by Josh Vasquez
“Alright then, we let him stay. Any other concerns?"
Lexx and Ben both shook their heads.
“Good,” Jeremy said. “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us, because tomorrow, we are going to get out of this city.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Jeremy woke up to loud banging and yelling. He jumped to his feet as the others were stirring awake. He went out into the hall and ran down to the office that LJ was sleeping in. He wasn’t there.
“What the hell is going on?” Tori said, walking up behind Jeremy. “Where's LJ?”
Jeremy shrugged.
“I’m guessing that’s who’s making all the noise.”
He turned and looked at her. She held up her pistol, flipping the safety off. He nodded and turned to walk outside. They both walked through the warehouse out into the yard. Ben and Lexx, now awake, followed them outside.
There was LJ at the fence, shaking it, and yelling at the zombies beginning to surround it. Jeremy looked back at the others. They all had the same look on their face. The same look he had on his face. Concern.
“Hey! Hey you fuckers! Come here, you dead sons of bitches!’
As the dead got closer to the fence, LJ would take the pick end of his axe and push it through the chain link, hitting each one square in the forehead. With each one he let out a chuckle. Then he would yell again, attracting more corpses to the fence line.
“Hey, uh, LJ,” Jeremy said, very nonchalantly. “Hey man, whatchu doin?”
The Lumberjack turned around to look at the group. He seemed surprised to see the four of them standing there, as if the noise he was making shouldn’t have woken them up. He smiled and walked away from the fence.
“Just killing some of these zombies. Why? What’s up? You guys ready to leave?”
“Almost. But you know that noise attracts these things right? It’s gonna be hard to leave when the streets are crawling with these z’s,” Jeremy answered.
“Yeah, I know noise attracts ‘em. What do you think I’m yelling for? Just let me know when you’re ready to clear out. I’ll take care of this. Them.”
He turned back to the fence and begins mumbling something to the zombies.
“You killed my wife. You killed my daughter. I’m going to kill every last one of you fuck-nuts.”
Jeremy looked to the group and motioned for the four of them to retreat back inside. Lexx mouthed the word “cuckoo” and grinned. Once they were back inside, Jeremy closed the door and made sure LJ was still near the fence. He was.
“So, I think LJ may be cray-cray,” he said.
“You think?” Tori said.
“Yeah, I’m starting to think that. Call it a hunch.”
“Ok. So what do we do then?” Lexx asked.
“I don't know,” Jeremy started. “The guy’s been through a lot. I feel bad for him, I do. He has a reason to be pissed with the zombies and maybe he’s just blowing off steam. An unconventional way of blowing off steam, but nonetheless, blowing off steam. Plus, he hasn’t tried to harm any of us yet. I suggest we just keep an eye on him, but maybe he’s all right?”
“Jer’s got a point guys,” Ben added.
“Yeah, but we just don’t know this guy. What if he was psycho before all this went down? I mean, he seems to barely know himself,” Tori said.
“So what do you suggest we do with him then, Tori?” Jeremy asked back.
She looked at Lexx for a moment as she thought about an answer. He nodded as if they were communicating telepathically again. She looked back at Jeremy.
“We leave him.”
“No way,” Ben interjected. “We can’t just leave the man! What if the Padre left Jeremy? Or hell, if Jeremy left me? Or if you and Lexx didn’t join up? Out there, we are dead if we’re on our own. If we leave him, we might as well just put a bullet in his head and I don’t want that blood on my hands. I already have enough.”
The end of Ben’s sentence trailed off, everyone noticing and immediately realizing he was referring to leaving his grandmother in the hospital. Tori and Lexx share another look, knowing that if they want to make their case, they would have to tread lightly.
“Hey man, the guy survived out there on his own pretty all right so far,” Lexx said, the calmest of the group.
“You saw how exhausted he was last night. He may have been able to last a couple of days on his own, but there is no way that he can do that forever,” Ben said.
“Maybe he’ll find another group of people. Maybe we’re just not those people.”
“This is crazy,” Ben said, throwing up his hands. “We are talking about a man’s life, aren't we?”
“We helped him out last night. Gave him a place to rest. Hell, he can stay here for all I care. I’m just saying, we don’t owe him anything and he doesn’t have to come with us,” Tori said.
Ben shook his head.
“This is just wrong,” he said.
“Wrong? Do ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ even have the same meaning anymore? He was right about one thing last night. Life is about survival now. Right and wrong are just ideals now,” Lexx said.
“The world went to hell man; it doesn’t mean that we shouldn't have morals anymore.”
“Morals were a luxury. We just don’t have that luxury anymore. It went out the window when dead people started eating people. It’s survival of the fittest now. Well, it always was, it’s just a lot more tangible now.”
“Damn right.”
The Lumberjack was standing in the doorway. Everyone looked surprised to see him there. He had snuck up on them without making a sound. He walked into the room, his head hung somewhat low.
“Hey, I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to scare you guys. You probably think I’m crazy don’t you?” he said.
“Hell yea-”
“We don’t think you’re crazy,” Ben interrupted Tori, shooting her a dirty look. “We know you’ve been through a lot and we all understand that. But, are you gonna be okay?”
The question hung in the air for a moment, as Andrew pondered it. He knew what they meant. As soon as he saw them this morning outside, he knew that he had startled them with his freak out. He didn’t even remember waking up and going outside. Just being there, seething in anger.
“Yeah, I think so,” he finally answers. “I just hate those things so much. Took everything from me. Everything important.”
Ben walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He seemed to appreciate it.
“Look, Andrew,” Jeremy said. “You’re welcome to join us get out of town, but do you think you can keep these episodes to a minimum?”
The man nodded.
“Good,” Jeremy said, turning his attention to the warehouse. “There’s an old delivery truck in the back of the warehouse. Let’s round up what supplies we can out of here and fill it up. Then, we’ll begin our trek west.”
***
They all split up to scavenge what they could. Once the others were gone, Tori pulled Jeremy aside. Her voice was firm but one of concern. Her body language on the other hand screamed that she was pissed. Her hands sat on her hips, which were cocked out to one side. She was biting her lip.
“Yes, Tori?”
“I don’t think he should come along.”
“You’ve made your concerns very clear. And I understand. I do. But I just think it’s a bad idea leaving him here. It’s just messed up. I can’t imagine losing my wife, let alone a daughter. Give him some time.”
“There’s no time to mourn in this world.”
“I know. And that’s why we have to stick together.”
She took a deep breath.
“Fine. But if he goes all banana sandwich again, that’s on you.”
She pushed him aside and walked off.
***
Once the truck was loaded, Jeremy gave LJ the signal to open the gate. Zombies were now wandering all over the street. Jeremy counted nine. Like a baseball player headed up to ba
t, LJ gave his axe a practice swing before revving up and bringing it down on the skull of a dead police officer. He knelt down and removed the still holstered Berretta. He waved his new find in the air before sticking into the back of his pants.
“Do you think someone should help him?” Tori asked from the passenger seat.
“First, you want to leave him and now you think he needs help? Make up your mind woman!” Jeremy said.
“I’m just saying...”
“He said he’d handle it since it was his fault they’re here. Besides, Ben and Lexx are in the back ready to help him jump in when we pull out of here.”
The two men were holding on to handles in the back of the box truck. Once Jeremy drove the truck out of the lot, LJ would jump in the back of the truck; they would close the door and drive away. Simple plan. In theory.
“Holy shit!”
Jeremy snapped out of his daydream of everything working together smoothly to Tori’s exclamation. LJ had reared back and Casey Jones’d a z’s head right off her shoulders. The head went spinning through the air, mouth still snapping, and matted hair swirling. He turned with a smile and gave Jeremy the thumbs up. Jeremy put the truck in drive and pulled out onto the street. He watched as LJ jumped into the truck, via the side mirror, and heard the rolling door close in the back.
“He’s in. Let’s go,” Tori said.
A smile formed on Jeremy’s face as he drove away from the warehouse. For once, everything was going according to plan.
Chapter Twenty Five
Something was not right. Lexx was yelling from the back of the truck. The truck seemed to sway from side to side, as the men shuffled around in the box. Tori slammed her fist against the back of the cab.
“Hey! What’s going on back there?” she yelled.
She looked at Jeremy and he nodded. He pulled the truck over into the parking lot of a grocery store. They got out and walked around to the back of the truck. Tori readied her pistol. Jeremy unlatched the door and flung it open. Ben and Lexx came running out of the truck. LJ was in the back corner, pistol raised.
“What the hell?” Tori asked.
“He’s fuckin’ bitten!” Lexx yelled.
“What?” She yelled back.
LJ put his pistol down and walked to the end of the truck. Lifting up his shirt, he revealed a badly infected bite wound right under his left ribcage. He grimaced and put his shirt back down. They all stood in silence for a minute. Jeremy thought about what to do. He knew from the movies that zombie bites were generally not good things. In the past few days however, he had not really seen anyone with just a bite. Every person he had seen attacked had been mauled in some way. No simple bites.
He looked at LJ’s face. The man seemed a mix of worry and anger. He was probably worried on how the group would react to this unexpected announcement. And he was probably angry because he knew how they would most likely react.
“When did you get bitten?” Jeremy asked, breaking the silence, but not the tension.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, that’s convenient,” Tori mumbled.
“Tori...” Jeremy said giving her a firm look.
“Look, I don’t know. It must have happened during my blackout. I swear I didn’t know until it started to itch in the truck. I feel fine, just a little warm,” LJ said.
He was sweating. The weather had cooled drastically from the day before. But that was November in Savannah for you. He might have a fever. Jeremy’s mind began to race with possible outcomes.
“Everyone relax,” Jeremy began. “We don’t know much about what’s going on, or this infection, or whatever it is. I think we all have seen zombie movies and know that this is not a good thing, but this whole thing hasn’t played out just like the movies. He could recover from this. Maybe it’s not the bite that kills you.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Tori said.
“You’re right. The only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know anything for sure.”
She didn’t seem to like that answer, but she did back down. Jeremy assumed that she would inform him of how she really felt once they were back in the cab of the truck. He looked forward to it.
“LJ, we’ll keep an eye on your, your condition. If it gets to the point where we or you feel like you’re going to turn into one of those things, we’ll deal with it then. How would you-”
“Put a bullet in my brain before I turn into one of those things.”
Jeremy was taken aback by the man’s bluntness, but he understood. He didn’t really want to be a citizen of the undead either.
“Ok then. For now, we continue on as normal.”
Tori huffed when he said, ‘normal,’ but he ignored it. They were just outside of Rincon by a few miles and once they got that far, they still had a few more to go to Ben’s parents. He looked over at the grocery store across the parking lot. He hated that the first thing he noticed was the scattered grocery carts. He hated it even more that it bothered him.
“While we’re stopped here, let’s check out that store and stock up on supplies. We can help supply Ben’s parents in exchange for room and board. The store looks pretty abandoned,” Jeremy said.
“There’s a few z’s over there by the dollar store” Lexx said, pointing to the opposite end of the strip mall.
There was a small group of them, three and a half as far as Jeremy could tell. The half being the upper torso of a middle aged man who crawled around on his hands. His bottom half was completely gone, except for the entrails that dragged behind him. They all wandered in front of the store aimlessly, bumping into each other and the building itself.
“We’ll be sneaky-sneaky then,” Jeremy said with a smile.
Lexx nodded and returned the smile.
***
Once inside the store, they decided it best to split up in pairs. Lexx and Tori wandered off towards the canned goods. Ben and Jeremy were going to try and see what the produce section looked like. The power was out in the building, but some of the fruits and vegetables should still be fresh. LJ went off on his own. Since the confrontation outside, he had not said much. Jeremy asked him if he was okay, to which he just nodded, and walked off.
Ben was also being really quiet. For having been so vocal in the argument over LJ earlier, he had been strangely silent since the parking lot. Once they got to the produce section, Jeremy decided to pick his brain a little bit.
“Hey man, you okay with LJ staying with us?”
Ben looked at him.
“Yeah. I’m cool with it.”
“You sure? You’ve been kinda quite about the whole thing.”
“I argued for him back at the warehouse didn’t I? My opinion remains the same. It just bothers me how quick Tori and Lexx want to dump him.”
He stopped before looking over some bananas and placing them into his cart.
“I get it, I do,” he said. “I want to survive all this too. Trust me, I do. I already left my grandmother; I just can’t leave someone behind like that again. I wasn’t raised that way. My parents always taught me to do the right thing, you know, do unto others.”
“I understand. Me too,” Jeremy said. “My mom always had me in Sunday school. I got the being a good person talk many a time.”
“Oh man, Sunday school. They didn’t put this on the felt board did they?”
They both laughed. Jeremy picked up a tomato, but saw that the other side was starting to get mushy. He put it back down and moved down to the fruit. There were apples in bags that still looked fresh. He grabbed a couple of those and sat them in his cart. It almost felt like they were really shopping.
“Man, we went to this little old country church where the preacher was one of those fire and brimstone kinda guys,” Ben said. “I still remember him preaching this scary as hell sermon on the rapture and the seven years of tribulation. I was so scared and didn’t want to go through any of that, so I walked down the aisle and said the sinner’s prayer. You ever do that?”
/> Jeremy nodded.
“Haha, yeah a couple times,” he said.
“I did it every Sunday for a month straight. I wanted to make sure, you know?”
Ben paused for a second.
“You think any of that stuff was true? You think this is the end times?”
The question floored Jeremy. He had not really thought about it much. Everything going on lately, some of it did seem plausible. The church his mother went to didn’t really teach a lot of stuff like that when he went. It was a lot more like don’t drink alcohol or have sex outside of marriage. Basically, anything fun.
Could this be the end times though?
He thought about what the Padre told him about how this was not God’s wrath, but maybe it was just our fault somehow. It made sense kinda. Maybe some scientist was trying to play god and wound up creating this disease? He remembered having to read Frankenstein back in high school. Could this whole thing be an experiment gone wrong? It all seemed so science fiction.
Jeremy still had a hard time accepting that God would just sit on the sidelines and watch though. His mother got up and read her Bible every day and went to church every Sunday she could. He didn’t help her. Or the Padre, who apparently was someone who dedicated his life to the Lord’s work.
Why isn’t God doing anything? Where is He?
***
“Hold up, I need to get something from this aisle real quick.”
Tori turned down the aisle before even really checking to see if Lexx was going to follow her or not. He quickly changed his direction.
“Are you getting what I think you’re getting?” He asked.
“Yeah. Zombie apocalypse or not, a girl’s still gonna need tampons,” she said, as she reached up to grab a few boxes off the shelf. Lexx watched as she piled them into the cart.
“Geez, how many you takin’?”
“I don’t know when we’ll find more anytime soon, so I’d like to have a nice supply. Trust me, I can make these last.”
