Dying to Live: Last Rites

by Kim Paffenroth

  They started to struggle, and the man nearly wriggled out of Truman’s grasp, but with a roar, Truman threw himself into it, pushing the man’s elbow back the wrong way. This drove him to his knees, howling in pain. Truman held his open mouth right next to his forearm. It stank. The other men banged on the cage, trying to help their companion, but what could they do? None of them dared stick their arms inside, lest they be grabbed and bitten instead. The man’s whimpering and blubbering made Truman hate him more, made him long to release all his frustration and humiliation, to burn it into this idiot’s mind, to rend his healthy, vibrant flesh and tear it away from such an undeserving soul. But Truman wavered, as he imagined the prospect of defiling himself with the blood of such a disgusting simpleton.

  Then he felt the tiny hand on his shoulder, its grip so firm and resolute. So accusatory, too, in its smallness and fearlessness.

  “Don’t, Professor,” he heard Dalia say beside him. “You be nice and let this man go. You do that or I won’t be your friend anymore.”

  Truman only hesitated a moment after that, before shoving the arm back out between the bars. He nodded to Dalia as Doctor Jack and some other assistants pushed their way through the crowd.

  The man Truman had attacked rubbed his arm and pointed at him. “That fucker attacked me!” he shouted. “I want him put down!”

  “Now, now,” Doctor Jack said. “I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding. Dalia—what happened?”

  She scowled and pointed at the man. “That man said we cheated. He called the Professor bad names. He got up in his face, and I told him not to. Then the Professor grabbed him, but I told him to let go and he did. The Professor listens to me—not like you, you big, mean dummy! You’re just jealous ‘cause he’s smarter and nicer than you are!”

  “Now, see, a misunderstanding,” Doctor Jack said, coming between Dalia and the men. “You boys failed to follow the instructions of a show employee, and that got you in some trouble. But now everything’s fine.”

  The man rubbed his elbow. “Hey—I was in school to be a lawyer. You can’t get away with this. That thing’s dangerous.”

  Doctor Jack laughed. “Oh my God—a lawyer! What the fuck does that matter, you dumb ass? Besides saying you were a politician or you liked little boys, is there anyone you could’ve thought of that people would feel less sorry for, anybody they’d rather see eaten by a zombie? Lawyer! You boys get along. You’re outside city walls and I’ve got a business to run and we don’t want any more of your commotion. Now get!”

  The men went off—grumbling, shouting intermittently, but they went. Doctor Jack turned back to Dalia. “You did really good, dear. I’m very proud of you,” he said in as tender a tone as Truman had heard from him. Then he turned to Truman. “And you, sir, are in for a long night tomorrow. We’re gonna set things up special, and show people we know how to teach our zombies right. Now, Dalia, you gather up your stuff and run along. We can’t have you around when Miss Ramona does her thing.”

  As Doctor Jack and the others walked away, Dalia slipped her hand into Truman’s. “You shouldn’t have done that, Professor,” she said, her face very serious. “They’re gonna hurt you so bad tomorrow, and I can’t do anything about that. Please don’t be mad at me. I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  Truman leaned close to the bars. “S’okay,” he said in a sighing whisper that could almost be mistaken for an exhalation of breath, by someone not as wise and discerning as this child. But as Dalia’s eyes widened, he knew she understood—understood there was much more than even she’d seen, and understood that he trusted her with his secret. Truman understood something then, too—that surprising these living people could sometimes be as beautiful as it was exhilarating. Dalia slipped her hand from his and backed slowly away, a look of the purest, most sublime awe shining from her face.

  Chapter 24: Will

  “Isn’t that some shit?” Garrett said as the four of them looked into the pit. Three zombies were down there, impaled on sticks. They obviously couldn’t move, but their moaning had caused Garrett to stop the wagon to investigate. All of them had on weird striped shirts. Will remembered cartoons when he was little, where men in jail wore shirts like that, as they ran around with big black balls chained to their ankles. It was all funny back then. “What the hell happened to these fuckers?”

  “Somebody didn’t like the City Patrol taking back the truck stop yesterday,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, but a pit trap? Now we’ll have to fill out a report when we get back. That’s something serious.” Garrett got a can off the side of the wagon. It was a small, rectangular can with a nozzle at the top, so if you tipped it up and squeezed it, the liquid inside would shoot out. Garrett started squirting the contents all over the dead men. The stinging scent of lighter fluid filled Will’s nose. The smell made him wince nearly as much as the dead men did, as the liquid hit them in their eyes and mouths. They spit and gurgled and tried to thrash free, but remained stuck. The best they could do was swat at the stream of liquid. Their pathetic gestures made the other men chuckle. Will looked away.

  Garrett put the can back. “Well, on behalf of the city of New Sparta, we’d like to thank you boys for your service,” he said. Will heard the strike of a match. “Now, we’d love to give you all a Christian burial, but today it’s looking more like it’s gonna be a barbecue.” More chuckles, then there was the whoosh of the flames and Will could feel the heat on his neck and the side of his face. The moans increased in pitch and volume, then subsided.

  Garrett led the others around the side of the wagon. “All right, Jake,” he said. “You drive alongside us. We’ll walk in there, real careful. Don’t want the horses falling into anything like this. Keep your eyes open, boys.”

  They proceeded toward the ruined truck stop, the four men walking alongside the horses as they pulled the wagon. Will didn’t feel too frightened of what the dead might do. He just didn’t know how many more scenes like the one he’d just witnessed he could stand.

  “Damn, boy, what a mess,” Garrett said as they stopped. Jake climbed from the cab and they all inspected the carnage from a distance. There were bodies all over the place by the fuel pumps, most of them naked and emaciated, a few wearing the striped shirts. Some still clutched filthy weapons. The building’s windows were smashed out, and the only sound was the scraping of some blinds against the window frames.

  “Don’t get close to the building or the pumps,” Garrett said. “No sense risking it. Too many places for them to hide. The caps to the tanks are out here somewhere. Look for them.” He turned to Will. “You—F.N.G.—get the rifle out of the back and keep an eye on the trees and the building. We’ll get the fuel.”

  “Ha—now you’re the ‘fucking new guy,’” Chris laughed. “It’s been me for weeks.”

  “Yeah, and before that it was some other dumb ass who couldn’t keep quiet,” Garrett said as he started kicking and poking in the grass. “So shush.”

  Will got the M4 out and stood near the wagon. Everything looked deserted. Maybe the rest of this trip would go smoothly and uneventfully.

  “Here,” said Garrett, as he pulled the weeds aside to uncover the metal caps to the fuel tanks underneath. “Get the hoses and jerry cans.”

  Will kept looking around as the others worked. There was definitely some movement in the trees, but it wasn’t coming closer so Will said nothing. He wasn’t afraid of whatever dead people they’d find there, but of what he’d have to do to them if they were found.

  “Hey,” said Chris. “What’s that? Something moving?”

  Shit, now he’d spotted the movement. Kid was kind of a pest, even if he weren’t as cold and brutal as the others. Yeah, that about summed up the guys—cruel or clueless, and only the former seemed to last very long.

  Will raised the rifle so he could look through the scope. “Something,” he said. “Can’t tell what.” He wasn’t lying, either. He could just see an occasional motion at the base of one tree, but it
was too much in the shade for him to make out what it was.

  Garrett stepped up next to him, observing the trees, then looking around closer to where they were standing. “Chris—take the F.N.G. and check it out,” Garrett said. “We’re out in the open here, none of them can sneak up on us while you’re out there. But snap it up. And do not go further back in those trees to where we can’t see you. Just walk up and shoot whatever the fuck it is. Be sure you use a silencer, even though I bet they know we’re here already. We need to hurry up. This place is still too hot.”

  Will and Chris started off toward the trees, Will dividing his attention between the tree line and the ground just in front of them, wary for any more traps. When they were right next to the spot where he’d seen motion, Will could finally make out a human form, sitting under the one tree. It was a dead girl, wearing one of those striped shirts and holding an aluminum bat across her lap. She looked enough like Rachel that it made him shiver—same build, same hair, even if it had faded to an unnatural hue. Just sitting there. Didn’t even snarl. Just stared at him with clouded eyes, her mouth open a little.

  “What’s it doing?” Chris said. “Why doesn’t it attack?”

  “Probably injured, can’t move.”

  “Well, shoot it and let’s go.”

  “Why? She’s just a girl. She’s not doing anything.”

  Will turned to see Chris’s shocked expression. “What?” Chris said. “It’s not a girl. It’s just a dead thing. It’s not good for anything anymore. Just kill it. It’s grossing me out.”

  “How can you say that? People don’t have to be useful for something.”

  The kid’s look hardened a bit, like he’d been coached in a certain way of looking at things, certain phrases that had to be said to brush aside doubts. “Yeah, they do, actually. But that’s not even a person. It’s not even alive. So kill it.”

  Now the girl did snarl as she raised the bat. She’d looked resigned before—now she looked defiant. “See—it’s dangerous,” Chris said. “Put it down.”

  “She’s just doing that because you’re standing right next to her, talking about shooting her in the head. So shut the fuck up.”

  Now Chris looked amused as well as shocked, and still with that hardness of someone who could deny the reality right in front of himself with complete certainty. “No—you shut the fuck up. You gone crazy? They don’t understand anything. She just wants to eat us. She would if she could.”

  “Maybe, but she can’t. And look at her—she knows what we’re saying. You can see she does.”

  Chris looked at the girl, then back to Will. “All I know is it needs to be killed.” He reached for his own weapon and Will grabbed his wrist. That was a big step, and Will didn’t know where it would lead, but it happened before he could really think about it.

  “Hey!” Chris said. He looked like he also knew they’d gone too far now, that it had escalated past posturing, past the point where you could laugh it off.

  “Don’t,” Will said. He knew he could probably smack the kid around pretty easily, but an altercation with another team member was going to complicate life considerably. He’d probably be working at the corner store after today, making half as much money. The girl wheezed and Will knew he’d made the only choice he could.

  Chris glared at him and Will didn’t know how to end or defuse the situation. Then there was a shout from the direction of the truck stop. After a second it was followed by a long scream and a series of gunshots—not one weapon, but several, firing maybe as many as ten shots in a couple seconds.

  Will pulled Chris away from the girl and shoved him toward the sounds. “Come on,” he shouted. “They need us. Go.”

  Chapter 25: Lucy

  After setting Becca in the woods, Lucy and her two remaining friends shuffled back to rejoin the main group of dead. Lucy looked around the crowd. She hadn’t done a head count before the attack, but the battle had clearly taken its toll. She guessed twenty or so hadn’t made it back, and the mob was now maybe a little over a hundred—not counting the smaller children, whom she couldn’t see among the others.

  Lucy still wondered why such young people had come on this outing—or why they were even in the camp in the first place. She’d asked the other women about the children before, in camp, but they’d shrugged and said they were there to fight, like everyone else. That really didn’t make much sense, though when they’d left that morning, some of the men had made a point of shoving the children along with the crowd leaving the gate.

  Walking to the truck stop and battling the other dead had taken all day and it would be dark soon. They couldn’t risk tripping and hurting themselves, so they sat down beneath a nearby overpass. Some of the men went among the abandoned cars there, sniffing. Lucy thought at first they were checking for hidden enemies, but she couldn’t quite make out what they were doing, it had gotten so dark. From their sounds, they were dragging stuff around and breaking things, but these were not the screams and howls of battle. Then Lucy caught the scent of gasoline. Another hideous stench the living people loved so much, and it made her recoil and shake her head.

  “What the hell are they doing?” Lucy asked, looking from Christine to Carole, who both sat near her.

  “Fire,” Carole said. “Keeps wild men away.”

  “Yeah,” Christine grunted. “Scares regular people like us enough. Wild men really hate it. Makes them run far away.” There was a pause. “They’ll probably ask you. They never can do it themselves. Men—clumsy and scared.” She gave a coughing kind of chuckle.

  “I know,” Carole said as she got up, joining her friend in laughter as she brushed herself off and ran her fingers through her hair.

  Lucy was about to ask what they meant, when Ben approached them. Lucy studied him more closely than before. Most of the dead looked much paler than when they were alive, including black people, but his skin had remained a very dark shade. He’d kept a lot of his bulk and muscle tone as well. Lucy remembered how Becca had said he was one of the nicer men in the camp—not just because he was in better shape than most of them and more pleasant to look at, but because he was respectful, didn’t try to intimidate others or demand things. But he was still a man, so Lucy eyed him and rose to her feet as he got closer.

  Ben looked at Lucy and gave her a little nod. “What’s your name?” he asked. He had a nice voice, too.

  “Lucy.”

  “That’s a pretty name—pretty like you. Who gave it to you?”

  “My man.”

  He smirked. “Ah. So you don’t want to be my woman, either? Why do all you pretty ladies treat me so badly?”

  Carole laughed at this as Ben turned toward her, holding out a small object. Lucy couldn’t see what it was in the darkness.

  “You light it, lady?”

  “Yes, Ben,” Carole answered. Her voice sounded different than normal, higher and more nervous.

  He smiled, showing rows of teeth better than most living people had. “You sure you don’t wanna be my woman all the time?” he said to Carole. “I keep lighter. You light fires. People would respect us. I’d protect you. It’d be nice.”

  Carole gave her huffing laugh as she took the lighter. “Oh, Ben, you ask that all the time,” she said. Then she surprised Lucy by slipping her arm around Ben’s waist. “I like things the way they are. You can hold me as we walk over, so your friends will see. Then I’ll come back and sit with my friends. Okay?”

  Ben put a big arm around her. “Yeah. That’s okay. Nice to hold you sometimes.”

  “I know. I like it too,” Carole said as they walked away.

  “She likes to flirt,” Christine said when they’d gone. “It’s good for her. You should try, too. It’s normal. Makes things easier.”

  Lucy sat down next to the older woman. “Yeah, maybe someday,” she said. “I don’t trust people too much.”

  Christine nodded. “Yeah. That’s normal, too.”

  There was a crackling, whooshing sound as a large f
lame leaped up nearby. The assembly of dead people sent up a collective gasp, then settled into an agitated murmur for a few moments as they struggled to overcome their fear. When they nearly had, another flame erupted from the other side of the overpass, so they were flanked by fires. Their murmuring resumed, then finally died down as Carole returned to Christine and Lucy.

  They sat there through the night, then resumed their march as soon as the sun was up. Walking by the blackened circle of debris that had been the fire the night before, Lucy thought it didn’t smell so bad now.

  They continued through the morning, until they reached the outskirts of a town. Stopping at the top of a hill, they looked down on the remains of the settlement—just a collection of low buildings around a central cluster of multi-story structures. Most everything was so overgrown you could barely tell they’d been human constructions at one time, though the top floors of the taller buildings were still visible.

  Lucy squinted. She thought she saw movement among the buildings, but couldn’t be sure.

  The crowd was jostled around again, as they had been at the truck stop, though this time the men came through and rounded up the children, taking them to the front.

  “What are they doing?” Lucy asked.

  Carole shook her head. “It’s not nice. Don’t ask. Just wait till we have to fight. Isn’t that bad enough?”