“That was true before as well,” Ram said. “Nothing has changed except scale. The problems are basically the same: disease and hunger and war. Life has always been hard. That's why we look for happiness in it. And that hasn't changed either. We look for love and friendship, and we look for those things that make us smile or laugh. None of that has changed.”
“But…it has,” Julia said through new tears. She pointed at the low mounds of dirt. “Look at them! They were everything to me. I wouldn't want to replace them even if I could.”
“You're right, you shouldn't,” Ram agreed staring down at the graves and wondering if anyone would bury him when he died. Probably not; he'd be left to be eaten. He sighed and it was for himself. For just a few minutes there, as he had spoken, he felt like his old self. Julia was weak and needed someone strong and he had been…but now the feeling, like a lit match just sort of went out at the idea of being left alone to be eaten. “I don't know why I'm trying to talk you out of this. It's your choice, really, just like before. I'll bury you, I promise.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She didn't sound thankful; her words were hollow, devoid of thought or feeling. The gun went back up and Ram turned away, not wanting to watch.
When there was the briefest pause he said, “I think I was lucky. My parents died a few years ago. I didn't think I was lucky at the time, but now, I think I am. My father had a heart attack and my mom had cancer. I never had any brothers or sisters.”
“What about a wife?”
“No, I had a girlfriend, but I never did consider marrying her. Now I'm pretty certain she's dead. She went to Mexico when all this started and every report I heard made it seem that places like Mexico or India or China are nightmares.”
“Nightmares?” she scoffed. “They would have to be bad compared to here.”
Ram turned around and shook his head at her, and said, “I had this professor and he couldn't say a sentence without sticking the word relative in it. Everything's relative. My misery? I thought I was doing bad, but compared to you, I guess I'm doing alright. And your pain? I don't want to diminish it at all, but I bet there are people out there in worse shape. I guess it's just how we deal with it.”
“I'm not going to love again,” she declared in little clipped words. It was though she bit off the very end of each. “I can't.”
Ram smiled suddenly, remembering. “I had this other teacher who said: In each of us is an infinite capacity to love, but only a finite capacity to hate. When he said it, the class all nodded along and I could see that they were thinking Dude, that's deep, but when I was a kid I had this friend. His family was very catholic, and every time his mom got pregnant, he would moan and groan and swear that he was just going to hate this next kid. He was the oldest of eight and each new brother or sister meant more work and a little less at Christmas or at the dinner table. But always he loved each one. He always found room in his heart.”
“I can't get pregnant,” Julia said suddenly, perhaps looking for reasons to keep up the high tempo of her pain. “It's why Jack left me, or that's what he said. He only came back to sign the papers and then the airport in Vegas got closed and then he got bit and then he died.” She took a long shaking breath and added, “He said I was broken. Do you think that was the real reason he left me?”
“Maybe,” Ram replied. He had never given much thought to having a child; he figured when the day came that would be that. “You never know with men. Some guys really want children, some would use your situation as an excuse. I don't know. Can I have the gun? It makes my stomach hurt to see you holding it.”
“I could kill myself without it,” she said. “I thought about it a lot this last week. I thought about all the different ways. But I had my mother to think about, and now she's gone. I kind of feel like a boat that's lost its anchor, you know? I'm just drifting away.”
He came to her and put out his hand and said, “That hasn't changed either. I think grief will always be like that.” She looked at the gun and shrugged at it before putting it into his hand.
“For now,” she said, yet Ram guessed that her crisis peaked. Her pain wouldn't likely grow, rather it would diminish with each day until it became manageable. And if not? If she really wanted to kill herself, then she would and there really wasn’t much he could do about it. “Here comes your friend.” Cassie came strolling out of the house with a pistol in one hand and Ram's M16 in the other.
“I told her that I would teach her how to shoot.”
“Maybe you should hold off using guns for a while,” Julia suggested, forgetting her tears. “You're exhibiting all the classic signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“I don't think not using guns is possible anymore…I just need some rest.” Even as he said this, the broken feeling inside came stronger and he had to force the grimace off his face. “Want to stay and watch?”
This struck Julia as funny for some reason and she laughed with tears still in her eyes. “Are you trying to get me killed? No…no I shouldn't. She's probably looking to have you all to herself.”
This turned out to be true. Ram wanted to set up targets, however Cassie had the idea that it was a waste of ammunition, when there were so many stiffs still walking about—a few, no more than twenty or so—meandered here and there on the dusty land. They started walking to the nearest one and as they did he explained the features of the Beretta 9MM.
He had to wonder if she was listening when she asked, “Were you guys talking about me?” When he told her, no, she followed up with, “You know she was getting divorced? Her man didn't want her. Must have been sucky in bed or whiney or something.”
Ram coughed into his hand and said, “I don't know the truth. Ok, why don't you forget about her for a while and concentrate on that stiff.” He showed her the right stance and then had her dry fire the gun until the zombie was twenty feet away. At fifteen feet, when Ram was beginning to feel his heart begin to skip in his chest, she shot and holed the thing through the neck.
It still moved feebly, though it shouldn't have been able to. “You got its spinal cord but it still moves,” he mentioned. “That's weird.” She went to finish it off, but he held her back. “Don't the waste the ammo.” There was a heavy rock nearby and he crushed its head with it. Again he felt strange through the chest, like he was on the verge of a heart attack.
“Why you gots your face like that?”
He touched himself and felt the grimace. “I don't know. Maybe the stress?”
This made her laugh. “You don't need to stress, baby. You see that shot? I kilt that bad boy no problem. Let's do another.”
They went on to the next, though if they had just stayed there the zombies would've come to them, they oriented on sound and movement.
“Was that where you were aiming?” he asked after she had plowed a red furrow through a zombie’s cheek. “Or were you aiming at center mass like I said? I didn't think so. It means you're jerking the trigger back. Make it gentle and steady. When you get good you can try for headshots, until then go with your best chance at slowing them down.”
She was better with the next and Ram was as well. It was easier to deal with the stiffs when he saw them as targets only and not as people. Shooting people was something the soul rebelled against.
The two of them made their way one after another until Julia's house was small in the distance, and then Cassie turned on Ram suddenly.
She was very close and somewhere in the last minute she had undone the buttons on her top. “You ready to take a walk on the wild side?” she asked, moving her shoulders so that her breast swayed. “Where the colored girls say doo, do, doo, do? Huh? What do you say? No one's around. No one will know.” Before he could say anything she went on with her dance, singing, “Doo, do, doo, do…”
Ram went to tell her no, but just then he felt a twitch down below. Just a twitch but it was something and it likely would have grown into something considerably more, but Cassie said, “That white stick ain't g
ot nothing on me. I know how to rock your world. I do things to you that she ain't never done.”
It was her need that Ram discovered bothered him so. It wasn't a sexual need, it was a personal one. It was a need to be wanted, and a need to be loved and it was so over-powering that he feared she would drown him in it. Just then he could barely keep afloat himself and he shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Her smile left and her full lips went tight against her teeth. “A hug?”
“I can do that.”
She grabbed him and crushed herself to him and it wasn't enough. It would never be enough for her—nothing would be. She was a taker and he had nothing to give. When he stiffened, turning cool, she shoved him back and he went down on his butt. “I'd not waste no more time if I was you or I'm gonna take it somewheres else.”
He was sure that she would anyway. There'd always be another man, smarter, better looking, perhaps even mentally stable; and then she'd leave him. She stomped away, buttoning her shirt as she went, ignoring the zombies who ambled her way. One was particularly aggressive and quick.
From the prone position, lying in the spare grass of the desert hill, Ram took up his M16, flicked off the safe and sighted on the man….no, the zombie…better yet, the target. At a hundred yards a head shot shouldn't have been a problem. He knocked the right ear off the zombie, leaving an ugly grey hunk of flesh dangling.
Cassie turned and raised her gun—Ram was quicker. This shot sent the target flopping face down. “Serviceable,” he whispered to himself, feeling the butterflies calm.
He felt more himself that afternoon and he was happy to see Julia no longer had the same lost look in her eyes she had earlier. Cassie acted as though she hadn't been turned down yet again and constantly put herself between Ram and Julia, much to their hidden amusement. Her actions only brought them closer together since they shared a secret laugh every time the girl would accidentally pin Ram against a wall, or make an overt suggestion.
It wasn't funny however when she came to Ram's bed in the middle of the night once again stripped down to nothing. This time Ram felt more than a twitch…and so did she.
“That's more like it,” she said, gripping him, showing that her need wasn't just mental and emotional.
“No,” he said taking her hand off him. A part of him rebelled—the part that just wanted a good fuck and be done with her. Only the thinking part of him knew that if he gave in to a night's pleasure that she would be like a leach. “I'm sorry, but you were right before, about Julia. I think I like her.”
“Oh fuck this!” she screamed loud enough to get Julia out of bed and loud enough to alert the zombies outside. Cassie didn't care. She was in a full steam: “She just put her man in a hole and you think you're going to move in here and take over? You so dumb! She just using you, boy.”
Actually Ram was using her, just then for example as a buffer to keep Cassie away. And he used Julia to keep him sane. Her problems were so much easier to deal with than his own, and whenever she was around it was like a vacation from the stress that ate him up inside. It wasn't that he didn't like her, he did. She was sweet as well as pretty, though a might bit skinny for his tastes, however he didn't think it would go anywhere, she had seen him weak.
Just then she came padding down the hall in a hurry. “You need to calm down,” she hissed at Cassie. “There are zombies all over the place outside and our doors are only so strong.”
“Why don't you shut the fuck up. Telling me what to do, shit!”
Julia looked taken back at the girl's rudeness. “This has got to end,” she said to Ram. “Why don't you just take care of business so we can all get some sleep.” By business she indicated the naked girl. Cassie seemed completely at her ease with her nudity and in fact she was far more striking than either Ram or Julia who both wore baggy grey warm ups.
“He won't,” Cassie answered for Ram. “He's all Julia this and Julia that. Maybe you should take care of business and then he'll see that there ain't nothing there but…”
A heavy thud struck something down stairs, and this was followed by more blows. “Get to the attic,” Ram whispered—they had made an emergency shelter out of the attic, with food and gallon jugs of water. It would keep them alive for a few days if it came down to it.
They didn't need it that night. Ram went about and checked the doors and windows with his Beretta at the ready. The larger windows had been boarded over with plywood, while the doors were heavy and of good quality. Yet these measures hadn't proven strong enough in most homes; what had kept this home intact for so long were the rigorous light and sound restrictions at night.
Normally the home seemed so dead that the undead walked right on by.
Now they had voices to orient on and they began an assault, which petered out after a while when nothing could be heard. The three humans had retreated upstairs to the attic where the silence was strained to say the least. Cassie steamed in anger, while Julia looked uncomfortable at the news that Ram liked her, and Ram couldn't think of anything to say in front of both women that would make the situation better.
The strain continued the next day. Julia felt the need to cook for everyone at every meal, however at breakfast Cassie took her waffles and went outside rather than be in the same room with the other two.
“So you like me,” Julia said. “Cassie was right. My husband is right out there. How can you think that I'd…”
Ram held up a hand. “I lied to her. She was all over me and I figured if she thought that she didn't have a chance, she would tone it down.”
Julia looked at him and her blue eyes were down to slits as if she couldn't quite figure him out. “If you don't like me then why don't you show her some affection? She has needs…just like we all do.”
“Some affection won't be enough for her.”
“You're a guy,” Julia said with a shrug. “It shouldn't be a problem.”
“And if we were back in the old world it wouldn't be,” Ram admitted. “I would've done her a long time ago. Now it's different. I just can't screw her and then toss her away. I'm responsible for her and for you.”
“Not me,” she insisted quickly. “I'm a big girl. And if you're worried, I wouldn't look down on you if you took one for the team, if you know what I mean. Cassie is in a delicate state right now, she told me that she's lost everyone. She feels…empty inside.” Her blue eyes went vacant and Ram stared into them and she didn't even seem to notice.
“When you put it like that, you're talking about all of us,” he said. “Wasn't it just yesterday that you put a gun to your own head?”
“I'm tougher than I look,” Julia said, though just then she seemed brittle like a porcelain doll. “But I don't think Cassie is.”
At this Ram snorted. He remembered how she had accepted her gang rape with a stoicism that he still couldn't believe. “She's a tough one,” he insisted, but in this he was only partially right.
That night Ram did not wait for Cassie to climb into his bed as she had for the previous two nights, instead he went to the bedroom down the hall. “What's wrong?” Julia asked. She had clearly been awake.
Her eyes went wide as Ram took his clothes off and slid in next to her. “What are you doing? I told you to go to Cassie,” she whispered.
“You told me that we all need affection. I don't like Cassie; not like this.”
“And you like me?” she asked. Her words were nervous and hopeful in equal parts.
When he nodded she seemed to hesitate and he said words that he didn't think that he would ever say, “We don't have to do anything. I can just hold you.”
“Ok,” she said and cautiously slid toward him. “You just want to cuddle? Is it because of your issue? Cassie told me about what was going on with your, you know what. Girls don't keep many secrets between them. It's nothing to be ashamed of.”
She ran a trembling hand over his body and then suddenly pressed herself to him, wrapping her arms around his chest, as if she wanted to se
al him to her, to fuse him to her skin. At first she held him tight and did nothing but cry, but then he kissed her bleary face and she smiled, and reached out to check the condition of his issue. Her beauty and her soft body and her gentle need had fixed the issue, and now she gripped him with a more urgent need.
In the morning Ram slipped out of bed and went to face the music. He heard Cassie banging around the house, knocking into things seemingly on purpose to get him to wake up. “Cassie, I wanted to let you know that…” his words dried up in his mouth.
It wasn't Cassie knocking into things. The kitchen was full of zombies. They charged at him, while behind he heard more coming down the hall.
Chapter 26
Neil
Columbus, Ohio
Sadie's choice in music was nearly enough for Neil to find his own ride westward. Every song seemed to consist solely of grinding guitars, and if there was a singer, if they could be called such, it sounded as though they were part demon. He couldn't understand a word of their lyrics, but judging by the song titles it didn't seem worth it trying to fathom them out.
She complained of his music as well: said it all bored her and put her to sleep. Which was true enough. When it was his turn to drive she curled up next to him and slept with her mouth open. She was much prettier when she slept. There was an innocence to her that only came out then. Normally it was hidden beneath the heavy mascara and the black lipstick.
“You should try a lighter color of lipstick,” he suggested one afternoon. “I'm just saying that you would look better. Don't get me wrong you are very pretty right now, I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to be prettier.”
“Prettier for who? For the zombies?”
“I don't know, maybe we will meet some young men...now don't give me that look.” She had raised her eyebrows at the word men. “You know what I mean. I keep up my appearance for the ladies.” He did too. Every day since he had seen the first zombie rat he had shaved and dressed as he always had, very neatly.
The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse Page 17
