Her face doused in tears, her grimy clothes sticking to her sweaty body, she sniffled. She didn’t know who to be angry with, but this wasn’t her fault. She had been a good mother. Until she met Desmond, she was a single mother who worked her hardest to instill good values in her son. He would become the man that his father wasn’t.
“Excuse me,” Doctor Desjardin cut in, “but we’re in deep shit.”
The laugh that shook her chest felt right. She let go of her son and turned her back on him.
Doctor Desjardin pushed a desk in front of the door. Bella stood back and watched the two men work to secure the door. Silly cartoon-people moving as if they were following the direction of a drunken artist who didn’t actually know what he wanted his characters to do. Brian and Doctor Desjardin tried to secure the door because it was all they could do. It was all they were capable of doing.
“Help us, God help us!” a voice shouted above them.
There were more voices, more prayers.
“You want to know the truth?” Brian asked while moving boxes full of empty bottles around the room. “You want to know what happened to Desmond? I know exactly what happened to him.”
The early evening light from the basement window illuminated concrete-colored shadows and dull shades of blue, as if the basement had been weathered by time; once bold and radiant with life, now a cold domain full of unwanted truths.
“I found two bodies,” Brian said. “I found them both. Outside of a church, in a pile of bodies that were being thrown into a truck. They were dropped into a hole. That’s where they are now.”
His words were a challenge. Standing there with his hands on his hips, lips curled into a tight grimace, jaw clenching.
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with!” Doctor Desjardins shouted at them. “If you knew, you’d actually move faster.”
Brian slung his bag over his shoulder and unzipped it.
“You want an air strike? We can have an air strike. Right here, right now.”
Doctor Desjardin made for the basement window.
“All I have to do is say, ‘current location.’ As soon as I say that, jets are going to scream in here and set all those fuckers on fire.” Brian’s eyes lit up. “It’s going to be bright. I just want to see it. One time, see hundreds of them on fire at once.”
Bella shoved him from the bag. The scientist was slipping out of the basement window, and all she wanted to do was get out alive with her son.
Angelica had mentioned that Sutter was at the Depot. If that was true, the air strike should be aimed there; Doctor Desjardins had mentioned a fight was going on there. By luring all these rotted toward the Depot, they could make a difference.
Desmond would have thought of it.
Brian grabbed his mother by her shoulders. He pushed her against a wall. Loud thuds against the basement door rattled the makeshift barricade of old, dusty liquor bottles.
“Just let us in!” a woman screamed outside the door. “Please just let us in!” she pounded frantically, rattling the door.
Brian turned his attention to the door, forgetting his sudden decision to blow everything up. The scientist had slipped away.
“We have to go,” Bella said. “Please, we can leave.”
“You just don’t fucking get it,” Brian said. He licked his lips and aimed his submachine gun at the door.
He was right. She didn’t understand the senseless bravado.
“Let’s go!” she said.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asked. “You want to be proud of your son, don’t you? You want to see me do something good for a change? YOU DID THIS TO ME! You made me this way, and I’m doing the right thing, right now. I’ll destroy this entire fucking city right now, RIGHT NOW!”
When a fist punched through and splintered the wood, Brian didn’t so much as flinch.
“This is silly,” Bella said. She grabbed him by the elbow, and he shot her a dark look, a look that suggested he might no longer know the difference between a zombie and a living, human being.
“You want to see silly?” Brian asked. “This nightmare is silly. The way we’ve been doing it. The way we’ve been fighting for just a few more seconds of breath. How could you be so blind? It’s like this everywhere. We were getting out of Detroit. We were going to find another place.”
“And we still can. Please.”
Brian wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the face in the door. The face that poked through the shattered wood. The terrible, malicious face. Crumbling lips split open to reveal a wall of crooked, leaning teeth. Maggots spilled out of its slow-opening mouth as a scream from the stairwell accompanied its malevolent presence. Whoever had been standing there a moment ago had been replaced by the undead fiend.
For all the guns Brian’s people had, it was strange to hear nothing but screams and shouts coming from upstairs. Why weren’t they pouring hellfire out of their guns to stop the dead in their tracks?
Because these were all survivors, and they knew fighting was pointless.
So did Brian.
She ripped the machine gun out of his hands, and he violently shoved her into the wall.
Brian stood across from her, his hands clenched into tight fists, shocked by his own reaction. When she reached out for him, he took her hand as if he had never held another hand before in his life.
“We’re leaving,” she said.
Bella knew he followed her out because she was right, and he knew better. Besides, she didn’t want to see that terrible face again. The face in the door.
Because she heard the door crack and splinter, and she knew there would be more than just one face staring through that door.
As they squirmed through the basement window, they found Doctor Desjardins waiting for them; he gestured wildly, motioning for them to follow.
***
Brian wouldn’t stop whining about the loss of the radio equipment. Would it kill him to acknowledge the loss of life, the loss of all those people who were going to follow his lead out of Detroit?
Huddled in a room on the second floor of a nearby hotel, they quietly watched the evening descend and listened for signs of life, or unlife. There might be people living in the rooms above them, but as long as they remained silent in this anonymous, dark room, nobody would find them.
From here, they could watch the street.
What next?
“They’re from Hell,” Doctor Desjardins insisted.
Bella could see their shapes mingling near the bar, but she had seen the majority of them scatter into the city, not following the trajectory of a mob as most of the zombies usually did.
“I have to sit here and listen to this shit,” Brian said. “We need to be thinking of a way to get that radio equipment and my gun. There’s going to be a lot of guns there now.”
“Some kid you raised,” Desjardins said.
“Hey, motherfucker,” Brian said. “I kept you alive because I figured you would be a hostage, that’s it. The more I think about it, the less I think you’d be worth something.”
“Right, kid. You’re good at making decisions. Lots of people dead because of you.”
“Because of me? You’re part of this. You’re part of the problem. You said that you know something about those things out there, and you think I want to keep you alive?”
“Enough!” Bella said.
She kept her gaze concentrated on the street, hoping that their voices stayed low enough to remain unheard. Every time she found a place to stop and catch her breath, it didn’t last long. Her body stank like blood and armpits. When was the last time she had shaved her legs? A strange thing to think about with hundreds of zombies roaming around outside.
There was a place they could go, a place well-stocked enough to keep them fed and fat, at least through the winter.
Ford Field. Where Angelica had lived like a queen.
Brian had said Desmond and Jerome were both dead. Even if he was telling the truth, nothing woul
d change. The wasteland would still be in front of her. Desmond could not make her forget all the horrors she had witnessed and suffered. The man she had loved might be able to help Brian salvage his soul, but that could prove wasteful.
It was more difficult to live than it was to die. She could make everything easy by giving up.
“I should have known,” Brian said. “I was distracted by weakness. That’s what it was. Weakness.”
“Weakness?” Desjardins asked.
“Wasting time on my mother. We should have kept moving. I should have left her out there, wandering around.”
“What’s your problem? She’s standing right here, man! Do you know what I would give to see my wife again? My kids? And I’m part of the reason why they’re gone. I’m responsible for this shit, and I have to live with the guilt—”
“Your guilt has nothing to do with how I feel.”
“I feel something. You don’t feel a damn thing. You’re no better than those things out there.”
“No. I am better. I’m better because I know what it takes to win.”
They could go to Ford Field. Away from all of this. Brian was ruined by everything he had seen. It was easy to forgive him, to pretend he didn’t mean the things he said. He was a confused young man. Confused young men struggled with their feelings, especially when it came to parents.
That had to be Desmond talking. She didn’t hear his voice, but those were his words. His thoughts.
“I have to get back out there,” Brian said.
“Good for you,” Doctor Desjardins said. “You do what you have to. I’ve been pushed around, pulled around by assholes with guns for too long. I was supposed to get the guns. I was supposed to have your help. I was supposed to be getting out of this hellhole.”
“I’ve been on the run for a long time. I never once had a time where I was safe. Not once. Not since this whole thing started.”
“I can hear the world’s smallest violin playing for you. You and everyone else who’s had the bad luck to survive. You were supposed to bring that radio to the Depot, order the airstrike to kill a whole lot of people who actually helped start this thing…”
“But not you,” Brian said. “You’re exempt from that list, right? I’m just supposed to believe you, like I’ve believed every swinging dick who promised they could help.”
“You need the help, buddy. You abandoned your mom? That shit’s rich, too rich. You know what? You go right ahead, and get the radio. Order an airstrike. Blow up a few abandoned buildings. There are millions of those things out there. Millions.”
How many of these conversations had she listened to over the past year? Brian had been in the middle of several of them, and nobody was ever right. Nobody could win.
Doctor Desjardins and her son continued to argue. Back and forth, back and forth. Which of them was a better person? That’s what they were trying to prove. Who was the better human being? Who knew the right way to stay alive?
Their voices became a low rumble in her mind. She watched the dark outside, looking for signs of the rotted. All the emotional weight from the past few hours blurred her vision, and a headache reigned over her vitamin-starved body. Hunger and thirst had been her familiar companions for too long; being with Angelica at Ford Field had spoiled her.
Desmond’s car. Angelica’s death. The dead family. Her escape from the blond-haired flesh trader. Sleeping on the roof after pushing the corpses into the street. Roaming through Detroit, stumbling upon Brian who did not regret abandoning her. Attacked by the rotted. Sitting here now, looking into the dark, hands stained with dry blood as if she worked in a meat freezer. Calloused, rough hands. Flesh that was aging too fast.
Bella walked upstairs and left the two men to their argument. She found a dark, airless room stifled with dust and trash. Scavengers had been through here already, upturned furniture and ripped up books and magazines proof of their disrespect for the dead. They were trying to erase the past completely. Nobody had ever lived here. We can destroy the memory of hurt.
A few moments later the voices were quiet downstairs, and she could hear someone walking up the steps. She tensed, afraid of the silence. Silence was nothing more than an extended pause between moments of all-encompassing terror.
When the door opened she hoped Brian would be there. She wasn’t surprised to see Doctor Desjardins instead. Bella tried to look over his hands, but there was nothing wet, nothing red.
“I’m really trying to help him,” he said. “You have to see that I want to go on living, and I’ll do whatever it takes. I know I can’t do it alone. I’m sure I can find some of Vincent’s guns in the neighborhood. And he might be lying about the man you’re looking for. Your husband, right?”
“I hear what you’re saying. I think I’m so used to all this, I just want to keep going. He would do the same. He’s already thinking if he should kill us both or kill one of us. My son is worse than I am, but he’s right. And you’re right. That’s the problem.”
“No. I don’t believe that shit. We just have to get out of here. I know for a fact there are people outside. I worked with Sutter. And I’ve been here from the start. I helped raise the girl who started this. No matter what happens, there has to be someone who will help. Sutter was actually rescuing people and getting them out. Sutter’s force is supposed to die here, slowly, or stay until everyone was out. Sutter was given Detroit. Who is there to give it to him? Think about it.”
Bella whirled around and lunged for his throat; the man had let his guard down, had no intention of hurting her. She pushed him down and stood over him. For a moment, their eyes met, and they both knew what was going to happen next and decided it was okay.
The woman straddled the scientist’s hips as her hands dug into his throat. His hands fumbled for his belt. Bella slapped him across the face. Hard. She slapped him a few more times, each blow wearing her out more. His hands were on her hips, pushing her up, and they helped her out of her pants and onto him, sliding down until he was completely inside. She slapped him in the face a few more times, called him a different name, and told him to finish inside her. When it was over, she rolled off him and screeched. She dressed herself. Doctor Desjardins appeared to be asleep, his face reddened from her hands, his lips cut, eyes bruising.
Bella charged back downstairs. More than anything, she wanted to see if Brian was safe. She really wanted him to be safe. To wait for her.
When she made it to the second floor, she didn’t care about anything else. “Brian. Wait for me. Just wait, please.”
Brian stood from a kneeling position.
It wasn’t Brian.
She thought it was Brian at first, because what she saw now was impossible. Brian lay at a zombie’s feet, his mouth quivering, eyes wide, his throat torn open. His stomach had a gaping hole. The zombie standing over him had bloody hands. It seemed to be daring her to stop it from eating. It was upset she had interrupted the meal.
Brian was dead. His mother backed into a wall and watched her son’s killer approach. Her eyes drank in every detail. Beetles and worms dripped out of its nostrils, and spiders roamed over its thin, rotted scalp, eyes almost invisible behind a layer of ash. A centipede crept along the edge of the hole where the ear used to be. A foul belch of gas groaned through its stiff jaws.
“Stay out of the way,” Doctor Desjardins shouted into the hall.
He appeared and swung a baseball bat at the zombie’s head. The scientist had been nervous and just clipped the creature’s forehead. Hands grabbed at his shoulders; no attack would distract a walking corpse unless it was completely destroyed. Desjardins got his feet tangled with the zombie’s, and he dropped back with the undead atop him.
Bella picked up his baseball bat and kicked the zombie where its ribs should have been. The creature was light, being nothing more than a bag of bone and dust, and was easily pushed off Desjardins. She slammed the baseball bat onto the back of its head and shattered it; she thought of a vase.
She walk
ed over to Brian’s corpse and bashed the skull in. Bella clanged the aluminum bat against the floor as Brian’s face was turned into mush. Over and over again. She would never see her son again. She never wanted to see him again. The dead had taken everything from her, but she would never let Brian become one of them.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Doctor Desjardins said.
“No, it’s not okay.”
“I bet people are still alive. The neighborhood, I mean. I was there. Vincent Hamilton was there. Brian must have been there, too. Maybe he lied about some things to protect you.”
“You don’t know that. Just stop talking. This should be you. I should be killing you, right now. What is there to stop me?”
“Nothing. Nobody can stop you. I’m afraid. Okay? You win. Neither of us knows how to use the airstrike equipment, so we have to think logically. Think for a minute.”
“Think logically. Right. Of course.”
“You understand.”
“I got nothing left. I’m standing here with nothing left. It’s like being born again. I don’t have to be afraid of death to get the most out of the life that I have. You’ve always been a survivor. That’s why you’re still alive.”
“Hold on,” Doctor Desjardins said while getting to his feet. He kept his palms up in front of his face. “We’re both survivors. We can be honest with each other. We can try to kill each other right now or later. Unless we get absorbed by another group, we won’t get very far together. Maybe not out of this room.”
Bella inhaled deeply, suddenly aware of the soreness in her forearms from swinging the bat. She wanted to breathe air that didn’t smell like blood. The baseball was wet with the bloody mess from her son’s face.
“I’ll go with you because you’ll do as I say,” she said.
Doctor Desjardins dropped his hands. He was right; it was only a matter of time before she killed him, but wanted her help to salvage more guns. Why not try the bar down the street where Brian’s followers had been massacred? If everyone in the neighborhood left alive took off there, then the living might be severely outnumbered by the dead. He seemed to think the guns were easier to get from the neighborhood, so she would kill him as soon as they got close or when he made a move on her.
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