“I might,” Sadie whispered. Her face was the color of whey. She didn’t look good. “I need out.” Startling Neil, she again crawled over him, hopped out of the truck and hurried to the side of the road where she vomited, sounding like a grunting toad, although she was trying to be quiet because there were zombies nearby.
Deanna had never liked going out at night since the apocalypse. Everything was so much darker than before, scarier too. She could never tell just how close the zombies were; their voices carried hundreds of yards in the still air. And if they came for her, she was afraid to run for fear of getting a stick in her eye or a breaking an ankle in some shadowy chuckhole.
She went anyway, climbing over Neil the same way Sadie had. “I’ll go talk to her,” she said. Neil started to mumble something about family, only the nearness of her breasts to his face seemed to have numbed his lips into incoherence. She stopped him, saying, “No. You’re hurt and Captain Grey should stay here because…” She didn’t much like Norman and trusted him less; she inclined her head briefly towards the backseat. He had to be watched by someone more capable than Neil.
“Ok. I guess,” Neil said.
“It’ll be ok,” Captain Grey put in. “Deanna can take care of herself.”
This caused her to waiver a moment. What had she ever done around him to give him such confidence? Nothing, as far as she could remember. Whenever he was around, his bulk, his stern gaze, his…his presence was larger than life. He just seemed to take over and fill up any room, leaving her sometimes feeling like a spectator in her own life.
And she secretly loved it.
She gave him a smile which he returned, going heavy on the white teeth. Had this been a bar back in the old days that smile alone would’ve have gotten him halfway into her bed. Deanna lingered on it until Sadie interrupted by making a noise that sounded like: Guap!
“I’ll go check on her,” Deanna said, slipping out of the truck.
Immediately, the men in the bed began to whisper questions at her, Why’d we stop? Why the fuck are we just sitting here? What’re you guys, idiots? There are freaking zombies out. What’s going on?
“I don’t know. Shut up,” Deanna snapped. “We’re trying to figure some stuff out, ok? In the meantime, hush.” They grumbled over this but she had already tuned them out so as to concentrate on the brambles and the branches and the nettle vines doing their damnedest to trip her up.
Sadie wasn’t deep into the brush. She was standing with her palm flat against a great monster of shadow. It was an immense tree with a dark trunk five feet in width. Between the blackness of the tree and her black, Goth clothing, Sadie’s white hand stood out, as did the vomit splashed on the trunk; it was greasy looking like oil on tar. Deanna pretended not to notice it.
“Hey Sadie,” she whispered, stepping over a root that was the size and shape of an anaconda.
The girl in black turned. Her face was strange the way it seemed to float out of the background. She slid the ghost-like hand across her lips and then shook her head in confusion.
“We haven’t been introduced. My name is Deanna Russell. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Oh. You’re one of the whores, aren’t you? I-I mean one of the ex-whores. Sorry.”
“I escaped from the Island if that’s what you mean,” Deanna replied, stiffly. The word whore was like a stomach full of glass—it hurt, and it scarred. Being a whore wasn’t like any other “job” in the world. She could never stop being one. It was as though she were branded right down to her soul by it.
“I didn’t mean anything,” Sadie said. “I just…just…” Her ghost hand swept up to her face again and she sobbed behind it.
“It’s okay, I’m not mad.” Deanna touched her on the shoulder, softly. “Did something happen?”
Sadie’s breath began to hitch. “I-I don’t know. Yes, I guess, but…but it shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be so…I shouldn’t care. This is the apocalypse and evil people should die. Right? That’s the way it should be. I knew it, but there was so much blood. The guy on the stairs, I just shot him and there was so much b-blood. He was like...like if you knocked over am-milk jug. It all came chugging out of his head. Like gloop, gloop…”
“Oh, hey,” Deanna said, grabbing Sadie and pulling her close. “You have to forget it. Those men had it coming to them. They were evil. You are right about that.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Sadie whispered, sniffling up something wet. “I have to pull it together, I know it, but that guy’s blood is stuck in my head.” A new wave of nausea struck her; she clutched her stomach and began breathing heavily like a woman in labor.
“Are you pregnant?” Deanna asked excitedly like some overwrought teenager.
This sobered Sadie up quick. She swallowed, loudly, and it seemed she swallowed her breath; her panting stopped abruptly. “No, of course not,” she said in a rush. “Why would you ask that? Do…do I look pregnant?” Sadie was stick-thin and, other than the vomiting, she seemed like any other teenager.
“No, I was just wondering.” That was a lie. Deanna had been hoping. Hoping she wasn’t the only one having to go through this so soon after the apocalypse. She had a thousand fears. Where would she find a doctor? What would happen if the baby was breech? What if it had the croup or was colicky? Or worse, what if it came out a zombie? What if it ate its way out of her?
A long shudder rolled up her back. The twitching muscles stopped as something snapped in the forest not far away. Instinctively, Deanna dropped into a crouch. Sadie was relaxed about the sound at least; she only peered briefly into the shadows and then looked down at Deanna. “Zombies make more noise than that, and my dad’s men could never have gotten here so fast. It’s probably a squirrel.”
Deanna, who didn’t think squirrels were nighttime creature, wasn’t so easily calmed. “Yeah, we should be getting back anyway, but only if you’re all right.”
Sadie’s face was shiny with tears, but she lifted a single shoulder in a half-shrug. “I think I have to be, because that’s the way it is now. I have to remember that. And I have to remember I can’t be a girl anymore. It’s like it’s no longer an option. Girls have to be…different, you know? We can’t be like we were. I can’t cry over this stuff.”
Deanna, who felt like crying every day, said, “That’s easier said than done.”
“Yeah, but I have my friends and I have Neil, who’s like my real dad, you know?” She smiled, grunted out a little laugh, then and added, “Man, if I was pregnant, I would hate to see how weird Neil would get. First he’d be mad and then he’d lecture me and then he’d be picking out baby names and trying to marry me off!” She giggled but it wasn’t wholly natural; the deaths were still too close in her mind.
“Sounds like Neil,” Deanna replied, wishing she hadn’t brought up the subject of babies in the first place.
“Could you image being pregnant, now?” Sadie asked. “What a freaking horror that would be. Having Eve is a blessing, but she’s one of a kind and she came to us, you know, already out. I couldn’t image being pregnant and trying to run from zombies when I was big as a house.”
“Me neither,” Deanna said. Desperate to end the conversation she pointed back to where the truck was parked and gently pushed Sadie. “We got to go. And we should be quiet, you know? We should stop talking.”
Sadie began walking; her foot hit a hidden something and she stumbled into Deanna who flinched at her touch. After Sadie’s dreadful words, it was as though a jinx lay over her like a dark cloud looking to flash its poisonous lightning at the first target it could reach. Deanna steadied the girl and then, when she turned for the truck, Dee quickly wiped her hands on her pants.
One of the men leering in the back of the truck said, “You two share a special bathroom movement?”
Another laughed, saying, “Even with the end of the world happening all around us, girls still gotta take a squat in pairs. Why is that?”
“It’s a mystery,” the first answered.
>
Sadie rounded on them. “It’s a mystery you’ll never figure out, limp-dick.” This caused a burst of muffled laughter.
“Everything okay?” Neil asked. There was a worry in his eyes that woke something in Deanna: jealousy. The ugly emotion felt like a creepy thing lying under a wet, mossed-over log, peeking its buggy eyes out, asking with a split tongue, Who’ll take care of you, Deanna? Who’s going to take care of your baby? Sadie has Neil, who do you have? Are you gonna do it all by yourself? You gonna feed her, bathe her, hunt for her, fight for her, build her a safe home? All by yourself? How’re you gonna do all that with her sucked up on your tit?
“We’re fine,” Deanna said, weakly as if it was she who had just been throwing up in the woods. “Just some, uh, bad food, right Sadie?”
The teen nodded while in the cramped back seat, Norman clapped his hands. “Good. Let’s get to the bridge. The sooner the better because, if I know Ole King Shit, he’s going to realize he’s down to it now. With everything that he’s fucked up so far, only the bridge will save him and if he gets there first we don’t got dick.”
Grey turned on the engine and gave a quick glance at Deanna. Maybe because the voice in her head had poisoned her confidence, she sat up straighter and smiled uneasily, feeling as though they were at a drive-in and part of an awkward group where they were the only singles among the others. She felt stupid beyond belief. Why was she smiling? What part of their situation called for a freaking smile?
Of course he returned the smile, and his spoke of calm and inner confidence, which was only natural; he wasn’t the one who was going to be a blimp pretty soon, trying to pass himself off as a bloated zombie. He could smile because he wasn’t going to be burdened with the prospect of trying to feed a baby while trying to feed himself.
“You okay?” he asked of Deanna.
“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” She was seconds away from tears. She could feel her eyes begin to birth two huge drops. A thought pounded her soul: what if she had twins? The tears came. She pretended that the trees passing by were of the greatest interest, while swirling black thoughts invaded her mind—if she had twins, she would have to kill one, there were no two ways about it. She’d pick the smaller one. That’s how nature intended. She’d use a hammer and make it fast.
Her teeth started to rattle like chains and she sniffed, loudly, causing everyone to look at her. “It’s nothing,” she said to the unasked questions floating in the truck.
“It’s okay,” Grey said. “We’ve all been there.”
The whore in Deanna, the one she thought was dead, reared its painted face and threw a pretty smile over her misery. That part of her knew what she was willing to do to survive: pretty much every degrading thing she could think of. That part knew what a pretty smile she had, and she used it. “I’m fine. I’m fine. So where is this bridge?”
Sadie snuck a glance back at Norman and whispered to Neil, “We should at least blindfold him.”
She was overheard. Norman loomed up from the back seat and asked, “Why? I’m not stupid. I know everyone here hates my guts. That’s fine with me. But I know you won’t kill me. Grey is one of the white knights and Neil probably couldn’t stomach shedding blood.”
“I’ve killed humans,” Neil said. “More than I care to admit.”
Norman gave him a condescending look, as if he wanted to pat Neil on the head like he was a puppy dog. “Sure, but I’m betting you almost pissed yourself doing it and probably had nightmares after. Face it, you guys are a bunch of goody-two-shoes. You won’t kill me and you won’t let the rest of these punks kill me either. And that’s good. That’ll work in your favor when I kill the River King.”
Next to Deanna, Sadie’s body tightened, drawing into herself, but she said nothing.
“Someone has to do it,” Norman said, shrugging. “For your sake I’ll make it quick, like maybe a crucifixion.”
“You’re a shit,” Sadie said, her gritted teeth.
“No, I’m a realist. Your dad is going to be the focus of a thousand angry people. They’re going to want retribution. They’re going to want to take their anger out on someone. The leader who denies that urge will be putting his own head in the noose next. Besides, there are worse ways to go than crucifixion. Do you know what impaling is? It’s when…”
“Enough!” Grey snapped. “We don’t need to hear you run your mouth, Norm.” He turned long enough to shoot a glare at the big man before asking Sadie. “Can you tell me where we’re supposed to be going?”
The girl fetched the map from the glove compartment and directed them to the nearest of the seven coordinates: a town three miles away called Tin Bluff.
It was a long, slow ride. The dark, and the shadowy zombies that seemed to appear out of nowhere, had them plodding along with dismal slowness. Deanna tried to remain awake during it but her eyes were heavy and before she knew it she was leaning on Captain Grey’s thick shoulder and snoring lightly.
She slept this way for over three hours and it was after midnight when they pulled up to the town limits. The truck coming to a stop woke her. “Are we there yet?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Grey said. Everyone squinted out into the dark and then turned to look at Sadie.
“Wait, all I have is the names of the towns,” she said, defensively.
“Towns?” Norman asked. “There is more than one?”
“The parts of the bridge are probably separated,” Grey said. A dry sigh escaped him as he gazed at the dark silhouettes of the town buildings. What could be seen of them sat in orderly rows like tombstones. Among them were the undead. “We’ll start searching at first light.”
Grey drove further down the road and found a Howard Johnson’s where the carpet was deep brown and the walls of the rooms were creamsicle orange. Everything else was tinged grey from a year’s worth of dust. The quiet of the building was cloying. It made the air feel soft and close. Deanna didn’t like it and made sure to stay close to Captain Grey.
There was another reason she clung to him, the other cage fighters were a wild and scary crew. Unshaven and unbathed, they were mostly beasts who couldn’t hide their beastly desires. Sadie felt their eyes on her as well. “You can stay with me, Deanna,” the Goth girl said. “Come on, I got us the first room on the right.”
Deanna had been lingering in the lobby, waiting on Grey, who was poised in the doorway. He wasn’t much more than a shadow and yet his strength was obvious in the dark. “Okay, I guess,” Deanna said. With reluctant steps she followed Sadie. The room was musty and the bed had the aroma of age. It was comfortable at least and Deanna slept straight through the night hours.
There was a dim hue to the room when Grey shook her awake. “Time to move,” was his gruff salutation. Though his beard was only days old, he was, in most respects just as beastly as the others and in one respect he was worse. His clothes were black with blood. In contrast, the white bandage at his neck stood out.
“You’re hurt?” Deanna asked and then wanted to slap herself. Of course he’s hurt, she chided herself. Duh! Blood and bandages are sure signs, don’t you think? Vaguely, she remembered his shirt being wet and dark the night before, but she had been so wrapped up with her pregnancy fears that she hadn’t thought to ask why.
“Yes. I got nicked up when we were escaping the prison. It’s not bad though,” he reassured before going to Sadie’s bed.
The Goth girl was bleary, disheveled and grinning. “You stink, Captain. Ever heard of bathing? It’s when you put water on your skin and take the smell off of it. It’s a wonderful invention.”
He grinned back at her. “Once you find the bridge, I promise to make myself presentable.”
“You want me to find the bridge?” Sadie asked. She ran a hand through hair that ski-sloped up weirdly on one side of her head.
“Yes, you know your dad better than any of us. Trust me, you’ll be fine.”
Despite his assurances, the bridge eluded them. The town was hick through and through, from t
he roadside Ho-Jos, to the feed-store arcade combo. It boasted a crummy two-aisle grocery store that had all the telltale hallmarks of a good, ol’ fashion looting. Two blocks down was the town’s volunteer fire house; it was blackened and charred and from one of its brick walls a crumpled fire truck protruded. Lastly, there was a rinky-dink elementary school that was only a few steps up from a one-room schoolhouse.
Behind this “Main” street, sat a smattering of dated houses, a few zombies that were easily destroyed by Grey’s expert shooting, and a trailer park that had suffered some sort of calamity that had left the rest of the town unscathed. Some of the mobile homes were tumbled on their sides, looking crushed and indented like old beer cans. Others were fire-touched—some with black soot spinning up from the windows and doors in ugly swirls and others burnt down to their twisted metal framework. Others were broken square in half, while one was stood up on its end like some sort of prehistoric totem. Nobody could make heads or tails over it.
Sadie didn’t hesitate; she went right to the war-torn trailer park. Norman tried to stop her. “Don’t waste our time. The pontoons are going to be too big to fit in any of those shacks. We’re talking sixty, seventy feet long and fifteen feet wide.”
This didn’t slow her marching feet for a second. “Captain Grey was right; I know my dad. If he’s hiding something it’ll definitely be in there.” Her instincts proved spot on. In two of the most ugly and trashed homes they found a smorgasbord of weapons, ammo, fuel and food. “It’s one of his just in case stashes,” Sadie said.
The men went for the weapons grinning and joking. The two women went for the food, Sadie digging into a package of Oreos until her teeth were black, and Deanna almost crying as she munched her way through a bag of Doritos using her right hand while spooning Campbell’s clam chowder soup into her mouth with the other.
The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades Page 27
