it halfway down the street, I found it.
Lining the front edge of the property was a black wrought iron fence that looked ordinary enough at first glance, but upon closer inspection featured bats and spiderwebs and creatures that looked like a mix between dragons and gargoyles. It was like Stephen King had paired up with a blacksmith and said, ‘They drove all the way to fucking Bangor for this. Let’s give ‘em something to see!’ And part of me thought he said it exactly like that.
I stared at that house the way I’d imagine a religious person does when seeing some great Holy building or artifact. Or maybe like a groom when he sees his soon to be bride standing at the end of the aisle. I didn’t know if I was in awe or love or shock or all three at once. I couldn’t even get a word out. I just stared.
LaRon however, was not so tongue-tied. “Baller had a big ass house!”
His words broke my concentration, my daze. “Huh? Yeah.”
“So, what you waiting for?”
“What do you mean?”
<
br /> “Pictures, man. We didn’t come up here to go away with nothing but memories.” He pointed to the front gate. “Get yo ass over there and pose like a motherfucker.”
I did just that as he snapped away. In some photos I smiled and pointed. In others I pretended to be impaled on the gate. In others, I got down on my knees and worshipped the house of the man who’d had a bigger impact on my life than my own parents.
I doubt I ever would have grown weary of the fun, but the photo shoot was interrupted when LaRon looked past me. “Uh. Mead?”
“What?”
“Is that…” He didn’t finish the question. He just pointed.
I turned to follow his gesture, peering through the gate, past the bushes and shrubbery that framed the property. And then I saw what he saw, and my heart almost burst.
Stephen King, or the zombie that used to be Stephen King, stumbled past a white Mercedes parked beside the house and into the driveway. It, or he, was coming toward us.
“Oh shit. Oh damn. Oh fuck. Oh shit.” It was like I’d lost my entire vocabulary aside from vulgarities and ‘ohs’.
He was tall and lean and wore a blue chambray shirt and jeans and he looked just like he had in interviews and cameos in movie adaptations of his books. Aside from the fact that he was a zombie. Even his glasses still clung to his face.
“Oh shit,” I repeated.
“You said that already.”
I’d almost forgotten LaRon was there. I looked away from zombie Stephen King to my friend. “It’s Stephen King.”
“I know that. I ain’t been living under a rock all my life.”
“It’s Stephen King. For real.”
“But he’s dead, yo.”
