He glanced at Chris and Jeremy as he wondered how much time he had before they needed to make another turn. Chris wrestled the boy for a second and then shoved him toward the cab. Tears streaked Jeremy’s face, but Chris didn’t appear to care.
“Goddammit, kid! You get in the fucking fight or get off the ride! We got a fuck of a lot more to worry about than wiping your ass.” Then Chris turned away and snatched up the hunting rifle again.
Blake watched Jeremy a second longer. The kid sat with his back to the cab, slumped over. His face was a terrible mask of pain and terror. He reached across the bed and grabbed the Ruger .22 he’d been given.
Something screeched to his right, and Blake turned to blast it to Kingdom Come. He felt bad for Jeremy, but he couldn’t deny the boy had become a liability. They needed to get the kid in the game before he got one of them killed.
“C’mon, Jeremy—”
He turned and saw Jeremy with his eyes squeezed shut, the barrel of the Ruger in his mouth.
“Don’t!”
Jeremy pulled the trigger.
————————————
Eric turned away once he saw Chris wrestle the Motts kid off Blake’s back. He heard Chris shout, and he figured that would be that. He didn’t have to sit in the bed exposed to God and the dead masses; he couldn’t blame Chris and the rest for unleashing on each other a little. Besides, he had his own worries to handle, like how his little prep list hadn’t accounted for a quartet of rotten fingers dropping in his lap.
He looked through the starred windshield and saw McCormick Street disappear beneath the pickup’s front wheels. The zombies had dwindled, only one or two still in front of them, and the truck blew past them a second later.
Morris showed no sign of slowing.
“Hey, Morris?” he said. “Grocery’s back that way.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“Getting clear so we can circle around.”
“Right.” He took a breath, trying to relax, and then he heard Blake scream something. The urgency of it turned his head. He heard a gunshot in the split second before the cab’s rear window went red. The glass cracked in a hundred directions in the same instant, and suddenly Morris leaned forward and grunted as something punched at his shoulder.
A fresh round of screams erupted from the back. He heard Blake and Chris, but Jeremy remained silent. Hot terror burned in his stomach as thoughts crashed through his brain. Whose blood was that? What had happened? He hoped Jeremy might simply be too terrified to sound off, but all that blood gave him doubts.
Morris’s groans brought him back into the cab. The big man had slumped toward the wheel, his right arm hanging limp at his side. A hole had appeared in the back of his shoulder. Blood stained the fabric of the big man’s sweatshirt, and the red mark spread as Eric watched.
“Fuck,” Morris said through grit teeth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Are you okay?”
“No! I’ve been fucking shot!” Morris winced as he tried to roll his shoulder. “Jesus. I can feel the bullet in there. What’s going on in the back?”
“I can’t tell.”
The big man let out another grunt and ducked low to peer beneath the cracks that filled the windshield. “We need to find a place to hide out.”
“What?” Eric asked. “We can’t do that.”
“We have to. I’m losing blood here. We at least need to switch drivers.”
“Aw, hell. Just hell!”
“Right. Just fucking look for a place.”
The truck continued down the road. Two more blocks, and they passed Millwood’s middle school. A blackened shell remained, a few buses forgotten nearby. Beyond the school, the town spread out in drips and drabs. Houses grew farther and farther apart as the country took over again.
“There,” Eric said as they crested a hill. He pointed at a two-story home resting in the shallow valley. It hadn’t been burned, and most of its windows looked intact in front of boards.
“You think?”
“Keep it running, I’ll try to get the garage open. If we can get inside and get the door shut, the zombies might think we just disappeared.”
“They don’t think.” Morris spoke in a voice just above a whisper, each syllable electric with pain. “They just have instincts, far as I know.”
“Then maybe this will be a little easier.”
“Right. Like a dry run for later.”
“Yeah.”
His breathing quickened as Morris approached the house, decelerating. As the truck’s engine quieted, he could hear Chris and Blake’s angry voices from the bed.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t-”
“Tell me!”
He wondered what they might mean, but he didn’t have enough time to sort it out. His muscles tightened with fear as Morris twisted the wheel right, and the truck turned into the house’s driveway. How close were the zombies? Could they really pull this off?
He decided the only way to find out was to go for it. He threw open his door before the truck even came to a stop. The house sported a two car garage with separate doors for each side. He sprinted to the door on the left and tried the handle. It refused to budge, locked.
“Hell!” He glanced to the top of the hill, searching for pursuers. Nothing. The horizon remained clear, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way long.
He leaped to the other door and grabbed the handle. He didn’t waste time with a silent prayer or desperate hope. Instead, he simply jerked on the handle and nearly screamed with joy when it moved. He pulled with everything he had, and the door rattled up. The pickup’s engine growled, and he stepped aside as Morris charged through the opening.
Eric looked to the top of the hill again. Still clear. He started to duck into the garage when the truck slammed into the far wall, rocking the entire house. He jumped inside and slammed the door, felt around in the sudden darkness until he found the lock and threw it.
He tried to sort the noises that jumbled in his ears. Blake and Chris continued to yell, their angry voices mixing with the hiss of steam escaping into the air. Dammit, something had happened to the truck’s radiator. He felt a shadow of despair sweep over his panic. His entire plan was falling apart in record time.
What did you expect? his thoughts asked.
The garage doors sported a row of small windows along the top, and gray light spilled through to cut at the shadows that filled the garage. It revealed everything to Eric in bits and pieces. He saw a plume of white vapor spray into the air. He saw Morris’s door open and the big man lurch out, his left hand steadying his right shoulder. He saw Blake’s fist cock back and fly forward, saw Chris collapse into the pickup’s bed as the blow connected.
He sprang into action, leaping into the bed and grabbing Blake before he could land another punch. Chris moved forward, preparing to swing, and Morris reached out with his good arm and grabbed the man’s hair. Chris started to scream, and Eric slapped a hand over his mouth.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “Everybody quiet.” He felt Blake quake with anger in his grip, but both men remained silent. Turning, he peered out the row of windows and saw a zombie charge down the street, too bent on catching the truck to realize it had disappeared. Another ran past, and that was it. The street fell silent and empty.
“Okay,” he said. “No loud noise, okay? We should be cool so long as we… Where’s Jeremy?”
Blake jerked in his arms, lunging for Chris. He wrestled the man still, but his mind started running, putting pieces together. The blood on the back window, the bullet that had continued through into Morris’s shoulder.
“No.” He pulled a struggling Blake to the side and let the gray light fill the pickup’s bed. Something clicked in his throat, and suddenly he couldn’t stop blinking.
Jeremy’s fingers still gripped the pistol hard enough to pop the knuckles white. Peace filled his face. His eyes had closed, and his jaw hung slack. Eric thoug
ht the boy could pass for sleeping if not for the hole dripping blood and brains out the back of his skull.
The strength drained from his arms, and he let go of Blake. He fell back, his back slamming against the tailgate. He couldn’t feel it. His eyes drooped shut, and suddenly he only wanted to sleep.
“We’re going to fail,” he whispered. “I know it.”
EIGHT
“Goddammit!”
“That hurt?”
“Of course it fucking hurts. Just finish it up!”
“Doing my best. Hold your damn horses.”
Chris couldn’t believe his awful luck. As if getting the stink-eye from everybody over the brat offing himself wasn’t bad enough, now he’d been roped into digging the little bastard’s bullet out of Morris’s shoulder. He stood huddled in a tiny downstairs bathroom with this guy about the size of a sasquatch, a lighter in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other. Life was just a bowl of fucking cherries.
At least it put him in a different room than Ellis. That asshole was working on his last nerve. He suspected Morris and Eric wouldn’t take too well to him beating the living tar out of Blake, so it was best to just stay hell and gone from the man. He could always settle up with him once they returned to Millwood. Yeah, that would be a fun little event.
Then again, Blake wasn’t acting any way he himself hadn’t in the past. Maybe he should give the guy a break. But Ellis really thought he was to blame for the Motts kid taking himself out. It wasn’t his fault Blake had his head up his ass. Just appeared to be a symptom of living in this part of the country.
He flicked the lighter and ran the flame over the tweezers. Blood sizzled in the heat, a thick scent that crawled up his nostrils. He really needed water on top of all this, but the utilities were long dead, and they hadn’t found any bottled water in the fridge or under the sink.
“Okay, hold still.”
“Fuck you.”
“Have it your way.” He pushed the tweezers into Morris’s wound and began probing. The big guy’s muscles tightened around the small tool, and he fought to keep control. Sweat slicked his fingers and tickled at his forehead. He struggled through it, continuing to dig into the man’s shoulder.
Morris growled through pain that had to be terrible. Chris saw the man’s hands grip the sink like a pair of iron clamps, could hear the tendons creak with strain.
“Almost there,” he whispered.
“Don’t give me a progress report, Stevenson,” Morris said. “Just get it over with.”
He felt the tweezers touch the bullet, and he almost jumped at the sensation. Instead, he took a deep breath and steadied himself, worked the slick tool until he felt it grip the cold metal.
“This part might suck.”
Morris didn’t respond.
He began to pull. He felt the bullet come a centimeter at a time, scraping past muscle and flesh. Morris’s growl climbed in volume, and the man’s entire body trembled.
Slow and steady, Chris told himself. He held his breath and grabbed his wrist with his free hand. He could do this. Sure, he could pull the bullet out of this redneck prick and get on with his life. Nothing to it.
He saw the bullet’s flattened edge exit Morris’s shoulder and fought the urge to give it a final yank. Instead, he kept the pressure steady. The skin tugged at the round, and he thought for a second he might lose hold of the tweezers, but then the lump of metal popped free and Morris slumped against the sink.
“Jesus.”
“No,” he said. “Just me.” He dropped the ruined bullet into a nearby wastebasket and then sat down on the toilet. He grabbed a towel that smelled like mold and used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Some fucked up kinda day, huh?”
Morris opened the medicine cabinet. He rooted through its contents and then grumbled as he slapped it shut. “No Band-Aids?”
“Craziness.”
Morris pulled his sweatshirt back on, covering his barrel chest. “What did you say to the kid?”
“Huh?”
“You heard what I asked.” The big man’s voice was soft but firm.
Great. So the redneck wanted to put him back on this little merry-go-round. What was it with these hicks? Didn’t he get a moment’s appreciation before the inquisition? He’d just dug a bullet out of the guy!
“I didn’t say shit.”
“That’s not what Blake seems to think.”
“Did Blake tell you how many times I’ve saved his life today? He tell you the kid would’ve strangled him if I hadn’t pried the little bastard off?”
Morris leaned against the bathroom door, blocking any path of escape. His brown hair went well with the shitty wallpaper. “What did you say?”
“Jesus! Will you give me a fucking break, Morris? I just dug a round out of your shoulder!”
“And it came through Jeremy’s head. Blake thinks it’s because of something you told him. I’m trying to figure out if that’s true.” The man’s chest rose and fell, making him look like a sleeping beast just before it wakes up angry.
Chris took a deep breath as he fought to control the anger that percolated inside him. The nerve of this bastard. The goddamn nerve. If the giant simpleton blocking his path knew half of what he’d been through-what people just like him had done-he wouldn’t be asking these stupid goddamn questions.
————————————
“Throw it harder, Daddy!”
Chris smiled as he hefted the Frisbee in his hand. Danielle stood maybe forty feet away, her pigtails bouncing as she hopped up and down, beckoning to him to just go ahead and throw it already.
The sun had just barely risen above the line of pine trees that surrounded most of the Shawnee Lake Camp Grounds. The golden light that spilled down on the grass outside the cabin he’d rented reminded him he should still be asleep. Danielle wouldn’t hear of it, though. His daughter had jumped on his stomach as soon as light started filtering through the darkness, demanding he get up so they could play Frisbee. She was still in her pajamas, but he just couldn’t say no to the girl, not when he only had three days left before she returned to her mother’s house.
He always tried to make their two weeks in the summer count as an adventure. He’d taken her to Key West last year, Disneyland the year before that. He’d been a little surprised when she wanted to go camping this year, but he figured at the very least he’d get to save a little money. Ken Ricks in marketing had recommended Shawnee Lake, and a month later he was in Southeast Indiana, tossing a Frisbee to his daughter.
“C’mon, Daddy!”
He whizzed the disk at her, and she caught it with a nimbleness most eight-year-olds didn’t possess. She gave him a mocking frown.
“I told you to throw it harder!”
“I don’t want to take off your hand,” he said. And I’m still mostly asleep, he thought. Why couldn’t I have had some coffee first? He knew he wouldn’t trade this moment for anything, though. He’d cherish it the same way he clung to every second he spent with Danielle, because in three more days he’d have to say goodbye until his weekend in October.
“You won’t take off my hand. Just go ahead and-”
Her voice disappeared under the rumble of truck tires over gravel. Chris looked up as a mobile home appeared on the roadway leading past the cabin. The vehicle was flying, kicking up dust and rock as it ate up the road. It rocked from side to side, and he doubted it would make the next corner without rolling.
“Danielle, get away from the road!”
She looked over her shoulder and then did as he asked. Sprinting across the green grass, she flew into his arms. He held her close as the RV rocketed past, leaving a choking cloud of dirt billowing toward them.
“Why are they driving so fast?” Danielle asked.
“Couldn’t tell you, honey. Maybe they’re trying to get to McDonald’s for some sausage biscuits.”
“Daddy!”
“Just saying. I have no idea. Now c’mon, let’s throw some more.
” And that’s just what they did. For the next twenty minutes they passed the Frisbee back and forth. Chris ran through all the moves he knew, bouncing the disk off the flat ground and boomeranging it to the side. Danielle ran and giggled and tried her best pull off the same maneuvers.
More vehicles came down the road, and Chris eyed them warily. During the past ten days he’d seen plenty of cars, trucks, and motor homes travel the gravel road, but never so many in a single morning. If it was a Sunday, he could understand. People needed to end their vacations before work on Monday. Today was a Wednesday, though. As a station wagon raced past like it was trying to outrun the devil, he found himself growing seriously nervous.
Danielle threw the disk. It sailed to his left and then hooked back, a perfect boomerang. Danielle cheered.
“Great job, honey! You’re getting better-”
He froze as he saw the woman. She came out of the woods, running like she was terrified. Her arms flapped every which way, and she almost looked comical. The red stain on her white tank top destroyed any comedy. The woman stumbled as she crossed the gravel road, but sprang back to her feet and continued a course for Danielle.
His daughter turned toward the sound and jumped when she saw the woman. She took a few steps toward him, and he could see the worry on her face.
“What’s wrong with her, Daddy?”
He began to jog toward his daughter. The woman wasn’t slowing down. “I don’t know, honey. Get behind me.”
But Danielle had already conquered her fear and was walking to meet the woman. Chris knew she wanted to see what was wrong with the stranger, to help if she could. As he burst into a sprint, he wished his daughter wasn’t so wonderful.
The running woman closed to within ten feet of Danielle. Chris heard the woman make a strange hissing noise, and then he heard his daughter ask, “Are you okay?”
The woman replied by taking Danielle into her arms.
Scavengers Page 6
