The Rising

by Eli Constant

  Sherry seem to brighten up after the revelation that there might be ‘special forces’ at Kirkland so I didn’t add that it was mostly a training base and the numbers, if any, would be few. However, I did have faith that my comrades-at-arms could hold the fort, unless of course they got orders to bail out. If that was the case, well, it would just plain suck.

  We stayed at the truck stop, the pavement still littered with the truckers’ bodies rotting in the heat because they didn’t deserve anything more, for four days. In that time, I found out that Sherry was a fair shot, but only with a shotgun or similar weapon. Hunting deer with good old dad was a far sight different than hunting rabid kids and she was total crap with a handgun, especially since she was insisting on keeping a hold of the Ruger Alaskan .454 that Juan had taken off one of the truckers and given to her during the fight.

  I think she liked it because it gave her a sense of peace, knowing that she held the weapon of one of the men who’d tried to hurt her. Although, I think the gun must have belonged to the biggest man, the one who seemed to act more like a second-class citizen nurse. At least, that’s the impression I’d gotten when Mike and I had parked on the other side of the station and quietly moved towards the group of men.

  I didn’t fight Sherry on it, but eventually, after struggling with the large gun during some target practice, she realized that the weapon might make her feel secure but it wasn’t going to save her life if she couldn’t support the weight to make a clean shot. Alaskans are good pieces of iron, trustworthy weapons, but really too big for anything other than dinosaurs and elephants.

  The Ruger was even more comically big in my hands. I could shoot it if I wanted to, and even hit something with it, but I planned to stick to Mike’s Benelli autoloader. It was all I had to remember him by and, funny enough, I’d always sort of coveted it. It felt good, friendly, kinda like Mike.

  We ended up being lucky and found quite a stash of ammo for the gun Juan had taken off of the man named Lucas. It was a Taurus .357. A good-sized, solid weapon. Not top of the line, but reliable. It would have been nice to find some ammo for the .38 Sherry and Juan had picked up when they’d fled their town. That was a gun Sherry could more than handle and she had handled it, if what she’d told me was the God’s honest. That only had what was left in the chamber though. A single shot.

  It had taken Sherry a while to show progress with the Taurus and I wondered if her use of the .38 had been a product of adrenaline and beginner’s luck. I knew a few days of practice wouldn’t turn her into Annie Oakley, but she kept at it, stifling her frustration and celebrating when she managed to hit one of the empty cans I’d set up on the tires she’d once been bent over, waiting to be raped. I thought having them there would motivate her. It did. When she hit two empty cans consecutively in under a minute, I almost leaped for joy. If she kept her head, she’d sink a bullet or two into a monster. Hopefully.

  Juan slept for the majority of the first two days while Sherry and I worked. When she needed a break, I kept myself busy collecting everything I felt might come in handy and organizing the things under the extended awning of the RV. The truck stop had been a wealth of supplies and it was no wonder the makeshift trucker ‘gang’ had held up there. The small, sit-down eatery to the right of the shower rooms was full of canned foods and the owner had a decent cache of weapons in an office safe. A safe that had been busted open, which made me think that none of the truckers we’d killed had been the actual owner of the establishment. There was even a bullet proof vest—a little large for Sherry, but could be adjusted down to fit Juan all right. I wished it was smaller though. Kid-sized.

  I’d found myself looking at the little boy more than once, wondering if he was going to magically turn into one of the monsters. That’s one bit of information I wish I had—what was causing all this shit? I hadn’t been near a television in weeks, even before everything went to hell, and the radio in our issue Yukon had been busted for a month. Mike had put in two work orders for it. Two. That was border patrol life. Up until about a year ago, they’d send us into the field without guns. Then they’d started handing out .40 Smith and Wessons like candy. That’s what I carried.

  Mike never did tell me how he got away with carrying the Benelli. Now, I’d never know.

  Screw you for dying, Mike.

  The thought was hot acid coursing through my brain. I loved Mike. He was the best partner an agent could ask for. Again, I wondered if his family was alive. I wondered if I was going to have to tell them he died. I wondered if they’d want to know how.

  I’d found the biggest score of the truck stop in its repair garage. It was a nondescript building set away from the pumps. It almost looked like a shutdown car wash. Juan and Sherry hadn’t even noticed it when they’d parked. In the back of the building, all tricked out and ready to go, was a mechanics repair trailer—the kind you see supporting race cars. It was big, a little over twenty feet, with A/C mounted above the hitch and every tool imaginable. It took an entire day just to empty out all the unnecessary equipment and fill it with supplies including fuel, food, and ammo. Once it was hooked up to the motor coach it gave me a huge boost of moral and a real belief that we could get through this. I wasn’t really the negative type but when this whole undead, monster kid thing started, I figured it was just a matter of time before I was a statistic.

  Now, I had hope. And it wasn’t the false, sugary kind.

  Juan’s injuries looked like hell by the morning of the third day, but he was lucid and in fairly cheery spirits. He got up, he ate, and he looked at Sherry with a new appreciation when I told him that she’d been practicing and was getting the hang of a pistol. He’d joked that it would be his turn to become the next Wyatt Earp when I was done with Sherry. We spent that third day with him and Sherry both practicing and getting better. Juan didn’t push himself, sitting down and taking a breather when necessary.

  He was a fast learner and was shooting with decent accuracy around the sixth day, when his pain was mostly controlled. Or controlled enough that he didn’t need to sit down every twenty minutes. Despite his growing effectiveness at shooting, he confided in me that he still preferred the ASP baton he carried over guns. He understood his body, his rate of reaction. Even if he hadn’t told me he was a martial arts instructor, I would have guessed something similar. You aren’t born with that sort of natural, physical command over the way you move. Juan was banged to hell and he still carried himself with a controlled grace. It was something I could appreciate.

  It wasn’t until the seventh day when I thought Juan had healed enough to get back on the road. Potholes and bumps will wreak havoc on injuries. By this time I had done my best to fix the windshield of the RV. The ragged hole, now a spider web of cracks patched together, fortunately wasn’t directly in the view of the driver and with an ample supply of duct tape was made as secure as I could possibly make it. It wouldn’t stand up to high way speeds but it would hold if we weren’t doing 70 mph.

  I finished up by using a Dewalt cordless, sheet metal screws, and wire fencing to make an “anti-Z barrier”. It looked like shit but it would work. It reminded me of something out of a movie—the hero fortifying his or her vehicle to become some deranged war hammer. I kinda liked drilling the screws into the million-dollar rig, it was as close as I had ever been to being a vandal.

  Seven days since I’d found these people here, saved them and lost Mike in the process. Five days before that, all of this had started for me. It seemed things hit the border a little before it erupted across the rest of the country. The chaos. The carnage.

  Not even two weeks since the world had gone to hell. How the fuck was that possible?

  Marty had been almost a ghost while we’d stayed put at the truck stop. He ate little, drank what was offered, and spoke only a handful of words. The trauma of what had happened…it was sticking with him, scorched into his brain so he couldn’t shake it off. And he’d lost one of his protectors. I was a grown adult, and I was having trouble d
ealing. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be a small boy. A boy who, according to Sherry, had watched his sister and brother turn. Had watched his mom die.

  I wondered, in retrospect, if I had disposed of the bodies—all the bodies—before he’d ventured out of the RV to place the dog toy on Mike and Frank’s grave, if he’d have coped better. Having the reminder in his face; dried blood on concrete, the smell of decaying bodies, the memory of what had happened…it couldn’t have helped matters.

  He’d bounce back. Children do that.

  I really hoped he’d bounce back. I don’t know which would be worse, facing one of the kid-turned-demons or living with the boy’s haunted face day-in and day-out. Thank God I didn’t have any kids. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d be feeling right about now.

  I was lounging in the back of a mobile camper I could never afford on a patrol salary. I was looking over a pile of road maps and atlases attempting to find the safest route to Albuquerque before we left, when Juan came up behind me. He stood quietly, waiting for me to show some signs that I wasn’t focusing on the lines and signs anymore.

  The problem was the great state of Texas itself. It was enormous. Albuquerque was almost 650 miles away from our current location near Eagle Pass. Normally, that would be under 12 hours, but now it could take days. The roads alone, being blocked with cars and bodies, could send us on huge diversions…and then there were the children.

  I looked up from the maps, finding the backs of Sherry and Marty talking in the front RV seats. I wished their dog was still alive. I’d never met him, but by all accounts, he was a good one. It would have been nice to have him around. I loved dogs, grew up with four labs and a foxhound. And I always trusted canines, humans not so much.

  I looked away from the kid and woman, still ignoring Juan standing over me, and back at the map, trying to find the glimmer of hope in the darkness. There had to be a place. A smart direction to head, a good bet. I wanted to get to people who knew what was going on, to people who were trained. These people I’d rescued were good people, but when the shit hits the fan, well, that’s when you really get to know the truth about a person. The hidden being that can be more fear and self-preservation than strength and brotherhood.

  Juan didn’t argue when I sat behind the wheel of the RV, Sherry and Marty having taken my spot on the couch; he simply positioned himself in the passenger’s seat, grunting a little with the impact of sitting down. It hadn’t been hard to fuel up once I’d found the breaker panel and turned the power to the pumps back on. I even ran my credit card to start up the pump instead of trying to fudge it at the cash register. I’d half-expected the card to be rejected, but, amazingly, it had been approved and the pump had whirred to life. End of the world, and the bank still wanted to get their pound of flesh. I wondered when that would end.

  There’d been a period of time when the shit had hit the fan and the world went into panic mode that cell phone service was spotty. Millions trying to call and check on loved ones. Millions trying to find out what the hell was going on. Then the cell phones started working again. Maybe because people were dying fast, fast enough to alleviate the burden on technology.

  I didn’t turn the pumps back off after I was finished. Who knew how many people the truckers had turned away that needed fuel because they couldn’t pay. I figured most people wouldn’t have cash on hand. With the way those bastards were, they’d probably have offered to take ‘other compensation’.

  It wasn’t long after I began driving that Juan spoke.

  “So once we reach Albuquerque Station what happens to us?” Juan’s speech was almost back to normal, only the slightest damp sound clinging to the edges.

  I weighed my next words, wondering if I wanted to kill some of the hope I’d planted in Sherry when we’d first talked about Albuquerque. She was sitting next to Marty on the stained couch, which was now covered with a blanket we’d found in the store, across from the television. I wished we could get a news station or something, but this TV was only good for the useless playing of DVDs.

  Not useless, I thought, as I saw that Marty had his eyes closed and was leaning into Sherry. His mouth, for the first time in days, wasn’t frowning. And he looked almost peaceful. They’d just finished a children’s movie, infinitely easier listening than the eight episode disc about some cat-dog mutation. The TV is not useless if it can help Marty become a living thing again rather than the shadow of a boy he’d been since the fight.

  “AJ?” Juan prodded, waiting for my response.

  “Look, I ran into some ugly stuff with my partner. Uglier than I’ve ever seen. Things that I couldn’t have imagined in my worst nightmares. Towns are burning, homegrown militias already forming, military units devastated by this plague. These…these zombies, whatever the hell you want to call them. I didn’t think my partner and I were going to survive very long, and we have training unlike a lot of people.” I took a deep breath, went to speak again, but Juan spoke before I could.

  “I guess we had it pretty good. Once we emptied out the RV,” he said ‘emptied’ like he meant more than just cleaning up blood and guts, “we drove straight to the Corpus Marina. We didn’t have to stop. I guess back roads sort of sheltered us from how bad it got. Shit,” Juan rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as lifting his arm strained the chest injuries, “I sort of kept telling myself that maybe this was localized.”

  “Definitely not localized,” I said, adjusting the wheel slightly to go around a dead car in the road. It took a little more skill with the mechanic’s trailer hitched to the already-long RV.

  “Yeah, I get that now,” Juan sighed out.

  “Too bad Corpus hadn’t worked out. Probably as safe as you can get right now…on a boat with plenty of supplies.”

  “I think our odds are looking pretty good.” Juan smiled then and I noticed that it was slightly crooked, marring the symmetrical lines of his face. It suited him, his ivory teeth set into his amber-tan face.

  “With all the supplies we got, definitely,” I said whilst also maneuvering around debris in the road. The remnants of two cars, one blue and one red.

  “Not just the supplies, but the new company also,” Juan added to my assessment.

  The way he said it felt oddly inappropriate. Even though I was just thinking over his looks, the thickness of his dark eyebrows and his long lashes, I also kept in the back of my head that this wasn’t some single guy at a bar. This was an attached man, trying to keep his wife and…not son, the boy didn’t look anything like them unless he was adopted…a kid alive. I wanted to turn around in my seat and see if Sherry was watching, but it would have been pretty obvious what I was doing.

  “Sherry and Marty still okay?” I focused on the road and saw Juan shift in his chair in my peripheral vision.

  “Sleeping.” He winced as he turned back around and re-settled in his seat. “You know, you didn’t really answer my question.”

  “What?” Confused, I glanced at him, quickly returning my gaze to the road. “What question?”

  “What’s going to happen to us? Me, Sherry, and Marty. You’re law enforcement; you’ll have some authority to stay at the station. We’re basically refugees. I doubt there are many safe places set up for folks like us.”

  I sighed. I knew he was right. It’s something I’d thought about when I was first telling Sherry my plan. But they had the vehicle, the vehicle that was hauling probably the largest stash of supplies anyone anywhere had. I needed them. And they needed me. So, even if we got there and they couldn’t stay, at least I’d have gotten them safely that far. Surely I could find them somewhere to hole up until this blew over. If it blew over. “You’re right. I can’t make any guarantees that Albuquerque Station is going to be safe or refugee-friendly or anything. It’s just…the best guess out of a whole grab bag of guesses.”

  “And if we get there and it’s overrun already?” Juan spoke the words like he already knew the answer.

  “Then we come up with a new plan, Jua
n. We come up with a new one and a new one, again and again, until something sticks. Until, finally, we’re safe.” I didn’t look at him because the words were more for me than for him. I always had a plan. I always found a way. That was who I was. Even if I’d had moments of depression when things looked bleak for me and Mike, I knew we’d find a way. And we had.

  Only Mike wasn’t here to see it.

  ***

  JUAN

  I looked over my shoulder to where Sherry and Marty were sleeping. Her eyes were open now, quietly listening to us speak. I could see a thread of fear in her eyes. That was to be expected. It’s not every day that you lose everything and everyone that you believe in. You just have to control it, keep it in check so you can kill when killing is needed and run when running is needed.

  Sherry and I stared into one another’s eyes and it was like the moment we’d first bear-hugged behind the T-bird on that untraveled back road in the middle of nowhere. She’d found me then, pale-faced with gun in hand, and she’d dropped all her forced and necessary hardness because I could protect her. Right now her disheveled dark hair was fanned out over Marty’s head.

  After a few moments of our gazes connecting, Sherry lowered her head and closed her eyes once more. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but something had changed between us. In such a short time, our world and relationship had shifted, particles of sand already passed more than once through an hour glass.

  “It’s up to us then? Just plan after plan after plan until we’re dead or safe?” I said the words, my voice hollow. When Sherry closed her eyes, something ignited in me. Maybe it was loss because we’d missed our moment in the sun. All those times I could have and should have asked her out. It was too late now. That pain, that realization of losing something you never had, that was more difficult to bear than the bruises and busted ribs.