Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory

by Cotton, Daniel

  Brass holds the attention of his students as he casually strolls in front of the racks that store hundreds of firearms of varied size. He continues all the way to the assembly line of volunteers who are busy loading bullets. The only sounds they make come from cranks on their presses.

  “Today is basic weapons training. We are going to head back to Jasper and put you three in a controlled setting to take down a few corpses. How’s that sound?”

  Vida and Malcolm nod, while Player 1 responds with an enthusiastic, “Great!” He steps out of line and takes a few strides towards the stored rifles and handguns.

  “Player 1,” Brass says calmly. “I believe I said ‘basic weapons training.’ You won’t be shooting today.”

  Player 1 returns to the line, looking worried.

  A sweeping gesture from Brass ushers them out to where the Gunship awaits.

  Vida leads the way, feeling much better than when she awoke. Her thighs only bother her when she steps up to enter the bus. It’s her abdominals that really hurt. They feel tight when she sits. as if there’s something stuck between the muscles. After boarding, she realizes that while running from the dead, and after all she’s been through, she hasn’t taken a zombie down herself. Gabe and Mike had tended to the ones that wandered on to the property.

  “Good to see you all again,” Lady Luck gazes specifically at Vida in the long rearview mirror.

  The woman is dressed as if she’s going to a beach clam bake, if she could only find a ride back to the 50s. Vida tried to figure out how old Lady Luck is, but between the makeup and retro-look it’s hard to gauge. She estimates she’s in her mid to late thirties, but she certainly won’t ask the timeless beauty.

  Noticing the stiff movements of the trainees, Brass suggests they head topside to limber up. He runs them through stretches while they fight to maintain their balance on the moving tour bus during the short jaunt to Jasper. By the time they arrive, the three feel much looser. They cruise past the school they had visited yesterday and head deeper into town, all the way to the cemetery.

  Still on the top deck, everyone including Brass must duck when the double decker squeezes under the stone archway with barely enough clearance. The sight of today’s training grounds gives the students a chill. Gnarled trees and weathered tombstones surround them within the stonewalled field.

  “At first we tried to clear this graveyard,” Brass says. “But the dead kept rising like weeds, so we figured it’d be a good place to practice.”

  The three recruits look out over the gentle hills of overgrown grass. Between the willows that seem to mourn for the occupants, zombies walk among the headstones, heading to the bus at a hurried pace, as if they don’t want to miss their ride. Others linger in the distance, having not noticed the arrival of food. These dead resemble sleepwalkers wandering with their heads low.

  “These corpses are freshly sprouted from the ground,” Brass says. “They’ve never had a bite to eat. We’ve noticed the longer they go without eating the faster they are. Needless to say you’re in for a work out.”

  “We don’t get guns?” Player 1 asks.

  “Nope,” Brass says as Abby quickly gets them ready with their helmets and tape. “Don’t be that guy. You’ll appreciate this more if you have to work for it, actually feel what you’re doing out there. Pretend it’s a video game, Player 1. Your objective is to neutralize the enemy. Scattered around the level are weapons of opportunity, like power-ups.”

  The students descend the narrow steps of the bus slowly on their way to the next test. It begins under the shade of a willow. Around the trunk of the tree are granite benches where they find their first selection of melee devices.

  Malcolm chooses a machete. Player 1 selects an axe. Vida opts for a blunt instrument over the remaining weapons. She picks a baseball bat for its length and heft, leaving a hammer and set of brass knuckles behind.

  The dead are in such a rush they practically skip to the area where people once met fellow mourners to visit buried loved ones. They give feral moans as they draw near.

  “Don’t be afraid to initiate,” Brass says. “Go get some! 5,6,7,8!”

  Hesitation isn’t uncommon. To fire a gun at a corpse is the easy way, but the three will readily feel the damage they inflict, the sickening resistance their weapons will meet in the zombie’s flesh, the sloppy devastation they’ll leave behind.

  Vida steps up to the plate first. She greets a man whose burial clothes drape in front of him. The split up the back allows them to swing like an untied apron, revealing his ashen skin below. He lunges at her with bared teeth. Instead of biting down, he receives a mouthful of wood. All he winds up eating are his own canines.

  Vida pictures Brad taking the savage beating she unleashes on the ghoul. She imagines it’s the three men that hijacked the convoy. The corpse she batters becomes every zombie bastard who took Brandon away and robbed her of Vicky, Lloyd, her mother and father, her life and future.

  Not to be out done by a girl, the boys quickly psych themselves into squaring off against their own targets. Malcolm makes eye contact with a deceased bride. Her once white gown is caked with grave dirt and torn from the splintered edges of her coffin. Time has not been friendly to her. He keeps a tall headstone between himself and the shriveled zombie, poising his machete to strike, but he hesitates. All he can think is, Somebody loved her once.

  “Malcolm,” Brass says. “Hesitation is natural, but it could also get someone killed.”

  He brings the long blade back, but he doesn’t use it. With every panicked gasp he takes, he goes to slice the dead woman, yet halts. The ghoul keeps her eyes locked on him as he counters her attempts to round the stone. Every step she takes, he goes the other way. Being so close to food only teases her appetite, and she suddenly dives over the grave marker. Malcolm sidesteps and hacks out of reflex, removing her head.

  “Good work, Malcolm!” Brass says, though Malcolm remains frozen in his follow through. “There are more out there however. And don’t forget that their heads remain active. Give it a good stomp.”

  Player 1 had no trouble initiating. He delivered a killing blow to the top of a dead man’s head. Now he can’t remove the axe from the twitching corpse’s skull.

  “That’s a powerful weapon, Player 1,” Brass says. “And the top of the head is the hardest part of the skull. The younger the zombie the easier it is to get stuck. Try chopping them at the temples.”

  Vida was the first to attack the dead, but hers has yet to fall.

  “Blunt weapons work best when you hit the same spot,” Brass tell her. “You need to drive bone fragments into the brain. Tighten your focus instead of taking random shots at them. I do want to commend you on your dentistry. Removing their teeth is a great way to protect the team.”

  The three continue to take on all the dead that come their way. With Brass’s sage advice, they learn the most effective ways to use their weapons. They even trade to try different methods. They use the techniques they learned on the dance floor, how the dead move, to keep from being overpowered and get the zombies positioned where they want them. Brass watches with pride as they moved deeper into the graveyard, away from the safety of the bus and his words of wisdom. He likes that they stick together, keeping one another in sight and helping each other out.

  “Good bunch, huh?” Brass says to Abby. He notices Lady Luck is also on the top deck watching.

  “Yeah,” the younger man agrees.

  “And what about that Vida?”

  “She’s good.”

  “Looks good out there too, huh? Very cute.”

  “I guess,” Abby says.

  Brass remains silent as he gauges his friend’s reaction, remembering the bet they’d made over how far Vida would make it. He isn’t seeing what he was hoping for. The young man just watches the newbies through a pair of binoculars as they head farther away. Lady Luck catches Brass’s eye with a wry smile and a shrug that tells him she too is disappointed in Abby.

 
“I think we should celebrate her success with a chili cook off next week!” Brass says. “Or make it a cultural event. All Mexican, all week long. More beans than a body can handle.”

  “Great,” Abby says without enthusiasm. “The week I have to empty the shitters.”

  “So oblivious,” Lady Luck says, before returning to the helm below.

  “What?”

  “Abby,” Brass says. “I couldn’t help but notice that our little Vida doesn’t have anything painted on her helmet. A complete blank slate. Do you think you can help her with that?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to put on it.”

  “You could try talking to her.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Brass decides to drop the subject, for now. He calls to the pupils over a loudspeaker to bring them in. For the team’s good work today, and for the record pace in which they are progressing, thanks in a large part to Vida, Brass prepares a surprise for them as they board the Gunship.

  “All right, kids! You did amazing today! Who wants to squeeze off a few dozen rounds?” He indicates the heavy machine guns that line the top deck. Once the students give him a positive response, he shouts to his driver, “Double L, take us around the park, please!”

  The bus travels the road that encircles the graveyard, all the way to the far end.

  “Give me a broadside off the starboard, please!”

  The Gunship slows and comes to a halt at the bottom of a hill where over twenty zombies are milling about, unaware that the living were in the area until they see the olive bus. The dead swarm toward the right side of the vehicle as the three take aim and open fire from above.

  The .50 caliber weapons wail against the calm of the cemetery. Brass had taught them to aim low at first and use small bursts since the automatic weapons have a tendency to lift. Spent shell casings rain down as the recruits unleash their deadly salvos. It doesn’t take long before the deceased are put to rest.

  “See? Guns are the easy way,” Brass says. “Now, after you all get out and grab the shells that have fallen, we’ll push off.”

  “You’re kidding?” Player 1 asks with a laugh. “You have like tens of thousands of live rounds back at the armory. Leaving behind a few shells won’t make much of a difference, right?”

  Abby rolls his eyes.

  Brass just shakes his head. “Don’t be that guy, Player 1. We were off to such a great start.”

  “Be what guy?”

  “The guy that questions a proven method and challenges a simple request.” He grabs a handful of spent brass casings from the floor and holds them out in his palm. “Each of these represents a zombie that’s no longer a threat to us, or anyone. The problem is each also equals twenty, fifty, perhaps a hundred more that are still up and active. We have barrels full to the top of these, but that’s a lot of hypothetical corpses still at large, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Player 1 says sheepishly.

  “Glad we’re on the same page. Go pick up my brass so we can get outta here. Tomorrow is your final. Today you can hang out at the armory and learn about the guns and loading ammo.”

  ###

  Loading ammunition is a tedious yet necessary process. There are many steps required to take a discarded casing from spent to live again. The old primer must be removed, it must be polished and beveled, a new primer is inserted, then the proper amount of powder is put in before it is sealed with a fresh projectile.

  “While we can reuse the brass, powder and primers are not a renewable resource. Many of the lugs we load into each cartridge have been made by our own people. Many things can be melted down and cast into the right shapes and sizes, from silverware, to car parts, and bright copper kettles!” Brass explains with glee.

  “Most people, mainly guys, gravitate towards the larger calibers. I suggest working your way up if you haven’t much experience with firearms. In terms of handguns, I opt for a smaller size for accuracy and a better rate of fire.”

  Player 1 heads straight for a .357 once they have had a quick lesson from Abby about gun safety. Malcolm finds an assault rifle he would like to try out since Brass told them they’d get a chance to use them if they wish. Vida considers what Brass said about smaller guns. He also suggested they try to stick to revolvers if they don’t want to spend the time collecting shells, so she chooses a snub nosed .38.

  Brass leads them on foot out through the winding valley of rubble and down Main Street Rubicon until they come to a wooded area.

  “We set up devices to ensnare the dead along the tree line,” Brass tells them as he points across the field.

  Zombies hang between the trees like knotted marionettes. Barbed wire holds them aloft, tangling them even worse the more they thrash and fight to head toward the living. Some are caught in jungle gyms made out of tractor blades, and they’re too dimwitted to pull themselves off.

  “Why is that one so slimy?” Malcolm asks, pointing at a corpse that doesn’t look dried out like the others.

  The creature’s skin glistens under the sun. His flesh is bloated and stretches against his rotten clothing. Where the other zombies are grey in color, this former man has an odd green hue.

  “He’s not from around here,” Brass says, happy to add a new lesson to this unscheduled field trip. “Where do you think he’s migrated from?”

  “A swamp,” Vida says.

  “Good! We have seen many corpses wander our way from various places and climates. Some are dried like jerky from the desert heat. Our local dead have a more natural rate of decay--not too wet, not too dry, not too hot, not too cold. This man is plump and juicy, clearly from a very wet and warm region. Notice the green coloring. That’s mold. If you look closer you might even see moss or lichen sprouting from where he rubbed against a tree on his way out of the bayou. We’ve even seen nomadic zombies with mushrooms growing out of their ears.”

  “So have fun with it, kids!” Brass says while heading off. “After tomorrow, it’s all on the job training. Vida, get that helmet prettified. Abby said he’ll help you if you’d like.”

  After identifying the water logged zombie’s home of origin, Vida gets the honor of putting him down. One shot through the head renders him inert, leaving only his mildew stench to offend their noses. She can’t help but feel unsatisfied by the immediate results when using a gun. She would prefer to use a bat or any other weapon that gives her the tactile sensation of her actions. These things robbed her of her life. She was supposed to be with Brandon and the rest of the Dogs of War, supposed to finish school and have a future. Now all she has to look forward to is revenge.

  “Are you all done?” Abby asks when he notices she doesn’t call dibs on any of the other trapped corpses.

  “Yeah,” she says, not wanting to admit that she’d much rather bash in the skulls of the dead. She waits for the others to finish. “So you want to help me with my helmet?”

  “Sure. I’ve painted quite a few. Even did Lady Luck’s Gunship. What would you like?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “That makes it a lot harder. Tell me what you’re into.”

  “Music. I play guitar. My Grandmother taught me.”

  “What kind of music?”

  “I like all kinds. My abuela played in an all-girl mariachi band.” She hands over the helmet. “Not much to go on, is it?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Player 1 and Malcolm finish off the dead, then without being told they pick up every spent shell before returning to camp. Vida and Abby walk together.

  “Everyone says you did a lot of the murals outside the market,” Vida says. The plywood plane she refers to is covered with messages of hope and tributes to the fallen.

  “Yeah, folks have a lot to say but can’t always express themselves. I’ve become the go-to graffiti guy.”

  “Do a lot of tagging before all this?”

  “Nothing illegal,” he says. “I used to do custom paintjobs on the side to make extra money. I wanted to be a tattoo ar
tist, but it’s a hard thing to break into. It’s funny. Everyone asks me to put up names of the people they have lost and miss, messages about a brighter tomorrow and better future, but I believe my future is better now. Before all this I was in a job I hated, trying to make payments on a truck that I only needed to get to my job. What do you call that? A vicious cycle? Anyways, now I have a purpose in life. I actually feel like I’m making a difference.”

  “You are,” she says.

  While walking through the chasm of debris, their arms gently brush against one another.

  At the end of the twisting path, Abby takes the weapons from the recruits. “I’ll get these stored. You guys are off for the night. I’ll see in the morning.”

  ###

  Abby stares at the blank canvas that is Vida’s helmet. He visualizes an image and plans the best way to illustrate it. His inspiration sprang not only from her words but from old tattoo magazines. He heads out of the armory to the motor pool where his airbrush kit is and finds Brass sitting on the tarmac with a bunch of children, teaching them how to shine shoes.

  “Why are you shaving the boots?” a girl asks as he lathers shaving cream on to a set of combat boots he took the laces out of.

  “These are factory new, Alice,” he tells her. “There is a protective layer of oil on the leather that makes it difficult to get a decent shine on. Acid in the shaving cream will eat that oil away.”

  “Why are we shining boots anyway?” a boy whines.

  “Because you asked me if you could help,” Brass reminds him. “You don’t have to.”

  The boy remains, since all of his friends stick around.. “Does shining the boots keep the zombies away?”

  “Oh, of course. Zombies hate shiny shoes.”