“I need to get in contact with Washington, DC,” said Halverson.
“Haven’t you been listening?” said Painter. “There is no Washington, DC. There is no government.” He jabbed his thumb at his chest. “I’m the government for this territory that you’re standing in.”
“How can you know for sure that there’s no government?”
“Why do you want to contact Washington, anyway?” Painter squinted at Halverson’s expressionless face.
It would not be a good idea to tell Painter he worked for the CIA, Halverson knew. Painter would probably have him incarcerated or worse if he knew Halverson’s employer.
“I just want to know what’s really going on in this country,” said Halverson.
Painter confronted Halverson. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m not calling you anything. I just want to find out what’s happening to this country.”
“I already told you. The government’s gone. The country’s gone. Every rat for himself. I and my followers claim Zone Zero as our land. That’s all you need to know.”
“We don’t want any quarrel with you,” chimed in Rogers. “We just want to be on our way and find out who’s running the show in the US of A.”
Painter turned on Rogers. “Are you calling me a liar, too?”
Rogers shook his head. “We need to meet up with the rest of our party and we’ll leave you people alone.”
Halverson wondered if it was a good idea to let Painter know there were more members in Rogers’s group. Halverson figured the less they told Painter, the better off they would be. Halverson still wanted to find out if his brother Dan was OK. Other than that, Halverson’s life was spinning out of control, as was everyone else’s now that the plague was ravaging the country.
If, as Painter had said, there was no government, then there wasn’t any CIA either. In that case, Halverson had no employer. Everyone else was in the same predicament, Halverson knew. No country, no job, no nothing.
“Where are you headed?” Painter asked Rogers.
“We’re headed north once we link up with the rest of our members,” answered Rogers.
“What’s up there?”
“I have no idea, at this point.”
“Then why go there?”
“We’re looking for signs of civilization.”
“What do you call this here?”
Rogers said nothing, his face stoic.
“Are you saying this isn’t civilization here?” demanded Painter. “I welcome you like my brother and this is what you think of us?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your implication was clear.”
“We just want to keep moving,” inserted Halverson. “We think that’s our best bet. To keep moving.”
“I disagree. It’s best to hunker down and defend ourselves like we’re doing here in Zone Zero. When you rove around, you’re exposing yourselves to all sorts of ambushes. You’ll never know where they’re gonna hit you next.”
“Whatever,” said Rosie.
Painter didn’t look pleased with her remark, it was plain for Halverson to see.
In his peripheral vision Halverson caught sight of Tom and Tanya and a few others of the remaining passengers being shepherded by Zone Zero soldiers from the dark brick school building toward him.
“At least Tom and Tanya are OK,” said Rosie with relief.
To his dismay Halverson also picked up on Lemans with his familiar boulder head and hunched shoulders accompanying them.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” said Halverson, his eyes on Lemans.
“Just what we need,” said Rogers.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
As Lemans passed the stadium, Halverson could see he was watching intently the torching of the zombies as they staggered around the football field with burning tires looped around their necks.
“I was hoping maybe the zombies got him,” said Rosie.
“Him and the others must’ve been captured by Zone Zero,” Rogers confided to Halverson, leaning toward him.
“Better than ending up zombie food,” said Halverson.
Blue eyes twinkling, Lemans approached Painter with a bounce to his step. Halverson noticed that Lemans ignored him and Rogers. Lemans did not even acknowledge their presence.
It did not surprise Halverson. When it came to Lemans, nothing surprised Halverson.
Tom and Tanya, on the other hand, approached Rogers and Halverson right off the bat and greeted them warmly.
“How much do you charge to attend this sport?” Lemans asked Painter, indicating the zombies roaming around on fire on the gridiron.
“Nothing,” answered Painter. “The pleasure’s all mine killing off those things.”
“You’re going about this the wrong way. You could make a fortune off these games.”
“I never thought about it.”
“Of course not. That’s why I’m rich and you’re not.”
Painter took offense at Lemans’s remark. “What are you trying to say?”
“An entrepreneur spots a need before anyone else and invents something to fill that need.”
“Who’s an entrepreneur?”
“That’s you, in this case. You’re the inventor of these games.”
“And how do you fit in?”
“I’m a banker and an investor, and I can tell you flat out you could clean up with these games you’ve invented. All you need now is capital to get you started. That’s where I come in.” Lemans watched with wide-eyed fascination as a zombie flared up and the boisterous crowd reacted with a cacophony of cheers and clapping. “We’re talking beaucoup bucks, my friend.”
“Leave it to Lemans to reap profits off the plague,” Halverson told Rogers.
“The human race is dying out and this guy’s thinking profits,” said Rogers.
“A leopard can’t change his spots,” said Rosie.
“I see Zone Zero welcomed you guys too,” said Tom.
“If you can call it a welcome,” said Rogers. “I would use another word for it.”
Tom sniggered, getting Rogers’s drift.
Tom became serious. “Ever wonder what the point of any of this is? Basically, we’re a bunch of refugees now. We have no homes that we know of. Where are we going?”
“We’re getting out of here,” said Halverson under his breath.
“What’s the point? Why bother?”
“Any old port in the storm?” said Rosie.
“At least we have protection here from the zombies.”
“What about protection from Painter?” said Halverson.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not exactly free here to do as we wish.”
“We’re more like captives, if you ask me,” said Rogers, keeping his voice low so Painter could not hear him.
Halverson agreed.
“I just don’t know what the point is,” said Tom. “I don’t know what we’re trying to do anymore.”
“I’m with you,” said Tanya. Her head drooped. “My dad’s dead. I have nothing to live for now.”
“It’s like we’re going through the motions of being alive. Going through the motions and we don’t know why.”
“It’s obvious these zombies are getting to you,” said Rogers. “We’re all tired. They’re getting to all of us. We need to rest so we can think clearly about our next move.”
“That won’t change anything.”
Tom’s eyes looked sunken, his face haggard, Halverson could see. Halverson could not blame him. How could anyone look good under the circumstances?
Halverson could overhear Lemans and Painter talking nearby.
“Something’s missing, though,” said Lemans. “There needs to be some kind of a goal to this game.”
He watched another zombie with a burning tire around its neck flare up and die on the fifty yard line. A round of cheers from the spectators greeted the creature’s incineration.
Rowdy spectators bega
n jeering and hurling empty beer bottles at the zombies that were still “alive” and stumbling around on the field with burning tires collaring their necks. Spectators cheered and hooted with glee whenever a bottle pelted a zombie in the head.
Errant bottles shattered all over the ground, strewing it with broken glass. Some of the bottles even smashed near Halverson and his group.
“Those bottles are coming a little too close for comfort,” said Lemans. He eyed the remains of a broken bottle that littered the ground some ten feet away from him.
“They’re just blowing off steam,” said Painter. “It’s good for them.”
“As long as they don’t mistake us for zombies.”
“No way. The zombies in the games all have tires around their necks.”
“Where was I?” asked Lemans, having lost his train of thought.
“You were talking about the zombies as sport.”
“Oh yeah. Something’s missing from this sport. Nobody’s scoring points or anything. Just zombies burning up isn’t enough.”
“Enough for what?” asked Painter, cocking a beetling eyebrow.
“Enough to leave spectators begging for more.” Lemans thought for a moment. Then he slapped his thigh. “I’ve got it. We’ll add gambling to the sport.”
“Gambling?” Painter’s brow furrowed with puzzlement.
“We’ll bet on . . . let’s see . . . we’ll bet on which zombie dies first and which one lasts the longest. Like that.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Of course not. That’s where I fit in.”
“I never thought of it as a profitable enterprise. I thought of it in terms of entertainment for the people.”
“Everything can be profitable if you set your mind to it, especially entertainment.”
“My dad died,” said Tanya in a funk.
Halverson turned to look at her. She looked spaced out. He could not figure out who she was talking to.
“The zombies got him,” she went on. “He was trying to save them. That’s what he liked to do. To go around preaching and saving people. What’s wrong with that? Why did he have to die because he wanted to help people?”
“Are you OK, Tanya?” asked Tom.
“And then that man over there”—she pointed at Halverson—“took my dad away. He shot my dad. He killed my dad.” She broke down, sobbing. “My dad wanted to help. Why did he have to be killed?”
“Just calm down,” said Tom. “You’re stressed out. You need to take it easy.”
“Why is this happening?”
“I don’t know. Why does there have to be a why? It just is.”
“It’s not right.”
“Take it easy. Don’t think about it. There’s no point in dwelling on it. It won’t change anything.”
“What are we supposed to do?” she asked in consternation.
Halverson could see that Tom had no answer. Tom looked glum.
“I want to leave something behind,” said Tom as if to himself. “I want to let people know that I was here, that I walked this planet.”
“You need to snap out of it,” said Halverson. “You sound depressed like her, like your life’s over and you’re just waiting for it to end.”
“There’s a lot to be depressed about.”
“What’s the point of going on?” said Tanya. Her eyes welled with tears.
“We can’t let these creatures beat us so easily,” said Halverson. “We need to fight back and keep going.”
Lemans ignored Halverson and the other passengers.
“We can make oodles of money off these zombie circuses you have here,” Lemans told Painter. “Trust me on this.”
“Right now money isn’t what people want,” said Painter. “They want a safe place to stay. They want protection from the infected creatures.”
“All the easier to part them from their money, if they don’t want it. A fool and his money—”
Painter held up his hand. “If I’ve heard that expression once, I’ve heard it a hundred times.”
“You’ve heard it so many times because it’s true.”
“We need to be on our way,” Rogers told Lemans.
“Why are you telling me?” said Lemans, irritated at having his conversation with Painter interrupted. “I know a good thing when I see it. I think we’ve got a sweet deal here.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here?”
“They can have him,” whispered Rosie.
“Who said anything about anyone leaving?” said Painter. “You’re my guests. I wouldn’t think of letting you leave without inviting you to supper. Eat, drink, and be merry.”
“For tomorrow we die,” added Tom.
Tanya saw a broken glass bottle lying on the grass. She wandered over to the bottle. She bent over and picked it up. She slashed her wrist with it.
“What!” said Tom.
He ran over to her. Blood jetted from Tanya’s wrist. She attempted to slash her wrist again. Tom grabbed her hand in midmotion. Holding onto her wrist with one hand, he pried the bottle loose from her hand with the other. She wouldn’t let go of the jagged bloody glass.
At last, he pinched the glass in her hand and plucked it out of her grasp, not caring whether the shard sliced her hand or not as he removed it. He tossed the fragment away. He clutched her torn wrist, trying to stanch the flow of arterial blood.
Rosie ripped the sleeve off her blouse and offered it to Tom. Tom took it and wound it around Tanya’s wrist to stanch the bleeding. He applied pressure to the wound to finish the job.
“Haven’t we had enough drama for today?” said Lemans, casting a censorious glance at Tanya.
“Shut the fuck up!” said Tom. “Don’t you have any decency?”
“Get out the violins.”
Halverson felt like slugging Lemans. Halverson advanced on him.
Painter must have realized Halverson’s intent, for he aimed his pistol at Halverson. “Take it easy.”
Halverson backed off in frustration.
Halverson watched the sleeve from Rosie’s dress turn red with Tanya’s blood that soaked into it.
“Press the wound harder,” said Halverson. He knew that pressure stopped bleeding.
Tom pressed the sleeve harder around Tanya’s wrist.
That seemed to do the trick, Halverson decided.
“She’ll need stitches,” said Tom.
“We have a doctor,” said Painter. “He’ll take care of her.”
Halverson picked up on it before anyone else did. They were too absorbed with Tanya’s attempt at suicide.
One of the zombies with a burning tire around its head had somehow escaped from the football field and was lurching toward Painter. Black smoke billowed from the creature’s putrescent neck as flames consumed the rubber tire.
The creature looked like a nun to Halverson. In any case it was dressed like one. It was wearing a black serge habit and a white coif, which included a white wimple. The burning, reeking tire around its neck, the creature shuffled toward Painter. Its hands managed to claw and slash the air seeking Painter’s flesh, despite the presence of the flaming, smoking tire that impeded its vision and its movements.
The creature was making straight for Painter like Painter had a bull’s-eye on his back, Halverson could see.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Halverson sprang at the creature. He knocked it off its feet before anyone else in the group had time to react. He wrestled the nun to the ground.
The creature’s white coif had caught fire from the burning tire, he noticed. Not for the first time, he wished he had his gun. He could have made short work of the zombie with a gun in his hand.
As it was now, he did not know how to kill the thing. He could bash the zombie’s head in with his fists, but that would take a long time with the smoking rubber tire around the creature’s neck hindering his punches.
If there was any good to be had in this mess, decided Halverson, it was the fact that the zombie ha
d difficulty biting anyone thanks to the flaming tire wrapped around its scrofulous neck. Its neck appeared to be melting like a guttering candle, Halverson noticed, but its dissolving flesh had no effect on the zombie.
Halverson needed something to stave the creature’s head in with.
The nun’s gaunt, withered face glared at him with its milky eyes. Despite the flames leaping from the tire collar, bluebottles swarmed around the creature’s head, drawn by the odor of putrefaction. A maggot squirmed out of one of the nostrils of the nun’s partially decomposed nose. The stench exuding from the burning rubber tire and her rotting flesh was overpowering.
Nauseated, Halverson kept the creature pinned to the ground by lying on top of its chest. The creature writhed and tried to buck Halverson off it. Failing that, the zombie tried to bite Halverson. The burning tire around its neck got in the way of the creature’s teeth every time.
Halverson heard two sharp reports above him. He felt the creature stop moving beneath him. With his arms he levered himself off the zombie’s chest. He immediately made out two black holes in the creature’s forehead, one on the right side, the other on the left.
Standing a yard away from the zombie’s bullet-perforated head was Painter, a Glock semiautomatic in his right hand.
“How’d that damn thing get out of the football field? That’s what I want to know,” said Painter.
Halverson brushed grass and dead leaves off his trouser legs with the backs of his hands as he got to his feet. His knees hurt, he realized. He wasn’t getting any younger.
“I could have killed it myself if you hadn’t taken away my gun,” he said.
“No doubt.” Painter holstered his pistol indifferently.
It looked like an Austrian-made Glock 17 to Halverson. A good gun used by many American police and law-enforcement professionals. You couldn’t go wrong using a Glock, Halverson knew.
The zombie nun sat upright with such suddenness it gave Halverson a turn.
Painter was Johnny on the spot, lucky for Halverson. Painter drew his Glock. He fired point-blank at the back of the nun’s head this time. Spicules of white skull shot out of the zombie’s face. Some of them, along with accompanying brain matter and the orb of a dislodged eye, splattered onto the back of Halverson’s hand.
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