She bagged Kumar at that same party as he emerged from the kitchen with a fresh joint in his hand. She plucked it elegantly from his fingers, meeting his gaze with a smoldering directness that turned his knees to water. Their closeness as she inhaled melted his spine, and when she brazenly pushed his hair out of his eyes and told him how beautiful it was, he would have happily killed every other person in the room if she’d asked. She returned it to his fingers, her gaze still sizzling into his, giving his next puff the intimacy of a cigarette kiss.
And then she was gone, caught up in the current of an attention storm.
Along with a few other partiers, she followed Brian and Kumar home, and when morning came, she was on their second couch, looking rapturous, eating breakfast, and watching cartoons while stoned. That had been two months before the outbreak, and she had hardly gone anywhere since.
Oh, other men had come to visit. In the ‘friendzone’, Brian and Kumar had the mystifying pleasure of being the people these other men all sucked up to, in the hopes that they would put in a good word. It was weird. She never slept with any of them. But she did share with Brian and Kumar their chocolates, their booze, their weed, their concert tickets, their influence, and any other tributes her hordes of adoring worshippers gave to her. As far as she was concerned, Brian and Kumar were family.
I love both of you, she’d say. You’re like a part of me, the brothers I’ve never had, and I want to spend my life with you.
And so Krissy became a roommate, like a missing third to a trio that neither of them realized they needed. She was a fun person to have around, once the messy question of any kind of sexual relationship was put to rest. She painted, wrote bad poetry, built a garden in the back yard, and stayed up all night with them watching movies on Netflix. She took them to all the coolest places where, thanks to her, Brian and Kumar were always granted entrance. She cared about them, chipped in on groceries, did her share of the cooking and cleaning, performed tarot readings, and told them if the girl they were pining for was interested in them or not.
Moreover, simply having her living with them improved their own reputation by association. It was as if, by having such a beautiful woman hugging them, sharing her life with them, treating them like equals, they were elevated to some sort of rock star status. They were a ‘power trio’, and everyone around them could feel it.
She was sprawled on the other couch, alluring in a pair of short shorts and a tank top, staring with a troubled expression up at the ceiling. While both Brian and Kumar were big fans of Krissy in her shorts and tank top, their time together had given them extra immunities. It was part of what had augmented their ‘coolness’ in the eyes of all the other guys without such privilege.
“Is there any food?” Brian murmured as he lay on his couch.
Food hadn’t been an issue at first. The idea of a grow-op was that you were supposed to stay indoors, treating the site like a biosphere until the crop was finished. The fact that the three of them went out almost every weekend, and sometimes during the week, was beside the point. They’d had canned goods, dry goods, and lots of pasta. Thanks to the solar panels, they still had power, and thanks to the water tanks, vital in a hydroponics system, they were well supplied with water. Most of it had been used up to flush the toilets, but they still had enough for another week or two.
Indeed, had it not been for that one very noisy, terrifying day when zombies had come crashing through their doors and windows in search of prey, they might not have been aware of the apocalypse at all. As it was, well-camouflaged by sitting or lying petrified on the couches, the undead had missed them and moved on to more obvious prey, most of whom were screaming and trying to run. Upon later reflection, staying still and continuing a low profile seemed like a winning strategy, at least until rescue appeared. Certainly, going out on weekends, as a ritual, had been put to rest.
“There’s Krissy’s food,” Kumar said, unenthusiastically. His sphinx-like, stoned expression hardly moved as he spoke.
Brian took a deep toke of his joint. Right. Rice wafers. Dried kelp sticks and reconstituted seaweed biscuits. Yes, Krissy’s food, which even Krissy didn’t eat, was still around. But it says something - doesn’t it? - that you have a house full of weed smokers in a zombie apocalypse, and the kelp sticks were still uneaten.
“Anything else?” he said hopefully.
Nobody answered.
“I would fuck a platoon of hockey players,” Krissy said, “if they offered me a cheeseburger.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brian muttered. “Knock it off already, Kris.”
“Sorry,” she said. This wasn’t the time.
“Maybe that little girl will have some food,” Kumar said.
Brian rolled his eyes. “Not that again. Jesus, Kumar. A little girl dressed up like a… like a… small pile of garbage? Just… stop it. Or no more weed for you.”
Kumar went silent. Even though he was already stoned to his limit, the prospect of being cut off was more than enough to intimidate him.
But he had seen a little girl. Just a flash before she fled, but he was still stoned enough to believe in what he’d seen. Or… no, wait… he was stoned, but… the girl was real, even if… what… was I… thinking about just now?
The only outward sign of Kumar’s inner turmoil was a single, owlish blink.
“Man has finally tipped the balance,” Krissy murmured, accepting the joint from Brian. “The cosmic eye has adjudicated man’s role in her garden, and she has decided that he is wanting. A million million sins shall be redressed in her breast, and the spittle of every mewling babe, the pain of every starling that will never know the warmth of the sun ,shall be soothed. The wrath of Mother Earth shall wipe us clean, and the undead shall purify the Earth…”
Pheeeewwt. She took a long toke, holding it in.
“Or something like that,” she finished with a squeak, waving the joint in Kumar’s direction.
Kumar stirred, eying the offered joint like it was a cockroach for a second. Then, with a herculean wrench of his bicep, he lifted his arm from the armrest and accepted the joint.
“Ta,” he said, taking a puff.
A buzzing noise broke the ruminations of their collective haze, and they each looked up to see something… alien… hovering in the air above them.
None of them moved. So unexpected was this intrusion, no one could so much as twitch under the intruder’s scrutiny. Frozen in his seat, Brian could only stare at the… at the thing…through his drug-enhanced lens. There was something familiar about it, but for the life of him, he was paralyzed beneath its cold, mechanistic gaze.
The strange object spun in the air, taking in each of them one by one, and then with a slight wobble, it sped off towards their kitchen, and disappeared.
“Oh man,” Kumar whimpered, shrinking back into his chair.
With a trembling hand, he passed the joint to Brian.
“Oh my god,” Krissy remarked a few seconds later. She laughed, and twisted around to look at each of her companions in turn. “Did… did that just happen? I… did you both just see that?”
“Aliens,” Brian said, starting to sweat from the back of his neck. “All this time, it was aliens that caused the end of the world.”
“Oh man,” Kumar repeated, still holding out the joint to Brian.
“Do you think that’s what it was?” Krissy asked, seeming to mull this over.
“What else could it be?” Brian asked. “And it spotted us! We’re doomed.”
“It was,” Kumar squeaked, “an XJ9000 Omnicrone hover-drone, with on-board camera and extended battery lifespan. One of the best over the counter types that money can buy.”
Brian blinked, seeming to deflate a bit, then finally noticed and accepted the offered joint. He took a deep puff.
“Yeah,” he said, after exhaling. “Or… or it could be that.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Krissy asked, looking back and forth between them. “It means that somebody is comin
g to rescue us, right? They sent in… that thing… and-”
“Or it could mean,” Kumar interrupted, “that zombies have finally learned how to operate drones.”
Brian passed the joint to Krissy, who shook her head, so instead he extinguished it in their overflowing ashtray.
“That’s pretty dumb, bro,” he said, as kindly as he could.
“It’s ridiculous,” Krissy said, though her expression looked worried. “More likely, it’s the police. Or a resistance. Or the military, led by a team of scientists.”
A scrape by the door split the air like a gunshot, and all three of them reacted by covering themselves up with blankets and lying very still.
This worked. Four times, zombies had come through their house, even after the doors had all been kicked in and the windows shattered. Each time, the trio had been seated right where they were now, and each time, the combination of the overpowering odor of the grow-op, the piles and piles of camouflaging blankets and clothing that had accumulated on their couches, and sheer dumb luck had caused the intruders to walk right on by.
This time, however, whispering could be heard.
“They’re over there,” said the first whisper. “On those couches.”
To their credit, none of the three roommates moved.
Footsteps approached. Brian’s blanket was yanked off, and the pot-grower was suddenly staring upward at an enormous, well-dressed Italian man. His suit was immaculate, and the watch and the rings on his fingers looked like they were gold.
“Oh!” he said. “Geez. You are rescuers.” He swallowed nervously. “Are you?”
“Who is it, dude?” Kumar whispered from under his blanket. “Is it the government? The military?”
“Fuck,” Luca muttered, pulling off Kumar’s blanket next.
“I dunno, bro,” Brian answered, looking at the newcomers with apprehension. Behind the towering Italian man in the suit stood another man, much smaller with blondish brown hair, a slender build, and a shoulder holster strapped prominently on his chest. Next to him was Kumar’s little trash girl, peeking at him from over Kumar’s chair.
“I think we just got rescued by the Mafia,” he said.
“Whoa,” Kumar said, staring up at the newcomers with wide-eyes. “Seriously, dude… I loved the Sopranos. That show was intense.”
“No kidding?” Luca said, glaring at him. “Thanks for the fucking compliment. And ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was a great fucking film, too. You should be proud.”
“Oh,” Kumar agreed, nodding. “Touché.”
The second man stepped forward.
“Hello,” he said, eying the third lump that was Krissy. “We’re not the Mafia, but we do have a safer place for you to stay. My name is Marshal and this is Angie. You’ve met Luca.”
Angie waved at them, then turned back to Marshal. With a smart salute, she shuffled back to the front door and went outside.
“Angie is going to keep an eye out for any of the creatures. We scouted the immediate area. There’s a zombie in the house next door, and a few more down the street, but if we keep our voices down, we should be able to talk safely for a few minutes.”
“Cool,” Brian said.
“We’d like to offer you a chance to get out of here,” Marshal continued. “We have lots of food, water, electricity, hot showers, and our place is hidden so that the zombies can’t find us. We’ve discovered a way to sneak about in the wasteland… um… excuse me. You can come out now, ma’am. We know you’re there. We… uh, saw you on the drone cam.”
“XJ9000 Omnicrone,” Kumar said reflexively, still eying Luca with apprehension. On her couch, Krissy slowly pulled down her blanket and stared at the newcomers with her stern, disapproval face.
“Oh! You’ve got a tech background!” Marshal said. “That’s excellent. You see, we’re trying to build a… a community, I guess, and we need all the help we can get. I give you my word that you’ll be safe if you come with us. In fact, you’re likely to be a good deal safer than if we leave you here.”
“We’re not leaving you here,” Luca growled. “That would be fucking stupid.”
Brian sensed that his roll as a leader was required now.
“Uh… I… uh…” He took a deep breath. “I think we’d be willing to come with you, assuming that you’re truthful about not hurting us.”
“Like you’d fucking know if we were lying,” Luca said, glaring back at Krissy so hard that she dropped her ‘disapproval face’ and unholstered her ‘measured, assessing face’. “But we aren’t. Thing to remember though: Marshal’s in charge. He’s got this idea of trying to rescue as many survivors as possible and save humanity. You stay with us, you do what he says.”
“Jesus, Luca,” Marshal snapped. “You make me sound like I’m trying to become a cult leader. Look. All of you. No one is going to force you to do anything, but you do have to obey some basic rules when you’re with us, mainly having to do with not getting us all killed. Otherwise, I promise that somewhere down the line, you’ll be a part of what we’re building. You’ll get your own hidden place to live, with power and hopefully running water. The rest, we’ll work out as we go along.”
“I… I think we should go with them,” Brian said.
“If there’s food,” Kumar pointed out, “then we got no choice. Besides. I’d like to see how they’re able to do all the shit they say they can do. And yeah… I’d like to help out too, if I can.”
“You bet your ass, you can,” Luca growled.
“If you’ve got computer skills,” Marshal said, looking eager, “then we need your help a great deal.”
“I’m a programmer,” Kumar said. “I can design programs, write code, whatever you need.”
Marshal looked over at Luca with a pleased expression, and Brian got the impression that the man was resisting the urge to punch the air.
“We need all of that,” was all he said.
They all looked at Krissy, who stared back at them for a few seconds.
“What?” she said. “Are you kidding me? You had me at hot shower. Do you, by any chance, have any cheeseburgers?”
“Burgers, yes,” Marshal answered. “Cheese… like the kind you put on burgers… no. But we still have tons of Parmesan, and sausages, roasts, steaks, bacon, chicken, ribs, lamb chops, and other kinds of meat. We have enough pasta to feed the Italian army, plus canned goods, soups, stews, sauces, plenty of spices, and all the snack food and pop that could be looted from the Dollar Den. And then we also have-”
“Fuck, Marshal,” Luca said with a grin, “Let’em up off the fucking mat, would you? Can’t you see what you’re doing to them?”
Marshal paused. There was, indeed, something feral creeping in to the expressions of his three new recruits. To go on would be torture.
“Anyway,” he finished, “you’ll see when we get there. If you don’t mind, I still don’t know your names yet.”
Brian blinked away visions of spaghetti plates and rib roasts, swallowed the mouthful of saliva that had accumulated, and got unsteadily to his feet.
“I’m Brian,” he said, “and these are my two best friends Kumar and Krissy. And, dude, we are yours to command.”
“Great,” Marshal said, smiling. “Get your things together, clothes, personal effects, anything you need to take with you. We’ll check with Angie to make sure the coast is clear, and we can introduce you to Crapmobile, our carriage through the wastes.”
The three pot-growers scrambled up from the couches like they had just caught fire.
The arc light from the welding gun blazed as Luca finished the last few inches to the metal joint. Lowering the gun, he raised his visor, examined the work, then put the visor down again and added a few more spots.
Marshal entered the storage area of the apartment where Luca was working on the new Crapmobile frame. It sat in the middle of the floor on blocks, a ten by six cage, six feet high, with the axels poking out on either side. The wheels had yet to be added, but it looked to be only
a matter of time.
“Got our new roommates settled?” Luca asked, setting down the gun and taking off his welding mask.
“The guys were falling over themselves to offer up our forth bedroom to the girl,” Marshal answered, smiling. “Probably for the best. She strikes me as the kind of woman who would happily wander around half-naked if we asked her to sleep on the couch. Bit of a free spirit, you know what I mean?”
Luca laughed. “If that’s what the lady wants.”
Marshal shook his head. “Better that we not go there, and I’d rather keep things PG-rated, for a while at least. And anyway, the two guys fit in the living room, one to each couch. They’re happy with the arrangements, given that they can play Halo and be stoned as late as they like.”
“Yeah? So what’s your policy on the weed?” Luca asked, turning back to the frame. He reached for a metal drill and raised it, gripping it with both hands. “I mean, did you see that fucking bag Brian brought with him? It was twice the size of my pillow.”
Marshal nodded, holding his answer until Luca had finished six evenly spaced holes in the left side of the top of the frame.
“Truth is,” Marshal said, “I don’t exactly have a problem with it.”
“Pretty open-minded of you.”
“Not really,” Marshal said. “How would you feel if I started telling you that you couldn’t drink anymore?”
“Suicidal,” Luca said. “And only ‘cause homicide’s off the table where you’re concerned. But I would do my best to make sure that you were one miserable bastard.”
“Exactly. Got to keep morale up. But I do think we should sit down and discuss some sort of rule system as to how we should regulate that sort of thing. Being drunk or stoned is an act of free will. Being drunk or stoned during a zombie apocalypse? That’s a recipe for disaster.”
Luca deflated with theatrical pathos. “Aw, fuck, really?”
“I’m not saying we start up a temperance league,” Marshal said, holding up his hands. “I’m just hoping for a little bit of common sense. Only indulge at or during the night, and never when you’re outside the apartment or on duty. Stuff like that. Are you saying you’d have a problem with that?”
From Oblivion's Ashes Page 17
