As I stare at him, he looks up at me and screams. “Jack! Jack! You killed them. You killed them all.”
“Well, that’s not tr — ” Abby begins, but she catches my glare. Now is not the time. I motion Darlene and Abby over. Norm comes, too, but he moves like a kicked dog.
“Oh, Herbie,” Darlene says. “Don’t worry. Jack and Abby protected us. They had to. Do you understand?”
Herb stares at the concrete. The wind blows, and as it hits me I realize just how cold it is out here on this stretch of abandoned highway somewhere in the Carolinas. Nothing like Eden, nothing like Florida.
“Yeah, I understand, but they was just people like us,” Herb says.
Kill or be killed, my mind says. Even if it’s people just like us.
“Those people were like Spike and Butch, Herb. They weren’t good people,” Abby says. “They would’ve hurt us pretty bad. Much worse than the zombies would.”
She’s right and it helps lessen my guilt.
Herb starts to cry. His big voice sounding like thunderclaps, tears rolling down the corners of his eyes. I kneel down on the concrete, though I don’t have to because Herb on his knees is almost just as tall as me standing straight up, and I wrap my arms around him. Darlene comes from the other side and hugs him, too. Then Abby.
Norm sighs. “Ah, what the hell,” he says. I can hear how much he needs a hug in his voice. He can’t hide that.
And here we are — a family — sharing a group hug in the middle of the apocalypse, surrounded by rusting, forgotten cars and dead cannibals.
6
“Thanks, you guys,” Herb says. His arms are long enough to hug us all.
“R-Real cute,” a voice says.
I snap my head in the voice’s direction. It’s Froggy. He’s holding the shoulder wound, blood seeping from beneath his clamped hand. A spike of fear and regret runs through my system. How could I have forgotten about him? How could I have put my family at risk?
Norm levels the gun at the bloody cannibal.
Froggy is limping at us like one of the zombies. He spares a glance at the dead woman crumpled up against the barrier and his face screws up in pain.
Dimly, I’m aware of Herb’s whispering prayers.
“I’m g-gonna kill you,” Froggy says, his eyes bulging out, making his name have meaning. “You k-killed my friends, I’m gonna k-k-kill you.”
I put my hand on Norm’s weapon. “Not yet,” I say. I don’t think Norm would do it anyway. I don’t think he could. But Norm looks at me with a raised eyebrow and nods.
“That car,” I say to Froggy, “where’s the owner?”
Froggy grins, his teeth spotted with red, shining in the sunlight. He chuckles. “Dead…”
It was the answer I expected.
“Because you killed him. Ol’ Wrinkly was one of our tribe and you killed him like the rest. Shoved a big ol’ blade of glass through his skull,” Froggy continues.
Jesus, it’s always the same with these people. He knew exactly what I meant.
Froggy keeps walking toward us. I feel my muscles stiffen, ready to pull the trigger.
“I saw you, yes, I did. I see everything, pal,” he says, eyes bulging as if on command. “I see it all!”
I raise my pistol now. “That’s as far as you go.”
Froggy stops. “Aw, you gonna kill me, too? You should’ve already, huh? Yah, yah, you shoulda.”
“I’m talking of the man who owned that Honda before you put your zombie in it. Now, I don’t have time for bullshit.” My voice comes out gruff. “You tell me, and I’ll let you live. How’s that?”
“You’re gonna kill me no matter,” he says. “But not if I kill you first.” Kill comes out like keel.
“Could be,” I say. “But do you really want to gamble? Even if I don’t kill you, you’re gonna die. That wound looks pretty grisly and all your friends are gone. No one is gonna help you. You’re gonna walk along the highway for about a half-mile, leaving a trail of blood behind you for all the zombies to follow. They’re like sharks, you know? They’re attracted to blood.” I’m bluffing, I don’t know this. I’m just trying to scare the poor guy. I hate this.
His features change from cocky and in-control to the features of a man who’s just come to the realization that he’s fucked. “I g-got friends. They’re some s-still alive. All over the U-S-of A.”
I ignore him, knowing a bluff when I hear one. So I keep going. “Then when you’re running on fumes, you’re going to collapse and the world is going to go gray and you’ll die slowly and painfully…or worse. The zombies will catch up to you. You’ll be a five-star dining experience on the side of the road. If they could do anything beside utter that stupid death rattle and groan, I bet they’d thank you and say grace.”
Froggy chews on his bottom lip. He won’t look me in the eyes. He’s looking off to his right, probably picturing this happening to him.
“Now, if you tell me what I need to know, could be I’ll throw you a weapon and some painkillers. The hole you bastards crawled out of can’t be too far away, am I right? Could be what I leave you will be enough for you to go back there and die peacefully. Certainly enough to outlast a few zombies.”
I’d probably throw him a weapon and painkillers anyway. A way to recompense for my sins, for murdering his friends. Just look at the poor guy. He’s like a mangy dog, half-starved and near death. Put myself in his shoes, and I’d probably go a little crazy, too.
Froggy gulps.
Norm is looking at me with his mouth hanging open. “Always had a way with words,” he says, shivering. Good. He’s buying my act. Besides, I only speak the truth. There’s no need for me to kill this guy. Not really.
“So?” I say. “What’ll it be? A shot to the gut so you can bleed out with the rest of your crew or a chance at surviving?”
Froggy collapses, still clutching his shoulder. “Fine!” he wheezes. “Fine! Fine! Fine!”
I pull the hammer back on the revolver. “Fine, as in a shot to the gut?” I’m thinking Clint Eastwood, I’m thinking anti-hero. The jerk that saves the day.
Man, I’m totally going to Hell.
“No!” Froggy screams. His chest rises and falls rapidly. Blood trickles out of the hole in his jacket, staining the white stuffing of the winter coat red. “You’re talking about the nerdy, science man, yeah? The one with the broken glasses and the lazy eye?”
I look back to Darlene and Abby. They are standing side by side with Herb. Darlene nods. That’s him, she’s saying.
“Yeah,” I say to Froggy. Hope starts to blossom. Always dangerous.
Froggy grins again.
Norm lunges forward. “Let’s just end this dumbass,” he says, and Froggy flinches back, falling and moaning out in pain. I flinch, too. I’m surprised. A quick glance at Norm shows me he’s back to his old self, but I know better than that. I know if you look into his eyes long enough, you’ll see pain…and fear.
“No, Norm,” I say. Then to Froggy, “Go on.”
“He came t-through about two days ago, fell for our l-little trap. Jumper saw him first.” He points to one of the dead men on the highway’s shoulder. I’m assuming that’s Jumper. “And when he saw him, he told Blade and Blade said, ‘Dinner is served, boys,’ and we were about to light the fire and have a good meal.”
“Then what?” I say. Please don’t say you ate him. Please, God. I find my feet gliding across the asphalt, the gun in my grip getting tighter. Froggy’s face breaks open into a shrill scream. “You kill him and eat him like you were going to do to us?”
“No! No!” Froggy screams.
“Then what?” I shout.
“Old man was crazy, okay? He knew it was a trap. He had a gun and this mad look in his eyes. There was eight of us and he shot two. Blade wouldn’t back down. I told him to, you bet your ass I told him to!”
“Yeah, I’m sure you did,” I say.
“I did. But Blade is the boss — was the boss. We fought and lost, but the man
left his car.” Froggy looks on guiltily. “I took it for a joy ride, did that to it.” He coughs and a wad of mucus-y blood flies out of his mouth and lands on his chin. He wipes it away. “Please, man, just help me out here. I’m burning up and bleeding out.”
I tower over him, shrouding his face in shadow. I see my shadow’s outline rising and falling with my heavy breaths. I look like a monster, feel like one, too. “Where’d the old man go?”
“I don’t know,” Froggy says. “Just please — ” I swipe his arms out from under him and he falls on his back staring up at me like I’m a ghost. I step down on his shoulder wound, feeling the gore squish beneath the toe of my boot. I’m in a mad daze. This isn’t like me, but it is. I shouldn’t do it, but I have to. Froggy screams and screams. God, I hate myself.
“Where did he go?” I demand.
“Jack,” Darlene says.
Behind me, I hear Herb’s cries mixed with a constant la-la-la-la noise he makes when he doesn’t want to hear something. Sorry, big guy, I think, this is just the way it has to be.
“He went toward the river! Toward the Wrangler’s village!” Froggy shouts.
“Jack, the zombies are going to hear,” Norm says. He sounds uneasy, like maybe my methods of getting information are going a bit too far. “Best we wrap this up.” This time, in the stern voice of an older brother, the one I used to hate but now miss.
I blink harshly a few times, looking down at this odd man at my feet. I’ve come back down to earth. He is harmless, bleeding, and broken. Maybe at one time he was dangerous to me, but no longer. And he’ll talk. Oh yeah, he’ll talk even if I don’t beat it out of him. When your life is on the line and someone is able to help you, you’ll just about lick the sole of their boot if it means living another day. Just a universal truth.
I back up a few steps. “What’s the Wranglers?” I ask, my voice a little calmer.
Froggy is shaking rapidly now. The sunlight hits his face, showing me just how pale and near death this S.O.B is. “It’s the bad guys. That’s why Blade let him go because he knew the Wranglers were going to catch him. They catch everyone. Not me, though. I’m slick. Super slick.”
I smile, feeling a little relieved. If Klein can survive these assholes, he can survive the Wranglers. “Well, my friend, it’s your lucky day.”
“Huh?” he says.
And then I’m on him, pulling him up from the asphalt. He weighs next to nothing. It’s the large winter coat that makes him look much bigger than he really is. Beneath the poof, he’s probably nothing but a sack of bones.
“What are you doing?” Norm says.
“You can’t be serious,” Abby echoes. “We are not hauling this douchebag around. I mean, he tried to lick me.”
I shrug, holding Froggy by the collar in my left hand. “You want to meet the Wranglers without a peace offering?”
“Uh, if it gets this asshole outta my sight…duh,” Abby says.
I shake my head. “No, you don’t. We’ll tie him up, duct tape his mouth, and if he starts acting up, we’ll just leave him for the zombies. Easy.”
Froggy’s body goes rigid, but his head lolls. “Whatever, man, I’ll help, just gimme somethin for the pain. Please.”
Abby is looking at me with teenage defiance in her eyes. She crosses her arms. “Fine,” she says, “I won’t complain, but when he gets loose and murders us all in our sleep or tells his little tree cannibal friends where we are, I get to say ‘I told you so’ when we all meet up in the afterlife.”
I smile and nod. “Fair enough.”
“Oh, and one other thing,” she says, stalking over to me. She cocks her fist back and wallops Froggy on the left side of his jaw. His head jerks back and comes forward like a speed-bag. “That’s for trying to lick me,” she says. “Next time, I won’t go easy. Next time, you’ll be dead.”
Froggy shakes his head and brings a hand to his chin. “Wow, I think I’m in love.” Abby fakes another punch and he quickly adds, “Just kidding! Just kidding!”
Norm laughs. It’s a good sound.
“Help me get him into the back of the van, Norm. Maybe you can take a look at this bullet wound.”
The laughter quickly dies, and he sounds like a rebellious student who just got told he has to stay after-school for detention. He sees the look in my eyes, how serious I am, and says, “Fine, whatever. Jack’s way or the,” he points to the blood-soaked road, “highway.”
7
By the time we get Froggy into the back of the van he is all but passed out, his head lolling back and forth like a rag doll and his lips moving with no words escaping.
“Wow, you really did a number on him,” Norm says. “Long gone are the days of the heroic Jack Jupiter who helps distraught farmers bury their zombified relatives, huh?”
I shrug. “I did what I had to do.” I just wish I didn’t have to do these things. When I get down about this stuff, I just think of Doc Klein saving the world. I have to do these things for the betterment of a dwindling mankind. For the fate of humanity.
So, with a length of rope in my hand, I begin to wrap it around Froggy’s wrists.
Norm takes the hunting knife and cuts the rope.
“Mommy,” Froggy mutters, his eyes opening and closing.
Darlene, Abby, and Herb are getting situated in the van, but when Froggy spoke, Herb turned around and looked at me. He looks like he’s just crawled out of the grave, his skin ashy, fear in his gaze. I do my best to ignore it. Part of me believes I spared Froggy because of Herb, I spared him to spare Herb.
Norm cuts the fabric away from the bullet wound in Froggy’s shoulder. He leans closer and squints. “Looks like the bullet went clean through. Very nice of you.”
“So he’s not gonna die?” I ask.
Norm grins. “I mean, I hope the bastard does, but it ain’t gonna be from your weak-ass shot. Thought I taught you better than that.”
Thank God. I don’t need anymore blood on my hands.
“Can you fix him up?” I ask.
“I’ll do my best. I wasn’t a medic, though. I was a soldier. You know this.”
“I know, Norm, you don’t have to keep reminding me. Just get him cleaned up so we can get out of here before the zees get in.”
“Zees?” He snickers.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever, just get him to stop bleeding.”
“Like I said, I’ll do my best, but I ain’t wasting too many of our supplies on this bastard. I mean, he did try to lick Abby.”
“Damn right,” she says from the front of the van.
“Do what you gotta do to keep him alive.”
Norm stands at attention and brings his hand up to his forehead in a mock salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”
There’s my older brother…hopefully.
I walk away from him and go to the front of the van. Darlene is now leaning up against the driver’s side door looking out at the piled up dead bodies on the shoulder, piled up for whatever beasts find them. I shudder at the thought.
Darlene is smoking a cigarette. She’s not smoked — that I know of — for years, not since college. This is not good. Not good for me, and certainly not good for her lungs.
“Hey,” I say. She smells like sweat — it’s sweet on her. There is still dried blood on her hands and arms, but she has since covered up. “How are you doing?”
She looks at me, a blank expression on her face, and exhales a great cloud of smoke. Normally, I’d fan it away and make some snide remark like, ‘Why get cremated when you can just smoke yourself to dead?’ or something stupid like that, but now I don’t. Now, I just take it.
“I’m doing fantastic,” she says. I see she is trembling slightly. “Getting fondled by some creepoid and watching my boyfriend slay a family of people.” She puts a thumb up while chomping on her cigarette with her lips. “I’m doing A-OK, Jack.”
I don’t like this. Not one bit.
“Listen, Darlene, you had to — ”
“I know,” she says, cutting
me off. “I had to but I didn’t want to. I did it because I love you and because I wanted to save us.”
That’s exactly why I do these things, too, I almost say, but jealousy wins out. Ah, men, right?
“But Naughty Librarian, Darlene, really? She’s not supposed to leave the bed — er, I mean library.” I say instead.
“I didn’t have a gun, Jack. I had my tits and they proved to be a hell of lot better than your bullets, wouldn’t you say?”
I don’t know whether to be happy or mad. I mean, this is the love of my life. She let herself get groped — no, I can’t think like that. If it wasn’t for her, I would be dead and she’d probably be worse off. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation. God, I’m such an asshole.
“Do you think I wanted to do that, Jack?”
“I — ”
“Rhetorical question, dummy. No! I didn’t!” she shouts. I can sense Abby, Norm, and Herb watching us fight. It makes me uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I’m just sick of it,” Darlene says. She flicks the cigarette butt on the pavement and stomps it out with one blood-spattered shoe. “I’m sick of the pain and the violence. I’m sick of it all.”
“Darlene,” I say in a quiet voice, “that’s why we are going to find Klein. He’s going to fix this.”
“Bullshit,” she says. She stares at me and I find it hard to meet her eyes. “Bullshit and you know it. Save the world? Yeah, right. He couldn’t even save himself. Eden fell and he ran. Just like us. We are chasing a ghost.”
Ouch. I know she could be right, but I don’t want to let that thought invade my brain.
“I want to settle down, Jack. I wanted to do it before all of,” she waves her hand, signaling the carnage, “this. No more running, no more hiding. Just you and me and our happiness.”
“I know — ” I start to say, but she cuts me off.
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