He inhaled a cool breath of wind and watched the trees sway. Tomorrow, it would be much cooler. The sun was beginning to set.
A headache. Nausea in his stomach. He wanted to throw up but there wasn’t even anything to dry heave, nothing his stomach would fight to suppress or eject. He walked out of the house and made his way down the dark street. His limbs felt rubbery, and it was difficult to walk in a straight line; it was more difficult to think straight.
Vincent stopped against a car and tried to light a cigarette, dropped it, bent down to pick it up, and instead of standing upright rested his face against the cooling concrete. An army of ants might be marching across his face. Every nerve tingled.
He needed a drink. Charmane was waiting for him back at the house. She knew what he needed. A good girl.
Charmane was dead, wasn’t she?
Fuck everything that could be fucked.
These houses. These cars. These ghosts. All the families that had ever lived and had never lived. All the kingdoms that had been swallowed by sand and time.
At some point, Vincent walked again. He thought he saw a house that was still intact guarded by men wearing black, sunglasses over their eyes and shotguns cradled against their chests. He wanted to stop and spit at them, but he didn’t.
Eventually, he found himself on Jefferson Avenue, the Detroit River glistening and rolling in the pale moonlight. When had the sun disappeared?
Walking down to the beach, Vincent dipped his head into the cool water. He slipped completely into the water, making sure to leave his last two cigarettes and matches on a rock.
Go down slow. Go down deep. No reason to come back up for air.
Emerging, he dropped his head on the sandbar.
His mind was in the sky again. He wasn’t half-submerged in the Detroit River anymore, but he was walking around the inside of the crack house again, Fireball’s huge body walking alongside him. Marijuana smoke rolled through the hallway. Vincent stepped over someone who might be dead. Someone in the house was weeping. In his pocket, his phone vibrated.
Vincent snapped awake and climbed up the sandbar toward the dark. The sky was clear and full of bright stars. Jefferson Avenue was mostly empty, and there were no ships hanging out in the river. One of the most utilized waterways in the world was useless now. How could that be true?
The Grosse Pointe Yacht Club had sunk into the river, its shape distorted by the moonlight mirrored by the rippling black water. Most of the parking lot had dissolved into the water, the front bumpers of rusting cars sticking up like fish attempting to swallow gulps of air.
Vincent saw the crack house again. A dead body was being thrown into the back yard. Still fresh, the dogs would eat it. Their dogs were trained to take care of bodies. Or someone else would do something about it; the operation ran without Vincent’s direct involvement. This was Fireball’s baby.
Starlight. Bright, blinking stars. Vincent’s body was wet, and he shivered. The air was cooler, but he should have felt refreshed. Instead, he felt weaker, his body on autopilot.
And there it was. Even though Vincent could barely see it, there were enough sharp angles visible to know what it was. Yes.
Vincent was home.
Through an open gate. Dozens of cars parked on the lawn and in the driveway. How many people came here to find him? How many people came here to protect him?
Turrets. Balconies. Windows. Everything was as it should be. This beautiful house. His house.
The gardeners had a lot of work to do. The pool probably looked like hell. And even though the basketball court had rarely been used, he could only imagine that it looked like it belonged in the corner of a nightmare.
Vincent lit one of the last two cigarettes, tucked the other behind his right ear. He smoked and decided on a plan. When he dashed the cigarette to the ground, it was time.
Grabbing hold of a sconce, he tried to lift himself up and swing his legs onto a windowsill at the same time, careful not to rip the sconce off the house. He used to break into houses when he was a kid, but he was older, and it wasn’t so easy.
On the third try, Vincent managed to get himself parallel to the ground. The window was open, so he tucked one of his feet into the room and slowly tucked the other one in so that he could let go of the sconce. Any minute now, a hand was going to grab his damaged ankle and drag him into the room.
That wasn’t the case. He managed to hold the window and bring his ankles back outside, tiptoes on the sill.
Smooth climbing the rest of the way up. Vincent slipped into a dark room.
In his office, Vincent could smell the rich mahogany of his desk. He sat in his comfortable chair and put his feet up on the desk. He lit the last cigarette, the match giving him a glimpse of a picture on his desk. A picture he had forgotten.
Smoking, he exhaled with a sigh and grabbed the picture of his mom. There was just enough light to see her bright smile in the photograph.
“Shit,” Vincent said.
With the picture in one hand, he quietly opened a desk drawer and removed his own pearl-handled revolver. Patrick had nothing on this gun.
Guns. Didn’t somebody want his guns?
Vincent laughed and stood too quickly from the chair, a wave of dizziness causing him to waver. The picture frame dropped from his weak grip, and he stumbled toward the door.
With just the slightest crack, the smell of a garbage dump wafted into his face.
Vincent stepped through and closed the door behind him softly, and he thought about how he had never wanted to disturb Momma from her sleep when he used to creep through the house at night as a boy.
The picture. Dropped it somewhere.
Vincent couldn’t stop smiling.
The last cigarette dangling from his lips, he lit another match and looked upon a crowd of faces.
“Ready when you are,” he said.
The faces looked up at him.
Vincent blew out the match and tried to remember if the gun was loaded.
THE CHAMP
While Vega slept through most of the dreary day, Bill explored the hotel where they stayed. He had to keep moving. Sitting around and waiting for death didn’t interest him. This place was just as safe as any other.
He managed to find a couple bars of soap, some wash cloths, and a package of bottled water that had been isolated in a storage room. Today was his lucky day.
Creativity had never been his strong suit, but after finding an empty bucket, he figured he had enough materials to give Vega a welcome surprise when she woke up.
Sunshine broke through the clouds, and its searing heat stifled his breath. Humid, sticky, airless. The sun felt like a burning bulb whenever his skin caught a glimpse of the light.
When Vega finally stirred, Bill judged by the sun’s position that it was probably past six in the evening. Rook sat by her and read an issue of ESPN Magazine.
“Excedrin,” Vega mumbled, eyes half-open.
“I think I saw Motrin somewhere,” Bill said.
“I’m not on my period, for Christ’s sake.”
“There’s a difference?”
“You don’t know shit about women, do you?”
“I probably don’t even know that much.”
Vega sat up and eyed the water, soap, and bucket. She also noticed the rubbing alcohol and gauze that he had somehow managed to dredge up.
“Do I smell that bad?” Vega asked.
“I can’t tell. Figured it would make you feel a little better to clean up some.”
“You are that bad,” Rook added.
Vega nodded. Her body was caked in dirt and blood, and Bill had a difficult time figuring out where she was wounded. Several scratches had lacerated her skin.
“You should look good when you’re in a casket,” Vega said to herself.
“What?”
“Never mind. You’re a nice guy, Bill. There’s no way I can repay you. You’ve put up with me when you shouldn’t have.”
“You didn’
t want me around.”
“For your own good.”
“I know what’s best for me. I needed all this just as much as you did.”
“Yeah.”
Vega blinked several times and shielded her face from the sun with her forearm. She approached the supplies as if she were sleepwalking.
“You’ve been a busy boy.”
“Lucky, I think.”
“I’m going to take you up on your offer. I think… maybe I’ll feel different. Maybe I’ll wake up.”
“We’ll give you some privacy.”
Before he could turn away, Vega was stripping down. Her body looked frail from protein and vitamin deprivation, rib cage jutting against the mural of the Virgin Mary tattooed across her abdomen.
Outside, he sat in the shade and look at the twin pillars of smoke that rose into the sky. One, he knew, came from the Depot. He wasn’t sure about the second one.
Nobody in the streets. How many zombies were in the city? Detroit didn’t even half a million people living in it before disaster struck. How many had he seen? How many had he destroyed? He wasn’t sure what Vega accomplished at the Depot, if anything, but maybe a victory had been scored by the good guys.
Did she know where Father Joe was? He missed the priest. In all likelihood, the man had become a zombie or had simply wandered off on his own to deal with whatever evil had threatened to eat his soul. Father Joe was a good man, and his faith dictated that he couldn’t take his own life, so it was likely the guy had disappeared.
What about everyone else he left behind in the neighborhood? Mike Taylor had probably been a good cop once upon a time, and he had a knack for organization. Maybe he once had aspirations to be chief. He had a hard-on for Vincent but had somehow made amends with the guy. If Mike was in charge, the people in that neighborhood might be in good hands. But then again, Mike had wanted to make a deal with Sutter. Bill always thought the old man was working out something with the flesh trader behind the scenes, but it was none of his business.
Things were different in the rest of the country. Back home, everything was probably just fine. The rotted had spread their evil across the country, but things couldn’t have been as bad as it was here. People had more time to get organized, to plan. The government had likely given up here to defend the rest of the country and keep more people safe.
Didn’t Doctor Desjardins mention that the government hadn’t given up on Traverse, and Sutter was working for people who still wanted to snag the elusive man?
How much did any of this really matter?
It was time to say goodbye and hit the road.
Vega interrupted his thoughts when she walked outside wearing the big T-shirt and baggy sweatpants he had found. The XXXL white shirt ended just above her knees and had a graphic of the famous rapper, Eminem, singing into a microphone with a hood thrown over his head. It looked like one of those cheap shirts you could buy from a vendor in the mall.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
She sat beside him on the sidewalk. “Thanks to you. Head’s still buzzing. Everything’s foggy. I’m not pissed at you for saving my life. Again.”
“We’re making progress.”
“A tank?” she nodded at the parked vehicle. “Nice touch.”
“Sitting at Wayne State University. I should probably tell you that the rotted are out there, roaming around.”
“Oh, well. Looks like something’s on fire out there.”
“Don’t know what it is.”
“It’s none of our business.”
They watched the smoke filter into the bright sky and disappear in the haze of sunlight and heat.
“What’s next, Champ?”
“Figure we would hit the road as soon as you’re able. Head south. Figure you would be a good bodyguard while I head back home. Introduce you to my folks when we get there.”
“You’re kidding.”
His heart sank to his stomach. “True.”
Vega put a hand on his shoulder. “I’d like to come with you. I can picture it, you know. Your parents are nice people, smiling. They welcome you back, and you help rebuild, help protect other people who need someone strong.”
“Then come with me.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Wringing his hands together, he did his best to curb the frustration. She didn’t owe him anything, but she couldn’t just throw her life away. She didn’t belong to him. Still, she was a strong woman and could do a lot of good back home. It was such a waste to leave her behind.
There was more to it than that.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“There’s nothing to get. I’m not complicated. Traverse is still alive.”
“Not much survived what I did to the Depot. I figure his body’s beneath a pile of bricks.”
Her eyes had a faraway look as she stared at the wasted city. “He’s still alive. He promised me he would be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Sutter’s dead, right? We got the bad guys. What can this Traverse guy do? I bet the military’s going to clean this place up soon. Even if this guy is still alive, he won’t be for long.”
“I think Sutter’s dead. So is that demon-thing—whatever it was—that Desjardins had talked about. Mina. I saw her again.”
Vega sighed.
“I don’t believe this,” Bill said. “You can do good someplace else. You can help people. Your story alone will inspire people. And you can tell someone what happened with Desjardins. Our government wasn’t behind that shit. I don’t buy it. There’s so much…”
Bill looked into Vega’s brown eyes and saw the sadness within them. A hurt that could never be healed. A madness that could be used to fight malice.
Her hand moved from his shoulder to his hand.
“Don’t say anything,” she whispered.
Vega’s fingers firmly intertwined with his. They sat there for a while and watched the smoke reach for the sky.
***
They sifted through the supplies he had gathered. Vega wasn’t interested in anything but weaponry. He hated her sense of fatalism and wanted to shake it loose from her soul, but he knew it would do no good.
Vega picked up a crossbow and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“I thought it was a good idea.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. So you were going to like, shoot one in the face, then all the other zombies were going to hang around and let you remove the bolt, reload it, then fire it again?”
Bill shrugged, and she tossed the crossbow over her shoulder.
“I tried to pick up anything I could find at the Depot,” he said.
“Did you level the whole place?”
“It pretty much crumbled on its own when I shot it the second time. Most of the structure is still standing, but then a lot of the upper floors dropped.”
Vega shook her head in disbelief. He didn’t realize that her lack of faith had more to do with wonder than disappointment until she picked up an AR-15 assault rifle.
Her body shaking as she repulsed a round of sobs, she gritted her teeth and looked the gun up and down.
“Vincent,” she said.
Bill was about to reach for her to offer some measure of comfort, but when she violently tore through the weapons to find ammo for the gun, he understood it was best to leave her be. He might not know enough about women to keep one around, but he knew enough to back down, especially with Vega.
“This is it,” she said. “All I need. All I’ll ever need.”
Bill nodded, and a part of him still hoped she was going to change her mind. Sunset threatened the day, and the first hint of a cool down graced the wind. A cool down would be most welcome now, but where he was headed, it was only going to get hotter. No more winters in post-apocalyptic Detroit for him.
Vega helped him load up a duffel bag with a shotgun and some supplies. He didn’t care much for taking so many of the weapons with him, because he would have to travel light and fast. Th
e tank had been a good idea, but there was no telling what kind of obstructions he would come across.
Rook helped them load up. He was a nice guy and had a lot to say about football. He could talk forever about the Detroit Lions. Rook knew more about the Lions than Bill did.
Rook was coming with him. He didn’t seem to care too much for Vega; he kept muttering something about a man named Huey, but Bill barely listened. He couldn’t stop thinking about the future. He kept thinking about Vega and the path she had chosen.
This was it.
He was really leaving, and she wasn’t coming with him.
They stood awkwardly in the street because he didn’t know what to say. She waited for him to say something; was he supposed to beg?
“Bill,” she said, softly pressing a hand against his chest.
“Come with me.”
Vega smiled and looked into his broad chest. “In another life, maybe. Thank you for everything you’ve done. Not just for me.”
If he spoke, he would lose it. The last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of her.
“Good luck to you,” she said. “God bless you.”
Bill and Rook turned away from her and began to walk down the dark road. After a few yards, Bill decided he wanted to say something to her. When he turned around, she was already gone. He tipped the invisible cowboy hat that he wore on his head.
VEGA
The Packard Plant was a massive industrial complex full of broken windows and decorated in graffiti. A bridge with the German words Abreit Macht Frei—“work makes you free”—painted on the windows connected the complex over a street; the sprawling complex had clearly been abandoned ages ago.
Vega sighed and inhaled the cool air. This was it.
Quiet now. The silence waited for her. She wasn’t made for silence; the fury of war beat inside of her chest to the blood-pumping rhythm of her heart. She felt bad that Bill and Rook had saved her life, only for her to leave them. They couldn’t have known she would have left; if Bill had known, he still would have tried to save her. That’s just the kind of guy he was.
Somehow, he proved that nice guys didn’t finish last after all. He had survived through a lot of shit, and he had zero military training. He and Rook were both normal dudes, save the fact that Bill had been destined for superstardom before Jim and Mina took that away from him.
Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) Page 46