The man brought his weapon down so fast that it whistled. It struck Xan’s arm, forcing it down, and then a fist hit the side of his head and knocked him out.
Chapter Three
He was being dragged along the road by his feet. Something was rumbling like the purr of a great cat. The sound grew louder and louder as he was pulled closer to it, and the cat’s eyes were bright yellow beams that widened until they were the size of dinner plates. Then he was pulled past the cat’s head and along its body.
“Got him?”
“Got him. How many more do you think we should bag?”
“We don’t have time and everyone is inside but Patrol. We were lucky to get this one.”
“We could raid a house.”
“And wake up the whole damn neighborhood? Come on, let’s chuck him in. Why didn’t you just stick him up? That’s what your gun is for, dumbass.”
“More fun this way.”
An iota of sense returned to him. It wasn’t a cat but a truck, a rumbling truck. His hands were scraping on the concrete as he was dragged and his shirt had ridden up to his armpits. The man pulling him stopped, but continued to hold onto his feet. Another set of hands came under Xan’s torso and settled in his armpits. Then he was lifted off the street, two men grunting at his weight.
He was carried around to the back of the truck and set down. Metal rattled. People whimpered and moaned. Xan was lifted again, and higher than before. Then he was set down roughly on a hard, corrugated floor. A strange, off-putting smell filled his nostrils. Diarrhea, vomit, piss, death . . .
“Come any closer and I’ll fucking put a hole in you!” one of the men shouted. Not at Xan, who was coming back to himself but not enough to move yet.
Then metal started to rattle again, a man saying, “We could just loop around the settlement one more time and bag a few more-”
“No! There isn’t time!”
“But-”
The door slammed shut and the voices vanished. Not muffled, but vanished like they had never existed. Xan blinked in the dim lighting. Cold, lumpy plastic had been belted to the wall, and his head was pressed against it. He stared at a curled shape within the plastic and realized that it was a hand. His head ached as he jerked away from it. Bodies were stacked up there, each wrapped in thick plastic that thankfully obscured much of their features. But not the smell.
The truck rumbled but stayed in the same place. He touched a bloody spot on his head. People were shifting in the dimness, weeping and groaning. Xan could only see the ones closest to him. An old man sat on the floor and was holding onto a belt like the ones around the bodies. The truck moved forward a little and he clutched it tightly. A younger man was at his side and had gripped the corrugated floor for balance. Beyond him was a woman in nurse’s garb.
The truck lurched. Xan fell into the bodies as the sobs took on a frantic quality. Was Patrol picking up curfew breakers and driving them directly to the regulations committee? That couldn’t be it. Patrol worked on foot, or on bicycles at most. There wasn’t the fuel for them to drive around Newgreen in vehicles. This had to be something else.
An unwrapped body rolled over the floor, dark hair falling over the woman’s face as she came to rest against the legs of the old man. Her chest moved. She wasn’t dead but asleep, as impossible as that was. The truck turned and she rolled from the old man to Xan. He wanted to get away from the bodies, but the movement of the truck kept pushing him against them.
The turn ended and he squirmed out from between the corpses and the sleeping woman. Another belt was hanging from the wall near the door. He scooted over on his ass and took hold of it as the truck swayed. “What’s . . . what’s going on?”
“What are you in for?” asked the younger man sarcastically. His face was sour. “Let me guess. Forget to show up for work a few times? Steal some medicine and sell it for tokens? Or are you just sick and they can’t fix it?”
“I’m not in for anything,” Xan said. “I was just taking a walk and those guys-”
“You were breaking curfew.”
Curfew breakers didn’t get beaten up and chucked in the back of a truck! He needed to press something to his head wound, but all he had was his shirt. As he picked up the hem, his fingers brushed his pocket. His keys had fallen out. They weren’t on the floor, unless they were underneath the sleeping woman. Since the truck was going straight now, he released the belt and crawled to her. Turning her over, he looked for his keys. Nothing was there. They had fallen out of his pocket outside.
“She’s drugged,” the nurse said. “You can’t wake her.”
“Drugged?” Xan echoed.
“A doctor or nurse at the hospital must have felt sorry for her. She’s a head case.”
Xan just looked at the nurse and two men, and then the stack of bodies in plastic and the drugged woman. This wasn’t Patrol; this wasn’t a dream; he had no clue what this was.
The older one laughed at him. “Doesn’t know where he is or where he’s going, does he? This is the bait truck for the convoy. Taking us out there to Viet-nom. That’s what I call it. Not hell. Just a kingdom full of zombies looking for food.”
Head case, the nurse mouthed, her eyes sliding to the old man. Everyone conscious in the truck was upset, including the ones that Xan could only hear, but not this old man. He looked almost manic with happiness, beaming at them in turn. Then he laughed again and said, “Viet-nom-nom-nom. Viet-nom-nom-nom.”
The younger man edged away from him and said to Xan, “We’re zombie food. While they’re eating us up, the convoy can blow through safely.”
“Just get to a boat,” the old man said brightly. “That’s where I’m headed. There’s a boatyard in Filippa. The gas won’t be good anymore in the cars, but there will be tons of bicycles around. Just hop on one and ride it over, pick yourself out a nice, shiny new boat and unwrap the rope. Make sure you got some water and a fishing pole.” He wagged his finger at the young man. “Don’t want to forget that.”
The truck was leaving Newgreen. The pain in Xan’s head was receding, and panic replaced it. This was insane. “They can’t throw me out there! I was just heading home!”
No one replied but the old man, who wasn’t really speaking to Xan. “Find some dogs and hitch them up to a sled if there aren’t any bikes.” He made whip-crack sounds. “Go! Go now! Or just use zombies if you can’t find dogs. Make ‘em run.” His laughter rang, wild and unhinged, through the truck.
Xan hauled himself up and went to the door, where he tugged on the handle. It was locked. Then he’d pound on the opposite wall until those in the cab heard him and let him out! Staggering as the truck slowed, Xan put his hand on the stack of bodies to steady himself. The one on top was an elderly woman, stripped naked and her white hair clinging to her scalp where the plastic pressed in.
No. There was a body on top of hers, so small that it was just a little lump upon her abdomen. A baby.
“Hey, man, don’t unwrap them!” someone said.
Xan fought with the belt and slid out the plastic-wrapped figure. No, no, no, the hospital staff would not have just put Lucca in here if he had died after Xan and Colette left for the night. . . surely they would have waited until morning so his parents could cradle him and say goodbye to the shell of a body he had left behind . . .
He parted the plastic further to reveal the tiny form. It wasn’t Lucca. The dim lights along the top of the truck revealed a much younger and smaller child, one with dark skin and a whorl of hair at its crown. Its mouth was open in neither a silent cry nor yawn, just a creepy, lifeless gape.
It was someone else’s child. He was traitorously relieved. Pulling the plastic back over the form, he wedged the tiny corpse under the belt and shuddered at the stillness and icy cold. The body had been refrigerated. Soon to be dumped for carrion birds, carrion people, and if Xan didn’t get out of here, he was going to be dumped, too. He stepped over the drugged woman, walked past the old man, young man, and nurse, and made his way
through the truck. In addition to the dim lights, there was a long metal grate on the ceiling.
There were four more people in here, all of them living. Two were shackled together at the wrist and ankle. They had a prison look, shaved heads and elaborate tattoos, and both were dressed in shapeless garb with the letter M painted sloppily on the front. Four dark eyes followed Xan as he passed. M. They were murderers. There hadn’t been any murders reported in Newgreen, so these two had come from somewhere else. A third man was in the same clothing and clearly from the same place as the murderers, but he had a T on his front for thief. He was only shackled to himself at the wrists and ankles. The fourth was a woman in sweatpants and a T-shirt, a hospital bracelet around her wrist. She held onto a belt and cried. A pile of sheets was in the corner.
There was a small panel in the wall. Xan rocked into it as the truck slowed. Then it sped up and he staggered back, almost stepping on the leg of the crying woman. She drew both of her legs in quickly. He forced himself back to the panel and grasped the plastic handle on the top.
It didn’t go down. He pulled harder, the plastic feeling weak under his fingers. Then something snapped on the other side and the panel came down a few inches with a scrape. Warm air and the opening strains of a bouncy pop song blew into the back. Xan recognized the song. It had come out a few months before the world fell apart. His students had loved it. He hadn’t heard the song since he’d been standing in his classroom telling the kids that he wanted it turned off the second the bell rang.
“Not this shit again. I hate your tunes.” It was the driver, who hadn’t noticed the panel going down.
“Oh, sorry, you want me to find some opera for you?” The man in the passenger seat lifted his voice in a falsetto and sang with a bad Italian accent. “OoooOOOOOOOOoooo! I-a want-a to order-a PIIIIIIIIII-zzzzza!”
“Christ, shut up, dammit! No one wants to hear you sing!”
“I’ll turn it off if you fucking turn down the heat.”
“I’m cold.”
“You’re always cold. There’s something wrong with your thyroid. You need to see a doctor about that, man, get yourself some drugs. My gramma took drugs for her thyroid.”
“I’m not a gramma.”
“That don’t mean you don’t need drugs. Men have thyroids, too. It’s a butterfly in your throat.”
“I don’t have a fucking butterfly flying around in my throat!”
Xan tugged at the panel again. Thick metal bars were on the other side, separating him from the men in the cab. A dark street stretched out beyond the windshield and there, there was the raised bridge farther along! Hell was lost to darkness, but it was just over the water.
He put both hands on the panel and shoved. It resisted. He had to get the panel down, push out those bars, and shove his arm through. Grab the driver and make this truck crash. The guards stationed at the moat would be alerted by the noise and dash over.
Once more, he shoved. Something plastic snapped loudly. The panel slammed down, a piece of the handle breaking away and scraping his fingers just as whatever plastic latch had been on the other side broke off and flipped through the bars into the cab. The guys’ conversation stopped abruptly. Seats squeaked as Xan slammed his hand against the bars, but those had been installed far more solidly than the panel lock. The cheerful pop song roared past him to the back of the truck.
Then he was staring down the muzzle of a short barrel rifle. Behind it was a thin face and rotted teeth. Aside an oily thatch of hair jutting over an ear was the dashboard clock. It was four on the dot.
“You get back,” said the thin man. “Don’t make no difference to me if I dump you out there dead or alive. So get the hell away from those bars, put that panel back up, and go wriggle around the bucket with the rest of the worms.” He looked at the driver. “Like that? You hear me say that? Because they’re bait. Like worms in a bucket.”
“I hear you,” the driver said.
Xan pinched the muzzle and jerked it between the bars. The guy jerked it away and fired. The sound was like an explosion. Everyone in the back screamed. So did the driver, who stomped on the brakes. People tumbled around, shouting and crying out, and then came a crinkling crash. A man said in panic, “Get it off me! Get it off me!”
For a second, Xan thought that he had been hit. His arm was hurting. But the muzzle had been twisted away as they fought over it, and the bullet went up. One of the lights was shot out, and his arm was hurting because he’d been hit there in the road.
His ears were ringing. He wrapped his fingers around the bars and shoved at them. The thin man cracked the rifle over Xan’s fingers until Xan withdrew. Angrily, the man shouted, “I said, get back, worm!”
“Get it off me!”
“Calm the fuck down, man, he can’t get out of there and we need to fill up on ammo at the next depot!” the driver bellowed. He was driving again, but much more slowly. “Save the rounds for the zombies!”
“Let me out!” Xan demanded. “Why the hell am I in here?”
“’Cause we don’t got enough for the drop points!” the thin man roared. His bloodshot eyes had a dull, stupid look to them, and his breath had a heavy whiff of alcohol. “Got gypped of prisoners and ammo and new tires down at the last depot, gypped of prisoners in the guards’ house here, got gypped again on bodies at the hospital, we need some meat and you’re meat! That easy enough for you?” The little piece of broken plastic caught his eye. “You broke the lock on the panel. Dammit, Zeke, he broke the panel lock! We got to fix that now!”
“We’ll fix it up at the depot or Meatfarm,” said the driver, coming to a full stop as they arrived at the raised bridge. A guard held up his hand and walked to the driver’s side.
“Let me out of here!” Xan shouted as Zeke rolled down his window and turned off the music.
“Bait truck,” Zeke grunted to the guard.
“Convoy is scheduled to leave at seven; we’ll let you out a little before five.”
“Help me! I’m not supposed to be in here!” Xan exclaimed, straining to see out the window to the guard. He couldn’t.
The voice of the guard was disinterested. “Good luck, guys. Thanks for the eats.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
“They all say that, don’t they?” said the thin man with a high, hyena-like laugh to the guard. “Didn’t do nothing, not me! Just here for no reason!”
“Yep.” The guard wasn’t amused. There was a scratching sound of a pen on paper. “Okay, line up there at the gate.”
The window rolled up. Zeke eased forward to the cross-arm. Then he turned off the truck. Xan rubbed his throbbing fingers and stayed at the open panel. He was frantic for another guard to walk by and see him there. But they didn’t know Xan from anyone. The people that knew Xan lived in his building, sweated over the tomatoes, or worked at the hospital.
“Please don’t do this,” Xan said. “I’ve got a kid, a baby. He’s sick. I live here, I work hard, you can talk to my boss if you want-”
The thin man snickered. “Talk to your boss? Hear that, Zeke? Like this is a job interview. Remember those?” Zeke chuckled. Straightening his spine, the thin man squared his shoulders and jerked them up and down officiously. “Yes, I have my references right here, Mr. Williams, sir. My landlady, my mom, my former manager-”
“Your mom?” Zeke cackled. “You listed your mom as a reference, Buddy? You aren’t supposed to use your mom. Of course she’ll say you should get the job! She can’t be . . .” He blew out his cheeks and contemplated his next word at length, one finger held up so he was not interrupted. “Im-par-tial.”
“They wanted three and I gave them three,” Buddy said defensively. “She didn’t have the same last name as me and she knew to say that she was a boss of mine at a job a long time ago. It wasn’t a lie. She was the boss of our house.” He squared his shoulders to proceed with the fake interview. “Yes, sir, yes, Mr. Williams, sir, you can call all of them. They’ll tell you I was Employee of the
Month pretty regular. I really want this job on the bait truck, Mr. Williams, sir! Does it come with an attractive benefits package?”
Zeke laughed and said, “Is there any room for advancement in your company? I see myself as CEO material.” Buddy slapped his leg and chortled.
Uproarious, Xan thought. “Look, guys, in all seriousness-”
They had forgotten about him. Buddy flicked the broken plastic piece to the floor and said, “I told you we had time to get more, Zeke. Now we got to sit here for an hour. We should have just hit up a condo or two. No reason to jump in with guns and make them scream. We’d just knock on the door all polite-like and tell them they won the lottery. Just jump in the back and we’ll take you to your pot of gold.”
“That wouldn’t work,” Zeke said.
“You don’t know until you try, do you? Besides, there’s always someone stupid enough to fall for it. Like those scams they used to run on lonely old people. Call them up and tell them that they just had their name drawn in the Sumi Boat Sweepstakes!” Buddy lifted an imaginary phone to his ear. “Fifty thousand bucks and a free boat! Wow! What are you going to do with all that dough?” He waited for a reply and then cooed, “Awww, you’re going to fly out to see the grandkids? Take them to the beach? That’s sweet. You’re going to have a great time. Send me a postcard! All you have to do is tell me your bank number and we can deposit the money right straight into your account! I’ve got my pen ready, Mr. Geezer, Mrs. Geezer, let’s make you rich!”
“But how do they know?” Zeke asked, snickering about the Mr. and Mrs. Geezer part of the scam call. “How do they just pick a name out of the phone book and know it’s an old person? I wouldn’t know. Or do you call everyone until you get someone that sounds old?”
“No, you have clues. You look for old-timey names like Ethel or Ebenezer. You know any little boys named Ebenezer? He’s got to be ninety years old and so’s Ethel. Or you can get a directory for a retirement community. Everyone in there has to be old or they don’t qualify. It just takes a bit of smarts and detective work.”
Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 26