Death Springs Eternal

by Robert J. Duperre

  Her initial approach to speaking with him proved a defense mechanism, a logical way of approaching a man that fascinated her without opening herself up to pain. After the ice was broken, their relationship became one built around lighthearted banter and fond recollections. Their courtship was glacial-slow, as Billy often found himself in short supply of both. They hadn’t even so much as held hands.

  And yet he couldn’t deny the attraction. She was intelligent, beautiful in a non-traditional way, and somehow the weight of the world seemed to fall off his shoulders when he saw her. That was the reason he asked her to join him on his daily jaunts into the woods, where he would lay out a blanket and sit for hours, notebook spread out before him, writing. She was the only person other than his triumvirate of close friends who could pull him back from the dark places his thoughts brought him to.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I think you should put the pad away now.”

  “Why?”

  Cloris’s eyes widened.

  “Listen,” she said.

  Billy closed his eyes, and the sound of crunching pine straw came to his ears. Someone was coming toward them—many someones, by the sound of it. He tossed the used-up pencil over his shoulder, shoved the binder into his waistline, and covered it with his shirt.

  “Why are you so frightened?” he asked. “It is most likely one of those from the apartments come to check on us.”

  Cloris shook her head as she rose to her feet. “No, it’s not.” Her eyes gazed off into the trees. Her jaw was locked tight.

  “How do you know?”

  “I grew up at Fort Benning, William. I know the sound of marching when I hear it.”

  Billy stood up and slung the bag over his shoulder.

  “Should we run?” asked Cloris.

  “I would say no,” he replied. His heart pounded with excitement. It had only been a few days ago that First Airman Lumley had come to him, informing him that he was searching for transportation to get them out of the city unnoticed. He’d told Lumley when and where to find him if he wasn’t at his apartment, so the preparations must have been made already. He rubbed a hand over his bald pate and smiled.

  Lumley didn’t emerge from the surrounding woods. Instead, a group of men wearing civilian clothing stepped out, led by a man dressed in preacher’s black. Billy recognized the shock of white hair, the haunting blue eyes, the jaw that ceaselessly worked back and forth, back and forth, as if he was chewing something.

  “It is worse than I thought,” he whispered.

  “What is?” asked Cloris.

  Billy shook his head.

  The man in black leaned against a tree, ten feet away. “William,” he said, his voice hinting at mockery. His entourage formed a semicircle around him.

  “Reverend,” Billy replied.

  “You know this man?” said Cloris.

  “This man is named Reverend Jacob Handley, m’dear,” Handley said. “And yes, the professor and I know each other quite well. Don’t we, William?”

  Billy eased back a step. Handley had made a name for himself as a political go-getter, a reverend for a small but influential Baptist church in Mobile, Alabama. When Billy was promoted to head of the English department at Penn State, it had been Handley and the Church of Creation who railed against his appointment, stating that a man who’d written books like Last Night’s Train and The New King, tomes that expressed in detail the virtues of black power, righteous indignation, and the possibility of a last-gasp violent revolution, would poison the students of that great institution with his anti-American rhetoric. Billy hadn’t been afraid of the man, thinking him a redneck of underwhelming intelligence, but he and his followers were a major annoyance early on, protesting outside the campus in the same way they would the funeral of a dead soldier. It wasn’t until a couple years later, after a run-in with the man at a book signing in Fayetteville where Billy made a fool of him in public, that the harassment stopped.

  Even after Billy killed Eric Calhoun, Handley hadn’t resurfaced to gloat about how right he’d been. Of course, that may have had something to do with the Church of Creation’s aggressive efforts to keep their opposition of the gay marriage initiative on the front page of national publications, but at the time, as he stewed in his cell at SCI Greensburg, Billy had silently claimed victory.

  And yet now here he was—William Mathis, famed and shamed professor, living on the fringes of a society that hated him and his people, shaking with fear in the presence of the diminutive Jacob Handley, a man who looked like a ghost, his black suit hanging off his skeletal frame as if he’d been buried in it. But he hadn’t been buried. In fact, his ideals and way of life had been given new life. Billy was the outsider now, the man on the fringe, just as Handley had promised he would be that day in Fayetteville.

  One of the men who’d come with the preacher lifted his weapon. “We gonna take ’em?” the guy asked.

  Handley shook his head. “No need, Ray. The Professor’s gonna come without a fight. Ain’t that right, Billy?”

  Billy chewed on his tongue and nodded.

  “So let’s go.”

  Cloris’s hand slipped into Billy’s just as two of the good-ole-boys stepped to their rear to make sure they didn’t double back. Billy squeezed her hand and they walked through the trees, following the path he’d spent the last nine days marking. He said goodbye to the maples, the rocks, the stream, the gaggle of crows that always seemed to be around whenever he found a secluded spot. He whispered farewell to his notions of future, to his optimism, to his stringent belief in what was right.

  The group exited the forest and approached twin school busses, painted gray with barred windows, packed to the brim with frightened people. An unwelcome feeling of déjà-vu came over him. He remembered what it was like to climb aboard a bus very much like these the day he was sentenced and sent off to prison. It was ironic. The world was whole then, trudging on the way it had for thousands of years, and yet he’d resigned himself to his fate. Now that world was on the brink of extinction, and the thought of returning to any sort of prison filled him with dread.

  Soldiers wearing fatigues gathered around one of the busses, while the other was surrounded by more of Handley’s flock. Billy steered Cloris toward the second, thinking that to be their destination, but then Handley himself was there, taking Cloris’s other hand and tugging her in the opposite direction.

  “Nosiree Professor,” the little man said. “You and the missus have…different paths to follow.”

  Cloris gave him a nervous look. Billy rubbed the underside of her palm and mouthed, you will be fine. The soldiers standing around the second bus then stepped forward, aggressively pulling her away. She glanced at him one last time, and there was terror in her eyes. Right then he wanted to cast safety to the wind, to rush those holding weapons, rip the tools of war from their hands, and eliminate as many as he could before he himself was cut down.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he lowered his head and allowed Handley’s men to shove him up the steps and into the bus. Only when he stood in the aisle did he take a moment to observe what surrounded him, gazing at a litany of dark faces, the vast majority of whom were male. His eyes scanned the frightened and angry occupants, seeking Marcy or Leon’s face, but he didn’t see either of them anywhere. He caught sight of Jasper Hildebrand, an old man who’d been a bartender at the Omni back before the sanity of the world took a vacation. Jasper’s eyes caught his, lips pursed while he shook his head. Billy’s heart plummeted in his chest. The man’s expression spoke volumes.

  After he’d been seated, Handley and his underlings took their positions at the front of the bus and they were off. Billy gazed out the window, watching as the other bus, half-filled with lighter-skinned women, went in the other direction. A knot of dread formed in his gut.

  They drove into the city, bouncing along gap-filled roads, passing crews of working men closing up shop for the day. These men gazed upon the bus and those
inside with mostly indifference, though there were a couple whose hatred plainly showed on their faces. A few jutted their chins out at the passing vehicle, looking like they were above even acknowledging it. The bus then turned down a side road, and a crumbling neighborhood emerged. There were bodies strung up from lampposts, still moving, still writhing—the few remaining undead. Their eyes stared at nothing, their jaws snapped at the empty air. Below their dangling feet were youngsters—teenagers mostly—who punished them with bats, planks of wood, and other assorted blunt instruments. Even with their ghastly appearance, Billy couldn’t help but think, Our dead deserve better than that.

  The bus swerved, taking a left turn, and they now headed down a street that seemed to have been recently renovated. The buildings here were gleaming, their newly installed windows reflecting the dying sunlight. Families gathered by the side of the road as they passed by, tossing vegetables and other assorted debris at the bus while shouting profanities. Nuance was the only thing separating these people from the defilers of the dead, for the same sentiments spewed from their mouths.

  The insatiable call of the bloodthirsty.

  Around the next bend, the bus came to a stop. They were escorted off the vehicle and led up the stairs into a dilapidated police station. With the sun dipping behind the horizon, the halogen lights on the building’s façade burned a hole in his vision. They walked past the dispatch desk, where in normal times there would’ve been a uniformed officer stationed, taking the public complaints of those who entered the building as well as answering phones. Now the station was empty, the phones silent. From there they marched down a long corridor, through four sets of double doors, until they entered lockup.

  There were twelve empty cells in the lockup, but they didn’t stay empty for long. Men with weapons forced people into each of them, four-to-six apiece, slamming the sliding doors shut once everyone was situated. They then left the area, clicking off the light behind them, leaving their quarry in darkness.

  Billy stood by the slender, rectangular, bulletproof window on the door, the only way to look outside of the cell. He pressed his forehead to the cold surface and breathed slowly, deeply. His breath misted the glass below him, a fog that slowly dissipated until he exhaled again and the process began anew. It was as repetitive as his life.

  Once again, Billy Mathis found himself behind bars.

  -6-

  Little Meghan Stoddard stood in the corner, hands over her eyes, counting. Andy and Francis crept away from her, though creeping was a relative term since they did a horrible job of keeping quiet. The other children seemed much more adept at the game, easily slipping behind furniture in their sock-covered feet, making nary a sound, save for the occasional, can’t-be-helped snicker. It was probably because the two boys were older…or the fact that they couldn’t stop punching each other in the arm, as if they wanted so badly to make the other one lose.

  Josh stood by the door of the recreation room, arms folded over his chest, a smile on his face. It was yet another occasion where he couldn’t help but think of himself and Colin when they were younger. Hide-and-seek had been a game of one-upmanship for them, too. As if on instinct with the memory of his dead friend, his fingers dove into his pocket, searching for the rectangular box that would contain his nicotine fix. But it wasn’t there, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Done with that shit, he though. For good.

  Meghan shouted, “One hunnred!” and turned around, her eyes darting left and right. She spotted Josh standing there and offered him a grin, as if she expected him to help her.

  “Uh-uh,” Josh muttered, shaking his head. He glanced at Mary, sitting with Yvette in the corner, and she nodded an affirmative. With her permission, he slowly opened the door and slipped out of the room.

  Out in the hallway, he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet, chemical scent of freshly shampooed hotel carpet, a smell he honestly never thought he’d come across again in his lifetime. After their orientation at the museum-cum-interrogation hall, the weird guy with the ponytail had set them up at the Best Western down the street. To Josh it felt strange, having all their meals prepared, being waited on hand-and-foot, with a group of Latino women coming in to help care for the children, allowing the adults to rest their weary bones. There’d even been manipedis involved, which made the situation even more unreal.

  Not that Josh was complaining. He could accept being pampered, even if he didn’t understand why. He just found it really, really strange. It almost seemed as if the damaged and frightening world he’d gotten used to had ended, leaving in its wake a utopian society where people actually truly cared for one another. Each day he silently thanked Marcy for her guidance, knowing he wouldn’t be here if not for her. He had to fight the urge to go look for her, to ask around if anyone knew where she was, but in the end decided it wasn’t time. He hadn’t even told Kyra about it yet. He was afraid that if he did she might not understand. Her man, out looking for another woman? Even though he kept telling himself his intentions were innocent, the contemplation of broaching the subject seemed…uncomfortable.

  A scream erupted from somewhere down the hall, and those thoughts crumbled. Only one room was in use on that end of the building—the one he and Kyra shared. Josh took off, his arms pumping, the worst possible images running through his head. He was suddenly reminded of his journey home the night he found his parents butchered, the night he murdered his sister. Panic caused his muscles to convulse, making it hard to get a grip on the doorknob once he had it in hand.

  Eventually he got it to turn and stumbled into the room. A quick glimpse around and he spotted Kyra, slumped on the couch, hands on her swollen stomach. Eyes closed and her mouth twisted into a grimace, she breathed hard and fast. Jessica hovered over her, holding both sides of her face, while old Emily knelt by her side, gently stroking her hand.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Josh asked.

  Kyra didn’t look up, but Jessica and Emily did.

  Jessica kissed Kyra’s forehead and then said, “I think it’s coming.”

  “What’s coming?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The baby, stupid.”

  “Oh.”

  He stood there for a moment, uncertain. “Wait,” he said. “This can’t be right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well…she can’t be term yet.”

  “I don’t think it matters,” said Emily.

  “No, listen to me. She can’t be more than eight months. Can’t be.”

  Jessica slapped her own forehead. “Josh, it doesn’t matter! If the baby’s coming, she’s coming! Whether she’s term or not!”

  “But…well I…um…” Josh stammered, unable to find the right words to say.

  Emily rose to her feet and approached him. She took his hands in hers and gazed at him with her faded brown-gray eyes. They were wise and tranquil. Simply staring into them seemed to calm him.

  “Joshua,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to go get help. Medical attention. Something. Quickly.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  His pulse slowed and he was able to think clearly. Get help. Find a doctor. He nodded, stepped past the old woman, and knelt before his very pregnant redheaded lover.

  “Kyra?” he whispered.

  Her green eyes fluttered open.

  “What?” she said, her voice sounding raspy and irritated.

  “I’m gonna get help now, ‘kay?”

  Her hand fell on his wrist, then worked its way up his arm and over his shoulder. She grabbed a handful of his too-long hair and yanked it. Hard.

  “Why’re you telling me about it?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Just fucking go already.”

  Without saying a word, Josh eased his hair from her grip and backed away, head down. He caught a glimpse of Jessica on his way out the door. The younger woman’s hand covered her mouth as she laughed.

  “Yeah really fucking funny,” Josh muttered.

  J
essica slapped his ass and grinned. “Just get moving, oblivious guy. It’s just the pain. She probably won’t even remember when you get back.”

  “Like hell I won’t!” yelled Kyra.

  “See?”

  Josh rolled his eyes and walked out the door. “Nice. Real nice.”

  “Just hurry up.”

  “Fine.”

  He was halfway down the hall by the time he heard Kyra bellow in pain once more. He picked up his pace, his embarrassment and irritation gone as quickly as it arrived.

  He flew down the stairwell fast as he could. Once he reached the main lobby he came to a skidding halt. The place was almost always empty, the only folks he ever saw being the nice Vietnamese lady who’d checked him in and the Latino housekeepers. Now there were tons of people lingering about, hovering around the lobby, in the doorway, in front of the reception desk. All carried weapons, and all wore fatigues save one. The lone objector was a tall man with a pair of leather riding chaps strapped to his legs and a denim vest draped over a tank top. His long, slicked-back ponytail hung over one shoulder as if it’d been deliberately placed there. He looked ridiculous, especially with his handlebar mustache, but Josh didn’t dare laugh. He recognized him immediately, and couldn’t believe his luck that the cavalry had arrived just when he needed them most.

  Josh walked forward, raising his hand to get the guy’s attention. “Yo, Pitts!” he shouted. “Man, over here!”

  Pitts saw him and approached, his eyes alive but twitchy.

  “Surprised you remember my name,” he said.

  “Pretty hard not to,” said Josh, sticking out his hand in anticipation of a handshake. “I pretty much lived at a place named the same before all the shit came down.”

  Pitts didn’t shake his hand, and appeared as if he was holding back a chuckle. Glancing around him, Josh saw that the soldiers who’d come with him—every single one—were now looking at the two of them.