by Bible, Jake
“Don’t do that,” I say quietly.
“You have a quiet place,” she says, pointing a finger at me.
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, “not anymore. It got hacked off along with my arm.”
“That’s crap,” Melissa says. “You still have Stella and the kids. Use that.”
“But they are the problem!” I snap and then quiet down as I receive several angry glares. “Sorry. Stella and the kids are the fuel to it all. Look at me. Look at my arm. I’m in no shape to keep them safe. You’ve seen me fight with this thing. I’m slow and I’m nowhere near as effective as I used to be. I’m a liability to them and to everyone.”
“Oh, boo hoo and whaa whaa,” Elsbeth says, rubbing her fingers together. “Know what this is?”
“The world’s smallest violin,” I answer. “Yeah, I know that one.”
She looks at her fingers then at me. “No, it’s me squishing your tiny dick because you are being such a pussy,” she snorts. “Why would you think it’s a violin? I don’t play violin.”
“Right, sure, my bad,” I reply. “Got it. It’s you crushing my tiny, Hey!”
“Long Pork,” Stuart hisses from the other raft. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll swim over there and shut you the fuck up.”
“She started it,” I mutter.
“Pull your balls out of your ass and be Long Pork again,” Elsbeth says. “You could die today. Don’t die being stupid. Die funny.”
She nods at me like she just gave me the sagest advice ever spoken in the history of sage advice.
And, admittedly, she’s not that far off.
“Okay,” I say, “I’ll try.”
“Do or do not,” the sisters say in unison, “there is no try.”
“I don’t get it,” Elsbeth frowns.
“It’s from a movie,” I say. “If we live I’ll show it to you.”
“Can I have popcorn?” Elsbeth asks. “I always eat popcorn when I watch movies with Greta and Charlie. Always.”
There’s a slight hint of menace in her voice. Elsbeth takes her popcorn very seriously, apparently.
“All the popcorn you can eat,” I nod.
“We’re here,” John says as the rafts start to paddle towards the shore.
We get to the riverbank and have to struggle to keep the rafts from getting away from us. The sisters in the kayaks start tying lines to the rafts and get ready to tow them down to our rendezvous point downriver where the Bywater used to be.
I miss sitting by the river there with a cold pint of porter and a summer breeze blowing across my bald scalp. At one point, someone had tried to make a go of the place, but it just wasn’t a secure enough area. Too close to I-26. The Zs would just tumble over the railing and swarm down at them. Stuart told me he found the fools massacred there with coals in the barbecues still warm and empty beer cans everywhere. At least they went out with a party.
Everyone scrambles up the riverbank, grabbing on to tree roots and rocks for leverage. I don’t really have quite the same abilities anymore, so when I grab with my good hand, it slips on some moss and I almost tumble backwards into the French Broad. Instinctively I jam Stumpageddon’s spike into the wet earth. Then I choke on a scream.
I do a pretty good job of that scream choking. Turning my head, I act like it’s a cough I’m trying to keep quiet. I get some glances and just nod and smile. Then make my way up the bank and out onto the shoulder of Riverside Dr.
For once, my major source of pain isn’t Stumpageddon. It’s my shoulder. It’s getting worse and worse. I honestly have no idea how much longer I can take it. Or fake it. This isn’t a secret that I’ll be able to keep forever. At some point, I’ll have to tell them. Every minute I keep my friends in the dark is a minute closer to me becoming....well...you know.
Jesus, is this how I go out? Fucking fuck fuck.
For now, I have to play it off and act like the pussy boy missing an arm and not the pussy boy about to get a hankering for friend flesh.
We crouch at the edge of Riverside Dr, hiding in a runoff ditch thick with vegetation. The pain goes way past eleven as Stuart comes up and slaps me on the shoulder.
“You up for this?” he asks. “Your cannibal savant hasn’t rattled your cage too much, has she?”
“I’m good, I’m good,” I whisper. “This isn’t my first apocalypse, you know.”
“You’ve survived other apocalypses then?” Stuart asks, his eyebrows raising.
“No, I mean it isn’t my first life or death situation,” I snap.
“I know what you meant,” Stuart says. “Relax. I need your head in the game for this. We’ll be relying on you to help disable the jammer.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because of the brain,” Stuart says, tapping me on the forehead.
“I’m trained in advanced electronics,” Steph says. “I can disable it. We won’t need him.”
“See?” I say. “You don’t need me.”
Don’t need me.
Not with the Uber Girls around.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s not that I’m scared, but that I feel like a redundancy.
Before Lourdes and her crew came to town, I was the top guy with the ideas. If it needed to be figured out then I found a way to figure it out. But then Joe T and Shumway were on the scene, making it very obvious I wasn’t going to be the one getting Asheville’s infrastructure up and going. They had that handled.
And security? Lourdes and her Team were way more capable. Anything I came up with they could poke holes through until I gave up.
I gave up.
Wow. Is that the kernel of truth I’ve been hiding from myself?
“Jace!” Stuart hisses, looking back at me as I see everyone scrambling out of the ditch and into the road. “Fucking move!”
“Sorry, sorry,” I say. “You know me and my space cadet ways.”
“I do,” Stuart says as we dash across the road to a massive pile of bricks that used to be where a new set of condos was going to be built. “Knock it the fuck off.”
I give him a thumbs up. With the only thumb I have.
God, listen to me! Could I be any more of a whiny bitch?
Ha, that makes me think of the show Friends. You know the one where they call out Chandler for the way he puts the emphasis on be every time he’d say something. Which, of course, makes me think of the couch episode.
Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!
“What the fuck?” John says.
Everyone is staring at me.
Fuck...was that out loud?
“Fuck,” I say. “Was that out loud?” I can tell by the looks on their faces it was. “Sorry.”
“Zs,” Cassie says. “I count eighty. Coming this way.”
I only count sixty, but I’m slipping so... Oh, she means those other twenty shambling out of that warehouse. Yeah, I saw those. What? I did!
“This way,” Cassie leads. “No need to engage.”
I can see the look on Stuart’s face and how he’s a little rankled that she’s all of a sudden taken over. Stuart’s the lead guy when we go out on super-deadly-holy-shit missions. That’s how things work and it’s the natural order of the apocalypse. I mean, he used to defer to Captain Leeds before Leeds was turned into a Z and put into a fight cage with me, but he doesn’t defer to Master Sergeant Platt. Maybe because Stuart was a Master Gunnery Sergeant (ret.) in the Marines pre-Z. So I can totally understand if he’s more than...
AAAAAAAHHH, fuck!
“Stop daydreaming,” Stuart says as he grabs me by my shoulder and pulls me after the group. “You’re starting to worry me, Jace.”
I manage to keep the scream inside, but the way Stuart studies me says he knows something is up.
“What?” I ask, pretending like I don’t have ten thousand daggers stabbing, stabbing, stabbing me.
“Nothing,” he frowns as he pulls me (OH, FUCK OW!) by the short arm.
I’m sure he thinks he’s doing me a favor by holding my half-arm instead of r
estricting my mobility on my other arm. Yeah, uh, I’ll thank him later.
We’ve obviously been spotted by the Zs since I can hear the tone of their grunts and groans changing.
Instead of, “Hey, Bob, beautiful day out, eh?” groans it’s more like “Hey, Bob, I see a buffet with legs over there. Wanna join me?” groans.
Yes, I speak Z. Fuck off.
It doesn’t really matter, though, because Cassie led us to a small cut in the chain link fence that borders the railroad tracks. We slip through and book it across the baked dirt and old gravel of what used to be the Wedge Brewery’s parking lot. Skirting the brewery, which has sadly been empty of beer since about two months post-Z (yes, I checked), we find the narrow concrete steps at the far end of the building.
Which are very much occupied by a group of Zs at the top.
Cassie holds out her hand and we freeze. They haven’t seen us, at least not yet. It’ll just be a matter of minutes. But Cassie nods to Dehlia and she silently scurries off back the way we came. None of us move. We all control our breathing, waiting for whatever’s going to happen to happen.
Something grabs the Zs’ attention and they start to shuffle off, leaving the steps clear. Cassie leads us up to Roberts St. We hurry across and into the shadows of what once was a bustling glass studio, but is now just a busted pile of glass. And brick and wood and other crap. Down the street, we see the Zs shambling after Dehlia as she casually jogs, leading them away. The sun is getting higher already and I can tell it’s going to be a hot one. Which isn’t so fun when dealing with the undead. The stench is rising with the temperature.
We pause for only a minute before we’re hustling down Roberts St and onto Haywood Rd. There’s a fun little roundabout that fills the intersection, but it stopped being fun once the circle got choked with cars trying to flee the city. Over the years, we’ve done some selective clearing of roadways, but never touched this one. It’s easy to get cars into a roundabout, but not so easy to get them out.
Especially when they still have Zs inside them.
One has a family of four that have pretty much mummified. Although there’s a slight movement coming from the Z driving. I’m sure he’s saying, “Look kids, Big Ben, Parlimment!” over and over in his undead head. I know I would be if I was him. How could you not have that quote going through your head when you get trapped in a roundabout in your car during the apocalypse?
I don’t know what Elsbeth is talking about, I’m still funny. To me. In my head.
Stuart grunts and rips me back to Earth. We get past the cars and are trucking it up Haywood Rd when Dehlia comes sprinting from Clingman Ave. She must have circled around and gotten ahead of us once she lost the Zs.
Yet, her body language is telling me there may have been a hitch in that plan.
“Go,” Cassie hisses. “Go go go!”
We don’t ask why, just start sprinting up the hill towards downtown. As we pass Clingman Ave, and Dehlia joins us, I look over and see why she’s booking ass.
That small group of Zs multiplied. Into a very, very large group of Zs. I knew it was too fucking easy so far!
The roar of a thousand moans fills the air as they catch sight of our group.
Feets don’t fail me now!
Chapter Seven
The Jeep rolls to a stop and Critter puts a finger to his lips. Dr. McCormick gives him a puzzled look, but he just smiles and shakes his head. He quietly gets out and tiptoes his way down the dirt road, crouched low. It takes her minute to figure out what he reminds her of, but then she gets it: the Grinch. Critter looks like the Grinch sneaking along to steal all the Whoville Christmas presents.
But why is he sneaking? She’d get out and follow, but there is only a foot of road on her side before it takes a sudden drop of about 500 feet. She has a feeling Critter did that on purpose since the road is plenty wide. Wide enough in fact to drive two large trucks on side by side.
“I ain’t asleep, Critter,” a man’s voice grumbles. “Hard to sleep when you come tearing up the road in that thing.
Dr. McCormick jumps at the voice, searching the road and the surroundings for the source. Then she sees him, sitting against a large oak up the road. He’s dressed in camouflage gear from head to toe and blends right in with foliage at the base of the tree.
“Shit,” Critter says, “thought I had you that time, Red.”
“Ain’t nobody can sneak up on me,” the man says as he stands and tilts a cowboy hat back on his head. Even the cowboy hat is camo.
The man holds out his hand and Critter shakes it vigorously. Looking past Critter, the man named Red spots Dr. McCormick and nods, tipping his hat to her.
“Ma’am,” he says.
“Come on,” Critter says, turns, and walks back to the Jeep. “Meet the lady doctor.”
“Howdy,” Red says when they get to the Jeep. “Pleasure. Are you really a lady doctor or just a doctor that’s a lady?”
This puzzles her for a second until she realizes what he’s asking. “Oh, no, I’m not a gynecologist. I’m actually, or was, a proctologist.”
“Oh,” Red nods, “a butthole doctor. Well, medicine is medicine.”
“Red here is my guard dog,” Critter says. “He stays out here night and day. And no matter how hard I try I never catch him sleeping.”
The man is tall and Dr. McCormick can see that he’s muscular. Maybe mid-forties with a little bit of grey stubble showing from under his hat. But it’s the large splotch of red across his left cheek that’s his most distinguishing feature.
“You looking at my beauty mark?” Red smiles.
“Sorry,” Dr. McCormick says. “Occupational hazard. It’s actually called a port-wine...”
“Nevus flammeus,” Red interrupts. “But, yeah, it’s also called a port-wine stain. I’m well aware.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Dr. McCormick apologizes.
“None taken,” Red smiles. “I just like to show off.”
“Red has a PhD,” Critter grins, “in assholery.”
“Comparative literature,” Red nods.
“Oh, wow,” Dr, McCormick says, surprised. “I didn’t know UNCA offered that.”
“I didn’t either,” Red says, “that’s why I got mine at Cornell.”
“Oh,” she says, her face turning almost as red as the mark on Red’s cheek.
“See,” Critter nods, “Assholery.”
“What’s with the ride?” Red asks. “Thought you were keeping that in town.”
“Circumstances done changed,” Critter says and fills Red in on the details.
“Holy wow,” Red says, shaking his head. “Big Daddy? Dead? That’s just gonna be more bad news for your nephew.”
“My nephew?” Critter asks. “Which one?”
“Gunga,” Red replies. “Got here last night with a handful of folks from the Farm. Said the place had been overrun. I didn’t believe it at first so I sent a couple guys to check it out. Now I know why they haven’t come back.”
“Who’d you send?”
“Malcolm and Whitey.”
“Those two? They’d get themselves killed picking blueberries.”
“Which is why I sent them and not any of the good ones,” Red says. “We can spare those morons.”
“That’s horrible,” Dr. McCormick says. “Two men have probably lost their lives and you talk about them as if they were just chickens waiting to be slaughtered.”
Critter and Red look at her, look at each other then look back at her.
“So?” they say together.
“Sick,” she says and leans into her seat. “Are we sitting here all day or what?”
“I like her,” Red says, “and she’s right. What’s up, Critter? You could have just driven right past.”
“I need you to take the lady doctor into the holler proper,” Critter says and hooks a thumb up over his shoulder. “I’m gonna hoof it and pick up my truck.”
“Oh,” Red nods, “not feeling it today, Crit.�
��
“I don’t care,” Critter says. “I need you to do this. Take her in, fetch her some food and let her get cleaned up, then sit tight until I get there.”
“Nope,” Red says, “not today.”
Critter sighs and rubs his face. “Listen...”
“Nope.”
“Dammit, Red!” Critter yells. “Ain’t no time for your craziness! I give you a lot of leeway ‘round here, but right now, right this very minute, I am all out of leeway!”
Red leans his hand against the hood of the Jeep, careful to keep his body clear of the blades. He drums his fingers over and over and over.
“Why won’t he take me?” Dr. McCormick asks. “Why won’t you take me?”
“Not a matter of won’t, ma’am,” Red says. “It’s a matter of can’t.”
“Red don’t go near others,” Critter says. “At least not if there are more than three people within...what is it?”
“Exactly seventeen square feet,” Red says.
“Right,” Critter grunts. “That. It’s why he’s out here all the time.”
“I’m not so good around people,” Red states.
“PTSD?” Dr. McCormick asks.
“Post-traumatic stress?” Red laughs. “Nah, not that. I was like this before Z-Day. Been this way my whole life. Severe agoraphobia. I rank a 25 on the PDSS.”
“Twenty-five on the panic disorder severity scale?” Dr. McCormick asks. “I’m surprised you’re out here in the open.”
“Just groups of people,” Red says. “Not open spaces. I don’t have a problem with that.” He smiles and looks at Critter. “Funny thing is Zs don’t count. I can be around hundreds and they don’t freak me out.”
“The man is cool as a cucumber,” Critter says. “While others be pissin’ in their britches, Red here is calm and collected.”
“I get calmer the more dangerous it gets,” Red says. “Which may sound good, but nearly backfired once.”
“I found him ready to go in for a group hug,” Critter says. “Few weeks after Z-Day. Thought the guy had lost his marbles. Turns out he never had any.”
“Born this way,” Red smiles. “Homeschooled.”