Bury Me in Black

by Royce Caradoc

David sat across from her, same as always. Another bottle of wine. Another piece of her story. Behind them, the fireplace raged. Of course she left out some details. No one here could know what she was. She’d made a promise.

  Zeke hopped to his feet and dusted off the back of his pants.

  “There’s a bed upstairs, still has sheets and a comforter,” he said. “No pillows, but it’ll do for the night. I’ll remain down here. Don’t come down. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  She made her way upstairs. It was just as he said. She closed the door behind her and sat on the musty mattress. Someone had been through this room already, by the looks of it. She moved to the window, far too wired to consider sleeping. Her body was drained, however. She nearly lost her balance standing back up.

  She cracked the window just enough to feel the wind on her face, leaning forward on her elbows. Justine watched the night sky, a mix of fear and exuberance in her belly.

  “I should’ve been more afraid,” she said. “I think I was too excited to be scared. The unknown, it just felt so...infinite. Zeke obviously seemed a little off kilter. But, he also seemed like he wanted to protect me. Like we had some sort of kinship that I didn’t fully comprehend. That first night was the only time I ever really thought of running. After an hour or so, looking out that window, I saw Zeke slink out the front door. I thought to myself, I could probably get away, if I wanted to. But, I wasn’t about to run back to my father. Going it alone seemed just as risky. Eventually, that night, I became too tired to contemplate it anymore. I fell asleep and in the morning he was waiting downstairs, just like he’d said. He didn’t come up to wake me. He waited until I was ready.”

  “Do you think you could have gotten away?”

  “No. I know now, Zeke would’ve found me. He had this amazing sense of direction. He knew his surroundings and knew how to track. He would’ve caught up to me before sunrise.”

  She took a swig of her wine.

  “We went three nights without seeing another soul. Zeke searched the empty Ridgewood houses, one by one. He had me wait in the doorway and play lookout, though as I said, those first few nights no one came. Zeke kept food on his person, but also hunted in the woods during the day. He knew how to fish, how to skin an animal, how to make a fire. I’d have died a hundred times without him. I thought less and less about running away. It was such a strange situation at first. It...it was never like he was holding me prisoner. I never ventured off alone because I never needed to. If I wanted to explore somewhere, he’d take me without question. And he wanted nothing of me in return. Part of it may have been that he just wanted company. Maybe he was lonely.”

  “Did he say anything about himself?”

  “No. Zeke didn’t say much at all.”

  Justine kicked stones as they walked at midday, the sun bearing down on them. She pulled her black hair back into a ponytail, a single dot of black on each fingernail from the last time she’d painted them. Zeke remained a few paces in front, as he always did, seemingly oblivious to the clumsy shadow that strolled behind him. They’d found her a jean jacket to wear over her black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweats with the word PINK embroidered on the ass. Despite how much she layered up, she was always at least a little cold. Zeke didn’t seem to mind tearing apart houses to find her clothing. They raided drawers and cabinets, overturned dressers, climbed through open windows. She didn’t question him.

  Already she was picking at the cuffs of her sweatshirt sleeves, scratching and wearing away at the fabric. It would take a few days to get the desired result: thumb holes, of course. They made for the Ridgewood town proper, which wasn’t much more than a single long road where every important building in town-the church, the school, town hall, the post office-stood in wait.

  “It was all old territory to him, but I didn’t know that. By the time he’d found me, he’d probably been down that road a hundred times, but we stopped there anyway. I’d spent time in Ridgewood, but not much. We’d lived in Covington when I was young. Later I lived in Garland with my mother and step-father. Ridgewood, though, was fresh to me. Mysterious. Most of the homes were raided, even then. A few months after the quarantine, way before I emerged from the trapdoor, a group of scavengers took down the police station. I’m sure you heard about it. They put a bullet in the chief and whatever officers had remained to keep the peace. There weren’t many. The law fell quick. By the time I reached the surface, these towns were just scrap yards. Everything of value had been taken already, mostly by the factions. Bloodline, Vultures, Deadeyes. There were like half a dozen of them back then, before the Bloodline wiped all of their competition out.”

  “Zeke told you these things?”

  “In bits and pieces. I learned how to ask.” She circled the top of her glass with an index finger. “When you think about it, it was natural for people to band together. Sort themselves into little cliques. To be exclusionary, first you need numbers. So, they all drew their little lines in the sand, gathered up their bullets and killed each other over this and that. Zeke never wasted his time with those sorts of things. He realized quickly that the Drop wasn’t something he could attain, no matter how many Molotov cocktails he tossed.”

  “Did he do that often?”

  “No,” she smiled. “Just the once. It didn’t accomplish much. We left empty-handed that day. Honestly, I think he was just showing off. But, we’re not there yet. He wouldn’t take me to that rooftop until a few months later. By then, I was hardly even the same person.”

  She sipped her wine. Crowe’s supply of fine red seemed endless. How David got away with pilfering so many, night after night, she had no idea.

  They stayed in Ridgewood a few more nights, always on the move. He gave her an upstairs room as often as he could, separate from wherever he slept.

  “Not that I’d ever seen him sleep,” she said, smirking. “I spent my nights looking out the windows. Sometimes I thought about my father or what had become of my old boyfriend…or, like, where, exactly, was this man leading me? Every few nights I’d watch him sneak off into the dark and return a few hours later. Zeke was an enigma. To the very end.” She pushed the hair behind one ear. “We crossed back into Covington after a week or so.”

  By moonlight, they hiked down the sloping grassland, the great lake opening up before them. Benton Lake stretched some nine hundred acres, surrounded by the lavish summer homes rich locals had once inhabited. The towns of Ridgewood and Covington shared the expansive lake. The boat launch lay on the opposite shore, she knew. She’d been here a handful of times before her mother passed, stealing sunrays on someone else’s private beach. She held a hand over her eyes, searching for that perfect spot across the shoreline. Her mother’s place. Hers.

  Zeke removed his shirt and boots, piling them neatly by the shoreline. She felt cold just watching him. He’d found her an old black pea coat to huddle in, and she’d done so for the past three days; not bothering to put her arms through the sleeves, skinny legs still freezing beneath her skirt. He lost his pants next, and then his undergarments. Wide-eyed, she looked the other way, but felt his gaze.

  Pale and naked, he gazed her way, as if nothing was the least bit off.

  “Are you coming in?”

  “In there?” she asked, using a hand to shield her eyes. The damage had been done. She’d seen all of him. Well built. Well endowed. “No,” she laughed, likely blushing.

  He shrugged and then strode briskly into the water, never changing his pace, grunting just once as he delved into those near-glacial waters.

  “It’s not bad,” he said, fighting off a shiver. “You should come in.”

  “I’m okay,” she replied, waving a hand.

  Later they found a house with a fireplace, lighting some old wood from a neatly arranged pile out back. He warmed himself by the fire. The lock on the lakeside home had been busted open, as was usually the case. Zeke had told her that he was skilled at picking locks, though she had yet to see it in action. He’d donned his
black gear again, a shadow from head to toe. He moved to the window, peeling apart the blinds.

  “You’re going to catch hypothermia,” she said. She sat on the floor, holding a knife he’d given her. She’d begun to carve his name into the wood.

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

  “Crazy.”

  “We can safely use the lake for another month. Then it’ll freeze over. Winter is difficult.” He spoke in those stunted, proper little sentences.

  “We used a space heater in our basement. Battery powered. We can go back and grab it. Unless my father went back there. Do you think he would?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “But, it’s probably stolen anyway. We aren’t the only people in the world.”

  “Would you have gone back?” she asked. “If you were him?”

  He lowered his eyes, reflective for a moment.

  “No. The only way to stay alive is to keep moving. They can’t know where you sleep. Not ever.” He paced the room, tapping a thumb on the hilt of his sawed-off. He seemed distracted. The fire danced in his eyes. He turned, craning his neck again towards the window.

  “Everything alright?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he replied. “You should go to bed soon.”

  Behind him was another stairwell. Another upstairs bedroom.

  “You like stashing me away, don’t you?”

  He made no answer. His tongue shot out of his mouth, licking once at the spot where the lone abrasion on that angelic face lay. A reptilian motion, just enough to dab a single spot of moisture on the former wound.

  “Are you from Garland, Zeke?”

  “No.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Far away.”

  “What were you here for?”

  “Me?” he seemed to ponder this a moment. “Vacationing,” he settled on. He gave a knowing smirk and she giggled.

  He tapped his thumb on the butt of his rifle again. This time, he didn’t glance out the window. She knew he wanted to.

  “How does it spread?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Is it airborne?”

  “Airborne.”

  “Like, is it in the air? Or do you need to be in contact with someone’s blood, or saliva? In the horror movies, a lot of times it’s blood. Or a bite or scratch.”

  “This isn’t a horror movie,” he said.

  “Well, how did you get it?”

  “I woke up with scabs over my eyes. And I was like this.”

  “Did you have contact with an infected person before that?”

  “I hadn’t met anyone else like me, no.”

  “Weird. So, you could be the one, then. Subject Zero,” she said, wearing an evil grin. “Keep going, though. What next?”

  “Others contracted. The quarantine walls went up. The world became simpler. More primal.”

  “Simpler. More primal,” she said, swirling her wine in her glass. “He was a deep little poet when you got him going,” she said, with a yawn.

  “And then, what, nothing? You never grew fangs or wings or anything?”

  “I am as I was before. Except for the sound.”

  “Boooring,” she said. She pushed her thumb through the cuff of one sleeve, wiggling it to squeeze it through her makeshift hole. Success.

  “I’ll show you the room upstairs,” he said, making for the stairwell.

  “Sure. Should I put out the fire?”

  “No,” he said. “Leave it.”

  “I kept an eye out the window that night, same as always. I could smell the smoke. He must’ve left the fire burning all night.”

  She watched, drowsy and ready for bed, waiting for him to emerge and head out into the night. No sign. Justine sighed, resting her head on a fist. How quickly things had changed. A year ago she’d been pulling all-nighters to finish last minute term papers. She’d been smoking weed by the soccer field. Chatting all night on the phone with a boy from school. Everything had seemed so important. So vital. And now it counted for nothing. The chips were down, and all the cheerleaders were dead. Probably. The popular crowd didn’t seem like survivalists. Not in the midst of people like Zeke the Dollface.

  She yawned, resting her chin on a palm, mind wandering. She only half-noticed when that first figure emerged from the tree line, a shadow that looked at first like a deer, or a dog. She squinted, convinced that her eyes were playing tricks on her. She was drowsy. She was seeing things.

  One by one, the shadows emerged from the brush. They moved quickly, sprinting towards the house. Not deer, she realized. Men. Justine was no longer drowsy. She was wide awake.

  She hustled down the stairs. The house was all dark, and her footsteps echoed into the empty air.

  “Zeke!” she whispered in the dark. He made no answer. She walked through the kitchen, the bathroom and then returned to the den where they’d lit the fire. The fireplace was dark, save for the coals, which still glowed orange. The fire had been snuffed out just recently.

  Zeke was gone.

  Behind her, the front door began to creak open.

  10

  -COLLECTOR’S EDITION-

  -Marco-

  HE ATE. They put a bowl and a spoon in front of him and life had never been so wonderful. It was cheap, boring, Shokuji brand, the kind that came in on a helicopter, but it was better than any prime rib he’d ever eaten. Better than fresh lobster, better than boiled duck.

  This was cocaine. This was sex.

  A meal, a real meal, was something he hadn’t encountered in ages. Water had been easy to come by; half the sinks in town still worked, but real food was a different story. It’d been nearly two days without any sort of nourishment. Neither the Twins nor Knox and Leon had given him anything while they kept him captive. He’d been salivating in his chair while he waited, praying that it wasn’t all some sick joke.

  And then it had arrived. To say that he feasted didn’t do it justice. Marco attacked his meal. He shoveled spoonful after spoonful into his mouth, not bothering to savor a single bite. He chugged lukewarm tap water between every few mouthfuls, and within a few minutes both his glass and bowl were empty.

  “You eat like an animal,” Leon said. He sat on the other side of the cafeteria table, his legs up on the bench, cradling a magazine in his lap. “Ay man, you ever wake up and think you have dicks for fingers?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dicks. Like all ten digits, just floppy penises.”

  “No. I uhh…I don’t see dicks.”

  “What then? Monsters? Dead family members?”

  Marco swallowed and placed down his spoon.

  “You don’t need to tell me,” Leon said. “If you’re crazy, it’s fine. I could use a little crazy in my crew. Come to think of it, not sure anybody around here is totally right in the head. Nobody shows it quite like you, though.”

  “What do you mean show it?”

  “You really don’t know. I guess that makes sense. So…you was eatin just now, perfectly normal. And about halfway through you stopped, and your eyes went all fuzzy. And you just sort of stared over my shoulder here,” he said, pointing a thumb towards the next table. “I seen you do it twice on the road. You snap from normal to trance to back again that quick,” he said, snapping a finger. “Like flickin a light switch.” Leon licked his lips. He turned his shoulder, so that he faced the other table, then glanced back at Marco. “Nobody’s sittin there when I look. How bout you?”

  Marco kept his eyes on Leon, ignoring the other table.

  “Why did you save me?”

  “Which time is that? I remember saving you twice yesterday,” Leon said.

  “That was you shooting at the twins?”

  “Nah. Knox is the gunslinger in our crew. I’m the brains of the operation,” he said, with a smile and a wink. “And I saved you because we can use you. You do as I say, stay useful and you’ll keep breathing. Become a burden, and I’ll unburden myself. Understand?”

 
“Sure.”

  “We’re looking for a girl. An immune.”

  “No one’s immune,” Marco said.

  “This one is.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “Not personally. I got it on good authority, though. She’s real.” He cleared his throat, fidgeting in his seat. “Heard she was running with Zeke a while back.”

  “The Zeke?”

  “Yessir. So, you’ve heard of em.”

  Everyone’s heard of him.

  “Yeah,” Marco said.

  “Word is that they split up. Or maybe he’s dead. Who knows. Hard to tell with that one. Zeke, it’s like that boy is a magnet for embellishments.”

  “Is he an enemy of the Bloodline?”

  “There’s a bounty on him, last I checked. But, he don’t ride with nobody. If he’s real—and trust me, that’s up for debate—then Zeke’s the ultimate wildcard. A red joker. But, one way or the other, the stories mostly stopped a few months back. If he’s alive, he’s in hiding. The girl, too. We’ve been turning over every stone in Covington and Ridgewood looking for them, but lately she’s a ghost.”

  “Covington and Ridgewood. But not Garland.”

  “The exile city. Nah. Even Zeke ain’t dumb enough to go in there,” Leon said. He paused, scratching his chin. “Look, this girl means everything. We need to find whatever rock she crawled under. That’s where you come in. You’re gonna show me all your favorite hiding places. You’re gonna think like them.”

  “I…I don’t know where to start.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  Leon sighed.

  “I got a tip for ya. The key to staying alive around here is making use of your skill set. Me, I ain’t never hid from nobody. In this hall, it’s brute force and balls that gets you through the day. And I got big fuckin balls, believe me. You’re different. You’re a master tracker, ain’t ya? You know these towns like the back of your hand. Go on, say it.”