Deadlocked 6

by A. R. Wise

  The back gate squealed as the lock was loosened. One of the two doors opened and Hero stepped up to inspect the trailer.

  "All right," he said as he looked around. "Do we have any survivors here?"

  "Yes," I said and looked at Griffin. I was surprised to see that he didn't bother to answer. He just kept his head pressed against his knees. "There are at least two of us that are still alive."

  Griffin kept his head down.

  "Is that you, Cobra?" asked Hero.

  "Yes. You can call me Celeste now." I kept my eyes on Griffin as I answered Hero. I was confused why my new friend wasn't speaking up for himself.

  Hero walked through the center of the trailer, careful not to lean too close to the creatures that lined the sides. The zombies stretched out and bit at him, but he was out of their reach as he made his way to me.

  "Hot damn, girl," said Hero. "I'd just about written you off."

  "He's still alive too," I said and nodded at Griffin.

  Finally, Griffin looked up. He shook his head at Hero.

  "What?" I asked, confused. "You're fine. You're immune too. What's wrong with you?"

  He avoided eye contact before setting his face down on his knees again.

  "Griffin, what's the matter?"

  Hero reached me and knelt down to unlock my chains. "Let him go, honey."

  "What?" I was incensed. "No. He's alive. What the hell's going on? He's still alive."

  "Give me a chance to talk to him," said Hero.

  The chain around my neck was finally taken off, but the one that bound my hands was still in place. Hero reached around to unshackle me as I continued to yell at Griffin. "What's the matter? You made it, Griffin. Why are you just sitting there? What about Dexy?"

  He turned to me and rested his cheek on his knee. He smiled, but it was a faint display. "I'm not immune."

  "What are you talking about?" I was as heartbroken as I was angry.

  "I've got the disease. I knew it was only a matter of time."

  "You said we were going to make it. You said you were going to take me to see Juniper."

  "You'll have to go without me."

  Hero unlocked my hands and I swiftly pulled them free. I rushed to Griffin's side and Hero tried to stop me, but I pulled away from him. I crawled over to Griffin and pulled at the chain on his neck until the padlock swiveled into view. "Hero, give me the key."

  "Honey," said Hero in sympathy as he knelt behind me. He pointed at black lesions that covered Griffin's neck. "He's not going to make it."

  "What are you talking about? He's still alive. He's immune. We made it."

  Griffin put his cheek against my hand and then kissed me. "I'll be okay, Celeste. I'm going to go be with Dexy now."

  "What do you mean? You need to come with me to Juniper so that we can find her."

  "Dexy's dead. Thanks for trying to hide it from me, but I know what happened. I know she died. I was there when Beach told everyone that Juniper had been hit with the disease. I lied to you, because you looked like you needed to be cheered up."

  "Griffin," I was sobbing as I pressed my face into his shoulder. "Don't give up. You can still make it." I hardly knew the boy, but it felt like I was losing my only living friend.

  "Honey," said Hero as he tried to pull me back. "We need to go."

  "No." I jerked my shoulder out of Hero's grip and held onto Griffin tighter. "I'm staying here. I'm not going anywhere."

  "Celeste," said Griffin. "I want you to go. I want you to find Juniper, and get up on that tower I was telling you about. Get up there and watch the sunrise. Trust me, it'll be worth it." He kissed my cheek.

  "I don't want to leave you."

  "I'm going to be with Dexy again. You don't have to worry about me."

  Hero helped me stand up. I'd been crouched inside the trailer for so long that my legs wobbled beneath me. I was dripping with the sludge that soaked the floor and couldn't stop sobbing as I looked down at Griffin. Hero helped me walk away from him, and guided me to the back of the trailer where he held my hand as I stepped down. The undead monsters on either side of us mocked me as I passed, pulling at their restraints and snapping their jaws.

  "Give me a minute," said Hero as he walked back towards Griffin.

  The sun blazed above, and bugs zipped around, enticed by the smell of death that clung to me. I shook off some of the fluid and it struck the dry earth, causing dust to puff up with each drop. When I looked back into the trailer I could see Hero's back. He kneeled down beside Griffin and they were talking, but all I could hear was the distant murmur of their voices.

  I turned away and stared out at the unforgiving, arid plains.

  Then there was a gunshot, and I knew what had happened.

  Griffin made it back to Dexy.

  CHAPTER TWO - TIMES GONE BY

  Kim Laporte

  I pulled up to Hero, my truck lumbering to a stop behind his. He handled the wounded, while I hauled the dead. Annie and Bonnie took charge of the evacuation of Vineyard, and sent a messenger to meet up with the High Rollers to let them know it was time to move. Hero and I planned to meet up with the others after dealing with our cargo.

  Hero was standing at the back of his trailer with the blonde girl. She was on her knees, with her head in her hands. The girl had been bitten, and I was surprised to see that she was still alive. Then I saw the pistol in Hero's hand and suspected he was finishing his grisly job.

  I looked away, prepared to hear the gunshot as Hero finished off the last of the wounded. I waited for the shot, but it never came. Then I heard my door clatter as Hero stepped up onto the footrest and greeted me through the open window.

  "Hey, beautiful."

  I glanced out at the blonde girl, and then at Hero. "Do you want me to do it?"

  "Do what?" he asked.

  My brow furrowed. "Kill the girl."

  "Nah, she's okay. She's not sick."

  "Really?" I was equally surprised and impressed. "Did you check her out?"

  "I was waiting for you for that part."

  I turned off the truck and then waited for Hero to jump down before opening my door. "You're kidding, right? I thought you'd jump at the chance to get her naked."

  "I don't know why you've got such a low opinion of me, kid. I'm nothing if not a gentleman."

  I laughed, and he looked genuinely hurt by my dismissal of his character. "Okay, Hero. Whatever you say." I started to head for the girl, whose name I had trouble recalling. I knew it was something odd, but the events of the past day and lack of sleep kept my brain from working properly.

  Hero took my arm and pulled me back. "Hey, be nice to her."

  "I will."

  He didn't let go of me and pulled me closer as he spoke quietly. "Seriously, Kim. She's had a rough night. Be nice."

  "I will." I looked at him quizzically. "Since when are you the compassionate one?"

  "I just know how you can be: All business and shit. Just be gentle with her."

  I didn't know how to respond. I've often been accused of being too serious, but Hero was never the one lecturing me about it. He let Annie and my mother handle that. I was honestly a little hurt by his accusation, as if this was a minor betrayal that he knew would fracture our relationship. We'd been partners for years before he teamed up with Annie, and this was the first time we'd had a chance to work together since then. I'd expected us to easily slip right back into sync again, but he seemed tamer than he used to be, as if the time with Annie had softened him. I scowled, and he let me go.

  I marched over to the girl and knelt down in front of her. She was soaked in the same putrid fluid that leaked off the back of the truck, and she stayed on her knees as I approached. I was going to put my hand on her shoulder, to comfort her, but the slime smelled awful and I retreated the gesture.

  "Hey, sweetie, I need you to do me a favor."

  She wiped her nose and sniffled. She was hunched over and there was vomit in the dirt. "What?"

  "We need to make
sure you're not sick. I know this seems mean, but we don't have a choice." I crouched with my hands draped over my knees as I spoke to her. My pistol was in my right hand, and it bobbed in front of her face. It was smart to stay armed when speaking with a person that might be infected, but I was surprised by my own coldness. I hadn't even realized I was carrying the gun, and felt ashamed that I was brandishing it in her face. I glanced over my shoulder at Hero, who was standing near my truck, and then holstered the gun before taking a step back from the girl.

  "What do I need to do?" she asked. Her frail appearance belied her calm, stoic attitude.

  "There's a stream near here. I'm going to take you over there and you're going to wash up. We're going to make sure you're not infected."

  She finally looked up at me. Her face was blackened with the mixture of blood and feces that pooled in the bottom of Hero's trailer. Her bright blue eyes were a stark contrast to the mess on her face.

  I was prepared for her to be angry. Most people would've been. She'd been carted off in the back of a trailer filled with dead and dying people, and forced to watch as they turned into zombies. After enduring that hell, now she was being told that she would have to strip down as a stranger examined her. It was a humiliating, but necessary part of the process.

  The girl looked out in the direction that I'd pointed. "Where's the stream?"

  "It's over that way, past the hill." We were near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where the flat plains swiftly changed into towering spires. The land here was rippled with hills, and cold streams poured down to collect in ponds all through the area. Most of the streams and ponds were dry this time of year, but a recent storm had capped the mountains with a dusting of snow, and fresh melt snaked through the hills. The storm had been a welcomed respite to the long, dry season we'd endured. However, despite the recent precipitation, the earth was still cracked from drought in this area.

  The wind kicked up, pushing east, away from the mountains, and the scent of ash came with it. Nearby, ahead of where we'd parked, were the burned out carcasses of other trucks that had been left here. Hero and I had done this many times before. This was a graveyard of the new world, where bodies were burned instead of buried; a familiar exercise in post apocalypse life.

  She nodded and stood up. "Okay, let's go."

  I was impressed. "Hold on, let me get a blanket and some clothes for you." I jogged back over to my truck where Hero was waiting for me.

  "Well?" he asked.

  "She's okay with it. Seems like a tough chick." I moved past him and hopped back into the truck to grab one of the blankets and some of the clothes that I'd brought along. Usually, when Hero and I took victims here, there weren't any survivors, but every once in a while we would encounter someone that was immune. It was rare, but the possibility that even one in a hundred people survived the virus made this exercise worthwhile.

  There were a couple of reasons why the Rollers decided to burn the dead in specific areas. The first was a relic of the Red Days: The desire for reflection. The Greens had little care for the dead, choosing to remember the lives of their lost loved ones instead of where their carcasses had been left. Some of the Reds, however, were insistent that the dead be given respect by designating areas that would serve as graveyards. No one bothered visiting these areas now, but they hoped that one day, when society was strong again, a monument could be built at each of the graveyards.

  The second reason was something that I could appreciate. We needed to hide our activity, and dotting the landscape with ashen remains to detail our movements was a good way to let raiders know where we were staying. For that reason, it was better to limit the number of graveyard areas, and keep them far from the usual route of our groups. The Rollers constantly moved between a set number of camps, and we needed to keep them as secret as possible.

  When I got back down, the girl had come to stand near Hero. Clean streaks carved their way through the grime on her cheeks from her tears. "Is Hailey in there?" She pointed at the trailer of my truck.

  Hero had taken the animal trailer, which was perforated with holes to ventilate it, while I took the enclosed storage unit for the cadavers. We brought them all to one of the graveyards, where the dead were burned. There were several graveyards like this, hidden away from view where the dead could be forgotten. One of the quaint rituals of the Red Days was to bury the dead, and then return with flowers to set on their grave. After the virus, no sane person would ever leave a loved one's body unburned. The Grey virus sometimes lingered in corpses, and more than a few settlements had been destroyed by a late blooming zombie.

  Hero and I looked at one another, neither one of us wanting to answer. I finally did. "Yes. We put her in with the rest of the people that died."

  "What are you going to do to her?"

  Again, neither of us wanted to say. "Sweetie," I said, "we're going to do what we have to with the bodies."

  "And what's that?"

  "Burn them."

  She had no reaction and just stared at the truck until she said, "Can I see her?"

  Hero shuffled uncomfortably. "I don't know if that's such a good idea. We didn't have time to lay them out in there. Everyone's just tossed in on top of each other."

  "Don't you have to take them out to burn them?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "We back up the trailers over there and detach them."

  She looked out in the direction that our trucks faced. We were far from any remnant of civilization, hidden in the vastness of the Colorado plains. Down the road, past a tall, jagged red rock, was a small valley replete with old, burned trailers. This was far from our first delivery, and it probably wouldn't be our last.

  "You've done this before?" she asked.

  "Way too many times," said Hero.

  I glared at him, frustrated with his despondence. We had a job to do, and had never voiced our frustration with it before. We'd been chosen to do this because we were the best at it. We got it done, and never discussed it. That's the way it was supposed to work.

  "Come on," I said and started to walk toward the stream. I draped the blanket over my shoulder and set my hand on the hilt of my gun.

  The girl stood beside Hero, a stinking mess of sludge and sorrow. She looked up at him and said, "I want to see Hailey first."

  "We can't open up the trailer," I said harshly.

  "Kim," said Hero as he grimaced.

  I was annoyed, and spoke sternly, "We don't know if any of them back there are zombies now. You know that."

  "I know," said Hero. "But what's the big deal? Let's give the girl a break here."

  I was furious with him. This wasn't the first time a survivor had asked to see one of their deceased loved ones, and we always told them no. It was foolish to open the cadaver trailers, and Hero knew better. His sudden change of heart was confounding.

  "Fine." I dropped the blanket and drew my gun. The girl bristled when I did, which gave me pause. She thought I was drawing it to force them to do as I instructed, but I just planned to cover Hero as he opened the back of the truck. The girl's frightened reaction forced me to recognize how I was being perceived, which made me feel awful. I spoke calmer as I said, "I'll cover you, but you're the one that's cracking it open."

  Hero nodded and set his hand on the girl's shoulder. Blood and muck slopped onto his wrist, but he didn't seem to mind. "Come on, Celeste. I'll find Hailey for you."

  "Do you think some of them turned into those creatures?" asked Celeste.

  "It's possible," I said. "All it takes is one to be infected and the virus can spread through the whole lot of them. That's why we don't like to open the trucks up once they're locked."

  "Okay, let me get a weapon."

  She walked away from us, toward the overgrown weeds along the gravel road. She searched through the brush until she found a stick, about four feet long, that she smashed against the ground a few times to test. She seemed satisfied with its durability and started to snap off extraneous branches as she
walked back to us.

  "I can get you a gun," said Hero.

  Celeste effortlessly twirled the stick over her arm and around her back. "This'll do."

  We went to the back of the truck and listened for sounds coming from inside. The people of Vineyard had kept these trucks, as well as several other vehicles, in good condition and fully fueled in the event of an emergency. While many of the settlements along the Rockies had been successful in rooting themselves, few people forgot the days when the Popper disease ravaged the countryside. Most survivors kept moving, like the High Rollers. It wasn't safe to stay in one spot for too long, and all of the settlements that we helped protect were equipped and ready for speedy evacuations.

  This was a refrigerated truck, although the cooling unit had been stripped out of it long ago. The insulated walls prevented us from hearing if anything was moving inside.

  Celeste stepped forward in anticipation as Hero prepared to unlatch the door. I put my arm out to stop her, and felt the sludge on her clothes stain me as I pushed her back.

  "Careful," I said to her. "Let us handle it."

  Hero looked back at me and nodded. I nodded back, prepared to murder anything that moved when he opened the door. Hero and I had worked well together when we were partners, and I knew we would do so again. I've known him for nearly as long as I can remember, and he's been the closest thing to a father I've ever had. When I came of age, and was old enough to begin helping with the duties of the Rollers, my mother insisted that I work with Hero. She didn't trust anyone more than him. Over the years of working together, Hero and I had developed a close bond. We often finished each other's sentences and had a nearly sixth sense when cooperating in a fight.

  A couple of years ago there had been an attack on our camp, and my son was injured. What happened was my fault, and I've never forgiven myself for letting up my guard for even a second. I swore to never do it again. My change in attitude was hard for Hero to accept, and he often said that I'd changed for the worse. It was shortly after the attack that Annie started going on missions as well. My mother insisted that Hero protect her, and so our partnership was ended. I appreciated that Annie would have Hero to watch over her, but I missed my old partner, despite our differences. He said that it wasn't his idea to dissolve our partnership, but I always suspected that he told my mother to force the change. I never forgave Hero, or my mother, for that betrayal. Afterward, I took up with a former raider named Stitch that joined our crew. She and I worked well together, but I was always jealous of Annie's burgeoning friendship with Hero.