by Micah Gurley
Kyle dropped his rifle and ran to his brother, who getting a good look at him for the first time, noticed wasn't conscience.
"Abe, Abe, wake up," Kyle said as he slightly slapped his brother's face. Kyle put his hand underneath Abe's neck, feeling for a pulse. A weak pulse pumped under his fingers. Not strong enough. He pull his own knife, slashed the ropes from his brother's hands and caught him as he fell to the ground.
Kyle lowered his brother, and for the first time saw the blood from his leg. Abe's jeans were ripped and covered in blood, which left a puddle in the dried ground around the two by four. Kyle panicked at seeing the amount of blood soaked in the ground. He tore the jeans away and saw the gun shot that had ripped through the leg, leaving a ghastly exit wound.
Kyle knew before he tied off his brother's leg that too much blood had been lost, but his heart refused to acknowledge what his brain was telling him. He tied the leg off as tight as he could, then checked his brother's pulse again. No better.
"Abe, wake up buddy, it's me," Kyle said, moving near the pale face of his brother. Kyle placed his hands on Abe's face. Cold. Soft. "Brother, please wake up. Please wake up. We can go now. We can go."
Kyle wasn't aware of what he was saying, wasn't aware of anything except his brother. He kept his eyes on him, but already felt the distance separating them.
"Please, Abe," Kyle pleaded, trying to warm his face. Abe cracked his eyes, the dark brown in contrast to the sunken paleness of his face.
"Hey brother," Abe said, his voice week, only a whisper. "Hoped you would come back."
"Of course, brother," Kyle said inches from his face. "I'll always come back, you know that.
"I know."
"Just hang on, we'll get you better."
Abe gave a small smile. "No, brother. Love you."
Abe moved his lips again, but no words came. His brown eyes stayed locked on Kyle, then closed, a single tear running down his pale face.
"Abe, Abe, stay awake! Please, brother, please don't go," Kyle said, his voice growing louder and more desperate, as if he could command him. "I love you too. Please don't go."
Kyle sat on the ground, Indian style, and pulled his brother's lifeless form into his lap, holding him close to himself, calling out to him, pleading with him to stay. He rocked his brother and knew that Abe had left him, but he couldn't let go of him. Not yet. Not yet.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, but didn't move from his brother. He didn't want any of this without Abe. He had nothing left. His world was gone. He couldn't breathe, as his heart threatened to crush him. Seconds passed. Minutes. Hours. He didn't know, didn't care. His attention only pulled when a voice spoke near his ear that the man wasn't dead.
The news jolted Kyle back to the world he'd let go. He kissed his brother on the cheek, and softly lowered him to the ground. He took a last look at his brother and stood. Around him, everyone was uncertain. His friends, battered and bleeding, stood with looks of shame and horror etched upon their faces. No one said anything. Tension and grief hung like a fog.
"Where?" Kyle said simply, his voice steel.
A few of his friends moved. Kyle spotted the biker on the ground, moving slightly, Edmund leaning over him.
Fury rolled through Kyle. He felt its power, pushing the crushing despair and sorrow of his brother's death, to a place where it stayed locked away. Again, his world narrowed to one person, this one, the reason for his pain. He walked up to the man, stood over him and looked down without mercy.
"Move," Kyle said.
Edmund looked up, his face a buffet of cuts and bruises. His eyes widened at the sight of Kyle, the friendly professor gone, replaced by something else.
"Kyle, we can't -"
"Move."
Edmund almost protested again, but Eric moved towards him, helping him get to his feet and back away, leaving the man's fate to Kyle.
"Kyle," a voice called out. Grace. He looked up, and spotted her green eyes locked on him. She didn't say anything else. Kyle saw the pleading in them, the concern, not for the man on the ground, but for him. His soul. Kyle wanted to weep in her arms, to protest the world. Instead, he turned from her, and looked down at the man who'd killed his little brother.
"Did you kill these people?" Kyle asked. Grace's eye's had done it, robbed him of his unthinking vengeance. He almost regretted letting it go. He would let the man answer, but they both knew what it would be. This would be about justice, not vengeance.
Laughter answered him. Dave looked up, his face twisting in scorn at the man above him. He would not beg, he would not go soft like Wes. He took what he wanted.
Kyle gave a single nod, his eyes hard and set, like he was granting a wish. He pulled his handgun and said, "I find you guilty."
Kyle pulled the trigger. He didn't miss this time. He looked up to those around him. Their expressions running the rampant of emotions. He looked for James. Already beside him. He turned to him, "Can you …?"
"I'll take care of it," James responded, voice steady. Kyle acknowledged, dropped his head and walked across the courtyard to the room he shared with James and Abe.
Kyle entered the room, dropped the curtain behind him and wept for his brother.
Chapter 14
A blue sky and bright sun greeted Neil as he woke up, his mind sluggish. He looked around; alone. He remembered now, anger surged through him at the attack perpetrated by Kyle, the sheer brutality of it. Kyle would pay, he'd be brought to justice.
Neil didn't know how long he'd been at sea. Two days? Three? He hadn't eaten, barely drank. He knew he wasn’t supposed to drink ocean water, but he couldn’t help it; the thirst had been too much. It didn’t work and now he was sick. The waves lifted and dropped him softly, the freezing wind whipping in from the ocean. Neil felt none of it. His mind stayed on Kyle.
"It’s not over," he cried out to the wind. "It’s only begun!" Neil threw his head back and gave a manic laugh. He knew something was wrong with him, but didn’t care. Only Kyle mattered now.
He gazed up, his cherry, red face scrunching in the sun. The sun and constant wind had blistered his skin. His bleeding and cracked lips formed a smile as he looked at the land that had teased him for days.
The diseased had finally thinned, moved off to wander somewhere else. He'd been waiting, desperate to reach land, to find water, but now he understood, it’d been part of the plan. The plan to help him see how things truly were. He was wrong before, though he tried to do the right thing, tried to help. He had a purpose now, a plan to set things right.
Strength wavering, he paddled to the pier where everything went so wrong. He tied up the boat, hobbled onto the wooden slats of the pier and found water in a discarded pack. He drank greedily, like a dying camel. He'd never tasted anything so good.
Scraping drew Neil's attention, the sound coming from behind him. One of his followers, a younger man, moved slowly down the pier, his sights on Neil. The man’s lower jaw was gone. In its place, a gaping pink whole, bleeding, with the stub of a half-eaten tongue flowing back and forth like the end of a water hose.
Neil didn’t react, didn’t move. He felt no fear of these things, not any longer. He reached down, pulled a Ka-bar from his waist and advanced to meet the man.
The thing was slow, too slow for Neil. He slid his knife into its eye socket, its foggy eye popping like a grape. Neil let the man fall to the ground, looking over its shoulder to see another zombie coming his way, drawn by the noise.
Neil stepped over the man, pulling his knife free and met the next zombie to challenge him. He didn't recognize this man, its face was covered in dried blood, except its eyes and nose; there was fresh blood there. He thrust his knife forward, aiming for the same spot, but missed and hit a bone. The zombie grabbed Neil's arm and latched on like a vice. Neil panicked, dropped the knife and tried to jerk his arm free.
The zombie stumbled forward at the jerk, falling to the ground, very much still fighting. It grabbed Neil's leg with both arms, pulling it towa
rds him until he latched on with his teeth. Neil thrashed and kicked, trying to free himself from the thing biting his leg. He looked for his knife along the pier, but didn't see it. He felt the zombie bite into his leg, its teeth breaking the fabric and tearing into flesh.
Neil lost his balance, hit the ground and used his other leg to kick the thing in the head. Nothing. His hand, scraping across the pier, ran over his knife, which he grabbed and leaned up to stick it in the head of the zombie. The thing laid still, but its work was done. Neil was bitten.
Neil laid back down, his energy spent. He closed his eyes, the implication of the bite sinking in. He was a dead man walking. He had to hurry now, he didn't know how much time he had. He leaned up, pulled the head away from his bleeding leg and got up. No need to wrap the leg, he was dead anyways. Only one thing mattered now: justice.
He got up and walked, painfully, back down to the boats. He scanned the bags on the pier, laying where they'd fallen in the panic to escape. Neil began to look through them. He needed some water and something to help him on his mission; he knew the perfect thing. He grabbed a bag, found water but not what he needed.
He finished the bottle, dropped it, then climbed into one of the boats they’d been planning to escape in. He ignored the mutilated, and body parts; there existence a reminder of what he’d lost. He searched again through the hastily packed supplies until he found what he’d been looking for. He grabbed it and cackled with delight, "Yes, Yes, this will work."
He grabbed supplies and moved to a different boat, this one smaller and tied to the dock. The boat was for recreation, only meant for a few people, but it would work well for him. He tossed in the supplies, checked the engine and threw off the ropes.
He pushed off the dock, letting the boat drift a few feet. He smiled, then pulled the white cylinder out of the bag. The air horn felt heavy to Neil, though due to his weakness or a full horn, he didn't know. He aimed the air horn away from him, directed at the shore and pushed the button.
An ear breaking sound came from the small bottle and Neil laughed at the simplicity of it. He would kill Kyle the same way he tried to kill him; Neil loved the irony. Neil waited another minute and squeezed the horn again.
He started the engine and moved the boat twenty feet, stopped and sounded the horn again. The zombies began to converge at the waterline, their groans of frustration easily reaching him.
Neil smiled at them. "Just wait, we're working together now."
Chapter 15
"Knock, Knock," Patrick called, pulling the curtain aside and sticking his yellow Mohawk head into the dark of Kyle's room.
"Yes," Kyle answered from where he was reclining on his wood made bunk bed, his mind lost in grief.
"Hey man, I brought you some breakfast. I got grits and sausages and an orange, which may be good or not."
Patrick moved into the room, trying not to stare at his friend. Kyle looked better, but his face still seemed pale, his eyes bloodshot and hollow looking. James had crashed somewhere else last night, leaving Kyle to mourn alone.
"Kinda early isn't it?" asked Kyle, throwing Patrick a bone. He knew what his friend was trying to do and though he just wanted to grieve alone, he couldn't.
"It's early, but when you don't have electricity and the world goes dark at five-thirty, you find yourself going to bed early and waking up with the sun, like the olden days I guess."
"Sounds about right," Kyle said vacantly. He didn’t know when he'd fallen asleep, but it must have been late. He hadn't slept well, his heart felt too damaged for that. He'd woken up about thirty minutes ago and had been brooding in the dark since then. "How's everything?"
"Good man, don't worry about that." Patrick seemed to hesitate. "How are you?"
Kyle didn't say anything. What could he say? He hadn't cried in years and last night, well, it seemed like a damn had broken, not letting up until he had purged his grief to the bricks that lined the fort. He felt better. His mother always told him that tears were nature's healing. Maybe so, but his heart still felt crushed, like lead had replaced it. He wondered if he even could recover from this. It was usually Abe that brought him out of his funks, but without him…"I'm going to be okay."
"Never doubted it, but thought I might have to take charge for awhile, get these guys in order. Slackers."
Kyle smiled. He could always count on Patrick to bring a smile to his face.
"All good, you got your breakfast then?" came a new voice from the door. Eric irritably pulled the curtain down and threw it on the floor, mumbling about needing to get a proper door put up. Eric seemed half beast as the candle Patrick brought threw its light across his bushy face. His hair, uncombed and unrestrained, appeared frightening in its race for freedom.
Irked, Patrick turned back towards the man. "I told you I was bringing it, you redneck oaf."
"Ah, he got you good mate," said Edmund following Eric through the door, holding onto another plate of food.
"Shut it you," snapped Eric. "Morning Kyle, thought we'd have breakfast with you. Not good to brood alone."
Patrick handed the plastic plate to Kyle, then sat down the end of the bed, making room for Eric and Edmund on James' bed.
"I appreciate that," Kyle said, amused at his friends' attempt to make him feel better. He tasted the grits and smiled again. He loved them and they had salt; even better.
"Never could get the taste for these grits," said Patrick at his feet. "They just taste like a weird version of oat meal."
"That's because you're a Yankee boy," wheezed Old Ben as he marched through the open door, plate in hand and white hair beaming in the darkness. "This here is proper southern food. Make room for an old man, Queen's spittle."
"Bloody rude," Edmund said, getting up and sitting on another bunk. Old Ben took the empty seat and began eating, greeting no one.
Kyle smiled again as he bit into his sausages and the ancient room filled with the sound of friends eating breakfast.
A few minutes later the scolding voice of Jasmine rang through the vaulted room. "You were supposed to just bring him his breakfast, not have a party."
"I didn't do this," Patrick said defensively as his wife handed Kyle a bottle of water. Grace and James followed Jasmine into the room, but both stayed silent. James because it was his natural state, and Grace because she felt like she was intruding.
Kyle, food forgotten, caught her eye and wanted to talk to her. Jasmine, missing none of it, came to the rescue. "Grace, come over here and sit. James you too, don't hover, you look menacing back there. Find another seat." Jasmine said directing her last to Patrick, who smiled good naturedly at his wife and went to sit beside Edmund on the far bunk.
Grace moved to Kyle's bunk and sat tentatively on the end. "You're okay? I mean, I know you're not okay but-"
"I'll get there," Kyle said quietly. Emotions rolled through him, wanting to break him down again. He had more he wanted to say to her, but everyone seemed to be staring at them now, most with smirks across their bruised faces.
"What now professor?" said Old Ben, his voice almost a scream. His hearing wasn't so good and he couldn't always tell how loud he talked. He looked up to find everyone looking at him. "What?"
"We can spend today recuperating. You guys look awful," Kyle said with a smile. He hesitated, his voice almost cracking. "James, are things ready?"
James gave a nod.
"Then we'll bury … everyone."
A deep silence followed, no one saying a word. Almost no one.
"He was too soft for this world," Said Old Ben.
"Ben!"
"No, No, that's not what I meant." he said, pushing out his lips. "He was too good, too kind. He was a good boy, but too kind. He's in a better place."
Kyle wanted to rise up and rage against Old Ben for saying Abe was too soft, but he knew what the old man meant. Abe was too kind for this world. He tried to picture him in a better place, if there was such a place, but selfishly, he just wanted him here.
"Ye
s, thank you for that Ben," snapped Jasmine as if he were Patrick. "Now, everyone out. Shoo."
The group got up, said their goodbyes and walked out, leaving Grace alone with Kyle. The two just looked at each other, the silence feeling more comfortable now. She placed her hand on his. "I'm so sorry Kyle."
Kyle gave a weak smile. "He would have liked you."
Kyle held her hand and thought Abe would be proud he hadn't let his demons pull him down.
***
The burial was a brief, solemn affair, with only a few words spoken. Cool wind whipped around the fort, the smell of salt stronger than usual, as Kyle stood at the end of his brother's final resting place. Next to Kyle stood Rich, his face busted and bruised. He turned to Kyle. "I liked Abe, he was a nice guy."
"Thanks. And I'm sorry about your father. "Kyle didn't know what else to say to the guy. He got tired of people telling him they were sorry, so he didn't want to say anything else about it. "What are your plans now?
Rich took a look around the fort, at the people moving back and forth, going about their chores. "If you don't mind, we'd like to stay here. None of us have anything to go back to and we're not sure we could get there if we did."
"We're happy to have you."
Rich nodded, turned to leave and stopped when he saw James approach Kyle.
"One of the bikers says he sees something," said James, holding a pair of binoculars.
"Let's go take a look then. Care to join us?" Kyle said to Rich, then turned and headed towards the stairs that led to the inner wall.
Kyle stepped up on the inner wall to find a slim biker standing before him. The man was all angles, more bone than anything. He wore a thin, Asian looking beard and had a lazy eye which looked to the side. "You're the professor?"
"I am. What's your name?" Kyle asked, holding out his hand to the man as he walked.
"They call me weasel," the man said, seeing Rich join them.
Kyle stopped walking and looked at the man. "Why do they call you that?"
The man seemed unsure as he answered. "Because I look like a weasel."
