A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  The king paused to look at me. I think he was checking to see if I would call him a liar or not, but I sat there quietly looking at him. So far the story made sense to me. Smart, driven, all the right decisions. It made sense on why he saw himself as that guy now. But something had happened to his judgment, and he was not making smart decisions anymore. He was simply out of his depth and there were no books to read for out of the box strategies on staying alive during a zombie invasion.

  “I became the youngest CEO in corporate America. I was a living legend in my field. And the best part? I had proven everyone wrong. Everybody who had said I was nothing but a flash in the pan and the pressure would drive me out in six months now worked under me. I was the man, and I remembered all those that had crossed me when I had first started. I remembered all those that had tried to get me fired or demoted. All of those that spread lie after lie about me in an attempt to push me out of their way. I remembered it all and paid it back with interest. I had climbed the mountain and I stood at its peak looking out at my world. It was an amazing moment; it’s just too bad it wasn’t destined to last.”

  “Before long this amazing gift that had allowed me to achieve so much in my life turned on me. I had everything I had ever wanted, but like Alexander the Great, I had no more worlds to conquer. I just sat at my desk all day reading interoffice memos and making decisions that I was woefully uninformed to make. I could never get anyone to give me the full picture of anything the company was doing below my level. They said it would be a waste of time for me to worry myself with that stuff, and I argued back that I needed to know these things so I could effectively reroute resources as needed. Nobody would listen. Conference calls, emails, publicity luncheons, board of director’s meetings and seminars were what my life had become. I hated it all. It was just so…boring. So absolutely boring. Soon my brain started searching for new conquests. I began to drink; I began to drink a lot. Casual drug use started after that, and it quickly progressed into a serious drug habit.”

  “When I got my first DUI, the company didn’t punish me at all. They used their influence to sweep it under the rug. I didn’t have to do anything to settle up with the police. The entire matter just disappeared. The other people on the board laughed it off and said things like, “welcome to the board kid”, or “you finally popped your cherry.” I thought this is great; my job comes with get out of jail free cards. It just gave me confidence to drink more and more. After the third DUI, nobody was laughing anymore. I was now becoming an

  embarrassment. They were able to keep all of these out of the press, but they told me if I didn’t go to a rehab facility and tone down my drinking that I would be let go. No matter how well I did my job it just wasn’t worth the bad press they would get if my problems with alcohol went public.”

  “Two weeks after getting out of rehab I got drunk again. I drove again. I hit another car doing seventy on the interstate. I lived, the couple in the other car made it as well, barely. They were in the hospital for months. It was bad. There was no way the company would be able to keep this one quiet. I was fired as soon as I was released from the hospital.”

  “You would think that this would be my wake-up call, but it wasn’t. I still had some very deep bank accounts, and I lived off them instead of the paychecks that were no longer there. I still partied every night. I couldn’t have gone through that money any faster if I’d lit it on fire. It wasn’t six months before I was broke. I had no job; my home was foreclosed on because I had quit making payments when I had lost my job. My car was repossessed because it was on a lease and I had quit making those payments as well. I ended up borrowing enough money from a friend to buy a bus ticket home. I returned to a world where my parents looked upon me as a failure.”

  “I went to rehab again once I got home, and I took it serious this time. I started putting my life back together. However, the damage had been done. No company would touch me, not with the baggage I came with. I was told by more than one interviewer that I was just too big of a risk. I couldn’t buy my way back into a management position. Then the unthinkable happened. The bottom fell out of the job market. I couldn’t even get a job working the counter at McDonalds. I was hopelessly out of options. It didn’t take very long before I was drinking and using again. My parents finally had enough. They gave me an ultimatum, either quit my childish behavior for good or I was cut off. Do you know how I responded?”

  The king had paused, but he didn’t look up at me. He was lost in his own head now, gripped by the emotions that these memories had churned up.

  “How did I respond?” he spat out. “I burned that last bridge with two middle fingers and a big “fuck you” to both of them. What a winner I had turned out to be. My charmed life wasn’t living up to its promise. I was lost. No home, no job, no money and no friends. I stayed in the shelter some and sometimes I just slept where I happened to be when I dropped. I couldn’t have gotten any lower. I was sure I would soon just die and be done with it. Then the sun rose on today and my second chance arrived in the form of shuffling hungry dead people. HALLELUJAH!”

  He had raised both arms as he had yelled and had looked skyward with a serene and thankful smile on his face. I was having a hard time figuring out if this last bit was real or a mockery. He kept his smile for a moment longer looking at the ceiling of the shop.

  “And what exactly did today bring?” I asked.

  “Today brought redemption my friend. Redemption.” “And how was that redemption found?”

  “In many forms, but I guess you want me to start from the beginning, so I will. I woke up today and had decided that this town simply wasn’t big enough for me. I needed to leave. The trouble with leaving was that I was broke. I needed to find some traveling money. I decided to rob the very shop we are sitting in. I knew that it was off the beaten path and faced away from the road so if I could take the store then there would be less of a chance that anybody would notice anything going on. However, fate intervened before I could do anything foolish. I arrived around mid morning. There were only about four people in the store and I thought with the proper show of force I could take control of the room. As I made my way to the clerk a cop car slid into the parking lot. The cop was out of the car and running for the door before the car had quit rolling. On his way to the door he was yelling “Get inside! Get inside!” to somebody that had just pulled in.”

  “To us it looked like the man had gone insane. He had his shotgun out and he held the door open as a handful of people ran inside. There was one guy still running for the door, but out of nowhere a second guy tackled him. The second guy bit the first guy in the throat and the cop shot both men in the head before retreating into the store. He yelled for somebody to make sure that back door was locked and for the rest of us to slide the shelving units up to block the front door.”

  “As you can imagine we had some questions. The cop waved us off and asked the owner if he still had his television. The man nodded and they hooked it up. The cop turned to us and simply said, “You won’t believe it unless you see it. Watch the news while I make sure we’re safe.” We watched and saw the world going to hell. Everyone else was freaking out and saying that we were all doomed or dead or whatever. I was smiling. I could see the opportunity that was staring me right in the eyes. All I had to do was keep my head and I could have it all back. All the power, all the influence, everything I had lost. All I had to do was keep my head and make sure I was the person that everybody would turn to for answers. I had to be the person that would keep them all alive.”

  “There were only two problems standing in my way. The cop and the shop owner. They would be looked upon as leaders and I couldn’t have that. I had to get them out of the way, but that wasn’t very hard to do.”

  I really didn’t want to ask the next question but I had a feeling that the story wasn’t going to continue until I did. The king was looking down at his desk as if lost in thought, but I knew it was all an act at this point. It was a show to try t
o impress upon me the kind of man I was dealing with, so I sucked it up and asked the question I knew he wanted to hear.

  “How did you do it?”

  The king’s eyes flicked up to me as I spoke. He looked at me for a moment then looked back down to the desk before he answered my question.

  “I was patient, so very patient. I played the part of the loyal, trustworthy ally and became the third in command which is exactly where I wanted to be. After an hour or so went by I suggested that the cop, the shop owner, and I should go scout around to see if any other survivors were trapped nearby. We could rescue them and bring them here. I told them that I didn’t feel right endangering the others, but that the three of us should easily be able to defend ourselves as long as we took it slow and were careful. The idiots praised me for such a good idea. We armed ourselves with guns and some hand to hand combat weapons and went out on our mission of mercy to save the citizens of Gray.”

  “It happened when we were up in Food City’s parking lot, the moment I had been waiting for. They were both walking in front of me and there were no zombies that I could see. I raised my gun and shot the cop in the back of the head. It was easy, just point and click like the old computer ads used to say. The shop owner heard the bang and saw the cop fall. He looked at me with a stupid “What the hell?’ look on his face. I shot him just above his right eye. He fell backwards onto the parking lot and just like that I was in control again.”

  “Didn’t you think that people would question you? That they might think you had killed them both?”

  “I knew they wouldn’t. Sheep, remember? They were going to be happy that one of us had survived. Happy that there would still be somebody here to tell them what to do. But I did need a story to tell them. That was easy as well; we had found ourselves surrounded when we attempted to reach a family trapped in some apartments. We fought our way back to Food City’s parking lot, but the other two had been bitten. They were dying in front of me. I did the only thing I could think to do. I shot them both in the head and stopped their pain forever. I am a hero!”

  “Sounds really weak,” I said.

  “It was really weak. People don’t care how believable a lie is Charlie. They’re happy as long as it’s believable enough for them to put an ounce of faith behind it. Just give them that ounce of credibility and they will follow it. Hell, if it took overwhelming evidence to sway the general public, Windows would have never beaten the Macs back in the day. That taught me that superior product doesn’t matter. What matters is how you get the common guy to perceive your product. My product was me as a hero and I had just enough credibility to make them all believe it. I just had to do one thing to put me over the top.”

  “And that was?” At my question the king looked me in the eyes, the smile was huge on his face.

  “You’re going to love this. The attention to detail is truly a thing of beauty. You see I knew that eventually I would need scouts. Eventually I would have to look for survivors. A king is nothing without his subjects. I knew the scouts would eventually end up in Food City’s parking lot. I knew that they would find the bodies of the cop and the shop owner. I had to make sure my story would be backed up by what they found. I needed to have them be bitten in multiple places by zombies to prove that I wasn’t lying. That posed a problem though, zombies have no desire to eat dead flesh. I decided to do the only thing I could do in order to make my story real.”

  A dawning horror was washing over me and I knew what he was about to say. In no way did I want to hear it. To hear what he did next would push him over the edge into the crazy person area of the map. It would turn him from just a spoiled whiny little loser to full blown psycho. His danger level would skyrocket if he said what I knew was coming.

  “You didn’t…” I said.

  “Oh, yes I did. Three bites out of the cop and two out of the shop owner. The first one was the worse because I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was exhilarating! The way it felt when the flesh burst and ripped was something primal. I was awash in this bestial desire to feed. I had to stop myself from swallowing some of the bits. I sat in the parking lot ripping chunks out of those men just to make my lie look real. I killed the two men who most likely would have given us the best chance of survival just so I could have their power. Do you honestly believe I would think twice about putting two in your head and throwing your body out the back door?”

  I had to admit, when he put it that way, I really didn’t think he would have a problem with it. And if my guys said anything he’d just start killing the loudest complainers until the others decided they didn’t mind so much.

  “And you’re just volunteering this information to me so I can understand what kind of a person you are? I really doubt that is the case here.”

  “You imply that I am not a man of my word?”

  “Let’s see, the story you just told me showed that you are a liar, a junky, a thief and a murderer by your own words. After that, you are going act shocked that I would dare accuse you of lying to me? Cut the crap, what’s your game?”

  “I assure you Mister Collins I told you that story for the reasons I gave you and none other.”

  “And what is to stop me from just going out there and telling everyone what you just told me?”

  The king laughed at this, his smile staying after the laughter had died.

  “Go ahead, go tell the world. Who do you think is going to believe you? It will be your word against mine. The word of a man who has just arrived and is a known troublemaker by admission of people under his command. A man who maybe isn’t ready to give up the power of his position. A man who just might be looking to start trouble here. Do you think they will believe that man or do you think they will believe the man who has been single handedly keeping them alive today while the rest of the world has fallen apart?”

  He had a point about who his people would believe but he was wrong about who I was.

  “I’m not the leader, there is no leader. We decide things as a group.”

  “Really?” The king asked with genuine curiosity. “That’s not the story I’ve been hearing from the others.”

  “They are wrong. I am not the leader.”

  “Interesting. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  I bowed my head.

  “I know that your group is heading to Johnson City, but whose decision was it to go there.”

  “Mine. It was right after Sass and I had escaped the factory.”

  “And once the destination was chosen who then decided upon the route that would be taken to get you there?”

  “I had said I would rather take the back roads because I feared that the interstates would be nearly impassable.”

  “So, you set the destination and the route that your group would take to get there. How about advice? Who in your group do the others turn to for advice on how to survive? Who sets the rules and tells the others how things are going to be done? Like when your group entered the strip club. Who is that person? Amanda? Daniel? Or maybe, could it be…you?”

  I could see what he was doing. He was trying to pin me in a corner where I would have to admit that I was the person that was making all the decisions for my group. I opened my mouth to tell him that we all advised each other. Then I could hear Sass saying, “Where are we going?” as we sat in the parking lot of Carta Mundi. His eyes looking to me for answers. He would have steered the truck towards the highway to hell if I had said that is where we needed to go to be safe.

  I could see the look of complete surrender in Sass’s eyes after seeing the billboard guy on airport road. I could see the hopelessness wash over him as he looked at me and asked, “How are we going to do this?” Then I could hear his voice at the Gray crossroads as we stood there watching the fire engulf the opposite side of the intersection. He had sounded completely lost when had asked, “What do you want to do next, Charlie?” Everyone had looked to me. Everyone hoping I would know the answer. Everyone was so sure that I had those magical answe
rs. There was no doubting that they looked to me for advice on how to survive.

  The king had also asked me who sets the rules on how the group does things and as much as I wanted to tell him it wasn’t me I could hear my own voice from earlier in the day.

  “We are not going to rush in there and get torn apart,” I had told the others as I led them to the door of the strip club. “We go slow and make sure we don’t let anything get in behind us.”

  Sure sounded like I was directing traffic. But that was just because they were looking to me to tell them what to do. I wasn’t taking charge. I was simply doing what they wanted me to do.

  “If that’s the case, how do you explain the farmhouse?” A voice in my head asked. “Randy wasn’t looking for your guidance. He was going into that farm house whether you wanted him to or not. He wasn’t interested in what you thought or how you wanted it to be done. Taking all of that into consideration what had you had said to him?”

  I knew what I had said to him. I could hear it in my head. “We’ll do what you want but we’re going to do it my way.”

  Nobody had initiated that round of instruction. That sounded like a leader barking orders. Maybe I am the leader of this group. Not just some tour guide trying to get everyone to safety before turning over the reigns, but an honest to God leader. A person that could, and would, handle the pressure of protecting everyone. A man who would be able to stand up to any challenge, any threat, to his people and not back down. Why did I think I wasn’t capable of being that man? Was is simply because I had never been that person in the old world? How many times had I told Sass that things had changed? Things were completely different now. If the circumstances of the world have changed then surely people within that world could have changed. Couldn’t they?