by White, A. L.
“Are you positive that this is what you want?” Virginia asked Zoe.
“It’s not what I want, child. It’s what needs to be done before he puts everyone in the RV in danger.”
Virginia raised the arrow up high as Joey’s dead eyes stared up at her. For an instant she thought there were signs of Joey looking at her, pleading with her for life. Then the low guttural growl rumbled deep in his throat.
The arrow came down with blinding speed into the center of his eye. Pulling it out, Virginia sank it deep into the other eye with a twisting motion. There was no more movement that she could see or feel. Joey had been a good friend; now she had ended him at Zoe’s request. It wasn’t fair that someone as good as Joey had to go this way while a piece of shit like Roy was still alive.
Turning to exact justice for Joey from Roy’s flesh, Virginia ran smack into Zoe who threw her arms around her. “I am sorry you had to do that for me, child. I just couldn’t.”
“I can make this right.”
Zoe pushed Virginia back so as to see her face and look into her eyes. “Make what right, Virginia?”
“I can make Roy pay for what he did,” Virginia replied.
Zoe pulled her into another deep hug, stroking her hair and said softly, “Only God can make this right, child. He will settle all things when each of us meets him.”
Virginia pulled back in shock. How could Zoe think that there is still a God, if there ever had been one in the first place? That man sat out there alive and smug, because he was a coward that ran before warning the others. They were lucky that only one had died because of him, and not the whole group! Virginia thought.
“Look at me, Virginia!” Zoe ordered in that Aunt Zoe way that demanded respect and compliance. “We will give that man out there a chance to prove himself. We will give him another chance, because it is the Christian thing to do. We will give him another chance, because it is what I want to do!”
“But he…”
“He did nothing worse than be afraid! I am afraid nearly all of the time, child! He did not kill my nephew; those creatures did.”
In Virginia’s world, everything was cut and dry; black and white. Zombies were bad so you killed them, with the same amount of thought as you would when stepping on a cockroach. You killed them or they ate you; it was as simple as that. Now she was being asked to look for a higher reason to not kill someone who deep down she knew would bring harm, who would place the group in danger. That didn’t work in Virginia’s world.
Zoe could see the confusion in Virginia’s face, “Now, if someone with two large dogs wanted to keep an eye on him--just to make sure that there was no more shenanigans--I believe the good Lord wouldn’t have a problem with that, and neither would I.”
Virginia smiled, “I will signal the others that we need to stop to take care of Joey.”
“Thank you, child. You do that,” Zoe said, letting her pass.
Once the signal was passed on from the RV to the bus, and finally to Lori, the group once again came to a stop. There was no question in anyone’s mind as to why they were stopping. There was a little bit of concern about how safe it would be, but everyone understood why. Lori and Al walked the area looking for signs of the dead moving near. Lori ventured a little further from the vehicles than Al did, but she thought that was ok. It had been a long and painful day for Al.
“I don’t think we can bury him here, or that we should even try,” Al said to Lori.
“We can keep moving until we find a better place, Al. It’s up to you.”
“No, he is my son and I don’t think I want to ride with him since the change started, so I am sure no one else does either,” Al replied.
Zoe came towards them from the RV, moving slowly through the snow. “Is this the best we can find, Albert?”
Al rolled his eyes while his face was looking away from her. “The ground is frozen, Aunt Zoe, and a little way down the hill you can see the zombies are moving. I don’t know how much time we will have here.”
“Surely you are not planning on leaving my nephew, your son, lying out here in the snow?”
“It may be best to burn the body, Zoe,” Lori added. “Just to be safe.”
“I would like to say a few words over him before we do that,” Zoe pleaded.
Lori could feel the zombies off in the darkness, even if she couldn’t quite see them right now. It wasn’t really a feeling; she knew they were there. Just like she knew that Zoe and Al were standing right in front of her.
“Whatever you want to do, Zoe. Let’s just do it quickly, if we can.”
Virginia watched from off to the side as firewood was hauled from the back of the truck to make a bed for Joey to lay on. There wasn’t much conversation as Zoe walked up to her great nephew and said a few prayers. A few times her voice broke up, but she continued to the end. Al didn’t have the strength to say anything, but she could see what he was thinking in his eyes. Silently, he walked back and lit a quickly fashioned torch, then turned back to his son. “God, please take my son into your loving arms,” Al said as he touched the torch to the gas-soaked firewood. With a blaze, Joey was engulfed in flames and it was all over. Everyone silently turned back toward the vehicles.
Taquisha watched the small crowd retreat from the funeral pyre and shook her head.
“Don’t youd all see the truth of it all?” she screamed into the night.
“Baby, let’s get back into the bus and talk about it,” Jermaine pleaded with her.
“Talk? There is nothing for us to talk about! We all know the truth, and it is time to accept it!”
From behind them, the zombies were making their way towards the group, following Taquisha’s voice. “Look, honey. We need to get moving now. Can we talk about this later?” Jermaine continued.
Chapter 10
“Hey, Doc. Are you down there?” a voice yelled down the stairs. Doc swung around from the lunch counter, and walked over to the bottom of the wide, old stairway.
“I’m here,” he replied, squinting his eyes to see who it was, then recognizing the voice had belonged to Charlie. He smiled up at him. “Was this morning successful?”
Charlie started down the stairs to meet him as Doc started up the stairs.
“We lost Juan and his son. They must have walked in on a bunch of creatures on the last house of the street. There wasn’t a whole lot of them left. Boo and I found the church secretary hiding in a closet at the preacher’s house. I can honestly tell you that if it wasn’t for Boo, I would have ended up like Juan. He must have been hell on wheels thirty or forty years ago!”
“Charlie, I am so sorry to hear about Juan and his boy,” Doc stated with a rare tear running down his cheek. Since moving all of the survivors to the old school, Doc had appointed himself as the caretaker of all who resided here. It was him that woke every morning and made the rounds to check on them. He cleaned up after them, nursed them back to health when they needed it, and healed them when he could. Juan had been a great help to him in keeping the place going, and as far as he could tell, Juan was one of the few that Beau trusted to touch the boiler.
“What kind of shape is the secretary in? Wasn’t her name Donna?” Doc asked
Charlie shrugged his shoulders, because he really didn’t know the woman’s name. Annie had always wanted to go to church but had never really pushed the subject very far. Mostly, she went on her own and left Charlie to do as he pleased. Deep down, Charlie knew that it wouldn’t have hurt him to give in to her and regretted a little not going with her.
Doc started up the stairs without another word until reaching the top, “Where did Beau take her?”
“I think he’s headed over to the nurse’s office, or--I mean--your office,” he replied with a smile. Doc smiled back at their inside joke. That joke was from a bygone time that existed only in their memories; Sunday morning coffee meetings. He would miss those. Doc led the way toward the nurses’ office.
They found Boo going over his field dressin
g of the secretary’s wounds. Stepping next to him, Doc took over from there, “What are your thoughts?”
“Oh, I think she will survive well enough,” Boo replied, stepping out of Doc’s way.
Doc took a long look at the avulsions on each of her fingertips, mumbled to himself a few times, and then led the woman over to the sink.
“This may sting a little, but only for a few minutes,” Doc explained to her, looking deeply into her eyes for any sign that she understood what he was saying. Seeing nothing, he took her left hand first and held it under the cold water. With no signs of any discomfort, he added in the kitchen soap that was sitting next to the faucet. Then Doc noticed a slight attempt to pull back, followed by a barely audible wince. “So you are in there someplace,” Doc stated as he quickly moved on to her right hand. Once he felt they were cleaned out enough to meet his personal standards, he pulled a clean towel from the drawer and lightly dabbed them dry. “Charlie, in that cabinet behind you, there is some gauze and a bottle of antiseptic ointment. Be a good fellow and grab them for me, will you?”
Charlie retrieved the items and handed them to Doc. It was amazing to watch Doc in his element, taking care of people. There was no way that Charlie could deal with this day in and day out. This was what Doc did for over thirty years or more of his life.
“OK, my dear. Why don’t you lie down over here and rest awhile, and we will find you a bed of your own,” Doc stated as he led her to one of the old nurse’s beds for sick students. Once she was safely in the bed and covered up with an old blanket that Doc had found, he gave her a Vicodin to help with any pain she might be feeling. Since she could not, or would not, tell the pain level she was feeling, Doc only gave her one. He also knew needed to save as many as he could for more serious injuries that would come up down the line.
“Well, let’s get out of here and let the young lady rest. Later on I will ask Tressa to make her something light to eat, like broth, if we have any,” Doc said, ushering them out of the room into the hall. Once there Charlie asked, “Tressa?”
“While you boys were out, a few survivors came in from the east.”
“How many?” Boo asked looking concerned
“I think about fifteen, maybe twenty,” Doc replied.
This brought Boo to a dead stop, shaking his head no. “Doc, you need to be careful about who you let in here until they are checked out! How in the hell did they even know we were here?”
“Not sure, Beau. You could ask any of them yourself if you really feel we need to know that type of information.”
Boo’s face was turning beet red as he tried to control himself, feeling his temper boil to the top. “Yes Sir! We do need to know that info from everyone that comes in; we need to know where they came from as well! There are people out there that were not so nice when the world was intact… do you really think that they have ceased to exist now? Do you honestly believe that if they were evil then, that all of this has changed that?”
Doc was flabbergasted. No one had ever spoken to him like this in all of his years. “Follow me, please,” Boo stated more as an order than a question. “I want you to get a good look at something. Maybe then you can get a handle on the predicament that we now live in!”
***
Taquisha turned her back to Jermaine and raised her hands towards the sky to pray. Long ago he had learned not to interrupt her during prayer. Taquisha had put up with all his screw ups in life with hardly a word that held him accountable or discouraged him from trying to do better the next time. No matter what, she had stuck by his side when others had called for her to dump him and move on in hopes of finding a more conventional man that went to work every day. Instead, she had stuck by his side while he went in and out of jail. The one thing she did not tolerate, was any interference with her relationship with God. Jermaine knew better and did not interfere and that is why they stayed together; at least that was why he thought they did. Jermaine knew that she would not move until she was either done, or there were zombies nearly on top of her. Jermaine turned to go wait by the RV door. He could keep a fairly good eye on things from there and react accordingly if he needed to. This gave Taquisha the space she would need, and him some peace of mind.
“Should I send the dogs out there to watch over Taquisha?” Virginia asked when he reached the door.
Jermaine chuckled a little and then replied, “Not unless you want to make the ride ahead that much more unbearable.”
“I didn’t think that was possible to do,” Virginia replied with a slight smile.
“Oh, trust me with Taq, all things are possible in that area.”
They both laughed for a few seconds, as they watched her, illuminated by the flames of Joey’s funeral pyre.
Then the oddest thing happened in front of them and neither was prepared to act with the speed to stop it. Taquisha, with her arms still raised, screamed out, “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned against you!” then started sprinting toward where the zombies were gathering, just behind the slight drainage ditch. They were barely visible without looking hard for the movements of shadows in the darkness. Taquisha’s scream brought them out of the shadows and into the light; both Jermaine and Virginia could see that it was a decent sized herd now.
Before either of them could react Taquisha was in the center of the herd, surrounded, with no way out, still screaming to the lord. The last thing Jermain heard as he sprinted toward his wife was, “If God wills it!” …then nothing. Not even a cry for help.
Reaching the periphery of the herd, Jermaine smashed his fist through the skull of the first zombie. The partially decomposed facial bones crushed inward beneath the force of his strike and collapsed around his hand. It made a suction sound as he pulled his fist back out of the cranium, coated in what had once been brain tissue. He did the same on another as the herd now swallowed him, much the same way it had Taquisha. Jermain didn’t know or care about what was happening around him. He was ready to fight his way to Taquisha and pull her out at all costs. Even if the cost to save his wife was paying with his own life; Jermaine would see it paid in full. There were no feelings of pain or fear in that moment, only a deep rage that boiled over. His large stature made it nearly impossible for the herd to pull him down like they had Taquisha. In no time he had fought his way to what had been his wife’s body. There were so many zombies feasting on her that there was no way to tell what kind of shape she was in, or if she was even in one piece anymore. None of this mattered to Jermaine. He would reach the woman he loved and pull her from this unholy place. Taquisha would want this, he kept telling himself.
The first zombie he pulled off of her had a large piece of her intestines in its hands as he threw the creature off of her, knocking down several other zombies. The second had what Jermain had thought was her beautiful face. The very face that kept him going during each and every jail term he had spent back in the day. Seeing that beautiful face made his knees go weak with the realization that there was hardly anything left of Taquisha. The weight of the herd now pulling and ripping at his own flesh finally began to bear down on him, bringing him to the ground. Reaching out, he grabbed Taquisha’s hand and held it in his. He would die holding her hand. Something ripped at the flesh on his back, causing a surge of pain to ripple throughout his body, and Jermaine thought it would all be over soon. Only the guttural growling noise from the zombies, and the hand of his wife in his own were clear in his mind. He failed to even notice that he was holding a hand attached to a disembodied arm wrenched from her body by the zombies.
A deeper, more vicious growl brought him back to his senses; something more animal than monster. Rapidly the weight on his back disappeared. The herd retreated slightly, opening a large circle around him, and a warm tongue licked the tears streaming down his face. Jermaine was looking at Perseus.
Circling around him, snarling with the look of a menacing, black killing machine, was Zeus; keeping the circle of zombies from closing back in on them. One… then two more zomb
ies fell to the ground with arrows in the eyes. As he looked back up, Virginia was standing next to him. “I think we need to get going while Zeus has them held back! Follow Perseus toward the others!” she ordered Jermaine.
“Taquisha is…”
“She is dead, and there is nothing we can do about it. People die, Jermaine, and we that are living move on! If you ever loved her, then get up and run for the others!”
Jermaine pulled himself up off the ground and looked at the little girl beside him. Not really a little girl, he thought; more of an old soul trapped in a teenager’s body. Too old of a soul for a person her age.
“We need to move!”
Jermaine ran for the RV as Perseus cleared a path, Zeus keeping pace behind them, maintaining the herd at a distance. What had taken seconds to get into seemed like it was taking a life time to get out of; only when he noticed the zombies on either side of him were falling to the ground did he begin to feel like this part of the ordeal was coming to an end. He was sure of it when he saw Lori and her bow firing arrows all around them as they came out of the herd into open space. At that point the real firepower opened up around them. The sound of all the guns going off was deafening, while music to his ears at the same time. A few minutes ago, Jermaine had accepted that it was his time to meet his maker and join Taquisha. Now he wanted nothing more than to be safely in one of the vehicles, moving as far from here as possible.
By the funeral pyre, a tug pulled on what was left of his coat sleeve, causing him to snap around with fists raised. It was Virginia, holding his sleeve with a funny look on her face.
“What is it?”
She pointed toward the funeral pyre and then toward Jermaine’s right hand. He was still holding the severed arm that had belonged to Taquisha. The tears began to flow freely again as he looked at what was left of her.
“I don’t think that Joey or Taquisha would mind this part of her sharing a final resting place with Joey,” Virginia said as she patted his shoulder lightly with a warm caring look on her face. Jermaine was taken aback by this side of her; a side that he had not seen since joining them back at the old farmhouse. He thought for a few minutes and said a quiet prayer to himself as best he could. Then, with a heavy heart, Jermaine walked up to the fire and laid the arm onto the pyre.
