by Smith, S. L.
“Unless that rat’s part Navajo.”
“That’d be something, wouldn’t it?” Glenn laughed. “They got their land back after all.”
Micha’s eyes grew wide and he was rubbing his hands together. “So there’s just one thing left to do,” he said. “Pick out my ride.”
Glenn was opening his multi-tool. Micha jumped on top of the hood of the nearest car and climbed onto its roof. “There she is,” the teenager smiled, pointing down the road. “And not blocked in or anything.”
Micha jumped down and jogged over to a late ‘90s model Ford Mustang. It was a garishly-colored yellow car with purple racing stripes. Micha set about trying to pry the door open. He didn’t even think about the possibility of setting off a car alarm and drawing in every remaining zombie in the area. Luckily, either there was no alarm or the battery was far gone. He threw a rock against the window, and it bounced right back at him. After finally breaking through the window, he unlocked the door and dropped himself into the black-upholstered interior. “It hasn’t been that long,” Micha said, when he saw that all the digital displays and electronics were dead. “How could the battery flat line so fast?”
“It’s all this new crap,” Glenn said from outside the driver’s side. Micha jumped at the sound of his father’s voice. “Hey, boy, you can’t let people sneak up on you like that. You understand? Come on, I found something else.”
At the far end of the tight jumble of cars, a flash of bright red caught Micha’s eye. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah,” Glenn nodded and then added with a wink: “Nothing like an older model.”
It was scuffed and dented, but it was still held its classic lines. It was a cherry red 1964 Mustang. The interior was white leather with matching red cording. Micha swung into the driver’s seat along the worn and cracking leather seats. He knocked something from bench seat as he dropped in and it clattered to the floor.
The engine was already roaring like a lion. “How’d you …?” Micha said as his head swung between his father and the ignition. He saw his father’s multi-tool sticking out of the ignition. Then he saw what he had knocked to the floor. It was the ignition cylinder. His father had already removed it.
“Thanks, but I need you to take shotgun,” Glenn said as he, too, swung into the driver’s seat, pushing his son over to the passenger side.
“A shotgun would be nice,” Micha said as he pulled himself over to the far window. “We could go to that plantation where Ish and the guys found that huge stash.”
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” Glenn said as the driver’s door clanged shut. Going to the Brooks Plantation would mean backtracking. “But there’s another spot I’ve been wanting to check out,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
*****
It was a longer trip than they anticipated. Two days later, after following the course of the Mississippi River the entire time, they arrived at the outskirts of something. The tire tracks they had been following since just past St. Anne’s began converging with other tracks. There were other signs of activity, as well. They backtracked a bit and hid the car in a carport inside an abandoned trailer park.
They walked along the levee, hidden beneath its crest, the rest of the way. Before long, they came to the bridge that spanned the Mississippi between Delta, Louisiana and Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Louisiana side of the river, apart from the levee, was all flat land. The topography of the far side of the river couldn’t have been more different. High bluffs rose on either side of the bridge crossing. They seemed like mountains from where Glenn and Micha stood, and were likely just as defensible against zombie swarms.
Even from all the way across the river, they could see activity. It was like standing beside an anthill that a careless child had just stepped into – only these weren’t ants. The bluffs were swarming with activity. Ribbons of smoke were curling skyward everywhere from little campfires. Everywhere they looked, they could see dark figures at work. They might have been digging into the bluffs, they couldn’t really see for sure.
“There must be hundreds of them,” Micha said in a whisper.
Glenn was just shaking his head in amazement, though he had grown pale, as well. “So this is the nest,” he said.
EPILOGUE
Apart from the silhouette of moonlight draped around his shoulders, the man was nearly invisible as he staggered through the darkness. His right leg had long ago stiffened. He was dressed all in black and clutched something in his left hand.
The metal rim of the old women’s wheelchair suddenly stopped glistening in the moonlight, as the man’s shadow fell across her frail and vulnerable body.
“Monsignor,” the old woman said in a whisper.
The man in black slowed and rooted his stiffened leg like a peg. As he leaned back, the white square of his collar seemed to catch the moonlight. “I've always wondered at people our age who sleep easily,” he said. “Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the devils locked away in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.”
“Skulls don’t get much cleaner than yours, father,” Miss Abby said.
“I suppose that’s true,” he said. A half smile creased his face.
“Monsignor,” the old woman said again. Her tone had noticeably darkened.
“I was headed into chapel, Abby, if you wanted to join me.”
“That’s why I’m here. I had to take a break from that place.”
Monsignor shifted heavily on his feet. He swung his arms behind his back so they were both clutching the book he was carrying. “Abby?” He asked patiently.
“There’s too many people in there. It’s crowded. Thems voices and faces. All comin’ at me.”
“It’s usually empty, like before,” he said.
“Not for Miss Abby,” she said.
“Are there physical manifestations?”
Mmm, the old woman moaned. “They buffets agin’ me. Somethin’ fierce.”
A sliver of a cool breeze kicked up in the night. The tops of the palm trees rattled in the night. Monsignor and Miss Abby both wrinkled their noses. Something rotten had been carried in on the breeze.
“We shouldn’t talk so much out here in the open.”
“Those things?” She asked pooching out her bottom lip. “They never much bothered me. I smell like death to them, mayhap.”
“Just how old are you, ma’am?”
“Monsignor,” she said a third time. “They’re coming. You understand? They’re coming.”
“Who? Who is coming? Isherwood and the others?”
“Multitudes. Them’s that fall on their faces. That buffets agin’ me. And legion, with all the names.” Tears were streaking down her face.
Monsignor nodded his divoted brow and was quiet for a time. “Which will come first?” he finally asked, but the woman just shook her head.