Matthew rises slowly. The men behind him are chuckling now.
Norm looks on with a twisted smile on his face. I’m glad he’s back to his usual self, but I’d be gladder if he had an idea on how to get out of this sticky situation and he put that plan into action. Because right now, I’m blank. Beatrice wasn’t stupid enough to untie me or challenge me to a shootout.
One of the men reaches out and pushes Matthew forward. It doesn’t look like he uses much force, but Matthew falls into the dirt on his knees, slides, and winds up on his stomach. He doesn’t move. He looks dead already.
“Now, Matthew, please get up,” Beatrice says.
Her voice is sickening sweet. It both unnerves and pisses me off behind belief. My hands start working at the thick rope tied around my wrist. Then something smacks me in the back of the head, causing my vision to go fuzzy.
“Quit it,” a man says from behind me. Dimly, out of the corner of my eye, I see him standing over me with his rifle and I instantly know what has hit me.
Beatrice ignores it, or she isn’t paying attention to me. She’s too invested in Matthew. This game must mean a lot to her. She’s practically staring daggers at him.
When he doesn’t move, Beatrice loses that icy-calm demeanor and bends down, grabbing him by the hair. “Stand up!” she shouts.
Her voice is harsh. The sickening sweet charm has sloughed off like a zombie’s flesh from its bone. My skin starts crawling again. She’s strong, too. Matthew bounces from the ground as easily as if he was made out of straw and not meat. Now he’s standing with his shoulders stooped, his eyes still downcast at the ground. Dirt streaks the gray hair on his face.
She’s not going to do it. There’s no way. Matthew is one of her own and it’s not like they have big numbers. There might only be about twenty of them, not thousands.
But she pulls the gun free and presses it up under Matthew’s chin.
He whimpers something I can’t understand. It sounds like “please,” but who knows? Whatever else he is going to say after that is cut off by the sound of the gunshot. It’s an explosion this close. My ears thrum. Eyes shut.
When I open them, Matthew is in the process of falling to the dirt. A hole is in his head, blood spouting from it. His face is a twisted grin. His eyes are lifeless, coated with red. Then he falls and I’m faintly aware of Darlene and Herb shrieking while the rest of the crowd laughs and cheers and claps. I’ve met the true monsters of this world. Not the zombies, but the cannibals.
“Time for round two,” Beatrice says.
7
“You’re sick! You’re fucked up!” Darlene shouts.
Beatrice ignores her, smiling. She rattles the die in her half-closed fist then throws it on the blood-soaked dirt. It splashes.
I’m really shaking now.
I smell Matthew’s death, if you can do such a thing.
The die bounces, spins through the air. Everyone is looking on. My group and I wait, holding our breath. It’s so smeared with blood and dirt, I can’t see the number. Beatrice can’t either. She walks over to it, bends down, and brushes it gently with the back of a finger.
“Six!” she shouts.
My stomach does this thing where it feels like it’s simultaneously on fire and bottoming out. The woman who would be number one looks up and smiles. She’s survived. But one of my own hasn’t. The pain going through my body is mental, I know, but it’s debilitating. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m stuck.
Abby is too out of it to realize her number’s been called. Her eyelids flutter. Lips smack.
“Step right up, cutie!” Beatrice says. I might vomit. I swear to God, I might puke.
Abby doesn’t step right up; she can’t.
“Leave her alone!” Darlene shouts. “Leave her alone! She’s sick!”
Now Beatrice notices Darlene. She snaps her head in her direction, snarling and holding the gun up right at her face. “Don’t make me roll for a bonus round,” she says.
I’m struggling now, trying to break my own wrists so I can slide out of the ropes and having no luck. It’s doing nothing but burning my skin.
“Bring her to me,” Beatrice says. She flips the cylinder of the gun out — a weird habit — then spins it.
The man behind Abby lifts her up and Abby doesn’t struggle at all. In fact, she looks like a rag doll. I’m still trying to shimmy my way out and it’s still not working.
“Wait,” I say.
I’ll have to talk my way out of this.
Beatrice turns to me. “Yes, Jack?”
“I challenge you to…to a duel?” I say it more like a question. Not confident. Not suave. Not at all.
Beatrice grins. “I’m afraid not, Jack. I don’t let my hubris get the best of me. I’m no Spike and I’m certainly no Blade.”
Damn her for being logical.
Abby is put back on her knees and a skinny tweaker-looking motherfucker holds her still. There’s a fire burning in my chest and a cold finger crawling up my spine. I hate it. I hate this.
Beatrice holds the gun on Abby’s forehead. This rouses Abby a bit. Her eyes flutter open again, but this time they stay open and they get bigger. I almost wish she wouldn’t have come to the realization of what is happening to her…of what is going to happen.
“Make sure he keeps his eyes open,” Beatrice says, then titters.
What? I think and then someone is sticking their filthy sausage fingers on my face as I’m turning my head and trying to shake them off without much luck. My eyes start burning. I scream out for them to stop.
Again, no luck.
“P-Please,” Abby says.
And I really hope that’s not her last words.
All of a sudden, it’s really quiet outside. It’s like no one is even breathing. It’s like the Woodhaven Rec Center when the power went out and this terrible reckoning came down upon us. Just quiet. Pure quiet. It’s now that I realize what is missing and it’s the gunshots intermittently bursting off in the background, the sounds of the cannibals keeping the zombies at bay. Maybe they’ve killed them all, but I doubt it.
Then, something else.
A deep rumbling. The sounds of snapping branches, of leaves rustling.
A revving engine.
8
Everyone turns their heads in the direction of the noise. The man behind me with his dirty fingers scrabbling across my face drops his hands and I’m able to see what’s coming.
It’s coming fast — sleek, black, ominous. The modern equivalent of death.
And the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Beatrice is fast, but she’s not as fast as the Hummer is. Neither are the others.
It’s one of those moments that happens so quick but so slow at the same time, like — and I hate to make this comparison — a movie.
The wheels kick up dust and dirt and blood as they barrel through the surrounding crowd of cannibals.
Beatrice lets out a screech and her gun goes off two times. She’s next. The Hummer slams into her, narrowly missing Abby, who I see is nudged out of the way by Darlene.
In that split-second, I can’t see anything besides a crumpled Beatrice, and my heart stops. Darlene and Abby have been hit — holy shit, I can hear their bones breaking.
Then the Hummer flies from my view and clobbers the remaining crowd of cannibals who are too stunned to move, and I see Darlene and Abby on the ground. Darlene huddles over Abby. Abby is unmoving, but they’re both alive, un-smashed.
Oh, thank God.
The one who is smashed by the Hummer is Beatrice and she’s not launched into the air. She’s caught under the tires. There’s a terrible sound that is like music to my ears — the sounds of breaking bones and Beatrice’s blood-curdling scream cut off to nothing. She twitches on the ground not too far from the girls.
The Hummer does this little gallop down to my right as more cannibals fall beneath its large tires.
One man just sort of stands there and lets the vehicle
run him down. It’s actually quite sad and quite unbelievable.
The Hummer keeps going, until it crashes into a half-burnt building, knocking wood and stone into the air. The chrome bumpers are muted by blood.
The few remaining cannibals, after they pick their jaws up from the ground, unload on the Hummer. Bullets bounce off it almost the same way bodies bounced off its front fender. They shoot until their guns are empty. When the weapons make no noise, all but a couple run for it.
Doc Klein, you son of a bitch.
I turn back to where the ruined med center is. My heart is back to doing flips.
“Darlene!” I shout.
Norm is on his way over to me, dragging Herb. Herb looks around with eyes as big as his face, and that’s pretty damn big.
Then, Darlene starts moving, picking herself up.
Oh, thank you, God. Thank you, Doc Klein!
“We got a guardian angel, I think,” Norm says as he starts untying the ropes around my wrist. He’s not as slow as I’d expect a man with only nine fingers to be and the pressure relieves. I waste no time with small talk or even hugging my older brother. I bolt across the twenty or so feet of dirt and grab a weapon.
“Let’s do this,” Norm says. I see him go for Beatrice’s revolver. I’m not surprised to see her hand still attached to the butt of the weapon but her arm not attached to her body. Norm pries her fingers off of it, points, aims at the remaining cannibals, and pulls the trigger. The gun only barks once and the two cannibals still standing fall near the back tires of the smoking Hummer.
I didn’t even have to shoot. Man, I missed him.
Now it’s just us — my family and myself — standing among the chaos. I rush over and grab Darlene, pick her up off the ground, and spin her around.
“Are you okay? Oh, my God, are you hurt?” I’m saying and I’m sounding more and more like my grandmother.
“I’m fine!” she says.
I put her down and go to Abby. Abby is breathing but out cold.
“What happened?” I ask.
“They attacked last night,” Darlene says. She’s clutching Abby to her, putting the back of her hand over her forehead, grimacing.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world. All of this is my fault.
“It’s not your fault,” she answers back and the way she says it, I think she means it.
“Did anyone survive? I mean, did Mother…” I find myself saying. There’s a crack in my heart and blackness spills out, seizing control of my body. I don’t like the feeling. It’s during times like these I wish I didn’t care about anyone. Living without a conscience would make life in this day and age so much easier. But I do care, and sometimes that’s the greatest thing in the whole world.
“I don’t know, Jack,” Darlene says. “Her building was on fire, but it seemed like everything was on fire. They kept shouting your name. They kept screeching. Jack…it was horrible.”
I hug her, kiss her all over her blood-spattered cheek. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” is all I can say.
I’m with them now, that’s all that matters.
Darlene kneels, Abby’s head rests on her thigh, but she hugs me back.
“Abby?” Herb says. He bends down and hugs her. Abby, on the other hand, doesn’t hug him back — she can’t.
Abby is not good. Her wound is bleeding, soaking through the dirty bandage. I run to the Hummer hoping I’ll either find Klein or the duffel bag full of medicine. I could risk going back into the med center, but the structure could fall at any moment. I learned my lesson in that respect.
“Jack!” Darlene shouts at me, but I’m already half the distance to the vehicle. I step over the dead cannibals, over body parts strewn on the ground and a river of blood. The Hummer’s windows are mostly shattered and the windows not shattered are starred. The fender is crumpled. Smoke drifts from under the hood. I open the door. There is no Klein. There is no bag. But there is a brick tied around the gas pedal. That clever son of a bitch.
The Hummer is damaged beyond repair. If we are going to get out of this ruined village and get Abby somewhere safe, then we are going to need a new ride.
“Thought I was gonna leave you?” a voice says from behind me. I get out of the car and turn around to see Klein. He’s smiling, holding two bags now — his messenger and the duffel bag full of antibiotics we procured from D.C. He has come from the shadows.
“Yeah,” I say. I probably sound like a total asshat, but at least I’m honest, right? And smiling.
“Me, too,” he says. He’s smiling, now, too.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
“Well, I thought to myself, ‘The odds, Bob, the odds!’ but then I remembered what you went through to save me last night and I decided I don’t want to be the man I used to be. I don’t want to be a yellow-bellied coward,” he says.
I walk over to him and stick my hand out. Both of our fingers are dirty and covered with blood, but we shake nonetheless. “I can respect that,” I say, and I can. In this world, you can’t be a coward. Not if you want to survive. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he says.
He hands me the duffel bag. I take it, noting its weight. It’s a good feeling. We have enough medicine to last us awhile. To at least last us a trip to the West Coast.
“I have one more favor to ask,” I say.
“Anything,” Klein says.
“One of my group is injured, can you help her?”
He nods. “I’d like to think — if it’s all right with you, that is — that she’s part of my group, too,” he says.
I smile again. “Of course.” I clap him on the back and we start walking to the others. Yeah, he might be crazy, but if you’re going to save the world, I think you have to be.
9
I’ve never seen Herb so happy. Hell, I’ve never seen Herb smile so wide, either. He’s found a long-lost friend, some semblance of his old life.
Herb sprints the rest of the distance to Doc Klein and I swear the earth shakes. He doesn’t care about the dead bodies around him. The crushed and mangled corpse of Beatrice. For that, I’m glad.
“Doc!” Herb shouts. His voice is high, almost alien. He sounds like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Oh, boy — ” Klein says, but Herb’s strangling bear-hug cuts him off. Herb has him in both arms. Klein’s face goes a deep shade of red, but he’s laughing.
I go to Darlene and Abby with the bag full of medicine. Norm is bent down next to Abby’s face, stroking her hair. Darlene holds her in her lap.
Abby is mumbling.
“Here,” I say, digging into the bag until I find hydrocodone. “For the pain, and it should knock her out. She needs sleep.”
Darlene has tears in her eyes. I feel like crying, too. Abby’s hurt and Darlene and I both hate to see it because as dangerous as it is to have one in the wastelands, we’re family.
“Glad to see you again, Doc,” Norm says, looking up from Abby’s ashy face.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Jack,” Klein says.
Darlene smiles at me.
The Doc bends down in the dirt. “Let’s see,” he says. “She’s lost a lot of blood.” He starts taking the bandage off of Abby’s stump. It’s soaked, actually dripping. He throws it to the side. “She needs a transfusion,” he says.
“The med center,” Darlene says. “Phyllis gave her one a couple days ago when this first happened.”
“It’s not safe in there,” I say. I look over at the building. Puffs of gray smoke corkscrew up and away from it. The smell of burnt wood and melted plaster is prominent now.
“We don’t need to be in there,” Klein says. “Though, it would be ideal. However, I just need the supplies.”
Norm shoots up. “I’m on it,” he says.
“Do you know what you need?” Klein asks.
“This ain’t my first rodeo, pal,” Norm says.
Klein nods. “If the doctor was competent, she w
ould’ve labeled Abby’s transfusion. Look for a medical — ”
“Chart, got it,” Norm says. He is already at the med center’s burnt threshold.
“Hurry,” Klein says. “It won’t be long until the dead are here.”
Hearing that is like a stab to my heart. The dead. It’s always the dead. They’re always around the corner.
I look down to Abby. Her eyes flitter. She’s mumbling more and more, delusional. We can’t stay here very long, and right now, we don’t have a ride.
“I’m going to go to the garage,” I say.
Darlene looks at me with eyes that say don’t go. But I have to.
“Will you be okay?” I ask her.
Darlene is pale, but she nods.
“I won’t be long,” I say. “We need to get out of here.”
Darlene nods again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I answer, then turn to Herb. “Are you going to protect them, Herb?”
He doesn’t meet my eyes. I see his large Adam’s apple bob up and down, hear the dry click in his throat.
“Herb?” I say again. “You’re strong. You’re brave. I won’t be gone long, I promise.”
“It’s not that, Jacky,” Herb says. The happiness in his voice is gone. Now, he speaks in monotone.
I bend down so I’m right in front of his face. There’s blood on his lip. I don’t know if it’s his blood. “What is it, Herb?” I ask.
Just then, Norm walks out of the med center. He’s holding a couple bags of blood, a clear IV tube, and a bundle of other medical supplies. I’m not sure what they are, but I think he is, so that comforts me. Abby will be all right, I think.
“It’s a lot of stuff,” Herb says.
“What stuff?” I ask.
“I just don’t want you to leave again, Jacky. Because sometimes I don’t think you’re gonna come back and when you’re gone Darlene is sad and I’m sad and I don’t like seeing her cry and I don’t like being sad, either,” Herb says.
Ouch. He’s right. I know he’s right, damn it, but I have to get a car. I have to get us out of here. The poor guy. Now I really feel like the world’s biggest piece of shit.
No one is looking, but I can tell Darlene and Klein are listening. I lean forward and hug Herb. It hurts me to leave again.
Jack Zombie (Book 4): Dead Coast Page 3
