Reckoning.2015.010.21

by Michaelbrent Collings

  As it drew closer, he saw what it was made of. And screamed.

  The zombie Aaron had fought off hadn't been the only one to make it through the fire. Several dozen more had managed penetrate the flames, had crashed down into the water. But these had tangled into a living kelp-bed. They were locked together, arms and legs holding tight to one another, creating a woven float that drifted downriver. Several of the creatures scuttled over the top of the broad float, finding where they could better hold onto their fellows, then sinking into the mass of flesh and bone where they held fast to the group.

  It was a small colony of zombies, making their way down the river in a way more efficient than any human could manage. Insectile, strange, and somehow more frightening now that they were on the water. There was, Christopher realized, nowhere these things could not go. No place remote enough, no environment so hostile that they could not find a way to pierce it and make it their own.

  They were headed toward the survivors. Christopher didn't know if he and his friends had been seen by the zombies, or if the things were just moving with the current. He supposed it didn't matter: the zombies were coming straight at them. Whether purposefully or by accident was unimportant. All that was important was that Christopher guessed they had less than a minute before the clot of creatures made it to them.

  83

  Aaron gestured to him. "Give it to me!" he shouted.

  "What?"

  For a moment Christopher didn't know what the cowboy was talking about. All his mental processes were dedicated to what he was seeing. To the death that floated closer to them, inch by inch.

  "The blankets!"

  This failed to compute as well. Aaron actually had to swim to him and grab the package he still held in his hand.

  Aaron tore open the silver packet. Flipped out what was inside. It turned out to be an emergency blanket – a thin, foil-like sheet designed to conserve body heat in an emergency. Aaron flicked it, and the blanket separated: not one blanket after all, but two in the package.

  Aaron tucked one blanket under his arm. Then, acting quickly, he tied several knots in the corners. Flipped the blanket into the air. Slammed it down against the water fast enough that a pocket of air was trapped between the water and the bulging quasi-sphere he had created of the blanket.

  "Take the other flare!" Aaron said. He looked at the zombies, floating closer. "Move!"

  "Where is it?" asked Christopher. Screamed it, actually.

  "Back pocket!"

  Christopher saw the red stick. Grabbed it from Aaron's back pocket. "Light it and stick it under the blanket," said Aaron.

  Christopher just stared at the flare. "I don't know how to light this thing," he finally said.

  "Oh for goodness sake." He felt himself elbowed aside, the flare plucked from his grip. Buck glared at him, then popped the white cap off the flare. Reversed it. Inside Christopher saw a dark red surface, rough to the point of nearly being pitted. Buck tilted the flare away from him, then slid the top of the flare against that rough patch.

  The flare sputtered to life. Buck waited a quick moment for the fire to turn white, a hissing column that ate through the red flare, dripped white globs of chemical into the river. He plunged it under the water.

  Christopher watched, expecting the flare to go out. But it didn't, and Buck raised it up quickly. Christopher couldn't see it anymore, but he could hear it, hissing away in the middle of the balloon Aaron had made.

  Aaron nodded. "Take it out. Fast – we need it to stay lit for the next one."

  Buck jerked the flare back down, back up. Holding it in his hand. The thing didn't seem quite as bright, but it still managed to blaze away.

  The zombies were thirty seconds from reaching them.

  Aaron took a breath. Went under. The silver balloon bobbed back and forth as he did something to it. Then he surfaced. "Christopher, Maggie, Theresa. Grab the girls and hold onto this. Paddle for the other side."

  He glanced at the zombies. Several that sat on top of the living mattress were already reaching out, anticipating the capture of their prey. "Hurry," he added.

  Christopher nodded. He wrapped his arm partway around the silver balloon. It turned in his arm, and he worried he might lose it. Then he grabbed something that jutted out of its side. A knot. That must have been what Aaron was doing underwater: tying the blanket's corners tightly together, creating an airtight globe that Christopher found was pleasantly warm to the touch. That must be what the flare did: heating the air in the balloon, rendering it both more buoyant and warm enough to stave off the hypothermia that threatened.

  He gestured at Maggie and Theresa. They joined him around the balloon. It was awkward, and the motion took several seconds they didn't have. Aaron had the second blanket balloon tied off in the time it took them to get situated. They held onto each other, settling their arms around Lizzy and Hope, trapping them next to the balloon.

  They kicked away from the cliff wall at their backs. It was awkward and ungainly, but soon they were out into the main current. The balloon felt warm against his chest where he leaned against it – blessedly warm. He was so happy about that that he nearly forgot the creatures still floating toward them.

  He looked back. The carpet the zombies had created of themselves still floated – better and more stable than the improvised floats/heaters Aaron had made – but they didn't look like they could steer very well. Even as coordinated as the zombies were, their sheer mass outweighed the ability of the ones on the edges to kick them perpendicular to the current.

  Christopher kept flailing his legs as fast as he could. Pushing himself and the others deeper into the river.

  The zombies reached for them. Closer. Closer.

  They missed. Still several feet away when they finally drifted past. So close that Christopher stared right into the enraged eyes of the ones on top. They thirsted for him, but could not touch him.

  They came even closer to Aaron, Amulek, and Buck, who followed. Near enough that Buck shouted and kicked madly and Christopher thought he saw a hand reaching up from the water, grabbing at his friend.

  Then the three men were past as well. Two small groups paddling for the center of the river.

  Christopher finally dared look ahead. Spotted the other side of the river. The land was black, parts of it still smoking, a few embers visible in what remained of the brush and trees.

  And he had to ask himself: where were they going to go?

  84

  It was getting harder to do the stuttering kick that had pushed him a little more than halfway across the river. Not just because pushing across the current was exhausting in itself. Not just because the heat the balloon had carried was rapidly dissipating, allowing the cold of the water that pushed around and against them to once more seep into his flesh and freeze his bones. It wasn't even the dread question of what they were going to do once they actually reached the other side of the river.

  It was just… the silence.

  The popping of the fire behind them had faded. The river sighed and soughed around them, dampening all sounds and imparting peace to everything.

  That peace was a lie, Christopher knew, and that was the thing the silence created. The lie that all this would end, that it would all somehow just stop. Like he could be wakened from a dream – called out of a nightmare by a nanny who would hold him and tell him that everything was fine, everything was fine, it would all be all right and the dreams weren't real.

  The silence lied. There was always more to suffer, always more to lose.

  (My baby.)

  He felt himself falling into a rhythm that interspersed motion with despair.

  Kick –

  (lost Dorcas)

  – kick –

  (lost Ken)

  – kick –

  (lost my baby)

  – and the cycle continued. Turned in on itself, a snake eating its own tail. Gagging, choking on its own death, but unable to stop. The world shrinking, shrinking, and finally it
would end in one horrible moment of pain. A singularity of –

  "Quit it."

  Christopher blinked. Theresa was staring at him just over the level of the float. Her head bobbed up and down as she kicked, so he lost sight of her every few moments as she dropped out of view. But every time she came into view, she was staring – almost glaring.

  "What? What are –" he said.

  "Stop moping. It won't do anyone any good, and it'll just get more people killed."

  He smiled. The smile, like the silence, was a lie. But sometimes the only truths we can find are in the lies we tell ourselves. "I didn't know you cared."

  "I don't. But nothing's going to kill you until I do," she said.

  "Pleasant thought."

  "It won't be when I do it. I'm going to kill you once, then bring you back and kill you again. One death for each boob-grab."

  He almost laughed. Probably would have if she hadn't mentioned "bringing him back." That part of the threat made him grimace. "You'll bring me back, huh? You'll have to get in line for that."

  Theresa jerked – a sudden movement that his brain couldn't interpret until it was too late and the water she had splashed over the top of the float hit him right in the face.

  "Cut it out, you spoiled little brat."

  That reminded him of his parents. And in a strange way, the memory actually helped. It was abuse, and he knew how to deal with that. He grinned. "Didn't know you cared, Mommy."

  She grimaced. "Mommy? So you're saying you have a thing for grabbing your mom's boobs? I take it back. You're not spoiled, you're a deeply disturbed perv."

  "So's your face."

  She laughed. Smiled, a smile that said she'd been caught off guard by the rejoinder. "What is this, kindergarten?"

  "Maybe. And so's your face again."

  The laugh was louder this time, in spite of the fact that it came between panting breaths as Theresa kept kicking, helping push them along better than he was doing.

  "You two should just kiss and stop wasting time avoiding the inevitable," said Maggie. That made Christopher jerk – she had said so little of late, it was almost possible to forget she was even with them.

  "Ewww," said Theresa. But she was smiling.

  Christopher smiled back.

  Kick, kick, kick.

  The silence melted back into their midst.

  But for some reason, it didn't seem quite so bad this time. The river flowed, taking them somewhere he couldn't imagine, couldn't dare to hope would end well.

  But it was all right. For now, they were alive.

  He glanced at Theresa. She wasn't looking at him anymore. Focused on getting them across the river.

  He looked ahead. Focused as well. At least with his body. His mind dwelt on red hair, a smile, a person that he didn't completely understand – only knew he wanted to understand better.

  85

  Silence. River flowing. The gentle water-sounds that are a universal call for humanity, as though the water says, "Peace – all has flowed to where it will, and will continue to flow until the deep waters, there to start the cycle anew."

  Christopher fell into a kind of sleep. Thinking of friends lost, of friends found. Realizing that all the people he had spent time with before the Change had been false friends. Friends of convenience – spending time with each other because they were there. Either that or friends in the purpose of fun, of the moment.

  But fun was gone.

  The friends that were here were true.

  The moment was sharper than it ever had been. Because the only guarantee was that moment. Nothing more could be counted on, nothing else existed.

  There was here, there was now.

  These friends… this family.

  He realized he missed his parents. Not in the way that he had missed them when sent to his first school, so young and so far away. He didn't miss them with the sharp pain of parting, with the dull ache that spoke of his conviction that they had sent him away because he was worthless and unworthy of their love.

  No, he missed the parents they should have been. He missed love, missed companionship. Missed the things that parents were supposed to provide, but that they had never given him – at least not past the age of five.

  He glanced at Theresa. She had focused fully on the task ahead. No longer paying him attention, and that made him strangely happy. She would save him if he needed it, but would leave him to deal with the work of kicking across the river when he was able.

  She relied on him to do his part. To carry his load.

  The water streamed past him, and it was cold as ever. But somehow the numbness that had begun at fingers and toes and slowly made its way up his limbs no longer seemed so frightening. No longer seemed to matter. He had to do his part to get the group through all this.

  He realized he had been given two things he had never had before. Purpose, and responsibility. He had hidden from both for his entire adult life. The closest he had come was his desire to have his baby –

  (little girl, little Carina, I miss you, baby)

  – with him. But even that had been a promise of responsibility. A duty owed, but never shouldered as the burden it would have been.

  Now he had things to do. Jobs to accomplish.

  People to love.

  He looked at Aaron – a new father, of sorts. The kind of man who would demand you learn, you do. Would protect from whatever came.

  He looked at Maggie. The mother figure to all of them. Even in her silence, she protected the babies. Even from the depths of grief, she spoke when the group needed to hear a steady voice.

  Amulek. A stepbrother, found from another family but who had inserted himself into this one so flawlessly it was as though he had been born to it.

  And, of course, Buck. Brother.

  Dammit, I think I actually love the guy.

  Buck caught him looking. Scowled. "Are you going to kiss me now?"

  "If I went that way for anyone, it would be for you, Buck."

  The scowl deepened, then cracked as Buck realized that Christopher hadn't said it with his usual sarcastic tone. Hadn't meant it as a jibe.

  "Well…." Buck cleared his throat. "You try to touch my boob and I'll cut off your dick."

  "Language," said Maggie. Aaron laughed. A gasping, exhausted laugh. But a laugh.

  And there she goes. Mother.

  He finally glanced at Theresa. She kept looking straight ahead – but he knew she was aware of him watching her.

  "Thanks," he murmured. The river whispered around them. Caught his word and he wondered if she had even heard.

  Then the corner of her lip twitched. So small a motion it was hard to see. But he had seen it.

  A smile.

  The river was cold around him.

  But he felt warm.

  And then he kicked, and felt his foot touch something. Another kick, and this time it planted in silt and mud. He had to pull it free.

  He put his other foot down. Touched the bed of the river.

  They had made it across.

  86

  The heat was oppressive, but bearable. About the same as sitting a bit too close to a bonfire on the beach.

  More striking than the temperature was the general strangeness of standing here, in a place that had been alive so recently, but was now nothing but ashes underfoot, surrounded on every side by denuded trunks that speared into the sky and somehow seemed like the last rebellious symbols of a place that had lost itself to flame.

  Like us. Reminders of life's last fight.

  Ash was still thick in the air, drifting down from treetops that still crackled and occasionally burst with gunshot sounds. It looked like the beginning of a snowstorm in places – white flakes that drifted down in whirling, pinwheel falls. Caught by heated updrafts, spun about, then eventually settling as gravity won out over the remnants of the forest fire.

  Darkness spread overhead: smoke from the fire that still blazed on the other side of the river, and from the fires that
still burned on this side – blown in front of the wind that drove them ever west.

  Christopher wondered if the fire would spread to towns, cities. Would Nampa burn? Meridian? Boise itself? There were no firemen to stop the fire before it threatened and then destroyed places where people had once lived.

  He looked around. "Where now?" he said.

  Aaron kicked a small stone. It scuttled across the black forest floor, came to rest next to the trunk of a dead tree. "Well, I –"

  He didn't finish his sentence. A shadow dropped across his face, stopping him in mid-thought. The shadow made Christopher's guts coil.

  It hadn't been the smoke. Dark clouds curled up the sky, dampened everything into a mockery of the twilight of a severe storm. But they cast a single, even shadow that coated all evenly. This shadow – it had been something else.

  At first Christopher thought, It's a hawk. Maybe an eagle?

  His mind rejected both theories. The shadow had been too slow. A languid movement across Aaron, then over the forest floor before disappearing in the trunks to the east.

  And, more important, it had been too big to be a hawk. Much too big.

  What now?

  A thought struck him. Sudden terror on its heels. "Oh, dammit," he said.

  "What?" said Theresa.

  "The girls," he answered.

  "What about them?" That was Maggie, holding Lizzy again while Buck had once more resumed his position as Official Hope Toter.

  "They're broadcasting," he said.

  "What do you mean?" said Buck. "We've got your doohickey."

  "Yes," said Christopher, looking down at himself. His clothes were drying rapidly in the dry heat of the area. But parts of it were still damp, others dripping freely. "But my doohickey probably isn't waterproof."

  He looked up. Tried to spot whatever had made the shadow. Saw only smoke. Then he looked at his friends. "The girls are going to call the zombies again. They'll know where we are."

  He looked into the smoky forest. "They're coming."