This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes

by Jacy Morris

  "Come here, Walt," he said, "and bring that bowling ball."

  Walt did as he was told, and Allen felt slightly guilty at not actually remembering the kid's real name. As far as he knew, there were only thirteen people left in the world, and he hadn't bothered learning all of their names. He supposed he was just protecting himself, trying to keep the smell of smoke off his clothes and hands.

  Walt finished whatever game he was playing with Epps and Whiteside, and he rummaged through his backpack, lifting the 8-pound bowling ball out with a grunt.

  "It's pretty heavy, huh?" Allen asked.

  "Yeah," Walt said.

  Allen looked at the kid, measuring him, as if seeing him for the first time. He was gangly, but you could see potential in him. He was like a caterpillar now, but Allen could see the butterfly that might emerge. "You plan on keeping that thing? It looks pretty heavy."

  "Yeah," Walt said, smiling. "I was thinking about it."

  Allen nodded. He had expected as much. "Well, then here." He shoved his rope contraption into the middle of Walt's chest.

  He grabbed it and looked at it, trying to look pleased, but his confusion was obvious. "What is it?" he asked.

  Allen took the woven rope back from him and said, "Let me see that ball." Walt handed it to him, and he slipped the ball into the mass of ropes. He stood up and twisted the ropes a few times, and then realization dawned on Walt's face.

  "No way."

  Allen stood back as he lifted up the bowling ball. The cradle that Allen had woven for him was perfect. "Now you don't have to get so close to the Annies when you want to kill one of 'em. And with this rope, you can let the bowling ball do most of the work."

  "This is awesome. Thanks... uhh... I don't know your first name."

  Allen laughed at this. "It's Izzy, but you can call me Allen, my last name. Whichever one you feel like."

  Allen left the kid then, and he sat back down watching him test out the bowling ball. It wasn't perfect, but it was a damn sight better than having to run into the middle of a group of Annies swinging the ball by hand. He could get more power in his swing by rocking the ball back and forth, and if he swung it over his head and got the arc just right, he could pretty much demolish any of the dead that they came across. It was a weird weapon, for sure, but these were weird times.

  With that, Allen sat down and leaned against the wall. He pulled his camo hat low over his face and crossed his arms, tucking his chin down on his chest. Sleep came fast for him.

  ****

  Rudy and Amanda found themselves alone at the end of the hallway. They were quiet, both seemingly lost in their own thoughts. They had eaten already and then fallen into an awkward silence. Neither was tired, though the soldiers were bedding down for the evening. Time was moving slowly, but no one seemed to mind. It just meant they would be alive for one more day.

  Rudy fidgeted with his fingers. He had one thing on his mind, the same thing that had run through his head all day... Amanda. He thought of how to tell her what he was feeling, but every time he did, blood would rush into his face, and he would turn away from Amanda so that she wouldn't turn to him and see.

  The words were there, on the tip of his tongue, but he had no way of making them real. He couldn't speak them. He tried to think back to movies he had seen to remember how guys told girls they liked them, but all of the movies he had watched were action movies or horror flicks. In those movies, people just sort of had sex. To them it was as easy as waking up in the morning. There was no awkwardness. There was no sitting on the floor, flooding your face with blood at the mere thought of speaking your heart to another.

  He looked at Amanda. Her skin, which had been almost lily white when he had first encountered her, was now a red-brown. She chewed on her lip apprehensively, and he could feel the tension in her. Was she freaked out by him? Was he exuding some sort of "Uh-oh, this guy is going to hit on me" pheromone?

  Finally, he could stand it no longer, and he fled to the only place that he could, the restroom. It was dim in the bathroom. A scant smattering of light found its way into the plain, tiled room through a frosted glass window set high in the wall. The urinals were low to the ground to make it easier for little kids to use them.

  Rudy looked longingly at the sink, wishing he could just turn the tap and splash some cool water on his face. Out of desperation, he gingerly grasped the tap handle and twisted it. There was nothing... just a brief, dry, sucking sound, and then it was gone. He leaned on the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He was nothing but freckles and fat. He was nothing. He shouldn't even be alive.

  There's no way she could ever like you like that. No way. His heart ached so bad, that he thought he was going to cry. The emotions were things that he had never felt before, equal parts pain and elation. He felt like he wanted to rip his skin off in the hopes that this would let the emotions escape his body. He gripped the cool porcelain of the sink and squeezed his eyes shut. Stop being such a pussy.

  Rudy jumped at a touch on his arm. He spun sideways, away from the touch. His heart was in the back of this throat when he realized that it was just Amanda... in the bathroom.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "You were gone for a while," she said. Her lips were so shiny, just a faint hint of wetness. He didn't know why, but it did things to him. "I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

  He felt as if his entire body was just a giant sack of meat meant to contain the fluttering of a million moths. "I'm... fine."

  She stepped closer to him, and he could swear he could feel the warmth from her body. She reached out and touched his arm. "Are you sure? You don't seem fine."

  Her hand was like fire, the pads of her fingers branding his arm. He could say nothing. Her approach and her touch had the same effect upon him that headlights had on a deer. He was frozen. They stood that way for what seemed like an eternity, and Rudy looked anywhere but at her. Then, he felt her other hand turning his head by his chin, and he found himself looking into her eyes. There was something there, shining in those pools. She got closer to him, standing on her tiptoes, and then they were kissing.

  Rudy didn't know what he was doing, so he mimicked Amanda, their tongues touching. His mind raced, weighing, cataloguing, questioning, and he found himself frozen in time. Then she stepped away from him, and his world was changed entirely. On her lips, she took with her the old Rudy and left behind someone different, someone rawer, more real. He felt as if she had stripped him of his skin and laid him bare in that bathroom. He wrapped his arms around her, and she wrapped hers around him. They kissed some more. In a bathroom at the end of the world, he freed himself of his prolonged adolescence.

  ****

  Andy practiced swinging his new weapon, an 8-pound, orange bowling ball cradled in a lattice of rope. He had no idea why he had been drawn to the bowling ball in the first place, but it had called out to him, like the ring to Bilbo in the blackness of the caves under the Misty Mountains. The bowling ball moved in an arc. Once it was going, it actually didn't take too much energy to maneuver the thing around.

  He had to hand it to Allen. The rope cradle was an ingenious device. Truth be told, he had been thinking about getting rid of the bowling ball. It was too awkward and too heavy to be relied upon in a fight, which made the load not worth bearing. The only reason he had considered keeping it was because it had done something astounding. It had made him a man in the eyes of the soldiers.

  They called him Walt. It was a somewhat silly name, but he planned on going with it. Maybe this was just another part of becoming who he was. Maybe he was meant to be someone completely different with a completely different name. He was meant to be a man named Walt, not a boy named Andy. Walt was a badass name, right? It sounded like the type of dude that drove one of those giant Dodge pick-up trucks through riverbeds in commercials for some ridiculous reason, the type of dude that had a Budweiser in one hand and a woman's ass in the other while he steered with his crotch. Yeah, if they wanted hi
m to be Walt, that's who he would be.

  He twirled the bowling ball in the air, getting used to the ebbs and flows of its momentum. It was a pain in the ass to start the ball in motion once it got going, so he tried spinning to keep the ball moving. It was awkward, but he thought he was finding a rhythm with it. He had already discovered that an overhand attack with the bowling ball was pretty dangerous. He had almost brained himself and cracked the ancient wooden floors of the school pretty good, which drew another disapproving look from Tejada who sat up and glared at him, his sleep rudely awoken.

  Andy, or Walt, had just smiled at him, and Tejada pulled his hat low over his face, folded his arms, and let him continue his practice. No, overhead wasn't the way to go at all. Side to side, spinning the bowling ball in an ellipse, twirling to keep the momentum going, that seemed to work the best. He was almost able to keep the bowling ball spinning forever, but there was one transition that he just couldn't quite get right. His feet felt clumsier than he wanted them to be. Sweat dripped off his body, and after a final collision between his shin and the bowling ball, he decided to call it quits. He would need his sleep, and he wasn't going to get any better if he was tired. Besides that, his arms and shoulders ached, and he was developing blisters on his hand. He would have to keep his eye open for some gloves. Gloves would be handy for more than just spinning the bowling ball. They could also mean the difference between life and death when an Annie's bite factored into the equation.

  He lifted the bowling ball and placed it down next to his backpack. He realized he was breathing heavily, and his back knotted up with tension as he settled into his sleeping place. The others slept dutifully, their games over, their worries gone for the evening. He settled into place, feeling the sweat on his shirt cooling.

  Then he saw them, Amanda and Rudy. They came out of the bathroom looking flushed and... no, it couldn't be. He watched them through half-lidded eyes, as they returned to their belongings at the end of the hall. They held hands, and Andy couldn't help but feel a slight bit of jealousy gnawing at him. What right did they have to find love? While the entire world collapsed and burned around them, why did they get to have each other?

  It wasn't that he was attracted to Amanda. He wasn't. She was a bad person as far as he was concerned. He just didn't think it was fair. But, being a hero was never fair he supposed. Though they were completely ridiculous, and the thought of them having sex repulsed him, he decided he would let them be. After all, they were just survivors. They were like children, and Walt and the other soldiers were their protectors. He smiled at the fact that he had just thought of himself as Walt. He wondered what his mother would have thought at him having given up his given name, a name of tradition and family. He would love to see the look on her face when he told her he had changed his name to Walt. But that would never happen would it? He was sorry about that; not because he cared for his mother, but because he would never get to rub it in her face that he had become someone important.

  He closed his eyes and dreamed about telling his mother off. They were good dreams.

  Chapter 10: Popcorn Eyes

  The sun had gone down hours ago, but the night had fallen over them before that, the canopy of the trees above them blocking out the sun as it angled down to meet the earth. Their clearing became blue, grey, and then black, and in the darkness they sat still as statues, listening for the approach of the living and the dead.

  They had lapsed into silence, each person stuck in their own mind on the odd chance that someone was out looking for them. Lou thought that highly unlikely, but you never knew. It didn't hurt to be cautious. Lou listened to his heartbeat, pulsing in his earlobes. He was warm, flushed. He felt like he was on the verge of cracking, grabbing his weapon and just running straight into the compound firing. But that would just get them all dead.

  He had never been that great at stealth. He had always lived his life as straightforward as possible. If he had a problem with you, he would tell you straight to your face. If someone had a problem with him, he would confront them on it. No, stealth was not how he liked to operate in the world, but it was a necessity now.

  He needed to know how many people were in that compound. He needed to know what they were about, but most of all, he needed to know if Joan was alive. If she wasn't, they had no need to mess around with those people. If she was hurt, well, he didn't know what he would do. Most of all, he didn't know what Clara would do.

  "It's time," he whispered, rising from his spot between the giant roots of a tree. It had been a comfortable spot, but his body had slowed. He stretched his legs and his arms, getting the blood going again. He could only see a vague outline of the others, but he knew they watched him.

  "Maybe we should all go with you," Mort said.

  "No. It's easy for one to sneak in, but not so much for four." He popped his neck, and then said, "If I'm not back by the time the sun comes up, you should leave."

  "We won't leave you," Clara said.

  "Well, you need to. If I'm not back by the time the sun comes up, it's because I've been caught. If they catch me, then they'll know that you guys are out here. We don't know what Joan has told them, but they know we're here somewhere. We don't know anything about these people, except that they have Joan and seem well-armed."

  Lou couldn't see their faces, so he didn't know if they agreed or not. The wind rushed through the branches above, and a cold breeze made him shiver a bit. "I'm serious," Lou said. "If I don't come back, you have to leave."

  "We won't," Clara said, "so you just need to get your ass back here safe and sound."

  "Yeah, we're not leaving without you," Mort said.

  Lou knew he wasn't going to win this one. He left his backpack on the ground and made sure his boots were tied good and tight. When he was ready to leave, Clara came to him and wrapped her arms around him. "Good luck," she whispered.

  "Be safe," Mort said before pressing his hand into Lou's and throwing an arm over his shoulder.

  "We'll see you soon," Katie said before giving him a kiss on the cheek, which was odd, but not unappreciated. It was nice to know that there was something of a human inside Katie. She could be so cold at times.

  With their farewells said, Lou turned and oriented himself. He moved smoothly through the night, picking his footfalls carefully. As if the gods were on his side, the wind picked up, shaking the trees and the branches, hiding his clumsy steps as he pressed through the black forest. He tried to memorize his route, but he didn't know how well of a job he was doing. It was simply too dark. The sky was black above with only the occasional star for illumination.

  The trees gave way to the clearing in front of the compound, and he was greeted with a vision of a starry, moonless sky. He stopped for a second, awed by the amount of stars. When he was a kid, hiding on the streets while his dad and his friends partied the night away, he could only ever see a couple of stars, but, in this place, there were more than he could count.

  He only hesitated a second, and then he was on his way again. He had a job to do, and he didn't want to get caught out in the open. That would be death for him and maybe the others. He jogged to the left of the compound, keeping low until he was out of sight of the watchtowers by the main gate. In the darkness, he could see shadows atop the walls, backlit by the starry sky. He didn't think they could see him, and as he circled clockwise around the compound, they didn't move or acknowledge his presence.

  He moved closer to the trailers encircling the compound. Their windows were blacked out, but from inside the compound, he could see the orange glow of firelight dancing on the underside of two trees that shot up from the center of the encampment. He looked for an opening in the wall of trailers, but there were none as far as he could tell. This was going to be harder than he thought.

  Instead, he bent down and inspected the fill dirt that had been placed underneath the trailers. It was loose, and it would take some time to loosen it, but he could get in that way without exposing himself to the guards in
the watchtower. He began digging, using his hands to scoop the dirt behind him. Time seemed to freeze, and he had no idea how long he had been at it. Sweat ran down his face, and his hands were caked in dirt, the fingertips aching from his efforts.

  Digging was a strange sensation. It was something he had never done before. Growing up in the city, he had been bound by concrete, brick, and pavement. There was dirt in the parks, but the parks in his neighborhood hadn't been the type of place where kids would go to dig and play. They were the types of places that you stayed far away from, unless you happened to be with your father, but even then you probably weren't there to play. If his father was in the park, that meant business. That meant running sandwich bags full of weed and other things across to people waiting in cars. That meant keeping an eye out for the police.

  He was deep in his thoughts when it happened. He heard a twig snap behind him. As the wind shifted directions, he caught a whiff of something rotten, and he knew that one of the dead had stumbled upon his position. He sprang to his feet just as the dead thing tried to wrap its hands around his throat. Lou was able to shove his forearm up underneath the creature's jaw. In the night, he could hear the thing's teeth clicking. It was a big one, strong.

  Lou stumbled over the piles of dirt on the ground, and they both tumbled backwards, Lou on the bottom. His back struck the side of the trailer with a clang. Anyone inside would be alerted now. He had to finish this quick. He rolled to his side, hoping that no more of the dead were around. With the dead thing under him, its flesh hard and dry, Lou fumbled for the knife that hung on his belt with his free hand. He grasped the handle and pulled it free. He jammed the blade downward as hard as he could, but the tip skittered off the skull. Cold hands pawed at his face, forcing him to lean backwards.

  He reared back for another attempt, and this one skittered off the cheekbone. The zombie shifted under him, and Lou rolled to his side, coming to his feet, kicking up a cloud of dust. He readied his knife, but it was hard to see in the gloom of the night.