He wanted boards to kick out like that, something concrete. “My ass is killing me.”
“Mine, too. Thank God for these trees, but I wish they grew cushions. How long do you guess until morning?”
It was going to be a very long time, and they both knew it. No one else was coming up the hill. Shifting to find a better position, he tightened his arms around her waist and watched the figures in the meadow. This he would see in his dreams for the rest of his life. When he moaned in his sleep, an arm would come around his side. Hooking his body back into his guy’s, to warmth and safety, to the present. If ever there was a guy, and there wouldn’t be. Austin would be by himself.
“I’ll remember your birthday, like your mom should, and you remember mine, like mine should,” Austin whispered. The others couldn’t understand this in the visceral way that Zaley would. “Then we won’t be alone, lighting a candle for ourselves. We’ll always throw a party for the other one, all the rest of our lives.”
“Deal,” Zaley said. “April ninth, you’re my birthday boy. Chocolate or vanilla cake?”
“Ice cream cake, chocolate frosting and peanut butter fudge ice cream. I love those big frosting flowers.” That sounded sort of gay, but it was out of his mouth before he filtered it.
“I love those, too,” Zaley said obliviously.
So it was okay for a guy to like frosting flowers. He adored them even more than the cake. “October twelfth,” Austin said. “What kind of cake do you like?”
“Anything without unicorns or cartoon characters on it. Actually, get me a cake exactly like yours. That sounds wonderful. Do you want balloons? I do.”
“Yeah, big batches of them tied to the backs of the chairs, and a present. I don’t even care what’s inside. Just to see a present on the table by the cake.” To know that someone took the time to pick out a present and wrap it, that was the gift more than what was under the paper and ribbons. He didn’t believe all of what Micah had said about Zaley’s room, he didn’t even believe half of it, but he understood that she wanted a grown-up cake. He’d buy the most elegant one in the store, or one of those sexy joke cakes of a guy’s six-pack. No one would look at that and think the recipient was a kid.
And somehow, he being her mom and she being his mom, it let him sink back into the hard trunk of the tree, and relax enough to doze.
Elania
The weird thing about exhaustion was that there was always a level beneath the one you were at currently, and another level below that. It wasn’t an elevator going down to a basement floor but a bottomless pit.
There was something worse than sleeping in damp clothes on a bed of damp clothes, and that was sleeping in a tree. Every time something brushed against her skin, she was convinced it was a spider or ants crawling on her. By dawn, regardless of the fear of bugs, she was falling uncontrollably into micro-sleeps. Her eyelids settled down over her burning corneas and for the briefest blink of time, she was out. Somehow full dreams packed themselves into those seconds. She was swimming in the reservoir with zombies after her, and the only boat in the distance had a flag made of a giant Shepherd patch. No one allowed her to board. The stamp made her what she was swimming from in panic.
She was sitting in class and looking in horror at a college entrance exam on her desk, one last hurdle to leap. She hadn’t studied and the questions weren’t in English, or in any recognizable language. She even dreamed that she was sitting in the tree, as she actually was. That was the worst dream. It didn’t feel like she was asleep, and she wasn’t sure that she was awake when her eyes opened. Once, ridiculously, she dreamed that she couldn’t fall asleep.
Dear God, she couldn’t take much more of this. They were roughly six miles from Charbot, and that city had roads paved in gold in her mind. She couldn’t stand for it to have anything less. Everything would be okay there. It had to be. She wanted to call home so badly and hear her parents’ voices. They must be frantic by now.
The figures were retreating to the trees with the lightening of the sky. Elania’s vision was so blurry that she could hardly see them. The animal cries had died down, both in frequency and volume. Soon she had to walk north on that path, right into the trees where some of those figures were now disappearing. This place . . . it was a walking graveyard for Sombra C.
The more sun that was in the sky, the more that would pierce the tree cover over the trail. And hopefully keep zombies off it. She did not want to pass under those trees. It wouldn’t be long from now that she had to.
She woke up from yet another micro-sleep and had to pee. Her butt was numb from too many hours of sitting on it. Stretching her arms and legs to get the blood moving, she planned her descent. It was easy to avoid Micah, who had wedged herself between two higher branches and was fast asleep up there. But there wasn’t any way to avoid Corbin’s branch. Elania was just going to have to bother him and apologize. She couldn’t hold it.
Climbing down to the lower branch, his eyes opened the second it dipped beneath him. Elania whispered, “Sorry to wake you.” The dog was pressed against his chest and sleeping.
“I don’t think I slept all night,” Corbin said as Elania wriggled over the side and dropped to the ground. She had forgotten about the backpacks hanging in the branches like weird Christmas ornaments. Micah would have to get those.
“I didn’t sleep either,” Elania said. The dog opened her eyes and wriggled.
“Will you help me get her down?” Corbin asked. Elania really had to go, but he had spent the whole night having to hug that fat creature and keep her quiet. She stepped onto a nub of trunk and extended her arms. Corbin slid his hands under the dog’s front legs and gripped her chest. Then he bent down with her. Elania could only reach the dog’s midsection. When he released her, the weight unbalanced Elania. She staggered off the nub, dropped the dog, and fell to her knees.
“Oh, shit! Are you okay?” Elania cried to Bleu Cheese, who was sprawled in the grass. The dog shook her head in surprise and got up. Then she squatted down to pee, which made Elania’s bladder tweak with demand. She walked around the tree for a little privacy to tend to herself.
When she came back, Corbin was on the ground. They looked around the hills and plains and saw no one. From the other tree came whispers, Zaley and Austin figuring out how to maneuver her down. Corbin almost leaped over there to assist. Did he know just how much he was still in love with Zaley? Did Zaley know how much she still loved him? It was plain as day to Elania. Even broken up for a year now, those two kept a special place in their hearts for each other.
Once those two were down from their tree, they split apart for pee breaks. Elania searched through Austin’s backpack for what food was there. He had one full water bottle from the store (Elania had twice been complicit in robbing a store) and two bags of teriyaki beef jerky. Beneath those were candy bars. She opened the water and the beef jerky, and gave the water to Zaley to drink first since they couldn’t pour it into a separate canister for her.
Austin also had the blue blanket, which Elania stretched out on the grass. She ate the beef jerky dully, slouching further and further from tiredness, and then she gave up and lay down. When she woke, the sun was whole in the sky. Corbin was asleep beside her, and Micah was still asleep in the tree. Rubbing at her eyes, Elania sat up and reached for the water. Zaley was patting the dog as Austin climbed around the other tree to get the backpacks down.
“How long was I out?” Elania asked.
“Two or three hours, still as stone,” Zaley said. “Corbin gave us all custody of the dog for the day. He says there’s such a thing as too much closeness.”
Elania had almost suggested when Micah was struggling to heft the dog into the tree that they just tie her below for the night. But she would have whimpered and whined, quite possibly attracting more zombies to this hill, and Elania feared that they might have beaten her. Or eaten her. Bleu Cheese hadn’t liked the feral Sombra Cs on their hill one bit.
“Little help?” Austin called
. Elania went to the tree and caught the backpack he dropped down. After setting it by the blanket, she returned for another one.
Austin poked Micah and whispered something in her ear, which caused her to wake and growl, “Don’t fucking call me that.”
Six miles. The trail going north wasn’t as shattered as what they had gone through yesterday, but those thick trees made Elania very nervous. She hadn’t known to be so nervous under the trees to the south. Even with the warnings at the trailhead, there hadn’t been any sign of life. Now she knew what those trees concealed. Whom.
Bleu Cheese wanted to climb on Corbin for good morning hellos, but Zaley held her off. Micah groused up in the tree at Austin for waking her, and also for not waking her sooner. He retrieved the last backpack and said, “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the branch.”
“Today I’m going to be calling home,” Micah said morosely, with her cheek still pressed to the bark. She was only speaking to Austin, but Elania could make out the words. “They’re going to be so excited, and want to talk about my feelings and experiences. Honey, you’re alive! Honey, we missed you! Honey, we’re on our way! Fuck. I’d almost rather stick myself in the ears with the switchblade.”
“I’ll do the talking, you one point sociopathic weirdo,” Austin said, and dropped the backpack to Elania.
“No,” Zaley warned the dog, who was caught in her attempt to snuffle Corbin’s face and turned back to jump on Zaley instead.
They were on their way within the hour. Since Zaley needed to not be unbalanced by the dog and Corbin was firm about his break, Elania put Bleu Cheese on the leash and walked her down the hill. She wasn’t experienced with that. When the dog pulled, Corbin clucked. “You have to lead the walking relationship, Elania.”
“I’ve never really done this,” Elania said. “My family is getting a dog though.”
Making it to the gravel path, Corbin said, “A dog has to respect you as the one in charge on a walk. That means no pulling, no running around, no sniffing every little thing that you pass.”
“Then how is a walk any fun for the dog? I’ve only ever had a cat.”
“It’s like your brothers. They can still have fun with you in charge on a walk, but you don’t allow them to run around people’s yards or in the street. You make the call if a place is safe to explore, not them. If your dog is listening and doing a great job of following your lead, then you decide when a place is okay for her to sniff around. Yes, Cheesie, we’re talking about you,” Corbin added when the big blue head turned. “And no, you are walking with Auntie Elania today.”
“Kids aren’t dogs,” Austin said.
“No, of course not, but some of the behavior principles are the same,” Corbin said. “That’s what I learned from Tame Me. They both need boundaries. You don’t let a two-year-old rule the house.”
“Or three of them,” Elania said. It had felt like they were running the house at times as toddlers, even with her parents being strict. Cormac was meltdown central the second they deviated from the day’s schedule, and Percy had fits from not being able to keep up with the other two. Some nights she had gone to bed only liking placid tempered Conor. On a few occasions, she hadn’t even liked him.
“If my moms came home with triplets, I’d move,” Micah said.
“I wouldn’t change my brothers for anything,” Elania said. “But I don’t ever want triplets myself. It makes your house crazy, and people say a hundred stupid things when you go out.”
Micah snorted. “You listed some of those in Welcome Mat for a piece. What were they? Do you remember off the top of your head?”
Elania couldn’t forget. “Which one is the good one? I’d kill myself if I had triplets. Why is that one shorter than the others? So, were they natural or did you take drugs? Did you reduce from quads or quints? It sucks to be you, I’ll bet. What a nightmare. Triple trouble! Why don’t you dress them alike? Why do you dress them alike? If you dress them alike, do they end up with the same personality?” She grimaced, remembering the man who took it upon himself to comment that kids weren’t supposed to be born in litters, and that was why Percy had cerebral palsy. “The worst was better furnish three jail cells now! Rude and racist. If you see someone with triplets, just smile politely and keep walking like you would with anyone else. Whatever you’re thinking might be funny to say, trust me, we’ve heard it.”
“What did your parents say to the natural or drugs one?” Corbin asked.
“Mom said that she wasn’t in the habit of discussing her reproductive choices with a stranger and left the woman with her mouth hanging open in the freezer aisle of Mr. Foods,” Elania said. This had become a major pet peeve of hers since the triplets were born. “I mean, how would she feel if I came up to her with her wailing kid in the cart and asked did the condom break? Most of the time, people mean it in a friendly way. But it just comes out wrong.”
“People asked similar things of my mothers when we were little,” Micah said. “So, which one of you is the real mother? How did you get pregnant? So, do your girls have fifty half-siblings out there? What if they marry one by mistake? So, is their father a known or unknown donor? Don’t you feel like you’re cheating them of a dad? Sometimes they’d ask me if I wanted to meet my father. Seriously? I have enough parents as it is. And what business is it of theirs? If I wanted to discuss it, I’d have brought it up. Go fuck yourself.”
“People should keep their mouths shut,” Elania said. Micah put up her hand for a high five and Elania slapped it.
“So, was it a known or unknown donor?” Austin asked. They laughed.
“Identity release at eighteen, and go fuck yourself,” Micah said, which made them laugh harder. “Shalom was interested for a while, but then she turned eighteen and decided she didn’t want to know that much. She says in a few years. We have a copy of the forms he filled out before they banked his jizz. He was in college and enrolled in Army ROTC, which made my hippie mothers hesitate, but his Why I Want To Spread My Spooge essay persuaded them because it was so spiritual.” She flicked the switchblade open.
The path was fairly easygoing now. Parts of it had sunk into incisions but the gaps were slim. With the hills falling behind them, meadows stretched out to the trees. A faint smell of decay stung in Elania’s nostrils. There was a body, or more than one, around here somewhere. The maggots on the boy yesterday . . . the skeleton . . . she told herself that these were natural processes. This was what they were after all, meat and bone and hair. But what wasn’t natural was seeing bodies on a trail. This had been a nice preserve once, with beautiful trees and lush meadows, and the path had to have been thick with hikers every weekend. Getting away from the hustle and bustle of regular life to come out here, at least until budget cuts ceased its maintenance and closed it down. Now it was downright dangerous. These were dying grounds and hunting grounds, no longer a Saturday sanctuary.
Grass was pressed down about fifteen feet off the trail. She didn’t look, having no desire to see the remains of a feral Sombra C, or the youth hunters who died out here. It reminded her of Dale Summit pointing his finger gun and saying BANG. The tiniest viral load stripped them of their humanity, both infected and non-infected alike. Elania turned into a monster to be taken down, and the Shepherds turned into monsters as well. This was going to be the big civil rights battle of her lifetime, Sombra Cs demanding equal standing and respect. One day Elania wanted the dignity of the stamp removed from her neck.
The trees made her forget about civil rights in a wash of fear. Everyone’s voices were dying the closer they came to that darkness. Zaley removed her sling and tucked her braid down her shirt. When Elania looked at her questioningly, Zaley said, “In case we have to fight. And I need one less thing for them to grab.” Elania had short hair and no earrings to worry about. Bending down, she tightened the laces of her shoes.
“If we have to depend on you, Zaley, we’re screwed,” Micah said. That was pretty rude, in Elania’s opinion. She would have been ca
ptured if Zaley hadn’t been there to depend on. Pulling out the gun from the back of her jeans, Micah kept it at her side.
The dog pulled to go after Corbin, who entered the gloom after Micah. Elania made the warning cluck that he did, and made it more sharply when the dog still pulled. Then Bleu Cheese responded with reluctance, the leash slackening, and Elania followed. Her ears were attuned for animal bays and howls.
The only sounds were the crunching of their feet. Elania couldn’t stop herself from aiming for the few narrow, sunny shafts to come down, even though she was no safer walking there than she was in the shadows. She searched for ferals up in the trees, fearing that one was readying to drop down on their heads.
The trail was thankfully flat. Her legs were sore from yesterday’s hill climbing. When she got to Pewter, she was going to improve her fitness in her free time. She would feel better about herself with more stamina. Elania just wasn’t an athlete in any subject but typing, at which she was highly proficient. She’d use that skill when writing about being driven from her hometown for the Pewter newspaper.
Micah didn’t want to call home and process the last week, but Elania did. Already she could hear the relief in her father’s voice. She hoped Shepherds weren’t harassing her family for information they didn’t have. Her brain reviewed that thought another time. If Shepherds were harassing them, listening in to suss out her whereabouts, then she shouldn’t burst out with the fact that she was in Charbot. First she should make sure that it was safe to reveal the information, for both of their sakes. Elania wanted to explode everything to her mother and father, unburden herself of the last week, but that had to come second.
Every curve of the trail made her tense. It didn’t seem like the path could be much longer, yet there was always another curve around the corner wending away into more gloom. If she died, if they all died here, none of their families would ever know what happened to them. Like Boomslang’s sister Monica, wherever she was. Her little brother had just vanished to her perspective.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 74
