And what is our goal? There has to be more to our future than being holed up in a cabin with a burly nurse and a beautiful but psychotic female gun nut. I have seen the planes overhead. Where are they going? It’s almost as if we have been abandoned by the pilots and their passengers and the world that remains for us is one in which any former population center is uninhabitable because of the zombie swarms, and the farther we get from the swarms the more likely we are to run into old guys with guns who have been fantasizing about the breakdown of civilization for a long time.
A door slams so hard the house shakes. I am jolted so I listen but I hear nothing. Eventually I leave my room and take my empty glass to the kitchen. I see Justin still sitting on the couch. “Everything alright?” I ask.
He looks about to laugh and says, “Good times, good times.”
19→FATHERLESS CHILDREN
The next morning as we wind our way down the driveway, we find a fallen tree blocking the road. “Dammit,” Maggie says. Her tone changes when a second tree falls behind us. A hail of bullets comes down upon us as she pulls me below the dash with her.
She wrestles with her AK. I scramble to grab a gun myself since Justin is not with us. He decided to stay behind as she and I planned to do a quick reconnaissance of the neighborhood and he wanted to organize our drug stash. We didn’t get very far, no more than a couple miles, when we found people who just don’t seem to be very nice or welcoming.
When I finally get ready to return fire, Maggie grabs my arm and says, “Shhhh.” The guns have gone quiet. I peek above the dash and see no one. Our opponents are concealed and shooting our way out doesn’t look so promising. Driving our way out not a good bet either.
Finally, we hear a voice. “Just give us the girl, and you can live.”
Another voice says, “Both of you, step out of the truck.”
I look at Maggie. She shakes her head.
A third voice says, “Out of the truck or the next tree drops directly on your truck.”
“Don’t you dare scratch my truck!” Maggie screams. “Out,” she says to me. We get out, still holding our weapons, which the voices immediately yell at us to drop. We do.
Our attackers start stepping out of the forest. They are children. All of them boys, middle school age and younger. They’re all carrying hunting rifles and sidearms. The apparent leader struts straight up to Maggie. He’s a redheaded kid with a scowl on his little face, wearing a Detroit Tigers sweatshirt. On the back of his hand is a crudely-drawn skull and crossbones. In sharpie.
He eyes Maggie up and down in a manner completely lacking in subtlety. His face is on a level with her chest and that’s where his eyes linger the longest.
“Nice,” he says.
“Get your eyes off me, you frickin’ pipsqueak!”
“Be nice to me, I own you now.”
“Cheeky bastard,” I say.
He looks to me. “What’s in the truck?”
“Stuff. Our stuff.”
“Ours now,” he says. “Thad, drive the truck to our fort.” Another kid with a rifle, the beginnings of peach fuzz on his cheeks, steps forward from the line and says to Maggie, “Keys, please.”
She tosses them to him. “Knock yourself out. Good luck driving over the trees.” He stops and looks at the fallen trees that have trapped the truck on that stretch of road.
“The trees,” he says to the Tiger kid.
All of the boys are looking at the fallen trees now, their faces showing the same kind of confusion they must have shown in their 6th grade math class last week.
One says, “Just drive over it. It’s probably got 4-wheel drive.”
Another says, “We can probably try to push the tree out of the way.”
A third says, “My dad’s friend owns a tow truck.”
Then we hear, “Let’s just blow the truck up.” That one gets more than a couple endorsements from the crowd.
Maggie turns to me. She has this patient and somewhat explosive look on her face like she gets when she’s dealing with people she considers to be substandard. She shakes her head slightly. Then she says to the Tiger kid, “You, what’s your name?”
“Seth,” he says defiantly.
“Seth,” she repeats. “You’re not going to blow up my truck.”
“Why not? I can do what I want. You’re not the boss of me. I’m in charge, and you’re going to be my sex slave.”
“Wait, you know about sex?” she says. “Seriously? Who told you about sex?”
“I know everything. It’s all on the Internet.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You probably just stopped drinking your mother’s milk last year. You probably don’t have a working weiner.”
“It works just fine,” he responds angrily. “James, duct tape her hands.”
And so this kid named James steps up with a roll of duct tape and takes a painfully long time trying to unravel enough of the tape to do anything with.
“Can we call you Jim?” I say.
“No,” he says, distracted. “My name is James.”
“But Jim is the nickname for James. Everyone’s allowed to call you Jim.”
“No, they’re not. My official name is James. It’s what my parents put on my birth certificate.” He gets some of the tape going, but it’s just a thin strip, as the main bit of tape tore lengthwise. He gets mad and tries to drop the strip, but it sticks to his hand and he ends up frantically trying to brush it off against his pant leg.
Maggie, trying to stifle a laugh, jumps in and says, “But your birth certificate is a legal document that your parents signed, so it doesn’t count anymore. They’re dead, right?”
“You don’t know that!!!!” he screams. He throws the tape against the side of the truck. As it bounces off, he storms into the woods.
Seth says to another kid, this one with darker skin and curly hair, “Todd, do the tape on her hands.”
So Todd starts struggling with the roll of tape, saying, “God, what did he do? This tape is a mess. Does anyone have a knife?”
One of his comrades steps forward to offer him a jackknife.
“So Todd,” says Maggie. “How did your parents die?”
Todd stops struggling with the tape and glares at Maggie. “Don’t you talk about my parents,” he fiercely says.
“Did your mom eat your dad or your dad eat your mom?”
“Shut the heck up!” he yells. Then he turns and pleads, “Seth!”
Seth, reminded of his leadership role, says, “shut up or we shoot your friend in the leg.”
“Why the hell would you shoot me in the leg? I wasn’t saying anything? What would that even accomplish?”
“Well, I’m not going to shoot her, because she’s my sex slave. And we’re going to kill you later on anyway. You’re not what we need because we’re not gay!” He says the last word with true vehemence.
“Wow. True hater,” says Maggie.
“Just stop talking, both of you,” says Seth. “Or the ugly guy gets it.”
“Hey!” I say. Fucker. Whatever. We go quiet for a while as several of the boys try to tug one of the trees out of the way and Todd struggles with the tape. He finally gets it going enough to start wrapping it around Maggie’s hands. Not her wrists. Her hands.
“What the hell,” she says. “Where did you learn to do this? Didn’t you ever watch TV?”
“Stop giving me negative talk,” says Todd.
“Ouch, negative talk,” she says. Her eyes sparkle as she adds, “What was your dog’s name?”
“Ozzie,” he says quietly.
“Did your mom or dad eat him?”
“Seth!” he yells. The erstwhile leader steps forward and points his pistol at my legs.
“Hey!” I say. “Not cool.”
His arms are shaking. He closes his eyes. Not a good sign. I jump aside as he fires. He hits me anyway. “Fuck!!” I scream, falling to the ground.
“Both of you shut up!” yells Seth. “We’re in charge
now. The grown-ups are all gone. And you have to do whatever I say or else you’re going to die!”
“I am not going to be your sex slave,” says Maggie coldly.
“You will too!” he shouts. “You will or I’ll shoot your friend’s other leg.”
Meanwhile I’m on the ground, clutching my leg. He hit me in the calf of my left leg. It hurts like a sonofabitch. I am moaning and screaming.
Then he steps closer to her and grabs one of her breasts while pointing his pistol at me again.
“This isn’t going to end well,” she says.
Behind him, his boys have brought their chainsaw from the woods and are going to start sawing up the tree that is blocking the road.
“He needs help,” says Maggie. “He needs a bandage.”
“We don’t have a bandage,” says Seth.
“We do, in the back of the truck.”
“Okay, get a bandage, but no funny moves,” Seth says.
“Like dabbing?” says Maggie.
“Shut up,” he says.
“How am I supposed to get a bandage when my hands are taped together?”
Seth looks at her. Todd looks at Seth. The little one comes back out with his jackknife. They start sawing away at the tape. “Ouch! Watch the fuck out!” Maggie pulls her hands away and starts tearing at the tape with her teeth. Finally, she gets enough of it off so she can separate her hands.
“Hurry,” I say, grimacing in pain.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, pulling off more of the tape.
Seth says, “Just a bandage. Nothing else.”
“I’m going to grab some hydrogen peroxide, otherwise he’s going to die of infection.”
“We’re going to kill him anyway.”
“Yeah, but if he dies of infection there’s going to be a horrible smell. A smell so bad it will stick to your skin for years. You’ll smell like a Nazi death camp.”
“Okay, fine, get the hydrogen… whatever.”
So Maggie starts digging in the back of the pickup.
“Hurry up,” yells Seth.
“Okay, okay,” she says, setting the hydrogen peroxide on the side of the pickup. She pulls herself deeper into the pickup, swearing as she searches for bandages. “Where the hell?” she says to herself. The sound of the chainsaw takes over.
I see blood on my hands. It’s my own, and I get sensitive about that. I say, “I’m bleeding out! Hurry!”
“Alright alfuckingready!” she responds.
“Here it is,” she says. I look up in relief. Only it doesn’t look like she has the bandages. She has an AK-47. And she leaps from the bed of the pickup, firing before she even hits the ground. Seth’s head explodes in a spray of gore. Todd goes down, eyes wide open in disbelief as a pair of holes appear on his sweatshirt.
James grabs his belly and tumbles. The little kid with the jackknife raises his hands in surrender and his jaw flies off. Maggie saves the chainsaw gang for last. They haven’t heard the gunfire. Four boys are standing in a semicircle while one holds the saw, which is clearly too big for him.
She stands and surveys the scene, making sure there’s no one she’s overlooked. And then she steps up to the chainsaw spectators. They’re boys of 8 and 9, perhaps. She pops them in the heads, one at a time. Two others turn and see her. They watch but they have no response at all. No expression on their faces as they die.
Finally, the last boy, the one with the chainsaw, takes a break and shuts off the saw. He turns around and sees Maggie’s gun barrel two feet from his face. He looks down and sees his friends. All of them with their heads and bodies torn apart, the blood puddling around his shoes.
His jaw quivers as he looks back at Maggie. “Finish the job,” she says coldly.
He is frozen, the only movement his panicked breaths.
“Cut the fucking tree,” she says.
He slowly turns back to his saw and gets it going. He completes the first cut and half turns to look at her. She gestures to a spot about 10 feet down the fallen tree, and he starts cutting there as well.
Figuring no one is coming to my rescue anytime soon, I pull myself to my feet and lurch over to the truck. I pull up my pant leg and look at my calf. It’s bleeding pretty good but looks like a deep scrape more than anything. No hole. No bullet inside. I pour the hydrogen peroxide on the wound. I scream. Maggie looks back, nods. I start looking for the bandages she never found.
The chainsaw winds down and the last kid stands straight. There is blood—not his—spattered on his hoodie. Maggie says, “Well, push it the fuck out of the way.” He sets the saw on the side of the road and puts all his weight into pushing at the log. Slowly it moves, then faster. It eventually starts rolling and he steers it to the side of the road. He stands straight. He looks down the road, as if he is just now thinking of escape. But Maggie steps closer with her AK.
“Where’s your fort?” she says.
“Down… down the road. There’s a barn… a farmhouse by the lake. There’s a flag we put up. A pirate flag.”
“Are there people there?” she asks.
He nods.
“Were you going to get a sex slave too?”
He nods slowly. “Seth said.”
She stares at him long and cold. I just finish wrapping my calf. I stand straight and say, “Maggie. Enough.”
She doesn’t appear to hear me. Her gun barrel lowers till it’s pointed at the boys crotch. “Do you want to know something?” she asks him.
He nods.
“Do you want to know what rape feels like?”
His face is like a bad wax model of himself. She pulls the trigger. He screams and rolls.
“Maggie,” I say, my voice torn by emotions I can’t even begin to name.
She looks at me and she doesn’t even look like herself right now. She tilts her head to the truck. “Let’s go.”
We drive over some of the bodies and peel out when we hit open road. I am numb. Finally, I say, “Did you have to kill them all?”
“One’s still alive,” she looks at me, “for a while.”
“Did you have to?” I repeat.
She doesn’t answer. Her jaw is set hard as she pushes the truck faster and faster. Then she slams her fist on the dash and says, “This flu? This zombie flu? It’s the end of the world but it’s been a bad world. A fucking bad world. But it also might be the start of our new world. And we’re not going to have any of that bullshit in our new world.”
20→PERTAINING TO A LAND-BEAST
We find the camp of the boy pirates about two miles down the road. A chubby boy left behind as guard steps out on the porch to tell us to leave or we’ll be in trouble. He’s holding a shotgun but doesn’t look comfortable with it. Maggie steps out of the car, checks her safety, and slowly approaches the boy.
“Stay back,” he says. His voice shakes. He probably doesn’t realize those are his last words.
“I mean it, stay back!” he yells…. Okay, so those are his last words. Maggie shoots him in the face. He drops as if the air were let out of his personal hot air balloon.
She grabs his shotgun, breaks it open, says, “loaded,” and hands it to me. We go inside. The girls are locked in a back bedroom. Boards are crudely nailed across a window. There are six of them. One is probably 4 years old.
“Are you rescuing us?” says one of the older ones. She has a ponytail and looks like she needs a bath.
“Yeah,” says Maggie. “You’re free.”
We realize we don’t know what to do with six little girls to keep them safe. We bring them some food from the truck. We gently quiz them to see if any might still have parents that are alive. No go there, though some are still hoping.
Finally, I ask, “Does anyone have a grandpa or grandma that lives nearby?”
Two girls do. “Do they own guns?”
“My grampa has lots of guns but they’re in a safe and we’re never allowed to even go into the room where the safe is. It’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, that’s good,”
I say, looking at my shotgun and thinking of all the dead boys that we left out there.
They ask us where the boys are and all Maggie says is that they won’t be mean to them ever again.
“Where’s your grampa live?” I ask the one. She’s wearing an orange shirt and seems like the take-charge type of 10-year-old.
“It’s a white house with a fence all around it. It’s on the way to the Dairy Queen.”
“The way from your house to the Dairy Queen?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is your house? Do you know the address?”
She shakes her head.
“Is it far from here?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you know which way it is?”
She stares at me. No longer seems to be taking charge. Just another 10-year-old folding under pressure. Kids nowadays. And to think it all started with participation trophies.
And so it goes. We figure out it’s her mom’s father we’re looking for. But she doesn’t know the last name. Eventually we find the nearest Dairy Queen on Google. Three miles away. Plan A is that we drive there, and hopefully the girl, June her name is, remembers which way to grampa’s.
It takes some doing, but we are able to squeeze all into the pickup cab. Two in the front between us and four in the back. We had to move a lot of guns. This was after we brought the girls out the front door. Probably a bad call, that, because we all had to step over the fat kid who Maggie shot in the face. None of the girls seemed to freak over it. I’m guessing that’s a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD. I’m guessing every alive person in America has it right now. And probably most of Canada.
The drive to Dairy Queen is uneventful. Thank god. It’s closed, though. Eva knows which road to follow from here, so that’s worth celebrating. First we break into the DQ, kill the lone remaining employee, and give the kids cones and Blizzards.*
[*=Probably a trademark, but who’s alive to sue me?]
I try to make myself a Peanut Buster Parfait* [ditto], my own personal DQ thing, but I don’t have the technique down. I think I put in too much ice cream, so it’s too crowded to add all the chocolate and nuts I want. It overflows. Maggie doesn’t want any.
The World Itself (Book 1): The World Itself Departed Page 11
