by Lowry, Chris
“Seems you been talking out of turn,” he glared at me.
I could see over the top of his head. The harems from the trailers had gathered to watch, Sam standing over them on a box. Watching them. Watching me.
“We have a good thing going here,” Boles yanked the rest of my shirt off and delivered a solid right to the gut.
It hurt.
“And you’re trying to mess it up.”
Kidney punch. It spun me around, cinched up the rope on my wrists and cut off circulation.
If they would just give me a minute, I could try to think of something. But my ribs hurt. My kidney hurt. My skin hurt.
Boles stopped my spinning. I faced the tree, couldn’t feel my hands.
“Lord all mighty, what happened to your back,” he let out a low whistle.
It was still striped pink with healing scars from the burns, new tender skin prickling under the cold breeze.
He reached out a long fingernail and scrapped it across one of the wounds.
I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed.
Howled. Not much difference. It hurt.
Then he kicked me in the small of the back. Or one of the giants punched. Or they brought a mule out and let it do the job for them.
It started the spin again, and I could see the crowd, see Sam as I swung back and forth, round and round.
Dumb punched me to reverse the spin, Dumber hit me to reverse it back.
I caught Sam’s eye during a rotation, watched a sliver flash snick across his throat and lost sight of him as I whirled around. He was gone when I flicked back.
Somebody laughed.
I think it was Boles.
Then it turned into a gurgle and he was on the ground, throat leaking blood under my boots as I twisted and turned over him. Dumb hopped one way, Dumber the other, and the women in the crowd surged toward them.
It wasn’t much as fights go.
The two giants punched and fought, but the women howled like banshees and threw themselves on the them. The three men left joined in. Dumb and Dumber took a few hits then turned and ran off into the darkness. The crowd surged after and I was left spinning from the tree branch in a slow lazy circle.
Boles under me. Sam over by the box.
And then Jean in front of me, my filet knife in her hand.
She stopped the spinning and reached up, but couldn’t touch the rope. She set the knife on the ground, went for the box and dragged it over. That let her reach the rope and she scraped the thin blade against the thick rope until it parted and dropped me in the dirt under the tree.
I tried to work the knots free, but my hands wouldn’t cooperate.
“Let me,” she bent in front of me and sawed the strands apart. “This was all your idea.”
I shook my hands to get some feeling back and struggled to get up. She stood back and watched. I guess that’s all the help I was going to get.
Boles was leaking under the tree, his legs still moving as the nerves slowly died and his body shut down. I bent down and rolled him over, unbuckled his pistol and strapped it to my waist.
The lynch mob drifted back toward the oak tree in silence.
“They got away,” one of the men told Jean.
He glanced at Sam’s body lying in the dirt, let his eyes drift over to Boles then up to me. They rested on the gun for just a moment.
“You’re in charge now,” I told her in front of them.
“Not me,” she pointed to the group. “They can take care of themselves.”
I looked at them then, a ragged group of survivors and started walking back to the house.
“You can have the house tomorrow,” I told them. “I’m leaving at dawn. Until then stay out.”
I almost shut the door on Jean, but she pushed in past me as I pulled it closed and locked it. She followed me to the front door where I checked the bolt, and shifted a giant buffet in front of it. It might not stop a giant from kicking their way through, but it would be noisy and slow them down.
“Guns?”
It was my turn to follow her as she led me into the giant master bedroom. There were a couple of gun cabinets against the wall that looked like new additions.
“You slept in here with him?” I asked.
“Some nights,” she shrugged.
“And you never thought to get a gun and shoot him in his sleep.”
“People get used to things when they feel safe,” she said as if it was the way of the world.
I suppose it was. Like cooking a frog in a pot of boiling water. Turn up the heat gradually and the frog won’t jump out, just cook as it gets used to the heat.
It’s the same in any relationship, I thought as I grabbed two rifles and fitted them out with ammunition. I wanted to take them all because I wasn’t sure what I would run into heading into Little Rock, but I also didn’t want to leave the survivors unprotected. Two of the eight were a good compromise, plus a buck knife, and two boxes of bullets.
“I’m going to come with you,” said Jean.
“Nope.”
I don’t think she expected it.
“What do you mean nope?” she squeaked.
“Nope. It means no. As in N O.”
“No? But I rescued you.”
“You rescued all of them. You rescued yourself.”
“And you.”
How do you argue with that? Ten minutes ago, I was strung up in a tree playing the role of punching bag like an Oscar contender.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“So, I’m going.”
I thought about saying no again, but decided to save my energy. I’d just get up before her and leave. No argument. I just nodded my head as I started digging through the closet looking for clothes that fit.
“What happened to your back?”
I saw her staring at the scars in the mirror.
“Grenade.”
“Somebody blew you up?”
“Tried to.”
“That what happened to your head?”
I reached up and touched the scar tissue in my hairline.
“Somebody tried to shoot me.”
“You pissing that many people off?”
“It happens,” I shrugged. “Your guy was ready to shoot me for walking across his cropland.”
“He wasn’t my guy,” she spat. Ice in her voice.
“Bad choice of words.”
“The worst,” she said. “When I told him what you said, he was royally pissed off.”
Ouch. The bruises on my ribs were courtesy of her. Surprised I didn’t put that together sooner.
I slid into a thermal undershirt and layered a thick flannel on top. They almost fit.
“Did you know he was going to hang me up?”
“He’s done it before. Sam talked him into getting rid of one of the other men so the three left could have one more wife.”
“That what they call them?”
“They call them what they want. Harem. Wife. Sister wife. They got the idea off the television from Mormons. Said we were going to repopulate the earth. But mostly the men didn’t want nothing to do with the women after the boys were through with them.”
I pawed through a section of closet with winter clothes looking for a jacket.
“I heard.”
“They were rough,” she shuddered. I guessed even the memory of it was bad, then recalled the way one of them pawed her at dinner.
“Can you pack us food?”
Might as well get her busy before I snuck out.
“I’m not going out there alone.”
I let my hand drift to the pistol grip.
“Is there another way in the house?”
She shook her head.
“We could hear them come through the door, or break a window. But who knows what kind of guns they have out there. I know they kept a deer stand stocked for hunting and killing.”
“They can see the house?”
“The back of it.”
I alm
ost ran out to tell the others to hide, but Jean stopped me.
“They’ll be inside,” as if reading my mind. “They know about it too. If they decide to just start shooting, we’ll have to hide.”
I decided to wait out the morning in the bedroom and shifted the dresser over in front of the door. The window couldn’t be helped, but I sat on the floor with my back to a wall so I had a clear view.
Jean propped up beside me.
“You want to have a go?” she asked.
“Go where?”
“A ride? A poke? Sex.”
“Now?”
“You’re giving me a ride out of here, I figured I’d return the favor.”
Was that the world we were in now? First Anna, now Jean. Who else was trading their body for favors and safety? Was that the world my daughter was a part of now? Both of them?
“No.”
“I didn’t get with Boles if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.
“I’m not worried.”
She scooted closer to me, her hot leg against mine as we watched the window.
“I’ve never killed a man before,” she told me.
“I’ve killed plenty. It doesn’t get easier. I’d avoid it if you could.”
She nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t listening. Her eyes had a faraway glaze to them. She lipped her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“You may not want a ride, but I do,” she said, her voice husky.
She reached over and began to unzip my pants.
I thought about fighting back, I thought about arguing.
But she bent her head into my lap and I gave in without saying a word.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She woke up before I did in the half light of dawn creeping through the windows. I knew she was awake because her fingers were doing things inside my pants again. I let her.
When it was over and done, the sun had peeked over the tree tops and we lay in a satisfied puddle.
“We need food,” I told her. “And a gun for you.”
I wasn’t planning a long future with her, but damn if the woman hadn’t earned a ride.
We dressed, and I helped her layer up.
“The extra clothes can keep them from biting you,” I explained.
“I’ve been behind these walls since the beginning,” she told me. “Not much call to interact with them.”
“You know what they are?”
“I’ve been to Haiti,” she grinned. The corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled. It looked like she hadn’t done that in a long time.
“Haitian zombies?”
“Voo Doo has a long history of bringing back the dead,” she explained. “There are more believers down in New Orleans. Or were.”
I let her reflect on that a moment. I don’t know what happened to the Big Easy or any large city in the US. All the small towns I had been through, and Orlando where I started were bastions of the undead now.
Or survivor compounds.
Were was probably the right choice of word. No matter what they believed in before.
“I studied up on it,” she told me as I shoved aside the dresser and we checked the hallway. All clear.
The sun lit up the backyard and the two dead bodies still down by the tree. No one was stirring in the trailers yet. Still too early.
Good.
We could pack up and get going before they woke up.
Jean led us into the kitchen and we packed up two bags of food, enough for several days.
“Does he have a car?”
“Truck,” she said and pointed to keys hanging on the key rack.
I nudged open the garage door and checked. A pickup truck was on the other side of a Buick sedan, both covered in dust.
“When’s the last time they were started?”
She shrugged.
“Boles used the horses because they don’t need gas.”
I grabbed the keys and checked the truck. It fired right up despite the dust and the fuel gauge was full. I loaded in the rifles and groceries.
“I’m going to open the garage door,” I told her. “Drive the truck out.”
She shook her head.
“What if they’re waiting to shoot me?”
I hadn’t considered that. I thought that since the deer stands were in the back, that’s where they would be. But I realized that waiting to ambush the front would be smart too.
Except it was Tweedle Dumb and Dumber.
I didn’t know if they would consider it. They seemed to have a one-track mind during our interaction at dinner.
“I’ll drive it,” I moved to get into the cab. She pushed me back.
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “I just want to know the possibilities.”
She dropped the truck in gear and stood on the brake while I opened the door. It reached the halfway point and she ducked down behind the dash, eased her foot off the pedal and coasted forward until she was clear of the garage.
I checked outside, but we were clear, so I shuttled the garage door down and jogged to the driver’s side.
“Budge over,” I told Jean.
“I’ll drive.”
“Not yet.”
She glared at me and huffed, and I knew she just wanted to prove herself to me.
“When we get off the land,” I told her. “Stay down.”
Maybe she saw wisdom in that, or maybe she was just happy to be free, to be escaping and going.
She slid across the seat and kept below the dashboard. I dropped the truck in gear and followed the driveway out to the crossroads.
I wondered if Sam met Old Scratch last night, if he and Boles were keeping the devil company now as I turned to the north. A Z wandered across the soybean field and stopped to watch us pass. It didn’t give chase and if it moaned, the sound was lost in the wind through the open window as we kept driving.
CHAPTER NINE
No one shot us as we left. No one shot us as we travelled down the dusty road through the fields.
After a few miles, it felt dumb to keep ducking so I sat up in the seat. Jean took a cue from me and sat up as well. She curled one leg under the other on the seat and leaned against the door.
“Which way you going?”
“We’re north of the river now,” I explained. “I think through Stuttgart and shift north to move down from Lonoke.”
“My people are downtown.”
“I’m hunting in the suburbs. Sherwood.”
“You can drop me closer than that.”
“You can have the truck.”
That seemed to satisfy her and she settled back into the seat and let her head droop against the window.
The sun came up behind us, spreading golden rays across the road in the direction we were headed. I was surprised there weren’t more cars.
I guessed people here hid in their homes while the world went to hell around them. Growing up my grandparents were self-sufficient, a result of their Depression era upbringing. I can’t remember a time they didn’t have a garden, or fish in the freezer, or deer meat.
They shopped at the store, especially for Sunday dinners to grab potatoes and other veggies they didn’t grow on their own. But we always had green beans and pinto beans and homemade jellies my grandmother canned by hand.
Tomatoes for stews, soups and spaghetti so good I haven’t tasted the like since. Muscadine for jams and wine, blackberries. Pecans from eight trees around the yard.
I remembered many Saturday nights sitting on the sofa next to my grandmother as we watched television and shelled pecans, crushing the shell with sliver nutcrackers and picking out the meat with tiny silver picks that looked like dental tools.
She was fastidious, her eyes glued to the set while her hands worked with practiced ease. My child like fingers were different, less sure.
It hit me as I was driving that she always gave me a separate bowl, and it was because of the shell fragments I would get in the pecans.
She would go back afte
r I was done and clean up the mess I made.
That made me smile.
Maybe there would be more survivors here, people like my grandparents who were better prepared to ride out any sort of plague. Zombies would be problematic, but not something any good old boy couldn’t handle with a couple of rounds from a hunting rifle.
We passed through tiny bergs and small townships, collections of houses and more trailers than tornado alley deserved.
But no people.
No zombies either.
“Where did they all go?” I asked aloud.
“The people?”
“The people. The zombies. We’re almost to Stuttgart and we have only seen one Z.”
“Z? That what you call them?”
“What did you call them?”
“Zombies. Haitian Voo Doo Zombies.”
“Are you Haitian?”
“I’m as American as you are,” she said. “But that’s where zombies come from. Everybody knows that.”
“I didn’t know that,” I told her. “I thought zombies came from someone’s imagination, and made a movie. Then some government superbug got loose and started all of this.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But you said you were from Florida, right? I went there once. That’s the only place I’ve ever seen a superbug. A cockroach in the hotel room. You walk in and that sucker starts flying.”
“Palmetto’s,” the thought made me grin.
The first time you encounter one is terrifying. She was right, you walk up to squash it with your shoe and it takes to the air.
Every time it happened, my kids would run around the house screaming, full of the willies and laughing at how spooked it made them. I’ll confess that I may have ducked and run from several in my time too. I draw the line at shrieking though. Manly yells for help, maybe, but shrieking? Not me.
“Cockroaches,” said Jean. “That’s what I called them growing up and no scientific name is going to make them any different. It’s like these damn zombies you want to call a Z. Like giving it a pet name. That’s not for me.”
Pet names. Z. Palmetto’s. Plague.
I’d called it a lot of things in my head, and in some conversations with Brian and Anna. Apocalypse. Armageddon. End of the world. But Jean had me wondering about labels.
And wondering who made it, who caused it all to happen.
