“Bitch!” One of their companions—a big guy—leveled his machine gun at me. I flung myself to my belly just before a spray of bullets mowed at the gravel around me.
I decided it was time to bow out. I wriggled back across the rooftop, then skittered down the ladder. The boys and the dog were waiting for me.
“They ate them,” I blurted out the instant I landed. “They ate them!”
“We saw,” Dax said. He looked awfully white.
“That was…inventive,” Tony said.
“I didn’t mean to—I thought they’d move, but there was something with their faces, and—”
Dax grasped my shoulders, looking me in the eye. My God, he’d never forgive me—Dax, who thought everyone ought to be able to just get along—he’d probably throw me to the revenants after this. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, Dax, about—”
He squeezed my shoulders a little too hard. “Vibeke, this is a real bad time to lose your shit.”
I nodded. Keep the shit. Keep the shit. We started walking away from the parlor, and I tried to ignore the screams and moans from the other side of the building.
I kept waiting to wake up from the nightmare.
Hell, I’d been waiting to wake up for weeks.
I didn’t. I just heard their screams, over and over.
“You did what you had to,” Tony said as we walked. “They should have been more observant.” He waited a moment for Dax and me to catch up. “Wish we could get at that bike of theirs.”
“What, so you can break that one, too?” Dax asked.
Tearing. Chewing. Screaming. Skin ripping off bone and muscle. I couldn’t get the imagery out of my head. “They ate them. They didn’t look up and the things came around the corner and—”
“We saw,” Dax said. “What was wrong with their faces?”
I tried to remember some of crap I’d seen in the medical center, but kept seeing long, stringy sinew stretching from arms to jaws, and blood spewing out of ragged arteries. Holy fuck, I’m a murderer. “I don’t know…it looked almost like…”
“Evil stardust,” Tony said, quickening his stride. “It’s all evil stardust. And they’d have done the same to us. Those fuckers sent us the severed head of the guy who helped us. They weren’t trying to make friends. Remember that.”
***
At some point during the day, I realized we’d left the head in the cooler.
We could have at least done poor Eccleston the courtesy of popping him in the cranial cavity before skipping town, but between square dancing and feeding people to revenants, he’d been forgotten.
“What if he eats his way out of the cooler?” I asked once we’d slowed down enough to make conversation.
“Then he’ll sit on the floor gathering dust until the end of time,” Tony said. “He can’t exactly move.”
“Are you sure?”
“You think he’s just going to roll around like a tumbleweed, biting any ankles he comes across?”
Actually, that was disquietingly close to what I’d pictured for the head.
No one said a word about how I’d handled the biker kids. I likened it to extra compartmentalizing, really; before the end of the world, I shoved bad experiences and all the things I wanted to forget into a box and locked it up. I did the same thing with the meteors, the horrors that followed, and the accidental atrocity we’d just committed.
No, I reminded myself, the accidental atrocity I just committed.
The sky had darkened by the time we found a place to stay. I couldn’t tell what time it was anymore; it might be four o’clock or five, or even later, depending on what month we were in.
Funny, how time stops mattering when you have nowhere you need to be.
We finally reached the outskirts of Muldoon, passing two-story brick buildings that had turned gray with ash. All of them sported the usual locked doors and CLOSED signs.
“I guess it’s lucky it happened at night,” Dax said, trying the latch on the lone restaurant on the strip. Luca’s Pub was closed on Thursdays and Fridays, or so its still-visible business hours told us. “A lot of people were at home, asleep.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more zombies in pajamas.” Tony glanced both ways down the street. “I think this’ll do for tonight. We’ll have to be careful.”
The place seemed shut up tight, but that didn’t mean someone—or several someones—hadn’t locked himself up before losing his humanity and developing a taste for things like the flesh of the living. We peeked in through the windows, but all I could see were empty tables with barstools resting on top of them.
“Looks clean,” I said. “Dax?”
He went to work on the lock while Tony peered up at the sky. “Hurry it up, Boy Scout. I want to cover our tracks while it’s still light.”
“Maybe they’ll decide we can control the zombies, and they’ll just leave us alone.” Dax got the lock undone and pushed the door open. “Who wants to take a peek?”
“Ladies first,” Tony said.
“Oh, the gallantry here is overwhelming.” I drew my pistol and stepped into the darkness, twisting this way and that. “Anybody here?” I called, stooping down to look under tables. Nothing so much as moved, much less sprang or shuffled with outstretched hands. I whistled the opening bars of “The Imperial March,” which seemed like it ought to draw out any crazies in the area.
Nothing. “Seems clear to me.”
An immaculate bar stood on one end of the room, surrounded by tables and booths. Dax inspected the bathrooms, I checked out the kitchen and staff break room, and Tony spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the bar itself…ostensibly for possible evildoers, but I think he was just taking stock of the alcohol.
The refrigerators were all dead, but I found rows of canned and dried goods tucked away in the cupboards. My mouth started watering when I spied the first box of oyster crackers, and before I actually realized what I was doing, I’d scooped up several soups and some canned ham and chicken, and brought them out into the main room. “Can we stay? Can we stay?”
Dax snatched one of the cans of chicken from me, yanked the pull-tab, and scooped the contents into his mouth. “My vote is yes,” he said between gulps. “Is there more?”
I could only stare at him in horror. “I think you’re supposed to cook that, Dax.”
He shrugged, grinning at me in between bites.
We locked the front door and set up camp.
***
“So who do you think Luca was?” I asked later that evening, watching Dax add salt and pepper to what still resembled tomato paste. He hadn’t suffered any ill effects from the chicken yet, and had placed four candles underneath the saucepan to heat up soup, noodles, and water. The two of us had managed to plow through two bags of stale croutons while he cooked. “Owner? Just a name?”
“Check it on Yelp?”
Willing to play along with the joke, I dug my cell phone out of one of my jacket pockets. I hadn’t tried plugging it in since we’d left, but I pushed the power button, half-hoping it had retained some sort of charge.
The black screen mocked me. I set it down on the table and propped my head in my hands. “I feel kind of like Viggo Mortensen in The Road, when he and his son found that cache of food and supplies.”
Dax poked at the paste. “I think they also found hot water and a decent stove, didn’t they?”
“They weren’t dealing with the undead. Just angry cannibals.”
“What about cannibals?” Tony thumped a carton down on the table next to me. “Are we embracing cannibalism fully? I found some more candles.”
“Yes, and you’re first on the menu.” I stretched a hand toward the bar. Dinner might be uninspired at best, but a good hard drink sounded divine. “So are we gonna talk about that?”
Tony’s grin stretched across his face. “I dunno, are we?”
“Red goes better with soup,” Dax said.
And that’s how three idiots who hadn’t
had a drop of alcohol in weeks ended up with three bottles of the most expensive wine we could find.
The general Rules of the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland suggest not getting howlingly drunk if you aren’t hiding out in a cement bunker or in some sort of crazy fortified treehouse. You certainly shouldn’t get tanked when there’s a damned assault rifle within an arm’s reach.
No one ever said we were smart.
After the first round, we quit pouring drinks and just started swigging straight from the bottles. Shoving the booze down my gullet dulled my memories of the day quite effectively...or, more accurately, it made it easier to focus on other things.
Two hours and two and a half wine bottles later, I pointed unsteadily at Dax, who had made a third unsuccessful attempt to down some anchovies we found in the pantry. “And you call yourself a Blood Nut.”
Tony reached over and grabbed the gagging Boy Scout by the arm. “Dude, you gotta tell us what the fuck was up with that name.”
Dax hiccupped. “It sounded badass.”
“Bro, it sounds like a venereal disease.” Tony reached for his wine bottle. Upon finding it empty, he grabbed Dax’s and poured a good amount of it down his throat. “Doc, help me, I’ve got the blood nuts.”
Dax weakly tried to snatch the bottle back, but ended up nearly falling out of his chair. “I think it was originally Bloody Nuts, because the whole band idea was bloody nuts…even though, you know, we weren’t British…but we should have been, the British would respect Bloody Nuts…instead we gave Vibeke the runs…”
“We aren’t talking about that,” I said. I was maintaining my façade of sobriety well enough, but I was pretty sure I would fall over the instant I stood up. “The apocalypse happened. Of course I got sick.”
“Bullshit. You were sick before the world ended. You, missy…you…we made you sick. It was our terrible music, wasn’t it?” He tried to lean forward, but ended up knocking his empty bowl off the table. “I know we sucked. We tried hard, but we blew.”
They had sucked. The Blood Nuts had been the opening act to a truly terrible evening.
Evie began lapping up the residue on the bowl. I eyed her. “Is it safe to let her eat that stuff?”
“If it hasn’t killed us, it probably won’t kill her.” Tony successfully drained the last of Dax’s wine and let out a satisfied belch.
“Dude, you are so rude.” Dax pointed at me again. “There is a lady present.”
“Right, the lady that fed the bikers to some zombies.” Tony stopped laughing long enough to peer at me. “How’d you do it, anyway?”
I scowled at Tony, trying to remember why, exactly, I hung out with him. “Just led them over. They were very obedient. And those fucking bikers didn’t move.”
Dax reached for the wine bottle Tony had so recently appropriated, then made a face when it was pulled out of his reach. “Their skin was so gross. What was wrong with them?”
Their lesioned faces swam up in front of my face—I miss karaoke—and I pushed away from the table. “I want some water.”
Once I was on my feet, I had to wait a minute for the world to stop spinning before I felt my way toward the bar. We’d lit a rudimentary path through the tables, although that didn’t keep me from stumbling a few times. Luca, whoever he was, had stored several flats of water behind the counter, which I’m sure came in handy for the heavy drinkers that stopped by.
By the time I popped up with three bottles, the boys had made their way over to the counter and draped themselves over it. At least, Dax had draped himself over it; Tony just leaned unsteadily, trying to peer over the side. “There any cigarettes back there?”
I set a bottle of water in front of each of them. “Not that I saw. You smoke?”
“No, but that’s the currency in post-apocalyptic America. Alcohol, cigarettes, and women.” He reached over to punch Dax lightly on the shoulder. “Maybe we should stay put and be rich men, huh, Boy Scout?”
“Maybe I’ll stab you while you sleep,” I said. “Then you’ll be dead men.”
Dax squinted at me. “I don’t think she’s kidding.”
“She won’t kill us, she loves us too much.” Tony slapped a fifty-dollar bill down on the counter. “Bar wench! Three zombies, please, if you can figure out how to make them.”
“Well, bless your black hole of a heart.” I pocketed the fifty and stared at the copious amounts of bottles before me. “What’s in a zombie again?”
“Blood, guts, brains…”
“No,” Dax moaned. “I just want water.”
“Zombies!” Tony thumped his hand on the counter.
“Gimme a sec.” I found a laminated guide to some of the popular drinks of the pre-apocalyptic world, and set about gathering the liquors and add-ons I’d need for the zombies. Luca’s glassware and booze sported a thin layer of dust, but were in otherwise pristine shape, as if they had just been waiting for him to return and open up shop.
After we left, it might never be used again. What if we’re the last people to drink this stuff?
“There’s no apricot brandy,” I called. I rummaged around until I came up with cherry brandy, which I dumped in after the papaya and pineapple juices. Once I added the rum, I reached for a candle. “Okay, let’s see how this works out.”
I touched the candle to the tops of the drinks, and the rum caught. The boys made the appropriate impressed sounds, even Dax. I picked up the nearest glass and lifted it overhead. “To the undead.”
Tony nodded vigorously. “To the rotting, shambling carcasses that make our lives miserable, but left us this vast wasteland of glorious alcohol. Wanna pound it?”
“No,” Dax said.
“Go!”
Tony and I took them down. I’d put in a little too much rum; I could taste it behind the pineapple, lurking like stomach cramps after bad sushi.
***
About an hour later, Dax was sacked out under a tablecloth with the dog, and Tony and I were hunched over the bar, as drunk as we’d been at Clive’s wedding, and probably rehashing the conversation we’d shared then.
“And Ezekiel…Ezekiel…so spake, let the great smiting begin!” Tony waved Dead Mennonite Walking in the air.
Okay, I’m pretty sure a zombie-hunting Mennonite hadn’t been part of the wedding discussion. “Spake isn’t a word.”
“Says right here. Right here in the text. See?”
I didn’t even try to look at the small print. “I don’t read while drunk. It makes me dizzy.”
Tony hurled the book over his shoulder. “Fine. Reject my dramatic reading.”
I hiccupped. The booze had penetrated my brain enough to turn the entire experience into more of an adventurous campout than an effort to hide.
He propped his chin in his hand. “How did you go from being an EMT to Rock Weekly?”
“I graduated college. The magazine offered health insurance. Not that it matters anymore.” I reached for a bottle of Sailor Jerry, then thought better of it. “I forgot. Booze makes me tired.”
“Well, it’s like…ten o’clock. We’re usually in bed by now.” He checked the spot on his wrist where his watch used to sit and laughed. “Shit, does time even exist anymore?”
“Don’t we have to get up early tomorrow?”
Tony waved a hand dismissively, and almost fell off the stool. “Fuck, that’s a fucking strong drink!”
“Revenants…take no prisoners…” I uncorked the Sailor Jerry’s and dumped it right down my throat. Some of it splashed over my neck and onto the bar. I didn’t bother cleaning it up. Who was here to judge anymore, anyway?
“Fool! The precious liquor!” Tony snatched the bottle and took some down, then slammed it down on the counter hard enough to make it vibrate. “You can’t waste this stuff anymore, doll.”
“Don’t call me doll.” I rested my elbows on the counter. “Can I be serious?”
His mouth twitched. “Please don’t.”
“Those guys…I didn’t want to do that…didn’t
want them dead. I thought they’d notice.”
Tony patted my hand awkwardly. “They should have. Zombies aren’t quiet.”
“But I killed them.”
“No, the undead killed them. And ate them. You were just there. Kind of like accidentally watching a snuff film.” He leaned forward, a devilish smile crossing his face. “So how many rock stars went home with you?”
There’s some things even Tony can’t handle, and I figured this was his attempt at tactfully changing the conversation. I took the opportunity to reclaim the Sailor Jerry. “Are you propositioning me?”
“Nah. Just being annoying.”
I fixed him with my coldest blue stare, but he was starting to look a little fuzzy around the edges. “Why aren’t you propositioning me?”
I tipped the bottle back as he shrugged. “Honeybear,” he said, “think of poor Dax, wakin’ up and seeing us doing the sticky-icky on a bar.”
“Sticky-icky?” I laughed mid-swallow, and Sailor Jerry came out of my nose.
“Maybe it’s icky-sticky?”
We finally collapsed into a pile beside Dax and the dog in the wee hours of the morning, tanked out of our minds and glad of it. It was safe here, for the time being, full of food and booze completely untouched by the horrors of the outside world. It was nice to let my guard down for just a little bit.
It was a terrible mistake.
ELEVEN
I was in the middle of a wonderful dream about Thanksgiving turkey when something wet pushed at my hand.
I blinked a few times, and before long, a blurry vision of Evie licked my fingers, whimpering. I lifted my head and she wagged her tail, looking pointedly at the door.
“Can’t you hold it?” The restaurant remained as dark as ever; the candles had gone out, but the faintest gray light filtered in from around the blinds. I thought it might be mid-morning. “Dax, take the dog out.”
Dax gurgled and didn’t answer. He was surrounded by empty water bottles. Well, at least he’d kept hydrated.
Evie whined again, this time more insistently.
“Tony,” I said. “Let the dog out.”
Death and Biker Gangs Page 11
