by TW Brown
“I think that can be done,” the doctor agreed.
“And as soon as you think you know what caused this, you find me and tell me first.”
“Agreed.”
“I will get a couple of the guys started on the pyre; you and Sunshine get her cleaned up and in the shroud.” It wasn’t a request, but I didn’t think that Dr. Zahn would have any sort of protest.
“I will do the best I can,” Billy insisted, “but this snow is really starting to become a problem. Jon and Sunshine are helping me, and we have a tarp over the area, but if this storm doesn’t let up soon, we’ll have to find a place to keep her.”
“Did the newcomers get back from their thing?” I asked, realizing that other than the young boy and girl, I hadn’t seen any of them.
“Nope,” Billy replied with a shake of the head. “And that is another thing; we are not set up to deal with their dietary needs.”
“Huh?” What the hell needs did anybody have besides just getting food?
“They can’t eat a lot of the stuff we have stored up. You’d be surprised how much of it has pork for one.”
“Okay, well then they can figure that out for themselves,” I snapped.
“Steve?” a voice whispered from behind me.
“What!” I spun around. Didn’t anybody understand that we’d just lost one of our own today? And to make matters worse, she’d just up and died in the grips of the infection that turns folks to zombies without being bitten. What fresh nightmare were we about to enter? If people could simply turn for no reason, then maybe this stuff had gone airborne. If that was the case, all we’d done was for nothing. Was I the only person considering the ramifications of Teresa’s death? Was I the only one besides Jamie emotionally destroyed?
“Sorry,” Melissa said, stepping back from me like she was afraid I would hit her.
“Oh, Melissa, I am—” I was on the verge of apologizing when I didn’t know what to apologize for, or where to begin.
“No,” she cut me off, “I know how you get when things get crazy and I shouldn’t have snuck up on you…it’s just that I can see you really need…” her voice trailed off and the tears spilled over.
“You,” I finished. “I need you.”
She came to my arms and I just held her for a moment. Teresa’s words rang in my head. “I see how she watches you…” Did she really watch me? She must because she obviously saw how rattled I happened to be at the moment.
“So it’s true?” Melissa whispered in my ear.
“What’s true?” I pulled back to see her questioning look.
“Teresa.”
That was all it took. It was the twig removed that allowed the entire dam to burst. Just the simple act of hearing her name was more than I could handle. I felt my eyes burning with the sadness, and then everything got blurry as tears came in a rush. I was only partially aware that Melissa was leading me someplace.
“She loved you almost like a father,” Melissa said as she sat me down. We were in the kitchen. I was only vaguely aware that a pair of blurry figures hastily exited the room, leaving us alone.
“No,” I disagreed. “Maybe a brother.”
“No, she told me so many times after something would happen, that if you’d have been her dad, she would have been lucky; and that Thalia is, in her exact words, the luckiest kid in the world. That is a quote.”
“But after how many times that I screwed things up—”
“And took responsibility for it and changed things so it wouldn’t happen again,” Melissa interrupted. “You have no idea how rare that is, or was, even before the apocalypse.”
“And how many times did she and I go at it about choices being made for the group?”
“And she said that she wouldn’t have given in on a single one of those times if she didn’t trust you completely with her life.”
“And now she’d dead.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that,” Melissa insisted.
“And now I have to tell Jamie…” I started, but the words caught in my throat.
“And that is why I love you so much,” Melissa said as she pulled me close. “You are an amazing man, Steve Hobart. And I think everybody has forgotten what you have done and continue to do every single day that keeps us all together.”
“Steve!” Fiona burst into the kitchen.
It couldn’t be another crisis, I thought. I don’t have the energy to face another one right now.
“Jamie is awake and Dr. Zahn said to get you right away before he has a chance to start asking questions,” Fiona finished.
I turned to Melissa and kissed her forehead. I scrubbed at my face with my sleeve and took a deep breath. She squeezed my hand and nodded.
Together we left the kitchen and headed to where Jamie was waking. I would deliver the news to him that would break his heart and quite possibly shatter him to the core of his being.
As I entered the main room, everybody was standing still, like they were afraid to move or make a sound. I was thankful that somebody had taken Thalia and Emily some place where they weren’t going to have to see or hear any of this. Sure, they would be sad, Thalia especially would miss Teresa.
Outside, I could see the snow coming down hard. It was almost impossible to see past the overhang of the porch; and it was horizontal which meant that the wind was adding to the mix.
Since the first night all of this began, I’d become convinced that the worst sound in the world was the sound a person makes when those things tear into their flesh; that scream that only comes from a person literally being eaten alive.
I was wrong. There is one that is worse…the sound a person makes when his heart is figuratively torn out of his chest.
8
Vignettes XXI
Aaheru pulled his truck off the road. Actually, he was only aware that a road was somewhere in the vicinity. This he knew because there was an oasis directly across from another. This could only be the work of the Egyptian Transportation Department. It was for the tourists who would foolishly drive over two hundred kilometers through nothing but desert to reach Cairo.
The reasons were varied, but still idiotic as far as Aaheru was concerned. Tourists who wanted to see the “real” Egypt made that drive. If they wanted to see this mythological real Egypt, then venture into the alleyways where children murdered each other for scraps of food. Of course, it was all gone now. The over population had been the nation’s undoing. Families living with three and even four generations under one roof had allowed the sickness of undeath to spread like fire in an oil field.
Two days ago, he had led his chosen people out of the City of the Dead. The irony was not lost on him that the Jews had their own fabled exodus from Egypt. They had survived the Angel of Death as had Aaheru’s people. Only, he would not walk the desert for forty years.
They were headed for Alexandria and would reach it tomorrow. It was normally only a few hours by car, but there had been a highway before. Now…like most of the country except for that little swathe alongside the Nile, Egypt was being reclaimed by the desert sands.
“What is it, my brother?” Ahi had climbed out of his own vehicle and walked up to Aaheru’s.
“Up ahead.” Aaheru pointed. “The sand swirls without any wind.”
Ahi climbed up on his leader’s truck to get a better look. Sure enough he could see the prismatic glitter of a sand cloud reflecting the sun’s light. Had it been a cloudy day like the last couple, they would not have seen it. He brought his binoculars up and took a closer look.
“At least a few hundred,” he reported as he climbed down.
“Bring the bus forward,” Aaheru ordered.
Ahi bowed his head. He would do as he was told because to disobey was unthinkable. When they had left the City of the Dead, it was discovered who would be blindly loyal to Aaheru. The people wanted a leader. No, Ahi corrected, they needed a leader. Aaheru was a natural fit. He was taller than anybody else and very
muscular. His skill as a soldier and a fighter was unmatched. A few had tried. None of them remained.
Ahi respected Aaheru almost as much as he feared the man. He made the decisions that nobody else wanted to make. Nobody had wanted to say it, but if they’d stayed behind the walls of Qarafa, el-Arafa, none of them would have survived to see the spring. It was a simple fact. Food was already becoming scarce and the numbers of those abominations grew every day.
The old men and cowards who had argued against leaving had served a purpose in the end. They had been brought forward by those who had sworn their allegiance to Aaheru—including Ahi—and brought to the southern wall. Well, most of them had. The rest were put in chains and loaded into a bus.
“As you command,” Ahi said with a nod.
He walked back along the convoy of pieced together trucks, vans and haggard-looking cars. A couple of the occupants had climbed out to take advantage of the stop to stretch their legs. Some of the men were passing back and forth bottles of water.
“What is the word, brother?”
Ahi glanced over to see Markata sitting on the hood of a Range Rover. Two women lounged beside the shaved headed man showing a bit too much of their skin for his liking. Markata always had a smile on his face like he knew more than anybody else. The thing was, he always seemed to have information about things. He’d known about the plan to leave the City of the Dead before Aaheru had called his council meeting. Ahi did not care for Markata.
“Perhaps you could tell me, jusho,” Ahi sneered. He watched the man stiffen at the derogatory term for just a second before that false smile returned.
“Could it be that our leader has sent you to fetch bait?”
Ahi dismissed the statement and continued down the idling convoy. As he passed a couple of the vehicles, he motioned for its occupants to join him. He had a job to do and would hand pick a few of the men to help.
By the time he reached the bus, seven men were at his side. A dozen faces peered out of the windows; fear had been replaced by acceptance on a few. All of them were over sixty and deemed useless by Aaheru; Ahi’s only problem resided in the three women.
The driver opened the door. “Greetings, my brothers,” he said.
“Two,” was all Ahi said in return.
The driver looked over his shoulder and called out, “Two of you are needed by the commander.”
There was nothing for a few seconds, but then a pair of the elderly men rose and walked to the front of the bus. When they stepped off, Ahi produced a key from his pocket. Without a word, he unlocked the shackles on their wrists and then bent down to do the same for their ankles.
“Come,” he said, gesturing for them to lead the way back to the front of the convoy.
They reached the lead truck. Aaheru was waiting beside his vehicle. In his hands he had a bottle of water and a wax coated bag full of dates.
“Greetings, HaDritaks,” Aaheru said with a smile and a respectful bow.
“Greetings,” the two elderly men mumbled, each one having trouble not staring at the bottle of water.
There had been none given to those on the bus since they had left Cairo behind. After all, what was the purpose in using such precious resources on those who were slated to die?
“You have been called to serve your countrymen,” Aaheru announced.
“You mean we will be sacrificed like the others,” one of the men found his courage and his voice.
“I guess that will depend on you,” Aaheru replied, handing the bottle of water to the man. “Up ahead is an obstacle that I require your help in getting past. Ahi will take you in his truck to that small cluster of buildings to the east. The horde will follow, and when they have moved away from the road an acceptable distance, you will be set free. I give you this bottle of water and this bag of dates to send you on your way. Perhaps you will be faster and more clever than the dead. If that is so, then you will live and be free.”
“You would leave an old man to die in the desert so that you can live?” the one who had spoken before asked as he snatched the bottle of water and the bag of dates.
“No,” Aaheru said with a laugh. “I would leave two old men so that we all may live.”
“You disgrace your fathers,” the old man spat at Aaheru’s feet. The other remained silent, trembling.
“Take them up the road and draw the attention of the horde,” Aaheru ordered. “This one you shall set a good distance away, I believe he may actually try to run.”
“And the other?” Ahi asked.
“Drop him in front of the pack once the tail end has cleared the road,” Aaheru said with a dismissive wave. “Perhaps it will give this fiery HaDritak a good start.”
Thirty minutes later, the last vehicle in the convoy was past where the horde had left the road. Ahi was in that final vehicle. In his rearview mirror, he could see clearly two clusters of the horrid creatures. It seemed the other man was not as nimble of foot as Aaheru gave him credit.
“So there is an entire settlement over there?” Mackenzie asked as Juan climbed up into the newly built observation tower.
They’d constructed two so far and the plan was to have one every half mile or so.
“Was, more than likely by now,” Juan replied.
A tendril of black smoke rose into the cloudy sky from the general direction Juan figured the settlement to be. Of course there were two others that they knew of for certain. Of the two, he was concerned about one; it sat up on the bluff. At night, the glow from fires could be seen very clearly. As far away as that community had to be, they had to be decent sized as far as population.
“That must be horrible,” she said as Juan scanned the western horizon.
“I imagine so,” Juan said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“I mean to have your children turn,” Mackenzie clarified.
“Ain’t nothing good about it whether it is your kid, your parents, or a person down the street,” Juan said as he dropped the binoculars and turned to face Mackenzie. “Sure, having it be your own kid has to be rough, but by now it’s…how do I say this?” Juan thought hard. He knew what he wanted to say, he just didn’t always find the right words.
“When this first started, it was everywhere. People on the street…strangers getting up and eating other people by the thousands. But now, there ain’t many of us left, so when one of them deaders gets their teeth into somebody, it’s like a bunch of people dying.”
“You mean by comparison?” Mackenzie asked. She thought she understood what he was trying to say.
“Sure,” Juan agreed. “Because now, when one person dies, whoever it is, it’s a big deal because there don’t seem to be that many of us left.”
“And what if we start adding to that number?”
Juan froze. His mouth moved, but nothing came out. Finally he managed to sputter the magic question. “Are you pregnant?”
“No, you big dummy.” Mackenzie smacked him on the arm. “But if we keep things up like we have, one of your little swimmers is gonna cross the finish line.”
“You want me to find some protection next time I go out?”
“Only if you are dead set against having a child…pardon the pun.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t like to at some point…” Juan’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Juan,” Mackenzie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, “you don’t have to worry, this isn’t some sort of test, and if you absolutely do not want children, then that’s okay. We haven’t ever really talked about it, and we probably should is all I’m saying.”
“I just worry because of all the things I’ve seen out there,” Juan admitted.
“But we’re here on the island.” Mackenzie opened her arms as if showing Juan where they lived in case he’d forgotten.
“And how many others are here with us?” Juan asked.
“Thirty-seven,” Mackenzie replied.
“And how did we go from three to thirty-seven?”
>
“What do you mean?”
“All these new people came from somewhere. So where do you think they came from?”
“All over I guess?”
“And we have some pretty good people here.”
“Of course.”
“But I’ve been out there,” Juan reminded her. “And there are a lot of not good people.”
“So that is what you are worried about?” Mackenzie asked.
“The deaders I can handle,” Juan said. “I know what to do about them and there ain’t no guessing. But when the living show up…I have to check ‘em out, I have to make sure that they ain’t gonna hurt you or steal from us. I have to make sure they will do what needs to be done and help take care of things around here.”
“And how do you do all that?” Mackenzie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s my point,” Juan said, pointing to Mackenzie like he’d just proved his thesis.
“I don’t follow.”
“We don’t know and can’t know until they do something shady,” Juan explained. “I get a gut feeling about some folks, but I can’t go just on that because if I did, your friend Keith wouldn’t be here. I have to keep my eyes on people when they don’t know I’m watching. One of these days somebody is gonna show up, and they’re gonna be like Travis and Gary.”
Juan had encountered Travis a few days after the dead began walking. During his short few days with Travis, he’d seen more raping and killing than he’d encountered in all his days living on the streets.
“And when that happens, you will take care of it.”
Juan stared out at the hills across the river. If he could see a couple of obvious signs of settlements, then he wondered how many could see his. The weather was changing and folks were probably starting to get desperate. Anybody who has survived up to this point has had to do a lot of killing. All the rules were gone, which meant that it was survival of the fittest…or the strongest.
