by Eli Constant
He dodged each shot that came his way. We tried, even I tried, but no one could fell him.
And then, when he was ten feet from the wall, he crouched and leaped. He leaped into the air and landed on the body of a Rick Jarvis, a man who’d worked his entire life as a line cook and had had very little gun experience before finding his way to the fort a few days after the shit hit the fan.
Rick screamed, dropping his gun and trying to push the Z kid off of him. No one could shoot, it would put the man as well as the monster at risk. Sloane swung his gun onto his shoulder by the webbed strap and he pulled out a 12-inch Bowie knife from the sheath at his waist. I knew the knife. His wife had given it to him for their anniversary two years ago. It even had a nice engraving.
Lunging forward, Sloane pushed his own hand into the space between Rick and the Z’s body. He pulled the monster too him, feeling around and making sure he’d only sink the knife into the ZULU’s body. And then he pushed the tip of the blade against the side of the once-a-boy, angled it at about 45 degrees and pushed, pushed until the full foot length of the sharpness slid into the flesh and found the heart.
The boy went limp, but not before Rick screamed bloody murder. When Sloane lifted and threw the boy over the side of the wall to land with a ‘thunk’ on the smoldering pile of other Z kid bodies, I saw why Rick had yelled.
His nose was bitten nearly clean off, but not. It hung by a single piece of flesh, about the width of a pencil. It swung from his face, a sickly tail wagging below a hole that spurted blood. Rick’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began to fall. Sloane tried to catch him, but he couldn’t.
It was a slow-motion scene- Rick’s body falling off the wall to join the Z kid’s that had just mauled his face- and we had no rewind button.
“Keep shooting, dammit!” I yelled, when I realized half the men were staring at what had just happened. “There’s still more!”
I jumped down off the main wall to the layer of two cars and then jumped twice more to land on the ground. AJ stayed on the wall, shooting and taking out the ZULUs still attacking.
By the time I reached Rick, he was going into shock from blood loss. The fall hadn’t been enough to kill him or even break bones because he’d landed mostly on Georgie. I took off the plaid shirt that was buttoned-up over my white under tee and I balled it up, gently pushing the barely-held on and bloody nose slightly to the side so I could apply pressure to the large wound.
I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. The blood flowed like a river despite the cloth and the pressure of my hand and beneath my two fingers that I pressed to his wrist; also, I could feel his pulse slowing.
“Fuck, Rick, stay with me.” I pushed the wad of cloth more firmly. “Come on, dammit. I’m not going to tell your son that you died here today.”
Rick’s eyelids parted a fraction, his face screwing up in pain, more pain than I could fathom. I’d been shot, but I could imagine a bullet was nothing like getting your goddamn nose ripped off.
“Come on, Rick.”
His eyelids parted a little more. He was trying. That, unlike the pulse throbbing ever slower beneath my touch, was a good sign.
I gave him an ‘attaboy’ grin when his eyes opened wide. Scared-awake wide. Until I realized it wasn’t the will to stay alive blooming in his gaze, it was fear. Abject fear. He was seeing the reaper.
And the reaper was a once-a-boy that wasn’t as dead as Sloane had thought when he’d thrown him off the wall.
His pale body was streaked with charcoal, brushed like a wild painter had taken some cocaine and gone to town. I turned around too slow. I’d let down my guard. Even tending a wounded man, there was no excuse. Not thinking about Rick, his chances of surviving, I pulled my hand away from the wound, stained plaid shirt still gripped in my hand. I jerked without thinking, shoving that bloody-ruined mass of cloth into the incoming beast’s face. His mouth was open and he gagged as I shoved the shirt between his lips. I shoved it harder, further down into his throat, and he slapped out at me, nails trying to find purchase in my skin.
Then I felt pain.
Pain like a hot iron pressing against my side. No, not against, but into my side. A red-hot poker forcing a path through my flesh, barely missing my organs. A bullet. I’d been shot.
Then more pain. More pain, but this time my right shoulder. Another through-and-through.
The monster trying to attack slacked its jaw and screamed, the sound added to the pain.
Pain and more pain.
I fell back against Rick’s body, too focused on my own wounds to notice whether he was still breathing. The once-a-kid fell on top of me, still wriggling and trying to bite.
One more time, pain coursed through me like radio waves. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. I could feel it. Music with a harsh tempo, a staccato of noise. A drum beat added to the thrum of cymbals in my head. I realized after only a moment that it was the sound of my blood pumping through my veins. Wetness trailed down my face.
Pump. Pumping.
Pumping…
And then, despite my best damn efforts, the world went black.
***
I woke up fast, taking in the world around me through blurry eyes. I was a diver come up from a long time under, the tanks strapped to his back low on oxygen, his mask fogging from the change in temperature from water to air.
As my eyes cleared, I saw a pretty filly staring down at me. I blinked twice, rubbing toothpaste on the invisible mask and then mentally rinsing it away with saltwater to clear my vision fully. The expression of concern on the onlooker’s face struck me as almost comical and forced me to smile at least until the wave of pain hit me. People don’t look at me like that, as a general rule, because I’m rarely in a position for people to be concerned over my wellbeing. Even when I am in that position, banged-up, shot, bleeding, people still don’t look at me that way. I’m just not that kind of person, to elicit concern. Maybe it’s because people always assume I’ll pull through. Martha once said that I was related to the cockroach. No matter what came at me, I’d keep kicking.
I tried to sit up and it felt like someone had smashed my head with a sledgehammer. No, scratch that, it felt like someone was still whacking at my head. I breathed out the longest string of expletives I’d ever uttered in my life. Every word in the book, enough to warrant a soap-in-mouth punishment had my grandmother Paulie been alive.
“Hold it there, cowboy, no moving just yet. Duke said you need a few more days sack time. Pure damn luck that you didn’t die.” The speaker wasn’t the concerned face still staring at me. No, this speaker was one I knew like the back of my hand.
“Don’t start fussing over me like an old biddy, Martha Magnolia Tate,” I said, but I also laid back down as she bid.
“Calling me an old biddy and using my maiden name isn’t going to do you any favors you old billy goat.” That’s when I heard the note of grief in Martha’s words and it both sobered me up and brought me fully back to reality.
“I’m okay, Martha. I promise.”
She came into view then, her hair disheveled, the beautiful lines on her face deepened with worry. “I thought I was going to lose you, Hunter.” Tears escaped her eyes and damn near put me down right then and there like a lame horse too broke to be cured.
I reached out and took her hand. “I’m alright.”
She nodded quickly in response and then moved her body to stand near the head of the bed. I looked over at AJ, the first face I’d seen. The expression of concern had faded a bit.
“How many did we lose?” It was the question that had been slamming at my temples ever since I first came back to the surface of being alive.
“A lot,” is all she said, and that was enough.
“Dammit.”
“But the fort is safe, Hunter. My friends are fine. It could have been worse.”
“Any of the ones we lost married?” The second most important question, at least in my mind.
She nodded. “Four of
them and I know that Jacob and Morgan weren’t married, but he’s as torn up as any of them. Morgan’s body was smashed into the back of the Jeep. They did a number on her.”
“They were planning on getting hitched, asked me to officiate since we don’t have a pastor.” I gripped Martha’s hand a bit more firmly. “Damn shame.”
“Losing people is always a shame,” she confirmed, putting her hands on her hips and dipping her head just the tiniest fraction, as if she wanted to bow her head completely and give into her own personal memories of loss. “We buried the bodies that we could two days ago on the bank of the largest pond and burned everyone…everything else. Some of your people added grave markers to the ones we buried and Martha said a few words since you weren’t there.”
“I’m sure Martha’s words were a hell of a lot more eloquent than mine would have been. I’m not poetic. Usually just cross myself and ask the good lord to help them along the way to whatever’s next.” I sighed, closing my eyes. After less than a minute though, my eyelids parted quickly. She’d said two days ago! Two days. “Wait, how the hell long was I out?”
“Five days. You got shot three times, Hunter. That’s not something most men would walk away from,” Martha responded this time, using her free hand to pat my shoulder.
“I’m not most men,” I grumbled, using my own hand that didn’t hold hers to feel around and find the bandages. One at my side, one at my shoulder, and a big damn bandage wrapped around my head. Don’t know why I hadn’t felt it before- maybe that’s why I’d felt like I was wearing a dive mask. “Who the fuck shot at me.”
“Hunter, pretty much everyone was scrambling to keep that thing from sinking its teeth into you.”
“But there wasn’t a damn clear shot.”
“So you’d rather have not gotten shot, but been bitten and turned into one of those monsters?” AJ said it like she knew the answer, like she knew every fucking thing about me. Maybe it was the pain, but that pissed me off more. Even though I knew I was being stupid. And Rangers aren’t stupid. They can’t be stupid, or they die.
I swallowed down the anger, the pissed-offness, the pain and I shook my head. “No, dammit. I know being shot was preferable to the alternative, but dammit, three times. Who the hell shot me three times?”
“Two different people shot you, Hunter, and trust me when I say, they aren’t going to confess to it. Shit, in my mind, they should because you owe them a damn thank you.” AJ was standing so close to the bed that she could rock her body slightly forward and push at the mattress. Her face said ‘You’re alive, idiot. Stop getting your boxers in a wad’.
“I’d love to say thank you if you just tell me their names.” I gave a sly smile, knowing how it made me look like I was a kid staring in a mirror practicing my best ‘come hither’ face. AJ was about to respond, her own mouth a sarcastic, curved line, but Martha decided, for the second time, that she should answer the question.
“Hunter, you’re going to leave those boys alone. They saved you and have double cake and liquor privileges for a month. Besides,” she paused for effect, letting go of my hand so she could turn to look at me full in the face, “looks to me like you already gave them a piece of your mind, in a manner of speaking.” She brushed a finger against the head bandage.
And then, dammit, both AJ and Martha broke out into laughter so loud, it made my already-hurting head open the gates to welcome a bona fide migraine.
***
AJ
The sun was coming up once more over Fort Del Rio, fingers of riotous color walking their way across the lightening sky. It was beautiful, angelic. I didn’t like it. Not a bit.
The unreal vividness of dark pinks weaving in and out of careless golden streaks made me think of blood, crimson wetness against sun-kissed, or naturally melanin-rich, skin. And I’d seen too much of that lately, no matter how beautiful this sunrise was, it still felt morbid to me. Turning away from the brilliant colors, I walked into the building that acted as the hospital for the fort. I wanted to see if Duke, the ex-Army medic, could spare any basic medical supplies. I had a feeling he’d give me something, but it would be a pittance. A place like Fort Del Rio doesn’t survive by investing in folks passing through. At least, it shouldn’t. It needed everything it had to support its own people.
I’d refused to leave until Hunter was back on his feet and able to go back to running the show. Sherry and Juan hadn’t liked that. After the defenses were almost breached, those two were ready to hit the ground running. I felt a responsibility. Not to Hunter really or the community he’d help build, but to… Hell, I don’t know. To life, I guess. To leaving this place the way we’d found it with Hunter at the helm.
Not that I was actually needed. Hunter could have stayed in bed for as long as he’d wanted and I was about as necessary as a spindle of thread to sew on buttons in a world that ran on Velcro. Sloane and Duke had stepped right in, temporarily filled the leader position, and got everybody back to work. The bodies of the Z kids and adults had been dumped in a mass pit and burned until nothing save ash remained. No one cried at first.
No, that’s a lie.
Martha cried at the start because her daughter and granddaughter had been among the burning mass of flesh and bone. Someone had suggested burying anyone who was once the loved one of a fort occupant, but they only buried the dead that hadn’t been infected at time of death or had died before infection set in. Hunter’s rule; and even though he hadn’t been awake to enforce it, no one suggested breaking the edict.
By the time the smoke had died to a smolder and not a single body remained, everyone had shed at least one tear. Regardless of what the Zs had done, this was a disease and once upon a time, they’d been happy, healthy whole.
Once upon a time, someone had loved the girls and boys. Someone had called the adults mother or father or neighbor or friend.
Or maybe all the smoke had just irritated everyone’s eyes. I know that’s the excuse I fed myself, like a warm plate of calorie-free lies.
The day after Hunter regained consciousness a troop of people arrived in a VW micro bus. It was a dull, faded teal with white trim and the front of the bus was missing the iconic silver logo. They were a pitiful lot, battered and bruised with nothing to add in the way of supplies, but the people at the fort welcomed with open arms. Hunter even hobbled his way out of the club house, having transitioned from the makeshift hospital to stay here, nearest to the food and to Martha. This kindness, this openness to survivors, endeared me to Fort Del Rio, even though I knew the darkness beneath the cheery surface. I knew what had once been allowed and I suspected, even with Don’s death, that ‘battle dome’ would carry on. Maybe I was wrong. I hoped I was wrong.
But Hunter’s words resonated- bored people do stupid shit.
And he was right, which made it worse. Bored people in this new world, in this situation, would look for ways to take away the pain, even if that meant causing pain or walking the razor’s edge between sanity and insane acts.
Or maybe bored people could just get some fucking crayons and color away the boredom. That was the new trend for adults, wasn’t it? Here, here’s a coloring book. It’ll solve your damn problems. Just wait until you finish your first complicated picture. Just wait until you see the colors!
I’d never seen the appeal of coloring.
One of the VW arrivals had been an engineer and he’d been, after a hearty meal from Martha, put straight to work finishing the wall. The folks also brought rumors of a military base that was up and running in Las Vegas, Nevada. It had to be Nellis; as far as I knew, it was the only one in the area. Unless it was something makeshift, formed in response to the crisis. That gave me hope, though, hope that Albuquerque Station was operating. This hope, this news, increased Juan and Sherry’s desire to get on the road. And I was right there with them. Sherry had always had doubts about Fort Del Rio. Juan, I suspected, would have gone with me even if there was little hope on the horizon.
Duke didn’t just gi
ve me medical supplies. No, he passed along to Hunter that we had some needs and Hunter had graciously made sure the RV was filled, or at least mostly filled, with fuel and food. More food than we need, in addition to giving us one of the M-16s and quite a bit of ammo. I’d told Hunter it wasn’t necessary, but he said it was. Maybe it was one last enticement trying to convince me to stay. He was enough like me to know that a final gift wouldn’t keep me from going where I need to. One thing his generosity did do was make me rethink my own gracious spirit. If I’d been running this place, I’d reserve goods for people who were staying, who were going to contribute. He’d allowed some bad things to go on, but he was still, at his core, a good person.
No, fuck it. I’m just as good. My partner died saving Juan, Sherry, & Marty. I could have died. Isn’t that worth as much as fuel and food?
Maybe not in this new world.
Hunter made it clear that we were part of the community now with an open invitation to return if things didn’t pan out. Despite the corner shadows of this little world Hunter had helped pre-design during beer sessions at a bar with the end of the world in mind, I could only hope there were more like them scattered across the land. More communities furiously built off blood, sweat, tears, and burning bodies. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t pretty. Nothing was perfect or pretty now though.
Besides, if surviving were pretty, it would be an action reserved for social affairs and not the apocalypse. It would be something a girl did in a pageant to catch the judges’ eyes and make herself unforgettable. I would have been ‘surviving’ all those years ago as I sucked in my nonexistent stomach because no matter how small I was and no matter how little I ate, I still felt self-conscious and slinked about the stage in hot pink sequins instead of parading myself around like a side of beef at a steak house trying to win a crown, a title, and a small scholarship.
As I boarded the motor home and began to close the hollow door, Juan already at the wheel and Sherry and Marty already settled on the sofa, Hunter moved a fraction forward from where he’d been standing with Martha and he reached out his hand to keep the door open “AJ,” he said in a serious tone, his face unreadable, “this badge belonged to one of my best friends. He died, oh, five years back now.” In his hand was a large silver star, somewhat tarnished, but still shiny enough to catch light and blink at me like it held a secret within its metal. “This is what a Texas Ranger is. This star, there’s power behind it. That might sound stupid, but—”