by Fuchs, A. P.
“Oh.”
Del came up behind them. “Sit down.”
August nodded to Billie and the two rounded the table and took a seat. Del sat across from them while May stood by the door and produced a weapon of her own: another pistol; August couldn’t recognize the make from this distance.
Del placed his gun on the table, gave a nod toward it, then cracked his knuckles.
Billie slouched in her seat and cracked her own knuckles, the crrruckle-crunch louder with a bit more pop.
Not funny, kid, August thought, but he had to hand it to the girl for sticking it to the man across from them who was clearly shooting for the upper hand.
Del smirked, then folded his hands and leaned forward. “I don’t like pleasantries, so we’re going to get right to it. The building. What were you guys doing there?”
August crossed his arms. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“We weren’t on the building.”
“No, but you were flying over it. Why that building? Just happenstance? What about the jets? Where are they?”
“We had no idea you were going to be there, if that’s what you’re implying. Don’t worry about the jets.”
Don’t worry about the— “So our paths just crossed. Why all this?”
“Yeah, good point,” Billie said.
“Quiet, kid,” Del firmly told her.
“I’m not a—”
August leaned forward, put one elbow on the table and pointed his finger in Del’s face. “If you talk to her like that again, you will be limping out of this room.” He kept his finger pointed at him, eyes locked onto his.
“I can say what I want.”
“No. I’m telling you that now. You can’t. You and I both know what you’re doing is wrong, sitting us down like this. The world doesn’t work this way anymore.”
“Shows what you know.”
August pulled his finger back and made a fist. He still remained poised leaning against the table, face as hard as stone. “Enlighten me.”
Del looked past him and a moment later August was tugged back by his hair and was once more seated straight in his chair. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against the back of his neck.
“We’re in charge, understand?” May said from behind him.
Oh Lord, what would You have me do? August waited for a reply. There was none, but there was one thing he did know and that was the wise kept their tongue in check, something which he just slipped on. He simply nodded; a moment later the pressure of the gun barrel against his neck released.
Billie eyed him worriedly.
“Feel better?” Del asked him.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“Good. Now back to the real world. What were you doing on that rooftop? We saw the helicopter. Smashed. You crash?”
“What do you think?” Billie asked. “Of course we—”
“I said—” Del started.
“We crashed,” August said quickly before things got any worse.
Del’s gaze coolly lingered on Billie for a moment before he got back to the topic at hand. “Where did you get the chopper?”
“It was already there.”
“I don’t think so. Unless it somehow just got there in the past day or so. We flew by that building a couple days back and its roof was empty.”
The Timeline, August thought. It’s distorted. That rooftop could very well have been empty in this world, but in ours I discovered the chopper when I was locked down in Winnipeg Square and surveyed the Richardson Building for any threats. “I’m telling you the truth, mate. That’s where I found it. I’m not sure what you’re wanting to hear.”
Del didn’t look impressed nor that he believed him. “Whatever you say, Mister—”
“Smith.”
“Right. Mr. Smith.”
Nodding toward Billie, Del said, “I guess that makes her, what, Ms. Jane Doe?”
“Mrs. Tarzan, actually,” Billie said.
“Of course it does.” To August, “Your name isn’t important right now, Mr. ‘Smith.’ But I do want to know this: there were three of you on the roof. This person obviously didn’t make it—I’m so sorry, by the way—who was he? This girl’s boyfriend?”
“Just a friend.”
“I see.”
“Look, um, Del, I’m not really sure what the point of any of this is. You haven’t really asked me anything. What is it that you want?”
Del grinned. May rounded to his side of the table, keeping the gun on them.
“What else, Mr. Norton? We want the truth.”
* * * *
Joe and Tracy both stood poised, ready for action. Joe already had the X-09 in his hand; Tracy firmly held both her pistols shoulder height, blue eyes searching the dust for shadows.
The ground shook again.
Something either just collapsed at the building wreckage site, or a giant undead creature was marching toward them.
“Come on,” Tracy said quietly and proceeded forward.
“Let me lead,” Joe said.
“I can take care of myself, thank you.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’d feel better if—”
Tracy spun around and pointed a finger at him. “Look, we do this my way or you can leave right now. I don’t have time to dispute every little point with you.”
“Fine. After you, your majesty,” Joe said. She kept moving. He followed. He didn’t know why he was being mouthy, but pushing Tracy’s buttons felt good for some reason. There was something about her that bothered him on a deep level, something about her that—
“Shh,” she said and stopped again.
From somewhere high above low and raspy groans wafted on the air.
“Can they be killed?” Joe asked.
“You should know that, unless you’re not the cowboy you’re dressed up as,” she said quietly.
Joe thought back to the rooftop, Des’s bizarre return from the dead, his first glimpse at fifteen-story-tall zombies. “It’s . . . complicated.”
“Complicated or not, you should know it takes some serious firepower to take those suckers down. Our guns here’ll buy us some time and protect our skins on anything we might encounter that’s—how shall I say?—human-sized?”
“Fine.”
Tracy lingered a moment longer before edging alongside the building again. A minute later and they were already on the next block, keeping as close to the buildings’ walls as possible, moving carefully and silently in the hopes of not tipping anything off they were around.
It’d be a miracle if we could get to wherever we’re going without firing a single shot, Joe thought. You hear that, God? Think we could manage that? You and I are going to have to have a little talk later. His thoughts switched to what Tracy said. Cowboy, huh? Well, you look like something out of a bank heist movie. Should start calling you Black Widow or something. Well, not quite. The outfit was similar but the hair was definitely not. Can’t believe I’m even entertaining this.
Joe wanted to go back to the way things were: him the hero, saving people from the undead in a world he understood. Here, in whatever this place was—a new dimension?—he was lost. The sense of control he once had was nothing but a memory.
Memory, he thought. April. Could she be alive here? He stopped walking. “How much has changed?”
Tracy stopped ahead of him and turned around. “What?”
Joe shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then don’t say it out loud.”
Face stern, he added, “I don’t like you.”
“Good. I don’t like you either, but you were out here on your own. You needed help.” She turned and started walking again. “This is what I do.”
Joe’s mouth fell open. He guessed they had some common ground after all. He caught up to her and kept close, this time more refocused on the task at hand. At some point he’d have to figure out how to track down August and Billie and let them know he was alive.
Poor B
illie, he thought. Even August. First Des and now . . . me. That’s two down out of four. I hope they’re okay.
Tracy rounded the next corner she came across.
Quickly, shadows materialized against the dust and just as quickly gave birth to two undead men, both looking to have been transformed in their mid-forties. Black hair topped the head of one; dirty blond hair the head of the other. Pale, gray skin wrapped their emaciated bodies; both had white eyes and red lips caked in dried blood. Their mouths were nothing but empty black holes with yellow, crooked teeth lining them.
Joe fired the first shot, clipping the ear off the fella with the black hair. A spurt of black blood shot out from the side of the creature’s head; the man kept walking toward them with arms outstretched.
“Useless,” Tracy said and raised both her guns. Two successive bangs rang out and both zombies’ skulls burst open in a spray of bone, flesh and blood. The creatures dropped to the ground in a heap, their skulls facing each other, the black blood oozing from them gelling together and pooling around their gray faces.
Joe looked at the bodies. “Nice shot.”
“Shots.” She emphasized the S at the end. “There were two of them.”
“Don’t start, Tray.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.
“Then stop acting like a jackass.” Joe walked past her. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I’d kill you if I got the chance,” Tracy said from behind him.
His ears tuned into her footfalls to make sure she was following him. “We fight, we die.”
“We fight, we live.”
“You know what I mean.”
She didn’t reply.
This is crazy. And I really don’t like her.
“Know where we’re going?” she asked.
“You tell me.”
There was a pause before she answered. “Some place safe.”
“Is it far?”
“Depends on how much of a detour we’ll have to take.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Far enough.”
“How’s the suburbs here?” Joe asked, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of movement. He also kept a keen ear out for the low thudding of giant zombie footsteps.
“Same as always.”
“You’re going to need to clarify.”
“Where are you from?”
Good question. “From far away. Kind of. Depends how you look at it.”
“Whatever.” She cleared her throat. “The large undead seem to pretty much keep to downtown. I don’t think they know how to leave. I’ve been watching them for some time. I think they’re afraid to leave because they don’t know if there’s any food beyond the city.”
“Really?”
“But the small ones—um, our-sized ones—venture everywhere so nowhere is really safe. No real area, anyway.”
“And your base, or, wherever we’re going? Still downtown or out in the burbs?”
“Both, actually.” She ran up beside him and lowered her voice. “You know the Disraeli Overpass?”
How could he not. “Yeah.”
“The part of it that doesn’t go over the river, the one with all the rubble built up under it.”
He didn’t follow. The Disraeli Overpass he knew was just a bridge with two humps, one going over a street, the other over the Red River. He decided to just roll with it for now. “Okay.”
“It’s hollow. Thanks to the buildings around being smashed down by the giant undead, they indirectly helped us create a giant gazebo made out of brick and concrete. Took some time, but we managed to hollow it out and transform the interior into a safe house. They seem to be none the wiser and, I suppose, since they think it’s smashed they just leave it well enough alone.”
“That’s a pretty good idea, actually,” he said. He almost wished he thought of that back home in his universe or realm or wherever it was he was from. “Okay, I know where that is.”
“Lead the way,” she said and fell in behind him.
“Keep your eyes open. There’s always something out there.”
“Always do.”
6
Submission
The shock of hearing his own name sent August’s stomach into a whirl and his heart into a panic. Billie’s breathing went from calm to short and choppy in under three seconds. He heard her voice squeak and he knew she was about to say something—like, “Um, they know who you are, August”—but had the smarts enough to hold her tongue.
Del and May eyed them intently, waiting on a reaction. August wouldn’t give it to them. To do so would be the first step in surrendering them control, something he wasn’t prepared to do.
The room was quiet for a solid minute or so before Del broke the silence. “Yes, Mr. Norton—August—we know who you are. We know the little lady sitting beside you is named Billie.”
August made a conscious effort not to flinch in their presence. It didn’t add up. How could these folks know who they were? For starters, this was a place—even dimension—that was not where he and Billie and Joe had come from. Further, these guys showed up out of nowhere in a bi-plane—obviously from a good distance away—and rescued them.
Perhaps they were some kind of super-spy-like survivors making their way through the world of the undead?
“Who are you?” August asked as firmly as he could. He gave Billie a quick glance. Sheer apprehension was etched on her face.
May kept the gun trained on them. “Never mind that. Why didn’t you tell us the truth when we asked?”
“Would—” August cleared his throat. “Would you have spoken the truth to people you’ve never met before—who hold a gun on you—and share anything they asked?”
“As if you haven’t done that before,” she said.
“The last time I did it was a while go,” he said, referring to when he first met Joe, Billie and Des, though she wouldn’t know that. At least, he hoped she didn’t. Besides, when he did first meet his young friends, he still withheld certain information from them. “People change. Things change. Regardless, you didn’t answer my question.”
“So, you won’t share information with us yet you want us to share information with you?” Del said. He shook his head. “You’re bringing us to a standstill here, August.”
“Look,” Billie said, “obviously you want something. You want us to say something, maybe even something specific.” August could tell by the way she annunciated that last word that she was referring to the Time-shift. “Instead of being . . . being vague, why not just get right to the point and ask us specifically what it is you want?”
Inside, August was rooting her on, yet he also didn’t want these guys to get to the point for fear of the possibility they indeed knew about the Time-shift or, at the very least, had even seen them emerge through whatever portal as they returned to the world of the undead.
“We’d much rather you tell us what you know,” Del said.
August knew what that meant. It meant these guys didn’t know as much as they were feigning. They were clearly hoping that, if either him or Billie told their story, they’d say something that would help them fill in the gaps of whatever they knew already.
“Not going to happen,” August said. “Look, you can’t bring us here, sit us down in some kind of interrogation room, point a gun at us, then expect us to cooperate. Surely you remember that nowadays a gun doesn’t hold the same sway as before.”
Del seemed to weigh his words. “You know something, Mr. Norton? You’re right.” He nodded toward May.
She pulled the trigger.
Billie screamed as August went flying back in his chair.
* * * *
It had gotten easier to avoid the undead the further Joe and Tracy moved away from where the Richardson Building had collapsed. The less dust meant it was much easier to see far distances and catch a glimpse of the undead before it was too late and they had been spotted.
For a time, as they ducked behind garbage
bins, hid around corners, rolled under abandoned vehicles and went inside rickety old sheds, Joe enjoyed the hiding more than the seeking he was used to. Yet at the same time a part of him needed to pick off a zombie here and there—which he more than willingly did—in an effort to satisfy his hatred of them and help him give vengeance against all they had taken from him in a life that seemed so far away yet also very near.
Memory was a strange beast that way. Time didn’t have meaning to the thoughts and feelings associated with them. The passage of days and hours was acknowledged, yet the emotions the memories evoked were immediate despite how long ago those events occurred. Joe liked memory, liked the security he could recall from a time in his life when things were better and when he was happy.
He liked that he could recall his weekend with April and the good times shared.
His heart ached when the revelation, that always seemed new despite how many times he experienced it, that April was indeed trapped in his memories and the girl he knew long ago had been transformed into a monster when the world went to hell. His heart broke afresh when he remembered what it was like coming to her apartment just after the rain that turned everybody into zombies and finding her transformed into one of the undead like the rest. His heart shattered when he broke her head open with a rolling pin and sent her undead form into the nether world, to hopefully a better place.
Better place, he thought. He had seen the other side. He had been there during his venture to the past before the Rain came down, had descended through the earth and into the bowels of Hell to witness the Lake of Fire firsthand. The creatures there, the torment they inflicted on others, the screams—the man glowing with light, the one who rescued him.
