She took a deep breath and reached for the hand again. It was still warm to the touch. She pulled on the golden band on Nell’s ring finger, but as she suspected, it failed to budge. The bile in her belly threatened to rise again. Stay put! I’m gonna do this!
Michelle drew a Gerber LMF from a sheath on her belt and laid the five-inch blade between the finger’s second and third knuckle. Gritting her teeth, she began to saw. There was a moist ripping as the blade sliced through flesh and then a coarse grating when it hit bone.
This time more than bile came up. She turned away and heaved. Oh God! Don’t let anybody see me puke! When she was finished, she grimaced. Gross! I got it in my hair!
She went back to work. Soon the finger was off and she had the wedding ring in the pocket of her jeans. As she turned to go, Michelle heard a damp croaking noise. She spotted the severed head of the fat Biter lying a few feet away. Its bloodshot eyes rolled and its black, bug-covered teeth chomped at empty air.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK
“What are you laughing at, numb-nuts?” Michelle gave the head a good swift kick. It rolled across the grass and ended up beneath a hydrangea bush.
Quickly, she climbed the hillside to join the others.
“So… here we are.”
Nell’s voice was no more than a whisper. Even sitting on the ground beside her, Levi could scarcely hear her. A breeze whistled through the branches of the chestnut tree, dislodging a few dead leaves, sending them drifting downward. One landed on his wife’s face. Gently, he swept it away. Her skin seemed nearly transparent, as pale as a garden slug. Her lips and eyelids had turned blue from loss of blood and waning oxygen.
“Yeah,” he told her softly. “Here we are.” His heart thudded in his chest, forcefully, almost painfully. If I’m to have a heart attack, Lord, let it come now. So I can go with her. But he knew that wasn’t to be.
Levi turned and looked back toward the main house. Everyone stood on the rear terrace that ran along the back of the structure: the Tauchee family, Tyrone Jackson, the Webb twins, and their own young’uns. All waited expectantly, respectfully, giving him his time with her. Avery, Jem, and Kate clung to one another. He knew the grief they shared was a hurtful thing. Losing one’s mother always was.
“Do you have the ring?” she asked.
He nodded and opened his hand. The wedding band, which had been warm with her closeness for over three decades was ice cold now. “Michelle brought it to me.”
“She’s a good girl. Feisty and headstrong. Just the kind to hold reign over an ornery, headstrong man. I’m hoping her and Avery stop their cockeyed bickering and take on the yoke. Same with Jem and Melissa, and Kate and Tyrone.”
Levi was optimistic about Jem and Melissa, but unsure about the other two couples.
“We never made it to the beach, did we?” she muttered. “Never saw the to and fro of the waves, or listened to the sea in a shell, or smelled the salt air.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Go there for me,” she told him. “Go there and wiggle your toes in the sand and watch those little crabs dance sideways in the sunshine. And when you’re there, you’ll take me with you.” Feebly, she nodded toward the ring in his palm. “Promise?”
It pained him to think of such things, but he knew that he would. “I promise.”
Nell sighed, half from failing lungs, half in satisfaction. “That’s the first promise. Now for the second.” She paused for a second and then continued. “Do you have your gun?”
Lord, help me! “Nell… babe… I…”
“Do you have it?”
The Ruger hung heavily at his hip, ever present, both on body and in mind. “Yes.”
“You remember how Jem was after that possum latched onto him? How he was certain that those godawful parasites were inside him?”
“I remember.”
“His was imaginary… all in his mind. Mine is not. They’re running through me like an army of ants in that ant farm we bought for Avery on his eighth Christmas. And it burns like unholy hellfire. Feels like someone lit a fuse that’s running through every vein in my body. They’re in my brain, too. Chomping away, making tunnels, heading for the places they love the most. It’s getting harder to think. I feel like I’m losing myself… like they’re taking control. My mouth is watering, like I’m hungry. My temper’s itching, aching, like I want to hurt somebody… or bite the living fool out of them.”
Hearing her talk like that frightened him. His right hand dipped to the butt of the Blackhawk. It was far from a comfort to him.
“I’ll be gone soon,” she declared. “I scarcely have the strength to keep my eyes open. But I won’t be gone for long. It won’t be a day or even hours. Those little bastards are working overtime to build their zombie and it’s gonna bust loose, fierce and strong.”
“I know what you want, Nell. Truth be told, I’m not sure that I can.”
“Of course you can,” she said smiling. “Because you love me.”
“That I do.” His words felt hot and scorching inside his mouth, like pig iron out of a furnace.
“I know you always carry a bandana in your back pocket. After you’re done, you can tie it around my head, so the young’uns won’t be upset when they come down to pay their respects.”
Levi frowned at her. “You know, for a dying woman, you sure are mighty long-winded.”
Nell stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. It was a sound he cherished and hadn’t heard in a good long while. “You always could tickle my funny bone, old man. This’ll be the last laugh we share in this life. We’ll have an eternity to cut up and fool around in the next.”
His eyes grew hot and moist as her breathing grew more and more shallow. Nell… sweetheart…
“You know something else that’s funny?” she asked. Her voice was barely audible. “Back at the garden? Three Biters roaming together… rotten and ripe and stinking to the high heavens… and not one buzzard in the sky.”
The thought struck Levi not as peculiar, but disturbing. Matter of fact, none of them had seen a single buzzard since the evening they had arrived at the Biltmore. The question was… where had they all gone?
He was about to answer, when her eyes sharpened and her breath hitched violently in her chest. The tendons in her neck tightened like cables pulled taut and her head lifted a couple of inches.
“Nell? What…?”
“Praise Jesus!” she declared in a voice as clear as he had ever heard it. “Lord of Lords and King of Kings!”
Then her head fell backwards and she was gone. Or had lapsed into what Abe Mendlebaum had called the “hibernation period”.
Levi Hobbs sat there motionlessly, for how long he had no idea. He stared at her as though she was the only thing in the world… the only thing that mattered or ever had. He had felt that way as a seventeen-year-old boy when he had laid eyes on her for the first time and he felt that way now.
He knew that he could wait for the first twitch of an eyelid or the involuntary flexing of a muscle. But he would be damned if he’d allow it to go that far. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the red bandana. Then he unsnapped the holster’s retaining strap with the ball of his thumb and shucked the .44 free.
Nell’s words came back to him, from an eternity ago. Easy enough for you to say! It ain’t you out there putting a bullet betwixt the eyes of your beloved. Who knows? Maybe someday you’ll be forced to do the same!”
The tears broke free then, hot and plentiful. “To hell with it!” he groaned. The big gun was heavy as lead in his fist as he pressed the muzzle to his beloved’s forehead and cocked the hammer.
Kate, Jem, and Avery jumped when the shot came. Hearts leaped into throats, then fell just as quickly. The cannon boom of the Blackhawk resounded off the tall, somber walls of the ancient house and then faded. It was immediately followed by a high-pitched, grievous wail unlike anything they had ever heard before. It took some convincing on their part to realize that the sourc
e of that terrible and lonesome sound was truly their father.
They waited a while longer. Then Kate took each of her brothers by the hand and, together, they went down to be with their parents.
Chapter 28
“So, how is your dad doing?”
They were walking through the estate’s northern woods—Levi and Billy up ahead, Avery, Jem, and Michelle a few yards behind—when the girl’s question came up.
The brothers looked at one another. It was a valid question, but an uncomfortable one for them to even think about. It had been a week since the Biter attack had taken Nell from them. Since that time, nothing about their father had been the same or predictable. Like his sudden impulse to cut down half a forest to build a wall completely around the Biltmore house. It was a plan that was foolish and ill-thought-out, but something to keep him occupied nonetheless.
“I reckon he’s doing okay,” Avery told her.
“That’s not the way I see it,” she said. “How’s he really doing?”
Jem shook his head. “It’s hard to tell with Papa. He never was much of a talker or one to show his feelings. It’s been, what, a week or so since that Biter took Ma? It’s hitting him hard, that’s for sure.”
“I understand that,” Michelle agreed. “But lately he’s all over the place. One minute he’s off to himself, quiet, not saying a word to anybody. The next he’s come up with some crazy project or another, barking orders, criticizing folks for what they are or aren’t doing. I know he’s had a rough time, but he’s starting to get on my ever-loving nerves. And that goes for Melissa, too.”
The boys knew where she was coming from. The twins weren’t the only ones that Levi’s behavior was alienating. Everyone was growing weary of the man’s emotional instability. Before he definitely seemed like a man in control and everyone had respected his judgment and sought his advice. But now everyone seemed intent on avoiding him rather than see him in his depressed, incommunicative state or be put down or berated when he was in one of his more volatile moods.
“There’s not much we can do about it,” Avery told her flatly.
His attitude ruffled Michelle’s feathers, as usual. “I’m not asking you to do anything about it, Bozo. I’m just letting you know how I feel. Or is that not important to you?”
Jem could see where the conversation was headed, so he attempted to stop it before it started. “I think it’s the way Ma went that’s bothering him. He was always the provider and protector of the family. When those zombies took her down and he wasn’t able to get there in time to stop it, it sort of threw his sense of identity out the window. I think he doubts himself… who he really is and what his role is now. He still has us young’uns, but Ma was his pride and joy… who he stood for and who stood for him. Now that’s gone and he’s, well, lost. He’s trying to cope, but he doesn’t know how. Half the time he’s depressed and doesn’t have the will to do anything, while the other half he’s angrier than a red wasp and fights to find something constructive to fill his time. Plus, I think he’s carrying some guilt around. For having to… you know… take care of Ma the way he did at the end.”
Michelle was impressed by Jem’s insight. “I think you’ve hit the nail square on the head. I can sort of see it his way now.” She looked over at Avery. “What do you think? Is Jem right?”
The boy grimaced, as though suffering a headache. “Well, to tell the truth, I couldn’t follow half of what he was talking about.”
Michelle and Jem looked at one another. Jem shrugged his shoulders in resignation, while the girl rolled her eyes.
“And another thing,” Jem said. “He’s got those buzzards on his mind.”
“What about the buzzards?” she asked.
“How they just upped and vanished. It wasn’t normal… wasn’t right.”
The girl shrugged. “Maybe they migrated or something. That’s what other birds do. Winter is almost here, you know.”
“Buzzards don’t migrate,” Avery told her flatly. “Summer or winter, they hang around the same spot… biding their time, waiting for something to die. Jem’s right. It’s not the natural order of things.”
Michelle laughed. “Oh? And what is these days?”
They walked onward for a few minutes, following the two men ahead of them. Then the brunette spoke again. “Jem… you like my sister, don’t you?”
The boy’s face reddened a bit. “Well… yeah.”
“A little more than ‘like’, I’d say.”
He kept walking, staring straight ahead. “I reckon so.”
“If things went from bad to worse, would you do for Lissa what your dad did for your mom?”
Jem thought about Sarah, back home in the Smokies, and felt sick to his stomach. Now why did she have to ask me that?
“Well… would you?” she insisted.
Jem thought about it for a second. “I suppose I would, if it came down to it.”
“How about you, Avery? Would you do it for me? Bust a cap in my noggin if one those stinking Biters took a chunk out of me?”
The question seemed to annoy the boy. “Even if I feel like I’d like to shoot you sometimes, I don’t think that I could.”
His answer seemed to anger her. “You mean, you’d rather let my brain be eaten by bugs and watch me wandering around trying to take a bite of everyone’s ass? Rather than do the decent…” her voice cracked. “…caring thing and putting me out of my misery?”
“Well…” stammered Avery, “if you put it that way…”
“Oh no,” she said, throwing up her hands, “never mind. If you wouldn’t do that for me, then just forget it!”
“Chelle, what’re you—?”
“Forget it!” Then she stomped off, head thrown back and shoulders squared in defiance.
Avery looked bewildered. “Now what the shit is the matter with her?”
His twin brother stared at him. “You don’t know?”
“Hell no!”
“Haven’t got a clue, do you?”
“Should I?”
Jem just shook his head. “Forget it then. Just forget it.”
“What?” Frustrated, he threw up his hands as Jem quickened his pace to catch up with the others. “Whose side are you on anyway?”
It was two days until the last Thursday of November and Enolia had Thanksgiving on her mind.
She knew that, had Nell still been alive, she would have, too. That was something that both women had had in common—cooking. Both had used food and preparation of such to both nourish and please their families. She recalled their times in the kitchen, talking and laughing, neither offering advice or criticism, knowing that they were both more than capable at their particular task. It had been a joy having such companionship; it had been something akin to torment losing it.
Enolia vowed to make up for the loss by preparing Thanksgiving dinner. But, of course, no Thanksgiving meal was complete without a turkey.
She knew that they were around. Enolia had seen their tracks, found their droppings, heard a distant gobbling that was eventually answered by another. The men promised to provide one, but Enolia wasn’t as trusting as they were confident, not even of her husband, who was an excellent hunter.
The week before she had disassembled a couple of lavish wicker chairs in the winter garden and formed them into six turkey traps, like the ones her grandmother had taught her to make back in Cherokee. She had set them up in intervals around the estate the day before, hoping to catch something healthy and eatable. And, if she was lucky, she would bag two or three.
That afternoon, she, Jessie, and Tyrone entered the thick forest that stretched between the stables and the Antler Village complex, with its winery, shops, and hotel. The trees were nearly bare of foliage and dead leaves lay in thick blankets around the bases of the ancient trees. Some drifts were nearly knee-high in places.
The first two basket traps they came to had failed to be sprung and were empty. The third, however, in a deep hollow a half mile from the house,
had caught something. They could see it from the upper rim of the wooded basin.
“Looks like you got yourself a big Tom,” Tyrone said with a grin. He slung the Thompson across his back and started down the slope. “Let’s go get it.”
Enolia took Jessie’s hand and, together, they descended the slope. Halfway there, mother and daughter lost their footing and slid the rest of the way, landing in a deep pile of maple leaves at the bottom. Jessie giggled and held tightly to her American Girl doll. She was afraid if she dropped it, it would get lost in the leaves and she would never find it.
The three waded through the leaves until they reached the base of a sycamore tree. Enolia had cleared the spot six feet around the day before, to give the intended bird plenty of room to reach the dried corn beneath the basket. The limb that had served as a trip bar lay in the leaves and the rim of the big wicker trap rested flat against the ground. A heavy stone she had lashed to the top of the basket held the trap firmly in place.
As Enolia approached the base of the tree, she slowed to a stop. She cupped her hands and issued a turkey call that Tyrone and Jessie wouldn’t have been able to tell from a real one. When there was no response, she reached to a holster clipped to the belt of her jeans and withdrew a Taurus 9mm pistol.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Jessie asked. She knew her mother well enough to realize that something about the basket trap wasn’t quite right.
“Nothing is moving inside,” she told her. “And there’s blood on that rock beside the basket… and on those leaves.”
“Want me to lift it up for you?” Tyrone offered. “If it turns out to be a zombified turkey, you can shoot it when it comes out.”
I don’t believe that’s our problem, she thought. She held the 9mm in both hands and surveyed the hollow. It appeared to be deserted, except for the three of them. She took a step toward the trap. “Okay. Go ahead.”
The Buzzard Zone Page 22