by Coke, Justin
"Four bars."
"Sixteen."
"Six."
"Your life worth ten granola bars?"
"I ain't even sure he's going to turn! He might just be asleep."
"Twelve bars and the thousand bucks."
Dick's eyes opened. It wasn't Dick.
"Fine, give me the hammer."
"Gimme the bars." James knew that he didn't have time to argue. He jammed a box of sixteen through the bars. Demarco grabbed the box.
"I wasn't kidding-- you give me the hammer back or I will fuck you up first chance I get!"
"I'll give it back," James said with mounting panic. "Just give it to me!"
The hammer was pushed into his hand. Dick stood up and growled, eyes locked on James. It was a tiny cell and Dick was almost on top of James when the hammer whistled down on the crown of his head. Dick’s charge was stopped, and he bobbled back a foot or two before he locked onto James again. This time the hammer broke an orbital bone. Dick's left eye popped out and hung by a nerve. He lurched forward. James pushed him back and Dick tripped over the toilet. James was on top of him, hammering again and again. He could feel the skull shattering and the flesh tearing against the shards through the hammer. He went on quite a while, hammering. Dick was re-dead for a good long time before the world came back into focus.
"Hey, you fuck up my hammer I will kill you!" Demarco was yelling. James shook himself like a dog. Dick's blood was spattered all over the cell. He turned away and washed his hands in their little sink. He washed off the hammer too.
"Demarco, I'm really tired."
"No shit," Demarco replied.
"Real tired."
"So fucking what?"
"Pounding Dick got me real tired," James said. That was a bon mot by Cell Block G standards. A few guys chortled even though they had just sat through two back to back hammer homicides.
"Take a fucking nap. After you give me my hammer."
"I'll give you your hammer. I just need the energy to do it, is all I'm saying."
"What the fuck you talking about, just give me the damn thing."
"I think I need some granola bars to get the energy to give you back your hammer."
"You still got plenty, eat those."
"Yeah, already did. Need ten more to really get my energy back."
"You cunt, we had a deal!"
"Yeah we did. That's why I'm not keeping the hammer, and I'm letting you have six when I know I could get you to hand them all back. ‘Cause I appreciate you helping me out like that. I just have nutritional problems, you know."
Ten bars where thrown through the bars, each accompanied by a new insult. After they arrived James handed the hammer back.
Let no man say James is a thief. But also let no man say James is a sucker.
CHAPTER SIX
1.21 Jigawatts
Dave stared at the tower. Antennae hung from a triangle a hundred feet in the air.
He could even see which one was damaged. Got hit with a bullet somehow. If it was just one broken antennae he wouldn't even be here. He had a lot more pressing problems at the moment. But the antennae was jacking up the whole tower. That was killing the whole A15 hex. When all the phones in A15 tried to switchover to another tower, the neighboring towers got overloaded. So this one bullet was causing a cascade of failure for everyone in Waxahachie.
Replacing it was out of the question. FedEx wasn't going to ship one, and nobody was going to make the run into Carrolton to get the ones they had in storage. Might as well just shoot yourself as try to make the hundred mile round trip. Carrolton was in north Dallas. That fifty miles was full of crazed refugees booking it to Midlothian and Waxahachie. They hoped to get funneled to one of the encampments out West somewhere. So Waxahachie was crowded with living people encamped on the roofs of buildings. They needed power and they needed water and they needed cell phone service. The TXU guys were traveling in armed caravans patching the electric lines. They would kill the power to any house they found with the air conditioning on.
The cell phone guys had merged with the Waxahachie public service guys. The public service guys were riding with the cops and firefighters, which is why he had Anthony and Corey with him. Corey was a water guy, but he was handy and from the looks of him liked lifting weights and illegal supplements. Anthony looked like a black Barney Fife. He had a reputation of being a crack shot with a rifle and the compound bow he carried for "ninja shit."
The zombies beneath the tower probably had something to do with why the tower was broken. The tower was at the top of a steep hill. A busted up RV was at the bottom of the hill. Dave could see where the ground was torn, and a line of debris and clothes still lined the path the RV took as it crashed down the hill. The people inside the RV then turned into some fucked up zombies, who then climbed up the hill where someone shot at them. They were still there banging around a few abandoned cars.
"Well, I can see the antennae. If I can get up there and disconnect it, I can reboot the tower and it'll be fine without the dead antennae. But there's quite a few down there," Dave said.
"Not that many," Corey said. "Just have the crack shot pop ‘em in the head."
"Can't. Chief only let me take five bullets on this run."
"What the fuck is the point of that?" Dave snorted.
"Cell phone towers don't rate too high on the Chief's to do list these days. He said if it looks like it's gonna take more than five bullets, I should head back," Anthony said. Dave couldn't tell if Anthony agreed with the Chief or not.
"What about the tower?" Dave asked.
"Guess we wait until a cleanup crew comes to get those fuckers, then head up," Anthony said. The fact that he hadn't started leaving yet gave Dave hope.
"Lot of families are going to have it real rough if the towers go down. No communication at all then. Lot of upset mothers," Dave said.
"Don't fucking try to guilt trip me. I haven't left have I? Just figure out how we do this with five bullets or less and no chance of getting ate. Don't want to die for a cell phone tower if I can help it. Got a ton of better things to die for," Anthony said. Corey nodded and looked at Dave.
"How long you need to be up there?" Corey asked.
"Thirty minutes. Five to climb, twenty to fix, five to climb down. Probably," Dave replied.
"Why can't we just throw you in the back of the truck, drive the fuck up there, drop you off, drive back. Can the fuckers climb that tower?" Anthony asked. The tower just had poles sticking out each side.
"No. The ladder is ten feet up, and I doubt they can climb the lattice work," Dave said, checking his waistline for the pistol. It was a cheap 9MM, but it held thirteen bullets and he had an extra clip. Should be enough.
"How are you going to get up there?" Anthony asked.
"Climb the lattice work," Dave said.
"But..," Anthony sputtered.
"I can do it. They don't have the coordination anymore," Dave replied.
"Ok, let's do this. There's an aquifer that needs to be cleaned up," Corey said.
Soon they were rolling in the truck. Dave spread-eagled in the back of the truck trying to avoid bouncing around or letting the zombies know he was there. The sky started darkening as he approached the tower.
"Fucking great," he muttered to himself. "Doing this in the rain is going to be a blast." They hit some debris and his head bounced off the truck bed. He squinted away the pain shooting down his neck. The aluminum body of the tower floated into view like a geodesic space ship. Then his body tried to pile drive his head into the cab of the truck. The Moan started. He only had a few seconds before they swarmed the bed. He popped up to his feet and jumped up, grabbed the lattice work, and scrambled up. The truck peeled out below him, and he was a good twenty feet up before he stopped to catch his breath. If his boss had seen that, he'd have fired him on the spot. He wouldn't have a choice. If the insurance people ever found out, they'd have had his head on a pike. The ladder started ten feet up, so when he did a bit of
a Tarzan swing and let go, he had plenty of ladder to grab. Then it was easy.
Near the top he smelled something. Something real foul. It was like if you took a full diaper and microwaved it. But there was more to it than that. A metallic smell. But the wind was up and the smell was gone. Dave grimaced. If the tower was making that smell the situation might be worse than he thought. He'd never heard of them smelling before. He was almost at the top when the head appeared. It was a big fat baby head with greedy green eyes. It opened its mouth and hissed at him. It was a real ugly baby. Dave let go with a scream and went limp for a second. If it weren't for the safety guards keeping him from falling away from the ladder that would have been the end of him right then. But he recovered his grip with one hand and went for the gun. The thing, whatever the fuck it was, was coming down at him, head first with long black needle hands. Had to get the gun. He jerked it out of his pants and brought it up. A hand grabbed his gun hand. Sharp knives wrapped around his wrist and began to cut. He screamed again, and it chuckled a fat, happy chuckle from its vicious mouth. He pulled the trigger, and it fired into the air.
Don't hit another antennae, he thought. It started to squeeze his hand, and the blood started to well between the claws. That was when the lightning hit. He could see it coming in slow motion. It reached out from the sky and homed right in for him. God, he thought, Sweet Jesus, thank you for hitting this thing right in the butthole.
And it landed. He woke up feeling hot and with a headache that redefined huge. He floated in the air, only prevented from falling by the thing’s hand, still wrapped around his wrist. Instead of blood smoke drifted from between the claws. He got a grip on the ladder and then jerked his gun hand. The thing had his hand tight. He couldn't feel his hand, but he willed his finger to move. The gun fired, almost blinding him.
The sound woke the thing up. Its eyes started to focus on him. For a second it looked confused and hurt, and for a moment Dave felt sympathy for the ugly thing. Until its eyes focused on him like a hawk seeing a mouse. The claws began to tighten. He jerked his hand right next to its head and squeezed. It opened its mouth and that horrible smell came out and it started to scream–Boom. Boom. Boom Boom. Its head twitched as tiny holes appeared. He kept going until the corpse fell on him and knocked him down another rung or two. He struggled with shoving the corpse through the safety rail. After a lot of hard breathing and cursing it fell, long boney limbs cartwheeling down to the ground. His hand looked like it had been sent through a food processor and then barbequed, but it still worked.
Corey and Anthony must have been watching through the binoculars. They rolled up with the truck, firing at the crowd of zombies, rules about ammunition forgotten. Dave pointed at the corpse, and the back of the truck. Then he started climbing one handed, leaning against the safety guard. That antennae still needed to get fixed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Despair
Her children were Gary, fourteen, and Diane, ten. Her husband was Calvin, a life insurance adjustor. He had been at work for weeks, trying to crunch the numbers on this plague, insofar as it would impact the bottom line of US Fidelity Life. Every day he got more and more withdrawn, but he wouldn't really discuss it, and she didn't really want to hear it, but it hung there.
One night he came home with some pills. He showed them to her. They were in an unmarked pillbox. They were white things that had a weird irregular shape. They looked homemade.
"Janet, if there ever comes a time... if there ever comes a time when it's easier... it's easier just to go to sleep, these will do that. It's supposed to be fast and not hurt at all. I hope it won't come to that, but...," he said. His tone had terrified her. He sounded hopeless.
She had begged him to stay at home, but Calvin was Calvin. When he felt threatened or upset, he hewed to the daily routine harder and harder. When his mother had been in her last weeks from breast cancer, he had got to work at 7:30 every day, came come at 5:30, and asked for meatloaf and macaroni and cheese every night for three weeks. Even the kids had been sick of it after a while, and she started making two dinners, one for Calvin and one for the rest of them.
He was not a man who acknowledged his problems. So this... it was so enormous that she missed the enormity of it. She didn't want to see it, and she laughed it off as paranoia. She almost flushed the pills, but as she stood in front of the toilet, she heard the tone in his voice again.
She decided to keep them locked in the file cabinet. She felt like quite the fool now. She was also angry with Calvin. He knew this was happening. He knew, but he was so selfish he was more worried about keeping himself happy than the safety of his own family. But that anger didn't last; who was she to throw stones? She had been in denial too–so bad that she had opened the goddamn door to one of those things, even though anyone with any sense would have called the police or gotten a gun, or done any damn thing but what she had done. He liked to stick his head in the sand, but so did she.
She felt sorry for him then, even though she felt more sorry for herself. He had to come back now; she knew she could turn at any time in the next day or two. Somebody had to guard the children from her.
So eventually she pulled herself together and walked back to the bedroom door. Nina hung there, stuck in the door. She grabbed her shoulders and lunged forward. It took some effort to get her going, but once she did Nina fell out of the door almost on her own. She opened the door and gingerly stepped over the corpse.
"Gary, hand me the shotgun, and both of you stay in my sight at all times."
Shotgun ready, she went back to the front door. She popped her head out. She saw curtains twitch but no one acknowledged her presence. Her eyes went to the wash cloth on her arm. She sighed. They wouldn't be taking her calls now. She slammed the door shut and locked it. She headed to her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed Calvin.
He answered on the first ring.
She explained what had happened. Silence from the other end.
"Calvin?"
"Calvin?"
"Janet, you were bitten?"
"Yes, Nina got me pretty good on the arm."
"......"
"Calvin?! Come home!"
"I have some things to do...."
"Fuck your fucking job, get home right now!" she screamed. The children cringed.
Silence again.
"Janet... take the kids to my parents house. I'll be home as soon as I can."
"No, I am not letting the kids out of my sight. Your parents are dead Calvin, remember?"
"Do you remember the pills I gave you?"
It was her turn to be silent.
"Do you remember?"
"Yes."
"You have a ten percent chance of surviving that bite. Our children were exposed too, so the odds are one in nine that both of them will survive. If I come home, I will most likely die too. If there is a hereditary function of immunity to the plague, it is a very indirect link. Not statistically significant."
Janet couldn't speak.
"I'm seeing what is happening in New York City, I'm seeing it in every city. I'm seeing the news. Peoria has a few days until it gets bad here too."
"The odds are bad, real bad, Janet, and what do you get if you beat the odds? You get to starve to death, or die of thirst, or get ripped up by hordes of zombies. Go get those pills, and give them to the kids. Take one yourself. The only way to play this game is to quit."
"Calvin, could you at least come home... say goodbye..."
"I wish I could. I really wish I could. I shouldn't have come to work. I should have quit weeks ago to spend time with all of you. But I'm trapped. They are outside. The police won't come. The only people who came to work today are assholes like me who thought if we didn't change, the world couldn't change. We're trapped and we're not getting out."
Janet crumpled to the floor.
"Let me talk to them."
She gave the phone to Gary with a nerveless grip.
Calvin wasn't the kind of guy who
would say it right out, but the kids knew. They knew. They knew she was probably going to die, and they knew they were saying goodbye to their father over a cell phone.
They were so brave, she realized. And the world was so unfair. How could God have let this happen? It was so unfair. They shouldn't have to bear this burden. No one should. But certainly not children.
Maybe Calvin was right. The pills were the easiest way out. They could all be in heaven and all this would seem like a bad dream. Easy and painless. She got up and fetched the pills, then got three glasses of water.
She gave each of the children a pill. How fast would it be? Would she have time?
"Dad gave this to us, it's an antibiotic. It's supposed to help keep us from getting it," she said. The lie rolled off her tongue with surprising ease. They took the pills. Not instant. I wish I'd asked for more details, she thought. They went to the sofa and put Finding Nemo in the Blu-ray player. She hugged both of them tight, and before long she felt a powerful urge to sleep.
"I love you both," she said as she went under.
"We love you too," they said.
Sleep.
It was the only way to win.
CHAPTER EIGHT
14 June
Imagine ten zombies on a flat and featureless Cartesian plane. They would, after much bumbling and shuffling, end up sorting themselves out by instinct. Each zombie would drift so that he or she was at the maximum visual distance from the other zombies. They spread out to form a detection grid. No human would be able to enter this flat and featureless plane, without triggering the alarm.
The real world has hills and buildings and trees, shortsightedness and cataracts. It takes a lot more zombies to cover the same territory than it would on a flat plane. But any experienced survivor can tell you that any significant accumulation of zombies is proof of life. Because when a zombie detects a human, it signals to the others, whether by sudden and aggressive movement or noise. The message spreads, and the net collapses on its prey.
