“No,” Corbin said. “But if you get the oil on your jeans and run your hand down them, it transfers.” He gave the map to her. “Be my eyes?”
“Of course. What do you need me to see?”
“I’m looking for service roads that rangers would take to check over the park.”
Her eyes moved quickly over the page. “No, they aren’t marked.”
“Do you see a house for a ranger on the property?”
Elania shifted to look over Zaley’s shoulder. Both shook their heads at the same time. Someone had to drive here to close that gate, if anyone did. That person was going to see an empty parking lot. Did he or she still do rounds of the trails if it didn’t look like anyone was there?
They had to gain more ground before the sun went down. Overcome with urgency, Corbin said, “I know you’re tired. I know you’re beyond that to wiped out. But we really have to get going and put space between the lot and us.”
Elania got up with a groan. “Let’s plug on.”
“If a ranger hasn’t shown by now, a ranger isn’t going to,” Micah said. “It’s getting close to evening, and the darker it gets, the more likely this path will have zombies on it.” Her eyes roved around their group merrily. “Oh, wait.”
“We should find a place to camp, too,” Corbin said. There hadn’t been as much poison oak among the redwoods. That was something to watch for, another redwood area. He moved to the lead of their little group with Bleu Cheese, watching all at once for service roads, hikers and horse riders, and a place to crash for the night.
They couldn’t set a fire out here, with searchers or ferals around. Also, the wind was going at a good clip, and though it had rained hard earlier in the week, there was still a lot of dry old brush. So they’d just have to put on all of their clothes, huddle together, and share the blue blanket. Corbin checked over his shoulder to make sure the others weren’t too far behind. He had to know what was around each curve, and around each one was another. Again his mind wanted to play games, thinking it could be safe once they got to the split of the trail into two.
Around another curve, the trail leveled. It was very open here, trees pushed back from the path, and monkey flowers stood among the grass. Feeling exposed, Corbin pressed on through this part of the trail in eagerness to get somewhere with cover. Bleu Cheese sniffed at horse manure and he clucked in warning. She broke away and trotted back to his side. “You’re having a good day, aren’t you?”
Yes, she was having a good day. Burgers for breakfast and lunch, a puddle for water, tummy scratches from Zaley and fetch with Austin, a good walk and a strange creature in a stall to mull over. Life was what it should be for a dog. But this wasn’t what it should be for the people with her.
The sun was setting. A ranger wouldn’t ride around in the dark, especially not in an area with mountain lions and zombies. The five of them should rise at dawn. Tomorrow was Saturday and this park likely would be buzzing with visitors. If some were on horses, they’d be going fast.
Speeding up to a new sign, he braced himself to read. SKYTOP STRAIGHT. The trail split in two just behind the sign, one going straight and one right. Farther down Skytop, the trail split a second time. While one branch proceeded straight, another went south, down at a slight grade, and vanished into trees. It was a narrow branch, and in some places it was overgrown by grass. No footprints, no horseshoe prints, it was easy to miss.
Corbin looked at the map. That split wasn’t marked, nor was there a sign. Going to it, he and the dog traveled several meters down to look around. Beyond the first line of trees, the trail sank further among redwoods. He followed the path. It turned out to be a spur of the trail that ended in a picnic area, with stumps and fallen logs rather than tables and chairs, and an empty trashcan by a wooden fence. Over the side of the fence was a rocky gully. Water leaked over the rocks from a rain gutter.
It didn’t look like anyone had been here in a long time. He paced along the fence, seeking service roads and finding none. This forgotten picnic area was the best they could do. If an ATV rode through on Skytop and sounded like it was coming down here, they’d hide in the gully. But that easy-to-miss split hadn’t held any tracks or footprints. No one came down here, so this was their hotel room for the night at Corona Nature Park. The others trailed in one by one, to slough backpacks and sit down on the stumps.
Zombies. Rangers. Searchers. Hikers. Corbin listened to the innocuous sounds around them and said, “Do you think we should have someone keep watch?”
“Yes,” Micah said.
“And no fire. We shouldn’t even talk that loudly until it’s dark and we’re positive that there’s no ranger or people left on this trail.” They shouldn’t talk loudly even then, if there were feral Sombra Cs in the vicinity.
Dinner was shared around a stump. It was mostly made of the perishable items, and they drank one of the cans of soup without heating it. Bleu Cheese engulfed a stale burger, enjoyed a sample pack of dog food, and lapped water from Corbin’s hand. Then she licked a log for a while, just like she’d licked the sofa in the same place at home.
They guessed at the time. Dusk was between half past seven and eight at this time of year, which gave them a touchstone. Austin said, “I get first watch.”
“No discussion?” Micah inquired.
“No. If I know someone is going to be waking me up at two, then I’ll never go to sleep at all.”
“I don’t care as long as I’m not first,” Elania said.
They would have to gauge when their two hours of watch were up, and then wake the next person to take over. Austin had watch until his estimation of eleven-thirty. He would wake up Corbin, and then Corbin would wake up Zaley at an approximation of half past one. Elania started at half past three. Counting money in the dimness, Micah said she had no problem with being wakened at five-thirty and staying awake through tomorrow.
“Was that cash from the woman’s purse?” Elania asked.
“We don’t have a choice,” Micah said.
“I wasn’t judging. How much is it?”
“Seven bucks in ones.” Micah put the bills into her backpack.
Sitting on a log, Zaley had the scarf sling off. She was picking up an apple over and over in her right hand. Her index and third fingers were extended so the brunt of the weight was being borne by her thumb, ring, and small fingers. When the apple rolled off the log, Corbin brought it back to her. This was an exercise he should be doing, too. He hadn’t been very diligent about his PT, mostly because he was right-handed and it was his left that sustained the zombie bite.
“Thank you,” Zaley said about the apple.
Corbin straddled the log to face her. “How much pain are you in?”
“Not too much. I’m trying to remember the exercises Daniel showed me that I’d need in the future. He was going to show me more, but my mother switched me to another PT.” A small, rueful smile played on her lips. “God forbid I like anyone but my mom.”
“You liked your PT that much?” Corbin hadn’t really liked his.
“He was nice. Friendly and funny. He wouldn’t let my mom answer the questions he asked of me, and he wouldn’t let her hang around in the gym either. He let me . . . be separate. So she hated him.”
Zaley wasn’t usually this open about her family. Corbin said, “Has she always been like that?”
“My mom?” Zaley closed her eyes and concentrated on lifting the apple. It fell from her grip and he caught it. When he placed it back on the log, she tried again with her third finger helping to bear the weight. “You know how you adjust how you speak to the age of the person you’re speaking with? Baby talk to babies, singsong to toddlers, small words to small children, and bigger ones as they get bigger. But she’s frozen. I just stopped growing in her head around age three or four. Literally stopped.”
“Zaley, that’s so weird and wrong,” Corbin said.
“I know. It’s pitiable for her.”
“For you.”
“
People used to say how big I was getting, the usual stuff everyone says to kids. She’d sort of laugh tightly and talk about how she wanted to put a brick on my head. To keep me down. I wondered by junior high if that was why I was so short. She actually managed to psychically stunt me.”
He didn’t believe in ESP or magic or any of that stuff. “You’re short because your parents aren’t that tall. It’s hereditary.”
“I know. It was just something I thought back then. I wanted to be tall, but at the same time, I felt guilty for growing.” Rotating her hand to cup the apple in her fingers, she moved her arm out to the side and swung it parallel to the ground. “I read a novel last year about a girl with a dad who was always talking about his high school glory days on the football team. It had been over for more than twenty years and he was still talking about it every day, reliving it. That was his moment, his highlight. His definition, the girl said. It was an interesting way of putting it, how parts of our lives become our definitions. I read that passage several times and went on a website for the book that had all these questions for fans to think about. One asked what parts of your life are becoming your definitions. I think the author of that book had a parent like mine.”
“I think that’s different.”
She swung her arm back and forth slowly. “It’s the same in a way, and dead on. That father’s definition happened long before his daughter was even born. My mother’s definition is being the parent of a young child. But high school ends and children grow. You can’t define yourself by a moving target. The girl in the book said the harder you try, the more you miss of everything else in your life. That father didn’t want to hear about his daughter’s days at the high school. She reminded him just by going there every morning that his days there were ancient history, so he shut her and her whole life out. It hurt him to have that waved in his face every day. My mother can’t look at me as I am now without it hurting her. What she wants is gone, and she can’t cope. And neither I nor that character could make anything better, because she didn’t have a time machine to send her father back, and I can’t grow down instead of up.” The apple fell when she turned her hand over. “Goddammit.”
“I got it.” Corbin returned the apple to the log. “It’s just hard for me to understand living like that. Your bedroom was seriously disturbing, like the last thirteen, fourteen years of your life didn’t happen. It’s cruel that she forced you to live like that.”
“She didn’t mean it to be cruel.”
“Putting her definition over yours? Forcing hers on you? That’s cruel. She should have let your room age as you aged, like any other parent does. She should have gotten herself a therapist if it was that hard!”
“Gotcha,” Zaley said, about the apple and him. “If she doesn’t think that she’s the one with the problem, Corbin, why would she think to get therapy? That’s what a personality disorder is, when you believe everyone’s the problem but you. I heard a psychologist say that on a talk show and it cracked me up.”
“Still cruel,” Corbin insisted with a grin. He loved when she disagreed with him. “You’re not winning this argument. My mom didn’t follow me around the house begging me to crawl at her feet and poop in a diaper so she could relive the memories of my baby days.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to know,” Austin muttered. Bleu Cheese was circling in a thin patch of grass, getting ready to tuck herself in for the night. Fabric tore from the farthest log, Micah and Elania doing something to the children’s T-shirts from the Waste Less donation bin. The sky was streaked dark blue between the trees.
“What’s your definition, Corbin?” Zaley asked.
“Not being my mom’s grown-up baby.” The apple bounced away and he pursued it. She shook her head when he came back, done exercising, and he figured that he should do his own. The apple was too light for what he needed, so he got out an orange. “I guess I don’t have one definition. Chinese, German, dyslexic, senior, Sombra C, male, all of that is me. There isn’t one that supersedes everything else. And there it goes.”
“My turn to fetch,” Zaley said. Bleu Cheese watched the orange rolling to the fence in disinterest and Zaley caught it right before it plunged into the gully.
Although Austin had professed not wanting to know what they were talking about, he said, “You are the man who dated a piranha named Sally Wang and lived to tell the tale.”
Corbin lifted the orange. “Someone had to date her.” It was annoying how Sally dumped him first just as he’d decided to dump her. He should have dumped her at Halloween, or over the summer when he couldn’t spend time with his friends since she was demanding all of his attention.
“Micah!” Austin exploded. “If you were gay and Sally Wang was the only other female on the face of this planet, would you date her?”
“Fuck no!” Micah exclaimed. “Too high maintenance. I’d just find some long-haired guy willing to tuck it back and shave his legs.”
Elania snickered. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m too tired to laugh.”
When the orange rolled away a second time, Corbin debated going back to the apple or quitting for the night. But he needed his fingers. There wasn’t any pain, not like Zaley had. He hadn’t had his bicep and tricep blasted through by a bullet. It was just weakness in those fingers, and he wasn’t giving them a chance to get stronger by skipping his exercises.
Thinking of her question, Corbin asked, “How do you define yourself, Zaley?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I’m a runaway.” Her voice lowered. “A murderer.”
“No, you’re not! That was self-defense.”
“I was a senior at Cloudy Valley High School,” Zaley said, passing over his comment. “I was depressed.”
“Was? This doesn’t depress you?”
“No. This is okay. It’s when we get where we’re going that I have to worry. Your dad and your mom are going to come and get you, Corbin. So are Elania’s parents and Micah’s. I can’t go with any of you when I’m reported missing. Your families would be in trouble. Until I turn eighteen, the cops can just cart me back home.”
“You’ll come with my family,” Corbin said firmly. It wasn’t going to be any hardship to fit in one more sleeping bag on his grandparents’ living room floor, or wherever it was they ended up.
“Or mine,” Elania said, standing up and wincing at the pain in her legs. “If you hadn’t come running to my house, I would have opened the door to those Shepherds not knowing any better. I’d be in their illegal confinement point. It’s not that long until you’re eighteen.”
“Seven months,” Zaley said. “It seems long.”
Darkness forced them to quit their activities. The ground was packed, offering no soft place to rest. They used the backpacks as pillows and shared the blanket. Everyone kept their shoes on, for warmth and in case of a rude awakening by searchers. Austin sat on the fence to keep watch. The gun was on the stump nearest to him.
Corbin didn’t expect to sleep in these conditions, but the hike had worn him out that much. He was groggy when woken for his turn at watch. The sky had grown to full blackness while he was out, sleeping too deeply even for dreams. The girls were silent, except for faint snores from Bleu Cheese.
“See anything?” Corbin whispered.
“A whole lot of dark,” Austin said. “How the hell are you sleeping on this ground?”
“Forgot to pack my bed.”
“One day, I’ll only sleep on beds stuffed with the feathers of the softest ducks,” Austin grumbled. Rubbing his eyes, Corbin shuffled over to the fence.
Was it really half past eleven? He looked over the rocky gully and shafts of moonlit ground. Stars were visible in the breaks of tree cover. It felt like no time, apart from time somehow. His brain was still partially asleep. It wasn’t okay to keep watch in this mental fog. He paced along the fence to wake himself up, back and forth and back again.
No dogs were barking, and no flashlights shined among the tr
ees. He crept to the tree line and checked out to Skytop. That was a mistake. It was too dark to go walking around like that and he was leery of using their flashlight. Someone could see the beam. He walked back very slowly, and relaxed to find the fence even though he smacked his thigh into it pretty hard. With one hand on the top wooden slat, he trailed back with his other hand in front of him so he didn’t kick the trashcan and wake everyone up.
Something moved in the trees below.
He saw it just as he returned to his original spot at the fence overlooking the gully. A human shape was down there, taking small steps from one tree to another one, and exposed by the moonlight. Corbin stiffened. The searchers had found them after all.
But this figure was alone, and didn’t appear to be carrying a flashlight or camping lantern. Another small step brought it into a greater patch of moonlight, revealing tattered clothes and skin, long white hair hanging askew around the decaying face of an old woman.
Oh God. He slipped to the stump for the gun. The movement caught the zombie’s attention. Cocking her head to him, she opened her mouth and cried out in a weird animal chatter. Corbin froze in place, the gun at his side. The zombie stared at him, or more generally in the space that he was standing.
This was what he would become without Zyllevir. The woman had to be nearing death, her infection over sixty percent or seventy. Her neck was clear. She might have been her family’s back room secret, not taking Zyllevir or not responding to it. Now she was loose, here in the woods with them.
Did he wake the others? The sound and movement could agitate her. Most zombies fled in circumstances like this one, but others were provoked to attack. There was no way to tell just from looking at one which reaction would occur. It just depended on which parts of the brain had been destroyed by the virus, and that happened in a slightly different way for everyone.
He didn’t ever want to be like this, rotted mind and rotted flesh, wandering about insensibly and dangerous to anyone he came across. The woman made the chattering sound at him a second time. When he didn’t respond, she turned away. Corbin let out the air in his lungs silently and heard a chattering come in answer to hers from somewhere else in the night. There were more out here? Meanwhile, Shepherds spent their time chasing Corbin.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 66
