by Jay Wilburn
The doors closed behind me leaving my voice named Linda inside.
The tape was ripped off my mouth and I gagged as thick saliva ran over my raw lips and chin like paste. Before I could appreciate the agony of it, the tape was ripped away from my eyes. I was sure my eyelids had come loose. The tears were fiery painful as they poured out from whatever was left of my face. I must have looked like a zombie with my arms stuck out and my face like raw meat. If that was what zombies felt like, I had no intention of becoming one.
I decided that if I could run away and have them shoot me instead of going back in that torturous room, that’s what I would do it. I was not the kind of survivor Linda was.
I was taken through several trucks and some men lounging on the hoods with rifles across their laps. Doc was already working on a fire in the circle as I came through the vehicles. I was let go and Doc waved me forward. He seemed to be in better shape, but his eyebrows were missing in patches and the skin on his face was rashy in two long rectangles. I imagined I was looking into a mirror of sorts.
Doc held out a measuring cup with water in it. I closed my hands on it. He kept his hands over mine to keep me from dropping it as he brought it up to my mouth. I coughed a little trying to get it down my throat.
Doc whispered, “Go slowly, Mutt.”
One of the men yelled, “Hey, don’t mix your spit in with my burgers.”
I recognized the voice. Doc yelled back.
“Hey,” he said, “Your brothers paid me ten bucks to add that to yours.”
I looked over and saw Vike with his blond hair under a skull bandana. He had the shotgun over his lap and he looked as big as the truck he was sitting on facing us. He smoothed down the handle bars of his mustache. The others laughed and then Vike let out a high pitched cackle that echoed out of the circle of trucks around our fire pit and another fire pit next to us that had already been brought up to a blaze. Doc filled the measuring cup again with a little water and helped me sip some more.
Vike barked back. “I wipe my ass with ten dollar bills, Johnny Boy.”
Doc kept giving me the water a sip at a time. My throat still felt like something was stuck in it, but I felt like I was getting enough air and that I was going to be able to keep standing for the first time in a while. Doc answered back as he did this.
He said, “Oh, you haven’t had a burger like what you’re about to get tonight, gentlemen. When you have this one, you won’t ever have to wipe your ass again. You’ll sew it shut to keep it forever.”
They all erupted with laughter.
One man I didn’t recognize shouted, “I thought gentlemen were nancy-boys that couldn’t get their pricks up.”
“He’s got you pegged,” Vike shouted back.
The man turned his comments back on Doc.
He barked. “How about I show you who the gentleman is by pegging you in the ass, Doctor Loud Mouth?”
Doc said, “Okay, but it sure is going to be a bitch trying to cook while you’re doing that.”
Everyone burst out laughing again. Vike threw his head back and screeched out a piercing noise into the sky.
“Settle down and listen up,” someone boomed.
Everyone trailed off gradually to silence. Doc set the measuring cup down with the gear around the stone of the fire pit. Some of it was ours, some was what we picked up from the Silver Bullet Diner, and other stuff I didn’t recognize. Doc was rubbing the knots out of my shoulders while everyone’s attention was drawn away.
It seemed like Doc was at least on speaking terms with our captors. He wasn’t planning to run away or get shot.
Coop had walked into the circle. He continued talking once everyone had settled down to silence.
He said, “Cuss has set the rules. The best burger wins. The losing team gets throttled and left for the stinks to eat.”
Everyone cheered. Two large pans of ground meat were brought out to the fire pits. One was set by our pit. The other was set by the empty fire pit. The meat was more shredded and wasn’t ground well at all. It was going to be hard to make the burgers stay together.
We needed to make burgers that stayed together.
“Where are the buns?” Vike asked.
“On both sides of your balloon knot,” one of them yelled.
“The cook baked some up,” Coop yelled. “These are going to be good, old-fashioned, pre-zombie treats.”
Everyone cheered and pounded on the hoods of the trucks. A man was led into the circle with a pillowcase over his head. There was a smiley face drawn over the concealed head. Hoss was on one side and another man I didn’t know was on the other.
Doc said, “Oh, shit.”
I looked at him. Coop laughed and spoke again.
He said, “Oh, Johnny, did we ruin the surprise.”
I looked at Coop and then around the circle. I felt like I was missing the joke again. They pulled the hood off the other cook. It took a moment for it to sink in with my blurry vision and the sun setting. I was looking at a dead man standing on his feet. I didn’t understand how it was possible that this was our opponent. Then I realized what I had forgotten on our way here.
Coop said, “Surprise, surprise, are you ready to forfeit?”
“No,” Vike answered for us, “I want my burgers.”
Doc said, “No, get your knives ready. The old cook is going down.”
Everyone cheered. I stared at Doc in horror.
Coop said, “Well, you stole my thunder a bit, but here are the introductions. Doc Brown meet Davey Sharp. David, John … John, David. Now cook some damn burgers or get ready to die.”
The cheering and pounding started again. I started to walk to the other pit. Doc grabbed my arm and sent pain into my shoulder.
He said, “Don’t, Mutt. We’ll figure this out, but you have to play along or we won’t get out alive … none of us.”
As Doc started adding meal and oil to the meat, Chef just stared across at us.
“I think the old cook is forfeiting, Coop,” Vike yelled.
“He might as well,” Doc shouted back. “He couldn’t cook a fast food burger in a microwave. You might as well take his and throw them straight in the latrines and save yourselves the pain.”
There was more laughing and some whistles. Chef blinked several times and started prepping his own pan.
Chef shouted back, “I didn’t know you all were wasting my time with this guy. I tried to get him ate by the zombies and they just spit him back.”
The crowd cheered and Vike let out three shrill cackles. Doc directed me to start making the patties. He looked at the first one after he started mixing a barbeque sauce and then added more oil to the meat along with salt and pepper.
I didn’t understand what we were doing or what the plan was except that one or two of us were going to die. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before now. The reason we had to leave the truck in the first place was that Chef had the keys. If Hoss was driving it, then they got them from Chef either alive or dead.
It turned out he was alive for now.
Vike said, “Cooking is boring. That’s why I never watched those stupid shows with the fat ladies.”
Coop said, “You’re here to guard, Vike, not dream about fat ladies.”
“I do miss banging fat chicks,” Vike said. “We need to pick a few up next time just to change it up. What do you think, Doc?”
My eyes burned. I was afraid and I wanted them all dead. All I could think was that Chef made the best burgers I had ever eaten back at the Complex and he was making them now even though he knew what would happen if he won. I wanted them dead. I wanted everyone there to die including myself.
Doc answered, “Oh, Vike, you lucky bastard, this burger is going to be so fat and good you won’t know whether to eat it or bang it.”
“In that case, you better make me two, Doc,” Vike said.
Everyone erupted again and rocked back and forth making the hoods of the trucks pop. Doc wasn’t smiling as he focused on the work of try
ing to get Chef killed.
Chef called back, “You better not push your luck. I could never stomach one of Doc’s burgers.”
The crowd booed.
Doc said, “You better focus on what you’re doing, Chef, these men probably don’t want the half burnt, half cold mess you usually make.”
There was whistling again.
Vike said, “Oh, I’m going to miss Davey. This has been the best eating I’ve had … since I got off my momma’s tit.”
Doc said, “You’ll love Chef Davey’s burgers, then. They are raw, floppy, misshapen, and leave you wanting to slap them around.”
The Riding Dead started coughing they were laughing so hard. Vike screamed out his cackles until he couldn’t breathe and he fell off the hood of the truck. A few guys bumped fists and laughed some more.
I looked at Doc and back at the laughing crowd. Doc wasn’t smiling and neither was Chef in the light of his fire on the other side of the circle.
Doc placed the sauce in a sauce pan on the grill as he started helping me make the patties with the meat that was left. Chef put his first ones on the grill and the meat sizzled in a way that made me hungry and afraid.
We placed a couple on the grill. They held together as Doc spooned out his sauce on to them.
He whispered as he flipped the burgers and added a few more. I picked up the tune and bits of the lyric as he got a little louder.
He sang quietly, “Will the circle … be unbroken … by and by, Lord … by and by … there’s better home a waitin’ … in the sky, Lord, in the sky.”
Chef was taking burgers off the grill as two pans of buns were brought out and placed by each fire pit. We weren’t ready to serve yet. I felt something in my throat again. The raw skin around my eyes burned with the tears.
Doc cursed to himself when he saw Chef plating the burgers. Some of the men were starting get up to go over to Chef’s pit. They were ignoring us as we continued grilling.
“Stay calm,” Doc said. “One by one … their seats were emptied … one by one they went away … now this family … is all departed … will it be complete one-”
Doc stepped back from the grill dropping the spatula into the dirt. I felt panic. I reached down to grab it up before the bikers saw it. Doc grabbed my arm and pulled me backward.
When he did, I saw it too and I forgot about our burning burgers.
Doc shouted, “Hey, guys, we have company.”
People turned around slowly and then dropped plates as they went back to get guns.
“Jesus,” Coop said, “Who’s watching the outside perimeter tonight? Someone is losing an eye, if they’re not using it. Don’t shoot. Get something to club it.”
Several men left the circle as others backed away or even climbed on the trucks to get off the ground. It was looking at me and Doc. The creature dragged itself forward out from under the bumper of one of the trucks into the circle. It pulled forward with one hand and then forward with its split claw. It started to get up next to our fire pit spilling the pan with the juices from the raw meat. Its head scanned over Doc and me. Then, it looked back down at the ground. Slappy knelt back down and began dragging his white tongue through the bloody mud. His neck bent as he dragged his head forward licking up the blood from what I was sure was not beef. The deep gash below his torn collar opened and closed with each lick. Some of the blood seeped out the wound as he swallowed the mud from the ground.
Vick started to approach Slappy with a tire iron. I wasn’t sure that was going to be enough. He stopped and smiled.
“Hey, guys,” he yelled, “Cookie is back. He lost his glasses, but found the camp again. What happened to your face, Cookie?”
Doc pulled me down against the front of one of the trucks. I looked up at the biker walking past us toward Slappy. He stepped on the thumb half of Slappy’s claw with his thick boot. Slappy just kept licking the dirt without getting up. The biker kept walking with his Riding Dead stencil facing us. The ax in his hand swung down at his side.
Vike laughed again as the ax man approached.
He said, “Cookie, did you try to eat that ax?”
Vike dropped his tire iron as he stumbled backward. The blade slung wildly past Vike’s receding chest and sliced out the throat of the man next to him that didn’t like being called a gentleman. He grabbed his spurting throat as he fell backward into Chef’s fire pit collapsing the grill and knocking over pans.
One of the others screamed. Ax man whirled around at the noise and crushed the man’s face with blunt back of the ax head. The screamer staggered away choking on his teeth.
Slappy stood up and started walking over to the gentleman bleeding out into the flames. His blood sizzled as it dripped into the coals. Slappy glanced down at us as he walked. He stuck his muddy, white tongue out at us, but kept walking toward the man cooking, screaming, and gurgling in the fire.
Something grabbed Doc’s belt under the truck and pulled him away from the circle. I tried to grab him, but he fell back between the trucks. I stood up and rounded the fender. It had its hand over Doc’s mouth on the ground. I had nothing to use to fight it.
More bodies were crawling out from under the trucks the way Slappy had come. The ax man grazed his blade off the hood of a truck as Coop scrambled away in the dark.
The one that had Doc said, “Doc, it’s me. Come on. Chef is getting the truck. We have to go now while they’re distracted.”
***
Short Order pulled Doc up between the trucks. Short put the rifle on his shoulder while we left the circle and ran out to the edge of the campground in the dark. Guns fired off in the circle behind us. There were more screams and then more gunfire.
A naked man stepped through the space between the trailers of motorcycles and a cargo van. He moaned and reached out to us with his hand that still had fingers. Short Order took down his rifle and aimed at him as we ran by him, but didn’t fire as we got away and kept going.
Hoss shouted at us from the dark, “Stop there or I’ll shoot.”
Short Order turned and aimed at him.
Hoss said, “Drop it or I’ll shoot the boy. You have no play here.”
The truck revved as it bounced over the grass toward us. The headlights blazed into life. I saw Hoss’s eyes close and then I saw his head burst open after Short Order fired.
We ran to the truck and got inside. Before I closed the door, I looked in the front and made sure Chef was driving. Chef circled around and we drove toward the back of the campground.
Short Order said, “The trail on the right. That one leads back to the road.”
We sent dirt into the air as we took the trail. At the end of it, Chef turned on to the asphalt again and we drove away.
“How much fuel?” Doc asked.
Chef answered, “A quarter tank.”
“We’re going to be walking,” Doc said as he picked up his aluminum bar and the purple pony off the floor. “They took our extra fuel and most of our gear.”
I looked away into the darkness.
Short Order said, “I didn’t have a plan. I got to the truck and had to hide under it while a couple goons leaned against it until the screaming started. I’ve been looking for you all … a while.”
“Where did you guys end up, Doc?” Chef said. “I nearly … I didn’t know what to think when they told me what was happening and who … where have you been?”
Doc put his head in his hands rubbing his eyes and then pulled his hands back through his hair.
He finally mumbled. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“We were trapped in the store a couple days,” Short Order said. “We finally made a plan to get out, but Chef got jumped out front by the raiders as I was going around the-”
“Let’s talk about it later,” Doc said. “We need to focus on where we are going.”
“We just need distance,” Chef said. “They won’t follow us.”
“They will,” Short Order said.
I couldn’t sto
p thinking about Linda and the other women in the trailer with the zombies and the Riding Dead back at the campground.
I didn’t go back, I thought, we never save anyone, but ourselves.
We should have tried to save them too.
Chef said, “How do you know?”
“I just know,” Short Order said. “We don’t want to go too far west from here. Things get bad out there in a few more miles.”
“West is the only way to go unless you want to drive back by the campground,” Doc said.
“We need to change direction before too far,” Short said.
The truck sputtered and started losing power. I stopped thinking about Linda.
“That was a quarter tank?” Doc asked.
Chef said, “We just dropped to empty in a second. Something is wrong besides gas.”
We coasted to a stop in the center of the street.
Doc said, “Looks like we won’t be going too far west.”
Chapter 9: The Week We Went Fishing
They stood in the road for almost a full minute arguing over what to do with the truck. It felt like eternity. Chef wanted to just take to the woods. Shaw wanted to hide it because they were going to know we hadn’t gotten far. Chef said they were going to find it anyway and they would probably find us while we were wasting time trying to hide it. Doc finally came away from the engine saying a pump had busted, but he had no clue how to fix it and we couldn’t refuel even if he did. Doc joined Shaw’s side finally and we pushed the truck off the road into the trees. The tarps were gone along with most everything else, so we pulled down tree branches to make a screen that probably wouldn’t fool a zombie.
We heard engines.
We took what little was left in terms of weapons and supplies. It was mostly what Vike had taken off of Doc and what Shaw had been carrying on him when he came to rescue us. We started trudging blindly through the woods. After a few hours, we stopped to take turns sleeping and standing watch. No one slept and we couldn’t see anything until morning came.
We continued on through the woods.
The land off the highway and beyond the campgrounds was being largely reclaimed by the forest. Unused farmland had gone from fallow fields to sparsely treed savannahs to immature forests. The wooded sections between farms and roadside attractions were merging into one another again. We didn’t realize we were walking into fences until we tore away the vines in front of us and saw the boards or we ducked under branches into a section of rusted chain link.
