“What are you doing?” I say.
He smiles goofily at me. His eyes are red. I doubt he got much sleep last night. “I’m just enjoying the sunshine, little brother,” he says, then hiccups.
“Who’s on watch?” I ask, feeling that anger bubbling inside of me again.
There’s an empty bottle leaning against the bricks next to him. I point to it.
“I am,” he says.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, pointing to the bottle.
He shakes his head. “Which one of you said that?” His finger points at me, but slowly moves back and forth as if he is seeing double.
“The booze, Norm, where did you get the booze?”
He looks to the empty bottle, picks it up, closes one eye and peers into it. Then he’s patting it on the bottom, trying to get the last drop out with no such luck.
“Found it,” he says. “Found a whole bunch of them in the shed. Food, too. But booze first. Glug, glug, glug.” He squints his eyes, then puts a hand on his brow to shield the sunlight. He’s already deeply tanned, but I can see his skin starting to blister.
“Don’t move, Norm. I’m gonna get you off of there before you fall and break your neck.”
He shoots up, one foot slipping down the sloped roof. He stumbles, almost falls, and has to grab the chimney to steady himself. “Wait! We’re saved! Look! Look! It’s a car. We’re saved, Jacky!”
I lean out the window, hoping my brother is just having some kind of drunk hallucination.
But Norm is not wrong. A car has just turned off the distant road and into the dirt driveway that leads to the farmhouse. Clouds of dust billow around the back tires. It’s a car I wouldn’t expect a farmer to own. A souped-up Dodge Challenger as black as the tar that pours out of the zombie’s mouths.
Norm jumps up and down, waving his arms. I lean out of the window and try to grab him, but he’s too far. “We’re over here!” Norm shouts. “Over here!”
“Everything okay?” Darlene says from the first floor. “We got food, Jack. Norm found a freezer running on a generator. Eggs and steak. Fresh. You hungry, Jack?”
I don’t answer, and I hear her coming up the wooden steps. When she sees me almost fully out the window and Norm parading around on a sloped roof, she screams. Her hand grabs at the elastic waistband of my underwear. The stitches stretch as my body leans forward. I may have survived a similar fall off a roof half a year ago, but I had Pat Huber and bushes to soften the blow. There’s nothing but hard ground to cushion this one.
The Dodge’s engine revs.
Another hand grips me around the shoulders, dainty but strong. It’s Abby, and with her help, I land on the bedroom’s thin carpet.
“We have to go,” I say. “We have to get out of here. There’s a car. They saw us. Norm is drunk and he’s gonna get us killed.”
“Wait, hold on, what?” Abby asks. “Slow down.”
A gun goes off. The bullet strikes the chimney in an explosion of red dust.
Norm wavers, his hand still around the brick, and brings his own gun out with his other hand. He pulls the Magnum’s trigger.
I hear the tires squeal, the spray of rocks dinging the house below.
“Yeah, that’s right!” Norm shouts. “You better run!”
But they don’t.
I look out the window in time to see another bullet slam into the chimney. Too close. Norm loses his balance, bellowing, and starts sliding down the shingles.
“Norm!” I shout, and I lunge for the window again.
Eight
Norm’s head is bleeding, his eyes are wide. His voice no longer has that drunken, syrupy sound to it. But somehow, he hangs on to the gutter running along the edge of the roof. “Help me! Help!”
“I’m coming!” I shout.
I go out the window, this time more carefully. The shingles are slippery, but my bare feet grip them as well as they can. I jump the gap between this wing of the house and the wing Norm hangs from, and I land with a jarring thunk.
Norm whimpers. The gutters creak and groan, threatening to collapse, sending him splattering on the concrete.
I wrap my arms around the chimney and lay on my stomach, all while outstretching my underwear clad legs.
Another gunshot thwaps, and before the shot’s muted echo leaves my head, I’m showered in a storm of brick-dust. This was probably not the brightest idea, but I can’t let my brother die.
Norm grips my ankle, but his hands are sweaty. I feel them slipping. The Dodge has pulled up to the side of the farmhouse, parked horizontally. I see gray hair poking out from the open driver’s side door. I see the gun raise, and another shot goes off, silent. It misses me and does the same as the two before it. This bullet strikes dangerously close to my fingers. I can feel the heat radiating from the hole.
Norm’s Magnum has long since fallen off and I’m too busy hanging on for dear life to shoot a gun right now.
“Don’t shoot!” I yell. “We aren’t your enemy!” As if I really know that.
From the corner of my eye, I see Abby hang out the window. For a split second, I think she’s going to start shooting, but she doesn’t. She has a pillowcase in hand and she’s waving it like a surrender flag. It’s not white. It’s yellow. It’ll have to do.
I think the guy gets the hint because the shots stop.
Norm crawls up my leg, his fingers digging into my flesh, then pulling on my underwear. My bare ass is visible to God and everyone else, but Norm makes it up the roof.
His eyes are clear, his breathing ragged. Yeah, plummeting to your death will sober you up real quick.
“Who are you?” the man from the Dodge shouts. From up here, I can see his mane of silver hair shining in the Florida sunlight. “What the hell are you doing in my house?” He leans into the car and says something in a quiet voice. I catch the last bit of what is said. “Go! Go!” The windows are tinted and I can’t seem to see who it is, but someone gets out, and rushes around the front of the house.
I scramble to the window, ready to jump, ready to put myself between Darlene and Abby, to protect my family.
“I want whoever is in the house to come out. No weapons. No tricks. No funny business. I mean it! I got my sights set on both of your friends’s heads, and I won’t hesitate to repaint my roof with their blood. Understood?” the silver-haired man says.
Abby and I catch eyes. I nod to her. It pains me to not put up a fight, but I’ve already done one stupid thing today, and the day is pretty young. I don’t need anymore blood on my hands.
Darlene’s sunburnt face seems to drain of all color. “I know you’re scared,” I say to Darlene, “but it will be okay. I promise.”
She smiles with trembling lips.
I almost believe myself.
Nine
Abby and Darlene stand in front of the Dodge with their hands up. Norm is beside me, his face sweaty, his skin waxy. I think he might vomit.
Abby talks in a low voice, explaining our situation.
The older man with the gray hair doesn’t take his sights off of me. His beard is longer than the hair on his head, and a gaunt man stands next to him, nodding as Abby talks. This man’s hair is long, a jet black, and his beard is scraggly but not as long as the older man’s. He also has a gun, but it’s in his hand, resting on the side of his thigh.
The older man nods to the younger one, and the younger one disappears. Abby turns to me and gives me a thumbs up. What’s that supposed to mean? They won’t kill us as gruesomely as we think? They’ll let us go?
Norm leans over the roof, his hands covering his mouth, but not fast enough. Puke spews from between his fingers, splattering me. It’s not a thumbs up moment at all.
“Oh, man,” he says, “I feel so much better.”
About two minutes later, I’m crawling down a ladder with Norm’s puke drying on my t-shirt. He’s on the ground. Abby practically holds him up.
“That all of you?” the older man says, gun still trained on me.
I am annoyed and I am scared. The zombie apocalypse not only brings out the worst in corpses, but also people. These guys could be cannibals, rapists, murderers. How am I supposed to know? And we just succumb to them without so much as a fight.
“Yeah, that’s all,” Darlene says. “We are telling the truth.”
“We’ll see about that,” the old man says.
He circles behind us.
“Want me to unload, Pa?” the younger man asks.
My blood freezes. Unload? What is this, a firing squad?
“No, Bri, not in front of them. Not until I seen what they’ve been up to inside.”
“All right, Pa, but I don’t think we have much to worry about. That one just vomited off the roof. Dummies, if you ask me. Surprised they made it this long.”
I’m not bothered. He is right, Norm was stupid, and in about three hours when the booze headache hits him square in the noggin, he’ll be really sorry.
We walk up through the front door.
The old man sniffs deeply. “Wow, y’all found my steak and eggs, I see.” He spins around, the harsh light streaking in through the thin curtains shading the windows cause him to look crazy. A man on his last thread of sanity. Can I blame him? We did break into his house after all.
“In the kitchen,” the old man says.
We follow him, the younger man behind us.
“Have a seat,” he says. “I’d like to know who has been staying in my place. Whether I should punish them or not.” Yeah, I’d like to see him try. Then he turns to the younger man. “Wouldn’t you, Brian?”
Brian nods.
The older man pulls out a chair and sits down. His weapon is something James Bond would use, a sleek, black pistol with a silencer on the end. He aims it at the four of us.
“What’s your names? I’m Tony. Tony Richards,” he says. “Please have a seat.”
My eyes drift back to the gun he holds on us. Not the first time I’ve had one pointed at me, but I make it seem like it is. “It’d be a lot easier to talk if I wasn’t fearing for my life,” I say.
Tony looks down at the pistol as if he forgot it was there. He chuckles. “This old thing? It’s just precautionary. You understand, I’m sure.”
“You don’t have to worry about us,” I say.
I expect Norm to say something stupid here. His macho side is apt to show up during times where our backs are literally up against the wall. I get none of that. Instead he leans forward, his head in his hands, and mumbles something about needing an aspirin.
“I already told him that,” Abby says as if I could hear what the hell they were talking about while I was dangling, puke-covered, from this man’s roof.
“And that’s exactly what one of Spike’s men would say to cover his ass,” Tony says.
I lean forward. Flakes of Norm’s vomit fall from my shirt onto this guy’s dinner table. I catch it falling out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly the aroma of steak and eggs doesn’t seem so enticing. “Listen, Tony Richards, I don’t know who Spike is, but you do realize with your logic, you are pretty much saying you’re going to kill us.”
Tony ponders this a moment, scrunching his forehead up. I know his type. Like this before the world went to shit, camouflaged hunting vests, fake testicles dangling from the back bumper of the truck which is too big for him to get in and out of comfortably, a wad of chew packed tight in between rotting teeth and cheek. This is the type of guy you’d expect to survive the zombie apocalypse. Redneck. Second Amendment defender. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against these types of people. I’m pretty open-minded, and the end of the world has made that even more true (I mean, I’ve considered eating bugs, man), but I do have something against them when they’re pointing a gun at my family.
“I guess you’re right,” Tony says. He smiles. It’s a pained smile. A moment of realization hits me. Tony Richards is older and covered in stress-wrinkles and a long, gray beard, but he is a man whose face a smile does not belong. He is the man in the picture with his wife and twin sons. The picture on the mantel. This is not how I thought I’d meet him. Hell, I never thought I’d actually meet him.
“Is that your son?” I ask. “Is that your twin boy?”
The smile vanishes. The gun is now in my face, inches away. “How would you know that? I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. You’d only know that if you was working for Spike.”
“No,” I say. “I saw the picture.”
Darlene scoots a little closer to me. She is shaking, visibly shaking. Times like these, I’d put my arm around her and calm her down, but I can’t.
“What the hell do you want from us?” I say. “If you’re going to kill us, don’t draw it out. Just fucking do it.” I puff out my chest, looking more like a chicken than a brave man. This is usually the point Norm intervenes with his macho side.
I’m doing my best.
“To the point,” Tony says, nodding. “I like that.” He lowers his pistol. “I’ll get to the point, too, then, I guess. Seeing as y’all’s on my property, I don’t think what I plan to do with you is any of your goshdarned business.”
Brian nods and folds his arms. For the moment, I see the resemblance. I see the similarity from the photo sitting on the mantle in Tony Richards’s living room. He doesn’t look as young anymore. He looks like he’s seen some shit, but we all have. The wispy hair on his face hides most of the recognizable features, and he’s lost a good ten to fifteen pounds.
Tony turns to look at him. If I ever had a chance to break out of here, it would be now. I would, too, if Norm wasn’t half-zonked out of his mind. He’s been constantly moaning the entire time we’ve been at the table. We are outmatched. We are outgunned.
“What you think, son? Should I let them go? Or make them pay?”
Brian nods his head from side to side. “Like I said, they’re too dumb to be part of Spike’s crew.”
“Well, friends, today’s your lucky day,” Tony says.
“Lucky because I’m stuck in a house with an old redneck, staring down the wrong end of a gun. Yeah, lucky as hell,” I say.
Tony smiles the smile that looks so misplaced. Brian does not.
“Lucky because I’m letting you go. All of you,” Tony says.
“Why is that?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him. It’s almost too good to be true.
“Shut up, Jack,” Darlene says. “Don’t question him.”
Abby nods, her eyes wide.
Norm doesn’t do anything. He’s pretty much dead to the world.
“Yeah, Jack,” Tony says, grinning. “Don’t screw it up, now. Who knows how I’ll feel in a minute or two. I might decide I want to punish you for breaking into my house.” His look goes from me to the gun. I know he’s full of shit. He might have killed before, but he is not a killer. He is a family man. He is a farmer.
But I won’t risk it.
I stand up. “Fine, we’ll get out of your hair. And we apologize for breaking into your house.”
“Lovely home by the way,” Darlene says as she follows my lead. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”
Tony smiles, but it’s not that uncomfortable, genuine one. It’s a fake.
“Yeah, sorry,” Abby says.
“Come on, Norm,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
He mumbles.
“We’re gonna have to carry him out of here,” Abby says, giving him a shake.
“He’ll make it to Eden,” I say.
And it’s like the air is sucked out of the room.
Brian pulls a gun free from the back of his waistband, points it at us. Tony lifts his off the table, gets up so fast, the chair he was sitting on flips behind him.
“Liars!” Tony shouts.
My heart drops. Abby almost trips over her own feet. Darlene shrieks and puts herself behind me.
“You know about Eden! You fuckin dirty liars!” Brian says. “Y’all said you didn’t. They’re working for him, Pa!”
<
br /> Tony gets this menacing look on his face and grabs the pistol. “Send Spike my regards.”
Ten
Maybe the old me, the one who I think died in the Great Fire of Woodhaven last year, — yeah, that’s what I’m calling it now — would shit his pants and let this old geezer boss me around. Let him jam a gun in my face. But that’s not me anymore. Norm isn’t all there to back me up, so I have to act fast.
I slap the pistol from his hand. It goes flying behind him, the silencer thumps the counter, and lets off a muffled shot into the peeling, striped wall paper.
Tony’s face turns up into a snarl. Seriously, add a bit of blood and make him smell a little worse and you’d think he was one of the zombies.
His son aims at me, but Abby is on him fast as ever. She’s grown into quite an athlete since we’ve been on the road. I’m almost too impressed to punch Tony in the face.
Almost.
I cock back and slug the old man across the jaw. His bones aren’t brittle. They must be made of steel because my knuckles explode with white-hot pain.
Still, Tony stumbles over his overturned chair and lands in a heap. An empty dog bowl goes spinning across the linoleum floor, its silver catching rays of sunlight filtering in through the kitchen window.
I reach for the gun.
Darlene screams behind all of the chaos, a dazed and seemingly half-dead Norm in her arms. “Stop! Stop it!”
She senses the blood about to be spilled. She senses the kill in the air.
So do I.
I grab the gun, the cold iron filling my hand, sending buzzes of powerful electricity through my skin.
Tony sees me, and I must look crazy again because he scoots himself across the floor until he hits the dead refrigerator and puts his hands up. “Please, don’t please.”
A calm washes over the room. I feel all eyes on me, even Norm’s. Abby has since subdued the skinny, young man. He’s on his knees, his head down, and his shaggy, black hair hanging over his face. His hands are up half-heartedly, but he wants to die. I can see it as much as I can feel it. He wants Abby to end his life, and with the end of his life will come the end of the suffering, the nightmares, the constant looking over your shoulder.
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